[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., ARIZ., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 13


MISSOURI----impending execution

Federal panel denies stay to Missouri inmate scheduled to die


A 3-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a stay of 
execution to the Missouri inmate scheduled to die by lethal injection next 
week.

Leon Taylor's attorney says his death sentence should be commuted to life in 
prison because that is what happened with other inmates who had been sentenced 
to death by a judge, after a jury could not agree on their penalties. Instead, 
Taylor's case had been sent to a 2nd jury who did agree on a death sentence. 
The attorney says that creates a unique circumstance for him and that he should 
be treated like all the other inmates who were in that situation.

She also challenges his death sentence because the 2nd jury was made up of all 
white jurors. The 1st jury had 4 black members.

The panel's decision to deny him a stay is expected to be appealed. A request 
for clemency for Taylor has also been sent to Governor Nixon's office.

(source: missourinet.com)

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

Court upholds death sentence in Callaway County case


In a unanimous opinion, the Missouri Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a 
convicted murderer's appeal of a decision that upheld his guilty plea and death 
sentence for killing his cousin and her husband in 2006.

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled against Brian Dorsey's claims about the 
validity of DNA evidence in the case, that the circuit court did not err in 
overruling his claims that the state withheld exculpatory evidence and that he 
failed to show his attorney was ineffective.

Dorsey pleaded guilty in 2008 to 2 counts of 1st-degree murder. A Boone County 
jury then sentenced him to death.

On Dec. 23, 2006, broke and in debt to drug dealers, Dorsey was looking for 
cash. His cousin, Sarah Bonnie, and her husband, Ben, took him to their place 
in New Bloomfield, where the trio drank and played billiards with some friends.

After everyone had left, Dorsey used a shotgun to shoot and kill the Bonnies as 
they slept and then raped Sarah Bonnie's body. He then poured bleach over Sarah 
Bonnie's torso and genital area, and stole cash, her car and some property to 
sell to pay off his drug debts.

Sarah Bonnie's parents found their bodies the next day. Dorsey turned himself 
in on Dec. 26, 2006.

2 of Dorsey's claims, ineffective counsel and failure to disclose exculpatory 
evidence, are related. Dorsey's public defender Kent Denzel argued the state 
didn't provide information that there was another possible DNA match from 
fluids found on Sarah Bonnie that could have pointed to another killer and that 
Dorsey's original representation was too inept to notice it. Prosecutors are 
required to disclose any potentially exculpatory evidence against a suspect 
following a precedent-setting ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, Brady v. 
Maryland, in the 1960s.

However, the Missouri Supreme Court said, Dorsey did not properly raise the 
issue of a Brady violation and the DNA evidence and agreed with the lower court 
that the allegation was baseless. Denzel claimed that had Dorsey known about 
the DNA and had his counsel been more effective, he would not have pleaded 
guilty and would therefore not have been sentenced to death.

In denying Dorsey's claim that his attorneys didn't do their job by not 
investigating the DNA evidence, Supreme Court Judge Patricia Breckenridge, who 
wrote the opinion on behalf of all 7 judges, said he failed to show "any 
prejudice resulting from counsel's failure to present testimony at the penalty 
phase to challenge the Y-chromosome profile and method used to obtain it." A 
Y-chromosomal profile match can arise 2.3 times out of a thousand people in the 
white population, Breckenridge wrote, which is different from an autosomal 
profile, which is an exact match.

However, the court ruled that because the jury, during sentencing, was aware of 
the difference and that Dorsey's attorney neglected to bring in another expert 
to challenge the profile, Dorsey did not show a "reasonable probability that he 
would not have pleaded guilty or that the jury would not have recommended the 
death penalty."

The court also ruled the lower court didn't err in throwing out Dorsey's claims 
that his counsel should have used a diminished mental capacity defense.

A spokesman for Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster declined to comment on 
the ruling.

(source: Columbia Daily Tribune)






ARIZONA:

Jodi Arias Trial Update News 2014: Defense Argues That Travis Alexander was a 
Sexual Deviant in Death Penalty Trial


After an almost 2-week hiatus, the Jodi Arias sentencing retrial continued on 
Wednesday as the lawyers representing the convicted killer argued that the 
murder victim was a sexual deviant who lived a secret life.

Arias, 34, brutally murdered her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, 30, inside of 
his Phoenix, Arizona home on June 4, 2008. According to medical examiners, 
Arias stabbed him 27 times, primarily in the back, torso and heart. She also 
slit his throat from ear to ear, nearly decapitating him, and shot him in the 
face.

