[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., N.DAK., DEL.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 27



TEXAS:

VICTIM'S FAMILY TESTIFIES IN MURDER TRIAL


Relatives of Cecelia Schneider testified in a capital murder trial
Tuesday, as well as Tyler police.

Clifton Lamar Williams, 22, faces life in prison or the death penalty if
convicted of beating, strangling and stabbing to death the 93-year-old
woman before setting her body on fire and stealing her car and purse on
July 9, 2005.

Richard Dutke, Ms. Schneider's nephew, said the victim was his "acting
mother" after his own mother died, and they had a very close relationship.
Dutke, who lives in Smith County, was called by a relative and asked to
check his aunt's house at 311 Callahan St. when it was reportedly on fire.

He said he was asked to identify her body, which was "badly" and
"completely" burned.

Sharon Schneider, the victim's daughter-in-law, said she was married to
Ms. Schneider's son Raymond, who died in 2004, and said she had known the
victim for 48 years. She said her husband had bought Ms. Schneider her
house and had given her the Toyota Camry that was stolen and wrecked. She
said that for a Christmas gift a few years before her murder, she bought
Ms. Schneider a kitchen knife consistent with the brand name and look of
the knife discovered by police in a Smith County pond, where Williams told
them it was discarded.

Sharon Schneider said her mother-in-law loved her two cats, Shadow and Big
Boy, which were killed in the fire.

Tyler police Detective Dennis Mathews testified about his involvement in
investigating the capital murder. He said he interviewed Ms. Schneider's
housekeeper and her groundskeeper, as well as several other people
connected to the victim or the defendant.

He said some of the witnesses claimed Williams had told them a story about
shooting a white man who threatened him with a gun. Mathews said they were
unable to find such a victim.

Williams denied ever telling anyone the story.

Because of all of the blood found in the victim's car, police also checked
local hospitals for anyone who had sought treatment for an injury. He said
he saw a cut on Williams' hand when he turned himself in to the police on
July 15, 2005, after an arrest warrant was issued.

Prosecutors claim Williams, whose blood was inside and outside of the
victim's car, cut his hand while stabbing Ms. Schneider.

Mathews said that before a search warrant on Williams' apartment was
executed, a fingerprint found on the car was matched to the defendant.

Mathews said Williams led them to the pond where evidence in the case was
found, including the victim's purse and a knife believed to be the murder
weapon. He said Williams was with them when they located the purse, but
not the knife, which was inside the pond and had to be found with a metal
detector. He said Williams never identified the kitchen knife found and
Mathews said he couldn't be certain it was the exact knife. He said it was
an undistinguishable knife except for its brand.

Mathews said police never asked "Montrell," a man Williams claimed
actually committed the murder but forced him to go along with him, if he
had any motorcycle gloves or a 9 mm gun, as Williams alleged. He said the
defendant's statements changed during their interviews, and they were able
to determine which statements were factual.

The foreman of the grand jury that indicted Williams testified that the
grand jurors could not determine the exact weapons that were used to kill
Ms. Schneider, but listed all possible weapons, such as a knife or sharp
object, his hands, a blunt object or objects unknown to the grand jurors.

Tyler police Officer Mike Saxion testified that he was called out to
Greenbriar Road, where the Toyota Camry was found wrecked, at about 8:30
p.m. on July 9, 2005. He said the car appeared to have been headed
northbound when it slid off of the road, and landed southbound in a ditch.
He said he believed a passerby saw the car and reported it to police.

Tommy Sukiennik said he saw the car as he drove to work at about 7:15 a.m.
Saturday.

A pathologist testified Monday that Ms. Schneider was stabbed 4 times, had
blunt force injuries to her head and neck, and could have possibly been
strangled.

The trial is set to resume Wednesday for the seventh day of state's
evidence in 114th District Judge Cynthia Stevens Kent's court. Smith
County District Attorney Matt Bingham and First Assistant DA April Sikes
are prosecuting the case, while defense attorneys Melvin Thompson and
LaJuanda Lacy are representing Williams.

TRIAL RECAP

On Sept. 19, the first day of Clifton Lamar Williams' murder trial,
prosecutors and defense attorneys outlined the evidence they would submit
to the jury. A neighbor of victim Cecelia Schneider testified he notified
authorities after seeing smoke come from her home and several Tyler
firefighters testified about responding to the fire and finding the body.

