Nov. 9
TEXAS:
Man who killed wife returns to court for retrial of punishment
William "Billy the Kid" Mason was convicted of beating his wife to death for
playing her radio too loudly. Mason hogtied 33-year-old Deborah Ann Mason, put
her in the trunk of a car and drove her to Humble where he bludgeoned her with
a piece of concrete. Her body, bound and gagged, was found Jan. 27, 1991, near
the San Jacinto River. Mason, who became a member of the Aryan Brotherhood gang
while in prison, had been paroled on a murder conviction 3 weeks before his
wife's death. He is scheduled to go trial later this year.
William "Billy the Kid" Mason is a like a wrecking ball, prosecutors said
Monday during opening statements of the 2nd death penalty trial in Harris
County this year.
"Everything he touches, he destroys," Assistant Harris County District Attorney
Katherine McDaniel told jurors hearing testimony in the re-trial on the
punishment phase of Mason's capital murder case. "The choices William Mason has
made continue to wreck the lives of everyone around him."
Mason was convicted of kidnapping and bludgeoning 33-year-old Deborah Ann Mason
in 1991 under the Hwy. 59 bridge over the San Jacinto river in Humble. He faces
the possibility of death or prison time with a chance at parole in as little as
15 years.
On Monday, the 61-year-old sat quietly in a powder blue button-down shirt and
round black glasses and listened as prosecutors laid out their case.
His defense team did not make an opening statement.
Attorney Terry Gaiser has said the case should have been tried as a murder, but
because Mason tied up his wife, put her in the trunk of a car, the underlying
felony of kidnapping made it a death penalty case.
Gaiser has said Mason would agree to a plea deal that ensures he will spend the
rest of his life in prison, if offered.
That offer has apparently not come, as prosecutors prepared for at least a week
of testimony to detail the crime and Mason's behavior before and after the
slaying, including another murder conviction during a crime spree more than a
decade earlier.
McDaniel said Mason is a high-ranking member of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas,
a violent white supremacist prison gang. She said he robbed and killed a black
man in 1977 after spending hours seeking out a black victim.
"Don't you know he went through that man's pockets and then shot him dead?"
McDaniel said. She said Mason also committed an armed robbery of a Mexican food
restaurant later that year, then fled to California, where he was arrested.
After spending 13 years in prison for murder, McDaniel said, he was paroled. It
was only 18 days after getting out that he beat his wife to death by smashing
her head with concrete blocks, then weighing down her body in the San Jacinto
river.
Her body was found days later by passersby after storm waters receded.
The case, in state District Judge Marc Carter's court, is the 2nd death penalty
trial in Harris County this year.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Delco ex-cop, awaiting murder trial, guilty of stalking
A former Delaware County police officer awaiting trial for the slaying of an
ex-girlfriend pleaded guilty Monday to stalking another woman.
Stephen Rozniakowski, 33, of Norwood, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court
to 23 months in prison as part of a plea deal under which 75 counts of stalking
and harassment were reduced to one court of stalking.
His attorney said the plea would allows Rozniakowski to focus on the murder
charges he faces in Delaware County, where prosecutors are seeking the death
penalty.
Rozniakowski, a former Colwyn Borough police officer, was charged in Montgomery
County in April 2014 with stalking an ex-fiancee. Prosecutors said 6 months of
harassment began after the woman broke off her engagement with Rozniakowski in
September 2013.
"He would not let her have peace," said Assistant District Attorney Brianna
Ringwood. "He called repeatedly at all hours of the day and night. He called
her cell phone, he called her at work, he called family and friends. He texted
her incessantly."
While out on bail, Rozniakowski began dating Valerie Morrow, whom he is now
charged with killing.
He began stalking Morrow when she ended their relationship months later, police
said, and in December broke into her Glendolden, Delaware County, house, killed
her, and shot her daughter.
The 2 cases are "totally unrelated," said defense attorney Martin Mullaney.
But prosecutors in Delaware County could choose to use the stalking case as
evidence in the murder trial, Ringwood said.
"My client made a prudent decision today to enter a guilty plea in this case so
he can focus his attention on his much more serious charges in Delaware
County," said Mullaney, who is not representing Rozniakowski in the murder
case.
(source: philly.com)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Suspect in North Hills murder looks to escape death penalty
A man accused in the brutal 2013 slaying of a woman in her North Hills
apartment was in court Monday morning as his attorneys asked a judge to take
the death penalty off the table.
Travion Devonte Smith, 22, of Raleigh, is 1 of 3 people charged in the beating
and stabbing death of Melissa Huggins-Jones.
Huggins-Jones, 30, had recently divorced and moved from Tennessee to the
apartment complex off Six Forks Road in Raleigh, where she started a new job
and a new life caring for her 8-year-old daughter, Hannah Olivia Jones. Her son
had stayed behind with his father in Tennessee to finish the school year.
The morning of May 14, 2013, Hannah wandered out of the apartment and
approached a nearby construction crew, asking for help. A construction worker
followed the girl back into the apartment and found Huggins-Jones dead in her
bed, covered in blood.
An autopsy determined she died from repeated blows to her head and neck.
A laptop stolen from the apartment directly below Huggins-Jones' turned up in
Wake Forest, and investigators were able to use DNA evidence to link the
computer to 3 suspects.
Smith, Ronald Lee Anthony, 25, and Sarah Rene Redden, 20, of Wake Forest, were
charged in the case.
Smith is set to go on trial the 1st week of January, but his attorneys said the
state withheld critical information in his case.
Redden, the getaway driver, originally said both Smith and Anthony were
involved, but later recanted, saying Anthony was primarily responsible and not
Smith.
