[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., FLA., ALA., OHIO, ARK.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 21



GEORGIA:

Georgia to execute man whose actively alcoholic lawyer botched his case


Mike Mechanic from Mother Jones says,

Georgia just set a date (Dec. 9) to execute a prisoner named Robert Wayne 
Holsey, whom Philly death penalty lawyer and essayist Marc Bookman describes as 
"a low-functioning man with a tortured past." Yeah, we've heard that before, 
but here's the thing: Andy Prince, the lawyer the court appointed to represent 
Holsey was a fucking unbelievable mess--a chronic, severe alcoholic who was 
stealing from his clients and had been arrested for threatening a black 
neighbor with a gun, saying, "Nigger, get the fuck out of my yard or I'll shoot 
your black ass." (Prince was white, and Holsey is black.)

It gets worse. Prince hired an incompetent co-counsel and gave her no direction 
whatsoever. He failed to hire a mitigation specialist for the sentencing. 
That's the person who digs up evidence to support the argument that the client, 
although guilty, deserves to live. The court provided money for this, but 
Prince was unable to account for where it went. He failed to do even the most 
basic gumshoe work. And then, during the trial, he knocked back a quart -a 
QUART - of vodka every night. He botched it badly.

In this meticulously written essay, Bookman holds our hand through Prince's 
downward spiral and demonstrates just how hard it is for a person to win a 
resentencing - even under jaw-dropping circumstances such as this.

We first published this in April, but given the update, totally worth reading.

--

This Man Is About to Die Because an Alcoholic Lawyer Botched His Case----What 
does it take for a condemned person to win a resentencing?

Georgia has set a December 9 execution date for Robert Wayne Holsey; a clemency 
hearing is scheduled for the morning of December 8.

When people recount their alcohol consumption after a night on the town, or 
even a serious bender, they usually think about it in terms of drinks. Very 
rarely do they calibrate their intake in quarts. So most of us don't have a 
good sense of just how much a quart of vodka is - a bit more than 21 shots, as 
it turns out. That's the amount of alcohol lawyer Andy Prince consumed every 
night during the death penalty trial of his client, Robert Wayne Holsey, a 
low-functioning man with a tortured past who now stands on the brink of 
execution in Georgia.

When a person drinks that heavily, there's bound to be collateral damage - and 
for Prince and his clients the damage was profound. Once a skilled lawyer, 
Prince already had dug himself a very deep hole by the time Holsey went to 
trial in February 1997. But the signs of his downward spiral were clear 14 
months earlier, back in December 1995, when a Baldwin County judge first 
assigned him the case. Prince had recently defaulted on a $20,000 promissory 
note, and Bell South and Vanguard Financial had won separate judgments against 
him totaling an additional $25,000. And then there was the probate fiasco: In 
June 1994, a client named Margaret Collins had hired Prince to handle the 
estate of her deceased common-law husband, which was valued at $116,000. Within 
a year there was almost nothing left - Prince had spent it all. He never really 
considered it stealing, he later insisted. He'd always intended to pay the 
money back when that one big civil case came along.

In an altercation with neighbors, Holsey's white lawyer wielded a gun: "Nigger, 
get the fuck out of my yard or I'll shoot your black ass."

His deterioration emerged in other troubling ways. In June 1996, after 6 months 
as Holsey's lawyer, Prince got into an argument with neighbors at his apartment 
complex, cursing at them - "Nigger, get the fuck out of my yard or I'll shoot 
your black ass" - and threatening them with a gun. He was a white lawyer 
defending a black man in the high-profile murder of a white police officer, but 
nowhere in the Holsey case record was there ever a suggestion that he might be 
unfit to handle the case. He was simply charged with 2 counts of pointing a 
pistol at another, 2 counts of simple assault, 2 counts of disorderly conduct, 
and, of course, public drunkenness.

For Prince, it all came back to alcohol. Three months before he wrote the 1st 
of many checks against the estate, conduct that eventually put him in prison, 
he was hit with a complaint from the Athens Regional Medical Center for his 
failure to pay more than $10,000 for an inpatient substance abuse program he'd 
attended in 1993. But the drinking began long before that. By 14 he already had 
a problem with it, and by his late 30s, he'd lost his battle with alcoholism 
countless times.

On 1 occasion, in 1988, Prince staggered into the Athens emergency room with a 
blood alcohol level almost four times the driving limit, declared that he'd 
been drunk 2 months running, and asked to be detoxified. He'd come in before, 
and, as was his pattern, he signed himself out against the advice of the 
attending doctors. In May 1993, he upped the ante, arriving at the ER with a 
near-death .346 blood alcohol level. As Thomas Butcher, a doctor at the 
facility, noted in his psychological evaluation:

When a very intelligent man whose professional life is spent out maneuvering 
and out smarting other people repetitively makes a serious judgment error based 
on a belief that has been repeatedly shown to be wrong, he needs to consider 
that it may be time for him to do some serious revision of his thinking, that 
is, if he wants to continue to live.

Butcher added that if Prince "made the kind of mistakes in the courtroom that 
he makes with his drinking he wouldn't have a professional career to worry 
about."

