June 22 NORTH CAROLINA: Prosecutors to seek the death penalty for UNCW student Prosecutors say they'll seek the death penalty for a 21-year-old UNC-Wilmington student accused of killing another student in his dorm room. Curtis Dixon is jailed without bond on charges of 1st-degree murder, 1st-degree rape, 1st-degree sexual offense and 1st-degree kidnapping in the death of Jessica Lee Faulkner. The body of the 18-year-old anthropology major was found May 5 in UNCW's Cornerstone Hall. Authorities say Faulkner had been beaten, raped and strangled. At a hearing on Monday in New Hanover County Superior Court, Assistant District Attorney Ben David said the murder had at least 2 aggravating factors that make considering the death penalty possible. Prosecutors also asked Judge Ernest Fullwood to require that schools Dixon attended release academic and other records about him. Dixon's lawyers objected, and Fullwood scheduled a hearing for this afternoon to hear arguments on the matter. (source: Associated Press) INDIANA: Death Row inmate insists he didn't kill couple----At clemency hearing, Darnell Williams says he blacked out before 1986 slayings in Gary. A death row inmate scheduled to be executed next month told the Indiana Parole Board he couldn't have killed a Gary couple because he was drunk and had blacked out before the slayings. At a clemency hearing before the Parole Board on Monday, Darnell Williams said "these hands are not bloody" in the deaths of John and Henrietta Rease. Attorneys for Williams are asking Gov. Joe Kernan to commute his death sentence to life in prison or a term of years. A spokesman for Kernan said the governor will not make a decision before receiving a recommendation from the Parole Board. The board will hold a public hearing June 28 in Indianapolis and will vote the next day on whether to recommend clemency. Williams faces execution on July 9 for the killings, which took place 18 years ago. Williams and Gregory Rouster were convicted in the August 1986 murder of the Reases, who were Rouster's foster parents. Williams, now 37, was three days from execution last summer when then-Gov. Frank O'Bannon granted him a reprieve to allow for DNA testing. At Monday's hearing, members of the Parole Board pressed Williams for details of what happened the night of the shootings. Williams acknowledged he followed Rouster and some acquaintances to the victims' home the night of the killing. Williams said the group had been drinking and smoking marijuana. He said he was so drunk that he was stumbling and slurring his speech before passing out. Williams said he regained consciousness after he was arrested and learned of the murders from a police officer. "I was confused. I was like, 'How?' " he said. "I have tried to sort out what happened. I didn't go there for conflict or violence. I have no memory of (the Reases) still." Police found Williams shortly after the killings near a bridge. He had $232 and a .30-caliber bullet in his pockets. Williams told the Parole Board the money did not come from the Reases and the bullet was given to him by a friend as a keepsake. The bullet did not match those in the guns used to kill the Reases, said Juliet Yackel, Williams' attorney. Investigators found the guns, but they did not have Williams' fingerprints on them, she also said. Williams' case has drawn national attention because several of the people who helped put him on death row now say his life should be spared. The prosecutor, four of the 12 jurors and a magistrate who presided over the case all say his sentence should be commuted. The Illinois-based Center on Wrongful Convictions last week released a sworn statement from Edwin Taylor in which he says he lied in testimony he gave during the sentencing hearing for Williams. Taylor, another foster child of the Reases, was accused in the killings, but the charges were dropped when he agreed to testify for the prosecution. He testified that Williams aimed a gun at him before the Reases were killed. Taylor, who is in prison in Michigan for an unrelated case, now says Williams was too drunk to carry out the slayings. Attorneys for Williams have tried to use the DNA tests to show that blood found on Williams' clothing did not come from the victims. The lawyers argue that the DNA evidence indicates Williams left the house before the shootings. But the Indiana Supreme Court ruled last month that the DNA evidence was inconclusive and not enough to overturn Williams' conviction. The court and the state attorney general's office both said there is plenty of other evidence linking Williams to the crime. Under Indiana law, anyone who takes part in a crime that leads to a death can be held responsible for the murder. Three other people, including Rouster, who were accused of helping Williams carry out the murders have avoided the death penalty. Rouster, 36, now known as Gamba Rastafari, had his death sentence commuted to life in prison. A judge ruled that he is ineligible for the death penalty because he is retarded. 3 of Williams' relatives attended the clemency hearing. His mother, Shirley Williams, said she's trying to be positive. "We want the governor to do the right thing," she said. (source: Associated Press) ******************** Remove all doubt before execution The issue: Death sentence Our opinion: A new trial is warranted. Putting Darnell Williams to death without erasing all doubts would be an injustice that cannot be corrected. The doubts keep piling up in the Darnell Williams case, so much so that he should not be executed July 9. He should be removed from death row and be given a new trial. Williams is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection after being convicted of killing a Gary couple in 1986. He originally was scheduled for the ultimate, irreversible sentence on Aug. 1 of last year, but then-Gov Frank O'Bannon granted a stay of execution so sophisticated DNA testing not available at the time of his trial could be conducted on 2 blood spots on the shorts he was wearing the night of the murders. Those tests showed that neither of the blood spots matched