June 5 SOUTH CAROLINA----impending execution SC man condemned for 3 killings set for execution Nearly 12 years ago, reeling from his wife's request for a divorce and the breakup of his family, David Mark Hill stormed into a North Augusta social services office and gunned down 3 employees he blamed for taking his children. After eight years on death row, Hill is set on Friday to become the 1st person put to death in South Carolina since the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of the 3-drug lethal injection cocktail used in dozens of states. Earlier this year, the South Carolina high court ruled that Hill, 48, could drop his appeals and be executed. Hill had argued that he deserves to die for the Sept. 16, 1996, killings, when he walked into a Department of Social Services office in North Augusta and shot to death his family's case worker and 2 other employees after losing custody of his children. Killed were case worker Jimmy Riddle, 52; Josie Curry, 35; and Michael Gregory, 30. During his 2000 trial, defense witnesses testified that Hill was prompted to go on the shooting spree hours after his wife asked for a divorce, and after a social worker accused him of molesting his quadriplegic daughter, a toddler crippled a year earlier in a car accident. After their daughter's ordeal, Hill was sent into a world of depression, seizures and panic attacks, his wife testified. Hill overdosed twice on antidepressants and muscle relaxers in the spring of 1996. After social workers said they wanted him out of the house, Hill barricaded himself inside with a shotgun, later spent several days in a mental hospital and was ordered by the state to stay away from his family. Several months later, he returned to the Social Services office and shot Riddle, Curry and Gregory to death. Authorities found Hill a day later, suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Since the shootings, the child welfare agency has made some security changes. For several weeks, a police officer was posted at the office, and a security keypad was installed at the main entrance. "You cannot be too careful," spokeswoman Marilyn Matheus said. Unlike other states, South Carolina did not put any scheduled executions on hold while the court reviewed the constitutionality of lethal injection. Hill would be the 279th person put to death in South Carolina and the 1st since Calvin Alphonso Shuler, who was put to death a year ago for killing an armored car guard. A South Carolina peace group planned to hold a silent vigil and protest Thursday night in Columbia to pray for anyone affected by the shootings, as well as a protest at the prison Friday. None of Hill's family members have said they want to witness his execution, and some victims' relatives are planning to attend, prisons spokesman Josh Gelinas said. One of his attorneys said Hill has spent the last few weeks saying goodbye to family members and is mentally prepared for his death. "He was ready," Kimbrough said, of the moment her client asked his attorneys to ask that his appeals be dropped. "He had reached a point where, mentally, he was already there." David Miller, who also represented Hill, will witness the execution, said Kimbrough, who will not. "I know David as a person," she said. "He certainly has tried to be thorough in saying his goodbyes." (source: Associated Press) USA: Accused 9-11 mastermind welcomes death penalty The accused al Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks stood in a U.S. military court on Thursday, sang a chant of praise to Allah and said he would welcome the death penalty. "This is what I wish, to be martyred," Pakistani captive Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the highest-ranking al Qaeda operative in U.S. custody, told the Guantanamo war crimes court. He and four accused co-conspirators appeared in court at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba for the first time on charges that could result in their execution. As the judge questioned him about whether he was satisfied with the U.S. military lawyer appointed to defend him, Mohammed stood and began to sing in Arabic, cheerfully pausing to translate his own words into English. "My shield is Allah most high," he said, adding that his religion forbade him from accepting a lawyer from the United States and that he wanted to act as his own attorney. He criticized the United States for fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, waging what he called "a crusader war," and enacting "evil laws" including those authorizing same-sex marriages. Mohammed wore a long, bushy gray beard and big black military-issue glasses and looked far older than his 43 years. He wore a neat white tunic and turban, in stark contrast to the saggy white undershirt he wore in photographs taken after his capture during a raid in Pakistan in March 2003. Mohammed and co-defendants Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash are charged with conspiring with al Qaeda to murder civilians in the 2001 attacks that launched the Bush administration's global war on terrorism. They also face 2,973 counts of murder, one for each person killed when hijacked passenger planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. 'JUST A STAGE PLAY' The judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, tried to persuade the men to accept their military lawyers, but all refused. Aziz Ali said he had barely been allowed to meet with his lawyer anyway and described him as "a signboard" hung up so the government could say, 'Hey, we give these people lawyers.'" "All this is just a stage play," he said. Binalshibh, whom the lawyers said was receiving psychotropic medication, wore leg chains bolted to the floor but the rest of the accused were unshackled in the courtroom. A security officer cut the audio feed to the spectators' section when he described the reason for the medicine, and again when another defendant discussed his capture. Binalshibh said he had sought martyrdom since trying and failing to get a U.S. visa "for 9/11" but that his life was in God's hands and that "America and the whole world cannot extend my life by one day or make it one day earlier." Mohammed told a military review panel last year