On Wednesday, a fire expert said two separate fires, on the bed and the
victim, could have burned for 10 hours or longer before they were
discovered. A Tyler police sergeant testified about evidence he collected
at the victim's home and in her wrecked car.

On Thursday, the jury watched a 30-minute videotape interview Williams did
with police the night he was detained, July 15, 2005. Williams denied any
involvement in Ms. Schneider's death. An alternate juror was discharged
from service after he injured his back. On Friday, jurors heard an
audio-recorded interview when Williams led police to the knife used in the
murder, as well as the victim's purse and other personal belongings.
Williams told police during the interview that another man stabbed the
victim and made him go along with him and drive the stolen car. A DNA
analyst testified that Williams' blood was found in the victim's car.

On Monday, jurors continued hearing testimony from a Tyler police
detective. They also heard a pathologist testify about Ms. Schneider's
injuries, including stab wounds that penetrated her heart and lungs. He
said she was also beaten and could have been strangled before her body was
set on fire.

(source: Tyler Morning Telegraph)

*******************

Yates offered plea bargain in death of toddler


Indicted for capital murder, Darrell Yates III pleaded to a lesser charge
of injury to a child Tuesday in the death of 22-month-old Harold Cheyenne
Harris last year and was sentenced to 15 years in prison - a sentence
which baby Harold's family claims is too light and blames on what they
describe as a shoddy sheriff's department investigation.

Yates and Harold's mother, Amber McEntire, were arrested in December in
Matamoros, Mexico, where they fled following the child's October death.

Authorities found Harold's body, decomposing and ravaged by animals,
during a search of the woods less than 100 yards from the couple's rent
house Nov. 5. McEntire claimed the child choked on a piece of foam and
died, but an autopsy concluded Harold died of swelling in his brain.

"I feel like I did what I had to do, but I don't have to like it,"
District Attorney Stephanie Stephens said of the punishment.

Yates also pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence - for attempting to
dispose of the child's body - and bigamy, because he and McEntire were
married before they fled, but he had not yet divorced his estranged wife
in Houston. Yates' court-appointed attorney, Bill Agnew, said no one was
happy with the case's resolution.

"This was a difficult case, across the board, for everybody," Agnew said.

"The medical evidence was not conclusive either way. This was truly a
wide-open case."

After Judge Campbell Cox II accepted the pleas, baby Harold's grandmother,
Pamela Harris-Martin, took the witness stand to confront Yates.

"You got off; I know it and you know it," Harris-Martin told Yates,
pointing her finger at the man before pulling out a sheet of white paper
and a photo of the child. "This is what I remember. Now, all I have is
this: an autopsy report. I can't judge you on this side, but you will be
judged on the other side."

Before leaving the stand, Harris-Martin blamed the Nacogdoches County
Sheriff's Department's investigation for what she considered an unjust
sentence. Harold was reported missing Oct. 22, and deputies found his body
Nov. 5, near the home rented by McEntire and Yates.

"I guess it's human nature that you want someone to blame," said
Nacogdoches County Sheriff Thomas Kerss. "But the reality is that we
gathered the evidence available to us at the time and used all legal means
to gather and collect evidence. There are still a lot of unknowns in this
case."

In mid-October, McEntire and Yates removed Harold from day-care and took
the child to Shreveport, La., where they married, according to
investigators. In the days following, Harold died and was placed naked in
the woods near a rent home on Press Road, south of Nacogdoches, that
McEntire and Yates shared. The couple then fled to Mexico, where they
stayed in Matamoros and Reynosa, across the border from Brownsville,
Texas.

McEntire told her family in phone conversations that Harold was safe in
Mexico, but could not produce any evidence. Her family reported him
missing, and on Nov. 5 cadaver dogs found the child naked and badly
decomposed near the Press Road home.

In phone calls to Mexico, McEntire's family asked her to surrender. She
told them the child died from choking, and because his body was bruised
and blistered, she was afraid to notify authorities.

In December, the couple was arrested in Matamoros and transported to
Nacogdoches. Both were indicted for capital murder Jan. 24.

