March 24
TEXAS----impending execution
Does John Battaglia Remember He Murdered His Children?----A father who killed
his 2 young daughters is scheduled to be executed March 30
Texas will wrap up a busy month at the death chamber on Wednesday, March 30,
when the state executes 60-year-old John Battaglia for the May 2, 2001, murder
of his 2 daughters, 9-year-old Faith and 6-year- old Liberty.
The details of the 2 girls' deaths are particularly disturbing. According to
Battaglia's failed 2010 appeal to the U.S. District Court, the murders occurred
the day Battaglia learned he had a warrant out for his arrest for violating
probation, which he was serving after being convicted of assaulting his ex-wife
Mary Jean Pearle in 1999. (Battaglia had agreed not to stalk, threaten, or
harass Pearle or their 2 daughters, and Pearle had filed a complaint on April
17 reporting that Battaglia had left an abusive message on her phone.)
Battaglia picked up Faith and Liberty for a pre-arranged visit that afternoon
and took them back to his downtown Dallas loft. Pearle went to a friend's
house. When she arrived, she was told the girls wanted to speak with her. She
called Battaglia's apartment and he put Faith on the phone. Faith asked,
"Mommy, why do you want Daddy to go to jail?" Then Pearle heard Faith say, "No,
Daddy, please don't do it." Pearle heard gunshots, then Battaglia screamed
"Merry fucking Christmas," and there were more gunshots - 7 in total. Battaglia
was arrested outside of a nearby tattoo parlor, where he had gone to get 2
roses representing his slain daughters tattooed on his arm.
At trial, the state traced a pattern of violence, using testimony from
Battaglia's 1st wife Michelle Ghetti, who told of the 2 years of physical abuse
and harassment she endured while married to Battaglia. The defense offered
testimony concerning Battaglia's mental instability, and tried to argue that he
would not pose a future threat to society if his life were spared. On appeal,
Battaglia has continued to pursue - unsuccessfully - those 2 lines of argument.
During a 2014 video interview with The Dallas Morning News, Battaglia said he
remains "a little in the blank" about what happened to his daughters, and
contended: "I don't believe I really killed them."
A last-minute motion to appoint D.C. attorney Gregory W. Gardner as Battaglia's
counsel in an effort to file a final claim that Battaglia is too incompetent to
be executed - because he neither understands that he murdered his daughters nor
that he will soon die for that - was denied by U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle
on March 18. Battaglia will be the 6th Texan executed this year, and the 537th
since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
(source: Austin Chronicle)
*********************
Death penalty activist released after arrest
The Rev. Jeff Hood of Denton has been released after his arrest in Huntsville
on Tuesday in connection with protesting the execution of convicted murderer
Adam Ward.
The execution fell during Holy Week, which ends the Christian observance of
Lent with Easter.
Prior to his trip to Huntsville, Hood said he wanted to deepen his protest of
the execution in part because it falls on the holiest week of the Christian
calendar.
"I'm going to walk past the barrier that keeps the protestors from the
entrance," Hood said Tuesday morning. "I'll kneel, and if nothing happens, I'll
just keep walking toward the entrance until they arrest me."
Ward was convicted and sentenced to death after he shot and killed Commerce
code enforcement officer Michael Walker in 2005. Ward's defense has appealed
his sentence, arguing that the inmate suffers from severe mental illness.
Hood said he sees part of himself in Ward. The pastor, now in his 30s, has
bipolar disorder and has taken medication for the mental illness since he was
24 years old.
According to plan, Hood walked past the police tape barrier outside the Texas
State Penitentiary at Huntsville or Huntsville Unit, nicknamed "the Walls
Unit," to protest the execution Tuesday evening.
Hood was confronted by a pair of prison officials, who tried to dissuade the
pastor from his protest. Hood was dressed in a white clerical robe with a red
stole. He was detained, arrested and booked into the Walker County Jail on a
Class B misdemeanor. He was released on a $1,000 bail.
Photographer Ben DeSoto accompanied Hood to the death house unit and reported
that Hood declined to retreat behind the barrier tape and was arrested.
