Sept. 26
NORTH CAROLINA:
Jury starts deliberations in Winston-Salem home-invasion killing; defendant
could face death penalty
In closing arguments this morning, Forsyth County prosecutors painted Anthony
Vinh Nguyen, on trial for the murder of an Ardmore woman in 2013, as a cool and
calculating killer. But Nguyen's attorneys painted a different picture - that
the evidence points to one of Nguyen's co-defendants as the one who actually
pulled the trigger.
Nguyen, 24, has been on trial for 1st-degree murder, 1st-degree kidnapping,
1st-degree burglary and armed robbery in the death of Shelia Pace Gooden.
Forsyth County prosecutors allege that Nguyen and 2 other men - Daniel Aaron
Benson, 25, and Steven George Assimos, 24 - broke into Gooden's house at 700
Magnolia St. at 11:30 p.m. Oct. 10, 2013, held Gooden hostage and stole a
flat-screen TV. They say Nguyen shot Gooden 3 times - once in the right leg and
twice in the head.
After closing arguments, the jury was given instructions and started its
deliberations. If convicted of 1st-degree murder, Nguyen could face the death
penalty.
Assistant District Attorney Ben White said in closing arguments that Nguyen
gave all three men clothing to disguise themselves and rubber gloves, drove the
men to Gooden's house and knocked on Gooden's door. All of this was done in a
cool and calm manner, he said.
Nguyen shot Gooden in the leg and then later, while she was kneeling on the
ground and crying, Nguyen shot her again, this time twice in the head, White
said. Nguyen didn't want to leave any witnesses, he told the jury.
"There is no calmer or cooler killer than the defendant," White said.
John Bryson, one of Nguyen's attorneys, said Nguyen is not the killer here.
Benson pulled the trigger, he said.
Bryson pointed out that most of the gunshot residue investigators found was on
the shoes Benson was wearing on Oct. 10, 2013. The gray hoodie that Nguyen wore
had no gunshot residue, he said.
And Benson's testimony is not consistent with the physical evidence in the
case, Bryson said. Benson testified that Nguyen shot Gooden in the head while
in the living room, even though Gooden's body was found in the back hallway,
Bryson said. Benson testified that he and Assimos were in the living room when
Gooden was shot in the head.
According to testimony, a bullet was found underneath her head in the back
hallway. Bryson said that indicates that she was shot in the back hallway and
not in the living room. Assimos gave a different story than Benson's, he said.
Assimos testified that Benson was already outside when Gooden was shot and that
Nguyen had moved Gooden from the living room to the back hallway. Assimos said
he was outside when he heard 2 gunshots. Then Nguyen came out and said he had
messed up and might have shot Gooden, Assimos testified.
Benson also had motive for the robbery and eventual murder, Bryson said. There
had been a longstanding feud between Gooden's son, Cory Joe Prince, and Benson
because Benson believed Prince had sex with Benson's then-girlfriend. At a
party in September 2013, Benson and Prince got into an altercation during which
Prince swung a machete, Bryson said.
Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Martin said Assimos and Benson didn't give
identical testimony but they were consistent that Nguyen was the one who drove
them to the house and Nguyen was the one who provided dark clothing for
disguise and rubber gloves.
Martin also criticized Nguyen's testimony that he dropped off Assimos and
Benson at the house and went to a nearby store to get cigarettes during the
time when Gooden was killed. She said it was convenient that Nguyen was with
Assimos and Benson all day on Oct. 10, 2013, except for the 10 minutes during
which Gooden was shot to death.
"This is not a conspiracy or a plot against the defendant," she said.
(source: Winston-Salem Journal)
GEORGIA:
Trial to begin for man accused of robbing, killing Vernon Forrest
The trial of a man facing the death penalty for allegedly robbing and killing a
champion boxer in Atlanta in July 2009 is set to begin Monday in Fulton County.
Charmon Sinkfield faces 2 counts of murder, 6 counts of felony murder, armed
robbery and other related charges in connection with the death of Vernon
Forrest.
