June 5
TEXAS----female to face death penalty
DA to seek death penalty in Henderson case
Henderson County District Attorney Mark Hall intends to seek the death penalty
against Sarah Henderson, the woman charged with capital murder in the shootings
of her 2 young daughters.
"Although the state is making its election at this time not knowing the
ultimate result of the evaluations, and whether the defendant is found to be
competent or incompetent and later restored to competency, the state elects to
seek the death penalty in this case in order to allow the jury that will hear
the case the opportunity to impose the punishment it deems appropriate, should
the defendant be found guilt of capital murder," court records show.
Hall filed his election to seek death on Friday. He has said he had a June 1
deadline to make a decision on the punishment if Henderson is found guilty. A
hearing was conducted on April 27 after defense attorneys filed a motion for
examination to determine competency.
Judge Scott McKee of the 392nd Judicial District Court entered an order for
examination to determine Henderson's competency. Dr. Tom Allen and Dr. Timothy
Proctor were appointed to examine the defendant.
Henderson, 30, has pleaded not guilty after being indicted in January on 2
counts of capital murder, attempted murder and assault on a public servant. A
jury trial has been scheduled for Jan. 28, 2019.
She was arrested on Nov. 2, 2017, at her Payne Springs home. Henderson County
Sheriff Botie Hillhouse said at the time she had planned the murders of Kaylee
and Kenlie for a couple of weeks and that she tried to kill her husband, Jacob
Henderson, before the gun malfunctioned. The girls were 5 and 7.
In a 911 call, Jacob asked for help for his wife before asking a dispatcher to
"disregard" the call. 3 hours later, he made another 911 call to report that
his wife had shot the girls in their heads.
"The assault on a public servant arose 2 days later while Henderson was being
held in the Henderson County jail, where she is accused of striking a detention
officer while he was attempting to release her from restraint," according to
reports.
McKee provided prosecutors and defense attorneys Steve Green and John
Youngblood a restricted and protective order - that is, a gag order.
Henderson remains in the Henderson County jail on $1 million bond each on the
capital cases and a combined $100,000 bond on the other counts.
(source: Athens Daily Review)
*******************--female may face death penalty
Details released for Wichita Falls woman charged in capital murder of Abilene
man
A Wichita Falls woman has been accused of being the 2nd person involved in the
fatal shooting of an Abilene man last month after police received a Crime
Stoppers tip and a recorded jail phone call.
Precious Nicole Tillery, 19, has been charged with capital murder. She was in
the Wichita County Jail Monday morning in lieu of $2 million bail. Eric Glenn
Lee II, 22, is also facing capital murder.
If found guilty of the capital felony, Tillery and Lee would be sentenced to
life without parole or the death penalty.
Court documents revealed Tillery was on probation for an aggravated assault
with a deadly weapon at the time of the shooting.
She had initially been charged with aggravated robbery for the Feb. 28, 2016,
stabbing of a man in the 400 block of Bailey Street.
In that incident, Tillery claimed he had stole money that belonged to her and
reportedly dug through his pockets and then took his Oklahoma identification
card.
She was indicted for aggravated assault on April 21, 2016. She accepted a plea
deal and was sentenced to 8 years deferred probation after pleading guilty on
Oct. 26, 2016.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit for the capital murder:
Wichita Falls police were called to the scene of a shooting in the 1000 block
of Juarez Street around 12:56 a.m. on April 17. A detective was called to the
scene around 1:25 a.m.
When officers arrived on scene, they found 28-year-old Matthew Liggins in front
of the address with multiple gunshot wounds to the upper torso.
Liggins was taken to United Regional Health Care System, where he later died
from his injuries.
A witness told responding officers that she was in the front passenger of
Liggins' vehicle and identified a possible suspect as Lee.
The witness was taken to the Wichita Falls Police Department by detectives to
be further interviewed.
At the station, the witness said Liggins had driven them from Abilene to
Wichita Falls to pick up a friend who had been robbed by Lee earlier in the
day.
She said they didn't know that the friend had been robbed until after they
arrived in Wichita Falls.
When they arrived the apartments, the witness said Liggins contacted Lee and
told him that they were outside.
The witness said Lee and a person with brown and black dreads ??? she thought
the person might be a woman, but she could be wrong - came out to Liggins' Jeep
Patriot.
She said they opened the back driver side door. Lee reportedly pulled out a
gun, pointed it at Liggins from the backseat and demanded that Liggins give Lee
everything he had.
The witness said Liggins told Lee that he didn't have anything and Lee started
shooting, striking Liggins multiple times.
She said Lee then grabbed a Nike draw string bag and fled the scene.
The witness said she knew Lee from Abilene and would be able to pick him out of
a photo lineup.
She was shown photographs of Lee and 5 other black men with similar features.
The witness selected Lee and said she was 100 % sure that the photograph was of
him.
The witness also showed detectives several text messages from the friend that
Lee had told the friend he was meeting with Liggins to get "700 worth" of
something.
The messages also showed that the friend tried to tell them before they got to
Wichita Falls that Lee had tried to rob her before this happened.
Lee was arrested on May 17 on the warrant for capital murder. He remains in the
Wichita County Jail Monday morning in lieu of $2 million bail.
At that time, the identity of a 2nd person involved in the murder, possibly a
woman, remained unknown.
On May 24, the detective listened to a jail phone call that was made on April
26 between Lee and a phone number.
