[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., IND., KY., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 9



GEORGIA----execution

After Delay, Inmate Is Executed in Georgia


After a 3-hour delay as Georgia prison officials waited for the United States 
Supreme Court to rule on last-ditch appeals, Robert Wayne Holsey was executed 
by lethal injection on Tuesday night.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected the argument by Mr. 
Holsey's lawyers that the state's unusually strict standard for judging mental 
disability violated the Constitution.

The lawyers immediately appealed to the Supreme Court in Washington for a stay. 
But in a terse note issued some 45 minutes later than the originally scheduled 
execution time of 7 p.m., the court said the petition, based on the claim about 
Georgia's disability standard, had been denied. Justices Stephen G. Breyer and 
Sonia Sotomayor would have granted the request, the notice said.

The defense lawyers then filed an usual second request for a delay, which the 
Supreme Court turned down around 10 p.m., allowing the lethal injection 
procedure to commence.

Mr. Holsey, 49, who killed a deputy sheriff, William Robinson, in Baldwin 
County after robbing a convenience store in 1995, died at 10:51 p.m., according 
to state officials.

On his final day, Mr. Holsey prayed and was visited by several relatives, his 
lawyers said.

In a statement on Tuesday, members of the slain deputy sheriff's family said 
they were relieved that the legal process had ended after 19 years and 
expressed appreciation for public support, The Associated Press reported. 
"William was a leader and true hero, evidenced by the years of outpouring of 
support to our family by all who loved and respected him," the Robinson family 
said.

Mr. Holsey's case received wide attention in part because his chief lawyer at 
his 1997 trial later admitted to drinking up to a quart of vodka a day at the 
time. He had also been preoccupied with pending theft charges that sent him to 
prison.

An appeals court found that the defense had been deeply inept during the 
penalty phase of Mr. Holsey's trial. His lawyers failed to present potentially 
mitigating details about Mr. Holsey's history of abuse as a child and did not 
press arguments that he was intellectually disabled.

Mr. Holsey had an I.Q. of around 70, his lawyers said, on the borderline of a 
disability that could have made his execution illegal.

But state officials maintained that Mr. Holsey had been properly represented 
and was not severely disabled, and the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the 
death penalty could stand.

At issue in the new appeal to the state court on Tuesday was Georgia's 
requirement that intellectual disability be proved "beyond a reasonable doubt." 
The rule is stiffer than that in any other state and makes it nearly 
impossible, legal experts said, to declare as disabled a person who is near the 
borderline and only partly able to manage daily life.

Mr. Holsey's lawyers argued in a motion on Monday that the Georgia standard 
violated United States Supreme Court rulings, especially one in May that held 
that states could not create "an unacceptable risk that persons with 
intellectual disability will be executed." The State Supreme Court rejected 
that appeal, with 2 of 7 members dissenting.

"By making it virtually impossible to prove intellectual disability, the 
Georgia standard reduces the Eighth Amendment's ban on executing people with 
intellectual disabilities to a nullity," Brian Kammer of the nonprofit Georgia 
Resource Center, one of Mr. Holsey's lawyers, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Many legal experts predict that the United States Supreme Court will at some 
point accept a case resembling Mr. Holsey's and declare the state's tough 
standard unconstitutional.

Holsey becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Georgia 
and the 55th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983.

Holsey becomes the 34th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the 
USA and the 1393rd overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 
1977.

(sources: New York Times & Rick Halperin)

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

Robert Wayne Holsey executed by lethal injection


Robert Wayne Holsey died by lethal injection Tuesday night for the killing of a 
Baldwin County deputy in 1995.

He was executed at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison near 
Jackson.

In his last moments, Holsey addressed the father of Deputy Will Robinson, who 
witnessed the execution. Holsey said: "Mr. Robinson, I'm sorry for taking your 
son's life that night. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me and 
my family." That account comes from our reporter Randall Savage, who was among 
a handful of reporters who were also witnesses.

"Mr. Robinson, I'm sorry for taking your son's life that night. I hope you can 
find it in your heart to forgive me."

Holsey was pronounced dead at 10:51 p.m.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution for Holsey earlier Tuesday 
evening.

That decision came after the Supreme Court of Georgia refused to block the 
execution in a 5-to-2 ruling Tuesday even though Holsey's attorney argued that 
the state's strict standards for determining intellectual disability violated 
his constitutional rights.

Holsey, 49, was convicted in 1997 for killing Baldwin County Deputy Sheriff 
Will Robinson following a convenience store robbery in 1995.

His trial lawyer, who admitted drinking vodka heavily during the trial, was 
later disbarred and given a 10-year sentence for stealing client funds.

(source: WMAZ news)






INDIANA:

Prosecutor seeks death penalty for Oberhansley


Clark County Prosecutor Steve Stewart hopes that Joseph Oberhansley pays the 
ultimate price for the murder of Oberhansley's ex-girlfriend earlier this year.

Stewart filed a motion Friday, Dec. 5, in Clark County Circuit Court No. 4 to 
amend Oberhansley's charges to include the death penalty.

Judge Vicki Carmichael has not yet ruled on Stewart's motion.

Oberhansley, 33, was arrested by the Jeffersonville Police Department on Sept. 
11 at the home of Tammy Jo Blanton, 46, along Locust Street in Jeffersonville. 
He remains in the Clark County jail.

