July 11
OKLAHOMA:
Oklahoma seeks new hearing on voided death penalty
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has asked a federal appeals court to
reconsider its decision to overturn a man's murder convictions and death
sentences.
The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that
Oklahoma lacked authority to prosecute David Magnan for a 2004 shooting that
left 3 people dead and a 4th injured at a house in rural Seminole County.
The court concluded that the tract of land where the house was located was
technically Indian country at the time of the shooting and that the authority
to prosecute Magnan rested exclusively with the federal government.
In legal papers filed on June 27, Pruitt's office urged the appeals court to
schedule a new hearing in the case and expressed concern that the decision
could lead to a variety of practical and legal conflicts between the state and
federal governments due to the potential for "checkerboard" jurisdictions.
"Petitioner admits he committed 3 murders," the 10-page rehearing request filed
by Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Crabb says. "Petitioner certainly did
not choose the location of the murders based on a belief that he was committing
the murders in Indian country. In fact, when the murders were committed, the
land had been determined to belong to the jurisdiction of the state."
Magnan, 50, pleaded guilty in Seminole County District Court to three counts of
1st-degree murder and 1 count of shooting with intent to kill. He was sentenced
to death on each murder count and received a life sentence on the remaining
count.
All the victims of the March 3, 2004, shooting except 1 were members of the
Seminole Nation of Oklahoma.
Magnan, a member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux tribes, appealed his
convictions and sentences, claiming that the incident occurred on Indian land
and, therefore, Oklahoma could not prosecute him.
The federal court's decision rested largely on the conveyance history of land
that was originally part of a 200-acre property allotted in the early 20th
century to a full-blooded member of the Seminole Nation. The property passed to
that member's heirs, one of whom decided to buy the other heirs' stake in the
land and build a home there in 1970. The killings took place at that home.
However, the heir who built the home never obtained approval of the secretary
of interior, as required by law, to remove restrictions on the portions of the
property that were purchased. Because of that, the purchased property was still
considered Indian land, the court ruled.
In its rehearing request, Pruitt's office questions whether Magnan can
challenge conveyances involving land in which he has no interest and that
likely could not be set aside by anyone who has an actual interest in the
property.
"... It is likely that there is a lot of property in Oklahoma that was conveyed
without proper approval," the attorney general's office said. "If, as here, a
total stranger to the land can challenge the validity of a 40-year old
conveyance, the ownership of many parcels of land may be in doubt."
The federal appeals court ordered that Magnan be released from state custody,
but a 3-judge panel said they presumed federal authorities would arrest and
prosecute Magnan "given the nature of the crimes and Magnan's admitted guilt."
Magnan is being held on death row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in
McAlester.
(source: Associated Press)
COLORADO:
Lawyers for theater shooting suspect say he did it
For the 1st time, lawyers for accused theater shooter James Holmes say he
killed 12 people and wounded dozens more at an Aurora movie theater last
summer.
But Holmes' lawyers say he was "in the throes of a psychotic episode" at the
time.
The admission came in a motion filed Tuesday but made public Wednesday. His
lawyers were trying to argue that Holmes should be unrestrained during his
upcoming trial.
"Holmes suffers from a severe mental illness and was in the throes of a
psychotic episode when he committed the acts that resulted in the tragic loss
of life and injuries," Holmes' lawyers wrote.
Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to 166 counts of murder,
attempted murder and other offenses - a plea that stops just short of a
confession. But this week's motion is the first time Holmes' attorneys have
explicitly said he committed the shootings, The Denver Post reported.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Judge Carlos Samour rejected the motion for Holmes to be unrestrained during
his trial, saying it was "not appropriate." Instead, Holmes is to be tethered
to the floor.
"The Court chose the least restrictive form of restraint available and the one
that could be hidden from the jury's view," Samour wrote.
In a separate filing, Holmes' lawyers blasted the judge for meeting outside of
the defense's presence with the Arapahoe County Sheriff's department about
courtroom security around Holmes.
Samour responded that it is within his powers to arrange for courtroom
security.
(source: Associated Press)
ARIZONA:
Ariz. death row inmate whose conviction was overturned to be held without bond
pending retrial
An Arizona death row inmate whose conviction was overturned by a federal
appeals court in March will be held without bond pending her retrial.
A July 17 status conference is scheduled in the Debra Milke case.
