[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., ALA., ARK., COLO., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 1



TEXAS:

In retrial, man again sentenced to death for killing wife


After hearing 9 days of testimony, it took a Houston jury just 15 minutes to 
again sentence William "Billy the Kid" Mason to death, prosecutors said Monday.

Mason was convicted of capital murder in 1992 in the death of his wife, Deborah 
Ann Mason, and went to court again earlier this month after being granted a 
retrial for the punishment phase.

"They understood from the beginning," Assistant Harris County District Attorney 
Katherine McDaniel said of the jurors who handed down the verdict. "It was just 
a never-ending parade of victims."

She said jurors heard that Mason kidnapped his wife, then beat her to death 
under the Hwy. 59 bridge over the San Jacinto River in Humble because she was 
playing her radio too loudly on Jan. 17, 1991.

He had been out of prison just 18 days after serving time for a murder and an 
attempted murder.

"How many capital murderers also have a prior murder and an attempted capital 
murder?" McDaniel said. "He was just bad in every respect."

She said jurors also heard testimony that Mason had risen to the rank of 
captain in the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a notorious prison gang. He spent 
more than a decade behind bars on a 55-year-sentence for robbing and killing a 
black man in 1977.

On the day that 33-year-old Deborah Mason was killed, the couple had spent the 
morning smoking marijuana and drinking with friends.

They got into a fight and he began to beat her in the presence of their 
friends. After the fight escalated, Deborah Mason was bound and gagged before 
being taken to the bridge where she was killed.

The retrial was a result a Supreme Court ruling that determined jurors did not 
hear mitigating evidence in some death penalty cases from that era. He was 
facing either death or a prison sentence under the law as it was at the time of 
the slaying, which meant he could have been paroled in as little as 15 years.

His attorneys argued that it was a case of horrible domestic violence, but rose 
to the level of a capital murder because of the kidnapping.

"If he had killed her at the house, it wouldn't have been capital murder," 
Mason's lawyer, Terry Gaiser, said before the trial.

If offered, Gaiser said, Mason would have agreed to a plea deal guaranteeing he 
never got out of prison. Gaiser could not be reached for comment Monday.

The retrial began on Nov. 9. On Nov. 19, the jury came back with the verdict 
after deliberating less than a half-hour in state District Judge Marc Carter's 
court.

It was the 2nd death penalty trial in Harris County this year. The 1st led to a 
sentence of life without parole for Johnathan Sanchez.

(source: Houston Chronicle)






GEORGIA----impending execution

Clemency hearing set next week for Georgia death row inmate


A clemency hearing is planned for next week for a Georgia death row inmate 
convicted of killing a close friend of his mother.

The State Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday said the hearing for Brian 
Keith Terrell will be held Dec. 7, a day before he is scheduled to die.

Terrell was on parole in June 1992 when he stole 10 checks belonging to 
70-year-old John Watson of Covington and signed his own name on some.

Watson told Terrell's mother and sheriff's officials about the theft and agreed 
not to press charges if most of the money was returned the next day. But the 
day he was to return the money, Terrell had his cousin drive him to Watson's 
house where prosecutors say he shot Watson multiple times.

(source: Associated press)






FLORIDA----new execution date

Gov. Scott orders execution in Glades County murder case, the 2nd for 2016


Gov. Rick Scott has ordered the execution of a man who has been on Florida's 
death row for 2 murders in 1983.

The execution of Michael Ray Lambrix, scheduled for 6 p.m. Feb. 11, 2016, is 
the 2nd already planned in the new year. Oscar Ray Bolin is scheduled to be 
executed Jan. 7 for murders in Tampa Bay.

Lambrix was convicted in Glades County in 1984 for killing Aleisha Bryant and 
Clarence Moore, Jr.

According to information from the governor's office, Lambrix and his girlfriend 
met the victims at a bar and invited them back to the trailer where they lived 
for dinner. Lambrix then beat Moore to death with a tire iron and strangled 
Bryant. He stole a gold chain from Moore's body and buried them in a shallow 
grave before taking Moore's car.

