[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., GA., ALA., OHIO, NEB., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

May 31



TEXAS:

Emotional testimony heard in Killeen death penalty case



Sniffles could be heard in Judge Fancy Jezek's courtroom on Wednesday as family 
members of Kysha D. Edmond-Gray and Deanna Louise Buster struggled to contain 
their tears during victims' impact testimonies in the punishment phase of the 
Rico Doyle trial.

Doyle, 38, was found guilty Tuesday of capital murder in the shooting deaths of 
the 2 women.

Edmond-Gray, 42, and Buster, 38, were killed in a downtown Killeen apartment on 
April 21, 2015, when Doyle burst into the residence and started shooting. Doyle 
also has been charged with 3 counts of aggravated assault for injuring 3 other 
people in the early morning shooting at the Village West apartments on Gilmer 
Street.

Doyle faces the death penalty or life without the possibility of parole in the 
sentencing phase of the trial.

"We anticipate that the rest of this week will involve the presentation of 
testimony, followed by argument and deliberation by the jury," said Bell County 
District Attorney Henry Garza.

Family members and friends of Edmond-Gray and Buster crowded the courtroom, 
taking almost every seat.

Amanda Alston, Buster's younger sister, told the jury about how the family, 
including Buster's 4 children, have been affected by the loss.

"It has had a huge impact on us; to this day, it isn't real that she is gone," 
Alston said, showing her emotion that was echoed by others in the courtroom.

"Sometimes I just cry because I can't talk to her anymore and it's not fair. 
She didn't deserve to go out the way she did," she said.

Alston said Buster had struggled with substance abuse throughout her life, "but 
she was proud of being a mom and wanted to be a mom to her kids."

"She was a good person, loyal to her family and friends," Alston said. "If 
anyone needed anything she would mow lawns if she had to, just to try to help."

Alston said that while they were planning Buster's funeral they found out she 
was going to be a grandmother. She had a 2nd grandchild born last week, her 
sister said.

Prosecutor Leslie McWilliams asked how Buster's mother and children have been 
dealing with the loss.

"She's still not past that 1st day when we got the call," Alston said. "No mom 
should have to bury a child. Her 2 younger kids know that someone took their 
mother and that she's in heaven watching out for them."

Edmond-Gray's sister, Leslie Rowens, said the victim's parents, 3 grown 
children, sister, cousin and friends have been in the courtroom for most of the 
trial.

"She was a God-fearing woman who loved her family, her children and all her 
friends in the car club," Rowens said of Edmond-Gray. "She was a kind-hearted 
person with the purest heart of all of us."

Rowens thinks most about the mother and father they shared.

"I think about my mom, who carried Kysha for 9 months and having to lose that 
child," Rowens said. "She doesn't know how to put it in words but her tears 
tell me a lot. My dad still talks about teaching her how to walk and how she 
took her 1st steps on his back. She was my dad's best friend."

Rowens said Edmond-Gray's children have "felt lost" without their mother.

"When I was just 16 years old I promised her I would take care of her baby, but 
I never thought I would actually have to do it."

Edmond-Gray's brother has had trouble handling the loss, Rowens said.

"In his mind, she's still alive, just away. But she's not coming back. We can 
go to her graveside but she can't talk back and she can't breathe God's air," 
Rowens said.

Rowens said her sister was a hard worker and was a driver and manager at Cove 
Taxi for 20 years and apartment manager at the Village West apartments where 
she was killed.

Rowens said she focuses on keeping the family together.

"Kysha's death broke us down but we've picked ourselves up and we build each 
other up," she said.

Rowens emphasized that her sister cared about everyone.

"She even cared about you," she said, pointing at Doyle.

2 law enforcement witnesses called by the state shed light on Doyle's past as 
well has his time in jail since being arrested for the murders of Edmond-Gray 
and Buster.

Bell County Sheriff's Department Chief Deputy Charles E. Cox, researched 
Doyle's disciplinary records from the Bell County Jail since 2015 and found 4 
instances of fighting, 2 assaults and a charge of interference with a security 
operation. Doyle's defense attorney, John Donahue, asked Cox if he had 
researched assaults against Doyle while in jail, which Cox said he had not 
because it was beyond the scope of the subpoena he had been given.

Paul McWilliams, first assistant district attorney, said Doyle served time in 
Louisiana for aggravated robbery and later was convicted in Texas of unlawful 
possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of a controlled substance, and 
negligent homicide.

