[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GEORGIA

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 7



GEORGIA----impending execution

State Lawyers Reject Arguments Raised by Death Row Inmate


Lawyers for Georgia filed court papers Monday rejecting arguments by an inmate 
set to be executed this week that prosecutors had used false and misleading 
testimony to convict him.

Brian Keith Terrell, 47, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at 7 p.m. 
Tuesday at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted of the June 1992 
killing of John Watson, a friend of his mother.

Terrell's lawyers argued in a court filing Friday that no physical evidence 
links Terrell to the slaying of the man from Covington, east of Atlanta. They 
also said Terrell's cousin, whose testimony prosecutors relied on, has since 
said he lied to save himself.

Lawyers for the state countered Monday that the courts have already heard and 
rejected the issues raised by Terrell's lawyers.

Terrell was on parole when he stole and forged checks belonging to Watson, who 
reported the theft but asked police not to pursue charges if Terrell returned 
most of the money. On the day Terrell was to return the money, he had his 
cousin drive him to Watson's house, where he shot the 70-year-old man several 
times and severely beat him, lawyers for the state have said.

Terrell's cousin, Jermaine Johnson, was his co-defendant and had been in jail 
for more than a year with the threat of the death penalty hanging over him when 
he agreed to a deal with prosecutors to testify against Terrell. Johnson was 
allowed to plead guilty to a robbery charge, receiving a 5-year prison 
sentence. In a sworn statement submitted Friday by Terrell's lawyers, defense 
investigator Melanie Goodwill wrote that Johnson has told her and defense 
attorney Gerald King that he was 18 and facing the death penalty and was 
pressured by police and the prosecutor to testify against his cousin. He told 
Goodwill and King he would like to give a sworn statement telling the truth but 
is afraid he might be arrested and put in prison for perjury if he does, 
Goodwill wrote.

Johnson has consistently testified under oath that Terrell admitted to killing 
Watson, state lawyers wrote. The hearsay statement given by the defense 
investigator does not meet the legal bar for new consideration, they wrote.

Prosecutors also misleadingly presented the testimony of a neighbor of Watson's 
as having said she saw Terrell at the scene, but the woman said Terrell is not 
the one she saw and prosecutors never asked her to identify him in court, 
Terrell's lawyers wrote.

State lawyers argued in their filing Monday that Terrell's attorneys already 
argued in previous court proceedings that prosecutors knowingly presented false 
testimony by Johnson and misleadingly presented the neighbor's testimony. Those 
arguments have already been reviewed and rejected by courts, state lawyers 
argued.

In a separate state court filing, Terrell's lawyers have challenged the safety 
and effectiveness of the drug the state plans to use to execute Terrell. They 
withdrew that challenge Monday but filed a similar complaint in federal court 
and asked a judge to halt his execution.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, the only state entity authorized to 
commute a death sentence, scheduled a clemency hearing for Terrell on Monday. 
It didn't immediately release a decision.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Condemned man drops state court appeal so can turn to federal courts


Attorneys for condemned murderer Brian Keith Terrell today withdrew an appeal 
filed last week in Fulton Superior Court because, they said, the issue was 
better suited for federal court.

While the court appeal is pending, Terrell's mother and family and friends 
turned to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles to ask for clemency.

Terrell is scheduled to die on Tuesday at 7 p.m. He was originally slated for 
execution on March 10, one week after the scheduled execution of female death 
row inmate Kelly Gissendaner, but both lethal injections were called off 
because of a problem with the lethal injection drugs.

In his appeals, Terrell's lawyer is again raising questions about the 
compounded lethal injection drug that Georgia uses in executions.

And the petition to the Parole Board says witnesses who testified against him 
were wrong about what happened on June 22, 1992, when 70-year-old John Watson 
was shot and beaten to death moments after leaving his Newton County house for 
a dialysis appointment.

In the clemency petition, Terrell's lawyer writes that Jermaine Johnson, 
Terrell's cousin and the prosecution???s key witness, lied when he testified 
and the neighbor who said she saw Terrell at Watson's house actually saw 
someone else.

According to testimony, Terrell, just out of prison, stole 10 blank checks from 
Watson, his mother's friend. He wrote checks, some to himself, for a total of 
$8,700. When Watson discovered the theft, he told Terrell's mother he wouldn't 
press charges if her son returned most of the money. 2 days later, Terrell 
killed Watson.

In the court appeal filed last week, attorney Bo King focused on the compounded 
lethal injection drug, pentobarbital made by an unknown pharmacist. He said the 
problem with the drug earlier this year was never fully explained.

Both of those executions were put on hold temporarily when the compounded 
lethal injection drug, pentobarbital, turned cloudy and clumps formed in the 
liquid.

Gissendaner was executed in September and Terrell's was rescheduled for Tuesday 
after the Department of Corrections determined the problem with the drugs could 
be blamed on cold storage. But King's lawyer argues that the Georgia Department 
of Corrections never truly discovered what caused the problem, and continues to 
insist cold temperatures were to blame even though the agency could not 
recreate the problem.

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

King says there is no way to determine the problem because of the state law 
that keeps most of that information secret.

"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 sources of Georgia's lethal injection drug and the state secrecy shrouding 
that information, are issues that have been raised several times in appeals if 
other condemned killers. 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.

(source: ajc.com)