[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., GA., FLA., LA., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

June 5



TEXAS----female to face death penalty

DA to seek death penalty in Henderson case



Henderson County District Attorney Mark Hall intends to seek the death penalty 
against Sarah Henderson, the woman charged with capital murder in the shootings 
of her 2 young daughters.

"Although the state is making its election at this time not knowing the 
ultimate result of the evaluations, and whether the defendant is found to be 
competent or incompetent and later restored to competency, the state elects to 
seek the death penalty in this case in order to allow the jury that will hear 
the case the opportunity to impose the punishment it deems appropriate, should 
the defendant be found guilt of capital murder," court records show.

Hall filed his election to seek death on Friday. He has said he had a June 1 
deadline to make a decision on the punishment if Henderson is found guilty. A 
hearing was conducted on April 27 after defense attorneys filed a motion for 
examination to determine competency.

Judge Scott McKee of the 392nd Judicial District Court entered an order for 
examination to determine Henderson's competency. Dr. Tom Allen and Dr. Timothy 
Proctor were appointed to examine the defendant.

Henderson, 30, has pleaded not guilty after being indicted in January on 2 
counts of capital murder, attempted murder and assault on a public servant. A 
jury trial has been scheduled for Jan. 28, 2019.

She was arrested on Nov. 2, 2017, at her Payne Springs home. Henderson County 
Sheriff Botie Hillhouse said at the time she had planned the murders of Kaylee 
and Kenlie for a couple of weeks and that she tried to kill her husband, Jacob 
Henderson, before the gun malfunctioned. The girls were 5 and 7.

In a 911 call, Jacob asked for help for his wife before asking a dispatcher to 
"disregard" the call. 3 hours later, he made another 911 call to report that 
his wife had shot the girls in their heads.

"The assault on a public servant arose 2 days later while Henderson was being 
held in the Henderson County jail, where she is accused of striking a detention 
officer while he was attempting to release her from restraint," according to 
reports.

McKee provided prosecutors and defense attorneys Steve Green and John 
Youngblood a restricted and protective order - that is, a gag order.

Henderson remains in the Henderson County jail on $1 million bond each on the 
capital cases and a combined $100,000 bond on the other counts.

(source: Athens Daily Review)

*******************--female may face death penalty

Details released for Wichita Falls woman charged in capital murder of Abilene 
man



A Wichita Falls woman has been accused of being the 2nd person involved in the 
fatal shooting of an Abilene man last month after police received a Crime 
Stoppers tip and a recorded jail phone call.

Precious Nicole Tillery, 19, has been charged with capital murder. She was in 
the Wichita County Jail Monday morning in lieu of $2 million bail. Eric Glenn 
Lee II, 22, is also facing capital murder.

If found guilty of the capital felony, Tillery and Lee would be sentenced to 
life without parole or the death penalty.

Court documents revealed Tillery was on probation for an aggravated assault 
with a deadly weapon at the time of the shooting.

She had initially been charged with aggravated robbery for the Feb. 28, 2016, 
stabbing of a man in the 400 block of Bailey Street.

In that incident, Tillery claimed he had stole money that belonged to her and 
reportedly dug through his pockets and then took his Oklahoma identification 
card.

She was indicted for aggravated assault on April 21, 2016. She accepted a plea 
deal and was sentenced to 8 years deferred probation after pleading guilty on 
Oct. 26, 2016.

According to the arrest warrant affidavit for the capital murder:

Wichita Falls police were called to the scene of a shooting in the 1000 block 
of Juarez Street around 12:56 a.m. on April 17. A detective was called to the 
scene around 1:25 a.m.

When officers arrived on scene, they found 28-year-old Matthew Liggins in front 
of the address with multiple gunshot wounds to the upper torso.

Liggins was taken to United Regional Health Care System, where he later died 
from his injuries.

A witness told responding officers that she was in the front passenger of 
Liggins' vehicle and identified a possible suspect as Lee.

The witness was taken to the Wichita Falls Police Department by detectives to 
be further interviewed.

At the station, the witness said Liggins had driven them from Abilene to 
Wichita Falls to pick up a friend who had been robbed by Lee earlier in the 
day.

She said they didn't know that the friend had been robbed until after they 
arrived in Wichita Falls.

When they arrived the apartments, the witness said Liggins contacted Lee and 
told him that they were outside.

The witness said Lee and a person with brown and black dreads ??? she thought 
the person might be a woman, but she could be wrong - came out to Liggins' Jeep 
Patriot.

She said they opened the back driver side door. Lee reportedly pulled out a 
gun, pointed it at Liggins from the backseat and demanded that Liggins give Lee 
everything he had.

The witness said Liggins told Lee that he didn't have anything and Lee started 
shooting, striking Liggins multiple times.

She said Lee then grabbed a Nike draw string bag and fled the scene.

The witness said she knew Lee from Abilene and would be able to pick him out of 
a photo lineup.

She was shown photographs of Lee and 5 other black men with similar features. 
The witness selected Lee and said she was 100 % sure that the photograph was of 
him.

The witness also showed detectives several text messages from the friend that 
Lee had told the friend he was meeting with Liggins to get "700 worth" of 
something.

The messages also showed that the friend tried to tell them before they got to 
Wichita Falls that Lee had tried to rob her before this happened.

Lee was arrested on May 17 on the warrant for capital murder. He remains in the 
Wichita County Jail Monday morning in lieu of $2 million bail.

At that time, the identity of a 2nd person involved in the murder, possibly a 
woman, remained unknown.

On May 24, the detective listened to a jail phone call that was made on April 
26 between Lee and a phone number.

