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Thread: Licho Escamilla - Texas Execution - October 14, 2015

  1. #11
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Licho Escamilla v. William Stephens, Director

    In today's opinions, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals AFFIRMED the district court's DENIAL of Escamilla's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  2. #12
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Escamilla has an execution date for October 14, 2015.

    http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/death_ro...xecutions.html
    Last edited by Ryan; 06-23-2015 at 07:13 PM.

  3. #13
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Escamilla's petition for certiorari.

    Docketed: May 18, 2015
    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
    Case Nos.: (12-70029)
    Decision Date: February 18, 2015

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/search.a...es/14-9844.htm

  4. #14
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Man who killed Dallas cop in club parking lot faces execution after Supreme Court denies appeal

    A Texas prisoner facing execution next week for the slaying of a Dallas police officer 14 years ago has lost an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court.

    The high court Monday refused to review the case of 33-year-old Licho Escamilla.

    Escamilla is set to die Oct. 14 for gunning down officer Christopher Kevin James during a brawl outside a Dallas club on Thanksgiving weekend 2001. James and three other officers were off duty but in uniform working security at the club. One other officer was wounded in the gunfire and survived.

    Escamilla was 19 at the time and already wanted for another slaying. Testimony at his trial showed he also was wounded in the gunfire and was arrested as he tried to carjack a vehicle to flee the scene.

    http://www.dallasnews.com/news/commu...ies-appeal.ece
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  5. #15
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    November 1, 2002

    Convicted cop killer hurls pitcher of water at jury after death sentence announced

    A 20-year-old convicted killer triggered a brief courtroom riot Thursday after learning he would be sentenced to die by injection for shooting a Dallas police officer.

    Licho Escamilla, convicted of capital murder Monday for the death of Officer Christopher Kevin James last fall, lashed out at jurors by hurling a pitcher of water just after hearing their unanimous decision.

    As water sloshed over defense attorneys and prosecutors, a half-dozen bailiffs pounced on Mr. Escamilla while some of his family and friends shrieked and fought with deputies trying to clear the gallery of state District Judge Lana McDaniel's court.

    "I think if anybody had any doubt that this Licho Escamilla is a future danger to society, that put the lid on it right there," Dallas County District Attorney Bill Hill said. "He is evil, and we need to do everything we can to protect society from people like that."

    Judge McDaniel had just finished reading the jury's decision to the courtroom when Mr. Escamilla shot out of his seat, grabbed a plastic pitcher and flung it toward the jury box.

    More than a dozen armed Dallas police officers - some uniformed, some in plainclothes - shielded Officer James' family and family members of another murder victim linked to Mr. Escamilla.

    Mr. Escamilla's father filed out of the gallery with a daughter while other family members wailed and leaned over courtroom benches, reaching for Mr. Escamilla and cursing deputies.

    Mr. Escamilla was convicted of shooting Officer James, 34, five times in the early-morning hours of Nov. 25 at a northwest Dallas nightclub. He also was indicted but not tried for two counts of attempted capital murder of a police officer on the same night he "turned the Club DMX parking lot into a shooting gallery," prosecutor Howard Blackmon said. Mr. Escamilla was also charged with the Nov. 8 killing of Michael Torres, 26, in West Dallas.

    Sgt. Don Peritz, spokesman for the Dallas County sheriff's office, said a bailiff triggered Mr. Escamilla's electro-shock stun belt three times before the former gang member stopped fighting. The belt, fitted under his shirt and out of sight of jurors, delivers a 50,000-volt charge for eight seconds.

    "We anticipated that he was going to try something based on intelligence gathered from various sources throughout the trial," Sgt. Peritz said. "We knew that he would take any opportunity he could to either harm someone, try to escape - or both - and we prepared for that."

    Defense attorney Brook Busbee, who was sitting next to Mr. Escamilla, said she was impressed with how quickly bailiffs regained control of the courtroom. She said she suspected her client might cause an outburst, so she removed pens and paper clips from the defense table before the verdict was read.

    "I didn't really think about the water pitcher, though," she said.

    Ms. Busbee said deputies also warned her Thursday that, on separate occasions over the last week, they had recovered from a holding cell a 3-inch nail, a 2-inch bolt wrapped in thread and a homemade handcuff key fashioned from a paper clip.

    After bailiffs restored order and escorted Escamilla family members out of the building, Judge McDaniel had Mr. Escamilla brought back to a doorway so she could formally pronounce the death penalty with him present. His defense attorneys, Wayne Huff and Ms. Busbee, stood near the empty jury box on the opposite side of the court for the brief reading. When Judge McDaniel asked for any legal reason why Mr. Escamilla shouldn't be sentenced, they stood in silence.

    Within a half-hour of the sentencing, deputies put Mr. Escamilla on a van headed to state prison.

