[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., ALA., OHIO, IDAHO, USA

[Rick Halperin]

December 16



NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Death penalty repeal supporters make key gains in State House



Supporters of death penalty repeal appear to have a veto-proof majority in the 
New Hampshire Senate this coming legislative session, easing the road for 
potential passage a year after Gov. Chris Sununu blocked the measure from 
becoming law.

After an election that saw 4 senators lose their seats and 2 more retire, the 
balance has tilted toward repeal, supporters say. 16 Democrats and Republicans 
have publicly stated their opposition to capital punishment, through votes or 
statements, exactly the 2/3 required to overturn another veto.

“We’re optimistic,” said Jeanne Hruska, policy director for the New Hampshire 
American Civil Liberties Union, a proponent of recent repeal efforts.

Overturning a potential veto by the governor would cement a swing in recent 
years against the penalty. In June, Sununu vetoed a repeal bill that cleared 
the Senate 14-10 – the 1st governor since Jeanne Shaheen to block the effort. 
An override effort stalled in the Senate this September by the same margin.

This time, the 16 necessary votes appear to come from legislators old and new, 
on both sides of the aisle. Fourteen incoming senators have already voted on 
the record in favor of repeal, whether in the Senate, like Sens. Bob Giuda, 
David Watters, Martha Hennessy, Harold French, Ruth Ward, Jay Kahn, Dan Feltes, 
John Reagan, Donna Soucy and Martha Fuller-Clark, or in the House, like Sens. 
Shannon Chandley, Cindy Rosenwald, Melanie Levesque and Tom Sherman.

2 more Democrats, Sens. Jeanne Dietsch of Peterborough and Jon Morgan of 
Brentwood, have publicly opposed the penalty, though neither has directly 
announced how they would vote.

“Obviously I’d want to read anything I voted for or against first,” Morgan said 
in an interview Monday. “But I think it’s safe to say in general I’m 
comfortable letting people know I’m opposed to the death penalty."

Dietsch didn’t return a request for comment. But in a 2016 debate during her 
unsuccessful primary challenge for her present Senate seat, the Peterborough 
senator called for repeal, describing the death penalty as an eye-for-an-eye 
“feudal sort of arrangement that we no longer believe in.”

Repeal advocates say Dietsch reiterated that position in conversations this 
past election cycle.

Supporters of the death penalty say it provides justice to survivors, acts as a 
deterrent and leads to better plea bargains. Opponents call it immoral, costly 
and prone to error.

The apparent shift in support could supercharge an effort in the House next 
year, inviting a new round of pleas to emotions and morality, both for and 
against repeal.

Hampton Democratic Rep. Renny Cushing, a longstanding champion of repeal, has 
submitted a bill request for repeal next year, which advocates say will take 
the same form as last year’s. Cushing was not available to comment on the 
effort.

But repeal advocates still face plenty of uncertainty. For one, Sununu has made 
clear he is still opposed to repeal, all but ensuring a need for two-thirds 
support.

“Governor Sununu will continue to stand with crime victims, members of the law 
enforcement community and advocates for justice in opposing a repeal of the 
death penalty,” said Ben Vihstadt, a spokesman for the governor, in a 
statement.

And for advocates seeking to secure a two-thirds veto override majority, the 
400-member House could be harder to pin down.

In April, with 339 members present, the House voted 223-116, just under a 
two-thirds majority. Supporters of repeal would likely need to beat that 
performance on “veto override day” when attendance can fluctuate.

“Its hard to tell, especially this early,” said Hruska. But “given the numbers 
last year and the election this year, we’re optimistic that we’ll have even 
more support in the House,” she added.

The new 233-167 Democratic majority in the House could boost that calculation. 
Democrats have recently been more unified on death penalty than Republicans.

In April’s vote, 98 House Republicans voted against repeal and 70 voted in 
favor. In contrast, of the 150 House Democrats in attendance at the time of the 
vote last spring, only 10 voted against repeal – many hailing from Manchester, 
where the conviction of New Hampshire’s lone death row inmate, Michael Addison, 
strongly resonates.

Of those 10, some, like Rep. Dianne Schuett of Pembroke, remain steadfastly 
opposed this time around. Schuett’s late husband worked in law enforcement, she 
said. For her the argument for deterrence rings through.

“If the feeling is it prevents one person from shooting one police officer, 
that’s worth it to me,” she said.

Others are less sure.

“Philosophically I don’t want to give the state authority to take life,” said 
Rep. Tom Buco of Conway, who voted against repeal. “But on the other hand, I 
voted against repealing it because I thought that it would give prosecutors 
some leverage (during plea bargains).”

“I’m talking myself right out of it,” he laughed. “I really have more rationale 
against the death penalty than I do in favor it.”

