[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., VA., N.C., GA., FLA., ALA.

[Rick Halperin]

July 22



TEXAS----impending execution

Texas Prepares for Execution of Taichin Preyor on July 27, 2017



Taichin "Box" Preyor's execution is scheduled to occur at 6 pm CDT, on 
Thursday, July 27, 2017, at the Walls Unit of the Huntsville State Penitentiary 
in Huntsville, Texas. Taichin was scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, July 
20, 2016, however, that date was later removed from Texas' online execution 
calendar, without comment. 46-year-old Taichin is convicted of the murder of 
24-year-old Jami Tackett on February 26, 2004, in Bexar County, Texas. Taichin 
has spent the last 12 years of his life on Texas' death row.

Prior to his arrest, Taichin worked as a truck driver and a laborer. He did not 
graduate high school, dropping out after the 10th grade. In 1999, Taichin was 
arrested and served time for a drug offense in Syracuse, New York. After being 
released from prison, Taichin moved to San Antonio, Texas, where he was later 
joined by his wife and children. Police had previously been called to the 
residence for a "family violence call." Taichin's brother was one of the police 
officers who responded to the call.

During the early morning hours of February 26, 2004, at approximately 4 am, 
Taichin Preyor broke into the apartment of his ex-girlfriend, Jami Tackett, by 
breaking down the door. Preyor went to Jami's bedroom, where he jumped on the 
bed and began attacking her with a knife. He also stabbed Jami's new boyfriend, 
Jason Garza, who fled the apartment, going to a neighbor and asking them to 
call the police.

During the fight, Preyor lost his car keys, leaving him unable to flea the 
scene. Preyor searched the apartment while Jami lay on the floor, struggling to 
breathe. As he attempted to leave the building for a 2nd time, Preyor 
encountered the police. The police were forced to use pepper spray to subdue 
Preyor, who refused to comply with their demands. Preyor was covered in blood 
when he was arrested.

Jami died from her injuries before paramedics arrived on the scene. Jason 
survived his injury.

During his trial, Preyor attempted to argue that his actions that morning was 
self defense. Prosecutors argued that the door being broken down indicates that 
Preyor was the aggressor.

Please pray for peace and healing for the family of Jami Tackett and for Jason 
Garza. Please pray for strength for the family of Taichin Preyor. Please pray 
that if Taichin is innocent, lacks the competency to be executed, or should not 
be executed for any other reason, that evidence will be presented prior to his 
execution. Please pray that Taichin may come to find peace through a personal 
relationship with Jesus Christ, if he has not already.

(source: theforgivenessfoundation.org)

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

Waco: Judge denies habeas corpus relief to convicted killer



A Waco district judge refused to grant habeas corpus relief to a man convicted 
in the same courtroom 2 years ago of capital murder but did allow appeals 
lawyers to submit briefs on 2 topics.

Judge Ralph Strother, in 19th District Court, said granting relief on the 
habeas corpus issue would "be like trying this case all over again," as US 
Carnell Petetan, dressed in jail clothing, sat silent and motionless at the 
defense table.

Petetan was convicted in the same courtroom in 2014 and Strother, after the 
jury's recommendation, sentenced him to death.

Bailiffs cleared the courtroom of visitors and attorneys while Petetan, 
shackled at the wrists and ankles, was led in.

After he was seated the judge allowed everyone back in the courtroom.

Lawyers with the state Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, in Austin, 
presented Strother with an 8-page application that listed 8 major issues at 
trial and expanded on each one.

Strother, as presiding judge, was directed to determine if there were any 
unresolved issues stemming from the trial, if so, identify them and finally 
determine what action needed to be taken, Jeremy Schepers, 1 of the appellate 
lawyers, said.

Schepers argued that Petetan was convicted by the jury who didn\'t have 
knowledge of his behavioral deficiency and that deficiency, under state law, 
means Petetan is ineligible for the death penalty.

But Assistant District Attorney Sterling Harmon reminded Strother that Petetan, 
himself, testified at his own trial and the jury was able to see and hear him 
for themselves.

As well, Schepers said, Petetan's lawyers at trial were ineffective and did not 
properly represent him.

At the end of the 40-minute hearing Strother denied habeas corpus relief but 
did direct appellate lawyers to prepare briefs on 2 issues: the 1st Petetan's 
developmental disability and 2nd his claim of ineffective assistance of 
counsel.

