April 26
TEXAS:
Psychologist says Petetan's mental retardation is moderate
Attorneys for Carnell Petetan Jr. rested their penalty-phase case Friday
evening after 2 psychologists told the jury that Petetan is mentally retarded.
Prosecutors, who are seeking the death penalty, will call rebuttal witnesses
Monday morning when the trial resumes, including a mental health expert of
their own.
The jury in Waco's 19th State District Court convicted the 38-year-old Port
Arthur native of capital murder on Monday in the September 2012 shooting death
of his estranged wife, Kimberly Farr Petetan.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that mentally retarded defendants are not
eligible for the death penalty, and Petetan's attorneys have spent the last
several days trying to convince the jury that he has mental disabilities.
Petetan, who has been in juvenile detention facilities or prison since he was
13 years old, has been tested by school counselors and doctors in the past.
Petetan spent 20 years in prison for shooting 2 men and beating a 3rd man into
a coma with a chair. He had been free 7 months when he killed his wife, whom he
met as a prison pen pal.
Prosecutor Greg Davis, while cross-examining Dallas psychologist Joan Mayfield,
noted that the lowest scores Petetan has ever recorded on IQ and related tests
were after his arrest for capital murder and while he faces a possible death
sentence.
Mayfield administered 16 tests to Petetan over two days last year at the
McLennan County Jail. She said he scored poorly and "sub-average" in areas
related to intellect, memory, problem solving, academic skills, language, motor
skills and more.
She told Davis that she is unaware if Petetan knew before her testing if a
finding of mental retardation would spare him the death penalty. But, she did
agree with Davis that studies show 54 % of inmates "malinger" or fake results
in pretrial testing if lower scores will benefit them.
She said that is why she was careful to monitor Petetan and stopped some tests
when she thought he was not giving his best effort. At one point, she said, she
stopped a test because Petetan became so frustrated that he cried
uncontrollably.
In other defense testimony Friday, Austin psychologist Ellis M. Craig testified
that Petetan falls into the moderate mental retardation category based on tests
he conducted. That is worse than mild but less than severe, he said.
Craig testified that he interviewed Petetan and his mother, brother, sister and
uncle. He said he tries to measure social and practical skills in everyday
life, such as how one cares for himself, uses money, social skills,
transportation and vocabulary to assess adaptive behavior.
He said Petetan's adaptive limitations far outweigh his minimal skills.
Cross-examination
During cross-examination, Davis asked how many people on whom Craig based his
comparative analysis shared Petetan's life of long-term incarceration. Craig
answered none.
Davis said every person Craig spoke to for his study, all Petetan family
members, has a vested interest in trying to save his life.
While pointing out potential flaws in Craig's survey scoring system, Davis said
many daily routine items that Petetan's sister said he could not perform are
likely things he was never called upon or had the opportunity to do.
Questions in the survey included if he could call to reserve concert tickets,
call to see if repairs have been done, use a pay phone, sign a lease or if he
cleans the sink after he brushes his teeth.
If family members said he never did these things, Craig scored a 1 on a scale,
resulting in a lower score, Davis said.
"If I bite my fingernails, I'm going to have a lower score on this test and I
am going to seem more retarded, aren't I?" Davis asked.
Craig answered yes.
Davis said the only time this adaptive testing has ever been done on Petetan
was when he is facing the death penalty.
Petetan considered testifying during the punishment phase, but elected not to
after a brief conference with his lawyers outside the presence of the jury. He
spent three hours on the witness stand during the guilt-innocence phase.
Judge Ralph Strother told jurors Friday that they likely will begin
deliberating Petetan's fate on Tuesday.
If jurors find Petetan is mentally retarded or that there is other mitigating
evidence sufficient to warrant a sentence other than death, Strother will
sentence Petetan to life in prison with no hope for parole.
(source: Waco Tribune)
CONNECTICUT:
State Draws The Curtain On Public Executions
Because the rural town of Brooklyn was a county seat in 1831, it wound up
hosting what is widely accepted as the last public hanging in Connecticut. A
jury had convicted Oliver Watkins of strangling his wife, Roxana, on the night
of March 22, 1829. He was said to have been driven to murder by a "young and
buxom widow of decidedly unsavory reputation," The Courant reported, although
she was not mentioned at his trial.
