[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., FLA., LA., KY., TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

February 15



NORTH CAROLINA:

Erica Parsons' Parents To Face Death Penalty In Murder Trial----Casey and Sandy 
Parsons are accused of abusing, killing and dismembering their adopted 
daughter, Erica, in 2011.



Casey and Sandy Parsons are facing the death penalty and will go on trial for 
murder in the spring of 2020, they learned Thursday. The news comes one year 
after the Rowan County couple were charged with the brutal abuse, murder and 
dismembering of Erica Parsons, the young disabled girl they adopted.

Casey Parsons' murder trial will begin in April 2020, while no date has been 
finalized for Sandy Parsons trial, according to WSOC.

In February 2018, the couple was charged with first-degree murder, felony 
concealment of death and obstruction of justice when they lied to state 
investigators about their adopted daughter, Erica, who was homeschooled.

Investigators believe Erica was 12 or 13 when she died of "homicidal violence" 
after an autopsy concluded she "suffered terribly" before she died, the 
Charlotte Observer reported. Prosecutors say the girl, who was born deaf, was 
routinely abused and beaten by her adoptive parents, punished with starvation 
and locked in closets. An autopsy report said her death could have been from 
strangulation or the result of blunt force injuries suffered over the years, 
the newspaper said.

(source: patch.com)

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

It’s time to put an end to the death penalty



The death penalty should be abolished and replaced with a life sentence without 
parole. Even if you don’t believe that “Thou shalt not kill” applies to 
convicts, it is a fact that a number of those sentenced to death have later 
been proved to be innocent. Also, objective analysis has shown that the death 
penalty has not been applied equally.

Finally, applying the death penalty has been proven to be much more expensive 
than life without parole.

Tom Sandin

Greensboro

(source: Letter to the Editor, News & Record)








FLORIDA:

Convicted killer Michael Gordon breaks down in tears during death penalty phase 
of trial for murders of Polk mother Patricia Moran



After weeks remaining stoic during his 1st-degree murder trial, Michael Anthony 
Gordon lost control Wednesday, breaking down in tears as his lawyer addressed 
the jury and shouting at a witness who was testifying about a jailhouse 
stabbing.

His outbursts came during the 1st day in the penalty phase of his trial. The 
12-member jury convicted him Tuesday of brutally stabbing 2 Haines City women 
to death in a January 2015 home invasion. And because prosecutors are seeking 
the death penalty, the same jurors began hearing additional testimony 
Wednesday. Based on the trial and penalty evidence, the jury will recommend 
whether Gordon should be sentenced to death or life imprisonment for the 
murders.

Among the reasons prosecutors are arguing he should be sentenced to death is 
Gordon’s history of violence, including his conviction for an attack on another 
inmate while in custody. From the witness stand, Rasmes Simeon was telling the 
jury Wednesday that Gordon had stabbed him with a shank made from a 
prison-issued toothbrush.

Gordon, who will be 39 Friday, began shouting at Simeon.

“You had a knife on you,” he said. “Tell them the truth. You had a knife, 
that’s why. You was a bully. You was bullying everybody. Big bad Haitian Jack. 
Haitian Jack, the drug dealer that run Winter Haven.”

As Gordon continued to shout, Circuit Judge Jalal Harb had court bailiffs 
escort the jury from the courtroom.

“Everybody scared of you,” Gordon said, “coming in here with all your diamonds 
and your jewels on.”

At one point, outside the jury’s presence, a court bailiff told Gordon he 
needed to shut up.

“I shut up when I want to,” Gordon responded.

Earlier in the day, when Clearwater lawyer Bjorn Brunvand addressed the jury, 
he discussed Gordon’s difficult upbringing, with an alcoholic father who abused 
him and his sister. He told them his sister had left home when she was 12, and 
will testify that she still regrets having left her brother in that situation.

“To this day, she regrets that she left Michael Gordon behind — that she left 
him with a father who she knew was abusive,” he said, “and a mother who was 
unable and not capable of taking care of him and protecting him.”

At that moment, Gordon fell into tears, his shoulders heaving as he wiped his 
eyes.

“We’re not expecting that you will necessarily see God in Michael Gordon,” 
Brunvand said. “But we hope ... that you will see that Michael Gordon, despite 
the conviction, despite the horrific acts that he has participated in, is a 
fellow human being, a fellow man, a scared little boy inside that big man’s 
body of his.”

