[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., ALA., MISS., OHIO, KY.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 2



TEXAS----impending execution

Death Watch: Forced Testimony Over Evidence?----No physical evidence implicates 
Cardenas in his cousin's murder



Ruben Cardenas, a Mexican national convicted of capital murder for kidnapping, 
raping, and killing his 16-year-old cousin in McAllen, is scheduled for 
execution on Nov. 8, but his fight is far from over. This week, Cardenas' legal 
team, led by Maurie Levin and funded by the Mexican government, filed 2 appeals 
with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals: one to reverse the Hidalgo District 
Court's Oct. 25 decision to deny DNA testing, the other seeking relief and a 
new hearing.

Stories vary about Mayra Laguna's Feb. 22, 1997, abduction, but a 2016 
interview with KRGV/Channel 5 News has Cardenas saying that his cousin asked 
him to fake her kidnapping and take her away. He said he drove her outside of 
town, where they got into a fight about her wanting to marry him and began 
hitting each other. "By the time I knew it, she was already just laying there," 
he said. In a panic, he dumped her body in a canal.

According to his appeals, however, there was no physical evidence linking 
Cardenas to the crime - including no forensic evidence of sexual assault. 
Instead, prosecutors relied primarily on statements Cardenas made after his 
arrest. Levin writes: "His conviction and death sentence bear all the indicia 
of a wrongful conviction, including questionable eyewitness testimony, coerced, 
uncounseled confessions, and unreliable forensic evidence."

Further, Mexican Capital Legal Assistance Program director Greg Kuykendall 
insists that as a Mexican national, Cardenas had a right to consult with 
Mexico's consulate for legal advice and representation under the Vienna 
Convention on Consular Relations. But Cardenas was never informed of that right 
after his arrest, nor was the consulate alerted. It took the state 11 days to 
appoint Cardenas' legal counsel; during that time, Kuykendall said, Cardenas' 
Miranda rights were "violated and he confessed." The consulate didn't learn of 
the charges against Cardenas until 5 months later. Kuykendall says Mexico has 
been "deeply involved in the case ever since, but a significant amount of 
damage" had already been done.

Should his appeals be denied, Cardenas would be the 7th Texan executed in 2017. 
Executions have been largely unpredictable this year: Larry Swearingen was 
scheduled for Nov. 16 (and still is, according to the Department of Criminal 
Justice website), but the Houston Chronicle reported on Sunday that his 
execution had been stayed now that both sides have agreed to DNA testing. 
(Swearingen was convicted of the 1998 rape and murder of Melissa Trotter, but 
maintains he's innocent.) If Swearingen's name sounds familiar it's because 
he's partially responsible for Anthony Shore's 90-day stay last month. The 
state believes Shore colluded with Swearingen and was planning to claim 
responsibility for Trotter's murder. Meanwhile, Juan Castillo, whose August 
execution was delayed due to Hurricane Harvey, is back on the clock with a new 
execution date, Dec. 14. He's the last person scheduled to die by the state's 
hand in 2017.

(source: The Austin Chronicle)

***********

Mexican national set for execution in Texas files last-minute appeal over DNA 
testing



A Mexican national set to die by lethal injection next week in Huntsville is 
begging courts for a stay of execution as part of a last-minute appeal over DNA 
testing in a case that has sparked pushback from south of the border.

A lawyer for Ruben Cardenas Ramirez filed papers Monday in the Texas Court of 
Criminal Appeals seeking to reverse a lower court's refusal to allow testing on 
fingernail scrapings from 16-year-old Mayra Laguna, who was murdered and tossed 
in a canal in 1997.

Her cousin, a high-school dropout born in Mexico and raised in Texas, later 
admitted to the crime and was sentenced to death. But his lawyers argue the 
confessions were coerced and potentially exculpatory DNA evidence should be 
looked at before his Nov. 8 execution.

"His conviction and sentence of death were obtained through the use of 
unreliable, coerced and false evidence, and DNA testing that is meaningless by 
today's scientific standards," attorney Maurie Levin wrote in Monday's filing.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Execution date set for Battaglia



An execution date has been set for a man who shot his 2 daughters at his Deep 
Ellum loft in 2001 while their mother helplessly listened on the phone.

