[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., FLA., ALA., MISS., LA., OHIO, MO., OKLA., ARIZ., WASH.

[Rick Halperin]

April 13




NORTH CAROLINA:

DA to seek death penalty against adoptive mother of Erica Parsons


The District Attorney will seek the death penalty against Casey Parsons, who 
was charged with murder in the death of her adoptive daughter, Erica Parsons.

This comes after the DA also announced that the death penalty would be sought 
against Erica's adoptive father, Sandy, in her death.

Casey Parsons was brought back to Rowan County in March, when she stood before 
a judge and was charged with first degree murder, along with three other felony 
charges, including child abuse.

The court document we obtained states there is evidence in the case that the 
jury could find the capital felony was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel 
and that's why the District Attorney's office has elected to prosecute this 
case as capital murder at this time.

Spectrum News spoke with Erica's biological mother, Carolyn Parsons, over the 
phone. In the past she has said the death penalty would be the easy way out. 
But now she's just happy the case is moving forward and she hopes justice will 
be served.

"If they do get the death sentence, if they do get put to death before I die, I 
want to be in that room. They watched my child take her last breath. I deserve 
to see them take theirs," she said.

Both Sandy and Casey Parsons have been given court appointed lawyers.  At this 
time they are being held in the Rowan County Jail without bond.

(source: spectrumlocalnews.com)




FLORIDA:

State attorney’s office to seek death penalty for man indicted in Summer Place 
Apartments shooting


A Gainesville man will face the death penalty after a grand jury indicted him 
for shooting and killing 2 people and abducting another from Summer Place 
Apartments in February.

Cedric Tremaine Plummer, 24, walked into the leasing office of Summer Place 
Villas apartment complex, located at 3316 SW 41st Place, in silence and shot 2 
employees dead and kidnapped another at about 1:30 p.m. Feb. 13, according to 
court records. The state attorney’s office said it would pursue the death 
penalty April 3 for the 1st time in Alachua County in about 3 years.

Plummer had argued with the apartment complex’s management since Feb. 2 for 
damaging the inside of his apartment, and police had been called at least 3 
times because of his aggressive behavior, according to court records.

He scheduled an appointment Feb. 13 with 28-year-old Jude Onyegbulam Osuji Jr. 
and 61-year-old Robert Earl Brumbaugh in the leasing office. Office manager 
Hailey Roberts, 19, joined her two coworkers for the meeting, according to 
court records.

Police allege Plummer opened the door and shot both men dead without saying a 
word. Then he took Roberts to her car at gunpoint and forced her to drive to 
Georgia, according to court records.

He put the gun to her head as she drove and said to stop crying, telling her to 
remember what he did to Osuji and Brumbaugh, she later told police.

Police were able to trace Roberts’ car and attempted to pull it over.

“Don’t stop unless you wanna (sic) see brains in your lap,” Plummer said, 
according to court records.

Roberts was freed in Lowndes County, Georgia, according to Alligator archives. 
Plummer was eventually arrested on charges of kidnapping and 2 counts of 
premeditated first degree murder, according to court records.

He was indicted on 2 counts of 1st degree murder and a count of kidnapping by a 
grand jury March 2.

State Attorney Bill Cervone made the decision to pursue the death penalty after 
about 45 days. He said the decision could be changed if new information is 
presented, like detailed information on Plummer’s current mental health and 
mental health history.

“I had to make a decision based on what we know now, which is the deliberate 
execution-style killing of 2 people,” Cervone said.

He awaits a hearing at 9 a.m. April 25 in room 3B of the Alachua County 
Criminal Justice Center on whether his DNA can be collected by the prosecution, 
according to court records.

Plummer’s attorney could not be reached for comment.

(source: The (Univ. Fla.) Independent Florida Alligator)





ALABAMA----impending execution

Execution set for Alabama's oldest death row inmate


Judge Robert S. Vance was at his kitchen table on Dec. 16, 1989, when he opened 
a package that had been mailed to his home outside Birmingham. The bomb hidden 
inside exploded with brutal force, killing Vance instantly and severely 
injuring his wife.

