August 1
TEXAS:
US prosecutor seeking death penalty for suspected Kenyan serial killer
A United States prosecutor has revealed intentions to seek the death penalty
for a Kenyan immigrant facing charges of murdering 12 elderly women in the
Texas counties of Dallas and Collin.
The Kenyan national, Billy Kipkorir Chemirmir, is being held by the authorities
in the United States on suspicion of being a serial killer.
Chemirmir, an immigrant and a resident of Dallas, Texas, is accused of
smothering or suffocating elderly women in senior living complexes in order to
steal their jewelry to sell them online.
In court documents filed this week, Dallas County prosecutors said they will
seek the death penalty if Chemirmir is convicted of capital murder.
DEATH PENALTY
In Texas, capital murder carries either automatic life imprisonment without
parole or the death penalty. Prosecutors reserve the death penalty for offenses
considered heinous.
Chemirmir, a healthcare worker, is being accused by family members who claim
their kin did not die of natural causes.
Police arrested Chemirmir last year and announced investigators would review
hundreds of unattended death cases for additional potential victims.
The suspect has a long criminal record, including having been charged in
separate incidents in March and June 2016 with criminal trespassing and false
identification at a Dallas retirement community.
According to local news outlets, Chemirmir has declined personal interviews but
his attorney said his client maintains he is innocent.
The court is yet to set a trial date for the case.
(source: Nairobi News)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
SC taxpayers paid $487,000 for the death penalty trial of Tim Jones. That
number could go up.
Figures recently released by Lexington County reveal South Carolina taxpayers
paid more than $487,000 for the 6-week death penalty trial of Tim Jones Jr.
Jones was convicted of the murders of his five children and sentenced to death
by a jury in June. The total costs thus far for the trial is $487,845. A
Lexington County spokesperson said the numbers are preliminary and there is a
possibility another $85,000 could be added onto the total, as Jones’ defense
has not finished submitting expenses.
The county said the 11th Circuit Solicitor’s Office spent $34,180 on the
prosecution of Jones, while the Clerk of Court expensed $39,612. Jones’ public
defenders spent the most money, according to the data, spending $414,053 on his
insanity defense.
A breakdown of the numbers was not immediately available from the county.
Expenses such as jury pay, jury meals, and transportation are also factored
into the grand total.
Lexington County taxpayers pay for the expenses of the Clerk of Court and the
Solicitor’s Office, according to the county. That total is $73,792.
However, all South Carolina taxpayers fund the states Public Defenders Office.
(source: WIS news)
OHIO:
DeWine again delays execution in Ohio----Governor says state can’t get drugs
for lethal injections.
Ohio officials are going to have to consider execution methods other than
lethal injection, although they won’t discuss which ones.
Gov. Mike DeWine said Wednesday morning state prison officials are finding it
impossible to line up any company willing to supply drugs for a new
lethal-injection method to replace a protocol essentially declared cruel and
unusual punishment.
Then Wednesday evening, DeWine said he again was delaying the execution of
Warren Keith Henness, a Columbus man convicted of the 1992 slaying of a man
from Circleville. Henness had been slated to die Sept. 12. His new date is May
14, 2020.
DeWine said he would talk to General Assembly leaders about whether legislation
allowing a different execution method should be pursued.
Some Ohio death row inmates have been asking to be executed by firing squad —
used in Utah in 2010 — while 2 Tennessee inmates last year opted to be executed
in the electric chair. Ohio’s “Old Sparky” has been in storage for years.
DeWine delayed 4 executions early this year after a federal judge in Dayton
said Ohio’s current intravenous protocol would “almost certainly subject (a
person) to severe pain and needless suffering.”
Makers of drugs used in executions have said in recent years they don’t want
their products used in executions. Ohio had been buying the drugs through its
Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and driving them to the
death house at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville without
telling drugmakers how the substances would be used.
DeWine said the drugmakers have told the state that if they suspect any of
their products would be used in executions, they would stop selling to the
state altogether, potentially depriving Ohioans of important medicine. Those
Ohioans include people who get drugs through the Department of Rehabilitation
and Correction, state veterans homes, the Department of Youth Services, the
Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, local addiction-service
providers and other agencies.