In the call, a woman believed to be Lee's mother told him that she knows 
"Precious" was with him at the time of the incident and that he needed to tell 
his lawyer that information.

A few days earlier, a Crime Stoppers tip had been received that named Tillery 
as the 2nd suspect involved in Liggin's murder.

On May 31, the detective traveled to Abilene to speak with the witness, who 
identified Tillery from a photo lineup as the 2nd person involved in the 
shooting.

The witness said Tillery had a firearm, threatened her with the firearm and was 
possibly the one who struck her in the head.

She also was able to confirm that Lee and Tillery took an unknown amount of K2 
- a synthetic marijuana - in a black lock box.

(source: timesrecordnews.com)

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

Justices Slam Rejection of Condemned Inmate's Appeal



2 liberal justices dissented Monday from the Supreme Court's decision not to 
hear a case involving mitigating evidence that a Texas death-row inmate has 
fetal alcohol syndrome, saying jurors did not have a complete picture of his 
character.

Carlos Trevino was convicted in 1997 of murdering 15-year-old Linda Salinas. 
Police found Salinas' body in a park in San Antonio, Texas, on June 10, 1996, a 
day after she had gotten into a car with Trevino, his cousin Juan Gonzales and 
3 other friends.

Instead of driving the girl to a fast-food restaurant as they had promised, 
they took her to the park and 3 of them raped her, according to the case 
record.

Gonzales testified for the prosecution that Trevino did not rape Salinas but he 
held her down while someone else did.

Gonzales also testified that Trevino urged him to join in the gang rape but he 
refused, that Trevino talked about the need to eliminate Salinas as a witness, 
and that he bragged after the murder that he "learned how to kill in prison" 
and "learned how to use a knife in prison."

An autopsy showed Salinas died from a stab wound to the neck. Forensic experts 
found fibers from Trevino's slacks on her clothes and determined Trevino 
couldn't be ruled out as the source of DNA found in her panties.

During the punishment phase of Trevino's capital murder trial, his attorney 
only called 1 witness, Trevino's aunt, Juanita Trevino DeLeon. She testified 
that Trevino had a rough childhood - his family was on welfare, he dropped out 
of high school and his mother was an alcoholic, according to a rehash of the 
case by the Fifth Circuit.

The trial attorney first met DeLeon in the Bexar County Courthouse basement 
during a lunch break in the proceedings, before she testified that afternoon, 
according to Trevino's 2nd amended federal habeas complaint.

The trial court sentenced Trevino to death after he rejected a plea offer that 
would have spared his life. The court appointed Trevino a different attorney to 
handle his direct state appeal, and a 3rd attorney to seek state collateral 
relief.

Neither of Trevino's state appellate attorneys raised the argument that he was 
denied his Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel based on his trial 
attorney not investigating potentially mitigating evidence that he suffers from 
fetal alcohol syndrome.

After the trial court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief, 
Trevino filed a federal habeas petition and was appointed another attorney, who 
claimed for the 1st time that his trial attorney was ineffective for not 
rounding up and presenting mitigating evidence.

The attorney told U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez in San Antonio that his 
own investigation revealed Trevino's mother had abused alcohol while pregnant 
with him, that Trevino weighed 4 pounds at birth, and that he had suffered from 
fetal alcohol syndrome symptoms throughout his life.

Rodriguez stayed the federal case to let Trevino raise the claim in the state 
trial court, which ruled that because he had not made the argument in his 
initial post-conviction proceedings, he was barred from making it.

Rodriguez denied his federal habeas petition on the same procedural grounds. So 
did the Fifth Circuit.

The U.S. Supreme Court breathed life into Trevino's case with its 2012 ruling 
in Martinez v. Ryan, in which it held a federal habeas petitioner is not barred 
from making an ineffective counsel claim if the state's habeas rules require 
them to make the argument during their 1st state habeas proceeding and their 
attorney was ineffective.

However, Judge Rodriguez denied the petition in June 2015, finding that even 
the new Supreme Court precedent did not excuse Trevino's procedural default - 
and even if he did clear that hurdle, the new mitigating evidence did not 
overcome Trevino's lack of remorse for the crime, the deciding factor for 
Rodriguez.

The Fifth Circuit then ruled that the fetal alcohol syndrome evidence "goes to 
the heart" of the aggravating evidence Rodriguez based his denial on.

Because Rodriguez himself admitted that Trevino's lack of remorse could have 
been a product of his fetal alcohol effects, he should have given more weight 
to that evidence, the New Orleans-based appeals court found. The panel granted 
Trevino permission to appeal the district court's dismissal of his 2nd amended 
habeas petition.

On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected Trevino's petition for writ of 
certiorari.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissented from 
the decision.

"Absent intervention from this Court...Trevino remains subject to a death 
sentence having received inadequate consideration of his claim of ineffective 
assistance of trial counsel, and with no jury having fairly appraised the 
substantial new mitigating evidence that a competent counsel would have 
discovered," Sotomayor wrote. "That result is indefensible, especially where 
our failure to intervene sanctions the taking of a life by the state."

She added that "the true impact of new evidence, both aggravating and 
mitigating, can only be understood by asking how the jury would have considered 
that evidence in light of what it already knew."

"The new mitigating evidence relating to [fetal alcohol spectrum disorder] is 
completely different in kind from any other evidence that the jury heard about 
Trevino," Sotomayor said. "Had the jury learned of the FASD and related 
testimony, it would have had a much fuller perspective of his character and 
background."

(source: Courthouse News)

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

Byrd's family: Don't forget him----20 years after his lynching, man's loved 
ones carry forward hope in his memory



On the 20th anniversary of her brother's death, Louvon Harris will return to 
Jasper, to a park that bears his name.