2 days later, a similar device killed an attorney in Georgia. 2 other mail 
bombs were later intercepted and defused, 1 at a federal courthouse in Atlanta 
and the other at an NAACP office in Jacksonville, Florida.

The bombings created a wave of terror across the South. Now, nearly 30 years 
later, Alabama is preparing to execute the man convicted in Vance’s killing, 
83-year-old Walter Leroy Moody Jr. of Rex, Georgia. Moody is set for lethal 
injection Tuesday, April 19, 2018.  He is the oldest Alabama death row inmate 
by 13 years.

The complex investigation that led to Moody’s prosecution is a reflection of 
how difficult it can be to get to the bottom of sporadic bombings like the ones 
in Texas. And it is also a testament to the lingering effects that such a crime 
can have.

Tom Thurman, who retired from the FBI’s crime laboratory after handling cases 
including the Vance assassination, said bombings are “more complicated in many 
aspects” than other crimes.

“On the investigative side it’s so different from other crimes that involve 
personal contact,” he said. “An individual is there to stab, hit or shoot 
somebody ... and a lot of times law enforcement is fortunate to have someone 
who was there. In most bombing cases, the person who sets the device or sends 
it is not there. They’ve got some anonymity.”

Vance’s son, Robert Vance Jr., said he is thankful Moody is in prison, and he 
feels for the victims in Texas, where 2 people were killed and 4 were badly 
injured by package bombs.

“I’ve been in the place of the families down in the Austin area going through 
this. It’s just so frustrating because you don’t know who is responsible or 
why,” said Vance, now a Democratic state court judge seeking the office of 
chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

Moody has always maintained his innocence. Agents arrested him in July 1990 
after what leaders called one of the largest federal investigations ever.

Robert S. Vance was a member of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of 
Appeals, and prosecutors alleged Moody targeted him out of anger at the 11th 
Circuit’s refusal to overturn a conviction that blocked Moody, who had attended 
law school, from ever practicing law.

The bomb that killed Robert E. Robinson, a black civil rights attorney from 
Savannah, Georgia, was meant to cast suspicion on the Ku Klux Klan, as was the 
bomb sent to the NAACP office, authorities said.

By reconstructing the two bombs that killed Vance and Robinson and disarming 
the two others, investigators determined they were wrapped in nearly identical 
packages and mailed using the same kind of stamps. There were also similarities 
between the materials used in the bombs, including improvised detonators and 
wiring methods, Thurman said.

It’s the same with any bombing case, Thurman said: Investigators have to 
consider a multitude of factors, starting with the components of the device. In 
Moody’s case, the bomb was manufactured in a way that led back to its maker, he 
said.

After Vance’s death, officials retrieved an intact bomb from the courthouse 
that housed 11th Circuit judges in Atlanta. Forensic chemist Lloyd Erwin of the 
U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives recognized a unique 
element of its construction from a previous case: The ends of the pipe bomb 
were made of flat, welded pieces of metal rather than the screw caps most 
commonly used.

That tidbit led investigators to Moody, who had been convicted in a 1972 case 
involving a bomb with flat, welded end pieces.

Moody’s former wife testified that she purchased bomb-making materials at his 
direction, and evidence linked Moody to a manual typewriter with a misplaced 
“a″ that experts said had been used to write a letter claiming responsibility 
for the bombs. One letter talked about a “declaration of war” against the 
judiciary and complained about the 11th Circuit’s “callous disregard for 
justice,” court documents show.

A prosecution team led by Louis Freeh, who later became FBI director, convinced 
a federal jury that Moody was to blame for the bombing wave, and a judge 
sentenced him to seven life sentences plus 400 years in August 1991.

Moody was convicted on a state capital murder charge in 1996 in Vance’s 
killing, and he has been on death row since 1997. Now 82, he is the oldest 
inmate awaiting execution in Alabama.

