Man who suffocated young Arlington pastor with a plastic bag is on execution schedule

A state district judge in Tarrant County has set an execution date for a man who during a robbery suffocated an Arlington pastor by placing a plastic bag over the victim’s head.

In granting a motion that was filed by the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, Judge Steven Jumes on June 10 ordered that the execution of Steven Nelson occur on Feb. 5. Jumes, who presides in the 485th District Court, also ordered the court’s clerk to issue a death warrant.

Nelson, 37, was in October 2012 convicted of capital murder in the suffocation killing of the pastor, Clinton Dobson, 28, in his office at NorthPointe Baptist Church in north Arlington while stealing a computer, credit cards and vehicle from Dobson and church secretary Judy Elliott.

Elliott was bludgeoned and survived.

In the minutes after the death penalty verdict was read on the record, Nelson, who lived in Arlington, broke a fire sprinkler in his holding cell and sent black water flooding into the courtroom.

Nelson was in Criminal District Court No. 4 convicted of capital murder in the death of Dobson, who on March 3, 2011, also was beaten and bound.

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Nelson was later accused of using a blanket to strangle a mentally ill inmate on their cellblock.

Jumes noted that it was evident that Nelson had exhausted his avenues for relief in state and federal courts.

The district attorney’s office motion requested that the execution be set on Oct. 24, Oct. 29 or Oct. 30.

In selecting a February execution date, Judge Jumes gave Nelson’s appellate defense attorneys time to develop arguments connected to the sentencing phase of the trial, according to one of the defense attorneys, Lee Kovarsky.

Bill Ray and Steve Gordon, the defense attorneys who at trial represented Nelson, urged jurors to hand down the alternative life without parole sentence and argued that Nelson was abandoned psychologically as a child. Nelson testified that two of the defendant’s friends killed Dobson while Nelson waited outside the church.

Nelson’s lover testified that the lover and Nelson went to a Dallas nightclub on the night after the killing. The jury also heard testimony from an acquaintance who said Nelson admitted killing Dobson.

Prosecutors Bob Gill and Page Simpson played for the jury surveillance video showing Nelson using Elliott’s credit cards at The Parks at Arlington mall to buy expensive Nike shoes and a bright green Oscar the Grouch T-shirt. He also purchased $400 in jewelry at the mall.

A man testified that Nelson sold him Dobson’s laptop for $150 the day of the killing and was driving a Mitsubishi Galant that matched the description of Elliott’s car that was stolen in the robbery.

Dobson’s DNA and Elliott’s DNA was found on Nelson’s shoes, and metal studs from Nelson’s belt were found at the crime scene.