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

[Rick Halperin]

March 27



TEXAS----impending execution

Lubbock's "suitcase killer" fights upcoming execution----Rosendo Rodriguez is 
set to die for killing a Lubbock prostitute and tossing her body in a dumpster 
in a suitcase. His final appeals claim the medical examiner's testimony that 
she was sexually assaulted before her death could be invalid.



The man dubbed Lubbock's "suitcase killer" is set for execution Tuesday 
evening, 1 day after his 38th birthday.

Rosendo Rodriguez was sentenced to death in the 2005 murder and sexual assault 
of Summer Baldwin, a newly pregnant prostitute, according to court records. 
Baldwin's body was found folded inside a suitcase at the city's landfill. 
Rodriguez was also implicated in the 2004 murder of 16-year-old Joanna Rogers, 
whose body was also found in a suitcase in the landfill after Baldwin was 
discovered.

He still has a final appeal pending in the U.S. Supreme Court questioning the 
credibility of the medical examiner's testimony and arguing that Baldwin wasn't 
sexually assaulted, but if it is rejected, Rodriguez will become the 4th person 
executed in Texas this year and the 7th in the nation.

Lubbock County Criminal District Attorney Matt Powell told the Texas Tribune 
Monday that he finds no joy in the execution but that Rodriguez is a man who 
deserves the ultimate punishment.

"Who sticks a human being in a suitcase and throws them out with the trash?" 
Powell questioned. "This was a guy that, left unchecked, was going to hurt 
somebody else again and was going to continue to terrorize women."

At the time of Baldwin's death, Rodriguez was in Lubbock training for the U.S. 
Marines, according to court opinions. He was tied to the murder after 
investigators found the suitcase she was in had been purchased with Rodriguez's 
debit card. Further investigation found Baldwin's blood and a tag for the 
suitcase in his hotel room.

Rodriguez told police the 2 had consensual sex but that when he fought with her 
over her drug use afterward, she lunged at him with knives and he put her in a 
chokehold, accidentally killing her. But the medical examiner, Sridhar 
Natarajan, said Baldwin's body showed injuries consistent with sexual assault, 
upping the charges and making the murder case eligible for the death penalty.

Prosecutors offered to accept a life sentence instead of the death penalty if 
Rodriguez also confessed to the murder of Rogers the year before and helped 
authorities find her body, according to court documents. He was already 
connected to her disappearance before Baldwin's murder based on internet chats 
and phone records. Rodriguez confessed to Rogers' murder and told investigators 
he had also put her body in a dumpster in a suitcase. She was eventually found 
in the same landfill as Baldwin.

But before the court appearance to finalize the plea deal, Rodriguez backed 
out, claiming he couldn't understand anything he was being told by his 
attorney. Though they couldn't use the Rogers confession, Lubbock County 
prosecutors decided to seek the death penalty in Baldwin's case.

He was found guilty of capital murder and, during his punishment trial, though 
attorneys presented evidence of an abusive, alcoholic father and his family 
portrayed Rodriguez as a prior Texas Tech student who could have become 
president, ex-girlfriends and other women said he raped or assaulted them. The 
jury chose death.

But Rodriguez's lawyers haven't given up on his life. His final appeals lay in 
the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court justices. The filing argues that a recent 
lawsuit calls into question the credibility of the medical examiner's testimony 
that defined the Baldwin case as sexual assault - which is what made the case a 
death penalty case. (Prosecutors at trial also argued Rodriguez's case could be 
death-penalty eligible because Baldwin was pregnant, but the argument was 
pushed aside in appeals because there was no indication Rodriguez knew she was 
pregnant.)

Last year, Natarajan and Lubbock County paid $230,000 in settling a wrongful 
termination lawsuit after a former employee claimed she was fired for speaking 
out on the medical examiner's habit of leaving the office and delegating 
autopsies to unqualified staff and then signing off on them. Rodriguez's 
lawyer, Seth Kretzer, said the lawsuit and settlement raise suspicion of 
Natarajan's testimony in Baldwin's case and should be evaluated in federal 
court.