Watkins, a father of 5, was sentenced to hang on Aug. 2, 1831.
The painful duty of carrying out the execution would have fallen to Watkins'
friend Capt. David Keyes, who, according to a report in The Courant, did not
believe his friend was guilty. But Keyes resigned as high sheriff and
executioner the morning of the hanging, and a new sheriff was appointed.
At the time, public hangings still were a regular and accepted part of early
American life. In addition to serving as punishment for the convicted, they
acted as a macabre form of entertainment for the community. Large crowds of
men, women and even children gathered at the scaffold to cheer, joke and taunt
the condemned, and strangers poured into Brooklyn from Providence, New London
and as far away as Bridgeport.
Authorities believed that allowing the populace to watch criminals pay for
their offenses acted as a deterrent that helped keep the peace - even if the
events themselves often degenerated into raucous excuses for drinking and
brawling.
Several thousand people arrived in Brooklyn to watch Watkins hang. Local tavern
keepers paid a guard to watch over him and make sure he did not escape or
commit suicide, which could have cut into their anticipated alcohol sales. In
this almost festive atmosphere, Watkins met his fate, after which the crowd
continued their celebration.
Executions Reconsidered
By the time Watkins was hanged, however, attitudes about the death penalty and
public executions had begun to change. With the spread of Enlightenment ideals,
citizens began viewing public executions as barbaric and degrading. To help
counter their ritualistic appeal, authorities started limiting the number of
spectators allowed to view public executions.
The start of the 19th century also saw an explosion in the growth of prisons.
Rapid urbanization and industrialization changed the way people viewed
lawbreakers. Crime became less about sin and more about preventing violence and
the loss of property.
At the same time, reformers successfully lobbied for more humane treatment for
criminals. Incarceration became the preferred solution for punishing
lawbreakers. With incarceration, sentences of different lengths could be made
to match varying offenses.
This new awareness of human rights and the development of the U.S. penal system
helped ensure the end of public and humiliating executions in Connecticut.
(source: Hartford Courant)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Pa. judge won't bar death penalty factors in trial
A judge has refused to bar western Pennsylvania prosecutors from presenting
aggravating factors that could allow a jury to sentence a man to death if he is
convicted in the stabbing death of his estranged girlfriend 2 years ago.
25-year-old Jordan Clemons is charged in the death of 21-year-old Karissa
Kunco, whose body was found in a wooded area in Washington County in January
2012.
The (Washington) Observer-Reporter (http://bit.ly/1iUyBK1 ) reports that Judge
Katherine Emery refused to bar prosecutors from presenting evidence that
Clemons had a history of felony convictions including violence and that Kunco
had a protection-from-abuse order against him.
The judge earlier rejected a defense request to move the trial, saying it
wasn't clear that social media postings would prejudice jurors since the victim
lived in another county.
(source: Associated Press)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Justice Act ruling could affect 5 on death row
5 inmates convicted of murder in Robeson County may be able to challenge the
trials that landed them on death row.
The 5 inmates, along with about 145 others in the state, previously claimed
racial discrimination influenced their trials and, under the Racial Justice
Act, filed motions to have their death penalities commuted to life sentences
without parole.
According to District Attorney Johnson Britt, those motions have been pending,
but hearings currently taking place in Cumberland County could breathe new life
into the long-decided cases.
"If they prove that they are entitled to relief under the Racial Justice Act,
that means their death sentences are vacated and they are re-sentenced to life
without parole," Britt said.
North Carolina has not carried out an execution since 2006 because of lawsuits
regarding the lethal drugs used and the Racial Justice Act.
The Racial Justice Act was passed in 2009. 3 years later, the types of evidence
and statistics that could be used to show racism was involved were narrowed.
Most of the pending Racial Justice Act motions claim the jury selection process
was discriminatory, meaning jurors were removed or selected based on race,
Britt said.
"You're talking about cases that are almost 30 years old if not 30 years old,"
Britt said. "These cases just never end. Nobody has been executed in the state
because of these Racial Justice Act motions."
Henry McCollum, 50, was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of an
11-year-old Red Springs girl, Sabrina Buie, in September 1983. McCollum was
tried a 2nd time in Cumberland County and has been on death row since the
mid-1980s.
