[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., MISS., OHIO, TENN., ARK., UTAH, ARIZ.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 27



ALABAMA:

Death Penalty Madness in Alabama



A man suffering from cancer strapped to a gurney after spending 30 years on 
death row in Alabama. An intravenous team probing him, jabbing him, for hours 
in an attempt to find a usable vein to administer the lethal, secret drug 
cocktail. Going into his groin a half-dozen times, puncturing his bladder, 
penetrating his femoral artery. Until, a little before the midnight deadline, 
they abandon the botched execution with its puncture-mark traces tattooed 
across the man's legs and groin.

Doyle Lee Hamm, age 61, becomes one of the rare people to walk out of an 
execution chamber. "This was a bit of butchery that can only be described as 
torture," his attorney, Bernard Harcourt, tells me.

Not all is rosy in Alabama, a state long prominent in the United States death 
belt, where these events unfolded last Thursday. The state was the darling of 
the world in December when Le Monde, among other leading global newspapers, 
gave Alabama a front page headline for defeating the ultraconservative 
Republican bigot and accused sexual predator Roy Moore and electing a Democrat 
to the United States Senate. But Alabama is a place where old habits die hard.

Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn was unmoved by the grotesque unexecution. "I 
wouldn't necessarily characterize what we had tonight as a problem," he said. 
That might just qualify, against stiff competition from the highest office in 
the land, as the dumbest statement of 2018.

This was an abomination foretold. Harcourt, who has been representing Hamm 
since 1990, had been arguing for months that Hamm's case presented an 
unconstitutional risk of a "cruel and unnecessarily painful execution." Hamm, 
convicted of the 1987 murder of a motel clerk, Patrick Cunningham, has advanced 
lymphatic cancer and carcinoma. He's dying. An examination in September by a 
doctor from the Columbia University Medical Center found that Hamm had no 
usable veins and that "the state is not equipped to achieve venous access in 
Mr. Hamm's case."

So began a macabre dance characterized by an unseemly determination to execute 
Hamm. The Alabama Supreme Court set an execution date late last year. U.S. 
Chief District Judge Karon Bowdre of the Northern District of Alabama granted a 
stay on Jan. 31. After an emergency appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of 
Appeals, that stay was vacated on Feb. 13 and a medical examination ordered.

The examination found that Hamm's arms and hands were unusable but his legs and 
feet, or "lower extremities," were workable. On Feb. 20, Bowdre ordered that 
the execution could proceed on Feb. 22. Then the 11th Circuit required that a 
doctor be present with ultrasound equipment. A final appeal to the Supreme 
Court was denied last Thursday evening, setting in motion the ghoulish 
proceedings.

To state the obvious, this is obscene. I won't get into the merits of Hamm's 
conviction here; suffice it to say there were oversights and 
misrepresentations. Nor will I dwell on the fact that under international law, 
30 years on death row constitutes torture.

I oppose the death penalty on the ground that it's barbaric and increasingly 
unworkable. It's also irreversible in a world where human error is so 
inescapable as to disqualify such absolute judgment. Even if you are not an 
abolitionist, however, the Hamm case must give pause.

"This experience teaches us a deep fallacy in our justice system," Harcourt 
says. "When federal courts so eagerly get into the business of trying to find 
novel ways to execute a man, when the most august judges get their fingers 
bloody in this way, I think it does an injustice to justice."

Alabama has executed 61 people since the Supreme Court allowed executions to 
resume in 1976. United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions was long the grim 
reaper of Alabama, eagerly seeking executions when he was the state's attorney 
general. In President Trump, Sessions has a strong capital-punishment ally. 
Trump tweeted "SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY" for a New York terrorist suspect in 
November, one of more than a dozen tweets calling for the death penalty since 
2012. He has hinted strongly that he thinks the death penalty is the way to 
solve America's drug crisis. The president lusts for blood.

The country, however, is moving in another direction. The number of executions 
has fallen to 23 in 2017, from 98 in 1999. Illinois, Connecticut, New Mexico 
and Maryland abolished the death penalty in recent years. Over 20 companies, 
including Pfizer, have prohibited their products from being used for lethal 
injections.

Harcourt was moved to help Hamm after learning of the abject quality of legal 
protection afforded indigent defendants in capital cases. After the Supreme 
Court denied his appeal on Thursday, and the execution looked inevitable, 
Harcourt told me he had said to Hamm that, "I did everything I possibly could 
have done but had let him down and I apologized."

Hamm, he said, tried to console his longtime attorney: "We did everything 
possible."

It is now time, after Thursday's lesson in the consequences of inhumanity, for 
Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama to grant Hamm clemency and allow him to serve the rest 
of his life in prison.