Lambrix had escaped from work release in December 1982 while serving a 2-year 
prison sentence for violoating probation.

But outside groups, including Amnesty International, have contested the 
narrative that led Lambrix to spend more than 30 years on death row.

They said that Frances Smith -- who Lambrix lived with and who was the key 
witness against him -- was not credible and had given inconsistent statements 
to police. Another witness who claimed Lambrix had confessed the murders later 
recanted her statements, according to Amnesty International alert from February 
of this year, when Lambrix sought and was denied clemency by Scott and the 
Cabinet.

Scott has signed death warrants more than any governor since capital punishment 
came back into use in Florida in 1976 -- 22 so far.

But the 2 executions planned for early 2016 in the death chamber at Florida 
State Prison in Starke come as the state's death penalty is being reviewed by 
the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court is currently considering a case that could throw out the system by 
which death sentences are handed down. Florida is currently the only state that 
allows a simple majority of jurors -- seven of 12 -- to recommend the death 
penalty.

Lambrix's is one such case.

The jury recommended he be executed for Bryant's murder by a 10-2 vote and for 
the death of Moore by an 8-4 vote.

[see: http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/pub_info/deathwarrants.shtml]

(source: Tampa Bay Times)






ALABAMA:

Death penalty possible in double capital murder case


Charges against a Lauderdale County man accused of shooting a man and woman 
inside a Waterloo residence in September meet the requirements for the death 
penalty, and capital punishment "is certainly a possibility," Lauderdale County 
District Attorney Chris Connolly said Monday.

Steven Chase Stanfield, 28, Lauderdale 74, Waterloo, is charged with 2 counts 
of capital murder. He was scheduled for a preliminary hearing Monday in 
Lauderdale District Court, but the hearing had to be continued.

Court officials said the preliminary hearing was rescheduled until 1:30 p.m. 
Dec. 17.

Stanfield was arrested Sept. 11, and charged in the shooting deaths of 
Marqurite Victoria Garcia, 25, Lauderdale 179, Florence, and Michael Nicholas 
Linville, 50, 6290 Lauderdale 87, Waterloo.

Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton said Garcia and Linville were shot 
inside Linville's house on Lauderdale 87, which is less than 1/8 of a mile off 
Alabama 20 in the Stewartsville community, west of Central Heights.

Garcia was pronounced dead at the scene. Linville died later at Huntsville 
Hospital.

Investigators still are working to develop a motive for the shooting.

"We're still working with a couple of ideas, but nothing concrete at this 
time," Lauderdale County Sheriff's investigator Lt. Brad Potts said.

Chief Assistant Lauderdale County District Attorney Will Powell said 
investigators are waiting on a lot of evidence to be returned from the Alabama 
Department of Forensic Sciences.

Reports indicate the shooting happened just before 9 a.m. at Linville's 
1-bedroom house. Stanfield is accused of shooting into the house, hitting 
Garcia and Linville.

Potts said several shots were fired into the house.

Investigators said it appears Stanfield drove to Linville's house, got out of 
the car and started shooting into the house. Authorities said Linville returned 
shots, hitting Stanfield in the legs. The leg wounds helped deputies make the 
arrest.

At the time of Stanfield's arrest, Singleton said the sheriff's office received 
a call that a man with gunshot wounds had been brought to the emergency room at 
Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital in Florence.

A few minutes later, deputies located the car in the 1800 block of Lauderdale 
74, about 5 miles from where the shooting took place.

Potts said a shotgun was found inside the house that is believed to be the one 
used by Linville. He said another shotgun believed to have been the murder 
weapon was found where Stanfield's car was located.

Capital murder is a Class A felony punishable by 10 years to life in prison 
with the possibility of the death penalty.

Stanfield is being held in the Lauderdale County Detention Center without bail. 
He is being represented by Florence attorneys Melinda and Jeff Austin.

(source: Times Daily)






ARKANSAS:

Hutchinson: Sentencing 'out of whack' in Arkansas


Sentencing in Arkansas is "out of whack," Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Monday in 
remarks to a legislative task force that is looking for ways to reduce prison 
overcrowding.

