Feb. 20
TEXAS----impending execution
Texas man who set ex-girlfriend on fire set to die
Convicted killer Carl Blue never disputed filling a convenience store drink cup
with gasoline, tossing it on his former girlfriend at the door of her Bryan
apartment and setting her ablaze.
Carmen Richards-Sanders died of her horrific burns in September 1994. Now the
48-year-old Blue is facing execution Thursday evening in Huntsville for her
death.
He contended the fire was a misplayed prank. His lawyers argued the 38-year-old
woman's death shouldn't have been capital murder.
A man at Richards-Sanders' apartment also was set on fire but survived. He
testified against Blue.
Blue's attorney was in the federal courts Wednesday trying to delay the lethal
injection. He argues it was an improper conflict of interest for 1 of Blue's
trial lawyers to also represent Blue in earlier stages of his appeals.
(soure: Associated Press)
*********************
4 from Brazos County slated for execution
Editor's note: This story is the 3rd in a series on the death penalty in
advance of Carl Henry Blue's scheduled execution Thursday in Huntsville.
On Thursday, Carl Blue is scheduled to become the 13th person from Brazos
County to be executed for capital murder since the death penalty was reinstated
in Texas in 1982.
The last person executed from Brazos County was Ynobe Matthews, who was put to
death in 2004 at age 27. Matthews had been charged with kidnapping and sexually
assaulting a 21-year-old woman in College Station and then strangling her to
death in May 2000.
Currently, there are 5 people, including Blue, who have been convicted of
capital murder in Brazos County. The others on death row are Stanley Griffin,
John Thuesen and Marcus Druery.
Another, 25-year-old Christian Olsen, has been removed from death row while his
case goes through a 2nd punishment trial. He was accused of entering a house
through a garage door in June 2007 and killing a woman.
Blue was sentenced to death for killing his ex-girlfriend, whom he set on fire,
and has spent nearly 20 years on death row.
The average time that convicts spend on death row is 10.6 years, according to
Jason Clark, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
"That accounts for offenders going through the appeals process," Clark said.
"Each offender has to exhaust their ability to appeal at the state and federal
levels."
Griffin, 47, was convicted last year of murdering a 29-year-old mother and
violently assaulting her 9-year-old son in 2010.
In 2010,Thuesen, 29, was sentenced to death for shooting his 21-year-old
ex-girlfriend and her 23-year-old brother in their College Station home in
2009.
Druery, 33, was convicted of driving a 20-year-old man into his family's
pasture and shooting him at close range before robbing him and then setting his
body on fire in 2002. Last year, the 33-year-old received a stay of execution
from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals days before he was scheduled to
receive lethal injection.
Others who have been executed for capital murders in Brazos County are:
- Ron Shamburger, who was put to death in 2002 at age 30 for the murder of a
20-year-old senior Texas A&M University medical student while he was
burglarizing her College Station home in 1994.
- Stanley Baker Jr., 35, who also was put to death in 2002 for killing a
42-year-old clerk in 1994 at an Adult Video Store in College Station, which he
robbed.
- Jose and Jessie Gutierrez, who were both executed for shooting a 42-year-old
clerk, who tried to run away as the brothers were robbing a College Station
store in 1989. Jose was executed in 1999 at age 39, and his brother was
executed in 1994 at age 29.
- James Earhart, 56, who was put to death in 1999 for the 1987 murder of a
9-year-old whom he abducted after she was dropped off by a school bus at her
home in Bryan.
- Jeff Emery, 49, who was executed in 1998 for the murder of a 19-year-old
Texas A&M student, who came home as he was burglarizing her College Station
apartment in 1979. After killing the student, Emery also sexually assaulted
her.
- Terry Washington, 33, who was executed in 1997 after he was convicted of
stabbing the 29-year-old manager of a College Station restaurant where he was a
dishwasher. He stabbed the manager 85 times before stealing more than $600 from
the restaurant's safe and cash register in 1987.
