Hearings ordered for 10 on death row

Hearings ordered for 10 on death row. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on gave 10 death row the opportunity to avoid execution by proving to a trial court that they are mentally retarded. The court rejected similar pleas from 3 others. The panel has ordered hearings on mental retardation claims in at least 28 death penalty cases since the U.S. Supreme Court banned executions of the mentally retarded in June 2002. The state appellate court remanded these cases to trial courts for consideration: --Coy Wayne Wesbrook, convicted in 1998 of fatally shooting his former wife, Gloria Jean Coons, and 4 other people. --Demetrius Lott Simms, sentenced in 1991 to die for killing 4-year-old Monique Miller. --Joel Escobedo, convicted in 1999 of killing 65-year-old Guadalupe Garcia for drug money. --Kim Ly Lim, sentenced to death in 1992 for killing Pich Chhuon, 19, and Priestey Chhay, 5, during a residential robbery. --Jaime Bruce McCoskey, convicted in 1992 of killing Michael Dwyer. --Tony Tyrone Dixon, sent to death row in 1995 for fatally shooting Elizabeth Peavy . --Walter Bell Jr., who has been on death row since 1975, for killing Ferd and Irene Chisum the previous year. After his 1st 2 sentences were overturned, he was convicted again of capital murder in 1994. --Elroy Chester, convicted of raping 2 teenage girls and killing their uncle in 1998. --Marvin Lee Wilson, convicted in 1998. --Steve Rodriguez, sentenced in 1992. The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected claims of mental retardation from death row inmates George H. Whitaker III, Jose Angel Moreno and William A. Murray. The court held that those convicts had failed to produce "sufficient specific facts" to substantiate their claims.