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

[Rick Halperin]

May 24




NORTH CAROLINA:

Death penalty doubt


The man charged with the brutal killing of Stephen Patrick White can face the 
death penalty, a judge ruled last week. Guilford County prosecutors say the 
crime was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel, also involved arson and put 
other people at risk - all aggravating factors.

There's little question about that. White, 46, was beaten and set on fire in a 
Greensboro hotel room on Nov. 8, 2014. He lived for 8 days, enduring 2 
amputations and other surgeries before succumbing to his injuries.

Garry Joseph Gupton, 27, a former Greensboro city employee, is charged. If 
there's no plea deal and the case eventually goes to trial, a jury will 
consider evidence, attempt to reach a verdict and, if it finds the defendant 
guilty, recommend a sentence.

If that sentence is death, there's very little chance an execution ever will be 
carried out.

It has been nearly a decade since North Carolina put someone to death, although 
there are 148 men and 3 women on death row. Since Samuel Flippin's execution by 
lethal injection on Aug. 18, 2006, several death row inmates have died and 29 
have been removed by court orders, either released or given lesser sentences. 
They include Glenn Chapman and Levon Jones, both set free after their sentences 
were vacated and the charges against them dropped, and Henry McCollum, who was 
granted a pardon of innocence by Gov. Pat McCrory last year.

North Carolina's execution delay frustrates some people - victims' families but 
also many legislators, who want to speed things up. That's unlikely.

Few murderers are sentenced to death in North Carolina anymore. Antwan Anthony, 
convicted of killing 3 men during a convenience story robbery in Pitt County, 
was placed on death row last month - the 1st addition in 2 years. Prosecutors 
and juries generally prefer life without parole.

North Carolina Medical Society policy prohibits physicians from participating 
in executions, as previously required by state law. More recently, the 
pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced it won???t allow the use of its products 
in lethal injections, placing a significant obstacle before states that employ 
that method of capital punishment.

The U.S. Supreme Court also has limited application of the death penalty. And 
just Monday, it overturned a conviction in a Georgia murder case because of 
racial bias in jury selection. There are concerns about similar practices in 
North Carolina.

Then there's the gradual turning of public opinion, perhaps best exemplified by 
the evolving views of former N.C. Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake Jr. "I've 
always been known as a tough-on-crime, pro-law enforcement individual, and I 
still am," Lake wrote in The Huffington Post (reprinted in the News & Record's 
Ideas section Sunday).

Lake, a Republican, favored capital punishment as a state legislator, imposed 
death sentences as a Superior Court judge and upheld them on the N.C. Supreme 
Court. Yet, he wrote: "After decades of experience with the law, I have seen 
too much, and what I have seen has impacted my perspective. First, my faith in 
the criminal justice system, which had always been so steady, was shaken by the 
revelation that in some cases innocent men and women were being convicted of 
serious crimes."

Mistakes, however damaging, can still be rectified while a wrongly convicted 
inmate is alive. Not so if he is dead.

There are other reasons to end the death penalty, as Lake now advocates. It is 
administered inconsistently; biases influence sentencing; and it's expensive.

North Carolina will never execute the 151 people on death row, let alone Gupton 
or anyone else who might be added, no matter how terrible their crimes. It will 
save time and money, and prevent fatal mistakes, to abolish the death penalty. 
Life in prison is justice enough.

(source: Editorial, Greensboro News & Record)

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

Cagle capital murder trial begins


After 5 years of preparation, the capital murder trial of a Seagrove man began 
Monday in Randolph County Superior Court.

Randy Steven Cagle, now 39, is accused of the double murder of Davida Shauntel 
Stancil, 28, of Candor and Tyrone Clinton "Yogi" Marshall, 31, of Biscoe. The 
bodies of the victims were found on May 8, 2011, in Marshall's 1994 Oldsmobile, 
parked on the shoulder of N.C. 705 near Ralph Lawrence Road just outside of 
Seagrove.

Both had been stabbed to death, according to autopsy reports.

Cagle was arrested at his residence, located about 2 miles from where the 
bodies were found. A grand jury indicted him on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder 
on June 11, 2011. A guilty verdict could mean either life in prison or the 
death penalty.