John Battaglia, 62, is scheduled to be executed Feb. 1 in Huntsville. He had 
sought to delay or stop his lethal injection bysaying he was not mentally 
competent.

But after a hearing last November, state District Judge Robert Burns found he 
was competent, and the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed. Battaglia shot and 
killed 9-year-ol Faith and 6-year-old Liberty in an act of revenge against hie 
ex-wife.

"No, Daddy! Don't do it!" Faith pleaded, seconds before her father pulled the 
trigger.

He then headed to a tattoo parlor where he had 2 red roses inked on his arm in 
memory of the girls and left a message on their answering machine that night, 
saying "Good night, my little babies. I hope you are resing in a different 
place. I love you."

Battaglia was first scheduled for execution in March 2016 but was granted a 
stay after he sought new legal counsel to helpappeal his sentence.

His execution was reshceduled for December 2016 aftera state district judge 
found him mentally fit to be put to death. But the Court of Criminal Appeals 
granted him a stay to evaluate his competency.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----26

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----544

Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #

27---------Nov. 8------------------Ruben Cardenas---------545

28---------Nov. 16-----------------Larry Swearingen-------546

29---------Dec. 14-----------------Juan Castillo----------547

30---------Jan. 30-----------------William Rayford--------548

31----------Feb. 1-----------------John Battaglia---------549

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)

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

Sentence upheld for DA's killer



The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the conviction and death 
sentence of Eric Williams, a former justice of the peace who killed the Kaufman 
County district attorney, his wife and a top prosecutor in 2013.

In his appeal, Williams, 50, claimed there wasn't evidence to show he was a 
future threat to society, 1 of the issues a jury considers when determining 
capital punishment. He also claimed there was insufficient evidence to support 
his capital murder conviction.

But the Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously agreed in a 110-page opinion 
relelasled Wednesday that evidence showed the former Kaufman County justice of 
the peace "planned and executed the murders of 3 people in 2 separate 
incidents."

Williams gunned down prosecutor Mark Hasse, 57, a block from the courthouse in 
January 2013. 2 months later, Williams killed District Attorney Mike 
McClelland, 63, and his wife, Cynthia, 65, inside their home.

In his appeal, Williams calimed that the killings were "isolated" incidents 
that did now show he would be continuing threat to society. He claimed he only 
wanted revenge against "a few politicians who ruined his life."

Kim Williams helped plan the murders and pleadled guilty 2 weeks aftery 
testifying against her hsuband. She was given a 40-year sentence.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

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

Prosecutors ask for life sentence for Texas death row inmate Bobby Moore



After years of legal wrangling and a high-profile Supreme Court case that shook 
up how Texas doles out capital punishment, Harris County death row inmate Bobby 
Moore could end up with a life sentence.

Prosecutors on Wednesday asked that the 58-year-old be resentenced to life in 
prison for the 1980 slaying of elderly store clerk James McCarble.

"I'm doing what I believe the law requires," District Attorney Kim Ogg said in 
a statement. "The nation's highest court has ruled that intellectually disabled 
persons can't be subject to the deathpenalty."

Moore's 3-decade legal saga landed in the national spotlight after a Supreme 
Court decision in March, when a 5-3 ruling determined that Texas did not 
properly consider whether the former carpenter was too intellectually disabled 
to face execution.

The ruling set off waves of requests from inmates wanting their death sentences 
overturned in exchange for life behind bars. At least 10 condemned killers from 
across the state - including 6 others from Harris County - are pursuing lesser 
punishments.

And in Moore's case, if a court agrees to the lower sentence, the longtime 
inmate could soon be a free man, out on parole after serving 37 years.

The convicted killer was 1 of 3 men involved in the April 25, 1980 botched 
robbery of Birdsall Super Market near Memorial Park. The trio targeted the 
store because 2 of the employees were elderly and the cashier was pregnant.

Triggerman Willie Albert Koonce turned himself in afterward, confessing to the 
crime and outlining his accomplices' roles. Moore was collared in Louisiana 10 
days after the slaying, and later sentenced to death at trial.

More than 2 decades after that, Moore's lawyers presented evidence that his IQ 
hovered around 70. As a young teen, he still didn't understand days of the week 
or months of the year, and he dropped out of school after failing every subject 
in 9th grade.

The new evidence came on the heels of a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court abolishing 
capital punishment for the intellectually disabled.

