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Gobert’s criminal past revealed during punishment phase
The punishment phase of Milton Dwayne Gobert’s capital murder trial began this morning with prosecutor Allison Wetzel telling the jury that Gobert deserves the death penalty.
“During the guilty/innocence phase, the focus is on the crime,” Wetzel said. “The focus is now on the criminal.”
For the first time, Wetzel told the jury about Gobert’s criminal history, including that he had spent about nine years in prison for burglary and robbery before he fatally stabbed Mel Kernena Cotton, 30, in her North Austin apartment in October 2003. Cotton’s then 5-year-old son was also stabbed in the attack but survived and testified last week. Gobert was convicted of capital murder Tuesday.
Wetzel also told the jury that Gobert’s ex-girlfriend, Christina Pocharasang, had accused Gobert of brutally beating her in the month before the attack on Cotton.
The jury had previously learned that Pocharasang, aided by Cotton, had moved out of an apartment that she had shared with Gobert in September 2003.
Prosecutors said that Gobert, at right, was furious about that move and believed that some of his things had been taken. That is what prompted Gobert’s vicious attack on Cotton, prosecutors said.
Pocharasang will testify that Gobert’s physical abuse prompted that move, Wetzel said.
Wetzel also told the jury that Gobert has been a problem inmate and a security risk at the Travis County Jail, where he has been housed since his arrest shortly after Cotton’s murder. She said there have been violent incidents at the jail.
If the jury determines that there is a threat that Gobert would commit continuing acts of violence and that there are no mitigating factors to warrant a life sentence, then Gobert will receive the death penalty.
Gobert’s lawyers did not make an opening statement today.
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Gobert guilty of capital murder in 2003 stabbing death
UPDATE 5:34 PM
A Travis County jury has found Milton Dwayne Gobert guilty of capital murder in the 2003 death of Mel Kernena Cotton, who was stabbed or cut 107 times in an attack at her North Austin apartment.
Gobert faces the death penalty or life in prison at the sentencing phase, which state District Judge Bob Perkins set to begin at 10 a.m. tomorrow.
The punishment phase of the trial will not conclude until next week, Perkins said.
During the punishment phase, jurors will learn more about Gobert’s background. Prosecutors are expected to offer evidence of his criminal history - he has been convicted of numerous crimes including robbery and burglary. In the year before his arrest for murder, he had been accused of abusing two different women. The jury will likely hear evidence of those accusations.
For the defense, the goal is humanizing Gobert. Leonard Martinez, one of Gobert’s lawyers, said he will call Gobert’s family members to talk about how family is important to him. Martinez also said he would present evidence of a brain injury Gobert suffered when he was five. Family members have said that Gobert angered quickly after suffering that injury, when he was hit by a car.
At the close of the punishment phase, the jury will answer two questions: Whether Gobert is a continuing threat to society and if there are any mitigating evidence to warrant a sentence of life in prison instead of prison.
If the answers are “yes” and “no,” Gobert will receive the death penalty.
UPDATE 2:09 PM
During closing arguments in Milton Dwayne Gobert’s capital murder trial Tuesday, a prosecutor called Gobert a coward for leaving a then 5-year-old boy for dead after killing his mother in a North Austin apartment in 2003.
“This child… by the grace of God at 11 years old was able to come into this courtroom and tell us what happened,” prosecutor Allison Wetzel said. “He had the courage to come in here and sit just a few feet from the man who took his mother away in the most vile, brutal disgusting way possible.”
Wetzel told the jury to reject Gobert’s claims of self defense and convict him of capital murder in the Oct. 6, 2003, death of Mel Kernena Cotton, 30.
The jury walked out of state District Judge Bob Perkins’ court to begin deliberating in the case at about 1:41 p.m.
If they find him guilty Gobert could receive the death penalty.
Gobert claims he acted in self-defense in killing Cotton and that her son was stabbed accidentally during a struggle at Cotton’s North Interstate 35 apartment.
During closing arguments, defense lawyer Leonard Martinez said that Gobert may be guilty of murder but is not guilty of capital murder. Murder is punishable by a maximum of life in prison.
Gobert is charged with committing capital murder by intentionally killing Cotton in the course of committing kidnapping or attempted kidnapping of Cotton and her son and in the course of robbing or attempting to rob Cotton.
“The evidence far more supports a domestic violence situation gone way bad,” defense lawyer Kent Anschutz said, “than the offense of capital murder with the intent to rob or kidnap.”
In calls to his family from jail, Gobert said that he tied Cotton with a phone cord and binded her with duct tape, but Anschutz said that there were no ligature marks to show she was restrained.
Martinez said a capital murder conviction requires that murder was done to facilitate robbery or kidnapping. “He may very well be guilty of murder, maybe,” Martinez said.
EARLIER TODAY
Closing arguments are expected this morning in the capital murder trial of Milton Dwayne Gobert, who is accused of killing a North Austin woman by stabbing and cutting her 107 times.
Gobert could face the death penalty if convicted by a Travis County jury of killing Mel Kernena Cotton, 30, who was found dead Oct. 6, 2003, in her apartment on Interstate 35 at U.S. 183. Cotton’s then 5-year-old son was stabbed four times and choked that day, according to testimony.
Prosecutors say Gobert killed Cotton because she had helped his ex-girlfriend move out of Gobert’s apartment. Gobert said that some of his things disappeared during that move.
Gobert told his family in calls he made from jail and played in court that Cotton drew a knife on him first and that he killed Cotton after wresting the weapon from her and becoming fearful that she would retrieve a gun to shoot him. No gun was found in the apartment.
Gobert said Cotton was jealous because he would not fully commit to a relationship with her. Gobert said the boy was stabbed accidentally during the melee.
The indictment against Gobert charges him with intentionally killing Cotton in the course of committing several felonies: attempted kidnapping or kidnapping of Cotton; attempted kidnapping or kidnapping of her son; and robbery of Cotton.
Gobert’s lawyers are expected to argue that even if he is guilty of intentionally killing Cotton, he did not do it in the course of committing one of the other felonies and therefore it is not capital murder. If the jury finds that, they may not sentence him to the death penalty.
Prosecutors contend that Gobert used tape and a phone cord to bind and restrain his victims, which is kidnapping. They also have said he is guilty of robbery because he left the apartment with several of Cotton’s belongings, including a purse.
Follow live updates from closing arguments on Twitter.
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Execution date set for Austin cop killer Powell
A state district judge has set an execution date for David Lee Powell, who fatally shot an Austin police officer more than 30 years ago during a routine traffic stop.
Powell (pictured right), who is one of the state’s longest-serving death row inmates, is scheduled to die “after the hour of 6 p.m.” on June 15, according to an order issued late Monday by Judge Mike Lynch.
