Jan. 30
PENNSYLVANIA:
Man faces death penalty for triple killing in Pa.
A northern Pennsylvania jury will soon start deliberations over whether a
man convicted of killing his parents and brother should be sentenced to
death.
32-year-old Steven Colegrove, of Deposit, N.Y., was convicted of 3 counts
of 1st-degree murder on Wednesday.
The penalty starts Friday in Bradford County court.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Colegrove automatically gets
life without parole if the jury does not agree he deserves death.
The bodies of 60-year-old Joseph Colegrove, 56-year-old Marlene Colegrove
and 36-year-old Michael Colegrove were found in their home near Towanda on
Aug. 8, 2007.
Prosecutors say Steven Colegrove killed his family to collect an
inheritance.
(source: Associated Press)
OKLAHOMA:
El Reno strangling case hits delay
The preliminary hearing for the ex-convict accused of strangling his
girlfriend and her 4 children will be delayed, officials said Thursday.
Testimony in the murder case against Josh Durcho was set to begin Feb. 25.
Instead, a prosecutor and defense attorneys will meet that day then see
the judge to schedule the preliminary hearing.
Delays in high-profile murder cases are not unusual, particularly when
prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty. The purpose of a preliminary
hearing is for a judge to decide if there is enough evidence for a trial.
(source: The Oklahoman)
FLORIDA:
Death Row Inmate Wants to be The Next Supreme Court Justice
Who says the electric chair should stand in the way of your dream job? Not
Michael Lamrbix. Sure, the 48 year-old waits on death row for fatally
bludgeoning and strangling 2 people outside Fort Myers in 1983. But that
hasn't stopped the articulate, overachieving inmate from applying to be
Florida's newest supreme court justice.
This past January 16, Lambrix penned a letter to the Judicial Nominating
Commission asking them to consider him for the open position. "In all
fairness," he writes. "I ask that you not so quickly discount my genuine
desire."
Lambrix -- a fit, balding history buff -- goes on to explain himself:
"Let's be honest...These appointments are about perpetuating the
corruption of politics. Me, I'm already a convicted felon, so at least the
public will know what they are actually getting, rather than a wolf in
sheep's clothing."
After citing employment qualifications, he argues that choosing him isn't
as risky as it looks. If he doesn't perform well, he writes, his
co-workers can just sign his death warrant. ("Can you legally kill any
other justice?")
Although he makes light of his situation, Lambrix has long argued his
innocence. He keeps a blog, deathrowjournals.blogspot.com, in which he
contends that he was a victim of a politically ambitious prosecutor. The
night of the murder, he says he beat a drug dealer with a jack handle in
self defense, after trying to save a woman the dealer was strangling. "My
biggest qualification," he writes. "Is that I'm the only applicant that
has been totally screwed by the justice system."
Not surprisingly, though, the commission isn't taking him seriously. For
one, you have to be a member of the Florida Bar to be considered. Says
Fort Lauderdale-based Chair Robert Hackleman: "I got a good laugh at it."
But our man in the orange jumpsuit does have one thing going for him. This
past October, Governor Charlie Crist sent the commission back to the
drawing board because their recommendations were not "diverse" enough.
So...problem solved?
(source: Miami New Times)
****************
High court upholds death sentence for deputy's killer
The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously upheld the conviction
and death sentence of Jason Wheeler, who ambushed three Lake County
deputies nearly 4 years ago, killing 1 and wounding 2 others in Lake
Kathryn. The state's high court rejected a series of arguments that
attacked the evidence, law and a prosecutor's remarks to jurors who
recommended the death penalty. Wheeler was convicted of 1st-degree murder
in the Feb. 9, 2005, killing of Deputy Wayne Koester, who was shot in the
face as he and 2 other deputies investigated the sexual battery of
Wheeler's live-in girlfriend, Sarah Heckerman. The court found the
evidence "clearly sufficient in every respect," making a special note of
Wheeler's choice to "go out in a blaze of glory" rather than hide when he
saw the lawmen. Now 33, Wheeler, paralyzed by a gunshot wound, remains in
a wheelchair at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford.
