Volume 49

1 IN THE CRIMINAL DISTRICT COURT NO. 3
2 DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS
3
4
5
6 THE STATE OF TEXAS } NO. F-96-39973-J
7 VS: } & A-96-253
8 DARLIE LYNN ROUTIER } Kerr Co. Number
9
10
11
12
13 REPORTERS RECORD
14 JURY TRIAL
15 VOL. 49 OF 53 VOLS.
16 February 4, 1997
17 Tuesday
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5632

1 C A P T I O N
2
3
4 BE IT REMEMBERED THAT, on Tuesday, the 4th day of
5 February, 1997, in the Criminal District Court Number 3
6 of Dallas County, Texas, the above-styled cause came on
7 for a jury trial before the Hon. Mark Tolle, Judge of the
8 Criminal District Court No. 3, of Dallas County, Texas,
9 with a jury, and the proceedings were held, in open
10 court, in the City of Kerrville, Kerr County Courthouse,
11 Kerr County, Texas, and the proceedings were had as
12 follows:
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1
2 A P P E A R A N C E S
3
4
5 HON. JOHN VANCE
6 Criminal District Attorney
7 Dallas County, Texas
8
9 BY: HON. GREG DAVIS
10 Assistant District Attorney
11 Dallas County, Texas
12
13 AND:
14 HON. TOBY SHOOK
15 Assistant District Attorney
16 Dallas County, Texas
17
18 AND:
19 HON. SHERRI WALLACE
20 Assistant District Attorney
21 Dallas County, Texas
22
23 APPEARING FOR THE STATE OF TEXAS
24
25
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5634

1 ADDITIONAL APPEARANCES:
2
3 HON. DOUGLAS D. MULDER
4 Attorney at Law
5 2650 Maxus Energy Tower
6 717 N. Harwood
7 Dallas, TX 75201
8
9 AND: HON. CURTIS GLOVER
10 Attorney at Law
11 2650 Maxus Energy Tower
12 717 N. Harwood
13 Dallas, TX 75201
14
15 AND: HON. RICHARD C. MOSTY
16 Attorney at Law
17 Wallace, Mosty, Machann, Jackson & Williams
18 820 Main Street, Suite 200
19 Kerrville, TX 78028
20
21 AND: HON. S. PRESTON DOUGLASS, JR.
22 Attorney at Law
23 Wallace, Mosty, Machann, Jackson & Williams
24 820 Main Street, Suite 200
25 Kerrville, TX 78028
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5635

1
2 AND: HON. JOHN HAGLER
3 Attorney at Law
4 901 Main Street, Suite 3601
5 Dallas, TX 75202
6 ALL ATTORNEYS REPRESENTING THE
7 DEFENDANT: DARLIE ROUTIER
8 MR. HAGLER HANDLING THE APPEAL
9 AND:
10 HON. ALBERT D. PATILLO, III
11 Attorney at Law
12 820 Main Street, Suite 211
13 Kerrville, TX 78028
14 APPEARING FOR: Witness-
15 Detective Jimmy Patterson

16 only on one date in trial
17 AND:
18 HON. STEVEN J. PICKELL
19 Attorney at Law
20 620 Earl Garrett Street
21 Kerrville, TX 78028
22 APPEARING FOR: Witness
23 Officer Chris Frosch
24 only on one date in trial
25
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2
3 February 4th, 1997
4 Tuesday
5 9:00 a.m.
6
7 (Whereupon, the following
8 proceedings were held in
9 open court, in the presence
10 and hearing of the
11 defendant, being
12 represented by her attorneys
13 and the representatives of
14 the State of Texas, but
15 outside the presence of the
16 jury, as follows:)
17
18
19 THE COURT: All right. Let the record
20 reflect that these proceedings are being held outside the
21 presence of the jury and all parties of the trial are
22 present.
23 Have both sides read the Charge of the
24 Court?
25 MS. SHERRI WALLACE: Yes, sir.
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1 MR. S. PRESTON DOUGLASS: Yes, your
2 Honor.
3 THE COURT: Okay. I believe the
4 defense wishes the failure to testify portion removed; is
5 that correct?
6 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: Yes, sir.
7 THE COURT: Does the State have any
8 objection?
9 MS. SHERRI WALLACE: No, we don't,
10 your Honor. But we would request that you inquire of the
11 defendant if that is her desire as well.
12 THE COURT: Is that your desire, Mrs.
13 Routier?
14 THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
15 THE COURT: All right.
16 MS. SHERRI WALLACE: Thank you, your
17 Honor.
18 THE COURT: Will the State still
19 object to my removing that from the Charge?
20 MS. SHERRI WALLACE: No. Provided the
21 defense doesn't want it in, and they've objected. We
22 just heard them, we will concur in that.
23 THE COURT: All right. Fine then.
24 The motion is granted, by the Court. The defense's
25 motion is granted. We will remove that portion of the
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 Charge as to the failure to testify.
2 The rest of the Charge is satisfactory
3 to both sides?
4 MR. S. PRESTON DOUGLASS: No, your
5 Honor. If I might respond.
6 THE COURT: Oh, I'm sorry.
7 MR. S. PRESTON DOUGLASS: The
8 defendant objects to the anti-sympathy charge as written
9 in, as in total presented in the Charge. I would provide
10 McFarland_v._State, which references the charge, and it _________ __ _____
11 also cites Wheatfall_versus_State, in regards to an _________ ______ _____
12 anti-sympathy charge.
13 And in Wheatfall, which is a Court of _________
14 Criminal Appeals case, 1994, it says that the giving of
15 that charge may not be error, but the Court specifically
16 said that it does not pass on whether there is any
17 statutory authority to give that charge. And I believe,
18 as the Court knows, there is no statutory authority for
19 giving that charge.
20 Thus, giving that charge is purely
21 discretionary with the Court, and in that regard I would
22 submit it should not be presented.
23 Let me expound on it a little bit. If
24 you have a charge as required by Penry, which says that _____
25 you are to consider mitigating circumstances. And in the
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1 Charge you say, "And as the Court has instructed the
2 jury," you're going to say that they shall consider
3 mitigating circumstances, which I think is appropriate.
4 And if you say, on one hand you want
5 them to consider mitigation, and in that Charge you say
6 that mitigation includes anything about the defendant's
7 background, character, or anything personal about the
8 defendant, and then on the other hand you say, "Well, you
9 cannot consider sympathy," then you are contradicting the
10 Penry charge and you're contradicting the mitigating _____
11 evidence charge.
12 And because there's no statutory
13 authority for being in the Charge, I believe it's
14 improper to give it.
15 It's discretionary, and there is no
16 statutory basis for giving it. And, we object on that
17 basis.
18 THE COURT: Okay. Objection
19 overruled.
20 Anything other than that?
21 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: Let me say one
22 thing to that. I disagree with Mr. Douglass putting it
23 in the discretionary part. What the Court held in that
24 case was there was not an abuse of discretion, but the
25 statutory objection I don't believe was raised in that
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 case. And that's the thrust of our objection is no
2 statutory authority.
3 MR. S. PRESTON DOUGLASS: If I might
4 just add one thing to be clear. The Court specifically
5 said nobody raised, in that case, the fact that there's
6 no statutory authority, as if it was willing to say we'll
7 revisit that issue, because there was no authority to
8 give that charge.
9 THE COURT: All right. Thank you.
10 MS. SHERRI WALLACE: And Judge --
11 THE COURT: Other than that -- yes,
12 Ms. Wallace.
13 MS. SHERRI WALLACE: I said the State
14 concurred in the request to remove the failure to
15 testify. We're not asking for it to be removed, but
16 understand that the defense is. And we're satisfied with
17 it in, but if they want it out, we understand your
18 ruling.
19 THE COURT: Thank you. Other than
20 that, does the defense have any objection?
21 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: Yes. We object
22 to the instruction on parole. That it is an inaccurate
23 statement of the law that she would have to serve 40
24 years. It also contradicts with the second full
25 paragraph of the Charge which says that the sentence is
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 mandatory death or confinement in the penitentiary for
2 life. And all it does -- all the Charge does is suggest
3 that, in fact, there is some parole law applicable to the
4 case, and we object to including it in there.
5 THE COURT: Overruled. Other than
6 that is there any defense objection to the Charge?
7 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: I just want to
8 reurge all of the arguments made.
9 THE COURT: Is the rest
10 satisfactory -- other then that, is the Charge
11 satisfactory to the defense?
12 MR. S. PRESTON DOUGLASS: Yes, sir.
13 THE COURT: All right. And so, Ms.
14 Halsey, if you will be kind enough to mark this as the
15 next Court Exhibit, Court's Exhibit D. All right. Make
16 this Exhibit D.
17
18 (Whereupon, the
19 Exhibit was
20 Marked for
21 Identification
22 Only, as Court's
23 Exhibit D.)
24
25 THE COURT: All right. So, we're
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 going to bring the jury in. I'll read the Charge of the
2 Court, then we will have arguments now.
3 So we get everyone in a row here, so
4 to speak. Who will argue for the defense -- who is going
5 to open for the State? Mr. Shook?
6 MS. SHERRI WALLACE: I will, your
7 Honor.
8 THE COURT: Ms. Wallace. All right.
9 And by agreement, 90 minutes a side.
10 What warnings do you want, Ms.
11 Wallace?
12 MS. SHERRI WALLACE: If you could let
13 me know when I've used 30 minutes, and 15 minutes
14 thereafter.
15 THE COURT: Okay. And who will argue
16 for the defense? What order?
17 MR. CURTIS GLOVER: Doug, are you
18 going to open?
19 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: Yeah, I'll open,
20 Judge.
21 MR. CURTIS GLOVER: I'm following him,
22 Judge.
23 THE COURT: Pardon?
24 MR. CURTIS GLOVER: I'll follow him,
25 Judge.
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 THE COURT: Okay. How long do you
2 want, Mr. Mulder?
3 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: I don't need to
4 be called. I don't know how long I'm going to use, maybe
5 half an hour, maybe 45 minutes.
6 THE COURT: Well, do you want me to
7 let you know when you have used certain time limits, or
8 gone past a certain time?
9 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: No, that's quite
10 all right. Thanks.
11 THE COURT: All right. Well, then,
12 who will follow that?
13 MR. S. PRESTON DOUGLASS: After Mr.
14 Glover, then I will. I just need 10 minutes.
15 Well, Mr. Mulder, I will warn you at
16 the end of each 30 minute segment; is that clear? So
17 everybody will know the time they're using.
18 Now, we will break -- the jury is
19 going to need to break about an hour and 15 minutes. I
20 will try to wait until somebody -- whenever we can break,
21 but they're not going to be able to sit for three hours.
22 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: Well, if you're
23 going to do that, then I suggest that you break at the
24 end of Sherri --
25 THE COURT: Mr. Mulder, I will
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5644

1 determine when we break.
2 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: Well, Judge,
3 listen, that's fine with me, but I just don't want to be
4 interrupted in the middle of my argument.
5 THE COURT: Well, we hope that you're
6 not.
7 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: Well, I want that
8 understood, Judge.
9 THE COURT: Thank you. All right.
10 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: I want that
11 understood, Judge. I don't want to be interrupted in the
12 middle of my argument. Now, if you want to recess prior
13 to the time that she reaches -- at the conclusion of her
14 argument, that's fine and dandy. I don't want to be
15 interrupted in the middle of my argument.
16 THE COURT: If the jury wants to
17 break, Mr. Mulder, we will break. And we'll have plenty
18 of time.
19 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: You know, I
20 don't think that that's an unfair request, that Mr.
21 Mulder's argument not be interrupted.
22 THE COURT: Gentlemen, let's don't
23 get -- I normally don't interrupt people in the middle of
24 their argument.
25 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: Well, if I argue
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 for 45 minutes that's going to take it to an hour and
2 half.
3 THE COURT: Well, all right. If I see
4 a juror with their hand up, we're going to be breaking.
5 I just want to warn you of that.
6 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: Well, Judge, I
7 suggest you take that up with the jury before I get up to
8 argue, it's real simple.
9 THE COURT: I have. Thank you.
10 And we understand that there will be a
11 total of 90 minutes per side. Total.
12 With that understanding, let's bring
13 the jury in, please.
14 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: Could we wait a
15 minute, your Honor? Could I check on something?
16 THE COURT: Yes. All right.
17 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: Will that be
18 okay?
19 THE COURT: All right.
20 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: Your Honor, we
21 object to starting until Mr. Routier gets here. I think
22 that's not an unreasonable request after a five week
23 trial.
24 THE COURT: Thank you. Overruled.
25 Let's bring the jury in, please.
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 Well, when do you think he will be
2 here?
3 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: If the Court
4 will give me a few minutes, I can go check.
5 THE COURT: All right. Go ahead and
6 check and see where he is.
7 Just hold the jury a minute to see
8 where Mr. Routier is.
9
10 (Whereupon, a short pause
11 in the proceedings was had,
12 after which time, the
13 proceedings were resumed
14 as follows:)
15
16 THE COURT: All right. Are they here?
17 I thought they were coming up the stairs.
18 Let the record reflect these
19 proceedings are being held outside the presence of the
20 jury and all parties of trial are present.
21 These proceedings today began at 9:00
22 A.M. sharp. It's now 14 minutes after 9:00. We have
23 recessed for five minutes.
24 And Mr. Mosty, what is the result of
25 your search for the Routier family?
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5647

