September 20
TEXAS----new execution date and 2 impending executions
Death Watch: Double Dose----2 executions in Huntsville next week
2 inmates face executions next week. Troy Clark is scheduled for lethal
injection on Wednesday, Sept. 26. Daniel Acker is due the following evening.
Both men claim they had no hand in the murders for which they were convicted,
but for Clark, that insistence seems to have fallen on deaf ears. The most
recent filing in his case was last November when the U.S. Supreme Court denied
his appeal. Clark, from Tyler, Texas, was found guilty of the 1998 murder of
Christina Muse, who was beaten and drowned in a bathtub, before her body was
shoved into a barrel of lime and cement mix. According to the Houston
Chronicle, Clark and some friends dumped the barrel in a remote area of the
property that he lived on. When law enforcement found Muse's remains, they
located a 2nd body decomposing nearby.
Clark's original appellate lawyer Craig Henry argued that Clark's trial lawyer
was "deficient" in his counsel, but Clark's second appellate attorney Jeffrey
Newberry argued the same thing about Henry. In a 2014 appeal, Newberry wrote,
"Henry's failure to present the mitigating evidence [to the appeals court]
prevented the Fifth Circuit from considering ... evidence that transformed
Clark's ... claim to such a degree that it was no longer the claim presented."
But it's not clear what Newberry has since done to continue legal efforts on
Clark's behalf. Today, anti-death penalty groups are calling on Gov. Greg
Abbott and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to halt Clark's execution,
including Dead Man Walking author Sister Helen Prejean.
Acker, however, is in the throes of last-minute appeals. On Tuesday, Sept. 18,
the Court of Criminal Appeals denied his latest request for relief as well as
his motion for a stay. Though his clemency application is still pending, his
attorney Richard Ellis confirmed Tuesday that he'll continue to fight for
Acker's life, and said an appeal to SCOTUS is likely his next step.
Acker, from Hopkins County, was convicted of capital murder in 2001 for the
strangulation and dumping of his girlfriend Marquetta George's body. Since his
arrest, Acker has held that George jumped out of his moving vehicle during a
heated argument and was likely hit by another car. His most recent appeal
alleges his innocence and argues that his due process was denied by the trial
court's exclusion of evidence, as well as "false," "misleading," and
"error"-filled testimony. Specifically, Acker's counsel claims it would have
been all but impossible for him to strangle George while driving. The
prosecution's trial argument relied heavily on the strangulation theory, but
the state and its medical examiner later disavowed the possibility during a
2011 federal evidentiary hearing. The doctor suggested George was never
strangled, and the prosecution then "contended that Mr. Acker pushed Ms. George
from the truck, a theory that was never presented to Acker's jury." But that
wasn't enough to sway the CCA. If last-minute relief is not granted, Clark and
Acker will be the ninth and 10th inmates executed in Texas in 2018.
(source: Austin Chronicle)
*********************
Alvin Braziel has been given an execution date for December 11; it should be
considered serious.
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----35
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----553
Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
36---------Sept. 26---------------Troy Clark--------------554
37---------Sept. 27---------------Daniel Acker------------555
38---------Oct. 10----------------Juan Segundo------------556
39---------Oct. 24----------------Kwame Rockwell----------557
40---------Nov. 7-----------------Emanuel Kemp, Jr.--------558
41---------Nov. 14---------------Robert Ramos--------------559
42---------Dec. 4-----------------Joseph Garcia-----------560
43---------Dec. 11----------------Alvin Braziel-----------561
44---------Jan. 15----------------Blaine Milam------------562
45---------Jan. 30----------------Robert Jennings---------563
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Hearing for death row inmate set for Nov. 7
Convicted killer and death row inmate Brentt M. Sherwood is scheduled to appear
in a Post Conviction Relief Act petition hearing Nov. 7 in Northumberland
County Court.
Following a status conference on Wednesday in front of Senior Judge Harold F.
Woelfel Jr., defense attorney Edward J Rymsza, of Williamsport said the hearing
at 1:15 p.m. in Jury Room 1 will involve Rule 801, which deals with the prior
counsel's qualifications for defense in capital cases.
Attorney William Ross Stoycos, of the state Attorney General's Office, declined
comment.
Sherwood, 39, who was convicted 11 years ago of beating his 4 1/2 -year-old
stepdaughter to death, did not appear in court on Wednesday.
