[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CONN., PENN., GA., ALA., IND., KY.

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 5



CONNECTICUT:

Man whose case led to ruling against Connecticut death penalty resentenced to 
life in prison


A former death row inmate whose appeal resulted in capital punishment being 
eliminated in Connecticut has been resentenced to life in prison without the 
possibility of parole.

Hartford Superior Court Judge Carl Taylor sentenced 36-year-old Eduardo 
Santiago on Friday for a 2000 murder-for-hire killing in West Hartford. 
Prosecutors say Santiago shot 45-year-old Joseph Niwinski in exchange for a 
pink-striped snowmobile with a broken clutch.

Santiago, whose death sentence previously had been overturned, was facing the 
possibility of it being reinstated when the state Supreme Court ruled on his 
appeal in August. A divided court found that capital punishment "no longer 
comports with contemporary standards of decency" and doesn't serve any penal 
purpose.

The state had eliminated the death penalty in 2012, except for those who were 
already facing capital punishment.

(source: Associated press)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Upper Merion double-murderer wants detective prosecuted for lying


A convicted double-killer sitting on death row wants to pursue criminal charges 
against the Montgomery County detective who headed the investigation that 
resulted in his arrest.

A hearing that would allow Raghunandan Yandamuri to file a private criminal 
complaint against Detective Paul Bradbury is scheduled for Jan. 5, according to 
a court order filed Friday in county court.

Yandamuri, 29, formerly of Upper Merion, initially petitioned the county 
district attorney's office, which includes the county detective bureau, to 
arrest Bradbury on charges of perjury and/or false swearing.

The district attorney's office rejected that request.

"We reviewed Mr. Yandamuri's filings and found them to be without merit," said 
Deputy District Attorney Thomas McGoldrick, chief of trials.

Now, Yandamuri, who represented himself at his own criminal trial, wants to 
file a private criminal complaint.

In that approximate 177-page private criminal complaint, Yandamuri alleges that 
Bradbury perjured himself or gave false or misleading testimony on at least 13 
different occasions.

For example, Yandamuri claims that during the suppression hearing aimed at 
barring his written and video confessions to be used as evidence against him at 
his trial, Bradbury testified Yandamuri was free to leave the Upper Merion 
police station where he was being questioned even after he had been given his 
Miranda warnings.

At trial, Yandamuri alleges in his complaint, Bradbury testified that Yandamuri 
was in police custody and was not free to leave after given his Miranda 
warnings.

"Had Mr. Bradbury been truthful at suppression hearing, there is a reasonable 
likelihood ... the outcome might have been different," Yandamuri said in the 
complaint.

A jury in October 2014 convicted Yandamuri in the stabbing death of 61-year-old 
Satyavathi Venna and the suffocation death of her 10-month-old granddaughter 
Saanvi Venna in a botched kidnapping-for-ransom plot. The same jury that found 
Yandamuri guilty on 2 1st-degree murder charges then deliberated again during 
the penalty phase, returning with 2 death penalty decisions for the double 
killings.

The charges against Yandamuri stem from an investigation that began Oct. 22, 
2012, when Upper Merion police were dispatched to the Marquis Apartments 
complex in response to a 911 call reporting both a killing and a missing child.

When they arrived, they found the body of the grandmother in the kitchen.

The grandmother, a native of India, had arrived in the United States in June 
2012 for a 6-month visit to see her new grandchild.

Police could not find the baby but they did find a ransom note asking the 
parents for $50,000 in cash. That note included the nicknames of the parents, 
nicknames known only to close family friends.

Yandamuri, who had been befriended by the parents and lived in the same 
apartment complex, was brought to the police station for questioning on Oct. 
25, 2012. After initially denying involvement in the incident, Yandamuri 
admitted he was responsible for the death of the grandmother and the baby, 
according to the criminal complaint.

Acting on information that Yandamuri gave them, authorities found the baby's 
body in an unused sauna in another building at the apartment complex at about 4 
a.m. on Oct. 26, 2012.

Yandamuri gave both a written and videotaped confession but later maintained 
those confessions were coerced from him by detectives. He has filed appeals 
aimed at having his murder convictions and his death sentences overturned.

Yandamuri currently is being housed at the state prison in Greene County.

The state places most of its death-row inmates in this maximum security 
facility in the southwestern section of the state.

