August 30 SOUTH CAROLINA: Jury selection begins in federal death penalty trial In Columbia, a man has been sentenced to death for the kidnapping and killing of Barry Donovan's wife. Now he is preparing for the trial of a second man accused in her murder. Jury selection began Monday in the federal death penalty trial of Branden Basham, who was accused - along with Chadrick Fulks - of carjacking Alice Donovan on Nov. 14, 2002 from the parking lot of a Conway store and killing her. Donovan's body hasn't been found. "The anxiety is less intense the 2nd time," Barry Donovan said. "But my desire to have this proceed is no less intense." Fulks pleaded guilty earlier this year and was sentenced to death June 30 after a month-long trial. Basham's case is the 2nd time federal prosecutors have tried a death penalty case in South Carolina. Prosecutors say the 2 men committed the murder after escaping from a Kentucky jail. Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Schools said selecting the jury could take a couple of weeks. He said even though prosecutors tried a similar case before, nothing gets easier. He said the trial may take 4 to 5 weeks. Basham's lawyers said evidence from Fulks' trial points to Fulks as the leader in the crimes they are accused of committing together. Barry Donovan said he is confident prosecutors can convince a jury to sentence Basham to death. "They will present the case just as it is and portray him just as he is," Donovan said. "I don't think a jury will ponder too long whether this man deserves to live." Donovan said he plans to attend the entire Basham trial because "they are equally important." "I want to let him know I'm there the whole time," Donovan said. Basham and Fulks "need to know how much they affected the lives of so many people." ****************************** Supreme Court overturns death sentence for killing of Goose Creek man The state Supreme Court on Monday ordered a new sentencing hearing for a man sentenced to death for killing an employee of a Goose Creek dry cleaner in 1990. The justices had upheld Herman Henry "Bud" Von Dohlen's conviction in 1996, despite saying police used reprehensible tactics in getting a confession. In his most recent appeal, Von Dohlen argued that his attorneys were ineffective because they failed to present evidence in the penalty phase of the trial that he suffered from severe, chronic depression when he killed 21-year-old Margaret McLean. The justices said in their ruling that the information could prompt the jury to recommend a sentence of life in prison rather than death. (source for both: Associated Press) GEORGIA: Death row escape plan foiled An escape plan by some inmates on Georgia's death row was foiled, state Department of Corrections officials said Monday. Prison system officials released few details of the escape plan, citing security concerns and an ongoing investigation of the incident at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson in Butts County. Scheree Lipscomb, spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Corrections, emphasized that authorities at Jackson were able to stop the escape plan on Friday before it was carried out. "At no time was inside or outside security threatened or breached," Lipscomb said Monday. Lipscomb would say only that the plan involved a physical breakout from the prison, as opposed to the use of trickery by inmates, such as changing out of their uniforms and slipping away from the grounds posing as employees or civilians. Georgia's death row at Jackson holds 112 men. Prison guards conduct random "shakedowns" - thorough searches - of 3 to 5 death row cells every day, Lipscomb said. Prison officials received "some intelligence" that some inmates were planning to escape, she said, but she would not identify the inmates or how many were involved in the plan. Corrections officers searched the inmates' cells Friday and found evidence of the planned escape, Lipscomb said. The department is investigating the incident, she said, and it is "too early to tell" whether any prison employees would be disciplined or if any departmental procedures were violated. No inmate has escaped from death row at the Jackson prison, Lipscomb said. In 1980, when death row was at the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville, 4 condemned inmates escaped. The men sawed their way through 3 sets of bars, climbed onto a fire escape and, dressed in homemade correctional officers' uniforms, fled the prison in an automobile belonging to one of their family members. 3 were caught in North Carolina after 2 days. The 4th was beaten to death in a bar dispute over a woman. (source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution) KANSAS: Local man investigates unusual hangings at state prison EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the last in a two-part series about an unusual double hanging at the Lansing state prison. This story focuses on the legal process leading to the executions and what is known about the actual hangings. Jerry Collins witnessed 4 legal hangings after he started work at Kansas State Penitentiary in the 1960s, but he was more intrigued by one that occurred in 1947. When 21-year-old George Gumtow and 22-year-old Cecil Tate were executed on July 29, 1947, it is believed to be the only time 2 prisoners were hanged back to back, simultaneously. Like a detective, Collins, who retired from Lansing Correctional Facility in 1997, has pieced much of their story together based on information from many sources. He has the notes of 2 older officers who witnessed the hangings and he's also talked to them many times. He's traveled to Kingman County, where the men were convicted for the death of a 60-year-old farmer and his 36-year-old son. There, he found legal documents, including their statements after their arrest, as well as newspaper accounts. Collins