June 17
OKLAHOMA:
Death Penalty Phase Underway In Albert Johnson Murder Trial
Prosecutors are presenting their evidence and witnesses in the death penalty
phase of the Albert Johnson capital murder trial.
1 of the witnesses who testified is a woman who Johnson was convicted of raping
back in 1983. She told the jury how he forced himself on her in a McDonald's
bathroom, even while her children were inside the fast food restaurant.
She testified, "I thought I was going to die". She said Johnson beat her and
raped her. She told the jury he tried to leave the restaurant with her but she
managed to break free and run to 2 men who had just walked into the restaurant
and beg for help. She says the experience changed her life forever.
Prosecutors showed the jury pictures of the bathroom and pictures of the
victim, showing her injuries right after the attack. She was moved to tears
during her testimony and seemed very afraid to be in the same room with
Johnson.
Johnson was convicted and sentenced to 30 years for that rape.
Jury also heard from a 43-year-old man, who is the son of the 1983 rape victim.
He was 9 years old at the time of the January 8, 1983 incident. He said he
remembered seeing his mother's face was all beat up and she was in distress.
He also said he remembered seeing a black man trying to walk out with his mom
and that his mom made a look to 2 men in the restaurant and they jumped to
rescue her before the black man ran out the door. He too was moved to tears
recounting the assault on his mother
(source: news9.com)
UTAH:
Pro-firing squad lawmaker wants to shorten death-row appeals----Republican Rep.
Paul Ray said he'd like to see the time from sentence to execution cut from as
much as 30 years to 15 or less
A Utah state lawmaker who led the push to bring back the firing squad said
Wednesday he wants to shorten the appeals process for death-row inmates.
Republican Rep. Paul Ray of Clearfield said he'd like to see the time from
sentence to execution cut from as much as 30 years to 15 or less and is
planning to propose a bill next year.
"You have to be a monster to get on death row in Utah," he said, though he
acknowledged much of the appeals process is outside of state control in federal
court.
Critics contend the lengthy, painstaking process helps ensure justice is done
and streamlining it could mean important constitutional issues never come to
light.
"Given how long it takes to prove innocence, shorter appeals pose a serious
threat of executing the innocent," said Anna Brower with the American Civil
Liberties Union of Utah in a statement.
Utah spends about $1.66 million more on each death row inmate than it spends on
a convict serving life in prison without parole, according to a new state
report.
Some lawmakers sharply questioned whether the state could really save that much
money if they did away with capital punishment, pointing to costs like care for
elderly inmates.
"It is fair to say you don't know what, if any, savings the state would realize
by eliminating the death penalty?" Republican Sen. Todd Weiler of Woods Cross
asked the state analyst who prepared the report. He demurred when asked
questions like whether the attorney general could lower staffing if the state
did away with capital punishment.
The Wednesday hearing came after lawmakers who approved bringing back the
firing squad as a backup execution method in 2015 also seriously considered
eliminating the death penalty this year.
Defense attorney Richard Mauro said a life-without-parole case is a "very large
savings" over a death penalty case. Defendants don't automatically get a
publicly funded lawyer when the death penalty is off the table, and hefty costs
like expert witnesses can be eliminated.
But those in favor of capital punishment say that cost isn't the only factor.
"We're not going to throw out the death penalty to save money," said Ray, who
sponsored the measure that made the firing squad the backup execution method
when lethal injection drugs aren't available - a scenario that's looking more
likely, he said.
The family of the victims of 1 Utah death-row inmate said they would be glad to
see the appeals process shortened.
Linae Tiede Coats was kidnapped by 2 men who shot her mother and grandmother 26
years ago. One of those men, Von Lester Taylor, was convicted and sentenced to
death.
"To me, the murderer that Von Taylor is, he doesn't need to be alive," she
said. "It's absurd to me we're even at this point."
Taylor is appealing his sentence, arguing in part that his trial lawyer pushed
him to plead guilty with little guidance or information. A co-defendant is
serving life within parole.
(source: The Associated Press)
NEVADA:
Biela appears in court asking for new trial in murder of Brianna Denison
A hearing for convicted murderer James Biela alleging he had ineffective
counsel during his 2010 trial for the slaying of 19-year-old college student
Brianna Denison is set for July 11 after a judge confirmed the date Thursday.
