Dec. 4
FLORIDA:
Florida man pleads not guilty in Facebook killing case; no decision by state on
death
A Florida man pleaded not guilty Wednesday to 1st-degree murder charges in the
fatal shooting of his wife, whose bloody corpse was later depicted in photos he
posted on Facebook.
The plea was entered during a brief hearing by an attorney for Derek Medina,
31, who also faces charges of illegally discharging a firearm inside their
Miami home and with child neglect without violence. The young daughter of
Medina's wife, 26-year-old Jennifer Alfonso, was in the home at the time, but
was not harmed.
No decision has been made on whether the state will seek the death penalty,
said Assistant State Attorney J. Scott Dunn. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Yvonne
Colodny set a Jan. 29 status hearing to discuss the potential death penalty and
scheduled a tentative trial date for March 17.
Medina, in red jail jumpsuit and a full, dark beard, did not speak during the
hearing. His attorneys have previously said he shot his wife in self-defence
while she attacked him after several previous abusive episodes. Police say she
was cowering and likely on her knees when Medina filed the fatal shots.
Prosecutors said they also have evidence that Medina had told other people he
would kill Alfonso if she ever tried to leave him. Medina himself told
investigators his wife had announced she was leaving earlier that day.
Medina attorney Saam Zanganeh said evidence received from Facebook totals
between 7,000 and 8,000 documents and that the defence is still awaiting
videotapes from a surveillance system inside the couple's home. Some of their
confrontation is depicted on those tapes, but Zanganeh said attorneys want to
look at more of it.
According to a statement Medina made to police, he decided to post the photos
of his dead wife on Facebook to notify friends and family about what had
happened. Their argument began, he said, after he failed to wake up in time for
the couple's plans to watch movies on television.
Along with the photos, Medina added on Facebook, "Im going to prison or death
sentence for killing my wife love you guys miss you guys take care Facebook
people you will see me in the news."
(source: Associated Press)
OHIO:
Death penalty sought in Pointer murder
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty has announced that a superseding
indictment has been issued for Hernandez L. Warren.
Warren now faces a possible death sentence for the 1984 kidnapping, rape and
murder of 14-year-old Gloria Pointer.
The new indictment from a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury charges Warren, 58, of
Cleveland, with 2 counts of aggravated murder, 1 count of rape and 3 counts of
kidnapping.
The aggravated murder counts now include felony murder specifications that make
it possible for the death penalty to be imposed.
Gloria Pointer disappeared while walking to school on December 6, 1984. The
child left her home on East 114th Street in Cleveland around 7 a.m. She planned
to meet a classmate and continue on to Harry E. Davis School, where Gloria was
to get an award for perfect attendance.
She never reached her friend's home. Her body was discovered around 10:30 that
morning at the base of a fire escape behind an apartment building on Orville
Avenue.
DNA evidence taken from the crime scene was matched this spring to Warren, who
had served 15 years in prison for a 1985 felonious assault and rape. He has
been in jail since he was arrested on May 13 by a task force that included
representatives of the Cleveland Police Department, the FBI, the Cuyahoga
County Sheriff's Office and the Cold Case Unit of the Cuyahoga County
Prosecutor's Office.
Warren was first indicted on May 22 and entered a plea of not guilty on May 28.
But after the case was examined by this office's Capital Review Committee,
McGinty elected to seek a new indictment with capital punishment
specifications.
"This man dragged a little girl on her way to school off the street and into a
back alley. Then he raped her, threw her down a fire escape and executed her by
beating her to death with a steel bar," McGinty said. "This unsolved case
haunted our community for three decades and begs for justice."
(source: WKYC News)
*********************
Kasich, Fitzgerald Oppose Effort To Repeal Death Penalty
There is rare issue of agreement in the 2014 gubernatorial campaign: Both
Republican incumbent John Kasich and his likely Democratic challenger Ed
FitzGerald oppose legislative efforts to eliminate the death penalty in Ohio.
