29 April 2010 :

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out the death sentence of Roy Gene Smith. Harris County jurors who in 1990 decided Smith should be executed were not allowed to properly consider mitigating evidence of his crime-ridden Houston neighborhood and that he was surrounded by poverty and crime throughout his life, the court ruled. The appeals court ordered Smith's case returned to Harris County court for a new punishment trial. Smith, 51, black, was condemned for the October 8, 1988 fatal shooting of James Whitmire, 67. Smith also was sentenced to a life prison term for a murder he was convicted of committing three days before the Whitmire slaying.