[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., GA., FLA., ALA., OHIO, IND., KAN.

[Rick Halperin]

March 29



TEXAS----impending execution

Dallas man set to be executed in death of daughters, 9 and 6


Enraged over his ex-wife going to police about his harassment and likely 
arrest, John David Battaglia used a May 2001 visit with their 2 young daughters 
to avenge his anger. As their mother helplessly listened on the phone to 1 of 
the girls' cries, he fatally shot them both at his Dallas apartment.

Hours later, the former accountant was at a nearby tattoo shop getting 2 large 
red roses inked on his left arm to commemorate 9-year-old Faith and her 
6-year-old sister, Liberty. When he walked outside, it took 4 officers to 
subdue and arrest him. A fully loaded revolver was found in his truck.

On Wednesday, the 60-year-old is set for lethal injection. He'd be the 10th 
inmate executed this year nationally, the 6th in Texas.

"I don't feel like I killed them," Battaglia told The Dallas Morning News in 
2014. "I am a little bit in the blank about what happened." He also referred to 
his slain daughters as his "best little friends" and told the newspaper he had 
photos of them displayed in his prison cell. He declined to speak with The 
Associated Press as his execution date neared.

An attorney seeking to represent Battaglia, who contended his court-appointed 
lawyer abandoned him after the U.S Supreme Court in January refused to review 
his case, said in an appeal to federal courts that the man is mentally ill. 
Attorney Gregory Gardner also argued Battaglia was entitled to a reprieve so he 
could get a fair hearing to determine if he's incompetent for execution.

But available evidence "does not come close" to suggesting Battaglia lacks an 
understanding that he's about to be executed and why he's set for punishment, 
the criteria the Supreme Court has established to determine competency for 
prisoners facing execution, according to Erich Dryden, an assistant Texas 
attorney general.

"His last-minute appeal amounts to a fishing expedition," Dryden said.

Battaglia's trial attorneys called no witnesses during the guilt-innocence 
portion of his capital murder trial in 2002, and a Dallas County jury 
deliberated only 19 minutes before convicting him. During the punishment phase, 
jurors heard defense testimony that Battaglia's mental illness should convince 
them a life prison sentence would be appropriate. They did not agree.

"To think a father could just gun down his little girls, it was just 
unbelievable," Howard Blackmon, the lead prosecutor in the case, recalled last 
week. "It was such a compelling case for the death penalty."

Evidence showed that at the time of the shootings, Battaglia was on probation 
for a Christmas 1999 attack on his estranged wife Mary Jean Pearle, the girls' 
mother. Their divorce was finalized the following August.

Around Easter 2001, he called Pearle, swearing at her and calling her names, a 
violation of his probation. She reported the incident to his probation officer 
and Battaglia learned on May 2, 2001, that an arrest warrant had been issued. 
That evening, Pearle left their daughters with him for a planned dinner.

She soon received a message that one of the girls had called for her. Pearle 
returned the call and Battaglia put her on speakerphone, telling Faith to ask 
her mother: "Why do you want Daddy to go to jail?"

Pearle heard the child cry out: "No, Daddy, please don't, don't do it."

Pearle yelled into the phone for the girls to run and heard gunshots, followed 
by Battaglia telling her: "Merry ... Christmas," the words divided by an 
obscenity. After hearing more gunfire, Pearle hung up and called 911.

Evidence showed Faith had been shot 3 times, and Liberty five. A semiautomatic 
pistol found near the kitchen door was among more than a dozen firearms 
recovered from Battaglia's apartment.

Testimony at his trial also showed he'd been violent with his 1st wife, who 
obtained a protective order that he ignored by stalking her.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Fort Worth killer on Death Row loses Supreme Court appeal


The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review an appeal from a Fort Worth man on 
death row for smothering an 89-year-old man and robbing him of some $6,000 in 
2004.

The high court, without comment, ruled Monday in the case of 36-year-old Tilon 
Lashon Carter. He does not yet have an execution date.

Carter's appeals have focused on whether his Tarrant County trial attorneys 
were deficient and whether faulty instructions were given to trial jurors.

Carter was condemned for the robbery and slaying of James Eldon Tomlin, a 
retired Bell Helicopter employee and disabled veteran, at his Fort Worth home.

