March 31
TEXAS:
How a death row inmate who's been in prison since he was 15 finds meaning in
daily life
When most of the 242 death row inmates living at the Allan B. Polunsky prison
look out their tiny, barred windows, they see razor wire, brick buildings, and
death.
But Robert Pruett, who's scheduled to be executed in 146 days, has a different
outlook on the bleak vista.
"Perspective is everything," he told me earlier this month. "I don't look out
the window and see all that. I look out and see those trees over there or the
sun or the clouds, you know, or the birds or the little spider."
"There's beauty in everything I experience," he said. "I just try to stay
present."
For the past 16 years, Pruett, 36, has been living in a form of solitary
confinement on Texas death row. He was convicted of murdering Texas prison
guard Daniel Nagle in 1999. Pruett says he didn't kill Nagle, and has
maintained his innocence throughout his time in prison. And there's no physical
evidence that ties Pruett to the killing - only witness testimony from other
inmates.
Now his lawyers are rushing to get new DNA testing approved on evidence that
they hope can prove his innocence. It's a race against time: His execution is
scheduled for Aug. 23. In less than 5 months, he could become another name on
the long list of inmates killed by the state of Texas, which has executed 536
people in the last 40 years, more than the next top 6 states combined.
The Polunsky unit is made up of squat, gray concrete buildings that look like
ugly barges floating in a sea of barbed wire fencing. Guards on horses roam a
grassy perimeter while others with sniper rifles watch from towers above.
On the sunny Wednesday afternoon that I visited him, the prison's entrance was
busy, with a stream of back-slapping guards and packages going in and out. One
officer sliced open a stack of Amazon Prime parcels with a boxcutter. (Inmates
can receive books.) A series of mechanized doors and fenced-in walkways stand
between the prisoners who live here and freedom. One door has the sign "No
hostages will exit here," in English and Spanish.
Inside the grim visiting room, inmates squeeze into little metal booths to meet
their guests. Thick glass separates them at all times - Pruett hasn't been
allowed to touch any of his family members or loved ones for 15 years.
"Especially when they're going to kill you, you'd think they'd let you hug your
mom," he said. "They're not going to let you do that."
He has close-cropped hair, a slight build, and a small goatee and beard.
Tattoos snake up his forearms, into his white prison uniform, which is tied in
the front. He speaks in a calm, easy-going manner, like someone who has thought
a lot about his past and is used to telling strangers about it.
"I sometimes think that maybe if they do execute me and later it's revealed
that I'm not the person who did it by some physical evidence being discovered
... maybe that's what would end the death penalty," he said. "I'm hoping I'm
not going to be that guy."
Pruett grew up poor on the ragged edges of the Houston sprawl, living with his
family in a trailer park in the suburb of Channel View. His father, Howard, was
in and out of prison, and Pruett started using drugs at a young age.
When Pruett was 15, his father stabbed and killed their next-door neighbor.
Prosecutors said the younger Pruett, who had gotten in a fistfight with the
neighbor earlier that night, was an accessory to murder. His father got life in
prison; Pruett got 99 years. He was charged as an adult.
As a 15-year-old kid living in the general population of the McConnell Unit in
Beeville, Texas, which had a reputation for being one of the most dangerous
institutions in the state, he had to fight to protect himself. He remembers
seeing inmates stabbed.
"It was like a war zone in a lot of ways," he said. "I think that there's a
better way to help kids grow up than throwing them in prison when they're 15
years old."
I believe we're all energy - it's in a constant state of transformation - and
to me, death, it's not the end of that process. - Robert Pruett
Pruett's life changed again on Dec. 17, 1999, when corrections officer Daniel
Nagle was found lying in his own blood in a prison office, stabbed to death
with a metal shank. There was no security camera footage, and because the
prison was severely understaffed, he was working alone at the time. But on top
of Nagle's body was a ripped-up discipline report naming Pruett. Earlier that
day, Nagle had given Pruett a violation for eating a peanut butter sandwich in
the prison hallway.
A few hours after the murder, with the prison on lockdown, officers moved
Pruett into special custody and told him he was being charged with murder.
"I did have trouble with the guy, we had a confrontation, but it was minor,"
Pruett said. According to him, he was nowhere close to the room where Nagle was
killed.