- Danny Ray Harris, 32, and Curtis Harris, 31, who were put to death in 1993
for beating a 27-year-old to death with a tire tool in 1978. - Robert Black
Jr., 45, who was executed in 1992 for hiring a hit man to kill his wife in
1985.
- David M. Clark, 32, who was executed in 1992 for shooting, stabbing and
clubbing to death 2 people during an argument over missing methamphetamine
ingredients in 1987.
(source: The Eagle)
******************************
Andre Thomas: Mental Health, Criminal Justice Collide----This is Part 1 in a
6-part series exploring the intersections of the mental health and criminal
justice systems in Texas. It examines the case of Andre Thomas, a death row
inmate who began exhibiting signs of mental illness as a boy and committed a
brutal triple murder in 2004. Blind because he pulled out both of his eyes
while behind bars, Thomas awaits a federal court's decision on whether he is
sane enough to be executed.
Andre Thomas was the type of kid who could memorize entire Bible stories, who
would shoot his eager hand in the air before his Sunday school teacher could
even finish her question.
He wanted to know how everything worked - a "tinkerer," his dad called him -
constantly taking things apart just to figure them out.
The 4th of 6 brothers born to Rochelle Thomas in abject poverty in Sherman,
Thomas performed well in school as a young boy despite a difficult home life.
Neither Rochelle Thomas, nor his father, Danny Thomas, was around much, so he
and his brothers often fended for themselves, spending much of their free time
at the Harmony Baptist Church just down the street from their unkempt home,
which often lacked electricity.
By the time he was in high school, Thomas was a talented artist, sketching
intricate drawings of the cars he planned to design one day.
"We definitely saw him doing great things," said Rachel Kallas, Thomas'
sister-in-law, "but he definitely didn't go down that road."
Thomas, now 29, veered sharply down a different path, committing a brutal
triple murder in 2004 that shook the quiet North Texas city of Sherman to its
core and sent him to death row.
His case offers a lens through which to examine the effects of a mental health
system in Texas that is too fractured and too underfunded to care for the
mentally ill. A system unable to identify and treat the dangerously ill before
their affliction affects others. A system that often punishes the deluded
instead of helping them to recover and protecting society from them.
Thomas' lawyers argue that his long untreated mental illness not only drove him
to commit an unthinkable crime but provoked him to gouge out both of his eyes
while behind bars, and has rendered him incompetent for execution. Prosecutors,
though, contend that drugs and alcohol and Thomas' desire for attention fueled
his actions. And they say that the jury justly sentenced him to death for them.
One of Thomas' 1st arrests came at age 11, a charge of criminal mischief for an
apartment complex pool escapade. By age 16, he became a father when Andre
Thomas Jr. was born. In 2001, on Thomas' 18th birthday, he married his
namesake's mother, Laura Boren, a petite blonde 17-year-old who had become a
doting mother to Andre Jr. despite her youth. Months later, the couple would
separate, and Thomas' illness appeared to worsen. He struggled to hold a job to
provide for his son, and he frightened his friends and family with bizarre
biblical obsessions.
"He was hung up on Revelations," Danny Thomas said of his son's seemingly
incessant effort to make sense of the apocalyptic passages. "He would try to
analyze it down to the T."
Thomas was drinking and using drugs, cycling in and out of the Grayson County
Jail. He attempted suicide, told friends he felt like he was living the same
day over and over and spoke of angels and demons whose voices fought in his
head. Twice in the 3 weeks before his terrifying crime, doctors worried that he
was dangerous and sought commitment warrants that were never enforced.
On the morning of March 27, 2004, Laura Boren's father, Paul Boren, found his
daughter with a gaping stab wound in her chest, sprawled across the
blood-stained living room carpet in the apartment she shared with her new
boyfriend and her children, 4-year-old Andre Jr. and his 1-year-old
half-sister, Leyha Hughes.