The minister surrendered to officials. Other protesters remained with signs and
candles.
The Associated Press reported that Ward was given a lethal dose of
pentobarbital and as it took effect, he took a deep breath followed by a
smaller one. He then stopped moving.
He was pronounced dead at 6:34 p.m. - 12 minutes after the drug started to flow
into him.
"I found out that Adam died at about the same time I was booked into jail,"
Hood said Wednesday. "Once they put me in jail, I sang hymns and prayed. I was
sitting there singing, my hands up. I looked like a regular evangelical. I felt
grateful, and I thought about Adam. I felt like God was telling me that Adam
was at peace."
The pastor sounded tired over the phone. He was released from jail about 1 a.m.
Wednesday and immediately drove to Austin to testify in an immigration hearing
held by the Texas Legislature later in the day.
Ward became the 9th killer executed this year nationally and the 5th in Texas,
which carries out capital punishment more than any other state.
Hood is on the board of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, an
issue he's been devoted to for the last 4 years. The pastor has walked hundreds
of miles to protest Texas capital punishment, and he regularly visits death row
inmates to minister to them.
Hood said he sees the execution of Texas prisoners as "a re-enactment of Holy
Week."
Death row inmates are permitted a final meeting with friends and family in
their unit in Livingston. They can share snacks from a vending machine, Hood
said, and have "a sacramental moment around the last meal."
The pastor imagines the trip to the death chamber as a shadow version of the
Passion playing out.
"They're taken to Huntsville," he said. "They're paraded through the streets.
They are brought to the death chamber in Huntsville. They are walked through
halls up to the space. They have to climb up onto the gurney, their arms are
extended and they are executed.
"Their skin is pierced with metal. They are taunted, in some ways, before the
execution. There are witnesses - sometimes their family is there. The last
thing you hear in that chamber is the pronouncement of death."
While he did not expect his protest to halt the execution, Hood said he has
felt called to "go deeper" in his protest, which he considers a spiritual
discipline. He found examples for his plans in the story of a Buddhist monk in
Dallas and in the Bible.
The monk told Hood the story of walking and talking with his mentor in downtown
Dallas. The 2 men turned a corner and saw a group of men beating a man. The
monk told his mentor he would call 911. The mentor intervened, Hood said.
"He looked at the situation and said, 'Wouldn't it be more fun to beat up a
couple of Buddhist monks than this guy?'" Hood said. "That story has always
demonstrated to me that the call of faith, the call of divine living, spiritual
enlightenment - whatever you want to call it - is about placing our body
between the oppressed and the oppressor. And I count it as a sacrament every
time I feel called to do that."
He looks to the Book of Matthew for guidance, too, and says the chapter
commands Christians to minister to the most vulnerable members of society.
"Look at death row. It doesn't get much more vulnerable than that," he said.
In his work ministering to death row inmates, Hood said he's met men who grew
up in poverty, burdened by mental illness, systemic racism, broken families and
addiction.
Hood has to confront the horrors the inmates have committed in his ministry,
including the murders of children. Hood is a husband and father of 5 young
children.
"We execute someone who sexually abuses and kills a child," he said. "Someone
who bankrupts our economy and destroys the lives of millions of children? Our
value system is so screwed up, and so I think the call to follow Jesus is one
of not only to place our bodies between the oppressed and the oppressor, but
also pushing back against this entire paradigm, that human value is based on
human actions. That's not the message of Grace."
Hood is no stranger to the activist pulpit. The minister, who earned his
theological training in a Baptist seminary, planted a short-lived church in
Denton to minister to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender seekers, and
preached what he calls "queer theology."
He later served the Cathedral of Hope, which is said to be the world's largest
liberal Christian church with an outreach to LGBT residents in Dallas.
Last August, Hood was an outspoken advocate for an investigation into the death
of Joseph Hutcheson, who died in police custody in the lobby of the Dallas
County Jail. The Dallas County Medical Examiner's office ruled the death a
homicide.
Hood said he was looking forward to coming home to his wife, Emily, and their
children on Wednesday night.
"I do this for them," he said. "I do it for the gospel and for the love of
Jesus. But it's important to me for my children to grow up knowing that their
father isn't silent in the midst of all this killing."
