June 5
COLORADO:
Holmes can plead insanity in Colo. theater shooting
Mass shooting suspect James Eagan Holmes was allowed Tuesday to change his plea
to not guilty by reason of insanity, setting the stage for an extensive
mental-health evaluation that could stretch into 2014.
Judge Carlos Samour Jr. accepted the revised plea at a hearing Tuesday, three
months after the court entered a plea of not guilty on Mr. Holmes' behalf in
the Aurora theater shooting.
Mr. Holmes, a 25-year-old former graduate student, has been charged with
multiple counts of murder and attempted murder stemming from the July 20 attack
at the Century 16 Aurora premier of "The Dark Knight Rises" that left 12 dead
and 58 wounded.
His defense attorneys have argued that Mr. Holmes is mentally ill. Last month,
the court rebuffed their efforts to overturn the state's laws on the insanity
plea.
Tuesday's plea means that Mr. Holmes must cooperate with a series of
court-ordered independent psychiatric evaluations designed to determine his
mental state at the time of the shooting. As a result, his trial date may be
pushed back from the scheduled start date of February 2014.
Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler is seeking the death
penalty, but if a jury finds that Mr. Holmes was legally insane at the time of
the shooting, under state law he cannot be executed.
The court was also considering Tuesday dozens of motions defense filed by the
defense on topics such as jury sequestration and evidence procedures.
(source: Washington Times)
ARIZONA:
Arias lawyers discuss possible death penalty retrial; Maricopa County Attorney
Bill Montgomery discusses whether his office plans to retry the penalty phase
of the Jodi Arias murder trial.
Jodi Arias' defense team responded Tuesday to Maricopa County Attorney Bill
Montgomery's suggestion last week that he would go forward with a trial to
convince a new jury to impose the death penalty on Arias unless her attorneys
made an offer for resolution.
"If the diagnosis made by the State's psychologist is correct, the Maricopa
County Attorney's Office is seeking to impose the death penalty upon a mentally
ill woman who has no prior criminal history," Kirk Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott
said in a joint statement exclusively to The Arizona Republic. "Despite Mr.
Montgomery's recent statements to the media, it is not incumbent upon Ms.
Arias' defense counsel to resolve this case. Instead, the choice to end this
case sits squarely with Mr. Montgomery and his office."
The decision will indeed be up to Montgomery. Maricopa County Superior Court
Judge Sherry Stephens has set a tentative court date of July 18 to seat a new
jury just to consider the death penalty, but Willmott has indicated that she
has a scheduling conflict then.
Montgomery's statement that he would consider "offers" from the defense
indicates he might consider concessions from Arias, such as not pursuing
appeals. But courthouse regulars suggest that Arias, 32, could just as easily
take her chances going back to trial. And in the event she gets death, she
would have 20 years or so to do battle in state and federal appeals court to
try to get a lesser sentence or a new trial.
If Montgomery lifts the intent to seek the death penalty, Arias would receive a
mandatory life sentence. Stephens would then choose between life in prison or
natural life in prison. The former is frequently referred to as "life with
chance of parole after 25 years," but that is a misnomer often used even during
court proceedings.
Arizona discontinued parole for 1st-degree murderers in 1994. Anyone sentenced
since then might be sentenced to life with possibility of release after 25
years. Parole is only available for those who committed murders before 1994.
(source: USA Today)
*******************
Arias lawyers respond to Montgomery
On May 8, Jodi Arias was convicted of the 2008 murder of her sometime lover,
Travis Alexander, but on May 23, the jury reached impasse on whether to
sentence her to death or to life in prison. A week later, Maricopa County
Attorney Bill Montgomery said that his office would go forward with the trial
to convince a new jury to impose the death penalty, but ...
"If they were to make an offer for resolution, I think I have an ethical
responsibility to consider that," he said.
Today Arias' defense attorneys, Kirk Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott issued a joint
statement in an exclusive to The Arizona Republic.
"If the diagnosis made by the State's psychologist is correct, the Maricopa
County Attorney's Office is seeking to impose the death penalty upon a mentally
ill woman who has no prior criminal history," they wrote. "Despite Mr.
Montgomery's recent statements to the media, it is not incumbent upon Ms.
Arias' defense counsel to resolve this case. Instead, the choice to end this
case sits squarely with Mr. Montgomery and his office.
"It is solely for them to determine if continuing to pursue a death sentence
upon Ms. Arias, who is already facing a mandatory life sentence, is a good and
proper use of taxpayer resources."
