[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., GA., OKLA., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

June 17



TEXAS----impending execution

Gregory Russeau of Texas to be executed this week in auto mechanic's death



A man convicted in the fatal beating of a 75-year-old auto repair shop owner in 
East Texas is facing execution this week, with no court appeals pending.

Gregory Russeau is scheduled for execution Thursday evening for the May 2001 
death of James Syvertson.

Russeau was driving the victim's car when police pulled him over in front of a 
known drug house in Longview, about 200 miles north of Houston. Police found 
Russeau about 8 hours after relatives of Syvertson, who owned an auto repair 
shop in nearby Tyler, found his body.

Court records indicate Russeau was on a cocaine binge and on parole at the 
time. DNA, fingerprint and palm-print evidence helped convict Russeau of 
capital murder.

The 45-year-old Russeau would be the 9th inmate executed this year in Texas.

(source: Associated Press)








PENNSYLVANIA:

DA deciding on death penalty for soldier accused of killing teen girlfriend's 
mother



Prosecutors still have not said if they will seek the death penalty against a 
soldier accused of killing the mother of his teen girlfriend, and then working 
with the girl to dispose of the woman's body.

Caleb Barnes, 21, and Jamie Silvonek, 14, were in Lehigh County Court Wednesday 
morning for arraignments on charges connected with the killing of Silvonek's 
mother, Cheryl.

Prosecutors say Barnes brutally stabbed the elder Silvonek in the neck in the 
early morning of March 15 after she repeatedly tried to break up the couple, 
going so far as to show Barnes her daughter's passport to convince him of the 
girl's age.

Silvonek and Barnes are each charged with homicide, conspiracy, abuse of a 
corpse and tampering with evidence. The pair had separate formal arraignments 
Wednesday morning.

Prosecutors usually file notice of aggravating circumstances -- indications 
they will seek the death penalty in a case -- on or before formal arraignments. 
No notice was filed as of Wednesday.

Asked if prosecutors would seek the death penalty, Senior Deputy District 
Attorney Jeff Dimmig said, "That's Mr. Martin's decision," referring to 
District Attorney Jim Martin.

A message left for Martin asking about the decision was not immediately 
returned.

In the meantime, attorneys plan to meet next month for the hearing to determine 
if Silvonek will be tried as an adult. Defense attorney John Waldron is seeking 
to have her case sent to juvenile court.

Pretrial hearings are scheduled for August, but a trial date won't be set until 
Judge Maria Dantos decides on where Silvonek's case will end up.

Dimmig said on Wednesday that prosecutors have received sealed medical records 
from the military for Barnes, a solider who was stationed at Fort Meade, 
Maryland before his arrest. Dimmig said his office is waiting on a search 
warrant before opening the records, so he is not sure if they include any type 
of metal health records.

Asked if prosecutors requested any type of criminal or infraction records from 
the military related to Barnes, Dimmig said, "That's been part of our 
investigation."

Prosecutors alleged the couple plotted to kill both of Silvonek's parents as a 
way to be together. They said Jamie Silvonek was 13 but told Barnes she was 17, 
and the 2 communicated daily since they met.

Authorities say Cheryl Silvonek first met Barnes on March 6. When she learned 
the soldier was a 20-year-old at the time, she allegedly told her daughter the 
relationship had to end, authorities say.

Martin released text messages between the couple that indicated they spoke for 
hours about killing Cheryl Silvonek before she was fatally stabbed in a car in 
the driveway of the family's Randi Lane home in Upper Macungie Township.

And a friend of Silvonek testified at the pair's preliminary hearing that they 
discussed killing Silvonek's parents over the phone.

"It was something along the lines of, like, 'What if my parents were killed,'" 
the girl testified on May 14. "I told her it wasn't a smart idea at all."

Police say after driving to a concert and back on March 15, a confrontation 
occurred between Barnes and Cheryl Silvonek. Barnes strangled Silvoek as she 
begged for her life while her daughter watched, police say.

