[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., OHIO, TENN., MO.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 10



TEXAS----impending execution

Condemned killer of 2 set to die in Texas


Attorneys for convicted killer Willie Trottie are asking the U.S. Supreme Court 
to save him from the Texas death chamber.

The 45-year-old Trottie is set for lethal injection Wednesday evening in 
Huntsville for the slayings 21 years ago in Houston of his former common-law 
wife and her brother.

Trottie says one shooting was accidental, the other self-defense, and he 
doesn't deserve a death sentence.

His attorneys argue Trottie received inadequate legal counsel at his 1993 
trial. Another appeal, a lawsuit, contends the pentobarbital to be used to put 
Trottie to death likely has passed its effectiveness date and could cause 
unconstitutionally "tortuous" pain.

State attorneys oppose both appeals. They say the pentobarbital Texas prison 
officials obtained earlier this year from an unidentified compounding pharmacy 
won't expire until month's end.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Last Lakewood Villas murders defendant remains jailed 3 years later


3 death penalty cases and an upcoming capital murder retrial have overshadowed 
the capital murder case of D???Arvis Tyrell Cummings, who has been in the 
McLennan County Jail for 1,217 days.

Cummings, the last of the 3 Lakewood Villas murders defendants, turned 22 last 
month, the 3rd birthday he has spent behind bars in Waco.

McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna did not return phone calls Tuesday 
seeking comment about Cummings' status. Reyna's 1st assistant, Michael Jarrett, 
declined comment, saying it is a pending matter.

Bill Browning, Cummings' attorney, also did not return phone calls to his 
office Tuesday.

A trial date for Cummings is set in Waco's 19th State District Court for Feb. 
16. Browning has filed a motion to move Cummings' trial from Waco because of 
publicity surrounding the trials of his brothers, Rickey Cummings and Albert 
Love Jr.

No hearing date is set for the change of venue motion, but should that be 
granted, it would further delay D'Arvis Cummings' trial while Strother searches 
for another location.

Part of the delay in bringing Cummings to trial could be the July resignation 
of Reyna's former 1st assistant, Greg Davis. Davis was lead prosecutor in the 
trials of Rickey Cummings, Love and Carnell Petetan Jr., who was sentenced to 
death in April for the 2012 shooting death of his wife, Kimberly Farr Petetan.

With Davis gone and Jarrett focused on the retrial of Edward Graf Jr., it 
leaves Reyna short on prosecutors with death penalty trial experience.

Judge Ralph Strother knows D'Arvis Cummings has been in jail a long time but 
said he will be afforded his day in court.

"Neither side is ready for trial," Strother said. "My court has had 2 other 
capital murder trials, 1 of which was tried out of (the) county, as well as the 
normal heavy felony caseload."

Cummings, like Rickey Cummings and Love, is charged in the March 2011 shooting 
deaths of Keenan Hubert, 20, and Tyus Sneed, 17, at Waco's Lakewood Villas 
apartment complex, 1601 Spring St. 2 other men in the car with them were 
wounded but escaped the ambush alive.

Rickey Cummings was sent to death row after his trial in Waco in 2012. Love, 
whose trial was moved to Williamson County, was sent to death row in July 2013.

Reyna's office has made no official declaration about whether it will seek the 
death penalty against Cummings.

Testimony from the 1st 2 trials indicates authorities believe D'Arvis Cummings 
did not shoot the men that night but served more in the capacity of a getaway 
driver after Rickey Cummings and Love fled the area.

Rickey Cummings' .45-caliber pistol and his cellphone and Love's cellphone were 
found in D'Arvis Cummings blue Mercury Marquis shortly after the shootings, 
according to testimony from the 1st 2 trials.

(source: Waco Tribune)






FLORIDA:

State to seek death for murder suspect // documents


Prosecutors in the 14th Judicial Circuit will seek the death penalty for 
triple-homicide suspect Derrick Ray Thompson, according to court documents.

The State Attorney's Office filed notices Tuesday saying that, if convicted, 
they will seek capital punishment for Thompson, who is accused of the July 21 
killing of 66-year-old former BCSO officer and businessman Allen Johnson. The 
state also filed a notice of aggravating circumstances it will have to prove 
for jurors to levy death upon Thompson, which includes proving the alleged 
murder was "cold, calculated and premeditated."

Prosecutors in Santa Rosa County also are exploring the death penalty against 
Thompson and have recently indicted Thompson for the fatal shootings of Milton 
residents Steven Zackowski, 60, and Debra Zackowski, 59, on July 19.