(source: The Intelligencer)






GEORGIA----impending execution

Man set to die Tuesday again challenges Georgia's execution drug


A lawyer for condemned murderer Brian Keith Terrell is again raising questions 
about the compounded lethal injection drug that Georgia uses in executions.

Terrell is scheduled to die on Tuesday. He was originally slated for execution 
on March 10, 1 week after the scheduled execution of female death row inmate 
Kelly Gissendaner.

Both of those executions were put on hold temporarily when the compounded 
lethal injection drug, pentobarbital, turned cloudy. But Gissendaner was 
eventually executed in September after the state decided the drug's cloudiness 
was caused by how it was stored, not how it was made.

Now, in an appeal filed Thursday in Fulton County Superior Court, Terrell???s 
attorney argues the Georgia Department of Corrections never truly discovered 
what caused the problem, so the agency continues to insist cold temperatures 
caused clumps to form in the pentobarbital.

Terrell's lawyer, Bo King, wrote in the appeal that information obtained under 
the Georgia Open Records Act indicate there were problems with 2 batches of 
pentobarbital, not just 1, suggesting the cloudiness might not be an isolated 
incident.

"It is only a matter of time before the drugs - compounded by an unknown 
pharmacy using unknown ingredients in unknown circumstances - become defective 
again," King wrote.

The attorney also wrote that the defense team's expert on compounding drugs 
reviewed state records but was limited by Georgia's secrecy law. The drug 
expert, Michael Jay, decided other circumstances could have caused the problem 
with the pentobarbital.

Jay, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences and bio-medical engineering at the 
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, wrote in a document attached to 
Terrell's appeal that if officials had not noticed a problem with the drug and 
had used it as intended in March, Gissendaner - and later Terrell - would have 
suffered excruciating pain.

Jay wrote that he suspects the compounding pharmacist who made those batches of 
drugs used the wrong active ingredient - pentobarbital rather than 
pentobarbital sodium. Either that, or the pH solution in the compounded drug 
was incorrect.

If those executions had been carried out using the drugs, Jay wrote, it's 
possible that particulate matter in the pentobarbital would have lodged in 
blood vessels or the lungs. It would be akin to being injected with "very small 
pieces of glass," Jay wrote.

The sources of Georgia's lethal injection drug, and the state secrecy shrouding 
that information, is an issue that has been raised several times in appeals. 
Repeatedly the courts have upheld the use of pentobarbital and have ruled that 
Georgia can keep secret its drug sources to protect pharmacists from public 
pressure.

Terrell is scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m. Tuesday for the 1992 murder of 
John Watson, his mother's friend. Terrell stole about $8,700 from the 
70-year-old man by stealing blank checks. Watson told Terrell's mother he 
wouldn't press charges if Terrell returned most of the money. 2 days later, 
Terrell attacked Watson as he left his Newton County house for a dialysis 
appointment.

Fulton Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville will hold a hearing Monday on 
Terrell's latest appeal. At the same time, the state Board of Pardons and 
Paroles will hear his petition for clemency.

(source: myajc.com)

******

Death row inmate's lawyers say Georgia hasn't resolved problem with its 
execution drug


Lawyers for a Georgia death row inmate say the drug the state plans to use for 
his execution Tuesday risks violating his constitutional rights.

In a court filing Thursday, lawyers for Brian Keith Terrell say the state still 
doesn't know what caused clumps to appear in its compounded pentobarbital 
earlier this year. They say that means problems could arise again and cause 
serious harm to their client.

Terrell is scheduled to die Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson.

Terrell was on parole in June 1992 when he stole and forged checks belonging to 
a friend of his mother, 70-year-old John Watson. Prosecutors say Terrell was 
supposed to return the money but instead shot Watson multiple times and then 
severely beat him.

(source: Associated Press)






ALABAMA----new death sentence

Jury recommends death for Towles


Jurors deliberated about an hour Friday before returning a unanimous 
recommendation that Kevin Andre Towles be sentenced to die for the beating 
death of Geontae Glass.

After the recommendation was returned, defense attorneys seemed to be 
comforting Towles, with arms around his shoulders, and at times he seemed to be 
doing the same for them.

Etowah County Circuit Judge David Kimberley set sentencing for Towles at 10 
a.m. March 19, when he will determine whether to follow the jury's 
recommendation of the death sentence or impose a sentence of life without 
parole.

