Condemned TX killer set to die

[peejay 327]

Life, death and the prodigal son

By LISA GRAY

2009 Houston Chronicle

Nov. 4, 2009, 5:59PM

Every death penalty case raises big, Biblical themes: vengeance versus mercy, punishment versus redemption, the Old Testament versus the New.

But never have those themes been plainer than they are in the case of 32-year-old Khristian Oliver, who — pending a last-minute stay of execution — will be executed this evening.

During his murder trial in Nacogdoches, jurors brought four Bibles into the jury room. To decide his fate, they turned to the Old Testament, to eye-for-an-eye verses including Numbers 35:19: The revenger of blood shall himself slay the murderer; when he meeteth him, he shall slay him.

Of course, jurors are supposed to interpret state law, not the Bible. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that those jurors “had crossed an important line” by using specific Bible verses to decide whether Oliver would live or die, that the U.S. Constitution prohibits that sort of “external influence.” And last month, Amnesty International called to have Khristian's sentence commuted.

But so far, the Old Testament penalty stands.

Genesis

Biblical themes have long been the domain of Khristian's father, Kermit Oliver, a well-known painter and the first African-American artist represented by a major Houston gallery.

Kermit often used his family as models in his allegorical paintings: His fans recognize his wife, Katie, who is also a painter, and their three children. Khristian, the youngest, is the blond one, the boy who looks white, lighter-skinned even than his light-skinned parents. Not long after his birth, he was the central figure in Young Mitras in Gown Designed for His Presentation to the Temple.

In 1984, when Khristian was about 7, the Olivers left Houston for Waco, where Katie had inherited a house. Khristian didn't fit easily with either the black kids or the white kids in that black-and-white town, and he found little in-between. But he made OK grades, ran cross-country and belonged to a Catholic church.

Somewhere around his high-school graduation, though, he lost his bearings. He fought with his parents and fell in with a bad crowd. A roommate taught him burglary. He fathered a child. He smoked pot. No longer baby Mitras in grand robes, he became a different figure entirely: a prodigal son.

Sin

Every tragedy has a point of no return, and Khristian's came on March 17, 1998, when he was 21. He smoked a joint with Sonya Reed, the 23-year-old mother of his baby girl, and with two teenage brothers, Lonny and Bennie Rubalcaba. Then the four of them drove around Nacogdoches, looking for an empty house to break into. Khristian carried his gun but didn't plan to use it.

At a promising-looking house, they broke a window, making a lot of noise to see whether anyone would come investigate. No one did, so Khristian and Lonny ventured inside. Sonya and Bennie stayed in the car.

Soon, all hell broke loose. When the house's owner, 64-year-old Joe Collins, returned home, Khristian and Lonny ran for the back door. But it was locked from the outside.

Collins, carrying a rifle, had the boys cornered. He shot Lonny in the leg.

Khristian shot back.

Judgment

Charged with killing Collins, Khristian stood trial in Nacogdoches. Collins was white, and so was the jury.

The state designated Khristian's as “white,” too, but the jury was free to draw its own conclusions. His darker-skinned parents sat behind him every day.

Khristian never denied shooting the homeowner, but among the issues in the trial was what happened immediately afterward. Collins was beaten with the butt of his own rifle, and the coroner couldn't say for sure what killed him: the shot to the torso or the blows to the head.

Khristian maintained that he didn't beat Collins, and no physical evidence connected him to the beating. After the shot, Khristian testified, he picked up Lonny, whose leg was bleeding, and carried him out to the car, where only Sonya remained.

At Khristian's trial, the Rubalcaba brothers testified that it was Khristian who beat the old man. Bennie now says that the prosecutors coached him and his brother. In return for their cooperation, the Rubalcabas received light sentences: 10 years for Lonny; five for Bennie.

Khristian was sentenced to die.

Salvation

In his 10 years on death row, Khristian earned a paralegal degree. He illustrated books for his daughter. And he began reading the classics that his father loves: the works of Plato, the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Significantly, the once rebellious son of painters began to paint, working with the cheap watercolor sets available in prison. On visits, his parents would give him “challenges” to sharpen his skills.

Alvia Wardlaw, who curated Kermit Oliver's 2005 retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, says that as Khristian developed as a painter his works filled with color and light. Like Kermit, he began to paint the allegories.

Supporters have sent letters to Gov. Rick Perry pleading for a stay of execution — time to run DNA tests on the rifle — or that his sentence be changed to life in prison.

On Wednesday, Houston friends of the family were considering where they could gather to wait for tonight's news. One possibility was Trinity Episcopal Church's Morrow Chapel, where the altarpiece is a painting Kermit made a few years after Khristian's trial. Resurrection is one of his most powerful works.

