[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., TENN., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

February 5




ALABAMA----impending execution

Judge Denies Muslim death row Inmate's '11th-Hour' Requests for Imam in 
Execution Chamber, Plea for Gas



Once a stay was tossed, a devout Muslim inmate on Alabama’s death row who is 
set to be executed on February 7 failed to sway a federal judge to commute his 
sentence or let him inhale lethal gas instead of lethal injection cocktail, and 
was barred from having his imam by his side.

Dominique Hakim Marcelle Ray, 42, is slated to die by lethal injection on 
February 7 as scheduled and won’t have his spiritual advisor or the Holman 
Correctional Facility’s staff Christian chaplain with him when the time comes.

In 1995, Ray was convicted of the robbery, rape and murder of Tiffany Harville, 
after his co-defendant confessed to cops that it was Ray who slashed the 
15-year-old’s throat and pulled a couple of dollars from her purse.

What’s more, according to the order filed on February 1 in federal court in 
Montgomery, Alabama, Ray had killed before, having “murdered two teenage 
brothers.”

The jury voted overwhelmingly (11 to 1) in favor of sentencing Ray to death.

However, days before he was to be put down, Ray argued for a series of 
accommodations, including a stay, chucking the lethal injection and lobbying 
for his Muslim “private spiritual advisor” to be by his side inside the death 
chamber “during the execution,” the order read.

"Ray seeks an 11th-hour stay of his execution so that the court can resolve 3 
issues," U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins wrote in the order.

The judge denied just about everything except for allowing Ray to be alone in 
the execution chamber.

Regarding the imam, Watkins was blunt, saying there was nothing compelling him 
to deviate from Alabama protocol.

“The state has never allowed an inmate’s private spiritual advisor to be inside 
the chamber during the execution, regardless of the private spiritual advisor’s 
affiliation,” he wrote.

The judge said that the chaplain at Holman (who is Christian) is “a trained 
member of the execution team” who has “witnessed dozens of execution and 
trained on how to respond is something goes wrong… If the chaplain disobeys 
orders, he will face disciplinary action.”

Watkins added that in a private imam, the training is unknown and leaves open 
scenarios that “go outside the State’s control.”

Ray’s tardiness was a central factor in shooting down the imam request.

“Since Ray has been confined at Holman for more than 19 years, he reasonably 
should have learned that the State allows only members of the execution team… 
inside the execution chamber,” the order reads. As a result, Ray, who found 
Islam back in 2006, will die without any clergy present.

“The court will enter a consent order requiring that the state prison chaplain 
not be in the execution chamber during Ray’s execution,” according to Watkins's 
order.

Watkins submitted that Ray would have plenty of time to be with his imam right 
up until around 4:30 p.m., when "goodbyes are said" and Ray will take "the 
final walk to the chamber," the order read.

Also, Ray’s lethal injection will go forward despite the man’s last-ditch 
efforts to die by nitrogen hypoxia.

Legislation was signed into law last March (following Oklahoma and Mississippi) 
by Alabama Governor Kay Ivey granting inmates the choice to die by nitrogen gas 
rather than lethal injection. The effort came after Utah brought back firing 
squads and Tennessee brought the electric chair out of retirement.

For Ray to have been able to take advantage of the nitrogen hypoxia 
alternative, he needed to make a formal request by July 1 of last year.

Ray and his attorneys apparently waited too long. His request for gas arrived 
only 10 days before his execution, the order stated. (Newsweek's attempts to 
reach Ray's attorneys were not immediately returned.) Watkins blamed Ray’s 
“dilatory” effort to let so much time pass while “the execution click had 
started ticking.”

(source: newsweek.com)

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

Being Spared?----The U.S. Supreme Court has said juries must consider a 
defendant’s life, education and mental health before voting for execution. 
Lawyers for an Alabama man say that never happened in 1999, and now it’s too 
late.



On the morning of July 29, 1999, 12 men and women filed into the jury box in 
the Dallas County Courthouse in Selma, Alabama. The day before, they had 
convicted Domineque Ray of raping and killing a 15-year-old girl in a cotton 
field outside of town. It had taken just an hour and 40 minutes to deliver 
their verdict.

It was a terrible crime, and not the first killing Ray, 22, had been convicted 
of. Five and a half months earlier, Ray had been found guilty for his role in 
the murders of 2 teenage boys in Selma.

Now, shortly after 9 a.m., the jury was set to hear testimony on whether Ray’s 
life should be spared or if he should be sentenced to die.

Juries in death penalty cases have been required to separately weigh questions 
of guilt and punishment for more than 4 decades. Those facing the possibility 
of death get to argue for mercy; they’re allowed to present evidence that might 
temper a jury’s willingness to recommend execution a defendant’s limited 
intelligence, for instance, or history of victimization. The obligation of 
defense lawyers in such cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has held, is 
considerable.

William Whatley Jr. was Ray’s lead defense lawyer in the Dallas County 
courtroom. Whatley was a former prosecutor, and this was not his first death 
penalty case as a defense lawyer. But he opted to let his co-counsel, Juliana 
Taylor, make the presentation to the jury. Taylor, just three years out of law 
school, had little experience. She’d never been the lead lawyer in a criminal 
trial. And she’d worked on just one capital case.

Whatley and Taylor put a single witness on the stand, Ray’s mother. She 
testified that she loved her son, and that his life had not been easy. His 
father, she said, had disowned him, and she had tried her best. The testimony 
lasted roughly 10 minutes.

The jury, after 2 hours of deliberation, voted that Ray be sentenced to death. 
He is set to die by lethal injection on Thursday.

In the 2 decades since the jury’s decision, lawyers for Ray have mounted 
appeals in both state and federal court, insisting he deserves a new trial. 
They have alleged that Whatley failed to adequately represent Ray. They have 
alleged that prosecutors withheld evidence of other suspects in the murder of 
the young girl. They have argued that members of the jury knew a police 
detective involved in the case and should have been kept off the panel.

Most recently, in an appeal still making its way through the Alabama courts, 
the lawyers have argued that the state withheld critical evidence involving 
Ray’s chief accuser, his alleged accomplice in the murders. The lawyers have 
asserted that Marcus Owden, who confessed to the three killings, had been 
suffering from schizophrenia when he testified, and that prosecutors withheld 
that fact from Ray’s defense team.

Prosecutors have denied the claims of misconduct, and they have prevailed in 
each of Ray’s appeals.

