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

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 12




FLORIDA:

Dad faces death penalty for horrifying abuse of toddler uploaded to dark web


A 2-year-old was raped by her father in a video he uploaded to the dark web, 
according to police.

The girl's father, 30-year-old James Lockhart, faces the death penalty if 
convicted of the horrific abuse.

US Homeland Security said the Florida father "posted a video of extreme sexual 
abuse of a female child [appearing to be less than 2-years-old[ by an adult 
male" in November 2017.

According to the Miami Herald, Lockhart also made posts on securely encrypted 
web pages detailing his sexual experiences with a young girl and boy, while 
asking for suggestions of things he could do and promising future updates.

Authorities managed to track Lockhart down through instant message service Kik 
and raided his home.

According to Homeland Security, the alleged paedophile's wife was shown footage 
of the horrific ordeal and was able to instantly recognise her baby daughter, 
her husband's hands, their couch and daughter's stuffed toy.

The 2-year-old girl and her twin brother were been taken into custody on the 
day of their father's arrest.

It is understood the suspect has made other postings to the dark web under a 
different username.

Lockhart faces numerous charges including capital sexual battery - which 
carries a death sentence if convicted.

(source: New Zealand Herald)



INDIANA:

Judges turning to imported juries----Want fair trials for high-profile 
defendants


The trial of a Fort Wayne man facing the death penalty for allegedly killing 4 
people – 1 of them his unborn child – more than two years ago could cost Allen 
County at least $282,500.

And the county could be on the hook next year for thousands more as jurors in 
another high-profile case are selected elsewhere and brought here for trial. A 
3rd case could be added, as a judge has already said he will likely order 
out-of-county jurors to be chosen for the trial of a Grabill man accused of 
sexually assaulting and killing 8-year-old April Tinsley in 1988.

It's rare for trials in Allen County to be heard by jurors from somewhere else. 
The last time was in 2002, when jurors from South Bend acquitted former Fort 
Wayne police officer Gentry Mosley of murder and attempted murder in connection 
with a 1997 double shooting.

The process is time-consuming and challenging to plan, and local officials are 
working to prepare for 3 trials with imported juries in 2019 – potentially a 
first for Allen County.

“This will be a learning experience, for sure,” said Allen Superior Court 
Executive John McGauley, who is responsible for some of the planning, including 
asking the County Council for funding to cover trial costs.

“We know what we'll be doing,” he said. “It's just a matter of getting the 
logistics set up.”

Defendant facing death penalty

Marcus Dansby, 23, is charged with 4 counts of murder in the grisly killings of 
4 people on Sept. 11, 2016, in a Holton Avenue home. One of the victims, 
18-year-old Dajahiona Arrington, was carrying his child, and prosecutors filed 
paperwork in early 2017 to seek the death penalty.

Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull issued an order Oct. 1 calling for jurors 
to be selected in Marion County and brought to Allen County for Dansby's trial, 
which is scheduled to start in April and could last more than a month. The 
order said defense attorneys had shown evidence of “public hostility and 
outrage” surrounding the case and pretrial publicity “that is inflammatory and 
sensational.”

It's difficult to pin down the expected cost of a trial with out-of-county 
jurors because variables such as the length of the trial and the distance from 
which jurors will travel fluctuate. It also costs more to sequester juries, 
lodging them where the trial is occurring, and that will happen with Dansby's 
case.

When it looked as if Dansby might go to trial in 2017, McGauley asked for 
$282,576 from the county. That money would have paid for the cost of the trial, 
including expenses such as meals for jurors and transcription service.

The trial was delayed several times, though, and that figure likely is less 
than what the actual cost of the trial will be because expenses like 
transportation and lodging for jurors is not included.

McGauley said expected costs for the April trial have not been calculated. The 
court's $6 million budget pays for day-to-day operations, and additional 
funding for “special situations” such as the trial for Dansby is sought from 
the County Council, he said.

“The court does not have a budget set aside for such possibilities,” McGauley 
said in an email. “These instances are rare, and a standby budget like that 
wouldn't get used often enough to justify having it all the time.”

County's practice

The right to a fair trial is protected by the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. 
Constitution, and state law ensures that defendants can ask a judge to move a 
trial from the location where the alleged crime occurred by claiming “bias or 
prejudice against the defendant exists in that county.”

Judges can also choose to keep the trial in the county where the alleged 
offense occurred and order jurors to be brought in from elsewhere.

That has been the preferred vehicle for ensuring defendants' rights are 
protected in Allen County for least 30 years. Importing jurors might be 
expensive, officials say, but it's more efficient and not as expensive as 
moving an entire trial to another county – a feat that involves transporting 
court staff and witnesses as well as the person on trial.

“I don't recall that we've ever sent them out,” said Allen Superior Court Judge 
John Surbeck, who took the bench in 1988. “I'd rather try it in my courthouse 
and my courtroom.”

It's up to judges to decide whether to grant a change of venue or order jurors 
to be selected from another county, and defense attorneys often cite news 
coverage as proof their clients can't receive a fair trial because potential 
jurors will not be able to set aside their feelings to deliberate and decide a 
defendant's fate fairly.

The bar is set high in either case, and appellate courts have held that 
pervasive media coverage on its own is not enough to require judges to move 
trials or find other jurors.

More recently, judges and lawyers are facing a digital threat to defendants' 
rights: social media.

