Sept. 11
TEXAS----execution
Texas Inmate Mark Soliz Executed for 2010 Killing----“I want to apologize for
the grief and the pain that I caused y’all,” he said before receiving a lethal
injection.
A Texas death-row inmate convicted of murdering a 61-year-old woman during a
robbery in 2010 was executed on Tuesday night, becoming the state’s 6th
execution this year. Mark Soliz, 37, died by lethal injection despite claims by
his lawyers that he suffered from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and therefore
should be spared from execution.
Soliz was the 15th prisoner put to death this year. Despite his hopes for a
reprieve from the death penalty, Soliz reportedly did not file a last-minute
appeal with the Supreme Court. According to The Huntsville Item, Soliz was
apologetic to the family of his victim—Nancy Weatherly—in his final statement.
“I want to apologize for the grief and the pain that I caused y’all,” Soliz
reportedly said to the 2 members of the Weatherly family who attended the
execution. “I’ve been considering changing my life, it took me 27 years to do
so. I don’t know if me passing will bring y’all comfort for the pain and
suffering I caused y’all. I’m at peace.”
Soliz and his lawyers went through the appeals process for years, with the most
recent denial reportedly coming last week. His lawyers had cited a decision two
weeks ago by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which stayed the execution
of Dexter Johnson based on new standards for evaluating mental disability.
“They’re almost identical,” Soliz’s lawyer, Seth Kretzer, said of the 2 cases.
“It’s simply not right to execute the mentally disabled,” Kretzer said, adding
that he knows they may not prevail. “Hope is a very dangerous thing to have in
prison. We’ve used every legal tool we can to fight this and now we just have
to wait.”
Under the old medical standards, Soliz’s IQ of more than 70 meant he did not
qualify as mentally disabled. But under new criteria, Soliz’s lawyers say his
diagnosis of fetal alcohol syndrome should qualify him as mentally disabled and
ultimately save him from a lethal dose of pentobarbital.
“Because Mr. Soliz suffers from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, he should be
categorically exempted from the death penalty under the 8th amendment to the
United States constitution,” his lawyers argued in court documents.
“[Fetal alcohol syndrome] is the functional equivalent of the conditions
already recognized as disqualifying exemptions to the death penalty such as
intellectual disability.”
Soliz’s mother was a prostitute who drank and huffed glue during her pregnancy.
He scored 75 on his last IQ test, which falls within the 70-84 range considered
borderline intellectual functioning, according to an evaluation paid for by his
lawyers and reported in the Austin Chronicle.
Greg Westfall, who represented Soliz during his 2012 trial, said that in a
different jurisdiction, his client would have received a life sentence.
“Johnson County has a huge evangelical presence and a large amount of people
who believe in the death penalty,” he said, adding, “and there’s racial
overtones to the case. He’s a Hispanic who killed a white grandmother.”
Soliz’s deadly crime spree began in June 22, 2010, when he and co-defendant
Jose Ramos stole several guns. The pair went on to steal from several stores
and killed a man in one of the robberies, making a widow of his eight-months
pregnant wife. (Ramos pleaded guilty and was given a life sentence for the
slaying.)
On June 29, 2010, Weatherly, a grandmother and engineer at an aerospace company
in Godley, Texas, heard her doorbell ring around 10:30 a.m. and opened her
front door to find Soliz pointing a Hi-Point 9 mm semiautomatic handgun in her
face.
Soliz brought her inside and began to search the house for valuables. When she
asked him not to take her deceased mother’s jewelry box, he told her she would
join her mother shortly and shot her in the back of the head.
(source: thedaiylbeast.com)
****************
Texas executes man who killed woman during spate of crimes
A Texas death row inmate was executed Tuesday for fatally shooting a
61-year-old grandmother at her North Texas home nearly a decade ago during an
8-day spate of crimes that included thefts and another killing.
Mark Anthony Soliz, 37, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary
in Huntsville for the June 2010 slaying of Nancy Weatherly during a robbery at
her rural home near Godley, located 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Fort
Worth.
Soliz was the 15th inmate put to death this year in the U.S. It was the 6th
execution in Texas and the 2nd in as many weeks in the state. 9 more executions
are scheduled this year in Texas, the nation's busiest capital punishment
state.
During a 5-minute final statement, Soliz apologized profusely from the death
chamber gurney.
"I don't know if me passing will bring y'all comfort for the pain and suffering
I caused y'all," he said, looking at his victim's son and daughter-in-law, who
watched through a window a few feet from him. "I am at peace. I understand the
pain that I caused y'all."
He said he made wrong decisions but forgave himself and was "going with a
humble heart." He added that he didn't know if members of Weatherly's family
would attend the execution, but that he was pleased they did.
"I'm just glad I got a chance to talk to y'all," he said.
Soliz thanked his supporters and told the warden he was ready. As the lethal
dose of pentobarbital began, he again turned his head toward Weatherly's
relatives.
"I hope y'all forgive me," he said.
He gasped, snorted and appeared to go to sleep. All movement stopped. 18
minutes later — at 6:32 p.m. CDT — he was pronounced dead.
His victim's family members declined comment afterward.
State and federal appeals courts and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles
turned down requests by Soliz's attorneys to stop the execution, with the most
recent denial coming on Monday. His lawyers filed no other appeals, including
to the U.S. Supreme Court, on Tuesday.
"I have represented Mr. Soliz for many years. Every legal tool in my kit was
deployed to prevent this execution. The hope endures, the fight goes on, and
the cause never dies," Seth Kretzer, one of Soliz's appellate attorneys, said
in a statement.
