[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., N.C., GA., LA., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 4



TEXAS----impending execution

Death Watch----Trottie is scheduled for execution next week


At 11pm on May 3, 1993, 2 days after his come back to me, or else ... ultimatum 
to his estranged, common-law wife Barbara Canada, 24-year-old Willie Tyrone 
Trottie broke into the Houston home of Canada's immediate family and opened 
fire.

Strapped with a 9mm pistol, he ignored the 5 young children in the home but 
wounded Canada's mother, sister, and brother Titus, who by then had begun 
returning fire with his own weapon. Titus hit Trottie, but Trottie persisted, 
eventually finding Barbara in a bedroom, where he shot her 11 times. She died 
there. "Bitch, I told you I was going to kill you," Trottie said, before 
returning to Titus and shooting him twice in the head. Canada's 29-year-old 
brother died in front of 2 children.

Trottie was arrested that night and charged with the capital murder of both 
victims. He never testified, and his counsel, Connie Williams, never lobbied 
for a self-defense argument on the brother's murder ??? instead pushing 
unsuccessfully for a lesser offense. A jury convicted Trottie on all charges. 
He was sentenced to death on Dec. 15, 1993.

Trottie's appeals cited general ineffectiveness of counsel, which he argued 
ignored "obvious and available" defenses ranging from self-defense against 
Titus to a the fact that Trottie "virtually always" dressed in black (thus 
countering the idea that he'd worn the clothes he wore for the purpose of 
concealing potential blood stains). His attorneys also argued that the state 
suppressed exculpatory evidence (i.e., a letter from Trottie's former probation 
officer maintaining that his strained relationship with Canada "probably did 
mess with [Trottie's] head a little"), and another citing the prosecutor's 
repeated reference to tape recordings of phone conversations between Trottie 
and Canada that had been ruled inadmissible.

Last July, an appeal for a retrial was denied by the U.S. Court of Appeals. In 
May, Trottie wrote to the website Gawker: "My faith in God is still strong. 
Whatever HIS WILL, I'll be content with that."

Trottie is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, Sept. 10. He'll be the 8th 
person killed by the state of Texas this year, and the 516th since the state 
reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Trottie's is the 1st execution in 4 
months (Manuel Vasquez's August date was ultimately withdrawn, reset still 
pending).

More on Willingham Prosecution

In late July, the New York-based Innocence Project filed a grievance with the 
State Bar of Texas arguing that former prosecutor John H. Jackson violated "his 
professional, ethical, and constitutional obligations" in his prosecution of 
Cameron Todd Willingham, the man put to death in 2004 for allegedly setting 
fire to his own house, killing his 3 daughters. Central to those allegations is 
the fact that Johnny Webb, a regular inmate of the Texas prison system who 
testified against Willingham, provided a detailed account of how he lied on the 
witness stand after Jackson promised to reduce his sentence. An August story in 
the Washington Post said the Innocence Project has called for a full 
investigation of Jackson's handling of the case. Jackson, now retired from his 
16-year post as a Navarro County judge, could be sanctioned or even criminally 
prosecuted for falsifying official records, withholding evidence from the 
defense, suborning perjury, and obstructing justice.

A Mercy Plea

In August, the American Civil Liberties Union filed an appeal with the Texas 
Board of Pardons and Paroles recommending that Gov. Rick Perry grant clemency 
to Max Soffar, a death row inmate whose guilt is also in question. Soffar, now 
58, was arrested in 1980 for a Houston bowling alley murder of three teenagers, 
after a controversial interrogation that lasted three days yet yielded no audio 
recording. Soffar maintains that he did not actually rob the bowling alley or 
commit the execution-style murder, but mishandled his implicating of a friend 
in an attempt to receive a $15,000 reward. The ACLU notes that Soffar was 24 
years old at the time, had suffered a long history of brain damage and 
substance abuse, and had the mental capacity of an 11-year-old.

The ACLU's appeal deals not with Soffar's alleged innocence, but with his 
rapidly declining health. He contracted liver cancer in 2013, underwent 
ablation in December, but learned in June that he's experiencing tumor 
progression. ACLU attorney Brian Stull reports that the average survival time 
for someone in Soffar's case is estimated at 8.1 months, "assuming he takes and 
can tolerate chemotherapy, which has not yet begun," and that's backdated to 
"at least June." The ACLU attached seven letters to its petition to the 
governor, including ones from former FBI director William Sessions and former 
governor Mark White, requesting that Soffar be allowed to die at home.

