[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA., OHIO, ILL., NEB., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

May 25


TEXAS----new execution date

Convicted killer from infamous "Texas 7" prison escape gets execution date



Joseph Garcia is scheduled for execution in August.

On December 13, 2000, 7 desperate inmates pulled off the biggest prison 
break-out in Texas history.

They busted into the prison armory, stole weapons and stormed out of the 
Connally Unit in a prison truck. After orchestrating 2 robberies in Houston, 
they headed up to the Dallas area.

There, on Christmas Eve, the men held up a store in Irving and made off with 
$70,000 and 44 guns. But on the way out, they ran into a cop.

The escapees surrounded the Officer Aubrey Hawkins' patrol vehicle and shot him 
11 times before running over his body with an SUV on the way out, according to 
court records

They were finally captured in Colorado a month later.

One of the escapees killed himself before police could get him. But the rest 
were sent to death row, where 3 have since been executed.

And now, a 4th, Joseph Garcia, has a date with death.

The Bexar County killer - originally sent to prison for stabbing a man more 
than a dozen times - is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Aug. 30, 
according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jeremy Desel.

"We are exploring several issues in this case that have not been considered by 
the courts in the past," said Mridula Raman, one of Garcia's attorneys. "We 
intend to raise these matters with the courts in the near future."

For Toby Shook, a former prosecutor who handled the case, news of the date was 
a welcome relief.

"It's been almost 18 years," Shook said. "It's satisfying that the actual 
sentence will be carried out."

George Rivas, who was already serving 17 life sentences, was the ringleader who 
planned the escape from the unit just 60 miles south of San Antonio.

With his 6 co-conspirators, Rivas masterminded the plan to overpower a 
supervisor and tie up civilian workers as hostages.

2 of the gang dressed up as prison workers to sneak into the armory where they 
overpowered another employee and took control of the guard tower.

Then, 3 of the men took the keys to a maintenance truck and loaded it with 
provisions and guns before they all fled the prison near Kenedy.

After their murder and robbery spree across Texas, they holed up near Colorado 
Springs before police caught them.

Larry Harper killed himself rather than face a return to Texas prisons. Rivas, 
Michael Rodriguez and Donald Newbury have already been executed, while Patrick 
Murphy and Randy Halprin remain on death row with Garcia.

"He was one of the more violent ones during the prison breakout," Shook said. 
"The hostages described him as one of the more violent ones, who made threats 
and went out of his way to frighten them."

At one point some of the other men said he was the one who'd fired the fatal 
shot, Shook said.

In the years since his conviction, Garcia has raised a number of appeals based 
on claims of bad lawyering. His attorneys didn't specify what appeals they plan 
to raise moving forward.

Texas has already executed 6 men this year. Including Garcia, another 9 are 
scheduled to die - which means the state has exactly as many doses of its death 
drug left as it does executions on the calendar.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----33

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----551

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

34---------June 21----------------Clifton Williams--------552

35---------June 27----------------Danny Bible-------------553

36---------July 17----------------Christopher Young-------554

37---------Aug. 30----------------Joseph Garcia-----------555

38---------Sept. 12---------------Ruben Gutierrez---------556

39---------Sept. 26---------------Troy Clark--------------557

40---------Sept. 27---------------Daniel Acker------------558

41---------Oct. 10----------------Juan Segundo------------559

42---------Oct. 24----------------Kwame Rockwell-------560

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)








PENNSYLVANIA----new death sentence

York County jury gives death sentence to man who 'deliberately and purposely' 
took 2 lives



A man who fatally shot 2 people during a home invasion in Fawn Township 
deserves to be executed for his crimes, a York County jury decided on Thursday.

Paul Henry III, 41, of East Manchester Township, declined to make a statement 
before the death sentence was imposed. He was previously found guilty of 2 
counts of 1st-degree murder and 1 count of robbery for bursting into a house 
with his wife, Veronique, and killing Foday Cheeks, 31, of Fawn Township, and 
Danielle Taylor, 26, of Spring Grove, on Sept. 13, 2016.