3 days after the evaluation, Prince checked out of the hospital against 
doctors' orders, only to return a week later for 3 weeks of rehab. The 
treatment didn't take. After 2 months, he was back again (acute intoxication). 
But Prince was nothing if not resilient. When a physician brought up his 
struggles - family problems, his disastrous finances, his heavy work 
responsibilities - Prince insisted he had them "under control." Events would 
soon prove otherwise.

There are enough of these cases on record that most people in the legal 
profession no longer find them particularly shocking.

Prince was by no means the 1st drunk to handle a death penalty trial. There are 
plenty of well-documented examples. Also of drug-addicted lawyers, lawyers who 
refer to their clients by racial slurs in front of the jury, lawyers who nap 
through testimony, and lawyers who don't bother to be in court while a crucial 
witness is testifying. There are lawyers who have never read their state's 
death penalty statute, lawyers who file one client's brief in another client's 
death penalty appeal without changing the names, lawyers who miss life-or-death 
deadlines, and lawyers who don't even know that capital cases have separate 
determinations of guilt and punishment.

There are enough of these cases on record that most people in the legal 
profession no longer find them particularly shocking. What is more shocking, 
though, is how commonly courts and prosecutors are willing to overlook these 
situations as they occur, and how doggedly they try to defend the death 
sentences that result. Trial judges, of course, are often the ones who 
appointed the lawyers in question. And prosecutors have little motivation to 
demand that their courtroom adversaries be qualified and effective. It's a 
flawed system that often results in flawed verdicts. For a clear window into 
it, we need look no further than the Holsey case.

In the early hours of December 17, 1995, Robert Wayne Holsey was arrested and 
charged for the murder of Baldwin County Deputy Sheriff Will Robinson, who 
pulled over Holsey's car following the armed robbery of a Jet Food Store in the 
county seat of Milledgeville. As with any killing of a police officer, it was a 
high-profile affair. Most of the county's judges attended Robinson's funeral, 
and many sent flowers. To ensure an impartial hearing, the trial had to be 
moved two counties away.

Deputy Robinson's killing generated lots of local press.

Like the great majority of people arrested for serious crimes, Holsey could not 
afford a lawyer; he had to depend on the court to appoint one for him. But it 
is reasonable to wonder why any court would have chosen Andy Prince for the 
job. Beyond his chronic alcohol problem and the financial judgments piling up 
against him, Prince did not generally handle cases in the Milledgeville area.

As it turns out, little thought was given to his suitability. The selection 
process in the Holsey case conjures up the old military trope about 
volunteering by means of everyone else taking a step backward. "Because of who 
the victim was, nobody within the circuit wanted to be appointed to this case," 
Prince later testified. "And I told [the judge], sure, I'd take it."

On one condition: He insisted on picking his co-counsel. Prince had handled 
capital cases before, and with some success, but he'd only worked on the more 
traditional guilt/innocence part of the representation???never the crucial 
sentencing phase. He contacted Rob Westin, the lawyer he'd collaborated with 
previously. Westin said he'd do it, but then reversed himself in short order. 
Westin "had gone to the solicitor's office in Baldwin County," Prince later 
explained, "and had been told that they couldn't believe that he was 
representing Mr. Holsey and that if he continued to represent him he would 
never get another deal worked out with that office."

Trammell was likely chosen as Holsey's 2nd lawyer "based on proximity," she 
later testified. "I had not tried to trial a death penalty case."

His next attempt to secure co-counsel failed as well; the lawyer quit after a 
few months on the case and took a job with the state attorney general's office. 
7 months before the trial date, Prince finally found his "2nd chair" in Brenda 
Trammell, a lawyer who practiced in Morgan County, where the case was to be 
tried: "She was about the only one that would take it."

As for Trammell, she assumed she was selected "based on proximity," as she 
later testified. "I had not tried to trial a death penalty case and I waited 
for him to tell me what to do, and there really was not a lot of direction in 
that way."

There was still one thing missing. What distinguishes capital murder trials 
from noncapital ones is the penalty phase, wherein the jury hears additional 
evidence and determines the appropriate punishment???usually choosing between 
death and life without parole. During this phase, a "mitigation specialist," 
whom the American Bar Association (ABA) describes as "an indispensable member 
of the defense team throughout all capital proceedings," gathers information 
that might convince jurors to spare the defendant's life. Indeed, the court 
provided Holsey's defense team with sufficient funds to hire a mitigation 
specialist, but no one was ever able to account for the money. Prince later 
said that he didn't remember what happened to it, only that he was certain no 
mitigation specialist was ever hired. Which may explain Trammell's response to 
this question from Holsey's appeals lawyer.

Q: When you got into the case, was there any theory with respect to mitigation 
in the event that he was convicted?

A: No, sir.

Mitigation theory or not, Holsey went on trial for his life in February 1997.

There is a mantra among competent capital defense lawyers: "Death is 
different." By this they mean that defending against the state-sanctioned 
execution of a human being requires extraordinary measures, and that a capital 
case must be handled with even greater care than a "regular" murder trial. "It 
is universally accepted," the ABA states, "that the responsibilities of defense 
counsel in a death penalty case are uniquely demanding."

