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

[Rick Halperin]

March 25



TEXAS:

Minister jailed for protesting execution refuses to be silent


At 6 p.m. Tuesday, the Rev. Jeff Hood made his stand against the death penalty.

At the very moment Adam Ward was being put to death for a 2005 killing of code 
enforcement officer in Hunt County, the Denton resident, wearing his ministers' 
robe and stole, strode up to the police line keeping death penalty protesters 
back.

"I told them I was coming across, and they said, 'No, you're not,'" Hood said.

Hood spoke to News 8 Thursday after his release from jail. He is a spiritual 
advisor to several death row inmates. One of them was Juan Garcia, who was 
executed last fall for the 1998 robbery and killing of a Houston man.

"We're sitting here in the middle of holy week -- where Christians are 
celebrating beauty of the atonement of Jesus -- and yet we are, still killing 
for the sake of atoning for evil, and that's not very Christian," Hood said. 
"How can we love our neighbor as yourself and kill them?"

Hood, a Baptist minister, drove to Huntsville on Tuesday fully planning to 
commit what he calls an act of civil disobedience.

Hood knew full well he'd arrested when he crossed that line outside the "Walls 
Unit," which houses the death penalty chamber. He says he felt it was something 
God was leading him to do.

He wore what he calls his "protest robe." This was not its 1st protest.

He called his wife to let her know that he was going to go through with it. He 
began to pray and ask God to be with him. He said he kept hearing the last 
words of Jesus, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

"When my feet started moving, I felt the spirit with me," Hood said. "There was 
no question."

Once he crossed the line, he says the guard told him he was either going to 
turn back or to go jail.

"I said, 'I can't,'" Hood said.

The 2 officers then escorted him to a squad car.

On the way to jail, he says the officer asked him what his religion was. He 
told him he was Baptist and a follower of Jesus.

Once he was booked and inside cell at the Walker County jail, he says began 
worshipping, praying, and singing spiritual songs. He says he specifically 
prayed for Ward.

He says he felt God speak to him, telling him, "He's OK. He's with you. You 
will get a chance to see him again one day."

Hood later learned that was about the time that Ward died.

The minister was released from jail about 1 a.m. Wednesday. He immediately 
drove to Austin, where he testified before a legislative committee about 
immigration issues.

It's not Hood's 1st arrest.

In 2015, he was arrested outside the White House at a rally of pastors 
protesting deportations and again at a Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas. He's 
been vocal in the quest for justice for Joseph Hutcheson, a man who died last 
summer in the lobby of the Dallas County jail.

"For me, I count as a particular burden to keep doing this to show Christians 
that you can't follow Jesus -- you can't love your neighbor as yourself -- and 
keep on killing people," said Hood, who previously headed a social justice 
ministry at the Cathedral of Hope.

He's back at home in Denton -- back with his wife and 5 kids.

"I want my children to look back and see these pictures and some of these 
moments of this arrest," he says, "and say, 'My father did all that he could do 
to keep the State of Texas from killing people."

He says he received a call from Ward's father inviting him to attend the 
funeral. He plans to attend to pay his respects.

(source: KHOU news)

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

County DA ponders death penalty in Collazo case


Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz has yet to decide whether he 
will seek the death penalty against a Brownsville man accused of killing his 
parents earlier this year.

Joel Collazo, 52, appeared in a state district court Thursday morning and 
entered a not guilty plea to murder charges filed against him.

Collazo is accused of killing his parents, Jesus and Juanita Collazo, inside 
their home on the city's Westside sometime on Jan 29.

"(The death penalty) decision is still under consideration," Saenz said.

Court records show Collazo waived his arraignment Thursday and pleaded not 
guilty to the charges. He remains jailed on a $2 million bond.

Collazo faces 1 count capital murder of multiple persons, 2 counts murder and 
faces an enhanced count for habitual convictions.

His pre-trial hearing is scheduled for May 19.

(source: The Brownsville Herald)






NORTH CAROLINA:

State NAACP demands AG Roy Cooper to act in Kalvin Smith case


The N.C. NAACP demanded Thursday that state Attorney General Roy Cooper 
intervene in the cases of 2 men, including Kalvin Michael Smith, who they say 
were wrongfully convicted.

The Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, also called on Cooper 
and Gov. Pat McCrory to support a moratorium on the death penalty and to find 
ways to prevent wrongful convictions. Barber said he would like Cooper to 
establish a conviction-integrity unit to investigate claims of wrongful 
convictions and create a task force to look for ways to stop wrongful 
convictions.

"As officers of the court, you and your staff have the ethical responsibility 
of ministers of justice and not simply that of an advocate," Barber said in a 
letter sent Thursday to Cooper's office in Raleigh. "Your duty is to seek 
justice, not merely to convict."

Cooper, a Democrat, and McCrory, a Republican incumbent, are running against 
each other in the governor's race.

Smith, 44, was convicted in the 1995 assault of Jill Marker, an assistant store 
manager at the now-closed Silk Plant Forest store off Silas Creek Parkway. 
Marker, pregnant at the time, suffered severe brain injuries during the 
assault. She gave birth to a son while in a coma. She receives 24-hour care in 
Ohio.

Smith is serving up to 29 years in prison.

Barber also said that Dontae Sharpe, a Greenville man, was wrongfully convicted 
of the murder of a man during a drug deal and in 1994 sentenced to life in 
prison.

In 2004, the Winston-Salem Journal published a series of stories raising 
questions about the police investigation and prosecution surrounding Smith's 
case. The Silk Plant Forest Citizens Review Committee, which was established by 
the Winston-Salem City Council, concluded in a report that the police 
investigation was flawed. Chris Swecker, a former FBI assistant director, 
released a report saying that the police investigation was botched and that 
Smith deserved a new trial.

Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for Cooper's office, said Barber and other 
representatives did deliver the letter Thursday.

"We look forward to working with them to address systemic issues in the 
criminal justice system, such as seeking more resources for North Carolina's 
1st in the nation Innocence Inquiry Commission," she said in an email.

State prosecutors have defended Smith's conviction in state and federal courts 
since the Forsyth County District Attorney's Office declared a conflict of 
interest just before Smith's post-conviction appeal in Forsyth Superior Court.

Smith has recently filed an appeal to the N.C. Supreme Court.

(source: Winston-Salem Journal)






FLORIDA:

Death row inmate Michael Lambrix awaits fate from court: 'It's my last hope'


Michael Lambrix has spent a lifetime on death row, successfully dodging his 
execution over a period of 3 decades and 6 governors, with the help of timely 
intervention by the courts.

In his latest case of good timing, he might even outlast the system that 
produced his death sentence.

Lambrix, 56, a Plant City High dropout and U.S. Army veteran convicted of 2 
killings, is at the center of an epic legal challenge to Florida's death 
penalty sentencing system.

He's the 1st inmate to have his execution halted after the U.S. Supreme Court 
decision in Hurst vs. Florida which struck down the state's death penalty 
sentencing system as a violation of the right to trial by jury, which forced 
the Legislature to rewrite the law.

"He was sentenced to die under an unconstitutional statute," said William 
Hennis, an attorney handling Lambrix's appeals.

Hennis wants the Florida Supreme Court to spare Lambrix's life and sentence him 
to life without parole, but Attorney General Palm Bondi, on behalf of the 
state, says Lambrix's death is long overdue and that the Hurst decision should 
not be applied retroactively.

"It is time for Lambrix's sentence for these brutal murders to be carried out," 
Bondi's office argued in court papers.

Dozens of death row inmates sentenced under the same flawed system could be 
affected by the fate of Lambrix, who spends his days in his cell writing 
prolifically about his claim of innocence.

If Lambrix loses, Gov. Rick Scott is expected to issue a 3rd death warrant for 
his execution.

If Lambrix wins, it could dramatically reduce the death row population of 389 
inmates, while adding to the anguish of the families of victims who long ago 
expected he would die as sentenced.

"It's my last hope," Lambrix said in a Times/Herald interview at Florida State 
Prison.

He has come within hours of death. He planned his last meal and was fitted in 
January for a blue suit an inmate wears to an execution. He was in a "death 
watch" cell, last stop before the execution chamber.

"You're mentally prepared," he said. "But confronting your own mortality is 
always difficult."

****

Cary Michael Lambrix went to death row 32 years ago this month. He was 24.

Born in California and raised by an alcoholic father who moved the family to 
Florida, he quit school at 15 and ran away from home.