In the call, a woman believed to be Lee's mother told him that she knows
"Precious" was with him at the time of the incident and that he needed to tell
his lawyer that information.
A few days earlier, a Crime Stoppers tip had been received that named Tillery
as the 2nd suspect involved in Liggin's murder.
On May 31, the detective traveled to Abilene to speak with the witness, who
identified Tillery from a photo lineup as the 2nd person involved in the
shooting.
The witness said Tillery had a firearm, threatened her with the firearm and was
possibly the one who struck her in the head.
She also was able to confirm that Lee and Tillery took an unknown amount of K2
- a synthetic marijuana - in a black lock box.
(source: timesrecordnews.com)
************************
Justices Slam Rejection of Condemned Inmate's Appeal
2 liberal justices dissented Monday from the Supreme Court's decision not to
hear a case involving mitigating evidence that a Texas death-row inmate has
fetal alcohol syndrome, saying jurors did not have a complete picture of his
character.
Carlos Trevino was convicted in 1997 of murdering 15-year-old Linda Salinas.
Police found Salinas' body in a park in San Antonio, Texas, on June 10, 1996, a
day after she had gotten into a car with Trevino, his cousin Juan Gonzales and
3 other friends.
Instead of driving the girl to a fast-food restaurant as they had promised,
they took her to the park and 3 of them raped her, according to the case
record.
Gonzales testified for the prosecution that Trevino did not rape Salinas but he
held her down while someone else did.
Gonzales also testified that Trevino urged him to join in the gang rape but he
refused, that Trevino talked about the need to eliminate Salinas as a witness,
and that he bragged after the murder that he "learned how to kill in prison"
and "learned how to use a knife in prison."
An autopsy showed Salinas died from a stab wound to the neck. Forensic experts
found fibers from Trevino's slacks on her clothes and determined Trevino
couldn't be ruled out as the source of DNA found in her panties.
During the punishment phase of Trevino's capital murder trial, his attorney
only called 1 witness, Trevino's aunt, Juanita Trevino DeLeon. She testified
that Trevino had a rough childhood - his family was on welfare, he dropped out
of high school and his mother was an alcoholic, according to a rehash of the
case by the Fifth Circuit.
The trial attorney first met DeLeon in the Bexar County Courthouse basement
during a lunch break in the proceedings, before she testified that afternoon,
according to Trevino's 2nd amended federal habeas complaint.
The trial court sentenced Trevino to death after he rejected a plea offer that
would have spared his life. The court appointed Trevino a different attorney to
handle his direct state appeal, and a 3rd attorney to seek state collateral
relief.
Neither of Trevino's state appellate attorneys raised the argument that he was
denied his Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel based on his trial
attorney not investigating potentially mitigating evidence that he suffers from
fetal alcohol syndrome.
After the trial court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief,
Trevino filed a federal habeas petition and was appointed another attorney, who
claimed for the 1st time that his trial attorney was ineffective for not
rounding up and presenting mitigating evidence.
The attorney told U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez in San Antonio that his
own investigation revealed Trevino's mother had abused alcohol while pregnant
with him, that Trevino weighed 4 pounds at birth, and that he had suffered from
fetal alcohol syndrome symptoms throughout his life.
Rodriguez stayed the federal case to let Trevino raise the claim in the state
trial court, which ruled that because he had not made the argument in his
initial post-conviction proceedings, he was barred from making it.
Rodriguez denied his federal habeas petition on the same procedural grounds. So
did the Fifth Circuit.
The U.S. Supreme Court breathed life into Trevino's case with its 2012 ruling
in Martinez v. Ryan, in which it held a federal habeas petitioner is not barred
from making an ineffective counsel claim if the state's habeas rules require
them to make the argument during their 1st state habeas proceeding and their
attorney was ineffective.
However, Judge Rodriguez denied the petition in June 2015, finding that even
the new Supreme Court precedent did not excuse Trevino's procedural default -
and even if he did clear that hurdle, the new mitigating evidence did not
overcome Trevino's lack of remorse for the crime, the deciding factor for
Rodriguez.
The Fifth Circuit then ruled that the fetal alcohol syndrome evidence "goes to
the heart" of the aggravating evidence Rodriguez based his denial on.
Because Rodriguez himself admitted that Trevino's lack of remorse could have
been a product of his fetal alcohol effects, he should have given more weight
to that evidence, the New Orleans-based appeals court found. The panel granted
Trevino permission to appeal the district court's dismissal of his 2nd amended
habeas petition.
On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected Trevino's petition for writ of
certiorari.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissented from
the decision.
"Absent intervention from this Court...Trevino remains subject to a death
sentence having received inadequate consideration of his claim of ineffective
assistance of trial counsel, and with no jury having fairly appraised the
substantial new mitigating evidence that a competent counsel would have
discovered," Sotomayor wrote. "That result is indefensible, especially where
our failure to intervene sanctions the taking of a life by the state."
She added that "the true impact of new evidence, both aggravating and
mitigating, can only be understood by asking how the jury would have considered
that evidence in light of what it already knew."
"The new mitigating evidence relating to [fetal alcohol spectrum disorder] is
completely different in kind from any other evidence that the jury heard about
Trevino," Sotomayor said. "Had the jury learned of the FASD and related
testimony, it would have had a much fuller perspective of his character and
background."
(source: Courthouse News)
****************
Byrd's family: Don't forget him----20 years after his lynching, man's loved
ones carry forward hope in his memory
On the 20th anniversary of her brother's death, Louvon Harris will return to
Jasper, to a park that bears his name.