“If pharmaceutical companies discontinue supplying medications to the state of
Ohio for these populations that are currently being served, it would put tens
of thousands of our citizens at risk,” DeWine said. “Drugs they need for their
health will be put in peril.
“So there is a real threat, which we have to take into consideration, which DRC
has to take into consideration — that the use of a particular drug that we
would announce that would be used in (an execution) protocol might result in
that particular drug company cutting off the state of Ohio,” DeWine said.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center,
predicted in April that drugmakers might stop all sales of drugs to a state if
they suspected any would be used in an execution. He said Wednesday that Ohio
is the first state where officials publicly have acknowledged that has
happened.
“The companies have said all along that they want to protect their medications
from misuse,” he said. “That’s why we’ve been saying that execution secrecy
puts public health at risk.”
Asked whether executions scheduled to resume this year will occur, DeWine said
the matter is under review.
He said he plans to speak within a week to House Speaker Larry Householder,
R-Glenford, and Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina, about “where they think
we should go.”
Obhof said, “I think all 3 of us approach the issue with an open mind.”
Asked whether he favors retaining the death penalty, Obhof replied, “I think
the majority of Ohioans support the option of the death penalty in certain
cases.” The Senate, meanwhile, will continue to study legislation, for example,
to prevent the execution of killers with serious mental illness.
Householder declined to answer questions, saying he wants to speak with DeWine
to learn more details before deciding “how we’re going to approach it.”
The governor said he would not speculate about potential abolition of capital
punishment. Nor would he talk about potential alternative execution methods.
“I’m not going to stand up here and talk about what forms of execution we are
going to use in the state of Ohio,” DeWine said.
Cleveland Jackson, a Lima man who is slated for execution in Ohio’s death house
on Nov. 13, is proposing to a federal court in Dayton that he be executed by
firing squad according to the procedure laid out in the 1959 Army manual. Death
from multiple shots to the cardiac branch would be painless and instantaneous,
and professionals skilled at administering it wouldn’t be hard to find, he
said.
“In a state with extremely limited firearms laws and with numerous
law-enforcement agencies with officials qualified as marksmen, there is no
concern about involving persons whose professional ethics rules or traditions
impede their participation,” Jackson said in a court filing.
Ohio offered inmates their choice of lethal injection or a seat in the electric
chair until it was retired in the mid-1990s.
Dunham said that in Tennessee, 2 inmates opted for the electric chair over the
state’s Ohio-style intravenous method because they preferred “a few minutes of
torture to the extended torture of the 3-drug protocol.”
But he questioned whether death by electric chair, firing squad or some other
non-IV method would meet with public acceptance.
Dunham cited Florida, the scene of executions by electric chair in the 1990s
during which flames shot out of 2 inmates’ masks and blood poured from the nose
of a third. The U.S. Supreme Court seemed poised in 1999 to rule the method
unconstitutional, hesaid. He said today’s more conservative court might see
things differently, but that still poses a question to citizens of the Buckeye
State.
“Is this who Ohio is?” he asked.
(source: Canton Repository)
****************
Prosecutors seek death penalty in torture slayings of East Cleveland father,
teen daughter
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against three men accused of torturing
a 14-year-old girl and robbing her father before they killed both and set fire
to their bodies.
A grand jury on Wednesday handed up a 15-count indictment charging Demarcus
Sheeley, 25, Ronald Newberry, 24, and Kodii Gibson, 22, in the slayings of Paul
Bradley and his daughter, Paris.
The trio and a 4th man, Quentin Palmer, 27, were originally indicted in
December on charges of aggravated murder, aggravated arson, kidnapping and
aggravated burglary.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley said his office’s capital review
committee decided to pursue the death penalty based on the facts, circumstances
and evidence of the case.
“It’s difficult to understand how human beings can treat other human beings in
this manner,” O’Malley said in a statement. “The barbaric actions of these
defendants are truly shocking.”
Palmer does not face charges that carry the death penalty if convicted.
The group went to Bradley’s home in Bedford planning to rob the 39-year-old,
and did not know that his teenage daughter, who split time living with each of
her parents, would be staying with him, investigators have said.
The group broke into the home, pulled him and his daughter from their beds, and
ransacked the place looking for things to steal, police said.
