Jan. 30
TEXAS:
Prosecutor who sent man to death row wrongfully seeks reversal of his
disbarment
Lawyers for Charles Sebesta, the ex-prosecutor who secured the wrongful death
sentence of Anthony Graves, told a panel of the State Bar of Texas on Friday
that he should not be disbarred based on technicalities in the rules that
govern lawyer discipline.
In June, the Texas State Bar disbarred Sebesta, the former Burleson County
District Attorney, finding that he had engaged in prosecutorial misconduct in
Graves' wrongful conviction.
Graves was sentenced to death in 1994 and spent 18 years behind bars, including
12 on death row - twice nearing the execution chamber - for a fiery multiple
murder. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Graves' conviction
in 2010. The court found that Sebesta secured Graves' conviction in a trial
that was beset with prosecutorial wrongdoing, including withholding key
evidence and suborning false testimony.
Sebesta appealed the State Bar's disbarment, arguing that in 2007 the agency
had already ruled that there was no cause to disbar him in response to an
earlier complaint about his work in the Graves case.
In 2007, while Graves was still in prison, the Bar dismissed a complaint from
one of regarding Sebesta's conduct in the case, finding that the statute of
limitations on the alleged wrondgoing had expired.
Graves filed a new complaint in 2014 after lawmakers changed the statute of
limitations for prosecutors accused of misconduct. Under the new law, those who
have been wrongly convicted have up to 4 years after they are released from
prison to file a complaint against and seek discipline of prosecutors who
engage in conduct such as withholding evidence and eliciting false testimony.
Jane Webre, who was defending Sebesta before the disciplinary board, argued
that State Bar rules prevent the board from making a different ruling on
Graves' recent complaint after it already determined the former prosecutor
wasn't subject to disbarment for his role in that conviction.
"In order for the system to function properly, it's important that the Bar
apply the rules fairly and consistently," Webre told the Texas State Bar Board
of Disciplinary Appeals.
Sebesta argued that the Bar dismissed the previous complaint not only because
of the time bar but also because they found no merit in the accusations against
him.
Cynthia Hamilton, senior appellate lawyer for the commission for lawyer
discipline at the State Bar, told the panel that Sebesta's disbarment should
remain in effect. In dismissing the previous claim, she said, the Bar did not
address the merits of the claims of misconduct, only the statute of
limitations, which lawmakers have since extended.
"It was Mr. Sebesta's own flawed analysis of the definition of just cause that
led him to that conclusion," Hamilton said.
Additionally, she said if the disciplinary rules were applied as Sebesta
contends they should be, lawyers would not face discipline in instances were
additional evidence of serious wrongdoing came to light after an initial
complaint was dismissed. Such a situation, she said, would give lawyers - who
are not required to cooperate with State Bar investigators - an incentive to
conceal information.
Further, she argued, lawmakers changed the statute of limitations governing
prosecutor discipline in 2013 specifically to allow the kind of sanction
Sebesta is facing.
"The Legislature gave the [Chief Disciplinary Counsel] its marching orders,"
Hamilton said.
Graves and Sebesta both attended the hearing on Friday. Sebesta referred
reporters to his lawyers for comment.
Steve McConnico, another lawyer representing Sebesta, said that the Board???s
ruling would give prosecutors who face potential sanctions for misconduct
clarity about the process.
"It's going to clear up some questions about what is finality," he said.
The Board's decision on Sebesta's appeal, he said, will be final.
Graves said he said he is confident the panel will uphold Sebesta's disbarment.
And their decision, he said, will have consequences for prosecutors statewide.
"If they uphold the ruling, it says we're not going to allow prosecutors to
just do what they want in the courtroom and not be held accountable," Graves
said. "If they reinstate him, it says to the public that we really don't care
about you, we just protect our own."
(source: Dallas Morning News)
DELAWARE:
Death penalty makes 2016 seem like 1816
Why kill people who kill people to show killing is wrong?
That's a question I asked in a column way back in 2011, after convicted
murderer Robert W. Jackson III became Delaware's 1st execution since 2005.
Jackson was just 18 and a drug addict when he killed 47-year-old Elizabeth
Girardi during a botched robbery. Jackson was given the death penalty and
executed.