On July 25, 2009, Forrest was robbed at gunpoint by Demario Ware at a Southwest
Atlanta gas station as the boxer put air in his tire. Ware stole Forrest's
championship ring and Rolex watch. Forrest chased Ware, but lost him near an
apartment complex on McDaniel Street. Forrest then encountered the Charmon
Sinkfield. As Forrest turned away, Sinkfield shot him 7 times, including 5
times in the back.
Ware was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
Jury selection is set to begin Monday. If convicted, Sinkfield could receive
the death penalty.
Forrest, a former world boxing champion, competed between 1992 and 2008. He won
the International Boxing Federation's welterweight title in 2001; held the
unified welterweight titles from 2002-2003; and the WBC super welterweight
title twice, from 2007 to 2009, according to his Wikipedia profile.
(source: Fox news)
ALABAMA:
Death row inmate wants chance to argue for firing squad
An Alabama death row inmate says the courts should allow him to argue that
getting shot would be a less painful way to die than enduring the state's
current execution protocol.
In a filing with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Friday, attorneys for Thomas
Arthur, convicted in 1982 in a murder-for-hire scheme, say the sedative used in
Alabama's lethal injection procedure could possibly trigger a heart attack
before the administration of the lethal drugs in the procedure. Arthur's
attorneys said in the filing a district court improperly denied him the ability
to argue for alternative methods of execution - such as a firing squad, a
different sedative or changes to the current protocol.
"Absent this court's intervention, Mr. Arthur will soon be executed with having
been afforded the chance to prove that Alabama's method of execution is highly
likely to subject him to agonizing pain," the filing stated.
The Alabama Supreme Court earlier this month set a Nov. 3 execution date for
Arthur. Mike Lewis, a spokesman for the Alabama attorney general's office, said
they had no comment. Bob Horton, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of
Corrections, said in a statement the department "is prepared to carry out the
execution as ordered by the Alabama Supreme Court."
The filing, the latest in a years-long challenge brought by Arthur against the
state's death penalty, follows a July ruling that dismissed his challenge.
Arthur's attorneys want the circuit to send the case back to Alabama for
further consideration.
Arthur first filed suit over the state's methods of execution in 2011. The
inmate argued that the sedative in the procedure - 1st pentobarbital, then
sodium midazolam - would not render him unconscious in time to avoid the pain
associated with rorcuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles, or potassium
chloride, which stops the heart. Arthur's attorneys said that violated his
Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
Attorneys for Arthur also said Alabama Departments of Corrections officials did
not regularly apply a consciousness test to inmates before administering the
last 2 drugs in the execution protocol, a violation of his 14th Amendment due
process rights.
Arthur won several stays of execution while his challenge and others to the
constitutionality of the sedatives used in the procedure went forward. In 2015,
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Glossip v. Gross, a challenge to Oklahoma's use
of midazolam, that those challenging the constitutionality of an execution
method had to propose one that would be less painful.
The inmate tried to argue that the state should use pentobarnital instead of
midazolam at a trial in January, but lost that case as well as later motions to
change the protocol due to Arthur suffering cardiovascular disease. Writing in
July, U.S. Magistrate Judge Keith Watkins wrote that Arthur had no had a health
evaluation since 2009 and had not made "good faith" efforts to square his
medical condition with the way the state proposes to execute him.
"Intense prodding by the court saw Arthur essentially standing mute as to the
existence of a specific remedy, i.e., a proposed alternative method of
execution, for an alleged unconstitutional risk," he wrote.
Arthur's attorneys say that due to their client's health issues, the use of
midazolam could give him a heart attack before staff administers the fatal
drugs. They also argue that the trial court should not have prevented him from
arguing for execution by firing squad, citing Utah's use of the procedure in
2010.
"Over the past century, a firing squad execution has never resulted in a
botched execution (i.e., resulting in an agonizing death for the inmate), in
contrast to more than 7 % of lethal injection executions," the briefing said.
The state argued that execution by firing squad was not a method available in
the state.
