[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ARK., OKLA.

[Rick Halperin]

March 27



FLORIDA:

Tampa Bay's state attorneys say 17 local death row inmates could be eligible 
for resentencing


One man raped a woman, slit her throat, then tried to wash his DNA off her body 
with cleaning chemicals and lighter fluid.

Another raped and mutilated a 94-year-old woman in her home, then set her body 
on fire.

A 3rd stabbed his wife and stepdaughter to death, donning a painter's suit to 
dispose of their remains.

All were sentenced to death, but not by unanimous juries.

More than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court declared Florida's death penalty 
law unconstitutional, the men are among at least 17 death row inmates from the 
Tampa Bay area whom local state attorneys have identified as likely to be 
resentenced.

Within the next year, they could be reappearing in local courtrooms, arguing 
that they were condemned to death under an illegal sentencing procedure. At the 
heart of each case are juries whose recommendations for death were not always 
unanimous, as is now required.

"We have to thoroughly evaluate each case on a case-by-case basis," said 
Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren. "The death penalty is a critical 
part of our criminal justice system. The most important thing to me is that we 
get it right."

Warren's office has assembled a list of 7 death row defendants whose cases 
included juries that were not unanimous. In Pinellas County, State Attorney 
Bernie McCabe's office anticipates requests for new sentences from 8 men, plus 
2 more in Pasco County.

Some are notorious.

A jury was unanimous in recommending the death penalty for Dontae Morris for 
the killings of 2 Tampa police officers. But a 2nd jury voted 10-2 to give him 
death for the murder of Derek Anderson.

Some may be mentally ill.

Pedro Hernandez-Alberto, who shot his 2 stepdaughters to death in Apollo Beach 
in 1999, had a jury vote 10-2 in favor of death. Before trial and throughout 
his appeals, attorneys have questioned his mental competency.

Some have been condemned repeatedly.

Troy Merck has been sentenced to death 3 times over the years for a 1991 
stabbing outside a St. Petersburg nightclub. His most recent death sentence, in 
2004, came after a jury vote of 9-3.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the case of Hurst vs. Florida, 
which invalidated the state's death penalty law, Florida judges imposed death 
sentences after recommendations from juries, which could be made by a bare 
majority of 7-5.

The Hurst case applied a 2002 Supreme Court decision, Ring vs. Arizona, which 
held it unconstitutional for a judge instead of a jury to find the facts 
necessary to impose the death penalty.

This month, Gov. Rick Scott signed a new law, requiring a jury to make 
unanimous findings about aggravating and mitigating circumstances before 
unanimously agreeing to a death sentence.

Since the Hurst decision, the Florida Supreme Court has decided that some of 
the state's 381 death row inmates - those who hadn't completed a direct appeal 
or whose sentences came after Ring - may have unconstitutional sentences.

On Thursday, the state Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of Kenneth 
Jackson, who murdered a Seffner mother in 2007.

The other local cases likely to undergo resentencing are those who were sent to 
death row with nonunanimous jury recommendations, Warren said.

But even some cases with unanimous juries could see arguments for new 
sentences, according to Warren. That would add four more defendants in 
Hillsborough, including Willie Crain, who was condemned for the 1998 abduction 
and murder of 7-year-old Amanda Brown,

Prospects for avoiding death sentences are even less clear.

"It's not like any of them are going to walk out the door," said Bruce 
Bartlett, the chief assistant state attorney for Pinellas and Pasco counties. 
"The very best, most optimistic outcome is they get life sentences."

----

Here are the local death row cases that state attorneys expect could be 
eligible for new sentences, along with the votes by juries that recommended 
death.

Hillsborough County

Ray Johnston strangled 2 women in 1997 in Tampa. Jury vote: 12-0 in one case; 
11-1 in the other.

Adam Davis stabbed his girlfriend's mother to death in 1998 in Carrollwood 
after injecting her with bleach. Jury vote: 7-5.

Pedro Hernandez-Alberto shot his 2 step-daughters to death in Apollo Beach in 
1999. Jury vote: 10-2.

Khalid Pasha stabbed his wife and stepdaughter to death in 2002 at an office 
park near Town 'N Country. Convicted and sentenced to death twice. Jury vote: 
11-1.

William Deparvine shot a man and a woman in 2003 after he met them to ask about 
buying a vintage pickup truck. Jury vote: 8-4.

