[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., S.C., FLA., TENN., NEV, USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 11



TEXAS----new execution date

Fort Worth man convicted of killing pregnant girlfriend gets October execution 
date



A Fort Worth man convicted of killing his pregnant girlfriend and her 
7-year-old son more than 10 years ago now has an execution date scheduled for 
October.

Stephen Barbee, who has maintained his innocence for years and argued that his 
confession to police was coerced, is now slated to die on Oct. 2, according to 
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jeremy Desel.

The now-52-year-old was sent to death row in 2006, after a Tarrant County jury 
found him guilty of the murder of Lisa Underwood and her son Jayden. The slain 
woman's friends only realized she was missing when she didn't show up for her 
baby shower.

The day of the slayings, a sheriff's deputy stopped Barbee walking along a 
service road in a wooded area, but the man fled after giving a fake name. 
Later, authorities found Underwood's car in a creek nearby, and decided they 
wanted to talk to Barbee as a person of interest.

When officers first brought him in for questioning, Barbee said he hadn't seen 
Underwood for months. But when he went to the bathroom, police said that he 
copped to everything while alone with one detective in an unrecorded 
conversation.

In that confession, prosecutors said, Barbee admitted to starting a fight with 
his girlfriend before holding her face down in the carpet until she stopped 
breathing and then holding his hand over Jayden's mouth until he did as well.

The North Texas man said he was afraid that Underwood was going to tell his 
wife about their liaison, according to court records. After his admission, 
Barbee took police to the shallow graves where he buried the slain bagel store 
owner and her son.

A Tarrant County jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to death in 
February 2006.

Early in his appeals, Barbee's attorneys argued that his trial team's work 
wasn't up to par, that police withheld a videotape of their full interrogation 
and that his trial lawyers abandoned their client.

But the judge overseeing the case at that point apparently disagreed, 
rubberstamping the state's claims "without so much as changing a comma," 
current attorney Richard Ellis wrote in a later appeal. He also called into 
question the confession used to convict Barbee, arguing that it was coerced and 
pointing out that police never even wrote down parts of it.

His client, Ellis wrote, later recanted that confession and has since 
maintained his innocence. But during a whirlwind 2.5-day-trial, the defense 
team didn't do enough to show that or to investigate information that pointed 
to another suspect, he said. His latest appeals focused on the claim that his 
trial attorneys conceded Barbee's guilt even though he didn't agree to that.

But the courts weren't persuaded by those claims, and this year a Tarrant 
County judge greenlit Barbee's execution date. The Lone Star State has already 
executed three men this year, and - including Barbee - 4 more are on the 
calendar.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

Covering capital punishment and death row execution: 8 tips from Michael 
Graczyk



Before retiring in 2018, Michael Graczyk covered capital punishment for more 
than 35 years as a criminal justice reporter for the Associated Press. He has 
observed more than 400 prison executions in Texas, which leads the country for 
the number of people executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital 
punishment in 1976. Today, Graczyk still writes about death row inmates as a 
freelancer.

“He built a reputation for accuracy and fairness with death row inmates, their 
families, their victims’ families and their lawyers, as well as prison 
officials and advocates on both sides of capital punishment,” AP reporter 
Nomaan Merchant wrote in an article about Graczyk’s retirement. “He made a 
point of visiting and photographing every condemned inmate willing to be 
interviewed and talking to relatives of their victims.”

Nationwide, there were 2,814 men and women on death row at the end of 2016, the 
most recent year for which the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has released 
data. Although more than 1/2 of U.S. states and the federal government allow 
capital punishment, the vast majority of executions in 2017 occurred in 4 
states — Texas, Florida, Arkansas and Alabama, according to a preliminary 
federal report.

Later this month, four prisoners are scheduled to die by lethal injection in 
Alabama, Florida and Tennessee. The governor of California instituted a 
moratorium on the death penalty in March, but prosecutors there are still 
seeking a death sentence for a former police officer accused of being the 
notorious Golden State Killer.

Journalist’s Resource called Graczyk at home in Texas to ask him about his work 
and for tips to share with other journalists who are reporting on capital 
punishment, death row or executions. Here are the eight tips he gave us to pass 
along:

1 — Get experience covering the criminal justice system.

“Some reporters are so isolated, they’ve never actually covered cops or courts 
or crime,” Graczyk says. “They show up at an execution and they’ve never seen a 
dead body …

“My advice is: Get familiar with the courts. Get some real-world experience. 
See a dead body. Cover the cops. Cover the courts. Read the court opinions. All 
these capital cases are going to wind up in federal courts — at least 99% of 
them. You need to understand how judges write and how to read court opinions 
and how supreme courts and circuit courts of appeals work. Talk to the appeals 
attorneys … [and] prosecutors who actually put this person in a courtroom and 
tried them.”

2 — Know the facts of the case you’re covering.

“It sounds pretty basic, but know the case — know what this person is accused 
of, know what this person is convicted of, know who the players are,” Graczyk 
says.

In Texas, inmates spend an average of 15 years and eight months on death row. 
For some, the wait is much longer. According to the Texas Department of 
Criminal Justice, the longest-serving inmates were David Lee Powell, executed 
in 2010 for killing a police officer during a traffic stop 32 years earlier, 
and Lester Leroy Bower, put to death in 2015 after serving 31 years behind 
bars.

“In a lot of cases, reporters weren’t even alive when the crime occurred. Some 
of these cases are really, really old,” Graczyk says. “Know the case and get 
educated and understand how the courts work — or don’t work. … Stay away from 
legal jargon … people don’t understand that. I find it’s always good to just 
explain things. There is no need to make something more complicated than it 
already is.”

3 — Remember the victim.

Coverage of capital punishment broadly and of executions specifically tends to 
focus on the men and women who are accused or convicted of killing and injuring 
people. Stories, especially those written years or decades after the crime, 
sometimes barely mention victims and their families.

Graczyk says he tries to make sure victims and families remain a key part of 
his stories, although it can sometimes take a lot of extra work to track down 
those individuals.