"We don't know how long it will take the board to respond," wrote Stull. "There 
are timelines in place when a prisoner is about to be executed ??? the board 
obviously has to make its decision in advance. But this case is obviously 
unique."

(source: Austin Chronicle)

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

DA to seek death penalty in Killeen police slaying case


Bell County District Attorney Henry Garza announced that he will seek the death 
penalty against the man accused of killing a Killeen police officer during a 
shootout in May.

Garza made the announcement in open court, telling 27th District Judge John 
Gauntt that his office would seek the most severe punishment for Marvin Louis 
Guy, 49, of Killeen.

Guy is accused of firing on Killeen SWAT officers who were attempting to serve 
a "no knock" narcotics warrant at his Killeen apartment May 9. According to 
police reports, Guy fired from inside the home, hitting four officers. One of 
those officers, Det. Charles "Chuck" Dinwiddie, was hit in the face. He died 2 
days later.

Guy was charged with capital murder in connection with Dinwiddie's death. He 
was also charged with 3 counts of attempted capital murder because he fired on 
the other officers during the shootout, wounding 1. Body armor protected the 
other officers who were hit.

Garza's announcement comes one day after Texas Gov. Rick Perry presented 
Dinwiddie's family with the Star of Texas award. The award is given each year 
to police and other first responders killed or injured in the line of duty.

Judge Gauntt also denied a request by one of Guy's defense team to withdrawal 
from the case.

(source: killeen Daily Herald)






CONNECTICUT:

Death Row Inmate Requests New Trial----Joshua Komisarjevsky, who was convicted 
in 2011 and sentenced to death alongside Steven Hayes, filed a motion to appeal 
the verdict on Aug. 29.


1 of 2 men on death row for killing a Cheshire, Connecticut, family and burning 
down their house in 2007 is asking for a new trial, citing phone conversations 
among police that were never released to the defense.

Joshua Komisarjevsky, who was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to death 
alongside Steven Hayes, filed a motion to appeal the verdict on Aug. 29. The 
men are accused of brutally attacking and murdering Jennifer Hawke-Petit and 
her 2 daughters in their home on Sorghum Mill Drive.

According to the motion, Komisarjevsky's attorneys "have learned of a number of 
police calls that would have provided substantial additional support for his 
contention during the guilt-innocence phase that the police response... was 
inadequate, and that, therefore, a number of the Cheshire police officers who 
testified against him had a motive, self-interest, bias a prejudice against 
him."

Among the calls that were allegedly withheld is one from an officer who was at 
the house watching Hayes drive Hawke-Petit back from the bank, where he asked 
her to withdraw money. During the trial, police said Hayes had already returned 
when they arrived.

Another came from a sergeant on scene who did not testify at either trial, and 
2 more instructed a hostage negotiator and SWAT officer not to report to the 
police station, according to the motion.

"It is difficult to imagine that the State's failure to preserve this evidence 
was not in bad faith, and therefore, that failure violated the appellant's 
federal due process rights," the motion says, claiming violation of 
Komisarjevsky's 8th and 14th Amendment rights.

"The State's treatment of the police calls deprived the appellant of a powerful 
tool to impeach the police officers who testified against him at the 
guilt-innocence phase and, thus, might well have produced his convictions for 
capital felony, which made him eligible for the death penalty," it continues.

In a 2012 death row interview, Komisarjevsky offered no remorse and said he 
tries not to think about the brutal attacks.

Connecticut has repealed the death penalty since the convictions of 
Komisarjevsky and Hayes.

(source: NBCConnecticut.com)






NORTH CAROLINA:

30 YEARS AFTER 2 BLACK TEENAGERS WERE SENTENCED TO DEATH IN NORTH CAROLINA, 
JUDGE DECLARES THEM INNOCENT


Henry McCollum and Leon Brown Become the 145th and 146th on the Exoneration 
List

On September 2, 2014, North Carolina Judge Douglas B. Sasser threw out the 
convictions and sentences in one of the oldest and most notorious death penalty 
cases in the state's recent history. Henry McCollum and his half-brother Leon 
Brown had been convicted in 1984 of raping and killing a 9-year-old girl in 
Robeson County. Both men were sentenced to death based primarily on confessions 
they had given after grueling interrogations without an attorney. Both men have 
been identified as intellectually disabled, with IQs measuring below 70.


