[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., FLA., LA., ARK., USA
Rick Halperin
rhalperi at smu.edu
Tue Feb 28 08:15:56 CST 2017
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)
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