I can imagine that even in his Sunday go-to-trial suit, Mike looked sinister, hard, cruel, unrepentant—years of crime, criminal confinement, narcotics, and alcohol had melted moving flesh into expressionless iron. Contrary to the “fair and impartial judgment” ideal, I know from my trial that looks play a big part in the outcome; otherwise, why would the state not have you handcuffed in court wearing a monotone-colored jumpsuit and dragging a ball and chain? Mike, with a micron’s chance, might have gotten life were it not for Linda Fletcher’s testimony and the fact that the defense made no Penry claims. Penry claims were not available at that time, although Mike did bring them up on appeal.
Johnny Paul Penry(47) was a cause célèbre for opponents to the execution of the mentally “retarded.” His case and subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have become a new-millennium crossroad toward execution mercy. Penry was convicted of the rape and murder of Pamela Moseley in Livingston, Texas. Pamela Moseley was the sister of Mark Moseley, a famous NFL football place-kicker. At Penry’s trial in mid-1980, a psychologist testified that Penry had the mental age of a six-and-a-half-year-old boy and poor impulse control. In and for the compassionate State of Texas, the jury ignored the defense’s plea for mercy based on mitigating circumstances and answered all three special issue questions in the affirmative, and thus rendered the death penalty instead of a life sentence.
Penry appealed twice to the U.S. Supreme Court, which twice reversed his sentence. Texas subsequently retried his case twice more, and twice more gave him the death penalty. In all three trials, Penry received the death penalty. Then the U.S. Supreme Court decided that execution of the mentally retarded should be interpreted as “cruel and unusual punishment” and was not sanctioned by the Eighth Amendment. The State of Texas finally capitulated, and Penry accepted life without parole in 2008 with his stipulation that his plea agreement state that he is not, nor ever was, a person with mental retardation. According to multiple news sources, Johnny Paul Penry still believes in Santa Claus.
Of interest and consideration in Mike Briddle’s case is the phrase “mitigating circumstances” as used in the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversals of Penry’s death penalty regarding his diminished mental capacity. From these decisions, “mitigating circumstances” appears to have evolved into a broader scope that includes trends toward childhood abuse and temporary, drug-induced psychosis. Another instance of a mitigating circumstance that precludes the death penalty has been inferred for eons prior to Penry: vehicular homicide for DWI (driving while intoxicated).
Mike introduced certain mitigating circumstances in his final appeal years later, in 1995. From the court record, Mike’s Penry claims included:
his mental and narcotic-induced state during the murder, and
an abnormal childhood void of the usual controls for an “aggressive or impulsive behavior.”
Also detailed in the appeal were other mitigating circumstances from the affidavits of friends and family:
Mike was a poor student with dyslexia;
from twelve years of age, Mike went through the revolving doors of various California state institutions where he was medicated with heavy-duty psychotropic drugs such as Thorazine and Prolixin;
Mike suffered a traumatic experience when he was sixteen from a wreck on his motorcycle when it collided with a train. His friend and passenger lost both arms and a leg;
Mike’s mother was in an automobile accident when she was pregnant with him, and his birth was four to six weeks late, requiring the extensive use of forceps; and
his psychoanalysis showed borderline personality disorder and the possibility of minimal brain injury.
Mike previously had given his account on some of these points. Most notable was his different version of the motorcycle accident. He stated that he had an assault charge at age seventeen for pushing another youth under a train, causing the youth to lose both arms and a leg. Mike’s Penry claims were disallowed because capital defendants cannot base a Penry claim on evidence that might have been but was not actually brought up during trial. Also, appellate courts generally take a use-it-or-lose-it approach to certain points not raised in the original trial. If you didn’t bring it up then, sorry, no do-overs—tough luck.
***
For a year, I sat alone in the Mountain View Unit, the only woman on Death Row. It was hot with no air-conditioning. Looking at a map of Texas, Gatesville is located a little east of the state’s center, the spot where one might think the sun burned hottest, but Gatesville can be a mild 104 degrees compared to other parts of this flame-broiled piece of the United States. With little to do except reflect on a horrible past and think about a minimal future, I suffered. Especially, I suffered spiritually, not just from my inability to speak in tongues but from not accepting that God could be able to forgive me. But thanks be to the Holy Spirit who kept me going, reading Scripture, learning, attending services, and receiving comfort even as I suffered.
