Killer of Kennewick college student eludes death penalty for third time

A Kennewick woman who has spent the past 33 years grieving her son's murder and praying for his killer's execution was devastated to learn Monday that the man who beat and shot her son has eluded the death penalty for the third time.

Bennie McMahan, 84, said she is frustrated that the state of Texas has executed more than 400 people since Michael McMahan's April 1975 slaying, while his killer, Ronald Chambers, has become the longest-serving prisoner on Texas' death row.

"It seems to me he's getting all the benefits and Mike didn't get any," McMahan said. "We have already been through three trials, we don't know how much more we can take."

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined without comment to review a federal appeals-court's decision to send the case back to a Dallas trial court because questions used by jurors to decide his death sentence were improper.

"The next step is for Dallas County to decide what to do, whether they will retry him, have a reduced sentence or a plea bargain," said Michael McMahan's sister, Janna McMahan, 51, of West Richland.

Chambers, 53, who arrived on Texas' death row on Jan. 8, 1976, three days before his 21st birthday, has now seen his conviction and death sentence overturned three times.

"We're pretty disappointed, but we prepared for the worst," Janna McMahan said. "My mom is 84 years old and it's hard on her. We just lost my father in October and this compounded everything."

The case wound up before the Supreme Court after the Texas Attorney General's Office had appealed an appellate-court ruling involving jury instructions given to other condemned Texas prisoners. In April 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that jurors in three cases were not allowed to give sufficient weight to factors that might cause them to impose a life sentence other than death.

Chambers' first conviction was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals because a state-appointed psychiatrist who questioned him failed to warn Chambers that his responses would be used against him.

He was retried in 1985 and convicted and again sentenced to die. The Supreme Court threw out that conviction four years later, ruling prosecutors improperly excluded three black people from his jury. Chambers is black.

In January 2007, Chambers was set to die for the punishment reached at his third trial. The lethal injection, however, was stopped until the justices ruled on the cases of the three other inmates who were challenging the jury instructions.

"I hoped there would have been an execution back when it was scheduled," Janna McMahan said. "Not that I relish in somebody dying, but that's his punishment. My brother certainly didn't want to die."

On the night of April 11, 1975, Michael McMahan, 22, a student at Texas Tech University, was leaving a Dallas nightclub with classmate Deia Sutton when they were kidnapped from the parking lot by Chambers and his friend, Clarence Williams.

McMahan and Sutton were driven to a levee on the Trinity River and pushed down an embankment. Chambers fired five shots at them, then bludgeoned McMahan in the head with the barrel of the shotgun. Williams choked Sutton and tried to drown her; Chambers also beat her with the shotgun.

Sutton survived the attack.

Williams pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and murder and received two life sentences and remains in prison. Janna McMahan said that when Williams' case is reviewed by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles every few years her family fights to have him remain behind bars.

"You put your trust in the justice system and put your faith in them to do what's right. It hasn't worked yet," Janna McMahan said.

Michael McMahan was a Kennewick High School graduate who loved tennis and dreamed of following in his father's footsteps by earning a degree in mechanical engineering from Texas Tech, his sister said.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com