Soliz's lawyers had argued he suffered from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder,
which left him with brain damage. His attorneys said the disorder is the
"functional equivalent" of conditions already recognized by the U.S. Supreme
Court as disqualifying exemptions to the death penalty, such as intellectual
disability.
"Our argument (was) the Supreme Court is extending that doctrine to fetal
alcohol syndrome," Kretzer said.
Prosecutors portrayed Soliz as a dangerous individual who killed Weatherly for
a "pittance of property."
Kretzer had argued in court documents that heavy drinking by Soliz's mother
during her pregnancy resulted in numerous problems for the inmate, including
impulsivity, learning difficulties, and an IQ of 75 that is "considered
borderline impaired." An IQ of 70 or below is generally considered to be
intellectually disabled.
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, combined with a chaotic and troubled childhood
that included living with drugs and prostitution, left Soliz entering "adult
life ill-prepared," Kretzer wrote.
Jurors at his 2012 trial as well as previous appeals court rulings rejected
Soliz's claims that his actions were due to the impacts of fetal alcohol
spectrum disorder.
At his trial, prosecutors said Soliz and another man, Jose Ramos, committed at
least 13 crimes in the Fort Worth area over eight days in June 2010.
After fatally shooting a deliveryman around 6 a.m. on June 29, 2010, the duo
later that morning drove in a stolen car to Weatherly's home. Prosecutors say
Soliz and Ramos forced their way into the home at gunpoint and ransacked the
place, taking a television, cellphones and credit cards.
Prosecutors say Weatherly begged for her life and pleaded with Soliz not to
take her deceased mother's jewelry box before she was shot in the back of the
head.
A friend of Soliz's told jurors Soliz had bragged to her about killing an "old
lady" in a house in Godley, laughed about what happened and ridiculed the
woman's "country" accent.
Police say Soliz confessed to killing Weatherly and ballistics and fingerprint
evidence also tied him to the slaying.
Ramos was sentenced to life in prison for the deaths of Weatherly and the
deliveryman, Ruben Martinez.
The Supreme Court in 2002 barred the execution of mentally disabled people but
has given states some discretion to decide how to determine intellectual
disability. However, justices have wrestled with how much discretion to allow.
The Texas Attorney General's Office said in court documents filed earlier this
month that the Supreme Court has not held that individuals with fetal alcohol
spectrum disorder are exempt from capital punishment and that Soliz has not
presented an expert opinion stating he is intellectually disabled.
The attorney general's office said in its motion with the 5th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals that a Fort Worth police detective testified Soliz was "more
sophisticated, calculated, and dangerous" than his partner Ramos and that
"Soliz was the most dangerous person with whom he had come into contact" in his
16 years as a police officer.
(source: Associated Press)
**********************
Rodney Reed supporters to protest death penalty at governor's mansion
Tuesday----Supporters and family of the Bastrop County man have been urging
Gov. Abbott to abolish the death penalty in Texas.
As another man is set to be executed Tuesday night, family and supporters of
Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed are set to protest the death penalty at the
Texas governor's mansion.
Protesters are expected to gather at 5:30 p.m. to protest the pending execution
of Mark Soliz in hopes of getting Gov. Greg Abbott to grant Soliz a stay.
Family members of Reed, a client of the Innocence Project, will also urge Gov.
Abbott to end the death penalty in Texas and ask him to "heed the beliefs of
his Catholic faith."
Soliz and another man were convicted in the shooting death of a Johnson County
woman during a 2010 robbery in her home. He was sentenced to death in 2012 for
the murder of 61-year-old Nancy Weatherly after an 8-day crime spree in which
he and the other man, Jose Ramos, robbed random people at gunpoint. Reports
state Soliz also killed another man. Ramos received life in prison without
parole. “As Pope John Paul II said, ‘the dignity of human life must never be
taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil,’" said
Roderick Reed, Rodney's brother. "I share this same belief with Pope John Paul
II. This means we recognize the dignity of Mark Soliz despite the horrific
nature of his crimes."
Reed's family are a part of the Reed Justice Initiative, a grassroots
collaborative led by the immediate family members of Rodney Reed.
The group held a similar protest last month on the day another death row
inmate, Larry Swearingen, was executed.
Rodney Reed of Bastrop County was convicted of murdering Stacy Stites in 1996.
Roderick believes his brother is innocent.
A judge has set a Nov. 20 execution date for Rodney.
(source: KVUE news)
********************
Harris County D.A. Seeks Execution of Intellectually Disabled Man, Lawyer
Says----Kim Ogg ran as a reform-minded district attorney, but her office has
sought two death warrants for Dexter Johnson, whose lawyer says cannot name
everyday objects and has an IQ of 70.
Within the last 12 months, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg’s office has
sought execution dates for Dexter Johnson, despite evidence of his intellectual
disability. Though the district court set two execution dates—both at the
request of the DA’s office—federal courts have twice granted Johnson stays.
Killing Johnson, his attorney argues, would violate the constitutional
prohibition against executing people with intellectual disabilities. Ogg’s
pursuit of death in Johnson’s case, advocates say, is just one example of the
difference between her actions as district attorney and her rhetoric of reform
on the death penalty. While Ogg has publicly opposed executing people with
intellectual disabilities, her office has also defended death sentences when
there are claims that the prisoner has an intellectual disability.
“The State’s repeated attempts to execute a man whose execution is forbidden by
the Constitution indicate that they are driven by vengeance, rather than
justice,” Johnson’s attorney, Jeremy Schepers, wrote in an email to The Appeal.