Rep. Tim Soucy of Concord, another of the 10 Democratic no-voters, said he was 
open to persuasion, too. A retired Nashua firefighter with deep friendships in 
law enforcement, the Addison conviction hit home, he said, driving his support 
for capital punishment.

But looking to the next vote, he said he would hear people out.

“I’m open minded on things like this,” he said. “I don’t just make an 
irrational decision. I will absolutely listen to both sides on it.”

The fate of Addison, convicted for the 2006 murder of Manchester police officer 
Michael Briggs, will hang over any repeal effort. For years, opponents of 
repeal of invoked Addison’s case, arguing that repealing the penalty could give 
Addison a backdoor way to escaping the penalty himself.

But repeal advocates say any bill would apply only to future cases, allowing 
Addison’s execution to proceed if he exhausts his appeals.

But few on either side of the issue can say how the execution of Addison would 
even happen. New Hampshire has no facilities to carry out an execution, no 
drugs necessary to do so and no execution protocols in place.

Both supporters and opponents say the state should hold off on deciding on a 
plan for the execution until Addison exhausts his appeals and the need arises.

“Most criminal bills are prospective and this bill is also prospective,” said 
Barbara Keshen, chairwoman of the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death 
Penalty. “We’ll let the courts and the lawyers figure out what happens to 
Michael Addison."

(source: Concord Monitor)








ALABAMA:

The slow death of the death penalty in the U.S.



The death penalty in the United States is dying. Not in Alabama -- not yet, at 
least -- but nationally it is dying. Good riddance.

Killing death-row inmates doesn’t deter violent crime, statistics show. Killing 
death-row inmates is more expensive than giving them life sentences with no 
chance of parole. Killing death-row inmates is blood sport for tough-on-crime 
advocates and aligns our nation and its stated Christian values not with our 
historic allies, but instead with the likes of China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

But make no mistake. The death penalty in the United States is dying. Good 
riddance.

With only a few weeks remaining in this calendar year, 2018 will be the fourth 
straight year with fewer than 30 executions and 50 death sentences in America, 
the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reported Friday. Outside of Texas, 
the United States killed fewer inmates this year (25) than in any year since 
1991. Worse, though, is that “more than 70 % of the people executed showed 
evidence of serious mental illness, brain damage, intellectual impairment, or 
chronic abuse and trauma, and 4 were executed despite substantial innocence 
claims,” the DPIC wrote.

Washington state in October became the 20th state, along with the District of 
Columbia, to stop killing inmates. That state’s Supreme Court, the DPIC 
reported, decided that executions violate its state constitution because it “is 
imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner.” Likewise, there are strong 
indications Oregon, Colorado and Pennsylvania may follow Washington state’s 
lead.

Alabamians by and large may support the death penalty, but they must also 
acknowledge this truth: only 8 states killed inmates this year -- Alabama 
(which held two executions), Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, South 
Dakota, Tennessee and Texas -- a number that, like executions themselves, is 
steadily declining. On that, we are in a regrettable minority.

The death penalty in the United States is dying, slowly and methodically. Good 
riddance.

(source: Editorial Board, The Anniston Star)








OHIO:

Special prosecutor appointed to probe alleged misconduct by Pike County sheriff



A special prosecutor has been appointed to investigate misconduct claims 
against Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader, according to court documents filed 
by Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk.

Junk said he could not expand further on what was meant by “misconduct claims” 
in his memorandum of support filed to the Pike County Common Pleas Court.

Reader has helped lead the investigation into the Rhoden family murders in 
April 2016.

Reader declined comment when contacted Friday by The Dispatch, referring 
questions to his attorney. Reader’s attorney, James Boulger, did not return a 
message seeking comment.

The special prosecutor, Robert F. Smith, is an attorney with Ohio Auditor Dave 
Yost’s Public Integrity Assurance Team and was personally requested by Junk in 
a court filing that was approved by Pike County Common Pleas Court.

Junk noted his office works frequently with Reader and that he has provided 
legal counsel to the sheriff’s office, which prompted him to request a special 
prosecutor to look into the allegations.

“They probably would’ve put a special prosecutor on there anyway,” Junk said, 
because of the relationship between the 2 offices.

He said he first learned of the allegations Thursday morning in a meeting with 
state auditors.

“The Ohio Auditor’s office received a complaint about a Pike County matter and 
has opened an investigation,” Beth Gianforcaro, press secretary for Yost’s 
office said in a statement. Yost’s office declined to comment beyond the 
statement.

Junk said in the court filing that he requested Smith because the attorney has 
handled the investigation and prosecution of similar cases.

Reader has helped lead the investigation and criminal charges against four 
members of the Wagner family facing the death penalty for the April 22, 2016, 
homicides of eight people in the Rhoden family and two other relatives accused 
of conspiring to cover up the massacre.