"At the minimum, we should be allowed to take the good doctor's deposition and 
find out if he actually did the autopsy or not," Kretzer said, adding that 
he'll fight for his client until the last hour of the last day of his life.

Natarajan, who still serves as the county's chief medical examiner, did not 
return phone calls Monday. But Powell said the appeal is nonsense, adding that 
he was there while Natarajan performed Baldwin's autopsy.

"I have no trouble with his lawyers exhausting every avenue that they can, but 
there's no question that the right guy got the punishment, and he got the 
punishment he deserved," he said.

(source: Texas Tribune)

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

New Debate Over How to Apply Death Penalty Unfolds at Texas Capitol



A revived discussion on how to apply the death penalty is unfolding in Texas, 
with some lawmakers analyzing how it's being imposed on defendants with serious 
mental illness or intellectual and developmental disabilities.

"Our courts have asked the legislature to step up on this topic," Rep. Joe 
Moody, D-El Paso, said. Moody chairs the House Committee on Criminal 
Jurisprudence, which met Monday at the Texas State Capitol to listen to invited 
testimony on this issue.

Judge Elsa Alcala, who currently serves on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, 
told the committee she wasn't advocating for lawmakers to lean one way or 
another, but that she wants "a death penalty system that is fair to everyone 
concerned."

"Judges have been asking for an instruction on intellectual disabilities for 
over a decade, I think, and without the legislature's guidance in writing the 
law, courts have had to come up with their own version of the definition of 
intellectual disabilities," she said during an interview. "That version was 
recently struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2017 in Moore v. Texas."

Alcala said when that happens, "the danger is we're more in a legislative 
function than we are in a judicial function."

In Moore v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court said Texas had "deviated from 
prevailing clinical standards and from the older clinical standards the court 
claimed to apply."

"In concluding that Moore did not suffer significant adaptive deficits, the CCA 
overemphasized Moore's perceived adaptive strengths," the court said.

Some mental health advocates said when people with intellectual and 
developmental disabilities come in contact with the criminal justice system, 
they often fall behind.

"We really think that criminal justice professionals, which includes law 
enforcement, which includes attorneys, which includes judges and victim service 
providers, should undertake a comprehensive training on working with 
individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities," Kyle Piccola 
with The Arc of Texas said.

Alcala said right now, different counties approach the death penalty in 
different ways as well.

"If you have one [district attorney] who is seeking [the death penalty] in 1 
case and the other one who is not seeking it with identical facts, there seems 
to be an inequity and we're not really targeting the worst of the worst," she 
said. "We're really just targeting who happened to commit a crime in a 
particular county."

"The State of Texas already has standards in place to gauge eligibility for 
example, like with Health and Human Services, so we would support mirroring 
that," Piccola said.

(source: Nexstar)

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

Lawmakers look at setting intellectual disability standards in death penalty 
cases



It's the toughest punishment in Texas' criminal justice system: the death 
penalty.

But sentencing can become murky when the defendant is suspected to have an 
intellectual disability or mental health issue.

"We couldn't be taking on a more serious topic than the death penalty," said 
Rep. Joe Moody (D-El Paso).

Monday, Texas lawmakers met to discuss how defendants with suspected 
intellectual disabilities are being diagnosed in the most serious criminal 
cases.

"Our courts have repeatedly asked the legislature to step up on this topic, and 
I intend to start doing that today," Moody said.

Defendants with an intellectual disability aren't eligible for the death 
penalty, but Texas lawmakers left it up to the courts to develop a standard for 
diagnosing those disabilities.

"We're not really in the law writing business, we weren't elected to do that," 
said Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Elsa Alcala.

Judge Alcala said the rule-making didn't sit well with her, and that 
inconsistencies arose between Texas courts. Then, in 2017, the Supreme Court 
struck down Texas' technique of diagnosing intellectual disabilities, renewing 
calls on Texas lawmakers.

