Sept. 6
NORTH CAROLINA:
Death penalty trial in 2013 home-invasion killing of Ardmore woman to start
Tuesday
Starting today, Forsyth County prosecutors will try to prove that a
Winston-Salem man fatally shot an Ardmore woman twice in the head during a
home-invasion nearly 3 years ago.
And that man, Anthony Vinh Nguyen, 24, is expected to take the stand and tell a
jury that he couldn't have shot Shelia Pace Gooden to death in October 2013 for
1 simple reason - he wasn't there.
. The case is high stakes and high profile - Nguyen faces a possible death
sentence if a jury finds him guilty of 1st-degree murder. He also faces charges
of 1st-degree kidnapping, 1st-degree burglary and armed robbery.
Nguyen is 1 of 3 men charged in the home-invasion on Oct. 10, 2013; the others
are Daniel Aaron Benson, 25, of Stockdale Place, and Steven George Assimos, 24,
of Colonial Place. Nguyen is the only one, though, to face the death penalty
because prosecutors believe he is the one who pulled the trigger.
Benson and Assimos are expected to testify that Nguyen was the one who planned
the robbery and killed Gooden. Gooden's son, Cory Joe Prince, was in the house
when the home invasion occurred and is expected to testify that he saw Nguyen
enter first with a gun.
This is the 3rd death penalty trial in Forsyth County in the past 7 years -
Timothy Hartford was given the death sentence in 2010 for killing a 64-year-old
man in his Jonestown Road home and the Meals on Wheels volunteer who had come
to deliver a meal to the man. Juan Carlos Rodrigues was sentenced to death in
2014 for strangling and decapitating his estranged his wife.
Assistant District Attorneys Jennifer Martin and Ben White are prosecuting
Nguyen. David Botchin and John Bryson are representing Nguyen.
Martin and Botchin declined to comment last week about the case.
Conflicting testimony
Gooden, who grew up in Mocksville and worked at the Waffle House on Jonestown
Road, was at her home at 700 Magnolia St., with her son, Cory, when prosecutors
say Nguyen, Assimos and Benson broke in about 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 10, 2013,
Armed with a .380-caliber gun, the 3 men held Gooden hostage, officials allege.
Prince told Winston-Salem police he heard 1 to 5 shots as he escaped through a
back door.
According to a search warrant, Benson and Assimos told Winston-Salem police
that Nguyen shot Gooden and they all left the house with a flat-screen TV worth
$200.
Winston-Salem police were called and when officers got there, they were told 2
armed suspects were still inside. SWAT team members were called and eventually
went into the house in the early morning hours of Oct. 11, 2013. That's when
they found Gooden's body.
Botchin and Bryson have said in court papers that they plan to present an alibi
defense. And the only witness they plan to call is Nguyen.
The 2 attorneys have not said what Nguyen's alibi will be, except to say that
he was somewhere else when Gooden was shot.
It's not clear what physical evidence there is in the case. Winston-Salem
police have not said whether a gun was recovered.
What is clear is that prosecutors and Nguyen's attorneys have been arguing over
access to physical evidence for more than a year. In 2014, Botchin said in
court papers that he could not properly advise Nguyen on a plea deal that
prosecutors were offering because at that point, he had not been able to see
any of the physical evidence.
Botchin and Bryson have also complained about the delay in analyzing the
physical evidence. Much of the delay had to do with protocols that the State
Crime Lab put into place to deal with backlogs. The Crime Lab limits the amount
of evidence law-enforcement can submit for analysis.
Late last month, Botchin and Bryson filed a motion asking for any handwritten
notes that prosecutors took while interviewing various witnesses, including
Assimos.
Favorable treatment
A key issue in the case is going to be whether Benson and Assimos were offered
any kind of deals in exchange for their testimony.
Martin has said in court that she has not offered any plea deals to Benson and
Assimos.
But Botchin and Bryson plan to call an expert witness - Ernest L. Connor Jr., a
Pitt County criminal defense attorney who specializes in death penalty cases -
to argue that Benson and Assimos likely have an expectation for lenient
treatment because prosecutors have not pursued the death penalty against them.
That fact that they aren't facing the death penalty, Connor said in an
affidavit, "is an unspoken concession that implies lenient treatment is to
come," Connor said in an affidavit.
Connor also points to the fact that no trial dates have been set for either
Benson or Assimos.
"The impact of the State separating accomplices Benson's and Assimos' cases
from Mr. Nguyen's and placing Benson's and Assimos' cases on a different track
supports the unspoken concession that their cases will not go capital if they
testify appropriately for the State," Connor wrote in his affidavit.
Prosecutors will argue that case law prohibits them from pursuing the death
penalty against anyone but the person they believe is the actual shooter.
Martin and White will also seek to disqualify Connor as an expert witness,
arguing that he cannot provide an opinion on the credibility of another
witness.
Jury selection will start either today or Wednesday and is expected to last up
to 2 weeks. The entire trial could last 6 to 8 weeks.
(source: journalnow.com)
NEVADA:
Report claims Clark County has 'overzealous' prosecutors
A report done by the Harvard Law School calls out the Clark County District
Attorney's Office for having "overzealous" prosecutors when it comes to the
death penalty.
Clark County is one of 16 counties in the country that use the death penalty
the most, according to the "Fair Punishment Project."
Researchers claim prosecution of those cases isn't fair and the lead public
defender in the Clark County is backing that claim.
However, District Attorney Steve Wolfson questions the report's validity.
"We don't select the people that commit homicides," said Wolfson. "We don't
look at the race of the person who is in a file. We look at their conduct."
District Attorney Wolfson is responding to criticisms of his office's use of
the death penalty.
According to the report, the problems include the unfair punishment of the
mentally ill and young defendants, along with racial bias.
Researchers studied sentences across the country and zeroed in on Clark County.
"I agree with what this report says," attorney Phil Kohn said.
He's headed the Clark County Public Defender's Office for 12 years.
"We have been fighting this battle for a long time."
The I-Team obtained a list of the 81 inmates on death row in Nevada.
-- 40 are identified as white
-- 40 are identified as non-white
-- 1 is identified as unknown
-- 12 are listed as under 20 years old when they committed the crime and
mental status is unavailable
"It's incredibly troubling. They are very young and almost every one of them
have some type of mental illness or brain damage," Kohn said.
The report also refers to "overzealous prosecution."
"It is my belief it is absolutely the culture of the DA's office."
Wolfson has reduced the number of death penalty cases since his predecessor. He
says 40 are pending in Clark County right now and under his watch, 6 people
have been sentenced to death.
Even so, those numbers to Kohn still aren't good enough.
"There's no reason for it," Kohn said.
"There's a lot of victims and family members of victims that want justice,"
Wolfson said. "So often times what I'm doing is I'm balancing, I'm looking at
both sides of an issue."
Wolfson says he is going to implement an integrity unit. There will be an
attorney dedicated to looking at serious cases where there is still a claim of
innocence and they'll be looking at how similar cases across the country are
handled to make sure they're being handled the best way in Clark County.
(source: lasvegasnow.com)
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