July 18
PENNSYLVANIA:
Ballard's lawyers: Don't move to execute convicted murderer until lethal
injection suit resolved
Convicted murderer Michael Ballard has not appealed his death sentence, but his
attorneys argued in court documents Friday it's too early to push for his
execution for a quadruple slaying.
Michael Ballard has been called "the poster boy" for the death penalty by
Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli. Ballard pleaded guilty to
savagely knifing to death his former girlfriend, Denise Merhi, 39; her father,
Dennis Marsh, 62; her grandfather, Alvin Marsh Jr., 87; and neighbor Steven
Zernhelt, 53, in June 2010.
Ballard pleaded guilty in 2011 to murdering his ex-girlfriend, Denise Merhi,
39; her father, Dennis Marsh, 62; her grandfather, Alvin Marsh Jr., 87; and
Steven Zernhelt, 53, a neighbor who rushed inside Merhi's Northampton Borough
home after hearing screams.
At the time of the quadruple murder, Ballard was on parole for a 1991 murder in
Allentown. Ballard served 17 years in prison before being released.
Defense attorneys Michael Corriere and James Connell said it's too soon to
start the execution process. While Ballard has not appealed his sentence, he
has joined a lawsuit challenging the state's lethal injection method. A ruling
in the case is expected in the next two months, they said.
"There is no harm in continuing the stay of execution until a decision is fully
adjudicated before the defendant's death warrant would be issued," Ballard's
legal team argued.
In the suit, 4 death row inmates argue the 3-drug cocktail that would be used
in an execution is illegal. State law outlines that a 2-drug process be used,
and federal laws make it illegal to buy or sell those drugs over state lines,
according to court documents.
In addition, the nurses and paramedics who would set up the needles used in the
execution are only qualified to use their training for "the healing arts," they
argued. Using those skills to put a person to death would violate the ethical
standards they are sworn to uphold.
Lastly, the lawsuit claims the state violated state law by not holding public
hearings or allowing comments on the execution procedure. Lawyers claimed the
state engaged in a secret process, making the execution method illegal.
Even if Giordano should rule against Ballard's argument, Morganelli would face
other hurdles before he could have Ballard put to death.
Gov. Tom Wolf instituted a moratorium on executions in February, claiming the
death penalty was "error-prone, expensive and anything but infallible."
Attorney General Kathleen Kane lobbied the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to lift
the ban this month, calling it blatantly unconstitutional. It remains in
effect, at least for now.
The state has not executed anyone since 1999, when 3 men waived their appeal
rights. A Pennsylvania inmate has not been executed against his will in more
than 50 years.
Ballard did not contest his death sentence at first. He told The Morning Call
last July that he did not want to spend his final decades trapped in a cramped
cell appealing his case. But 3 months later, Ballard said that he embraced the
lethal injection method lawsuit's aims, saying he had no faith in the state to
carry out an execution correctly.
(source: Morning Call)
GEORGIA:
Jamie Hood rests his defense, says 'This punishment I got to take'
Admitted cop killer Jamie Hood on Friday called the last witness in his death
penalty case.
"I guess I'll be calling Mr. Jamie Hood to the stand as I promised," said Hood,
who is representing himself against 70 felony charges, including murdering
officer Elmer "Buddy" Christian on March 22, 2011, and Omar Wray 3 months
earlier.
Even though his formal plea to the court is not guilty, Hood does not deny he
killed Christian or that he wounded another police officer, Tony Howard. He
denies, however, that he killed Wray, who was shot to death just after
Christmas 2010 because he allegedly wouldn't tell Hood where to find a certain
drug dealer.
The trial continues Saturday with the prosecution calling witnesses to rebut
some of Hood's testimony.
Jamie Hood faced the jurors and told them his truth about most of the crimes.
He said he did everything the prosecutors said, except kill Wray.
"I'm not here to make excuses," Hood said.
"I'm mad. Sad. Feel like I've been cheated out of my life," he said.
For 45 minutes, Hood spoke hurriedly, sometimes using racial epithets or crude
language, to describe his life.
He said he wanted to tell everything because his life is over.
"I'm not here for Jamie Hood," he said. "I'm here for the little kids coming up
behind me. It's got to stop. My mind and my soul are at peace. This punishment
I got to take."
Hood was animated, frequently standing up to simulate slow-motion running so
jurors could visualize the 4 days he hid from local, state and law enforcement
officers.
But under cross examination, the animosity between Hood and District Attorney
Ken Mauldin was unbridled. Hood also was defiant when the judge lectured him
about answering the questions Mauldin asked.