More than 2 months ago, McEntire gave birth to a baby girl while awaiting
trial in the Nacogdoches County jail. Texas Child Protective Services took
custody of the child. McEntire will appear at a pretrial hearing Friday.

Yates was led back to jail Tuesday, wearing loose-fitting orange scrubs.

"People need to take into consideration that he didn't walk out of this
courtroom with a smile on his face because he got 15 years," Agnew said.
"I wasn't happy, he wasn't happy, and Stephanie (Stephens) wasn't happy.
The times I've walked out of the courtroom, and everyone was upset, the
criminal justice system was served, because it's not about one side
winning."

(source: Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel)

*****************

Navarro County man indicted for murder, decades after fleeing Alabama
prison


Those acquainted with Glenn Ray Boelter in Central Texas knew him as a
former barbecue stand owner and a bar regular who was sometimes quick to
lose his temper over a game of pool. But until recently, they didn't know
his name was an alias to cover his tracks as he ran from a murder in
Alabama for nearly 3 decades.

But his alias and cover story unraveled after he was recently arrested in
a new murder case.

Gary Thomas Sharron, who lived in Tool, Texas, under the alias Boelter,
was indicted in Navarro County on Thursday in connection with the shooting
death of 59-year-old Sammie Hawkins, according to court records. Hawkins
was found dead Sept. 5 with a gunshot wound to his head at his home near
Kerens, about 10 miles east of Corsicana.

On Sept. 9, Navarro County Sheriff's Office deputies arrested Sharron and
recovered a pistol possibly used in the shooting, according to the
sheriff's department. While officials said little about the murder
investigation Tuesday, they said robbery was a possible motive.

Authorities said Sharron, 52, had lived in Central Texas for much of the
past 3 decades under the assumed name Glenn Ray Boelter. An analysis of
his fingerprints traced Sharron's identity back to Alabama, according to a
sheriff's department news release.

Brian Corbett, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Corrections, said
Sharron walked away from a prison road gang in 1977. At the time, he was
serving the 4th year of a 25-year sentence for a murder conviction.

Tommy Boswell, sheriff of Russell County, Ala., said Sharron fatally
stabbed a soldier from Fort Benning, Ga., during a fight at a bar called
The Log Cabin.

"They gave him 25 years; I guess that's all a bar fight killing was worth
in those days," Boswell said.

The sheriff said he knew Sharron since they went to school together in
Phenix City, Ala., as boys.

"He was already in the 7th grade when I got there, and he stayed there 2
more years," Boswell said. "He was a big old boy, kind of a street thug,
mean, but a heck of a football player."

Boswell said most people familiar with Sharron's 1973 trial have died or
retired, and his name had not been mentioned in Russell County for some
time.

"When we got the call, it was a total surprise," Boswell said. "I'm
probably the only one here who even knows about the case."

The news of Sharron's arrest and his former life also took some of his
Central Texas acquaintances aback.

Diane Diemer, a bartender at Chaps bar in Seven Points, near Sharron's
hometown of Tool, said he was a regular customer.

"He was a good customer; he'd tip well," Diemer said. "Sometimes he'd get
drunk and get into it with someone over a game of pool. He could have a
quick temper, but all of this was surprising to us."

Diemer said she met Sharron a few years earlier when she was working at
Rumors bar next door to a barbecue restaurant Sharron owned, the
Chatahoochie Smokehouse.

"I don't want to make Glenn sound like a bad guy," Diemer said, still
using Sharron's alias. "Personally, I liked him, and I feel real bad about
what happened."

Sharron remained in the Navarro County Jail late Tuesday with bail set at
$750,000 on the capital murder charge, authorities said.

(source: Waco Tribune-Herald)






GEORGIA:

New Visitation Policy will not allow friends to visit Death Row Inmates


The Death Row Inmates in Georgia had inplace a Legal Consent Decree which
allowed them to have Friends and extended family on their visitation
lists. Well that decree has expired and the Warden has inforced the
general visitation policy for the state on the Death Row inmates effective
November 1.

12 visitors on list total, No special visits from overseas people,
Immediate Family and Extended Family has to show proof of relative, such
as birth records for Aunts and Uncles that prove Surnames, match that of
parents surname. Or inmates will face discinplinary actions.