On Thursday, Harris and her family will mark 2 decades since James Byrd Jr. was 
chained to the bumper of a truck by 3 white men and dragged to his death on 
arural Jasper County road. The family plans to take part in 2 celebrations 
honoring Byrd's legacy and will promote diversity and tolerance.

Harris, who lives in Houston, is board president of the Byrd Foundation for 
Racial Healing, a group she started after the 1998 hate crime.

"It's important now, more than ever," to remember her brother's senseless 
murder, she said.

"There are times where Jasper wants to forget that it happened in Jasper," she 
said. She said some choose to brush Byrd's death aside as history instead of 
recognizing it and learning from it. "You have to deal with it, face it and let 
it be known."

Brutality on a country road

Byrd was 49 when he was dragged for 3 miles on an old logging road on the 
outskirts of town on June 7, 1998.

The crime, referred to as a "modern-day lynching," drew national attention and 
brought the Ku Klux Klan and the New Black Panther Party to the County 
Courthouse for dueling protests.

Shawn Allen Berry, John William King and Lawrence Russell Brewer were found 
guilty of capital murder in King's death.

Berry, 42, who is serving a life sentence, will be eligible for parole in 2038. 
Brewer was sentenced to death and executed in 2011 at the age of 44.

King, 43, is currently appealing his death penalty conviction, claiming his 
trial lawyers were ineffective in proving his innocence. The Fifth Circuit 
Court of Appeals denied his appeal in February, saying Sonny Cribbs and Brack 
Jones did their best in an "uphill battle," and denied a petition for rehearing 
in March in which King's lawyer claimed his racist beliefs were fantasies, not 
the grounds for violent crime. He can still appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Almost three years after Byrd's murder, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed the James 
Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, which enforced harsher penalties for crimes committed 
out of bias against the victim's race, disability, religion, national origin, 
age, gender or sexual orientation. His predecessor, then-Gov. George W. Bush, 
had refused to sign the bill, saying that all crimes are hate crimes.

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed by 
Congress and signed into federal law in 2009.

Murder haunts town

The shocking crime that pushed Jasper into a national spotlight has lingered 
and likely continues to tarnish the town's reputation, Harris said.

When Harris tells people she's from Jasper, where her father and 2 of her 
siblings still live, they associate it with her brother's death immediately, 
she said.

Newton County Sheriff Billy Rowles, who was the sheriff in Jasper County in 
1998, said someone brings it up or asks about it every few weeks.

"There's some people that still like to talk about it," he said.

"We learned a lot out of it," he said last week, including lessons about 
transparency and relying on common sense.

"The national media was portraying us as a bunch of pot-bellied, beer-drinking, 
snuff-dipping redneck police," Rowles said. After they voluntarily released the 
probable cause affidavit, which he said detailed law enforcement's entire case 
against the 3 men, "the whole thing turned around."

"Jasper was not the kind of community that people tried to make it out to be," 
Rowles said last summer, when the Fifth Circuit agreed to hear King's appeal, 
re-opening the case. "That scar is still there, it's healing."

Harris said healing comes from acknowledging and addressing the crime and its 
aftermath, not from "brushing it over."

She said the hate crime legislation will help families in the future whose 
loved ones are killed in similar "senseless crimes," but "if you're not 
addressing the inside, the law doesn't help."

"If you forget that this happened," you can't prevent it from happening again, 
Harris said. "As a family," she said, "you try to move on, and find peace in 
justice being served."

A family's hope

Harris said she hopes the commemorative events in Jasper are attended by a 
diverse crowd.

A bench honoring Byrd will be installed outside the courthouse where King and 
Berry were convicted. Rowles is scheduled to speak at the 9 a.m. ceremony on 
Thursday.

The Byrd Foundation will sponsor "Fun Day in the Park" at James Byrd Jr. 
Memorial Park on Burch Street from 10 a.m. to noon Thursday. The event will 
include awards for participants in a cultural diversity challenge.

The contest tasks children with making a collage that represents diversity. The 
Foundation promotes "taking a stand when you encounter racism," and interacting 
with people of different cultures.

"I'm hoping to see more integration" at the events, Harris said, as evidence 
that the community has moved toward healing.

"When you feel robbed of your loved one, it's a hard thing to get peace with," 
she said. "We deal with it on a daily basis as a family, and we build from it 
and reach out."

(source: Beaumont Enterprise)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Trial date set for defendant in death penalty case----Wolowski gets more legal 
assistance with capital case



Barring any unforeseen circumstances, hundreds of potential jurors will be 
receiving notices to appear in Washington County Court this fall for the case 
of a man accused in a 2013 homicide in Washington.

Scheduled for trial is Brandon Wolowski, 23, of Washington. The prosecution is 
seeking the death penalty in connection with the shooting death Jan. 8, 2013, 
of Matthew Mathias, 37, of Fayette Street.

Mathias' girlfriend, Michelle Powell, 38, was shot in the cheek, chin, chest 
and arm but survived after undergoing surgery.

In addition to criminal homicide, Wolowski is charged with attempted homicide, 
aggravated assault and robbery. Police said he was trying to steal guns from 
the victims.

Wolowski, who is being held in Allegheny County jail, was not present in court 
Monday when his court-appointed attorney, Noah Geary, and Assistant District 
Attorney Leslie Ridge went before Judge John DiSalle to handle some new matters 
that the defense raised.

Geary is claiming Washington police did not have probable cause to arrest 
Wolowski based on information from Powell and a 911 caller, who named "Brandon' 
as a suspect without further description or identification.

