[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., FLA., LA., ARK., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 28



TEXAS:

SCOTUS refuses appeals from 3 on Texas death row ---- The U.S. Supreme Court 
refused to review appeals in 3 Texas death row cases, including one where a man 
pleaded guilty to a triple slaying


The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to review appeals in 3 Texas death row 
cases, including one where a man pleaded guilty to a triple slaying in South 
Texas.

The high court's rulings moved 2 inmates closer to execution: LeJames Norman, 
31, condemned for the 2005 shooting deaths of 3 people during a botched robbery 
of a home in Edna, about 100 miles southwest of Houston, and Bill Douglas 
Gates, 67, condemned for strangling a Houston woman in 1999.

Neither has an execution date.

Norman and an accomplice also now on death row, Ker'Sean Ramey, were convicted 
in the slayings of Samuel Roberts, 24, Tiffani Peacock, 18, and Celso Lopez, 
38, inside the home they shared in Edna, in Jackson County. Roberts' parents 
discovered the bodies Aug. 25, 2005.

Court records indicated Ramey and Norman believed there was 100 kilograms of 
cocaine in the house and hoped to steal it, but they never found any drugs. 
Norman was arrested trying to cross a bridge into Brownsville from Mexico about 
5 months after the killings. He pleaded guilty to capital murder, leaving a 
jury to decide only on punishment. Norman's appeal raised questions about the 
competence of his trial attorneys.

Texas prison records show when Gates was arrested for the slaying of Elfreda 
Gans, 41, at her Houston apartment, the Riverside County, California, man was 
on parole after serving 6 years of 2 life prison terms in California for 
robbery, assault on a peace officer and possession of a weapon by a prisoner. 
His appeal also questioned whether his trial lawyers were deficient.

The 3rd case refused by the high court involved prisoner Michael Wayne Norris, 
whose case was returned by a federal district judge in 2015 to his trial court 
in Houston for a new punishment hearing. A federal appeals court last year 
upheld that decision. Norris has been on death row nearly 30 years for fatally 
shooting a Houston mother and her 2-year-old son.

Patrick McCann, Norris' attorney, said Monday the ruling involved legal 
procedural point related to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Norris is awaiting his new punishment trial and Monday's ruling had no effect 
on that, McCann said.

Norris was on parole after serving time for murder when he was arrested for 
fatally shooting Georgia Rollins, 38, and her 2-year-old son, Keith, at their 
Houston apartment in 1986. His appeal challenged the instructions provided to 
his jurors during the punishment phase of his 1987 trial in Harris County.

At the time, trial courts were wrestling with evolving jury instructions about 
mitigating evidence, like mental impairment or dysfunctional childhood, and how 
it should be applied to punishment in capital murder convictions. The Supreme 
Court visited the issue several times, refining trial procedures through its 
rulings, and several cases of Norris' era were returned to trial courts for new 
punishment hearings.

(source: Associated Press)






GEORGIA:

Justices to Consider Scope of Habeas Review in Death Penalty Appeals


The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to weigh into the issue of which prior state 
court rulings a federal court should evaluate when deciding the merits of a 
condemned inmate's appeal.

The case involves Marion Wilson Jr., a Georgia inmate, who, along with 
co-defendant Robert Earl Butts, was sentenced to death for the 1996 killing of 
state prison guard Donovan Parks.

The 2 men had approached Parks in a Milledgeville, Ga. Wal-Mart parking lot and 
asked him for a ride. Parks invited them into his car, but a short time later, 
they ordered him to pull over to the side of a residential street, where they 
killed him with a sawed-off shotgun blast to the head.

After a jury trial, Wilson was convicted of malice murder, felony murder, armed 
robbery, hijacking a motor vehicle, and possession of a firearm during the 
commission of a crime.

The jury later came back and sentenced him to death for the murder, finding as 
a statutory aggravating circumstance that Wilson killed Parks while engaged in 
the commission of an armed robbery.

The sentence was later affirmed by a Georgia superior court judge and the state 
Supreme Court.

Wilson appealed his sentence to the federal court in Atlanta, and after failing 
to have it overturned there, asked the 11th Circuit to intervene.