On Thursday, Harris and her family will mark 2 decades since James Byrd Jr. was
chained to the bumper of a truck by 3 white men and dragged to his death on
arural Jasper County road. The family plans to take part in 2 celebrations
honoring Byrd's legacy and will promote diversity and tolerance.
Harris, who lives in Houston, is board president of the Byrd Foundation for
Racial Healing, a group she started after the 1998 hate crime.
"It's important now, more than ever," to remember her brother's senseless
murder, she said.
"There are times where Jasper wants to forget that it happened in Jasper," she
said. She said some choose to brush Byrd's death aside as history instead of
recognizing it and learning from it. "You have to deal with it, face it and let
it be known."
Brutality on a country road
Byrd was 49 when he was dragged for 3 miles on an old logging road on the
outskirts of town on June 7, 1998.
The crime, referred to as a "modern-day lynching," drew national attention and
brought the Ku Klux Klan and the New Black Panther Party to the County
Courthouse for dueling protests.
Shawn Allen Berry, John William King and Lawrence Russell Brewer were found
guilty of capital murder in King's death.
Berry, 42, who is serving a life sentence, will be eligible for parole in 2038.
Brewer was sentenced to death and executed in 2011 at the age of 44.
King, 43, is currently appealing his death penalty conviction, claiming his
trial lawyers were ineffective in proving his innocence. The Fifth Circuit
Court of Appeals denied his appeal in February, saying Sonny Cribbs and Brack
Jones did their best in an "uphill battle," and denied a petition for rehearing
in March in which King's lawyer claimed his racist beliefs were fantasies, not
the grounds for violent crime. He can still appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Almost three years after Byrd's murder, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed the James
Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, which enforced harsher penalties for crimes committed
out of bias against the victim's race, disability, religion, national origin,
age, gender or sexual orientation. His predecessor, then-Gov. George W. Bush,
had refused to sign the bill, saying that all crimes are hate crimes.
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed by
Congress and signed into federal law in 2009.
Murder haunts town
The shocking crime that pushed Jasper into a national spotlight has lingered
and likely continues to tarnish the town's reputation, Harris said.
When Harris tells people she's from Jasper, where her father and 2 of her
siblings still live, they associate it with her brother's death immediately,
she said.
Newton County Sheriff Billy Rowles, who was the sheriff in Jasper County in
1998, said someone brings it up or asks about it every few weeks.
"There's some people that still like to talk about it," he said.
"We learned a lot out of it," he said last week, including lessons about
transparency and relying on common sense.
"The national media was portraying us as a bunch of pot-bellied, beer-drinking,
snuff-dipping redneck police," Rowles said. After they voluntarily released the
probable cause affidavit, which he said detailed law enforcement's entire case
against the 3 men, "the whole thing turned around."
"Jasper was not the kind of community that people tried to make it out to be,"
Rowles said last summer, when the Fifth Circuit agreed to hear King's appeal,
re-opening the case. "That scar is still there, it's healing."
Harris said healing comes from acknowledging and addressing the crime and its
aftermath, not from "brushing it over."
She said the hate crime legislation will help families in the future whose
loved ones are killed in similar "senseless crimes," but "if you're not
addressing the inside, the law doesn't help."
"If you forget that this happened," you can't prevent it from happening again,
Harris said. "As a family," she said, "you try to move on, and find peace in
justice being served."
A family's hope
Harris said she hopes the commemorative events in Jasper are attended by a
diverse crowd.
A bench honoring Byrd will be installed outside the courthouse where King and
Berry were convicted. Rowles is scheduled to speak at the 9 a.m. ceremony on
Thursday.
The Byrd Foundation will sponsor "Fun Day in the Park" at James Byrd Jr.
Memorial Park on Burch Street from 10 a.m. to noon Thursday. The event will
include awards for participants in a cultural diversity challenge.
The contest tasks children with making a collage that represents diversity. The
Foundation promotes "taking a stand when you encounter racism," and interacting
with people of different cultures.
"I'm hoping to see more integration" at the events, Harris said, as evidence
that the community has moved toward healing.
"When you feel robbed of your loved one, it's a hard thing to get peace with,"
she said. "We deal with it on a daily basis as a family, and we build from it
and reach out."
(source: Beaumont Enterprise)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Trial date set for defendant in death penalty case----Wolowski gets more legal
assistance with capital case
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, hundreds of potential jurors will be
receiving notices to appear in Washington County Court this fall for the case
of a man accused in a 2013 homicide in Washington.
Scheduled for trial is Brandon Wolowski, 23, of Washington. The prosecution is
seeking the death penalty in connection with the shooting death Jan. 8, 2013,
of Matthew Mathias, 37, of Fayette Street.
Mathias' girlfriend, Michelle Powell, 38, was shot in the cheek, chin, chest
and arm but survived after undergoing surgery.
In addition to criminal homicide, Wolowski is charged with attempted homicide,
aggravated assault and robbery. Police said he was trying to steal guns from
the victims.
Wolowski, who is being held in Allegheny County jail, was not present in court
Monday when his court-appointed attorney, Noah Geary, and Assistant District
Attorney Leslie Ridge went before Judge John DiSalle to handle some new matters
that the defense raised.
Geary is claiming Washington police did not have probable cause to arrest
Wolowski based on information from Powell and a 911 caller, who named "Brandon'
as a suspect without further description or identification.
