Sept. 14
PENNSYLVANIA:
Pa. man convicted of murder seeks new trial, lesser sentence
A former Chambersburg man on death row appeared in the Franklin County (Pa.)
Court of Common Pleas again Thursday as he seeks a new trial or lesser
sentence.
In 2000, Michael Singley, now 36, was convicted of 2 counts of 1st-degree
murder, 2 counts of attempted homicide, rape, criminal trespassing and theft.
He is incarcerated in a maximum-security prison in Greene County, Pa.
Singley filed a handwritten Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) petition in
August 2006. In it, he claims several points, including that his guilty pleas
were unlawfully induced.
Singley pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder in the 1998 stabbing death of
Christine Rohrer, the wife of his cousin Travis Rohrer. He also pleaded guilty
to murder generally in the death of the Rohrers' neighbor, James Gilliam,
leaving the degree of guilt to be determined by Judge Douglas Herman in a
September 2000 hearing.
A jury sentenced Singley to the death penalty for the murder of Christine
Rohrer and life in prison for the murder of Gilliam. Herman sentenced him to an
additional 46 to 94 years in prison on the other counts, according to published
reports.
Herman said in court Thursday the PCRA status conference was the 1st in some
time because prosecutors and defense attorneys had been attempting to resolve
some of the issues outside a courtroom.
At the status conference, the defense renewed its request for Singley to submit
to medical exams at the University of Pennsylvania. The Franklin County
District Attorney's Office has 30 days to submit a response if it wishes to
fight that motion.
Singley was at one time scheduled for lethal injection, but received a stay of
execution.
Singley went to the Elder Street home of Travis and Christine Rohrer on the
night of Nov. 3, 1998, where he first raped and killed Christine Rohrer. He
then shot and stabbed Travis Rohrer when he returned to the Chambersburg home,
according to testimony during the death penalty phase of his case.
As Singley left the house, he shot and killed Gilliam, who was returning to his
half of the duplex. Singley also fired at, but missed, Gilliam???s girlfriend.
(source: Herald-Mail)
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Pennsylvania's Broken Machinery of Death
Pennsylvania is scheduled to execute Terrance Williams on Oct. 3. The state has
sentenced more than 400 people to death since the Supreme Court reinstated
capital punishment in 1976 and has executed 3 who gave up on their appeals. But
he would be the 1st person in 50 years to be put to death there while still
fighting his sentence.
That should not happen. On Friday in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas,
Mr. Williams's lawyers are scheduled to explain why a state trial judge should
stay his execution and why the Philadelphia district attorney should agree that
his sentence be commuted to life without parole. There is compelling evidence
for both.
Mr. Williams was sentenced to death for killing a man named Amos Norwood during
a robbery. His co-defendant, Marc Draper, convinced the jury that Mr. Williams
was a predatory killer. But from childhood, Mr. Williams was often sexually
abused by Mr. Norwood and others.
The court will consider a sworn affidavit from Mr. Draper, in prison for life,
in which he recanted his trial testimony and gave a different account. Mr.
Draper wrote that "this case was about Mr. Norwood having sex with Terry." He
said "the police and the prosecutors" did not want him to say "the case
involved a relationship" and, instead, made him say it was only about "a
robbery."
There is no disputing that Mr. Williams had a terrible defense. But the
prosecution never told the defense about Mr. Draper's account of the
relationship, which might have spared Mr. Williams the death penalty. Some
jurors have said they would have opposed capital punishment if they had known
Mr. Williams was sexually abused.
The case is a shocking illustration of how Pennsylvania's machinery of death is
irreparably broken. A state commission is studying capital punishment and
whether its high cost and manifest unfairness make it time for the state to
abolish the penalty. The answer is yes.
(source: Editorial, New York Times)
DELAWARE:
Delaware Supreme Court overturns death sentence
The Delaware Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence of a taxi driver
who murdered a 78-year-old Lewes woman in her home in 2009.
Leslie Small was sentenced last year to death by lethal injection after a
Sussex County jury found him guilty of stabbing June McCarson to death with a
pair of scissors on the floor of her mobile home, then stealing her Social
Security money to buy crack cocaine.
Small's defense attorneys appealed the decision and argued prosecutors tainted
the sentencing process by describing Small's defenses as "excuses."
To avoid the death sentence, Small's lawyers presented a list of mitigating
factors for jurors to weigh when deciding if his life should be spared. The
factors included Small's strained relationships with his family, his drug
addiction and his HIV-positive status.
The Supreme Court ruled that the prosecution unfairly characterized them as
"excuses" several times in remarks to the jury, which could have led jurors to
believe the defenses stated by Small's lawyers were not to be taken seriously.
