After 30 Years On Death Row, Texan Given Execution Date

[peejay 327]

After 30 Years On Death Row, Texan Given Execution Date

LIVINGSTON, Texas -- Condemned Texas prisoner Ronald Chambers describes himself as "loaded with patience." Now in his fourth decade behind bars, Chambers' patience hasn't wavered, but time finally may be running out for Texas' longest-serving death row prisoner.

It's been nearly 11,300 days since Chambers arrived on death row in the nation's most active capital punishment state, where 380 of his fellow prisoners have been executed.

He's set to join them next month.

"I knew it was coming," Chambers, 51, said of the letter he recently received notifying him of his Jan. 25 execution date. "No rich folks here. I'm not mad at that. But again, if I had the money, I wouldn't be here."

Chambers' longevity gets him the designation "Old School" by younger inmates.

"Patience is the key, to be here as long as I have," Chambers told The Associated Press in a recent death row interview. "They give you space better than they would for somebody their age. I don't know if it's respect. I call it space."

The encounters with other inmates are infrequent since death row inmates are kept isolated and get only one hour of recreation time daily outside their cell -- alone -- in a small concrete enclosure.

Chambers recently received a visit from his daughter, who brought her infant son to see his grandfather for the first time.

It was a rare meeting with a relative, he said.

"There ain't nobody that owes me nothing," he said. "Always nice to see people, but then again at the same time, I've been gone a long time."

Chambers arrived on death row Jan. 8, 1976, three days before his 21st birthday.

"By now, I thought it would be one way or another," he said. "I was looking for it to be executed or to get a life sentence."

Chambers, who grew up in the Dallas public housing projects, worked as a house painter and was a new father when he joined Clarence Ray Williams in the robbery, abduction and killing of one college student and the beating of another. A Dallas county jury convicted him.

But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Chambers' conviction eight years later. It ruled a state-appointed psychiatrist who questioned him failed to warn Chambers his responses would be used against him.

He was retried in 1985 and convicted again. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out that conviction four years later, ruling that prosecutors improperly excluded three black people from his jury. Chambers is black.

He was tried for a third time in 1992, convicted and sentenced again to die.

A life term, under sentencing rules of that era, would have made him eligible for parole in about 12 years, Chambers said. But prosecutors never offered him a deal. And he never considered giving up appeals and volunteering to die.

"Don't know the definition, man," he said. "Ain't going to give up."

Williams, also from Dallas, pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and murder, accepted two life sentences and remains in prison.

Gerald Ford had been president less than a year and George W. Bush was in business school at Harvard when Chambers and Williams on April 11, 1975, carjacked Mike McMahan, 22, a mechanical engineering student at Texas Tech, and Deia Sutton, a University of Texas at Arlington student.

If Chambers' patience remains firm, it's long been exhausted for McMahan's parents, now in their 80s.

“It has been horrible," Bennie McMahan, of Kennewick, Wash.,said. "No matter what they do, it's not going to bring our son back."

McMahan and her husband, Mabry, attended Chambers' trials. Now, given their age, they don't plan to trek to Texas to witness Chambers' lethal injection.

"We can't understand why this has been put off this long," she said.

Mike McMahan and Sutton had been with friends at a Dallas club. On their way out, they were confronted at gunpoint by Chambers and Williams, who forced their way into their car. Williams drove to a levee on the Trinity River south of downtown Dallas where the captors pushed the couple down an embankment.

Chambers ordered them to stop near the bottom, then fired five shots at them. As Chambers and Williams walked back up the hill, McMahan called to Sutton to see if she was OK.

"Deia doesn't respond," Dan Hagood, the lead prosecutor at Chambers' 1992 trial, recalled. "She wants him to be quiet. Mike says something louder. "That's when the killers heard him."

The gunmen returned.

Chambers pummeled McMahan in the back of the head 10 to 20 times with a shotgun as Williams choked Sutton and tried to drown her in the muddy water. Chambers also pounded her three times with the shotgun. Then they left.

Sutton would tell police she counted 15 times to 60 before moving, saw McMahan dead nearby, then managed to walk a half-mile to a hotel to summon police.

