[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----S.C., GA., FLA., OHIO, KY.

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 3



SOUTH CAROLINA:

Suspect in 83-year-old's rape has death-penalty conviction 
overturned----Frederick Antonio Evins will enter plea in rape Thursday


The death-penalty conviction of a man who was found guilty of murder and who is 
also accused of raping an 83-year-old woman in front of her 7-year-old 
granddaughter has been overturned.

Fredrick Antonio Evins was convicted and sentenced to death in Spartanburg in 
2004 for the murder and rape of Rhonda Ward, who was killed in 2003. Evins was 
also charged with murder in the death of Damaris Huff, who was killed in 2002.

Evins has been on death row since his conviction, but sometime in the last 
several weeks, the conviction was quietly overturned during a post-conviction 
relief hearing. He has remained in custody because he faces other serious 
charges for which he was never tried, one the rape of the 83-year-old in 
Greenville County on Nov. 21, 1991.

The rape victim has since died, but her daughter, Doris Hughes, made finding 
her mother's rapist a life mission.

Hughes' daughter has remained anonymous because of the trauma she suffered when 
her grandmother was raped.

She said, "I remember what he was wearing when he came in, what he said, how he 
smelled."

She said he asked to use the phone.

"He come in, he tied us up. He was on my bed when he raped my grandmother," she 
said.

"He wanted money. I offered him my change from my piggy bank but he wouldn't 
take that. My mom had just bought a VCR and he took it from us."

>From that point forward, the family's focus was to find the rapist.

"I remember my mom used to ride around neighborhoods trying to point out, 'Is 
that him? Is that him?'"

Hughes said, "When he put his hands on my daughter and on my mother, he 
should've never done that."

Her mom died in 1999, but before she did, Hughes made her a promise.

"I promised her that I would find him one day."

Years after the attack, Hughes said TV shows about forensics using new DNA 
technology gave her the idea to ask the detective to have her mother's clothes 
retested.

"Sometimes it would be 2 or 3 times a week I'd call him, but it was every 
week."

And eventually she got a call about a match.

"I mean, I went all to pieces," she said. "I was just screaming, hollering."

Walt Wilkins, 13th Circuit Solicitor, said the DNA matched Evins, whose 
criminal history dates back to 1986.

Seventh Circuit Solicitor Barry Barnette said, "He was one of the most 
dangerous individuals we had ever dealt with."

Barnette was on the prosecution team that fought to have Evins put away.

"It was great," he said.

The conviction was how DNA from Evins ended up in the database.

"I am so glad that we do have DNA," Hughes.

Because of the murder charge and conviction, Evins wasn't charged in the 1991 
rape, but both solicitors said they would use the rape case as backup in case 
the death sentence was overturned.

And now, it will be what they will use to keep Evins in prison for the rest of 
his life.

After waiting 23 years for her mother's rape case to be resolved, Hughes says 
Evins will finally plead guilty on Thursday.

(source: WYFF news)






GEORGIA----impending execution

Lawyers for death row inmate convicted for killing Baldwin deputy ask for 
clemency


Lawyers for a Georgia death row inmate convicted of killing a sheriff's deputy 
say their client should be spared execution because his original lawyer 
mishandled his trial.

Robert Wayne Holsey is scheduled to die Dec. 9 for the December 1995 slaying of 
Baldwin County sheriff's deputy Will Robinson following a convenience store 
robbery.

But Holsey's lawyers argue in a clemency petition that his trial lawyer was a 
chronic alcoholic who failed to provide the jury information about his client 
that would likely have spared him the death penalty.

A clemency hearing in Holsey's case is set for Monday.

Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Fred Bright, the prosecutor who is 
set to handle Holsey's clemency hearing Monday, did not immediately return a 
phone message Tuesday seeking comment.

(source: Associated Press)






FLORIDA:

Oviedo killer of 2 deserves new sentence, attorney says


Andrew Allred, an Oviedo man who murdered his ex-girlfriend and his best 
friend, did not fight the death penalty at his trial.

He pleaded guilty to 2 counts of murder then refused to attend the penalty 
phase of his 2008 trial, electing to stay in a back room at the Seminole County 
courthouse or at the jail.

But today his appellate lawyer will appear before the Florida Supreme Court and 
argue that Allred, now 28, deserves a chance for a new sentence.