Hood, with his chin jutted out in defiance, said: "I'm going to answer the
question like I want to. Is this a kangaroo court?"
The jury was shepherded out of the courtroom and Hood continued. "It's right at
the end (of the trial). If you want to cut it off, cut it off. ... What do I
care?
"Ain't nobody going to tell me how to answer," he said.
Hood insisted that he was "not a cop killer."
The crime spree started when Judon Brooks came to Hood's mother's house on
March 22, 2011. Hood said he had filled Brooks' order for 50 pounds of
marijuana, but that his friend tried to rob him. So, he said, he told 3 other
men with him to bind Brooks' ankles and wrists with zip ties and put him in the
trunk of a car.
Hood said he couldn't report Brooks to the police because that would make him a
snitch.
"I couldn't call the police. I was stuck. I did the best thing I could do to
keep him from killing me," Hood said.
Brooks escaped from the trunk and called the police.
Later that afternoon, Hood, a passenger in his brother's SUV, crossed paths
with Howard. Hood got out, ran by Officer Howard's patrol car and shot him
twice and then fired 2 times more.
He said he feared the officer was going to kill him.
Hood said he fatally shot Christian because the voice of his dead brother -
killed years earlier by a policeman - was in his head, telling him, "Don't let
them do you like they done me."
"I hated killing the man," Hood said of Christian. "I been telling (people) for
years I didn't mean to do it."
He said he encountered officers several times in the hours after the shooting,
but never tried to harm them. "If I was a cop killer, I could have shot them."
Hood testified he met a trooper as he walked along an Athens street. Hood said
he waved and the trooper drove off. That happened again with a police officer.
Hood spent his 1st night in the woods, occasionally stripping down to his
underwear and covering himself with leaves and dirt when police helicopters
would come by. The 2nd night, he said, he slept under a old pickup truck.
Hood knocked on the doors of several friends who would not let him inside. At
least twice, however, he was allowed in and he told them he would surrender so
they could claim the $50,000 reward.
A 4-day manhunt ended when Hood took hostages, then called state law
enforcement to say he would surrender if his arrest was covered on live
television to ensure his safety.
Hood started his testimony, a narrative, by telling the jury about his 1997
armed robbery conviction when he was 19.
When he got out of prison 12 years later, he said, he couldn't find a job even
though he was a certified auto mechanic and also had a commercial driver's
license.
"I couldn't get a job and that's when I felt like a slave. You could work me
for free (in prison), but once I'm released I couldn't get a job," he said.
He told jurors he started selling drugs so he could support himself and his
family.
"I had nothing and then I had something," Hood said.
(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
FLORIDA:
Randall Deviney convicted again in 2008 murder----1st conviction in murder of
Delores Futrell overturned on appeal
A Duval County jury has found Randall Deviney guilty of first-degree murder in
the death of his 65-year-old neighbor, Delores Futrell.
The jury was charged just before lunch and was to begin deliberations in the
afternoon. Less than 3 hours later, the jury returned its verdict.
"It's been very difficult but we're very pleased with the outcome. We're very
pleased the jury believed the case as it was presented by Bernie's team. I'm
overwhelmingly happy about that," said Debra Wright, Futrell's sister.
Wright said she wants everyone to know her sister (pictured below) loved
people, enjoyed life and didn't let her Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis get her
down.
Futrell's daughter was in the courtroom as the verdict was read. She said she's
happy with the trial and that Deviney testified on Thursday.
"I was kind of hoping he was going to tell the truth and we were going to get
closure today. He did a better job going up there showing what type of person
he really is. I'm glad he did it. I hope the rest of it comes out the best way
that it should," said Jacquelyn Blades, Futrell's daughter.
Deviney testified Thursday that he killed Futrell, but said that her death was
an accident.
Deviney was convicted and sentenced to die for killing Futrell, but that
conviction was overturned last year when the Florida Supreme Court ruled that
Deviney's confession was coerced by police.
During closing arguments on Friday, prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda told the
jury the evidence clearly connects Deviney to the crime.
"From her fingernails, you find the defendant's DNA. She provided the best
evidence. She was not able to come into this courtroom and identify the person
who did this to her," de la Rionda said.
The penalty phase of the trial will be held next Thursday. The court will hear
victim impact statements and the prosecution will seek the death penalty.
(source: news4jax.com)
LOUISIANA:
A Death Penalty Advocate's Sad Argument
The modern American death penalty has few advocates as aggressive and outspoken
as Dale Cox. He is the acting district attorney of Caddo Parish, La., a poor
region in 1 of the nation's poorest states. From 2010 to 2014, prosecutors in
Caddo Parish won more death sentences per capita than anywhere else in the
country.