The Scottsboro Boys, in 1933, with attorney Samuel Leibowitz, who represented 
them following the US Supreme Court ruling. Fred Hiroshige/Decatur Daily via 
Wikipedia This is not a new concept. More than 80 years ago, in an infamous 
capital rape case against nine black teenagers dubbed the Scottsboro Boys, a 
trial judge appointed the entire Scottsboro, Alabama, bar to represent the 
defendants - a showing of false magnanimity that the Supreme Court ultimately 
rejected, noting that it fell far short of the constitutional requirement for 
the appointment of counsel. An accused person "requires the guiding hand of 
counsel at every step in the proceedings," the opinion concluded.

But Holsey's lawyers did not provide that guiding hand. They were an odd couple 
with an awkward rapport. While Prince was a drunk, Trammell was a part-time 
minister who eschewed alcohol. She recalled stopping by her colleague's hotel 
room once during the trial to find him drinking, and never stopped by again. 
When he called her at home one night during the proceedings, slurring his 
words, she told him not to call her there anymore.

Their inability to communicate had a predictably devastating effect. In this 
exchange, Trammell is responding to questions from an appeals lawyer about her 
cross-examination of the state's DNA expert, who had testified that the 
victim's blood was found on Holsey's shoes:

Q: When were you told that you would cross-examine Michele?

A: Before lunch.

Q: When did she testify?

A: She was testifying. We took a break for us to do the cross, for lunch, and 
during lunch I had to learn about DNA.

Q: Did you know, had you had any training about DNA before that?

A: No, sir.

Q: Did you know anything at all about the DNA process?

A: No, sir...I was calling during lunch the capital defense people, to ask them 
what am I supposed to ask about DNA?

Q: And did you learn...being thrown into that, that questioning concerning DNA 
is an extremely technical and complicated area?

A: Definitely.

On February 11, 1997, both sides made their closing arguments and the judge 
gave final instructions to the jury. 6 hours later, the jurors found Holsey 
guilty of armed robbery and of the deputy's murder. That was the night Prince 
called Trammell. Drunk. The only time he ever called her at home. He was 
concerned, she testified, that the sentencing "was not going to be good."

The state presented its case for death the following morning. 8 witnesses 
detailed Holsey's criminal background. Beyond the crimes for which he had just 
been convicted, he had pleaded guilty to 2 counts of aggravated assault 5 years 
earlier, and an armed robbery with serious bodily injury 14 years earlier. 
There was considerable dispute over whether the victims in the later incident 
had initiated the aggravated assaults, but in the end it hardly mattered - 
Holsey had stabbed a guy four times and admitted to it. By the time they rested 
their case, the state's lawyers had painted a stark portrait of a violent man 
with a violent past who now had murdered a faithful public servant in the line 
of duty.

The defense barely challenged that portrayal. They called several witnesses to 
prolong the useless debate over who was at fault in the aggravated assaults. 
Two employees from the county jails testified that he hadn't caused any 
problems at their facilities. Three people from the local Pizza Hut testified 
that he'd been a good employee for six months or so, until he lost his job when 
he went to jail for the assaults. The owner of the bar where the assaults had 
happened said he "had heard something about" Holsey's bed wetting, and drew 
some vague conclusions about the mother's neglect of her children and lack of 
parenting skills. Angela, Holsey's younger sister, begged the jury to let him 
live, but provided nothing compelling about her brother or their family. Which 
left only one witness to convey anything of substance: his oldest sister, 
Regina.

Regina Holsey should have been a star defense witness. She was a deputy United 
States Marshal, an ex-Marine, and a veteran of Operation Desert Storm - not to 
mention a former employee of the Baldwin County Sheriff's Department, where the 
victim had worked. Yet her testimony reads like an underdeveloped roll of film: 
There are hints of powerful evidence that would cast her brother in a more 
sympathetic light, but the details never fully emerge. Essential facts are 
mentioned almost in passing: that their father was shot and paralyzed by the 
police when her mother was pregnant with Wayne. (The family called him Wayne, 
not Robert.) That he did poorly in school and was considered borderline 
mentally disabled. That their mother beat the children. That he was a 
stutterer, and that his sister Angela and mother, Mary, had mental-health 
problems.

The record reads almost as though Prince felt he was wasting the jury's time. 
On four separate occasions, with his most critical witness on the stand, he 
asked Regina to read from isolated portions of crucial documents rather than 
guiding her, and the jury, through them:

Q: And I'm not, again, just - I'm going to hit a few highlights. This is a 
juvenile complaint report dated 6-27-65. And I want you to read just the 
highlighted portion from that second page of that document. And the jury will 
be able to read it all, but I'm not going to take that much time. I'm going to 
hit some of the - would you read those highlighted portions, please?

A: The 1st part says Mr. Courson advised me that Robert was basically a runaway 
case. He has no supervision at home and refuses to return home. Says Mrs. 
Holsey would not go to the school, and sent a note with Robert. Robert was not 
allowed to return. When he tried to come back, the principal called the police 
to remove Robert.

