May 6
GEORGIA----execution Lynd is 1st person in U.S. executed since moratorium----Execution delayed for final checks with courts Almost 20 years after murdering his ex-girlfriend, William Earl Lynd became the 1st person in the United States to die by lethal injection since an unofficial moratorium was placed on executions while the U.S. Supreme Court decided the constitutionality of the procedure. Despite the last-ditch appeals to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles and the state and federal courts over the past few days, Lynd was executed and pronounced dead at at 7:51 p.m. Tuesday, 17 minutes after the 1st drug began flowing into his veins. He was the 41st man Georgia has executed since 1983, the 19th by lethal injection. Lynd's execution is expected to be followed soon by several in Georgia and other states. There is one scheduled in Mississippi for May 21 and in Virginia for May 27, and more planned throughout the summer in Texas, Louisiana, Virginia and Oklahoma. "It's going to crank up again," said lethal injection expert and Fordam Law School professor Deborah Denno. "Life is going back to the way it was" before executions nationwide were unofficially put on hold last October until the U.S. Supreme Court could rule on the constitutionality of lethal injection, the method of execution used in Georgia and 36 other states. That decision upholding lethal injection came April 16. While Lynd's execution was quickly scheduled, Georgia, Attorney General Thurbert Baker also asked the state Supreme Court to lift two stays issued last October. Both Jack Alderman, sentenced to die for the 1974 murder of his wife in Chatham County, and Curtis Osborne, condemned for a 1990 double murder in Spalding County, were schedule for executions that were called off last fall. Their stays have not been lifted yet. Another condemned killer, Samuel David Crowe, also could be executed soon for a 1988 murder and armed robbery in Douglas County, as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal just days after deciding last month lethal injection was constitutional. With Lynd's execution, there were no last minute court-issued stays. The 34-minute delay was so the state's lawyers could make final checks with various courts. As he was being executed, a dozen death penalty opponents stood in quiet protest about a mile from the sprawling Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison just outside of Jackson. They held signs proclaiming their opposition. "End state killing," one sign read. Another proclaimed "not in my name." They also stood in a circle while they prayed and sang. And just a few yards away, 2 women from High Falls waited in support of his execution and to show support for the victim's family. "They waited for news of Lynd's death at a picnic table a few yards from the death penalty protesters. "They shouldn't let so many years go by," said Claudia Bishop. "I feel for the victim's family and for his family but not for him." Prison spokesman Paul Czachowski said Lynd spent much of his last day visiting with a sister and a girlfriend. He was "somber," and requested a mild sedative to calm him in the hours before going to his death. Lynd's brother and sister-in-law witnessed the execution while his mother and other relatives waited elsewhere in the prison. Lynd said only "no" when asked if he had a final statement. He also declined a prayer. Lynd was sentenced to death in Berrien County in far South Georgia for killing his live-in girlfriend, Ginger Moore, on Dec. 22, 1988. According to testimony, Lynd and Moore got into an argument and he shot her in the face, wounding her. She followed Lynd to the front porch where he shot her a 2nd time. Lynd put her in the trunk of a car and drove away. Trial testimony was that he killed her when he shot her a 3rd time because she continued to thump on the trunk. But a medical examiner now says Moore was not alive when Lynd put her in the trunk, according to his appeals, and that should have made him ineligible for the death sentence because kidnapping does not apply to someone who is dead. Lynd's attorney, Tom Dunn, said a lack of money prevented him from presenting those findings that might have spared Lynd from a death sentence. "In my 20 years of capital defense work, except for DNA exonerations, I have never had a clearer factual basis for relieve," Dunn said in a written statement. "No mincing of words. Just objective medical and physical evidence. Unfortunately, it came too late because of the lack of funds to hire the necessary experts." Lynd becomes the 1,100th condemned inmate to be put to death in the USA since the death penalty was re-legalized on July 2, 1976. (sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution & Rick Halperin) NORTH CAROLINA: As Executions Resume, So Do Questions of Fairness The release of the 3rd death row inmate in 6 months in North Carolina last week is raising fresh questions about whether states are supplying capital-murder defendants with adequate counsel, even as an execution on Tuesday night in Georgia ended a 7-month national suspension. In all 3 cases, North Carolina appeals