Associated Press - August 8, 2002

HUNTSVILLE -- An eighth-grade dropout who was a teenager when he was convicted of killing an East Texas man during a carjacking more than eight years ago apologized for the crime and then was executed today. "I would like to say to the victim's family I regret the pain I put y'all through. I hope you can move on after this," T.J. Jones said, looking at relatives of his victim.

Then, Jones, 25, turned to a second window where his mother was watching and said, "Mom, I love y'all. Take care. I'm ready." He gasped and stopped breathing. Jones was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m., seven minutes after the lethal dose began. His mother sobbed quietly and was comforted by Jones' aunt.

Jones was 17 when he was arrested with three companions for gunning down 75-year-old retired electrician Willard Davis, who had surrendered his car to them outside his home in Longview, about 190 miles north of Houston. "They tried to make him get in the back seat and he said: 'No. Here's my car. Please let me go to my wife,'" recalled Alfonso Charles, an assistant district attorney in Gregg County who helped prosecute Jones. "And T.J. shot him right between the eyes."

Jones was the 20th inmate put to death this year in Texas and the second in as many days. Richard William Kutzner, 59, was executed Wednesday for killing a Montgomery County woman during a robbery. Kutzner had a second death sentence for a similar Harris County slaying.

Jones' lawyers filed no late appeals to try to halt the punishment. "He has exhausted his remedies," attorney Don Davidson said. Jones' sentence and his age at the time of the shooting renewed criticism from traditional death penalty opponents. As a teenage offender, Jones "would not be facing this punishment in almost any other country in the world," Amnesty International said in a statement. "He's not a juvenile," Gregg County District Attorney Bill Jennings responded. "Under Texas law he is an adult and he's in an adult system. "He did an adult crime and he deserves to receive an adult penalty, which in this case 12 jurors decided should be death."

Texas is among 22 states that allow capital punishment for 17-year-olds. Jones was the 12th Texas inmate and the 20th in the United States executed since 1976 for a murder committed when the killer was younger than 18. In May, and with much greater outcry from capital punishment opponents, Napoleon Beazley received lethal injection in Texas for killing the father of a federal judge. Beazley was 17 at the time of the crime.

"I'm pretty sure of my fate here," Jones, who declined to speak with reporters in the weeks leading up to his execution, said on a Web site sponsored by an anti-death penalty organization. On the site, he asked for pen pals "who will give me moral support and if possible help me to make the rest of my stay here as comfortable as can be in this situation."

Court records show Jones and three partners approached Davis the mid-afternoon of Feb. 2, 1994 and demanded his red Chrysler LeBaron. When Davis surrendered the car but refused to go with them, he was shot with a .357-caliber Magnum. Witnesses saw Jones and his companions get in the car and drive away. Davis' wife of 56 years heard the shots from inside her house and was among the first to see the body. "I was very thankful he apologized," Geraldine Davis said after watching Jones die. "It's the first time he's ever showed any type of remorse. He said he was sorry and I hope it was a sincere apology and I do appreciate him doing it."

All four teenagers were arrested soon after the shooting. "The car made it a short distance before a tire blew out," Jennings said. Jones' partners were convicted of engaging in organized criminal activity and received long prison terms.

Testimony showed Jones lived in a gang house with the then-16-year-old mother of his child and was addicted to smoking marijuana laced with embalming fluid. He had been arrested repeatedly as a juvenile for burglary and police said the gang was believed responsible for numerous assaults.

Three days before the Davis killing, authorities determined Jones shot a convenience store clerk during a robbery in nearby Tyler. The victim survived five bullet wounds and testified against Davis in the punishment phase of the capital murder trial.

Another two executions are set for next week, and two more for later in the month, including Toronto Patterson, who was 17 in 1995 when he was arrested for shooting a mother and her two young daughters at their home in Dallas.

  

JUVENILE OFFENDER TJ JONES FACES EXECUTION AUGUST 8TH IN TEXAS

The State of Texas executed T.J. Jones on August 8, 2002.