George “Billy” Wagner III, 47; Angela Wagner, 48; 27-year-old George Wagner IV; 
and Edward “Jake” Wagner, 26, all of South Webster, were arrested without 
incident and charged in November with eight counts of aggravated murder among 
other charges. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

The Rhoden family members shot and killed were Christopher Rhoden Sr., 40; his 
ex-wife Dana Rhoden, 47; their children, Hanna Rhoden, 19, Christopher Rhoden 
Jr., 16, and Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 20; Frankie Rhoden’s fiancee Hannah 
Gilley, 20; Christopher Sr.’s brother, Kenneth Rhoden, 44, and cousin Gary 
Rhoden, 38.

The Ohio General Assembly late Friday night approved an amendment that would 
provide $100,000 in state money for short-term assistance to help Pike County 
with the costs associated with the prosecution of the Wagner family members. 
That bill was sent to Gov. John Kasich for his approval.

(source: Columbus Dispatch)

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

Court filings allege potential ‘misconduct’ by Pike County sheriff



The Ohio Auditor has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate Pike County 
Sheriff Charles Reader for potential misconduct.

Court documents filed Thursday by Pike County Prosecutor Rob Junk report 
“allegations of potential misconduct in office on the part of the Pike County 
sheriff.”

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost’s office confirmed it “received a complaint about a Pike 
County matter and has opened an investigation.”

“In addition, the Pike County prosecutor has named an attorney from the Ohio 
Auditor’s Office’s Public Integrity Assurance Team as special prosecutor in 
this matter,” the statement from Yost’s office said. “Because we have an open 
investigation, it is the auditor’s office policy to provide no further 
comment.”

Junk asked that Robert F. Smith of the state auditor’s office handle the 
investigation, according to this newsroom’s partners at WCPO. The Chillicothe 
Gazette first reported the investigation.

Junk, as prosecutor, serves as statutory legal counsel for the sheriff’s 
office. A Pike County judge signed off on the special prosecutor Thursday.

Reader was sheriff when 8 members of the Rhoden family were killed in their 
homes in 2016. Last month, authorities arrested 4 people in connection with the 
homicides.

Unclear is whether the misconduct allegations are related to the Rhoden case.

Reader told WCPO he had no comment at this time.

(source: Dayton Daily News)








IDAHO:

The 42-year-old woman charged with murdering and robbing a 16-year-old pleads 
not guilty



A woman facing charges of first-degree murder and robbery following the death 
of a 16-year-old pleaded not guilty to both counts Friday at the Canyon County 
Courthouse

. Maribel Menchaca, 42, of Nampa, was arrested with seven others last Thursday 
in connection with the death of Roberto Angel Gomez. Gomez died from several 
gunshot wounds on Sept. 25.

Menchaca was arrested in November for robbery after allegedly stealing a gold 
chain from Gomez hours before he was shot to death, per previous Statesman 
reporting.

Juan Menchaca Olvera, 16, is also charged with murder and robbery and faces 
arraignment on Monday.

The 6 others arrested last week were charged with aiding and abetting, 
accessory, robbery or perjury.

On Friday, Judge Davis VanderVelde told the court that Maribel Menchaca 
potentially faces the death penalty or life in prison for the murder charge, 
with a minimum of 10 years served, if convicted, and an additional fee of 
$50,000. For the robbery charge, Menchaca faces a maximum penalty of life in 
prison, a minimum of 5 years in prison and a maximum fine of $50,000.

Menchaca’s pretrial proceedings are scheduled to begin March 11. Her trial 
begins April 22.

(source: Idaho Statesman)

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

Man accused of killing Driggs woman wants to represent himself in murder trial



A man charged with killing his girlfriend and her unborn baby is asking to 
represent himself at his June 2019 murder trial rather than take advice from 
his current public defenders.

Erik Ohlson, 41, is facing 2 counts of 1st-degree murder as well as a slew of 
additional misdemeanor and felony charges in connection to the killing of 
Jennifer Nalley, 39, on July 5, 2016, and her unborn child. Nalley was 8 to 12 
weeks pregnant when Ohlson, her ex-boyfriend, allegedly shot and killed her in 
a cabin near Driggs.

Ohlson is facing the death penalty in this case.

According to court documents obtained by EastIdahoNews.com, last week Ohlson 
said he was unhappy with R. James Archibald and John Thomas, who currently 
serve as his appointed counsel. He requested the court either appoint him new 
counsel or allow him to be his own representation. This is not the first time 
Ohlson has requested to be provided new counsel, which has so far been denied.

District Judge Bruce Pickett is allowing Ohlson to file a motion to represent 
himself, but Pickett is concerned with Ohlsen’s ability to do so, according to 
court minutes.

Pickett is requiring Ohlson to have stand-by counsel, who ensure Ohlson has the 
ability to represent himself.

Ohlsen will be required to file a motion to represent himself or request the 
court to appoint separate counsel. The motion will be heard on Dec. 28 at the 
Teton County Courthouse.