But under a dated measure of intellectual disability - using so-called Briseno 
factors - Texas determined Moore hadn't proved he fit that description.

Named after plaintiff Jose Briseno, the test relied on 7 questions to determine 
intellectual disability in a 2004 ruling that referenced "Of Mice and Men" 
character Lennie as someone most Texans would agree should be exempt from the 
death penalty.

In theory, the Briseno test would help courts figure out whether a defendant 
showed "adaptive behavior" suggesting they were not intellectually disabled.

It was that measure - a test the Supreme Court called "nonclinical" and an 
"unacceptable method" - that the Texas appeals court relied on in part when 
rejecting a lower court's decision to deem Moore intellectually disabled.

When Moore's lawyers appealed, the nation's highest court took up the case and 
ruled that the Briseno factors were "an invention" of the Texas court and not 
up to the "medical community's current standard."

Following the March decision, the issue bounced back to the Court of Criminal 
Appeals.

"A review of the Supreme Court's decision and the record before this Court 
supports but a single conclusion: Bobby James Moore is intellectually disabled 
under current medical standards and ineligible for execution," defense lawyers 
wrote in a brief filed Thursday in the CCA. "Accordingly, Mr. Moore 
respectfully requests that this Court rule that he is intellectually disabled 
and reform his death sentence to a term of life imprisonment."

Prosecutors, in a brief dated the same day, agreed, also asking that the Court 
of Criminal Appeals use established diagnostic criterion as the new legal 
standard for intellectual disability in capital sentencing.

Now, the CCA can commute the sentence to life, request more briefing or 
argument, or send it back to trial court. It's not clear how quickly the court 
would act, especially in light of another similar case before the state's 
highest appeals court.

In the meantime, Moore will wait on death row as the legal system continues 
hashing out his fate.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

State to pursue death penalty against former Austin officer VonTrey Clark



State prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a former Austin police 
officer accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend, Samantha Dean, in 2015, 
according to KVUE's and the Austin American-Statesman's Tony Plohetski.

In response to the state's decision to seek the maximum penalty, VonTrey 
Clark's defense attorneys filed a motion to push back Clark's trial date by "at 
least 11 months due to the extensive amount of discovery in the case."

Bastrop County District Judge Carson Campbell granted the motion for Clark's 
trial to begin Feb. 5, 2019, instead of March 19, 2017.

Clark is charged with capital murder. Dean was 7 months pregnant at the time of 
her death, and prosecutors claim she was killed because she wouldn't terminate 
her pregnancy.

Clark fled to Indonesia after her death but was later captured by federal 
officials, who returned him to Bastrop County.

No trial date has been set for Kevin Watson, the hit-man Clark allegedly hired 
to kill Dean.

(source: KVUE-TV news)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Pa. capital murder study ties case trajectory to defendant income



A new report on death penalty cases in Pennsylvania shows a strong tie between 
how a case proceeds through the justice system and who a defendant relies on 
for legal counsel.

Public defenders' and court-appointed attorneys' clients were more likely to 
get a death sentence in the hundreds of death penalty cases that comprised the 
study's sample, compared to those who were able to afford their own private 
defense.

But the study also found that prosecutors were less likely to seek the death 
penalty in the first place against defendants represented by public defenders.

Lisette McCormick, executive director of the Interbranch Commission for Gender, 
Racial and Ethnic Fairness, suspects this may mean that prosecutors working 
against often overburdened public defenders may use the threat of the death 
penalty as a way of making a life sentence seem like a better deal pre-trial.

"If they take a plea, that's not necessarily a better outcome," said McCormick. 
The Commission partnered on the study with Pennsylvania State University's 
Justice Center for Research, and the university's department of criminology and 
sociology.

"Many of the public defenders, and court-appointed attorneys as well, have 
limited resources. So there may be an increased opportunity for the defendant 
to plead to something, [even if] there might not be enough evidence [for a 
conviction]," McCormick said.

But McCormick doesn't know for sure because the report doesn't detail the 
cases' earlier stages.

As it was, the study took over 3 years to complete - requiring researchers to 
go beyond reported data and review case files in courthouses in 18 counties.

