[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA.

Tue Jan 30 09:30:06 CST 2018

Jan. 30

TEXAS----impending execution

Texas man set for execution hopes Supreme Court cases will stop his 
death----William Rayford, a 64-year-old death row inmate convicted in the 1999 
murder of his ex-girlfriend, is hoping 2 previous U.S. Supreme Court cases will 
be the key to stopping his execution Tuesday.

William Rayford's lawyers are hoping 2 recent U.S. Supreme Court cases will 
stop his execution set for Tuesday night.

In multiple last-minute appeals, the 64-year-old death row inmate claims his 
sentencing trial in the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend was tainted by racial 
prejudice and that he was wrongly denied federal funding to further investigate 
evidence that could have persuaded a jury to give him a lighter sentence. His 
legal team said these issues "mirror" those of the recent cases the high court 
heard of fellow death row inmates Duane Buck and Carlos Ayestas and should 
therefore serve as reasons to put off his death.

Rayford has been on death row for 17 years. He was convicted in Dallas County 
for the kidnapping and death of 44-year-old Carol Hall. In November 1999, 
Rayford entered Hall's house and the 2 began arguing, according to court 
documents. Hall's 12-year-old son came into the room, and Rayford stabbed him 
in the back before chasing Hall as she ran out of the house. When the cops 
found her body in a nearby culvert later that day, she had been strangled, 
beaten and stabbed.

Rayford had previously pleaded guilty and served 8 years of a 23-year sentence 
in the 1986 murder of his ex-wife, records show.

"Statistically, you lose more than you win," said Bruce Anton, Rayford's 
lawyer, when asked about his hope for a stay of execution. But he said he is 
optimistic based on the two Supreme Court cases.

Last February, justices ruled that Buck's case was prejudiced by an expert 
trial witness who claimed Buck was more likely to be a future danger because he 
is black. To sentence someone to death in Texas, the jury must unanimously 
agree that the person would likely be a future danger to society. Chief Justice 
John Roberts wrote in the court's majority opinion that the defense attorney 
was ineffective by bringing forth the psychologist who made the racial remarks. 
Buck has since been re-sentenced to life in prison.

"When a jury hears expert testimony that expressly makes a defendant's race 
directly pertinent on the question of life or death, the impact of that 
evidence cannot be measured simply by how much air time it received at trial or 
how many pages it occupies in the record," Roberts said in the opinion. "Some 
toxins can be deadly in small doses."

Rayford, who is also black, presented what he claims is a similar situation in 
his petition to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals earlier this month. During 
his sentencing trial, Rayford's defense lawyer asked the state's expert on 
prison violence if the racial makeup of the unit is something that relates to 
the number of prison assaults.

"It has a factor on it," said the Royce Smithey, chief investigator of the 
state unit that prosecutes crimes in prison, according to court records.

The state appellate court rejected Rayford's appeal Friday, with Judge Barbara 
Hervey writing in the majority opinion that the Buck decision was based 
partially on the specific psychologist who had made the remark, since his 
testimony on race and danger had been knocked down by the high court in another 
case involving a Hispanic inmate. She also said that Smithey did not give any 
opinions about a particular race or how race factored into prison violence, 
unlike in Buck's case.

"I do not read Buck as holding that defense counsel is ineffective for merely 
allowing a witness to use the word "race" in his or her testimony about future 
dangerousness," Hervey wrote in her concurring opinion, which was joined by 
Presiding Judge Sharon Keller and judges Michael Keasler and David Newell.

Judge Elsa Alcala, known death penalty critic on the all-Republican court, said 
in a dissent that she would stop the execution until the court could fully 
examine the claim that Rayford's attorney was ineffective for evoking 
race-based testimony in the trial, pointing to Roberts' statement about the 
power of small doses.

"It is unconstitutional to carry out a death sentence that was imposed on the 
basis of a powerful racial stereotype - that of black men as 'violence prone,'" 
she wrote, joined by Judge Scott Walker.

Rayford has appealed the court's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which had 
not yet ruled in the case Monday.

In federal district court, Anton is putting more weight into the argument that 
he claims matches that of Carlos Ayestas, whose case was heard by the high 
court in October but has yet to see a ruling.

Ayestas' lawyers argued that he was wrongfully denied funding from the federal 
courts during later appeals to investigate previously unexplored evidence that 
could sway a jury to opt for the lesser sentence of life in prison. The 5th 
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which handles cases from Texas, requires 
appellants to show a "substantial need" for the funding. Ayestas' lawyer said 
the rule forces the court to guess what the investigation will find and whether 
that supposed evidence would have made any difference to a jury.