Down the hall, the mutilated bodies of the children lay in their bedroom,
surrounded by blood-spattered plastic baby dolls and action figures. Like their
mother, the children had massive wounds in their chests, where Thomas later
said he had removed their hearts in an attempt to free the demons he said he
believed were inside them.
Hours later, Thomas, confused and bleeding from self-inflicted stab wounds - he
had tried to commit suicide after fatally stabbing Laura Boren and the children
- turned himself in to police. He confessed to the murders and asked if he
would be forgiven. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, Thomas told the
EMT he didn't know what was going on. "I just don't understand. I just wanted
to die to pay for my sins," he said.
The killings stunned Sherman, and news of the crime dominated the front page of
the Sherman Herald-Democrat for days. Almost immediately, there were calls for
the murderer of the lovely young mother and her children to face the death
penalty.
While awaiting trial in jail - days after surgeons repaired his bleeding heart
- Thomas gouged out his right eye with his bare hand, spurred by Scripture: "If
the right eye offends thee, pluck it out." After a short stay in a state mental
hospital, Thomas was deemed competent to stand trial in Sherman. Despite his
troubled mental history and self-mutilation, during a trial in which Thomas sat
next to his attorneys munching on Skittles, a jury rejected the argument that
he was not guilty by reason of insanity.
In 2005, at age 22, Thomas was sent to Texas death row in Livingston, where,
like the rest of the condemned, he would spend 23 hours a day alone in a
6-by-10 cell. There, Thomas' mental illness seemed to worsen. On Dec. 9, 2008,
Thomas jammed his fingers behind his left eyeball and pulled it from the
socket. He ate it whole.
In prison, Thomas was diagnosed with schizophrenia. His lawyers appealed to the
state's highest criminal court, arguing that he was no longer a danger to
society because of his blindness and that he was ineligible for the death
penalty because of his mental state. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
disagreed, reaching the seemingly conflicting conclusion that, Thomas is
"clearly 'crazy' but he is also 'sane' under Texas law," because a jury had
concluded he knew right from wrong at the time of his crime.
Today, Thomas is medicated and living in one of the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice's 3 psychiatric facilities, the Jester IV unit in Richmond.
His eyelids are surgically sewn shut, covering his empty eye sockets. He awaits
a ruling from a federal appeals court on a 350-page motion from his attorneys
that argues his trial was unfair, marred by a lack of understanding of a mental
illness that began manifesting itself as early as age 10, when Thomas first
heard voices in his head. His lawyers argue that at trial, the jurors never
heard about his family's history of mental illness. And they say that executing
the young man who still has hallucinations would violate the U.S.
Constitution's Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Prosecutors, however, argue that Thomas brought on his mental condition with
the use of drugs and alcohol. They say he knew what he was doing when he
stabbed his wife and ripped out the children's hearts. The removal of his 1st
eye while in jail, they contended at trial, was a result of his sudden
withdrawal from the substances he abused.
As Thomas' case languishes, it forces uncomfortable questions about the
intersection of the state's underfunded mental health care system and the Texas
criminal justice system. Thomas is 1 of thousands of mentally ill inmates in
Texas prisons. The number of inmates treated for mental illness by the
University of Texas Medical Branch, which provides the majority of inmate care
in Texas prisons, grew from about 14,500 in August 2008 to nearly 17,900 in
August 2012. More than 20 percent of the 290 inmates on Texas death row are
diagnosed with some type of mental illness. Systemwide, more than 15 % of the
more than 151,000 TDCJ inmates are diagnosed with some form of mental illness.
In the last decade, the U.S. Supreme Court has exempted juveniles and the
mentally retarded from execution in landmark cases. Many legal experts and
criminal defense lawyers expect that with increasing understanding of the
science behind brain disease and behavior, the high court will soon decide
whether the mentally ill should join those for whom execution is declared cruel
and unusual punishment.
It's not news that the Texas criminal justice system, from juvenile courtrooms
to maximum security prisons, is overburdened with delusional and psychotic
defendants, a trend that has only grown since the deinstitutionalization of the
mentally ill beginning in the 1960s.