On June 18, 2006, Johnson and four others abducted Maria Aparece and Huy Ngo at
gunpoint, according to state filings. Johnson sexually assaulted Aparece, and
then he and a co-defendant took the victims into the woods and shot them, the
state argued. In 2007, a jury convicted Johnson of the murders and sentenced
him to death.
Johnson was just days past his 18th birthday at the time of the crime, barely
old enough to be eligible for the death penalty. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme
Court abolished death sentences for juveniles in Roper v. Simmons, holding that
they were “cruel and unusual punishment.” Last month, a federal judge wrote
that Roper should go further, and extend to those who were between the ages of
18 and 21 at the time of the crime. “I believe that society’s evolving
standards of decency likely do not permit the execution of individuals who were
under 21 at the time of their offense,” wrote Circuit Judge Jane Stranch.
Johnson’s mental fitness further complicates the state’s decision to sentence
him to die. His attorney argues he is inelgible for the death penalty because
he has an intellectual disability. In Atkins v. Virginia, the 2002 landmark
U.S. Supreme Court case, the Court ruled that executing intellectually disabled
people violates the Eighth Amendment, but the states must determine criteria
for an intellectual disability.
Then in 2014, the Court provided additional guidance for states in Hall v.
Florida. The court found that Florida’s “rigid rule”—that only those with an IQ
of 70 or below were intellectually disabled—“creates an unacceptable risk that
persons with intellectual disability will be executed, and thus is
unconstitutional.” If a person’s IQ is within the margin of error, the person
should be permitted to show “evidence of intellectual disability, including
testimony regarding adaptive deficits,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the
majority. “Intellectual disability is a condition, not a number,” he wrote.
Throughout his childhood and adolescence, Johnson struggled to perform basic
tasks, like remembering to bathe, following a bus route, and counting change.
Johnson, who is now 31, has an IQ of 70 and has been diagnosed with
schizophrenia, according to his attorney. He struggles to communicate with
others, uses “nonsense words,” and cannot name everyday objects, according to
his attorney’s motions.
Johnson’s symptoms developed well before age 18, according to his attorney’s
filings. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, which were marked by
instability, violence, and abuse, Johnson struggled to perform basic tasks,
like remembering to bathe, following a bus route, and counting change. On one
occasion, he cashed his income tax check for $320, but was only given $32 back;
his sister had to point out the error to him. He preferred to be alone as a
child to avoid being bullied because he was “slow,” according to legal filings.
An elementary school teacher recalled that Johnson sat with his fists clenched
and cried when he got an answer wrong.
In elementary and high school, he attended special education classes and had to
repeat grades, according to his attorney’s briefs. The second time he was in
ninth grade, he functioned at a sixth-grade level even though he should have
been a high school junior. At 17, his family did not trust him to be home
alone, his attorney wrote. After he was arrested for the murders, his sister
asked if the police read him his Miranda rights. Johnson asked, “Miranda who?”
according to his state application for a writ of habeas corpus, the means by
which prisoners can contest their conviction or detention.
Despite Johnson’s attorney’s documentation of an intellectual disability, Ogg’s
office has argued that Johnson’s impairments are not severe enough to exempt
him from the death penalty. A spokesperson for the DA’s office, Michael Kolenc,
emailed in response to a series of written questions from The Appeal: “When we
believe an intellectual disability claim fails to meet the rigorous
requirements of the DSM-5, and generally accepted scientific protocols, we will
make our position known to the court.”
Ogg’s office has pushed for the death penalty on other cases involving claims
of intellectual disability. Last year, her office sought a death warrant for
Robert Jennings, who was convicted in 1989 of killing Houston police officer
Elston Howard. Years before the murders, in 1978, a psychologist determined
that Jennings had an IQ of 65 and “mild organic brain dysfunction,” but accused
Jennings of exaggerating his symptoms. Randy Schaffer, one of Jennings’s
appellate attorneys, told The Appeal that his intellectual disability claim and
his background as a neglected child were not appropriately raised by his trial
counsel or considered during sentencing. State and federal appellate courts
agreed with the DA’s office that Jennings was not intellectually disabled.
“This was a great opportunity for her to act like she was tough law and order,
pro-police prosecutor and she put the pedal to the medal and forced the
execution,” Schaffer said of Ogg. As for being a reformer, he said Ogg is “all
talk, no action.”
Ogg attended Jennings’s execution—the first this year—on Jan. 30. “Robert
Mitchell Jennings has been on death row longer than Officer Howard was alive,”
Ogg said in a statement. “The time has come to end the suffering of Officer
Howard’s family.”
Ogg’s office is also defending the death sentence of Harlem Lewis, despite
concerns about his intellectual disability, and has opposed his attorney’s
efforts to hold an evidentiary hearing. Lewis, who was sent to death row in
2014 for the murders of Terry Taylor and Bellaire Police Department Corporal
Jimmie Norman, has an IQ of 71, according to court filings. In the prosecutors’
proposed findings of facts, they argued that Lewis did not qualify as
intellectually disabled for a number of reasons, including that he did well in
school and that his IQ is in the range of borderline intellectual disability.
“It’s not like we had a hearing and we lost,” said Ben Wolff, Lewis’s attorney
and director of the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs. “It’s been dragging
on. Instead of having a hearing about whether Mr. Lewis is intellectually
disabled, we’ve had a lot of litigation, without even being allowed into court
and given a fair chance to prove our case.”
Ogg first joined the Harris County DA’s office in 1987, serving under District
Attorney Johnny Holmes, who helped establish Harris County as a national leader
in death sentencing: Over the course of Holmes’s 21-year tenure, the county
sent more than 200 people to death row. In the mid-1990s, as many as 15 people
were sentenced to death each year in Harris County, according to the Texas
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Holmes personally tried the case
against Robert Jennings.
