[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., N.C., GA., FLA., ALA.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 9



PENNSYLVANIA:

End Pennsylvania's limbo over death penalty


The death penalty appears on Pennsylvania's books, but you won't find it in 
practice.

Pin the situation partly on a slow-moving Legislature. By all appearances, 
certain lawmakers would prefer to cling to the status quo - in which the 
Keystone State still claims to have a death penalty yet hasn't executed anyone 
in the 21st century - rather than provide clarity on the issue, much less 
reverse its longstanding law.

It's been about 4 years since the Pennsylvania Task Force and Advisory 
Commission on Capital Punishment was charged with delving into death 
penalty-related issues and publishing its findings. First, the legislative 
group blew past its December 2013 deadline. Several other extensions have 
pushed the highly anticipated report's completion date to, last we heard, later 
this year, maybe next.

Meanwhile, Gov. Tom Wolf in a much publicized move earlier this year declared a 
moratorium on the death penalty. "Pennsylvania's system is riddled with flaws, 
making it error prone, expensive, and anything but infallible," the governor's 
memorandum released in February stated. Wolf intends for the moratorium to 
continue until he receives the task force's report and its recommendations, if 
any, are "satisfactorily addressed."

Until then, the governor vowed to grant a reprieve to each death row inmate 
whose execution date is set. That doesn't mean the prisoner will avoid the 
ultimate punishment; the death sentence remains intact and could be carried out 
once the moratorium is lifted.

Philadelphia's district attorney promptly sued, claiming Gov. Wolf overstepped 
his authority. That case is expected to be heard later this week by the state 
Supreme Court.

Other detractors of Wolf's decision, including Attorney General Kathleen Kane, 
also blasted the governor's move as unconstitutional.

When the state's task force finally produces its report, the findings are 
likely to fall in line with other in-depth examinations of the topic: certain 
people who spent years on death row subsequently have been exonerated by DNA or 
other evidence, minorities make up a disproportionate share of the death row 
population and paying for an inmate's string of death-penalty appeals often 
comes at an exorbitant price.

Of course, there are compelling reasons - chiefly, to fulfill society's desire 
for fitting retribution - to keep the death penalty.

In fairness to people on all sides of this sensitive issue, Pennsylvania's 
elected officials need to end the long, long wait and produce a report on 
capital punishment, then publicly dissect and debate it. Only then can we hope 
to end the limbo over the death penalty and adopt the most sensible policies.

(source: Editorial, Wilkes Barre Times-Leader)






NORTH CAROLINA:

N.C. legislators working to restart capital punishment


The Restoring Proper Justice Act has caused controversy regarding the 
application of the death penalty.

After 9 years without a death penalty execution, North Carolina legislators 
have worked to lift an effective death penalty moratorium in the state.

The Restoring Proper Justice Act - which Governor Pat McCrory signed Aug. 5 - 
aims to restart capital punishment but has caused significant controversy. The 
new law enables the state to withhold the contents of its lethal-injection 
drugs and also removes the requirement for doctors to be present during 
executions. Supporters of the law say that it will allow the death penalty to 
function as an effective deterrent against crime. Several coalitions calling 
for repeal and replacement of the death penalty on behalf of death-row inmates 
and exonerees have protested against the law, however, saying that it raises 
transparency and fairness issues.

"The main concern is that [the death penalty] is a permanent punishment, it's 
the most severe punishment," said Sarah Preston, acting executive director for 
the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina. "We cannot guarantee that 
the process is fair and equitable and there is no way to reverse the outcome."

Opponents of capital punishment argue that executing prisoners condones killing 
as a means of solving problems. Juries' reluctance to imposing the death 
penalty even when executions are legal remains a primary concern as to whether 
or not this punishment violates federal law.

Those in support of the legislation, however, believe that the current 
moratorium prevents justice from being carried out. Supporters also say that 
not using the death penalty weakens North Carolina???s criminal justice system 
by getting rid of a potential deterrent against criminal behavior.

"Our 9-year de facto moratorium on the death penalty is a gross miscarriage of 
justice," said Paul Stam, speaker pro tempore of the North Carolina House of 
Representatives. "The Restoring Proper Justice Act solves one small part of the 
problem. Until the de facto moratorium is ended, innocent human lives are 
needlessly put at risk."

