Feb. 15
OHIO:
Ohio Supreme Court won't reopen Anthony Sowell appeal
The Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a request by condemned Cleveland
serial killer Anthony Sowell to reopen his appeal of his 2011 conviction and
death sentence.
The move is the latest procedural step as Sowell moves closer to being executed
for killing 11 women and hiding their bodies in his home on Cleveland's East
Side.
The bodies were discovered in 2009. Sowell is currently on death row at the
Chillicothe Correctional Institution. His execution date has not been set.
Wednesday's decision by the state's high court came after Sowell's lawyers in
May filed an application asking the court to take a second look at the direct
appeal of his conviction.
The application argued that Sowell's lawyers were ineffective during his 1st
appeal, which was denied.
Sowell's lawyers, who are in the State public defender's office, did not raise
the issue of a 2012 United States Supreme Court ruling that found Florida's
process for imposing the death penalty -- in which a jury makes a
recommendation to a judge, who has the final say -- is unconstitutional, the
application said.
"Frankly, we blew it," the lawyers told the court during oral argument.
But Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley's office said that the Florida
ruling does not apply to Ohio's process, which is similar to Florida's but has
one major difference. In Ohio, judges can either accept the jury's
recommendation or drop a death recommendation to life in prison. Judges here
cannot impose death if a jury recommends life in prison.
The Supreme Court tossed Florida's process because a judge imposed death when a
jury recommended life.
Sowell's application also asked the court to reconsider its December 2016
decision that, although Common Pleas Court Judge Dick Ambrose did not properly
document his findings to justify closing to the public a hearing on whether
certain evidence should be allowed to be submitted at trial, that error did not
warrant a new trial.
Ohio's Supreme Court justices rejected that argument.
(source: cleveland.com)
*********************
Yes, we used to hang people on Fifth Street: A brief history of Cincinnati
executions
Cincinnati's 1st hangman went to work on a patch of land that's known today as
Government Square.
This was a frontier town then, with enough trouble to keep the gallows busy.
Drunken soldiers. Carousing young men. Shawnee raiders. No one was too good for
the rope.
A straight line runs from those hangings of the 18th Century to the electric
chair of the 20th Century to the table where the condemned today are injected
with enough poison to stop a human heart.
Hamilton County's long, complicated history with capital punishment is filled
with stories. Here are 5 of them.
'Shoot him and bring his head'
The 1st known executions in the territory that would become Hamilton County
took place a few years before the gallows went up.
2 Army deserters, Mathew Ratmore and John Ayres, were captured in 1789 and
brought back to Fort Washington, where a small garrison watched over the
frontier. Desertion was a serious offense and the punishment was swift.
According to the "Centennial History of Cincinnati," the men were shot where
they stood in the southeast corner of the fort.
The fort's commander, John Wilkinson, later declared shooting might not be
punishment enough. "It will be well for the scout to shoot him and bring his
head to you," he wrote of deserters.
A hanging draws a crowd
Lawlessness outside the fort was a problem, too. The solution was to build the
gallows on Fifth Street, at present-day Government Square.
The 1st to hang there - and the 1st civilian executed in Hamilton County - was
a man named Mays. His 1st name was either John or James, according to the
"Centennial History," but all that mattered to Sheriff John Ludlow was his
crime.
Witness accounts say Mays had been "drinking and carousing" with an old friend
named Sullivan, when they got into a fight. Sullivan got the best of Mays, who
vowed to kill him the next time he saw him.
Sometime later, the 2 men bumped into each other at a friend's log cabin and
Sullivan extended his hand, hoping to let bygones be bygones. Mays plunged his
hunting knife into Sullivan's heart.
A crowd gathered to see Mays hang, with some traveling as far as 50 miles.
Electricity provides 'perfect' execution
The electric chair replaced the noose in Ohio in 1897, and the 1st to die were
from Hamilton County.
William Haas assaulted and killed a woman whose husband he'd befriended.
William Wiley shot and killed his wife in a jealous rage.
Because the chair had broken down on the day Haas originally was supposed to
die, both men were scheduled for execution the same day. Some said the men
flipped a coin to determine the order.
Haas lost, apparently, because he went 1st. Minutes later, Wiley got the same
1,750 volts of electricity, according to the Sacramento Daily Union.