Ogg opposed capital punishment when she began her work as an assistant district
attorney, she told the Texas Observer in 2017, but later came to support it. In
Holmes’s office, she prosecuted Theodore Goynes, who was sentenced to death in
1991. In 2004, a U.S. district judge ordered that Goynes, whose IQ ranges from
65 to 77, should be released from prison or resentenced because the jury that
sentenced him to death was not instructed to take his intellectual disability
and mental illness into account. He is currently serving a life sentence.
“I consider myself smart on crime, and I am part of the national reform
movement"----Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, in the Texas Observer
From at least 2002 until 2007, Ogg served on the board of directors of the
Houston-based Justice for All, a pro-death penalty victims’ advocacy group. As
president of Justice for All, Dianne Clements opposed the Supreme Court
decisions banning the execution of people with intellectual disabilities and
juveniles. “We’re not talking about children, we’re talking about brutal
murderers with no regard for human life!” Clements told Mother Jones in 2006.
Asked about Ogg’s affiliation with Justice for All and Clements’s views,
Kolenc, the DA office spokesperson, declined to comment.
In 2016, more than 2 decades after she left the DA’s office, Ogg ran for
district attorney as a reform-minded candidate and won. “I consider myself
smart on crime, and I am part of the national reform movement,” she told the
Texas Observer during her first year in office. She still believes in the death
penalty, she said, but does not think it’s a deterrent. “It’s just pure
retribution,” she told the magazine.
While in office, Ogg has taken some actions in line with her campaign
statements. She has opposed the execution of Bobby Moore, a death row prisoner
with an IQ of about 70. (In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals was using “wholly nonclinical” factors to determine
intellectual disability in capital cases, and stopped Moore’s execution.) She
has also agreed to remove several people from death row and resentence them to
life. And since her tenure began, 1 person has been sentenced to death in
Harris County, but he was not prosecuted by Ogg’s office.
Brandon Garrett, author of “End of Its Rope: How Killing the Death Penalty Can
Revive Criminal Justice,” said these developments reflect a “remarkable change”
from the Harris County of the 1990s. “Death sentencing has slowed down in
Harris County really over the past 15 years,” part of a “national pattern” of
fewer death sentences, he said.
Although death sentences and executions have slowed in Texas as a whole, the
state remains an outlier in its use of capital punishment, according to an
August analysis by the Death Penalty Information Center. More people have been
scheduled for execution in Texas in the last five months of this year than the
rest of the country combined, according to the study.
Of the 13 who have received execution dates, eight, including Johnson,
“exhibited significant mental or emotional vulnerabilities as a result of
intellectual impairments/brain damage, serious mental illness, or chronic
trauma,” according to the analysis. Two had strong claims of innocence,
according to the report, including Innocence Project client Larry Swearingen,
who was executed last month. “Lord forgive ’em,” Swearingen said in the death
chamber. “They don’t know what they’re doing.”
Ogg’s office currently plans to pursue death sentences in 8 cases, according to
the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Last month, a trial began in
Harris County for Ronald Haskell, who is charged with capital murder.
“She’s continued to seek death. It really does make it difficult to view her as
a reformer if she’s filing 8 new cases for execution,” said Jay Jenkins, the
Harris County project attorney with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition.
“That’s not reform.”
The district attorney’s record on capital punishment is “very mixed and
perplexing,” said Kristin Houlé, executive director of the Texas Coalition to
Abolish the Death Penalty. In many ways, she said, Ogg has limited the use of
capital punishment in Harris County. “That said, it is of grave concern to me
and other criminal justice reform advocates that there are currently eight
cases, at least as far as we know, where she has announced her office plans to
seek the death penalty,” said Houlé.
Ogg’s decision to pursue death in eight cases recently drew criticism from
United Methodist pastor Susan Buchanan, a former board member of Houlé’s
organization. “Prosecutors elsewhere refuse to waste precious resources
demanding this morally and economically indefensible pursuit,” Buchanan wrote
in the Texas Tribune. “Why is Harris County pursuing the opposite course?”
District attorneys play a critical role in slowing executions, and, ultimately,
abolishing the death penalty, Houlé told The Appeal. In July, for instance,
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner asked Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court
to declare the state’s application of the death penalty unconstitutional,
putting him at odds with the attorney general’s support of capital punishment.
“The district attorney alone can make the decision whether or not to seek death
in a case that is capitally charged,” said Houlé. “They are the linchpin of the
criminal justice system.”
(source: theappeal.org)
**********************
Religious leaders call for new trial of Jewish death-row inmate in Texas before
Oct. 10 execution----2 letters of support were sent by faith leaders from
multiple denominations and organizations, stating, “Texas must not carry out
the scheduled execution of Mr. Halprin without first guaranteeing that his
trial was not tainted by an anti-Semitic judge who held a religious bias
against him.”
Leaders in the Jewish community have called for a new trial for Randy Halprin,
a Jewish man scheduled to be executed on Oct. 10 in Texas who was part of “The
Texas 7” that escaped from prison almost 19 years ago and killed a police
officer after they held up a sporting goods store, following allegations that
he was sentenced by a judge who made anti-Semitic remarks and has a history of
bigotry.
The judge, Vickers Cunningham, has been accused of privately referring to
Halprin, as he sentenced him to death in 2003 for being part of the murder of
Irving, Texas, police officer Aubrey Hawkins at an Oshman’s Sporting Goods
store on Christmas Eve 2000, with an anti-Semitic slur and as “that f***in’
Jew.”