According to affidavits by detectives of the Randolph County Sheriff's Office, 
blood evidence was found at Cagle's residence at 6644 Mustang Trail, Seagrove. 
Officers also seized 2 cell phones belonging to Cagle to confirm conversations 
related to a purchase of cocaine from Marshall. Cagle, according to the 
affidavits, acknowledged having called Marshall on the evening before the 
bodies were found and that Marshall had delivered cocaine to Cagle between 7-8 
p.m. that evening.

Detectives reported smelling a strong odor of bleach coming from Cagle'a home 
when he was first interviewed. A search warrant was issued for the home and 
evidence collected, including blood from a number of sources.

The trial proceedings will begin with selection of jurors as well as 
instructions to the jury pool. In the case of a capital trial, more than the 
usual number of alternates are selected.

Courthouse security is expected to be beefed up for the trial with as many as 5 
more deputies on duty during the proceedings.

Andy Gregson, chief assistant district attorney, is expected to lead the 
prosecution while court-appointed defense attorneys are Frank Wells of Asheboro 
and Phoebe Dee of Durham, both from the N.C. Public Defenders Office.

(source: The Courier-Tribune)






GEORGIA:

Clarence Thomas' Death Row Dissent Is Complex & Has Everyone Confused


3 decades after Timothy Tyrone Foster was convicted and sentenced to death in 
the murder of an elderly white woman, the Supreme Court has thrown out the 
ruling on the basis that African American jurors were intentionally kept off 
the jury by the prosecution, according to The Washington Post. While seven of 
the justices sided with the majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas, the lone 
black justice on the Court, authored a dissenting opinion. Clarence Thomas' 
death row dissent is complex and sometimes contradictory, as might be expected 
in a 7-1 ruling.

At issue isn't Foster's innocence - he has previously confessed to the crime - 
but whether he received a fair trial under the auspices of an all-white jury 
and a biased prosecution. Foster, who grew up in the projects, broke into the 
home of 79-year-old Queen Madge White, broke her jaw, sexually assaulted her, 
and then strangled her before burglarizing the home, according to The Post. 
Over the years, Foster's attorneys have argued that Foster's status as a 
mentally disabled teen should have precluded a death penalty conviction.

Foster's case shifted focus to the issue of jury selection when Stephen Bright, 
Foster's attorney and an expert at death penalty cases, used Georgia's open 
records laws to procure the prosecution's notes from the original trial. What 
Bright found in the notes was shocking.

According to CBS News, the prosecution had highlighted each potential black 
juror with green highlighter, marked them with a "B," and added them to a list 
labeled "Definite Nos." With this evidence in hand, Bright argued before the 
Supreme Court that this was a clear instance of racial discrimination in jury 
selection, which was effectively banned via the precedent of Batson v. 
Kentucky, a 1986 Supreme Court decision establishing that striking jurors based 
on their race is unconstitutional.

According to Slate, Justice Elena Kagan said aloud during the proceedings, 
"Isn't this as clear a Batson violation as a court is ever going to see?" Given 
the strength of the evidence, Justice Thomas' dissent needed to somehow make 
the evidence seem either illegitimate or irrelevant.

In his dissent, Justice Thomas brought forth 2 central complaints with his 
colleagues' decision. First was that the Supreme Court didn't have jurisdiction 
over the Foster case in the first place. The high court is supposed to 
intervene in state court decisions only when a federal law is in question; The 
Georgia Supreme Court, Thomas pointed out in his dissent, never mentioned a 
federal issue. "I therefore refuse to presume that the unexplained denial of 
relief by the Supreme Court of Georgia presents a federal question," he wrote.

What does he mean by "unexplained denial of relief?" Turns out that when the 
Georgia court refused to grant Foster the ability to appeal his case [aka, 
denial of relief] based on the racial exclusion argument, the judges said that 
his case had no "arguable merit." From there, they didn't elaborate. Thomas 
used the inadequacy and brevity of the Georgia Supreme Court's handling of the 
case to argue that no federal law was at stake.

