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

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 19




TEXAS----new death sentence

Death sentence for Fort Worth man who killed pregnant girlfriend, 2 others


A Tarrant County jury sentenced a Fort Worth man to death Friday in a 2013 
triple slaying.

Amos Wells was convicted on Nov. 3 of capital murder in the deaths of his 
pregnant girlfriend Chanice Reed, 22; her mother, Annette Reed, 39; and Chanice 
Reed's 10-year-old brother, Eddie McCuin, on July 1, 2013.

The jury deliberated for about 4 hours Friday afternoon before reaching the 
decision.

"This has been a long trial," said Kevin Rousseau, Tarrant County prosecutor. 
"The family is happy that justice was served. Nothing will replace the lives 
that were lost. But this was a necessary first step in the healing process."

Prosecutors argued that after Wells shot his girlfriend and her mother, he 
chased Eddie through the house and shot him while he cowered on the floor.

A woman who identified herself as Chanise Reed's cousin said during her victim 
impact statement that she forgave Wells but still could not understand why he 
killed the woman and the unborn child he claimed he loved.

"There have been 6 deaths in our family between 2010 and 2012," the woman said. 
"All we have left is memories that will never fade away."

State District Judge Ruben Gonzalez allowed Wells' family to speak to him after 
his death sentence was announced to a packed courtroom. Wells, who barely 
showed any emotion as his sentence was read, broke down in tears as they said 
their goodbyes.

One man said that he would do all that he could for Wells, including take care 
of his mother and daughter and supply him with whatever he needed while he was 
in prison waiting for the state to carry out his sentence.

"I did this," Wells told his relatives. "I'm an adult. Don't bear this burden. 
This burden is mine. The more you see me, the more you do for me, the more I 
will feel like I am putting this burden on you."

On July 1, 2013, while first responders surrounded the residence in the 2900 
block of Pate Drive where the shooting happened, Wells had already turned 
himself in at the Forest Hill Police Department.

Video surveillance showed Wells leaning on the counter top in front of a window 
that led to the police communication division. One officer leveled his service 
weapon at Wells, who begged for the police to take his life, according to 
testimony.

The last man to be sent to death row by a Tarrant County jury was Cedric Allen 
Ricks, who received a death sentence on May 16, 2014. Ricks got into an 
argument with Roxann Sanchez, his 30-year-old common-law wife and grabbed a 
kitchen knife and began stabbing the victim and her 12- and 8-year old sons.

Before Friday's verdict there had been 3 death sentences handed down in Texas 
this year, according to The Texas Tribune. Last year, Texas sent 2 convicted 
killers to death row, the fewest since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 
state's capital punishment statute nearly 4 decades ago, according to a 
Texas-based group that opposes the death penalty, the Tribune reported.

The state has scheduled executions for 6 offenders next year, according to 
Texas Department of Criminal Justice records. 3 are from Tarrant County, 2 are 
from Dallas County and 1 is from Collin County

(source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

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

Judge rules child-killer Battaglia competent to be executed


After months of uncertainty, the fate of convicted child killer John Battaglia 
was sealed in a Dallas County courtroom on Friday.

Judge Robert Burns ruled Battaglia's scheduled execution date of Dec. 7 will 
stand after the court found him competent to face the death penalty.

The judge's ruling concluded 'Battaglia does understand that he is to be 
executed and that his execution is imminent, and he does understand the reason 
for his execution."

Battaglia committed one of the most heinous and unthinkable crimes in Dallas 
history back in May 2001. He shot and killed his two little girls, Faith and 
Liberty, while on the phone with his ex-wife Mary Jean Pearl.

Back in March, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of execution. 
Court documents at the time stated Battaglia claimed his lawyer abandoned him 
and failed to call into question his mental competency.

In a jailhouse interview with News 8's Rebecca Lopez, Battaglia blamed a list 
of people he called "demons" for his conviction in the murders.

Prosecutors believed Battaglia was attempting to game the system while the 
defense team argued 3 out of 4 experts concluded he was delusional and should 
not be executed.

In court, it was revealed Battaglia read books and case law on how he could 
fool doctors into believing he was too incompetent to be executed.

(source: WFAA news)

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

Deadly Question


Bill Meier says he can't remember exactly how he arrived at the deadly 
question, back in 1973.

"I frankly don't have the kind of memory that would allow me to remember just 
what was said," he said.

