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

[Rick Halperin]

June 8



JUNE 8, 2018:





TEXAS:

The Legacy Of James Byrd, Jr. 20 Year After His Lynching----20 years later, 
Houston Matters discusses the hate crimes legislation Byrd's vicious murder 
inspired.



20 years ago today, on June 7, 1998 in Jasper, Texas, about 130 miles northeast 
of Houston, James Byrd, Jr. was heading home. The 49-year-old black man 
accepted a ride from Shawn Berry and his friends, Lawrence Russell Brewer and 
John King. Byrd new Berry from around town. He wasn't a stranger.

But instead of driving Byrd home, Berry drove to a remote country road, where 
the 3 white men severely beat Byrd, chained him to their pickup truck, and then 
dragged him to death, for nearly 3 miles.

The 3 men were white supremacists and were tried and convicted of murder. 
Brewer and King received the death penalty. Berry received a life sentence.

The vicious killing shocked the nation and helped prompt passage of state and 
federal hate crimes legislation.

To look back at the legacy of Byrd and the laws his death inspired, Houston 
Matters talks with Dena Marks, of the Anti-Defamation League in Houston and 
Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis.

(source: houstonpublicmedia.org)

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

He Pocketed His Victims' Organs. Was His Death Penalty Trial Fair?----As Andre 
Thomas faces execution for three gory murders, a court questions jury bias and 
his competency.



Warning: This story contains graphic content that could be disturbing to some 
readers.

It's been 13 years since a floridly psychotic black man named Andre Thomas was 
sentenced to die. He killed his estranged white wife, their young biracial son 
and the wife's other biracial child. He then stabbed himself 3 times and laid 
down next to his victims, expecting to die. When he didn't, he walked 5 miles 
to his father's house in Sherman, Texas, carrying his victims' organs in his 
pockets, and tried to call Laura, the woman he'd just killed.

5 days after his confession to police, he decided he would heed Matthew's 
Biblical advice: "If thy right eye offends thee, pluck it out." And so he did. 
Then, after being sentenced to death row 4 years later, he decided to gouge out 
his other eye. Then he ate it.

Texas has always argued that Thomas deserved the death sentence, but the 5th 
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday ordered both state attorneys and defense 
lawyers to submit more evidence and legal arguments on the merits of 2 timely 
issues in capital punishment law: jury bias and the competency of defendants 
when they kill.

Was Thomas competent to stand trial? At first all sides agreed he wasn't and 
Thomas was sent to a state psychiatric hospital. Then, just 7 weeks later, 
after state doctors gave him heavy doses of the anti-psychotic drug Zypreza, 
those same doctors said that he now could be tried. They said his psychosis, 
which had presented itself for a decade before the murders, was not organic, 
but had been "exaggerated" by drugs and alcohol in his system.

Thomas's case was well told by Brandi Grissom in a piece titled "Trouble in 
Mind" in Texas Monthly in March 2013. Thomas was a smart, likeable kid, who 
loved to study the Bible, growing up poor in Sherman. But his slide into 
madness began around age 9, when he started complaining about the angels and 
the demons arguing with one another in his mind. He was in and out of trouble 
with the law, and repeatedly tried to kill himself, and through it all he had 
no adequate medical care that might have allowed him and his victims to avoid 
the horror that happened in March 2004.

The competency question in the Thomas case falls neatly into recent Supreme 
Court precedent. In 2002 the court outlawed the execution of intellectually 
disabled capital defendants, a decision they reinforced in 2014. In 2005 the 
court outlawed the execution of juvenile murders. In each instance the court's 
majority focused on levels of culpability and the capacity of the defendant to 
understand either the nature of the crime they had committed or what capital 
punishment would mean as a retributive response to it. The 5th Circuit ruled 
that it does not want to explore the question of mental illness and the death 
penalty but that does not mean the justices will be so constrained.

