Murderer who stabbed husband 193 times seeks new punishment

Houston Chronicle:

A woman convicted of killing her husband by tying him to their bed and stabbing him almost 200 times will get a new punishment phase because of ineffective assistance of counsel in her trial, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Susan Wright deserves another opportunity to convince a jury that she deserves a lenient sentence.

Her attorney, Brian Wice, said jurors should have heard from certain witnesses, including Jeffrey Wright's former fiance and an expert on battered women syndrome.

If her attorneys can convince a new jury that Wright killed in “sudden passion” her punishment would be capped at 20 years.

If jurors decide against sudden passion, she could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Wright's trial entered courthouse lore when then-prosecutor Kelly Siegler tied her co-counsel to a bed in the courtroom, climbed on him and acted out the stabbing.

Siegler's “overzealous” dramatics were unfair to Wright, her former attorney, Neal Davis, said.

“Because Kelly Siegler's antics devolved into some cheap made-for-TV movie, Susan was deprived of a fair trial. That's just the reality.”

Siegler, who left the Harris County District Attorney's office after a failed bid in the district attorney's race last year, stood by the conviction Wednesday.

“What exactly is overzealous about re-enacting the murder just as the defendant committed it with the very same weapon she used to slaughter Jeffrey in their bed?” Siegler wrote in response to questions from the Houston Chronicle. “The point of the re-enactment was to freeze in the minds of the jurors how cold-bloodedly, cruelly and methodically Susan Wright murdered the father of her babies.”

Wright was convicted of murder in March 2004 and sentenced to 25 years for killing Jeffrey Wright, 34, at the couple's northwest Harris County home Jan. 13, 2003. He suffered 193 stab wounds, according to medical examiners.

Siegler noted that the appellate court faulted Davis for ineffective assistance in the brief ruling. The panel did not discuss why it found him ineffective.

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If an appeals court is going to overturn a sentence for ineffective counsel, it needs to say why it was ineffective. Maybe it thought the failure to call the witnesses mentioned was a mistake, but it needs to explain why the decision of counsel was improper. My guess is that it would not have made any difference.

A sudden passion defense, might make sense if she had stabbed him once. By the time you get to stab 193 something else is at work. I guess the defense could argue that by that point she was just mutilating a corpse, but I would not be feeling lenient about that either.

I think her original sentence was about as lenient as I would be willing to go. I also think that battered wives have alternatives to stabbing their husbands 193 times.