april 24
TEXAS:
Letters from death row: Inmates tell of life on the inside and awaiting the
death penalty
Charles 'Chuck' Thompson and his close circle of friends know how they are
going to die.
But Thompson, 45, and his mates aren't psychics and they're not suffering
terminal illnesses - they're inmates on death row.
"I have friends, some died, each year I loose um (sic)," Thompson told
news.com.au.
"We share (and) treat each other like comrades - like soldiers would I guess."
The inmates or "friends" that Thompson, a double-murderer, refers to are a
mixture of society's most depraved human beings: convicted serial killers,
murderers and paedophiles.
But the tables have turned on them and they are now the ones condemned to
death, the most severe punishment enforceable by law in the US.
Thompson is among a handful of inmates on death row in maximum security prisons
throughout the USA who has corresponded exclusively with news.com.au via a
series of handwritten letters over several months to provide insight into the
reality of awaiting execution.
Thompson was convicted and twice sentenced to death over the 1998 murders of
his ex-girlfriend Dennise Hayslip, 39, and her new boyfriend Darren Keith Cain,
30. He later threatened to have the state's witnesses assassinated from behind
bars.
"It's all a blur really," Thompson told news.com.au of committing the murders.
"I feel remorse yes. I never wanted this to happen."
Thompson has been on death row on death row in Livingston, about 120 kms
northeast of Houston, Texas for 17.5 years but said he doesn't fear death.
"I do not worry about death, dying is easy ... you lay down, get a shot and go
to sleep." Thompson told news.com.au.
"I fully 100 % understand the whole execution process. It is very sterile, like
a medical procedure.
"I do not think about getting killed but I have had the dream all of us do:
snake bite, injected, held down electrocuted.
"It's living in this conundrum in an enigma that's hard."
Thompson lives out his days locked in an 8x10 "bland, no frills, cement,
steal-cold cell". The cell is painted white and fitted out with just the bare
essentials including a toilet and sink, a desk mounted to a wall and a "bunk
along the back wall". The inmates are only allowed out of their cells to roam
controlled sections of the prison grounds for about two hours every few days,
according to Thompson.
"Nothing is provided to us but jumpsuit, boxers, sock (sic), state shoes," he
said.
According to Thompson, inmates start each day bright and early on death row.
"This place comes alive at 5.20am & shuts down 11pm," he wrote.
"So I will get up after my morning show(s), maybe a movie - super natural ...
read write letters. Work on appeal, case networking fund raising."
Like many criminals, Thompson claims he is innocent, and spends a considerable
amount of time working on appeals.
There's not much else to do on death row.
"I spend my days reading - Ready Player One (is) the best book I've read in
years - or listening to TV on radio," Thompson told news.com.au.
"Death row has no TV's to watch. But we can listen and DO! I like GRIM. Love my
sci fi horror shows. Before grim (sic) it was Smallville."
"I follow the usual guy stuff."
Items can be purchased from the prison shop. Some of the most popular items
include a radio ($20), fan ($22) and a night light ($10). Thompson has his eye
on a $225 typewriter.
While the "state food sucks (because it has) no taste (and) no type of
preparation put into it".
"Commissary is a must we live on it," Thompson wrote.
Thompson said he wasn't scared of being locked up with some of America's most
dangerous criminals.
"Some are mellow, a few are hard headed (and) will never learn," he said of his
fellow death row inmates.
"Some have the same old issues problems that led them to coming here; scams,
conman ways, "GAME" hustlers, players.
"In general they are (a) laid back motley crew - very diverse."
Thompson said the only thing he feared was "God".
"As a believer, I fear nothing on 2 legs," he wrote.
"I believe we go before our maker and get judged - most go to heaven (when they
die)."
Thompson doesn't believe that he will be executed, despite being handed down
the sentence twice following an appeal.
"I do not believe that I'll be killed," he said.
"I do not accept it as my fate nor reality. Odd as it sounds, I work my behind
off and really believe I will make it off death row."
Thompson's execution date has not yet been set.
Most of the inmates who are given the death penalty spend decades on death row
until all of their avenues of appeal are exhausted and they are ultimately
executed.
The primary method used to put inmates to death in the US is lethal injection.
In some states, a minority are electrocuted via an electric chair, gas chamber
of firing squad if the drugs required for lethal injection are unavailable,
according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
As of January 21 this year, there were 2943 inmates on death row in the U.S.