Waco attorney Russ Hunt, Sr., represented Petetan at trial and Strother 
directed that Hunt be given 120 days to respond to the appeals charge.

The briefs are due back to Strother and he will review them to decide if 
further hearings are necessary.

If Strother finds merit in the appeals argument, he likely would set another 
hearing on that specific issue.

Petetan was convicted of killing his estranged wife on Sept. 12, 2012 and was 
sent to death row in 2014.

Kimberly Farr Petetan, 41, was gunned down at an apartment complex on Lake 
Shore Drive and her daughter was abducted.

Police in Bryan arrested Petetan after they found him and the little girl 
there.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals already has upheld Petetan's conviction and 
death sentence, rejecting an appeal in which his attorneys raised 30 points of 
error from his trial, during which the defense maintained Petetan was mentally 
impaired and thereby ineligible for the death penalty.

Friday's habeas corpus hearing is required by state law in all death penalty 
cases.

(source: KWTX news)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Statements: Accused killer denies murder but tells troopers he watched man die



Justin Richard swore up and down in recorded statements he gave to state 
troopers that he didn't kill Randy Sampsell but he did say he watched the man 
die.

Richard sparred verbally with Troopers Phil Davis and James Nizinski in his 
initial police interview as part of the Sampsell murder investigation.

It was recorded on video June 28, 2012, and played Thursday in Union County 
Court during a hearing on Richard's bid to quash statements he made to police 
on 5 separate occasions.

Richard, 33, is charged with killing Sampsell, faces a capital murder trial and 
could receive the death penalty if convicted.

"The dude didn't deserve to die. I'll tell you straight up, I watched him die," 
Richard told Davis and Nizinski in the recorded interview. "That wasn't part of 
the plan. I do have a conscience."

Over and over, though, Richard insisted "I didn't do it" when asked who killed 
Sampsell on June 12, 2012.

In the video and on an audio recording of a separate interview, Richard 
appeared agitated and combative. He frequently spoke over investigators and 
offered a slew of obscenities during the interviews.

Sampsell, 51, was shot dead during a home invasion. According to Richard's 
statements to police, an unknown black male kicked open Sampsell's front door 
and shot the man as he attempted to stand up from a recliner.

Police said Richard and Herbert Tiebout were among 4 men who targeted Sampsell 
for a robbery. The robbers thought they'd make off with marijuana and money. 
They fled with prescription pills. 2 of the men were never identified and 
remain at large.

Scott Vonneida, of Millmont, was badly injured and lost vision in 1 eye from a 
blow to the face by Richard in a robbery hours before the Sampsell murder, 
police said. Vonneida was robbed of 10 guns, including a rifle used to kill 
Sampsell.

The statements Richard is not contesting were used as part of a plea deal. He 
pleaded guilty to 3rd-degree murder and faced between 16 and 32 years for 
testimony against Tiebout.

Richard twice recanted his statements, though - the 2nd time at the outset of 
Tiebout's murder trial in September 2015. 2nd- and 3rd-degree murder charges 
were dismissed against Tiebout and haven't been filed again.

A 1st-degree murder charge against Richard followed in December 2015 when 
prosecution witness Amanda Kratzer modified previous police statements to 
accuse Richard of twice confessing to shooting Sampsell himself.

Richard is fighting the murder case and related robbery accusations, aided in 
his defense by attorneys Michael Dennehy and John McLaughlin.

Thursday's hearing was on motions by Richard's defense team to suppress the 
police statements and dismiss the case for prosecutorial vindictiveness.

The hearing began at 9 a.m. with a lengthy behind-closed-doors meeting with 
attorneys from both sides with Judge Michael Sholley. When it resumed at 10 
a.m., Davis took the stand. Video from the June 28 interview was played, 
followed by audio from an October 20, 2012, interview at the state prison in 
Frackville.

"The whole thing was about weed," Richard told Davis on the audio recording.

"The man wasn't supposed to die. I live with that every day of my life. Now I'm 
going to spend the rest of my life in prison because some idiot pulled the 
trigger," Richard said later in the interview.

District Attorney Pete Johnson entered recordings, recording transcripts and 
Miranda rights waivers signed by Richard into evidence in a move to support his 
argument against the defense's assertions that the statements were involuntary 
and under duress.

