[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., FLA., ALA., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 6




GEORGIA----execution

Georgia executes William Sallie for 1990 murder of father-in-law


William Sallie, 50, has been executed by lethal injection at the Georgia 
Diagnostic and Classification Prison, making him the ninth inmate the state has 
put to death this year.

Sallie's death occurred at at 10:05 p.m.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution for Sallie shortly after 9:30 
p.m.

Sallie was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m., but Georgia does not 
act until all courts have weighed in, which usually puts the actual time of 
death well into the night and sometimes into the early morning hours of the 
next day.

This afternoon, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously denied Sallie's request 
for a stay of execution. His lawyers then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, 
even though the high court had previously turned him down.

As he waited, Sallie ate all of what he'd requested for his final meal and 
visited with 6 family members, 4 friends, 3 members of the clergy and 4 
paralegals.

Sallie, 50, repeatedly failed to get any court to consider his claim of juror 
bias, and on Monday the State Board of Pardons and Paroles also rejected that 
argument and refused to grant a stay of execution.

Sallie was convicted in Bacon County of murdering his father-in-law John Moore 
in 1990, shooting and wounding his mother-in-law Linda Moore, and kidnapping 
his estranged wife and her sister.

Sallie broke into his in-laws' home - where his wife, Robin, and their 
2-year-old son, Ryan, were sleeping - after he lost a custody battle and his 
wife filed for divorce.

In court filings and a clemency petition, Sallie's lawyers wrote that the 
domestic turmoil in William and Robin Sallie's lives was much like that lived 
by a juror who denied ever being embroiled in a volatile marriage, a custody 
dispute or domestic violence.

When the woman was questioned during jury selection for the Sallie murder 
trial, she said her marriages - 4 of them - had ended amicably.

Sallie's lawyers said that was false, contending in their clemency petition 
that the juror fought with soon-to-be ex-husbands over child custody and 
support payments and lived with domestic abuse.

That juror also told an investigator for Sallie's lawyers that she pushed 6 
fellow jurors to change their votes from life in prison to death, making the 
jury's decision unanimous.

In numerous filings, Sallie's lawyers tried to get a hearing on the issue of 
juror bias, which has not been argued in any court because Sallie missed a 
critical deadline to bring that appeal.

Sallie's attorney Jack Martin said that deadline came at a time when Sallie did 
not have a lawyer, as Georgia law does not mandate that the state pay for 
appellate attorneys for death row inmates.

Martin said former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher told the 
Parole Board about Georgia's history of not providing lawyers for condemned 
inmates.

Fletcher wrote an op-ed in The New York Times this week - "Georgia's dangerous 
rush to execution" - in which he talked about problems inherent in Georgia's 
application of the death penalty.

"A door that would have been open to Mr. Sallie in almost any other state was 
closed to him in Georgia," Fletcher wrote of the state's refusal to provide 
people with legal counsel. "If it were open, he would be able to present the 
facts about his trial, which appear to show serious problems with juror bias."

Now that Sallie has been put to death, Georgia has nearly doubled its record 
for the number of executions carried out in a year since the death penalty was 
reinstated here in 1973. Georgia executed 5 people last year and also in 1987. 
Georgia also leads the nation in executions this year. Texas is 2nd, with 7 
executions in 2016.

Sallie becomes the 9th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Georgia 
and the 69th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983. Sallie 
becomes the 19th condemened person to be put to death this year in the USA and 
1441st overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. There 
is 1 more execution scheduled in the country this year, as Ronald Smith Jr. 
faces death in Alabama on Thursday evening, Dec. 8th.

The nation carried out 28 executions in 2015.

There are 7 executions scheduled for January, 2017.

(sources: myacj.com & Rick Halperin)






FLORIDA:

Prosecutors to seek death penalty for man accused of lighting woman on 
fire----Carol Renee Demmons, 56, attacked inside Golden Corral, died at 
hospital

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a 58-year-old man accused of 
killing his girlfriend by lighting her on fire inside a Golden Corral.

Carol Renee Demmons, 56, who worked at the restaurant, was doused with lighter 
fluid by Darryl Tyrone Whipple, who then ignited her with a lighter as she ran 
away, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

Demmons suffered burns on 62 5 of her body in the Oct. 12 attack and later died 
at the UF Health Shands Hospital Burn Unit in Gainesville.

After Demmons' death, Whipple was indicted on a first-degree murder charge by a 
Duval County grand jury. He is also charged with burglary with assault or 
battery.

He pleaded not guilty to those charges Tuesday in court, and the state filed 
notice that it intends to seek the death penalty. In the state's motion, 
prosecutors said the murder was committed in a cold and calculated manner 
without any moral or legal justification.

