[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., S.C., GA., OHIO, ARK.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 30



VIRGINIA----impending execution

3 murder victims' families prepare for Alfredo Prieto's execution


After 27 years, the families of Tina Jefferson and Rachael A. Raver still 
clearly remember where they were when they learned that their loved ones had 
been killed: Velma Jefferson was at work in Lawton, Okla., when a family friend 
unexpectedly appeared with news about her daughter. Deidre Raver was in a 
neighbor's car in Yorktown, N.Y., when she learned that her missing sister's 
body had been found.

"I just screamed," Raver said. "It's like your body isn't prepared for 
something like that."

Now they are steeling themselves for one more unforgettable moment: the 
execution of the murderer, Alfredo R. Prieto, on Thursday night.

Tina Jefferson, a 24-year-old CIA financial analyst from Oklahoma, was living 
in Arlington when she was raped and shot to death behind an elementary school 
there in May 1988. Raver, 22, had just graduated from George Washington 
University, and her new boyfriend, Warren H. Fulton III, also 22, was a senior 
there when they were shot in the back in a vacant lot outside Reston in 
December 1988. Investigators believe that Raver was raped as she lay dying.

It was the beginning of a horrific rampage by Prieto, now 49, who is linked by 
ballistics to a 4th slaying in Northern Virginia: Manuel F. Sermeno, 27, was 
found shot to death in a burning car on Interstate 95 in Prince William County 
in 1989, according to law enforcement authorities. Prieto then returned to 
California, where he apparently killed 5 more people before being captured in 
September 1990 - a total of 9 murders and 4 rapes in a 2-year period, police in 
both states say.

"If there ever was a human being for whom capital punishment makes sense," 
Robert F. Horan Jr., the former Fairfax commonwealth's attorney, said Tuesday, 
"it's this guy." After DNA unexpectedly connected Prieto to the unsolved 
Virginia killings, Horan decided in 2005 to put Prieto on trial in Fairfax even 
though he already had a death sentence in California.

Prieto has not spoken publicly about any of his crimes. He never spoke to 
investigators in California or Virginia. He did not testify at his trials. He 
refused even to answer a question from prison officials recently about whether 
he preferred death by lethal injection or electrocution, a corrections 
spokeswoman said. By default under Virginia law, he will receive a lethal 
injection.

But at his 4th and final trial, in Fairfax in 2010, Prieto stood and answered 
questions from a judge about whether he was cooperating with the prosecution's 
mental health expert after his defense, in two prior trials, posited that his 
client was mentally retarded.

In clear English, with the jury out of the nearly empty courtroom, he told 
Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows he "spoke to [the expert] about a 
variety of issues. Some of the questions I could not answer, under the Fifth 
Amendment. I have a right to remain silent. He asked me some questions about my 
state of mind. What I said was, I was using a lot of drugs. I was drinking. I 
gave him a lot of answers."

The jury heard from the prosecution expert, then voted for two death sentences, 
which Bellows imposed in December 2010.

If Prieto is executed Thursday at the Greensville Correctional Center in 
Jarratt, Va., his state and federal appeals processes will have been completed 
in under 5 years. A request for a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court is pending.

That does not seem like a short amount of time to the families of the three 
Northern Virginia victims, who endured three long trials between 2007 and 2010. 
Some of the family members did not survive. Rachael Raver's mother, Veronica, 
struggled through stomach cancer and chemotherapy and traveled from Yorktown to 
Fairfax for all three trials. As Prieto was being led out of the Fairfax 
courtroom for the last time, Veronica Raver hissed at him: "Hey, Prieto - does 
your mother know you rape dying dead girls?"

In the hallway afterward, she said she did not expect to be around for Prieto's 
execution but that she'd "be there in spirit."

Veronica Raver died in 2013.

Tina Jefferson's father, Henry Jefferson, died in April 2007, weeks before 
Prieto's 1st trial. He was a Vietnam veteran and a career soldier who never 
stopped pushing for an answer to his daughter's death. "I broke down and 
started crying" after Arlington County police told him that Prieto had been 
identified through DNA, he told The Washington Post in 2005. "For a 62-year-old 
man, that's something."

