[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., NEV.

[Rick Halperin]

November 16



PENNSYLVANIA:

Jury Sentences ‘Greensburg 6’ Member Melvin Knight To Death


A jury in Westmoreland County has sentenced Melvin Knight to death for the 
torture and murder of Jennifer Daugherty 8 years ago.

The jury spent about 7 hours deliberating on Thursday, trying to decide 
Knight’s fate. He will now return to death row.

Knight’s original death sentence was overturned on appeal.

The testimony part of Knight’s re-sentencing trial began its last day with the 
jury of 6 men and 6 women listening to District Attorney John Peck appeal to 
the panel to return a death penalty verdict for Knight’s role in the 2010 
torture killing of then 30-year-old Daugherty in Greensburg.

In closing arguments, Peck attacked the defense’s argument that Knight is too 
mentally challenged to execution.

“Melvin Knight’s background was difficult, but people worked hard to make him a 
suitable member of society,” Peck said.

Peck went on to say Knight “got the best medication and treatment he needed” 
and “had no cognitive deficits.”

Peck finished by saying, “Melvin Knight helped kidnap, terrorize and kill 
Jennifer Daugherty … Return the proper verdict, which, in this case, is death.”

Knight’s defense attorney Tim Dawson followed with his summation.

“Critical day, it’s your last chance to talk to the jury, last chance to try to 
convince them that life is the best verdict,” he said.

Late in the afternoon, the jury asked to listen to Knight’s hour-long 
confession tape.

“We were happy to hear that because Melvin Knight showed some remorse in the 
confession. I think it helped us with the fact that Ricky Smyrnes was the 
leader of the pack and the Charles Manson in the scenario.”

The jury returned to deliberations to determine once again if Knight should 
live or die, and the verdict had to be unanimous.

“If there’s a deadlock, then it’s life. Actually, all we need is one juror. So 
if we get one juror showing mercy for Melvin Knight then it’s a life sentence,” 
Dawson said.

The jury deliberated for more than 5 hours on Thursday and asked 2 questions. 
Just before 6 p.m., they told Judge Rita Hathaway that they could not reach a 
verdict, but the judge sent them back into deliberations.

(source: KDKA news)


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Exonerated death-row inmates push Pa. to abolish capital punishment


Witness to Innocence, a national anti-death penalty organization based in 
Philadelphia, staged an event in the city Thursday calling for Pennsylvania to 
abolish the death penalty.

Led by exonerated death row inmates, WTI uses the first-hand experiences of the 
wrongly convicted to push for an end to executions in the U.S — calling the 
death penalty the biggest problem in a “fatally flawed” criminal justice 
system.

The nonprofit used the event to highlight its 15 years of activism, which 
supporters credit with playing a “decisive role” in campaigns that abolished 
capital punishment in 7 states — New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, Illinois, 
Connecticut, Maryland and Nebraska.

“It’s the power of story that changes hearts. You cannot look into the eyes of 
someone that’s been sentenced to death and not feel it,” said Kathleen Lucas, 
executive director of Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, 
during the event at the National Constitution Center.

Derrick Jamison, 1 of 21 former death row inmates and WTI members in the 
audience, shared his story.

In 1985, an Ohio judge sentenced Jamison to death after he was convicted of 
armed robbery and aggravated murder for beating a bartender to death in 
Cincinnati.

The 57 year-old was exonerated and released exactly 20 years later after he was 
granted a new trial. A federal judge found that prosecutors withheld key 
evidence, including witness testimony from a handful of people who were with 
Jamison at his girlfriend’s home during the robbery.

“I got the worst case in American history,” said Jamison, who believes 35 
pieces of evidence proving his innocence never made it into the courtroom.

Jamison may be free, but he will never be able to shake the trauma of sitting 
on death row for nearly 2 decades. He was scheduled to be executed 6 times 
during that span, but always got a stay from the governor.

“The death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment and shouldn’t nobody be 
allowed to say who lives or dies in America,” he said.

It was a sentiment echoed throughout the event, which also included famed 
advocate Sister Helen Prejean, as well as attorneys — such as Philadelphia 
District Attorney Larry Krasner  — who have made it their life’s work to fight 
against the death penalty.

Krasner, a former public defender and defense attorney who has represented 
clients in capital cases,was praised by nearly every speaker on stage.

On Thursday, he told the crowd his time as a juror on a capital case in Chester 
County helped shape his beliefs.

He was 23 and applying to law school. Krasner and his fellow jurors convicted a 
man of 1st-degree murder, but the case never reached the death penalty phase. A 
juror was removed from the panel during deliberations because of his 
“psychotic” behavior.

“The defense attorney did about the only good thing that he did with that case, 
which is he cut a deal, that a verdict of 11 would mean no possibility of a 
death penalty phase and no possibility for a death sentence,” said Krasner.

“I was profoundly affected by that. I was profoundly affected, in some ways, by 
the strength, but in many ways, the frailty of our justice system,” he said.

During his 2017 campaign, Krasner, who’s progressive approach has grabbed 
national headlines, said he would never seek the death penalty. As district 
attorney, though, he hasn’t taken it completely off the table.

In June, brothers Carlton Hipps and Ramone Williams accepted a plea deal that 
spared them the death penalty for killing Sgt. Robert Wilson III during a 
robbery in North Philadelphia in 2015.

Instead, Hipps and Williams will serve life without parole, plus 50 to 100 
years in prison, a decision that upset Wilson’s family and friends.

“They call this death by incarceration. I call it justice deferred,” said 
Officer Michael Rivera, who went through the police academy with Wilson, after 
the sentencing.

Since 1978, 201 defendants have gotten the death penalty. Only one has been 
executed.

“If you’re talking about efficiency, that’s not it,” said Robert Dunham, 
executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

Pennsylvania hasn’t executed an inmate on death row since 1999. In 2015, after 
being elected to his first term in office, Gov. Tom Wolf imposed a moratorium 
on executions. After Wolf easily earned another term, that moratorium is likely 
to stand for at least the next 4 years, though last month’s mass shooting at 
Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh could push the issue.

Federal prosecutors on the case, considered the deadliest anti-Semitic attack 
in American history, are pursuing the death penalty for Robert Bowers, who is 
charged with gunning down 11 congregants and injuring 6 more during a Saturday 
morning service.

(source: WHYY news)




NEVADA:

Death penalty sought in killing of Vietnamese tour leaders


Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a 31-year-old convicted felon 
accused of killing 2 Vietnamese tour leaders last June during a break-in 
robbery in their room at a Las Vegas Strip hotel.

Julius Trotter’s attorneys didn’t immediately respond to messages about the 
decision announced Thursday by prosecutor Michelle Fleck in Clark County 
District Court.

Trotter has pleaded not guilty to murder, burglary and robbery in the June 1 
stabbings of Sang Boi Nghia and Khoung Ba Le Nguyen at the Circus Circus hotel.

Nghia owned a tour business in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Nguyen was a tour 
employee.

Trotter was on probation at the time after pleading guilty last year to felony 
resisting a police officer with a weapon.

(source: Associated Press)