    Officer James' widow, Lori, declined to comment on the trial. She left with a small contingent of family members and police officers.

    Senior Cpl. Clarence Lockett, wounded in the shooting, declined to comment, leaving the courthouse to help escort the family of Mr. Torres safely out of the building.

    During final arguments, prosecutor Steve Tokoly's voice wavered slightly as he reminded jurors of the human wreckage Mr. Escamilla had left in his wake by age 19 - when Officer James was killed by three shots to the head and neck as he lay wounded and defenseless on the ground.

    "You will never again sit so close to personification of evil as you are now," Mr. Tokoly told the jury, looking at Mr. Escamilla. "What could possibly mitigate what he has done?"

    In asking the jury to spare his client's life, Mr. Huff argued that prosecutors failed to prove Mr. Escamilla would pose a threat to others behind bars.

    "He's going to be without two things that made him a big man," Mr. Huff said. "Alcohol and a gun. They're going to take away his name and give him a number ... and make him live with people just like him."

    Three days into the trial, which began Oct. 21, Judge McDaniel moved proceedings from her seventh-floor courtroom to a vacant court on another floor for security reasons after discovering the nail. Bailiffs also installed a walk-through metal detector for those filing into the court's gallery.

    Sgt. Peritz said his office had good information that an escape was planned at some point, but he declined to elaborate.

    http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime...-announced.ece
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  6. #16
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    I´m sure he will find Jesus/Allah or someone else during his time behind bars. When his time comes he´ll have a crowd of supporters and they´ll claim that he has changed since he was a young (and wild) man. Or they´ll drop the insanity card - brain damage with uncontrolled outbursts.
    No murder can be so cruel that there are not still useful imbeciles who do gloss over the murderer and apologize.

  7. #17
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    October 9, 2015

    Death Watch: Relief Denied, Inmate to Be Executed, Escamilla to be 12th Texan executed this year

    By Chase Hoffberger
    The Auston Chronicle

    Texas will execute its 12th Texan this year when it sends Licho Escamilla to the gurney on Wed., Oct. 14. He was convicted of capital murder in the Nov. 25, 2001, shooting death of 34-year-old Christopher Kevin James, an off-duty policeman carrying out secondary employment as a security guard at Dallas' Club DMX.

    Escamilla, 33, shot James at 2:45am after a fight broke out on the sidewalk of the northwest Dallas club. (Evidence has also been presented to implicate that Escamilla fatally shot another man, Michael Torres, days before James' murder.) Considered indigent, he was represented by underprepared attorneys who brought only 10 pages of handwritten investigatory notes to trial and attempted to sway jurors into convicting Escamilla of murder charges rather than capital murder (an admission of guilt for Escamilla) because at the time of the murder, James wasn't technically working as a Dallas police officer.

    His counsel's admission and altogether ineffective assistance throughout proceedings have led the arguments Escamilla and his current set of attorneys have used in attempts to stave off his execution. (Escamilla has also brought up his abusive upbringing, and suggested that Texas' lethal injection protocols violate the Eighth Amendment.) Thus far, he hasn't had much luck. Petitions for relief at the state and federal levels have both been unsuccessful, as was an April 2012 motion for a new trial (on many of the same grounds). In February, Escamilla learned that the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals did not see enough mitigating evidence in earlier requests for relief to reverse the decision on his execution.

    Escamilla had a final petition with the U.S. Supreme Court denied Monday morning. He stands to be the 530th Texan executed since 1976.

    http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/...o-be-executed/

  8. #18
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    Man who killed Dallas cop in club parking lot in 2001 faces Wednesday execution

    HUNTSVILLE, Texas — The 19-year-old was already wanted in Dallas in the fatal shooting of a neighbor when he got involved in a brawl outside a club, pulled out a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun and opened fire on police as they tried to break up the fight.

    Licho Escamilla’s bullets twice struck Christopher Kevin James, among four uniformed Dallas officers working off-duty security that 2001 Thanksgiving weekend, knocking him to the ground. Escamilla then calmly walked up to James and pumped three more shots into the back of his head before running and exchanging shots with other officers, witnesses said. A wounded Escamilla was arrested as he tried to carjack a truck.

    On Wednesday night, Escamilla is slated to become the 24th convicted killer put to death this year in the United States — with Texas accounting for half of the executions.

    The U.S. Supreme Court last week refused to review the 33-year-old’s case, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday decided against a reprieve and recommending clemency and no new appeals were in the courts Tuesday.

    “He’s a really bad guy,” trial prosecutor Fred Burns said Tuesday. “I think what happened is the guy already committed one murder and figures that’s what (officers) were coming after him for.”

