[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., GA., FLA., ALA., LA.

[Rick Halperin]

April 9



TEXAS----death row inmate dies

Oldest Inmate on Texas' Death Row Dies of Natural Causes


Jack Harry Smith, 78, the oldest man on death row in Texas, has died of natural 
causes, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

The oldest condemned man in Texas has died at age 78 of natural causes, a Texas 
prisons spokesman said Friday.

Jack Harry Smith had been on death row since October 1978 for a fatal shooting 
during a $90 robbery of a Houston store. Only 3 among about 250 prisoners now 
awaiting execution in Texas have been on death row longer.

Smith had been in poor health for years and was taken from death row to the 
medical facility a week ago. He died Friday afternoon at the medical facility 
at the Estelle Unit in Huntsville, Texas Department of Criminal Justice 
spokesman Jason Clark said.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court had refused an appeal from Smith after a 
federal appeals court rejected arguments by his lawyers challenging his 1978 
conviction and death sentence. Smith had convictions for robbery-assault and 
theft in 1955 and another robbery-assault conviction in 1959 that earned him a 
life prison term. He also had a prison escape attempt in 1963.

Smith was paroled from his life sentence on Jan. 8, 1977, after serving 17 
years. One day short of a year later, on Jan. 7, 1978, Smith and an accomplice 
were arrested the same day Roy A. Deputter was gunned down while trying to stop 
a holdup at a Houston convenience store known as Corky's Corner.

The accomplice, Jerome Lee Hamilton, received a life sentence and testified 
against Smith, who received a death sentence. Smith, a former welder who 
completed only six years of school, arrived on death row on Oct. 9, 1978. He'd 
been there since.

The Supreme Court rejected a previous appeal from Smith in 1985, but little 
happened in the case after that. Unlike procedures now in place, no deadlines 
then forced appeals to move through the courts. Attorneys suggested the trial 
judge, who died in 1997, wasn't inclined to move the case forward.

In an interview with The Associated Press in 2001, Smith complained about the 
lack of progress.

"I feel that the system is waiting for me to pass away of old age," said Smith, 
who said his health problems included cancer. "I'm angry at the justice system, 
at the courts for wasting taxpayers' money for giving me this hospitality."

He said he never was in the store where Deputter was killed.

A witness identified Smith as 1 of 2 gunmen -- 1 armed with a shotgun and the 
other with a pistol.

Deputter, who lived behind the store and helped out the owner, walked in on the 
holdup, pulled his own gun and exchanged shots with the robbers. He was shot 
once in the heart and once in the head. Besides Hamilton, a cashier at the 
store also testified against Smith at his trial.

Hamilton was paroled in February 2004. Smith said he was offered a life 
sentence before his trial but refused to plead guilty to a crime he said he 
didn't do.

(source: nbcdfw.com)






VIRGINIA:

Exonerated Virginia man makes bittersweet statement on his freedom


As he walked into the Virginia sun after spending 33 years in prison for crimes 
authorities now say he didn't commit, the fact that his parents weren't there 
to see him become a free man weighed heavily on Keith Allen Harward's mind.

"That's the worst part of this," said Harward, who choked back tears as he 
spoke about his parents, who both died while he was wrongfully imprisoned. 
"I'll never get that back."

Harward was released from the Nottoway Correctional Center on Friday after the 
Virginia Supreme Court agreed that DNA evidence proves he's innocent of the 
1982 killing of Jesse Perron and the rape of his wife in Newport News.

An April 30, 2013 photo of Keith Allen Haward, convicted in 1982 of rape and 
murder in Newport News, who was exonerated by DNA tests and ordered by the 
Virginia Supreme Court to be released.

Harward was a sailor on the USS Carl Vinson, which was stationed at the 
shipyard close to the victims' home at the time of the crime. A security guard 
identified Harward as the man he saw entering the shipyard wearing a bloody 
uniform, but the woman never identified him as her attacker. The prosecution's 
case relied heavily on the testimony of 2 experts who testified that his teeth 
matched bite marks on the woman's leg. No other physical evidence linked 
Harward to the crime.

The Innocence Project got involved in Harward's case about two years ago and 
pushed for DNA tests, which failed to identify Harward's genetic profile in 
sperm left at the crime scene. The DNA matched that of one of Harward's former 
shipmate's, Jerry L. Crotty, who died in an Ohio prison in June 2006, where he 
was serving a sentence for abduction.

