Published: June 24, 2008 08:30 am      

Inmate granted stay without pending appeals

Convicted murderer Charles Dean Hood became part of a history-making event June 17.

An eruption of last-minute appeals led to the postponement of Hood’s scheduled execution, making it the first to ever be called off with no appeals pending in the courts.

According to Michelle Lyons, Texas Department of Criminal Justice public information officer, the state agency requested that Hood be granted a stay of execution as the midnight deadline approached.

“The death warrant expires at midnight and it was determined that there was not enough time for prison officials to follow proper protocol prior to expiration,” Lyons said. “We initiated the stay for that reason.”

Gov. Rick Perry granted Hood a 30-day reprieve.

Hood was then returned to death row at the Polunski Unit in Livingston.

The events leading to postponing Hood’s execution were somewhat unusual.

“The fact that last-minute appeals were filed was not in itself unusual,” Lyons said. “It was more the flurry of appeals so late in the evening. In this case the courts ruled and we received word from the attorney general’s office that no appeals were pending and were essentially given the green light to proceed.”

It was then that Perry granted the stay.

This was not the first time the death warrant expired for a given execution, but it was the first time officials were told to proceed and then stopped within minutes because of expiration concerns.

“There were a number of last-minute appeals filed that went on throughout the evening,” Lyons said. “However, this was in fact the only time I know of where this occurred.”

More odd than the flurry of late appeals was that a prosecutor involved in the case filed his own appeal against the decision to withdraw the death warrant.

Hood received the death penalty for a 1989 double murder in suburban Indiana.

Texas State District Judge Curt B. Henderson signed an order withdrawing the execution date at approximately 4:45 p.m. June 17.

After a chaplain informed Hood of the stay, he issued a statement almost 25 minutes later.

“I just thank God,” he said. “I just walk by my faith. If it didn’t happen I was going home to the Lord.”

Hood made a point of saying that he was treated with great respect by everyone in the holding cell where he was kept while awaiting the death chamber, Lyons said.

An alleged affair between the prosecutor and judge during Hood’s trial was the basis for most of the delays. The defense filed a motion that would grant them access to any and all evidence that could support their appeal.

Shortly after that Henderson signed the order modifying the execution date.

The prosecutor who tried the case appealed the decision to withdraw the death warrant before the court of criminal appeals and was denied.

The appeal was then taken higher and succeeded in overturning the withdrawal on the grounds that Henderson did not have the authority to withdraw the execution date.

This reinstated the death warrant at approximately 9:30 p.m., essentially ordering the execution to be carried out.

From September 2007 until June 11, no executions were carried out in Texas because of a hiatus initiated due to concerns based on the procedures and ethics involved with lethal injection.

According to prison records, Hood murdered a topless dancer and her boyfriend, a man he lived with and worked for.

Ronald Williamson, 46, and his girlfriend Traci Lynn Wallace, 26, were found shot to death inside Williamson’s Plano home.

Before he was apprehended, Hood attempted to cash a $400 check that he forged against Williamson’s company account, stole his Cadillac, jewelry and credit cards.

Hood was arrested with the stolen car in Vencennes.

The next inmate scheduled for execution is Carlton Turner on July 10.

There are three additional executions set to take place in July, including Derrick Sonnier, who received a stay on his original execution date of June 3.