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Thread: Mark Anthony Soliz - Texas Execution - September 10, 2019

  1. #21
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    Closing arguments set this morning for sentencing in Soliz capital murder case

    Jurors are expected to begin deliberating by noon whether to hand convicted killer Mark Anthony Soliz a death sentence or life in prison without parole.

    The courtroom began to fill up as early as 8:30 a.m. with family and friends of Soliz's victims.

    Soliz was convicted two weeks ago of capital murder in the fatal shooting of Nancy Weatherly, 61, of Godley, during a robbery on June 29, 2010 of her rural home. He also is facing a capital murder charge in the death of beer deliveryman Ruben Martinez, who was shot during a robbery earlier the same day as Weatherly and died 13 days later.

    Among those in the audience are Weatherly's son, Ben Davis, his wife, Kila, and their two grandsons, Riley and Rhett. The two grandsons testified Thursday about their "fun-loving" Granny who would do anything for their family.

    Also in the audience is Martinez's parents and his widow, Lisa Martinez, who testified Thursday about her husband's love for his family. They had one 7-year-old son and Lisa Martinez was 8 months pregnant when he died.

    The jury in state District Judge William Bosworth's court is set to hear closing arguments Friday morning and then begin deliberating his sentence. It took the jury only 10 minutes to convicted him of capital murder.

    UPDATE: 10:15 a.m.

    CLEBURNE - Prosecutor Christy Jack urged jurors to hand convicted killer Mark Anthony Soliz, saying he's a constant danger to society.

    "As long as he is breathing, he's a danger," she said.

    UPDATE: 9:35 a.m.

    CLEBURNE - Convicted killer Mark Anthony Soliz is a "coward" and a "bully with a gun"" who should be sentenced to death for his shooting of a 61-year-old Godley woman during a 2010 robbery of her rural home, a prosecutor told jurors during closing arguments.

    Prosecutor Larry Chambless told jurors that Soliz's learning disabilities and "chaotic, horrible childhood" did not absolve him of responsibility in the shooting of Weatherly during an 8-day crime spree that stretched across two counties.

    "He ... at all times knew right from wrong, and he had his choices," Chambless said.

    "Mark Soliz at every significant moment knew what he did, knew what he was doing, and he made his choices."

    The jury is expected to begin deliberating punishment this morning.

    As the much-maligned mother of convicted killer Mark Anthony Soliz looked on, defense attorney Greg Westfall blamed her excessive drinking, paint-sniffing and prostitution for producing a damaged son who ended up as a killer.

    Westfall, during closing arguments, told jurors that Donna Soliz would kick her son out of their only bed so she could make money for crack cocaine.

    "She needed to make money for crack, which she obviously loved more than him," Westfall said.

    Soliz is facing a possible death penalty in the death of Nancy Weatherly, 61, of Godley. But Westfall and defense attorney Mike Heiskell have urged jurors to consider life in prison without parole, saying that Soliz has brain damage from partial fetal alcohol syndrome.

    The appearance of Donna Soliz for closing arguments in the punishment phase of the trial apparently marked the first time she has been in court for her son's four-week-long capital murder trial. He was convicted two weeks ago.

    The jury is expected to begin deliberating his punishment by about noon.

    UPDATE: 10:45 a.m.

    CLEBURNE - Defense attorney Mike Heiskell urged jurors to consider "humanity" in deciding whether convicted killer Mark Anthony Soliz lives or dies.

    "We're asking you to look at facts and circumstances, not excuses," he said. "He's going to die in prison."

    Soliz was convicted of capital murder in the fatal shooting of Nancy Weatherly, 61, of Godley, and is facing either the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

    The jury is expected to begin deliberating by noon.

    UPDATE: 11:50 a.m.

    CLEBURNE - Johnson County District Attorney Dale Hanna got the final word to the jury consider life or death for convicted killer Mark Anthony Soliz.

    "If this is not a death penalty case, you will never see one," he said. "The evidence is overwhelming. What happened to Ruben (Martinez) and Nancy (Weatherly) could happen to anyone."

    He urged jurors to send a message to gangs and thugs.

    "We will not tolerate this," he said.

