[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., GA., FLA., LA., MO., OKLA., NEB., COLO.

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 11



TEXAS:

Texas man accused of killing 8 formally charged in Houston court


The Texas man accused of killing 8 people, including his son and an 
ex-girlfriend, during the weekend in a Houston-area home was formally charged 
on Monday with 3 counts of capital murder, a crime punishable by death.

District Attorney Devon Anderson said her staff will take 3 to 4 months to 
decide whether to seek the death penalty for David Conley but added, "At this 
point, it's a no-brainer."

Conley, 48, wearing a yellow Harris County Jail uniform and with his hands 
cuffed in front of him for his court appearance, quietly answered "yes" when 
asked to confirm his identity at a hearing.

Assistant District Attorney Alycia Harvey said Conley, who does not yet have an 
attorney, has made a statement to authorities about his relationship to the 
victims, who included 2 adults and 6 children between the ages of 6 and 13.

She said the dead included Conley's son, Nathaniel Conley, 13, and the boy's 
mother, Valerie Jackson. Conley was outraged that Jackson had changed the locks 
on her home, preventing him from getting inside, prosecutors said.

Each of the 3 counts of capital murder can cover multiple offenses.

Conley slipped into the home through a window, tied up 8 people - Jackson, her 
husband, and the 6 children - and shot them all in the head, according to the 
indictment.

After a standoff with sheriff's deputies who went to the house after a relative 
of one of the victims asked for a check on the family's welfare, the suspect 
opened fire on officers when they entered the home.

Conley, who has a long history of violent crimes, was ordered held without bond 
at a hearing Sunday and will remain in the Harris County Jail.

In addition to Nathaniel Conley, authorities identified the slain children as 
Honesty Jackson, 11, Dwayne Jackson, 10, Caleb Jackson, 9, Trinity Jackson, 7, 
and Jonah Jackson, 6.

(source: Reuters)






NORTH CAROLINA:

The conservative conscience of Beverly Lake and the NC death penalty


As someone who has spent a lifetime fighting on behalf of condemned defendants, 
I never imagined I would sing the praises of a man who, as a legislator, fought 
passionately for the death penalty. Who, as a trial judge, seemed to possess a 
blind faith in our justice system, even as it caused irreparable harm to the 
poor and mentally ill. Who refused to repudiate the views of his father, a 
prominent segregationist who called Martin Luther King Jr. a "man of deplorable 
character."

Today, however, all I can think is how much better off North Carolina would be 
if our legislators followed the example of I. Beverly Lake, the former 
Republican chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, who crossed 
ideological lines to create the N.C. Actual Innocence Commission.

Lake is the subject of a profile by the Marshall Project detailing his 
courageous efforts to bring about reforms that made our state a national leader 
in preventing and remedying wrongful convictions.

One result of Lake's efforts was the Innocence Inquiry Commission, a 
1st-of-its-kind state agency with subpoena power that works to root out 
innocent people in North Carolina's prisons. In September, that commission 
proved the innocence of Henry McCollum, the state's longest-serving death row 
inmate, and his half-brother, Leon Brown. The men spent 30 years wrongly 
imprisoned.

Freeing innocent people from prison, however, was only one of the Lake's 
achievements. His Actual Innocence Commission crafted the nation's first 
guidelines for preserving DNA evidence and allowing defendants access to it and 
the nation's 1st standards for conducting police lineups in ways that 
discouraged false identifications. It also suggested the law requiring all 
confessions to be videotaped - a reform that might have helped Henry McCollum 
had it been in place when he was coerced into confessing to a rape and murder 
he did not commit.

In retrospect, these reforms all sound like common sense. But, at the time, 
they were controversial and difficult steps that could have been taken only by 
a man like Lake, who had conservative law-and-order credentials and was brave 
enough to alienate part of his base to do what was right.

Lake convened his 1st meeting about the commission in 2002, after the 
exoneration of Ronald Cotton, who spent 10 years in prison for rape before 
being exonerated by DNA testing. Lake invited judges, prosecutors, victims' 
rights advocates and law enforcement, as well as those who had traditionally 
been considered their enemies: defense attorneys and liberal law professors.

