May 18
NEW HAMPSHIRE:
Death row inmate's next court filing months away
Attorneys for New Hampshire's only death row inmate said Wednesday it will be
months before they file a petition arguing he is being unlawfully imprisoned.
Michael Addison was sentenced to death for the 2006 killing of Manchester
police officer Michael Briggs. While Addison has exhausted his direct appeals
to the state Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court in January declined to
review a petition to review his case, his defense attorneys plan to file a
state habeas corpus petition later this year.
During a brief hearing Wednesday, attorney Michael Wiseman said he'll file at
least a partial petition by January. While there is no deadline for the state
petition, Jan. 11, 2017, is the deadline to file a habeas corpus petition in
federal court, so filing something at the state level before then would stop
the clock and allow for a federal petition later if the state petition fails.
Wiseman recently was chosen by the New Hampshire Judicial Council to represent
Addison. A former chief of the Capital Habeas Corpus Unit for the federal
defender office in Pennsylvania, he has more than 2 decades of experience in
representing post-conviction capital defendants.
Addison's previous attorneys argued that the trial judge violated his rights by
not allowing jurors to hear evidence that he was remorseful and concerned about
Briggs after he was taken into custody. They also challenged the judge's
conduct in letting jurors hear about privileges a convict sentenced to life in
prison without parole might get behind bars, including television and work
opportunities.
Briggs was 15 minutes from the end of his shift when he and his partner
confronted Addison in a dark alley on Oct. 16, 2006. Jurors found that Addison
shot Briggs in the head at close range to avoid arrest for a string of violent
crimes, including several armed robberies and a drive-by shooting.
Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Peter Fauver scheduled a hearing for late
September to get an update from Addison's attorneys.
New Hampshire is the only state in New England with the death penalty still on
the books. The state's last execution took place in 1939
(source: Associated Press)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Recanter could face death penalty
The Mifflinburg man accused of homicide in a Union County home invasion will
face the death penalty if convicted at trial of 1st-degree murder.
Union County District Attorney D. Peter Johnson filed notice of aggravated
circumstances against Justin Richard, 31, for allegedly killing 51-year-old
Randy Sampsell on June 12, 2012. The victim's body was found 10 days later by
his brother.
"You committed a killing while in the perpetration of a felony. You have a
significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of
violence to another person," Johnson wrote in support of his call for capital
punishment.
The last time Johnson sought the death penalty was against Roderick Sims,
convicted by a jury in the 2007 murder of Charity Spickler in Lewisburg.
Johnson eventually withdrew the request for capital punishment, saying at the
time the facts of the case didn't support the death penalty.
State police say Richard shot Sampsell once in the head with a stolen rifle as
Sampsell attempted to rise from his recliner when robbers kicked in the front
door of his Buffalo Township home, according to court papers.
The robbers sought marijuana and money, but only found prescription pills,
state police say.
Before being pegged as the triggerman, Richard was a prosecution witness,
having pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and agreeing to testify against a
former co-conspirator, Herbert Tiebout. But Richard twice recanted his
statements, the second time on the day of Tiebout's own 2nd-degree murder trial
in September. The case against Tiebout was dismissed, and police and
prosecutors turned their attention to Richard.
The testimony of Amanda Kratzer, Richard's ex-girlfriend, is at the center of
the case. She originally accused Richard and Tiebout in the Sampsell home
invasion and an earlier robbery that night in Millmont that allegedly netted 10
guns, including the murder weapon.
After Tiebout's case was dismissed, she went on record to accuse Richard of
confessing to the killing more than once after they fled Pennsylvania for
Virginia Beach, Va., days after Sampsell's death. She had already helped state
police locate the Remington 30.06 rifle Richard is accused of using, which was
dumped in a wooded area near Williamsburg, Va.
After Kratzer's latest revelation, a 3rd suspect in the home invasions
surfaced. Kratzer says she saw Theron Moore, 43, formerly of Mercersburg, with
Richard and Tiebout on the night of Sampsell's death, according to court
papers.
