Nov. 12
FLORIDA:
Dad faces death penalty for horrifying abuse of toddler uploaded to dark web
A 2-year-old was raped by her father in a video he uploaded to the dark web,
according to police.
The girl's father, 30-year-old James Lockhart, faces the death penalty if
convicted of the horrific abuse.
US Homeland Security said the Florida father "posted a video of extreme sexual
abuse of a female child [appearing to be less than 2-years-old[ by an adult
male" in November 2017.
According to the Miami Herald, Lockhart also made posts on securely encrypted
web pages detailing his sexual experiences with a young girl and boy, while
asking for suggestions of things he could do and promising future updates.
Authorities managed to track Lockhart down through instant message service Kik
and raided his home.
According to Homeland Security, the alleged paedophile's wife was shown footage
of the horrific ordeal and was able to instantly recognise her baby daughter,
her husband's hands, their couch and daughter's stuffed toy.
The 2-year-old girl and her twin brother were been taken into custody on the
day of their father's arrest.
It is understood the suspect has made other postings to the dark web under a
different username.
Lockhart faces numerous charges including capital sexual battery - which
carries a death sentence if convicted.
(source: New Zealand Herald)
INDIANA:
Judges turning to imported juries----Want fair trials for high-profile
defendants
The trial of a Fort Wayne man facing the death penalty for allegedly killing 4
people – 1 of them his unborn child – more than two years ago could cost Allen
County at least $282,500.
And the county could be on the hook next year for thousands more as jurors in
another high-profile case are selected elsewhere and brought here for trial. A
3rd case could be added, as a judge has already said he will likely order
out-of-county jurors to be chosen for the trial of a Grabill man accused of
sexually assaulting and killing 8-year-old April Tinsley in 1988.
It's rare for trials in Allen County to be heard by jurors from somewhere else.
The last time was in 2002, when jurors from South Bend acquitted former Fort
Wayne police officer Gentry Mosley of murder and attempted murder in connection
with a 1997 double shooting.
The process is time-consuming and challenging to plan, and local officials are
working to prepare for 3 trials with imported juries in 2019 – potentially a
first for Allen County.
“This will be a learning experience, for sure,” said Allen Superior Court
Executive John McGauley, who is responsible for some of the planning, including
asking the County Council for funding to cover trial costs.
“We know what we'll be doing,” he said. “It's just a matter of getting the
logistics set up.”
Defendant facing death penalty
Marcus Dansby, 23, is charged with 4 counts of murder in the grisly killings of
4 people on Sept. 11, 2016, in a Holton Avenue home. One of the victims,
18-year-old Dajahiona Arrington, was carrying his child, and prosecutors filed
paperwork in early 2017 to seek the death penalty.
Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull issued an order Oct. 1 calling for jurors
to be selected in Marion County and brought to Allen County for Dansby's trial,
which is scheduled to start in April and could last more than a month. The
order said defense attorneys had shown evidence of “public hostility and
outrage” surrounding the case and pretrial publicity “that is inflammatory and
sensational.”
It's difficult to pin down the expected cost of a trial with out-of-county
jurors because variables such as the length of the trial and the distance from
which jurors will travel fluctuate. It also costs more to sequester juries,
lodging them where the trial is occurring, and that will happen with Dansby's
case.
When it looked as if Dansby might go to trial in 2017, McGauley asked for
$282,576 from the county. That money would have paid for the cost of the trial,
including expenses such as meals for jurors and transcription service.
The trial was delayed several times, though, and that figure likely is less
than what the actual cost of the trial will be because expenses like
transportation and lodging for jurors is not included.
McGauley said expected costs for the April trial have not been calculated. The
court's $6 million budget pays for day-to-day operations, and additional
funding for “special situations” such as the trial for Dansby is sought from
the County Council, he said.
“The court does not have a budget set aside for such possibilities,” McGauley
said in an email. “These instances are rare, and a standby budget like that
wouldn't get used often enough to justify having it all the time.”
County's practice
The right to a fair trial is protected by the Sixth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, and state law ensures that defendants can ask a judge to move a
trial from the location where the alleged crime occurred by claiming “bias or
prejudice against the defendant exists in that county.”
Judges can also choose to keep the trial in the county where the alleged
offense occurred and order jurors to be brought in from elsewhere.
That has been the preferred vehicle for ensuring defendants' rights are
protected in Allen County for least 30 years. Importing jurors might be
expensive, officials say, but it's more efficient and not as expensive as
moving an entire trial to another county – a feat that involves transporting
court staff and witnesses as well as the person on trial.
“I don't recall that we've ever sent them out,” said Allen Superior Court Judge
John Surbeck, who took the bench in 1988. “I'd rather try it in my courthouse
and my courtroom.”
It's up to judges to decide whether to grant a change of venue or order jurors
to be selected from another county, and defense attorneys often cite news
coverage as proof their clients can't receive a fair trial because potential
jurors will not be able to set aside their feelings to deliberate and decide a
defendant's fate fairly.
The bar is set high in either case, and appellate courts have held that
pervasive media coverage on its own is not enough to require judges to move
trials or find other jurors.
More recently, judges and lawyers are facing a digital threat to defendants'
rights: social media.