The idea nationally then was that the mentally ill should get treatment in the
community, where they would have the opportunity to live a more normal life. In
1955, there were 500,000 patients in psychiatric hospitals nationwide, said
Lynda Frost, director of planning and programs at the University of Texas at
Austin???s Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. In 2000, there were 59,000.
But funding did not flow from the shuttered hospitals to the community services
intended to fill in the gaps. Texas is last nationally in spending on community
mental health services. Jails, emergency rooms and homeless shelters have
become de facto asylums.
State legislators are aware of the burden created by the dearth of mental
health resources. In 2011, even while facing a multibillion-dollar budget
shortfall, they invested more dollars in state mental health services, at least
in part with the hope of reducing costs to the criminal justice system.
As they reconvene this spring, though, problems that were decades in the making
persist. Community mental health services remain underfunded, but they also are
unevenly distributed, with swaths of rural Texas lacking a single psychiatrist.
Psychiatric facilities in the Texas prison system are filled to capacity as the
TDCJ struggles to keep pace with a growing population of mentally ill inmates.
And some argue that the criminal justice procedures should be adjusted to
ensure a level playing field for such defendants in the courtroom. And then,
there is perhaps the toughest question of all: What should be done with a
criminal like Thomas?
(source: Texas Tribune)
******************************************
Convicted Murderer's Brain Remains Trial's Focus
The mind of convicted College Station killer Stanley Robertson, how it was
affected by his upbringing, and how it is now continues to be the focus of the
punishment phase of his trial.
After testimony Monday concerning how extreme poverty may have adversely
affected his brain, the defense continued to put its experts on mental health
on the stand Tuesday.
Robertson, 45, was convicted February 7 of the August 2010 kidnapping and
murder of Annie Toliver, his ex-girlfriend's mother. The revenge killing
started in the College Station Walmart parking lot, and ended with Toliver's
body being dumped in Fort Worth. Robertson says it was all to get back at his
ex, Tammy.
Psychiatrist Richard Adler testified Tuesday about studies of Robertson's mind
and abilities, ones which he said showed "widespread abnormalities" consistent
with mental retardation. In some tests, he scored even lower than diagnosed
mentally retarded people have scored.
Because of the capital murder conviction, the Brazos County jury has just 2
options for punishment: life in prison without possibility of parole or the
death penalty.
To earn a death penalty conviction, the State of Texas must convince the jury
that Robertson is a future danger, that there are no mitigating circumstances
to warrant a life sentence over death, and that Robertson is not mentally
retarded.
The latter issue has also been at the forefront of the defense's presentation
in punishment, a 2-pronged attack that has also included stories of Robertson's
sexual abuse as an adolescent and the horrible conditions he experienced as a
child.
The prosecution is expected to refute mental retardation with expert witnesses
of their own, and has been making the case that many people -- including
Robertson's long list of siblings -- have grown up poor and do not commit
murders.
Monday, Dr. Jolie Brams, a psychologist for the defense, testified that
Robertson's extreme poverty affected the defendant to the point that made him
less culpable for Annie Toliver's murder.
The only other witness called Tuesday -- 1 that will continue her testimony
Wednesday morning -- is a neuropsychologist who is discussing IQ scores from
Robertson's recent tests.
(source: KBTX News)
GEORGIA----impending execution
Parole Board Denies Clemency for Andrew Cook
Tuesday, February 19, 2013, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles met to
consider a clemency request from attorneys representing condemned inmate Andrew
Allen Cook.
After considering the request, the Board has voted to deny clemency.
On March 19, 1998, Cook was found guilty of 2 counts of malice murder and 2
counts of felony murder in the shooting deaths of Grant Patrick Hendrickson and
Michele Lee Cartagena, which occurred at approximately midnight on the night of
January 2, 1995, in Monroe County.