No physical or DNA evidence was found that tied Pruett to the murder. None of
his DNA or blood was found on Nagle, and none of Nagle's blood or DNA was found
on Pruett. The only physical evidence was a cut on Pruett's hand that could
have come from the shank; Pruett says he got it in a weightlifting accident
that day.
At trial, prosecutors presented a series of inmates who claimed they saw Pruett
commit the murder, some of whom offered conflicting testimony. All of them
received early parole or reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony.
The defense theory is that Nagle was planning to reveal that prison guards were
laundering drug money for inmates, and that someone involved in the scheme
murdered him to silence him. A month after Nagle's death, 4 guards at the
prison were charged with felony bribery for the money laundering.
But a jury didn't buy it, and Pruett was convicted of capital murder in April
2002.
At the time, DNA testing was far less advanced. In appeals and motions over the
last 15 years, Pruett's lawyers have been arguing for all the evidence to be
re-tested using the latest standards. New testing conducted last year
discovered DNA from an unknown person on the shank handle. The state says it
was likely placed there sometime in the last 17 years: Surprisingly, the murder
weapon has been sitting in a box in the county clerk's office, and reporters
for local TV news stations have been able to pick it up and handle it.
Pruett's lawyer, Jeff Newberry, at work at the Texas Innocence Network, which
represents clients who claim they're innocent and others facing execution.
First, the defense team wants to test the guard's clothes from the day of the
murder, which they believe might contain skin cells from the killer. Pruett's
DNA was not found on the clothes. The trial court judge denied the defense
team's request; the team has appealed.
Pruett's lawyers have also turned to the evidence tag taped to the handle of
the shank. On the sticky underside of that tag, DNA from the murderer's skin
cells is likely to be preserved. "That is the only area that is beyond dispute
that hasn't been tested, and that wouldn't have been contaminated," said Jeff
Newberry, Pruett's lawyer with the Texas Innocence Network, who has been
working on the case for the past 5 years. "That is what we're down to."
That's the absurdity of the death penalty: Whether this man lives or dies could
come down to the sticky side of a 2-inch evidence tag.
I asked Pruett how it felt to have his life in the hands of a judge.
"I would just hope they stay open and not lose their sense of humanity," he
said. "Sometimes I think they see so many cases, they hear so many, that they
just become desensitized to everything. There's real issues that could help
exonerate me, that could show I didn't kill that man, and I'd just hope that
they would look at that."
For the past 16 years, Pruett has lived in a form of solitary confinement. It's
just him in the cell, 23 hours a day, but he can still talk with inmates in
neighboring cells. He gets a single daily hour or recreation, in an
open-ceilinged yard where inmates can run around and shoot baskets. Once,
Pruett helped organize a competition among inmates that they called "Death Row
Idol," in which they sang songs or told jokes or read poetry. The least
talented would be "voted off the gurney."
Making friends can be painful, though. "They've killed almost 300 people since
I've been here, a lot of them I grew close to, got to love and know," he said.
Pruett spends hours reading, writing, and listening to music, sports, or the
news on his radio. He sends letters back and forth with pen pals from around
the world, as well as family members. He likes books about physics, religion,
philosophy, and poetry.
So far, he has read religious texts from Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity,
Judaism, and Islam. He's fascinated by the connections he sees between the
science and the mysticism. "When you start reading about quantum physics, it's
like some of the stuff they're talking about is right here in my Bhagavad
Gita," he said. Even though he's locked away, Pruett is surprisingly connected
to what's going on in the world outside. He listens to NPR, and pays close
attention to politics.
"I just can't believe that America would elect Donald Trump, I just don't think
we want that guy," he said. "If we do, then we ain't gotta worry about the
death penalty, there might be some nuclear penalties."
The recent death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was big news among his
fellow death row inmates. Many are hoping that with a more liberal justice on
the bench, the court might declare the death penalty unconstitutional, or at
least give a more critical eye to how it is enforced. Last year, Justices
Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a dissent that they believe it
is "highly likely" that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment ban on
cruel and unusual punishment.
"When we heard Scalia had passed, a lot of my friends and a lot of the people
on death row, their initial reaction was excitement," Pruett said. "But I felt
a little bad about that, and immediately I was like, I shouldn't be excited, a
man just died and he has a family. Even though he was not a very nice man."