Meier is a Texas lawyer whose deep drawl makes it easy to imagine him wooing a 
jury. He now sits as a judge on the Texas Second Court of Appeals, but back in 
the 1970s, he served as a state senator. He's a colorful character who's made 
Texas Monthly magazine's top 10 legislators list both as one of the state's 
best and as one of its worst. In 1973, the magazine called him open-minded, 
highly accessible, and never dogmatic. It later panned him as a legislator who 
"masqueraded as one who would advance the cause of conservatism; in fact, his 
cause was himself." Meier holds the record for the nation's longest filibuster 
after talking for 43 hours, wearing house slippers to ease his aching feet and 
an "astronaut bag" to prevent bathroom breaks to try and stop a bill that he 
believed would erode public records laws.

Back in 1973, Texas legislators were wrestling with how fix one of the state's 
most infamous institutions - its death penalty. The previous year, the U.S. 
Supreme Court had ruled the death penalty unconstitutional, finding it was too 
arbitrary, too riddled with discrimination and racism. The case put a stop to 
executions nationwide and sent state legislatures scrambling to write new laws 
to fix these flaws. Most states passed laws that allowed juries to consider 
past behavior and crimes, but Texas focused on predicting the future. Before 
jurors could sentence someone to death, they must first decide if the person 
will be a future danger.

The precise wording of the question is convoluted, asking jurors "whether there 
is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that 
would constitute a continuing threat to society." At its core, it contains an 
incredible idea: Can we predict whether or not a killer will kill again?

What if hundreds of people have been sentenced to death using a question aimed 
at predicting the unpredictable?

Meier was one of the key legislators who crafted the law. In the years since, 
he's gotten "probably a 100 calls about this" from people asking how he and his 
colleagues thought it up, he said. But he said he can't remember the discussion 
that led to it.

"Imagine trying to remember what you said and did back then," he said with a 
chuckle.

Texas holds a unique place in the annals of the American death penalty. It is, 
by far, the country's most prolific executioner. Since 1976, when the Supreme 
Court reinstated the death penalty in a case called Gregg v. Georgia, Texas has 
executed 538 people. Oklahoma is in 2nd place with a relatively paltry 112 
executions. And, more than 30 years later, Meier's question remains at the 
heart of this deadly system.

The Supreme Court recently heard arguments in a Texas death penalty case called 
Buck v. Davis. The defendant, Duane Buck, fatally shot his ex-girlfriend and 
her friend in July 1995. 2 years later, a jury found him guilty and sentenced 
him to death. The case arrived at the Supreme Court because of a bizarre twist 
- at the sentencing, Buck's own lawyer introduced testimony by an expert who 
said that Buck's race made him more likely to be a future danger. Buck is 
black.

Should someone be sentenced to death, in part, because of his race? Should 
expert witnesses use race to predict whether someone will be violent? Those 
questions sound shocking, and rightfully so. But the circumstances of Buck's 
case - where an expert testified explicitly that race should be a factor for 
the jury to consider in sentencing - make it an outlier. The framing of the 
question before the court in Buck's case is narrow, and doesn't address whether 
future dangerousness is the right question to ask.

What if hundreds of people have been sentenced to death using a question aimed 
at predicting the unpredictable?

It's a tempting notion that we can predict who will live peaceful, productive 
lives and who will erupt in violence. If we could, it would certainly take some 
of the arbitrariness out of the death penalty. But how good are we at making 
those predictions?

The modern age of the death penalty began in 1972. That's when the Supreme 
Court heard a Georgia murder case called Furman v. Georgia. The defendant, 
William Henry Furman, had broken into a home in Savannah and was rummaging 
around when the homeowner awoke. Furman ran off, but on his way out, he dropped 
his loaded gun, which fired, killing the homeowner. A jury convicted Furman, 
who was black, in a 1-day trial. In its decision, the Supreme Court held the 
death penalty, as then applied, was unconstitutional, that it was too 
haphazardly applied and violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against 
cruel and unusual punishment.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote, "Capital punishment 
is imposed discriminatorily against certain identifiable classes of people; 
there is evidence that innocent people have been executed before their 
innocence can be proved; and the death penalty wreaks havoc with our entire 
criminal justice system."

"If we could figure out who will be a danger, then we wouldn't have crime."

The decision created a de facto moratorium on the death penalty nationwide as 
states tried to craft laws that would satisfy the Eighth Amendment. In Texas, 
Meier and a few other legislators hurried to draft such a bill before the end 
of the legislative session.

Meier sponsored a Senate bill to revamp the death penalty. A similar bill moved 
through the Texas House of Representatives called House Bill 200. That bill 
passed both houses and then was reviewed by what's called a conference 
committee, a small group of legislators from both houses. Meier told me that's 
where he and another legislator, Terry Doyle, came up with the deadly question, 
known as the "future dangerousness" question.