From my annual, state-scheduled Pap smear, I discovered that I had developed uterine cancer. They froze five spots in situ, and I thought I was cured. During this time, my original trial attorney, William W. Burge, received a ruling from his appeal against the State of Texas, en banc. The sole issue in the appeal was my angel in disguise, John O. Vennard, the potential juror who was excluded, challenged for cause, and not permitted by the presiding judge to be questioned by the defense. I remember Mr. Burge being visibly upset at the trial during the dismissal of Vennard. The appeals court determined Vennard to be a “vacillating juror.” From the appeal (Perillo v. State, No. 68872, Appendix B): “In this instance, a clear reading of Vennard’s examination by the prosecuting attorney and the trial judge does not reflect such a firm and fixed attitude and position that would have prevented him from reaching or making an impartial decision as to the appellant’s guilt, or deciding the submitted statutory special issues fairly.” Death penalty questions were “statutory special issues.”
These fifty-plus words of complicated legalese translate into layman’s terms in the closing statement of the appeal: “The judgment of the trial court is reversed and the cause remanded.” Hallelujah. I would get a new trial. I just knew this time that they weren’t going to kill me. The reversal occurred in June 1983, and shortly after that, I transferred to the Harris County Jail, which was a new jail. As is often said, “Thank goodness for small favors.” The previous facility must have sunk into the ground from the weight of its own filth.
I met another young girl in the tank, and we became good friends. Her lawyer was able to “get her off,” and she left to stay with him and his wife, Christina. I called her frequently, and when she wasn’t there, Christina accepted the toll call and we would talk. One day Christina asked if she could come see me. “Certainly,” I replied, and from that point on, we became very close.
During the pre-trial hearings, motions, etc., I became deathly ill. The cancer had returned. The court postponed the trial while I bounced from hospital to hospital for biopsies and tests. My weight dropped from its normal 115 pounds to eighty-six. Finally, I suppose someone decided that if I died, the courts would lose all their pre-trial expenses, and therefore they entered me into Ben Taub Hospital for a hysterectomy. During my recuperation, Christina brought me a gown, robe, and slippers along with a care package of magazines and treats. Christina was an angel, a saint who came into my life at a divine moment.
After I was able to move around, the legal process moved forward once again. In a déjà vu scene in the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, 248th District Criminal Court, the judge appointed me a trial attorney. The judge’s name was Woody R. Densen. At first I thought “Woody” was just another proper Texas cowboy name, but I learned later that it was a good-ol’-boy nickname for Woodrow.
My appointed attorney was Mr. Robert O.W. Pelton. Robert Pelton had interned in the Harris County District Attorney’s Office prior to graduation from the South Texas College
of Law. He also had interned in the law office of Jim Skelton, the same Jim Skelton who represented Linda Briddle at her trial and was with her under her new name, Linda Fletcher, during her testimony against Mike Briddle. Although Pelton had vast experience in other legal areas, he had never tried a capital murder case. He was still associated with Jim Skelton, not so much in a legal sense but as a co-owner of several machine shops.
In an early interview, Pelton told me that his partner, Jim Skelton, was familiar with my case and that he was very interested in helping me, and that he didn’t believe I deserved the death penalty. Further, he said Skelton knew the case inside and out because he had defended Linda, and that he felt we both got a raw deal because of our relationship with Mike Briddle. “Would you be willing to talk to him?” Pelton asked. I readily answered in the affirmative, and a short time later, Jim Skelton offered his services and asked me for permission to request the court to appoint him as the lead attorney. I immediately agreed to his offer; however, he did not divulge the fact that during Linda’s trial, he portrayed both Mike and me as homicidal monsters.