Cunningham allegedly also said that Jews “needed to be shut down because they
controlled all the money,” according to Halprin’s attorneys.
2 letters of support were recently shared with Texas Attorney General Ken
Paxton and Dallas District Attorney John Creuzot, including one from Jewish
community leaders and another from more than 75 Texas faith leaders from
multiple religions, denominations and organizations, which states, “As a
diverse group of faith leaders, we stand united against any expression of
hatred. … Texas must not carry out the scheduled execution of Mr. Halprin
without first guaranteeing that his trial was not tainted by an anti-Semitic
judge who held a religious bias against him.”
The letter from 14 Jewish leaders, including Rabbi Menachem Katz, the Aleph
Institute’s director of prison and military outreach, states, “When we speak
about hatred and anti-Semitism in our communities, we often note that one kind
of discrimination or bias goes hand in hand with another. So it is unsurprising
to read in Mr. Halprin’s brief that Judge Cunningham also used the most
offensive language to talk about Black and Latino defendants.”
Following citations of the Torah as it pertains to enacting impartial
judgements, the letter states:
As rabbis, cantors, and lay leaders from across the spectrum of Jewish practice
and belief, we stand together in our belief that our country’s justice system,
and those it employs, must be free of any bias that might hinder its ability to
review evidence with impartiality and treat the accused with fairness and
dignity. Capital punishment is the most extreme action a government can take
against a citizen. State officials must therefore take every step to ensure
complete public trust in any death penalty case. How can the public trust that
every decision Judge Cunningham made during Mr. Halprin’s trial was fair and
free of bias, knowing the comments his friends attribute to him? How can the
public even be asked to trust the system if prosecutors oppose impartial
judicial review when this kind of evidence emerges?
Although not a signatory to the letter from Jewish leaders, the American Jewish
Committee filed an amicus brief the stay Halprin’s execution.
“The right to an impartial judge is not only a blackletter rule of
constitutional law, but also integral to the functioning of the entire Texas
judicial system,” states AJC in the brief filed in support of Halprin’s
petition. The brief was signed by AJC, more than 100 Texas Jewish attorneys,
the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Men of Reform Judaism and the Union
for Reform Judaism.
The brief also states that “Texas law is clear that hateful and prejudicial
rhetoric cannot hide behind the robe.”
“Well into the 21st century, it is beyond dispute that a trial conducted before
a racist judge who boasts of his bigotry is no trial at all,” said AJC General
Counsel Marc Stern. “If the allegations here are true—and they unfortunately
ring true—the trial was no trial, and the verdict was no verdict, because the
judge was no judge.”
4 of “The Texas Seven” have already been executed. A 5th shot himself to death
before police could apprehend him.
(source: jns.org)
***************************
Fresh statement from witness delays start of capital murder trial in death of
Little Elm pregnant woman
The capital murder jury trial for Daniel Greco stalled just as soon as it began
Monday morning, when a prosecutor going over questions with witnesses outside
the courtroom stumbled upon new information minutes before the start of the
trial.
A man scheduled to give testimony in the case told the Denton County District
Attorney’s Office that he spoke to a neighbor of Greco’s who had knowledge
about a “tool” that allegedly was used to kill Anjanette Harris and her unborn
child in March of 2016.
Investigators in 2016 found Harris’ body in a wooded area in Little Elm
strangled and with stab wounds around her neck. In her purse was a sonogram;
she was pregnant. Greco is accused of killing them both.
For the 1st time since 2011, the district attorney’s office is seeking the
death penalty if Greco is convicted of capital murder. Monday morning, Judge
Jonathan Bailey temporarily dismissed the jurors just as soon as they were
seated inside the 431st District Court so the DA’s office could find the
neighbor the witness told the prosecutor about and bring the man in for
questioning.
Around noon Monday, the court was called back without the jury. The district
attorney’s office by then had located the neighbor, who described himself as a
good friend and former co-worker of Greco’s. Greco and the neighbor worked at
the same cabinet shop for about 6 months.
Greco wore a navy-blue suit and a necktie Monday morning while in front of the
jury. He returned to the fourth-floor courtroom wearing a standard orange
jumpsuit from the Denton County Jail and in chains.
After a whirlwind morning that sent the prosecution scrambling to find the man,
and the defense team for answers, Greco looked on as his friend and former
neighbor denied ever hearing anything about what the witness told the
prosecutor.
The witness had said the neighbor told him sometime after the 2016 death that
Harris was stabbed with a “a tool” and that the neighbor in question threw away
the tool. The neighbor, however, said he did not know anything about that and
said rumors about how Harris died had been floating around his neighborhood
since her death 3½ years ago.
“This is news to me,” the neighbor said about the witness’s claim. He said he
talked with the witness one time about Harris’ death, and that was more than a
year after her death, the neighbor said in court.
Asked if he came into possession of said tool or disposed of it, the neighbor
said, “Absolutely not.”
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled that Harris died by
strangulation and received stab wounds to her neck secondarily.
The neighbor said he saw Greco the morning of March 6 getting out of his truck
and walking toward Greco’s home. The men waved at each other. Nothing more, the
neighbor said.
The witness who gave the prosecutors the new information met twice with the
district attorney’s office in 2018 but never before mentioned what he shared
with them Monday morning.
“It didn’t occur to me how important that might be until later,” the witness
said in court Monday morning.
His revelation did not bear much fruit for prosecutors Monday morning. The
state’s prosecutors told the judge they did not intend on calling the neighbor
to take the stand before the jury. Greco’s defense team, however, said they
might call the neighbor back to testify.