"I sentence you to be handed over to the Department of Corrections, and that 
you be confined until proper date for execution can be scheduled, and at that 
time, for you to suffer the death penalty," Common Pleas Judge Michael E. 
Bortner said. "Mr. Henry, you stand committed."

Bortner handed down a consecutive sentence of 10 to 20 years in prison for 
robbery. Henry, he said, held children at gunpoint. The shooting itself "was so 
horrific that it warrants an aggravated range sentence."

The jury deliberated for less than 3 1/2 hours. Henry faced a minimum sentence 
of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

4 eyewitnesses identified Henry as the shooter. Forensic and physical evidence 
tied him to the killings. The murder weapon, a .45-caliber Colt Combat 
Commander, for example, was found in a 2003 Nissan Altima that he'd been 
driving.

Prosecutors said Henry had a "pure, visceral hatred" of Cheeks, whom he'd once 
described as a "pimp/drug dealer." Taylor was "collateral damage."

At trial, Henry testified in his own defense. He blamed his wife.

Veronique Henry died by suicide in York County Prison in 2016. She was 32.

During the penalty phase, Farley Holt and Suzanne Smith, Paul Henry's 
attorneys, put on 8 character witnesses. They included family members, friends 
and customers.

The witnesses described him as courteous, generous and hardworking. Paul Henry, 
they said, was a loving father who could find no fault in his wife - despite 
her addiction to drugs.

First, Trava Shumaker, Paul Henry's sister, testified via video conference, and 
then phone, that he was a "cheerleader" who always tried to pick her up. They'd 
talk on the phone for hours about topics including their children. Danielle 
Taylor, 26, of Spring Grove.

In 2011, Paul Henry went to an open house and graduation for 2 of her sons in 
Indiana. He told them "going down the wrong path was not what they wanted to 
do."

"I miss him like crazy already. So I don't know what I would do if he wasn't 
here. I love him," Shumaker said. "And I can't see him doing this, so. It's 
just not who I knew."

Derek Shaffer testified that Paul Henry was a "huge mentor" who gave him a job 
- the only person to give him a 2nd chance - after he got in trouble with the 
law.

Later, Renee Henry, Paul Henry's mother, testified at length about his 
upbringing and how much she's relied upon him since her husband died at 50 in 
2002.

Renee Henry said her son graduated from Northeastern High School in 1994. Money 
was tight. He was bullied for smelling like animals because he helped work on 
the family farm.

In 1995, Paul Henry joined the U.S. Marine Corps. Later, he started his own 
business, PJH Home Improvements.

"It was almost like my husband dying. The bottom fell out of everything," Renee 
Henry said of her son's incarceration in York County Prison. "When you lose 2 
people in your life you love, it's very hard."

"I haven't been able to hug him," she added. "It's very hard, when you're used 
to hugging."

In her closing argument, Smith put an easel pad in front of the jury with a 
list of 38 potential mitigating circumstances. They included terms such as role 
model, father figure and kid at heart.

"Mr. Henry still has things to do. He still can do things for his family, for 
his friends," said Smith, who emphasized that jurors could find additional 
factors. "Come back with a verdict of life. Render life."

First Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Russell said in her closing argument 
that while everyone has different sides to them, it doesn't lessen what 
happened.

Paul Henry, she said, "deliberately and purposely" took 2 lives.

"There is only 1 verdict that's just and appropriate," Russell said. "And 
ladies and gentlemen, that is a verdict of death."

In an interview, Holt said he was "extremely shocked and disappointed" that the 
jury returned with a guilty verdict in less than 1 1/2 hours. He said he 
believes that some of the jurors had already made up their minds before they 
went to deliberate.

Regarding the death sentence, Holt said, "No, I wasn't shocked. It didn't 
surprise me the least."

