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Thread: Raymond George Riles - Texas

  1. #11
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  2. #12
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Texas’ highest criminal court tosses death sentence of Raymond Riles, state’s longest-serving death row inmate

    Riles has been deemed mentally incompetent for execution repeatedly in his decades on death row

    Raymond Riles has been on Texas’ death row longer than anyone else, first sent there in 1976. Despite several execution dates being set, he has repeatedly been deemed mentally incompetent to be put to death, instead lingering on the row and the prison’s psychiatric units for more than 45 years. At one point, he set himself on fire and was hospitalized for months.

    On Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals tossed his death sentence.

    The state court sent his case back to Harris County to again determine his punishment because the jury wasn’t instructed to weigh his mental illness when deciding between a punishment of life in prison or death. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office, which supported tossing the sentence, did not immediately respond to questions Wednesday as to whether the office would again seek the death penalty. His conviction of capital murder is not changed.

    “We’re very pleased,” said Thea Posel, one of Riles’ attorneys. “It’s clearly established under Texas and [U.S.] Supreme Court law that Mr. Riles’ death sentence is unconstitutional.”

    Riles, now 70, was convicted in the 1974 shooting death of John Thomas Henry. Riles and another man were attempting to return a recently purchased car to Henry, a used car dealer, when Riles shot him, according to court records.

    At trial, Riles claimed insanity, and multiple experts testified that he had paranoid delusions, psychosis and schizophrenia. Relatives noted a long line of severe mental illness in the family. But doctors for the prosecution argued Riles was faking, and the jury rejected the insanity defense.

    So, when jurors were weighing Riles’ sentence, they were only tasked with deciding whether the murder was deliberate and if Riles would likely be a future danger. They decided he was, so he was sentenced to death.

    Starting in 1989, death penalty juries were also required to consider mitigating evidence, like a mental illness, that may sway jurors to instead opt for the lesser punishment of life in prison. Because Riles’ jury was not given that instruction, the Court of Criminal Appeals said Wednesday his death sentence could no longer stand.

    “The mental health evidence that [Riles] presented at his trial is the type of evidence that both this Court and the Supreme Court have come to regard as the kind of ‘two-edged’ mitigating evidence calling for a separate, mitigation focused jury instruction,” the judges wrote in their ruling. “[Riles’] jury did not receive any such instruction.”

    Riles’ attorneys took his case back to the courts after the Texas high court tossed the death sentence of Cesar Fierro in 2019 for the same reason. Fierro, who had also been on death row for four decades for the murder of a taxi driver, was released on parole last year after the El Paso District Attorney decided not to again the seek death penalty.

    Judge Michelle Slaughter, joined by Judges Bert Richardson and Kevin Yeary, disagreed with the majority of the court Wednesday, questioning if Riles had the mental capacity to consent to the legal argument and if he would be better served by staying on Texas’ death row.

    “If he is released on parole, his mental illness could result in homelessness and/or joblessness,” Slaughter wrote.

    “It seems at least plausible that significant changes to his environment and surroundings may cause further deterioration of his mental health status,” she added.

    Jim Marcus, Riles’ other attorney, said Wednesday that Riles would be able to either find care outside of prison, if resentenced to life and released on parole or in a prison setting outside of death row, where inmates are kept in solitary confinement.

    “All of the options available inside or outside the prison are better suited for somebody with severe mental illness than solitary confinement on Texas’ death row,” he said.

    The Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday also vacated the death sentence of Humberto Garza, who was found guilty of killing six men in Hidalgo County in 2003. Garza argued, and the court agreed, that his lawyers at trial were ineffective because they did not present or investigate potential mitigating evidence, such as a childhood surrounded by drugs and violence.

    https://www.texastribune.org/2021/04...death-penalty/
    "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

  3. #13
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Raymond Riles, Who Spent 45 Years On Texas’ Death Row, Resentenced To Life In Prison

    By CBSDFW

    The longest serving death row inmate in the U.S. was resentenced to life in prison on Wednesday, June 9 after prosecutors in Texas concluded the 71-year-old man is ineligible for execution and incompetent for retrial due to his long history of mental illness.

    Raymond Riles has spent more than 45 years on death row for fatally shooting John Thomas Henry in 1974 at a Houston car lot following a disagreement over a vehicle. He is the country’s longest serving death row prisoner, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

    Riles was resentenced after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled in April that his “death sentence can no longer stand” because jurors did not properly consider his history of mental illness.

    Riles attended his resentencing by Zoom from the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, which houses the state’s death row inmates. He said very little during the court hearing.

    Riles’ attorneys asked that he appear via Zoom because they were concerned his various health issues, including severe mental illness, heart disease and ongoing recovery from prostate cancer, make him susceptible to contracting COVID-19.

    Several members of Henry’s family took part in the virtual court hearing but did not make any statement before state District Judge Ana Martinez resentenced Riles to life in prison.

    “We express our condolences to the family of Mr. Henry (who) we know have suffered an unimaginable loss. We are profoundly sorry for that,” said Jim Marcus, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and one of Riles’ attorneys.

    In a statement, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said Riles is incompetent and “therefore can’t be executed.”

    “We will never forget John Henry, who was murdered so many years ago by Riles, and we believe justice would best be served by Riles spending the remainder of his life in custody of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,” Ogg said.

    During his time on death row, Riles has been treated with heavy antipsychotic medications but was never deemed mentally competent to be executed, according to prosecutors and his attorneys.

    He had been scheduled for execution in 1986 but got a stay due to competency issues.

    While Riles spent more than 45 years on death row in Texas, prisoners in the U.S. typically spend more than a decade awaiting execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

    Martinez was not able to resentence Riles to life in prison without parole because it was not an option under state law at the time of his conviction.

    Riles’ new sentence means he is immediately eligible for parole. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles will automatically conduct a parole review in his case, Marcus said.

    The district attorney’s office as well as Henry’s family have indicated they will fight any efforts to have Riles released on parole.

    “Mr. Riles is in very poor health but, if the Board of Pardons and Paroles sees fit to grant parole, he has family with the capacity to care for him,” Marcus said.

    A co-defendant in the case, Herbert Washington, was also sentenced to death, but his sentence was overturned, and he later pleaded guilty to two related charges. He was paroled in 1983.

    When Riles was tried, state law did not expect jurors to consider mitigating evidence such as mental illness when deciding whether to choose the death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that Texas jury instructions were unconstitutional because they didn’t allow appropriate consideration of intellectual disability, mental illness or other issues as mitigating evidence in the punishment phase of a capital murder trial.

    But Riles’ case remained in limbo because lower courts failed to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision until at least 2007, according to his attorneys.

    That then gave Riles a realistic chance to prevail on this legal issue, but it wasn’t until recently that he had contact with attorneys who were willing to assist him, his lawyers said.

    While prosecutors argued at Riles’ trial that he was not mentally ill, several psychiatrists and psychologists testified for the defense that he was psychotic and suffered from schizophrenia. Riles’ brother testified that his “mind is not normal like other people. He is not thinking like other people.”

    While the Supreme Court has prohibited the death penalty for individuals who are intellectually disabled, it has not barred such punishment for those with serious mental illness, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

    In 2019, the Texas Legislature considered a bill that would have prohibited the death penalty for someone with severe mental illness.

    The legislation did not pass.

    https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2021/06/09/...d-life-prison/
    "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

  4. #14
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Sentence reduced to life on 6/16/21.

    https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/death_row...ger_on_dr.html
    "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

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