(source: Op-Ed; Roger Cohen, New York Times)

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

Supreme Court will hear case of death row inmate with dementia



The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of a man sentenced to death for 
killing an Alabama police officer but who lawyers say now can't remember the 
1985 murder.

The court agreed Monday to hear arguments in the case of Vernon Madison.

Madison had been scheduled to be executed in January, but the court stayed the 
execution to consider whether to take the case. Madison's case will now likely 
be argued in the fall, and the court's decision to take the case means he is 
safe from execution at least until the case is decided.

Madison's attorneys argue that strokes and dementia have left Madison unable to 
understand his execution or remember killing Mobile police Officer Julius 
Schulte, who had responded to a domestic disturbance call involving Madison. 
They argue executing someone in such a poor mental condition will violate the 
ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The Supreme Court has previously ruled that condemned inmates must have a 
"rational understanding" that they are about to be executed and why.

But the same court ruled in November that Madison's execution could proceed. 
Justices said then in an unsigned opinion that testimony shows Madison 
"recognizes that he will be put to death as punishment for the murder he was 
found to have committed," even if he doesn't remember the killing itself.

The state attorney general's office said courts have found that Madison, though 
in declining health, is competent.

Schulte, a 22-year veteran of the police force, had responded to a report of a 
missing child placed by Madison's then-girlfriend. Prosecutors said Madison 
crept up and shot Schulte in the back of the head as he sat in his police car.

(soruce: Associated Press)

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

Supreme Court to hear Vernon Madison death penalty case



The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of a man sentenced to death for 
killing an Alabama police officer but who lawyers say now can't remember the 
1985 murder.

The court agreed Monday to hear arguments in the case of Vernon Madison.

Madison had been scheduled to be executed in January, but the court stayed the 
execution to consider whether to take the case. Madison's case will now likely 
be argued in the fall, and the court's decision to take the case means he is 
safe from execution at least until the case is decided.

Madison's attorneys argue that strokes and dementia have left Madison unable to 
understand his execution or remember killing Mobile police Officer Julius 
Schulte, who had responded to a domestic disturbance call involving Madison.

(source: Montgomery Advertiser)








MISSISSIPPI:

This Man Is on Death Row for Killing a 6-Month-Old. But What If We're Wrong 
About Shaken Baby Syndrome?----A controversial medical examiner, exaggerated 
testimony, and bad forensics branded Jeffrey Havard a rapist and a baby killer.



Jeffrey Havard's story began the evening of February 21, 2002, when the 
Mississippi man was keeping an eye on Chloe, the 6-month-old daughter of his 
girlfriend, Rebecca Britt. According to Havard, Chloe had spit up on her 
clothes and bedding, so he gave the girl a bath. As he pulled her up out of the 
tub, she slipped from his grip and fell. As she fell, her head struck the 
toilet.

Havard would later say the bump on Chloe's head didn't appear serious, so he 
dressed her in clean clothes and put her to bed. Not wanting to worry Britt (or 
perhaps not wanting to anger her), he said nothing about the incident when she 
returned. When she did get home, Britt checked on the baby, who seemed fine. So 
she and Havard ate dinner and went about their evening.

Later that night, Chloe stopped breathing. Havard and Britt rushed her to a 
hospital. She died shortly thereafter.

When the emergency room doctors examined Chloe, they discovered that her anus 
was dilated - which isn't uncommon in infants shortly after death. It's also 
common in infants who are still alive but have lost brain function. 
Unfortunately, though, even trained medical staff sometimes mistake it for 
sexual abuse.

Medical examiner Steven Hayne performed an autopsy the following evening. In 
his write-up, he noted a 1-centimeter contusion on Chloe's rectum, which he 
documented in a photograph. The report did not mention any evidence of sexual 
assault, but Hayne did find symptoms he said were consistent with "shaken baby 
syndrome."

Havard didn't admit that he'd dropped Chloe until a video-taped interview 2 
days after her death, which meant his story had changed. That, plus statements 
E.R. staff made about possible sexual abuse and Hayne's shaken baby diagnosis, 
were enough for local officials to arrest Havard and charge him with capital 
murder. The district attorney said he would seek the death penalty.

The concept of shaken baby syndrome has, in fact, come under scrutiny over the 
last decade. It's obviously true that shaking too hard can kill a fragile 
newborn - that's not disputed. But prosecutors have become reliant on the idea 
that if a trio of specific symptoms are found in a dead child, the death could 
only have been caused by violent shaking. Those symptoms are bleeding at the 
back of the eye, bleeding in the protective area of the brain, and brain 
swelling.

