An execution date has been set for David Lee Powell, who killed an Austin police officer with an assault rifle during a traffic stop more than 30 years ago.
Powell is set to die by injection in Huntsville on June 15, 2010.
He was convicted of capital murder for the 1978 slaying of Ralph Ablanedo, who was hit by 10 bullets from Powell's AK-47. Powell has been sent to death row three times - most recently in 1999 - for the killing.
In 2009, the US Supreme Court refused to review his death sentence.
Ablanedo had pulled over Powell's girlfriend, Sheila Meinert, near downtown Austin for not having a rear license tag. Powell, who was wanted at the time for misdemeanor theft and for passing more than 100 bad checked in Austin, was riding in the car.
Court records show drug use led him to become so paranoid he began carrying loaded weapons, including a .45 caliber pistol, the AK-47 and a grenade. Those weapons were with him in the car, along with some methamphetamines.
Evidence showed Ablanedo was shot through the back window of the car with the AK-47 in semiautomatic mode as he walked toward the vehicle. The fallen officer tried to get up and Powell opened fire again, switching the weapon to full automatic mode.
Ablanedo, 26, was wearing a bulletproof vest but it wasn't designed to handle that kind of firepower.
Powell and Meinert were arrested at a nearby apartment complex parking lot following a shootout with other officers. Meinert later would testify Powell gave her the grenade and told her to remove tape from it. She said she became hysterical and shoved it back to him.
Officers testified Powell threw it and started running away. The grenade was found about 10 feet from a police car but failed to explode because a safety clip hadn't been removed.
Powell's first conviction was vacated by the Supreme Court and returned to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The state court then reaffirmed the conviction and death sentence and the Supreme Court vacated his sentence.
He was retried and condemned again in 1991. Although the high court had only reversed the sentence, Texas law at the time required a full retrial, not only a punishment retrial. The second sentence, however, was reversed by the Court of Criminal Appeals because of improper jury instructions.
Texas law had changed by then, and the third retrial only was needed for sentencing.
