Posted 8:28 am Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Miller Sentenced To Lethal Injection
By DAYNA WORCHEL
Staff Writer
Demontrell Miller showed no emotion Monday as the judge read his sentence: death by lethal injection.The Tyler man was found guilty on Nov. 4 in the 2008 beating death of 2-year-old Kelynn J'Davion Pinson in Judge Jack Skeen Jr.'s 241st District Smith County court.
Staff Writer
Demontrell Miller showed no emotion Monday as the judge read his sentence: death by lethal injection.The Tyler man was found guilty on Nov. 4 in the 2008 beating death of 2-year-old Kelynn J'Davion Pinson in Judge Jack Skeen Jr.'s 241st District Smith County court.
The Tyler man was found guilty on Nov. 4 in the 2008 beating death of 2-year-old Kelynn J'Davion Pinson in Judge Jack Skeen Jr.'s 241st District Smith County court.
,the Tyler man found guilty in the beating death of 2-year-old Kelynn J'Davion Pinson on June 1, 2008, was sentenced to death by lethal injection in Judge Jack Skeen Jr.'s 241
st
District Smith County court on Monday.
Miller showed no emotion as the judge read the verdict, but Linda Franklin, the mother of Kelvin Arterberry, Kelynn's biological father, dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.
District Smith County court on Monday.
Miller showed no emotion as the judge read the verdict, but Linda Franklin, the mother of Kelvin Arterberry, Kelynn's biological father, dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.
Miller will be entitled to an automatic appeal directly the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, as is the case in all death sentences in the state of Texas. Skeen appointed attorney Jeffrey Haas to represent Miller in his appeal.
In order for Miller to have received the death penalty, the jury had to answer two questions about him. They had to decide if Miller would pose a continuing threat to society, and if there were any mitigating factors, such as his character, his background or any other evidence to warrant life without the possibility of parole. The jury answered yes to the first question and no to the second.
Skeen thanked the jury for its service, and admonished the people in the courtroom before sentence was pronounced to not react or they would be removed.
Sherry Magness, with the Victim Services office, read a short letter from Kelvin Arterberry, Kelynn's biological father, to Miller after the judge pronounced sentence. "My son was 2 years old, and it was not God who took him away from me, but you," the letter said in part. Miller turned and looked at Arterberry for a moment as the letter was read and shook his head.
"When Kelynn wanted someone to protect him, no one came," said Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham. "The last thing Kelynn Pinson saw was that piece of trash over there," he said, while pointing to Miller.
The defendant, Bingham said, threw away a perfectly good opportunity of a full athletic scholarship to Arkansas Tech University by failing his classes
by making all Fs
and getting kicked out of the dormitory for fighting.
and getting kicked out of the dormitory for fighting.
The best thing any of the defense witnesses could say about Miller was the fact that he was mannerable, Bingham said.
"Is that even a word?" he asked.
Bingham concluded his argument before the jury by telling them not to let anyone put guilt on them.
Bingham concluded his argument before the jury by telling them not to let anyone put guilt on them.
"You didn't beat that little boy to death," he said.
Defense attorney LaJuanda Lacy told the jury that although she disagreed with their verdict, that she would respect it.
"It was difficult for me too to look at autopsy photos -- I am a mother and grandmother," she said. But emotion must be put in its proper place, Ms. Lacy said.
She described Miller as being a violent person because he was protecting his family.
