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Thread: Warren Darrell Rivers - Texas Death Row

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    Warren Darrell Rivers - Texas Death Row


    Carl Nance, Jr., 11








    Facts of the Crime:

    Warren Rivers was convicted of the May 1987 sexual assault and stabbing death of 11-year-old Carl Nance, Jr. in Houston. Nance was lured to an abandoned house where he was sexually assaulted and then beaten and sexually mutilated with a broomstick. The boy was stabbed four times in the back and chest with a knife. Rivers was arrested after people told police they saw him with the boy before the killing. Rivers later confessed to the crime.

    Rivers was sentenced to death in Harris County in December 1988.

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    The Fifth Circuit upheld an order for a new sentencing trial for Rivers due to Penry. They refused to grant him a new trial based on conviction.

    Opinon is here:

    http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions...0031.0.wpd.pdf

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Court orders new sentencing trial for Texas killer

    HOUSTON — A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court's ruling ordering a new sentencing trial for a Houston man on death row for raping and killing an 11-year-old boy in 1987.

    The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled late Thursday that jurors weren't given sufficient instructions on how or whether to consider mitigating circumstances — such as mental impairment or a difficult childhood — before they deliberated the sentence of 43-year-old Warren Darrell Rivers. It did not overturn Rivers' capital murder conviction, as Rivers' attorneys had hoped it would.

    Rivers' trial was held during a time when trial rules for Texas capital cases were evolving, particularly in the area of mitigation evidence and how it should be applied to punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court has visited the issue several times, refining trial procedures through their rulings, and several cases of that era have been returned to trial courts for new punishment hearings.

    State lawyers argued unsuccessfully that the jury instructions in Rivers' case amounted to harmless error because of ample evidence of Rivers' propensity for violence and the horrific facts of the slaying.

    Rivers' attorneys had asked the appeals court to overturn his conviction. They argued that Rivers, who is black, was convicted in 1988 by an all-white jury, and that prosecutors improperly used peremptory strikes during jury selection to remove three potential jurors because they were black.

    The appeals court, however, said Rivers doesn't contend race was an issue in the case and that most of the participants in the case are black, including the victim.

    Prosecutors say Rivers lured Carl Nance Jr. to an abandoned house a few miles south of downtown Houston on May, 3, 1987, while the boy was running an errand for his mother. They say Rivers beat Nance, sexually abused him and stabbed him in the heart and back, killing him. The boy's body was found in the house the next day.

    Rivers, who was 20 at the time, was arrested days later. He told detectives the boy went with him voluntarily for sex, and that he attacked the boy with the knife after falling asleep and waking from a nightmare about being chased.

    Huntsville attorney John Wright, one of Rivers' attorneys, said Friday that he might appeal the new ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to get the conviction tossed.

    "I don't know exactly what the tactic is going to be," he said.

    The Texas Attorney General's Office, which handles Texas death penalty cases in the federal courts, also may appeal the sentencing ruling to the high court.

    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/7142756.html

  4. #4
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    Mr Rivers was one of the people evaluated by Dr George Denkowski for mental retardation.

    http://www.texastribune.org/texas-de...penalty-cases/

  5. #5
    Rivers' death sentence was overturned in 2010. Not sure what the status is on this case. Anybody know?

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    As of October 25, 2013, the Harris County District Attorney has the intention of seeking a new death sentence for Rivers.

    http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news...es-4927418.php

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    KILLER OF 11-YEAR-OLD BOY IN 1987 GETS SECOND CHANCE AT LIFE

    By Kevin Quinn
    KTRK

    HOUSTON -- More than 27 years after the heinous rape and murder of an 11-year-old boy, the man convicted and sentenced to die for the crime gets another shot at life.

    Warren Rivers has been on death row ever since his conviction in 1988 for the murder of Carl Nance, Jr. Evidence showed the boy was lured into an abandoned house south of downtown on May 3, 1987, beaten, sexually mutilated and stabbed. Nance's body was found in the house the next day.

