Feb. 28 GEORGIA----impending execution Death row inmate says clemency bid tainted by tattoo claim Lawyers for a man who killed a pizza shop manager during a 3-week crime spree say their client should not be executed because the parole board that denied him clemency relied on unsubstantiated claims about a tattoo. Barring a successful last-minute appeal, Stephen A. Mobley, 39, will be executed by lethal injection Tuesday for the Feb. 17, 1991, murder of John Collins, 24, during a robbery at a Domino's Pizza in northeast Georgia. It would be Georgia's 2nd execution this year. Mobley's lawyers argue in a petition filed Monday that the parole board, which denied clemency following a closed-door hearing on Friday, relied on claims that while in jail Mobley tattooed his back with the word "Domino," hung a Domino's Pizza box in his cell and sexually assaulted another inmate. The lawyers say there is no evidence of such a tattoo, the pizza box was hung only to cover a vent and no charges have ever been filed regarding the alleged assault. They also say that suggestions Mobley has since covered up the tattoo with another tattoo amount to "wild speculation." Court records say evidence presented during Mobley's sentencing hearing included testimony that he did tattoo the word "Domino" on his shoulder, sexually assaulted another inmate on two occasions while in pretrial detention and threatened a guard by saying he "looked more and more like a Domino's delivery boy every day." Prison records indicate that Mobley has several tattoos, but give no description. As to Mobley's alleged comments, defense lawyer Michael Bowers said in a telephone interview that the issue is not what Mobley may or may not have said but rather the fact it was never proven in court. "The question is basically this, is the state of Georgia going to execute someone rather than grant clemency largely based on rumor?" Bowers said. The petition argued that the "consideration of and reliance on untruthful and physically unsupported rumors" by the parole board violated Mobley's due process rights. The petition to the Georgia Supreme Court asks that a stay of execution be granted to allow time for a new clemency hearing to be held. The court was not expected to rule on the petition before Tuesday. Parole board spokeswoman Kim Patton-Johnson said she could not comment on what factors the board considered in making its decision to deny clemency. "We'll just have to wait and see what the court says about this petition," she said. "We just assume that everything is going to go off as planned until we hear otherwise." Mobley's lawyers say the victim's family, the prosecutor who tried the case and six of the 10 jurors who convicted him at trial would have favored a sentence of life without parole for Mobley if it had been an option in 1991. Two years after Mobley's trial, the state Legislature passed a law allowing the sentencing option of life in prison without parole instead of just the death penalty in the most heinous murder cases. The victim's mother declined through a prison spokeswoman to comment Monday. Mobley was convicted of murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault and firearm possession in the death of Collins at a Domino's Pizza in Oakwood, 45 miles northeast of Atlanta. After emptying the cash register and shooting Collins in the head, Mobley committed 6 additional armed robberies at restaurants and dry cleaners over a 3-week period, court records say. He was arrested following a high-speed chase as he fled the scene of an attempted armed robbery, and the gun used in the murder was found along the roadway, court records say. Prior to the murder, Mobley had been convicted of at least 7 other crimes, including credit card theft and burglary, that were committed between 1983 and 1986, prison records show. (source: Associated Press) OHIO----stay of impending execution Federal judge halts Ohio's scheduled March 8 prisoner execution In Cincinnati, a federal judge on Monday halted the March 8 execution of a prisoner who claims an abnormality in his brain may have affected his behavior when he raped and killed a woman in 1987. U.S. District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel said the claim of the prisoner, William H. Smith, should be investigated. Defense lawyers urged the judge last week to spare Smith's life. A CT scan revealed an abnormality in a part of Smith's brain that can affect behavior, defense lawyer Jennifer Kinsley said. The scan was performed Dec. 29 at Mansfield General Hospital after Smith complained of feeling ill. Kinsley argued that the stay was necessary to allow time for a more precise magnetic resonance imaging scan. Lawyers from Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro's office will ask the judge to lift the stay, said Kim Norris, a spokeswoman for Petro. The judge stopped the execution before he could see the results of an MRI taken Friday at the Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus, Norris said. Norris declined to discuss what the MRI showed. Kinsley said she had received a one-page summary from the hospital of the MRI test. She said, however, that she would not comment on the results until after she receives film from the test. Smith, 47, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection for the murder, rape and robbery of Mary Bradford. Police said