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An Update on the David Powell Case

By Steve Hall

"With execution a week away, Powell appeals," is the title of an Austin American-Statesman report this morning by Tony Plohetski and Chuck Lindell.An attorney for David Lee Powell, who is set to be executed next week in the fatal shooting of an Austin police officer more than 30 years ago, asked Tuesday that his death sentence be withdrawn and that a punishment of life in prison be imposed instead.Houston attorney Richard Burr said in a 53-page application for a writ of habeas corpus that Powell has been a model inmate, that he poses no threat to society and that to execute him would violate his constitutional rights prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.The filing with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and with state District Judge Mike Lynch, who set Powell's execution for next week, said that jurors inaccurately predicted Powell's "future dangerousness" ? an element necessary to impose the death sentence ?because of his "exemplary and humane behavior in prison...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on June 09, 2010 (boomark / email).