Sherwood, seeking relief from a conviction of 1st degree murder and the
imposition of the death penalty, has originally listed 106 different reasons
why he should be awarded a new trial, including ineffective counsel,
inappropriate or unlawful procedures from the late Judge William Harvey Wiest,
procedural deficiencies and errors or omission of record, according to a
342-page Post Conviction Relief Act motion that was originally filed in 2012.
Sherwood, a former Northumberland resident, was sentenced to death in May 2007
after a Northumberland County jury convicted him of 1st-degree murder in the
December 2004 beating death of his 4 1/2-year-old stepdaughter, Marlee Reed.
During the trial, Sherwood admitted punching and kicking the child repeatedly
in their Northumberland home, but claimed he was high on cocaine and did not
mean to kill her.
Sherwood, currently incarcerated at State Correctional Institute-Greene in
Waynesburg, is one of 147 inmates - all men - currently on death row in
Pennsylvania, and 1 of t3 from Northumberland County. The other 2
Northumberland County inmates on death row are Kevin Marinelli, convicted in
the 1994 torture death of Kulpmont resident Conrad Dumchock; and James Frey, of
Milton, who pleaded guilty to the January 2004 kidnapping and fatal shooting of
his estranged wife, Debra, of Sunbury.
On Feb. 13, 2015, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced a halt to all
executions. He said the moratorium will continue until he has "received and
reviewed the forthcoming report of the Pennsylvania Task Force and Advisory
Commission on Capital Punishment, established under Senate Resolution 6 of
2011, and there is an opportunity to address all concerns satisfactorily."
The state has only executed three people since the U.S. Supreme Court restored
the death penalty in 1976, the last one in 1999. All were executed by lethal
injection, and in all 3 cases, they waived their appeals and asked that the
execution be carried out.
The 1st was Keith Zettlemoyer, 39, formerly of Shamokin Dam, put to death in
1995, 14 years after he shot and killed former Sunbury newsman Charles
DeVetsco, 30. The last was Gary Heidnik on July 6, 1999. Heidnik had been
convicted and given 2 death sentences in July 1988 for murdering 2 women he
imprisoned in his Philadelphia home.
(source: The Daily Item)
*****************
New jury will decide life in prison or death for Michelle Tharp----Attorneys:
Tharp should not face death
A Washington County president judge has ordered that a jury be empaneled to
decide if a woman convicted of starving her daughter to death should serve life
imprisonment or be sentenced to death.
Michelle Sue Tharp, 49, of Burgettstown, who has been on death row since being
convicted in 2000 for the 1st-degree murder of Tausha Lanham, 7, had sought to
bar county court from convening the proceeding.
In Pennsylvania, only a jury can impose a death sentence.
A Washington County jury, after weighing evidence presented to determine a
penalty, could alternatively find that Tharp deserves life imprisonment. If the
jurors cannot reach a unanimous verdict, life imprisonment also would be the
result.
President Judge Katherine B. Emery heard arguments from both the prosecution
and the defense.
Tharp's attorneys from Philadelphia, James J. McHugh Jr. and Elizabeth Hadayia,
claimed that so much time has elapsed from Tharps's 2000 conviction that many
witnesses who testified or gave sworn depositions have died.
Emery found, however, their prior testimony could be read into the record for
jurors to consider during a new penalty phase hearing.
Tharp's attorneys also asserted that her constitutional rights to
representation were violated through ineffective assistance of the Washington
County public defender, a defense for which the judge found no credence.
Egregious or willful "conduct on behalf of the Commonwealth is not present
here," the judge wrote. "Rather it was the conduct of (Tharp's) counsel that
violated her rights."
Lacking from the trial before then-judge Paul Pozonsky was testimony on Tharp's
mental state that might have resulted in a punishment other than the death
penalty, her attorneys contended.
Washington County District Attorney Gene Vittone said he couldn't comment on
the merits of Tharp's motion, but called it "unprecedented" in that Emery "said
she really couldn't find any case law to support what they were asking for, so
she made the correct decision."
Vittone said his office would continue to prepare for the hearing, and he
expects the president judge to issue a case-management order that will
establish a schedule.
Hadayia did not immediately return a call for comment, so it is unknown if
Tharp intends to appeal Emery's decision.
In a footnote, Emery wrote "Pennsylvania Supreme Court had the power to vacate"
Tharp's sentence and send her to prison for life without the possibility of
parole.
The state Supreme Court, "however, decided instead to grant Ms. Tharp a new
penalty phase hearing."