At the statehouse Tuesday, representatives of the Catholic, Protestant and
Jewish religions joined two Ohio Democratic lawmakers who are attempting to end
the death penalty in the state.
The group points to a shortage of the drug used during executions, along with
the costs associated with keeping prisoners on death row.
"The death penalty is expensive so if we have fiscal conservatives among us,
this is a bill for them," said Democratic Representative Nickie Antonio of
Cleveland. "We have people who believe in the sanctity of life and this is a
bill that they should support, even the most conservative among us. And Ohio is
struggling with even how to execute someone. This is the right time to address
this issue on so many levels."
Church leaders in attendance said the morality of the death penalty should be
debated.
"In the United States we set ourselves up as being a moral and just society,
and then we kill people in the name of the state," said the Rev. Dr. Lee Anne
Reat of St John's Episcopal Church in Columbus. "It's just wrong."
This bill is likely headed nowhere soon at the statehouse.
Even if a majority of the pro-death penalty Republican lawmakers changed their
view, Governor John Kasich's spokesman told 10TV he would not support it.
The likely Democratic nominee for governor, Ed FitzGerald, also would not
endorse it.
"Through his experience in law enforcement, Ed has come to know that there are
certain people whose crimes are so heinous that they forfeit their right to
live," said Matt McGrath, Ohio Democratic Party spokesman. "Therefore society
ought to reserve the right to carry out the death penalty."
Kasich's spokesman Rob Nichols says the governor remains a supporter of the
death penalty. As a legislator he voted against a bill that would have replaced
it with life imprisonment.
(source: 10tv.com)
****************
Man charged with killing Gloria Pointer in 1984 now faces the death
penalty----Hernandez Warren, 58, now faces the death penalty in the 1984
killing of Gloria Pointer.
A sex offender linked by DNA to the 1984 rape and murder of 14-year-old Gloria
Pointer is now facing death penalty charges.
A grand jury today re-indicted Hernandez Warren, 58, on aggravated murder
charges that include death penalty specifications.
Warren was arrested in May and quickly indicted after prosecutors said a DNA
profile from evidence in the case matched to the Cleveland man. The partial
profile had been identified years before but never entered into crime databases
that identify criminals and link crimes.
Warren's original charges included aggravated murder, rape, kidnapping and
aggravated robbery.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty elected to seek a new indictment
after the case was examined by a committee that reviews all potential death
penalty cases.
"This man dragged a little girl on her way to school off the street and into a
back alley. Then he raped her, threw her down a fire escape and executed her by
beating her to death with a steel bar," McGinty said in a release. "This
unsolved case haunted our community for three decades and begs for justice to
finally be delivered."
Warren's attorney, Nicole Longino said she had no comment on the death penalty
specifications. Plea negotiations had been underway in the case but had
stalled.
Friday will mark 29 years since Pointer was killed and her mother, outspoken
community activist and city community relations employee, Yvonne Pointer, has
planned a weeklong "Celebration of Hope" in her daughter's honor.
Gloria was student at Harry E. Davis Junior High School in 1984, when she was
found beaten to death, about 2 1/2 hours after she started her walk to school.
Her partially undressed body was found in a back stairwell leading to the
basement of an East 105th Street apartment building.
That day, Gloria was to have received a perfect attendance award. Her walk
normally took just 15 minutes. She had left slightly earlier on the day she was
attacked so she could stop at a friend's home to get a comb for a new
hairstyle.
Pointer in the past has publicly questioned the death penalty in other cases
and appeared in a German-produced documentary film on Romell Broom, a man who
was once a suspect in Gloria's death.
Pointer also openly questioned the police investigation because she didn't feel
there was concrete evidence linking Broom to her daughter's murder. She also
has praised the decades of work detectives put into her daughter's case.
Broom is currently on death row convicted in the 1985 murder and rape of
14-year-old Tryna Middleton. The state attempted to execute Broom in 2009 but
after hours of being unable to start an IV, the attempt was called off and
Broom's attorneys continue to litigate his case.