The trial is scheduled to start again at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the 431st District
Court. Judge Bailey told all attorneys involved to be in court at 8:30 a.m. to
go over any new developments before the jury comes to court.
Greco’s lead defense attorney said over the weekend he expects the trial to
last at least two weeks. Bailey indicated in court Monday the trial could last
as long as a month.
(source: Denton Record-Chronicle)
PENNSYLVANIA:
The King's Bench, the Death Penalty and the Matter of Race----Pennsylvania race
was and remains a thumb on the capital case scales—in the decision of who faces
the death penalty; in the selection of jurors and in jurors’ ultimate decision
of whether to vote for death.
On Sept. 11, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will hear argument in two cases
raising a challenge to the death penalty process in this commonwealth as so
dysfunctional as to violate the Pennsylvania Constitution. In doing so, it will
decide first whether to exercise its King’s Bench authority and hear the
substantive claims; and if so whether the system is indeed so broken that it
requires action by the court. Whatever it decides, it must confront the
indisputable fact that in Pennsylvania race was and remains a thumb on the
capital case scales—in the decision of who faces the death penalty; in the
selection of jurors and in jurors’ ultimate decision of whether to vote for
death.
That conclusion was one of several submitted to the court in the pleadings of
the two petitioners, and was emphasized in an amicus brief co-authored by this
writer and submitted on behalf of concerned academics and social scientists.
But the findings supporting this are neither abstract nor theoretical—and
regarding race directly impacting who gets sentenced to death those findings
come directly from the report commissioned by Pennsylvania’s legislature.
After years of study, the Joint State Government Commission issued a report in
June 2018 titled “Capital Punishment in Pennsylvania.” Submitted to the
legislature, the report details an abundance of deficiencies in the capital
punishment process in Pennsylvania. These included, but were not limited to,
problems of geographic disparity in capital punishment within Pennsylvania;
inadequate funding for defense counsel; counsel who were too-often
under-resourced or ill-suited to the task of capital case representation; and
problems of disparate treatment due to race.
At its simplest, the data conclusively show the following—white victim cases
result in the imposition of a sentence of death at over twice the rate where
the victim is black. The data are compelling. The report shows based on the
court system’s own data that death sentences returned at penalty trials were at
45% (31 in 69) in cases with white victims and 20% (15 in 74) in cases with
black victims.
Were this the only area in the capital case process where race played a role,
it would be enough to warrant the intervention of the court. But other data
show that race is also a factor in prosecutorial decision-making on whether to
classify a case as capital-eligible; and the disparate use of peremptory
challenges to exclude black citizens from jury service in capital cases is
shown to have a long and ignoble history in Pennsylvania.
The brief amici curiae showed that researchers have found similar racial
effects in the capital process in other states, again at the charging, juror
selection and sentencing stages. The importance of this is clear—it confirms
that the Pennsylvania findings are not anomalies or inaccurately depicting the
capital case landscape.
Concerns that race has infected the capital case scheme are not new—they can be
traced back at least to 1932. See Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 50 (1932)
(noting that one of the claims raised was that “they were tried before juries
from which qualified members of their own race were systematically excluded”);
see Norris v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 587 (1935) (reversing the second conviction and
death sentence of one of the Powell v. Alabama defendants because blacks were
systematically excluded from his jury venire). The U.S. Supreme Court
confronted this head-on in 1978 when a claim of racial disparity was presented.
In McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 292 (1978) the court, 5-4, concluded the
proof was not yet there.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court faces that same question now, with the advantage
of 41 years of additional research. While much progress has been made in this
nation, the sad truth is that race reminds a decider in many arenas and a
decisive factor in that most critical of determinations—who will live and who
will die.
This racial influence compromises fairness, creates arbitrariness and
undermines confidence in the criminal justice system. The consistency and power
of these findings raise the fundamental question of whether the death penalty
is imposed arbitrarily, i.e., without the “reasonable consistency” required by
the Constitution’s commands. When deciding whether and how to exercise its
King’s Bench power, the matter of race must be front and center.
(source: Jules Epstein is professor of law and director of advocacy programs at
Temple University Beasley School of Law. He co-authored one of the amici briefs
in the pending King’s Bench case----law.com)
*******************
Pennsylvania Supreme Court should strike down the death penalty
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania will hear oral arguments on
whether to strike down the state’s death penalty as cruel and therefore
impermissible under the state constitution. As 2 people who were convicted of
murders we did not commit, and who came close to being executed, we hope the
court will invalidate the death penalty and make sure that no innocent people
are ever executed in our state.
If sentencing an innocent person to death isn’t cruel, then nothing is.
Nationwide, since 1973, 166 people have been exonerated and freed from death
row with evidence of their innocence. 6 of them were in Pennsylvania. Citizens
should not look away from the cruelty. It is carried out in your names and with
your tax dollars.
Our personal stories are shocking, yet they could have happened to anyone. Kirk
was an honorably-discharged Marine living peacefully when he was falsely
accused of the horrific rape and murder of a 9-year-old child. Wrongfully
convicted in 1985, Kirk was the first person in the U.S. to be exonerated from
death row based on DNA testing after nearly nine years in prison. In 2003, the
actual perpetrator pleaded guilty.
Ray was exonerated from death row after being sentenced for the tragic crime of
a woman’s murder in a bar. He won his freedom when DNA testing proved his
innocence after 10 years in prison, three on death row.