Lynch ordered that Powell, who shot Officer Ralph Ablanedo (pictured below right) 10 times with an AK-47, “die by intravenous injection of a substance or substances in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause death.”
The most recent Travis County inmate to die by lethal injection was in 2005, when David Martinez was put to death in the slaying of Kiersa Paul, who was 24 years old when her body was found in the Barton Creek greenbelt. She had been strangled, raped and stabbed.
Six offenders from Travis County currently are on death row.
Powell’s May 1978 crime occurred after Ablanedo pulled over Sheila Meinert, Powell’s girlfriend at the time, for a routine traffic stop. Powell, who also was accused of trying to shoot other officers when they cornered him, was found guilty and sentenced to death within months of the shooting.
1978 AMERICAN-STATESMAN: David Lee Powell, center, is escorted on the right by Austin officer Sam Cox and on the left by officer Al Hernandez.
He appealed his conviction, saying that he had talked to a psychiatrist without being warned of his rights, and received a new trial in 1991. Powell also appealed that guilty verdict, saying he had been improperly sentenced, and was given a new sentencing trial in 1999. He was again given the death penalty.
His lawyers appealed that decision to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and lost.
Meinert served four years of a 15-year sentence for being a party to attempted capital murder.
Houston attorney Richard Burr, who represents Powell, said today that he is angered and saddened by Lynch’s order.
He said Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg could have “stood tall” and not sought for Lynch to set the execution order.
“This is wrong from every perspective,” Burr said.
He said that in three decades behind bars, Powell has taught other inmates to read and counseled other death row prisoners.
Lehmberg said, “It is a sad day for everyone when an execution date is set, but three juries have heard this case over the years and in each instance have determined this is a proper sentence.”
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Expert: Many stab wounds came while woman was not moving
UPDATE 12:11 PM
A crime scene expert told a Travis County jury today that Mel Kernena Cotton had likely moved around her bedroom while she was being attacked the day she was fatally stabbed there in 2003 but likely had stopped moving when she received more than 30 stab wounds to her left chest area.
Prosecutors on Monday called Tom Bevel, a forensics consultant from Norman, Okla., as the final witness in Milton Dwayne Gobert’s capital murder trial. Closing arguments in state District Judge Bob Perkins’ court are scheduled for Tuesday morning.
Gobert (pictured at right) could receive the death penalty if convicted of capital murder in the death of Cotton, who suffered 107 stabbing and cutting wounds when she was killed Oct. 6, 2003. Cotton’s then 5-year-old son, Demetrius, was also stabbed and choked that day.
Gobert told his family in a series of recorded jail phone calls that Cotton confronted him with a knife after he went to Cotton’s apartment that night to continue a romantic relationship with her. He said that he stabbed her after gaining control of the knife and binding her with duct tape because he was afraid that she had a gun and would use it on him. Gobert said the boy was stabbed by his mother during the fracas.
Bevel said that Demetrius’ wounds were not consistent with someone who was accidentally stabbed. He said that the four wounds were in the same small spot on Demetrius’ chest, proof that the boy was not moving when he was stabbed.
Demetrius testified during the trial that he passed out after the man who attacked his mother had choked him and that he woke up to find a hole in his chest.
Bevel said there is evidence on the door of Cotton’s bedroom that she touched the door at one point and coughed blood on it.
He said the cluster of 38 stabbing and cutting wounds on Cotton’s upper left chest area show that she was “not moving or was restrained” when those wounds were inflicted. He also said the dozens of stab wound son her back were likely inflicted while she was still, or moving slowly.
Bevel also said that two small wounds on Gobert’s hands likely were caused when the knife slipped, perhaps because it became so bloody and had struck bone, while he attacked Cotton.
EARLIER TODAY
Milton Dwayne Gobert’s lawyers today called the second of two witnesses in his defense before resting during Gobert’s Travis County capital murder trial.
Gobert’s first witness was his brother, Michael Gobert, who testified Friday that Gobert had returned from Atlanta several days before the Oct. 6, 2003, killing of Mel Kernena Cotton at her North Austin apartment. Gobert had visited a woman in Atlanta, his brother said.
The value of that testimony was unclear.
Gobert’s second witness, who testified today, was a Travis County Jail corrections officer who said that inmates at the jail who share cells have no way of keeping their things safe from their cellmates.
The corrections officer testimony could have been offered to show that a former cellmate of Gobert’s — who testified that Gobert bragged about the stabbing — could have learned about Gobert’s case by accessing Gobert’s legal files. Gobert’s lawyers suggested that that former cellmate had made up the story about Gobert bragging to gain a favorable plea bargain in his own case.
Gobert, 37, is accused of killing Cotton, 30, by stabbing and cutting her more than 107 times in her apartment on Interstate 35 near U.S. 183. Cotton’s then 5-year-old son, Demetrius Cotton, was stabbed four times and choked in the attack but survived, according to testimony.
Gobert’s defense attorneys did not call Gobert to testify despite saying before the trial that they would. Leonard Martinez, one of Gobert’s defense lawyers, said on Friday that the jury heard Gobert’s side of the story in recorded phone calls he made to his family member after his arrest.
In those phone calls Gobert said that Cotton drew the knife first that night and that the boy was stabbed by Cotton while the two struggled over the knife. Gobert said he stabbed Cotton once he gained control of the knife because he was fearful that Cotton would get a gun and shoot him.
No gun was found in the apartment.
On cross-examination by prosecutor Gary Cobb, Gobert’s brother Michael said that Milton Gobert had asked his family members to lie to help his case. The nature of those requested lies was not revealed.
Prosecutors are expected to call several rebuttal witnesses today.
Closing arguments in state District Judge Bob Perkins’ court are expected tomorrow.
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Former defense lawyer avoids jail for forging judges’ signatures
A former Travis County criminal defense lawyer was sentenced today to two years deferred adjudication, a form of probation, for forging judges’ signatures on court documents and possessing drugs.
Prosecutors had sought a year in jail for Bruce Garrison, who they argued at a sentencing hearing last year had also disseminated information about clients cooperating with police, a practice lawyers said could have led to violent retribution.
One former drug kingpin testified at a sentencing hearing last year that he had smoked methamphetamine with Garrison and had made a deal with the then lawyer in 2006: In exchange for drugs, Garrison would give Noe Perez information on the arrests of Perez’s associates and whether they were cooperating with police.
State District Judge Charlie Baird said at the close of that hearing, held in February 2009, that he could not decide whether Garrison deserved to be locked up. Baird continued the case for one year to see if Garrison could be successful on his pretrial release.
Garrison’s lawyer, Josh Saegert, said in a statement that Garrison has been successful in his recovery.