The Maricopa County Attorney's Office filed notice Monday to retry Milke and
court officials say the prosecution will "continue in its intent to seek the
death penalty."
The 49-year-old Milke was sentenced to death for sending her 4-year-old son off
to visit a mall Santa Claus with two men who shot the boy execution-style in
the desert in 1989.
Prosecutors say Milke had her son killed to collect on a $5,000 insurance
policy.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled prosecutors failed to provide key
evidence to her defense that could've swayed jurors.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Death penalty trial starts in Fresno, 28 years later
Fresno County's 1st death penalty trial since Marcus Wesson is crawling to the
starting gate. 28 years after a teenager was raped and murdered, her family is
less than a month away from seeing a suspect on trial for the killing.
The rape and murder trial against 56-year-old Eddie Nealy has officially
started. Lawyers are sifting through about 600 potential jurors to choose the
jury that'll hear the case, starting next month.
Nealy already has two rape convictions and a lot of felony charges in his past,
including a 1991 rape and murder case that was dismissed right before trial.
This time around, prosecutors have tools that didn't even exist 20 years ago.
Justice is coming slowly for the family of Jody Wolfe. Detectives found the
14-year-old in this fast-moving Fresno canal in August 1985. They believe the
current carried Wolfe about a quarter-mile from the spot where they found her
clothing the next day. But it took 22 more years before the most important
piece of evidence surfaced.
In 2007 -- as convicted rapist Eddie Nealy sat in prison -- the state
department of justice used new DNA technology to match his genetic material to
a sample taken from Wolfe's body during her autopsy.
"Clearly the DNA ties him to the young girl, but you need something more: Why
would he have killed her? Where was he at the time?" said ABC30 legal analyst
Tony Capozzi.
Capozzi says the murder charge will be much tougher to prove than the rape.
Coroners determined Wolfe died from blunt force trauma to the head, but
prosecutors will have to nail down the time frame and connect the dots to
Nealy. If they can, Nealy is eligible for the death penalty, which complicates
the process of picking a jury.
"Hundreds and hundreds of jurors are going to have to be brought in to be
questioned to see if 1) can they spend the time? And 2) can they sit on this
kind of case and can they vote for a death penalty?" Capozzi said.
Each of the 600 potential jurors who reported for duty over the last 3 days has
filled out a 23-page questionnaire. Questions range from personal -- like "Do
you know Eddie Nealy?" -- to philosophical -- like "How do you view the death
penalty?"
Wolfe's family is hoping they'll soon see 12 people who view death as the only
option for Nealy.
Jury selection and pre-trial motions are expected to take up the rest of this
month. Opening statements are scheduled for August 5 and the trial could last 6
weeks.
(source: KFSN-TV news)
*********************
California abandons defense of 3-drug executions
California has abandoned the legal defense of its delay-ridden lethal injection
procedures, moving ahead to adopt a single-drug option that has been embraced
by other states trying to enforce their death penalty laws.
The Brown administration has decided against appealing a May ruling that
invalidated the state's three-drug execution method, which has been mired in
years of state and federal court legal tangles.
Faced with a Wednesday deadline, the state chose not to seek a California
Supreme Court review of the decision striking down the three-drug procedure
because state officials failed to follow administrative rules when adopting
them several years ago.
A prison system spokeswoman said the governor and other state officials will
proceed with working out a method of executing condemned inmates with a single
fatal dose of a sedative, which other states -- such as Ohio, Arizona and
Washington -- have adopted to short-circuit legal challenges to their lethal
injection procedures.
The governor has ordered prison officials to craft the single-drug option to
"ensure that California's laws on capital punishment are upheld," the
Department of Corrections said in a news release.
However, the latest development will not kick-start executions in San Quentin's
death chamber. Approving the single-drug method could take a year or longer,
and then it must be reviewed by the federal courts, adding further delays to
California's death penalty system.
More than 725 inmates live on California's death row, where there has not been
an execution since early 2006 as a result of lethal injection legal challenges.
Death row inmates sued over the 3-drug execution method, arguing that it risked
a cruel and inhumane death.
In response to a federal judge's concerns, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
and current Gov. Jerry Brown both tried to overhaul the three-drug procedures,
revising training for execution team members, built a new lethal injection
chamber and crafted new rules for carrying out executions. But the state has
botched the effort, twice violating the state's administrative procedures
rules.
