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CCA grants sentencing relief

By Karl R. Keys, Esq.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday granted penalty phase relief in Ex parte Timothy Cockrell: The convicting court held a live evidentiary hearing and entered findings of fact and conclusions of law. Initially, the court found that applicant failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that he has significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, but the court also found that applicant established that he has related limitations in adaptive functioning, the onset of which occurred prior to the age of 18. After this Court remanded the application for additional findings and conclusions to address a discrepancy between the trial court?s 1994 finding that applicant is mentally retarded and its 2008 finding that applicant is not mentally retarded, the trial court entered additional findings and conclusions stating that applicant is mentally retarded and therefore his execution is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution...continue to full post

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on June 10, 2009 (boomark / email).