March 21
TEXAS----impending execution
Texas Man Convicted in Killing of City Worker Set to Die
Attorneys for a death row inmate from North Texas who shot to death a city
employee who was taking photos of junk piled up at his family's property say
their client is delusional and should not be executed because of his mental
illness.
Adam Ward insists he was defending himself 11 years ago when he killed code
enforcement officer Michael Walker outside the Ward family home in Commerce,
about 65 miles northeast of Dallas. Ward, 33, is set for execution Tuesday
evening in Huntsville.
"This man charged up and tried to attack me," Ward said recently from a
visiting cage outside death row. "Long story short, my case is a case of
self-defense, but there are cops there in that town that have tampered with
evidence, they have removed evidence, they have added evidence to the scene."
Ward's lead trial attorney and court documents describe him as delusional.
In a videotaped statement to police following his arrest, Ward said he believed
Commerce officials long conspired against him and his father, described in
court filings as a hoarder who had been in conflict with the city for years.
Evidence showed the Ward family had been cited numerous times for violating
housing and zoning codes.
Ward's attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution,
renewing arguments that he is severely mentally ill and contending that his
execution would be unconstitutional because of evolving sentiment against
executing the mentally ill. The high court has ruled that mentally impaired
people may not be executed. State lawyers say courts have nevertheless not
exempted mentally ill offenders from the death penalty.
Evidence of Ward's delusions, paranoia and bipolar disorder was presented at
his 2007 trial and resurfaced in earlier unsuccessful appeals. The Supreme
Court last October refused to review Ward's case.
Witnesses said Walker was taking pictures from the perimeter of the Ward
property on June 13, 2005, when they got into an argument. Ward, who had been
washing his car, sprayed the city worker with water from a hose.
Dennis Davis, Ward's trial lawyer, says the code officer told Ward that he was
calling for back up, and in Ward's mind this meant police were on their way to
kill him.
"He had no idea that was the exact wrong thing to say to that person," Davis
recalled last week.
Walker pulled out his cellphone, made the call and waited near the back of his
truck. Ward went inside the house, emerged with his gun and started firing.
Walker, 44, was shot 9 times.
"Whenever you've been harassed, you take preventative measures if you have to,"
Ward told The Associated Press from prison, repeating testimony he gave at his
trial that he believed Walker was armed. "I was matching force with force, when
this man had pulled a gun on me and he pointed it at me and was fixing to shoot
me, which is self-defense."
No evidence showed Walker carried a gun and Ward's trial lawyers never raised
the issue.
"When I stepped in front of the jury, I said, 'I'm not going to be so callous
and look you in the face and say my client didn't kill this man,"' Davis said.
"He killed him but you have to understand why. These delusions he has caused
the situation."
Jurors rejected defense arguments for a life sentence.
Ward would be the 9th convicted killer in the U.S. to receive lethal injection
this year and the 5th in Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state.
(source: Associated Press)
NORTH CAROLINA:
State to pursue death penalty in killing of delivery driver
In a hearing Monday, the state said it will pursue the death penalty against
Jeremy Alexander Carter.
Carter, 21, of 761 Chestnut St., is charged with 1st-degree murder in the Oct.
11 shooting death of 30-year-old Bakri Khidir Mohamed Khidir.
Khidir was delivering food for Olivia's Italian Restaurant to 4224 Farlow Drive
before he was shot.
Khidir's employer drove to the house an hour later and found the deliveryman's
body next to his car.
Police would later say the delivery was made to a vacant house.
Investigators found a receipt for the order on the front porch. A window was
broken and the door to the house was unlocked, according to the search warrant.
Khidir's colleagues provided police with a phone number from the order, which
was traced to Carter, according to the document.
The following day Carter denied his involvement in Khidir's death to police,
but confirmed the telephone number was his, court records stated.
Carter also acknowledged living at the house until May.
(source: greensboro.com)
ALABAMA:
U.S. Supreme Court won't hear inmate's claim that Alabama's death sentence law
is unconstitutional
The U.S. Supreme Court today refused to review the case of an Alabama death row
inmate who challenged the constitutionality of the state's death sentencing
scheme in the wake of the court's ruling in January on a Florida case.
