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

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 11



TEXAS:

Waxahachie Representative John Wray: A True Texas Hero


If ever there was a story that needed a hero, it is the Lake Waco Triple 
Murder.

Jan Thompson, aunt of Lake Murder victim, Jill Montgommery, in her quest for 
the simple truth via DNA, has gone to many people for help in what seems to 
many to be a simple case of basic subtraction and a situation begging for a man 
with common sense. Unfortunately, time after time, people in positions to help 
have not.

Case in point: Senator Rodney Ellis, Democrat, Houston, Texas

The formerly heroic Senator Ellis, known by reputation as a defender of the 
innocent and poor, really dropped the ball on this one. Contacted many times in 
person and by letter since 2011, Senator Ellis has ignored this case and 
questionably has not seen fit to quiz members of the Innocence Project of Texas 
about this case.

Happily, taken out of the hands of the lawyers, this case is now in the hands 
of the TEXAS FORENSICS COMMISSION.

Anthony Melendez, in a letter to his attorney, Innocence Project VICE 
PRESIDENT, Walter Reaves, demanded that Reaves take his case to the TEXAS 
FORENSICS COMMISSION. He also asked that they "run the DNA" and Melendez has 
told Reaves in writing to "take the tapes to the TEXAS FORENSICS COMMISSION".

It makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER for the Commission to go after only "bite marks" 
in the Lake Waco case when there is obvious DNA sitting in Arkansas, that has 
not been run against the DNA of Spence, Melendez, or Deeb.

The case of Juanita White (mother of David Wayne Spence) has already fallen to 
the wayside by DNA clearing of Calvin Washington and the overturning of the 
case of Joe Sidney Williams.

Senator Rodney Ellis and his Chief of Staff, Brandon Dudley, merely decided 
that those who have questions about the handling of the case are "nuts".

One must wonder IF and when the DNA comes back and clears the Lake Murder 
defendants how Senator Ellis is going to explain the obvious lack of interest.


Representative John Wray hand delivered a letter to Senator Rodney Ellis 
himself, then informed Jan Thompson that he believed Senator Ellis would soon 
be contacting her soon to help.

You see, Representative John Wray is a young man, still interested and still 
questioning. Representative Wray is a lawyer and has grown up in Waxahachie 
where Jan Thompson is somewhat of an icon. MANY people have questions about 
this case without the glaring question, "why hasn't the DNA been run"?

Jan Thompson waited for Senator Ellis or someone from his office to contact 
her.

Months passed and there was nothing.

Jan Thompson called Representative Wray's office again and in early September, 
things began to happen.

The TEXAS FORENSICS COMMISSION is going to look at the case, the National 
Innocence Project has been contacted and thanks to Representative John Wray of 
Waxahachie, Texas, a woman who deserves to know the truth, Jan Thompson, 
finally will. Wray, instead of berating and questioning motives of those 
involved, has seen evidence and knows "ridiculous" when it is served up. 
Representative Wray, when faced with the DNA of this important case going to a 
lab in Arkansas in 2013, not having samples from the convicted, run on a whim 
by a lawyer with a New York writer as Puppetmaster, was as confused as the rest 
of us.

THE DNA IS FUNDED AND IS BEING RUN

We would like to thank Representative Wray, finally a true hero in a saga that 
sorely needed one!

(source: wordpress.com)






CONNECTICUT:

State: Hold Off On Changing Cheshire Home Invasion Killers' Death Sentences


The issue of whether the death sentences of Cheshire home invasion killers 
Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky should be corrected in state court should 
not be addressed until the state Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality 
of the death sentence of Russell Peeler Jr., prosecutors said in recently filed 
court papers.

It was not known Tuesday when the state's highest court is expected to rule on 
the death penalty appeal of Russell Peeler Jr., who was sentenced to death for 
ordering the 1999 killings in Bridgeport of 8-year-old Leroy "B.J." Brown Jr. 
and his mother, Karen Clarke.

