[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., S.C., GA., FLA., MISS.

[Rick Halperin]

June 19



TEXAS:

Death row inmate Brandon Daniel to waive appeals in officer's slaying



Death row inmate Brandon Daniel, found guilty of capital murder in the 2012 
killing of an Austin police officer, is expected to appear in Travis County 
court Friday morning to waive his appeals and request that his execution date 
be moved up.

In a letter to District Judge Brenda Kennedy filed in March, Daniel says he 
understands the weight of his decision and wants justice to be served.

\"We are all interested in saving taxpayer's money, the time of all involved 
and in sparing my family and the victim's family any more angst than 
necessary," he writes.

Daniel, 27, was sentenced in February 2014 to execution in the 1st death 
penalty case Travis County has seen in nearly 3 years and the 1st in more than 
3 decades to involve the slaying of an officer.

He was convicted in the April 2012 killing of officer Jaime Padron. The 
officer, a former Marine and father of t2 young girls, was responding to a call 
about a possible shoplifter in a Walmart near Interstate 35 and Parmer Lane in 
North Austin. Police officials have said that Daniel took a pistol from his 
pocket and fatally shot Padron as the 2 struggled on the floor of the store.

(source: Austin American-Statesman)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----9

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----527

Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #

10----------July 16------------------Clifton Williams-----528

11---------August 12----------------Daniel Lopez----------529

12---------August 26----------------Bernardo Tercero------530

13---------September 2--------------Joe Garza-------------531

14---------October 6----------------Juan Garcia-----------532

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)



PENNSYLVANIA/NORTH DAKOTA:

"It's not justice" - Family loses fight to keep brother/son's killer on death 
row



Former Fargo resident Kathleen Wrigley said Thursday that she and her family 
were stunned when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday affirmed a lower 
court's finding that her brother's killer is "intellectually disabled" and 
cannot be executed as originally sentenced. "It's excruciating, unfair. It's 
not right, it's not justice," Wrigley said Thursday from her home in Bismarck.

Her brother, 21-year-old Danny Boyle, was gunned down by Edward Bracey during 
an attempted traffic stop on Feb. 4, 1991, as Bracey and a friend were on their 
way to rob a drug dealer.

Wrigley said while her mother, Nancy, is angry and sad, her father, Pat Boyle, 
a 35-year Philadelphia Police Department veteran in whose footsteps Danny had 
followed, is "crushed" by the high court ruling.

"My dad is not a victim, not a pity-party type of man," Wrigley said, "but this 
is breaking him."

Wrigley said even Bracey's own expert witnesses at trial said Bracey was not 
mentally disabled--and the jury's decision to put him to death was upheld 
numerous times by appellate courts and judges, even twice by the U.S. Supreme 
Court.

Wrigley and her parents attended every one of those court hearings. At one 
point, they offered to have execution "taken off the table" so that Bracey 
could physically remain on death row. They were told that wasn't an option.

Their legal efforts have now been exhausted.

"It's the end of the road, for sure," she said. "There's not one more thing we 
can do as a victim's family."

The ruling means Bracey, now 52, is out of solitary confinement on 
Pennsylvania's death row and will live out the rest of his days in the general 
prison population. There, he has fewer restrictions and more amenities. Wrigley 
fears that as a cop-killer, Bracey may even be heralded as a hero by other 
inmates.

That, and the endless death penalty appeals, are what bother Wrigley the most.

Wrigley is the wife of Lt. Gov. Drew Wrigley, who prosecuted Alfonso Rodriguez 
Jr. in 2006-07 for the kidnapping and killing of Dru Sjodin, resulting in North 
Dakota's only federal death penalty case. Just as Bracey did, Rodriguez has 
appealed his sentence by claiming he is mentally disabled.

Kathleen Wrigley said groups of attorneys who travel the country trying to get 
criminals off death row may think they're saving a life, but instead are 
"ripping (victim's) families apart, tearing at any kind of peace they can hope 
for" with their stall tactics, paid for by American taxpayers.

She said it's time for a national conversation about the death penalty, and 
that she and her father are willing to step up to plead for more balance in the 
process.

Wrigley and her parents have deep support from family, friends and law 
enforcement. Many victims' families do not, she said.

"I want to be a voice for them, I have to be," Wrigley said. "It'd be in vain 
if I didn't."