Prosecutors said Carter and his girlfriend, Leketha Allen - whose mother, a 
prostitute, had a 20-year relationship with Tomlin - went to Tomlin's home on 
April 28, 2004, to rob him.

Later that day, Tomlin's daughter found her father dead. Tomlin had been struck 
in the head, and his feet and hands were bound with duct tape. His mouth was 
taped.

The Tarrant County medical examiner's office ruled that Tomlin died from 
positional asphyxiation and that someone also smothered or attempted to smother 
him.

Investigators found over $20,000 cash hidden in containers inside Tomlin's 
house and car. Allen and Carter made off with a shotgun and some coins.

During closing argument, prosecutors portrayed Carter as a longtime criminal 
whose violence was escalating and who deserved the death penalty.

After getting sentenced, Carter's grandmother said her grandson was "framed" 
and that "we'll try and get it appealed."

A week after Carter was sentenced, Allen reached a deal with prosecutors and 
received a 25-year sentence for her role in the robbery and shooting. She 
remains in prison with a projected release date of 2029.

(source: star-telegram.com)






NORTH CAROLINA:

911 calls detail horrific scene after 3 from N.J. killed


Several people called 911 last Friday to report the gunshots that claimed a 
lives of 3 members of the Mazzella family from New Jersey, according to 
published reports.

At least 2 of the callers were in or near the home when the killings occurred.

"My parents have been shot. He just came in with a shotgun and shot everybody," 
said a female caller believed to be the 14-year-old daughter of Sandy and 
Stephenie Mazzella.

The Wake County Sheriff's Office altered the 911 audio in an effort to keep the 
callers' identities anonymous.

Sandy and Stephenie were killed along with Sandy's mother, Elaine. All of the 
victims were from New Jersey.

"I just heard 7 gunshots and people screaming right behind my house," says 
another caller. Another neighbor says, "There is a man with a shotgun standing 
right behind our house."

Jonathan Sander, 52, is accused of shooting to death 3 members of the Mazzella 
family.

Stephenie's adult brother, Joey, was outside walking the dogs when the killings 
occurred, according to family members.

Jonathan Frederick Sander, the next-door neighbor, entered the home and shot 
the family members to death, alleges Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison.

"My sister and brother-in-law are laying on the floor," says the caller.

"Is anybody awake or breathing?" the dispatcher asked.

"No," the caller said. "They got shotgunned. They're done."

Sander is being held without bond, charged with 3 counts of 1st-degree murder. 
He faces life in prison without parole or the death penalty if convicted.

A motive has not been released, although the sheriff says the families were 
feuding.

(source: nj.com)






GEORGIA----impending execution

Halt Execution of Kenneth Fults Due to Racial Motivation (UA 74/16)


Kenneth Fults, a 47-year-old African American man sentenced to death in 1997, 
is due to be executed on 12 April in Georgia. In 2005, one of the jurors signed 
a sworn statement that he had voted for the death penalty because "that's what 
the nigger deserved".

1) Please write immediately in English or your own language:

--Calling for the execution of Kenneth Fults to be stopped and for his death 
sentence to be commuted;

--Expressing concern at the racist motivation for voting for the death penalty 
expressed by a former juror;

--Expressing concern that the jury did not hear full mitigating evidence about 
the defendant's childhood and his possible intellectual disability.

2) For the full Urgent Action, including appeal addresses and further 
information, please click on the Word or PDF version below.

see: 
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/usa-halt-execution-of-kenneth-fults-due-to-racial-motivation-ua-7416

(source: Amnesty International USA)






FLORIDA:

ACLU Florida: Duval County Should Create Death Penalty Review Panel


The death penalty will be the focus of a panel discussion Tuesday night in 
Jacksonville's Springfield neighborhood.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida is joining advocacy group 
Justice-4-Jacksonville to release new recommendations for reforming Duval 
County's application of capital punishment.

The groups are hoping to drum up public support for a new taskforce to advise 
State Attorney Angela Corey.

ACLU Florida attorney Adam Tebrugge is calling on Duval County to create a 
death-penalty review panel. Made up of defense attorneys, prosecutors and 
members of a victim's family, the panel would recommend whether to sentence a 
convicted murderer to death.

Keyontay Humphries is an organizer with Justice 4 Jacksonville.