continues to discover facts about the 1947 hanging, sometimes quite by coincidence. He'd never known where the two prisoners were buried, though he knew it wasn't at Mount Muncie Cemetery or the prison cemetery, the most likely choices. COINCIDENCE One day he was eating lunch with another retired prison employee, and they were joined by Leavenworth resident Sam Dominguez, who knew his friend. In the course of the conversation, Dominguez announced he'd worked at Mount Calvary Cemetery that summer. Dominguez, an Immaculata High School student at the time, said he'd help dig the graves of two men hanged at the state prison. On a recent trip to the cemetery, Dominguez and Collins recounted that conversation. Dominguez remembered it was the "hottest day of the year" and cemetery superintendent Val Gabrish admonished him and his grave-digging partner to take plenty of salt tablets. When he saw the photograph Collins has of the prisoners' caskets, Dominguez recognized the shirt he'd taken off because of the heat, draped over a fence. When they visited the cemetery offices and found the men's names in the logbook, they were able to find the gravesites in what was known as the "single section" of Mount Calvary. Dominguez pointed out the unmarked gravesites. Collins said he plans to buy some markers for the 2 men. FUNERAL He discovered the Catholic priest at the prison, Father Delahunty, arranged for the 2 men to have a funeral in a Catholic church in Lansing. They also noticed that on the cemetery's logbook, the cause of both deaths is listed as "cervical fracture of the spine." Along the way, Collins discovered some peculiarities in the legal process that led to the deaths of the 2 men. For one thing, the Kingman newspaper account notes that the Kingman County attorney, John McKenna, was the brother-in-law of the older victim, W.W. McClellan. McKenna had argued that even though the killing of McClellan and his son, Arnold, had not been premeditated, the robbery was. Gumtow and Tate, drifters who met in Galveston, Texas, about 2 months before, had been hitchhiking when McClellan asked them to work at his farm. They worked the afternoon of May 10, a Saturday, and rested and hunted and fished at the McClellan property on Sunday. After working all day Monday, the 2 robbed the men's billfolds, which yielded $19.50, and ended up shooting them with guns McClellan owned. They were arrested in a Kingman hotel several hours after they ran from the scene of the crime. NO STAYS Newspaper accounts indicate Kansas Gov. Frank Carlson denied two stays of execution for the men, requested by the Texas governor. 2 brothers of Tate, both of whom lived in Texas, as well as an aunt who lived in New Mexico, requested the stays, but the executions were carried out only 58 days after the sentencing. Collins was surprised at how quickly the executions took place, because at least one other death row inmate -- George Miller -- housed in the Segregation & Isolation building at the penitentiary at the same time, was there much longer, having been granted a stay. According to the notes in the officers' diaries, the prison chaplain was concerned about the mental competency of the men and their understanding of their impending death. He reportedly described them as "subnormal in mentality" and recounted conversations he'd had with them the day before they were to be hanged. At that point, Gumtow was hoping to reunite with his estranged wife and Tate hoped to get a job on the prison farm to bolster his tan. EXECUTION ROOM Nonetheless, the 2 men were marched into the execution room shortly after midnight. The hangman, who was heavily guarded, entered a minute later. Tate stared at the 8 foot by 12-inch beam with the 2 nooses, while Gumtow stared at the floor, according to the notes. The warden, Robert Hudspeth, stepped in front of the 2 young men and asked if they had anything to say. Both shook their heads, then Tate, in a strong southern drawl, said, "I just want to shake you all's hands." While they shook the hands of the warden, deputy warden, a priest and three nearby officers, the warden reportedly looked up at the gallows. He screamed twice at an officer standing on the trap door, "Get off the trap!" WALKING THE STEPS According to the notes Collins has, the 2 men then walked up the 13 steps, accompanied by the chaplain. The 2 started shaking nervously, Tate squeezing his hands. "When Gumtow started to weave, a guard supported him." Though no decision had been made as to who would hang 1st as recently as an hour before the hanging, the warden apparently decided to let the 2 fall together. This surprised Collins, who said that hadn't been the case in at least 2 other double hangings, even though the men had requested it. DOUBLE HANGING "When the hangman pushed the lever, Gumtow fell a little faster through the trapdoor," Collins said. "They believe it was Tate whose chin hit the scaffold as he was falling. I heard that story a hundred times over the years. "Gumtow hung limp and Tate danced and jerked crazily for about a minute." One man wrote in the diaries that when the 2 fell, "It was a sound I'd never heard before and it knotted up my stomach." The diaries also indicated the warden had beaverboard set up around the bottom of the gallows to keep people from seeing the bodies at the end of rope. Once the physician pronounced them dead, he motioned for the coroner and the warden to look behind the beaverboard. "The warden ordered everyone out of the room," Collins said, and admonished them never to repeat what they'd seen in that room. "Obviously they did," Collins said, since he's heard it many times. But he took issue with a comment a witnessing officer reportedly made, that it was a "neat job." "There is nothing 'neat' about two human beings falling to their deaths under any circumstances," Collins said. (source: Leavenworth Times)