I thought at that time that it was rather strange that Judge Densen had appointed only one trial attorney for me since I knew from “jailhouse law” that in capital murder cases the defendant always receives two attorneys. Perhaps there had been something behind the scenes where the court wanted me to approve Jim Skelton as the lead attorney, and I was so naïve that I readily did so. I don’t think that Robert Pelton—at that point—felt that there could be a conflict of interest in appointing Jim Skelton to my case.
Sometime later, I learned that just several months before my trial and separate from it, the “Hanging DA,” John B. Holmes, had filed a writ of mandamus against the presiding judge, Woody Densen. A writ of mandamus (in this case) was a legal instrument brought before a higher court to force a lower court to vacate certain decisions felt questionable under existing statutes. In such cases, it is comparable to “I’m gonna tell my daddy on you.” It’s an action that the legal profession prefers to avoid because it pits judges and attorneys against each other. In this particular case, filed June 27, 1984, Holmes asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to vacate two pre-trial orders entered by Judge Woody Densen. Holmes was prosecuting a drug-related case against six defendants. Judge Densen not only dismissed the case, he dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the state could not bring it to trial again. Holmes lost the first complaint regarding dismissal but prevailed against the second in which Judge Densen had granted the defendants immunity from further prosecution. However, the most interesting point regarding this writ was the attorneys who represented Judge Densen: Pelton and Skelton. Yes, the same pair chosen to represent me. Not unusual, as I understand it, as judges often have a group of buddies they select as attorneys for the indigent. That is the how the court-appointed attorney system works.
Also of interest, Judge Densen, in 2010, was indicted on a rather bizarre criminal mischief charge. He was convicted and fined $1,500 for keying his neighbor’s car, an event captured on videotape. He did not appeal and publicly and profusely apologized. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct subsequently issued him a public warning.
***
As I awaited my trial date in a cell on the third floor of the Harris County Jail, an officer asked me if I would be willing to go upstairs and talk to a young lady for whom the state was seeking the death penalty. This same Harris County DA, John B. Holmes, that sought my execution was riding hard and fast after her—a death posse. When I approached her cell, she introduced herself as Karla Faye Tucker. If the eyes are the mirror of the soul, Karla Faye had none, no more soul than that of a caged animal. She had naturally dark-olive skin, black-olive eyes and tar-black, wavy hair. Even in the bright lights outside her cell, her possibly attractive coloring had taken on a coal-gray pallor and a darkness that amplified her three-inch-deep eye sockets—empty holes from which peered eyes so dull that it was like looking into a skull at midnight. Her flesh clung tightly about a skeleton that I just knew had found its feeble nourishment from whatever few calories drugs possess.
Poor Karla Faye, she had obviously waded through some of the same sewers I had. I wondered if I had looked that horrible when I first entered prison. As the weeks passed, we talked frequently. We had a lot in common: dysfunctional families, siblings, middle-class upbringing, and early drug abuse. We became quite close.
CHAPTER 11
Eventually, I moved from the third to the fourth floor of the county jail. Harris County reserved this floor for high-profile capital cases such as Karla Faye Tucker’s and mine. When I was young and at home, I noticed that my classmates mostly ran with those of their same age. As a person matures, I understand the line of age difference blurs and people have friends of all ages. Although back then I wanted to run with those older than I because it gave me a sense of importance, I found that age difference is not much of a consideration between drug users and prison inmates. Although Karla Faye was four years younger, it didn’t register when I met her. Besides, at that point she looked much, much older than her years might indicate.
Karla Faye Tucker(48, 49) was born and raised in Houston. She was the third of four sisters whose first names also began with the letter K. Her father, a longshoreman, was absent from home for long periods. Her mother, Carolyn Tucker, appeared to be the typical nice little housewife. Karla Faye was a natural athlete, thin and muscular with innate coordination. At a family-owned lakefront house on Caney Creek near Brazoria, Texas, about an hour from their home in Houston, she developed more of her natural athletic skills, swimming and diving. The diving got her into trouble in later years when she dove off a cliff in Austin and dislocated her shoulder.