He joined the carnival circuit and then the Army, which sent him to Fort Sill, 
Okla., where a head injury from a fall ended his military career. Every month, 
a government disability check for $133 arrives at his cell in Starke each 
month, he said.

By 21, Lambrix was back in Florida, married with two young children - and 
broke.

He was sentenced to 2 years in prison after writing a worthless check to a lawn 
and garden store while he was on probation.

By his own account, he was a heavy drinker and pot smoker.

His downward spiral accelerated when he walked away from a work release detail 
in Lakeland and went to Glades County with his girlfriend, Frances Smith.

In the early morning hours of Feb. 6, 1983, after a Saturday spent drinking, 
Lambrix said he and Smith met a couple at a tavern and invited them to his 
rented mobile home on a ranch near LaBelle for spaghetti.

As the drinking continued, Lambrix, by his account, was "wasted," and Clarence 
Edward Moore Jr., 35, and Alesiha Dawn Bryant, 19, a waitress, were murdered 
that night.

Lambrix contends that Moore strangled Bryant and that he used a tire iron to 
fatally batter Moore in self-defense. He admits that he and Smith buried both 
victims in a shallow grave and that he refused to call police because he was a 
fugitive from a work detail in Lakeland.

After a Hillsborough deputy caught Smith driving Moore's stolen Cadillac, she 
avoided charges by becoming the state's chief witness against Lambrix. Smith 
recalled a blood-soaked Lambrix walking back into his trailer and saying, 
"They're dead."

Moore's mother, who lived in the Keys, died in 1989, and efforts to reach other 
family members were unsuccessful.

Attorney General Bondi's office advocates for crime victims. Her spokesman, 
Whitney Ray, declined to provide contact information for the families in 
Lambrix's case, citing a blanket public records exemption for clemency 
proceedings.

****

After the murders, police cast a wide net for the killer. Lambrix was arrested 
a few weeks later at work as a greeter at a haunted house in Orlando, "wearing 
white face makeup highlighted by black circles around the eyes," the Lakeland 
Ledger reported.

"It required me to wear a ducktail tuxedo," Lambrix said. "Sort of like Count 
Dracula."

Lambrix's 1st trial ended with a hung jury. He was convicted at a retrial 
largely on the testimony of Smith, but the case is marked by bizarre 
circumstances.

Smith later admitted that she was having an affair with a lead investigator for 
the state attorney's office at the time.

Another state witness, Deborah Hanzel of Thonotosassa, recanted her testimony 2 
decades later, saying investigators pressured into lying by saying Lambrix 
would try to kill her and her children, the News-Press of Fort Myers reported.

"You all scare people into saying what you want," Hanzel said.

No physical evidence tied Lambrix to the deaths. He said fingernail scrapings 
on Bryant that might have proved that Moore strangled her mysteriously 
disappeared.

At his trial, Lambrix said he wanted to testify in his defense but his rookie 
public defender wouldn't let him.

"I've never asked anybody to believe me. Let the evidence speak for itself," 
Lambrix said in a prison interview, wearing handcuffs and leg irons as a 
correctional officer watched from a few feet away. "The problem is, the courts 
have never looked at the evidence."

Before the 2nd trial, the state offered Lambrix a deal.

If he pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder, he would get a sentence of between 
22 and 27 years.

Lambrix refused. He received a death sentence instead.

The prosecutor, former State Attorney Randy McGruther, said that was the right 
result.

"It was a brutal double homicide," McGruther said. "Evidence at trial was clear 
that he killed both of the individuals in question. No court has yet to find 
any credence to his claims."

Lambrix has raised an array of legal defenses that the courts have rejected, 
sometimes by the narrowest of margins and other times on technical grounds, or 
"procedurally barred" in legal jargon, with no factual review, because his 
lawyers raised the claims too late.

"Lambrix has already consumed more than his fair share of this court's and the 
state's limited resources," Bondi's office argued in opposing the latest delay 
in his execution. "Lambrix's inconsistent and changing claims of innocence are 
not remotely persuasive."

In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Lambrix's death sentence by a 5-4 
margin.

In an opinion written by the late Antonin Scalia, the nation's highest court 
ruled that he should die even though his 1984 sentence was based on factors 
that were later ruled unconstitutional because they were too vague to prevent 
the death penalty from being imposed arbitrarily.

