[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., GA., ALA., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 9



TEXAS----impending execution

Trottie to die over 1992 murder


While many students will be attending classes and going about their daily 
business tomorrow at Sam Houston State University, three blocks away from 
campus the Texas Department of Criminal Justice will be carrying out the death 
penalty against Willie Tryon Trottie, after having served more than 2 decades 
in prison.

A native of Harris County, Trottie, was only 23-years-old when he was convicted 
in the murders of his former partner Barbara Nell Canada, 24, and her brother 
Titus C. Canada, 29.

After Trottie and Barbara Canada's relationship ended in September 1992, 
Trottie, who had a restraining order against him, threatened to kill her if she 
did not return to him by May 1, 1993.

2 days later, in response to Canada's lack of compliance with his request, 
Trottie kicked down the door to the house where Canada was staying with her 
mother and other family members and began opening fire with a 9 mm pistol.

Reacting quickly, Titus Canada grabbed hold of his own pistol and began firing 
back at Trottie successfully hitting the perpetrator, before Titus himself 
became wounded. Trottie then went to the back of the house where he found 
Barbara Canada in a rear bedroom and proceeded to shoot her 6 more times in the 
presence of 7 children.

Trottie then returned to the living room where Titus Canada was wounded and 
continued to shoot him execution-style in the back of the head.

After driving himself to the hospital in Barbara Canada's car, Trottie was 
arrested.

Tomorrow at 6 p.m. Trottie will face the death penalty for his actions made 
more than 21 years ago in the Walls Unit of the Texas Prison System.

(source: The Houstonian)

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

Potentially Innocent Texas Man Will Die on Death Row Anyway


Max Soffar already knows he's about to die, but it's not because he's on death 
row. The 58-year-old man has maybe a shot at seeing 2015, but even that is in 
doubt, due to advanced, inoperable liver cancer. Despite already spending over 
3 decades behind bars, Soffar is likely to never see outside the Texas prison 
he has been held at since his 1st death penalty conviction in 1981. Now, with 
maybe weeks of life left to him, his lawyers are hoping he can have one last 
shot at freedom as his lawyers petition for clemency.

Soffar was convicted of murder in the early 1980s, but his conviction relied 
heavily on a recorded confession that Soffar claims was coerced. The tape held 
just two hours worth of what lawyers say was over 24 hours of interrogation, 
some of which was believed to be strong-armed and leading, and potentially 
abusive.

"Richard A. Leo, who teaches at the University of San Francisco School of Law 
and has written several books on police interrogation procedures, analyzed Mr. 
Soffar's tape and determined that officers in the case used verbal techniques 
like accusation, forceful pressure, repetition and confrontation," reported the 
New York Times in 2012. "All of these, Dr. Leo wrote in an affidavit, 'create a 
risk of eliciting false confessions when misapplied to the innocent.' Mr. 
Soffar, sleep-deprived and coming down from drug use, was particularly 
susceptible, Dr. Leo said."

Although Soffar's 1st conviction was overturned because a judge felt the lawyer 
mishandled the case, a retrial still found him guilty, and still based that 
decision squarely on the taped confession even though a witness prior to the 
shooting ID'ed a different suspect.

Under normal circumstances Soffar could potentially still get off death row 
with a new appeal, since the state hasn't even set a date for his execution and 
he isn't even out of his fifties. His terminal diagnosis, however, makes it 
impossible for that to ever happen in time, which is why his lawyers are 
arguing for clemency. "The reality is that the federal court process will 
likely not be completed before Mr. Soffar dies," his lawyers said in the 
petition, according to the Associated Press. "The exigency of this situation is 
the driving force behind what Mr. Soffar admits is an unusual request for 
clemency at this stage of a capital case."

The District Attorney's office has already said they plan to turn the request 
down.

Even if Soffar dies of his cancer before the process plays out, Texans see the 
battle to get him out of jail as a worthy exercise in pushing for fairness and 
leniency in one of the more virulently pro-death penalty states in the nation. 
"It's a good bet Soffar doesn't get that relief, and it's a good bet that 
cancer will take him before appeals are exhausted and the executioner is 
cleared to proceed in Huntsville," writes the Dallas Morning News editorial 
team. "Still, the clemency request serves a righteous purpose. It lays out 
another Texas capital case where the facts consist of many hazy shades of gray. 
Texans should know the uncomfortable truth about who's cleared to be executed 
in their name."