Only 2 friends allowed and visitation list can only be changed in November
or May.

So if nothing is challenged most of the visitors the Death Row inmates in
Georgia get will not be allowed to visit. Most of these guys have no
family and the only visitation they get is friends, especially from
overseas.

This is Terrible, they continue to punish and isolate the Death Row
inmates in this state. I talked to the Department of Corrections and was
told that this is a site based decision and does not have to be based on
the SOP for the state, but the prison official says visitation is a luxury
and they don't have to allow it at all.

(source: Martina Correia




NORTH DAKOTA:

A barbaric decision


How can we call ourselves a civilized society when we have succumbed to
the Mosaic law of an eye for an eye?

The decision of the federal government to seek the death penalty in the
Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. case brings us back in line with those whose values
we profess to so abhor.

No civilized society kills their own. Moreover, our system is biased when
only those who could return a verdict of death are be included in the jury
asked to render such a verdict.

As a former federal prosecutor, I reject everything the United States
government has brought upon our society by pursuing the death penalty,
particularly in a state which otherwise does not have a death penalty.

LIZABETH MCKIBBEN, WAYZATA

(source: Minneapolis Star Tribune)






DELAWARE:

Murder prosecutors proposed


With the prison that houses the state's death row as a backdrop,
Republican attorney general candidate Ferris Wharton proposed Tuesday
setting up a special homicide unit within the Department of Justice.

Mr. Wharton, who is battling Democrat Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III for the
office, said the move would lead to better prosecution for homicides and
other cases.

Currently, he said, homicide cases are given to deputy attorneys general
who are also handling rapes and other serious crimes.

While a deputy is prosecuting a murder case, Mr. Wharton said, their other
cases take a backseat.

A special unit would prevent those cases from losing priority because the
prosecutors handling them would not be diverted to murder trials.

"We know that murder is the most serious crime there is," Mr. Wharton said
during a news conference at the Delaware Correctional Center.

"We know that murder cases are the most serious cases there are because
there is no second chance for murder victims.

"A murder trial is a very consuming thing. Sometimes they take a month,
sometimes two, sometimes more."

Brian K. Kisner, whose mother was murdered in her Kenton home in 1986 by
escaped DCC inmate David Dawson, spoke highly of the plan and Mr. Wharton
at Tuesday's news conference.

Mr. Wharton, the top deputy attorney general in Kent County at the time,
prosecuted the case and attended the April 2001 execution with Mr. Kisner.

"When my mother was murdered, Ferris Wharton stepped in and fought for us
like we were his own family," said Mr. Kisner, a Dover resident.

"His talent, experience and tenacity helped bring my mother's cold-blooded
killer to justice."

Mr. Wharton, who spent 25 years as a state and federal prosecutor, said
the unit would have three or four prosecutors assigned to it.

Delaware averages 30 homicides a year, he said, most in New Castle County.

"Over the years I've successfully prosecuted some of Delaware's most
brutal killers such as Tom Capano and David Dawson," Mr. Wharton said.

"Getting a conviction isn't easy. It not only takes experience and
ability, it takes focus. That's why we need a homicide unit."

Mr. Biden, who has proposed setting up special units to deal with child
predators and identity theft, said a homicide unit would need more than
prosecutors specifically assigned to it.

"We have really dedicated deputy attorneys general who are doing an
outstanding job of prosecuting murder cases right now," he said.

"It's not a bad proposal, but to make it really effective you would have
to have investigators assigned to the unit to help the prosecutors do all
of the work that goes between indictment and trial."

Mr. Wharton has dismissed Mr. Biden's ideas for units dealing with child
predators and identity thieves as meaningless "cosmetic" changes.

"He would take prosecutors that are already handling these cases and just
put them in a new unit with a special name," Mr. Wharton said Tuesday.

Statistics showing fast increases in crimes where perpetrators use the
Internet to attract young victims and crimes involving the theft of
individuals' identity prove that Mr. Biden's special units need to be
created, the Democrat said.

"(A homicide unit) is worth discussing," Mr. Biden said, "but I know we
need a child predators unit with specially trained prosecutors and
investigators and I know we need an identity theft task force to prosecute
and prevent a fast-growing crime.

"I know we need those 2 things."

(source : Delaware State News)