But the question of whether Ray was adequately represented during the penalty 
phase of his trial has shadowed the case almost from the time the jury returned 
its verdict for death. In appeals filed in state and federal court beginning in 
2003, Ray’s lawyers have attacked Whatley’s performance, saying it failed to 
meet the constitutional standard required of defense lawyers in such 
proceedings.

Whatley failed to hire an investigator to explore Ray’s background. He withdrew 
a request to have Ray evaluated by a forensic neuropsychologist. There were 
family members who said they would have been willing to testify, but they were 
not found, much less put on the stand. School records weren’t researched, nor 
were records chronicling Ray’s experience in foster care.

“Ray was sentenced to death by a jury and judge who simply had no idea of who 
Ray actually is and how he came to be a defendant in a capital case,” read his 
2011 federal petition for habeas corpus. “Whatley and Taylor prepared virtually 
no mitigation case at all, making it all but certain that jurors would 
recommend the death penalty.”

In their filings, Ray’s lawyers have laid out the details of what they say was 
a horrifying upbringing for a boy with an 80 IQ. Ray, 17 at the time of the 
first murders, had been beaten as he went from household to household from the 
age of 3 on — bouncing between Selma, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Virginia 
and South Carolina. After being left in an abandoned building in Chicago, he’d 
been taken in by state child welfare officials. He was then sent off to suffer 
more, sexually abused by his stepmother’s family as a toddler and encouraged by 
his mother to have sex with her friends when he was a teenager. He never made 
it past 8th grade. He’s since been diagnosed with schizotypal personality 
disorder, characterized by severe social anxiety, paranoia and unusual beliefs.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said 
there is no reliable national data on how often those convicted in a death 
penalty case get spared as a result of information made available to juries at 
the penalty phase.

“In most of the country, nobody keeps track,” Dunham said. “It’s one of our 
biggest gripes.”

There are, though, any number of cases — in Alabama and other states — where 
juries have opted against execution for even those convicted of the most brutal 
crimes. Barry Lee Jones, then 20, was convicted of sodomizing and murdering his 
7-month-old, but an Alabama jury voted to spare him after defense lawyers and 
an investigator worked with his mother, sister, aunt, uncle and family 
spiritual adviser to put together his life story. Looking at school records, 
they found some evidence of mental disability. Whatley was the lead lawyer.

In Ohio, then-Gov. John Kasich commuted the death sentence of Raymond Tibbetts 
in 2018 after a juror wrote to him saying he had learned of the defendant’s 
abusive childhood only after he had voted for execution. The juror told Kasich 
he was upset that he didn’t have all of the information when he made his 
decision.

In federal death penalty cases over the last 30 years, juries have opted 
against execution in roughly 2/3 of them. Those spared include Zacarias 
Moussaoui, the man often called the 20th hijacker in the 9/11 terrorist 
attacks. A psychologist and friends testified about Moussaoui’s abusive 
childhood, his years in an orphanage and a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.

With Ray’s scheduled execution days away, ProPublica interviewed a number of 
people connected to that disputed moment in the Dallas County Courthouse. 
Whatley, the trial lawyer; Europe Ray, the brother who said he would have been 
happy to testify in 1999; the appellate lawyer who to this day is trying to 
save Ray’s life; and jurors from the trial, including some who had voted for 
death and one who had not.

Whatley, for his part, stands by his work on Ray’s behalf. He had no access to 
much of the material later uncovered about Ray’s childhood. But he has his 
regrets, too. He said he should have hired an investigator specifically to 
explore Ray’s life, education and mental health. He’s done it in many of the 
death penalty cases he’s handled since, and in the 28 capital murder trials 
he’s completed, just one of his clients has been sentenced to death: Ray.

“I’ve done this a long time, I’ve been practicing law now for 34 years, and I 
know that I could have done better representing Domineque if I would have had 
somebody to guide our investigation of mitigation evidence,” Whatley said.

The murders happened 18 months apart, and they went unsolved for years.

First, 2 brothers, Ernest and Reinhard Mabins, 18 and 13, were shot dead in 
their Selma home in February 1994. They were found by their parents, but there 
were few leads and no arrests.

Then, in August 1995, the decomposing remains of Tiffany Harville, 15, were 
found by a farmer driving his tractor in a field outside of town. She’d been 
raped and knifed to death. Months later, a local man was jailed and charged.

But on Aug. 18, 1997, with the Mabins killings unsolved and the man arrested 
for the Harville murder awaiting trial, Owden walked into the Selma Police 
Department headquarters. Accompanied by his pastor, Owden, 21, said he and his 
longtime friend, Ray, were responsible for all three killings. They had wanted 
to start their own gang, and had killed the Mabins boys and Harville to 
establish their bona fides. Owden had found religion, and confessing was the 
right thing to do, he said.

Whatley only came to represent Ray in the 3 murders after Ray’s first lawyers 
withdrew from the case, citing a dispute over whether Ray should seek a plea 
bargain.

In an interview, Whatley said the chances of Ray being acquitted seemed 
daunting. While Ray later recanted his confession, it would be admissible as 
evidence. Owden had agreed to plead guilty to all 3 killings to avoid the death 
penalty, and he was set to testify against Ray. Whatley said that almost from 
the start he saw avoiding the death penalty as his top priority.

“I try to educate my clients, and my client families, that this is what we do. 
It’s not like a regular criminal case,” Whatley said of his strategy in death 
penalty cases. “They hang up on the guilty, not guilty. Yes, it’s important. 
Every case is important, but the focus on the punishment phase is so much more 
important when the state is actively seeking the death penalty.”

Whatley was born in Dothan, a midsize city in the southeastern corner of 
Alabama, and later attended the University of Alabama Law School. While friends 
of his were studying wills and trusts and property law, he signed up to assist 
lawyers in court as a 3rd-year student. He had no interest in paper pushing, he 
said, and quickly became enamored of the rush of standing up in front of a 
jury.

After graduating from law school in 1984, Whatley worked for Alabama Attorney 
General Charles Graddick. In the attorney general’s office in Montgomery, 
Whatley worked in the Capital Punishment Unit. He prosecuted one death penalty 
case himself, but he also spent time helping the office answer appeals in death 
penalty cases, where those convicted had alleged inadequate defense counsel. 
He’d review the work of the defense lawyers and question them during hearings.

Ray’s trial for the Mabins killings — in February 1999, 5 years after the 
slayings — lasted under 3 days. Owden testified. There was testimony about a 
fingerprint found at the home that allegedly matched Ray’s. Ray, against 
Whatley’s advice, opted to testify himself, and he denied killing the boys, 
friends of his family he had known for years.

