[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., LA., ARK.

[Rick Halperin]

July 21



TEXAS:

Judge recommends overturning death sentence in capital murder case


A former soldier sentenced to death in 2010 for killing his ex-girlfriend and 
her brother could have his death penalty overturned after a district judge 
recommended a redo of the trial's punishment phase.

Judge Travis Bryan of the 272nd District Court wrote in a 111-page report that 
John Thuesen's attorneys did not do enough in the punishment phase to present 
evidence related to post-traumatic stress disorder that could have helped 
Thuesen's case. Bryan wrote, had the proper evidence been presented, the jury 
would have heard "substantially more and different information to argue in 
favor of a life sentence."

Bryan also argued that a thorough description of PTSD would have explained 
Thuesen's behaviors before and at the time of the crime, and shown the jury 
that Thuesen's "war trauma" continued to impact his life once he returned home.

Other findings made by Bryan state that Thuesen was never properly diagnosed 
with or treated for PTSD, and the defense counsel's failure to present this 
evidence "fell below the norms of professional standards" for attorneys in 
death penalty cases. He also wrote that defense attorneys Michele Esparza and 
Billy Carter were ineffective in providing evidence to show a low likelihood 
that Thuesen would commit future acts of criminal violence.

In June 2014, Esparza testified at an appeals hearing that she did everything 
she could to save Thuesen's life.

At the time, Esparza acknowledged she and Carter probably should have called on 
a PTSD expert at the end of their punishment case.

Bryan's findings were sent to the Court of Criminal Appeals for consideration. 
He declined to comment on his findings Monday because the case is ongoing.

Because Thuesen was convicted of capital murder, if the punishment phase is 
retried, the only possible outcomes are life in prison or another death 
penalty.

Assistant District Attorney Jessica Escue said the court can choose to adopt 
all, some or none of Bryan's findings, then decide what to do with the case.

"We obviously disagree with Judge Bryan's findings," she said. "We will file 
our objections with his findings with the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the 
Court of Criminal Appeals will make the final determination."

Sian Schilhab, general counsel to the Court of Criminal Appeals, said it is not 
common for a trial judge to recommend relief in death penalty cases. She said 
in the majority of cases, relief is denied.

A jury sentenced Thuesen to death after a trial that lasted more than 2 weeks. 
According to evidence from the trial, Thuesen had been dating Rachel Joiner for 
about six months, but she asked for space in the relationship about a week 
before the murder. After that request, Thuesen showed up uninvited multiple 
times at her home and the home of another ex-boyfriend whom Rachel Joiner had 
begun spending time with, witnesses said.

The night of the March 2009 shooting, Thuesen was waiting at the Joiners' house 
for Rachel to return home. When Rachel Joiner arrived, she and Thuesen had a 
fight and Thuesen shot her. Rachel's brother Travis came out of his bedroom 
after hearing the noise and was also shot. Both Aggie siblings were pronounced 
dead later that night.

Thuesen called the police and confessed.

(source: The Eagle)






PENNSYLVANIA----female to face death penalty

Death penalty to be sought for woman who allegedly threw baby off bridge


Prosecutors in Lehigh County will seek the death penalty against the 
20-year-old woman accused of throwing her baby off of the Hamilton Street 
Bridge.

The young age of the child is the reason prosecutors will seek the death 
penalty according to Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin.

Johnesha Perry was before a judge Monday for her formal arraignment and 
answered questions about what her life was like leading up to the alleged 
events on May 3.

Perry is charged with criminal homicide for the death of her 2-year- old son, 
Zymeir, in May.

"It's going to be an emotional case for the defense and for the defendant," 
said her defense attorney Kimberly Makoul.

In court Perry seemed dazed and sounded almost childlike as she slowly answered 
several background questions from a judge. The now 20-year-old meekly told the 
judge she graduated from William Allen High School in 2013, that she worked in 
fast-food and as a housekeeper before attending a business school full time. 
She said she lived alone with her 2-year-old son Zymeir on Hall Street in 
Allentown.