The jury recommended a death sentence for Cook's murder of Ms. Cartagena after
finding that the murder of Ms. Cartagena was committed while the defendant was
engaged in the commission of the murder of Mr. Hendrickson.
Cook was sentenced to life for the murder of Mr. Hendrickson. The Georgia
Supreme Court later upheld the conviction and affirmed the jury's verdict. Cook
has concluded his state and federal habeas corpus proceedings.
Cook is scheduled to die by lethal injection on February 21, 2013, at 7:00
p.m., at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia.
(source: WALB News)
************************************
Family pleads for Monroe County killer's life
More than a dozen people testified at the state Board of Pardons and Paroles on
Tuesday, asking for Georgia to cancel Thursday's scheduled execution of Monroe
County killer Andrew Cook.
Cook's family, friends, spiritual advisers, doctors and others asked the
5-member board for clemency for Cook, convicted of the 1995 double murder of
Mercer University students Michele Cartagena, 19, and Grant Hendrickson, 22.
Attorneys for Cook, now 38, declined to comment, but they confirmed that they
will pursue other avenues to preserve their client's life if the board turns
them down. Cook is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. Thursday. The
board's decision is expected Wednesday.
One of those options is a direct appeal to the state Supreme Court. But by a
5-2 vote Tuesday, the court upheld the death penalty in the case of Warren Lee
Hill, 53, a man convicted of committing murder in prison, where he was serving
time in the shooting death of his girlfriend. Tuesday night, the 11th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals granted Hill a stay of execution.
Advocates for Cook's victims pushed for the sentence to stand.
"The evidence was overwhelming of his guilt," said Richard Milam, district
attorney for the Towaliga Judicial Circuit, who argued against clemency at the
board hearing. "In addition to that, it was one of the more aggravated murders
you could have."
Hendrickson's mother, father and uncle gave statements during the hearing,
Milam said.
Cook was found guilty of choosing the couple at random at Lake Juliette about
12:30 a.m. Jan. 3, 1995, and unloading 2 guns into their car, killing them
both.
He was sentenced to death for killing Cartagena and life without parole for
Hendrickson's slaying.
The board may decide to grant clemency, which would convert Cook's death
sentence to life without parole. Or it could deny clemency or stay the
execution for up to 90 days. The hearing was closed to the public.
Anti-death penalty activist Mary Palmer Legare is hoping for clemency.
The veteran organizer is putting together a vigil for Cook, scheduled for
Thursday evening at Macon City Hall.
"I don't think that our government should have the power to kill any of its
citizens," she said. "I think that brutalizes the entire system."
Legare, pursuing her doctorate, is also a Mercer student. She said the murders
strike close to home in Macon, and she herself is no stranger to fear of crime.
"If I felt that this would make us safer, then I would not be opposed to
capital punishment," she said, but she argued that executing 1 killer does not
make the community safer.
(source: Macon Telegraph)
*********************
Sheriff Remembers 1995 Andrew Cook Killings: "This Has Been the Most Difficult
Case"
Just 2 days before convicted killer Andrew Cook's scheduled execution, the
sheriff who investigated the grisly murder of 2 Mercer students 18 years ago is
remembering that horrible night.
The quiet spot on Lake Juliette where 22-year-old Grant Patrick Henderson and
his girlfriend Michele Cartagena were murdered has changed a lot in 18 years.
The lakeshore has been raised, pathways paved, and Dames Ferry Park provides a
beautiful spot for locals to enjoy nature. That's exactly what Grant and
Michele wanted to do the night of January 3rd, 1995...the night they were
brutally murdered at that very place.
"Andy pulled in, and when he pulled in, he shot at them with an
AR-15...spraying the side of the car," recounts Sheriff John Cary Bittick, who
took the call the morning of January 3rd. When he arrived on scene, he found
Hendrickson's car riddled with bullets, his body in similar condition. Cook
shot Michele and dragged her body a few feet away; he then pulled off her
underwear and spit on her body. Cook reportedly did not even know the couple.