Pointer said Wednesday that she needs to refrain from commenting on her
daughter's case for now.
"I just want it to be over," she said. "Our family has endured enough. We have
to trust that the prosecutors have our best interests at heart."
In May, after the arrest was made, Pointer said what she wants is to have a
one-on-one conversation with Warren so she can know what truly happened that
day.
Warren was released from prison about 10 years ago after serving a 15-year
sentence for rape and felonious assault that happened during a burglary.
Since being released from prison, Warren had no new arrests.
(source: cleveland.com)
OKLAHOMA:
Thackers Face Death Penalty For 2010 Slaying Of Fort Smith Woman
2 Cedarville brothers now face a potential death penalty in an Oklahoma murder
case. Johnathen Don James Edward Thacker, 24, and his brother Elvis Aaron
Thacker, 25, are both charged with 1st-degree murder and forcible sodomy in the
September 2010 death of 22-year-old Briana Jane Ault of Fort Smith.
On Wednesday, LeFlore County District Attorney Jeff Smith filed a bill of
particulars notifying the court and Elvis Thacker's attorney that he intends to
seek the death penalty for Elvis Thacker. Smith announced in March he would
seek the death penalty for Johnathen Thacker.
In the bill of particulars, Smith cited 3 aggravating circumstances that led to
his decision:
--Elvis Thacker was previously convicted of a felony involving the use or
threat of violence. He has prior convictions for attempted capital murder and
kidnapping.
--Elvis Thacker participated in the homicide of Ault "for the purpose of
avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest or prosecution."
--Elvis Thacker is a continuing threat to society.
Elvis Thacker was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday before District Court
Judge Jon Sullivan, but the judge continued the arraignment until 1:30 p.m.
Feb. 12 at the request of Gretchen Mosley, Elvis Thacker's court-appointed
attorney. Mosley told Sullivan she intends to file a motion to quash Special
District Court Judge Jeffrey Singer's Nov. 13 decision that probable cause
exists for Elvis Thacker's case to move forward.
Mosley said she needs a transcript from the final day of Elvis Thacker's
preliminary, Nov. 13, to complete her motion. She told Sullivan the transcript
won't be completed for a month. When Sullivan asked Elvis Thacker if he
understood what was going on, Thacker replied, "to an extent."
When the judge asked Elvis Thacker if he understands the charges against him,
Thacker started to ramble before Mosley cut him off, and Thacker then told the
judge, "yes."
Ault's body was discovered in a pond in Pocola on Sept. 13, 2010. Her throat
was cut, according to a police report.
The brothers are already serving time for a variety of convictions in Arkansas,
including the stabbing of Fort Smith detective James Melson.
Oklahoma and Fort Smith authorities went to the Tulsa Square Apartments on
Sept. 15, 2010, to arrest the Thackers on an unrelated rape complaint and
question them about Ault's death. When authorities entered the apartment, Elvis
Thacker stabbed Melson, and detective Jeff Carter shot Elvis Thacker, according
to a police report.
Elvis Thacker pleaded guilty to attempted capital murder and kidnapping and was
sentenced to 30 years in prison on each charge. Johnathen Thacker pleaded
guilty to attempted 1st-degree murder and kidnapping and was sentenced to 25
years in prison plus 15 years suspended on each charge.
Johnathen Thacker was scheduled to go to trial Jan. 13, but that date was
continued at the request of the defense so it could complete its investigation
of new information revealed during Elvis Thacker's preliminary hearing.
(source: SW Times)
ARIZONA:
Motion on Arias jurors' Twitter handles denied
An Arizona judge is refusing to require jurors in the next phase of the Jodi
Arias trial to reveal their Twitter usernames so their accounts can be
monitored for communications about the case.
A jury in May convicted Arias of murder in the 2008 death of boyfriend Travis
Alexander in his suburban Phoenix home. The same jurors failed to agree on her
sentence, setting the stage for a second penalty phase.
Arias' defense has argued it needs the Twitter usernames of new jurors to
ensure they're not being influenced by outside elements.
