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Jermaine Herron, TX - May 17
Do Not Execute Jermaine Herron!
Jermaine Herron
May 17, 2006
Texas
Jermaine Herron, a black man, awaits execution on Texas’ death row for the 1997 shooting death of 41-year-old Betsy Nutt and her 15-year-old son Cody Nutt at their Refugio County ranch.According to court documents, Herron, along with his accomplice Derrick Frazier, drove to the ranch on the morning of June 26 with the intention of robbing it, having learned that the family would be out of town that day.However, after burglarizing one of the trailers on the property, the two decided to sit in the living room and drink.At approximately 2 p.m. Herron and Frazier observed Ms. Nutt arriving home and decided to approach her trailer.They told Ms. Nutt that their car had broken down and asked to use her phone.Once inside the trailer, Herron and Frazier forced Ms. Nutt and her son to their knees and shot each in the head.On June 29, after a warrant was issued for his arrest, Herron turned himself in to a captain of the Refugio County Sheriff’s office.
Crucial to the prosecution’s case against Herron were the statements he made to police after surrendering himself for arrest.What is troubling is that these statements were made without an attorney present even though Herron had explicitly requested one.While the first statement was not introduced in court, Herron’s second statement to police was.The statement was allowed regardless of a law dictating that a defendant’s initial assertion of his right to counsel continues past the state’s initial violation of this right and trumps any subsequent waivers he agreed to or signed.Therefore, the second statement should not have been admissible in court.This fact ties into a larger problem of ineffective assistance of council.In other words, Herron’s counsel failed to request that the jury be given instructions by the judge on the legality of his confession.This begs the question of whether or not the jury would have arrived at the same verdict had they been instructed to disregard Herron’s statements to the police.Due to the fact that the prosecution’s case relied largely on these statements it seems likely that the jury would not have come to the same conclusion.
Although the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals admitted that the trial court had made an error by allowing Herron’s statements, they deemed the error “harmless” and refused to grant Herron relief.While we will never know whether or not the jury would have decided differently had the statement been excluded, this case illustrates that human fallibility is a reality in our criminal justice system.
Please write to Gov. Rick Perry on behalf of Jermaine Herron!
