Print
Texas delays Hoosier's execution
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has blocked the execution of an Indiana man who was scheduled to die Thursday for a double slaying in the Dallas area more than 15 years ago.
Charles Dean Hood, 35, would have been the 10th Texas prisoner put to death this year.
The appeals court delayed the punishment after lawyers argued jurors who determined Hood should be executed did not get proper instructions that would have allowed them to consider mitigating factors such as Hood's difficult family life and childhood injuries and illnesses that left him brain-damaged.
The court order Monday came after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected another appeal that sought additional DNA testing on evidence used against him at his trial.
The state court ruling sends the case back to the trial court in Collin County.
Hood came to Texas in 1989 to work in construction and wound up as a bouncer at a topless club in Plano, a Dallas suburb. When he lost his job at the club, one of the bar's patrons, Dallas computer company operator Ronald Williamson, let him stay at his Plano home and paid him to do odd jobs. One of the dancers at the bar, Tracie Lynn Wallace, also was living there.
Williamson, 46, and Wallace, 26, were found shot to death in the house Nov. 1, 1989.
Hood, 20 at the time of the slayings, was arrested in his native Vincennes, Ind., driving Williamson's $70,000 Cadillac. He said he had Williamson's permission to use the car and has insisted he was not responsible for their deaths.
"I've done a lot of stupid stuff in my life," Hood said in a recent interview. "But I have never killed nobody."
At least 5 other Texas inmates have execution dates over the next 4 months.
KWTX News
June 29, 2005
State Appeals Court Blocks Execution
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has blocked Thursday's scheduled execution of death row inmate Charles Dean Hood, who was sentenced to die for a 1989 double killing in the Dallas area.
His attorneys argued that the jurors who determined Hood's punishment didn't get proper instructions.
Attorneys want to bring up mitigating factors like Hood's difficult family life and childhood injuries and illnesses that left him brain-damaged.
The ruling sends the case back to the trial court in Collin County Hood was a bouncer at a topless club in Plano.
When he lost his job, one of the patrons, Ronald Williamson, let Hood stay at his Plano home where dancer Tracie Lynn Wallace also lived.
Williamson and Wallace were found shot to death in the house.
Hood was arrested in Vincennes, Indiana, driving Williamson's $70,000 Cadillac.
June 28, 2005
Inmate wins stay of execution
Plano: Man killed pair; court says sentencing procedure was flawed
By JENNIFER EMILY,
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has issued a stay of execution for a man found guilty of killing two Plano residents.
Charles Dean Hood of Indiana was convicted in 1990 in the double homicide of a Plano man and his girlfriend. He was to die by injection on Thursday; the stay was issued late Monday, said Mr. Hood's attorney, Richard Ellis of California.
The court sent the case back to the trial court because the jury was not allowed to consider mitigating circumstances during sentencing, Mr. Ellis said. The state has 120 days to examine the case, although an extension is possible.
Mr. Hood, 36, is asking whether the judge should have allowed the jury to consider his mental impairments. Mr. Ellis said his client has problems pronouncing the alphabet and was run over by a truck as a young child. He is not retarded.
Mr. Hood was found guilty of the shooting deaths of Ronald Williamson and his girlfriend, Tracie Wallace. Mr. Hood's bloody fingerprints were found inside the Plano home where Mr. Williamson and Ms. Wallace were killed. He was arrested in Indiana driving Mr. Williamson's car. Mr. Hood had pawned jewelry and used Mr. Williamson's credit card.
The stay is the second for Mr. Hood - in 1994 the U.S. Supreme Court delayed a scheduled execution so it could examine his appeal. That appeal was denied. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Mr. Hood's request for DNA testing of blood found on several items after the deaths.
Mr. Hood's trial attorney in 1990, David Haynes, said Mr. Hood did not cooperate with his defense and repeatedly lied to his attorneys.
Mr. Ellis said that he was pleased by the stay and that it will allow him to pursue another avenue of seeking a new trial - trying to determine whether an affair between the trial judge and the prosecutor occurred during Mr. Hood's trial, as was stated in a recent article published by Salon.com. The story quoted anonymous sources saying that such a relationship existed.
Neither then-state District Judge Verla Sue Holland nor then-Collin County District Attorney Tom O'Connell could be reached for comment this week.
Judge Holland told Salon.com that it would be unethical for her to comment on a pending case. Judge Holland went on to serve on the state criminal appeals court and has since retired. Mr. O'Connell is no longer the district attorney.
The Collin County district attorney's office declined to comment Tuesday on the stay, as well as the alleged affair.
The rumors were also circulating at the time of Mr. Hood's trial, said Mr. Haynes.
"There's always rumors around the courthouse about who is sleeping with who," he said. "If we had any way to establish these rumors were true, we would have raised it in court. I had to have something more than 'I heard around the water cooler. ...' "
Mr. Haynes said others have looked into the allegations, and he doesn't believe they are true.
"I think it's ground that's been plowed," he said.
Mr. Ellis said that as time passed and Mr. Hood's execution grew nearer, people may talk who did not before.
"We are extremely relieved we will have the time to delve into the issue of the affair," Mr. Ellis said Tuesday. "It's still allegations. We just need time to find out if these allegations are true. If they are true, justice is not served here, and we need a new trial."