Trammell's closing argument is even more cursory, perhaps because she didn't 
learn she was going to present it until the night before. In a 9 1/2-page 
speech laden with religious references - the lawyer/minister uses the word 
"God" 16 times and "Jesus" another 5 - she managed to condense the mitigating 
evidence for her client into the space of a single paragraph.

Not all of us are abused and neglected, cursed at. Not all of us grow up with 
no father, with no mother, in essence who are neglected and are left alone, who 
are beaten. You know, you have got the records of Angela Holsey. Look at those 
when you go out. With a foster placement plan that says, "We can't send her 
back to a parent that won't encourage her in anything; it in actuality 
encourages her violence." Who is borderline mentally retarded. Wayne is 
borderline mentally retarded. Does that excuse him? No, there is no excuse. Who 
stuttered, who wet the bed until he was 12, and no one even takes him to the 
doctor for it. Who grew up by himself.

She ended with a plea for mercy. As inebriated as Prince may have been when 
he'd called her before, he was correct in his prediction. In less than 2 hours, 
the jury returned with a death sentence.

Trouble caught up with Andy Prince shortly after the trial. Still facing tens 
of thousands of dollars in judgments, he stole the last $800 from the estate 
he'd already looted. He then accepted a plea deal related to his fight with the 
neighbors, receiving probation for disorderly conduct. 8 months after Holsey's 
sentencing, Prince surrendered his law license, and 6 months after that, in May 
1998, he was indicted for his theft and sent to prison for 16 months. By the 
time he was called to testify as part of Holsey's appeal, he was out of prison, 
sober, and getting by as a freelance paralegal. From the appeals transcript:

Q: Did you attempt to conceal your difficulty with alcohol from [the trial 
judge]?

A: I didn't attempt to conceal it. I just didn't parade it around. At the time, 
I didn't consider I was having any trouble with alcohol.

Q: And why is that?

A: You know, I could drink a quart of liquor every night and work all day long. 
I thought I was doing fine.

Q: Since you have become sober, do you have a different opinion now?

A: Absolutely.

Q: And what is your opinion now?

A: Well, what I considered was doing fine at the time was just barely getting 
by.

Asked whether he should have resigned the Holsey appointment, Prince, who 
passed away in 2011, replied, "I shouldn't have been representing anybody in 
any case."

Just as alcoholics see things more clearly when they stop drinking, death 
penalty cases often come into better focus when good lawyers take over from bad 
ones. Holsey's case certainly did. But did it matter? The state of Georgia 
argued that it didn't. Sure, maybe Holsey's lawyer was plastered every night, 
and maybe another attorney might have handled it better. But Holsey was guilty 
of murder, the state's attorneys argued, and the best lawyers in the country 
couldn't change that fact. His appeal was little more than crying over spilled 
milk.

Holsey's mother doled out verbal brutality, too: "butthole," "sissy ass," 
"motherfucker," "dumbo," "buck teeth motherfucking monkey."

Capital cases are more than questions of guilt or innocence, though. Often the 
biggest question is whether the guilty should live or die. And the disturbing 
details of Holsey's early years only came to light as his appeals unfolded. It 
turned out, for instance, that his school had promoted him socially year after 
year despite his inability to grasp basic material. As early as 1st grade, 
Holsey was well behind his fellow students - his math and reading abilities 
never got past the 4th-grade level. As one of his junior high school teachers 
put it in an affidavit, he "just wasn't playing with a full deck." 2 doctors 
testified that Holsey was not merely borderline, but was actually mentally 
disabled, which by law would make him ineligible for the death penalty.

There was far more the jury never heard - riveting testimony from witnesses who 
would have gladly shared the information had anyone bothered to ask. Holsey's 
mother, Mary, it turned out, was legendary around the neighborhood for the 
fearsome physical abuse she inflicted on her children. If Wayne opened the 
refrigerator looking for food because he was hungry, he was beaten. If he 
crossed the street to pick blackberries, he was beaten. If he wet the bed, 
which he did until he was a teenager, he was beaten. He was beaten with hands, 
curling irons, extension cords, high-heel shoes, cooking spoons. In the house, 
on the corner. The physical abuse was accompanied by verbal brutality: 
"butthole." "Sissy ass." "Motherfucker." "Dumbo." "Buck teeth motherfucking 
monkey."

All of this was summed up in the affidavit of Sandra Francis, a woman who grew 
up in the same neighborhood as the Holsey children before going off to college 
and graduate school in New Jersey: "I remember saying prayers of thanks and 
gratitude to God that I was not one of Mary Holsey's children," Francis 
testified. "We called her unit in the projects the 'torture chamber.'"

That other kids called the Holsey's unit "the torture chamber" was just one 
detail his lawyers never raised during his sentencing - or ever bothered to 
find out.

By the end of the appellate hearing, a much clearer portrayal of Robert Wayne 
Holsey had emerged: a stuttering, bed-wetting man with very low intellectual 
function who was raised in poverty and terrorized by a vicious, violent, and 
psychotic mother. The judge concluded that Holsey's trial defense team had 
"failed to prepare and present any meaningful mitigation evidence as a defense 
to the death penalty... In light of this lack of any significant preparation or 
presentation of such defense, no one can seriously believe that the Petitioner 
received the constitutional guarantees of the Sixth Amendment right to 
effective assistance of counsel.