Convicted killer Rick Rhoades, 51, is on death row in Livingston, Texas, for
the sickening double murder of 2 brothers.
Rhoades entered the home of the men while they slept and bludgeoned them to
death with a steel bar and a butcher knife before robbing one of them on
September 13, 1991.
"I've been in here over 24 years now," Rhoades wrote to news.com.au from death
row.
There's no computer or internet access on death row but many of the inmates,
including Rhoades, are registered on a website for American-based prisoners
looking for friendship, penpals and even love.
"The internet and usage is a little unknown to me. I know I'm on the internet
some from people who have told me," Rhoades said.
"I've had the bad boy mentality for most of my life but I'm reformed ... or at
the least, I'm on the road to a softer version.
"Some days are dark and heavy and I've grown lonely and tired of the months and
years of solitude.
"I like sports and I'm a voracious reader ... I live in almost total isolation,
but I'm still mentally and physically fit."
Several of the death row inmates who corresponded with news.com.au revealed
that they are often contacted by "love interests", despite having murdered
former girlfriends, wives and the new partners of ex-lovers.
What happens to us when we die?
That's a question which plagues the mind of convicted killer and death row
inmate Bryan Hall every day.
Hall was convicted over the brutal murder of his former friend Brad Flamm who
he tortured and mutilated at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas, in 2009.
A jury heard that Hall pummelled Mr Flamm with his fists, strangled him with a
necktie, beat him in the head with a rock and paint bucket and slit his throat
twice. He then hid the victim's body under bushes near loading docks.
Local media reported that Hall "passed a grim look to family and friends, then
shook his head up and down" upon being sentenced to death.
"I spent 4 years in County jail waiting for trial and the rest of the time I
have been here on death row (in Ely State Prison, Nevada)," Hall told
news.com.au.
"My 1st 9 months was spent in solitary confinement. They do this, they say, to
ensure that I wouldn't be a trouble maker."
Hall said he was then "formally introduced" to death row and "placed in a group
of 12 that comes out together for a couple of hours a day".
"Now that my daily routine has been established ... I wrestle with constant
remorse for making so many mistakes in life," he wrote.
"I have spent considerable time tracing back through my life's timeline
attempting to figure out where and why it all went wrong."
Hall is a father to 2 young girls who he has left to grow up knowing that the
person who brought them into the world is also a murderer.
"I have 2 young daughters who I'm still "Daddy" to," Hall wrote.
"So I do my all to remain an active part of their lives."
Prosecutors described the killer as having a "violent jealous streak" but Hall
told news.com.au that death row has "awakened a spiritual hunger within (him)".
He said he passes the time in his cell reading books to ponder some of life's
biggest questions, including; "what happens to us when we die? Is there a
purpose for our individual lives in this world? (And) Who/what is God?"
Hall's execution date has not yet been set but chances are he might have an
answer to his questions sooner, rather than later.
(source: news.com.au)
VIRGINIA:
Cloaking the Death Penalty in Secrecy is Bad Policy
When the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sides with
Republicans in the General Assembly against Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe,
you can't help but take notice.
That's exactly what happened in last week's veto session in Richmond when the
House of Delegates took up McAuliffe's amendments to a bill that would have
restored the use of the electric chair as a means of carrying out the death
penalty. In recent years, states have had extreme difficulty purchasing the
components of the 3-drug mixture used in executions by lethal injections. Drug
companies have stopped selling the drugs to states for use in executions,
forcing states either to end capital punishment altogether or resort to
outdated methods of execution.
In the 2015 Assembly session, McAuliffe, working with Senate Minority Leader
Dick Saslaw of Northern Virginia, tried to pass legislation that would allow
the state to purchase the needed drugs from so-called compounding pharmacies
and to do so in total secrecy to shield the companies from any bad publicity.
Though the Virginia Senate passed the bill, Republicans in the House of
Delegates shut down the effort, largely out of concern for the secrecy that
would surround the process.
This year, the Assembly sent McAuliffe legislation that would make
electrocution the backup method of execution if the needed drugs ever became
totally unavailable on the open market.
And that's where things got interesting.
Rather than sign or veto the bill outright, McAuliffe chose to gut it and
essentially copy and paste the text of the failed 2015 bill. Executions by
lethal injection would continue in Virginia under his "amendment," with the
state empowered to purchase the drugs in utter secrecy.
