[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., N.C., ALA., ARK.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 12




TEXAS:

Capital murder defendant fails in bid for new attorneys


A Waco man facing the death penalty in a May 2014 double slaying failed Friday 
in his bid to replace his 2 court-appointed attorneys.

Judge Ralph Strother of Waco's 19th State District Court denied a motion from 
Todric McDonald to fire attorneys John Donahue and Jon Evans after a 
closed-door conference in the judge's chambers.

Donahue, Evans and McLennan County First Assistant District Attorney Michael 
Jarrett all declined comment after the hearing, citing a gag order Strother has 
placed on parties involved in the capital murder case.

In a notarized motion McDonald filed with the court Aug. 31, McDonald tried to 
make it appear that Donahue was the one filing the motion and seeking to 
withdraw as counsel.

But the motion was not signed by Donahue, and the person who notarized it is an 
officer at the Jack Harwell Detention Center, where the 28-year-old McDonald is 
housed with access to a law library and computer.

McDonald is charged with capital murder in the deaths of Justin Javier 
Gonzalez, 24, and Ulysses Gonzalez, 30, at the Pecan Tree Apartments, 2600 Grim 
Ave.

The district attorney's office has said it will seek the death penalty if 
McDonald is convicted of capital murder in the cousins' deaths. No date has 
been set for his trial.

McDonald's motion reads, in part, "The defendant and counsel are in fundamental 
and unalterable disagreement over the conduct of the defense and the objectives 
that should be pursued in preparing and presenting the defense. This 
disagreement affects the very basis of the attorney-client relationship and 
impairs both counsels (sic) ability to exercise his best professional judgment 
and the defendants (sic) right to the effective assistance of counsel."

Other charges

McDonald also is indicted in separate cases for assault family violence, 2 
counts of evading arrest in a vehicle, 2 counts of aggravated robbery and 
aggravated assault.

He also has pending unindicted cases after arrests for unlawfully carrying a 
firearm by a felon, endangering a child and theft, according to court records.

The cousins' bodies were found lying on the living room floor of a 2nd-story 
apartment. Each suffered multiple gunshot wounds, Waco police said.

The 2 men did not live at the complex and were there visiting a friend, 
according to police reports.

McDonald was arrested 3 days after the killings following a short police chase. 
Police said McDonald was working on a car outside his residence when officers 
from several agencies came to arrest him.

He fled eastbound on Bosque Boulevard in his vehicle with a woman and a toddler 
inside.

McDonald rammed a U.S. Marshals Service vehicle at North 26th Street and Bosque 
Boulevard, and McDonald's car was forced onto the curb, officers said.

He tried to run, but his door was stuck on the curb and he could not get out of 
the vehicle, according to reports.

(source: Waco Tribune)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Elytte Barbour claims councel was ineffective


The attorney for admitted murderer Elytte Barbour claims his client's prior 
legal counsel was ineffective for not seeking a guilty but mentally ill plea in 
his amended petition under the state's Post-Conviction Collateral Relief Act.

Attorney Richard Feudale, of Mount Carmel, who filed the amendment Thursday in 
the Court of Common Pleas, claims a breakdown in communication between Barbour 
and his previous legal counsel inadvertently led to his 2nd-degree murder plea 
over a year ago in connection with the stabbing and strangulation death of Port 
Trevorton resident Troy LaFerrara.

The Barbours were charged with killing LaFerrara and stealing $150 from his 
wallet. Elytte Barbour claims his wife took the money.

Feudale said Barbour's plea was defective for multiple reasons including his 
prior defense team's failure to pursue his wish of a temporary insanity plea.

He claims Barbour had no intention to rob LaFerrara and that his plea was not 
knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily entered. Feudale also claims Barbour 
was coerced or induced into pleading guilty to second-degree murder because he 
was threatened by his prior counsel that if he did not plea, he would face the 
death penalty at trial.

Barbour claims if he had been made aware of all the mitigating factors involved 
with seeking the death penalty, he would not have been afraid to face a death 
sentence at trial.

The petition said Barbour was not provided a June 23, 2014, psychiatric report 
and mitigation reports until he entered the plea Aug. 26, 2014.

Feudale said a breakdown in the attorney-client relationship during the time 
required for filing a direct appeal also occurred.

In the petition, Feudale asks the court to schedule an evidentiary hearing on 
the defendant's post conviction issues and authorize payment for Dr. Neil 
Blumberg to testify at the hearing about Barbour's mental state. Feudale also 
is seeking prior counsel to provide him with copies of all information 
pertaining to the case stored electronically on their servers, in a cloud, or 
elsewhere, including but not limited to all e-mails, scanned documents and 
electronic media.