"Both executions were eminently successful," the paper reported. "Physicians
and experts pronounced the executions as perfect as it was possible to make
them."
'God knows what came over me'
Anna Marie Hahn begged for her life before she became the 1st woman to die in
Ohio's electric chair. It did her no good.
She'd been convicted of killing an elderly man in Cincinnati for his money.
She'd also been suspected of poisoning as many as 4 others, 3 of them fatally.
Gov. Martin Davey initially expressed reservations about executing a woman, but
he got over it.
"The crimes committed by Mrs. Hahn were so cold blooded," he told the Chicago
Daily Tribune.
Before she was strapped to the chair in 1938, Hahn confessed her crimes in a
letter published in The Enquirer. "I don't know how I could have done the thing
I did in my life," she wrote. "Only God knows what came over me."
Serial killer faced death in 3 states
Alton Coleman and his companion, Debra Brown, went on a multi-state rampage in
the early 1980s, killing, raping and robbing along the way. He was on death row
in 3 states by the time he died by lethal injection in 2002.
Several of Coleman's victims were teenagers and children. One was a 15-year-old
girl in Cincinnati.
Coleman became a follower of a televangelist before he died and was baptized
days before his execution. His last words were from Psalm 23: "The Lord is my
shepherd. I shall not want. He leadeth me to green pastures."
When Coleman was pronounced dead, the father of one of his victims broke the
silence in the room.
"Thank you, Jesus," he said. "Thank you, Lord."
(source: cincinnati.com)
KENTUCKY:
Could Kentucky resume executing inmates? New death-penalty rules proposed.
There has been a moratorium on executions in Kentucky for years, but that could
change under rules the Department of Corrections has proposed that, if
approved, would let the state resume carrying out the death penalty.
The department filed draft protocols spelling out how the state would execute
condemned inmates by lethal injection or by electrocution.
The protocols are sure to be challenged. That means it is unclear whether they
will be approved as proposed, and how long it will take to resolve that fight.
What is clear is that there are several inmates on Kentucky's death row who
have finished the ordinary appeals process and could face execution orders as
soon as there are protocols in place.
There are 32 men and 1 woman under a death sentence in Kentucky, according to
the Department of Corrections site.
The state's last execution was in November 2008, when Marco Allen Chapman was
put to death by lethal injection. Chapman stabbed and raped a woman and killed
2 of her children in Gallatin County in August 2002.
Chapman voluntarily ended his appeals and asked to be executed.
Frankling Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd issued an injunction in 2010, citing
concerns about how the state would determine if a condemned inmate was mentally
disabled, and whether the drugs used then would cause pain or suffering
sufficient to violate the Constitution.
Several inmates joined a challenge to the rules. The state has worked since to
draw up new protocols that could be used in seeking to lift the injunction.
James Erwin, acting commissioner of the Department of Corrections, signed new
draft protocols last month.
The documents spell out everything from the clothing allowed to a condemned
inmate to the type of drugs used in an execution, as well as the amount and
where to insert catheters to inject the drugs, with the arms as the first
preference, followed by hands, ankles or feet.
The protocols include an estimate on the fiscal impact of carrying out an
execution - $97,453, covering security, prison expenses and the cost of defense
attorneys working to block the execution.
That does not take into account the costs of prosecuting and defending a
death-penalty case before an execution is scheduled.
The latest protocols call for using one drug to execute an inmate - either
pentobarbital or sodium thiopental.
Under the protocols, the warden at the Kentucky State Penitentiery near
Eddyville would order a 2nd dose of whichever drug was used if a monitor showed
continued electrical activity in the inmate's heart 20 minutes after the 1st
dose.
The state used a combination of 3 drugs to execute Chapman, and later proposed
using a 2-drug combination.
In another change, the draft protocols would give members of the execution team
up to 3 hours to insert 2 catheters into the condemned inmate.
Inmates sentenced to death before March 31, 1998 could choose to die either by
lethal injection or in the electric chair, but lethal injection is the only
option for those sentenced later.
Attorney General Andy Beshear's office would be called on to defend the
proposed protocols in any challenge.
"The Attorney General's Office has reviewed the proposed new regulations and
believes they comply with the current restrictions imposed by the
Constitution," said deputy Attorney General J. Michael Brown.
However, opponents of the death penalty argue the proposed rules are deficient
on many fronts.
