June 30
TEXAS----new death sentence
Stanley Lamar Griffin gets death penalty in Hailey murder
A Brazos County jury gave the death penalty Friday to Stanley Lamar Griffin for
murdering a 29-year-old mother and violently assaulting her 9-year-old son.
Jurors deliberated for about 4 1/2 hours to reach a verdict in the sentencing
phase of Grififn’s 10-day capital murder trial.
On June 20, the third day of the trial, the jury spent 68 minutes behind closed
doors before finding Griffin guilty of strangling Jennifer Marie Hailey and
kidnapping her son inside their College Station apartment on Sept. 19, 2010.
More than a dozen of Hailey’s family members — including her parents and son —
and friends packed into the courtroom, along with Griffin’s mother, brother,
sister, niece and 2 nephews.
Having been warned by the judge against showing any reaction to the verdict,
family members on both sides remained composed as the jury’s decision was read.
Several of Hailey’s family members had planned on giving victim impact
statements once sentencing was completed, but changed their minds and left the
courthouse without comment.
“This case was successful because a 9-year-old boy had courage to go into that
courtroom, overcome his fears and seek justice for himself and his mother,”
District Attorney Bill Turner said, referring to the testimony Hailey’s son
gave about what he recalled from that night.
The now 11-year-old told jurors he remembers waking up shortly after 10 p.m.
that Sunday to find Griffin laying on top of his mother with his hands around
her in the living room. He said he asked the man — whom he’d met several times
before and called by name — what he was doing.
But Griffin insisted his name wasn’t Stanley and sent the boy to his room,
according to his testimony.
About 15 minutes later, Griffin strangled Hailey’s son before grabbing a garden
trowel and stabbing him several times in the face, neck and back. He woke up at
about 4:40 a.m. on the floor near his kitchen, covered by a comforter.
In closing arguments, Turner urged jurors to keep Hailey’s son in mind as they
sorted through evidence brought by the defense against the death penalty.
“Soon I’m going to have a conversation with someone who will ask what happened
to the man that killed my mother,” he told the jury. “This is not a drive-by
shooting, this is getting up close to another human being and feeling the life
draining out of them, then going to another and trying the same thing.”
Turner said Griffin’s trial was the 1st time in Brazos County that defense
attorneys had attempted to use the mental retardation issue as a defense
against the death penalty.
Defense attorney Lane Thibodeaux — who worked alongside Steve Gustitis — said
he was disappointed by the outcome, but respected the jury’s verdict and
appreciated the time they’d dedicated.
“This was an emotional case,” he said. “Of course my heart goes out to the
Hailey family, but I think it’s important as criminal lawyers that we take on
and deal with these kinds of cases — the worst kind of cases.”
Along with mental retardation, the defense spent significant time exploring the
defendant’s background, particularly his childhood.
“This idea of moral culpability – it’s not about whether somebody had a choice,
it’s about what shaped those choices,” Gustitis said.
He argued that a lack of nurture from birth combined with Griffin’s low
intellectual functioning were reasons to find that mitigating circumstances
existed that decreased his moral responsibility — a factor jurors had to
consider when assessing punishment.
Prosecutors said while they were pleased with the outcome and grateful to
jurors for their thoughtful service, success in a death penalty case isn’t
something they celebrate.
Baker said Hailey’s family was glad Griffin had been held accountable but also
recognized that justice for their case meant grief for another family.
“I think the jury went a long way toward starting the healing process for
Jennifer’s family,” he said.
As Griffin was being escorted out of the courthouse, he turned toward his
family to say, “Love y’all,” flashing a quick smile.
(source: The Eagle)
WASHINGTON/MONTANA:
Execution fight could come to Wash., Mont.
A federal appeals court ruling requiring that executions be fully open to
public witnesses - including the insertion of IVs for lethal injection - could
still have ramifications in two Western states that have kept part of their
inmate executions from public view.
A federal appeals court ruling requiring that executions be fully open to
public witnesses - including the insertion of IVs for lethal injection - could
still have ramifications in 2 Western states that have kept part of their
inmate executions from public view.
Washington state officials are still reviewing the ruling and say they have no
immediate plans to change their execution procedures because they have no
executions scheduled. Officials in Montana, meanwhile, say they haven't
reviewed the ruling because they also have no executions scheduled.
Arizona and Idaho, where the legal case originated, changed their procedures in
two recent executions as a result of the ruling. But whether a legal fight over
the issue now looms in Washington and Montana remains to be seen.
"This is certainly something we're evaluating right now," said Sherilyn
Peterson, a defense attorney who has previously challenged Washington's death
penalty protocol on behalf of condemned inmates.