"A penalty hearing conducted without the prosecutorial misconduct may have led
to the jury's vote being split or in favor of life imprisonment,"
wrote Chief Justice Myron T. Steele in an opinion released Tuesday. "Although
Delaware law would have permitted the trial judge to impose the death penalty
even if the jury had voted differently, we cannot be confident that the trial
judge would have done so."
The Attorney General's Office would not say if prosecutors will try again for a
death sentence.
"Small will, at the very least, remain in prison for the rest of his natural
life," read a statement released by AG spokesman Jason Miller. "The ultimate
decision regarding further sentencing proceedings will be made after a full
examination of the matter and discussion with those the closest to Ms.
McCarson."
(source: The News Journal)
VIRGINIA:
Justin Wolfe of Chantilly, Va., awaits Friday's bond hearing after more than a
decade in solitary confinement
"I think there will be a lot of people there for you."
Terri Steinberg is talking to her 31 year old son Justin Wolfe, who's been in
solitary confinement on death row for 11 years.
"That's been 11 1/2 years of ups and downs and disappointments and frustrations
and shock and disbelief. We were only allowed to hug him every four months for
the first few years," said Steinberg.
Justin is now in the Prince William County jail awaiting a bond hearing Friday
morning.
Wolfe's bedroom is frozen in time with memorabilia from his high school days.
He was a running back at Chantilly High School in 1996 when the team was state
champion. In 2002, when he was 21, he was convicted of murder for hire and
sentenced to death.
The conviction and sentence devastated the entire family. Twice, his mother was
given dates for Justin's execution.
"It was just very sick feeling that, you know, wow, this is the day they say
they're going to take my son's life. And you feel so helpless. How can I stop
this, what can I do," said Steinberg.
Wolfe was a marijuana dealer. The jury found him guilty of hiring Owen Barber
to kill Daniel Petrole Jr., who was Wolfe's drug supplier. Barber was the
prosecution's star witness.
But in 2005, Barber recanted his testimony and said Wolfe had thing to do with
the murder. In 2010 Barber testified in federal court that he implicated Wolfe
to avoid the death penalty. The judge overturned Wolfe's convictions, finding
that prosecutors allowed a key witness to give false testimony.
"My son should not be dying for selling marijuana," said Steinberg. She
admitted that he needed to be punished for the drug convictions, but that 11
years on death row was more than enough time.
Last month the state lost again when a federal appeals court refused to
reinstate the murder convictions and death sentence. The appeals court cited
evidence that was withheld by the prosecution, including a police report that
an investigator told Barber he could avoid the death penalty by naming Wolfe as
the mastermind of the crime.
At Friday's bond hearing, Wolfe's attorney will ask to judge to release him.
Steinberg: "If I don't hold on to the hope than I don't have anything to grasp
on to. So, I'm just going to continue to hope and believe that justice will
finally be served and we'll finally get Justin home."
(source: WUSA)
ARIZONA:
Death penalty is not justice - it's revenge, and a waste of money, too
On Aug. 8, Arizona executed Daniel Wayne Cook, the 5th inmate we killed this
year, for his part in 2 1987 murders.
"The cooperating co-defendant," who admitted to instigating the murders,
received a 20-year sentence. He has been free the past 5 years.
On Aug. 7, the day before we executed Cook, Jared Lee Loughner pleaded guilty
to his crime and agreed to spend 7 life sentences in prison.
I am not downplaying the seriousness and hideous nature of these crimes. The
killers needed to be punished, and society had to be protected.
What I am pointing out is the disparity in sentencing and the fact that our
system is broken and needs to be repaired.
Are we safer now that Cook is dead? He was a "low-maintenance inmate." He
functioned well in the structured environment of a prison and could have
contributed in that society had he been allowed to live.
Capital punishment is not justice; it is revenge, and horribly expensive
revenge at that.
The irreversibility of the death sentence also requires courts follow
heightened due process in the preparation and course of the trial.
There are many better uses for the money that would be saved were county
attorneys not pursuing the death penalty. To seek alternatives to capital
punishment is not to be "soft on crime" but rather to be "sensible on crime."
Money not spent seeking to kill a convict can be spent to hire more police
officers to solve cold cases, removing criminals from society and protecting
the public. Money spent on education today mean fewer dollars spent on
incarceration tomorrow.
Capital trials must also be measured in the emotional costs incurred by
families and loved ones as they go through years of uncertainty and doubt.
Better yet, as in the case of Loughner's victims, to be spared the pain of the
trial.
Cook, abused since infancy, is just one of many abused children who later end
up sentenced to death. (Five others have been executed in Arizona in the past 2
years.)
It wasn't supposed to be this way. The 1976 Supreme Court ruling allowing
executions to resume required that juries be guided to restrict death sentences
to "the worst of the worst."