Kenneth Jackson abducted a Seffner mother of 3 in 2007, then stabbed her to 
death. Jury vote: 11-1. Late this week, the state supreme court overturned his 
sentence.

Dontae Morris killed 2 Tampa police officers, after killing another man weeks 
earlier. Jury vote: 12-0 for the officers; 10-2 for the civilian.

Pinellas County

Jeffrey Muehleman beat and asphyxiated a 97-year-old man in 1983. Sentenced to 
death a 2nd time in 2003. Jury vote: 10-2.

Troy Merck stabbed a man repeatedly in 1991 outside a St. Petersburg bar after 
he was asked not to lean on a car. Jury vote: 9-3.

Harry Butler stabbed and strangled his former girlfriend in 1997 in Clearwater. 
Jury vote: 11-1.

Charles Peterson shot and killed a man during a robbery at a Big Lots store in 
St. Petersburg on Christmas Eve 1997. Jury vote: 8-4.

Genghis Kocaker stabbed a cab driver, bound him, then set fire to his car in 
Clearwater in 2004. Jury vote: 11-1.

Richard Robards stabbed a Clearwater couple before attempting to steal their 
safe. Jury vote: 7-5.

John Hampton raped a woman in 2007 in Clearwater, slit her throat, then tried 
to destroy DNA evidence. Jury vote: 9-3.

Ralph Wright strangled his former lover and smothered her 15-month-old son in 
2007 in St. Petersburg. Jury vote: 7-5.

Pasco County

Phillup Partin stabbed, beat and strangled a 16-year-old girl in 2002 in Port 
Richey. Jury vote: 9-3.

John Sexton raped and murdered Ann Parlato, 94, in her New Port Richey home in 
2010 before lighting her body on fire. Jury vote: 10-2.


(source: tampabay.com)






ARKANSAS:

American state asks for people to come forward and WATCH death row prisoners 
get executed----Arkansas state law says at least 6 'respectable citizens' must 
watch every execution to make sure protocol is followed


Government officials in Arkansas have issued a plea for volunteers to come 
forward and watch criminals get executed - so they can continue sentencing lags 
to the death penalty.

State law says that 6 to 12 people aged at least 21 must witness every 
execution, to make sure protocol is followed.

The volunteers must be "respectable citizens", meaning they cannot have any 
prior convictions.

The state is struggling to find enough people to witness 8 planned executions 
over the course of 10 days - an unusually high number.

No other American state has carried out so many in such a short time since 
1977.

The rush to carry out the executions is because the drug used for lethal 
injections in Arkansas is about to reach its expiration date.

The 8 men set for execution were all convicted of murder between 1989 and 1999, 
and have been on death row since.

Arkansas has not executed any prisoners since 2005 because of legal 
complications and difficulty procuring the drug needed for the lethal 
injection.

And now, in a bid to carry on with the planned executions of eight prisoners, 
Wendy Kelley, Director of the Department of Correction, has reportedly 
approached people to ask volunteers to come forward.

According to Arkansas Online, Kelley contacted a Rotary Club in Little Rock, 
saying: "You seem to be a group that does not have felony backgrounds and are 
over 21.

"So if you're interested in serving in that area, in this serious role, just 
call my office."

However, Kelley couldn't find anyone to take up her offer at the club.

Speaking on behalf of the club, acting president Bill Booker said: "What I 
suspect is that some people might support the death penalty, but when it comes 
to witnessing something like that, it's a different story.

"It may cause emotional trauma for quite a while. It would be one of the most 
significant things you'll ever see in your life."

(source: thesun.co.uk)

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

An Arkansas Inmate Is Set to Be Executed Due to a Legal Technicality----Marcel 
Williams has spent the last 2 decades on death row, and his execution is set to 
take place next month. But his lawyers argue he never received a fair trial in 
the first place.


Marcel Williams is scheduled to die on April 24th, 2017. Williams was convicted 
in 1997 for the rape and murder of Stacy Errickson, a 22-year-old woman who was 
found in a shallow grave near Little Rock 3 years earlier. The jury deliberated 
Williams' sentence for just 30 minutes.

Williams is 1 of 8 men to be executed through lethal injection in Arkansas over 
just 4 days in April as part of the state's effort to use up its supply of 
midazolam before the drug expires.