Holsey was going to get a new sentencing hearing - or was he? The state 
appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court, which had to consider the same 2 
questions that the court below had just answered "no" and "yes": Had Andy 
Prince mounted a competent defense? And would it have made any difference if he 
had?

(source: Mother Jones)






FLORIDA:

Florida man faces death penalty in 2005 waitress slaying


A South Florida man is facing the death penalty after a jury convicted him of 
1st-degree murder in the savage 2005 slaying of a Miami-area waitress.

Jurors deliberated about 9 hours before convicting Rafael Andres on Wednesday 
in the killing of 31-year-old Yvette Farinas. The Miami Herald reported 
(http://hrld.us/11Ditbc ) that sentencing was set for Dec. 15.

Trial testimony showed that Andres beat, stabbed and strangled Farinas with a 
rice cooker cord. He had been working as a handyman at a home attached to her 
apartment, and after the killing stole her ATM card. A neighbor saw Andres with 
a gas can next to the apartment before it went up in flames.

Andres was previously convicted in 1987 of another woman's slaying, but wound 
up serving only 1 year in prison.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Seth Miller Elected President of Innocence Network


On November 14, 2014, Seth Miller, Executive Director of the Innocence Project 
of Florida (IPF) was elected President of the Innocence Network. Miller has 
served on the Innocence Network Executive Board since 2012.

The Innocence Network is an affiliation of 69 organizations around the globe 
dedicated to providing pro bono legal and investigative services to individuals 
seeking to prove innocence of crimes for which they have been convicted and 
working to redress the causes of wrongful convictions.

"The Innocence Network is comprised of brilliant and skilled individuals at 
innocence organizations in the United States and abroad, who are fighting every 
day to rectify miscarriages of justice in the criminal justice system. Without 
their collective work, hundreds of innocent individuals would still be 
languishing in prison and we would not have a vital window through which to 
identify the myriad causes of wrongful conviction. It is an honor and privilege 
to be chosen by my colleagues to lead the Innocence Network in the coming 
years," said Miller.

As executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida since 2007, Miller 
litigates post-conviction innocence cases, supervises the organization's 
internship program, and regularly lectures to students, lawyers, and community 
groups on issues related to wrongful convictions. He also teaches 
Post-Conviction Remedies and Wrongful Convictions as an adjunct professor at 
the Florida State University College of Law.

Seth's election to the presidency of the Innocence Network will serve to 
nationally highlight innocence work in Florida and provide a broader platform 
to the Innocence Project of Florida and its mission," said Robert Cromwell, 
retired FBI Special Agent and Chairman of IPF's Board of Directors.

(source: Floridainnocence.org)

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

Witnesses say death penalty defendant was neglected, abused while growing up


A man facing the death penalty for murdering a state trooper in 2007 asked on 
Thursday to be returned to prison rather than continuing to attend a hearing on 
whether he should be granted a new trial. Joshua Lee Altersberger, who was 
sentenced to death in 2009 for the January 2007 murder of Florida Highway 
Patrol Sgt. Nick Sottile along U.S. 27 near Lake Placid, wanted to return to 
state prison because he was unhappy over his treatment at the Highlands County 
jail and staying in a cell that he said had ants.

But Circuit Judge Angela Cowden decided that Altersberger should remain in 
court, saying he needs to hear the testimony and provide input to his 
attorneys.

Attorneys tried to show through testimony that Altersberger's original 
attorneys erred in advising him to plead guilty and only have the sentencing 
phase of the trial. The attorneys had witnesses who said that had Altersberger 
gone to trial, evidence could have been presented showing he was raised in an 
environment of neglect and abuse.

The hearing was scheduled to conclude Friday with one witness testifying in the 
morning. Another hearing on the appeal to have his guilty plea withdrawn and be 
granted a full trial will be held in December.

A decision isn't expected until January.

Altersberger said he was frustrated enough about his treatment at the Highlands 
County jail that he was concerned he might do something that would make the 
situation worse for him. But he sat quietly through the morning portion of the 
hearing.

Highlands County Chief Deputy Mark Schrader said Altersberger isn't being 
mistreated at the jail.

"He's receiving everything by law that he's supposed to," Schrader said. He 
added that the jail has pest control for ants, but that doesn't eliminate the 
problem totally.

"I had ants in my office and I have not been convicted of any crime," he said.

But it was the environment in which Altersberger grew up that was the focus of 
the court hearing.

Tiffany Cunningham, who works with attorneys in capital penalty cases and 
examines mitigating factors for the defendant, said nobody in the courtroom 
"would want their children to spend 5 minutes in the environment" in which 
Altersberger grew up. She said at least 18 situations he faced while being a 
child put him at risk for becoming a criminal offender or having problems as an 
adult.

"No wonder your house is going to crumble under the weight of these risk 
factors," she said.

Rosalie Altersberger, the mother of the defendant, testified about moving with 
her children several times because of being evicted, living in a neighborhood 
with a lot of drug dealers and having a boyfriend who sold drugs out of the 
home and wanted her to use cocaine so she could stay up with him at night. At 
times, she said, she didn't have enough food to feed her family.