(source: Killeen Daily Herald)

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

Gunman convicted of capital murder in death off-duty Border Patrol agent



The man convicted Wednesday afternoon of murdering an off-duty Border Patrol 
agent showed no emotion as the judge read the jury's verdict.

Gustavo Tijerina-Sandoval, of La Villa, stood motionless as 197th state 
District Judge Migdalia Lopez told Tijerina-Sandoval that the jury found him 
guilty of capital murder and attempted capital murder.

The jury convicted Tijerina-Sandoval of shooting and killing off-duty Border 
Patrol Agent Javier Vega Jr., of Kingsville, and shooting and injuring the 
man's father, Javier Vega Sr., of La Feria, on August, 2014.

After the verdict, the family emotionally embraced each other, as well as 
embracing friends and members of law enforcement who investigated the case.

Judge Lopez scheduled the sentencing phase of the trial to begin at 1 p.m. 
Thursday. The Willacy County District Attorney's Office is seeking the death 
penalty.

The prosecution plans to bring several witnesses and defense attorneys told 
Lopez they needed to talk to Tijerina-Sandoval to see how they were going to 
proceed.

On that fateful day, 3 generations of Vegas were at their favorite fishing spot 
in Willacy County when Tijerina-Sandoval and his co-defendant Ismael 
Hernandez-Vallejo, of Weslaco, who has entered a not guilty plea, attempted to 
rob the family.

Hernandez-Vallejo has not gone to trial yet.

According to court testimony, Tijerina-Sandoval owed $3,500 to someone because 
he lost a vehicle engine. That person was threatening Tijerina-Sandoval so the 
man concocted a plan to steal a vehicle, according to court testimony.

(source: valleymorningstar.com)








NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Sununu should reconsider



To the Editor: With all the toxic partisanship, it's encouraging to see 
bipartisan support in New Hampshire for a bill to abolish the death penalty. In 
both the Senate and the House, Democrats joined with Republicans to vote for 
repeal.

There are strong reasons to support the repeal, including overwhelming evidence 
that suggests the death penalty is not a deterrent. The death penalty is much 
more expensive than life without parole because of long and costly court 
battles. The death penalty is applied inconsistently and with a strong racial 
and economic bias. And worst of all, it is a matter of record that innocent 
people have been executed.

Yet despite this, and the bipartisan support for repeal, Gov. Chris Sununu 
intends to veto the bill. Call, write or email the governor and urge him to 
reconsider.

RICHARD BACKUS

New Boston

(source: Letter to the Editor, Union Leader)








GEORGIA:

Racist Jury Selection at the Heart of a 1977 Murder Conviction



Johnny Lee Gates, a Black man convicted in 1977 by an all-white jury of 
murdering a white woman in Muscogee County, Georgia, is currently fighting for 
his right to a retrial free from racial discrimination.

Despite strong evidence of racial bias in jury selection during the original 
trial, whether he will be granted a retrial is far from certain. New evidence 
from his decades-old case - evidence that was only turned over to Gates' 
attorneys in March of this year - unquestionably reveals the racism guiding the 
juror selection process. The prosecution's notes, for example, contain 
jury-selection notations of "W" next to white prospective jurors and "N" next 
to Black prospective jurors.

These notes are reprehensible. They also illustrate exactly the kind of racial 
discrimination in capital jury selection that the U.S. Supreme Court addressed 
and correctly deemed unconstitutional in Foster v. Chatman in 2016.

The Supreme Court has a long history of condemning racial bias in capital jury 
selection. In 1880, for example, it outlawed the categorical exclusion of Black 
people from juries in Strauder v. West Virginia. Yet that decision did not 
usher in an age of racial equality in jury selection. Today, 138 years later, 
discrimination against and exclusion of jurors of color continue in full force 
in courtrooms across America, including in the gravest of contexts: trials to 
determine if someone lives or dies.

Weeding out jurors of color can impact the outcome of a trial, whether by 
robbing the jury of valuable perceptions on identifications across racial lines 
and policing, or by playing into the immeasurable other ways that implicit 
biases pervade our justice system.

Gates' case is just one of many that reveal the pervasiveness of unchecked 
discrimination in jury selection since Strauder. Four cases pending in front of 
the North Carolina Supreme Court are prime examples. In these cases, too, the 
state belatedly disclosed the prosecution's notes in the capital trials. And, 
also as in Gates' case, the notes revealed how the prosecutors meticulously 
tracked the race of each prospective juror and struck Black jurors at an 
overwhelmingly disproportionate rate.