But Williams' attorneys say his initial trial lawyers failed to present 
mitigating evidence about his traumatic upbringing to the jury in 1997. That 
evidence, they argue, would likely have resulted in a life sentence for 
Williams. Since that initial trial, a procedural technicality has prevented the 
legal system from righting this wrong. Now, Williams is asking the Arkansas 
Parole Board for clemency.

The United States Supreme Court has long recognized that the circumstances of 
an individual's life can influence culpability and thus sentencing. For this 
very reason, the Court struck down North Carolina's mandatory death sentences 
for 1st-degree murders in the 1976 case Woodson v. North Carolina.

"A process that accords no significance to relevant facets of the character and 
record of the individual offender or the circumstances of the particular 
offense excludes from consideration in fixing the ultimate punishment of death 
the possibility of compassionate or mitigating factors stemming from the 
diverse frailties of humankind," the Court ruled in Woodson v. North Carolina.

In Williams' case, that mitigating evidence was his violent and turbulent 
childhood. In written testimony to the parole board, David Lisak, a professor 
of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, wrote that Williams, who 
suffered a childhood marked by neglect, violent beatings, and sexual abuse, was 
"exposed to pretty much every category of traumatic experience that is 
generally used to describe childhood trauma." While a child, Williams' mother 
prostituted him out to older women in exchange for food stamps or money for 
bills. Lisak characterized the violence Williams endured as "unrelenting" and 
"savage."

Williams' trial attorneys now claim, according to Williams' petition to the 
clemency board, that, at that time, Williams' defense team "didn't really 
understand what the true meaning of what mitigation was," which runs counter to 
the standards for capital defense attorneys that were already standard practice 
in the 1990s.

"Certainly by the mid-'80s it was understood that childhood trauma, abuse, 
parental neglect, extreme physical abuse would be powerful evidence for a 
jury," says Cassandra Stubbs, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's 
Capital Punishment Project. "That was some of the heart of the evidence that 
capital defense lawyers should be looking for and investigating in their 
cases."

The lawyer responsible for Williams' appeal also failed to present this 
evidence at the proceedings requesting a new trial in 2000 - despite the fact 
that the request was based on the argument that his trial attorneys did not 
provide adequate counsel when they failed to present mitigating evidence to the 
jury.

A new crop of attorneys took over Williams' case in 2006 and filed a petition 
in a federal district court to present evidence about Williams' troubled 
childhood. And they succeeded in overturning Williams' death sentence, at least 
temporarily. "[I]t is reasonably probable that but for the errors and omissions 
of his lawyers the jury would have returned a verdict to impose a sentence of 
life imprisonment without parole rather than a sentence of death," Chief 
Justice Leon Holmes found in 2007. Judge Holmes ordered the state to grant 
Williams a new sentencing hearing or change his sentence from death to life 
without parole. But the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his decision 
on the grounds that the federal court could not consider evidence that was 
never presented in state courts. In other words, despite the validity of the 
evidence, Williams no longer had the right to present it, due to his lawyers' 
errors.

"It's kind of astonishing to me that the court is basically saying, 'there's 
evidence out there, we know its out there, there's no problems with it, except 
a procedural problem, but let's go ahead and approve the death sentence,'" 
Stubbs says.

"A lot of times what the courts will say is they are protecting the law, and 
they have to follow the rule of the law or its not any good, and to a degree 
that???s true," says Jason Kearney, one of the attorneys who took up Williams' 
case in 2006. "But ... when someone's life is on the line I think there's an 
exception to any rule that ought to come into play."

The Williams' parole board hearing on Monday will be the last chance for this 
evidence to make a difference in his sentence, but the board rarely grants 
clemency in capital cases, Kearney says. A negative outcome for Williams would 
also set a troubling precedent for anyone else who has a similar path to 
clemency.

"For all of this compelling mitigation information to just go unconsidered and 
to have never been put in front of a jury, the legal system really fails when 
this happens," Kearney says. "If the clemency board doesn't recognize that, 
then they're really not serving their purpose."

(source: Pacific Standard Magazine)






OKLAHOMA:

Man sentenced to death penalty for 1999 slaying of Oklahoma trooper due for 
federal hearing----Vian man found guilty of killing OHP trooper in 1999 seeks 
resentencing


A Vian man found guilty in federal court of killing an Oklahoma Highway Patrol 
trooper in the midst of a drug raid in 1999 is set to appear in court Monday 
for an evidentiary hearing for his quest to have his death sentence overturned.