Arthur also argues the use of pentobarbital, or modifications to the midazolam
protocol, may do a better job rendering him unconscious. Arthur originally
challenged pentobarbital's use - the state had run out of the sedative by 2014,
which led to the switch to midazolam - but his attorneys wrote that was about
the use of pentobarbital in the old protocol, and that the "gradual
administration" of the drug would not reflect Arthur's initial complaint. The
appeal also suggests the lower court applied the Eighth Amendment -- not the
Fourteenth -- in dismissing Arthur's concerns over the consciousness test
The inmate's attorneys argue the court accepted "perfunctory" arguments from
DOC personnel that they could not obtain pentobarbital, and prevented his
defense from discovery that might have added more information about DOC's
efforts in that regard.
"Mr. Arthur is thus . . . required on the one hand to prove the availability of
an alternative execution method to ADOC, but prevented, on the other, from
developing the factual record to meet that burden," they wrote.
The state executed Christopher Brooks in January for the 1992 rape, murder and
robbery of Jo Deann Campbell. Witnesses said Brooks showed no visible signs of
distress during his execution. The state planned to execute Vernon Madison in
May for the 1985 murder of Mobile police officer Julius Schulte, but the 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the execution due to questions about the effect
a series of strokes had on Madison's state of mind.
(source: Montgomery Advertiser)
*******************************
Saraya Atkins sentencing: Brutal murder followed troubled childhood, lawyers
say
Defense attorneys for Saraya Atkins, who was found guilty of capital murder in
the robbery and shooting of Robert Perry in 2014, sought to prove to jurors
that Atkins rough upbringing and neglect from her parents led to her poor
decision making.
The penalty phase of the trial began in the courtroom of Judge Michael
Youngpeter Monday morning.
Mobile District Attorney Ashley Rich and Defense Attorney James Vollmer had
brief opening statements to the jury before testimony began. Vollmer had his
assistant attorney, Greg Hughes, plead to jurors that Atkins is not the worst
of the worst and does not deserve the death penalty.
He told jurors before testimony began, "She was a loving and caring person, she
still has potential and there is still value in that girl's life."
Police say Atkins and another woman, Kymberli Lindsay, 27 robbed and then
killed Robert Perry, 66.
Atkins sat quietly as most of her family members waited in the hallway during
testimony, while Perry's family members sat quietly in the front row.
Rich opened testimony with Perry's stepdaughter, Stephanie Finney, 45,
explaining her relationship with Perry to jurors, which began when he married
her mother when she was 18.
"He was everything to me, said Finney. "My daddy turned his back on me and he
took up that role when another person shouldn't have too."
She told jurors he assisted her in raising her own son after his father left.
She described him as a outgoing, positive and forward pushing person who saw
the good in everyone.
When Rich asked her about her last memory of Perry, she burst into tears.
"Not one day or night I don't see him drowning on his own blood," said Finney.
"I will never get over that day."
The testimony of Perry being outgoing and very family oriented continued as his
daughter Angela Perry and his wife Barbara Ann Flores-Perry's statements.
Angela told jurors how he would spend three to six months at her home in
Washington state each year to help with her children. He said he spent time
taking his grandchildren to Vancouver Island, which was one of his favorite
places.
Perry's wife, Barbara Ann, said he had 13 brothers and sisters, 8 children and
18 grandchildren. Throughout their 25 year relationship and marriage, she
described him as a hard worker, while photos of him with his grandchildren were
shown to her on the stand.
"He worked since he was 14 helping his mother take care of his sisters and
brothers and that carried on to his children and grandchildren," said
Flores-Perry. "He was my soulmate. "
The defense set out to detail Atkins life growing up with her mother, Shawnette
Spicer, when she gave her emotional hour long testimony.
She testified to jurors that she became pregnant with Atkins at 18 and she was
her oldest child. Once her family found out about the pregnancy, she was
quickly disowned by her family in Michigan and moved around with Atkins. She
told jurors Atkins biological father was in and out of prison all of her life.
Vollmer put photos of Atkins on the monitors in the courtroom showing her as a
10 pound baby a few days after Spicer had given birth. Spicer burst into tears.
"She was so big and so sweet," said Spicer. "I can't understand it."
After moving from Michigan to Georgia to stay with a relative she said things
got bad with Atkins behavior even as a infant.
"Kicked out of 5 daycares. I couldn't understand it," said Spicer.