On the same day, the motion for the state to dismiss count 2 of 1st-degree 
murder will also be heard. In a motion filed Nov. 9, Ohlson’s attorneys argued 
the fetus was fully dependent on the mother and thus was not a viable organism 
at the time of the alleged crime. Therefore the fetus cannot legally be 
considered a person and thus cannot be murdered.

“An embryo or fetus in its first trimester does not have a right to life. A 
woman and her doctors can kill a fetus in its first trimester without 
repercussions. To kill fetal tissue which is not viable is not a crime,” the 
motion states.

“There was no autopsy of the fetus. There was no death certificate of the 
fetus. Erik Ohlson is charged with 2 murders, but there’s only 1 autopsy and 
death certificate,” the motion states.

Ohlson’s jury trial is set to begin June 3, 2019, in Blackfoot. Jury selection 
is expected to begin on May 6 at Blackfoot High School.

(source: eastidahonews.com)








USA:

Lawyers seek to exclude evidence at NYC truck attack trial



Lawyers for a man charged with killing eight people in a terrorist attack on a 
New York City bike path said in a court filing Friday that they had learned the 
FBI had intercepted his communications, though it was unclear when that 
surveillance began.

“We are still waiting for more information from the government about the nature 
and basis of the wiretaps,” lawyers for Sayfullo Saipov wrote as they 
challenged case evidence, including statements he made to investigators and the 
government’s plan to seek the death penalty.

Saipov is accused of driving a truck down a Manhattan bike path on Halloween in 
2017, running over cyclists, before crashing his vehicle into a school bus. He 
was shot by a police officer and arrested at the scene.

In a portion of their court filing attacking evidence in the case, Saipov’s 
lawyers said it was clear that two FBI agents who questioned Saipov at a 
hospital the day after his arrest interrogated him “about matters and contacts 
that overlap with surreptitious FBI surveillance of Mr. Saipov’s 
communications.”

A portion of the court filing dealing with that surveillance was blacked out in 
the public version of the document and it was unclear when the surreptitious 
surveillance occurred.

The lawyers asked the court to throw out statements Saipov made to the agents, 
saying he was questioned while under the effect of powerful drugs as he 
recovered from gunshot wounds.

A spokesman for prosecutors declined comment.

Saipov goes to trial next fall. His lawyers noted that New York is a 
non-death-penalty state. They say federal death penalty law is too flawed to 
enforce.

The lawyers already have opposed the death penalty in the case on other 
grounds, including tweets that were sent about the attack by President Donald 
Trump.

After Saipov’s arrest in the deadliest attack on New York City since Sept. 11, 
2001, Trump tweeted, “SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY” and “Should move fast. DEATH 
PENALTY.”

The lawyers are also asking the judge to exclude information seized from 
cellphones found when Saipov was arrested.

Saipov, 30, moved to the United States legally in 2010 from Uzbekistan. He 
lived in Ohio and Florida and worked as a commercial truck driver before living 
more recently with his family in Paterson, New Jersey.

Court papers say that after his arrest, he told authorities that he was 
inspired by ISIS video and that he had used a truck in the attack to inflict 
maximum damage against civilians. He’s pleaded not guilty.

(source: Associated Press)

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

The brutal crimes of death row women



They killed neighbours, children, lovers and strangers, they dismembered 
victims and buried people alive.

The 51 women on death row across America are just as brutal as the males who 
outnumber them awaiting execution in the death penalty states across America.

In the last decade, five women have been executed and putting females to death 
by lethal injection or electric chair always generates more publicity than for 
the men.

Since the beginning of last century, just 54 women have been executed in the 
US.

But only eight states - Texas, Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma, Alabama, North 
Carolina, Arkansas and Virginia - have executed female prisoners in the past 3 
decades.

The last 2 American women to be put to death were Kelly Renee Gissendaner in 
Georgia in 2015 and Lisa Ann Coleman in Texas the year before.

Gissendaner was put to death by lethal injection, the first woman executed in 
Georgia since 1945, for murdering her 30-year-old husband when she was just 28.

In 1997, she convinced another man to force Douglas Gissendaner into a car at 
knifepoint, drive him to the woods and stab him to death, whereafter Kelly hid 
his body.

She became a Christian in prison and launched multiple appeals but was finally 
executed as she prayed and sang Amazing Grace.

In September 2014, Lisa Coleman became the 15th American woman executed since 
capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.

The 38-year-old Texan was lethally injected when the US Supreme Court rejected 
her final appeal for a stay. She was among the 22.7 % of women on death row in 
the US who were African-American.

In 2004, Coleman was arrested after the starvation death of her lover, Marcella 
Williams' son, Davontae, whose body was found in an Arlington apartment 
weighing just 16.3kg.

Court documents indicated the nine-year-old boy had been restrained and 
repeatedly beaten before dying from malnutrition with pneumonia.