At trial, both defendants renounced their confessions as coerced and have 
steadfastly maintained their innocence for 30 years. Recently, the North 
Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission found that DNA evidence from the crime 
scene belonged to another man who had been convicted of a similar violent crime 
in the same county and around the same time as the McCollum-Brown case. Robeson 
County District Attorney Johnson Britt did not oppose the brothers' release and 
said no further prosecution would be pursued because the state had no case.

Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, 
said, "This case illustrates so many of the problems that plague the death 
penalty: young minority defendants, often with a history of mental problems, 
are convicted and sentenced to death based on highly suspect evidence. It then 
takes 30 years and enormous luck to find out the truth. If these men had been 
executed years ago, we almost certainly would have never learned of this grave 
injustice. It is no wonder that the use of the death penalty is disappearing in 
most states."

According to statistics kept by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), 
McCollum and Brown are the 145th and 146th former death row inmates to be 
exonerated and freed since 1973, bringing the total number of exonerations in 
2014 to 3. North Carolina has had 9 people freed from death row with all 
charges dismissed since 1973. During that same time, it has carried out 43 
executions.

In order to be included on DPIC's Exoneration List, defendants must have been 
convicted, sentenced to death, and subsequently either (a) acquitted of all 
charges related to the crime that placed them on death row, (b) had all charges 
related to the crime dismissed by the prosecution, or (c) granted a complete 
pardon based on evidence of innocence.

(source: DPIC)

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

Wrongful Conviction Case Raises Concerns about NC's Death 
Penalty----Longest-Serving NC Death Row Inmate Released after Conviction 
Overturned


Henry McCollum, North Carolina's longest serving death row inmate, reunites 
with his parents after spending 31 years wrongly convicted in prison.

"I just thank God, thank God that I'm out of this place," said McCollum, 
moments after his release.

His attorney Vernetta Alston with the Center for Death Penalty Litigation 
believes there could be other inmates on death row in McCollum's situation or 
inmates who were wrongly incarcerated like McCollum's brother, Leon Brown. They 
were both forced to sign false confessions decades ago.

"They're both intellectually disabled, They both can barely read," said Alston. 
"I think they were put in environments that were coercive."

Alston said there be other people who are wrongly convicted sitting on death 
row in North Carolina.

"Every aspect of our criminal justice system needs to be looked at, 
particularly when it involves the death penalty, when it involves such a harsh 
punishment," said Alston.

"We have about 150 people convicted of 1st degree murder on death row of which 
there is no question on innocence," said Rep. Paul Stam, a Republican lawmaker 
in Wake County.

Stam pushed to help establish the Innocence Inquiry Commission in North 
Carolina, whose legal work led to the exoneration of McCollum and his brother.

"It has this additional step that we take to make sure we're not punishing an 
innocent person," said Stam.

However Stam, who's an attorney, does not think the death penalty should get a 
2nd look.

"With the lack of that deterrent element, it's about 100 people a year who 
would be victims of homicide without a death penalty," Stam said.

There has not been an execution in the state since 2006 and none are scheduled 
because North Carolina faces several legal barriers surrounding the death 
penalty which are being fought in state and federal court.

(source: Time Warner Cable News)

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

The Innocent on Death Row


The exoneration of 2 North Carolina men who spent 30 years in prison - 1 on 
death row - provides a textbook example of so much that is broken in the 
American justice system. And it is further evidence (as though more were 
needed) that the death penalty is irretrievably flawed as well as immoral.

In late September 1983, an 11-year-old girl named Sabrina Buie was found 
murdered in a soybean field in Robeson County. She had been raped, beaten with 
sticks and suffocated with her own underwear.

Within days, police got confessions from two local teenagers, Henry Lee 
McCollum, 19 at the time, and his half brother, Leon Brown, who was 15. Both 
were convicted and sentenced to death.

The crime was so horrific that it has echoed for decades through North Carolina 
politics and beyond. In 1994, after Justice Harry Blackmun of the Supreme Court 
announced that he opposed capital punishment in all circumstances, Justice 
Antonin Scalia cited the Buie murder as a case where it was clearly warranted. 
"How enviable a quiet death by lethal injection compared with that!" he wrote.

On Tuesday, a state judge ordered both men freed after multiple pieces of 
evidence, some of which had never been turned over to defense lawyers, proved 
that neither Mr. McCollum nor Mr. Brown was responsible for the crime. DNA 
taken from a cigarette found at the crime scene matched a different man, Roscoe 
Artis, who is already serving life in prison for a similar murder committed 
just weeks after Sabrina Buie's killing.