In the May ruling, the 1st District Court of Appeal scrapped the regulations,
finding, among other problems, that state officials never publicly explained
why they opted for the 3-drug method instead of the single-drug option when
they held hearings in 2010.
California could face other obstacles even if challenges to the single drug
option fail. States across the country, including California, are struggling to
assemble reliable supplies of execution drugs because of resistance from drug
manufacturers and other problems, prompting separate legal challenges in other
courts.
If the state resumes executions, more than a dozen death row inmates now have
exhausted their legal appeals and would be eligible for execution dates in a
relatively short time.
(source: Mercury News)
***********************
Dead Men Talking: The Program Keeping Serial Criminals from Taking Intel on
Unsolved Cases to their Graves; Sex-crimes expert Carol Burke tells us about
the innovative way she's connecting deceased criminals to cold cases
You could say Carol Burke is obsessed with crime. By day she heads the
sex-crimes division of the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. In
her spare time she hunts down old crime-scene evidence and court exhibits that
might yield DNA from violent offenders who died before their genetic profile
was entered into the system. This work, dubbed Dead Man Talking, is the 1st of
its kind, an innovative but labor-intensive passion project with one goal in
mind: to solve cold cases.
Anne Marie Schubert, a deputy district attorney in Sacramento County, started
the Dead Man Walking project. How did you get involved? Ann Marie grew up in
Sacramento during the time of the East Area Rapist, when everyone up there was
really petrified. She always had that case in the back of her mind. When she
became a D.A. and started working with DNA cases and cold cases, it occurred to
her that someone like him could have been arrested, and perhaps that was why he
seemed to disappear. What if he was convicted of other crimes? Is it possible
he was a serial killer already on death row, and we just didn't know he was the
East Area Rapist? When she looked into the possibility, she found a lot of
inmates died before giving DNA. That's how the project got started.
I used to be the head of the forensics division. Anne Marie was teaching a
class on DNA, and I took the class. This was in January 2011. She told me about
the project, which she'd already started working on.
Was there a particular aspect of the work that drew you in?
When Anne Marie decided to look into inmates who had died, the most logical
place to look for those responsible for unsolved murders - the worst of the
worst - would be on death row. That???s where the serial killers are going to
be. So she got a list of death row inmates who died since 1984 without
providing a DNA sample.
When we first met she showed me the list of Los Angeles County death row
inmates and William Bonin was on it. (Bonin, dubbed the "Freeway Killer,"
targeted boys and men in southern California in the late '70s. He was executed
in 1996.).
I grew up here and remember reading about Bonin. He was a poster child for
dangerous serial murderers. I was shocked we didn't have his sample in the
system. That intrigued me. I thought this would be a fascinating task.
Are there changes in police procedure that could potentially help the project?
For instance, I'm thinking of the timeline for destroying forensic evidence?
Because these inmates have died, and they didn't give a sample the easy way
(alive sitting in their cell), we have to look for other sources of biological
material that might be out there. If someone had been autopsied there would be
a tissue sample, or maybe when they were arrested the police took a blood or
saliva sample that's sitting somewhere, or was introduced into court evidence.
The longer the police and courts hang onto stuff the farther back we can dig
for DNA of people who are now deceased. But that butts up against the pressure
the courts and police agencies have with limited space. They can't save
everything forever, as much as I wish they could.
There's no centralized database about genetic material availability?
You have to make calls. If you're looking for inmate A, and he died, and a
sample wasn't taken, then you make calls. Was he autopsied? You might call the
agency that arrested him and ask, Do you have anything? You look in the
evidence locker. I go to court and have clerks pull the files. I go through
boxes of evidence that have been sitting for decades and go through by hand to
see if I can find anything.
What's your batting average?
Los Angeles County had 10 death row inmates who died before giving a sample. I
think I found stuff on 6 of the 10.
How do people pique your interest?
We started with death row inmates. Once we're finished with that group, we'll
move on to people who maybe didn't get the death penalty but got alternative
punishment, life without parole. Life sentence. Sex registrants. You could work
on every person who went to prison without giving a sample.
Have you solved a cold case yet?
