June 27
ARIZONA:
Arias' attorneys seek to vacate death penalty
Jodi Arias' attorneys have asked a judge to vacate the jury's decision in her
murder trial that the 2008 killing of her boyfriend was "especially cruel," a
finding that allowed the panel to consider the death penalty.
Defense attorneys argue in their motion that the definition of "especially
cruel" is too vague for jurors with no legal experience to determine what makes
1 killing more cruel or heinous than another.
The filing also appears to challenge a landmark 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling
that found a defendant has the right to have a jury, rather than a judge,
decide on the existence of an aggravating factor that makes the defendant
eligible for capital punishment.
The high court determined that allowing judges to make such findings violated a
defendant's constitutional right to a trial by jury.
"Given the apparent difficulties that judges faced (prior to the ruling) in
applying the statute in a uniform, consistent manner, juries are understandably
even less equipped to do so," defense attorney Kirk Nurmi wrote in the motion
filed late last week.
Arias was convicted of 1st-degree murder May 8 in the stabbing and shooting
death of Travis Alexander in his suburban Phoenix home. About two weeks later,
the same jury failed to reach a unanimous decision on whether to sentence Arias
to life in prison or death.
(source: Associated Press)
COLORADO:
DA in Colo death penalty case may run for governor
The Republican DA who supports executing convicted killer Nathan Dunlap says
he's thinking about running for governor.
The Denver Post reported Thursday that George Brauchler is seriously
considering opposing Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper in 2014.
Brauchler is DA in four counties southeast of Denver, including Arapahoe
County, where Dunlap was convicted.
Brauchler has sharply criticized Hickenlooper for granting a reprieve to
Dunlap, who was sentenced to die for ambushing and killing 4 people at a
Denver-area pizzeria in 1993.
The reprieve is officially temporary but Hickenlooper has said he's unlikely to
revoke it as long as he's governor, which could be until early 2019 if he's
re-elected.
Former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo has said he's running for governor.
GOP Secretary of State Scott Gessler has said he's considering it.
(source: Associated Press)
NEVADA:
2 indicted in home-invasion robbery and death of 75-year-old woman
Bayzle Morgan spilled his blood throughout his victim's home, prosecutors said.
Morgan's blood was the key evidence that led investigators to arrest the
21-year-old ex-convict with veiled neo-Nazi symbols tattooed on his face.
On Wednesday, Chief Deputy District Attorney Giancarlo Pesci said Morgan was
indicted in the May 22 slaying of Jean Main.
The 75-year-old woman was found by her boyfriend facedown in a 1st-floor
bathroom, pistol-whipped and shot in the back of the head. Her home at 8050
Green Pasture Ave., near Cimarron and Lone Mountain roads, was ransacked and
looted.
Pesci said the district attorney's death penalty committee will consider
seeking capital punishment against Morgan, whose left eye is surrounded by a
tattoo of a swastika inside a 4 leaf clover and the number "88," a reference to
the 8th letter of the alphabet, H, meaning Heil Hitler.
Morgan was indicted on 1st-degree murder, burglary, robbery and kidnapping
charges.
His co-defendant, Keith Smith, whom prosecutors said was the getaway driver,
was indicted on 1 count each of burglary and conspiracy to commit burglary.
According to a Las Vegas police report, investigators discovered a portion of a
handgun's trigger guard near Main's body.
Blood was found throughout the home and tested. It matched Morgan, whose DNA
was collected after a 2010 felony conviction in an auto theft case for which he
was sentenced to 19 to 48 months in prison.
Morgan denied being involved in the killing and robbery when interviewed by
detectives, who noted an L-shaped wound on his right thumb.
But Morgan's girlfriend cooperated with authorities and told them he was the
robber and triggerman. She helped them recover items stolen from Main's home,
including a laptop and a Kindle Fire.
Authorities believe Morgan suffered the thumb wound when the trigger guard
broke as he pistol-whipped Main.