(source: Denton Record Chronicle)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Prosecutor to seek death penalty in Greensboro delivery driver's death
Guilford County prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty in the slaying a
restaurant delivery driver last year.
Prosecutors said Monday they will seek a death sentence for 22-year-old Jeremy
Carter of Greensboro, The News & Record of Greensboro (http://bit.ly/1ZnIvHr)
reported.
Carter is accused of killing 30-year-old Bakri Khidir Mohamed Khidir last fall.
Khidir was a Sudanese delivery driver for an Italian restaurant in Greensboro.
He was sent out with a $30 order of chicken wings on the night of Oct. 11 and
never returned.
Assistant District Attorney Stephen Cole said there is sufficient evidence that
Carter killed Khidir in an armed robbery. Armed robbery is one of the crimes
that can justify a death sentence under North Carolina law.
"The death penalty is what we want," Khidir's cousin, Abdelrahman Ali, told the
newspaper. "We do want to take this case as slowly as possible so we can get
more evidence from the sheriff's office. The more evidence we get the more this
case will go towards the death penalty."
The restaurant owner called sheriff's deputies after finding Khidir dead at the
address where he was to make a delivery the night he was killed.
The paper reported that a 19-year-old female driver had planned to deliver the
order, but Khidir insisted on taking it because he said the neighborhood wasn't
safe.
Cole said that deputies had obtained a search warrant for Carter's property. He
said they found a .22-caliber gun, consistent with what they believed was used
to kill Khidir, inside Carter's vehicle. Authorities arrested Carter on Oct. 12
on charges including murder and robbery.
Sabrina Bailey, Carter's attorney, requested that a capital defender be
appointed to the case.
(source: Associated Press)
GEORGIA----new execution date
Georgia sets execution date for man convicted in '96 killing
The head of Georgia's Department of Corrections on Wednesday set an execution
date for a man convicted of killing a woman by shooting her in the head 5
times.
Department Commissioner Homer Bryson scheduled the execution of 47-year-old
Kenneth Fults for 7 p.m. April 12, according to a department news release.
Fults pleaded guilty in 1997 to killing Cathy Bounds in January 1996, and a
jury sentenced him to die.
Bounds' death came during a weeklong crime spree that started when he stole 2
guns during burglaries, prosecutors said. After trying unsuccessfully to kill
his former girlfriend's new boyfriend with 1 of the stolen guns, Fults broke
into the Spalding County home of the 19-year-old Bounds, prosecutors said.
Bounds pleaded for her life, but Fults forced her into the bedroom, put her
face-down on the bed, put a pillow over her head and shot her 5 times in the
back of the head, prosecutors said.
Fults confessed to killing Bounds after a law enforcement officer confronted
him with a boastful letter he had written in gang code that described the
slaying, prosecutors said. But Fults told authorities he shot her by accident
while in a dream-like state, prosecutors said.
The gun used to kill Bounds and items stolen during the earlier burglaries were
found at Fults' trailer home.
The U.S. Supreme Court in October declined to hear an appeal from Fults. His
lawyers had argued racial bias deprived him of a fair trial because a white
juror who voted for the death penalty later referred to him with a racial slur.
During jury selection, Thomas Buffington told the judge and lawyers on both
sides he felt no racial prejudice. He was selected for the jury that sentenced
Fults to death.
An investigator who was part of Fults' legal team reached out to Buffington 8
years later to ask about his experience on the jury.
"Once he pled guilty, I knew I would vote for the death penalty because that's
what that (N-word) deserved," Buffington said, according to an affidavit signed
April 12, 2005.
Buffington died in 2014.
Fults' lawyers had tried for 10 years to get a court to consider evidence of
racial bias, but state and federal judges had already rejected Fults' appeal by
the time the Supreme Court rejected the case without comment in October.
Georgia has already executed 2 inmates this year, and another inmate, Joshua
Bishop, is scheduled to be put to death March 31.
FLORIDA:
Cherish Perrywinkle's last moments released
Cherish Perrywinkle's last moments caught on surveillance video, walking
through a retail store with an older man believed to be the principal suspect
in her disappearance.