“Bruce became a lawyer to help people. He lost that opportunity when he succumbed to the disease of drug addiction,” Saegert’s statement said. “Bruce is not defeated. He is now using his experience to help others overcome their own drug addiction through his work as a program director at Mark Houston Recovery. “
Garrison, 39, had pleaded guilty to three counts of tampering with a governmental record and possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, both felonies.
He resigned his law license in February 2009, according to the State Bar of Texas.
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In jail calls, Gobert said he tended to boy, was attacked out of jealousy
Milton Dwayne Gobert told his brother during a phone call from jail in 2005 that he thinks about the boy injured the day he killed the boy’s mother in 2003 but he does so “with dry eyes.”
“I feel … for him because he’s without his mother, but I do it with dry eyes because … if I was gone, I’d say, I’d look at my family,” Gobert said.
The phone call came during a series of recorded phone conversations that prosecutors played for the jury in Gobert’s capital murder case. They played three on Thursday and an additional six calls this morning before resting their case.
Defense lawyers will begin calling witnesses this afternoon and continue Monday. Closing arguments in the case will likely take place Tuesday, state District Judge Bob Perkins said.
In an interview outside court, defense lawyer Leonard Martinez said he no longer planned to call Gobert as a witness in his own defense. Martinez said that the calls sufficiently explain Gobert’s account of that night.
Gobert is accused of capital murder in the Oct. 6, 2003, killing of Mel Kernena Cotton, 30, at her apartment on Interstate 35 near U.S. 183 in North Austin. Cotton’s then 5-year-old son Demetrius was also stabbed and choked that day, according to testimony.
Gobert could receive the death penalty if convicted.
The first phone call, in which Gobert claims that he acted in self-defense that night, took place about four months after Cotton’s death. The final call played occurred Nov. 6, 2005.
During the calls, Gobert gives a series of often difficult to understand explanations to his brothers and his mother about some of the things that happened that night. He said he acted after Cotton had attacked him with a knife, apparently jealous that he had planned to move in with another woman and not her.
Prosecutors have said that Gobert was angry at Cotton for helping Gobert’s ex-girlfriend move out of his apartment, a move during which he claims some of his things were taken.
In his first calls, Gobert said that Cotton drew a knife on him and while they fought over it, the boy was stabbed. He said that he tried to wrap Cotton in tape to get away but that she broke free of it. He also said he ordered her to put tape on the boy.
He said he did not leave after gaining control of the knife because he was afraid that either Cotton or the boy would go for a gun that he believed she had.
In later phone calls, Gobert added details to his account and attacked some of the evidence in the case.
He had learned, for example, that the boy told police that Gobert had smashed his mother’s cell phone and that the boy said he had been choked.
In an April 2004 call to his brother Michael, Gobert said there would be pieces of the cell phone in the bathroom if he had smashed it.
He also gave this account of the struggle: “When she was on top of me, he (the boy) was grabbing my eyes … I grabbed him by his neck and push him back and then he’ll come up again and she was still there on top. She was on top of me trying to stab me.”
In a Jan. 21, 2005, call to his brother Michael, Gobert said he was not guilty of capital murder because he did not commit kidnapping or robbery in the course of intentional murder, as he is charged.
Kidnapping is if “somebody restricts or prevents your liberation,” he said. “My liberation was prevented.”
He added: “I ain’t had to do no robbery from her. If I needed money from her all I had to do was ask.”
He also said during that call that he had just gotten out of the shower and was naked when Cotton first attacked him with a knife.
In a July 14, 2005, conversation with his brother Michael, Gobert said: “I was making sure that she wasn’t gonna hurt me.”
“A person don’t know what they’ll actually do when fear is involved, and you know behind this woman’s anger is really a bit of jealousy.”
In an Oct. 15, 2005, conversation, Michael Gobert told his brother that the “D.A.’s case is very strong.”
“The child was injured and you didn’t try to get him help,” Michael Gobert said.
Dwayne Gobert denied that he didn’t get help fort the boy. He said after the boy was stabbed and his mother was dead he “tended to” the boy, giving him a pain killer.
He said he waited outside because he knew his aunt would be coming to the apartment.
“If I was so cold-blooded and heartless, then why didn’t I take him out, too?”
Gobert told his brother that the killing happened in passion and was “not a cold-blooded act.” He said that prosecutors would use evidence of the boy’s injury to inflame the jury. He called it “a sympathy plea that has no connection to the crime itself.”
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Judge refuses Gobert’s request for more comfortable leg brace
UPDATE 4:16 PM
Capital murder defendant Milton Dwayne Gobert complained this afternoon that a leg brace he’s wearing during the trial to keep him from running makes him uncomfortable.
Gobert raised the complaint during a break in testimony, shortly after medical examiner Elizabeth Peacock told the jury that Mel Cotton, whom Gobet is accused of killing, had suffered 107 stabbing and cutting wounds.
While the jury was out of the room, Gobert spoke directly to Judge Bob Perkins about the leg brace that goes up his left leg and is designed to lock if he tries to run to limit his ability to move.
“I am here all day and my leg goes to sleep,” he said.
Gobert is wearing the leg brace, which goes up past his knee on one leg, under a pair of black pants. During jury trials, sheriff’s officers use the braces instead of chains that hold inmates legs together so defendants are not unfairly prejudiced by appearing to be in custody. Gobert said earlier in the trial he was wearing an anklet that was more comfortable.
That anklet, a sheriff’s security officer told Perkins, is designed to shock an inmate if they try to run, similar to a Taser. It was being used on a test basis and is not readily available, he said.
While Gobert spoke with judge, Cotton’s niece, Sparkle Smith, shook her head side to side while sitting in the front row of the courtroom gallery.
Perkins refused to alter Gobert’s leg brace.
UPDATE 3:58 PM
Former Travis County deputy medical examiner Elizabeth Peacock told a jury today that Mel Kernena Cotton suffered 107 stabbing and cutting wounds in the October 2003 attack that killed her.
Peacock, who now works in San Antonio, said that Cotton had stabbing and cutting wounds on her ear, head, chin, chest, arms and elsewhere. She had 38 on her left upper chest, Peacock said.
Penetrating wounds to her aorta and jugular vein would have been fatal, Peacock said.
Follow live trial updates on Twitter here.
EARLIER TODAY
Milton Dwayne Gobert’s former cellmate told a Travis County jury today that last year Gobert bragged to him about killing a woman and injuring her child with a knife.
“He was telling me he was locked up for murder and he started bragging to me how he repeatedly stabbed his girlfriend,” said Homero Miguel Carrillo, “and how he’s manipulating the system and how he stabbed a little boy.”
