Posted on 10/27/2004 5:45:17 AM PDT by Michael Goldsberry
HUNTSVILLE - Dominique Green was put to death Tuesday night despite a Houston judge's decision to postpone the execution until recently discovered evidence at the Houston Police Department has been catalogued.
Green was pronounced dead at 7:59 p.m., ending a frantic day of legal appeals and an intense, weeklong effort by his attorneys and the murder victim's family to spare his life.
At midday, U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas issued a delay after Green's attorneys argued that information beneficial to his case might be among 280 boxes of evidence from about 8,000 criminal cases found by HPD in August.
Her order was overturned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however. The U.S. Supreme Court denied the stay, and a separate request for a new trial, at 7:20 p.m., about 80 minutes after the execution was to have been carried out. Green, waiting in an adjacent holding cell, was quickly moved into the death chamber.
In a soft and quivering voice, the 30-year-old man offered a final comment for the murder victim's now-grown sons.
"Tell Andre and them that I didn't get a chance to reach my full potential, but you can help them reach theirs," he told a group of five friends he had invited as witnesses.
Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said his office had determined that none of the evidence affecting Green's case was among the recently discovered evidence.
"We understand that we know where all the evidence is," Rosenthal said. "This is not a situation where we are asking the courts to make a leap of faith."
Last week, Andre Lastrapes, his brother, Andrew, and their mother issued a public appeal for clemency, saying they had forgiven Green and believed that he had not been the triggerman 12 years ago. Andre and Andrew Lastrapes waited outside the prison walls as the execution took place.
"I felt it was dirty," Andre Lastrapes said afterward. "They (officials and judges) had their chance. They'll have to face a higher authority, which is God."
Of Green, he added, "I pray he goes to heaven."
Green was 18 at the time of the 1992 murder that killed Andrew Lastrapes Jr. during a three-day robbery spree. Green has admitted to being part of the robbery but denied being the triggerman.
Appellate attorneys raised questions of racial bias, pointing out that Green and two other black men were prosecuted in connection with the case, but a white man originally considered a suspect was never charged. All three men testified against Green, and he was the only one sentenced to die.
The temporary reprieve granted Tuesday was based on the recently discovered evidence, the latest in a series of embarrassments for HPD and its crime lab over the last two years.
David Dow, the University of Houston Law Center professor who helped handle Green's appeal, said this was the first time "a judge has issued a stay on the basis of crime lab issues."
Green's case drew support from an unlikely array of people, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, who visited Green on death row.
Those pleas were to no avail. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles twice denied a request for clemency, and Gov. Rick Perry declined to order a 30-day reprieve.
When the word came Tuesday night that the execution would proceed, Green's friends filed into the viewing room. Green smiled at the group and began to speak. He expressed love and gratitude to those who had supported him.
"There was a lot of people that got me to this point, and I can't thank them all," he said in the minutes before the toxic cocktail was administered. "But thank you for your love and support. They have allowed me to do a lot more than I could have on my own."
He added, "I have overcame a lot. I am not angry, but I am disappointed that I was denied justice. But I am happy that I was afforded you all as family and friends. I love you all. ... Please keep my memory alive."
He gasped three times after the chemicals entered his veins. He was pronounced dead nine minutes later.
Eleven more Texas inmates, including six from Harris County, are scheduled to die through early March.
Chronicle reporters Steve McVicker and Harvey Rice in Houston contributed to this story.
Good riddance, subhuman scumbag; burn in hell. Texas, you made my week!
He was denied justice? His case spent 12 years in the justice system. It doesn't sound like he was denied justice to me.
"Next!"
I'm waiting for the execution to be carried out on Perry Austin, a self-confessed, convicted child murderer on Texas death row. He killed a child from my neighborhood in 1990. At one time, he said he was ready to die and he had asked for his execution date moved up, but a liberal group AGAINST the death penalty -- on the day set for Austin's execution, talked him into signing an appeal.
What a waste of our tax money -- keeping this killer alive. I think it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars for each death-row inmate to go through the appeals process. And in this case, for no reason -- since he, himself, confessed to the killing.
#292744, received on 6/7/1979 on a 30 year sentence from Dallas County for 2 counts of aggravated rape, 1 count of attempted aggravated rape, and 1 count of aggravated robbery; released on mandatory supervision on 7/24/1991.
Summary of incident
On 8/19/1992, Austin went to the Harris County home of the victim (a 9 year old white male), looking for the victim's older brother. The victim got in the car with Austin and left, presumably to look for the older brother. The skeletal remains of the victim were found on 4/23/1993 in a landfill located in Harris County.
http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/austinperry.htm
Hanigin's too good for this monster!
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