murder victim Henrietta Rease. One failed to match victim John Rease, and the other was inconclusive. Other doubts: * The prosecutor at the time, Thomas Vanes, now a Merrillville defense attorney, and several jurors now believe Williams should not die. * Derrick Bryant, who was in the house at the time of the killings and who initially accused Williams, gave officials at a psychiatric facility the name of the real killer. Williams' defense team said that information was kept under wraps until recently. * Another man at the murder scene, Edwin Taylor, recanted earlier testimony about Williams' involvement. Williams pleaded his case Monday before the Indiana Parole Board, which was told he met only twice with his defense attorney before the trial, which calls into question the quality of his representation. The parole board has more than enough evidence to be convinced of the reasonable doubt of his role in the murders. After a public hearing Monday, the parole board will meet June 29 to decide whether to take Williams off death row and keep him in prison for life. The board's decision is not binding. Gov. Joe Kernan has the final say. Even if the parole board decides against clemency, Kernan should do the right thing and take Williams off death row. This should not be construed as being soft of crime. This should be seen as a decision that is morally correct. Then the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, which has exonerated prisoners on death row in Illinois and was instrumental in getting then-Gov. George Ryan to declare a moratorium on executions, should continue its efforts on behalf of a new trial for Williams. The way the evidence is mounting, a new trial is warranted. Putting Williams to death without erasing all doubts would be an injustice that cannot be corrected. Your opinion, please Should the Indiana Parole Board recommend clemency for Darnell Williams? Share your thoughts at http://www.nwitimes.com/youropinion. (source: Opinion, Munster Times) FLORIDA: Family's pleas not enough for jury to spare killer death penalty Jurors rejected the notion Monday that Richard Johnson should be spared the death penalty because of an abusive childhood, voting 11-1 to recommend death for the troubled boy who grew into a killer. Johnson, 26, of Port St. Lucie, leaned back in his chair and lowered his head as the death recommendation was announced, hours after weeping at the testimony of his mother and siblings. 2 rows behind him, Sandy Johnson sobbed for her youngest son, a boy she and others testified had been beaten, sexually abused and ridiculed by relatives and others as a child. Defense attorney Robert Stone said the evidence against Johnson, convicted of strangling a single mother of 3 and tying her lifeless body to cinder blocks before dumping it into a canal, was too great to persuade jurors to recommend life in prison. Circuit Judge Burton Conner will give the jury's recommendation "great weight" when sentencing Johnson Aug. 9. Johnson "was kind of expecting" a death recommendation, Stone said. "The testimony of his best friend, and the photos, were difficult to overcome." Family members of Tammy Mari Hagin were not pushing for the death penalty but believe it signifies justice for Hagin. "I think it's a huge victory for Tammy, and I hope people will think twice before they take the life of anyone ever again," said Tina Garber, Hagin's sister. Assistant State Attorney Rick Seymour said despite Johnson's hopeless childhood, jurors correctly decided he must take responsibility for his torturous actions of Feb. 15, 2001. "You can't blame what he did on his parents," Seymour said. "3 other children grew up in that same household and they're law-abiding, responsible people with stable jobs and families." If Conner follows the jury's recommendation, Johnson's conviction and death sentence automatically will be appealed to the Florida Supreme Court. Throughout the day Monday, jurors listened as Johnson's mother, sister and brother recounted his sordid past and how he sometimes fell asleep in class, awakening to nightmares that haunted him at home as well. "He would holler, 'Don't make me watch! Stop it! It hurts!' " and he would look straight at me and yell, 'I want my mother,'" Sandy Johnson told jurors. She said Johnson's father, David Roger Johnson Sr., suffered psychological damage after serving in the Vietnam War and frequently smacked or whipped their children with tree branches, sometimes awakening them late at night to warn them about enemies and once ordering the children to "shoot Mommy." Richard Johnson's sister, Danielle Blount, said she and her younger brother suffered the worst abuse in the family because her older brothers went to work with their father occasionally while she and Johnson had to stay with at their grandmother's house, where an uncle and cousin molested Johnson. The uncle threw Johnson into a tub of icy water when the youngster, then 3 or 4, was hungry and took an apple pie from the freezer, Blount said. Johnson wiped tears during much of his family's testimony, scribbling a letter to jurors in which he apologized for causing Hagin's family so much pain. "I wake up to an endless nightmare that never seems to go away," Johnson wrote in the letter, which was read by defense attorney Tom Garland. "To Tammy's brother, I know my life is not worth much to you, but for what it is worth, take it. I give it to you." Hagin's brother, Anthony Carrick, left her at Johnson's Port St. Lucie home on Valentine's Day 2001 after Johnson promised to get Hagin home safely the next day, Carrick testified. Hagin's mother, Phyllis Brown, said her daughter's main concern was her three children, a fact Seymour reiterated in closing arguments during Monday's death penalty hearing. "The last thing Tammy Hagin said was, 'I want my children,'" Seymour said, recounting testimony by codefendant John Vitale, who pleaded no contest to accessory charges in the case. "She knew she was being murdered. She was conscious for 15 to 30 seconds" after Johnson began strangling her, Seymour said. (source: Palm Beach Post)
