ARLINGTON — Anti-death penalty activists gathered outside First Baptist Arlington Friday to ask the courts to halt the scheduled execution of Steven Lawayne Nelson, the man convicted of choking a pastor to death during a botched church robbery more than a decade ago.

Nelson, 37, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Feb. 5 in Huntsville. In 2012, a Tarrant County jury sentenced Nelson to death after convicting him in the death of the Rev. Clint Dobson, the 28-year-old pastor of NorthPointe Baptist Church, who was found bound, beaten and suffocated with a plastic bag in March 2011. .

In June, a judge signed a writ of execution for Nelson after determining he had likely exhausted his appeals. If carried out, Nelson’s execution would be the state’s first in 2025 and the first since another execution was postponed last month after a unprecedented legal maneuver by the parliamentarians of the Chamber.

Nelson, then 25, had planned to rob NorthPointe Baptist Church, which was affiliated with First Baptist Arlington. Dobson died, while the church’s administrative assistant was beaten but survived. Nelson was arrested four days later, and later admitted to taking the victims’ car keys and credit cards.

At trial, prosecutors described Nelson as violent. Tarrant County jailers testified that he was an unruly inmate. He was also charged in the death of a fellow inmate, though the case was dropped after he was sent to death row, court records show.

Speaking outside First Baptist Arlington, Nelson’s spiritual adviser and a California woman who had a relationship with Nelson during his incarceration said Nelson’s execution should be stayed, arguing he was unfairly portrayed as violent and irrecoverable at trial.

The woman suggested that two other men, not Nelson, were responsible for Dobson’s death — an argument Nelson’s attorney said planned to raise in court before the execution date of February 5. Nelson, who took the stand during the trial, testified that he was the security guard.

In April 2015, the Court of Criminal Appeals – the state’s highest criminal court – upheld Nelson’s conviction and death sentence. The US Supreme Court did not accept it. Subsequent pleas in federal court were also dismissed or not heard, court records show.

In an emailed statement Thursday, Tarrant County District Attorney Phil Sorrells, who did not prosecute the case but whose office sought to schedule the execution, said Nelson’s conviction was the result of “physical and circumstantial evidence overwhelming link to the crime”.

A First Baptist Arlington representative directed a reporter to contact the pastor’s office. A voice message left for the church Friday was not immediately returned.

Nelson’s partner says he should be spared

Two of Nelson’s attorneys spoke outside First Baptist Arlington on Friday.

Hélène Noa Dubois, a California resident who said she has communicated with Nelson for the past five years, said she believes he has made “tremendous progress” in prison. During the news conference, she said Nelson deserved the robbery sentence, but not the death penalty.

Dubois, 28, and Nelson plan to marry next month, she said. She became emotional at times as she spoke, questioning the evidence prosecutors used against Nelson at trial. She said Nelson’s alleged accomplices were not fully prosecuted.

“Our justice system should be about accountability and fairness. It’s meant to give people a chance to pay for their mistakes in a way commensurate with their actions,” Dubois said. “In Steven’s case, that just didn’t happen.”

A Tarrant County grand jury declined to indict one of the men who faced a capital murder charge alongside Nelson in 2011, records show.

In his statement, Sorrells, the district attorney, highlighted evidence found at the scene and discussed in the trial, including Nelson’s fingerprints, “distinctive decorative fragments” from a belt he was wearing when he was arrested and the blood of Dobson and the church secretary on shoes. .

The church secretary, then 67, was found beaten “within an inch of her life” by her husband, who did not recognize her, according to Sorrells’ statement.

Arkansas Reverend Criticizes Arlington Church

The Rev. Jeff Hood, a spiritual adviser to Nelson and an anti-death penalty activist based in Little Rock, Ark., also spoke at the news conference. He said he has attended eight executions in the US in the past two years.

Hood is not new to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He said he is best known for, among other causes, his role in the organization the July 7, 2016 Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Dallas that ended after a sniper fatally shot five police officers — the most number of US police officers killed in a single incident since 9/11.

He said Nelson’s death sentence should be reconsidered because it failed to take into account what he described as Nelson’s tough upbringing — echoing what his defense attorneys said at trial: Nelson was set on a violent path at a young age.

Also at trial, prosecutors argued that Nelson’s criminal history — he was on probation for aggravated assault and had been released from an anger management program just days before Dobson’s death — proved he was irredeemable.

Hood said he wanted to hold the news conference outside First Baptist Arlington after learning of a statement issued by the church’s senior pastor after a jury sentenced Nelson to death in 2012.

The statement, signed by Senior Pastor Dennis R. Wiles, described the verdict as something the two churches had prayed for and waited for. It marked the verdict and a milestone in their lives, but not the end of their memory for Dobson, the church secretary or their families.

“We can now say with confidence that justice has been done and we will support this court’s decision,” the statement said.

Hood said the death penalty should not be seen as pious.

“The message of the Gospel is that love can escape any atrocity. Love can explode through what happened to Clint Dobson, and love did,” Hood said. “If Steven is executed, he will have some wonderful people with him because love found a way. But they don’t have to die.”

Before their statements, Hood and Dubois expressed their sympathy to Dobson’s family and friends and the church secretary.

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