1 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: I have someone
2 going to check on him. The place where he is staying
3 does not have a phone.
4 THE COURT: Well, it's 9:15 now.
5 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: His brother is
6 going, on his way there.
7 THE COURT: All right. Thank you.
8 Well, it's 9:15 now. The Court feels that we have waited
9 long enough. We have a jury in the jury room ready to
10 go. We have three hours of argument ahead of us. So,
11 the Court is now going to proceed.
12 If you will bring the jury in, please.
13
14 (Whereupon, the jury
15 Was returned to the
16 Courtroom, and the
17 Proceedings were
18 Resumed on the record,
19 In open court, in the
20 Presence and hearing
21 Of the defendant,
22 As follows:)
23
24 THE COURT: All right. Be seated,
25 please. Let the record reflect that all parties in the
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 trial are present and the jury is seated.
2 Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what
3 is going to happen now is, I am going read to you the
4 Charge of the Court. That's the law in the case. Then
5 you will hear arguments for both sides. Then the case
6 will be yours to decide.
7 The Charge of the Court: Ladies and
8 gentlemen of the jury: By your verdict returned in this
9 case you have found the defendant, Darlie Lynn Routier,
10 guilty of the offense of capital murder. It is necessary
11 now for you to determine, from all of the evidence in the
12 case, the answers to certain questions called Special
13 Issues in this charge.
14 The mandatory punishment for capital
15 murder is death or confinement in the penitentiary for
16 life. You are instructed that in answering the special
17 issues you may take into consideration all of the facts
18 shown by the evidence admitted before you in the full
19 trial of this case and the law as submitted to you in
20 this Charge.
21 During your deliberations in this
22 phase of the trial you must not consider, discuss or
23 relate any matters not in evidence before you. You
24 should not consider or mention any personal knowledge or
25 information you may have about any fact or person
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 connected with the case which is not shown by the
2 evidence.
3 You are instructed that if any
4 evidence has been introduced during the course of this
5 trial concerning the defendant's involvement in offenses
6 or bad acts, other than the offense on trial, you cannot
7 consider such evidence for any purpose unless you first
8 find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the
9 defendant committed these other offenses, or bad acts, if
10 there were any, and even then you may only consider the
11 same in determining the answers to the Special Issues.
12 If you do not so find or believe from the evidence, or if
13 you have a reasonable doubt thereof, you must wholly
14 disregard such evidence.
15 You are further instructed that you
16 are not to be swayed by mere sentiment, conjecture,
17 sympathy, passion, prejudice, public opinion or public
18 feeling in considering all the evidence before you in
19 answering the Special Issues.
20 The burden of proof in Special Issue
21 Number 1 rests upon the State, and it must prove the
22 affirmative of such issue beyond a reasonable doubt.
23 A reasonable doubt is a doubt based on
24 reason and common sense after a careful and impartial
25 consideration of all of the evidence in the case. It is
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 the kind of doubt that would make a reasonable person
2 hesitate to act in the most important of his own affairs.
3 Proof beyond a reasonable doubt,
4 therefore, must be proof of such a convincing character
5 that you would be willing to rely and act upon it without
6 hesitation in the most important of your own affairs.
7 In the event you have a reasonable
8 doubt as to the answer to Special Issue Number 1, after
9 considering all of the evidence before you, and these
10 instructions, you will answer the Special Issue, "no."
11 In deliberating on Special Issue
12 Number 1, you shall consider all evidence admitted at the
13 guilt or innocence stage and the punishment stage
14 including evidence of the defendant's background or
15 character, or the circumstances of the offense that
16 militates for or mitigates against the imposition of the
17 death penalty.
18 You are instructed that you may not
19 answer Special Issue Number 1, "yes," unless all jurors
20 unanimously agree to such answer. Further you may not
21 answer this Special Issue, "no," unless 10 or more jurors
22 agree. It is not necessary that members of the jury
23 agree on what particular evidence supports a negative
24 answer, that is, an answer of "no" to Special Issue
25 Number 1.
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 You are further instructed that if the
2 jury makes an affirmative finding to Special Issue Number
3 1, that is, an answer of "yes," then the jury shall
4 answer Special Issue Number 2.
5 You will answer Special Issue Number 2
6 yes or no. You may not answer Special Issue Number 2
7 "no" unless all jurors unanimously agree to such answer.
8 And you may not answer such issue "yes" unless 10 or more
9 jurors agree to such answer. The jury, however, need not
10 agree on what particular evidence supports an affirmative
11 finding on Special Issue Number 2.
12 In answering Special Issue Number 2,
13 you are instructed that you shall consider mitigating
14 evidence as evidence that a juror might regard as
15 reducing the defendant's moral blame worthiness.
16 And then we have the two Special
17 Issues, which I will read now. Special Issue Number 1:
18 Is there a probability that the defendant would commit
19 criminal acts of violence that would constitute a
20 continuing threat to society?
21 If the jury returns an affirmative
22 finding on the issues submitted above, then you shall
23 answer the following Special Issue:
24 Special Issue Number 2: Taking into
25 consideration all of the evidence, including the
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 circumstances of the offense, the defendant's character
2 and background, and the personal moral culpability of the
3 defendant, is there a sufficient mitigating circumstance
4 or circumstances to warrant that a sentence of life
5 imprisonment, rather than a death sentence be imposed?
6 You are further instructed that your
7 verdict shall be arrived at by due deliberation and not
8 by drawing lots or any other method of chance.
9 The answers to the Special Issues
10 shall be signed by the presiding juror.
11 You are the exclusive judges of the
12 facts proved, the credibility of the witnesses, and of
13 the weight to be given to their testimony. But you are
14 bound to receive the law from the Court, which is herein
15 given you, and to be governed thereby.
16 And that is signed by me, Mark Tolle,
17 Presiding Judge.
18 Now, the next two pages contain the
19 Special Issues. And depending upon your answer, the
20 presiding juror will sign, of course, the bottom of the
21 issue, assuming it's answered, and depending upon the
22 instructions, you will answer one or both of these
23 issues, depending upon the answers thereto. And Mr.
24 Wilson (sic) will sign the ones that you decide upon, and
25 if he will print his name, please.
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5653

1 CLOSING ARGUMENTS IN PUNISHMENT:
2
3 THE COURT: And now argument, by
4 agreement, 90 minutes a side. And who will open for the
5 State? Ms. Wallace?
6 MS. SHERRI WALLACE: I will, your
7 Honor.
8 THE COURT: Thank you.
9 MS. SHERRI WALLACE: May it please the
10 Court?
11 THE COURT: Yes, ma'am.
12 MS. SHERRI WALLACE: On June the 6th,
13 of 1996 two precious children were forever silenced by
14 their killer. Devon and Damon Routier, were forever
15 silenced by their mother.
16 On their behalf, and on behalf of the
17 people of this great State, I want to thank you for your
18 wisdom and your common sense, in sifting through four
19 weeks of testimony and telling us the truth.
20 I know this case has been difficult.
21 It's been difficult on all of us. You don't want to
22 believe that a mother would kill her children. You fight
23 in yourself, and say it is not so. But in this case, as
24 you saw, the evidence is overwhelming. This woman over
25 here, murdered her children in cold blood.
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1 And then that family comes in here and
2 tries to make you feel guilty for their loss. Tries to
3 blame you for their pain? She is to blame. It's her
4 fault they're hurting. It's her fault we're here.
5 So don't you feel bad for one minute for holding on to
6 your oath. And for sifting through all of that horrible
7 evidence. And for reaching a just verdict. For that we
8 thank you.
9 Sarilda Routier said, the defendant's
10 own mother-in-law, "If she did this, she should die."
11 We know that she did this.
12 Now, it's up to you to decide if she
13 lives or dies.
14 Now, you remember from voir dire, from
15 the jury selection we did, it seems so long ago, it's not
16 that clear. Instead of saying life or death, the Court
17 has asked you to answer two questions. But in this case,
18 the answers are so easy, because the answers are in the
19 evidence. The answers are contained in the defendant's
20 crime.
21 The first question: "Is there a
22 probability that she would commit further continuing acts
23 of violence, that she would be a continuing threat?"
24 I want you to think about the crime
25 when you answer that question. You see, folks, this
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5655

1 isn't some crime where she snapped. This isn't a case
2 where we have got an automatic weapon and a mom just
3 freaked out. She planned this thing. She thought about
4 it for a week. She had been sleeping downstairs for a
5 week.
6 She told the nurse in the hospital
7 that she had been leaving that window open in the garage
8 for a week. And then that night, what did she do? She
9 sat there, and she waited until her babies fell asleep.
10 And she walks into the kitchen.
11 Can you imagine what is going through
12 her mind? She stands there, and looks at that butcher
13 block and thinks, what knife? What weapon am I going to
14 use to kill my children? How did she select it? Was it
15 the biggest one? I don't know.
16 But she pulled it out, and you know
17 what? She could have stopped right then. She could have
18 said, "Oh my God, what am I doing?" But she didn't.
19 She goes over to her child, and the
20 sequence of events I'm going to tell you is a reasonable
21 deduction from the evidence. I don't know exactly how
22 she did this crime, but I'll tell you what I think, what
23 I think the evidence shows.
24 She went over to Devon, her oldest
25 child. He's laying there sleeping.
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1 You know, is there anything more
2 precious than a sleeping child? Anything? You know how
3 they get when they fall asleep and they start breathing
4 heavily, just that deep sleep because they are exhausted
5 from playing all day. That's how Devon was.
6 She walks up to him and looks at him.
7 He is face up. Sleeping. He is dreaming. I don't know
8 what he is dreaming about, riding bikes, licking
9 popsicles. I don't know what he's dreaming about, but
10 it's nothing like the nightmare that awoke him. She
11 awoke him. She did it by taking that knife and slamming
12 it into his chest. She plunged it into his chest. And
13 she could have stopped then.
14 And if you are asked this question,
15 would she probably be a future danger? Would she
16 probably commit criminal acts of violence? Right then,
17 what would you say? Surely not. Not a mother. That
18 would snap her.
19 Surely she realizes her wrong?
20 But no, she does it again, until she
21 is sure he is dead.
22 And then she walks over to her five
23 year old child, Damon. Look at those eyes, those
24 precious eyes.
25 He is face down. He is sleeping too.
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1 And she has a chance at this point to
2 stop, to say, "Oh my God. I have made the most horrible
3 mistake of my life. I can't do it to another child."
4 But she doesn't. She is that cold. These kids are in
5 her way. And she has got a mission and a goal and she
6 carries it out.
7 And she goes over and she stabs Damon.
8 Do you know what it is like to stab
9 something? Have your ever stabbed a chicken? It's hard.
10 She had to go through bone. And pull it out and do it
11 again. And I don't know what happened then. Maybe she
12 thought she had done it with two times. But do you
13 remember what Barbara Jovell said about this little boy?
14 He was stubborn. He was a fighter. He didn't want to
15 die.
16 So she goes off and does whatever she
17 does. You know, flipping stuff around, taking that --
18 just turning that flower arrangement over, putting that
19 vacuum cleaner there, cutting herself, you know,
20 whatever she does. Okay? And she stages that crime
21 scene, and then you know what happened next. Because we
22 know from the blood trail that that little boy left, he's
23 trying to get out of there. He crawls away. And she
24 goes after him and hunts him down like an animal. And
25 she finishes him off.
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5658

1 Those big eyes as he is dying are
2 looking up at her. You heard the paramedic talk about
3 it. He was choked up. It's hard to watch a little boy
4 die. And what did their mother do? Not one dadgum
5 thing. Not even then did she stop.
6 All she did was hold that towel on her
7 neck and ask when the heck the ambulance was going to be
8 there for herself.
9 You know, have any of y'all ever lost
10 anybody you really loved? You know what it's like to
11 have something suddenly taken away from you? You don't
12 ever want to believe it. You live in denial.
13 You know you remember when she
14 testified in the guilt or innocence phase of this trial,
15 and she told you, when she got in the ambulance she knew
16 her babies were dead. Well, they hadn't even declared
17 Damon dead.
18 She knew they were dead because she
19 knew she had stabbed him hard enough. She knew she had
20 finished him off.
21 So you have got to answer that first
22 question, and this crime gives you everything you need to
23 answer that first question.
24 You see, the law doesn't require -- we
25 talked about this in jury selection. The law doesn't
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 require anything else.
2 There are some crimes that are so bad,
3 that are so distasteful, that are so horrible, that
4 that's all you need to hear. If we had asked this
5 question after Devon's death, maybe we would still have
6 Damon.
7 How long are we going to wait? You
8 all know she is a continuing threat. She is a threat to
9 anything that gets in her way.
10 As long as you don't cross her,
11 everything is fine. But if you get in her way, God help
12 you.
13 Now, I want you, if you will, to think
14 about this woman. Because that is really what this
15 second question is all about.
16 Is there something here sufficient,
17 after that crime, to warrant y'all changing your mind
18 and giving her life, even though she deserves death?
19 That's what it's all about.
20 Well, what evidence have you heard?
21 Well, the family doesn't want to believe it's true. The
22 truth is too ugly for them to face. But you have sat
23 here for four, now almost -- well, four and a half weeks,
24 and you know the truth. They have not been in this
25 courtroom. They don't know all you have heard. And they
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5660

