June 10 SOUTH CAROLINA----new execution date Execution set for man who killed ex-girlfriend's parents The South Carolina Supreme Court has set a June 20 execution date for a man who murdered his ex-girlfriend's parents in Charleston County. James Earl Reed acted as his own lawyer during his 1996 trial. He denied the killings, despite his confession to police and three witnesses who said they saw him come out of the couple's home after the shooting. After his initial appeal, Reed wrote to Chief Justice Jean Toal that he wanted to waive further appeals and have an execution date set. Last year, the state's high court ruled that Reed could not drop those appeals or continue to represent himself on appeal. Prosecutors said Reed killed Joseph and Barbara Lafayette in their Adams Run home in 1994 while he was looking for his ex-girlfriend. (source: Fort Mill Times) KENTUCKY: Prosecutor seeking death penalty Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters announced a death penalty indictment for Roger Anthony Tucker. Tucker is accused of murdering 83-year-old Herbert Abraham during a May 30 burglary at Abraham's Warsaw Avenue home. Tucker faces one count of aggravated burglary, one count of aggravated robbery and two counts of aggravated murder. The aggravated murder charges with specifications carry the possibility of the death penalty. On both the aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery charges, Tucker faces the possibility of 10 years in prison. "This 83-year-old man was preyed upon by a murderous burglar," Deters said. "We will do everything that we can to make sure that this defendant receives the ultimate penalty." (source: Community Press & Recorder) LOUISIANA: Jury selection begins in Baton Rouge murder trial Jury selection set to begin today in the 1st-degree murder trail of suspected serial killer Sean Vincent Gillis. Gillis is charged in the death of Donna Bennett Johnston, whose naked and mutilated body was found February 27, 2004, in a drainage canal south of LSU. The state is seeking the death penalty if the jury finds Gillis guilty. Authorities maintain Johnston was strangled to death. The 45-year-old Gillis was arrested at his home about two months after Johnston's body was found. Since his arrest, Gillis has confessed to killing eight women, including Johnston, and has been charged in all of those murders except one, which is still under investigation. Gillis has already been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty in Port Allen last year to the 2nd-degree murder of Baton Rouge resident Joyce Williams. (source: Associated Press) VIRGINIA: Governor commutes death sentence----A Danville man's case is the 1st one Tim Kaine has commuted since taking office. Gov. Tim Kaine on Monday commuted the death sentence of a Danville man who committed 3 murders, determining that Percy L. Walton is too mentally impaired to understand that he was about to be executed. Kaine announced his decision one day before Walton, 29, was to be executed by lethal injection for robbing and killing 3 neighbors in 1996. The governor commuted Walton's sentence to life in prison without possibility for parole. It is the 1st time that Kaine has commuted a death sentence since taking office in 2006. The governor has allowed 5 executions to proceed, despite his long-standing objection to the death penalty. Walton's execution already had been delayed three times because of questions about his competence. His lawyers have argued that the inmate is so mentally impaired that he did not understand why he was sentenced to death or that he would die for his crimes. A 1986 U.S. Supreme Court ruling forbids the execution of inmates who are unaware of the punishment they are about to receive and why. Walton was sentenced to death for the 1996 killings of Jessie E. Kendrick and Elizabeth W. Kendrick, an elderly couple, and 33-year-old Archie D. Moore Jr. A federal court delayed the execution in 2003 but later determined that Walton was mentally competent. Walton lost an appeal on a 7-6 decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Kaine twice postponed the execution in 2006 to allow for further evaluation of Walton's mental health. A clemency petition "presented significant evidence that Walton had schizophrenia ... and that Walton's mental state had deteriorated since 2003," Kaine said in a statement issued Monday. Between June and December of 2006, Kaine obtained more information about Walton's condition, including Department of Corrections records, psychiatric evaluations and accounts from people who interacted with Walton on a regular basis. The governor decided in December 2006 that Walton met the Supreme Court's definition of mental incompetence and delayed the execution by 18 months. "Over the course of those 18 months, there has been no discernible improvement in Walton's condition and no evidence that his mental impairment is temporary," Kaine said. Kaine described Walton's behavior in detail and said the inmate "lives in a self-imposed state of isolation that includes virtually no interest in receiving or understanding information." Kaine said commutation of the death sentence "is now the only constitutionally appropriate course of action." Attorney General Bob McDonnell, a Republican, said he disagreed with the Democratic governor's decision. McDonnell said "multiple courts" have considered evidence of Walton's mental capacity and should have already considered any new evidence. "Nothing has prevented Walton from bringing such evidence to the federal courts for further review in light of the U.S. constitutional standard," McDonnell said in a written statement. "Evidence of an inmate's competency is more effectively evaluated by a judicial officer. Thus I respectfully disagree with the governor's decision that clemency is now warranted in this case." Nash Bilisoly, a lawyer for Walton, said Kaine "acted appropriately." But Walton won't understand the impact of the governor's decision, Bilisoly said. "I can assure you he won't," Bilisoly said. "I won't even go tell him. I don't think he would understand any of it." Kaine said he was "mindful of terrible injustice that Walton