Tina was an honors student and a basketball player in high school who served as 
a resident assistant and president of her sorority at Oklahoma State 
University. She was last seen at a Giant grocery in Baileys Crossroads at 9:30 
p.m. on May 10, 1988, although a witness saw her red Camaro in Arlington not 
long after that. Her body was found at 2 a.m. the next day behind McKinley 
Elementary School, and her car was back in the Giant parking lot.

No one knows how or where she might have crossed paths with Prieto, but his 
semen was found on her body, authorities said.

"She was a kindhearted, loving, very outgoing person," her mother said. "And 
that probably was the cause of her demise."

Raver was a varsity soccer player who graduated from George Washington 
University in May 1988 with an education degree. She was living in Alexandria, 
working as a secretary there and planning to apply for law school, when she met 
Fulton in the summer of 1988. "She was a clean-cut kid," said her brother 
Matthew Raver. "She would not hurt a fly."

Fulton was a senior at George Washington, living with his parents in Vienna 
while they helped run the local chapter of the Salvation Army. On the night of 
Dec. 3, 1988, Raver went to their home for dinner. Then the young couple went 
to a Christmas party in Arlington and finally to Mister Days, a sports bar in 
the District. They had planned to attend church with Fulton's parents the next 
morning.

They did not come home. It is not known where they might have encountered 
Prieto, although autopsies showed that they ate food not long before their 
deaths. Their bodies were found in a lot off Hunter Mill Road on Dec. 6, 1988.

"He was a gorgeous, wonderful, talented young man," Fulton's father, Warren 
Fulton Jr., told a jury in 2008. "22 years of work and sacrifice and hopes and 
dreams, and suddenly it's over."

After the slayings of Jefferson, Raver and Fulton in 1988, Prieto moved to 
Manassas, not far from where Sermeno was found dead in September 1989. In 
February 1990, Prieto returned to California, trial testimony showed.

In May 1990, Stacey Siegrist, 19, and Tony Gianuzzi, 21, were abducted and shot 
to death in Rubidoux, Calif. The next month, Lula and Herbert Farley, 71 and 
65, respectively, were abducted and shot to death in Ontario, Calif. Prieto was 
connected by DNA to the 1st double killings and by ballistics to the 2nd set, 
California authorities said.

Finally, in September 1990, Prieto and 2 other men abducted 3 women from a 
rival gang's party and raped them, according to court testimony. Prieto shot 
15-year-old Yvette Woodruff in the head, according to testimony, and the other 
women were stabbed but not killed. The survivors identified their attackers, 
the 2 accomplices were convicted, and Prieto was finally arrested, convicted 
and sentenced to death. His accomplices were convicted and sentenced to life in 
prison.

(source: Washington Post)

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

Death penalty is the law in Virginia, and this killer is the reason why


Alfredo Prieto has little more than a day to live. Unless the U.S. Supreme 
Court comes to his rescue, that is.

On Thursday evening, the 49-year-old is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 
the Greensville Correctional Center.

Prieto inched closer to the death chamber Monday when Gov. Terry McAuliffe said 
he would not spare the condemned man's life.

"I have decided not to intervene in this execution," McAuliffe said in a 
statement. "Mr. Prieto was convicted in a fair and impartial trial and a jury 
sentenced him to death in accordance with Virginia law. Federal and state 
appellate courts have extensively reviewed his case and denied his requested 
relief. It is the [g]overnor's responsibility to ensure that the laws of the 
[c]ommonwealth are properly carried out unless circumstances merit a stay or 
commutation of the sentence.... I have found no such circumstances.... I will 
continue to pray for all of the individuals and families affected by these 
tragic and horrible crimes."

Good for McAuliffe.

First, for not waiting until the 11th hour to make his decision, which always 
seems a tad dramatic. Second, for not substituting his own beliefs - The 
Washington Post reported earlier this year that the governor opposes the death 
penalty - for the laws of the commonwealth. Third, for remembering those who 
matter most.

The victims.