The Marshall Project writes: The reaction to Lake's out-of-the-blue invitation 
was mixed. Some conservatives were hurt, even stunned, by what they saw as an 
out-of-character attempt to "go back on my values and start over fighting for 
the bad guys, the criminals," as Lake puts it. "I got letters from longtime 
friends saying, 'You've lost your mind, Bev,'" he says. "Some of them haven't 
spoken to me ever since."

However, many people did show up. Lake forced the opposing sides to sit 
together until they had come up with a plan to protect the rights of the 
wrongly accused.

Our legislators remained mostly silent on the case, aside from then-House 
Speaker Thom Tillis' bewildering comment that the case was proof that "the 
process worked." Ask McCollum and Brown how well they think the process worked. 
Or ask taxpayers, who will pay $1.5 million to "compensate" McCollum and Brown 
for their wrongful convictions.

Contrast this legacy with the one our Republican lawmakers are now building. 
Last September, they watched as North Carolina made international news with the 
exonerations of McCollum and Brown, who were poor, intellectually disabled 
teenagers when they were stolen from their homes in rural Robeson County, 
coerced into confessing to a grisly murder they had nothing to do with and 
thrown in prison for most of their adult lives.

In the 11 months since the exonerations, lawmakers have not proposed a single 
law that would help determine whether there are more innocent people on North 
Carolina's death row. More than 2/3 of the 148 people on death row were tried, 
like McCollum and Brown, before Lake's reforms went into effect.

Instead, our legislators say the problem with the death penalty is that we 
aren't executing people quickly enough. This summer, Republicans pushed through 
a law they hope will restart executions after a nine-year hiatus. The new law 
aims to remove roadblocks to executions, such as the requirement that a doctor 
be present (no doctors were willing to do it) and the requirement that the 
execution protocol be subject to public scrutiny. The law also makes the 
sources of execution drugs a secret, in hopes of thwarting protesters who might 
target drug suppliers.

Proponents of this law blindly support the death penalty, while ignoring 
glaring injustices that are likely to result in the execution of innocent 
people. This is not what real leadership looks like.

Leadership was Justice Lake, allowing himself to feel the enormous injustice of 
an innocent man imprisoned for a decade. It was Lake being willing to question 
the values he'd been taught, willing to sit down with people from the opposing 
side, willing to take steps that weren't always popular.

Even today, at 81, Lake is still re-examining his views and moving toward 
justice. While he refused to take on the unfairness of the death penalty as 
part of the work of the Actual Innocence Commission, he now says he sees that 
the justice system is fundamentally unfair for poor and disadvantaged 
defendants and questions whether the death penalty should exist.

He said in one recent interview, "There's always a chance we might execute an 
innocent person."

(source: Op-Ed; Gretchen Engel is the executive director of the Durham-based 
Center for Death Penalty Litigation----The News & Observer)






GEORGIA:

Judge dismisses Georgia death row inmate's lawsuit filed in the wake of 
execution drug problem


A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Georgia death row inmate 
that claimed the state violated her constitutional rights by subjecting her to 
cruel and unusual punishment.

Kelly Gissendaner was scheduled for execution at 7 p.m. March 2. Corrections 
officials told reporters about 11 p.m. that they were postponing the execution 
"out of an abundance of caution" because the lethal injection drug appeared 
"cloudy."

Corrections officials announced the next day that they would temporarily 
suspend executions until they could analyze the drug.

Gissendaner filed a complaint a week later saying she had suffered 13 hours of 
anxiety before that announcement, not knowing whether the state would proceed 
with her execution and what drugs it might use.

The judge Monday dismissed the complaint.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Forsyth mother pleads not guilty after child's death


A Forsyth mother accused of being involved in the death of her 5-year-old 
daughter plead not guilty in a courtroom on Thursday.

District Attorney Richard Milam is seeking the death penalty against Amanda 
Hendrickson. Her daughter's, Heaven Woods, body was discovered at home 
Hendrickson and her boyfriend, Roderick Buckner, lived at on Brookwood Drive in 
Forsyth in 2014.

Medical examiners determined Woods died from a blow to the stomach and they 
also discovered several other injuries around her body.

Buckner was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after 
pleading guilty to Woods' death.

Milam tells 41NBC the next time Hendrickson will appear in court is scheduled 
for December 21st.

(source: NBC news)






FLORIDA:

Man accused of killing Orange County teen rejects plea deal


An Orange County man accused of beating his girlfriend's daughter to death 
returned to court Monday to decide on a plea deal that would spare him from the 
death penalty.