At the time, Craig A. Washington Sr., was a state representative. Although he 
was opposed to the death penalty, he attended the conference committee 
discussions about the bill because he wanted to hear the debate. But, unlike 
Meier, Washington told me that he remembers the discussion around future 
dangerousness, or, rather, the lack of discussion.

"It was made up out of thin air," said Washington Sr., a Houston lawyer. "Thin 
air."

Washington said that the question seemed to be a way for the legislature to 
create some standard that seemed scientific, while still giving jurors a way to 
come to arbitrary decisions about life or death.

"If we could figure out who will be a danger, then we wouldn't have crime," 
Washington told me. He scoffed at the idea that even experts could make that 
prediction. "Experts," he said."I call them a guess in an evening gown, a 
g-u-e-s-s."

No one has embodied the troubling questions embedded in the "future 
dangerousness" question quite like psychiatrist Dr. James Grigson, who earned 
the sobriquet Dr. Death because of his willingness to testify in favor of 
executing the convicted.

After Texas passed its revamped death penalty law with the "future 
dangerousness" question, prosecutors used expert witnesses to testify about a 
defendant's risk for violence. Grigson testified in 167 capital cases. Known 
for his genial, folksy mannerisms, Grigson frequently claimed certainty in 
predicting a defendant's risk for future violence, even if he'd never talked to 
the person. In 1983, Barefoot v. Estelle, a case involving Grigson's predictive 
powers made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that experts could 
testify about a person's future dangerousness based on hypothetical questions, 
even if the expert had never talked with the person.

Grigson's confident predictions led to fame - Vanity Fair chronicled his 
colorful career - but also made him a pariah to many in his profession. The 
American Psychiatric Association expelled him from the professional 
organization in 1995 and sharply criticized Grigson's methods as junk science. 
Nowadays, Texas juries rarely hear from such experts. Grigson passed away in 
2004, and that type of expert witness, one who relies on hypotheticals, has 
fallen out of favor.

But the "future dangerousness" question remains.

Dr. Mark Cunningham, a Seattle-based psychologist, and Dr. John Edens, a 
psychologist at Texas A&M University, have devoted their professional lives to 
the question of whether we can predict the future dangerousness of those 
convicted of crimes. Both have published extensively on the topic. And both 
have reached much the same conclusion.

"Juries show absolutely no predictive ability whatsoever," Cunningham said. 
"And, in fact, experts are similar." "It's in the papers and the magazines 
about how prevalent black-on-black violence is," he told me. "It's not because 
they are black; it's because they're raised funny."

The American Psychiatric Association - the same one that expelled Grigson - has 
taken a similar position and implored the Supreme Court to ban the future 
dangerousness question in capital cases, saying in an amicus brief that "[t]he 
unreliability of psychiatric predictions of long-term future dangerousness is 
by now an established fact within the profession." The APA concluded that the 
"future dangerousness" question relies on junk science, and found that experts 
are wrong in 2 out of 3 predictions of "future dangerousness."

Part of the problem, Cunningham explained, is the sample size. Death penalty 
defendants represent a small sample of people, all of whom have been convicted 
of a violent act, so there's some risk for violence for all of them. Trying to 
predict who will be violent again doesn't work.

The other part of the problem is the actual circumstance versus the jury's 
fears, he said. In Texas, the alternative to the death penalty is life without 
parole, so the defendant will spend the rest of his life in prison. But jurors 
can make their decision as if the person would be released back into society.

"It renders this issue much more ambiguous and hard to define and maybe kind of 
fantastical," Cunningham said.

Edens agreed. Unlike in Texas, in the federal system and in many other states, 
a person's likelihood of future violence is only one of a number of factors 
that a jury can take into consideration. But the person's life doesn't hinge on 
that single question. And the jury isn't allowed to talk about hypotheticals, 
they must focus on the actual circumstances that await a convicted defendant - 
a life sentence in prison or execution.

"People are supposed to be constrained to what's really going to happen," Edens 
said.

Cunningham and Edens are both skeptical about our ability to predict future 
danger in society, and they're even more skeptical about it once someone is 
confined to prison. "If your goal is 'let's put somebody to death before they 
do something bad in the future,' then the good news is that our prisons work 
relatively well at suppressing violence, but trying to pick those needles out 
of a haystack, we???re not good at doing that," Edens said.

Their view - that it's very difficult to predict who will be a future danger, 
especially in prison - isn't universally shared. One man who is sharply 
critical of their findings is Dr. Richard Coons, a psychiatrist based in 
Austin, Texas, who has testified in dozens of capital cases. Coons himself has 
faced criticism for his evaluation methods. In 2010, the Texas Court of 
Criminal Appeals ruled that his methods for predicting future dangerousness 
were not reliable, but Coons stands by his techniques. When we spoke, he 
claimed that Cunningham underestimated the likelihood that a defendant would be 
dangerous in prison.