"It's a good time because there isn't an execution scheduled, so if there is
going to be a case, better to do it now than wait until the last minute," she
said.
Today, nearly all of the 34 states that use lethal injection restrict access to
half of every execution, shielding from view the moment the condemned enters
the death chamber and when the IV lines are inserted.
The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2002 that every
aspect of an execution should be open to witnesses. The ruling applied to the
nine Western states in the court's jurisdiction, but four states still kept
part of subsequent executions away from public view: Arizona, Idaho, Washington
and Montana.
The states have said the move is necessary to protect the anonymity of the
execution team. Open government and journalism groups counter that witnessing
all aspects of an execution is the only way to determine if it is being
properly carried out.
The closure also enables prison officials to shield from view issues that could
arise during an execution, such as the inmate resisting being taken into the
chamber and problems inserting the IV.
In June, the appeals court upheld another case filed in Idaho by news
organizations to gain additional access.
"This has been an issue forever - ever since they stopped having executions in
the public square," said Tim Ford, an attorney representing Washington death
row inmate Jonathan Lee Gentry, who was sentenced to death in 1991 for killing
a 12-year-old girl in Kitsap County.
In 1975, Ford successfully fought to overturn a provision in Washington's
obscenity law barring witnesses from publicly describing an execution.
"It's a perennial issue that has come up a lot of places, a lot of times," he
said. "It's been a constant attempt to keep as much secrecy around executions
as possible."
Two inmates await execution in Montana's death chamber, a single-wide trailer
outside the prison in Deer Lodge. Witnesses sit mere feet away, with no window
to separate them from the condemned.
Montana has carried out three executions since reinstatement of the death
penalty in the 1970s, with the most recent in 2006.
Members of the state's execution team have never raised fears about remaining
anonymous because it's never been an issue, said Montana Department of
Corrections spokesman Bob Anez. Witnesses are not brought in until the
condemned inmate is strapped down and the IV line inserted.
Seven men await execution at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla,
where the execution chamber sits at the end of Unit 6, an old, brick living
unit built in 1932.
In 1994, condemned inmate Charles Campbell resisted being taken to the death
chamber, and prison workers were forced to strap him to a back board for his
hanging.
Washington still offers inmates the option of dying by injection or hanging.
Members of Washington's execution team also have raised concerns about
remaining anonymous. The four-member team resigned in 2009, worried their
identities could be exposed during litigation over the constitutionality of the
state's method of injection.
Washington switched from a 3-drug protocol to a single-drug method in 2010. A
substitute team was hastily assembled later that year for the execution of Cal
Coburn Brown, an Oregon convict who raped, tortured and murdered a woman in
1991.
"These are all things that would have to be taken into consideration,"
Washington Department of Corrections spokesman Maria Peterson said. "We're in a
unique position in Washington, because we don't have many people on death row,
and we don't have any executions scheduled, allowing us time to consider
everything."
Sherilyn Peterson, the attorney, said legal arguments against Washington's
death penalty have largely focused on cruel and unusual treatment of the
condemned, rather than on witness access.
"But I could certainly see that Washington is vulnerable to the same flaws,"
she said. "It is imperative for the integrity of the process that the public
have full access."
Earlier in June, members of Idaho's execution team wore surgical scrubs, masks
and goggles to shield themselves from witnesses during the execution of Richard
Leavitt, who was brought into the chamber on a gurney. And on Wednesday,
Arizona executed its fourth inmate this year and 1st execution where witnesses
watched the insertion of the IV.
(source: Associated Press)
USA (MICHIGAN):
Feds may seek death penalty in killing of 4-year-old Mt. Pleasant boy
The man charged with assaulting a 4-year-old Mt. Pleasant boy whose body was
found under his family's porch could face the death penalty because the crime
happened on federal land.
Anthony Bennett, 20, is accused of assaulting his girlfriend's son, Carnel
Chamberlain, weeks before the boy disappeared June 21. Bennett was arrested
Thursday, the same day Carnel's body was found buried under the porch.
One indication that prosecutors may seek the death penalty: the lawyer assigned
to the case is Anthony Chambers, a prominent defense attorney who has handled
more than a handful of federal death penalty cases in the last 20 years.
Chambers, who was assigned to the case Friday, declined to comment. He said he
has to review the evidence and meet with the client.
The U.S. Attorney's Office was unavailable for comment.
Bennett was charged in federal court Friday after the boy's mother told FBI
agents that Bennett assaulted the boy 3 times in the weeks before he was
reported missing, according to an FBI affidavit unsealed Friday. Bennett is
jailed pending a detention hearing next week.