1 don't want to believe it. Who does? But that's the
2 case.
3 So think about this woman. Are you
4 not going to kill her because she is a woman? Does that
5 make those kids one bit less dead? All of you were asked
6 on your questionnaire, could you execute a woman if the
7 crime called for it? And every single one of you
8 answered yes.
9 So I ask you, if a stranger had broken
10 into this home, and done this -- look at it. Done this.
11 Done this to two little boys, what would you do to that
12 stranger? Well, I have talked to you all. I have heard
13 from you. I know what you would do. You would kill him
14 in a heartbeat.
15 Don't you know that their mother doing
16 this is so much worse?
17 So take the fact that she is a woman
18 out of the equation.
19 So, is there anything sufficiently
20 mitigating? Any reason for you to change the right
21 verdict?
22 Well, think about what she said.
23 You-all have seen that, you know, we call it the Silly
24 String tape. You have seen it. It's the 14th, it's
25 eight days after these babies are slaughtered. And she
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5661

1 stands before that camera, and has the gall to say that
2 these children have had such rich and full lives.
3 You tell me. How does somebody that
4 hasn't even gotten to kindergarten yet have the chance to
5 have a rich and full life?
6 Her mother asked you to have
7 compassion. I ask you to have as much compassion for her
8 as she had for her children.
9 You have heard evidence in this phase
10 of the trial about this woman. You have heard -- you
11 know, it doesn't matter if she doesn't wear a bra. I
12 don't care if she doesn't wear a bra. That's not the
13 point.
14 The point is, that what you see here
15 in this courtroom is a sham. She is out there in our
16 communities. She is rude. She is not this -- you know,
17 all you heard was what a doting mother she was. How kind
18 and gentle she was.
19 Well, excuse my language, but, "Get
20 the fuck over here," to a three and four year old?
21 That's who you're asked to sentence.
22 She didn't care about these kids.
23 You know, they want you to think there
24 is something mitigating about she bought them a lot of
25 stuff. Well, yeah, that's the easy way. Buy them stuff,
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5662

1 maybe they will shut up. Maybe they will go outside and
2 play.
3 You know that's how you know if the
4 Routiers are home. Kids are running wild outside. Mama
5 doesn't want them in the house. She doesn't have time
6 for them.
7 She took care of that, didn't she?
8 You know, some of you may be thinking,
9 maybe she ought to get a life sentence. Maybe that would
10 be worse. That would be a greater form of hell, because
11 she would have to think about her crime for the rest of
12 her life. That's a mistake. And I'll tell you why.
13 Because she is not like we are. She
14 is different. Very different. The only concern she's
15 got, the only time you saw real tears is when she is
16 worried about her own hide. And she doesn't give a flip
17 about anybody else.
18 A life sentence isn't going to work
19 for her, people. She doesn't have the guilt.
20 Knowing her life is about to end is
21 the only thing that will affect her.
22 I think the most scary thing is that
23 she looks like us. She looks like a human being, but she
24 is not. She is not one bit like us.
25 We couldn't do this. We don't even
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5663

1 know somebody that could do this. This is one of those
2 crimes that is unthinkable.
3 You may be wondering, but why? Why
4 would she do it? You know, we don't have to prove
5 motive, but you want to know why.
6 You have heard some of the evidence
7 about what she was going through. But there's not a good
8 reason to stab a five and six year old boy. There is
9 nothing I could say to you, where you would go: "Oh, I
10 understand now. I understand why she stabbed her
11 children."
12 Senseless crimes. That's what they
13 are called. You know why they are called senseless
14 crimes? Because they don't make sense. But they happen.
15 And the people that do them are so evil. We reserve the
16 death penalty for those people. We reserve the death
17 penalty for people like Darlie Routier.
18 If she did it, she should die. You
19 know she did it.
20 You-all have got a tremendous
21 opportunity. There are juries today all around the State
22 that are called on to make decisions. And people often
23 times don't hear about them. But people are going to
24 hear about your verdict. People are paying attention to
25 this case.
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1 All of those people are press.
2 There's camera people in here and writers and TV people
3 and book people. And they are all waiting to see what
4 you do with this case.
5 They are your messengers.
6 I ask you to tell this nation, in
7 Texas, we protect our children. If you harm our
8 children, you will get the full extent of our laws.
9 I know this decision isn't easy. It
10 shouldn't be. But if you look at this evidence, and you
11 think about this crime, you think about the fact that all
12 of the time that she had where she could have stopped,
13 where she could have changed her mind. But she kept
14 plowing on through because that is what she wanted.
15 You think about those things. You
16 think about these babies.
17 Think about the last few minutes of
18 their life. What did they say to her, "Mommy, it hurts.
19 Mommy, why?" I don't know. But it hurt. And it wasn't
20 instant. And she didn't care.
21 In order for the defendant to die, you
22 must answer the first question "yes." And you must
23 answer the second question "no." If you answer them any
24 differently, she receives a life sentence. You must all
25 be in agreement that the first question is answered
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5665

1 "yes," and the second question is answered "no." Every
2 single one of you has to agree to that verdict.
3 I ask you to tell this nation, to tell
4 this world, "Darlie Routier, we are not going to tolerate
5 what you have done to our children. You will die."
6 THE COURT: Thank you, Ms. Wallace.
7 Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, to
8 give both sides equal opportunity in explaining this case
9 to you, we will now take a 10 minute break.
10 Thank you.
11
12 (Whereupon, the jury
13 Was excused from the
14 Courtroom, and the
15 Proceedings were held
16 In the presence of the
17 Defendant, with his
18 Attorney, but outside
19 The presence of jury
20 As follows:)
21
22 THE COURT: All right. These
23 proceedings are being held outside the presence of the
24 jury, and all the parties in trial are present. The
25 Court's Charge was read to the jury commencing at 9:15
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5666

1 A.M., and Ms. Wallace argued for the State. And she
2 began her argument at 9:23 A.M. and ending at 9:50 A.M.
3 Mr. Darin Routier appeared in Court at 9:40 A.M.
4 All right. Thank you.
5 Are both sides ready to bring in the
6 jury?
7 MR. GREG DAVIS: Yes, sir, we are
8 ready.
9 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: Yes, sir, we're
10 ready.
11 THE COURT: All right. Bring the jury
12 in, please.
13
14
15 (Whereupon, the jury
16 was returned to the
17 courtroom, and the
18 proceedings were held
19 in the presence of the
20 Defendant, with her
21 Attorney, and in the
22 Presence and hearing of
23 the jury as follows:)
24
25
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1 THE COURT: Let the record reflect
2 that all parties in the trial are present and the jury is
3 seated.
4 Mr. Mulder.
5 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: Yes, sir. May it
6 please the Court?
7 THE COURT: Yes, sir.
8 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: Ladies and
9 gentlemen, I'll be the first to visit with you on behalf
10 of the defendant. And I think it would be less than
11 candid of me not to tell you that I am extremely
12 disappointed in your verdict.
13 But I believe in the system. And, you
14 are good people and you went through this evidence
15 sincerely, and you did your dead-level best, and for that
16 I certainly appreciate it. And it's not my position, or
17 anyone else's position to quarrel with your verdict.
18 The State's position is, at what we
19 call the punishment hearing, to bring you evidence upon
20 which they will later contend that you are to base your
21 verdict that Darlie should die. And I want to discuss
22 with you a little bit that testimony that they brought,
23 and then I want to answer Ms. Wallace's argument, if I
24 can, and then I want to point out some things that I
25 think are important and should be considered by you in
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 arriving at a proper verdict in this case.
2 The first witness they called was a
3 young lady by the name of Allison Hennessey. And, she
4 basically told you that she is a friend, or up until
5 January of 1995, was a friend of Rene Stanley's, the
6 little girl who lived down the street. And Rene Stanley
7 would babysit for the Routiers from time to time, and
8 that she would go over there to the Routiers' house, and
9 she told you basically three things. She said that
10 Darlie bought cigarettes for Rene. This is a 16 year
11 old. That one time she gave her a Zima, and another time
12 she gave her a small quantity of marijuana.
13 But you know, it's curious to me, that
14 if the thrust of their proof is to show that these things
15 actually happened. And I would caution you that this
16 young lady is kind of kin to the case through Glenn Mize.
17 She is the stepdaughter of Glenn Mize, who has this
18 circuitous relationship with Basia, who is woven
19 throughout this whole mystery.
20 But if, in fact, the object is to
21 prove that these things occurred, why don't they bring
22 Rene Stanley? I mean, doesn't that make sense? Where is
23 Rene Stanley? I'll tell you where she is. They know --
24 and neither one of them are going to get up here with a
25 straight face and deny it. They know that Rene Stanley
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5669

1 denies those allegations, you see.
2 Now, the next lady to come in here and
3 testify was Eileen Schirmer.
4 Remember, she is the one that lives
5 some two blocks away and quarrels with the way the little
6 bike riders are supervised. She didn't like the fact
7 that they didn't wear life preservers on the dock, and
8 that has, you know, the birthday party with the cake in
9 the face and the water gun and that.
10 She is what we call a volunteer. You
11 see? She is somebody who wants to get into the act. She
12 doesn't really have anything to bring to the party. But
13 you know, when you call and you volunteer, it doesn't
14 take long to figure out something that you can testify
15 to, and you can get into the act, and you can become a
16 star.
17 There is no way on God's green earth
18 that they found her during some neighborhood canvas. She
19 simply volunteered.
20 Now the next witness was Nelda Watts.
21 And you know the interesting thing about her, she's the
22 lady who heard the scream and saw the little black car
23 out in front, at her mailbox. And then when she heard
24 the sirens and the emergency vehicles, she looked out
25 there and it was gone. And nobody knows, to this day,
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5670

1 what became of -- or how that black car fit into this
2 mystery.
3 I don't know why they weren't asking
4 her about that. You know, she has been there some three
5 years, and she has never spoken to Darlie, and obviously
6 doesn't even know what she looks like to be able to
7 identify her at a distance. I mean, this is an obvious
8 case of mistaken identity.
9 But I wonder why she wasn't asked
10 about the little black car, instead of this other
11 business that doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of
12 sense.
13 At any rate, the next witness called
14 was also a volunteer. Kay Norris. And basically, she
15 said she is trashy, and she is rude, and she doesn't
16 approve of the language that she used to correct her
17 children.
18 I mean, I don't either. If, in fact,
19 she used that language. But I suggest to you that if, in
20 fact, that is what they set out to prove, they could
21 bring somebody who doesn't have an obvious ax to grind.
22 And I think Ms. Norris does.
23 But enough said about her. Halina,
24 Halina is traceable back to Basia, and I think Rebecca
25 sufficiently rebutted anything that she had to say.
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5671

1 I think that -- of course, I'm a
2 little bit curious that the only time she has ever in her
3 time here in the United States needed an interpreter was
4 when she comes down here to testify in Court, and that
5 strikes me as somewhat unusual.
6 I think you know from your common
7 experiences that by using an interpreter it's, of course,
8 to her advantage, and she can find out where Mr. Mosty is
9 going when he asks the questions.
10 She is Basia's mother, and you have
11 seen Basia, and I suggest to you that the apple doesn't
12 fall far from the tree. But, be that as it may. If they
13 were intent and wanted to bring you information of how
14 she acted, and how she treated those children, they have
15 that information from the canvas that they did of that
16 neighborhood.
17 You know they talked to the fellow
18 behind the house who saw Darin working on the fence that
19 night.
20 They have talked to everybody in that
21 neighborhood. They can pay ten grand to have some guy do
22 that business on the 911 tape, and you know they have
23 canvassed that neighborhood, and this is the best that
24 they can come up with, that she has not been a good
25 mother. And, I'll tell you, it's absurd. If this is all
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5672

1 they can come up with, and they have had her under a
2 microscope for some seven months.
3 I think basically when you analyze a
4 capital murder case with the idea of punishment, and what
5 should be, or ought to be the proper punishment. And I
6 would remind you again in this case that the law says
7 that your decision should be the decision of twelve
8 jurors, not 6 or 8 or 10 or 11, but it must be unanimous.
9 So each of you is one hundred percent responsible for the
10 verdict, and that's the way it's supposed to be under our
11 law.
12 The law says that with respect to this
13 first issue, it must be proven to you beyond all
14 reasonable doubt. And that means simply this: That if
15 you have any reasonable doubt, the law says that you
16 resolve that doubt in favor of Darlie. Each and every
17 time. It doesn't make any difference whether it's once
18 or 10 times or 21 times or 101 times. Each time you have
19 a reasonable doubt, the law says you give her the benefit
20 of that reasonable doubt.
21 Now let's see if this makes sense: I
22 suggest to you that there are three considerations in
23 determining whether or not you've got a capital murder
24 case that warrants the death penalty.
25 The first one is, is the consideration
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5673

