TX: procura cancella due date di esecuzione in attesa di decisione della corte sui minori

 
  Prosecutors cancel two execution dates Harris County to await Supreme Court decision on juvenile crimes

 March 13, 2004

HOUSTON - The U.S. Supreme Court's plan to consider whether the death penalty is constitutional for juvenile crimes has prompted Harris County prosecutors to back away from seeking execution dates for two convicted murderers.

Harris County prosecutors said they will ask judges to cancel the execution dates for Raul Omar Villarreal and Efrain Perez, who were set to die June 24 and 25, respectively.

Both men were 17 when they raped and strangled Houston high school students Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena in 1993.

The prosecutors' decision comes after the Supreme Court last week stayed  the execution of another Harris County man, Edward Capetillo, who was scheduled to die March 30 for a 1995 robbery and double murder.

Mr. Capetillo's attorney, Elizabeth DeRieux, asked the court to delay the execution until it hears a Missouri case, in which a death sentence was overturned because the defendant was 17 at the time of the murder.

The Supreme Court is to hear the case in October. "We will wait and, obviously, see what the U.S. Supreme Court does,"  Assistant District Attorney Jane Scott said Saturday in the Houston Chronicle. "If we took any other action, we would be pursuing an execution that we know would probably eventually be stayed."

The three Harris County inmates were the only prisoners in the nation with executions scheduled for murders committed when they were younger than 18.

In January, District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said he intended to pursue the executions this year calendar despite the Supreme Court's plans.