Under questioning by prosecutor Gary Cobb, Carrillo, 28, also said that Gobert told him that he had wrapped up the woman with an extension cord and stabbed her repeatedly and that he eventually threw the knife in a lake.
Gobert, 37, is on trial for capital murder in the Oct. 6, 2003, death of 30-year-old Mel Kernena Cotton at her apartment on Interstate 35 in Northeast Austin. Cotton’s then 5-year-old son was also stabbed in the attack, but recovered from his injuries.
If Gobert, 37, is convicted, he could receive the death penalty.
Kent Anschutz, one of Gobert’s defense lawyers, suggested in questioning that Carrillo and Gobert never got along because Gobert had accused Carrillo of not being hygienic and because Gobert had not shared his jail commissary. Carrillo denied those assertions.
Anschutz also cast doubt on Carrillo’s reasons for coming forth with the story.
Anschutz noted that Carrillo had previously been to prison on convictions for sexual assault of a child and unlawful possession of a firearm. When he was in the cell with Gobert, Carillo had faced from 25 years to life on an aggravated assault charge, Anschutz said. After Carrillo told authorities about Gobert’s statements, he reached a plea bargain with prosecutors under which he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge, he said.
The sentence Carrillo received for that crime was a year in jail, a year he had already served, Carrillo said.
Carrillo did not respond to a subpoena to testify earlier in the week so he was arrested Wednesday and jailed, according to testimony. He was in custody when testifying but after his testimony state District Judge Bob Perkins ordered he be released.
Prosecutors have said that Gobert was angry at Cotton for helping his ex-girlfriend move out of an apartment that Gobert and his ex had shared in Austin. Gobert, according to testimony, thought some of his things were taken during the move, which happened without his knowledge while he was at work.
Gobert’s lawyers have said that he killed Cotton only after she first drew the knife on him. Gobert, his lawyers said, stabbed the boy accidentally when he tried to enter the fracas.
They said that Gobert went to Cotton’s apartment that night to continue what Gobert has described as an intimate relationship between the two.
Follow live trial updates on Twitter here.
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Boy, 11, who was stabbed by man who killed his mother, testifies
An 11-year-old boy who was stabbed in an attack that left his mother dead in 2003 took the stand today in the trial of Milton Dwayne Gobert, who is on trial for capital murder.
Demetrius Cotton spoke with a soft voice from the witness stand in state District Judge Bob Perkins’ court while 30 people in the courtroom gallery looked on. The microphone on the witness stand came to his forehead until it was adjusted by prosecutor Allison Wetzel.
Gobert, 37, is accused of killing Demetrius’ mother, Mel Kernena Cotton, 30, on Oct. 6, 2003 in her North Austin apartment. He could receive the death penalty if convicted.
Gobert’s lawyers have said that he killed Cotton only after she drew a knife on him. Gobert, his lawyers said, stabbed the boy accidentally when he tried to enter the fracas. They said that Gobert went to the apartment that night to continue what they described as an intimate relationship between the two.
Prosecutors have said that Gobert was angry at Cotton for helping his ex-girlfriend move out of an apartment that Gobert and his ex had once shared in Austin. Gobert, according to testimony, thought some of his things were taken during the move, which happened without his knowledge while he was at work.
While Demetrius testified in state District Judge Bob Perkins’ court, Gobert was seated about 50 feet away at a table next to his two lawyers.
In testimony that lasted about an hour, Demetrius told the jury that he did not know the man who killed his mother. He said the man had a black duffle bag and had demanded money from his mother.
It started, Demetrius said, when he awoke that night in 2003, when he was 5, to the screams of his mother coming from her bedroom.
He got up and found a man who he described as “tall and bald and buff” standing over her, stabbing her with a knife, he said.
His mother had duct tape on her mouth; the man was wearing gloves, Demetrius said under questioning by Wetzel.
“I went over there and tried to pull him down by his leg,” Demetrius said.
The man put duct tape on Demetrius’ mouth and legs, cutting the tape with the knife, Demetrius said.
Then the man pushed him out of the room and locked the door. The screaming continued inside.
Demetrius returned to his room and fell asleep, he said. He awoke when the man came in, got on top of him and choked him with two hands, Demetrius said.
He passed out.
When he woke up Demetrius was bleeding from a hole in his chest and the man was gone, Demetrius said.
He went into his mother’s room and felt her neck, he said.
“When you felt her neck what did you feel,” Wetzel said.
“Nothing,” Demetrius said. “She was gone.”
The boy said he kneeled next to his mom for a while, holding her cold hand before going to find something to stop the blood that was flowing from his chest.
He got a washcloth from the bathroom, tried unsuccessfully to put a Band Aid on his chest and retrieved a Popsicle from the refrigerator before returning to his room and falling asleep again, Demetrius said.
He thought of calling for help but the man had cut the phone cord and smashed his mother’s cell phone, he said.
He awoke to his aunt’s knock at the door.
EARLIER TODAY
A pediatric ophthalmologist told a Travis County jury today that a then 5-year-old boy injured in a 2003 attack that left his mother dead had likely been choked.
The testimony came at the start of the third day of evidence in the capital murder trial of Milton Dwayne Gobert, 37, who could face the death penalty if convicted of killing Mel Kernena Cotton, 30. Gobert is also accused of stabbing Cotton’s son Demetrius that day.
The testimony of Dr. Hillary Onan of Round Rock, who treated the boy after the attack, bolstered the account given by him to police following the attack.
Demetrius Cotton could not identify the man who killed his mother but said he was bald with a mustache, which described Gobert at the time, prosecutors said. He also told police that the man demanded his mother’s purse before killing her and had choked him until he passed out, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors told the jury that Gobert was likely angry at Cotton for helping his ex-girlfriend move out of the apartment they had shared. Gobert believed that some of his things had been taken during that move, which happened while he was at work, according to testimony.
Gobert’s lawyers have painted a different picture of that day at Cotton’s apartment, on North Interstate 35 near U.S. 183. They said that Gobert went to the apartment to continue an intimate relationship that he and Cotton had at times shared. They said Gobert only attacked Cotton after she pulled a knife on him and said that the boy was injured during a fight for that knife.
The trial in state District Judge Bob Perkins’ court is expected to last at least through the end of the week. Demetrius is expected to testify.
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Death sentence thrown out by sharply divided court
A bitterly divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals today tossed out the death sentence for convicted murderer Charles Dean Hood — but not because his trial judge and prosecutor were having an affair.
The state’s highest criminal court granted a new sentencing trial for Hood, convicted in 1990 of killing two people in Plano, based on frequently shifting U.S. Supreme Court rulings on flawed jury instructions used in the early 1990s.