Pharmaceutical companies - which supply drugs for lethal injection - have come 
under fire recently for not revealing the content and quantity of their drugs 
as well as for recently botched execution, said Tarrah Callahan, executive 
director of the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

The non-disclosure aspect of the new law might run into legal obstacles, 
explained James Coleman, John S. Bradway professor of the practice of law and 
co-director of the Wrongful Convictions Clinic. He noted that if individuals 
are unaware as to what the drugs are, they can???t decide whether or not the 
drugs are legal and humane.

"Making the drugs that they use secret poses questions for the public," Coleman 
said. "Should the public be shielded from knowing what the state is doing in 
its name?"

Another question raised by capital punishment opponents is whether 
discrimination and bias impacts sentencing.

The ACLU played a pivotal role in lobbying for the 2009 Racial Justice Act - 
which changes death sentences to life in prison without parole if the judge 
recognizes that a jury selection is impacted by race.

"The system is just broken and it is so arbitrarily applied, from one county to 
the next and there is no real consistency," Callahan explained.

All of these questions have caused death penalty opponents to warn that the new 
law may cause significant problems in the future. Representative Graig Meyer, a 
death penalty opponent, argued that the law is only likely to lead to further 
litigation and cast a shadow on the General Assembly.

"There is great risk that this bill will result in improper administration of 
the execution protocol, putting the State into protracted litigation over cruel 
and unusual punishment," he said. "There's no reason for us to even risk that."

(source: Duke Chornicle)






GEORGIA:

Georgia inmate on death row wants new hearing over juror's racial slur


An African-American man on Georgia's death row is asking the Supreme Court for 
a new sentencing hearing because a white juror who voted for the death penalty 
later referred to him with a racial slur.

Kenneth Fults was sentenced to death for the 1996 killing of Cathy Bounds, who 
was shot 5 times in the back of her head. Fults has been trying for 10 years to 
get a court to consider evidence that racial bias deprived him of a fair trial.

Fults' lawyers obtained a signed statement from juror Thomas Buffington in 
which Buffington twice used the racial slur when referring to Fults.

State and federal judges have so far rejected Fults' appeal. His case is on the 
justices' agenda when they meet on September 28. Buffington died last year.

The appeal is striking in its use of a racial slur by a juror. But claims of 
racial bias regularly come before the court in its consideration of 
death-penalty cases.

The justices already have agreed to hear argument over whether prosecutors 
improperly excluded all 4 African-American prospective jurors from the death 
penalty trial of another black defendant. That argument will take place in the 
fall.

At Fults' trial in 1997, Buffington told the judge and lawyers on both sides 
that he harbored no racial prejudice. Fults pleaded guilty to killing Bounds 
and a jury then sentenced him to death.

But 8 years later, an investigator who was part of Fults' legal team spoke to 
Buffington about his experience on the jury. Buffington, 79 at the time of the 
interview, twice used the slur in describing Fults.

"Once he pled guilty, I knew I would vote for the death penalty because that's 
what that (N-word) deserved," Buffington said, according to the signed, April 
12, 2005 affidavit in the court record.

Court papers offer no explanation for why 8 years elapsed between the trial and 
Buffington's comments to the investigator.

Lindsay N. Bennett, an assistant federal public defender in Sacramento, 
California, who is representing Fults, said it is common in Georgia for a 
defendant's legal team to reach out to jurors at that stage of an appeal, but 
not earlier.

"During the course of the interview about his jury service, he made the 
statements reflected in the affidavit," Bennett said. "They caught the 
investigator completely off guard because she had no reason to believe prior to 
that time that this was the case."

Buffington further surprised the investigator by agreeing to sign the 
statement, Bennett said.

Since including the sworn statement in Fults' file, however, state and federal 
judges have uniformly ruled against Fults. Prosecutors also have opposed Fults' 
efforts to get Buffington's remarks into court, although they acknowledged in 
their Supreme Court filing that their opposition is not meant "to imply that 
the use of this word is acceptable."

State judges said Fults waited too long to present the statement from 
Buffington and did not explain why the evidence couldn't be found sooner. 
Federal judges in these circumstances generally defer to state courts, unless 
the ruling under appeal is obviously in error. A federal trial judge and three 
appellate judges agreed that Fults did not make a strong case for undoing the 
state court ruling.