In March Mr. Cox drew national news coverage for his response to a former
colleague's public apology for putting a man on death row who later turned out
to be innocent. "I think we need to kill more people," Mr. Cox said.
The purpose of the death penalty, he has said repeatedly, is not to deter crime
but to exact revenge. "Retribution is a valid societal interest," he told The
New York Times.
He has denied that the death penalty is racist or arbitrary, even though Caddo
Parish, like most places in the country, applies it disproportionately in cases
involving black defendants.
His concern about the method of execution is whether it inflicts enough pain.
In a recent case of a man sentenced to death for suffocating his 1-year-old
son, Mr. Cox was upset that lethal injection would be used. The convict, he
said, "deserves as much physical suffering as it is humanly possible to endure
before he dies."
But on July 14, Mr. Cox - who took over as top prosecutor when his boss died
suddenly in April - announced that he would not run for election in the fall,
as he had originally planned.
His reasoning? Beyond the usual comment that the media attention was a
distraction, he said, "I have come to believe that my position on the death
penalty is a minority position among the members of this community."
It was an interesting admission for several reasons, not least of which is that
Mr. Cox himself used to be opposed to capital punishment. Raised Catholic and
educated in a Jesuit school, he left an earlier job in the district attorney's
office because of his discomfort with such cases, according to a New Yorker
profile of Mr. Cox published this month.
Over the years he changed his mind, he explained, in reaction to the cases of
unspeakable brutality that he was exposed to as a prosecutor. "The nature of
the work is so serious that there'd be something wrong if it didn't change
you," Mr. Cox told The Times, saying also that he now takes medicine for
depression. It is easy to caricature Mr. Cox as little more than the angry,
unrepentant face of vengeance behind America's ever-narrowing campaign of
state-sponsored killing. But it is important to listen closely to what he is
saying about his job, which subjects those who do it to daily trauma and
cruelty on a level most people never experience.
And that is another reason the death penalty must end: It dehumanizes not just
those put to death, but everyone involved in the process - from the prosecutors
who seek it to the juries who impose it and the executioners who carry it out.
(source: The Editorial Board, New York Times)
OHIO:
Ruling on officer's convicted killer
Quisi Bryan's conviction for the 2000 murder of Cleveland Police Officer Wayne
Leon has been appealed multiple times in state courts, but all have been
rejected.
Now, Federal Judge James Carr says there were errors at trial regarding jury
selection. During that process, Bryan's lawyers objected to the prosecutor's
challenge to 1 juror, saying it was based on her race.
"The prosecutor then stood up on the record and provided, I think, six
race-neutral reasons as to why they struck that particular juror," said
prosecutor Chris Schroeder.
The juror was a woman who was related to the county prosecutor and had
reservations about the death penalty, and didn't feel the justice system was
fair.
The judge allowed her to be dismissed and Bryan was convicted at trial.
In the wake of the federal judge's ruling, prosecutors now have 120 days to
retry Bryan or appeal his decision, which is likely.
If the appeal is granted, Bryan goes back to death row. If not, a new trial is
likely.
Prosecutors say if they have a new trial, they have an even better case than
they did 15 years ago.
Back then, they did not know about Bryan's later-revealed rapes. Prosecutors
believed he shot Officer Leon during a routine traffic stop.
Now they believe Bryan shot Leon out of fear of being identified as a rapist.
Because of the rapes Bryan faces up to 47 years in prison even if the appeal is
denied and prosecutors decide not to seek a new trial.
"He will be staying in prison for the foreseeable future, no matter what
happens," said Schroeder.
Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association President Steve Loomis released the
following statement Friday:
"Quisi Bryan is an ADMITTED cop killer and nine (9) time DNA-convicted rapist.
The reason this judge gave this murdering, raping animal a new trial is nearly
as offensive as the crimes this convict has himself committed.
This ADMITTED murdering/raping animal has been allowed to marry and live his
life while on death row for the last 15 years while Wayne's family, partners
and friends continue to suffer an excruciating loss resulting from a "routine"
traffic stop.
This court's insensitivity to Officer Leon's family and memory is offensive.
They are devastated and forced to continuously relive this nightmare for
decades while this murdering/raping animal celebrates his honeymoon and the
newfound hope that comes with this judge's unbelievable and heartbreaking
decision."