That signals he's had a change of heart since the days following the killings.

In the weeks leading up to his trial, Allred had tried to fire his public 
defender and wrote a letter, saying not only that he favored the death penalty 
but, "If given the option, I would want to be executed via guillotine."

Now he appears intent to have his new attorney, Julie Morley with the Capital 
Collateral Regional Counsel's office in Tampa, fight for him.

He could halt the appeal, Morley said Monday, but has elected not to.

He communicates with her and the mental-health experts who are now a key part 
of his appeal, she said.

Morley is asking the high court to overturn Allred's sentence based on several 
grounds.

One is that the judge who imposed the death penalty, Senior Judge O.H. Eaton 
Jr., did not hear any evidence from medical professionals about Allred's 
emotional state.

He killed his former live-in girlfriend, 19-year-old Tiffany Barwick, and 
Michael Ruschak, 22, a University of Central Florida student, at the victims' 
home in Oviedo Sept. 24, 2007.

Earlier that day they had asked the Seminole County Sheriff's Office for help, 
saying Allred had been cyberstalking Barwick and threatening to kill her, but 
they got no protection.

Allred drove to their house in Oviedo, rammed Barwick's car several times then 
shot his way inside after no one opened the front door.

He killed Ruschak near the front and shot Barwick after she tried to take cover 
in the bathtub. He also wounded another roommate.

Barwick had broken up with Allred in a very public way during his 21st birthday 
party a month before.

Before his trial, Allred had been evaluated by Winter Park psychologist Deborah 
Day, but defense attorney Tim Caudill did not call her as a witness because she 
had warned him that she might do more harm than good, according to Morley's 
brief.

Day noted that Allred showed no remorse, did not feel guilty about the 
killings, scored above normal on a test that measures whether someone is a 
psychopath and showed signs of having an "anti-social" personality disorder.

2 other psychologists have since evaluated him, according to court paperwork. 
They don't agree with each other but say Day was wrong.

Dr. Glen Cady says Allred had an emotional breakdown that started when Barwick 
broke up with him.

In his opinion, Cady says, Allred was in a dissociative state when he killed 
Barwick and Ruschak and was functioning in a diminished capacity.

The 2nd psychologist, Dr. Gary Geffken, testified at an earlier post-conviction 
hearing that Allred suffers from autism.

Morley has raised several other points of appeal, including that Florida's 
lethal injection method, a mix of chemicals, violates his constitutional 
protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

The Florida Supreme Court earlier rejected Allred's "direct" appeal, the 
automatic appeal granted to every death row inmate.

(source: Orlando Sentinel)

*************************

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-johnny-shane-kormondy-from-execution/


Save Johnny 'Shane' Kormondy from execution!

Johnny 'Shane' Kormondy is scheduled to be executed by the State of Florida on 
January 15th 2015. Curtis Buffkin was responsible for the death of Gary McAdams 
during a home invasion on July 11th 1993 and is serving Life. But Shane was 
given a death sentence after Buffkin initially lied at Shane's trial to save 
his own life. He later recanted during a hearing in State Court in 2005, saying 
that he had shot Mr McAdams accidentally and that at no time during the time of 
the robbery did Shane have hold of the firearm.

We are asking Governor Rick Scott to stay Shane's execution and commute his 
sentence to Life when is proportionate to his co-defendants.

(source: ipetitions.com)


OHIO:

Court vacates death penalty of man convicted of killing 3 people----Ruling 
notes inadequate legal representation


The Ohio Supreme Court has vacated the death penalty of a Youngstown man 
convicted of killing 3 bar customers nearly 20 years ago.

In a 4-3 decision, justices ruled Willie Herring did not receive adequate legal 
representation in the 1996 case, and his case was returned to the trial court 
for a new sentencing hearing.

The decision was in line with an earlier appeals court ruling.

Herring's "counsel failed to ensure that a comprehensive investigation was 
conducted into Herring's background, obtaining only rudimentary information 
about Herring's childhood, substance abuse, gang involvement and psychological 
makeup," Justice Paul Pfeifer wrote in the split decision. "Based on these 
failures, we conclude that counsel did not conduct an adequate investigation 
into Herring's background before the mitigation hearing started."