Bradford, 47, had been raped and two televisions and stereo equipment were taken from her Cincinnati apartment. Smith was convicted of aggravated murder, rape and aggravated robbery. The Ohio Parole Board on Feb. 15 voted 8-0 to recommend denial of Smith's request for clemency. Gov. Bob Taft has not yet ruled on the board's recommendation. (source: Beacon Journal) *********************** Death Row Inmates Attempt to Escape A new report says 2 convicted killers who tried to escape from Ohio's death row hid a home-made ladder under a pile of snow in an outdoor recreation area. The report released by the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction blames the escape attempt on complacency and gross deficiencies by prison staff. The report says condemned inmates Richard Cooey and Maxwell White made the 13 and a half foot ladder from blankets. The report says the 2 inmates also were wearing extra clothes and were carrying food, water, matches and a home-made tool to break through fences. The DRC report says the escape attempt happened even though the prison's security chief had been tipped ahead of time by an informant. (source: Fox19 News) ******************** Murder conviction questioned Sentenced to death following his 1985 murder conviction for stomping a bartender to death during a robbery, a 2004 court decision could not only save Derrick Jamison from his date with death but also could lead to Jamison being acquitted. Jamison, 44, was convicted and sentenced to death for stomping Gary Mitchell to death as Jamison and Charles Howell robbed the Central Bar downtown on Aug. 1, 1984. On Death Row for 17 years, Jamison was granted a new trial in 2002 when a court ruled Jamison didn't get a fair trial because police didn't provide Jamison's lawyers with evidence that could have exonerated him. Now, as Jamison's retrial is scheduled to begin Wednesday, the passage of time and a law change have forced Hamilton County assistant prosecutor Mark Piepmeier to find Howell or likely face having no witnesses who can testify they saw Jamison kill and rob Mitchell. "A lot of witnesses in this case are already deceased or don't have very good recollections," said Elizabeth Agar, one of Jamison's defense attorneys. In the past, that wasn't a problem because courts often allowed testimony from the 1st trial -- even if it was just the reading of the transcript of testimony given at that trial -- in the 2nd trial. But in Jamison's trial, that likely won't be the case for 2 reasons: - Police didn't provide information to prosecutors in the 1985 trial -- and thus it wasn't given to Jamison's attorneys -- that could have helped Jamison in his defense. It wasn't discovered until after Jamison had served 10 years of his sentence that police talked to witnesses who gave physical descriptions of the killer that contradicted Howell's testimony that Jamison killed the bartender. In fact, the descriptions of the killer given by those witnesses sounded like they fit Howell, 44. Howell's dramatic testimony -- that Jamison stomped Mitchell to death as Mitchell begged for his life -- was prosecutors' key evidence that helped win the capital conviction. Those witnesses not known to the attorneys, Agar said, include one who told police he saw someone who looked like Howell pushing his way out of the bar at the time of the killing and carrying a metal pipe. She argued that the bartender's fatal head injuries more likely could have been caused by blows from a hard metal pipe rather than kicks from Jamison's soft gym shoes. - A 2004 U.S. Supreme Court ruling eliminated many exceptions to the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses. That means trouble for prosecutors because the witness who testified at the 1st trial he saw Jamison stomp Mitchell to death was Howell, convicted with Jamison of robbing the bar. Already having completed his prison sentence for that conviction, Howell was found last year only when Piepmeier literally ran him down, chasing him down a Cincinnati street. Now, though, Howell has disappeared. "He doesn't want to be found," Piepmeier said. "I would think it would be rather difficult without (Howell)," Agar said, "because he was the one who identified (Jamison) as the killer." Without Howell, prosecutors likely won't be able to substitute the real Howell for transcripts of his testimony from the 1985 case. That's because last year's Supreme Court ruling found that Jamison has the right to face and "substantially" cross-examine witnesses. Attorneys can't cross-examine a transcript on evidence that wasn't presented in the 1st trial about the other possible suspects, Agar noted. Even if Jamison is acquitted of the murder charge, he won't be freed from prison. Because of his numerous convictions for his role in the "downtown robberies," the 44-year-old still has more than 65 years to serve on the robbery convictions. That makes Agar question why this death-penalty trial is even happening. "We have raised that question ourselves," she said. "The question is how much of a return there would be given the situation. "The difference will be where he sits (in prison), what cell he's going to be in." The difference is greater than that to Piepmeier. "You just hate to give a guy a free pass on a murder," Piepmeier said. The trial is before Common Pleas Court Judge Richard Niehaus. (source: Cincinnati Post)
