[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., OHIO, TENN., NEB., ARIZ., US MIL.

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 2



TEXAS:

Testimony ends for death sentence appeal; final live arguments still to be made


Testimony has been concluded in the latest appeal in the case of Micah Crofford 
Brown, convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection 
in connection with the 2011 shooting death of his ex-wife Stella Michelle "Doc" 
Ray, a Caddo Mills Independent School District teacher.

A final decision in the case is not expected for a few more months, according 
to 196th District Court Judge Andrew Bench.

Both sides rested their cases Friday in the evidentiary hearing, meaning all 
evidence had been presented concerning Brown's latest appeal. Bench said 
attorneys will now await opportunities to review an official transcript of the 
hearing before presenting their "facts and conclusions of law."

Bench said once those documents are presented to his court, he will schedule a 
hearing for both sides to present their final live arguments before he makes a 
ruling in the appeal.

Brown was transferred from state prison to the custody of the Hunt County 
Detention Center for the hearing and remained in the jail Monday.

Brown, of Greenville, was convicted in May 2013 and sentenced to death by 
lethal injection. He does not have an execution date scheduled.

Testimony during the trial indicated Ray was shot and killed in Greenville on 
the night of July 20, 2011 as the result of a dispute with Brown concerning the 
couple's 2 children.

After the conviction and death sentence were upheld by the Texas Court of 
Criminal Appeals, a post conviction writ was filed on Brown's behalf in 2015 by 
the Office of Capital Writs, a state agency charged with representing 
death-sentenced persons in state post-conviction habeas corpus and related 
proceedings.

The 124-page document listed multiple alleged issues with Brown's conviction 
and sentence, including ineffective assistance by the trial and appeals defense 
attorneys, improper arguments by prosecutors during the punishment phase, and 
failure to present evidence during the punishment phase that Brown suffers from 
an autism spectrum disorder, a developmental disorder that affects 
communication and behavior, which may have mitigated the jury's decision to 
issue the death penalty.

During Brown's capital murder trial, Ray's mother said her daughter had worked 
as a teacher for Caddo Mills ISD for 2 years, but had just earned her doctorate 
degree and was planning on taking a professorship at a college in Marshall.

Donna Ray said her daughter was planning to stop by her residence on the night 
of the murder, the day before she was to move to Marshall.

During the trial, Brown's defense counsel, Toby Wilkinson, said the shooting 
came as the result of a dispute between Brown and Ray concerning the couple's 2 
small children, who were inside the vehicle Ray was driving on the night she 
was killed.

(source: roysecityheraldbanner.com)

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

Texas Decides to Execute Despite a Victim's Son Calling for Forgiveness


14 years ago, Mitesh Patel lost his father Hasmukh in a robbery-murder at the 
family's store in San Antonio. The man who killed his father, Chris Young, was 
sentenced to death. Leading up to Young's execution last week, Patel called for 
Texas officials to halt Young's execution and replace his death sentence with 
one of life without parole. His calls fell on deaf ears, and the state executed 
Young.

Patel's decision to push for clemency shows how the death penalty can betray 
what justice means to victims' families.

Patel is in fact just a couple of years older than Young, and, reflecting on 
the case in the days before Young's execution, he drew parallels between his 
own life and Young's. They are both men who had lived without fathers. Young 
lost his father to murder when he was only 8 years old and joined a gang not 
long after that.

Patel realized that his father's influence in his life growing up was a key 
part of his successes in life - something Young didn't have. He also knew that 
the Chris Young today was not the same person who killed Patel's father 14 
years ago. He knew Young had changed, that he was remorseful, that he had 
supported his daughters, counseled other young people, found solace in his 
Christian faith, and made a difference to other prisoners on death row.

Patel, a father now himself, did not want to play any role in taking Chris away 
from his daughters. Heeding his own father's words that 2 wrongs don't make a 
right, Patel saw little difference between Young's intentional killing of his 
father and Texas's intentional killing of Young.

Patel's reflections continued, and they bent away from the government 
responding to a killing by killing another. Patel knew his grief for his father 
would remain the same whether Young lived or died. He said before the 
execution, "Killing Chris doesn't change my path, my history. It only affects a 
whole other set of people."

But sadly, Patel's compassion and informed call for forgiveness for Young fell 
on deaf ears at the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and with Gov. Greg 
Abbott, who denied his plea for clemency. On July 17, the state of Texas 
executed Chris Young.

This isn't the 1st time Texas has ignored the voices of victims.

Mitesh Patel's call for forgiveness, not heard by Texas authorities, is 
tragically similar to those of many families of murder victims, including 
another Texas crime victim, Rais Bhuiyan. Mark Stroman was sentenced to death 
in Dallas for killing 2 people whom he thought were Arab-Americans after the 
9/11 terror attacks. Rais Bhuiyan was the 3rd victim, shot in the face in the 
attack, who miraculously survived.

Drawing on his Muslim faith - and the very identity that had made him a target 
of Mark Stroman's in the first place - Bhuiyan called for forgiveness. He 
pushed to meet with Stroman before his execution and asked state authorities to 
sentence him to life. Like Patel's, Bhuiyan's pleas were ignored by the Board 
of Pardons and Paroles and then-Gov. Rick Perry.

Texas executed Mark Stroman on July 21, 2011, almost exactly 7 years to the day 
from Young's execution this month. Patel and Bhuiyan's stories are stark 
reminders that the criminal justice system too often ignores victims who oppose 
execution.

These victims' voices opposing vengeance must be heard in the criminal justice 
system. We need reforms that will ensure rehabilitation and reconciliation are 
valued and promoted. As Rais Bhuiyan said, "In order to live in a better and 
peaceful world, we need to break the cycle of hate and violence."