Which is rather confusing. The total absence of an explanation doesn't mean 
that The Supreme Court lacks jurisdiction. According to the International 
Business Times, the other Supreme Court justices all felt that the Batson 
precedent, which is a federal precedent, was at stake in this case.

Clarence also argued that the evidence itself - the prosecution's notes - isn't 
compelling enough to reverse a lower court's decision. "The new evidence is no 
excuse for the Court's reversal of the state court's credibility 
determinations," he wrote. Clarence further tries to minimize the evidence, 
writing that "we do not know who wrote most of the notes that Foster now relies 
upon as proof of the prosecutors' race-based motivations." (According to the 
Associated Press, individual members of the prosecution have denied being the 
author of the notes.)

What's interesting, though, is that despite deeming the evidence insubstantial, 
Clarence seems rather threatened by it. "The Court today invites state 
prisoners to go searching for new 'evidence' by demanding the files of the 
prosecutors who long ago convicted them," he wrote in the dissent.

What Clarence really objects to, then, isn't the strength of the evidence, but 
that the court was allowed to see it. And unfortunately for Justice Clarence, 
who is a native of Georgia, placing "evidence" in quotation marks isn't enough 
to make it go away.

(source: romper.com)

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

African-American Death Row Inmate Suffered Race Bias: Top US Court


The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favour of an African American death row 
inmate who argued there was bias in the choosing of an all-white jury that 
convicted him of the 1986 murder of an elderly white woman.

By a 7-1 vote, the justices struck down a Georgia Supreme Court ruling denying 
Timothy Foster appellate review of his death sentence. Conservative Justice 
Clarence Thomas, the court's only African American member, dissented.

"This means that Timothy Foster is entitled to a new trial at which jurors are 
not excluded based on race," his lawyers said in a statement.

The decision, coming nearly 30 years after Foster's death penalty conviction, 
highlighted the continuing effect of racism on jury selection in the United 
States.

Foster's lawyers showed that prosecutors had maneuvered to keep blacks off the 
jury, presenting as evidence prosecutor's notes at a November 2015 Supreme 
Court hearing.

The notes, which were obtained after Foster's 1987 conviction, included a list 
of prospective jurors that had the handwritten letter "B" next to the names of 
African Americans on the list.

Those designated with a "B" were rejected for the jury under a selection 
process that allows prosecutors to block, or "strike," a certain number of 
potential jurors.

Foster's lawyer told the court that the prosecutors drew up a list of 6 
prospective jurors to be stricken from the panel: f were black, and 1 was 
opposed to the death penalty.

'Arresting' References To Race

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said the prosecution's 
file "plainly belie the state's claim that it exercised its strikes in a 
'colour-blind' manner."

"The sheer number of references to race in that file is arresting," he wrote.

The state of Georgia had vehemently defended the prosecutors, arguing that they 
had documented their actions in order to show they were being thoughtful and 
not discriminatory in considering prospective black jurors.

But the court's majority said that the state's argument "reeks of 
afterthought," noting it had never been raised before in the case's 30-year 
history.

"In addition, the focus on race in the prosecution's file plainly demonstrates 
a concerted effort to keep black prospective jurors off the jury," Roberts 
wrote.

"The state's new argument today does not dissuade us from the conclusion that 
its prosecutors were motivated in substantial part by race when they struck 
Garrett and Hood from the jury 30 years ago," the opinion said, referring to 2 
black potential jurors, Marilyn Garret and Eddie Hood.

The court's decision reverses a Georgia state Supreme Court order denying 
Foster appellate review of his death sentence, and remands the case "for 
further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion."

Thomas dissent

Foster had confessed to murdering Queen Madge White, a 79-year-old retired 
school teacher who was sexually assaulted and killed in her home in Rome, 
Georgia in August 1986.

Thomas, in his dissent, said the Supreme Court should have sought clarification 
from the state supreme court, rather than overrule it.

In doing so, he wrote, "the court affords a death-row inmate another 
opportunity to relitigate his long-final conviction."

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a concurring opinion that, while agreeing with the 
majority's conclusion, cautioned that it was important not to "lightly brush 
aside" the state's legitimate interest in a process that "militates against 
repetitive litigation and endless delay."