(source: Orlando Sentinel)
NEBRASKA:
Chambers takes on death penalty
Nebraska could theoretically put inmates to death with rat poison if
lawmakers approve a measure to change the state's method of execution to
lethal injection, a former state senator and death-penalty opponent said
Thursday.
The state corrections department would devise the lethal recipe and
administration of drugs to execute prisoners under the bill (LB36) that
was introduced by Sen. Mike Flood and considered by the Legislatures
Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
It doesn't limit what substance or combination of substances should be
used.
"Is there any prohibition against using rat poison? No. Pesticide? No,"
said former Sen. Ernie Chambers an avid death-penalty opponent who was
forced out of office this year by voter-approved term limits after 38
years.
"You don't even have doctors. You don't have anesthesiologists," Chambers
said. "You have jail people carrying this out."
The committee also heard testimony on a bill (LB306) to repeal the death
penalty, introduced by Chambers successor, Sen. Brenda Council of Omaha.
In February 2008, the state Supreme Court struck down use of the electric
chair, calling it cruel and unusual punishment. It was Nebraska's only
method of executing prisoners, leaving the state with no legal way of
carrying out death penalty sentences.
Chambers, first elected in 1970, has tried to rid the state of the death
penalty nearly every year he was in office. He came close in 1979, when
his bill narrowly passed. But it was vetoed by then-Gov. Charley Thone.
Chambers also blocked all bills trying to change the state's method of
execution to lethal injection, anticipating that the electric chair
eventually would be struck down.
Attorney General Jon Bruning recommended that the corrections department
set the lethal injection procedure, because it would allow the execution
protocol to be changed so that it followed national practices.
Dr. Mark Heath, a New York anesthesiologist, said many states use poor
choices of drugs to execute prisoners, including paralytics that keep
someone from crying out if they"re in pain and potassium, which burns the
veins when it stops a person's heart.
But Heath said he couldn't say whether Nebraska's method would be humane,
because it would be kept secret.
"It requires secrecy when there should be transparency," he said. "It
allows the use of agonizing drugs, drugs that paralyze and burn. It
'medicalizes' the execution, and because it doesn't meet the standards
that are held for animals."
Media of Nebraska, an association of news organizations, has expressed
concern that the protocol and the process to create it wouldn't be open to
the public. Flood said he would work to resolve those issues, possibly
through amendments to the bill.
Alan Peterson, a Lincoln attorney who represents death row inmate Carey
Dean Moore, said even if the measure passes, the men on death row wont be
executed any time soon.
"You change the game? You change the penalties? We're all going to
litigate that," Peterson said.
Much of the testimony on both bills focused on whether the death penalty
should exist at all in Nebraska.
Gordon "Randy" Steidl traveled from Illinois to testify about his 12 years
on death row, before his conviction for stabbing a newlywed couple to
death was thrown out.
Steidl was convicted in 1987. He was freed in 2004, after a federal judge
ordered the state to release or retry him.
Since the conviction, the prosecution witness who said she saw Steidl
killing the couple recanted, and state authorities concluded police
botched the investigation.
Several prosecutors spoke in favor of the lethal injection bill, some
saying that the lack of a legal method caused them to seek sentences of
life in prison instead of death.
Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said the death penalty is reserved for
"the extraordinary, horrible act."
"It's not something that we mete out willy-nilly," he said.
But Council pointed to several recent cases where a criminal wasn't
sentenced to death.
"This whole issue of the degree of heinousness involved in a crime is not
... the determining factor in whether someone gets the death penalty or
not," she said.
Committee Chairman Brad Ashford of Omaha asked whether the different
outcomes for different killers hurt the chances the death penalty could
deter someone from committing a crime.
"The inconsistencies are there," he said. "There are heinous crimes that
don't get the death penalty."
But the son of 1 of the 5 people killed in the 2002 Norfolk bank slayings
asked lawmakers to give the state a way to put his father's killer to
death.
"What gets me through every day is the hope that the system will work,"
said Bill Sun, son of Samuel Sun. "I'm not looking for closure. Nothing
here, nothing that you can do will give me closure."
(source: Associated Press)
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