“If I make this concerted effort to talk to the inmate, I make a concerted 
effort to talk to the victims as well,” he says. “If no one is available, I say 
that … Remember that executions can happen decades after someone is sentenced 
and so lots of people may have moved or passed away or are unreachable.”

4 — Avoid asking victims’ families if an execution gives them “closure.”

“One of the questions I really wince at when I hear it from reporters — 
especially when it’s said to a relative of a murder victim — is, ‘Does this 
give you closure?’ This is so cliché. It ranks up there with ‘How do you 
feel?’” Graczyk says.

At an execution, he suggests approaching victims’ friends and family members in 
another way. “I usually ask them, ‘Why did you decide to be here?’ and ‘Are you 
disappointed this has taken so long?’ if it’s a particularly long case,” he 
says. “If the inmate ignored them, [ask] ‘How disappointed are you that they 
didn’t acknowledge you or express remorse?’ I’ve talked to enough people to 
understand there is no such thing as closure. I think it’s an inadequate 
question.”

5 — When you cover an execution in person, focus on your role in providing a 
factual account of the event. It will help you keep your feelings and opinions 
in check.

“I don’t know how to phrase this without sounding insensitive, but if you go in 
there with the idea that this person was innocent, was the victim of a broken 
system, you’re not going to do a good story,” Graczyk says.

“I tell myself, ‘You’re there to do a job. Your job is to tell the story of 
what happened in there. And if your emotions get the best of you, you can’t do 
your job.’ I can’t tell you what it’s like at an electrocution or gas chamber 
or hanging. … In Texas, here it has only been lethal injection. Essentially, 
someone is lying there and you’re watching them and they quickly go to sleep 
and they don’t wake up. I don’t mean to be insensitive, but that’s what 
happens.”

6 — Take notes.

Graczyk said he has seen some journalists come to observe an execution but 
don’t write anything down. That doesn’t make much sense to him because there 
are so many details he says a journalist will need to remember — who came to 
witness the execution, for example, and what the prisoner said and did before 
dying. In Texas, recording devices and cameras are not allowed in the death 
chamber room where witnesses gather to watch, but journalists can bring in 
paper and something to write with.

“If you’re not able to take notes, you’re not going to be any good in there,” 
Graczyk says. “I’ve seen reporters not take any notes and go back and talk 
about what they saw. You might have a photographic memory and be the exception, 
but I don’t know too many people like that.”

7 — Pay attention to key details.

Graczyk says reporters should note the various things they see and hear while 
in the death chamber.

“You listen for the final statement,” he says. “We report what’s the last thing 
this person decided to say and you want to get that right.”

He added that reporters should include key details they probably could not get 
by calling a prison official.

“I had an editor once who was going through a story I wrote and he told me, 
‘The story is OK, but it doesn’t reflect that you were there.’ It was something 
we could get by calling the prison system and asking them what happened,” 
Graczyk says, offering examples of what to look for before, during and after an 
execution.

“Movements they [the inmates] may have made or whether they took a breath or 
coughed when the drugs took effect. Whether they were looking at people as they 
came into the death chamber to watch them die. If you get a glimpse of where 
the needle went in, whether there was a tattoo there. It gives the reader more 
of a picture of what’s happening …

“When you go in there, you want to tell people what you saw and what you heard. 
I’ve talked to people who’ve done electrocutions and gas chamber stuff and they 
can get into the fact that it doesn’t smell very good. But lethal injections 
are very, very clinical. … You don’t dwell on it, but drop something in to 
prove to the reader or the listener that you were there.”

8 — Have a plan for how to react if a prisoner addresses you personally inside 
the death chamber.

Because Graczyk interviews inmates many times during the years and weeks 
leading up to their executions, they know him. To his surprise, a couple have 
tried to start conversations with him in the death chamber.

“A couple of things happened in there that I didn’t expect and you learn from 
that. First of all, it’s happened to me at least twice now … When I walked in, 
they looked up and said hello to me. You need to be prepared for that. You need 
to know whether you’re going to react to it and how you’re going to react to 
it. I remember walking in and the inmate said, ‘Hi, Mike!’ What do you say to 
someone who’s about to die? I was taken aback. The second time, just because 
I’d been through it once, I think I nodded. Especially if you’re standing next 
to the relative of a victim, be cognizant. I wouldn’t want to say something 
totally sympathetic or discourteous.”

(source: journalistsresource.org)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----43

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----561

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

44---------July 31----------------Ruben Gutierrez---------562

45---------Aug. 21----------------Larry Swearingen--------563

46---------Sept. 4----------------Billy Crutsinger--------564

47---------Sept. 10---------------Mark Anthony Soliz------565

48---------Oct. 2-----------------Stephen Barbee----------566

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)

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

USA----countdown to nation's 1500th execution

With the execution of Scotty Morrow in Georgia on May 2, the USA has now 
executed 1,494 condemned individuals since the death penalty was re-legalized 
on July 2, 1976 in the US Supreme Court Gregg v Georgia decision.

Gary Gilmore was the 1st person executed, in Utah, on January 17, 1977. Below 
is a list of scheduled executions as the nation approaches a terrible milestone 
of 1500 executions in the modern era.

NOTE: The list is likely to change over the coming months as new execution 
dates are added and possible stays of execution occur.

1496-------May 16-------------Donnie Johnson-----------Tennessee

1497-------May 16-------------Michael Samra------------Alabama

1498-------May 23-------------Bobby Joe Long-----------Florida

1499-------May 30-------------Christopher Price--------Alabama

1500------July 31-------------Ruben Gutierrez----------Texas

1501-------Aug. 15------------Stephen West-------------Tennessee

1502-------Aug. 21------------Larry Swearingen---------Texas

1504-------Sept. 4------------Billy Crutsinger---------Texas

1505-------Sept. 10-----------Mark Anthony Soliz-------Texas

1506-------Sept. 12-----------Warren Henness-----------Ohio

1507-------Oct. 2-------------Stephen Barbee-----------Texas

Learn more about efforts to #StopThe1500th Execution and how you can be 
involved at http://deathpenaltyaction.org/1500th [deathpenaltyaction.org]

(source: Rick Halperin)








NEW HAMPSHIRE:

An overriding concern: NH lawmakers should stick to their principles on the 
death penalty



A week ago, Gov. Chris Sununu, as promised, vetoed House Bill 455, which would 
repeal the use of the death penalty in New Hampshire. Lawmakers in both 
chambers of the Legislature easily passed the bill earlier this session, and it 
now lands back at their feet.

