[Deathpenalty] [SPAM] death penalty news----TEXAS, MISS., OHIO, USA

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 8



TEXAS----federal death penalty trial

Ellis Joseph Mosher will face death penalty for murder of fellow inmate


Federal prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty when a
capital murder trial will enters the punishment phase Monday.

After 8 days of testimony, jurors deliberated less than 1 hour Thursday
before convicting Ellis Joseph Mosher of capital murder for killing a
fellow inmate at the federal prison outside Beaumont on Sept. 10, 1998.

Mosher, 32 and originally from Pennsylvania, chased down 46-year-old
Stanley Moseley and stabbed him multiple times with a 13-inch improvised
blade in plain view of prison guards who testified in the trial, according
to prosecutors. Before opening arguments, Mosher testified outside the
jury's presence that Moseley had stalked, attacked and raped him.

U.S. District Court Judge Thad Heartfield barred Mosher's court-appointed
defense attorneys, J.D. Hamm and James Makin, from suggesting Mosher
killed Moseley in self defense.

The defense attorneys, according to the judge's ruling, had not
established that Mosher faced an imminent threat and had no alternatives
to attacking Moseley.

Moseley was serving a 188-month sentence for a Louisiana bank robbery.

Mosher was serving a sentence for kidnapping and using a firearm during a
crime, both of which occurred in Maryland.

If not sentenced to die, Mosher faces life in prison.

(source: Beaumont Enterprise)




MISSISSIPPI:

DNA Evidence Frees Death Row Inmate


Thanks to pushing from the innocence project, DNA evidence could provide
freedom for a man who may have spent the last 15 years behind bars -- for
a crime he did not commit.

Kennedy Brewer was just released from death row on bond last year. He had
been convicted of the 1992 rape and brutal murder of 3 year old Christine
Johnson. But DNA testing may exonerate him.

Just this week, a new suspect was arrested in the case. 51-year-old Justin
Albert Johnson is currently being held without bond in the Chickasaw
County jail.

(source: WLBT News)






OHIO:

Death sentence sought for killer


The man who admitted to killing an 11-year-old West End girl in 1987 faces
the death penalty when he is sentenced today.

Chris Ballard, 45, is scheduled to go before Hamilton County Common Pleas
Court Judge Alex Triantafilou at 11 a.m., court records state.

He recently pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated murder and attempted
rape, records show.

Tina Dukes was last seen alive in October 1987, when she attended a dance
at Taft High School.

Her beaten and burned body was found 2 days later in an abandoned building
in the West End. Authorities determined she was strangled.

The case went unsolved for years until authorities matched Ballards DNA to
semen and saliva left on Tinas body.

(source: Cincinnati Enquirer)






USA:

Speak Out ... Death penalty is wrong


I feel that the death penalty is very harsh. I know that some may think
that it is the right thing to do, but in reality who are we to take
someone else's life? Aren't we potentially doing the same thing that the
person who's convicted did?

I haven't read anywhere in the Bible where God said it was OK to kill.
Some are being killed just because they can be. I truly feel that there
have been some innocent people executed just because they didn't have
enough money to hire a good lawyer to prove their innocence.

I understand that raping a child is cruel, but I feel that raping anyone
is cruel. Why only kill the ones who rape children? I'm 100 % against
killing in any form and wish that Alabama would ban executions.

Everyone has to go through judgment day; let God do his job. Just think,
if you kill someone, when you get there you have to answer for your
killings. What are you going to say to God when you get there?

Would you say, "It was my job to kill"? Do you think that's excusable?

Erica Tolson-Turner----Anniston (source: Opinion, Anniston (Ala.) Star)