"The
execution of a Texas death row inmate convicted of double murder was
delayed on Thursday after lawyers filed last-minute appeals to spare his
life, saying he was not the trigger man and his case was tainted by
prosecutorial misconduct.Terry
Edwards, 43, had been set to be put to death by lethal injection at the
state's death chamber in Huntsville at 6 p.m. But the execution was put
on hold after several motions citing what lawyers for Edwards said were
faults in previous legal proceedings were filed at the U.S. Supreme
Court. If the execution
does go ahead, it would be the 540th in Texas since the Supreme Court
reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the most of any state. Edwards
was convicted along with co-defendant Kirk Edwards, an older cousin, of
the July 2002 murders of Dallas Subway sandwich shop employees Mickell
Goodwin and Tommy Walker in a robbery. Kirk Edwards has a projected release date of July 2027, Texas Department of Criminal Justice online records showed. In
an editorial posted online on Wednesday, the Dallas Morning News said
the execution should be halted because there are too many unanswered
questions in the case. "These
questions do not paint Terry Edwards as innocent. But they do raise
uncertainties as to whether the jury was misled when it determined he
had pulled the trigger and deserved to die, it said. Lawyers
for Texas have argued that new counsel for Edwards previously tried to
halt the execution on similar grounds and his execution should go ahead
as a result of a conviction and sentencing that were legal and proper. John Mills, an attorney for Edwards, said he has evidence indicating that Edwards was not the gunman. "Previous
counsel has done virtually almost nothing to ensure that his case was
investigated and that the powerful evidence undermining the reliability
and the fairness of his conviction was brought to light," Mills said in
an interview. One
of the main pieces of evidence was gunshot residue testing, which at
trial was presented and used by prosecutors who said Terry Edwards fired
the fatal shots. In
court papers, lawyers for the death row inmate said the gunshot residue
evidence was improperly interpreted and actually show that Edwards was
not the shooter."
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-execution-idUSKBN15A1AD