    UPDATE: Noon

    CLEBURNE - The jury has left the courtroom to begin deliberating whether to hand convicted killer Mark Anthony Soliz the death penalty or life in prison in the fatal shooting of Nancy Weatherly of Godley.

    UPDATE: 12:50 p.m.

    CLEBURNE - The jury deliberating the fate of convicted killer Mark Anthony Soliz has asked to see copies of three letters that Soliz wrote from jail.

    The letters include one to a girlfriend that begins, "Hey, Sexy," and asks her to "kick some a**" for him. Another is to a girlfriend where he promises to get some money to her.

    The third letter is written to a woman missionary, asking if she is married and if she will send him information so he can learn about God. The jury was not told that the woman was a member of the panel of potential jurors, and that Soliz apparently got her address by memorizing details from papers being used by his defense attorneys.

    The jury began deliberating shortly after noon on whether to give Soliz a death sentence or life in prison without parole in the fatal shooting of Nancy Weatherly, 61, of Godley.

    http://blogs.star-telegram.com/crime...#storylink=cpy
    Last edited by Jan; 03-23-2012 at 12:57 PM.

  2. #22
    Jan
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    Convicted killer Soliz sentenced to death in slaying of Godley woman

    CLEBURNE - A Johnson County jury deliberated just one hour before sentencing convicted killer Mark Anthony Soliz to death for the fatal shooting of a 61-year-old Godley grandmother during a 2010 robbery of her rural home.

    The six-man, six-woman jury heard four weeks of testimony about the eight-day crime spree that ended with Nancy Weatherly's shooting. A Fort Worth beer deliveryman, Ruben Martinez, was also killed earlier the same day as Weatherly, and three others were shot.

    The spree involved at least 13 offenses and stretched across two counties.

    http://blogs.star-telegram.com/crime...#storylink=cpy

  3. #23
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Should killer with fetal alcohol syndrome be executed?

    Now, with Soliz sitting on Texas Death Row awaiting an execution date, the long-ago failings of his mother could hold the key to sparing his life.

    Soliz's appeal of his capital murder conviction in the death of a Godley grandmother has joined a growing list of cases nationwide seeking to exclude the death penalty for defendants with fetal alcohol syndrome, a form of brain damage caused by maternal alcohol abuse.

    Experts say the death penalty should be off the table in such cases, just as the U.S. Supreme Court has abolished the death penalty for defendants with mental retardation.

    Prosecutors and victims advocates, however, say it's a guise for going easy on killers who show no such mercy to their victims.

    "FAS should not be used as an excuse for intentionally and knowingly murdering another person," said Andy Kahan, a victims-rights advocate in Houston.

    "Clearly, the defendant has been able to make law-abiding decisions on a daily basis, and they obviously know right from wrong. FAS is yet another hurdle for surviving family members of homicide to overcome to secure justice for the coldblooded murder of their loved ones."

    The Soliz case is one of at least two in Texas seeking a permanent reprieve from the death penalty through the appeals courts.

    Texas Death Row inmate Yokamon Laneal Hearn, who has also been diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome, is set for execution July 18 in the shooting of a Plano stockbroker during a robbery.

    Hearn's case has drawn the attention of Amnesty International, which is urging a letter-writing campaign for clemency to Gov. Rick Perry. Soliz's case is just beginning its trek through the appeals process after his conviction in March by a Johnson County jury.

    Defining disabilities

    Soliz, Hearn and others are pinning their hopes on the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the case of Daryl Atkins, who was convicted in Virginia in the 1996 fatal shooting of an airman from Langley Air Force Base.

    Atkins was 18 at the time, and with an IQ of 59, he was considered mentally retarded. He received the death penalty.

    But in a groundbreaking decision in the Atkins case in 2002, the Supreme Court held that executing a person who is mentally retarded violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

    The deficiencies associated with mental retardation, the court concluded, reduce a person's culpability in the crime.

    Experts say the same rules should apply to people with fetal alcohol syndrome.

    Those people have the same diminished capacities as those with mental retardation, they say, even though their IQs may test somewhat higher than the 70-75 range typically used to define mental retardation.