But back on May 3 police say Perry turned her world upside down when she threw 
Zymeir off of the Hamilton Street Bridge.

"When Miss Perry got to the middle of the bridge she took the child out of the 
stroller, held him on the railing of the bridge, she kissed her son and then 
pushed him over the edge." D.A. Jim Martin said in a previous news conference, 
shortly after the incident.

The then 19-year-old jumped in herself. The boy initially survived but died a 
few days later.

Makoul said pre-trial evaluations conducted will be key evidence to the 
impending trial.

"It's going to shed a lot of light as to her mental state the time it happened 
and quite frankly lead the direction of the case."

Perry's trial is expected to begin in 2016.

(source: WFMZ news)

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

Death penalty delay to be argued Tuesday for 4-time killer


A Northampton County judge is due to hear arguments Tuesday morning on whether 
to continue to postpone the execution of quadruple murderer Michael Ballard.

Ballard is part of a class-action lawsuit seeking to throw out the death 
penalty against 184 Pennsylvania death row inmates.

Philadelphia attorney David Rudovsky argues in the suit that the death penalty 
can't be carried out in Pennsylvania because the drugs to be administered under 
state Department of Corrections policy fail to meet specifications outlined in 
the state's death penalty law.

Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, however, filed court 
papers noting a similar argument made in Oklahoma was dismissed by the U.S. 
Supreme Court.

Morganelli noted in a supplemental brief on Monday that being named in the 
class-action suit does not automatically guarantee a stay of your execution.

Morganelli said he will make further arguments at the hearing before County 
Judge Emil Giordano at 10 a.m. Tuesday. He'll be opposed by Ballard attorneys 
James Connell and Michael Corriere.

Connell and Corriere filed papers Friday arguing in part that the death penalty 
should be thrown out in Pennsylvania because the procedures for administering 
lethal injections weren't open to public debate. They were formulated by a 
closed group of corrections officials, they argue.

The registered nurses who administer the lethal drugs do so without the 
direction of a doctor and without a prescription for the person to be executed, 
both in violation of state law, the class action suit says.

Ballard, 42, had recently been released from state prison for an Allentown 
murder when he killed his ex-girlfriend, her father, her grandfather and a 
neighbor in Northampton in 2010. He was sentenced to death in 2011.

(source: lehighvallelylive.com)






FLORIDA:

Judge to rule Tuesday on whether man accused of killing phone store manager can 
face death penalty


A Jacksonville man accused of the execution like killing of 20-year-old phone 
store manager Shelby Farah will find out whether he will face the death penalty 
for the killing Tuesday morning.

James Xavier Rhodes, 23, is charged with 1st-degree murder, armed robbery and 
possession of a weapon by a felon in the July 2013 shooting at the Metro PCS 
store on North Main Street. A gunman shot Farah in the head after she gave him 
several hundred dollars.

The killing was captured on surveillance video.

Prosecutors are attempting to put Rhodes on death row, countered by defense 
attorneys who say he is intellectually disabled, which was at one point 
referred to as retarded. Circuit Judge Tatiana Salvador is expected to rule on 
whether Rhodes can face the death penalty today.

If Salvador finds that Rhodes is intellectually disabled, he cannot be put on 
death row but can still go to prison. A trial date for Rhodes has not yet been 
set.

Lawyers for both sides have put experts on the stand.

Tallahassee-area clinical psychologist Greg Prichard, testifying for the 
prosecution, said Rhodes has below-average intelligence, it does not fall to 
the point of being intellectually disabled.

Forensic psychologist Louis Legum, called by the defense, said Rhodes is 
intellectually disabled, and would have always struggled to function in the 
adult world.

Prosecutors have argued that Rhodes deliberately tanked IQ tests after he was 
arrested to avoid the death penalty, a point backed up by Prichard. But Legum 
argues that signs of Rhodes' intellectual disability go beyond his IQ tests 
because he also suffers from attention deficit disorder and low reading and 
cognitive abilities.

