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

[Rick Halperin]

April 12



TEXAS:

The death penalty, from a prosecutor's perspective



The death penalty case of Kent Sprouse has been the only death penalty case 
Ellis County District Attorney Patrick Wilson has had in his career so far.

In the days up to Thursday's execution in Huntsville, the trial and defending 
the death penalty in court has weighed heavily on the Ellis County prosecutor's 
heart, he said. It's easy for people to shout eye-for-an-eye behind a newscast 
on a TV screen, or a link on social media, but that's not the case in the 
courtroom and it should never be, he said. Sprouse was the 5th execution for 
the state of Texas this year, and the 523rd person executed since the 
reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.

Wilson delivered closing arguments after Don Maxfield, the now retired Ellis 
County chief felony prosecutor fell "seriously ill" just days before Sprouse's 
trial. The argument ultimately helped the jury find Sprouse guilty of killing 
Ferris police officer Harry Marvin "Marty" Steinfeldt III on Oct. 6, 2002, 
according to documents. Sprouse was also charged but not tried for the murder 
of Pedro Moreno, according to an article by the Associated Press. Maxfield 
returned just in time for the punishment phase, Wilson said.

"I remember my closing arguments because a family member remarked - I did some 
dramatics with Sprouse's shotgun, the murder weapon," Wilson said. "I 
re-enacted the shooting, and I audibly did the sound of a shotgun and I can 
remember, one of the rules as a prosecutor, when you have a demonstration like 
that, you never point it at the jurors. But, I can remember that it was in such 
close confines that it was difficult to try to find a spot where the gun was 
not pointing at someone."

Wilson, who received his license in November 1997 and is in his 18th year as a 
prosecutor, was the youngest and least experienced member of the trial team on 
the case when it came about in 2004, he said. Sprouse's capital murder trial 
was held in a doublewide trailer stitched together with decking at the time, 
because the current Ellis County courthouse was under construction, he said.

Wilson has been with the Ellis County District Attorney's office since 1999, 
and current district attorney since 2011 and was not involved with the decision 
to seek the death penalty originally. But, as an eager, young attorney, he 
asked to help with the case, he said.

"It was very intense. It was a dark environment, and there were no windows. 
There was only a sliver of light coming in through a door, which let onto a 
covered patio," he said, adding everyone came in and out of the same door. "You 
can imagine the emotion in that kind of a trial - it's very tense, it's very 
exhausting. You're just in a closely confined, fluorescent-lit environment. The 
tables were tiny little round tables that we would all have to huddle around, 
and as I recall the jury box, I could sit out and touch it with my left arm. 
The jurors were almost on top of you, so you would have to huddle very 
quietly."

The moment he most recalled was immediately after the trial, he said. Wilson 
was single at the time, having just gone through a divorce, and so immediately 
after the trial, he went to visit his parents.

"I can remember sitting in their living room, and remarking to them that it was 
just kind of a surreal feeling," he said. "That, yes, I was struck by the 
gravity of what had just happened, and we all talked about it. I think they 
were relieved to know that I had some sort of emotion about that, not that they 
would suggest otherwise. We talked about it, and we all agreed that it was 
pretty heavy stuff. I'm still struck by that; it's still surreal in some 
respect. I do recall sitting in their living room and I've got a good 
relationship with my parents, and just saying, 'It's kind of crazy that I just, 
in effect, stood up in court and said this man needs to die.'"

He even still thinks about a moment during the pre-trial, where Sprouse's 
family came up and introduced themselves to Wilson in a kind way. He said in 
that moment, there's nothing anyone can really say in response because it's 
difficult to imagine what the family is going through in that moment.

"I actually went to high school with Kent Sprouse. I did not know him in high 
school. I had no relationship with him whatsoever, but I recall early on in 
that process, probably not too long after the offense itself, someone in the 
office had a copy of a Waxahachie High School yearbook and was flipping through 
it," he said. "I happened to walk by and peer over someone's shoulder and saw 
Sprouse's picture, and said 'Hey, I know that guy.' Somebody then said 
something to the affect of, 'That's the guy that just did the murder. That's 
the death penalty guy,' or 'that's the guy from the Ferris case.' It was 
surreal."

With those memories in mind, Wilson said people need to know prosecuting isn't 
about the number of cases a lawyer has tried and won. He faces that stereotype 
daily and he is constantly thinking about the life he's holding in his hands, 
he said, and he talks with his fellow attorneys of that on a daily basis even 
if that's simply related to plea negotiations on a full court docket.