Justice Max Baer called the evidence of Tharp's guilt "overwhelming," writing
she not only denied Tausha meals but physically restrained the child so she
could not feed herself and asked others to perpetuate the same abuse.
Emery noted in her 6-page opinion Tausha, who weighed only 11.77 pounds at age
7, lacked fat in parts of the body where it normally accumulates, and had
extreme wear on her teeth from grinding.
Tausha was falsely reported to have been abducted from a mall in Steubenville,
Ohio, April 18, 1998, when she actually died in bed at home.
According to trial testimony, Tharp feared Washington County Children and Youth
Services would take away her other children, so the death was concealed.
Tausha's body, in trash bags, was found dumped along a road in Follansbee,
W.Va.
Tharp is serving her sentence in the State Correctional Institution at Muncy in
central Pennsylvania.
(source: Observer-Reporter)
VIRGINIA:
Convicted killer, already facing death penalty, admits slaying 2 girls in
Illinois in 2005
The horrific rampage of former Marine Jorge Torrez began in a park in his
hometown of Zion, Illinois, when he was just 16 years old. In May 2005, he
fatally stabbed Laura Hobbs, 8, and her friend Krystal Tobias, 9, in a case
that attracted national attention, particularly after Laura's father was
wrongfully charged with the girls' murder.
Jorge Torrez graduated from high school a year later, never a suspect in the
killings, and joined the Marines. By 2010 he was stationed at Fort Myer in
Arlington, Virginia, while working at the Pentagon. That's when he attacked 2
women coming home from a Saturday night out, bound them with electrical cords
inside their apartment, then took one of the women in his SUV, raped her,
choked her and left her for dead. Police soon found Torrez, took his DNA and
entered it into a national databank. And then the full scope of his crimes
became apparent.
First, in July 2010, the DNA linked him to the killing of Laura and Krystal 5
years earlier.
Then the DNA linked him to the 2009 strangulation of Amanda Jean Snell, a
20-year-old Navy petty officer also stationed at Fort Myer. While in the
Arlington County jail for his initial sex-crimes arrest, Torrez told a fellow
inmate that he'd committed all three murders. The inmate was wearing a
recorder. Federal prosecutors took the case, and won a rare death sentence from
a jury in Alexandria, Virginia, in 2014.
Illinois prosecutors soon extradited him back to Lake County. And on Tuesday,
he admitted killing Laura and Krystal on Mother's Day 2005, as part of a plea
deal in which he was sentenced to 100 years in prison, on top of his death
penalty for killing Snell and 5 life sentences for the attacks on the women in
Arlington.
"Within each of us, there is a divine spark of goodness. But not for you," Lake
County Circuit court Judge Daniel Shanes told Torrez, according to the Chicago
Daily Herald. "You are a serial killer."
Torrez did not speak during the plea and sentencing other than to answer the
judge's questions. As part of the plea deal, Torrez will be transferred from
the Red Onion State Prison in southwest Virginia to a federal prison where he
will await execution. His federal conviction and death sentence were upheld by
the Fourth Circuit federal appeals court last year, and the U.S. Supreme Court
is now considering Torrez's case.
"I just want to say we're glad it's over," said Marina Tobias, Krystal's
mother, according to the Lake County News-Sun. "It has been a very long time,
and this ensures he'll never do anything like that to anyone else."
The attack on the 2 women in Arlington shocked prosecutors with its brutality.
After forcing the women into their apartment in the Ballston area, Torrez drove
one of the women to a secluded area, raped her, then tightened a scarf around
her neck.
"I screamed, 'What are you doing?'" the victim testified in 2011. "He
responded, 'What do you think I'm doing?'" Torrez kept tugging on the scarf,
and the woman later awoke to find herself face down in the snow near a highway
in Prince William County, Virginia.
Virginia was the 1st state in the nation to authorize the taking of DNA from
prisoners even before they were convicted of a crime. Doing so with Torrez
quickly connected him to 3 homicides.
While Torrez was awaiting trial in Arlington for abduction and rape, he met
fellow inmate Osama el-Atari, a flashy former restaurateur in jail for fraud.
El-Atari knew of the pending murder cases against Torrez, and, while wearing a
wire, asked Torrez if he felt any remorse.
"Does a lion feel remorse when it kills a hyena?" Torrez can be heard telling
El-Atari during the taped conversation.
"You don't feel bad?" El-Atari asked during another conversation.
"Nope," Torrez responded.
"At all?" El-Atari asked again.
"Nope," Torrez repeated.
