[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., N.C., FLA., TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 31



TEXAS----execution

Texas inmate executed after Supreme Court denies appeal



A Texas death row inmate was put to death Tuesday evening after the U.S. 
Supreme Court denied an appeal to block his execution, saying race was a factor 
in his sentencing.

William Rayford, 64, was executed in Huntsville for the 1999 murder of his 
former girlfriend. He killed her and stabbed her 12-year-old son during an 
argument while he was out on parole for another murder, that of his ex-wife in 
1986.

Rayford's lawyers filed a petition with the Supreme Court on Friday, seeking a 
stay on multiple grounds.

The petition alleged similarities between Rayford's case and a former death row 
inmate -- Duane Buck.

Buck, a Texas man on death row for a double murder in 1995, had his sentence 
reduced to life in prison in October after the Supreme Court ruled that 1 of 3 
psychologists at trial unfairly influenced the jury's decision to hand down the 
death penalty. The psychologist said Buck posed a future danger because he's 
black.

Lawyers also said Rayford was initially wrongly denied federal funding to 
pursue evidence that could have yielded a lighter sentence. He was granted the 
money in September, which allowed Rayford's lawyers to present evidence that he 
has lead poisoning due to bullet fragments left in his body and from 
contaminated water during his childhood.

(source: United Press International)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----29

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----547

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

30----------Feb. 1-----------------John Battaglia---------548

31----------Feb. 22----------------Thomas Whitaker--------549

32----------Mar. 27----------------Rosendo Rodriguez III--550

33----------Apr. 25----------------Erick Davila-----------551

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)








VIRGINIA:

Death penalty sought



An inmate accused in last year's murder of officer here at Bertie Correctional 
Institution may face the death penalty if convicted.

Last week, local District Attorney Valerie Asbell conducted a hearing in Bertie 
County Superior Court and told the court that she was seeking the death penalty 
in the case of Craig Clifford Wissink. Prior to that Asbell had filed a motion 
to declare this case capital.

Wissink was charged with 1st degree murder in the April 29, 2017 death of 
Sergeant Meggan Lee Callahan, 29, of Edenton. The investigation into the 
officer's death found that Callahan was responding to a trash can fire in a 
dormitory of Bertie Correctional Institution. She got a fire extinguisher and 
attempted to put out the fire. Wissink immediately attacked the sergeant and a 
struggle ensued. The inmate managed to get the fire extinguisher away from 
Callahan and used it in the assault. Sgt. Callahan sustained injuries from the 
attack, which ultimately led to her death.

(source: Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Trial of Winston-Salem man in death of toddler scheduled for September



A Winston-Salem man rejected a plea deal and is scheduled to go to trial for 
murder this September in the death of a 2-year-old boy who had human bite marks 
on his body and severe head injuries.

Charles Thomas Stacks, 32, is charged with 1st-degree murder in the death of 
Jaxson Sonny Swaim. Winston-Salem police officers found Jaxson at a house on 
Grubbs Street with abrasions on his body and head injuries on Aug. 16, 2015. 
The boy died from head injuries on Aug. 19, 2015 at Brenner Children's 
Hospital.

If convicted, Stacks is facing a possible death sentence. On Tuesday, Stacks 
rejected an offer by Forsyth County prosecutors in which prosecutors agreed to 
take the death penalty off the table in exchange for Stacks entering a guilty 
plea to 1st-degree murder, said Nils Gerber, one of his attorneys. Under the 
proposed deal, he would have been sentenced to life in prison without the 
possibility of parole.

"He is not guilty and as such, he rejected that plea," Gerber said. Lawyer 
Stephen Ball also represents Stacks.

Under state sentencing guidelines, a defendant convicted of 1st-degree murder 
can be sentenced to either life in prison or death. The only way for a 
defendant to get the death penalty is to be convicted of 1st-degree murder in a 
trial and have a jury recommend the death penalty.

Forsyth County Assistant District Attorneys Jennifer Martin and Amara Hunter 
are prosecuting the case. Martin declined to comment on the plea deal or the 
case Tuesday.

A trial has been tentatively set to start the week of Sept. 17. Gerber said 
there is a large amount of discovery in the case.

