[DP] Fw. 2 new dp sentences

[Laura and Bill]

   Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 17:00:53 -0600 (CST)
   From: Rick Halperin <rhalperi at post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: death penalty news---TEXAS







March 19


TEXAS---new death sentence

Stepmother killer sentenced to die


Jurors deliberated for just more than 30 minutes Monday morning in
deciding to sentence Reginald W. Perkins to death for the robbery and
strangulation of his 64-year-old stepmother.

Shortly after visiting state District Judge C.C. "Kit" Cooke announced
the verdict, the 47-year-old Perkins proclaimed his innocence in a
written letter, which his attorney Scott Brown read aloud in the crowded
courtroom.

"I am sorry that I don't have an answer for the pain and suffering that
we are all having, but deep down in my heart, I didn't commit this crime
I am charged with," Brown said, glancing up from a piece of white
notebook paper. "... I am so trapped into this justice system for
something I didn't do, and I also understand that as my family, you are
all suffering from the loss of a loved one and looking to release some
hurting pain that is in your heart.

"But always remember that as a half brother, your mother meant the world
to me. Like a real mother, she did more than anyone else could have done
in a lifetime."

Perkins, standing before the judge, kept his back toward family members
squeezed together in the benches behind him.

Perkins was convicted in the Dec. 4, 2000, robbery and strangulation of
his stepmother, Gertie Mae Perkins.

During the trial, which lasted more than 2 weeks, jurors heard testimony
that Perkins, a convicted felon who spent 15 years in a Cleveland prison
for the rape and attempted rape of 2 12-year-old girls, was also a
suspect in 2 other strangulations in the early 1980s in Cleveland.

For jurors to sentence Perkins to death, they had to decide that he is a
future danger to society and that no mitigating circumstances would
warrant life in prison rather than execution.

During closing arguments, prosecutors Kevin Rousseau and Sean Colston
told jurors that by law, they had no choice but to send Perkins to death
row.

"Reginald Perkins has been destroying lives for the past 22 years,"
Colston said, his voice rising as he paced before the jury box. "He has
been raping our children and killing our women!"

In their closing argument, defense attorneys Brown and Bill Lane asked
jurors to spare Perkins' life. Although Brown conceded that Perkins is a
danger in the free world, he argued that he would not be a threat in prison.

Lane, who has worked on 14 capital murder cases in which prosecutors
sought the death penalty, asked jurors whether they could handle hearing
one morning that the "State of Texas had executed Reginald Perkins."

"And you'll think, 'Did I do the right thing?' " Lane said. "You don't
want to second-guess yourself after he is dead."

At 10:10 a.m., the jurors filed out of the courtroom to begin
deliberations. By 10:43 a.m., they had reached a verdict.

As the decision was announced, tears began to trickle down a few family
members' faces. One of Perkins' brothers looked at a relative and quietly
pumped his arm.

The verdict did not bring any of them joy, but for many, it did bring
justice.

Afterward, Gertie Perkins' daughter, Shirley Brooks, took the witness
stand and addressed her half brother.

"You drove with her in the back of the car like some cheap rug all day
long," she read from a victim impact statement. "You have no conscience,
and, therefore, you have no heart. And since home is where the heart is,
there is no place for you.

"... You not only wanted to hurt Mom and Dad, you wanted to destroy our
family by cracking the foundation on which we all were standing. But Mom
taught us - and tried to teach you - that our foundation is built on a
rock. Mom is, and will always be, a part of the mixture, but God is the
bonding element.

"And we are still standing."

******************************----new federal death sentence

Jury assesses death in federal murder case


In Fort Worth, Julius Robinson betrayed no emotion as a federal jury of 7
women and 5 men recommended Monday that he be executed by injection for
killing 2 men in drug deals gone awry.

After a weekend break, jurors needed 2 more hours Monday after seven
hours of deliberations Friday to return unanimous death verdicts and
recommend life without parole in a 3rd slaying that Robinson helped plan,
but in which he fired no shots.

