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Thread: Christopher Chubasco Wilkins - Texas Execution - January 11, 2017

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    Christopher Chubasco Wilkins - Texas Execution - January 11, 2017


    Willie Ladell Freeman, Mike Silva, 33, and Gilbert Vallejo, 47




    Summary of Offense:

    A jury convicted Wilkins of capital murder for fatally shooting Willie Freeman and Mike Silva on October 27, 2005. A day earlier, according to prosecutors and to Wilkins himself, he killed Gilbert Vallejo outside a south-side bar during a dispute about the pay phone. "I make bad decisions," Wilkins explained. "I know they are bad decisions. I make them anyway."

    Wilkins told the jury that he disapproved of many things that occurred during his trial. First, he said, he wanted to plead guilty to everything and just go straight to the penalty phase, but his attorneys, Wes Ball and J. Warren St. John, wanted to "bill up a whole bunch of hours," he joked. Second, he said, he did not want his family to testify on his behalf -- something that his attorneys arranged because they wanted the jury to hear what Wilkins was like when he was a child and young man.

    Wilkins was sentenced to death in Tarrant County on March 12, 2008.

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    March 12, 2008

    FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A man convicted of capital murder told jurors deciding his fate Tuesday that he killed three people and he didn't care whether he lived or died.

    "I am as undecided as you are," Christopher Chubasco Wilkins, 39, told the jurors. "You've got a job to do. You tell the judge 'Get a rope' or not. ... Look, it is no big deal. It is no big deal."

    The jurors, who convicted Wilkins last week of killing Willie Freeman and Mike Silva on Oct. 27, 2005, returned a death sentence for him after about 90 minutes of deliberation.

    Several of the jurors cried as the judge announced their verdict, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in its online edition. Wilkins mouthed the words "It is OK. It is OK" to them.

    As he took the stand to testify, Wilkins told jurors that he killed Freeman out of revenge over a drug deal. He said Silva was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He also said he killed Gilbert Vallejo because he made him mad. Vallejo died outside a bar during a dispute about a pay phone on Oct. 26, 2005.

    Wilkins told jurors he had wanted to plead guilty and go straight to the penalty phase but that his attorneys objected. He said he hadn't wanted his family to be called to testify on his behalf about his childhood.

    "They sprung that charade on me, just like they did you," Wilkins said. "I'm more than a little upset about that."

    He thanked the prosecutor for not cross-examining the family members who begged for his life to be spared.

    Wilkins told jurors he wasn't mentally ill and that his crimes couldn't be blamed on his drug use.

    "You can consider drugs if you want to," Wilkins said. "But I wouldn't put too much weight on that. When I get wound up, I have a fuse that is short. I don't think about what I am doing. I don't care."

    Wilkins was sent from a federal prison in California to a halfway house in Beaumont in 2005. When Hurricane Rita struck, he was sent to a Houston halfway house. He said he got a day pass and went to his ex-girlfriend's house to try to see his three children.

    When that didn't work out, he went to a strip club and later stole a truck and drove to Fort Worth.

    After his arrest, Wilkins said he started trying to figure a way to break free. He falsely confessed to killings across the country in hopes that police would take him out of jail and he could escape.

    When asked by a defense attorney whether he wanted to die, Wilkins paused.

    "I guess, subconsciously, I've been trying to get myself killed since I was 12 or 13 years old," Wilkins said. "I don't have nothing to live for. I haven't been any good to anybody for the last 20 years and I won't be for the next 20 or the 20 after that."

    Asked by prosecutors if he was going to change from being a bad man, Wilkins replied, "I believe it's a little late."

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    The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the conviction on direct appeal for Wilkins in today's orders/opinions.

    Opinion is here:

    http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/OP...PINIONID=20239

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Wilkins' post-conviction application for writ of habeas corpus in today's orders.

    Opinion here

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    On February 7, 2011, Wilkins filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/tex...v00072/203021/

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Wilkins' petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis DENIED. This was an appeal of the TCCA's upholding Wilkins' sentence on direct appeal.

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On April 9, 2013, Wilkins filed an appeal in the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals over the denial of his habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir.../ca5/13-70014/

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals held a special hearing regarding Wilkins' appeal. Keep an eye out for the opinion.

    http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/clerk/ca...3/13-70014.htm

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    Moderator MRBAM's Avatar
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    FFM, Can you summarize the arguments? Is this just the normal 5th CCA appeal? or something "special"?

  10. #10
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    Today, the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals denied Wilkins a COA:

    https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinion...13-70014.0.pdf

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