Ridge said after she left the courtroom that she was taken aback by Geary's
attempt to keep this aspect of the case from a jury. "This is not an
out-of-the-blue tip that we received," she said.
Geary also is attempting to have the case thrown out because it has taken so
long to come to trial. Ridge maintains that "the commonwealth has been ready
for years to go in this case."
Since January, Wolowski has had a petition for review before the state Superior
Court, which the prosecution has filed a request to quash. This and a variety
of other developments, such as a mental health evaluation and changing
attorneys, have resulted in delays, according to the prosecutors.
"If something has merit, I'm obligated to raise it," Geary told the judge.
Wolowski's purported lack of a proper upbringing and the effect of fetal
alcohol syndrome are potential mitigating factors that the defense intends to
introduce at trial.
Ridge and Geary will have a chance to present witnesses or argue about the
suppression of evidence in an appearance next month before DiSalle.
Potential jurors who are opposed to the death penalty must, by law, be excluded
from the panel, so individual questioning is a lengthy process. Selection is
set to begin Sept. 24 and could take as long as 11 days over the course of 4
weeks.
The trial, which could last a month, is slated for Oct. 29.
(source: Observer-Reporter)
******************
Man convicted of murder in 2016 double shooting
A man accused of gunning down 2 people in a rural Pennsylvania home is facing
the possibility of the death penalty after being found guilty of murder.
41-year-old Paul Henry III was convicted Tuesday for the September 2016
slayings of 31-year-old Foday Cheeks and 26-year-old Danielle Taylor in York
County.
Henry had testified that his wife was the shooter, contradicting the testimony
of four eyewitnesses. His wife was found dead in her prison cell 2 days after
the slayings.
Prosecutors have vowed to seek the death penalty for Henry. Capital punishment
is legal in Pennsylvania, but the governor has put all executions on hold
pending a review of the system.
The penalty phase of the trial begins Wednesday.
(source: Associated Press)
GEORGIA:
Death sentences becoming increasingly rare in Georgia
The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday did something it once did on a fairly
routine basis but now hardly ever does: It heard a death-penalty appeal.
It had been almost 2 years since the court heard a direct appeal - the 1st
appeal after a capital sentence is imposed - in a death-penalty case. And this
once-unthinkable rarity shouldn't change anytime soon. It's now been more than
4 years since a Georgia jury handed down a death sentence.
This is in keeping with what's been going on nationally. Last year, 39 death
sentences were imposed nationwide. That's a dramatic drop from 126 capital
sentences imposed a decade earlier and from 295 death sentences imposed in
1998, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington.
National polls show the death penalty is losing public support, said Pete
Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of
Georgia. That's because people are becoming increasingly comfortable with the
sentencing option of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"That has made a huge difference," said Skandalakis, once the district attorney
for the Coweta Judicial Circuit. "And when you sit down with victims' families
and discuss the process of a death-penalty case with all the pretrial hearings,
then the years of appeals that follow, I have found that families like the
finality of life without parole. It lets them get on with their lives."
On Monday, the state Supreme Court heard an appeal from Demetrius Willis, who
was sentenced to death by a Fulton County jury in 2008 for the murders of his
former girlfriend, their 3-year-old son and her boyfriend.
During the arguments, Willis' attorney asked the court to strike down the death
penalty in Georgia on grounds it is arbitrarily imposed. "It's just not
working," Charles Henry Frier said.
Fulton County prosecutor Kevin Armstrong asked the justices to reject Frier???s
claim, contending "there's no basis" behind it. The state Supreme Court is
expected to issue its decision later this year.
The last time a death sentence was handed down by a Georgia jury was March 2014
in Augusta against Adrian Hargrove, who committed a triple murder. Last year,
the 2 death cases that went to trial in Georgia involved the murder of law
enforcement officers - a crime that traditionally results in a death penalty.
Yet both resulted in sentences of life without parole.
More often than not, district attorneys are now allowing capital defendants to
enter guilty pleas in exchange for life-without-parole sentences.
"It's a self-fulfilling prophesy," Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny
Porter said. "As more and more juries give fewer death sentences, prosecutors
begin to think it's not worth the effort."
Even so, it's not time to remove the death penalty as a sentencing option,
Porter said. "I think there are still cases where there's just no question that
death is the proper punishment."
On July 23, Porter is scheduled to take the next capital case to trial in
Georgia. Tiffany Moss, who as of now is representing herself, is accused in the
abuse and starvation death of her 10-year-old daughter Emani.
Porter also sought death against the child's father, Eman Moss. But he pleaded
guilty 3 years ago in exchange for life without parole. The same offer has been
extended to Tiffany Moss in return for a guilty plea, but it will be rescinded
once jury selection begins next month, Porter said.
In addition to Moss, 4 other defendants tentatively face death-penalty trials
this year - 3 in Fulton and 1 more in Gwinnett.
Like Porter, many other Georgia DAs strongly support capital punishment. Last
year, for example, DAs announced they were seeking the death penalty in 26
cases. So far this year, prosecutors have filed notices to seek death in just 2
new cases, the state records show. Since it can take years for death penalty
cases to move foward, it's not clear how many of these will proceed to trial.
Opponents to capital punishment have traditionally been aligned with liberal
causes. More recently, increasing numbers of conservatives are speaking out
against it.
Heather Beaudoin, national coordinator of Conservatives Concerned about the
Death Penalty, said her primary concerns are the number of exonerations that
have been disclosed over the years and the possibility of executing an innocent
person.