The affidavit did not say whether Carnel's mother, Jaimee Chamberlain, reported
the alleged abuse to authorities. According to the affidavit, Chamberlain came
home from work in late May or early June and Bennett, who lived with her, asked
her to sit down. He asked her to tell him that she loved him, the affidavit
said.
Chamberlain then entered a bedroom and saw her son on a bed with a bruised and
swollen face and a cut on the inside of his lip, documents state. A few days
later, the mother observed a 6- to 8-inch bruise along the boy's ribcage.
Bennett told Chamberlain he had backhanded Carnel, but the boy told his mother
that Bennett had punched him, the affidavit said. It took place in the family's
home on the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe reservation.
A few days after that, another assault took place, the affidavit said, and this
time, Chamberlain witnessed it. She told authorities Bennett picked Carnel up
by his neck, dropped him and then dragged him by his right foot to his bedroom,
which bruised his buttocks, according to the affidavit.
After Carnel disappeared, investigators spent days searching woods, ponds and
the tribe's wastewater treatment areas.
On Thursday night, hundreds of people, including Carnel's mother, gathered for
a vigil at the tribe's reservation.
"Nothing this monumentally horrific has ever happened in our community," said
family spokesman Kevin Chamberlain, who grew up on the reservation and served
as tribal chief in 1997-99. "Right now, it's a very somber place with a lot of
broken hearts."
(source: Detroit Free Press)
ARIZONA:
State could tie executions record in 2012 ---- Pace likely to continue
When prison officials pronounced convicted killer Samuel Lopez dead from a
lethal injection at 10:37 a.m. Wednesday, it was the 4th execution in Arizona
in the first six months of this year.
At that pace, the state could be on track to match its record of seven
executions in a single year, said legal experts.
And with 125 inmates on Arizona’s death row and no major legal challenges to
slow the rate of executions on the horizon, they said they don’t expect to see
the numbers start dropping anytime soon.
“This pace may continue for a while,” said Andy Silverman, a University of
Arizona law professor.
A 5th execution, of convicted murderer Daniel Cook, is currently slated for
Aug. 8 and at least two more are possible before the end of the year. There is
an outside chance of others, but attorneys familiar with the system said they
did not expect those cases to finish moving through the courts until sometime
next year.
There have been only 13 executions in the state since 1999, but most of them
took place since 2010: 3 in 2000, 1 each in 2007 and 2010, followed by 4 last
year and 4 so far this year.
The increase comes as a series of legal challenges that had long stalled
executions in the state have been cleared away, opening the door to the
increase in executions.
Experts say the biggest legal challenge was Ring v. Arizona. That case went all
the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2002 that only juries could
weigh the aggravating factors that determine whether a convicted criminal in a
capital case should get the death penalty. Previously, judges had that power.
The court’s decision could have sent scores of death row cases back for
resentencing and many cases were put on hold until a later court decision
clarified which cases Ring could be applied to.
“Once Ring was resolved, the cases started to move again,” said Dale Baich, an
assistant federal public defender in Arizona.
“If the trend continues and death sentences are not vacated along the way,”
executions could continue at a similar pace for some years, Baich said.
Arizona Rep. Cecil P. Ash, R-Mesa, said that would not necessarily be a problem
for those of his constituents who believe it can take too long to carry out a
death sentence in the state.
While he knows there are death-penalty opponents, he said, “For those that
support capital punishment, they feel it takes too long.”
The Department of Corrections said that since 1937, an inmate on death row
spends an average of 12 years there, but most officials say the number now is
closer to 20 years.
“I know my constituents are concerned it takes too long,” said Ash, who said he
asked the Legislative Council early in his career what could be “done to
accelerate the process.”
Baich’s counterpart is Kent Cattani, chief counsel of criminal appeals for the
Arizona Attorney General’s Office. While Baich defends death row inmates,
Cattani argues for the state.
Cattani said there are currently 49 Arizona death penalty cases pending in the
9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the last stop before the U.S. Supreme Court.
2 of those cases have been affirmed by the appeals court and are awaiting
Supreme Court review, but Cattani said it would be “unusual” if the high court
agreed to hear those cases.
“From the time the 9th Circuit decision is announced, it’s usually about a year
till an execution is carried out,” Cattani said.
He said he believes 2 cases – those of Richard Stokley and Edward Schad – are
far enough along in the process that they could be finished before year’s end.
While they can make educated guesses based on the progress of legal
proceedings, both Cattani and Baich caution that predicting the number of
executions in a given year is an impossible task.
Baich’s guess is that “if the trend continues and death sentences are not
vacated along the way,” executions in Arizona will continue at the current pace
for some years to come.