"People will dismiss it when I cite to it, but I do firmly believe in what the 
law requires of us," he said. "That it is my job to see that justice is done, 
not to seek convictions. The weight of what I do, the weight of what we do in 
this office weighs on me daily. Let's talk about plea negotiations taking place 
on a massive docket. 50 people are on the docket, the prosecutors and defense 
attorneys are all in there, trying to make as many of these cases go away as 
possible because there's not enough resources to try them all. So, there is 
negotiation back and forth. And sometimes, to this day, I get struck by the 
fact that these numbers we're talking about here are people's lives. Someone 
may throw out 10, someone may throw out 15 or 20, or 5, or whatever and you 
realize, 'Wow, those are human lives we're talking about here. It's not a car. 
It's a life.' I sometimes have to remind prosecutors of those things, to not 
forget that."

So, instead, he and his colleagues will work with other attorneys in other 
offices to tackle the workload efficiently, without dismissing the gravity of 
each case, he said. Wilson wasn't asked to view Sprouse's execution, but he 
decided to go out of obligation to those involved, he said. And he's seen daily 
how people immediately respond on social media to a news story about a person's 
upcoming execution, or even a crime with a punishment less than that, he said.

"It's very easy for us to sit at home in our easy chairs and watch the news and 
see a picture of somebody who's been arrested and charged with child 
molestation, and we go, 'Oh my gosh, that person is wicked, mean, evil and 
nasty and they should be buried under the jail or executed,'" Wilson said. 
"Everybody loves to say that. It's easy to say that, but the reality of it is, 
those same people when they're called to jury duty, and they are asked to make 
those decisions, they realize it's a flesh and blood human being, not a 3-inch 
by 5-inch book-in photo on their TV screen. It's a person with a mother, with a 
wife, with children and the people that love that person. It brings the gravity 
home to them. That's not to say people don't deserve the punishment they get, 
but it brings home the reality of the fact that it's not an easy decision. A 
death penalty case is no different."

Sprouse was executed by lethal injection a little after 6 p.m. Thursday. The 
process took 22 minutes to work within his system. With his dying words, 
Sprouse said he was sorry:

"I would like to apologize to the Moreno family and the Steinfeldt family for 
all of the trouble I have caused them," he said. "I would like to apologize to 
my family for all of the trouble I have caused them. I would also like to thank 
my family for all of their support. I guess that's it."

As for Wilson, he is currently beginning work on his 2nd possible death penalty 
case.

(source: Daily Light)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Death Row Inmate Danny Hembree Granted New Trial



A Gaston County death row inmate will get a new trial. The North Carolina 
Supreme Court ruled Friday that Danny Hembree did not receive a fair trial in 
2011, when he was found guilty and sentenced to death for the murder of 
17-year-old Heather Catterton.

"I have prosecuted him for the death penalty. I got the death penalty. It's 
been set aside, but that oughta tell you what I think of him," said Gaston 
County District Attorney Locke Bell.

Hembree also pleaded guilty to killing another woman, Randi Saldana, and was 
sentenced to an additional 26 years in prison.

"I am beyond outraged. This is sickening to me," said Saldana's sister, Shellie 
Nations.

Even though the court's decision doesn't affect the Saldana case, Nation's 
testimony is one of the reasons for its ruling.

She testified during the Catterton murder trial, and the court said prosecutors 
relied too heavily on evidence from Saldana's murder when arguing the Catterton 
case.

"They drew a line way on one side of where i thought they would have drawn it," 
said Bell.

Bell said he will retry Hembree, but because of the court's decision, he won't 
go for the death penalty this time.

"This tells me I'm wasting my time trying a capital murder case in North 
Carolina," said Bell.

Even though Hembree has been granted a new trial in the Catterton case, he 
remains in prison serving his sentence in the Saldana case.

"He does not deserve any luxury. None. He is a murderer," said Nations.

Bell said it could take 2 years for Hembree to be retried because he will have 
to hire new attorneys to represent him.

Hembree was also charged with a 3rd murder, but those charges were dropped.

(source: TimeWarnerCable News)








LOUISIANA:

CarQuest killing suspect faces death penalty in trial starting Monday ----Jury 
selection to begin in CarQuest slayings



East Baton Rouge Parish's 1st death penalty prosecution in 5 years is set to 
open Monday with the painstaking process of picking a jury to try Lee Turner 
Jr. in the 2011 slaying of 2 workers at the CarQuest Auto Parts store on 
Airline Highway.

Turner, 25, was hired by the company less than 2 weeks before the killings and 
worked at CarQuest locations on Plank Road and Government Street.

Edward Gurtner III, 43, of Denham Springs, who managed the Airline store near 
Siegen Lane, and Randy Chaney, 55, of Greenwell Springs, were found shot to 
death inside the store on March 27, 2011, shortly after it closed that Sunday 
afternoon.

Both men were husbands and fathers.

