Execution Report: Lorenzo Morris

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Morris had a lengthy criminal record. In 1972, he was convicted of aggravated assault of a police officer. In June 1976, he was convicted of aggravated robbery and sentenced to 5 years in prison. He served 18 months of that sentence before being paroled in January 1978. In April 1982, he returned to prison with an 8-year sentence for robbery. He was paroled in December 1982 and was discharged from parole in September 1986.

A jury convicted Morris of capital murder in March 1992 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in December 1994. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied. Morris's appeals lawyer claimed that Fields died from natural causes and poor medical care, and that Morris's trial attorney provided ineffective assistance by failing to call the nursing home physician as a witness to testify to that effect. The courts rejected this argument.

"I didn't kill him, he died of natural causes," Morris said from death row.

On the day of his execution, Morris asked his lawyer, Rob Morrow, not to make any more appeals on his behalf. "He let me know that he had made peace with the situation," Morrow said.

Morris declined to make a last statement at his execution. He was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m.

By David Carson. Posted on 31 October 2004. Minor grammatical correction made on 23 OCtober 2014.
Sources: Texas Attorney General's office, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, court documents, Associated Press, Houston Chronicle.