[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., VA., N.C., FLA.

[Rick Halperin]

September 20




TEXAS----new execution date and 2 impending executions

Death Watch: Double Dose----2 executions in Huntsville next week



2 inmates face executions next week. Troy Clark is scheduled for lethal 
injection on Wednesday, Sept. 26. Daniel Acker is due the following evening.

Both men claim they had no hand in the murders for which they were convicted, 
but for Clark, that insistence seems to have fallen on deaf ears. The most 
recent filing in his case was last November when the U.S. Supreme Court denied 
his appeal. Clark, from Tyler, Texas, was found guilty of the 1998 murder of 
Christina Muse, who was beaten and drowned in a bathtub, before her body was 
shoved into a barrel of lime and cement mix. According to the Houston 
Chronicle, Clark and some friends dumped the barrel in a remote area of the 
property that he lived on. When law enforcement found Muse's remains, they 
located a 2nd body decomposing nearby.

Clark's original appellate lawyer Craig Henry argued that Clark's trial lawyer 
was "deficient" in his counsel, but Clark's second appellate attorney Jeffrey 
Newberry argued the same thing about Henry. In a 2014 appeal, Newberry wrote, 
"Henry's failure to present the mitigating evidence [to the appeals court] 
prevented the Fifth Circuit from considering ... evidence that transformed 
Clark's ... claim to such a degree that it was no longer the claim presented." 
But it's not clear what Newberry has since done to continue legal efforts on 
Clark's behalf. Today, anti-death penalty groups are calling on Gov. Greg 
Abbott and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to halt Clark's execution, 
including Dead Man Walking author Sister Helen Prejean.

Acker, however, is in the throes of last-minute appeals. On Tuesday, Sept. 18, 
the Court of Criminal Appeals denied his latest request for relief as well as 
his motion for a stay. Though his clemency application is still pending, his 
attorney Richard Ellis confirmed Tuesday that he'll continue to fight for 
Acker's life, and said an appeal to SCOTUS is likely his next step.

Acker, from Hopkins County, was convicted of capital murder in 2001 for the 
strangulation and dumping of his girlfriend Marquetta George's body. Since his 
arrest, Acker has held that George jumped out of his moving vehicle during a 
heated argument and was likely hit by another car. His most recent appeal 
alleges his innocence and argues that his due process was denied by the trial 
court's exclusion of evidence, as well as "false," "misleading," and 
"error"-filled testimony. Specifically, Acker's counsel claims it would have 
been all but impossible for him to strangle George while driving. The 
prosecution's trial argument relied heavily on the strangulation theory, but 
the state and its medical examiner later disavowed the possibility during a 
2011 federal evidentiary hearing. The doctor suggested George was never 
strangled, and the prosecution then "contended that Mr. Acker pushed Ms. George 
from the truck, a theory that was never presented to Acker's jury." But that 
wasn't enough to sway the CCA. If last-minute relief is not granted, Clark and 
Acker will be the ninth and 10th inmates executed in Texas in 2018.

(source: Austin Chronicle)

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

Alvin Braziel has been given an execution date for December 11; it should be 
considered serious.

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----35

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----553

Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #

36---------Sept. 26---------------Troy Clark--------------554

37---------Sept. 27---------------Daniel Acker------------555

38---------Oct. 10----------------Juan Segundo------------556

39---------Oct. 24----------------Kwame Rockwell----------557

40---------Nov. 7-----------------Emanuel Kemp, Jr.--------558

41---------Nov. 14---------------Robert Ramos--------------559

42---------Dec. 4-----------------Joseph Garcia-----------560

43---------Dec. 11----------------Alvin Braziel-----------561

44---------Jan. 15----------------Blaine Milam------------562

45---------Jan. 30----------------Robert Jennings---------563

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Hearing for death row inmate set for Nov. 7



Convicted killer and death row inmate Brentt M. Sherwood is scheduled to appear 
in a Post Conviction Relief Act petition hearing Nov. 7 in Northumberland 
County Court.

Following a status conference on Wednesday in front of Senior Judge Harold F. 
Woelfel Jr., defense attorney Edward J Rymsza, of Williamsport said the hearing 
at 1:15 p.m. in Jury Room 1 will involve Rule 801, which deals with the prior 
counsel's qualifications for defense in capital cases.

Attorney William Ross Stoycos, of the state Attorney General's Office, declined 
comment.

Sherwood, 39, who was convicted 11 years ago of beating his 4 1/2 -year-old 
stepdaughter to death, did not appear in court on Wednesday.