With Virginia's 1st execution in more than 2 years, cue the chorus of death 
penalty opponents who will wail that poor Prieto should be shown mercy. After 
all, he grew up in El Salvador and came to America as a teenager, to begin his 
new life as a serial killer.

The truly heart-tugging part of their argument is that they believe his IQ is 
too low for him to be executed.

Oh, please.

It's unclear how the intelligence of an uneducated man from a non-English 
speaking background is measured, but chances are this killer - who knew how to 
murder people and get away with it - may have figured out that if he could 
bamboozle the guys with beards and clipboards, he could also avoid execution.

According to news stories, experts for the prosecution testified in court that 
Prieto was not intellectually disabled, while experts for the defense said he 
was.

If Prieto dies this week, it will be for the heinous murders of 2 22-year-olds 
in Fairfax County in 1988.

That may not be the extent of his killing spree.

The Post reports that "authorities believe Prieto is responsible for 9 killings 
between 1988 and 1990, when he was arrested... for the rape and murder of 
15-year-old Yvette Woodruff" in California.

Prieto received his first death sentence for the Woodruff killing.

In fact, it was years after California sentenced him to die that his DNA was 
entered into a national databank and he was linked with older slayings in 
Virginia.

Prieto was brought to Virginia from California - where death row is a euphemism 
for life in prison - to stand trial for the deaths of Rachael A. Raver and 
Warren H. Fulton III.

According to various news reports, Prieto refused to talk about the crime, so 
it was left to prosecutors to piece together what happened on Dec. 4, 1988.

Raver and Fulton were last seen leaving a restaurant. Their bodies were found 
days later. Police believe Prieto somehow abducted the couple and forced them 
to drive to a secluded area not far from Dulles Airport. There, he shot Fulton. 
When Raver made a run for it, he shot her in the back.

Prosecutors believe Pietro raped Raver as she lay wounded and dying. Eventually 
he made his way back to California, where he was apprehended after he killed 
the teenager.

Are these the actions of a mentally deficient person? A jury, multiple juries, 
in fact, said they were not.

Consider this for a moment: Raver and Fulton have been dead for 26 years. In 
the ensuing time, Prieto has been able to kill at least one more person, eat, 
sleep, communicate with his family and celebrate birthdays.

The governor had a tough decision this week. He held the life of a man in his 
hands. McAuliffe did the right thing.

If Virginians are uncomfortable with the death penalty, they should do what 
other states have done and abolish it. It's a discussion worth having.

In the meantime, thanks to the abolition of parole, executions have become 
increasingly rare in Virginia - there are just 8 inmates on death row - and 
reserved for the most barbaric killers.

People like Prieto.

(source: Kerry Dougherty, Columinst, The Virginian-Pilot)






SOUTH CAROLINA:

Washington and Lee law professor to represent Charleston church shooting 
defendant ---- The accused shooter is the latest notorious defendant to be 
represented by David Bruck.


A Washington and Lee University law professor is defending the man charged with 
federal hate crimes in the fatal shootings of nine people during a Bible study 
at a historic African-American church.

David Bruck was appointed lead attorney for Dylann Roof because of his 
"extensive experience" in death penalty cases across the country, Judge Richard 
Gergel wrote in a July 23 order filed in U.S. District Court in Charleston, 
South Carolina.

At W&L, Bruck directs the Virginia Capital Case Clearing House, a law school 
program that serves as a resource center for court-appointed defense lawyers in 
death penalty cases.

Bruck has also been in the national spotlight as a member of the defense team 
for several high-profile defendants. Earlier this year, he represented Dzhokhar 
Tsarnaev, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2013 Boston Marathon 
bombing.

The case involving Roof is equally notorious, not just for the alleged crime 
but also for the impact it had on many communities - including Lexington and 
the W&L campus - that were thrust into a debate over the display of the 
Confederate battle flag, which has been linked to the defendant's motives.

Bruck, who is representing Roof in federal court along with Charleston attorney 
Michael O'Connell, declined to comment Tuesday.