Thomas was convicted by an all-white jury that contained at least three members 
who spoke openly about their opposition to interracial marriage. One juror told 
lawyers and the judge during jury selection that "the bloodlines shouldn't be 
mixed." Another juror who sentenced Thomas to death said that the children from 
an interracial couple would "not have a specific race to belong to." Yet 
another juror said that interracial relationships were "contrary to God's 
intent." Thomas' trial attorney never aggressively challenged these statements.

During the oral argument Tuesday at the 5th Circuit (listen here), Thomas' 
current lawyer Catherine Carroll argued that jury selection in these 
circumstances was a "structural error" that rendered the entire trial, and the 
verdicts that followed, constitutionally deficient. The state courts applied 
the wrong legal standard when they upheld Thomas' conviction and sentence, 
Carroll contends, because the law does not require proof that the jury's 
verdict was motivated by purposeful discrimination and racial bias. And, say 
Thomas' attorneys, there is controlling 5th Circuit precedent from a 2006 case 
with similar facts.

State attorneys tried to diminish the racial component of the case by claiming 
the crime wasn't really about interracial marriage but about marriage in 
general, where Thomas, mentally ill or not, could not accept the fact that his 
wife, Laura, had left him and had begun a family with another man. "A black man 
killed a white woman but that is not at all the crux of this case," argued 
Fredericka Sargent, an attorney with the attorneys' general office. "Mr. Thomas 
killed his wife because she would not come back to him. It had absolutely 
nothing to do with her race or his race or anybody else's race. It was all 
about revenge and obsession."

But isn't that beside the point in a case where the defendant was psychotic at 
the time, Judge Stephen Higginson asked?

If this really is a case of racial bias by jurors, the judge said, is it enough 
for Thomas' lawyer to have simply asked of those jurors: "Can you be fair?"

(source: themarshallproject.org)

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

John Allen Rubio initiates federal appeals process



A Brownsville man convicted and sentenced to death for decapitating his 3 young 
children has initiated the federal appeals process.

On Wednesday afternoon, attorneys who want to represent John Allen Rubio, 37, 
filed a motion for expedited appointment of counsel, which triggers his right 
for federal habeas corpus proceedings.

"This right is triggered by the petitioner's motion requesting counsel," the 
court document states.

Rubio, who was initially convicted of capital murder in and sentenced to death 
in 2002, was retried in 2010 after an appeals court reversed that conviction 
and sentence. He was again convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.

On May 23, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Rubio's appeal.

Jason Hawkins, a federal public defender in the Northern District of Texas who 
heads up the Capital Habeas Unit, which specializes in death penalty appeals, 
filed the petition on Rubio's behalf asking for the appointment.

In the motion, Hawkins asks the court to also appoint Lee B. Kovarsky, 
principle at the Phillips Black Project, a nonprofit specializing in death 
penalty appeals, who also has a legal practice that exclusively handles death 
penalty cases, as co-counsel.

The motion has landed in U.S. District Judge Rolando Olvera's courtroom and as 
of noon Thursday, Olvera had not ruled on the motion.

On March 11, 2003, Rubio stabbed and decapitated 3-year-old Julissa Quesada, 
14-month-old John E. Rubio and 2-month-old Mary Jane Rubio in the rundown 
apartment he shared with his common-law wife Angela Camacho, 38, on the corner 
of 8th and Tyler streets, just down the street from the federal courthouse in 
Brownsville.

Camacho is serving a life sentence for her role in the brutal slayings.

Rubio was the biological father of Mary Jane Rubio but acted as father to all 3 
children in the home.

(source: Brownsville Herald)








FLORIDA:

Convicted Flagler murderer back in court for death penalty hearing



Convicted killer Cornelius Ozell Baker was back in a Flagler County courtroom 
Wednesday morning for a status hearing.

