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Thread: Darlie Lynn Routier - Texas Death Row

  1. #111
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Why are we even posting this nonsense. This is nothing but anti dp garbage, same as that series "Death Row Stories" narrated by Susan Sarandon.

    This is all emotion and what ifs. Thats why I like Forensic Files because it relies on actual science and isn't biased and skewed toward an anti DP opinion.
    "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

  2. #112
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    you re right. it's been 21 years and nothing changed. Forensic evidence that convicted her still legit and this new documentary won't change anything. I ll never understand people who seriously thinks she s innocent.

  3. #113
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    Edited:

    5 controversial moments in the case that sent Darlie Routier to death row for her son's murder

    Darlie Routier was convicted and sentenced to die for fatally stabbing her 5-year-old son Damon in June 1996. More than 2 decades later, the Rowlett woman remains in prison - 1 of only 6 women on Texas' death row.

    Devon, 6, was also slain, but Routier was convicted of only 1 murder because prosecutors decided to ensure the option to pursue a 2nd indictment if the 1st trial didn't net a lasting conviction.

    Routier has maintained an intruder broke in while she slept and killed her sons before she chased him away. She said she could not remember much of what happened that night, and a psychiatrist for the defense said she was a victim of "traumatic amnesia."

    But prosecutors called that a convenient excuse and argued Routier killed her children because they interfered with the life she wanted to live.

    Following is a look at 5 moments that helped define the Routier investigation, trial and the aftermath of her conviction:

    During Routier's death-penalty trial, jurors heard a 6-minute 911 call from the night of the attack. Prosecutors said the call supported what officers said about Routier's behavior, but the defense said the recording showed she was traumatized and distracted by the chaos in her home. They argued Routier should not be held accountable for what she said or did during that time.

    In the recording, Routier tells the dispatcher that she touched the knife, the suspected murder weapon, and added, "I wonder if we could have gotten the prints maybe."

    She mentions her husband ran downstairs but doesn't ask about their infant son, Drake.

    Officers testified that Routier was upset and screaming, but didn't appear to be in shock and seemed very alert. One officer said he told Routier to apply pressure to the stab wounds on Damon's back as he gasped for breath, but instead, she did nothing.

    "I thought if she was worried about fingerprints on a knife, she could certainly take care of her kids," Officer David Waddell said during the trial.

    He added that she did not follow paramedics when they carried Damon to an ambulance and did not ask where they were taking him.

    Bloody evidence and the garage escape

    Over and over, Routier, who was 26 at the time of her sons' murders, said a man wearing dark clothes and a baseball cap attacked the boys, then her, before escaping through the garage.

    But investigators said evidence at the scene was inconsistent with Routier's account.

    Investigators found no blood in the garage or on the garage window or wooden fence surrounding the backyard. The window sills in the garage had layers of dust, and the mulch in the flower beds between the garage and the backyard gate was undisturbed, an arrest warrant stated.

    Lab tests did find fingerprints on the garage window that did not belong to Routier, her husband or law enforcement, but it's unclear who left them.

    Routier said she found the knife on the floor in the utility room, but investigators didn't find any blood splatter or other marks that would have indicated the knife was dropped there.

    Blood was found near the kitchen sink, but no appreciable amount on the couch where Routier said she had been stabbed. There had been attempts to clean the countertop and sink before police arrived, and police suggested that she may have inflicted the wounds herself, the affidavit stated.

    Police said a bloody sock was found on the grass several houses down. Routier's relatives cited it as evidence that someone else killed the boys, and the defense said there was no way Routier would have had time to stage the crime scene.

    Much debate also centered around a bloody fingerprint on the coffee table near her son's body. Part of her appeal centered on the print belonging to an adult, not one of Routier's slain children.

    The print was never compared to the children's fingers because morgue workers did not take the children's prints, which is usually standard procedure.

    In 2008, a federal judge granted additional testing of the sock, a butcher knife, the fibers from another knife and gave permission to run four fingerprints through a national database. The DNA was submitted last year for testing, but there have been no other recent updates.

    The Silly String video

    Days after the boys' deaths, the Routiers held a graveside birthday party for Devon on what would have been his 7th birthday.

    They sprayed Silly String on the grave and sang "Happy Birthday." KXAS-TV (NBC5) recorded the celebration and interviewed the couple who said they had nothing to hide.

    Routier was arrested four days later and charged with capital murder.