Police say in arrest papers that Moore confessed to helping Richard steal both
a Dodge pickup and a Kawasaki motorcycle from the Mifflinburg area and commit a
violent home invasion in New Berlin on June 22, 2012, in which 1 occupant was
beaten with a baseball bat. That's the same day Sampsell's body was found.
Moore has since pleaded not guilty.
Richard, too, pleaded not guilty to murder and robbery and related charges
stemming from 3 related incidents.
They'll be prosecuted together on the events of June 22, 2012. Richard is
accused alone in the June 12, 2012, murder.
Pre-trial motions in the murder case are due July 1.
(source: The Daily Item)
FLORIDA:
Defense lawyers question death penalty jury instructions
Defense lawyers are attacking a new law aimed at fixing Florida's death penalty
sentencing structure, which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier
this year because it gave too much power to judges instead of juries.
But the angst over the new law, crafted by the Legislature and signed by Gov.
Rick Scott in March, isn't limited to defense lawyers - the Florida Supreme
Court is questioning whether the law violates the state's constitutional
guarantee to trial by jury.
Also, a Miami judge ruled last week that the law, which requires a 10-2 jury
recommendation for the death penalty to be imposed, is unconstitutional.
Defense lawyers, meanwhile, are now objecting to proposed jury instructions
related to the new law.
The proposed jury instructions, crafted by the Florida Supreme Court Committee
on Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases, lay out what judges must tell
juries in capital death cases. The committee will consider changes at its next
meeting in June, before sending the proposed rule to the Supreme Court, which
could adopt the proposal or revise it.
Lawmakers hurriedly crafted the new death-penalty sentencing law in response to
a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in January that Florida's system of allowing judges
- and not juries - to decide whether defendants should face death is an
unconstitutional violation of the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.
The 8-1 decision, in a case known as Hurst v. Florida, dealt with the
sentencing phase of death-penalty cases after defendants are found guilty, and
it focused on what are known as aggravating circumstances that must be
determined before defendants can be sentenced to death. A 2002 U.S. Supreme
Court ruling, in a case known as Ring v. Arizona, requires that determinations
of such aggravating circumstances must be made by juries, not judges.
Under Florida's new law, juries will have to unanimously determine "the
existence of at least 1 aggravating factor" before defendants can be eligible
for death sentences. The law also requires at least 10 jurors to recommend the
death penalty in order for the sentence to be imposed, and it did away with a
feature of the old law that had allowed judges to override juries'
recommendations of life in prison instead of death.
Creating jury instructions for the new law "is especially difficult in this
instance because there remains great uncertainty as to the constitutionality of
the statutory law underlying the proposed instructions," Capital Collateral
Regional Counsel-South Neal Dupree, whose office represents defendants who have
been sentenced to death, wrote in comments submitted to the committee Monday.
Under the proposal, juries would be told that "different factors or
circumstances may be given different weight or values by different jurors."
That instruction would not comply with a U.S. Supreme Court decision, in a case
known as Caldwell v. Mississippi, making it unconstitutional to instruct a jury
in a way that will cause the jury to "minimize the importance of its role,"
Dupree wrote.
"We wanted the jury to be clear that there is a distinction between mitigating
circumstances, which do not require unanimity and do not require a finding
beyond a reasonable doubt, and the aggravating factors, which are required to
be found unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt," Pete Mills, an assistant
public defender in the 10th Judicial Circuit who is chairman of the
association's death penalty steering committee, said in a telephone interview
Tuesday.
The Supreme Court, which put on hold indefinitely 2 executions after the Hurst
decision, is also grappling with whether judges should use the new law to
resentence death row inmates, whose lawyers argue that the sentences should be
reduced to life in prison without parole because the prisoners were condemned
under an unconstitutional system.
Also, the court recently raised questions about the new law's lack of unanimity
in jury recommendations.
(source: Palm Beach Post)
*****************
Florida's death penalty facing new questions as last lethal-injection drug
supplier bans use
With the Sunshine State's death penalty already under scrutiny and siege, the
last remaining federally approved sources for all three drugs used in Florida's
lethal-injection cocktail have been banned for use in executions.
Wishing to align itself with saving lives rather than ending them,
pharmaceutical mega-manufacturer, Pfizer, announced late last week that seven
drugs it makes will be off limits from now on for use in capital punishment.