"[Cunningham and his researchers] talk about how little violence there is in 
the criminal justice system. Well, hogwash - that's a good old Texas term," he 
said.

Coons, who is now retired, told me that there are a number of factors that he'd 
use to predict a person's future danger. He'd look at their history of 
violence, their attitude toward violence, the facts of the case itself, whether 
or not the person has a conscience. Then, he'd make his prediction. Unlike the 
expert in the Buck case, Coons said, he'd never use race as a predictor, 
although he told me that it was clear to him why blacks were overrepresented in 
jails and prisons. "It's in the papers and the magazines about how prevalent 
black-on-black violence is," he told me. "It's not because they are black; it's 
because they're raised funny."

Major studies have concluded that both the race of the defendant and the race 
of the victim play a pivotal role in whether a person is sentenced to death. A 
study by criminologists that was included in Buck's appeal examined racial 
disparity in Harris County, Texas, the county where Buck was sentenced to 
death. The study found that, from 1992 to 1999, Harris County prosecutors were 
3 1/2 times more likely to seek the death penalty against black defendants than 
white ones. Jurors were more than twice as likely to sentence blacks to death.

Another study of capital cases in Harris County found that juries were more 
likely to impose a death sentence if the victim was white than if the victim 
was black, a pattern found in studies of other jurisdictions. Another study led 
by a Stanford University psychologist found that, in cases that involved a 
white victim, the more stereotypically black a defendant was perceived to be, 
the more likely the defendant was to be sentenced to death.

As philosophically at-odds as researchers like Cunningham and Edens are with 
Coons, surprisingly, they all agreed on one thing: We're asking jurors the 
wrong question. Cunningham and Edens, who often testify for the defense, have 
been open about their belief that the question is flawed, an open invitation to 
the jury to make a moral judgment on the defendant. But when I asked Coons 
directly if we're asking the right question, he came to the same conclusion: 
"Maybe not." He added, "There is no credible way of evaluating the situation to 
a high degree of likelihood."

Coons, who peppered our conversation with colorful anecdotes and stories, used 
this analogy when I asked him to explain what he meant about the question's 
predictive power. "That's kind of like saying, "Which of these hummingbirds are 
going to go to Panama for the winter and which are going to Costa Rica?'" he 
said. "You can't know."

So if experts don't believe we can accurately predict whether someone convicted 
of a capital crime will be a future danger, is the deadly question on its 
deathbed?

The answer is likely no.

The reasons, according to mental health experts and lawyers, are 2-fold. First, 
the question is written into the law, and Texas juries have answered it in 
every death penalty case since 1976. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a direct 
challenge to future dangerousness in a 1976 case called Jurek v. Texas, finding 
that even if an expert is wrong about a person's dangerousness, the adversarial 
process of a trial will sort it out. The court added that judges routinely make 
predictions about people's future behavior in other contexts, like setting bail 
or in hospitalizing someone for a mental illness. Experts told me that it's 
unlikely the Texas Legislature would change the law. It might be viewed as an 
admission the question was flawed, which could result in all 244 people on 
death row challenging their sentences.

"Once a public policy is in place, it's almost like it takes on a life of its 
own. It becomes a cherished notion," Cunningham said.

The second reason is that the way courts deal with the question has morphed. It 
used to be that prosecutors would bring Grigson, Coons, or some other expert, 
and the defense would counter with their own expert. Now, though, those types 
of experts have largely fallen out of favor, said Kase, the defense lawyer. 
Instead, more and more, it's left to juries. Prosecutors often present a list 
of bad acts by defendants - prior convictions and disciplinary problems in 
prison - and the defense offers mitigating evidence, such as evidence that 
their client is adjusting well to prison.

Experts and lawyers say that trend makes "future dangerousness" even less of a 
science and more of a guess or moral judgment. It's certainly not what Meier 
envisioned when he wrote the question all those years ago. "The question is not 
something that's subject to being answered by a non-expert because it's 
predicting future conduct or the chance or danger or likelihood of future 
action, and that's something that requires an expert," Meier told me.

And, for defense lawyers like Kase, it's seems proof that the Texas death 
penalty is not about science, but about something much more abstract, a 
troubling moral judgment about who is too evil, too dangerous to live.

"It is akin to giving jurors 2 cotton swabs, asking them to look at them and 
saying, 'Does the DNA match?'" she said. "If an expert can't figure it out, 
then how can jurors do that? It is no accident that African Americans are 
overrepresented on death row."

