Fort Worth man convicted in birthday party slaying gets execution date
A Fort Worth man convicted of killing a rival gang member's mother and a 5-year-old girl at a children's birthday party 10 years ago has been given an execution date.
Erick Davila is scheduled to meet his fate in the Huntsville death chamber on April 25 at 6 p.m., according to court papers. A judge signed off on the death date on Wednesday.
"Like that Winston Churchill movie, we shall never surrender and we intend to aggressively fight for Mr. Davila," said Houston defense attorney Seth Kretzer.
Davila, 30, is on death row for a shooting that killed Annette Stevenson and her granddaughter Queshawn, according to court filings. In April 2008, Davila drove by the Village Creek Townhouses in Fort Worth and opened fire on a rival gang member along with 15 children who were eating ice cream and cake on the front porch at the "Hannah Montana"-themed party.
Court records describe a "chaotic scene" with "blood splattered everywhere." Two other children were wounded in the shooting, but survived.
Since his 2009 conviction, Davila has fought the case in appeals courts, taking his claims of bad lawyering all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court last year. Kretzer, who is co-counsel with Houston-based attorney Jonathan Landers, argued the case.
In a 5-4 ruling, the justices rejected Kretzer's claims that earlier appellate counsel erred in failing to point out possible missteps made earlier by trial attorneys regarding bad jury instructions.
In addition to signing off on a death date, a Tarrant County judge on Wednesday also slapped down a defense motion to disqualify the local prosecutor's office, as current District Attorney Sharen Wilson was the judge during Davila's 2009 trial and Assistant District Attorney David Richards previously served as Davila's attorney early in the appeals process.
"We were surprised and concerned by the trial judge's denial on our motion to recuse," Kretzer said Thursday. "I'm not making up some new legal theory here that there's a conflict."
Davila's death date is the sixth on the calendar in Texas this year. The state's first execution of 2018 is slated for 6 p.m. today, when Houston serial killer Anthony Shore is scheduled to die by lethal injection.
http://m.chron.com/news/houston-texa...y-12507219.php
Does anyone else think it's disgusting for as sleazy a duo as a DR inmate and his lawyer to quote someone as noble as Winston Churchill?
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