Meanwhile Thomas Capano, convicted of killing 28-year-old Ann Marie Fahey and
shoving her body into a cooler, ended up with life without parole.
Capano was rich and white. Jackson was poor and black. You tell me why they
ended up with their respective fates.
I bring all this up because legislators once again decided to cling to a 19th
century form of justice by voting down a bill that would have abolished the
death penalty in Delaware. In recent years, this has become an annual game of
bills getting voted down amid the heartfelt pleas from relatives of people who
have suffered.
"He victimized Lindsey again and again," a friend of the Bonistall family whose
daughter, Lindsey, was raped and murdered in 2005 by James E. Cooke Jr., Mary
Cairns said. "Her killer deserves the death penalty. Please don't fail us now."
Of course, the circumstances are horrible, and it's easy to allow the notion of
revenge to wash over you as Cooke waits for his inevitable execution on death
row. But justice and revenge are two very separate things, and at this point
the desire for payback seems to be the only justification for keeping this
arcane and brutal form of punishment around.
Despite what police officers say, there is no evidence the death penalty acts
as a deterrent for criminals to avoid murdering someone. Plus, putting
criminals on death row is far more costly than sentencing them to life without
parole.
The death penalty is also applied in a discriminatory manner, overwhelmingly
targeting poor and minority defendants. In Delaware, 70 percent of all death
sentences were imposed on cases where the victim was white, despite the fact
the majority of murder victims during the same period were black.
And if that's not enough to convince you, innocent people are killed on death
row.
Columbia University law professor James Liebman and a team of students
published a 6-year study in the Human Rights Law Review that concluded Carlos
DeLuna, executed in 1989 for stabbing a gas station clerk to death, was
innocent. They note that shoddy police work, the failure to pursue a
similar-looking suspect and a weak, government-provided defense led to DeLuna's
downfall.
Since 1976, 156 people awaiting their execution have been exonerated and freed,
while 1,426 have been executed. That means for about every 10 inmates put to
death, 1 was found innocent and freed.
Is vengeance still a good enough reason to justify the death of an innocent
person at the hands of the state?
The obvious answer is no, and as a result neighboring states have done away
with this cruel form of punishment. New Jersey banned the death penalty in
2007, and Maryland banned it in 2013. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf issued a
moratorium last year calling the death penalty, "A flawed system [that has
proved itself to be] ineffective, unjust and expensive."
Gov. Jack Markell has called the death penalty an "instrument of imperfect
justice" and vowed to sign any repeal into law. Yet it continues, still unable
to overcome the cabal of support from prosecutors and law enforcement officials
who continue to wield too heavy a hand on our public policy.
I'm not a religious person, but last time I checked the state of Delaware isn't
God. And as one of the characters in Russian author Anton Chekhov's "The Bet"
notes, "It has not the right to take away what it cannot restore when it wants
to."
He wrote those words in 1889. Welcome to the 21st century.
(source: Rob Tornoe, newsworks.org)
VIRGINIA:
Trial for Lloyd Welch pushed back to October----The trial was scheduled to
begin in March
The man charged with murder in the Lyon sisters case appeared in Bedford County
court Friday.
A judge granted a motion delaying the start of the trial for Lloyd Welch to
October 18. The trial was scheduled to begin in March.
Lloyd Welch is charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree felony murder, as well as
abduction with the intent to defile. Sheila and Katherine Lyon disappeared from
a D.C.-area mall in 1975.
Investigators believe the Lyon sisters were brought to Bedford County after
being kidnapped.
Welch was in court for the hearing. He sat quietly and wore a jail-issued
jumpsuit.
The judge also granted motions allowing for an expert criminal investigator, a
mental health expert, and a mitigation specialist.
A gag order was also placed on everyone involved in the case.
The commonwealth is asking for the death penalty.
(source: WDBH news)
GEORGIA----impending execution
Condemned murderer Brandon Astor Jones loses another appeal
An appellate court on Friday rejected another attempt by Brandon Astor Jones to
stop his execution scheduled for Tuesday for the 1979 murder of a Cobb County
convenience store manager.
Late in the afternoon, a judge in Butts County, which is where Georgia's
execution chamber is located, said the issues raised in Jones' appeal were
decided years ago and cannot be revisited.