Authorities said Turner confessed to sheriff's detectives in a videotaped 
statement, telling them he went to the store to rob it but wound up shooting 
Gurtner and Chaney after 1 of them recognized him.

State District Judge Richard Anderson ruled in 2012 that prosecutors can use 
the statement at Turner's 1st-degree murder trial. Anderson also decided in 
2013 that physical evidence - money, bank bags and CarQuest deposit slips - 
seized during a search of Turner's Ritterman Avenue home in Baton Rouge the day 
after the murders can be introduced to the jury at trial.

A search warrant application states that surveillance video from 2 local 
businesses shows a vehicle fitting the description of Turner's white BMW 
circling the block where the CarQuest store is located several times after 3 
p.m. on the day the 2 men were killed.

Prosecutor Tracey Barbera has requested that the jury be allowed to visit the 
crime scene.

"By viewing the crime scene in person, the members of the jury will have a more 
thorough understanding of the defendant's actions before, during and after the 
commission of the crimes," Barbera contends in a motion filed Wednesday.

The lead sheriff's detective on the case testified at a December 2011 hearing 
that Gurtner and Chaney were likely murdered between 2:47 p.m., when the last 
employee to see them alive clocked out, and 3:13 p.m., when the men could not 
be reached by phone. The store closed at 3 p.m. that day.

Margaret Lagattuta, 1 of Turner's court-appointed attorneys, said jury 
selection is expected to last 1 to 2 weeks. Potential jurors will be questioned 
individually about their views on capital punishment. Barbera said the trial 
could take the same amount of time to complete. The jury will be sequestered 
during the trial.

If Turner is convicted of 1st-degree murder, jurors then must decide whether he 
should be executed or spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Turner's attorneys have subpoenaed several out-of-state witnesses specifically 
for the penalty phase of the trial, including his maternal aunt and uncle and 
his former basketball coach at Johnston City High School in Illinois.

Dacarius Holliday, of St. Louis, is the last person to receive a death sentence 
in East Baton Rouge Parish. He was convicted and condemned to die in March 2010 
for the 2007 beating death of his Baton Rouge girlfriend???s 2-year-old son, 
Darian Coon.

An autopsy revealed Darian suffered 75 contusions to his body and lacerations 
to his liver and kidney, among other injuries.

Holliday's capital murder trial was the 1st such prosecution by East Baton 
Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III's office since he took office 
in January 2009.

Prior to Holliday's case, the last death sentences returned in East Baton Rouge 
were in 2008, when Anthony Bell and Sanchez Brumfield were condemned to die in 
April and May of that year, respectively. Bell was convicted of killing his 
wife and 4 in-laws in May 2006. Brumfield was found guilty of taking part in 
the fatal shooting of an Olive Garden restaurant employee in September 2006.

Holliday, Bell and Brumfield are all on death row at Louisiana State 
Penitentiary at Angola, awaiting execution.

(source: The Advocate)








OHIO:

Toddler's mother one of few women to face death penalty



Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters is known for seeking the death penalty 
when children are killed. He has sought it more than a dozen times since 2005 
in murder cases involving children.

Until the killing of 2-year-old Glenara Bates, however, who officials say was 
starved and tortured, Deters hadn't sought the death penalty against a woman.

Glenara's mother, Andrea Bradley of East Walnut Hills, is believed to be the 
first woman in Hamilton County to face capital punishment in more than two 
decades, according to Enquirer research.

At a news conference Wednesday, Deters said his decision to pursue the death 
penalty against both Bradley and Glen Bates, Glenara's father, was based on the 
unprecedented neglect and violence inflicted on the child.

"This case so cries out for somebody to get the death penalty," Deters said. He 
called the case among the worst he has seen in 19 years as county prosecutor.

"At trial, when you see the pictures of this baby," he told reporters, "you 
will vomit."

Bradley, 28, and Bates, 32, face charges including aggravated murder.

Glenara was tortured for most of her life, officials said. She was beaten 
severely, starved and made to sleep in a bathtub containing feces and blood. 
When she was taken to a Cincinnati hospital March 29, the day she died, she 
weighed 13 pounds.

2-year-old girl tortured most of her life, coroner says

Officials said it wasn't clear when she last had been given food or drink. She 
had no body fat, no urine in her bladder, and no evidence of food in her 
system.

Only 1 woman on Ohio's death row

Bradley is one of only a handful of local women to face the death penalty in 
recent memory.

In the last 2 decades, 2 women in Butler County faced the death penalty. Both 
pleaded guilty to avoid a possible death sentence.

Carin Madden, 35, is serving 20 years to life for killing her newborn in 1999. 
Asuncion Avila-Villa, 31, is serving a life sentence for the 2009 killing of 
her infant son. Authorities said Avila-Villa killed the infant to avoid being 
prosecuted for having sex with the teenage father.

