July 30
FLORIDA:
Woman known as Sea Hag accused of fatally shooting man who refused to give her
a beer
A Florida Keys woman known as Sea Hag has been charged with fatally shooting a
man who refused to give her a beer.
Carolyn Dukeshire, 62, was arrested late Sunday, charged with 1st-degree
murder.
According to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, Dukeshire shot 64-year-old
Martin Mazur five times after Mazur denied her a beer. Casey Whippo, who was
with Mazur at the time of the shooting told police they had just returned from
dinner to Mazur's house in Conch Key, were sitting outside and had just opened
a beer. Dukeshire walked around the side of the house and asked if she could
have one, the witness told investigators. When Mazur refused, he said, she
opened fire, shooting him in the abdomen, twice in the back and once in the
wrist.
After a struggle, she tossed the gun into a canal and sat down before police
arrived. Mazur was rushed to Fisherman's Hospital in Marathon, Fla., where he
later died.
According to KeysNews.com, Dukeshire, a fisherwoman, is being held without bond
in the Monroe County Detention Center.
(source: Yahoo News)
COLORADO:
Colorado shooting: Suspect is charged, no word on death penalty
James Holmes had his 2nd court appearance Monday, as prosecutors formally filed
the charges against him.
James Holmes is charged with 24 counts of murder, 2 each for the 12 people
killed, and 116 counts of attempted murder, two each for the 58 injured. The
24-year-old is charged with a shooting at an Aurora, Colo. movie theater. Mr.
Holmes, accused of opening fire in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater this month,
killing 12 people and injuring 58, was charged with 142 counts, including 24
counts of 1st-degree murder, 116 counts of attempted murder, 1 count of
possession of an explosive device, and 1 count of a sentence enhancer for a
crime of violence.
He was charged twice for each of individuals killed. Colorado has several
different classes of murder charges. One set of the charges refers to the fact
that Holmes allegedly shot after deliberation. The 2nd set accuses him of
killing “under circumstances evidencing an attitude of universal malice
manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life generally."
Holmes also waived his right to a preliminary hearing within 35 days.
The judge, William Sylvester, set a date for a preliminary hearing on Nov. 12.
The next court hearing in the case will be Aug. 9, when the court will address
a motion filed by several media outlets to unseal records in the case. A court
order has kept virtually all case documents sealed, and a gag order has limited
what attorneys, police officers, and others can say about the case.
Holmes made his 1st court appearance a week ago; this time, cameras and
electronic equipment were barred from the room.
The charges were hardly a surprise, since Holmes’s involvement in the shooting,
and the nature of the crimes, seem clear. At this point, most of the
speculation centers on whether Colorado prosecutors will seek the death penalty
for Holmes, and whether his defense team will be able to mount an insanity
defense.
Capital punishment in Colorado exists, though it’s seldom used. In the past 45
years, 1 person has been executed in the state: Gary Lee Davis, in 1997, for
rape and murder. (Between 1972 and 1984, the state had no death penalty.) 3
people now sit on death row.
But it also seems likely that prosecutors will seek the death penalty in
Holmes’s case.
“If James Holmes isn’t executed,” former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman told
Reuters last week, “Colorado may as well throw away its death penalty law.”
To qualify for the death penalty, Colorado law says, 1 of 17 aggravating
factors must be present in addition to 1st-degree murder.
Holmes “satisfies many of them,” says Sam Kamin, a law professor at Denver
University. The factors include killing multiple people, killing in an
especially heinous or cruel way, lying in wait for the victim, and creating a
grave risk of death for 1 or more people in addition to the victim.
“What we don’t know yet, and can’t know, is what the case for mitigation will
be,” adds Professor Kamin. The murders and aggravating factors will have to be
balanced against that case – most likely centered on Holmes’s mental state, he
says.
Conflicting reports have emerged in the past 10 days about Holmes’s mental
state, and what information about the attack he may have mailed to a University
of Denver psychiatrist.
Court papers last week confirmed that Holmes was seeing a psychiatrist, Lynne
Fenton, at the university, but it’s unclear what she was treating him for. News
outlets also claimed that Holmes had mailed a package to Dr. Fenton that
contained a sort of journal describing plans for the attacks in detail.