More than 20 American and European drug companies have imposed similar bans.
"All of the major pharmaceutical companies in the United States stand together
on this issue," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Washington
D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center. "They do not want their medicines
misused executing prisoners."
The impact on Florida and its 390 death row inmates is impossible to gauge
because the Department of Corrections, citing state laws, will not divulge its
drug suppliers, how much of a supply it has on hand or when its current supply
will expire.
"When Florida's current supply runs out then Florida has a choice to make,"
Dunham said. "It could attempt to obtain these drugs elsewhere but for the most
part that involves violating the law."
Pfizer's move will "make it even more difficult for states to obtain these
drugs or replace the drugs when their current supply expires," Dunham said, but
it doesn't necessarily mean the end of lethal injections.
That's because the nation's 32 death penalty states could turn to another buyer
to get the required drugs from manufacturers without revealing the actual
purpose they would be used for, or they could buy from distributors willing to
violate resale agreements with manufacturers, or they could turn to small,
loosely regulated pharmacies to make the drugs.
Alternatively, Florida could switch from a 3-drug lethal injection to a
single-drug protocol - or it could even return to the electric chair.
"All of the major pharmaceutical companies in the United States stand together
on this issue. They do not want their medicines misused executing prisoners" -
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center Other
states have grappled with execution-drug issues in different ways. Ohio since
last year has put executions on hold because it can't obtain the required
drugs. Other states like Texas and Missouri have gotten lethal injection drugs
from the small, loosely regulated pharmacies known as compounders. And Utah,
looking for a back-up execution method, reinstated the firing squad.
"We don't even know if Florida has been using drugs from Pfizer, they won't
tell us," said Marty McClain, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who represents death row
defendants seeking appeals. "It's certainly not in line with the Sunshine Laws
in terms of the public finding out what's going on and what's being used."
The majority of the 32 states with the death penalty have similar secrecy
provisions that prevent them from revealing their lethal drug sources.
Pfizer's action is just the latest, but not necessarily the most pressing
challenge facing capital punishment in Florida.
"Florida's death penalty system is in tatters at the moment and not just
because of the drugs," Dunham said. "There are questions as to whether Florida
has a constitutional death penalty at all."
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida's death penalty is
unconstitutional because it gave jurors too little, and judges too much, say in
the decision. As a result, the state supreme court must decide if Florida's 390
death row inmates were sentenced under a flawed system and should have their
penalties converted to life sentences.
In response to the U.S. Supreme Court, state lawmakers earlier this year
revamped the death-penalty sentencing law to require not just a majority, but a
"super majority" or 10 of 12 jurors, to vote to impose the death penalty
against convicted murderers. Florida, Alabama and Delaware are the only three
death penalty states that do not require unanimous jury verdicts in death
cases.
A week ago, a Miami-Dade trial judge struck another blow when he ruled that
despite the Legislature's attempted fix, the state's death penalty remains
unconstitutional because it still does not require a unanimous jury decision.
In 2013, Florida swapped pentobarbital sodium for midazolam as the
unconsciousness-inducing first injection in its 3-drug intravenous process. It
did so because its Danish manufacturer of pentobarbital sodium balked at its
use in executions and prohibited its sale for that purpose. Midazolam has been
blamed for botched executions in Oklahoma, Ohio and Arizona.
Florida's lethal injection cocktail is administered in 3 stages. After the
midazolam knocks the condemned person into unconsciousness, vecuronium bromide
induces paralysis and finally, potassium chloride triggers cardiac arrest.
Importing lethal-injection drugs from Europe would violate European export
regulations. Importing them from anywhere else would violate federal law that
prohibits medicines to come into the country without an approved medical use.
Switching to a single drug protocol would create issues over which drug to use
and where to get it, Dunham said.
Turning to the so-called compounding pharmacies poses its own set of dangers.
They are regulated by state laws rather than the Federal Drug Administration.
Products from compounding pharmacies could be impure, lack necessary potency or
may not be properly sterilized or refrigerated, experts say.
Such pharmacies are typically used to create, or compound, small batches of
medications tailored to an individual patient's needs such as strength, dosage,
or allergies.
