By Ayden Runnels, The Texas Tribune, Feb. 5, 2025
Barring a closing-minute halt, Steven Lawayne Nelson is about aside to be done Wednesday night for killing an Arlington pastor, against the law he has maintained he did not commit, though he admitted he used to be there for a theft while the abolish came about. The execution would possibly perhaps perhaps be Texas’ first in 2025.
On March 3, 2011, the then 24-yr-ragged Nelson entered NorthPointe Baptist Church in Arlington to commit a theft. In the task, officials talked about he suffocated 28-yr-ragged Pastor Clint Dobson to death and assaulted 69-yr-ragged Judy Elliott, who used to be so badly overwhelmed her husband at first did not behold her when he arrived on the church.
Nelson used to be arrested two days later when he used to be found driving Elliott’s vehicle, which contained a lot of objects belonging to her and Dobson. A little bit of over a yr later, he used to be convicted of killing Dobson and sentenced to death.
Despite his conviction, Nelson has maintained his innocence through appropriate appeals and interviews. The now 37-yr-ragged testified at trial, in opposition to his appropriate representation’s desires, that while he used to be complicit within the theft, he used to be true a lookout and didn’t enter the church till after an accomplice had killed Dobson. One among the two men Nelson claimed used to be an accomplice used to be charged nonetheless now not indicted by a sizable jury, and the bogus used to be now not charged.
Nelson’s execution, which additionally would possibly perhaps perhaps be the first within the US in 2025, comes at a time in which death sentences and executions in Texas non-public reached epic lows. The rising infrequency of executions, doubts on whether Nelson surely killed Dobson and the involvement of Dobson’s church non-public sparked conversations on the upright and religious implications of capital punishment.
After Nelson used to be convicted and sentenced to death in 2012, officials with First Baptist Arlington, NorthPointe’s guardian church, launched a assertion seemingly approving his death sentence.
“We now non-public asked God for the actual fact to be known and for justice to be served,” the assertion talked about. “We now can confidently yelp that justice has been served and we can toughen the choice of this courtroom.”
The Rev. Jeff Hood, a non secular adviser to Nelson and a lot of other other inmates who non-public been done all over the nation and an suggest for abolishing the death penalty, talked about Nelson’s case stands out, seriously as a result of assertion from church officials.
“It’s disgusting for a church to equate the delight in of God, the delight in of Jesus, with the delight in of executions, the delight in of killing,” Hood talked about.
Hood has been assembly with Nelson for months in preparation for the execution and to seriously change “his finest buddy” earlier than the deliver kills him. Even Nelson’s version of occasions — that he stepped over overwhelmed and bloodied victims to steal their valuables — mirror a excessive crime that requires excessive punishment, Hood talked about. But the reverend argued execution despite everything has miniature to construct with Nelson’s culpability and additional relating to the deliver.
“Right here’s now not a Robbie Roberson or Will Speer extra or much less if truth be told feel-factual form memoir. It’s now not that. What Steven did is sinful, I imply tremendously sinful,” Hood talked about. “[But] I maintain I would argue it’s extra about us and much less about him.”
On the time, Tarrant County prosecutors charged Nelson on my own with abolish, pointing to blood spatter on Nelson’s sneakers, objects of Nelson’s belt on the scene and his possession of stolen objects from the church. All the way during the sentencing listening to, prosecutors in general is named a Tarrant County jail inmate to testify that Nelson had killed a cellmate at some stage in his incarceration leading up to the trial, nonetheless no costs non-public been brought in opposition to Nelson within the inmate’s death.
As well as to the lack of costs brought in opposition to Nelson’s alleged accomplices, the choose’s instructions to the jury to depend upon the legislation of occasions, which states that an individual will possible be criminally to blame for the actions of 1 other particular person, additionally proved contentious for those disapproving of Nelson’s conviction. The instruction allowed the jury to convict Nelson primarily based mostly on one of two determinations: that Nelson used to be straight to blame for Dobson’s death, or that he used to be event to a theft he will non-public to restful non-public anticipated would result in death. The jury did not specify which of the two it traditional to reach the responsible verdict, per courtroom paperwork.
Nelson filed a pair of appeals in his 13 years on death row, claiming his trial did not adequately stumble on the involvement of the bogus two men, which he argued would non-public altered the verdict.
All of Nelson’s appeals non-public failed, primarily the newest of which used to be for a halt of execution that used to be denied by the Texas Court of Prison Appeals true a week earlier than his scheduled execution. Nelson’s appropriate crew has appealed the choice to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming the prison appeals courtroom did not specify whether its denial used to be primarily based mostly on federal or deliver precedent.
Nelson, born in Oklahoma, suffered physical and sexual abuse at some level of his childhood, which his defense crew at some stage in his sentencing listening to claimed affected his prison epic sooner than the Dobson abolish. In conversations with Nelson, Hood talked about he recognizes how that abuse carried over through his existence.
“I build dispute it’s necessary to be in contact to the actual fact that right here is somebody who had a horrendous childhood,” Hood talked about. “I maintain that it’s necessary to surely be in contact to the actual fact that right here is somebody that society gave up on, and I maintain when the crime occurs later, I maintain we non-public reaped what we sow.”
Nelson would possibly perhaps perhaps be the first inmate done within the U.S. since the Department of Justice launched a document casting doubt on deadly injection being a painless strategy of capital punishment. In January, broken-down Prison legit Total Merrick Garland rescinded federal employ of single-drug deadly injection — the identical protocol Texas has traditional since 2014 — for its executions, citing proof that it prompted pulmonary edema. The DOJ document likened the results of the pulmonary edema to waterboarding.
While the Texas Code of Prison Course of exempts those done from autopsies, a lot of autopsies conducted on inmates done by deadly injection in other states published elevated lung weight prompted by fluid.
Texas’ second execution of the yr is scheduled on Feb. 15. Richard Tabler, who has been on death row since 2007, used to be convicted of capital abolish within the 2004 shooting deaths of two men in Killeen.
Editor’s cover: This text first and predominant appeared in The Texas Tribune.
Holy Anointing Oil from Jerusalem 300ml / 10.1 oz
Passion of Christ 12" Authentic Real Fresh Jesus Crown of Thorns from The Holy Land
14Mar 
14Mar 
14Mar 
14Mar 
14Mar 
14Mar 
by