The jury quickly convicted Ray, and the penalty phase came next. Whatley 
handled the presentation. Ray’s mother was the lone witness. She testified 
roughly as she would later: Ray’s childhood was rough and full of struggle. The 
jury deliberated for 50 minutes before returning a vote to spare Ray. The vote 
was 7 for life without parole, 5 for death.

In Alabama, prosecutors need to persuade at least 10 of 12 jurors that a death 
sentence is appropriate. At least seven votes are needed to recommend life 
without parole. But at the time, judges had the power to overrule a jury’s 
recommendation, whether it was to spare the defendant or see him or her 
executed. The judge let the jury’s recommendation stand. The mother of the 
Mabins boys had told the judge at the sentencing hearing that she did not want 
to see Ray killed.

The Harville trial still loomed. Prior to the breakdown over plea bargain 
options, Ray’s first 2 lawyers had made 2 important requests of the judge in 
the Harville case: to be allowed to hire an investigator to work on the case, 
and to have Ray evaluated by an independent forensic neuropsychologist.

Whatley, with months to prepare, managed to persuade Ray not to testify. But 
Owden was set to take the stand again, and Ray, while he denied raping 
Harville, had confessed to stabbing her at least once with a knife. But Whatley 
did have some material to work with. No physical evidence had been produced 
placing Ray at the scene of the murder. A local man had spent 18 months in jail 
charged with the murder, accused of killing her because she refused to have sex 
with him.

Yet Whatley chose to withdraw the requests that had been made by the prior 
lawyers. Whatley told the judge there was no need for a psychiatric exam. He 
had met with Ray and saw no signs of a significant mental health issue. A state 
psychologist had met with Ray briefly and concluded the same thing. Whatley 
also said there was no need for any more money for an investigator. A former 
state trooper had done some initial work with the first defense lawyers, but 
Whatley said he’d been told there was nothing else to be investigated.

The trial in late July 1999 was as short as the first, and it ended with 
another conviction.

Whatley, in an interview, said he was comfortable allowing Taylor, his young 
co-counsel, to handle the penalty phase. She had been responsible for talking 
to people about Ray’s background, Whatley said, and was regarded as a promising 
young lawyer. Taylor today said she was qualified to make the presentation but 
was hampered by Ray’s refusal to help.

Whatley said Ray would not discuss his childhood, other than to say it was 
unremarkable, and he provided no contacts for others in his family who might 
testify. Ray’s mother had given the lawyers a short list of people from his 
neighborhood whom they could talk to. Whatley admitted he never looked into 
Ray’s experiences in school. He said he didn’t ask for a mental health expert 
to testify during the penalty phase because he didn’t see the need to. He said 
if he’d asked at the start of the trial for an expert to help pick the jury, 
the judge would have laughed him out of the courtroom.

Ray’s mother, Gladys, was the sole source of information about her son, Whatley 
said.

“We didn’t know of anybody else. We didn’t know of any other person there, and 
we had no other person,” Whatley said.

Today, Whatley has no trouble understanding how helpful it would have been to 
have known more.

“I mean, I would have loved to have had it,” he said.

But Whatley said the single greatest factor that led to the jury recommending 
death was that the judge allowed prosecutors to tell the jury of Ray’s prior 
conviction in the Mabins case. He said he objected to the admission of the 
prior conviction but lost.

“I knew as soon as they heard it that they were going to vote for death,” he 
said of the jury. “I knew they were going to do it. You could see it in their 
faces.”

Ray’s lawyers today fault Whatley for not having moved earlier and more 
aggressively to bar the prior conviction from being introduced. He could have 
filed a formal motion, they said, but he did not.

Whatley’s assessment of his work is mixed. Defense lawyers were paid poorly, 
even in capital cases. And lawyers were required to ask the judge for any and 
all resources. Whatley was paid just over $9,000 for his months of work.

Whatley does not cite his modest compensation as an excuse for his work, but he 
concedes without hesitation that, given the enhanced requirements for lawyers 
in such cases today, the job he was able to do in 1999 falls short of the 
constitutional standard. As a result, he emphatically believes Ray deserves a 
new hearing on his sentence.

“I just, I hate it,” he said. “I just don’t think it was fair the way it turned 
out.”

The Brother: “I Can Recall It Like Day One”

The Chicago police found Europe and Domineque Ray running in an alley in the 
fall of 1980. The boys, 5 and 4, told the officers they lived in a nearby 
abandoned building. Their mother, they said, had gone missing days before.

Inside the building, newspapers covered the floor. A mattress was the lone bit 
of furniture. The single appliance was a refrigerator. When the police opened 
it, it held a single can of Coca-Cola.

Europe would later describe a nightmarish existence in the building. Maggots. 
Rodents. Abusive boyfriends who beat Gladys. Europe remembers one of the 
boyfriends holding him above his head and threatening to throw him down a 
flight of stairs. Domineque looked on, frozen in place.

“You wouldn’t believe that a human could live there,” Verna Mullins, a 
great-aunt who lived in Chicago, said of the building.

For Europe and Domineque, the abandoned building in Chicago was but one stop on 
a journey of pain and dislocation. The boys had both been born in Selma to 
Gladys Ray. She had married at 17 and was soon overwhelmed after she separated 
from the boys’ father. She would struggle with drugs, poverty, abusive men and 
her own mental health problems, including at least one suicide attempt. The 
boys wound up in foster care with their great-aunt, then back with their father 
and then back once more with their mother in Selma. Europe told the authorities 
at different points that they were beaten or abused by everyone: mother, 
father, stepmother, boyfriends, siblings. Domineque was dressed up in girls’ 
clothes for sport. He was sexually abused, according to court filings made as 
part of his appeal.

“I can recall it like Day One,” Europe, in a recent interview, said of his 
shared childhood experiences.

Earl Cobb, the boys’ father, denied any abuse, saying they had always been “one 
big, happy family.”

Europe said he was shocked by the telephone call he got sometime in the early 
2000s. Europe had escaped Selma and built a new life for himself in 
Indianapolis. He’d married and had a child. He had a job as the activity 
director at a senior center in the city. He d put distance between himself and 
his family, including Domineque.

The call was from students at New York University Law School. Bryan Stevenson, 
the author of the book “Just Mercy,” was a professor there. Stevenson, widely 
known for his work on behalf of Alabama inmates on death row, also ran a death 
penalty legal clinic. Students investigated cases of men on death row in 
Alabama, and they were now at work on Domineque’s case.

