Stephen Moody

Stephen Lindsey Moody, 52, was executed by lethal injection on 16 September 2009 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder and robbery of a man in his home.

On 19 October 1991, Calvin Doby, 29, Lloyd Larrieu, 49, and Melvin Ellis drove to the Houston home of Larrieu's drug supplier, Joseph Hall, 28. After some discussion about robbing Hall, Doby telephoned Moody, then 34. About an hour and a half later, Moody and Doby met at Hall's house. They then forced their way inside and demanded money and drugs from Hall. While Hall pleaded for his life, Moody shot him at close range with a sawed-off shotgun. Moody and Doby then fled with $1,200 in cash. About 45 minutes later, they met at Ellis's house to divide the money.

The murder case went unsolved for nearly a year until a relative of Doby give police a tip. Hall's girlfriend, Rene McKeage, who witnessed the murder, then identified Moody from a photo lineup. By that time, Moody was already in prison, serving a 40-year sentence for robbing a Houston bank in December 1991.

At Moody's trial, McKeage testified that on the evening of the murder, she and Hall were returning home from dinner when she noticed two unknown men walking on the street, away from their house. Later, McKeage was in the bathroom when she heard someone rush into the house. She heard Hall yell out her name, and then heard another man's voice screaming "Where is the money?" Knowing that there were drugs in the house, McKeage said she initially thought the men may be police. She then heard Hall say, "You're not the cops. Let me see your badges." A moment later, Moody walked into the bathroom pointing a sawed-off shotgun at her. He said, "Stay there. Don't move."

Moody then left the bathroom. McKeage heard him ask Hall again, "Where is the money?" Hall answered that the money was in his pocket, and said, "Please don't shoot me." Moody then returned to the bathroom and ordered McKeage to stay there. "Okay, I won't move," she answered. Moody shut the bathroom door as he left. McKeage then jumped out of the window and made her way to the next-door neighbor's house. While she was fleeing, she heard a gunshot come from inside her house. She called 911 at the neighbor's house.

Melvin Ellis testified that he was with Doby and Larrieu in September when Doby asked Larrieu the name and whereabouts of the person who supplied his drugs, so he could rob him. He also stated that on the day of the murder, when the three of them went to Hall's house, Larrieu explained to Doby where Hall kept his money and described his car to him, so Doby could know whether Hall was home. Ellis further testified that after the murder, Moody and Doby came to his residence and both of them told him about the crime. Ellis testified that Moody said, "I shot him right in the heart." Ellis also said that he noticed a shotgun in the vehicle that Moody and Doby were driving.

When Ellis testified in court that Moody and Doby left $100 of the stolen money at his house, Moody blurted out, "He's a lying son of a bitch. He got $900."

Moody had three prior felony convictions, in addition to the December 1991 bank robbery. In 1978, he was convicted of burglary of a habitation and sentenced to 8 years in prison. He was paroled in 1981. Before the end of the year, he was back in prison with a new 6-year sentence for auto theft. He was released in 1984. In 1985, he was sentenced to 14 years for burglary of a vehicle. He served 3½ years of that of sentence before being paroled again in 1988. (At the time, early release was common in Texas due to strict prison population caps imposed by U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice.)

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."