[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, S.C., MISS., MO.

[Rick Halperin]

June 16


OHIO----new execution date//volunteer

Death Penalty Appeal ----Barton, Rocky----County: Warren


Summary of Crime: On 1/16/03, Barton murdered his wife, 43-year-old
Kimberli Jo Barton, at their home in Waynesville. Kimberli and Barton had
gotten in a domestic dispute that morning and was returning home to gather
her belongings in order to move out, when Barton ambushed her by making
sure the gate to the driveway was locked behind her. Barton then appeared
and shot Kimberli once in the shoulder and then again in the back with a
shotgun. Barton's uncle and 17-year-old daughter witnessed the shooting.
At trial, Barton admitted to the murder and told the jury that he deserved
to die.

see: http://www.ag.state.oh.us/le/prosecuting/capital/detail.asp?id=483

(source: Ohio Attorney General's Office)

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

State seeks 4th Spirko execution delay----Petro agrees to check DNA on
cigarette stubs


The state yesterday asked for a 4th delay in the execution of convicted
murderer John Spirko as it continues to conduct a fresh round of DNA
testing on 22-year-old evidence.

Spirko, 60, has asked for testing of between 30 to 100 cigarette butts
recovered in August, 1984, from the post office in the Van Wert County
village of Elgin, where postmaster Betty Jane Mottinger was kidnapped.

Her body, stabbed repeatedly, was found weeks later in a soybean field
near Findlay. It was draped in what appeared to be an old theater curtain
used as a painting tarp, evidence that has now been scoured anew for DNA
samples.

Alvin Dunn, one of Spirko's attorneys, said the defense team was unaware
until recently that the cigarette butts still existed, and that Attorney
General Jim Petro's office agreed to add them to the items being tested.

Spirko's lawyers hope DNA recovered from hair samples, cigarette butts, or
other evidence will match someone in a national database or potentially
one of the potential "suspects" they have fingered.

In the alternative, they hope a complete absence of DNA connecting Spirko
to the crime will bolster his claim that he was in the Toledo area at the
time.

"Because the number of samples to be tested is so voluminous, the attorney
general outsourced this testing to a private lab to ensure that the
testing would be completed in an expeditious manner," Senior Deputy
Attorney General Heather L. Gosselin wrote to Mr. Taft's office.

"Even so," she wrote, "the testing will not be completed prior to Mr.
Spirko's scheduled July 19, 2006, execution date."

She requested an additional 4-month delay, which would postpone the
execution to late November. Taft spokesman Mark Rickel said the governor
will make a decision "as soon as possible."

Spirko's execution had originally been set for Sept. 20, 2005, but Mr.
Taft granted him a 2-month reprieve after it was revealed that the
attorney general's office had misrepresented some facts during his
clemency hearing. A new clemency hearing was held, but the result was the
same, a 6-3 vote recommending no mercy.

Then Mr. Taft approved a request from Mr. Petro's office to delay the
execution two more months while it conducted modern DNA testing. That
delay has later extended by six months, and could now be extended 4 more
months.

Ms. Gosselin left the door open in her latest letter for another delay if
needed.

Mr. Dunn said Spirko has been a smoker and that he would be surprised if
Spirko wasn't a smoker in 1982.

"There are plenty of smokers that have been around the post office," he
said. "If there is DNA identification on the cigarette buts, and it points
to people who would not normally be in a post office in the small village
of Elgin, such as somebody from Findlay, Ohio, we think that would require
further explanation," he said.

(source: Toledo Blade)






SOUTH CAROLINA----new execution date//volunteer

SC sets execution date for Georgia man who killed 6-year-old boy


A Georgia man who kidnapped, raped and murdered a 6-year-old boy in 1999
will be put to death July 14, the state Supreme Court said Friday.

William "Junior" Downs, 38, pleaded guilty in 2002 to raping and killing
Keenan O'Mailia of North Augusta and asked during sentencing to be put to
death.

