[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., S.C., GA., OHIO, COLO.

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 4



NORTH CAROLINA:

Robert Jason Owens Could Face Death Penalty if Convicted


The man charged in the murders of a Buncombe County couple and their unborn 
child will face the death penalty if convicted.

Robert Jason Owens, 37, appeared in superior court Monday afternoon, where he 
learned that his is now a capital case.

Owens is charged with killing Cristie and JT Codd and their unborn child. They 
went missing in March, and burned human remains were found on his property 
nearby.

In addition to 2 counts of 1st-degree murder, Owens is charged with 2 counts of 
robbery with a dangerous weapon, 2 counts of dismembering human remains and 
murder of an unborn child.

District Attorney Todd Williams requested this hearing to formally notify the 
court he will seek the death penalty.

Williams pointed to what are known as aggravators, including multiple deaths 
and charges of armed robbery.

"The state would contend that a separate aggravated factor exists in these 
cases that one or both murders were committed during a course of conduct in 
which the defendant engaged in other crimes of violence," Williams said.

This hearing was pretty much a formality; the judge making sure Owens is 
represented by 2 attorneys, a requirement in capital cases.

Owens' next scheduled day in court is Nov. 2.

Unlike previous court appearances, no family members attended the proceeding.

There are 10 convicted murderers from Buncombe County who were sentenced in the 
last 25 years and are still sitting on state and federal death rows.

The last person put to death from Buncombe County was convicted murderer Zane 
Hill in 1998 who killed his son. He was put to death by lethal injection.

In 2004 Charles Wesley Roach was put to death for the mass slayings of a 
Haywood County family.

(source: WLOS news)






SOUTH CAROLINA:

New director of Death Penalty Resource and Defense Center aims to focus on 
justice


The 1st mission for the new leader of Columbia's Death Penalty Resource and 
Defense Center is to make people aware of what her organization does and does 
not do.

"It's not about abolition of the death penalty or anything like that," said 
Mandy Medlock, the center's newly hired and 1st ever executive director. "It's 
about justice. If the death penalty is a part of the law here in South 
Carolina, we want to make sure it's applied judiciously."

South Carolina is 1 of 31 U.S. states that still has the death penalty, and 
research by the Death Penalty Resource and Defense Center and Amnesty 
International finds the application of the penalty anything but even-handed.

"Arbitrary is a good word," Medlock said. She pointed out that statistics seem 
to indicate racial and gender biases. South Carolina currently has 45 men and 
no women on death row. Of those men, 26 are black. Those 26 make up 58 % of the 
death row population, though only 28 % of South Carolina's
total population is black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. South
Carolina courts have sentenced 181 people to death since 1977, and 146 of those 
181 were sentenced for the murder of a white person.

"We want to be part of the solution to that problem," Medlock said.

Conversation about the death penalty has come to the forefront in South 
Carolina with high-profile cases like those of Timothy Ray Jones and Dylann 
Roof. In Roof's case, Gov. Nikki Haley publicly called for the death penalty. 
Medlock said that conversation is a good thing.

"I think what we want to do is bring it to the forefront that this is a 
relevant issue. So many people don't think about it," she said.

The possibility of mental illness has been the subject of public speculation in 
the Jones and Roof cases. Medlock said she could not comment on the mental 
state of those defendants, but she said mental illness is often an issue in 
death penalty cases.

According to a 2014 study conducted by the Death Penalty Resource and Defense 
Center, 70 % of the men currently on death row in South Carolina suffer from 
serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and 
post-traumatic stress disorder.

"So many people on death row also have a recurring mental disorder or addiction 
or something like that that has led them to commit that crime or to not ever 
have had adequate treatment or diagnosis, and that's terrifying," said Medlock, 
who previously worked for the National Association on Mental Illness. "Just as 
a human, how do you decide if someone's mentally ill enough to live or die?"

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that people with intellectual disabilities 
cannot be executed, but that exemption does not apply to the mentally ill.

"That's the next big piece of advocacy around the country," said Columbia 
attorney Lindsey Vann. "The reason you won't execute somebody who has 
intellectual disability is because they don't have the mental capacity to be as 
culpable as other people who commit crimes. The theory is that people with 
serious mental illnesses in the same way cannot really control what they're 
doing, or they are not as culpable because of the things that are going on with 
their mental illness." Vann said another element of the unpredictable nature of 
the death penalty in South Carolina is that much depends on where the crime is 
committed.

"It depends on which county you're in," Vann said. "Richland County almost 
never seeks the death penalty. Donnie Myers, the solicitor in Lexington County, 
seeks it more often than any other solicitor in the state." Myers, solicitor 
for the Eleventh Circuit (which includes Lexington County) since 1976, has 
sought the death penalty 40 times, getting it 34 times, according to state 
court records. Only 1 of the 45 men currently on death row was sentenced in 
Richland County, while 4 were sentenced in Lexington County.

The Death Penalty Resource and Defense Center works to raise awareness of the 
current inequities regarding the death penalty, as well as supplying resources 
for lawyers, sometimes public defenders, handling death penalty cases.

Medlock in her role as executive director will work to "raise awareness of the 
total mission of our group," which also includes advocating with legislators. 
The group opposed a proposal that would have made secret the chemicals used for 
lethal injection and the cost of those chemicals. "I think the secrecy bill is 
bizarre," Medlock said, adding that she thinks the process should be 
transparent. She said she expects more attempts to pass that bill, and other 
issues at the State House connected to the death penalty.