    "The damage to the executive functioning of the brain is as severe as someone who is intellectually disabled," said John Niland, director of the Capital Trial Project with the Texas Defender Service, a nonprofit law firm in Houston and Austin that also provides training and consultation for attorneys in death penalty cases. "I don't think we've been aware of it long enough to identify all of the cases."

    The U.S. Supreme Court has already rejected a request to review a fetal alcohol case involving Louisiana Death Row inmate Brandy Holmes, who was named after her mother's favorite liquor. But death penalty opponents say that does not rule out that other fetal alcohol cases could be considered by the nation's highest court.

    Johnson County District Attorney Dale Hanna, who participated in the Soliz trial, said that fetal alcohol symptoms can vary widely and that such defendants should not be excluded outright from the death penalty.

    "It's certainly something a jury can consider," Hanna said, "but in the Soliz case, it didn't go very far."

    A trail of trouble


    Soliz had been out of prison just a few months when he knocked on the front door of Nancy Weatherly's home in Godley, south of Fort Worth, on June 29, 2010. He was on the eighth day of a drug-fueled crime spree that had left one man dead and two others wounded in Tarrant County, and he had headed south to Johnson County with an accomplice to find more victims.

    He ignored Weatherly's pleas for mercy and shot her in the head, then laughed later at her accent, according to evidence presented at trial.

    Even his gang friends on Fort Worth's north side thought he was "sick mentally" and they were "scared to be around him," an ex-girlfriend testified.

    Soliz had been in trouble with the law since he was caught stealing at age 8, and by age 10 he was in a psychiatric hospital, reportedly "hearing voices telling him to kill people." The arrests and convictions began to pile up as soon as he hit the adult legal system -- for thefts, burglary, evading arrest.

    The psychologists, social workers and probation officers who testified at his trial said it was one of the worst cases of childhood neglect and abandonment they had ever seen.

    His mother, Donna Soliz, spent most of her pregnancy drinking and doing drugs, including hours sniffing paint on the porch, family members testified. The neglect continued after Soliz was born, and he was left to wander the neighborhood alone as young as age 4.

    Despite efforts to get child welfare officials involved, he remained in the home, where he sometimes was pushed out of the only bed so his mother could work as a prostitute to pay for her drug habit.

    "His upbringing, his environment -- I have never seen a worse set of factors," said Dr. Natalie Novick Brown, a forensic psychologist with Seattle-based FASD Experts and one of several who testified for the defense in Soliz's capital murder trial. "Virtually everything that could have gone wrong in the way that man was raised did go wrong, and it went wrong horribly."

    Attorney Mike Heiskell, who defended Soliz with attorney Greg Westfall, said Donna Soliz was "vilified" during testimony, but she did not take the stand to testify in her son's behalf. "She was very emotionally distraught, guilt-ridden about this whole matter," Heiskell said.

    Soliz, now 30, was diagnosed with "partial" fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, meaning he does not have all the overt facial abnormalities found in severe cases.

    Soliz has the narrow, close-set eyes typical of the syndrome, but he does not have a flat upper lip and flattened area between the nose and lips that can also be found, Dr. Richard Adler, a physician with FASD Experts, told jurors. The flattened features appear more evident in the few photos taken of him as a child, however, and they may have faded as he grew older, Adler said.

    But experts testified that Soliz exhibited all the behaviors typical of someone who endured heavy alcohol exposure before birth -- diminished ability to process information, to learn from experiences, to control impulses and to understand the reactions of others. Those deficiencies are the same ones cited by the Supreme Court in ruling the death penalty unconstitutional for those who are mentally retarded.

    "The person with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is highly gullible," said Dr. Stephen Greenspan, a widely recognized expert on mental retardation who has been involved in the Hearn case. "Someone says, 'Hey, let's go kill someone,' and the person with fetal alcohol syndrome says, 'Yeah, sure, whatever you want.'

    "I'm not saying they shouldn't be punished, but as a humane society, we've always taken into account mitigating factors, and having a damaged brain caused by the fact that your mother drank while she was pregnant should be a mitigating factor," Greenspan said.