The State Attorney's Office released hours of surveillance video and 911 calls
on Tuesday related to the eight-year-old's death.
Donald Smith is accused in the sexual battery and murder of the child abducted
from a Walmart in 2013.
In the surveillance footage you can see a man that resembles Smith walking with
Cherish through a Northwest Jacksonville Walmart. The man had offered to buy
her and her daughter clothes from Walmart earlier that evening.
At 11:18 p.m. on June 21, 2013 Rayne Perrywinkle - Cherish's mother - calls
911, frantically searching for her child who she says was last in the company
of Smith.
Smith was arrested less than 10 hours later when a police officer spotted
Smith's white van driving on Interstate 95 near downtown.
This criminal case is in front of a Duval County judge, still waiting to go to
trial. Smith is charged with 1st-degree murder, kidnapping a child under the
age of 13 years and sexual battery of a victim less than 12.
His legal team was in court earlier this month where his attorney filed a
motion to continue his trial despite the recent developments in Florida's death
penalty statute. A judge has changed Florida's death penalty law to pull power
out of the judge's hands and place it with the jury.
(source: firstcoastnews.com)
MISSISSIPPI:
2 charged with capital murder in death of Biloxi man found near Ocean Springs
2 Harrison County residents with prior criminal records have been arrested and
charged with capital murder in the death of a Biloxi man whose body was found
on a dirt road southeast of Ocean Springs.
According to Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell, Hubert Patrick Anderson, 35,
and Rita Olivia Johnson, 36, were arrested Tuesday and charged with murdering
29-year-old Biloxi man Donta Lashawn Banks.
Banks' body was found by a sheriff's deputy on patrol Tuesday morning laying on
a dirt road running off of Cook Street in the Ocean Springs Estates subdivision --
a sprawling development adjacent to the St. Andrews community.
Investigators have not commented on a probable cause of death. An autopsy was
scheduled for Wednesday.
During the investigation, it was learned Banks had recently purchased a 2004
Chrysler Pacifica and a description of the vehicle was sent out to surrounding
agencies.
A short time later, a Biloxi police officer spotted the vehicle and attempted
to stop it, but the vehicle sped away and later crashed into a house on
Lackland Drive in Biloxi. The female passenger -- Johnston -- was injured in
the crash and taken into custody, while the driver -- Anderson -- fled on foot.
Biloxi K-9 units arrived in pursuit of Anderson and a perimeter was
established. During the search, Anderson was found hiding in an enclosed area
of a carport on Popps Ferry Road.
Johnston was treated and released into police custody at Biloxi Regional
Hospital.
Both Anderson and Johnston have been charged by the JCSO with capital murder,
with Anderson facing additional charges from Biloxi police of felony fleeing,
possession of stolen property and residential burglary.
Johnston was transported to the Jackson County Adult Detention Center, while
Anderson remains in the Harrison County Adult Detention Center, with holds for
both the JCSO on the murder charge and the Mississippi Department of
Corrections for prior convictions.
Both face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted of capital murder.
Neither Anderson nor Johnston are strangers to law enforcement in Harrison
County.
Anderson has multiple prior arrests for burglary, both residential and
commercial, as well as resisting arrest, escape and numerous traffic
violations.
Johnston, meanwhile, was arrested in 2012 for aggravated assault with a knife.
(source: gulflive.com)
OHIO:
Tench found guilty of killing his mother in Brunswick
James Tench kept his head down Tuesday afternoon as Medina County Common Pleas
Judge Joyce V. Kimbler read the verdicts in his capital murder trial: Guilty on
all 8 counts.
The sentencing phase of the case against Tench, 30, of Brunswick, which will
include consideration of the death penalty, will begin April 4.
The jury found Tench guilty on three counts of aggravated murder, 2 counts of
murder, and 1 count each of aggravated robbery, kidnapping and tampering with
evidence in the 2013 death of his mother, Mary Tench. The jury began
deliberations Tuesday afternoon and members were sequestered overnight.