In a statement, Foster's lawyer Stephen Bright said the court had no choice but 
to find that prosecutors intentionally discriminated in striking black 
prospective jurors and that they "lied about it by giving false reasons for 
their strikes when the real reason was race."

"Jury strikes motivated by race cannot be tolerated. The exclusion of black 
citizens from jury service results in juries that do not represent their 
communities and undermines the credibility and legitimacy of the criminal 
justice system."

(source: ndtv.com)






FLORIDA:

Donald Smith's lawyers file motion to remove death penalty from case----Man 
accused in girl's June 2013 kidnapping, rape, murder still awaits trial

Attorneys for Donald Smith have filed another motion in an effort to block 
prosecutors from seeking the death penalty if he's convicted in the murder of 
8-year-old Cherish Perrywinkle.

The new motion asks the trial judge to declare the state's death penalty law 
unconstitutional, claiming it violates the 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th amendments of 
the U.S. Constitution.

Smith's lawyers contend the Constitution requires a unanimous verdict from the 
jury.

The motion also insists that all aggravating factors in the crime be proven 
beyond a reasonable doubt, also unanimously.

The U.S. Supreme Court declared Florida's capital punishment law 
unconstitutional late last year because it gave too much authority to the judge 
on when a convict should be sentenced to death. The new law requires a jury to 
vote at least 10-2 for someone to receive a death sentence.

Florida is 1 of only 3 states that does not require a unanimous jury vote for a 
death penalty sentence. The others are Alabama and Delaware.

In March, a judge denied a defense motion to block the state from seeking the 
death penalty against Smith.

Police said Smith befriended Cherish's mother at a Northside store, took them 
to a Walmart, then walked out with the girl after saying he was going to buy 
hamburgers at a McDonald's.

The girl's body was found behind a church the next morning.

The case has dragged on for nearly 3 years, and is now one of many death 
penalty cases on hold.

"His attorneys have filed a motion asking the court to take the death penalty 
off the table. The prosecutor says they're going to ask the jury to impose the 
death penalty when he goes to trial. But his attorneys have filed this new 
motion now that says the death penalty statute, which existed at the time of 
the crime, has been found to be unconstitutional. And so they want the courts 
to say he can't be sentenced to death if he is convicted," said Ed Birk, an 
attorney not affiliated with the case.

Birk said because the statute has been found unconstitutional, hundreds of 
other cases in Florida could have similar outcomes. Birk told News4Jax a lot of 
how this will work hinges on one case and that will reveal a better look at the 
potential outcome for Smith.

"There was the U.S. Supreme Court case in the Hurst case. He had already been 
sentenced to death. The court said that Florida's sentencing statute was 
unconstitutional. And so the Legislature very quickly amended the statute to 
become law. Now the question is whether that statute will apply to Donald 
Smith. The Hurst case is still going through the courts. Florida Supreme Court 
heard argument this week about whether Hurst will be resentenced and whether 
he'll be sentenced to life in prison or to death. And all of that will have an 
impact on what happens to Smith," Birk said.

Smith's next court date is May 26.

(source: news4jax.com)





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

Demise of the death penalty?


As must occur when a life hangs in the balance, we accommodate precautions 
built into death cases that make them exorbitantly expensive and 
time-consuming. That means, for instance, allowing death row convicts to file 
seemingly endless appeals, often a frustrating, soul-draining process for a 
victim's loved ones.

We also know that sometimes the judicial system mucks it up. According to the 
Death Penalty Information Center, 26 Florida inmates sentenced to die have been 
exonerated, most among the states that collectively have freed 156 innocent 
people from death row since 1973.

Despite those valid reasons, opponents of capital punishment have made little 
headway in persuading lawmakers to stop this practice, nor do they seem willing 
to try to convince voters that we should ban the death penalty through a state 
constitutional amendment.

Yet, based on recent news reports, they nonetheless seem to be winning.