The Legislative Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force also heard from a 
nonprofit group that said the state's practice of paying to house a backlog of 
prisoners in county jails will cost $680 million over the next 10 years if 
overcrowding is not addressed in other ways.

Speaking to the panel during a meeting at the University of Arkansas Clinton 
School of Public Service in Little Rock, Hutchinson asked the members to study 
the state's current sentencing guidelines and see how well they are being 
followed - or not followed.

Hutchinson, a former U.S.attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, told 
the panel, "My impression is that our guidelines have little teeth, are weakly 
being followed and don't carry the weight that they should. And so to me, we 
either need to abolish the sentencing guidelines and say we're not going to 
have those or give them some real meaning and teeth."

As examples of sentences that exceeded the guidelines, the governor said that 
in 1 case, a 3rd-time drug offender was sentenced to 135 years in prison, and 
in another case a person was sentenced to 80 years in prison for hot checks.

Hutchinson acknowledged that the Arkansas Supreme Court has said the state's 
sentencing guidelines are only advisory and that sentencing should be up to the 
courts, but he said there are ways to give the guidelines more teeth.

"One of the things that you could do in terms of the sentencing guidelines is 
to require the judges and the prosecutors, if you sentence outside of those 
guidelines, to articulate on the record the reasons that the sentence is 
outside the guidelines," he said.

"And then, I think you ought to consider that if a sentencing is outside the 
guidelines and it's for arbitrary reasons, you could actually have a review by 
an appellate court."

Task force member Ken Casady, 22nd Judicial District prosecuting attorney, said 
later in the meeting that sentences in excess of the guidelines are not as 
common as sentences below the guidelines."

Most all of the plea agreements that come through, you can't fit them into the 
sentencing guidelines because they're below (the guidelines)," he said.

Andy Barbee, research manager for the Council of State Governments Justice 
Center, told the panel that according to projections, Arkansas' prison 
population could reach 25,448, a 35 % increase, by 2025.

The center is a nonprofit organization that is helping Arkansas explore ways to 
address prison overcrowding, at no cost to the state.

Arkansas' prison population has risen 41 % since 2004 and 27 % since 2012, 
Barbee said. Since 2004, all of the surrounding states have seen crime rates 
hold steady or drop except for Oklahoma, which has seen an 8 % increase, he 
said.

Barbee said Arkansas' prison population has spiked even though its crime rate 
has dropped by 15 % since 2004. Crime has decreased by greater percentages in 
that time in all of the surrounding states except Mississippi, which also has 
seen a 15 % drop, he said.

Unless changes are made to the system, the practice of housing a backlog of 
state prisoners in county jails will cost the state an estimated $680 million 
over the next 10 years, Barbee said. He added that if the state increases 
capacity through prison construction, the cost is conservatively estimated at 
$602 million over the next decade - a cost that would be in addition to the 
cost to house prisoners in county jails while the construction is underway.

The panel also received a report from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock 
on racial disparities in Arkansas' criminal justice system.

According to the report, blacks are more likely to be charged with capital 
murder than whites; are more likely to receive severe punishments, especially 
the death penalty, than whites; and are likely to receive more sever 
punishments than whites for the same offenses.

The task force is expected to make recommendations that lawmakers could 
consider in the 2017 legislative session.

(source: Arkansas News)






COLORADO:

Death penalty expert represents man suspected in Colorado Springs Planned 
Parenthood shooting


Robert Lewis Dear, Jr., appeared next to one of Colorado's top public defenders 
specializing in death penalty cases on Monday during his 1st court appearance 
since a shooting rampage at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic.

Dear, 57, struggled to stay awake and repeatedly shut his eyes and drifted to 
one side or the other during his video appearance before Judge Gilbert Martinez 
on Monday.

He was advised of possible first-degree murder charges in connection with 
Friday's attack, which left three people dead and nine wounded. Martinez said 
the charge carries possible sentences of life in prison or death.

By his side was Dan King, chief trial deputy for the state public defender's 
office. He recently represented James Holmes, who fatally shot 12 people and 
wounded dozens of others in 2012 at an Aurora movie theater. A jury decided 
against the death penalty in favor of life in prison for Holmes.