The 23-year-old Barbour and his 19-year-old wife, Miranda, who were living in 
Selinsgrove at the time of the murder, struck 2nd-degree murder pleas in 
September 2014. They are serving life sentences in state prison without the 
possibility of parole.

(source: News Item)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Bar admonishes lawyer who worked on Racial Justice Act case


A Durham defense attorney who worked on the 1st successful challenge under the 
Racial Justice Act was admonished on Friday by a N.C. State Bar disciplinary 
hearing.

Cassandra Stubbs, a lawyer described by her peers as "an absolute beacon of 
integrity," tearfully fought accusations of professional misconduct levied 
against her earlier this year in an anonymous complaint. The admonishment means 
the panel found that Stubbs committed a minor violation of the rules of 
professional conduct.

Stubbs, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment 
Project, was among a team of attorneys who used the short-lived Racial Justice 
Act to convert a North Carolina death-row inmate's sentence in 2012 to life 
without possibility for parole.

The state bar, the organization that oversees lawyers in North Carolina, filed 
a public complaint against Stubbs built on the anonymous complaint.

The allegations focused on sworn statements that Stubbs introduced from men who 
had been part of a 1994 jury pool but not selected for the panel in the case of 
Marcus Reymond Robinson, the 1st death-row inmate to have his sentence 
converted under the Racial Justice Act.

The bar complaint accuses Stubbs of providing inaccurate information to Judge 
Gregory Weeks, who presided over the Racial Justice Act case.

The bar complaint contended that Stubbs and another lawyer, Gretchen Engel, 
director of the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation, provided 
inaccurate information for the court to consider that ranged from a wrong 
address to a recollection from one of the potential jurors that did not jibe 
with the official trial transcript.

Some legal analysts have characterized the allegations of wrongdoing as so 
minor and questionable that they think politics could be at play.

On Friday, Stubbs could not fight back tears as she urged the bar disciplinary 
panel to reconsider its findings of conduct violations. She was on maternity 
leave at the time the statements were drafted and simply reviewed them.

Weeks has said the statements played no role in his decision to overturn 
Robinson's death sentence and resentence him to life in prison without 
possibility for parole.

The Racial Justice Act, which has since been repealed, allowed Weeks to 
consider statistics as he reviewed Robinson's claims that racial bias played a 
role in his capital punishment case.

Stubbs said the charges have been "totally devastating" and go to "the heart" 
of what she considers herself to be as a person and as a lawyer.

Stubbs's attorneys had sought dismissal of her case and a lesser warning after 
the accusations of misconduct were found.

Now, with Engel's case still pending, Stubbs must weigh whether to appeal the 
disciplinary panel's actions.

(source: News & Observer)






ALABAMA:

Appeal denied for death row inmate


A man convicted of the 1997 murders of 4 people, including 2 Thorsby Elementary 
students, had his appeal rejected Sept. 8 by a federal appeals court.

3 members of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court 
judge's denial of Michael Brandon Samra's appeal, according to court records.

Samra and co-defendant Mark Duke, who was 16 at the time of the murders, killed 
Duke's father, Randy Duke, after a dispute over the family truck.

In trying to cover up the crime, the 2 killed 3 other people in a Pelham 
residence: Randy Duke's girlfriend, Dedra Hunt, and her daughters, 7-year-old 
Chelsea and 6-year-old Chelisa.

The girls were both students at Thorsby School.

Duke was convicted in 1999 and given the death sentence.

The death sentence was commuted to life in prison when the U.S. Supreme Court 
ruled in 2005 that no one could be executed because of the crimes committed 
while under the age of 18.

Samra, now 37, is on death row at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility in 
Jefferson County.

He argued his appellate 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, which he contends strengthened the 
state's aggravation case, according to court records.

Samra also argued that his appellate counsel was ineffective for not raising an 
argument on appeal that Samra was entitled to pretrial notice of the specific 
statutory aggravating factor that the state intended to rely upon in pursuing 
the death penalty against him at his trial in 1998.

The appeals court rejected Samra's arguments by stating, "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."

According to court records, Mark Duke became angry with his father and enlisted 
help from friends to murder him and then make the crime appear as a burglary.

Duke shot and killed his father at their home while Samra shot Hunt, who fled 
upstairs with her daughters. Duke and Samra then went after the victims and 
killed them, Duke killing Hunt and one of the girls while Samra killed the 
other.