(source: Florida Times-Union)






LOUISIANA:

River Parishes serial killer's appeal of death penalty still before courts 18 
years after Gonzales slaying


Defense attorneys for River Parishes serial killer Daniel Blank mounted an 
attack Monday on his death penalty conviction in the 1997 murder of a Gonzales 
woman with a mountain of law enforcement reports that his original defense team 
never saw.

Gary Clements, director of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana, 
also tried to show that Blank's trial attorneys failed to raise the possibility 
his schizophrenia and paranoia may have affected his memory and the accuracy of 
what he told investigators nearly 18 years ago.

In November 1997, Blank, 53, formerly of St. James Parish, admitted during a 
12-hour videotaped interview with investigators that he killed 6 people in 
Gonzales, St. Amant, LaPlace and Paulina between Oct. 27, 1996, and his arrest 
on Nov. 14, 1997. During that period, he had also tried to kill Gonzales couple 
Leonce and Joyce Millet, he admitted.

Blank was running an automotive shop in Onalaska, Texas, in late 1997 when 
detectives tracked him down and questioned him.

Clements told 23rd Judicial District Judge Jessie LeBlanc on Monday that the 
reliability of that statement is the core of what his team of lawyers plans to 
probe through a weeklong evidentiary hearing this week in Houma.

Clements and the attorneys with the post-conviction project are challenging 
Blank's September 1999 conviction in the brutal beating death of Lillian 
Philippe, 72, in her Gonzales home on April 9, 1997, as part of a botched 
burglary attempt. The Louisiana Supreme Court already has affirmed the 
conviction, but the defense attorney is now claiming Blank had ineffective 
defense counsel at trial and did not receive all the evidence pointing to 
innocence that he should have received.

The post-conviction appeal of the Ascension Parish homicide is being heard at 
the Terrebonne Parish Courthouse by Ascension???s Judge LeBlanc because that is 
where the trial was held. The trial was moved from Ascension because of 
pretrial publicity in the shocking murders of mostly older people that, for a 
time, gripped the River Parishes in fear.

At trial, prosecutors were allowed to present evidence of the other slayings, 
though Blank had not yet been convicted of any of them.

Clements has argued in court papers and on Monday that factual discrepancies 
and other details those undisclosed reports raise, along with his client's 
mental condition, could have undercut Blank's admission.

Clements drove home through questioning of Blank's public defender Harold Van 
Dyke that the reports and Blank's mental condition should have been raised 
during a pretrial hearing over whether to allow testimony about the other 
slayings in the Philippe trial.

The Philippe conviction was the 1st by prosecutors in the string of slayings 
and the only case for which Blank faces the death penalty. Blank is on death 
row at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

Following the Philippe conviction, a jury convicted Blank in October 2000 for 
the slaying of Joan Brock, 55, of LaPlace, and sentenced him to death. But 
after an appeal, the case was sent back to the lower court. Blank pleaded 
guilty in July 2009 and received a life sentence.

Blank had years earlier received 2 other life sentences following guilty pleas 
for the murder of Barbara Bourgeois, 58, of Paulina, and Sam Arcuri Sr., 76, 
and his wife, Louella, 60, in their LaPlace home.

For several hours Monday, as Blank, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and shackles, 
watched, Clements presented Van Dyke with report after report detailing how law 
enforcement had other possible suspects, how key witnesses who shaped a 
composite description of the killer could not identify Blank, and other facts 
Clements suggested called into question what Blank told investigators.

Clements argued these facts, if raised, could have aided his attorneys in 
getting Blank's confession thrown out.

In each instance, Van Dyke, who handled the Philippe case with lead counsel 
Glenn Cortello and 3 other slayings for which Blank was convicted, said he had 
no recollection of the reports or never received them.

Van Dyke repeatedly agreed with Clements that the reports could have helped the 
defense attorneys raise questions in a pretrial court hearing on whether the 
confession met the "clear and convincing evidence" standard necessary to allow 
testimony about the other slayings at the Philippe trial.

The standard is one notch below the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" 
used for felony convictions.