This is a convenient diagnosis, since it provides prosecutors with a method of 
homicide (shaking), a likely suspect (the last person alone with the child), 
and intent (it is assumed that babies only die this way after exceptionally 
violent shaking). Yet new research has shown that falls, blows to the head, and 
even some illnesses and genetic conditions can cause the same set of symptoms. 
Many medical and legal authorities have therefore concluded that the trio of 
symptoms shouldn't be the sole basis of a conviction. Even the doctor who first 
came up with the theory has now expressed doubts about it.

In most shaken baby syndrome cases, prosecutors would first file murder 
charges, then later allow the defendant to plead down to a lesser charge like 
manslaughter. But sometimes they've gotten a murder conviction.

In recent years, thanks to increasing doubt around the diagnosis, a number of 
these shaken baby convictions have been overturned, and many more are under 
review. A 2015 study by The Washington Post and Northwestern University's 
Medill Justice Project found more than 2,000 cases in which a defendant was 
charged with shaking a child. Of those, 200 have either been acquitted, had the 
charges dropped, or had their convictions overturned. The National Registry of 
Exonerations lists 14 people convicted because of a shaken baby diagnosis who 
were later cleared.

Without DNA testing, however, it can be nearly impossible to overcome faulty 
forensic testimony - even when, on close examination, it turns out the courts 
went out of their way not to see problems with the arguments they were 
accepting.

After Jeffrey Havard was arrested, the court assigned him a public defender. 
His attorney asked the district court judge for funds to hire his own forensic 
pathologist, but the judge turned him down, finding that there was no need for 
a separate pathologist when Hayne was available.

Hayne has since come under intense scrutiny for taking on improbable workloads 
and for giving testimony that at times has stretched the bounds of science. In 
fact, courts have thrown out his testimony in several cases, and he has been 
barred from doing autopsies for the state of Mississippi. In another shaken 
baby syndrome trial 6 years after Havard's conviction - well after the problems 
with the diagnosis were known - Hayne cited a study that does not appear to 
exist, and referred to a forensic pathology textbook that says the precise 
opposite of what he claimed in court. "I don't know how he could have honestly 
misread it," the textbook's author would later declare.

Even at the time of Havard's trial, there was good reason for the defense 
attorney to want a second opinion. In other cases, Hayne had admitted under 
oath to doing 1,500 or more autopsies each year - nearly 5 times the absolute 
maximum recommended by the National Association of Medical Examiners. But the 
state's courts and prosecutors had been relying on Hayne for 15 years. Havard 
would have to rely on him, too.

Though he had no prior history of abusing or molesting children, by the time 
Havard's trial began 10 months later, word had spread around Adams County, 
Mississippi, that he was a pedophile and baby killer.

Studies have shown not only that an eyewitness's memory can change over time, 
but that memories can be significantly altered with the acquisition of new 
information. Research supporting the idea of "reconstructive memory" in fact 
goes all the way back to the 1930s and the work of cognitive psychology pioneer 
Frederic Bartlett.

This appears to be what happened in Havard's case, as some witnesses' memories 
grew considerably more vivid by the time of his trial. Jurors heard the 
sheriff, the coroner, and the hospital staff describe "tears," "rips," 
"lacerations," and other injuries to the child's anus. Some claimed to have 
seen blood. Two nurses said it was the worst example of anal trauma they had 
ever witnessed. Yet once the infant had been cleaned off, Hayne's autopsy 
photos showed no rips, tears, lacerations, or similar injuries anywhere on the 
girl's rectum - only the dilation and small contusion.

Even the doctor who first came up with shaken baby syndrome has now expressed 
doubts about it.

Despite his own photos, and despite the fact that his autopsy notes made no 
mention of sexual abuse, Hayne played up the bruise at trial. He told the jury 
that it was an inch long rather than a centimeter, as his report had said. 
While he conceded that he had found no tears or lacerations, he speculated that 
rigor mortis (the tightening of muscles after death) could have caused the 
girl's rectum to close and that this could have hidden any tears or cuts from 
his view. If he had really believed that, Hayne could have accounted for the 
possibility in his autopsy and looked more closely. He did neither. When asked 
what might have caused the small bruise, Hayne volunteered, "penetration of the 
rectum by an object."

The examiner also testified that he'd found the symptoms of shaken baby 
syndrome and could conclude that Chloe had been "violently shaken" to death. To 
emphasize the point, Hayne and the prosecutor exchanged the phrase "violently 
shaken" an additional 6 times.

The defense attorney wasn't exactly aggressive. The prosecution called 16 
witnesses, whose testimonies comprise 261 pages of the trial transcript. 
Havard's lawyer called a single witness, a nurse at the E.R., whose testimony 
takes up 3 pages. The state didn't even bother to cross-examine him.