Sanel Saint Simon rejected the plea deal Monday morning that would imprison him 
for life and eliminate the possibility of facing the death penalty.

Saint Simon, 44, is accused of killing Alexandria Chery, his live-in 
girlfriend's 16-year-old daughter. Investigators said he beat the teenager to 
death in her home in July 2014 and then borrowed his uncle's car to dump her 
body in a wooded area near the Osceola-Polk County line.

"He is rejecting the offer," Saint Simon's defense attorney said in court. "We 
are going to trial."

Orange County Circuit Judge Renee Roche questioned Saint Simon extensively 
about his decision, reminding him it was irreversible.

"You also understand that this is the deadline for you to accept or reject the 
state's offer of life in prison, right?" Roche said.

Through a Haitian Creole interpreter, Saint Simon reiterated his rejection of 
the plea deal, which was first offered to him in July.

Rosalie Joseph, the slain teenager's mother, was present for Saint Simon's 
court appearance.

Joseph was seen crying, and at times, she appeared to glare at her ex-boyfriend 
with contempt.

If convicted, Saint Simon could face the death penalty. His trial is scheduled 
to begin March 16, 2016.

(source: WFTV news)






LOUISIANA----new death sentence

Death sentence imposed Monday against 25-year-old convicted of killing 2 
CarQuest workers in 2011


A Baton Rouge state judge Monday followed a jury's unanimous recommendation and 
sentenced Lee Turner Jr. to die by lethal injection for fatally shooting 2 
CarQuest Auto Parts workers during a 2011 robbery of the store on Airline 
Highway near Siegen Lane.

Turner, 25, said nothing before 19th Judicial District Judge Richard Anderson 
formally condemned him to death for the killing of Edward "Eddie" Gurtner III, 
43, of Denham Springs, and Randy Chaney, 55, of Greenwell Springs, on March 27, 
2011.

Turner, formerly of New Orleans, was living in Baton Rouge and working at 
another CarQuest store in the city at the time of the slayings. He was 21 at 
the time. The company had hired him 11 days before that tragic day.

"I'm glad it's over. I'm glad our justice system is still working," Gurtner's 
wife, Elizabeth Gurtner, said outside Anderson's courtroom.

"This today for me ends it," she added, noting that Turner likely won't die in 
her lifetime.

Edward Gurtner managed the CarQuest where the murders took place. Chaney was 
the assistant manager of a different CarQuest location and was helping out at 
the Airline Highway store that day.

Also Monday, Anderson denied a defense motion for a new trial that was filed 
Friday.

Caroline Tillman, one of Turner's new attorneys with the Capital Appeals 
Project in New Orleans, complained in court Monday that 20 prospective jurors 
were excused from the case based on their religious beliefs and opposition to 
the death penalty.

Tillman also argued that blacks were systematically excluded from the jury 
pool, a charge that East Baton Rouge Parish First Assistant District Attorney 
Tracey Barbera, who prosecuted Turner, vehemently denied. Barbera said she 
found the accusation that she discriminated against potential jurors on the 
basis of their race offensive and unfounded.

Barbera stressed that Turner finds himself on death row because of the 
"premeditated nature of these crimes for monetary gain."

Tillman declined to speak after the sentencing hearing.

The jury that convicted Turner on May 4 on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder 
recommended May 8 that he should be executed for his crimes.

Gurtner was shot 12 times. Chaney was shot once in the back of the head.

Turner confessed the day after the killings after initially denying any 
involvement. Turner said he shot Chaney first, then Gurtner after forcing him 
to open the store safe.

Detectives found bank bags and CarQuest deposit slips in a garbage can outside 
the Ritterman Avenue home where Turner stayed with his uncle.

(source: The Advocate)

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

Lee Turner Jr. sentenced to death for CarQuest murders in Baton Rouge, TV 
station reports


Lee Turner Jr., convicted in the murders of 2 co-workers at a CarQuest auto 
parts store in Baton Rouge in 2011, was officially sentenced by a judge Monday 
to die by lethal injection, according to WAFB.

In May, a jury convicted Turner and determined that he should receive the death 
penalty, but it wasn't made official until the judge's sentencing on Monday 
(Aug. 10).