    Soliz's appellate attorney, John Stickels of Arlington, has petitioned the trial judge for a new trial, but his request was not approved.

    People with fetal alcohol disorder do well in highly structured environments such as prison, experts say, and could serve a life sentence without serious incident.

    Records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, however, indicate that Hearn has had eight incidents in the past seven years, including repeated masturbation in front of guards and refusal to comply with requests. Soliz had two incidents in the first month after he arrived on Death Row, including masturbation and refusal to comply with orders. The incidents for both were classified as the lowest level of violation, and none was violent.

    Request for clemency

    Hearn was within 15 minutes of being executed in 2004 when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals halted his execution to allow him to pursue his claim that he is mentally retarded because of fetal alcohol syndrome.

    He was convicted of capital murder in Dallas County in the 1998 fatal shooting of 23-year-old stockbroker Joseph Franklin Meziere during a carjacking. Meziere had stopped at a coin-operated carwash to clean his black Mustang convertible when Hearn and three accomplices moved in with guns.

    They abducted Meziere and took him to a remote location, where they shot him 12 times in the head and upper body, according to the Criminal Justice Department website. They then took his wallet and other personal items and fled in his vehicle.

    Hearn later bragged about the killing. "He was trying to make himself look ... like a big person ... [He] was talking loud, walking around, smiling," according to a witness quoted in court documents.

    His appellate attorneys, Richard Burr of Leggett and Naomi Terr of Houston, filed a petition last month asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. They have also petitioned the State Board of Pardons and Paroles, asking it to recommend to the governor that Hearn be granted clemency and that his sentence be commuted to life. Amnesty International has launched its own letter-writing campaign.

    Court documents detail a harsh childhood similar to the one experienced by Soliz. Hearn's mother, Susan Johnson, told authorities that she was introduced to alcohol at age 4 by her father and began regularly using it at age 7. By age 10, she was using marijuana as well.

    She became pregnant with Hearn as a teenager. She told authorities she "drank heavily" during pregnancy and routinely passed out. She also had mental illness and was hospitalized repeatedly. At times, she was homeless.

    Hearn's father was a man she met while she was married to someone else. He was twice convicted of rape and served prison time and was likely mentally retarded himself, according to the petition. Hearn's mother described him as a "drug-abuser" and "violent."

    For a time, the father, now dead, would take his son on weekends but the mother stopped those visits when she learned he was living in a car.

    Hearn, now 33, has been diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome, and his attorneys say factors other than IQ scores should be considered when determining mental retardation.

    Then-Dallas County prosecutor Jason January, who now has a private law practice, said he saw no evidence that Hearn was mentally challenged.

    "I don't blame the lawyers for trying anything they can think of," January said. "Having sat with him in trial for months, I didn't ever see any evidence of any kind of retardation or problem whatsoever."

    Hearn repeatedly failed in school and finally dropped out in the 10th grade. He had a history of criminal behavior, with convictions for theft, burglary, arson, sexual assault and attempted murder.

    Burr said Hearn's family struggled to help the young man, who has been treated for depression and thoughts of suicide.

    "Yokamon's family loves him deeply and desperately hopes that he will not be executed," he said.

    The Texas cases are among a handful nationwide in which fetal alcohol syndrome has been raised. In the Louisiana case, the U.S. Supreme Court initially declined to hear Holmes' appeal and her petitions are working their way back through lower courts.

    Holmes was convicted of a 2003 killing in Louisiana with her boyfriend. Her mother admitted drinking heavily during pregnancy, said Tom Donaldson, president of the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, based in Washington, D.C. The organization submitted a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Holmes' arguments.

    Donaldson said the group is also working to educate the public about the syndrome and hopes to raise awareness of possible treatment for those affected by it.

    He said research indicates that as many as 40,000 children a year suffer damage from their mothers' heavy alcohol use during pregnancy.

    Ruthless killers

    Prosecutors and victims advocates say anything less than the death penalty in the Soliz and Hearn cases would be an injustice.

    Soliz committed 13 crimes over eight days, including carjackings, armed robberies, a holdup, a drive-by shooting and the fatal shooting of Ruben Martinez, a deliveryman for Ben E. Keith who happened to be unloading beer at a north-side convenience store about 6 a.m. on June 29, 2010.

