July 31 MISSOURI: Missouri man guilty in videotaped torture death A suburban Kansas City man was found guilty Thursday of murder in the videotaped sexual torture and slaying of a 41-year-old woman. He could be sentenced to death. Richard D. Davis, 44, of Independence was found guilty on 25 of 26 counts related to the deaths of 2 women. He was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, rape, sodomy and assault in the May 2006 slaying of Marsha Spicer of Independence. He was convicted of kidnapping, rape, sodomy and assault in the attack of 36-year-old Michelle Huff-Ricci a month earlier. Davis, who showed no emotion as the verdict was read, was acquitted on 1 count of 1st-degree assault related to the attack on Huff-Ricci. Her charred remains were found in neighboring Clay County, where Davis and his girlfriend, Dena Riley, are charged with capital murder for her April 2006 suffocation. Riley also is scheduled to go to trial next year in Spicer's killing. Jurors, who deliberated for less than four hours Thursday, will now determine whether Davis will face the death penalty. The sentencing portion of the trial was scheduled to begin Friday morning. The key evidence in the case was videotapes that prosecutors say Davis and Riley made of the attacks on Spicer and Huff-Ricci to fulfill Davis' violent sexual fantasies. During the weeklong trial, jurors watched graphic DVD recordings taken from those tapes, one of which showed Spicer's death. During closing arguments, assistant Jackson County prosecutor Tammy Dickinson told jurors that Davis held Spicer down at his apartment while Riley sat on Spicer's face and smothered her. She added that Davis and Riley thought they had made mistakes in the earlier sexual torture of Huff-Ricci and wanted to perfect their methods with Spicer. Defense attorney Tom Jacquinot admitted that Davis killed Spicer but urged jurors to find him guilty of second-degree murder, which would have spared him a possible death sentence. Jacquinot argued that the slaying was not planned and that Davis simply became caught up in his own "horrible fantasies" about killing. After the verdict was read, prosecutors declined to comment. Jacquinot had little to say. "We accept the verdict and respect the jury's decision, and now we'll move on to the sentencing part of the case," he said. A cousin of Huff-Ricci's, Lori Sell, said she was relieved that Davis was convicted of 1st-degree murder. "He won't hurt no one else in the world like he did those 2 women." Sell said she was one of the few members of the victims' families who remained in court while prosecutors showed jurors the DVD of the assaults. She couldn't see the images, but she said it was difficult to listen to the slaps and muffled screams. Other family members of the victims left the courtroom without commenting after the verdict. Huff-Ricci's death came to light after Davis and Riley were captured in southwest Missouri after a 5-day search in May 2006 and brought back to the Kansas City area, where they were charged in Spicer's death. Police have said both defendants led investigators to Huff-Ricci's remains. Riley and Davis also have been indicted in Kansas on a federal charge of kidnapping a 5-year-old southeast Kansas girl related to Davis after fleeing the Kansas City area. (source: Associated Press) **************** Tapes show victims screaming, crying, gasping for air Jurors view excerpts of videotapes showing women being beaten, abused Richard Davis, 44, could face death penalty if convicted of capital murder Seven hours of sex-torture tapes found in search of Davis' house He's on trial, accused of murdering Marsha Spicer, 41, in 2006 Jurors in the capital-murder case of a man accused of killing 2 women viewed a DVD recording Wednesday of the women being beaten and sexually tortured. Richard Davis is being tried on 40 felony counts, including capital murder, kidnapping and rape. The jury in the trial of Richard Davis, 44, reviewed 90 minutes of edited images taken from 7 hours of videotapes that police found in Davis' Independence apartment. According to previous testimony, the videotapes showed Davis and his girlfriend, Dena Riley, brutalizing 2 women -- Marsha Spicer, 41, and Michelle Huff-Ricci, 36. Davis is on trial in Jackson County for the May 2006 death of Spicer, of Independence. He faces 40 felony counts, including capital murder, and could face the death penalty if convicted. Riley's trial is scheduled for next year. Davis and Riley also are charged in neighboring Clay County with capital murder in the April 2006 suffocation of Huff-Ricci. The DVD played Wednesday could be seen only by the jury, judge and attorneys. Others in the courtroom, including Spicer's family, could hear the audio; the relatives left the room before the recording finished. At one point, a victim is heard screaming and crying. Several minutes later the same woman begs, "Please wait," then the sound of duct tape being unrolled is heard. Later a woman's screams were heard, followed by another woman's