Holt said "at least 1 person was chomping at the bit to get to the penalty 
phase" because the juror had asked a court officer about it before the jury had 
even reached a verdict.

Meanwhile, District Attorney Dave Sunday gave a brief and solemn statement to 
reporters.

"There's nothing we can do to turn back the hands of time," Sunday said, "And 
right all the wrongs and put families and lives back together."

No one has been put to death in Pennsylvania since 1999.

In 2015, Gov. Tom Wolf placed a moratorium on executions, calling the system 
"riddled with flaws, making it error prone, expensive, and anything but 
infallible." Prosecutors can still seek the death penalty during the freeze.

Inside the York County Judicial Center, Deborah Taylor, Danielle Taylor's 
mother, described her daughter as an outgoing woman who loved animals and 
children as well as singing and dancing.

"She was my baby," Deborah Taylor said, "And my only girl."

Danielle Taylor was born in York County and grew up in Ocean Isle Beach, North 
Carolina. She eventually moved back home to Spring Grove but "got hooked up 
with the wrong friends."

Bob Sterner, Danielle Taylor's brother, said he'd been waiting to hear the 
following 5 words: "I sentence you to death."

"We got a bad man off the street," Sterner said. "It's not going to bring her 
back, it's not going to fill the hole in my heart, but he's in a 6-by-6 now for 
the rest of his life."

The Pennsylvania State found the bodies of Foday Cheeks, 31, of Fawn Township, 
and Danielle Taylor, 26, of Spring Grove, in a house on Brown Road in Fawn 
Township on Sept. 13, 2016. Paul Henry III, 41, of East Manchester.

Who's on death row in York County?

Paul Gamboa-Taylor (1992)

Hubert Michael Jr. (1995)

Mark Spotz (1996)

John Small (1996)

Kevin Dowling (1997)

Milton Montalvo (2000)* (In 2017, Common Pleas Judge Richard K. Renn threw out 
the death sentence and ordered a new penalty phase to be conducted. The 
Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office is appealing the decision.)

Noel Montalvo (2003)

Harve Johnson (2009)

Kevin Mattison (2010)

Hector Morales (2011)

Aric Woodard (2013)

Timothy Jacoby (2014)

Paul Henry III (2018)

(source: York Daily Record)

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

DA to seek death penalty for Gatto murder "mastermind"



Lackawanna County District Attorney Mark Powell will seek the death penalty for 
one of the three people charged with last month's murder of Nina Gatto, a 
confidential informant who worked for his office.

In new charging documents, Scranton police revealed they believe Cornelius 
Mapson murdered Gatto by suffocating her in her apartment April 20 after the 
original plan of having her overdose on fentanyl didn't work. Previously 
charged with just criminal conspiracy, prosecutors charged him with homicide 
Thursday.

Powell characterized the crime as "premeditated" and "cold-blooded."

"Based on our investigation, we were able to charge fully the appropriate 
charges," Powell said. "The facts support the death penalty against Mr. 
Mapson."

Mapson appeared calm in Central Court today. His attorney, Matthew Comerford, 
explained he would be charged with homicide.

"We'll talk about it, alright," Comerford said.

Mapson nodded his head.

Detectives initially charged Mapson, 32, 25 Mitchell St., Jenkins Twp., a 
little more than a week after Gatto's death along with 2 others: Melinda 
Palermo, 37, Mapson's girlfriend; and Kevin Weeks, 25, a close associate of 
Mapson, police said. Palermo lives with Mapson and Weeks lives at 644 Quincy 
Ave. in Scranton, police said.

Police said they conspired to kill Gatto because she worked as a confidential 
informant responsible for Mapson's Feb. 20 drug arrest; she bought crack and 
heroin from him during a police investigation. Mapson is awaiting trial on 
separate felony drug charges.

Specifically, Mapson is charged in the Gatto death with homicide, criminal 
conspiracy and tampering with evidence. Weeks and Palermo are charged with 
homicide, criminal conspiracy, attempted homicide and tampering with evidence. 
Weeks is also charged with theft by unlawful taking.