Bittick believes Cook was chewing tobacco at the time, and spitting was a
reflex. It helped in the investigation to find him.
In their investigation, Bittick says they had to trace the gun by the shell
casings found at the crime scene. They interviewed local pawn shops, and
because they did not have any DNA to match the saliva found at the scene, it
took 2 years to connect Cook to the murders. He was arrested on a fish and game
violation in Jones County. That's when he asked for a lawyer.
Cook also confessed to his father, an FBI agent at the time.
"He told his dad during that time period that something came over him and he
didn't know what it was," Bittick remembers.
Bittick says this was the hardest case he's ever dealt with in his 30 years as
Sheriff of Monroe County.
"This is my 3rd death penalty case and my third execution, and none of them are
easy. I think it's going to be difficult on all 3 families," says Bittick.
Cook was sentenced to death in 1998--his FBI agent father had to testify
against him...a major testimony that many believe led to his son's sentence.
Soon after, his father would resign from the FBI.
"Grant and Michele were 2 really good kids that had their entire lives ahead of
them, and from all indications would have been extremely good, productive
citizens," Bittick says.
Now, Cook waits in prison to die, as the lonely spot on Lake Juliette
remains--the memory of what happened there 18 years ago surely fresh in his
mind.
(source: NBC41News)
*********************************
Georgia Almost Executed a Mentally Disabled Man on Tuesday Night
Warren Hill, a convicted murderer with an IQ of about 70, had already taken
sedatives to get him ready for his lethal injection on Tuesday night when both
a federal and a state appeals court granted him a stay. At that point in time,
Hill only had 30 minutes to live. Now, it's unclear what happens next, but
given that Hill was supposed to die tonight but remains alive, it's probably
safe to say he'll be thanking some lawyers. And Jimmy Carter.
The whole situation is a little bit confusing if you haven't been following
Hill's story. It's even more confusing if you're not up-to-date on the national
conversation around the death penalty and mentally challenged prisoners. Some
media outlets struggled to keep up with the fast-moving, last-minute court
decisions. Basically, Hill was scheduled to be put to death at 7 p.m. By the
time the deciding court ruling started rolled in, he'd taken a dose of Ativan
to sedate him for the lethal injection. Earlier that day, the U.S. Supreme
Court and the Georgia Supreme Court had denied Hill a stay of execution, as did
the State Board of Pardons and Paroles. Hill faces the death penalty for the
1990 killing of Joseph Handspike with a nail studded board while he slept. Hill
was serving a life sentence for killing his girlfriend. She was shot 11 times.
Hill sounds like a real criminal - nobody's doubting that - but a 1988 Georgia
law prohibits use of the death penalty on mentally disabled prisoners. A 2002
U.S. Supreme Court ruling backed up that legislation by declaring it
unconstitutional to execute the mentally disabled. 3 doctors examined Hill in
2000 and deemed him fit for execution, that is, not mentally disabled, but they
walked back on that decision last year, saying that their initial decision was
rushed and medical advances over the past 12 years have given them a clearer
picture of Hill's condition. "Medical experts who have examined Hill have
confirmed he is mentally retarded," Laurel Bellows, president of American Bar
Association, said in a statement to the parole board on Tuesday. "The 3 state
doctors who testified in 2000 at Mr. Hill's evidentiary hearing have now
revised their diagnoses and agree with 6 other doctors that Mr. Hill is
mentally retarded." Even former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the European
Union rose to the 53-year-old prisoner's defense.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals listened to the pleas for mercy - really,
they were just pleas for obeying the law - and halted the execution at the very
last minute so that the judge's could further examine the evidence that Hill is
indeed disabled. A state appeallate court also issued a stay, though their
reasoning pointed towards a lack of clarity in Georgia's lethal injection
protocol. Now comes the hard part, though, when the federal and state appeals
courts must face off against the U.S. and George Supreme Courts not just over
whether Hill should really be spared but also over who really gets to decide
the definition of "mentally disabled." It will also stir up the even fiercer
debate about how and why we use the death penalty, a topic most recently batted
around the international press when Troy Davis, an allegedly innocent black
man, was put to death in the same prison where Hill awaits his fate.