McMahan's burned-out car was found in Calvert, nearly 150 miles to the south, after Williams had tried to sell it in Houston.

Chambers, according to testimony at his first trial, wiped blood from money stolen from the victims and divided it, then played a game of dominoes before going to sleep.

Within days, both Chambers and Williams were under arrest.

Sutton testified at each of Chambers' trials.

“I am probably much better off than most, but only because my faith in God and family get me through the rough times and nightmares," Sutton said last week. "The mind is powerful and it replays the attack, the killing, the fear over and over at the most inopportune times."

Chambers' attorneys are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to postpone his execution until justices rule on another Texas capital case, set for arguments early next year, that raises questions about whether jurors properly were instructed to consider mitigating factors when deciding death sentences for some convicted killers.

"He's right in there in the mix of them," James Volberding, Chambers' lawyer, said.

Another minor issue in the appeal is that Chambers "has been on death row too long to be executed." Volberding said.

"Frankly, there's not a whole lot else we can argue," he said.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/10500830/detail.html

[clloyd 0]

I am giving a speech against the death penalty in two days. Thanks for the reference.

[desert_fox 32]

I am giving a speech against the death penalty in two days. Thanks for the reference.

Too bad that he wont suffer nearly as much as his victims did.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Rather bizarre considering the age of the guy at the time he was arrested and convicted that they would have sentenced him to death.

[clloyd 0]

Up untill the Supreme court ruled in 2005, it was legal to execute a child.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Up untill the Supreme court ruled in 2005, it was legal to execute a child.

Seems like if this had been a first offence, and there was some evidence that the guy was 'led' by others that they would have commuted the death sentence and gone for 20 years to life. Being condemned to death before your 21st birthday - wow. Not knowing the facts of the case of course its all supposition - but still seems a little OTT to me.

[mybackpages 0]

Up untill the Supreme court ruled in 2005, it was legal to execute a child.

Seems like if this had been a first offence, and there was some evidence that the guy was 'led' by others that they would have commuted the death sentence and gone for 20 years to life. Being condemned to death before your 21st birthday - wow. Not knowing the facts of the case of course its all supposition - but still seems a little OTT to me.

Everyone involved was eligible for the death penalty under Texas law. Likely the prosecutors bargined with the others involved to get a lesser sentence in exchange for testimony to assure the death penalty for Chambers.

Unfortunately in Texas a first offense is rarely a mitigating factor when seeking the death penalty.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Up untill the Supreme court ruled in 2005, it was legal to execute a child.

Seems like if this had been a first offence, and there was some evidence that the guy was 'led' by others that they would have commuted the death sentence and gone for 20 years to life. Being condemned to death before your 21st birthday - wow. Not knowing the facts of the case of course its all supposition - but still seems a little OTT to me.

Everyone involved was eligible for the death penalty under Texas law. Likely the prosecutors bargined with the others involved to get a lesser sentence in exchange for testimony to assure the death penalty for Chambers.

Unfortunately in Texas a first offense is rarely a mitigating factor when seeking the death penalty.

Considering the age of the case - I wonder if the guy would have gotten a different sentence there if he had been convicted today rather than 30+ years ago.

The death penalty is contentious as it is - but a lot easier to justify for habitual violent offenders rather than first time offenders (if indeed this guy was a first time offender)

[mybackpages 0]

Considering the age of the case - I wonder if the guy would have gotten a different sentence there if he had been convicted today rather than 30+ years ago.

As an anti-death penalty activist here in Texas, sadly my guess is that it would not have made a difference. In 2006 it continues not to be unusual for first time offenders found guilty of a capital crime to recieve the death penalty. Of course it all depends on the county where the trial takes place. Some counties are more likely to seek the death penalty than others.

[Ban Hammer 14,408]

Up untill the Supreme court ruled in 2005, it was legal to execute a child.

Seems like if this had been a first offence, and there was some evidence that the guy was 'led' by others that they would have commuted the death sentence and gone for 20 years to life. Being condemned to death before your 21st birthday - wow. Not knowing the facts of the case of course its all supposition - but still seems a little OTT to me.