Appearing in a vest designed to protect him from harming himself, Dear spoke in 
a deep, gravely voice 3 times.

Twice he replied "yes" when asked if he could hear the judge. He also said he 
had no questions near the end of the hearing.

(source: gazette.com)






CALIFORNIA:

Death penalty showdown expected in 2016


Supporters and foes of California's death penalty will be vying for your 
signature on street corners and outside grocery stores over the coming weeks as 
each side seeks to place a measure on next year's November ballot.

2 separate initiatives are making their way through the ballot proposition 
process--one that would end capital punishment in California and another that 
seeks to jump-start a stalled execution system.

Death penalty opponents are led by actor Mike Farrell, best known for his role 
as Captain B.J. Hunnicutt on the T.V. series M*A*S*H. Farrell, a longtime death 
penalty opponent, has proposed an initiative would convert all death sentences 
to life in prison without parole.

State analysts have found eliminating capital punishment could save California 
around $150 million a year. Farrell has called the death penalty an "empty 
promise" that drains state resources, as well as morally repugnant.

There hasn't been an execution in California since 2006, though nearly 750 
inmates sit on death row--the men at San Quentin State Prison, just north of 
San Francisco, and the women at Central California Women's Facility in 
Chowchilla.

A competing ballot initiative would create a streamlined system for capital 
punishment. Put forth by a group of California district attorneys including 
Jackie Lacey of Los Angeles County, the initiative would accelerate appeals for 
death row inmates. It would also change the way they're housed to save money.

Voters last took up the issue in 2012, when Proposition 34 failed by a narrow 
margin. The law would have ended the death penalty.

Last year, a federal judge ruled that California's death penalty system was 
unconstitutional because it is arbitrary, plagued with delay and violates the 
Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

But earlier this month, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that 
ruling on a technicality. A 3 judge panel said the judge failed to address the 
question of whether life on death row constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

(source: scpr.org)






USA:

Supreme Court Faces Decisions On Where To Go Next With The Death 
Penalty----While some inmates and lawyers are asking the justices to take on 
the constitutionality of executions, other cases present more subtle questions 
about process.


5 months after 2 Supreme Court justices made clear that they have serious 
questions about the constitutionality of the death penalty, lawyers are 
bringing plenty of related cases to the justices - and they're due to consider 
whether to hear one of them this week.

When Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg disagreed with the court's 
ruling in June allowing Oklahoma to use the sedative midazolam in its execution 
protocol, they also made it clear - in Breyer's dissenting opinion - that they 
saw bigger problems with the death penalty, including whether the punishment 
itself is constitutional.

Criminal defense lawyers have responded by bringing three main types of death 
penalty cases to the court since then. 3 petitions currently pending before the 
justices raise questions about trial process in capital cases, post-conviction 
process for death row inmates, and the overall constitutionality of the death 
penalty itself.

The justices are scheduled to consider whether to hear one of the challenges - 
a post-conviction process challenge - on Friday. The court potentially still 
could, however, agree to hear any of the three cases yet this term.

The effect of considering the cases, or even deciding them in the inmates' 
favor, could vary widely, however, because of the distinctions between the 
types of challenges. Post-Conviction Process Challenge

While these challenges have the potential to open up federal courts to 
death-row inmates, they are the most purely procedural because they address how 
challenges brought by inmates after their convictions are handled.

In the petition seeking review brought by lawyers for Texas death-row inmate 
Robert Leslie Roberson III, the question is whether a truly independent lawyer 
needs to be appointed for an inmate who possibly could raise an ineffective 
assistance of counsel claim.

Roberson was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2002 killing of his 
daughter, Nikki Curtis. His conviction was upheld on direct appeal.

The Texas Defender Service's Lee Kovarsky is asking the justices to take the 
case. He has been opposed in letters sent to the justices by the lawyer who 
represented Roberson in his state and federal post-conviction proceedings, 
James Volberding, and the lawyer referred to as "supplemental counsel," Seth 
Kretzer - who Kovarsky argues has an ongoing relationship with Volberding. 
(Notably, these two lawyers also had their representation challenged in 
last-minute requests brought by Raphael Holiday, executed earlier this month.)