Jones' lawyers argued in the appeal that it's rare for a murderer to be
sentenced to die if the crime that made the case eligible for the death
sentence was armed robbery. A death sentence can be given only in certain
circumstances, such as when certain felonies were committed at the same time as
the murder, if the crime was exceptionally horrendous, or if a law enforcement
officer was killed.
"Even at the time of Mr. Jones' original sentence in 1979, a death sentence for
a murder that occurred in those circumstances was an anomaly," his lawyers
wrote.
"Since the time of Mr. Jones' crime, a death sentence for a murder that occurs
in the context of a place-of-business armed robbery has fallen into complete
extinction," they wrote. "A death penalty has not been imposed in Georgia for a
murder committed during an armed robbery in the last 20 years."
They wrote Jones' execution would be "unconstitutionally disproportionate and
excessive" because "in Georgia today" his crime would not be considered the
worst of the worst and deserving of capital punishment.
Jones also makes the same arguments in his clemency petition filed with the
State Board of Pardons and Paroles. The Parole Board will hear from Jones'
family and attorneys Monday morning. Tackett's widow and daughter, along with
Cobb County prosecutors, are scheduled to speak to the board Monday afternoon.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday rejected Jones' challenge
concerning the state law that keeps secret the identity of the pharmacist who
will make the pentobarbital that will be used to put him to death.
Jones and co-defendant Van Roosevelt Jones were both sentenced to die for
murdering Roger Tackett, who had stayed after closing at the Tenneco
convenience store and gas station to finish paperwork.
Tackett was shot 5 times early Father's Day morning almost 37 years ago. Jones
and Solomon were immediately arrested because a Cobb County police officer was
outside the store at the time, having driven a stranded motorist to the Tenneco
to use the pay phone.
Solomon was electrocuted Feb. 20, 1985, while Jones' execution was delayed when
a federal judge ordered him re-sentenced because the jury that convicted him
and voted for death in 1979 had a Bible in the room during deliberations. Jones
was re-sentenced to death in 1997.
Jones is the oldest man on Georgia's death row and stands to be the oldest
person the state has executed. His 73rd birthday is Valentine???s Day.
****************************
Watch killer die? Victim's kin won't. Co-defendant's son might
The widow and daughter of the man Brandon Astor Jones murdered in 1979 don't
plan to watch his execution, scheduled for Tuesday evening.
They will be together at the Cherokee County home of Katie King, who was 7 when
her father was killed.
"I will be at peace, being with my mom," said King, referring to Christine
Bixon.
Bixon - who was Christine Tackett until she remarried 4 years after her
husband's murder - said she did not attend the execution of Jones' co-defendant
Van Roosevelt Solomon 30 years ago and she doesn't plan to attend the one set
for Tuesday at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison outside
Jackson.
But Zuberi Solomon, who was 2 when his father and Jones murdered convenience
store manager Roger Tackett, has asked the Department of Corrections to allow
him to be a witness. He has not received an answer.
He said he wanted to "see the face of the person that destroyed 2 families."
"They've lost their father (and husband)," Solomon said. "You feel sympathy for
them. I definitely know what it feels like. Senseless."
Zuberi Solomon says all the blame for the murder should go to Jones and not his
father, a 1-time Baptist preacher who by then had a painting business. Jones
worked for Van Roosevelt Solomon.
Zuberi Solomon said Jones forced his father at gunpoint to drive from
Atlanta???s West End to Cobb County so he could buy drugs and it was Jones who
decided they should break into the Tenneco on Delk Road. He said his father did
not shoot Tackett, even though police found 2 guns that had been fired and
gunshot residue on the hands of both men.
Solomon and Jones were arrested because Cobb County police Officer Ray Kendall
was outside the store when Tackett was shot. The officer had driven a stranded
motorist to the Tenneco to use a pay phone and became suspicious when he found
Tackett's car parked in front with the driver's side door open. Kendall was
looking through a window when Jones peeked out of the storeroom door.
Kendall found Tackett lying in a pool of his own blood inside the storeroom,
shot once in the thumb and twice in the hip and the head.
Each suspect blamed the other for firing the shot that killed Tackett.
Van Roosevelt Solomon, who had been in prison in Oklahoma, was electrocuted in
1985.
