[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., FLA., ALA., LA.

[Rick Halperin]

June 8



TEXAS:

Texan Spent 20 Years On Death Row And Got Cleared After 37 Years


A former Texas prisoner who was released in 1999, after serving about 20 years 
on death row for charges of committing rape and murder of a 21-year-old, was 
finally cleared Monday.

Officials said that an East Texas state court judge approved of an agreement 
between prosecutors and attorneys to exonerate Kerry Cook, 60, so that he could 
overturn the capital murder conviction that accused him of killing Linda Jo 
Edwards in 1977. He had maintained his innocence for 40 years.

Cook has always been an activist protesting the death penalty and speaking 
against it across the United States as well as Europe.

He has written Chasing Justice, recording his battle. It had been nominated for 
the Edgar Award, by Mystery Writers of America. Former FBI Director and Federal 
Judge William S. Sessions noted: "Kerry Max Cook has written a brutal but 
compelling account of his 22 years on Texas's death row for a murder he did not 
commit. The book depicts his struggles against all odds to free himself from an 
inept justice system that would not let go, despite mounting and eventually 
overwhelming evidence of his innocence. What is perhaps most amazing is the 
grace with which he now lives his life as a free man, determined to prevent 
others from suffering the horrors he endured."

The new evidence proved his innocence and held another man guilty, said a 
statement from the Innocence Project of Texas, representing Cook.

Though prosecutors have agreed to drop the murder charges, they still continue 
to oppose his claims of real innocence. On June 27, Cook will appear again in 
court and clearance from charges would gain him $2 million or more to make up 
for the traumatic period of imprisonment.

Cook's case got national attention and stirred a lot of questions regarding the 
death penalty prosecutions in Texas. The state has sent most prisoners to their 
death, since the U.S. Supreme Court brought up the death penalty again in 1976.

In 1999, there was a "no contest" plea to murder, permitting Cook to be 
released from prison. It however, did not call for any admission of guilt.

He had been convicted in 1978. However, his case was appealed and retried. But 
in 1996, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals put down his conviction and death 
sentence owing to "prosecutorial misconduct."

The 21-year-old bartender had no bad record of violence. It became clear that 
he lived in exactly the same east Texas apartment complex as Edwards.

It was only later that DNA tests proved him to be innocent.

"It is long past time for the state of Texas to admit that it got the wrong man 
and that it prosecuted the wrong man repeatedly and sought the death penalty 
against the wrong man repeatedly," said Kathryn Kase, executive director of the 
Texas Defender Service, which represents death row inmates.

It is "shameful," Kase said, that prosecutors continue to challenge Cook's 
efforts to prove his innocence.

(source: newseveryday.com)






NORTH CAROLINA:

D.A. to pursue death penalty in burning death


The Alamance County District Attorney's Office will seek the death penalty 
against Cesar "Chilango" Torres-Acevedo in last summer's burning death of Juan 
Mario Martinez Trujillo, 56, of Hillsborough.

"Today we gave notice to the defense that we intend to proceed capitally," said 
Cory Santos, first assistant district attorney.

Torres-Acevedo is accused of setting Trujillo on fire with an accelerant on 
Hatchery Road near Interstate 40/85 the evening of June 13, 2015. He died Aug. 
24 at UNC Medical Center as a result of his injuries. Burlington police 
arrested Torres-Acevedo in January.

Now that the defense has been notified in Monday's Rule 24 hearing, the N.C. 
Office of Indigent Defense Services will assign Torres-Acevedo a 2nd lawyer to 
join Graham attorney Todd Smith.

Torres-Acevedo is being held without bond, Santos said.

The long investigation involved interviews, searches and surveillance and 
collected a wide range of circumstantial evidence.

According to a police affidavit, friends of Trujillo said he had been involved 
in drug trafficking with a man called "Chilango," slang for a man from Mexico 
City, and that there was an ongoing dispute between them over $5,000 to 
$10,000. Police were later able to identify Torres-Acevedo as "Chilango."

