Entries tagged with “Raymond Riles”
Issues
Time on Death Row
,Sep 22, 2021
Nevada Supreme Court Finds Samuel Howard Innocent of the Death Penalty 40 Years After He Was Sent to Death Row
The Nevada Supreme Court has found that a prisoner who has been on the state’s death row for more than forty years is “actually innocent” of the death penalty and must be resentenced. In a ruling issued on September 16, 2021, the court reversed the death sentence imposed on Samuel Howard in 1983 for a 1980 robbery and murder in Las Vegas, holding that the sole remaining aggravating circumstance in his case that had made him eligible for the death penalty was invalid. Writing for a unanimous…
Issues
Time on Death Row
,Jun 10, 2021
Raymond Riles, the Nation’s Longest Serving Death-Row Prisoner, is Resentenced to Life
Raymond Riles (pictured), the nation’s longest serving death-row prisoner, has been resentenced to life. On June 9, 2021, Harris County, Texas District Judge Ana Martinez imposed the life sentence via a Zoom teleconference after county prosecutors determined that Riles was incompetent to participate in a capital resentencing trial and, if again sentenced to death, would never be mentally competent to be executed. The 71-year-old Riles was originally sentenced to death on December 11, 1975…
Issues
Time on Death Row
,Apr 19, 2021
Texas Appeals Court Overturns Death Sentence of Nation’s Longest Serving Death-Row Prisoner
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has overturned the death sentence of the nation’s longest-serving death-row prisoner, 45 years after he was first sent to death row. In an unpublished opinion issued on April 14, 2021, the TCCA held that Raymond Riles (pictured), originally sentenced to death by a Harris County jury on December 11, 1975, is entitled to a new sentencing hearing. The court ruled that Riles had been unconstitutionally sentenced to death in his 1978 retrial when the trial…
Issues
Time on Death Row
,Feb 08, 2021
Harris County DA Seeks to Vacate Sentence for Nation’s Longest-Serving Death-Row Prisoner
The Harris County District Attorney’s office has asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to overturn the death sentence imposed on Raymond Riles (pictured), the nation’s longest-serving death-row prisoner. Riles, who has a significant history of mental illness that prosecutors and defense lawyers alike have long agreed make him incompetent to be executed, was convicted and sentenced to death 45 years ago, on February 4, 1976. When Charles Foster, who was sentenced to death in Florida in…