****

Lambrix has been on death row for so long that the FDLE agent who arrested him 
at the haunted house, Rick Look, died last year in St. Augustine.

The governor who signed his initial death warrant, Bob Martinez, was voted out 
of office 26 years ago.

The U.S. Supreme Court justice who wrote the key 1997 decision, Scalia, died 
last month.

The decades roll by, and Lambrix remains on death row.

At the state prison in Starke, north of Gainesville, all death row inmates wear 
distinctive clothing to set them apart: orange shirt, blue pants.

The color scheme calls to mind a certain university, but prison officials 
insist that it's a coincidence.

"I'd like to say it's because I'm a Gator fan, but it's not," Florida State 
Prison Warden John Palmer said.

Palmer, a 26-year veteran of the prison system, knows "Mike" Lambrix well and 
calls him a "very respectful" inmate.

Lambrix's tiny cell is also his 6-foot-by-9-foot law office.

In handwriting so precise that it looks typewritten, he has written thousands 
of letters and blog posts, made dozens of public records requests, acted as his 
own lawyer at times and given his version of events in an online book, "To Live 
and Die on Death Row."

More than a decade ago, after hearing that Gov. Charlie Crist wanted greater 
diversity on the bench, Lambrix applied for a Supreme Court vacancy.

He can play chess and Scrabble with fellow inmates and has a 13-inch 
black-and-white TV set, which death row inmates can buy with their own money.

Cable TV is off limits, but Lambrix watches the Florida Channel from a public 
TV station in Jacksonville, and he complained that the station didn't televise 
recent oral arguments on death penalty cases from the Florida Supreme Court.

"They're completely focused on legislative sessions," Lambrix said.

****

As perhaps the best-known resident of Florida's death row, Lambrix gets 
mountains of mail, frequent visits from his legal team, gives interviews and is 
championed by anti-death penalty groups around the world.

He meets regularly with "Brother Dale" Recinella, a spiritual advisor from 
Tallahassee.

His request to receive the Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion right before 
his scheduled Feb. 11 execution was at first refused by prison officials who 
cited fasting regulations, but Corrections Secretary Julie Jones personally 
approved it, spokesman McKinley Lewis said.

Lambrix's latest stay of execution is indefinite, with no hearing scheduled.

With his fate in the hands of the Florida Supreme Court, Lambrix knows that the 
execution chamber remains a distinct possibility. He faces it with grim humor 
and said he would consider asking for "groundhog stew" for his last meal.

"According to Field & Stream magazine, you have to put it in a crock pot for 3 
days," Lambrix said. "They can't kill me till I get my food."

(source: Tampa Bay Times)

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

Man guilty in murder of Rockledge High graduate


The 1st of 3 defendants charged in the fiery May death of a Rockledge High 
graduate in Tallahassee was found guilty on all 5 counts by a Leon County jury 
Thursday.

After a week-long trial and more than seven hours of deliberation, Antowan 
Hawkins was found guilty of felony 1st-degree murder, robbery, arson, tampering 
with physical evidence and grand theft of a motor vehicle in the death of 
then-24-year-old Aaron Goodwin.

Jurors will return at 9:30 a.m. Friday for sentencing proceedings.

On May 13, Goodwin's body was found bound and beaten inside his Tallahassee 
sneaker boutique, Exclusive Heat. The same morning, his car was found ablaze by 
a Florida Highway Patrol trooper in rural Jefferson County.

In July, Hawkins was arrested by U.S. Marshals in Tallahassee after 
investigators said he tried to sell refurbished sneakers unique to Goodwin's 
shop. He bowed his head in silence following the verdict's announcement.

Goodwin graduated from Rockledge High in 2009.

Terri Kulaga, vice principal at Rockledge High School, praised Goodwin when 
reached for comment following his death in May.

"He was a great kid. He was sweet," said Kulaga. "He was kind. He just always 
had this smile that went from ear-to-ear."

Kulaga said Goodwin seemed to be a unifier among a group of friends, keeping 
them in Tallahassee.

"I believe that he went to Tallahassee with a lot of other kids that he grew up 
with and he kind of kept them together in Tallahassee even though he did 
different things," she added.

Dozens of family and friends waited through the entered trial and Thursday's 
lengthy jury deliberations. When the verdict was read, it elicited hushed sobs 
and silent prayers.

