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April 24, 2008, 1:47AM
Execution set for man who killed Humble toddler, mom


By ROSANNA RUIZ
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle


A man who killed a 2-year-old Humble boy and his mother after she repeatedly rejected his advances is the third Texas death row inmate scheduled to die since the Supreme Court's ruling on lethal injection.
State District Judge Mike Wilkinson granted the state's request Wednesday that Derrick Sonnier be sent to Texas' death chamber June 3. The 40-year-old was sentenced to death for the 1991 rape and murder of Melody Flowers, 27, and the stabbing death of her son, Patrick.

This is the second execution date set in his case.

Last November, Harris County prosecutors agreed to set aside the original execution date of Feb. 26 to await the high court's ruling on the constitutionality of the lethal injection process.

The court ruled 7-2 last week that Kentucky's execution method, also used in Texas, does not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.


On death row

Harris County moved to reschedule Sonnier's execution first because he already had a date set in his case, said Roe Wilson, a Harris County prosecutor who handles capital punishment appeals.

"I was kind of surprised when the district attorney's office called the day after the decision," said Jani Maselli, Sonnier's appellate attorney, "but I immediately knew what it was about."

Two other executions have been scheduled in Texas since the high court ruling: Charles Dean Hood, 38, is set to be put to death June 17, for two 1989 Plano murders; and Larry Donell Davis, 40, has a July 31 execution date for an Amarillo murder in 1995.

During Sonnier's 1993 trial, jurors heard evidence that he beat Flowers, a mother of five, with a claw hammer until the handle broke off, strangled and then stabbed her with a kitchen knife. He dumped Flowers' body in her bathtub. After he killed the toddler, Sonnier tossed his body atop his mother's in the bloody bath water, prosecutors said.


Defense: Wrong person
Jurors were told that Sonnier, who lived two doors down from the Flowers family with his girlfriend, stalked Melody Flowers for two years before the killings.

Sonnier contends, as he did at his trial, that the state has the wrong man, Maselli said. No witnesses were called to testify on Sonnier's behalf during the punishment phase of the trial.

His trial attorneys should have overruled Sonnier's wish that no one, including family members, testify, Maselli said. Relatives were available to testify that Sonnier loved his girlfriend, loved children and was incapable of violence, court records indicate.

"That's when the jury finds out who he is and why he is not worthy of death," she said. "The jury couldn't save him — he's a stranger."

rosanna.ruiz@chron.com