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Thread: Joseph Christopher Garcia - Texas Execution - December 4, 2018

  1. #41
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Attorneys for 'Texas Seven' killer seek last-minute reprieve from execution tonight

    Garcia's attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution, arguing that he never fired his gun at Hawkins or intended to kill the officer. One of his lawyers, J. Stephen Cooper, said prosecutors didn't have any information that showed his client was one of the shooters.

    https://www.dallasnews.com/news/cour...cution-tonight
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  2. #42
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    Denied by the 5th Circuit. 5 Appeals pending at the US Supreme Court.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/jus0enmzau...18-11546.0.pdf

  3. #43
    Senior Member Frequent Poster NanduDas's Avatar
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    He should be pulling into Huntsville soon...
    "The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer." -Theodore Roosevelt

  4. #44
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    SCOTUS denied a stay of execution.

    https://twitter.com/keribla/status/1...222955520?s=19
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  5. #45
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Texas executes Joseph Garcia, one of the "Texas Seven" prison escapees

    Garcia was executed Tuesday night. He was the fourth of the "Texas Seven" inmates executed after the group escaped the Connally Unit in 2000 and killed Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins during a Christmas Eve robbery

    Joseph Garcia was four years into a 50-year sentence for a 1996 Bexar County murder when he joined six other inmates who escaped prison, went on the run and killed Irving Police officer Aubrey Hawkins in a Christmas Eve robbery.

    Texas executed the 47-year-old Garcia on Tuesday, almost 18 years after he and the other inmates known as the "Texas Seven" construed a detailed plan to break out of the Connally Unit in Karnes County. On the afternoon of Dec. 13, 2000, the seven men overpowered prison workers, took their uniforms, stole 14 handguns, a shotgun, an AR-15 rifle and more than 100 rounds of ammunition before fleeing north in a prison truck.

    The escaped prisoners managed to avoid law enforcement until Christmas Eve, when a botched robbery at a sporting goods store in Irving resulted in a shootout between the escaped convicts and Hawkins.

    During the robbery, a witness called 911 and Hawkins arrived at the scene shortly thereafter. According to court records, Hawkins was killed within minutes of arriving on the scene. Five of the escaped inmates simultaneously opened fire against the officer, who was shot nearly a dozen times.

    Garcia’s attorneys long claimed that their client was not one of the five who fired at 29-year-old Hawkins, and that he was not in the vicinity during the shootout.

    “It wasn’t supposed to happen,” Garcia said in a recent Houston Chronicle interview. “I wish I could take everything back.”

    The “Texas Seven” quickly fled the scene and drove to Colorado, where they hid out in an RV park until January. By then, their story had made national headlines and group member Larry Harper had killed himself.

    The remaining men were brought to trial in Dallas, and because of Texas’ law of parties — which holds all individuals responsible for a crime, regardless of their role — the six were convicted of capital murder. Garcia was sentenced to death in February 2003.

    Garcia was the fourth "Texas Seven" member executed. Michael Rodriguez, George Rivas and Donald Newbury were executed between 2008 and 2015. Patrick Murphy and Randy Halprin are awaiting execution dates.

    In repeatedly rejected appeals filed to both state and federal courts since his sentencing, Garcia’s lawyers argued that the Dallas County prosecutor, Toby Shook, portrayed Garcia as a “callous and cold-hearted killer” based off “false” testimony from his original Bexar County District Court trial, when Garcia was sentenced in November 1996 for the fatal stabbing of Miguel Luna in San Antonio.

    But Shook said his job was to prove that Garcia posed a future danger to the public, and the 1996 sentencing lent easy evidence to the 2003 murder trial.

    “I don’t think that anything could be more relevant than an offense of murder,” Shook said in an interview with The Texas Tribune this week. “I think we accurately depicted Joseph Garcia as a very violent individual.”

    J. Stephen Cooper, one of Garcia’s attorneys, wrote in a Nov. 14 plea to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that Garcia’s original counsel in the Bexar County murder trial — local attorney Robert Norvell Graham, Jr. — didn’t mention that Garcia’s tumultuous upbringing was marked by sexual abuse, destitute poverty, his mother’s heroin addiction, a sister’s death, his father’s abandonment and stints in group homes.

    The court denied the appeal on Friday, but in a 17-page dissent, Judge Elsa Alcala revitalized the ongoing argument over the constitutionality of the law of parties and Garcia’s death sentence from the "Texas Seven" shootout.

