June 29 TEXAS----impending execution On Wednesday, David Ray Harris, 43, faces execution for breaking into a Beaumont apartment in 1985 and killing a man after trying to abduct the victim's girlfriend. Harris, who also had an appeal pending that sought to block his punishment, gained notoriety for the November 1976 slaying of a Dallas police officer that put another man, Randall Dale Adams, on death row. (source: Dallas Morning News) VIRGINIA----impending execution Va. Inmate Killer Scheduled to Be Executed Barring intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court, a self-described high priest of a pagan religion will be executed Thursday for fatally stabbing a fellow inmate. Michael W. Lenz, 40, was sentenced to die for plunging a homemade knife into Brent Parker 68 times 4 years ago at the Augusta Correctional Center. He was scheduled to be put to death by injection at 9 p.m. Thursday at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. Condemned inmates are given a choice of lethal injection or electrocution. Lenz did not make a choice, meaning the default method of injection as prescribed by law will be used, said state Department of Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor. Lenz has an appeal pending before the Supreme Court. He had not filed a clemency request with Gov. Mark R. Warner, said Warner spokesman Kevin Hall. Lenz declined a telephone interview from the Greensville prison, where he was being held a few feet from the execution chamber that houses the electric chair and the gurney used for lethal injections. Lenz argued at his July 2000 trial that he feared Parker and killed him in self-defense. Lenz, then serving a 7-year sentence for a string of burglaries in Prince William County, said he was the high priest of a Nordic cult called Asatru. Parker was trying to bully him out of the cult, Lenz testified. Lenz also said he was "protecting the honor" of Nordic gods by killing Parker. Lenz and friend Jeffrey Remington attacked Parker during an Asatru ceremony while surrounded by witnesses. Remington committed suicide Feb. 23 by hanging himself with a bed sheet on death row. Lenz's execution would be the 3rd in Virginia this year and the 92nd since the state resumed executions in 1982 following a 20-year hiatus. Only Texas has executed more. (source: Associated Press) GEORGIA----impending execution Clemency Denied for Ga. Death Row Inmate Georgia's parole board denied clemency Monday for a death row inmate who argued that the prosecutor improperly suggested at trial that the Ten Commandments do not recognize insanity as a defense for murder. Parole board spokeswoman Heather Hedrick said the defense arguments were not compelling enough to stop the execution of Robert Karl Hicks, 47. Barring any successful last-minute appeals, Hicks will be put to death Wednesday for killing 28-year-old Toni Strickland Rivers in 1985. At trial, Hicks had pleaded insanity, and a defense psychiatrist testified that Hicks had a disorder that rendered him unable to control his impulses. In asking for clemency or at least a 90-day stay, Hicks' lawyers said jurors followed the prosecutor's instructions to apply divine law, and spent the early part of their deliberations in group prayer. The defense lawyers said prosecutor David Fowler told jurors that the Ten Commandments make no provision for mental illness. "Does it say, 'Thou shalt not kill, and be held accountable only if you know what you're doing?' No, it doesn't say that," the lawyers quoted the prosecutor as saying. Fowler dismissed the defense arguments. "Obviously, when people are in desperate straits, they take desperate measures," he said. Defense lawyers August Siemon and Robert McGlasson did not return several phone calls seeking comment on the parole board decision. The execution would be Georgia's 1st this year and 35th since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. ***************** Death row inmate to be executed Wednesday A death row inmate convicted of murder will be killed Wednesday, the first execution in Georgia this year. Robert Karl Hicks, 47, will be put to death by injection at the state prison in Jackson for stabbing to death 28-year-old Toni Strickland Rivers in 1985. Hicks' attorneys, pleading for clemency or at least a 90-day stay, unsuccessfully argued Monday that the prosecutors who convicted Hicks urged jurors to follow divine law. Parole board spokeswoman Heather Hedrick said the defense arguments were not compelling enough to stop Hicks' execution. Hicks had used an insanity defense at his trial, and his lawyers said prosecutor David Fowler told jurors the Ten Commandments made no provision for mental illness. Fowler dismissed the charges, saying when "people are in desperate straits, they take desperate measures." Authorities say Hicks stabbed Rivers 8 times with a pocket knife, slit her throat and left her body - nude from the waist down - in a field near Griffin, 35 miles south of Atlanta. Police say Hicks, who did not know the woman, had followed her from a rural grocery where she was using a pay phone. Hicks was visited Tuesday by several family members and his attorneys, said corrections spokeswoman Peggy Chapman. She said jail officials noticed no significant changes in his personality. Hicks will see visitors Wednesday morning before his 7 p.m. execution, Chapman said. (source for both: Associated Press) OHIO: Dismissal casts doubt on death row case [Coming Sunday---The News Journal will take a closer look Sunday at the case of John Spirko. Spirko was convicted of the August 1982 kidnapping and murder of postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger in the tiny farming village of Elgin, just east of the Indiana border in Van Wert County. The case ended with Spirko's conviction and a warrant for capital murder against his former cellmate, Delaney Gibson. Spirko contacted authorities claiming he had information about the crime in exchange for a ticket into the federal witness protection program and freedom for a girlfriend charged with smuggling him hacksaw blades into the county jail. New questions have been raised by the decision to dismiss the capital murder charges against Gibson, paroled from a Kentucky prison in 2001 after serving a 15-year sentence for an unrelated murder.] A Kentucky man paroled for murder in 2001 will not face the death penalty in Ohio for the 1982 kidnapping and murder of a village postmistress for which his alleged accomplice sits on death row. Van Wert County Prosecutor Charles Kennedy's has dismissed the case against Delaney Gibson for the murder of Elgin postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger. It is the latest in a long stream of legal maneuvers that have frustrated Mottinger's daughter and son-in-law, Kay and Tom Varley of Bellville. "We're pretty tough people," Tom told the News Journal in September 2002. "Kay doesn't cry often. But when we think about what's been going on for the past 20 years, it makes us angry." They could not be reached for comment Monday. John G. Spirko Jr., 58, was convicted in 1984 and sits on death row as an accomplice to the crime based on statements he made to investigators and eyewitness accounts that plac- ed both men at the crime scene. But dismissing the case against Gibson calls into question the primary eyewitness account and dismissing a capital murder charge is almost unheard of, according to Spirko's attorney, Thomas Hill, of Washington, D.C., and Ohio Public Defender David Bodiker. "I've never come across a capital case that was nulled," Bodiker said. "Not where one of the guys went to trial and was convicted. They couldn't make the case and that poses a real interesting situation for Spirko because they identified Gibson as the accomplice." On Aug. 9, 1982, Mottinger was kidnapped from her post office in the farming village of Elgin just miles from the Indiana boarder. Her body was found in September 1982, in a field near Findlay. Gibson's dismissal comes after Spirko's 10-year legal battle to obtain the investigative record from federal postal authorities, which contained photos of a bearded Gibson in North Carolina 12 hours before the crime in Elgin, 550 miles away. The information calls into question an elderly woman's testimony that she was "100 percent" sure she saw Gibson at the scene because she was shown an old mugshot of Gibson without a beard and never met him at trial. A hypnotized truck driver said he was "70 percent sure" Spirko was there, but the only remaining evidence against Spirko are the stories, mostly false, that he told investigators while trying to work a deal. "While he was on parole, he got into a barroom brawl and was arrested, along with his girlfriend," said Spirko's pastor, David VanDyke, 44, of Columbus. "John was going to try to cut a deal and be a hero and get his girlfriend out of prison. He read the stories in the newspaper and said he had knowledge to trade. No one is claiming that John is a bright guy." While the photos do not conclusively prove Gibson did not shave his beard and drive 550 miles through the night to the scene of the crime, the eyewitness has since died and prosecutor Kennedy said trying Gibson would be problematic. "After 20 years it would be extremely difficult to prosecute," Kennedy told the News Journal on June 2. He said he could not recall when he had nulled the case; court records indicate it was May 17, the day one of Spirko's last available federal appeals was denied in a 2-1 decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The case docket indicates the murder warrant was recalled the day Kennedy was contacted. Both Kennedy and former prosecutor Steve Keister said there was no reason to try Gibson at the time Spirko was tried, because Gibson was serving a 20 to life sentence in Kentucky. Kentucky Department of Corrections spokeswoman Lisa Lamb said Gibson served about 15 years on a 20 to life sentence for murder before being par- oled in 1998. He returned a year later as a parole violator and was released again June 28, 2001, where he remains on parole. Spirko's attorneys have requested a full hearing before the 6th Circuit court, but are running out of options before a final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. "John Spirko lied. But lying is not a capital offense," Judge Ronald Lee Gilman wrote in a dissenting opinion that left the door open for Spirko to petition the full court for a hearing. "And while the record leaves no doubt about Spirko's falsifications, it leaves me with considerable doubt as to whether he has been lawfully subjected to the death penalty." Spirko claimed at trial he made up the story based on information from Gibson and others. The Ohio Attorney General's office contends evidence of Gibson being in North Carolina negates Spirko's defense about how he learned undisclosed details about the crime. Hill contends Spirko was convicted based on false information as investigators became desperate to solve the high-profile crime. "It's just not right," Hill said. "You take your best shot, but you don't make things up." Kennedy said Spirko should serve the sentence imposed by a jury. "If he was found guilty and sentenced to death, he deserves to die," Kennedy said. "It's that simple." (source: Mansfield News Journal)