Soffar, a man who was interrogated while not at full mental capacity, whose 
"confessions" were used as evidence in his own murder trials, who saw evidence 
thrown out during his trial that could have cleared his name, such as new 
suspects or news articles, and who had a cop speak out as a character witness 
to say that he likely wasn't capable of the crime, is going to die in jail 3 
decades after being put behind bars, all for a crime he likely didn't commit. 
He will be denied even a few short months or weeks to compassionately receive 
palliative care and end his life in his own bed. Because of his terminal 
illness, he will not have a chance to join the nearly 150 people on death row 
cleared of their crimes before they died.

He will die on death row, not through a lethal injection, but at the hands of a 
prison system that would rather be sure every crime is punished than guarantee 
the right person is punished for that crime.

(source: care2.com)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Overturned death penalty conviction sparks debate in NC


The release of a death row inmate wrongly imprisoned for 30 years has shed new 
light on the conflicted state of the death penalty in North Carolina.

On Sept. 2, a Robeson County judge vacated the convictions of Henry McCollum 
and his half brother Leon Brown after the state's Innocence Inquiry Commission 
tested DNA from the crime scene and found that the evidence implicated a 
different man.

McCollum and Brown were convicted in 1984 of 1st-degree murder and rape. Both 
men spent time on death row, though Brown's sentence was later changed to a 
life sentence in prison.

DEATH PENALTY IN NC

North Carolina is 1 of 32 states with a death penalty:

--Since 2000, the number of death sentences given in N.C. each year has 
declined.

--The state carried out its last death row execution on Aug. 18, 2006.

--The Racial Justice Act was passed by state lawmakers in 2009 and repealed in 
2013.

--Death row inmate Henry McCollum was released on Sept. 3, 2014 after DNA 
evidence proved his innocence.

"If these men had been executed years ago, we almost certainly would have never 
learned of this grave injustice," said Richard Dieter, executive director of 
the Death Penalty Information Center, in a statement.

McCollum's release leaves 152 inmates on North Carolina's death row.

Death row executions in North Carolina have halted since 2006 due to a variety 
of legal challenges, including several under the state's former Racial Justice 
Act, which allowed defendants to use claims of racial discrimination to have 
their death row sentences converted to life in prison without parole.

The 2009 act was repealed by the N.C. General Assembly in 2013. Still, 4 case 
appeals are pending involving the Racial Justice Act in the N.C. Supreme Court, 
said Vernetta Alston, an attorney with the Durham-based Center for Death 
Penalty Litigation.

Until the court decides those cases, Alston said, the future of the law's role 
in state death penalty litigation remains unclear.

"It's our position that everyone who has an RJA motion currently pending - that 
those motions are not rendered mute by the repeal of a law," she said.

Lawyers filed a motion under the Racial Justice Act in McCollum's case, but his 
release was based on separate litigation, she said.

Jennifer Marsh, director of research and community services at UNC School of 
Law, said critics of the Racial Justice Act wrongly argued the act would lead 
people to be released from prison.

"That is not and was never a remedy under the act," she said.

Support for the death penalty for people convicted of murder stands around 60 % 
nationally, according to the most recent Gallup poll on the issue. But capital 
punishment's approval is at its lowest point in more than 40 years.

And Sarah Preston, policy director for North Carolina's chapter of the American 
Civil Liberties Union, said she thinks there has been national and state 
momentum against the use of capital punishment.

A national advocacy group called Conservatives Concerned About the Death 
Penalty launched in 2013 to push for an end to the death penalty, Preston said, 
and North Carolina has a chapter of the organization.

"What we're starting to see is recognition that is sort of bipartisan - and 
lots of groups and categories of people are starting to recognize that the 
death penalty is broken in a variety of different ways," she said. "It feels 
different from how it's felt in the past."

(source: Daily Tar Heel)

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

More proof the NC death penalty lives up to no conservative standards


Like most people in North Carolina, I watched last week as an innocent man was 
released after 30 years on death row. Henry McCollum walked free because DNA 
evidence found by the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission showed that another man 
was the likely perpetrator in the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.

Also freed was McCollum's half-brother, Leon Brown, who was serving a life 
sentence for the same crime, which McCollum, as a scared 19-year-old, had 
falsely confessed to.

I am sure many of us had the same thought: What a terrible waste of 2 lives. As 
former state auditor, I also can't help but think: Not only were 2 innocent men 
sent to prison for 30 years, but the state spent millions of dollars of its 
scarce resources to house, feed and provide medical care to men who could have 
been contributing, productive members of society. But that expense is minor 
compared with the amount North Carolina spent on the legal fight to execute 
Henry McCollum. That cost is incalculable.