Among the handful of local cases in which venue changes were sought in the past 
year – including the Dansby case – each has cited negative and sometimes 
threatening comments on sites such as Facebook. Defense attorneys Michelle 
Kraus and Robert Gevers argued in court documents that social media comments 
have made it difficult or impossible for Dansby to be tried in front of Allen 
County jurors.

Gull agreed and wrote in her Oct. 1 order that “(Dansby) has presented some 
evidence that some users that commented on various social media platforms were 
identified as Allen County residents and could possibly be in the jury pool.”

The jury will be selected in Marion County.

Randall Hammond has been a public defender in Allen County since 1982. Now the 
county's chief public defender, he said the increased popularity of social 
media in recent years has made finding impartial jurors more difficult.

“There's just more conversation going on than there otherwise would be,” he 
said.

Joel Schumm, a professor at Indiana University's Robert H. McKinney School of 
Law in Indianapolis, agreed and said it's a problem courts will continue to 
face.

“As people increasingly get information or 'news' from social media, lawyers 
will need to collect and judges will need to consider that information,” he 
said in an email, noting recent court cases in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West 
Virginia have included questions about the role of social media in changes of 
venue situations.

Judge's reversal

Amber Garrett, 27, asked in February – a few months after she was charged with 
2 counts of felony neglect in the death of her 2-year-old son – to move her 
case from Allen County or bring in other jurors for her trial. The request 
filed by attorney John Bohdan cited social media comments and messages written 
in chalk scrawled outside the Allen County Courthouse that urged a judge to 
charge her with murder.

Gull rejected the request in June, saying Garrett didn't prove the comments or 
the chalk messages would bias jurors.

The request made its way back to Gull last week, after The Journal Gazette and 
WANE-TV published news stories containing information culled from the state 
Department of Child Services that included medical records and police reports 
connected to the child's death.

She agreed to allow jurors from another county – which county has not been 
determined – and said some of the information released after journalists 
requested documents under the state's open records law violated federal medical 
privacy laws.

Garrett's trial is scheduled for June 24, and Gull said it's likely jury 
selection will take at least a day.

Officials have not begun calculating the cost of that trial.

Who pays?

Death penalty cases are expensive, and the cost goes up if they are moved or 
juries are imported.

The county where the case originates is responsible for reimbursing the county 
where the case is moved or from where jurors are selected.

In 1999, a Porter County jury found Joseph Corcoran guilty in Allen County for 
killing four people – including his brother – in a home on Bayer Avenue, and he 
was sentenced to die. He remains on death row, and his trial nearly 20 years 
ago cost the county almost $141,000.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty 
Information Center, said his agency doesn't track how often juries are selected 
from somewhere else or trials are moved in capital cases. He said death penalty 
cases are more likely to be moved or jurors imported, though, because they tend 
to be high-profile cases that attract lots of attention.

Lower-level cases also come with a cost.

The trial of Mosley, the former Fort Wayne police officer accused of shooting 
to death a 21-year-old man and wounding another in 1997, cost the county about 
$66,000 in 2002.

Allen County was paid about $40,600 in 2016 for hosting the trial of Bob 
Leonard, an Indianapolis man charged with murder and 50 counts of arson in an 
explosion that killed 2 people in 2012.

Reimbursement included nearly $4,400 for housing Leonard and more than $31,000 
for mileage, meals, lodging and other expenses for jurors, according to a 
change of venue record and claim filed with the Allen County clerk's office.

The trial of Indianapolis police officer David Bisard was moved to Allen County 
in 2013. He was convicted of driving his squad car while drunk in 2010 and 
killing a man and critically injuring 2 others.

Allen County was reimbursed nearly $25,600 for that case.

Tinsley slaying

The most high-profile case pending in Allen County is John D. Miller's.

Miller, 59, is charged with killing April Tinsley 30 years ago and dumping her 
body in a DeKalb County ditch. The case has been covered by local and national 
reporters and discussed on television newsmagazines and on internet message 
boards and social media.

Defense attorneys Anthony Churchward and Mark Thoma have argued Miller can't 
receive a fair trial in Allen County because of that coverage and discussion, 
and Surbeck said in an interview last month he likely will approve importing 
jurors.

“There is no way you could try that case here,” the judge said. “In this 
community, the citizens have been reminded on a regular basis of what he is 
alleged to have done.”

Surbeck is scheduled to formally consider the request in December and, if it's 
approved, it would be the 3rd trial expected in 2019 to feature jurors from 
outside Allen County. Miller's trial is scheduled to start in February, but it 
also could be pushed back.

The state tracks venue changes, and of nearly 3 million criminal cases in 2017, 
906 were “venued out” in 2017.

State statistics do not break down changes of venue by moving the case or 
bringing in outside jurors, however.

Hammond, the public defender, and judges Gull and Surbeck acknowledge importing 
juries is inconvenient. It is necessary to protect the rights of the defendant, 
they say.

County on hook

Joel Benz could soon be asked to deal with the 3 local cases.

President of the Allen County Council, he will be 1 of 7 members who will 
consider appropriating extra money to pay for the cases if they make it to 
trial. It's not ideal, he said, but those are expenses the council can't 
refuse.

Money for the trials could come from the county's general fund or its rainy day 
fund, Benz said.

“If all 3 were to take place in the same year, that would be a big hit,” he 
said. “It's not like we don't have resources to draw from, but it's not 
something we look forward to.”

(source: The Journal Gazette)