Longtime family friend and Executive Director of the FAMU Rattlers Boosters 
Mickey Clayton said the trial has been draining for everyone but the packed 
courtroom was a nod to the lives Goodwin touched.

"We've been here every step of the journey. It was a tragic situation and the 
process of going through it, it pulls and drains you emotionally," Clayton said 
after the verdict. "It wasn't about me. It was about me trying to being here to 
help the family... They are a family of tremendous strength and they've been 
together through this whole process."

Prosecutors said Hawkins killed Goodwin for the expensive footwear he stole and 
contended he acted alone.

2 others, Zachary D. Jones, 26, and former Lincoln High School student Marvin 
Barrington, 23, face charges of accessory after the fact felony murder. 
Investigators say they gave Hawkins a ride to Jefferson County following the 
robbery where he burned the car and then drove him back to Tallahassee.

(source: Florida Today)

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

Hawkins test of new sentencing rules


For the 1st time since the Florida Legislature revised capital punishment 
sentencing guidelines - requiring a favorable vote by 10 of 12 jurors - a 
defendant could get the death penalty.

Antowan Hawkins was convicted Thursday of felony 1st-degree murder, robbery, 
arson, tampering with physical evidence and grand theft of a motor vehicle in 
the death of 24-year-old Aaron Goodwin.

Ruling casts uncertainty over Florida's death penalty

Today, jurors will return to determine Hawkins' sentence. But prior to his 
week-long trial, his attorneys filed motions calling the new jury guidelines 
unconstitutional.

"This scheme leaves Florida as one of only two states that authorize the 
imposition of the death penalty on less than a unanimous jury verdict," Hawkins 
attorney David Collins wrote in a March 21 filing. "This scheme is contrary to 
evolving standards of decency regarding the humane imposition of capital 
punishment."

Jurors Thursday found Hawkins guilty of felony murder instead of premeditated 
murder, a decision that could play into the sentencing guidelines introduced in 
court today.

"That can be perceived that you're not quite sure who is actually the one who 
killed Mr. Goodwin," said Chuck Collins, Hawkins' attorney, during his opening 
statement. "Are you prepared to sanction the execution of someone not knowing 
beyond a reasonable doubt that he is the actual person who killed him?"

Prosecutors said in court Friday Hawkins took measures to conceal the killing 
of Goodwin by setting his South Adams Street sneaker shop on fire and driving 
his car to Jefferson County to set it ablaze. Testimony in the trial also 
suggested Hawkins may have gone to the store prior to the crime.

"We see a pattern of destroying evidence to avoid being caught," said Assistant 
State Attorney for the 2nd Judicial Circuit Eddie Evans. "There was evidence 
the victim had seen the defendant before."

In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Florida's death penalty sentencing 
system was unconstitutional. It struck down the state's rule allowing judges, 
rather than juries, decide whether convicted criminals will be put to death.

(source: Tallahassee Democrat)

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

Marieta Jaeger-Lane shares story of hope Monday


When Marieta Jaeger-Lane's 7-year-old daughter was kidnapped from the family's 
camp tent and murdered, her remarkable response was to choose life over death.

Jaeger-Lane has worked for years to abolish the death penalty. As part of the 
movement "Journey of Hope," she takes the healing message of forgiveness far 
and wide.

To share her message, "Forgiveness heals; vengeance merely gives the wheel of 
violence another turn," Jaeger-Lane will be a guest at 7 p.m. Monday at the 
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 2487 State Road A1A South.

Sponsored by Amnesty International, Pax Christi, Floridians for Alternatives to 
the Death Penalty, Compassion in Action and Compassion St. Augustine, the event 
is free and open to the public.

A wine and cheese reception will follow the program.

(source: staugustine.com)

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

Public defender accuses prosecutor of felony----Public defender says state 
attorney's office broke law in James Rhodes case


A lawyer in the public defender's office has accused the state attorney's 
office of misconduct in the case of James Rhodes, the man accused of gunning 
down a Metro PCS clerk in 2013.

Assistant Public Defender Debra Billard sent a letter to the state attorney's 
office after a recent pretrial hearing in the case, accusing prosecutors of 
committing a felony by showing surveillance video of 20-year-old Shelby Farah's 
shooting death to her brother, Caleb Farah.