perpetrated" against the victims and that his thoughts were with the victims' families. Irene Jurscaga, the sister of Elizabeth Kendrick, told The Associated Press that she was disappointed by Kaine's decision. "It's just another person that our tax dollars have to feed," said Jurscaga. "He isn't deserving to be alive, someone who created such a heinous crime." (source: Roanoke News) OHIO: Lorain judge calls death penalty unconstitutional Ohio's lethal injection process is unconstitutional because it could cause pain and the state mandates that an inmate's death has to be painless, Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge ruled Tuesday. He ordered the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to stop using the drugs that paralyze muscles and stop the heart and simply administer a lethal dose of an anesthetic. It's not known if the state will follow the ruling, which includes removing the phrase "or combination of drugs" from state law. Burge ruled in the cases of Ruben Rivera and Ronald McCloud. Rivera and McCloud are charged with aggravated murder. It was the first time in the U.S. that the lethal injection issue was reviewed prior to a trial. Their attorney, Jeffrey Gamso, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, hopes the ruling has a wide-ranging effect. "We had hoped he would have taken death off the table for these guys, and that is disappointing," Gamso said. Their attorney, Jeffrey Gamso, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, hopes the ruling has a wide-ranging effect. "We had hoped he would have taken death off the table for these guys, and that is disappointing," Gamso said. But Gamso was pleased Burge ruled against the combination of drugs currently used to execute people in Ohio and elsewhere. "We have been fighting from one end of the U.S. to the other about this set of Drugs," he said. The Ohio Attorney General's Office, the department of corrections and the Lorain County prosecutor's office are reviewing the decision to determine the ramifications of Burge's order and how to respond, officials said. "This is a very fact specific determination and quite frankly not anything anyone has seen," said Prosecutor Dennis Will. Challenges to lethal injection, claiming it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment have been filed in federal courts in many states, including Ohio. The U.S. Supreme Court in April upheld Kentucky's lethal-injection process, which is similar to Ohio's and the other 34 states that use that execution method. The states use a 3-drug cocktail -- to sedate, paralyze, and kill. Challengers in the Supreme Court, and in the case in Burge's court, argued that if the initial drug does not work, the others can cause excruciating pain, and the paralyzing drug would prevent the inmate from crying out. Burge said his case differed from the one decided in the Supreme Court because Kentucky has no mandate that execution be painless. Gamso said of all state execution statutes; Ohio's is the only one that says, "death by lethal injection must be caused quickly and painlessly." Debby Denno, a professor at Fordham University's law school, said via e-mail that Burge's ruling is significant. "The case was based on the Ohio statute," Denno said. "But the judge's conclusion that an anesthetic-only procedure will work, and will be quick and painless, should be highly relevant to judges in other states who are considering the same question." (source: Plain Dealer) ****************************************** Judge Tells Ohio to Change Executions Ohio must stop using a common combination of 3 chemicals to execute condemned inmates because they may produce excruciating pain, a state court judge there ruled Tuesday. Then, in what legal experts said was a first, the judge instead ordered the state to start using a single large dose of barbiturate, the alternative method that opponents of the lethal injection protocol had unsuccessfully urged on the Supreme Court and that is common in animal euthanasia. The decision is an exception to recent judicial trends in the wake of the United States Supreme Courts decision in April in Baze v. Kentucky, which upheld a lethal injection protocol similar to the one used in Ohio. There have been 5 executions 2 in Georgia and 1 each in Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia since Baze ended a de facto 7-month moratorium. And Texas is to resume executions on Wednesday. Texas's Court of Criminal Appeals issued rulings on Monday that rejected challenges from five death row inmates to lethal injections there, which also rely on the 3-chemical cocktail. Karl Chamberlain, who raped and murdered a 30-year-old woman in 1991, is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday. The Baze decision did not foreclose all challenges to lethal injections under the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment. But it said challengers must show a demonstrated risk of severe pain along with a feasible alternative that would significantly reduce that risk. The Ohio judge, Judge James M. Burge of the Lorain County Court of Common Pleas in Elyria, appeared to concede that a constitutional challenge to the Ohio protocol would fail under Baze. He based his decision instead on an Ohio law that requires lethal injections to use "a drug or combination of drugs of sufficient dosage to quickly and painlessly cause death." Baze, Judge Burge wrote, said the Constitution does not require the avoidance of all risk of pain. The Ohio law, by contrast, he said, "demands the avoidance of any unnecessary risk of pain and, as well, any unnecessary expectation by the condemned person that his execution may be agonizing or excruciatingly painful." The three chemicals used in Ohio and elsewhere are a sedative, a paralyzing agent and a drug that stops the heart. If the first is administered improperly, Judge Burge wrote, the second and third chemicals can give rise to suffocation and intense pain. Commissions appointed to study lethal injections and some judges have questioned the 3-chemical combination, saying it is cumbersome and risky. But Judge Burge was the 1st judge to require a sedative-only protocol, experts in the