'Texas Seven' Leader Pleads

A state judge entered a plea of not guilty Monday for George Rivas, the first of six Texas prison escapees charged with the Christmas Eve slaying of a policeman during a massive manhunt last December, court officials said.

Rivas, the avowed ringleader of the prison gang that escaped in December and was captured in January in Colorado, declined through his lawyer to plead to the charge at the start of jury selection.

State district judge Molly Francis entered a plea of not guilty for Rivas after his lawyer responded, "My client stands mute," the court clerk said.

Rivas has claimed in a newspaper interview after the gang was captured that he fired the fatal shot at policeman Aubrey Hawkins, who died in a hail of bullets as he arrived at the sports store in response to an alarm call.

Rivas is due to go on trial August 13 after an unusually long jury selection process prompted by extensive media coverage about the escapees' flight and the ensuing manhunt, said to be the largest in the U.S. Southwest since bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were tracked across the region and gunned down in Louisiana in 1934.

The six men who broke out of Connally prison in south Texas could be executed for the death of policeman Hawkins, who surprised them during their robbery of a sporting goods store in Irving, a Dallas suburb.

A seventh escapee committed suicide rather than surrender.

Dallas sheriff's department spokesman Don Peritz said Rivas was taken to court for the start of jury selection under heightened security, including a so-called stun belt under Rivas' clothes designed to deliver a disabling electric shock if he struggled with police or fled.

"We have extended security precautions inside and outside the courtroom," Peritz said.

The judge said she would question a pool of over 450 potential jurors over the next four weeks, starting with questionnaires that include their familiarity with the case and views on the death penalty.

Rivas, 30, was serving multiple life sentences for armed obbery and kidnapping when he led six other convicts in an elaborate break-out.

The gang overpowered guards and fellow inmates in a maintenance area, then posed as maintenance workers to take control of the main guard tower and drive away in a prison truck.

The gang then laid low at a trailer park in Woodland Park, Colo., even attending Bible study meetings.

Police, acting on a tip, arrested four of the gang members — Rivas, Randy Halprin, Joseph Garcia and Michael Anthony Rodriguez &3151; on January 22. After a brief standoff with police, Larry Harper killed himself in their trailer.

Patrick Murphy Jr. and Donald Newbury were captured in Colorado Springs two days later.

The six survivors are all held in the Dallas County jail and face individual trials for Hawkins' death.

Hawkins was survived by a wife and 9-year-old son.

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