Yes! We solved a case involving Juan Chavez. Back in 1999 Chavez was convicted
of 5 murders. The victims were lone men found in their apartments. He pled
guilty, got life without parole, and was sent to Folsom. He hanged himself 3
months later. They never got his DNA. Anne Marie, because she's tenacious, went
to Folsom to see if they had autopsy samples. They had about 40. She developed
the profiles. One was Chavez, and once his sample was entered, it matched DNA
on a cigarette butt left at the scene of an unsolved murder in 1990, a man
found strangled in his apartment. That was a very exciting moment. We want to
have more moments like that.
(source: Los Angeles Magazine)
USA:
MIT's chief calls for death penalty in Boston bombing case
MIT's grief-stricken police chief vented his anger at accused teen terrorist
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev yesterday, calling the ethnic Chechen a "punk" who deserves
the death penalty if convicted of carrying out the horrific Boston Marathon
twin bombings and the murder of campus cop Sean Collier.
"The man deserves to die if he's found guilty," MIT chief John DiFava said
outside federal court after Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty to 30 charges related
to the marathon attack. "He's guilty of killing other people. He's guilty of
inflicting hurt on other people. Where does it stop? We let him live at our
expense, for the rest of his life? I'm sorry. He deserves the death penalty.
"He's a punk," DiFava added. "He's a typical bad guy. Now he's in handcuffs.
But in the meantime, getting here, he caused an awful lot of hurt and pain."
DiFava was joined outside court by a long blue line of MIT officers who stood
in tribute to Collier.
17 of the charges against Tsarnaev, 19, carry the death penalty. Carmen M.
Ortiz, the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, has not yet made her
death-penalty recommendation to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who will
decide whether to seek Tsarnaev's execution.
Ortiz, who previously prosecuted state crimes in Middlesex County and economic
cases for the U.S. Department of Justice, has little track record on the death
penalty.
But a member of the team that recommended her for the job said he'd be shocked
if she didn't push for capital punishment.
"There's little doubt in me she would pursue it in this case," said Harvard law
professor Charles Ogletree. "Given the nature of the crime, the flight that
followed and the permanent and deadly injuries to some of the victims, it's
something I think she would consider as an adequate justification."
Judge Marianne B. Bowler's 110-seat courtroom was packed to capacity yesterday,
with 30 victims and their families, along with 25 other spectators and a gaggle
of international media sitting in rapt silence, with eyes fixed on the suspect.
Tsarnaev repeatedly said "not guilty" - at least once in an accent - but said
nothing else. He blew a kiss to 2 women in the courtroom, one of whom was
holding a baby. They refused to identify themselves to a Herald reporter
afterward, but multiple observers said they are Tsarnaev's sisters.
Seeing him in the flesh was "eerie" and "upsetting," said Mildred Valverde, 44,
of Somerville, who was at the finish line of the marathon April 15 when a bomb
blast tossed her into a barrier and caused a concussion.
Liz Norden, whose sons J.P. and Paul each lost a right leg in the Boylston
Street blasts, said the sight of Tsarnaev disgusted her.
"I actually felt sick to my stomach," she said. "It was very emotional for me."
Authorities say Tsarnaev and his slain brother Tamerlan set a pair of
pressure-cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line, killing Martin
Richard, 8; Krystle Marie Campbell, 29, and Lingzi Lu, 23. Approximately 280
others were injured. The Tsarnaev brothers are also accused of ambushing and
fatally shooting Collier, 27, in a desperate attempt to escape after the FBI
publicly identified them as suspects three days later.
DiFava said he understands why Collier's family did not attend yesterday's
hearing.
"How much can they take? How can a parent look at the murderer of their child?
I don't think I'd be here. It's hard enough for me as the chief, let alone to
be a parent and look at the murderer of my child. I think that's asking a lot."
(source: Boston Herald)
******************************
Somalis convicted in Norfolk face possible death penalty; Defense argued that 1
defendant is mentally disabled; judge says no
All 3 Somalis convicted by a federal jury on murder, piracy and other charges
stemming from a yacht hijacking that left four Americans dead will face
potential death sentences at sentencing this month, including a man defense
attorneys had claimed was mentally disabled.
Late Monday, jurors found Ahmed Muse Salad, Abukar Osman Beyle and Shani Nurani
Shiekh Abrar guilty on all 26 counts against them. Of those, 22 counts are
eligible for the death penalty.
The charges stemmed from the hijacking of the yacht Quest in February 2011. The
yacht's owners, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, Calif., and their
friends, Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay of Seattle, were shot to death several
days after they were taken hostage at sea as the U.S. Navy tried to negotiate
their release.