1 of the victim. Who is the victim in this case?
2 The second consideration should be
3 the proof. Okay?
4 And the third consideration should be
5 the defendant.
6 To have a capital murder case that
7 warrants death you have got to have an innocent victim,
8 who did not provoke the killing. Does that make sense?
9 You have got that here, no question about that. Nothing
10 more innocent than a five year old child, and I dare say
11 there is absolutely nothing that a five year old child
12 could ever do, under any circumstances, to provoke his
13 death.
14 Now what about proof? Well, you
15 should want the proof to be so clear, so convincing,
16 evidence that is so compelling, evidence that satisfies
17 you in your heart of hearts that the defendant, to the
18 exclusion of all other people, is solely responsible for
19 the death of the victim. Does that make sense to y'all?
20 Absolute proof. You know it in your
21 heart of hearts, the evidence is so clear and convincing
22 that you are convinced of her guilt to the exclusion of
23 all others.
24 Now, I think the third consideration
25 should be the defendant. Is the defendant beyond
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5674

1 redemption?
2 Okay. Let's talk a little bit about
3 the proof in this case. And I think if Mr. Davis, and
4 you know he talked last last time, so I didn't have an
5 opportunity to get up and answer him, and I would have
6 liked to have answered him on a number of things. But
7 again, I believe in the system, and that is the way the
8 system operates.
9 But if Mr. Davis is going to get up
10 here with a straight face and ask you to set her
11 punishment at death, then you are entitled to some
12 answers and some explanations.
13 I suggest to you that right now you
14 don't have a clear picture on what exactly happened, how
15 it happened, why it happened, or the timeframe in which
16 it happened.
17 And I suggest to you that if they have
18 proven their case to such an extent that they expect you
19 to render a verdict of death, you would have those
20 answers. You have held her responsible. I don't quarrel
21 with that.
22 I am surprised, but that is your
23 prerogative. But, for example, and I thought Ms.
24 Wallace, when she got up here, was finally going to take
25 a position as to what they thought happened out there,
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5675

1 but they won't do it. They want you to guess what
2 happened.
3 Let's talk about the blood, for
4 example.
5 Let's talk about the blood.
6 That may have been important in your
7 decision. You had the blood spatter man that came down
8 from Oklahoma City. Tom Bevel. The blood may have been
9 important. But I'll tell you what is missing in the
10 blood is the chain of custody.
11 You remember they got the clothing
12 worn by Damon to the hospital, just like they got the
13 T-shirt worn by Darlie, to the hospital. But then it
14 jumps from the hospital to the fire station number 2 over
15 here, where Mayne picks it up. You see.
16 You don't have Zimmerman. We objected
17 and the judge overruled our objection. I still don't
18 understand it, but the obligation is on them to prove
19 what we call the chain of custody.
20 And that is, that they have to prove
21 how the evidence was handled from the inception where it
22 was first observed and gathered, down to where it was
23 analyzed, and they have got a missing link, in the
24 clothing worn by Damon and the T-shirt worn by Darlie.
25 We know that when that evidence was
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5676

1 gathered, it was soaking wet in blood. And what we don't
2 know, and what they haven't brought us, is Paramedic
3 Zimmerman, who picked up the clothing. Y'all remember
4 Paramedic Zimmerman? He is the one that picked up the
5 clothing at the hospital, put it all together and took it
6 to Station 2, you see.
7 Was the clothing of Damon permitted to
8 contaminate the T-shirt of Darlie and the T-shirt of
9 Darlie to contaminate the clothing of Damon? I suspect
10 it was. It was all soaked in blood. But you don't know.
11 They haven't called Paramedic Zimmerman.
12 And I suggest to you the reason they
13 haven't called him, was because he will tell you, "I put
14 it all in a sack, you know." Kind of like Mayne out
15 there, "If I found it together, I put it all together."
16 But they haven't brought Paramedic Zimmerman. They have
17 not explained those fingerprints that we talked about
18 with consultant Cron, as coincidental.
19 If they have been compared with Glenn
20 Mize, he never told me. I don't know whether they have
21 or not. If they have been compared with Gary Austin down
22 the way, they have never told me.
23 If they were compared with the man who
24 was turned in or phoned in by the used car lot, some, he
25 said that afternoon, I thought it was that morning of the
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5677

1 6th, but I'll give him the afternoon. Wearing the same
2 clothes that Darlie had described, you know, I don't know
3 anything about it. And I would think that as part of his
4 proof when he comes to you and asks for death, that he
5 would cover that.
6 We don't know anything about the black
7 car, we don't know anything about Angelia Rickels.
8 No follow-up on that. They don't tell
9 us about it until November. Well, what can we do in
10 November? Thank you, but, you know. And then when I go
11 out there, they tell them, "Don't talk to anybody. Don't
12 talk to anybody."
13 What about Dr. DiMaio, who says these
14 are defensive wounds? And again, any doubts that you
15 have must be resolved in favor of Darlie. Again, I'm not
16 fussing with your verdict, but I am saying that if they
17 expect you to answer the ultimate question, then you are
18 entitled to some answers and some explanations.
19 Lisa Clayton told you that she has
20 looked at her for some 12 and a half hours. And she is
21 inconsistent with a mother who would harm or kill her
22 children. She has none of the psychiatric make-up that
23 she would expect to find in a mother who had killed her
24 children.
25 Dr. Townsend-Parchman says that that
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5678

1 youngster would have lasted five or six minutes, maybe
2 eight or nine minutes. And I noticed that Mr. Davis, in
3 some hour that he had to answer our arguments back on
4 Friday, totally ignored that time line. Because there is
5 no answer to that. If she is accurate, you know that
6 it's inconceivable that she had the time and the ability
7 to do those things. And again, you must resolve those
8 doubts in her favor.
9 She has no history of abuse. There is
10 no motive. There is absolutely no reason. And we know
11 at this stage that this wasn't a money type of deal.
12 You know, it's curious to me, and I
13 have never for a minute doubted the innocence of Darin
14 Routier. But, you know, he of all people, had the most
15 to gain here. She had a couple of hundred thousand
16 dollars worth of insurance on her.
17 She doesn't gain anything monetarily.
18 Five thousand a piece for those children, you know. But
19 they cleared him like that. What did they clear him on?
20 They cleared him on what she said. They can pick and
21 choose what she says. They can believe part of what she
22 says and just discount, for no rhyme or reason, the other
23 things that she says.
24 But there is no -- there is no reason
25 or motive that has been demonstrated. And we all know
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5679

1 that people don't do things without a reason or motive.
2 Under Bevel's account, and Ms. Wallace
3 takes the position that the children were killed first.
4 But again, we have got these spots of blood and if it's a
5 spot on a spot, and they're about one millimeter in
6 diameter, so the chances of those being spots on top of a
7 spot, three times would be about the same as your chance
8 of hitting the lottery.
9 But either way. If the blood is
10 mixed, that knife had to be wet with her blood for her to
11 get those blood stains on her T-shirt. Either she cut
12 her throat first and then attacked the boys. And that
13 doesn't make sense, because how is she going to get the
14 sock down the alley? That won't work.
15 I mean, how she is going to get the
16 sock down the alley without bleeding all over everything?
17 That will not work. But it doesn't make sense that she
18 stabbed them both first, and then stabbed herself, and
19 then go back and stab them again either. I mean, that
20 doesn't make sense. I mean, that won't work either.
21 It doesn't make sense that she would
22 cut her throat, and then go over and lay down on the sofa
23 and get blood on this pillow. That doesn't make sense.
24 Or at least to me. And you resolve those doubts, when
25 you think about the proof in this case, and think about
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5680

1 whether or not you have got death penalty proof here, you
2 resolve those doubts in Darlie's behalf.
3 The third consideration is the
4 defendant herself in this case.
5 She must be beyond redemption. I
6 mean, what easier way, or what better way to prove this
7 than to show that she has a history, you know, a track
8 record of anti-social behavior. But you don't have that
9 in this case. You have no anti-social behavior on the
10 part of Darlie Routier. In fact, the evidence is to the
11 contrary.
12 She has no police record of any sort
13 whatsoever. And there is absolutely no basis to believe
14 from what you have heard that she would be capable of
15 violence in the future.
16 You know, why else -- and in all my
17 years of doing this, and I have been doing it a long,
18 long time. And I feel like it too. But I have never, in
19 all of the capital murder cases that I have tried, that I
20 have prosecuted and defended, I have never seen a
21 situation where all of the victims' relatives have
22 rallied around the defendant.
23 Obviously, they think they know her
24 better than any of us do. I mean, I don't know her much
25 better than you-all do.
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5681

