Nov. 29 VIRGINIA----stay of execution Governor spares convicted murderer----Killer would have been 1,000th execution since 1976 In Richmond, Gov. Mark R. Warner granted clemency Tuesday to a convicted killer who would have been the 1,000th person executed in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Robin Lovitt's sentence was commuted to life in prison. Lovitt, 42, was set to be executed by injection Wednesday night for stabbing a man to death with a pair of scissors during a pool-hall robbery in 1998. He became the 1,000th person in line on Tuesday, after Ohio executed John Hicks, who strangled his mother-in-law and suffocated his 5-year-old stepdaughter in an attempt to cover up the crime. The 1,000th execution is now scheduled for Friday in North Carolina, where Kenneth Lee Boyd is to die for killing his estranged wife and her father. DNA evidence destroyed Gov. Mark R. Warner had said he was agonizing over whether to grant Lovitt clemency on the grounds that a court clerk illegally destroyed much of the evidence in the case, preventing DNA testing that Lovitt's lawyers say could exonerate him. "No case has been more troubling," Warner said Tuesday on WTOP radio in Washington. "There's no case I've spent more time thinking about, praying about." Warner, a Democrat, has never granted clemency in the nearly four years he has been governor. During that time 11 men have been executed. Lovitt was convicted of stabbing Clayton Dicks in Arlington, a Washington suburb, during a robbery at a pool hall. A pair of bloody scissors was found in the woods between the pool hall and the home of Lovitt's cousin, a few blocks away. Lovitt admitted grabbing the cash box and running to his cousin's house but insisted someone else killed Dicks. Initial DNA tests on the scissors were inconclusive. In 2001 a court clerk destroyed much of the evidence in the case, including the scissors, supposedly to free up space in the evidence room. A state law requiring preservation of DNA evidence had taken effect a few weeks earlier. Prosecutors contend that DNA evidence played a minimal role in the case and that Lovitt was convicted on other strong evidence, including eyewitness testimony. At the trial, a witness testified he was "80 %" certain the killer was Lovitt. "He continues to remain sort of hopeful and confident of his position," said Ashley Parrish, one of Lovitt's lawyers. "He recognizes that it's getting close to the end of the line here, but he also thinks that justice will come out." Eric Nance's execution in Arkansas on Monday was the 998th in the U.S. since the death penalty was reinstated. In Ohio, Hicks, 49, claimed that cocaine use had made him desperate and paranoid. According to court records, Hicks traded his VCR for about $50 worth of cocaine, then realized his wife would wonder where the video recorder was. To get the machine back, he killed his mother-in-law and stole about $300 and some credit cards from her. Afraid that his stepdaughter could identify him, he covered her mouth and nose with duct tape. (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA-----impending 1000th execution 2 Courts Deny Condemned Man's Petition To Stop Execution North Carolina death row inmate Kenneth Lee Boyd is set to become the 1,000th person executed since capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976. Boyd, 57, moved into the macabre spotlight Tuesday when Virginia Gov. Mark Warner granted clemency to Robin Lovitt, who was scheduled to die Wednesday for a 1999 murder. Lovitt, 42, was convicted in the scissor stabbing death of a man in an Arlington, Va., pool hall robbery. Prison officials moved Boyd to the death watch area, a small cell block across the hall from the death chamber, on Tuesday afternoon. He was scheduled to begin contact visits Wednesday afternoon with relatives, officials said. Boyd was convicted of killing his estranged wife and her father in 1988. (source: Associated Press) NEVADA: Nevada high court orders mental hearing in death row case The Nevada Supreme Court has ordered a mental competency hearing for Robert Ybarra, sentenced to die for the 1979 rape, beating and torch murder of a 16-year-old Ely girl. Ybarra faces execution for the rape and murder of Nancy Griffin, who was found naked and wandering on a road near Ely. She identified her assailant before dying a day after the attack. Ybarra's petition to the high court, which issued its ruling Monday, was his fifth appeal to the court seeking to overturn convictions for murder, kidnapping, battery and sexual assault. It's the 1st time the issue of mental competence has been raised in his case. Griffin was set afire with gasoline after she was assaulted and beaten. Ybarra's fingerprints were found on a gasoline can at the scene, and bootprints and tire tracks there matched his boots and his truck tires. A Sacramento native, he had just taken a job on an oil rig in Ely when the crime occurred. Since his 1981 conviction, Ybarra has filed appeals and petitions in district courts, the state Supreme Court, federal district courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. (source: Associated Press) NEW JERSEY:: Lawyers tell high court new death penalty rules should be axed A recent state appeals panel ruling that requires prosecutors seeking the death penalty to prove defendants are not mentally retarded is cumbersome and out of step with the rest of the country, lawyers told the state Supreme Court on Tuesday. State and county prosecutors argued against the unusual August decision by a lower court that made New Jersey the only state where prosecutors must prove to a jury that defendants are not mentally retarded so they can be executed. 26 other states require the opposite: Defendants have to prove they are retarded and therefore unfit for the death penalty. Paul Heinzel, state deputy attorney general, told the high court that defense lawyers, not prosecutors, are in the best position to gather such evidence about a defendant. "They could have as complete a record as possible" through school records and employer and family information, Heinzel said. "It ensures the best outcome." The arguments stem from the case of Porfirio Jimenez, a Honduran day laborer in prison on charges he sexually assaulted a 10-year-old Morristown boy before murdering him in 2001. Jimenez's lawyers claimed he was mentally retarded, with an IQ of 68, when prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty. It was not clear when the court will rule on the case. A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling - called the "Atkins Ruling" - not only declared that executing mentally retarded criminals violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, but left it to states to decide whether the burden of proof about a defendant's mental status lay with the prosecution or defense. Courts in 11 other states are still trying to determine how to deal with the federal ruling. Twelve states do not have death penalties. Prosecutors should bear the burden, because they have more resources and authority to seek information, said Jeffrey S. Mandel, a Morristown attorney who argued on behalf of the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey. "(State and county prosecutors) have the power of the badge to obtain greater access than the average defense attorney," Mandel said. The August appeals court ruling also said that juries, as opposed to judges, should determine whether a defendant is mentally retarded. Joseph Krakora, Jimenez's public defender, argued a mentally retarded defendant should be able to have a jury decide. To prove someone is mentally retarded in a court in New Jersey, a defendant must have an IQ below 70 and cannot be able to function alone in society. Also, the retardation must have started before they turned 18. Prosecutors allege that Jimenez, of Morristown, is not mentally retarded but falls within the area of "borderline intellectual functioning," according to court papers. (source: Associated Press)