Patel courageously pushed the state of Texas for compassion and forgiveness and 
asked that something better than Young's execution comes of his father's death. 
As Mitesh Patel knew, presciently, with Young's execution, little if anything 
was gained, but another father was lost.

Let us follow in the brave footsteps of Patel and Bhuiyan in calling for the 
criminal justice system to do more than kill. Vengeance is not justice. That 
the system ignores victims who call for forgiveness and redemption shows that 
it is truly broken and, in doing so, spotlights yet again that it is in the 
name of justice that we must abolish the death penalty.

(source: Anna Arceneaux, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment 
Project)

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

Houston cop killer gets execution date for 1988 slaying


A Harris County judge on Tuesday signed a death warrant for a man convicted of 
killing a police officer 3 decades ago in a botched robbery at an adult 
bookstore.

Robert Mitchell Jennings is now scheduled to meet his end in the Huntsville 
death chamber on Jan. 30, the 1st Texas execution on the calendar for 2019.

It's the 2nd time in 3 years the 60-year-old with claims of mental impairment 
has faced a date with death, and this time police union officials and the 
victim's family looked on tearfully as Judge Denise Collins told Jennings of 
his fate.

"The murder of my father has hung over my family like a black cloud," said 
Tyesha Beller, the daughter of slain officer Elston Howard. Now, she said, 
she's hoping for closure - and Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg wished 
for an end to the family's suffering.

"Robert Mitchell Jennings has been on death row longer than Officer Howard was 
alive," Ogg noted in a statement. Howard was 24 at the time of the murder.

The high school dropout on death row has never claimed innocence in the 1988 
slaying, but defense lawyer Randy Schaffer has doggedly fought to keep him 
alive with requests for a lesser sentence in light of Jennings' horrible 
childhood, mental impairment and apparent remorse - as well as his 1st lawyer's 
failure to raise those issues at trial.

"The criminal justice system promises equal justice under the law to every 
defendant," Schaffer wrote in May. "The system is measured, not by how it 
treats the best among us, but by how it treats the worst. Robert Mitchell 
Jennings has not received equal justice under the law."

After his client shuffled in front of the bench Tuesday shackled in a yellow 
jail jumpsuit, Schaffer argued that the execution date was premature in light 
of pending appeals.

"I understand why the state is requesting an execution date - because it's 
election season," he added, drawing a terse question from the judge.

But to Houston Police Officers' Union president Joe Gamaldi, the decision to 
schedule an execution hasn't come soon enough.

"It is absolutely ridiculous that it has taken over 30 years to get to this 
day," he said after the court hearing.

On July 19, 1988, HPD vice officer Elston Howard walked into the Empire 
Bookstore to write a ticket.

His undercover partner had just busted the store owner showing pornographic 
films without a permit and, wearing his vice raid jacket, Howard followed him 
inside to fill out the paperwork. He called for a squad car to take the man 
downtown to booking and was still standing behind the counter when Jennings 
burst in.

The robber spotted the police jacket and started shooting. 2 bullets hit Howard 
in the neck. He tried to flee but collapsed, according to court records.

Jennings shot him 2 more times as he lay face down.

Afterward, he demanded money, and the clerk handed over his wallet and cash 
from the register.

Jennings ran outside and hopped in a getaway car. But the driver, upon learning 
his accomplice had just killed a police officer, turned and shot him in the 
hand. Jennings dove out the car window and got himself to a hospital, where he 
was arrested and offered a written confession.

He was sentenced to death in 1989.

"It always feels good to see that justice is done," said Johnny Holmes, the 
longtime former district attorney who prosecuted the case. "And I think in that 
case, justice was done."

The condemned killer, who'd grown up in poverty, had a long criminal history 
including juvenile crimes and past prison sentences. He was born the child of 
rape, and his drug-addicted mother openly resented him, frequently telling him 
she did not want him, according to court records.

"He never had a chance," Schaffer said.

In 1978, a psychologist found that he had an IQ of 65 and mild organic brain 
dysfunction, including damage caused by a childhood injuries - one from a 
rollover car crash and the other from a baseball bat. But there was also 
evidence Jennings was malingering, or at the least exaggerating his symptoms to 
delay court proceedings.

During Jennings' original trial, his attorney was defending 2 capital cases at 
the same time and didn't do enough to investigate and bring up those claims, 
Schaffer argued, so the jury heard little about reasons to consider a life 
sentence rather than death.

They also didn't learn about his display of remorse just after his arrest and 
only heard from 1 witness who spoke on his behalf, a jailhouse chaplain who 
swore Jennings was a changed man.

In 2012, he won a new trial on punishment, but a higher court reversed the 
decision. 4 years later, he got his first execution date - though the Texas 
Court of Criminal Appeals stayed it with days to go.

"You want maximum due process because it is the most important of all possible 
cases," prosecutor Josh Reiss, who oversees the district attorney's 
post-conviction division, said outside of court Tuesday. "But Mr. Jennings has 
had all the due process he is due."

Jennings still has litigation pending with the Court of Criminal Appeals.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----35

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----553

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

36---------Sept. 12---------------Ruben Gutierrez---------554

37---------Sept. 26---------------Troy Clark--------------555

38---------Sept. 27---------------Daniel Acker------------556

49---------Oct. 10----------------Juan Segundo------------557

40---------Oct. 24----------------Kwame Rockwell----------558

41---------Nov. 7-----------------Emanuel Kemp------------559

44---------Dec. 4-----------------Joseph Garcia-----------560

45---------Jan. 30----------------Robert Jennings---------561

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)






GEORGIA:

Death penalty trial might be held elsewhere


Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Alison T. Burleson has given 
prosecution and defense attorneys a date of Aug. 13 to submit information to 
her concerning a possible change of venue in the death penalty trial of Ricky 
Dubose.