In Philadelphia, cases handled by public defenders - who are salaried staffers 
with predictable case-loads - had better outcomes, but they comprise just 20 % 
of indigent defense cases in the city. Court-appointed attorneys - who work for 
less predictable income, acting more as freelancers - handle the other 80 %, 
and those cases were more likely to conclude with a conviction.

The study also raises questions that it could not answer due to data and 
recordkeeping limitations, which some experts say underscores chronic problems 
with the state's criminal justice system.

"Were charges dropped, or reduced in a plea bargain? There's no one data set 
where you can just get all that," said Jeffrey Ulmer, associate head of Penn 
State's Department of Sociology and Criminology. "Not just for researchers like 
me - but for the public, knowing what the justice system is doing - it's a 
problem for visibility and decision-making."

McCormick says the commission's forthcoming recommendations will include 
improving data collection.

Only the 18 counties with at least 10 capital murder convictions during 
2000-2010 were included in the study: Allegheny, Berks, Bucks, Chester, 
Dauphin, Delaware, Fayette, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lehigh, Luzerne, Monroe, 
Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia, Washington, Westmoreland, and York.

Each of the other 49 counties had fewer than 10 and, collectively, accounted 
for only 13 percent of such cases in Pennsylvania during the decade of focus.

A charade?

Criminal justice experts say the study also underscores Pennsylvania's lack of 
progress on the issue of indigent defense.

Rob Dunham, who led indigent defense teams focused on capital murder cases in 
Philadelphia and Harrisburg, says the study echoes repeated discussions and 
analyses of the problem by a multitude of varied sources over the years.

"The very same problems that have been left ignored for 30 years continue to 
exist," said Dunham, who also formerly headed the Defender Association of 
Philadelphia's training for its capital habeas unit in the federal court 
division.

A 2011 study commissioned by the legislature regurgitated much of a similar 
report from 2003. And in 2017, nothing has changed.

Pennsylvania remains the only state where indigent defense is solely financed 
by counties and doesn't get any state funding.

Dunham, now executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a D.C. 
think tank, found death sentences were overturned in the vast majority of more 
than 150 Pennsylvania murder cases he studied closely.

"People who are sentenced to death are not going to be executed, their 
[sentences] are going to be overturned, and we can have no confidence in 
capital proceedings because from the outset they're unfair," Durham says, 
referring to the state's death penalty system as a "charade."

Pennsylvania has the 5th-largest death row population in the country and hasn't 
executed an inmate since 1999, longer ago than any of the 35 states with a 
death penalty but Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming and Nebraska.

The study had a few other noteworthy findings, including:

Black defendants were disproportionately convicted of murder, particularly of 
the 1st degree.

Convictions were more likely in capital murder cases involving white victims.

White defendants were more likely to have private attorneys; black and Latino 
defendants were more likely to be represented by a public defender.

Juries handled 70 % of death penalty cases and were significantly more likely 
than a judge to impose a death sentence.

The findings will inform the Joint State Government Commission on capital 
punishment, which was created in 2011 to examine 17 issues related to 
Pennsylvania's death penalty system. They were supposed to release findings by 
the end of 2013, but haven't yet.

McCormick says the joint commission will hold a public hearing on the report, 
but the date hasn't been set yet.

(source: WHYY news)








FLORIDA----impending execution

Florida Supreme Court Rejects Plea to Stop Pending Execution



The Florida Supreme Court is refusing to block the pending execution of a man 
convicted of killing 2 people.

The court ruled Wednesday against Patrick Hannon, who is scheduled to die Nov. 
8.

Authorities say Hannon and 2 other men went to the Tampa apartment of 
27-year-old Brandon Snider and 28-year-old Robert Carter in January 1991. One 
of the other men stabbed Snider several times when he answered the door, and 
then Hannon cut Snider's throat.

Carter also lived in the apartment. He tried to hide, but Hannon followed and 
fatally shot him.

(source: nbcmiami.com)

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

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



Lawyers for accused child killer Donald Smith have filed a new motion seeking 
to block the state attorney's office from seeking the death penalty if he's 
convicted.

Smith is awaiting trial in the 2013 kidnap, rape and murder of 8-year-old 
Cherish Perrywinkle.

In the new motion filed Tuesday, Smith's lawyers say the new death penalty law 
written by the Legislature this year is not retroactive -- the law was 
rewritten after portions of it were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme 
Court.

Smith's lawyers argue because of that, he can only be sentenced to life in 
prison if convicted.

