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Thread: Richard Allen Masterson - Texas Execution - January 20, 2016

  1. #21
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Texas to execute man who says female impersonator’s death was accidental asphyxiation during sex

    HUNTSVILLE, Texas — The U.S. Supreme Court is considering multiple appeals from lawyers trying to keep a Texas inmate from execution Wednesday evening for a slaying 15 years ago that the man claims was accidental.

    Richard Masterson, 43, would be the first inmate put to death this year in the nation’s busiest death penalty state, where 13 lethal injections in 2015 accounted for nearly half of the 28 executions nationwide.

    Masterson was sentenced to death for the January 2001 strangulation of Darin Shane Honeycutt, 35, a female impersonator he’d met at a bar. He testified at his Houston trial that Honeycutt’s death was the result of an accidental asphyxiation during sex and not an intentional murder.

    Evidence showed Masterson stole Honeycutt’s car, dumped it in Georgia, and was arrested at a Florida mobile home park more than a week later with another stolen car. That car belonged to a Tampa, Florida, man who testified that he was robbed by Masterson but survived a similar sex episode where he was choked.

    At least four appeals on Masterson’s behalf were before the Supreme Court.

    His attorneys are arguing that Honeycutt’s death was accidental or the result of a heart attack, that a Harris County medical examiner whose credentials have been questioned was wrong to tell jurors it was a strangulation, that Masterson’s earlier lawyers were deficient for failing to discover that information and that his prolonged drug use and then withdrawal while in jail contributed to his “suicide by confession” when he spoke to police about the slaying.

    “Mr. Masterson’s case presents a perfect storm of attorney incompetence and neglect combined with a severely mentally ill, suicidal defendant who did not kill anyone,” attorney Gregory Gardner said in a filing to the high court.

    Lawyers also contend that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Masterson his rights to due process and access to the courts by refusing their challenge to a new state law that keeps secret the identity of the provider of pentobarbital that Texas prison officials use for lethal injections.

    State lawyers argued that Masterson’s attorneys offered no scientific evidence about Honeycutt’s death that hadn’t been previously raised and rejected, including by jurors at Masterson’s trial.

    “He is simply attempting to present identical facts under a different legal theory and using different experts in order to pass off the allegation as ’new,”’ Erich Dryden, an Texas assistant attorney general, told the justices.

    According to court filings, besides confessing to police, Masterson told a brother he killed Honeycutt and wrote to Texas’ then-Attorney General Greg Abbott in 2012 acknowledging the slaying.

    “I meant to kill him,” Masterson wrote to Abbott, who is now Texas’ governor. “It was no accident.”

    Masterson had a long drug history and criminal record beginning at age 15. Court documents showed he ignored advice from lawyers at his 2002 trial and insisted on telling jurors he met Honeycutt, who used the stage name Brandi Houston, at a bar and they went to Honeycutt’s Houston apartment where Masterson said the chokehold was part of an autoerotic sex act.

    Honeycutt’s body was found Jan. 27, 2001, after friends became worried when he failed to show up for work.

    Masterson also told jurors he was a future danger — an element they had to agree with in order to decide a death sentence was appropriate.

    Masterson’s case has recently drawn the attention of Pope Francis, who has reinforced the Catholic Church’s opposition to capital punishment.

    At least eight other Texas death row inmates have executions scheduled for the coming months, including one set for next week.

    http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/wo...216/story.html

  2. #22
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Pope's Pleas Fall On Deaf Ears As Texas Set To Execute Death Row Inmate

    By Abc13

    HUNTSVILLE, TX (KTRK) -- Despite calls by the Vatican for mercy, Texas will execute a convicted murderer today.

    Richard Masterson is set to die by lethal injection for strangling a female impersonator in Houston back in 2001.

    A cardinal at the Vatican mentioned Masterson during a speech about mercy. He said the church had been in touch with Masterson and that Pope Francis was following the case.

    Masterson will be the first Texas death row inmate to be executed this year.

    http://abc13.com/news/popes-pleas-fa...nmate/1166395/

  3. #23
    Senior Member CnCP Addict TrudieG's Avatar
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    Four appeals pending it maybe a long night

  4. #24
    Senior Member CnCP Addict TrudieG's Avatar
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    Actually at last count there are eight appeals pending at the court dated between Jan 18 and Jan 19

  5. #25
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Latest: US Supreme Court won't stop Texas inmate's execution

    By San Antonio

    HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The latest on the scheduled execution of Texas inmate Richard Masterson, who was convicted in a 2001 strangulation that he claimed was accidental.