Virtually everything about the arrests, confessions, trial and convictions of 
Mr. McCollum and Mr. Brown was polluted by official error and misconduct.

No physical evidence linked either man to the crime, so their false 
confessions, given under duress, were the heart of the case the prosecutors 
mounted against them. Both men???s confessions were handwritten by police after 
hours of intense questioning without a lawyer or parent present. Neither was 
recorded, and both men have maintained their innocence ever since.

Equally disturbing, Mr. Artis was a suspect from the start. Three days before 
the murder trial began, police requested that a fingerprint from the crime 
scene be tested for a match with Mr. Artis, who had a long history of sexual 
assaults against women. The test was never done, and prosecutors never revealed 
the request to the defense.

It was not until 2011 that the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, an 
independent state agency that had taken on the men's case, discovered the old 
fingerprint request. The commission also found that multiple statements in the 
2 confessions were inconsistent with each other and with the facts of the 
crime. In July, the commission finally got the full case file and matched the 
DNA to Mr. Artis.

None of these pieces mattered to the prosecution in 1984. The prosecutor on the 
case, Joe Freeman Britt, was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as 
the "deadliest prosecutor" for the nearly 50 death sentences he won during his 
tenure. Almost all have since been overturned.

Mr. McCollum and Mr. Brown, who are now middle-aged, have a hard road ahead. In 
addition to the difficulties of adapting to life after 3 decades behind bars, 
both are intellectually disabled. (Since their conviction, the Supreme Court 
has banned the death penalty for both juveniles and those with intellectual 
disabilities.)

Cases of capital prosecutions based on flimsy evidence or marred by 
prosecutorial misconduct, not to mention racial bias, are distressingly common. 
Yet, even as death-penalty supporters insist that only guilty people are sent 
to their death, it is now clear that Justice Scalia was prepared 20 years ago 
to allow the execution of a man who, it turns out, was innocent.

How many more remain on death row today? Can the American people be assured 
that none will be killed by the state? For this reason alone, the death penalty 
must end.

(source: Editorial, New York Times)

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

Ex-death row inmate looks to adjust to life outside after 3 decades; DNA upends 
NC conviction


Former North Carolina death row inmate Henry McCollum has so much to learn 
about the world that was denied him in his 3 decades behind bars for a girl's 
rape and killing that authorities now say he didn't commit.

McCollum has never accessed the Internet or owned a cellphone.

And Wednesday when he tried to get in his dad's car to go get a hot bath and 
something to eat, the seat belt was a mystery to him.

New DNA evidence led a judge to release McCollum and his half brother, 
46-year-old Leon Brown, in the 1983 rape and slaying of 11-year-old Sabrina 
Buie.

A prosecutor now says he might reopen the case and look at charging a different 
man in the girl's killing.

(source: Associated Press)

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

A death penalty symbol goes free


Perhaps you remember Henry Lee McCollum.

His is a name that comes up regularly when the death penalty is discussed, 
because the crime for which he was convicted - the brutal 1983 rape and murder 
of an 11-year-old girl - tests the thresholds many of us have regarding when 
someone should or shouldn't be put to death.

McCollum, of Robeson County, was part of a death penalty debate between U.S. 
Supreme Court justices in 1994, and he was featured in a 2010 mailing from the 
N.C. Republican Party that attacked a Democratic state senator for being soft 
on the death penalty. The mailing featured a picture of McCollum and described 
his crimes in detail.

And now, it turns out those crimes are not his.

McCollum and his brother, Leon Brown, were released Wednesday after DNA 
evidence tied the 1983 rape and murder to someone else. McCollum and Brown, 
both of whom are mentally disabled, had signed confessions after hours of 
questioning with no lawyers present. There was no physical evidence tying 
either to the rape or murder.

Can there be a clearer argument against the death penalty? It is this simple: 
Be it sloppy police work or prosecutorial misconduct or flawed eyewitness 
testimony, people are wrongly convicted of murder. Some are sentenced to death. 
And it is not rare.

Just last month, a Durham judge freed Darryl A. Howard from death row, calling 
the prosecution that led to his conviction the most "horrendous" he had seen in 
34 years as a judge. Also last month, a Superior Court judge and a U.S. 
District Attorney in Washington, D.C. said that DNA evidence showed Kevin 
Martin, who had served 26 years for murder, was innocent.