Biela was sentenced to death during the high-profile trial for Denison's murder
as well as 4 consecutive life sentences for raping her and 2 other women. He's
incarcerated at Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City. Biela
exhausted his appeals of the conviction, but filed a motion for a new trial in
2015 stating he had ineffective counsel.
He appeared in court for a status hearing on Thursday where District Judge
Scott Freeman gave the go-ahead for the July 11 hearing.
Biela's court-appointed attorney, Edward T. Reed, said they plan to call about
10 witnesses, including all of his counsel during the original trial and a DNA
expert. Biela was linked to the crimes by DNA evidence. Reed said it was hard
to predict Biela's chances, but any outcome would almost surely be appealed to
the Supreme Court.
"If you look through his petition, which is very lengthy, and also our
supplemental petition, we do allege I think over 80 grounds of ineffective
assistance of counsel," he said. "And a lot of it has to do with DNA. A lot of
it has to do with his trial counsel and what they did or did not present at the
trial."
Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Noble said she was confident none of Biela's
claims would stand up to scrutiny.
"There are 82 of them, and the state expects to show that none of them have
merit," she said.
Requests for new trials based on ineffective counsel are typical in death
penalty cases, although they can be hard to prove, Reed said.
"Not that they aren't proven from time to time, but they are difficult to
prove," he said.
The hardest part about hearings like this is the impact on victims, Noble said.
"What's frustrating, of course, is for the victims and the families, this
process drags on and on," she said. "But another important point to make is
that although he has alleged his counsel were ineffective, Mr. Biela was
represented by some of the best attorneys in this state."
(source: Reno Gazette-Journal)
CALIFORNIA----death row inmate dies
Notorious killer on death row found unconscious in cell, dies
A notorious killer on San Quentin's death row died after being found
unconscious in his cell early Thursday, prison officials said.
The Marin County coroner will now work to determine how 55-year-old Gilbert
Rubio died after correctional officers found him unresponsive during a security
check just after 6 a.m.
Rubio was sentenced to die on Sept. 20, 2000 for the 1998 murder and robbery of
high school vice principal George "Skipper" Blackwell in his Long Beach home.
He was convicted of 1st-degree murder with the special circumstance of robbery
and burglary by a Los Angeles County jury.
Rubio and 2 others, 59-year-old Monica Chavez and Alex Vega, 61, robbed and
bound Blackwell during a home-invasion robbery on Jan. 12, 1998.
During the robbery, Chavez and Vega left the home to cash a $2,000 check
written by Blackwell. When his 2 accomplices left, Rubio shot and killed his
victim.
Chavez was sentenced to life without parole and remains incarcerated at the
Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla. Vega was sentenced to life
without parole and remains locked up at the California State Prison in
Corcoran.
Avoiding execution by perishing from other means is all but certain in San
Quentin, the state's only death row.
Since the Legislature re-enacted the death penalty in 1978, 13 inmates have
been executed while more than 100 have died from other means.
No one has been executed at the prison for nearly a decade after U.S. District
Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose ruled the state's protocol for capital
punishment was badly flawed.
There are 747 people on California's death row.
(source: sfgate.com)
OREGON:
Request denied: Death penalty case goes to trial
An effort to dismiss one of the worst child-abuse cases in Clatsop County was
denied this week by a Circuit Court judge.
Judge Paula Brownhill ruled against the defense lawyers for Randy Roden, the
live-in boyfriend accused of murdering his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter and
abusing her 2 sons in their Seaside apartment.
During a 2-day hearing in April, defense lawyers Thomas Huseby and Robert
Axford argued for the case to be dismissed, or at least to have evidence
excluded, such as the adult-sized bite marks found on the 3 children, the blood
spatter in the apartment and the use of the term "torture."
Judge Brownhill denied the defense lawyers' requests this week in a written
opinion. She did defer her ruling on the bite mark evidence and asked for a
private hearing before testimony is given at trial.