Prosecutors are pursing the death penalty against Mapson only at this point 
because Mapson "masterminded the murder," Powell said. He left open the 
possibility that Palermo and Weeks could also face death.

Police responded to Gatto's apartment in the Bangor Heights development April 
20 and found her dead on her bedroom floor surrounded by blood and vomit. She 
had broken blood vessels in her eyes, fingernail marks on the side of her face 
and injuries in her mouth. Gatto's cellphone and debit card were also missing.

An unidentified witness who overheard conversation between Mapson, Palermo and 
Weeks told detectives that the 3 discussed making Gatto's death look like a 
fentanyl overdose.

On April 19, Palermo went to Gatto's apartment to give Weeks, who was already 
there, 14 bags of heroin, Palermo told detectives during a May 3 interview. It 
would be Weeks' job to "feed" Gatto as much heroin as possible. Palermo left to 
get Weeks some beer after that. Mapson drove her.

Gatto didn't die from the drugs, though. Mapson arrived at the apartment at 
some point in the night to handle it himself, Palermo told detectives.

The attack lasted 5 minutes. Gatto didn't see it coming.

Mapson placed his hand over her mouth and restrained her from behind. After the 
6-foot 4-inch tall, 250-pound man put the 5-foot 7-inch, 135-pound woman in a 
bear hug, he yelled at Weeks and Palermo to bring him things to suffocate his 
victim, police said.

They wrapped a plastic bag around her head and tried putting a sock in her 
mouth, police said. Mapson straddled her and she eventually stopped moving. 
Palermo checked for a pulse but couldn???t find one. Weeks kicked her lifeless 
body.

Mapson didn't know that Weeks took her phone and was angry when he found out, 
Weeks told investigators. He swore that he didn't need a trophy.

"It was supposed to look a certain way," Mapson told Weeks.

Gatto's phone was hidden in the basement of a home. Police recovered it by 
following Weeks' instructions.

After the murder, Weeks used a can of spray cleaner and a pink headband to try 
and wipe away fingerprints. They bagged up the spray can, the headband, a blue 
bath rug, parts of a disposable phone and other items and disposed of them at 
various dumpsters throughout the city, Weeks said.

During her interview, detectives asked Palermo why Mapson wanted Gatto dead.

"She was a C.I. She set him up," Palermo said. "He could not go back to jail."

All 3 are held without bail at the Lackawanna County Prison pending preliminary 
hearings scheduled for June 1.

(source: The Times-Tribune)








FLORIDA:

Hillsborough prosecutors to seek death penalty in Riverview family slaughter



Prosecutors will pursue a death sentence for Ronnie Oneal III, accused of 
slaughtering his girlfriend and their 9-year-old daughter at their Riverview 
home and trying to kill their 8-year-old son.

Oneal, 29, has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder, and 
arson related to the March 19 attacks. The Hillsborough State Attorney's Office 
filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty this week.

Sheriff's officials say Oneal fatally shot, stabbed, and bludgeoned Kenyatta 
Barron, 33, and 9-year-old Ron'Niveya Oneal, before setting their home on fire.

Deputies arrived in response to 911 calls and encountered Oneal outside. He 
shouted "Allah Akbar" as he was arrested, they said.

The surviving child, Ronnie Oneal IV, emerged from the home with severe burns, 
a lung collapsed and intestines exposed.

"My dad shot my mom," he told paramedics, according to an arrest report.

The boy was hospitalized for several weeks.

At his most recent court appearance, Oneal asked that his trial be held outside 
Hillsborough County and expressed concern that media attention was a detriment 
to his "good name."

His next court hearing is set for May 31.

Oneal joins more than a dozen other defendants whom local prosecutors are 
trying to send to death row. They include Howell Donaldson III, accused in 4 
shootings last year in southeast Seminole Heights, and Granville Ritchie, 
charged in the 2014 murder of 9-year-old Felecia Williams.

