[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., CALIF., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 30



NORTH CAROLINA:

Rewards explored in death row case----Lawyers seek cause for retrial


HEARING TODAY; EXECUTION SET FOR FRIDAY----Guy LeGrande will be at the
Stanly County courthouse today for a competency hearing.

His appellate lawyers say LeGrande, who is scheduled to be executed
Friday, is psychotic and delusional and did not receive a fair trial
because he acted as his own attorney. Prosecutors say LeGrande is a
manipulative, intelligent and articulate man who was capable of
representing himself and should die for his crimes.

LeGrande, 47, was sentenced to death for the 1993 murder-for-hire of Ellen
Munford, the estranged wife of one of LeGrande's co-workers. LeGrande was
recruited to commit the killing by Tommy Munford, who offered to pay him
$6,500 from the life insurance proceeds. LeGrande shot Ellen Munford twice
in the back.

Recent efforts by LeGrande's lawyers and the state Attorney General's
Office to have LeGrande evaluated appear to have failed -- LeGrande has
refused to talk to the doctors. So it is unclear how the judge will
determine whether LeGrande is competent and whether his execution should
proceed.

Barbara Taylor was a key witness at death row inmate Guy LeGrande's 1996
trial: She testified that LeGrande confessed to her about killing his
co-worker's wife.

LeGrande's lawyers, who are trying to stop his Friday execution, wonder
whether prosecutors withheld information about plans to pay Taylor several
thousand dollars for her testimony. They say LeGrande had a right to know
there was $5,000 to be doled out to witnesses who testified against him so
the jury could consider that when evaluating the witnesses' motive for
testifying.

Instead, LeGrande's lawyers say, prosecutors revealed before trial that
Taylor received $200. Based on recently obtained documents, it appears she
may have been paid $3,500.

"I think jurors would have viewed Barbara Taylor differently if they knew
she was going to receive several thousands of dollars in payment," said
Durham lawyer Jay Ferguson, who along with Duke University law professor
Jim Coleman, represents LeGrande.

The two lawyers are handling LeGrande's last-minute appeals and clemency
petition without his consent. LeGrande, described by his lawyers and
others as psychotic and delusional, insisted on representing himself at
his trial, during which he urged the jury to sentence him to death. While
acting as his own appellate lawyer, he has not fully pursued his appeals.

A former Stanly County assistant district attorney who helped prosecute
LeGrande denies hiding any information about any deals or payments to
witnesses.

This is the latest argument from LeGrande's lawyers about why his
execution should not go forward. All of their arguments boil down to this:
LeGrande did not get a fair trial, and he deserves a new one or a lesser
sentence.

LeGrande, 47, was sentenced to death for the 1993 murder-for-hire of Ellen
Munford in Stanly County, east of Charlotte. Munford's estranged husband,
Tommy, recruited LeGrande to do the killing for a $6,500 share of a
$50,000 life insurance policy. Prosecutors dispute the claim that LeGrande
is mentally ill, instead describing him as an intelligent, manipulative
killer.

Files LeGrande missed

LeGrande's lawyers' latest appeal is complicated by the fact that while
acting as his own appellate lawyer, LeGrande did not request copies of the
prosecutors' and investigators' entire files -- files that all death row
inmates are entitled to obtain.

Ferguson did not get access until Oct. 30 to more than 6,000 pages of
records and documents in LeGrande's case that had not previously been
reviewed. Typically, appellate lawyers take up to nine months to read such
material, figure out what was known before trial and what was not, and
evaluate what might be the basis for an appeal, said Thomas Maher,
executive director of the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty
Litigation, a nonprofit law firm that handles appeals for death row
inmates.

"To do it under time pressure, if not impossible, it is extremely
difficult," Maher said.

Based on his review so far, Ferguson believes prosecutors may have
withheld information about payments to witnesses. But Ferguson
acknowledges that he does not know whether Taylor actually received
$3,500, because he is still tracking down payment records.

What Ferguson does know is that former Stanly County Sheriff Joe Lowder
sent a letter in 1994 asking the Governor's Office for $5,000 in reward
money to help capture Ellen Munford's killer. After Taylor came forward
with information, LeGrande was arrested and charged with murder in 1995.

Before LeGrande's April 1996 trial, a judge ordered prosecutors to reveal
whether any witnesses received money. In August 1996 -- four months after
LeGrande was convicted -- the sheriff wrote to the governor that the
$5,000 should be split among four witnesses, including $3,500 to Taylor.

There were three other witnesses that Lowder suggested be paid a total of
$1,500 for their assistance. But Ferguson said prosecutors only disclosed
one had been paid $100 before trial.

Taylor's testimony was key to prosecutors securing a murder conviction
against LeGrande. The only other witness to connect LeGrande to the
killing was Tommy Munford, who had a deal with prosecutors to plead to a
lesser charge, avoid the death penalty and testify against LeGrande.
Munford is eligible for a parole hearing next year.

Beyond Taylor, Ferguson questions whether prosecutors had a deal with
another witness that they failed to disclose. Greg Laton, who knew about
Munford's plans to have his wife killed, testified against LeGrande but
was never charged for providing the murder weapon to Tommy Munford.
Ferguson also notes that Laton had two pending felony charges at the time
of his testimony. After Laton testified, Ferguson said, he saw one charge
dismissed and got probation on the other.

Prosecution's view

The N.C. Attorney General's Office, which is arguing for LeGrande's
execution to go forward, had not filed a response to Ferguson's motion
before the holiday break.

Michael Parker, the current district attorney in Stanly, Anson, Union and
Richmond counties, who did not prosecute LeGrande, said his office has
turned over all its records on the case to Ferguson.