They should vote to override the veto and do away with capital punishment in 
the Granite State once and for all.

Sununu, in announcing his veto, turned to an emotional appeal, tying the move 
to the lone capital case in recent state history: the murder of a Manchester 
police officer. To buttress his argument, he relied on the family of the slain 
officer and police spokesmen, who regularly back the death penalty — especially 
in cases involving police deaths.

“If a repeal occurs, there will be no penalty for murdering a police officer,” 
said Mark Chase, president of the New Hampshire Chiefs of Police Association, 
at last Friday’s veto media event at the Michael Briggs Community Center in 
Manchester where, accompanied by the family of Officer Briggs, the chief of the 
Manchester police also spoke in favor of capital punishment — specifically 
citing Michael Addison, who shot and killed Briggs during a robbery in 2006. 
Never mind that the bill Sununu vetoed was crafted purposely to not apply to 
Addison.

We can’t fault their anger; what happened to Briggs was terrible and Addison 
surely ought to be punished for it. What Mrs. Briggs and the Manchester police 
officers are seeking, though, isn’t justice; it’s vengeance. Killing Michael 
Addison wouldn’t bring Michael Briggs back, nor would it ease their loss. At 
least, that’s what family members of other murder victims have said, both to 
Sununu and lawmakers.

It’s old-school, eye-for-an-eye, life-for-a-life wrath — the type advocated in 
the Old Testament. But even many denominations that once backed the death 
penalty for that reason now oppose it as nothing more than state-sanctioned 
murder. “The death penalty neither deters others, nor brings this perpetrator 
to understanding, but instead, in the worst of ironies, publicly validates the 
very act of taking a human life,” notes Bishop Peter A. Libasci, head of the 
Diocese of Manchester.

Sununu’s avowed strong support of the opinions of law enforcement — especially 
regarding their safety — was undercut when he first took office and pushed hard 
for legislation allowing almost anyone to carry a concealed firearm in public 
with a permit, something police chiefs across the state said puts their 
officers at risk.

And Chase is wrong. Those who kill a police officer would still face a penalty 
— the same penalty any murderer would face. We’d guess the courts and juries 
will still consider the seriousness of killing a police officer, but studies 
have shown capital punishment is not a deterrent, and that goes for crimes 
against law enforcement, too.

Attitudes toward capital punishment have come a long way. Even many 
conservatives who once backed the death penalty now oppose it simply on 
economic terms. It costs far more to kill a convicted murderer than to keep him 
or her locked up for life. That’s largely due to the extensive appeals process 
involved, but those appeals are necessary as long as capital punishment exists. 
As science has advanced, we’ve seen case after case in which those sentenced to 
death were ultimately found to be wrongly convicted. Our legal system simply 
isn’t perfect, and the chance that an innocent person will be murdered by the 
state is too great.

There may always be cases where it’s clear the defendant is guilty of a heinous 
act. But the law can’t be applied based on individual circumstances. Many of 
those proven not guilty were, at one point, considered guilty beyond a 
reasonable doubt.

Now that Gov. Sununu has vetoed HB 455, the House is set to take up a possible 
override May 23, with the Senate to follow. Both should stick to their guns.

The cost of capital punishment is too high to be allowed. It strains the 
state’s legal resources. It won’t prevent anyone from murdering in the future. 
Most importantly, it makes all of us a party to murder.

(source: Editorial, Keene Sentinel)








SOUTH CAROLINA:

Here’s why a Horry County man facing the death penalty admitted to the crime 
during trial



A man facing the death penalty in connection to a string of Sunhouse murder and 
robbery and spree admitted to the jury his crime. The move was done so a jury 
can decide whether he should face the death penalty.

In an unusual move, attorneys for a man facing the death penalty started by 
telling a jury their client is guilty.

“Jerome Jenkins is guilty, he is guilty. He is guilty of the charges the state 
brought against him,” Defense attorney Ralph Wilson Sr. told a jury on Friday.

His client, Jerome “JJ” Jenkins, faces the death penalty in connection to 
murders and an armed robbery spree at Horry County convenience stores in 
January 2015.

The admission was because of the way death penalty cases work in South 
Carolina. Capital trials are split into 2 parts. One part is to determine if 
the person is guilty. The 2nd part, if the person is found guilty, is for the 
same jury to determine if the person should face life in prison or the death 
penalty.

In typical cases, sentencing is left to a judge. For example, if a suspect 
pleads guilty, the judge determines how long they will spend in prison.

Wilson explained Jenkins wanted to plead guilty before the trial and have the 
jury — instead of the typical judge-decision process — decide his punishment.

Confusion on whether that plan is allowed under court rules led to a new 
strategy in which Jenkins admitted to the crime to the 16-member jury. The 
state will then present evidence and the jury will make its decision, in a de 
facto guilty plea.

That decision guarantees the jury will decide his guilt and therefore will 
decide Jenkins’ fate.

Jenkins — along with McKinley Daniels and James Daniels — is accused of robbing 
convenience stores in the Conway area. Investigators believe the trio killed 
Balla Paruchuri in January 2015 at a Sunhouse convenience store on S.C. Highway 
905.

“Jerome Jenkins goes after Balla Paruchuri,” Solicitor Jimmy Richardson said 
during his opening statement.

Richardson said Paruchuri was defenseless and he died in a “hail of bullets.”

Weeks later the team allegedly robbed the Scotchman on Lake Arrowhead Road and 
the Sunhouse store on Oak Street, where clerk Trish Stull was shot and killed. 
Prosecutors say Jenkins and McKinley Daniels entered the stores and robbed them 
while James Daniels served as lookout and driver.

