[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, S.C., TENN., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 11

TEXAS:

Billie Wayne Coble appeal denied, execution date to be set



The McLennan County District Attorney's Office has confirmed that convicted 
triple murderer Billie Wayne Coble has been denied his petition of certiorari 
to the U.S. Supreme Court, clearing the way for the setting of his execution 
date.

The Texas Attorney General's Office handled the presentation of the state's 
presentation in the case, with Assistant Attorney General Gwen Vindell assigned 
to it.

Coble was convicted in 1990 of killing 3 members of his estranged wife's family 
in Axtell.

It was on August 29, 1989 that his wife's parents, Robert and Zelda Vicha and 
her brother, Waco police officer Bobby Vicha were killed at a home in Axtell.

2 children were left restrained in the home as he abducted his wife Karen and 
driving off.

During the ensuing manhunt, the vehicle Coble was driving was spotted in Bosque 
County.

During the pursuit, Coble crashed his pickup into a tree.

He was given a death sentence in his original conviction, but in 2007, an 
appeals court ordered a new trial for his sentencing.

However, that 2nd jury also came back with a death penalty decision.

Coble then began his appeal process again, ending up with his final appeal at 
the US Supreme Court denied.

(source: centexproud.com)








SOUTH CAROLINA:

Death penalty trial for man charged with killing his 5 children 
delayed----Timothy Jones was arrested in Mississippi at a drunk driving 
checkpoint in 2014



A judge has delayed until next year the death penalty trial of a South Carolina 
man charged with killing his 5 children.

Circuit Judge Eugene Griffith Jr.'s order says both sides agreed to delay 
Timothy Jones' trial, scheduled to start Monday. It didn't give a reason. 
Tuesday's order says a new date will be picked once court dates for 2019 are 
set.

Authorities said the 36-year-old father killed his children at his Lexington 
home in 2014, put their bodies in plastic trash bags and drove for 9 days 
around the Southeast before leaving them on a hillside in Camden, Alabama.

Jones was stopped at a drunk driving checkpoint in Mississippi, where 
authorities said they found blood and handwritten notes about killing and 
mutilating bodies. Jones' lawyers plan an insanity defense.

(source: Associated Press)








TENNESSEE----stay of impending execution

Tennessee inmate Edmund Zagorski granted stay of execution



A federal appeals court has granted Tennessee inmate Edmund Zagorski a stay of 
execution. The death row inmate's execution was initially scheduled for 
Thursday at 7 p.m.

Federal courts have the authority to delay an execution when a habeas corpus 
proceeding is pending appeal.

"At a minimum, due process requires that Zagorski be afforded an opportunity to 
present his appeal to us," court documents read.

The current appeal stems from Zagorski's claims of inadequate counsel and 
ineffective assistance at trial.

Sources close to the case say the death row inmate opted for the electric chair 
instead of lethal injection for the execution. The state rejected Zagorski's 
request to die in the electric chair, according to his attorney.

The last time Tennessee put someone to death by electric chair was 2007.

Zagorski's request came after the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld that the 
state's current lethal injection protocol is constitutional.

The 3-drug lethal injection protocol was adopted in January 2018 by the 
Tennessee Department of Correction as an alternative execution method to the 
single-drug protocol using pentobarbital. 33 death row inmates filed a 
constitutional challenge to the new protocol in February as TDOC eliminated the 
pentobarbital alternative. The 3-drug protocol now stands as the only available 
lethal injection execution method in Tennessee.

Critics say the 3-drug cocktail does not work properly, causing "torturous 
effects."

Zagorski was convicted of shooting and slitting the throats of John Dotson and 
Jimmy Porter, of Robertson County, during a marijuana deal in 1983. Governor 
Bill Haslam denied clemency for Zagorski on October 5.

(source: WZTV news)

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

Federal Appeals Court grants Stay of Execution for Edmund Zagorski



A Federal Appeals court has granted Edmund Zagorski a stay of execution, 
according to court records.

The Sixth Circuit United States Court of Appeals in Cincinnati granted the stay 
Wednesday, saying the stay was not granted based on the method of execution.

According to court documents, Zagorski filed a federal appeal on Oct. 5. The 
stay was granted because Zagorski filed the appeal in a timely manner with the 
court and executing him before the appeal is heard would be a violation of his 
constitutional rights.

There has also been some controversy around the method of execution.

Zagorski requested Monday night to die by electric chair. The Tennessee 
Department of Corrections denied his request, saying it was filed in a timely 
manner.

It's currently unknown how long the stay is for.

Tennessee Department of Corrections declined to comment, stating: "Due to 
pending litigation, it would be improper for the department to comment at this 
time."

(source: WKRN news)

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

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals delays Edmund Zagorski execution



In a surprise move amid a flurry of legal filings, a federal appeals court has 
granted a request to delay Edmund Zagorski's execution, which was scheduled for 
Thursday.

It remains unclear how the order, from the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, 
will impact the execution's timing - it is possible the U.S. Supreme Court 
could consider the stay Thursday and it could go forward as scheduled..

Zagorski asked federal courts to reconsider unexamined claims of ineffective 
trial counsel. The federal district court in Nashville rejected that argument 
Tuesday but a panel of 6th Circuit judges said the argument was provocative 
enough to merit full consideration.

To do that, they said, a stay was necessary.

"We acknowledge, as the district court did, that petitioner faces an uphill 
battle on the merits," the order stated. "Yet, balancing this factor with the 
others, petitioner's motion presents conditions rarely seen in the usual course 
of death penalty proceedings."

One judge on the appeals panel disagreed.

"A state is entitled to the assurance of finality," Circuit Judge Deborah Cook. 
"Granting the stay shortchanges the State’s interests."