The Alabama Supreme Court has set Moody’s lethal injection for April 19th at 
6:00 p.m. Moody sent a letter to Vance’s son and others claiming he is the 
innocent victim of a government conspiracy. A federal defender has asked a 
federal court to block the execution, arguing the state can’t execute Moody 
because he’s technically in federal custody. A judge has not yet ruled.

Vance said he feels peace “that justice has been done” in his father’s case, 
and he doesn’t plan to witness Moody’s execution. But every new bombing, like 
the string of blasts in Texas, dredges up old feelings.

“Usually these days I get up and don’t really think about what happened 30 
years ago,” Vance said. “But when you see that in the media, you go back to 
December 1989.”

(source: WKRG news)



MISSISSIPPI:

I knew I didn’t do it----A haunting chronicle of life after death row in 
Mississippi

Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks spent decades in prison for crimes they didn’t 
commit


Maybe the best argument against capital punishment is that it can kill an 
innocent man. This almost happened to Kennedy Brewer, who in March 1995 was 
convicted of the abduction, rape and murder of Christine Jackson, his 
girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter. After a brief trial, the jury condemned him 
to death. Mr Brewer was driven to Mississippi’s notorious Parchman 
Penitentiary, fitted with a red jumpsuit and locked in a maximum-security cell. 
His execution was originally set for May of the same year.

Levon Brooks was also at Parchman, convicted of the similarly gruesome rape and 
murder of Courtney Smith, another 3-year-old girl, only a few miles from Mr 
Brewer’s house. Mr Brooks was sentenced to life imprisonment. Both convictions 
largely relied on 2 witnesses. One was Steven Hayne, a medical examiner 
formerly responsible for up to 80% of Mississippi’s annual autopsies; for a 
spell Mr Hayne performed over 1,500 a year, 6 times the professional standard. 
The other was Michael West, a dentist with a record of controversial testimony.

After spending a combined 29 years in prison both men were exonerated in 2008, 
thanks to the painstaking work of lawyers at the Innocence Project in New York, 
which investigates wrongful convictions. A DNA test in Mr Brewer’s case pointed 
to Justin Johnson, a convicted sex-offender who lived nearby. On his arrest, Mr 
Johnson admitted to both crimes. He had briefly been a suspect in the murder of 
Courtney Smith, but Mr West had claimed his teeth failed to match what he 
identified as bite marks on the victim. It now seems possible that the little 
girl’s body bore no bite marks at all (Mr Johnson made no mention of biting 
either child in his confession). Mr Brewer and Mr Brooks each received $500,000 
in compensation.

These tragic events have yielded a pair of complementary books. In “The Cadaver 
King and the Country Dentist”, Tucker Carrington of the Mississippi Innocence 
Project and Radley Balko, a journalist at the Washington Post, meticulously 
document the twin miscarriages of justice, laying bare the systemic problems 
and structural racism that lead poor black men to be wrongfully convicted in 
disproportionate numbers. “The core problem with the medico-legal system in 
Mississippi is that it’s easily manipulated—it serves those in power,” they 
write.

The other book is a volume of haunting pictures by Isabelle Armand, a French 
photographer, with accompanying text by Mr Carrington (see photos). An article 
about the ordeal of Mr Brewer and Mr Brooks prompted Ms Armand to get in touch 
with them. “It was so shocking that forensics could be so flawed,” she says. 
She spent 5 years taking thousands of pictures of Mr Brewer, Mr Brooks and 
their extended families (Mr Brewer has 14 siblings). The black-and-white images 
stand out for the beauty of rural Mississippi, the poverty of the 2 clans, who 
live mainly in trailers, and the indomitable spirit of the men — who had, 
almost literally, come back from the dead. “I never lost hope,” Mr Brooks told 
Ms Armand. “I knew God was on my side.”

Mr Brooks died of colon cancer in January. He lived only 10 years after his 
release, but he made the most of them. He raised chickens, quails and rabbits 
and married Dinah Johnson in 2016. Mr Brewer is younger and in relatively good 
health. He has a fiancée too, Omelia Givens . “I did good, some guys go crazy 
in prison,” he told Ms Armand. “I knew I didn’t do it.”

