UPDATE: Bower was exe­cut­ed as sched­uled. EARLIER: Lester Bower is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Texas on June 3, after spend­ing more than 30 years on death row. Judges have denied relief on sev­er­al issues raised by Bower, includ­ing a claim that pros­e­cu­tors had with­held evi­dence from the defense sup­port­ing Bower’s con­sis­tent asser­tion that he is inno­cent. Bower was con­vict­ed of the 1983 mur­der of four men in Grayson County, Texas. He says he met with one of the men to pur­chase an ultra­light air­craft, which the oth­ers helped him dis­as­sem­ble and load into his truck. The evi­dence against him was cir­cum­stan­tial: calls made to the man sell­ing the air­craft and Bower’s pos­ses­sion of the same type of ammu­ni­tion used in the killings, which pros­e­cu­tors had told the jury was extreme­ly rare. After Bower’s con­vic­tion, his lawyers obtained records from the FBI and pros­e­cu­tors indi­cat­ing that the ammu­ni­tion was not as rare as pros­e­cu­tors had said, and of an undis­closed tip that the mur­ders may have been con­nect­ed to drug traf­fick­ing. Later, a woman came for­ward say­ing that her boyfriend and his friends had com­mit­ted the mur­ders after a drug deal went wrong. The wife of one of the oth­er men cor­rob­o­rat­ed her sto­ry. In a recent fil­ing, Bower’s attor­neys said, ​“This is a case in which there is a sig­nif­i­cant lin­ger­ing doubt regard­ing guilt or inno­cence.” Three Supreme Court jus­tices have said that Bower should have a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, as a result of what they called a ​“glar­ing” con­sti­tu­tion­al error that impaired the jury’s con­sid­er­a­tion of mitigating evidence.

(J. Smith, ​“DOUBTS STILL PLAGUE THE 31-YEAR-OLD LESTER BOWER CASE BUT TEXAS IS ABOUT TO KILL HIM ANYWAY,” The Intercept, June 1, 2015; M. Berman, ​“Texas plans to exe­cute an inmate who has been on death row for 30 years,” Washington Post, June 2, 2015.) See Innocence and Time on Death Row.

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