Execution: Stephen Moody
David Carson
September 2009 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder and robbery of a
man in his home.
On 19 October 1991, Calvin Doby, 29, Lloyd Larrieu, 49, and Melvin
Ellis drove to the Houston home of Larrieu's drug supplier, Joseph
Hall, 28. After some discussion about robbing Hall, Doby telephoned
Moody, then 34. About an hour and a half later, Moody and Doby met at
Hall's house. They then forced their way inside and demanded money and
drugs from Hall. While Hall pleaded for his life, Moody shot him at
close range with a sawed-off shotgun. Moody and Doby then fled with
$1,200 in cash. About 45 minutes later, they met at Ellis's house to
divide the money.
The murder case went unsolved for nearly a year until a relative of
Doby give police a tip. Hall's girlfriend, Rene McKeage, who witnessed
the murder, then identified Moody from a photo lineup. By that time,
Moody was already in prison, serving a 40-year sentence for robbing a
Houston bank in December 1991.
At Moody's trial, McKeage testified that on the evening of the murder,
she and Hall were returning home from dinner when she noticed two
unknown men walking on the street, away from their house. Later,
McKeage was in the bathroom when she heard someone rush into the
house. She heard Hall yell out her name, and then heard another man's
voice screaming "Where is the money?" Knowing that there were drugs in
the house, McKeage said she initially thought the men may be police.
She then heard Hall say, "You're not the cops. Let me see your
badges." A moment later, Moody walked into the bathroom pointing a
sawed-off shotgun at her. He said, "Stay there. Don't move."
Moody then left the bathroom. McKeage heard him ask Hall again, "Where
is the money?" Hall answered that the money was in his pocket, and
said, "Please don't shoot me." Moody then returned to the bathroom and
ordered McKeage to stay there. "Okay, I won't move," she answered.
Moody shut the bathroom door as he left. McKeage then jumped out of
the window and made her way to the next-door neighbor's house. While
she was fleeing, she heard a gunshot come from inside her house. She
called 911 at the neighbor's house.
Melvin Ellis testified that he was with Doby and Larrieu in September
when Doby asked Larrieu the name and whereabouts of the person who
supplied his drugs, so he could rob him. He also stated that on the
day of the murder, when the three of them went to Hall's house,
Larrieu explained to Doby where Hall kept his money and described his
car to him, so Doby could know whether Hall was home. Ellis further
testified that after the murder, Moody and Doby came to his residence
and both of them told him about the crime. Ellis testified that Moody
said, "I shot him right in the heart." Ellis also said that he noticed
a shotgun in the vehicle that Moody and Doby were driving.
When Ellis testified in court that Moody and Doby left $100 of the
stolen money at his house, Moody blurted out, "He's a lying son of a
bitch. He got $900."
Moody had three prior felony convictions, in addition to the December
1991 bank robbery. In 1978, he was convicted of burglary of a
habitation and sentenced to 8 years in prison. He was paroled in 1981.
Before the end of the year, he was back in prison with a new 6-year
sentence for auto theft. He was released in 1984. In 1985, he was
sentenced to 14 years for burglary of a vehicle. He served 3� years of
that of sentence before being paroled again in 1988. (At the time,
early release was common in Texas due to strict prison population caps
imposed by U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice.)
A jury convicted Moody of capital murder in March 1993 and sentenced
him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the
conviction and sentence in January 1996.
In his appeals, Moody challenged the trail court's decision not to
hold a hearing concerning the state's exclusion of a black panelist
from the jury. Moody's attorneys argued that the panelist's exclusion
was racially-motivated, but the trial court ruled that Moody had no
standing to contest the black panelist's exclusion for racial reasons
because Moody was white. In September 2002, a U.S. district court
ruled that the trial court erred in not holding a hearing on the
issue, and it granted Moody a new trial.
The state appealed the federal district court's ruling to the U.S.
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In a 2-1 decision, the Fifth Circuit
overturned the lower court's ruling in January 2007. Although the
trial court was clearly wrong in stating that Moody was not entitled
to a hearing on the jury panelist's removal because of his race, the
court wrote, Moody was nevertheless not entitled to hearing, because
the prosecutor who struck the panelist offered a credible race-neutral
reason for doing so. The lower court's ruling granted Moody a new
trial was vacated. All of Moody's subsequent appeals in state and
federal court were denied.
From death row, Moody told an interviewer that he shot Hall because he
kept struggling when ordered to surrender his money. "He started
fighting," Moody said. "He wouldn't listen to me. He wouldn't lay
down."
Last spring, Moody petitioned his judge to set his execution date as
soon as possible. Life on death row, he said, was "cruel and unusual
punishment." As his execution date approached, he asked his lawyer not
to file any last-minute appeals to try to have his execution stopped
or delayed. "I'm ready, man. I ain't quitting. I went all the way."
Calvin Charles Doby was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to
life in prison. He remains in custody as of this writing. A few days
before Moody's execution, Moody asserted in a sworn statement that
Doby is innocent. "My conscience will not let me remain silent any
longer," he said. "It is not right that Calvin Doby has suffered in
prison all these years for something he did not do." He said that
another man - not Doby - was his accomplice, and that Melvin Ellis's
testimony against Doby was unreliable because Ellis was taking
psychiatric medications at the time of the murder.
A new appeal has been filed in Doby's case based on Moody's statement.
"At the time of the crime, I was at home with my wife and our
newborn," Doby told an interviewer. Doby's attorney said that Moody
wanted to clear Doby five years ago, but Moody's attorneys would not
allow him to make a formal statement because his appeals were still
open, and anything Moody said could have jeopardized his own case.
In the interview, Moody said that he didn't plan to be difficult at
his execution. "I'll cuss no one in there," he said. "I don't want to
leave spewing a lot of hate. What good is that going to do?" Moody
said, "Maybe they'll see I was a human being."
In his last statement, Moody addressed Hall's mother and son, saying
that he hoped they could find peace. "Warden, pull the trigger," he
then said. The lethal injection was started. He was pronounced dead at
6:28 p.m.
After the execution, the victim's son, Joseph Hall, issued a statement
denying that his father was a drug dealer. "Drugs had nothing to do
with his death," he wrote. "He was robbed of money he received from an
accident which left him crippled."
David Carson
(Sources: Texas Attorney General's office, Texas Department of
Criminal Justice, Associated Press, Houston Chronicle, court
documents.)
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Texas Execution Information
www.txexecutions.org