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

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 21



CONNECTICUT:

Death row inmates could face less restrictions


Officials say the 11 men currently on death row could soon be placed in general 
population.

Connecticut's death row inmates may soon face less restrictive prison 
conditions.

11 men were spared execution when the state Supreme Court ruled the death 
penalty unconstitutional last month.

Officials say those people will be re-sentenced and that could put them in the 
general prison population rather than solitary confinement.

(source: news12.com)






NORTH CAROLINA:

New names could be linked to suspected gang killings in Lake Wylie


A federal prosecutor said Monday that new suspects could face death-penalty 
charges in the suspected gang killings of Doug and Debbie London.

6 alleged members of United Blood Nation already stand accused of capital 
murder in the October 2014 slayings of the couple at their Lake Wylie, S.C., 
home. However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Beth Greene told U.S. District Judge Max 
Cogburn Monday morning that more names could be added under a new indictment.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to say whether the 
additions would come from the 12 alleged UBN members already charged or would 
be new names entirely.

Authorities say the Londons were shot to death to keep them from testifying 
against 3 UBN members accused of attempting to rob the couple's Pineville 
mattress store in May 2014.

The final list of death penalty defendants in the case remains in flux. All 
decisions by federal prosecutors to seek or waive capital punishment must be 
approved by top Justice Department officials in Washington, D.C.

Just when those decisions will be announced in unclear. Prosecutors said it 
will take another 2 to 3 months to distribute all the evidence to the numerous 
defense attorneys now assigned to the case. 14 of those attorneys were in 
Cogburn's courtroom for Monday's docket call.

Richard Culler, who represents defendant Nana "Ratchet" Adoma, asked Cogburn to 
separate his client's case from the others and give Adoma the speedy trial he 
deserves. Adoma now faces federal robbery, assault and racketeering charges 
that carry up to life imprisonment. Culler said the longer the investigation 
continues the more his client is placed at risk.

Cogburn would not go that far. But he urged prosecutors to move the cases along 
to save taxpayer money and protect the defendants' rights.

Adoma has been in jail since the robbery attempt on the Londons' store. He and 
the other accused gang members were indicted by federal prosecutors in April.

The 6 facing death-penalty charges include:

-- Jamell "Murda Mell" Cureton, who was wounded in a shootout with Doug London 
during the robbery and is accused of masterminding the couple's murders from 
his Mecklenburg Jail cell. Cureton, who is Adoma's brother, also has been 
charged with the 2013 shooting death of homeless teenager Kwamne Clyburn in a 
Charlotte park. An FBI raid of his jail cell uncovered photographs of 2 judges 
and led to their being placed under protective watch.

-- Malcom "Bloody Silent" Hartley, the alleged hitman accused of carrying out 
the hit on the Londons.

-- Ahkeem "Lil Keem" McDonald, also accused in the killing of Clyburn.

-- Rahkeem "Big Keem" McDonald, charged with planning the Londons' killings 
and helping hide the murder weapon.

-- David "Flames" Fudge, the admitted driver in the store robbery who 
prosecutors say helped plan the Londons' killings. Documents also indicate that 
some gang members considered Fudge to be an FBI informant.

-- Randall "Foe" Hankins, who court documents say was Cureton's top assistant 
in orchestrating the plot against the Londons.

-- Briana "Breezy B" Johnson, the daughter of a law enforcement officer who 
authorities say drove Hartley to the Londons' home.

The other 6 defendants face a range of racketeering charges that carry 
punishments of up to life in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in 
fines.

Hartley and Johnson also face murder charges in York County, S.C., where the 
killings of the Londons occurred.

As in state courts, death-penalty trials and sentences have become increasingly 
rare in federal judicial circuits. 3 defendants are on death row in North 
Carolina for federal murder convictions; South Carolina has 2.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, federal prosecutors have 
tried around 200 death penalty cases since 1988. Give the choice of life or 
death, federal juries have imposed life sentences in 2/3 of the capital cases. 
Previous Attorney General Eric Holder authorized less than 10 % of the capital 
cases as predecessor John Ashcroft did a decade before.