The community was on edge following the shooting, and officers visited shops at 
night to help employees safely close their businesses.

Last year, a jury convicted James Daniels of murder and 2 counts of armed 
robbery, and he was sentenced to life in prison. McKinley Daniels pleaded 
guilty earlier this year to murder and armed robbery and will spend at least 45 
years behind bars.

(source: charlotteobserver.com)

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

Life or death: Why a capital case in South Carolina can last decades



14 years.

That was the typical wait time between a death sentence in South Carolina 
before an inmate was executed. Several appeals, all to make sure the punishment 
was correctly applied, were the biggest reasons for the lengthy wait.

Today, the wait is indefinite as South Carolina doesn’t have the 3 chemicals 
needed to carry out the lethal injection. There have been calls to bring back 
firing squads or the electric chair so the state can carry out executions.

Even with the lengthy appeals and an inability to carry out executions, South 
Carolina prosecutors continue to seek the sentence in the most severe cases.

Jerome “JJ” Jenkins in Horry County faces that punishment as his capital case 
starts Friday, May 10. Jenkins — along with McKinley Daniels and James Daniels 
— is accused of robbing convenience stores in the Conway area. Investigators 
believe the trio killed Balla Paruchuri in January 2015 at a Sunhouse 
convenience store on S.C. Highway 905.

Weeks later the team allegedly robbed the Scotchman on Lake Arrowhead Road and 
the Sunhouse store on Oak Street, where clerk Trish Stull was shot and killed. 
Prosecutors say Jenkins and McKinley Daniels entered the stores and robbed them 
while James Daniels served as lookout and driver.

Pursuing the death penalty

Horry and Georgetown counties Solicitor Jimmy Richardson said he is selective 
in seeking the death penalty.

“You don’t take death willy-nilly,” Richardson said. “It’s got to be the worst 
of the worst.”

South Carolina statute requires not only a murder, but aspects making the case 
worse than others — called aggravating factors. Some examples are killing 
during an armed robbery, a sexual assault, during drug trafficking, killing a 
police officer or a judge, lynching or creating a risk of death to others in a 
public place.

If a prosecutor determines a crime meets those elements, the state can seek the 
death penalty and identify those factors.

Death penalty trials are in 2 parts, Richardson explained. The 1st part is a 
typical trial to determine a person’s guilt. That usually involves a prolonged 
jury selection in which hundreds of jurors are questioned about their knowledge 
of the case and death penalty beliefs.

Capital cases are often the only times when the jury is sequestered, which 
means they stay in a hotel and are not allowed their phones or contact with the 
public.

If a suspect is found guilty, the trial moves into its second phase in which 
the sentence is determined. There is a mandated 24-hour “cooling off” period 
for the jury between the 2 phases, so they aren’t deciding with emotion.

A judge typically determines a person’s sentence, but the jury does in death 
penalty cases. Their only options are life in prison without parole or death. 
The jury is aware of these 2 options.

“They are given a lot more information in part two of a death penalty case than 
they are in a regular murder case,” Richardson said.

Arguing life and death

During the 2nd phase, prosecutors will try to prove those aggravating factors 
as a defense attorney argues mitigating factors, basically reasons that a 
person should not be executed.

Defense attorney Morgan L. Martin, who has defended death penalty cases, said 
there is added stress given the nature of the cases. Lawyers will dig up a 
person’s past to find reasons why the crime might not be as terrible as it 
seems or why a person might have acted that way.

Mitigating factors could include reasons like abuse during a person’s 
upbringing or mental health issues.

“You’re trying to put your client in the best light you can,” Martin said.

16th Circuit Solicitor Kevin Brackett said the death penalty option in South 
Carolina is not a deterrent for crime because "it is never carried out." 
Brackett said the death penalty law "overpromises and severely underdelivers." 
By Tracy Kimball

If the jury decides to go with a death sentence, the process is hardly over. 
There are several appeals — and appeals of the appeals — that can take more 
than a decade to complete.

There could also be appeals heard in the federal court.

There are 38 people on death row in South Carolina and each of their cases are 
in the appeals process.

Martin said the appeals process can be too long, but he didn’t know of a way to 
streamline the process.

Appeals courts know that a death sentence is in play and Richardson said for a 
time they were overturning about 75 percent of death penalty sentences. When a 
sentence is reversed, it must be retried. Richardson said that is why many 
capital cases are argued twice before a jury.

“It’s really not a perfect system. It really is just the best system we got,” 
Richardson said.

He paused briefly and then highlighted the elephant-in-the-room with death 
penalty cases.

“You don’t want anyone, with any probability at all that they didn’t do 
something worthy of death, going to death; or getting death. Because you can’t 
reverse that,” Richardson said.

(source: thestate.com)








FLORIDA----impending execution

Florida Supreme Court rejects stay of execution



The Florida Supreme Court on Friday rejected a stay of execution and turned 
down a series of legal arguments made on behalf of condemned killer Bobby Joe 
Long.

Gov. Ron DeSantis last month signed a death warrant for Long and scheduled the 
execution for May 23.

Long was sentenced to death in the May 1984 murder of Michelle Simms after 
picking her up on Kennedy Boulevard in Tampa.

In 1985. Long, now 65, also pleaded guilty to seven additional first-degree 
murder charges and numerous charges for sexual batteries and kidnappings in the 
Tampa Bay region.

Long’s attorney this week requested a stay of execution and filed what is known 
as a petition for writ of habeas corpus that raised a series of legal arguments 
in support of Long. As an example, the petition argued that Long should be 
spared from execution because of a “significant history of mental illness” and 
the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

“Given his severe mental illness and in light of the evolving standards of 
decency, Long must be exempt from execution pursuant to the Eighth Amendment to 
the United States Constitution,” the petition said.

Justices, however, issued 2 orders unanimously rejecting the request for a stay 
of execution and the issues raised in the petition.