Bradley had lost millions of dollars gambling at Jack Casino in the years
before his death, and the assailants tried to get information from him and his
daughter, East Cleveland Police Sgt. Scott Gardner said after the killing.
The group tortured the father-daughter duo before they shot Paris in the back
of the head in front of Bradley, then bludgeoned him to death, according to the
Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office and police.
They then loaded the 2 into the back of Bradley’s rental car, drove it into a
field and set fire to it, while Newberry followed behind in his SUV, according
to police.
Paris Bradley was an honor roll student at Bedford High School.
(source: cleveland.com)
**************************
As federal executions return, prosecutors seek death penalty for pair in KC
killings
Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday they plan to seek the death penalty for
2 men indicted in pair Kansas City-area killings.
The defendants, Shawn Burkhalter, 30, of Kansas City, and Joshua Nesbitt, 25,
of Crowder, Mississippi, were charged last year in U.S. District Court in
Kansas City in the 2015 shooting deaths of Anthony Dwayne Johnson and Danny
Lamont Dean.
Both face a host of charges, including using a firearm to commit murder in
relation to a drug-trafficking crime and murdering a potential witness.
The 2015 killings were allegedly committed while Burkhalter and Nesbitt were
attempting to steal drugs they intended to sell, according to a news release
from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri.
On Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Timothy Garrison signed and filed a notice of intent
to seek the death penalty in the case.
The filing comes days after the U.S. Department of Justice announced last week
it would resume executions of death row inmates for the 1st time since 2003.
According to the release, prosecutors allege the pair also planned to kill or
threaten one of the victims, Johnson, to stop him from testifying in court or
talking to law enforcement.
A superseding indictment handed up by a grand jury Tuesday contained additional
charges against the pair. Burkhalter and Nesbitt are each charged with evidence
tampering, and Burkhalter faces a charge of witness tampering for allegedly
using another person to threaten a witness while he was being detained, the
news release said.
According to the news release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office is arguing that a
death sentence is justified for the Kansas City-area murders because they
occurred “in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime.” It goes on to state that
a death sentence is justified in Johnson’s murder and because Johnson was a
potential witness, and his death was “in furtherance of an evidence-tampering
conspiracy.”
Along with Burkhalter and Nesbitt, 5 other people were named in the original
indictment last year on charges of drug trafficking and tampering with
witnesses and evidence. Among them were: Sharika Hooker, 30, of Kansas City;
Autry Hines, 28, of Kansas City; Nickayla Jones, 24, of Blue Springs; Rachel
Ryce, 31, of Raytown; and Joslyn Lee, 27, of Blue Springs.
Court records show Lee pleaded guilty in February to a drug trafficking
offense, aiding and abetting the possession and discharge of a firearm in
furtherance of drug trafficking, accessory after the fact to murder, conspiracy
to tamper with a witness and evidence, and accessory after the fact by hiding
evidence.
The release also said that the superseding indictment filed Tuesday added a 6th
co-defendant: Anthony Peltier, of Lawrence.
(source: kansascity.com)
********************
Governor: Ohio having difficulty finding execution drugs
Ohio is still struggling to find supplies of lethal injection drugs amid fears
it could be cut off from drugs needed for medicinal purposes if their makers
learn they're also being used for executions, Gov. Mike DeWine said Wednesday.
That has left the fate of executions in the near future in limbo. They have
been on hold for months since DeWine ordered the prisons agency to find new
drugs after a federal judge raised concerns about the constitutionality of
Ohio's current lethal injection system.
A significant obstacle is the possibility that drugmakers might cut the state
off from supplies of drugs used for medicinal purposes if they learn their
drugs are also being used for executions, DeWine said.
Multiple drug manufacturers and distributors in recent years have prohibited
the use of their products for lethal injection, severely limiting supplies
around the country.
But numerous agencies rely on the state's ability to procure those drugs for
medicinal purposes, including the departments of Health and Developmental
Disabilities, the state schools for the blind and the deaf, and local community
alcohol and drug addiction organizations, the governor said.
"If pharmaceutical companies discontinue supplying medications to the state of
Ohio for these populations that are currently being served, it would put tens
of thousands of our citizens at risk," DeWine said.
Current law only allows for lethal injection as an execution method. DeWine
wouldn't address whether he thinks the law should be changed to add
alternatives. He, House Speaker Larry Householder and Senate President Larry
Obhof — all Republicans — plan to meet soon to discuss the issue.