Rayford was initially denied such funding, but a judge granted him money in 
September to allow him to compile an accurate and up-to-date mental evaluation 
for his petition to the state's parole board and Gov. Greg Abbott asking for a 
stay of execution. (The board unanimously voted against any such relief Friday, 
and Abbott, a Republican, has not delayed an execution since taking office).

The investigation that stemmed from that funding led Rayford back to court this 
month with a new appeal. His lawyers presented previously undisclosed claims of 
brain damage due to lead poisoning, stemming from decades-old bullets and 
bullet fragments in his body and childhood exposure to contaminated water. He 
argues his lawyers failed him by not investigating and presenting the evidence 
to his jury when he was sentenced.

Texas disagrees, saying even though lead poisoning wasn't mentioned at trial, 
his defense did present evidence of substance abuse, a troubled childhood and 
mental illness. The defense's doctor who examined Rayford testified that he 
would not pose a future danger to prison society.

"Rayford simply cannot show that he was prejudiced because his trial counsel 
failed to present evidence that his mental deficiencies were of a different 
origin," wrote Texas Assistant Attorney General Jay Clendenin.

The federal district court has yet to rule on the appeal, and it could still be 
appealed to the 5th Circuit and Supreme Court. Rayford's execution is scheduled 
for 6 p.m. Tuesday, but it can be delayed until midnight, when the death 
warrant expires.

If no courts step in, it will be the 2nd execution in Texas and the nation in 
2018. Texas is also set to be the 3rd execution in the country as well, with 
the execution of John Battaglia set for Thursday.

(source: Texas Tribune)

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

My First Night on Death Row as an Innocent Man

Anthony Graves was convicted in 1994 for killing 6 people in 1992. He was 
exonerated in 2010 after having served 18 1/2 years in prison, 16 of which were 
spent in solitary confinement and 12 of which were on death row. The prosecutor 
in Graves' case was eventually disbarred for misconduct, and Texas had to pay 
Graves $1.45 million in compensation for the damage the state had done to him. 
Graves now works at the ACLU of Texas as the Smart Justice Initiatives Manager. 
Below is an excerpt from Graves' recently published book, "Infinite Hope: How 
Wrongful Conviction, Solitary Confinement, and 12 years on Death Row Failed to 
Kill My Soul" (Beacon Press, 2018). It is reprinted with permission from Beacon 
Press.

Eary November 1994: Entering the Lion's Den

I arrived at death row on November 1, 1994, the same year director Frank 
Darabont turned Stephen King's novella "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" 
into the now classic movie about a wrongfully convicted banker and his wise 
black friend. A green stone tower at the entrance to the Ellis Unit prison 
looked a little like the structures that rose from the Maine dirt in that film. 
A white female guard stood atop the tower. A pistol holstered to her hip, she 
also held a rifle in her right hand. She looked to be in her 50s, and her 
Southern drawl told me she???d been plucked from a roster of job applicants who 
lived somewhere nearby.

"You're in the wrong place!" she hollered down from the tower to the officer 
that brought me to the gates. "You've got to run him over to the diagnostic 
unit. They'll process him there."

Processing took a few minutes. Agents of the state asked my name. They took 
down some information and scribbled a few indecipherable words onto paper. I 
did a lot of waiting. A few minutes later, we returned to the green tower with 
the female overseer. The officer who brought me there placed his gun and some 
paperwork into a plastic bucket attached to a rope. The woman in the tower 
pulled up the officer's supplies like a banker sucking a drive-through deposit 
through the magic transport tubes.

I closed my eyes to block the shining sun. The gate opened and 3 officers 
placed their hands on me. They let me walk at my own pace toward death row. I 
tried to take in the scene. It wasn't much to behold. Death row is 
intimidating. It's designed as a testament to the ultimate power of the state 
to kill and control its citizens. I knew what had happened at my trial, but I 
still wasn't quite sure how I ended up there.