But that's where things got complicated.

The appeals court had to decide which of 2 lower court rulings it would 
consider when deciding the merits of Wilson's appeal: the short, summary 
opinion of the Georgia Supreme Court, or the far more detailed ruling handed 
down by the superior court judge.

Lawyers for Wilson and the state attorney general's office both argued the 
panel they should give the most weight to the superior court ruling, which they 
said grew out of hearings and after the judge had reviewed the evidence and 
heard testimony in the case.

Rather than simply cede the point in the face of a unified defense and 
prosecution, the 11th Circuit took the unusual step of appointing Adam Mortara, 
a Chicago attorney who had not previously been involved in the case, to argue 
in favor of relying on the Supreme Court summary.

In Aug. 2016, a sharply divided 11th Circuit voted 6-5 in Mortara's favor.

Writing for the majority, U.S. Circuit William Pryor Jr., who is also a 
commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, said that to contend the 
Supreme Court's denial of Wilson's appeal was not "an adjudication on the 
merits is to suggest that the elaborate procedures of the Georgia courts are a 
sham."

"We refuse to endorse that suggestion," Pryor said.

Wilson's attorneys filed their petition for a writ of certiorari 3 months 
later.

As is its custom, the U.S. Supreme Court did not explain its rationale for 
taking up the case. However, the outcome of their decision could make it more 
difficult for death-row inmates to persuade federal appeals courts to overturn 
their capital sentences.

The justices also invited Mortara to brief and argue, as amicus curiae, in 
support of the 11th Circuit's decision.

(source: Courthouse News)






FLORIDA:

Judge throws out death penalty for Winter Springs strangler


17 years ago a Seminole circuit judge sentenced Arthur Barnhill III to death 
for sneaking into the home of an 84-year-old Winter Springs man and strangling 
him.

Last week, the same judge, Kenneth Lester Jr., threw out that sentence because 
the law has changed.

At the penalty phase of Barnhill's trial in 1999, a jury voted 9 to 3 to 
recommend death.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled last year that juries must vote 12-0 for a 
defendant to get the death penalty.

The body of Earl Gallipeau, a man whose yard Barnhill sometimes mowed, was 
found in his home on Aug. 6, 1995. He had been strangled with a belt and a 
towel.

2 days later, authorities found Barnhill and Gallipeau's car, a Ford Taurus, in 
New York City.

Barnhill gave a partial confession, saying he had restrained Gallipeau while 
someone else killed him. He later pleaded no contest to murder.

The case went before a jury because prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. 
The 12-member panel recommended death, and Lester Jr. imposed it.

His sentence was twice upheld by the Florida Supreme Court, but the U.S. 
Supreme Court last year ordered an overhaul of Florida's death-penalty statute, 
resulting several months later in the new 12-0 standard.

If prosecutors want Barnhill sent to death row again, they must convince every 
member of a new jury that death is the proper sentence. Otherwise, his sentence 
will be life in prison.

State Attorney Phil Archer has not made a decision on what to do, a spokeswoman 
said.

(source: Orlando Sentinel)






LOUISIANA:

Supreme Court snubs challenge to death penalty constitutionality


The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a direct challenge to the 
constitutionality of the death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment, 
rejecting an appeal by a Louisiana death row inmate convicted of killing 3 
brothers.

Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer objected to the court's decision not to hear the 
appeal by Marcus Reed, a drug dealer convicted in the 2010 shooting deaths of 
the 3 brothers, including a 13-year-old, over the theft of marijuana and an 
Xbox videogame console from his home.

The court's action came at a time of deep divisions among the eight justices 
over the death penalty, with Breyer and other liberals expressing doubt about 
whether capital punishment remains acceptable under the U.S. Constitution 4 
decades after the court reinstated it.

Breyer, renewing his concerns over how the death penalty is administered in 
America, noted that Reed was sentenced to death in Louisiana's Caddo Parish, a 
county that he said has apparently sentenced more people to death per capita 
than any other county in the United States in recent history.