Earlier this year the Legislature had to "fix" the death penalty after the U.S. 
Supreme Court had ruled 8-1 that Florida's process was unconstitutional. The 
high court found the method was flawed because the trial judge, and not the 
jury, determined the reasons why a convicted murderer qualified for the 
ultimate punishment.

State lawmakers thought they addressed that issue by amending the law during 
the 2016 session. The new statute mandated that the jury must unanimously agree 
on at least one factor presented by prosecutors in arguing for a death 
sentence. Then, if jurors reach that point, at least 10 of them must vote for 
execution.

In early May, though, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch became the 1st 
state judge to rule that was not good enough.

The judge balked at the idea of a super-majority vote for death. "A decedent 
cannot be more or less dead. An expectant mother cannot be more or less 
pregnant. And a jury cannot be more or less unanimous," the judge wrote in his 
ruling supporting 1st-degree murder defendant Karon Gaiter's claim that the new 
sentencing scheme was still unconstitutional. "Every verdict in every criminal 
case in Florida requires the concurrence, not of some, not of most, but of all 
jurors - every single one of them."

Then last week, we heard from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which announced it 
would not sell to states its drugs that could become ingredients for carrying 
out executions. Pfizer thus aligned itself with roughly 20 U.S. and European 
drug manufacturers that were driven by some high-profile botched lethal 
injections to prohibit sales of their wares to death penalty states.

We thus may be witnessing the demise of Florida's death penalty, yet let's 
consider who is leading us there.

Except for Justice Samuel Alito, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the fact that 
Florida judges had acted on a jury's recommendation. Judge Hirsch dismissed the 
fact that the jury must unanimously convict a murderer before determining a 
death sentence - the only criminal cases, by the way, in which a jury, and not 
a judge like Hirsch, hands down the punishment. Pfizer dismissed the fact in 
2011 it was sued for $2 billion by the Nigerian government - and settled for 
$75 million - because it tested, without authorization, an anti-meningitis drug 
that killed 11 children.

Yes, lawmakers can probably fix the death penalty again next year to require a 
jury's unanimous vote to suit defense-minded judges like Hirsch. And Florida, 
like other states, could look to compounding pharmacies or the black market for 
the lethal drugs, or revert to a less "humane" execution method, such as 
reviving the electric chair.

But each incremental adjustment will undoubtedly make it more complicated to 
sentence a convicted killer to death row.

Many among us may cheer that development as progress toward justice, but it 
will be hollow.

That's because those who oppose capital punishment will gain ground without 
widespread, broad-based consensus of the people or their elected 
representatives, and without regard for, or acknowledgement of, the families 
and friends of victims whose lives were taken from them in the most brutal 
circumstances.

(source: Editorial, The Ledger)

**********

Death penalty opponents to rally in honor of the late Shelby Farah


Death penalty opponents in Jacksonville are rallying Thursday night at an event 
honoring the late Shelby Farah.

Titled "Not In My Name," the evening is billed as "bringing awareness about the 
death penalty and the trauma inflicted on victims and family members within the 
criminal justice system."

Farah was just 20 when she was murdered during a robbery at the phone store 
where she worked. Her mother, Darlene Farah, has repeatedly and vocally spoken 
out against Shelby's killer, 24-year-old James Xavier Rhodes, being sentenced 
to death. Farah wants Rhodes to receive a life sentence so that her family does 
not have to endure years of appeals.

State Attorney Angela Corey's office maintains the brutality of the crime 
justifies the death penalty for Rhodes.

The Thursday event, held at Mt. Sinai Baptist Church, is also slated to feature 
death row exonerees.

That church is affiliated with Pastor Reginald Gundy, who has worked on behalf 
of Corey challenger Wes White.

(source: Florida Politics)






ALABAMA:

Once on death row, 6 juvenile killers could get chance at parole


The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday told the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to 
reconsider the cases of 6 men serving life without the possibility of parole 
sentences to see if the men should be re-sentenced to allow for a chance of 
future parole.

The defendants in whose cases the U.S. Supreme Court remanded to the Alabama 
Court of Appeals are: William Knotts, James Bonds, Nathan Slaton, Clayton 
Flowers, Michael S. Barnes (he had 2 cases), and Renaldo Chante Adams.