voice telling her to be quiet. Elsewhere on the recording, a woman is heard gasping for air. Police found Spicer's battered and nude body in a shallow grave in Lafayette County in May 2006. Autopsy results indicated she had been strangled. News of the find led police to 2 women who shared stories of a man who liked to choke women during sex. That led them to Davis and Riley, who denied knowing Spicer. A search warrant for the couple's apartment found the videotapes, among other evidence. By the time authorities issued arrest warrants for Davis and Riley, they had left the area; they were captured in southwest Missouri after a 5-day manhunt. Police later linked the 2 to Huff-Ricci, who had disappeared more than a month before Spicer's body was found. Police have said both defendants led investigators to Huff-Ricci's charred, skeletal remains in rural Clay County, just north of Independence. Riley and Davis also have been indicted in Kansas on a federal charge of kidnapping a 5-year-old southeast Kansas girl related to Davis after fleeing the Kansas City area. Court documents said the child had injuries consistent with sexual abuse. (source: Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIA: Steven Colegrove Murder Trial: DA seeking death penalty A Bradford County Sheriffs Deputy escorts accused murderer Steven Colegrove into the Bradford County Courthouse for a court appearance last year. With the murder trial for the Steven Colegrove, 32, of Deposit, N.Y., scheduled to begin in January 2009, Bradford County District Attorney Daniel Barrett said Thursday the commonwealth will be pursuing the death penalty if Colegrove is found guilty. Colegrove is charged with three counts of 1st-degree murder in the Aug. 8, 2007 shooting deaths of his father Joseph, his mother Marlene, and his older brother Michael, which all occurred sometime after 1 a.m. at their Laceyville home. Joseph Colegrove was a longtime barber and a member of the local fire department along with son Michael. Marlene Colegrove drove a bus for the Wyalusing School District. The DAs office had taken the 1st steps in seeking the death penalty by filing a notice of aggravating circumstances in fall of 2007. "When a guilty verdict for 1st-degree murder is rendered, the jury is held and asked to decide whether the death penalty should be applied," said Barrett. In the decision-making process the jury is to consider the presence of aggravating factors such as the murder of 3 people, and decide if they outweigh mitigating factors, such as if the actions of the accused occurred under some mental or physical stress, Barrett explained. A decision will have to be rendered unanimously by the jury in order for Colegrove to face the death penalty, and if not, Colegrove will face life in a state correctional facility. Colegrove has pleaded "not guilty" to the charges filed against him. (source: Morning-Times) CALIFORNIA: Attorney for accused cop killer DeShawn Campbell seeks to oust prosecutor from case The lawyer for accused San Jose cop killer DeShawn Campbell has asked the judge to remove the prosecutor from the case, alleging Lane Liroff's campaign for a judge's seat is inspiring him to unfairly push for the death penalty. Attorney Edward Sousa also called for the more dramatic step of recusing the entire district attorney's office from the case, saying that District Attorney Dolores Carr has "an ax to grind against the defendant" and is closely aligned herself with the victim and police. Her husband and stepson are city police officers. "Lane Liroff and his office have a conflict of interest such that they can no longer effectively evaluate DeShawn Campbell's case," Sousa said. "They are ignoring overwhelming evidence because they don't want to lose the support of law enforcement - which Lane needs to become a judge." Liroff scoffed at the allegations, saying neither he nor Carr - who has endorsed him in the race - had said or done anything inappropriate. "This is the paranoid suspicion of a frustrated defense attorney," Liroff said. "The facts are wrong, the law is wrong. It's a waste of taxpayer money." Sousa's motions to recuse are scheduled to be hashed out in court on Aug. 12th. Officer Jeffrey Fontana was fatally shot in the head during a traffic stop Oct. 28, 2001. Campbell was arrested early the next month in the slaying. Since then the case has slowly wound its way through a variety of pre-trial hearings and delays. It's seeming sluggishness has become a controversial issue, especially for police and the family of Fontana - who have called for more speedy justice. Liroff's run for judge has complicated the situation further. If Liroff wins a November runoff election against Diane Ritchie to became a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge, another prosecutor must take his place. Liroff said that if he loses, he will stay on the case. Next month Liroff and Sousa are scheduled to re-argue the issue whether Campbell is mentally retarded. If Judge Diane Northway decides he is, he will be