But while the decision is pending, the trial court should not consider changing 
death sentences to punishments of life in prison without the possibility of 
parole, Senior Assistant State's Attorney Robert J. Scheinblum wrote in a 
motion filed Monday for a stay of Hayes' motion filed on Friday in Superior 
Court to correct what he calls his "illegal" sentence. Komisarjevsky filed a 
similar motion on Friday but the state's response only references Hayes' 
motion.

"To mitigate the risk that the questions presented in Peeler will become moot 
before this Court addresses them, no action should be taken by the trial court 
on the defendant's motion to correct his death sentence until there is a final 
judgment in Peeler, Scheinblum wrote.

On Monday, Blue filed an order that essentially stays the Cheshire home 
invasion killers' motions until the Supreme Court rules on Scheinblum's motion.

Hayes and Komisarjevsky said the death sentences they face are 
"unconstitutional and must be corrected" in light of the state Supreme Court's 
decision in August barring all executions, regardless of when the sentence was 
imposed. Hayes' attorneys said in the motion that a sentence is illegal "if it 
is not within the range of permissible punishment for an offense. Here, the 6 
sentences of death are unconstitutional pursuant to [the Santiago decision]. A 
life sentence is the only available alternative sentence under the statute 
governing" Hayes' offense.

On Tuesday, attorneys for Santiago filed a "motion for immediate sentencing" 
asking a Superior Court judge in Hartford to impose a sentence of life in 
prison without the possibility of release, saying his death sentence is also 
unconstitutional.

Connecticut abolished the death penalty in April 2012 but made the law 
prospective, meaning it applied only to new cases and kept in place the death 
sentences already imposed before the bill was passed. The provision was added 
after the high-profile trials of Hayes and Komisarjevsky.

Hayes, 52, and Komisarjevsky, 33, are on death row for killing Jennifer 
Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, during a July 2007 
home invasion.

The men tied up and tortured the family as they ransacked the Petit home for 
cash and valuables. Komisarjevsky sexually assaulted Michaela, and Hayes raped 
and strangled Hawke-Petit. The house was doused with gasoline and set on fire. 
Hayley and Michaela died of smoke inhalation. The daughters' father and 
Hawke-Petit's husband, Dr. William Petit Jr., survived but was severely 
injured.

After the 2012 repeal of the death penalty, attorneys representing those on 
death row challenged the law, saying it violated the condemned inmates' 
constitutional rights. The state Supreme Court agreed to take up the 
prospective issue in the case of Eduardo Santiago, whose death sentence was 
overturned in June 2012. The case was argued before the state's highest court 
in April 2013.

The state Supreme Court ruled on the Santiago case in August and in a 4-3 
decision, banned capital punishment for all defendants, saying in the majority 
decision that Connecticut's death penalty no longer comported with societal 
values and served no valid purpose as punishment.

Since the ruling, the high court has denied a request by the chief state's 
attorney to postpone the Santiago decision, a ruling that followed a denial by 
the Supreme Court of a request by prosecutors to reargue Santiago. Prosecutors 
have filed briefs in Peeler's pending appeal that raise the same issues 
included in the motion for reconsideration in the Santiago case.

(source: Hartford Courant)






FLORIDA:

Prosecutors seeking death penalty in Colley double murder


Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against James Terry Colley Jr. in the 
August shooting deaths of his estranged wife Amanda Cloaninger Colley and 
friend Lindy Morgan Dobbins, authorities announced Tuesday.

Colley Jr., 35, of St. Augustine, was indicted Sept. 4 on 2 counts of 
1st-degree murder, 2 counts of attempted 1st-degree murder, burglary with 
assault or battery, burglary to a dwelling and aggravated stalking after 
injunction.

That's after the Aug. 27 shooting rampage that left Cloaninger Colley, 36, and 
Dobbins, 39, dead inside an upscale St. Johns County home.

Colley Jr. was arrested later that night in Norton, Va. on a DUI charge after a 
massive manhunt. He's being held without bond.

About 10:30 a.m., Colley emerged from a wooded path behind Cloaninger Colley's 
South Bellago Drive home armed with a handgun before opening fire through the 
rear sliding glass doors near where witnesses were standing, witness Rachel 
Hendricks told investigators. Hendricks and Dobbins hid inside a closet when 
Colley Jr. came inside while Amanda Colley hid in a bathroom, Hendricks said.