It's hardly surprising, then, that the jury convicted Havard and sentenced him 
to die. The entire trial, deliberation, guilty verdict, sentencing trial, 
deliberation, and death sentence took 2 days.

Havard's case was taken up by the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction 
Counsel, an institution the state had set up to guarantee that indigent 
defendants in death penalty cases receive adequate legal representation. That 
office had funding to hire its own experts, so Havard's new attorneys asked 
former Alabama state medical examiner James Lauridson to review Hayne's autopsy 
and trial testimony.

Lauridson found a number of problems. Most notably, he found no evidence of 
sexual abuse at all.

His report pointed to medical literature documenting the fact that the anus 
often dilates in infants shortly after death, and that this is often mistaken 
for sexual abuse. It disputed Hayne's contention about rigor mortis and 
speculated that the E.R. staff likely mistook the exposed lining of the girl's 
rectum for blood. Lauridson initially had difficulty getting his hands on the 
slides containing the tissue samples Hayne had taken; when he did receive them, 
after his initial report had already been submitted, he found nothing to 
suggest sexual abuse.

None of these opinions mattered for Havard's direct appeal. In a 2006 ruling, 
the Mississippi Supreme Court delivered a brutal 1-2 punch. The justices first 
upheld the trial judge's decision to deny Havard funds to hire his own forensic 
pathologist, finding that the defense attorneys had failed to show why an 
independent medical examiner was necessary. They then explained that because 
Lauridson's affidavit wasn't submitted during the original trial, they were 
barred from considering it. Thus, the court unanimously upheld Havard's 
conviction and death sentence.

Havard's 1st post-conviction appeal came 2 years later. In these proceedings, a 
defendant has more leeway to introduce new evidence, but the bar to be granted 
a new trial is also set much higher.

This time, the court had to at least consider Lauridson's affidavit. And it did 
- but not all that carefully. In his majority opinion, Justice George Carlson 
wrote that Lauridson "opined in his affidavit 'that there is a possibility that 
Chloe Madison Britt was not sexually assaulted.'" Carlson then wrote, "Taking 
this statement to its logical conclusion, this leaves open the possibility that 
she was."

In reality, the phrase "there is a possibility," which Carlson put in quotes, 
doesn't appear anywhere in Lauridson's affidavit. What the examiner actually 
wrote was: "The conclusions that Chloe Britt suffered sexual abuse are not 
supported by objective evidence and are wrong." He did add that he couldn't 
definitively say there were no signs of sexual abuse, because that would 
require examination of Hayne's tissue slides - and at the time of his original 
report, he still didn't have access to them. When he finally saw the slides, 
however, he was much more conclusive, writing that there was "no histological 
evidence of contusion or laceration" on the child's colon or anus and that 
"these findings further strengthen the conclusions of my report."

Nonetheless, Justice Carlson mischaracterized Lauridson's report throughout his 
opinion. It was arguably a more forceful brief for the state than those 
submitted by the prosecutors themselves. By an 8 - 1 vote, Havard's appeal was 
denied and his conviction and sentence were upheld.

In late 2011, Havard's attorneys asked for a new trial. In the intervening 
years, Hayne had carefully changed his opinion: "Based upon the autopsy 
evidence available regarding the death of Chloe Britt," the medical examiner 
wrote in a declaration for Havard's lawyers, "I cannot include or exclude to a 
reasonable degree of medical certainty that she was sexually assaulted." He 
also acknowledged that a dilated anus is not in itself evidence of sexual 
abuse.

Even here, Hayne was hard to pin down, managing to reframe his trial testimony 
without directly contradicting it. He now claimed that he had never explicitly 
said Chloe was sexually assaulted - he'd merely said her injuries were 
consistent with that possibility, then speculated that one method of assault 
could have been "penetration of the rectum by an object." That wasn't entirely 
wrong, though the "penetration" line had to have been pretty damning for 
Havard. The prosecutor did do most of the heavy lifting to advance the assault 
narrative, often by citing the observations of the E.R. staff, sheriff, and 
coroner. For most of his testimony, Hayne merely acquiesced, even though he 
knew he'd found no biological material from Havard on or in the child, and even 
though the only anal trauma he'd seen was the small bruise.

A credible and conscientious medical examiner should have said at trial what 
Hayne said in his declaration a decade later. A credible and conscientious 
medical examiner wouldn't have allowed his own testimony to be used by a 
prosecutor to mislead a jury, even if that testimony wasn't technically false. 
But Hayne wasn't a credible and conscientious medical examiner.

The Mississippi Supreme Court again denied Havard relief. Justice Carlson again 
wrote the opinion.