Burleson handed down that date during a hearing Wednesday morning in Putnam 
County Superior Court in Eatonton following comments made by Ocmulgee Judicial 
Circuit District Attorney Stephen A. Bradley, lead defense attorney Gabrielle 
Pittman, and assistant defense attorney Nathaniel Studelski

The assistant defense attorney told Burleson that the defense team wasn't 
prepared Wednesday to argue the matter related to the motion about pre-trial 
publicity related to the Dubose case.

Studelski explained that the defense team was working with 2 experts who had 
been hired - 1 who is involved specifically with providing information related 
to the amount of media coverage given to the case. He identified that person as 
Cindy Champion.

The other person is Jeffery Martin, who is looking into getting up a list of 
the types of counties that have similar demographic makeup as that of Putnam 
County.

"I know there was a great deal of news coverage regarding this case," Pittman 
told Burleson, who said she thought that particular motion was going to be 
argued Wednesday.

"I thought that was the whole point of setting it a month or so out is that we 
were going to do that today as obviously that dictates whether we're moving and 
where we're moving," Burleson said. "And of course that potentially shifts 
trial dates depending on whether we're staying or going and that kind of 
thing."

The judge said she thought that was one of the seven motions that were expected 
to be heard Wednesday.

"Your honor, I think this may be confusion and part of this is caused because 
we don't have any written responses from the state," Pittman said. "We're 
unable to identify what their position is, and that presents difficulties for 
us in preparing."

Pittman said she thought that particular motion was for the purpose of 
discussion, as opposed to having a full hearing in which both sides would 
present arguments.

"We need to know are they (district attorney's office) close to a venue change 
or are they in favor of a venue change," Pittman said. "For us to employ and 
bring experts into a hearing we need to have an answer as to where they stand 
and what their intention is."

Bradley said the state's position has never changed on the topic.

"I've been waiting to hear; I've read the defense's motion at great length, and 
I have looked at the law that applies and there are a number of factors that 
have to be considered by this court, by the state, by everybody," Bradley said. 
"I've been waiting to hear why the defense thinks that we cannot get a fair 
jury here. I understand the basics of the argument. I'm curious what their 
theory is. We don???t need a whole hearing, and I don't think we need any 
evidence, but I would like to hear what their argument is so we can see if we 
can craft locations."

Bradley pointed out that a lot of time had been spent with looking at numbers 
of similar sized counties to make sure that craft something that is a good 
selection based on the defense's criteria.

Although no actual county has yet been named, several counties have been 
mentioned as possible sites for the murder trial.

Studelski said the short list of 5 possible counties at this time included: 
Worth, Grady, Toombs, Coffee, and Glenn.

"We still need, obviously, more time," Studelski said, noting that the defense 
was working with Jeffery Martin in regards to the most suitable county for the 
upcoming trial in another county.

Burleson pointed out that she understood.

The judge then asked the prosecution team of Bradley, Chief Assistant District 
Attorney Allison Mauldin and Assistant District Attorney T. Wright Barksdale if 
they had done any research as to some of the counties they feel might be 
suitable.

Bradley, meanwhile, named the following counties as possible sites, based on 
similar demographics to those of Putnam County: Glenn, Montogomery, Toombs, 
Emanuel and Grady.

"Glenn, certainly," Bradley said. "It's larger, but it's very similar 
demographically."

Bradley noted that 3 other counties, Toombs, Montogomery and Emanuel all have 
some similarities.

"And Grady County, I think, is a possibility, although I don't know if they 
have the resources to accommodate as well as some of the others, but all of 
those are a possibility," Bradley said.

Burleson said she could see there were some commonalities in the lists between 
the prosecution and defense teams.

"Would it be helpful for me to give you all time to see if you can confer, and 
I need to do my own research, too, now that I do have your suggestions," 
Burleson asked.

Bradley said he didn't know that there was an agreement, but that he and the 
prosecution team were certainly willing to talk with the defense team.

Pittman said she would like to have the opportunity to talk with the state 
about it.

Burleson said she believed it was important to establish a deadline.

"And y'all need to have an agreement," Burleson said, noting that the 
prosecution and defense teams might consider getting together and talking about 
this Thursday and Friday.

"Today is August 1, and if y'all can let me know by Monday, Aug. 13, if y'all 
have a consensus on what county, and then if not, we'll know we have to have 
some earlier conversation about that," Burleson said.

The judge suggested the best way to do that would likely be through a letter 
with Dubose being sent a copy of it, too.

Burleson instructed attorneys on both sides to establish a preference of their 
top three counties "and then we'll see where we go from there."

The 25-year-old Dubose is accused of having shot to death 2 state corrections 
officers during an escape from a state prison transport bus on June 13, 2017.

The slain officers were Sgt. Curtis Billue, 58, and Sgt. Christopher Monica, 
42, both of whom were assigned to the transportation department at Baldwin 
State Prison in Milledgeville. The 2 men lived in Milledgeville.

Family members of both officers again attended Wednesday's hearing for Dubose, 
who sat at the defense table with his attorneys and only occasionally looked 
behind him at those in the courtroom. Dubose wore tan colored pants, and a 
light blue dress shirt. His feet were shackled from the time he was escorted 
into the courtroom until the hearing concluded and then in a transport vehicle 
back to the Georgia Diagnostic and Class Prison near Jackson, where he is being 
held.