1 But they have rallied around her
2 because they believe that she is incapable of any act of
3 violence of this magnitude.
4 And as we think back and reflect on
5 this, you know, the people that we have known, or the
6 people that we have read about who have committed an
7 unthinkable act of violence, such as this, have had that
8 common thread, where they have had a history of violence.
9 They have had difficulties with the
10 police. They have had problems at work, and problems at
11 home, and problems in their family relationships.
12 And you don't have that here. You
13 don't have anything that suggests some maniacal, devious
14 Darlie in this particular case.
15 In his closing argument to you, Mr.
16 Davis told you that this is simply another Susan Smith
17 case. Do you remember that? Do you remember that? On
18 Friday?
19 He said this is simply another Susan
20 Smith case. Susan Smith, if you don't remember, is the
21 mother from South Carolina who was sentenced to life
22 imprisonment for drowning her two children. And let's
23 compare this case with Susan Smith's.
24 Susan Smith didn't have a stable
25 marriage. In fact, the evidence was that she --
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1
2 MR. GREG DAVIS: Excuse me, I'll
3 object, that's outside the record.
4 THE COURT: Gentlemen --
5 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: Judge, he brought
6 it up.
7 MR. GREG DAVIS: No, I didn't.
8 THE COURT: Gentlemen, both sides are
9 instructed to stay within the record. The jury is
10 instructed to remember the testimony as they heard it,
11 and be guided by the Charge of the Court.
12 Mr. Mulder, you may continue.
13 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: Darlie has a
14 stable marriage. She does not have a history of
15 separation and divorce.
16 Darlie has a record that is not --
17 that she does not have a record of anti-social behavior.
18 She has not had problems with coworkers. She has not had
19 problems with family and friends.
20 Her family supports her. I would
21 suggest to you that many of the positions that Mr. Davis
22 and the prosecution have taken are either flawed or
23 faulty. I would suggest to you that at this time you
24 still don't know how it happened, or why it happened, or
25 the time restraints that were involved here.
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1 Simply put, I guess, their proof is
2 just not so positive as to be infallible. And I would
3 urge you not to make a decision based on this type of
4 proof that is so final, that it can't be undone.
5 Tradition has it that the Indians
6 believed, that before they sat in judgment of one, that
7 they would first walk in their moccasins. And as one
8 last request, I would ask you that before you begin your
9 deliberations on this most, most important issue, that
10 you first read aloud in the jury room Darlie's journal, a
11 very private documentary that reflects her very private,
12 inner-most thoughts.
13 You have been most attentive, and I
14 thank you for your time and for your attention.
15 Thank you, Judge.
16 THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Mulder.
17 Mr. Glover.
18 MR. CURTIS GLOVER: May it please the
19 Court?
20 THE COURT: Yes, sir.
21 MR. CURTIS GLOVER: Judge, would you
22 give me a fifteen minute warning?
23 THE COURT: Yes, sir.
24 MR. CURTIS GLOVER: Ladies and
25 gentlemen of the jury, my thanks to you once again, and I
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1 am going to talk with you very briefly.
2 You know, there is a common thread
3 that runs through all humanity, and that common thread
4 that we have is that we are all fallible. And, you know,
5 I have noted throughout my life that we don't use the
6 term fallible. Doug just used it and he said infallible.
7 We like the word infallible. And if
8 we want to go contrary to infallible, we don't say
9 fallible, we say not infallible. You say, what is he
10 talking about?
11 Well, we are all fallible, you will
12 agree to that. Anybody with an ounce of common sense
13 buys into that. But, you know, in connection with that
14 fallibility, we demand infallibility of certain persons
15 in our society. We demand that they be infallible,
16 though we know in common sense they really are not.
17 We look at the president of our
18 country, and we say we want him to be infallible. We
19 want our Secretary of State to be infallible because he
20 represents us overseas. We want our governor to be
21 infallible, because he is in charge of our money. We
22 want our local folks to be infallible because we look to
23 them for leadership. We look to all of our elected
24 officials. We look to our appointed police officers. We
25 say: "We want you to be infallible." And there's a
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1 presumption of infallibility that goes along with them,
2 simply because we want them to be infallible.
3 We want our District Attorney to be
4 infallible. We want our elected district attorney to be
5 infallible. We want his deputies to be infallible. And
6 along with that want and that need, we presume that they
7 are infallible.
8 Now, how does that jade one's
9 thinking? The fact that we engage and buy into that bit
10 of human behavior? And I am as guilty as you of that.
11 But how does it affect our thinking?
12 How might it have affected your thinking in this case?
13 You know, we told you at the onset of
14 this case that all persons charged with a crime are
15 presumed to be innocent. And we ask you to indulge in
16 that, and we ask every jury to indulge in that.
17 But we as lawyers, we all know that is
18 not indeed the case. We go in down, because they have
19 this presumption of infallibility, and you buy into their
20 position easier, than you might buy into a defendant's
21 position.
22 Let's look and see whether or not
23 perhaps that might have occurred in this case, to some
24 degree. It occurs in every case, because of that
25 presumed infallibility and your need to rely on them.
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1 Now, in examining and trying to get
2 into your minds as to what your deliberations concerned,
3 I think that the most important evidence in this case was
4 not that 911 call, nor was it that birthday party at the
5 grave site, but that was the most emotional thing in this
6 case that you heard.
7 The rest of the evidence that you
8 heard in case was extremely -- an attempt at being
9 scientific, or some bureaucrat coming down from
10 Washington and attempting to give you his leadership.
11 And I think that the scientific, or so-called scientific
12 evidence in this case, the time line, irrefutable time
13 line was confusing. And you said: "Well, let's dismiss
14 that. Let's rely on their infallibility and buy into
15 their position."
16 Perhaps the evidence of the blood.
17 The evidence of the ambience. All extremely confusing.
18 You said, let's dismiss that. Let's go to the emotional
19 aspects of this case and adopt that which they have asked
20 us to do.
21 Folks, when the conclusion was made in
22 this case, and this has been said to you a dozen times,
23 and I have got to say it again, when the conclusion was
24 made in this case, twenty minutes after it was
25 investigated, the die was cast, and it could not be
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1 turned around.
2 They went out and sought every way
3 that they possibly could, to find anything that would
4 indicate that her attitude was improper, or that her
5 behavior was improper. They said she didn't grieve
6 properly. She was too stoic.
7 Did you see her mother on that witness
8 stand? That lady is stoic. We have those traits among
9 us. We get them from our parents. Perhaps she is a
10 stoic person, you will never know, because you don't know
11 Darlie Routier.
12 All you know is her friends who have
13 told you that she is a sincere and loving and good
14 person. Nobody has said that she is not.
15 Yet again, you had to buy into this
16 infallibility that they enjoy and this position that they
17 have. And you say, "We have got to solve this matter."
18 And we told you when you were on the
19 selection as jurors, and I think each of you were told
20 that it is not your position here to solve this crime.
21 Though you indeed have. That was not your position.
22 It was whether or not they had proven
23 this case beyond a reasonable doubt.
24 And I think, and I don't know, I
25 simply have to conjecture about this, but I think you sat
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1 and you looked at the Silly String business, you looked
2 at the birthday party, and you said that is inappropriate
3 behavior. She must be guilty. We deduce she is guilty,
4 because they have not brought us any other possibility
5 other than her guilt, because she was there.
6 We look at the 911 tape. And we don't
7 like some of the things that we hear. Because they are
8 infallible and they pointed it out to us, and you will
9 buy into it, because of its infallibility.
10 You know, folks, in every crime, I
11 don't care whether it's a theft, or a simple burglary, or
12 something simple on the street. Somebody needs to be
13 vindicated. The law doesn't say that it is the purpose
14 of your sentencing someone, that you are to vindicate
15 someone, but we feel that in our minds.
16 The victim of a theft wants to be
17 vindicated. He wants to know that the perpetrator of the
18 crime against him has been punished. Therefore, he has
19 been vindicated. The victim of the burglary wants to
20 know that the person that burglarized his house, or his
21 car has been punished. Thus he has been vindicated.
22 It's an important part of our system and the way we feel
23 about law and order.
24 Folks, there is nobody in this case to
25 be vindicated by what you do here. Quite the contrary.
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1 These people have taken the witness stand. The people
2 that know her best. The man that was there that night
3 with her, her husband, who was in a better position to
4 judge this than anybody on God's green earth, and he says
5 she is innocent.
6 There is nobody to be vindicated in
7 this case. It's just like Doug said, in all matters like
8 this, in every death penalty case he has ever seen, there
9 was always somebody to be vindicated. Somebody to come
10 into the courtroom, and say, "This was an evil person,
11 now punish them." Nobody could do that in this case.
12 There is nobody to be vindicated.
13 There are only a large group of people, friends those the
14 closest, the family, to be further wounded by destroying
15 this woman. Don't do it. Do not do that. Don't further
16 wound these people than they already have been wounded.
17 If there had been anybody who could
18 mount that witness stand, with any kind of sincerity, and
19 say that this is the way it should be, then perhaps you
20 would have something to hang your hat on. But it's not
21 here, folks.
22 And you know Greg is going to get up
23 here, he or Toby one, and they are going to say, "Well,
24 Glover says there is nobody to be vindicated in this
25 case, but he is going to say that society needs to be
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 vindicated." And he can argue that.
2 But you and I know, and all of us have
3 lost loved ones, and the only people that truly feel the
4 terror and the awfulness of this situation, are the close
5 friends and family and the loved ones of the Devons and
6 the Darins (sic) of this world.
7 And, it's hollow words to say that
8 society needs to be vindicated in this case. Society
9 does not need to be vindicated in this case. There is
10 nobody that can be vindicated. These people can only be
11 further wounded if you decide to do that to Darlie.
12 Think about this evidence, folks.
13 Reexamine it, and see whether in your heart of hearts,
14 that indeed you can vote to destroy this woman, based on
15 this kind of evidence.
16 We're all fallible human beings. Do
17 not do that. Thank you.
18 Thank you, Judge.
19 THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Glover.
20 Mr. Douglass?
21 MR. S. PRESTON DOUGLASS: Yes, sir.
22 Thank you, Judge.
23 May it please the Court?
24 Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I
25 can assure you I will be brief. All four of us wanted to
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1 come and speak with you about something that we believe
2 in. And I wanted to come and I wanted to speak with you
3 about something that I believe in. And that is the life
4 of Darlie Routier.
5 You see, I thought about this case for
6 a while, and what they asked me to do, was talk about the
7 Charge, and I'm going to get to that in a minute, and
8 talk about the Special Issues and the questions that are
9 facing you.
10 But when I started thinking about this
11 case, I thought about the fact that I have not had the
12 opportunity to speak with you since last year, since
13 October, when we all sat, and there wasn't all of these
14 people here, and we all conversed with you and we
15 discussed the issues in this case.
16 If you will remember, all of you
17 talked about this case, and all of you sat there for
18 about 40 minutes, and you were very patient, and you
19 answered our questions. What struck me, is that in many
20 ways, this case has come a full circle. Because if you
21 will remember, the first thing y'all did when you started
22 this case is that you sat in those chairs and you filled
23 out a questionnaire.
24 And you will remember that when you
25 filled out that questionnaire, that many of those
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1 questions dealt with the death penalty. And when you
2 filled out those questionnaires, it was just you. It was
3 just your conscience, it was just your heart, it was just
4 your thoughts. Nobody telling you what to write. Nobody
5 telling you what to do. Nobody screaming at you.
6 You people have been yelled at,
7 screamed at, but when you filled out that questionnaire,
8 all you did was write down what you thought. And, you
9 know, we have come a full circle. Because the way this
10 case is going to end is with each one of you examining
11 your heart and your soul and your conscience about a very
12 important question. I can't imagine a more important
13 question.
14 You see, this trial is going to end.
15 Nobody is more happy about that than y'all, I'm sure.
16 And our neighbors who have watched this trial are all
17 going to go about their normal lives. The media people
18 who have covered this trial are all going to go on to
19 other stories. And time will pass. And I'll bet that
20 you are going to forget the name of the lawyers involved
21 in this case. And I bet you may even forget the name of
22 our judge.
23 But I can assure you that not one of
24 you, years after this will ever forget the day that you
25 passed judgment on the life of Darlie Routier. I can't
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1 imagine a more important decision.
2 There are two alternatives in this
3 case: There is one alternative of death. The other
4 alternative is life imprisonment. And if, by your
5 verdict you say death, then what you are saying is that
6 the life of Darlie Routier is hopeless. That there is no
7 hope. That there is nothing in that life worthwhile, and
8 I would submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that is
9 wrong.
10 You know that Darlie Routier is loved,
11 and whether they -- they hate those people that love her.
12 Why do they hate those people that love her? Because
13 they don't want anybody to support her. And those people
14 love her. And those people have been through hell.
15 They have had more loss than I could
16 ever imagine. They have been through more adversity than
17 I could ever imagine. Yet those people stood together.
18 They came up here and got on the stand and cried in front
19 of you. They got asked questions. They have been
20 humiliated outside, but they stood together. And why did
21 they stand together? They stood together because they
22 believed in, they had faith in, and they had confidence
23 in a lady they love. And that love represents hope. And
24 that hope represents life. And I submit to you that life
25 is worthwhile.
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1 Now, as to this verdict form and this
2 Charge, I want to talk about it a little bit. Because
3 when we picked the jury, I think I was there for almost
4 all of you being picked. There was a few I don't think I
5 was there, but most I was.
6 And I want to talk to you about this
7 Charge for just a minute. But before I begin, I want to
8 point out one thing. That each of you, I'm sure you will
9 agree with me on, and that is, that when we started
10 talking about the Charge, every one of you made a pledge.
11 Each and every one of you made a pledge that if we got to
12 this stage of the trial, that you would keep an open
13 mind.
14 And you will remember, that if it was
15 sitting on that chair, or over there at the jail, that
16 right in front of you was a copy of the State's
17 indictment. And I can remember that some of you had to
18 get out your glasses to read it. Some of you had to look
19 through it, and it was legal language, it was a little
20 difficult, but every one of you read that Charge and knew
21 what was involved in this case. You knew just how
22 serious the charges were, and you knew what it meant.
23 Even though you knew what the charges
24 were about, even though you knew what this case involved,
25 you said that if you found the defendant guilty, each one
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1 of you have said that you would keep an open mind. Each
2 one of you said that your common sense would not be
3 stampeded by the charges and each of you said that you
4 would re-examine the evidence.
5 We asked for that pledge from you, and
6 we believed you when you gave us that pledge last year,
7 and we believe it today.
8 Now, as to these Special Issues. Doug
9 hit on it briefly, but the most important part is that
10 Special Issue Number 1 still requires that you resolve
11 that question beyond a reasonable doubt. All of you
12 agree that that is the most highest standard we have in
13 our law, and all of you agreed to apply it.
14 And you remember that the burden does
15 not shift from this table to prove that to you.
16 Darlie Routier is not required to come
17 and bring you proof that she is not a future danger. You
18 all agreed that you cannot prove a negative. And you all
19 said that you would hold them to their burden of proof.
20 And you will also all remember that we
21 talked about probability. They didn't talk about
22 probability. Ms. Wallace skipped over it. And she
23 didn't talk about probability, because all of you agreed.
24 Every one of you agreed or defined probability as more
25 likely than not. Probability was probable. Probability
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1 is not maybe. It's not -- well, she might do something.
2 It's not, well, she could maybe do something. It's
3 probable. More likely than not.
4 So if you put this sentence together,
5 and if you take away the wailing and the screaming and
6 you just look at the question you're suppose to answer,
7 in black and white, it requires you to find beyond a
8 reasonable doubt that it is more likely than not that a
9 lady, who throughout her whole adult life and to this
10 event, by your verdict they have not brought you one
11 person to say that this person ever committed a violent
12 act.
13 And then once you say that it is more
14 likely than not, that it is probable that she will commit
15 more violent acts. But they don't have any proof of
16 that, ladies and gentlemen.
17 Now, one issue that was brought up,
18 and I want to clarify something. It was talked about a
19 unanimous verdict. The law recognizes the importance of
20 a "no" answer to the future dangerousness.
21 Because the law recognizes that
22 importance, the law does not require a unanimous verdict
23 for a "no" answer. The law only requires that ten of you
24 agree to a "no" answer. It does not have to be
25 unanimous. Yes, it does have to be unanimous if you find
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5697

