Judges rip Texas courts in death penalty case - Associated Press

By Michael Graczyk

HOUSTON — A federal appeals court in New Orleans ordered a hearing for a death row inmate who may be mentally retarded and ineligible for the death penalty, and it criticized Texas courts for refusing to hold such a hearing.

A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blistered the trial court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for relying on written arguments rather than holding a hearing in the case of Michael Wayne Hall, who has been sentenced to die for killing Amy Robinson in 1998. The 19-year-old was abducted while riding her bike to work in Arlington, tortured and killed.

The judges faulted the Court of Criminal Appeals for "clearly erroneous findings ... which, if addressed in an evidentiary hearing, might have highlighted the unreasonableness of the state court's determination of the facts."

"The facts before us are a core manifestation of a case where the state failed to provide a full and fair hearing and where such a hearing would bring out facts which, if proven true, support ... relief," the panel of the New Orleans-based court said.

In its ruling late Monday, the appeals court ordered a federal evidentiary hearing and reversed the findings of a federal district judge who upheld the state courts' rejection of Hall's claims that he has mental retardation.

"The life or death of a defendant, determined without hearing cross examination to resolve disputed material facts, here violates the core principles of due process and Hall's right of confrontation," Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote in his own concurring opinion and dissent. He said Hall, 29, was denied "minimal due process."

Rather than merely order a hearing, Higginbotham said in his dissent that he thought the state should be ordered to hold a hearing within 120 days. Failure to do so should negate Hall's death sentence, the appeals court judge said.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that people with mental retardation may not be executed.

Higginbotham wrote: "It is the hearing in open court which offers the opportunity to expose the very core of the evidence, its accuracy, and its weight. The judges in each step of Hall's case and collateral review decided they could sort through the complicated scientific evidence and conflicting lay opinions themselves, without the aid of adversarial truthseeking."

Among the evidence in Hall's appeal are three intelligence tests that say his IQ is below 70, which is considered the threshold for mental retardation.

Higginbotham noted that prosecutors cited affidavits from corrections officers and others to argue that Hall does not have mental retardation.

"Many statements in affidavits from both the state and the defense indicate precisely how these issues begged for oral hearing," the judge wrote.

In 2004, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected arguments from Hall that he was mentally retarded and should not be executed.

Two judges — Cheryl Johnson and Charles Holcomb — dissented in the 7-2 decision, saying that they thought he deserved a hearing.

Robert Neville Jr., a companion of Hall's, was also convicted and sentenced to death in Robinson's slaying.

Two weeks after Robinson disappeared, Hall and Neville were arrested at a customs checkpoint near Eagle Pass as they tried to enter Mexico.

They told authorities that Robinson's body was in a grassy field in the Trinity River bottoms just north of Arlington.

Robinson had worked with Hall and Neville at an Arlington Kroger store before they were fired.

After their arrests, Hall and Neville, who had been on parole for burglary, told reporters that they had laughed as they watched Robinson die. She was tortured with shots from a pellet gun and then fatally shot with a .22-caliber rifle.

Neville was executed in 2006. He was 31.