GOOD NEWS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY

ERICA SHEPPARD

I personally wrote to Erica and asked her to reconsider. I don't know if my letter had anything to do with Erica changing her mind, as I haven't heard back from her, but I thank God that she did!!!

TEXAS: March 28, 1998
Erica Sheppard changed her mind about abandoning her appeals so she could be the first woman to follow Karla Faye Tucker to the Texas death chamber, and on Friday a judge withdrew her April 20 execution date. Sheppard, 24, told state District Judge H. Lon Harper on Jan. 15 she wanted her appeals stopped. The judge set the execution date after psychiatric evaluations. But Harper told Sheppard in January she could change her mind any time before April 20. On Friday, one of her attorneys, Kristine Woldy, told Harper that Sheppard changed her mind, said Lynn Hardaway, the Harris County prosecutor handling the case. Harper then withdrew the execution date, clearing the way for a lengthy appeals process, Hardaway said. Sheppard -- a mother of 3 and the youngest of the six women on death row -- was convicted in the June 1993 stabbing and clubbing death of Marilyn Sage Meagher, 43, a Houston real estate agent. Hardaway said Woldy did not tell her why Sheppard decided to go ahead with an appeal. Sheppard was not present at the hearing and Woldy could not be reached for comment. James Keegan, an attorney working on Sheppard's appeals, said Woldy told him of Sheppard's decision on Thursday, but did not say why she had changed her mind. Sheppard's attorneys insisted in January she was not likely to change her mind again and that she wanted to drop her appeals because of family considerations. Sheppard's request in January came as an international media spotlight focused on Tucker's Feb. 3 execution. Hardaway said prosecutors were always wary of Sheppard's decision to abandon her appeals. "We're generally pretty skeptical (when death row inmates drop their appeals)," Hardaway said. "She was brought here, talked to the judge, evaluated by a psychologist and psychiatrist and it was a waste of time. I'm not surprised though." Tucker was executed for helping to kill a man during a Houston burglary. Her death by lethal injection made news worldwide, in part because she was the first woman in Texas to be executed since the Civil War and only the second in the nation since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume. John Sage, Meagher's brother, said his family wasn't surprised by Sheppard's decision. "We sort of expected her (to back out of the decision)," Sage said. "We're neither disappointed or affected by it. . . . As long as they keep her in prison, that's the paramount issue." Sage said prosecutors told him Sheppard initially decided to drop her appeals because she wanted to be executed while her children were young. "She got caught up in the publicity Karla Fay Tucker was getting and she liked it. . . . I think she also was thinking that if Tucker got any kind of break that she would have been next in line and she would have gotten one too," Sage said. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Sheppard's conviction in June 1997. Sheppard and co-defendant James R. Dickerson attacked Meagher, a mother of two, inside her Galleria area apartment to steal her car keys. Meagher's throat was slashed and her skull crushed with a statue. Sheppard was 19 at the time and unemployed. Trial testimony showed Dickerson stole Meagher's car so the two could drive to Bay City to visit a friend.

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