CHICAGO, March 1, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A 70-year-old convicted murderer on
Thursday became the oldest man executed in Texas since the United States
reinstated the death penalty.
The state’s Department of Criminal Justice confirmed the execution of
Billie Wayne Coble, who was convicted for the 1989 murders of three people —
the parents and brother of his estranged wife, who had asked for a divorce.
He died by lethal injection Thursday evening in the Texas death chamber in
Huntsville, just a couple of hours after the US Supreme Court denied a last-
minute appeal.
Coble is the third convict executed this year in the United States and the
second in the Lone Star state, which puts to death the most inmates.
He is the oldest man executed in Texas since the US Supreme Court
reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The oldest in the US is serial bomber
Walter Moody, put to death last year in Alabama at the age of 83.
Inmates can languish on death row for decades as their cases wind through
the courts.
There are nearly 30 condemned inmates in Texas who have been in prison more
than 25 years, according to the Texas Tribune.
Coble, a Vietnam War veteran, was convicted of killing his brother-in-law
Bobby Vicha, who was a police officer in the city of Waco, and Vicha’s
parents Robert and Zelda.
Prosecutors said he also tied up his children and Bobby Vicha’s son, and
kidnapped his wife with the intention of raping and killing her. She escaped
with her life after Coble crashed his car.
– ‘Discredited testimony’ –
Bobby Vicha’s son JR, who was 11 years old at the time, told television
station KXXV that he and his cousins were tied up for hours.
“Through the whole thing, I didn’t really know what was going on,” Vicha
said.
“I was a prosecutor for eight years, so every day I dealt with criminals,”
he added. “I’ve never dealt with anybody that I thought was as bad or as evil
as he is.”
In the latest unsuccessful appeal to the Supreme Court, Coble’s current
attorney had claimed the convict’s trial lawyers did not present the defense
he had wanted.
“Coble did not agree with his lawyers’ decision to drop altogether any
semblance of a defense at the guilt phase” and concede his guilt, the court
filing said.
In previous appeals, his lawyers focused on the sentencing phase of the
trial, saying irregularities and faulty testimony did not allow for proper
consideration of a lesser sentence.
The American Civil Liberties Union said this week that two experts who had
testified in support of Coble getting the death penalty have since been
discredited.
“That Coble will be executed on such discredited testimony is
unconscionable,” the civil liberties group said.
“The example of his case already shows all who are willing to look why the
death penalty is never justice.”
Twenty-five people were put to death last year in the US, more than half in
Texas, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.