Europe had known his brother had run into trouble in Selma. But he had no idea 
Domineque was facing the death penalty. And he couldn’t understand why he had 
never been contacted by any lawyers for his brother earlier. When he learned 
only his mother had testified during the penalty phase, his confusion and upset 
worsened.

“Maybe they thought my mom was enough, I don’t know,” Europe said. “But it 
would have been nice if they would have come and reached out.”

In part, he said, because he knew his mother would not tell the whole story of 
their childhood and her role in it. Europe said his mother, who died in 2012, 
had asked for forgiveness over the years. But she held her secrets tight. He’s 
not at all surprised she wasn’t going to disclose them in a public courtroom.

“I don’t think the truth was supposed to be revealed,” Europe said. “I think 
that was going to be something that was never revealed.

“But I remember it.”

In September 2006, over roughly 2 hours on the witness stand, Europe told his 
version of the truth. He was appearing as part of his brother’s appeal for a 
new trial, or at least a new sentencing hearing. It was not easy. He and his 
brother, he said in an interview, had never talked about their childhood 
traumas. He wasn’t eager to have the world know what he had suffered, or at 
whose hands.

Europe, in interviews and testimony, said there had been bright spots in their 
lives. Europe, as a student at Southside Middle School in Selma, had dreamed of 
enlisting in the Navy. He brought home A’s and B’s on his report cards. And 
while Domineque struggled — he had trouble writing because of a hand injury and 
didn’t seem to absorb schoolwork — he loved music and was on his school’s dance 
team, performing hip-hop routines during halftime at sports games. At the age 
of 13, Domineque got a job at the local animal shelter, where he would spend 
his days taking care of the city’s abandoned cats and dogs, Europe said. He got 
into mixed martial arts and worked out at a local youth center under the care 
of a former boxer

But back at home, his mother had abandoned him for her boyfriends. He’d had sex 
with friends of his mother’s to help her out financially, a social worker later 
discovered. And he grew apart from his family.

Domineque wound up done with school after eighth grade. He got into a series of 
minor scrapes with the law, charged with harassment or trespassing or burglary. 
And he developed a friendship with Owden — they bonded over karate and Jackie 
Chan movies — that changed his life forever.

Domineque has always denied ever being abused. He says that his childhood was 
nothing more than “average,” and that stories of trauma and exploitation are 
made up. Even his mother’s milder version of his difficult upbringing, he has 
said, was false, the result of her being on medication.

He was furious with Europe over the testimony he gave as part of a bid to save 
his life. Europe knows that Domineque is upset with him but maintains that they 
both lived the life he chronicled on the stand. The two talk by phone 
occasionally, and Europe hopes to visit his brother before the execution, but 
he will not attend it. As for whether his brother killed the Mabins and 
Harville, Europe says he’ll never know. “To be honest with you, I don’t know if 
he did it or he didn’t,” he said.

“He’s angry at me because I told the truth,” Europe says of his brother. “There 
were things that, I don’t know, he was ashamed of, or he didn’t want no one to 
know about, or whatever. But I wanted to give the true statement.”

The Juror: “I Just Hope I Didn’t Make a Mistake”

Once the door of the jury room closed behind them in July 1999, the 12 jurors 
took an initial vote as to whether to recommend death or life without parole 
for Ray. Again, 10 votes were needed to recommend death, 7 for life.

Angela Rose, one of the jurors, said she and two other women voted to spare 
Ray. Rose, recalling the deliberations in a recent interview in Selma, said 
that over the next couple of hours, people took turns making their cases. 
Several said that a death sentence would ensure Ray would never walk the 
streets again. They didn’t trust the judge’s promise that if they voted for 
life without parole, Ray would never be freed.

Rose, along with Sandra Jackson and another woman whose name they couldn’t 
remember, argued that empathy was required. They said it should be God who 
dealt with Ray.

“Allow God to work this,” Rose said she told the jurors.

Rose says one of the other jurors quickly shot back something to the effect of 
“God might just take too long. We need to just go ahead and get this guy off 
the streets so he won’t hurt anyone else’s child.”

Soon, there were enough votes for death. Jackson, in an interview, said she 
switched her vote because she was convinced if the jury returned a vote sparing 
Ray, the judge would have overruled it. The other woman whose name they 
couldn’t remember joined Jackson, though for what reasons it is not clear.

Rose said she pleaded through tears: “Please, don’t do this. Don’t do this. 
Don’t do this.”

The jury for Ray’s trial had been selected in the course of a single day. A 
pool of some 120 people — housewives, retail workers, salesmen, state forestry 
employees — had been reduced to a panel of eight women and 4 men, 8 of them 
white, 4 black. They had been asked questions about their views on the death 
penalty and if they knew anything about the case.

The performance of Ray’s lawyers during jury selection became one of the many 
elements of Ray’s appeals. 2 jurors had admitted knowing the lead detective on 
the case, and another said he knew the expert forensic witness who would also 
be called to the stand by the prosecution. At least 3 said they had heard or 
learned about the case. Ray’s lawyers have argued that Whatley’s failure to use 
any kind of challenge to the seating of those jurors amounted to inadequate 
counsel.

Nathaniel Holmes Jr., questioned during jury selection, had said he did not 
know many of the details of the case. Holmes, then 53, is an Army veteran who 
later worked for United States Postal Service. In an interview, Holmes did say 
word of Harville’s murder had swept through town. His sister had a local store 
that sold beer, and she had grown familiar with the teenager, often kicking her 
out, Holmes said.

Born in Selma in 1946, Holmes shared his name with his father, Nathaniel Holmes 
Sr., who is said to have been the 1st black police officer on the city’s force. 
His mother worked as a seamstress in the city’s downtown.

Holmes, in an interview, said he had never been called for jury duty before and 
had hoped he would not be chosen.

He recalled making his way to the jury box and realizing he actually hadn’t 
thought much about the death penalty before. But he remembered ultimately 
feeling confident he could recommend it, if necessary. It was, he said, an 
appropriate punishment for those who violated one of the Ten Commandments: Thou 
shalt not kill.

“Young and black,” Holmes said he first noted upon seeing Ray in court. The 
22-year-old sat with his head in his hands, expressionless. Whatley said he had 
instructed Ray not to show emotion in front of the jury, something Holmes said 
he took as a sign that he had no remorse.

The deliberations on guilt or innocence did not take long. Rose said some 
jurors argued that Ray must have killed Harville because he didn’t testify. “He 
was evil,” one juror remembered thinking. Rose, the woman who held out for 
sparing Ray, at first refused to find him guilty. To her, Ray’s blank 
expressions seemed like the look of helplessness and confusion. But she 
eventually relented, a decision she would not discuss today.