On Nov. 13, 2013, Mary Tench was found dead in her SUV in an industrial park on
Carquest Drive, less than a mile south of the Camden Lane home that the
55-year-old shared with her son in Brunswick.
Sentencing
County Prosecutor Dean Holman said Tench could face the death penalty, life
without parole, life with no parole for 30 years or life with no parole for 25
years.
The prosecution also will be asked for its recommendation at the hearing April
4.
Kimbler instructed jurors to remain available for the continuing procedures,
not to talk about the case and not to read or watch media coverage. She also
said jurors, including the 4 alternates, should be prepared to be sequestered
as of April 4 for the sentencing phase.
The judge noted during discussions with lawyers and jurors that it had been
brought to her attention that April 4 is the date of the 1st home game of the
2016 season for the Cleveland Indians.
When asked, no juror said he or she had a schedule conflict for that day.
In an interview after the verdicts were announced, Holman said: "I am happy
with the verdict. The Brunswick Police put together an excellent case."
Holman termed it a "circumstantial case," explaining there was no confession
from Tench and no eyewitnesses.
"The fact they (the jury) found him guilty on all counts and specifications is
significant," Holman said.
More than 40 pieces of evidence were presented in the trial that spanned 4
weeks.
"We respect and appreciate the work and diligence of the jury in this case,"
Holman said.
He presented 53 witnesses in the case including officials from the Brunswick
police, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, 2 Secret Service agents, an
FBI agent and an FBI chemist.
Tench's attorney, Kerry O'Brien, did not return a call seeking comment
Wednesday.
Missing person
Mary Tench was found to have suffered skull fractures and blunt trauma to her
head and neck. The Medina County coroner ruled her death a homicide. She had
been reported missing about 3 a.m. Nov. 12, 2013, by her son and her body was
located later that afternoon.
2 days after her death, Brunswick police turned over James Tench to
Strongsville police in connection with a restaurant robbery.
After Tench filed the missing persons report, police arrived at the Camden Lane
home to investigate and reported what they called suspicious activity.
When police said they wanted to use Mary Tench's credit cards to track her
possible movements, James Tench provided a card and said he had bought
toiletries and gas with it earlier that day.
The prosecution noted during the trial that Tench called off from work, saying
he was distraught about his mother's disappearance. Prosecutors said in a court
document that "it seemed odd for him to be out buying everyday items if he was
so distraught."
Tench told detectives the last time his mother contacted him was a missed call
she allegedly had placed at 11:51 p.m. the previous night. Detectives told
Tench that the call was made from their Camden Lane home, according to GPS
records.
The trial
During his trial this week, Tench testified he saw his mother writing checks to
pay bills prior to her disappearance. He said he was forging checks belonging
to her without her knowledge, which is why he robbed a restaurant in
Strongsville on Oct. 28, 2013. He said he wanted to replenish some money to her
account.
He was asked why he didn't go to his mother right away about the money issues,
but instead tried to cover everything up.
Tench replied his mother died not knowing he had robbed the restaurant and he
didn't know why he didn't speak to her about finances.
On March 11, 2014, Tench pleaded guilty to robbery, a 2nd-degree felony, with
firearms specifications. Other charges were dropped as part of a plea deal with
prosecutors. The robbery charges originally included kidnapping because he
reportedly held people at the restaurant against their will at gunpoint.
Tench was sentenced to 5 years in the robbery case and has been incarcerated at
Richland Correctional Institution in Mansfield.
(source: Medina County Gazette)
KANSAS:
Kyle Flack convicted in quadruple killings, could face death penalty
Jurors have convicted an eastern Kansas man in the fatal shootings of 3 adults
and a toddler in 2013.
Franklin County court officials say the jury found 30-year-old Kyle Flack
guilty of capital murder on Wednesday for the deaths of Kaylie Bailey and her
18-month-old daughter, Lana. That means Flack could face the death penalty when
sentenced next week.
He also was convicted in the deaths of Bailey's boyfriend, Andrew Stout, and
his roommate, Steven White, who lived in a rural farmhouse where Flack
sometimes stayed.