He said Gordon appears to have experienced an injury as a child that affected 
the frontal lobe of his brain. “It’s the part of the brain that helps you 
respond appropriately when you are faced with fear,” Brunvand said. “It’s not 
working for Michael Gordon.”

Medication enables Gordon to maintain control, he said, and for the decade he 
was in prison from 2005 until April 2014, the medication enabled him to live 
with others. But he wasn’t taking the medication after his release, and he 
started self-medicating with street drugs.

“You will hear from a doctor, a pharmacologist, who will explain how that 
impacted him and how that may have affected what happened in this case,” he 
said.

But Assistant State Attorney Kristie Ducharme told jurors the viciousness of 
the killings can’t be ignored.

“They are fighting for their lives,” she said, “all the while feeling what is 
going on.”

Patricia Moran, 72, and her daughter, Deborah Royal, 51, each was stabbed more 
than 50 times, and their throats were slashed so deeply, Royal was almost 
decapitated.

Testimony is scheduled to continue today in the penalty phase, and jurors are 
expected to deliberate a recommendation by the end of the week. The final 
decision on sentencing will rest with Harb.

(source: The Ledger)

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

Prosecutors to seek death penalty for Chuluota man accused of killing parents, 
brother



A Chuluota man killed his parents and brother after he was kicked out of his 
home and accused of stealing more than $200,000 from his family to send to a 
woman he had met on a porn website, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The Seminole-Brevard State Attorney’s Office on Thursday signaled its intention 
to seek the death penalty against Grant Amato, the Chuluota man accused of 
killing his parents and brother last month.

Amato faces 3 counts of 1st-degree murder in the Jan. 25 shooting deaths of his 
father, Chad Amato, 59; mother, Margaret Amato, 61; and brother, Cody Amato, 
31.

In a court filing, State Attorney Phil Archer and Assistant State Attorney 
Stewart Stone say Amato killed his family “in a cold, calculated and 
premeditated murder without any pretense of moral or legal justification.”

Authorities say Amato killed his parents and brother after he was kicked out of 
his home and accused of stealing $200,000 from his family to send to a woman he 
had met on a porn website.

Jeff Dowdy, Amato’s lawyer, said that, while he anticipated the state seeking 
the death penalty, he still hasn’t been presented with any forensic evidence 
tying Amato to the killings. For that reason, Dowdy is asking a judge to grant 
Amato pre-trial release from the Seminole County Jail, where he is currently 
being held without bond.

A hearing on bond is slated for March 21.

(source: Orlando Sentinel)








LOUISIANA:

Activists Push for Death Penalty Reform



Community members, organization leaders, and former Angola inmates gathered to 
discuss issues regarding the death penalty in New Orleans at Café Istanbul in 
the Healing Center on Jan. 28, 2019. There are currently 67 people on 
Louisiana’s Death Row; 73 % of which are African-American or Hispanic.

“If there was ever an example of why you shouldn’t have the death penalty, 
Willy Frances the famous Louisiana Case, would be the perfect example,” said 
Michael Cahoon, the organizer for the Promise of Justice Initiative. “A 
16-year-old boy was convicted, had to be executed twice because he was so 
small, he could not fit in the electric chair. That should be enough right 
there, but it still persists.”

Cahoon joined Laverne Thompson, the wife of former inmate, John Thompson, and 
Jerome Morgan, who was placed in solitary confinement in the Louisiana State 
Penitentiary in Angola to advocate for repealing the death penalty.

Justice & Beyond, a New Orleans-based association of community leaders and 
organizations that come together to discuss challenging problems hosted this 
event to educate the public on injustices facing the incarcerated and prisoners 
facing the death penalty. Racial disparities also exist when examining who 
received the death penalty, the advocates said.

“Conditions in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison produce a death rate of 300 
percent higher than the national average, mostly due to inadequate Mental 
Health Care and inhumane treatment of the prisoners that are held there,” 
Cahoon said.

It is also an expensive burden on the state. “The death penalty takes an 
immense amount of resources for such a small number of people. Since 2000, we 
have spent $155 million on our death penalty, which has yielded two 
executions,” Cahoon added.

Executions cost millions of dollars to perform, experts said. Studies show that 
executions also do not result in a drop in the crime rate.

“The first study done in Louisiana on whether or not the death penalty prevents 
violent crime was done in 1833,” Cahoon said. “States that have gotten rid of 
the death penalty; crime has actually gone down,” Cahoon added. This shows that 
there is no relation between the death penalty and crime.