Mr Carrington now hopes to exonerate Eddie Howard, who has been on 
Mississippi’s death row since 2000 for the rape and murder of an 84-year-old 
woman. He was convicted largely because of a match of his teeth to bite wounds 
identified by Mr West. Genetic testing found no traces of Mr Howard on the 
murder weapon or the body or elsewhere at the crime scene. “In a fair world, he 
would be free,” says Mr Carrington. “But this is Mississippi.”

(source: The Economist)





LOUISIANA:

First-degree murder charges filed once again in 1997 double murder case in 
Harvey


A Jefferson Parish grand jury has handed up a new 1st-degree murder indictment 
against a Gretna man sentenced to death for killing a girl and her father 20 
years ago, only to have his conviction overturned in 2016 because of problems 
with his court-appointed interpreter.

Thao Tan Lam, now 46, is charged with two counts of 1st-degree murder for the 
deaths of Han and Dat Truong, whom he allegedly shot and killed in the Woodmere 
Subdivision of Harvey on Feb. 4, 1997.

Lam was in love with Han Truong, who was 18, and he was upset that she was soon 
to be married to another man.

Authorities say Lam arrived at her family’s home on Chriswood Street as they 
prepared for the wedding and began arguing with Dat Truong, 57, and another 
relative, Phuong Tu Tran, 42.

Prosecutors say Lam then shot both of them, killing Truong and wounding Tran, 
and when Han Truong came running down the stairs, Lam shot and killed her too.

Lam also allegedly shot and wounded Han Truong’s mother, Nguyet Lam, as she 
attempted to flee the house with her 8-year-old son, who was Han Truong’s 
brother.

The boy was physically unharmed but later told authorities that he saw his 
sister’s head “explode like a tomato.”

Thao Lam, who was not related to any of those in the house that day, then 
turned his gun on himself. He went to the hospital in critical condition but 
survived his self-inflicted gunshot wound and was convicted at a trial in 
November 1998.

He was sentenced to death the following year by former 24th Judicial District 
Judge Kernan "Skip" Hand.

In 2016, however, a Louisiana Supreme Court-ordered hearing was held before 
Judge Glenn Ansardi that included the testimony of an expert who reviewed the 
Vietnamese translation provided to Lam during his trial.

After the hearing, Ansardi ruled there were problems with the translation 
services Lam received that were structural and significant enough to warrant a 
new trial.

A 1999 news story on the sentencing made no mention of issues relating to the 
translation. However, it quoted Lam’s attorney complaining that Lam had wanted 
to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, but District Attorney Paul 
Connick vetoed a tentative deal that would have spared him.

Connick denied any such veto, saying that his office sought the death penalty 
because it was the punishment warranted under the law.

"This was a premeditated act of violence," Connick was quoted as saying in The 
Times-Picayune. "If any case warrants the death penalty, this case sure as hell 
did. ... Justice was served."

It remains to be seen, however, whether Connick will seek the death penalty 
this time around. The DA, who rarely makes public statements, has sought the 
death penalty far less frequently over the last decade than in the years after 
he first took office.

There has been an uptick in recent years, however. There are two active death 
penalty cases in the 24th Judicial District Court today: the brutal stabbing 
death of a Raising Cane’s manager in Kenner and the fatal shooting of Jefferson 
Parish Sheriff’s Office Detective David Michel.

Connick’s office declined to comment, citing its policy of not making 
statements about open cases.

Lam is being held in the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center without bail.

(source: The New Orleans Advocate)



OHIO:

Prosecutor fighting overturned death sentence in Warren murder case


The Trumbull County prosecutor wants the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the 
Danny Lee Hill case.

Hill was originally sentenced to death for murdering 12-year-old Raymond Fife 
in 1985 in Warren. Hill was 18 at the time.

Earlier this year, a federal appeals court ruled Hill is intellectually 
disabled and should not be eligible for the death penalty.

Hill has been appealing his death sentence for over 2 decades.

In a letter sent this week, Prosecutor Dennis Watkins asked the Ohio Attorney 
General to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

If the supreme court doesn't take the case, Hill will be re-sentenced to life 
in prison.