    “Even though [Garcia] was a major participant in the offense and he had reckless indifference to human life, he did not have the intent to kill Hawkins or act in a premeditated or deliberate manner in causing Hawkins’s death, given the evidence that he was armed with a firearm and declined to shoot at Hawkins,” Alcala wrote in the opinion.

    Garcia’s attorneys filed several appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court to review the lower court’s decision and to grant a stay of execution.

    Garcia’s lawyers also filed a stay of execution with the Supreme Court against the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, arguing that the board has too many members with a law enforcement background and is disproportionately male, therefore violating the clemency process because the board does not fulfill a requirement to be "representative of the general public."

    Garcia's attorneys also raised legal concerns over prisoners in recent executions reportedly experiencing a burning sensation after they were administered the lethal injection following a Buzzfeed News report last week that identified the state’s lethal drug supplier as the Houston-based Greenpark Compounding Pharmacy. Greenpark has allegedly supplied compounded pentobarbital to the state for the last three and a half years and the pharmacy’s license was on probation as recently as November due to dangerous practices that include administering the wrong medication to a child who had to be hospitalized.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued it was speculative to say the execution would subject Garcia to "cruel and unusual punishment." The state said such an argument "boils down to speculation—that the pentobarbital to be used was compounded incorrectly and will possibly lead to unconstitutional pain" and that "Garcia does not prove that this temporary discomfort is constitutionally intolerable."

    “The courts need to take a serious look at the constitutional issues concerning Texas’s lethal-injection drugs and unfair clemency process,” Garcia’s additional lawyer, Mridula Raman, said in an emailed statement to the Tribune.

    The Supreme Court denied Garcia's multiple pleas for a stay of execution, handing down its decision shortly before the execution. Garcia delivered his final words before he was pronounced dead at 6:43 p.m.

    "Yes Sir. Dear Heavenly Father please forgive them for they know not what they do," he said.

    Garcia was the 12th Texas inmate executed this year — with another scheduled for next week — and the nation’s 22nd inmate executed in 2018.

    https://www.texastribune.org/2018/12...xas-execution/

  6. #46
    Senior Member CnCP Addict one_two_bomb's Avatar
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  7. #47
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    So who is the last one left onebomb?
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
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    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
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  8. #48
    Senior Member CnCP Addict one_two_bomb's Avatar
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    There is 2 left, murphy and halprin

  9. #49
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Thanks. My mistake I thought there was only one left.
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  10. #50
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Widow of executed inmate speaks out

    The widow of a police officer murdered by infamous prison gang "Texas 7" has revealed her pain as the fourth member was executed by lethal injection.

    Joseph Garcia, 47, was part of the biggest prison breakout in the state's history before embarking on a holiday season crime spree that left a Dallas police officer dead.

    One gang member killed himself before he could be arrested while two more remain on death row.

    Lori O'Ferrell Acosta told news.com.au the death penalty was justice for her late husband, Aubrey Hawkins.

    "Garcia is nothing different from the rest of the members of said 'gang', they are all murderers, child abusers and plagues to society," she said. "He gunned down my husband.

    "I've moved on with my life; so has his son. With that dark shadow above.

    "He would hate his son grew up without him. Aubrey's death has been detrimental to our family.

    "He'd be so exhausted, tired of this fight, wanting all to pay for their crimes."

    She chose not to watch the execution, writing on Facebook that Garcis was a "rabid animal" who "doesn't deserve to take away another day of my life."

    This wasn't over yet, she added. "We have two more to go."


    Mr Hawkins’ widow Lori Ferrell Acosta, pictured with her daughter, said a ‘dark shadow’ had hung over her and his son since his brutal murder.

    The US Supreme Court rejected the final appeals by Garcia's lawyers - in which they argued had not fired the fatal shot - and he was put to death on Tuesday night at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.

    Garcia, then 29, was serving a 50-year sentence for fatally stabbing a man during an argument when he became part of the escape plot in 2000. The gang of seven spent months carefully plotting the breakout from the maximum security Connally Unit in Karnes County, about 100 kilometres south of San Antonio.

    On December 13, Garcia, Randy Halprin, Larry Harper, Patrick Murphy Jr, Donald Newbury, George Rivas, and Michael Rodriguez made their sensational escape.