The decision will indeed be up to Montgomery. Maricopa County Superior Court
Judge Sherry Stephens has set a tentative court date of July 18 to seat a new
jury just to consider the death penalty, but Willmott has already indicated
that she has a scheduling conflict then.
Montgomery's statement that he would consider "offers" from the defense
indicates he might consider concessions from Arias, such as not pursuing
appeals. But courthouse regulars suggest that Arias, 32, could just as easily
take her chances going back to trial. And in the event she gets death, she
would have 20 years or so to do battle in state and federal appeals court to
try to get a lesser sentence or a new trial.
Ultimately, however, offers have to come from Montgomery. His office, not the
judge, makes the decision to seek the death penalty. And at this point, because
Arias is already convicted of 1st-degree murder, there is no need to reach a
settlement with Arias in order for her to be sentenced to life in prison.
Montgomery only has to lift the intent to seek the death penalty and she would
receive a mandatory life sentence.
Judge Sherry Stephens would then choose between life in prison or natural life
in prison. The former is frequently referred to as "life with chance of parole
after 25 years," but that is a misnomer often used even during court
proceedings.
Arizona discontinued parole for 1st-degree murderers in 1994. Anyone sentenced
since then might be sentenced to life with possibility of release after 25
years. Parole is only available for those who committed murders before 1994.
"Now the only chance of release is commutation from the governor through the
Board of Executive Clemency," a more difficult process, said Ron Reinstein, a
retired Superior Court judge who chairss the Arizona Supreme Court's capital
case oversight committee. "It doesn't happen very often," he said.
And given the fact that the jury found an aggravating factor in Arias' case,
it's unlikely Stephens would impose that sentence.
If she had committed the murder after 2012, release after 25 years would not
even be an option, because the Arizona State Legislature has abolished the
sentence for premeditated 1st-degree murder. It is still a possibility for
juveniles convicted of murder or adults convicted of 1st-degree felony murder,
which means that someone was killed during the commission of another felony.
(source: Arizona Republic)
CALIFORNIA:
Was judge senile in death penalty case? 9th Circuit dissenter sees 'painfully
obvious' incompetence
A federal appeals court has discounted allegations that a judge who sentenced a
triple murderer to death was suffering from Alzheimer's disease at the time.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the death
sentence for Ronald Deere, convicted of murdering three family members of his
ex-girlfriend after she rejected him, the Metropolitan News-Enterprise and
Trial Insider report. Deere was seeking a hearing into whether his lawyer was
ineffective by failing to challenge the competency of Judge Fred Metheny of
Riverside, Calif., during the penalty phase of his retrial in 1986.
Any suggestion that Metheny had Alzheimer's at the time is supported by
"anecdotes recounted by a grand total of 3 lawyers," according to the majority
opinion (PDF) by Judge Barry Silverman. And those anecdotes "reveal no more
than eccentricity as distinguished from dementia," the court said.
Silverman cited findings that Metheny, who died 25 years ago, was "scrupulously
fair and objective" during the proceedings in Deere's case.
One of the lawyers who submitted an affidavit told of a drawn-out small claims
case before Metheny in 1986 in which the judge suddenly stepped down from the
bench, started shaking hands with the litigants, and then started shaking hands
with people in the spectator section. According to the lawyer, Metheny said he
assumed all the people in court were Christians, and remarked upon the
lawyers??? inability to settle. He then dismissed the case.
In his dissent, Judge Judge William Fletcher cited that affidavit and other
evidence about Metheny's mental state, including a 1987 newspaper article
reporting on a survey that found Metheny to be the worst judge on the Riverside
bench. "The majority holds that a judge suffering from dementia may sentence a
man to death," Fletcher wrote. "I disagree."
According to Fletcher, Metheny's mental incompetence was "painfully obvious" in
the Deere resentencing hearings. He also said the affidavits submitted by the
lawyers offer "a terrifying window into Judge Metheny's courtroom."
"It is an open secret that some judges stay on the bench too long," Fletcher
wrote. "Formal procedures exist for removing senile judges, but they are rarely
employed. Attorneys hesitate to challenge judges they appear before, and judges
hesitate to blow the whistle on their colleagues. I am as reluctant as most
judges to seek to remove a senile judge or to set aside a decision reached by
such a judge. But when a man's life is at stake, I cannot stay silent."