The politics of the court aren't abstract to Pruett. In fact, Scalia's last act
as justice was to allow the execution of Gustavo Garcia, a fellow inmate at
Polunsky - and a good friend of Pruett's.
In his time on death row, Pruett has been scheduled to die 5 separate times.
Each time, his execution was set and then postponed, either for procedural
reasons or because of orders by judges.
The most dramatic was on April 28, 2015, when he came within hours of being put
to death.
After a morning of last visits with friends and family, officers loaded Pruett
into the windowless "death van" and drove him to the nearby town of Huntsville,
where all Texas executions take place. He was allowed to meet with spiritual
counselors and eat a last meal. "It was just 10 feet between me and the death
chamber," he said.
With 2 1/2 hours to go before the execution hour of 6 p.m., Pruett got a call
from Newberry and his legal team. A judge had ordered that the execution be
postponed to allow new DNA testing on all of the evidence in the case.
"I wanted to be the first to tell you, today is not the day you're going to be
executed," Newberry told him, as other lawyers cheered in the background.
"I smiled a little bit," Pruett recalled with a grin.
If death row inmates do get legal relief, it's not unusual for it to come at
the last minute. In a way, the suspense is itself an agonizing form of
punishment.
"That day was the greatest challenge of my life, just to try to stay centered,"
he said. "I think everything that I've learned before sort of built me up for
that day."
Throughout our discussion, I couldn't help but wonder how Pruett managed to
stay sane. Going into prison at age 15, living in a dangerous environment, and
then spending the next 16 years in solitary confinement - and he still seems
even-tempered and well-adjusted.
He stresses that he's been able to keep himself together by learning to be
present. "99 % of the people back here, they're living with the pain of their
past, or they're worried about what's going to happen next," he said. "I try to
stay now, in the moment, and it really works for me."
Part of that comes from his study of religion and quantum physics. He thinks
about the idea of parallel universes, about how maybe, in another universe,
there's a Robert Pruett whose dad never committed murder, who never ended up in
prison, who is out there traveling the world. But for someone who's spent half
his life behind bars - who hasn't tasted freedom for 20 years - well, that's
not easy.
Lately, he's been thinking more about reincarnation. "I believe we're all
energy - it's in a constant state of transformation - and to me, death, it's
not the end of that process," he said. In another life, "I might be a golden
eagle or something, that's what I'm hoping for."
Of course, he would rather be free. If he gets out someday, he said, he would
want to be a counselor, helping kids in the prison system. But he's not focused
on that future. When he knows his days are numbered, each second is worth much
more.
Now that he's within months of his execution date, he's learned the value of
being alive. "Everything that's happened to me since I was a kid, it's helped
me get to a place where I can learn to love and appreciate life more," he said.
Especially valuable are those rare chances he has to connect with nature: When
he can watch the birds soar past his window. Or walk out into the recreation
yard and breathe fresh air, feel a little rain on his face. Or, even better,
when he gets to see the stars.
Usually, the huge stadium lights that are focused on the prison drown the
night. But one evening a couple weeks ago was an exception. "The other night I
was in the rec yard, and the lights were broken in there," he said. "It was
pitch black dark, so I was able to see the stars for a minute. I could see
Orion's belt and his shoulder. It was crazy."
For a few minutes, he and another prisoner in the yard lay on the hard ground,
staring up, letting their eyes slowly adjust to the darkness. He didn't think
about his past, or about his future. Instead, he let himself be filled with the
beauty of the night sky.
"The other guy, he wanted to talk," Pruett remembered, a wistful smile on his
face. "I said hey, a moment of silence. Let's enjoy this. This ain't every
day."
(source: fusion.net)
******************
Rogers man indicted on capital murder charge in baby's death
A 27-year-old Rogers man was indicted today by a Bell County grand jury on a
capital murder charge in connection with the July 26, 2015, death of an
11-month-old girl.
Jeffrey Johnson faces capital murder in the death of 11-month-old Hannah Rose
Davis.
Bell County District Attorney Henry Garza said no determination has been made
on whether his office will seek the death penalty against Johnson.
It was the 2nd indictment for Johnson in connection with Hannah's death. He was
previously indicted for the alleged aggravated sexual assault of a child less
than 6 years old.
