The Courier

TEXAS: Jurors selected slowly

Attorneys in capital murder sentencing trial for a 45-year-old convicted murderer and rapist are about half-way through jury selection after 4 weeks of individual voir dire.

Due to the nature of the charges against Johnny Paul Penry and the bizarre history of the case, the 153 prospective jurors are being questioned 1-by-1 during the "weeding-out" process, which began May 1. "We're still doing individual voir dire," said a source close to the trial. "The way it's going now, it looks like we'll begin the actual trial sometime in early June." Testimony in the sentencing hearing is expected to last 3 to 4 weeks, they said.

 The only issue for the jury to decide will be if Penry should be sentenced to life in prison or death by lethal injection for the 1979 rape and murder of 22-year-old Pamela Moseley Carptenter in Livingston. If Penry is sentenced to life, he will likely be set free because a capital life sentence in 1980 required that inmates serve 20 years of their sentence before becoming eligible for parole. With mandatory release programs now in place, Penry would likely be immediately released for time served.

 In early April, another Montgomery County jury deliberated for 41 minutes before returning with a decision that Penry is competent to stand trial in the pending sentencing hearing.

 Although Penry has been convicted of the 1979 rape and murder, Penry's lawyers have managed to obtain reversals on the death sentences handed down in each of 2 previous punishment trials on the basis that the juries were not properly instructed on how to consider Penry's claims of mental retardation.

 State District Judge Elizabeth E. Coker granted a change-of-venue motion in February, which transferred the hearing and subsequent punishment trial from Polk County to Montgomery County. The decision was based on pretrial media coverage. A 2nd request to move the case out of Montgomery County based on coverage in The Courier was denied Monday, along with a similar motion for a mistrial Thursday.

 In 1980, a jury sentenced Penry to death, but the United States Supreme Court granted a stay of execution in 1988. In 1990, the case was retried and Penry was sentenced to death a 2nd time but received a reprieve from the Supreme Court only about 3 hours before his scheduled Nov. 13, 2000, execution. In June 2001, the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence with a 6-3 vote.