Among the handful of local cases in which venue changes were sought in the past
year – including the Dansby case – each has cited negative and sometimes
threatening comments on sites such as Facebook. Defense attorneys Michelle
Kraus and Robert Gevers argued in court documents that social media comments
have made it difficult or impossible for Dansby to be tried in front of Allen
County jurors.
Gull agreed and wrote in her Oct. 1 order that “(Dansby) has presented some
evidence that some users that commented on various social media platforms were
identified as Allen County residents and could possibly be in the jury pool.”
The jury will be selected in Marion County.
Randall Hammond has been a public defender in Allen County since 1982. Now the
county's chief public defender, he said the increased popularity of social
media in recent years has made finding impartial jurors more difficult.
“There's just more conversation going on than there otherwise would be,” he
said.
Joel Schumm, a professor at Indiana University's Robert H. McKinney School of
Law in Indianapolis, agreed and said it's a problem courts will continue to
face.
“As people increasingly get information or 'news' from social media, lawyers
will need to collect and judges will need to consider that information,” he
said in an email, noting recent court cases in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West
Virginia have included questions about the role of social media in changes of
venue situations.
Judge's reversal
Amber Garrett, 27, asked in February – a few months after she was charged with
2 counts of felony neglect in the death of her 2-year-old son – to move her
case from Allen County or bring in other jurors for her trial. The request
filed by attorney John Bohdan cited social media comments and messages written
in chalk scrawled outside the Allen County Courthouse that urged a judge to
charge her with murder.
Gull rejected the request in June, saying Garrett didn't prove the comments or
the chalk messages would bias jurors.
The request made its way back to Gull last week, after The Journal Gazette and
WANE-TV published news stories containing information culled from the state
Department of Child Services that included medical records and police reports
connected to the child's death.
She agreed to allow jurors from another county – which county has not been
determined – and said some of the information released after journalists
requested documents under the state's open records law violated federal medical
privacy laws.
Garrett's trial is scheduled for June 24, and Gull said it's likely jury
selection will take at least a day.
Officials have not begun calculating the cost of that trial.
Who pays?
Death penalty cases are expensive, and the cost goes up if they are moved or
juries are imported.
The county where the case originates is responsible for reimbursing the county
where the case is moved or from where jurors are selected.
In 1999, a Porter County jury found Joseph Corcoran guilty in Allen County for
killing four people – including his brother – in a home on Bayer Avenue, and he
was sentenced to die. He remains on death row, and his trial nearly 20 years
ago cost the county almost $141,000.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty
Information Center, said his agency doesn't track how often juries are selected
from somewhere else or trials are moved in capital cases. He said death penalty
cases are more likely to be moved or jurors imported, though, because they tend
to be high-profile cases that attract lots of attention.
Lower-level cases also come with a cost.
The trial of Mosley, the former Fort Wayne police officer accused of shooting
to death a 21-year-old man and wounding another in 1997, cost the county about
$66,000 in 2002.
Allen County was paid about $40,600 in 2016 for hosting the trial of Bob
Leonard, an Indianapolis man charged with murder and 50 counts of arson in an
explosion that killed 2 people in 2012.
Reimbursement included nearly $4,400 for housing Leonard and more than $31,000
for mileage, meals, lodging and other expenses for jurors, according to a
change of venue record and claim filed with the Allen County clerk's office.
The trial of Indianapolis police officer David Bisard was moved to Allen County
in 2013. He was convicted of driving his squad car while drunk in 2010 and
killing a man and critically injuring 2 others.
Allen County was reimbursed nearly $25,600 for that case.
Tinsley slaying
The most high-profile case pending in Allen County is John D. Miller's.
Miller, 59, is charged with killing April Tinsley 30 years ago and dumping her
body in a DeKalb County ditch. The case has been covered by local and national
reporters and discussed on television newsmagazines and on internet message
boards and social media.
Defense attorneys Anthony Churchward and Mark Thoma have argued Miller can't
receive a fair trial in Allen County because of that coverage and discussion,
and Surbeck said in an interview last month he likely will approve importing
jurors.
“There is no way you could try that case here,” the judge said. “In this
community, the citizens have been reminded on a regular basis of what he is
alleged to have done.”
Surbeck is scheduled to formally consider the request in December and, if it's
approved, it would be the 3rd trial expected in 2019 to feature jurors from
outside Allen County. Miller's trial is scheduled to start in February, but it
also could be pushed back.
The state tracks venue changes, and of nearly 3 million criminal cases in 2017,
906 were “venued out” in 2017.
State statistics do not break down changes of venue by moving the case or
bringing in outside jurors, however.
Hammond, the public defender, and judges Gull and Surbeck acknowledge importing
juries is inconvenient. It is necessary to protect the rights of the defendant,
they say.
County on hook
Joel Benz could soon be asked to deal with the 3 local cases.
President of the Allen County Council, he will be 1 of 7 members who will
consider appropriating extra money to pay for the cases if they make it to
trial. It's not ideal, he said, but those are expenses the council can't
refuse.
Money for the trials could come from the county's general fund or its rainy day
fund, Benz said.
“If all 3 were to take place in the same year, that would be a big hit,” he
said. “It's not like we don't have resources to draw from, but it's not
something we look forward to.”
(source: The Journal Gazette)
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