(source: Temple Daily Telegram)
***********
Death Watch: Too Mentally Ill to Die?----Should the bar on executing mentally
retarded offenders be extended to the mentally ill?
Pablo Lucio Vasquez goes to the gurney Wednesday, April 6, for the 1998 murder
of 12-year-old David Cardenas. On April 18 in the border town of Donna, Texas,
20-year-old Vasquez was walking home from a party with his cousin Andy Chapa
and Cardenas when Vasquez picked up a pipe and hit Cardenas over the head, then
cut his throat. Vasquez and Chapa took Cardenas' body to a field, where they
scalped, dismembered, and further mutilated it. The child's body was found
under a pile of aluminum panels.
During a videotaped confession, Vasquez admitted to consuming blood from
Cardenas' wounds. He also told police he was drunk and high on cocaine when he
killed Cardenas, and that "the devil was telling me to take [Cardenas' head]
away from him." A ring and necklace taken from the victim were used as evidence
to argue that the killing took place during a robbery, grounds for a capital
murder charge.
After being sentenced to death, Vasquez filed a petition for a writ of habeas
corpus, arguing that he was both mentally retarded and mentally ill, and
therefore incompetent to be executed. Federal Judge Ricardo H. Hinojosa denied
the petition in 2014.
On Jan. 21 of this year, 6 weeks after a Hidalgo County judge issued Vasquez's
death warrant, his attorney James Keegan filed a series of motions in a Hidalgo
County court seeking a stay of execution to allow the court to consider whether
killing Vasquez would violate the Eighth Amendment. Denied there, Keegan
presented U.S. District Court Judge Randy Crane with the same argument on March
16. The crux of the claim is that Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court case
barring the execution of the mentally retarded, should be extended to prevent
the death penalty for the mentally ill. "Vasquez is competent to be executed,
and is not herein arguing to the contrary," Keegan wrote in the federal filing.
"He understands he is scheduled for execution, and he knows why. However, he is
mentally ill - seriously mentally ill."
In her March 22 report and recommendation to the district court, U.S.
Magistrate Judge Dorina Ramos recommended that Vasquez's claims should be
denied for failing to make the argument that Vasquez is in fact so mentally ill
as to be unaware of his punishment and pending fate, a key tenet of any Atkins
claim. "While there is substantial case law holding that a person who is
incompetent to be executed may not be executed, Vasquez points to no case law
holding that a person who is competent may not be executed because he is
mentally ill," wrote Ramos. "The Fifth Circuit has repeatedly held that the
Eighth Amendment does not bar the execution of a mentally ill but competent
inmate."
A ruling on the motion remained pending with Judge Crane as this story went to
press. Vasquez, if his sentence is carried out, will be the 6th Texan executed
this year, and the 536th since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
(source: Austin Chronicle)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Pennsylvania Supreme Court upholds death sentence for Indiana County man who
killed 3 relatives
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has affirmed the death penalty for an Indiana
County man convicted of 1st-degree murder in the shooting deaths of his mother,
sister and aunt.
A Westmoreland County jury in 2013 convicted Kevin Murphy, 55, of shooting
Doris Murphy, 69; Kris Murphy, 43; and Edith Tietge, 81, at Ferguson Glass in
Loyalhanna on April 23, 2009. The 3 women worked at the family business, which
Kevin Murphy owned.
Murphy used a .22-caliber revolver to shoot each of the women in the head
because they disapproved of his romantic relationship with a married woman and
his desire to have her live at the family home, police said.
The jury imposed the death penalty for Doris Murphy's killing and imposed life
sentences in the deaths of Kris Murphy and Tietge.
In his appeal, Murphy argued prosecutors failed to prove he was the killer and
the verdicts were against the weight of the evidence.
In a 14-page opinion released Wednesday, 5 Supreme Court justices disagreed.
"Viewed in its totality, we find, the Commonwealth presented sufficient
evidence to enable a reasonable jury to find all elements of the crimes of
1st-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt," they said in an opinion authored
by Chief Justice Thomas Saylor.
Jurors imposed the death penalty based on evidence Murphy "deliberately and
maliciously" killed his relatives, according to the opinion, and prosecutors
"plainly established ... aggravating circumstances found by the jury, given the
multiple killings involved."