Coming to death row is like stepping back in time a few hundred years. When 
slave traders transported men and women from Africa across the Middle Passage, 
they'd drop those slaves off in cities like Charleston. 4 in 10 African slaves 
passed through Charleston, where they were sold publicly, in the streets, until 
the city banned the practice in 1856. Thereafter, slave inspection and buying 
moved to the local slave mart. The slaves were stripped and weighed, their 
distinctive qualities noted for potential buyers. A light-skinned female slave 
would go for $50,000 or more in today's dollars. A slave with a skill like 
carpentry would also command a high price. The caretakers of death row learned 
from that legacy. I stepped inside a pen. I was strip-searched in case I'd 
managed to pick up a gun or knife on the ride over from my previous jail. I had 
become used to the strip searches. It was just a routine of humiliation that 
had run its course. If a man can stand there and watch me move my private parts 
around for him, then that's what I would do. My mind-set was to follow all the 
rules and keep it simple. Next, an officer handed me prison clothes, which 
consisted of a white jumper and a white pair of cloth slippers for my feet. I 
finally got a haircut. A shower would follow. Once sufficiently clean, I was 
ready for the short ride to Ellis One Unit. Named for a former Texas prison 
administrator, it housed the state's death row.

Like most Americans, I hadn't given much thought to death row before my arrest. 
The writer and anti-death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean famously said 
that support for the death penalty is a mile wide but only an inch thick. She 
meant that the death penalty's many supporters rarely investigate the basis of 
their own beliefs. As I walked into Ellis One Unit, I didn't know what to 
think. People typically focus on the death part of a death sentence. What they 
don't tell you is that life on death row is a torture all its own. I had no 
idea that I'd be living in a 6-by-9-foot cage, or that I'd do my business in a 
steel toilet in plain view of male and female officers alike.

If the officers didn't enjoy making me take my clothes on and off, they surely 
acted like they did. It was a routine that quickly grew old. In a back room, 
officers helped me lose the clothes I'd worn for just a few minutes during the 
intake process. I got a new outfit. The shirt featured large stencil lettering 
on the back that read "dr." Once I was freshly dressed, officers handcuffed me 
and led me down the long road to perdition. The prison buzzed with energy. At 
that time, death row wasn't set off in some distant facility. It was just 
another wing of a functional penitentiary. Inmates came and went. Some stood 
around. The officers that led me quickly seized control of these inmates.

"Turn around and look at the wall!" one officer yelled. The officers didn't 
want general-population inmates looking at me. I'd later learn it was for my 
own protection. Even inmates in prison have an opinion about those sentenced to 
death, one officer said.

You didn't have to guess when you'd crossed the line between the ordinary 
prison and the place where Texas placed the worst of the worst. At the end of a 
hallway that seemed to go on forever, a gate with an emblem spread the news, 
seeming almost proud with its pronouncement: Texas death row. I was scared. 
Thoughts of my family flooded my mind. No place contrasts as hard with home as 
death row. When I crossed over that threshold, it was hard to believe I'd ever 
make it back. I thought of my children. I thought of my mom.

Death row has rules. A captain sitting behind a desk inside the gate peered at 
me over a stack of papers. He must have been trying to determine if I'd cause 
him problems or not. His expression never changed as he looked through my file. 
Finally, he reached for a handbook that sat amid the mess on his desk.

"Read this," he said. "All of it."

I thumbed through the first few pages as he explained the dos and don'ts of 
death row. I nodded because nodding was the only thing to do. He handed me a 
sheet of paper that included my housing assignment. I'd be living on Wing J-23. 
It all seemed the same to me, but as it turns out, death row has its share of 
troublemakers too. That's where they put me, right in the middle of known gang 
members and those who'd opted out of the prison's work program. The work 
program was an incentive for good behavior. We could become eligible to work as 
trusties around the officers. The prison also has a garment factory where, as 
part of the program, death row inmates were allowed to make and sew the 
officers' uniforms. You had to be there at least 6 months before becoming 
eligible for the program, so it was too early for me to opt in.

The captain explained our schedule. On the weekdays, we'd spend 22 hours alone 
in a small cage, only a few feet long and wide. Weekends brought 24 hours of 
solitary confinement because many officers took the weekends off. To save 
money, the prison would simply reduce manpower and keep us in our cells all day 
Saturday and Sunday. We weren't worth the substitute guards' wages that would 
be required to move us to the rec yard and back.

As an officer led me to my wing, I asked him why I landed on J-23. "It's the 
only place we've got, Graves." Texas's death row was almost out of vacancy. 500 
were waiting for the state of Texas to kill them. My cage had an address of 
sorts: Tier 3, Cell 10. The cage doors had bars and wire. They seemed designed 
not only to keep me in but also to make it as hard as possible to see the 
television. Maybe it was just my part of the neighborhood, but the 3rd tier in 
J-23 was far from quiet. I looked around at the sparse accommodations as my 
neighbors hollered. It reminded me of the jails that held me while I'd waited 
for trial. Every inmate had something to say, and most wanted to say it louder 
than the guy next to them. One guy wanted aspirin. Another screamed for an 
officer to bring him a sick-call request. A few whispered to the trusty, 
himself a general-population inmate, to bring them newspapers, magazines, food. 
The trusties often became couriers, moving items from cell to cell out of view 
of prison personnel.