"We have a problem on our hands," she said.
According to the Innocence Project, there have been 356 convictions overturned
by DNA evidence around the U.S. since 1989, including 20 who were convicted and
served time on death row.
Beaudoin founded Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty in Montana in
2010. 5 years ago, it became a national organization and has chapters in 13
states, including 1 in Georgia.
"Many of our supporters are millennials who are pro-life like I am," she said.
"We believe that life is created by God and has value no matter what the
circumstances are. Even someone who has committed an awful crime - that life
has value."
After 4 years without a death sentence, Georgia's capital defender office is
attracting national recognition. The capital defender's office is part of the
state's public defender system and represents capital defendants who can't
afford their own lawyers.
The office's intervention program, in which capital defenders seek plea deals
from prosecutors early on in a case, has helped more than 20 defendants avoid a
death-penalty trial, Jerry Word, who heads the defender office, said.
"The average time to resolve a case in early intervention has been less than 8
months," Word said. "The average time to get a case to trial is over 3 years.
This results in a saving in court time and dollar savings to the state and
county."
(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
FLORIDA:
Steven Hayward, convicted in 2005 killing of newspaper carrier in Fort Pierce,
off death row
After spending nearly 11 years on death row, convicted killer Steven Douglas
Hayward was sentenced last month to life in prison without parole.
Hayward was convicted and sentenced to death in June 2007 for robbing and
shooting Daniel DeStefano, a 32-year-old Fort Pierce Tribune newspaper carrier.
DeStefano was shot in the chest and thigh as he delivered newspapers to
convenience stores along Avenue D in Fort Pierce about 4 a.m. Feb. 1, 2005.
The state's newest death penalty law, enacted in March 2017, requires a jury to
reach 12-0 vote to recommend death.
Rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court retroactively
invalidated death sentences that followed less-than-unanimous jury
recommendations. It applies to those whose direct appeals were finalized after
June 24, 2002.
Hayward's jury voted 8-4 for death in the sentencing phase.
Though prosecutors initially filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty
again for Hayward, Chief Assistant State Attorney Tom Bakkedahl said in January
he would instead abide by the family's wishes to not to go through another
death penalty hearing.
Bakkedahl said even if a new jury voted unanimously for the death penalty, that
merely is the 1st step in a 15-year process of appeals.
"The family couldn???t quite go through the process again, and I didn't have
the heart to force them," Bakkedahl said.
With all appeals resolved, Hayward was given the life sentence on May 16 by
Circuit Judge James McCann, who had issued the original death sentence in 2007.
The hearing did give DeStafano's family members some closure.
Some of them, including DeStafano's fiancee, Renee Mancini, read their victim
impact statements to the judge for the record.
New sentencing hearings have been ordered for dozens of Florida death row
inmates.
Hayward was the 1st of 6 Treasure Coast cases for which the resentencing has
been completed. The other cases aren't that far along, Bakkedahl said.
"Those that have been sent back (for new sentencing hearings), we've filed
notices of intent to seek death," Bakkedahl said. "We will consult with the
families in each of those, and then made a decision based on the facts, the new
law and the family's wishes."
(sourcce: tcpalm.com)
*********************
Bargo attorney wants 1 year to prepare for trial
Michael Shane Bargo was sentenced to death in December 2013 in the 2011 murder
of Seath Jackson. Under new death penalty law, Bargo was granted a resentencing
in June 2017.
An attorney representing a convicted murderer deemed the ringleader in the 2011
death of 15-year-old Seath Jackson said there are multiple motions to be filed
and argued before a trial date can be scheduled in his resentencing.
Michael Shane Bargo, 26, of Summerfield, was sentenced to death in December
2013 for the killing, but under the new death penalty law was granted a
resentencing in June 2017. Bargo, who is incarcerated at Union Correctional
Institution in Raiford, was not present for a short pretrial conference held
Monday.
Defense attorney Candace Hawthorne told 5th Circuit Judge Anthony Tatti there
are multiple motions she needs to file and have heard before she can gauge when
she will be ready for trial. She submitted 2 motions in May to exclude the
death penalty and to receive adequate time to prepare for trial.
In the motion for adequate time, Hawthorne proposed a timeline that has the
trial beginning in August 2019.
Assistant State Attorney Amy Berndt told Tatti she strenuously objects to that
timeline. When Bargo's case first returned to circuit court in September 2017,
Berndt said the state was ready for trial and was waiting for the defense.
Hawthorne requested the extra time because there have been "significant
developments" in psychology and neuroscience since Bargo's incarceration that
would demand reevaluations by expert witnesses. She also argued she must review
the entire proceedings leading up to Bargo's original trial to reevaluate them
and provide proper representation.
She added that a preliminary investigation into Bargo's life has unearthed
"several issues that have not yet been explored."
"Resentencing cases require more time (not less) preparation time [sic] than
the original sentencing," Hawthorne wrote in the motion.
Tatti said both sides will be able to argue Hawthorne's motions next week. He
tentatively set a hearing for June 13, but said it depends on when Bargo can be
transferred back to attend.
Bargo was sentenced to death by a 10-2 jury vote.
Florida has since deemed that unconstitutional and ordered that juries now
reach a unanimous vote in order to sentence a defendant to death. Neither of
the 2 Marion County defendants who went to trial under this new rule were
sentenced to death.
While Bargo's sentence was thrown out, his conviction still stands.