The hearing was scheduled for the morning only. A slow pace looked to push it 
into the afternoon, conflicting with previously scheduled hearings.

Sholley abruptly adjourned the proceeding, offering no explanation from the 
bench. He couldn't be reached for comment.

The prosecution and defense are each under a gag order, barring the attorneys 
from discussing the case with media members.

An order on Richard's motions was not issued by Sholley by the end of Thursday 
and the hearing was not added to court schedules for Friday or next week. It 
remains unclear if and when the hearing will resume.

At the hearing's outset, Dennehy reiterated the defense's wish to continue the 
hearing regarding the suppression motion.

"We're looking for a continuance to further develop the issue for court," 
Dennehy said of attempting to show Richard was in an adverse mental state when 
he spoke with police.

(source: The Daily Item)








VIRGINIA:

Gov. McAuliffe made an irreversible mistake



William Charles Morva was put to death because our legal system failed him. 
When Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) denied Morva clemency on July 6, he 
apparently misunderstood the facts about Morva's mental illness and squandered 
an opportunity for compassion.

When the governor refused to intervene, he missed a chance to exercise a solemn 
constitutional duty to save Morva's life. In a case that cried out for mercy, 
McAuliffe disregarded that the sentencing jurors never heard the compelling 
evidence of Morva's long-standing, debilitating mental illness. Although 
Morva's death is an irreversible mistake, he should not die in vain.

Death should be an extraordinary, rare punishment. U.S. and Virginia laws 
reflect the centuries-old bedrock principles that a death sentence is 
exceptional and that mercy alone is always reason enough to avoid the death 
penalty.

Jurors are not only allowed but also required to follow their individual moral 
judgment in determining whether death is the appropriate punishment. The 
governor, in wielding his awesome power to grant or deny clemency, carries that 
same obligation. Virginia's constitution provides the governor the unrestricted 
power to commute capital punishment to life in prison.

If McAuliffe had fully understood Morva's disease, he would have surely spared 
Morva's life. In 2006, believing himself to be the target of a sprawling 
conspiracy to kill him through abusive prison conditions, Morva escaped from a 
jail where he awaited trial on felony charges and killed 2 public-safety 
officers. If told little more than these facts, a jury might understandably 
have little sympathy for Morva.

But what jurors never got to hear was testimony from a psychiatrist - placed on 
the case in 2014 - that Morva suffered from a treatable, schizophrenia-like 
illness with psychotic features and was mentally incompetent to participate in 
his legal proceedings.

This psychiatrist could have related to jurors what scores of Morva's family 
members and friends reported to her: They had watched Morva's mental health 
precipitously decline in the years before the crimes and had seen his untreated 
illness worsen for the remainder of his life. Morva's mother and others 
reported how, for years, he refused to take visits or calls from her and his 
lawyers, believing them all to be part of the grand conspiracy. Jurors also did 
not hear that Morva believed his behavior was saving Native American tribes, 
nor that he subsisted on a diet of raw meat and pine cones while living in the 
woods barefoot in the winter. The experts at Morva's trial never learned, or 
bothered to learn, about Morva's debilitating delusions.

Instead, jurors heard only that Morva's "odd beliefs" resulted from a 
personality disorder that the prosecution asserted was untreatable and made him 
likely to kill again. Given the sparse, inaccurate information before them, the 
jurors unsurprisingly sentenced Morva to die.

The details of Morva's debilitating illness from his family, friends and 
psychiatrist would have been powerful evidence - had the jurors ever heard it.

Faced with this new and clearly relevant evidence, the state chose to ignore 
it, never seeking an expert to consider what witnesses said and to review the 
psychiatrist's findings.

Oddly, the governor's statement denying clemency relied on the fact that the 
psychiatrist's post-trial diagnosis conflicted with the testimony jurors heard 
at trial. But that is precisely the point: Jurors never heard the observations 
of severe symptoms that anyone who crossed Morva's path in the years before the 
crime would have seen and the informed opinion of a qualified doctor. Rather, 
the experts at trial relied on outdated information about Morva's childhood 
long before his symptoms began.

In short, the trial evidence painted a grossly inaccurate picture of Morva's 
life and true self. Before Morva's delusions began, friends, classmates and 
family described acts of care and love toward them and others. The jurors never 
got to hear of Morva - a young man, like others, of character and promise - as 
McAuliffe did.