David Barron, an attorney with the state Department of Public Advocacy, said
the problems include no detail on choosing and disclosing which drug to use in
an execution; limits on defense attorneys' contact with a client facing
execution; and rules that would not allow defense attorneys or media witnesses
to view efforts to insert needles into inmates.
Defense attorneys and the media have a right to watch that procedure because if
there is a problem, the public has a right to know, and it could prompt an
emergency legal challenge to the execution, said Barron, who represents several
death row inmates.
Limiting an inmate's contact with attorneys would be a problem because clients
could need access to legal help if something happened in the hours before an
execution that required a challenge, Barron said.
"The client has a right to access the courts if anything goes wrong right up to
the time of death," Barron said.
Death-penalty opponents also will likely argue that allowing 3 hours to insert
catheters would be excessive and cruel.
Barron said specifying use of one drug is inadequate, and that the state would
have trouble finding the drugs it listed in the protocols.
Chapman is 1 of 3 inmates Kentucky has executed since the U.S. Supreme Court
lifted a moratorium on capital punishment in 1976.
The others were Harold McQueen, 44, who was put to death in the electric chair
in July 1997 for killing convenience-store clerk Rebecca O'Hearn during a 1980
robbery in Richmond, and Eddie Lee Harper, 50, who was executed by lethal
injection in May 1999 for killing his adoptive parents in Louisville.
The state has scheduled to hearing on the draft protocols Feb. 22 at 9 a..m at
the Transportion Cabinet office on Mero Street in Frankfort. People who want to
speak need to send written notice no later than 5 working days before the
hearing to:
Amy V. Barker, Assistant General Counsel, Justice & Public Safety Cabinet, 125
Holmes Street, Frankfort, KY 40601, justice.regscont...@ky.gov, telephone (502)
564-3279, fax (502) 564-6686.
People can submit written comments until Feb. 28.
(source: kentucky.com)
ARIZONA:
Death penalty pulled in Ketchner case by county attorney
Darrell Bryant Ketchner, convicted of 1st-degree murder and attempted murder,
has been spared the death penalty with a motion filed Tuesday by prosecuting
attorney Megan McCoy.
Ketchner, 59, was convicted of stabbing to death Ariel Allison, 18, on July 4,
2009, and attempting to kill her mother, Jennifer Allison.
He was sentenced to death in 2013. However, an appellate court reversed the
murder conviction in 2014, based on prejudicial testimony from a domestic
violence expert, and sent the case back to Mohave County Superior Court.
Defense attorneys have focused on avoiding the death penalty as the case
dragged on.
Ketchner has an extensive criminal history with 35 court filings going back to
1983.
(source: Kingman Daily Miner)
UTAH:
Utah lawmakers once again consider ending death penalty
Utah lawmakers are once again considering getting rid of the death penalty, 2
years after legislators came close to making the move.
A bill sponsored by Republican state Rep. Gage Froerer of Huntsville would
prohibit Utah prosecutors from seeking the death penalty starting May 8, the
Salt Lake Tribune reported Tuesday.
The 9 men currently on death row would still be executed.
Utah legislators came close to abolishing the death penalty in 2016 - but the
bill never reached the House floor before the midnight deadline on the last
night of session. The issue was not considered during last year's session.
Froerer said he will elaborate on the legislation later this week.
If passed, Utah would join 19 other states and the District of Columbia in
outlawing capital punishment.
Groups such as American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, Libertas Institute and
Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty have voiced support for
abolishing Utah's death penalty.
Lawmakers also are considering another death penalty-related bill which would
request that legislative auditors study the costs of capital punishment versus
a life-without-parole sentence.
Since 2010, Utah prosecutors have filed 119 aggravated murder cases, according
to Utah court data. Such cases can result in punishments of 25 years to life,
life in prison without the possibility of parole, or death. Only 1 of those
cases - a retrial of a 1993 case - resulted in a death sentence.
The last execution in Utah was carried out in 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was
killed by firing squad for the 1984 murder of attorney Michael Burdell during
Gardner's failed escape attempt from Salt Lake City's 3rd District courthouse.
(source: Associated Press)
WASHINGTON:
State Senate passes bill to eliminate death penalty----Capital punishment would
be replaced with life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A divided state Senate voted Wednesday to eliminate the death penalty, a policy
voters overwhelmingly backed and lawmakers put on the books 4 decades ago.