Dubose is charged with the 2 counts of malice murder, 2 counts of felony 
murder, 1 count of motor vehicle hijacking, and 1 count of felony escape. His 
co-defendant in the case, Donnie Rowe, now 44, also is charged with the same 
offenses. Like in the case of Dubose, Bradley is seeking the death penalty. 
Dubose and Rowe will be tried separately.

The 2 men escaped from a state prison transport bus, as it was traveling from 
Hancock State Prison through Putnam County and en route to the state prison in 
Butts County.

(source: The Union-Recorder)

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

Prison that held 1st Georgia electric chair being torn down


A central Georgia county is tearing down an old, empty prison that was home to 
Georgia's 1st electric chair and was linked to an infamous lynching.

The 2-story brick building that anchored the Georgia State Prison Farm in 
Milledgeville is being torn down by Baldwin County, to the outrage of some 
locals and history buffs.

Demolition of the structure on Georgia 22 began last week.

Built in 1911, the prison was Georgia's main correction facility for more than 
2 decades. Beset by chronic overcrowding, it was replaced by the Reidsville 
prison in the mid-1930s.

In 1924, the Milledgeville prison housed Georgia's 1st electric chair, dubbed 
"Old Sparky." That same year, Howard Hinton, 22, was the 1st of 162 Georgia 
prisoners to die by state-ordered electrocution at the prison, according to a 
state Department of Corrections history of Georgia's death penalty.

The penitentiary's numerous occupants included Bill Miner, an infamous 
stagecoach and train robber who was confined there until his death in 1913.

But its most notorious link was with the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish 
factory superintendent who was tried in Atlanta amid a climate of anti-Semitic 
prejudice and convicted of murdering a 13-year-old girl. Frank was abducted 
from the prison and later lynched near Marietta, nearly 120 miles away. It was 
unclear if the kidnappers, many of them well-to-do Marietta citizens, had help 
from inside the prison. Frank was posthumously pardoned by the Georgia State 
Board of Pardons and Paroles in 1986.

No official public announcement was made about the demolition, Baldwin County 
Manager Carlos Tobar said in an email.

The building was beyond repair and would've cost over $5 million just to 
stabilize, county commission chairman Tommy French said in a press release that 
was sent out after demolition began.

Baldwin County acquired the historic prison in 2013 when it failed to sell at a 
tax sale.

Edwin Atkins, who had organized a Facebook group dedicated to preserving the 
building, is one of the local residents distraught over its demolition. He said 
locals were unaware of the demolition until someone happened to drive by.

"It's part of my family history, but more than that, it's part of Georgia's 
history," Atkins said. His great-grandfather, the Rev. Edwin C. Atkins, was the 
prison chaplain. During his 14-year stint there, he preached sermons to the 
convicts and prayed with death row inmates before their executions. He 
maintained a detailed journal of daily occurrences in the prison, which Atkins 
still keeps today as a family heirloom.

Atkins was part of a grassroots effort to save the prison and the inmate 
artwork, much of it religious, that was still visible on its walls. Atkins 
recognizes the grim history of the prison, especially the disproportionate 
number of black prisoners who were put to death there, but calls it a "landmark 
in capital punishment."

"If you don't respect and promote your past, you don't know where you're going 
in the future," Atkins said.

Historian Hugh Harrington called the disrepair of the prison a "major failing" 
on the county's part. Harrington is the author of 3 books on Milledgeville's 
history.

"I think as a society, we need to know what came before us," Harrington said.

Members of the Milledgeville community are currently raising funds for a museum 
at the site of the Central State Hospital Depot. Baldwin County would "love" to 
donate the cornerstone of the prison to them, Tobar said. A historic marker for 
the prison will also be placed on site of the prison.

(source: Associated Press)






OHIO:

Clayton man sentenced to death in murder of childhood friend has motion 
denied----The former Northmont High School student sentenced to the death 
penalty for crimes involved in the murder of a childhood friend had his motion 
for reconsideration denied by the Ohio Supreme Court.


Austin Myers, 23, had asked the court to take another look at the case despite 
a 7-0 ruling on May 17 that affirmed his convictions and the imposition of the 
death penalty.

Myers was convicted in the death of Justin Back, 18, at Back's home outside 
Waynesville in January 2014. Investigators said Timothy Mosley actually stabbed 
Back to death, but that Myers concocted and instigated the robbery that turned 
into murder.

The ruling filed Wednesday and signed by Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor read, 
"It is ordered by the court that the motion for reconsideration in this case is 
denied."

Myers is scheduled to be put to death on July 20, 2022. The court previously 
denied Myers' attorneys' attempts to get Myers' sentenced changed to life in 
prison without parole - the same sentence Mosley is serving.

Back, 18, was a 2013 Waynesville High School graduate who was going to enter 
the U.S. Navy in less than 2 weeks at the time of his death.

After Myers' original sentencing, Back's mother, Sandy Cates, said, "It's 
bittersweet. It's justice for Justin, but it's never going to bring Justin 
back."

Testimony showed Myers planned the crime, including acquiring septic chemicals 
he expected would decompose Back's body, but that Mosley killed Back during a 
struggle on the floor of the kitchen after a garrote designed to choke Back to 
death caught on his chin.

Myers and Back were friends until 8th grade, when Myers moved to Clayton. 
Testimony indicated Myers was the one who decided they should target Back's 
home, unaware the family safe contained only $70 at the time.

Myers' attorneys, Timothy McKenna and Roger Kirk, wrote in their motion to 
reconsider that the state's highest court's analysis "was flawed and ignored 
critical facts" and that Myers' death penalty sentence "is patently unfair when 
the actual killer received life without parole."