Holmes, having voted to convict, voted for death.

Rose, hearing about Ray’s childhood, said the fuller picture of his life did 
not surprise her, and she thinks if the jury had heard it in 1999, it might 
have made a difference. Jackson agreed and now regrets having changed her vote.

In all, ProPublica contacted nine jurors from the case. Two had died, and the 
other could not be located.

One juror who served on the jury in 1999, Norman McDonald, a grocery store 
supplier, said he was not interested in hearing all the details of Ray’s 
upbringing, information that had only come to light in the 20 years since Ray 
was sentenced to death. “I don’t want to hear anymore. It wouldn’t have made a 
difference. He had no business killing that child,” McDonald said.

Maple Perkins, the wife of Cecil Perkins, one of the black men on the jury, 
said her husband wasn’t interested in talking about the case. But in an 
interview, she said she had known Harville’s family well. Perkins had not 
disclosed that during jury selection. Cecil Perkins would not be interviewed 
about his jury service.

Tammy Fancher also served on the jury. She now owns a gas station and deli on 
state Road 14. She initially said she didn’t remember much about the case and 
didn’t want to talk about it. But then she did, saying bluntly, “I think they 
should fry his ass.” She said she looked Ray up on the internet often and knew 
he was scheduled for execution on Thursday.

“I can’t believe we’ve left his ass in prison and spent all this money on his 
ass when he should already be dead,” she said. As for Ray’s childhood, Fancher 
said it would not have changed her decision. “Just because you was raised in 
the ‘hood and you ain’t got no damn money don’t give you the right to kill 
people,” she said.

Holmes, however, was one juror interested in hearing about Ray’s life. Now 72, 
he had little specific recollection of Ray’s mother’s brief testimony, and he 
said that, at least to date, he had never regretted his vote for the death 
penalty. He’d prayed over his decision, he said.

Told Ray’s lawyers had researched his background, Holmes was curious. “So what 
did he find out?” Holmes asked.

An impoverished, violent household, he was told. It’s the account of Europe, 
Ray’s brother, who said he would have been eager to testify about it in 1999.

“Lord, have mercy,” Holmes said occasionally.

Sexual abuse, he was told.

“Lord, have mercy,” he said. “You don’t have to take me through no more.”

Holmes was asked whether he would have wanted to know such things back in 1999.

“They brought these kids in the world and forgot all about them,” Holmes said 
of Ray’s parents. “Ain’t no love there, no sympathy, no nothing there.”

Holmes criticized Ray’s lawyers for not bringing the information to the jury. 
Had they, he said, “presented all of this to the 12 people that were there, 
then maybe we would have reconsidered.

“You can’t go out there and half-ass do a job. You can’t do it,” he said.

“I just hope I didn’t make a mistake,” he added.

Did he regret his vote?

Holmes sighed.

“Yeah,” he said.

When Peter Racher received a letter inviting him to attend a luncheon hosted by 
the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Representation Project in 2002, he 
threw it away. Racher, a lawyer in Indianapolis, was busy. And his specialty 
was environmental law, not death row appeals.

But another lawyer at Racher’s firm got the same letter and was intrigued.

“You ought to take that letter out of your trash can and give it some more 
thought,” he told Racher.

Persuaded by the promise of a free lunch, Racher soon found himself in the 
chambers of Larry McKinney, chief judge of the southern district of Indiana. 
Representatives from the Death Penalty Representation Project told those 
gathered that there were people on death row in Alabama who did not have 
lawyers. Alabama, they said, doesn’t provide post-conviction counsel for death 
row inmates.

Racher signed on, and he was told about a death penalty inmate who was nearing 
the deadline to file a post-conviction appeal and didn’t have a lawyer. 
Students at NYU had discovered that the information about the defendant’s 
background presented to the jury in 1999 consisted of 3 1/2 pages of testimony 
from his mother. Nothing more.

Racher went to meet with Ray at Holman Correctional Facility, a 
maximum-security prison in Atmore, Alabama. Ray was nervous. He was aware this 
was Racher’s first capital case. But he accepted the offer of representation.

“He’s not entitled to me — he’s not entitled to an environmental attorney from 
Indianapolis,” Racher said. “He deserves far better.”

Three years later, Racher, having filed a voluminous appeal of Ray’s conviction 
and his sentencing, was in front of the Alabama judge who had presided over 
Ray’s trial in 1999 for the Harville murder. Racher attacked every aspect of 
the state’s case and Whatley’s defense — what he argued was the lack of 
physical evidence in the Harville murder, what he said were Whatley’s errors 
and omissions, what he said were the unexplored inconsistencies in Owden and 
Ray’s confessions.

Racher called 9 witnesses to buttress his argument that Ray had been denied 
adequate representation during the penalty phase, including Europe Ray; Regina 
Marshall, one of Gladys Ray’s best friends who had watched her endure abusive 
boyfriends again and again; and Mullins, the great-aunt who delivered a video 
deposition chronicling her recollection of the family’s time in Chicago. He put 
on a neuropsychologist who said Ray’s childhood traumas were so great he had 
buried them. Racher also called Catherine Boyer, a psychologist who testified 
she had diagnosed Ray with schizotypal personality disorder. He put Whatley on 
the stand and had him admit how little of Ray’s life he knew.

At the end of the proceedings, Judge Tommy Jones praised Racher. “I think you 
have done a fantastic job,” he said.

Racher thought it had been a success. And his confidence wasn’t without some 
cause.

In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Strickland v. Washington that 
defendants were denied their Sixth Amendment right to counsel when two 
conditions were met. First, the attorney’s performance is deficient, and 
second, the deficient performance must have been so damaging that there is a 
reasonable probability that the trial’s outcome would have been different. The 
opinion was important, but its vagueness left many wondering what exactly a 
deficient performance in a capital murder case entails.

In 2003, the Supreme Court cleared this up in Wiggins v. Smith. In its opinion, 
the court said that a lawyer’s performance is deficient when it falls below 
established norms at the time of the trial. Lawyers must examine their client’s 
background, such as medical history, educational history, employment and 
training history, and family and social history, to obtain all information that 
is reasonably available for the penalty phase, it said.

And two years later, the Supreme Court decided in Rompilla v. Beard that 
attorneys cannot solely rely on their client and his or her family’s word when 
it comes to investigating mitigating evidence. Regardless of what a client 
says, attorneys have a duty to conduct a full investigation, the opinion said.

Racher’s confidence, in the end, was misplaced.