Officers responded to the home on a welfare check and found Oberhansley, along 
with Blanton's mutilated remains in the residence. Police have reported 
Oberhansley ate some of the woman's organs before their arrival.

During his initial hearing in Carmichael's court days after his arrest, 
Oberhansley interrupted the proceeding by announcing that his name was "Zeus 
Brown" and told the judge, "You have the wrong guy."

Oberhansley was originally charged with murder and level 6 felonies abuse of a 
corpse and residential entry. If Carmichael accepts Stewart's motion, the 
charges would be modified to murder with a request for the death sentence and 
level 4 felony burglary.

Attorney Mike McDaniel said he expects that he will take over as Oberhansley's 
counsel if the death-penalty enhancement is permitted. McDaniel said Tuesday 
that he had a 90-minute meeting with Oberhansley earlier in the day. He said 
the meeting was the 1st time that he had met Oberhansley and that they had a 
"calm discussion."

He said it is "way too early" to discuss any defense strategies he may pursue.

Oberhansley has an extensive criminal history, including a manslaughter 
conviction in 2000 for killing his girlfriend in Utah when he was 17-years-old 
that resulted in a 12-year prison sentence.

Stewart was out of town Tuesday and unavailable for comment.

(source: News and Tribune)






KENTUCKY----2, including female, face death penalty

Prosecutors to seek death penalty in Martin Co. triple murder case


Prosecutors plan to seek death penalty against Jack Smith and Amanda Bowen both 
of Inez.

The pair face charges in connection with the murders of Tina Goble, her 
boyfriend, Cannie Johnson, and Goble's granddaughter Trinity Maynard, who was 
only 8-years-old.

Investigators say all three were shot and stabbed to death. They were found at 
Goble's burned home in Inez in August

In filing the notice prosecutors say there were aggravating circumstances 
including that the murders were intentional and that the motive was robbery.

The pair is not scheduled to be back in court until March.

(source: WKYT news)






CALIFORNIA----death row inmate dies

Death-row inmate convicted of Orangevale murder dies


Michael Lee Elliot, who has been on death row at San Quentin State Prison for a 
1994 Orangevale murder, died while in custody Monday.

The cause of the death is unknown, pending an autopsy, California Department of 
Corrections and Rehabilitation officials said. Elliot, 55, lived in a cell by 
himself in a hospital, according to Department of Corrections news release.

He was pronounced dead at 3:46 p.m. Monday. Elliot was sentenced to death Oct. 
31, 1996, for the June 1994 murder and attempted robbery of part-time bartender 
Sherri Gandy. The killing occurred in the early morning hours at the Black 
Stallion bar in Orangevale.

During the trial, Elliot admitted he killed Gandy, a single-mother, but said it 
was a crime of passion.

According to the Department of Corrections, since California reinstated the 
death penalty in 1978, 66 inmates have died of natural causes, 23 have 
committed suicide, 13 have been executed in California, 1 was executed in 
Missouri, 6 have died from other causes and 1 is pending cause of death. There 
are 749 people on the state's death row.

(source: Sacramento Bee)






USA:

Tortured 9/11 mastermind should not face death penalty----It's not legal, 
humane, or fair to execute a person after torturing him.


Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind behind the September 11 
attacks, should not have to face the death penalty, his lawyer said Tuesday, 
following revelations of torture in a scathing US Senate report.

"It's not legal, humane, or fair to execute a person after torturing him," 
David Nevin told AFP.

Mohammed is known to have been waterboarded 183 times in secret CIA prisons and 
in March 2003 he was subjected to 5 waterboard sessions over 25 hours.

"Holding a real execution of Mr Mohammad, after 183 mock executions, is cruel 
and unusual punishment," prohibited under the Eighth Amendment of the US 
Constitution, Nevin said.

"The brutality revealed in the details of the torture is quite shocking," he 
said, and "produced absolutely no useful information."

Tuesday's report revealed that sleep deprivation for over a week, beatings, 
shackling and waterboarding were among the cruel methods used by the George W. 
Bush-era CIA to interrogate Al-Qaeda terror suspects.

The document found that the techniques employed by the Central Intelligence 
Agency were "far more brutal" than the spy agency had previously admitted to.

The lawyer for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who allegedly led Al-Qaeda operations 
in the Gulf, said it was "stunning" that the prosecutors knew of the torture 
"for years and hid it from the court in violation of their professional 
obligations."

Al-Nashiri, who was tortured in CIA prisons, is accused of masterminding a 
suicide bombing of the USS Cole which killed 17 American sailors in 2000 off 
the coast of Yemen.

"The fact that military and civilian prosecutors are protecting torturers who 
were acting in violation of American and international law is disappointing, 
although regrettably not unexpected," Richard Kammen told AFP.

Rights advocates hailed the exposure following the report's release, but 
criticized a Justice Department announcement that it will not prosecute any US 
officials implicated.

It was regrettable that "the government has excluded from the report the 
identities of the torturers, the locations of the torture, and many other 
facts," said James Connell, the civilian lawyer for Mohammad's nephew and 
accused co-conspirator Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali.

He called for the publication of "the remaining 6,125 pages": of the redacted 
report.

Lieutenant Colonel Sterling Thomas, Ali's military lawyer, said that "torture 
violates American military values."

"The military commission should order access to the full torture report and its 
underlying documents as part of that accounting for torture," he said.

According to the Senate report, Mohammed was the detainee who was tortured the 
most of the 39 prisoners who underwent the interrogation techniques.

(source: Agence France-Presse)