On Facebook, police found photos of Torres-Acevedo tagged "Bandolero Torres" 
and a page under that name with a profile including a cover image of "famous 
Mexican drug cartel leaders" and "likes" for Facebook pages related to at least 
2 drug cartels.

According to police, cellphone records show consistent contact between 
Torres-Acevedo and Trujillo from December 2014 to May 2015, and suggest they 
were both at the K&W Cafeteria in Burlington, a few hundred yards from the 
crime scene, the night of the assault.

After the assault, but before his death, Trujillo said a man named "Fernando" 
assaulted him, a nickname Torres-Acevedo's ex-wife said he sometimes used, 
according to police.

Gastonia police arrested Torres-Acevedo in a traffic stop Jan. 12 with about 4 
pounds of methamphetamine worth about $68,000, according to police.

(source: The Times-News)






FLORIDA:

Florida Supreme Court considers new death penalty law


The Florida Supreme Court has heard arguments on whether changes by the state 
legislature to the state's death penalty can be applied to pending cases.

Justices heard arguments Tuesday.

The legislature passed a new sentencing scheme this past session after the U.S. 
Supreme Court ruled the old system unconstitutional because it gave too much 
power to judges and not juries. The new law, signed by Gov. Rick Scott in 
March, requires 10 jurors to recommend death. Also, a judge can't impose a 
death sentence when the jury recommends life.

Larry Darnell Perry, of St. Cloud, Florida, is accused of murdering his 
3-month-old son in 2013. Florida???s Fifth District Court of Appeal has asked 
justices whether the new law can be applied when the trial begins in August.

(source: Associated Press)






ALABAMA:

For 3rd time in 5 weeks, Supreme Court tells Alabama to reconsider death row 
case


For the 3rd time in 5 weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court has told an Alabama appeals 
court to reconsider an Alabama death row inmate's appeal in light of the 
Supreme Court's ruling earlier this year striking down Florida's capital 
punishment scheme.

2 Alabama attorneys said Monday that the moves by the high court indicate 
justices may be looking at striking down Alabama's death sentencing scheme as 
unconstitutional.

"Personally, I think its crystal clear the Supreme Court has real concerns 
about the constitutionality of our current death penalty and is clearly putting 
us on notice of that fact," said Birmingham attorney John Lentine.

Bryan Stevenson, executive director and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative 
in Montgomery, also stated in an email to AL.com on Monday that "we believe 
it's now very clear that the U.S. Supreme Court recognizes that Alabama's death 
penalty scheme is called into question following the Court's ruling in Hurst v. 
Florida earlier this year. There have been serious flaws in Alabama's process 
of imposing the death penalty for several years and state courts are going to 
have to now confront these problems."

The court granted review of the case of Alabama death row inmate Bart Johnson, 
vacated the judgment, and sent the case back to the Alabama Court of Criminal 
Appeals for review

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday remanded the case of Alabama Death Row inmate 
Ronnie Kirksey back to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals for 
reconsideration of his appeal in light of the Hurst v. Florida decision in 
January.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month had also ordered the Alabama Court of 
Criminal Appeals to reconsider its decision in the appeals of Corey Wimbley and 
Bart Johnson in light of the Florida case.

Wimbley was convicted in Washington County and sentenced to death in the death 
of 55-year-old Connie Ray Wheat at a grocery store in Wagarville. Johnson was 
convicted and sentenced to death in Shelby County for the 2009 slaying of 
Pelham police officer Philip Davis.

Kirksey, of Gadsden, was convicted in the death of 23-month-old Cornell 
Norwood. The jury in 2010 found Kirksey guilty and unanimously recommended he 
be sentenced to death. The judge agreed and sentenced Kirksey to death.

At issue with Alabama's death penalty scheme is that Alabama permits judges to 
override a jury's recommendation for a life sentence and impose death. Alabama 
was 1 of only 3 states that allowed such an override. The others were Florida 
and Delaware.

Legislators in Florida's legislature re-wrote its capital punishment sentencing 
law this spring.

Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tracie Todd in March ruled in 4 of her capital 
murder cases that Alabama's capital punishment sentencing scheme is 
unconstitutional based on the Hurst case. The Alabama Attorney General's Office 
has appealed Todd's ruling.

The decision was spurred by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in January that 
Florida's sentencing scheme allowing judges to override juries in death penalty 
cases is unconstitutional. Alabama has a similar sentencing scheme.

A number of attorneys around the state have challenged on behalf of their 
clients the constitutionality of Alabama's capital murder sentencing scheme 
based on the Florida ruling. All but Todd, however, denied those requests.

District attorneys and Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange have said 
Alabama's law is not the same as Florida's.

First, Alabama's sentencing scheme was ruled constitutional in 1995 by the U.S. 
Supreme Court, state prosecutors say. They also have pointed out that the high 
court held in the Florida case that a jury must find the aggravating factor in 
order to make someone eligible for the death penalty. Alabama's system already 
requires the jury to do just that, according to an Alabama Attorney General's 
statement.

(source: al.com)






LOUISIANA:

U.S. Supreme Court won't reconsider federal courts' decision to strike down 
Kevan Brumfield's death penalty sentence


The U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to take up a request to reinstate Kevan 
Brumfield's death sentence in the 1993 ambush killing of Baton Rouge police 
Cpl. Betty Smothers is "yet another blow" to her family and the community, East 
Baton Rouge Parish's chief prosecutor said Tuesday.

"The jury's decision to impose the death penalty ... was appropriate then and 
is today," insisted District Attorney Hillar Moore III, who said his office is 
considering its next move.

Brumfield, 43, of Baton Rouge, was condemned to die in 1995, but the sentence 
was later overturned - a decision Moore has been battling.

Nick Trenticosta, one of Brumfield's attorneys, said Brumfield is happy with 
the Supreme Court's action and looks forward to being resentenced in the 19th 
Judicial District Court. The new sentence would be life in prison.

"We hope he will be taken off death row very soon," Trenticosta added.

Also on death row in the Smothers case is Henri Broadway, 45, of Baton Rouge. 
He is seeking a new trial, claiming his trial attorneys were ineffective.

The Supreme Court's action Monday in Brumfield's case came after the 5th U.S. 
Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in December that Brumfield is intellectually 
disabled and, therefore, cannot be executed.

The District Attorney's Office asked the Supreme Court in March to take up the 
case. Moore's office argued the high court should reverse U.S. District Judge 
James Brady and the 5th Circuit, and reinstate state District Judge Richard 
Anderson's 2003 finding that Brumfield is not intellectually disabled.

The Supreme Court denied the request to consider the case without issuing 
written reasons.

Moore said he will meet with his staff and the Smothers' family before deciding 
whether to ask the justices to reconsider their decision.

"This family has suffered through 23 years of legal proceedings. It is more 
than one family and generations of this family can endure," he said.

Moore said his office did not receive the needed vote of 4 justices to hear his 
request to reinstate the death penalty. Now, it would take 5 justices to vote 
in favor of a rehearing of that refusal, he noted.

3 psychologists had testified as expert witnesses for Brumfield in Brady's 
Baton Rouge federal courtroom that Brumfield is mentally disabled, but the 
state's experts - a psychiatrist, psychologist and neuropsychologist - 
testified he is not intellectually disabled.

Smothers, a 36-year-old single mother of 6 children, was fatally shot Jan. 7, 
1993, outside a Jefferson Highway bank where she had driven a grocery store 
manager to make a night deposit as part of Smothers' off-duty security job.

Brumfield was accused of shooting Smothers to death. Broadway was accused of 
firing into Smothers??? police car and wounding the grocery store employee.

Warrick Dunn - a former Catholic High School, Florida State University and NFL 
running back - is Smothers' oldest child. Dunn, who lost his mother 2 days 
after his 18th birthday, has called Brumfield's mental disability claim 
"offensive and morally wrong."

(source: The Advocate)