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

Kimberly Kessler asks about death penalty in jailhouse call----Woman accused of 
causing March crash that killed bicyclist



Jailhouse phone calls that Kimberly Kessler, the woman charged with killing her 
co-worker Joleen Cummings, made after she was arrested last year were obtained 
Friday by News4Jax.

Kessler, 50, discusses jail conditions in a couple of the calls, all of which 
appear to be with her mother, but in the first one, she asks about the death 
penalty.

Kessler: “Florida and Texas, are those the only two states with the death 
penalty?”

Caller: “I don’t know, I haven’t done the research on that. You might want to 
YouTube that and get back to me on it.”

Kessler: “Yeah, I don’t think I’d want to know and then tell you bad news. I 
thought someone said they weren’t doing that anymore, and they shouldn’t do it 
anymore because the dumb***** get everything wrong."

The release of the calls comes ahead of Mother's Day weekend, which marks one 
year since Cummings, a 34-year-old mother of 3, disappeared.

Investigators suspect Kessler, who worked with Cummings at Tangles Hair Salon 
in Yulee, was the last person to see Cummings alive.

Following Cummings’ disappearance, her SUV was found parked outside a Home 
Depot. Kessler was arrested May 16 after investigators said they found footage 
showing her getting out of the vehicle. She was booked into the Nassau County 
jail, where she went on a hunger strike that prompted her to later be moved to 
the Duval County jail.

It's unclear from which jail the calls were made from, but Kessler complains 
about the treatment in the jail in 2 of them.

“My attorney told me he has no control over them. They mistreat me. That’s just 
how it is, basically. He didn’t say it exactly in those words. That’s my 
interpretation of it. So I’m surprised they let me call you. Perhaps they were 
looking to listen to a fascinating conversation in between us. I don’t know why 
they let me call you, but they did. He said they should let me call him 
whenever I want, and they didn’t, they didn’t let me do it. They make excuses, 
like, ‘Oh we’re busy,’ then shut the door and walk away. It’s kind of funny 
they keep me in solitary confinement, like, it’s a bad thing," Kessler said 
with a laugh in one jailhouse call. "It’s heaven, girl.”

In another call, Kessler, who went by Jennifer Sybert, talks about wanting out 
of jail. Authorities said she has used 17 aliases over the years.

Kessler: “Bail me out under my name that I’m going under, which is Jennifer 
Marie Sybert. And then eventually everything’s going to come together, but, 
with my real name Kim Kessler. But you know, go about it, jump through the 
hoops.” Person on the other end of the call: “OK. You said bail you out under 
Jennifer?"

Kessler: “Yeah, because that’s how they arrested me under. Until the FBI 
corrects it, it’s going to be Jennifer.”

Caller: “The FBI? Oh, my God, they won’t correct.“

Kessler: “They will. You just put the money up as Jennifer Marie Sybert. I gave 
you my Social, by date of birth, the name, my name my alias or whatever that 
I’ve been living under for 19 years. You’re all set.”

Caller: “Oh, my God. Are you warm, sleeping all right? They gave you a 
blanket?”

Kessler: “Of course not. It’s terrible. I’m in jail. It’s very, very bad."

Caller: “It would be nice if they treated you the way they would want to be 
treated.”

Kessler: “Well, if you really want to help, come and get me out. So, that would 
be great.”

Kessler is now charged with 1st-degree murder in Cummings’ death. The day after 
she was indicted on Sept. 7, she discusses how unexpected the indictment was 
during a call.

“I didn’t expect it to come, but I was, I guess it was always in the back of my 
mind because I knew they were crazy like that because they did it to me before. 
I don’t know. I guess I got too trusting, like, I thought their BS was over. 
Tom Townsend (her lawyer) told me today that I was on the front page of the 
newspaper, I’m all over the news. He said they had a bunch of people call the 
public defender’s office -- Newsline or Dateline called, a bunch of entities or 
whatever, like news channels, were calling today. I was (like), 'Really?’ He 
said, 'They were all calling. You’re all over the newspaper, all over the 
news.' And I was, like, 'Really?’” she can be heard saying in the call.

The caller later asks, "Is there absolutely nothing going on in the world?"

Kessler replies, “I say it's because of the illuminati. I think that her people 
are definitely f***** seriously involved in it. So that is what is happening, 
so I’ve got the illuminati on my a**.”

Since then, the state has released reams of evidence in the case through the 
discovery process that suggest a struggle occurred at the salon and that steps 
were taken to dispose of that evidence.

In one of the jailhouse calls, Kessler complains about the searches.

“They gave me a piece of paper that says they, for the search warrant for my 
car, like 5 days after they searched my car and confiscated the car, and they 
never gave me a search warrant for searching my storage unit, ever. They just 
did it. They said they had a search warrant, but I have yet to see it," Kessler 
said in that call.

According to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement DNA analysis that was 
among evidence released last month by the State Attorney's Office, blood found 
on one of Kessler's boots in her storage unit was an almost certain match with 
that of Cummings. Investigators also found one of Cummings' fingernails in a 
blue bin in the storage unit.

Last week, the defense for Kessler said a psychiatrist found their client 
incompetent for trial. Her next hearing date was pushed back to June 27.

1 year after Cummings' disappearance, her body has not been found, despite an 
extensive search at a Georgia landfill that turned up items of interest.

(source for both: news4jax.com)








TENNESSEE----impending execution

Governor Lee, his faith, and mercy for a death row inmate



Gov. Bill Lee took his furthest steps yet in talking about his religious faith 
and the decision he must make in the next 6 days: whether to spare the life of 
a death row inmate.

Donnie Johnson is scheduled to be executed on May 16 for the murder of his 
wife, Connie Johnson, in 1984. He suffocated her by stuffing a garbage bag down 
her throat.

Lee is currently considering a clemency application for Johnson he received 
several weeks ago.

It will be his first time deciding whether the life of a death row inmate 
should be saved. But unlike other cases previous governors have dealt with, 
Johnson’s attorneys are not questioning legal aspects of his case, such as 
earlier court decisions or the jury’s sentence of death it handed down 
34-years-ago.