O'Mailia's body was found in April 1999 covered with debris. The boy
disappeared the night before, when he was riding his bicycle near his
home.

Downs, of Augusta, Ga., said he stopped the boy, threw him down and
strangled him.

Earlier this month, the state Supreme Court decided Downs was mentally
competent to be executed. In March, Downs' lawyer Robert Dudek said Downs
told him he would rather die since the best he could get out of an appeal
would be a life sentence without parole.

A year after he was sent to death row, Downs pleaded not guilty to murder
and sexual assault charges in the death of 10-year-old James Porter, whose
body was found in the Augusta Canal 2 months after he disappeared in March
1991.

Police said Downs confessed to that slaying.

(source: Associated Press)






MISSISSIPPI----new execution date//volunteer

Hood wants execution date in 2 Scott County slayings


Attorney General Jim Hood filed a motion Thursday with the state Supreme
Court seeking to set an execution date of July 14 for death row inmate
Bobby Glen Wilcher of Lake.

Wilcher's motion to drop all appeals was granted Tuesday in the U.S.
District Court.

Wilcher, 44, was convicted for the brutal 1982 killings of two Scott
County women  Velma Odell Noblin and Katie Belle Moore  he asked for a
ride in a Forest bar. After meeting the women at the nightclub, Wilcher
persuaded them to drive him home and diverted them down a deserted road.

Moore, 47, was the mother of four children. Noblin, 52, was the mother of
10 children. They had been reported missing after being seen at Robert's
Drop Inn in Forest late Friday night, March 5, 1982.

Their blood-soaked bodies were found sprawled along the muddy ditch banks
of the dirt road. It had rained all Friday night before the discovery on
Saturday afternoon. Medical examiners would determine that each victim had
been stabbed and slashed more than 20 times.

Wilcher  then a 19-year-old dropout with a 9-month-old daughter  was
charged in connection with the crimes. He had been stopped by Forest
police for speeding in what would later be proved to be Mrs. Noblin's
brown 1978 Datsun. The arresting officer described Wilcher as "saturated
with blood."

In separate trials in 1982, Wilcher was convicted of capital murder for
both killings and sentenced to death in both cases. Wilcher's been at the
State Penitentiary at Parchman since 1982  his convictions on appeal.

In 1993, new sentencing trials were ordered, one in Harrison County and
the other in Rankin County. Wilcher was re-sentenced to death in 1994 in
both cases. His case has remained on appeal in the federal courts since
that time.

(source: Clarion-Ledger)

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

Wilcher refuses more appeals, asks for execution date


Death row inmate Bobby Glen Wilcher has won a federal court's approval to
dismiss further appeals in his case, and prosecutors have moved to
schedule an execution by July 14.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry T. Wingate on Thursday issued an order
lifting the stay on Wilcher's execution. Wingate said in his order that
Wilcher had chosen to abandon his appeals against the advice of his
attorneys.

"After examining petitioner and discussing with him the import of what he
was requesting, the court finds that petitioner is competent to waive his
appeals," Wingate wrote.

Attorney General Jim Hood has filed a motion with the Mississippi Supreme
Court to schedule Wilcher's execution on or before July 14.

"That one is probably going," Hood told The Associated Press on Friday. "I
like to see convicts step up and admit what they did and take their
punishment. I have more respect for them when they do that."

Hood said he believed Wilcher "just got tired."

Attorneys Tom Royals and Cliff Johnson, who represented Wilcher, could not
immediately be contacted Friday for comment.

Johnson responded to order by filing petitions Friday afternoon with the
state Supreme Court and U.S. District Court. He asked the Supreme Court
not to reset an execution date while attorneys try to reinstate appeals
for Wilcher in federal court.

"Among the questions that must be considered are the psychological effects
of recent events experienced by petitioner on Parchman's death row and the
psychological effects of the numerous medications petitioner takes on a
daily basis," Johnson said in the court filings.

