[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.MEX., IDAHO, CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 14



NEW MEXICO:

The death penalty is barbaric



I write today with a heavy heart that this letter even needs to be penned. The 
death penalty is a barbaric, nonsensical approach to combating crime, mental 
health and criminality across New Mexico ("GOP aims to bring back death 
penalty," Jan. 8).

While there might be some polls that show a majority of New Mexicans approve of 
a narrow reintroduction of the "ultimate" punishment for certain crimes, any 
bill that seeks to reintroduce this cruel penalty is filled with fallacious 
elements that seek to not only disenfranchise members of society, but more 
importantly hold certain lives in higher esteem than others.

The death penalty across the United States has been widely seen as a scourge, 
something that even prosecutors have described as flawed and as a nondeterrent. 
Repealed statewide in 2009, New Mexico courts only carried out this punishment 
on 1 person since 1976. 1 person.

While I would never defend the barbaric acts that certain individuals have 
committed, a definitive sentence of death is misinformed and will do nothing to 
prevent violent crime, and is merely an attempt to deflect from the real 
problems New Mexicans face with criminal activity.

To my 2nd point, this bill values certain lives above others. We have all 
reeled from the stories of children, young boys and girls who should be 
enjoying their youth have instead been the victims of brutal assaults and 
murder at the hands of criminals. Yet, to act with passion instead of reason, 
knowing the long and torrid history of the death penalty in New Mexico, is a 
mistake. We can hold criminals accountable without the threat of death.

According to Time magazine, approximately 4.1 % of death penalty convictions 
are erroneous, more than double what was previously estimated. While 1 innocent 
life lost is too many, so too is an innocent victim of our courts.

We deserve better than a reintroduction of a barbaric law that holds certain 
lives in higher esteem than others, and we are smarter than this bill that will 
surely put innocent lives at risk at the sake of selfish political gains.

(source: Opinion; James W. Ross is former deputy Cabinet secretary of health 
and federal affairs director for Gov. Susana Martinez, and is currently living 
in Illinois----santafenewmexican.com)








IDAHO:

He feigned insanity for 20 years to avoid prison. His new murder case is on 
hold while he is evaluated again



Susan Harmon has read the police reports about the day a year ago that her 
daughter was murdered and a Vale, Ore. man killed.

Authorities say Annita Harmon was stabbed to death outside an Ontario 
convenience store on Jan. 9, 2017. Anthony Montwheeler, Harmon's ex-husband and 
a former mental hospital patient, was charged with her murder.

"He was stalking her," Harmon concluded from the reports.

Harmon shared new details about a crime that jolted the Treasure Valley and put 
Oregon officials in line for intense criticism for freeing Montwheeler from the 
Oregon State Hospital.

A year ago, Annita Harmon was living with her parents in their rural home west 
of Weiser. She had done well after divorcing Montwheeler, her mother said. She 
had won promotions at Dickinson Frozen Foods in Fruitland, earning her own 
office.

That morning, she planned to go to work early.

According to police reports Susan Harmon read, Montwheeler was up even earlier 
that day at his home in Nampa. The reports said about 4 a.m. Montwheeler's 
girlfriend asked him where he was going, and he replied he was going to the 
gym.

Sometime before 6 a.m., a neighbor spotted a pickup truck parked at an 
intersection not far from the Harmon home. The neighbor stopped and asked if 
the man, who matched Montwheeler's description, needed help. No, he said. He 
was making a call, according to the reports.

About 6 a.m., Annita Harmon got in her car and headed out for the drive to 
work.

Not long afterward, police found her empty car left in the middle of the road, 
about a half mile from where Montwheeler had been parked, said Harmon's mother.

Police have previously disclosed what they suspect happened. They think 
Montwheeler kidnapped Harmon and took her across the Idaho-Oregon border into 
Ontario. Harmon was stabbed to death outside the convenience store, and 
Montwheeler fled when police were summoned. On Oregon Highway 201, his truck 
collided with another vehicle, killing Vale resident David Bates and injuring 
his wife Jessica.

Montwheeler subsequently was charged with aggravated murder, assault and 
kidnapping. He was treated for serious injuries and had a knee replaced at 
public expense. He is now in the Malheur County Jail.

He has alerted prosecutors he may assert an insanity defense. He had 
successfully done so in 1997 after he was charged in Baker County with 
kidnapping his 1st wife and son.

