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Thread: Gerald Cornelius Eldridge - Texas Death Row

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    Gerald Cornelius Eldridge - Texas Death Row




    Summary of Offense:

    Eldridge was convicted of shooting to death Cynthia Bogany, his former girlfriend and her nine-year-old daughter, Chirrisa Bogany. Eldridge broke into Bogany's apartment and shot Chirrisa as she slept on the couch. After chasing Cynthia's boyfriend from the apartment he returned to the living room and shot his natural seven-year-old son in the shoulder. He then chased Cynthia down a stairwell outside the apartment and shot her to death as she begged for her life.

    Eldridge was sentenced to death in Harris County in June 1994.

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    June 26, 2007

    Hoping to avoid execution, killer cites low IQ

    His attorneys are relying on a 2002 ruling in a mental retardation case

    Attorneys for a Houston man sent to death row in 1994 for killing his ex-girlfriend and her daughter are hoping that a five-year-old Supreme Court ruling that forbids states from executing the mentally retarded will save their client.

    Gerald Cornelius Eldridge, 43, fatally shot Cynthia Bogany, 28, and her 9-year-old daughter after storming into their north Houston apartment. Eldridge also wounded his 7-year-old son with Bogany in the January 1993 shooting spree.

    Eldridge's attorneys are trying to convince a Houston federal judge their client cannot be executed. Screenings since childhood have estimated Eldridge's IQ as low as 61 and higher than 110. Anything 70 or less is considered retarded.

    Because the results of such examinations can deviate by 5 points, someone can test as high as 75 and still be considered mentally retarded under the high court's 2002 ruling.

    "What we need to show is that he has an IQ less than 75, that he has adaptive deficits in at least two areas and that the onset of mental retardation began before age 18," said his longtime attorney, Lee Wilson.

    Patricia Averill, a psychologist, spent most of Monday describing why she diagnosed Eldridge as mildly mentally retarded.

    In questioning Averill, Assistant Attorney General Georgette Oden noted that Eldridge's grades at Yates High are inconsistent with retardation. He posted mostly As and Bs his senior year, was not in special education and ranked in the top half of his class. His transcript was twice sent to Texas Southern University.

    Oden described Eldridge as someone who would fake retardation or mental illness to avoid his death sentence.

    His entry on the "Voices from Inside" Web site shows him in a graduation photo, dressed in a gown and mortarboard. The profile, a plea for prison pen pals posted by others, says he is "an African-American convicted of his color" who "claims and can prove his innocence."

    Appealing to federal court on the single ground of mental retardation is the next step in a legal route to avoid execution.

    Eldridge was first diagnosed as mentally retarded in February 1994, weeks before a Harris County jury convicted him of capital murder and he was sentenced to death.

    The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected his petition in 1996. He sought a federal court review in 1998 on a single claim of retardation.

    In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that execution of the mentally retarded violated the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment, giving Eldridge a chance to use his IQ as an exemption from the death penalty.

    Eldridge is confined to the Polunsky Unit near Livingston. No execution date is set.

    The hearing, expected to last all week, resumes at 9 a.m. today.

    His younger brother is expected to testify that Gerald Eldridge never learned how to read. In an affidavit, Barry Eldridge said he sneaked into a pipefitters union test, posing as his brother, to get Gerald Eldridge a job as a welder.

    Jack Yates High School Athletic Coordinator Ronnie Morgan is expected to testify that Gerald Eldridge is illiterate

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    On April 29, 2009, Eldridge was denied a Certificate of Appealability by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on mental retardation claims.

    Opinion is here:

    http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions...0012.0.wpd.pdf

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    April 29, 2009

    Houston man condemned for killing 2 loses appeal

    A Houston man convicted of killing his former girlfriend and her 9-year-old daughter lost an appeal that contended he was ineligible for execution because he was mentally disabled, moving him closer to his punishment for the slayings more than 16 years ago.

    The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Tuesday turned down Gerald Cornelius Eldridge, 45, convicted of the fatal shootings of Cynthia Bogany, 28, and her daughter, Chirissa. The two were gunned down at a north Houston apartment where Bogany and Eldridge's son, Terrell, 9, and Bogany's boyfriend at the time, Wayne Dotson, also were shot but survived.