Since 1989, 18 people who have served time on death row have been exonerated by 
DNA evidence, according to the non-profit Innocence Project. Another 16 were 
exonerated after being convicted of capital crimes but not sentenced to death. 
Overall, DNA has overturned more than 300 wrongful convictions nationally. 
Dozens, like McCollum's, were the result of false confessions.

Certainly, there are far more confessions that are true and murder convictions 
that are legitimate - some for truly abhorrent crimes. Such is what Supreme 
Court justice Antonin Scalia argued in 1994 when the court declined to review a 
death row case in Texas.

Scalia, in arguing that the death penalty was not cruel or unusual punishment, 
cited the gruesome crime for which McCollum had been convicted a decade before. 
"How enviable a quiet death by lethal injection compared with that!" the 
justice wrote.

Now, the murderer is not a murderer, and those who were so sure he deserved to 
die must ask: How many more Henry Lee McCollums might there be?

(source: Editorial, Charlotte Observer)






GEORGIA:

Dad in Hot Car Death Indicted, Could Face Death Penalty----Justin Ross Harris 
indicted on 8 counts


Justin Ross Harris, the Georgia man accused of murder after fatally leaving his 
son in a hot car, has been indicted by a grand jury on 8 counts, including 
malice murder, CNN reports. The other charges include 2 counts of felony murder 
and multiple counts of cruelty to children, and they carry a possible death 
sentence, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Cooper Harris, 22 months, 
died June 18 after spending 7 hours inside an SUV in the parking lot of his 
father's office.

These charges supersede Harris' previous charges; he had pleaded not guilty to 
murder and child cruelty in mid-June after he was arrested in his son's death. 
Prosecutors say Harris messaged 6 women other than his wife, some of them 
explicitly, while at work the day his son died - one of the texts, allegedly 
sent to an underage female, included a picture of an erect penis. Prosecutors 
have used that to describe what they see as Harris' motivation, saying he 
wanted a childless life, but Harris says he simply forgot Cooper was in the 
car.

(source: newser.com)






LOUISIANA:

Court orders new trial in Shreveport death case


Louisiana's Supreme Court has ruled that a man sentenced to death for the 
strangulation of an 86-year-old Shreveport resident is entitled to a new trial 
because of an error during jury selection.

The court's 4-3 opinion Wednesday said there was sufficient evidence to support 
the conviction of Eric Dale Mickelson in the death of Charles Martin Jr., who 
was killed and dismembered in 2007.

However, the court said the judge should have excused a potential juror who 
said he would not consider arguments that a killer's drug use could be a 
mitigating circumstance that might merit a life sentence instead of the death 
penalty.

The judge's refusal forced the defense to use one of its limited number of 
juror rejections.

Mickelson was convicted and sentenced to death in 2011.

The prospective juror "stated several times that he could not consider alcohol 
or drug induced intoxication as a mitigating circumstance in deciding the 
appropriate sentence, with his final words indicating he would impose the death 
penalty if drugs or alcohol fueled the crime," Justice John Weimer wrote. "When 
a prospective juror holding such an opinion is not excused for cause, and the 
defense exhausts its peremptory challenges, as occurred here, there is 
reversible error."

Justices Jeffrey Victory, Greg Guidry and Jefferson Hughes concurred in the 
opinion; Chief Justice Bernette Johnson and Justices Jeanette Knoll and Marcus 
Clark dissented.

Johnson said the jury selection transcript indicates the juror would consider 
intoxication as a mitigating circumstance, "but would not afford that 
circumstance much weight," wrote Johnson. She said that as long as the juror 
would consider intoxication as a mitigating circumstance, there was no need to 
dismiss him.

At trial, prosecutors said Mickelson and a woman, who later pleaded guilty in 
the case, killed the World War II veteran to get money for cocaine.

(source: Associated Press)






OHIO:

Accused killer Daniel Davis testifies, fights for life


The siren call of heroin ruined Daniel Davis' life, the accused killer readily 
admitted Wednesday in court where he is on trial for his life.

Davis was so desperate to chase the heroin high or cure himself of being "drug 
sick" - fighting withdrawal - that he would do almost anything for money to 
feed his addiction.

He lived in an East Price Hill apartment with no electricity because he 
couldn't pay the utility bills, spending his money instead on heroin. His body 
bore the scabs and scars of his scratching at his bedbug bites. He was always 
hungry and short of food.

