July 16
TEXAS----impending execution
Texas to execute man convicted of 2002 murder during robbery
Texas is scheduled to execute inmate John Manuel Quintanilla Jr. on Tuesday for
the 2002 murder of a man during the robbery of a gaming room.
Quintanilla, 36, is scheduled to die by lethal injection after 6 p.m. local
time (CST) in Huntsville, Texas.
Quintanilla, a habitual criminal with 6 burglary convictions on his record, was
sentenced to die for the shooting death of Victor Billings in Victoria, Texas,
about 120 miles southwest of Houston, in November 2002.
On the night of the deadly attack, Billings was with his wife at a game room
when Quintanilla and another man entered the establishment carrying rifles and
wearing masks made from pantyhose, according to a report by the Texas Attorney
General's Office.
Quintanilla pointed the rifle at Billings' wife and an employee of the game
room and demanded money, the report said.
When Billings, a retired sheriff's deputy, approached his wife, Quintanilla
shot him twice in the torso, the report said.
Billings tried to disarm the gunman by grabbing the rifle, but Quintanilla shot
him a 3rd time as Billings was on his knees, the report said.
He and the other man escaped with $2,000, the report said. The other suspect,
Jeffrey Bibb, is serving 60 years on the murder charge.
Quintanilla declined to allow his attorneys to present mitigating evidence in
his defense during the trial's punishment phase and was sentenced to death in
2004, according to the attorney general's report.
If the execution is carried out, it will be the 19th in the U.S. and the 9th in
Texas this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
2 inmates are scheduled for execution this week in Texas. The state has
executed 500 inmates since 1982, according to the Death Penalty Information
Center.
Texas has executed more inmates than any other state since the U.S. Supreme
Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. A 3rd Texas inmate is due to be
executed in late July.
(source: Reuters)
*************************
Man convicted of fatally stabbing 6-yea-old boy
After deliberating 4 hours on Monday, Harris County jurors found Obel
Cruz-Garcia guilty of capital murder in the 1992 death of 6-year-old Angelo
Garcia Jr.
The boy's mother, who was sitting in the gallery with family members, sobbed
softly in her hands as the verdict was read. Cruz-Garcia did not react.
The conviction means the 45-year-old will face the death penalty or life in
prison without parole when the punishment phase of the trial begins Tuesday.
Both sides rested last week after four days of testimony. On Monday, defense
lawyers argued that a lack of injuries on skeletal remains, the possibility of
consensual sex and the absence of motive point away from Cruz-Garcia's
culpability.
"There was no reason for Obel Cruz-Garcia to do this. He gained nothing from
it," attorney Skip Cornelius told jurors in closing arguments. "There's lots of
reasonable doubt in this case."
Prosecutors fired back that the defense was talking in half-truths and pointing
at straw men.
"I have to be responsible for the whole story, not just a part of the story,"
said Assistant Harris County District Attorney Natalie Tise. "There's a whole
lot of missing pieces in what the defense has said."
Home invasion
Cruz-Garcia, 45, was convicted of kidnapping and killing Angelo, whose parents
said they were part of the defendant's cocaine-trafficking operation.
During a home invasion just before midnight on Sept. 30, 1992, 2 men wearing
ski masks broke into the south Houston apartment where Angelo lived with his
mother and stepfather.
One of the men allegedly sexually assaulted his mother, then they tied the
couple up and ransacked the home. They fled with Angelo in a car driven by a
3rd man, who testified thatCruz-Garcia and the other suspect took the child to
a Baytown lake where he was stabbed and his body was weighted down.
A month later, the child's badly decomposed remains were found in the water.
The defense pointed out that no injuries were apparent from the bones that were
found. They also pointed out that the getaway driver could be lying to save
himself from a capital murder charge. He is not charged in the crime.
Prosecutors said other evidence, including Cruz-Garcia's DNA being found during
the woman's sexual assault examination, corroborated the getaway driver's
story.