(source: WKBN news)





MISSOURI:

Arguments set for Columbia man's death penalty appeal


A federal appeals court will hear a Columbia man's case to avoid death by 
lethal injection next month.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear Ernest L. Johnson's case on May 16 
in Omaha. Johnson appealed a lower court's decision to dismiss his case last 
year.

Courts have upheld the death penalty for Johnson since 1995, when a jury 
convicted him of 3 murders. Johnson killed Mabel Scruggs, Fred Jones and Mary 
Bratcher at a convenience store on Ballenger Lane.

A district court judge dismissed Johnson's lawsuit in May 2017. District Judge 
Greg Kays said Johnson could not prove lethal injection would cause cruel and 
unusual punishment, and that death by lethal gas was a readily available 
alternative in Missouri.

Johnson said a brain tumor surgery he had in 2008 left scarring, which he 
didn't notice until an MRI in 2011. A doctor's evaluation of Johnson in 2013 
said that the scarring would cause Johnson painful seizures when given 
pentobarbital, the drug Missouri uses for its lethal injections. Johnson's 
attorneys argue the state can use nitrogen gas to execute him instead, an 
untried method that they called more humane.

The U.S. Supreme Court put a stop to Johnson's execution in 2015 just hours 
before it was set to happen. It ruled that the appellate court didn't properly 
review Johnson's claim. The case was eventually returned to the district court 
in 2016.

(source: ABC News)

***********


Death penalty in Missouri is expensive, cruel


Our state's budget is imploding — school funding is being cut, safety net 
programs are being cut, the state refuses to accept Medicaid expansion — so why 
do we continue to have the death penalty, which has been shown in many states 
to be more expensive than not having it?

In St. Louis, the homicide rate goes higher and higher. In addition to the 
obvious factor of so many people having guns, why does the state continue to 
provide a model — by the death penalty? The thing to do about problem people is 
kill them, right? Oy vey.

Nobody wants innocent people to be executed, so why does Missouri keep opposing 
appeals filed on grounds of possible innocence?

The Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment, so why did Missouri try 
so hard to kill Russell Bucklew, who has a blood condition that experts say 
could make the lethal injection excruciatingly painful? Fortunately the U.S. 
Supreme Court issued a stay for another look at the situation.

When a sentencing jury can't agree on the sentence (either death or life 
without parole), in most states the sentence automatically reverts to life. But 
why does Missouri allow a sentencing judge to override a split jury and 
sentence the defendant to death? This happened twice recently, in Springfield 
and St. Charles, where 11 voted for life, 1 voted for death — and the judge 
imposed death.

It's time to end the death penalty — long past time.

Margaret Phillips  •  St. Louis

(source: Letter to the Editor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)


OKLAHOMA:

Trial of man facing death penalty pushed back to late August--Judge pushes 
start to August due to conflicts concerning jailhouse informant


A Tulsa County judge on Thursday officially pushed back the trial of a man 
facing the death penalty in connection with the March 2017 strangulation of a 
19-year-old girl inside her apartment.

Gregory Epperson, 42, had been scheduled to begin his trial May 14 in the death 
of Kelsey Tennant, but District Judge Doug Drummond announced during a Thursday 
motions hearing that it wouldn’t be feasible to begin next month due to 
outstanding pretrial issues. Drummond said the trial would instead start on 
Aug. 27 and set a hearing in May to determine the status of discovery, or 
evidence, exchange between both sides.

Thursday’s hearing primarily addressed a conflict related to a jailhouse 
informant who had the same legal representation as Epperson at the time of the 
latter’s June preliminary hearing, which resulted in Drummond granting 
Epperson’s defense’s motion to have that firm recused from the informant’s 
current rape case.

Epperson received different court-appointed counsel after the Tulsa County 
District Attorney’s Office filed its intent to seek consideration of the death 
penalty, as his preliminary hearing legal team did not have significant 
experience with capital cases.