Obhof wouldn't comment ahead of that meeting, except to say he's approaching it
with an open mind.
"I think that the majority of Ohioans support the option of the death penalty
in certain cases," he said.
After Ohio started looking for new drugs in 2014, it took the state more than
three years to establish its current 3-drug lethal injection protocol.
The 1st drug in Ohio's new system, the sedative midazolam, has been subject to
lawsuits that argue it exposes inmates to the possibility of severe pain
because it doesn't render them deeply enough unconscious.
Because of Ohio's use of midazolam, federal Judge Michael Merz called the
constitutionality of the state's system into question in a Jan. 14 ruling and
said inmates could suffer an experience similar to waterboarding.
But because attorneys for death row inmate Keith Henness didn't prove a viable
alternative exists, Merz declined to stop the execution.
But DeWine did, postponing Henness' execution from Feb. 13 until Sept. 12,
although that would be contingent on the state having a new, court-approved
lethal injection system in place. That appears unlikely after DeWine's comments
Wednesday.
(source: Associated Press)
TENNESSEE----impending execution
Death row inmate Stephen Michael West will die by lethal injection on Aug. 15,
state says
Death row inmate Stephen Michael West did not select a method for his Aug. 15
execution, so the state will kill him using controversial lethal injection
drugs if the execution moves forward as scheduled.
Tennessee inmates sentenced to death for a crime committed before 1999 can
choose between the electric chair and lethal injection, the state's default
method. A spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Corrections confirmed
that West hadn't picked a method and that a lethal injection was planned.
West is one of dozens of Tennessee death row inmates to challenge the state's
3-drug lethal injection protocol.
Medical experts say the 1st drug, the sedative midazolam, fails to dull the
excruciating pain caused by the next 2 drugs. The inmates argue that leads to
unconstitutional torture.
In the last year, 2 other inmates decided they would rather face the electric
chair.
A legal challenge to lethal injection is pending in a federal appeals court,
but judges considering similar challenges have declined to stop lethal
injection executions here in 2018 and 2019.
West, 56, was sentenced to death for the 1986 murders of a woman and her
15-year-old daughter in their Union County, Tennessee, home.
Wanda Romines, 51, and Sheila Romines were both stabbed to death while their
hands were bound behind their backs.
Sheila had been stabbed 17 times in the stomach. At trial, a forensic
pathologist said 14 of those stab wounds were consistent with “torture-type
cuts.”
West also was convicted of raping Sheila before she died.
West's lawyers have filed a request for mercy with Gov. Bill Lee's office. Lee
refused to intervene earlier this year when death row inmate Donnie Edward
Johnson asked the governor to stop his execution.
(source: The Tennessean)
MISSOURI:
Death penalty sought against Missouri men in murder and drug-trafficking
conspiracy case
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri has filed a
notice of intent to seek the death penalty against 2 men previously charged in
two area murders.
Shawn Burkhalter, also known as “Deuce,” 30, of Kansas City, Missouri, and
Joshua Nesbitt, also known as “T,” 25, of Crowder, Mississippi, were indicted
last year for the murders of Anthony Dwayne Johnson and Danny Lamont Dean. On
Tuesday, July 30, the government filed a notice of intent to seek the death
penalty against Burkhalter and Nesbitt.
The notice of intent states that the government believes a sentence of death is
justified for Johnson’s murder in furtherance of an evidence-tampering
conspiracy, for Johnson’s murder as a potential witness, and for Johnson’s
murder in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. The notice also states that
the government believes a sentence of death is justified for Dean’s murder in
furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. Each of those four counts of the
indictment carries a possible sentence of death.
Murder of Anthony Dwayne Johnson
The federal indictment alleges that Burkhalter and Nesbitt shot and killed
Johnson on Oct. 4, 2015, using a Rock River Arms AR-15 5.56-caliber
semi-automatic rifle.
Burkhalter and Nesbitt are charged together in one count of murdering a
potential witness. The indictment alleges that Johnson’s murder occurred in
order to prevent his testimony and to prevent him from communicating with law
enforcement.
Burkhalter and Nesbitt also are charged together with participating in a
witness- and evidence-tampering conspiracy that resulted in Johnson’s murder.