Instead, the application leans heavily on Lee’s Christian faith and the values 
of forgiveness and redemption – an appeal to Lee’s religious convictions, which 
he spoke about frequently during his campaign for governor. Johnson’s 
supporters – including Cynthia Vaughn, the daughter of Johnson’s victim – say 
Johnson has transformed his life on death row, even ministering to other 
inmates.

“My faith is a very important part of my life,” Lee said during a press 
availability this week. “It’s not disconnected from any decision I make. It's a 
part of the value system by which I view things, and it has a role, and it is 
part of the deliberative process we're in now.”

Kelley Henry, Johnson’s attorney, says she does not anticipate filing any 
further suits or legal proceedings that could delay Johnson’s execution. She 
says the outcome of whether Johnson lives or dies now rests solely in the hands 
of Gov. Lee. That was a call she says was made by Johnson himself.

“We’ll have a decision on that in just a few days,” Lee said this week.

One legal appeal remains with the U.S. Supreme Court, concerning the drugs 
Tennessee uses in lethal injections. Inmates have argued that the first drug in 
the lethal injection sequence – Midazolam – doesn’t keep inmates from feeling 
excruciating pain from the administration of the next 2 drugs.

Johnson’s attorneys expect to hear a ruling on that appeal by Monday. Until 
then, Henry says Johnson has not yet signed a waiver to select his method of 
execution – lethal injection or the electric chair.

A state law grants Johnson the choice between execution methods because he 
committed his crime before 1999, around the time Tennessee adopted lethal 
injection as its primary execution method.

If Lee grants a commutation for Johnson, it would be a departure from his 
predecessor, Gov. Bill Haslam, who did not commute the sentences of any of the 
three death row inmates executed during his governorship. In a statement 
declining to grant clemency for Billy Ray Irick, Haslam said, “My role is not 
to be the 13th juror or the judge or to impose my personal views, but to 
carefully review the judicial process to make sure it was full and fair.”

Attorneys for Johnson hope their appeal beyond the legal system – to “a higher 
authority,” as they call it – will bring about the 1st death row commutation in 
Tennessee in nearly a decade.

(source: WTVF news)

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

Investigators describe brutal 1984 killing that put Donnie Johnson on death row



Clyde Keenan was a police captain in the Memphis Police Department in 1984 and 
worked the case when Donnie Johnson murdered his wife Connie, May 07, 2019. 
Donnie Edward Johnson, 68, is scheduled to die May 16 for killing his wife, 
Connie Johnson, in Memphis in 1984.

The body was found in a van at the Mall of Memphis.

There was a panic at first, said Clyde Keenan, who commanded the homicide unit 
in 1984. People were worried about women shopping alone during the busy 
Christmas season.

“It was an unusual murder scene of course,” Keenan said. “From the get-go, I 
think everyone on the squad was suspicious that the husband was involved with 
it.”

The husband was Donnie Johnson, a man who had grown up being “routinely and 
mercilessly beaten” by the man he thought was his father. When he wasn’t 
beaten, he saw his mother suffering the same treatment at the hands of her 
husband.

He was “a frail little boy, with bad eyes, and no love,” his attorneys would 
later write in a petition for clemency.

Donnie Johnson was 33 when he killed his wife, Connie Johnson, 30, and left her 
body outside the Mall of Memphis.

What police saw at the scene

Donnie Johnson, who now goes by Don, is set to be executed by the state on May 
16 for his wife’s murder, but has asked Gov. Bill Lee for clemency based on 
what his attorneys call a “journey to redemption” and the forgiveness of Connie 
Johnson’s daughter, whom he adopted.

Jerry Bursi, a retired officer in the Memphis Police Department, remembers 
vividly the green garbage bag that Donnie Johnson used to kill his wife two 
weeks before Christmas in 1984.

“If (Gov. Lee) made the scene with us that night, he wouldn’t grant any 
clemency,” Bursi said.

The van was initially found by Donnie Johnson’s employer. Donnie Johnson had 
told friends and family that his wife had gone Christmas shopping alone and 
hadn’t returned home. He even filed a missing person’s report in Covington, 
where they lived.

Bursi and John Garner, then a sergeant with the police department who lead the 
investigation, remembered her lying in the van with the plastic garbage bag 
stuffed down her throat. Her purse was missing. Only about two inches of the 
30-gallon bag protruded from her mouth, Bursi said.

A Shelby County medical examiner would later say that she had cuts and bruises 
on her head, that she bled internally and had fought back.

How police investigated

When Donnie Johnson gave his statement to the police, “red flags went off,” 
Garner said. For one thing, he wanted to know when he could get the van back to 
sell it. Some of his statements didn’t add up. A witness confirmed that she had 
spoken with Donnie Johnson after his wife would have disappeared, contradicting 
what he had told media.

Then, police got a call from the penal farm: A work release inmate there was 
picked up every day by Donnie Johnson. At first, he said he’d had a normal day 
with Donnie Johnson. Soon, he broke, Garner said.

Ronnie McCoy, the inmate, admitted that he’d seen Donnie Johnson and his wife 
together at the camping store where he worked with Donnie Johnson. He left the 
store to work on a project, and returned to find Connie Johnson dead, he said.

Then, he helped Donnie Johnson move Connie Johnson’s body to the mall, McCoy 
told police and later testified at trial.

There was other evidence: police used a new technology with superglue fumes to 
identify fingerprints. There were remnants of what seemed to be Connie 
Johnson’s purse that had been burned at her home. Keys to the van were found in 
Donnie Johnson’s car.

“Any good homicide detective will tell you, you’ve got to go where the evidence 
takes you,” Keenan said. “In that case it didn’t take long before the evidence 
appeared of him being responsible for that crime.”

‘A liar, a cheat, a con man and a murderer’

Donnie Johnson initially denied that he had killed his wife. During the 
sentencing stage of his trial, he testified that it was McCoy who had murdered 
his wife.

But today, Donnie Johnson acknowledges that he was once “a liar, a cheat, a con 
man and a murderer.”

He was on his way to becoming one at an early age, according to a petition for 
clemency from his attorneys.