Breyer wrote that "the arbitrary role that geography plays in the imposition of 
the death penalty," with certain places much more likely than others to use it, 
helped him "conclude that the court should consider the basic question of the 
death penalty's constitutionality."

Reed, who is now 39 and was 33 at the time of the murders, asked the U.S. 
Supreme Court to determine whether the death penalty represented cruel and 
unusual punishment, forbidden by the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment.

"The standards of decency have evolved since this court last considered the 
broad question of the constitutionality of capital punishment," Reed's petition 
said.

Reed's lawyers argued that capital punishment undermines human dignity and 
public confidence in the fair administration of justice, adding that its use by 
states has dropped to such low levels that it can hardly be considered an 
indispensable part of the criminal justice system.

The Supreme Court upheld the death penalty as constitutional in a landmark 1976 
ruling, but has in more recent years imposed some limits in its application for 
juveniles and people with intellectual disabilities.

The justices' starkly contrasting views on capital punishment have been on 
display in recent cases. Last week, after the court turned away a death row 
inmate's challenge to Alabama's lethal injection procedures, liberal Justice 
Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent saying lethal injection might be the "most 
cruel" method yet.

Reed was convicted in 2013 of murdering 18-year-old Jarquis Adams and his 
brothers Jeremiah, 20, and Gene, 13. The jury rejected his self-defense 
argument.

According to prosecutors, Reed believed Jarquis Adams had stolen his Xbox and 
marijuana from his home in a rural, wooded area outside Shreveport, and used an 
assault rifle to gun down the brothers, spraying their car with bullets. Police 
arrived at the scene to find blood and gasoline pouring down the driveway, 
court papers said.

The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld Reed's conviction and death sentence last 
September.

(source: Reuters)






ARKANSAS:

Governor of Arkansas sets execution dates for 8 inmates


Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Monday set execution dates for 8 inmates in an 
attempt to resume the death penalty after a nearly 12-year hiatus, even though 
the state lacks 1 of 3 drugs needed to put the men to death.

The Republican governor signed a proclamation scheduling executions for the 8 
inmates, but the dates were not immediately released. The move comes days after 
the state's attorney general told the governor the inmates had exhausted their 
appeals and there were no more legal obstacles to their executions.

"This action is necessary to fulfill the requirement of the law, but it is also 
important to bring closure to the victims' families who have lived with the 
court appeals and uncertainty for a very long time," Hutchinson said in a 
statement.

The U.S. Supreme Court last week rejected the inmates' request to review a 
state court ruling that upheld Arkansas' lethal injection law. The state 
Supreme Court on Friday lifted the stay on its ruling, clearing the way for 
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge to request the dates be set.

The state's supply of potassium chloride, 1 of 3 drugs used in lethal 
injections, expired in January. A prison system spokesman said Monday that the 
drug hasn't been replaced, but Hutchinson's office said there's confidence the 
state can find a new supply.

An attorney for the inmates did not have an immediate comment on the governor's 
announcement. The inmates late Friday filed an amended complaint in state court 
aimed at blocking the executions.

Arkansas hasn't executed an inmate since 2005.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Ark. widow hopeful executions will bring closure to victims' families


State leaders are ready to send eight inmates to their deaths. Governor Asa 
Hutchinson set their execution dates Monday, which would be the 1st in Arkansas 
in 12 years.

Elaine Colclasure is among those hopeful that the executions will finally take 
place.

"Because I think that, sometimes, you have some people that are just too evil 
to live," Colclasure said.

The cold, lonely, uncertain life of a death row inmate is familiar to her. Her 
husband's killer is on it. She said the process of waiting for an execution is 
torturous on the victims' families.

"The families are just in a holding pattern," she stated. "You're just, you 
can???t grieve, you can't get on with your life, because you're constantly 
waiting. First, you wait for the arrest, and then the trial. And then you 
think, well, they've gotten life in prison without parole, or they're going to 
have the death penalty, but it???s never used."