Towles was convicted and sentenced to die in 2009 for the boy's death, but the 
case was returned for a new trial by the appeals court.

The 2nd conviction came exactly 9 years after prosecutors believe Geontae died 
from complications of repeated beatings, administered over the course of a 
weekend.

Defense attorney Dani Bone said this verdict will be appealed as well. He said 
it's too early to say what grounds there might be for appeal. He said the judge 
did a fine job protecting the record, and complimented the work of his legal 
team and the state.

"It's difficult to deal with a verdict like this, but in this line of work, it 
happens," Sam Bone, another of Towles' attorneys, said.

Dani Bone said appeal is automatic in a death penalty case.

"We continue to believe Andre is not guilty of the underlying crime," he said. 
He added that he expects the case to be reversed and for Towles to be 
exonerated.

Etowah County District Attorney Jody Willoughby said his office thanked the 
jurors for their service.

"It's been a long road for them, a difficult road," he said. "I couldn't be 
more proud of the work our office did - and that's all the office - not just 
the ones in court."

Willoughby said Geontae Glass' family also wanted to express its thanks to 
jurors.

The decision on the sentence recommendation came quickly. Jurors took a lunch 
break before beginning deliberations; they returned to the judicial building at 
1:15 p.m. and had a decision by 2:30 p.m.

Friday morning, jurors heard from Geontae Glass' mother.

Shalinda Glass told jurors her spirit and her flesh differed in what they would 
recommend for Towles' fate. Jurors found Towles guilty Thursday in the beating 
death of Glass' 5-year-old son.

The response of the flesh was that of a mother speaking, she said.

"As a mother, I want the death penalty," Glass said. "As a born-again believer, 
life without parole. God holds all people in his hands. With life without, at 
least my family would know that he won't hurt any other family and put them 
through what we've been through."

Glass appeared before jurors in a striped inmate uniform. She pleaded guilty in 
2012 to a charge of felony murder in her son's death. She said she took 
responsibility for her role in Geontae's death - failing to protect him from 
Towles and participating in an attempted cover-up.

She answered questions before Kimberley prior to testifying for jurors, to see 
what her responses would be.

Dani Bone asked if she would recommend that jurors spare Towles' life.

"Did he spare my son's life?" Glass said, responding forcefully to the 
attorney's question.

"I'm to the point that I've forgiven him, because I have to, to have a 
relationship with God," she said. "If I want to see my son again, I have to 
forgive him. I would do anything to see my son again."

"In the afterlife?" Chief Deputy District Attorney Marcus Reid asked, and Glass 
said yes.

She paused, apparently considering, when Reid asked what sentence she thought 
justice required.

"Life without (parole)," she said, then explained. "Death would give him 
something to look forward to. With life without, he'll have lots and lots of 
years to think about what he's done. That would be torture."

During a break before the jury was brought in, Glass was allowed to approach 
her mother, Linda Glass Starr, with a big smile and a hug. They were allowed to 
visit in an area outside the courtroom before testimony resumed.

Speaking in front of the jury, Glass said the sentence Towles received was up 
to them.

"I trust them to do what they do," she said.

Prior to Glass' testimony, the state read into evidence testimony given by 
Towles' son, Shaquille Cameron, in 2009, about a incident when he was about 9 
years old. He said Towles came into his room and saw he had a lot of drinking 
cups that he'd not put away. He said Towles picked up a box fan and hit him in 
the head with it. He said he cried, then went to school with a golf-ball sized 
knot on his head.

He said Towles cried after hitting him. At school, friends, then teachers 
noticed the knot and the principal took him to the Department of Human 
Resources. He was removed from Towles' custody.

In closing arguments, Deputy District Attorney Carol Griffith told jurors to 
consider two aggravating factors: that Towles had a prior conviction for armed 
robbery and that the crime was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel.

"Geontae was beaten over a period of time," Griffith said. "He laid there all 
day long without help, without mercy and he died."

Bone argued the state didn't prove the crime was heinous, atrocious and cruel.

"Nobody said they saw an atrocious beating. There's inference that it must have 
happened," he said. "Someone should have noticed he was suffering, crying, 
hurting," if the incident was that bad.

"The evidence isn't there," he said. "Mere speculation isn't enough."