Shelby's mother, Darlene Farah, testified at the hearing that she agreed with 
the defense's claim that the state attorney's office showed the surveillance 
footage to her son to influence him to support the death penalty against 
Rhodes.

But Caleb Farah testified that no one made him watch the video. He said he was 
encouraged not to watch it, but he insisted.

Billard asserted in her letter to prosecutors that regardless of whether Caleb 
Farah wanted to watch the video or not, the state attorney's office should not 
have allowed him to do so.

Billard said that because the video shows the killing of a person, Florida law 
states that only a surviving parent has authority to view the video if there is 
no surviving spouse and no written designation from the parent authorizing 
anyone else to view it.

Because Darlene Farah did not give written permission for Caleb to view the 
video, allowing him to see it violated the confidentiality of the video, 
Billard said.

According to Florida law, that's a felony, Billard said.

"Frankly, I am disturbed to think that you would have considered violating a 
clearly written Florida Statute and, as a result, attempted to justify your 
desire to have Mr. Rhodes killed by citing the opinions of Caleb Farah," 
Billard wrote. "I can think of no blow more foul than violating not only 
Florida law, but also the memory of Shelby Farah."

Billard said the public defender's office is still considering how to handle 
the issue, but she wanted to address her concerns to the state attorney's 
office directly.

"I think it is important to let them know that we know what kind of tactics are 
being used, and we think that it is not fair, not fair to Shelby's family, and 
it is frankly, if it is true, it is in violation of Florida law," head public 
defener Matt Shirk said. "If what is alleged is happening, there is a Florida 
statute that makes that a 3rd-degree felony. I think others would agree with 
us. We find it very concerning."

The SAO issued a statement Thursday saying Assistant State Attorney Bernie de 
la Rionda received the letter late Wednesday afternoon and was in the process 
of filing a formal response to the letter.

"Further comment will be made in the appropriate venue -- the courtroom," the 
statement said.

Shirk said his office just wants to see the case resolved for their client and 
for Darlene Farah.

"This case is tearing her apart every day," Shirk said of Farah. "Justice would 
be served if this case would be resolved in a plea agreement."

Darlene Farah said she was disappointed the public defender's office didn't 
tell her about sending the letter to the SAO.

"It's gotten out of hand," she said.

Rhodes' trial, which was set to begin May 2, has been pushed back because of 
new state legislation on the death penalty.

Salvador set Aug. 29 as the date for jury selection in the trial. The final 
pretrial date will be Aug. 22.

Earlier this month, Gov. Rick Scott signed into law a measure designed to fix 
the state's death penalty sentencing process after it was found 
unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The new law, which went into effect immediately, would require at least 10 
jurors to recommend death for the penalty to be imposed.

Darlene Farah wrote an opinion piece for Time magazine on the death penalty, 
titled "My Daughter's Killer Should Not Get the Death Penalty."

Cellphone store clerk killed in robbery

Rhodes is charged with 1st-degree murder in the killing of Shelby Farah during 
a robbery of a Brentwood cellphone store.

Police said that after several hours of questioning, Rhodes confessed.

Police said Farah was found dead after officers responded to a report of an 
armed robbery at the store on Main Street near 21st Street.

Police said Rhodes pointed a gun at the 20-year-old and demanded money. They 
said she cooperated and after she handed him the last bit of money, he fired 4 
rounds, killing her.

(source: news4jax.com)






ALABAMA:

Town Creek man charged in 2-year-old's 2014 death


A Town Creek man was charged Thursday with capital murder in connection with 
the 2014 death of his girlfriend's 2-year-old child, authorities said.

Evan Woodrow Berryman, 28, 2941 Lawrence County 235, was arrested by the State 
Bureau of Investigations for allegedly causing the death of Ian Brantley 
Calhoun, who died at Children's Hospital in Birmingham on Aug. 14, 2014, a 
spokesman for the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said.

Senior state trooper Johnathan Appling said Berryman, who is being held without 
bail in Lawrence County Jail, is charged with capital murder because the child 
was under 14 years of age.

The cause of death was blunt force trauma of the head, torso and lower and 
upper extremities, according to an autopsy report completed by the Alabama 
Department of Forensics.

The report, which lists the manner of death as homicide, lists several injuries 
the child received, including cuts on his face, scalp, left ear, chest, 
abdomen, back and genitals.