McKenna and Kirk didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment. 
Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell didn't return a message seeking 
comment but has said before that he anticipated the defense to appeal to the 
U.S. Supreme Court.

(source: Dayton Daily News)






TENNESSEE----impending execution

Execution of convicted East Tennessee killer could see another delay


Convicted killer Billy Ray Irick may see yet another delay in his date with 
death, pending an appeal over the 3-drug lethal injection method.

"It's been a very cumbersome, lengthy legal journey," defense attorney Greg 
Isaacs said.

Irick was sentenced to death in the rape and murder of 7-year-old Paula Dyer in 
1985. At the core of the defense's argument is Irick's mental state.

"This has been well documented when he was extremely young," Isaacs said. "He 
had in patient treatment for his mental disease or defect. However, it didn't 
rise to the level of an insanity defense that the jury found viable."

Attorneys could lean on this challenge once again to save Irick's life.

Irick's attorney filed a motion for stay in the upcoming Aug. 9 execution. This 
comes after a judge last week upheld the state's use of controversial lethal 
injection combination.

"The defense team in a capital punishment case are going to challenge 
everything," Isaacs said. "They're going to challenge the means and methods of 
execution in Tennessee. They're going to challenge our lethal injection drugs."

Attorneys for 33 death row inmates are asking for a less painful method of 
execution, claiming the state's proposed 3-drug method would amount to torture.

The appeal has since been filed, prompting what could delay the decades-long 
case even longer.

"The best case scenario if you're Irick is you want that stay," Isaacs said. 
"You're praying, you're hoping, watching... your lawyers are there. Everybody's 
on the phone. That's what you're hoping for, that's what the defense team is 
hoping for, so it's going to be a very tense few days."

If his execution goes as planned, it will mark the 1st scheduled capital 
punishment in Tennessee since 2009.

(source: WATE news)






NEBRASKA----female faces death sentence

State will seek death penalty for Bailey Boswell in slaying of Sydney Loofe


State prosecutors revealed Wednesday that they will seek the death penalty for 
Bailey Boswell in the slaying of Lincoln store clerk Sydney Loofe.

If Boswell, 24, is found guilty of 1st-degree murder and is sentenced to death, 
she will be the 1st woman on Nebraska's death row in history, according to 
State Department of Corrections records.

Loofe disappeared in November after going on a date with Boswell that was 
arranged online.

The 24-year-old store clerk's body was found 3 weeks later, dismembered and 
wrapped in black plastic bags, in a rural area in south-central Nebraska, about 
an hour's drive west from where Boswell was living in Wilber, Nebraska.

Authorities had already announced that they were seeking the death penalty for 
Boswell's 51-year-old boyfriend, Aubrey Trail.

Trail, in calls to media, has claimed that he alone was responsible for Loofe's 
death, saying he accidentally choked her to death during a sexual fantasy and 
that Boswell was out of the room at the time.

The Nebraska Attorney General's Office has alleged that 2 aggravating factors 
exist to justify the death penalty for Trail: that the slaying exhibited 
"exceptional depravity" and that Trail had a substantial past history of 
violent crimes.

In the filing Wednesday, the AG's office alleged 1 aggravating factor for 
Boswell, that the slaying was especially heinous.

Boswell's court-appointed attorney, Todd Lancaster of the Nebraska Commission 
on Public Advocacy, declined to comment on Wednesday's development.

Boswell, 24, is a former standout basketball player from Leon, Iowa. She 
crisscrossed the country with Trail, trading in antiques. They were frequent 
visitors to casinos and resorts, according to Trail.

Initially the pair - in video messages posted on social media - denied 
involvement in Loofe's death. Later, though, Trail changed his story in calls 
to the media. Boswell, according to authorities, has not talked with 
investigators since being arrested, with Trail, in Branson, Missouri.

Boswell is scheduled to next appear in the murder case in Saline County 
District Court on Monday. She and Trail are also scheduled to be sentenced on 
Friday in federal court in Lincoln for defrauding a Kansas couple out of nearly 
$400,000 in a scam to buy a rare coin overseas.

Attorneys representing Trail and Boswell on Tuesday evening were allowed to 
inspect property the pair left behind at the basement apartment in Wilber they 
had rented. Ben Murray, Trail's court-appointed attorney, said that the items 
reminded him of things you'd find at a farm auction, such as antiques and old 
comic books.

He said that "shackles" listed as part of the property appeared to be antique, 
and not something that would be used to bind someone.

(source: Omaha World-Herald)

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

State moves forward with execution plans


The state of Nebraska is preparing for its 1st execution of a prisoner in 21 
years. Only 2 weeks remain until the day that Carey Dean Moore is to be put to 
death.

The execution is polarizing, some saying to let the man die, others who want to 
stop the execution.

One of the most vocal opponents in Nebraska is state senator Ernie Chambers.

Chambers has been fighting the death penalty politically for almost as long as 
Moore has been on death row.

One of the issues some opponents have is that the State has not revealed the 
makers of the 4 drugs being used for lethal injection.

Senator Chambers recently asked the company Pfizer to take the State of 
Nebraska to court if corrections is using 1 of Pfizer's drugs.

In a statement, Pfizer said: "Our records do not show any sales of any 
restricted products to the Nebraska Department of Corrections. We are again 
asking the Nebraska Department of Corrections to return any Pfizer restricted 
product."

Chambers is continuing to research ways to stop the execution.

Sharon Johnson questions the impact of the drug cocktail as it has never been 
used before a state execution.