Kenneth Eugene Barrett, 55, will present his case at the U.S. District Court 
for the Eastern District of Oklahoma in support of his belief his counsel was 
ineffective during the penalty phase of his 2005 trial because his lawyers did 
not provide mitigating evidence to the jury about his mental health status.

The district court will determine whether Barrett's trial counsel was 
inadequate and if so, whether that resulted in prejudice during the penalty 
phase of his trial and therefore merits a re-sentencing proceeding.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Muskogee declined to comment on Barrett's case, 
citing pending litigation. Phone calls to 2 of Barrett's attorneys were not 
returned as of Friday evening.

Barrett was convicted in 2005 of fatally shooting Trooper David "Rocky" Eales 
with an AR-15 rifle on Sept. 24, 1999, while Eales and other troopers, 
including John "Buddy" Hamilton, executed a drug-related search warrant 
overnight at Barrett's residence in search of methamphetamine. Barrett 
additionally received 2 consecutive life sentences without parole in federal 
court for related weapons convictions.

Hamilton was seriously injured in the incident but survived. Another trooper 
shot Barrett in the leg during the melee, according to court records.

The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in 2015 that said 
Barrett's trial attorneys "apparently did little to investigate his background 
or mental health through his family," citing testimony from family members that 
indicated attorneys never asked them in-depth questions about either. The 
opinion goes on to state that case records suggest Barrett's federal attorneys 
were aware through state counsel that his mental health status merited further 
investigation.

A series of doctors, according to the document, have diagnosed Barrett over a 
nearly 20-year period with mixed personality disorder, organic affective 
disorder, bipolar disorder, avoidant personality disorder and post-traumatic 
stress disorder.

1 of his state attorneys provided records to his federal counsel that revealed 
Barrett had developmental delays as a child and was subject to hospitalization 
more than once for mental health-related reasons, according to the opinion.

However, the attorneys who prosecuted Barrett said the defense reported Barrett 
himself limited his team's ability to present mitigation evidence because he 
did not want the outcome of his case to "hinge on personal sympathy for him."

But in deciding to send the case back to Muskogee for an evidentiary hearing, 
the 10th Circuit noted that one defense attorney said Barrett was "among the 
most cooperative criminal defense clients" he has represented.

Despite the 10th Circuit's finding, government attorneys wrote in a February 
brief that a psychiatrist retained for the hearing will testify that an 
evaluation of Barrett in January did not result in any mental health diagnoses. 
Another doctor, according to that brief, is set to testify for the U.S. that he 
diagnosed Barrett as a psychopath.

The 10th Circuit's 2015 decision overturned a 2012 ruling from U.S. District 
Judge James Payne that denied Barrett's claim his sentence was unconstitutional 
due to ineffective assistance of counsel.

However, an order from the 10th Circuit in November denied Barrett 
authorization to file another related challenge to his conviction due to 
alleged prosecutorial and police misconduct because "there is too much evidence 
that a jury could credit concerning both the shooting and (Barrett's) 
manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine."

"His conviction is still well supported by eyewitness accounts of law 
enforcement officers, the testimony of multiple acquaintances ... and physical 
evidence at the scene of the crime," the order states.

Last May, Barrett's attorneys filed a renewed motion to vacate his conviction 
and sentence based on recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions related to 
prosecution of illegal firearms cases and the application of the death penalty. 
The Supreme Court in October again declined to review Barrett's case.

Barrett also faced murder and 3 shooting with intent to kill charges in 
Sequoyah County District Court related to the same incident and was tried twice 
after his 1st trial resulted in a mistrial due to a hung jury.

A Sequoyah County jury in February 2004 found Barrett guilty of lesser-included 
charges of 1st-degree manslaughter and a single count of assault and battery 
with a dangerous weapon, and recommended a total of 30 years in prison.

Oklahoma Department of Corrections records show Barrett discharged his 
manslaughter sentence in April 2013, but that his 10-year assault sentence - 
which was consecutive - remains active. The state's 85 % law, which includes 
both offenses, didn't take effect until roughly a year after Barrett was 
charged.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Muskogee filed federal charges in the matter in 
September 2004 after the resolution of the state case.

(source: Tulsa World)