My neighbors went to great lengths to devise any source of entertainment. 
Rivals bet on whatever sporting event happened to be on television. It wasn't 
just the outcome of the game either. They bet on every single play with 
whatever currency they'd bartered for. I remember thinking that they'd bet on 2 
crippled cockroaches racing on crutches if ESPN was foolish enough to put it on 
television. Death row was alive with men doing whatever they could to stay 
sane.

The sound of my cell door slamming closed behind me cut through the surrounding 
noise. I backed up to the door and placed my hands through the bean slot, the 
horizontal opening that would later serve as a portal for daily meals. An 
officer removed the cuffs. I was at least free to roam my space. There were no 
windows in my cell; the little light that filtered in came from small windows 
out in the hall area, through which I could just see a pond in the distance. 
The cage was filthy. Wet toilet paper and trash covered the floor. It seemed 
that whoever had the room before me didn't know what toilet paper was for, 
because the toilet was smeared with feces. I tried not to think about who might 
have left the mess. My emotions were already all over the place. There were so 
many things I missed. I missed home, I missed my life, I missed having sex; it 
had been 2 1/2 years since I'd had the company of a woman, and I longed for it. 
If this continued, my penis would be sharp as a needle or as dull as a 
cucumber; I wasn't sure which, but I didn't want to find out. But more than 
anything, I was sad and confused in between bouts of determination.

I had been given powdered soap and a rag. At least I had something to do. 
Cleaning that awful filth wasn't the sort of task I'd have signed up for in my 
previous life. But that cage was going to be home, and I'd have to make the 
best of it.

My tiny cell didn't take long to clean. I scrubbed the floor while the floor 
scrubbed my knees. After 20 minutes of this labor I'd worked up an appetite. An 
officer and trusty brought by my 1st meal on death row: chicken and dumplings. 
This homey dish combines meat, dough, and gravy in a charming little glop. The 
way death row served it up, the chicken must have been of advanced age and a 
long time dead before its guts went to make that meal. Something passing for 
juice accompanied the meal, offered in a plastic bucket. I later learned that 
the juice served many purposes on death row. Some inmates used it to clean the 
stains from their coffeepots.

I couldn't have been more than 2 bites in when I decided I'd rather go hungry 
that night. I walked to my cage door and slid the tray under it, passing my 
uneaten food to the porter, the trusted prisoner lucky enough to have been 
given the job of clearing my tray. It was his problem now.

I toyed for a minute with the thin blue mattress that sat atop my steel bed. It 
seemed like everything was steel. Not the mattress, though. It was the kind of 
plastic that would stick to your skin when the temperature rose. I lay down and 
put headphones over my ears. I was surprised that the officers had given me a 
pair of headphones since, after all, this was death row. When I first arrived 
here, we were able to watch television, and the headphones were given to us to 
plug into a portal in the wall that would allow me to hear the television from 
afar. Or I could turn the knob and listen to a radio station that had been 
preset. I think the headphones were a little thing that they could give, with a 
pretty big impact on the environment in there: It made it a lot quieter and 
caused the guys to chill out rather than be at one another's throats all the 
time.

Music gave me some semblance of peace. I'd pull a blanket over my head. My 
fellow inmates might have thought I was scared. I was actually trying to escape 
the doom for a while, by blocking out the present, and thinking about exactly 
what I would be doing at home. Literally, I tried to live minute to minute in 
another place, rather than 1 second in this one. I spent most of those early 
days lying on my bunk with my headphones on, checked out. I thought that if I 
just resisted the environment, it might not feel so real. I didn't want to talk 
or make friends. The food offered no distraction. I remained mostly a mystery 
to the men who weren't immediately a cell door away from me. Who is this new 
guy? I heard them ask.

The following week, my mom came down to visit me. We were sitting in front of 
each other for the 1st time since I had been given the death penalty. We didn't 
really know what to say, so I took control of the conversation and let her know 
that I was OK. I needed to assure her that people weren't just back there 
trying to kill each other since this was the 1st time I did not have access to 
a phone to call her every day.