Overall, Chief Deputy District Attorney Ron Brown said he is pleased with the
judge's ruling to move the case forward to trial in September, and to allow the
prosecution to present the gruesome evidence.
"It's all systems go in September," Brown said.
Traumatized children
Roden, 28, who is facing the death penalty if convicted, is already serving an
8-year prison sentence for violating probation from a previous domestic
violence conviction.
He is accused of torturing and murdering Evangelina Wing in December 2014. An
autopsy found the toddler apparently died of battered child syndrome with blunt
force trauma to her head.
Roden is also accused of abusing the 2 brothers, Patrick Wing, now 3, and
Peydon Kahclamat-Harding, now 7. The boys are living with family in California.
Doctors describe the childrens' injuries as torture. A pediatric doctor
testified in April that Peydon is one of the most traumatized children she had
ever seen.
Prosecutors believe Evangelina Wing and her brothers were tortured, burned,
bitten and caged in the Seaside apartment their mother, Dorothy Wing, shared
with Roden.
Wing, 26, pleaded guilty in January to 1st-degree manslaughter and 2 counts of
1st-degree criminal mistreatment. She was sentenced to more than 15 years in
prison, contingent on her truthfully testifying at Roden's trial.
Attempts to dismiss
Roden's defense lawyers attempted to dismiss the case by claiming doctors never
tested the children's tissue for a dangerous flesh-eating virus known as
methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection. The defense has an
expert - Janice Ophoven, a pediatric forensic pathologist - who claims the
toddler likely died from complications of the infection, rather than from
blunt-force trauma. The 2 brothers also showed signs of the infection, she
said.
"(The doctors) acted in good faith," Brownhill concluded. "Moreover, it was not
apparent in December 2014 that testing more tissue for MRSA would produce
evidence favorable to the defendant."
The defense lawyers tried to claim Roden does not qualify for the death penalty
because he is intellectually disabled. Brownhill denied their request,
concluding that Roden illustrated a history of bad behavior, not intellectually
disabilities.
Throughout his school years in Georgia, Roden threaten to kill himself,
threatened to kill teachers and other students, hit and slapped other students,
threw things in class and used foul and vulgar language.
"He was in special education services in school because of his behavior, not
his intellect," Brownhill wrote. "He earned good grades when he wanted to play
football. His poor grades were due in large part to absenteeism and his refusal
to work."
(source: Daily Astorian)
USA:
Brother of Charleston shooting victim wants death penalty for Dylan Roof
Malcolm Graham is not ready to forgive the man accused a year ago of murdering
his sister.
But on the 1st anniversary of the killings of Cynthia Graham Hurd and 8 others
during a prayer vigil at historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, the former
Charlotte state senator has formed some strong opinions about an appropriate
punishment.
If Dylann Roof is found guilty of the murders, Graham believes he deserves to
die.
Graham avoids saying the defendant's name. For the next 5 days he and his
family will be in his native Charleston, his attention focused not on the
confessed killer, but on the lives of his 54-year-old sister and the other
victims.
Forgiveness?
Not now, he says. To forgive Roof, Graham must first spend time thinking about
him. He refuses. The closest he came to dwelling on his sister's killer was at
Roof's 1st court appearance. There, and perhaps for the 1st time in his life,
Graham believed he was in the presence of evil.
For now, Graham says his spiritual energy is aimed at rebuilding his faith even
as he tries to understand what has happened. The nature of his sister's death,
he says, compels him to speak his family's truth.
"Our truth, unfortunately, is that our sister died in a church basement, simply
because she was there and simply because she was black," Graham says. "That's
the truth. That's something we should not run away from."
He believes his support of the death penalty is an intellectual response carved
from his years as a state legislator, not simply a neural firing from his pain.
He ticks off Roof's alleged behavior like he's checking a series of boxes:
"You invite yourself into a church setting," he begins. "You are made to feel
welcome there. You worship with those in your presence for an hour. You shoot
and kill them. You terrorize 5 others. You say you want to start a race war.
You show no sign of remorse.
"... If the death penalty is not applicable in this case, I think you should
take it off the books."
Forgiveness?
Given what his sister went through, he believes it would border on the glib - a
placebo for those unwilling to contemplate the hate and racism behind both the
shootings in Charleston and last week's even larger massacre in Orlando, Fla.