Sam Bone said a sentence of life without parole meant Towles will die in 
prison. He would never get out, he said, but he might be able to mentor an 
inmate who would.

"He could tell them, 'Don't make my mistakes,'" he said.

Sam Bone told jurors a death penalty would bring nine levels of automatic 
appeals and keep the victim's family awaiting court proceedings for years to 
come. Give them closure, he said, by putting Towles in a cell for the rest of 
his days.

Reid told jurors to make no mistake, the case would be appealed no matter what 
sentence they recommended.

He told jurors it was hard for them to consider sentencing someone to death. He 
said it's hard for the prosecution to ask them to.

"But it wasn't hard for him," Reid said, pointing at Towles, to take the boy 
outside that Sunday morning in December 2006 and "beat him so hard he couldn't 
walk, then carry him in and lay him in the floor and where he laid and suffered 
all day.

"It wasn't hard for him to tell all those lies."

Reid said many good people have testified, asking for mercy for Towles.

"They're hurting," Reid said. "But they're not our victims. They're not your 
victims. They are victims of Kevin Andre Towles, too."

Reid said it's the jury's duty to determine if the death penalty is appropriate 
in this case. He urged them to look again at the photos of Geontae Glass' body, 
taken at autopsy.

"Think about what Geontae was thinking," Reid said. "He loved that man.

"The state of our souls is between us and God," he said. "What does justice 
call for?"

(source: Gadsden Times)

*********

Alabama death row inmate asks federal judge to stay execution


Attorneys for Alabama death row inmate Christopher Brooks, convicted in the 
1992 murder of a Homewood woman, on Friday asked a federal judge to block 
Brooks' scheduled execution next month.

The judge on Friday set a hearing for Dec. 18 on Brooks' emergency petition.

Meanwhile, the Alabama Attorney General's Office, at the judge's request, 
submitted a proposal Friday to change the state's 3-drug lethal injection 
method to use of just one of the drugs for Brooks' execution.

The Alabama Supreme Court on Nov. 23 set Brooks' execution date for Jan. 21. 
Brooks had exhausted his direct appeals and the Alabama Attorney General's 
Office on Sept. 24 asked the Alabama Supreme Court to set an execution date.

John Palombi, assistant federal defender with the Middle District of Alabama, 
said they filed a motion Friday asking U.S. District Court Judge Keith Watkins 
to stay Brooks' execution. "We asked the Court to do so to allow Mr. Brooks' 
case to proceed to a final hearing with the other 5 plaintiffs (death row 
inmates) in the litigation challenging Alabama's method of execution," he said 
in an email.

Death row inmates are challenging the use of the drug midazolam as part of the 
drug combination Alabama plans to use for lethal injections.

"Alabama has not yet carried out an execution using midazolam in either a 
1-drug or a 3-drug protocol," Palombi said. "The time to evaluate whether such 
a protocol creates an unreasonable risk of severe pain is not after an 
execution using a new protocol, but before."

"In requesting this stay and also asking the Alabama Supreme Court to vacate 
its order setting his execution date, Mr. Brooks is only asking the state to 
wait for the resolution of the evidentiary hearing that is already scheduled 
and which will address these crucial constitutional and human rights 
questions," Palombi said.

The Alabama Attorney General's Office declined to comment on the motion seeking 
a halt to Brooks' execution or its motion filed Friday asking Watkins to 
approve a 1-drug protocol.

The AG's office, however, still believes its 3-drug protocol is constitutional, 
according to court documents.

Watkins in an order issued Tuesday had given the AG's office until Friday to 
file that motion.

The judge also gave Brooks' attorneys until noon Tuesday (Dec. 8) for file 
their response to the AG's proposed 1-drug midazolam protocol. The judge also 
gave the AG's office until Dec. 11 to respond to Brooks' emergency motion to 
stay his execution.

Brooks last month joined other Alabama death row inmates in filing federal 
lawsuits challenging Alabama's proposed 3-drug protocol for lethal injections. 
That protocol calls for an injection of 500 milligrams of midazolam 
hydrochloride followed by 600 milligrams of rocuronium bromide to stop 
breathing, and then 240 "milliequivalents" of potassium chloride to stop the 
heart.