My 1st trip to the shower was better than I expected. A beautiful black woman 
approached my cage. "Are you ready to take a shower?' I was taken by her eyes. 
For a couple of years, the faces above the badges had been almost all white and 
male. She was different. Her hair wasn't fancy. Her demeanor suggested that it 
didn't need to be. It sat in a bun, revealing light brown skin and perfectly 
symmetrical collarbones. She was more relaxed than most guards, smiling more 
than the men who believed that intimidation was a part of their job 
description. I walked with her to the shower, wearing only white boxer shorts 
and socks, with my towel and soap dish in my hands, which were cinched behind 
my back.

A door separated the interior of the shower from a makeshift viewing area in 
the hall outside. Little other than mesh obscured the view. She sat on a trash 
can just beyond the door and didn't pretend to look the other way. It was a 
part of the deal down there. Privacy was not an option. I stood in a pair of 
white socks and nothing else, and the socks served as makeshift shower shoes to 
protect my toes from the fungus that surely lurked on the faux-tile floor.

As we walked from the shower back to the 3rd tier, inmates cat-called her. They 
hollered whatever came to mind in the moment. All were in search of the same 
thing - a distraction from the tedium of our condemned condition. She turned to 
me, as if to explain why she hadn't responded to their nonsense.

"I am not going down there just so they can look at my ass."

I smiled.

"You can't hold it against them."

"Yeah, well, this is all day long," she replied.

The place didn't suit her. Back in my cell, I wondered how she got there, why 
she'd taken a job walking inmates from their cages to the showers. I imagine 
this woman knew some of the things I was thinking about while looking at her, 
but she never acknowledged it. It was wishful thinking on my part that she 
would.

I later found out she wasn't as innocent as I thought. She was trafficking in 
all the ordinary contraband that took on greater value in prison. Inmates paid 
her hundreds of dollars to deliver cigarettes and weed. One guy even arranged 
for her to bring him $500 from a friend on the outside. She had taken the money 
for herself. Those sorts of deals could be dangerous even for female officers. 
Some of the men on death row were there specifically because they didn't 
discriminate in their crimes between men and women. Our trip to the shower was 
the last bit of meaningful time I spent with her. She transferred to another 
unit after a couple of weeks.

However, she got me thinking more about everything I was missing on the 
outside. I would often lie in my bunk at night listening to Majic 102.1, the 
radio station out of Houston. The DJ Rudy V, host of a program called "The 
Quiet Storm," played all the old-school slow jams, like the O'Jays' "Stairway 
to Heaven" and Prince's "Scandalous." When that song came on, you would hear 
guys holler out to one another from their cells. Being with a woman was 
definitely on everyone's mind. I would lay there and imagine myself back at the 
little bar I used to go to and dance. I fantasized about the kind of life I 
wanted to live when I was free again. I envisioned having a wife and kids, and 
the great life we'd have together.

I had this one scene in my head that would replay itself over and over again. I 
would have a wife and daughter. I would be at the park playing basketball. My 
wife would pull up with my daughter, who in this particular fantasy was always 
about three. My daughter would see me and take off running toward the 
basketball court for me. I would stop and pick her up all sweaty while she 
would hug my neck. I used to think about my own sons and going to a game or 
them coming to talk to me about girls for the 1st time, and how I would 
respond. Now I was missing it all. I'd been kidnapped by the state of Texas.

(source: Anthony Graves, Smart Justice Initiatives Manager, ACLU of 
Texas----aclu.org)

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

DA: No decision yet on death penalty in Lake Brownwood murder case---Ryan Derek 
Riggs, 21, is charged with capital murder in the death of Chantay Blankinship.

The 35th Judicial District Attorney says his office hasn't decided yet whether 
to pursue the death penalty against the suspect accused of murdering a Lake 
Brownwood woman.

Ryan Derek Riggs, 21, appeared in the 35th Judicial District Court Monday for a 
pre-trial hearing, making it the 1st time he's appeared in court since his 
arrest.

Accused of killing and sexually assaulting Chantay Blankinship in May of 2016, 
Riggs confessed in church that he committed the crimes during November of 2017. 
The confession came a week after a computerized image of a possible killer was 
released by the Brown County Sheriff's Office.

District Attorney Micheal Murray said in court he doesn't believe a case 
against Riggs will be ready until the fall of 2019 and a date for the capital 
murder case has not been set yet.

The Texas assistant attorney general is also helping Murray's office in 
prosecuting the capital murder case, according to the district clerk's office.

Riggs remains in the Brown County jail without bond.