She said she knew of one time her son declined to eat dinner and went to a 
friend's house because he knew how little food was in the house.

She said when they lived in South Carolina her son was the subject of prejudice 
because he's biracial. The boyfriend who sold drugs wanted to train her son to 
be a drug dealer, she said.

Cunningham said through her interviews that she learned that the mother spent 
little time with her children - a big reason for that was when she worked or 
when she gave most of her attention to boyfriends - and that at times "if they 
(the children) didn't go out and get food for themselves they didn't eat."

She suggested that the mother was excessive in punishing her son. Joshua 
Altersberger "basically had to socialize himself his entire life without one 
proper role model the entire way," she said.

Prosecutors showed through cross examination that much of that information was 
provided to the jury during the sentencing phase for Altersberger after he 
plead guilty. At the time that information didn't sway the jury, which voted 
9-3 to recommend the death penalty.

(source: highlandstoday.com)






ALABAMA:

Talladega County jury recommends death penalty for Birmingham man


A Birmingham man convicted of 6 counts of capital murder could receive the 
death penalty.

10 of the 12 Talladega County jurors voted Thursday in favor of execution for 
33-year-old Ocie Lee Lynch.

The jury convicted Lynch on Wednesday for shooting and stabbing attorney Robert 
Blake Lazenby in 2011. Lazenby died at his home in Sylacauga, in what 
investigators determined was a murder for hire case.

Prosecutors said Earnest James Files, Jr., and Calvin McCall Haynes contacted 
Lynch to kill Lazenby. Haynes previously pled guilty to conspiricy to commit 
murder and is serving life in prison. Files faces charges on 10 counts of 
capital murder.

A grand jury indicted Lynch on 8 counts of murder. Jurors convicted him for 2 
counts of murder for financial gain, 2 counts of murder pursuant to a contract, 
and 2 counts of murder during a burglary.

Judge John Rochester can decide to accept the jury's recommendation for capital 
punishment, or to sentence Lynch to life in prison without parole. The formal 
sentencing has not been set, but Chief Deputy District Attorney Christina 
Kilgore said it will likely be in January.

Kilgore said Lazenby's family was satisfied with the jury's verdict and 
recommendation, and felt that justice was served today.

A 2nd suspect accused of being with Lynch in Lazenby's house at the time of the 
killing, 24-year-old Charles Andrew Joseph Hendrix of Birmingham, faces the 
same charges as Lynch.

(source: ABC NEWS)

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

State plans to seek death penalty in retrial of William Ziegler


Prosecutors will seek the death penalty in 2015 when a Robertdale man is 
retried in a 14-year-old capital murder case.

It will be the Office of the Alabama Attorney General and not the Mobile County 
District Attorney's Office prosecuting William Ziegler, 39, when his trial 
starts Aug. 17. Mobile County Circuit Court Judge Sarah Stewart will preside 
over the case.

"We just feel like it will be in the best interest of justice and for all 
parties involved for us to allow the Attorney General's Office to handle the 
case," Mobile County Chief Assistant District Attorney Deborah Tillman said.

A jury found Ziegler guilty in 2001 of capital murder in the Feb. 19, 2000, 
killing of Russell Baker Jr. Ziegler was sentenced to death.

Ziegler's attorneys won a retrial in the capital murder case after filing a 
post-appeal challenge. Stewart, who granted the new trial, determined the case 
was poorly handled by investigators, prosecutors and Ziegler's attorneys.

"We feel like Mr. Ziegler got a bad deal the last time, so he's looking forward 
to his new day in court... so he can finally be exonerated," said Jeff Deen, 
one of Ziegler's new attorneys. "He has already spent 13 years on death row."

4 other people were charged in connection with Baker's death, but they cut 
deals with the prosecution rather than facing trials.

Baker's body was found in a wooded area in west Mobile on Feb. 23, 2000. He was 
beaten and stabbed more than 100 times and his throat was slashed.

Ziegler, who is being held without bond at the Mobile County Metro Jail, 
appeared in court Thursday for a hearing. His attorneys tried to convince 
Stewart that Ziegler should have a bond set in his case.

Stewart did not make a decision on the bond issue. She plans to rule soon.

Attorney Nick Lagermain, who also is representing Ziegler, said there are 
several problems with the prosecution's case, including its theory of the 
crime, if the place where Baker's body was found is the site where he was 
killed and if the prosecution has the right time frame for when Baker was 
killed.

"The only witness offered by the state in the 1st trial to claim to have seen 
Mr. Ziegler kill Mr. Baker offered testimony that was scientifically impossible 
and directly rebutted and refuted by the scientific evidence," Lagermain said.

Alabama Assistant Attorney General Stephanie Billingslea said Ziegler should 
not be granted bond.

"The defendant has a very high burden and none of the things that has been 
mentioned or even argued to this court exculpate him," she said. "Some of them 
don't even have anything to do with him."

(source: al.com)






OHIO:

Ohio Lawmaker Tweets to Bring Back the Firing Squad for Death Penalty


A tweet on a controversial Ohio House Bill has caught the attention of many 
after it went viral. Ohio Representative Jay Hottinger sent a tweet Wednesday 
night saying "instead of shielding the identity of drug companies that make and 
supply drugs and supplies for lethal injections in the death penalty, bring 
back the firing squad."