However, since the incidents are 2 separate crimes, the 14th Judicial Circuit's 
decision to seek Thompson's death does not influence the likelihood of Santa 
Rosa County's pursuit of capital punishment.

Thompson, a 41-year-old Pensacola resident, was considered a person of interest 
in the Zackowski slayings when investigators found Johnson in his Lynn Haven 
home with a single gunshot wound to the back of the head and a spent .380 
caliber casing beside his body.

The truck Thompson was believed to be driving following the first killings was 
found at the scene.

State attorneys are not allowed to discuss an ongoing case. But law enforcement 
agencies have released evidence that indicated Thompson was motivated by a 
quest for prescription narcotics and planned to amass a cache following the 
Zackowski slayings. hompson stayed overnight in a Chipley motel where he 
borrowed a phone from the motel clerk and called Johnson to ask if he could 
come to his home on Wilson Avenue to borrow money. Before fleeing the state to 
a Troy, Ala., hunting lodge, Thompson used money and a cellphone he allegedly 
stole from Johnson to buy numerous prescription narcotics from someone in 
Panama City, investigators reported.

He then confessed to the 3 homicides during his capture, investigators said, 
but has recently pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Thompson is being held without bond in the Bay County Jail but could be 
transported over county lines for court proceedings in each of the cases.

A trial date has not been set.

(source: News Herald)






OHIO:

Trial begins in Lorain death penalty case


Opening statements and testimony began in the murder trial of Austin Diaz, who 
is facing the death penalty, for the alleged beating of Lamar Taylor.

Diaz, 20, of Lorain, is accused of beating Taylor to death on East 34th Street 
in Lorain on Easter morning in 2012.

Lorain County Common Pleas Judge John Miraldi is presiding over the case. Judge 
James Miraldi and Judge Christopher Rothgery are sitting on the panel with 
Judge John Miraldi.

Diaz is facing 2 counts of aggravated murder, 2 counts of murder and single 
counts of aggravated robbery and felonious assault.

Taylor was 3 houses from his home when he was beaten to death during what 
police have said was an unprovoked attack.

A witness told officers he saw a group of men "violently assaulting" the victim 
about 2:54 a.m.

Diaz's co-defendant, Clarence Adams, 23, of Lorain, was sentenced to 23 years 
to life in prison earlier this year.

The 3-judge panel in Adams' case, John Miraldi, Rothgery and Swenski, found 
Adams guilty of murder, felonious assault and aggravated robbery. The judges 
did not find Adams guilty of aggravated murder charges and one count of murder.

According to John Miraldi's office, the trial will resume at 1 p.m. today.

(source: Morning Journal)






TENNESSEE:

Will Holly Bobo's Skull Secure The Death Penalty For Her Killer?


After nearly three years of searching for leads, missing Tennessee nursing 
student Holly Bobo's skull has been confirmed found by local authorities. Two 
citizens first came across Bobo's skull Sunday morning, but the Tennessee 
Bureau of Investigation (TBI) was hesitant to confirm that the remains were 
indeed Holly Bobo's skull, previously reported the Inquisitr.

But at a late night press conference Monday at the Decatur County Sheriff's 
Department, the TBI released their findings - Holly's skull was indeed found in 
the woods Sunday evening. In what could perhaps be a final piece of evidence, 
Bobo's skull was located within 10 miles of murder suspect Zachary Adams.

The Jackson Sun reported that cries broke out across the room when TBI Director 
Mark Gwyn announced that that the skull did, in fact, belong to Holly. Bobo's 
close friend Rickey Dale Alexander shrunk back in tears as Gwyn continued with 
the announcement about Holly's skull.

"First, I would like to extend my condolences to the family and friends of 
Holly Bobo. In light of the recent discovery of possible human remains in 
Decatur County, the TBI has been able to confirm through the findings ... that 
the remains are of Holly Bobo."

Much of the local community still held hope that Bobo's skull was not the one 
found in the woods this weekend, with local authorities still maintaining that 
Holly could be found alive, Gwyn said.

"It was my prayer, as well as the prayers of many others that Holly Bobo would 
be found. I assure you all this is not over by any means. The investigation is 
still ongoing to get to the truth."

District Attorney General Matt Stowe continued to say that the prosecution is 
far from over and that a possible death penalty sentence will be pursued when 
Bobo's murderers are confirmed, possibly aided by the discovery of Holly's 
skull.