In denying clemency, the governor asked, "Does Morva deserve to live?" Instead, 
he should have asked, "Do I, in my personal moral judgment, think the state 
proved it has the right to take this life?" The right question would have led 
McAuliffe to reach a different conclusion and to spare Morva's life.

Applying mercy to capital cases reaffirms our common beliefs in the rule of law 
and in the dignity and value of every person regardless of what he or she has 
done.

(source: Opinion; By Gene Rossi and Edward J. Ungvarsky----Gene Rossi is a 
retired Justice Department prosecutor. Edward J. Ungvarsky is a career public 
defender based in Vienna who represents defendants prosecuted in Virginia on 
capital murder charges----Washington Post)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Psychologist: Accused killer had been diagnosed with PTSD



The Texas man accused of robbing and killing a Granville County couple almost 3 
years ago had been diagnosed as a child as suffering from post-traumatic stress 
disorder because of repeated physical and emotional abuse by his father, a 
psychologist testified Friday.

Eric Alexander Campbell, 24, of Alvin, Texas, is charged with 1st-degree 
murder, 1st-degree burglary, 2nd-degree arson, robbery with a dangerous weapon, 
larceny of a motor vehicle, financial card theft, identity theft and 2 counts 
of cruelty to animals in the Dec. 31, 2014, deaths of Jerome Faulkner, 73, and 
his wife, Dora Faulkner, 62.

If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Authorities say Campbell and his father, Edward Watson Campbell, stormed into 
the Faulkners' home in northern Granville County, robbed them, set fire to the 
house and killed them before fleeing in both the couple's Chevrolet Silverado 
and a stolen SUV.

Eric Campbell insisted during testimony Thursday that his father killed the 
Faulkners and that he was outside their home in northern Granville County 
during much of the attack.

Leigh Hagan, a Virginia-based psychologist hired by the defense, said several 
psychologists have diagnosed Eric Campbell with chronic PTSD, starting at age 
8. Hagan said his own examination found Campbell to be so afraid of his father 
that he would never challenge or even question him, even during the brutal 
attack on the Faulkners.

"The abuse relationship substantially accounts for Eric's conduct in the time 
frame of this offense," Hagan testified. "Eric endured reasonable fear that he 
would suffer immediate death or bodily injury if he didn't submit to his 
father's will.

"Eric decided ... it would be better for his own protection to do what Daddy 
says," Hagan later testified.

Edward Campbell killed himself in March 2015 in Raleigh's Central Prison, where 
he was being held.

Earlier Friday, Eric Campbell faced about 3 hours of cross-examination by 
prosecutors, who repeatedly pointed out inconsistencies between his testimony 
Thursday and his statements to law enforcement officers shortly after his 
arrest.

Police in Lewisburg, W.Va., arrested the Campbells on Jan. 1, 2015, following a 
shootout, and investigators found the Faulkners' bodies under a mattress in the 
back of the pickup.

Eric Campbell gave West Virginia police a first-person account of the 
Faulkners' slayings, but he testified that he based that on what his father had 
told him.

"I'm just telling you what my dad told me what he did," Campbell told Granville 
County District Attorney Mike Waters.

"I'm not asking what your dad said because you already told the jury you were 
right there when it happened," Waters shot back.

"I wasn???t watching what my dad was doing. I was looking at a man on the 
ground, dying," Campbell said.

Campbell said he thought his father planned to rob the Faulkners and was 
shocked when he saw the carnage inside the house.

(source: WRAL news)








GEORGIA:

Justice delayed, denied ... for 40 years now



Attorneys for convicted "Stocking Strangler" Carlton Gary argued their case for 
a new trial, based on what they claim is new evidence, back in January before 
Muscogee Superior Court Judge Frank Jordan Jr.

As of Friday, there had still been no ruling.

Not that local and state legal officials - some of whom were literally children 
when all this began - haven't been pushing for one. As reported by the 
Ledger-Enquirer's Tim Chitwood, District Attorney Julia Slater and a group of 
prosecutors, including 1 present and 1 former assistant state attorney general, 
filed a motion June 27 calling on Jordan to make a decision.