“John Thompson was the 6th Louisiana death row exoneree in 2003,” said Laverne 
Thompson, his wife. On May 8, 1985, John Thompson was sentenced to death row on 
2 separate crimes: murder and carjacking. An investigator found evidence that 
had never been disclosed 30 days before his execution – the bloodstain of one 
of the carjacking victims. The blood was found not to be Thompson’s. A 
prosecutor admitted to intentionally suppressing evidence. In 2002, he had a 
retrial based on deliberate government misconduct and was sent home in 2003. 
Unfortunately, in October 2017 he died of a heart attack.

Most of the people on death row are wrongfully convicted and serve time based 
on a crime they never committed, activists said. Since Thompson’s exoneration 
in 2003, 5 other men have had their innocence discovered.

“I was incarcerated during the time John was released and I remember hearing 
the news and being encouraged and motivated; I felt like John was a hero,” 
Morgan said. Not many people are released from death row and hearing the news 
of someone being released brought a sense of hope to Morgan. Morgan was 
wrongfully arrested at the age of 17 and sentenced to die in Angola for the 
rest of his natural life for the 2nd-degree murder of Clarence Landry III.

After Morgan’s release he wrote a book with 2 other inmates titled, 
“Unbreakable Resolve,” and he is now working on another book, “Go to Jail: 
Confronting the System of Oppression,” which discusses his experiences in 
solitary confinement.

Residents who attended the public forum shared personal experiences fighting 
for loved ones caught up in the Criminal Justice System.

“Numerous members of my family have been slaughtered in the City of New 
Orleans; my spirit is broken. Our justice system is a big racist killer,” said 
Eloise Williams, a member of Mark Louis Williams and Victims of Homicide. “I 
haven’t been behind any bars, but I am incarcerated,” Williams added.

(soruce: blackpressusa.com)








KENTUCKY:

Death penalty sentence means more than execution



Capital punishment has been a long-contested debate across the U.S., and 
Kentucky is 1 of 31 states which currently authorizes the death penalty, while 
19 states and the District of Columbia do not. The term “death penalty” is 
often, and understandably, interpreted in a literal sense, but a death penalty 
sentence is complex.

Of the 31 states that still impose death penalty sentences as a form of capital 
punishment, it’s very rare for a subject to actually be put to the death. The 
Pew Research Center (PRC) says a considerably small number of states use the 
death penalty regularly. The PRC shows Kentucky hasn’t authorized an execution 
in at least 5 years.

Daviess County Commonwealth Attorney Bruce Kuegel said the death penalty 
sentence is normally sought against a suspect in a homicide case because the 
sentence carries a longer and, likely, a life sentence, without the possibility 
for parole.

“The penalty for murder is not less than 20, 50, to life,” Kuegel said. “If a 
person receives life on a murder charge, and they are sentenced to 24 years or 
more, their parole eligibility will be at 20 years, and they will be credited 
with any other jail time they may get.”

In Kuegel’s hypothetical case, and without prosecution seeking the death 
penalty, a person convicted of murder could potentially be released from prison 
after 20 years, if the parole board granted early release.

“A death penalty notification sparks 3 additional enhancements — death, life 
without the possibility of parole (LWOP) and life without the possibility of 
parole for 25 years,” Kuegel said.

A person who is convicted of murder and, therefore, sentenced to the death 
penalty will pick up the other two notifications even if they aren’t sentenced 
to execution, Kuegel explained.

Kuegel said the parole board doesn’t go easy on those who’ve committed acts of 
murder, but it’s possible a murderer could be released from prison. By seeking 
the death penalty, Kuegel said the possibility of parole is either impossible 
for these criminals, or they will, at the least, be issued a longer sentence 
before going before the parole board.

“The parole board does let people out who’ve committed horrific crimes,” Kuegel 
said.

Even though the act of execution is rare in Kentucky, there are organizations 
across the state who continue to fight to abolish the death penalty. Pat 
Delahanty, chairperson for the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty 
(KCADP) says there are moral and logical reasons as to why this capital 
punishment should be eliminated within the state.

“In terms of a policy of trying to use the death penalty to meet out justice, 
that’s a totally failed approach to how you resolve violent crime,” Delahanty 
said. “It’s about the behavior of the people of Kentucky — both the behavior of 
someone who’s killed other people. Should Kentucky be in the business of 
killing others?”

Seeking the death penalty costs more money, according to Delahanty, who says 
taxpayers spend more on a death sentence than a life sentence.

“There’s a limited amount of resources and tax dollars — the death penalty is 
far more expensive than life without parole. The minute they decide they’re 
going to go death, that’s when the money starts to be spent,” Delahanty said.