After a federal jury convicted Torrez of killing Snell inside Henderson Hall at
Fort Myer, prosecutors introduced evidence of the Zion killings of Krystal and
Laura to convince them that Torrez deserved to die. Torrez instructed his
attorneys not to contest the penalty phase of the case, and none of the
witnesses were cross-examined by the defense. The jury took only 4 hours to
agree on a death sentence.
Torrez's defense team did fight the murder charges in Illinois for several
years before finally reaching a plea agreement. Judge Shanes told him, "Your
murder of these 2 girls was reprehensible. What you did is repugnant to every
moral of civilized society."
(source: Washington Post)
NORTH CAROLINA----death row inmate dies
Death row inmates dies of natural causes
North Carolina officials say a death row inmate has died of natural causes.
The Department of Public Safety said in a release that Rowland Hedgepeth died
Monday afternoon of natural causes at the Central Prison Healthcare Complex.
Officials say the 67-year-old was convicted in Halifax County and sentenced to
death in November 1987 for the 1st-degree murder of Richard Casey. He was also
convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting
serious injury on his estranged wife, Beverly.
(source: Associated Press)
FLORIDA:
Defense wants new prosecutor in 2010 double murder case
Request stems from emails between Chief Assistant State Attorney and Ocala
Police Chief that have nothing to do with the trial but, defense attorneys say,
show bias and potential to conspire.
Defense attorneys for a convicted murderer awaiting trial for a 2010 double
murder have moved to disqualify the State Attorney's Office from the case and
to ask the governor to appoint a new prosecutor.
The request stems from correspondence between Chief Assistant State Attorney
Ric Ridgway and Ocala Police Chief Greg Graham following the death of a police
officer during firearms training in 2015. Although the email correspondence -
described by Ridgway as attorney-client communication - has nothing to do with
the double murder trial, defense attorneys argue it shows bias and potential
for both agencies to conspire to cover up a lackluster investigation into a
potential additional suspect.
Defense attorney Terry Lenamon said he and his team have "substantial evidence"
but no smoking gun showing either a cover-up or tempering with the
investigation because of the relationship.
Lenamon and defense attorney Tania Alavi represent Michael Lamar Woods, 35, who
is charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder with a firearm in the 2010 deaths
of Marshall Pardee, 23, and Chyavana Hampton, 20. Woods is facing the death
penalty.
Woods was convicted in 2014 of killing Toni Centracco, 20, who was found dead
in her driveway with 2 gunshot wounds to her head in 2007. He was sentenced to
life in prison for the crime.
"It's not just that (Ridgway) has a personal relationship with the chief,"
Alavi argued. "It's the attorney-client relationship which makes this much more
problematic."
The defense's motion to disqualify was filed under seal so it is not available
as a public document, but the contents of the motion were discussed at length
in a hearing Tuesday in front of 5th Circuit Judge Steve Rogers.
In a March 2017 deposition, a state witness told Lenamon and Assistant State
Attorney Robin Arnold that a male friend of Woods told her he helped with the
murders. He told her he had felt like he owed Woods for previous actions,
according to a transcript of the deposition.
After the deposition, Lenamon and Arnold agreed that Arnold would approach OPD
about re-opening the investigation to explore this new information.
About 16 months after the deposition, the defense received a report from the
police department that they thought fell short. Lenamon and Alavi argue the
police officer asked to further investigate the information was not familiar
with the original investigation and did not interview witnesses about the newly
discovered information.
They also argued that while the original investigation into the double murder
was thorough, the re-opened investigation did not follow protocol.
"It became apparent (when the defense received the police report) that the
state was not going to pursue the investigation and that they were going to
whitewash it," Lenamon said.
Arnold argued that 1st - by a technicality - the defense's motion should fail
because they did not present sworn testimony to support their motion. And 2nd,
that their allegation of a potential cover-up or tempering has no basis in
fact.
"Prosecutors and law enforcement officers work together in every case," she
said.
Additionally, Ridgway does not supervise the office's homicide department so he
has no direct control or input in the case, she said.
Arnold also argued that while the witness' statement may have been new
information, the alleged 2nd suspect was checked out from the beginning of the
original investigation.
Rogers said he would submit a ruling on the motion by this weekend.
Other motions discussed at the meeting requested specific evidence and police
files related to the case to be shared with the defense.
Lenamon told Rogers he expects to file a motion to continue the case in light
of the new evidence.
Woods is set for a month-long trial beginning Oct. 22.
(source: ocala.com)
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