Stacks had been caring for Jaxson at 5450 Grubbs Street on Aug. 16, 2015. 
Martin said during a hearing in July 2017 that Candace Swaim, Jaxson's mother, 
was friends with Stacks and his wife, Megin, and had lived with the Stackses at 
their house on Grubbs Street. Other people lived at the house, including other 
children, Martin said at the hearing.

Candace Swaim had been struggling with substance-abuse issues and had struggled 
to find housing, which led her to move in with the Stackses, according to 
Martin. On Aug. 16, 2015, Candace Swaim, who was not often at the house, left 
to stay at a nearby motel, Martin said.

Megin Stacks also left the house that day and when she returned, Jaxson 
vomited. Jaxson was placed into a tub of ice water and then taken to Brenner. 
On Aug. 19, 2015, he was taken off life support and died.

Megin Stacks is facing a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice in which 
she is alleged to have told her 4 children not to cooperate with police or 
Forsyth County Child Protectice Services. Her charge is still pending in 
Forsyth District Court. She is scheduled to appear in Forsyth District Court on 
Feb. 27.

Martin said in court in July 2017 that Jaxson had bite marks on his body that 
were later identified as human and his testicles were swollen. He also had 
abrasions on every part of his body. Doctors who treated Jaxson said he had 
suffered an "acute and catastrophic" injury, Martin said. She said if Jaxson 
had lived, he would never have walked or talked again.

According to an autopsy report, Jaxon died from bleeding between the surface of 
his brain and its outer covering, which was caused by a blunt force head 
injury.

Detective K.J. Burns of the Winston-Salem Police Department wrote in an 
affidavit for a 2017 search warrant that Charles Stacks admitted to biting 
Jaxson and "is suspected to be responsible for all of Jaxson's injuries."

Charles Stacks is being held at the Forsyth County Jail without bond.

(source: Winston-Salem Journal)








FLORIDA:

Justices turn down another 10 death row appeals----The inmates' appeals stemmed 
from a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case known as Hurst v. Florida and a 
subsequent Florida Supreme Court decision.



The 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found Florida's death-penalty sentencing 
system was unconstitutional because it gave too much authority to judges, 
instead of juries.

The subsequent Florida Supreme Court ruling said juries must unanimously agree 
on critical findings before judges can impose death sentences and must 
unanimously recommend the death penalty.

But 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.

In each of the 60 cases, the death row inmates had been sentenced to death 
before the Ring decision and argued that the new unanimity requirements should 
also apply to their cases.

The Florida Supreme Court turned down all of the appeals on similar grounds, 
though the way justices have issued the rulings in 6 batches is highly unusual.

The inmates who lost their appeals Tuesday were Stephen Todd Booker in an 
Alachua County case; Toney Deron Davis in a Duval County case; Thomas Lee 
Gudinas in an Orange County case; Anthony Lamarca in a Pinellas County case; 
Marbel Mendoza in a Miami-Dade County case; Dominick Occhicone in a Pasco 
County case; Bruce Douglas Pace in a Santa Rosa County case; Glen Edward Rogers 
in a Hillsborough County case; Dennis Sochor in a Broward County case; and 
Ernest Whitfield in a Sarasota County case.

(source: The News Service of Florida)

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

Convicted "Cracker Barrel Murders" killer denied death row appeal



Brandy Bain Jennings still awaits the death penalty following the Florida 
Supreme Court's latest ruling.

In 1995, Jennings and co-defendant Charles Graves murdered 18-year-old Jason 
Wiggins, 27-year-old Vicki Smith and 38-year-old Dorothy Siddle during a 
robbery at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Collier County.

All 3 employees had their hands bound, their throats slit and were left in a 
restaurant freezer. Jennings and Graves were both former employees of the 
restaurant. The pair also stole $6,000 and fled to Las Vegas where they were 
later captured.

In 1996, Jennings was convicted of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder and 1 count of 
robbery with a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to 3 death sentences for the 
murders and 15 years in prison for the robbery charge. Graves is serving 3 life 
sentences for the murders plus the 15 years for robbery.

"The Florida Supreme Court properly rejected Brandy Jennings' argument. With 
this decision, we move 1 step closer to achieving justice for Dorothy Siddle, 
Vicki Smith and Jason Wiggins," said Chief Assistant State Attorney, Amira Fox.