Davontae's emaciated corpse had 250 separate injuries, including burns and 
scars, and a blood stain suggested he had been struck with a golf club.

Marcella Williams reached a plea deal and is serving life.

More than half of the women facing capital punishment in 16 states and the 
federal prison system are white.

One woman on federal death row is Lisa Montgomery who murdered pregnant Bobbie 
Jo Stinnett before delivering and kidnapping Stinnett's unborn baby. While 
California is the state with the most women on death row, 22, it along with 
North Carolina (which has 2 death row females) hasn't executed anyone since 
2006, and Oregon (1) not since 1987.

Texas has 6 women on death row, Alabama has 5, Florida and Arizona have 3 each 
and Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, 
and Tennessee each have 1 female inmate on death row.

So who are these women?

CHRISTA PIKE

Christa Pike was a high school dropout when she smashed in the head of a 
romantic rival and kept a piece of the girl’s skull.

She was arrested on her 18th birthday for the torture murder of a fellow 
college girl from which she kept a grisly trophy, a piece of the victim's skull 
in her jacket pocket.

Pretty young brunette Christa Pike became the youngest woman in America to be 
sentenced to death, when she was condemned to be executed just days after her 
20th birthday.

In the 22 years she has spent on death row in Tennessee, Pike has asked to be 
executed by electrocution and then changed her mind,

In 2008, she changed her mind again and asked for a new trial, but was turned 
down and she returned to death row.

That was Pike's final throw of the dice under Tennessee state law and in 2014, 
her case entered the federal court system.

Now aged 42, Pike has not had an execution date set but a federal court has 
denied Pike's request to vacate and overturn her death penalty conviction.

In 1994, Pike was a high school dropout attending a college job training course 
in Knoxville, 100km east of Tennessee's music capital, Nashville.

She had a crush on an African American boy, Tadaryl Shipp, 1 year younger than 
her, and together they indulged in devil worship.

But Pike became jealous of another young woman, fellow trainee Colleen Slemmer, 
who was 19.

She became convinced Colleen was trying to steal Shipp's affections and with 
girlfriend Shadolla Petersen, she lured Ms Slemmer to an isolated spot on the 
promise of some shared marijuana.

KEPT SKULL PIECE AS TROPHY IN JACKET POCKET

On January 12, 1995, the three young women and Tadaryl Shipp signed out of the 
University of Tennessee campus dormitory and went to the woods by an abandoned 
steam plant.

Once there, and with Peterson acting as a lookout, Pike and Shipp set upon Ms 
Slemmer.

Over 30 minutes, they verbally taunted her while they beat her and cut her, 
carving a pentagram in Ms Slemmer's chest.

Pike then picked up a piece of asphalt and smashed in Ms Slemmer's skull.

After delivering the fatal blow, Pike took a piece of Ms Slemmer's skull as a 
souvenir.

Back at college, Pike showed off the piece of skull to classmates.

The following evening, police arrived at Knoxville to arrest Pike, Shipp and 
Peterson.

They found the piece of skull in Pike's jacket pocket and a satanic Bible in 
Shipp's room.

Pike insisted they were merely trying to scare Ms Slemmer and it got out of 
control, but in 1996 was convicted and sentenced to death.

Shipp got life in prison and Peterson, who had turned state informant, was 
placed on probation for being an accessory.

Twenty years after the murder, in 2015, Ms Slemmer's mother May Martinez said 
she was still waiting to bury her daughter because part of her skull was locked 
away in Tennessee as evidence.

TIFFANY COLE

Tiffany Cole was a cheerleader and girl scout before she decided to bury her 
former neighbours alive.

Cheerleader and girl scout, Tiffany Cole played the flute in the school band 
and had not spent a night behind bars before her arrest for burying alive a 
middle-aged couple.

Now aged 36, she is the second youngest woman facing execution in America - 
bumped up a notch after her Florida death row mate Emilia Carr, 33, had her 
sentence commuted to life imprisonment.

Cole claims to have been sexually abused as a child and then, aged 24, met the 
wrong man, who was her boyfriend of 3 weeks when the murder that put her behind 
bars occurred.

Tiffany, Michael Jackson and 2 other men hatched a plan to kidnap, rob and kill 
a couple who were neighbours and friends of Tiffany's family.

Carol and Reggie Sumner, 61, had moved from Cole's South Carolina neighbourhood 
to Jacksonville, Florida in March 2005, selling a car to Tiffany before they 
left.

In June that year, Cole and Jackson went to complete the paperwork on the car, 
staying at the Sumner's new house, where the young couple began planning the 
robbery and kidnap.

Meanwhile, the pair and the two other young men dug a grave in a remote spot in 
Charlton County, Georgia.

In early July, Cole and Jackson returned to the Sumners' home with Alan Wade 
and Bruce Nixon. Wade and Nixon knocked on the door and asked to use the phone.

