Sept. 16 UTAH: Death-row inmate gets new hearing in November A 3-day hearing is set for November in death row inmate Doug Lovell's bid to withdraw his guilty plea to the 1985 murder of a South Ogden woman. Officials in 2nd District Court on Thursday set the hearing for Nov. 14-16 before 2nd District Judge Michael Lyon. Lovell was sentenced to death in 1993 by since-retired Judge Stanton Taylor for the killing of Joyce Yost. Lovell described in detail at his sentencing hearing how and why he killed the 39-year-old Yost. In April, the Utah Supreme Court directed Lyon to hear Lovell's 12-year-old motion seeking to withdraw his guilty plea to capital homicide, a death-penalty offense. Lyon inherited Lovell's appeal process from Taylor. Lovell's case featured an unusual plea bargain -- prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty in return for Lovell's revealing Yost's remains. After pleading guilty, the five-week search Lovell led in Ogden Valley, complete with backhoes, turned up nothing. The Weber County Attorney's Office then asked that Lovell receive the death penalty. That request was granted. Lovell killed Yost to keep her from testifying about his raping her in 1985. Despite her disappearance, Lovell was convicted at a trial that turned on the transcript of Yost's preliminary hearing testimony on the rape. Lovell was serving time in the Utah State Prison for rape when he was arrested for Yost's murder in 1992. The November hearing will include testimony from Taylor; John Caine, the defense attorney who crafted the plea bargain; Lovell; and Lovell's father, said Jim Retallick, Lovell's lead public defender on the plea motion. At issue in Lovell's bid to withdraw his guilty plea are Lovell's understanding of the plea bargain, he said, plus fine-point technicalities such as jurisdictional questions, possible errors in the plea-entry process and whether Lovell filed his plea-withdrawal motion soon enough. Only 6 prisoners have been executed in Utah since 1977. (source: Standard-Examiner) FLORIDA: Killer-For-Hire On Death Row Asks For New Trial A death-row inmate convicted in the 1995 murder a of Clay County man was back in court Thursday, claiming his defense attorney was inadequate. Donald Bradley was sentenced to die for the 1995 fatal beating and shooting of Jack Jones. Jones, wife, Linda, was found, bound with duct tape, in the next room of their Clay County home. For a year, investigators though she was the only witness to the crime -- then prosecutors accused her of hiring Bradley and two others to kill her husband. Bradley was convicted in 1997 of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Brothers Patrick and Brian McWhite were sentenced 10 years or less for their part in the murder. Linda Jones, accused of hatching the murder plot, received a life sentence for 1st-degree murder, conspiracy, and solicitation. "There were 4 people allegedly involved in this case. Only one of them got the death penalty, and that was Mr. Bradley," his new attorney, Richard Kurtz, said. "The people who put in into motion and assisted -- 2 of them are free, 1 of them is serving life. Only Mr. Bradley was sentenced to die." While several previous appeals by Bradley were denied, at a hearing Thursday, Kurtz questioned the adequacy of the original trial defense. Kurtz asked the judge to either overturn the conviction and grant Bradley a new trial, or at least a new sentencing hearing. Prosecutors said that they wished capital-murder cases were settled quicker, but they respect the right of defendants in the system. "It's unfortunate in general in death penalty cases, especially for the victim's families, that we're sitting here 10 years after the crime still litigating this case, but the defendant is entitled to all his procedural rights, and we're not going to quarrel with that," Assistant State Attorney Jay Plotkin said. (source: News4Jax.com) ********************* Death Penalty Recommended For Rigterink----Judge will sentence convicted murderer Oct. 14, weighing jury's input heavily. In Bartow, jurors recommended Thursday by the narrowest of margins that Thomas Rigterink should die for the brutal stabbing deaths of Allison Sousa and Jeremy Jarvis. After 3 hours of deliberations, the jury returned with 2 7-5 votes recommending death in each killing. Juries must reach unanimous decisions in rendering a verdict, but death penalty recommendations require only a majority vote. Circuit Judge J. Dale Durrance will make the final decision on Oct. 14, but Florida law requires that judges give a jury's recommendation "great weight." The victims' families left the courtroom hugging each other and expressing approval of the jury's recommendation. "This is what we wanted," said Sousa's mother, Alice Diggett. She and her husband, Michael, said the 4-week trial has been tough on all families, including Rigterink's family. The same jury convicted Rigterink on Sept. 9 on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the Sept. 24, 2003, killings at an office complex on County Road 542 and Jimmy Lee Road near Winter Haven. Over the last 2 days, the trial went into its penalty phase with testimony and arguments regarding whether Rigterink should die for the killings. Rigterink, a 33-year-old former model from Winter Haven, had the faint traces of a beard on his usually clean-shaven face. At times, his eyes became red with tears as his family members spoke on his behalf. "I think the reality of it all came crashing in," said Byron Hileman, one of Rigterink's lawyers. "It obviously upset him." Rigterink's family members expressed confusion Thursday about how he could be responsible for the 2 killings. His mother, Nancy, expressed sympathy for the families of Jarvis and Sousa, and said that life has been difficult since their deaths. "I feel like my life has ended," she said. Before his arrest, Rigterink -the adopted son of two Polk Community College professors -was one semester away from a biology degree at Warner Southern College in Lake Wales. He also spent some time at a prestigious Miami Beach modeling agency. Family members recalled Rigterink performing in plays with his cousins, participating on baseball and soccer teams, roughing it on family camping trips and helping turtles cross the street. Rigterink's father, James, described his son as a caring and kind person. "I can't imagine having a better kid than Tom," he said. But his lawyers contend he was also living a "double life" in a violent drug culture. His parents said they suspected their son was abusing drugs and attempted an intervention shortly before the killings. Rigterink testified that he wasn't the one responsible for the killings but stumbled upon the bloody scene afterward. He said the real killers, drug dealers, threatened to harm his loved ones if he told. But Assistant State Attorney Cass Castillo said Rigterink manipulated everyone in his life and lied to fulfill his self-centered purposes -- including lying to the jury while on the witness stand. Prosecutors say Rigterink planned to rob Jarvis, 24, of drugs and attacked him inside his home with a knife at least 10 inches long. Investigators would later recover about five pounds of marijuana from Jarvis' home. When Jarvis escaped to a nearby office, Castillo said Rigterink quickly decided he need to kill Sousa, 23, because she was attempting to call for help. Jarvis was stabbed 22 times and Sousa was stabbed 6 times. Jarvis and Sousa bled to death. Castillo described Rigterink's relentless assault against Jarvis and Sousa as "extremely wicked and shockingly evil." He said it couldn't be explained away by external reasons like extreme poverty, physical abuse or lack of opportunities in life. "It is an evil that emanates from within the individual," Castillo said. "It is an evil that is part of the individual." The prosecutor said Rigterink wasn't worthy "to remain on the planet" and deserved to die. Defense lawyer David Carmichael argued that the jury's guilty verdicts already provided a death sentence for Rigterink, who would either way spend the rest of his life in prison. He urged jurors to consider giving Rigterink "a chance to make amends" by using his education to teach other inmates and deter them from using drugs. (source: The Ledger)
