May 24
TEXAS:
Death sentence upheld for Blaine Milam, another East Texas killer
An appeals court upheld the death sentence for a Rusk County man convicted in
the 2008 beating death of his girlfriend's 13-month-old daughter.
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the ruling.
Evidence showed the child was bitten some 30 times and beaten with a hammer at
Milam's Rusk County trailer.
In a 2nd case, 25-year-old Demontrell Miller was sent to death row for the 2008
beating death of his girlfriend's 2-year-old son while he was babysitting the
boy and his own 5-month-old son at a Tyler apartment complex.
The court Wednesday rejected what attorneys for the convicts said were 20
errors at Milam's trial and 28 at Miller's trial. Neither man has an execution
date and both could pursue federal appeals.
(source: News-Journal)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Judge admonishes Hitcho during closings in cop murder sentencing
George Hitcho Jr. was the judge, jury and the executioner when he shot and
killed a Freemansburg police officer last summer and his actions merit a death
sentence, District Attorney John Morganelli argued in his closing statements
Thursday.
A Northampton County jury must decide whether Hitcho should be sentenced to die
by lethal injection or spend the rest of his life in prison without parole for
killing Officer Robert A. Lasso. The same panel last week found Hitcho guilty
of 1st-degree murder after deliberating just 35 minutes.
During Morganelli's closing arguments before the jury, Hitcho occasionally
shook his head back and forth.
"I'm tired, I'm tired of hearing his lies," Hitcho told one of his defense
team, Michael Corcoran, in a voice that could be heard during Morganelli's
argument.
Hitcho's muttering prompted Judge Anthony Beltrami to interrupt Morganelli and
address the defense table.
"You need to use a whisper when you talk with your counsel," Beltrami told
Hitcho.
Morganelli argued the jury should sentence Hitcho to death because it's the
verdict he deserves, not the verdict he desires. If Hitcho is sentenced to life
in prison without parole, he'll still have the company of other inmates and
will be visited by friends and family, Morganelli said.
"Give him the same compassion he showed Officer Lasso when he shot him in the
head," Morganelli said. "Give him the same mercy."
After a short recess Thursday morning, Chief Public Defender Michael Corriere
will argue to the jury why Hitcho's life should be spared. Beltrami said after
he gives legal instruction, the jury will begin deliberation.
On Aug. 11, Lasso was at Hitcho's New Street home after being called for an
argument between Hitcho and a neighbor. Police said Lasso was being attacked by
Hitcho's dogs and was moving to use his stun gun against them when he was
felled by a 12-gauge blast from behind.
Over three days in this week's sentencing hearing, Corriere sought to paint
Hitcho in human terms by showcasing the good and bad throughout the 46 years of
his life.
Corriere called Hitcho an otherwise nonviolent man who faced many challenges,
including drug and alcohol dependency, and physical and possibly sexual abuse.
Defense witnesses claimed that Hitcho suffered from brain damage from
motorcycle accidents that left him prone to anger, frustration and agitation.
Chronic pain also set him on edge, and had gotten worse after a 2007 motorcycle
crash that made it difficult for him to work, according to defense testimony.
In the months before the shooting, Hitcho had become increasingly paranoid,
pushing away friends and leading an isolated existence, Corriere said.
Morganelli said nothing from Hitcho's life offsets the killing of Lasso. He
dismissed claims of brain damage as manufactured. He also argued there was
violence in Hitcho's past, highlighting a protection-from-abuse order his
former wife got against him.
Morganelli said Hitcho deserves to be executed for a crime that targeted a
protector of the community and left a family shattered. Jurors also heard this
week from Lasso's loved ones, who described the heartbreak they have suffered
since the 31-year-old married father of two was killed.
For a death sentence to be imposed, all 12 jurors must agree it is appropriate.
(source: The Morning Call)
OHIO:
Condemned Ohio inmates' injection claim denied
A federal judge has rejected claims by 2 condemned Ohio inmates challenging the
constitutionality of the state's lethal injection process.
The 2 are the next inmates scheduled to die in the state, with Abdul Awkal set
for execution June 6 and John Eley set to die July 26.
The 2 challenged Ohio's lethal injection process on the grounds it fails to
guarantee the state won't execute someone who is insane, mentally disabled or
was a juvenile when the crime was committed.
U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost on Wednesday said Awkal and Eley have
misunderstood Ohio's long-running injection lawsuit, which focuses on the
process of administering the lethal drugs, and don't back up their claims.
Messages were left with the inmates' attorneys.
(source: Associated Press)
INDIANA:
Indiana man charged with murdering 3rd woman; prosecutor seeking death penalty
An Indiana prosecutor isn't ruling out the possibility that a convicted sex
offender charged in the killings of 3 women may have other victims, saying
Wednesday the man has shown "an outrageous disregard for human life."
