Convicted Houston cop killer Carl Buntion faces execution on Thursday as legal options diminish
By Nicole Hensley, Staff writer
Harris County District Attorney’s Office
Carl Wayne Buntion, pictured, who murdered Houston police officer James Irby during a 1990 traffic stop, is scheduled to be executed April 21, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced Tuesday.
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The 78-year-old gunned down motorcycle officer James Irby during a June evening traffic stop on a Northside street, with news reports at the time stating that he had vowed to avenge his twin brother’s 1971 death at the hands of a police officer.
Buntion, housed at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, is the oldest inmate on Texas’ death row and has mounting health problems.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted on Tuesday not to recommend that he be granted a 90-day reprieve or a lesser penalty than death.
He was 46 and a recent parolee when Irby pulled over the heroin-toting Pontiac that he rode in, according to court records. He shot Irby, 37, in the head with a revolver as the officer spoke to the driver. He shot him again, twice, in the back after he collapsed to the ground.
Buntion fled the traffic stop, firing gunshots at the drivers who witnessed the attack near the Interstate 45 feeder road. One bystander used Irby’s radio to call for help. Authorities tracked Buntion to the nearby Pony Express warehouse, where he later surrendered.
The driver, John Killingsworth, was charged in connection to the drugs, rather than the fatal shooting.
Irby was an 18-year veteran of the Police Department. He left behind a wife, Maura, and two children, who were then 3 and 1 at the time of the shooting.
The officer’s widow told reporters that Irby often told her that he thought an on-duty traffic wreck would kill him, rather than being gunned down while writing a traffic ticket.
“I was never prepared for him to be shot down in cold blood,” Irby’s wife then said. “Jim told me he’d die on his bike. He’d never get shot.”
The fatal shooting came amid one of Houston’s deadliest years, when the homicide rate in 1990 peaked at 36 deaths of that nature for every 100,000 people in the city. The rate in 2021 ended at 20 deaths per 100,000.
Buntion’s original trial was moved out of Harris County to Fredericksburg. Years later, the death sentence in that trial was ruled unconstitutional because jurors were prohibited from hearing mitigating evidence, which would have provided reasons against a death sentence.
That sentence was vacated in 2009, but Buntion was sentenced to death again in a 2012 retrial.
A defense lawyer for Buntion could not be reached for comment. Their recent arguments against the death penalty contend that the jury in the Buntion retrial incorrectly predicted him to be a future danger to society and that his execution, at this point, would not serve a purpose due to how much time had passed since the conviction.
Years of unsuccessful legal efforts by Buntion to avoid the death penalty have failed, leaving little recourse for him to stop or delay the execution. His defense continued to fight the looming execution throughout the week, requesting oral arguments in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The documents stated Buntion had little to do with the delay in his execution.
“As a defendant’s time on death row lengthens, the justification for the imposition of the death penalty weakens,” his lawyers wrote.
The judges in fifth circuit ultimately sided Wednesday with the district court’s original judgement, that a stay be denied.
A recent move by Nueces County District Attorney Mark Gonzalez, a Democrat, showed how local jurisdictions can potentially stop the execution process but there are caveats which may not apply to Buntion. Gonzalez moved to withdraw the death warrant for the October execution of John Henry Ramirez, citing in court documents that he believes the death penalty to be “unethical and should not be imposed on Mr. Ramirez or any other person.”
Gonzalez went on to say the prosecutor overseeing the case moved for an execution date without consulting him first.
In Harris County, prosecutors recently sought an execution date for Arthur Brown Jr. from a judge, with plans to meet in May to have the death warrant signed.
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