It's unclear what led to the shootings. Investigators say Flack at one point
told detectives that 2 drug dealers may have been involved, but detectives
determined those people didn't exist.
The defense called no witnesses during the trial. Jurors began deliberating
Wednesday morning.
(source: Associated Press)
USA:
Feds to appeal ruling vacating cop-killer Ronell Wilson's death sentence
Federal prosecutors will appeal a decision by a Brooklyn federal court judge
vacating convicted cop-killer Ronell Wilson's death sentence.
The Brooklyn-based office of the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New
York filed a notice of appeal Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit contesting last week's ruling by District Court Judge Nicholas
G. Garaufis.
Garaufis overturned Wilson's death sentence, ruling Wilson was intellectually
disabled.
The U.S. Constitution "forbids the execution of intellectually disabled
persons," said Garaufis.
The judge said his decision to strike the death-penalty sentence and impose a
series of consecutive sentences of life in prison without parole was based on a
"careful interpretation of the evolving (U.S.) Supreme Court precedent and a
sober review of the evidence."
Wilson, 33, was sentenced to death in 2013 in a penalty-phase retrial after
Garaufis previously ruled the former Stapleton gang member was not mentally
incapacitated.
The defendant was convicted of murdering Detectives Rodney J. Andrews, 34, and
James V. Nemorin, 36, during an undercover gun buy-and-bust operation in
Tompkinsville on March 10, 2003.
A prior Brooklyn federal court jury had sentenced Wilson to death in 2007. 3
years later, an appeals court tossed out the sentence due to prosecutorial
errors during the original penalty phase of the trial.
The convictions stood, and Wilson was retried for the penalty phase only.
Jurors again voted for death.
Wilson appealed, and in July 2014, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ordered
Garaufis to reconsider Wilson's claim of intellectual disability in light of a
recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The country's highest court found that Florida had adopted a too-rigid cutoff
for IQ test results in deciding who could be spared the death penalty due to
intellectual disabilities.
In his prior ruling in 2013, Garaufis determined that Wilson, based on his IQ
scores, was not intellectually disabled.
But he said he did not consider other evidence of intellectual disability in
Wilson's adaptive functioning, which deals with a broad array of abilities,
skills and behavior.
Taking such criteria into consideration, the evidence showed Wilson has
intellectual and adaptive deficits, and those issues developed before the age
of 18, said the judge.
"The court finds that Wilson has demonstrated significant defects in adaptive
functioning and he therefore meets the legal standard for proving intellectual
disability," wrote Garaufis. "Accordingly, Wilson is ineligible to receive the
death sentence that has been imposed on him."
Even so, Garaufis said he "harbors doubts" whether most medical clinicians
would deem Wilson intellectually disabled.
But the Supreme Court ruling in the Florida case strongly suggests the legal
standard forbidding execution of intellectually disabled people "has become
more protective than the clinical standard," wrote the judge.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn declined comment on
the appeal.
David Stern, a lawyer for Wilson, could not immediately be reached for comment.
(source: Staten Island Advance)
***************************
How the death penalty may keep innocent people in prison
Utah's conservative state Senate recently voted to abolish the death penalty.
The action reflects a growing bipartisan recognition of the documented flaws of
the death penalty, including its high cost, decades-long appeals and faulty
lethal injection protocols.
To get the measure through the Republican-led House, Utah legislators might
point to another reason to abolish capital punishment, one counterintuitively
illustrated in the recent executions of a Texas serial killer and an Oklahoma
gangbanger: state executions of the guilty sometimes impede exoneration of the
innocent.
A case in Texas
Rodney Lincoln was convicted in 1982 of murdering JoAnn Tate and violently
assaulting her 2 young daughters. The crime scene was bloody and brutal, but
the evidence against Lincoln was tenuous. There was a shaky hair analysis, a
smattering of other physical evidence and little else. Except, that is, for the
testimony of Tate's 8-year-old daughter, Melissa Davis, who survived the
attack.