She moved back to Michigan and became homeless living wherever she could with
Atkins. She finally found a job, enrolled in college and started a new
relationship with an abusive man. That relationship ended after she was
physically abused and raped by the man and he was sent to prison. Spicer said
once he was gone, she often had to leave Atkins at home alone at 5-years-old to
go to night classes.
"I didn't know what I was thinking. I didn't have anybody to leave her with so
I left a tray of food and her favorite TV show on while she slept," said
Spicer.
She said one night she returned home from a 2 hour class and Atkins was
screaming in the window of the apartment.
"I screamed at her and fussed and whipped her," said Spicer. "I never once said
I was sorry for doing that to her."
She cried loudly throughout her testimony looking at Atkins, seemingly as if
she was testifying to her. Spicer said she got married to her current husband
when Atkins was 4-years-old. While she testified that he was always loving and
caring toward Atkins, she always seemed to hate him.
"Saraya was so difficult," said Spicer.
She testified about having Atkins taken to jail at 4-years-old for stealing and
having multiple counseling sessions.
"She was peeing on the floor and I would whoop her," said Spicer. "I didn't
understand. I thought she may have been retarded."
She continued saying that she would whip Atkins whenever she did things wrong.
By the age of 9, Atkins was sent to stay in Chicago with Spicer's sister. A few
months later she was brought back to Michigan to live with Spicer.
During that stint, at the age of 10 she lived with Spicer's mother until she
was arrested for stealing her grandmother's credit cards. A few months later,
Atkins stole her mother's car and was arrested for joyriding.
"I would call the police for her in an attempt to scare her straight, said
Spicer. "It seems to me I jacked it up."
While Atkins continued to make decent grades in school, Spicer said she also
became more defiant and would not follow rules.
At 16, Atkins moved in with a friend and her parents.
"I presented her with the same ultimatum my father had given me when I became
pregnant with Saraya: Abide by my rules or get out."
Atkins finished high school and came to Mobile with her high school sweetheart
to attend Bishop State College. After their relationship went bad, Atkins moved
out on her own.
After losing a few jobs and dropping out of school, Atkins found herself
calling her mother for monetary help before the robbery and shooting of Perry.
Atkins claimed that she had been robbed.
In a huge burst of tears Spicer told jurors, "I said, 'Saraya, what's wrong?'
'She said I got robbed,'" said Spicer. "I told her I didn't have the money
until the weekend."
The following morning she got a call about the shooting of Perry. When defense
attorney Vollmer asked her how the death sentence would impact her she said it
would kill her.
Spicer who told jurors she now holds multiple degrees and has found financial
security and that it's her fault Atkins followed the wrong path.
"I have it all because I didn't take care of her," said Spicer. "I'm the one
that's guilty."
(source: al.com)
MISSOURI:
Death-Penalty Drugmaker Shouldn't Be Anonymous
In a case that evokes a modern-day hangman's mask, a pharmacy that provides
lethal drugs for carrying out the death penalty is arguing that it has a
constitutional right to anonymity. The argument should fail, because there's no
right to confidentiality in providing government services. But it shows just
how dangerously far the idea of corporate constitutional rights has gone in the
era of Citizens United and Hobby Lobby.
The strange situation, as reported by BuzzFeed News, arose out of a lawsuit by
death row inmates in Mississippi who are arguing that the particular
combination of drugs used by their state as its method of execution is cruel
and unusual. In the course of the suit, the Mississippi inmates subpoenaed the
Missouri Department of Corrections to find out, among other things, what drugs
the state uses in its execution cocktail and who provides them. In response,
Missouri argued that it had a sovereign right to keep confidential the identity
of its supplier.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit is considering whether to quash
the subpoena. It has allowed Missouri's supplying pharmacy, identified in court
papers only as M7, to file its own argument with the court.
Quicktake Lethal Injections
M7, which has sold more than $125,000 worth of lethal chemicals to Missouri,
said its identity shouldn't be disclosed, because it has a First Amendment
free-speech right to act in support of the death penalty on the basis of its
political views.
The broader context here is that abolitionist opponents of the death penalty
have been shaming the corporations that provide drugs intended to kill people
at execution. The technique has been surprisingly effective, with some 20 major
pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer, saying their products must not be
used in executions. As a result, a number of states have had difficulty getting
anyone to sell them the drugs they need to execute by lethal injection. A
recent Council of State Governments newsletter spoke of a "lethal injection
drug shortage."