After the killing, prosecutors said Barnes and Jamie Silvonek drove to a 
Wal-Mart to get supplies and returned to the house. Cheryl Silvonek's body was 
driven to a rural area in South Whitehall Township and set on fire, prosecutors 
say. Barnes and Jamie Silvonek then dumped the blood-laden car in a nearby pond 
before walking back to the Silvonek home, authorities say.

(source: lehighvalleylive.com)








GEORGIA----female to face death penalty

Prosecutors seeking death penalty against mother of Heaven Woods



Prosecutors said Wednesday are seeking the death penalty against the mother of 
a 5-year-old charged in her daughter's death.

Authorities say Heaven Woods died of internal injuries in May 2014 after months 
of abuse.

Woods' mother, Amanda Hendrickson, and her mother's boyfriend, Roderick 
Buckner, were arrested and charged with murder. In hearing on Wednesday, 
prosecutors announced they would seek the death penalty against Hendrickson and 
Buckner.

Buckner pleaded guilty during the hearing and will receive life in prison 
without parole and he will testify against Hendrickson.

After Woods' death, 11Alive made an open records request for the child's case 
file. It showed there was an open investigation in Floyd County, where the 
family lived. But Heaven and her mother were found living in Monroe County with 
her boyfriend's mother when she died.

(source: WXIA news)

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

Kelly Gissendaner attorneys claim Georgia withheld evidence on 'botched' 
execution



Attorneys for Kelly Gissendaner are accusing the state of attempting to mislead 
federal courts by withholding evidence related to her "botched" execution.

The Georgia Department of Corrections has maintained that a "cold storage" 
issue "most likely" caused cloudiness in the drugs intended to kill the former 
Gwinnett County resident in March, forcing officials to postpone her lethal 
injection indefinitely. Now the attorneys for the prisoner, Georgia's only 
woman on death row, say the agency knew that theory might not be true because 
its own testing had contradicted it.

"Defendants have conducted a self-investigation with opaque results - some of 
which they chose initially to conceal from Ms. Gissendaner and this Court," 
Gissendaner's U.S. District Court filing, submitted late last week, says.

The attorneys, citing the opinion of University of North Carolina professor 
Michael Jay, claim the pentobarbital solution might have been compounded 
improperly, thus posing a risk of excessive pain to the prisoner. To answer the 
question, Gissendaner's team says, the state must turn over more information.

The DOC submitted the test results in court on June 5, weeks after turning in 
evidence purporting to show that the pentobarbital solution hadn't been stored 
at a cold enough temperature. The attorneys for Gissendaner, convicted of 
arranging her husband's 1997 murder, claim the DOC revealed the test results 
only after media pressure, despite making "promises" to turn it over in the 
U.S. Supreme Court and federal district court in Atlanta.

Gissendaner, now 46, was convicted in November 1998 of having her lover, 
Gregory Owen, kill her husband, Douglas Gissendaner, a Desert Storm veteran. 
Owen, who avoided the death penalty by cooperating with prosecutors, bludgeoned 
the man with a night stick and left him dead in a field.

Gissendaner's execution was scheduled for March 2 and canceled that night after 
officials discovered that the drugs had become "cloudy," with visible chunks of 
floating in the clear liquid.

A DOC spokeswoman announced that the execution was off in a terse statement to 
the media gathered for the lethal injection at the Georgia State Diagnostic 
Prison in Jackson. Gissendaner's attorneys reportedly learned of the 
cancellation from Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens.

Olens called 3 times that night, first to say it was off, then on, then finally 
off for the evening, Gissendaner's attorneys claim in the new court filing.

The state didn't inform the lawyers until the next day that Gissendaner 
wouldn't be executed within the window specified on her death warrant, which 
was good until March 4, according to court documents. The "hours of indecision" 
caused grave fear in the prisoner, enough to amount to "cruel and unusual 
punishment" barred by the 8 amendment, the attorneys said.

