March 11 TEXAS: Mother faces death penalty in child's death A woman accused of beating her 2-year-old daughter to death last summer will face the death penalty, prosecutors said. Kimberly Alexander, 25, was arrested June 7, a day after Diamond Alexander-Washington died at University Hospital. According to a witness statement, the toddler was beaten for wetting her pants. Alexander was indicted for capital murder under a law that took effect in 1994 which makes the slaying of a child younger than 6 a crime punishable by death. Prosecutor Chris DeMartino announced the decision of District Attorney Susan Reed to seek the death penalty during a short hearing Thursday before 144th District Judge Mark Luitjen. DeMartino said the district attorney weighs several factors before making such a decision. "Generally, we look at the severity of the crime and the way that the crime was committed," he said. The beating came 6 weeks after the mother and daughter were reunited by Child Protective Services caseworkers. Diamond's death sparked a series of local and statewide investigations into how well the agency does its job. Alexander has remained in the Bexar County Jail on a $500,000 bond since her arrest. (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: Prosecutors to seek death penalty for Farmville man The death penalty will be sought against a Farmville man charged with murdering a romantic rival, prosecutors announced Thursday. Assistant District Attorney Glenn Perry announced the decision regarding Timothy T. Harper during murder case status hearings in Pitt County Superior Court. The hearings usually are held every month to inform the court on the progress being made to resolve outstanding murder cases. Harper, 31, of 4611 W. Perry St., faces several charges, including 1st-degree murder, in the Jan. 1 shooting death of Craig N. Reid. Reid was living with Harper's ex-girlfriend in a Forrest Village home when the shooting death occurred, investigators have said. Prosecutors allege Harper broke into the home shortly after 5 a.m. and found Reid; his girlfriend, Kechia Chawon Kent; and another couple. Harper took a shotgun already in the home and loaded it, Perry said. The 1st shot killed Reid, Perry said. Pellets from the 2nd shot injured the woman visiting at the home. She was treated at the hospital and released. In addition to 1st-degree murder, Harper has been charged with attempted 1st-degree murder, possession of a firearm by a felon, 2nd-degree kidnapping, violent habitual felon, 1st-degree burglary, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and 1st-degree kidnapping. Kent had filed for a domestic violence protective order against Harper three months before the shooting, stating he had threatened to kill her. In her Sept. 27 complaint, Kent wrote that Harper had looked in her window and called her a number of times. She also worried he might hurt her 2 children, ages 8 and 3, from a previous relationship. "He told me if I wouldn't be with him or anybody else, he will kill me. He left a message saying he won't stop and can't stop because he love me," she wrote. In early December, Harper was charged with violating that protective order. It was not his 1st criminal charge. Harper was convicted of conspiracy to commit an armed robbery in 1997 and two counts of discharging a weapon into occupied property in 1999. It was the convictions, which show a prior violent record, that Perry pointed to as a factor in seeking the death penalty. Harper's case is one of two capital murder cases pending in the county. Prosecutors also are seeking the death penalty against Leslie Arlene Lincoln. She is charged in the stabbing death of her mother, Arlene Lincoln, in March 2002 in the Treetops subdivision. Plea negotiations are ongoing in Lincoln's case, and a trial date has not been set, District Attorney Clark Everett said. (source: Greenville Daily Reflector) ARIZONA: Dismissed Cruz juror disagrees with death sentence A juror who was dismissed from the John Montenegro Cruz murder trial told Eyewitness News 4 she disagrees with the penalty of death. Juror 118 doesn't want you to know her name or what she looks like, but she does want you to know her beliefs. Only on Eyewitness News 4 she said, "Based on what I heard, I would have done life without parole." The trial is over, but Juror 118 stands by her original claim of jury misconduct. She says, in the short time that she sat on the jury, there were conversations about witnesses, discussions about Officer Patrick Hardesty's wife and mention of television and newspaper reports. Juror 118 still thinks Judge Borek should have called a mistrial. She also believes the jury made a bad decision in the penalty phase. With regards to Cruz, Juror 118 says, "It all escalated from the event of him hitting a car. On drugs, scared, running away, not thinking straight. He didn't premeditate how he was gonna kill someone. By talking about the case when you're not supposed to, (you) can subconsciously form opinions in people's minds. So yeah, I think if they had followed what they were supposed to, a different decision probably would have been made." Juror 118 says she does agree that John Montenegro Cruz is guilty. She says he's just not deserving of death. "I'm very sad for the officer's family. I feel that they've experienced a huge loss that I can't even begin to understand, but I also feel very sad, now, for Cruz's family." (source: KVOA News) MISSOURI: As execution looms, moratorium sought for study One week of life remains for Stanley Hall, confessed murdered of Barbara Wood. Hall threw a struggling Woods off a bridge in St. Louis in 1994. The State Supreme Court has set an execution date of March 16, the 1st execution for Missouri in a year-and-a-half. Supporters of a moratorium on the death penalty spoke against the "crap shoot of state killings" one-week prior to the planned execution of Stanley Hall. Hall committed the murder in the City of St. Louis, but despite requests from attorneys, the trial took place in St. Louis County. "This is significant as St. Louis County is the state's most zealous death penalty jurisdiction, resulting in 33 death sentences," Rita Linhardt said. 3 times as many murder cases were tried as capital murder cases in St. Louis County as compared to murder cases in the City of St. Louis between 1978-1996. A representative from Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, Linhardt believes geographic arbitrariness needs to be studied by a commission during the proposed moratorium. Disproportionate racial aspects of death penalties in Missouri also needs to be studied, Linhardt said. Michael Lenze, University of Missouri-Columbia sociology instructor, said the chances of being charged with a death penalty for an African American killing a white person was 37 % in St. Louis County. The chances a white person faced the death penalty for killing an African American was 12 %. Linhardt alleged their was prosecutor misconduct in Hall's trial. Prosecutors used peremptory challenges to strike all African-Americans from the jury pool in Stanley Hall's case. "During the sentencing phase, prosecutors coldly likened Mr. Hall to his pet dog, which was afflicted with distemper. 'Both being,' he implied, 'needed to be killed,'" Linhardt said. (source: The Chart)