Since Hayne hadn't explicitly testified at trial that Chloe had been sexually 
abused, Carlson argued, his 2012 declaration stating he had found no evidence 
of abuse wasn't really new evidence. Of course, in his 2008 opinion, Carlson 
had described Lauridson's conclusion that the dilated anus was not indicative 
of sexual abuse as "contrary to that of Dr. Hayne." Hayne may not have said the 
dilation was caused by sexual assault, in other words - but his testimony was 
so suggestive of it that even Carlson at the time seemed to think it was 
Hayne's position.

It took Havard's original jury less than two days to deliberate, convict him 
based on flawed evidence, hear arguments regarding the appropriate punishment, 
deliberate again, and sentence him to death. It took 13 years for the courts to 
admit that a small portion of the evidence might have been scientifically 
unsound.

In 2 rulings handed down just four years apart, the same state Supreme Court 
justice had found that Hayne's testimony supported the jury's finding of sexual 
assault and that Hayne never explicitly testified that a sexual assault had 
taken place.

Absurdly, Carlson additionally claimed that the examiner's 2012 declaration 
wasn't new evidence because it was "duplicative" of the Lauridson affidavit 
that the court had dismissed in 2008. Between the 2 opinions, then, he managed 
to assert that Lauridson's affidavit contradicted Hayne's trial testimony; that 
there was no substantial difference between Hayne's trial testimony and his 
updated declaration; and yet that Hayne's updated declaration duplicated 
Lauridson's affidavit.

Logically, these 3 things can't possibly all be true. 2 affidavits can't be 
both duplicative of and contrary to one another. But Carlson stated exactly 
that, and so did his fellow justices. For the 3rd time, Mississippi's Supreme 
Court denied Havard's petition.

Over the next several years, the state's case against Havard continued to 
deteriorate. 2 more forensic pathologists reviewed the case and wrote scathing 
reports deriding Hayne's work, as did an engineer who had studied the mechanics 
of shaken baby syndrome. By 2013, Havard's situation had also attracted popular 
attention. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger and the Huffington Post had both 
published articles about him, and a website and Facebook page maintained by 
Havard's friends and family were generating outrage over his conviction.

Meanwhile, Hayne was garnering less-welcome attention. His testimony in several 
other cases had been criticized by fellow forensic pathologists. In 2008, he 
was effectively fired as the de facto medical examiner of Mississippi - 
partially in response to a 2006 investigation in Reason by Balko, a co-author 
of this piece. State officials including Attorney General Jim Hood were soon 
facing calls to review Hayne's work, although they steadfastly resisted.

Havard's attorneys were also pursuing his claims in federal court during this 
period. In August 2013, Hood's office filed a motion to seal that case - to 
prohibit the public from seeing any further filings or proceedings. The state 
claimed the motion was sparked by a Facebook post from one of Havard's lawyers, 
who had complained that Mississippi didn't "want to be bothered by actually 
responding to his claims of innocence." But the state's brief itself revealed 
the real motivation: Havard's case "had become a public spectacle."

Hood said his office had received letters from Havard's supporters and 
expressed concern that the letters were similarly worded, which he claimed 
showed the authors had all gotten their information from the same source. Why 
this was a grave matter isn't exactly clear. There's nothing inherently wrong 
with citizens petitioning their elected officials. In the end, not only did the 
federal court reject the attorney general's motion but the motion itself became 
a news story, fueling speculation that the state had something to hide.

In 2014, Hayne appeared to walk back his trial testimony even further. In an 
interview with the Clarion-Ledger, he said he'd never believed Chloe Britt had 
been sexually assaulted. The following July, he filed another affidavit with 
Havard's trial attorneys, this time claiming he had explicitly told prosecutors 
on more than one occasion that he could not support such a finding. Havard's 
attorneys said this information was never turned over to them.

Someone wasn't telling the truth. At Havard's trial, the prosecutor had 
informed jurors that Hayne would "testify for you about his findings and about 
how he confirmed the nurses' and doctors' worst fears - this child had been 
abused and the child had been penetrated." Now, all this time later, Hayne was 
claiming he'd told prosecutors precisely the opposite.

If true, that would be a major violation on the part of the state. Hayne's 
statement would have been exculpatory information, and prosecutors would have 
been obligated to share it with the defense. Hayne was the only medical 
examiner to testify, and the alleged sexual assault was a major part of the 
state's case and the aggravating factor that allowed Mississippi to seek the 
death penalty.

It's hard not to wonder: If Hayne really knew all along that the state had 
persuaded a jury to convict someone of an assault he never believed happened, 
why did he wait 13 years - and until 3 other forensic pathologists had filed 
affidavits for Havard's defense - before speaking up?