Yet, former federal prosecutor Richard Myers says the death penalty remains an 
effective bargaining chip in investigations, particularly in persuading 
defendants to provide more information about criminal organizations and their 
leaders.

The goal, says Myers, now assistant dean of the UNC Chapel Hill law school, is 
to implicate the highest-ranking figures possible and to do the most damage to 
the gang.

(source: Charlotte Observer)






GEORGIA----impending female execution

Former inmates rally to save murderess from death


Hers is a life measured by the dictates of Pulaski State Prison: when to rise, 
when to eat, when to go to bed so she can repeat the process the next day, and 
the day after that, and the day after that. This is how Kelly Gissendaner's 
life will unspool until the state of Georgia ends it.

That day may not be far off. Judicial officials on Friday issued a death 
warrant, Gissendaner's 3rd, for convinving her lover to kill her husband 2 
decades ago. Her execution date is set for Sept. 29 and, if it proceeds, she 
would become the 1st woman Georgia has put to death since 1945.

That day will not arrive, say her supporters, without a chorus of cries that 
Gissendaner, 47, be spared the ultimate punishment.

A loose-knit collection of former female convicts credit Gissendaner with 
giving them hope behind bars, ministering to them through an air vent. They are 
urging the state to reconsider her death sentence and let her live out her days 
in prison instead. The women call themselves Struggle Sisters.

Gissendaner acknowledges she coordinated the beating and stabbing death of her 
husband in 1997. She faced capital punishment twice earlier this year. Bad 
weather delayed one execution; a cloudy vial of lethal drugs prompted the 2nd 
execution's postponement.

The former inmates see those delays as a final chance to make their appeal. The 
women have established a Facebook page explaining their mission. They've 
recorded videos pleading her case, echoing the emotional pleas for mercycoming 
from 2 of Gissendaner's children.

The women credit Gissendaner with helping them turn their own troubled lives 
around. Nikki Roberts, convicted of robbery, is typical.

"I was at my low of lows" when chance brought her into contact with 
Gissendaner, the Atlanta resident recalled. "But I got some hope."

She got it at Metro State Prison, where she'd been temporarily sent to 
"lockdown," a cell block for high-security female prisoners or inmates who 
posed a threat to themselves. Roberts had earned a spot: She'd tried to slit 
her wrists.

In the new cell, she cried, cursed, howled. She paused in her rantings only 
when she heard a voice, coming through a heating vent: "Don't wish death on 
yourself," the voice said. "You sound like you've got some sense."

The voice, she discovered, belonged to Gissendaner, Georgia's sole female 
facing capital punishment - and, Roberts quickly learned, the sole voice of 
compassion in that echoing warren.

Roberts listened. The voice said she ought to sign up for some teaching 
courses, maybe impart some of that knowledge to others. Gissendaner, who'd 
spent years studying theology, suggested topics that Roberts might study. A 
chaplain agreed to work with her.

Prison officials transferred Roberts back to the general population. She was, 
they discovered, a different inmate. She joined a choir. She became a prayer 
leader. She served her 10 years and was paroled last year. Roberts now works 
for an Atlanta agency that teaches adult literacy.

Others could benefit from Gissendaner's counsel, Roberts said.

"Killing Kelly is essentially killing hope," said Roberts, 40. "Kelly is the 
poster child for redemption."

That's not just hyperbole, said Stephen Bright, senior counsel for the Southern 
Center for Human Rights. The Atlanta nonprofit specializes in prison issues, 
especially capital punishment cases.

Gissendaner, he suggested, has changed for the better in her 2 decades behind 
bars. "There is such a thing as redemption," Bright said. "I've seen it over 
and over."

Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University and an expert on capital 
punishment, likened Gissendaner's case to that of Karla Faye Tucker. Convicted 
of murder in Texas, Tucker became a Christian while in prison. Like 
Gissendaner, she counseled other inmates and built a following of supporters 
urging Texas corrections officials to commute her sentence to life in prison. 
It wasn't enough: In 1998, the state gave her a lethal injection.