On Aug. 6, 2007, Jones denied the appeal. Referring to testimony about Ray’s 
childhood, the order read: “The Court finds that there is no reasonable 
probability that more details about Ray’s home life would have caused a 
different result in the jury’s recommendation at the penalty phase of the 
trial.” He added that his belief death was the right outcome would not have 
been changed either.

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the denial in February 2011, 
followed by the Alabama Supreme Court in September of that year. Racher then 
filed a petition for habeas corpus in federal district court on Sept. 19, 2011. 
The 138-page document included more than 50 pages in which Racher argued that 
Ray’s trial attorneys were ineffective for failing to put Europe Ray, other 
family members and experts on the stand during the penalty phase.

The district court turned down the petition, as did the 11th U.S. Circuit Court 
of Appeals. The judges said that they were “troubled” by Whatley’s minimal 
investigation, but that “there is no ‘reasonable probability’ that at least two 
jurors would have changed their recommendation and the sentencing judge would 
have ruled differently.”

Frustrated, Racher decided to travel to Selma to meet with Jones, who had 
returned to private practice. At dinner, Racher said, he couldn’t believe that 
new details of Ray’s life would not have affected Jones’s sentencing decision. 
How could it not?

“You know, it’s a damn hard question,” Racher recalled Jones saying. Racher 
said he asked Jones to sign an affidavit saying he had misspoken in court when 
he said his mind would not have been changed. He didn’t budge.

At his law office in downtown Selma in January, Jones declined to discuss the 
case. “I’m not really interested in talking about that. It’s over and done. You 
have a good day,” he said before shutting the door. He did not respond to a 
specific question about Racher’s story of their dinner conversation.

Racher’s last hope is what he says is a more recent discovery: that the state 
knew Owden was suffering from schizophrenia when he confessed and later 
testified. He’d first learned of that possibility when he visited Owden in 
prison in the spring of 2017. And he has introduced in a court filing 
Department of Corrections medical records that he says prove the point — the 
kinds of records Whatley had requested at trial and that Racher had been 
seeking for years.

To date, the bid has failed. The Alabama courts have held that Ray and his 
lawyers had to have discovered the information earlier.

“It’s enormously frustrating and frightening as a lawyer, as an American,” 
Racher said. “It is shocking that in this country we commit people to their 
deaths despite open and obvious evidence that there has not been due process.”

Racher, 62, has known Ray for 16 years. He said he and his firm have put more 
than $2 million worth of work into the case.M

“I really do care for him,” Racher says of Ray.

On Nov. 8, 2018, Racher received a call from Ray. He had been summoned to the 
warden’s office in shackles and read his execution warrant. The state had 
scheduled his execution for Feb. 7, 2019, and sent him off with a physician for 
an examination in preparation for its administration of lethal drugs.

In January, Racher received another call from Ray. He had been called down to 
warden’s office again to provide a list of people he wanted her to permit to 
visit him in his last week and the spiritual adviser he wished to counsel him 
in his final moments. Ray wanted an imam that visited the prison regularly, not 
the chaplain, he told her. It was against Alabama’s policy to allow a religious 
leader other than a chaplain in the execution chamber, the warden told him, 
refusing to provide him with a copy of the policy.

Racher’s team filed for a stay of execution, saying the courts needed time to 
properly consider Ray’s request for an imam. On Feb. 1, that request was 
rejected.

“I’ve thought that maybe the death penalty is something that should exist 
because it represents something about our expression of horrific crime 
committed by people who are beyond, you know, beyond rehabilitation,” Racher 
said. “But this whole experience with Domineque’s case has convinced me that no 
matter how much uncertainty a person has about the morality of capital 
punishment, it’s an absolute indisputable fact that we as a people are 
incapable of administering it in a way that is fair and just.”

The Inmate: “Man, Who Are They Talking About”

Ray, 42, is set to be the 64th inmate executed by the state of Alabama since 
1976. In July, he was given a choice: to die by lethal injection or by inhaling 
deadly amounts of nitrogen, an untested method for execution. Ray, who years 
ago converted to Islam, said his faith would not allow him to play a role in 
his own death, and so he is scheduled to be killed by lethal injection, the 
state’s standard method.

Alabama uses a 3-drug combination, but the way they are actually administered 
is a closely guarded secret. In the past two years, there have been 
complications with a number of executions. Ronald B. Smith heaved and coughed 
for 13 of the 34 minutes it took to kill him, according to accounts of those 
who witnessed the execution. In February 2018, executioners spent nearly 2 
hours unsuccessfully trying to find a vein in Doyle Lee Hamm as he continued to 
lose blood, before officials ultimately decided to cancel the execution.

“I’m not going to pick a way to die,” Ray said. “That’s against the law in 
Islam, that’s against my belief, and that’s against my faith.”

Last Friday, after losing his effort to have an imam be present with him at his 
execution, he said he had reconsidered and now was willing to be killed by what 
is called nitrogen hypoxia. The state in 2018 had given the option to all death 
row inmates but said they had to decide in a prescribed time period. 51 inmates 
opted for nitrogen hypoxia, recognizing that it will take years for Alabama to 
figure out how to carry out the untested method.

In a telephone interview in January, Ray insisted on his innocence, and he 
remained confident the discovery of Owden’s possible mental health issues would 
result in a stay of his execution. He insists, as well, his childhood was just 
fine. His parents were great, spiritual people.

His routine as his execution approaches, he said, is consistent. He wakes up in 
his cell about the size of a small bathroom around 1 a.m. He said he prays and 
meditates, then reads and writes letters to family and friends. At 3:30 a.m., 
breakfast is served. Some days, he goes outside for a walk. On Fridays, he says 
he attends an Islamic service. Ray said he is weeks away from being certified 
as an imam through a California Islamic University.

He talked in the interview about what he says are the many indignities of 
incarceration, but it’s the most basic insult he hopes the state gets right if 
he is executed. For years, the state, in court papers and prison records, has 
repeatedly misspelled his given name, Domineque.

“Every time I read it, when I read my documentation for court, I’m like, ‘Man, 
who are they talking about?’ Are they talking about me or are they talking 
about somebody else? It’s something else.”

(source: propublica.com)

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

Religious freedom in the death chamber

Are religious leaders interchangeable?

Surely most would say not. Someone who desires a comforting hand in a time of 
crisis would want that support to come from clergy whose beliefs align with 
their own. And they’re entitled to it; the Constitution guarantees that right.

But circumstances can muddy what should be crystal clear. And even a ruling 
from a federal court won’t satisfy everyone involved.

