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Thread: Johnny R. Anderson - Texas Execution - May 17, 1990

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    Johnny R. Anderson - Texas Execution - May 17, 1990




    Summary of Offense: Convicted for the 1981 execution-style slaying of his brother-in-law.

    Victim: Ronald Goode

    Time of Death: 12:30 a.m.

    Manner of execution: Lethal Injection

    Last Meal: Three hamburgers, french fries, chocolate ice cream with nuts and iced tea

    Final Statement: "I would like to point out that I have written a statement and the Warden will give you a copy. I still proclaim I am innocent, and that’s all I have to say."

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    Appeals court denies stay of execution

    HUNTSVILLE - The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday denied a a plea by Texas death row inmate Johnny Ray Anderson, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection early Thursday.

    Anderson, 30, of Vidor, has been on death row since February 1983 for the murder of his brother-in-law, Ronald Gene Goode, 22, of Kountze. Authorities said Anderson killed Goode in October 1981 in a scheme to collect $67,000 in insurance money.

    "We're still working on it," said his attorney, Louis Dugas of Orange. "We're trying to get a stay in the state court now.' Dugas said he based the appeal on claims that Anderson suffers from mental retardation, an abusive childhood history and the fact he sniffed gasoline and glue since he was a small child.

    Dugas had contended Anderson received ineffective counsel in his 1983 trial, and that jurors did not know Anderson suffered from a personality disorder and abused inhalants since he was a child.

    http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/ar...id=1990_703631

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    Ex-mechanic awaits death by injection

    HUNTSVILLE - A former Vidor auto mechanic was awaiting death by injection late Wednesday for the 1981 execution-style slaying of his brother-in-law.

    Johnny Ray Anderson's appeals were turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday evening. He was sentenced to death for plotting with his sister and a friend to kill Ronald Gene Goode, 22, a Kountze soft drink salesman.

    Records indicate they had agreed to share a $67,000 insurance policy.

    Anderson's mother, Rowena, was acquitted of murder charges in the murder-for-hire scheme.

    Prison officials said Anderson, 30, who dropped out of school in the sixth grade, had an IQ of 70 and a history of sniffing glue and gasoline - "appeared to take it pretty hard" when told the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had rejected his plea.

    Anderson's attorney, Louis Dugas Jr. of Orange, then took the condemned man's appeal to the nation's highest court.

    Earlier in the week, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also refused to postpone the execution.

    Anderson contended his death sentence was unconstitutional because jurors did not consider his retardation.

    Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ordered the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to reconsider a similar case involving another condemned inmate, John Henry Selvage. Anderson's appeal was based on that case, said Assistant Attorney General Bob Walt.

    Anderson's sister and Goode's wife, Laura Lee Anderson Goode, was also convicted of capital murder and given a life sentence.

    A former neighbor of the Andersons, Delvin Johnson, pleaded guilty to murder and received a 50-year sentence for helping Anderson lure Goode to an isolated, wooded area north of Beaumont. Goode was shot at least three times with a rifle and shotgun.

    Johnson and Laura Anderson Goode have been released from prison.

    Anderson's mother visited him for a few hours Wednesday afternoon.

    During a rehearing on his 1983 conviction, a psychiatrist testified that Anderson was not very smart but could not be considered insane just because he claimed to have had conversations with God. The psychiatrist noted that many people in East Texas say they have conversations and close relationships with God.

    In 1984, prison officials said, Anderson was involved in the stabbing of another death row inmate, who was attacked with a piece of fan during an argument over which television show would be viewed.

    Before his capital conviction, Anderson was placed on eight years'probation after being convicted of burglary in 1978.

    Anderson would be the 35th Texas inmate executed since the state resumed executions in 1982. No other state has executed more.

    http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/ar...id=1990_704037

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    Claims of mental impairment appear to be losing ground

    HUNTSVILLE - The execution of a Vidor man Thursday may indicate the Supreme Court is restricting the number of inmates who can use mental impairment as an excuse to postpone their deaths, Attorney General Jim Mattox said.

    Johnny Ray Anderson, a 30-year-old former auto mechanic from Vidor, died about 12:30 a.m. Thursday after receiving a lethal injection for the 1981 execution-style slaying of his brother-in-law, 22-year-old Ronald Gene Goode of Kountze.

    Goode was killed in a scheme to cash in on his $67,000 life insurance policy, but authorities said the policy had expired for non-payment of premiums a week before the shooting.

    Anderson's attorney, Larry Dugas of Orange, had claimed Anderson's death sentence was unconstitutional because jurors had not considered his mental retardation as a factor in sentencing him.

    Last summer, the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of another mentally retarded inmate, Johnny Paul Penry, saying jurors in that case should have been instructed that his retardation might be sufficient to mitigate against imposition of the death penalty.

    Since the Penry decision, several other executions have been postponed, apparently while the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decides in two other cases whether inmates should be barred from raising Penry-type claims on appeal if they were not raised at trial.

    "The Supreme Court appears to be limiting the pervasiveness of the Penry decision," Mattox said, acknowledging that Anderson's execution had caught his office by surprise, since it had expected the state appeals court to postpone his execution.

    Dugas agreed that his client's death signals a change in the courts' attitude - one that does not bode well for other death row prisoners.

    "I think it's a signal that we're going to be executing a lot more people before they've been through the federal system," he said, noting that traditionally Texas prisoners have been granted a stay their first time through the appellate process.

    "If the defense community thinks it is entitled to an automatic stay even on first trip through, they're deluding themselves," said Assistant Attorney General Bob Walt.

    Walt said he hopes defense attorneys and prosecutors will begin cooperating more than they have in the past "so the process is less haphazard.' Anderson, who had an IQ of about 70 and had been sniffing glue and gasoline fumes since he was 5 years old, was the second Texas prisoner to be executed this year and the 35th since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982.

    Mattox said the next most likely executions could be those of Cesar Fierro, 33, a Mexican national convicted the 1979 murder of Nicolas Castanon, an El Paso taxi cab driver, and Edward A. Ellis, 36, convicted of the 1983 robbery-murder of 74-year-old Bertie Elizabeth Eakens of Houston.

    Anderson maintained his innocence until the end, and in a lengthy, written final statement he left with prison officials, he said, "I just want the public to know that I am not guilty of this crime and am being used as excape goat (sic), and all the people that were suppose to be involved in this case are out in the free world.'

    http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/ar...id=1990_704368

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