Turner killed Edward Gurtner, 43, and Randy Chaney, 54, on March 27, 2011, 
during the course of an armed robbery at the store on Airline Highway.

(source: nola.com)



MISSOURI----new execution date

Court sets execution date


The Missouri Supreme Court issued a warrant of execution Monday for Kimber 
Edwards, convicted in 2002 of 1st degree murder in the 1990 death of his 
ex-wife.

The Court's warrant orders that Edwards be put to death in the 24-hour period 
beginning at 6:00 p.m. October 6.

Edwards was convicted of hiring a man to kill his ex-wife, Kimberly Cantrell, 
who he owed more than a year of child support to, and with helping commit the 
murder. Cantrell was discovered by an aunt in her St. Louis home, shot twice in 
the head at close range.

(source: connectmidmissouri.com)






OKLAHOMA----impending execution

Family of condemned man 'losing hope'


In light of the June 29 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing the state of 
Oklahoma to continue executing death row inmates, supporters of Galesburg 
native Richard Glossip have spoken out in defense of the next man sentenced to 
die in the Sooner State.

Donald Knight, a Colorado attorney championing Glossip's innocence in the 1997 
murder of Oklahoma motel owner Barry Van Treese, said the chances of canceling 
the upcoming execution are "pretty slim."

"The governor came right out and said (Glossip) has already had his trial and 
the legal system has worked its way out," Knight told The Register-Mail on 
Tuesday. "I would say there's a very, very big possibility he will be executed 
on Sept. 16 unless somebody comes forward with something. He does not deserve 
this; this is crazy."

Knight was recruited to help launch a new defense for Glossip by Sister Helen 
Prejean, Glossip's spiritual adviser and author of "Dead Man Walking," a book 
criticizing the immorality of the death penalty.

In Galesburg, Felicia Glossip, niece of Richard Glossip, said she is trying to 
remain positive, but as the eleventh hour approaches, finds her optimism 
slipping.

"Nobody is going to listen," Felicia Glossip said. "He's had trial after trial 
and has been found guilty. We're losing hope and we don't want to. There's 
nothing more anyone can do."

After being found guilty in 1998, Glossip was retried due to supposed 
incompetence of his public defender. In 2004, Glossip was again found guilty. 
His niece blames this on the Oklahoma legal system's refusal to listen to 
reason.

A news release from the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty 
described evidence against Glossip as "paper thin," stating a team of lawyers 
has volunteered to work for the death row inmate in finding evidence that may 
exonerate him.

The best evidence, Knight said, would come from the man who admitted to 
murdering Van Treese, the Oklahoma City motel owner whose death Glossip is 
implicated in.

Justin Sneed testified that Glossip had paid him $10,000 to kill Van Treese, 
Glossip's boss. Using a master key given to him by Glossip, Sneed said he 
entered Room 102 at the Oklahoma City Best Budget Inn and bludgeoned Van Treese 
to death with a baseball bat.

In exchange for his testimony, Sneed was sentenced to life in prison.

"If he were to come forward and say, 'look, I haven't been honest,' that would 
be possibly the best," Knight said. "But, even that might not be enough. It 
depends on how he put it, what words he used, what explanations he had, how 
believable he was this time."

The case's shoddy investigative work began with the police, Knight explained. 
Because Glossip knew about the murder but didn't say anything early on, 
officers were instantly suspicious.

The state of Oklahoma alleged Glossip was afraid he would lose his job, citing 
statements made by Van Treese's wife about some $6,100 in shortages at the 
motel. According to her testimony, Van Treese intended to ask Glossip about the 
missing money before the murder.

However, the only evidence directly connecting Glossip to the 1997 incident was 
Sneed's testimony - which Knight was quick to point out came from the mouth of 
a man in fear for his own life.

"Justin was afraid at the time; he knew Oklahoma had the death penalty and he 
knew this could result in the death penalty," Knight said. "And so Justin said, 
'OK, fine, Richard did it, too.' And Justin took a plea and got out of it."

The crux of the argument to save Gossip's life hangs on the belief that not 
enough evidence exists to warrant the death penalty.

"It's sad. I'm losing an uncle," Felicia Glossip said. "I wish it wasn'y 
happening this way. We will probably all be together that day, the family 
that's here, and grieve in our own way."

While talking about her uncle, she recalled playing in the yard of Glossip's 
mother's house on West Street.