The state has argued against those allegations in previous court filings. 
Attorneys for the state take issue with Gissendaner's lawyers' assertion that 
her execution was "botched," because it never technically began.

They have also accused Gissendaner's lawyers of looking for an excuse to pry 
for more information on the drugs because of general opposition to Georgia's 
secrecy laws related to executions.

But Gissendaner's attorneys argue the policies of secrecy only help the state 
hide its "shortcomings" with performing executions.

"Even now, with their cold-storage theory discredited by their own testing," 
they wrote in the new filing, "Defendants will change nothing about how they 
proceed with executions in the future - except, perhaps, to buy a new 
refrigerator."

(source: Gwinnett Daily Post)








OKLAHOMA:

Triple-murder defendant to face death penalty at trial



Prosecutors Tuesday notified triple-murder defendant Alan Hruby that he will 
face the death penalty at his jury trial.

Hruby, now 20, is accused of fatally shooting his mother, sister and father 
Oct. 9 in the family's home for the inheritance money.

He stared blankly ahead Tuesday as a Stephens County judge ruled prosecutors 
had enough evidence against him for a murder trial. He also showed no emotion 
as his defense attorney accepted the death penalty notification.

Earlier Tuesday, Hruby repeatedly wiped away tears and trembled as the family's 
longtime housekeeper described finding the bodies inside the kitchen of the 
home Oct. 13.

He wept again when a police investigator told the judge he had confessed to 
shooting his mother twice, then shooting his sister once when she came in from 
washing her vehicle and finally shooting his father twice after waiting an hour 
for him to come home.

Prosecutors contend Hruby should be punished by death because he killed for 
money, because he killed 3 people, because he is a continuing threat to society 
and because each murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.

Killed were his parents, newspaper publisher John Hruby, 50, and Joy "Tinker" 
Hruby, 48, and his sister, Katherine Hruby, 17.

Hruby, then a student at the University of Oklahoma, was a shopaholic. His 
parents had cut off his finances after he took out a credit card in his 
grandmother's name and charged thousands of dollars on it.

(source: The Oklahoman)








WASHINGTON:

No question about cop killer's punishment



As a jury considers the fate of cop killer Christopher Monfort, a question 
lingers: should he be sentenced to death?

A jury is determining Monfort's fate after finding him guilty of murdering 
Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton in Oct. 2009.

KIRO Radio's Ron and Don said there is usually room to debate the controversial 
topic of capital punishment, but this is not such a situation.

"The older I get and the more I've learned, there seems to be a margin for 
error in the death penalty," Ron Upshaw said. "There are a disproportionate 
number of minorities and a disproportionate number of poor people on death 
row."

"However," he continued. "There are certain categories of crimes and certain 
types of evidence, to me, to put somebody across the line into the death 
penalty. If I was a juror on this case, this would be one of those cases."

Co-host Don O'Neill agreed, but objected to the procedure taking place in the 
courtroom this week.

"For everybody in that jury room to have to come to the same conclusion, I 
don't think it's fair to that jury," O'Neill said, noting that some people are 
brought up with certain morals and religion that prevent them from voting for 
the death penalty in any case.

"It's just a part of you, no matter what, you would never agree to take a 
life," he said. "Now you put folks in a jury room and maybe there are a few 
people holding out."

O'Neill said that there should be an allowance - maybe 10-2 - for such 
circumstances.

"12-0 is just not fair," O'Neill said.

Weighing the case

The jury will listen to a range of people involved in the case, but only 1 
person will speak for Timothy Brenton - his brother Matt Brenton.

"[Monfort] gets to have 47 people stand up for him and beg for his life and on 
Timothy Brenton's side, you're only allowed to have one person go up there and 
represent the Brenton Family," O'Neill said. "I've gotten to know Matt over the 
years and he's doing a great job."