Without issuing an opinion the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request by attorneys
for Clayton Shanklin to review his challenge based on their ruling in Hurst v.
Florida.
It was the 1st Alabama death penalty appeal to reach the Supreme Court on this
issue since Hurst was decided on Jan. 12, according to a statement from Alabama
Attorney General Luther Strange. Alabama death row inmate Christopher Brooks
had tried to use the Florida decision, among other arguments, to hold off his
Jan. 21 execution. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, denied Brooks' appeals and
he was executed.
Attorney General Luther Strange said that the Supreme Court's decision to deny
Clayton Shanklin's request, "establishes, yet again, that Alabama capital
sentencing system is constitutional."
"As I have previously explained, the Court's decision about Florida law in
Hurst has no bearing on the constitutionality of Alabama's materially different
capital sentencing system," Strange stated in his statement. "It is time for
criminal defense lawyers to stop making specious arguments and for public
officials to recognize that Alabama's capital sentencing is constitutional
under current U.S. Supreme Court precedent."
Alabama's sentencing scheme in death penalty cases is the same as Florida's,
which was ruled unconstitutional last month by the U.S. Supreme Court, a number
of Alabama defense lawyers are arguing to get death sentences barred in their
cases.
The ink was hardly dry on the U.S. Supreme Court's Jan. 12 ruling in Hurst v.
Florida before lawyers around Alabama began filing motions seeking to bar the
death penalty for their clients facing capital murder charges because of the
similarities between the 2 states' capital punishment sentencing laws.
Judges around the state have mostly denied the arguments of those defense
lawyers. A few judges reserved rulings and only one, Jefferson County Circuit
Judge Tracie Todd, has ruled that Alabama's death sentencing scheme is
unconstitutional.
Todd had heard arguments from lawyers for capital murder defendants Benjamin
Acton, Terrell McMullin, Stanley Chatman, and Kenneth Billups.
Strange announced March 10 that his office had filed a petition for a writ of
mandamus asking the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to order Todd to vacate
her March 3 order.
Attorney General Luther Strange states the filing asserts the lower trial court
has no power to prevent the state from seeking the death penalty.
Strange said Florida's sentencing scheme is different.
"In the Florida case, the holding is that a jury must find the aggravating
factor in order to make someone eligible for the death penalty," according to
Strange's statement. "Alabama's system already requires the jury to do just
that. The jury must unanimously find an aggravating factor at either the guilt
or sentencing phase - such as when the murder was committed during a robbery, a
rape, or a kidnapping."
Strange and local district attorneys have also noted previously that the U.S.
Supreme Court specifically upheld Alabama's current system as constitutional in
1995. But a few current U.S. Supreme Court justices have stated in opinions
that it might be time for the court to reconsider.
Much of the criticism of Alabama's death sentencing scheme centers on a judge's
ability to override jury recommendations for either death or life without the
possibility of parole. The judges are elected, often on a platform of being
tough on crime, critics say. Alabama, Florida and Delaware are the only states
with such override laws, but judges in Alabama are the only ones in more than
16 years who have overridden jury recommendations of life without parole and
imposed death penalties.
Shanklin was convicted of capital murder and attempted murder, which he
committed during a home-invasion robbery in 2009 in Cordova. A jury in Walker
County Circuit Court recommended that Shanklin be sentenced to
life-without-parole. But the judge sentenced Shanklin to death because of his
long criminal history and the nature and circumstances of his crime, according
to the attorney general.
Shanklin, who is now on death row at Holman Correctional Facility, was
convicted of 1 count of capital murder for killing Michael Crumpton during the
course of a 1st-degree robbery, a 2nd count of capital murder for killing
Crumpton during the course of a 1st-degree burglary, and one count of attempted
murder in the shooting of Crumpton's wife on Oct. 11, 2009.
According to court records Shanklin's girlfriend had gone into the Crumpton's
apartment to buy marijuana while Shanklin waited in the car. Later Shanklin and
his cousin, Kevin Shanklin, returned to the apartment to rob the Crumptons.
Kevin Shanklin pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison, plus 10
years.
(source: al.com)
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