Capital prosecutions cost millions more than noncapital murder trials, and 
McCollum's 1984 trial was just the beginning. As with most death penalty 
prosecutions, the initial conviction was followed by years of appeals, which go 
on far longer than those in noncapital cases.

In the years since he was sentenced to death, McCollum has had attorneys 
fighting to stop his execution - and prosecutors fighting to make it happen. 
Countless experts have been hired, and thousands of hours have been spent 
poring over documents and evidence. As happens in most death penalty cases, 
taxpayers footed the bill for all his defense and prosecution costs.

Thankfully, the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission, which is funded in part by 
state and federal dollars, took on this case. The commission spent 4 years and 
hundreds of thousands of dollars digging up evidence and conducting 
state-of-the-art biological testing.

I do not argue that any of these steps was unnecessary. If not for every one of 
them, an innocent man would have been executed.

As a conservative, I believe in swift and sure justice for people who commit 
crimes. I also believe in a system that is efficient and effective. As Henry 
McCollum's case clearly illustrates, our capital punishment system lives up to 
none of those standards.

This case suggests there are many areas of our justice system needing 
improvements. One of the first should be to replace the death penalty with life 
in prison without parole and let the worst offenders die in prison. At least 
then we would be assured that North Carolina never again spends millions in an 
effort to execute an innocent man.

(source: Les Merritt, state auditor from 2005 to 2009, is a member of North 
Carolina Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty; News & Observer)

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

Exonerated death row inmate had Boston legal team behind him


After countless hours of pro bono work and roughly a half dozen trips to North 
Carolina, Richard Johnston, a partner in WilmerHale's Boston office, was not 
expecting the fate of his client, the longest-serving death row inmate in North 
Carolina's history, to turn on a dime. But turn it did when long-awaited DNA 
evidence cleared Henry Lee McCollum of raping and murdering an 11-year-old 
girl, a conviction that had put McCollum behind bars for 30 years. McCollum's 
half brother Leon Brown, who was serving a life sentence for the 1983 crime, 
also was cleared, though Johnston did not represent him.

Once the DNA evidence emerged this summer, clearing McCollum and linking 
another man to the crime, "everything moved at dizzying speed," said Johnston, 
in a recent interview with the BBJ. Johnston was WilmerHale's lead partner on 
the case, working along with 2 other Boston-based WilmerHale attorneys. The 
group from WilmerHale serve as co-counsel with The Center for Death Penalty 
Litigation, based in North Carolina.

In the past 20 years,15 different WilmerHale attorneys have worked pro bono on 
McCollum's case, some of them from the law firm's Boston office and others from 
the Washington D.C. office, a spokeswoman said.

"We'd had (Roscoe Artis) in our sights for several years," Johnston said, 
referring to the man whose DNA matched evidence found on a cigarette butt and 
connected him to the murder. "We never had the slam dunk (against him) until 
this final DNA evidence came."

The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, an independent agency, 
gathered the DNA evidence through its broad subpoena powers. "As lawyers, we 
wouldn't have been able to get the evidence they were able to get," Johnston 
said. WilmerHale first got involved with McCollum's cause 20 years ago when a 
former partner convinced the firm there had been a miscarriage of justice. In 
the early days of the case, Johnston said, DNA evidence was "hard to come by" 
and efforts by WilmerHale to get it were unsuccessful.

"We asked in 2002 to have DNA testing done on our client. Some was done and it 
showed that our client's DNA wasn't on a particular piece of evidence. But it 
wasn't enough to convince the judge and the D.A. that there wasn't some other 
evidence out there that implicated our client," Johnston said.

Given the difficulties of obtaining DNA evidence, Johnston said, the legal 
strategy was to get the death penalty revoked because of McCollum's mental 
disability.

One of the most disappointing moments in the case came in May, Johnston said, 
when the defense team argued that McCollum was mentally disabled and, as a 
matter of law, he should not be on death row. Instead, a judge decided to hold 
a hearing in August to determine if McCollum was mentally disabled.

When the new DNA evidence emerged, Johnston said, the discussion suddenly 
shifted and focused on McCollum's overall innocence.

Johnston said he plans to stay involved with McCollum, and the next step 
includes securing compensation for him for the years he spent wrongfully 
convicted. Meanwhile, Johnston is still absorbing the surprising and unexpected 
outcome last week.

"I don't think any of us had any idea that (the case) would end up quite this 
way or become the magnetic issue that it has become," Johnston said.