(source: KTXS news)

PENNSYLVANIA:

Spree killer Spotz among death row inmates suing over solitary

Early in 1995, Mark Newton Spotz shot and killed his own brother in Clearfield 
County. In the ensuing days, he would kill 3 more people in a spree spanning 
Cumberland, Schuylkill and York counties.

For killing his brother, Spotz was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. For 
killing his other 3 victims, he was convicted of 1st-degree murder and thrice 
sentenced to death in 1996.

Today, after 21 years of solitary confinement and counting in State 
Correctional Institution Greene, Spotz and 4 other death row inmates are suing 
Pennsylvania prison officials in a federal lawsuit.

The suit challenges Pennsylvania policies that "cruelly and baselessly hold 
death-sentenced prisoners in permanent, degrading, and inhumane solitary 
confinement."

The 5 prisoners, according to the lawsuit, spend 22 to 24 hours alone in their 
cells each day. Spotz, it said, experiences symptoms of prolonged isolation 
ranging from hopelessness to hallucinations.

In 2017, it continues, he attempted suicide. He and the 4 other plaintiffs, the 
lawsuit said, have no way of challenging their confinement under the Department 
of Correction's "blanket policy."

The suit asks the court to end the confinement of 156 death row inmates in 
Graterford and Greene state prisons. It is being brought against the wardens of 
those prisons and the state Corrections secretary.

The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. Pennsylvania, 
according to the Associated Press, has executed 3 people since 1976.

Gov. Tom Wolf enacted 3 years ago a moratorium on the death penalty that he 
said will remain in place until a state Senate-commissioned study of capital 
punishment is complete.

(source: theprogressnews.com)

FLORIDA:

Justices continue rejecting death row appeals

The Florida Supreme Court opinions started showing up in batches of 10 last 
week.

The opinions were nearly identical, except for the names of the death row 
inmates seeking new sentences and a few details of each case. But the 
conclusion was the same: No dice.

With a batch released Monday, the total number of rejections reached 50. The 
common thread was that all of the inmates' sentences were finalized before a 
June 2002 cutoff date that otherwise could have allowed many of them to be 
resentenced.

The way the Florida Supreme Court released the batches of opinions was highly 
unusual. But the underlying issues in the 50 cases traced to a January 2016 
ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that the state's death-penalty sentencing 
process was unconstitutional because it gave too much power to judges, instead 
of juries, in deciding whether defendants should be executed.

That 2016 ruling effectively halted capital punishment in Florida for more than 
18 months, as lawmakers and courts grappled with changes in the system. As part 
of that, the Florida Supreme Court ruled juries must unanimously agree on 
critical findings before judges can impose death sentences and must unanimously 
recommend the death penalty. In the past, juries could recommend death by 
majority votes.

The Florida Supreme Court's unanimity requirements allowed many death row 
inmates to argue that those standards should be applied retroactively to their 
already-decided cases. That has sent cases back to lower courts for 
resentencing.

But there was a catch for people on death row for long periods: The Florida 
Supreme Court made the new sentencing requirements apply to cases since June 
2002. That is when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling known as Ring v. 
Arizona that was a premise for striking down Florida's death-penalty sentencing 
system in 2016.

Each of the 50 appeals rejected during the past week involved cases decided 
before the Ring decision - with a couple just missing the cutoff.

Perhaps the best example came Monday, when the Supreme Court rejected the 
appeal of death row inmate Gary Ray Bowles in the 1994 murder of Walter Hinton 
in Jacksonville Beach. Bowles' sentence became final June 17, 2002 - a week 
before the June 24, 2002, Ring decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, according to 
court documents.

In an appeal filed in October, Bowles' attorney contended that the cutoff date 
violated constitutional protections against "arbitrary and capricious 
imposition of the death penalty." A jury unanimously recommended that Bowles 
receive the death penalty in the Hinton murder, but Bowles' attorney, Francis 
Shea, argued in the appeal that it was unclear whether jurors also unanimously 
agreed on the critical findings.

"(Bowles') jury made only a recommendation to impose the death penalty, without 
making any findings of fact as to any of the elements required for a death 
sentence under Florida law," Shea wrote. "This (Supreme) Court cannot reliably 
infer from the jury's recommendation whether the jury unanimously found - or a 
hypothetical jury in a constitutional proceeding would have unanimously found - 
all the other requisite elements for a death sentence. There is a reasonable 
probability that individual jurors based their overall recommendation for death 
on a different underlying calculus."