Ridge said after she left the courtroom that she was taken aback by Geary's 
attempt to keep this aspect of the case from a jury. "This is not an 
out-of-the-blue tip that we received," she said.

Geary also is attempting to have the case thrown out because it has taken so 
long to come to trial. Ridge maintains that "the commonwealth has been ready 
for years to go in this case."

Since January, Wolowski has had a petition for review before the state Superior 
Court, which the prosecution has filed a request to quash. This and a variety 
of other developments, such as a mental health evaluation and changing 
attorneys, have resulted in delays, according to the prosecutors.

"If something has merit, I'm obligated to raise it," Geary told the judge.

Wolowski's purported lack of a proper upbringing and the effect of fetal 
alcohol syndrome are potential mitigating factors that the defense intends to 
introduce at trial.

Ridge and Geary will have a chance to present witnesses or argue about the 
suppression of evidence in an appearance next month before DiSalle.

Potential jurors who are opposed to the death penalty must, by law, be excluded 
from the panel, so individual questioning is a lengthy process. Selection is 
set to begin Sept. 24 and could take as long as 11 days over the course of 4 
weeks.

The trial, which could last a month, is slated for Oct. 29.

(source: Observer-Reporter)

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

Man convicted of murder in 2016 double shooting



A man accused of gunning down 2 people in a rural Pennsylvania home is facing 
the possibility of the death penalty after being found guilty of murder.

41-year-old Paul Henry III was convicted Tuesday for the September 2016 
slayings of 31-year-old Foday Cheeks and 26-year-old Danielle Taylor in York 
County.

Henry had testified that his wife was the shooter, contradicting the testimony 
of four eyewitnesses. His wife was found dead in her prison cell 2 days after 
the slayings.

Prosecutors have vowed to seek the death penalty for Henry. Capital punishment 
is legal in Pennsylvania, but the governor has put all executions on hold 
pending a review of the system.

The penalty phase of the trial begins Wednesday.

(source: Associated Press)








GEORGIA:

Death sentences becoming increasingly rare in Georgia



The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday did something it once did on a fairly 
routine basis but now hardly ever does: It heard a death-penalty appeal.

It had been almost 2 years since the court heard a direct appeal - the 1st 
appeal after a capital sentence is imposed - in a death-penalty case. And this 
once-unthinkable rarity shouldn't change anytime soon. It's now been more than 
4 years since a Georgia jury handed down a death sentence.

This is in keeping with what's been going on nationally. Last year, 39 death 
sentences were imposed nationwide. That's a dramatic drop from 126 capital 
sentences imposed a decade earlier and from 295 death sentences imposed in 
1998, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington.

National polls show the death penalty is losing public support, said Pete 
Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of 
Georgia. That's because people are becoming increasingly comfortable with the 
sentencing option of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

"That has made a huge difference," said Skandalakis, once the district attorney 
for the Coweta Judicial Circuit. "And when you sit down with victims' families 
and discuss the process of a death-penalty case with all the pretrial hearings, 
then the years of appeals that follow, I have found that families like the 
finality of life without parole. It lets them get on with their lives."

On Monday, the state Supreme Court heard an appeal from Demetrius Willis, who 
was sentenced to death by a Fulton County jury in 2008 for the murders of his 
former girlfriend, their 3-year-old son and her boyfriend.

During the arguments, Willis' attorney asked the court to strike down the death 
penalty in Georgia on grounds it is arbitrarily imposed. "It's just not 
working," Charles Henry Frier said.

Fulton County prosecutor Kevin Armstrong asked the justices to reject Frier???s 
claim, contending "there's no basis" behind it. The state Supreme Court is 
expected to issue its decision later this year.

The last time a death sentence was handed down by a Georgia jury was March 2014 
in Augusta against Adrian Hargrove, who committed a triple murder. Last year, 
the 2 death cases that went to trial in Georgia involved the murder of law 
enforcement officers - a crime that traditionally results in a death penalty. 
Yet both resulted in sentences of life without parole.

More often than not, district attorneys are now allowing capital defendants to 
enter guilty pleas in exchange for life-without-parole sentences.

"It's a self-fulfilling prophesy," Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny 
Porter said. "As more and more juries give fewer death sentences, prosecutors 
begin to think it's not worth the effort."

Even so, it's not time to remove the death penalty as a sentencing option, 
Porter said. "I think there are still cases where there's just no question that 
death is the proper punishment."

On July 23, Porter is scheduled to take the next capital case to trial in 
Georgia. Tiffany Moss, who as of now is representing herself, is accused in the 
abuse and starvation death of her 10-year-old daughter Emani.

Porter also sought death against the child's father, Eman Moss. But he pleaded 
guilty 3 years ago in exchange for life without parole. The same offer has been 
extended to Tiffany Moss in return for a guilty plea, but it will be rescinded 
once jury selection begins next month, Porter said.

In addition to Moss, 4 other defendants tentatively face death-penalty trials 
this year - 3 in Fulton and 1 more in Gwinnett.

Like Porter, many other Georgia DAs strongly support capital punishment. Last 
year, for example, DAs announced they were seeking the death penalty in 26 
cases. So far this year, prosecutors have filed notices to seek death in just 2 
new cases, the state records show. Since it can take years for death penalty 
cases to move foward, it's not clear how many of these will proceed to trial.

Opponents to capital punishment have traditionally been aligned with liberal 
causes. More recently, increasing numbers of conservatives are speaking out 
against it.

Heather Beaudoin, national coordinator of Conservatives Concerned about the 
Death Penalty, said her primary concerns are the number of exonerations that 
have been disclosed over the years and the possibility of executing an innocent 
person.