that he approached Osama bin Laden with the proposal to hijack passenger planes and crash them into landmark U.S. buildings, then oversaw execution of the plan "from A to Z," according to U.S. military transcripts of the hearing. But Mohammed cast doubt on that transcript in Thursday's hearing. "They mistranslated my words and put many words in my mouth," he said in broken English learned as an engineering student in North Carolina. He called the trial "an inquisition" and added, "All of this has been taken under torturing. You know that very well." The other defendants are accused of helping choose, train and fund the 19 hijackers, assisting their flight school enrollment and travel to the United States. The 5 alleged conspirators chatted together before and during the day-long hearing. According to Hawasi's military lawyer, Mohammed bullied Hawasi into abandoning his intent to accept a military lawyer. "What are you, in the American Army now?" the lawyer, Army Maj. Jon Jackson, quoted Mohammed as telling Hawsawi. All 5 were transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006 after spending about 3 years in secret CIA prisons. The CIA has acknowledged interrogating Mohammed using a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding and condemned as torture by human rights observers. Defense lawyers have said they will challenge any attempt to introduce evidence tainted by abuse but they may not get that chance if the defendants represent themselves. Prosecutors want to start the trial on September 15, a date the defense says was chosen to influence the U.S. presidential election in November. (source: Reuters) PENNSYLVANIA: Bedford County man of killing his father won't face death penalty A Bedford County man accused of fatally bludgeoning his father will not face the death penalty. Questions persist about whether Harold I. Turner, 29, of Clearville, will be mentally competent for trial. Turner, who remains in the Bedford County Jail without bail, waived his formal arraignment Thursday in Bedford County Court. The arraignment is a benchmark in homicide cases: At that time, prosecutors must notify the suspect and his attorney whether they will pursue a death sentence. "We are not seeking the death penalty," county District Attorney William Higgins said. "Mr. Turner's case will now be put on the trial list and it will move through the process." State police allege that Turner struck his father, Harold L., twice in the head and forehead with a wood-splitting maul March 31. The younger Turner then took nearly $400 from his mother, Susan, and left the family's Southampton Township home. He traveled west before turning himself in to authorities in Summit County, Ohio, about 8 hours later. The elder Turner was pronounced dead 2 hours after the attack at Cumberland Memorial Hospital in Cumberland, Md. The defendant's mental health immediately became a concern, and officials confirmed through family members that he had been having problems with some prescription drugs he was taking. "We recognize that there's something with this guy that's not right," Higgins said. "But at this time, our course is to hold him criminally responsible." County Public Defender Anthony Zanoni said his office is making arrangements to have Turner analyzed in hopes of gaining more knowledge of his mental-health status. "We don't deny he killed his father," Zanoni said. "We understand there may be significant (mental-health) issues." Authorities said the mental-health concerns do not mean Turner will be able to avoid criminal prosecution. Still unresolved is whether the defense will argue insanity, diminished capacity or another reason. (source: Tribune-Democrat) FLORIDA: High Court Denies Death Sentence Appeal In Carrollwood Killing The state Supreme Court today denied the appeal of a man convicted in the gruesome 1998 murder of Vicki Robinson, a killing in which he was aided by her daughter, who was 15 at the time. Attorneys for Adam "Rattlesnake" Davis, who was convicted of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to death, turned to the Supreme Court to appeal a lower-court decision. Attorneys argued that Davis' lawyers didn't provide an effective defense during the trial and the hearing that resulted in a jury recommendation he be executed. Today, , the Supreme Court denied the claim that attorneys for Davis were ineffective. The ruling upheld a similar ruling from an appellate court. Davis and girlfriend Valessa Robinson were found guilty in the murder of 49-year-old real estate agent Robinson, who was stabbed and injected with bleach in her Carrollwood home. A friend, Jon Whispel, pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder and agreed to testify against Davis and Valessa Robinson. According to the Supreme Court ruling, late on June 26, 1998, Davis, then 19, Valessa Robinson and Whispel, also 19 at the time, met at a Denny's and took LSD. While on the drug, Valessa Robinson proposed the 3 kill her mother by injecting an overdose of heroin, but they couldn't get any of the drug. During Valessa Robinson's trial, prosecutors said she wanted to kill her mother because Vicki Robinson wanted to end the girl's relationship with Davis. They bought a syringe for $2 to inject the sleeping woman with bleach and an air bubble. By then it was early in the morning of June 27. Vicki Robinson woke up, and Davis grappled with her. The girl and Davis held Vicki Robinson down and Davis injected the bleach. When that didn't kill her, Davis stabbed the woman. When they heard her groaning, Davis went back into the room, and later he told Whispel he had stabbed Vicki Robinson 2 more times and tried to break her neck. They stuffed her body into a plastic garbage can and dumped it along a canal near Waters Avenue. The trio stole Vicki Robinson's car, credit cards, cash and ATM card, intending to head to Phoenix. On July 2, 1998, they were caught in Texas. Vicki Davis was popular in her church and community. More than 100 people showed up for a vigil at her house the day after her daughter told investigators where to find the body. The state high court's ruling today was its second review of Davis' trial and death sentence. In 2003, attorneys for Davis appealed