(source: Wink News)

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

Florida Supreme Court ruthlessly recommending death, 10 times a day




The Florida Supreme Court is putting itself and our state to shame with its 
appetite for the death penalty. Since last week, the court has been turning 
down condemned prisoners' pleas, 60 so far, in batches of 10 almost every day, 
with more to come. Nearly 100 other death row inmates can expect to lose on the 
same lethal technicalities.

The question is not whether they are guilty, but whether they should have new 
sentencing hearings - with life without parole as the alternative to death.

All were condemned under a law that the U.S. Supreme Court has since held 
unconstitutional for violating the right to trial by jury. The Florida court, 
however, has been claiming "harmless error" as a justification to continue 
executing many of them. As for the others, it refuses to apply the high court's 
decision retroactively to all but a relative few whose sentences were 
considered "final" after an arbitrary date.

Such cold-blooded and capricious legalism belongs in a horror novel, not on the 
conscience of the State of Florida.

There have already been three executions that would not have been legal under 
current law, which requires the jury, once it has convicted a defendant, to 
unanimously agree a death sentence is warranted.

The U.S. Supreme Court is responsible for what's happening in Tallahassee and 
needs to put a stop to it. It created the problem 16 months ago when it trusted 
the Florida court "to consider whether an error is harmless" and to decide how 
far back to apply the unanimous jury verdict ruling.

But the high court has already refused to hear one challenge to the Florida 
court's policy. If it fails to shut down our state's death factory, it will be 
to the entire nation's shame.

The Florida Supreme Court is not the only body wedded to the status quo. A 
committee of the Constitution Revision Commission last week narrowly defeated a 
reasonable proposal for a periodic study of capital punishment that might 
answer, among other things, how much more it costs to litigate death cases than 
to simply sentence someone to life without parole.

The background:

Under a 1972 law, Florida left it to the judge, rather than the jury, to decide 
whether a defendant convicted of a capital crime would live or die. The jury 
was required to hold a penalty phase hearing to determine whether critical 
facts justified the sentence. However, there was no provision to report those 
facts, the recommendation did not have to be unanimous and the judge did not 
have to respect the jury's opinion.

Over the next 19 years, 49 men and 2 women died under this law. 4 of the juries 
had recommended life.

On June 24, 2002 - note the date - the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Ring v. 
Arizona that any fact that increases the severity of a sentence must be found 
by the jury, not the judge. Florida defense attorneys promptly saw the 
relevance, but with only a few dissents, the Florida Supreme Court put on 
blinders. It routinely refused to apply the Ring decision to Florida cases. 
There have now been 95 executions and dozens more went to death row, where 
there are 349.

On January 12, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Hurst v. Florida that 
the Sixth Amendment "requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary 
to impose a sentence of death. A jury's mere recommendation is not enough."

Every prisoner condemned under the old law should have been automatically 
re-sentenced to life or given a new sentencing hearing under the current 
standard.

But the Florida Supreme Court lacked the decency to do either. In several split 
decisions, it refused to apply the Hurst decision to any conviction that was 
"final" before June 24, 2002. As for inmates sentenced afterward, the court 
would apply "harmless error" analysis to each case. Some have gotten off death 
row for new hearings, others haven't. More cases remain to be heard. The court 
is narrowly divided over doing even that much.

In a decision last May, the court voted 5-2 against an inmate, Matthew 
Marshall, who had killed a fellow prisoner at Martin Correctional Institution, 
and whose jury had recommended life. In dissent, Chief Justice Jorge Labarga 
wrote that the judge's override sentence "constitutes an injustice that should 
be remedied." Justice Barbara Pariente concurred and continues to maintain that 
the Hurst decision should apply retroactively to everyone. Marshall and others 
are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Concurring reluctantly in a decision against an inmate whose jury had split 
9-3, Justice Fred Lewis decried "the dizzying rabbit hole of untenable line 
drawing" related to the June 2002 date. The court is citing the case of inmate 
James Hitchcock in all the current denials.

The court considers a conviction final once it has upheld it and the U.S. 
Supreme Court has either affirmed it or denied review. But in fact, most 
appeals last long after that as lawyers raise issues that would not have been 
allowed in the direct appeals, which are limited to what goes on at the trials.