(source: bizjournals.com)

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

Another death knell for the death penalty


The practical reasons for ending America's status as one of the "killingest" 
countries on the planet when it comes to executing its citizens (along with 
Iran, Iraq, China and a few other paragons of human rights) are so obvious and 
numerous that it seems almost silly and repetitive to list them yet again. It's 
kind of like making the case against drunk driving or the international sex 
trade.

For the record, though, let it be noted for the umpteenth time that the death 
penalty:

--does not deter Americans from committing crime in the states (like North 
Carolina) in which it still exists,

--is applied with wild degrees of inconsistency, bias and general unfairness,

--costs more than long-term imprisonment, and

--leads with stomach-turning frequency to one of the greatest crimes a 
government can commit -  namely, the intentional killing of an innocent person.

Sadly, however, decisions about the death penalty (both generally and in 
specific cases) are rarely made based upon a dispassionate assessment of the 
facts. For whatever reason, we Americans find it hard to put our emotions aside 
in assessing the death penalty - especially when it comes to its retention and 
actual application.

There's simply something so heinous about some murders that gut emotions are 
often relied upon (and even accepted and respected by many in the public) as 
the legitimate bases for life and death decisions. 26 years ago, many American 
voters cited Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis' failure to respond with 
sufficient emotion to a hypothetical debate question about his wife's murder as 
grounds for electing his opponent.

An emotional symbol crumbles

What happens, though, when the basis for our emotional response to murder and 
the imposition of the death penalty turns out to be based on a lie? North 
Carolinians (and, hopefully, all Americans) are about to grapple with this 
question in the days ahead in the aftermath of yesterday's ruling in Robeson 
County overturning the sentences of Leon Brown (life in prison) and Henry 
McCollum (who was sentenced to death) 3 decades after they were convicted of 
one of the most heinous murders imaginable.

It turns out, thanks to the dogged work of lots of people - including the 
state's Center for Death Penalty Litigation - that there is abundant and 
compelling evidence to show that both men are not guilty of the crime for which 
they were sentenced. This is from a summary of the situation provided by 
advocates at the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death 
Penalty:

New DNA testing by the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission proves beyond a doubt 
that Henry McCollum, N.C.'s longest serving death row inmate, and his brother, 
Leon Brown, who is serving a life sentence for the same crime, are innocent. 
Henry and Leon were sentenced to death in 1984 for the murder of Sabrina Buie, 
an 11-year-old who was raped and suffocated in the Robeson County town of Red 
Springs. DNA testing now shows that the true killer was Roscoe Artis, a 
convicted rapist and murderer who lived 1 block from the crime scene. Artis is 
a serial rapist who was sent to death row for killing another young woman, less 
than a month after Sabrina's murder, in eerily similar circumstances.

This long-delayed DNA test finally corrects a wrong that began 30 years ago, 
when police coerced false confessions from 2 intellectually disabled teenagers.

Of course, this is far from the first death row inmate in recent decades for 
whom reasonable doubt has been discovered years after conviction. The Death 
Penalty Information Center has catalogued 140 such exonerations - 7 in North 
Carolina - in the last 40 years. What makes this latest development even more 
noteworthy than "normal" however is that Mr. McCollum's case did not involve a 
run-of-the-mill death sentence.

As Daily Tar Heel staff writer and UNC-Chapel Hill senior Political Science 
major Seth Rose explained in a column published yesterday, McCollum was 
actually used by one of the American death penalty's best-known and most 
powerful defenders as a symbol for why it should be retained during one of the 
most famous debates on the subject.

Here's Rose:

20 years ago, Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun offered a statement 
rarely heard from a figure of his stature. He passionately renounced the death 
penalty, proclaiming that he would "no longer tinker with the machinery of 
death."

Blackmun argued that decisions involving the death penalty were too subjective 
and prone to human error to be consistently administered constitutionally. His 
appeal, shocking in an era of overwhelming public support for capital 
punishment, did not go uncontested.

Justice Antonin Scalia offered a scathing rebuttal to his colleague, whom he 
accused of attempting to "thrust a minority's views upon the people." Scalia 
argued the need for the death penalty as an appropriate punishment for the most 
heinous of crimes. He wrote about two cases before the Supreme Court at the 
time, which he believed made death by lethal injection look "enviable." One of 
those cases, notably, concerned the brutal rape and murder of 11-year-old 
Sabrina Buie, committed in Red Springs, North Carolina [i.e. the case in which 
McCollum was convicted].