He - along with co-defendants Amber Wright, 21; Kyle Hooper, 22; Charlie Ely,
24; and Justin Soto, 26 - was convicted of 1st-degree murder in August 2013.
All the other co-defendants were sentenced to life in prison.
On the night of April 17, 2011, Seath was ambushed by Bargo and the
co-defendants. After Seath sat down in a living room chair, Hooper hit him in
the head with a wooden object and Bargo followed after, shooting at him. Seath
tried to flee the house but was tackled by Soto in the front yard, where he was
shot again by Bargo. Bargo and Soto also beat Seath while in the front yard.
Seath was then carried to the bathroom of the house and placed in the bathtub.
Bargo hit him, cursed him and fired more bullets at him, authorities said.
Later that night, Bargo and Soto carried Seath's body to a fire pit and burned
it. Seath's remains were placed in paint buckets and dropped in a water-filled
quarry.
James Young Havens III, 44, of Summerfield, pleaded guilty in March to helping
Bargo and his co-defendants dispose of Seath's remains. He drove Bargo and
Hooper to a lime rock pit in Ocala, where the 2 dropped the paint buckets. He
is awaiting sentencing.
Bargo is 1 of 4 Marion County death row inmates granted resentencings by the
Florida Supreme Court.
(source: ocala.com)
****************
Defense asks Markeith Loyd's prosecutor to be removed, citing conflict of
interest
An attorney for Markeith Loyd, who faces the possibility of the death penalty
in the killings of his pregnant ex-girlfriend and an Orlando police officer, is
trying to disqualify Loyd's prosecutor citing a potential conflict of interest,
records show.
Ocala-based State Attorney Brad King is both Loyd's prosecutor and the chair of
the Justice Administrative Commission - the 4-person state board that approves
the funding of expert witnesses for indigent defendants like Loyd.
"We don't want him overseeing the funding in our case," Loyd's defense
attorney, Roger Weeden, said Monday.
The commission last month voted unanimously not to renew the contract of
Cynthia O'Shea, who worked on Loyd's case gathering information meant to
convince jurors not to recommend a death sentence. That required building trust
with Loyd and his family to compile his life story and family history, his
lawyers say - trust Weeden said he worries won't carry over to the next
mitigation specialist assigned to the case.
"The decision was purportedly related to Ms. O'Shea's billing practices,"
Weeden wrote in a motion filed Sunday. Commission members asked their staff to
review her billing, which Weeden wrote "would require an examination of the
contacts and services she performs as a mitigation specialist and substantially
compromise her position on the defense team."
King "has a clear and irreconcilable conflict requiring his disqualification,"
Loyd's defense attorney, Roger Weeden, wrote in a motion filed Sunday.
Members of the Justice Administrative Commission approve paying expert
witnesses who can tell jurors about a defendant's physical and mental health,
ballistics evidence, and other details of the crime scene. But not all cases go
before the board: Wealthy defendants are expected to pay their own way, and
public defender's offices have their own budgets for experts. That leaves
indigent defendants represented by independent attorneys appointed by the
courts.
Loyd is set to be in court Tuesday morning - he filed a motion asking to fire
his attorneys, saying they have an "adversarial" relationship and that they
have not sought out medical care and evidence he asked for. He is scheduled to
go to trial in September for the killing of Sade Dixon, his pregnant
ex-girlfriend, and in January for Lt. Debra Clayton, an Orlando police officer.
King was appointed to the case after the local prosecutor, Orange-Osceola State
Attorney Aramis Ayala, announced she planned to no longer seek the death
penalty for anyone. She has since reversed that policy, but not before Gov.
Rick Scott took 29 murder cases away from her office - including Loyd's.
(source: Orlando Sentinel)
LOUISIANA:
How Prosecutors Ruined the Life of Corey Williams----After 20 years in prison,
Williams is free-but justice has not been served.
On the evening of January 4, 1998, in Shreveport, Louisiana, a group of
neighborhood friends came up with an idea - they would order a pizza. The
deliveryman, 23-year-old Jarvis Griffin, arrived at the house where a group of
friends, including 16-year-old Corey Williams and 20-year-old Chris Moore
(nicknamed "Rapist"), were hanging out.
At the time, according to court filings from Williams' attorneys, Williams was
known as someone who would take the fall for anyone, "what one might refer to
as a 'chump,'" a family member said. He reportedly had an IQ of 68, had been
institutionalized multiple times for intellectual disability, and suffered from
a severe case of lead poisoning.
After delivering the pizza and collecting his money, Griffin returned to his
car. Soon afterwards, he was slumped over the wheel, dead from gunshots.
Witnesses, including Williams himself, initially told investigators that
several men were involved in shooting and robbing Griffin, including then
16-year old Gabriel Logan, his older brother Nathan Logan, and Moore
("Rapist"). During interrogations, however, the older boys, the Logan brothers
and Rapist, directed police to the gun and claimed that Williams had shot
Griffin, after which they had all divvied up the money.
But, the physical evidence didn't match up. The only fingerprints on the gun
were Nathan Logan's - who was never charged. The only blood was on Gabriel
Logan's shirt. The gun was Rapist's. And the money? Williams didn't have any of
it. The other men had split the proceeds.
Instead, Williams was found that evening by law enforcement trembling and
urine-soaked at his grandmother's house, huddled under a sheet; he had peed in
his pants out of fear of the older boys. Still, he was dragged to the police
station that night. In his 1st interview with police, Williams said that he had
seen Gabriel Logan shoot the victim; he also told police that Gabriel had
called him and threatened to kill him if he didn't take the fall for the crime.