"It's my understanding that LeGrande was given information about reward
payments prior to the trial," Parker said. "It's my understanding that the
other payments were made after the trial -- as much as six months after
the fact."

Ferguson counters that prosecutors should have disclosed the existence of
the $5,000 in reward money and that witnesses could receive some portion.

The prosecutors who handled LeGrande's case were Kenneth Honeycutt,
Parker's predecessor, and David Graham, now an assistant district attorney
in Mecklenburg County.

In an e-mail message to The News & Observer, Graham wrote that the legal
ethics rules prohibit him from talking about pending cases. "However," he
wrote, "I can tell you that I would never have participated in hiding from
either the court or the jury any information concerning any reward for, or
any 'deal' with, a prosecution witness."

Honeycutt, who is now in private practice in Monroe, could not be reached
for comment.

Honeycutt's other case

This is not the 1st time a death row inmate has claimed Honeycutt withheld
information about deals with and money paid to a key witness.

In 2004, Jonathan Hoffman was awarded a new trial because he and his
lawyers were not told that his cousin -- the prosecution's star witness --
got a deal with federal prosecutors to avoid further prosecution on the
opening day of Hoffman's trial. Hoffman's lawyers also argued Honeycutt
failed to reveal that the cousin received immunity from other state
charges, help reducing his South Carolina sentence and several thousand
dollars in reward money.

Honeycutt and his assistant, Scott Brewer, now a District Court judge,
were charged with prosecutorial misconduct by the N.C. State Bar, the
state agency that disciplines lawyers. The state Bar accused the pair of
committing 23 violations of the rules that govern lawyers in their
prosecution of Hoffman. The charges were dismissed on technical grounds.

If Honeycutt was involved, Michael Howell, one of Hoffman's lawyers, said
the courts should closely scrutinize such a claim.

"Anything he has touched, I believe should have special consideration,"
Howell said.

(source: The News & Observer)






CALIFORNIA:

SECURITY GUARD MOVES CLOSER TO COMPLETING DEATH PENALTY APPEALS


A former security guard who faces a death penalty for kidnapping and
fatally stabbing a 16-year-old girl at the Carolands mansion in
Hillsborough in 1985 moved a step closer to exhausting all possible
appeals today.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco declined David
Raley's request to have his case reviewed by an expanded 15-judge panel of
the court.

The action means Raley's next option is to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to
take up his case.

His appeal attorney, Robert Bacon, said he will appeal to the high court.

Bacon said, "I'm very sorry that the ruling was against Mr. Raley. We will
seek to take all the steps to prevent an inappropriate and unnecessary
execution.''

In previous rulings, the California Supreme Court and a 3-judge panel of
the 9th Circuit upheld Raley's conviction.

Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, said
the 9th Circuit action makes Raley 1 of 3 out of the more than 650
California death row inmates who have come closest to completing appeals
related to their trials.

The other 2, Mitchell Sims and Michael Morales, have already petitioned
the U.S. Supreme Court and have lost those appeals, Barankin said.

Morales's execution has been put on hold, however, while a federal judge
in San Jose considers a separate civil rights lawsuit in which Morales is
challenging the constitutionality of the state's lethal injection
execution procedures.

Raley, 45, was convicted and sentenced to death in Santa Clara County
Superior Court in 1988 for murdering a San Mateo girl identified as J.G.,
whom he had taken on a tour of the Carolands mansion on Feb. 5, 1985.

He was also found guilty of the kidnapping, attempted murder and oral
copulation of another girl, 17-year-old L.M.

Raley worked as a security guard at the mansion, which was not generally
open to the public, and sometimes gave unauthorized tours. After the girls
arrived and asked for a tour, he took them to the basement and handcuffed
them, sexually assaulted L.M. and beat and stabbed them, according to
trial testimony.

He then took them in the trunk of his car to a remote location southeast
of San Jose and threw them down a ravine. L.M. managed to crawl up the
hill and find help the next morning. J.G. died during surgery.

The 9th Circuit today left in place an April decision in which a
three-judge panel of the court rejected Raley's argument that his trial
lawyers were incompetent in failing to present psychiatric testimony that
could have supported his claim of a mental defect.

The 3-judge panel said Raley's trial attorneys made a "reasonable
strategic choice'' because 3 defense experts who examined Raley before
trial came back with equivocal findings that could have damaged his mental
defect claim.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Dane Gillette said that if Raley is
turned down by the Supreme Court, prosecutors would then go to Santa Clara
County Superior Court to seek an execution date.

Gillette said that "in terms of what is reasonable,'' it would be very
difficult for Raley to file any further federal appeals under a U.S. law
limiting such challenges.

Raley could seek clemency from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

(source: Bay City News)






OHIO----(note the 2 impending execution dates below)

Death penalty cases await new Ohio governor


Gov.-elect Ted Strickland will face 2 death penalty cases soon after
taking office:

--Kenneth Biros, convicted of killing Tami Engstrom, 22, near Warren in
1991. Biros offered to take Engstrom home after she passed out a bar,
according to court records. Biros, the last person to be seen with
Engstrom, strangled her and stabbed her 91 times. Portions of her
dismembered body were discovered scattered throughout 2 counties in
Pennsylvania and in the trunk of Biros' car. Biros is scheduled to be
executed Jan. 23.

--James Filiaggi, convicted of killing his 27-year-old ex-wife, Lisa Huff
Filiaggi, in Lorain in 1994. Police said James Filiaggi broke into the
victim's home, chased her into a neighbor's house and fatally shot her 4
times. Filiaggi had been out on bond, awaiting trial for felonious assault
and domestic violence against his ex-wife and her fiance. Filiaggi is
scheduled to be executed Feb. 13.

[source: Ohio Supreme Court, Ohio Attorney General's Office]

(source: Associated Press)