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Footage from comedian Jeff Ross' 2015 roast of Texas inmates has been used to sentence Gabriel Paul Hall to death. However, the convict's lawyers are arguing that it has been misused against him as evidence during his trial.
While filming Comedy Central's Jeff Ross Roasts Criminals: Live at Brazos County Jail, the 57-year-old personality interviewed convicted murderer Gabriel Hall, along with several other prisoners.
Hall was arrested in 2015 for the murder of retired college professor Edwin Shaar, Jr., and for brutally stabbing his disabled wife, Linda, (who survived) in 2011. At the time, Gabriel was an 18-year-old student at A&M Consolidated High School. He confessed to the crime and was sentenced to death by a Texas state court.
Gabriel Hall's defense attorneys are filing a petition to the Supreme Court arguing that before sentencing him with the death penalty, jurors were shown the clip from Jeff Ross' 2015 roast, violating Gabriel Hall's sixth amendment right to an impartial jury.
Gabriel Paul Hall has been a Texas death row inmate since 2015
Born on February 18, 1993, Gabriel Paul Hall is a native of Cebu City, Philippines, and used to live in the Children’s Shelter of Cebu until the age of six. He was adopted by Wes Hall and Karen Kruse Hall at the age of 11. Prior to that, his original family name was Espinosa-Cañada.
Wes happens to be a Brazos County justice of the peace and a former attorney, while Karen used to head the Central Texas Orphan Mission. They also adopted Gabriel's biological sister, Eralyn. According to Everybody Wiki, Gabriel's biological father, who resides in the Philippines, is also a convicted murderer.
As mentioned earlier, Hall was convicted in 2015 for the 2011 murder of Edwin Shaar, Jr., and the attempted murder of his wife. Following this, in December 2011, a grand jury indicted him for capital murder.
Hall was aided by the Filipino American Legal Defense and Education Fund (FALDEF) in his legal proceedings of the murder trial, which was scheduled for October 2013. Despite multiple efforts by his lawyers, he was convicted and sentenced to death. Since 2015, Hall has been a Texas death row inmate at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit.
Twitter shows mixed reactions to Jeff Ross' video used against Gabriel Hall
On December 28, Hall's defense attorney McKenzie Edwards took to her Twitter handle to announce a petition filed in the Supreme Court to review the "constitutionality" of the convict.
Several Twitter users reacted to the situation, with some siding with Hall, while others blamed Jeff for interacting with the convict and making him suffer the death sentence.
Jeff Ross' interaction with Gabriel Hall has been used against the latter
In 2015, Jeff Ross visited Brazos County Jail in Texas to film some footage for a Comedy Central special. The shooting went on for three days, where Ross interacted with people behind bars. The comedian explained he was visiting the jail because he believed in giving people second chances and to see if the inmates had jokes about their circumstances.
One of the inmates that Jeff Ross interviewed was Gabriel Hall, who at the time was awaiting trial for a murder committed in 2011. The interaction between the two did not make it to the final cut. However, prosecutors subpoenaed Comedy Central and obtained footage of the interaction between the two, and showed it to the jury at the time of Hall's trial.
As per the court documents, the clip showed Ross and Hall talking, with the latter making a racist joke and asking:
“What are you in for? Hacking somebody’s computer?”
Hall said, "Something like that," before another inmate remarked, "hacking being the operative word." Gabriel then jokingly responded that he took a machete to someone's screen.
When Jeff Ross called it "scary," Hall responded that he "wouldn't hurt a fly." When the comedian asked, "What about a human?" Hall said:
“Ah, they’re annoying.”
The prosecutors in the case used the video to claim that Hall had no remorse for his actions even after four years of committing them.
In 2019, Hall's attorneys argued that the footage had been used improperly and that it violated the convict's sixth amendment rights since he was not supposed to talk to anyone without his lawyers present. They also stated that the interaction between Ross and Hall resulted in a misinterpreted portrayal of the latter since he was joking with the former. However, the appeal was denied.
The Supreme Court has scheduled the criminal appeal for Gabriel Hall at a conference on January 6, 2023.
