June 2
TEXAS:
Coryell will seek death penalty in child's death
A Gatesville man with a history of arrests for sexually abusing children was
indicted on a capital murder charge Wednesday in the January death of a
2-year-old boy.
Chet Shelton, 27, of Gatesville, was arrested and booked into the Coryell
County Jail. Coryell County District Attorney Dusty Boyd confirmed his office
will be seeking the death penalty in any upcoming trial.
According to an arrest affidavit, Shelton was tasked with babysitting the
Gatesville toddler, Makai Brooks Lamar, for most of the day while the boy's
mother worked a double shift at a local restaurant.
The child's mother came home for a break from work and reported the child was
fine at that time, the affidavit said. While the mother was back at work,
Shelton said he found the child not breathing and took the child to a
neighbor's home where a Coryell County deputy sheriff lived, according to the
affidavit. The child died a few hours later at Coryell Memorial Hospital.
Police almost immediately began treating the 34th Street home in Gatesville as
a crime scene and began investigating the child's bedroom where they found
bloody bedding and pillows.
In the arrest affidavit, police highlight several inconsistencies with
Shelton's story regarding what happened in the hours before Lamar's death,
saying the child's mother ensured police Lamar always slept clothed and in a
diaper.
"When Shelton took the infant child to the neighbor's house for medical
assistance, the infant was wearing no clothing, not even a diaper," the
affidavit said.
Perhaps most troubling are the injuries to Lamar confirmed by an autopsy in
Dallas. The preliminary cause of death was labeled as blunt force trauma as the
child had numerous injuries to his head and internal organs.
The affidavit said the child had also been sodomized, causing "severe, distinct
trauma" to the child.
Shelton's criminal history includes 3 counts of aggravated sexual assault of a
child in May 2007, 3 counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child in December
2007, 2 counts of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury in October
2010 and 4 counts of indecency with a child by sexual contact in May 2007.
However, in exchange for his plea of guilty, many of Shelton's most serious
sexual charges against children were eventually downgraded to injury to a
child, which does not carry a sex offender registration requirement, according
to Boyd.
Shelton is currently in the Coryell County Jail where he awaits his trial on at
least $500,000 in bonds.
According to Boyd, Shelton's case is Coryell County's only death penatly case.
(source: Killeen Daily Herald)
CONNECTICUT:
Killers deserved death sentences
I pay tribute to the late Detective Michael Malchik, whose alertness and
persistence caught the disgusting creeper that was Michael Ross. Unfortunately,
he and the families of Ross' victims waited an eternity for the state of
Connecticut to put Ross down like the animal he was.
With news that the state's liberal Supreme Court has made the death penalty
disappear, vermin such as the cowardly Cheshire killers, who deserve to be
nameless, and the pathetic Russell Peeler Jr. will escape the fate they so
richly deserve. Detective Malchik understood that people like this had no place
in society, unlike our leaders in Hartford who happily coddle perpetrators
rather than help the victims.
My idea for those on the now-defunct death row is to put them into the general
prison population. Jailhouse justice would prevail I am sure, with the inmates
themselves knowing that the crimes these individuals took part in deserved a
death sentence, which they would mete out the 1st chance they had. Detective
Malchik, may you rest in peace knowing you saved lives; as for Ross, I hope you
turn on an infernal spit in hell for the rest of time.
JOHN LINDELL
Moosup
(source: Letter to the Editor, Norwich Bulletin)
GEORGIA:
District attorney draws heat over toy electric chair
"Death Row Marv" is a battery-powered toy electric chair that produces an
electric buzzing sound with Marv's eyes glowing red under a helmet attached to
electrodes. After his "electrocution," Marv asks, "That the best you can do,
you pansies?"
Because the toy was on display in District Attorney Layla Zon's office, it now
figures prominently in a recently filed court motion that seeks to overturn a
Newton County death sentence.
The motion contends Zon is "pathologically enthralled" with the death penalty
and has pursued it with a fervor and zeal unmatched by any other district
attorney in the state. Zon is DA of the Alcovy Judicial Circuit, which consists
of Walton and Newton counties.
On Wednesday, Zon said she seeks the death penalty only in cases that warrant
it. As for "Death Row Marv," it was already in her office when she became
district attorney in 2010 and she recently removed it.
