[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., FLA., ALA., MISS., LA.

[Rick Halperin]

May 29



TEXAS:

Court to hear father's appeal in girl's killing



The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to consider an appeal from an 
East Texas man on death row for the 2002 slaying of his 2-year-old daughter.

Attorneys for Robert Roberson III, 48, say his rights were violated when his 
trial judge in Palesltine refused to allow testimony from a neurologist. They 
contend the physician would have said that Roberson didn't deliberately kill 
Nikki Curtis.

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

Texas solidifies execution drug secrecy protections into law



Texas state law will mandate keeping the identity of Texas' lethal drug 
suppliers confidential from the public - and even death row inmates and their 
attorneys.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill Thursday that cleared both chambers of the 
Republican-controlled Legislature. There was little floor opposition, despite 
advocates' calls that there shouldn't be secrecy surrounding the nation's 
busiest death chamber.

Drug manufacturers say they won't sell to Texas without total confidentiality 
since they've faced threats from death penalty opponents. There's little 
evidence that such threats actually occurred, however.

Abbott, then state attorney general, declared in a previous opinion that 
suppliers' identities should be disclosed. But he reversed himself while 
running for governor, siding for secrecy.

That prompted legal challenges that will likely be further complicated by the 
new law.

(source for both: Associated Press)

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

30 years on death row and many appeals later, 'deck is always stacked against 
you' ---- Lester Bower will be the second-longest tenured Texas inmate to be 
put to death in modern era but will a 7th stay of execution save him?



Lester Bower made for an unlikely mass murderer.

At the time when 4 men were shot dead in an aircraft hanger near Dallas, Bower 
was a 35-year-old, college-educated, married father of 2 who made a comfortable 
living as a chemicals salesman and did not have a criminal record.

That was in 1983. Bower was convicted of the killings the following year and 
has been on death row ever since, maintaining his innocence and launching 
appeal after appeal. Texas has attempted to kill him 6 times only for Bower to 
be granted stays when facing imminent execution, most recently in February.

The state will try again 3 June, when the 67-year-old is scheduled to die by 
lethal injection. He will be the oldest inmate executed in Texas since capital 
punishment was restored in the US in 1976.

Texas has executed 522 prisoners during Bower's 11,341 days on death row. Of 
the 265 people currently on the state's death row, 9 have been there longer. 
Raymond Riles, who is seriously mentally ill, has been on the row since 1976.

Bower will be the 2nd-longest tenured Texas inmate to be put to death in the 
modern era after David Powell, a cop killer who spent 32 years on death row 
before his execution in 2010.

Yet Bower is philosophical about his extended stay and the probability that it 
is about to end. "I'm not overly earth-shaken about what's going on," he said 
from behind glass in a cage the size of a phone booth at Texas' death row in 
Livingston, 70 miles north of Houston.

"Once you've been through the dates 3 or 4 times, once you've been to 7 ... you 
get down to the captain's office to go through the last protocols, ask for your 
witnesses and stuff like that - geez, we're all on a 1st name basis now. 
They're used to it. It's kind of, I walk in and say, same as last time. Just 
get last time and re-duplicate it.'"

Supreme court asks if execution drugs are like being 'burned alive at the 
stake'

He expects to mount a last-minute appeal to the US supreme court, which 
declined to take up the case in March after granting a stay in February to give 
them time to decide whether to hear it. In 2013 the court opted not to stop 
Arizona from executing Edward Schad, a 71-year-old who had been on death row 
for nearly 35 years.

The average time on Texas death row is 10.82 years, according to the Texas 
Department of Criminal Justice. That Bower has been there nearly 3 times as 
long has formed part of his appeal strategy. The supreme court is considering 
whether drug protocols using midazolam violate the constitutional ban on cruel 
and unusual punishment. Bower argues the duration of his stay breeches the 8th 
amendment by effectively being a form of torture.

Courts in Texas have not bought that argument, but a federal judge in 
California ruled last year that the state's death penalty was unconstitutional 
because a "random few" who are put to death "will have languished for so long 
on death row that their execution will serve no retributive or deterrent 
purpose and will be arbitrary".

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said 
it is legitimate to ask whether any useful penological purpose is served by 
keeping inmates on death row for so long, often in harsh and isolated 
conditions that may affect their mental health. "3 decades is an extraordinary 
period of time. When you tell people that somebody has been on death row for 30 
years, one of the first things you hear from them is, 'well, what's the 
point?'" he said.

Bower said he listens to NPR and BBC news reports on the radio in his cell, 
especially when there's an election on - though as a felon he is not allowed to 
vote.

"You have to keep yourself occupied. You've got to do something," he said. "For 
some that's drawing, painting; some people just read. A lot of people just 
enter into correspondence with pen pals around the world. Everybody kind of 
handles it different ways. You can keep a reasonable chess game going."