Prosecutors argue that Arias killed her lover in a jealous rage because he 
wanted to end their affair. However, the defense claims that Arias acted in 
self-defense after Alexander attacked her.

Although Arias was convicted of 1st-degree murder in May 2013, the jury failed 
to reach a unanimous decision on her sentencing. As a result, she is currently 
undergoing a retrial that will determine whether she should be sentenced to 
death, life in prison, or life with a chance of release after serving 25 years.

Once the trial reconvened, Arias' defense team portrayed her as a naive woman 
in love, and Alexander as a Mormon who struggled with secret sexual urges and 
religious conviction. The defense also said that the victim used Arias for sex 
while pretending to live a life of chastity.

"There's a mastery here of deception," said defense witness and psychologist 
L.C. Miccio-Fonseca, according to The Associated Press. "He was a committed 
Mormon. He was a spiritual man. I think he really genuinely struggled with 
this."

She also said that Arias had fallen in love with him.

"Love is pretty powerful and so it makes us do crazy things," she said.

Arias' attorneys are also accusing local police of destroying evidence that 
Alexander visited multiple pornographic websites by deleting files from his 
computer. According to the defense, the files would have helped prove that he 
was a sexual deviant. As a result, they asked the judge to dismiss all charges 
or at least remove the death penalty as a sentencing option.

"Among the files that were deleted are several that are easily recognizable as 
pornographic websites," reads the motion, according to CBS 5.

However, the judge denied their request to delay the trial based on these 
allegations. Instead, she stated that she would take up the matter at a later 
time.

(source: Latin Post)






CALIFORNIA:

Not guilty plea in McStay murders


A former business associate of Joseph McStay, found buried in a shallow grave 
last year with his wife and 2 young children, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to 
murder charges that could lead to the death penalty.

Charles Ray "Chase" Merritt, 57, was arraigned in a Victorville courtroom, 
fewer than 10 miles from the desert site where family's remains were discovered 
last November, nearly 4 years after they went missing from their Fallbrook 
home.

Merritt is charged with 4 counts of murder, with a special circumstance 
allegation of committing multiple murders, making him eligible for the death 
penalty. Prosecutors have not announced whether they will seek his execution.

San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Raymond Haight ordered that Merritt 
continue to be held without bail.

Merritt was arrested Nov. 5 and initially due to be arraigned Friday, but the 
hearing was postponed as Merritt mulled over hiring a private attorney or 
requesting a public defender. He opted to hire Victorville defense attorney 
Robert Ponce.

Ponce said after the brief hearing Wednesday that what happened to the McStays 
is a tragedy and he doesn't want that tragedy to extend to Merritt and his 
family.

"I'm going to do everything I can for Mr. Merritt," he said.

A preliminary hearing was set for Nov. 25, but Ponce said he suspected that the 
key court proceeding -- in which prosecutors lay out the gist of their evidence 
-- could be postponed.

He also said he had, on Wednesday morning, received 900 pages of evidence and a 
disc from the prosecutor, and is working to get up to speed.

"My background on this case is limited to having this in my hand, (and) reading 
some of the things that I read in the newspapers and online," Ponce said.

Merritt, who did not speak during Wednesday's hearing, wore a shirt and tie 
instead of the jail uniform he wore in court last week.

San Bernardino Sheriff John McMahon said investigators believe Merritt beat the 
family to death in their home in February 2010, and that he acted alone. 
Authorities declined to discuss a motive.

A few days after the family disappeared, Merritt contacted McStay's mother and 
brother to sound the alarm that they had gone missing, and then went to the 
McStay family home with the brother to investigate. A few days later, the 
brother, Michael McStay, called police to report the family's disappearance.

The missing-persons case became a homicide investigation when the skeletal 
remains of McStay, 40, and his wife, Summer, 43, and their 2 young sons, 
Gianni, 4, and Joey Jr., 3, were found in November 2013 in San Bernardino 
County desert north of Victorville, just west of busy Interstate 15.

Because the bodies were found in San Bernardino County, investigators there 
took over the case.

In announcing Merritt's arrest on Friday, homicide investigator Sgt. Chris 
Fisher said there was "no smoking gun," but the evidence led them to Merritt.

Merritt was a gifted welder whom McStay often hired to craft interior 
waterfalls. The 2 had gotten together for a lunch meeting in Rancho Cucamonga 
on Feb. 4, 2010 - McStay's last known public contact.

In a television interview with CNN earlier this year, correspondent Randi Kaye 
asked Merritt if he was the last person that McStay saw. Merritt replied: "I am 
definitely the last person he saw."