"It was not something I purchased to decorate my office," she said. "It was a
left-behind trinket that became part of the woodwork. ... I never sat and
looked and fixated on it, like it was part of some medieval mindset."
Marv was a fictional character created by comic book legend Frank Miller for
the "Sin City" graphic novel series. Actor Mickey Rourke portrayed Marv in a
2005 movie adaptation. In "The Hard Goodbye," Marv is sentenced to die in the
electric chair and survives the 1st jolt - prompting the "you pansies" retort.
His executioners then pull the switch again to finish the job.
The toy did not define her philosophy on capital punishment, Zon said. "But
when the evidence and the law are not on their side, they launch ad hominem
attacks."
State capital defender Josh Moore, who filed the motion on behalf of condemned
inmate Rodney Young, declined to comment. In 2012, Young was condemned to die
by lethal injection for killing his ex-fiancee's son.
An estimated 1,400 murder cases that were eligible for the death penalty have
been closed statewide since Zon took office and fewer than 1 % of them resulted
in death sentences, the motion said. Young's case was "considerably less
aggravated" than the other death cases, the motion said, but his crime occurred
in Newton County, where Zon turned down his offer to plead guilty in exchange
for a sentence of life in prison without parole.
Since 2011, there have been 13 death-penalty trials statewide and 4 of them
took place in Newton County, the motion said. During that same time frame,
Georgia juries imposed 5 death sentences and 2 of them came from Newton.
"These statistics resoundingly confirm what Ms. Zon's toy electric chair
perhaps only suggests: that her fixation with the death penalty is completely
out of step with the sensibilities and evolving standards of decency in this
state," the motion said.
The motion notes that the Georgia Supreme Court in 2001 found that death by
electrocution caused excruciating pain with a certainty of "cooked brains and
blistered bodies."
"The idea of any elected state official memorializing such a barbaric (and
unconstitutional) practice with an office ornament would be surprising and
troubling," the motion said. "The fact that the elected official at issue here
is a constitutional officer entrusted with virtually unfettered discretion in
deciding which defendants under her jurisdiction will be singled out for
execution, and which will be spared, is cause for real concern."
Zon said she now wishes she had "trashed" the toy when she first saw it.
As for the 2 death sentences she obtained, Zon said, jurors from both trials
unanimously agreed the ultimate punishment was necessary. And the case
involving Young was particularly heinous, she said.
Young killed Gary Lamar Jones because his mother had ended her relationship
with Young, Zon said. On a Sunday in March 2008, Jones returned home from
church and was overtaken by Young, who tied him to a chair.
Young bludgeoned Jones with a hammer, sliced open his throat with a knife and
beat him so viciously he was found dead with an eyeball hanging out of his
face, Zon said. "I think if confronted with those same facts, DAs in other
counties would have sought death too."
(source: myajc.com)
LOUISIANA:
Executions in Louisiana on hold until at least January 2018
A trial on the legality of the death penalty in Louisiana has been delayed
again as the state tries to determine its execution method.
Wednesday, a federal judge delayed for 18 months proceedings on the
constitutionality of Louisiana's death penalty procedures, as well as the
execution of convicted child-killer Christopher Sepulvado.
Sepulvado and another death-row inmate, Jessie Hoffman, are named in the
filing, but the ruling affects all inmates on death row. The state can't
execute anyone until its method is examined in federal court as part of a
lawsuit brought by the inmates against the state Department of Corrections.
Sepulvado, who was convicted of beating his stepson with a screwdriver and then
submerging his body in scalding water, has won several stays of execution. He
argues that the state's method of lethal injection violates his constitutional
protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
As part of that lawsuit, Sepulvado wants to learn exactly how he will be put to
death. The state has fought such disclosures in the lawsuit and in response to
public-records requests.
Attorney General Jeff Landry's office on Tuesday asked for the delay because
the facts "continue to be in a fluid state."
Lawyers for Sepulvado wouldn't elaborate on what facts keep changing, but the
motion comes amid a years-long, nationwide shortage of lethal injection drugs.
The attorney general's office didn't immediately respond to requests for
comment.
This is the 3rd time in 2 years that the state has asked to delay the trial.
The last time, in June 2015, lawyers pointed to a lack of lethal injection
drugs. The state's last-known supply had expired earlier that year.
A spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections said Wednesday that the
agency doesn't have the drugs it would need to carry out an execution. That was
the case back in February, too.
Michael Rubenstein, Hoffman's lawyer, has said in court filings that the
hearing should be delayed until after the 2017 legislative session to avoid any
conflicts with proposed legislation.
The state is now scheduled to describe its execution method on January 8, 2018.
That's just a week after the deadline for a legislative study on the cost of
the death penalty.
Although experts don't believe the death penalty will be abolished in Louisiana
anytime soon, several legislators have said they're rethinking their support
because of how much it costs.
Many of the 31 states that allow the death penalty are mired in court battles
over its constitutionality as drug shortages have forced prison officials to
turn to compounding companies or import them from overseas. In some states,
legislators have passed laws establishing the secrecy of where and how
officials obtain execution drugs.
States have improvised their own lethal drug mixes that have resulted in
several botched executions. Death penalty opponents say those prolonged
executions, including a few in which inmates have writhed, gasped or cried out
after being injected, amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
It's now even harder to get execution drugs. Last month, the pharmaceutical
company Pfizer announced that it has now banned the use of its drugs in
executions. It had been the last open-market manufacturer of drugs used in
executions.
Louisiana corrections officials have sought death-penalty drugs from unorthodox
sources. In 2013, officials considered getting pentobarbital from a compounding
pharmacy that wasn't licensed in the state.
A year later, officials turned to a Lake Charles hospital to get midazolam as
part of a new 2-drug execution mix, saying the drug was for a patient.
(source: The Lens)
OHIO:
Ohio man to be sentenced for killing 3 women wrapped in bags
A suburban Cleveland man convicted of killing 3 women and wrapping their bodies
in garbage bags is set to learn whether he'll be sentenced to death, as a jury
recommended.
The Cuyahoga County judge sentencing Michael Madison on Thursday must decide
whether he should die by lethal injection or get life in prison without parole.
A jury convicted Madison on aggravated murder and kidnapping counts last month,
then deliberated for less than a day before recommending the death penalty.
Madison's attorneys argued that he shouldn't get a death sentence because of
psychological damage caused by child abuse.
He was found guilty of killing 38-year-old Angela Deskins, 28-year-old Shetisha
Sheeley and 18-year-old Shirellda Terry. Their bodies were found in July 2013
near the East Cleveland apartment building where Madison lived.
(source: Associated Press)
*****************
Judge in Seman case hears arguments on death penalty
Judge Maureen Sweeney is expected to soon rule on motions asking her to dismiss
death-penalty specifications against Robert Seman.
Seman, 48, of Green, faces 10 counts of aggravated murder with death-penalty
specifications for the arson deaths of Corinne Gump, 10, and her grandparents,
William and Judith Schmidt, when the Schmidts' Powers Way home was destroyed by
fire March 31, 2015, the day Seman was to go on trial on charges he raped
Corinne.
Attorneys argued their motions Wednesday before the judge in Mahoning County
Common Pleas Court.
Lynn Maro, 1 of 2 lawyers representing Seman, said 1 of the reasons the
specifications should be overturned is because the lack of execution drugs in
Ohio violates Seman's Eighth Amendment constitutional right to not receive
cruel and unusual punishment.
Maro said because the state cannot find the drugs, it is canceling and
rescheduling executions, which causes uncertainty for inmates as to when they
may be executed because they do not know when that date will be.
Assistant Prosecutor Dawn Cantalamessa said the 2 cases Maro was citing are 125
and 60 years old, respectively. Cantalamessa said no ruling states
death-penalty specification should be withdrawn because of a problem with the
way the execution is to be carried out.
"There's no case law that says the death penalty should be dismissed because of
that," Cantalamessa said.
Maro also said the specifications should be dismissed because of a prosecution
request to disqualify all jurors from the jury pool who are opposed to the
death penalty.
Maro said Supreme Court rulings have found that jurors who favor the death
penalty are more inclined to convict, which is unfair to her client.
Maro also challenged the specifications on how they were worded as well with
the terms "prior calculation and design" and "principal offender" language in
the same specification, which she said is a violation of state law.
Cantalamessa said the state would stand on their briefs for the most part to
rebut the arguments.
Judge Sweeney in April had turned down a request by Seman's lawyers to dismiss
the death penalty altogether because it violates the Ohio constitution.
(source: vindy.com)
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