In addition to the federal hate crime charges, Roof is facing murder charges in 
state court, where prosecutors have said they will seek the death sentence in a 
trial set for next July. No trial date has been set in federal court, and 
prosecutors there have not indicated whether they will seek the death penalty.

A separate team of attorneys is representing Roof on the state charges.

Roof, a 21-year-old white man, is accused in the June 17 slayings of 9 black 
parishioners at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. 
Authorities say he was invited to participate in a Bible class study, where he 
interacted with his victims for nearly an hour before opening fire on them.

An indictment filed in Charleston's federal court alleges that Roof selected 
his victims based on their race and sought them out at a historic 
African-American church "in order to make his attack more notorious."

The indictment cites a manuscript that Roof posted online, espousing his racist 
beliefs and containing photographs of him holding a Confederate flag, in 
alleging that he intended to increase racial tensions across the country.

What happened was a backlash against the Confederate flag, with calls for its 
removal from public buildings and other places.

In Lexington, W&L officials decided in August not to lease the school's Lee 
Chapel to a Sons of Confederate Veterans Group for a Lee-Jackson Day 
celebration, citing ongoing tensions over the flag that began before the 
Charleston church shootings. A local controversy also erupted in mid-July when 
a man who flies a huge Confederate flag on his private land proclaimed in a 
newspaper advertisement that blacks and Democrats were banned from his property 
because "of all the trouble" they had been causing.

Bruck joined W&L's law school in 2004. He has ties to South Carolina, having 
practiced law in Columbia for nearly 30 years. In 1995, he represented Susan 
Smith, who was convicted of drowning her 2 small children in a lake, where she 
drove them in her car before attempting to blame a fictitious carjacker for 
their deaths.

In both the Smith and Tsarnaev cases, Bruck teamed up with Judy Clarke, another 
well-known death penalty lawyer who in the past has been a visiting professor 
at W&L.

(source: The Roanoke Times)







GEORGIA----execution//female

Kelly Gissendaner: Georgia executes 1st woman for 70 years despite last-minute 
appeals ---- Letter on behalf of Pope Francis and video from three of her 
children pleading for clemency did not sway authorities in the state

Georgia has executed Kelly Renee Gissendaner with a fatal injection for the 
slaying of her husband, despite a plea for clemency from their children.

After a 5-hour delay, Georgia death row inmate Kelly Gissendaner was executed 
Wednesday morning for her role in the killing of her husband.

She died at 12:21 a.m. ET, the Georgia Department of Corrections said.

Last-minute appeals from her lawyers to the 11th US circuit court of appeals 
and the US supreme court as well as the Georgia board of pardons and paroles 
all failed.

Gissendaner, 47, died by injection of pentobarbital at 12:21am EDT on Wednesday 
at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification prison in Jackson, a prison 
spokeswoman said.

She sobbed as she said she loved her children and apologized to the family of 
her husband Douglas Gissendaner, who she was convicted of conspiring to murder, 
saying she hoped they could find some peace and happiness.

She also addressed her lawyer, Susan Casey, who was among the witnesses.

"I just want to say God bless you all and I love you, Susan. You let my kids 
know I went out singing Amazing Grace," Gissendaner said, according to 
Associated Press.

The corrections department said she turned down an optional sedative ahead of 
the execution.

She was the 1st woman executed in Georgia for 70 years and the 16th across the 
US since the supreme court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

The board of pardons and parole had received a letter on behalf of Pope Francis 
urging them not to allow Gissendaner's execution, the 1st since the pope's 
address to the US Congress last week in which he called on the United States to 
abolish the death penalty. Gissendaner's is 1 of 6 executions scheduled over 
the next 9 days across the US, including that of Richard Glossip in Oklahoma on 
Wednesday afternoon.

Gissendaner was convicted of conspiring with her lover, Gregory Owen, who 
ambushed her husband, forced him to drive to a remote area and stabbed him 
repeatedly in February 1997. Owen and Gissendaner then met up and set fire to 
the dead man's car.

Owen pleaded guilty and testified against Gissendaner, who did not take part in 
the stabbing. He is serving a life sentence and becomes eligible for parole in 
2022.