However, Judge Sherry Stephens ruled that she's not going to presume there will
be juror misconduct.
Stephens also says some prospective jurors might refuse to serve if they
believe the proposed disclosure requirement would violate their privacy rights.
(source: Associated Press)
NEVADA:
Man pleads not guilty to death at Drai's After Hours nightclub
A 42-year-old man on Wednesday pleaded not guilty to charges he fatally shot 1
man and injured 2 security guards at Drai's After Hours nightclub inside
Bally's on the Strip in October.
Benjamin Frazier faces 6 counts, including 1 count each of murder and carrying
a concealed firearm and 2 counts each of attempted murder and battery with a
deadly weapon.
Authorities said Frazier opened fire in Bally's, at 3645 Las Vegas Blvd. South,
at Flamingo Road, after an argument at the entrance to Drai's.
When Kenneth Brown, 40, saw Frazier, shoot 2 Bally's security guards, Robert
Farias and Anthony Guerrero, Brown jumped on the man's back and wrestled for
the gun, according to police.
Brown, who had recently moved to Las Vegas from Los Angeles and worked as a
club promoter and stand-up comedian, was fatally shot in the neck and upper
chest.
Both guards survived.
The argument started over a $30 cover charge.
Frazier asked club security whether he could go in and preview the crowd before
paying the fee. Police said he decided to pay the cover and went inside but
came out shortly afterward demanding a refund because the club wasn't full.
He pulled a .38 caliber revolver on Farias during the argument and began firing
as several people attempted to disarm him, police said.
Farias was shot in the arm and chest. Frazier then shot Guerrero in the
stomach, according to his arrest report. That's when Brown, who was leaving the
nightclub, intervened and tackled Frazier.
Other patrons and guards held Frazier after Brown was shot. Frazier's revolver
was not registered in Clark County.
His lawyer, relative Robert Beckett, said Frazier doesn't remember anything
from the morning of Oct. 21.
Frazier has a history of violent crimes in Las Vegas.
He was sentenced to probation for a June 30, 1996, incident at Cheetahs strip
club for which he pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon.
Most recently, Frazier pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor battery count for a
fight on Feb. 29, 2012, when he punched a bartender at a Strip casino and
kicked another man. He was sentenced to 6 months of probation and ordered to
take alcohol counseling.
The murder case probably will be reviewed by the district attorney's death
penalty committee now that a grand jury has indicted Frazier.
The death penalty committee, whose meetings are not open to the public, looks
at several factors when considering capital punishment, including whether there
are aggravating factors in the case including past convictions, whether a jury
would impose the death penalty as punishment and whether a conviction would
stand up under appeal.
Frazier remains jailed at the Clark County Detention Center without bail.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
The Meaning of Thanksgiving on death row----In a land of punishingly bad food,
the vending machines are the stuff of dreams
The people who visit inmates on San Quentin's death row are a mixed bag. Women
by a large majority, plus a few toddlers, lawyers, religious nuts, activist
journalists and the occasional serial killer super-fan. But mostly nobody
visits.
Even knowing that, even seeing the sparse crowd, I wasn't especially moved by
the symbolism of a Thanksgiving visit this year. Neither was Ray*, the man I've
written, visited and interviewed for about 5 years. We both shrugged it off
with the middle school cool that the frozen-in-time, strangely juvenile
atmosphere of prison demands.
Many people hate the idea of sitting down to talk with a really serious
criminal. They???re right to be nervous, because the briefest conversation
sends the moral compass spinning. The day-to-day miseries of an inmate are
obvious. But misery also touches corrections officers and visitors. So does the
taint of guilt. The air in prisons is clammy with guilt. It condenses on the
walls, slicks your palms and seeps through the seat of you pants from the cheap
plastic chairs.
For the most part, the men are damaged, wheedling, sly. They're also frequently
dangerous and angry. The dangerousness, if not the anger, begins to fade when
they get to their middle thirties or so and join the permanently humiliated
regiment of back-handcuffed ghosts.
