Despite new trial, man
receives death for 2nd time Convicted killer gets death penalty By ANDREW
TILGHMAN, Houston Chronicle. Jurors took about four hours Friday to conclude
for the second time that a convicted killer should die, rendering the same
verdict that had been overturned due to race-based testimony later found to be
illegal.
Eugene Broxton, 48, was
found guilty and sentenced to death for the first time in 1992 after he broke
into a hotel room, tied up, pistol- whipped, robbed and shot Sheila Dockens and
her husband, Wayne.
Broxton, who is black, won a
federal appeal in 2000 after doubts were raised about racial remarks made
during the penalty phase of that trial.
At the first trial, a state
psychologist told jurors that Broxton's race was one of many reasons to believe
he posed a future threat to society. Walter Quijano, the former chief
psychologist for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, pointed to
statistics that show blacks and Hispanics are overrepresented among prison
populations. The probability of future violence is one of the key elements
prosecutors must prove to win a death sentence.
Broxton was one of six death
row inmates to receive a new penalty phase trial because of testimony by
Quijano. Two others have had their second trials, and in both cases a death
sentence was imposed a second time.
In June 2000, the U. S.
Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of a Hispanic man from
On Friday, prosecutors
explicitly told jurors that Broxton's race should not play any role in their
verdict.
"Race doesn't have any
place in decisions made in this building. It's incredibly offensive to think it
would enter into your thinking," Assistant District Attorney Bill Hawkins
told the all-white jury.
During the four days of
testimony in the retrial of the penalty phase, prosecutors portrayed Broxton as
a sociopath who has been incarcerated for all but 16 months of the past 30
years and was charged with five killings during a stint on the outside in 1991.
Dockens was a 20-year-old
newlywed when she died that year.
"Part of it for him is
the thrill and the kicks," said Assistant District Attorney Katherine
Cabaniss. "Every time he comes into contact with people, he is a
threat."
Broxton's attorneys pointed
to his prison record of good behavior and sought to assure jurors that he would
be best left in prison for the rest of his life.
"By and large, the
prison system does a pretty good job of keeping them confined and keeping them
from hurting other people," said Broxton's attorney, Thomas Moran.
Diane Smith, a 55-year-old
widow, sat in the courtroom gallery on Friday. Broxton was charged but never
tried in the death of her husband, Larry Smith, in 1991.
"I don't trust the
system when they say he is going to be incarcerated forever," Smith said.
Source :