Inside the house the men bound, gagged and blindfolded the Sumners with duct 
tape, and put the couple into the boot of their own Lincoln town car.

BOUND COUPLE HUGGED EACH OTHER AS THEY DIED IN SHALLOW GRAVE

The terrified Sumners were driven across the border to Georgia, followed by a 
car containing Cole and Jackson who planned to get deliberately pulled over for 
speeding if police got close.

At the site of the freshly dug graves, the men demanded the Sumners' bank 
account details and personal identification numbers.

The trussed and blindfolded couple was then pushed into the grave and buried 
alive.

Afterwards, Tiffany Cole used the Sumners' ATM card to withdraw $1000 and 
pawned jewellery and other items stolen from the couple's home.

In the back of their car, Cole and her boyfriend posed for a gleeful photograph 
- Tiffany with a bank note between her teeth - with cash and a bottle of 
champagne.

Three of the group were arrested in a South Carolina hotel after police tracked 
them via the Sumners' ATM card.

Bruce Nixon willingly led police to the Sumners' grave, but it was too late.

Investigators later revealed the couple had managed to get their bonds free, 
but could only hug each other in their final moments.

Tiffany Cole later claimed she was unaware of "what was coming", and thought 
the grave was to bury items stolen from the Sumners.

But the damning photograph of her celebrating after the murder swayed a jury.

"I am not the same person any more," she told ABC News' Diane Sawyer in a 2015 
interview.

In that interview, along with her then death row neighbour at Florida's Lowell 
Correctional Institution, Cole claimed they looked at their plight in a 
positive light, calling it "life row".

But Carr has since been reprieved from the death sentence, leaving Cole as one 
of three women facing execution in Florida.

Her ex-boyfriend Michael Jackson and his cohort Alan Wade also await execution, 
while Bruce Nixon was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Cole spends 24 hours a day in her cell, except for 3 times a week she is 
allowed to spend 2 hours in a concrete pen for air and exercise.

LISA JO CHAMBERLIN

The court sending Lisa Jo Chamberlin back to death row showed more sympathy 
than the killer herself did to the couple she murdered, dismembered and stuffed 
into a freezer.

In the end, the US Circuit of Appeal voted 9-5 to reject Chamberlin's appeal 
that a jury sentencing her to death had been racially biased.

Chamberlin, now aged 45, argued that when prosecutors struck black potential 
jurors from her murder trial they had violated her rights because she is white.

At that trial, a former cellmate of Chamberlin's Martha Petrofsky, said in 
prison conversations Chamberlin showed no remorse about the killings, only 
sorrow she was caught.

"She was really upset because she said they should have disposed of the bodies 
better, like feeding them to the hogs," Petrofsky testified.

Chamberlin's legal appeal was overruled in June this year.

The ruling put Chamberlin back where the families of her victims want her, on a 
date with death in the Mississippi execution chamber.

Her reinstatement to death row makes her the only woman among 42 waiting for 
execution dates in that state

Her ex-boyfriend Roger Gillett, 44, had his death sentence overturned and is 
now in limbo awaiting a new hearing.

In late March 2004, Gillett and Chamberlin travelled to Hattiesburg, 140km 
southwest of the state capital, Jackson.

She and Gillett came to Hattiesburg "to make some dope and some money and 
leave".

LISA WISHED SHE'D FED THE BODIES TO THE HOGS

They stayed for a few days at the Hattiesburg home of Gillett's first cousin, 
Vernon Hulett, 34 and his girlfriend, Linda Heintzelman, 37.

When Chamberlin and Gillett tried to steal money from Mr Hulett's safe, a fight 
broke out.

Mr Hulett was hit in the head with a hammer, and his throat slashed, after 
which Ms Heintzelman was strangled and stabbed.

Chamberlin and Gillett left the home for an hour and returned, to find her 
lying on the floor still breathing.

Chamberlin later testified it was Gillett's idea to "finish what we started" 
and that she gave him a plastic bag with which he suffocated Linda Heintzelman.

Chamberlin in a videotaped confession to Kansas investigators described how she 
had gone from Hulett's Hattiesburg home for an hour and returned to find Hulett 
dead and Heintzelman alive and lying on the floor at Gillett's feet.

The two couples had spent several days together before the killings, 
authorities said.

Chamberlin said on the videotape that she and Gillett left the house with 
Heintzelman alive but Gillett said, "Let's go back and finish what we started."

She said she gave a bag to Gillett who used it to smother Heintzelman.

The two then decapitated Mr Hulett's body and dismembered both victims and 
stuffed the parts in a freezer.

Gillett and Chamberlin took the freezer and drove to an abandoned farm house 
near Russell, Kansas, where they were arrested.

Gillett and Chamberlin were each sentenced to death in separate capital murder 
trials.

DARLIE ROUTIER

Darlie Routier is currently on death row in Texas for killing 1 of the 2 sons 
she stabbed to death.