"It's going to be a hard day for us," Felicia Glossip said. "We're so far from 
Oklahoma and I wouldn't want to see him in that room when it happens. I want 
the memories that I have and I will hold on to those."

"Only way we possibly have a chance to get back to court is some evidence of 
innocence," Knight said. "Without that we have nothing."

(source: The Register-Mail)

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

see: ttp://petitions.moveon.org/sign/governor-fallin-grant

(source: MoveOn.org)






NEBRASKA:

Former Gov. Heineman says state never gave up on the death penalty


Former Gov. Dave Heineman rejected the contention that Nebraska put the brakes 
on the death penalty during the last years of his administration.

In an article in Sunday's World-Herald, Kirk Brown, the longtime capital 
punishment specialist in the Nebraska Attorney General's Office, said he was 
told 4 years ago to not pursue changing the state's lethal injection protocol, 
a change that could have restored the state's ability to carry out the death 
penalty.

That decision, Brown said, effectively put a hold on executions in Nebraska.

But in a Monday email to The World-Herald, Heineman said his administration 
never let up on the issue.

The former governor, who left office in January, said that capital punishment 
has been "complicated by constant legal challenges, the availability of the 
drugs necessary for an execution and the expiration of those drugs before being 
used."

"The attorney general and I talked several times about changing the protocol," 
Heineman wrote, "but moving forward was complicated by the ongoing legal 
challenges and the Department of Corrections' sentencing problems."

"I strongly support the death penalty, and we worked closely with the Attorney 
General's Office to try to carry out death sentences," he wrote.

Brown, who retired a year ago, said he believed the order to not pursue a new 
lethal injection protocol came from the governor's office, but he said he had 
no idea why that decision was made.

Because the state had no ability to carry out a death sentence, the attorney 
said the state could not ask for execution dates for those on death row, thus 
putting in limbo their legally imposed sentences.

"I was in charge of a death penalty that wasn't going anywhere," Brown said.

Heineman did not return messages left last week seeking comment on the 
assertions by Brown, who served as the state's top capital punishment lawyer 
for more than 30 years and has lectured nationally on the issue. Sunday's story 
incorrectly stated that Heineman declined to comment.

Heineman also did not respond to requests for an interview on Monday. In his 
email, Heineman said he talked to former Attorney General Jon Bruning, Brown's 
former boss, and was told Brown was "a disgruntled and ineffective employee."

The former governor said the state is currently pursuing the purchase of a new 
supply of drugs that will allow it to once again carry out the death penalty 
under its current protocol.

'I want to emphasize again that I strongly support the death penalty, and I am 
confident that Nebraskans will reinstate the death penalty when they have the 
opportunity to vote on the issue in November of 2016," Heineman wrote.

The Nebraska Legislature repealed the death penalty earlier this year, over a 
veto by Gov. Pete Ricketts. A petition drive is underway to allow the state's 
voters to decide the fate of capital punishment in the 2016 general election.

Nebraska has not carried out an execution in 18 years.

The state changed its execution method to lethal injection in 2009 but has 
never used it due to legal challenges and problems in importing the necessary 
drugs. The state's supply of sodium thiopental, 1 of 3 drugs in the state's 
current protocol, expired in December 2013 and Nebraska has been unable to 
obtain a new supply.

At least 25 states have changed their lethal injection protocols to different 
drugs since late 2010 due to difficulties in obtaining sodium thiopental. There 
have been nearly 180 executions in the U.S. since then.

Bruning - who declined last week to comment about Brown's assertions - told The 
World-Herald in January 2012 and again in October 2013 that Nebraska should 
consider changing its protocol. But the protocol was not changed.

In October 2014, a couple of months before leaving office, Bruning said the 
state had been diverted from addressing the lethal injection issue because of 
the sentence miscalculation fiasco involving hundreds of state prison inmates. 
That issue was first reported by The World-Herald in June 2014.

In a court ruling in April 2014, Nebraska Supreme Court Judge William Connolly 
wrote that "by simply altering its method of execution," Nebraska could resume 
imposing the death sentence.

Brown, who was the attorney of record for the 3 executions carried out in 
Nebraska during the 1990s under then-Attorney General Don Stenberg, 
acknowledged in Sunday's story that he was accused by Bruning of poor job 
performance and demoted.