(source for both: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
FLORIDA:
Lawmakers have chance to fix state death penalty - but will they?
In the next few weeks, Florida lawmakers have a chance to rewrite the state's
death penalty law, addressing many of the problems that judges, lawyers and
legal scholars have highlighted over the years.
But that's not likely to happen. Instead, the House and Senate are expected to
move forward on bills that would more narrowly address the constitutional flaw
that the U.S. Supreme Court found earlier this month. In the case of Hurst vs.
Florida, the nation's highest court ruled Florida's death penalty procedure is
invalid because it allows judges - not juries - to decide death sentences.
The ruling is the latest example of the federal court finding fundamental
problems in Florida's death penalty process and raising immediate questions
about the Feb. 11 scheduled execution of Michael Lambrix as well as the fate of
the other 388 prisoners on Florida's death row.
Some have suggested it also gives Florida a chance to enact a long-term fix for
the state's death penalty law.
"What the U.S. Supreme Court has done has given the Legislature an opportunity
to review this whole process and try to fix it because it has lots of
problems," said retired Circuit Judge O.H. Eaton Jr. of Sanford, a death
penalty expert.
"This is your opportunity," Eaton told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.
"If you fix those problems then you're going to have as good a death penalty
law as there is in the country. I'm not saying it will be perfect but it will
be as good as any in the country."
The immediate focus of lawmakers will be on the process where a jury decides on
factors, known as aggravators, that are used to determine whether the death
penalty applies, although judges ultimately decide whether defendants should be
put to death or sentenced to life in prison.
At least 1 aggravator must be found, with the law providing up to 15 possible
aggravators.
A broader fix would involve narrowing the field of aggravators, which
originally started with 5 when the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s.
But state prosecutors are likely to oppose that.
Florida is also an "outlier" among the states because it is only one of three
that allow a jury to recommend a death penalty with less than a unanimous vote,
along with Alabama and Delaware. But that is not likely to be addressed by
lawmakers because it was not part of the Hurst decision, although many are
urging the Legislature to consider it.
In 2005, the Florida Supreme Court asked the Legislature to consider requiring
a unanimous jury recommendations, with many judges, legal scholars and defense
lawyers noting unanimous jury decisions are required in all other legal cases.
"Florida requires unanimous verdicts in every situation except the
recommendation of death," Eaton said.
But Brad King, the state attorney for the judicial circuit that includes Ocala,
told senators that the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association would oppose
moving to a unanimous recommendation but would support changing the system,
which now allows as little as a 7-5 majority, to a minimum 9-3 decision.
The 2 lawmakers who head the House and Senate criminal justice panels said they
will move quickly to preserve Florida's death penalty.
"We will comply with the Supreme Court opinion," said Rep. Carlos Trujillo,
R-Miami, whose Criminal Justice subcommittee will discuss a death penalty fix
at a meeting scheduled for Tuesday. Trujillo said he does not expect a
"sweeping" bill but rather legislation aimed directly at correcting the flaws
cited by the federal court.
"We will keep the death penalty in Florida," said Senate Criminal Justice
Chairman Greg Evers, R-Baker.
Another major issue facing lawmakers is how the Hurst ruling impacts all of the
prisoners already sentenced to death, with the immediate focus on Lambrix, who
is scheduled to be executed for 2 murders in Glades County.
Eaton has suggested that all the prisoners whose cases are still on their
initial appeals may have their death sentences converted to life terms by the
state Supreme Court.
The status of death row inmates whose appeals are exhausted or are in later
stages is more in doubt.
Evers said some guidance will come from the Florida Supreme Court, which will
hear those issues in the Lambrix case on Tuesday and will have to make some
type of a decision before the Feb. 11 execution date.
Lawmakers must reach agreement on a bill before the March 12 scheduled ending
of the 2016 session.
(source: The Ledger)
ALABAMA:
Prosecutors will seek death penalty for Kenyatta Martin, charged with killing
girlfriend in 2013
Prosecutors said today they will seek the death penalty for a Huntsville man
charged with killing his girlfriend during an attempted sexual assault.
Kenyatta Deshon Martin, 32, is charged with capital murder in the death of
A???viona Bronson on Aug. 12, 2013. Bronson's body was found in the Executive
Lodge Apartments in Huntsville.