the conviction and sentence, an appeal the Supreme Court denied. In 1999, Whispel was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He testified against Davis and Valessa Robinson at their trials and avoided a possible death penalty. In 2000, Valessa Robinson was found guilty of third-degree murder along with theft charges and sentenced to 20 years. (source: Tampa Tribune) OHIO: Man on death row should get new trial, court rules Joe D'Ambrosio A Cleveland man who has spent nearly 2 decades on death row must be given a new trial or let out of a prison, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The 3-judge panel agreed with a ruling made in 2006 by U.S. District Judge Kate O'Malley that Joe D'Ambrosio is entitled to a new trial because prosecutors withheld several pieces of crucial evidence that could have exonerated him. Turning over the evidence would likely have resulted in a different verdict for D'Ambrosio, who was found guilty and sentenced to death after a trial in 1989, the court said in its opinion. Supporters of D'Ambrosio, 47, hailed Thursday's decision and called on prosecutors to release him from a state prison near Youngstown. "We're hoping the state does the right thing," John Lewis, part of a team of lawyers from Jones Day who are representing D'Ambrosio for free. "In our view, the evidence that was withheld shows D'Ambrosio did not commit this crime." Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, through a spokesperson, said he is still considering whether to appeal the decision or retry the case. "We're disappointed in the ruling," Mason said in the statement. D'Ambrosio claims he was wrongly convicted for the 1988 murder of Tony Klann, then 19. Klann was found dead in Doan Brook, stabbed in his chest and with his throat slashed. Following a weeklong hearing in 2004, O'Malley ruled that prosecutors withheld 10 pieces of evidence that could have helped exonerate D'Ambrosio and should have been turned over to the defense under court rules. In one instance, prosecutors did not tell D'Ambrosio's lawyer that the man who accused D'Ambrosio of the murder had his own motive for killing Klann. The man -- Paul Lewis -- was charged in a rape case in which Klann was the only witness. Also, defense attorneys were not told that the 2 homicide detectives investigating the case believed Klann was killed elsewhere and then dumped in Doan Brook. That directly contradicted the testimony of Eddie Espinoza, the state's only eyewitness. Espinoza pleaded guilty to manslaughter and served a reduced sentence -- 12 years -- for his testimony. "The most telling piece of evidence was from the police officers," Lewis said. "These are police officers who came willingly to a hearing and testified that they did not believe the crime was committed where (Espinoza) said the crime occurred." Shortly after Klann's body was found on Sept. 24, 1988, Paul Lewis pointed investigators to D'Ambrosio, Thomas "Michael" Keenan and Espinoza, who worked together landscaping. The trio was looking for Lewis because Keenan believed Lewis had stolen drugs from him. Espinoza later testified that they found Klann in Little Italy and forced him into their truck because they thought Klann could lead them to Lewis. Espinoza testified during the 1989 trial that the men drove to Doan Brook, where Keenan slit Klann's throat and pushed him into the creek. Klann begged for his life and tried to escape, but D'Ambrosio caught him and killed him, Espinoza testified. However, detectives said they found no blood on the creek bed, signs of a struggle or tire marks leading to the creek. At the time of the murder, Lewis faced charges for raping Klann's roommate. Klann was the only witness subpoenaed to testify against Lewis. Ralph DeFranco, D'Ambrosio's lawyer in the murder trial, testified that prosecutors never told him about the rape case. Former Assistant County Prosecutor Carmen Marino knew about Lewis' rape case but did not inform DeFranco, as he was obligated to do, O'Malley said in her order for a new trial 2 years ago. O'Malley said in that ruling that defense lawyers could have crafted a different strategy had they known about the case. The appeals court Thursday upheld O'Malley's ruling and concurred that D'Ambrosio would probably not have been found guilty if the evidence was turned over. The state can ask the appeals court to reconsider the ruling as a whole. The state can also petition the U.S. Supreme Court. Neither body is obligated to hear the case, Lewis said. D'Ambrosio will likely remain jailed during the appeals process. He has remained in prison since O'Malley initially ruled in March 2006 that he deserved a new trial. (source: The Plain Dealer) CALIFORNIA: REDWOOD CITY: DISTRICT ATTORNEY ASKS FOR DEATH PENALTY IN CASE OF COP KILLER The San Mateo County District Attorney's Office formally announced today it will seek the death penalty in the case of a man charged with fatally shooting an East Palo Alto police officer in 2006. If Alberto Alvarez, 24, is found guilty of "deliberate, premeditated murder" he will face the death penalty, Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said. Alvarez is accused of shooting 38-year-old Officer Richard May on Jan. 7, 2006. Alvarez will go to trial in December and, if found guilty of 1st-degree murder, the jury will deliberate whether he should receive the death penalty. Prosecutors believe Alvarez executed May after the officer responded to reports of a fight at a restaurant. Alvarez was found a short time later, hiding in the area of Weeks Street and University Avenue, according to East Palo Alto police. A grand jury indicted Alvarez on Aug. 25, 2006, and the transcript from the jury was ordered sealed after defense attorneys argued that inflammatory material in the transcript could prejudice a jury, Wagstaffe said. An attorney for the San Jose Mercury News had argued for the release of the transcript. A jury trial for Alvarez is scheduled to begin Dec. 1. He remains in jail on no-bail status. (source: The Associated Press)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news---S.C., USA, PENN., FLA., OHIO, CALIF.
Rick Halperin Thu, 5 Jun 2008 22:19:46 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