Their objective, the indictment says, was to kill or at least intimidate and
threaten Johnson to prevent his testimony and to prevent him from communicating
with law enforcement. They also allegedly threatened to kill another person,
identified as “Witness #1,” to cause that person to help conceal the AR-15
rifle used to murder Johnson and Dean so that it could not be used as evidence.
Burkhalter and Nesbitt also are charged together with using a firearm to commit
murder during and in relation to a drug-trafficking crime. The indictment
alleges that Johnson’s murder occurred during a robbery of marijuana from an
apartment.
Murder of Danny Lamont Dean
The indictment alleges that Burkhalter and Nesbitt shot and killed Dean on
Sept. 10, 2015, while robbing him of cocaine. They allegedly used the same
AR-15 rifle. Burkhalter and Nesbitt are charged together in 1 count of using a
firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a drug-trafficking crime.
Superseding Indictment
Burkhalter and Nesbitt were originally charged in a February 21, 2018, federal
indictment. A federal grand jury in Kansas City, Missouri, returned a
superseding indictment on Tuesday, July 30, 2019, that contains two additional
charges against Burkhalter and Nesbitt. The superseding indictment also charges
an additional defendant.
The superseding indictment charges Burkhalter and Nesbitt with evidence
tampering (related to the conspiracy) and charges Burkhalter with witness
tampering. Burkhalter, while in pretrial detention after his arrest, allegedly
threatened a person identified as “Witness #2” by using another detainee to
pass a message to Witness #2, who was being held at a different detention
facility.
Anthony Peltier, also known as “A-1,” 37, of Lawrence, Kansas, is also charged
in the superseding indictment, along with the original co-defendants – Sharika
Hooker, 30, and Autry Hines, also known as “Bud,” 28, both of Kansas City, Mo.;
Nickayla Jones, also known as “Red,” 24, of Blue Springs, Mo.; and Rachel Ryce,
31, of Raytown, Mo. Co-defendant Joslyn Lee, also known as “Bless,” 27, of Blue
Springs, has already pleaded guilty and therefore is not charged in the
superseding indictment.
The superseding indictment retains the original charges against several
co-defendants. Jones, Hines, and Ryce are charged with participating with
Burkhalter and Nesbitt in the witness and evidence-tampering conspiracy that
resulted in Johnson’s murder. Jones, Hines, Ryce, Hooker, and Peltier are
charged together with being accessories after the fact of Johnson’s murder. The
indictment alleges they assisted Burkhalter and Nesbitt by, among other things,
taking steps to hide or destroy evidence pertaining to the murder of Johnson.
Drug-Trafficking Conspiracy
6 of the 7 defendants – Burkhalter, Nesbitt, Jones, Hines, Ryce, and Peltier –
are charged with participating in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine and
marijuana from 2008 to Feb. 20, 2018.
In addition to the conspiracy, Burkhalter and Nesbitt are charged together with
1 count of possessing cocaine (which they allegedly stole from Dean) with the
intent to distribute on Sept. 10, 2015.
Burkhalter and Nesbitt also are charged together with 1 count of discharging a
firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, related to the discharge of
the AR-15 rifle in furtherance of the drug-trafficking conspiracy and the
possession of cocaine to distribute.
Burkhalter, Nesbitt, Jones, Hines, and Ryce also are charged together with
possessing marijuana with the intent to distribute on Oct. 4, 2015. The
indictment alleges that they intended to sell a quantity of the marijuana they
robbed from Johnson on that date. They are also charged together in one count
of discharging a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime.
Armed Robbery
Burkhalter and Nesbitt are charged together in 1 count with robbing a Kansas
City, Mo., business on Sept. 8, 2015, and in 1 count with brandishing a firearm
(the same AR-15 rifle) in furtherance of a crime of violence. Burkhalter and
Nesbitt are also charged together in 1 count of being felons in possession of a
firearm.
The charges contained in this indictment are simply accusations and not
evidence of guilt. Evidence supporting the charges must be presented to a
federal trial jury, whose duty is to determine guilt or innocence.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David Raskin and Adam
Caine. It was investigated by the FBI and the Kansas City, Mo., Police
Department.
(source: KTTN news)
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