Davis picked Lincoln out of a lineup and identified him as the murderer at
trial. Largely on the strength of that single identification, Lincoln was
convicted and sentenced to 2 life terms. Despite DNA tests on the hair evidence
that found no match to Lincoln, Lincoln remains in prison. But 33 years later,
Davis (not her present name) no longer believes that Lincoln was the man who
killed her mother. After watching a true crime show about her case, Davis
realized that convicted serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells was the real killer.
Tommy Lynn Sells was one of the most notorious, and lethal, serial killers in
U.S. history. He is believed to have murdered scores of people, and has
personally claimed responsibility for as many as 70 killings across the
country, including a family of 4 only 80 miles from the Tate/Davis home.
Details from the gruesome crime scene are eerily similar to those found in
other killings committed by Sells.
If Davis is right, Lincoln has spent 33 years in jail for a murder committed by
a convicted serial killer. Clarity might have been obtained simply by
questioning Sells about the incident. Indeed, Sells confessed to numerous
killings from his death row cell, helping clear up several cold cases. But that
option is no longer available because Sells was executed by the State of Texas
in 2014.
Lincoln remains in prison.
And 1 in Oklahoma
A similar story played out recently in Oklahoma, where Judge Sharon Holmes
presided over a postconviction hearing to assess claims brought by 2 men,
Malcolm Scott and De'Marchoe Carpenter, who have been imprisoned for more than
20 years for a murder they say they didn't commit.
The case at trial was weak. No physical evidence linked them to the crime - a
drive-by shooting of a teen house party that resulted in the death of Karen
Summers. 2 witnesses claimed that they saw Scott and Carpenter in the car or
shooting from it, but both witnesses now say that they actually did not see
anything but testified because of police coercion. The heart of the state's
case, in any event, was the testimony of Michael Lee Wilson.
When Wilson was initially picked up, police found him in possession of the
murder weapon (confirmed through ballistics) and the rental car used in the
shooting. But police let him go. Wilson later pleaded guilty as an accessory
after the fact and received a 5-year sentence. In exchange, he fingered Scott
and Carpenter as the killers. Almost entirely based on his testimony, Scott and
Carpenter were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Wilson, meanwhile, was given a reduced bond and released. 3 months later, he
and 2 other men killed a store clerk during a gas station robbery. All 3 men
were convicted and sentenced to death.
Fast forward 20 years to 2014. After Wilson's appeals ran out, Wilson
confessed, saying that Scott and Carpenter had nothing to do with the shooting
and had spent the last 2 decades in prison for crimes they didn't commit.
The dilemmas of Lincoln, Scott and Carpenter might seem like anomalies, but
they are not. Postconviction DNA testing has not only exonerated 337 persons to
date, it has also identified 140 actual perpetrators whose DNA is recorded in
the database. As of January 1, 2016, there were 2,943 prisoners on death row,
and given what we have learned as a result of DNA exonerations, it is almost
certain that some of them committed additional crimes for which other innocent
persons have been convicted.
In New York, for example, Jeff Deskovic was convicted for the schoolyard murder
of 15-year-old Angela Correa in 1989. 4 years later, Deskovic's classmate,
Steven Cunningham, was convicted of a different murder. Cunningham was serving
a 20-year to life sentence for that crime when he confessed that he, not
Deskovic, had killed Angela Correa. Deskovic was exonerated after spending 15
years in prison.
In 1993, Ruddy Quezada was convicted of a drug-related shooting, but doubts
emerged about Quezada's guilt. Eventually, another federal prisoner serving
multiple life sentences for contract killings confessed to the shooting.
Quezada was released after spending 22 years in prison for the wrongful
conviction.
In another case, Douglas Warney called the police claiming that he had
information about the murder of a woman for whom he worked as a house cleaner.
After a 12-hour interrogation, Warney, who had an eighth grade education and
was mentally ill, confessed. He was convicted and sentenced to 25-years-to-life
in prison. There were, however, troubling inconsistencies in the confession,
and when blood evidence was later tested, the DNA matched neither Warney nor
the victim, but a man named Eldred Johnson Jr., who was serving a life sentence
for other crimes. When questioned, Johnson confessed to the crime, which he
said he committed alone. As a result, Warney's conviction was vacated and he
was released.