In the 5th Circuit where Roberson's appeal was heard, he argues, the only rule 
for such "supplemental counsel" is that the lawyer did not represent the client 
in state post-conviction proceedings. Other circuits, he counters, require that 
supplemental counsel "must operate independently of incumbent counsel." Texas, 
which also opposes the petition, argues that there is no such "circuit split" 
because, it asserts, both courts apply the same "interest-of-justice standard" 
for appointing supplemental counsel.

The justices are scheduled to consider Roberson's petition at their private 
conference on Friday.

If the justices take the case, a victory for Roberson would mean that new, 
truly independent supplemental counsel could be appointed to pursue his 
ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Such a ruling also could lead to more 
opportunities for death row inmates to have similar challenges pursued by new 
lawyers, with more opportunities for relief, but it would not directly alter 
any sentences.

Trial Process Challenge

Slightly more ambitious are challenges to the trial process - decisions that 
can, directly or indirectly, lead to the need for changed procedures, 
re-sentencing of death row inmates, or even orders for new trials altogether.

The court already has heard several of these types of cases this term. The 
cases raised questions about how jurors assess mitigating factors that weigh 
against imposing a sentence of death, the role of the judge in sentencing, and 
how reviewing courts must address claims of racial discrimination in jury 
selection.

In Kevin Charles Isom's case out of Indiana, his lawyers, led by Ben Cohen, 
raise the question of whether a unanimous jury must decide beyond a reasonable 
doubt that aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating circumstances during 
the sentencing phase before deciding to impose a death sentence in a capital 
case.

Although the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard is the well-known standard 
for a criminal finding of guilt, there is no such standard established for the 
sentencing phase of a capital trial.

Isom was convicted and sentenced to death in 2013 for the 2007 triple-murder of 
his family: Cassandra Isom, Ci'Andria Cole, and Michael Moore.

In detailing the issue presented to the court, Isom's lawyers note that there 
are 19 states with no death penalty, another seven that by statute or court 
ruling require a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt finding by the jury at sentencing, 
and, the petition says, "[t]he remaining death penalty jurisdictions are a 
patchwork with no discernible commonality." Indiana falls into that latter 
group, with juries having to "determine[] that the aggravating circumstances 
outweigh the mitigating circumstances," Isom's lawyers argue, but given "no 
burden of proof for the jury to make the moral determination."

The lawyers - leaning on longstanding concerns about the arbitrariness of the 
implementation of the death penalty - state that this "lack of uniformity has 
produced arbitrary results" in urging the justices to take the case.

Indiana's lawyers asked for a 30-day extension in responding to Isom's 
petition, according to Isom's lawyers, meaning its response would be due Dec. 
28.

Frontal Constitutional Challenge

Shonda Walter, sentenced to death in Pennsylvania in 2005, has brought the most 
significant challenge to the justices, asking earlier this month for the court 
to address the fundamental question of the constitutionality of the death 
penalty head on.

"The question presented is whether, in all cases, the imposition of a sentence 
of death violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual 
punishments," Walter's lawyer, Daniel Silverman, writes.

Walter was convicted of murder and sentenced to death for the 2003 killing of 
an 83-year-old man, James Sementelli.

This is of course the most significant of claims that could be brought to the 
justices, as it asks for the court to end the death penalty across the board, 
across the country.

Walter's lawyer argues that the death penalty should be abandoned for two 
reasons: "First, our standards of decency have evolved to the point where the 
institution is no longer constitutionally sustainable."

"Second, the assumptions underlying this Court's reinstitution of the death 
penalty after Furman have proved wrong, flawed, or illusory," Walter's lawyers 
continue. They argue the reliability of the process put in place since the 
1970s cases ending and then approving the use of the death penalty still don't 
protect against wrongful executions - and that arbitrariness and racial 
discrimination remain.

The state's response is due Dec. 17, according to the Supreme Court's docket.

(source: buzzfeed.com)