Given all the ongoing discussion about what makes a proper death penalty case in a modern trial, perhaps we should be tracking the cases that get the death penalty.
The first example:
A Johnson County jury deliberated just one hour Friday before sentencing Mark Anthony Soliz to death for killing a 61-year-old Godley grandmother during an eight-day crime spree that also left a Fort Worth man dead.
Marion McCottry and William Wilson seemed to be a solid match as far as roommates go - both hailed from the same town, there was only a five-year age difference, and each was serving a lengthy prison term for murder.
McCottry, 51, and Wilson, 56, both convicted killers from Bexar County, shared a cell at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Telford Unit; that is until Feb. 29, when an alleged argument left McCottry dead and Wilson reportedly admitting to assaulting him, according to TDCJ officials.
Maura Irby, the woman who raised two children alone after her police officer husband was gunned down in 1990, sobbed as she hugged more than a dozen police officers in a Houston courtroom Tuesday.
"I'm relieved. I'm elated. I feel vindicated," the widow said after the man who shot Houston motorcycle officer James Irby in the head during a traffic stop was sentenced, again, to die for his crime.
Normally, killing lots of people is an easy justification for seeking the death penalty. Here, however, it becomes a reason for negotiating more life sentences:
A trucker who kept a torture dungeon in the cab of his long-haul rig has avoided the death penalty by accepting life prison sentences for murdering a hitchhiking couple two decades ago.
A former Texas nurse accused of killing five of her patients and injuring five others by injecting bleach into their kidney dialysis tubing was found guilty of capital murder Friday.
Prosecutors failed to show she would present a future danger for violence, one of the questions they must answer in deciding a death penalty, defense lawyer Steve Taylor told jurors. "She's never getting out no matter what you do. ... Society is protected. You will never see her again."
Federal prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty against three Somalis charged with murder in the fatal shooting of four Americans aboard a hijacked yacht last year, according to a court document unsealed Tuesday.
Forty-nine decapitated and mutilated bodies were found Sunday dumped on a highway connecting the northern Mexican metropolis of Monterrey to the U.S. border in what appeared to be the latest blow in an escalating war of intimidation among drug gangs.
"Whenever you have a police officer killed in the line of duty, I think that in and of itself is a strong factor" for the death penalty, Zellerbach said. "We have law enforcement personnel putting their lives on the line every day for our own safety."
"Critics say too often, at prisons across the country, convicted killers pass the time playing dominos and basketball, use well-stocked commissaries selling snacks and sodas, and enjoy state-of-the-art gyms, or time in the arts and crafts room."
"They're playing on softball fields with lined base paths and umpires in uniforms, while other guys are hanging out, getting a suntan," Blecker said. "Those who committed the worst crimes, who deserve to suffer the most, generally suffer the least."
