May 12 ILLINOIS: Death penalty jury unsure of sentence, quits for night A Cook County jury was unable to decide Wednesday whether Joseph Bannister should be sentenced to death for wounding his ex-girlfriend and killing her sister in their apartment as 6 children looked on in horror. The panel of 6 men and 6 women deliberated for more than 5 hours before Judge Fred Suria sequestered them for the night in an area hotel. They are to resume deliberations Thursday morning. Bannister, convicted in a bench trial last month, wounded Sharon Banks in September 2000 before fatally shooting her sister, Henrietta Banks. Assistant public defender Jacqueline Ross argued Wednesday that Bannister and Sharon Banks were in a "love-hate relationship, and they know how to push each other's buttons." Banks had an order of protection against Bannister at the time of the crime, attorneys in the case have said. Ross said two of the children who witnessed the shootings testified that Bannister "blinked out of it" after his daughter asked him if he was going to kill the rest of them in the apartment after he killed Henrietta Banks. That's no explanation for what occurred, but "it certainly is emotion and it certainly is distress," Ross said. Bannister had a tough childhood, with no one taking a real interest in him, Ross argued. She urged the panel not to vote for a death sentence. "Death is death," Ross said. "It's no different than what happened in that apartment. You have to decide." Prosecutors had argued the case "yells out" for the death penalty. There was no evidence Bannister had child abuse in his background or a reduced mental capacity, factors that would argue against it. He killed a woman he had known since age 12, Assistant State's Atty. Luann Snow argued, a woman he knew had two young children. Prison would not be a significant enough punishment, Snow said. He would get to use the phone and watch television, she said. "He gets to be disrespectful to the guards and hang out with his fellow Gangster Disciples," she argued. "He left children looking at bleeding women in a bloodbath," Snow said. The jury would be the first to sentence a defendant to death at the Criminal Courts Building since former Gov. George Ryan emptied Death Row in 2003. (source: Chicago Tribune) **************************** Ex-Convict Stabbed Girls to Death Over $40, Officials Say It began, the authorities say, when 8-year-old Laura Hobbs snatched $40 from her mother's purse this month. It ended, they contend, with her father viciously beating and stabbing to death Laura and the 2nd-grade playmate who came to her defense. The father, Jerry B. Hobbs, 34, a career criminal who had rejoined the family upon being released from a Texas prison only weeks before the killings on Sunday, was ordered held without bail after a brief hearing in Waukegan on Wednesday. Jeffrey Pavletic, chief deputy state's attorney here in Lake County, told the judge that Laura had been stabbed 20 times - including once in each eye - and her 9-year-old friend Krystal Tobias 11 times. "You can see through the injuries to these individuals the rage that was exhibited," Mr. Pavletic said after the hearing, where he described Laura's neck wounds as being so deep that the 4-to-6-inch blade penetrated her spine. "This was a slaughter of 2 little girls." Mr. Hobbs, ankles and wrists shackled, bowed his head and shook as Mr. Pavletic cited the suspect's own signed and videotaped statements to paint a horrific portrait of parental discipline gone awry. Mr. Pavletic said Mr. Hobbs had told investigators he was angry that Laura's mother, Sheila Hollabaugh, had lifted the punishment over the stolen money - grounding - to let her play outside, and thus went to fetch Laura late Sunday afternoon from the densely wooded Beulah Park near their home in Zion, Ill. When Laura refused to come with him, the prosecutor said, Mr. Hobbs punched her twice in the face, knocking her to the ground. The authorities say Mr. Hobbs told them that Krystal then rushed to rescue her friend, pulling out what he called a potato knife, and that he in turn hit Krystal, then grabbed the knife and repeatedly drove it into each girl's neck and abdomen. Mr. Pavletic and Michael Waller, Lake County's top prosecutor, said they do not believe that the knife, which has not been recovered, belonged to Krystal. Mr. Hobbs became a suspect hours after he reported finding the girls, their faces bruised and bloody, in the woods early Monday morning, because he told the police he never got within 20 feet of the bodies yet described their injuries in detail. Mr. Hobbs, who had been arrested 29 times and convicted 10 times in Texas, has a history of violent rages. The 2-year prison term he recently completed stemmed from a 2001 fight with Laura's mother in which he chased her and others through their trailer park with a chain saw. In a separate incident, in 1990, Mr. Hobbs confronted a driver and told him to quit spinning his tires. Sgt. Cindy Walker of the Police Department in Wichita Falls, Tex., said police reports indicated that the two men had exchanged words. "He pulled out a hunting knife from his belt and said, 'I'm not going to stab you, I'm going to kill you,' and he stabbed him on the left side of his abdomen," Sergeant Walker said. Mr. Hobbs was convicted of aggravated assault in the case. The Texas Department of Family Services had frequent contacts with the family, with 6 cases over 10 years, the last one in 2004, but none involved accusations of physical or sexual abuse of children, a spokesman said. In Zion, a town of 23,000 halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee, squeals and giggles returned to the schoolyard on Wednesday, the 1st time all week, with children climbing the playground equipment and shooting baskets at recess. A spokesman for Laura's family, Jeremy Harter, read a statement to reporters asking for privacy in their grief; down the block, the Rev. Gary Graf emerged from a visit with Krystal's parents to say "they talk nothing about how she died and who did it," just about the pain of loss. But Dora Florek, whose 9-year-old daughter, Cristela, was a friend of Krystal's, said Mr. Hobbs's story, as conveyed by prosecutors, had only increased her anguish. Ms. Florek said Krystal had been the kind of child who never ran with scissors, much less carry a knife. If Laura stole from her mother, she wondered, where did she spend the money? "Something doesn't match; the whole details are not there," she fairly spat. "It makes me sick. These 2 little girls should not be dead. He's a coward." (source: New York Times) VERMONT: Slain woman's relatives stand by death penalty As foes of the death penalty gear up to protest at the upcoming trial of Donald Fell, the family of the North Clarendon woman he is charged with killing is not wavering in their support of capital punishment in the case. Fell, 25, is facing the possibility of the death penalty for his alleged role in the Nov. 27, 2000, killing of Teresca King, 53, of North Clarendon. Jury selection in the case is currently under way in U.S. District Court in Burlington and the trial is set to begin once a jury is seated. Activists from several organizations, including the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, announced this week they are planning a noontime vigil on May 18 outside the federal courthouse as a 1st step in expressing their death penalty opposition. King's family members said they would ask supporters of the death penalty in the case to show up and let their voices be heard, too. "I think that anyone who knew my mother or at least thinks that justice in this case is the death penalty, we would like them to please show up," Lori Hibbard of Rutland, King's daughter, said Wednesday. "Any way we could get support for our side would be nice to have." The trial is expected to start sometime between mid-June and early July, after a 12-member jury and additional alternates are selected. The trial would be the 1st in Vermont carrying the possibility of the death penalty in nearly 50 years. If the jury convicts Fell of the charges that carry the death penalty, a second "death penalty phase" will take place. At the end of that phase, the same jurors will be asked whether Fell should be executed for his crime. Hibbard is one of several King family members who traveled to Burlington to attend the numerous court hearings in the case over the past 4 years leading up to the jury selection process. She said she doesn't plan to hide from those outside the courthouse opposing the death penalty at the vigil next week. "We're going to walk out front of the courthouse like we normally do. I'm not going to hide or go out the back door. This is America. They are entitled to their opinion," Hibbard said of the potential death penalty protesters. "Everybody has their own opinion and they are free to voice it - I want to be doing the same thing on the opposite side." She added that reports of protests against the death penalty haven't caused her to waver in her support for capital punishment in the case. Hibbard talked about the brutal nature of the crime, during which her mother was begging for her life as she was beaten to death in upstate New York. "I don't support the death penalty in all cases. I think it should be used in some cases," Hibbard said. "I think in this case justice is the death penalty." Karen Worcester of East Wallingford, Hibbard's sister and King's daughter, agreed. "I am certainly for the death penalty, but not in all cases," Worcester said Wednesday. "I think in this case, it's justice. There is no question in our mind for what he did, this would be the only justice." Worcester said her family doesn't intend to confront those outside the courthouse opposing the death penalty. But, they won't change her opinion on the death penalty. "It's freedom of speech. They have a right to do it," Worcester said of the protesters. "Sometimes I feel until something like this happens to you, you never know who you would react - If they sat in our shoes for a day and saw what happened and knew what happened they might feel differently about it." The potential for the death penalty stems from Fell's alleged killing spree that led to the death of the 3 people, including Fell's own mother and another man in Rutland. Federal prosecutors have taken jurisdiction in King's case because Fell and the late Robert Lee allegedly carjacked and kidnapped King as she arrived to work in Rutland early on the morning of Nov. 27, 2000, driving her across state lines into New York, and beating her to death as she pleaded for her life. Fell and Lee were arrested 3 days later driving in King's car in Arkansas. Fell has been jailed since his arrest. Lee hanged himself in a prison cell in September 2001. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002 rejected a plea deal that would have spared Fell's life. The deal would have required Fell to plead guilty to charges of kidnapping with death resulting in exchange for a lifetime jail sentence with no chance for parole. Several of King's family members sent letters and copies of petitions supporting the death penalty in Vermont to Ashcroft to help sway him to seek Fell's execution. (source: Rutland Herald) CALIFORNIA: Runnion Case Penalty Phase Goes to Jury In Santa Ana, arguments concluded Wednesday in the penalty phase of a man convicted of kidnapping and killing 5-year-old Samantha Runnion, giving a jury the choice of whether to recommend the death penalty -- or life in prison without parole. The case was turned over to jurors after an afternoon of arguments during which a prosecutor showed photos of the little girl, projected on a large screen, to underscore the "horrendous" nature of the crime -- and the defense appealed for mercy for Alejandro Avila due to the lingering psychological scars from a childhood of abuse. "I'm just asking for enough mercy for him to live his life out in a small cell in a very hostile prison environment," defense attorney Denise Gragg told jurors. Prosecutor David Brent said the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of Samantha in July 2002 is "the kind of crime that cannot be mitigated" and he urged the jury to recommend the death penalty. "It's just as bad a crime as any human can commit," he said. At least 2 jurors wept as they looked at photos of Samantha dressed in a fairy princess costume, enjoying her 1st visit to a theme park or with her mother, Erin, as they both beamed for the camera. "He took life, he took beauty, he took joy," Brent said of Avila. Jurors, who did not have time to deliberate after receiving the case, were scheduled to return Thursday. The jury, which convicted Avila of kidnapping, sexual assault and murder April 28, spent the past week hearing about the painful childhood that defense attorneys say led to a crime that provoked an outpouring of outrage and grief. Samantha was abducted, kicking and screaming, from outside her Stanton home July 15, 2002. Her nude body was found the following day in mountains some 50 miles away, left on the ground as if it had been posed. So many were moved by the young girl's murder that more than 4,000 people attended her funeral. (source: Associated Press)