Products from compounding pharmacies "increase the likelihood that there will
be bad batches of drugs used in executions and that also increases the risk
that executions will be botched," Dunham said.
States have argued that secrecy is necessary to protect the identities of
manufacturers so they won't be harassed, but death penalty opponents see
otherwise.
"What in fact seems to be the case is that states needed to obtain secrecy to
prevent the manufacturer from learning that its medicines were being misused in
executions," Dunham said. "There is no legitimate medical purpose for executing
somebody."
(source: Sun-Sentinel)
*********************
Stop death penalty
Thank you to Beth Kassab for her column, "Death penalty in Florida is facing
chaos," in Tuesday's Sentinel. She is correct that our system in Florida, and
across the nation, is seriously flawed.
As a supporter of the Innocence Project, I see emails and letters regularly
telling me of another prisoner who has been released due to DNA testing that
finds him or her innocent, many times after spending decades in prison.
The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck at
Cardozo School of Law, "exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing
and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice," its
website says. Due to its important work, 341 DNA exonerations have occurred,
and 147 real perpetrators have been found.
Innocent people can find themselves on death row due to incentivized
informants, false confessions, inadequate defense, flawed forensic science and
eyewitness misidentification.
We have a lot of work to do in getting serious changes made in our penal
system. The way to start is to see the state follow the lead of the majority of
U.S. states in halting the use of the death penalty.
Stephanie Garber
(source: Letter to the Editor, Orlando Sentinel)
ALABAMA:
8-year-old girl awoke to 'nightmare' when she finds bullet riddled bodies,
prosecutor tells jurors
An 8-year-old Ensley girl awoke to a "nightmare" the morning of April 25, 2014
when she found her pregnant mother slumped over in a kitchen chair and the body
of her mother's boyfriend on the floor next to her, a prosecutor told jurors
Tuesday.
Pools of blood were on the floor by the bodies, which had been riddled with
bullets, Deputy District Attorney Kechia Sanders Davis told the jury during
opening statements of the capital murder trial of Jermaine "Lil Jay" Tolbert.
Tolbert, 28, is charged with four counts of capital murder in the shooting
deaths of 27-year-old Sharday Ware, her unborn child, and 36-year-old Dekova
Jemille "Doc" Harris, of Fultondale. If convicted, Tolbert could face the death
penalty.
Another man, Dewayne Barnes, 22, is also charged with capital murder in the
shooting deaths of Ware, her unborn child, and Harris. Barnes' trial is set to
begin July 25.
The shooting happened at Ware's house at 1309 57th Place Ensley.
Cedric Clifton, a retired crime scene investigator with the Birmingham Police
Department, testified Wednesday to finding 15 shell casings from .40 caliber
and 9mm guns inside the home.
Jurors also got to see photos taken from inside the house by Clifton. Among the
photos was one of Ware slumped forward in a chair and Harris on the floor at
her feet. One of Harris' hands was lodged against the handrail of the chair
Ware was sitting on with a cigarette still in between his fingers.
Other photo showed scales, a baggie of marijuana, and other clear plastic
baggies on a table. Clifton said one baggie had a white powdery substance
believed to be cocaine in it.
Davis said that she expects a man, Eric Smitherman, will testify that after
watching a game on TV, the night before the bodies were discovered, Tolbert and
Barnes were there with Harris and Ware and that Tolbert locked a door.
Tommy McFarland, one of the attorneys representing Tolbert, told jurors that
they will need to assess the credibility of some of the witnesses, including a
jailhouse snitch who didn't like Tolbert. He asked that jurors look at the
credibility of some of the witnesses he described as "thugs."
Smitherman never said that he saw Tolbert do anything, McFarland told jurors.
"When he leaves the house those folks were alive," he said.
The confidential informant also told police the 2 men,, Dewayne Barnes and
Jermaine "Lil Jay" Tolbert, now charged with capital murder in the double
homicide told her that if they had found the woman's 7-year-old daughter awake
they would have killed her too, Birmingham Police homicide detective Phillip
Harris said.