Evidence challenged
Cornelius and co-counsel Mario Madrid said the DNA, which was stored in the
Houston Police Department Crime lab for 15 years before it was tested in 2007,
only proved a sexual relationship, not rape.
Cruz-Garcia has denied any involvement in the home invasion, the abduction or
the child's death.
Assistant Harris County District Attorney Justin Wood told jurors they could
convict if they believe Cruz-Garcia killed Angelo or if they believe he
directed the other men to kill the boy.
Cruz-Garcia, who went to Puerto Rico within 36 hours of the abduction, was
brought back to Houston in 2008 to face trial.
(source: Hosuton Chronicle)
****************
Prosecution, defense rest; final arguments next in Love trial
Jurors in the capital murder trial of Albert Leslie Love Jr. watched videos
Monday of Love and his wife trying to buy an AK-47-style assault rifle at a
Waco gun shop 2 weeks before the Lakewood Villas shootings.
A store clerk testified Monday he refused to sell the rifle to Love's wife,
Takeila Patterson Love, because he was concerned the sale would be a "straw
purchase," meaning she was unlawfully buying it for someone else.
Prosecutors Michael Jarrett and Greg Davis and defense attorneys John Donahue
and Jon Evans rested their respective cases Monday afternoon.
Love, 26, did not testify and his attorneys called no witnesses.
Jury summations are set to begin at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Prosecution testimony to begin the 2nd week of Love's trial bogged down Monday
morning when 3 witnesses, including Love's wife, failed to show up for court.
Judge Ralph Strother issued orders for deputies to find the witnesses and bring
them to court, postponing the start of testimony until 12:45 p.m.
Court officials reported mid-morning that the witnesses had been located and
were being brought to court in Georgetown. The trial was moved to Georgetown
from Waco because of publicity generated by the 2012 trial of 1 of Love's
co-defendants, Rickey Cummings.
Love is charged in the March 2011 shooting deaths of Tyus Sneed, 17, and Keenan
Hubert, 20, at the Lakewood Villas apartments on Spring Street.
Prosecutors are building a case of revenge as the motive for the killings,
alleging Hubert was suspected in the 2010 shooting death of Emuel "Man Man"
Bowers III, a close friend of Love and Cummings.
Hubert was shot after friends and family members of Bowers grew impatient with
the progress of the police investigation, prosecutors have alleged.
Cummings was sentenced to death in November for his role in the slayings.
Prosecutors also are seeking the death penalty against Love.
If jurors convict him of capital murder, the jury will be asked in the
punishment phase to answer three questions: Does Love constitute a future
danger to society; did Love cause the death of the men, or if he didn't, did
he, as a party to the crime, intend to kill them or anticipate that a life
would be taken; and whether there exist sufficient mitigating circumstances to
warrant a sentence other than death.
If the jury answers the 1st 2 questions yes and the 3rd no, Strother would
assess the death penalty. If answered in any other combination, Love would be
sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(source: Waco Tribune)
MARYLAND:
Maryland court goes soft on criminals
Where do I begin? The Maryland Court of Appeals has ruled that the state's
mandatory five-year, no parole sentence for gun possession by certain convicted
felons cannot stand ("Court voids gun penalty," July 12). As the article noted,
"The Court of Appeals ruling in a Baltimore case erased a defendant's mandatory
sentence and ordered him resentenced under a more lenient provision of the
law."
Isn't it ironic that the case involves Baltimore, a city that is under siege, a
city in which runs the blood of both the criminal and the innocent in its
streets? It was a great scientific mind, that of Albert Einstein, that
constructed the definition of insanity as "doing the same thing over and over
again, while expecting a different result." It would seem that we have tried
the soft-handed, "lenient" approach to the resolution of our violent crime
problem and it has failed, demonstrably so.
