FEATURED POST

Unveiling Singapore’s Death Penalty Discourse: A Critical Analysis of Public Opinion and Deterrent Claims

Image
While Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) maintains a firm stance on the effectiveness of the death penalty in managing drug trafficking in Singapore, the article presents evidence suggesting that the methodologies and interpretations of these studies might not be as substantial as portrayed.

Texas: Lisa Coleman's execution set for Wednesday

Lisa Coleman
An Arlington woman who abused and starved the 9-year-old son of her live-in girlfriend is set to be executed Wednesday, the 1st Tarrant County woman to be put to death since executions resumed in Texas in 1982.

Lisa Ann Coleman, 38, was convicted in 2006 in the death of Davontae Williams, 1 of 3 children of Marcella Williams.

Davontae's body was found July 26, 2004. He had been beaten and bound, weighed 35 pounds and his body bore more than 250 scars, according to evidence presented at trial.

Initially, both Coleman and Williams were charged with capital murder.

Coleman's appellate attorney, John Stickels, filed a clemency application on Aug. 27, arguing that Coleman is not guilty of capital murder and requesting that Gov. Rick Perry commute her sentence to life in prison. The board voted unanimously on Monday not to recommend commutation or a reprieve of Coleman's sentence.

The clemency petition states that Coleman may be guilty of causing Devontae's death but not guilty of capital murder.

Stickels said Coleman was punished with death because she had the temerity to take her case to a jury. Prosecutors never offered Coleman a plea bargain as they later did Williams, Stickels said.

"What she's really guilty of is being a black lesbian," Stickels said. "If she is executed, it will be because of her sexual orientation. Her sexual orientation played a role in the state choosing to seek the death penalty and in her getting the death penalty.

"I have hope that I can save her."

After Coleman was sentenced to death, Williams pleaded guilty to capital murder in exchange for a life sentence and will be eligible for parole in July 2044, when she is 66.

If Coleman is executed Wednesday, she will be the 6th woman put to death in Texas since 1982, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice records.

Case based on kidnapping

Coleman was charged with capital murder before the Texas statute changed in 2011 making the killing of a child age 10 or younger a capital crime. In Coleman's case, prosecutors used kidnapping as the underlying charge justifying the death penalty.

Prosecutors argued at her trial that Coleman did not allow Davontae to have visitors, kept him from visiting others by restraining him and told people he was not at the apartment when he was there, in effect saying that using such restraints and keeping Davontae's location a secret was kidnapping.

Stickels' clemency petition is based on the assertion that Coleman is not guilty of kidnapping and therefore cannot be guilty of capital murder. In the appeal he recently filed in the federal court system, Stickels contends the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals referred to the idea that Devontae had been kidnapped in his own home as "counterintutive."

It was only the kidnapping component of the prosecutors' capital murder case that made Coleman death penalty eligible, Stickels said. In his filings, he says that the federal court or Perry should take the time to consider new evidence about the kidnapping component, Stickels said.

"Of the claims made by the state, the court found that the kidnapping case was the weakest," Stickels said.

The appeal also claims that at least four people saw Davontae Williams playing with other children a week or less before his body was found, Stickels argued. The evidence showed that Davontae Williams was restrained with his mother's permission no more than twice and only then for his own safety, Stickels said.

A Tarrant County district court denied Coleman's appeal last week. Stickels appeaed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which has not responded.

'Nothing new' in appeal

A Tarrant County jury deliberated about 3 hours in June 2006 before recommending the death penalty.

"This 9-year-old child suffered a horrific death at the hands of Lisa Ann Coleman," said Dixie Bersano, one of the Tarrant County prosecutors who presented the state's case. "Davontae died of malnutrition, a slow and cruel process.

"There was not an inch on his body that had not been bruised or scarred or injured. The jury assessed the appropriate punishment. Court testimony during Coleman's trial showed that she had a leading parental role and was the decision-maker on how Davontae should be treated."

Tarrant County prosecutors in the appellate office maintain that the execution should be carried out as scheduled.

"Our position on this is that all of these issues have been fully litigated in state and federal court," said Steven Conder, Tarrant County's chief of post-conviction writs. "There is nothing new in these petitions that have not already been considered by the courts."

Death penalty unfair

Coleman's aunt, Tonya Brown, said her niece does not deserve to die. The courts are skewed in favor of the people with the most money, Brown said. Brown said evidence of the system's unfairness is as recent as the case of Ethan Couch, a white teenager who received a sentence of 10 years probation and psychiatric treatment after driving drunk and killing 4 people.

Brown also said the court acted unfairly when it decided to give Davontae Williams' mother a life sentence and Coleman death.

"If you don't have money, you cannot get good representation," Brown said. "She's given her life to Christ and she's trusting in His grace and mercy and believing that God will work it out."

Fred Cummings, one of Coleman's defense attorneys during the capital murder trial, said her attorneys sought a plea agreement but never got an offer from the Tarrant County district attorney's office. Cummings, who said he has been a prosecutor, a defense attorney and a police officer, said the death penalty is unfair in the way it is administered and nearly impossible to fix.

Had Coleman's trial been in a smaller county, it is likely the district attorney's office would not have had the money to pursue a death penalty trial, Cummings said. Or, if Coleman's trial been more recent, after the law changed to permit a sentence of life without parole, prosecutors might not have sought the death penalty, Cummings said.

"The DNA exoneration are illustrative of the fact that we often don't get these right," Cummings said. "There are confessions, eye witness testimony, that juries often rely on that turn out to be wrong."

Davontae's death was one of several cases cited in 2005 when the Legislature passed a bill sponsored by state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, that overhauled the state's protective services agencies.

Child Protective Services first investigated Williams in 1995 when she was 14 and Davontae was 2 months old. Caseworkers investigated her 6 more times until 2002 when they lost track of the family.

Source: Star-Telegram, Sept. 16, 2014


Court Declines To Stop North Texas Woman's Execution

A federal appeals court has refused to stop this week's scheduled execution of a North Texas woman for the starvation and torture death of her lover's 9-year-old son a decade ago.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected appeals Tuesday from lawyers for 38-year-old Lisa Coleman.

She's scheduled for lethal injection Wednesday in Huntsville.

Paramedics responding to a 911 call from an apartment in Arlington found Davontae Williams on a bathroom floor and first thought he was about 3 to 5 years old. He weighed only 36 pounds.

Evidence showed the 9-year-old had been restrained repeatedly, kept in a closet away from food and suffered more than 250 distinct injuries.

His mother and Coleman's partner, Marcella Williams, took a plea deal and is serving a life prison term.

Source: Associated Press, Sept. 16, 2014

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

California | San Quentin begins prison reform - but not for those on death row

Missouri Supreme Court declines to halt execution of man who killed couple in 2006

Oklahoma | Death row inmate Michael DeWayne Smith denied stay of execution

Indonesia | Bali Prosecutors Seeking Death on Appeal

Ohio dad could still face death penalty in massacre of 3 sons after judge tosses confession

China | Former gaming executive sentenced to death in poisoning of billionaire Netflix producer

Iran | Couple hanged in the Central Prison of Tabriz