Based on a previous U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in order to prevail on an Eighth 
Amendment method-of-execution claims of cruel and unusual punishment, inmates 
must name an alternative to the current method that is "feasible, readily 
implemented" and significantly reduces a substantial risk of severe pain.

When Brooks filed his lawsuit he listed 3 lethal injection alternatives - 2 of 
which the state says it can no longer get. The 3rd was the single dose of 
midazolam.

After other inmates also suggested a single-dose of midazolam as an 
alternative, the AG's office called their bluff and agreed for just their 
executions.

Watkins had rejected a few other death row inmates suggestion for a firing 
squad or hanging.

Brooks was convicted in 1993 of murder during the course of a rape, robbery, 
and burglary for killing Jo Deann Campbell. A jury recommended Brooks receive 
the death penalty and a judge sentenced him to death.

According to the appeal court records Campbell and Brooks had met while working 
as counselors at a camp in New York state. On Dec. 31, 1992, her body was found 
under the bed in the bedroom of her Homewood apartment. She had been bludgeoned 
to death, and was naked from the waist down.

DNA taken from semen found in the victim's body, a palm print on one of 
Campbell's ankles, and bloody fingerprints on her bedroom door were all linked 
to Brooks.

A friend of Brooks, who also was at the apartment, was not indicted on charges.

(source: al.com)






INDIANA:

Court appearance for man charged in fatally shooting an Indianapolis police 
officer postponed


A court appearance for a man charged with murder in the 2014 shooting death of 
an Indianapolis police officer has been postponed until next week.

Major Davis Jr. was scheduled to appear in court Friday for several motions 
involving his case, but it was postponed until Dec. 11.

He's accused of killing Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Officer 
Perry Renn in a July 2014 gun battle. Davis was critically hurt.

Davis could face the death penalty if convicted of killing Renn.

(source: Associated Press)



KENTUCKY:

3 people indicted for murder in April shooting death of UK student ---- Efrain 
Diaz, Justin D. Smith and a 17-year-old have been charged with fatally shooting 
Jonathan Krueger, a junior at the University of Kentucky, on April 17.


Prosecutors say they are ready to set a trial date for the 3 people charged in 
the fatal shooting of a University of Kentucky student killed during a robbery 
in April.

During a hearing Friday in Fayette Circuit Court, attorneys said lab results 
for ballistic tests are in and DNA results will be available by the end of the 
month.

Efrain Diaz Jr., Justin Delone Smith and Roman Gonzalez Jr. were indicted in 
June on charges of murder and 1st-degree robbery. Smith also is charged with 
tampering and fleeing or evading police.

Police have charged Diaz, 20, Smith, 18, and Gonzalez, 17, with killing Krueger 
during a robbery about 2 a.m. April 17 at Transylvania Park and East Maxwell 
Street. Krueger, a Perrysburg, Ohio native, died from a gunshot wound to the 
chest, according to the Fayette County Coroner.

Krueger -- the photo editor for The Kentucky Kernel, the University of 
Kentucky's student newspaper -- was walking down East Maxwell Street with Aaron 
Gillette, a friend, when police say the three suspects approached the 2 
students.

Police have said the group hopped out of a van, pulled guns on Krueger and 
Gillette and demanded cash. Krueger and Gillette complied with those demands, 
and then their attackers started demanding more. The detective said Gillette 
tried to grab the gun and a physical exchange ensued and the gun was fired; 
Krueger was fighting with the juvenile. Gillette said he was fleeing when he 
heard multiple gunshots.

Witnesses saw a van leave the scene, and investigators later saw a van that 
matched that description. The van fled from police, but officers were able to 
run the plates, which came back to Justin Smith's mother.

Diaz and Smith admitted to police they were involved but they said Gonzalez 
shot and killed Krueger.

On Friday, Brent Cox, Diaz's attorney, said he has not seen the lab results yet 
but he hopes the results will back up that claim.

"If my client didn't shoot anybody he's not a murderer. If they choose to 
charge him with complicity we will look and see what actions they're saying he 
took were complicit," he said.

Diaz's attorney says both Diaz and Smith could face the death penalty if they 
are convicted of murder. Gonzalez is facing a life-sentence with parole 
considered after 25 years because he is a juvenile.

Attorneys think the case will go to trial at the end of 2016. A bond hearing is 
scheduled for Jan. 15.

(source: WKYT news)