Gissendaner's supporters may have just as much of an uphill fight, she said. 
"It's too few people at too low a rung in the hierarchy of influence," she 
said. "They would have to make a lot of noise. But who knows?"

Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter believes that Gissendaner 
deserves the death penalty and accused her of manipulation in planning her 
husband's slaying and in trying to avoid execution.

Gissendaner has never forgotten her crime, said her lead defense lawyer, Susan 
Casey. "She prays every day for the people she's hurt," said Casey.

The Struggle Sisters, she said, are a collective voice of conscience. "We 
didn't even know about them until they started coming to us," Casey said.

They appeared - seemingly out of nowhere - at Gissendaner's clemency hearing 
earlier year, intent on explaining to anyone who would listen how the death row 
inmate set them on a new course. Gissendaner's clemency plea was denied but her 
legal team soon learned that the inmates their client had counseled in prison 
were among her most passionate defenders.

"These women have some incredible stories of rehabilitation and change," Casey 
said.

Kara Stephens, for one. Convicted of armed robbery, she was remanded to Metro's 
lockdown for fighting. There, she met Gissendaner, and was impressed with her 
grace under the worst sort of pressure. What other death-row prisoner, she 
wondered, could find reason to be upbeat?

As her days of incarceration dwindled, Stephens despaired. Would her children 
welcome her back? Where would she stay? Could she survive in society after a 
decade of strictly regulated existence?

"I was just wanting to give up," said Stephens, now 38. "I was terrified of 
going home."

Gissendaner offered some support: Stephens was somebody. God loved her. Things 
would be OK.

In March 2009, a frightened Stephens re-entered society. These days, she works 
for a Chattanooga social-works agency sponsored by the Presbyterian church.

Nicole Legere, convicted of theft, is another Struggle Sister. When lawyers 
asked if she'd appear in a video supporting Gissendaner, she said yes.

"I saw the change in (other inmates) who talked to her," said Legere, 36, who 
left prison in 2013 after serving her full sentence. She lives in Ringgold and 
works for a printing company.

"There needs to be people like her, someone to be a mentor," Legere said. 
"She's a lot of hope. And there's not much hope in there."

To Learn More about this execution and capital punishment nationwide: 
https://www.themarshallproject.org/next-to-die?ref=hp

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Women and Capital Punishment:

Women remain a rarity on death row.

There are 56 women currently awaiting execution in the United States. That 
represents less than 2 % of the total death row population.

Since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, 15 women have been executed in 
the United States - or 1 % of the 1,414 executions.

In Georgia, the last woman put to death was Lena Baker, who was electrocuted in 
1945. Baker who was black, was executed for killing a white mill operator in 
Cuthbert, Ga. She had been hired to care for him after he broke his leg. She 
argued he tried to sexually assault her and has since been pardoned.

[sources: The Death Penalty Information Center and the NACCP Legal Defense 
Fund]

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

Emory to host panel discussion on death penalty


Emory University's Candler School of Theology will host a panel discussion on 
the death penalty Tuesday in light of a new execution date set for Kelly 
Gissendaner, the only women on Georgia's death row.

The "No One is Beyond Redemption: A Candler Conversation on Capital Punishment 
and the Scheduled Execution of Kelly Gissendaner," forum will be led by 
professors Liz Bounds and Robert Franklin, and human rights attorney Katie 
Chamblee, who focuses on death-penalty cases in Georgia and Alabama. Emory's 
Center for the Study of Law & Religion is assisting in sponsoring this event.

Gissendaner, who is a graduate of the Certificate in Theological Studies 
program that Candler co-sponsors at Lee Arrendale State Prison, is scheduled 
for execution sometime between Sept. 29 and Oct. 6. Gissendaner persuaded her 
boyfriend to kill her husband. Though she did not commit the actual killing, 
she was convicted of the murder and sentenced to die.

A group of former female inmates and 2 of her children are petitioning the 
state to reconsider Gissendaner's execution.