(source: tampabay.com)








ALABAMA----new death sentence

'May God have mercy on your soul': Man sentenced to lethal injection for teen's 
slaying



Peter Capote has been sentenced to death for the 2016 slaying of 19-year-old 
Ki-Jana Freeman in Tuscumbia.

Colbert County Circuit Judge Hal Hughston Jr. handed down the sentence. A jury 
last month found 24-year-old Capote guilty of capital murder and voted 10-2 to 
impose the death penalty.

Freeman, 19, was fatally shot March 1, 2016 as he sat in a Mustang with his 
friend Tyler Blythe outside Spring Creek Apartments in Tuscumbia. Blythe, 17, 
was injured in the shooting.

Capote was sentenced to 20 years for the shooting of Blythe.

Capote is the 3rd man convicted in the case. Prosecutors said Capote and 
Benjamin Young, who was sentenced to death earlier this year were the trigger 
men. De'Vontae Bates pleaded guilty last year to criminal conspiracy and agreed 
to testify about the plan to kill Freeman. His sentencing is scheduled later 
this year. 2 other suspects -- Riley Hamm Jr. and Thomas Hubbard -- are 
awaiting trial.

"The court finds that the defendant (Capote) was a major participant in this 
senseless murder from the planning, preparation, riding with co-defendants to 
the scene of the crimes, and in the commission of the murder," Hughston wrote 
in an order today.

Authorities have said the suspects arranged to either buy or sell an Xbox to 
Freeman, but the transaction was a setup. The suspects believed Freeman and 
another man had stolen an XBox and TV two days earlier in a burglary.

The judge's order includes a summary of the facts of the case, plus details 
about Capote's life and upbringing. Capote, who is from Illinois, has been 
associated with Chicago gangs since his early teen years, court papers state. 
He was raised in a home with an abusive and inattentive parent, according to 
testimony.

"May God have mercy on your soul," Hughston wrote in his order.

(source: al.com)








OHIO:

Ohio Murderer Tries to Avoid Death Penalty with Offensively Ridiculous 'Gay 
Panic' Defense



The Ohio Parole Board was presented with a laughably offensive plea for mercy 
today as death row inmate Robert Van Hook tried to claim "homosexual panic" as 
the reason he fatally strangled, stabbed and mutilated the body of David Self 
after luring him out of a gay bar Cincinnati in 1985 before fleeing to Florida.

By definition, a homosexual panic or "gay panic" defense is when the defendant 
claims they acted in a state of violent temporary insanity because of unwanted 
homosexual advances from another individual. Closely related, "trans panic" is 
related to an assailant(s) reportedly engaging in sexual relations unaware of 
the victim's birth gender until seeing them naked, or further into or post 
coitus.

Van Hook is scheduled to be executed on July 18 of this year for his crimes, 
pending Gov. John Kasich's final decision on whether or not Van Hook deserves 
clemency.

Fortunately, prosecutors have dismissed Van Hook's "homosexual panic" plea, 
explaining that he had a history of seducing and exploiting gay men in order to 
rob them.

"This is a man who had cynically manipulated homosexuals for years," the 
Hamilton County prosecutor's office wrote in a filing. "He posed as a gay, he 
frequented bars that were gay and he preyed on vulnerable victims who were 
gay."

This is an extremely odd defense for Van Hook, given the fact he last made 
headlines for announcing his engagement to a woman he met through the prison 
pen pal system.

He also attempted to appeal his sentencing in 2009, but the U.S. Supreme Court 
gave him a big, fat rejection and upheld his conviction and sentencing for the 
death sentence.

His homosexual panic defense is absolutely ludicrous and even if it were true, 
would not excuse his continued history of violence including stabbing a fellow 
death row inmate last November as presented by the prosecutors.

The American Bar Association has been pushing for legislation limiting the use 
of homosexual panic as a defense, noting that a victim's sexual orientation or 
gender identity does not justify a criminal defendant's violent behavior.