After detailing the particulars of McCollum's case and wrongful conviction, 
Rose concludes this way:

Justice Scalia believed the Red Springs murder proved the necessity of the 
death penalty. If this was the strongest case a Supreme Court justice could 
make for the continuation of the death penalty, McCollum's innocence is an even 
stronger one for why we are incapable of justly administering a punishment of 
such finality.

Moving toward abolition

Rose is absolutely right, of course. If what was supposedly one of America's 
most potent symbols for retaining the death penalty has turned out to be a 
fraud, there is an especially powerful symbolism in its public demise. Perhaps 
that's 1 reason the story is receiving international attention - that plus the 
rank (and rankling) hypocrisy of a nation that purports to lecture the bullies 
of the world about human rights being found to have sanctioned such a debacle.

Sadly, even full exoneration will not bring back the 3 decades that McCollum 
and Brown have lost in this tragedy. As the Robesonian newspaper editorialized 
over the weekend:

But even if they walk free, there isn't much left for Leon Brown, now 46, and 
half-brother Henry McCollum, now 50, to reclaim beyond whatever satisfaction 
comes with the shedding of the labels rapist and murderer .... We don't know 
what [Judge] Sasser and perhaps [District Attorney] Britt will decide, but 
justice delayed is justice denied. It was long ago too late for McCollum and 
Brown.

Moreover, the issue remains terribly convoluted for the families of the victim 
as well. Advocates at the group Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation 
captured this truth in a statement Tuesday:

As a community of people who have had loved ones taken by murder, we at Murder 
Victims' Families for Reconciliation (MVFR) know the deep pain of senseless 
violence. We also know that, in many cases, the death penalty deepens, prolongs 
and complicates that pain.

When our judicial system punishes the wrong person, both the person convicted 
and the victim's family are denied justice. Imagine Sabrina Buie's family going 
through 30 years of appeals, seeing the accused killer's face in the paper 
again and again, waiting for an execution that never came. Imagine knowing that 
the man the state almost executed "in their name" was innocent. Imagine finding 
out that the person who actually committed this awful crime was never held 
accountable. As in so many cases, the death penalty has been nothing but a 
false promise for a family that has suffered way too much.

All that said; it is never too late for the truth to be told and injustice to 
be exposed - either with respect to the lives of wronged individuals or a 
system as a whole. Right now in North Carolina we are witnessing both of these 
phenomena in action. Let's hope the process continues to its logical conclusion 
- the complete and permanent abolition of the death penalty - as rapidly as 
possible.

(source: Rob Schofield is the Director of Research at N.C. Policy Watch; 
Jefferson Post)

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

Getting It Dead Wrong for 30 Years


According to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Henry Lee McCollum deserved 
to die for the brutal rape and murder of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie. There's just 
one problem, and a frequent one in death penalty cases: Henry Lee McCollum 
didn't do it.

Instead of tracking down the true killer, police and prosecutors went after 
Henry Lee McCollum and his half-brother Leon Brown, two intellectually disabled 
and innocent teenagers. While his mother wept in the hallway, not allowed to 
see her son, officers interrogated McCollum for 5 hours, ultimately coercing 
him to sign a confession they had written. In a trial without forensic evidence 
and plagued by racial bias, these 2 half-brothers with IQs in the 50s and 60s 
were sent to death row. Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown, whose sentence was 
later reduced to life in prison, have been behind bars for the last 30 years.

Last week, they were finally exonerated in another disturbing example of how 
deeply flawed the death penalty is, particularly for African-American men in 
the South.

Death penalty supporters have long cast Henry Lee McCollum as a mythic 
boogeyman. After North Carolinians passed the Racial Justice Act, a law 
outlawing racial bias in capital cases, opponents of the law mailed 
sensationalized fliers showing McCollum's mug shot, claiming it would lead to 
the release of convicted killers like him. Justice Scalia depicted McCollum as 
a strong argument against death penalty abolition because of the gruesomeness 
of Sabrina Buie's murder.

There is a perverse irony here. Henry McCollum, long invoked as an argument for 
the death penalty, is innocent. Instead of the ultimate threat, he represents 
the ultimate injustice: a government condemning an innocent man to die. 
McCollum is not a boogeyman. Rather he is a case study of everything wrong with 
a broken capital punishment system that has no place in this country.

In another cruel irony, McCollum's boogeyman status was successfully used to 
thwart the Racial Justice Act, which proved racial bias in four cases before it 
was repealed last year. And that's tragic because North Carolina and other 
southern states desperately need laws like these to protect the innocent from 
racial bias.