The Americans were taken hostage by 19 men who intended to bring them back to
Somalia, where they hoped to ransom them for millions of dollars.
Defense attorneys for Salad had argued he should not be eligible for the death
penalty because they claimed he is mentally disabled. Defense documents say
Salad has a low IQ, a poor memory and had difficulty functioning as a child in
Somalia. The U.S. Supreme Court has banned executing people with certain mental
disabilities.
Prosecutors said Salad is competent, and late Monday, Chief U.S. District Judge
Rebecca Beach Smith issued an order concurring with that assessment.
"To summarize, the court finds that Salad failed to prove by a preponderance of
the evidence that he suffers from significant deficits in intellectual
functioning or adaptive skills. Thus, he is determined not to be intellectually
disabled, and is, therefore, eligible for the death penalty, if so imposed by
the jury," Smith wrote in her order.
The eligibility phase of the trial to determine if aggravating factors are
present ahead of sentencing begins next week. The sentencing phase of the trial
would begin July 22. With piracy carrying a mandatory life sentence, the only
major looming question is whether the men will get the death penalty.
The decision to seek the death penalty was made by Attorney General Eric
Holder. In a filing by federal prosecutors signaling their intent to seek the
death penalty, they noted that the men killed or attempted to kill more than
one person during a single episode and endangered the U.S. military. The Navy
was shadowing the yacht Quest when shots rang out aboard the vessel, and the
Americans were killed "in an especially wanton and gratuitous manner,"
prosecutors wrote.
The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment on the case Tuesday, citing the
ongoing nature of the trial.
Executions under federal law are extremely rare, with only a handful out of
more than 1,300 executions since 1976 having been carried out by the federal
government, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks
death penalty statistics and is opposed to the death penalty.
11 other defendants who were aboard the Quest have already pleaded guilty to
piracy and have been sentenced to life in prison.
4 other suspected pirates were killed aboard the yacht. A 5th was released
because he was a juvenile.
Another man who prosecutors say was a land-based negotiator and the
highest-ranking pirate they have ever captured has also been convicted of
piracy and was sentenced to a dozen life sentences in prison.
(source: Associated Press)
US MILITARY:
Hasan Questions Prospective Court-Martial Jurors
Fort Hood gunman Maj. Nidal Hasan was cautioned several times not to provide
testimony as he questioned prospective members of the jury panel that will
decide his fate in his court-martial for the deadly Nov. 5, 2009 shooting
rampage on post.
By the end of the day, 10 members of the 13-member panel had been selected.
6 more prospective panel members will be brought in on Monday morning for
individual questioning.
The court-martial is scheduled to begin on Aug. 6.
Telling some of the prospective jurors that he supports the Taliban and
traditional Islamic law, Hasan questioned the officers Wednesday about what
they knew about Sharia Law and Islam.
Earlier in the day Hasan acknowledged to some potential panel members that he
was the gunman, but military judge Col. Tara Osborn cautioned him about
providing testimony during the selection process.
She told him he should frame the questions as an attorney would, asking, "If
the evidence shows I'm the gunman...," instead of stating that he was the
gunman.
When she asked Hasan if he understood, he replied, "It doesn't satisfy me, but
I do."
Hasan is not only representing himself during the selection of the panel, but
also decided to forego the services of the jury selection expert whom the
defense earlier was given permission to hire.
When Osborn asked about the expert, Hasan said he was "no longer relevant."
Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of
attempted premeditated murder.
If convicted, he would be sentenced to death or life without the possibility of
parole.
Osborn entered a plea of not guilty for Hasan on July 2 after the Army
psychiatrist refused to plead.
Hasan, an American-born Muslim, said he earlier tried to plead guilty after his
Muslim community told him his actions went against Islamic teachings, but said
he later came to believe his actions weren't wrong because of the war in
Afghanistan.
A guilty plea isn't permitted in death penalty cases under the military code of
justice.
Hasan was bound over for court-martial after an Article 32 hearing in 2010.
More than 50 witnesses testified during the hearing, which is the military
equivalent of a civilian grand jury review.
The prosecution's case could unfold in a similar fashion once court-martial
testimony begins, but this time survivors of the rampage could be questioned by
the man on trial for shooting them instead of his attorneys, who are now in a
standby role.
(source: KWTX)
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