It was Gissendaner's 3rd scheduled execution date. Her 1st, on 25 February, was 
called off because of the threat of winter weather. A 2nd, on 2 March, was 
called off "out of an abundance of caution" when corrections officials found 
the drug to be used in her execution appeared "cloudy".

The department of corrections then temporarily suspended executions until a 
drug analysis could be done. Corrections officials have said a pharmacological 
expert told them the most likely cause of the formation of solids in the 
compounded pentobarbital was shipping and storage at a temperature that was too 
cold, but they noted that storage at a low temperature does not always cause 
pentobarbital to precipitate.

Gissendaner's 3 children, Dakota, Kayla and Brandon, had sought clemency for 
their mother and earlier this month released a video pleading for her life to 
be spared. They detailed their own journeys to forgiving her and said they 
would suffer terribly from having a 2nd parent taken from them.

Douglas Gissendaner's family said in a statement Monday that he is the victim 
and that Kelly Gissendaner received an appropriate sentence.

Various courts, including the US supreme court denied multiple last-ditch 
efforts to stop her execution on Tuesday night, and the parole board stood by 
its February decision to deny clemency. The board didn't give a reason for the 
denial, but said it had carefully considered her request for reconsideration.

Gissendaner's lawyers submitted a statement from former Georgia supreme court 
chief justice Norman Fletcher to the parole board. Fletcher argued 
Gissendaner's death sentence was not proportionate to her role in the crime. He 
also noted that Georgia hadn't executed a person who didn't actually carry out 
a killing since the supreme court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

She was the 1st woman executed in Georgia in 70 years. Lena Baker, a black 
maid, was executed in 1945 after being convicted in a 1-day trial of killing 
her white employer. Georgia officials issued her a pardon in 2005 after 6 
decades of lobbying and arguments by her family that she likely killed the man 
because he was holding her against her will.

Gissendaner becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in 
Georgia and the 58th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 
1983.

Gissendaner becomes the 21st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in 
the USA and the 1415th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 
17, 1977.

(sources: CNN, The Guardian & Rick Halperin)






OHIO:

Bill allows but limits death-penalty evidence post trial


An Ohio Senate committee has scheduled a possible vote on a bill limiting the 
ability of condemned killers to gather post-trial evidence in death penalty 
cases.

The bill before the Senate Criminal Justice Committee Wednesday allows judges 
to deny requests for evidence gathering if it would annoy, embarrass or unduly 
burden the person from whom the evidence is sought.

Republican Sen. Bill Seitz of Cincinnati says the bill is an improvement over 
existing law which leaves the decision to allow post-trial evidence gathering 
up to judges.

Kari Underwood of the Ohio Public Defender's Office says such evidence limits 
are inappropriate in death penalty cases.

The bill also lifts page limits on petitions for inmates' post-trial challenges 
or in their appeals if those challenges are denied.

(source: Associated Press)


ARKANSAS----impending executions

9 inmates on death row cite pain risk----New filing in lawsuit claims latest 
drug strategy a gamble


9 state prisoners -- 8 of whom are scheduled for execution in the coming months 
-- amended an ongoing lawsuit Monday, claiming that the state's recently 
developed lethal-injection protocol creates a "risk of severe pain."

The inmates, through attorney Jeff Rosenzweig, filed the lawsuit in June in 
Pulaski County Circuit Court asking for a permanent injunction against the 
executions because the Arkansas Department of Correction will not reveal the 
source of the execution drugs.

A footnote on Monday's amendment says a motion for an emergency injunction will 
be filed later this week. If the judge grants that motion, the eight execution 
dates -- set earlier this month by Gov. Asa Hutchinson -- will be on hold until 
the full court case is decided.

Rosenzweig declined to comment on the court filing.

The inmates claim in the case amendment that the Correction Department's 
protocol, which was developed in late August, entails "unreasonable risks of 
substantial and unnecessary pain and suffering; unbearable anxiety; and/or a 
lingering death."

Specifically, Rosenzweig said the risk is high that the possible use of 
compounded drugs -- created in a pharmacy's lab -- could be "counterfeited, 
adulterated, contaminated, super-potent or sub-potent."