Emory's forum is scheduled for 5 p.m., Sept. 22 in the Rita Anne Rollins 
building, Room 252 of the Candler School of Theology, 1531 Dickey Drive in 
Atlanta.

(source for both: Atlanta Journal Constitution)






FLORIDA:

Luis Toledo's attorneys request motion to delay trial----Toledo accused of 
killing wife, 2 stepchildren


A man accused of killing his wife and 2 stepchildren returned to a Volusia 
County courtroom on Monday.

Luis Toledo's attorneys argued several motions, including 1 to delay the trial 
while the Supreme Court decides if Florida's death penalty is constitutional.

"By waiting, it guarantees Mr. Toledo his rights to a fair trial, his rights 
under the correct law," defense attorney Jeff Deen said.

Defense attorneys argued that without the Supreme Court's decision, they cannot 
properly advise their client on the law. Prosecutors objected the delay.

"There's always some sort of litigation going on with the death penalty," 
prosecutor Ed Davis said.

A judge plans to issue a ruling by the end of the week on the motion.

The defense team asked for a 2nd motion, one which would suppress evidence and 
statements made by Toledo to police.

"Mr. Toledo denied any knowledge, basically, during an interview and said he 
didn't know anything, didn't know where his wife and children were," Davis 
said.

Investigators said Toledo admitted to murdering his wife, Yessenia Suarez, in 
October of 2013 but not her 2 children, Michael and Thalia.

Davis said Toledo was read his Miranda rights, but the defense is questioning 
the validity of some those statements because Toledo's counsel was never 
present for any of the interviews.

There's also a motion to change the trial to a different venue, but that motion 
has not been heard yet. The trial is scheduled to be held Jan. 3.

(source: WESH news)






ALABAMA:

The outrageous conviction of Montez Spradley


Last week, an Oklahoma appeals court granted death row inmate Richard Glossip a 
stay of execution about an hour before he was scheduled to die. There's plenty 
of evidence casting doubt on Glossip???s guilt, including new evidence his 
legal team unveiled just last week. (Much of it came from witnesses who came 
forward after seeing the publicity surrounding Glossip's nearing execution.) 
Whenever a death row inmate claims innocence in the waning hours of his life, 
there's inevitably a chorus of death penalty supporters who point out that the 
condemned was convicted by a jury, by the work of police and prosecutors, that 
the verdict would need to have been upheld by a judge, and then by multiple 
appeals courts.

But consider the case of Montez Spradley. As Glossip neared his execution, 
Spradley was enjoying his second week of freedom after nearly a decade in 
prison. For most of that time, he was on death row. He had been convicted of 
robbing and killing a woman, Marlene Jason, in 2004.

At 1st glance, the case against Spradley seemed strong. The police claimed to 
have records of the victim's credit card being used at the gas station and 
seafood store, and surveillance photos of Spradley at those businesses at the 
time the card was used. Spradley's ex-girlfriend, and the mother of his 3 
children, testified that he had confessed to her, then beat her and threatened 
her if she tried to testify against him. A jailhouse informant also claimed 
that Spradley had confessed to him, and even claimed to have corroborating 
evidence to back up the allegation.

Spradley was convicted in 2008, both for the murder and for threatening his 
ex-girlfriend to dissuade her from testifying. But there were problems with the 
state's case. Most notably, there was no physical evidence linking Spradley to 
the crime. Perhaps that's why, during the sentencing phase, the jury voted 10-2 
to spare Spradley the death penalty.

Unfortunately for Spradley, Alabama is one of three states in which a judge can 
override the jury's verdict in a capital case. Judge Gloria Bahakel disregarded 
the jury's recommendation and sentenced Spradley to death. (Incidentally, 
judges and these 3 states can also go the other way - they could override a 
jury's death recommendation to impose a life sentence. But since 1976, they're 
11 times more likely to override life for death than the other way around.)