    The New Orleans-based court specifically refused to grant permission for Eldridge to move forward with his appeal that contended an IQ test given to him showed his score was 72, making him mildly disabled.

    The U.S. Supreme Court has held that mentally disabled people may not be executed.

    A federal district judge had rejected his appeal, finding the results were unreliable because the defense expert hired to conduct the test failed to consider or test for the possibility that Eldridge deliberately performed poorly on the test. Earlier tests showed his IQ to be higher and school records supported prosecution arguments that he was not mentally disabled.

    Bogany and her daughter were killed Jan. 4, 1993, at their Houston apartment. Terrell Bogany testified at Eldridge's capital murder trial and told jurors his father shot his sister between the eyes at close range after he'd kicked in the door. He also described the shooting of Dotson and his own shooting, how his father stood over him and shot at his head. He said he turned his head and the bullet wound up in his shoulder. He also said he saw his mother run from the apartment as Eldridge pursued her.

    She was shot outside as she ran to another apartment.

    At his 1994 trial, Eldridge refused to sit through the punishment phase. A Harris County jury deliberated about 30 minutes before deciding on the death sentence.

    Records showed Eldridge was sentenced in 1985 to 8 years in prison for attempted murder for shooting a man 8 times. He was released 3 years later, then was returned to prison in 1990 for beating his son. After his parole 4 months later, records showed he tried to kill the boy.

    Eldridge does not have an execution date.

    (Source: The Associated Press)

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    November 11, 2009

    Court weighs Texas death row inmate's sanity claim

    Here is the reality of Gerald Eldridge's death row world: He spends 23 hours a day in a 10-by-6-foot steel cubicle equipped with bunk, toilet, sink and table; meals are passed through a slot in the door; standing on his bed, he can glimpse a slice of sky through a tiny rectangular window. Convicted of killing a Houston woman and her young daughter, this has been his life for more than 15 years.

    Here is how Eldridge says he perceives his world: He is married to a woman named Jennifer, and she and their seven children live with him in prison; his brother arrives daily to take him to his job building boats; someone poisons his food with bleach, battery acid and excrement.

    Houston lawyer Lee Wilson argues this apparent disconnect suggests Eldridge — set to be put to death Tuesday — is seriously mentally ill and may not be competent to be executed. Prosecutor Inger Hampton responds that Eldridge is just pretending to be crazy to avoid execution, just as he feigned mental illness in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid trial.

    Girl and her mother killed

    The case, with its intricate legal arguments and dueling expert reports, now is before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is considering Wilson's request for additional psychological testing for his client.

    Eldridge, 45, was sentenced to die for the Jan. 4, 1993, murder of his former girlfriend, Cynthia Bogany, 28, and her daughter, Chirrisa Bogany, 9. Trial testimony indicated that Eldridge, who earlier had been sentenced to eight years in prison for attempted murder, shot the girl between the eyes at close range after kicking his way into the victims' apartment. He then chased a man from the residence before returning to fatally shoot Cynthia Bogany as she begged for her life. Eldridge also wounded his son, Terrell, 9, in the shoulder.

    Wilson buttresses his argument against execution with a report by Houston psychologist Mary Alice Conroy, who, while stopping short of saying the killer is incompetent, calls for a thorough investigation.

    “Gerald Eldridge may be suffering from a significant psychotic disorder the result of which is confusion, poor contact with reality, hallucinations and possible delusional thinking,” she wrote in her report to the court. “In such a state he would be highly unlikely to understand the concept of execution or its rationale.”

    Under state law, a prisoner is competent to be executed only if he understands that he is to be put to death and why.

    Conroy notes that Eldridge told her his food was being poisoned and that guards were showing videos of his family to other inmates and forging letters on his behalf.

    When she attempted to question him about his coming execution, Eldridge responded, “Everybody has their own channel; they are trying to change my channel; it is a lie.”

    Experts say he's faking

    In another document, Wilson wrote: “I have told him he is in a prison unit for those condemned to death. And I have told him he has an execution date for Nov. 17, 2009. But he only hears the words and does not appreciate their meaning.