Our wrongful convictions were caused by junk science, mistaken eyewitness
identification, prosecutorial misconduct, and above all, lack of access to
high-quality legal representation at trial — all of which remain problems in
Pennsylvania’s broken death penalty system.
We both proved our innocence, and have gone on to found and lead a
Philadelphia-based organization for exonerees, but not all exoneration stories
have happy endings. William Nieves was wrongfully convicted of a murder in
Philadelphia and served 6 years on death row before being freed. He needed gall
bladder surgery, which he did not receive in prison. At one point, William
glimpsed his records during a medical exam and learned that he had hepatitis C,
which prison officials never treated. 5 years after winning his freedom,
William died from complications from the disease at 39 years old.
Neil Ferber, a furniture salesman railroaded into a double-murder conviction
and death sentence, also suffered serious health consequences from wrongful
incarceration. He won a $1.9 million lawsuit against the City of Philadelphia
for his wrongful conviction, but he still had to live with post-traumatic
stress disorder and bleeding ulcers. He died of a heart attack at age 63.
These stories are not rare, and neither is the cruelty. At least 4.1 % of
defendants sentenced to death in the U.S. are innocent, according to a study
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. With a 4 %
error rate, we can be sure innocent people have been executed. In Pennsylvania
today, 137 people are on death row. That suggests there are at least 5 innocent
people wasting away, as we were until we could prove our innocence.
In 2018, the Joint State Government Commission completed an exhaustive study of
the state’s death penalty and concluded: “The only certain way to eliminate the
risk of condemning and executing a factually innocent person would be to
eliminate the sentence and not execute any convict.” The commission recommended
an overhaul of our capital punishment system, including providing attorneys for
capital defendants statewide, greater oversight of prosecution decisions, and
other reforms, but those measures have not been enacted.
Our death penalty system is still broken, inaccurate, and unreliable. In
Pennsylvania and every state, we have life without parole sentences for the
small number of offenders who show no hope for rehabilitation. Because the
death penalty inevitably comes with the risk of killing innocent people, the
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania should strike it down as cruel and
unconstitutional.
(source: Opinion; Former Pennsylvania resident Ray Krone cofounded Witness to
Innocence with Sister Helen Prejean in 2003. Kirk Bloodsworth is the executive
director of Witness to Innocence and lives in Philadelphia. He is a supporter
of the Innocence Protection Act, which established the Kirk Bloodsworth
Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program that provides federal grants to help states
defray costs of testing DNA evidence.----Phildelphia Inquirer)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
Jury selection underway in deadly Crescom bank robbery federal trial
The man accused of killing 2 women inside a Crescom Bank in 2017 was present
for the 1st day of jury selection on Monday in his trial.
Brandon Council entered the courtroom in khakis, a suit jacket and glasses
around 9:30 a.m. Monday. His hair was pulled back. He only spoke a few times
but it was between him and his lawyers. He remained still, only looking toward
the front of the courtroom, through the entirety of the first day.
The first 10 jurors entered the courtroom around 9:50 a.m. Trial judge Brian
Harwell gave them an introductory speech, discussing their responsibility, how
to go about finding the verdict and what to base a penalty on, if Council is
found guilty and the trial goes to the 2nd phase. Harwell read a list of 58
potential witnesses, mostly from North Carolina, to ask jurors if they knew
them.
Harwell discussed mitigating and aggravating factors that’ll be used to
determine a penalty, should the trial reach a 2nd phase. He made it clear that
potential jurors should put aside any biases and are also under oath. Before
putting the 1st potential juror on the stand for questioning, 2 jurors were
dismissed by the prosecution and defense.
For each potential juror, Harwell asked if the juror’s answers to 2 previous
questionnaires were still true. The second questionnaire was the most
case-related, specifically diving critically into each potential juror’s views
on the death penalty. Harwell also determined if each potential juror could
hand down the the death penalty or life in prison without parole, if Council is
found guilty, based solely on facts and evidence brought fourth in trial.
Harwell then asked any follow-up questions he had to a juror’s questionnaire
answers.
The prosecution followed the judge’s questions, and then the defense.
The defense tended to take up more time than Harwell preferred, and was often
asked to watch their time. The defense and prosecution centered questions for
potential jurors to find out if a verdict and possibly a penalty could be
decided based solely and fairly on facts and evidence provided in trial.
For the defense, this question involved a “hypothesized case” similar to
Council’s, where the defendant was hypothetically found guilty of intentional
murder. The defense wanted to ensure the potential juror would not
automatically turn to the death penalty given a guilty sentence with
intentional murder.
By late afternoon, 2 groups of 10 jurors had made their way into the court
room. 6 were excused before taking the stand. By 4 p.m., only five were agreed
upon as potential jurors.
The 2nd day of jury selection continues Tuesday at the federal courthouse in
Florence.
(source: WMBF news)
OHIO:
Judge to decide on death penalty for man convicted of murdering ex-girlfriend
and daughter
A Franklin County judge is set to decide Wednesday whether or not a convicted
killer goes to death row.
A jury recommended the death penalty for Kristofer Garrett, 26 last month after
also finding Garrett guilty of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Nicole Duckson, and
their 4-year-old daughter, Christina, in Jan. 2018.
Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Chris Brown is expected to hear
statements from relatives of Garrett and the victims prior to making his
decision during a hearing set to begin at 9 a.m.
Garrett's defense attorneys had argued mental illness played a role in the
fatal stabbing, and mental health experts were scheduled to provide testimony
at an earlier hearing.
Prior to the jury's recommendation, Garrett apologized in court.