field said. The case was brought by Ruben O. Rivera and Ronald McCloud, who have been charged with capital crimes but have not yet been tried. The state had sought to halt the proceeding before Judge Burge as premature, but the Ohio Supreme Court declined to intercede. Mr. Rivera is charged with killing a man during a robbery. Mr. McCloud is charged with raping and killing a woman. Elisabeth Semel, the director of the death penalty clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, welcomed Judge Burge's ruling. "It is likely to reduce the risk of executions that cause suffocation and excruciating pain," she said. A spokeswoman for the Ohio attorney general's office said lawyers there were reviewing the decision. The last execution before the de facto moratorium happened in Texas, and it was the subject of controversy. The presiding judge on the Court of Criminal Appeals, Judge Sharon Keller, closed the courthouse at its regular time of 5 p.m. and turned back an attempt from a death row inmate to file appeal papers a few minutes later. The inmate, Michael Richard, was executed that evening. Opponents of the death penalty in Texas said they had hoped the criticism that followed that episode would inform the courts decisions on the recent lethal injection challenges. "Those of us who thought the court was taking a thoughtful and rigorous look at this were wrong," said David R. Dow of the Texas Defender Service. "I don't think the court has shown the interest in really developing a coherent body of law, but instead reacts from one decision to the next like a pinball." Mr. Chamberlain, scheduled to die on Wednesday, would be the 406th prisoner to be executed in Texas since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. "Texas is still Texas," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes the death penalty. "They are the ones with the most dates coming up, and by the year's end, I'm quite confident they will lead the country in executions." (source: New York Times) ********************************* Death penalty sought----East Price Hill man, 83, was victim 2 years ago, as he was trying to get out of prison early following his conviction on a string of burglaries, Roger Tucker praised prison for changing him for the better. Now, prosecutors would rather have him put to death. A Hamilton County grand jury indicted Tucker, 37, on Monday for aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Tucker is accused of the strangulation of 83-year-old Herbert Abraham, whose body was found May 30 in his East Price Hill condo in the 2500 block of Warsaw Avenue. Tucker was convicted of 6 counts of burglary in December 2001 and sentenced by Common Pleas Judge John "Skip" West to 6 years in prison. The judge also ordered him to get substance-abuse treatment and counseling while in prison. In an Oct. 10, 2006, request to the judge, Tucker boasted how well he was doing behind bars and asked the judge to release him early. In that request, Tucker noted how he was learning to deal with his anger and disregard for authority, traits that led to his 2001 imprisonment. "Sadly, I cannot undo what I have done. I can, however, work diligently to ensure that nothing of the sort happens again," he wrote. Unfortunately for Abraham, prosecutors said, it did. Tucker is accused of breaking into the elderly man's home and choking him to death during the burglary. He then is accused of taking Abraham's car, which was found days later in Covington, where Tucker ultimately was arrested and charged with possessing criminal tools. In that 2006 letter, Tucker told the judge he was trying to improve himself by attending Alcoholics Anonymous and anger-management meetings and learning how to be a dental technician. "I have learned much about myself through this ordeal, and I am ashamed of my past behavior. I can, and I will, do better," Tucker wrote. West denied Tucker's request for early release. Tucker was released from prison Oct. 19 after serving his 6-year term. Since the end of 2005, Hamilton County has executed one prisoner and has 36 inmates on Ohio's death row. The last Hamilton County inmate executed was John Hicks on Nov. 29, 2005. Hicks said he was high on cocaine in 1985 when he murdered his 5-year-old stepdaughter, Brandy Greene, and 56-year-old mother-in-law, Maxine Armstrong, in Walnut Hills. The Tucker case was randomly assigned to Common Pleas Judge Jody Luebbers. It's her 1st case as a judge. Luebbers was sworn in as a judge Friday. (source: Cincinnati Enquirer) **************** Burge orders change in lethal injection protocol Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge ordered this morning that Ohio change the lethal injection protocol used to execute condemned prisoners. The ruling comes after 2 days of testimony from anesthesiologists and written arguments submitted in the case. Capital murder defendants Ronald McCloud and Ruben Rivera challenged the state's lethal injection protocol arguing that it violates Ohio law that guarantees a quick and painless death. Burge ordered the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to eliminate 2 of the 3 drugs used in the execution protocol. The judge ruled that the state must use a single anesthetic to kill a condemned inmate. Ohio, in recent years, has used 3 drugs - sodium thiopental, an anesthetic; pancuronium bromide, a paralytic and potassium chloride that stops the heart. Burge ordered the state to eliminate the use of pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride from its protocol and to use a single anesthetic to kill an inmate that is sentenced to die by lethal injection. McCloud and Rivera have not yet gone to trial in their separate alleged criminal acts. McCloud is accused of raping and killing Janet Barnhard, 57, at the Living Water Christian Fellowship Church in Lorain in June 2005. Rivera is awaiting trial in the slaying of Manual Garcia, 48, in a drug-related robbery in Lorain in 2004. (source: The Morning Journal)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----S.C., KY., LA., VA., OHIO
Rick Halperin Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:16:51 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