However, prosecutors have said that much of the reported information was
inaccurate, though they have confirmed that the notebook exists. It’s unclear
exactly what the notebook contains, and when the package was received – whether
it had been sitting in the mailroom since July 12, as Fox News originally
reported, or whether it arrived there the Monday after the shooting.
Holmes’s defense team has filed a motion seeking to determine whether
prosecutors or police were responsible for leaking information about the
package to media. That had been expected to be discussed at Monday’s court
hearing, but was postponed.
Evidence already appears to exist that the shooting was premeditated and that
Holmes spent months planning it. In particular, authorities say that Holmes
began buying bullets and ballistic gear online 4 months ago, and bought 4
weapons at Colorado stores in May and June.
Such planning may make an insanity defense more difficult to prove. Ultimately,
though, the success of such a defense in Colorado would rest on whether
Holmes’s lawyers can prove that he was unable to tell right from wrong when he
committed the attack.
“We don’t know what was going on inside the mind of what is clearly a disturbed
individual,” says Kamin, adding that prosecutors will need to show that Holmes
is sane enough to stand trial and was sane enough at the time of the crime to
be held accountable for it. They will also need to address any possible
mitigating factors in his past.
“The evidence of [Holmes’s] involvement is without question,” Kamin says. “The
case is going to ultimately come down to the mental state of this defendant.”
(source: Christian Science Monitor)
NORTH CAROLINA----death row inmate dies
Local death row inmate dies in prison
A death row inmate from Onslow County has died of natural causes, according to
prison officials.
Marcus D. Jones Sr., 65, died Sunday morning at the Central Prison hospital,
said Keith Acree, spokesman for the N.C. Department of Correction.
Jones, who lived in Richlands at the time, was convicted in November 2000 and
given 2 death sentences in the 1999 shooting deaths of his wife, Benita Jones,
and his 14-year-old stepson, Marvin Chase Thomas.
Marcus Jones also shot himself in the face, but survived.
A deputy who responded to the call testified that “Mr. Jones opened the door, I
noticed a large portion of his face appeared to be missing.”
After more than a decade in on death row, Jones made news again in 2010 when he
filed for an appeal based on the Racial Justice Act.
Prosecutors said Jones' appeal was preposterous because he was white, his
victims were white, the judge that presided over his trial was white and the
jury that convicted him was made up of 11 white and one black juror.
Jones' appeal is among those sited by lawyers as to why the RJA is flawed.
(source: Jacksonville Daily News)
OHIO:
Jurors deliberating on whether to recommend death penalty for Williams
Jurors began deliberating today on whether to recommend the death penalty for a
man found guilty in the asphyxiation deaths of a Springfield Township couple.
Jurors heard testimony throughout the day in Lucas County Common Pleas Court
from witnesses including Samuel Williams’ family members, including his mother
and wife. Witnesses were called by the defense during the mitigation phase of
Williams’ trial.
The 24-year-old Toledo man was found guilty Friday of 2 counts of aggravated
murder, 2 counts of kidnapping, and 1 count of aggravated burglary. He was also
found guilty of capital specifications attached to the murder charges.
Judge Dean Mandros told the jury of 9 women and 3 men — who deliberated for
more than 7 hours over 2 days before reaching guilty verdicts — that their role
now is to determine whether the aggravating circumstances of the crime outweigh
any mitigating factors presented by the defense.
In this case, jurors found Williams guilty of the death specification involving
multiple victims.
Williams was found guilty in the Jan. 30, 2011, deaths of Lisa Straub, 20, and
Johnny Clarke, 21. The couple were found in the Springfield Township home of
Ms. Straub’s parents with their hands bound behind their backs and plastic bags
secured around their necks with duct tape. Clarke’s ankles also were bound with
duct tape.
Judge Mandros explained to jurors that they will recommend a sentence of death,
life in prison without parole, life in prison with parole eligibility after 30
years, or life in prison with parole eligibility after 25 years. He also
informed jurors that they would be sequestered until they reached a verdict.
The jurors’ decision will be a recommendation to Judge Mandros, who will
ultimately decide what sentence to impose.
Witnesses testified about Williams’ upbringing without a father and abuse in
his house inflicted by his step-father. There was also testimony about his
involvement in the lives of his two sons, ages 6 and 1 1/2 years.
Each of the witnesses testified that drug and alcohol abuse was rampant in the
family and that Williams was a marijuana user and addicted to Percoset pills.
(source: Toledo Blade)
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