A small crowd of protestors has been gathered outside the prison in Jackson,
Georgia for the past few days. Regardless of what the judges decide in terms of
his execution, Hill will be in the state's correctional system if not that very
prison for the rest of his life. While the nuances of death penalty exceptions
have been a challenge for America's legal system to figure out, few people
disagree that criminals should go to jail.
(source: The Atlantic)
*****************************************
Georgia appeals stay for condemned killer; Warren Lee Hill's lawyers say he's
mentally retarded
After a last-minute stay that at least temporarily spared the life of condemned
murderer Warren Lee Hill, Georgia officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court on
Wednesday to let the execution go forward.
Hill was within half an hour of execution Tuesday night when federal and state
appeals courts stepped in to halt the procedure, said his lawyer, Brian Kammer.
His lawyers say he's mentally retarded, with an IQ of 70, but state prosecutors
say Hill has repeatedly failed to prove that claim in court.
"There is no basis for a stay, and this court should vacate the order," the
Georgia attorney general's office urged the justices.
Hill was sentenced to death for the 1990 killing of Joseph Handspike, another
inmate in a Georgia state prison. He was convicted of beating Handspike to
death with a nail-studded board while serving a life sentence in the 1985
killing of his girlfriend, Myra Wright.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals halted proceedings for 30 days to ask
for further written arguments on the issue, while the Georgia Court of Appeals
issued its stay on a challenge to the way the prison handles the lethal
injection drugs used in executions, Kammer said.
Those decisions came after the U.S. Supreme Court and the state Supreme Court
denied other requests for a stay of execution, and the Georgia State Board of
Pardons and Paroles turned down a plea for clemency. The execution had been
scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at a state prison in Jackson, about 45 miles south
of Atlanta.
Hill's lawyers say his low IQ means he should be spared under a 2002 decision
that barred the execution of the mentally disabled. But a string of state
courts has said Hill doesn't qualify under Georgia law, which requires inmates
to prove mental impairment "beyond a reasonable doubt."
"This is the strictest standard in any jurisdiction in the nation. Even Warren
Hill, a man with an IQ of 70 who is diagnosed as mentally retarded by every
doctor who has examined him, found it impossible to meet this standard of
proof," Kammer said.
Last week, three doctors who examined Hill for the state filed affidavits
stating they "have now revised their opinions and find that Mr. Hill does meet
the criteria for mental retardation," his lawyers argued in court papers.
Handspike's family has called for the execution to be called off. The Georgia
Council on Developmental Disabilities also weighed in against the execution,
stating, "No other state risks the lives of those with developmental
disabilities to this extreme."
But lawyers for the state have said that Hill served in the Navy, held a job
and managed his money before Wright's killing -- signs that he didn't
necessarily meet the legal standard for retardation, even though he has a low
IQ.
Hill had previously been scheduled for execution in July, but the state Supreme
Court halted the execution on procedural grounds.
Georgia has executed 52 men since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death
penalty in 1973, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections. There are
now 94 men and 1 woman under death sentence in the state.
(source: CNN)
*****************************
Warren Hill case re-engages debate on practicality of death penalty
The debate over the death penalty in the United States has long been part of
the national dialogue. However, media attention over the controversial aspects
of Georgia inmate Warren Lee Hill's case has recently intensified the debate.
At 7 p.m. on Monday, Warren Lee Hill, a twice-convicted killer, was set to be
executed by lethal injection. Just 1 hour before the execution was to take
place, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of execution. This
move came just as prominent public figures, such as former President Jimmy
Carter, voiced their support for Hill's case. The announcement from the U.S.
Circuit Court comes as a surprise given that the Georgia State Board of Pardons
and Paroles, the Georgia Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court have already
denied Hill's appeal for clemency.