Current defense attorney Beverly Atteberry revealed through questioning on 
Thursday that the informant’s court-appointed attorney, Ciera Freeman, had 
awareness on some level about her client providing information to authorities 
regarding Epperson before the informant — also assigned to Drummond’s courtroom 
— waived his right to a jury trial. Freeman, along with her law partner, were 
listed as attorneys of record in Epperson’s preliminary hearing, although at 
that point the informant hadn’t come forward.

Assistant District Attorney Kevin Gray said in court last month that the 
informant in question notified an attorney in his federal proceeding that he 
had information “about some homicides” that included Epperson’s case.

Gray said a later interview with Tulsa Police yielded statements from the man 
about how Epperson confessed to him that he killed Tennant but was not worried 
because he had beaten two murder investigations previously.

The state has announced its intent to use information about a 2015 murder case 
against Epperson that was dismissed before trial in his punishment stage if he 
is found guilty of killing Tennant.

Drummond, in deciding to grant the recusal request, said he determined the 
court should have been notified of the possibility of a conflict before the 
informant’s jury trial waiver was signed. He said it was “very problematic in 
my mind” to have Freeman or her partner sit next to the informant as he 
testified, and prosecutors announced they joined in the defense’s recusal 
motion. The informant is expected to receive a different court-appointed 
attorney.

Freeman testified that she had concerns on the day of her client’s February 
court appearance because the limited information she received from a prosecutor 
gave her reason to believe there could be a safety issue if Epperson and the 
informant were brought over from the Tulsa County Jail together.

Despite this, she said she did not believe with certainty that there was a 
conflict when the jury trial waiver was signed because she didn’t know the 
nature of what information was provided. However, she and her law partner later 
told Drummond they believe there is now a clear conflict if the informant 
testifies against Epperson in trial.

(source: Tulsa World)



ARIZONA:

Arguments Against Death Penalty Planned in Phoenix Case


A judge is scheduled to hear arguments about whether to take the death penalty 
off the table for a former bus driver in Phoenix charged in 9
killings that terrified residents of the city's west side.

Lawyers for Aaron Juan Saucedo want to bar prosecutors from seeking the death 
penalty as punishment after authorities released video of their client in his 
jail cell to news organizations.

The hearing is set for Friday morning before Superior Court Judge David Cunanan 
in Maricopa County Superior Court.

Defense attorneys have said in court papers that the release of the video to 
The Arizona Republic and other news organizations violated their client's 
constitutional right to bodily privacy.

Saucedo has pleaded not guilty to 1st-degree murder and other charges in 
shootings.

(source: Associated Press)




WASHINGTON:

The Washington Supreme Court upheld the death penalty for inmate Conner 
Schierman, who was convicted in 2010 of murdering an entire family.


Leonid Milkin was serving in Iraq with the National Guard in July 2006 when a 
neighbor murdered his wife and children, and burned down his house to cover up 
the crime.

Olga Milkin was found with her sons, Justin, 5, and Andrew, 3, and her sister 
Lyuba Botvina, in the burned home. Investigators say they were stabbed to 
death.

Conner Schierman, who had recently moved into the duplex across the street, was 
tried for the killings and convicted.

In the penalty phase the jury recommended he be sentenced to death. The judge 
agreed, sentencing Schierman to death in 2010. Schierman's attorney immediately 
notified the county of his intention to appeal the verdict to the state Supreme 
Court.

While Conner's appeal sat in court, Milkin vocalized he was upset when state 
and county leaders considered and favored abolishing the death penalty. Milkin 
said it should be up to the voters to decide.

"It's shameful. It's deplorable," Milkin said. "They're betraying victims and 
they're basically helping the murderers get away with murder."

The effort to ban the death penalty fizzled out in the Legislature in March.

Washington’s death penalty has been seldom used in recent years. In 2014, 
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee placed a moratorium on capital punishment, 
suspending the practice for as long as he’s in office. The state’s last 
execution occurred in 2010 when Cal Coburn Brown, convicted for the 1991 rape 
and murder of 21-year-old Holly Washa, was put to death by lethal injection.

(source: KIRO news)