His prosecution has stalled as officials await a long-anticipated report on 
Montwheeler's mental fitness. Circuit Court Judge Patricia Sullivan last summer 
ordered Montwheeler evaluated at the Oregon State Hospital to determine whether 
he had the mental capacity to aid his defense.

At the time of the January crimes, Montwheeler had been free for less than a 
month from the state hospital. The state Psychiatric Security Review Board 
released him without condition after he claimed he had faked his mental illness 
for 20 years and a state hospital psychiatrist agreed.

According to the Malheur County Sheriff's Office, Montwheeler was taken to 
Salem last Aug. 31 to be evaluated at the state hospital. Such evaluations, 
state officials said, usually take only a few hours.

Jonathan Modie, communications officer with the Oregon Health Authority, said 
last summer that a report with the results of such evaluations usually is done 
in 3 days.

Dave Goldthorpe, Malheur County district attorney, said he has yet to see the 
report and has no indication when one will be produced.

State officials said Monday they couldn't address Montwheeler's evaluation 
because of federal privacy restrictions but explained that generally 
evaluations can take weeks for a variety of reasons, including the need to 
review years' worth of records.

"Evaluators strive to provide reports that are both timely and accurate and 
useful to the court," said Rebeka Gibson-King, state hospital spokeswoman.

The prosecution of Montwheeler can't proceed without that report, Goldthorpe 
said.

If state doctors conclude Montwheeler is fit, he will be scheduled to enter a 
plea. If they find he is unfit, Montwheeler will be sent back to the state 
hospital to be treated until he is fit.

A trial has been scheduled on the calendar for fall 2019, reserving court time 
for what could be a lengthy proceeding.

Goldthorpe said he would seek the maximum penalty if Montwheeler is convicted.

"The state is currently seeking the death penalty if the case proceeds to 
trial," Goldthorpe said in an email.

Montwheeler's attorney, David Falls of West Linn, didn't respond to emailed 
questions or a telephone message.

Meantime, relatives of the victims intend to pursue compensation from Oregon 
state agencies for releasing Montwheeler.

Jessica Bates, who has recovered from her injuries, notified the state last 
July through her attorney that she intended to sue for $5 million for herself 
and her 5 children.

"The state of Oregon...knew Mr. Montwheeler was a threat to society and likely 
to engage in acts of physical violence and yet, unexplainably, released him 
into society," her tort claim notice said.

Bruce Skaug, a Nampa lawyer representing Bates, said the state rejected the 
claim and Bates now intends to sue.

Susan Harmon said her family, too, intends legal action against Oregon. She 
said the family soon would file its own claim with the state.

She said her granddaughter, now in the 7th grade, lives with her. Her grandson 
is attending Boise State University. She said they were both aware of the 
anniversary of their mother's death, yet were "doing okay."

Harmon said she hoped the passing of time didn't mean people would forget about 
her daughter.

"She was a good person," Susan Harmon said. "She was trying to get her life 
back together."

(source: idahostatesman.com)








CALIFORNIA:

4 men charged with killing Redondo Beach sex offender during home-invasion 
robbery



4 South Bay men were charged Friday with killing and robbing a registered sex 
offender, strangling him and attacking him with pliers and bolt cutters when he 
got out of his shower in his Redondo Beach apartment.

The charges make them eligible for the death penalty.

The victim, John Haig Marshall, 61, died Nov,. 28, 5 years after he was sent to 
prison for drugging a young male friend, shaving his body hair and sexually 
assaulting him in that same shower area amid allegations he had molested more 
than a dozen other victims since the 1970s.

Whether the homicide was linked to Marshall's sordid past was unclear. A 
complaint filed at the Torrance courthouse Friday alleges the men committed a 
home invasion robbery, taking 2 cellphones, 2 briefcases, a VHS video camera 
and Marshall's passport. The cellphones were pawned at a shop in Compton.

Court appearances

The alleged killers - Taylor John Cervantes, 22, of Hawthorne; Tyler Lee Stark, 
24, of Torrance; Myles Jorge Sawyer, 25, of Torrance; and his brother, Brandon 
Scott Takeo Sawyer, 23, of Torrance - made appearances together Friday in 
Torrance court, but their arraignment was postponed until Jan. 30.

Judge Thomas Sokolov ordered them held in county jail without bail.