"By Samra's own admission, after he assisted in killing 3 people, he slit the 
throat of a 7-year-old girl who was pleading and struggling for her life," the 
appeals court wrote. "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 especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel as it found them. As a 
result, Samra's claim that his trial counsel was ineffective for pursuing a 
gang-related strategy and for failing to object to gang-related evidence must 
be denied."

Mark Anthony Duke is currently serving his sentence at the St. Clair 
Correctional Facility.

(source: Clanton Advertiser)






ARKANSAS:

Analysis: Don't be surprised by delays on Arkansas death row


It should come as no surprise that two years after Gov. Mike Beebe floated the 
idea of perhaps doing away with the death penalty, eight condemned inmates 
would be lined up for their turn in Arkansas' death chamber.

But no one should be surprised if some or even all of the execution dates set 
between now and Jan. 14 pass without anyone dying.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson last week scheduled Arkansas' 1st executions since 2005. 
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge certified to the governor that the men's 
criminal appeals are wrapped up, leaving nothing currently impeding their 
journeys to the execution chamber at Varner.

"It's my understanding that all of the appeals have been exhausted and that 
there is a finality in the judgment and that is the reason the Attorney General 
has asked for those dates to be set," Hutchinson said.

For their criminal cases, that is largely true - though last-minute appeals of 
inmate convictions are always possible. For challenges to how Arkansas puts 
prisoners to death, it is likely that nothing will be final without further 
court intervention. Arkansas, like many states, releases as little information 
as possible about the drugs it plans to use to kill its condemned. Lawyers for 
the inmates say that is wrong, and even the governor acknowledged that he 
expects the state to be back in court.

"Quite frankly, I would expect continued litigation in it," Hutchinson said 
while announcing that he was setting the first executions for Oct. 21.

A couple years ago, there was hope among death penalty opponents that Arkansas 
could perhaps mothball its execution chamber. Beebe said during a speech to the 
Political Animals group in 2013 that he would sign a bill abolishing the death 
penalty if lawmakers sent him one.

It never came.

Absent a special legislative session on the matter or lawmakers working through 
loopholes to address the matter during their 2014 fiscal session, Beebe's 
opportunity passed. It became clear during the 2014 political campaign that the 
idea wouldn't come up again soon.

Each of the GOP candidates for attorney general and the Democratic candidate, 
too, said they wanted to find a way to jump-start an execution process clogged 
by challenges to the state's procedures and a seemingly perpetual shortage of 
the necessary drugs.

Hutchinson, too, said on the stump that he hoped for a way to eliminate the 
problems that had kept Arkansas' death chamber vacant for a decades - though he 
rejected talk that the state should consider electrocutions or firing squads.

"I believe the most humane means has proven to be lethal injection and while 
we're having problems right now in having access to the right chemicals, I hope 
we can resolve that just as other states have," Hutchinson said in March 2014.

Arkansas this summer acquired the chemicals needed to carry out executions 
under its protocols, but from whom is still an official state secret. 
Legislators, in an effort to protect the state's drug supplier from possible 
protests, say the public doesn't have a right to know who is giving it the 
tools from a deadly trade.

That means the inmates don't know either, so there is no way they can tell 
whether the drugs are pure, effective or from a reputable source.

The state had to turn over a supply of deadly drugs in 2011 after regulators 
determined that a batch of executions drugs intended for use in the U.S. had 
come from a distributor that shared a building with a driving school in London, 
raising questions about their origin. Inmates and their lawyers have concerns 
again, but with the state shielding the process from the public, there's really 
no way to know.

So with Arkansas' lack of openness, expect more court challenges - and expect 
more delays.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Arkansas legislature needs to abolish death penalty


Bishop Anthony B. Taylor released this statement Sept. 4.

Last month we received the news that the state of Arkansas has acquired new 
drugs for use in executing criminals and therefore executions of those on death 
row will soon resume after a lapse of almost 10 years.

I have a unique perspective to offer regarding capital punishment because I 
have experienced several sides of this issue: the murders of a number of people 
either personally or through involvement after the murders and the execution of 
a convicted murderer by the state.

My family was visiting the University of Texas on Aug. 1, 1966, on the very day 
that a former Marine sniper, 25-year-old Charles Whitman, killed his wife and 
mother and then barricaded himself on the top of the Student Union tower, from 
which he killed 14 others and wounded 32 in cold blood. I took shelter with the 
rest of my family behind a coke machine at a service station on Guadalupe 
Street.

So I have experienced the death penalty from the side of innocent victims and 
the side of criminals executed, and what is violated in both cases is the 
sanctity of life: either by the criminal or by the state.