The Supreme Court is his last stop in the legal system, Bennett said. "At this 
point, he has essentially reached the end stages of his legal proceedings with 
no court having assessed the substantive evidence in this case," she said.

(source: WSAV news)






FLORIDA:

State to seek death penalty in killing of father, daughter


Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Cheyanne Jessie, the 25-year-old 
woman accused of fatally stabbing her daughter in the throat and shooting and 
killing her father.

Polk Sheriff's detectives said Jessie went to her father's home, Mark Weekly, 
at 5221 Drane Field Road on July 18 with a knife and gun. Their bodies were 
left on the floor until July 22 when detectives said Jessie returned to the 
home and scraped up their remains with a shovel and put them in plastic tote 
bins.

State Attorney's spokesman Brian Haas declined comment about why the state 
decided to seek the death penalty for the Jessie case. He said prosecutors 
typically review facts of each case and apply factors from state statute to 
determine whether it is appropriate to seek the death penalty.

Investigators have said that Jessie didn't like her daughter and didn't want 
the child to ruin her relationship with her boyfriend.

Arrests documents say that after the killing, Jessie "destroyed, concealed and 
removed evidence related to the incident."

Investigators have said on July 22, Jessie backed her Suburban up to Weekly's 
home and loaded the bodies in the vehicle. She then drove 200 yards to her 
landlord's house, who was on vacation, and stacked the totes on top of each 
other in a shed behind the house.

Jessie reported the 2 were missing on Aug. 1 after people kept questioning her. 
When deputies arrived, Jessie consented to a search of a home. Deputies found a 
leather sofa and love seat covered in blood stains and knife slashes, dead 
flies on the floor, and "a strong, obvious odor of decomposing human flesh," 
according to the Sheriff's Office.

Homicide detectives were called out to investigate the unexplained smell, which 
eventually led to the human remains in the shed.

During the investigation, Jessie told a variety of stories about where her 
daughter and father were, Judd has said. Her most recent version was that she 
went to her father's house on July 18 and they had an argument about her 
daughter that led to a fight. During the fight, Judd said, Jessie claimed her 
father tried to attack her with a knife and her daughter was accidentally 
stabbed.

(source: The Leldlger)

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

Jacksonville man dodges death penalty for snitch shooting; jurors opt for 
manslaughter conviction


A Jacksonville man dodged death row after a jury declined to convict him of 
1st-degree murder and instead convicted him of manslaughter.

Orion Christopher Gardiner, 29, also was convicted of possession of a firearm 
by a felon in the March 2010 death of 21-year-old Levi Broomfield. The jury, 
which deliberated for 11 hours Friday and Saturday, deadlocked on whether 
Broomfield was guilty of the attempted murder of Broomfield's wife, Jessica 
Nixon, now 29.

After jurors were unable to make up their minds Friday, acting Circuit Judge 
Charles Cofer sequestered them overnight at a hotel. The verdict occurred early 
Saturday afternoon, and Cofer declared a mistrial on the attempted-murder 
charge.

Prosecutors charged Gardiner with first-degree murder for Broomfield's death 
and were seeking the death penalty. Someone can only be put on death row if 
they're convicted of 1st-degree murder, so by convicting Gardiner of a lesser 
charge, the death penalty is no longer an option.

Gardiner still faces up to life in prison. Prosecutors have not yet decided 
whether to retry him on the attempted-murder charge, said Assistant State 
Attorney Dan Skinner.

Gardiner pleaded his case of self-defense in testifying for about an hour. 
Defense attorney Richard Kuritz said Gardiner was scared for his life and told 
jurors that prosecutors hadn't proved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Gardiner, who sold drugs at the Eureka Garden apartments, said he entered 
Broomfield???s home at the invitation of Nixon because she told him she wanted 
to buy drugs. Once in the apartment, Broomfield and Nixon both attacked him and 
he used his gun to protect himself, he told the court.

"I sell drugs," Gardiner said. "But a cold-hearted killer I am not."

Prosecutors said Broomfield had just gotten out of jail after being arrested on 
a marijuana possession charge, and there were rumors it was because he snitched 
to police. Gardiner went into Broomfield's home and killed him believing he was 
a snitch, said Assistant State Attorney Alan Mizrahi.

