By Bill Zeeble, KERA reporter
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-627678.mp3
Dallas, TX – Bill Zeeble, KERA reporter: The 1992 crime in question was horrific. Two employees in a Richardson sporting goods store were brutally murdered in what began as a robbery. A lone survivor, left for dead on the bloody floor, called police. Who within hours, tracked down, then killed, James Langston, as he tried to run officers down with his car. Langston had worked at the store. Police then arrested Timothy Bates, who led them to Lave. According to attorneys, it was unclear in the trial whether Bates and Lave handled weapons in the murders. The witness identified Langston and Bates, not Lave. Bates took a plea deal for life in prison. But he also took several polygraph - or lie detector - tests. Yet the 2nd test, according to Mike Ware, Assistant Dallas DA investigating this case, was never turned over to Lave's lawyers.
Michael Ware, Assistant Dallas DA: One of biggest problems we had with non disclosure of this polygraph is that Mr. Lave's attorneys had consistently requested this polygraph and in fact it appears that misrepresentations were made to the courts in the post conviction proceedings - by attorneys no longer with this office, in the prior administration - that the polygraph didn't even exist.
Zeeble: Ware said results of that test could've raised serious questions about the believability of Bates, who testified about Lave's involvement in the crime. Ware also said prosecutorial misrepresentation about this 2nd polygraph test affected Lave's court appeals.
Ware: We didn't feel it would be right to allow the execution to go through without disclosing this information to Mr Lave's attorneys.
Zeeble: Those attorneys are now going over the new evidence, which Ware said came to light in the just the past few days. That's why Dallas DA Craig Watkins requested the execution stay. It surprised Steve Hall, director of the Standown Texas Project which opposes the death penalty, & advocates for best practices in the criminal justice system.
Steve Hall, Director of the Standown Texas Project: That's very unusual. I can't recall the last time in Texas it's happened.
Zeeble: Supreme Courts stop executions. So do governors. Rick Perry did a few weeks back, when he commuted Kenneth Foster's death sentence to life without parole But DA's usually don't. They push the death sentence. Attorney Richard Franklin, Lave's first defense attorney, is satisfied by the news
Richard Franklin, Lave Defense Attorney: Bates is serving life in prison. I think Bates and Lave should get the same punishment. There's no reason in the world for Lave to be executed and Bates not.
Zeeble: For now, he won't be. It's up to lawyers and more investigators before any decision's made to re-try Lave, maintain the execution stay, or issue a new execution date. Lawyers say this case raises questions about the state's Law of Parties, which finds all participants equally guilty of heinous crimes. That law was an issue in this case, and the one in which Governor Perry commuted a death sentence. Bill Zeeble KERA news.
Bzeeble@Kera.Org