Brenton's brother spoke to the jury Tuesday afternoon and explained how the 
death has affected his family. The pain on his face was apparent, Upshaw noted 
while adding that the 2 bothers grew up in a single parent home; something that 
Officer Brenton didn't want for his child.

"Tim made a very pointed effort that he was going to be a different kind of 
father, that his kids would not grow up in the same environment," Matt Brenton 
told the courtroom.

Upshaw said that the facts are what they are and that the death penalty should 
be the outcome.

"This was a guy that was at war with police for no other reason than he felt 
like it was his calling to take police officers out because of some twisted 
sense of justice," he said. "In my mind, if ever there was a case for a death 
penalty, this is it."

Upshaw said that Monfort not only shot and killed Officer Brenton, he shot at 
Brenton's partner, firebombed a police parking lot, and fired at officers 
attempting to arrest him.

"And he was defiant," Upshaw said. "He came into the courtroom ... defiantly 
talking about how in America 300 people have been killed by police this year 
and that somehow justifies his logic to kill Timothy Brenton. It's a twisted 
mindset. It's an evil mindset."

(source: mynorthwest.com)








USA:

Judge denies bid to move Gary Sampson trial----Sampson convicted of killing 3 
men in 2001



A judge has rejected a request by convicted killer Gary Sampson to move his 
federal death penalty trial out of Boston.

Judge Mark Wolf on Wednesday denied a change-of-venue motion filed by Sampson's 
lawyers.

A federal jury condemned Sampson to die after pleading guilty to federal 
charges in the killings of 19-year-old Jonathan Rizzo of Kingston, 
Massachusetts, and 69-year-old Philip McCloskey of Taunton, Massachusetts.

Sampson also pleaded guilty in New Hampshire state court to killing 58-year-old 
Robert Whitney in Meredith shortly after the other slayings. He received a life 
sentence.

In 2011, Wolf ordered a new trial to determine Sampson's sentence after finding 
that a juror had lied about her family's criminal history.

Sampson's 2nd sentencing trial is scheduled to begin in September.

Sampson was the 1st person sentenced to death in Massachusetts under the 
federal death penalty statute. The state's death penalty as abolished by the 
Legislature in 1984.

(source: WMUR news)

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

5th juror dismissed from trial of Colorado theater shooter James Holmes----The 
juror recognized a witness as a parent from the school where she works, 
following another juror dismissed this week after a family member was shot



A 5th juror has been dismissed from the trial of Colorado theater shooter James 
Holmes.

The judge on Wednesday said the juror didn't reveal all the facts when she said 
she recognized a witness who testified in May. Judge Carlos A Samour said he 
didn't dismiss her earlier because he didn't have all the information.

The juror told the judge on 6 May that she recognized a witness as the parent 
of a boy who attends the school where the juror works.

That leaves 19 jurors, including 7 alternates. 4 other jurors have been 
dismissed in the last week.

Lawyers for Holmes this week sought the dismissal of 1 juror because they said 
other jurors had seen her crying after her brother-in-law was shot in an armed 
robbery last week in Denver.

In further questioning, the juror said 3 other jurors were with her when her 
husband called and said her brother-in-law was in a "major accident." She said 
that's all she told them.

The judge dismissed the juror because of how her brother-in-law's shooting 
might impact her and because he wasn't sure if she was completely truthful 
either.

3 others were released last week over concerns they were exposed to media 
reports and may not have been truthful about it.

Samour found the 3 women violated his orders to avoid outside information on 
Holmes' death penalty trial and not talk about the case with anyone.

The 1st woman told Samour her husband called her and told her, on speakerphone, 
that the district attorney had sent a tweet during testimony, which had been in 
the news.

The other 2 jurors, who sometimes socialized with the 1st juror on breaks, were 
dismissed because they likely overheard her.

The issue stalled testimony for a day last week, but Samour refused to let it 
derail the trial, which has been going on for 2 months.

Samour's cuts came after he separately questioned each juror at length about 
what they had heard. He tried to ensure both sides were comfortable with the 
outcome.

