LIVINGSTON, Texas (AP) — A mentally ill Texas death row inmate moved closer to execution when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and a federal district court refused to stop his punishment, scheduled for Wednesday evening.
The Texas appeals court’s rejection Tuesday of an appeal from James Colburn, 43, returned his case to the federal courts, where later in the day it was turned down by a federal judge in Houston.
The former carpenter and bricklayer doesn’t deny killing a woman at his home in Conroe but his lawyers contend the ninth-grade dropout whose criminal past includes arson and robbery convictions should be spared because he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.
His lawyer indicated they may take the case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
Mentally ill inmate set to die
March 26, 2003
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