Southern states, like North Carolina, are the most likely to wrongfully convict 
and sentence innocent people to death. And in those states, black defendants 
bear the greatest burden of wrongful convictions. Of the 9 men wrongfully 
convicted and sentenced to death in North Carolina, 8 are men of color and 7 - 
including McCollum and his half-brother - are black.

Race showed up in McCollum's trial from the start. The trial prosecutors in 
McCollum's case deliberately and unconstitutionally struck multiple qualified 
black jurors from jury service. This is a common practice: statewide, 
prosecutors were more than twice as likely to strike qualified black jurors as 
all other jurors.

For years now, North Carolina prosecutors have known about the statistical 
evidence showing widespread bias in the way they pursue capital convictions. 
Rather than addressing the findings and changing their practices, they have 
fought the Racial Justice Act and tried to keep statistical evidence of racial 
bias out of court. These misplaced priorities further erode the capital 
punishment system's ability to produce accurate and just results, leading to 
errors that can never be erased.

North Carolina's legislators now need to take a close look at Henry Lee 
McCollum and Leon Brown and see how racial bias distorts and undermines the 
state's criminal justice system. 2 innocent men are now middle aged, leaving 
prison after being locked up since they were teenage boys. Sabrina Buie's loved 
ones have been strung along for 3 decades by police and prosecutors, believing 
2 innocent men took their little girl from them in a rural North Carolina 
soybean field. And a community's trust in the ability of its courts to produce 
a just outcome - accurate and untainted by racial bias - has been eroded.

After 3 decades of needless injustice, it is good to celebrate the fact that 
Henry McCollum and Leon Brown are going home. But the statistics tell us that 
there are many more like them, many who made it to death row only because of a 
broken and biased system. We need more protections, not fewer, to reduce the 
risk of wrongful convictions and eliminate racial bias. Ending the death 
penalty would be a good start.

(source: Cassandra Stubbs, Director, ACLU Capital Punishment Project)






GEORGIA:

Charges in hot car death are strong


Justin Ross Harris was indicted last week on 8 counts in the hot-car death of 
his 22-month-old son, Cooper. Harris could face the death penalty if 
prosecutors decide to seek it and he's convicted of the most serious charge.

However, the felony murder charge predicated on second-degree child neglect - 
which was the original charge at the probable cause hearing months ago - still 
poses the biggest threat to Harris' freedom. That, and, of course, the sexting 
charges, which will likely be the easiest to prove.

But make no mistake: That felony murder charge will be how the prosecution can 
convict Harris of his son's murder, even if the killing was unintentional, and, 
in Georgia, if the underlying felony was unintentional.

Each of the 8 counts plays a key strategic role in maximizing the state's 
chances of a conviction against Harris. Following is a breakdown of these 
carefully calculated charges. The brilliance of the strategy is in the details.

Murder in Georgia: Most states divide murder into degrees. Georgia does not. In 
Georgia, there's only 1 degree of murder, but with very different kinds of 
killings qualifying as murder.

In this case, 2 types of murder are alleged: 1) an intentional killing called 
"malice" murder, and 2) "felony murder," an enigmatic unintentional killing, 
that is still classified as murder because it is the result of an enumerated 
felony.

Even more complicated, in this case, two different subcategories of felony 
murder are alleged using child neglect crimes as the predicate felony. Any of 
these convictions carries a minimum life sentence, but only malice murder is 
eligible for the death penalty.

Count 1 -- malice murder: This is the murder with which we are all familiar. 
It's the kind committed in the Rue Morgue, or by Professor Plum with the 
candlestick in the billiard room; or any of the "Murders She Wrote." Film, 
literature and even our board games reflect our cultural assumptions about 
murder -- that it's an evil crime reserved for the most wicked intent. In 
Georgia, that's called malice murder, which is defined as a killing with 
"malice aforethought," or intent to kill.

There are 2 kinds of malice: express and implied. Express malice is that 
deliberate, manifested intention to end another's life. The reality is, 
however, that direct evidence of deliberate intent is a rarity. Defendants 
don't always volunteer: "I shot the sheriff."

It's quite the opposite. Nearly all defendants steadfastly maintain their 
innocence; they're more likely to deny shooting the deputy. That's why the law 
allows for malice to also be implied from the circumstances, as long as the 
defendant's behavior demonstrates an "abandoned and malignant heart."

Whether express or implied, to convict here the prosecution has a heavy burden 
to prove this mental element. That's why felony murder is a much more appealing 
and devastating weapon in the charging arsenal.

