[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, DEL., N.C., GA., ALA.
Dec. 7 TEXAS: Love triangle dismemberment murderer found guilty; takes stand during sentencing Michael Scott Quinn was supposed to be begging jurors not give him the death penalty. Instead, the San Antonio man made inappropriate jokes as he took the stand in his own defense. Jurors found Quinn guilty of capital murder on Monday taking less than 20 minutes to deliberate. Quinn is eligible for the death penalty. Quinn told jurors he is not a monster or a killer. While he admits to sawing off Albert Guerra's legs in the 2013 murder, Quinn says his former lover, Connie Yanez, was the one who killed him. Guerra was beaten to death with a hammer in his north side home. After he was murdered, the house was set on fire. "I told her that I would try to the wrap if we got caught," Quinn said. "I wasn't planning on getting caught, but we got caught, so I'll take it." The jury didn't believe Quinn. He was convicted and the case continued with the sentencing phase to decide if Quinn will get life in prison or be put to death. Despite the seriousness of his situation, Quinn caused jurors to gasp and laugh when his lawyer asked if he felt sorry for killing Guerra. "If is the biggest 2-letter word there is," said Quinn. "If my sister had a d**k, she'd have been my brother." The jury will hear from a psychologist on Tuesday who will testify about how previous abuse in Quinn's life might have affected him. (source: KHOU news) DELAWARE: Court arguments set on retroactivity of death penalty ruling Delaware's Supreme Court is hearing arguments on whether its ruling declaring the state's death penalty law unconstitutional can be applied retroactively to a dozen men already sentenced to death. Wednesday's oral arguments come in an appeal filed by Derrick Powell, who was sentenced to death in 2011 for killing Georgetown police officer Chad Spicer in 2009. In August, a majority of the Supreme Court justices declared that Delaware's death penalty law was unconstitutional because it allowed judges too much discretion in sentencing and did not require that a jury find unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant deserves execution. Attorney General Matt Denn declined to appeal that ruling in federal court but said he believes that it cannot be applied retroactively to offenders already sentenced to death. (soruce: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: Prosecutor: Evidence of torture in Granville County murders Prosecutors in the gruesome murders of an elderly Granville County couple on New Year's Eve 2014 are revealing new details in the case. The prosecutors said in court Tuesday that the couple may have been tortured before being killed. The deaths of 73-year old Jerome Faulkner and his 62-year old wife Dora at their home near Oak Hill made national headlines when the accused killers set off on a multi-state crime spree from Texas to West Virginia. Prosecutors also claimed there is evidence that Jerome's death was a slow one. Lawyers for a 23-year-old man accused asked a judge Tuesday to take the death penalty off the table. The judge said he would delay the ruling on the death penalty until the start of the trial, saying it would be premature to for the court to remove the option at the current time. Jury selection is set for February 27 and could take weeks. One of the suspects, 52-year-old Edward Campbell, later killed himself in Raleigh's Central Prison. Now his son Eric, the other suspect, is putting all the blame on his dad as he tries to stay off death row. In a motion, the defense says the younger Campbell was threatened and abused by his father and he was afraid of him. It says Eric Campbell didn't know his father intended to kill the couple. He thought it was just going to be a robbery. "Eric said over and over again, 'I just thought it was going to be a robbery. I didn't want him to kill anybody. I didn't want to commit a robbery. I didn't want anyone to be robbed. I didn't want anyone to be killed,'" his defense lawyer said. After the murders, the Faulkner's bodies were loaded into their pickup truck which the Campbells drove to West Virginia. After shootout with police there the next day - New Year's 2015 - investigators found the bodies in the truck bed under a mattress. If the judge refuses to take the death penalty off the table, Campbell could be the first defendant to face a capital punishment trial in Granville County in 25 years. The judge denied a change of venue on Tuesday. (source: ABC news) Judge in Granville County murder case delays ruling on death penalty request The judge who presided over a hearing Tuesday to determine whether Eric Campbell should continue to face the death penalty said it was premature to issue such a ruling until closer to the trial. Campbell, 23, is accused of murder, arson, robbery and other charges related to the killings of
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, DEL., N.C., GA., ALA., MISS.