Over the next few years, the state's case against Spradley began to fall apart. 
In 2011, the Alabama Court of Appeals ordered a new trial on several grounds. 
Most notably, the court found that the state never established that the 
security camera photos allegedly showing Spradley at the gas station and 
seafood store were actually taken at the time the victim's credit card was 
used. In fact, the state never produced any documents from a bank showing that 
the card was used at those businesses. Instead, the state relied on the 
testimony of the police detective who investigated the case, Jefferson County 
Sheriff's Office Det. Don Edge. As the court pointed out, this was the only 
evidence linking Spradley to the victim. The state moved ahead with plans to 
prosecute Spradley again, led by the man who prosecuted him the first time, 
deputy district attorney Mike Anderton. But before the 2nd trial started, new 
information further crippled the state's case.

The most damning piece of evidence against Spradley was the testimony of his 
ex-girlfriend and the mother of his children, Alisha Booker, who claimed that 
Spradley had confessed to her. There were already problems with Booker's story. 
She claimed in a recorded interview that Spradley told her he committed the 
crime with a man named Antonio Atkins. The police already knew about Atkins 
because witnesses claimed someone in a car matching the one he owned tried to 
sell them gas purchased with Jason's credit card. But the police also knew that 
Atkins had an alibi - he had been working the night of the murder. His 
attorneys have suggested that Atkins's brother Sedrick was Jason's killer. 
Unfortunately, Sedrick Atkins was shot and killed in 2011. At trial, Det. Edge 
testified that he couldn't recall if Booker told him Spradley was with someone 
on the night of the murder, a convenient memory lapse that saved the jury from 
hearing a critical detail that cast serious doubt on Booker's testimony.

After his death sentence, Spradley was represented by Birmingham defense 
attorney Richard Jaffe and Anna Arceneaux, a staff attorney with the ACLU's 
Capital Punishment Project.

In a phone interview, Arceneaux says they had learned of a fund run by the 
Alabama governor's office that provides reward money to citizens who help solve 
serious crimes. On a whim, Spradley's attorneys asked the governor's office for 
any information related to payments to witnesses in the Spradley case. They 
discovered that Alisha Booker had been paid $5,000 for her testimony. They 
later discovered that she had been paid an additional $5,000 through a private 
fund. None of this had been disclosed to Spradley's defense team, as is 
required by law.

But it gets worse. They also discovered that the money from the governor's fund 
was paid to Booker after Spradley's conviction but before his sentencing. 
What's more, Judge Gloria Bahakel had signed off on the payment. She too never 
disclosed the payment to Spradley's defense team.

"That means not only did she know that the state had paid Booker and did 
nothing about it, she also had knowledge of the payment when she overrode the 
jury and imposed the death penalty," Arceneaux says.

Anderton has publicly said that he wasn't personally aware of the payments to 
Booker, but Arceneaux points out that the documents came from the office of 
Anderton's boss at the time, Jefferson County District Attorney David Barber. 
If Anderton didn't know about the payments, then someone in his office was 
making deals with a witness without his knowledge. "Either scenario is 
disturbing," Arceneaux says.

Both Arceneaux and Jaffe say they also believe that Booker received yet more 
money later, possibly from a Crime Stoppers program. They also learned that 
shortly before trial, Booker attempted to recant her testimony. According to 
them, police officials in the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office threatened to 
prosecute her for perjury and take away her children if she didn't implicate 
Spradley. Incidentally, the way these reward programs work, Booker would have 
been paid only if Spradley was convicted.

"You can see how the incentives work," says Jaffe. "If you want to get paid, 
you not only testify, but you'd be wise to make sure your testimony is as 
helpful as you can make it." For Booker, the incentives were even stronger: 
Give the testimony that sends Spradley to death row, and she gets paid $10,000. 
Refuse to testify, and she may lose her kids, and possibly end up in jail 
herself. Jaffe says these tactics are common in Jefferson County.

And if Spradley's new legal team hadn't thought to request information from the 
governor's office, it may never have come to light. On Booker's testimony 
alone, Spradley could well have been convicted again. "We had heard rumors that 
Booker had been paid," Arceneaux says. "But when we contacted the county clerk, 
there was no record of any payments in the case file."

