Oct. 25 TEXAS: Convicted killer proclaims his innocence to jury----Outburst occurs as a prosecutor argues for the death penalty Jurors who listened to the man they had convicted of killing a police officer blurt out his innocence as a prosecutor urged the death penalty, left the courtroom Monday without deciding his fate. They will return this morning to continue deliberating his punishment. Alfred Dewayne Brown, 23, was found guilty Oct. 18 of capital murder in the death of Houston police officer Charles R. Clark when the officer tried to stop a robbery at Ace America's Cash Express in the 5700 block of the South Loop in April 2003. Alfredia Jones, 27, the store's clerk, also was shot and killed. Jurors began deliberating about 12:15 p.m. Monday, worked for about 5 hours and then were sequestered overnight. The jury must choose between death and life in prison. Defense attorneys said Brown should be spared because evidence shows he was not at the store but at a friend's apartment when the robbery and shootings occurred. Prosecutors said Brown shot Clark twice, once in the shoulder and then once in the head from about a foot away. "When you look at the evidence, this defendant gets the death penalty," prosecutor Tommy LaFon told jurors during his closing statement. Brown, unable to control his emotions, raised his hand, stood up, and said in a pleading, shaky voice: "I didn't rob nobody. I didn't shoot nobody. He's trying to take my life away for something I didn't do." His attorney, Loretta Muldrow, hugged him and pulled him into his chair. State District Judge Mark Kent Ellis told Brown to be quiet, then asked the jury to leave the room. Ellis ordered Brown to be taken to a holding cell outside the courtroom. He admonished defense attorneys for Brown's outburst. He then ordered Brown returned and told him that he would not be allowed to stay if he could not sit quietly. "I know you've got feelings," Ellis told him. "Yes, sir," Brown said. Brown then stared silently at the defense table as LaFon continued, telling jurors that Brown made a choice to carry a gun and shoot Clark. Brown is 1 of 3 men authorities said were robbing the store when Clark, 45, arrived to answer a call about a robbery in progress. Elijah Dwayne Joubert, 26, is on death row after being convicted of capital murder for killing Jones. Dashan Vadell Glaspie, 23, is charged with aggravated robbery in the case and testified against Brown and Joubert. He faces a possible 30 years in prison. Brown's attorney claims Glaspie shot Clark. (source: Houston Chornicle) OHIO----execution State executes cocaine dealer who killed 4 in power struggle A cocaine dealer whose role models were mobsters in a city once called the nation's crime capital was executed Tuesday for killing 4 men in a bid to seize control of the drug trade in a Youngstown housing project. Willie Williams Jr., 48, died by injection at 10:20 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. He earned notoriety at a time of rising street violence in the former steel city, with the prosecutor describing his as "a big fish" in the Youngstown's drug-dealing scene. Before he died, he winked and blew a kiss to his adult daughter, Jameka, and thanked her and his brother and uncle, who also were witnesses. "I'm not going to waste no time talking about my lifestyle, my case, my punishment," he said. "Y'all stick together. Don't worry about me. I'm OK." When California released him after a five-year sentence for cocaine trafficking, Youngstown officials tried to block his return by asking that his probation be limited to the West Coast. But the city couldn't ban him, and he once walked into police headquarters, pronounced himself reformed and asked for information on drug rivals, getting none. Williams used trusted associates to gather his top rivals at a home in the housing project in 1991, including suspected drug dealers William Dent, 23, Alfonda Madison, 21, and Eric Howard, 20. The 4th victim, 23-year-old Theodore Wynn of nearby Coitsville, had recently been discharged from the Air Force and was visiting Madison and Howard. The victims were variously bound, shot and strangled, the coroner ruled. Williams becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Ohio and the 18th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1999. Williams becomes the 44th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 988th overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin) *************************** TAFT STATEMENT ON WILLIAMS CLEMENCY Governor Bob Taft Monday issued the following statement