    The NBC5 footage of the Silly String and a smiling Routier was shown during the trial. Prosecutors said her behavior at her children's graves showed a lack of grief and remorse.

    Defense attorneys said the tape showed a family trying to cope with grief.

    It was not the only time jurors heard statements about Routier's lack of remorse.

    An emergency room doctor testified that the mother seemed emotionless when he tended to the knife wounds to her neck, shoulder and forearm. Dr. Alex Santos called the wounds "superficial," but agreed that they came millimeters from cutting her carotid artery.

    A nurse's note, however, described Routier as "very emotional, crying, sobbing and talking about events in her family."

    The gravesite recording

    During Routier's trial, a detective testified that investigators hid microphones near the boys' graves in Rockwall before Devon's birthday in the hopes that someone might make a confession that would lead police to the killer.

    In 1997, after an FBI investigation, U.S. Attorney Paul E. Coggins announced that the Rowlett Police Department would not face federal charges for planting the hidden microphones.

    Attorneys and others questioned the legality of the move.

    The investigation determined that the decision was based on legal advice indicating the technique was lawful.

    In June 1998, Routier's mother and husband filed a lawsuit accusing the police detectives and a prosecutor of invading their privacy. The suit was later dismissed.

    The trial transcript

    Court transcript problems became central to Routier's appeal, which was delayed because of the issues.

    Following the trial, one of Routier's attorneys found errors in the transcript, which was needed for an appeal. Court reporter Sandra Halsey refused to answer questions, and a state district judge ordered a review.

    In 1999, a complaint filed with the state board alleged that Halsey's work was "incompetent, inaccurate, unprofessional and untimely" and that she lied to hide mistakes.

    She was ordered to pay $32,265 for the cost of getting the transcript fixed and had her license revoked.

    A 2nd court reporter who was appointed to reconstruct portions of the transcript using Halsey's audio recordings, stenographer's notes and the original transcript, said the 1st version contained 18,000 errors.

    She also had to make a new version of 53 pages of the transcript detailing pretrial issues and preliminary jury selection using stenographic notes rather than audio recordings after Halsey reportedly could not find the tape.

    Finally, in November 1999 a judge approved the revised transcript. Routier's team filed an appeal in 2001, but in 2003 the Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Routier's claims and upheld her conviction.

    (Source: The Dallas Morning News)
    "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

  4. #114
    bluejayway
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    I’d love know why you think the graveside events have anything to do with the case, it’s already been said countless times that they held a rememberance prior to the silly string event.

    The mulch you describe below the window is not directly below the window and this window is low and can be stepped over easily without touching the frame. The mulch area is to one side.

    It’s been established that there may have been dusting contamination between the knives and the screen, how a fibre got on the knife could easily be said it was the same knife as the murder weapon on contamination

    Greg Davis states there was very little blood on the couch, however if darlie faked the scene how come there was some blood on the couch, some blood, not none, some.

    The bloody sock bothers my immensely, both boys blood was found on the sock, none of darlies blood was on the sock. The sock was found a long way from the crime scene. To me it’s just so random, you could argue the sock was taken there by darlie before she then stabbed herself to cover it up, but why a sock? Why not some other piece of clothing or even the knife. I find it crazy that the sock has not been investigated more. No one has ever said who’s sock it was... if it belong to the Routiers, where is the other sock.

    I hear so many different stories about darlie in the hospital that it’s confusing We have one side saying she was mildly upset and superficial wounds, another side saying she was hysterical and deep wounds.

    I’m not saying I think she is 100% not guilty but I think there are to issues that in my opinion do not place this case beyond reasonable doubt.

    You could argue that all of the above is only circumstantial for her defence, however they convicted her on the very same guess work.

    Also I would like to know if darlie was the prime suspect after walk through on the day of the murders why wasn’t she arrested then.

    Some of the staging of the crime if that’s what she did doesn’t hang right, I can think of a hundred different things you would do to stage a crime and most would involve the murder weapon, there was nothing done with the murder weapon. She could have easily got rid of it.

  5. #115
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Routier’s defense continues its fight

    ABC program focuses on case Tuesday

    Altoona Mirror

    Attorneys for Darlie Routier, the Altoona native on death row in Texas for the murder of her two oldest children, have informed a federal judge in San Antonio that DNA testing is underway, and they have recommended her federal appeal not be dismissed, but remain in abeyance pending the outcome of state court proceedings.

    The Routier case has received nationwide attention as she fights to have her first-degree murder conviction and death penalty overturned.