Abanet.org

TJ Jones is scheduled to be executed on August 8, 2002, for an offense he committed when he was barely 17 years old. He was sentenced to death in October 1994 for the carjacking murder of Willard Lewis Davis, a 75-year-old white man, in Longview, Texas, on February 2, 1994.

The State's evidence showed that Mr. Davis was confronted by TJ, who was armed with a pistol, and three other youths at the end of his driveway. Mr. Davis complied when TJ ordered him to get out of his car, and TJ shot him once in the forehead before getting in the car and driving away with his accomplices. TJ did not have a license or know how to drive and, after careening through the neighborhood a short distance, wrecked the car. The police, having been alerted by Mrs. Davis when she found her husband, and neighbors who observed the suspicious trajectory of the vehicle, ultimately captured all four accomplices.

In custody, TJ gave a written statement admitting that he shot Mr. Davis, while alleging that he only intended to scare the victim. The ballistics evidence ruled out a close range gunshot (2 to 4 feet). Interestingly, two of the three accomplices tested positive for apparent gunpowder residue on their hands. In order to defeat TJ's accident defense, the prosecutors put on testimony from a "jailhouse snitch" witness, a cell mate of TJ's, who asserted that TJ told him that Mr. Davis said he would not relinquish the car unless TJ killed him.

At the punishment phase, the State revealed that TJ was also facing charges of attempted murder for the shooting of a Smith County Texaco station attendant during a robbery with other youths four days prior to the capital offense. The victim testified that TJ oddly started to shoot him before indicating at all that a robbery was taking place. In fact, he apparently fired upon the man before a female shopper (and later witness) had made it out of the store and back to her car.

The actions TJ allegedly took during the robbery -- firing without warning, conducting the offense without waiting until he would not be observed, and taking small bills while leaving the large -- seemed impulsive and entirely lacking sense or control. The two offenses within the same week were the only acts of violence that the State alleged TJ had committed against others.

The State also put on evidence of TJ's prior arrests for vandalism of a school and participation in the burglary of a sporting goods store. With respect to every crime for which TJ was arrested, he had been acting in concert with and under the influence of other juveniles.

Although TJ may have been the shooter in the two ultimate offenses, witnesses testified that TJ, an only child, was generally a passive follower with great need for the enhancement of his self-esteem that peers could supply. TJ was living in a house with several other youths. The weapon used was supplied by an older young man who apparently expected to benefit from the spoils of TJ's latter offenses without having to directly participate.

At the time of trial, TJ was evaluated for the defense by Dr. Craig Moore, a clinical psychologist. Dr. Moore previously had been chief psychologist at Rusk State Hospital, where he conducted several hundred forensic psychological evaluations. He was proficient in neuropsychological testing, which detects cognitive deficits and brain damage, and had previously taught Texas Department of Corrections personnel in such methods.

Dr. Moore undertook a comprehensive battery of tests on TJ, including several personal interviews. TJ was born to parents who divorced when he was very young, leaving him with no recollection whatsoever of his father. TJ's mother testified that his father beat her while she was pregnant with TJ. As TJ was growing up, the only men he knew were his mother's boyfriends. At least one of these was abusive. This left TJ without a father image and with a somewhat distant relationship to his mother.

He was diagnosed generally by the defense expert as schizoid, unable to relate to people, to properly participate in the give and take of relationships. The only person with whom he apparently had a close relationship was his grandmother, who died a few years before his capital offense. Due to his disabilities, TJ found it very difficult to relate to anyone else with the same degree of intimacy. He acted out his frustrations, usually under the influence of other juveniles.

As a result, in 1991 and 1992 he had the two above-mentioned juvenile arrests for non-violent offenses. The juvenile system did not pick up on these early signs of problems in TJ's life. Dr. Moore noted that, despite these problems, TJ never indicated any propensity to violence until the two shootings he committed within a week of each other. He observed that this strange occurrence might implicate a neurological problem. However, no testing ever has been done on TJ to determine if that was the cause.