Smith's much-delayed trial is set for February. He's due in court for a 
pretrial hearing Thursday.

(source: news4jax.com)








ALABAMA:

Mobile County capital murder suspect becomes latest to retry case



It was the 1st capital trial since her election in 2011, the death penalty was 
on the table for a heinous double murder and Mobile County District Attorney 
Ashley Rich prosecuted and secured the a conviction herself a month after 
taking office.

The jury found Derrick Penn, 44 at the time, guilty on four counts of capital 
murder. The prosecution proved that Penn broke into the apartment of his 
estranged wife, Janet Penn, where he fatally shot her before beating her 
boyfriend to death with the same gun.

It was a strong win for a newly elected district attorney. It's also one of a 
handful of capital murder convictions that have been overturned on appeal 
during Rich's tenure.

In 2014, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Penn's conviction and 
death sentence after it found "plain error" in how the jury was instructed to 
consider a single piece of evidence: a restraining order Janet Penn had sought 
for protection from her estranged husband.

The appeal was brought by the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit 
organization that has challenged and overturned multiple capital convictions in 
Mobile County alone. EJI claimed the protective order was used in the original 
trial to imply Penn was guilty of burglary and murder because it showed his 
estranged wife wouldn't have let him into her apartment willingly.

Capital murder is defined in Alabama as murder occurring during the commission 
of another crime. It automatically comes with potential sentences of life in 
prison or the death penalty. Because of that, the burglary charge was crucial 
to Penn's conviction and death sentence.

However, Alabama law also prohibits using "collateral bad acts" as evidence in 
criminal trials because, according to EJI, "jurors tend to believe the 
defendant is guilty of the charged crime if he has committed previous crimes." 
The higher court agreed with EJI.

While prosecutors said they intended to use the protective order to prove 
"motive, plan, design, scheme, [or] intent," the appellate court found Judge 
Charles Graddick failed to properly limit the jury's consideration of that 
evidence when he charged them.

The court also found that Rich, in her closing arguments, used the protective 
order to "establish what Janet [Penn] had been thinking" in the days leading up 
her death.

"Specifically, the prosecutor argued that the exhibit supported the State's 
position that Penn had entered or remained unlawfully in Janet's apartment, 
telling the jury: 'She had filed a protection from abuse order, weeks before, 
because she didn't want [Penn] around her, in her apartment, anywhere near 
her," the 2014 opinion read.

For the appellate court, that was enough to call into question the validity of 
Penn's convictions - the same court that overturned the 2013 capital murder 
conviction and death sentence of Derek Tyler Horton on similar grounds late 
last year.

Like Penn's conviction, Horton's was overturned because "collateral bad acts" 
were introduced to the jury including evidence that Horton has been previously 
investigated for an alleged domestic assault and testimony about his prior 
history with illegal drugs.

As has been the case with other local convictions overturned on appeal, the fly 
in the ointment was a procedural issue, as in the case against Carlos Kennedy, 
whose 2013 conviction and death sentence for sexually assaulting a 69-year-old 
Mobile woman before beating her to death with a clawhammer was overturned 
because he wasn't allowed to act his own attorney at trial.

Last year, Kennedy was given that chance during a lengthy retrial. However, 
Kennedy called no witnesses and presented no evidence and, for the 2nd time, 
was found guilty of capital murder, though he dodged a death sentence after the 
jury instead recommended life without parole.

Penn's retrial last week also ended with a 2nd unanimous guilty verdict 
following a brief day of deliberation. On Tuesday morning, the jury returned an 
11-1 recommendation in favor of the death penalty to Judge Rick Stout.

As in the 1st trial, Penn never denied killing his wife and her new boyfriend. 
Instead, seeking a lesser charge, the defense argued that Penn hadn't broken 
into his wife's apartment that night in 2009, and that the killings were not 
premeditated but done in the "heat of passion."

His 2nd prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Wright, argued 
Penn betrayed that defense with his own words in statements captured on a 
series of voicemail messages left for Janet Penn in the weeks leading up to her 
murder.

"They want you to believe that it was all in the sudden heat of passion but his 
own words tell you what he was going to do," Wright said during closing 
arguments. "This isn't something he just said 1 time. There were threats and 
multiple statements that he was going to kill them."