William Clyde Gibson, who has a lengthy criminal record, was brought into Floyd
Superior Court bound in shackles and charged in the murder of 35-year-old
Stephanie Kirk, a Charlestown woman last seen March 25. He already was facing
charges in the killing of a longtime family friend and the 2002 slaying of a
Florida woman.
Wednesday's charges came nearly a month after Kirk's body was found buried
behind Gibson's New Albany home and after weeks of scant details released by
authorities. The judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson said he plans to seek the death penalty
against the 54-year-old Gibson. Henderson said investigators don't know of any
other victims, and he declined to say whether Gibson had accompanied
authorities in searches along the Ohio River or in Bloomington, about 90 miles
away.
"We would never rule out anything further, but at this point in time I have no
information that there's anything else credible to date," the prosecutor said.
Residents in the well-kept neighborhood just north of Louisville, Ky., where
Gibson had lived with his mother, who died in January, described him as often
friendly and helpful. They said they were struggling to comprehend the horrific
allegations and wondering whether there might have been other victims.
"The idea that something like that was going on, it's just hard to imagine. We
kind of wonder where this thing might go," said Larry Robb, a retired draftsman
who lives a few doors down from Gibson.
Gibson now faces 2 counts of being a habitual offender in addition to the three
murder counts. He was charged last month in the killing of 75-year-old
Christine Whitis and the unsolved 2002 slaying of Karen Hodella, a 44-year-old
Florida woman who was visiting the area.
Whitis, a longtime Gibson family friend, was found strangled in Gibson's home
hours before his April 19 arrest, when he was pulled over in her minivan and
initially charged with drunken driving and resisting arrest. Hodella's body was
found near the Ohio River in nearby Clarksville in January 2003.
Gibson has been jailed without bond since his arrest. His attorney, J. Patrick
Biggs, did not immediately respond to a phone message Wednesday seeking
comment.
Henderson said he's seeking the death penalty against Gibson in the killings of
Whitis and Kirk, who a preliminary autopsy suggests had been strangled. He said
the aggravating circumstances that support seeking capital punishment in those
cases include the allegation that Gibson sexually assaulted both women before
killing them and that he mutilated part of Whitis' body after her death.
Henderson said Gibson had shown "an outrageous disregard for human life."
"If these 2 cases are not candidates for the death penalty, then I don't think
any case would be," he said.
Henderson said he's not pursuing the death penalty in Hodella's 2002 killing,
citing the amount of time that has elapsed, among other reasons.
Gibson showed no emotion during the brief hearing at which Judge Susan Orth set
an Aug. 27 trial date. Henderson said he would prefer Gibson to stand trial
first for Whitis' killing.
Her son, Michael Whitis, stared intently at Gibson during Wednesday's hearing
and said afterward that his mother had known Gibson since he was a child and
he's dumbfounded by her killing.
"I still just can't understand how he could do this to anybody, but especially
someone he's known all his life and has treated him like a family member,"
Whitis said, adding that he had no objections to prosecutors seeking the death
penalty.
Kirk's father, Tony Kirk, told reporters he thinks Gibson is "just a sick
person, pure evil" and that he could barely stand being in the same courtroom
with the man. He also said that he supports prosecutors' decision to seek the
death penalty.
"It won't be closure even if he's executed because I still don't have my
daughter back," Kirk said, adding: "He needs to be executed."
Court records show that Gibson has had a crime-filled adult life, including a
1992 sexual abuse conviction in Kentucky involving an attack on a woman. He was
released from a Kentucky prison in 1999 after serving that sentence. Most
recently he served a four-year sentence for auto theft in Indiana and was
released from an Indiana prison in 2009, according to state records.
David Osborne, the jailer at the Daviess County Jail in Owensboro, Ky., where
Gibson was held for five months in 2006 on a theft conviction, said Gibson
would use his long fingernails to carve soap into elaborate crucifixes, statues
of Jesus and various figurines including a naked woman.
"That's kind of spooky now, looking back at it, with this information we know
now," he said.
(source: Indianapolis Star Tribune)
USA (LOUISIANA):
Federal government hasn't decided whether to seek death penalty for man accused
in 2004 deaths of 4 in Harvey
The Justice Department has yet to decide whether it will pursue a death
sentence for Cyrus Casby, who as a Marrero teen-ager was accused in the deaths
of 4 people, including his 19-month-old daughter, in a Harvey apartment. A
Jefferson Parish jury acquitted him of the charges 4 years ago this month, but
a federal grand jury handed up charges against him last year stemming from the
same incident.