In our client Marcus Robinson's case, for example, of eligible members of the 
jury pool, prosecutors struck half of the Black potential jurors, but only 14 % 
of the non-Black potential jurors.

In another of the four pending North Carolina cases, the prosecutor made 
racially charged characterizations of potential jurors in his notes. One Black 
prospective juror, who had no record of alcohol or drug offenses, was described 
as a "blk wino - drugs," while a white prospective juror received the far more 
favorable assessment of "drinks - county boy - ok." Unsurprisingly, the 
prosecutor in this case struck Black jurors at a rate 3.7 times higher than he 
did white jurors.

The details of these individual cases are borne out by statistical studies 
demonstrating that, in general, prosecutors overwhelmingly strike Black jurors 
at higher rates compared to all other jurors.

The defendants in these pending cases, including Robinson, filed claims under a 
law passed in 2009 called the North Carolina Racial Justice Act, which reduced 
death sentences to life without parole where there was evidence of racial bias 
in jury selection, charging, and sentencing practices. The Racial Justice Act 
was regrettably repealed in 2013, and the lower court denied Robinson and the 
other three their days in court, even though the four had all proven racial 
discrimination in their cases before the repeal. The North Carolina Supreme 
Court recently announced it will review those cases and determine whether they 
are entitled to new hearings.

Like in too many death penalty trials, discrimination in jury selection was 
just one of a host of problems with the prosecution in Johnny Lee Gate's case. 
The basis of his conviction is riddled with factors that undermine its 
reliability, including a confession to the murder by a white man who was never 
charged by the police, inconsistent eyewitness statements, and the fact that 
Gates has an intellectual disability. Gates was eventually moved off death row 
thanks to the Supreme Court's 2002 decision in Atkins v. Virginia, which banned 
the death penalty for defendants with intellectual disabilities. Gates deserves 
more. In light of the rampant discrimination against Black jurors at Gates' 
trial, he deserves a retrial that takes into account the egregious violations 
of his rights the 2st time around.

Given the racial discrimination that pervades every level of the criminal 
justice system, Gates is unlikely to be the last defendant sentenced to death 
by a racially cherry-picked jury. Racial bias, specifically against Black 
Americans, has left an indelible mark on our system of capital punishment. The 
only way to rectify this history is to abolish the death penalty once and for 
all.

(source: Olivia Ensign, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project, 
ACLU.org)








ALABAMA:

Alabama officials ordered to release information about execution protocol



A federal judge ordered Alabama state officials on Wednesday to release 
information about the state's lethal injection protocol, The Associated Press 
reported.

The decision from U.S. Judge Karon Bowdre came in response to a motion filed by 
the AP, The Montgomery Advertiser and Alabama Media Group that sought to unseal 
the records.

In her order, Bowdre argued that there is a "common law right of access to the 
sealed records relating to Alabama's lethal injection protocol."

The state will be allowed to withhold some information, such as the names of 
low-level prison employees involved in executions, for security reasons, the AP 
reported.

The news organizations made the motion in the U.S. District Court for the 
Northern District of Alabama in a lawsuit brought by death row inmate Doyle Lee 
Hamm.

Hamm was set to be put to death in February, but officials scrapped the 
execution after they were unable to connect an intravenous line to his damaged 
veins.

Bowdre wrote in her ruling that releasing the information to the public could 
"help the public to understand how the same scenario might be repeated or 
avoided under the protocol as it currently stands."

State officials have until June 7 to tell Bowdre whether any of the documents 
ordered to be released contain identifying information, such as names of prison 
personnel.

(source: thehill.com)








OHIO:

Pool of 400 potential jurors to be reserved for Mentor-on-the-Lake death 
penalty case



The jurors for the new trial of a former Perry Township man accused of raping 
and murdering a Mentor woman will be whittled down from a list of 400.

Questionnaires are expected to be sent out to potential jurors in November and 
the jury selection process is expected to begin Jan. 7 in Lake County Common 
Pleas Court Judge Eugene Lucci's courtroom.

Joseph Thomas, now 33, was sentenced to death in 2012 after being found guilty 
in the death of Annie McSween.