spared the death penalty, if convicted. Sousa alleges Liroff's push to get endorsements and donations from law enforcement could be a motive in why he is trying so hard to prove Campbell is not mentally retarded. "This gives him a personal financial interest in pursuing the case quickly to trial without regard to whether he is seeking the death penalty against someone who is mentally retarded," Sousa said. Liroff pointed out that other lawyers in Santa Clara County - including defense attorneys - had run for judge while trying murder cases. "Look, I'm a professional," he said. "I have responsibilities." Sousa also criticized Liroff for accepting the George W. Kennedy Excellence in Prosecution Award in May from the police department honoring his handling the case. "A prosecutor who has been presented with and accepted an award from the SJPD for his ongoing prosecution of the Campbell case raises a serious question whether there is an increased pressure or sense of obligation to pursue the death penalty more vigorously than the merits of this case otherwise dictate," the motion reads. Liroff said he was feeling no pressure from anyone to deal with the case "unreasonably." "The only thing they ask is why it's taking so long," Liroff said. "It's a valid question. This case has taken 7 years." (source: San Jose Mercury News) ***************** Jury urges death penalty for killer of Sylmar woman----Steven Carl Evans fatally stabbed the woman near a church in Fullerton. He is a registered sex offender with a long prison record. After deliberating less than an hour, an Orange County jury today recommended the death penalty for a registered sex offender who fatally stabbed a woman inside a trailer near a Fullerton church. Steven Carl Evans, 61, who has spent his life in and out of custody, was convicted earlier this month in the murder and sexual assault of Jeanette Elias, 24, of Sylmar. He is scheduled to be formally sentenced Oct. 24. Evans met Elias when she got off a train in Fullerton. He took her to a trailer that was parked near a church, where authorities say he tried to rape her and stabbed her more than 20 times before fleeing to his parents' home in Los Angeles County. Elias' body was found after police received a tip from Evans' sister-in-law, who reported that Evans had come to the home she shared with Evans' brother and revealed he had just gotten into a fight with a woman. Evans spent 8 years in a state prison for a rape conviction in San Bernardino more than 20 years ago, with time served concurrently for forgery and other fraud charges. He was paroled in 1988 but in the late 1990s was convicted again in Los Angeles County and sentenced to 6 years for grand theft. He was released in 2001. (source: Los Angeles Times) ****************** Fullerton Man Will Suffer The Death Penalty A jury deliberated a half-hour today before deciding that a Fullerton man should suffer the death penalty for a butcher knife and meat cleaver attack that killed a Tujunga woman during an attempted rape in 2003. The 6-man, 6 woman panel earlier this month rejected Steve Carl Evans' claim that he acted in self-defense when he stabbed 24-year-old Jeannette Elias. The 54-year-old Hawthorne father noted outside the courtroom that, according to testimony, his daughter was stabbed more than 22 times, but authorities just stopped counting the wounds at that number. 3 of the wounds were fatal. Evans, 61, was convicted July 22 of 1st-degree murder and the special circumstance allegations of murder during attempted rape and during sexual penetration with a foreign object by force. He was also convicted of attempted forcible rape and sexual penetration by a foreign object by force. He assaulted the woman and tried to rape her before stabbing her with several knives, including a meat cleaver and a butcher knife, said Farrah Emami of the Orange County District Attorney's Office. The victim was found fully clothed, but her hard plastic driver's license was found folded into fifths inside her vagina, and DNA from Evans' saliva was found on the victim's breasts, Emami said. Evans talked to police about six hours after his arrest on Aug. 19, 2003, several hours after he met the victim who had gotten off a train about 1 that morning -- apparently at the wrong stop -- and the 2 ended up in a travel-trailer he wa living in that was parked in a lot adjacent to a church in Fullerton. Evans, who testified during the guilt phase of his trial, told police that the woman was into satanic worship and believed that Satan was her friend, defense attorney Rob Harley said. Between 1997-2003, Elias was committed to institutions multiple times for mental problems -- she was diagnosed with schizophrenia -- and her mother had a conservatorship, Harley said. Evans claimed Elias became enraged after the 2 smoked drugs in the trailer, and that she carried a pocket knife. Her father said Elias shied away from men because she was molested by an acquaintance when she was 7 years old. "She did not let men touch her," he said. Denying