Jury to decide between lethal injection or life in prison; the murder of 
Gustavo Cabral

Jefty Claude Joseph is guilty of killing Gustavo Cabral, a 31-year-old 
economist who had recently moved from Sao Paulo to South Florida. Cabral 
responded to an ad for an escort in 2013 that cost him his life.

Circuit Court Judge Kastrenakes asked the jury 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.

Courts generally hesitate to make a new precedent retroactive. The difference 
may turn on whether the new rule is "procedural" or "substantive." But it's 
hard to figure how anything could be more substantive than the right to trial 
by jury.

Florida freed some 2,000 inmates after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1963 
that lawyers must be provided for felony defendants too poor to afford them. 
The court made that precedent retroactive. It should do the same for the 
Florida death cases.

Of the 60 cases in the Florida court's current death binge, only 12 involved 
unanimous jury death recommendations. In 45 cases, there were 2 or more 
dissenting jurors. 8 men were sentenced to death on votes of 7 to 5. In 1 case, 
the court couldn't say what the jury vote was because there is no record. In 2 
of the cases, the initial convictions were "final" only a month before the 
arbitrary 2002 cutoff date. Another was final merely a week before. If that is 
not wrong, nothing is.

Among the 10 announced Tuesday was the case of Dennis Sochor, convicted in 1987 
of the Fort Lauderdale kidnapping and murder of a young woman, Patty Gifford, 
whose body was never found. His jury split 10-2 on the death penalty and his 
conviction was final in 1994.

"The court has always - always - tried to preserve the death penalty," says 
Neil Skene, a Tallahassee journalist, lawyer and author of an impressive 
history of the Florida Supreme Court from 1972 to 1987. Its deliberate 
indifference to the Arizona ruling on June 24, 2002, was "an example of the 
court's unwillingness to face an obvious problem and just kicked the can down 
the road."

The can, so to speak, is back at the U.S. Supreme Court. It can't go any 
further.

Meanwhile, the people of Florida might well ask themselves whether this is 
really what we want. What if we were actually executing 10 people a day?

(source: Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and 
written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of 
Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O'Hara, Elana Simms, Andy Reid and 
Editor-in-Chief Howard Saltz----Sun-Sentinel)

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

Supreme Court rejects death penalty appeal for Bay County man



The Florida Supreme Court denied a resentencing appeal Monday for a man 
sentenced to death for fatally stabbing a Bay County woman in 1975.

Attorneys for Charles Kenneth Foster hoped a U.S. Supreme Court decision that 
requires juries to unanimously approve the death penalty would lead to a new 
sentencing phase, as Foster was sentenced by a vote of 8-4.

However, U.S. Supreme Court decision only applies to cases after 2002, and 
Foster's death penalty sentence became final in 1995. As such, Foster's motion 
was rejected.

Foster was convicted of stabbing Julian Lanier with 2 other women. The group 
dumped the body in a wooded area, drove away in Lanier's car and split the 
money in her wallet.

(source: Panama City News Herald)








TENNESSEE:

State seeks death penalty in TBI agent's murder



State prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty in the murder of a 
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation special agent back in 2016.

The defendant, Brenden Burns, was charged with 1 count of murder in the 
perpetration of an attempted robbery after allegedly shooting De'Greaun Frazier 
during an undercover drug operation in Jackson.

According to the paperwork, there were several aggravating circumstances that 
led them to the decision, including the fact the defendant was previously 
convicted of a felony "whose statutory elements involve the use of violence to 
the person".

The death penalty can also be warranted, the state said, if the murder is 
committed by a defendant during a robbery or theft.

Frazier, a Shelby County native, worked with the Millington Police Department, 
the Shelby County Sheriff's Office and the University of Memphis before being 
hired by the TBI in February 2016.

Frazier and several other agents were doing a controlled buy as part of an 
ongoing drug investigation at the time of his death. Burns was reportedly in 
the back seat of the car and tried to rob Frazier, at which time he was shot 
and killed.

Bruns was charged and held without bond in the Madison County Jail.

According to the TBI, Burns has a criminal history and has served 3 years at 
Bledsoe County Correctional Complex. From 2012 to as recently as this year, 
Burns had been locked up for drug possession, burglary, unlawful possession of 
a weapon, trying to run away from deputies and disorderly conduct.

(source: WREG news)