Have the Draconian new gun laws that have absolutely no effect whatsoever on
the criminally inclined but rather on law-abiding gun owners, had any effect
whatsoever on the recent spate of gun violence in Baltimore? Will the
abolishment of the death penalty in Maryland only serve to further embolden
those would-be murderers in Baltimore who now know that whatever they do,
whomever they murder, their prospect of facing the "ultimate penalty" no longer
exists?
The imposition of the death penalty in the case of cold-blooded murders is both
justified and effective. Since most violent criminals, including our murderers,
tend to be recidivists, the death penalty is a certain, sure and final "cure"
for recidivism! And here's a hint for our comrade, Gov. Martin O'Malley:
Criminals, by definition, do not obey laws!
The action by this so-called high court is despicable, especially so in
consideration of the overwhelming violence that is destroying our cities, the
deleterious effect of abolishing the death penalty and the laughable (and
questionable) effort to control violent behavior involving the use of a gun by
making laws that only law-abiding people will obey! Second Amendment rights
organizations have for years enthusiastically supported the very same types of
laws that this court has just effectively abolished. How do you protect victims
by disarming them while at the same time removing laws that may very well have
a deterrent effect on their assailants? Tell me, Comrade Governor O'Malley,
just how do you do that?
How about this? Let's hold all of the members of the Court of Appeals who voted
to abolish that law personally accountable. For instance, the 1st time that one
of those "benefactors" of their insanity murders an innocent victim, each of
them is indicted as a co-conspirator in that crime. Maybe they would give a
little more thought to their arbitrary and capricious attacks upon the
law-abiding citizens whom they are sworn to protect from these criminals!
One more passing thought: Isn't it strange that after a bombing, everyone
blames the bomber, but after a shooting, the problem is the gun?
Robert L. DiStefano, Abingdon
(source: Letter to the Editor, Baltimore Sun)
******************
Brown receives award from NAACP
Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown picked up an attractive addition to his glory wall
Monday as he collected a leadership award from the national NAACP at its
gathering in Orlando for his efforts at repealing the death penalty in
Maryland.
Brown played a supporting role in Gov. Martin O'Malley's succesful effort to
aboiish capital punishment -- a drive the governor undertook under the
persistent urging of NAACP national President Benjamin Jealous.
Jealous pointedly noted that Brown is attempting to become the 1st black
governor of a state south of the Mason-Dixon Line since Virginia's L. Douglas
Wilder was elected in 1989.
Brown praised the NAACP's efforts to end executions in the United States,
calling the death penalty unfair, immoral and racially biased. He accurately
stated that 80 % of Maryland's death row inmates are African-Americans whose
victims were white. He did not mention that there are only 5 condemned inmates
in Maryland and that they remain there because O'Malley has not acted to
commute their sentences even after signing the repeal bill in May.
In national terms, the lieutenant governor said that while 23 % of death
penalty-eligible cases involve blacks killing whites, 70 % of death sentences
come in those cases.
Brown also addressed the acquittal of George Zimmerman Saturday in the killing
of 17-year-old teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida, noting that he is the father
of 2 teenage boys. He urged NAACP members to help build a society that nurtures
young African Americans and looks first "at their potential and not at them as
a threat."
(source: Baltimore Sun)
GEORGIA:
Should Georgia Repeal the Death Penalty?
Warren Hill received a temporary stay of execution Monday afternoon as Fulton
County Superior Court Judge Gail Tusan will hear challenges centering on lethal
injection drugs from the condemned killer's lawyers on Thursday morning. Read
more here: http://tinyurl.com/of8ohh7
In May, the state of Maryland repealed the death penalty a year after the state
of Connecticut did the same, joining four other states that have done so since
2007. How do you feel about the death penalty? Should the state of Georgia
repeal it?
Patch user Greengirl last week commented on the questions by writing:
"I hear people complain all the time about how ineffective the government is.