his daughter carried a weapon, Elias said she likely fought off a sexual advance. Evans carried a pocket knife and had other knives in the trailer, the father said. He believes Evans -- who raped a woman in 1981 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison -- did not want to leave a witness. Evans suffered a one-inch stab wound to the chest during the attack, the father said. According to police, Evans fled to his parents' house in La Mirada, where police contacted him later in the day. Luis Elias said Evans probably planned to return to the trailer and dispose of the body after he recuperated from his wound. "My daughter was never into any satanic religion," her father said, conceding that she was mentally ill. When not on medication, she was upset, feared she was being followed and was over-cautious, but acted normal when she took her medicine, he said. "She was feeling well at the time," the father said. She had gotten a job at a pizza place, moved out of her mother's North Hollywood home and into her own apartment in Tujunga, he said. According to juror Steve Buchanan, 39, of Irvine, a key piece of evidence in the penalty phase was a videotape Luis Elias made of his daughter, when she was 15 years old, as they left El Salvador and came to America. In it, she told her father how much she loved him and other members of the family. Buchanan said when the jury saw the tape, the victim "became a living, breathing person." "I would say it definitely brought her to life," Buchanan said. The jury took only one vote a half-hour after beginning deliberations, he said. "The whole case led to the decision," Buchanan said. Elias said he was glad the tape "made a good impact" on jurors. Before it was shown, the jury "only knew bad things" that came from the defense, he said. Also, the jury "didn't know how pretty she was. My daughter had a good family on both sides and we all loved her." (source: CBS News) USA: Government asks to weigh in on executing child rapists A week after Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick Jr. asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its decision to ban executing child rapists, the federal government on Monday afternoon followed suit in support of Louisiana's case. On June 25, the high court, in a 5-4 decision, found there's a "national consensus" against executing child rapists in ruling in the case of Patrick Kennedy of Harvey, who was sentenced to die under a Louisiana law for raping an 8-year-old girl in 1998. But the court did not consider that in 2006 Congress re-enacted in the National Defense Authorization Act a provision that allows the military to execute child rapists. President Bush implemented the law last year in an executive order. That oversight led Connick on July 21 to ask the Supreme Court to rehear the case. "The United States has a substantial interest in rehearing because the Court's decision casts grave doubt on the validity of a recent Act of Congress and Executive Order of the President authorizing capital punishment for child rapists under the Uniform Code of Military Justice," Acting Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre argued in the motion, which says the government "regrets" it did not raise the point previously. 6 states had laws allowing the death penalty for child rapists, but no parties involved in the Supreme Court argument told the justices that the military also allows it. Supreme Court rules do not allow parties not involved in the case to ask for a rehearing, but the government is asking for an exception. Whether the government's request will help Louisiana's case is unclear. "Rehearings historically have always been very long shots," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia. "However, having the solicitor general's support is valuable, because that office represents the U.S. before the Supreme Court and enjoys great respect." (source: Times-Picayune) ************************* The Supreme Court Is Wrong On the Death Penalty It's not often that the U.S. Supreme Court is asked by a state and the federal government to reconsider a case it has just handed down because it missed key evidence. But that is what is happening now in Kennedy v. Louisiana. In that case, the court ruled in late June that Louisiana could not execute someone convicted of violently raping a child. Dividing along familiar 5-4 lines, the court held, speaking through Justice Anthony Kennedy, that the death penalty must be reserved for killers and traitors. To apply it to others, including the most reprehensible violators of young children, would constitute a "cruel and unusual punishment" violating the Constitution's Eighth Amendment. Emphasizing the evolving character of what constitutes an "unusual" if not an unduly "cruel" punishment, the court rested its condemnation of executing the rapists of children largely on what it described as a trend away from the use of death to punish such crimes both here and abroad. But there was a problem with the court's understanding