Hendricks was barricading the closet door with her body as the suspect searched 
the home for a second witness, Lamar Douberly, yelling, "Where is he?" 
Hendricks recalled. Hendricks told Colley Jr. that Douberly wasn't in the 
closet, that it was just she and Dobbins inside, she told investigators. Then, 
according to the statement, Colley Jr. shot through the closet door, narrowly 
missing Hendricks.

When Colley entered the closet and allegedly started shooting Dobbins, 
Hendricks fled the home and called 911. Court papers suggest Douberly ran from 
the home after the initial gunshots.

The suspect's father, James Colley Sr., told deputies afterward that his son 
had just called him, saying that he had shot his wife and his wife's friend, 
according to a sworn statement. Colley Jr. was "furious" after a court hearing 
earlier that morning, said his father, who had told him "not to do anything 
foolish."

Hours before the shooting, Colley had been in court pleading no contest to 
violating a restraining order his estranged wife had taken out against him Aug. 
10, according to court records.

The same day, Colley Jr. had received a year of unsupervised probation as part 
of his plea deal. A judge had ordered him to surrender his weapons, complete a 
batterers' intervention class and avoid any contact with his estranged wife.

(source: WTLV news)

*********

State seeks death penalty for accused killer----James Colley Jr. charged with 
murder in death of estranged wife, her friend


The state wants the death penalty on the table in the August shooting deaths of 
a St. Augustine woman and her friend.

Police say Amanda Colley and Lindy Dobbins were killed in Amanda Colley's 
Murabella home Aug. 27 by her estranged husband, James Colley Jr. 2 other 
people were inside the home and escaped, police said.

James Colley, 35, faces charges of murder, burglary with assault and battery, 
burglary of a structure while armed, and aggravated stalking after injunction.

State Attorney R.J. Larizza announced Tuesday that the prosecution will seek 
the death penalty against James Colley. He is set for a pretrial conference at 
8:30 a.m. Jan. 7 before Judge Michael Traynor.

The shooting

According to deputies, Dobbins and Amanda Colley were in Amanda Colley's home 
with 2 friends, Rachel Hendricks and Lamar Douberly, as James Colley emerged 
from a wooded area in the home's backyard, pulled out a handgun and started 
shooting into the home's sliding glass doors.

Amanda Colley ran to hide in a bathroom while Dobbins and Hendricks hid in a 
closet in the home.

As James Colley entered the home, deputies said he began yelling, "Where is 
he?" trying to find Douberly, who had run out of the house.

While Hendricks and Dobbins were in the closet, Hendricks pressed herself 
against the door, trying to keep James Colley out while yelling at him that 
Amanda Colley wasn't in the closet.

Deputies said that James Colley shot into the closet, barely missing Hendricks, 
but causing her to fall away from the door and giving James Colley enough room 
to open the door, shooting and killing Dobbins.

The report said that while James Colley was shooting Dobbins, Hendricks was 
able to escape. She called police as James Colley found his estranged wife, 
shooting and killing her, deputies said.

After killing the 2 women, James Colley called his father and said that he had 
shot his wife and her friend, before driving away, deputies said. He was 
eventually stopped by police in Virginia.

James Colley was returned to St. Johns County from Virginia, where he was 
arrested Aug. 27, several hours after the victims were found.

The report also said that this isn't the 1st time James Colley acted 
aggressively and violently toward his estranged wife.

On July 13, Amanda Colley got a temporary injunction against James Colley after 
he had broken into her home, taken all of her clothing and burned it in the 
yard, deputies said.

Officials said that on Aug. 27 James Colley broke into Amanda Colley's home 
again, ransacking the house, breaking televisions and taking things from the 
home hours before the shooting.

James Colley is being held in jail in St. Johns County with no bond.

(source: news4jax.com)






ALABAMA:

A Death Row Inmate's Haunting Observation Hours Before Execution----"More 
people have said, 'What can I do to help you?' in the last 14 hours of my life 
than they ever did in the first 19 years."