"They're going to [reintroduce] a bill for the firing squad in South Carolina, 
so we'll be talking about that," she said.

Medlock emphasized that the center's mission is justice for all and that she 
and her coworkers see the current death penalty system as unjust.

"We're not doing it fairly. We're not doing it timely," Medlock said. "We're 
not doing it in a cost-effective way, and some people are concerned about 
that."

(source: coladaily.com)






GEORGIA:

DA seeks death penalty against man accused of killing Fulton cop


Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a man charged with murdering a 
Fulton County police officer, District Attorney Paul Howard announced Monday.

Prosecutors filed notice Monday to seek execution of Amanuel Menghesha, 32, in 
the death of Det. Terrence Avery Green on March 4, said Yvette Jones, 
spokeswoman for Howard's office.

Green was on duty when he was killed in what police officials characterized as 
an ambush-style attack. He was 48.

The shooting happened an hour after midnight as Green and 6 other officers 
began searching The Parks of Cedar Grove subdivision in south Fulton for a man 
who was reported firing shots inside a home, police said.

The officers were immediately fired upon, and Green was shot in the back of the 
head while running for cover, according to Channel 2 Action News.

Menghesha faces a 29-count indictment on charges that include murder and 
aggravated assault on a peace officer. He is accused of opening fire with an 
AK-47 rifle.

Green's parents were shocked at how calm Menghesha appeared in court when he 
heard the news Monday, Channel 2 reported.

"He didn't have any emotions at all," said his mother Bertha Green. "He acted 
like he didn't even care or hear. No emotions period and he just stood there."

(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)






OHIO:

Judge rules Barberton triple-murder suspect mentally unfit for death penalty


1of 2 brothers accused of killing 3 people and shooting a 4th during a home 
invasion robbery in Barberton is mentally unfit for the death penalty, a judge 
ruled on Monday.

Michael Hendon, 23, of Akron, still faces aggravated murder charges in the Dec. 
31, 2013 attack. Summit County Judge Amy Corrigal Jones ruled that Hendon 
mental disabilities barred him from being executed under state and federal 
laws.

Hendon is scheduled for a court hearing Tuesday to determine how the case will 
proceed.

Hendon and his brother, Eric Hendon, 32, are accused of breaking into a 7th 
Street S.W. home in order to steal drugs and money, according to police.

They fatally shot Ashley Carpenter, 18, her brother, David Kohler-Carpenter, 
14, and their father, John Kohler, 42, according to prosecutors. Kohler's 
girlfriend, Ronda Blankenship, was also shot but survived.

Eric Hendon could still face the death penalty if he's convicted.

Corrigal Jones, in her 31-page ruling, ruled that Michael Hendon showed a 
pattern of intellectual disability throughout his life.

He was born addicted to crack cocaine and his mother abused alcohol while 
pregnant with him. Defense expert Dr. Galit Askenazi testified that Hendon's 
intellectual disabilities are consistent with others who were born under 
similar circumstances.

Michael Hendon was first diagnosed with an intellectual disability at age 8. He 
read at a 3rd grade level at age 15. He also scored between 68 and 71 on 5 IQ 
tests between 2000 and 2015.

He scored an 86 on 1 test in 2013 while at Life Skills charter school. Corrigal 
Jones noted that IQ test did not take into account adaptive functioning skills 
that accompany typical IQ tests, which could have skewed the final result.

Corrigal Jones found he also showed a consistent inability to perform basic 
life tasks for his age and was unable to live independently, another aspect in 
arguing if a person is mentally unfit for execution.

(source: cleveland.com)






COLORADO:

What it's like to be on a death penalty jury


6 years after choosing death for Robert Ray, the foreman for the jury still 
hangs onto his juror packet.

"It's very difficult, it's very isolating," Carl said. 9NEWS has agreed not to 
release his last name.

Carl and 11 others decided in 2009 that Ray should be executed for ordering the 
2005 murder of Javad Marshall Fields.

Fields was one of the only witnesses to another murder in which Ray was a 
suspect.

He was gunned down, as was his fiancee, Vivian Wolfe.

"We knew we were going to offend about half the people in the case, no matter 
what we did," Carl said.

"There were times when I was in the middle of what seemed like an impossible 
situation, an impossible decision, where it kind of felt like God was saying to 
me 'How do you like doing my job?'"

The trial lasted 10 weeks. Time moved slowly.

"I think the hardest part for me to is just trying to balance this idea of 
mercy and judgment, and how impossible a task that is," he said. "We spent a 
long time discussing thinks like 'are we going to give this person more 
notoriety? Like is that what he wants?'"

For Carl, the only choice was death.

"When the decision was read, I was stunned at how quiet it was, and I didn't 
really know what to do with myself, so I just kind of looked down," he said.

The tears of the victims' families brought some comfort.

"They all told me how much they appreciated what we did, and thanked me for 
what we had done," Carl said.

Carl said even after so much time, the weight of the decision lingers.

"I don't think I processed what happened that day until much later, and maybe I 
still am," he said.

Making it more difficult, Carl said defense attorneys still show up at his home 
from time to time, unannounced, looking for new angles.

Carl is involved with the Fields Wolfe Memorial Fund, an organization dedicated 
to witness protection.

Robert Ray is 1 of 3 people sitting on Colorado's death row. The man convicted 
in the Aurora theater shooting could become the 4th.

(source: KUSA news)