Wilcher was convicted for the 1982 killings of two Scott County women he
picked up in a bar. Wilcher persuaded them to drive him home and diverted
them down a deserted road, where he robbed and repeatedly stabbed them.

He was tried in separate trials in 1984 for the murders of Velma Odell
Noblin and Katie Belle Moore, receiving the death sentence in each case.

In 1993, new sentencing trials were ordered. Wilcher was re-sentenced to
death in 1994 in both cases. In 2003, the state Supreme Court ruled
against an appeal by him, saying that Wilcher presented no post conviction
claims that could lead to a new trial.

Tara Frazier, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Corrections,
said she didn't know what prompted Wilcher's decision.

"He's got no rule violations," Frazier said. "I don't see where he's been
any trouble. He's been a good inmate from what I can see."

Mississippi last executed an inmate in December 2005, when John B. Nixon
Sr. received a lethal injection for the 1985 contract killing of Virginia
Tucker of Brandon.

(source: Associated Press)






MISSOURI:

Department of Corrections to clarify execution protocol


The Missouri Department of Corrections will clarify its protocol on
executions, but some death penalty opponents and lethal injection experts
say that isn't enough to ensure against cruelty to inmates.

Larry Crawford, the state's corrections department director, said this
week he should have been notified when a physician who assists in state
executions prepared a lower-than-expected dose of anesthesia for the last
several inmates who were put to death.

The smaller amount also was prepared for convicted murderer Michael
Taylor, whose scheduled execution in February was halted in an 11th-hour
court delay.

Crawford made the announcement while testifying this week in a hearing to
decide whether Missouri's method of execution is cruel and unusual.

A surgeon who assists in Missouri executions testified in a deposition
that he prepared 2.5 grams of thiopental, an anesthesia, instead of 5
grams because he believed it was enough, and packaging made the larger
amount unwieldy.

Thiopental, the 1st of 3 drugs administered to a prisoner about to be
executed, is supposed to render him unconscious so he doesn't feel the 3rd
drug, which can cause a burning pain. A state witness at the hearing,
Massachusetts anesthesiologist Mark Dershwitz, testified that some states
use as little as 1.5 grams.

Crawford said in a telephone interview that administering a lower dosage
"should not be left up to an individual's discretion.

"I should have been notified," he said. "I want to be consulted."

He plans to formalize the injection procedures and limit an individual
doctor's discretion. The protocol will set out the type, dose and order of
drugs and say that delivering them through the femoral vein is preferable,
but not required, Crawford said.

The doctor, whose name was not made public in the court file, testified
that he is dyslexic and that "it's not unusual for me to make mistakes."

The doctor testified he was not aware of any rules that required him to
notify the corrections director about changes to the execution procedure -
which he said he believes is not written or recorded.

He said he was asked to assist Missouri executions after a problematic
attempt in which the inmate took a long time to die. He recommended to a
previous corrections director that infusing three drugs through a femoral
(groin) intravenous catheter would be more effective, and that's what
Missouri has used ever since. With it, he testified, there is "no risk,
all benefit."

But Tom Goldstein, an expert in lethal injection litigation who recently
argued the same issue before the U.S. Supreme Court for a Tennessee
inmate, said it "shocks the conscience that Missouri has allowed
executions which so clearly risk unnecessary pain and suffering."

Thomas Henthorn, a Colorado anesthesiologist, testified for Taylor that
Missouri's practice of rapidly injecting each chemical one after the other
doesn't leave enough time for the anesthesia to take effect, creating a
"substantial risk of inflicting excruciating pain."

He also testified it isn't necessary to infuse the drugs through a femoral
intravenous catheter when an IV in the arm would do. The femoral line
causes significant pain and "risks excruciating complications," he said.
Dershwitz said the femoral vein is more reliable.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. has until the end of the month to
rule in the Taylor case. The matter is being debated nationally, and the
U.S. Supreme Court this week made it easier for death row inmates across
the country to contest lethal injections.

(source: Associated Press)