But, at 8:30 the next morning, after 12 hours of continuous interrogation and
no sleep, he confessed to shooting the driver. He then asked if he could go
home and lie down.
Not long after, Williams insisted he was innocent and his confession, false.
But in October of 2000, he was convicted of 1st-degree murder and sent to death
row. ("Rapist" was the star prosecution witness who testified against
Williams.) This sentence was later commuted to life without parole after a
judge determined that Williams is intellectually disabled and therefore not
eligible for the death penalty. Nonetheless, up until May 21, he was still
serving time in Angola Prison.
Then, on May 22, in a surprise settlement agreement, the Caddo Parish District
Attorney's office agreed to release Williams immediately in exchange for a plea
of manslaughter. This was a tremendous turn-around, a victory for which
Williams had fought for 2 decades, first largely on his own, but increasingly
with a growing base of support. In recent years, as the movement to hold
corrupt prosecutors accountable has grown, Williams's case has become a symbol
of the most flagrant prosecutorial abuse - as well as of all that is broken
with Louisiana's criminal justice system. With his release, justice finally
seemed to prevail.
Yet, Williams's freedom also came at a price. While the deal gets Williams, now
36, out of prison, it disqualifies him from compensation and leaves a man who
has always insisted on his innocence with a murder conviction. It also fails to
hold any of the parties who played a role in convicting Williams - the police,
the prosecutor, the judge - to account.
Clearly, Williams's attorneys must have believed it was the best way to get him
out of prison. "This was an impossible deal for Corey to turn down," Amir Ali,
an attorney with the MacArthur Justice Center, which helped represent Williams,
told the Washington Post. "I think, given the circumstances, it was the best
possible outcome for Corey."
But how did 20 years in prison followed by a guilty plea for a crime Williams
says he didn't commit become the "best possible outcome"? And what does it say
about the enduring failures of justice for Williams - and so many like him?
To understand how Williams wound up being sentenced to death for a crime he did
not commit, it helps to know how justice worked for years in Caddo Parish,
where he was convicted.
Caddo Parish, which sits in the northwest corner of Louisiana, has a long and
shameful history of criminal-justice abuses. Dubbed "Bloody Caddo" during the
reign of white terror that followed the Civil War, it has made a name for
itself in more recent decades for handing out death sentences at a higher rate
than almost any other county in the country. Indeed, between 2010 and 2014, the
parish was responsible for sentencing 8 of the 12 people sent to death row in
the state - a fact that seemed to please the acting district attorney at the
time, Dale Cox. As he famously told the Shreveport Times in 2015, "I think we
need to kill more people.... I think the death penalty should be used more
often."
At the same time, Caddo has come under increasing fire for serious instances of
prosecutorial misconduct. It was in Caddo Parish that Glenn Ford was wrongfully
convicted of murder in 1984, ultimately spending 30 years on death row before
he was finally exonerated and released in 2014. (Ford died from terminal cancer
shortly thereafter.) The parish also convicted Rodricus Crawford, who was
recently exonerated, of murdering his son despite the medical evidence to the
contrary.
Such was the world in which Williams was tried and convicted in 1998 by a
prosecutor who had already made a name for himself by sending men to death row.
The prosecutor's name was Hugo Holland, and before sending Williams to prison,
he had tried dozens of death penalty cases and put at least 10 people on
Louisiana's death row, most of whom are also men of color. Yet, in later years,
his practices would raise serious questions: 1/2 of his death-penalty
convictions have since been overturned, while 2 are awaiting appeals. He has
also been accused of withholding evidence in at least 3 of those cases,
including Williams's, according to aWashington Postprofile by Radley Balko.
In the years since prosecuting Williams's case, Holland has become a well-known
- and controversial - figure in Louisiana. In 2012, he was fired from his job
as assistant district attorney after it was discovered that he had doctored
documents as part of a scheme to procure a cache of M-16 rifles from the
federal government's military surplus program. (The guns were apparently
intended to arm Holland and several of his colleagues who had formed a
paramilitary-style "Zombie Response Team" in the parish.) Yet he quickly found
his footing as a successful prosecutor-for-hire, reportedly earning some
$200,000 in 2015. He is also a lobbyist for Caddo Parish and represents law and
order interests in the Louisiana state government, where he continues to push
for the death penalty. As he told The Advocate in a profile published last
year, "The only thing that we can do with animals that do stuff like that is
put them down."
When I contacted Holland for comment via email, he wasn't aware that Williams
had been released on a plea deal. But his written reply was unapologetic: "We
didnt conceal anything. Thats horseshit. Didnt know he was out. He shouldnt be.
He is a murderer."
For G. Ben Cohen, Williams's longtime attorney and advocate, Holland's response
was as brazen as it was troubling: "There is nothing more dangerous for
Louisiana's justice system than prosecutors like Hugo Holland, who have a toxic
combination of hubris, deceit, and indifference."
Cohen has good reason to know.
For almost 2 decades, he and Williams's other attorneys tried unsuccessfully to
win Williams's freedom. They focused on a host of errors committed during both
the investigation and trial, ranging from incompetent defense counsel to the
fact of Williams's youth and disability. In particular, Williams's attorneys
had focused prior appeals on the 12-hour interrogation to which Williams - a
16-year-old who "still sucked his thumb, urinated himself on a daily basis, and
regularly ate dirt and paper" - was subjected. But, none of the higher courts
found error sufficient to reverse the conviction.