Baker, 31, is in the process of being resentenced after his death sentence from 
a 2007 murder was overturned last year. Prosecutors are seeking the death 
penalty again for Baker, who sat in court with his new attorney, Junior Barrett 
of the Office of the Criminal Conflict and Civil Regional Counsel. Baker's 
former attorney, Steve Laurence, withdrew from the case and Barrett took over 
May 15.

During Wednesday's hearing, Circuit Judge Margaret Hudson ordered Barrett and 
Assistant State Attorney Tammy Jacques to submit amended timelines for the case 
by June 18, along with recommendations for the next status hearing.

Baker and his girlfriend, Patricia Roosa, who was 19 at the time, broke into 
the Daytona Beach home of Elizabeth Uptagrafft on Jan. 7, 2007, as part of a 
plan to steal money. The 2 beat and held Uptagrafft, her mother and son hostage 
for four hours before kidnapping Uptagrafft, stealing her car, making her 
withdraw money from an ATM and driving her to a remote area in western Flagler 
County. That's where Baker led her down a dirt road and shot her to death.

Roosa was sentenced to life without parole. Baker was convicted of 1st-degree 
murder, among several other charges, and a jury voted 9-3 to condemn him to 
death in 2009.

Baker's death sentence was vacated in March 2017 per a Florida Supreme Court 
mandate that juries must unanimously recommend death before a judge issues that 
capital punishment. He's 1 of 5 convicted murderers in Volusia and Flagler who 
had their death sentences struck down by the Supreme Court ruling.

(source: The St. Augustine Record)

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

2 men could face the death penalty. The Bradenton women they were involved with 
are dead



2 men could face the death penalty in romantic entanglements gone bad.

1 of the men is charged with beating a blind woman to death with a sharp 
instrument that pierced her skull hours after being seen flirting and driving 
around with her.

The other is charged with beating the woman he shared a mobile home with to 
death before going on a drinking binge at a nearby bar for his birthday.

On Wednesday, both men were indicted of 1st-degree murder by the same grand 
jury, according to court records. The grand jury convened for less than 4 hours 
before handing up both indictments.

Dakota Jibson, 23, and Barak Pozas, 51, could each be sentenced to death or 
life in prison in the separate cases. The State Attorney's Office will have to 
consider whether to pursue the death penalty in each case.

At about 1:15 a.m. on April 2, paramedics and Southern Manatee firefighters 
found Polite's body when they responded to wooded area near the 4600 block of 
18th Street East after a 911 caller reported finding a body on fire. A medical 
examiner determined that Polite had severe burns on her upper body and severe 
head trauma caused by a blunt sharp object that had pierced her skull.

(source: Bradenton Herald)








ALABAMA:

Judge delays release of Alabama's lethal injection documents



Alabama won't reveal its lethal injection protocol until a higher court reviews 
that decision.

Court records entered Thursday show U.S. Chief District Judge Karon O Bowdre 
has granted a motion from the Alabama Attorney General's Office to stay her 
previous ruling, which ordered the state to reveal execution secrets, until a 
higher court can review the state's appeal.

The AG's office has appealed the ruling to the Eleventh Circuit Court of 
Appeals. A motion from the AG's office requesting the stay says they would like 
the release to be delayed because the release of execution protocol "implicates 
a serious issue that deserves the review of a higher court before it becomes 
effective."

"...while this Court found that there exists a public interest in understanding 
how Alabama carries out its lethal-injection procedure... there is a greater 
public interest at stake here: The State's ability to carry out its lawful 
functions."

The motion says, "There is no doubt that there is great public interest in 
ensuring that the State can carry out its duly enacted laws. Alabama's 
death-penalty statutes are constitutional and enforceable and anything that 
hinders the State's ability to enforce that statute (even minimally) is of 
great public interest and, thus, weighs in favor of granting a stay pending 
appeal."

The motion also says the media outlets who requested the protocol be made 
public--Alabama Media Group, the Associated Press, and the Montgomery 
Advertiser--will not suffer from the documents being sealed until the appeal 
process takes place.