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that death sentences now have to be by 12-0 
jury recommendations. The state attorney general???s office said it will appeal 
that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Certainly I expect that the case will be at a standstill to the point that 
definitely you will have a discovery process, but no one will want to go to 
trial or actually pick a jury until there is a clear decision from the Florida 
Supreme Court as to how we will proceed," said attorney Rhonda Peoples-Waters, 
who is not connected to the case.

Whipple will next be in court Jan. 5.

Demmons' family was in court Tuesday, but declined to comment on the case.

(source: news4jax.com)






ALABAMA----impending execution

Alabama opposing execution stay for condemned inmate


The state of Alabama is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the execution of 
an inmate scheduled for lethal injection on Thursday.

The attorney general's office asked the justices in court papers Tuesday to 
deny a stay requested by Ronald Bert Smith, convicted of killing Huntsville 
store clerk Casey Wilson in 1994.

A judge imposed death after jurors recommended life without parole, which Smith 
contends conflicts with a Supreme Court decision released earlier this year 
from Florida. Both Alabama and Florida allow judges to override jurors' 
recommendations in capital cases.

The state argues that the Florida decision doesn't apply to Smith's case and 
that he waited too long to raise his objections.

Alabama hasn't executed anyone since 2013 because of a shortage of execution 
drugs.

(source: Daily Journal)






USA:

'We are just looking for justice': Charleston prepares for Dylann Roof's trial


The room where it happened looks like a million other church basements. Shiny 
linoleum floors. A drop ceiling. Folding chairs and tables. And this week, 
workers hanging festive green and red Christmas decorations.

Mother Emanuel is trying to heal by relying on what Pastor Eric S.C. Manning 
calls "an unshakable faith and trust in God." Parishioners are struggling to 
recover from what prosecutors call the methodical bloodlust of a 9th-grade 
dropout radicalized to hate blacks in the septic swamp of the Internet's white 
supremacist fringes.

The brutal night of June 17, 2015, is about to come alive again for the 
worshipers of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the rest of this 
historic seaside city, with Wednesday's scheduled opening arguments in the 
federal hate crimes trial of Dylann Storm Roof.

"The wound is open, the pain will be there surely. We are taking one day at a 
time," Manning said in his basement office, next to the room where nine black 
men and women, ages 26 to 87, were murdered. "Our faith is founded on the fact 
that God said, 'Trust me.'"

Pastor Eric S.C. Manning took over after the death of Pastor Rev. Clementa 
Pinckney, the 1st person shot in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church 
on June 17, 2015. (Alex Holt for The Washington Post)

The killings so horrified the nation that President Obama came here and led an 
emotional memorial service by singing "Amazing Grace." Now, some are 
questioning the Obama administration???s decision to seek the federal death 
penalty when Roof, 22, has offered to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence 
of life in prison, potentially averting a painful trial.

"It's a political statement as much as anything else, and really unnecessary at 
this point," said Andrew J. Savage III, a longtime Charleston lawyer who 
represents the 3 survivors of the attack and many family members of the 
victims.

The Roof trial comes as Charleston is also grappling with the racially charged 
case of white police officer Michael Slager, who killed Walter Scott, an 
unarmed black man, as he was running away from a traffic stop in April 2015. 
The judge in Slager's trial declared a mistrial Monday when jurors said that 
they could not reach a verdict. Prosecutors have vowed to retry him.

Charleston, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired, has a long and 
difficult history with race relations. But the Roof and Slager cases have 
forced this genteel southern city that prides itself on politeness and civility 
to discuss issues of race more openly.

The lawyers for the family of Walter Scott, the black man who was shot dead by 
former South Carolina patrolman Michael Slager, reacted on Monday to news of 
his mistrial, saying the officer has "delayed" justice but will not "escape" 
it. (Reuters)

"This has caused an awakening," said Joseph P. Riley Jr., who retired in 
January after more than 40 years as the city's mayor. "We thought we were 
living in a post-racial society, and this was a hurtful and heartbreaking 
wake-up. We're all more aware now."

Riley, who still chokes up talking about the Mother Emanuel killings, said they 
have "caused everyone in this city to talk more fully about matters of race." 
He said "new alliances" of lawyers and other professionals have been formed to 
discuss race, and "we talk to each other, we don't talk at each other."

Riley is also leading an effort to build a $75 million International African 
American Museum on the site of a Charleston wharf where hundreds of thousands 
of slaves arrived in the United States.

"We will confront this hateful bigotry," he said.

Roof's guilt is essentially uncontested. He has offered to plead guilty. The 
remaining question is his punishment, and the federal government is seeking 
death - a sentence it pursues in only the most extreme cases, such as Oklahoma 
City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced in May that federal prosecutors 
would seek the death penalty for Roof, who is also scheduled to face a state 
murder trial in January that potentially carries the death penalty.