"I don't think the drugs have been proven, what if instead of a drug death it 
makes them a vegetable?"

Others like Jim Singletary say life in prison is punishment enough.

"If there are folks who want to split hairs and say electrocution is more 
harmful than putting someone to sleep with drugs, then I can understand that 
argument. To me, it's all cruel and unusual."

While some senators oppose the execution, 61 % of Nebraska voters wanted the 
death penalty in the state.

The execution is scheduled for August 14th.

(source: WOWT news)

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

2 more companies say they don't want their drugs used in Nebraska execution


2 more pharmaceutical companies have notified Nebraska officials that they 
don't want their drugs used in a lethal injection scheduled to take place in 
less than 2 weeks.

Whether the manufacturers will back up their words in court remains to be seen, 
but such a legal challenge represents one of the last ways to potentially 
derail the Aug. 14 execution of double-murderer Carey Dean Moore.

Representatives of Sandoz Inc. and Hikma Pharmaceuticals said Wednesday that 
they have not yet confirmed whether the Nebraska Department of Correctional 
Services has obtained their products. Nebraska officials have repeatedly 
refused to disclose the source of the 4 substances they intend to use in the 
state's 1st lethal injection execution.

In the meantime, Michelle T. Quinn, general counsel for Sandoz North America, 
has said we "reserve all of our rights to take necessary legal action to ensure 
the proper use of our medications." The statement was contained in a Monday 
letter addressed to Nebraska's governor, attorney general and corrections 
director.

Messages left after 5 p.m. with press officers for Gov. Pete Ricketts and 
Attorney General Doug Peterson were not returned Wednesday night. A spokeswoman 
for corrections said the department would take the 4 days allowed under the 
public records law to respond to a request for the letters sent by the drug 
companies.

The sequence of drugs Nebraska plans to use in Moore's execution are diazepam, 
a sedative known more commonly as Valium; fentanyl citrate, a painkiller linked 
to the national epidemic of opioid addiction; cisatracurium besylate, a 
paralyzing agent that can stop breathing; and potassium chloride, which can 
trigger heart attack in high doses.

Sandoz is one of several manufacturers of cisatracurium, while Hikma 
Pharmaceuticals is one of several makers of fentanyl.

Some death penalty opponents view a lawsuit by a drug manufacturer as one of 
the last avenues to delay the 1st execution in Nebraska in 21 years. That's 
largely because Moore, who has spent 38 years on death row, has not mounted his 
own legal fight to block the execution.

Recent events in Nevada lend credence to the view. Alvogen, a different 
drugmaker, prompted a last-minute delay of a July 11 execution in that state. 
Like Moore, the Nevada inmate also has said he wants his execution to be 
carried out.

London-based Hikma successfully joined the Nevada lawsuit on Monday after 
learning that corrections officials there had obtained the company's fentanyl. 
Nevada officials bought the drug through a 3rd-party distributor even though 
the company repeatedly said it didn't want its products used for capital 
punishment, the company alleged in a legal document filed this week.

In addition to being the first 2 states trying to use fentanyl in an execution, 
Nebraska and Nevada also hold contracts with Cardinal Health, a 3rd-party drug 
distributor. Legal filings in Nevada say Cardinal Health sold the 2 disputed 
drugs to Nevada prison officials.

Steven Weiss, a spokesman for Hikma, said Wednesday that the company has 
recently asked Nebraska officials to do 2 things. First, tell the company if 
the state government possesses any drugs manufactured by Hikma. And if so, 
provide an official affidavit pledging that the drugs will be used only for 
legitimate patient care.

"We are disappointed that these efforts in Nebraska have been unsuccessful to 
date," Weiss said.

Weiss declined to say Wednesday whether the company will file a lawsuit to seek 
the return of any drugs Nebraska may have obtained. But the company has offered 
to refund the cost of drugs Nebraska purchased for the execution.

Earlier this week, an official for Pfizer renewed a demand the company first 
made in October that Nebraska return any Pfizer drugs purchased for capital 
punishment. Corrections officials have not responded to the demands.

Pfizer, which makes fentanyl, diazepam and potassium chloride, has ruled out 
taking legal action to force the return of the drugs.

The four-drug protocol planned by Nebraska has never been used in an execution. 
Death penalty opponents say that raises the possibility of a botched execution 
and unnecessary suffering for the inmate in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska and state newspapers have sued 
to compel public disclosure of the source of the drugs. A district court judge 
ordered the information released, but the order was put on hold after the 
attorney general appealed.

Moore, 60, was sentenced to death row for the 1979 shootings of Omaha 
cabdrivers Reuel Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland. He is the longest-serving of 
the state's 12 condemned inmates.

(source: Omaha World-Herald)


ARIZONA:

After 23 Years on Death Row, Barry Jones Sees His Conviction Overturned: 
Arizona Must Retry or Release Him Immediately----Barry Jones insisted upon his 
innocence for more than 2 decades. A federal judge just threw out his 
conviction.


After more than 23 years insisting upon his innocence while living on Arizona's 
death row, Barry Lee Jones had his conviction thrown out by a federal judge on 
Tuesday. In a 91-page order filed from Anchorage, Alaska, U.S. District Judge 
Timothy Burgess found that the verdict in Jones's 1995 trial was the product of 
a "rush to judgment" by law enforcement, whose "lack of due diligence and 
thorough professional investigation" was compounded by the failures of Jones's 
defense attorneys. Absent such failures, he wrote, "there is a reasonable 
probability that his jury would not have convicted him of any of the crimes 
with which he was charged and previously convicted." Burgess ordered that Jones 
be immediately retried or released.