June 21 TEXAS: As Texas nears 500th execution, ex-warden reflects on prison system Next week, Texas is scheduled to execute its 500th prisoner since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Barring stays or reprieves, the 500th execution is due to occur Wednesday - and the inmate is a woman. Kimberly McCarthy, 52, a former occupational therapist, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1998 in connection with the beating and stabbing death of her 71-year-old neighbor during a robbery. She was originally scheduled to be put to death Jan. 29, but received a stay until April, and then saw her execution postponed again. Her attorneys recently appealed again to halt the execution, but there has been no decision yet. McCarthy would be the 13th woman executed in the U.S. and the 4th in Texas since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976. During that time, more than 1,300 men have been executed nationwide. Texas has enforced the death penalty more regularly than any other state, executing more people than the next 6 states combined (Virginia, Oklahoma, Florida, Missouri, Alabama and Georgia). But that wasn't always the case. Texas executed fewer than 10 people a year until 1992, when executions spiked under then-Gov. Ann Richards, a Democrat. The current governor, Republican Rick Perry, has presided over more than 200 executions, more than any other governor in modern history. To learn more about the history of executions in Texas, which are carried out at the Walls Unit at Huntsville Prison, about 70 miles north of Houston, we talked to the director at the local Texas Prison Museum, Jim Willett, a former warden. Did you know Huntsville is expected to have its 500th execution later this month? Is the museum doing anything related to that? No, I didn't know when it was. And I don't want to seem like we're celebrating. What can you tell us about the history of executions in Huntsville? Most people don't know a lot about the executions. We've got a fairly good set-up here at the museum about the executions and the fact that prior to 1924, before they came to Huntsville, there were hangings in counties across the state. And there is, of course, the electric chair here - 361 men died in the chair. And we have a panel that explains the current way of doing executions: lethal injection. When did you work at the prison? Was that an interesting time to be there? I worked there for 30 years starting in 1971, retiring in 2001. When I got there, the inmates were still segregated in where they lived and the dining room and I got to see that change. And the prison system was still using the building tender system before it was done away with by the courts. What was that? It was a system where you had some inmates who were over other inmates. They had authority over the other inmates. They stopped that around '82. When I went to work there, an inmate could only have visits from 5 people and they couldn't write but to those people. Their mail was very limited. There were about 15 units [prisons] when I went to work there - now there's over a hundred scattered all over the state. They had that tender system because they didn't have that many employees. There's over 30,000 employees there now. Were you involved with executions? If so, how? I was warden 3 years. We just so happened to have the 3 busiest years for the execution chamber the state has ever had. The one that sticks out the most in my mind as far as attracting protesters and media was Gary Graham. He was a fellow out of Houston, just an awful character who had done a bunch of crimes. He had walked up to a man in a grocery store parking lot and shot him dead. Some of the more well-known people got behind him and even showed up as witnesses at his execution - Jesse Jackson was there and Bianca Jagger and Al Sharpton. Can you remember any women who were executed, for instance, Karla Faye Tucker, the 1st woman Texas executed after the death penalty was reinstated? Betty Beats - I was the warden then and oversaw her execution. And another lady after her. Neither of those ladies got the exposure Karla Faye Tucker got. It had to do with a couple things - Karla Faye Tucker was a born-again Christian and she was a very likable person. I noted a trivia item posted on the museum's Facebook page and wondered about the answer: Which warden from the Huntsville Unit resigned after saying, A man can't be a warden and a killer? The warden that was at the prison at the time the state decided to change over and take over the executions, I believe his name was R. F. Coleman. He resigned in 1924 before the executions started in February. What do you think of what he said? I don't agree with him. I'm not a proponent of executions and I'm not against them. I don't really care. Personally, I'm a Christian and I think that goes right along with being a Christian. But, you
