[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA.

[Rick Halperin]

June 14




TEXAS:

Man facing Capital Murder charge for death of EPPD officer pleads 'not guilty'


The man accused of intentionally crashing into police officer David Ortiz 
pleaded 'not guilty' in court Tuesday morning.

45-year-old John Paul Perry is charged with Capital Murder and Unauthorized Use 
of a Motor Vehicle, the same vehicle he allegedly drove into Officer Ortiz's 
motorcycle in East El Paso, killing him.

ABC-7 learned Tuesday Joe Spencer is Perry's new court-appointed defense 
attorney.

"We just got appointed late last week. I visited with Mr. Perry and I'm very 
confident after visiting with him, that Mr. Perry did not intentionally mean to 
cause any harm to anyone," Spencer said.

Spencer said the district attorney's office has to make a decision on whether 
it intends to seek the death penalty. "We're going to wait for that decision. I 
think the judge gave them a pretty short deadline and hopefully by next week 
we're going to know what that decision is and we'll be able to proceed with 
this case.

ABC-7 has confirmed with Sheriff's officials that Perry, believed to be a 
member of the Barrio Azteca gang, is being held at the Downtown jail in 
"separation," meaning he is being kept away from the general population.

Police charged Perry with Capital Murder, claiming he intentionally ran over 
Officer Ortiz.

? Perry was also charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. That vehicle 
is the 2006 Kia Optima that Perry allegedly drove into Ortiz's motorcycle at an 
East Side stop light on March 10.

ABC-7 spoke with the owners of the Kia Optima listed on the incident police 
report, but they said they sold the car more than two years ago and it was 
apparently never re-registered by the new owner. They could not recall who they 
sold the vehicle to.

(soruce: KVIA news)






FLORIDA:

Tommy Zeigler trial plagued by 'significant' problems, report says


An investigative journalism center on Monday published a critical probe of 
death-ow inmate William "Tommy" Zeigler's 1976 trial, finding that evidence 
supporting his innocence went overlooked by authorities who investigated the 
quadruple murder inside his Winter Garden furniture store.

The new report by students at Northwestern University's Medill School of 
Journalism comes as a judge considers Zeigler's latest request for DNA testing, 
an attempt to prove he did not kill his wife, in-laws and a customer 40 years 
ago on Christmas Eve. It also adds to a growing body of work that questions 
Zeigler's conviction, including a television movie and a book.

In particular, the report examines new ballistic evidence and what would have 
been the testimony of 2 key witnesses who were never called to the trial. The 
students also interviewed Zeigler, now 70, 3 times at Union Correctional 
Institution near Raiford.

"The students' findings challenge, in many ways, the basic foundations of the 
entire prosecution," said Alec Klein, the professor who leads the 
award-winning, national investigative journalism center. "Given that a person's 
life is on the line here, facing the death penalty, I wonder how the court 
could justify not allowing Tommy Zeigler to go forward with the DNA testing."

The Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office has stood by Zeigler's conviction 
over the decades. Most recently, prosecutors opposed a pending request to have 
blood-stained clothing from the crime scene retested with more modern DNA 
techniques. At a March hearing, Assistant Kenneth Nunnelley cited 2 previous 
opinions from the Florida Supreme Court, which found that evidence about whose 
blood was on Zeigler's shirt wasn't enough to exonerate him.

Since Zeigler's 1976 trial, prosecutors have alleged Zeigler planned the 
murders because he wanted to claim his wife's insurance policies, and he shot 
himself in the stomach to make him seem like a victim too. Eunice Zeigler, her 
parents Perry and Virginia Edwards and store customer Charles Mays were killed. 
Zeigler argued they were attacked in a store robbery instigated by Mays.

The Medill report contends it's "practically unheard of" for a person seeking 
to cover up a crime to choose such a risky - even deadly - way. An analysis of 
the gunshot wound to Zeigler's lower torso shows he would have used his 
non-dominant left hand, based on the angle of the bullet, to shoot himself and 
did not press the muzzle to his body for stability. More often, cover-up 
attempts include shots to limbs, Klein said.

The report also zeroes in on 2 witnesses, Ken and Linda Roach, who said they 
drove by the store around the time of the masscre and heard 12 to 15 gunshots 
within four seconds. An expert interviewed in the story said it's "virtually 
impossible" for 1 person to fire a single person to fire a non-automatic weapon 
so quickly, lending more credibility to Zeigler's claim that he and his family 
were attacked by a group of people led by Mays.

The Roaches told Medill that authorites weren't intersted in their account and 
didn't tell them how to contact Zeigler's attorneys. 1 of Zeigler's trial 
attorneys brought up the Roach evidence in a 1986 appeal to a federal appellate 
court, which won Zeigler's a temporary stay from impending execution.

(source: Orlando Sentinel)