    Prosecutor Hampton, though, responds with an evaluation of Eldridge by Houston psychiatrist Dr. Mark Moeller.

    “Mr. Eldridge's presentation is not consistent with any type of mental disorder,” Moeller wrote. “His answers and assertions are bizarre and not congruent with mental disorders. His demeanor appeared theatrical and contrived. His responses and affect seemed purposeful and measured in a way unlike that of a severely mentally ill person.”

    Hampton notes in her filing that five experts concluded that Eldridge was feigning mental illness during examinations to determine whether he was competent to stand trial.

    In 2006, however, Eldridge was diagnosed as psychotic and prescribed anti-psychotic medication after he was admitted to the University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston. The examining psychiatrist noted Eldridge was “paranoid, says that people mess with his food.”

    In 2002, prison authorities reported Eldridge lost 60 pounds after consistently flushing his meals down the toilet.

    (Source: The Houston Chronicle)

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    November 12, 2009

    Media Advisory: Gerald Eldridge scheduled for execution

    AUSTIN – Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott offers the following information about Gerald Cornelius Eldridge, who is scheduled to be executed after 6 p.m. on November 17, 2009. A Harris County jury sentenced Eldridge to death in April 1994 for killing his former girlfriend and her daughter.

    In the early morning hours of January 4, 1993, Gerald Eldridge kicked in the door to the Houston apartment of his ex-girlfriend, Cynthia Bogan, and shot Cynthia’s nine-year-old daughter, Chirissa Bogany, between the eyes and wounded his seven-year-old son,Terrell Bogany. Eldridge then chased Cynthia, who had fled the apartment. Eldridge shot her twice in the head, as she pleaded for her life.

    On October 25, 1984, Eldridge discovered Huey Washington, Jr. visiting another one of Eldridge’s former girlfriends, and followed Washington home. Eldridge shot Washington eight times. Washington’s father’s and Washington’s 17-year-old brother were wounded.

    A man testified that Eldridge aimed a gun at him and threatened to kill him if he refused to be an alibi witness in the shootings of Washington and his family. The man testified that he was afraid of Eldridge.

    Kevin Bogany testified that between 1988 and 1989, he witnessed Eldridge strike Cynthia Bogany approximately twenty times with various objects. Bogany also saw Eldridge threaten to kill Cynthia if she left him. Finally, Bogany saw Eldridge strike his son, Terrell; Cynthia’s daughter, Chirissa; and Cedric, Cynthia’s five-year old son, daily with a belt.

    The State also introduced evidence that Eldridge was convicted of reckless injury to his son, Terrell,on September 11, 1990,and Eldridge was convicted of attempted murder for the Washington shooting. While Eldridge was incarcerated for attempted murder, he was convicted of several penitentiary infractions by fighting.

    2/7/94 – Eldridge was indicted for capital murder in a Harris County court.
    4/14/94 -- A jury found Eldridge guilty of capital murder.
    4/18/94 – After a separate penalty hearing, the jury answered the special issues; Eldridge was sentenced to death.
    11/20/96 – The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Eldridge’s verdict and sentence.
    3/30/98 – Eldridge filed an application for state writ of habeas corpus.
    6/20/03 – Eldridge filed a subsequent writ alleging Atkins retardation, while an original state writ was pending.
    2/9/05 – Concerning the first state writ, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found the trial/habeas court’s findings supported by the record and denied relief. On that same day, the Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed Eldridge’s subsequent state petition alleging mental retardation, as an abuse of the writ under the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
    5/23/05 – Eldridge filed a skeletal habeas corpus petition in a Houston U.S. district court.
    5/26/05 – Eldridge filed an amended writ in federal court.
    1/5/07 – Houston U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal ordered an evidentiary hearing to address Eldridge’s retardation claim and withheld a ruling on the state’s motion for summary judgment.
    6/25/07-6/28/07 – An evidentiary hearing was held in federal district court.
    3/13/08 – The federal district court denied relief.
    7/18/08 – Eldridge appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
    4/28/09 – The Fifth Circuit court affirmed the federal district court’s denial of certificate of appealability(COA).
    7/27/09 – Eldridge filed a petition for certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court.
    9/30/09 – The state filed a response in opposition to certiorari.