2 days after the deaths at Emanuel, Nadine Collier, who lost her mother and 2
cousins, announced publicly that she had forgiven the killer. That quickly
morphed into a catch phrase assigned to all 9 families and the city as a whole:
Charleston forgives.
Graham says he's still not ready to play the scripted, feel-good role.
"Forgiveness is too passive a response," he says quietly. "What happened needed
more understanding. More investigation. More awakening of consciousness.
"What occurred there was an attack against a race of people. ... It was an
attack against humanity. And that deserves more consideration than a statement
of forgiveness 2 days afterward. Certainly I understand where that feeling
comes from. And my loss is no greater than any other family members'. So I
respect that feeling. But I can't accept it."
Over the next 5 days Hurd, a longtime librarian, will have a library named in
her honor. The University of South Carolina and the College of Charleston have
started prestigious scholarships in her name. A mural depicting rows of
Hurd???s beloved books will be unveiled next week.
And then at the close of it all, Cynthia Hurd will still be dead.
Forgiveness?
Graham says he's too busy trying to make sense of it all. It helps, he says,
that he is rebuilding his relationship with God.
'Help me understand'
Carl Jung wrote often about "the tension of opposites." Is there good without
evil? Can faith have any meaning without the existence of doubt?
Graham, 53, says the Charleston shooting shook his lifelong spiritual
convictions. He crystallizes his doubts, emphasizing word after word, as if
nailing them individually to a church door.
"How. Could. This. Happen. In. A. Church?" he says. "This is where God is. This
is his home. They were just discussing his message. Why? Why? Help me
understand."
He presses on. "This is where Cynthia felt the safest and most at home in the
world, and this is where she was made to suffer the most pain."
He pauses. "It challenged me," he says.
He began talking daily with Dr. Clifford Jones, his longtime pastor at
Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. Graham says Jones offered him safe space
for his spiritual crisis.
Jones describes the relationship of faith and doubt as ???an unresolved
theological issue, and it's one that confronts us in our realities. And
Malcolm's reality is a murder, in a holy place. How does one reconcile the
sovereignty of God with a hate crime?"
Jones said he advised Graham to be true to his feelings.
"Healing starts with honesty. You may not like where you are. You may not like
the facts of the situations you're confronted with. Some may seem
irreconcilable. But if that's what you have, then that's what you have to
confront on your plate of faith," he says.
The continued role of violence, evil, hatred ... are they ever resolvable?
Jones says he is not sure. At the very least there are no easy answers.
"Malcolm has to live the rest of his life with the loss of a sister who was
murdered in a church," Jones says slowly. "There are 50 families in Orlando.
Think of them. Their lives will never be the same. Never." He pauses. "There is
so much anger in our world."
Forgiveness as decreed by Christ is easier said than done, the pastor adds.
"But I think we are always moving in the direction of fulfilling that
expectation."
Graham?
"He's on the path of forgiveness," Jones says. "But he's not way down the
road."
The gift of time
Malcolm Graham last saw his big sister alive at his older daughter's college
graduation party in May 2015.
Kim and Malcolm Graham's brick home in University City was filled with family
and friends. At one point Graham says he was looking for his next beer when his
big sister pulled him out on the back deck. She told him, preached to him
really, to recognize and celebrate the gifts of life.
2 weeks later, he and Kim were getting ready for bed when a news crawl appeared
at the bottom of their TV screen. There had been a shooting at the Emanuel
church. Graham says he immediately thought of Cynthia.
When the 1st of the Graham's 2 daughters was born, Hurd sent the new parents a
book: Marian Wright Edelman's "25 Lessons for Life."
Graham read Lesson 10 during Hurd's eulogy. "Remember and help America remember
that the fellowship of human beings is more important than the fellowship of
race and class and gender in a democratic society."
Graham gets up and goes looking for the book, finds it, then opens the front
cover to share Hurd???s inscription. In her closing, she asked her brother and
his wife to "believe in the future, with its hope, promise and everlasting
renewal."
That takes faith. Graham says he's working on it.
(source: Charlotte Observer)
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