Daniel Garner, 49, is facing death for the murder of 2 people at a motel in
November 1988. Additionally, he is serving a life sentence for a murder and
armed robbery at a convenience store and another sentence for attempted murder,
assault with a deadly weapon and attempted robbery in a Cumberland County case.
Robbie Locklear, 41, was sentenced to death for murdering his stepfather, Jay
Taylor, in January 1994. Locklear has served time in prison for stabbing a
quadriplegic in the head with a knife.
Daniel Cummings, 58, received the death penalty for an armed robbery and murder
in Brunswick County that happened in April 1994, and for beating to death
80-year-old Lena Hales of Red Springs.
Jerry Cummings, 74, was sentenced to death in 1997 for murdering his next-door
neighbor in Maxton in August 1986 during a dispute about a dog. Cummings also
pled guilty to a 1966 murder. He was sentenced to life in prison and later put
on parole.
No hearings have been scheduled for the Robeson County cases, and according to
Britt, they may not be for a while.
Currently, 4 cases in Cumberland County are the only ones in the state being
argued after a state attorney recently accused former Superior Court Judge
Gregory Weeks of misusing the law. If the Supreme Court decides the Racial
Justice Act was incorrectly used, those who have had their sentences reduced
will find themselves back on death row.
Weeks reduced the sentences of Marcus Reymond Robinson, Quintel Augustine,
Christina Walters and Tilmon Golphin, saying racial discrimination tainted jury
selection in those cases.
The Supreme Court is expected to take months to decide the Cumberland County
cases.
"We have no idea when the Supreme Court will rule in the Cumberland County
cases, or how they will rule. Once they announce, it's going to be a matter of
everybody getting the opinion, reading it and deciding how to apply it," Britt
said.
From there, each inmate's case will have to be reviewed individually to see how
their claims fare under the Supreme Court's opinion. Judges will have to
determine if racism influenced jury selection in the trial, and if the final
jury was representative of the county's population - not simply diverse.
For Britt, an inmate whose trial was found to be influenced by racism should go
back on the stand.
"Legally, the logical argument would be that if the jury selection process is
tainted, the remedy wouldn't be life without parole, it would be a new trial,"
he said.
In the meantime, fewer capital murder cases are tried, fewer death sentences
are handed down and the threat of execution becomes more distant for inmates on
death row.
"Ultimately, the issue really becomes do we have a death penalty in North
Carolina or don't we? When we have someone who has been sentenced to die go
through the court process, go through the appeals process ... does the death
penalty serve a purpose?" Britt said.
(source: Robesonian.com)
FLORIDA:
This Day in Black History: April 25, 1989----James Joseph Richardson is
exonerated after 21 years in prison.
If not for injustice, James Richardson would likely not be a figure in history.
But after being wrongfully convicted of killing his 7 children and spending 21
years in prison, the Florida fruit picker was exonerated by special prosecutor
Janet Reno on April 25, 1989.
On Oct. 25, 1967, Richardson's wife, Annie, had asked neighbor Bessie Reece to
serve the children their lunch while she and her husband were at work. Reece
laced the beans and rice with an insecticide called parathion that left the
children, aged 2 to 11, foaming at the mouth and dead within minutes.
The police suspected Richardson of killing his children after learning that he
had met with a life insurance agent with whom he'd discussed getting policies
for the entire family. During trial, the jury was not told that it was the
salesman who had initiated the meeting or that Richardson could not afford to
buy life insurance at all.
The day after the incident, Reece, who babysat the children periodically, told
the police that she had seen a bag of the poison in the Richardsons' shed. The
jurors also weren't told that she was on parole for the shooting death of her
second husband and had been suspected of killing her first with poisoning.
Making matters worse, in exchange for a reduction in their own sentences, three
convicts claimed that Richardson, in a jail-house confession to them, claimed
that he'd killed the children because his wife had engaged in an affair with
Reece.
Richardson was convicted after less than 2 hours of deliberation and sentenced
to the electric chair. 4 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death
penalty to be unconstitutional, so Richardson was given a sentence of 25 years
to life.
In 1988, lawyers for Richardson, armed with affidavits stating that Reece had
confessed her crime to a nursing home employee as well as evidence that
prosecutors had suppressed evidence during the trial, Reno was assigned to
investigate the case, which led to Richardson's exoneration. He was released
from prison on May 5, 1989.