    For additional information and statistics, please go to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website, www.tdcj.state.tx.us.

    http://www.oag.state.tx.us/oagnews/r...rint=1&id=3160

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    November 17, 2009

    Federal court grants stay of execution for Houston man

    HUNTSVILLE -- Houston capital killer Gerald Eldridge had eaten most of his final meal of pancakes, peanut butter, baked potato and chocolate milk this afternoon when a Houston federal court stayed his execution -- just two hours before he was to be put to death.

    Eldridge, 45, had been condemned for the January 1993 murders of his ex-girlfriend Cynthia Bogany, 28, and her 9-year-old daughter, Chirrisa.

    Prison spokesman Jason Clark said Eldridge was talking on the telephone with a relative when he was told of the stay.

    "He became very emotional," Clark said. Prison authorities were preparing to return him to death row in nearby Livingston.

    U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal granted Eldridge a 90-day stay and authorized expenditure of $7,500 for further psychiatric examinations.

    Eldridge’s attorney, Lee Wilson of Houston, had argued in his appeal that the killer might be seriously mentally ill and incompetent to be executed. Under state law, a person must understand that he will be executed and why before he legally can be put to death.

    Prosecutor Inger Hampton responded that Eldridge was likely faking insanity to avoid execution.

    In her decision, Rosenthal noted that a state court previously gave the killer only enough money for a preliminary psychiatric evaluation, accepted the state’s expert opinion and did not give Eldridge an opportunity to respond to the prosecution.

    In a preliminary mental health assessment submitted by Wilson, a psychologist found Eldridge suffered hallucinations and probable delusional thinking and might not be competent to be executed. She recommended he undergo further pscyhological testing.

    A state’s psychiatrist, however, told the state court Eldridge appeared to be malingering.

    Wilson said his client believed that his brother daily checked him out of prison to work at building boats. He also believed that he was married and had seven children, all of whom lived with him in prison.

    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/6725102.html

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    November 18, 2009

    Reprieve comes as death row inmate has his last meal

    HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - A condemned killer who prosecutors said had been faking mental illness to avoid execution won a reprieve from a federal judge less than two hours before he could have been taken to the Texas death chamber Tuesday evening.

    Gerald Eldridge, 45, was condemned for the fatal shooting of his ex-girlfriend and her daughter nearly 17 years ago in Houston. Attorneys contended he was too mentally ill to receive lethal injection and made those arguments in an appeal to the courts.

    U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal in Houston agreed to delay the scheduled punishment for 90 days after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had rejected the appeal Monday.

    Gerald Cornelius Eldridge was too intelligent for his own good. At least that is what the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit concluded when it denied Eldridge's request for a certificate of appealability on the issue of whether mental retardation renders him ineligible for the death penalty.

    A Houston jury voted to convict Eldridge and sentenced him to death for killing his former girlfriend, Cynthia Bogany, and her nine-year-old daughter, Chirissa. The case arose out of a shooting spree that took place on January 4, 1993, the day on which Eldridge shot Chirissa between the eyes at point-blank range and then shot Bogany twice in the head. Eldridge also wounded his own son, Terrell, and another individual.

    Eldridge broke into Bogany's apartment and shot Chirrisa as she slept on a couch. After chasing Cynthia's boyfriend from the apartment he returned to the living room and shot his natural 7-year old son Terrell in the shoulder. He then chased down Cynthia on a stairwell outside the apartment and shot her to death as she begged for her life.

    After the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction and sentence, Eldridge unsuccessfully sought habeas corpus relief in state court. His lawyer then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The petition asserted that, under the U.S. Supreme Court's Atkins v. Virginia decision, the Eighth Amendment prohibited his execution because he was mentally retarded.

    U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal denied the petition on March 13, 2008. In a lengthy written opinion, Judge Rosenthal concluded that Eldridge had failed to present enough evidence to support his claim of mental retardation.