"Unless they act and pass legislation to define intellectual disability, then 
courts will once again have to come up with their own judicially-created 
definition," Alcala said.

But lawmakers' hesitancy to set guidelines may stem from a significant reason:

"Intellectual disability is very complex and very unique to the individual," 
said Arc of Texas Public Policy Director Kyle Piccola.

However, a solution may be hiding in plain sight.

"The state of Texas already has standards in place to gauge eligibility for, 
for example, health and human services, and so we would support mirroring 
that," Piccola said.

It is a potential place to start, as lawmakers get down to the serious business 
of ensuring people with intellectual disabilities aren't put to death.

According to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, 2 people have 
already been removed from death row after last year's Supreme Court decision.

Executions have been on the decline in Texas since the year 2000. That year 
there were 40, compared to just seven last year. in Texas since the year 2000.

(source: spectrumlocalnews.com)

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

U.S. Supreme Court rejects appeal by Austin death row inmate



The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected, without comment, an appeal by 
Brandon Daniel, who was sentenced to die for the 2012 shooting death of an 
on-duty Austin police officer.

Lawyers for the death row inmate argued that state District Judge Brenda 
Kennedy improperly communicated with jurors during Daniel's 2014 trial, then 
refused to step aside when defense lawyers followed with an appeal that 
criticized her actions as inappropriate and grounds for a new trial.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals compounded the error, defense lawyers said, 
when the state's highest criminal court declined to transfer Daniel's appeal to 
another judge, then accepted Kennedy's recommendation that Daniel's appeal be 
denied.

According to an affidavit by a juror, Kennedy responded to a jury note without 
consulting Daniel's trial lawyers and without revealing what she said. Travis 
County prosecutors, however, argued that there is "no competent evidence of an 
alleged jury note" and that the allegation that the judge "secretly 
communicated with the jury is not supported by the record."

Daniel's lawyers also told the Supreme Court that the inmate should be allowed 
to pursue a 2nd claim - that his trial lawyers acted deficiently by missing 
evidence that he was autistic. The diagnosis could have explained what 
prosecutors called Daniel's lack of remorse and use of drugs and alcohol to 
self-medicate, giving jurors a reason to choose a sentence of life in prison 
instead of capital punishment, the appeal said.

But prosecutors argued that the state appeals court considered, and rejected, 
the autism claim.

Daniel, 30, shot and killed Austin police officer Jaime Padron on April 6, 
2012, as the 2 struggled on the floor of a North Austin Wal-Mart. Padron, a 
Marine veteran and father of 2 girls, had responded to a call from store 
employees about a possibly intoxicated shoplifter.

Daniel was quickly arrested after the shooting, and police found $57 worth of 
food, alcohol and other store items in his backpack and a magazine containing 6 
hollow-point bullets in his pocket.

Travis County jurors quickly found Daniel guilty of capital murder in February 
2014, then sentenced the former software engineer to death after eight hours of 
deliberations.

A North Austin elementary school has been named for Padron, 40, who had been an 
Austin police officer for 2 years after 14 years with the San Angelo Police 
Department.

(source: Austin American-Statesman)

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

Jurors again must view gruesome photos of Naiya Villegas' injuries in Isido 
Delacruz trial



Prosecutors revisited gruesome injuries suffered by a 5-year-old girl while a 
pathologist testified during Monday's court proceedings in the case of a San 
Angelo man accused of slitting the throat of his ex-girlfriend's daughter.

"Basically, she bled to death," said a Lubbock medical examiner. "My opinion is 
sharp force injury to the neck."

San Angelo police believed Isidro Miguel Delacruz, 27, used a large kitchen 
knife to cut the child's neck twice. They found the weapon discarded outside of 
the girl's residence in the 2700 block of Houston Street.