Darlie Routier was 26 and married to Darin and lived with their 3 young sons, 
Devon, Damon, and Drake in Rowlett, in Dallas county, Texas.

At 2.30am on June 6, 1996, Routier made a 911 call to report a break-in and the 
stabbing attack of sons Devon, 6, and Damon, 5, and the slashing of her throat 
by a home invader.

Paramedics found Devon already dead, stabbed all the way through his torso.

Damon had been stabbed in the back and was still gasping for breath, but died 
soon afterwards.

Husband Darin and 7-month-old Drake were upstairs asleep, a screen in the 
garage had been cut.

Routier's wound, thought near her carotid artery, was superficial and she was 
soon released from hospital.

Eight days later, local TV cameras captured Routier and family holding a 
graveside party for Devon's 7th birthday.

With bleached blonde hair and chewing gum, Routier laughed and sprayed her sons 
graves with Silly String as she sang "Happy Birthday".

Later, Routier said, "He wanted to be 7.

"I did the only thing I knew to do to honour him and give him all his wishes.

"How do you know what you're going to do when you lose 2 children?"

Just days later, Rowlett police arrested Routier and charged her with 
5-year-old son Damon's murder.

It was revealed that Routier was deeply in debt, unable to afford her 
materialistic lifestyle and her sons interfered with the life she wanted to 
live.

With her husband Darin's support, Routier maintained her innocence throughout 
her trial.

She said a man wearing dark clothes and a baseball cap attacked the boys and 
escaped through the garage.

But the garage window sills had layers of dust, and the flower beds between the 
garage and the back gate was undisturbed.

At Routier's trial, the jury watched the "Silly String" video and convicted 
her.

/ In 1997, she was sentenced to death by lethal injection.

Prosecutors testified blood spatter on Routier's nightwear showed she had 
raised the knife over her head as she stabbed again and again.

Now a 48 year old, Routier still hopes new DNA tests will prove there really 
was an intruder at her home 22 years ago.

ERICA SHEPPARD

On death row for almost 24 years, Sheppard has outlived her co-accused James 
Dickerson, who died on death row of AIDS in 1999.

They were both 19, when Sheppard, already a mother-of-3 young children and 
unemployed, was staying with her brother in a Houston, Texas, apartment on June 
30, 1993.

She and Dickerson planned to steal a car to drive back to her home town of Bay 
City.

The pair saw 43-year-old Marilyn Sage Meagher near the apartment unpacking her 
black Mazda 626.

Ms Meagher, a mother-of-two, had left her front door unlocked as she unpacked 
the car and Sheppard and Dickerson sneaked into the flat and waited for her.

When Ms Meagher entered the apartment and the intruders demanded her car keys, 
she refused, and they grabbed a large knife and stabbed her 5 times.

Then Dickerson picked up a 4kg statue and began bludgeoning her as Sheppard 
held her down and Ms Meagher begged for mercy.

Sheppard later claimed that although she was there to steal a car, she did not 
stab or beat the victim.

One of Ms Meagher's daughters found her body.

Sheppard was convicted of murder and robbery and sentenced to death in 1995.

In prison, Sheppard "found the Lord" and has been visited in prison by American 
civil rights activist, Reverend Jesse Jackson.

She continues to fight for a new sentence and have the death penalty repealed 
in her case.

Marilyn Sage Meagher's daughter Kelley Watts believes Sheppard was the 
ringleader in her mother's murder and has said, "I'm done with them."

Sheppard is housed in the Mountain View unit in Gatesville where Darlie Routier 
lives, each in a 5.6sq m cell with a window.

Each female inmate has a radio, but access to a TV is dependent on compliance 
with prison requirements.

Whether they will be put to death is subject to their individual appeals 
process, but Texas is a high execution state.

(source: warwickdailynews.com.au)

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

Why Won’t the US Supreme Court Do Anything About Racism?



The Supreme Court seems indifferent to the disproportionate imposition of the 
death penalty on racial minorities. Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke fired 
16 shots, killing the African-American teenager Laquan McDonald; 14 of those 
shots were apparently fired while McDonald lay on the ground.

It took four years and the expulsion of the state attorney general before the 
trial against Van Dyke for first-degree murder resulted in convictions for the 
lesser crimes of 2nd-degree murder and aggravated battery this October. Before 
the shooting, Van Dyke ranked among the worst 3% of officers in excessive force 
allegations, making him identifiable as a ‘problem officer’ even before he 
killed McDonald.

This case is remarkable not for the violence committed by a white police 
officer against an unarmed African American, but because it involved a rare 
instance of the United States’ legal system scrutinising a police shooting. The 
courts in the US have done little to intervene more generally in the mass 
surveillance, mass violence and mass incarceration affecting people of colour.