Defendants with mitigating circumstances (like youth, diminished mental
capacity, a history of childhood abuse) were supposed to receive lesser
sentences.
There is too much is at stake to allow political posturing and cries of "tough
on crime" to silence the truth about the death penalty in Arizona.
We are not executing those who have committed the worst crimes, but those who
have received the worst upbringing or the worst legal counsel - and we're
wasting money doing it.
(source: Guest Column; Dan Peitzmeyer is co-president of Death Penalty
Alternatives for Arizona----Arizona Daily Star)
MISSOURI:
Hearing may decide fate of man on Missouri's death row in Chain of Rocks case
1 is dead, 1 is on parole and 1 is serving a life term, but the 4th man
convicted of throwing 2 sisters to their deaths off the Old Chain of Rocks
Bridge 2 decades ago still has the court's attention in his bid for freedom.
Lawyers for Reginald Clemons, 41, will make their case here next week to a
judge appointed by the Missouri Supreme Court to hear evidence and make
recommendations on the claim he was wrongfully convicted.
The high court could do anything from leaving him on death row to throwing out
his conviction.
The case has been watched by activists around the world, and is the primary
focus of Amnesty International USA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign, its
director, Laura Moye said Thursday. She plans to be at the hearing. The
organization plans a rally for Clemons on Saturday.
"We were very struck by a long list of problems with the case, which to us was
emblematic of the worst things that can happen in a death penalty," Moye said.
She recited complaints about police misconduct, a lack of physical evidence and
reliance on shaky witness testimony.
Not all of it will necessarily be a rehash of old issues.
A DNA test on evidence that might have been overlooked at the time of the trial
may surface during what is expected to be a weeklong hearing at the Carnahan
Courthouse downtown. What it shows has never been publicly revealed; lawyers in
the case are under a gag order.
The case was especially riveting. Julie Kerry, 20, and Robin Kerry, 19, led a
visiting cousin, Thomas Cummins, 19, to the unused span the night of April 5,
1991, to show him a poem they had scrawled there about peace and harmony. They
encountered men who raped the women and forced all 3 into the Mississippi
River. Only Cummins survived, and police initially discounted his story.
Detectives soon zeroed in on Clemons, Marlin Gray, Antonio Richardson and
Daniel Winfrey. Evidence included a flashlight found on the bridge that was
linked to Richardson, and Gray's possession of Cummins' watch.
Winfrey made a deal to testify in exchange for a 30-year term and has been
paroled. The others were sentenced to death. Gray was executed; Richardson's
penalty was changed to life without parole.
Clemons was just weeks away from execution in June 2009 when the 8th Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals blocked it. He then won a new review by the Missouri
Supreme Court. It sees a number of appeals from death row inmates each year;
most end up there twice. Clemons is receiving a rare 3rd look through a
"special master" process.
Jackson County Circuit Judge Michael Manners was appointed 'special master" to
hear the evidence.
Clemons' lawyer argues in court filings that new evidence warrants a review of
claims that his client's confession, which he later recanted, was beaten out of
him. They point to the $150,000 settlement Cummins received from police in 2005
on his own claim that he was coerced into falsely confessing before quickly
retelling the version of events that ultimately held weight with police and the
courts.
The lawyer, Josh Levine, also argues that Clemons was not given the same
treatment as Richardson, whom he argues was more culpable in the state's
version of events. Cummins testified that he saw Richardson push the girls from
the bridge.
Levine declined to comment for this story, as did Missouri Attorney General
Chris Koster's office, which is representing the state.
Levine is expected to challenge "rape kit" test results from the body of Julie
Kerry and 3 other police lab reports that came to the attention of the attorney
general's office 2 years ago.
Nobody has been able to say whether the evidence was presented to defense
lawyers at the time of Clemons' 1993 trial, which would be required if it
favored his acquittal. Prosecution and defense lawyers have since said they
don't recall having seen it then.
Officials have said there was a public record of its existence starting the
year after the trial but the defense is disputing that.
A 1991 lab report, which predated DNA testing, indicated the rape kit showed no
seminal fluid or sperm. In addition, Gray's pants were tested, based on semen
stains and a hair found on them.
All the evidence has since been tested for DNA, but Manners issued a gag order
last year after the Post-Dispatch requested the results.
The method of detecting semen in a tissue sample has not changed in 2 decades,
although DNA testing might offer other identification possibilities.
Even so, it's unclear whether new DNA evidence would matter. Clemons initially
confessed to raping only Robin Kerry, whose body was never found. Julie Kerry's
remains were found moderately decomposed, about 300 miles downstream, three
weeks after the crime.
The jury convicted Clemons without physical evidence of rape, and the presence
of someone else's DNA would not necessarily rule him out as one of the killers.
If he had raped Julie Kerry, he still might not have left evidence.
(source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
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