Last week, a U.S. District judge issued a ruling in a case about a Muslim 
inmate’s impending execution in Alabama. Dominique Ray will have his death 
sentence carried out on Feb. 7, and wants an imam with him in the execution 
chamber when the lethal injection in administered. Prison officials refused, 
saying the Department of Corrections has a Christian prison chaplain present 
for executions.

Ray asked that his execution be stayed, claiming the refusal violates his 
religious rights. His attorneys argued that Ray has a right to the same 
religious comfort that Christian death row inmates have.

What sounds like an 11th-hour Hail Mary is, in fact, a reasonable assertion. 
However, condemned prisoners are allowed to meet with their spiritual advisers 
– regardless of their faith -- just prior to execution, but only prison 
employees are allowed in the execution chamber with the inmate. It’s a security 
measure, which is wise.

U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins’ ruling makes sense. He denied the stay, 
allowing the execution to proceed without an imam in the chamber with Ray. 
However, he ordered prison officials to keep the Christian chaplain out of the 
chamber as well.

The scenario should prompt prison officials to consider broadening access to 
different denominations. Security concerns could be addressed by vetting a 
stable of volunteer clergy from different religions who could serve on request.

Doing so would likely be far less costly than litigation.

(source: Editorial, The Dothan Eagle)

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

Alabama's state auditor calls for public hangings for convicted cop killers



Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler wrote President Donald Trump asking him to 
include legislation mandating the death penalty for the murder of any law 
enforcement officer, including public hangings.

"I believe that to get the attention of a would-be killer who might kill a law 
enforcement officer, he needs to know that the old-fashioned public hanging has 
been brought back," Zeigler told WVTM 13's Erin Kelly Monday.

It comes after the deaths of 3 Alabama officers in the past year. 2 officers 
were killed in the line of duty last month.

"I agree that public hanging is extreme, but also, killing a law enforcement 
officer is extreme," he said. "You’ve got to get the attention of these 
would-be killers in order for it to be a deterrent."

(source: WVTM news)








TENNESSEE:

Tennessee death row schedule goes against national trend----Many states with 
capital punishment continue on a downward trend of executions, but Tennessee 
has filled its schedule with dates it will carry out the death penalty.



At his home in Andersonville, Eddie Campbell has accumulated a large box of 
letters and other documentation as the state's next-of-kin for Wanda and Sheila 
Romines. The mother and daughter were tortured and murdered at their home in 
1986.

When the murders happened, Campbell was not the next-of-kin. He was a close 
friend and distant relative of Jack Romines, the man whose wife and daughter 
were slaughtered at home by Steve West and Ronnie Martin.

Campbell became the Romines family representative for the state when Jack 
Romines died in 2004.

"It has been so long, 33 years, a lot of people die off. Jack was like a 
brother to me. He told me all the time, 'Eddie, I want you to see that this 
[execution] goes through' if he did not live long enough to see it. I promised 
him I would do what I could," said Campbell. "West has been scheduled to die a 
few times before, but I think this time it is really going to happen."

The death Jack Romines sought was convicted murderer and death row inmate Steve 
West, who is now scheduled to die Aug. 15, 2019, at the Riverbend Maximum 
Security Institution in Nashville. West was convicted and sentenced to die in 
the electric chair in 1987.

West's co-defendant, Ronnie Martin, pleaded guilty after West was convicted and 
avoided death row. Martin was also unlikely to receive the death penalty 
because he was a minor when he murdered Wanda and Sheila Romines. Sheila and 
Martin both attended Anderson County High School.

Campbell thinks West will be executed because seeing is believing. In the last 
six months, Tennessee has executed three inmates and now has six more 
executions scheduled through April 2020. One of the main reasons other states 
have slowed executions is they are still arguing whether the drugs used for 
lethal injections amount to cruel and unusual punishment. The drugs used to 
execute inmates vary from state to state.

Tennessee's Supreme Court ruled last year the mix of drugs used by the state is 
not unconstitutional punishment. The state then began scheduling regular 
executions for inmates who have been on death row since the 1980s. The 
executions resumed with Billy Irick's lethal injection Aug. 9, 2018.

2 more executions took place in November and December of 2018. Both inmates 
chose to die in the electric chair rather than lethal injection.

West is 1 of 6 death row inmates who currently have execution dates scheduled. 
Another death row inmate from East Tennessee, Nicky Sutton, is set to die in 
Feb. 2020.

While we know when the state intends to kill West and Sutton, we do not know 
how the sentence will be carried out. Because both were originally sentenced to 
die in the electric chair, they can choose electrocution rather than lethal 
injection.

Both West and Sutton have filed a lawsuit requesting death by firing squad, a 
form of execution not offered in Tennessee.

"I don't care what [execution method] they use. If it was me and I was in that 
situation, I would choose the fastest method," said Campbell. "How ever they 
want to do it, it needs to be done. This has been a long time coming. Either 
have the death penalty or don't have it. Don't have the death penalty and then 
take such a long time to carry out the sentence that you keep everyone in limbo 
and make families continue reliving these tragedies with every appeal."

While Tennessee has a full schedule of executions compared to the rest of the 
country, Campbell says waiting more than 3 decades is clearly not a rush to 
judgment.

"Really and truly, right now it's just waiting for August. I promised Jack I'd 
do that [see that West is executed] and I will. I feel like Jack needs to be 
represented," said Campbell.

(source: WBIR news)

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

Tennessee, Ohio bucking national trend by ramping up executions



Varying factors have led to a general decline in states carrying out death 
sentences nationally, but a few states are bucking the trend -- particularly 
Tennessee and Ohio.

State execution schedules show that Ohio, Tennessee and Texas have a combined 
23 executions scheduled from Tuesday through the end of 2020.

Alabama is the only other state to have an execution scheduled over that same 
span -- with death row inmate Domineque Hakim Marcelle Ray set to be executed 
on Thursday -- according to the Death Penalty Information Center, an 
organization that tracks death sentences and executions throughout the United 
States.

Texas carried out the nation's 1st execution of 2019 on Wednesday, when Robert 
Jennings was put to death via lethal injection for killing a Houston police 
officer in 1988.

While these 3 states, particularly Tennessee and Ohio, have followed long lulls 
with a rapidly increased pace of executions in recent years, much of the rest 
of the country has seen a slowing of executions -- with some states taking 
steps to eliminate the practice altogether, on both moral and financial 
grounds.

A significant factor in the decline has been new difficulty obtaining drugs 
needed for lethal injections -- the most common execution method.