The ACLU, and many Republicans, vehemently argued against wrapping the
transactions in secrecy.
Drugs purchased from compounding pharmacies have been found to be at the root
of several horrifically botched executions in the past couple of years.
The worst year was 2014, leading up to McAuliffe's failed efforts in the 2015
Assembly to OK secrecy-shrouded purchase of execution drugs. In Arizona,
convicted murderer Joseph Rudolph Wood III took almost 2 hours to die after
injection; a media witness wrote he gasped for air more than 600 times, saying
he looked "like a fish on shore gulping for air." In Oklahoma, killer Michael
Wilson told his executioners his body felt as if it were on fire from the
inside as drugs were pumped into him. Ohio executed murderer Dennis McGuire
using an untested 2-drug combination; he took 25 minutes to die, gasping for
air all the while.
Public reaction to these and other problematic executions was swift and strong.
Support for capital punishment dropped in several polls when details became
public.
When House Republicans stopped secrecy efforts in 2015, it was the broadside
against the Virginia Freedom of Information Act that drew their ire. Del. Rick
Morris, a Republican from Carrollton, was blunt: "I support the death penalty,
[but] the people ought to know how the government transacts its business."
Del. James LeMunyon, another Northern Virginia Republican who's a staunch FOIA
defender, said the introduction of such total secrecy into the process would
"blow a hole" in FOIA solely "for the convenience of people inside government."
This year, McAuliffe used the electric chair bill to box House Republicans into
a corner.
Initially, the House rejected the governor's amendments on a 51-47 vote. Del.
Jackson Miller, a Manassas Republican and the bill's sponsor, urged his
colleagues to reconsider. The amended bill, he said, wasn't perfect, but
McAuliffe was adamant: Accept his amendments or he would veto the original
bill, effectively ending capital punishment in Virginia.
Whatever your opinion of capital punishment is, the imposition of total secrecy
is completely counter to the concept of open, transparent government. The
public needs to be completely certain that business conducted in its name and
on its behalf is above board and carried out properly. And there is no more
serious business than when the state takes the life of a heinous criminal.
We strongly doubt this is the last we'll hear of the issue in Virginia. We hope
capital punishment supporters, realizing the need to be completely open with
the public about the process, and the ACLU will work to overturn this law in
the courts.
Secrecy, capital punishment and the administration of justice do not go
together.
(source: Editorial, The News & Advance)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a man charged with murder in
the shooting deaths of 2 people in a restaurant parking lot in Hickory
Media outlets report that prosecutors said Friday they will seek death in the
trial of 22-year-old Terril Yount of Granite Falls.
He has been indicted on 2 counts of murder in the deaths of 22-year-old
Richelle Scott Lail and 28-year-old Cody William Watts in what authorities say
was a domestic dispute.
Prosecutors say Lail and Watts worked at a McDonald's and met there the evening
of March 2. They allege Yount arrived, rammed Watts' truck with his SUV and got
into an argument with Lail. He is alleged to have shot her and then fired into
Watts' truck.
Watts died 2 days later.
(source: Associated Press)
GEORGIA----impending execution
Georgia plans to carry out its 5th execution of the year on Wednesday when a
man convicted in the 1998 killings of a trucking company owner and his 2
children is set to die
Daniel Anthony Lucas is scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the
state prison in Jackson. Georgia executes inmates by injecting the barbiturate
pentobarbital.
Lucas, 37, was sentenced to die in 1999 for the killings of Steven Moss, 37,
his 11-year-old son Bryan and 15-year-old daughter Kristin, who interrupted a
burglary at their home near Macon in central Georgia.
Here are some things to know:
THE CRIME
Lucas and another man, Brandon Rhode, were searching the Moss home for
valuables in April 1998 when Bryan Moss saw them through a front window and
entered through a back door armed with a baseball bat, prosecutors have said.
They say the 2 wrestled Bryan to a chair and Lucas shot him in the shoulder.
Lucas then led the boy to a bedroom and shot him multiple times, prosecutors
have said.
Rhode met Kristin as she got home from school and forced her to sit on a chair
and shot her twice with a pistol, according to court records. Rhode then
ambushed Steven Moss when he arrived home, shooting him 4 times with the same
pistol. Lucas later shot the 2 children again to make sure they were dead,
according to the records.