Dr. Moore found TJ to be a "very poorly socialized immature adolescent, a boy who [was] mostly puzzled by how the world works, who bluff[ed] his way through, who used marijuana and alcohol as an analgesic to his psychic pain only complicating his lack of judgment -- his grossly poor judgment." TJ, along with his peer group, began using alcohol at an early age. His drinking was well established by age 13 or 14. He also began using marijuana and speed or amphetamine type substances. He and his associates used a street drug called Whack, which often is marijuana laced with PCP. This leads to a quick and intense high and is relatively inexpensive.

TJ believed that the version of Whack he used, which produced hallucinations, was laced with small amounts of embalming fluid. If true, this drug probably caused damage to the developing frontal lobes of his brain. Another sign of possible neurological damage was TJ's propensity to rock himself to sleep. TJ dropped out of school in the ninth grade and tested as having a full scale IQ of 78 at the time of trial. He was overwhelmed by the questions in the psychological testing performed by Dr. Moore. For recreation, TJ played video games and liked to pillow fight. At the age of 17, he continued to like to watch cartoons on television and play with toys more appropriate to smaller children.

Dr. Moore found TJ to be socially isolated, passive in the face of others, and functioning at the level of a ten-year-old in terms of acquiring the standard behaviors for his culture. "This is a boy that may look seventeen, but on the inside, psychologically, he is probably more like a ten or twelve year old. . . . Every part of interacting with his environment, even when he is watching T.V., will be that of a child who is ten or twelve years old."

Dr. Moore asserted that the prosecutors misread TJ when they maintained he should be held criminally responsible because he was self-centered. "Please appreciate," he emphasized on cross-examination, "It isn't just a case of adult selfishness. It really is I don't understand the world out there. All I understand is when I'm hungry or when I want something." Despite his communication disabilities, TJ did express guilt and remorse for his offenses, expressing worry that God would forgive him for what he had done.

Dr. Moore opined that TJ should not be judged for the offense in the same way that a 25 year old would be, because of his immaturity. Recognizing that the Texas death penalty statute requires a jury to make a finding on future dangerousness before the death penalty can be returned, Dr. Moore noted that it would appear that TJ posed an immediate future risk, but found that there also was no way to reliably predict future dangerousness in a juvenile offender like TJ. "A person at seventeen, particularly a person that is this immature cannot, should not be judged . . . on the same basis as [an adult]. Development is still taking place in this boy. And we really don't know what's in his future in terms of final and completed development. . . . [T]he brain is not even through developing. The brain continues to develop all the way into the early twenties. . . . Given the data that I have now, I'd say he's certainly a significant risk, . . . [b]ut it's the issue beyond age twenty-five that I have difficulty with. I don't think there's anyone nor any technology that can tell us how this boy will end up maturing at that point."

Moore also pointed out that all of the data that supported statistical studies of future dangerousness was drawn from adult populations. The results of these studies, then, could not reasonably be applied to a 17-year-old. In short, the jury could not reliably predict future dangerousness, certainly not beyond a reasonable doubt, in an underdeveloped juvenile such as TJ.

Dr. Moore pointed out that, because of a juvenile's slow biological maturation, psychological science refuses to diagnose 17-year-olds as having an anti-social personality. "If they are a normal or highly matured individual, we can do that at eighteen. If they are immature, the preference in my field is to wait until they're twenty-five." Moore noted that many factors which had led to TJ's situation had been out of his control: his lack of access to a father, the abusive step-father, his failure to develop a warm, emotional bond with his mother, and his slowness to mature. He found him treatable and argued that the system had failed TJ. Early psychological intervention and better supervision of TJ would have prevented the conditions that led to his assaultive offenses.

Dr. Moore reported that, at TJ's developmental level, it had been important for him to receive prompt consequences for his prior misbehavior. The prosecutor pressed Dr. Moore on the issue of individual accountability, asking him if it did not have some place in his analysis. Moore responded that, if he felt that he was faced with a mature 17-year-old or a twenty-five year old, he would have a different orientation toward accountability. Urged to recognize that Texas law would treat a 17-year-old as an adult, Moore replied that from a psychological point of view, there was a "discrepancy between the seventeen year old being seen as an adult and the psychological data that suggests he functions more like a twelve or a ten year old."

