[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., GA., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 8



NORTH CAROLINA:

DNA tests show match to Columbus County man on death row


Lawyers for death row inmate Norfolk "Fuzzy" Best were optimistic in 2012 when 
they found 6 boxes of evidence in the attic of the Whiteville City Hall, 
evidence not shared during Best's 1993 trial for the murder of an elderly 
couple.

The police notes, names of alternate suspects and biological samples could 
prove Best's innocence, the lawyers wrote in court filings requesting DNA tests 
on the newly discovered evidence.

Those test results are in and give almost incontrovertible evidence that Best 
stabbed to death Leslie and Gertrude Baldwin in their Whiteville home in 1991. 
A vaginal swab taken from Gertrude Baldwin, who was raped, contains sperm that 
matches Best's DNA.

The report from Sorenson Forensics in Utah said the chance that the DNA could 
come from an unrelated male in the United States is 490 trillion to 1.

Betsy Baldwin Marlowe, a daughter, said she was pleased when she learned of the 
results.

"This has been ongoing for too long," said Marlowe, who lives in Florence, S.C. 
"This has been stressful for the family."

The News & Observer wrote about Best's case in September 2014.

The murders of the popular and well-known couple shocked the people of Columbus 
County, located in the rural southeast corner of the state. For 37 years, the 
Baldwins ran a photography studio in Whiteville, capturing the pictures of 
babies and brides, graduates and grandparents, farmers and bankers.

Within 2 weeks of the killing, police arrested Best, who had many arrests for 
drugs, robbery and assault and who was recently released from jail. Best, the 
oldest of 8 children, was raised in a clapboard shack with a backyard outhouse 
by a single mother who sold moonshine to make ends meet.

Then-District Attorney Rex Gore painted a straightforward theory for the jury. 
Best worked in the Baldwins' yard one Saturday and returned that evening to 
kill and rob them. Best took a wad of $100 bills and spent the next 48 hours 
holed up in motel rooms, drinking and smoking crack cocaine with 3 women.

Best testified he was innocent. But the jury convicted him and sentenced him to 
death.

After the U.S. Supreme Court turned down his appeal, Best continued to claim 
innocence. A post-conviction lawyer was appointed, but the case languished.

In 2011, Raleigh lawyers Mike Unti and Sharon Smith took over the case and 
developed evidence supporting Best's claims. Much of it was found in 6 boxes in 
a tiny garret in the attic of Whiteville City Hall, not at the police 
department or courthouse where evidence is typically stored.

The lawyers discovered evidence of alternate suspects, one who allegedly told a 
girl friend that he stabbed and killed an elderly couple.

They developed forensic evidence showing the murders occurred 24 hours or less 
before the bodies were discovered, a time when prosecutors said Best was 
partying in a nearby town. Prosecutors said the murders occurred 64 hours 
before the couple was found.

And Unti and Smith cast doubt on the DNA evidence presented at trial, one of 
the first cases in North Carolina to use DNA. Prosecutors presented evidence of 
a weak DNA match with Best. A molecular geneticist hired by Best's lawyers 
criticized the DNA testimony as "completely baseless."

Earlier this year, Unti and Smith submitted some of the newly discovered 
evidence for DNA testing, including vaginal swabs and slides collected during 
Gertrude Baldwin's autopsy.

The results, recently filed in court, show a match to Best.

"I'm glad the science has advanced so much that we can have such definitive 
results," said Gore, the former district attorney who tried the case. "I hope 
this will give peace to anyone who had questions."

Unti spent 4 years investigating and preparing the case on Best's behalf. He 
said he was surprised and disappointed by the results.

"Assuming everything was processed correctly and that there are no problems 
with the chain of custody of the evidence, this is a match," he said.

Unti said Best wanted the newly discovered evidence tested. He has visited his 
client on death row several times to discuss the results.

"Mr. Best is adamant that he did not commit the crime," Unti said. "He said the 
test results are not accurate and that he is innocent."

Unti said he will work to examine the integrity of the evidence handling and 
test results.

"The reason the state funds the post-conviction process is to ensure there is a 
re-examination of the evidence in capital cases," he said. "The state wants as 
much certainty as possible as to whether the verdict is a correct one."

Best remains on death row at Central Prison. North Carolina has not held an 
execution since 2006 because of disputes over execution methods.

(source: newsobserver.com)






GEORGIA----impending execution

Death row inmate Terrell waits as execution hour passes


Georgia death row inmate Brian Keith Terrell's appointed execution time of 7 
p.m. Tuesday has come and gone, but he remains scheduled to die tonight for the 
1992 murder of his mother's friend.

His lawyers continue to plead with the federal courts to stop his execution 
because of concerns they have about the pharmacist who made the lethal 
injection drug.

The 11th U.S. Court of Appeals declined to halt the execution Tuesday evening. 
The U.S. District Court turned down Terrell's appeal Tuesday morning. And on 
Monday night the State Board of Pardons and Paroles declined to grant Terrell 
clemency based on his lawyers' claim that one witness lied in his testimony and 
that another made a mistake when she identified him as the man she saw near the 
victim's home minutes after 70-year-old John Watson was shot and beaten to 
death.

Unlike a number of condemned men who have preceded him, Terrell, 47, did eat 
his last meal. But he had the same dinner served other inmates at the 
Diagnostic and Classification Prison near Jackson: chicken and rice, beans, 
rutabagas, turnip greens and cornbread.

As for visitors, only his pastor from Covington showed up Tuesday. His mother, 
who has insisted that Terrell is innocent, was absent.