The order is a sharp rebuke to the Arizona Attorney General's Office, which has 
stubbornly defended Jones's conviction even as its theory of the crime has 
fallen apart. In a state that has exonerated 9 people from death row, 
prosecutors fought to preserve Jones's conviction, relying on procedural 
barriers while showing indifference to the grave flaws in the case. That Jones 
was able to overcome such barriers is extraordinary on its own - and further 
proof of the rot that pervaded the case at every stage. Burgess's order comes 
five months after an evidentiary hearing revealed stunning neglect on the part 
of his defense attorneys at both the trial and post-conviction levels - and 
profound tunnel vision by Pima County Sheriff's Detective Sonia Pesqueira, who 
led the investigation.

Jones, now 59, was convicted and sentenced to die for raping and murdering his 
girlfriend's 4-year-old daughter, Rachel Gray. The child died from a blow to 
the stomach, which tore her duodenum, part of her lower intestine, leading to a 
fatal condition called peritonitis. Jones was arrested shortly after dropping 
off the child and her mother, Angela Gray, at the hospital early in the morning 
on May 2, 1994. But the evidence against him was flimsy, based on a narrow 
window of time during which he'd been seen with Rachel in his van on the 
afternoon of May 1. A pair of 8-year-old twins would say they saw Jones hitting 
her while driving the vehicle, and drops of blood in the van and on his clothes 
were used as proof that Jones had raped the little girl. But there was no other 
evidence to support this. Investigators never even collected the clothing 
Rachel wore that day.

At the evidentiary hearing in Tucson last fall, Pesqueira, who has since 
retired, conceded that Jones became her sole suspect within hours of seeing 
Rachel's body at the hospital - and that she never investigated the timing of 
Rachel's fatal injury, merely assuming it had occurred the day before she died. 
Prosecutors nevertheless maintained that Pesqueira "followed the evidence of 
guilt for Rachel's injuries, and that road led directly to Jones," while 
insisting that the quality of her work was irrelevant, since the question at 
hand was whether Jones's defense attorneys were constitutionally ineffective in 
violation of his Sixth Amendment rights. "Law enforcement has nothing to do 
with this case," Assistant Arizona Attorney General Myles Braccio argued at an 
oral argument in March.

Burgess disagreed. Pesqueira's failures were inextricable from those of Jones's 
defense attorneys, he found. "There were several significant red flags that 
should have objectively and reasonably alerted counsel to the need to 
investigate the evidence regarding the timing of Rachel's injuries," Burgess 
wrote. Among them was evidence of alternate suspects, such as Jones's 
girlfriend, who was "a serial abuser of her children," as Assistant Arizona 
Federal Public Defender Cary Sandman reminded the court last spring. At the 
evidentiary hearing, Pesqueira seemed clueless when shown statements alleging 
that Gray had hit her children and thrown them down the stairs. "That would 
have been a good thing to have," she said.

That the evidence no longer supported Jones's conviction was clear long before 
the hearing took place, however. In a letter to Jones's attorneys last year, 
the attorney general's office wrote that the current Pima County medical 
examiner "did not dispute the conclusions of your experts." These experts have 
long argued that Rachel's injuries predated the window presented by the state. 
Renowned pediatric pathologist Janice Ophoven, who first looked at the case in 
2002, has insisted for years that Arizona's theory of the crime was impossible. 
At the evidentiary hearing, Ophoven explained how Rachel's abdominal injury 
developed over time, with the severity of her illness unclear until it was too 
late.

Burgess clearly found the defense's experts compelling, while remaining 
unconvinced by the ever-shifting opinions of the state's key witness, former 
Pima County Medical Examiner John Howard, whose estimates regarding Rachel's 
fatal injury have been bewilderingly fluid since he first handled the case back 
in 1994. "Dr. Howard's inconsistent answers are plain in the differing 
testimony he provided on direct examination, on cross-examination, and during 
examination by the Court during the evidentiary hearing," Burgess wrote.

"Contrasting the evidence presented at trial with the evidence that could have 
been presented at trial" made clear that Jones's trial was unconstitutional, 
Burgess found. While he did not address the issue of innocence explicitly, the 
new evidence "undermines considerably the confidence in the outcome," he wrote.

A Maze of Procedural Barriers

In a lengthy investigation into the Jones case last year, The Intercept 
reviewed thousands of pages of trial transcripts, police records, and 
investigative reports that revealed several hallmarks of wrongful convictions. 
2 jurors from Jones's original trial expressed misgivings about the outcome, 
telling The Intercept that they had been disturbed by the weak defense Jones 
received. One juror, Hildegard Stoecker, was particularly troubled by the case. 
"It lessens my faith in the judicial system," she said.

Despite the egregious flaws in Jones's conviction, procedural barriers might 
easily have led to his eventual execution. Among the considerable obstacles was 
the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, passed one year after Jones 
was sent to death row. If not for a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a 
different Arizona case, Martinez v. Ryan, the law might well have prevented any 
chance for Jones to show the evidence casting doubt on his conviction. Under 
AEDPA, if attorneys failed to bring a claim of ineffective assistance during 
state post-conviction proceedings, that claim was forever barred from being 
heard in federal court. But Martinez carved out a "narrow exception," as 
Burgess noted, holding that if such a claim was itself the result of 
ineffective lawyering by post-conviction counsel, a defendant should have a 
chance at relief.

The ruling was a lifeline for Jones. "Before Martinez, our office lost many, 
many, many ineffective assistance cases because the claims were never raised in 
the state court," Sandman said. "If Barry's initial appeal in the 9th Circuit 
had moved a little more rapidly, it could have been decided before Martinez and 
he might have been executed."