"I will carry the fear to my grave, that an innocent man, James Richardson,
might have been executed," Reno said.
Richardson settled a wrongful conviction suit with DeSoto County for $150,000,
but a claim against the state of Florida was denied in 2008. If a bill
currently making its way through the state's legislature passes, however, he
could receive up to $2 million.
Reece, who died of Alzheimer's, was never indicted.
(source: BET)
TENNESSEE:
Lawyers raise questions over electric chair use
Lawyers and others disagree of whether a bill that passed in the legislature
could legally force death row inmates with older convictions to die by electric
chair if lethal injection drugs aren't available.
Tennessee's legislature passed a bill that would allow death by electrocution
if drugs aren't available. It's not clear whether Gov. Bill Haslam will sign
the bill into law.
A last-minute amendment said it would apply to all condemned prisoners,
regardless of conviction date. Current law gives inmates who committed crimes
before 1999 the choice on whether they want to die by electric chair or lethal
injection.
Some lawyers say the government can't change the method of death for inmates
who were already convicted.
"I think that if someone were sentenced under the lethal injection statute then
they cannot change the sentence to execution by electrocution," Brad MacLean,
an attorney who has represented a number of condemned prisoners, said.
Normally the rule is that a new law with harsher punishments can't be applied
to someone who has already been sentenced, but could be applied going forward,
said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information
Center. He said that generally new laws can apply to someone who has already
been sentenced when the laws provide some type of benefit.
"I think there will be a real question as to whether being electrocuted would
be a benefit over lethal injection," he said.
Still, Dieter said, some could make an argument that the inmate was sentenced
to death either way.
States have found themselves running out of drugs used to execute prisoners
after a European-led boycott of sales of the drugs to prisons.
"I had a real concern that we could find ourselves in a position that if the
chemicals were unavailable to us that we would not be able to carry out the
sentence, and therefore I wanted to make sure that we did carry out the law,"
said Sen. Ken Yager, R-Kingston, who sponsored the bill in the Senate.
The state Attorney General's office was consulted and lawyers told lawmakers
that they were comfortable with the amendment that allowed the law to be
applied to all inmates, Yager said. He said it's getting harder and harder to
find drugs used in lethal injections and Tennessee could be faced with the real
prospect of not having them for executions in the years to come.
The state Attorney General's office issued an opinion earlier this year that
said the use of the electric chair under the bill would be constitutionally
defensible.
If the governor signs the bill there will likely be several challenges to it,
Dieter said. One would be whether the use of the chair is cruel and inhuman.
The other, he said, is whether the state really couldn't find the drug used to
inject a prisoner and has to resort to the chair.
(source: Associated Press)
KENTUCKY:
On death row, Dunlap strikes deal with attorneys; Defense to appeal conviction
to U.S. Supreme Court
A former Army helicopter mechanic for the 160th Special Operations Aviation
Regiment who was sentenced to death in 2010 for a triple-homicide reached an
agreement with his attorneys Friday as his appeal makes its way to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
Lyon County Chief Circuit Judge C.A. "Woody" Woodall told New Era he cancelled
the planned Friday hearing as he saw no need of it after Kevin Wayne Dunlap and
his counsel agreed to Dunlap's demands that his legal team keep him apprised
through every step in the process.
The 41-year-old death row inmate pleaded guilty in February 2010 to a brutal
attack on a woman and 3 children in Trigg County 16 months earlier. Dunlap
stabbed Kayla Williams, 17, Kortney Frensley, 14 and Ethan Frensley, 5, to
death and lit the family's home on fire. The mother, Kristy Frensley, survived
after being pulled from her backyard pool by Trigg County deputy Kenneth Butts.
The mother also suffering multiple stab wounds.
Dunlap burned down Frensley's home with her children inside after he killed
them.
In a December motion filed by Dunlap, he asked to represent himself in the
death penalty appeals process, so he could expidite his execution, which
prompted the now-cancelled hearing.
Dunlap was convicted of 3 counts of murder, 3 counts of kidnapping in which the
victim died, 1 count of kidnapping with serious injury, 1st-degree rape,
1st-degree arson, attempted murder, 1st-degree burglary and evidence tampering.
(source: Kentucky New Era)
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