(source: Grand Forks Herald)








SOUTH CAROLINA:

Will South Carolinians level the death penalty on Dylann Roof?



There's an inside joke among black Washingtonians: We're all from Carolina. 
That is to say, somewhere in our lineage, whether by blood or church heritage, 
we've all got a connection to North or South Carolina.

No such connection was in play Wednesday night/Thursday morning, when we 
learned that a terrorist had entered a church, sat for about an hour among the 
congregants and then opened fire.

The gunman fled.

He fled like Timothy McVeigh, who in 1995 detonated a truck bomb in front of a 
federal government building in Oklahoma City. The building also housed a day 
care center, and 2 other men were charged in the bombing. McVeigh, a Persian 
Gulf War vet, was 26 when he committed mass murder and 33 when he was executed 
in 2001.

Terrorists and other mass killers don't always run, though. James Eagan Holmes 
didn't. Armed to the teeth with a shotgun, Smith & Wesson assault rifle, a 
Glock handgun and several rounds of ammunition, Holmes tear-gassed and then 
sprayed an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater with bullets. Police found him just 
outside the theater, where he was preparing to wrap things up. Holmes was calm 
and did not resist arrest. Coloradans will weigh the death penalty when his 
trial is complete.

Dzhokhar Anzorovich "Jahar" Tsarnaev, the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber, was 19 
years old when he set out to maim and kill. He was convicted in April and 
sentenced to die by lethal injection in May. Tsarnaev turns 22 in July.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

That's what Massachusetts, Colorado, South Carolina and other death penalty 
states say. Oklahoma allows executions by firing squad, and Utah has brought 
back such executions. A South Carolina state lawmaker, Republican Rep. Joshua 
Putnam, has proposed legislation that would allow capital offenders to be shot 
to death. The Palmetto State's chief forms of executions were by hanging and, 
later, the electric chair, which was used until 1995, when lethal injection was 
introduced. South Carolinians also used to burn death row inmates to death.

The last execution in South Carolina was 2011, and 2 prisoners were sentenced 
to death in 2014.

Of course, it's too early to tell what is going to happen to Mr. Roof, since he 
just committed his heinous acts on Wednesday night and entered a courtroom in 
Shelby, North Carolina, to waive extradition. By the time of the Friday evening 
newscasts, Mr. Roof should be back in Charleston, standing face to face with 
prosecutors and a judge.

People want swift justice - but swift is a relative term when it is applied to 
justice.

The Boston Marathon massacre case was swift. The Oklahoma City bombing case was 
swift, too.

But in those cases, local, state and federal prosecutors were not stumbling 
over the racial politics of the Charleston case and the presidential politics 
leading up to the 2016 elections.

In Oklahoma City, for example, white guys angry with the federal government 
took aim at a federal facility.

In Charleston, a young white guy entered a black Christian church, sat among 
the black Christian congregants and fired, reloaded and fired some more.

It's that black-white thing and that church thing that are rattling all the 
sabers; throw in the gun rights thing and the hate crime thing and we're being 
primed for a cast-iron pot full of spicy noodles.

Some will look at young Dylann and say the boy didn't know what he was doing. 
Others will look and claim he's mentally ill. And then there are those who 
won't pass any judgment on Mr. Roof and instead blame his tool - a gun.

Yep, South Carolinians have a lot to discern between now and Mr. Roof???s day 
of reckoning in a court of law. But don't expect South Carolinians to merely 
wag their fingers at Mr. Roof and point their fingers at the gun.

I know jurisprudence in the South can be swift, but I also think with the 
Charleston case it's going to break ground on racial politics and presidential 
politics.

May the victims rest in peace.

(source: Deborah Simmons, Washington Times)








GEORGIA:

Man pleads guilty in Heaven Woods death, mother still facing death penalty



A man who lived with a 5-year-old girl and her mother in Forsyth admitted in 
court he caused injuries leading to the girl's death.

The Macon Telegraph reports 35-year-old Roderick Buckner pleaded guilty to 
murder Wednesday afternoon and was sentenced to life without parole. District 
Attorney Richard Milam says Buckner struck the girl, Heaven Woods, in the 
abdomen on May 18, 2014 and May 19, 2014. An autopsy showed Woods died of 
internal bleeding, loss of blood and blunt force trauma.