The wait could end in the middle of April for some families, because that's 
when Governor Hutchinson set execution dates of 8 of the 34 men on death row. 
The executions are scheduled as follows:

April 17: Don Davis and Bruce Ward

April 20: Stacey Johnson and Ledelle Lee

April 24: Jack Jones, Jr. and Marcel Williams

April 27: Jason McGehee and Kenneth Williams

The timing is noteworthy. Arkansas uses 3 drugs in its injection cocktail: 
potassium chloride, midazolam, and vecuronium bromide. According to Solomon 
Graves, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Correction, its supply of 
potassium chloride expired in January, and its midazolam will expire at the end 
of April, just a few days after the last of the 8 executions. If the state 
cannot get more potassium chloride soon, it could be 2 drugs short, pushing 
those dates back even further.

"This constantly dragging families, waiting, and waiting, and waiting, is 
cruel," Colclasure said. "And they keep talking about cruel and unusual 
punishment; do you think that's not for the families? That's as cruel and much 
punishment to them as it is to anybody."

The US Supreme Court ended 5 years of legal questions last week that led to the 
8 new execution dates. While the man convicted of killing her husband, Alvin 
Jackson, is not among the 8, Colclasure hopes the questions about the death 
penalty in Arkansas are finally finished.

"I mean, if you're going to do it, go ahead and do it," she said. "It's not 
fair to (the victims' families), it's not justice, it's just hard for 
everyone."

Jackson was originally sentenced to 60 years in prison for killing Charles 
Colclasure in 1990. He was sentenced to death in 1996 for killing Sgt. Scott 
Grimes inside the Tucker Unit. Elaine Colclasure said the appeals process has 
extended her agony.

"We waited 3 years for 1 question on Alvin Jackson," she explained. "Why does 
it take 3 years for a judge to come back and say yes or no?"

Jackson's stay on death row is not unusual. Of the 8 men who dates Gov. 
Hutchinson set Monday, all have been on death row for at least 17 years, with 
Davis on it the longest, at 25 years.

Colclasure said she supports the death penalty in part because of inmates like 
Jackson, who killed Sgt. Grimes even while incarcerated. She also worries about 
the possibility of reduced sentences for some of them.

"You can't guarantee that somebody that is as evil as some of these men are, 
that (they) are not going to be out again," she explained.

(source: KHTV news)






USA:

Pam Bondi hopes Gorsuch leads SCOTUS to review death penalty


Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday she hopes Judge Neil Gorsuch's 
potential Supreme Court confirmation will yield new guidance from the high 
court on the death penalty.

"We need clarification regarding the death penalty," Bondi told the Washington 
Examiner. "It's different in many states. ... It's a bit different throughout 
the country, so I look forward to Judge Gorsuch being on the court, Justice 
Gorsuch being on the court, and bringing some clarification to those issues."

Bipartisan momentum may be building for a Supreme Court review of the death 
penalty, as Justice Stephen Breyer, appointed by President Bill Clinton, has 
also said a review may be needed. Bondi is a Republican.

Last year, the Supreme Court decided Florida's death penalty process was 
unconstitutional because it provided power to judges that was reserved for 
juries. In that case, Justice Breyer publicly urged the Supreme Court to 
reconsider the constitutionality of the death penalty, one of several times he 
has made that request during his term.

Breyer dissented again Monday from the Supreme Court's decision not to take a 
death penalty case from Louisiana.

"Marcus Dante Reed was sentenced to death in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, a county 
that in recent history has apparently sentenced more people to death per capita 
than any other county in the United States," Breyer wrote in dissent. "The 
arbitrary role that geography plays in the imposition of the death penalty, 
along with the other serious problems I have previously described, has led me 
to conclude that the court should consider the basic question of the death 
penalty's constitutionality."

If the Supreme Court does reconsider the constitutionality of the death penalty 
after a potential Gorsuch confirmation, the newest justice could prove to be a 
determinative vote. Gorsuch has written extensively on the issues of death and 
dying - including a book he authored about assisted suicide and euthanasia - 
but less on matters involving capital punishment.

Gorsuch's rulings involving the death penalty have not shown the judge to be 
concerned about the punishment's constitutionality, but analyses have found 
that he frequently favors the side of criminal defendants against the state - 
similar in some ways to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whose seat Gorsuch 
hopes to fill.

(source: Washington Examiner)