“His father had taught him that women were to be used, denigrated, and beaten,” 
they wrote.

By age 14, he “became a terror” and was sent away to Jordonia — a juvenile 
institution in Tennessee. He was later committed to Pikeville, where he 
suffered physical abuse and attempted sexual assault, the petition read.

What was the motive?

Garner, who lead the investigation, doesn’t remember much about a motive.

McCoy did testify that the Johnsons had been talking about divorce — and that 
Donnie Johnson had told him he’d had several divorces before and couldn’t 
afford another one.

After getting search warrants, police found organized laundry baskets with the 
Johnsons' children’s clothes, Connie Johnson’s clothes and her makeup lined by 
the door.

“To me, it said she was getting ready to leave him,” Garner said.

More than a year and a half before her death, Connie Johnson had purchased a 
life insurance policy with Donnie Johnson as the primary beneficiary, according 
to legal documents. After Connie Johnson's death, both Donnie Johnson and a 
sister made claims for $50,000.

Execution is scheduled for next week

It’s been 35 years since Donnie Johnson murdered his wife. He’s scheduled to be 
executed for it on May 16.

Since his conviction, Donnie Johnson has converted to Christianity. He’s now an 
elder at Riverside Chapel Seventh-day Adventist Church in Nashville. He 
preaches to fellow inmates and on a radio program.

That religious transformation — and the forgiveness of Connie Johnson’s 
daughter — formed the basis of the clemency petition submitted to Gov. Bill Lee 
last month.

"What is most remarkable about Don Johnson's life story is not that he ended up 
on death row following a loveless and hate-filled childhood, it is that he 
overcame that childhood to become the man of God he is today," the petition 
reads.

Jason Johnson, the child the Johnsons had together after their marriage, 
disagrees with his sister on whether their father should be executed.

Lee, the governor, said Thursday that he was facing a "very difficult 
decision."

"We’re in the deliberative process about that decision itself and it’ll be 
forthcoming in a few days, but it certainly is a difficult one,” Lee said.

Keenan, the former commander of the homicide unit, said the moral judgments — 
like whether to grant clemency — are the most difficult ones to make.

“People think investigating homicides is difficult,” Keenan said. “I think we 
have the easy part sometimes. We investigate, make a conclusion, and everybody 
else picks up the case and runs with it — they make the hard decisions.”

(source: Commercial Appeal)








NEVADA:

Nevada Jury Asked to Reorder Execution for 1982 Murderer



Prosecutors are trying to persuade a jury to reorder the execution of a 
convicted murderer who's been on Nevada's death row for 34 years but won a new 
sentencing hearing when a federal appeals court ruled his rights were violated 
his original trial's penalty phase.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld 67-year-old Tracy Petrocelli's 
conviction 2 years ago in the 1982 killing of a Reno car salesman, months after 
Petrocelli killed his girlfriend in Seattle.

But the court ruled Petrocelli should have been read his Miranda rights when he 
thought he was speaking confidentially to a psychiatrist who later testified 
for the prosecution.

It said the jury that sentenced him to death may have been unjustly influenced 
by testimony that Petrocelli was a dangerous, incurable psychopath.

(source: nbclosangeles.com)

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

Jailhouse HiJack: The story of the 'Most Dangerous Man in Nevada'



He's been called the "Most Dangerous Man in Nevada", and has been on death row 
for almost 4 decades.

Patrick Charles McKenna was sentenced to die for killing his cellmate in the 
city Jail in 1979. He was also behind a desperate bid freedom that stunned Las 
Vegas later that year.

Southern Nevada has never seen anything like it before or since. Three armed 
prisoners holding police at bay for two days using jail guards as hostages. 
Patrick McKenna was the brains of the outfit.

"We knew he was an intellectually bright person. Challenged morality-wise, 
clearly," states historian and former KSNV News Director Bob Stoldal, who back 
in 1979 was News Director at KLAS.

"He was a sociopath," adds former Clark County Sheriff Jerry Keller, who was on 
the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's Hostage Negotiation Team 40 
years ago. "Clearly defined by psychologists as a sociopath. He took no 
culpability, accountability for himself. He blamed everything that happened on 
everybody else's doings."

McKenna already had a long rap sheet starting with kidnap, rape, and assault in 
1964 at age 17 followed by his 1st prison escape 2 years later. Recaptured, he 
served time and was released, onto be jailed again for a different set of 
crimes. While awaiting trial in 1979, a charge of murder was added when he 
killed his cellmate. Then in August of that same year, e and 2 other inmates 
made their move.

"They had gained access to the gun locker and each had obtained a weapon. A 
nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson officer's weapon," says Keller. "And had taken 
three corrections officers hostage. And were actually holding the other 106 
inmates hostage as well."

The location might come as a surprise. The property on the northwest corner of 
Las Vegas Boulevard and Stewart that is now home to the Zappos campus served as 
Las Vegas City Hall from 1979 until 2012. Four decades ago, the north side of 
the complex was also the city jail, where the three inmates were holding siege 
and looking for outside help.

"The first call I received was from Pat McKenna himself," recalls Stoldal. "I 
picked up the phone. It was a Saturday morning. I was strictly behind the 
scenes, but I had been an anchor in town, so McKenna knew me by name."

"Pat McKenna and I had a conversation. And then not too long after that was a 
call from Metro saying go ahead and come on down, so I did."

Stoldal became the go-between, delivering food and water to the inmates and 
taking messages back and forth, all with Metro's blessing. One officer wanted 
to make sure the newsman played it cool.

"He put his hands on me and said 'Listen, you're not John Wayne. These are bad 
guys’. I remember thinking to myself, 'Well, if I don't think I'm John Wayne, 
I'm not going back up there'."

"It's overcoming that nervousness and doing the role that we asked him to do 
that made him such an integral part of the resolution of this situation," 
describes Keller. "We had a SWAT team on both sides of the door. Where Bob was 
standing, there were SWAT team members. Three or four guys on each side of the 
door should anything happen. Bob was well protected should anything start to 
happen. But at the moment it started to happen, he was always under threat."