The reliability of bite-mark evidence has come under increased scrutiny in 
recent years.

An Associated Press investigation in 2013 found that at least 24 men convicted 
or charged with murder or rape based on bite marks found on victims have been 
exonerated in the U.S. since 2000. The Associated Press story was based on 
decades of court records, archives, news reports and filings by the Innocence 
Project.

"We've learned nothing if we continue to use this evidence even though we know 
it has no basis in science," said Dana Delger, an attorney with the Innocence 
Project.

Harward initially faced the death penalty, but a loophole in the law caused his 
capital murder conviction to be overturned in 1985, said Olga Akselrod, another 
Innocence Project attorney.

"The fact that this case involved an innocent man who faced the death penalty 
should terrify everyone, not just in the state of Virginia but also in the 31 
other states that still have the death penalty," Akselrod said.

Harward said he's heading to his home state of North Carolina with family, who 
acknowledged that it will take him some time to get used to his new world.

"Keith is stepping out of a time capsule into a different world. We're going to 
try to help him all we can," said his brother, Charles Harward.

Harward said he's looking forward to having some fried oysters as soon as he 
can. Beyond that, he's not so sure. He just excited to be free to do whatever 
he wants.

"Go out and hug a tree, sit in a park. Whatever I want to do. Because I can."

(source: CBS news)






GEORGIA:

A Georgia death row inmate is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider his 
claim that his death sentence is unconstitutional because one of the jurors was 
motivated by racial prejudice


Kenneth Fults is to be executed Tuesday for the 1996 killing of Cathy Bounds.

An investigator working for Fults' lawyers in 2005 interviewed Thomas 
Buffington about his experience as a juror in Fults' sentencing trial. 
Buffington, who has since died, said in a sworn statement that he knew he 
"would vote for the death penalty because that's what that (N-word) deserved."

State and federal courts have rejected this challenge, largely on procedural 
grounds. The U.S. Supreme Court in October declined to take it up on appeal.

Fults' lawyers on Friday asked the highest court directly to consider the 
matter.

(source: Associated Press)






FLORIDA:

Jury finds Florida man guilty in live burial of victim


A jury has returned a guilty verdict in the trial of a Cocoa, Florida man 
accused of playing a roll in the death of a former "Miss Bahamas Universe" 
contestant.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Vahtiece Alfonzo Kirkman in the 
2006 disappearance of Darice Knowles, 22. Kirkman is already serving a life 
sentence in state prison for a fatal shooting which also happened n 2006.

Authorities said Kirkman and another man, Christopher Pratt, were trying to 
cover up that robbery-related shooting but Pratt's ex-girlfriend, Knowles, knew 
about it. Prosecutors said Kirkman threatened to kill Pratt, unless Pratt 
killed the beauty pageant contestant.

Kirkman and Pratt were eventually arrested in 2010 for the 2006 killing of 
29-year-old Willie Parker, and that's when Pratt led detectives to Knowles' 
body, in exchange for a lighter prison sentence. Detectives said Knowles 
appeared to be duct-taped and buried alive in concrete.

Kirkman's lawyer has argued that he was not directly involved in Knowles' 
death.

(source: fox35orlando.com)






ALABAMA:

The death penalty in Alabama: What's it really like?


It used to be we'd just put them in Yellow Mama. Yellow Mama's what Alabama's 
electric chair's called.

Then, just flip the switch and after a little sizzlin' and scorchin', they???re 
done.

Can you believe some country singers even wrote and sold some songs about that 
-- that ol' yellow chair?!

Yellow Mama's mostly retired these days. She hasn't been used in ages since the 
law changed to lethal injection. We still keep her stored up in the attic over 
at Holman, though. Every now and again, bring her down, give her some pledge, 
little tweakin', make sure she works.

Why? Makes sense to ask.

Reason being, even though the law changed to lethal injection, folks initially 
sentenced to sit in the Mama can still have the pleasure, if they have a mind. 
'Least, that's what the law says.

Now those that don't sit in Yellow Mama, they get that needle and that ain't no 
picnic, let me tell you.