    'YOU HAVEN'T HEARD THE LAST OF US'

    Rivas, was already serving 17 life sentences, was the ringleader. He masterminded the audacious plan to overpower a supervisor and tie up civilian workers as hostages.

    Two of the gang dressed up as prison workers to sneak into the armoury, where they overpowered another employee and took control of the guard tower.

    The gang loaded a maintenance truck and with guns and workers' clothes before making their getaway, leaving a note warning: "You haven't heard the last of us yet."

    After two robberies in the Houston area, they headed north as a massive police manhunt got underway by road and helicopter.

    On Christmas Eve, the escapees posed as security guards, holding up a sporting goods store in Irving, northwest of Dallas, stealing $95,000, 44 guns and winter clothing. They also took jewellery and wallets from staff who were closing up for the night.

    As they were leaving, they were approached by local police officer Hawkins. The inmates surrounded his police car and shot him 11 times before pulling him out of the vehicle and running over his body in their stolen SUV as they left.

    The gang fled to Colorado, but after they were featured on America's Most Wanted almost a month later, tip-offs from the public led police to the fugitives.

    Five of them were found posing as Christian missionaries at a trailer park, having tried to disguise their appearance, with one dying his hair blond and another orange-red.

    Locals in Woodland Park said they had heard the gang blasting Christian rock music. One woman told CNN she had been to church with one of the escapees, who said his name was Jim and he was travelling with friends. She described him as well-groomed and said he seemed like a clean-cut college student.

    Garcia, Rivas, Halprin and Rodriguez were captured by a SWAT team at the trailer park. Harper, a convicted rapist, shot himself in the chest himself before the authorities could take him back into custody.

    Three days later, with the reward for their capture reaching $680,000, police arrested Newbury and Murphy at a Holiday Inn in Colorado Springs. Twelve loaded firearms were found in their hotel room.

    'I AM READY TO GO'

    The gang were all sent to death row.

    Rodriguez, who was originally serving a life sentence for arranging his wife's murder, was the first to be executed in 2008, after the 45-year-old ordered all his appeals dropped.

    With his last breath before receiving the lethal injection, he apologised repeatedly for his crimes.

    "My punishment is nothing compared to the pain and sorrow I've brought you," he said. "I'm not strong enough to ask for forgiveness because I don't know if I am worthy.

    "I ask the Lord to please forgive me. I've done horrible things that brought sorrow and pain to these wonderful people," he added, looking directly at his former sister-in-law and the Officer Hawkins' widow.

    Rivas, 41, was put to death in 2012. His last words were an apology to the slain officer's family. "I do apologise for everything that happened, not because I am here, but for closure in your hearts," he said. "I am ready to go."

    Newbury, who was originally serving 99 years for a series of armed robberies, was executed in 2015. The 52-year-old had faced a string of disciplinary cases while on death row, including assaulting corrections officers, possessing weapons and rioting.

    In a 2003 interview with The Associated Press, Newbury said he would still escape if he could do it all over again. "I had 99 years," he said. "What did I have to lose?"

    Former Dallas County District Attorney Toby Shook, the lead prosecutor on the Texas 7 case, said Newbury "really likes coming across as the bad outlaw."

    Halprin, 41, and Murphy, 57, do not have execution dates and remain on death row in Texas.

    Garcia's lawyers campaigned hard to stall his death, arguing that problems with the lethal drug compound meant "unreasonable risk of a cruel execution".

    The death-row inmate always claimed he was still inside the building during the shooting of Officer Hawkins, but the state convicted him under the "law of parties", a statute that holds non-shooters responsible for killings they could have anticipated.

    He also maintained the stabbing attack he was originally jailed for was self-defence.

    "He didn't do anything violent or prepare or encourage anybody else to do anything violent," said one of his lawyers, J Stephen Cooper.

    But Mr Shook said: "He was up to his ears in murder and mayhem out there. He was actively participating in everything."

    He told the Houston Chronicle the hostages during the prison breakout "described him as one of the more violent ones, who made threats and went out of his way to frighten them."

    The prosecutor said that at some point, one of the other men claimed Garcia did fire the fatal shot.

    Garcia is the 12th prisoner put to death this year in Texas. The state has by far the most executions in the United States, with 557 inmates put to death since 1976.

    https://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.a...us-pr/3593028/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

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