"The petitioners in these cases were sentenced to death for crimes they 
committed before they turned 18," according to the U.S. Supreme Court opinion. 
"In most of these cases, petitioners' sentences were automatically converted to 
life without the possibility of parole following our decisions outlawing the 
death penalty for juveniles (in 2005)."

Then in the case of Miller v. Alabama in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 
unconstitutional laws in states, including Alabama, where life without the 
possibility of parole was the only sentence judges had available for sentencing 
juveniles convicted in capital murder cases.

Then in January of this year, in Montgomery v. Louisiana, the U.S. Supreme 
Court held that their earlier decision in the Miller case is to be applied 
retroactively to those who were convicted prior to 2012. Alabama courts had 
held that it wasn't retroactive.

"Today's action by the Supreme Court included clarification by justices 
Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito as to the scope of Montgomery," according to a 
statement from the Alabama Attorney General's Office. "In a concurrence, the 
Justices explained that the Court was not addressing the merits of these cases 
or taking a position on whether life without parole is an appropriate sentence 
in each. Because these defendants previously received a death sentence, each 
also received a hearing providing him an opportunity to present his age and any 
other mitigating circumstances to the sentencer."

Justices explained that state judges are free to consider on remand whether 
these previous hearings satisfy the individual sentencing requirement of 
Miller, according to the Attorney General's Office.

Judges and district attorneys around Alabama have been getting requests from 
inmates serving life without parole sentences for crimes to have their 
sentences reduced to "life" and a chance at parole.

In Jefferson County alone, more than 10 such cases have had preliminary 
hearings and at least 2 inmates have already had their sentences reduced.

In today's statement, Attorney General Strange, again objected to the U.S. 
Supreme Court's ruling in Montgomery, which he says potentially allows about 70 
convicted murderers in Alabama to receive new sentences because they were 
juveniles at the time they committed their crimes.

"It would be reprehensible to put victims' families through the ordeal of 
seeing the person responsible for the deaths of their loved ones allowed to 
potentially receive a new sentence," Strange stated. "This could have a 
devastating effect on families who thought they had received closure in cases 
often going back decades."

"Thankfully, members of the Court today recognized that these cases - in which 
the death penalty had first been imposed - have already undergone extensive 
reviews that would have considered the defendants' ages and any mitigating 
circumstances.," Strange stated.

"The courts should take those proceedings into consideration before requiring 
victims' families to endure new sentencing hearings or new sentences for these 
murderers."

(source: al.com)






LOUISIANA:

Louisiana Supreme Court rejects bid to overturn death penalty of River Parishes 
serial killer Daniel Blank


The Louisiana Supreme Court rejected a bid to overturn the death penalty and 
grant a new trial to convicted river parishes serial killer Daniel Blank last 
week.

Blank, 53, was scheduled to be executed March 14 after a state district judge 
rejected a post-conviction appeal last year but the Supreme Court granted a 
stay of execution in February. He has been convicted in 5 slayings of older 
residents in the mid-1990s and was sentenced to death in the 1999 1st-degree 
murder conviction of Lillian Philippe, 72, of Gonzales.

The high court concluded that Blank would have been sentenced to death no 
matter if his upbringing that included poverty and sexual abuse was introduced 
in that trial or not, something his appeal attorneys argued.

23rd Judicial District Court Judge Jessie LeBlanc had upheld the 1st-degree 
conviction and death penalty sentence of Blank in the 1997 murder of Philippe 
in late September rejecting his claims of an ineffective defense counsel 
calling it unconvincing and insufficient.

LeBlanc presided over a 5-day evidentiary hearing held last July at the 
Terrebonne Parish Courthouse in Houma where Blank's attorney's claimed his 
conviction and sentence were unconstitutional because prosecutors withheld 
investigative reports that challenged the reliability of his confession to the 
murder as well as others.

Defense attorneys have also said the order is premature due to more appeals at 
the federal level, especially after the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice 
Antonin Scalia, a death penalty supporter, and also argued that the Department 
Public Safety and Corrections does not currently have it its possession the 
drugs necessary to carry out the execution.

(source: The Creole)