Alleged Blood awaits verdict in capital murder

Dawn breaks over courthouse on alleged Blood's judgment day

Bulletin: A McLennan County Jury found Rickey Cummings guilty of capital murder after about 2 hours of deliberation. The Court gave jurors the case at 10:30 a.m. On Monday morning, Judge Ralph T. Strother will charge them with the task of assessing Mr. Cummings' punishment for the murder of two Waco youths who died by gunshot wounds in a March, 2011, attack.

If they feel he is likely to be a continuing threat to society, they will assess the penalty of death by lethal injection. If there is any mitigating circumstance that would lead them to believe he will not be a threat to corrections officers and other prisoners, he will be sentenced to a life term in the penitentiary without the possibility of parole.

Waco - An accused gunman who the State of Texas has characterized as a gang banger awaits his fate in district court where his trial for capital murder concluded this morning.

According to published reports, jurors listened while prosecutors called accused gunman Rickey Cummings a murderer. Greg Davis and Michael Jarrett urged them to find him guilty of the capital murder of two east Waco youths, one of whom they insist Mr. Cummings conspired to kill in retaliation for the murder of a close friend.

Judge Strother pets Sam, the Sheriff's drug dog, who has been
on patrol the past two weeks during a murder trial

They told jurors that evidence and testimony points to an affiliation with a nationwide crime syndicate of drug sellers called the Bloods, who hail from Chicago.

Defense attorneys Walter Reaves and Russ Hunt, Sr., described him as a smart man who not only handled himself well as a witness in his own defense, but as an individual who should be acquitted of the crimes for which he has been on trial for the past two weeks. According to Mr. Reaves, there is no evidence that he killed, nor is there any proof of gang activity on his part.

Judge Ralph T. Strother told newsmen he will sequester the jurors if necessary until they arrive at a verdict.