As a death row attorney whom Desmond Tutu has called "America's young Nelson 
Mandela," Bryan Stevenson has worked with people who most of society has 
already cast aside. For many of these condemned convicts, however, that 
happened long before they entered prison walls.

Take Herbert Richardson, for example. Richardson, Stevenson says, had returned 
from the Vietnam War emotionally disturbed and without the support and 
resources to overcome the trauma. Then, in 1977, Richardson became upset by the 
end of a relationship and left a homemade bomb on the porch of his 
ex-girlfriend's home. The woman's 11-year-old niece picked up the bomb, and it 
exploded. She died instantly.

A year later, Richardson was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to 
death. A series of appeals was each time denied, and just one month before his 
execution date, Richardson called upon Stevenson to help in the eleventh hour. 
The lawyer filed for an emergency stay of execution, but, in his words, it was 
too late. The stay was rejected, and Richardson was scheduled to die at 
midnight on August 18, 1989.

Stevenson went to the prison on the day of the execution and, as he tells Oprah 
during an interview for "SuperSoul Sunday," what his client said that day has 
always haunted him.

"I was back there with him right before the execution, and he was saying to me, 
'All day long, people have been saying, What can I do to help you? Can we get 
you water? Can we get you coffee? Can we get you stamps to mail your last 
letter?'" Stevenson says. "And I never will forget him saying to me... 'Bryan, 
it's been so strange. More people have said, What can I do to help you? in the 
last 14 hours of my life than they ever did in the first 19 years of my life.'"

Stevenson found the observation both profound and tragic.

"I was holding his hands, standing there with him and thinking, 'Yeah, where 
were they when you were 3 when your mom died? Where were they when you were 7 
and you were experimenting with drugs? Where were they when you were a young 
teenager returning from Vietnam traumatized and drug-addicted?" Stevenson says.

As those questions swirled through Stevenson's mind, his client was pulled 
away. Richardson was strapped into the electric chair and executed; he died at 
12:14 a.m. The experience changed Stevenson forever.

"The shame of that was, for me, what I couldn't let go," he says. "They had the 
guards come in and shave the hair off [Richardson's] body to prepare him for 
execution, and I watched those men do that. I don't think I'd ever seen human 
beings more pained by something they had to do."

Though Stevenson certainly believes that people who commit horrific crimes 
deserve to face consequences, he does not believe the consequence should be 
death.

"The pain and shame of that made me believe that we can do better," Stevenson 
says.

(source: Huffington Post)






OHIO:

Divided court rejects execution date for Mexican national


The Ohio Supreme Court has rejected a prosecutor's request to set an execution 
date for a Mexican national convicted of killing 4 members of his girlfriend's 
family and sentenced to death in 3 of the 1991 slayings.

Mexico opposes setting a date for Jose Trinidad Loza, saying he was never 
allowed to consult with a Mexican consulate and was the subject of bias early 
on, including a crime scene detective who used an ethnic slur to describe him.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this week asked Ohio Gov. John 
Kasich to ensure Loza is not executed until his case receives full review and 
reconsideration.

The state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 Tuesday against the Butler County 
prosecutor's request for an execution.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Andre Imbrogno appointed as Ohio Parole Board chairman


Attorney Andre Imbrogno has been appointed chairman of the Ohio Parole Board by 
Gary Mohr, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Imbrogno has been interim chairman of the 12-member board since May when 
Cynthia Mauser, the long-time head of the panel, moved to a new position as 
managing director of court and community programs in the prisons agency.

Imbrogno was appointed to the board in July 2012 after serving as staff 
attorney for the prisons agency. He previously worked as legislative liaison 
and policy analyst for the Ohio Judicial Conference, as an attorney with the 
Ohio Legislative Service Commission, and a law clerk with the Ohio Supreme 
Court. He earned his law and bachelor's degrees from Ohio State University.

Also appointed to the board effective Nov. 29 was Tracy Reveal. She was most 
recently superintendent of the Corrections Training Academy and previously 
worked as parole officer.