He has been entangled in litigation for so long, he said, that changes in the 
legal process have complicated his appeals and left them vulnerable to being 
dismissed on technicalities. "If you're here long enough the laws change so 
much that it gets messed up," he said. "I've got the best attorneys in the 
world. Even the best attorneys in the world can be thwarted by the system ... 
the deck is always stacked against you."

'What if I'd been in the jury and heard my own case?'

His problems began when he responded to an advertisement in Glider Rider 
magazine and agreed to buy an ultralight aircraft from a building contractor 
named Bob Tate on 8 October1983. That day, 4 men - Tate, Ronald Mayes, Philip 
Good and Jerry Brown - were shot in the head at close range in a hangar on a 
ranch near Sherman, 60 miles north of Dallas. 3 of the bodies were placed under 
a carpet pile. The crime bore many of the hallmarks of a professional-grade 
assassination.

Initially the investigation focused on possible connections to drug dealing. 
Months later it turned to Bower after phone records showed he had talked to 
Tate. Bower, who did not want his wife to know he had bought the plane because 
she was firmly against the idea, was questioned by the FBI and lied to them by 
claiming he had no link to Tate or the aircraft. When parts of the plane were 
found in his garage, he was arrested.

"In the long run I'm really responsible for putting myself down here. I didn't 
help in the investigation. It's like the quarterback for the New England 
Patriots [Tom Brady]; once he decided not to cooperate then they said: 'well, 
if you're not going to cooperate then you know more [than you're letting on]'. 
And they came down on him ... Now, clearly the state took advantage of that 
situation. But there's not much I can do about that right now," he said.

"It's a difficult job being on a jury. I've thought about this. What if I'd 
been in the jury and heard my own case? I think that given what the jury had to 
go with, the evidence before them, I think I would probably have reached the 
same conclusion."

No witnesses or evidence directly linked Bower to the crime scene and the 
murder weapon was not recovered. But prosecutors built the case that Bower 
killed Tate to steal the aircraft and shot the other 3 - 1 of them a former 
police officer, another a sheriff's deputy - when they unexpectedly turned up. 
Bower's lawyers contend that much of the evidence the state relied upon at 
trial was dubious, such as the speculative claim that the murders were carried 
out using a very rare kind of subsonic ammunition previously bought by Bower, 
who was a licensed weapons dealer. Prosecutors wrongly told the jury that only 
15 people in Texas had access to the type of bullets.

They say that since the conviction in 1984, witnesses have come forward and 
documents have been unearthed to suggest that the killings were indeed sparked 
by a drug deal gone wrong.

They also argue that the jury was not given the option to take mitigating 
circumstances such as Bower's previous good character into account during the 
sentencing phase of the trial. In his dissent last March after the supreme 
court refused the case, justice Stephen Breyer said this was a "glaring" and 
unconstitutional error that should entitle Bower to a new sentencing 
proceeding.

Prosecutors have insisted in court filings that the new witnesses were not 
credible, that there is no hard evidence the murders were drug related and that 
the case against him remains highly persuasive. As for the lengthy stay on 
death row? According to Texas' attorneys, this is Bower's own fault for 
fighting his conviction so doggedly. "Bower has consistently litigated his case 
without stop over the last 30 years. Any delay is purely of his own making," 
they wrote earlier this year.

Bower was calm and measured throughout an hour-long interview, never becoming 
emotional and discussing his situation with clinical detachment. "I don't know 
if the futility has mellowed me or whatever; I have found it doesn't do any 
good to yell and scream and wave my hands," he said.

"If it's my time to go it's my time to go ... If next week I end up in the 
execution chamber, my final words probably will be: 'Hey, I'm out of here, this 
hasn't been fun. I'm going on someplace else. Tired of this.'"

(source: The Guardian)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Prosecutors won't seek death penalty in 'Top Model' killings



Prosecutors said they will not seek the death penalty against Emmanuel Rangel 
and 3 other defendants accused in 4 killings in February.

Emmanuel Rangel is charged with 4 counts of murder, including the shooting of 
America's Next Top Model, Mirjana Puhar, who was found dead in a north 
Charlotte home along with 2 men, who were also shot.

Rangel was charged with the shooting of 2 men in the parking lot of a Microtel 
Inn in Matthews. 1 of those 2 men later died.

Authorities said the triple murder was a dispute over drugs and that Rangel 
knew the victims.

Edward Sanchez and David Lopez will also not face the death penalty. Both have 
been charged with murder. The final defendant, Emily Isaacs, was charged with 
being an accessory after the fact to 1st-degree murder.

Prosecutors did not say why they took the death penalty off the table.

(source: WCNC news)








FLORIDA:

Covington gets death penalty in 2008 triple murder



Edward Covington has been sentenced to death for the 2008 murders of his 
girlfriend and her 2 children.

Covington had pleaded guilty last year to to 3 counts of 1st-degree murder, 
abuse of a human body and animal cruelty.