"We have a problem on our hands," she said.

According to the Innocence Project, there have been 356 convictions overturned 
by DNA evidence around the U.S. since 1989, including 20 who were convicted and 
served time on death row.

Beaudoin founded Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty in Montana in 
2010. 5 years ago, it became a national organization and has chapters in 13 
states, including 1 in Georgia.

"Many of our supporters are millennials who are pro-life like I am," she said. 
"We believe that life is created by God and has value no matter what the 
circumstances are. Even someone who has committed an awful crime - that life 
has value."

After 4 years without a death sentence, Georgia's capital defender office is 
attracting national recognition. The capital defender's office is part of the 
state's public defender system and represents capital defendants who can't 
afford their own lawyers.

The office's intervention program, in which capital defenders seek plea deals 
from prosecutors early on in a case, has helped more than 20 defendants avoid a 
death-penalty trial, Jerry Word, who heads the defender office, said.

"The average time to resolve a case in early intervention has been less than 8 
months," Word said. "The average time to get a case to trial is over 3 years. 
This results in a saving in court time and dollar savings to the state and 
county."

(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)








FLORIDA:

Steven Hayward, convicted in 2005 killing of newspaper carrier in Fort Pierce, 
off death row



After spending nearly 11 years on death row, convicted killer Steven Douglas 
Hayward was sentenced last month to life in prison without parole.

Hayward was convicted and sentenced to death in June 2007 for robbing and 
shooting Daniel DeStefano, a 32-year-old Fort Pierce Tribune newspaper carrier. 
DeStefano was shot in the chest and thigh as he delivered newspapers to 
convenience stores along Avenue D in Fort Pierce about 4 a.m. Feb. 1, 2005.

The state's newest death penalty law, enacted in March 2017, requires a jury to 
reach 12-0 vote to recommend death.

Rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court retroactively 
invalidated death sentences that followed less-than-unanimous jury 
recommendations. It applies to those whose direct appeals were finalized after 
June 24, 2002.

Hayward's jury voted 8-4 for death in the sentencing phase.

Though prosecutors initially filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty 
again for Hayward, Chief Assistant State Attorney Tom Bakkedahl said in January 
he would instead abide by the family's wishes to not to go through another 
death penalty hearing.

Bakkedahl said even if a new jury voted unanimously for the death penalty, that 
merely is the 1st step in a 15-year process of appeals.

"The family couldn???t quite go through the process again, and I didn't have 
the heart to force them," Bakkedahl said.

With all appeals resolved, Hayward was given the life sentence on May 16 by 
Circuit Judge James McCann, who had issued the original death sentence in 2007.

The hearing did give DeStafano's family members some closure.

Some of them, including DeStafano's fiancee, Renee Mancini, read their victim 
impact statements to the judge for the record.

New sentencing hearings have been ordered for dozens of Florida death row 
inmates.

Hayward was the 1st of 6 Treasure Coast cases for which the resentencing has 
been completed. The other cases aren't that far along, Bakkedahl said.

"Those that have been sent back (for new sentencing hearings), we've filed 
notices of intent to seek death," Bakkedahl said. "We will consult with the 
families in each of those, and then made a decision based on the facts, the new 
law and the family's wishes."

(sourcce: tcpalm.com)

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

Bargo attorney wants 1 year to prepare for trial



Michael Shane Bargo was sentenced to death in December 2013 in the 2011 murder 
of Seath Jackson. Under new death penalty law, Bargo was granted a resentencing 
in June 2017.

An attorney representing a convicted murderer deemed the ringleader in the 2011 
death of 15-year-old Seath Jackson said there are multiple motions to be filed 
and argued before a trial date can be scheduled in his resentencing.

Michael Shane Bargo, 26, of Summerfield, was sentenced to death in December 
2013 for the killing, but under the new death penalty law was granted a 
resentencing in June 2017. Bargo, who is incarcerated at Union Correctional 
Institution in Raiford, was not present for a short pretrial conference held 
Monday.

Defense attorney Candace Hawthorne told 5th Circuit Judge Anthony Tatti there 
are multiple motions she needs to file and have heard before she can gauge when 
she will be ready for trial. She submitted 2 motions in May to exclude the 
death penalty and to receive adequate time to prepare for trial.

In the motion for adequate time, Hawthorne proposed a timeline that has the 
trial beginning in August 2019.

Assistant State Attorney Amy Berndt told Tatti she strenuously objects to that 
timeline. When Bargo's case first returned to circuit court in September 2017, 
Berndt said the state was ready for trial and was waiting for the defense.

Hawthorne requested the extra time because there have been "significant 
developments" in psychology and neuroscience since Bargo's incarceration that 
would demand reevaluations by expert witnesses. She also argued she must review 
the entire proceedings leading up to Bargo's original trial to reevaluate them 
and provide proper representation.

She added that a preliminary investigation into Bargo's life has unearthed 
"several issues that have not yet been explored."

"Resentencing cases require more time (not less) preparation time [sic] than 
the original sentencing," Hawthorne wrote in the motion.

Tatti said both sides will be able to argue Hawthorne's motions next week. He 
tentatively set a hearing for June 13, but said it depends on when Bargo can be 
transferred back to attend.

Bargo was sentenced to death by a 10-2 jury vote.

Florida has since deemed that unconstitutional and ordered that juries now 
reach a unanimous vote in order to sentence a defendant to death. Neither of 
the 2 Marion County defendants who went to trial under this new rule were 
sentenced to death.

While Bargo's sentence was thrown out, his conviction still stands.