Monday, Brown said it wasn't constructive to get into a "he-said, she-said" 
over Heineman's comments.

"I think it's safe to say that there were issues that Jon (Bruning) and I 
didn't see eye to eye on," he said. "I don't think that changes the facts of 
what happened."

(source: omaha.com)






COLORADO:

Dexter Lewis found guilty for stabbing five people to death in Fero's bar 
massacre----Jury next to decide whether to sentence defendant to death


A Denver jury begins hearing testimony Tuesday on whether Dexter Lewis lives or 
dies, as the shadow of the Aurora theater shooting trial looms over the death 
penalty issue in Colorado.

Minutes after the jury convicted Lewis of the grisly stabbing deaths of five 
people inside a Denver bar in 2012, Judge John Madden IV brought up the Aurora 
verdict.

In his advisements before releasing the jury for the day, Madden referred to 
"another prominent case in our state" and told the panel, "That case doesn't 
have anything to do with this case."

It was an emotional morning for victims' families, who cried Monday as the 
guilty counts piled up. One woman covered her eyes with her hands as she 
sobbed. A man hung his head as he gripped the wooden bench where he sat.

Lewis, meanwhile, remained stoic, taking a sip of water as the judge read each 
of the victims' names.

The victims in the attack inside Fero's Bar & Grill were Young Fero, 63; Daria 
Pohl, 21; Kellene Fallon, 44; Ross Richter, 29; and Tereasa Beesley, 45.

The emotional ordeal is not over for the families, the defendant or the 
attorneys as the death penalty phase begins. It could last more than 2 weeks.

As much as Madden will steer jurors' minds away from the Aurora theater 
shooting trial, experts say it will be hard to ignore the sentence of life in 
prison without parole for James Holmes, who killed 12 and wounded 70 others.

"The Aurora theater verdict shouldn't have anything to do with this verdict, 
but there's a possibility it might," said Craig Silverman, a former Denver 
prosecutor who helped convince the last Denver jury to impose a death penalty 
sentence.

The prosecutors also are challenged by Denver's historical reluctance to 
execute a criminal. The last time a defendant was sentenced to death in Denver 
was in 1986.

Lewis was accused of going to Fero's in the early hours of Oct. 17, 2012, with 
three others intending to rob it.

Lewis allegedly became enraged and stabbed to death the bar's owner and 4 
patrons. The bar was then set fire with the victims inside.

One of the men who went with Lewis to the bar, Demarea Harris, was secretly an 
informant for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives 
at the time and reported the crime to his handlers hours later. He was never 
charged.

The other 2 men, brothers Joseph and Lynell Hill, pleaded guilty to murder 
charges and received lengthy prison sentences.

The brothers' plea deals could give the jury pause, Silverman said.

Prosecutors have asserted that Lewis alone stabbed the victims, but a guilty 
verdict doesn't mean the jury agrees, he said.

"After all, those two brothers were guilty of first-degree murder as well," 
Silverman said.

Some sitting on the Lewis jury may take note that his death toll was less than 
1/2 of that from the Aurora shooting, experts said.

"I believe that there are going to be jurors who scratch their heads and say, 
'Y'know, if James Holmes gets life, who ever gets death?' " said David Lane, a 
Denver defense attorney. "It's certainly not going to hurt Dexter Lewis' 
chances."

The Arapahoe County jury also could embolden any Denver jurors who doubt the 
death penalty is appropriate. In the theater shooting case, one juror 
reportedly opposed giving a death sentence to a person suffering from a mental 
illness.

The Aurora verdict potentially raises another controversial question. James 
Holmes, the Aurora gunman, is white. Lewis, like the 3 men currently on death 
row in Colorado, is black.

"When you look, statistically, at death row inmates, they are 
disproportionately black," said Christopher Decker, president of the Colorado 
Criminal Defense Bar. "I think there would definitely be concerns if a death 
sentence is handed down in this case."

Prosecutors will paint a picture of terror inside the bar as they try to get 
the jurors to consider what is was like for the bar's owner, Young Fero, as she 
watched the defendant stab her customers then come for her, Silverman said.

"You've got to get people angry at the defendant for them to sentence him to 
death," Silverman said. "The facts of this case do make a normal person angry."

"It's a horror movie that happened in that establishment," he said.

(source: Denver Post)