    The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to stop the execution of a Texas man for a killing 15 years ago that he claimed was accidental.

    The high court rejected four appeals for 43-year-old Richard Masterson on Wednesday evening, less than an hour before he was to be taken to the death chamber.

    Earlier in the day, Texas' top criminal court also refused to block the punishment, rejecting an appeal challenging a state law that keeps secret the name of the execution drug supplier.

    http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/tex...as-6772824.php

  6. #26
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    The state of Texas has executed Richard Allen Masterson for the 2001 murder of Darin Shane Honeycutt
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  7. #27
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Texas puts inmate to death for a killing 15 years ago in state's first execution of 2016

    HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - Texas has executed a man convicted of a killing 15 years ago in the state's first lethal injection of 2016.

    Richard Masterson had claimed the January 2001 strangulation of Darin Honeycutt was accidental and had several appeals before the courts. His last-day efforts to stop his execution were rejected.

    He was pronounced dead at 6:53 p.m. Wednesday

    Final Words "Sometimes you have to live & die with the choices you make. I made mine & now I'm going to pay for it."

    Masterson had testified at his trial that the death of the 35-year-old Honeycutt in Houston happened accidentally during a chokehold that was part of a sex act. The two had met at a bar and then went to Honeycutt's apartment.

    Honeycutt was an entertainer who performed dressed as a woman. Honeycutt's stage name was Brandi Houston.

    Court records showed Masterson confessed to police, told others about the killing and acknowledged Honeycutt was slain on purpose in a letter to the Texas attorney general in 2012.

    http://www.khou.com/story/news/local...2016/79090106/

    Texas Conducts First Execution of the Year

    In Texas' first execution of 2016, a man convicted in a fatal strangling and robbery was executed in Huntsville Wednesday night.

    Richard Masterson, 43, was declared dead at 6:53 p.m. from a lethal injection of pentobarbital, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He was sentenced to death for the 2001 strangulation of Darin Honeycutt in Harris County, and served almost 14 years on death row.

    The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court both denied last-minute requests for stays of execution Wednesday.

    “Sending me to a better place. I am alright with this," Masterson said in his final words. "You have to live and die by the choices that we make. I have made mine."

    Masterson met Honeycutt at a bar, and the two left together early on Jan. 26, 2001. Honeycutt’s body was found in his apartment the next day, and his car was gone, according to court documents.

    Masterson was arrested Feb. 6 in Florida. He originally confessed to intentionally killing Honeycutt but later claimed that the death was accidental, saying Honeycutt had asked to be choked while they were having sex.

    The medical examiner in the case testified during the trial that the death was caused by intentional strangulation, and the jury found Masterson guilty and sentenced him to death in May 2002.

    The day before Masterson’s execution date, his lawyers filed last-minute requests for stays and new hearings in the U.S. Supreme Court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, after already having received several denials.

    In their latest appeal at the state level, Masterson’s lawyers asked for a new hearing to challenge the constitutionality of a statute that allows the state to keep execution drug manufacturers secret. The Court of Criminal Appeals denied the request Wednesday morning.

    In an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, attorney Gregory Gardner said that Honeycutt died of a heart attack after having sex with Masterson. Gardner said that Paul Shrode, the medical examiner, wrongly classified the death as a homicide.

    In the same year as Honeycutt's death, Shrode was written up by the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office for wrongly determining a cause of death. In 2010, he was fired from his position as El Paso County chief medical examiner after a death row inmate in Ohio was granted clemency due to issues related to Shrode's testimony in the case.

    These incidents and the fact that the state did not reveal them to Masterson, Gardner argued, was cause for a stay and hearing. The request was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday afternoon, allowing the execution to move forward.

    “Richard was an innocent man,” Gardner said. “If [he] was not poor, he could have afforded attorneys who would have handled his case properly. He would be free today.”

    The execution was the first of nine scheduled for the first six months of the year, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, with the second scheduled for James Freeman next Wednesday. Thirteen men were put to death by the state of Texas in 2015.

    http://www.texastribune.org/2016/01/...exas-executio/
    Last edited by Mike; 01-20-2016 at 08:38 PM.
    "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

  8. #28
    Baked chicken rears its ugly head once again...http://lastsuppersbook.blogspot.com/...n-is-drag.html

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