Hood’s conviction was not affected by the ruling, written by Judge Cathy Cochran.
Hood has been fighting for a new trial based on the revelation — confirmed after several years of digging by defense lawyers — that then-District Judge Verla Sue Holland had been having an extramarital affair with Thomas O’Connell Jr, the former Collin County district attorney who prosecuted Hood.
That effort is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court after the Texas court ruled in September that Hood’s lawyers waited too long to raise the issue on appeal.
Today’s ruling reversed the court’s 2007 decision on the same question — drawing sharp criticism, and even a pointed attack on a fellow judge, in a dissent by Judge Michael Keasler.
“Notably, there is nothing but silence from Judge (Tom) Price, who agreed with our disposition of this case on original submission,” Keasler wrote. “Judge Price’s contrary opinion today is the sole reason that yesterday’s minority view is now the law.”
But Keasler didn’t stop there, accusing the judges who granted relief of engaging in judicial activism — fighting words in the judicial sphere.
“This case provides yet another egregious example of judges legislating from the bench, ignoring what the plurality of our citizens, through their various state representatives, have declared is the law of the state,” Keasler wrote.
Presiding Judge Sharon Keller and Judge Barbara Hervey joined Keasler’s dissent.
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U.S. attorney defends Austin immigration prosecutions
U.S. Attorney John Murphy today fired back at Austin federal Judge Sam Sparks’ recent accusations that seeking criminal convictions against some illegal immigrants is a waste of taxpayer money.
In a court filing, Murphy wrote that the three Mexican citizens whose prosecution for illegally re-entering the United States after deportation prompted questions from Sparks had each been deported multiple times in the past before recent arrests in Travis County for driving while intoxicated.
“The agency (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), and possibly other prosecutors, have chosen less costly means of dealing with each of these defendants on prior occasions, and in response, the defendants have returned unlawfully and engaged in serious criminal conduct,” Murphy wrote.
On Feb. 5, Sparks wrote in an order that “like many of the defendants prosecuted under the (federal illegal re-entry law) in the last six months” the men “have no significant history.”
The men were each found by immigration officers while in the Travis County jail last fall.
While they were each sentenced to time served, Sparks noted that as of the date of his order it had cost more than $13,350 to jail the three men and noted that charging them criminally means additional costs and work for prosecutors, defense lawyers, court personnel and others.
“The expenses of prosecuting illegal entry and re-entry cases (rather than deportation) on aliens without any significant criminal history is simply mind-boggling,” Sparks wrote.
Read Murphy’s court filing (pdf file) here:
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Gobert left nasty voice mail messages prior to killing
Ten days before Milton Dwayne Gobert was accused of brutally murdering Mel Cotton in North Austin, Gobert left a series of vulgar and at times ominous voice mail messages for his ex-girlfriend, who was one of Cotton’s close friends.
In the voice messages left for Christina Pocharasang, which were played in court Tuesday during the second day of testimony in Gobert’s capital murder trial, Gobert complained that some of his belongings had been taken when Pocharasang had moved out.
“I know you gave them … my (expletive) before you left, (expletive),” Gobert said in one voicemail.
In another, Gobert said, “one day you are going to look up and you are going to see me. Bet that.”
In another, Gobert said, “You need to send my (expletive) back here…. No keep that (expletive). You keep that.”
Gobert, 37, could face the death penalty if convicted in the October 6, 2003, attack on Cotton at her Interstate 35 apartment. Cotton’s then 5-year-old son was also stabbed that day but has recovered.
Prosecutors told the jury during opening statements that Gobert killed Cotton because he was angry at her for helping Pocharasang move out of the apartment they shared.
Gobert’s lawyers told the jury that he went to Cotton’s apartment the morning of her death to sleep with her. They said Cotton first drew the knife on Gobert after she became angry at him at being unable to commit to a relationship with her.
Pocharasang testified Tuesday that she enlisted the help of Cotton that day. Cotton, she said, hired a man to help in loading a U-Haul truck with Pocharasang’s things while Gobert was at work, Pocharasang said.
Assistant District Attorney Allison Wetzel did not ask Pocharasang about her allegations, laid out in a police affidavit, that Gobert had abused Pocharasang that same month by squeezing her throat, striking her in the face, head and back with a closed fist, and biting her on her shoulder.
Pocharasang said that Gobert had threatened her after she moved out and accused her of stealing some of his things from the apartment, including a vacuum cleaner, a television and a computer.
“He said Nina (Cotton) had his vacuum cleaner,” Pocharasang said.
That vacuum was found in Cotton’s apartment when she was found dead, prosecutors said.
State District Judge Bob Perkins ended the trial early Tuesday, citing the inclement weather in Austin. The trial will continue Wednesday.
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Hunter’s widow files lawsuit against Stack’s wife
The widow of an Internal Revenue Service employee killed when authorities said Andrew Joseph Stack III flew his plane into an office building has sued Stack’s wife, saying she should have warned others about her husband.
According to the seven-page lawsuit filed in Travis County court, Sheryl Mann Stack had a duty to “avoid a foreseeable risk of injury to others,” including Vernon Hunter, who was killed Thursday.
“Stack was threatened enough by Joseph Stack that she took her daughter and stayed at a hotel the night before the plane crash,” the suit said.
Federal authorities have said that Stack flew his single-engine plane into a building that houses Internal Revenue Service offices Thursday morning after setting his home ablaze. Officials have said he left behind a rambling Internet message blaming the IRS for many personal and financial difficulties.
Dan Ross, an attorney representing Valerie Hunter said, “There are reasons why we wanted to get a lawsuit filed early, not because we wanted to hurt anyone or anything like that.”
He said that his client is interested to know if any insurance proceeds might be available that the Hunter family would be entitled to.
“This is the proper way to determine what assets, including insurance, would be available for Mr. Hunter’s wrongful death,” he said.
The suit also seeks to block the autopsy results for Vernon Hunter from being made public.
According to the lawsuit, the Hunter family is entitled to damages because Joe Stack was negligent in protecting Hunter’s life. The amount of damages being sought was not specified.
Stack was required by law to fly his single-engine plane at an altitude 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle, according to the document.
“Vernon Hunter belonged to a class of persons the (law) was designed to protect,” the suit said.
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Boy’s injuries were no accident, doctor tells jury
A pediatric surgeon who treated a 5-year-old boy who was stabbed on the morning that his mother was killed in North Austin said the boy had lost 20 to 30 percent of his blood when he arrived at the hospital.
“There was nothing accidental about this,” said Michael Josephs, testifying about Demetrius Cotton-McCants’ injuries on the second day of testimony in Milton Dwayne Gobert’s capital murder trial.