And then there's Matthew Bryant, the informant who testified against Spradley. 
Bryant was in jail awaiting trial on charges that he hired two men to kill his 
father. Spradley had been arrested after Booker claimed he threatened her, 
although at that point he had not yet been charged with Jason's murder. Bryant 
then approached police claiming that Spradley had been implicating himself for 
Jason's murder and offered to testify in exchange for favorable treatment in 
his own case. But when Bryant attempted to secretly record Spradley confessing, 
he came up empty. Nevertheless, he still testified against Spradley at trial. 
By that time he had been convicted in his own case. He received a split 
sentence that required him to spend just 5 years in prison, followed by 
probation.

"That's an extraordinarily light sentence for a crime that serious," Jaffe 
says. Anderton has publicly said that there was no deal cut with Bryant. But 
for some perspective on his sentence, Richard Glossip was essentially convicted 
of the same crime. Bryant got 5 years. Glossip was sentenced to death.

Once all of this came out, the state offered Spradley an Alford plea, an 
agreement in which a defendant maintains his innocence but concedes that the 
state has enough evidence to prove his guilt. Spradley took the offer and was 
released this month. It's far from an exoneration, but it spared him death and 
got him out of prison. "Montez is innocent," Jaffe says. "But you don't mess 
around with the death penalty. If my client has the chance to save his own 
life, I always advise him to take it."

If you don't closely follow the criminal justice system, the details of 
Spradley's conviction seem pretty shocking. But they aren't uncommon. The use 
of testimony from jailhouse informants, for example, is extremely common, 
despite the obvious incentive problems and that such testimony relies on the 
assumption that defendants frequently confess their crimes to cellmates they 
barely know. Anderton's denials aside, it's not unreasonable to wonder if 
Bryant's suspiciously light sentence was the result of favorable treatment of 
his testimony. But even if no one ever explicitly offered him a deal, it isn't 
difficult to see how he might come forward in anticipation of one. (Indeed, 
Arceneaux says transcripts show that he made such a request.)

Then there's the money paid to Booker. Timothy O'Toole, an attorney in 
Washington considered an expert in discovery issues and a board member of the 
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, says the practice of police 
and prosecutors offering reward money to non-expert witnesses for their 
testimony is standard practice. (The NACDL doesn't comment on specific cases, 
so O'Toole's opinions are his own.) "It just has to be disclosed," O'Toole 
says. "But the rules are pretty loose."

You might think that sounds like bribery. O'Toole points out that in 1998, a 
panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit agreed, explaining 
that, "If justice is perverted when a criminal defendant seeks to buy testimony 
from a witness, it is no less perverted when the government does so. The 
judicial process is tainted and justice is cheapened when factual testimony is 
purchased, whether with leniency or money."

That seemingly reasonable decision made headlines. It was then promptly vacated 
by the full 10th Circuit, and then swiftly condemned and repudiated by courts 
all over the country. The majority opinion for the full appeals court assured 
that, "fears our decision would permit improper use or abuse of prosecutorial 
authority simply have no foundation."

Since then, testimony from paid witnesses, paid informants and jailhouse 
snitches rewarded with reduced sentences has been implicated in wrongful 
convictions, unjust prosecutions, and scandals at all levels of government, all 
over the country. The Innocence Project estimates that 15 % of wrongful 
convictions were due to critical testimony from witnesses who were in some way 
compensated for what they told the jury.

Both prosecutors and defense attorneys can pay for travel and hotel for 
witnesses, along with a reasonable per diem for the time they spend testifying. 
That seems reasonable. But state rewards in the thousands of dollars, 
contingent on conviction, are another matter. But believe it or not, this is 
permissible.

To put that into perspective, imagine the scenario hinted at by that 10th 
Circuit panel in 1998: Imagine if a defense attorney had paid a witness $10,000 
to claim someone other than the defendant had confessed to her, only payable 
upon acquittal. Even if the attorney disclosed the payment, it would probably 
lead to disbarment. If the attorney didn't disclose, it would likely result in 
criminal charges.

