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| STAR-TELEGRAM/IAN McVEA |
Jayne Hawkins reads her victim impact statement after Patrick Murphy Jr. was sentenced to death in the murder of her son, Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins.
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DALLAS - Relatives of the Irving police officer murdered after a 2000 breakout from the Connally prison unit can pursue their lawsuit against the state prison system, a judge decided Thursday.
An attorney for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice promised to appeal the decision, but the ruling elated Jayne Hawkins, whose son, Aubrey, was killed on Christmas Eve 2000.
"It's like I have a license to start living again," she said.
During the Dec. 13, 2000, escape, seven inmates overpowered a group of prison workers, took their clothes and left the Connally Unit, near Kenedy in South Texas, with a state pickup and 16 guns from the prison armory.
The group went on to commit a string of robberies that ended with a holdup at an Irving sporting goods store. Aubrey Hawkins was shot 11 times with pistols and ammunition stolen from the prison.
All six surviving inmates have been sentenced to death; the sixth, Patrick Murphy, was sentenced Thursday.
"There are others who should be on trial today. Due to their negligence, the escape was allowed. They didn't pull the trigger, but they most certainly were partners to the crime," Jayne Hawkins said.
Aubrey Hawkins' relatives sued the state in August 2001, but state attorneys had asked a district court judge to throw out the wrongful death case because of laws exempting the state from liability.
Richard Mithoff, an attorney for the Hawkins family, disagreed.
"We believe the failure to secure the weapons was misuse and that it was foreseeable, if someone broke out, that a police officer would be killed," he said.
Carl Reynolds, general counsel for the prison system, said state officials "expressed our condolences. But we don't see the legal exposure."
The family is seeking monetary damages on behalf of Aubrey Hawkins' son, Andrew, who was 9 when his father was killed.
A state report after the escape said that prison workers made mistakes that allowed the breakout to occur.
For example, when the maintenance workers who were taken hostage triggered a fire alarm, no one investigated, the report says. And guards failed to properly identify the prisoners when they appeared at the back gate dressed as a maintenance crew. The guard in the back tower had left his pistol sitting on a table when the gang's ringleader, George Rivas, climbed into the tower.
Jayne Hawkins has testified before the state Legislature that low pay and inadequate training for guards contributed to the escape, as well as flaws in the state's system of classifying inmates.
All of the inmates who escaped were serving lengthy sentences for violent crimes, but they were allowed to work in the maintenance area, where they had access to tools and the prison pickup.
The Legislature increased pay for prison guards in 2001 and changed the classification system so that inmates serving long sentences cannot work in sensitive areas.