(source: WOIO news)
*******************
Man could get death penalty in domestic shooting case
A man with a long criminal history that includes domestic violence could face
the death penalty if he is convicted as charged in the shooting death of Sheila
Nash.
A Warren County grand jury Wednesday indicted Gary Wayne Thompson, 59, 755
Halls Chapel Road, on murder, 1st-degree burglary, 2 counts of 1st-degree
wanton endangerment, wanton endangerment of a police officer and 1st-degree
persistent felony offender. In a separate indictment, he is charged with
possession of a handgun by a convicted felon and 1st-degree persistent felony
offender.
Thompson is accused of killing Nash, 37, shooting her June 9 in the presence of
a witness inside her 214 East Heights Ave., Apt. B home, according to Kentucky
State Police. KSP Post 3 spokesman Trooper B.J. Eaton declined to release
details about the witness. Thompson shot himself in the early morning hours of
June 10 after state police opened fire on him.
Nash's paternal aunt, Peggy Coles, described her niece as a good person.
"She always had a smile," Coles said. "She loved her little nieces and nephews.
She didn't have any children of her own so she just made them hers."
Nash wasn't a big swimmer, but enjoyed camping near Barren River.
"She just liked being around the water," Coles said.
The whole family was horrified by Nash's death.
"It was a total shock for the family," Coles said. "We still haven't gotten
over it. It was terrible."
Nash was killed just 24 hours after a judge issued an emergency protective
order against Thompson.
"In the past, Gary has threatened to burn my apartment down," Nash wrote in the
petition filed in the Warren Circuit Court Clerk's office.
"I am scared since he broke into my home, and I do think he will hurt me. Gary
broke into my apartment on June 7, 2015, while I was at my mother's. On my way
home, Gary called and told me I need to relock my front bedroom window. When I
got home, the window was open and the desk was moved out from the wall,"
according to Nash's petition.
Court records indicate a Warren County sheriff's deputy tried to serve the
order on Thompson at the address Nash provided. Records also show that at 7:20
p.m. June 9, a deputy called Thompson. Thompson told the deputy that he was out
of town.
Hours later, Nash was shot dead. Thompson was taken to a Nashville trauma
center and treated before being released to the Criminal Justice Center in
Nashville, where he is held in a maximum security cell pending extradition to
Kentucky, according to online Davidson County (Tenn.) Sheriff's Office records.
Thompson has waived extradition, Warren County Commonwealth's Attorney Chris
Cohron said.
"We are making the appropriate medical arrangements due to his self-inflicted
injuries once he returns to the Warren County Regional Jail," Cohron said.
He expects Thompson to be brought before a court here within the next week.
"As charged right now he could serve up to life in prison with parole
eligibility after the service of 20 years. With the grand jury returning a
burglary 1st charge with the murder, he may be subject to aggravated sentencing
meaning life without parole for 25 years, life without parole (or) the death
penalty. The decision on whether to seek aggravated sentencing will be made
after the entire investigation is complete," Cohron said.
A woman who filed 3 petitions for protective orders in 2003 wrote that Thompson
drank, used drugs and became violent. She said he cut himself with a knife and
said he was going to get a gun from Brownsville, and when he ran out of bullets
he would burn the house down, according to the 1993 domestic case file. Those
petitions were dismissed because the woman failed to show up for court. In a
1991 petition filed by Thompson's then wife, she accused Thompson of
threatening to kill himself if she left him and of trying to choke her when she
was attempting to get away.
Thompson is also under indictment here on drug charges brought by the Bowling
Green-Warren County Drug Task Force. An April grand jury indicted Thompson on
1st-degree promoting contraband by complicity, trafficking in synthetic drugs
by complicity and 1st-degree persistent felony offender.
(source: Bowling Green Daily News)
***********************
Ohio prosecutors want execution date for man who killed 4
Prosecutors have asked the Ohio Supreme Court to set an execution date for a
man convicted of killing 4 members of his girlfriend's family and sentenced to
death in 3 of the slayings.
The officials from southwest Ohio's Butler County said in a court filing
earlier this month that Jose Trinidad Loza has run out of state and federal
appeals and should be put to death.
The 43-year-old Loza was convicted in the 1991 fatal shootings of girlfriend
Dorothy Jackson's family.
The victims were Jackson's mother, Georgia Davis; brother, Gary Mullins; and
sisters Cheryl Senteno and Jerri Luanna Jackson, who was pregnant.
Loza's attorney is expected to oppose the request and has argued among other
things that the trial court improperly allowed statements Loza alleges were
made amid police coercion.
(source: Associated Press)
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