Also, Morgan was indicted in an unrelated case involving robbery with use of a
deadly weapon. In that case, he is accused of taking a motorcycle from a man at
gunpoint.
Morgan is being held without bail, and Smith is being held on $50,000 bail at
the Clark County Detention Center.
An arraignment hearing is set for July 2 before Judge Michelle Leavitt.
The district attorney's death penalty committee, whose meetings are not public,
looks at 3 factors when considering capital punishment: whether there are
aggravating factors in the case, whether a jury would impose the death penalty
as punishment and whether a conviction would stand up under appeal.
(source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)
CALIFORNIA:
Death penalty upheld in girl's 1994 strangling
The California Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for Daniel Linton,
convicted of strangling a 12-year-old neighbor girl in San Jacinto nearly 20
years ago.
The unanimous decision by the 7 justices rejected, in a 70-page opinion,
Linton's efforts to overturn his penalty. It was imposed in 1999.
Linton, now 38, was convicted of killing Melissa Middleton in her Oleander
Drive home in November 1994.
In a taped interview with San Jacinto police done the day after the Monte Vista
Middle School 7th-grader was killed, Linton, then 20, described the slaying.
Melissa wasn't feeling well and had stayed home from school that day. The
interview tape was played for jurors at Linton's 1999 trial.
Linton had already admitted on the way to the interview that he killed the girl
police said. Authorities said Linton, using a key to the Middleton's home,
sneaked into the 2-story residence and strangled the youngster in an upstairs
bedroom.
On the tape, Linton described going into the home about 10 a.m. and wandering
around the lower floor briefly before walking upstairs. He said Melissa saw him
when he reached the top of the stairs.
"She started screaming" and threatened to call police, he told investigators.
Linton said on the tape he was about to leave and told Melissa, "Don't call
them, I'm going."
Linton told authorities he chased Melissa into the master bedroom, pushed her
onto the bed and started strangling her with his hands. He said he wrapped the
cord of a stereo headphone around her neck. The cord snapped when he tugged on
it, he said.
"She was still fighting when the cord broke," he said. He then resumed
strangling Melissa with his hands, Linton said. After the killing, Linton said,
he grabbed a rag and wiped off some door knobs and the stair banister to remove
his fingerprints.
Linton told investigators he did not know Melissa had stayed home from school
because she was not feeling well. He initially told police he went to the home
to "look around," but later admitted on the tape that he was looking for money.
He denied he tried to rape the youngster, but conceded he unbuttoned and
unzipped her pants during the attack.
Linton also described an incident weeks before the killing in which he went
into the Middleton's home and began choking Melissa in her bedroom.
"I grabbed her by the throat. While she was gasping for breath, I left," he
said.
Melissa's parents had previously testified that she had awakened them one night
and said she had been attacked in bed. They testified there was no evidence of
a break-in or intruder so they thought Melissa had a nightmare.
(source: Press-Enterprise)
**********************
Corcoran inmate gets death penalty in cellmate murder
Michael Walters, an inmate at Corcoran State Prison, has been given a death
penalty sentence for murdering his cellmate, the Kings County District
Attorney's Office said.
Walters was found guilty last month of murdering Arturo Avila, who was stabbed
more than 170 times. Judge Stephen Barnes imposed the death penalty sentence on
Tuesday as recommended last month by a jury.
Avila's daughter spoke at the sentencing. Walters also spoke, saying he had no
remorse for the slaying, the District Attorney's Office said.
Walters was serving a life sentence for murder in Sacramento County and will be
taken to death row and San Quentin State Prison.
(source: Fresno Bee)
************************************
Long Beach Death Penalty Ruling May Come Wednesday; The victim was raped and
beaten to death on her way to the store, then robbed of $6 in food stamps.
A judge is expected to decide Wednesday whether to go along with a jury's
recommendation of a death sentence for a man convicted in the rape and murder
of a woman whose nude body was found on a freeway embankment in Long Beach more
than 14 years ago.