Department of Correction spokesman Cathy Frye said last month that the drugs 
obtained by the prison system for the executions were not purchased from a 
compounding pharmacy.

The new procedures were required by Arkansas Act 1096, which was passed in 
April and allows the state to use either a barbiturate or the drug midazolam, 
followed by 2 other drugs, to put inmates to death.

Frye referred a request for comment on the case's development to Attorney 
General Leslie Rutledge, who acts as legal counsel for the Correction 
Department.

"We cannot comment on pending litigation," Frye said.

When contacted, Rutledge spokesman Judd Deere declined to comment.

Act 1096 also shields the state from disclosing any information that may 
identify the source of execution drugs. The new act voided a 2013 settlement in 
a previous lawsuit by the same nine inmates in which the Correction Department 
agreed to reveal the source of any future execution drugs.

The nine inmates filed a lawsuit in Pulaski County on June 25 against the 
Correction Department and its director, Wendy Kelley, demanding that the 
Correction Department make good on the previous settlement and reveal its 
source when purchasing execution drugs.

His clients have the right to know whether the drugs obtained by the Correction 
Department were obtained from a reputable vendor, Rosenzweig said previously to 
the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

In June, the Correction Department purchased vials of the execution drugs 
potassium chloride, vecuronium bromide and midazolam for a total of $24,226.40.

Midazolam has been linked to botched executions in Oklahoma and in Ohio.

In response to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Freedom of Information Act request, 
the Correction Department released redacted invoices as well as photographs of 
the drug vials that were purchased.

The photographs were heavily redacted with no signs of the manufacturer's name.

Nationwide, suppliers of the execution drugs -- which are commonly used for the 
treatment of seizures or for anesthesia and other health purposes -- are 
refusing to sell to prisons that use the drugs for executions because of the 
outcry from death-penalty opponents.

The resulting shortage has led prison officials nationwide to seek alternative 
suppliers overseas or to turn to compounding pharmacies. The compounding 
pharmacies are subject to less federal scrutiny because they produce only a 
small amount of the drugs.

The state had to turn over its supplies of the execution drug sodium thiopental 
in 2011 to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration when it was discovered that 
the drug was obtained from a supplier that operated out of a driving academy's 
offices in London, according to court documents. British authorities had banned 
exports of the drug in November 2010.

Arkansas is among a growing number of states that have passed or are seeking 
legislation shielding the identity of the execution-drug providers. A 2014 
Associated Press survey of the 32 death-penalty states found that the majority 
refuse to disclose their execution drug sources. Delaware, Nevada, Ohio and 
Virginia are exceptions.

Rosenzweig wrote in Monday's filed amendment that the release of the supplier's 
name is necessary to "determine whether Arkansas's execution procedure will be 
cruel or unusual" and keeping the information secret "violates the state 
guarantee of due process."

The 8 inmates are the only ones of the 34 on death row who have exhausted all 
their legal appeals. They are Bruce Ward, 58; Don Davis, 52; Terrick Nooner, 
44; Stacey Johnson, 45; Jack Jones Jr., 51; Marcell Williams, 44; Jason 
McGehee, 39; and Kenneth D. Williams, 36. Inmate Ledell Lee is also a plaintiff 
in the case.

Ward and Davis are are set to die by lethal injection on Oct. 21. Neither 
requested clemency by the Sept. 21 deadline.

Johnson and Nooner are scheduled to die Nov. 3. In Johnson's Sept. 18 clemency 
application, Rosenzweig said that Johnson should not be executed because he may 
be innocent.

Under the state's protocol, the Parole Board must first review the application 
and then make a recommendation to the governor to either approve or deny the 
request. The governor is not obligated to follow the board's decision.

Nooner did not request clemency by Monday's deadline.

Marcell Williams and Jones are set to be executed Dec. 14. They have until Nov. 
3 to apply for executive clemency.

McGehee and Kenneth Williams are scheduled to die Jan. 14. They have until Dec. 
4 to request clemency.

(source: Democrat Gazette)