(source: ABA JOunral)
USA:
Mothers on death row----see:
http://www.kcra.com/news/photos-mothers-on-death-row/-/11797728/20416442/-/11cxbq6/-/index.html
(source: KCRA)
********************
Suddenly, the death penalty's all the rage
This last month has seen a surge in stories about the death penalty: the Boston
bomber charged with a federal crime that carries the death penalty; the jury in
the Jody Arias trial deadlocked on whether she deserves to be executed; and
prosecutors in Ohio weighing whether to pursue capital punishment in the Castro
kidnapping case.
In addition, Maryland joined a growing number of states, including Illinois,
which have abolished the death penalty. Even closer to home, legislators
recently debated, and defeated, a proposal to study the cost of the death
penalty in Missouri.
Can we make sense of all these conflicting data points? Yes and no. On the one
hand, they show a nation profoundly divided on the death penalty, both as a
matter of state policy and when applied to particular cases. That division goes
deep, and reflects all sorts of lines: philosophical, religious and regional.
People disagree on whether the death penalty should be used, and even those who
endorse the penalty divide on which criminals deserve it.
On the other hand, we can discern a pattern in the stories from the last month.
In particular cases, when emotions are high, we are apt to think that capital
punishment can be an appropriate response. We can see this most clearly in the
Boston bombing case. Although Massachusetts does not have the death penalty for
state crimes, the federal government can execute people for some violations of
federal law. So the younger Tsarnaev brother was promptly rung up on federal
charges, and many were relieved.
When we move away from the particular case, however, and our emotions settle,
many people start to take a different view of the death penalty. With countless
appeals, the costs add up, and there always hangs over the proceedings the
possibility that we might execute an innocent person. In many ways, the whole
thing can seem not to be worth it, and more and more states have come to this
conclusion. The Missouri study, which now will not happen, probably would have
confirmed what we already know: that the death penalty is very expensive. What
might have come as a surprise (and so have made the study worth doing) is just
how expensive it really is.
We could make putting people death less expensive and less time-consuming, but
doing so would also have its costs. We could get rid of the many layers of
appeals for death sentences, give death-eligible defendants barely adequate
counsel (something which we sometimes do even now), and in the process go back
on years of Supreme Court precedent. This is what China, where I've been
teaching for the past year, does; and the death penalty there is cheap.
Florida's legislature has recently passed a bill requiring "timely executions."
This isn't the direction America as a whole is going -- but that doesn't mean
we (America or Missouri) will be getting rid of the death penalty anytime soon,
either. What is going on may be what the Supreme Court has called our "evolving
standards of decency." The meaning of that phrase has never been entirely
clear, but we can see in the back and forth of the last few months that
evolution working itself out.
Particular crimes outrage us, and the death penalty seems an appropriate
punishment. But then, and almost at the same time, we question the wisdom of
the death penalty as policy. So we chip away, slowly, at the death penalty,
removing some crimes and some criminals from its ambit, but never getting rid
of the penalty altogether. Our standards of what is decent when it comes to the
death penalty "evolve."
This strikes me as a story of progress. For some it may be too slow, for others
it may not be slow enough: hence our collective ambivalence. But it seems
unquestionable that it is happening.
(source: Commentary; Chad Flanders is an assistant professor at St. Louis
University....St. Louis Beacon)
********************
S/V Quest: Somali 'pirates' set for US deaths trial; Jean and Scott Adam were
shot dead, along with 2 passengers
The trial of 3 alleged Somali pirates charged with the 2011 murder of 4
Americans aboard a yacht off the coast of East Africa is set to begin.
Ahmed Muse Salad, Abukar Osman Beyle and Shani Nurani Shiekh Abrar face the
death penalty if convicted of murder, kidnapping and other charges.
The owners of the S/V Quest and 2 others were taken hostage for ransom as they
sailed around the world.
They were killed as rescue negotiations with the US Navy broke down.
The 3 are accused of maintaining an armed guard over the Americans and
intentionally shooting and killing them "without provocation before the
hostages could be rescued by members of the military".
11 other men have pleaded guilty to piracy in the case and have been sentenced
to life in prison. They are expected to testify in federal court in Virginia
against the 3 charged with murder in exchange for the possibility of reduced
sentences.
Rocket-propelled grenade
Jury selection began on Tuesday in Norfolk, Virginia, home to the US Navy's
Atlantic fleet. The trial is expected to last 5 to 6 weeks.
