Spring Break
Rivas given death penalty
Issue date: 8/30/01 Section: State/Local
DALLAS (AP) — George Rivas, the ringleader of the biggest prison escape in Texas history was sentenced to death Wednesday for killing a policeman, hours after he asked to be executed because he did not want to live like an animal in prison.
Rivas becomes the first of the South Texas prison escapees to be tried and sentenced for capital murder in the shooting death of Irving police Officer Aubrey Hawkins.
“What you call the death penalty, I call freedom,” Rivas said. “I can finally be free. I’m telling you right now I don’t want another life sentence.”
The jury deliberated less than two hours before returning the sentence.
After the jury’s verdict was read, Hawkins’ wife and mother told Rivas in court how he had destroyed their lives and that of Hawkins’ young son, Andrew. Both demanded he look directly at them.
“You sit there with no remorse on your face, and you make me sick,” said the officer’s sobbing wife, Lori Hawkins. “I will never forgive you. You will never take back what you’ve done to my life and Andrew’s. The day that you die I will be there to watch you die the way you watched Aubrey die.”
Jayne Hawkins told Rivas that nothing could have prepared her to hear that her son had been murdered.
“I could tell you what you have done will never go away. But without your heart to hear it, it will fall on deaf ears. You have no idea the fineness or quality of the man whose life you took,” she said.
“He’s not as good an actor as he thinks he is,” said a male juror who did not want to give his name. He said he did not believe Rivas’ claims of remorse.
“He and his buddies killed a cop. If you don’t pay the ultimate price for that, what do you pay the ultimate price for?” the man asked with tears in his eyes.
Rivas, who wore a dark suit during testimony Wednesday, left the courthouse soon after the sentencing in an unmarked car, wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. By 6 p.m., he was at the Byrd Unit, the reception center for prisoners entering the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
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