Frances Newton of Texas

Frances Newton, an African American female, is scheduled to be executed on September 14 in Texas. Newton was convicted of the 1987 murder of her husband, her 7 year old son and her 21 month old daughter. The motive was allegedly to collect on the $50,000 life insurance policies.

Now this is a pretty horrendous crime BUT there are a few problems. First of all, her original court appointed lawyer was lazy or incompetent or both and appears not to have lifted as much as a finger in putting together a case for her defense. This poor excuse for an attorney has since been banned from handling capital cases. Second of all there seems to be some irregularity in the evidence related to the murder weapon.

The alleged murder weapon is a 25 caliber pistol, which Newton ADMITS to have had with her on the day of the murder, and forensic tests have indicated that Newton's pistol was indeed the murder weapon. Now this would seem pretty conclusive except, 1) the forensic testing was done by the now discredited Houston Crime Lab, 2) Newton voluntarily turned over the gun, which if she was guilty has got to be one of the stupidest moves ever made and 3) there have been persistent rumors to the effect that a second gun was recovered by the police ( a second 25 caliber pistol?). The whole thing just smells more than a little fishy.

Newton's last execution day in December of 2004 was delayed for 120 days at the request of the Texas Board of Pardons, an act unheard of in Texas, in order to allow additional evidence testing. Unfortunately it turned out that the evidence had been carelessly stored and contaminated so additional tests were impossible.

I sent off my protest e-mail to everyone I could think off because this execution strikes me as an unusually bad idea. I seriously think time should be allocated so her current (hopefully more competent and reliable) council can investigate the existing evidentiary issues.