So urgent was the prosecutors' insistence on moving this decades-long case 
forward that their motion cites Georgia law setting a 90-day deadline for the 
court to issue such a ruling "unless providentially hindered or unless counsel 
for the plaintiff and the defendant agree in writing to extend the time." It 
has now been more than 6 months, in case you weren't counting. (Under the same 
state law, failure to comply "shall be grounds for impeachment and the penalty 
therefore shall be [the judge's] removal from office.")

Whatever the judge's decision, Slater said, it won't be the end of the matter 
anyway: "I anticipate that whatever the ruling is, 1 side will appeal."

The sad and ugly reality is that whether we're talking about 90 days or 6 
months, it's a relative eye blink in time - though just the latest in what 
seems an infinite series of them - in the long nightmare of a serial killer's 
violent, terrifying crime spree and its seemingly endless aftermath.

It has been 40 years since the first of the rapes and stranglings of 7 older 
Columbus women. Their families' wait for justice is well into its 3rd 
generation now; it has been so long since these murders shook Columbus and the 
whole Chattahoochee Valley area that some of the victims' loved ones have lived 
out their lives, waiting futilely for justice, and passed on.

It has been more than 30 years since Carlton Gary, convicted in three of the 
murders - the ones for which, in the pre-DNA forensic technology of 1986, 
prosecutors had the strongest cases - was convicted and sentenced to death. 
(Years later, DNA evidence from one of the murders for which he was not tried 
matched Gary's; DNA evidence from 1 of the murders for which he was convicted 
had been contaminated during comparison tests at the GBI crime lab.)

And it has been more than 7 years since that death sentence was last scheduled 
to be carried out. At 66, Gary is now older than 3 of the victims when their 
lives ended in violence, pain and terror.

Both the guilty verdict and the capital sentence imposed on Carlton Gary have 
been upheld by every court to which the case has been appealed, including the 
U.S. Supreme Court - twice. No judge in any appeals panel to which the case was 
presented has offered a dissent. Life without the possibility of parole was not 
a lawful sentence at the time of Gary's conviction, so commuting his death 
sentence to life now could present legal complications - including possible (if 
unlikely) parole, given the time Gary has already served.

A 1980 Georgia Supreme Court ruling requires that a new trial must be based on 
genuinely new evidence (not just evidence the defense failed or neglected to 
produce earlier), and that such evidence be so compelling that it would likely 
have affected the verdict.

In any case, as Slater pointed out, whatever the eventual ruling from the 
Superior Court, it likely just sets another appeals process in motion. To drag 
this case out any longer than absolutely necessary, given the heinousness of 
the crimes and the absurd span of time over which it has been dragged out 
already, would be unconscionable.

(source: Opinion, Dusty Nix, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer)








FLORIDA:

Lawsuit Challenges State Use Of Solitary For Death Row



A federal lawsuit is challenging Florida's policy of isolating all death row 
prison inmates in solitary confinement indefinitely.

The lawsuit was filed in Jacksonville federal court on behalf of 9 inmates who 
have been held in solitary for between 4 and 30 years. It seeks to represent 
all Florida death row prisoners, who totaled 363 on Thursday.

The Florida Department of Corrections policy violates the Constitution's 
protection against cruel and unusual punishment and guarantee of due process, 
according to the lawsuit. It asks a judge to prohibit the department from 
keeping death row inmates in solitary except for limited periods and for 
justified reasons.

Similar lawsuits have been filed in Louisiana, California, Arizona, New York 
and New Jersey.

A corrections spokeswoman said the lawsuit would be reviewed.

(source: WGCU news)

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

St. Cloud father receives death sentence in infant murder



The same jury that last week found a St. Cloud guilty of 1st-degree murder for 
killing his own son in a sleep-deprived state in 2013 sentenced him to the 
death penalty Tuesday.

On July 13, the jury found that what Larry Perry, 33, did in killing his son, 
Ayden, just 3 months old on Feb. 13, 2013, warranted being found guilty of 
murder. It was more than the lesser charge of manslaughter that he plead guilty 
to before the jury deliberated.

Then Tuesday, after hearing a day's worth of testimony from mental health 
experts rating Perry's ability to intellectually process what he'd done, the 
jury unanimously recommended the death penalty. Another hearing will be held on 
Oct. 13, and unless there is added testimony, Ninth Circuit Judge Jon B. Morgan 
will formally sentence him.