    Since her arrest 22 years ago next week, Routier has denied that she stabbed her two sons, Damon, 5, and Devon 6, to death in their Rowlett, Tex., home.

    Routier has insisted an intruder entered the home during the early morning of June 6, 1996, and using a knife from the kitchen, stabbed her and her sons as they were sleeping in a downstairs family room.

    A third child, Drake, was in an upstairs bedroom with his father, Darin, and was not harmed.

    Rowlett, Tex., police, according to the defense, almost immediately focused on Routier, who herself suffered a serious neck wound and bruising during the attack. Authorities rejected her intruder story.

    A Texas jury in 1997 convicted her, and she has remained on death row since then.

    Routier’s present defense team has argued that her trial was infused with inflammatory remarks and less-than-credible forensic evidence that went unchallenged by her trial lawyers.

    Her appeal at present remains in the state courts, but a federal petition has been filed in the U.S. District Court of West Texas.

    Routier’s fight for a new trial is one of two cases featured during a seven-week docu-series called “The Last Defense,” airing on ABC.

    The third of four parts devoted to the Routier murder case will be shown at 10 p.m. Tuesday.

    The remaining three weeks of the series will focus on an Oklahoma carjacking-homicide in which a man named Julius Jones, also on death row, continues to maintain his innocence.

    In the Routier case, the appeals process has dragged on for years as her present lawyers received court permission to undertake extensive DNA testing of the blood found at the scene — on the clothes of Routier and her sons, as well as many other items.

    After a first round of testing, the defense sought court permission for an additional review of blood on items that were not tested prior to her trial.

    In 2013, the defense won the right for the additional testing of blood stains on a sock found in an alley 75 yards from the home, limb hair from the sock, and a bloody fingerprint found on a coffee table at the scene — a fingerprint that did not belong to anyone in the family.

    The state court ordered testing of blood stains from Routier’s night shirt, blood spots on the butcher knife used in the killings and blood stains on pillows in the room.

    The defense is particularly interested in the blood on the sock.

    In her trial, the prosecution argued that after Routier murdered her sons, she ran into the alley to plant the sock, then returned to the home and stabbed herself.

    “If (Routier’s) blood is found on the tube sock in the alley, it will demonstrate that she was already bleeding when the sock was deposited,” according to the application for DNA testing. “Since no blood was found between the house and the alley, such evidence would prove the sock was placed in the alley by a third party, thus corroborating (Routier’s) account that the murders were committed by an unknown assailant.”

    U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered that a status report be filed every six months. The report filed last De*cem*ber stated items of evidence were transported to the Texas Department of Pub*lic Safety for DNA testing.

    A status report filed last Tuesday in federal court by Dallas attorney Richard A. Smith, representing Rou*tier, stated the Dallas County DA’s office and defense attorneys still are awaiting the results of the tests.

    http://www.altoonamirror.com/news/local-news/2018/06/routiers-defense-continues-its-fight/
    "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

  6. #116
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    Dallas County DA's office says testing is being done on items in Darlie Routier case

    For people who say Darlie Routier was unjustly sentenced to death row for her son's murder, their argument often comes back to DNA.

    Routier, 48, was convicted of fatally stabbing her 5-year-old son Damon in June 1996. Her 6-year-old son, Devon, was also slain, but she has not been tried for his death.

    Routier said she could not remember much of what happened that night and claimed a stranger came into her Rowlett house and attacked her and her sons. Investigators have said that evidence at the house was inconsistent with her account and police suggested Routier may have inflicted her own neck wounds.

    For Darlie Routier's mother, Darlie Kee, and others, the hope for a successful appeal may hinge on the results of DNA testing that was granted a decade ago.

    The Dallas County District Attorney's Office said that "multiple items of evidence" have been tested this year after court orders from November and December 2017 and that testing is ongoing.

    "When testing is completed, the court will schedule a hearing to review the results," the district attorney's office said.

    Stephen Cooper, an attorney for Routier, said 10 to 12 items are being tested, but he did not specify what they were.

    Statutes have changed since the original request for the DNA testing was filed a decade ago, which has allowed the defense to test additional items, he said.

    "Frankly, the DA's office has been cooperative in allowing ... [the defense] to expand to anything that might be possible," Cooper said.

    The defense asked that testing be done at a private facility, but the state has insisted the process go through the Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab in Garland.