    A warrant had been issued for Escamilla in the shooting death of a West Dallas neighbor nearly three weeks before James’ death on Nov. 25, 2001. Escamilla’s trial attorneys told jurors he was responsible for James’ slaying but argued it didn’t merit a death sentence because James was not officially on duty, meaning the crime didn’t qualify as a capital murder.

    As the judge in October 2002 read his death sentence, Escamilla threw a pitcher of water at the jury, started kicking and hitting people and hid under the defense table until he was subdued by sheriff’s deputies.

    “It was a real scene,” Wayne Huff, Escamilla’s lead trial lawyer, said. “I don’t think there was any real doubt he was going to be found guilty.”

    Testimony showed Escamilla bragged to emergency medical technicians who were treating his wounds that he had killed an officer and injured another and that he’d be out of jail in 48 hours. He also admitted to the slaying during a television interview from jail.

    James, 34, had earned dozens of commendations during his nearly seven years on the Dallas police force after graduating at the top of his cadet class. He was working the off-duty security job to earn extra money so he and his new wife could buy a house. A second officer wounded in the gunfire survived.

    According to court documents, Escamilla and some older brothers were involved in gang activities and sold and used drugs from an early age. He was involved in two high-speed police chases and an assault on an assistant principal in school, where he dropped out after the eighth grade.

    http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state...-execution.ece

  9. #19
    Member Member SoonerSaint's Avatar
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    Updated October 13, 3:04 pm (AP)

    The U.S. Supreme Court last week refused to review the 33-year-old’s case, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday decided against a reprieve and recommending clemency and no new appeals were in the courts Tuesday.

    Excerpt from this article: http://www.ctpost.com/news/us/articl...th-6568899.php
    Last edited by SoonerSaint; 10-14-2015 at 11:56 AM.
    "It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them".--Alfred Adler

  10. #20
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    Media Advisory: Licho Escamilla Scheduled for Execution

    Tuesday, October 13, 2015 – Austin

    Pursuant to a court order by the 203rd District Court of Dallas County, Licho Escamilla is scheduled for execution on October 14, 2015 after 6:00 p.m.

    On November 25, 2001, Licho Escamilla shot and killed Dallas Police Officer Christopher James, an on-duty peace officer. On October 31, 2002, the 351st District Court of Dallas County, Texas entered a judgment of conviction against Escamilla for capital murder and sentenced him to death. Pursuant to a district court order, Escamilla is scheduled for execution after 6:00 p.m. on October 14, 2015.

    FACTS OF THE CRIME

    In the early hours of November 25, 2001, Escamilla attempted to steal a vehicle from the valet stand at DMX, a local nightclub. Dallas Police Officers Christopher James and Clarence Lockett interrupted the theft. Before either uniformed officer could draw a weapon, Escamilla shot Officer Lockett in the forearm and Officer James in the hand, bringing them both to the ground. Before Escamilla fled the scene, he stood over the prostrate Officer James and, at arm’s length, shot him three times in the head killing him instantly. He committed this brutal murder in front of multiple witnesses. Officers Mark King and Lance Crawford, also working as club security that night, pursued Escamilla as he fled the scene, and the three exchanged gunfire. The officers wounded Escamilla once and captured him after he attempted to commandeer a passing vehicle. Escamilla made several incriminating and vulgar statements in the ambulance and hospital in front of multiple witnesses.

    PROCEDURAL HISTORY

    On October 31, 2002, Escamilla was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in the 351st District Court of Dallas County, Texas. The Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) affirmed the conviction and sentence on direct appeal in a published opinion on June 30, 2004. The Supreme Court denied his petition for certiorari on March 28, 2005. Escamilla then filed a state application for writ of habeas corpus alleging ten grounds for relief, including a claim that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate and present sufficient mitigating evidence during the punishment phase of trial (the IATC claim). Based on the district court’s extensive findings of fact and conclusions of law, the CCA denied relief on October 10, 2007.

    Escamilla pursued relief in federal habeas court. He filed a petition asserting, among other grounds for relief, the IATC claim. On March 26, 2012, the federal district court denied his claims, dismissed his federal habeas petition, and denied him a Certificate of Appealability (COA). The Fifth Circuit, however, issued a COA in a published opinion only for the IATC claim. After further briefing and oral arguments, the circuit court affirmed the district court’s denial of that claim and the dismissal of the federal petition on February 18, 2015.

    On May 14, 2015, Escamilla filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court asserting only the IATC claim. We filed our brief in opposition on July 17th. The Court requested the records from the lower courts and set the case for conference on September 28th. This petition is still pending.

    On June 18, 2015, the 203rd District Court of Dallas County entered an Execution Order and issued a Death Warrant setting Escamilla’s execution for October 14, 2015 after 6:00 p.m.

    https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov...-for-execution

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