27th February, 2008.

Longtime Texas death row inmate wins new sentencing trial

By MICHAEL GRACZYK

HOUSTON — A death row inmate who killed an 80-year-old woman with a
claw hammer nearly two decades ago will get a new sentencing trial
because jurors didn't properly consider mental illness when they
decided he should be executed, an appeals court has ruled.

Charles Mines Jr., 58, was convicted of killing Vivian Moreno at her
home in Waxahachie, south of Dallas. Frances Moreno, 57, one of the
murdered woman's 13 children, also was severely beaten in the same
attack in May 1988. A relative found the two women on the floor in a
bedroom.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said questions put to jurors
considering whether Mines should live or die prevented them from
considering his mental condition. The appeals court sent the case
back to the state court for a new sentencing.

Evidence at his trial showed Mines had undergone a psychiatric
evaluation at a state hospital a week before the slayings. He pleaded
not guilty by reason of insanity to a capital murder charge for
Vivian Moreno's death and attempted capital murder for her daughter's
attack. He was tried on the charges after a state court hearing
determined he was competent to stand trial.

A psychiatrist who examined Mines during a five-day observation
period a week before the killing determined Mines was not mentally
ill and should not be committed, but that he did have a mixed
personality disorder with paranoia, passive-aggressive and anti-
social features.

Mines' trial in Ellis County was held just weeks before another
capital murder case involving Johnny Paul Penry, whose mental illness
claims and subsequent appeals changed the way Texas juries are asked
to decide mitigating issues in death penalty cases.

"Mines's claim is that because his jury instructions were virtually
identical to the ones given in Penry's trial those instructions
created the same situation that the Supreme Court found
constitutionally unacceptable," the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit
said in its opinion posted late Tuesday.

Evidence showed Mines, a transient, stole food and jewelry from the
Moreno home. He was arrested three days later when he was found
camping not far from the home. He confessed after police identified
his fingerprint on a window sill.

In another death row case Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals upheld the conviction and sentence of a paroled burglar
condemned for the slayings of three people at their home in Houston.

Derrick Dewayne Charles confessed to strangling his girlfriend,
Myiesha Bennett, 15; raping and strangling her mother, Brenda
Bennett, 44; and fatally beating her grandfather, Obie Lee Bennett, 77.

Charles, 25, was arrested a day after the 2002 attack. At the time,
he was on parole following a burglary conviction. His appeal had
challenged the validity of his sentence.

Evidence showed he was angry with Brenda Bennett because the woman
had told police he was having sex with her underage daughter.
Prosecutors told jurors at his 2003 trial that Charles was hiding in
his girlfriend's bedroom while she left to run an errand, then was
surprised to find the teenager's grandfather still in the house.

Evidence showed the 77-year-old man was beaten with fists, a lamp and
two trophies before he was strangled. Then Charles waited for more
than three hours in the house for his girlfriend and her mother to
return.

The teenager was strangled, beaten with stereo speakers and had a
television dropped on her head. Her mother was put in a tub of water,
then had a plugged-in TV thrown into the tub with her, then was
dragged through the house, raped and strangled.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/555078.html

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