"I want to tell everybody I’m sorry for what I did...I want to say I’m sorry to
the family, to Mr. Duckson, especially the parents, and the Duckson family,"
Garrett said. "I’m sorry to my family because we lost a family member as well.
This is going to live with me the rest of my life."
The last time the death penalty was imposed in Franklin County was in 2012,
according to the Franklin County prosecutor's office.
(source: WTTE news)
WYOMING:
Attorneys Give Update in Wyoming Death Penalty Case
Attorneys representing a man who was sentenced to death for raping and killing
a woman in 1988 said they may attempt to appeal that punishment to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
For now, though, it's up to a U.S. appeals court to decide whether Dale Wayne
Eaton will get another hearing. The U.S. 10th Circuit Court ruled in July that
Eaton could be subject to the death penalty, but Eaton's attorneys filed a
motion for a rehearing last week.
In August, Natrona County District Attorney Dan Itzen filed notice that he will
seek the death penalty in the case.
The appeals process in the 10th Circuit should take a month or 2, Sean O'Brien,
one of Eaton's attorneys, said during a status conference in Natrona County
District Court Tuesday.
O'Brien said taking the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court is in the
realm of possibility.
Eaton was convicted in 2004 in the 1988 rape and murder of 18-year-old Lisa
Marie Kimmell in Natrona County.
(source: k2radio.com)
CALIFORNIA----2 females face death penalty
Suspects in Pechanga casino killing, robbery have criminal history, records
show----The 2 women, including the sister of Clippers star Kawhi Leonard, who
are accused of robbing and fatally beating a woman at Pechanga casino have a
criminal history, according to court records.
2 women accused of fatally assaulting and robbing an elderly woman at the
Pechanga casino have an extensive criminal history - including a previous
incident at the same casino, according to court records.
One of the suspects, 35-year-old Kimesha Monae Williams, is the sister of Los
Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard, the Press-Enterprise has reported.
Williams is being held without bail for her alleged role in the murder of
84-year-old Afaf Anis Assad of Long Beach.
The Riverside County District Attorney's office asked a judge to set no bail
for Williams noting she "has family that are well off and could post her bail
of $1 million."
Leonard wasn't mentioned by name, but in July the Clippers forward signed a
$100-million contract with the team.
According to investigators on Aug. 31 Williams and 39-year-old Candace Tai
Townsel targeted Assad as she and her husband entered the Pechanga resort and
casino.
On Sunday, Eyewitness News spoke to the victim's son-in-law.
"They targeted her specifically because they saw her coming through the door
with a fancy purse and fancy hat and elderly," said Wayne Brown. "They thought,
here comes somebody with some money."
Investigators say the 2 women followed Assad into a bathroom where they
assaulted her and stole her purse.
Assad died 5 days later from multiple skull fractures.
Afaf Anis Assad, 84, of Long Beach died Wednesday after being found unconscious
at the Temecula casino, deputies said.
Williams and Townsel are no strangers to law enforcement.
Court records show Williams has an extensive criminal past.
Prior to being charged with Assad's murder Williams and Townsel were awaiting
sentencing on another crime.
The District Attorney's declaration in support of increased bail states "a
review of Williams' criminal history showed that she was arrested on July 27,
2019 for strong armed robbery with Townsel."
It also notes that Williams was on post-release community supervision after
serving time for a 2005 robbery.
It also notes that Williams and Townsel had a history with the Pechanga casino.
In November 2015, Williams was charged with grand theft for stealing another
woman's wallet.
Investigators say another woman - who they believe was Townsel - distracted the
victim.
Both women are now charged with murder and could face the death penalty.
Both are due back in court on for arraignment on Sept. 19.
(source: ABC News)
USA:
Attorneys for Navajo man file stay of execution
Attorneys for Lezmond Mitchell filed a motion for stay of execution with the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Sept. 9.
Mitchell was convicted in 2003 for two counts of first-degree murder of Alyce
Jim and her nine-year-old granddaughter, carjacking resulting in death, and
multiple counts of robbery.
He was sentenced to death under the federal Death Penalty Act because of his
conviction for carjacking resulting death.
In July, Attorney General William P. Barr directed the Federal Bureau of
Prisons to adopt a proposed addendum to the Federal Execution Protocol, which
cleared the way for the federal government to resume capital punishment.
Lezmond is among other death row inmates who are scheduled to be executed
beginning in December. Mitchell’s execution date is set for Dec. 11.
His attorneys filed a motion on behalf of Mitchell in hopes he is granted a
stay. They argue their client’s ethnicity – a Navajo Indian – as well as his
constitutional rights, were violated.
“The government also held Mr. Mitchell in a tribal jail and repeatedly
interrogated him, without affording him his constitutional rights,” Mitchell’s
lawyers wrote in a statement. “It then took aggressive steps to exclude Native
Americans from serving on his jury, and its arguments to the jury included
comments directed against Mitchell’s Navajo heritage. Mr. Mitchell’s death
sentence thus represents an unprecedented denigration of tribal sovereignty.”
Mitchell appealed his conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit,
and in 2007, they upheld his conviction and sentence, concluding there were “no
errors” that required a reversal.
Despite this, his lawyers say Mitchell was granted a certificate of
appealability in April by the court that issued a briefing schedule that would
allow their client to litigate the constitutionality of his death sentence.
“Without any prior warning, the government gave notice that it intends to
execute Mitchell,” the motion for stay of execution read. “Mitchel respectfully
moves this court for a stay of execution such that he may litigate his appeal
to conclusion.”
Mitchell is the only Native American person under the federal death sentence.
The Navajo Nation opposes the death penalty, they added.
(source: navajotimes.com)
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