Counts 2 and 3 -- felony murder (which are predicated on counts 4 and 5, 
respectively): Felony murder is more of a legal fiction than it is traditional 
"murder." It is an unintentional killing, but one that happens during the 
commission of another crime.

The rationale is that if you commit an inherently dangerous felony, you accept 
the high possibility that a person will die during the act.

An example would be that if you were robbing a bank and 1 of your 
co-conspirators went crazy and shot a teller and a cop? Well, you'd be charged 
with felony murder, even though you didn't pull the trigger. You committed a 
felony, and a death resulted.

So, to prove felony murder, the prosecution need not prove intent to kill. It 
only need prove: 1) commission of the underlying felony and 2) a resulting 
death.

Count 2 is felony murder based upon count 4: intentional child neglect. So, if 
the defendant acted intending to cause his child cruel and excessive physical 
pain, and death resulted, he has committed felony "murder" under count 2.

Still the most problematic for this defendant, however, is count 3, which is 
the original charge from the preliminary/probable cause hearing. This is felony 
murder predicated on another felony, count 5, 2nd degree child cruelty. But, 
instead of having to prove the defendant intentionally caused excessive 
physical pain (1st degree), the prosecution here need only prove that he caused 
pain with criminal negligence (second degree), even if it was unintentional.

The traditional felonies eligible for felony murder were intentional crimes: 
burglary, arson, rape, robbery and kidnapping.

To allow felony murder for an accident seems inconsistent, but Georgia courts 
hold that this crime of criminal negligence can be the predicate crime for 
felony murder. That's right: In Georgia, you can be convicted of murder -- 
society's most heinous crime -- for your unintentional negligence.

Count 6 -- criminal attempt: As a society, we punish not only completed crimes 
but also attempts to commit crimes. It makes sense: suppose a bank robber trips 
and breaks his leg on his way into the bank with his Glock and his President 
Nixon mask. He is then arrested without even entering the bank to rob it.

We all agree that he cannot escape punishment simply because he's unsuccessful 
at robbing banks. At the same time, if the would-be robber simply fills up his 
gas on the way to buy a Glock and a Nixon mask, so he can rob a bank in the 
future, has he "attempted" a robbery yet? Where's the line?

To the courts, as long as whatever the defendant does is a "substantial step," 
then he's guilty of attempt. Here, the attempt is connected not to the death of 
his child but rather to the alleged sexual exploitation of another minor -- the 
target of the text messaging.

Counts 7 and 8 -- dissemination of harmful material to minors: To many, these 
charges seem like they are tacked on, but they are anything but. In fact, they 
are devastating to the defendant tactically. Here's why:

Harris is now additionally charged with knowingly disseminating and furnishing 
to a minor female sexually explicit printed matter and photographs -- or, as 
the detective testified at the preliminary hearing: sexting. The Cobb County 
detective testified that while Cooper was in the car, Harris sent a photo of 
his erect penis to an underage girl and was sexting with several women.

At that hearing, the defendant had a strong argument that the sexting was 
improper character evidence (generally not admissible to prove criminality), 
and more, that evidence that Harris was a creep was not admissible on the 
neglect or murder charges.

But watch what happens now that he's been indicted on these charges: evidence 
supporting the sexting charges is now relevant. That evidence will at a minimum 
cause a jury to dislike Harris. At worst, it will be viewed as motive to be rid 
of his child.

Second, of all the charges, these are arguably the easiest to prove, thanks to 
technology. Did phone 1 send something to phone 2? Was that something 
considered "harmful material"? Was a recipient a minor? Most of those elements 
can be established with phone records and a birth certificate. As for the 
"harmful material," so far, if the allegations are true, it sounds like it 
could fit.

Ultimately, this is hardly a scatter-shot indictment. Each charge plays a vital 
role, but the most potentially damaging is still the same charge from the 
preliminary hearing: the felony murder based upon the 2nd-degree criminal 
neglect.

After all, whether you condemn this defendant or sympathize with him, there is 
a preliminary consensus that at minimum he did something tragically and 
massively careless. And under modern law, that is apparently what we call 
"murder."

(source: CNN)






ALABAMA:

Prosecutors seeking death for man in killing of 91-year-old neighbor must cite 
reasons


Prosecutors have to spell out their reasons for seeking the death penalty in 
the case of a Huntsville man charged with strangling his 91???year-old neighbor 
in August 2011, a Madison County judge has ruled.

Madison County Circuit Judge Bill Bell last week granted a defense request 
which will require the Madison County District Attorney's office to disclose 
within 30 days the "aggravating circumstances" they will cite in seeking the 
death penalty for John Clayton Owens.

