Nugent Family Opposes Bernie Tiede’s Release
Chuck Lindell
Published 12:01 a.m. CT June 19, 2014 | Updated 5:02 a.m. CT Sept. 27, 2018
The family of Marjorie Nugent, whose 1996 murder was recounted in the movie “Bernie,” has asked the state’s highest criminal court for permission to speak on the victim’s behalf.
The Court of Criminal Appeals will decide whether to toss out the life sentence for Nugent’s friend, Bernie Tiede, who shot the 81-year-old widow to death in the garage of her Carthage home, then hid the body in Nugent’s freezer for nine months.
Tiede is free on bond, and living in the Austin garage apartment of “Bernie” director Richard Linklater, while the court decides whether to grant him a new sentencing trial.
Five members of Nugent’s family — her son and four grandchildren — asked the court for permission to file an amicus brief, arguing that the man who prosecuted Tiede, Panola County Criminal District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson, favors a new, lighter sentence.
“Someone should speak for his elderly victim if the state will not,” the Nugent family said.
“At minimum, this court should have the benefit of hearing both sides of the argument concerning Tiede’s petition,” the family brief said. “Marjorie Nugent and the citizens of Texas deserve better than to have a confessed murderer set free without anyone even articulating to this court the reasons why that might not be appropriate.”
Davidson has said his decision to seek a lighter sentence was prompted by recently discovered evidence that Tiede was the victim of a sexual predator — an uncle who abused him for six years starting around age 12.
The abuse had a devastating effect on Tiede’s life, reducing his culpability for Nugent’s death, according to psychiatrists who recently examined him.
In a May 6 hearing before visiting Judge Diane DeVasto, Davidson said he would have sought no more than a 20-year sentence — instead of a life term — had he known about the sexual abuse.
Saying it was the duty of prosecutors “not to convict, but to see that justice is done,” Davidson announced that he and defense lawyers had agreed to seek a new punishment trial for Tiede, during which the prosecution would request a sentence of time served — 17 years.
DeVasto agreed to recommend that the Court of Criminal Appeals grant Tiede a new sentencing hearing and allowed Tiede to go free on bond.
His case arrived at the court June 11.
In this week’s motion to the court, Nugent’s family argued that Tiede’s request should fail because new evidence of abuse does not meet the legal criteria necessary to grant a new trial.
Their brief also argued that the court’s nine judges could benefit from hearing the victim’s side.
“No one can be harmed by permitting presentation of countervailing arguments. To the contrary, adversarial presentation of the merits would serve the ends of justice,” the Nugent brief said.
Read it at the Austin American-Statesman here.
