[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 1



FLORIDA:

Girl, 1, starves to death: State seeks death penalty vs. father


The State Attorney's Office is seeking the death penalty for Alejandro Aleman, 
the man charged with first-degree murder in the death of his 13-month-old 
daughter.

Aleman's defense attorney Michael Salnick, who was officially appointed as his 
counsel Tuesday morning, questioned the legality of the death penality, a hot 
topic in the Florida Supreme Court, as well.

Currently, a jury must be unanimous in its decision to sentence someone to 
death. However, judges across the state are delaying death sentences while 
courts debate its legality.

Salnick entered not guilty pleas for his client on the 1st-degree murder, 
aggravated child abuse and animal cruelty charges. He declined to talk to media 
about the case.

Aleman's daughter, Tayla, starved to death April 1, according to the Palm Beach 
County Medical Examiner. An autopsy revealed Tayla had E. coli, multiple 
strains of influenza and the start of pneumonia when she died.

Tayla's mother, Kristen Meyer-Aleman, also faces 1st-degree murder and 
aggravated child abuse charges in her death. She told sheriff's deputies Tayla 
was fine 1 minute and stopped breathing the next.

Meyer-Aleman is represented by a public defender. The Office of Regional 
Counsel is representing Meyer-Aleman in an open civil case, so a representative 
from the office argued it would be a conflict of interest for the office to 
represent her husband on the murder charge. Judge Charles Burton reluctantly 
appointed a private defense attorney, at the tax payer's expense, to represent 
Aleman last month.

Salnick has handled several high-profile trials in Palm Beach County in recent 
years. He represented ex-Boynton Beach police officer Stephen Maiorino, who was 
acquitted of armed sexual battery, armed kidnapping and another charge linked 
to allegations that he raped a Wellington woman while on duty in 2014.

Salnick will be paid by the Judicial Administrative Commission at a rate 
determined by the court.

(source: Palm Beach Post)






OHIO:

High court hears Donna Roberts death appeal on Feb. 7


The state's high court has set a date for the next round of oral arguments for 
the lone woman on Ohio's death row.

Donna Marie Roberts, convicted in the 2001 murder-for-hire of her former 
husband in Trumbull County, will have her case heard by the Ohio Supreme Court 
on Feb. 7. It's the 1st case of 3 scheduled for that day, with each side 
allotted a half an hour for their arguments.

Roberts is asking justices to "reverse the sentence of death and find a life 
sentence to be appropriate," according to documents.

This will be the 3rd time the Supreme Court has heard the case, with justices 
remanding it on 2 other occasions.

According to documents, Roberts and her then-boyfriend Nathaniel Jackson 
planned the murder of 57-year-old Robert Fingerhut for months, hoping to 
collect more than 1/2 a million dollars in insurance money. Roberts provided 
Jackson with access to the Howland home she and Fingerhut shared, and Jackson 
shot the victim multiple times.

Both Roberts and Jackson received death sentences but were later ordered to be 
re-sentenced after it was determined that the prosecutor's office assisted in 
writing the original opinion in the case.

Justices affirmed Jackson's death sentence earlier this year, with a majority 
justices ruling that the penalty was "both appropriate and proportionate when 
compared with capital cases involving aggravated murder during an aggravated 
murder."

During her earlier case before the Supreme Court, Roberts argued that the trial 
judge should have considered head injuries, her history of depression and other 
mitigating factors before again issuing the ultimate penalty for her role the 
murder.

A majority of justices agreed, noting that a new trial court entry "failed to 
mention any of the information provided by Roberts" as part of the 1st 
resentencing process. They remanded her case for further consideration in 2013.

(source: Youngstown Vindicator)