Execution Report: Stephen Moody

Continued from Page 1

A jury convicted Moody of capital murder in March 1993 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in January 1996.

In his appeals, Moody challenged the trail court's decision not to hold a hearing concerning the state's exclusion of a black panelist from the jury. Moody's attorneys argued that the panelist's exclusion was racially-motivated, but the trial court ruled that Moody had no standing to contest the black panelist's exclusion for racial reasons because Moody was white. In September 2002, a U.S. district court ruled that the trial court erred in not holding a hearing on the issue, and it granted Moody a new trial.

The state appealed the federal district court's ruling to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In a 2-1 decision, the Fifth Circuit overturned the lower court's ruling in January 2007. Although the trial court was clearly wrong in stating that Moody was not entitled to a hearing on the jury panelist's removal because of his race, the court wrote, Moody was nevertheless not entitled to hearing, because the prosecutor who struck the panelist offered a credible race-neutral reason for doing so. The lower court's ruling granting Moody a new trial was vacated. All of Moody's subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

From death row, Moody told an interviewer that he shot Hall because he kept struggling when ordered to surrender his money. "He started fighting," Moody said. "He wouldn't listen to me. He wouldn't lay down."

Last spring, Moody petitioned his judge to set his execution date as soon as possible. Life on death row, he said, was "cruel and unusual punishment." As his execution date approached, he asked his lawyer not to file any last-minute appeals to try to have his execution stopped or delayed. "I'm ready, man. I ain't quitting. I went all the way."

Calvin Charles Doby was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. He remains in custody as of this writing. A few days before Moody's execution, Moody asserted in a sworn statement that Doby is innocent. "My conscience will not let me remain silent any longer," he said. "It is not right that Calvin Doby has suffered in prison all these years for something he did not do." He said that another man - not Doby - was his accomplice, and that Melvin Ellis's testimony against Doby was unreliable because Ellis was taking psychiatric medications at the time of the murder.

A new appeal has been filed in Doby's case based on Moody's statement. "At the time of the crime, I was at home with my wife and our newborn," Doby told an interviewer. Doby's attorney said that Moody wanted to clear Doby five years ago, but Moody's attorneys would not allow him to make a formal statement because his appeals were still open, and anything Moody said could have jeopardized his own case.

In the interview, Moody said that he didn't plan to be difficult at his execution. "I'll cuss no one in there," he said. "I don't want to leave spewing a lot of hate. What good is that going to do?" Moody said, "Maybe they'll see I was a human being."

In his last statement, Moody addressed Hall's mother and son, saying that he hoped they could find peace. "Warden, pull the trigger," he then said. The lethal injection was started. He was pronounced dead at 6:28 p.m.

After the execution, the victim's son, Joseph Hall, issued a statement denying that his father was a drug dealer. "Drugs had nothing to do with his death," he wrote. "He was robbed of money he received from an accident which left him crippled."

By David Carson. Posted on 17 September 2009.
Sources: Texas Attorney General's office, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Associated Press, Houston Chronicle, court documents.