    DPS referred questions about the testing to the district attorney's office.

    "We've got more reason to look at additional items that were not tested before, so we're just working through that list we've had for several years," Cooper said. "It's not really new; we're just now getting to it. We've taken bite-sized chunks out of our request at a time with the really chaotic crime scene, focusing on things that should be tested and what order they should be tested. It's been a long process but necessary."

    In November 2008, U.S. District Judge Royal Furgeson granted additional testing of items including a bloody sock found a few houses down, a knife that is thought to be the murder weapon and the fibers from another knife found in a butcher block in the Routier home. Furgeson also gave permission to have four fingerprints submitted to the FBI to check for matches.

    Furgeson wrote in the order that even if another person's DNA were found on the sock, that would not necessarily prove the intruder argument.

    A third person doesn't answer who might have killed the boys, but "could prove helpful in determining whether their murders were the products of a conspiracy, rather than the wanton act of an individual suffering from severe postpartum depression, as suggested" during the trial," the court document stated.

    It's unclear whether testing or federal database checks were done on the bloody fingerprint that was found on a table near the body of one of the boys.

    "If ... [the fingerprint is] not reasonable doubt I don't know what is," Kee said. "That's enough to make you pause and say, 'Well, whose fingerprint is it?' "

    In letters sent to the court and entered into Routier's case file, people have pleaded with Dallas County Judge Gracie Lewis to run tests of the fingerprint in the hope that it may point to the person they think is the real killer.

    Earlier this year, The Last Defense, a seven-part documentary series aired on ABC, drew new attention to Routier's case and examined what led to her conviction.

    In early October, a group of people following the case organized a three-day rally outside the Dallas County courthouse to sustain public interest and ask why testing has not been completed.

    Routier was convicted in February 1997 in Kerrville after a change of venue. Kee, who has staunchly maintained her daughter's innocence, thinks that if the trial had been conducted in Dallas County, the outcome would have been different.

    Kee said she thinks her daughter's fate was sealed when the jury was shown video of Routier spraying Silly String at her son's grave during a birthday party for Devon shortly after his death.

    Prosecutors said Routier's behavior showed a lack of grief and remorse. The defense said it was the family's way of trying to cope with sorrow.

    Kee said prosecutors never proved her daughter guilty.

    "They never could explain the sock, and they never could explain her wounds," she said.

    In June, Kee intends to hold a "convoy of justice" at the graveyard where the boys are buried on what would have been Devon's 30th birthday.

    "I'm just very tired of it after 22 years ...," Kee said. Routier's "family and friends, we've all been going through this for 22 years with no closure at all with the threat of ... [death row] hanging over her head."

    https://www.dallasnews.com/news/cour...e-routier-case
    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

  7. #117
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    Darlie Routier, on death row for killing sons, says she is innocent

    She has been on death row for more than 20 years, accused of stabbing her two sons to death. But Darlie Routier insists she is innocent

    She’s one of only six women on death row in the US state of Texas, and Darlie Routier insists she has been wrongfully imprisoned for more than 20 years, accused of killing her two sons.

    Routier, 49, was convicted of the 1996 murder of her five-year-old son Damon, who was stabbed to death with his brother Devon, 6, in the family’s Dallas home (she wasn’t tried for Devon’s death — prosecutors wanted a second chance to convict her if the first case failed).

    Despite being found guilty of Damon’s murder by a jury, Routier has always maintained her innocence — the mother-of-three claiming an intruder broke into the home she shared with her husband and kids and killed the boys, stabbing her several times before she chased him off.

    Routier will again insist she was wrongfully convicted in a documentary airing this week on American program 20/20, which examines new tests of crucial crime scene evidence.

    In a preview of the show, an aged Routier says from Gatesville Prison in Texas: “I cannot actually believe they’re doing this to me when I didn’t do this. I didn’t kill Devon and Damon.”

    In a scenario reminiscent of the criticism of Australian woman Lindy Chamberlain, who was accused of not looking “sad” enough over the death of baby daughter Azaria, Routier’s behaviour at her sons’ graves a week after they died may have turned the public against her.

    On what would have been Devon’s seventh birthday, Routier and some family members held a grave-side “birthday party”.

    Footage broadcast on local TV stations showed balloons, Happy Birthday being sung and Routier smiling, laughing and spraying Silly String on the graves.

    Family members later pointed out that no footage was aired of a solemn ceremony held moments earlier. But the image of a laughing Routier at her sons’ graves is widely considered to have put her in an unfavourable light.