The DMV, the sidewalks, the potholes, crumbling infrastructure and all sorts of
government corruption. Yet, these same folks who argue that are government is
inept think we should trust this same government to execute its citizens. Life
in prison is just fine by me. I don't need the state to execute anyone in my
name and I certainly don't believe that the state system is reliable enough to
ensure that 100% of those executed are guilty. If one innocent person is killed
by the state, that is too many."
(source: Vahi Patch)
FLORIDA:
Judge: No bond for man accused of fatally stabbing Titusville woman; Foster had
been fired in 1992 "for a similar act"
A man accused of fatally stabbing a woman at a Titusville apartment complex
will be held in jail without bond, according to a judge's order this afternoon,
and may face the death penalty in the case.
Leon Foster Jr., 42, of Indian River County, is accused of 1st-degree
premeditated murder, kidnapping and armed burglary in the deadly Sunday
afternoon attack.
Titusville Police Sgt. Tom House said Mykeba D. Clark, 44, died in the trauma
unit of Holmes Regional Medical Center after being airlifted from Bay Towers
apartment complex, 2825 S. Washington Ave., Titusville.
House said a caller to 9-1-1 from the complex reported "what sounded like 2
people arguing, glass breaking and skin being hit.
When police arrived at the complex just after 2:30 p.m., House said, they
located a man and woman on the north side of the buildings in the parking lot's
sidewalk area.
Foster was on top of Clark, House said, "stabbing her in the chest multiple
times with a knife."
Police used a stun gun to stop the attack, House said.
Foster, a former correctional officer with the Indian River County sheriff???s
office, had been fired in 1992 "for a similar act," House said.
Foster and Clark had been or were boyfriend and girlfriend at the time of the
attack, police said. Clark was a resident of Bay Towers and worked as a nurse.
The judge, in issuing the no-bond order, called the incident a "savage attack."
Assistant State Attorney Gary Beatty said Foster had a prior conviction of
kidnapping and asked for the no-bond status.
"The flight risk and danger to the community are paramount here," he said.
(source: Florida Today)
OHIO:
Ohio board to rule on condemned man's mercy plea that has prosecutor's backing
The Ohio Parole Board is ready to announce whether it will recommend mercy for
a condemned man convicted of fatally stabbing his Cleveland neighbor 17 times -
and the prosecutor this time is in his court.
The board ruled unanimously against clemency for Billy Slagle 2 years ago, but
that was before Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty reversed his office's
position.
In a rare move, McGinty asked the board to commute Slagle's sentence to life
without parole. McGinty says his review of the case found it unlikely that
Slagle would receive a death sentence under current law, especially now that
life without parole is an option.
Attorneys for Slagle, 44, have long argued he should be spared death, citing a
long history of drug and alcohol abuse and his age when the crime occurred -
18, the minimum for execution in Ohio.
McGinty joined that argument earlier this month, saying that since life without
parole was not an option at the time, jurors made the only choice they could to
ensure Slagle would never be freed.
In 1996, Ohio law changed to allow jurors to choose between execution and life
without parole. In 2005, lawmakers added a provision allowing prosecutors to
pursue life without parole in non-death penalty cases.
McGinty says the decision to recommend mercy was not meant to diminish the
heinous facts of the death of Mari Anne Pope, killed during a burglary while
two young children she was watching were in the house.
Gov. John Kasich, who has the final say, is not commenting. Slagle's execution
is scheduled for Aug. 7.
At a hearing last week, Lauretta Keeton, whose children were in the house the
night of the slaying, asked the parole board to reject clemency on behalf of
the loving neighbor everyone knew as "Marnie."
"Billy Slagle was convicted, his sentence was death, and I feel it should be
carried out," Keeton, 57, of suburban Cleveland, told the board. "It would make
a mockery of the prosecutor and jury if this is overturned."
William Caine, a retired Cuyahoga County prosecutor who oversaw Slagle's case,
also protested McGinty's decision and asked the board to reject mercy.