Sherwood, seeking relief from a conviction of 1st degree murder and the 
imposition of the death penalty, has originally listed 106 different reasons 
why he should be awarded a new trial, including ineffective counsel, 
inappropriate or unlawful procedures from the late Judge William Harvey Wiest, 
procedural deficiencies and errors or omission of record, according to a 
342-page Post Conviction Relief Act motion that was originally filed in 2012.

Sherwood, a former Northumberland resident, was sentenced to death in May 2007 
after a Northumberland County jury convicted him of 1st-degree murder in the 
December 2004 beating death of his 4 1/2-year-old stepdaughter, Marlee Reed. 
During the trial, Sherwood admitted punching and kicking the child repeatedly 
in their Northumberland home, but claimed he was high on cocaine and did not 
mean to kill her.

Sherwood, currently incarcerated at State Correctional Institute-Greene in 
Waynesburg, is one of 147 inmates - all men - currently on death row in 
Pennsylvania, and 1 of t3 from Northumberland County. The other 2 
Northumberland County inmates on death row are Kevin Marinelli, convicted in 
the 1994 torture death of Kulpmont resident Conrad Dumchock; and James Frey, of 
Milton, who pleaded guilty to the January 2004 kidnapping and fatal shooting of 
his estranged wife, Debra, of Sunbury.

On Feb. 13, 2015, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced a halt to all 
executions. He said the moratorium will continue until he has "received and 
reviewed the forthcoming report of the Pennsylvania Task Force and Advisory 
Commission on Capital Punishment, established under Senate Resolution 6 of 
2011, and there is an opportunity to address all concerns satisfactorily."

The state has only executed three people since the U.S. Supreme Court restored 
the death penalty in 1976, the last one in 1999. All were executed by lethal 
injection, and in all 3 cases, they waived their appeals and asked that the 
execution be carried out.

The 1st was Keith Zettlemoyer, 39, formerly of Shamokin Dam, put to death in 
1995, 14 years after he shot and killed former Sunbury newsman Charles 
DeVetsco, 30. The last was Gary Heidnik on July 6, 1999. Heidnik had been 
convicted and given 2 death sentences in July 1988 for murdering 2 women he 
imprisoned in his Philadelphia home.

(source: The Daily Item)

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

New jury will decide life in prison or death for Michelle Tharp----Attorneys: 
Tharp should not face death



A Washington County president judge has ordered that a jury be empaneled to 
decide if a woman convicted of starving her daughter to death should serve life 
imprisonment or be sentenced to death.

Michelle Sue Tharp, 49, of Burgettstown, who has been on death row since being 
convicted in 2000 for the 1st-degree murder of Tausha Lanham, 7, had sought to 
bar county court from convening the proceeding.

In Pennsylvania, only a jury can impose a death sentence.

A Washington County jury, after weighing evidence presented to determine a 
penalty, could alternatively find that Tharp deserves life imprisonment. If the 
jurors cannot reach a unanimous verdict, life imprisonment also would be the 
result.

President Judge Katherine B. Emery heard arguments from both the prosecution 
and the defense.

Tharp's attorneys from Philadelphia, James J. McHugh Jr. and Elizabeth Hadayia, 
claimed that so much time has elapsed from Tharps's 2000 conviction that many 
witnesses who testified or gave sworn depositions have died.

Emery found, however, their prior testimony could be read into the record for 
jurors to consider during a new penalty phase hearing.

Tharp's attorneys also asserted that her constitutional rights to 
representation were violated through ineffective assistance of the Washington 
County public defender, a defense for which the judge found no credence.

Egregious or willful "conduct on behalf of the Commonwealth is not present 
here," the judge wrote. "Rather it was the conduct of (Tharp's) counsel that 
violated her rights."

Lacking from the trial before then-judge Paul Pozonsky was testimony on Tharp's 
mental state that might have resulted in a punishment other than the death 
penalty, her attorneys contended.

Washington County District Attorney Gene Vittone said he couldn't comment on 
the merits of Tharp's motion, but called it "unprecedented" in that Emery "said 
she really couldn't find any case law to support what they were asking for, so 
she made the correct decision."

Vittone said his office would continue to prepare for the hearing, and he 
expects the president judge to issue a case-management order that will 
establish a schedule.

Hadayia did not immediately return a call for comment, so it is unknown if 
Tharp intends to appeal Emery's decision.

In a footnote, Emery wrote "Pennsylvania Supreme Court had the power to vacate" 
Tharp's sentence and send her to prison for life without the possibility of 
parole.

The state Supreme Court, "however, decided instead to grant Ms. Tharp a new 
penalty phase hearing."