If convicted of capital murder in the 2003 death of Mel Kernena Cotton, 30, Gobert could receive the death penalty.
Gobert’s lawyer has said that the ex-con, now 37, had stabbed Cotton out of self defense and accidentally injured Demetrius while the two were fighting over the knife.
A neighbor testified he heard yelling and banging coming from Cotton’s apartment several hours before Cotton’s sister found Cotton and Demetrius at about 8 a.m. on October 6, 2003. Demetrius’ underwear and t-shirt were soaked with blood and he had suffered four stab wounds, according to testimony. Cotton was dead of about 100 stab wounds, a prosecutor said.
Josephs, who treated the boy at what was then called Brackenridge Hospital, said that Demetrius suffered a wound through his chest to his lung, what he called a “serious, life threatening injury.”
He said Demetrius showed a particularly strong reaction when Josephs tried to use scissors to remove his sutures. Josephs said that it was so bad that doctors took the rare step of putting Demetrius under anesthesia to remove the sutures.
After Joseph’s testimony, the jury in state District Judge Bob Perkins’ court began viewing photographs of Cotton’s apartment, where the floors, walls and some of the contents were stained with blood.
Follow trial updates on Twitter here.
For a story on the trial from today’s Statesman.com click here.
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Prosecutor: Gobert wanted money, stabbed victim in the back
A single mother found dead in her North Austin apartment in 2003 was stabbed more than 100 times, prosecutor Gary Cobb told a Travis County jury this morning.
“About 30 of those times were in her back,” Cobb said at the start of Milton Dwayne Gobert’s capital murder trial. “Over and over again, as she’s tied up unable to resist.”
If Gobert, 37, is convicted in the October 6, 2003, death of Mel Cotton, 30, he could receive the death penalty. Cotton’s then-5-year-old son also was stabbed that day but survived and will testify at the trial.
Cobb said that Gobert was angry with Cotton for helping his ex-girlfriend move out of the home they had shared and suggested he went to her apartment for retribution. Cobb said that in recorded phone calls Gobert revealed that he was angry because he believed some of his things had been taken when his ex-girlfriend moved out.
“More than anything else he wanted his (expletive),” Cobb said, quoting Gobert. “You know what his (expletive) turned out to be? A vacuum cleaner.
“A woman who was good Samaritan lost her life and a 5-year-old boy lost his mother over a vacuum cleaner.”
Cobb said that the boy told police that the man who killed his mother had a mustache, was bald and wore a striped shirt, all of those matching how Gobert looked that day. The boy also told police that the man who had attacked his mother told her, “I want your purse, where’s the money.”
Defense lawyer Leonard Martinez said that Gobert stabbed Cotton only after she tried to use the knife on him, angry that he had been unable to commit to her in a relationship.
Martinez said the two had known each other since high school.
Martinez said that the boy was stabbed accidentally during the fracas and that Gobert stabbed Cotton in the back while she crawled to the closet, where Gobert thought she had a gun.
“She is known to possess firearms,” he said.
Martinez said that he wrapped Cotton in a phone cord and in some duct tape in an aborted effort to dispose of her body.
Gobert is accused of killing Cotton in the course of committing or attempting to kidnap and rob her and in the course of committing or attempting to kidnap her son.
Martinez said that any other felonies that Gobert may have committed came after the killing and therefore he should not be found guilty of capital murder and should not face the death penalty.
The trial in state District Judge Bob Perkins’ court is expected to take at least a week. For a longer story on the trial from today’s Statesman, click here.
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Laura Hall’s sentencing trial delayed
State District Judge Wilford Flowers today delayed Laura Ashley Hall’s new sentencing trial that had been scheduled for March 8, said prosecutor Allison Wetzel. No new date has been set.
In a hastily arranged court appearance, Hall’s defense lawyer Joe James Sawyer asked Flowers to appoint a DNA expert and to delay the trial to allow that expert to review evidence, Wetzel said. Sawyer also said he has two other major trials coming up and needs time to read the court record of Hall’s initial trial and sentencing in 2007, Wetzel said. Sawyer could not be immediately reached.
“The judge asked us to look at the week of May 17, to see if your witnesses can be available,” Wetzel said.
Hall stands convicted of hindering apprehension and tampering with evidence in the 2005 West Campus murder and mutilation of 21-year-old Jennifer Cave. She had served about 17 months of a five-year sentence when an appellate court last year upheld her conviction but found that her original sentencing hearing was unfair.
Hall was released on bail about a year ago pending resolution of her appeals, which happened in October when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to consider the case.
On Feb. 8, Flowers ordered her jailed again, noting that her convictions are now final.
Hall, who cried out that she was innocent during that hearing while being escorted into custody, did not say anything at today’s hearing, Wetzel said.
Hall had served about four months in jail prior to her 2007 trial.
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Looser demeanor preceded Laura Hall’s outburst
When Laura Ashley Hall showed up in court last week she was chatty with reporters, told television camera operators that she was nervous and smiled as a Statesman photographer clicked her photo.
Her loose demeanor was a marked departure from how Hall, 26, acted while free on bail before her 2007 convictions for tampering with physical evidence and hindering apprehension. Prosecutors said she helped dismember the body of 21-year-old Jennifer Cave in West Campus in 2005 and drove Colton Pitonyak, who is now serving a 55-year sentence for murder in the case, to Mexico.
At right: Statesman photographs of Hall heading to and from court appearances. From top right down the photos were taken in February 2007, March 2007, August 2007 and last week.
During those previous visits to court Hall generally wore a stoic gaze and refused to speak to reporters. At one point she tried to hide her face from the press by holding a scarf over her head on her way to and from court in the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center downtown.
When inside the courtroom, Hall sat quietly, often surrounded by family members who were obviously trying to shield her from the media attention.
In September 2007 the jury that convicted Hall sentenced her to five years in prison on the tampering with evidence charge and one year for hindering apprehension. She was sent to jail.
In February 2009, the 3rd Court of Appeals upheld the conviction but granted her a new sentencing trial. The court ruled that Travis County prosecutors unfairly withheld from the defense information that could have raised questions about the state’s only sentencing witness.
She was set free on bail to continue to fight the conviction at the Court of Criminal Appeals, which late last year upheld the 3rd Court’s ruling.
So Hall was back in court Feb. 8 for another pre-trial hearing. Word was that prosecutors were going to seek to have her bail revoked.
On her way in to court, she told the folks standing behind a row of video cameras that she was nervous, though she seemed very relaxed.
Later, while Judge Wilford Flowers took a break before Hall’s case was called, I was standing in the courtroom gallery chatting with someone when Hall approached. Her case had not yet been called and she held out her hand to this reporter and said, “Steven, right?”