Van Dyke said throwing out Blank's statement was critical to the defense 
strategy because prosecutors had no physical evidence connecting Blank to 
Philippe's home.

But on cross examination of Van Dyke, Assistant District Attorney Chuck Long, 
who prosecuted the Philippe case, brushed off what he called the "woulda, 
coulda, shoulda" questions Clements raised. Long noted Blank's testimony 
matched more significant details from the crime scenes that only the killer 
could have known.

For instance, Long read from a transcript of Blank's confession, pointing out 
Blank testified he threw the bat with which he had beaten his 1st murder 
victim, Victor Rossi, on Oct. 27, 1996, in the bathroom.

Then Long presented Van Dyke with a crime scene photo of Rossi's body in the 
bathtub with the bat. Blank was never convicted in the Rossi slaying.

Van Dyke acknowledged repeatedly that such elements of corroboration, as in the 
Rossi case, would not have helped Blank's defense.

Long also showed Van Dyke a letter he sent to Blank's defense team that said 
they were entitled to open-file discovery and could obtain other reports that 
might be held by the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office, Gonzales Police 
Department and other agencies.

In an interview after the hearing Monday, Van Dyke said a task force involving 
multiple local agencies and the FBI were working on the slayings. They should 
have had someone coordinating the investigations and the evidence discovery for 
Blank's defense lawyers.

"I thought it was astounding that we didn't get it," Van Dyke said.

The brother and nephew of Lillian Philippe were on hand for the hearing Monday. 
L.J. Heath, 82, of St. Amant, Philippe's brother, said during one recess Monday 
that he has a hard time understanding how a long-standing murder conviction 
could be undone years later.

"It's a sad thing. It's a sad thing," Heath said.

Testimony is expected to resume at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday from three witnesses and 
possibly Blank's other defense attorney, Cortello.

(source: The Advocate)






ARKANSAS----mother to face death penalty

Torres evidence sent to state crime lab----Results to take up to 2 months in 
capital murder case against boy's parents


It is expected to take 45 to 60 days before prosecutors can begin to receive 
information from evidence that was sent to the state Crime Laboratory in the 
investigation into the death of a 6-year-old boy.

The boy's parents, Mauricio Alejandro Torres, 45, and Cathy Torres, 44, of 
Bella Vista, are charged with capital murder and 1st-degree battery. They 
previously pleaded innocent to the charges and are being held without bail in 
the Benton County jail.

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against the 2.

Maurice Isaiah Torres was taken to an area hospital, where he was pronounced 
dead March 29. A medical examiner later determined the boy suffered from 
chronic child abuse, and his death was from internal injuries caused by being 
raped, according to court documents.

Cathy Torres appeared in court Monday morning for a hearing that was reset to 
1:30 p.m. Oct. 5.

Nathan Smith, Benton County prosecuting attorney, said evidence had been 
collected and sent to the crime laboratory in Little Rock.

"We basically sent the entire house to the crime lab," Smith said.

It could take up to 60 days before prosecutors get information back from the 
crime laboratory, Smith said.

Smith does not believe that there will be any issues from that evidence to file 
any motions.

Tony Pirani, one of the attorneys for Cathy Torres, said one issue will be 
possible evidence that prosecutors may attempt to use against her. Pirani said 
a separate hearing will be needed to hear any of those issues, which would 
include any evidence of prior or similar bad acts.

One pending motion concerned a gag order to prevent the Benton County 
prosecuting attorney's office and the Arkansas Department of Human Services 
from releasing any information on the case.

Prosecutors and a DHS attorney filed responses objecting to a judge issuing the 
gag order.

Attorneys for Mauricio Torres also have filed a motion seeking the gag order. A 
hearing is set for 2 p.m. July 31.

The Torreses also were arrested on rape charges, but prosecutors didn't include 
that offense in their charging documents. The rape occurred in Missouri, not in 
Benton County, Smith said previously.

The couple will be tried separately.

Mauricio Torres' jury trial is set to begin Jan. 12. Cathy Torres' jury trial 
is scheduled to begin Jan. 26.

(source: nwaonline.com)