That 1st drug is suppose to put you down, painlessly, like a dog -- your eyes 
just close and you "go to sleep" forever. Except often, it don't work like 
that.

Sure, your eyelids might shut, your breathing might start getting weaker and 
weaker 'till finally, you just stop, and you're lying there spread eagle on 
that cold gurney.

You might look like you're just sleeping all peaceful-like, but it ain't so. 
It's 'cause you can't scream, can't talk, can't open your eyes -- you can't 
even blink -- much less writhe in pain. You're frozen, immobilized, in one of 
them chemical straightjackets, is what you are.

But you'll feel it; oh yes, you'll feel it. Great God in Heaven will you feel 
it!

Because when that 1st drug don't do the trick and your eyes close like your 
sleepin', but really, you're not, they inject them next drugs and then your 
muscles stop workin', your lungs can't breathe, and your beaten broken-down 
heart goes bust. And then, Jesus H. Christ have mercy, you feel it, every sharp 
stinging step of the way . . . .

Like your insides are melting, 'cause they are ... they're melting from the 
inside out ... they're burnin', bubblin', liquefyin' ... like a bonfire raging 
inside you ... and you're the witch.

You ever hear that expression a death by a thousand cuts?

The needle, the "big jab", the "stainless steel ride" -- whatever you want to 
call this lethal injection business -- it may be worse.

And you're just lying there, helpless, all them folks watchin' you through the 
glass. The victim's family, the warden, prison chaplain, members of the press, 
attorneys you know, some you don't, plenty of guards.

Hell, maybe even your own family'll be there ... see the show. Imagine the 
reunion that'll be?

One last sorrowful saline-dripping send-off; and you, lying there all supine, 
them chemicals spreading, saturating your system.

Can you imagine what that does to a child? Here they are, they didn't do a damn 
thing wrong except be born and they're being brought to prison to see their pa 
or ma one last time. And they're in some sterile room, and everyone's watching 
-- they're watching you, watching your family, looking into your son's and your 
wife's eyes, seeing how are they gonna carry it -- are they gonna cry?

And those kids ... How are they suppose to have any happiness, to succeed, to 
have a chance at normal life after watching society exterminate you . . . their 
father, their mother ... like a parasite, a cancer, a plague. How are they 
supposed to get over that?

And truthfully, it don't matter if they see it or not, 'cause they're gonna 
find out. Someday, they always do. Maybe the family won't tell them straight 
away. Maybe the family'll wait till they're older or won't tell them at all. 
Maybe they'll lie; say you were killed at sea, some big traffic accident.

It won't matter though 'cause them kids always find out what happened; someday, 
they'll know the truth. That Alabama decided you were so damn defective they 
had to cast you out into the unfathomable, the ungodly, the unknown.

Those kids will never be the same. Because, they'll know.

And they'll know they've got your blood, that they're a cast-off; a bad seed, 
destined to wilt. And they'll give up.

They'll embrace destiny and follow in your footsteps -- maybe not here in an 
Alabama prison but in some other jail. And if not in an actual cell, they'll 
still be confined -- trapped inside the jail cell of their mind.

They won't be sentenced to die, but they'll be dead anyway; dead in their heart 
and dead in their soul.

And that's the death penalty in Alabama.

(source: Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked for 3 years 
as a capital habeas attorney in Montgomery with the Federal Defenders for the 
Middle District of Alabama----Montgomery Advertiser)

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

Attorney: Proposed Innocence Inquiry Commission could save lives on death row


Longtime defense attorney John Mays practices out of an office in Decatur. He 
knows there are no take-backs after a convict is executed. He has defended 
those accused of capital murder, and he even wrote a book on it.

"The problem with the death penalty is that it is final," he said. "The 
execution of an innocent person is a horrible thing to contemplate, and it 
would mean a failure in our system."

Senator Dick Brewbaker said they'd like to avoid that through his bill, which 
passed the Alabama Senate this week and is on its way to the House. It would 
establish the Alabama Innocence Inquiry Commission. It's proposed as a 
nine-member commission chaired by a circuit court judge, which could hear cases 
and turn those with clear and convincing evidence of innocence over to a 
3-judge panel. This panel, if unanimous, could exonerate a convict.

Sen. Brewbaker said this is not the kind of commission that would hear 
arguments of reasonable doubt, but new evidence.