The 3 accused Somalis followed the court proceedings with the help of 2
simultaneous interpreters.
About 100 people are on the list of potential witnesses, including US military
personnel, FBI agents, forensic experts, relatives of the deceased and Somali
nationals.
Jean and Scott Adam and their guests Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay were the
first US citizens killed in a wave of pirate attacks that plagued the Gulf of
Aden and the Indian Ocean in recent years.
Their yacht was boarded off the coast of East Africa on 18 February 2011 by 19
men seeking to ransom the Americans for millions of dollars, US authorities
said.
Within days the US warship USS Sterett intercepted the stolen yacht as it
sailed toward Somalia.
According to the indictment, Shani Nurani Shiekh Abrar fired a gun over Scott
Adam's head and ordered him to warn the Navy the hostages would be executed if
the ship ventured any closer to the captured yacht.
The Navy offered to let the pirates keep the yacht in exchange for the
hostages, according to court records. When the Somali man negotiating with the
Navy refused, he was arrested.
Then, one of the men aboard the S/V Quest fired a rocket-propelled grenade at
the Sterett and the US sailors heard gunfire from the yacht. Special forces
fighters boarded the vessel and found the Americans had been killed, the
military said.
US Attorney General Eric Holder made the decision to seek the death penalty in
the case.
(source: BBC News)
US MILITARY:
Army judge to decide whether to accept guilty plea from US soldier in Afghan
massacre
The American soldier charged with killing 16 Afghan civilians during nighttime
raids on 2 slumbering villages last year is expected to recount the horrific
slaughter in a military courtroom Wednesday when he pleads guilty to avoid the
death penalty.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is charged with premeditated murder and other counts in
the March 2012 attacks near the remote base in southern Afghanistan where he
was posted.
Most of the victims were women and children, and some of the bodies were
burned; relatives have told The Associated Press they are irate at the notion
Bales will escape execution for one of the worst atrocities of the Afghanistan
war.
Under the terms of his agreement with Army prosecutors, Bales will plead guilty
Wednesday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle, and a sentencing-phase
trial will be held this summer to determine whether he receives life in prison
with the possibility of parole, or without it.
Bales' attorney, John Henry Browne, said Tuesday he expects the judge, Col.
Jeffery Nance, to question the soldier closely about what happened before
deciding whether to accept the plea. It's unclear whether Nance will make a
decision Wednesday.
"Tomorrow is going to be about what happened, then in August is going to be a
jury trial about why it happened," Browne said. "Obviously, avoiding the death
penalty is our No. 1 goal. We've accomplished that, assuming the judge accepts
the plea, and we believe he will."
Bales, 39, a father of 2 from Lake Tapps, has signed a detailed stipulation of
facts acknowledging his actions, Browne said. However, the document remains
under seal, and the lawyer declined to provide details about it.
Browne said last week that Bales was "crazed" and "broken" but not legally
insane at the time of the killings.
Although Wednesday's proceedings will provide Bales' account for the 1st time,
survivors who testified by video link from Afghanistan during a hearing last
fall vividly recalled the carnage.
A young girl in a bright headscarf described hiding behind her father as he was
shot to death. Boys told of hiding behind curtains as others scrambled and
begged the soldier to spare them, yelling: "We are children! We are children!"
A thick-bearded man told of being shot in the neck by a gunman "as close as
this bottle," gesturing to a water bottle on a table in front of him.
Prosecutors say that before dawn on March 11, 2012, Bales slipped away from
Camp Belambay in Kandahar Province, armed with a 9 mm pistol and M-4 rifle
outfitted with a grenade launcher.
He first attacked 1 village of mud-walled compounds, Alkozai, then returned to
the base, woke up a fellow soldier and told him about it. The soldier didn't
believe him and went back to sleep. Bales then left to attack a 2nd village,
Najiban.
The massacre prompted such angry protests that the U.S. temporarily halted
combat operations in Afghanistan, and it was 3 weeks before Army investigators
could reach the crime scene.
Bales was serving his 4th combat deployment and had an otherwise good if
undistinguished military record in a decade-long career. The Ohio native
suffered from PTSD and a traumatic brain injury, his lawyers say, and he had
been drinking contraband alcohol and snorting Valium - both provided by other
soldiers - the night of the killings.
The case raised questions about the toll multiple deployments were taking on
American troops. For that reason, many legal experts believed it was unlikely
he would receive the death penalty, as Army prosecutors were seeking. The
military justice system hasn't executed anyone since 1961, but 5 men currently
face death sentences.