Casby, 27, is in federal custody on charges of arson of a building affecting
interstate commerce resulting in death and physical injury. He is accused - a
2nd time - of setting the Tallowtree Lane apartment on fire on Nov. 10, 2004,
after a struggle in which he allegedly stabbed some of the people. Authorities
in Jefferson Parish claimed he set the fire using gasoline in an attempt to
cover up the stabbings.
Casby's girlfriend Cynthia Carto, 17, died from stab wounds before the fire was
set, according to testimony in his trial. But their daughter Cyanna Carto;
Cynthia's mother, Janice Carto, 33; and Cleveland McGinnis, 11, who was
Janice's son, all died from smoke inhalation. Some of them were stabbed, also.
Another of Janice Carto's sons, Jarvis Carto, then 10, was left with
irreversible brain damage from carbon monoxide poisoning.
After 4 days of testimony during which Jefferson Parish prosecutors presented
more than 300 pieces of evidence, a jury deliberated about 2 hours before
acquitting Casby on May 31, 2008 of 4 counts of 2nd-degree murder and 1 count
of attempted 2nd-degree murder. Had he been convicted, he would have spent the
rest of his life in prison with no chance of parole, probation or suspended
sentence.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives looked at the
case, leading to last year's indictment and his arrest at his new home in Texas
2 weeks later. Casby is charged with the smoke-related deaths of Cyanna Carto,
Janice Carto and McGinnis. He's also charged with causing Jarvis Carto's and
firefighter Walter Allen's injuries.
The decision to seek a death penalty is made at the highest levels of the
Justice Department, not in U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's office in New Orleans, a
lawyer familiar with the process said.
Attorneys involved in the Casby case are scheduled to meet with the Justice
Department's Capital Crimes Unit in Washington D.C., on July 9, records show.
There, attorneys on both sides argue for and against the death penalty, the
lawyer said.
Casby wasn't content with his court-appointed attorneys and recently obtained
Gaynell Williams and John Craft. Williams is a former federal prosecutor and
first assistant to former New Orleans District Attorney Eddie Jordan. She also
served a temporary appointment to fill a vacancy at the 24th Judicial District
Court in Gretna and lost a bid for a New Orleans Criminal District Court seat.
Neither Williams nor Craft responded to a recent e-mail asking about whether
federal prosecutors would seek the death penalty.
The case, prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Maurice Landrieu and Elizabeth
Privitera, has already survived a round of attacks by Casby's previous defense
team, which sought to have the indictment tossed out on numerous grounds,
including as a violation of Casby's right against double jeopardy, or of being
tried twice for the same crime.
Judge Eldon Fallon, who heard oral argument in February, denied the defense
requests in March. During the February hearing, Fallon told Casby that the
state and federal governments are "different entities."
"It's separate and distinct," Fallon told him. "At least, that's the present
state of the law."
(source: The Times-Picayune)
**************
Death penalty still haunts judicial system
The National Registry of Exonerations has released a disturbing statistic:
since 1989, there have been 891 exonerations in the United States.
In my lifetime, there have been at least 891 miscarriages of justice. Though
that number is frighteningly large, it is not entirely unexpected.
No matter how perfect a system of law and order we create – and I believe we
have one of the best, if not the best, in the world – it is inevitable that our
system will produce a wrongful conviction.
The statistics released by the National Registry of Exonerations is
particularly alarming when you remember that 33 states still execute citizens
found guilty of committing capital crimes.
Even the staunchest of the death penalty’s supporters must admit that the
United States has, on more than one occasion, executed an innocent man. And
with a track record of 891 wrongful convictions in a mere 23 years, how many of
those innocent men could have been executed by the State for a crime they
didn’t commit?
What we must focus on and what we must ask ourselves is whether or not we will
stand for a system of justice that allows for the state-sanctioned death of an
innocent man.
In 1989, Carlos DeLuna had the misfortune of sharing the name and looks of
Carlos Hernandez.
When I say DeLuna looked like Hernandez, I am not speaking of some Texan
subliminal racism that found two Hispanic men to look similar. I mean that
DeLuna’s own family had trouble distinguishing him from Hernandez in
photographs.
In 1989, DeLuna was executed by the State of Texas for a 1983 murder that
evidence now indicates Hernandez committed. Unlikely? Perhaps. But 891 other
wrongfully convictions demonstrate it is not impossible. Imagine that was you.
As long as capital punishment remains legal in the United States, the specter
of the inevitable execution of another innocent citizen hangs over our heads.
Alabama’s skies can never truly be blue until we are assured that no innocent
man will ever be put to death by the government. I ask that we dare defend that
right.
Alexander B. Roberson
President Emeritus
Auburn Democrats
(source: The Auburn (University) Plainsman)
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