Hottinger was referring to Ohio House Bill 663, which will make it possible to 
conceal the identities of drug companies that produce lethal injections for 
death penalties cases in the State of Ohio.

Hottinger says "I think it's cost efficient and it's humane and hope proponents 
of the death penalty give some consideration to it." Members of the group 
Ohioans to Stop Executions say the passage of HB 663 will "take Ohio down a 
long road of delays and more litigations."

According to state records, 139 people are currently on death row in Ohio.

(source: ABC news)

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

Death-penalty bill approved by Ohio House


The Ohio House on Thursday approved legislation that would shield the 
identities of execution-drug makers, protect physicians who testify about 
executions, and void contracts banning sales of lethal-injection drugs to the 
state.

House Bill 663 passed by a 61-25 vote, is an attempt to overcome problems that 
Ohio - like a number of other states - has had obtaining lethal-injection 
drugs. It would grant 20 years of anonymity, upon request, to small-scale drug 
manufacturers called compounding pharmacies when they create individual doses 
of lethal-injection drugs on demand.

In addition, physicians who testify about the state's execution method couldn't 
have their state medical license revoked, and the bill would void contracts or 
agreements prohibiting the sale of lethal-injection drugs to the state.

Attorney General Mike DeWine and other proponents of the reforms say they are 
needed if Ohio is to resume executions next February, once a court-ordered 
moratorium ends.

However, critics said the bill would throw a veil of secrecy over how Ohio 
executes people. They noted that lawsuits have been filed in 6 other states to 
overturn similar confidentiality laws for execution-drug manufacturers.

The provision voiding agreements to ban drug sales may also violate the U.S. 
and Ohio constitutions' prohibition on impairing contracts, according to an 
analysis by the non-partisan Legislative Service Commission.

The legislation now heads to the Ohio Senate, where Senate President Keith 
Faber, a Mercer County Republican, said there are worries about keeping secret 
the names of compounding pharmacies.

"My members are very concerned about making sure that we have transparency," 
Faber told reporters Wednesday. "There's a lot of concern about shutting out 
public knowledge."

Ohio ran out of its preferred lethal-injection drug, pentobarbital, last year 
because European pharmaceutical companies refused to continue selling it to use 
in executions.

The state has instead turned to a 2-drug cocktail of midazolam, a sedative, and 
hydromorphone, a morphine derivative. But executions in Ohio and Arizona using 
the cocktail haven't gone as planned, and Ohio's use of the drugs is being 
challenged in federal court.

The state could seek to obtain pentobarbital from compounding pharmacies, but 
Rep. Jim Buchy, a Darke County Republican who's co-sponsoring HB 663, has said 
the companies are reluctant to make lethal-injection drugs unless they can 
remain anonymous, for fear of public reprisal.

Another proposed change in the bill would prevent the Ohio State Medical Board 
from revoking or suspending the license of any physician who provides expert 
testimony on the state's death penalty.

Such immunity is needed, supporters say, because the state is worried that 
doctors will refuse to testify in defense of Ohio's lethal-injection protocol 
for fear that they'll run afoul of medical ethics.

Ohio has 139 death-row inmates, though currently only 11 have an execution date 
scheduled.

(source: cleveland.com)

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

Bill would shield names of pharmacists who mix execution drugs


Legislation that would shield the names of pharmacists who mix lethal 
injections for the state passed the Ohio House on Thursday.

HB 663 moved on a vote of 61-25 and heads to the Ohio Senate for further 
consideration.

Backers say the proposed law changes are needed so that Ohio can move ahead 
with already-scheduled executions.

Executions have been on hold for most of the year after a federal judge 
postponed scheduled lethal injections while state prison officials consider 
changes to the execution process.

The stay initially was implemented after the prolonged death in January of 
Dennis McGuire, who received a capital sentence for the rape and murder of a 
pregnant Preble County woman.

McGuire was the 1st inmate executed using a new 2-drug combination; the process 
took about 25 minutes, and witnesses described him gasping for breath.

Under execution protocols adopted last year, state prison officials could 
purchase lethal-injection mixtures from compounding pharmacies - a change that 
was made after the manufacturer of such drugs refused to sell them for use in 
executions.

But Attorney General Mike DeWine said last month that the Department of 
Rehabilitation and Correction has had difficulty finding pharmacies willing to 
provide the lethal-injection drugs because they don't want to be identified 
publicly.

HB 663 seeks to address the issue by blocking the public disclosure of pharmacy 
names and others involved in the execution process.

The bill says the identity of anyone who assists "the Department of 
Rehabilitation and Correction in carrying out executions by lethal injection 
must be kept confidential to protect them from harassment and possible physical 
harm," according to an analysis by the state's Legislative Service Commission.

Related records would be kept confidential and not subject to the state's 
open-records laws, with limited access by judges reviewing death-penalty cases.

Businesses would have to request anonymity, via an application to state prison 
officials. And their names would be released after 20 years.