He - along with co-defendants Amber Wright, 21; Kyle Hooper, 22; Charlie Ely, 
24; and Justin Soto, 26 - was convicted of 1st-degree murder in August 2013. 
All the other co-defendants were sentenced to life in prison.

On the night of April 17, 2011, Seath was ambushed by Bargo and the 
co-defendants. After Seath sat down in a living room chair, Hooper hit him in 
the head with a wooden object and Bargo followed after, shooting at him. Seath 
tried to flee the house but was tackled by Soto in the front yard, where he was 
shot again by Bargo. Bargo and Soto also beat Seath while in the front yard.

Seath was then carried to the bathroom of the house and placed in the bathtub. 
Bargo hit him, cursed him and fired more bullets at him, authorities said. 
Later that night, Bargo and Soto carried Seath's body to a fire pit and burned 
it. Seath's remains were placed in paint buckets and dropped in a water-filled 
quarry.

James Young Havens III, 44, of Summerfield, pleaded guilty in March to helping 
Bargo and his co-defendants dispose of Seath's remains. He drove Bargo and 
Hooper to a lime rock pit in Ocala, where the 2 dropped the paint buckets. He 
is awaiting sentencing.

Bargo is 1 of 4 Marion County death row inmates granted resentencings by the 
Florida Supreme Court.

(source: ocala.com)

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

Defense asks Markeith Loyd's prosecutor to be removed, citing conflict of 
interest



An attorney for Markeith Loyd, who faces the possibility of the death penalty 
in the killings of his pregnant ex-girlfriend and an Orlando police officer, is 
trying to disqualify Loyd's prosecutor citing a potential conflict of interest, 
records show.

Ocala-based State Attorney Brad King is both Loyd's prosecutor and the chair of 
the Justice Administrative Commission - the 4-person state board that approves 
the funding of expert witnesses for indigent defendants like Loyd.

"We don't want him overseeing the funding in our case," Loyd's defense 
attorney, Roger Weeden, said Monday.

The commission last month voted unanimously not to renew the contract of 
Cynthia O'Shea, who worked on Loyd's case gathering information meant to 
convince jurors not to recommend a death sentence. That required building trust 
with Loyd and his family to compile his life story and family history, his 
lawyers say - trust Weeden said he worries won't carry over to the next 
mitigation specialist assigned to the case.

"The decision was purportedly related to Ms. O'Shea's billing practices," 
Weeden wrote in a motion filed Sunday. Commission members asked their staff to 
review her billing, which Weeden wrote "would require an examination of the 
contacts and services she performs as a mitigation specialist and substantially 
compromise her position on the defense team."

King "has a clear and irreconcilable conflict requiring his disqualification," 
Loyd's defense attorney, Roger Weeden, wrote in a motion filed Sunday.

Members of the Justice Administrative Commission approve paying expert 
witnesses who can tell jurors about a defendant's physical and mental health, 
ballistics evidence, and other details of the crime scene. But not all cases go 
before the board: Wealthy defendants are expected to pay their own way, and 
public defender's offices have their own budgets for experts. That leaves 
indigent defendants represented by independent attorneys appointed by the 
courts.

Loyd is set to be in court Tuesday morning - he filed a motion asking to fire 
his attorneys, saying they have an "adversarial" relationship and that they 
have not sought out medical care and evidence he asked for. He is scheduled to 
go to trial in September for the killing of Sade Dixon, his pregnant 
ex-girlfriend, and in January for Lt. Debra Clayton, an Orlando police officer.

King was appointed to the case after the local prosecutor, Orange-Osceola State 
Attorney Aramis Ayala, announced she planned to no longer seek the death 
penalty for anyone. She has since reversed that policy, but not before Gov. 
Rick Scott took 29 murder cases away from her office - including Loyd's.

(source: Orlando Sentinel)








LOUISIANA:

How Prosecutors Ruined the Life of Corey Williams----After 20 years in prison, 
Williams is free-but justice has not been served.



On the evening of January 4, 1998, in Shreveport, Louisiana, a group of 
neighborhood friends came up with an idea - they would order a pizza. The 
deliveryman, 23-year-old Jarvis Griffin, arrived at the house where a group of 
friends, including 16-year-old Corey Williams and 20-year-old Chris Moore 
(nicknamed "Rapist"), were hanging out.

At the time, according to court filings from Williams' attorneys, Williams was 
known as someone who would take the fall for anyone, "what one might refer to 
as a 'chump,'" a family member said. He reportedly had an IQ of 68, had been 
institutionalized multiple times for intellectual disability, and suffered from 
a severe case of lead poisoning.

After delivering the pizza and collecting his money, Griffin returned to his 
car. Soon afterwards, he was slumped over the wheel, dead from gunshots. 
Witnesses, including Williams himself, initially told investigators that 
several men were involved in shooting and robbing Griffin, including then 
16-year old Gabriel Logan, his older brother Nathan Logan, and Moore 
("Rapist"). During interrogations, however, the older boys, the Logan brothers 
and Rapist, directed police to the gun and claimed that Williams had shot 
Griffin, after which they had all divvied up the money.

But, the physical evidence didn't match up. The only fingerprints on the gun 
were Nathan Logan's - who was never charged. The only blood was on Gabriel 
Logan's shirt. The gun was Rapist's. And the money? Williams didn't have any of 
it. The other men had split the proceeds.

Instead, Williams was found that evening by law enforcement trembling and 
urine-soaked at his grandmother's house, huddled under a sheet; he had peed in 
his pants out of fear of the older boys. Still, he was dragged to the police 
station that night. In his 1st interview with police, Williams said that he had 
seen Gabriel Logan shoot the victim; he also told police that Gabriel had 
called him and threatened to kill him if he didn't take the fall for the crime. 
But, at 8:30 the next morning, after 12 hours of continuous interrogation and 
no sleep, he confessed to shooting the driver. He then asked if he could go 
home and lie down.