Since McKenna had specifically requested him, Stoldal also sometimes worked the 
telephones along with members of the Hostage Negotiation Team. 44 hours into 
the crisis, Stoldal was on the phone with McKenna when events started happening 
fast.

"But while we were talking, that's when the 1...2...3...4...5...6 shots," says 
Stoldal. We could all hear, and we looked at each other."

The 2 other inmates were 29-year-old Felix Lorenzo who faced a 150-year prison 
term for robberies and kidnappings, along with 40-year-old Eugene Shaw who was 
looking at up to 60 years for robbery and use of a deadly weapon. Tensions had 
been running high between the 2 of them as well as with McKenna. Keller thinks 
the catalyst for the shooting was the compressor on a water cooler in the room 
next door.

"Started rattling against the wall and they thought we were trying to burrow 
through," theorizes the former sheriff. "And as a result, the conflict between 
Lorenzo and Shaw boiled over and they got involved in a gunfight. McKenna ran 
to the back of the room, put on a corrections officer’s uniform and put a 
mattress over himself."

When the smoke had cleared, Lorenzo and Shaw were both dead and McKenna was 
back in custody. One of the hostage corrections officers took a bullet to the 
hand during the shootout but was otherwise OK. All three were traumatized by 
the event, however.

"There was no doubt in our minds that they were going to kill us," former guard 
David Murray told News 3 a year later. "They made that very clear that we 
weren't leaving there alive. And we were handcuffed crossways between bars so 
that if SWAT would come through, they'd get us first. I was thinking the whole 
time, 'When are they going to do it?' From minute to minute, 'When are they 
going to shoot us?' After getting over it and taking my medical treatment, you 
know no matter what happens, I'm just happy that I'm alive."

McKenna was convicted in 1980 of murdering his cellmate in 1980 and sentenced 
to death. 2 years later an appeal with a change of venue to Minden ended with 
the same result.

14 years and several escape attempts later, after the U.S. Supreme Court had 
granted him a new penalty hearing, McKenna was returned to Las Vegas to face a 
new jury. By now Keller was sheriff of Clark County, and took no chances.

"Mitts. A hood. Absolutely," Keller describes the precautions. "He is a threat 
for escape at all times. He was a member of the Aryan--may still be--the Aryan 
Brotherhood, and we always perceived a threat."

McKenna had his day in court and seemed to enjoy the proceedings. At one point 
he described his view of a good man.

"If a guy's stand up if he's not an informer if he lives by the code," McKenna 
told the judge and jury. "That's how you judge another person."

In the end, the result was the same as before.

"We the jury in the above-entitled case set the sentence and penalty to be 
imposed on the defendant Patrick Charles McKenna at death," read the clerk. 
"Dated this 19th day of September 1996."

"He's hurt people. He rapes, he robs. He kills," prosecutor Dan Seaton told 
reporters after the penalty hearing. "He's done all of those things in this 
city more than once. I don't know how much more you can damage a city."

But in a 1990 interview behind bars at the Maximum-Security Prison in Ely, 
McKenna told News 3 he got a raw deal.

"The only reason I have the death penalty is because of who I am and because 
and it was Las Vegas. And I was just involved in that jailhouse thing. Trying 
to get out of there. Escaped and got caught in that sucker. That's why—because 
of the avalanche of publicity that hit me. Then comes that murder trial. Any 
other time, any other case on the face of it, we're talking 2nd Degree. And I 
make no bones about it. I admit to that. But because of all that, so I ended up 
with this thing. And I end up with the death penalty. They got me on ice for a 
while."

Today McKenna is still on death row at age 72. Is he still dangerous at this 
point in his life?

"He is who he is. And he is that psychopath," says Stoldal.

"Just as dangerous today as he was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 50 years ago," 
observes Keller. "He is no less a threat to the community, and probably no less 
a threat to some of the inmates in the Nevada State Prison."

Does McKenna hold an important place in the history of events in Southern 
Nevada? Stoldal pauses a moment before answering.

"Covering [Mob enforcer Anthony] Spilotro and all of those things. Those are 
the moments. The MGM [1980 fire] tragedy, the Hilton [1981 fire] Tragedy. Those 
are the things. But Bozo McKenna. No, I don't put him in that category. He's 
way down at the bottom."

Patrick McKenna is the 2nd longest-serving person on Nevada's death row. There 
have been no executions in the state since 2006, and 11 of the 12 executions 
since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977 have been voluntary.

(source: KSNV news)








USA:

Rep. Omar Introduces Legislation Opposing Brunei’s Gay Sex Death Penalty



Rep. Ilhan Omar is has introduced legislation in opposition to Brunei’s recent 
pronouncements that would execute people convicted of such things as homosexual 
intercourse and adultery.

The Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, later walked statements back, saying 
that “For more than 2 decades, we have practiced a de facto moratorium on the 
execution of death penalty for cases under the common law.”

He claimed that the country would not enforce the execution of offenders.

However, Omar called the penal code revisions — which mandate stoning for 
multiple offenses that also include blasphemy and theft — “brutal and 
draconian.”

The laws, which came into full effect in April, generated global backlash, with 
protests made by the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France. 
Celebrities like Elton John and George Clooney also denounced the laws.

Critics say that, even if execution by stoning is off the table, those 
sentenced under Brunei’s sharia laws can still face lengthy jail terms or 
caning. Women convicted of having sexual relations with other women face up to 
40 strokes of the cane or a maximum 10-year jail term.

“These laws are anathema to our values as humans, and must be condemned in the 
strongest possible terms,” Omar said. “The new statutes will violate the human 
rights of women, children and the LGBTQ+ community. This brutality runs counter 
to universal values of respect for human rights and freedom for people to 
worship and love however they choose. The United States has a duty to protect 
against this blatant disregard for humanity and the violation of basic rights 
wherever we see them.”

The bill, called the Brunei Human Rights Act, would mandate that any government 
official who actually implements the penal code would not be able to travel to 
or do business with the U.S., and would extend to any official from any other 
country enacting such punishments.

(source: WCCO news)