(source: Youngstown Vindicator)






ARKANSAS:

Jury Sentences Kinsey To 70 Years In Machete Killings


A Sebastian County jury sentenced a Fort Smith man to 70 total years for 
killing 2 men with a machete last summer.

The state had sought a capital murder conviction and the death penalty in the 
June 26, 2013, deaths of Brandon Prince, 39, and Nathan Young, 32, both of Fort 
Smith. Police found the 2 men dead outside a duplex in the 1600 block of North 
D Street.

Wednesday evening, the jury found Gregory Aaron Kinsey, 21, guilty of 
2nd-degree murder in Prince's death and 1st-degree murder in Young's death 
after deliberating about 3 1/2 hours. The trial began Monday.

Testimony and oral argument during the sentencing portion of the trial took up 
most of Thursday. The 7-woman and 5-man jury deliberated for an hour and 45 
minutes before returning with the sentencing recommendation just before 5 p.m.

Jurors heard from Kinsey's siblings, Cody, Summer and Dillon Kinsey, who all 
testified about the drug use, violence, deprivation and instability to which 
they and their brother were exposed while growing up and the effect it had on 
him.

Dillon Kinsey, who's younger than Gregory Kinsey, said once their father went 
to prison and was gone for good, their mother, Kimberly LeClaire, moved in a 
succession of men who were violent drug addicts.

When he tried to count how many different places he lived growing up, Dillon 
Kinsey said he got up to 23 or 24 different residences - several without 
utilities - and 5 of 6 different school districts.

Dillon testified they moved any time the Arkansas Department of Human Services 
was called to the home, and usually went to a different city.

All of LeClaire's children went into foster care around 2010 when she was 
arrested and convicted of possession of drug paraphernalia when components for 
a methamphetamine lab were found in the home, according to the testimony of 
multiple witnesses.

Both Dillon Kinsey and Summer Kinsey testified that going into foster care put 
their lives on a better path. Gregory Kinsey was close to 18, so he was allowed 
to stay with Cody Kinsey, who was already over 18, while the younger 2 went 
into foster care.

The siblings all testified that Gregory Kinsey became more withdrawn and 
isolated the worse the environment got at home.

When Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Linda Ward asked the jury to sentence 
Kinsey to life in prison, she showed them the pictures of Prince's and Young's 
bloody, lifeless bodies and told them to remember "this is not all about 
Gregory Aaron Kinsey."

Cole Prince, Brandon Prince's 16-year-old son, took the stand and read a victim 
impact statement telling Kinsey he took the best thing in his life away from 
him.

"I can't describe how it feels to sit there with someone you love in your arms 
bleeding to death ... I had cried myself to sleep each night for over a month. 
Now my tears are all dried up," Cole told jurors.

Cole said as a result of his father's death, his younger brother, Cayne, was 
forced to go into foster care and he rarely gets to see him now.

Misty Smith, Cole's aunt, said Prince brought out a "creative, happy, joyous 
side" of Cole that his family doesn't see much now.

"I have watched him be sad, angry and strong all at the same time. I can't 
describe how much pain he is going through. The joy has left his eyes and he 
will never be a carefree child again," Smith said, reading from her impact 
statement.

Smith told the jury the only way to assure this "vicious" and "unrepentant" 
murderer never kills anyone in Sebastian County again is to sentence him to 
life.

Teri Chambers, court-appointed co-counsel for Kinsey, argued the reason a range 
exists for sentencing is because not every conviction deserves a maximum 
sentence. Chambers requested a sentence in the low to middle range.

Kinsey faced 10 to 40 years or life in prison for 1st-degree murder and six to 
30 years in prison for 2nd-degree murder.

She pointed out Kinsey never harmed anyone before; argued that he wasn't the 
aggressor June 26, 2013; said he goes out of the way to avoid trouble; has 
caused no trouble during about 17 months in jail; was cooperative when arrested 
and questioned by police; and isn't the machete-wielding maniac Ward made him 
out to be.

"He went too far (in defending himself), but he didn't want it," Chambers said.

While he avoided a capital-murder conviction and potential death sentence, 
jurors rejected Kinsey's self-defense claim when they found him guilty of 2 
counts of murder.

In a statement to police played for jurors on Monday, Kinsey told investigators 
he was walking home from shopping at Dollar General, 1620 Grand Ave., through 
an alley near North D and 16th streets, and he stepped into a backyard when he 
thought he heard the voice of a man who was abusive to his mother when she 
previously dated him.

The yard Kinsey stepped into was Young's, who was across the street on Nathan 
Maynard's front porch drinking a beer.

Young yelled at Kinsey, and Young and Prince and possibly Maynard approached 
him.

What happened beyond that is disputed.

Kinsey claimed he pulled the machete and warned the men to back off before he 
began swinging it at them, hitting Prince once and Young between 8 and 11 
times.

Maynard said Young approached Kinsey about what he was doing in his yard and 
Prince was on the sidewalk when Kinsey announced he was Satan and started 
swinging the machete.

It's also undisputed that Kinsey pursued Young when he ran and hit him with the 
machete multiple times while Young was on the ground, before Kinsey finally 
quit and fled.

Kinsey will be eligible for parole after 35 1/2 years.

(source: swtimes.com)