Nationally, there has been a fairly steady decrease in executions, from 98 in
1999 to 43 in 2011, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Because
of the lag in carrying out death sentences, a center official said executions
being carried out now are more of a reflection on the past than the present.
“Executions reflect not so much the attitudes and trends right now, but 10 or
15 years ago,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the center, a
national anti-death penalty group.
(source: News-Herald)
*********
Arizona Inmate Executed in More Open Process----The AP and Idaho news
organizations won the right to view lethal injection
Samuel Villegas Lopez became the 1st person ever to be executed in Arizona
while witnesses other than prison officials saw catheters inserted into an
inmate's veins -- a move the state Department of Corrections made after a
federal judge recently sided with The Associated Press and Idaho news
organizations seeking full viewing access to lethal injections.
The ruling was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San
Francisco, meaning it was unlikely Arizona would have been able to keep its
process limited much longer.
Until Wednesday, news media and victims' family members entered the death
chamber at the state prison only after the inmate had been injected and covered
with a sheet to his chest or neck.
This time, they watched on television screens set up in the death chamber as
the execution team inserted Lopez with the catheters behind a curtain. The
curtain was lifted just before a fatal dose of pentobarbital was sent coursing
through Lopez's veins.
During the process, Lopez blinked often and showed no signs he was experiencing
pain, although he slightly winced once.
As the execution team checked his veins, Lopez asked, ``It look all right?'' to
which they responded: ``We're doing good.''
Toward the end, Lopez said he had a question: ``Are these the only two IV lines
going to be inserted in me?''
Once the curtains were pulled, Lopez stared straight ahead and ignored the nine
family members of his murder victim who were in the room to watch him die. When
asked if he had last words, he said in a clear voice: ``No, I do not.''
As the drug was delivered, Lopez began breathing heavily, closing his eyes and
yawning once before he appeared to fall asleep with his mouth slightly open. He
never moved again.
The execution ended at 10:37 a.m. local time, about 40 minutes after the
insertion process began. Arizona did not allow witnesses to watch as Lopez was
brought into the death chamber and strapped to the table at his ankles and
wrists and over his torso.
Dale Baich, a defense attorney who witnessed the execution and represents many
death-row inmates in Arizona, said the new process was a ``step forward in
creating transparency.'' But he said he hopes the Corrections Department
eventually will allow witnesses to view the process from the very beginning.
Lopez, 49, was executed 3 days before his 50th birthday for the brutal rape and
murder of 59-year-old Estafana Holmes of Phoenix about 26 years ago.
Her brother, Victor Arguijo of Fort Worth, Texas, and other family members from
Phoenix and Texas addressed members of the media after watching the execution.
They said they were not there for revenge but for justice for Holmes, a poor
seamstress and grandmother who lived alone and whom they called ``Tefo.''
``It's been a long and difficult and frustrating road,'' Arguijo said. "We now
know and have confidence that the judicial system works for victims and their
families even though at times our faith has wavered.''
He said the family hopes Lopez's death brings them closure and that Holmes'
``soul and spirit will now finally rest in peace.''
Lopez's attorney, Kelley Henry, said in a statement that his legal team was
``deeply troubled'' by the execution. She reiterated her arguments that Lopez
was ``denied due process at every level,'' from his trial until recently, as
courts declined to delay the execution to hear about his abusive and difficult
childhood.
That evidence was never presented at trial and could have served as a
mitigating factor and gotten him a sentence of life in prison rather than
death.
``If we are going to have the death penalty, we should ensure that the process,
at the very least, is fair and that it follows the rule of law,'' Henry said.
``Sadly, that did not happen in this case.''
Lopez was the state's 4th death-row inmate executed this year. Of the 125
inmates still on Arizona's death row, only five have been there longer than
him.
Arizona is on pace to execute three more men this year, which would match the
state's busiest year for executions and make it one of the nation's busiest
death-penalty states.
Among Lopez's failed last-minute efforts to avoid the death penalty was a
request with the Arizona Supreme Court to delay his execution until the state
had a new governor, arguing Gov. Jan Brewer and the state's clemency board were
prejudiced against him.
Lopez's attorneys say board members were improperly appointed and didn't have
the authority to consider death-penalty cases because of open-meetings
violations, statements to members of the media that showed prejudice, and other
factors.
At Lopez's clemency board hearing Friday, board members called him the ``worst
of the worst'' and said the brutality of his crime and Holmes' heartbroken
family members held great sway with them. They voted unanimously against
recommending his sentence be reduced to life in prison or that it be delayed in
any way.
In an affidavit provided to the board, Lopez wrote that he has no memory of the
crime because he had been spending so much time sniffing paint that he would
forget entire days.
(source: Associated Press)
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