In the painting, a risen Christ faces the viewer. His head is wreathed in lilies; burial cloths float around him. Behind him is an apocalyptic-looking orange cloud: something horrible, but something past.

In a statement for the church, Kermit spent four pages explaining the painting's dense symbolism, its visual representations of rebirth, of triumph over death, of Original Sin atoned for, of fallen mankind redeemed.

But the statement didn't mention the most striking symbol: As the model for Christ, Kermit used Khristian.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/ar...ay/6703712.html

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Bible plays role in case of condemned E. Texas killer

Associated Press

Nov. 5, 2009, 11:58AM

HUNTSVILLE — A man convicted of using a rifle to fatally beat and shoot an east Texas man during a burglary almost 12 years ago headed for execution today in a case that became focused on whether jurors improperly consulted a Bible to justify their decision to send him to death row.

Khristian Oliver, 32, looked to the U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Rick Perry to keep him from lethal injection for the March 1998 slaying of Joe Collins, 64. Collins was killed when he interrupted the break-in of his rural home outside Nacogdoches.

State and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, earlier upheld Oliver’s conviction and death sentence, but Oliver’s attorney renewed his appeal to the high court and urged Perry to invoke a rarely used authority and issue a one-time 30-day reprieve.

There was no immediate response from the governor’s office.

The execution would be the 20th this year in Texas.

A witness to the beating attack on Collins compared it to someone getting bashed with an ax or a golf club. Oliver’s lawyers argued jurors who improperly brought Bibles with them into deliberations without the knowledge of the trial judge in Nacogdoches County likened the rifle to a biblical iron object. In Chapter 35 of Numbers, a murderer who uses an iron object to kill “shall surely be put to death.”

Oliver’s lawyer, David Dow, said there was nothing wrong with people bringing their religious values into the jury room.

“But they must take great care to insure that, in sentencing a murderer, they follow Texas law rather than religious law, and in this case, the jurors did not do so,” he said.

At an evidentiary hearing, jurors gave various accounts, ranging from one Bible to several being present in the jury room. One testified they had them because they went to Bible study after court proceedings. Another said any reading from the books came after they reached a decision. A third said the reading of Scripture was intended to make them feel better about their decision.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said evidence was contradictory on whether jurors consulted the Bible before or after deliberations and that several jurors testified the Bible “was not a focus of their discussions.”

Prosecutors said Oliver’s trial lawyer initially made the Bible an issue when he referred to biblical verses during his jury arguments.

“Defense counsel invited it and should not now benefit from complaining about it,” Sue Korioth, a special prosecutor who handled some of Oliver’s earlier appeals, said.

Collins was hit so severely and so many times — and also was shot five times — he was nearly unrecognizable when a neighbor found him dead in the front yard of home.

Collins had left home to pick up dinner on March 17, 1998, and returned to find Oliver, then 20, and 16-year-old Benny Rubalcaba inside his home. Rubalcaba’s 15-year-old brother, Lonny, and Oliver’s girlfriend were outside waiting in a pickup truck.

As the two intruders tried to run away, testimony showed Collins grabbed a rifle and shot Benny Rubalcaba in the leg. Oliver fired his pistol at Collins, then retrieved the man’s rifle and beat him with it.

One of the teenagers testified he saw Oliver swinging the rifle at Collins. Evidence showed at least two of five shots to hit Collins came while he was on his back on the ground outside his house.

“We had a lot of evidence, a lot of DNA, a lot of testimony,” Tim James, the trial prosecutor, said. “It was a pretty conclusive case.”

Rubalcaba, taken by friends to a hospital, told police about the attack. Oliver was arrested in Houston with his girlfriend, Sonya Reed. She turned down a 10-year plea deal, went to trial and received 99 years in prison. Benny Rubalcaba got five years and his brother 10 years. Both are now out of prison.

Dow argued the sentences were inequitable, that Oliver denied taking part in the beating and that a reprieve was needed so new DNA tests, not available a decade ago, could be made on the rifle to see if someone other than Oliver handled it during the beating.

Evidence showed Oliver over the year-and-a-half period that culminated with Collins’ murder was responsible for numerous burglaries and thefts, many in the Waco area where his parents live.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headli...ro/6705075.html

[Danno 1,228]

Good to see TX is still in the game.

[Minya's wife 25]

I'm sorry, but I don't see this as something to gloat about...certainly not something to term as "another one bites the dust".

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

There's certainly little to gloat about in an execution - much less in a state where the governor stalls the investigation into the execution of an innocent man. Savages that they are in Texas.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I'm sorry, but I don't see this as something to gloat about...certainly not something to term as "another one bites the dust".