"It could not review existing cases unless there's new evidence that no jury 
ever heard," he explained. "It's set up [as] just a layer of integrity to the 
death penalty process."

Mays supports creating more options, further than the appeals process, for 
convicts who believe they are innocent. He said there are a lot of hoops in the 
current process for a person to jump through in order to get new evidence in 
court.

"This means they're not going to make you jump through 10 or 12 hoops to get 
the issue heard," he said.

"It's so you don't get bogged down in, 'How was the jury struck,' or 'did you 
meet the appeals deadlines?'" explained Brewbaker. "Look at what evidence is 
being presented by the defense. New evidence."

Brewbaker said he had spoken with defense attorneys who told him there are only 
two possible cases of people on death row who could "even make an assertion of 
new evidence" that a jury hadn't seen.

One of those is Billy Kuenzel. WHNT News 19 profiled his case in a November 
2015 investigation by Al Whitaker. There was no physical evidence linking 
Kuenzel with the crime of which he was accused, a 1987 murder in Sylacauga. 
Kuenzel's trial lasted a day and a half, and when it was over, he was headed to 
death row. His court-appointed attorney, Bill Willingham, stepped aside at that 
point and Kuenzel was left without a lawyer on his case. It was during that 
time that a crucial deadline in the appeals process was missed. As a result, 
despite all of the new evidence uncovered, every subsequent appeal has been 
denied or dismissed because of that missed deadline.

Brewbaker thinks this legislation could help Kuenzel get his evidence heard.

Mays said everyone deserves that chance. "If a mistake has been made and the 
defendant can prove a mistake has been made, he should have access to a 
remedy," he said. "Period. No matter when he finds it. Because people have got 
to have faith in the system."

He thinks it could save lives, and restore any faith that's been lost.

(source: WHNT news)






LOUISIANA:

Innocent Man Spent 30 Years in Prison, Died a Year After His Release. Now the 
State Might Finally Pay


Louisiana denied modest financial compensation to Glenn Ford because he 
couldn't prove his "factual innocence."

In 2014, Glenn Ford walked out of prison RIP, Glenn FordYoutubeafter spending 
30 years on death row for a murder he didn't commit, only to die of cancer a 
little more than a year later.

Louisiana law allows for exonerated ex-prisoners to receive compensation of up 
to $330,000 (which wouldn't even be all that much if it were a life insurance 
policy), but Ford was denied the right to collect what little money the state 
legally owed to him, because he could not prove he was "factually innocent."

That's right, you're innocent until proven guilty before a trial, but if 
falsely convicted AND exonerated in Louisiana, you must prove your innocence 
after the fact.

The man who put Ford on death row, former Caddo Parish prosecutor A.M. "Marty" 
Stroud III, wrote in an a letter to the Shreveport Times last year that during 
the trial, "I was arrogant, judgmental, narcissistic and very full of myself. I 
was not as interested in justice as I was in winning."

Stroud says he relied on "junk science" in prosecuting Ford, and that after 
learning of the results of a 2013 investigation into the murder in question, he 
believed Ford likely shouldn't have even been arrested at all. Stroud pleaded 
for Ford's forgiveness, begged the state to do the right thing by compensating 
him in full, and even repudiated the death penalty itself.

Ford is gone now, but there's new hope that his family may yet enjoy some 
justice. The News Star reports:

State Rep. Cedric Glover has filed a bill that would provide compensation to 
the family of the late Glenn Ford, who was released from prison after serving 
30 years on death row after being wrongly convicted of a Shreveport murder.

Glover, who is on his 2nd stint as a state legislator after serving as mayor of 
Shreveport, told Gannett Louisiana:

I couldn't in good conscience return to this body and not try to address what I 
believe is a grave injustice and a misinterpretation of the law.

Most reasonable folks find it an injustice that he and his family wouldn't 
qualify for this compensation...It's something highly regrettable, and it's 
incumbent on me to step forward and offer a legislative remedy.

It's absolutely tragic and preposterous that all a person whose life was stolen 
from them is entitled to is $330,000. But if Glover's bill passes, at least 
Ford's family can take heart that the state paid, however pathetically, for the 
crime it committed against their departed loved one.

(source: reason.com)