It's unclear whether a sitting Ohio prosecutor has ever asked for commutation
of a death sentence for an inmate, whose case was handled by that prosecutor's
office.
Ohio's Cuyahoga County has long had a reputation for heavy use of capital
punishment indictments - which can involve costly investigations - with
relatively low numbers of death sentences.
McGinty had promised to reduce the number of death penalty charges when he ran
for the office.
(source: Associated Press)
***********************
Divisions Mark Ohio Death Penalty Panel
An Ohio Supreme Court committee studying changes to the state's death penalty
law is almost guaranteed to produce majority and minority reports on their
findings when its work is finished later this year.
The publication of competing reports raises questions about the committee's
impact and what if any recommendations lawmakers will consider.
3 of the committee's most recent votes emphasize the panel's divisions.
Members last month approved measures to strip the law of many of the factors
that elevate murder cases to possible death penalty prosecutions, such as rape,
robbery and burglary.
The divided committee also recommended that a statewide panel trump local
prosecutors on decisions whether to bring death penalty cases.
The committee also called for a panel to guard against possible racial bias in
prosecutions.
(source: WOSU News)
ARKANSAS:
Accused Killer Susan Fleck Has Mental Evaluation Hearing
A Benton County woman accused of shooting her husband to death while he slept
earlier this year has a hearing in the fall to update the status of her mental
evaluation, a prosecutor said.
At a Benton County Circuit Court hearing Monday (July 15), proceedings in her
case were suspended so she could undergo a mental evaluation at the Arkansas
State Hospital in Little Rock, said Van Stone, Benton County prosecuting
attorney.
She is set to be back in court Sept. 30 "to see if the State Hospital report is
done," Stone said.
In March, Stone filed a felony charge of capital murder against Fleck in the
death that month of her husband, Evan Fleck. Stone said at the time that he had
not decided whether his office will seek the death penalty against Fleck.
Benton County investigators released an arrest report March 5 that states Fleck
shot her husband after finding a picture on his iPad of him embracing another
woman.
Benton County Circuit Judge Robin Green denied bond the same day for Fleck.
Fleck is being held in the Benton County jail.
The victim was found dead with a gunshot wound to the right side of his cheek
in his bed in the master bedroom of the family???s home east of Gentry on March
3, according to a probable cause affidavit from the Benton County Circuit
Court.
Fleck drove to Delaware County and called a Benton County dispatcher to report
what had happened, court documents show. Fleck told a dispatcher her husband
was in the bedroom and had recently filed for divorce. She said she destroyed
her life, according to the court documents.
The Fleck's 4 children, ages 7 to 15, were home at the time of the shooting,
officials said.
Fleck woke one of the children at 3:40 a.m. and said "something bad happened,"
according to court documents. She told the 4 children to stay out of their
father's room, court records show.
A Delaware County booking report states Fleck was taken into custody at
Twisters, a convenience store in Kansas, Okla., and booked into the Delaware
County Detention Center in Jay, Okla., at about 7 a.m.
Investigators responding to the residence at 19147 Arkansas Highway 12 east of
Gentry found Evan Fleck dead in the bedroom with what appeared to be a single
gunshot wound to the head, Benton County Sheriff Kelley Cradduck said.
Cradduck said Fleck was shot with a handgun, which authorities later recovered.
Investigators said the couple had been arguing before the shooting. Deputies
searching the home found an iPad referenced by Fleck in her call to police.
Photographs showed Evan Fleck embracing another woman, the affidavit states.
A detective confirmed Evan Fleck had engaged in an affair with the woman and
that Susan Fleck knew about it, the woman in the picture told an investigator.
Evan Fleck filed for divorce from Susan Fleck on Feb. 19, according to records
in the Benton County Circuit Clerk???s office.
He was employed at VeriFone in Bentonville, according to his Facebook page.
After the incident, the children first were placed in the custody of the state
Department of Human Services, but since have been placed with relatives,
officials said.
(source: 5NewsOnline)
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