Kevin Darnell Pearson's scheduled appearance before Long Beach Superior Court
Judge Tomson Ong marks the second time that the 36-year-old defendant is facing
a death sentence for the Dec. 29, 1998, slaying of Penny Sigler. Pearson was
first sentenced to death in November 2003 for killing Sigler, but the
California Supreme Court unanimously threw out his death sentence in January
2012 because of "the trial court's improper excusal of a prospective juror
because of her views on capital punishment."
On April 15, a 2nd jury recommended that Pearson be sentenced to death rather
than life in prison without the possibility of parole. The California Supreme
Court has not yet heard automatic appeals in the case of Pearson's
co-defendants, Jamelle Armstrong and Warren Hardy, who were tried separately,
convicted of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to death for their roles in
Sigler's killing.
The 43-year-old woman was attacked around 11 p.m. Dec. 29, 1998, while walking
from her Long Beach home to a store. She was raped and beaten to death with a
wooden stake. She was robbed of $6 in food stamps. Sigler's body was found the
next day on a freeway embankment of the northbound San Diego (405) Freeway near
Wardlow Road and Long Beach Boulevard. The coroner's office determined that she
had suffered 114 injuries, according to the California Supreme Court's January
2012 ruling.
(source: Belmont Shore Patch)
***************************
Parents Accused of Killing Daughter's Pimp Could Face Death Penalty
A San Francisco couple accused of murdering a man they say was pimping their
teen daughter pleaded not guilty on Friday. Barry Gilton, 38, and Lupe Mercado,
37, could face the death penalty if convicted.
As noted by Lauren Smiley of San Francisco Magazine, District Attorney George
Gascon refers to the shooting of 22-year-old Calvin Sneed as a "vigilante
murder." He was on his way to pick up Gilton and Mercado's 17-year-old
daughter, who was not identified, in San Francisco on June 4. He planned to
take her home with him to Los Angeles. Believing their daughter was being
exploited, her parents didn't want her to see Sneed.
According to San Francisco Magazine, the daughter was staying in L.A. a lot at
that time and had appeared in sex ads on the Internet. Just days before the
shooting, she had been reported as a runaway.
As the teen walked to meet Sneed at 2 a.m. on June 4, she saw an SUV pull up
and corner Sneed's vehicle. Shots were fired from a .40 caliber revolver into
his rented Corolla, with 1 striking him in the forehead.
Defense attorney Eric Safire said the couple tried to get their daughter away
from Sneed, but had no success. They made missing persons and abuse reports,
but it didn't bring their daughter home.
"Mr. Gilton made every effort that he could to try and convince his daughter to
come home and he made every effort that he felt was reasonable to inform the
authorities and seek assistance," Safire said.
But the shooting was not the only attempt the couple made on Sneed's life. They
allegedly cornered him in West Hollywood on May 27, shooting into his car, but
not seriously injuring him.
When the girl saw her parents at the hospital after Sneed's murder, San
Francisco police inspector James Garrity recalled her shouting at them: "I
don't want to see you again! Leave! Get out of my life! I don't want to see you
people again! Get out!"
Friends of the family appeared in court last week to support the couple.
"Barry is a very decent young man, very decent. Him and his wife Lupe, they're
decent people and all they wanted to do was save their daughter. She's their
oldest kid," Gilton's cousin Maxine Jones said.
"Basically, what we have is we have the parents who become the judge, the jury
and executioners," Gascon told KGO-TV. "The death penalty is not a tool that I
am in favor of," Gascon said. "But, again, in order for us to seek other
remedies, we have to use special circumstances that were appropriate in this
case."
"This case is getting more ridiculous by the day if they go after our clients
with the death penalty," said defense attorney Tony Tamburello.
"Mr. Sneed was in the mix. He's a gang member. He's been involved in gang
fights and shootouts in Los Angeles and there are many people who had a motive
to do harm to him and we feel our clients are being unfairly targeted,"
Tamburello added.