California and Illinois have both already banned the "gay panic" defense in 
their courts, with New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania voting on the 
issue later this year. Rhode Island voted yesterday on banning the "trans 
panic" defense and the issue will now move onto the Senate.

No word on whether or not Ohio is pursuing similar legislation in the near 
future.

(source: Cleveland Scene)








ILLINOIS:

Illinois Lawmakers Introduce Legislation To Reinstate Death Penalty



Illinois lawmakers are not saying when, or even if, they expect to vote to 
reinstate the death penalty. But there is a plan they could vote on. State Rep. 
Jerry Costello yesterday said his proposal would only deal with the death 
penalty, and not the gun control proposals that Governor Rauner also pitched. 
Costello says he wants to be able to hold cop killers and mass murderers 
accountable.

(source: WJOL news)




NEBRASKA:

Death-row inmate Carey Dean Moore tells Nebraska Supreme Court he doesn't want 
an attorney



Carey Dean Moore has asked the Nebraska Supreme Court to dismiss his attorneys 
in a case where the state is seeking to carry out the death penalty against 
him.

"I do not want any further legal representation and I do not want anyone to 
file anything on my behalf," Moore said.

Earlier this month, Chief Justice Michael Heavican, who leads the state's high 
court, gave the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy until May 29 to file a 
response to the state's request for an execution warrant for Moore.

In a filing Thursday signed by Moore, he said he met with 2 lawyers with the 
commission in March who told him of legal options he could pursue. Moore said 
he told them he didn't want representation, "nor did I want any legal action 
pursued on my behalf."

Jeff Pickens, chief counsel for the office, filed a motion Thursday saying 
Moore had asked for them to be dismissed from the case.

Moore doesn't have any appeals pending, hasn't joined lawsuits over 
death-penalty protocols and is largely believed to be not fighting the 
sentence.

He has been on death row for 38 years.

The 60-year-old was sentenced to death on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in 
Douglas County in the 1979 deaths of 2 Omaha cab drivers, Reuel Van Ness Jr. 
and Maynard Helgeland.

If he is put to death, it would be Nebraska's 1st time carrying out capital 
punishment in 21 years. It also would be the 1st time the state would use 
lethal injection.

(source: Lincoln Journal Star)








CALIFORNIA:

Notorious UC Santa Cruz killer dies



A man on San Quentin's death row for the gruesome killings of 2 people on the 
UC Santa Cruz campus died Tuesday.

Royal Kenneth "Ken" Hayes, 81, died at an outside hospital, the California 
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement. The cause of 
death is unknown pending an autopsy, it said.

Hayes had been sentenced to death for the murders on Dec. 29, 1981, of a San 
Francisco couple, Lauren de Laet and Donald MacVicar, with whom he had made a 
cocaine deal. On the pretense of handing over the drugs, he took them to a 
remote area off Empire Grade Road, shot them, cut off their hands and heads, 
and buried them in shallow graves.

2 months later, a mushroom hunter found skull fragments and reported them to 
sheriff's deputies. (At the time, the Santa Cruz community was on edge because 
of the murders committed by "Trailside Killer" David Carpenter.) MacVicar's 
body was found on March 10, 1982, and de Laet's the followng day.

The week after the discoveries, a woman named Deborah Garcia came forward to 
say she had been forced by Hayes to participate in the crime, and he was 
arrested.

At his trial, in Santa Cruz, Garcia and Diane "Annie" Weller testified against 
Hayes, having been given immunity.

The women both said they had, at separate times, lived with Hayes in Hawaii 
from 1979 to 1981. They said he was abusive toward them and that they were 
afraid to disobey his orders.

Both were with him in late December 1981, when they stayed for a week at the 
Millbrae Travelodge with de Laet, 36, and MacVicar, 32. On Dec. 27, they 
testified, MacVicar brought $160,000 to the motel as a payment for cocaine.