The board is charged with handling parole decisions, primarily for inmates 
serving sentences from before 1996, when the state switched to a 
flat-sentencing scheme instead of variable sentences. The board also makes 
clemency recommendations to the governor in death penalty and other cases.

Parole officials have been criticized and repeatedly picketed by inmate family 
members for what they say is the board's intransigence in refusing to grant 
parole to longtime inmates, more than 4,700 of whom remain incarcerated.

(source: Columbus Dispatch)



ARKANSAS:

UA Students Discuss Capital Punishment Following Panel


A panel on the death penalty organized by the School of Law sparked 
conversation among students about the controversial law.

The death penalty is the execution of someone who has committed a capital 
crime, according to the Legal Information Institute created by the Cornell 
University Law School.

"I think the death penalty is inhumane and inherently flawed within the United 
States," said sophomore Ryann Alonso, president of Young Democrats.

The Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Studies at the UofA organized 
the panel on the death penalty Thursday. The panel featured Georgetown 
professor William Otis, who is a supporter of the death penalty, and Ben Jones, 
who has worked to reverse the death penalty with Equal Justice USA.

Otis graduated from Stanford Law School and was a special counsel for George H. 
W. Bush, according to the UA website.

Jones graduated from Ohio State University and got his master's degree from 
Yale. Jones joined Equal Justice USA after leading a campaign to end the death 
penalty in Connecticut, according to the website.

In Northwest Arkansas, there have been 2 people sentenced to die since 2000, 
said Matt Durrett, a Washington County prosecutor. Both people were from 
Washington County, and both were convicted and sentenced in 2008, Durrett said. 
However, both people are still alive and on death row.

Arkansas has gone a decade without any executions, but that will change soon. 
Gov. Asa Hutchinson has set execution dates for 8 inmates.

"I think it is ironic how Gov. Hutchinson is of the pro-life party, but 
ultimately, the blood of these 8 people will be on his hands," Alonso said. 
"It's safe to say that our governor isn't as pro life as he may seem to be."

It is immoral and economically irresponsible for the state to punish people 
with death, Alonso said.

More than 1 in 9 people on death row are exonerated by DNA evidence, Alonso 
said.

"If we had 1 in 9 planes falling out of the sky, would we consider air a viable 
way to travel?" Alonso said. "I certainly don't think so."

>From an economic standpoint, it's also more expensive to execute people than 
sentencing them to life without parole, Alonso said.

"It's a tricky subject, but I do support it," said junior Brock Hyland, 
president of the College Republicans.

Other students said they were unsure about the law.

"I believe the death penalty should be used sparingly, if at all," senior Kori 
Hudson said.

Many convicts who were destined to die at the hands of the state have been 
exonerated because of advancements in technology, Hudson said.

"Many overturned convictions, thanks to The Innocence Project and other 
organizations, lead me to wonder how many convicted men and women have had 
their lives taken from them by an overzealous justice system," Hudson said.

The Innocence Project is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to 
acquitting wrongly convicted criminals through the use of DNA testing, 
according to the organization's website.

The death penalty should be avoided except in extreme cases in which the crime 
is especially heinous and guilt can be unequivocally determined through DNA 
evidence, Hudson said.

"Even 1 innocent life taken unjustly undoes all the justice the death penalty 
aims to hand out," Hudson said.

When people are sentenced to death, the jury members who convicted them are 
guilty of killing them, sophomore Monica Briselden said.

"Whether or not you're killed for your actions is not up to us," Briselden 
said. "That is something between them and God."

Other cultures view the subject differently, junior Abdulrahman Alkhaldi said.

>From an Islamic perspective, death is justified only if that person has already 
killed someone. However, if the criminal pays money to the affected family, the 
death penalty will be waived, Alkhaldi said.

"For the United States to be a just society, we cannot have the death penalty," 
Alonso said. "It is reprehensible."

Others said they disagreed.

"It's OK that the death penalty is being discussed, but I think there are other 
important issues at hand," Hyland said.

(source: The (University of) Arkansas Traveler)