The 49-year-old victim's body was found on Nov. 26, 2010, in a wooded area 
outside of a Mentor-on-the-Lake bar, where she worked as a bartender.

The Ohio Supreme Court overturned Thomas' death sentence in October 2017 and 
ordered a new trial be scheduled for Thomas.

The high court determined the trial court improperly admitted into evidence 5 
knives that prosecutors knew were not used in the crime, and that there was a 
reasonable probability that the error affected the outcome of the trial.

Lucci said he's proposing to reserve potential jurors from the pool now because 
he also has two other murder cases to be tried in the coming months and a 
medical malpractice also on the docket, which could need a large pool of 
jurors.

The judge has a pool of 2,500 jurors altogether. Jury pools are selected 
annually on the Monday before Thanksgiving. Judges request the jury pool 
they'll think they'll need for the year. Lucci, however, was not anticipating 
having the Thomas trial when he was making his selection.

Thomas' 2nd trial was scheduled to begin Aug. 13 in front of Lake County Common 
Pleas Judge Richard L. Collins Jr., who presided over the original trial. 
However, after attorneys requested additional time, the case was reassigned to 
Lucci since Collins will be retiring at the end of the year.

Lucci said he thinks his jury pool will be sufficient for the year, but if he 
does run out, he'd rather it be on another case.

The jury pool was among the issues discussed at the 3rd pretrial hearing in the 
Thomas retrial case, held May 30 in Lucci's courtroom.

The next hearing is slated for June 15. On that same date, Thomas' attorneys 
are expected to file 50 motions. Those motions are broadly broken into 3 groups 
pertaining to discovery, trial and mitigation/sentencing.

Given the volume of the filings, the prosecution will be given extra time - 8 
weeks instead of the usual 2 - to respond to the motions. Their responses will 
be due in tiers: 3 weeks for the 1st group, 3 weeks for the 2nd and 2 weeks for 
the 3rd.

Lucci said at a previous hearing he is setting aside 8 weeks for the trial.

Thomas is currently being housed in Lake County Jail on a $1 million cash bond.

(source: The News Herald)

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

Jury recommends death penalty for man convicted in brutal Youngstown beating 
death



The jury that found 48-year-old Lance Hundley guilty of beating a Youngstown 
woman to death, setting her home on fire, and attacking her mother has 
determined that they believe he should be sentenced to death for the crimes.

The jury that convicted Hundley of aggravated murder, attempted murder, 
felonious assault, and aggravated arson heard arguments on Wednesday from a 
prosecuting attorney and Hundley himself, as to whether or not he should be 
executed or sent to prison for killing 41-year-old Erika Huff in 2015.

In a bizarre twist, Judge Maureen Sweeney granted Hundley to speak for himself 
instead of using an attorney to present arguments during Wednesday's so-called 
mitigation phase of the proceedings. However, Sweeney had Hundley sign a 
document acknowledging that he is aware of what he is doing.

After hearing from the prosecutor and Hundley for about an hour, the jury began 
deliberations Wednesday morning.

Around 4 p.m. the jury was deadlocked 11 to 1. Judge Sweeney ordered that if 
there was no verdict by 4:30 p.m. they would be sequestered for the night in a 
nearby motel.

A short while later the jurors announced that they reached the unanimous 
decision that Hundley should face the death penalty.

Prosecutors say Hundley attacked Huff at her home on Cleveland Street, beat her 
to death, and then set the home on fire to cover up the crime.

Officials say when Hundley encountered Huff's mother, Denise Johnson outside 
the home, he attacked her with a claw hammer.

Officers responding to calls for help removed an air conditioner from the back 
of the home and rescued Johnson.

After that rescue, they found Huff's body. Huff was confined to a wheelchair, 
unable to walk because she suffered from MS.

Police originally said Hundley was living in the home and was inside when 
police arrived. Hundley was arrested and was also taken to St. Elizabeth Health 
Center for injuries.

Erika had a 6-year-old daughter who was not in the home at the time of the 
fire.

Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Maureen Sweeney will actually be the one who 
passes sentence. Sentencing has been scheduled for Tuesday, June 5th at 11 a.m.

(source: WFMJ news)








NEBRASKA:

Records: Nebraska Execution Team Trained on 5 Dates



The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services has released records on its 
execution team's training as the state moves toward its 1st execution in more 
than 20 years.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska filed a public-records request 
to determine the state execution team's preparation for carrying out a lethal 
injection.