The judge's order to unseal the Alabama Department of Corrections' capital 
punishment protocol was entered last month. She wrote the public has a "common 
law right of access" to the sealed records relating how the state executes 
death row inmates. The judge said any identification or names of low-level 
prison employees involved in executions, the court's independent medical 
examiner, and other confidential security measures can be kept secret.

The order stems from the case of Doyle Lee Hamm, a 61-year-old death row inmate 
who experienced an aborted execution on February 22. The execution was called 
off after several hours of attempting to insert a catheter for the lethal drugs 
in Hamm's veins, and Hamm's lawyer Bernard Harcourt said then that Hamm 
experienced severe pain and bleeding during the attempt.

He had argued Hamm could not be executed via intravenous lethal injection 
because of Hamm's lymphatic cancer and prior drug use. The AG's Office said 
Hamm's veins would be accessible for the procedure.

(source: al.com)








COLORADO:

Prosecution rests in El Paso County death-penalty murder case



El Paso County prosecutors on Thursday rested a 3-week case against 
death-penalty candidate Glen Law Galloway, clearing the way for his defense 
attorneys to begin introducing evidence.

Galloway, 46, is charged in the fatal shootings of Marcus Anderson and Janice 
Nam on consecutive days in May 2016. Authorities say he is linked by extensive 
forensic evidence, including a weapon found in his possession.

His defense team doesn't dispute that Galloway is responsible for both 
killings, but says he didn't have a "culpable mental state" to be convicted of 
1st-degree murder. They say he killed Anderson, a homeless man, in 
self-defense, leading him to "snap" and kill Nam, an estranged girlfriend he 
blamed for what he claimed was a wrongful conviction for stalking.

Defense attorneys say they have 4 days of witnesses to present, putting the 1st 
phase of the trial on course to conclude by mid-June.

If Galloway is convicted of 1st-degree murder, the same panel that heard 
evidence against him must decide to impose life in prison or death. That 
process could stretch into July, attorneys say.

The trial will break for a day on Friday with testimony resuming on Monday.

(source: Colorado Springs Gazette)








CALIFORNIA:

Death Penalty Focus Welcomes New Executive Director Magdaleno Rose-Avila



Death Penalty Focus announced today that its Board of Directors has appointed 
Magdaleno "Leno" Rose-Avila to the position of Executive Director.

"I couldn't be happier to announce that Leno has signed on to lead Death 
Penalty Focus, an organization he has supported for many years," DPF President 
Mike Farrell said. "Leno's commitment to social and criminal justice is 
demonstrated by his lifelong work with the most underrepresented and 
marginalized members of society. He has worked with gang members, farm workers, 
and death row exonerees. He brings a depth of experience, and great passion to 
advancing our mission to abolish the death penalty."

Rose-Avila has been active in the social and criminal justice fields for many 
years. He most recently served as Executive Director of Witness to Innocence, a 
Philadelphia-based organization that represents the men and women who have been 
exonerated from death rows around the nation and are working to end the death 
penalty by educating the public about innocence and wrongful convictions.

Rose-Avila has also served as the Human Rights Director at Washington state's 
Latino Community Fund; Executive Director of the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation; 
the Western Regional Director of Amnesty International; and was a founder and 
Executive Director of Moratorium 2000, working with Sister Helen Prejean, the 
organization's chair.

I am excited to join one of the premier anti-death penalty organizations in the 
country," Rose-Avila said. "DPF has long been a voice in the world-wide 
movement for abolition. California is a key state in the fight not only because 
it has the largest death row population in the Western Hemisphere, but also 
because of the size of its economy, its political influence nationally, and its 
diverse, and young voting population. All major struggles, such as the women's, 
immigrant, LGBTQ, and civil rights movements show us that social change is not 
easy but it can be achieved. DPF and the abolition movement have made much 
progress, and I am proud to lead this organization as we continue to move 
forward."