Racial division has always been the transcendent theme of American society. But 
with the proliferation of recording devices on every phone, there has been an 
explosion of videos showing police committing various acts of violence against 
minorities. Now the US is being forced to face the reality of police beatings, 
shootings, and police officers taunting people of colour whom they have stopped 
on the street with little justification.

Yet the US Supreme Court has refused to weigh in on these obvious racial 
discrepancies in the criminal justice system. Instead, it emphasises 
constitutional colourblindness, which allows it to avoid confronting the 
judiciary’s role in perpetuating racial discrimination in the US.

The Supreme Court has historically been viewed as a model for functioning 
constitutional democracies because of its power of judicial review, which 
enables it to act as an independent check on government. But even though the 
Court now expends roughly 1/3 of its docket on criminal justice cases, it 
consistently ducks the key challenges of discriminatory police stops and 
frisks, fatal police shootings, unconscionable plea deals, mass incarceration, 
racially disproportionate sentencing and disproportionate execution of racial 
minorities. For these reasons, we argue in a recent article in the UC Davis Law 
Review that the Supreme Court has made itself supremely irrelevant in several 
important ways.

The 1st involves the Court’s power to regulate police-civilian interactions. 
The most common interaction that members of the public have with the police is 
in short, nonvoluntary stops initiated by the police, requiring very low levels 
of suspicion. In New York City, between January 2004 and June 2012, police 
conducted 4.4 million of these stops. In Chicago during the same period, police 
conducted approximately 4 times as many stops. A lower court found that the New 
York Police Department was unconstitutionally targeting racial minorities: 91% 
of stops were of nonwhites, even though they make up only 67% of the city’s 
population. But a higher court reversed the decision to prevent the stops, 
which disproportionately subject young black and Latino men to the indignity of 
forced encounters, physical pat-downs and an alarming number of fatal police 
shootings.

Despite strong evidence that police disproportionately detain racial 
minorities, the US Supreme Court has said that it will not examine whether 
police target particular individuals based on their race, so long as the police 
can identify other, race-neutral facts that support their suspicions. Even 
highly subjective facts, such as a person’s ‘furtive behaviour’ or presence in 
a ‘high-crime neighbourhood’ will suffice. But the Court’s permissive attitude 
toward police stops has serious repercussions: it is often during these 
shortstops that fatal shootings and other violence between citizens and police 
occur.

Such violence ensues with strikingly higher frequency in the US than in other 
countries. One study estimated that in 2014 police in the US killed 458 people. 
In that same year, police in Germany killed eight people; in Britain, zero 
people; and in Japan, zero people. By failing to regulate police stops, the US 
Supreme Court is enabling this astonishing number of civilian deaths at the 
hands of police.

The Supreme Court also ignores the racial injustice playing out at later stages 
of the criminal justice process. The US is a global anomaly in its rate of 
imprisonment, with 2.3 million people in prison in 2017. That figure is 30% 
higher than the 2nd-highest nation, China, despite the US having a 
significantly lower population. Per head of population, US imprisonment is 4 
1/2 times that of England and Wales, 6 times that of France, and nearly 9 times 
that of Germany. In 2016, an additional 4.5 million people were on probation or 
parole in the US, meaning that approximately 6.6 million people were under 
correctional supervision during that year. This mass incarceration affects 
racial minorities disproportionately.

Blacks are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites nationwide, and 
at least 10 times the rate in 5 states. Studies have shown that arrest records 
alone cannot explain why racial minorities are sentenced more frequently and 
more severely than whites. It is estimated that discrimination by prosecutors 
after arrest drives approximately 25% of sentences for racial minorities. 
Despite this evidence of systemic inequality, the US Supreme Court has had 
little to say about racially disproportionate mass incarceration.

The Supreme Court also seems indifferent to the disproportionate imposition of 
the death penalty on racial minorities. The Court has refused to consider the 
fact that more than 54% of the current death row inmates are black or Latino, 
and only 42% white. The Supreme Court closely examines every other aspect of an 
imposition of the death penalty, recognising that application of this ‘ultimate 
punishment’ ought to be rare and subject to careful oversight. Yet the Court 
has said that the disparate application of the death penalty to different 
racial groups does not trigger constitutional protection.

These issues are tearing at the fabric of US society, with protests blooming in 
response to videos of police shootings and evidence emerging of police and 
prosecutors targeting traditionally disadvantaged minorities. Yet the Supreme 
Court has little to say in the face of readily apparent racial disparities in 
the criminal justice system that it is meant to oversee.

The Court is abdicating its responsibility to regulate the US criminal justice 
system, hiding behind newly created ‘colourblind’ conservative doctrines that 
limit its own review of these undeniable social ills. And with the recent 
appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to secure a five-vote conservative majority, it 
might be decades before the Court’s criminal justice rulings offer meaningful 
protections to the people most impacted by that system. Meanwhile, people of 
colour are paying the price.

(source: thewire.in)