Justice Max Baer called the evidence of Tharp's guilt "overwhelming," writing 
she not only denied Tausha meals but physically restrained the child so she 
could not feed herself and asked others to perpetuate the same abuse.

Emery noted in her 6-page opinion Tausha, who weighed only 11.77 pounds at age 
7, lacked fat in parts of the body where it normally accumulates, and had 
extreme wear on her teeth from grinding.

Tausha was falsely reported to have been abducted from a mall in Steubenville, 
Ohio, April 18, 1998, when she actually died in bed at home.

According to trial testimony, Tharp feared Washington County Children and Youth 
Services would take away her other children, so the death was concealed.

Tausha's body, in trash bags, was found dumped along a road in Follansbee, 
W.Va.

Tharp is serving her sentence in the State Correctional Institution at Muncy in 
central Pennsylvania.

(source: Observer-Reporter)








VIRGINIA:

Convicted killer, already facing death penalty, admits slaying 2 girls in 
Illinois in 2005



The horrific rampage of former Marine Jorge Torrez began in a park in his 
hometown of Zion, Illinois, when he was just 16 years old. In May 2005, he 
fatally stabbed Laura Hobbs, 8, and her friend Krystal Tobias, 9, in a case 
that attracted national attention, particularly after Laura's father was 
wrongfully charged with the girls' murder.

Jorge Torrez graduated from high school a year later, never a suspect in the 
killings, and joined the Marines. By 2010 he was stationed at Fort Myer in 
Arlington, Virginia, while working at the Pentagon. That's when he attacked 2 
women coming home from a Saturday night out, bound them with electrical cords 
inside their apartment, then took one of the women in his SUV, raped her, 
choked her and left her for dead. Police soon found Torrez, took his DNA and 
entered it into a national databank. And then the full scope of his crimes 
became apparent.

First, in July 2010, the DNA linked him to the killing of Laura and Krystal 5 
years earlier.

Then the DNA linked him to the 2009 strangulation of Amanda Jean Snell, a 
20-year-old Navy petty officer also stationed at Fort Myer. While in the 
Arlington County jail for his initial sex-crimes arrest, Torrez told a fellow 
inmate that he'd committed all three murders. The inmate was wearing a 
recorder. Federal prosecutors took the case, and won a rare death sentence from 
a jury in Alexandria, Virginia, in 2014.

Illinois prosecutors soon extradited him back to Lake County. And on Tuesday, 
he admitted killing Laura and Krystal on Mother's Day 2005, as part of a plea 
deal in which he was sentenced to 100 years in prison, on top of his death 
penalty for killing Snell and 5 life sentences for the attacks on the women in 
Arlington.

"Within each of us, there is a divine spark of goodness. But not for you," Lake 
County Circuit court Judge Daniel Shanes told Torrez, according to the Chicago 
Daily Herald. "You are a serial killer."

Torrez did not speak during the plea and sentencing other than to answer the 
judge's questions. As part of the plea deal, Torrez will be transferred from 
the Red Onion State Prison in southwest Virginia to a federal prison where he 
will await execution. His federal conviction and death sentence were upheld by 
the Fourth Circuit federal appeals court last year, and the U.S. Supreme Court 
is now considering Torrez's case.

"I just want to say we're glad it's over," said Marina Tobias, Krystal's 
mother, according to the Lake County News-Sun. "It has been a very long time, 
and this ensures he'll never do anything like that to anyone else."

The attack on the 2 women in Arlington shocked prosecutors with its brutality. 
After forcing the women into their apartment in the Ballston area, Torrez drove 
one of the women to a secluded area, raped her, then tightened a scarf around 
her neck.

"I screamed, 'What are you doing?'" the victim testified in 2011. "He 
responded, 'What do you think I'm doing?'" Torrez kept tugging on the scarf, 
and the woman later awoke to find herself face down in the snow near a highway 
in Prince William County, Virginia.

Virginia was the 1st state in the nation to authorize the taking of DNA from 
prisoners even before they were convicted of a crime. Doing so with Torrez 
quickly connected him to 3 homicides.

While Torrez was awaiting trial in Arlington for abduction and rape, he met 
fellow inmate Osama el-Atari, a flashy former restaurateur in jail for fraud. 
El-Atari knew of the pending murder cases against Torrez, and, while wearing a 
wire, asked Torrez if he felt any remorse.

"Does a lion feel remorse when it kills a hyena?" Torrez can be heard telling 
El-Atari during the taped conversation.

"You don't feel bad?" El-Atari asked during another conversation.

"Nope," Torrez responded.

"At all?" El-Atari asked again.

"Nope," Torrez repeated.