courts found that evidence that would have favored the defendants was withheld from defense lawyers by prosecutors or investigators. In 2 of the cases, including that of Levon Jones, who was released on Friday after 14 years on death row, the courts said the defendants' lawyers had failed to mount an adequate defense. Nationwide, Mr. Jones's release was the 6th in a year. John Holdridge, director of the A.C.L.U. Capital Punishment Project, which provided representation for Mr. Jones, said the successful appeals showed that the problem with the death penalty was not the method of execution the issue ruled on by the Supreme Court last month but instead "poor people getting lousy lawyers." "All these states are gearing up to start executing people again, and nobody seems to be concerned about these systemic problems," Mr. Holdridge said. On Tuesday evening, after the Supreme Court declined to stop it, the State of Georgia conducted the 1st execution since the court ruled last month that a method of lethal injection was not unconstitutional. William E. Lynd, 53, was put to death by injection for the 1988 killing of his girlfriend, Ginger Moore. No prisoners had been executed in the United States since last September, while the court was considering the issue. During that same period, Georgia's new public defender system came under attack by politicians and was recently forced to cut more than 40 positions. That system, established after a series of lawsuits, was patterned after one North Carolina put in place in 2001, which was considered a national model. But not many other states have followed suit, said Robin Maher, director of the American Bar Associations Death Penalty Representation Project. "I wish I could say that things have gotten a lot better, but in fact I can say with confidence that things have changed not much at all," Ms. Maher said. "We are seeing the same kinds of egregiously bad lawyering that we saw 10 or 15 years ago, for a variety of reasons, including inadequate funding." Of the 36 states that allow the death penalty, only about 10 have statewide capital-defense systems, one of the practices recommended by the Bar Association. The 3 men released in North Carolina were all convicted in the mid-1990s, before a barrage of criticism of the states capital punishment system, including an investigation in 2000 by The Charlotte Observer that showed that 16 death row inmates had been represented by lawyers who were later disbarred. North Carolina made a number of changes that included establishing the statewide defender system and broader discovery rules for defense lawyers. Beginning in 1996, defense lawyers working on appeals in death penalty cases were permitted to view all investigative files pertaining to the case, and in 2004 the same right was extended to the defense in all criminal cases. Joseph B. Cheshire, the lawyer for one of the 3 released men, Jonathon Hoffman, credited the discovery rules with bringing to light what he called a pattern of wrongful convictions. The court-appointed trial lawyers for Mr. Hoffman, convicted of killing a jewelry store owner during a robbery, were not told that the main witness against him had been paid for his cooperation and was given immunity from prosecution and a reduced sentence for bank robbery. Mr. Cheshire said that a copy of the district attorney's notes was altered to conceal those facts before they were provided to the defense for discovery. Mr. Hoffman was released in December. Mr. Cheshire is also the chairman of the state's Indigent Defense Services Commission. Thanks to those 2 changes, he said, "the likelihood today of someone being convicted whos innocent is far less than it was 5 or 6 years ago." The man who prosecuted Mr. Jones, however, does not concede that the defendant was innocent. The prosecutor, G. Dewey Hudson, said that he still believed that Mr. Jones was involved in the murder, but that he could not retry him because crucial witnesses had died and 1 had recanted. "It has taken 15 years for the court system to make the determination that Mr. Jones's original counsel was ineffective," Mr. Hudson said in a statement released Friday. "As a result of this delay, the State has been severely handcuffed in its obligation to prosecute Mr. Jones for the murder of Leamon Grady." Cassy Stubbs, the A.C.L.U. lawyer who represented Mr. Jones, said all of the witnesses from the initial trial were still living. Mr. Jones was convicted of robbing and shooting Mr. Grady, a bootlegger in Duplin County. The main witness against Mr. Jones was a former girlfriend, Lovely Lorden, who testified that she had gone with him to Mr. Grady's house the night of the killing and heard gunshots while waiting outside. State courts rejected Mr. Jones's claims of ineffective legal counsel. But a federal judge, Terrence W. Boyle, later found that Mr. Jones's trial lawyers failed to do a background check that would have revealed Ms. Lordens criminal background, failed to interview her before trial and failed to obtain copies of inconsistent statements she made. They also failed to present evidence that Mr. Jones might be mentally ill, cognitively