But Attorney General Pam Bondi's office pointed in an October brief to the 
Florida Supreme Court's past rulings on issues related to the Ring decision 
cutoff date and said Bowles has "demonstrated no cause for this (Supreme) Court 
to recede from its lengthy case precedent."

In issuing its 2-page opinion Monday, the Supreme Court cited precedent in 
rejecting a resentencing for Bowles, who also has received to life sentences 
for 1994 murders in Nassau and Volusia counties, according to the Florida 
Department of Corrections website. A 1999 Florida Times-Union story said Bowles 
had admitted to killing 6 gay men in Florida and other states, including 
Hinton.

Along with Bowles, the other death row inmates who lost appeals Monday were 
Michael Bernard Bell in a Duval County case; Paul Alfred Brown in a 
Hillsborough County case; Mark Allen Davis in a Pinellas County case; Charles 
Kenneth Foster in a Bay County case; Kevin Don Foster in a Lee County case; 
Konstantinos X. Fotopoulos in a Volusia County case; Guy R. Gamble in a Lake 
County case; Brandy Bain Jennings in a Collier County case; and Robert Joe Long 
in a Hillsborough County case.

(source: newschief.com)

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

Prosecutors to seek death penalty after jury convicts man in escort ad murder 
case

Jurors on Monday returned a guilty verdict in the case of a Brazilian man shot 
to death a few hours after responding to an ad for an escort at a Pompano Beach 
motel.

Now prosecutors will seek a death sentence for 24-year-old Jefty Claude Joseph 
for the murder of Gustavo Cabral, an economist who had recently moved to South 
Florida to start a fitness center for mixed martial arts fighters and others.

Joseph screamed in the courtroom during the reading of the verdict, and he 
cursed at Circuit Judge John Kastrenakes while being removed by deputies. "I'm 
going to call you out later!" Joseph said.

After the jury of 10 women and 2 men were escorted to a back room, Cabral's 
widow, Christiane Rezende, wept and hugged prosecutors Aleathea McRoberts and 
Terri Skiles.

Several minutes later, Joseph returned in handcuffs, after changing out of his 
suit and into blue jail scrubs. He followed the instructions of his lawyers to 
remain calm, until cursing again at the judge before heading back to Palm Beach 
County Jail.

Kastenakes ordered Joseph to be placed in isolation, without phone or writing 
privileges.

Kastrenakes asked the jurors to return Feb. 13 for the 2-day penalty phase of 
the trial to decide between a sentence of life in prison or death by lethal 
injection.

During closing arguments last week, Joseph's attorneys blamed the Dec. 1, 2013, 
slaying entirely on a co-defendant, Ilmart Christophe, 23, who is likely to 
stand trial later this year before a different jury also on 1st-degree murder, 
kidnapping and robbery charges.

But the prosecutors said both men shared responsibility for the violence, 
without indicating which one pulled the trigger inside the attic of a vacant 
home west of Lake Worth or presenting the gun as evidence.

By convicting Joseph of murder, after five-and-a-half-hours of deliberations, 
the jury found he participated in a robbery before the slaying of Cabral, a 
31-year old married father of 2 small children who was living in Coconut Creek.

The panel, however, found Joseph did not fire the fatal shot. The defense can 
lean on that at a mitigating factor to support a life sentence.

Prosecutors said the victim made the "bad choice" to answer a Backpage.com 
advertisement from a woman working with Christophe and Joseph on the plan to 
lure men to a Super 8 motel to steal money.

The escort, Koral Benshimon, 24, served as a key witness against Joseph - and 
will also testify against Christophe - in exchange for a sentence of 10 years 
in prison plus 5 years of probation.

Koral Benshimon, 24, of Greenacres, on Oct. 12 pleaded guilty to kidnapping and 
robbery counts.

Benshimon said she advertised herself as "Belle Ayrab Barbie/Sexy Angeline 
Latina" and told Cabral which room to enter. After he did, the men took over.

Cabral was tied up and begged for his life, pleading that he had kids and a 
wife and was willing to give any money they wanted, prosecutors said.

"There was no reason to kill him," Roberts added.

But Joseph's legal team of Scott Skier, Robert Gershman and Shaun Rosenberg, 
argued Benshimon was a prostitute for her pimp Christophe and that her 
testimony was full of self-serving lies.

Joseph's only role was to supply drugs, and Cabral was a willing buyer, Skier 
said, contending there was no proof that Cabral was ever threatened in the 
motel room or held against his will during a ride to area ATM machines.