Melvin Brown, an inmate who was housed with Smith, also shared similar
information, but defense attorneys said the state did not disclose the details
until recently.
"She is now saying it is Ronald Anthony, and that Ronald Anthony alone killed
Ms. Huggins-Jones," said Jonathan Broun, a defense attorney. "Ronald told her
he stabbed (Huggins-Jones) to death. (Smith) did not personally hit, stab or
hurt Ms. Huggins-Jones. She also said she has no indication that Travion went
into Ms. Huggins-Jones' bedroom or was present when (Anthony) killed her."
In September, Anthony pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder and received a life
sentence.
Redden has agreed to testify against her 2 co-defendants.
(source: WRAL news)
FLORIDA----female may face death penalty
Woman who drowned 2-year-old has death penalty case postponed
Kimberly Lucas, the woman who says an alternate personality led her to kill the
2-year-old girl she shared with her partner, won't return to a Palm Beach
County courtroom until sometimes next year.
A judge Monday morning granted a delay of Lucas' case until February as
Assistant Public Defender Elizabeth Ramsey continues to work on the case she
recently inherited from private attorneys Marc Shiner and Heidi Perlet. s
stepped down from the case after they said Lucas' family was overwhelmed by the
cost to retain experts to argue her insanity defense and could no longer afford
to pay them.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Lucas on 1st-degree murder
charges in the May 2014 death of Elliana Lucas-Jamason. She also faces charges
connected to the attempted murder of her son, Ethan, then 10.
Lucas, 41, of Jupiter, at the time of the killing was estranged from Jacquelyn
Jamason, the children's biological mother and her former partner.
(source: palm Beach Post)
KENTUCKY:
The Death Penalty in Kentucky: A Timeline
--June 29, 1972: U.S. Supreme Court holds that the death penalty constitutes
cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendments.
July 2, 1976: U.S. Supreme Court rules that the death penalty for the crime of
murder does not, under all circumstances, violate the Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendments.
-December 22, 1976: Gov. Julian Carroll signs into law a bill that establishes
death, life or a term of years as punishment for capital crimes.
-August 1977: Larry Bendingfield becomes the 1st defendant sentenced to death
after passage of the new law. His death sentence was overturned, and he was
retried and sentenced to serve 75 years.
-July 13, 1984: The penalty of life without parole for 25 years is added to the
statute as another possible punishment for capital murder.
-December 1988: The Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is
incorporated.
-July 13, 1990: The law is amended to exclude certain mentally disabled persons
from execution. (This does not include persons considered mentally ill.)
-June 1997: Public Advocate Ernie Lewis calls for a moratorium on executions.
-July 1,1997: Harold McQueen Jr. is executed in the electric chair.
-March 31, 1998: Lethal injection becomes the usual means of execution, with
exceptions for those sentenced to death prior to the effective date of the
legislation who are allowed to choose method of execution.
-March 31, 1998: Life without parole as a possible penalty for a capital crime
is added to state law.
-July 15, 1998: The Kentucky Racial Justice Act, which allows a defendant to
use statistical evidence to show racial bias in capital trials, is added to
state law.
-May 25, 1999: Edward Lee Harper Jr. waives any further appeals and becomes the
1st person executed by lethal injection in Kentucky.
-November 21, 2008: Marco Allen Chapman waives any further appeals and is
executed by lethal injection.
-August 1, 2002: Larry Osborne is acquitted and freed from a sentence of death
imposed in a trial in 1999. The Kentucky Supreme Court unanimously vacates his
conviction and sentence and grants a new trial.
-December 7, 2011: A team of leading Kentucky legal professionals issues a
report detailing nearly 100 areas in which the Kentucky system of capital
sentencing fails to meet a set of protocols of the American Bar Association to
ensure fairness and just outcomes. Recommendations include a suspension of
executions until problems with the system are addressed.
-January 2015: Bills to repeal the death penalty are filed in both chambers of
the General Assembly by Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Bills calling for
a study of the costs of the system to Kentucky taxpayers are also filed. No
hearings are held on any of these measures.
(source: The Courier-Journal)
CALIFORNIA:
Ex-NFL player Lawrence Phillips now eligible for death penalty in death of his
prison cellmate
Ex-NFL player Lawrence Phillips could face the death penalty for allegedly
killing his cellmate at Kern Valley State Prison, according to his defense
attorney Jesse Whitten.
A new prosecution motion in the case stated that Phillips should now be
eligible for the death penalty after new evidence shows he was lying in wait
for his cellmate, Whitten said.
The "lying in wait" addition qualifies as a special circumstance and, under
California law, makes Phillips eligible for the death penalty, according to the
defense attorney.
Whitten argued the motion was improper and questioned its timing.
Judge Michael Bush granted the motion Monday, Whitten said.
District Attorney Lisa Green has not yet decided if she will seek the death
penalty, according to Whitten.
Phillips has pleaded not guilty to 1st- degree murder in the death of his
cellmate, convicted murderer, 37-year-old Damion Dewayne Soward on April 11.
Phillips is due back in court Nov. 17.
(source: The Kern Golden Empire)
USA:
Support for death penalty is lagging across the country
According to opinion polls, the death penalty is in a long, slow decline
nationally.
Robert Dunham with the Death Penalty Information Center says there is also an
"innocence revolution" - death row inmates proven innocent.
Death penalty supporters argue harsh justice is a deterrent to crime.
Dunham says juries are also told that a life sentence really means life behind
bars. Some juries were under the misguided notion that a if a capital convict
was not executed they could eventually released on parol.
Dunham says F-B-I figures show the death penalty doesn't deter crime in any
measurable way.
In South Dakota, 3 men are on death row.
(source: kelo.com)
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