Everyone involved was eligible for the death penalty under Texas law. Likely the prosecutors bargined with the others involved to get a lesser sentence in exchange for testimony to assure the death penalty for Chambers.

Unfortunately in Texas a first offense is rarely a mitigating factor when seeking the death penalty.

Considering the age of the case - I wonder if the guy would have gotten a different sentence there if he had been convicted today rather than 30+ years ago.

The death penalty is contentious as it is - but a lot easier to justify for habitual violent offenders rather than first time offenders (if indeed this guy was a first time offender)

so how many times does a person need to kill, in your opinion, before society says enough is enough and removes them from the gene pool?

[peejay 327]

Rather bizarre considering the age of the guy at the time he was arrested and convicted that they would have sentenced him to death.

He was arrested 3 days before he turned 21 years old and did what he did at 20 years old. That is long way from being a juvenile.

In my younger days I was in favor of the death penalty, but in recent years there have been way too many death row inmates exonerated by DNA analysis that wasn't available when they were convicted. That is a sobering thought and I'm more inclined to lean toward life without any possibility of parole instead.

However, this case caught my eye because this guy was obviously guilty way beyond a reasonable doubt. In fact, after three trials he has had more than enough chance to prove his innocence. Considering the henious nature of the crime...he richly deserves the death penalty.

From reading the article it appears he whines more about his own plight and doesn't sound remorseful at all.

[desert_fox 32]

Up untill the Supreme court ruled in 2005, it was legal to execute a child.

Seems like if this had been a first offence, and there was some evidence that the guy was 'led' by others that they would have commuted the death sentence and gone for 20 years to life. Being condemned to death before your 21st birthday - wow. Not knowing the facts of the case of course its all supposition - but still seems a little OTT to me.

child???

I ould think that when you ar 20 years old, that you know that you shouldnt murder people.

First time offense??...that makes a difference??? First degree murder is a crime!!!

Led by others?? It is standard that anyone who participates is equally guilty. Doesnt matter if he pulled the trigger or not....its felony murder.

Somebody get the rope!!!!

[Alex+R 0]

First time offense??...that makes a difference??? First degree murder is a crime!!!

...unless it's committed by the State of Texas, you mean?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

First time offense??...that makes a difference??? First degree murder is a crime!!!

...unless it's committed by the State of Texas, you mean?

So it would appear. The Death Penalty is a political tool for prosecuting district attorneys - I still remember the story about the DA who wanted to medicate a diagnosed schizophrenic to "uncrazy" the guy so he could be executed (a legal loophole prevented the execution of the mentally incompetant).

As I said, (again not knowing the facts of this case) it seems bizarre to me that someone could be executed if they don't have a history of violent criminal behaviour.

There's also the wider issue that a person can be tried and punished for a much more serious crime than they have actually committed.

Case in point - When we were living in California, a teenage relative of a family friend (with no criminal history of any kind) was taken to court by a girl he had been going out with (who accused him of harrassment). It was basically your usual story of young love gone sour - but to everyone's horror the prosecuting DA was pushing for charges of first degree rape with a maximum sentence of 25 years and up.

Edited December 11, 2006 by erekose

[mybackpages 0]

First time offense??...that makes a difference??? First degree murder is a crime!!!

...unless it's committed by the State of Texas, you mean?

So it would appear. The Death Penalty is a political tool for prosecuting district attorneys - I still remember the story about the DA who wanted to medicate a diagnosed schizophrenic to "uncrazy" the guy so he could be executed (a legal loophole prevented the execution of the mentally incompetant).

As I said, (again not knowing the facts of this case) it seems bizarre to me that someone could be executed if they don't have a history of violent criminal behaviour.

There's also the wider issue that a person can be tried and punished for a much more serious crime than they have actually committed.

Case in point - When we were living in California, a teenage relative of a family friend (with no criminal history of any kind) was taken to court by a girl he had been going out with (who accused him of harrassment). It was basically your usual story of young love gone sour - but to everyone's horror the prosecuting DA was pushing for charges of first degree rape with a maximum sentence of 25 years and up.

Some argue that if Texas had the option of life without parole, jurors would be less likely to opt for the death penalty.

Edited December 11, 2006 by mybackpages