    She was arrested and charged with capital murder four days later.

    The footage was shown to the jury during the trial.

    The night of the murders

    At 2.31am on June 6, 1996, Routier called 911. In audio of the call heard in the documentary, she screams “Somebody came in here … they just stabbed me and my children!”

    Routier’s husband Darian and their infant son Drake were asleep upstairs and unharmed.

    Police who responded to the call found Damon and Devon suffering from multiple stab wounds, and they were soon pronounced dead.

    Routier suffered stab wounds, which she claims she received chasing off the intruder. Although described as “superficial”, one came within two millimetres of her carotid artery. An expert witness during the trial said this would be unusual for a self-inflicted wound.

    Routier told police a man wearing dark clothes and a baseball cap attacked them before escaping through the garage.

    But investigators said evidence at the scene contradicted Routier’s account.

    At the trial, the prosecution claimed Routier murdered her children because of financial problems and described her as a “pampered, materialistic woman with substantial debt, plummeting credit ratings and little money in the bank who feared that her lavish lifestyle was about to end”.

    Routier’s defence team argued there were countless mistakes made at the crime scene and throughout the investigation. An appeals court dismissed these claims, however in 2008 a request for new DNA tests of the evidence was granted. The results of the tests will be explored in the 20/20 documentary.

    The Routier's divorced in 2011. Darian has always maintained he believes Darlie is innocent.

    Routier as of May 2019 does not have an execution date.

    https://www.news.com.au/world/north-...ae2bfa11d8f01e
    "How do you get drunk on death row?" - Werner Herzog

    "When we get fruit, we get the juice and water. I ferment for a week! It tastes like chalk, it's nasty" - Blaine Keith Milam #999558 Texas Death Row

  8. #118
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Routier defense can explore evidence

    By Phil Ray
    Altoona Mirror

    A judge in Dallas County, Texas, has issued an order giving defense attorneys representing Darlie Routier, a former Altoona woman on death row for the 1996 murder of one of her young sons, access to the district attorney’s files in the case.

    Routier’s mother, Darlie Kee, who was raised in Altoona and still has many relatives in the area, sees this as another positive sign that her daughter is close to receiving a long-awaited hearing that could result in her either receiving a new trial or exoneration.

    Darlie Routier’s case has been the subject of many reviews on television, including a recent airing of ABC’s “The Last Defense,” which explored several cases in which the alleged perpetrators continue to maintain their innocence despite serving many years in prison.

    Routier was arrested in June 1996 for the stabbing deaths of her two older children, Devon, 6, and Damon, 5, that occurred in the upscale home she shared with her husband, Darin, in Rowlett, Texas.

    While Routier reported that an intruder entered the home during the early morning of June 6, 1996, stabbing her and the two children, who were sleeping in a downstairs television room.

    Police, however, quickly concluded that there was no intruder and that Routier committed the murders, even though she also suffered many serious knife wounds, including one on her neck that was 2 millimeters — about 5 sixty-fourths of an inch — from her carotid artery.

    The young mother, while charged with the killings of both children, was tried in early 1997 only in the killing of 5-year-old Damon because it was a crime that carried with it the possible death penalty.

    Routier is represented by several Texas attorneys, including Richard B. Smith and J. Stephen Cooper and the Innocence Project of New York.

    The Routier post-conviction appeal has been stalled for more than a decade as DNA testing of blood samples from the crime scene have been underway.

    According to an update filed in June by the defense and prosecution attorneys with the U.S. District Court for West Texas, the DNA testing is continuing.

    But as of late last year and early this year, several developments have occurred that have brought hope to Routier’s mother.

    The Innocence Project has joined the defense, and Dallas County District Judge Gracie Lewis has ordered the running of two bloody fingerprints that were collected from a coffee table at the scene but as of yet, have not been identified.

    Kee hopes the prints the may lead to a possible suspect who, Routier claims, entered the home that fatal night.

    Just a couple of weeks ago, Judge Lewis issued another order granting the defense access to the district attorney’s files in a effort to determine if the prosecution withheld exculpatory information from the defense in preparation for the 1997 trial.

    Prosecutors are mandated to provide information in their possession that may be helpful to the defense.

    The judge went to great lengths in her order to limit access to the files to representatives of the defense, expert or other witnesses for the defense, and Routier.