    A few hours later, Weatherly was killed in her home.

    The ruthless nature of the crimes made them even more horrifying, prosecutors said.

    Soliz laughed in describing the crime to his girlfriend. Hearn bragged about the killings, at one point waving a newspaper article about the case to show his friends.

    Their mothers remain out of the picture.

    Donna Soliz surfaced briefly during her son's trial, sitting in the courtroom as her son was handed the death penalty. She appeared confused, and a bit disheveled, but wiped away tears before slipping out of the courtroom again.

    She declined an interview request from the Star-Telegram and is reportedly still hitting her same old haunts. Hearn's mother is now believed to be debilitated by her worsening mental illness.

    But victims-rights advocates say the mothers are not to blame for their children's conscious decisions to kill.

    "In most of these cases, the victim survivors are extremely reluctant to accept this as an excuse to spare them from the death penalty or any other sanction," said Dudley Sharp, a longtime victims-rights advocate based in Houston.

    "Even in extremely severe cases ... you'll have some victim survivors who think, 'Better dead than alive.'"

    http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/07...#storylink=cpy
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  4. #24
    Moderator MRBAM's Avatar
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    related.....

    Fort Worth man gets second life sentence without parole in fatal shooting of Godley grandmother

    A Fort Worth man accused of participating in the robbery and fatal shooting of a Godley grandmother has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.

    Jose "Kilo Joe" Ramos, 29, pleaded guilty to capital murder in exchange for the life sentence after reaching a plea deal with Johnson County prosecutors in the 2010 death of Nancy Weatherly, 61.

    Weatherly was killed during a two-county crime spree that also left Ben E. Keith deliveryman Ruben Martinez, 28, fatally wounded. Ramos reached a plea deal with Tarrant County prosecutors in the Martinez case and was also sentenced to life in prison without parole.

    Ramos had been facing the death sentence in both cases. Johnson County District Attorney Dale Hanna said prosecutors agreed to the deal because it was clear that co-defendant Mark Anthony Soliz was the triggerman in both cases. Soliz was handed the death penalty by a Johnson County jury.

    "We satisfied ourselves that Ramos was not the shooter; he was not the triggerman," Hanna said Monday. "We felt like life without parole was the appropriate thing to do in that case."

    http://blogs.star-telegram.com/crime...#storylink=cpy

  5. #25
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    Conviction and death sentence affirmed.

    http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/OP...PINIONID=25673
    Last edited by FFM; 06-18-2014 at 09:04 AM.

  6. #26
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Article

    Fort Worth man sent to death row for killing woman, 61, during 2010 crime spree loses appeal

    The state's highest criminal court has upheld the death sentence of a Fort Worth man convicted of killing a 61-year-old grandmother at her Johnson County home four years ago.

    Jurors deliberated about an hour in 2012 before sending Mark Anthony Soliz to death row.

    Soliz's lawyers contended there were 18 errors at his trial in Cleburne. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday rejected all of the claims.

    Evidence showed Nancy Weatherly, fatally shot during a robbery at her rural home near Godley, was one of two people he killed during an eight-day crime spree that included thefts, burglaries, a carjacking and other shootings. The murder weapon came from a Fort Worth home burglary.

    Soliz doesn't have an execution date. He still can appeal to federal courts.

    http://www.therepublic.com/view/stor...Johnson-County
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  7. #27
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    ARTICLE 11.071 APPLICATION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS DENIED WITH WRITTEN ORDER:

    http://www.search.txcourts.gov/Searc...f-20aac859aff7

  8. #28
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Wow! Both Soliz and Kwame Rockwell have had their state habeas petitions denied within six months of their direct appeals being denied. Isn't that really quick even for Texas?

  9. #29
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    Yes it is. Makes you appreciate that we have an express lane here, doesn't it?

    Oh, and as a side note, Judge Price dissented on all opinions regarding capital case decisions today. I decided to omit that from the threads today; the dissenting opinions he wrote upset me a bit, so in turn I left them out.

  10. #30
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Is Judge Price the judge who recently came out of the closet as an abolitionist?

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