The Justice Department's court filing in the case cited Roof's planning and 
premeditation, "animosity towards African Americans" and "lack of remorse," and 
said he chose a church for his rampage to "magnify the societal impact."

Lynch made her decision over the objections of some advising her, including 
William Nettles, then the U.S. attorney in South Carolina, and Vanita Gupta, 
the head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, according to a 
person familiar with the deliberations.

Nettles argued that because local prosecutors were already seeking the death 
penalty for Roof, it was unnecessary for the federal government to do the same.

"My view of federalism was that we should be like good dinner guests: We should 
come when we???re invited, help clean up and leave, and that our role was to do 
what the state was unwilling or unable to do," Nettles said in an interview.

Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, the government has put 
just three inmates to death, including McVeigh. There are 62 inmates on federal 
death row compared with nearly 3,000 awaiting state executions, according to 
the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit 
organization. The most recent addition to that list was Boston Marathon bomber 
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Despite seeking the death penalty for Roof, the Justice Department has 
announced what is effectively a moratorium on the federal executions while 
authorities review their policy, and it does not appear that will conclude 
before the new administration takes over.

Obama has called the death penalty "deeply troubling" but has remained in favor 
of using it for particularly heinous crimes. President-elect Donald Trump, 
meanwhile, has been a vocal supporter of the death penalty.

A recent University of South Carolina poll found a racial disparity in views on 
Roof's punishment that reflects black distrust of the death penalty, which has 
been used disproportionately against black defendants. Although Roof is white, 
the polls found that almost 65 % of black South Carolina residents said that 
they thought Roof should not be executed. In the same poll, about 65 % of 
whites said that they thought he should.

In Charleston this week, families of the victims were divided about whether 
Roof should be executed, but most seemed willing to accept whatever justice the 
courts impose on Roof.

Manning, who took over the position held by Pastor Rev. Clementa Pinckney, 41, 
the 1st person shot, said the church is opposed to the death penalty on 
religious grounds, but parishioners also respect "civil law."

"The government is well within their rights to do what needs to be done," 
Manning said. "At the end of the day, we are just looking for justice."

Steve Schmutz, a lawyer representing family members of 3 of the victims, said 
his clients "are trusting the U.S. attorney's office."

"The government is going for the death penalty, so they support it," he said. 
"If the government hadn't gone for the death penalty, I think they would have 
supported that."

Kevin Singleton, 43, whose mother, Myra Thompson, was killed, said that he 
thought executing Roof or sentencing him to life would be a deterrent to 
"copycats" who might be inspired to do something similar. "Life in prison, the 
death penalty - at the end of the day, it's not going to bring anybody back," 
he said. "It's not going to be closure."

In preliminary hearings, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Gergel found Roof 
competent to stand trial and reluctantly agreed to Roof's "unwise" request to 
act as his own lawyer. But over the weekend, Roof reversed himself and Gergel 
agreed to allow him to reinstate his legal team.

Family members had been preparing to be questioned directly by Roof on the 
witness stand. Savage said that they had viewed it as "their opportunity to 
look him in the eye" and that they were "not intimidated at all."

One of those scheduled to testify is Felicia Sanders, who survived the attack 
by falling on the floor and shielding her 11-year-old granddaughter. Savage 
said Sanders watched as the shooter killed her aunt, Susie Jackson, 87, and her 
son, Tywanza Sanders, 26 - the oldest and youngest victims.

Polly Sheppard, a retired nurse, the only other adult survivor, is also slated 
to testify. Savage said Roof deliberately spared Sheppard that night, because, 
Roof told her, "I want you to tell the world what happened in here."

Sanders and Sheppard gave emotional speeches in support of gun control 
legislation at last summer's Democratic National Convention. Sanders quoted 
from the words her son, Tywanza, said to Roof just before he was killed: "We 
mean you no harm. You don't have to do this."

"2 days later I forgave the shooter that murdered him," Sanders told the 
convention. "Hate destroys those who harbor it. I refuse to let hate destroy 
me."

Savage said many family members had trouble accepting that someone as young as 
Roof could have acted alone. So in mid-October, he said, federal prosecutors 
invited Sanders and Sheppard and a small group of others to watch a video of 
Roof's initial interview with the FBI.

"They were overwhelmed with the hatred he had and what he expressed and his 
unrepentance," Savage said. "They almost had a hope that somebody else was 
involved, in the sense that you didn't want to attribute such a horrific mind 
set to such a young person. The video went a long way to convince them 
otherwise."

Aja' Risher, 32, whose grandmother, Ethel Lance, 70, was killed, said that she 
is not an enthusiastic supporter of the death penalty but that it would be 
appropriate in Roof's case.

"I would like for the same mercy to be shown to him that was shown to my 
grandmother," she said. "If this case does not warrant a death penalty, then 
what case would?"

(source: Washington Post)