[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, GA., PENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 24


OHIO:

Ohio court weighs 4 execution date requests


After arguing with his mother in her Cincinnati apartment, crack cocaine
addict Jeffrey Hill stabbed Emma Hill 10 times in the chest and back,
stole $20 and spent the money on cocaine.

He then returned to the apartment and stole another $80.

That was March 23, 1991. On July 1, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters
asked the Ohio Supreme Court to set an execution date for Hill.

The pending request is among 4 before the state Supreme Court and one of
several expected to come in the next few months.

Ohio has between 15 and 20 inmates who have exhausted their appeals and
are probably eligible  or "ripe" in the language of attorneys  for an
execution date, according to both the State Public Defenders Office and
the Ohio Attorney General.

The number is unprecedented for a state that has executed 28 inmates since
1999 but which still has a majority of its original death row inmates
behind bars. There are 177 men and 2 women currently on death row.

"We havent had this kind of situaton in Ohio before where we've had this
many cases all ripe," Matt Kanai, head of the Attorney Generals capital
crimes unit, said Monday.

The beginning of what could be a steady flow of execution requests began
in April after the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling on a Kentucky inmate's
appeal, upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection.

Up until that decision, the nation had experienced a seven-month
unofficial moratorium on executions while the high court heard arguments
in the case and made its ruling.

After the decision, the Ohio Attorney General's Office asked prosecutors
to coordinate how they filed their requests for fear of swamping the state
Supreme Court.

"We weren't really sure what the Supreme Court of Ohio would do if it
received 16 execution requests in one fell swoop," Kanai said. "We tried
to have the prosecutors exercise some discretion in avoiding that kind of
logjam."

The result: County prosecutors have asked for execution dates in just 8
cases since April.

2 of them were denied, and 2 were granted: for Gregory Bryant-Bey of
Toledo and Richard Cooey of Akron.

Cooey was executed last month for raping and killing two University of
Akron students in 1986. Bryant-Bey was executed Wednesday for killing and
robbing a Toledo collectibles store owner in 1992.

The remaining 4 requests are pending before the Ohio Supreme Court.

State Public Defender Timothy Young said hes hopeful the court will not
set too many dates too soon.

"I don't believe as a society we have a stomach for execution on top of
execution on top of execution," Young said Monday.

"Each of these cases is such a momentous step," he said. "It seems to me
you need to take each of those cases very individually and make sure
you've considered all the facets of it."

Deters' request for Hill to be executed is currently the oldest by almost
2 months pending before the Ohio Supreme Court.

Hill's family, including three uncles and an aunt  the siblings of Emma
Hill  are adamant they don't want Jeffrey Hill executed and have asked
Deters not to oppose their nephews request for clemency.

"It's doing the family no good to kill another family member because he
made the mistake of being out there on crack cocaine," said Eddie Sanders,
Jeffrey Hill's uncle.

Deters, a longtime prosecutor with a reputation for taking a hard line on
death penalty cases, told the family he cant go along with their request.

He said he appreciates their concerns but "a jury composed of members of
our community" sentenced Hill to death after hearing the details of the
crime.

"As the prosecutor of Hamilton County representing the people of the State
of Ohio, I am loathe to do anything to undermine the jury's deliberative
judgment," Deters wrote the family in a July 24 letter.

(source: Associated Press)






GEORGIA:

Nichols was abused as a child, psychiatrist says


Brian Nichols suffered from sexual abuse, an emotionally and often
physically distant mother, and a drunken and neglectful father, according
to a psychiatrist who testified Monday.

Dr. Richard Dudley Jr. told a Fulton County jury that Nichols' parents
provided for him financially and sent him to private military and Catholic
schools, but the 36-year-old multiple murderer still was traumatized as a
child.

Dr. Richard Dudley Jr. testified Monday that Brian Nichols suffered abuse
and neglect as a child.

Dudley, of New York City, testified in the penalty phase of Nichols' death
penalty trial. The jury convicted Nichols on Nov. 7 of 4 murders and other
crimes committed after he escaped on March 11, 2005 during his rape trial
at the Fulton County Courthouse.

Nichols killed Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, who was presiding over
his rape trial, court reporter Julie Ann Brandau, Sheriffs Deputy Sgt.
Hoyt Teasley and David Wilhelm, an off-duty U.S. Customs agent.

The jury now must decide whether Nichols should be sentenced to life in
prison or put to death. The penalty phase of the trial is expected to
continue into December.

The psychiatrist said the sexual abuse ended when Nichols was 10 years old
and could escape his tormentors. Bullying from his brother and other
neighborhood boys ended after he started studying martial arts when he was
13, the psychiatrist said.

Dudley said his reports on the neglect and abuse came from Nichols and
other family members. Nichols mother, Claritha, acknowledged she had been
absent during her sons formative years in Baltimore while she progressed
professionally in the Internal Revenue Service. She left him in the care
of an alcoholic father and other family members, Dudley said.

"She acknowledges that much of his childhood is just a big blur to her,"
Dudley told Henderson Hill, lead defense lawyer, who called him as a
witness. Prosecutors are expected to start questioning the psychiatrist
Tuesday.

Dudley followed Zachery Dingle, a Baltimore social worker and a friend of
Nichols since their teen years. Dingle said he was concerned about the
effect Nichols' execution could have on his 16-year-old daughter, who is
expected to testify for the defense even though Nichols had not seen her
for more than a decade. I feel mostly she is going to be traumatized,"
Dingle said Monday.

That comment prompted prosecutor Clint Rucker to ask: "Would you agree she
was traumatized for the 1st 13 years of her life, when she had hardly any
contact with her father?"

"Yes," Dingle said.

Rucker than asked whether Dingle knew that one of the victims, Teasley,
had two daughters? Claudia Barnes, the judge's widow, reached out and took
the hand of Deborah Teasley, the widow of the deputy. "I did not know
that," Dingle said quietly.

(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)






PENNSYLVANIA:

DA seeks death penalty for Pa. murder


A prosecutor in north-central Pennsylvania is seeking the death penalty
for a man accused of setting up a shotgun slaying from his jail cell.

Lycoming County District Attorney Eric Linhardt filed notice Monday that
he is seeking capital punishment for 25-year-old county prison inmate
Maurice Patterson. The man who confessed to shooting Eric Sawyer of
Philadelphia in a Williamsport alley last year has testified that
Patterson ordered him to do so.

At Patterson's preliminary hearing in June, his lawyer said authorities
hadn't presented enough evidence to require his client to stand trial.

(source: Associated Press)