"Any time you can strike a deal that saves your client's life, I would call
that a win," said Dan Conway, a civilian military defense lawyer who is not
involved in the case. "This is the right result for both parties."
(source: Associated Press)
**********************
Fort Hood Suspect Says Rampage Was to Defend Afghan Taliban Leaders
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people,
told a judge on Tuesday that he believed he was defending the lives of the
Taliban leadership in Afghanistan from American military personnel when he went
on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood here in November 2009.
Major Hasan's remarks were the 1st public explanation about the motive for one
of the deadliest mass shootings at an American military base. His comments came
a day after the judge granted his request to release his court-appointed
military lawyers so that he could represent himself.
On Monday, one of Major Hasan's 1st legal maneuvers had been to ask the judge,
Col. Tara A. Osborn, for a 3-month delay in his trial, scheduled to begin on
July 1. His primary reason in asking for the delay was to change his defense to
a "defense of others." At a new hearing on Tuesday, Colonel Osborn asked him
pointedly whom he was defending.
"The leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban," he said,
specifically naming Mullah Muhammad Omar, the founder of the Islamic insurgent
group.
His comments, delivered in a soft, matter-of-fact tone, stunned many in the
courtroom. Seated in the gallery behind him were Army soldiers, military police
officers and relatives of some of his victims. Colonel Osborn then asked him to
explain his defense, and Major Hasan asked for a recess to gather his thoughts.
When the hearing resumed a few minutes later, the judge again asked him to
explain the facts supporting his defense, and he said he preferred to submit
his thoughts in written form. "I don't want to brainstorm in front of the
court," he told her.
But the judge pressed him further. When she asked if he was defending one
person or a group of people, he said it was the group of Taliban leaders in
Afghanistan, including Mullah Omar. The judge asked him to explain the
connection between the Taliban leaders and the people he is accused of
murdering and attempting to murder.
"They're part of the United States military," he said.
The judge delayed the start of jury selection, which had been set to begin on
Wednesday, to give Major Hasan one day to find the legal authority to apply
such a defense to his case. He was ordered to submit a brief to the judge by
Wednesday morning, and Army prosecutors were asked to submit their own brief in
response. Colonel Osborn did not rule on whether to grant Major Hasan's request
for a delay, but instead set another hearing for Wednesday afternoon to further
discuss the "defense of others" issue.
The "defense of others" strategy requires a criminal defendant to prove that he
was compelled to use force against an aggressor to protect a person or a group
from being harmed or killed by that aggressor. In this case, Major Hasan is
claiming that he was protecting Taliban leaders from death by using deadly
force against Fort Hood military personnel deploying to Afghanistan.
The defense is not typically used in military trials, and Colonel Osborn seemed
to question whether Major Hasan had any facts or evidence to support such a
defense.
Military legal experts called his theory ludicrous and said it fell outside the
legal parameters of "defense of others" cases. They said that those with a
legitimate "defense of others" case must prove that the people being protected
were victims of unlawful force and were facing an immediate threat or danger.
Those 2 elements do not apply to the Fort Hood shooting, they said, because
Taliban leaders were lawful objects of attack and faced no immediate threat
from anyone at Fort Hood that day.
"I think the defense in this context makes no sense at all," said Richard
Rosen, the director of the Center for Military Law and Policy at the Texas Tech
University School of Law in Lubbock. "These people were unarmed. They were
thousands of miles from the battlefield," he said. "If the Taliban leadership
were present at the time of the shooting, I suppose then you might be able to
raise the defense, but even then I think it would not fly."
On Tuesday, 2 of Major Hasan's former lawyers sat at the defense table with
him, and a third sat behind him. The judge had ordered them to remain as
standby counsel, and Major Hasan frequently asked questions of his former lead
lawyer, Lt. Col. Kris R. Poppe, throughout the hearing.
Major Hasan is accused of killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 others at
the Fort Hood base on Nov. 5, 2009. He could face the death penalty if
convicted.
His role in the attack has never been in dispute, and much of the courtroom
activity at his pretrial hearings in recent months has centered on procedural
matters. In the past, he had offered to plead guilty to the charges. Military
law prohibits defendants charged in capital punishment cases from pleading
guilty, and it was unlikely that Army prosecutors would drop their pursuit of
the death penalty in order for him to plead guilty.
(source: New York Times)
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