So police and prosecutors can reward witnesses for testimony. But disclosure is 
key. And there was no disclosure here. "If payments of that size weren't 
disclosed in this case, that's outrageous," O'Toole says.

So why isn't this story a huge scandal? The problem is that there's enough 
ambiguity in when and how some of these awards are distributed to give every 
state actor with a duty to disclosure an excuse for not having done it. Crime 
Stoppers rewards are usually advertised publicly, for example. So police 
investigators might say a witness was already aware of the award, so they never 
made an explicit offer, so there was nothing to do disclose. (In Spradley's 
case, Det. Edge said in a 2013 hearing that there was "discussion" of a reward, 
but that he never explicitly promised Booker the money. He also denied 
threatening Booker.) Prosecutors can simply say that it was the responsibility 
of the police to disclose any payments.

"I don't know about plausible deniability, but it definitely lets them get away 
with saying they didn't know," Arceneaux says. Making these rewards contingent 
on conviction also lets state officials claim that if there was not yet an 
explicit offer, and the witness was paid only after the conviction, then again, 
there was nothing to disclose before the trial.

All of this clearly subverts the intent of the Supreme Court's ruling both in 
Brady v. Maryland, which requires prosecutors to turn over exculpatory 
evidence, and the 1985 case U.S. v. Bagley, which specifically addresses the 
issue of payments to witnesses. The harm occurs when a jury is deprived of 
information that compromises a witness's integrity. Perversely, while making a 
reward contingent on a conviction may (at least in theory) provide some cover 
for officials who fail to disclose the reward, it actually strengthens a 
witness's incentive to lie or exaggerate. The more convincing the testimony, 
the more likely the jury convicts.

The Supreme Court's ruling in Bagley added that in order for a disclosure 
violation to merit overturning a conviction, the undisclosed evidence should be 
material, and a defendant needs to show that it would likely have affected the 
outcome of the case if it had been disclosed. So even the minor deterrent of an 
overturned conviction is far from automatic. Here, the Alabama Court of Appeals 
found that the video and photo evidence against Spradley alone met that 
standard. (Remember, the payments to Booker weren't discovered until after that 
decision.) So once the payments were discovered, it seems likely that just 
about any court in the country would have eventually overturned his conviction.

"There's no question that there were Brady violations in this case," Jaffe 
says.

The problem is that with a violation this egregious, an overturned conviction 
isn't enough. There needs to be some accountability. Anderton didn't return a 
request for a phone interview. But he's still a prosecutor in Jefferson County. 
If he wasn't aware of the payments to Booker, who in his office was? Clearly 
someone was, given that the authorization form included a letter on the DA's 
letterhead, signed by his former boss. Has he investigated who in his office 
authorized payment to a witness in one of his cases without notifying him? Has 
that person been sanctioned for violating Montez Spradley's rights? If it was 
the responsibility of the police to notify Anderton of any payment to Booker, 
has he investigated why that wasn't disclosed? Has he investigated Booker's 
allegations that when she attempted to recant her statement, she was threatened 
with criminal charges and with losing her children?*

Remember that this information was only discovered when defense attorneys 
learned of the governor's reward fund and sent a letter to inquire if anyone in 
Spradley's case had been paid. Had they not found out about the payments, 
Anderton would likely have tried Spradley again. (Earlier this month, Anderton 
still insisted that Spradley is guilty.)

But if this has happened once, it has likely happened before. How many other 
people may have been wrongly convicted in Jefferson County due to testimony 
from witnesses who were incentivized with reward money and/or threats of 
criminal prosecution, none of which was disclosed? Given that all of the law 
enforcement officials involved in this case are still on the job, how do we 
know it isn't still going on?

The one public official who did eventually get some comeuppance in this story 
is Judge Gloria Bahakel, who lost her bid for reelection in 2010, then lost 
subsequent bids for a judgeship in 2012, and again last year. Morally, 
Bahakel's sins in this case seem to be the most egregious. It's bad enough to 
allow for a man to be executed while knowing that the jury was never told that 
the state's key witness had been paid thousands of dollars for her testimony. 
But Bahakel ordered Spradley's execution herself, against the jury's wishes.