(source: San Diego Union-Tribune)

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

Dekraai trying again to escape death penalty----He pleaded guilty earlier this 
year to 8 killings at a Seal Beach salon in 2011.


The man responsible for the worst mass killing in Orange County history has 
revived his legal battle to escape the death penalty, with allegations that 
Orange County sheriff's investigators lied under oath about violating his 
constitutional rights.

Scott Evans Dekraai lost his initial battle to avoid the ultimate punishment 
following a months-long hearing that explored his attorney's allegations that 
deputies and prosecutors engaged in a conspiracy to use jailhouse informants to 
illegally fish for damning information on a variety of inmates housed in Orange 
County's jails.

Dekraai also wanted the judge to boot the Orange County District Attorney's 
Office from his case.

Although Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals found that 
misconduct had occurred, he only ruled that prosecutors could not use some of 
Dekraai's statements to a jailhouse informant during the penalty phase of his 
trial.

Dekraai pleaded guilty earlier this year to killing his ex-wife and 7 other 
people in and around a Seal Beach beauty salon on Oct. 12, 2011, triggering the 
still-pending penalty phase.

Goethals ruled the misconduct was more a result of negligence than a criminal 
conspiracy as alleged by Dekraai's attorney. Assistant Public Defender Scott 
Sanders, however, has filed a new motion asking Goethals to reconsider his 
ruling on the death penalty.

Sanders is now alleging that some sheriff's investigators assigned to a Special 
Handling Unit perjured themselves during the evidentiary hearing on Dekraai's 
earlier claims about jailhouse informants. The investigators lied when they 
said they did not have control over which jail cell should house defendants, 
Sanders alleges.

The case has already led to the release of a man charged in 2 gang-related 
killings, a retrial for another murder defendant, and dropped charges of 
attempted murder and solicitation of murder against another man.

In the motion filed Friday, Sanders alleges prosecutors and sheriff's 
investigators "engage in a systematic and ongoing processes of concealing 
evidence favorable to the defense and of stonewalling judicial processes."

Sanders also alleges that prosecutors have withheld evidence from defense 
attorneys and cited 2 cases involving Senior Deputy District Attorney Larry 
Yellin. One of those cases - against Richard Raymond Ramirez - is in the 
penalty phase, with jurors considering whether to recommend death or life in 
prison without parole for the defendant, who was convicted of the 1983 
rape-murder of a woman in Garden Grove.

The other case involves Nuzzio Begaren, who was sentenced in May to 25 years to 
life in prison for participating in the murder of his wife, who worked as a 
state corrections officer.

Sanders alleges Yellin did not tell Begaren's attorney of a plea deal for a 
co-defendant, Rudy Duran, who provided key testimony against Begaren and is 
expected to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

Sanders also takes aim at Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens for telling 
City News Service that her office had reviewed its policies in the wake of the 
allegations about jailhouse informants, but had found no wrongdoing. Sanders 
said there is no evidence her department reviewed the special handling unit.

Sheriff's investigators testified during the evidentiary hearing earlier this 
year that they had no control over the movements of inmates in the jails, but 
Sanders said recently obtained evidence proves otherwise.

Goethals found that one jailhouse informant, who caught Dekraai bragging about 
his crimes, was coincidentally placed next to the mass killer by a nurse, not 
investigators.

The informant - Fernando Perez - would be allowed to pass on unsolicited 
information he had heard, but it would be illegal for him to question Dekraai, 
since he had an attorney.

Prosecutors have asked for more time to file a reply brief to Sanders' motion, 
but officials told CNS on Wednesday that there's no evidence of a conspiracy.

Part of what triggered the new round of allegations involves Assistant District 
Attorney Dan Wagner - head of the homicide unit - receiving what appeared to be 
confidential psychiatric reports on Dekraai that he legally was not allowed to 
see. Wagner told CNS that he apparently received the information by mistake and 
immediately alerted Sanders and Goethals.

Susan Kang Schroeder, chief of staff for Orange County District Attorney Tony 
Rackauckas, said such bureaucratic mix-ups are not uncommon.

Sheriff's Lt. Jeff Hallock said his boss is aware of the allegations of 
perjury.

The evidentiary hearing earlier this year "showed some deficiencies in policies 
(in the handling of informants) and those have been addressed," Hallock said.

"Any suggestion that (sheriff's investigators) were inaccurate or lied in 
testimony is going to be taken seriously by this department," Hallock said.