of the basic facts. It failed to take into account -- because nobody involved in the case had noticed -- that in 2006 no less an authority than Congress, in the National Defense Authorization Act, had prescribed capital punishment as a penalty available for the rape of a child by someone in the military. Defenders of the court's decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana would have it ignore that embarrassing wrinkle by treating the military as a parallel universe that simply does not intersect civilian justice on the plane of constitutional principle. But a court searching for universal principles of justice in the name of the Eighth Amendment would be hard pressed to accept that view of the military/civilian distinction. Particularly when the court's division tracks the usual liberal/conservative divide, its credibility depends on both candor and correctness when it comes to the factual predicates of its rulings. Whatever one's view of the death penalty -- and I have long expressed misgivings on both its wisdom and its constitutionality -- it's important that the inequities and inequalities in its administration be minimized. Commitment to that principle, not a rush to the center, lay behind Barack Obama's disagreement with the court's ruling in this case even before the 2006 federal death penalty provision came to public attention. Many who applauded the court's original ruling did so not on the basis of the court's (now evidently faulty) trend-spotting rationale but, rather, on the premise that any way of containing the spread of capital punishment -- such as by confining its use to murderers and traitors -- is a good idea. But even those who harbor serious doubts about capital punishment should feel duty-bound to oppose carve-outs from its reach that denigrate certain classes of victims, or that arbitrarily override democratic determinations that such victims deserve maximum protection. If a legislature were to exempt the killers of gay men or lesbians from capital punishment, even dedicated death penalty opponents should cry foul in the Constitution's name. So too, should they cry foul when the judiciary holds the torturers or violent rapists of young children to be constitutionally exempt from the death penalty imposed by a legislature judicially permitted to apply that penalty to cop killers and murderers for hire. In doing so, the court is imposing a dubious limit on the ability of a representative government to enforce its own, entirely plausible, sense of which crimes deserve the most severe punishment. To be sure, holding the line at murder and treason gives the judiciary a bright line that blurs once one says a legislature may include other offenses in its catalogue of what it deems the most heinous of all crimes. But the same may be said of virtually any bright line. Placing ease of judicial administration above respect for democracy and for principles of equal justice under law is inexcusable. The Eighth Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment clause should not be construed in a manner that puts it on a collision course with the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. The Supreme Court would do well to take that overriding consideration into account as it decides whether to revisit its seriously misinformed as well as morally misguided ruling. (source: LaurenceTribe is a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School; Opinion, Wall Street Journal) ****************** Opinion ---- Supremely Screwed Up Terry Eastland The Supreme Court ended its term this year by making a mistake in one of its most controversial cases--the case in which it held unconstitutional a Louisiana law authorizing capital punishment for the rape of a child under 12 years of age. Writing for a majority of 5 in Kennedy v. Louisiana, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that while 37 jurisdictions--36 states plus the federal government--have the death penalty, only 6, all of them states, authorize it for child rape. Kennedy cited those numbers in determining that American opinion was divided about but on balance clearly against using the death penalty to punish those who rape children. For Kennedy, the numbers were evidence of a "national consensus" against making child rape a capital crime, an affirmation that the nation's "standards of decency" have been properly "evolving." 3 days after the decision was handed down, a military reservist and lawyer who blogs on military justice issues pointed out that in fact, contrary to what the Court had said, there is a federal statute expressly authorizing capital punishment for child rape. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 is the law, and in its revision of the sex crimes section of the Uniform Code of Military Justice it explicitly authorizes the death penalty for soldiers who commit child rape. As it happened, not just the Kennedy majority failed to notice the existence of this federal law. So did the four dissenting justices. So did petitioner Kennedy and respondent Louisana. Moreover, none of the 10 friends of the court in the case, not even one, cited the law. Neither did the solicitor general's office, which represents the government in the Supreme Court and on which the Court counts to advise it regarding any federal interest (such as a federal statute) that might be implicated in a case in which the government is not a party. Indeed, the solicitor general didn't even file a brief in Kennedy, a failure the Justice Department now regrets: "It's true that the parties to the case missed [the statute]," a Justice spokesman said last month, "but it's our responsibility." This remarkably complete failure to take notice of an obviously relevant federal law quickly became a topic of speculation inside Washington. But more important than why it happened is whether the Court will reconsider the case. Last week Louisiana petitioned for a rehearing. It's a long shot: A leading authority on the Court's history reported in 2007 that the Court has granted a rehearing petition only 22 times in history. But in this case there is good reason for the Court to grant a rehearing, even one limited to the significance of the federal statute, for only through a rehearing can the Court assure the public that it has weighed all relevant information. A rehearing would certainly present challenges to the Kennedy majority. By 1989, as a result of judicial decisions invalidating capital rape laws, no state authorized the death penalty for child rape. In 1995, however, Louisiana became the first of the six states since then to pass a capital child rape law. Kennedy minimized the significance of these legislative enactments and the prospect that there might be more of them. And, of course, he thought that only states had an interest in using the death penalty for child rape. In a rehearing, the Court would have to include the federal law in its "consensus" analysis. Louisiana's petition points out that the change in federal law was "deliberate and premeditated." The Pentagon, in a report it prepared on sex crimes including child rape, discussed the Louisiana statute and attached it as an appendix. The legislation in which the capital child-rape provision was enacted passed both houses of Congress and was presented to the president, who signed it. It is, like all other federal laws, an expression of the nation's, and not just a state's, democratic will. And it is a plain and very recent expression. A question for the Court would be whether, in light of the federal statute, it could still believe there is, as Kennedy put it, "a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape." That was one of the two rationales for the Court's decision. The other was the Court's "independent judgment that the death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child." Justice Kennedy didn't say whether the majority leaned more on its view of national consensus or its own independent judgment about disproportionality. In the event of a rehearing and a revised opinion, the Court probably wouldn't want to rest its decision just on its own independent judgment, as the Court then would be saying it had been wrong about national consensus, and it would be more nakedly pitting its own moral judgment against that of an ostensibly self-governing people. That's a reason to think the Court would do all it could to maintain its national-consensus position. If the Court finds itself in a tough place in Kennedy v. Louisiana, it's a place of its own making. The legal text the Court used to void the death penalty statute in Kennedy is, of course, the clause in the Eighth Amendment barring "cruel and unusual punishments." As originally understood, the clause contained no proportionality principle and prohibited only cruel methods of punishment that were already unusual when the amendment was added to the Constitution in 1791. As such, the clause left--and should still leave--ample room for the political branches to legislate (or ban) the death penalty as they see fit. But long ago the Court departed from the original meaning of the clause and embarked on its continuing mission to sharply constrain the use of the death penalty. Some years ago Justice Antonin Scalia captured the essence of the problem that the Court's mission poses when he noted that "there is something to be said for popular abolition of the death penalty," but "there is nothing to be said for its incremental abolition by this Court." Kennedy v. Louisiana is another incremental abolition, since in no previous case did the Court nullify a capital child-rape law. If there is a rehearing, perhaps the justices can tell us whether they read their own decision in Kennedy as it can only be read: as invalidating the federal statute they didn't know about. (source: Opinion; Terry Eastland is the publisher of THE WEEKLY STANDARD)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., PENN., CALIF., USA
Rick Halperin Fri, 1 Aug 2008 01:06:57 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