"We will be making a decision sometime in the next couple of weeks in 
conjunction with the Bobo family. Right now, in the meantime, we have the 
finest experts we can find and that are available. There are so many people 
working on this case right now that it would boggle the mind, and nobody is 
sleeping, nobody needs to be told what to do in this case."

Adams and another man, Jason Autry, were arrested for the abduction and murder 
long before Holly Bobo's skull was found. Adams has pleaded not guilty to the 
charges while a 3rd suspect, Shayne Austin, attempted to gain immunity by 
leading police to Bobo's remains, although he failed to produce such evidence.

(source: The Inquisitr)






MISSOURI----execution

Missouri executes Earl Ringo Jr after rejecting concerns over drugs 
used----Confessed double murderer declined to take sedative midazolam, which is 
linked to botched executions


A Missouri inmate has been put to death Wednesday for killing 2 people during a 
restaurant robbery in 1998.

Earl Ringo Jr, 40, and an accomplice killed delivery driver Dennis Poyser and 
manager trainee JoAnna Baysinger at a Ruby Tuesday restaurant in Columbia in 
the early hours of 4 July 1998.

The Department of Corrections said Ringo was executed at 12.22am by lethal 
injection and pronounced dead at 12.31am.

Ringo's last words were a quote from the Quran that expresses belief and wishes 
for after death. He wiggled his feet as the process began, breathed deeply a 
few times, then closed his eyes, all in a matter of seconds. The Department of 
Corrections said Ringo was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 
12.31am.

Courts and Governor Jay Nixon had refused to halt the execution over concerns 
raised by Ringo's attorneys, who, among other things, questioned Missouri's use 
of a sedative, midazolam. In the end, Ringo declined to take any sedative, 
including midazolam, the Corrections Department said.

Midazolam has come under scrutiny after it was used in problematic executions 
earlier this year in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona. In each case witnesses said 
the inmates gasped after their executions began and continued to fight for air 
before being pronounced dead.

A clemency petition to Nixon had also cited concerns about the fact that Ringo 
was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury.

When the case came to trial, 163 people formed the pool from which the final 
jury would be drawn. Only four were black.

Of those 4, only one was asked questions to ascertain whether she was eligible 
to serve on the jury, and even she was struck out by the judge. That left a 
panel of 12 white jurors, together with a white prosecutor and a white judge, 
sitting in judgment over a black defendant.

The racial disparity in Ringo's prosecution chimes with a general statistical 
imbalance in Missouri's criminal justice system. Black people are 5 times more 
likely to be incarcerated in the state than people who are white.

St Louis University law school has been conducting research specifically on 
Missouri's practice of the death penalty in the modern era with the assistance 
of an expert in this area, Professor Ray Paternoster. The preliminary results 
of the study have found that murder convictions are 3 times more likely to end 
with a death sentence in Missouri in cases, like Ringo's, where the defendant 
is black and the victim white.

Such cases make up between 5 and 6% of all murders in Missouri since 1977, yet 
constitute about 25% of death sentences since that date. 3 of the past 9 
executions that have taken place in Missouri over the past year have involved 
the same black defendant-white victim disparity.

Ringo's attorneys had asked a federal appeals court to postpone the execution 
until a hearing over Missouri's use of midazolam. Attorney Richard Sindel 
claimed that Missouri's use of midazolam essentially violated its own protocol, 
which provides for pentobarbital as the lone execution drug.

Officials in Missouri have indicated that they have used pentobarbital as a 
single lethal injection in the 9 executions that have been carried out since 
last November. The director of the department of corrections, George Lombardi, 
stated under oath that midazolam would not be used even were pentobarbital 
unavailable.

But last week St Louis Public Radio revealed that contrary to that statement, 
Missouri has used midazolam in combination with pentobarbital in all its 
executions this year, in quantities that would induce a deep coma in the inmate 
or even stop them breathing. On the back of that revelation, Ringo's lawyers 
have submitted court filings that have accused top officials of committing 
perjury. "Lawyers for the state have submitted highly misleading pleadings and 
false claims in various courts about Missouri's administration of executions," 
the complaint says.

The department of corrections has denied any deception, insisting that it has 
used the midazolam only to reduce the anxiety of a prisoner going into the 
death chamber and not as part of the execution procedure itself.

Ringo becomes the 8th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Missouri 
and the 78th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1989. Only 
Texas (515), Oklahoma (111), Virginia (110), and Florida (88) have carried out 
more executions since the death penalty was re-legalized in the USA on July 2, 
1976.

Ringo becomes the 28th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA 
and the 1387th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

(sources: The Guardian & Rick Halperin)