He was arrested in May 2008 after investigators said he killed his girlfriend, 
Lisa Frieberg, and her 2 children, Zachary, 7, and Heather Savannah, 2, in a 
Lutz mobile home.

During the penalty phase, the defense had argued that Covington had a long 
history of mental illness that led to the murders. However, prosecutors said 
Covington had been abusing cocaine for several years, and that played a role in 
the murders.

(soure: Bay News)








ALABAMA:

Keaton could face death penalty in deaths of kids



The sentencing phase of the Heather Keaton's capital murder trial got under way 
Thursday with the prosecution trying to convince the jury to recommend the 
death penalty for Keaton, and the defense arguing for life in prison without 
parole.

On Wednesday, the jury reached a mixed verdict in the trial.

The jurors found Keaton guilty of 1 of 3 counts of capital murder in the 
killing of Jonathan DeBlase. The jury found Keaton guilty of manslaughter in 
the death of Natalie DeBlase, and not guilty on the 3rd count, which was murder 
of 2 or more individuals in the same course of conduct.

District Ashley Rich told the jurors she expected the evidence presented during 
this phase of the trial would show the crime Keaton committed in killing 
Jonathan DeBlase was "heinous, atrocious, and cruel as compared to other 
capital offense."

Rich said this was the only requirement the state must prove in order for the 
jury to return a recommendation of the death penalty.

Rich's opening statement pointed out that Jonathan was duct taped with a sock 
in his month and poisoned with antifreeze prior to this death, which Rich said 
meets the requirements of "heinous, atrocious, and cruel."

During Thursday's proceedings, John DeBlase was brought into the courtroom in 
shackles prior to the jury coming in and offered immunity by District Attorney 
Ashley Rich in any future trials or appeals in exchange for his testimony.

After being questioned by Judge Stout as to whether or not he understood what 
was being asked of him Deblase was then asked to answer. DeBlase responded, 
"Under the advice from my attorney's in Montgomery and my attorney here, I 
exercise my 5th Amendment right."

He was then led from the courtroom.

Defense attorney Greg Hughes told the jurors they would be asked to consider a 
number of mitigating circumstances during this phase of the trial. Hughes said 
Keaton acted under extreme duress and mental distress.

He said she was under the domination of John DeBlase who committed the crimes, 
saying Keaton's part was "minor". The defense lawyer said all of the mitigating 
circumstances should lead the jurors to recommend life in prison without 
parole.

(source: WALA news)








MISSISSIPPI:

Court denies rehearing in death row appeal



A Blue Mountain man will remain on death row in the shooting death of a 
newspaper delivery man.

Marlon Howell, 34, faces the death penalty in the shooting death of David 
Pernell, 61, of New Albany in May of 2000.

Last year, a judge denied a request for a new trial after holding an 
evidentiary hearing on Howell's post-conviction relief petition.

Howell claims a witness recanted his identification, another witness was not 
allowed to testify in his defense, and he did not have an attorney during the 
lineup.

In October, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the judge's ruling not to 
grant a new trial.

On Thursday, justices denied a request to rehear the appeal.

(source: WTVA news)








LOUISIANA:

Seabaugh drops death penalty bill in lieu of study



A bill Rep. Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport, put forth to strip the Louisiana 
Public Defender Board of the oversight of death penalty cases has been pulled 
in lieu of a study on the state's indigent defense board.

E. Pete Adams, the Louisiana District Attorneys Association executive director, 
said House Concurrent Resolution 196 is replacing House Bill 605 which faced 
strong opposition the 1st time it went before the house judiciary committee.

"The purpose of this is to study the issues that we have raised to you and to 
have that study done by somebody that is objective. It is not to make any 
changes. It's to study and to make recommendations to you if those 
recommendations are merited," Adams said to the judiciary committee Thursday.

Seabaugh will handle the concurrent resolution, which passed the committee with 
numerous amendments, on the House floor. The representative has accused the 
public defender board of being anti-death penalty crusaders using the state's 
money to drag out death penalty cases.

Adams said he resolution is the result of a compromise between the supporters 
and some proponents of House Bill 605, which includes State Public Defender Jay 
Dixon.

It authorizes the creation of the Indigent Defense Review Committee. The 
committee will study the composition of the Louisiana Public Defender Board in 
regards to potential conflicts of interests, the board's fiduciary 
responsibilities to the state, fiscal priorities in relation to its mission and 
constitutionally required standards.

Like the bill, the study also has opposition.

Derwyn Bunton, Orleans Public Defenders Office's chief district defender, said 
he was structurally opposed to the resolution and called it unfair. He said 
there's no evidence of poor service or a violation of ethics by the public 
defender board.

Passing the resolution leaves the impression that Louisiana is hostile to a 
fair system, he said.

"The nation is watching," Bunton said.

(source: Shreveport Times)