However, Delahanty said he does understand why prosecutors seek the death 
penalty, especially in cases that contain multiple victims, or in especially 
heinous cases that involve high emotions from the public.

“I can understand it, but I don’t accept it,” Delahanty said. “I don’t accept 
it on a moral basis or a logical basis. I don’t know one of them [sentenced to 
death penalty] who’s seen the parole board. All we need to do is put that 
person in prison for life and forget about him. I do know that if we abolish 
the death penalty, life without parole will still be there. It can still be 
used as a bargaining chip.”

(source: The Ownesboro Times)








TENNESSEE:

Death-Row Inmate Forced to Self-Lawyer Asks Justices to Step In



It’s been said that a man who represents himself in court has a fool for a 
client. But what if the judge leaves the man no choice?

The U.S. Supreme Court can answer that question by taking up an unusual appeal 
from a Tennessee death-row prisoner whose petition will be considered for the 
first time at the justices’ private conference on Friday.

The local judge’s decision to make Tony Von Carruthers represent himself at his 
triple-murder trial raises vital questions about when the Sixth Amendment right 
to counsel can be snatched away. If the justices don’t intervene, Carruthers 
could be the first person in a century to be executed after being forced to 
represent himself at trial.

“We think this is a critical issue and necessary to correct a serious injustice 
in a capital case,” his lawyer at the Supreme Court, Eric Citron, told 
Bloomberg Law.

After the defendant ran through a series of lawyers and threatened some of them 
in the lead up to his 1996 trial, the judge presiding over his Shelby County 
death penalty case said Carruthers had to go it on his own.

His actions were “part of an overall ploy on his part to delay the case forever 
until something happens that prevents it from being tried,” Judge Joseph Dailey 
said.

Carruthers, a non-lawyer, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 
drug-related 1994 murders of Marcellos “Cello” Anderson, Delois Anderson, and 
Frederick Tucker. He and an accomplice buried them alive “inside a freshly dug 
grave” in Memphis, prosecutors said.

The accomplice, his co-defendant James Montgomery, was sentenced to death as 
well. But that was reversed by the state’s top court, which found that 
Montgomery was so prejudiced in front of the jury by the way Carruthers 
represented himself that he should have gotten his own trial.

Citron says that underscores the prejudicial nature of Carruthers’ 
self-representation to Carruthers, too.

Montgomery got a new sentencing at which he avoided the death penalty.

Carruthers says there’s a split among the nation’s courts on whether a judge 
can take away a defendant’s lawyer as a sanction for misconduct.

Different judicial approaches have led to “inconsistent and unpredictable 
results incompatible with the orderly administration of justice,” he says in 
the filing from Citron and other lawyers at Supreme Court litigation firm 
Goldstein & Russell, P.C. and a public defender.

“Courts are all over the map in how they resolve these issues,” said Marc 
McAllister, a professor at Texas State University whose scholarship is cited in 
Carruthers’ petition. He said the case pits two Sixth Amendment rights against 
one another: the right to representation by counsel and the right to 
self-representation.

The Supreme Court could take the case to “clarify the precise interplay between 
the competing Sixth Amendment rights,” McAllister said.

The high court has set out strict rules for judges to warn defendants about 
waiving the right to counsel, and that didn’t happen here, Carruthers’ petition 
points out.

At the very least, he argues, the judge should have had to issue the formal 
warnings required for defendants who voluntarily waive the right to counsel, 
given that it was involuntary in his case.

The state counters in its opposition brief—it won’t comment on the case beyond 
the filing—that procedural limitations of habeas corpus review are enough for 
the justices to reject the appeal.

Under that rubric, federal courts can deny prisoners relief from state court 
judgments when those state decisions don’t clearly contravene Supreme Court 
precedent. So the procedural posture of Carruthers’ case—the fact that he’s 
appealing the denial of a federal habeas petition rather than directly 
appealing his state case—makes it a worse vehicle for resolving the Sixth 
Amendment issue, McAllister said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit also noted the procedural 
obstacle when it condoned the habeas denial, though one of the judges who 
signed onto the unanimous opinion, Jane B. Stranch, criticized the state 
court’s denial of a lawyer as a sanction. “I cannot agree that a criminal 
defendant may be denied his Sixth Amendment right to counsel as a form of 
punishment,” she wrote.

The case is Carruthers v. Mays, U.S., 18-697, petition pending.

(source: bloomberglaw.com)