In April 2015, Havard finally caught a break. Justice Carlson had retired, and 
the Mississippi Supreme Court gave Havard's lawyers permission to request an 
evidentiary hearing on the scientific validity of shaken baby syndrome.

The court still rejected Havard's challenge to the allegations of sexual abuse. 
The ruling wasn't an exoneration, and it wasn't a new trial. It was a 
3-paragraph order allowing Havard to ask a trial court judge to hold a hearing 
about the soundness of the evidence that had been used against him. It was a 
modest win, but it at least put his execution on hold.

In June 2016, a circuit court judge granted his request. If Havard could 
convince the court that shaken baby syndrome is not a scientifically reliable 
diagnosis, he would finally get a new trial.

That hearing occurred in August 2017. Hayne testified that he no longer 
believed in the shaken baby diagnosis. The renowned forensic pathologist 
Michael Baden also testified for Havard's defense, saying he didn't believe 
Chloe Britt had been shaken. In keeping with the state supreme court's ruling, 
the judge refused to allow any testimony casting doubt on the alleged sexual 
assault.

It took Havard's original jury less than 2 days to deliberate, convict him 
based on flawed evidence, hear arguments regarding the appropriate punishment, 
deliberate again, and sentence him to death. It took 13 years for the courts to 
admit that a small portion of the evidence might have been scientifically 
unsound. It took another 14 months for the trial court judge to agree to hold a 
hearing on the matter, and 14 months more until the hearing itself. As of press 
time, the judge had yet to issue a decision.

It's often said that the wheels of justice grind slowly. That isn't always 
true. When it comes to convicting people, they can move swiftly indeed. It's 
when the system needs to correct an injustice - to admit and address its 
mistakes - that the gears tend to sputter to a halt.

For now, Jeffrey Havard remains on death row.

(source: reason.com)








OHIO:

U.S. Supreme Court won't hear case of Howland woman on death row



The U.S. Supreme Court has refusing to hear the case of a Howland woman 
sentenced to death after being convicted of plotting her husband's murder.

The nation's highest court informed Ohio Supreme Court officials Monday that it 
has denied a request that it consider the appeal of 73-year-old Donna Roberts.

Roberts, the only woman on Ohio's death row, was convicted by a Trumbull County 
court for the 2001 murder of her husband.

The filing made in December was Roberts' 4th appeal through the Supreme Court. 
In June, the Supreme Court refused to reopen the death penalty case against 
Roberts saying that Roberts' failed to prove there was anything new to come to 
light, as opposed to rehearing the same information presented in Roberts' 
numerous other trials.

According to prosecutors, Roberts plotted with another man, Nathaniel Jackson 
to kill Robert Fingerhut in Howland Township.

Both were sentenced to death for scheming to kill Fingerhut so Roberts could 
collect more than $500,000 in life insurance proceeds.

Roberts is scheduled to be executed on August 12, 2020.

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

Investigators say the 2 communicated while Jackson was in prison.

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

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

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

Roberts was convicted of aggravated murder with death penalty specifications, 
aggravated robbery, and aggravated burglary.

The Court first sent Robert's case back to the trial court after learning that 
the judge had allowed the prosecutor's office to participate in drafting the 
judge's sentencing opinion.

The court returned Roberts' case to the trial court for a 2nd time in 2013 
after concluding that the trial court hadn't considered potentially mitigating 
information Roberts gave at her 1st re-sentencing hearing.

The Supreme Court ordered the trial court to consider the entire record when 
deciding again whether the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating 
factors beyond a reasonable doubt.

A new judge conducted the re-sentencing because the judge who originally heard 
Roberts' case had died.

The new judge determined that death was the appropriate penalty in the case.

In her appeal, Roberts maintained that the new judge couldn't properly consider 
all the evidence in the case because he wasn't present for any of her trial and 
didn't hear her statement firsthand.

In its latest ruling, the Supreme Court found that the trial court judge's 
decision was proper because he reviewed a written transcript of the case.

The Ohio Supreme Court had already refused to reconsider it's earlier decision 
to uphold Nathaniel Jackson's sentence, which is scheduled to be carried out on 
July 15, 2020.

(source: WFMJ news)

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

Justice Insider: Death penalty focus of jury selection in Reagan Tokes murder 
case



It didn't take long for a potential juror to be eliminated from the pool of 
those being considered to hear the death-penalty trial of the man accused of 
kidnapping, raping and murdering an Ohio State University student.

A retired lawyer who was among the first group of 6 people questioned Monday 
morning by prosecuting and defense attorneys said he was so "tainted" by 
pretrial publicity that he doubted he could be an impartial juror for the 
defendant, Brian L. Golsby.