Delacruz stands trial charged with capital murder in the Sept. 2, 2014 death of 
Naiya Villegas. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Isidro Miguel 
Delacruz arrives for his trial Thursday,

The pathologist performed the autopsy on Naiya Villegas the afternoon the next 
day with San Angelo police present.

The close-up view of the child's fatal wounds on the autopsy table made some 
Tom Green County jurors gasps and cry.

"What you're going to see is a child with significant injuries to the neck and 
face," the medical examiner said. "(She) would have bled profusely."

The child's injuries consist of 2 deep lacerations on her neck, cuts on her 
chin, abrasion and bruising on her left cheek.

Her lacerations were so deep, jurors could see her neck muscles including her 
vein and artery.

The pathologist said he believes the child's other injuries were caused near 
the time of her death.

She would have been in pain from that kind of incised wound said the 
pathologist, adding the child would have completely stopped bleeding in less 
than 20 minutes.

Paramedics and doctors tried to save the child. Medics said the girl had 
stopped bleeding when they arrived at the residence.

Medical personnel said her heart stopped during the ambulance ride to Shannon 
Medical Center where she was declared dead.

Message exchanges shown during Monday's trial showed Delacruz with psychopathic 
tendencies.

Delacruz had been messaging his ex-girlfriend, Tanya Bermea, in the afternoon 
hours the day before Naiya Villegas' death.

The communication was amicable. He wrote her messages such as, "I love you."

5 hours later he cursed and called Bermea a series of derogatory names after 
some kind of alleged incident.

"Forget being my wife (explicit)," Delacruz wrote. "(Explicit) you, I'm done 
for good."

"I'm not doing this," Bermea responded.

The communication was ugly talk and argumentative.

Surveillance footage from a bar near Angelo State University showed Delacruz 
had been drinking about midnight before he showed up at Bermea's residence.

An acquaintance gave him a ride about 1:49 a.m. and dropped him off at a spot 
on Arden Road.

Trial resumes Tuesday morning.

TRIAL TIMELINE

March 26: Jurors again must view gruesome photos of Naiya Villegas' injuries in 
Isido Delacruz trial

March 23: Forensic scientists talk DNA evidence, confirm lack of tampering in 
Delacruz murder trial

March 22: Jurors see child's bloody blanket as crime tech testifies in Delacruz 
murder trial

March 21: Naiya Villegas' heart stopped on way to hospital, medics say during 
Delacruz murder trial

March 20: Jurors in murder trial see police dash-cam video, photo of child 
dying

March 19: Jury impaneled, Delacruz capital murder trial begins

(source: gosanangelo.com)

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

House Committee Examines Texas' Death Penalty



In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the method Texas used to evaluate a 
potential death row inmate's mental and intellectual capabilities was outdated 
and flawed.

State Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, who is the chair of the House Committee on 
Criminal Jurisprudence, is examining what legislative fixes might be required 
ahead of the next session.

"The responsibility to fix these things rest with the legislature, but we 
haven???t done those things in over a decade, especially when comes to the 
issue related to intellectual developmental disability," Moody said.

Elsa Alcla, a Republican judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, told the 
committee there are no current guidelines that create uniformity among district 
courts about the death penalty.

"What's a death penalty case in San Antonio may not be a death penalty case in 
Harris County. It is the subjective decision of the elected DA of that 
particular county," Alcla said. Kristin Houle, the executive director for the 
Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said Texas executions have 
dropped almost 85 % over the past 20 years, probably because opinion has 
shifted. Texas juries and DAs more often prefer a sentence of life without 
parole rather than the death penalty.

"Prosecutors are not simply seeking the death penalty as often as they used 
to," Houle said.

There were 7 executions in 2017, and seven executions in 2016, which were the 
lowest numbers of executions in Texas history.

(source: Texas Public Radio)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Anti-death penalty activist speaks at UNC about her brother's death row 
execution



Activist Kimberly Davis came to UNC's campus Monday night to speak about her 
family's long struggle to prove the innocence of her brother, who was executed 
by the state of Georgia in 2011.

