"It’s unclear whether Terry Edwards, who was executed on Thursday night after
the Supreme Court denied his last-minute appeal, fired the weapon that
killed Tommy Walker and Mickell Goodwin at a Dallas area Subway in 2002. What’s clear are a number of facts. He was involved in a
robbery with his cousin Kirk Edwards that led to the murders. The
prosecutor in his case used a blatantly false piece of
forensic evidence to help convince a jury that Terry was the triggerman
and not his cousin as Terry claimed. That same prosecutor had used the
exact same false argument to help convict a man for murder named Richard
Miles who was later exonerated. What seems likely is that the state violated Terry Edwards’
constitutional rights when it struck every single black person in the
pool of prospective jurors. What is clear is that appellate attorneys found a prosecutor
list of the names of 32 jurors with the letter “B” written next to
them. It’s also clear that the Supreme Court ruled in May that a Georgia
scheme where prosecutors labeled black jurors with a “B” and then
systematically struck them was ruled a blatant violation of the 14th Amendment. What’s unclear in this case is whether or not “B” meant
“black.” Court files had gone missing. Appellate attorneys needed more
time to determine whether or not these jurors were struck because they
were labeled as black, which would appear to be a violation of Edwards’
rights under the Equal Protection Clause. Considering the lack of
clarity in this case and the further need to investigate basic
questions, the Dallas Morning News called on the state to stay the execution,
arguing “Texas cannot afford to execute Terry Edwards on Thursday.” But
that’s just what Texas did after the justice system and
the Supreme Court decided that these questions were not worth
answering."
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/27/texas_executed_terry_edwards_thursday_night_shame.html