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Houston Chronicle: Room for doubt

By "Persian Cowboy"

Houston Chronicle's editorial board supports a stay of execution for Larry Swearingen pending reconsideration of evidence.Larry Ray Swearingen has lived on Texas death row for eight years, convicted of the rape-murder of a Montgomery County coed in 1998. He is scheduled for execution by lethal injection in Huntsville next Tuesday, despite the fact that a growing body of evidence indicates he could not have strangled 19-year-old Melissa Trotter and dumped her body in Sam Houston National Forest. With the inmate facing an irreversible sentence ? capital punishment ? it is imperative that Texas Gov. Rick Perry stay the execution to prevent the death of a possibly innocent man. While plenty of circumPublish Poststantial evidence indicated Swearingen, a convicted rapist, was a logical suspect, forensic facts not presented at his trial point elsewhere...continue to full post

Full post as published by Texas Death Penalty Blog on January 24, 2009 (boomark / email).