The trial was delayed for months as the state reassigned the case from 
Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala, who said she would not pursue the 
death penalty in any case, to Lake-Marion State Attorney Brad King, and while 
the defense pursued a public defender qualified for death penalty cases.

During the trial, prosecutors played a chilling 911 call in which a baby is 
moaning, and Perry is recorded saying, "I told them I couldn't do this any 
more."

A St. Cloud Fire Rescue official testified finding a bruised, swollen boy after 
reporting to the home, and a police investigator said on the stand that Perry, 
during interrogation, was calm and not upset that a child in his care had been 
brutally beaten, recounting what he did while yawning.

He said the baby's mother had been arrested earlier in the month on a drug 
charge, and she was the one who was able to keep the boy quiet, but he was 
alone with the child that night.

After giving Ayden 3 bottles over the course of the evening, Perry said the boy 
continued screaming and crying. He proceeded to slam him against a wall, threw 
him on the bed, then put him on the floor and kicked him. Perry then called 
911.

"I thought he was dead at first," Perry told the investigators. "I know what I 
did, I deserve whatever ... nobody helped me, I called 911 myself. I'm telling 
you, I just can't do this (expletive) myself."

Perry buried his head into his arms at the table during most testimony in both 
trial and sentencing stages. Afterward, defense attorney Frank Bankowitz 
offered to plead guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter, but argued the 
murder charge should not stand because Perry, who chose not to testify in the 
case, had not slept well after the child's mother was arrested and lacked the 
capacity to know what he could do, or that he could take the baby to a nearby 
fire station.

"This was not an act thought out," Bankowitz said, saying it lacked the 
premeditation needed for a 1st-degree murder charge. "He just snapped."

But the jury did not agree and said he should die for his crime.

(source: aroundosceola.com)

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

Alleged murderer's competency called into question in Collier court



Collier County's most gruesome murder case is coming to a close. Accused mass 
murderer, Mesac Damas, said he wants to plead guilty and be executed.

He's the man charged with the murders of his wife and 5 children.

It seemed like Damas had an agenda in court on Friday. He wouldn't answer the 
judge's questions, and instead told the judge he wanted to plead guilty and get 
it over with.

"I would like to represent myself. I would like these 2 gentlemen to be removed 
from the case, and I would like to plead guilty now," Damas said in a court 
hearing.

He's asked multiple times to fire his attorneys and said he wants to face the 
death penalty - but neither of those things happened in the courtroom.

After Damas refused to answer some of the questions that were asked of him, the 
judge ordered another competency evaluation. He's unsure that Damas is 
competent to represent himself.

2 more doctors will evaluate him - a process that's been done multiple times 
since he was arrested in 2009.

We'll be back in the courtroom for this case on August 18 after a report has 
been given by those doctors. That will determine if he's competent to represent 
himself.

Linda Oberhaus with the Shelter for Abused Women and Children has been 
following this case for 8 years.

"It seemed to me that he was just manipulating the court system the same way he 
was manipulating his family when he had one," Oberhaus said.

In June, Damas told the judge he wanted to die. If the judge accepts Damas 
guilty plea, Damas still has the opportunity to have a jury decide his sentence 
or he can have the judge sentence him.

"If the judge finds he is competent to make those decisions and he makes those 
decisions as announced, there is a path to sentence him to death without a jury 
trial," attorney Josh Faett said.

Oberhaus says no matter what happens tomorrow; Guerline and her 5 children 
Mizach, Marven, Maven, Megan, and Morgan will always be remembered. Each of 
their throats was slit allegedly by the own father.

"It's really difficult to talk about justice when we talk about the fact that a 
beautiful family has been lost. Whether he gets life or death, that will never 
bring that family back."

(source: ABC news)








ALABAMA:

Did judicial override end in Alabama? Some say judges can still overrule jury 
to impose death penalty



2 north Alabama defense attorneys are disputing a judge's ability to override a 
jury vote and condemn a capital murder convict to death.

Although a change in state law earlier this year takes away judges' ability to 
reverse a jury decision and sentence a capital murder convict to death, 
judicial override might not be over.

