[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, KY., NEB., UTAH, CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

June 9



OHIO:

Dad charged in toddler's torture death faces possible death penalty


The father of a toddler who died after prosecutors say she was tortured 
rejected a plea deal Wednesday that would have avoided the death penalty.

Now Glen Bates returns to a Hamilton County courtroom July 5, according to 
Hamilton County Judge Megan Shanahan's office.

There was a motion to suppress, but the judge rejected it.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said last month the plea deal was offered 
to Bates and the mom, Andrea Bradley, in the death of 2-year-old Glenara Bates. 
The deals were made at the request of the defense, he said.

Bradley also rejected the plea deal last month.

Glenara Bates died in March of 2015 after police said she was abused, starved 
and tortured.

Glen Bates and Bradley are both charged with aggravated murder.

The case led to 2 Hamilton County Department of Jobs and Family Services case 
workers' resignations and a wrongful death suit against the county because 
Glenara was returned to the home after being removed.

(source: Fox news)






KENTUCKY:

Attorney who took over husband's death-penalty case after he was killed is sued 
for malpractice


After a mentally ill man shot her husband to death outside his Kentucky law 
office in 2014, attorney Bethany Stanziano took over as lead counsel in a 
triple-murder case that Mark Stanziano had been handling.

Now she is being sued for legal malpractice by Kenneth Allen Keith, following 
her withdrawal from the representation last year. Keith, whose death-penalty 
case is still ongoing, is seeking reimbursement of some of the $87,000 paid 
toward a $150,000 retainer charged by Mark Stanziano, as well as compensatory 
and punitive damages and attorney's fees, reports the Advocate Messenger.

Bethany Stanziano herself said in her withdrawal petition that she had no 
experience in death-penalty work and could not effectively represent Keith, due 
to a the number of serious felony cases she was then handling and her emotional 
state of mind, the newspaper reports.

However, she has resisted efforts by Keith to get an accounting of the retainer 
funds remaining in her trust account and said they are not available because 
she "had to (expletive) eat," the suit alleges.

The suit says Keith "paid a fee grossly unreasonable and disproportionate to 
the amount of work preformed" in his case by Stanziano and her late husband, 
and was greatly distressed at having to defend a capital case without effective 
counsel at his side.

Filed by Keith and his wife in Boyle Circuit Court earlier this month, the suit 
asserts causes of action for claimed breach of fiduciary duty, conversion, 
fraud and deceit, unjust enrichment and infliction of emotional distress, as 
well as legal malpractice and breach of contract, the newspaper reports.

In addition to Stanziano herself, the Stanziano & Catron law firm and the 
estate of her late husband are named as defendants.

The article does not include any comment from Bethany Stanziano.

No trial date has yet been set for Keith in the triple-murder case. He also 
faces a civil suit over 1 of the slayings.

(source: ABA Journal)






NEBRASKA:

Convicted killer faked suicide attempts, state official say


State authorities say an Omaha man convicted of killing 4 people has faked 
suicide attempts in an effort to get out of solitary confinement.

But the lawyers for Nikko Jenkins disagreed at a hearing Tuesday, saying only 
doctors for the prosecution have concluded that Jenkins is faking.

The issue Tuesday was whether Jenkins is competent to face a death penalty 
hearing. Judge Peter Bataillon will rule later.

If Jenkins is declared competent, Bataillon will set a death-penalty hearing, 
the 4th time he has done so. Jenkins would then go before a 3-judge panel that 
will decide whether his crimes merit the death penalty.

Jenkins was convicted in 2014 of 1st-degree murders for shooting 4 people over 
a 10-day period in August 2013, within weeks of leaving prison.

(source: KETV news)






UTAH:

Prosecutors contemplate death penalty for Layton murder defendant


Defense attorneys are waiting for prosecutors to decide if they are going to 
seek the death penalty against a Layton man accused of killing a 2-year-old boy 
before they make a decision on which direction they will go with the case.

Joshua Schoenenberger, who is being held at the Davis County Jail without bail, 
was in 2nd District Court with Brass on Wednesday, June 8. He is accused of 
causing the death of James "JJ" Sieger.

Schoenenberger's attorney, Ed Brass, said prosecutors have until Friday, June 
9, to file a motion stating their intent to seek the death penalty.

Another hearing is scheduled for June 27. Brass said in court that hearing will 
be a scheduling conference, where attorneys will agree on dates to file motions 
for a possible upcoming trial.

Brass said after the hearing there have been no discussions between attorneys 
concerning any type of plea deal.