Family members of the child said they were relieved to hear the news that 
Berryman was arrested.

"It's been a long time coming, and I was excited and relieved to hear justice 
will finally be served," said Ian's grandmother, Katie Yarbrough. "There were a 
lot of sleepless nights. I think it's bittersweet."

Yarbrough said her son, Josh Calhoun, was listed as the father at the child's 
birth, although it was later discovered the child wasn't his.

"But, he still felt like he was his child," Yarbrough said. "And his name was 
never removed from the birth certificate, so when Ian passed, technically Josh 
was still his father. Ian will forever be my grandchild."

Yarbrough said the child was taken to Lawrence Medical Center for treatment of 
his injuries just days before he died. Later, he was transferred to Huntsville 
Hospital and then airlifted to Birmingham.

Police haven't released any other details surrounding the child's death. 
Authorities also haven't said why the investigation continued so long before an 
arrest was made.

Todd Smith, of Hatton, who has temporary custody of Ian Calhoun's older sister, 
said he felt a burden lifted when he found out "somebody will finally be held 
accountable."

"My daughter talks about (Ian) and cries all of the time," Smith said. "I just 
tell her he's in your heart, always looking down on you.

"I would have took that little baby (Ian) in as my own. The day before his 
death, I was getting my daughter for the weekend and all I can remember just 
seeing him smiling. He was always smiling.

"The next thing I heard was that he was in the hospital lying there with brain 
trauma. I hate it took a year and a half to get justice."

Chelsea Fike, Ian's mother, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The penalty for capital murder is either the death penalty or life in prison 
without the chance for parole.

(source: Decatur Daily)






LOUISIANA:

Accused child killer's trial in Lafayette delayed due to public defender budget 
woes


Budget problems at the Public Defenders Office for the Acadiana region have 
forced the postponement of Landon Broussard's death penalty trial that was 
scheduled for July.

A hearing Wednesday in 15th District Judge Laurie Hulin's court initially was 
to settle pretrial issues in advance of a July 25 trial for Broussard, who is 
accused in the fatal beating of his former girlfriend's 3-year-old son.

Instead, Hulin set Broussard's next hearing for Aug. 15 and didn't schedule a 
trial date. By August, Hulin said, the 15th Judicial District Public Defenders 
Office should know how much funding the state will make available.

In the meantime, the case will remain in neutral.

Broussard, 24, is accused of killing his former girlfriend's young son with 
prolonged beatings over months until the child died in November 2012. The 15th 
Judicial District Attorney's Office is seeking the death penalty.

Assistant District Attorney William Babin on Wednesday objected to the trial 
delay. Babin also conceded that there was nothing that could be done about it 
immediately.

In February, public defenders offices across Louisiana started laying off 
attorneys and canceling the contracts of private-practice lawyers who represent 
defendants for an hourly fee. The layoffs came after the Louisiana Public 
Defender Board, which sets guidelines and doles out state money to the local 
offices, ran short of funds.

The other funding sources for public defenders - proceeds from traffic tickets, 
along with court fines and penalties - also have been falling over the years.

The 15th Judicial District Public Defenders Office, which provides legal 
counsel to poor defendants in Acadia, Lafayette and Vermilion parishes, started 
trimming its attorney rolls in February.

As of this week, the local defenders office had 15 full-time attorneys and just 
a few contract attorneys, compared with 26 contract attorneys and close to 30 
who worked directly for the office, said G. Paul Marx, who heads the office.

2 attorneys who were affected represented Broussard. Elliott Brown, who worked 
directly for the Public Defenders Office, took a job in Baton Rouge in early 
March and no longer represents Broussard.

The contract for Broussard's lead attorney, Clay LeJeune, was canceled. 
However, LeJeune said Wednesday that he'll remain Broussard's attorney of 
record, though he won't do any heavy legal lifting.

"I intend to stay enrolled in this case until the finances of the Public 
Defenders Office is secure," LeJeune said.

The budget that Gov. John Bel Edwards submitted to lawmakers in the current 
legislative session would allocate just $12 million to the state Public 
Defender Board, a 66 % drop from $33 million in the past.

"If that figure ($12 million) doesn't change, then we're all going to be in 
pretty bad shape," Marx said.

(source: The Advocate)