In addition, the justices rejected Murphy's contention his statements to police
should have been excluded from trial because he was under the influence of
Valium he was given while undergoing medical treatment for a panic attack.
Although a defense expert testified at a suppression hearing that the drug
rendered Murphy incapable of making voluntary statements, the justices said
numerous police officers described him as alert and coherent during the
interview.
Murphy failed to prove a third argument, the justices said, in which he said
the death sentence should be commuted to life in prison without parole because
most of the evidence against him was circumstantial.
"Appellant has not developed his argument adequately for this court to
contemplate granting the requested relief" Saylor wrote in the opinion. "He ...
cites to no authority preventing or limiting the use of circumstantial evidence
in any phase of capital proceedings, or otherwise requiring more or greater
proof than that required to satisfy the 'beyond a reasonable doubt standard
when circumstantial evidence is presented in any phase.'"
Justices Max Baer, Debra Todd, Christine Donohue and Kevin M. Dougherty joined
in the opinion. Justice David N. Wecht did not participate in the proceedings.
**************
Allegheny County judge scolds prosecutors in double-murder case
An Allegheny County judge denied prosecutors a slew of health, educational,
psychological and juvenile records for a double-murder suspect, and he ordered
investigators to return any evidence seized from the man's holding cell in the
Allegheny County Jail.
Investigators had asked another judge to sign a warrant allowing them to search
the holding cell of Theodore Smedley, 20, of Troy Hill, a move that incensed
Common Pleas Judge Joseph K. Williams III.
"Why would you go to another judge on my case? Everything you took, return it
to him," Williams said. "Anything in this case comes to me."
Smedley is charged with fatally shooting Jamarow Trowery, 36, and Rashad
Freeman, 18. District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. is seeking the death
penalty.
Smedley pleaded guilty in December to a separate slaying in 2014 in Troy Hill
and was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison.
Defense attorney J. Richard Narvin said Smedley's records weren't relevant to
the homicides and would become relevant only if a jury convicts him of
first-degree murder and has to decide whether he receives the death penalty.
Assistant District Attorney Brian Catanzarite said those records would be
useful to the district attorney's office so it would know whether to remove the
death penalty from consideration. Prosecutors must decide at a formal
arraignment, early in a case's progression through the court system, whether
they will seek the death penalty.
Williams denied the motion.
Smedley's trial is scheduled to begin June 1.
(source for both: triblive.com)
***************
PA Photographer photoshopped images for woman facing death penalty
Images of 2 year old and her mother have a lot of people outraged on the
Internet. The photos show a woman with a child she allegedly beat to death
appearing as an angel at her grave.
Jeanie Kassandra Ditty, 23, and Zachary Earl Keefer, 32, both of Fayetteville,
are charged with 1st-degree murder and negligent child abuse inflicting serious
bodily injury, in the death of toddler Macey Ditty.
Police say they were called when Macy Grace was taken to a hospital covered in
bruises with life threatening injuries. She died on December 4, 2015.
One month later, Ditty reached Pennsylvania photographer Sunny Jo and asked for
images depicting little Macy Grace reading, walking and sitting with her
daughter.
Jo produces hundreds of similar requests for parents as part of his One More
Time series. When he asked how the young girl died, Ditty said her daughter
choked on a banana when she had a stomach ache.
Jo confirmed with FOX 29 that Ditty showed him photos of Macy Grace she wanted
to use. She then said she wanted a picture of them reading her favorite book,
The Giving Tree, together.
Jo said he could work with it, and started taking the pictures. After finishing
the shoot, he decided not to charge Ditty because of the tragic circumstances.
He later discovered the tragic circumstances as people shared the story on
Facebook.
Despite the backlash, the photographer says he doesn't have any regrets about
doing the shoot.
"The reason I am open and talking is because this girl was killed brutally and
she doesn't have a voice. This whole thing is a tribute for Macy Grace," he
told Daily Mail.
Ditty, a soldier stationed at Fort Bragg, was arrested on the evening March 24
when the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Macy Grace's
death a homicide.
Police later charged Keefer. The suspects were in a relationship, according to
investigators.