I shook her hand. We had met once in early 2007 when I told her in court that I’d like to interview her and gave her my business card. My recollection is that she took it but did not say much and did not even really look at me. I have since called her home several times for comment for subsequent stories, calls that were either not returned or fielded by her father. She has never spoken to me at the courthouse.
So I was a little surprised when Hall began a conversation as if we were old friends. After our handshake, she asked if I had seen the Super Bowl the night before. I said I had.
With no interest in discussing football with Hall while Sharon Sedwick, the mother of Jennifer Cave, was within earshot, I tried to turn the conversation.
“So what have you been up to?” I asked.
Hall shrugged the question off. I asked if she was living with her parents and she said she was. Hall said she wasn’t working, just focused on her case.
I asked why her demeanor was different that day.
She said she has always been nervous in court: “Do you know how many times I have come in here and almost peed in my pants?”
Hall continued to maintain that she has been wrongly convicted.
A television reporter approached and Hall quickly turned to him, shook his hand and asked him where he went to college. He said Syracuse University. She thought he said Sarah Lawrence, a small college outside of New York City, and asked if they had old-fashioned elevators in New York with the accordion-style gates.
“I wanted to go to Sarah Lawrence (College) so bad!”
Now several people I have spoken to —including former teachers, employers and even a former tutor — have described Hall as very intelligent. But at this point in our conversation she sounded like a giddy high-school girl.
The television reporter asked Hall what her goal in court was. She said: “I’ve got to clear my name, baby.”
She said she used to be scared of reporters but came to realize that “you guys are people just like me.”
She said she still holds hope of going to law school, although her convictions would likely keep her from practicing law.
“Right now there is a football game and I’m the football but I so want to be the quarterback,” she said. “Or the coach.”
Then she said, “So Paul Devoe, what about that guy?” referring to the convicted killer accused of slaying six people in two states in 2007. Devoe is now on death row.
Soon Flowers returned to the bench and called Hall’s case. During a brief hearing he set her sentencing trial for March 8 and ordered her bail revoked. He said that because her appeals were up she no longer was entitled to an appellate bond.
When the hearing ended, a sheriff’s deputy began to escort Hall into custody. She grabbed the arm of her lawyer, Joe James Sawyer, and cried out: “Please get me out of this.”
The deputy grabbed her and Hall yelled, “Your honor, I am not guilty. You need to let me go home. You need to let me go home.”
Several minutes after the door from the courtroom to the secured holding area was closed, Hall could still be heard yelling from the courtroom.
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Father who left son in van indicted
A Williamson County grand jury Tuesday indicted on two felony counts the father of an 18-month-old boy who was forgotten in the family’s mini-van and died after nearly six hours in the August heat.
Kesen Hu, 34, was indicted on charges of criminally negligent homicide and endangering a child, both of which carry up to two years in state jail.
Hu was arrested soon after his son’s death, but was released on bond several days later.
He and his attorney have said that what happened in the parking lot of his Northwest Austin office complex on Aug. 12 was a fatal oversight, but did not constitute a crime.
According to a two-page indictment, Hu was negligent in the death of his son “by confining Daniel Hu in a motor vehicle and exposing him to heat dangerous to human life.”
He used several deadly weapons — a car, a car seat and heat — to carry out his crime, the indictment said.
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Man gets 10 years probation in Sixth Street manslaughter
This story has been updated since originally filed with comments from Assistant Travis County District Attorney Buddy Meyer.
Eric Skeeter, who had been accused of fatally punching a man he encountered on Sixth Street, pleaded guilty to manslaughter today and was sentenced to 10 years probation.
Skeeter, 29, was sentenced under a plea bargain with prosecutors in state District Judge Charlie Baird’s court. Manslaughter is punishable by up to 20 years in prison but because of his previous record, Skeeter faced up to life in prison if convicted, said his lawyer, Patrick McNelis. Prosecutors said they offered the plea bargain because they feared they would not be able to prove their case to a jury.
Skeeter has been in jail since his arrest in July for the attack on Nikolas Evans, 21.
Police have said that Evans was leaving a bar with a friend about 2 a.m. on March 27 when they got into an argument with several men at East Sixth and Neches streets.
After that argument, police have said, another group approached Evans and his friend, and one of the men in that group hit both of them. Evans hit his head on the ground after he was punched, according to investigators.
Prosecutor Buddy Meyer said prosecutors offered the plea agreement because they feared they would not be able to prove Skeeter’s guilt at trial.
While police and Evans’ mother last summer made public pleas for witnesses through the local news media, Meyer said many of the witnesses there when Evans was punched could not be located, including a man and two women who were with Skeeter.
Police had secured one witness who saw Skeeter standing over Evans during the altercation, but no witness who could identify Skeeter as the one who threw the punch, Meyer said.
“We felt that it was important to hold (Skeeter) accountable for the death,” by securing his conviction with the guilty plea, Meyer said.
McNelis said probation was an appropriate punishment.
“Of course Eric took responsibility for it,” he said. “But we are talking about a one-punch case on Sixth Street. It’s not like some savage murder.”
The case received national attention when Evans’ mother successfully petitioned a Travis County court for permission to collect her son’s sperm in the days after her death. Marissa Evans said she wanted to have a grandchild through a surrogate mother, which she has not yet done.
Marissa Evans has described her son as a good kid, an aspiring filmmaker with a quick wit who had been accepted into film school at UCLA.
McNelis described Skeeter as a “really nice guy” who hopes to get his life back on track. He said Skeeter grew up in Virginia and came to Texas after he joined the Army and was stationed at Fort Hood. McNelis said Skeeter after a relationship there went bad, Skeeter broke into his ex-girlfriend’s house and stole some CDs. He was convicted of burglary and sentenced to probation, McNelis said.
“He was essentially kicked out of the military and his life started spiraling,” McNelis said.
Skeeter returned to Virginia to live with his parents, where he was arrested for driving while intoxicated, McNelis said.
Because of that arrest Skeeter was brought back to Texas where his probation on the burglary charge was revoked and he was sentenced to five years in prison. He served two and half before being paroled and was living in Austin and working at Goodwill when he ran into Evans on Sixth Street after the bars closed, McNelis said.
Skeeter remains in jail while a Texas parole officers evaluates whether he should be returned to prison or continued on parole, McNelis said.
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Judge orders some of stolen lottery winnings returned; store clerk still at large
A judge in Austin on Tuesday ordered that $395,000 seized in a lottery fraud investigation be given to Willis Willis, a Dallas-area maintenance man who prosecutors say was the rightful winner of a $1 million jackpot last year.