    Before Routier or prospective witnesses can review items in the file, the defense attorneys must redact addresses, telephone numbers, driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and bank account numbers that would tend to identify the individuals in question.

    Any information that the defense wants to disclose publicly must first be reviewed by the court, the Lewis order stated.

    Kee this past week commented, “I think it is a good motion because they (the defense) will review everything (the) prosecutors did.”

    Post-conviction hearings in both the Dallas County Court and Federal District Court for West Texas remain on hold.

    http://www.altoonamirror.com/news/lo...lore-evidence/
    "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

  9. #119
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    They used her prison photo taken at the age of 27 years old so far. i m glad they finally updated her photo.

  10. #120
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Virus slows Routier case

    Former Altoona woman facing death penalty in Texas, awaiting day in court

    Altoona Mirror

    Darlie Routier, the former Altoona resident who is facing a death sentence in Texas for the 1996 murder of one of her young children, was to have a post-conviction hearing in Dallas County last week, but it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Texas has recently been hard hit by positive COVID-19 cases and several weeks ago Texas Gov. Greg Abbott imposed restrictions on businesses and other services due to the upsurge of cases.
    Like many other states, courtrooms in Texas have canceled many hearings.

    One of Routier’s attorneys, Richard A. Smith of Dallas, emphasizing the impact of the pandemic, said he hasn’t been in a courtroom since January.

    Smith and a representative of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Lorie Davis, recently issued a status report on Routier’s long-standing post conviction appeal that awaits a hearing in Dallas County.

    Routier’s attorneys also have filed a federal habeas corpus petition in the U.S. District Court of West Texas, but it has been on hold for more than a decade.

    Post conviction activity in the Routier case has been delayed due to ongoing DNA testing of the evidence that was collected in June 1996, after the bodies of Routier’s two young children, Damon, 5, and Devon, 6, were found in a downstairs television room of the Routier home in Rowlett, Texas.

    A third child, who was sleeping in an upstairs bedroom with Routier’s husband, Darin, was not injured.

    Routier, now 50, contended she and the children were awakened by an intruder during the early morning hours of June 6. The knife-wielding attacker, Routier claimed, stabbed her and the children.

    She suffered many serious knife wounds, including one on her neck that was 2 millimeters — about 5 sixty-fourths of an inch — from her carotid artery, during the attack, but, almost immediately police concluded it was an “inside job,” and within days, arrested the young mother.

    Routier, while charged with the killings of both children, was tried in early 1997 only in the killing of 5-year-old Damon because it was a crime that carried with it the possible death penalty.

    Routier has been in prison for the past 24 years.

    However, progress has been made in the past year toward post-trial relief for Routier, according to the defense attorneys.

    DNA testing of the evidence has been completed, and a bloody fingerprint found on a coffee table in the home was finally run through state and federal data bases, but it remains unidentified.

    Also within the past year, a Dallas County judge ordered the prosecution to permit inspection of its files on the case by Routier’s team of defense attorneys.

    The status report, prepared by Smith, indicated a hearing in Dallas County on the Routier case had been tentatively scheduled for this week, but “the COVID-19 pandemic has led to its postponement.”

    Due to the pandemic, Smith stated, it is unlikely the hearing will be rescheduled “for the immediate future.”

    It also was reported that two dozen boxes of the prosecution files on the case have been reviewed by the defense team, which includes representatives of the Innocence Project of New York.

    Because of the new evidence gleamed from the DNA testing and the prosecution files, an amended habeas corpus petition will be filed in the state court, the status report indicated.

    Meanwhile, the defense team has asked that a federal public defender be appointed to aid with the Routier case if it ever makes it to the federal level.

    Dallas attorney J. Stephen Cooper requested the naming of a new federal defense attorney because one of Routier’s counsel, Lauren E. Schmidt, accepted another job.

    U.S. District Judge Fred Biery recently named Jeremy Schepers of the federal public defender’s Capital Habeas Corpus Unit for the Northern District of Texas as Schmidt’s replacement.

    While there has been a lot of activity in the past year concerning the Routier case, nothing has occurred concerning defense efforts to move the post conviction proceedings through the court system, Cooper said.

    He said there has been “just a tiding-up” of the evidence.

    Routier was born in Altoona and traveled to Texas with her mother, Darlie Kee, as a teenager.

    Kee periodically returns to Altoona to visit her father — Darlie’s grandfather — who is in his 90s.

    https://www.altoonamirror.com/news/l...-routier-case/
    "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.”
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