He decided against getting rid of a fourth juror who said she had heard the 
first dismissed woman mention the word "mistrial" but didn't know what it was 
about.

(source: The Guardian)

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

Opponents of death penalty and the escaped murderers



As just about every American knows by now, 2 murderers recently escaped a 
maximum-security prison in upstate New York.

1 of them, Richard Matt, was described by a retired police captain as "the most 
vicious, evil person I've ever come across in 38 years as a police officer."

As reported by The Washington Post, "[Matt] convinced an accomplice, then 
21-year-old Lee Bates, to help him kidnap, torture and murder Matt's former 
boss, businessman William Rickerson. Bates told authorities that the duo dumped 
Rickerson in a car dressed only in his pajamas, driving from New York to Ohio 
and back while Matt tried to get the older man to tell him about large sums of 
money Matt was convinced Rickerson had hidden somewhere. At one point, Matt 
opened the trunk and bent back Rickerson's fingers until they broke, Bates 
said. Then he snapped Rickerson's neck with his bare hands." (Washington Post, 
June 12, 2015)

So here is a challenge to those who oppose the death penalty: If one or both of 
these murderers kills again, will you acknowledge that the blood of the 
victim(s) is on your hands?

Matt then dismembered Rickerson and fled to Mexico, where he murdered another 
man.

Matt had also been charged with rape in 1989 and with stabbing a nurse in 1991.

The other escapee, David Sweat, murdered a policeman in 2002 after Sweat was 
caught shortly after burglarizing a gun store. He shot the deputy sheriff and 
then ran over him.

For those of us who believe that some murderers should be put to death, Matt 
and Sweat would seem to be perfect examples. There is no doubt as to their 
guilt, the murders were premeditated, and they were accompanied by heinous 
actions.

So here is a challenge to those who oppose the death penalty: If one or both of 
these murderers kills again, will you acknowledge that the blood of the 
victim(s) is on your hands? After all, without all the opposition to capital 
punishment, these 2 likely would have been executed (or at least sent to death 
row, from which their prison break would have been far less likely, if not 
impossible).

As a proponent of the death penalty, I am often asked whether I accept moral 
responsibility for the execution of a person who is later found to be innocent 
of the crime.

Of course, the answer is yes. A mature adult has to accept responsibility for 
the consequences of his or her positions. Otherwise taking a position is 
morally meaningless.

One of the reasons to support the death penalty is that the death of the worst 
murderers accomplishes at least one thing: They will never murder again. On the 
other hand, keeping all murderers alive ensures that some of them will murder 
again. They will either murder a guard or a fellow prisoner while in prison. Or 
they will murder someone outside the prison - either by arranging the murder(s) 
from within prison or if and when they escape from prison.

Therefore, opponents of the death penalty must acknowledge the blood that is on 
their hands when a murderer who would have been executed murders again.

Moreover, considerably more innocents are killed by convicted murderers who are 
not executed than the number of innocents who are erroneously executed by the 
state.

One reason to fear that Matt or Sweat will murder again is also related to 
opposition to capital punishment: They have little or nothing to lose if they 
kill again. Because there is no capital punishment in New York state, no matter 
how many people they torture or murder, all that can happen to them is that 
they would be returned to prison for life.

Were capital punishment on the books, however, it is quite possible that just 
the possibility - let alone the probability - of being executed would have the 
effect of provoking Matt and Sweat to think twice before killing someone again.

Criminal prosecutors regularly acknowledge how effective having capital 
punishment on the books is to obtaining information and confessions from 
murderers.

We all pray that Matt and Sweat are apprehended (and some of us pray that, even 
better, they are killed) before they kill or maim again. But if they do kill, 
rape or maim again, opponents of the death penalty need to own up to the fact 
that their opposition to the death penalty helped make that possible.

(source: Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host (AM 870 
in Los Angeles) and founder of PragerUniversity.com----Jewish Journal)