"I am the sister of Troy Davis, who was an innocent man who was executed on 
death row," Kimberly Davis said.

Troy Davis was executed for the 1989 killing of police officer Mark MacPhail. 
Nine witnesses originally testified that Troy Davis had killed MacPhail. Later, 
7 of those 9 witnesses recanted their statements and said that they had been 
coerced into saying Davis had shot MacPhail.

Much of the audience was made up of students enrolled in Frank Baumgartner's 
political science course, Race, Innocence and the Decline of the Death Penalty.

"Within the context of the class, this lecture offers a more individual 
perspective, and a very human perspective on the topics we've discussed in the 
class," teaching assistant Kai Stern said.

Kimberly Davis described her brother as a strong Christian and caring brother 
and uncle, even during his 16 years on death row.

"Troy actually taught my nephew De'Juan how to play football by passing a soda 
bottle back and forth, and how to build airplanes by making little paper 
airplanes out of wrappers from Reese's cups, right there in the visitation room 
in the prison," Kimberly Davis said.

She described the web of corruption the Davis family navigated as Troy was 
arrested, convicted and executed.

"The justice system and the death penalty is very sporadic," said attendee 
Madeline Murray. "It's a really flawed system in general, and the amount of 
people who have been killed compared to who have been sentenced is really low."

Davis said her family witnessed intense misconduct, starting when the judge at 
Troy Davis' sentencing did not take the hearing seriously.

"He was talking to other attorneys and talking about golfing and when they were 
going to hang out," Kimberly Davis said. "They were all on a 1st-name basis, 
and it was not professional at all. It was all fun and games to him."

The entire Davis family advocated for Troy, but struggled to find anyone who 
would listen, until the case caught the attention of Rev. Al Sharpton.

"None of the ministers we talked to originally wanted to get involved in my 
brother's case," Kimberly Davis said. "It was so ironic because when they saw 
on Savannah news that Al Sharpton was coming to town, they were knocking on our 
door, wanting Al Sharpton to come to their church."

With Sharpton came the support of the NAACP, Amnesty International and the 
National Action Network. Support, publicity, petition signatures and letters to 
Troy flooded in, and Troy Davis' name became known across the country.

"We met so many people from all over the world that came to Savannah and said 
they believed in Troy and wanted to know what they could do. We had petitions 
from all over coming in," Kimberly Davis said.

Troy Davis' execution dates continued to be pushed back, and he was ultimately 
executed on his 4th execution date.

Kimberly Davis asked the audience to advocate for other death row prisoners, 
even when the issue is not in the news.

"If y'all can take anything from this talk, if you know something is wrong, 
don't keep your mouth closed," Kimberly Davis said. "We don't need to be 
against the death penalty when someone is in the spotlight and then go back to 
not talking about it. We have so many people who are on death row for 10, 20 
years, and they are innocent."

(source: dailytarheel.com)








ALABAMA:

Alabama's new method of execution has never been tried



Alabama plans to give death row inmates a new option - death by oxygen 
deprivation -- but it's unclear exactly how the never-used method would be 
carried out.

Gov. Kay Ivey last week signed into law a bill to authorize executions by 
nitrogen hypoxia. Nitrogen is an inert gas that makes up about 78 percent of 
the air people breathe. With nitrogen hypoxia, death would occur from breathing 
only nitrogen, without the life-sustaining oxygen that makes up about 20 
percent of the air.

2 other states -- Oklahoma and Mississippi -- have authorized executions by 
nitrogen hypoxia. 2 weeks ago, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter announced 
it would become that state's main method when it has a protocol finalized. That 
is expected to take several months and the state hasn't released any details. 
The difficulty of obtaining the drugs for lethal injection led to the decision, 
Hunter said.

The Alabama Department of Corrections has no specifics yet about how it will 
implement the new law, including the possible cost and whether it would require 
a new death chamber.