Then, in 2015, Williams's counsel located exculpatory evidence that had been
hidden by prosecutors for nearly 20 years. This evidence is called Brady
material after the 1963 US Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland, in which the
Supreme Court held that prosecutors - by virtue of that fact that they are
privy to police investigations and other investigatory materials - are
obligated to give the defense anything that might be useful for their client.
Since prosecutors are the gatekeepers, they often end up deciding what
information is useful or irrelevant, and defendants regularly don't know what
Brady information is available, if any.
In this case, according to the brief submitted by Williams's lawyers, the
prosecutors did not disclose the existence of tapes of interviews with
witnesses to the crime. They continued to hide the tapes for a dozen years,
even as Williams' attorneys requested them again and again. As a result, the
defense team was forced to rely on "summaries" of the witness statements. Such
summaries are common practice in Louisiana, but, Williams's lawyers argued,
they appeared in his case to have been directly "altered" to ensure that
Williams looked guilty. Some statements were omitted altogether.
So what did the actual recordings, obtained by Williams's lawyers in 2015,
reveal? According to Williams's lawyers, they indicate that multiple
eyewitnesses - including the original officers who investigated the crime -
believed that Williams was innocent. "It sounds like to me y'all all decided
y'all going to blame it on Corey," one of the detectives said during an
interview with some of the older men who'd been at the crime scene. There was
also an interview with another witness who suggested that Moore was likely
guilty, not Williams. Yet Williams's lawyers never received this information
and, without it, weren't able to mount an effective defense that their client
was taking the fall for a group of older, savvier men.
This is what Williams's lawyers argued when they appealed his case for the
second time to the US Supreme Court earlier this year. And as news of the story
spread, it wasn't just defense attorneys who began viewing the Williams verdict
askance; law enforcement also came to Williams's defense. Earlier this year, 44
former prosecutors and DOJ officials signed an amicus brief arguing that
Williams should be freed and his case retried based on the obligation
prosecutors have to disclose evidence under Brady.
"Prosecutors bear a special responsibility for a fair and just result in all
criminal prosecutions," the brief summarizes, a fact that seems to have eluded
Holland in this case.
These days, Caddo Parish has a new district attorney, James Stewart, who was
elected in 2015 largely as a progressive choice. (He was backed by, among
others, George Soros, whose Louisiana Safety and Justice PAC gave hefty sums to
Stewart's campaign.) Williams's attorneys credit him for releasing their client
when prior DA's refused to do so.
The deal Caddo Parish offered Williams isn't unusual. In fact, it's common for
prosecutors to offer defendants with credible claims of innocence a lighter
sentence in exchange for immediate release. Defendants take them because
proving innocence can take years. In 2016, Stewart made a similar deal with
Curtis Davis, who was also wrongfully convicted of 2nd-degree murder and
sentenced to life without parole. Davis accepted a plea of manslaughter in
exchange for his freedom. Now Davis works with criminal justice organizations.
The manslaughter settlement allows everyone involved to save face: no one
accepts responsibility and Williams is released. (The prosecutor's filings in
Williams's case indicate that they contemplated prosecuting Williams for aiding
and abetting, even if evidence cast doubt on whether he was the shooter.
Williams also forfeited his right to appeal or bring any civil action against
law enforcement.) Williams's attorneys credited Stewart for making the plea
deal when his predecessor would not. From a practical perspective, it's
understandable why Williams would take the deal. His lawyers say that he has
suffered greatly in prison because of his disability and is being abused by
other inmates in Angola. But it's hard to see this as justice, particularly for
a man whom Louisiana has fought so hard to kill.
On the morning of May 22, pictures were published of Williams leaving Angola
flanked by his lawyers and supporters. He looked happy, if dazed. Williams,
like many convicted youth, never had a chance to grow up, finish school, get
work experience, or contribute to society. Now, without financial resources,
Williams must rely again on the people who helped him get out.
As for Hugo Holland, he continues to collect his paycheck, a prosecutor not in
the least chastened by his errors, but, rather, emboldened that he was almost
able to get away with murder.
(source: Jessica Pishko is a San Francisco-based writer for the Fair Punishment
Project. She has written for Rolling Stone, Pacific Standard, and San Francisco
magazine----The Nation)
OHIO:
Judge to consider death penalty in Youngstown murder, arson case
A judge is scheduled to pass sentence today on a man convicted of beating a
Youngstown woman to death, setting her home on fire, and attacking her mother.
The jury that convicted 48-year-old Lance Hundley of aggravated murder,
attempted murder, felonious assault and aggravated arson has also recommended
that he be put to death of those crimes.
However, it is up to Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney
to actually sentence Hundley during a hearing at 11 o'clock this morning.
Prosecutors say in 2015, Hundley attacked 41-year-old Erika Huff at her home on
Cleveland Street, beat her to death, and then set the home on fire to cover up
the crime.
Officials say when Hundley encountered Huff's mother, Denise Johnson outside
the home, he attacked her with a claw hammer.
Officers responding to calls for help removed an air conditioner from the back
of the home and rescued Johnson.
After that rescue, they found Huff's body. Huff was confined to a wheelchair,
unable to walk because she suffered from MS.
Police originally said Hundley was living in the home and was inside when
police arrived. Hundley was arrested and was also taken to St. Elizabeth Health
Center for injuries.
Erika had a 6-year-old daughter who was not in the home at the time of the
fire.
(source: WFMJ news)
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