Under Senate Bill 6052, capital punishment is replaced with a sentence of life
in prison without the possibility of parole.
The death penalty has been state law since 1981. Of the 33 people sentenced to
death since then, 5 have been executed, 2 from Snohomish County.
8 people now are sentenced to die for crimes in Washington. 1 of them is Byron
Scherf, an inmate who received a death sentence for the 2011 strangling of
Monroe corrections officer Jayme Biendl. Scherf already was serving a life
sentence when he attacked Biendl.
Gov. Jay Inslee supports getting rid of the death penalty and in 2014 put a
moratorium on executions.
The bill passed 26-22 as 5 Republicans joined 21 members of the Democratic
caucus to send the bill to the House for consideration.
The legislative session is slated to end March 8.
(source: The Herald)
********************
Death penalty possible for accused deputy killer
Prosecutors believe they know who fired the shot that killed a Pierce County
Sheriff Department deputy in Frederickson last month, and the accused may have
to pay with his own life.
Forensic testing indicated that the bullet recovered from deputy Daniel
McCartney's body came from the gun that was found approximately 175 feet away
from him along the path taken by Jeremy Pawul as he fled a shooting that
followed a break-in and attempted robbery at a house on Jan. 7, according to
authorities. They said a shell casing believed to come from the same weapon was
found near McCartney's body.
As a result, the county prosecutor's office filed a charge of aggravated murder
last week against Pawul - the only charge in Washington law that is punishable
by death or a sentence of life in prison with no chance of release. A decision
on whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty is pending.
Pawul, 32, was previously charged with 1st-degree murder.
The higher charge filed against him Feb. 6 was also prompted in part by text
messages recovered by investigators from Pawul's cell phone that showed he was
in possession of 2 .45-caliber handguns in the days leading up to the deputy's
murder. That was the type of 2 handguns found at the scene, authorities said.
"I promised that we would hold fully accountable everyone involved in the
murder of deputy McCartney. (Last week's new charge) was another step toward
fulfilling that promise," said Prosecuting Attorney Mark Lindquist.
Authorities say Pawul and another man forced their way into a home on 45th
Avenue Court East shortly before 11:30 p.m. and demanded money. One of the 3
adults who were inside the home with 2 children called 9-1-1 and said the
suspects were wearing masks and armed with handguns and knives.
According to investigators, McCartney, the first deputy who arrived at the
scene, chased Pawul and a 2nd suspect, Henry Cardsen, on foot when they jumped
out of windows and ran. A brief gun battle ended with McCartney and Carden
dead.
Pawul was captured the next day. 2 more arrests and charges in connection with
the murder followed. Brenda Kaye Troyer, 52, and Samantha Dawn Jones, 29, are
accused of going with Pawul and Carden to the house where the attempted robbery
and shooting happened. Troyer drove, and Jones had an ongoing dispute over
drugs with 1 of the people living there, authorities said.
Evidence against the suspects includes cell phone records. Cell tower and GPS
coordinates placed Jones' phone with Carden, Pawul and Troyer the night of the
incident. Pawul's, Troyer's and Jones' phones were registering off the same
cell towers as the vehicle traveling to the home where the break-in and
shooting happened, authorities claim.
As with Troyer's phone, Jones' phone remained at the scene before 9-1-1 was
called by residents of the house. Jones' phone then traveled to the same
location as Troyer's after McCartney arrived. Both phones also traveled to a
nearby grocery store, where surveillance video showed Troyer and a woman who
matched the description of Jones in the store together.
Detectives retrieved messages between Jones and Pawul after the murder in which
Jones asked where he was and whether he was hiding. Her phone then traveled
back to the location of the incident.
(source: The Dispatch)
US MILITARY:
Military judge wants civilian attorneys arrested for quitting USS Cole case
The judge in the USS Cole terrorism case ordered prosecutors Tuesday to draft
warrants instructing U.S. Marshals to seize 2 civilian defense attorneys who
have quit the case and ignored his orders and a subpoena to appear at the war
court by video link.
Air Force Col. Vance Spath, the judge, said he would sign the "writs of
attachment" on Wednesday and cautioned from the bench that the lawyer for
Pentagon-paid attorneys Rosa Eliades and Mary Spears should hustle to federal
court, if the lawyer wants to stop what are essentially arrest warrants.