Buckner was facing the death penalty, but took a plea in an agreement with 
prosecutors. Woods' mother, 33-year-old Amanda Hendrickson is still facing the 
death penalty.

Hendrickson is scheduled to appear in court Aug. 6 for an arraignment, where 
she will plead guilty or not guilty.

(source: Associated Press)








FLORIDA:

Man on death row for 2006 murder to be set free



A man on death row for the murder of a Pasco County waitress will soon walk 
free.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that there wasn't enough evidence to 
convict Derral Hodgkins for the 2006 murder of 46-year-old Teresa Lodge.

Lodge was found dead in her Land O'Lakes apartment. She had been beaten, choked 
and stabbed multiple times. Hodgkins' skin was found under her fingernails, but 
investigators didn't find a weapon or other evidence that placed Hodgkins at 
the scene.

The court said the skin found raises suspicion, but it wasn't enough to convict 
Hodgkins. The 2 dated years earlier and Hodgkins said they remained close. He 
told investigators they had 3 about three days before the murder and Lodge dug 
her nails into his back during the act.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Supreme Court upholds death penalty for Jacksonville man in 1991 murder of 
Paxon student----An accomplice already got off death row



The Florida Supreme Court has rejected a 3rd death-penalty appeal from a 
Jacksonville man who killed a 17-year-old in 1991 and whose accomplice got off 
death row.

Thursday the Supreme Court unanimously refused to throw out the death penalty 
for Kenneth Hartley, 48, for the murder of Gino Mayhew. Hartley, whose legal 
name is Kenneth Jefferson, has been on death row since 1993.

"After 22 years of appeals filed by the defendant, we are pleased the Florida 
Supreme Court confirmed prior court rulings, upholding his conviction and death 
sentence," said state attorney spokeswoman Jackelyn Barnard.

Hartley's brother is former NFL wide receiver Shawn Jefferson. The brothers 
gained attention in 1996 when Jefferson played in the Super Bowl for the San 
Diego Chargers and Hartley was on death row.

Hartley was convicted in what prosecutors said was an "execution-style" slaying 
of the Paxon High School senior. Hartley and 2 other men kidnapped Mayhew from 
the Washington Heights apartments, forced him to drive his Blazer to the 
Sherwood Forest Sixth-Grade Center and shot him 4 times in the head.

Prosecutors and Hartley's co-defendants said it was Hartley who fired the fatal 
shots.

Ronnie Ferrell, 51, and Sylvester Johnson, 47, were also convicted of the 
murder. Johnson got life and Ferrell was originally sentenced to death but was 
later resentenced to life following arguments that his original trial lawyers 
provided ineffective counsel.

Lawyers for Hartley argued that he should also get resentenced to life because 
of Ferrell's resentence. Attorney Linda McDermott pointed out that former 
Circuit Judge Hudson Olliff, who sentenced both Hartley and Ferrell to death 
row, said they were equally culpable for the crime.

And if they were equally culpable, then both should get off death row, 
McDermott said in court filings.

But the Supreme Court rejected that argument.

"Hartley was the more culpable co-defendant in that he played a dominant role 
in the crime and was the triggerman who actually killed the victim," justices 
said in their unsigned opinion in the case.

Hartley was previously convicted of manslaughter in 1987 for shooting his 
15-year-old former girlfriend, Angel McCormick, after she ended their 
relationship. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for that crime but 
released in 1991, 2 months before Mayhew's murder.

A date for Hartley's execution has not been set, and his lawyers are likely to 
continue appeals in federal court.

McDermott declined to comment on Thursday's ruling.

(source: jacksonville.com)








MISSISSIPPI:

Mississippi Supreme Court upholds conviction in death penalty appeal



The Mississippi Supreme Court has denied the appeal of a Copiah County man 
sentenced to death for the 2011 slaying of the mother of his daughter.

The court on Thursday upheld the capital murder conviction of David Dickerson. 
Dickerson, now 45, was also sentenced to 40 years for armed robbery and 20 
years for arson.

Prosecutors say on the day Dickerson and Paula Hamilton were to appear in 
justice court on a stalking complaint Hamilton had brought against him, 
Dickerson went to her home, shot, slashed and stabbed her, poured gasoline on 
her and left her body to burn.

The Supreme Court denied Dickerson's argument that he was mentally disabled and 
could not be executed. The court says no expert testified that Dickerson was 
mentally disabled.

(source: Associated Press)