Not long after, Williams insisted he was innocent and his confession, false. 
But in October of 2000, he was convicted of 1st-degree murder and sent to death 
row. ("Rapist" was the star prosecution witness who testified against 
Williams.) This sentence was later commuted to life without parole after a 
judge determined that Williams is intellectually disabled and therefore not 
eligible for the death penalty. Nonetheless, up until May 21, he was still 
serving time in Angola Prison.

Then, on May 22, in a surprise settlement agreement, the Caddo Parish District 
Attorney's office agreed to release Williams immediately in exchange for a plea 
of manslaughter. This was a tremendous turn-around, a victory for which 
Williams had fought for 2 decades, first largely on his own, but increasingly 
with a growing base of support. In recent years, as the movement to hold 
corrupt prosecutors accountable has grown, Williams's case has become a symbol 
of the most flagrant prosecutorial abuse - as well as of all that is broken 
with Louisiana's criminal justice system. With his release, justice finally 
seemed to prevail.

Yet, Williams's freedom also came at a price. While the deal gets Williams, now 
36, out of prison, it disqualifies him from compensation and leaves a man who 
has always insisted on his innocence with a murder conviction. It also fails to 
hold any of the parties who played a role in convicting Williams - the police, 
the prosecutor, the judge - to account.

Clearly, Williams's attorneys must have believed it was the best way to get him 
out of prison. "This was an impossible deal for Corey to turn down," Amir Ali, 
an attorney with the MacArthur Justice Center, which helped represent Williams, 
told the Washington Post. "I think, given the circumstances, it was the best 
possible outcome for Corey."

But how did 20 years in prison followed by a guilty plea for a crime Williams 
says he didn't commit become the "best possible outcome"? And what does it say 
about the enduring failures of justice for Williams - and so many like him?

To understand how Williams wound up being sentenced to death for a crime he did 
not commit, it helps to know how justice worked for years in Caddo Parish, 
where he was convicted.

Caddo Parish, which sits in the northwest corner of Louisiana, has a long and 
shameful history of criminal-justice abuses. Dubbed "Bloody Caddo" during the 
reign of white terror that followed the Civil War, it has made a name for 
itself in more recent decades for handing out death sentences at a higher rate 
than almost any other county in the country. Indeed, between 2010 and 2014, the 
parish was responsible for sentencing 8 of the 12 people sent to death row in 
the state - a fact that seemed to please the acting district attorney at the 
time, Dale Cox. As he famously told the Shreveport Times in 2015, "I think we 
need to kill more people.... I think the death penalty should be used more 
often."

At the same time, Caddo has come under increasing fire for serious instances of 
prosecutorial misconduct. It was in Caddo Parish that Glenn Ford was wrongfully 
convicted of murder in 1984, ultimately spending 30 years on death row before 
he was finally exonerated and released in 2014. (Ford died from terminal cancer 
shortly thereafter.) The parish also convicted Rodricus Crawford, who was 
recently exonerated, of murdering his son despite the medical evidence to the 
contrary.

Such was the world in which Williams was tried and convicted in 1998 by a 
prosecutor who had already made a name for himself by sending men to death row. 
The prosecutor's name was Hugo Holland, and before sending Williams to prison, 
he had tried dozens of death penalty cases and put at least 10 people on 
Louisiana's death row, most of whom are also men of color. Yet, in later years, 
his practices would raise serious questions: 1/2 of his death-penalty 
convictions have since been overturned, while 2 are awaiting appeals. He has 
also been accused of withholding evidence in at least 3 of those cases, 
including Williams's, according to aWashington Postprofile by Radley Balko.

In the years since prosecuting Williams's case, Holland has become a well-known 
- and controversial - figure in Louisiana. In 2012, he was fired from his job 
as assistant district attorney after it was discovered that he had doctored 
documents as part of a scheme to procure a cache of M-16 rifles from the 
federal government's military surplus program. (The guns were apparently 
intended to arm Holland and several of his colleagues who had formed a 
paramilitary-style "Zombie Response Team" in the parish.) Yet he quickly found 
his footing as a successful prosecutor-for-hire, reportedly earning some 
$200,000 in 2015. He is also a lobbyist for Caddo Parish and represents law and 
order interests in the Louisiana state government, where he continues to push 
for the death penalty. As he told The Advocate in a profile published last 
year, "The only thing that we can do with animals that do stuff like that is 
put them down."

When I contacted Holland for comment via email, he wasn't aware that Williams 
had been released on a plea deal. But his written reply was unapologetic: "We 
didnt conceal anything. Thats horseshit. Didnt know he was out. He shouldnt be. 
He is a murderer."

For G. Ben Cohen, Williams's longtime attorney and advocate, Holland's response 
was as brazen as it was troubling: "There is nothing more dangerous for 
Louisiana's justice system than prosecutors like Hugo Holland, who have a toxic 
combination of hubris, deceit, and indifference."

Cohen has good reason to know.

For almost 2 decades, he and Williams's other attorneys tried unsuccessfully to 
win Williams's freedom. They focused on a host of errors committed during both 
the investigation and trial, ranging from incompetent defense counsel to the 
fact of Williams's youth and disability. In particular, Williams's attorneys 
had focused prior appeals on the 12-hour interrogation to which Williams - a 
16-year-old who "still sucked his thumb, urinated himself on a daily basis, and 
regularly ate dirt and paper" - was subjected. But, none of the higher courts 
found error sufficient to reverse the conviction.