Hill was first convicted in 1986 for his girlfriend's murder, and he was
sentenced to life in prison. In 1990 Hill was placed on death row after beating
his fellow inmate to death. It took 23 years of appeals and legal battles to
reach the point where the state almost executed Hill. This struggle reminds us
that the death penalty does not offer a quick solution to punishment but
instead involves a drawn-out process that is both expensive for taxpayers and
psychologically draining for those involved.
The nature of this case is particularly interesting. Hill has been proven to
have intellectual disabilities, and the Supreme Court considers execution of
the mentally challenged unconstitutional, as decided in Atkins v. Virginia in
2002. However, the Court left the precise definition of what qualifies mental
retardation up to the states. Georgia has the strictest standard of any state
on this issue, requiring proof of retardation beyond a reasonable doubt.
Whether the death penalty is morally justified is another question. In Europe,
there is little debate over the death penalty, as its abolition is a basic
requirement for European Union membership. Beyond Europe, most developed
countries - with the notable exception of Japan - have done away with the death
penalty. Perhaps the American position presents a fundamental cultural
difference or an archaic tradition in regard to mental illness in these cases
and the death penalty in general. Someday, that will have to change.
(source: Editorial, Washington Square News)
FLORIDA----impending execution
Paul Augustus Howell update: Appeal unanimously denied for Florida state
trooper killer
The Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously denied a post-conviction
appeal and stay sought by a drug trafficker who is facing execution on Feb. 26
for killing a state trooper with a pipe bomb.
An attorney for Paul Augustus Howell, 47, said additional appeals, though, will
be filed in state and federal courts.
Howell was convicted of killing Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Jimmy Fulford in
February 1992. Fulford had stopped a car carrying the bomb, hidden inside a
gift-wrapped microwave oven, on Interstate 10 east of Tallahassee.
Authorities said the bomb was intended to kill 2 women in Marianna because they
knew too much about a South Florida drug ring. Fulford was killed instantly
when it exploded as he attempted to open the package.
"The key issue in this case was a substantial conflict of interest by his trial
attorney," said Michael Ufferman, one of Howell's appellate lawyers.
Ufferman said Frank Sheffield, now a state circuit judge in Tallahassee, had a
conflict that came because of a telephoned death threat Sheffield said his
wife, then also his secretary, had received.
It came after Sheffield had told Howell the evidence against him was
overwhelming in a separate drug trafficking case then pending in federal court.
Sheffield said the anonymous caller asked to leave a message saying that "if
Paul Howell goes down, Mr. Sheffield is going down also."
The federal judge let Sheffield withdraw from the drug case. Howell
subsequently was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to life in prison.
Sheffield, though, declined to withdraw from the murder trial that followed
although prosecutors and Howell asked for him to be removed. The state judge
allowed him to remain. The state prosecutors also said their investigation
indicated the threatening phone call never happened.
Ufferman said the new appeals will be filed in federal court in Tallahassee and
in state court in neighboring Jefferson County.
The trial lawyer conflict issue has never before been heard in federal court
because Howell's initial appellate lawyer, Danielle Jorden, missed a filing
deadline, Ufferman said.
The Supreme Court rejected a request by Ufferman and Sonya Rudenstine, who were
hired by Howell's brother, to remove two court-appointed appellate attorneys
from the case. They argued both had a conflict because one of them, Clyde
Taylor, once shared an office with Jorden and would be called to testify for
the upcoming federal appeal.
The high court, though, ruled it cannot address claims Howell may raise in
federal court. The justices also concluded Howell hasn't been harmed by having
all 4 lawyers on his case. They wrote that allowing a last-minute substitution
of counsel could set a precedent and create "a standard delay tactic in any
death warrant case."
The justices also rejected Howell's requests for the appointment of mental
health experts and an investigator as well as his claim that Florida's lethal
injection process is constitutionally flawed.
(source: WPTV News)
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