Robinson, 25, a former starting linebacker at Arlington's Lamar High
School, will stay at the Federal Medical Center Fort Worth until his
formal sentencing June 17. He will then be transferred to federal death
eow in Terre Haute, Ind.

As is customary in federal court, U.S. District Judge Terry Means set a
later sentencing date to give defense attorneys and prosecutors time to
prepare for the sentences for Robinson's convictions on drug-trafficking
and firearms charges that do not carry the death penalty.

"It is not in question whether he'll be sentenced to die," Assistant U.S.
Attorney Fred Schattman said.

In a complex case that featured wiretaps, ballistics evidence, tax
records, intercepted drug and cash shipments and - above all - the
testimony of several accomplices, the jurors paid attention to detail and
delivered just verdicts, Schattman said.

"We think justice was done," he said.

Defense attorneys Jack Strickland and Wes Ball said they were
disappointed in the verdict and will appeal if Means allows them to
continue as Robinson's court-appointed attorneys in the appeals phase.

The attorneys had urged jurors to spare Robinson's life, saying
prosecutors unfairly sought the death penalty while offering plea
bargains with prison sentences to 6 accomplices involved in 1 of the 3
killings.

"We're disappointed," Ball said. "Obviously, our focus will have to be on
what we can do to get a turnaround to undo the death sentences."

The jury convicted Robinson in the Dec. 3, 1998, fatal shooting of Johnny
Lee Shelton, 31, on Central Expressway in north Dallas; the May 9, 1999,
slaying of Juan Reyes, 21, in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas; and
the July 12, 1999, slaying of Rudolfo Resendez, 32, in a remote area of
east Fort Worth.

In a drive-by killing on Central Expressway, Robinson opened fire on
Shelton because he resembled and drove the same kind of car, a white
Cadillac, as the intended victim, a drug dealer called "Big Friday."

Shelia Shelton, the victim's sister, said she was grateful for the death
verdict.

"That's what we were hoping for," she said. "He took the life of my
brother; my brother didn't have a 2nd chance. He took my brother away
from his 2 kids; it just devastated our family."

Reyes, whom Robinson suspected of selling him a kilogram of fake cocaine
for $18,000, left behind a wife and a little girl.

Maria Reyes, his widow, who still lives in the Oak Cliff home outside of
which her late husband's body was riddled with bullets, welcomed the
verdict.

"I think he got what he deserved for what he did," Maria Reyes said. "My
life has been hard and sad. Our girl - she's 4 1/2 years old - she thinks
her dad has gone somewhere. She keeps asking me when he's going to come
back."

Resendez was killed in a plot to rob him of 20 kilograms of cocaine that
he had stolen from a Laredo drug kingpin.

In 4 weeks of trial testimony, Robinson was depicted as the ruthless
co-leader of an Arlington-based drug ring.

Prosecutors portrayed him as a coldblooded killer who used assault rifles
to exact revenge on those who crossed him or to rob rival drug dealers.

"I think it was the right sentence, given this man's violent nature,"
said Assistant U.S. Attorney Reed O'Connor, who prosecuted the case with
Schattman. "He left 3 bodies in North Texas 6 feet under the ground.

The 3 killings remained unsolved until area police and federal
investigators working for a Drug Enforcement Administration task force in
Fort Worth began investigating Robinson's drug gang in 2000.

More than 40 people were indicted on drug-trafficking or related charges.
Most of them pleaded guilty.

"If it weren't for the multitude of agencies and manpower involved in
this investigation and their special talents, these defendants wouldn't
have been charged and ultimately convicted," said DEA Special Agent Tim
Stover, the task force supervisor.

Robinson will become the 3rd man in the Metroplex to be sentenced to die
in a federal death penalty case - all in Means' court. On federal Death
Row, Robinson will join Orlando Hall and Bruce Webster, who were
convicted on federal kidnapping and murder charges in the 1994 killing of
16-year-old Lisa Rene of Arlington, who was buried alive in an Arkansas
nature park.

Prosecutors are also seeking the death penalty against L.J. Britt, 26, of
Dermott, Ark., who was charged with Robinson in the slayings of Shelton
and Resendez. Britt's trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 28.

(source for both: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)