Tennessee and Ohio

While Texas has consistently executed more death row inmates than any other 
state -- putting to death no fewer than seven people in any year since 2000 -- 
Tennessee and Ohio have increased their executions since 2017.

On July 26, 2017, Ohio carried out its 1st execution after 2 years when it 
killed Ronald Phillips, who was convicted of raping and beating a toddler to 
death. Phillips' execution had been delayed about 2 years as the state faced 
dwindling availability of drugs -- and many compounding pharmacies, which had 
previously supplied them, were now refusing to sell them on ethical grounds.

Ohio is scheduled to execute 6 people -- Cleveland Jackson, Kareem Jackson, 
Gregory Lott, Warren Keith Hennes, Angelo Fears and James Hanna -- this year 
and 6 more next year.

Tennessee recently ended an even longer execution drought, when it carried out 
its 1st in 10 years last August. The resumption came after the Tennessee 
Supreme Court ruled death row inmates failed to show the state's 3-drug lethal 
injection protocol was unconstitutional.

Tennessee responded to the ruling by executing 3 people in 2018, the 2nd 
highest number of executions carried out nationally that year, behind only 
Texas.

This year, Tennessee is set to execute 4 people, including Donnie Edward 
Johnson, Stephen Michael West, Charles Walton Wright and Lee Hall Jr., followed 
by th3 more next year.

Legal challenges

Ohio and Tennessee have faced legal challenges to their lethal injection method 
and lack of access to drugs to carry out those executions.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich was forced to delay multiple executions early in 2017 due 
to a preliminary injunction barring the state from using midazolam or any 
paralytic agent or potassium chloride.

Challenges to the three-drug protocol have largely centered on the use of 
midazolam, a sedative intended to prevent inmates from feeling pain during 
execution, which first came under inspection when Oklahoma inmate Clayton 
Lockett died of a heart attack after his veins had "blown" and kept the drugs 
from entering his system. The execution was declared botched by many critics 
and it raised a new set of ethical questions.

Midazolam was examined in Ohio after it took an extended amount of time for 
Dennis McGuire to die by a lethal injection cocktail of midazolam and 
hydromorphone in 2014. McGuire gasped and choked during an execution that took 
25 minutes when it usually takes 10.

Ultimately, the appeals court lifted the injunction on Ohio's lethal injections 
in June 2017, paving the way for Phillips' execution.

In its ruling, the 6th Circuit agreed with lawyers for the inmates that the 
revised protocol presents "some risk of pain," but said such a risk was 
impossible to avoid in any form of capital punishment, and was thus legal under 
the Constitution.

Tennessee has also faced legal challenges to its three-drug lethal injection 
protocol, including a lawsuit filed by four death row inmates, including West 
and Sutton, who called for the state to add a firing squad to the state's 
execution options.

In addition to calling for alternatives to lethal injection, the lawsuit also 
suggested administering lethal drugs orally in sweet liquids such as fruit 
juice or altering the drug cocktail by removing vecuronium bromide in order to 
reduce the chance the inmate is tortured, or changing to a one-drug protocol 
using pentobarbital.

Some states, including Tennessee, have sought to circumvent these challenges to 
lethal injections by performing other forms of execution.

Tennessee used the electric chair for the 1st time since 2007 when it executed 
Edmund Zagorski in November and again for the execution of David Earl Miller. 
Both inmates requested the electric chair over lethal execution.

South Carolina's Senate voted 26-13 last week in favor of a revived proposal to 
bring back the electric chair and add firing squads to its execution options. 
The state has not carried out an execution since 2011, as drug companies won't 
provide it with the chemicals necessary for lethal injection.

National decline

Ultimately, the increasing number of executions in Ohio and Tennessee is at 
odds with national trends, which indicate the death penalty is becoming less 
popular.

The United States executed 25 people in 2018, according to the Death Penalty 
Information Center's year-end report. The total was a slight increase over the 
23 executions carried out in 2017, but remained within 5 of the 26-year low of 
20 executions in 2016.

The center also found the death penalty was largely geographically isolated to 
the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, South Dakota, 
Tennessee and Texas.

Support for capital punishment has also declined among the public. A Gallup 
poll last year found nearly 1/2 of Americans believe the penalty is "applied 
fairly," and 56 % favored its use, down from a high of 80 % in the mid-1990s.

(source: United Press International)








OHIO:

Life or death: Jury deliberating sentence for Elliott Kirkland



A jury now will decide whether Elliott Kirkland should die for his role in the 
2016 shooting death of Jimmie Holland, Jr.

Prosecutors and Kirkland’s defense attorneys made their closing arguments in 
the penalty phase of the capital murder trial Monday morning. While prosecutors 
asked jurors the “follow the law” and return a sentence of death, Kirkland’s 
attorneys tried to convince the jury their client deserved to live.

The jury began its deliberations around 11 a.m. and will have to choose 
Kirkland’s sentence – death, life in prison without parole or life in prison 
without the possibility for either 30 or 25 years.

(source: The Chronicle)

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

Prosecution plans to seek death penalty in "ambush" of Clermont Co. deputies



The man accused of shooting two Clermont County deputies, killing one of them 
is locked up on $10 million bond. Clermont County prosecutors said they plan to 
seek the death penalty for Wade Winn for what they described as an ambush.

Det. Bill Brewer and Lt. Nick DeRose responded to the Royal Oaks Apartments on 
Feb. 2 for a call of a reportedly suicidal man who wouldn't come out.

At 10:30 p.m., Winn allegedly fired on the 2 deputies, killing Det. Brewer. Lt. 
DeRose was taken to UC Medical Center, where he was treated for his injury and 
released. In a packed courtroom, assistant prosecutor Darren Miller said Winn 
faked a suicide. As the deputies entered to try to save his life, Miller said 
he fired through the walls, killing Det. Brewer and injuring Lt. DeRose.

Winn shook his head when Miller described the events of that night.

Deputies say Winn fired several more shots at deputies. There was also a fire 
at that apartment but investigators have not said if Winn started it.

During the standoff, Winn went live on Instagram. Law enforcement officers can 
be heard in the background asking him to surrender.

Eventually at 6:30 a.m., Winn surrendered to law enforcement officers.

In court, It was asked if Lt. DeRose wanted a protection order issued but he 
declined one. The prosecutor Lt. DeRose was in court for the hearing as were a 
number of other law enforcement officers.

The prosecution asked that Winn be held without bond. The judge said due to the 
risk to the community and Winn's prior criminal history, he would be held on 
the high bond.

Winn will be back in court on Feb. 13.

(source: WKRC news)