Skier argued that the discovery of Cabral's credit cards and driver's license 
in Joseph's possession only showed Cabral's desire for drugs and sex.

"There is no evidence he was robbed," Skier said.

Skier argued that his client simply was not aware of Christophe's intentions to 
kill Cabral.

"This was depraved and senseless killing that [Joseph] knew nothing about," the 
attorney said, reminding the jury that Christophe has yet to stand trial. 
"There will be another jury and there will be justice."

But prosecutor pointed at Joseph, "It is his fault. He is responsible!"

Prosecutor McRoberts called out Joseph for lying to a detective after his 
arrest that he and Cabral were childhood friends who had just bumped into each 
other at a casino.

McRoberts also blasted the defense's attempt to paint Cabral as a drug buyer, 
insisting he was terrorized before he was shot in the back of the head, inside 
the Indian Pines community residence near the assailants' homes.

(source: sun-sentinel.com)

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

Closing arguments expected in Titusville death penalty case

Attorneys are set to present closing arguments Tuesday morning in the death 
penalty trial of Titusville resident William Woodward. Monday, prosecutors, 
defense attorneys and the judge spent the day discussing and outlining jury 
instructions. Prosecutors say Woodward, 50, shot 3 of his neighbors - 2 of whom 
died - in September 2012 after what defense attorneys say was a constant 
campaign of harassment.

Once the arguments are concluded, the case will be turned over to the jury, 
which will decide whether Woodward is guilty of 2 charges of 1st-degree 
premeditated murder with a firearm and 1 charge of attempted 1st-degree murder 
for killing Gary Hembree and Roger Picior and wounding Bruce "Tim" Blake in 
Titusville.

Closing arguments were scheduled originally for Monday afternoon but were 
postponed over the prosecution's wishes to clarify the jury instructions. 
Tuesday's statements are set to begin at 8:30 a.m. in the Moore Justice Center 
in Viera.

On Tuesday afternoon, prosecutors wanted jury instructions to clarify the 3 
victims as individuals instead of principals in a conspiracy. "I'm not getting 
heartburn over it," said defense attorney Gregory Eisenmenger. Woodward sat 
quietly at the defense table as his attorney talked over the jury instructions 
with the prosecutors.

Judge Kelly McKibben then dismissed the jury for the day to give the lawyers 
time to iron out the details of the instructions.

Defense attorneys say that video surveillance captured some of the emotional 
abuse - including threats to harm his family - from his neighbors over the last 
several weeks leading up to the shootings. One video also depicts Woodward 
creeping from his Titusville home toward his neighbors before firing several 
rounds, prosecutors reported. Woodward then went back to his home, sat in a 
lawn chair and waited for Titusville police to arrive.

Woodward says he was acting in self-defense. Once the closing arguments are 
concluded, the case could go to the jury.

(source: Florida Today)

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

Death Penalty Appeal Denied for Bay County Murderer

The Florida Supreme Court rejected a death penalty appeal Monday from Charles 
Kenneth Foster.

Foster was convicted and sentenced to death in 1975 for stabbing and killing 
Julian Lanier during an outing with 2 other women. The group then dragged 
Lanier's body into a wooded area and drove away in Lanier's car. They 
eventually dumped the car and split the money in Lanier's wallet.

1 of the women later told police what happened and was not charged in the case.

Foster's attorneys hoped that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that 
required juries to unanimously approve the death penalty would be enough to get 
a new sentencing phase in his case. However, that ruling only covers cases 
decided after 2002.

Foster's sentence of death became final in 1995.

(source: mypanhandle.com)

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

Notorious Daytona Beach killer Kosta Fotopoulos will remain on death row

A wealthy Daytona Beach businessman turned killer will remain on death row 
after the Florida Supreme Court rejected his appeal.

Konstantinos X. Fotopoulos, 58, had appealed his 2 death sentences to the 
Supreme Court based on an a ruling known as Hurst in which the court ruled that 
jury recommendations for death must be unanimous.

Jurors found Fotopoulos guilty of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder and recommended 
death by a vote of 8 to 4 for each murder. And he was sentenced to death.

But that was in 1993. And the state Supreme Court has ruled that the Hurst 
decision is retroactive only to 2002.

Fotopoulos' crime involved betrayal and a videotaped execution. Fotopoulos' 
partner-in-crime was Deidre Hunt, a bartender who worked at his bar.

(source: Daytona Beach News-Journal)

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

Florida Supreme Court continues rejecting death row appeals----The Florida 
Supreme Court opinions started showing up in batches of 10 last week.