"The ACLU will be releasing tonight at the event a policy paper relative to how 
state attorneys seek the death penalty - the use of that process. Most folks 
don't realize that power lies in the hands of the state attorney," she said.

State Attorney Angela Corey, who's running for re-election, has been criticized 
for what some see as an eagerness to seek the death penalty.

Most recently, she moved forward with a death penalty case even after the 
mother of slain Jacksonville store clerk Shelby Farah pleaded for leniency, as 
reported by our news partner, News4Jax.

Duval County has the largest number of death row inmates in the country, 
according the Death Penalty Information Center.

(source: WJCT news)






ALABAMA:

UA Law School to Host Symposium on Death Penalty


Legal scholars will visit The University of Alabama School of Law April 8 to 
discuss the death penalty.

The symposium, Final Judgments: The Death Penalty and American Law, will be 
held in the Bedsole Moot Courtroom, room 140.

The conference will explore the finality of death penalty judgments and examine 
the jurisprudence of capital punishment. The event begins at 8:30 a.m. and is 
free and open to the public.

The symposium is co-sponsored by the Alabama Law Review, a nationally 
recognized journal of legal scholarship and the flagship legal journal in the 
state of Alabama.

The symposium will feature:

Jenny Carroll, University of Alabama School of Law

Jennifer L. Culbert, Johns Hopkins University

Carissa Byrne Hessick, University of Utah School of Law

Daniel LaChance, Emory University

Corinna Barrett Lain, University of Richmond School of Law

Daniel S. Medwed, Northeastern University School of Law

More information is available by clicking here: 
https://www.law.ua.edu/calendar/event/the-death-penalty-and-american-law-symposium/

One of America's leading public law schools, and the "#1 Best Value Law School" 
in the nation, according to the National Jurist, for 2 years in a row (2012 and 
2013), The University of Alabama School of Law offers a challenging curriculum 
with over 150 electives, several dual enrollment opportunities, Master of Laws 
degrees, and a J.S.D. With a student-to-faculty ratio of approximately 11:1, 
the Law School offers students a rigorous, hands-on learning experience, with 
strong student engagement in clinical programs, law review, moot court and 
trial advocacy.

The University of Alabama, a student-centered research university, is 
experiencing significant growth in both enrollment and academic quality. This 
growth, which is positively impacting the campus and the state's economy, is in 
keeping with UA's vision to be the university of choice for the best and 
brightest students. UA, the state's flagship university, is an academic 
community united in its commitment to enhancing the quality of life for all 
Alabamians.

(source: UA News)



OHIO:

Anthony Sowell's death penalty appeal reaches Ohio Supreme Court


The Ohio Supreme Court will hear arguments in the death penalty appeal of 
Anthony Sowell on April 5. Sowell, who was convicted of the murders of 11 women 
between 2007 and 2009 in Cleveland, has raised multiple issues with his trial, 
convictions, and death sentence. Police discovered the women's bodies in and 
around his home in 2009.

(Sowell lived in his stepmother's house on Imperial Avenue in Cleveland. On 
Sept. 23, 2009, Latundra Billups went to the hospital to report she had been 
raped. Billups gave a statement to police that Sowell had attacked and raped 
her in his house the day before. Police obtained an arrest warrant and a search 
warrant, and sent a SWAT team to the home on Oct. 29. Sowell wasn't there when 
they arrived, and police searched the premises.)

During the next 5 days, the bodies of 5 women and the skull of another woman 
were found throughout the house. The bodies of 5 more women were uncovered in 
the backyard. Most of the women had been strangled.

Cleveland police located and arrested Sowell on Oct. 31. They interviewed him 
for 11 to 12 hours total during 2 days.

A jury convicted Sowell in 2011 on 81 counts, including the aggravated murders 
of the 11 women and the attempted murders of 3 women, along with felonious 
assault, rape, and kidnapping. The trial court imposed the death penalty.

Sowell Lays Out Fair Trial Concerns, Contests Legal Strategy

In Sowell v State, Sowell argues the trial court should have moved the case to 
another location given the extensive media coverage of the murders. The 
possibility of juror bias was high in this case because of negative pretrial 
publicity, making a fair trial in the county improbable, he contends.

