2 Texas inmates set to die this month lose appeals

The justices refused a petition from Joshua Maxwell, 31, set to die next week for abducting, robbing and fatally shooting off-duty Bexar County Sgt. Rudy Lopes as part of a cross-country crime spree in 2000.

The court also refused an appeal from Hank Skinner, 47, who faces lethal injection March 24 for the 1993 New Year's Eve killings of Twila Jean Busby, 40, and her two grown sons at their home in Pampa.

Maxwell, who has a March 11 execution date, and his girlfriend were charged with Lopes' slaying and were likened to characters in the movie "Natural Born Killers."

Maxwell's lawyer did not immediately return a telephone message Monday seeking comment.

The couple was arrested in San Francisco five days after Lopes' body was found behind a San Antonio strip mall. Driving Lopes' truck, Maxwell, an ex-convict from Indianapolis, ran a red light in San Francisco, then opened fire on police when they tried to pull him over.

Maxwell and his girlfriend, ex-stripper Tessie McFarland, were both charged in Texas with capital murder. She received a life prison term in a plea deal.

The two, who spent about two weeks in San Antonio, also were charged in Indiana in the September 2000 slaying of Robby Bott, 45, a FedEx mechanic from suburban Indianapolis whose body was found in the trunk of his burning car.

Prosecutors said the couple met Bott through a telephone dating line and took him out for a night of partying, then forced him to use his credit cards to buy them merchandise at stores and malls. They also went to his home and stole numerous household items like vacuum cleaners, a toaster, pillow cases and towels. When Bott's body was found, he was tied up, choked and had been shot in the back.

The couple was never tried on the charges.

In the second case, Skinner argued lawyers at his trial should have used a police blood spatter report to bolster his defense that he's innocent of the triple slaying in the Texas Panhandle 17 years ago. Besides Busby, who was bludgeoned with an ax handle, also killed were her two sons, Elwin Caler, 22, and Randy Busby, 20.

Skinner still has other appeals in the courts, including another petition before the Supreme Court, and is seeking additional DNA testing on evidence. Prosecutors are opposing the request.

"We continue to hope that the court will intervene to ensure that Mr. Skinner is not executed before the troubling doubts about his guilt can be resolved through scientific evidence," Skinner's lawyer, Rob Owen, said Monday.

Skinner has acknowledged he was present at the time of the killings but said he was passed out on the couch from a combination of alcohol and codeine and was too incapacitated to commit the slayings.

He and Maxwell are among at least 11 condemned Texas prisoners with execution dates in the coming months.

In a third Texas case Monday, the high court declined to review the conviction of a Houston man, Demetrius Dewayne Smith, 32, condemned for gunning down his ex-girlfriend and her 11-year-old daughter at their home in the Houston suburb of Humble.

Smith was arrested the day after Tammie Evette Harris, 31, and her daugher, Kristina, were fatally shot in March 2005. Smith does not have an execution date.