(source: Orange County Register)

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

Davis murders were horrific - and court case raises disturbing issues


In late September, a Yolo County jury found Daniel Marsh guilty of torturing 
and murdering Oliver "Chip" Northup, 87, and Claudia Maupin, 76, in their Davis 
home. The jury also found that Marsh, 15 at the time, was sane when he 
committed the murders. His sentencing hearing is set for Dec. 12.

Whatever his punishment, the case continues to raise disturbing issues. Legal 
scholars and legislators should take a hard look at the rules for how mental 
health counselors report threats. The insanity defense and the use of expert 
witnesses could also stand some examination, as should the idea that juveniles 
duly tried and convicted as adults should also be subject to adult penalties.

This is all in the hope that some meaningful reform could emerge from one of 
the worst violent crimes in California history, and that lives could be saved.

The jury heard material from five Marsh confessions, including a five-hour 
session with police when Marsh said that he ???stabbed the hell out of those 
people" and that it "felt amazing." The physical evidence confirmed everything 
in the confession. Friends testified that Marsh liked to torture, and 
researched serial killers such as Ted Bundy.

Age may be considered in determining sentence for teen convicted of murdering 
Davis couple

The April 2013 murders were not part of a robbery or drug deal, and there had 
been no quarrel between Marsh and his victims. As forensic psychologist Deborah 
Schmidt testified, it was a clear case of "predatory aggression." Psychologist 
James Rokop testified that Marsh was a "sexual sadist."

If torture, murder and mutilation are not a case of violence against women, 
it's hard to imagine what might be. Yet, a horrific crime against an innocent 
and defenseless woman triggered not a single demonstration during the entire 
trial. In at least one Davis church, the victims and the victimizer were 
portrayed as equally deserving of sympathy.

Despite the revelations in the trial, Marsh's insanity defense gained traction. 
"Where did the system fail Daniel Marsh?" asked a Sept. 18 editorial in the 
People's Vanguard of Davis, arguing that the Davis School District needed more 
funding for mental health services.

The trial, however, challenged that contention. Witnesses included 2 mental 
health counselors, a school psychologist, a school safety official and a 
sympathetic special education teacher, among others. Beyond the school system, 
Marsh was attended by social workers, therapists and psychiatrists. So it's 
hard to see how he lacked support in the school and health care systems.

On the judicial side, the system paid for his public defender and $25,000 for 
the defense's expert witness, James Merikangas. He testified that at the time 
of the crime, Marsh was in a dreamlike dissociative state due to brain damage 
and medication side effects. The jury rejected that argument, but the system 
clearly gave Marsh the best defense other people's money could buy.

As a juvenile, Marsh is not eligible for the death penalty, or life without 
parole. So it's hard to see how he is a victim in any sense. On the other hand, 
court testimony made it clear that he exploited the system.

He told counselors how he wanted to kill and torture people, knowing that, 
without revealing a specific victim or plan, counselors could not break 
confidentiality. He carefully researched the insanity defense and told friends 
that, if he ever got caught, that is the strategy he would use.

The lengthy trial, with its gruesome testimony, took a heavy toll on relatives 
of the victims. Incredibly enough, some found themselves bullied on local 
websites. One was told she needed to get over losing her mother. Clearly, 
whatever the sentence in this murder case, it's not only the legal system that 
needs reform.

(source: Sacramento Bee)






USA:

Judge's fictional account gives inside view of death penalty trial


Judge Michael A. Ponsor's novel "The Hanging Judge" involves a murder trial.

In the United States legal system, there are few cases where stakes are as high 
and pressure is as intense as one involving the death penalty. The daunting 
question of life or death weighs on the defendant, but also prosecutors, 
defense lawyers, jurors, and the judge.

Just ask US District Court Senior Judge Michael A. Ponsor. A decade ago, he 
oversaw the 1st death penalty trial in Massachusetts in more than 50 years, in 
the case of Kristen Gilbert, a veterans' nurse who faced capital punishment for 
injecting patients with epinephrine, causing them to have fatal heart attacks.

A jury in Springfield ultimately spared Gilbert of the death penalty in 2001, 
choosing to sentence her to life in prison, following a dramatic, 5-month trial 
that Ponsor says helped mold his view of capital punishment.

And now, with the rare occasion of 2 death penalty cases playing out in federal 
court in Massachusetts, Ponsor has penned a novel that provides an insider's 
view of the intense legal process we can expect in the trials of Dzhokhar 
Tsarnaev, the alleged Boston Marathon bomber, and Gary Lee Sampson, an admitted 
serial killer who carjacked his victims.