Martin was arrested after his wife reportedly called 911, saying Martin had
told her he had killed someone and was planning to kill himself.
Martin was indicted last month and Madison County Circuit Judge Alan Mann held
a status hearing this morning to work out trial scheduling.
Madison County Assistant District Attorney Tim Gann told the court the state
plans to seek the death penalty for Martin.
Mann offered 2 possible trial dates in late September and October. The 2 sides
were directed to discuss scheduling and notify the court.
Gann said following the hearing he wouldn't get into the facts of the case
against Martin, but said pursuing a death sentence is justified.
"We try to evaluate case by case, not every capital case is something we seek
the death penalty on, just certain cases we feel like warrant that, and this
one, reviewing it, I felt like it did," Gann said.
Martin is represented by Huntsville attorneys Chris Messervy and Bruce Gardner.
(source: WHNT news)
********************
South Huntsville strangling suspect will be tried on Halloween
A Madison County judge today moved the trial of a man accused of strangling his
wife and young son in south Huntsville to Oct. 31 - Halloween. Stephen Marc
Stone had been scheduled for trial in February.
Circuit Judge Donna Pate moved the trial after a status conference in the
Madison County Courthouse at which Stone appeared. Because the trial could take
up to 2 weeks, the move was to find that much time in the trial calendars of
prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Stone is charged with capital murder in the February 2013 strangulation deaths
of his wife, Krista Stone and their son, 7-year-old Zachary Stone, at the home
they rented on Chicamauga Trail in south Huntsville.
Madison County District Attorney Rob Broussard has said the DA's office will
seek the death penalty. According to AL.com news partner WHNT News 19, defense
attorneys said today they will file a motion arguing that a recent Supreme
Court decision makes Alabama's death penalty law unconstitutional.
In January, the high court ruled in a Florida case that a jury, "not a judge,
must find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death," in the words of
Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Alabama's death penalty law also gives a judge the
final say on the penalty. Defense attorneys Brian Clark and Larry Marsili will
file a motion "addressing those issues," Judge Pate's order said, "to which the
State of Alabama will respond."
The killings took place early on Feb. 24, 2013. Stone later told police he felt
as if something had "broken" inside of him before the killings. He is expected
to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
(source: al.com)
***********************
Death penalty trial for Stephen Marc Stone, Chicamauga Trail suspect, moved to
Halloween
Halloween is now the expected start date for the capital murder, death penalty
trial of Stephen Marc Stone.
Stone is charged with killing his wife, Krista Stone, and 7-year-old son,
Zachary, on Feb. 24, 2013, at their home on Chicamauga Trail in south
Huntsville.
Huntsville Police Department investigators said Stone turned himself into Leeds
police the day after the killings and confessed to the crime. He left his 2
young daughters, unharmed with his parents in Leeds.
Stone was set to go on trial on Feb. 22, but his attorney Brian Clark is
scheduled to try an unrelated death penalty case beginning Feb. 8. That case
involves John Clayton Owens, charged with killing his 91-year-old neighbor on
Bide-a-wee Drive in 2011.
Stone is expected to plead not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect -
basically an insanity defense - but reports from defense experts concerning
Stone's mental health have not been completed and provided to prosecutors.
Stone was in court today, looking much more gaunt than in his last court
appearance. He rocked in his seat during the hearing and often appeared to be
laughing silently at something unrelated to the court proceedings. He also set
his head face down on the defense table more than once.
In a court hearing this morning, Madison County Circuit Judge Donna Pate
settled on the Oct. 31 trial date.
The defense also told the court it will file a motion arguing Alabama's current
death penalty system is unconstitutional, based on the U.S. Supreme Court???s
ruling in the case Hurst vs. Florida. The high court ruled in that case a jury,
not a judge must have the final word in sentencing.
Alabama's system is similar to Florida's. Alabama law requires that after
finding a defendant guilty the jury makes a recommendation about whether the
defendant should be given the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
It takes 10 of 12 jurors for the recommendation to be the death penalty.
But, Alabama law also gives the judge the last word. The judge can override a
jury verdict recommending a life without parole sentence and impose a death
sentence.
(source: WHNT news)
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