Anonymity, of course, is a way to avoid shaming. But M7's constitutional
argument is deeply flawed. (I almost wrote "fatally flawed" -- but the
ubiquitous legal metaphor is a little too close to home in this case.)
The core of M7's argument is that the First Amendment includes a right to speak
anonymously. Under certain circumstances, that's true. In the landmark 1958
case of NAACP v. Alabama, for example, the Supreme Court held that the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People couldn't be obligated to
disclose the identity of its membership. In the background was the concern that
the members could be subject to harassment for exercising their First Amendment
right to speak and associate.
But there's an enormous difference between speaking and acting -- particularly
when that action is a for-profit commercial transaction with the government. A
government contractor like Halliburton, for example, might be subject to public
criticism for a contract like the cost-plus arrangement the company had with
the Defense Department during and after the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The
potential for public criticism wouldn't justify a claim by Halliburton to keep
its provision of services secret.
To the contrary, in a democracy, it's crucially important for the government to
disclose its vendors, both to avoid corruption1 and to promote transparency.
More fundamentally, M7 isn't speaking at all: It's performing the act of
selling drugs. This behavior can be subject to ordinary regulation, including
public disclosure if ordered by a court. The company shouldn't be able to
protect its actions from regulation simply by insisting that it is performing
them out of political belief. If that were plausible, businesses could escape
all sorts of government regulation by saying that they really, really believe
in their corporate mission.
But despite the flimsiness of its legal arguments, there's a reason M7 is
trying to get away with its free-speech argument: the trend in recent years
toward constitutionalizing corporate interests. The Citizens United decision in
which the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote held that the First Amendment applied to
corporate speech, is the most prominent example.
At least in Citizens United, the corporation was actually speaking. In Burwell
v. Hobby Lobby, the justices, again split 5-4, applied the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act to a corporation's funding of its employees' health care. True,
that case technically involved federal law, not the First Amendment. But the
subtle difference is easily lost. In essence, the court held that a corporation
has a legal right to the liberty of conscience in its business dealings.
A similar impulse lies behind claims by florists or wedding cake bakers who
want to be exempt from antidiscrimination laws that might require them to serve
gay couples. They are saying that they should be protected by religious liberty
so that they may discriminate invidiously while engaged in commercial
transactions.
The M7 situation helps demonstrate why it's so dangerous to treat corporations
as though they have fundamental constitutional rights while doing business.
Those basic rights are designed to protect individuals against government
power. They aren't supposed to be used to exempt businesses from regulation or
publicity whenever it's convenient for them.
1.----In this case, there's actually the possibility of something fishy:
Missouri has been paying M7 $7,188.88 for 2 vials of pentobarbital for each
execution, a price that is allegedly above market value.
(source: Bloomberg news)
NEW MEXICO:
Death penalty fight steals focus from NM budget crisis
Until last month, Gov. Susana Martinez resisted calls for a special session by
lawmakers. Facing a budget shortfall for the current year of $458 million
following another bad budget year, Sen. John Arthur Smith (who heads the
Legislative Finance Committee) and other legislators called for a session to
figure out how to pay the bills and contain the catastrophe.
Calling a special session is the governor's prerogative, and she sets the
agenda at that session. By July, confronting public pressure to call lawmakers
back, Martinez allowed that she might call a special session for as little as 4
hours, though she offered no hint as to how the budget gap, without sweeping
layoffs of state workers or any compromise on taxation, could be solved in four
hours.
Now the governor has announced that she will add a bill reinstating the death
penalty to the special session, not at next year's session as previously
planned. So much for concentrating on our budget emergency. Indeed, she has
hinted that other tough-on-crime measures might also be on the agenda. These
are all spending items, at a time when revenue is dropping or being left
uncollected, and painful cuts are being made. Late last week, the Associated
Press reported that the state has failed to collect at least $193 million in
taxes on insurance premiums. That's an awful lot of revenue left on the table
while people and their communities suffer.