Each was charged with felony counts of murder, conspiracy to commit burglary, 
1st-degree burglary with a person present, and home-invasion robbery. The 
District Attorney's Office also filed special circumstances allegations that 
the murder was committed during the commission of a robbery and a burglary, and 
an allegation that bolt cutters were used as a deadly and dangerous weapon.

Prosecutors will later decide if they will seek the death penalty or life in 
prison without the chance of parole.

Redondo Beach police officials declined comment Friday, referring questions to 
the District Attorney's Office.

Coroner's officials said Marshall died from neck compression and blunt head 
trauma.

Marshall's relationship to his alleged killers was not disclosed, but Marshall 
was known in the past to enjoy the company of young men and teenage boys.

According to the criminal complaint filed in court, Stark, Cervantes, and the 
Sawyer brothers met in Torrance and drove in Stark???s car to a Home Depot in 
Torrance, where they purchased the Channellock pliers and bolt cutters and 
drove to Marshall???s apartment in the 300 block of North Catalina Avenue. 
Marshall owned and managed the building, and lived in one of the units.

Cervantes and the Sawyer brothers, wearing dark clothing, put on gloves and 
covered their faces with bandannas, the complaint said. After Brandon Sawyer 
used the pliers to break the lock on Marshall???s door, the 3 entered. 
Cervantes walked into the bathroom, strangled Marshall with his hands when he 
exited the shower, and Cervantes, Brandon Sawyer and Myles Sawyer assaulted and 
killed Marshall using the pliers and bolt cutter, the document said..

After taking Marshall's property, Stark drove the group to his home in 
Torrance. Stark and Brandon Sawyer later pawned Marshall's cellphones.

Redondo Beach police arrested the men earlier this week, jail records show. The 
records also showed the men had previous contacts with South Bay law 
enforcement.

Victim's crimes

Marshall also was well known to the Redondo Beach Police Department. Officers 
arrested him on Oct. 8, 2009, when a 29-year-old man sought medical treatment, 
telling doctors he had been drugged and raped. The man feared he had contracted 
a sexually transmitted disease. Doctors reported the crime to police.

According to a police spokesman at the time, the man told officers he and 
Marshall knew each other and drank together on several occasions. He went to 
Marshall's apartment a few days earlier to work on his computer. After Marshall 
provided him with an alcoholic drink, he became incapacitated and found himself 
in Marshall's shower, alert but unable to respond to what was happening to him. 
Prosecutors at the time said Marshall sexually assaulted the man with a thin, 
hard object and shaved his body hair. The man later awakened on the sofa and 
left the apartment.

The Daily Breeze reported at the time that police detectives were already 
investigating sexual assault allegations previously made against Marshall, who 
had served as a police reserve officer for nine months from 1980 to 1981, when 
he resigned for unknown reasons. The allegations included reports that Marshall 
had drugged an underage boy and engaged in sex with him over an extended period 
in 2000. Prosecutors declined to file charges because the allegations were made 
beyond the statute of limitations for the offenses.

In 2005 and 2006, police staked out Marshall's apartment building when callers 
reported on law enforcement tip lines that high school boys were going to 
Marshall's apartment and coming out "stoned." The callers said Marshall 
provided teens with Quaaludes, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, and 
alcohol, police said. Detectives were unable to corroborate the tips.

Facing 8 years in prison on several charges, Marshall agreed to a plea deal 
with prosecutors in Torrance Superior Court that sent him away for 3 years. 
Marshall, the son of the late Alese Marshall, who operated a modeling and 
talent agency in Torrance, pleaded no contest to a charge of sexual penetration 
of an intoxicated person and was ordered to register as a sex offender upon his 
release.

Marshall's attorney on the case said Marshall feared likely testimony during 
the case about allegations that he drugged and molested teen boys as far back 
as the 1970s. Police said 14 people had contacted detectives following 
Marshall's arrest.

(soruce: dailybreeze.com)

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

Murder suspect admits to stabbing Redding teen in throat 'a lot of times'



A 44-year-old Shingletown man who confessed on television earlier this week to 
murdering a 19-year-old Redding man in May 1993 told investigators he and 1 of 
his co-defendants repeatedly stabbed the teen in his throat before they robbed 
him.

In what's a potential death penalty case, Brian Keith Hawkins, who appeared 
Friday in Shasta County Superior Court along with co-defendant Curtis Dean 
Culver, 45, of Red Bluff, told police he stabbed Frank Wesley McAlister in his 
throat "a lot of times" before robbing him, according to a 5-page investigative 
report filed Friday in Shasta County Superior Court.