(source: WTXF news)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
In death sentence challenge, attorneys allege solicitor uses race in picking
juries
Hoping to stop the execution of a man who slashed, sodomized and strangled a
James Island resident a decade ago, defense attorneys will argue that 9th
Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson eliminated potential jurors from the trial
and from other cases she has prosecuted because they were black.
Greenwood lawyer Charles Grose said he will unveil research showing a pattern
of such conduct during Wilson's career when he requests a new trial for William
O. Dickerson Jr., a black man convicted of murder, kidnapping and sexual
assault.
But Wilson said studies like Grose's tend to be faulty and are often frowned
upon by courts. She deflected his findings as untrue and noted that judges have
ruled in her favor when the issues arose during past trials.
"I am extremely confident in my record for selecting juries and in working with
people of all races, in every context," she said. "These types of allegations
are common, if not routine, in death penalty litigation, and it's important to
consider their source."
Death penalty cases tend to bring out a no-holds-barred approach to lawyering.
To exhaust all arguments before their clients can be executed, attorneys often
examine racial factors in how jurors were chosen, experts said.
Earlier in Dickerson's bid for post-conviction relief, Grose also aired
allegations of misconduct and corruption against opposing attorneys from the
state and a judge whose rulings didn't go his way. At one point, the judge
admonished him for what he called baseless actions and labeled Grose as
untrustworthy, documents stated.
The latest accusations against Wilson come in a year when Charleston's top
prosecutor faces 2 of the most significant murder trials in modern state
history - both of which have racial connotations. In July, she will prosecute
Dylann Roof, the white supremacist charged with killing 9 black parishioners at
Emanuel AME Church. In October, she will seek a conviction against Michael
Slager, the white North Charleston police officer who fatally shot Walter
Scott, a black man.
Grose said he would file the supporting research Thursday, the first of 2 days
of hearings at the Richland County courthouse in Columbia. Judge G. Thomas
Cooper will hear arguments from him and Senior Assistant Attorney General
Melody Brown, who is fending off the challenge that seeks a new trial for
Dickerson, 39.
His 2009 trial determined that he kidnapped Gerard Roper in March 2006. He cut
Roper 200 times, knocked out his teeth and sexually violated the man with 2
objects before strangling him.
After he was convicted and sentenced to death at the jury's recommendation, a
traditional appeal failed. His request for post-conviction relief that started
in 2012 is 1 of his few remaining options. Thousands of pages of legal
arguments, maneuvers and orders have accumulated in his file at the Charleston
County courthouse.
The allegation of racial discrimination during jury selection is just one
argument Grose has used. He once asked for public funding to investigate it,
but when Judge Edgar Dickson denied the money, Grose asked the jurist to recuse
himself from the case. He based his motion on several grounds: that the judge
and Wilson both grew up in Williamsburg County, that the judge's clerk and the
Attorney General's Office conspired to craft court orders favorable to the
state and that the judge sought to uphold Dickerson's verdict because it would
bolster Wilson's re-election campaign.
The judge called Grose unprofessional and antagonistic, and chalked up his
courtroom arguments to bizarre theatrics. The judge, though, chose to recuse
himself for his own reasons: that Grose's actions had left behind such a sour
taste in his mouth.
"Grose made false, misleading and slanderous accusations ... without any regard
for truth," the judge wrote. "An attorney who willingly advances his cause
using such methods cannot be trusted."
Since then, Grose said he and attorney Elizabeth Franklin-Best have gathered
transcripts and demographics of potential jurors in several of Wilson's past
cases. They commissioned law professors to study them. Some black people did
serve on Dickerson's jury, Grose said, but several were eliminated. "During Mr.
Dickerson's trial, there was a motion made to question Solicitor Wilson's
strikes of African-American jurors," Grose said. "We're going back and
re-examining those reasons."
Using what's called a peremptory strike, attorneys can remove a certain number
of people from a jury pool without stating a reason. If racial discrimination
is suspected as that reason, though, opposing attorneys can object. A 1986 U.S.
Supreme Court ruling laid out those rules.
In Dickerson's case, 23 of the 31 people who made it to voir dire, the
question-and-answer procedure designed to elicit jurors' biases, were white. 8
were black. Wilson struck 1 white juror and 4 black jurors. But a judge found
her reasons - the candidates' criminal records or unemployment histories - to
be race-neutral.