The governor seeks to create an opening to reinstate capital punishment by
allowing it for the murderers of children or police officers. She is
capitalizing on public anger over a few recent cases: the murders of Hatch
police officer Jose Chavez, Alamogordo officer Clint Corvinus, and the
incomprehensible torture of 10-year old Victoria Martens in Albuquerque.
Capital punishment might satisfy an impulsive desire for blood vengeance but
criminologists have shown in numerous studies that it offers no more deterrent
value than long prison terms. Some of the states with the highest murder rates
are death penalty states. This conforms to common sense: the impulses and
infirmities of a murderer's mind are not held in check by reasoned
consideration of penalties.
Minus deterrent value, capital punishment merely empowers the state to commit
violence and posits sadism and revenge as platforms of a civilization. It
should also give us pause that over 150 innocent people have been rescued from
death row, with the average time between conviction and exoneration over 11
years. This, along with its pointless cruelty towards the rightfully convicted,
argues for a moratorium on the practice on grounds of due process of law and
human dignity.
It is not only a matter of morality, but of governance. Death penalty systems
waste money, and since abandoning this savagery in 2009, New Mexico has saved
millions of dollars each year. As for reducing crime, some proven deterrents
include good employment, housing, access to food, health care (including
treatment for addiction), crisis intervention, counseling services, and
education - all of which are affected by the state's budget crisis. Remember
that? That was the original reason for a special session.
Yet we have money to spend on death penalty cases and executions, says this
governor who wants to close drug treatment centers and build more cells on
death row. Even if this effort fails, the governor might be able to embarrass
rival lawmakers ahead of the election, even if it means exploiting human loss
for political gain.
Meanwhile, any hope of responsible governance during the state's fiscal
emergency is being squandered.
(source: Opinion; Algernon D'Ammassa, Las Cruces Sun)
USA:
Roof jury selection underway in Charleston federal death penalty case
The 1st of some 3,000 potential jurors in the Dylan Roof death penalty trial
began reporting Monday to the U.S. District courthouse in downtown Charleston.
Jurors were summoned, some 80 at a time, before U.S. Judge Richard Gergel,
whose questions were aimed at weeding out those who obviously cannot or who
will elect not to serve: people over 70, having no one else to care for young
children and the like. Also to be excluded: those whose minds are already made
up about Roof's guilty, or whether to impose the death penalty.
Roof, 22, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, is charged with federal hate
crimes resulting in death in the June 2015 slayings of 9 African-Americans who
were attending an evening Bible study at historic "Mother" Emanuel AME church
downtown.
Of the first 80 prospective jurors in court on this morning, some 90 % were
white. 9 were black. All were somber. Gergel deferred 2 teachers.
The initial jury selection is taking place in a relatively small courtroom on
the 4th floor of an old federal courthouse on Broad Street. It has only about
80 seats, nearly all of which were taken up Monday by prospective jurors.
Gergel allowed a sketch artist, along with one pool print reporter to write
accounts of what happened. Other journalists watched the proceedings on a
flat-screen television in a nearby courtroom. Unlike state court, no cameras or
reporters' tape recorders are allowed in federal court. The in-court
proceedings in this story were furnished by the pool reporter.
Roof stared down at his defense table during much of the morning. During
Monday???s initial session, he appeared unemotional. In numerous pretrial
hearings since last year, he has waived his right to be present in court.
The Roof case is set to be one of the most sensational criminal trials ever
held in South Carolina, due to the racial dimensions of the case and the
brutality of the crime.
Underscoring the emotionalism of the trial and the effect of publicity about
the case, Judge Gergel has ordered dozens of pretrial documents to be kept
secret so as not to taint the jury pool.
Roof also faces charges of murder in Charleston County state court. Prosecutor
Scarlett Wilson is also seeking the death penalty in that case. Jury selection
is set to begin in January in that case.
Monday's proceeding in federal court is designed to produce a smaller pool of
some 700 prospective jurors. Those potential jurors will begin a more detailed
questioning session on Nov. 7. The actual trial will not start until late
November, observers estimate.
It's the opening day of a long, tedious and potentially confusing jury
selection process in the Dylan Roof federal trial in the June 2015 slayings of
9 African-Americans at a historic downtown Charleston church.
(source: thestate.com)
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