After a federal jury convicted Torrez of killing Snell inside Henderson Hall at 
Fort Myer, prosecutors introduced evidence of the Zion killings of Krystal and 
Laura to convince them that Torrez deserved to die. Torrez instructed his 
attorneys not to contest the penalty phase of the case, and none of the 
witnesses were cross-examined by the defense. The jury took only 4 hours to 
agree on a death sentence.

Torrez's defense team did fight the murder charges in Illinois for several 
years before finally reaching a plea agreement. Judge Shanes told him, "Your 
murder of these 2 girls was reprehensible. What you did is repugnant to every 
moral of civilized society."

(source: Washington Post)



NORTH CAROLINA----death row inmate dies

Death row inmates dies of natural causes



North Carolina officials say a death row inmate has died of natural causes.

The Department of Public Safety said in a release that Rowland Hedgepeth died 
Monday afternoon of natural causes at the Central Prison Healthcare Complex.

Officials say the 67-year-old was convicted in Halifax County and sentenced to 
death in November 1987 for the 1st-degree murder of Richard Casey. He was also 
convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting 
serious injury on his estranged wife, Beverly.

(source: Associated Press)








FLORIDA:

Defense wants new prosecutor in 2010 double murder case



Request stems from emails between Chief Assistant State Attorney and Ocala 
Police Chief that have nothing to do with the trial but, defense attorneys say, 
show bias and potential to conspire.

Defense attorneys for a convicted murderer awaiting trial for a 2010 double 
murder have moved to disqualify the State Attorney's Office from the case and 
to ask the governor to appoint a new prosecutor.

The request stems from correspondence between Chief Assistant State Attorney 
Ric Ridgway and Ocala Police Chief Greg Graham following the death of a police 
officer during firearms training in 2015. Although the email correspondence - 
described by Ridgway as attorney-client communication - has nothing to do with 
the double murder trial, defense attorneys argue it shows bias and potential 
for both agencies to conspire to cover up a lackluster investigation into a 
potential additional suspect.

Defense attorney Terry Lenamon said he and his team have "substantial evidence" 
but no smoking gun showing either a cover-up or tempering with the 
investigation because of the relationship.

Lenamon and defense attorney Tania Alavi represent Michael Lamar Woods, 35, who 
is charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder with a firearm in the 2010 deaths 
of Marshall Pardee, 23, and Chyavana Hampton, 20. Woods is facing the death 
penalty.

Woods was convicted in 2014 of killing Toni Centracco, 20, who was found dead 
in her driveway with 2 gunshot wounds to her head in 2007. He was sentenced to 
life in prison for the crime.

"It's not just that (Ridgway) has a personal relationship with the chief," 
Alavi argued. "It's the attorney-client relationship which makes this much more 
problematic."

The defense's motion to disqualify was filed under seal so it is not available 
as a public document, but the contents of the motion were discussed at length 
in a hearing Tuesday in front of 5th Circuit Judge Steve Rogers.

In a March 2017 deposition, a state witness told Lenamon and Assistant State 
Attorney Robin Arnold that a male friend of Woods told her he helped with the 
murders. He told her he had felt like he owed Woods for previous actions, 
according to a transcript of the deposition.

After the deposition, Lenamon and Arnold agreed that Arnold would approach OPD 
about re-opening the investigation to explore this new information.

About 16 months after the deposition, the defense received a report from the 
police department that they thought fell short. Lenamon and Alavi argue the 
police officer asked to further investigate the information was not familiar 
with the original investigation and did not interview witnesses about the newly 
discovered information.

They also argued that while the original investigation into the double murder 
was thorough, the re-opened investigation did not follow protocol.

"It became apparent (when the defense received the police report) that the 
state was not going to pursue the investigation and that they were going to 
whitewash it," Lenamon said.

Arnold argued that 1st - by a technicality - the defense's motion should fail 
because they did not present sworn testimony to support their motion. And 2nd, 
that their allegation of a potential cover-up or tempering has no basis in 
fact.

"Prosecutors and law enforcement officers work together in every case," she 
said.

Additionally, Ridgway does not supervise the office's homicide department so he 
has no direct control or input in the case, she said.

Arnold also argued that while the witness' statement may have been new 
information, the alleged 2nd suspect was checked out from the beginning of the 
original investigation.

Rogers said he would submit a ruling on the motion by this weekend.

Other motions discussed at the meeting requested specific evidence and police 
files related to the case to be shared with the defense.

Lenamon told Rogers he expects to file a motion to continue the case in light 
of the new evidence.

Woods is set for a month-long trial beginning Oct. 22.

(source: ocala.com)