Clermont County last had a woman in a capital case in the 1950s. Warren County 
hasn't seen one in at least three decades.

Among the 141 people currently listed on Ohio's death row, 1 is a woman. Donna 
Roberts, 70, was sentenced to death in 2003 in Trumbull County for plotting 
with her boyfriend to kill her ex-husband.

The number of women in Ohio on death row is consistent with nationwide 
statistics, according to a 2012 report by a death penalty researcher. The 
report, by Victor Streib, a retired Ohio Northern University law professor, 
says that women, since the early 1970s, have made up about 2 % of people across 
the country on death row.

Nationwide, women account for only about 10 % of people arrested in homicides, 
the report says.

Only 4 women have been executed in the state's history - and 3 of the cases 
were from the Cincinnati area. The last was 61 years ago, according to the Ohio 
Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

In June 1954, Betty Butler, 25, who was convicted in Hamilton County of 
drowning a woman, was electrocuted. 5 months earlier, 55-year-old Dovie Dean 
was electrocuted. She was convicted in Clermont County of poisoning her husband 
with arsenic.

In 1938, 32-year-old Anna Marie Hahn was electrocuted after being convicted in 
Hamilton County of poisoning a man.

Since the executions of Dean and Butler, the state has carried out 74 
executions - all were men.

Deters' office is not seeking the death penalty in the case of De'asia Watkins, 
20, who is accused of beheading her 3-month-old daughter. Deters has cited the 
Watkins' severe mental health problems as a reason.

About Bradley and Bates, he said: "These are 2 people who don't have mental 
health issues...and they treat a kid like this."

(source: cincinnati.com)

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

Ohio bill would be among several to revise death penalty law



A bipartisan duo of state senators is working on several proposals to revise 
Ohio???s capital punishment law.

The measures from Republican Sen. Bill Seitz of Cincinnati and Democratic Sen. 
Sandra Williams of Cleveland would incorporate some recommendations from a 
state task force that spent over 2 years studying the 3-decade-old law.

The senators recently introduced their 1st bill in a series of measures they 
say are aimed at improving fairness and confidence in Ohio's use of the death 
penalty.

Among other changes, the bill would require judges presiding over 
post-conviction relief proceedings to specify in their findings why each claim 
was granted or denied.

Seitz says he and Williams expect to introduce additional bills before July.

(source: Associated Press)








ARKANSAS:

AG files to transfer execution-drug suit



The Arkansas attorney general's office on Friday sought to transfer an inmate 
lawsuit challenging the legality of a new execution law from Pulaski County 
Circuit Court to federal court.

The "removal" request was assigned to U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr., who 
has been on the federal bench in Little Rock for a little over a year after 
spending 11 years as a Pulaski County circuit judge.

In the lawsuit, 7 death-row inmates, led by Marcel Wayne Williams, contend the 
new law, signed Monday by Gov. Asa Hutchinson, violates a 2013 contract that 
the attorney general, on behalf of the state, made with the inmates. Jeff 
Rosenzweig, one of the attorneys who filed the suit on behalf of the inmates, 
said the state promised to provide the source and content of the drugs it plans 
to use in executions. In return, the inmates withdrew parts of a previous 
lawsuit.

The new law, Act 1096 of 2015, keeps the source of the execution drugs a secret 
and "blatantly reneges" on the 2013 agreement, Rosenzweig said.

The plaintiffs contend a judge should order the state to disclose where it gets 
the execution drugs and strike down the new law. They also want a judge to 
reinstate the freeze on capital punishment that the state Supreme Court lifted 
in March.

In Pulaski County Circuit Court, the case was assigned to Judge Wendell 
Griffen, who last year ruled that a 2013 version of the law was 
unconstitutional because it gave the state Department of Correction too much 
authority to decide which drugs will be used and who will administer them.

The Supreme Court reversed Griffen on March 19, saying legislators can delegate 
some of their authority to a state agency as long as they set "reasonable 
guidelines" that "include appropriate standards."

Griffen's Feb. 21, 2014, ruling that the Supreme Court overturned had put 
lethal injections on hold across the state. Legal challenges to the state's 
death-penalty procedures have kept the state from executing anyone since 2005.

In court documents filed Friday, Assistant Attorney General Jennifer L. Merritt 
noted that the death-row inmates argue in the suit that Act 1096 "violates 
seven different federal constitutional or statutory provisions," as well as 
asserting claims under the Arkansas constitution and a state-law separation of 
powers claim.

Merritt argued that the suit should be transferred to federal court because 
federal courts have original jurisdiction over civil actions arising under 
federal law, and also have supplemental jurisdiction over state-law claims, 
because they are so similar to the federal claims.

(source: ArkansasOnline.com)