When we left our hiding place, I saw a bullet hole in the window and blood on 
the floor of a barber shop. I saw people assisting a terrified woman who had 
been shot at but not hit because she took shelter against the low brick wall 
that surrounded a raised flower bed. I saw a lone high-heel shoe on the 
sidewalk, apparently abandoned by a fleeing woman.

It was very frightening and we were relieved when word came that the SWAT team 
had taken out the still well-armed sniper. I was 12 years old. You never forget 
something like that.

Almost 30 years later I was a priest serving in the Oklahoma City area when the 
Federal Building was bombed, killing 168 innocent persons - including 19 babies 
- and injuring more than 680 others. Actually there were 171 deaths because 
three of the victims were pregnant.

I had the funerals of 2 of the victims, Ethel Griffin and Tony Reyes. The grief 
of those families and indeed all of Oklahoma City was profound. We all drove 
with our lights on day and night until the last body was recovered. It felt 
like a month-long funeral procession.

Practically everybody knew someone who had died. We felt some relief when the 
bombers were arrested and convicted, knowing that they would never be in a 
position to do that again. Terry Nichols was given life without possibility of 
parole.

Timothy McVeigh was condemned to die, which actually turned out to be 
counterproductive: it made him something of a hero to some anti-government, 
white-supremacist groups to the point that for several years we had to live 
with heightened security every April 19 for fear of copy-cat bombers.

Far from making us safer, his execution exposed us to greater danger because 
violence begets more violence, regardless of whether the killer is a Timothy 
McVeigh or the state of Oklahoma. By contrast, his accomplice, Terry Nichols is 
paying for his crimes in prison, a nobody, unable to inspire even white 
supremacists.

On the other hand, in 1996 - the year after the OKC bombing - I accompanied 
Eric Patton to his execution by lethal injection for the brutal murder of 
Charlene Kauer whom he killed in a moment of passion under the influence of 
cocaine. Her family did not attend the execution. Her husband Les Kauer said, 
"The execution will do little more than stir up painful memories."

I know many families of victims may feel like an execution will bring them 
closure, but true closure, the kind of closure that God's peace provides, 
cannot be obtained through the state-imposed taking of another life.

We think of premeditated killing as being even worse than crimes of passion. 
When the state kills, it is premeditated. Eric was a model prisoner who 
probably should have been given a life sentence with drug treatment required - 
or at most, life without possibility of parole, but certainly not a sentence of 
death. Whenever people said they supported the death penalty, I had them speak 
with Peggy Patton, his mother and an active parishioner. Once they experienced 
the toll it takes on innocent members of even the perpetrator's family, they 
usually changed their mind.

So I have experienced the death penalty from the side of innocent victims and 
the side of criminals executed, and what is violated in both cases is the 
sanctity of life: either by the criminal or by the state.

I know you often hear Catholics talk about the sanctity of life in the context 
of abortion, so today I need to emphasize two obvious things: 1) life does not 
cease to be sacred once the baby is born, and 2) no one will be fully secure 
until we reject everything that threatens human life or degrades human dignity.

Jesus' teaching about the sanctity of life is a seamless garment - an organic 
whole - that has come unraveled to the point that we tolerate utterly immoral 
behavior as if it were nothing - after all, if life is not sacred, "Who cares 
what the state does?" He was a criminal, after all! Jesus - who was himself 
executed as a criminal - proclaims the sanctity of life at every stage of human 
existence from the first moment of conception to natural death and at every 
moment in between.

God's gift of life is sacred, regardless of a person's usefulness to society, 
which means that there is no justification whatsoever to take the lives of 
people who are locked away and pose no further threat to society.

The Old Testament passages that call for the execution of criminals have to be 
read in the context of a semi-nomadic people living in tents who did not have 
any way to incarcerate vicious criminals long term, much less for life. And 
that is the only possible justification for capital punishment: when and only 
when, a society has no other way to protect itself.

We do not live in tents and we have very secure prisons capable of keeping 
dangerous people off the streets for life.

So in the United States today, capital punishment is never justified, no matter 
how heinous the crime. Not even in the case of Timothy McVeigh! Even his life 
was sacred, regardless of what anybody thinks - including even what he might 
have thought - because it was given to him by God. So also were the lives of 
his victims.

So I appeal to the Arkansas state legislature to abolish the death penalty in 
our state and to Gov. Hutchinson to commute the sentences of all those on death 
row to life in prison, even if without possibility of parole. And as a first 
step, I appeal to Gov. Hutchinson not to schedule any executions at this time.

(source: Arkansas Catholic)