The second of two men sentenced to death for killing three people in a 2005 robbery is scheduled to be put to death on Wednesday, a week after his codefendant was executed.
Ker’Sean Olajuwa Ramey broke into a neighbor’s home in Edna with LeJames Norman in 2005 intending to steal cocaine before encountering the residents, according to court records. Celso Lopez was inside the home at the time of the break-in and was fatally shot. Tiffani Peacock and Sam Roberts arrived later and were killed by Ramey and Norman, who then fled the scene.
Ramey was convicted in 2007 after several witnesses, including his girlfriend, testified that he had admitted to the killings. Ramey’s girlfriend helped police recover the two guns used in the murders. Norman, who was executed Sept. 16, also testified against Ramey during his trial.
Ramey has had two unsuccessful appeals at the Supreme Court, and a new appeal filed Sept. 10 with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was rejected on Monday.
Ramey’s appeals primarily focused on allegations that the almost all-white jury that sentenced him to death was “infected with racial bias,” and that he received ineffective counsel from his lawyer, who was a full-time dentist and was not experienced in capital punishment trials. Ramey will be the sixth man put to death in Texas this year if his execution is carried out. Three more men are scheduled to be executed through the end of the year.
If the remaining executions are carried out, it will be the most executions in Texas in a single year this decade, after a decline in executions and new death sentences.