1 that she is a future danger. But the law, as it should,
2 only requires 10 to say she is not a future danger.
3 Now, with respect to Special Issue
4 Number 2, you remember we talked about that as the
5 mitigation question. And mitigation was a hard word and
6 we talked about it, and we fought around with it, but by
7 and large it's the evidence that screams out and
8 convinces you that life is appropriate.
9 And all of us agreed that mitigation
10 does not have to be one particular thing. Mitigation can
11 be a loving character. Mitigation can be a prior life
12 with no criminal history. Mitigation can take every
13 shape and form imaginable. But what is very important is
14 we talked about, that what Linda may believe is
15 mitigation, does not have to be what Caroline believes is
16 mitigation. Or what Jimmy believes is mitigation.
17 You all can have different facts that
18 you believe mitigates, but at long as you believe that
19 something mitigates, it doesn't have to be the same
20 thing, but you just -- that you believe it mitigates.
21 And again, I want to point out to you
22 that it takes 10 votes for "yes." That there is
23 mitigation, that there is a reason for life. Not
24 unanimous. Ten votes. If you believe there is no reason
25 for life, that does have to be unanimous. But again, the
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1 law in it's wisdom says it only takes ten votes for life.
2 Now, the last thing I want to say
3 before I leave the Charge, is that in the jury selection
4 process, that every one of you absolutely pledged that
5 you would vote your own individual conscience. You
6 pledged that if you found yourself in the minority. You
7 pledged that if you found yourself against the wall on
8 something you believed in very much, that you would not
9 waiver in your belief. That you would stand by very
10 firm. And I ask that you continue in that pledge.
11 You know, I have been lucky in my
12 life. I have sat in that chair as a prosecutor in this
13 courtroom. I was proud to do it, and I was humbled. I
14 have talked in front of juries about people's money, and
15 people's children, and I was proud and I was humbled to
16 do it also.
17 But there has never been a day in my
18 life that I have been more proud than today. And I am
19 humbled, and I am scared. Because y'all have an awesome
20 power. More power than I could ever imagine any human
21 being ought to ever have. I am proud to be here, and I
22 am proud to tell you that I believe that that life is
23 worthwhile. I believe that that life is worth being
24 spared.
25 Death, ladies and gentlemen, is not a
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1 solution in this case. The law provides enough
2 punishment in this case. Life imprisonment. That's not
3 freedom, ladies and gentlemen. That is life
4 imprisonment.
5 Life imprisonment, ladies and
6 gentlemen, is the least and it's the most you can do.
7 And I appreciate it very much.
8 Thank you.
9 THE COURT: Thank you Mr. Douglass.
10 Ladies and gentlemen, we will take a
11 brief 10 minute break. Thank you.
12
13
14 (Whereupon, a short
15 Recess was taken,
16 After which time,
17 The proceedings were
18 Resumed on the record,
19 In the presence and
20 Hearing of the defendant
21 And the jury, as follows:)
22
23 THE COURT: All right.
24 Are both sides ready to bring the jury
25 in and resume the arguments?
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1 MR. GREG DAVIS: Yes, sir, the State
2 is ready.
3 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: Yes, sir.
4 THE COURT: All right, bring the jury
5 in.
6
7 (Whereupon, the jury
8 Was returned to the
9 Courtroom, and the
10 Proceedings were
11 Resumed on the record,
12 In open court, in the
13 Presence and hearing
14 Of the defendant,
15 As follows:)
16
17 THE COURT: All Right. Be seated
18 please. Let the record reflect that all parties in the
19 trial are present and the jury is seated.
20 Mr. Mosty, you have 45 minutes.
21 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: May it please
22 the Court?
23 THE COURT: Mr. Mosty.
24 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: Counsel, and
25 ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is the last place
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1 that I want to be today. If I could choose any place in
2 the world that I don't want to be, it's right here.
3 But this is the only place I can be.
4 It's the only place I would ever choose to be, no matter
5 how much I don't want to. Because I am going to stand up
6 for Darlie Routier. And I'm going to continue to stand
7 up for her, and I am going to stand beside her.
8 And I'm going to stand beside her no
9 matter what. I don't know what to say. And I don't know
10 how to say it to you, and I don't know want to convey to
11 you. Because obviously, so far, I have not been able to
12 convey that to you.
13 If you have already decided what you
14 are going to do, then probably it doesn't matter what I
15 say. If you have already decided what you are going to
16 do, then you have forgotten the oath that you gave.
17 You said that no matter what the
18 evidence was, that before you sentenced someone to death,
19 that you would go back out and think about it. Don't you
20 remember that nearly all of you said that just because
21 you found someone guilty of murdering their children,
22 would you automatically go out and give a death sentence?
23 I suspect that every one of you was
24 asked that question. I suspect that every one of you
25 remembers that question.
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5702

1 And if you have decided already, then
2 you are violating that oath.
3 I pray that that is not the case.
4 By your verdict, you have said that
5 something beyond our understanding has happened. You
6 have said that something beyond my ability to understand
7 has certainly happened. You have said that some set of
8 circumstances came together, that some course of events
9 came about, where this young girl here, did something
10 that was contrary to everything that she had ever done in
11 her life.
12 That on that night something happened
13 that no one can explain. That no one can understand.
14 That no one can define. That something happened that is
15 completely different than this young girl that is sitting
16 in front of me.
17 I can't understand that. I can't
18 understand how that would happen. But it does tell you
19 this: If that circumstance, if you sentence this lady to
20 life in prison, that set of circumstances, that set of
21 events, that chain of actions, could never possibly
22 happen again.
23 That there is no probability
24 whatsoever that Darlie Routier would become a continuing
25 threat to society. Because what you have found happened
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5703

1 defies all probability. It defies all probability. And
2 that is the only, even inkling of violence in this
3 record. And it defies explanation. It defies
4 probability. So there is no probability whatsoever,
5 certainly not any beyond a reasonable doubt, that any
6 even remotely similar thing might happen.
7 It's been said several times that this
8 lady's life has been put under a microscope, and you know
9 that is true. You know that with unlimited funds, the
10 State has gone out and searched for volunteers and they
11 come back and say that someone said a curse word in a
12 store.
13 I'm not going to dwell much on people
14 like Halina. If you place credence -- if you place
15 credibility in what that lady described walking in a
16 house that she had been to four times, without even
17 knocking at the door. If you place credibility in that,
18 then I have failed as a lawyer. And nothing I say can
19 make any difference.
20 You know that if a person is going to
21 have a pattern of violence to them, the continuing
22 pattern of violence, you know that you are going to see
23 that. You know you are going to have evidence of it.
24 You know it's going to come forward. You know that the
25 State of Texas could bring in a psychiatrist in here that
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5704

1 says that that act, that unbelievable, improbable act,
2 means that a person is going to be a continuing threat to
3 society. But they didn't. And the reason is that much
4 of psychiatry is common sense.
5 You know that whatever you have found
6 happened that night, was a one time event that is beyond
7 explanation. So there is no continuing threat to society
8 if Darlie Lynn Routier is sentenced to life in prison.
9 You know, maybe I am too sensitive
10 about some things. I don't know. But when the State
11 says that in a heartbeat that you would execute someone.
12 I think golly, could anybody do that? Just up and say in
13 a heartbeat that you would execute somebody?
14 It's the most chilling thing that I
15 think I have ever heard. And the hatred that has been
16 displayed toward the family, I think is amazing.
17 You know what it stands in such sharp
18 contrast to? Such sharp contrast. To the family of
19 these two young boys who are the victims of this crime.
20 The family -- can you believe?
21 Can you imagine that aunts and uncles,
22 cousins, and husbands would drop their lives, drop their
23 lives to come and express their faith in Darlie. Can you
24 imagine that?
25 What does that tell you? What does
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5705

1 that tell you about the people who know her, and know her
2 well? What does that tell you about this human being?
3 Do you think that you could fill up a courtroom of
4 supporters of your family? Your cousins from
5 Pennsylvania. Your aunts? Do you have those kinds of
6 people who believe in you? Those kinds of people who
7 support you? Those kinds of people who are expressing
8 their love across this room? They can't touch Darlie,
9 and only I can do that for them.
10 Do you believe that you could put
11 those kind of people in a courtroom? I hope you could.
12 I pray you could. Because you know what it would say
13 about you? It would say about you that there are a lot
14 of people out there, who say: "You are a good person.
15 You are a worthwhile person. Whether or not you have
16 been convicted of a crime, you are a human being, a
17 worthwhile person, and I have faith in you."
18 And who else, who more could you ever
19 bring than your family? Those are the people who know
20 you the best. And most likely the ones who would abandon
21 you the quickest.
22 One of the witnesses yesterday said
23 "The only kind of person who could do this was
24 heartless" -- I can't remember the words. I'm sure Mr.
25 Davis will remind you of them. And that's not what you
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5706

1 have seen in this young girl throughout all of her life.
2 I'm not going to quarrel with your
3 verdict. What I'm talking about is the other part of her
4 life.
5 I have said my piece on the verdict
6 before, and now I'm talking about the other part of her
7 life. The other 27 years of her life.
8 Those people who know her have faith
9 in her. What greater testament? What greater tribute
10 could someone have? Who is in a position to judge better
11 than that family?
12 You know, Mr. Davis said
13 philosophically, correctly, I think, that these are our
14 children. Philosophically that is true. But by blood,
15 they are that family's children. And that blood, and
16 that flesh runs deeper than any emotion that anyone can
17 have.
18 If there is anything that we learned
19 from the New Testament, it's a story of forgiveness. A
20 story of understanding, and a story that every human
21 being has value. And every human being has worth.
22 That is what is known in the law as
23 mitigation, I suppose.
24 The value of a human being. People
25 who have come in and testified about her value, about her
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5707

1 worth, that there is something in this life to Darlie
2 Routier.
3 One of the things that I did last
4 night, I woke up in the night, and I said to myself, what
5 if? I have said it to myself a number of times. What if
6 I had done something different in this trial? What if I
7 had made this decision differently? What if I made some
8 mistakes? And I am going to live with those what ifs
9 forever. I don't want to, but I have got to.
10 Sometimes, when you wonder what if,
11 you have made an irreversible and irretrievable decision.
12 And I suspect that every one of you, every one of you,
13 will wake up some nights saying what if.
14 I submit to you that the evidence and
15 the understanding that perhaps you have, tells you that
16 this lady will not be a continuing threat to society.
17 The evidence tells you that this lady
18 has value, has mitigation. There is a reason, there are
19 reasons for, in this case, that I -- that are certainly
20 beyond my understanding, and maybe some day I'll come to
21 a better understanding of it.
22 I feel like there is hardly anything
23 left inside of me. I have left it here. I have left it
24 with you. Somehow or another I tried to get across that
25 we're talking about someone that I know. That I have my
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5708

1 hands on. That I can feel the flesh and blood and the
2 warmth of their body. And the State will undoubtedly get
3 up and talk and display the hatred toward this young
4 girl.
5 I'm telling you, there is a lot more
6 to her than all of the hatred that the State can muster.
7 Those people out there know it. That is why they love
8 her. That is why they have faith in her. That is why I
9 am standing where I am standing.
10 Mr. Davis said in his argument that --
11 he said that only God and Darlie know. They have never
12 tried to offer you any explanation of what happened, how
13 it happened, why it happened, the time line.
14 We talked about reasonable doubt. If
15 God only knows, then I say leave the judgment to God.
16 Let the tragedies end.
17 I beseech ye, in the name of God, that
18 ye may be mistaken. In the name of God, think that ye
19 may be mistaken.
20 THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Mosty.
21 Mr. Davis.
22 MR. GREG DAVIS: Thank you.
23 May it please the Court?
24 THE COURT: Mr. Davis.
25 MR. GREG DAVIS: Ladies and gentlemen,
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5709

1 you know, as I stand here before you this morning, I can
2 honestly tell you that if there was no evil in the world,
3 there would be no need for a death penalty.
4 But there is evil in the world
5 unfortunately. We all know that. We have all sat
6 through four and a half weeks seeing the evil displayed
7 before us, and today that evil goes by the name of Darlie
8 Lynn Routier. She sits here crying before you, as she
9 did on Saturday. We know what she is all about at this
10 point in this trial. Don't we?
11 And as we near the end of this very
12 long and terrible road, and indeed it's been a long and
13 terrible road, filled with blood and horror that we
14 couldn't imagine before we began this. And I have got
15 the privilege of standing before you once again and
16 speaking with you, and once again, I have the privilege
17 of speaking on behalf of these two precious children,
18 that we have heard precious little about for the last
19 hour and a half.
20 But I do have that privilege.
21 And as I begin, let me comment on some
22 of the comments that you just heard for the last hour and
23 a half. The last comment about being mistaken. You
24 weren't mistaken. Each of you took your time, you looked
25 at the evidence and that evidence told you the one true
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5710

1 verdict. That is guilty.
2 You know, I have listened to Mr.
3 Mulder, and I thought at first I had been transported
4 back to Friday. He seemed to be mixed up. All we heard
5 was about guilt and innocence. He went on to speak, I
6 think, for 35 minutes, and during that 35 minutes did
7 nothing but second guess and criticize what you good
8 people did Friday afternoon and Saturday morning in
9 arriving at the verdict that you did.
10 Mr. Glover, I listened to Mr. Glover.
11 In essence Mr. Glover said that you ignored the evidence
12 because you could not understand it. You lied when you
13 told us that you would presume this defendant to be not
14 guilty. And then he accused you of wounding this family
15 through your verdict. None of that is true. None of it.
16 If this poor family back here has been
17 wounded, there is only one person that has inflicted
18 those wounds, as she inflicted them on those two boys,
19 and that is Darlie Lynn Routier over here.
20 You know, our hearts can go out to
21 those people. They are innocent victims just like these
22 two young boys out here. But you are not to blame for
23 those injuries, and neither am I. The defendant is. And
24 the defendant alone.
25 Mr. Douglass says that because we
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5711

