[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----ALA., PENN., MISS.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 20



ALABAMA:

Hutcherson appeal mirrors suit over Alabama death penalty law


An attorney for Alabama death row inmate Larry Eugene Hutcherson asked the
federal appeals court today for an order blocking his execution next week
in Alabama for killing an elderly Mobile woman.

State prosecutors responded in a motion before the Atlanta-based 11th U-S-
Circuit Court of Appeals, saying Hutcherson waited too late -- a week
before his scheduled execution -- to raise issues already settled in his
first round of failed appeal, calling his request for a stay "wholly
without merit."

Hutcherson's civil complaint that seeks to block the execution mirrors
some of the claims in a class-action suit against the state.

That 2001 suit on behalf of death row prisoners' access to the courts was
filed by the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama.

There's no final ruling on it yet from the same Atlanta appeals court
considering Hutcherson's case, which also involved issues unrelated to the
E-J-I suit.

The 37-year-old Hutcherson faces lethal injection at Holman Prison at six
p-m- on October 26th for the June 26th 1992, slaying of 89-year-old Irma
Thelma Gray of Mobile.

(source: Associated Press)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Decision Day Arrives In Butler Death Penalty Case----Man Convicted Of
Killing Pregnant Wife


A Butler County man convicted overnight of killing his pregnant wife in
2004 faces sentencing Friday morning.

Jonathan Tusa, of Butler County, was convicted of killing his wife after
she tried to leave him.

He shot his 21-year-old wife, Dawn, three times as she drove away from
their Penn Township home.

Dawn's car ended up on a hillside. A passing driver found her hours later.

Dawn died before paramedics arrived at the scene.

In a verdict reached after 11 p.m. Thursday, the jury found Johnathan
guilty on two counts of first-degree murder.

Defense attorney Dick Goldinger said, "I think the jury decided he was
guilty of murder in the 1st degree. I think its a possibility, I mean, it
was obviously there. It was a charge; it was a deserved charge. I'm not
saying it was a deserved verdict."

Prosecutors said they will ask for the death penalty.

(source: WPXI News)






MISSISSIPPI:

Miss. high court says death row inmate can't pursue new claims for new
trial


The Mississippi Supreme Court has refused to allow death row inmate
Stephen Elliot Powers to pursue a post conviction claim, ruling Powers had
raised no new issues on which he might be granted a new trial.

The court on Thursday, in a 7-2 decision, dismissed Powers' claims that
his attorney should have done a better job and that an accumulation of
errors denied him a fair trial.

Powers was back before the state court after the U.S. Supreme Court in
2005 refused to hear his appeal.

Powers was sentenced to death in Forrest County for the 1998 killing of a
University of Southern Mississippi student.

Powers was convicted in Forrest County of murdering 27-year-old Beth
Lafferty, who was shot 5 times during an attack at her home, including 3
times in the back of her head. The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld
Powers' death sentence in 2003.

According to the court record, Powers confessed in a written statement
that he and Lafferty struggled with a gun and that he shot Lafferty, but
he specifically denied having sex with the woman.

The Mississippi court ruled the physical evidence clearly revealed that
there was an attempt to rape the woman.

In his post conviction petition, Powers argued his lawyer didn't do enough
to obtain experts to support Powers' defense.

Justice George C. Carlson Jr., writing for the court, said the issue of
ineffective counsel was raised by Powers previously when his conviction
was upheld in 2003. He said Powers had come with some new examples of his
attorney's failures but none of them would likely win Powers a new trial.

Powers argued his attorney should have hired an expert to counter
prosecutors' evidence that the placement of the woman's body showed there
was an attempt to rape her.

Carlson said Powers' claim of new evidence was only speculation.

"It is highly doubtful that any expert testimony regarding the positioning
of the body would have likely resulted in a different verdict. After all,
the victim was found nude from the waist down with her shorts and
underwear bunched at one ankle, as well as with 5 gunshot wounds to her
head," Carlson said.

Carlson said Powers' argument that he was deprived of a fair trial because
of an accumulation of errors failed because he didn't show any actual
error by the trial court.

Carlson said while there may have been some errors at Powers' trial, they
were harmless and didn't deny Powers a fair trial.

(source: Associated Press)