The judicial override law bans judges from imposing the death penalty when a 
jury votes to sentence a capital murder convict to life in prison without the 
possibility of parole. The law became effective with Gov. Kay Ivey's signature 
on April 11. But, the law appears to leave a question about the cases to which 
it applies.

For people who were charged with but not convicted of capital murder prior to 
April 11, prosecutors say judges still can impose the death penalty, even if a 
jury votes for life without parole. Defense attorneys, on the other hand, say 
their clients are protected from judicial override -- just like any suspect 
charged after the April 11 signing date.

One case in question involves Richard Burgin, a man recently convicted of 
capital murder in the notorious Huntsville church food pantry killings. His 
lawyers argue Madison County Circuit Judge Karen Hall cannot sentence the 
54-year-old to die for killing brothers Anthony and Terry Jackson in 2013.

Because a jury voted 8-4 to send Richard Burgin to prison for life without 
parole, Judge Hall must impose the jury's recommendation, Huntsville lawyers 
Larry Marsili and Chad Morgan said in a court filing. The lawyers argue 
Alabama's recently-enacted Judicial Override law prohibits the judge from 
reversing the jury's sentencing recommendation.

Final sentencing rests with Circuit Judge Laura Hall.

Burgin was convicted and sentenced in May -- a month after the law was signed 
by the governor. But, prosecutors say the law doesn't protect Burgin because he 
was charged with capital murder before the bill became law. Burgin was arrested 
for capital murder in 2014. He was indicted the following year.

The only sentencing options in Alabama capital cases are life without parole or 
death. Alabama had been the only state that allows a judge to override a jury's 
recommendation when sentencing capital murder cases.

Judge Hall has not said whether she plans to sentence Burgin to death.

The judicial override law states, "This act shall apply to any defendant who is 
charged with capital murder after the effective date of this act and shall not 
apply retroactively to any defendant who has previously been convicted of 
capital murder and sentenced to death prior to the effective date of this act."

"It leaves open the question of someone who has been charged but not 
convicted," said retired Judge John Carroll, a professor at the Cumberland 
School of Law. "It's not crystal clear."

Madison County Chief Trial Attorney Tim Gann disagrees.

"In the law, they made it real clear," Gann said. "It's not retroactive and it 
doesn't apply in this case. It's a done deal. It's unambiguous. For us, this is 
a dead issue."

Joy Patterson, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Attorney General's Office, said 
the defendant would need to have been charged after April 11 to be protected 
from judicial override.

Burgin's trial was conducted under the theory that the judge had the final say 
in sentencing. The Madison County District Attorney's Office asked the jury to 
sentence Burgin to death, and now prosecutors are requesting the same from the 
judge. Sentencing is set for Aug. 22 at 1:30 p.m.

Because the defense lawyers argue the judge can't override the jury's 
recommendation, they say a sentencing hearing is "unnecessary and 
unauthorized," the court filing states.

"The newly enacted law makes no reference to the initial date of charging 
concerning the applicability of the law, instead indicating that the law 'shall 
apply to any defendant who is charged with capital murder after the effective 
date of this act,' Burgin's lawyers said in the filing.

Defense lawyers Morgan and Marsili also argue that if the legislature intended 
for the law not to apply in pending cases, like Burgin's, that lawmakers would 
have specified that.

Alabama Sen. Dick Brewbaker, a Republican from Montgomery, drafted the Judicial 
Override Bill.

"The intent of the legislature, and what we thought we were doing with passing 
the bill, was that upon signature of the governor, it would end judicial 
override in Alabama," Brewbaker told AL.com. "I think everyone in that chamber 
who voted for the bill thought, going forward, the juries' wishes would be the 
last word in all cases."

The Judicial Override Bill passed the House and Senate before being sent to the 
governor.

Birmingham lawyer Richard Jaffe has handled several death penalty cases in his 
career. He said at this point, the important question isn't whether judges can 
still legally override a jury verdict, but rather, "Why would they?"

"Because of the new law and the tenuous nature of the override practice, it 
would be perilous, and frankly, quite foolish for a judge to override," Jaffe 
said. "It's not in anyone's best interest for a judge to override. It's not 
fair to the victims' families or to the defendant. It would just be something 
that's litigated for years to come."

Jaffe told AL.com even before the law changed in April, many judges said 
override was so questionable that they wouldn't do it.

"You have to think about the constitutional implications," Jaffe said.

(source: al.com)