"I tried to beat that heroin, man. I lost everything. I was a failure," Davis 
testified Wednesday during his murder trial, in which prosecutors are seeking 
the death penalty against him.

The lure of heroin, though, was so strong it resulted in Davis beating, 
strangling and stabbing to death 79-year-old John "Jack" Lauck, prosecutors 
allege.

Davis took the stand Wednesday and proclaimed his innocence while verbally 
jousting with Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor David Prem. Davis readily 
admitted he lied often to the police who questioned him after they found 
Lauck's body Aug. 19, 2012, in his home in the 500 block of Purcell Avenue.

Lauck, 79, hired Davis, now 49, to paint Lauck's house. Davis used the money 
for heroin. "I wasn't getting high at that point. I was running from the 
sickness" of withdrawal, Davis testified.

Initially, Davis told police he wasn't at Lauck's home Aug. 18 or 19, when 
Lauck was killed. He admitted Wednesday, though, that he lied - he had been 
there. He went, he testified, because he was in such desperate need of drugs 
that he was planning to rob his drug dealer, who lived doors away from Lauck. 
Instead, he went to Lauck's home first.

"I hoped that (Lauck) was home," Davis said, "so that I could borrow some" 
money.

Lauck's brutally beaten, stabbed body was found in his basement, a rope around 
its neck.

Davis had no money Aug. 18 but had $70 the next day when he repaid a drug debt 
to his dealer, who testified against Davis. He didn't get the money by robbing 
and killing Lauck, Davis said, but by cheating a heroin dealer in his 
neighborhood.

The jury likely will begin deliberations Thursday. If it finds Davis guilty of 
capital murder, a 2nd phase of the trial begins - in which his punishment will 
be determined.

(source: cincinnati.com)

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

Death penalty case goes to jury


Closing arguments concluded Wednesday in the capital murder trial for a man 
accused of killing a Dayton business owner and his dog.

The fate of Anthony Stargell Jr., 23, of Dayton, now rests in the hands of the 
jury.

Stargell faces death-penalty eligible murder counts for reportedly killing 
Tommy Nickles, 54, at his business, Quality One Electric, 838 S. Main St., on 
April 2, 2012. Stargell is facing more than 20 charges that include attempting 
to set fire to Nickles' business, grand theft auto, taking surveillance 
equipment and killing Nickles' dog, Rusty.

The prosecuting and defense attorneys' comments came a day after Stargell took 
the stand in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court, in his own defense. He 
testified that Nickles was "reaching for the gun" and that "I thought I was 
about to be get shot, you know, killed" just before Stargell allegedly shot 
Nickles twice in the head.

The jury got the case Wednesday evening from Judge Gregory Singer and were 
scheduled to deliberate before being sequestered at an area hotel.

After prosecutors rested their case Tuesday morning, Stargell was sworn in as 
the only defense witness. He described how he and Nickles had an agreement to 
sell drugs.

Stargell also testified that the shooting came after Nickles accused him of 
"getting over" on him and that he had a "weird feeling" Nickles was reaching 
for a gun - Stargell said he'd seen a Colt .45 on the desk weeks earlier - 
besides the Derringer already on Nickles' desk. Stargell also testified that 
Nickles had just said he was done being crossed by Stargell.

Stargell gave Nickles free drugs, and his store was a front for Stargell's drug 
dealing business, the defendant testified, adding that they were expecting a 
2-pound shipment of methamphetamine worth $200,000 the night Nickles died. "If 
I'm robbing him, I'm pretty much robbing myself," Stargell said.

Both prosecutors and defense attorneys showed pictures of surveillance video 
that captured Stargell in Nickles' store.

Prosecutor Dan Brandt showed a picture from the surveillance video footage that 
showed Stargell holding a gun at close range to Nickles's head in his rebuttal 
to earlier defense attorneys comments that Stargell shot Nickles in self 
defense.

In the picture that Brandt showed, Nickles was seated and looking away from an 
armed Stargell.

"There was no reason to shoot 2 rounds into someone's head, but to kill them," 
said prosecutor Robert Deschler.

Stargell's defense attorney Dennis Lieberman showed a picture that he said 
showed Nickles possibly reaching for a gun that at times was hidden from the 
surveillance camera's view.

Lieberman then argued that Stargell removed items from the store and attempted 
to set fire to the business to destroy evidence, not because he was trying to 
rob Nickles.

"He knew that nobody would believe him if he claimed self-defense," Lieberman 
said, referring to why Stargell did all those things.

(source: Dayton Daily News)