    The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2010 that jurors weren't given proper instructions on how or whether to consider mitigating circumstances such as mental impairment or a difficult childhood before deliberating the sentence previously given to Rivers.

    "I had to forgive him but he had to pay for what he done, because he tortured and brutalized my baby, for no reason," says Claudette Nance, the victim's mother.

    She says she will be in the courtroom every day throughout this punishment phase of trial again, not as a tribute to her son, but in an effort to ensure Rivers is again sentenced to death. She says that's the only way to ensure he doesn't hurt any other children.

    River's defense team is calling witnesses who are speaking about his mental capacity and his poor and troubled upbringing. They are hoping this will help convince jurors to spare his life.

    http://abc13.com/news/boys-killer-ge...enalty/390577/
    "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."
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    "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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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Warren Darrell Rivers, 47, was convicted in 1987 for the killing of Carl Nance Jr., an 11-year-old boy found beaten, stabbed and abused with a broken broomstick. His case was returned on appeal for a new sentencing phase. Courtesy of Harris County Sheriff’s Office


    New jury returns Harris County man to death chamber for 1987 slaying

    Harris County jurors spent an hour, almost three decades ago, deciding Warren Darrell Rivers should die by lethal injection for torturing and killing a young boy.

    Earlier this week a different group of jurors made the same conclusion.

    Rivers, now 47, was one of dozens of inmates across the country whose cases were reversed when the Supreme Court ruled jurors should consider mitigation evidence in the punishment phase of death penalty trials.

    They are commonly called "Penry cases," for Johnny Paul Penry, a capital murder defendant whose case twice went to the U.S. Supreme Court, the second time for flawed jury instructions.

    The landmark Penry cases brought almost 20 cases back to Harris County, which have slowly wound their way through the retrial process.

    Harris County Assistant District Attorney Lance Long said the Harris County District Attorney's Office had made a decision not to retry some of the cases affected by the Penry decision, but not Rivers.

    It was one of two capital cases involving child sex assault and murder Long has tried, he said.

    "These are always pretty hard to bear... this is certainly one of the worst," said Long, who has had to retry two other cases along with Rivers'.

    Of approximately 16 or 17 cases the Harris County District Attorney's Office was ordered to retry, just a few remain, he said.

    Rivers was convicted in the May 1987 slaying of 11-year-old Carl Nance Jr. Testimony from that trial in 1988 showed Carl had ridden his bicycle to a neighborhood store to run an errand for his mother.

    The boy's stabbed, sodomized and beaten body was discovered in a vacant house the next day, according to news reports from the time.

    Rivers was arrested just days later, and eventually admitted to homicide investigators that he killed the boy.

    Long said that in addition to the evidence presented in the original trial, prosecutors showed he had written stories in journals since being incarcerated about rape, murder and sadism. Additionally, he said Rivers also had served time as a juvenile for a separate sexual assault. The victim of that assault, now an adult, testified in the resentencing trial, he said.

    After a weekslong trial, jurors spent a little more than four hours Tuesday deciding whether to resentence Rivers to death.

    "I wasn't surprised, not given the brutality of the crime," Long said.

    Kurt Wentz, who has represented Rivers since shortly after his original trial wrapped up in 1988, called the jurors' decision "extremely disappointing," explaining that there had been "overwhelming mitigating evidence and brain damage."

    Rivers had been a victim of neglect from a young age, as well as physical abuse and sexual abuse, he said.

    "And [of] equal significance, neglect, abuse, have now been realized to cause brain abnormalities, which was evident in Mr. Rivers' case," Wentz said. "Coupled with head trauma, this resulted in Mr. Rivers having a brain injury that was noted in various medical imaging processes."

    Wentz said he had hoped Rivers would receive a life sentence.

    http://www.chron.com/news/houston-te...th-5909491.php
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  9. #9
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    Conviction and death sentence affirmed, again.

    http://search.txcourts.gov/SearchMed...8-19b00d51dfa5

  10. #10
    Senior Member CnCP Addict one_two_bomb's Avatar
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    Great news, now the question is will harris county's liberal anti-dp DA seek a death warrant for him after his federal appeals are exhausted.

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