Eliades and Spears quit the case in October, along with death-penalty lawyer
Rick Kammen, over an ethics issue involving intrusion of attorney-client
confidentiality, which the judge does not recognize. The 3 were released from
the case by the chief defense counsel, Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker. When Baker
refused to rescind that permission on Nov. 1, the judge found Baker in contempt
of court and sentenced him to 21 days confinement in his quarters.
Unlike Kammen, who was a defense attorney by contract, Eliades and Spears are
full-time employees in Baker???s military commissions defense office. Spears
has been acting general counsel and Eliades is on an unspecified special
project. In addition, Kammen in November had obtained a federal court
restraining order protecting him from a forced appearance at the war court.
Spath had U.S. Marshals seize a no-show witness before, in October 2016, and
brought to a video site in Washington, D.C. Marshals seized a man named Stephen
Gill from Gill???s home in Massachusetts, held him overnight in a Virginia
jail, and delivered him to war court headquarters. Spath also forbade anyone
from telling Gill until after he testified that a federal public defender had
offered to represent him.
The judge had earlier Tuesday expressed a reluctance to have the women seized.
He said in court that their arrests could cause them to lose their security
clearances and jobs with the Department of Defense and thwart his goal of
having them return to the defense team of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri.
The Saudi, a former CIA prisoner, is awaiting a death-penalty trial as the
alleged mastermind of al-Qaida's Oct. 12, 2000, USS Cole bombing. 17 sailors
died in the attack.
The resignations have left Nashiri without a defense attorney with expertise in
capital punishment cases, a learned counsel. Spath has alternately said that,
since he didn't approve Kammen's resignation, the learned counsel is still on
the case but refusing to appear - or that a Navy lieutenant with no
death-penalty defense experience is qualified to handle the case.
That lawyer, Navy Lt. Alaric Piette, has sat in court through a series of
hearings refusing to participate until a learned counsel arrives. In court
Tuesday, case prosecutor Mark Miller called a series of FBI agents to describe
how they gathered trial evidence in Yemen in the aftermath of the 2000 bombing:
They arrived at suspected safe houses that had been searched by Yemeni forces,
who took pictures, seized evidence and then, on 2nd thought, returned items to
the buildings.
Former FBI agent Steven Krueger described that search as unusual. It began, he
said, with a Yemeni brigadier general introducing himself, taking the agent by
the hand, leading him inside and pointing to a blue tissue paper with a
substance on it and declaring, "there's your evidence."
For this week's hearing, the judge had prosecutors swear out subpoenas for
Eliades and Spears to come to Military Commissions headquarters in Virginia on
Tuesday and explain their positions by a video link to Camp Justice here. Their
lawyer, Brandon Fox, filed a motion with the court to quash the appearance
orders because the 2 women have been released from the case. Spath refused to
accept the filing on Monday, and then denied an earlier effort to quash the
subpoenas.
The 2 women did not show up at the headquarters on Tuesday.
Spath has declared Baker's decision to release them "null and void" and said at
the conclusion of court Tuesday that he was compelling their attendance to
"assist them in getting to the commissions so they can tell what their good
cause is" for quitting.
On Monday, the judge said he was weighing his options and still hoping that
someone else at the Department of Defense would order the civilian lawyers to
appear, for example their supervising attorney, Army Col. Wayne Aaron.
"There's a number of employment-related legal issues that greatly complicate
the simplistic approach that I can simply order them to be here," Aaron told
the judge, "and the concept that my order would have any significance,
whatsoever, on their intention of what to do."
Spath said he had been studying the court-martial case of Army Maj. Nidal Hasan
as he considered his way forward on what he considers to be renegade
resignations. The Army psychiatrist in 2009 went on a shooting rampage at Fort
Hood, killing 13 people and wounding dozens of others.
Hasan was convicted and sentenced to death. But first the original judge was
removed from the case because, as Spath noted, he chose to "take on a battle
that was not his" - ordering the Army to shave off the major's beard for trial.
"The court must remain neutral, detached and objective," a case prosecutor,
Army Col. John Wells, counseled the judge on Monday, suggesting there was a
process that could be pursued to deal with the absence of the 2 attorneys
through Pentagon channels.
On Tuesday, when Spath ordered the prosecution to draft the warrants, Wells
replied: "We will move forward."
(source: miamiherald.com)
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