In April 1996, Herring, wearing a plastic mask of a slasher movie character, 
and 5 accomplices robbed the Newport Inn bar in Youngstown, shooting the 
bartender and four customers in the process.

3 of the latter died as a result. Herring was named as the ringleader of the 
robbery and was sentenced to death for the murders. None of Herring's 
accomplices received death sentences.

Herring appealed, arguing that his legal counsel failed to conduct a thorough 
investigation of his background during sentencing.

"... Trial counsel did not have detailed knowledge about Herring's parental 
neglect, gang involvement or life as a drug dealer," Pfeifer wrote. "Trial 
counsel also did not appear to have known that Herring's father had been 
murdered when Herring was a young child or that his mother had been a drug 
addict during a large part of her life."

Pfeifer concluded, "We hold that trial counsel were deficient by failing to 
conduct a thorough and adequate investigation in to Herring's background before 
his mitigation hearing. ... Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the court of 
appeals vacating Herring's death sentence and remanding this matter to the 
trial court for a new sentencing hearing, at which a new jury shall be 
impaneled to consider whether to impose the death penalty or a life sentence."

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Terrence O'Donnell countered assertions that 
Herring's legal counsel were deficient, saying attorneys opted for a trial 
strategy that involved the presentation of only positive mitigation evidence.

"In my view, Herring has failed to rebut the presumption that counsel performed 
competently and has not shown a reasonable probability that but for counsel's 
failure to inquire further into the existence of other mitigating evidence, the 
outcome of the proceeding would have been different," O'Donnell wrote. "... The 
trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the petition for 
post-conviction relief. I would therefore reverse the judgment of the court of 
appeals and reinstate the sentence as imposed on Herring by the trail court in 
accordance with the recommendation of the jurors who heard the evidence in the 
case."

(source: The Daily Record)

**************************

Federal Court to Hear Arguments in Death Penalty Case of Member of 'Lucasville 
5'


Arguments are scheduled in a federal court in Cincinnati today on the death 
penalty case against 1 of the inmates sentenced to death after the Lucasville 
prison riot in 1993. Ohio Public Radio's Karen Kasler talked to that inmate.

The state says Keith Lamar of Cleveland, a drug dealer who had been serving 15 
years to life for murder, ordered the deaths of five inmates during the 1993 
Lucasville prison riot.

In an interview from the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, Lamar said he 
hopes the appeals court will order a new trial, because he said there's no 
evidence to tie him to those deaths.

"It's been a hell of a journey to get to this point so part of me, I'm 
relieved, but I'm cautiously optimistic," Lamar said. "The criminal justice 
system, as I've learned over these past 2 decades, the promise doesn't always 
meet up with the reality, so I'm just hopeful."

Lamar's execution date hasn't been set as he continues his appeals.

Meanwhile, Lamar has been monitoring the discussions at the Statehouse about 
legislation that would shield the names of the makers of execution drugs - and 
even the comments about whether other methods should be considered, such as the 
electric chair or a firing squad. "To hear those type of conversations, the 
debate going back and forth on whether we should bring back the shooting squad, 
maybe we should bring back the gas chambers or the electric chair - it's just 
incredible to hear those type of stories and to be a part of that and to be on 
death row and to be directly affected by those decisions," he said.

If the 6th Circuit rules against him, Lamar could take his case to the U.S. 
Supreme Court, which could decline to hear it. 3 other inmates were sentenced 
to death along with Lamar for their roles in the riot - another of the 
so-called Lucasville 5 is serving life in prison.

(source: ideastream.org)






KENTCUKY:

Kentucky high court justices won't hear arguments in death penalty case, no 
ruling yet


The Kentucky Supreme Court has declined to hear oral arguments in the appeal of 
an inmate condemned to death for a 1997 slaying in Floyd County.

The justices did not give a reason for turning down arguments in the case of 
43-year-old Samuel Steven Fields, but they have not issued a final ruling in 
the case.

Fields has twice been sentenced to death for the Aug. 19, 1993, slaying of 
84-year-old Bess Horton during a break-in at her rural home. Horton was stabbed 
to death and her throat slashed. Fields was arrested at the scene.

A judge handed down the initial death sentence on April 29, 1997, but the 
decision was overturned. Fields was resentenced to death on Jan. 8, 2004, after 
his case was moved to Rowan County.

(source: Associated Press)