(source: Abbie VanSickle is a reporter with the Investigative Reporting Program 
at UC Berkeley--The Atlantic)






ALABAMA:

Jury fails to recommend 5th death sentence for convicted Dothan killer


A Houston County jury was unable to agree Friday on a sentence recommendation 
in the case of a man who previously was ordered to die 4 times.

The panel, after deliberating nearly 90 minutes, voted 8 to 4 in favor 
recommending Jerry Jerome Smith be executed for the shooting deaths of 3 people 
at a Dothan home in 1996.

Alabama law requires at least 10 jurors vote for the death penalty. The other 
option was life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Houston County Judge Michael Conaway declared a mistrial and another sentencing 
phase of trial will be scheduled later.

While Smith's conviction has remained intact, his death penalty has been 
overturned 4 times. Prior to Friday, other juries recommended execution and 
judges concurred. Under Alabama law, a judge is not bound by the jury's 
recommendation.

Defense attorneys Aaron Gartlin and David Hogg argued that Smith's life should 
be spared due to his diminished mental capacity. In contrast, District Attorney 
Doug Valeska portrayed him as a cold-hearted killer.

(source: WTVY news)






OHIO:

Confession from mother accused of killing 3 sons allowed for trial


A Logan County Common Pleas judge has ruled that a Bellefontaine woman's 
confession to smothering her 3 young boys over a 13-month period will be 
allowed during her murder trial.

Judge Mark S. O'Connor denied the defense's motion to suppress the statements 
made by Brittany R. Pilkington on Aug. 18, 2015, following the death of her 
3-month-old son, during a videotaped interview with a Bellefontaine Police 
Department detective.

The 2-day hearing to determine whether statements made to police that day would 
be permitted as trial evidence concluded in October.

Pilkington has pleaded not guilty to 3 counts of aggravated murder, 1 for each 
of her 3 sons: 3-month-old Niall, who died July 22, 2014; 4-year-old Gavin, who 
died April 6, 2015; and 3-month-old Noah, who died Aug. 18, 2015.

She told police that she suffocated the boys with blankets over their faces 
because her husband paid more attention to them than he did their daughter. She 
also said that she was abused by her father and didn't want her boys to grow up 
to be abusive.

The defense had argued that police obtained Pilkington's statements 
unconstitutionally, saying she didn't understand what she was confessing.

However, the Common Pleas judge ruled the defendant "knowingly and 
intelligently waived her Miranda rights," according to court documents filed 
Friday. Pilkington, 24, twice signed waivers the morning of Noah's death, 
relinquishing her rights to remain silent or have counsel, preceding an 
interrogation and polygraph test.

O'Connor stated that the initial police interview, as well as a polygraph test 
and follow-up interview, was conducted appropriately and professionally. The 
judge additionally said Pilkington was within her capacity to volunteer 
statements made in a fourth interview session. He noted that although the 
session was lengthy, the defendant was offered and declined food, water and a 
bathroom break during the 9-hour interrogation.

Pilkington's trial is set to begin Feb. 27. She could face the death penalty if 
convicted of aggravated murder.

(source: Columbus Dispatch)

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

Jury recommends death penalty for man convicted of killing 3 at Warrensville 
Heights barbershop


A jury unanimously decided that Douglas Shine Jr. should be sentenced to death 
for the triple slaying at a Warrensville Heights barbershop in 2015.

He will be formally sentenced by a judge on Dec. 5 at 11 a.m.

Shine, a 21-year-old Cleveland man, could be seen looking placidly at the judge 
while the jury's decision was read. He was charged with aggravated murder for 
the triple slaying at Chalk Linez in Feb. 2015.

In February 2015, police responded to a shooting at the barbershop and found 
three dead. Walter Lee Barfield, a 23-year-old Cleveland man, Brandon White, a 
31-year-old Warrensville Heights man, and William Gonzalez, a 32-year-old 
Garfield Heights man, were killed in the shooting. Gonzalez owned the 
barbershop.

Shine and Kevin McKinney were arrested in connection to the murders. Both were 
indicted on several charges, including aggravated murder, aggravated burglary 
and murder. Police say the two men orchestrated the killing of a witness to the 
barbershop shooting - 32-year-old Aaron Ladson.

Ladson was found shot in the head of the driveway of his grandmother's home in 
June 2015. Months earlier, he was a witness to the barbershop shooting that 
left his brother, Brandon White, dead.

Shine initially plead not guilty to the charges. Authorities say he's a member 
of the Heartless Felons gang and previously served 2 years in prison on robbery 
and weapons charges.

(source: newsnet5.com)