Rose-Avila will relocate to California from Philadelphia, and will assume his 
new position on June 12, 2018.

Death Penalty Focus organizes year-round public education and professional 
media campaigns; provides speakers for schools, faith communities, and 
community organizations; conducts outreach to key constituents; and mobilizes 
support for legislation to end the death penalty. It has several active 
volunteer chapters in California and hundreds of thousands of supporters 
worldwide.

Founded in 1988, Death Penalty Focus is committed to the abolition of the death 
penalty through public education, grassroots organizing and political advocacy, 
media outreach, and domestic and international coalition building.

(source: businesswire.com)

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

Couple gets life, death penalty for 'beyond animalistic' death of boy, 8, 
believed gay



A judge sentenced a Southern California mother to life in prison Thursday and 
gave her boyfriend the death penalty in the "beyond animalistic" killing of the 
woman's 8-year-old son, who prosecutors say was punished because the couple 
believed he was gay.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George Lomeli told the couple that he 
hopes they wake up in the middle of the night and think of the injuries they 
inflicted on 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez.

Gabriel was repeatedly beaten, starved, tied up, locked in a cabinet, shot with 
a BB gun and once had his teeth knocked out with a bat, the judge said.

Gabriel Fernandez

The boy also had a fractured skull, broken ribs and burns across his body. He 
died on May 24, 2013, of his injuries.

"It goes without saying that the conduct was horrendous and inhumane and 
nothing short of evil," Lomeli said. "It's beyond animalistic because animals 
know how to take care of their young."

Pearl Fernandez

Gabriel's mother, 34-year-old Pearl Fernandez, pleaded guilty to murder in 
February in the death of her son. A jury found her boyfriend, 37-year-old 
Isauro Aguirre, guilty of murder last year and found that he intentionally 
tortured the boy.

Isauro Aguirre

Fernandez spoke briefly during the court hearing, saying she was sorry and 
wished Gabriel was alive.

Neither she nor Aguirre appeared to show much emotion while Lomeli detailed the 
boy's injuries and others spoke of how Gabriel just wanted to be loved.

Prosecutors also have filed charges of child abuse and falsifying records 
against four county social workers in Gabriel's death.

(source: Fox News)

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

Prosecutor: Put 'Misogynistic, Sadistic Monster' to Death



A U.S. Marine Corps veteran convicted of killing eight women is a 
"misogynistic, sadistic monster," who tortured one victim, who got away, "for 
the fun of it," an Orange County prosecutor told jurors Thursday as he sought 
the death penalty.

Andrew Urdiales, 53, was convicted May 23 of murdering 5 women in Orange, San 
Diego and Riverside counties between 1986 and 1995. Jurors must now decide 
whether to recommend the death penalty or life in prison without the 
possibility of parole.

Urdiales' attorneys have tried to make the case that his mother was drinking 
when she was pregnant with him and that he suffered from fetal alcohol spectrum 
disorder.

"I think that is a dead horse," said Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt 
Murphy. "There is no real evidence she was drinking during her pregnancy."

Also, Murphy argued, Urdiales did not exhibit many of the symptoms associated 
with the disorder and called 1 of the defense's experts an "unqualified, 
arrogant clown."

Urdiales deserved some credit for joining the Marine Corps out of high school, 
Murphy said as he noted the defendant was served in the Persian Gulf War in 
1991.

"That's a big deal," Murphy said. "He was part of the convoy that went to 
Kuwait."

But, Murphy continued, Urdiales got in trouble while in the military for a 
"black market" operation and was cited for a "bad attitude."

Plus, Marines are trained to kill so they can protect innocent people, Murphy 
said.

"What did he do with that training? We know what he did," Murphy said. "He's 
using it to prey on the very innocents he was trained to protect."

Murphy said Urdiales "disgraced" the Marine Corps.

(source: mynewsla.com)