Yeah really. I don't get why people are so bloodthirsty about these things.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I'm sorry, but I don't see this as something to gloat about...certainly not something to term as "another one bites the dust".

Yeah really. I don't get why people are so bloodthirsty about these things.

They're savages.

[trillium13 84]

There's certainly little to gloat about in an execution - much less in a state where the governor stalls the investigation into the execution of an innocent man. Savages that they are in Texas.

Have you ever been to Texas? We're not all "savages". I could make some sweeping generalizations about Floridians as well. But I know better.

[pedroh 21]

I'm sorry, but I don't see this as something to gloat about...certainly not something to term as "another one bites the dust".

Yeah really. I don't get why people are so bloodthirsty about these things.

They're savages.

I know Texas has killed a bunch of innocent man for not conductin the right investigation.. makes you wonder, if they want justice, or just satisfy their savage killing instinct

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

There's certainly little to gloat about in an execution - much less in a state where the governor stalls the investigation into the execution of an innocent man. Savages that they are in Texas.

Have you ever been to Texas? We're not all "savages". I could make some sweeping generalizations about Floridians as well. But I know better.

You guys elect savages to run the state.

[peejay 327]

I'm sorry, but I don't see this as something to gloat about...certainly not something to term as "another one bites the dust".

Yeah really. I don't get why people are so bloodthirsty about these things.

They're savages.

I know Texas has killed a bunch of innocent man for not conductin the right investigation.. makes you wonder, if they want justice, or just satisfy their savage killing instinct

Talk is cheap...and so is dropping unsubstantiated accuasations without offering any proof. So you are saying this guy Olivier is another "innocent" murdered by the savages in TX? I disagree. He did commit capital murder, was convicted in court, went through numerous appeals, and the appropriate sentence was carried out. He got his due process. Nothing bloodthirsty about it.

[Minya's wife 25]

I'm sorry, but I don't see this as something to gloat about...certainly not something to term as "another one bites the dust".

Yeah really. I don't get why people are so bloodthirsty about these things.

They're savages.

I know Texas has killed a bunch of innocent man for not conductin the right investigation.. makes you wonder, if they want justice, or just satisfy their savage killing instinct

Talk is cheap...and so is dropping unsubstantiated accuasations without offering any proof. So you are saying this guy Olivier is another "innocent" murdered by the savages in TX? I disagree. He did commit capital murder, was convicted in court, went through numerous appeals, and the appropriate sentence was carried out. He got his due process. Nothing bloodthirsty about it.

But while questions still remain with regards to the validity of that conviction, I'm not convinced that death is the 'appropriate' sentence. So no, he did not get his due process. Moreover, the sub-title to the thread is what I was objecting to, because that is what smacks of bloodlust.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

That might be more believable if wasn't obvious that this story was posted for the purposes of some sort of drive-by porno trip for people to gloat over.

why don't you cook up some popcorn while you're at it?

[Minya's wife 25]

Drive by porno-trip indeed, except he very article posted didn't highlight the questions surrounding this conviction and sentence.

Khristian maintained that he didn't beat Collins, and no physical evidence connected him to the beating.

DNA testing was not done on the 'murder weapon' and the co-conspirators got lighter sentences for their cooperation? I'm sorry, I'm not convinced that this man did indeed 'commit capital murder' nor do I agree that the appropriate sentence was given to him. Its disgusting that the two 'eyewitnesses' who cooperated, one of which was party to the commission of the crime no less, received relatively light sentences while the girlfriend who was an accessory got 99 years and this man got death? Nope...not convince that justice was carried out.

[peejay 327]

Drive by porno-trip indeed, except he very article posted didn't highlight the questions surrounding this conviction and sentence.

Khristian maintained that he didn't beat Collins, and no physical evidence connected him to the beating.

DNA testing was not done on the 'murder weapon' and the co-conspirators got lighter sentences for their cooperation? I'm sorry, I'm not convinced that this man did indeed 'commit capital murder' nor do I agree that the appropriate sentence was given to him. Its disgusting that the two 'eyewitnesses' who cooperated, one of which was party to the commission of the crime no less, received relatively light sentences while the girlfriend who was an accessory got 99 years and this man got death? Nope...not convince that justice was carried out.

My subtitle "Another one bites the dust..." is not so much about gloating than it is about the fact that there is an infinite amount of these cases with no end in sight. Humans have been murdering since the beginning of time and have been executed for doing it.

Anyway, while you may feel the wide range of sentences assessed are unfair, you don't know all the facts from reading these short articles. That is what courts and due process are for. None of this was done behind closed doors in secret. It is all open to public record.