But judges aren't subject to Brady requirements. So technically, it isn't even 
clear if Bahakel committed an actionable breach of ethics. Given that 
prosecutors are rarely sanctioned for failure to disclose exculpatory evidence, 
it seems unlikely that the Alabama Bar or an appeals court would sanction a 
judge, even one no longer on the bench. Those close to the case also say it 
would be a stretch to attribute Bahakel's election losses to the Spradley case, 
though they say it's possible voters were responding to her reputation as a 
particularly harsh law-and-order judge, even in a state known for law-and-order 
judges.

In the end, no public official has been directly held accountable for the 
wrongful prosecution of Montez Spradley, and it's unlikely that any will. In an 
interview with Andrew Cohen of the Marshall Project, Spradley displayed the 
grace typical of recently-freed exonorees. "I just want to be free and be 
around my kids and my family and my loved ones. Just glad to be home. I am just 
happy for that," he said. "I am not mad at anyone, not holding any grudges 
against anyone, I don't hold any ill feelings toward anyone."

That's admirably magnanimous of him. But the rest of us can't afford to be so 
forgiving. Assertions from death penalty proponents aside, Spradley is far from 
the 1st person to be freed from death row. He isn't the 1st in Alabama. He 
isn't even the 1st in Alabama this year.

There are undoubtedly more Montez Spradleys rotting in Alabama's prisons, and 
in prisons around the country. Like Spradley, some of them are probably 
awaiting execution.

And without any real accountability in these cases, there will undoubtedly be 
more.

(*Amusingly, at the 2013 hearing in which Booker recanted her testimony, 
Anderton suggested that her recantation may have been influenced by the help 
she received from Spradley's family in raising her 3 children.)

(source: Radley Balko, Washington Post)






LOUISIANA:

Serial killer closer to execution in Miss. woman's death


Louisiana serial killer Derrick Todd Lee is one step closer to being executed 
for the 2002 killing of 22-year-old Jackson, Miss. native Charlotte Murray 
Pace.

On Friday, the Louisiana Supreme Court rejected Lee???s last state challenge to 
his execution. He still has some federal appeals left and his execution could 
still be years away.

"It has been 11 years since this serial murderer was convicted and sentenced to 
death in the vicious, violent murder of my daughter, Jackson native and 
Millsaps graduate Murray Pace," Ann Pace said. "It has taken 11 long, often 
frustrating, often heartbreaking years for surviving family and friends of this 
killer's numerous victims to complete only the first 2 of 3 levels of 
adjudication. We now face the 3rd (federal) level of appeals that will begin in 
the federal district court in Baton Rouge and end on an unknown timeline at the 
US Supreme Court (again)."

Lee has been linked to 7 killings and 1 attack. He was sentenced to death in 
Pace's death.

Ann Pace said the count of years begins again for those who remain to fight for 
justice for those who died at the hands of Lee.

"2 of us have died this past year," Pace said in a statement. "I myself was in 
my 50s when my daughter was murdered and am now 70. Time feels treacherous."

Charlotte Murray Pace was found dead in her Baton Rouge apartment on May 31, 
2002.

Since her daughter's death, Ann Pace has been a victim's advocate and supporter 
of the death penalty. She said the death penalty isn't something that is 
morally wrong.

"It's not a good thing, it's a tough thing you do to protect innocent people," 
Pace has said about carrying out executions.

Pace said that with DNA evidence that can exonerate innocent people and prove 
the guilt of guilty individuals, there shouldn't be the extensively time lag in 
carrying out executions.

"I beg those with the power to do so to act to amend the process to make it 
congruent with science or justice will continue to be lost in the quagmire of 
an antiquated, irrational system, which offers little to the dead or those who 
love them still," Pace said.

East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III said the state 
Supreme Court ruling moves the Lee case closer to final resolution.

(source: Clarion-Ledger)