He also challenges the trial court ruling that prevented his attorneys from 
asking potential jurors their thoughts about specific mitigating factors during 
jury selection, and he thinks his lawyers were obligated to have invested more 
effort in the mitigation, rather than the guilt, phase of the trial.

Were Public Trial Rights Violated?

In September 2014, the Supreme Court also ordered Sowell and the state to 
submit written arguments about whether his constitutional right to a public 
trial was deprived when the trial court closed the courtroom for a pretrial 
suppression hearing and again during the questioning of potential jurors.

The suppression hearing was held to decide whether the details of Sowell's 
11-plus hour interrogation by police could be heard during the trial. In 
Sowell's view, the trial court didn't consider alternatives to a closed hearing 
and didn't meet the legal standard for banning public and media access to the 
proceeding. The state, however, contends the court's decision protected 
Sowell's right to a fair trial. Also, the state maintains, the court limited 
the closure to the review of only the interrogation and had no other options 
available to ensure a fair hearing.

On the voir dire issue, the parties explain that potential jurors were 
questioned individually. The court closed the courtroom during this process. 
The state argues Sowell asked for a "sequestered," or closed, session for jury 
selection, as evidenced by his requests to possibly question the jurors 1 by 1 
in the judge's chambers. Sowell maintains he never sought to exclude the public 
and media from the courtroom. The closed courtroom denied his right to a public 
trial, and his conviction and sentence should be overturned, he concludes.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio filed an amicus brief on Oct. 3, 
2014. The ACLU of Ohio "...requests that this Honorable Court reverse the 
judgment and death sentence imposed in this case and grant Defendant-Appellant 
Anthony Sowell a new trial or sentencing hearing."

(source: WKYC news)






INDIANA:

Could suspect in Shaylyn's homicide face the death penalty?


The horrifying details of the rape and killing of 1-year-old Shaylyn Ammerman 
have led many to ask the question: Could 22-year-old Kyle Parker, the suspect 
in her killing, face the death penalty, if convicted?

Prosecutors could bring a death penalty case, a legal expert said, but they 
must consider a number of factors before pursuing a sentence enhancement.

"This is a classic death penalty case, if there is such a thing," said Jack 
Crawford, an Indianapolis defense attorney and former Lake County prosecutor.

Police found Shaylyn's body Thursday in a remote area near Gosport, two days 
after she disappeared from her crib at her grandmother's home in Spencer. 
Parker, a friend of her father's family, is accused of stealing her from her 
crib March 23, brutally raping her and smothering her.

Owen County prosecutor Donald VanDerMoere told reporters after Parker appeared 
in court Monday that the state has not ruled out filing a death penalty 
enhancement.

To bring a death penalty case, prosecutors must prove a homicide with an 
aggravating circumstance, a number of which are listed in state statute. At 
least two aggravating circumstances are alleged in this case, Crawford said: 
The victim was younger than 12 years old, and the victim was killed amid a 
child molestation.

Prosecutors likely will consider 2 major questions, though, said Crawford, who 
has been involved with 25 death penalty cases.

Can Owen County afford to bring a death penalty case? And was Kyle Parker 
mentally ill when he, prosecutors allege, raped and killed Shaylyn?

"In the United States today, you cannot execute someone who is mentally ill," 
Crawford said, adding that Parker's public defender will likely have Parker 
examined by a mental health professional.

Secondly, Crawford noted that death penalty cases are expensive. With a long 
appeals process, he said most take 15 to 20 years to resolve. In such cases, 
the state splits the cost of the case with the county.

Another possibility available to prosecutors, Crawford said, is to file a death 
penalty enhancement and use it to bargain the case down to an agreement for a 
life sentence without parole.

In some cases, Crawford said, prosecutors will take into account the wishes of 
the family, if they do not want the case to drag on for decades.

12 inmates are on death row in Indiana, according to a state list last updated 
in December 2015. The last person the state executed was Matthew Wrinkles in 
2009. He was convicted of murdering his wife, his brother-in-law and his 
brother-in-law's wife in Evansville in 1994.

Indiana has executed 20 men since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.

Among pending death penalty cases in Indiana:

--Major Davis Jr. is accused of shooting and killing Indianapolis Metropolitan 
Police officer Perry Renn in 2014. Prosecutors often seek the death penalty in 
cases where officers are killed in the line of duty, Crawford said.

