Post by sclcookie on May 31, 2006 2:15:22 GMT -5
Holton will not oppose execution date
The Shelbyville man who killed his 3 sons and a stepdaughter in November 1997 has said he's willing to die for his crimes -- and the Tennessee Supreme Court has set Sept. 19 as his new execution date.
Daryl Keith Holton, 45, shot the children in an auto shop where he'd been living.
Holton has become the subject of legal sparring between the State Attorney General's office and a state office established to be sure death row inmates have adequate legal counsel.
On May 15, Holton filed a response of his own to the Attorney General's office which, on May 10, had requested a new execution date.
Holton stated that he "does not oppose the State's motion to reset an execution date," according to a state Supreme Court order issued late Thursday.
Holton's statement prompted a flurry of legal filings from attorneys who step forward to defend death row inmates, but Thursday the state Supreme Court ruled. Such efforts for a federal order to stop Holton's execution were preceded by several in state courts, some here in Shelbyville.
Post Conviction Defender Donald Dawson has said that Holton shouldn't be executed because he's not competent, evidenced by his refusal to speak with anyone other than his mother. Discussion among state Supreme Court justices indicated a belief that some inmates are willing to accept punishment for their crimes.
Holton, 45, divorced his wife, Crystle, in 1993 after she became pregnant by another man. Reconciliation had failed. He concluded that his children's lives were ruined because they'd be raised in a broken home, so he killed them. He planned to go to Rutherford County and kill their mother and himself but realized if he died, he couldn't explain himself, so he surrendered to police in Shelbyville.
A June 8, 2005, execution date had been set in Holton's case but it was put on hold nearly one year ago by Senior Judge Don Harris, who presided over Holton's case here on May 16, 2005.
In their May 10 request to the Supreme Court for a new execution date, Solicitor General Michael E. Moore and Jennifer L. Smith, associate deputy attorney general, said Dawson's request to Harris was late and wasn't supported by Holton, so that failed, and his request for relief in the federal courts should also fail for the same reasons.
(source: Shelbyville Times-Gazette)
The Shelbyville man who killed his 3 sons and a stepdaughter in November 1997 has said he's willing to die for his crimes -- and the Tennessee Supreme Court has set Sept. 19 as his new execution date.
Daryl Keith Holton, 45, shot the children in an auto shop where he'd been living.
Holton has become the subject of legal sparring between the State Attorney General's office and a state office established to be sure death row inmates have adequate legal counsel.
On May 15, Holton filed a response of his own to the Attorney General's office which, on May 10, had requested a new execution date.
Holton stated that he "does not oppose the State's motion to reset an execution date," according to a state Supreme Court order issued late Thursday.
Holton's statement prompted a flurry of legal filings from attorneys who step forward to defend death row inmates, but Thursday the state Supreme Court ruled. Such efforts for a federal order to stop Holton's execution were preceded by several in state courts, some here in Shelbyville.
Post Conviction Defender Donald Dawson has said that Holton shouldn't be executed because he's not competent, evidenced by his refusal to speak with anyone other than his mother. Discussion among state Supreme Court justices indicated a belief that some inmates are willing to accept punishment for their crimes.
Holton, 45, divorced his wife, Crystle, in 1993 after she became pregnant by another man. Reconciliation had failed. He concluded that his children's lives were ruined because they'd be raised in a broken home, so he killed them. He planned to go to Rutherford County and kill their mother and himself but realized if he died, he couldn't explain himself, so he surrendered to police in Shelbyville.
A June 8, 2005, execution date had been set in Holton's case but it was put on hold nearly one year ago by Senior Judge Don Harris, who presided over Holton's case here on May 16, 2005.
In their May 10 request to the Supreme Court for a new execution date, Solicitor General Michael E. Moore and Jennifer L. Smith, associate deputy attorney general, said Dawson's request to Harris was late and wasn't supported by Holton, so that failed, and his request for relief in the federal courts should also fail for the same reasons.
(source: Shelbyville Times-Gazette)