"The Hanging Judge" is a fictional account of a death penalty trial involving a 
gangland murder, prosecutorial malfeasance, and a thoughtful judge struggling 
to make sure justice is carried out. Ponsor spoke to the Globe about the story 
line and his experience in such a high-profile trial.

Q. Tell us a bit about your book's story line and how it plays into the larger 
picture of an actual death penalty trial.

A. The precipitating event is a drive-by shooting that takes the life of the 
target, a drug dealer, as well as an unlucky bystander, a hockey mom 
volunteering at a nearby street clinic. Powerful evidence quickly points to the 
defendant, an African-American ex-convict named Clarence "Moon" Hudson, as the 
shooter, and the politically ambitious US Attorney shifts the case to federal 
court so he can seek the death penalty. The central figure is the presiding 
judge, David Norcross, a decent, reasonably intelligent man, who is determined 
to give Hudson a "truly fair" trial.

'A legal regime permitting capital punishment comes with a fairly heavy price. 
I wanted people to know this.'

Q. What about the Gilbert case caused you to write a fictional account of a 
death penalty trial for your 1st novel?

A. The most profound realization I took from Gilbert was that human beings 
getting together to decide whether someone should be executed, even when they 
are supervised by a judge, will make mistakes. A legal regime permitting 
capital punishment comes with a fairly heavy price. I wanted people to know 
this.

Q. What do you mean when you say that the death penalty comes with a heavy 
price?

A. I mean, first of all, that where there's a death penalty innocent people 
will die. Sooner or later - we hope not too often - someone who didn't commit 
the crime will be executed. Every religion, every philosophy, every wise person 
- at least every one I've ever heard of - tells us that people are fallible. No 
religion I know of says that human beings are fallible in everything except in 
selecting who will face execution, and in that one area they are perfect.

Q. Are you saying you think a mistake was made in Gilbert? She got a life 
sentence without parole, after all.

A. No, I'm not saying that. I'm fairly sure Ms. Gilbert actually did commit the 
despicable murders she was charged with, and I'm comfortable with the heavy 
sentence I gave her. Overwhelmingly, thank heaven, people charged in capital 
crimes are guilty, often obviously guilty.

On the other hand, plenty of objective evidence suggests that mistakes occur in 
these trials regularly. Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 
1976, roughly 1,300 people have been executed. During the same time, over 140 
people have been exonerated.

Q. Do you consider "The Hanging Judge" to be an anti-death penalty novel?

A. Absolutely not. The novel merely says, or tries to say: "Here is how a death 
penalty trial actually works. Now we can talk."

Q. How is the book being received?

A. "The Hanging Judge," my agent tells me, has so far sold over 40,000 copies 
in print and e-book format, pretty good for a 1st novel. It spent 1 blessed 
week on The New York Times bestseller list, and we're negotiating a contract 
with my publisher for my next book.

Perhaps the most gratifying reward I've gotten for writing the novel is a 
letter I received from retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, one of 
my heroes, who said he "thoroughly enjoyed" the novel and praised it for 
demonstrating that the "judicial process is not infallible."

In my world, this is like getting a letter from the Dalai Lama, and I had to 
peel myself off the ceiling when I read it.

Q. What is the significance of the title, "The Hanging Judge"? Your 
protagonist, Judge David Norcross, seems like a pretty decent man.

A. I liked the double meaning that the phrase conveys. A "hanging judge" can 
mean 2 things: either a judge who hangs people, or a judge who is himself 
hanging. All judges who preside over death penalty trials are in this fix. They 
face the possibility of having to sign an execution order, and they also 
figuratively dangle over the capricious process they are supposed to be 
supervising.

Q. 1 of the subplots in your novel involves 2 luckless Irishmen, executed in 
Northampton in 1806. Why did you include their story?

A. We like to console ourselves that the injustices of the past no longer occur 
in our country in the 21st century. Yet the hanging of Dominick Daley and James 
Halligan, 2 innocent victims of virulent anti-Catholic bigotry in 1806, has its 
parallels today. The people executed are most often the friendless, targets of 
prejudice and fear. I had no idea that Catholics were so abhorred in Western 
Massachusetts 200 years ago. The defendant in my novel, Clarence "Moon" Hudson, 
a young African-American man with a criminal record and an intimidating face, 
shares some of the same vulnerabilities Daley and Halligan suffered. Beyond 
that, the story of the 2 courageous Irishmen, who stood on the gallows, 
declared their innocence, and then stated that they "blamed no one and forgave 
everyone" deserves to be retold.

(source: Boston Globe)