--Joseph Oberhansley, 34, is accused of raping and killing his ex-girlfriend 
and eating parts of her body in Jeffersonville in 2014. Mutilation and rape are 
considered aggravating circumstances in Indiana.

--Darren D. Vann is accused of strangling to death 7 women in Gary. The 
multiple charges of murder were listed as the aggravating circumstances the 
state planned to prove, the Northwest Indiana Times reported.

Pursuing the death penalty can be a gamble for prosecutors, Crawford said. 
Parker's case comes at a time when the public attitude about the death penalty 
is evolving amid questions of fairness and wrongful convictions, especially 
relating to race and class.

A 2013 Pew Research Center survey showed that though a majority of Americans 
support the death penalty, support has gradually declined since 1996. In the 
past 20 years, the survey showed, the gap between those who support and oppose 
the death penalty lessened from a 60-point difference in 1996 to an 18-point 
difference in 2013.

Another survey from the Public Religion Research Institute published in 2015 
found that of about 2,600 Americans surveyed, a majority (52 %) favored a 
sentence of life without parole over the death penalty.

When polled about whether the death penalty is applied fairly, answers differed 
by race an ethnicity with 82 % of black Americans, about 60 % of Hispanic 
Americans and 45 % of white Americans responding that a black person is more 
likely than a white person to receive the death penalty for the same crime. Yet 
Crawford said, with some cases, juries can be expected to impose a death 
penalty.

"The (allegations) are absolutely horrific," Crawford said. "The level of 
depravity in the killing of the little baby girl just shocks the conscience."

(source: Indianapolis Star)






KANSAS:

Jail therapist says convicted quadruple murderer Kyle Flack had talked about 
dying in a suitcase; Testimony is ongoing in the sentencing portion of the 
case; Flack was convicted last week


A jail therapist said she questioned Kyle Trevor Flack about a supposed 
statement made by him dealing with dying in a suitcase, the therapist testified 
Tuesday during the sentencing phase of Flack's trial.

Flack was convicted last week of four killings from the spring of 2013, 
including the shooting of 18-month-old Lana Bailey, whose body was recovered 
from a suitcase in a creek west of Ottawa.

The therapist, Robin Burgess, was testifying Tuesday in Franklin County 
District Court during the sentencing portion of the trial where jurors will 
decide whether to recommend the death penalty for Flack or a life sentence 
without parole.

On March 23, the same panel of jurors convicted Flack of capital murder in the 
slayings of Kaylie Bailey, 21, and her daughter, Lana, 18 months; premeditated 
1st-degree murder in the death of Steven White; 2nd-degree murder in the death 
of Andrew Stout; and criminal possession of a firearm. A charge of sexual 
battery was dismissed.

Burgess testified Tuesday at length about treating Flack after he was booked 
into the Frankin County Jail in 2013 in connection with the quadruple slayings.

Burgess was also Flack's therapist when he was arrested in 2005 in the shooting 
of Steve Free, who was wounded 3 times.

In the Free shooting, Flack was convicted of attempted 2nd-degree murder and 
was in prison for several years.

Burgess testified that she understood that an older brother of Flack had found 
some notes written by Kyle Flack saying he wished he would "dye in a suitcase."

Burgess said he wondered what that meant and asked Flack.

"He did not remember anything about that," Burgess testified.

Burgess further testified the brother had been mean or abusive to Flack, and 
she wondered whether the remark was related to some kind of trauma Kyle Flack 
had suffered.

Burgess is the 2nd witness to testify on Tuesday.

Based on the pace of the questioning during the defense portion of this phase 
of the trial, it doesn't appear that jurors will begin to deliberate Tuesday.

When the evidence is finished, jurors will resume deliberations, this time to 
decide whether to recommend to District Judge Eric Godderz that he impose the 
death penalty or sentence him to a life sentence without parole.

To decide in favor of the death penalty, jurors must decide beyond a reasonable 
doubt that one or more aggravating circumstances presented by prosecutors 
outweighs any mitigating circumstance presented by Flack's attorneys.

To recommend the life term, jurors must find a mitigating circumstances 
outweighs the aggravating circumstances.

(source: Topeka Capital-Journal)