HOUSTON — A federal judge Monday blocked this week's scheduled execution of a Southeast Texas man condemned for the 2000 abduction, rape and strangling of a 12-year-old girl. Jonathan Green, 44, was set for lethal injection Wednesday evening in Huntsville for the slaying of Christina Neal, whose body was found inside his home about a month after she disappeared in June 2000. U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas ruled on an appeal from Green's attorneys challenging a state district judge's decision two years ago that he was mentally competent for execution. Green lived across the highway from Neal's family in Dobbin, about 45 miles northwest of Houston. Evidence showed she had been buried in a shallow grave on Green's property but was removed before investigators could get a search warrant after Green ordered them off his property. Atlas said her ruling was concerned "only with the question whether Green is entitled to a stay of execution and not with the ultimate question of whether he is incompetent to be executed." "It is clear from the record that, at a minimum, the trial court prevented Green from presenting testimony by treating mental health professionals, relied on an order solicited from and drafted by the state to which Green had no opportunity to object, and applied at least one incorrect legal standard," Atlas ruled. Atlas left open the possibility of holding an evidentiary hearing on Green's competency, writing in her ruling that while Green didn't fail to develop the factual basis of his claim, "rather, he was prevented from doing so." She said the state court "unreasonably applied" Supreme Court precedents and failed to provide Green due process. The Texas attorney general's office said it was reviewing the ruling to determine whether to appeal. Green's lawyer, James Rytting, said he was withholding comment until the attorney general's office decided its course of action. The Supreme Court has held mental illness doesn't disqualify someone from execution as long as the convict understands the punishment he's facing and why he's being punished.
Font Size: 
NEWS
