Appeals court halts execution set for Thursday

Associated Press January 18, 2006

Condemned Texas inmate Julius Murphy won a reprieve Wednesday, a day before he was to be executed for the robbery and fatal shooting of a man in Texarkana 8½ years ago.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the scheduled punishment and remanded the case to the trial court in Bowie County, said Kevin Dunn, Murphy's lawyer, said.

"We're eager to litigate it," Dunn said.

The U.S. Supreme Court last week refused to review Murphy's case. In new appeals this week, Dunn raised claims that Murphy, who never got beyond the eighth grade, was borderline mentally retarded. The Supreme Court has ruled that mentally retarded people may not be executed.

"We think he needs further testing," the lawyer said.

Murphy would have been the first inmate taken to the death house this year in Huntsville, where 19 executions in 2005 kept Texas the nation's most active capital punishment state.

"I know nothing is going to happen unless the Lord allows it to happen," Murphy, 27, said earlier Wednesday from death row outside Livingston, before the court ruling became known. "I'm not worried."

A Bowie County jury decided Murphy should die for the fatal shooting of Jason Erie, 26, whose car broke down the early morning hours of Sept. 19, 1997, near his father's home in Texarkana. Murphy, then 18, and a companion, Christopher Solomon, 17, told friends they had spotted Erie at the side of the road and were going to go back to "jack him," a witness said.

They helped him get the car started and Erie offered them $5. They pulled out a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol, robbed him of his wallet and his cash. Then Erie, a Navy veteran and father of two, was shot in the forehead.

"I was all screwed up in the head ... under serious drug influences at the time," Murphy said. "I am sorry this all happened. I have remorse. I feel read bad."

Solomon also was convicted and received the death penalty. His sentence was commuted to life last year when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it was improper to execute offenders who were under 18 at the time of their crime.

At least 12 other inmates have execution dates in Texas, including two more this month.

Source: Associated Press