Specifically, those messages recorded Penn saying things like "You're going to 
make me kill y'all" and that if "he couldn't have [Janet], no one could."

However, the petition for protection from abuse that Janet Penn filed a few 
weeks prior to her death was referenced again during the retrial. During her 
closing arguments, Wright referenced it to show that Janet had made attempts 
"to keep him away from her" and "wasn't trying to get back together with him," 
as the defense had alluded.

While it's unclear how that reference to the document might be viewed during an 
appellate review, any decision as to its appropriateness would be based on how 
Judge Stout instructed the jury to consider that evidence before they were sent 
into deliberations.

If for any reason Penn appeals his new conviction and sentence, it will require 
the court of criminal appeals to check for any "plain error or defect in the 
proceedings," which is required in all cases where the death penalty is imposed 
regardless of the reasons for the appeal.

(source: lagniappemobile.com)








MISSISSIPPI:

Conviction overturned for Mississippi death row inmate charged in triple murder



The conviction was overturned Thursday for Sherwood Brown, a death row inmate 
charged in a triple homicide.

Brown is accused of murdering a 13-year-old DeSoto County girl, her mother, and 
grandmother in 1993. Jurors believed Brown killed the teen while committing 
felony child abuse.

Brown's attorney argued that that the man is intellectually disabled.

In 1995, Brown got the death penalty for killing the 13-year-old and received 
life sentences for the deaths of her mother and grandmother.

Thursday, the court ruled that Brown be granted a new trial based on DNA 
testing results and false forensic testimony.

(source: Fox News)








OHIO:

High court won't reopen case of Howland man sentenced to death



A man convicted in Trumbull County for his part in a woman's plot to murder her 
husband will not get another chance to plead his case.

The Ohio Supreme Court issued a ruling on Wednesday that it would not reopen 
the case of 45-year-old Nathaniel Jackson.

Earlier this year, Jackson's attorneys argued that he deserved to have his case 
reopened because he received ineffective legal counsel during an appeal.

Jackson was sentenced to the death penalty in 2002, after being convicted of 
cooperating with a co-conspirator, Donna Roberts, in a plot to murder Roberts' 
husband, Robert Fingerhut.

Jackson allegedly cooperated in the scheme in order to collect a $500,000 
insurance payout.

According to court records, Roberts was having an affair with Jackson before he 
was sent to prison for a separate offense.

Investigators say the 2 communicated while Jackson was in prison.

When Jackson was released on December 9, 2001, Roberts was waiting to pick him 
up.

2 days later, Robert Fingerhut was found dead on the kitchen floor of his home. 
He had been shot several times.

In addition to letters and phone records gathered as evidence, investigators 
say Roberts bought Jackson a mask and gloves to wear while committing the 
crime, even allowing him into the home where the murder occurred.

Jackson has appealed the death penalty case before, with similar results. 
Jackson's sentence is scheduled to be carried out on July 15, 2020.

His convicted co-conspirator, Roberts, remains the only woman on Ohio's death 
row. She is currently scheduled to be executed in August 2020.

(source: WFMJ news)








KENTUCKY:

Prosecutor to seek death penalty for man accused of murder at Somerset church



The man charged in the death of a woman in a church activity center appeared in 
court on Thursday morning, and prosecutors announced they would be seeking the 
death penalty in the case.

Dwight Mitchell Bell is charged with murder, robbery, theft, evidence 
tampering, and being a persistent felony offender. Commonwealth's Attorney Eddy 
Montgomery says he will seek the death penalty if a jury finds Dwight Bell 
guilty.

"We filed notice today of the death penalty because this was a murder and 
robbery, the robbery being the aggravator," Montgomery said.

Investigators say he went into the Denham Street Baptist Church and killed 
Carolyn New, 70, in August.

A detective testified that Bell went to the church while New was there asking 
for food because he was homeless. When New returned with food, police say Bell 
killed her.

Richard New, the victim's stepson, says he doubts the case against Bell will 
result in Bell's death. New said he is just glad the accused is locked up and 
that the prosecution has a good case against Bell who confessed to the crime.

"If he is in prison....and has life with no parole, that's the same as the 
death penalty."

Bell's attorney entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. The tentative start 
date for his trial is April 9th. The judge set a pre-trial conference date for 
November 6th.

(source: WKYT news)