concerning the clemency of Willie J. Williams, Jr.: "During the early morning hours of September 2, 1991, Mr. Williams brutally murdered 4 young men. The execution-style killings of Alfonda Madison, William Dent, and Eric Howard were part of Mr. Williams' plan to take control over the drug trafficking business in his neighborhood. Mr. Williams killed Theodore Wynn, an acquaintance of the others, to avoid being identified. A jury convicted him of four counts of Aggravated Murder, Kidnapping, and Burglary, and he was sentenced to death. "Since his conviction, Mr. Williams' case has been exhaustively litigated in both state and federal courts, and these courts have upheld his convictions and sentence. "Mr. Williams did not request executive clemency and has shown no remorse for his crimes. His attorney attended the clemency hearing, but indicated only that Mr. Williams did not wish to participate in the clemency process. "The Ohio Parole Board thoroughly considered Mr. Williams' case in anticipation of his pending execution date. The Parole Board unanimously recommended (7-0) a denial of executive clemency, noting that the "aggravating circumstance of a wanton, calculated, horrific, cold-blooded, execution-style killing of four (4) defenseless young men greatly outweighs any proffer of mitigation." "Following a thorough review of the judicial opinions, the report and recommendation of the Ohio Parole Board, recommendations from the Ohio Attorney General's Office and the Mahoning County Prosecutor's Office, and other relevant materials, I can find no compelling reason to grant clemency. "May God bless the families and friends of Alfonda Madison, Theodore Wynn, William Dent, and Eric Howard." (source: Office of the Governor) ****************** Trimble case is given to jury----Common sense will produce guilty verdict, prosecution declares In the end, prosecutors in the James Trimble capital murder trial asked jurors on Monday to rely on their most basic tool to resolve the vastly different accounts they heard about the Brimfield Township shooting rampage. With the last words to the jury before deliberations, Portage County Prosecutor Victor V. Vigluicci made a strong appeal to their common sense. The defense assertions that Trimble, 45, had not planned to kill any of the 3 victims -- making a death sentence unwarranted -- were "preposterous," the prosecutor said. Trimble is facing 3 counts of aggravated murder in the shooting deaths of his girlfriend, Renee Bauer, and her 7-year-old son, Dakota, on the night of Jan. 21 at the Sandy Lake Road home they had shared for a year. Sarah Positano, a 22-year-old Kent State University student, was killed the following morning, according to authorities, during a standoff with Metro SWAT officers at her Ranfield Road apartment. In opening statements Sept. 30, Trimble's lawyer, public defender Dennis Day Lager, claimed Positano was shot accidentally after the SWAT team had "botched" hostage negotiations. Holding a 9 mm pistol at Positano's head with one hand and an assault rifle in the other, Trimble was startled by a sniper who had entered the lower floor of the apartment just moments after he had agreed to a plan to free her, Lager said. The pistol went off accidentally, he said, when Trimble dropped it to confront the SWAT sniper with the rifle. However, Vigluicci attempted in his closing remarks to discredit those claims by pointing to evidence that Trimble was on his cell phone talking to a hostage negotiator. "How does he have an AR-15 (assault rifle) in one hand and a pistol in the other hand?" Vigluicci asked. "That can't happen unless the man grew a third arm." Lager's claim that Trimble and Renee Bauer had a history of domestic violence -- and had fought violently just moments before she and her son were killed -- were attempts to "make excuses" and "blame others" for a premeditated action, Vigluicci said. Citing evidence and testimony from 24 witnesses, the prosecutor said Trimble retrieved the assault rifle from a locked basement gun safe and ammunition from another locked cabinet, then went upstairs, firing 19 shots from the rifle's 42-shot magazine. Before fleeing the home, Vigluicci said, Trimble also retrieved the 9 mm handgun used to kill Positano. Lager also made strong points in his closing remarks. To show a SWAT officer could have entered Positano's apartment in the final moments of hostage negotiations, Lager used state's evidence claiming SWAT officers had fired only 3 shots during the standoff. But Lager said the state's primary witness on the Positano crime scene -- investigator John Saraya of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation -- did not recover the bullets or bullet fragments from eight shots on the 1st and 2nd floors of the apartment. One of the gunshot holes on the lower floor was "entirely missed" by Saraya, Lager said. Without that ballistic evidence, he said, the state failed to prove its 3-shot theory. Evidence showing Trimble and Renee Bauer had fought violently before the shootings was a large clump of hair found in the upper track of the shower door in the master bathroom adjacent to the spot where the bodies were found, Lager said. Vigluicci had said the clump of hair had been propelled into the bathroom by the "explosive" nature of the fatal shot to the top of the victim's head. But Lager told the jury that Saraya did not include the clump of hair in his crime scene reports, failed to photograph it to document there were portions of scalp attached, and only mentioned that after conferring with prosecutors. Jurors can vote to impose the death penalty if Trimble is convicted of any of the 3 aggravated murder charges. Deliberations will conclude each day at 6 p.m. until verdicts are reached on the 9 charges Trimble faces. Judge John Enlow ordered the panel to be sequestered at night in a hotel. (source: The Beacon Journal) ****************** Triple murder trial goes to jury A man accused of killing his live-in girlfriend, her son and a Kent State University student he had taken hostage did not intend to commit the slayings, his attorney said in closing arguments. Renee Bauer, 42, and her 7-year-old son, Dakota, were killed as the woman fought with James Trimble, public defender Dennis Lager said Monday. "The shots were fired in an uncontrollable rage" and the boy was not a target, Lager told jurors in Portage County Common Pleas Court. Jurors planned to resume deliberations Tuesday. Judge John Enlow had them sequestered in a hotel overnight. Trimble, 45, of Brimfield Township, could get the death penalty if convicted of any of the 3 aggravated murder charges filed against him. His trial, which began Sept. 30, has centered on whether he intended to kill Bauer and her son at their home on Jan. 21, and Sarah Positano the following morning. Positano, 22, of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, was held hostage in her apartment, which had been surrounded by police. Prosecutor Victor Vigluicci used his closing argument to dismiss the defense's claim that the shootings were not premeditated, a theory he called "preposterous." Trimble unlocked a gun safe and ammunition cabinet, loaded an assault rifle and shot Bauer 13 times, Vigluicci said. Bauer, who had threatened to leave Trimble, tried to shield her son, who was killed by 6 bullets that passed through the woman's body. "His selection of an instrument of death was prior calculation and design," Vigluicci said. Trimble managed to elude police and take Positano hostage. He chose her building in a duplex because its location in a large field afforded him a view of the area, Vigluicci said. Trimble held a gun to Positano's head as he talked to a hostage negotiator and she spoke on her phone to a police dispatcher. He shot Positano once in the neck because he had to remain mobile and she was a liability, Vigluicci said. But Lager said the taped call from Positano to the dispatcher includes comments from Trimble that he would release Positano in two hours and did not want to hurt her. The gun went off accidentally when a police officer entered the apartment and startled Trimble, Lager said. During the trial, Trimble abruptly got up from his seat at the defense table and left the courtroom for several minutes under escort by sheriff's deputies when graphic photos of wounds to Bauer and her son were shown to the jury. (source: Associated Press) MISSOURI----impending execution Kerry sisters had no appeal of their death sentences at hands of gang Predictably, opponents of the death penalty are coming out of the woodwork to plead for the life of Marlin Gray, the Wentzville man whose life will end early Wednesday morning at a prison in Bonne Terre unless the federal courts intervene or the governor grants clemency. Well, I'm not in favor of the death penalty, but I'm not going to join this chorus. You see, I want to know how Robin and Julie Kerry could have appealed their death sentence on the night of April 4, 1991. Was there a judge or a governor standing nearby who could have intervened on their behalf, before they were raped and thrown off the old Chain of Rocks Bridge, discarded like someone