The corrections department's records show the execution team trained on 5 dates 
for a total of more than 10 hours since Jan. 1, 2017, the Lincoln Journal Star 
reported. The specialized escort team trained four days for a total of more 
than 5 hours.

The department didn't share training records for a specialized IV team, as 
requested by the ACLU. The department also didn't confirm whether a specialized 
IV team exists.

Prisons spokeswoman Dawn-Renee Smith said the department is in compliance with 
the training protocol.

Attorney General Doug Peterson asked the state Supreme Court last week to speed 
up its consideration of an execution warrant for Carey Dean Moore, who was 
convicted of 1st-degree murder in the 1979 shooting deaths of 2 Omaha cab 
drivers. Peterson also requested to set Moore's execution date for July 10.

ACLU Legal Director Amy Miller said, "the recently produced documents about 
training gives no adequate assurance that we would be looking at a smooth, 
well-conducted execution."

At least 39 executions by lethal injection have been botched, with the latest 
in Alabama this February, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Many botched executions are the indirect result of inadequate training or 
personnel without adequate experience, Miller said.

Nebraska hasn't executed an inmate since 1997, when the state's method was the 
electric chair. It has since adopted lethal injection protocol that has been 
fraught with controversy, legal challenges and difficulty in obtaining some of 
the drugs used to carry out the execution.

Peterson said last week that 4 of the drugs set to be used in Moore's execution 
will expire by the end of August.

(source: Associated Press)








CALIFORNIA:

DA Seeking Death Penalty Against Alleged Double-Killer



The prosecution announced Wednesday that it will pursue the death penalty 
against a Torrance man charged with raping and murdering a teenage girl and a 
young woman who were found dead less than a year apart.

Geovanni Borjas, 33, pleaded not guilty to murder and forcible rape charges 
stemming from the April 24, 2011, killing of 17-year-old Michelle Lozano and 
the Dec. 26, 2011, slaying of 22-year-old Bree'Anna Guzman, along with a charge 
that he kidnapped Guzman to commit another crime.

The murder charges include the special circumstance allegations of multiple 
murders, murder during the commission of a rape involving both victims and 
murder during the commission of a kidnapping involving Guzman.

The teen's body was found about 11:40 p.m. on April 25, 2011, after it was 
dumped along the Golden State (5) Freeway near State Street in Boyle Heights. 
Police said her body had been wrapped in plastic bags, put in a plastic 
container and dumped over a masonry barrier along the freeway, and that the 
container broke open when it hit the ground.

Guzman's partially clothed body was found on Jan. 26, 2012, near the Riverside 
Drive onramp to the southbound Glendale (2) Freeway in the Silver Lake area. 
The body was apparently was dumped at the location, police said.

Guzman had been reported missing a month earlier. She left her home in Lincoln 
Heights the day after Christmas to go to a store, but never returned.

Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck said both victims were sexually 
assaulted.

Police initially did not believe the 2 killings were related. But Beck said 
detectives were eventually able to connect the crimes and requested permission 
from the state Attorney General's Office to perform a familial DNA search.

"After the familial search, a person was identified as a contributory match to 
the suspect," Beck said last year. "That individual was (the) suspect's father, 
who was arrested on a non-sexual-assault-type crime earlier in his life."

After conducting further information into the father's background, detectives 
"identified a family member who they thought possibly could be the suspect 
involved in these (crimes) and they collected a surreptitious DNA sample," Beck 
said. "They did this by following that individual. During that following, he 
spit on the sidewalk. Detectives collected that and the DNA was a match. It was 
a match to both of these murders."

According to Beck, the case marked the 2nd time Los Angeles police have relied 
on a familial DNA search, which can narrow the search for a suspect to a 
particular family and point detectives to suspects whose DNA is not yet in a 
database. Beck noted that Borjas' DNA was not in any existing database prior to 
his arrest.

The only other case in which the LAPD used familial DNA was the Grim Sleeper 
serial killer case, in which detectives used a discarded pizza crust to collect 
DNA linking the killings to Lonnie David Franklin Jr., who was convicted and 
sentenced to death in 2016.

Borjas was arrested just over a year ago by Los Angeles police and has remained 
jailed without bail.

He was initially charged last May 30 by Los Angeles County prosecutors and then 
indicted by a grand jury in February on the same charges.

He is due back in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Aug. 17 for a pretrial 
hearing.

(source: mynewsla.com)