1 bring this woman to justice, somehow that we, at this
2 table, are full of hatred toward this family. And Mr.
3 Mosty echoed that again. The hatred that we feel for the
4 defendant. The hatred that we have shown towards this
5 family.
6 What hatred has been displayed in this
7 courtroom? You know, I hardly asked a question of any
8 one of these family members. Because it's evident the
9 hurt that they have already been through. Why compound
10 it by asking questions that really don't have anything to
11 do with this case? We have not done that.
12 We don't hate Darlie Lynn Routier, but
13 at the same time, we hate what she did to these two
14 children. And we have every right, as you do, to seek
15 justice on their behalf. That is not hatred. That is
16 justice.
17 Now, let me ask you this question:
18 Because I have been waiting for an answer for an hour and
19 a half and I still have not heard one from any of the
20 four attorneys that talked to you so eloquently this
21 morning.
22 What is it about this case that calls
23 for the minimum sentence? Just what is it about this
24 case that calls for a minimum sentence of life?
25 You know, I thought Mr. Mulder, Mr.
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5712

1 Glover, Mr. Douglass or Mr. Mosty, I thought one of them
2 would tell us the reason that we could hang our hat on
3 and say that the proper sentence is life. But I didn't
4 hear it. I didn't hear it from them.
5 You know, when we began, when you got
6 that jury summons down here in October, and you found out
7 you were going to come up here to serve on a jury, could
8 any of you have imagined that you would be serving on
9 this case?
10 Could any of you have imagined a crime
11 as horrible as this crime? Where two children, sleeping
12 in their own home, could be stabbed four times in the
13 back as they slept. Could be stabbed twice in the chest,
14 as he slept.
15 I mean, could any of us, in our worst
16 nightmare have imagined that this is the kind of case
17 that you're going to be asked to hear? And yet, we now
18 know that that is exactly what happened on June the 6th
19 of 1996.
20 We know that now. And because we know
21 that, we know that this case, on the facts alone, call
22 out and cry out for death. That is what the facts tell
23 us. That that is the one true verdict to be rendered in
24 this case.
25 I think Darin said it best on that
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5713

1 video tape on June the 14th, when he categorized and
2 classified this case as being that where a wolf came in,
3 and took the lives of two helpless sheep. And in this
4 case, the one who did that, the wolf, paraded around as
5 the shepherd. That's what happened in this case.
6 And it does cry out for death. Darin
7 Routier tells you: Whoever did this should die. Sarilda
8 Routier tells you: If this woman did it, she should die.
9 It's not hard to see. Even the family understands.
10 Whoever would come out and take the life of these two
11 children, that person should die.
12 And we don't need some psychiatrist
13 from Austin or Dallas to tell us what is obvious.
14 Because the facts in this case tell us what needs to be
15 done. And that is the awful truth here. This case calls
16 out for death.
17 Now, you have to ask yourselves, you
18 know, as we, here in 1997, I mean, what kind of society
19 do we live in now? I mean, it's a sad commentary on this
20 society that our children can't be safe. I guess it's
21 understandable that our kids can't roam around at night
22 on the streets and expect to be safe at all times. But
23 surely to God, have we gotten down to the point that our
24 kids can't even sleep in their own homes and be safe from
25 their own mother? But that is where we are in this
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5714

1 society, apparently. Because Darlie Lynn Routier has
2 taken us to those depths in this case. That is what
3 we're facing here in this case.
4 And I just want to ask you, you know,
5 this is a nice, warm, sterile courtroom, with a defendant
6 over here, dabbing the tears away, but if you had been
7 there that night. If you had been there at 2:30 in the
8 morning that night, and you had seen this woman come
9 after these two children with a knife, is there a one of
10 us who wouldn't have risked our own lives to save the
11 lives of these two children? And of course the answer is
12 no. We all would have done that to prevent these deaths
13 if possible.
14 But barring that, if we had been
15 unable to do that, is there a one of us who could have
16 watched as this woman took that knife, from that butcher
17 block, and came over here to Devon Routier, as he slept
18 on that floor with his eyes closed, and as she rammed
19 that knife into him, five inches deep, two inches deep.
20 And as she came over here to Damon Routier, asleep on his
21 stomach, and as she rammed that knife into him four
22 times, is there a one of us, back there on June the 6th,
23 that would have been saying to ourselves, this is a case
24 that deserves the minimum?
25 Is there a one of us who would have
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5715

1 been thinking, "I need to give this woman what she wants.
2 I need to give this cold-blooded, evil-hearted killer who
3 would take the lives of these two children what she
4 wants. I want to give her the minimum of life."
5 Is there any one of us who would have
6 been saying that then? Of course not?
7 None of us would have, because we see
8 the kind of barbarism and the cruelty that was played out
9 on those two children. And as you look at this
10 defendant -- you know, Ms. Wallace is right. She looks
11 just like us. She looks like us. You know, she cries
12 like we do. She cries for herself, but she cries. But
13 she is not like us.
14 You see, this is the kind of woman who
15 is capable of the barbaric. She is capable of the
16 unspeakable in her own home. You see, this is a woman
17 who is fully capable of turning this into this, and when
18 she completes doing this, she is capable of turning a
19 five year old boy from this to this.
20 A woman capable of doing that, and
21 then fully capable of trying to hide her tracks, is
22 thinking about herself, and trying to deceive the police
23 officers is sure as she can out there on June the 6th of
24 1996. That is the kind of woman that we're dealing with.
25 You know, we're not like that, because
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5716

1 we can't even conceive in our mind doing something like
2 that to our own children. She not only conceives it, but
3 she carries it out, and she carries it out well, doesn't
4 she? She is not like us. Don't get into that game
5 about, she is like me. She ain't. There is just no way
6 that she is.
7 You know, they say, in a very critical
8 tone, that this poor woman, I think Mr. Mosty called her
9 a young girl. This isn't a girl, y'all know she's an
10 adult woman. This poor adult woman has been under a
11 microscope for six to eight months.
12 These poor children were put under the
13 knife. If only it had been a microscope. They were put
14 under the knife and they were slashed and slaughtered to
15 death. That is the reality of what she put them under on
16 June the 6th.
17 You know, on that evening, what did
18 she do? As her attorneys asked for mercy this morning.
19 What did she do out there that evening? Well, she
20 appointed herself the judge, the jury, and the
21 executioner is what she did, didn't she?
22 What were their crimes? What were the
23 crimes that these poor children were guilty of? Quite
24 simply being boys, being in the way.
25 And for that crime, what was the
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5717

1 sentence? The sentence was death, and it was to be
2 carried out immediately. For it was. And was it carried
3 out in a merciful way like lethal injection? Absolutely
4 not. With no mercy whatsoever, a knife plunged into
5 their bodies, the execution carried out immediately.
6 That's what occurred on June the 6th. And now we hear
7 about this mercy.
8 Mr. Mosty said what she did was
9 totally different from everything else that she had been.
10 And I guess if you listen to the family, you might
11 believe some of that. But we know from the witnesses
12 that took the stand yesterday, that that is not the case.
13 We now know the kind of attitude that
14 she displayed toward these two boys before, the anger and
15 the hatred that she had displayed toward them, a face
16 crammed into a cake. The cussing at them in a public
17 place, as she did.
18 Leaving them out there on the streets
19 unsupervised at the age of three and four. Was it really
20 all that different? I submit to you that it wasn't. It
21 came to a head on that day, but it really wasn't that
22 different than what it had been all along.
23 You ask yourselves this: What kind of
24 person does this to these children? I submit to you it
25 is a person that is beyond redemption. It is a person
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5718

1 without a conscience. For no person with a conscience
2 could even think of this. But she did, and she carried
3 it out.
4 I think Ken Waits, as Mr. Mosty
5 alluded to, said it best when he said, "Only an evil,
6 heartless person does this," and I couldn't agree more.
7 That is exactly the kind of person
8 that did this. An evil, heartless person.
9 As Mr. Mosty told you in alluding to
10 the New Testament, we do know that at times we are
11 dealing with the principalities of evil in this world.
12 And a delegate sits among us right now of that evil, and
13 her name is Darlie Lynn Routier. She has no excuses.
14 Mr. Mulder very frankly told you, this
15 isn't a woman that came from the ghetto some place. This
16 isn't a woman who was alone in life. This isn't a woman
17 with a history of mental illness to fall back on. This
18 isn't a woman who has got some other problems. This
19 isn't a woman who has got a drug addiction problem where
20 she just couldn't control herself, is it? No, in fact,
21 it is just the opposite.
22 This is a woman that came from a
23 loving family. You know, a family that is so supportive
24 that they are still down here today. You know, I would
25 submit to you that if she had had any problems
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5719

1 whatsoever, all of these people would have rushed to her
2 assistance and said: "Can I do something for you?"
3 She had a great support system. She
4 had a beautiful home. She had as much money as anyone
5 could hope for. She was able to acquire whatever her
6 heart desired. And I say to you, this is a woman who has
7 no excuses. There is no mitigating circumstance here.
8 If mitigating circumstances were like
9 drops of water, this carpet would be as dry as it is here
10 this morning, for there are no excuses. There are no
11 mitigating circumstances. The answers to these questions
12 are "yes" and "no." It's as simple as that.
13 Now, you know I am going to ask you to
14 do something in this case. I am going to ask you through
15 your verdict to send a signal. A very clear,
16 unmistakable signal to the defendant and to those like
17 her who would think about injuring our children.
18 You make that signal clear, and you
19 say, "You cannot have our children. If you kill our
20 children, we will come after you. You won't be able to
21 hide from us. You can't fool us. You can't shame us.
22 You can't intimidate us. It's just that simple. You
23 cannot hide. We will come after you, because these
24 children do deserve peace and happiness," as is written
25 here in this journal.
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5720

1 That is all they deserved, and they
2 were denied it. They also deserved justice, and they
3 were denied it on June the 6th, and now they get it,
4 today, hopefully.
5 They get that justice. But you send
6 that signal out to those other perverts and those other
7 strangers and those other parents who may be
8 contemplating this: You say to them, "When you take the
9 life of a child like this in the State of Texas, whether
10 it's in Kerrville, or whether it's in Rowlett, which is a
11 lot like Kerrville, no matter where it may be, small town
12 or large, you better get ready to pay the price, because
13 we're going to put the ultimate value on lives such as
14 this in this State."
15 You know, the time for talking is
16 over. I'm about to sit down in just a moment. You have
17 heard all the talk that you need in the case. As I
18 alluded to, it has been a long, terrible road for some of
19 us that began back in June. For y'all it started in
20 October, and it's continued on through this year.
21 It's a bit like, it's been a long race
22 for some of us. It's been like a marathon, if you will.
23 And when it began the Rowlett police had that baton in
24 their hand, and they carried it, and then at some point
25 they handed it off to us. They said it's your
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5721

1 responsibility now, you take it forward toward that
2 finish line of justice. And we have done our very best
3 to do that. But it's come to that point in this trial
4 where we can't carry it any further.
5 The time has come for me to hand that
6 baton off to each and every one of you now. Because only
7 you 12 people can cross that line. And I'm going to ask
8 you to do that. I'm going to ask you when you do, that
9 you cross that line in such a way that when you go home
10 tonight to your family, you will be able to say with a
11 clear heart, that you saw the danger, and you did
12 everything within your power to assure that it never
13 happens again.
14 And if you answer number 1 "yes," and
15 you answer number 2 "no," then you will have crossed that
16 finish line the way it needs to be done.
17 May God be with you.
18 THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Davis.
19 All right. Ladies and gentlemen, the
20 case is now yours to decide. You will retire to the jury
21 room, and when you have reached a verdict, please knock
22 on the door and Ms. Biggerstaff will come get you. Mr.
23 Wilson (sic), of course, remains the presiding juror. We
24 will clear the Courtroom if you desire to deliberate in
25 here.
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5722

1 All right. Thank you.
2
3 (Whereupon, the jury
4 was excused from the
5 courtroom, at 12:30 P.M.,
6 to begin their deliberations
7 on the issue of punishment
8 and the proceedings were
9 in recess, during
10 which time, the
11 proceedings were resumed,
12 in the presence of the
13 Defendant, with her
14 Attorneys, but outside
15 the presence of jury
16 as follows:)
17
18 THE COURT: Let's go on the record
19 again. Let the record reflect that these proceedings are
20 being held outside the presence of the jury and all
21 parties in the trial are present.
22 Mr. Mulder, you and Mr. Mosty and Mr.
23 Glover and Mr. Douglass and Mr. Hagler have been retained
24 only for the case-in-chief, and not for any appeal; is
25 that correct?
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5723

1 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: Yes, sir, that's
2 correct.
3 THE COURT: And Mrs. Routier, just for
4 this purpose, could you raise your right hand, please.
5
6 (Whereupon, the defendant
7 Was duly sworn by the
8 Court, to speak the truth,
9 The whole truth and
10 Nothing but the truth,
11 After which, the
12 Proceedings were
13 Resumed as follows:)
14
15 THE COURT: Do you solemnly swear or
16 affirm, that the testimony you are about to give, will be
17 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so
18 help you God?
19 THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
20 THE COURT: All right. Ma'am, you are
21 indigent and this case will be appealed?
22 THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
23 THE COURT: But you're indigent and do
24 not have sufficient money to pay for an appellate
25 attorney; is that correct?
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5724