Deskovic, Quezada and Warney might all still be in jail if the actual
perpetrator of the crimes for which they were convicted had not come clean.
Caught up in the system
Few, undoubtedly, are saddened by the execution of killers like Tommy Lynn
Sells and Michael Lee Wilson, and it is hard to credibly argue that Sells and
Wilson didn't "deserve" to die for their crimes. But as the Lincoln, Scott and
Carpenter cases show, there are more considerations than simple blameworthiness
to consider.
In a courtroom in January, Judge Holmes somberly viewed the videotaped
conversation between Michael Lee Wilson and an attorney from the Oklahoma
Innocence Project in which Wilson admitted that his trial testimony against
Scott and Carpenter was false. According to Wilson, neither man had anything to
do with the shooting.
The prosecutor dismissed Wilson's recantation as merely an attempt to help out
fellow gang members. He had no opportunity to question Wilson about his
statement, of course, because 2 days after giving the statement, Wilson was
executed by the state of Oklahoma. It is too soon to know what will happen to
Scott and Carpenter. That depends on Judge Holmes, but if she has doubts, she
won't be able to look to Wilson to resolve them.
Scott and Carpenter's cases, like Lincoln's, remind us of yet another reason
why executing convicted criminals is costly.
For the wrongly convicted, the search for truth is never-ending, and sometimes
the answers lie in the hearts and minds of convicted, and indisputably guilty,
criminals. If we execute those with the darkest secrets, we make it that much
harder for the innocent to find the light.
(source: The Conversation)
*****************
Justice Dept. power to fast-track death penalty cases restored
A federal appeals court on Wednesday restored the Justice Department's
authority to let states put death penalty cases on a "fast track" once they
reach federal court, overturning a Bay Area judge's nationwide ruling.
A 2005 federal law, which has yet to take effect, authorized the Justice
Department to approve fast-track authority for any state that appoints
competent, adequately paid lawyers to represent condemned prisoners. Once an
inmate's death sentence is upheld in state court, a fast track would shorten
the deadline for filing a federal appeal from a year to 6 months. A federal
judge would then have 15 months to rule on the appeal, and a federal appeals
court would have a four-month deadline after receiving all written arguments.
Life-tenured federal judges have been more likely to overturn state capital
cases than state judges, who are elected in most states. The fast-track process
is intended to substantially shorten federal court review of state capital
cases, which sometimes takes a decade or more.
The fast-track process was first established by federal law in 1996, but that
law authorized federal judges, not the Justice Department, to decide whether a
state provided competent legal representation to death row inmates and thus
qualified for the program. Judges have turned down every state that has applied
for fast-track authority, including California in 2000.
The Justice Department had not yet considered any state's fast-track
application when it was prohibited from doing so in December 2013 by U.S.
District Judge Claudia Wilken of Oakland. She said the Obama administration's
regulations implementing the 2005 law had failed to set clear standards for
lawyers' competency and had also failed to require a state to show it had
complied with the law, shifting the burden of proof to inmates and their
attorneys.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Wednesday that the legal
organizations that filed the suit - the Habeas Corpus Resource Center in
California and the federal public defender's office in Arizona - had no right
to sue because they failed to show that the fast-track regulations would cause
them any tangible harm.
"Counseling clients in the face of legal uncertainty is the role of lawyers,"
Judge Carlos Bea said in the 3-0 ruling. While the rules may leave the legal
groups unsure about how to prepare their capital cases, which ones to file
first or how to commit their resources, Bea said, they have not shown any
tangible, imminent harm that would establish "standing" to sue. He also said it
would be premature for any death row prisoners to sue because no states have
been granted fast-track authority, although Arizona and Texas have applied.
Marc Shapiro, lawyer for the legal defense organizations, said the rules they
challenged would force them to scramble to file appeals under time pressure,
possibly giving short shrift to some cases, and could also limit review of the
cases by overworked federal judges. He said his clients plan to appeal.
The Justice Department had no comment. Attorney Kent Scheidegger of the
Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which filed arguments siding with the
department, said the ruling was "important not only for the families of murder
victims, but also for everyone in the United States who depends upon the rule
of law."
(source: Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer)
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