Then, in 2015, Williams's counsel located exculpatory evidence that had been 
hidden by prosecutors for nearly 20 years. This evidence is called Brady 
material after the 1963 US Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland, in which the 
Supreme Court held that prosecutors - by virtue of that fact that they are 
privy to police investigations and other investigatory materials - are 
obligated to give the defense anything that might be useful for their client. 
Since prosecutors are the gatekeepers, they often end up deciding what 
information is useful or irrelevant, and defendants regularly don't know what 
Brady information is available, if any.

In this case, according to the brief submitted by Williams's lawyers, the 
prosecutors did not disclose the existence of tapes of interviews with 
witnesses to the crime. They continued to hide the tapes for a dozen years, 
even as Williams' attorneys requested them again and again. As a result, the 
defense team was forced to rely on "summaries" of the witness statements. Such 
summaries are common practice in Louisiana, but, Williams's lawyers argued, 
they appeared in his case to have been directly "altered" to ensure that 
Williams looked guilty. Some statements were omitted altogether.

So what did the actual recordings, obtained by Williams's lawyers in 2015, 
reveal? According to Williams's lawyers, they indicate that multiple 
eyewitnesses - including the original officers who investigated the crime - 
believed that Williams was innocent. "It sounds like to me y'all all decided 
y'all going to blame it on Corey," one of the detectives said during an 
interview with some of the older men who'd been at the crime scene. There was 
also an interview with another witness who suggested that Moore was likely 
guilty, not Williams. Yet Williams's lawyers never received this information 
and, without it, weren't able to mount an effective defense that their client 
was taking the fall for a group of older, savvier men.

This is what Williams's lawyers argued when they appealed his case for the 
second time to the US Supreme Court earlier this year. And as news of the story 
spread, it wasn't just defense attorneys who began viewing the Williams verdict 
askance; law enforcement also came to Williams's defense. Earlier this year, 44 
former prosecutors and DOJ officials signed an amicus brief arguing that 
Williams should be freed and his case retried based on the obligation 
prosecutors have to disclose evidence under Brady.

"Prosecutors bear a special responsibility for a fair and just result in all 
criminal prosecutions," the brief summarizes, a fact that seems to have eluded 
Holland in this case.

These days, Caddo Parish has a new district attorney, James Stewart, who was 
elected in 2015 largely as a progressive choice. (He was backed by, among 
others, George Soros, whose Louisiana Safety and Justice PAC gave hefty sums to 
Stewart's campaign.) Williams's attorneys credit him for releasing their client 
when prior DA's refused to do so.

The deal Caddo Parish offered Williams isn't unusual. In fact, it's common for 
prosecutors to offer defendants with credible claims of innocence a lighter 
sentence in exchange for immediate release. Defendants take them because 
proving innocence can take years. In 2016, Stewart made a similar deal with 
Curtis Davis, who was also wrongfully convicted of 2nd-degree murder and 
sentenced to life without parole. Davis accepted a plea of manslaughter in 
exchange for his freedom. Now Davis works with criminal justice organizations.

The manslaughter settlement allows everyone involved to save face: no one 
accepts responsibility and Williams is released. (The prosecutor's filings in 
Williams's case indicate that they contemplated prosecuting Williams for aiding 
and abetting, even if evidence cast doubt on whether he was the shooter. 
Williams also forfeited his right to appeal or bring any civil action against 
law enforcement.) Williams's attorneys credited Stewart for making the plea 
deal when his predecessor would not. From a practical perspective, it's 
understandable why Williams would take the deal. His lawyers say that he has 
suffered greatly in prison because of his disability and is being abused by 
other inmates in Angola. But it's hard to see this as justice, particularly for 
a man whom Louisiana has fought so hard to kill.

On the morning of May 22, pictures were published of Williams leaving Angola 
flanked by his lawyers and supporters. He looked happy, if dazed. Williams, 
like many convicted youth, never had a chance to grow up, finish school, get 
work experience, or contribute to society. Now, without financial resources, 
Williams must rely again on the people who helped him get out.

As for Hugo Holland, he continues to collect his paycheck, a prosecutor not in 
the least chastened by his errors, but, rather, emboldened that he was almost 
able to get away with murder.

(source: Jessica Pishko is a San Francisco-based writer for the Fair Punishment 
Project. She has written for Rolling Stone, Pacific Standard, and San Francisco 
magazine----The Nation)








OHIO:

Judge to consider death penalty in Youngstown murder, arson case



A judge is scheduled to pass sentence today on a man convicted of beating a 
Youngstown woman to death, setting her home on fire, and attacking her mother.

The jury that convicted 48-year-old Lance Hundley of aggravated murder, 
attempted murder, felonious assault and aggravated arson has also recommended 
that he be put to death of those crimes.

However, it is up to Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney 
to actually sentence Hundley during a hearing at 11 o'clock this morning.

Prosecutors say in 2015, Hundley attacked 41-year-old Erika Huff at her home on 
Cleveland Street, beat her to death, and then set the home on fire to cover up 
the crime.

Officials say when Hundley encountered Huff's mother, Denise Johnson outside 
the home, he attacked her with a claw hammer.

Officers responding to calls for help removed an air conditioner from the back 
of the home and rescued Johnson.

After that rescue, they found Huff's body. Huff was confined to a wheelchair, 
unable to walk because she suffered from MS.

Police originally said Hundley was living in the home and was inside when 
police arrived. Hundley was arrested and was also taken to St. Elizabeth Health 
Center for injuries.

Erika had a 6-year-old daughter who was not in the home at the time of the 
fire.

(source: WFMJ news)