In 1992, Terrell stole Watson's checkbook and withdrew a total of $8,700 from 
the victim's bank account. Watson, a friend of Terrell's mother, told the woman 
he would not press charges against her son if a substantial amount of the 
stolen money was returned within 2 days. Instead, Terrell ambushed Watson as he 
left his Covington house for a dialysis appointment.

According to court filings, the pharmacist who compounded the lethal injection 
drug has a 50 % error rate. This pharmacist - whose identity is secret under 
state law - compounded the drugs used in 6 previous executions, including the 
pentobarbital that turned cloudy in early March, forcing the state to postpone 
scheduled executions. The Department of Corrections said it has addressed the 
problem. Subsequently, Kelly Gissendaner, the lone woman on Georgia???s death 
row, and another man have been put to death.

Terrell's lawyers write in court filings that at the very least Georgia should 
use another pharmacist to make the drug.

If Terrell is executed, he will be the 5th person Georgia has put to death this 
year, more than any other year since the state first used lethal injection in 
2001.

(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

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

Georgia Set To Carry Out U.S.'s Final Execution Of The Year----Georgia is 
scheduled to execute Brian Keith Terrell Tuesday evening for murdering John 
Watson in 1992. If carried out, it will be the United States' final execution 
of the year.


On Tuesday evening, Georgia plans to execute Brian Keith Terrell for killing a 
70-year-old family friend more than 20 years ago.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, which has the sole power for granting 
clemency in the state, denied Terrell clemency on Monday.

In 1992, John Watson discovered Terrell forged $9,000 in checks from him, 
according to court records. Watson confronted Terrell's mother, who was his 
good friend, and said he would not press charges if Terrell returned most of 
the money within a couple days.

But on the 2nd day, Watson was found severely beaten and fatally shot.

The case relied on testimony from Terrell's cousin, who said Terrell told him 
he had killed Watson. The cousin now says he lied because police threatened 
him, but refuses to sign an affidavit saying so, according to Terrell's 
attorneys.

Terrell has faced multiple trials and execution dates. The 1st trial ended in a 
hung jury. In his 2nd trial, Terrell was convicted of malice murder and 
forgery, but the state courts ordered a new trial. In his third trial, Terrell 
was sentenced to death.

He was originally scheduled to be executed in March, but the state called it 
off after realizing its lethal injection drug had particles floating in it. 
After an internal investigation, the state concluded that it was due to the 
drug being stored at too cold of a temperature. However, the state attempted to 
withhold results of an experiment, and only turned it over after a BuzzFeed 
News article.

The results of that experiment did not support the state's conclusion that it 
was due to temperature, and not a problem with mixing the drug.

Georgia, like some other death penalty states, obtains its execution drugs from 
a secret compounding pharmacy that mixes up the drug for a specific purpose. 
Compared to manufacturers, compounders face less regulation and their products 
have a higher failure rate.

Terrell's attorneys argue this secret compounding pharmacy is not reliable, and 
that it could subject him to an unconstitutional death. His attorneys propose 
finding a better compounder.

But the courts have so far not been willing to halt Georgia's executions due to 
drug concerns. The state has carried out 2 executions with the same compounder 
after its internal investigation into the faulty drugs.

"Whatever went wrong with the compounded pentobarbital on March 2, Terrell has 
not shown that as a result of that occurrence, he faces an objectively 
unreasonable risk of serious harm," U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten wrote 
Tuesday.

(source: BuzzFeed News)






OHIO:

Appeals court upholds rejection of death row inmate's request for new trial


An appeals court has rejected convicted killer Stanley Jalowiec's latest 
attempt to win a new trial to overturn his death sentence.

The 9th District Court of Appeals ruled Monday that Visiting Judge Virgil Lee 
Sinclair was right when he rejected the request from attorneys representing 
Jalowiec because they failed to prove newly discovered evidence would clear 
their client's name.

Jalowiec was sentenced to die after being convicted in the 1994 slaying of 
police informant Ronald Lally, who was shot, stabbed, beaten and run over by a 
car in a Cleveland cemetery.

Jalowiec has claimed to have been at his mother's house at the time of the 
killing, but both Sinclair and the appeals court found that wasn't what the 
evidence showed.

"The new evidence to which Mr. Jalowiec points consists of speculation and 
alleged contradictions that do not create a strong possibility of a different 
outcome at trial," the decision said. '...Counsels' zeal for their client is 
admirable. But the evidence in the record does not 'destroy' the testimony of 
the State???s key witnesses or 'make clear that on retrial, no reasonable juror 
would conclude that Jalowiec had any role in Lally's death.'"

Instead, the appeals court wrote, the evidence in the case was consistent with 
what prosecutors argued, that "Danny Smith conspired with Raymond Smith to 
murder Mr. Lally, but left the murder itself to Raymond and Mr. Jalowiec.'"

Raymond Smith also was given the death penalty in the case, but his sentence 
later was commuted to life in prison after county Common Pleas Judge 
Christopher Rothgery concluded Smith was mentally retarded and could not be 
executed. Daniel Smith was acquitted by a jury of involvement in the killing.

Lawyers for Jalowiec from the Chicago-based Exoneration Project had argued that 
the case against their client was tainted by prosecutorial and police 
misconduct and suggested that Daniel Smith, not Jalowiec, had gone to Cleveland 
to kill Lally.

Michael Smith, Daniel Smith's brother, was also in the car but wasn't charged 
in the case.

The appeals court wrote that much of the evidence that Jalowiec's attorneys had 
presented as new already had been reviewed in previous appeals and couldn't be 
considered now.

It also rejected the allegations that police and prosecutors had badly 
mishandled the case as Jalowiec's legal team had claimed.

(source: The Chronicle-Telegram)