"The evidentiary hearing is the key," said Dale Baich, supervising attorney of 
the Arizona Federal Public Defender's Capital Habeas Unit. "All our clients 
really want is one fair opportunity to have a full, fair hearing at the 
post-conviction level." But such chances are exceedingly rare. Even under 
Martinez, there was no guarantee of a hearing. If there was any reason for 
Jones to feel optimistic about his chances before the ruling, it was that 
Burgess granted an evidentiary hearing at all. Even then, ineffective 
assistance claims are notoriously hard to win. Under the U.S. Supreme Court 
case Strickland v. Washington, Jones had to show, 1st, that his attorneys had 
provided an unconstitutionally inadequate defense, and 2nd, that the outcome of 
his trial would likely have been different absent their failures. In his order, 
Burgess spent considerable detail explaining why Jones met the burden demanded 
by Strickland.

The state of Arizona has shown contempt for the resources Jones's current 
lawyers have devoted to his case. "With a seemingly limitless budget, full-time 
counsel, investigators, support staff, and a horde of new experts, Jones has 
spent the past 15 years re-investigating his case," prosecutors argued in a 
January filing. At the evidentiary hearing, Braccio and Assistant Attorney 
General Lacey Gard repeatedly contrasted the money spent by Sandman and his 
colleagues with the comparatively slim resources of Jones's original attorneys, 
arguing that the lawyers could not be considered ineffective for having limited 
funds.

Burgess flatly dismissed the notion. "The Court rejects any suggestion by 
Respondents that trial counsel's deficient pretrial investigation be excused on 
the grounds that funding for investigators and experts was lacking or 
inadequate," he said. In fact, with regard to the failures of Jones's 
post-conviction attorney, James Hazel, Burgess drew a parallel to the case of 
Anthony Ray Hinton, in which the Supreme Court found "counsel's failure to 
request additional funding for an expert was unreasonable and constituted 
deficient performance." Hinton was exonerated from Alabama's death row in 2015.

"Right on Time"

On Tuesday afternoon, Jones's legal team gathered in a conference room in their 
Tucson office to call Jones. "They don't get short-notice phone calls very 
often," defense investigator Andrew Sowards said. "He kind of knew something 
was up." Upon hearing the news, he said, "there was a sense of relief in 
Barry's voice I've never heard."

In an email, the Arizona Attorney General's Office told The Intercept that it 
had no comment on the order. If the state does not initiate a retrial within 45 
days, Jones must be released. As they wait for the state to signal its next 
move, Jones's legal team is reaching out to his family members, many of whom he 
has not seen in decades. In his time on death row, his 3 children have grown up 
and have kids of their own. Speaking to The Intercept over the phone last year, 
Jones said he felt like an emotional burden on them. "I'm hurting everybody out 
there by being here. I've got to live with that. That's not easy." Decades of 
severe isolation have taken their toll, not to mention the 33 executions 
carried out in Arizona since 1995, when Jones was sent to death row. "They've 
killed friends of mine," he said.

The ruling came "right on time," Sandman said. "He was really struggling." As 
Sowards says, "It's a tough life for a guy with that kind of conviction in any 
prison - especially on death row." For 23 years, Jones has been seen as a child 
rapist and murderer. To be able to return to his unit to share the news was 
powerful vindication of what he has insisted all along: that he did not commit 
the crime that sent him to die.

Sowards himself was emotional over the decision. He joined the Arizona Federal 
Public Defender's Office in 2008, just as Jones's initial federal habeas 
petition had been denied. In the years that followed, he uncovered critical 
information that had been withheld by the prosecution at trial. Like all the 
members of Jones's legal team, Sowards believed in his innocence.

To Sylvia Lett, Jones's former federal habeas attorney, it was a stroke of good 
luck that the case fell to Burgess. Speaking to The Intercept last year, she 
had a hard time remembering when a federal district judge in Arizona granted 
relief in a death penalty case during the years she represented Jones. "It took 
a district judge from Alaska having the guts to say, 'Hey, wait a second, 
there's something wrong here,'" Lett said.

"It just seems like this judge got it," Sowards said. "He saw the state's 
investigation for what it was, which was shoddy, the defense investigation for 
what it was, which was nonexistent, and he said, 'That's not fair.' And that's 
how it's supposed to work."

(source: theintercept.com)






US MILITARY:

Former Wisconsin airman spared again from the death penalty in double homicide 
conviction


A former senior airman from southwest Wisconsin has been spared the death 
penalty for a 2nd time on a double homicide conviction and will instead spend 
the rest of his life behind bars.

A military panel last month resentenced Andrew Witt to life in prison without 
parole in connection to the deaths of a fellow airman Andrew Schliepsiek and 
his wife, Jamie Schliepsiek, the La Crosse Tribune reported.

The 36-year-old was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 2005. But a 
military appeals court vacated the ruling in 2016, and returned the case to a 
lower court.

Witt's attorney said the life sentence was delivered last month, but 
prosecutors again sought the death penalty.

Maj. Christopher Goewert said the defense presented evidence of a traumatic 
brain injury that Witt suffered months before the attack. He said the defense 
also showed that Witt has had good behavior during the 14 years he's spent in 
prison.

Witt's family testified that he's remained a central part of their lives and 
has provided emotional support despite being incarcerated.

Witt also provided a statement expressing remorse and apologizing to the 
victims and their families, Goewert said.

"The crime was aberrant behavior and was a perfect storm of 
events/problems/stressors," Goewert wrote. "As his life had value to others, 
mercy was appropriate."

(source: Associated Press)