Bell also denied a motion by Owens' attorneys Brian Clark and Ron Smith to 
throw out the capital murder indictment. The defense had argued the indictment 
should be dismissed because it didn't include the aggravators alleged against 
Owens.

He is charged with burglarizing the Bide-A-Wee Drive home of Doris Richardson 
and strangling her to death. Owens lived with his uncle in the house next door 
to Richardson's and he sometimes mowed her lawn. Her body was found on Aug. 26, 
2011.

During Owens' November 2011 preliminary hearing a Huntsville Police Department 
investigator testified Owens admitted burglarizing the home, but denied killing 
his elderly neighbor.

Capital murder trials in Alabama have two phases, the guilt or innocence phase 
and, if the defendant is convicted, a penalty phase. There are only 2 possible 
sentences, life without parole or the death penalty. In cases where the 
prosecution is seeking the death penalty it argues that aggravating factors in 
the crime mean the death penalty is appropriate.

The defense present s mitigating factors in an effort to persuade jurors 
against a death sentence and the jury is then asked to recommend a sentence.

The jury's recommendation is considered as part of the sentencing but the 
decision on life or death is up to the trial judge.

The defense has argued the Owens indictment only lists 1 aggravator - that the 
killing occurred during a burglary - but state law has many more other possible 
aggravating factors and the prosecution is likely to cite more than 1 of those 
aggravators in seeking the death penalty.

Aggravators listed under Alabama Code section 13A-5-49, include, the murder 
was: especially cruel; committed by someone for financial gain; created a risk 
of death to more than 1 person; 1 in a series of killings; done to disrupt 
enforcement of the law; committed to effect an escape or avoid arrest; 
committed by a person already under a sentence for a different offense.

Alabama law also includes mitigating factors in section 13A-5-51 that can be 
cited during the sentencing phase and used to argue against the death penalty.

Those mitigating factors include: no significant history of criminal activity, 
the defendant was under extreme mental or emotional duress, the victim was a 
participant in the defendant's conduct, the defendant was an accomplice, the 
defendant was dominated by another person or the defendant's ability to 
appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions was substantially impaired.

A defendant's age can also be considered as a possible mitigating factor, under 
the law.

The case is being prosecuted by Madison County Assistant District Attorney Bill 
Starnes.

The trial is set to begin Nov. 3

(source: al.com)






OHIO:

Jury considers death penalty


By mid-afternoon Tuesday, Judge Gregory Singer was in the process of holding a 
hearing in the sentencing phase of the murder trial of Anthony Stargell, Jr., 
23, of Dayton, who was found guilty of all charges including 3 counts of 
aggravated murder last week in the death of former Scioto County resident Tommy 
Nickles in April of 2012.

The jury was directed to return one of four possible sentences - the death 
penalty; life without the possibility of parole; life without the chance of 
parole for 25 years, or life without the chance of parole for 30 years.

On Tuesday, attorneys for both sides gave opening statements dealing with 
mitigating factors as opposed to aggravating circumstances in determining 
whether to return the death penalty.

During the trial, a surveillance video reportedly showed Stargell shooting 
Nickles, who operated Quality One Electric, in Dayton. Stargell was convicted 
of shooting Nickles and his dog Rusty and attempting to set fire to the 
business. He was additionally found guilty of stealing Nickles' van and taking 
surveillance equipment from the business.

Stargell's attorney utilized self defense in the trial saying Stargell believed 
Nickles was reaching in his desk for a gun when he fired the shots.

(source: Portsmouth Daily Times)

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

Man Accused Of Killing 4 In Bucyrus Could Face The Death Penalty


A man accused of killing four people in Bucyrus has been indicted on 21 counts.

Donald Hoffman, 41, could now face the death penalty.

The Marion Star says Hoffman faces aggravated murder charges in the deaths of 
Billy Jack Chatman, Freelin Hensley, Darrell E. Lewis, and Gerald Lee Smith.

"The nature and the seriousness of the charges leaves little other choice other 
than to seek the death penalty," Crawford County Prosecutor Matthew Crall told 
the newspaper.

Crall said there are 2 murder charges per victim. 1 is for taking the life of a 
victim, and the other is committing a felony in which someone ends up dead.

Other charges against Hoffman include 4 counts of aggravated robbery, 4 counts 
of kidnapping, 4 counts of felonious assault, and 1 count of abuse of a corpse.

Hoffman is being held on a $10 million bond.

(source: 10tv news)