|
|
| Texas Man Condemned for Murder Wins Stay |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 07/27/2001 |
|
A death row inmate has won a stay of execution as part of a ruling that will allow the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to consider its first appeal under a law allowing DNA testing. Richard Kutzner, an air-conditioning repairman, had been scheduled to die by injection 6 p.m. Wednesday. The appeals court issued the stay Tuesday evening. The case could help determine how the DNA testing law should be applied in lower courts, Rick Wetzel, the court's general counsel, said in Wednesday's editions of the Houston Chronicle. The law, which went into effect April 5, allows convicts to seek state-funded DNA testing in an effort to exonerate themselves. Kutzner, 58, earned death sentences for two slayings, 17 days apart, in early 1996. He was set to die Wednesday for the second of those killings, the strangling of a 59-year-old woman working at her real estate office in Montgomery County, north of Houston. With his punishment looming, Kutzner's attorneys went to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to appeal their requests for DNA testing, denied twice by the trial court. No DNA evidence was used in the original case. Kutzner would have been the 11th inmate executed this year in Texas, where a record 40 condemned prisoners were put to death last year. |
advertise
|
privacy policy
|
add URL
|
about us
|
terms/disclaimer
|
contact us
|
join our team
|
help
Comments:
No comments have been posted for this article.
Login to let us know what you think