San Quentin, California's oldest and most storied prison, is a sprawling
complex of decaying buildings painted dirty yellow. Behind the polygonal Tower
One - an old watch tower that says "prison" the way the Empire State Building
says "New York" - is a landmarked brick fa???ade from a few years after the
prison was first established in a nearby ship at anchor in 1852. Local real
estate developers have long coveted the prison???s site on San Francisco Bay,
and the talk is they may get it one day.
Inside, the moral contrast is turned up as high as possible. You can't buy a
bag of potato chips for an inmate without wondering whether he deserves it. And
what does buying potato chips for him say about you? Yet in a very
Thanksgiving-like way visits are all about food.
I told Ray I was sorry he didn't have a more traditional Thanksgiving visitor,
wife, kids or mother. Just me. "Are you kidding?" he asked. "I don't care. When
you come, I get to eat something decent for a change - decent for us, I mean."
That wasn't the limit of Ray's stripped-down but still surprising thankfulness.
Earlier I'd been to Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad to visit an
accomplice in the grotesque murder Ray was condemned for. Though the accomplice
has a theoretical, if remote, possibility for parole now after 15 years, I
couldn't help feeling his situation is worse. Ray agrees. People like to say
death row, discreetly called East Block or the Condemned Unit here, is for the
"worst of the worst." Down in Soledad, hours from anywhere, were the forgotten
of the forgotten.
Early on, one of Ray's lawyers told me a secret. As long as executions are
suspended in California, death row is really one of the better places to do
time. Inmates have unusual stability, special privileges, individual cells,
well-monitored conditions, the interest of charitable people from San Francisco
and a certain malevolent status within the prison culture. The population is
older and the atmosphere calmer. Ray's lawyer told me some of his death row
clients were panicked by the idea that he supported abolishing the death
penalty. "What are you trying to do to us?"
That said, it has to be a unique feeling when a group of normal people, after
thinking about it long and carefully, decide you don't deserve to live. If that
doesn't get to you, the food is punishingly bad - bad by, at least, passive
design.
With someone like Ray, who's been a ward of the court or locked up for most of
his life, it's easy for a visitor to provide a first ever mango, the 2nd
avocado of his life or the 1st fresh tomato since High Desert Prison 10 years
ago.
In the condemned unit, food "service" comes 3 times daily. Lunch is box-style,
a pair of vacuum-packed bologna slices, four slices of bread, a baggie of baby
carrots and an unripe pear. Really sweet fruit that would lend itself to
fermentation is never offered. Breakfast and dinner are served on rubbery trays
(shards of which can't be turned into blades). Food is slopped directly into
TV-dinner-like compartments. Ray grimaces about something called "enchilada
casserole," formerly known as "enchiladas." But a bitter sweet-and-sour
chicken, he says, is worse. In fact, he tells me he religiously rinses any kind
of sauce off vegetables and hanks of processed meat.
Inmate dreams of food revolve around the five half-full vending machines in
East Block visiting. The cuisine is "gas station," although the healthy stuff,
oranges, chef's salad, avocado, cottage cheese, is actually popular. Truly
notorious criminals may get a lot of visitors and develop a connoisseurship
about what's on offer. Ray was grateful for a plasticky slice of cheesecake in
a bag, because a serial killer friend told him it was particularly good. The
bagged hamburgers are the most sought-after item and sell out fast. Microwaved
for a minute or 2, topped with spoon-slices of avocado and a squeeze of taco
sauce and mayonnaise, that's what we had for Thanksgiving. Since no ice cream
is served inside, Ray begins every meal I've ever had with him by eating a
locally famous ice cream sandwich called an IT'S-IT - he eats it first so it
doesn't melt. It's a little ritual, our couple-of-times-a-year tradition,
which, for one of us at least, is uncomfortably close to Abraham Lincoln's
original intent for the holiday: giving thanks while recalling the victims of
war "with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience."
* Not his real name
(source: Esquire)
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