The couple is being held on $2 million bail. The teen and her younger brothers
are being cared for by family members.
"I fully understand the frustration the family felt, but still, I think it's
very important to know that murder is murder and vigilante murder's still
murder," Gascon said.
Sneed's father admitted his son was a pimp, but said he did not deserve to die
the way he did.
(source: opposingviews.com)
USA:
Boston Marathon bombing suspect indicted on 30 counts, faces death penalty
Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev downloaded bomb-making
instructions from an al-Qaida magazine, gathered online material on Islamic
jihad and martyrdom, and later scribbled anti-American messages inside the boat
where he lay wounded, a federal indictment charged Thursday.
The 30-count indictment includes many of the same weapon-of-mass-destruction
charges, punishable by the death penalty, that were brought against the
19-year-old Tsarnaev in April.
But prosecutors added charges covering the slaying of an MIT police officer and
the carjacking of a motorist during the getaway attempt that left Tsarnaev's
older brother, Tamerlan, dead.
3 people were killed and more than 260 wounded by the two pressure-cooker bombs
that went off near the finish line of the marathon on April 15.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured four days later, hiding in a boat parked in a
backyard in Watertown, Mass.
According to the indictment, he scrawled messages on the inside of the vessel
that said, among other things, "The U.S. Government is killing our innocent
civilians," ''I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished," and "We Muslims
are one body you hurt one you hurt us all."
The Tsarnaev brothers had roots in the turbulent Russian regions of Dagestan
and Chechnya, which have become recruiting grounds for Islamic extremists. They
had been living in the U.S. about a decade.
But the indictment made no mention of any larger conspiracy beyond the
brothers, and no mention of any direct overseas contacts with extremists.
Instead, the indictment suggests the Internet played a central role in the
suspects' radicalization.
The papers detail how, after using the Internet to study jihad propaganda and
bomb-making instructions, the brothers placed knapsacks containing
shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the 26.2-mile
race.
The court papers also confirm that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev inadvertently contributed
to his brother's death by running him over during a shootout with police.
The charges also cover the slaying of Massachusetts Institute of Technology
police officer Sean Collier, who authorities say was shot in his cruiser by the
Tsarnaevs during their getaway attempt. The brothers tried to take his gun,
prosecutors said.
(source: New Orleans Times-Picayune)
US MILITARY:
Issues to be resolved at Fort Hood suspect hearing
An Army psychiatrist charged with gunning down fellow soldiers in a deadly 2009
attack at Fort Hood is to appear at a hearing less than 2 weeks before he goes
on trial.
A military judge is to rule on pending matters Thursday in Maj. Nidal Hasan's
case. They include whether to allow certain evidence to be presented during his
court-martial.
The matters have been on hold since last month, when Hasan asked to serve as
his own attorney less than a week before jury selection. His request was
granted.
Jury selection is now set to start July 9. Testimony could begin as early as
Aug. 6.
Hasan faces the death penalty or life without parole if convicted in the
rampage that left 13 dead and nearly 3 dozen wounded.
************************
Ft. Hood judge: Testimony about dying pregnant soldier OK
A military judge says witness testimony about a dying pregnant soldier's cries
of "My baby! My baby!" will be allowed during the murder trial of the Army
psychiatrist charged in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting rampage.
Col. Tara Osborn ruled on motions Thursday in Maj. Nidal Hasan's case. He faces
execution or life without parole if convicted of 13 counts of premeditated
murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder.
Hasan is to enter a plea Tuesday, a week before jury selection begins on the
Texas Army post. Under military law, a death penalty case requires a not guilty
plea.
At a 2010 hearing, a soldier testified that Pvt. Francheska Velez told him she
was pregnant just as the first volley of gunfire rang out. Velez was among
those killed.
(source for both: Associated Press)
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