Although unverified, this was probably Hamilton Pool(50) in Dripping Springs, just outside of Austin. Against the park rules, many a brave soul sneaks up on the cliff and jumps feetfirst. Only Karla Faye would have had the nerve to dive headfirst instead.
Karla Faye terminated her childhood when she started smoking marijuana at age eight and was into drugs and sex by age twelve. At age fourteen, she dropped out of school and traveled with her mother, a rock groupie, following the Allman Brothers Band, the Marshall Tucker Band, and the Eagles. In step with her mother’s example, prostitution in return for drugs became a way of life.
She had always wondered why she looked different from her sisters, and sometime during her teens, she vocally questioned the fact that she was dark—dark skin, black hair, and black eyes—while the rest of the family was light with fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. When, through persistence, she learned she was the product of an extramarital affair, and her father whom she loved dearly was not her real father, her self-esteem plummeted. Upon her mother’s death, when Karla Faye turned twenty, she grieved heavily and found comfort by digging even deeper into the mud that life can offer.
She tried marriage while continuing to engage in prostitution even with her husband’s knowledge, but she decided she needed still more freedom, like the freedom to run with an element whose very actions symbolize an independent lifestyle. She wanted the identity of a biker. Through friends, she met Danny Garrett, a biker and part-time bartender. They enjoyed a drug-house communal life in Spring Branch, a suburb of Houston. Friends came and went, slept, did drugs, and worshiped the Harley-Davidson, the American-made supreme deity of motorcycles.
Jerry Dean was one of the frequent bikers who visited their house, a person to whom Karla Faye took a deep, personal hatred, with almost a demonic rage—he just wasn’t tough enough to be a biker, and he didn’t deserve to own a Harley.
One night in June 1983, at 3 a.m., Karla Faye, Danny, and another friend, after doing a considerable quantity of drugs, broke into Dean’s apartment with the sole purpose of stealing the parts and frame to a Harley that Dean was rebuilding. Murdering Dean was never mentioned prior to their intrusion. In a landlord’s nightmare, Dean kept all of his tools strewn
about the inside of his apartment—tools in every room, including the bedroom, and the Harley in the living room, with oil dripping down along the kickstand and puddling on the carpet.
After Karla Faye and Danny entered Dean’s apartment, they went into the bedroom where Karla Faye sat on the unsuspecting Dean as Danny drove a hammer that he found on the floor into the back of Dean’s skull several times. This action broke Dean’s neck and his head flopped over and entrapped his last gasps as a gurgle through a blood-blocked windpipe. Karla Faye yelled, “Stop making those noises,” and grabbed a nearby pickaxe with which she struck him several times. Danny, who had left to carry out the motorcycle frame, returned to the bedroom and gave Dean the final coup de grâce.
After Danny had left the room to load more motorcycle parts into his truck, Karla Faye noticed a woman hiding under the covers on the bed. Deborah Thornton, a girl Dean had picked up at a party the afternoon before, was in the proverbial wrong place at the wrong time. Karla Faye went after her with the pickaxe, and after several blows, Danny returned and embedded the ax in her throat. If not for a shoulder weakened from dislocation in her diving accident, Karla Faye might have rendered the final blow in both instances. At Karla Faye’s trial, several of her “friends” testified that she later told them that she experienced multiple orgasms while swinging the pickaxe on both victims.
When we first met, she almost seemed willing to accept death as her punishment. Talking to her about God and forgiveness through Jesus Christ brought nothing but blank looks from unfeeling eyes. I hate to use the term “stone-faced,” because everyone tosses it about so often, but there was no emotion in her expressions.
Karla Faye Tucker mugshot(51)
“What I wanted to be, and where I was headed, was a professional hit-woman,” she said, and she said it so mechanically.
I know Karla Faye would be the first to admit that she was “codependent.” She needed someone, ideally a man, to make decisions for her. When it wasn’t a man, it was her mother. As we talked more, I learned that her dream before she got into drugs was to be a gymnast. She was so limber and could do the splits with such ease. I’ve seen her jump from a sitting position on a bench and hold her arms and legs straight out in midair.
Salvation on Death Row Page 9