Among the first witnesses was Ricky Jones, a neighbor walking to work that
morning who spotted Ware's 8-year-old girl come running out of the house
barefoot. The girl told him her mother, and her mother's boyfriend, were dead,
he said.
"I thought she was kidding," Jones said. But quickly he realized it wasn't the
case and called 911, he said.
Jurors then heard the 911 tape in which Jones calls for help. During the tape,
the girl can be heard crying in the background and Jones has to pause from
talking to the dispatcher to reassure the girl. Jones said he did not go into
the house.
Jones also testified he heard 4 shots close together about 12:30 a.m. the night
before. But he said he didn't call police because it's not unusual to hear
gunfire in the area.
Another neighbor, Brandon Turner, who lived directly behind Ware's house,
testified he was watching the closing commentary after an NBA game on TV when
he heard more than four gunshots. "It (the gunfire) was constant," he said.
Turner said he fell to the floor and waited five minutes. When he didn't see
anything looking out his window, he didn't call police because he hears gunfire
in his neighborhood a lot.
Testimony is to continue today in the trial before Jefferson County Circuit
Judge Virginia Vinson.
Defense attorney Mike Shores also represents Tolbert. Deputy District Attorney
Matt Casey also is prosecuting the case.
A homicide detective at a preliminary hearing in the case in 2014 testified
that a confidential informant told police the shooting deaths were the result
of a murder-for-hire in retaliation for a shooting that happened in September
2013 in Fairfield.
The confidential informant also told police the 2 men now charged with capital
murder in the double homicide told her that if they had found the woman's
daughter awake they would have killed her too, Birmingham Police homicide
detective Phillip Harris said at that preliminary hearing.
The detective also testified that the house where Ware and "Doc" Harris were
shot was known in the neighborhood as a drug house.
(source: al.com)
LOUISIANA:
Louisiana Senate to consider reworking indigent defense spending
An effort to reshuffle how Louisiana spends its money on defending the poor
edged closer Tuesday to final legislative passage.
House Bill 1137 by Rep. Sherman Mack, R-Albany, would require at least 65 % of
the state public defender board's financing to flow to local defenders of the
indigent. That could steer money away from appeals of death sentences for poor
defendants.
A Senate judiciary committee voted 4-1 to send Mack's bill to the full Senate.
It already has won House support.
The debate comes as local public defenders in some parts of the state have
stopped taking cases because of money shortages, prompting prisoner releases,
lawsuits and widespread concerns about the state of the justice system.
Louisiana is spending $33 million on the public defender board in the current
budget year. Bill supporters say the local public defenders need the money.
They say too much is spent by the board on large, expensive defense teams for
death penalty cases.
"When the money came to the local boards, we had no problems. We had no issues.
We worked together. The money was spent wisely," said Ricky Babin, district
attorney for Ascension, Assumption and St. James parishes.
Opponents say more dollars are needed overall to pay for indigent defense and
meddling with the board's authority over the same level of financing won't
improve the situation.
"This really is not about the board. This is a funding crisis," said the
board's executive officer, James Dixon. "The problem here is diminishing local
funds, and nothing in this bill addresses that."
The proposal also would reshuffle how state public defender board members are
chosen.
Voting to advance the bills were: Sens. Ronnie Johns, R-Lake Charles; Norby
Chabert, R-Houma; Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte; and Greg Tarver, D-Shreveport.
Voting against HB1137 was: Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans.
(source: The Advocate)
OHIO:
Lawyers For Suspect In Danville Cop's Slaying Want Off Case
2 attorneys appointed to represent a man accused of fatally shooting a central
Ohio policeman are asking to withdraw from the potential death penalty case.
Bruce Malek and Brandon Crunkilton told the court that it's not feasible for
them to continue representing Herschel Ray Jones III because of issues that
have arisen. Malek told the Mount Vernon News that he wouldn't discuss
specifics of those issues.
An attorney from the Ohio public defender's office also is representing Jones.
Jones is accused of shooting 34-year-old Danville Officer Thomas Cottrell. He
has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges in Knox County.
Cottrell's body was found behind the village's municipal building Jan. 17,
after Jones' ex-girlfriend warned police that Jones was "looking to kill a
cop."
(source: Associated Press)
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