The man said he wasn't "100 %" certain that he could set aside his "preliminary 
conclusion" that Golsby is guilty in the Feb. 8, 2017, slaying of 21-year-old 
Reagan Tokes.

Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Mark Serrott excused the man at the request 
of Prosecutor Ron O'Brien, according to Dispatch courts reporter John Futty.

Another man in the 1st group of 6 was excused by the judge after he appeared to 
waver on whether he could properly follow the law in determining whether the 
death penalty is the appropriate sentence if Golsby, 30, is convicted of a 
capital crime.

The attorneys began Monday with a pool of 167 people from which to select 12 
jurors and 6 alternates.

The judge expects to spend up to a week trying to identify at least 50 to 60 
people who haven't been influenced by pretrial publicity and would be able to 
follow the law regarding imposition of the death penalty.

Once the potential jurors have been screened for knowledge of the high-profile 
case and attitudes about the death penalty, a more traditional jury-selection 
process will be conducted.

Testimony is expected to begin the week of March 5.

(source: Columbus Dispatch)








TENNESSEE----female may face death penalty

Sherra Wright Pleads Not Guilty, Decision On Whether To Try For Death Penalty 
Next Month



We'll know soon whether the ex-wife of former Memphis basketball star Lorenzen 
will face the death penalty if convicted. Monday morning, Sherra Wright pleaded 
not guilty, and afterwards, a Shelby County prosecutor told Local 24 a death 
penalty case decision will be announced next month.

Sherra Wright and Billy Ray Turner are both accused of plotting and attempting 
to kill Lorenzen Wright in the spring of 2010 and then actually killing the 
34-year-old in the summer of 2010.

The significant decision on whether the case will be tried as a death penalty 
case will be made March 19th, when both Wright and Turner are next scheduled to 
appear in court.

Louise Vassar woke up early Monday morning in Oxford, MS to get to downtown 
Memphis' Shelby County Justice Center. There, she sat feet from the woman 
accused of murdering her oldest grandchild, former Memphis basketball star 
Lorenzen Wright.

"I want to see Sherra's face, wish her all the luck, but I had to see her for 
justice for my grandson," Vassar said.

Sherra Wright didn't say much in her brief arraignment, in which she pleaded 
not guilty. She's now officially represented by Memphis attorneys Blake Ballin 
and Steve Farese Jr., who cautioned against the court of public opinion.

"We've seen what's been on TV," Ballin said. "We are now excited to see what 
the real evidence is."

Attorneys on all sides will spend the next several weeks going over the lengthy 
evidence in Lorenzen Wright's 2010 murder in southeast Memphis. The case 
remained unsolved until late last year, when authorities arrested and charged 
Turner and Wright, who once attended the same Collierville church.

"Things take time," Paul Hagerman with the Shelby County District Attorney's 
Office said. "I know it's taken too long to solve this case, too long get it 
here, but everybody is going to make sure to do their jobs."

Whatever unfolds during the trial, Vassar made her intention known should 
Wright be convicted.

"I don't want her to get the death penalty," Vassar said. "Let her live."

Last month, Billy Ray Turner's attorney said some of the evidence included 
phone wiretaps, which Wright's attorneys didn't entirely dispute Monday 
morning.

Death penalty defendants are not eligible for bond.

(source: localmemphis.com)








ARKANSAS:

Arkansas Rush Executions Because Its Lethal Injection Drugs Are Expiring?



Last year, Arkansas shocked the world with a "conveyor belt" of executions 
rushed through for a reason that almost exceeds belief: The state was worried 
that its execution drugs were expiring and it wouldn't be able to get more. 
Now, some of those who managed to get stays are wondering if their time is up 
as well, as another expiration deadline looms.

This absurd situation only highlights the injustice of the death penalty.

According to the BBC, Arkansas uses a combination of 3 drugs in its execution 
protocol: the sedative Midazolam, vecuronium bromide, which causes muscle 
paralysis and respiratory failure, and potassium chloride to stop the heart. 
Like other states, Arkansas is struggling to secure a supply of these 
medications - especially because some drug companies are refusing to sell to 
the prison system and directing their distributors to similarly deny access to 
drugs that could be used in executions. Some states have built up stockpiles of 
medications or used compounding pharmacies to manufacture drugs.

Arkansas opted to built up a collection of drugs, but now, they're about to 
expire - and that will leave the state with the option of discarding the drugs, 
or rushing to put them to use. Since the medication may be challenging to 
replace, some death row inmates fear the execution process may speed up.