“I feel great right now,” said Willis, 68, outside court. He wants to use his winnings to pay off medical bills, to pay the college tuition bills for the youngest of his six daughters and to buy a new set of golf clubs. He does not plan to work again.
Willis, above right, speaks with prosecutor Patty Robertson in court today. Statesman photo by Rudy Gonzalez. Joshi is shown below right in photo from his U.S. marshal’s service “wanted” poster.
The order by state District Judge Bob Perkins comes as authorities are continuing to search for Pankaj Joshi, a convenience store clerk in the Dallas suburb of Grand Prairie who prosecutors say stole Willis’ ticket in May when Willis asked him to check if it was a winner.
Joshi, 25, was indicted in Travis County in September on a felony charge of claiming a lottery prize by fraud. Authorities have said that after claiming the jackpot in Austin they believe that Joshi returned to his native Nepal.
Because the Texas Lottery Commission withheld taxes, Joshi was given a check for $750,000 after claiming the prize at the state lottery headquarters on 6th Street, authorities have said.
Early in the investigation, Austin police working with lottery investigators and the Travis County district attorney’s office seized about $365,000 from bank accounts Joshi opened in the United States, prosecutor Patty Robertson said Tuesday outside court.
In the last couple of months, Robertson said, they retrieved an additional $30,000 that Joshi had given to a cousin and another person in the U.S.
Robertson said that an additional $300,000 has since has been frozen in accounts in Nepal by authorities there. She said U.S. State Department officials are working to retrieve that money for Willis.
Randy Howry, one of Willis’s lawyers, said he and his law partner Sean Breen would continue to pursue Willis’ winnings, even if it means traveling to Nepal or filing a civil lawsuit.
Willis said he frequently thinks of Joshi, who had worked at Lucky Food Store on Great Southwest Parkway in Grand Prairie while attending University of Texas-Arlington.
Willis, who worked maintenance at apartment complexes, had gone to the store regularly to play the lottery on his way home and to have his tickets checked on his way to a nearby bar where he regularly watched NASCAR.
“I can just see his face all the time,” Willis said. “It irritates me at times but most of the time I am just like, ‘hey, it happened.’”
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Meachum, Montford among judicial candidates favored by Austin bar
Lawyers who voted in an Austin Bar Association poll released Monday favor Amy Clark Meachum, a civil lawyer, over Judge Jan Patterson, and they favor criminal defense lawyer Mindy Montford over prosecutor Karen Sage and two others in separate District Court races. Both are among the contested Travis County judicial elections on the March 2 party primary ballot.
The Austin Bar Association poll drew responses from 946 lawyers who voted online and by paper ballot from February 1 through February 12 in the local contested judicial elections. Not every poll respondent voted in all of the races. A pdf file with the complete poll results is here: 2010 Judicial Preference Poll Final Results.pdf
In one of the most closely watched local races, Meachum, 34, drew 58% of the votes from those who weighed in on the Democratic primary race for the 201st District Court, which hears civil cases. She faces Jan Patterson, a 3rd Court of Appeals justice, in the competition to replace the retiring Suzanne Covington. Meachum outpolled Patterson 492-359.
Montford, 39, and Sage, 44, are running along with criminal defense lawyers Leonard Martinez, 62, and Eve Schatelowitz Alcantar, 38, in the Democratic primary for the 299th District Court. Judge Charlie Baird is not running for re-election to the felony criminal court.
In the bar association poll, 60%, or 433 of the lawyers who voted in that race favored Montford. Sage was favored by 209 lawyers, or 29% of poll respondents. Martinez drew 65 votes and Schatelowitz Alcantar drew 14.
Lawyers voting in the poll favored Austin Police Monitor Cliff Brown, 46, over 59-year-old civil lawyer Bill Gammon, 426-136 in the Democratic primary race for the 147th District Court, a felony criminal bench being vacated by retiring Judge Wilford Flowers.
For the 331st District Court, a felony criminal bench held by retiring Judge Bob Perkins, 491 lawyers favored County Court-at-Law Judge David Crain, 57, and 68 favored Keith Lauerman, 53, a defense lawyer. The pair are facing off in the Democratic primary.
In the Democratic race to replace Crain, on County Court-at-Law #3, which hears misdemeanor criminal cases, prosecutor John Lipscombe, 53, drew 57% of the votes. Lipscombe drew 373 votes to the 286 claimed by his opponent, Municipal Court Judge Olga Seelig, 44.
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Drunken driver who killed construction worker gets 15 years
A drunken driver who struck and killed a construction worker on South Interstate 35 near Onion Creek in June pleaded guilty to intoxication manslaughter in a Travis County court today and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
David Delacerda, 30, pleaded guilty under a plea bargain with prosecutors, said State District Judge Bob Perkins. He also pleaded guilty to failure to stop and render aid, for which he was sentenced to 10 years. The sentences will run together, Perkins said.
On June 24 at about 1:30 a.m., Delacerda, at right, drove a dark-colored sport-utility vehicle through a construction zone near Onion Creek Parkway, killing 36-year-old Fontino Cortez-Cruz, who was laying reflective tabs on the highway, according to police and transportation officials.
Delacerda did not stop and continued south, prompting Austin police to tell law enforcement in Hays County to be on the lookout for his car, police have said.
Hays County sheriff’s deputies found a burned dark-colored SUV outside of Kyle about 4 a.m., police said.
Shortly after, police received a call from South Austin Hospital after Delacerda had checked in with burns on his body, police said. He was later arrested.
Intoxication manslaughter is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
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Latest comments
Gobert is one of the lowest forms of life I have ever had the displeasure of running across. He is definately a future and continuing threat to society and should be executed.
... read the full comment by craig | Comment on Gobert's criminal past revealed during punishment phase Read Gobert's criminal past revealed during punishment phase
Cannot say it too many times….With deepest sympathy, Family of all involved are in all our prayers.
... read the full comment by Cotton | Comment on Gobert's criminal past revealed during punishment phase Read Gobert's criminal past revealed during punishment phase
“The evidence far more supports a domestic violence situation gone way bad,” defense lawyer Kent Anschutz said. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE is ALWAYS BAD!!! He had been arrested prior to this horrible murder twice for assault charges on two other girlfriends; can’t
... read the full comment by MP | Comment on Gobert guilty of capital murder in 2003 stabbing death Read Gobert guilty of capital murder in 2003 stabbing death
“The evidence far more supports a domestic violence situation gone way bad,” defense lawyer Kent Anschutz said. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE is ALWAYS BAD!!! He had been arrested prior to this horrible murder twice for assault charges on two other girlfriends; can’t
... read the full comment by MP | Comment on Gobert guilty of capital murder in 2003 stabbing death Read Gobert guilty of capital murder in 2003 stabbing death
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