In punishment argument, T.J.'s counsel fell on their own sword, conceding that TJ posed a future risk of danger to others, even though their own expert had concluded that no such prognostication was possible. The best defense TJ got at trial was from Dr. Moore, but even his acute observations were gutted by the defense. In addition, the jury became distracted with issues not in evidence. Inter alia, at the behest of a juror who wanted to be sure that TJ would be on death row long enough to come to find God before execution, some of the other jurors speculated during deliberations that the time period for his appeals would be anywhere between 7 and 20 years. Indeed, it has been about seven years and, if executed on August 8th, TJ will leave behind a seven-year-old daughter.

The execution of a juvenile offender is contrary to fundamental principles of American justice which punishes according to the degree of culpability and reserves the death penalty for the "worst of the worst" offenders. By their very nature, teenagers are less mature, and therefore less culpable, than adults who commit similar acts but have no such explanation for their conduct.

Adolescence is a transitional period of life when cognitive abilities, emotions, judgment, impulse control, identity -- even the brain -- are still developing. Indeed, immaturity is the reason we do not allow those under eighteen to assume the major responsibilities of adulthood such as military combat service, voting, entering into contracts, drinking alcohol or making medical decisions. This is not to say that juvenile offenders do not know right from wrong and should not be punished, but that we as a society and a legal system have deemed that juveniles are simply different from adults.

A number of organizations such as the American Bar Association, The American Psychiatric Association, the Child Welfare League of America, the Children's Defense Fund, the Youth Law Center, the Juvenile Law Center, the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the National Mental Health Association, and the Constitution Project have come to oppose executions for crimes committed by offenders under the age of 18. Similarly, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, the European Union, the Council of Europe and the Vatican have expressed their strongest opposition to the execution of juvenile offenders.

Of the 38 states that permit the death penalty, only 22 permit the execution of persons who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes. Among these 22 states, only 15 have juvenile offenders on their death rows while only 7 have carried out actual executions of juveniles since the death penalty was reinstated in 1973. In 2002, Indiana abolished the juvenile death penalty while Florida came extremely close (a bill passed the Senate unanimously but died in the House, which had passed a bill the previous year, only because it ran out of time). In 1999, the State of Montana abolished the juvenile death penalty while the Florida Supreme Court raised the age of eligibility from 16 to 17.

A growing number of states are considering legislation to abolish the execution of juvenile offenders, including: Arizona, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, South Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. Indeed, in the Texas 2001 legislative session, a bill to eliminate the death penalty for offenders under 18 passed the House and gained significant support in the Senate before it was procedurally barred from reaching a vote on the Senate floor. Moreover, a recent national poll conducted by the Houston Chronicle indicated that solid support for the capital punishment of juvenile offenders has fallen to only 26%.

In continuing to execute juvenile offenders, the United States acts in defiance of international law and almost complete agreement among nations. Indeed, such executions have all but ended around the world, except in the United States. The death penalty for juvenile offenders is expressly prohibited by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the American Convention on Human Rights and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The United States and Somalia (which has no recognizable government) are the only two countries that have failed to ratify the CRC -- 191 nations have adopted the fundamental standards articulated in this treaty.

In the last decade, the United States has executed more juvenile offenders than all the world's nations combined. Since 1990, only seven countries are reported to have executed prisoners who were under 18 years of age at the time of the crime: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The nations of Pakistan, and Yemen have since abolished the juvenile death penalty, while Saudi Arabia and Nigeria deny that they have executed juvenile offenders.

In the last three years the number of nations that execute juvenile offenders has dropped significantly to only three: Iran, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and the United States. Moreover, just this past year, Iran stated that it no longer executes juvenile offenders while the leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo commuted the death sentences of four juvenile offenders.

The execution of TJ Jones would further alienate the United States from the international community, thus damaging our legitimacy as a leader on the protection and promotion of human rights, particularly the rights of children.

T.J. Jones has asked his lawyer not to seek clemency or any further appeals.