might dump 2 trash bags into the Mississippi River? There was no one on the bridge who could have intervened and stopped things. Gray has changed his story since the trial and says he wasn't on the bridge when the Kerry girls were pushed into the river. Moreover, there are racial implications because 3 of the attackers were black and they all received the death penalty, while the 4th attacker, who was white, got 30 years, after cooperating with prosecutors. Had someone been there to intervene and grant the girls clemency, and had the girls and their cousin, Tom Cummins, been allowed to leave the bridge that night, we wouldn't be facing the imposition of the death penalty this week. Julie and Robin had gone to the bridge to show Cummins a poem they had painted on part of the closed bridge. It was about harmony among people. But they were confronted by 4 young men who announced a holdup. These men then took turns raping the women and threatened to kill Cummins. In Gray's trial, Daniel Winfrey, a minor, and one of the attackers, said Gray was the ringleader of the assailants. Winfrey pleaded guilty to nine charges, including 2nd-degree murder and forcible rape. He was a freshman at Wentzville High School when he was arrested in 1991. His testimony against the three other assailants was pivotal in their trials. Antonio Richardson of Pine Lawn was within hours of execution in 2001 when the U.S. Supreme Court halted it, and the Missouri Supreme Court subsequently reduced his sentence to life in prison. He was 16 at the time of the crime. Reginald Clemons of Northwoods, who was 19 at the time of the crime, is still on death row. And Gray, who was 23 at the time of the crime, was found guilty of 2 counts of 1st degree murder, in 1992, and the jury recommended the death penalty. Does Gray deserve to die? I don't know. I'm not God. I do know that Robin and Julie Kerry did not deserve to die. And they didn't have the American Civil Liberties Union and Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, and lawyers and friends and journalists on their side when the death penalty was imposed on them so unfairly. They were guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In an interview from the prison, with Robert Patrick of the Post-Dispatch, Gray said: "If the state of Missouri wants blood on its hands, they can keep (my body). This is murder to me. I will not participate or let my family participate." It's too bad Gray didn't use his influence on the other three impressionable young men to stop them from participating in raping and killing these two young women. That was certainly murder, and they all had blood on their hands. They also robbed Cummins and forced him to jump into the river. He survived. Julie, 20, and Robin, 19, lived in north St. Louis County with their mother. They were students at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. Julie's body was pulled from the river in southeast Missouri 3 weeks after the crime. Robin's body was never recovered. (source: Column, John Sonderegger, St. Louis Post-Dispatch) NORTH CAROLINA----impending execution Inmate's kids out to stop execution----Syriani's sentence to be carried out Nov. 18 The children of a woman slain by her husband in 1990 are traveling the state this week to spotlight their bid to halt their father's execution. Elias Hanna Syriani, 68, was the first defendant in Mecklenburg County to receive a death verdict for killing a spouse. His execution is scheduled for Nov. 18, and his four children are urging Gov. Mike Easley to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment. Syriani killed his wife, Teresa Yousef Syriani, by stabbing her 28 times with a screwdriver. She had filed for divorce days earlier. The adult children, Rose, Sarah, John and Janet Syriani, forgave their father after visiting him at Raleigh's Central Prison 2 years ago. Now, they're working with N.C. death-penalty opponents who have pushed the state to halt all executions for 2 years. The effort to stop executions and study the fairness of sentencing in North Carolina fizzled in the state legislature this year, but backers could revive it next year. The Syriani children plan to speak at a Chapel Hill church tonight. They also plan to speak at a Raleigh church Wednesday alongside Alan Gell, who was sentenced to death for a murder, but later exonerated by a jury and released. Easley, a Democrat and former state attorney general, has commuted 2 death sentences during his 5 years in office. He's allowed 20 death sentences to go as scheduled. (source: Charlotte Observer)