In that and other cases, Grose said in past court filings, the percentage of
blacks eliminated by Wilson was much higher than it was for whites. He called
the statistics "striking."
The attorney also highlighted another case in which Wilson struck a potential
juror who had dozed off and refused to swear an oath. But Wilson also noted
that the juror had dreadlocks in his hair and subscribed to a Rastafarian
lifestyle - comments that drew a defense lawyer's challenge.
Wilson argued at the time, though, that white people can have dreadlocks and be
Rastafarian, a belief popularized in Jamaica, just as black people can.
In this week's hearings, Wilson said she is sure that the state's attorney will
successfully highlight flaws in Grose's research.
"I am confident that the court will uphold the many rulings of others who have
already decided these issues in my favor," she said.
******************
Jurors can be stricken from pool for any reason other than race, sex
Trial lawyers can use almost any reason to have a candidate removed from a jury
pool - other than race or sex.
University of South Carolina law professor Kenneth Gaines said murder cases in
South Carolina allow for up to 5 jurors to be dismissed by the prosecution
during jury selection and 10 by the defense. State statute dictates the number
of "juror strikes" each attorney is allowed, which is determined by the
seriousness of the crime and number of defendants, he said.
In death sentence challenge, attorneys allege solicitor uses race in picking
juries
"There are peremptory strikes and then there are challenges," he said. "You can
strike a juror for any reason other than race or sex. There are limited
peremptory strikes. There's an unlimited number of challenges (an attorney can
raise) for cause, which is an inability for the juror to be fair and impartial
in the case. And they will be automatically excluded."
A challenge can be raised for any reason other than race or gender, Gaines
said, and does not have to be explained in court.
Gaines said that if an attorney believes there is discrimination in dismissing
jury candidates based on race or sex, the opponent can raise a "Batson motion,"
which triggers a hearing by the court.
The Batson motion refers to the 1986 U.S. Supreme Court case Batson v.
Kentucky, where the court ruled that jurors could not be eliminated based on
race. The law has since been expanded to include sex.
The motion typically is made during the jury selection process, but also can be
addressed after sentencing, especially in a death penalty case, Gaines said.
"Death penalty cases are always different," he said. "Attorneys can challenge
certain things at any time when contesting a death penalty case."
Death penalty cases are more complicated because jurors also must be "death
penalty qualified," Gaines said.
"A juror can't be completely opposed to the death penalty," he said. "They have
to be able to tell the court that in the proper case, if the evidence so
indicates, they could vote for the death penalty if necessary."
(source for both: Post and Courier)
GEORGIA----impending execution
Parole Board delays decision Joshua Bishop clemency until Thursday
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles decided late Wednesday afternoon it
would take the night to consider the clemency petition of Joshua Bishop, who is
scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. Thursday.
Earlier a judge in the county that is home to Georgia's death row has denied
Bishop's appeal so now his lawyers are turning to the Georgia Supreme Court .
The decision from a judge in Butts County, where the Georgia Diagnostic and
Classification Prison is located, came as the State Board of Pardons and
Paroles was hearing from those who want Bishop's lethal injection carried out
as scheduled.
By then, the board had already heard Bishop's advocates' pleas for mercy. Their
arguments focused on his abusive childhood, his co-defendant's much lighter
sentence and the faith in God that he found in prison
The board has 3 options: commuted Bishop's sentence to life without parole,
deny clemency or issue a 90-day stay so the 5 members will have more time to
consider his petition.
Whatever the board decides, said attorney Wilson DuBose, the 41-year-old Bishop
is "at peace with his life."
"He (Bishop) is quite conscious of what's going on around him," Wilson said,
reflecting on his visit with Bishop on Tuesday at the prison near Jackson. "He
is scared. But he is at peace."
Bishop was sentenced to die for the Baldwin County murder of 35-year-old
Leverett Morrison. On June 25, 1994, Bishop, Morrison and Mark Braxley spent
the afternoon drinking at a bar and by evening they were smoking crack cocaine
at Braxley's trailer.
Morrison had fallen asleep when Bishop, then 19, and Braxley, 36, tried to get
Morrison's car keys out of his pants pocket. Morrison woke and there was a
struggle. It ended with the Bishop and Braxley beating Morrison with a curtain
rod and later leaving his body between 2 dumpsters near Braxley???s trailer.