impaired, or had a history of substance abuse, the judge found, information that could have saved him from a death sentence. "Jones received 2 appointed attorneys that spent virtually no time or effort investigating the offense or his background," Judge Boyle said. In subsequent hearings and affidavits, it became clear that Ms. Lorden was a frequent police informant and that, contrary to testimony at the trial, she had known when she came forward in the Grady case that there was a $4,000 reward available. Though Ms. Stubbs said that there was evidence that pointed to another man in the killing, Mr. Hudson said in a telephone interview that he considered the case closed. Mr. Jones's release came on the heels of that of Glen E. Chapman, who was convicted of killing 2 women, Betty Jean Ramseur and Tenene Y. Conley, in Union County in 1992. Judge Robert C. Ervin of State Superior Court ruled in April that Mr. Chapman's lawyers had failed their client, noting that one of them could recall interviewing only one witness and had visited the crime scenes for the 1st time 2 weeks before trial. The lawyers had both admitted to heavy drinking during other trials. Judge Ervin also found that Dennis Rhoney, then a police detective, knowingly presented false and misleading information on the stand. The State Bureau of Investigation is reviewing perjury claims against Mr. Rhoney. (source: New York Times) TENNESSEE: DA says he will retry death row inmate House 8 Judicial District Attorney William Paul Phillips just announced he will retry death row inmate Paul House. The announcement followed a decision by the Tennessee attorney general's office that it would not fight an appeals court decision that would have cleared the way to release House, who has been imprisoned nearly 22 years. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed a ruling by federal Judge Harry S. Mattice Jr., who in December ordered House's release unless prosecutors began a new trial against him within 180 days. Attorney general's office spokeswoman Sharon Curtis-Flair said Tuesday "the state will not pursue any further appeals." "With the conclusion of this appeals process, all issues related to a retrial now go to the district attorney and the trial court." The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that House's jury didn't hear testimony that could have exonerated him in the 1985 slaying of Carolyn Muncey in Union County in East Tennessee. DNA evidence also led the Supreme Court to question the conviction. Paul Phillips, who as district attorney general for Union County will have to decide whether to retry the case against House, could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. At a court hearing in February, Phillips said the state planned to again seek the death penalty against House at a new trial. When asked about whether prosecutors would pursue a new trial for House, Curtis-Flair on Tuesday said that Phillips should be asked about that possibility. A hearing scheduled for May 28 will set the conditions of House's release. House has multiple sclerosis and must use a wheelchair. The 46-year-old inmate who's set to be released into the care of his mother and live at her Crossville home now resides in the state's Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility for prisoners in Nashville. (soure: The Tennessean) MISSOURI: Pair to face death penalty 2 men accused in the rape and murder of a 9-year-old Stella girl last November may get the death penalty if convicted. On Monday, Barry County Prosecutor Johnnie Cox filed an intent to seek the death penalty against David Spears and Chris Collings who are suspects in the death of Rowan Ford, a student at Triway Elementary. Spears was Ford's step-father, while Collings was a family friend. Ford went missing from her Stella home on Nov. 2, and was the subject of a massive search which involved local law enforcement agencies, volunteers, the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. The search included areas of Newton, McDonald and Barry counties. About 50 federal agents and 25 members of the highway patrol were involved in the case. On Nov. 8, Spears led Newton County Coroner Mark Bridges to a sinkhole located about 10 miles south of the girl's home near Powell and Mike's Creek. At one time, both Spears and Collings worked for Bridges in the coroners automotive business. Bridges said he saw some items inside the cavern-like area that raised suspicions, and contacted FBI agents. They, in turn, contacted the McDonald County Sheriffs Department. Deputies Jake Boles and Mike Hall checked out the sink hole the following morning and discovered the girls body about 20 feet below ground. Spears and Collings both confessed they had raped and murdered the child, authorities have said. Both men have been charged with first-degree murder, forcible rape and statutory rape. Both are being held without bond in the Barry County Jail. And both men are slated to appear for bond hearings on May 20. Spears is being represented by Michael C. King, a Carthage public defender, while Collings is represented by Clate Jay Baker of Monett. (source: Neosho Daily News)