1 THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
2 THE COURT: All right. Fine. The
3 State agrees with that?
4 MR. GREG DAVIS: The State agrees.
5 THE COURT: All right. Fine. I will
6 appoint one for you at the appropriate time.
7 All right. Thank you.
8
9 (Whereupon, a short
10 recess was taken,
11 after which time,
12 the proceedings were
13 resumed on the record,
14 in the presence and
15 hearing of the
16 defendant but not the
17 jury, as follows:)
18
19 THE COURT: All right.
20 Everybody relax. We are going to wait
21 until everybody gets a seat. Come on in and find a seat.
22 Ready, Ms. Biggerstaff?
23 THE BAILIFF: Yes, sir.
24 All right. Let the record reflect
25 these proceedings are being held outside the presence of
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5725

1 the jury and all parties of trial are present.
2 Ladies and gentlemen, this has been a
3 lengthy and vigorously contested trial. The jury has
4 reached a verdict, and now they're coming in with their
5 verdict in punishment. And this could be an emotional
6 time.
7 And if there is anybody in the
8 courtroom now who feels they would not be able to stand
9 this verdict, now is the time for them to leave. No one
10 will think the lesser of you for doing so. Because I
11 will not permit emotional outbursts and disruption of the
12 courtroom.
13 If there is anyone who wishes to
14 leave, feel free to do so now.
15 All right. Let's bring the jury in,
16 please.
17
18 (Whereupon, the jury
19 Was returned to the
20 Courtroom, and the
21 Proceedings were
22 Resumed on the record,
23 In open court, in the
24 Presence and hearing
25 Of the defendant,
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5726

1 As follows:)
2
3 THE COURT: All right. Please be
4 seated, ladies and gentlemen.
5 Let the record reflect that all
6 parties in the trial are present and the jury is seated.
7 Mr. Walker, has the jury reached a
8 verdict in this phase of the trial?
9 THE FOREMAN: Yes, we have, your
10 Honor.
11 THE COURT: Special Issue Number 1:
12 Do you find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt,
13 that there is a probability that the defendant, Darlie
14 Lynn Routier, would commit criminal acts of violence that
15 would constitute a continuing threat to society?
16 In your verdict you will answer either
17 yes or no. And the answer is "yes."
18 If that is your verdict, please so
19 signify by raising your right hands.
20
21 (Whereupon, each juror
22 raised their hand that
23 the verdict read by the
24 Court was their verdict,
25 after which time, the
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5727

1 proceedings were resumed
2 on the record, in open
3 court, as follows:)
4
5 THE COURT: Let the record reflect
6 that all hands are raised.
7 Special Issue Number 2: Taking into
8 consideration all of the evidence, including the
9 circumstances of the offense, the defendant's character
10 and background, and the personal moral culpability of the
11 defendant, is there a sufficient mitigating circumstance
12 or circumstances to warrant that a sentence of life
13 imprisonment, rather than a death sentence be imposed.
14 In your verdict, you will answer
15 either yes or no. And the answer is "no." That is
16 signed by Frank S. Walker, Presiding Juror.
17 If that is your verdict, please so
18 signify by raising your right hands.
19
20 (Whereupon, each juror
21 raised their hand that
22 the verdict read by the
23 Court was their verdict,
24 after which time, the
25 proceedings were resumed
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5728

1 on the record, in open
2 court, as follows:)
3
4 THE COURT: Let the record reflect
5 that all hands were raised.
6 Ms. Routier, if you would stand,
7 please.
8 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: Your Honor, may
9 we have the jury polled?
10 THE COURT: You may.
11 I'm going to ask each individual
12 member of the jury if the verdict as stated by the Court
13 to each Special Issue is their verdict.
14 Mr. Evans, if it is, raise your right
15 hand.
16 (Whereupon, the juror
17 raised his hand that
18 the verdict read by the
19 Court was his verdict,
20 after which time, the
21 proceedings were resumed
22 on the record, in open
23 court, as follows:)
24
25 THE COURT: Let the record reflect
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5729

1 that Mr. Evan's right hand was raised.
2 Mr. Monroy?
3
4 (Whereupon, the juror
5 raised his hand that
6 the verdict read by the
7 Court was his verdict,
8 after which time, the
9 proceedings were resumed
10 on the record, in open
11 court, as follows:)
12
13 THE COURT: Let the record reflect
14 that Mr. Monroy's right hand was raised.
15 Ms. Huth?
16 (Whereupon, the juror
17 raised her hand that
18 the verdict read by the
19 Court was her verdict,
20 after which time, the
21 proceedings were resumed
22 on the record, in open
23 court, as follows:)
24
25 THE COURT: Let the record reflect
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 that Ms. Huth's right hand was raised.
2 Ms. Corkill?
3
4 (Whereupon, the juror
5 raised her hand that
6 the verdict read by the
7 Court was her verdict,
8 after which time, the
9 proceedings were resumed
10 on the record, in open
11 court, as follows:)
12
13 THE COURT: Let the record reflect Ms.
14 Corkill's right hand was raised.
15 Mr. Jimmie Samford?
16
17 (Whereupon, the juror
18 raised his hand that
19 the verdict read by the
20 Court was his verdict,
21 after which time, the
22 proceedings were resumed
23 on the record, in open
24 court, as follows:)
25
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5731

1 THE COURT: Let the record reflect Mr.
2 Jimmie Samford's right hand was raised.
3 Mr. Charles Samford?
4
5 (Whereupon, the juror
6 raised his hand that
7 the verdict read by the
8 Court was his verdict,
9 after which time, the
10 proceedings were resumed
11 on the record, in open
12 court, as follows:)
13
14 THE COURT: Let the record reflect Mr.
15 Charles Samford's right hand was raised.
16 Ms. Reynolds?
17
18 (Whereupon, the juror
19 raised her hand that
20 the verdict read by the
21 Court was her verdict,
22 after which time, the
23 proceedings were resumed
24 on the record, in open
25 court, as follows:)
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5732

1
2 THE COURT: Let the record reflect Ms.
3 Reynold's right hand was raised.
4 Ms. Franklin?
5
6 (Whereupon, the juror
7 raised her hand that
8 the verdict read by the
9 Court was her verdict,
10 after which time, the
11 proceedings were resumed
12 on the record, in open
13 court, as follows:)
14
15 THE COURT: Let the record reflect Ms.
16 Franklin's right hand was raised.
17 Mr. Walker?
18
19 (Whereupon, the juror
20 raised his hand that
21 the verdict read by the
22 Court was his verdict,
23 after which time, the
24 proceedings were resumed
25 on the record, in open
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 court, as follows:)
2
3 THE COURT: Let the record reflect Mr.
4 Walker's right hand was raised.
5 Ms. Way?
6
7 (Whereupon, the juror
8 raised her hand that
9 the verdict read by the
10 Court was her verdict,
11 after which time, the
12 proceedings were resumed
13 on the record, in open
14 court, as follows:)
15
16 THE COURT: Let the record reflect
17 that Ms. Way's right hand was raised.
18 Ms. Wagoner?
19
20 (Whereupon, the juror
21 raised her hand that
22 the verdict read by the
23 Court was her verdict,
24 after which time, the
25 proceedings were resumed
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 on the record, in open
2 court, as follows:)
3
4 THE COURT: Let the record reflect
5 that Ms. Wagoner's right hand was raised.
6 And Ms. Gibson?
7
8 (Whereupon, the juror
9 raised her hand that
10 the verdict read by the
11 Court was her verdict,
12 after which time, the
13 proceedings were resumed
14 on the record, in open
15 court, as follows:)
16
17 THE COURT: Let the record reflect Ms.
18 Gibson's right hand was raised.
19 Mrs. Routier, would you stand.
20 And that's all 12 jurors right hands
21 were raised when polled.
22 Darlie Lynn Routier, the jury, having
23 found you guilty of the offense of capital murder, and
24 having returned an affirmative finding on the first
25 Special Issue submitted to them at the punishment stage
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 of this trial, and a negative finding on the issue of
2 mitigation, it is now the duty of this Court to assess
3 your punishment at death.
4 Is there any lawful reason why
5 sentence should not be pronounced at this time? There
6 being none, it is the Order, Judgment and Decree of the
7 Court in this cause, styled the State of Texas versus
8 Darlie Lynn Routier, Dallas County Number F-96-39973-MJ,
9 and Kerr County Cause Number A-96-253. That you shall be
10 taken by the Sheriff of Kerr County, Texas, and shall
11 immediately thereafter be delivered to the director of
12 the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of
13 Criminal Justice, or other person legally authorized to
14 receive such prisoners, and shall be confined in said
15 Institutional Division, in accordance with the laws
16 governing the said Institutional Division, until such
17 day, to be determined by this Court, and some time after
18 the hour of 6:00 P.M., in a room arranged for the purpose
19 of execution, the said director, acting by and through
20 the executioner designated by the said director, as
21 provided by law, is commanded, ordered and directed, by
22 this Court to carry out this sentence of death by the
23 intravenous injection of a substance or substances in a
24 lethal quantity sufficient to cause your death until you
25 are dead.
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 Your are hereby remanded to jail until
2 the Sheriff can obey the directions of this sentence.
3 You maybe seated, please.
4 Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I
5 want to thank you for your jury service. This is a very
6 difficult trial, and a very difficult decision, but you
7 conducted yourselves very well. Now you may talk or not
8 talk as you see fit about this case to anyone.
9 If you will now step back to the jury
10 room, please.
11
12 (Whereupon, the jury
13 Was excused from the
14 Courtroom, and the
15 Proceedings were held
16 In the presence of the
17 Defendant, with his
18 Attorney, but outside
19 The presence of jury
20 As follows:)
21
22 THE COURT: Does either side have
23 anything further?
24 Anything from the defense?
25 From the State?
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 MR. GREG DAVIS: Nothing, your Honor.
2 MR. DOUGLAS MULDER: No, sir.
3 THE COURT: These proceedings are now
4 concluded. Thank you.
5 If you will vacate the courtroom,
6 please.
7
8 (Whereupon, the jury
9 panel was excused from
10 the courtroom, after
11 which time the
12 proceedings were resumed
13 on the record as
14 follows:)
15
16 THE COURT: Let the record reflect
17 that all parties in the trial are present and these
18 proceedings are being held outside the presence of the
19 jury.
20 Mrs. Routier, I intend to appoint Mr.
21 John Hagler, who has been present here for most of this
22 trial to handle your direct appeal. Is that satisfactory
23 with you?
24 THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
25 THE COURT: Likewise, the habeas
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
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1 corpus appeal become necessary, I intend to appoint him
2 on that also. Is that satisfactory with you?
3 THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
4 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: Your Honor, we
5 would like for Mr. Nation to be appointed on the habeas.
6 We think that we should have separate lawyers.
7 THE COURT: Well, I'm not appointing
8 any -- well, I will certainly take that into
9 consideration if that is necessary.
10 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: Okay.
11 THE COURT: I'm happy to --
12 MR. RICHARD. C. MOSTY: Right now
13 we're just dealing with the direct appeal.
14 THE COURT: I am very familiar -- I
15 just want to know, should that become necessary, and I'm
16 very familiar with Mr. Nation, and I understand who they
17 are.
18 MR. RICHARD C. MOSTY: I think -- does
19 the Court of Criminal Appeals make that appointment
20 anyway?
21 THE COURT: Yes, they probably will
22 make that appointment anyway.
23 All right. Thank you. That is it.
24 Thank you very much.
25 These proceedings are now concluded.
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5739

1 Thank you.
2
3 (Whereupon, this concluded
4 the proceedings held on,
5 this day, and the proceedings
6 were recessed for the day.)
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5740

1 CERTIFICATION PAGE
2 THE STATE OF TEXAS )
3 THE COUNTY OF DALLAS )
4 I, Sandra M. Halsey, was the Official Court
5 Reporter of Criminal District Court Number 3, of Dallas
6 County, Texas, do hereby certify that I reported in
7 Stenograph notes the foregoing proceedings, and that they
8 have been edited by me, or under my direction and the
9 foregoing transcript contains a full, true, complete and
10 accurate transcript of the proceedings held in this
11 matter, to the best of my knowledge.
12 I further certify that this transcript of the
13 proceedings truly and correctly reflects the exhibits, if
14 any, offered by the respective parties.
15 SUBSCRIBED AND SWORN TO, this _____ day of
16 ___________, 1997.
17 __________________________________
18 Sandra M. Day Halsey, CSR
19 Official Court Reporter
20 363RD Judicial District Court
21 Dallas County, Texas
22 Phone, (214) 653-5893
23
24 Cert. No. 308
25 Exp 12-31-98
Sandra M. Halsey, CSR, Official Court Reporter
5741

1 STATE OF TEXAS )
2 COUNTY OF DALLAS)
3
4 JUDGES CERTIFICATE
5
6
7
8 The above and foregoing transcript, as certified
9 by the Official Court Reporter, having been presented to
10 me, has been examined and is approved as a true and
11 correct transcript of the proceedings had in the
12 foregoing styled cause, and aforementioned cause number
13 of this case.
14
15
16
17
18 __________________________________
19 MARK TOLLE, JUDGE
20 Criminal District Court Number 3
21 Dallas County, Texas
22
23
24
25
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5742