2 days later, they said, Hayes told de Laet and MacVicar to meet him at a Santa 
Cruz doughnut shop so he could give them the drugs. Instead, with Garcia and 
Weller as accomplices, he drove the pair to a corner of the University of 
California campus, took them separately into the woods and shot them.

The Santa Cruz jury convicted him of the 2 1st-degree murders, among other 
charges, but could not agree on a penalty.

The penalty phase was retried in Modesto, and that jury in May 1986 decided on 
the death penalty. Hayes had been on death row since August of that year.

In November 1983, while awaiting the Santa Cruz trial, Hayes married Bonnie 
Rooney, 49, who had been known as Sister Mary Clare during her 31 years as a 
nun at the Poor Clare Sisters of St. Joseph Monastery in Aptos. She met Hayes 
while working with a Catholic prison ministry.

Hayes had been accused of 2 killings before the Santa Cruz homicides. In 1962, 
he admitted killing a security guard in Portland, Ore., but was found not 
guilty by reason of insanity.

After serving time in a mental hospital - from which he escaped at one point - 
he moved to Minnesota. There, he was charged with the fatal 1975 shooting of a 
Minneapolis night club manager in the club's bathroom. He was acquitted of that 
crime, though even his attorney acknowledged he was caught with the gun still 
in his hand.

(source: Mercury News)

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

California Supreme Court overturns killer's death sentence, citing intellectual 
disability



An inmate who has been on California's death row for more than 2 decades may 
not be executed because he is intellectually disabled, the California Supreme 
Court decided unanimously Thursday.

In a decision written by Justice Carol A. Corrigan, the state's highest court 
overturned the death sentence of Robert Lewis Jr., convicted of robbing and 
fatally shooting Milton Estell in Long Beach in 1983.

Lewis "has met his burden of proving he is intellectually disabled," Corrigan 
wrote.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided in 2002 that intellectually disabled killers 
should not be executed, concluding that it was cruel and unusual to put to 
death a person with the mental age of a child.

Lewis was examined by a psychiatrist and a psychologist when he was on trial, 
but they did not assess his cognitive abilities.

After a lawyer for Lewis challenged his sentence, the court assigned Los 
Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry to examine whether Lewis 
was disabled when he committed the crime.

Perry, who had previously presided over 29 death penalty cases and sentenced 12 
killers to death, held several hearings and concluded that Lewis met the legal 
defininition of intellectual impairment, known as mental retardation in the 
past.

Thursday's decision adopted Perry's finding. The court noted that a test found 
to be reliable showed Lewis had an IQ of 70 - 100 is normal - when he was about 
10 years old.

He had difficulties in school, was frequently required by school authorities to 
take IQ tests, repeated 1st grade, could not read and demonstrated difficulties 
with understanding, the evidence showed.

Prosecutors objected to the diagnosis, arguing that Lewis' school failures may 
have been due to lack of motivation and his poor socioeconomic background.

They pointed to his success in gambling in Las Vegas, his ability to support 
himself though illegal activities, maintain lasting relationships and banter 
with police when questioned.

But the court said the evidence supported the findings by the judge assigned to 
examine the issue.

"His friends and siblings grew up in similar circumstances and attended the 
same schools, yet appeared to function at a significantly higher level," 
Corrigan wrote.

The facts suggest Lewis "was unable, as opposed to unmotivated, to learn," she 
said.

Lewis was convicted when he was 31. State prison records show he is now 65.

Estell, the victim, had run an advertisement to sell his car. Neighbors saw him 
talking to Lewis outside. Estell later was found dead in a closet, shot and 
stabbed, his mouth stuffed with toilet paper.

Lewis' fingerprints were found in three places in the house, including in a 
bathroom near the toilet paper, and he was driving Estell's car when he was 
arrested.

Robert M. Sanger, Lewis' lawyer, said he was pleased with the result.

"It was a long, hard fight," he said.

Sanger said Lewis' sentence will now be reduced to life without the possibility 
of parole.

(source: Los Angeles Times)