Is Texas About to Execute an Innocent Man?
July 1st, 2008 at 12:37 pm
[See update below]
Lester Leroy Bower is scheduled for execution three weeks from tomorrow, despite compelling evidence that he may be innocent.
Bower was sentenced to death for the 1983 murders of four men in an airplane hanger in Sherman. He has professed his innocence from the beginning. Nineteen years ago, in 1989, a witness came forward to claim that Bower is the wrong man. The witness says her ex-boyfriend and his companions perpetrated the killings in Sherman as part of a drug deal gone bad. (Fearing for her safety, the witness refuses to identify herself publicly.)
There is reason to think the witness may be telling the truth: Her ex-boyfriend and compatriots were accused drug dealers, and the victims may have been involved with drugs as well, according to Bowers’ attorneys, who have verified key parts of the witness’s story.
Yet this new evidence has never received a full hearing. Appeals cases are often argued on narrow points of law, which is why, in two decades of court battles, no judge has ever ruled on the new evidence in Bower’s case, Anthony Roth, one of Bower’s attorneys, told the Observer.
(For more details, check out Tim Madigan’s must-read story in Sunday’s Fort Worth Star-Telegram.)
Prosecutors in Sherman stand by their case, which is largely based on circumstantial evidence.
Bower did visit the airplane hanger the day of the murders. But Bower has said he went there to buy a glider and returned to his house in Mansfield, two hours away, long before the killings took place. Investigators became interested in Bower when they discovered phone calls between Bower and one of the victims (he claims he made those calls to arrange the glider purchase).
When investigators interviewed Bower, he lied and said he hadn’t been in the hanger that day. This was his major mistake. A search of his house turned up the glider, and prosecutors believed they had their man. But there is no evidence linking Bower to the murders or that proves he was even in Sherman around the time of the killings, according to his attorneys.
Yet he is set to die on July 22, after nearly two decades in prison.
Bower’s attorneys have three last-minute appeals to save Bower’s life. One petition sits before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which will decide if a state district court can reexamine Bower’s case. The CCA — the highest criminal court in Texas — isn’t exactly friendly territory for defendants.
Roth said they have requested DNA testing of remaining evidence from the crime scene to determine if it can verify the account of the new witness. (Prosecutors filed a brief in state court last week opposing the DNA testing.)
Finally, Bower’s attorneys have also asked a state judge to delay Bower’s execution until new evidence is heard.
“It is compelling evidence. Before the state executes anyone, they need to look at that compelling evidence,” Roth said. “They clearly got the wrong person in this case.”
Update: A state district judge has postponed Bower’s execution to consider allowing DNA testing of evidence from the scene. The AP story is here.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:56 am
Very interesting blog, and a very compelling case.
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I’m not really sure that they have the WRONG guy here, but there is definitely something more to the story. I am a daughter of one of the victims in this case, and this has really opened some old wounds that I thought were healed. I just hope that justice is served and the courts get it right!
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:22 pm
regardless of the socalled “new evidence” it does not clear bowers name…it may add guilt to other parties but bower is guilty. they have dragged this out for too long and bower is now the criminal who cried wolf. enough already.