While jurors appeared to doubt Broomfield planned to kill Gardiner, a 
requirement to convicting him of 1st-degree murder, they still decided he was 
culpable for the death. Manslaughter is defined as unlawfully killing someone 
without intending too beforehand during a provocation or during the heat of 
passion.

Gardiner said Broomfield accused him of believing he was a snitch. He also said 
Broomfield got angrier at him when he tried to reason with him.

He shot Broomfield in the head at close range and said he did it in 
self-defense while Broomfield was charging him. Prosecutors pointed out that 
the shooting was at such a close range that Gardiner's gun was likely pressed 
up against Broomfield's temple when the shot was fired.

A struggle with Nixon occurred after Broomfield was shot, with Gardiner and 
Nixon grappling for the gun. At some point Nixon was shot in the shoulder. He 
said he doesn't remember that shot being fired, and he eventually regained 
control of the gun and hit Nixon on her head with the butt of the weapon.

Gardiner was previously convicted in 2005 for aggravated assault with a deadly 
weapon. Jurors heard about that arrest when Gardiner chose to testify in his 
own defense because prosecutors were allowed to introduce that arrest to rebut 
his claim of self-defense.

(source: jacksonville.com)






ALABAMA:

Court denies Alabama death row inmate's appeal in 1997 slayings of 4 in Shelby 
County


A federal appeals court has rejected Alabama death row inmate Michael Brandon 
Samra's appeal of his conviction in the 1997 brutal slayings of 2 adults and 2 
young children at a home in Pelham.

A 3-member panel of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday affirmed 
a district court judge's denial of Samra's appeal on 2 issues.

Attorneys for Samra, 37, who is now on death row at William E. Donaldson 
Correctional Facility in Jefferson County, argued his appellate lawyer was 
ineffective for not raising an argument on appeal that Samra was entitled to 
pretrial notice of the specific aggravating factor that prosecutors would rely 
upon in pursuing the death penalty against him at his 1998 trial.

Samra also argued his trial lawyer was ineffective for failing to investigate 
evidence of brain dysfunction and for introducing and emphasizing evidence of 
Samra's membership in a Satanic gang, Forever Our Lord King Satan (or FOLKS), 
which Samra contends strengthened the state's case to the jury that there were 
aggravating factors.

The appeals court rejected Samra's arguments.

"Even if we disregard the gang-related evidence and argument, the state 
presented overwhelming evidence - including Samra's own confession - of the 
heinousness of this crime," the 11th Circuit opinion states.

"By Samra's own admission, after he assisted in killing three people, he slit 
the throat of a seven-year-old girl who was pleading and struggling for her 
life. We find no reasonable probability that, absent evidence or discussion of 
Samra's gang involvement, the jury would not have found these murders to be as 
especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel as it found them."

"As a result, Samra's claim that his trial counsel was ineffective for pursing 
a gang-related strategy and for failing to object to gang-related evidence must 
be denied," the court stated.

Samra was convicted of capital murder in 1998 and was sentenced to death for 
his role in the killings of Randy Duke, his fianc???e, Dedra Hunt, and her 2 
daughters, Chelsea Hunt and Chelisa Hunt.

According to evidence at trial and Samra's statements, Randy Duke's 16-year-old 
son, Mark Anthony Duke, came up with the murder plot following an argument in 
which Randy Duke refused to allow his son to use a pickup truck, the appeals 
decision states.

2 other friends, David Collums and Michael Ellison, went with Samra and Mark 
Anthony Duke to the Duke home. Collums and Ellison waited nearby as Samra and 
Mark Anthony Duke went inside, according to the appeals court.

Duke shot and killed his father. Samra wounded Dedra before Duke shot her to 
death. Duke slit six-year-old Chelisa's throat. Samra slit Chelsea's throat as 
Duke held her down.

In 2005 the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Mark Anthony Duke's 
capital murder conviction in Shelby County Circuit Court. But that court also 
overturned the death penalty for Duke, who was 16 at the time of the murders. 
The court ordered he be re-sentenced to life imprisonment without the 
possibility of parole.

Mark Anthony Duke is serving his sentence at the St. Clair Correctional 
Facility. Collums and Ellison were released from prison within the past 2 
years.

(sourcec: al.com)