    Eldridge then sought a certificate of appealability from the Fifth Circuit, which denied his request in a written opinion. The opinion reveals the upside-down world of mental retardation claims in death penalty cases, where convicted killers repudiate their successes and achievements.

    The Fifth Circuit noted that it was only after Eldridge scored 112 and 84 on two prior IQ tests that a score of 72 on a test administered by his expert witness placed him in the mildly mentally retarded range. Eldridge obviously had a motivation to score poorly on the third test.

    The fact that he graduated in the seventieth percentile of his class at Jack Yates High School and passed a pipe-fitters exam undermined his claim of a deficit in academic functioning. Regular employment, good performance reviews, and pay raises doomed his claim that he was deficient in the area of work. Because he had girlfriends in high school, subsequent relationships with other women, and pen pals around the world, he did not suffer from a deficit in social functioning. Cashing paychecks, sharing living expenses, shopping for groceries, and performing household chores showed the absence of a deficit in the area of home living.

    In the eyes of the Fifth Circuit, therefore, Eldridge's claim of mental retardation and his desperate attempt to avoid the death penalty could have succeeded only if he had shown himself to be a bigger loser than he actually is. In death penalty cases, intelligence can be fatal.

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    Court hears condemned Houston killer's competency claim

    Condemned double-killer Gerald Eldridge has told authorities he has seen spaceships, wrangled with a winged monster that keeps people from going to heaven and, during jailhouse visits, genially chatted with his old girlfriend, the same one whose 1993 murder sent him to death row.

    Houston lawyer Lee Wilson says his client's behavior indicates he is incompetent to be executed. Lawyers for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott counter that Eldridge is only faking to escape death.

    On Monday, U.S. Judge Lee Rosenthal began hearing evidence regarding the killer's psychological soundness. In November 2009, she stayed Eldridge's execution two hours before lethal drugs were to have been administered, so the Houston laborer could receive additional psychological testing.

    Opening testimony Monday, psychiatrist Dr. Pradan Nathan told the judge he had treated Eldridge for about a year on death row beginning in June 2010. Eldridge, he said, suffered from "looseness of association," a psychological malady he said was hard to fake. Nathan told the judge he had on several occasions modified dosage of powerful anti-psychosis drugs in an effort to curb his symptoms.

    Nathan also testified that the inmate expressed fear that prison workers were poisoning his food. The fact that Eldridge had lost 50 pounds lent credence to the premise that the killer truly believed he was in peril, he said.

    Eldridge told Nathan that he heard voices of family members, and that he frequently joined a brother on a job outside prison. Nathan told Rosenthal that the killer seemed genuinely "perplexed" when he found himself back on death row.

    Nathan became Eldridge's psychiatrist after the inmate was released from a six-month stay in a prison psychiatric hospital, where he had been administered anti-psychotic medications. Nathan testified that those potent drugs would have been prescribed only if doctors were certain Eldridge was mentally ill.

    Psychological reports

    Attorney General's lawyer Joe Corcoran, however, introduced at least 10 psychological evaluations of Eldridge, some dating to his 1993 arrest, in which the killer was deemed to have been "malingering."

    Some of the reports indicated Eldridge reported experiencing hallucinations involving spaceships, monsters and voices, sometimes even as the interview with mental health workers was taking place. At the same time, the reports stated, Eldridge seemed lucid, goal-oriented and cooperative - indicators suggestive of normal mental function.

    Roe Wilson, chief of the Harris County District Attorney's post-conviction writ division, said "unusual beliefs" do not necessarily mean a killer is incompetent to be executed. Under state law, it must be determined the inmate is unaware he is to be put to death and why.

    Son survived gunshot

    If found incompetent, he will be returned to death row. At the instigation of the District Attorney's Office, he subsequently may be re-evaluated and, if found competent, executed.

    Eldridge, 48, was convicted of the Jan. 4, 1993 murder of his former girlfriend, Cynthia Bogany, and her 9-year-old daughter. He also shot his son, Terrell Eldridge, 7, who survived.

    http://www.chron.com/news/houston-te...cy-3486595.php
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    On July 25, 2013, Eldridge filed an appeal before the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir.../ca5/13-70023/

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