3 inmates in particular, all of whom received stays last year, are worried 
about their fate: Bruce Ward, Jack Greene and Don Davis. The 3 are incarcerated 
for murders that took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and have been 
winding their way through the appeals process for decades. Ward is severely 
mentally ill, Greene's mental competence has been called into question and 
Davis is an abuse survivor with ADHD and substance abuse issues. By some 
grounds, the 3 men may be ineligible for execution on the basis of their mental 
conditions.

On March 1, the state's supply of vecuronium bromide - obtained, Pfizer says, 
under questionable circumstances - will expire, and in the coming months, other 
execution drugs will expire as well. This raises concerns that the state may 
consider another "conveyor belt of death," lining up prisoners with pending 
executions and moving them swiftly through the system. Even if the state 
follows procedural protocols, hastening these deaths could leave multiple 
opportunities for injustice.

That's especially worrisome since botched executions are a known issue, and 
drugs near expiry, coming from questionable sources, could pose an increased 
risk of error. Kenneth Williams, 1 of the men executed in 2017, was seen having 
"convulsions."

Between watching medical staff fumble for veins and witnessing prisoners 
experience unexpected reactions to these medications, witnesses aren't 
necessarily assured a view of the "peaceful" death implied by proponents of the 
lethal injection. Some prisoners experience agony that can last for hours.

Currently, Arkansas has no executions scheduled, but those counting down the 
clock are keeping a close eye on the state. Is Arkansas on the verge of pushing 
through another mass execution because it can't obtain the drugs it needs to do 
its dirty work?

(source: care2.com)




UTAH:

Keep the death penalty on Utah's books



Chutzpah notwithstanding, our legislators seem quite serious about outlawing 
the death penalty in Utah, the rationale being that a sentence of life without 
parole is just as effective, more humane and far less expensive. If they do so, 
I expect that the very next day will see the beginning of a long campaign to 
declare any sentence of life without parole as cruel and unusual punishment. 
Such a campaign may take 30 years, but it will begin by having certain 
classifications of offenders declared as ineligible for such punishment. With 
each success, more and more types of offenders will be eliminated. The campaign 
will be relentless. The main tactic will be obstruction to drive up expense, 
and the drivers of the campaign will be the same groups and persons who have 
opposed the death penalty for so long and so effectively.

I would think that it would be far more effective to leave the death penalty on 
the books, even if it is never used again in the state of Utah. Just having the 
death penalty in the background makes it a very effective anvil for hammering 
out plea bargains.

Thomas Brown

Murray

(source: Letter to the Editor, Deseret News)








ARIZONA:

Judge grants request to extend time to seek death penalty in jailhouse slaying



A judge on Monday granted an extension in time for the Arizona Attorney 
General's Office to decide whether to seek the death penalty against a Needles 
man accused of killing his cellmate in the Mohave County Jail.

Gaven Timothy Robel, 25, is charged with felony 1st-degree murder in the 
November assault and death of Rayan Wayne Couch in the cell they shared at the 
county jail. Robel is being held on a $5 million bond.

On Nov. 29, Robel allegedly assaulted Couch, 41, from Kingman, in a cell they 
had shared for several days in the medium-security section of the jail. Couch, 
who had been in jail for probation violation since Nov. 2, was flown to a Las 
Vegas hospital with serious head injuries. He died Dec. 3 from his injuries.

Robel was in custody after being charged by the attorney general's office with 
fraudulent schemes and artifices, acquisition of a narcotic drug by fraud and 
forgery. Robel and 7 others are accused of involvement in an opioid ring in the 
Bullhead City area.

Superior Court Commissioner Billy Sipe Jr. granted Assistant Arizona Attorney 
General Jarred McBride's motion for an extension until April 26 to determine 
whether his office will seek the death penalty in the murder case. Prosecutors 
normally have 60 days from arraignment to seek the death penalty against a 
defendant. That deadline would have expired Monday.

The judge set Robel's next hearing for April 9 in both cases.

Robel's attorney, Sandra Carr, did not object to the extension. She also said 
there was a large amount of evidence that is being exchanged with the 
prosecutor in both cases.

Carr said she is qualified to be 2nd chair, or co-counsel, in a death penalty 
case. 2 death penalty qualified attorneys would be assigned for the defense. If 
the death penalty is pursued, the primary attorney will pick the co-counsel.

If McBride does seek the death penalty, the case would have to be reassigned to 
an elected Superior Court judge since, by state law, a court commissioner 
cannot oversee a death penalty case.

Prosecutors recently withdrew the death penalty from 2 other Mohave County 
murder cases. Justin James Rector, 29, of Bullhead City, and Darrell Bryant 
Ketchner, 59, of Kingman.

(source: Mohave Valley Daily News)