JJ was taken to Davis Hospital and Medical Center in the early morning hours of 
May 9, 2015. The boy was flown to Primary Children's Medical Center, where he 
died on May 11, 2015 after being taken off of life support, officials said.

Schoenenberger entered a not guilty plea on April 11 to 1 count of aggravated 
murder and 1 count of child abuse, a 2nd-degree felony. He is accused of 
killing JJ because the boy had soiled his diaper.

Jasmine Bridgeman, JJ's mother, and her boyfriend, Schoenenberger, lived at a 
home in the area of 3200 W. 1025 North, Layton, at the time of JJ's death.

Bridgeman, 24, of Layton, was sentenced to serve 1 to 15 years in Utah State 
Prison on April 11, after pleading guilty to 1 count of obstruction of justice, 
a 2nd-degree felony.

After Bridgeman's son died, police say she lied to officers about what happened 
to the child and changed her story multiple times.

(source: standard.net)






CALIFORNIA:

Murder conviction thrown out again over race-based juror strike


In 2005, a federal appeals court overturned the murder conviction of a Contra 
Costa County man, finding that the prosecutor had improperly dismissed a black 
juror for racial reasons. A retrial produced another conviction, and, on 
Wednesday, another reversal from the appellate court.

The same prosecutor had done it again, the court said.

"Each of (Deputy District Attorney David) Brown's reasons for striking Juror 
Jones was a pretext. ... Race was a substantial motivating factor," the Ninth 
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 ruling granting Aldridge Currie a 
3rd trial for the 1995 killing.

Brown, who is African American, had a "history of race-based unconstitutional 
(juror) strikes," the court said. It happened in Currie's case and in another 
case that resulted in the conviction being overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court 
in 2005.

Currie fatally shot drug dealer Santos Saldonado after an argument in Pittsburg 
in July 1995. Currie said he fired in self-defense after Saldonado pointed a 
gun at him. The prosecution initially sought the death penalty, saying Currie, 
who had 2 previous felony convictions, took money and drugs from Saldonado 
after shooting him. Jurors acquitted him of the capital charge but convicted 
him of deliberately killing Saldonado without justification.

Lawyers for Currie, who is black, argued in their appeal that the prosecutor 
had violated California and U.S. Supreme Court rulings prohibiting the removal 
of prospective jurors because of certain inherent characteristics, including 
race, ethnicity and sex.

Brown responded that he had removed the juror, a black woman, from the jury 
panel because she was undecided about the death penalty. But the appeals court 
said the woman had made it clear she supported capital punishment, and pointed 
out that Brown had accepted 2 white male jurors who expressed strong 
reservations about the death penalty.

Proceedings for a 2nd trial began in 2008, but Superior Court Judge John 
Kennedy dismissed the jury after finding that Brown had improperly removed 
another African American juror. Another panel was convened, and after Kennedy 
rejected defense objections to Brown's removal of a black woman named Jones, 
the jury again convicted Currie of 2nd-degree murder, and he was sentenced to 
29 years to life in prison.

State courts and a federal judge upheld the verdict, but the Ninth Circuit 
majority said Wednesday that the juror's removal was discriminatory for the 
same reason cited in 2005 - that Brown had dismissed a black juror for reasons 
that applied equally to white jurors whom he didn't challenge.

The prosecutor said he was concerned that Jones would sympathize with the 
defendant because of her disclosures that she had family members who had used 
crack cocaine and had a brother and a cousin who had been arrested for drugs. 
But Jones said she felt her relatives had been treated fairly and she could be 
objective as a juror, the court said. The court also pointed out that 1/2 of 
the jurors the prosecutor accepted also described having relatives with drug 
problems, some of them expressed sympathy with illegal drug users, and one 
juror described struggling with addictions to various narcotics.

Brown also said he was concerned that Jones, when asked about a juror's legal 
duty to presume that a defendant is innocent, replied: "I can't conclude that 
he's guilty or not because I don't know the first thing of the case." The 
prosecutor said her answer was questionable because the jurors were aware of 
the charges, but the court said Jones' answer was similar to other jurors' 
responses and was "entirely innocuous" because jurors hadn't yet been told 
about the details of the case.

Judge Marsha Berzon wrote the majority opinion, joined by Judge William 
Fletcher. Judge Carlos Bea dissented, saying the prosecutor had a legitimate 
nonracial reason for removing the juror because 2 of her relatives had been 
arrested for drugs.

Brown, a prosecutor for 25 years, left the district attorney's office for 
medical reasons in 2011 and later sued the county for discrimination and 
harassment, saying his supervisors had expressed racial hostility. Federal 
courts rejected his claims. He could not be reached for comment on Wednesday's 
ruling.

(source: San Francisco Chronicle)