Moss' wife, Gerri Ann, discovered the bodies when she returned home from work.
CO-DEFENDANT EXECUTED
Rhode was also convicted in the killings and was put to death in September
2010. His execution was delayed by about a week after he tried to kill himself
by slashing his arms and throat just hours before he was initially set to be
executed.
FAST PACE OF EXECUTIONS
If Lucas is executed Wednesday, he will be the 5th person put to death in
Georgia. That will match the record - set in 1987 and tied last year - for the
most executions carried out in a calendar year in the state since the death
penalty was reinstated nationwide in 1976. With 8 months left in the year, it
seems likely the state will set a new record this year.
His execution would also mean that Georgia has executed more inmates in a
12-month period than at any other time since reinstatement of the death
penalty. Georgia has executed seven people in the last 12 months, starting with
Kelly Gissendaner on Sept. 30. The only other time the state executed that many
people in a 12-month period was when 7 inmates were put to death between
October 2001 and August 2002.
Only 4 states have carried out executions this year for a total of 12. Aside
from the 4 executed in Georgia so far, 6 inmates have been put to death in
Texas and 1 each in Alabama and Florida.
(source: Associated Press)
ALABAMA:
Decatur murder suspect defense allowed to argue death penalty constitutionality
Because Alabama's death penalty sentencing scheme is being questioned in the
court system, the attorney for a man charged in a Decatur murder will be
allowed to argue the state's death penalty is unconstitutional.
Roger Stevens is charged with four capital murder counts for the death of his
ex-wife, Kay Letson Stevens. During Stevens' arraignment on April 18, a Morgan
County judge granted the defense's request to argue that he should not be
eligible for the death penalty.
The case has yet been set for trial. If the request had not been made during or
before the arraignment, the defense would have relinquished the right to make
the argument later.
A Jefferson County judge ruled in March that the Alabama death penalty is
unconstitutional. That came after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of
Florida's death penalty sentencing system. WAFF 48 Legal Analyst Mark McDaniel
said "sentencing" is the keyword, because The U.S. Supreme Court did not rule
that the death penalty itself is unconstitutional.
Alabama, Delaware and Florida are the only states where a judge can override
the jury's sentencing recommendation in capital murder cases. A jury can advise
to sentence the convicted person to life in prison without the possibility of
parole, but a judge can still sentence them to the death penalty, McDaniel
said, that is not the constitutional question decided by the Supreme Court in
the Florida case.
That decision said the judge's ability to fact-find on their own and determine
aggravating circumstances after a verdict that warrant the death penalty is
unconstitutional, but that is not what happens according to the sentencing
system in Alabama where the jury decides on aggravating circumstances before
the penalty phase begins.
"There is nothing in the Alabama statute that violates the Sixth Amendment to
the United States Constitution. The Sixth Amendment said every defendant has
the right to a trial by jury. When you get into sentencing in a capital murder
case, the jury has to determine aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable
doubt. In Alabama, the jury does that. By the very nature of their verdict by
finding a person guilty of capital murder, they find at least one aggravating
circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt," McDaniel said.
The Morgan County judge gave Roger Stevens attorney the leeway to challenge the
death penalty's constitutionality specifically because the issue is under
review. The Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange is appealing the Jefferson
County decision to the Alabama Criminal Court of Appeals.
(source: WTVM news)
OHIO:
Death penalty sought for Ohio trucker accused in 4 slayings
A prosecutor is seeking the death penalty against a Cleveland truck driver
accused in the slayings of 4 people.
Cleveland.com reports (http://bit.ly/1NHMXd4 ) Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH'-guh) County
Prosecutor Timothy McGinty has filed a new indictment including specifications
that would allow a jury to recommend the death penalty for 45-year-old Robert
Rembert Jr.
Rembert pleaded not guilty Friday to more than 20 charges in the 4 slayings - 3
last year and 1 in 1997.
Prosecutors say DNA evidence ties Rembert to the strangulation deaths of
47-year-old Rena Mae Payne in 1997 and 31-year-old Kimberly Hall last June.
He also is charged with fatally shooting his cousin, 52-year-old Jerry Rembert,
and 26-year-old Morgan Nietzel at a Cleveland home he shared with the 2.
Rembert is due back in court May 3.
(source: Fox news)
_______________________________________________
A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Unsubscribe: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/options/deathpenalty