Though he confessed to killing Morrison - and told police about another murder
he committed 2 weeks earlier - Bishop still went to trial. Braxley, who also
helped Bishop murder of Ricky Lee Wills 2 weeks before Morrison died, pleaded
guilty to murder and avoided the death penalty. Braxley is serving a life
sentence with the possibility of parole, and he is now eligible for clemency.
"You've got 2 murders in a brutal fashion," said Stephen Bradley, the district
attorney in the Ocmulgee Circuit which includes Baldwin County.
Bishop's lawyers also focused on "the disparity of the sentences," claiming
Braxley was the instigator.
"This started with Bishop," said Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills, who was
with the Baldwin County Sheriff's Office when the murder occurred.
But he added, "I think both of them need the death penalty."
Wilson said several of the 14 witnesses who spoke on Bishop's behalf this
morning detailed his troubled childhood. In his petition for clemency, the
lawyers witnesses described Bishop's life with a mother who was addicted to
drugs and alcohol and often homeless, years of beatings at the hands of his
mother's boyfriends and Bishop's despair at not knowing who of 3 men was his
father.
Bradley, who was one of the 2 prosecutors who won the conviction against
Bishop, said the Morrison's 3 adult children attended the meeting with the
board and 2 of them spoke.
(source: Atlanta Journal Constitution)
**************
Georgia to execute man convicted in beating death
Georgia is set to execute a death row inmate convicted of beating another man
to death in 1994. Joshua Bishop is scheduled to die at 7 p.m. Thursday at the
state prison in Jackson by injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital.
The 41-year-old inmate was convicted in the June 1994 killing of Leverett
Morrison in Milledgeville.
Bishop, Morrison and Mark Braxley had been drinking and smoking crack on June
24, 1994. Prosecutors say Bishop tried to steal car keys from Morrison, who was
sleeping, and he and Braxley beat Morrison to death when he woke up.
Bishop and Braxley dumped Morrison's body between 2 trash bins and burned his
Jeep.
A jury sentenced Bishop to die after a trial in 1996. Braxley pleaded guilty
and is serving a life sentence.
(source: Associated Press)
FLORIDA:
Edward Zakrezewski nears 20th anniversary on Florida's death row
20 years ago today a jury decided by a 7-5 margin to recommend that Edward
Zakrzewski die for the murders of his wife, Sylvia and 7-year-old son, Edward.
The same jury also recommended that Zakrzewski receive a life sentence for
killing his daughter, Sylvia, who was 5.
He remains on death row to this day, despite, according to Florida Supreme
Court documents, having exhausted all federal and state appeals available to
him.
"What is the purpose of the death penalty when you have a crime that heinous
and horrible, the facts are clear who did it, and the person is still on death
row 20 years later?" asked Okaloosa County Sheriff Larry Ashley, who had been
with the Sheriff's Office for 4 years when the Zakrzewski crime occurred.
"The death penalty is supposed to be a deterrent, but if justice is not certain
and not swift, I'm not sure it's a deterrent," Ashley said.
Zakrzewski killed his wife and children on June 9, 1994 inside the family home.
He used a crowbar to bludgeon and strangle his wife, then called his children
one after the other into a bathroom, where he hacked them to death with a new
machete.
He fled to a remote island in Hawaii after the triple homicide and hid out
there for 4 months before being captured.
Zakrezewski eventually confessed to his crimes.
Young Anna was the last to die, and probably was killed after viewing the body
of her brother. After the sentence, prosecuting attorney Bobby Elmore
questioned the jury's decision not to recommend death in Anna's killing.
"I'm confused why he got the most mercy for the homicide I considered the
worst," Elmore told a reporter after the recommendations were announced.
Circuit Judge G. Robert Barron overruled the jury on April 19, 1996 and
sentenced Zakrzewski to death for all 3 of the murders.
An Appeals Court affirmed Barron's decision.
Zakrzewski has been on death row since his conviction and, according to a
report filed in January by the clerk of the Florida Supreme Court, is 1 of 141
death row inmates who has exhausted state and federal appeals of their
sentences.
(source: nwfdailynews.com)
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