After repeatedly stabbing McAlister, Hawkins said, Culver picked up a large 
rock and dropped it on the teen's head.

During a brief jailhouse interview Friday with the Record Searchlight, however, 
an exhausted Culver denied murdering McAlister.

"No," he said after being asked if he had murdered the teenager.

Culver also said that he was caught completely by surprise that Hawkins 
confessed to the murder and implicated him and his sister in it.

According to the police report, Culver told investigators this week he 
intentionally dropped the rock on McAlister's head "out of mercy" after the 
teen had been repeatedly stabbed by Hawkins.

The police report said Hawkins told investigators he stabbed McAlister only 
after Culver had stabbed the teen in his throat, but Culver denied that, 
pinning it all on Hawkins.

According to the police report, Culver said Hawkins was seated directly behind 
McAlister as they sat in a parked car on a dirt turnaround near Grace and Nora 
lakes in Shingletown. Culver said Hawkins reached around the front of 
McAlister's neck and slit the teen's throat with a knife.

McAlister's skeletal remains were found April 13, 1994, and it was determined 
that he died as a result of having his throat cut.

In what has long been a cold case, McAlister's unsolved murder heated up this 
week when Hawkins, saying he could no "longer live with the guilt," called up a 
local TV station wishing to confess.

Hawkins made a statement to the KRCR news station crew, who then contacted 
Redding police about Hawkins' involvement in the 1993 murder.

Hawkins voluntarily met with Redding police investigators on Tuesday to provide 
a statement, telling them that he, along with Culver and Culver's sister, 
Shanna Nichole Culver, 41, murdered McAlister by luring him to Shingletown with 
the intent of robbing him.

In a twist to the case, Shanna Culver, who was 17 at the time, may not be 
prosecuted as an adult until she goes through a juvenile court hearing process.

A prosecutor said Shanna Culver was arraigned Thursday during a juvenile court 
hearing.

She'll be back in court Wednesday morning for a hearing that's open to the 
public due to the serious nature of the crime.

According to the police report, Hawkins told investigators he and the Culvers 
drove to the Shingletown area with McAlister so the teen could purchase 
methamphetamine.

Once they made it to Shingletown, police said, the 3 conspired to murder him 
instead.

Hawkins said McAlister wanted to purchase a large amount of methamphetamine 
with money he had obtained through an insurance settlement and then resell the 
meth to make a profit from it, according to the police report.

He also said it was Shanna Culver who came up with the idea to murder McAlister 
and rob him, the police report said.

After disposing McAlister's body, the police report said, the 3 drove 
McAlister's car, a Dodge Shadow, back to Redding and abandoned it in the Costco 
parking lot, police said.

Hawkins told police that after they had returned to Redding, he saw the Culvers 
with a lot of cash, adding that they gave him several hundred dollars.

"Hawkins told me he knew the money came from McAlister because it actually had 
blood on it," police investigator Rusty Bishop wrote in his report.

After Hawkins made his statements this week to investigators, which matched 
evidence in the case, police contacted Curtis and Shanna Culver on Wednesday 
for questioning.

During the questioning, Shanna Culver denied any involvement in McAlister's 
death.

She admitted that she was with her brother, Hawkins and McAlister on the day he 
was last seen alive, but said they drove around Redding and that McAlister 
dropped them off near Waterworks Park after he got a call on his pager.

She said McAlister told them he needed to go somewhere, which she assumed was 
to purchase methamphetamine, and that was the last time any of them saw him.

"Shanna Culver ended up becoming very emotional, crying and yelling during this 
interview, before she invoked her Miranda rights, asking for an attorney," the 
police report states. "The interview was stopped at that point."

Marcia Keel, the mother of Curtis and Shanna Culver, said after court Friday 
that her children are innocent .

"They could have never done this," she said, adding she's unsure why Hawkins 
sayas her children were a part of it.

"I don't know what triggered this (Hawkin's statements) after all this time," 
she said.

But, she said, she knows her children are not capable of murdering anyone.

The 3 remain in Shasta County Jail. Their $1 million bail was changed, however, 
to no bail after the prosecutor noted the murder case could result in a death 
penalty punishment for them.

Investigators have said they've chased numerous leads and examined physical 
evidence collected in connection to the homicide for the past 24 years, and are 
asking anyone with information about the case to call the Redding Police

(source: Redding Record Searchlight)