According to Texas Tribune Texas officials aren’t disputing that prosecutors introduced false testimony at Travis Runnels’ 2005 capital murder trial in Amarillo. Instead, they argue the state should still execute him even if they did.
Runnels, 46, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday evening in Texas’ death chamber in Huntsville. There’s no question of his guilt in the 2003 prison murder of Stanley Wiley, a supervisor at the Clement Unit’s boot factory, where Runnels worked while serving a 70-year aggravated robbery sentence. He pleaded guilty at trial, despite knowing the state was seeking the death penalty.
But at his punishment hearing, where jurors in part weigh how likely a capital murder convict is to be dangerous in the future, the state introduced as a witness A.P. Merillat, who at the time was a criminal investigator for the state prosecutors who handle prison crimes. He has testified in at least 15 trials that resulted in death sentences, but his incorrect testimony on the levels of security in prisons has since led to two overturned death sentences in Texas.
Runnels is hoping the state’s reliance on Merillat’s testimony will prompt the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution, too. Read More here