"The Department of Corrections will follow the law of the state and adhere to 
the protocols and method of an execution as ordered by the Alabama Supreme 
Court," DOC spokesman Bob Horton said.

Sen. Trip Pittman, R-Montrose, the sponsor of the bill, said he got the idea of 
nitrogen hypoxia executions from Oklahoma. Pittman said he believes it will be 
a humane method. He said it's important to maintain the death penalty for the 
worst offenders.

"I think the death penalty is a deterrence and I think it's the appropriate 
punishment for people that commit certain heinous crimes," Pittman said.

Last year, Pittman sponsored a bill to authorize executions by firing squad as 
an alternative to lethal injection. That came after a court ruling postponed 
the execution of Tommy Arthur for the seventh time in 15 years. Arthur had 
challenged the state's lethal injection method and suggested the firing squad 
as an alternative. Arthur was finally executed by lethal injection in May 2017 
for a 1982 murder.

Pittman said the Department of Corrections opposed his firing squad bill. He 
said the DOC was initially neutral on the nitrogen hypoxia bill and eventually 
supported it after problems with one of the state's most recent executions and 
because of concerns about obtaining lethal injection drugs.

Lethal injection remains Alabama's main method of execution. Inmates can also 
still opt for the electric chair, though none have done so since Alabama 
adopted lethal injection. Nitrogen hypoxia becomes a 3rd option.

The new law says that inmates can choose nitrogen hypoxia over lethal 
injection. It says that if lethal injection is ruled unconstitutional or 
becomes otherwise unavailable, nitrogen hypoxia becomes the state's primary 
method. The new law takes effect June 1.

Federal courts have upheld the legality of lethal injections through repeated 
challenges by inmates. Alabama and other states have at times experienced 
difficulties in obtaining the drugs.

Alabama's last execution, of Michael Wayne Eggers on March 15, was carried out 
without incident. But the previous one, of Doyle Lee Hamm on Feb. 22, was 
called off after medical personnel could not find a vein to inject the lethal 
drugs.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said 
there's no basis for the assertion that nitrogen hypoxia is a humane or 
relatively painless form of execution.

"Nitrogen hypoxia may work, it may not work," Dunham said. "We don't know. It's 
experimental. And it's unethical to do experiments so that's the dilemma that 
states are in.

Dunham said it's not clear if the executions would be carried out in a vacuum 
chamber or with just a death mask. The Death Penalty Information Center is a 
non-profit organization that provides the media and the public analysis and 
facts about capital punishment.

Dunham points to studies that found problems with the use of nitrogen hypoxia 
in the euthanasia of animals. The American Veterinary Medical Association 
Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals in 2013 says that nitrogen hypoxia is 
an unacceptable method for most mammals unless an anesthesia is also used and 
that an anesthesia can delay death.

"So, it's either not going to be fast or it's not going to be appropriate," 
Dunham said.

The World Society for the Protection of Animals recommends against using 
nitrogen hypoxia for euthanasia for multiple reasons, including that it causes 
distress before unconsciousness.

Pittman said there may be ways to mitigate those concerns, including with a 
sedative or anesthesia before the loss of oxygen. He also questions whether 
those concerns are overstated.

"People that are worried about a little discomfort when a sentence of death is 
being carried out, I wish they had shown the same compassion to their victims 
when they ruthlessly, in most cases, murdered them," Pittman said.

A report prepared at the request of an Oklahoma lawmaker by criminal justice 
faculty members at Oklahoma's East Central University concluded that nitrogen 
hypoxia would be a humane method of execution.

The report cited, among other things, a 1961 study that found that people lost 
consciousness after breathing pure nitrogen for about 20 seconds and 
experienced no physical discomfort. The report said the method would be simple 
and noted that nitrogen is used in industry and is readily available.

Dunham said he doesn't think Alabama, or any other state, wants torturous 
executions. But he said the failure of the Hamm execution and the lack of a 
clear explanation by the Department of Corrections showed a lack of 
transparency that could undermine public trust.

(source: al.com)








OHIO----death sentence commuted

Ohio Gov. John Kasich commutes death sentence for killer set for execution in 2 
weeks



Ohio Gov. John Kasich granted clemency for a Toledo-area killer who was 2 weeks 
away from execution.

Kasich's decision Monday to spare William Montgomery's life comes 10 days after 
the Ohio Parole Board voted 6-4 to recommend mercy for him. The governor 
commuted Montgomery's sentence to life without parole.

The board's report showed the majority had too many questions over inconsistent 
witness statements that weren't disclosed to Montgomery when he was on trial 
and whether the jury made its decision on sound grounds.

Montgomery, 52, was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on April 11.

He has been in prison since 1986 and was sentenced to death for the murder of 
Deborah Ogle during a robbery. He was also convicted of murdering Cynthia 
Tincher, Ogle's roommate.

Lucas County Prosecutor Julia Bates had asked the parole board to deny 
Montgomery's request for clemency.

************** ----new death sentence

Alianna DeFreeze's killer, Christopher Whitaker, sentenced to death



A judge on Monday sentenced Christopher Whitaker to be executed for the rape, 
torture and murder 14-year-old Alianna DeFreeze.

Whitaker, 45, will pay the ultimate price for the brutal crimes he carried out 
against the girl in an abandoned home in Cleveland's Kinsman neighborhood in 
January 2017.

The circumstances that Whitaker's attorneys presented to convince jurors to 
spare his life "pale in comparison to the barbarity of the evidence" of what he 
did to the girl, Common Pleas Judge Carolyn Friedland said in imposing the 
death penalty.

The same jury that convicted Whitaker last month also recommended that he be 
sentenced to death.

Whitaker is the 1st person condemned to death from Cuyahoga County court since 
2016, when Michael Madison, who was convicted of killing 3 women in East 
Cleveland. He will join 20 other men convicted in Cuyahoga County who are 
currently on death row.

Whitaker's trial began on Feb. 1 and brought into a clear and disturbing focus 
how the 7th grader whose mother said still played with baby dolls spent the 
torturous final hours of her life.

Whitaker approached Alianna at an RTA bus stop near Kinsman Road and East 93rd 
Street, where she waited to catch a bus to her school and convinced her to go 
with him to a vacant house on Fuller Avenue.

Inside the home, Whitaker brutalized the girl with tools, including a drill, a 
box cutter and other items. Many of the girl's wounds had started to show signs 
of healing, a sign that she was alive for hours after Whitaker inflicted them 
on her, investigators said.

Whitaker eventually stopped his attack, dragged her into another room in the 
house and threw away some of her clothing. He left behind the sweater of her 
school uniform, that was ripped down the front.

He also left behind his DNA, fingerprints and bloody bootprints that 
investigators matched to Whitaker.

Whitaker was previously convicted of sexually assaulting a woman and attacking 
her with scissors and spent several years in prison.

(source for both: cleveland.com)








ARKANSAS:

Ark. inmate seeks stay of execution pending appeal----The inmate wants justices 
to prevent his execution while he pursues another case before the U.S. Supreme 
Court



An Arkansas death row inmate with a case pending before the state Supreme Court 
wants its justices to prevent his execution while he pursues another case 
before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bruce Ward had been set to die last April during a string of executions. He 
wants the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether he should have been entitled 
to the use of an independent mental health professional at his trial. The 
Arkansas Supreme Court said March 1 that Ward never met the minimum threshold 
for such assistance.

Another inmate slated to die last year, Don Davis, filed similar paperwork last 
week asking that the March 1 ruling not take effect.

Ward and Jack Greene also say Arkansas' prison director isn't competent to 
judge their sanity.

Arkansas' attorney general didn't immediately comment.

(source: Associated Press)