A separate request for a stay is pending in the U.S. Supreme Court on the 
constitutionality of Tennessee's lethal injection protocol.

This is the latest in a series of legal wrangling over the method and timing of 
Zagorski's execution.

More developments are likely to come quickly as the state and defense attorneys 
continue to battle over the execution, which had been scheduled for 7 p.m. 
Thursday.

(source: Knoxville News Sentinel)








USA:

Here's a look at some major cases Brett Kavanaugh could help decide on the 
Supreme Court



And then there were 9.

Amid protests from the left and staunch cries of support from the right, 
Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the US Supreme Court over the weekend 
and heard his 1st set of oral arguments Tuesday.

With the balance now tilted, 5-4, in favor of conservative justices, the Globe 
asked high court observers about cases they're tracking in light of the new 
composition of the panel.

Kari E. Hong, a Boston College Law School professor, said she watched with 
interest Tuesday as the court heard arguments dealing with the Armed Career 
Criminal Act of 1984, which calls for stiffer sentences for crimes committed 
with firearms by offenders with 3 or more prior convictions for certain 
infractions.

"The majority of justices don't like the law," Hong said. "I don't think 
Kavanaugh's vote will make a difference, but it will be interesting to see if 
he still dissents." That could be a harbinger of his more conservative opinions 
on criminal justice matters, she said.

Kavanaugh's questions during Tuesday's session, she said, "didn't show a lot of 
empathy for the criminal defendant."

Hong said in a follow-up e-mail that the career criminal act will remain on the 
books regardless of the outcome.

The "issue before the Court was not its constitutionality, but rather how to 
apply 2 of its provisions to a robbery and burglary statute," Hong wrote. "2 of 
the justices mentioned that Congress has bills that would fix the problems that 
keep leading the [career criminal act] cases to come back to the Court with 
technical issues. It appears that the Justices will side with the defendants in 
that the broader interpretations of the law that would lead to longer sentences 
do not apply to them."

Hong said she's also watching a 2nd case, Nielsen v. Preap, that was on the 
high court's agenda Wednesday.

That case focuses on the question of whether "a criminal alien becomes exempt 
from mandatory detention" for deportation proceedings "if, after the alien is 
released from criminal custody, the Department of Homeland Security does not 
take him into immigration custody immediately," according to a filing on the 
Supreme Court's website.

Hong said she believes the Preap case will likely be a 5-4 decision, with 
Justice Neil Gorsuch and possibly Chief Justice John Roberts voting in favor of 
the immigrants.

"Kavanaugh will be with the dissent," she wrote in an e-mail. "He expressed 
comfort [during oral arguments] with the government arresting someone on their 
death bed 50 years after a petty theft offense. That was the hypothetical given 
that Gorsuch and [Justice Stephen] Breyer felt would be too much power for the 
state to have. Kavanaugh defended that exercise of state power."

Immigrant rights attorneys are representing lawful permanent residents who 
served time for criminal offenses and then "returned to their families and 
communities," the lawyers said in an August brief. "Years later, the 
immigration authorities took them into custody and detained them without bond 
hearings."

The lawyers contend their clients were held unlawfully because the "textual 
requirement that noncitizens be detained 'when . . . released' limits mandatory 
detention to those whom the [Homeland Security] Secretary detains 'at the time 
of' or 'immediately' upon their release."

But the Department of Homeland Security has maintained in court filings that 
there's no time limit for when it can take a convicted immigrant into custody 
following their release.

"What if the alien was sentenced to time served or released without a sentence 
of imprisonment, so the government could not have learned when he would be 
released until after that had occurred?" the solicitor general wrote for DHS in 
a brief last month. "What if the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not 
have officers available in the vicinity to effectuate the arrest? What if DHS 
asked the jurisdiction to notify it when the alien was going to be released, 
but the jurisdiction declined to do so?"

Daniel S. Medwed, a Northeastern Law professor who teaches courses on criminal 
procedure and evidence, said in an e-mail that he's watching 2 cases in 
particular.

One is a Missouri death penalty case the court will hear in November.

"A man named [Russell] Bucklew claims that lethal gas would be better than 
lethal injection because of his underlying medical condition (Missouri permits 
both methods)," Medwed wrote. "I suspect and fear Kavanaugh will defer to the 
state's discretion."

A number of parties have filed amicus briefs in the case, including the ACLU, 
which is supporting Bucklew, and a consortium of death penalty states including 
Texas, Alabama, Arkansas and Colorado, that are backing the state of Missouri.

The ACLU brief says Bucklew, who killed a man in 1996 and raped the man's 
girlfriend, then later escaped custody and attacked the rape victim's mother 
with a hammer, would be subject to cruel and unusual punishment if executed by 
lethal injection.

The brief says Bucklew will "choke on his own blood and suffocate for four 
minutes before dying. This does not happen with other lethal injection 
executions. But Mr. Bucklew suffers from cavernous hemangioma, a rare medical 
condition that will lead to these results and make the lethal injection 
procedures particularly excruciating in his case."

The death penalty states counter that if Bucklew prevails, the case could lead 
to "repeated and lengthy litigation and indefinite delay in carrying out death 
sentences. Prisoners would challenge each alternative method subsequently 
adopted by the State as lacking in some way due to the prisoner's unique 
anatomy, history, or combination of conditions."

A 2nd case Medwed is following deals with the double jeopardy clause in 
criminal proceedings.

"[I]n December, the Court will hear a double jeopardy clause case that 
reconsiders the suitability of the so-called 'separate sovereigns' doctrine," 
Medwed wrote. "That is, even though the 5th [Amendment] bans someone from being 
tried twice for the same offense, the Court has long recognized a 'separate 
sovereigns' exception - while, say, Massachusetts couldn’t try someone twice 
for murder for the same incident, the federal government could try the person 
after a Massachusetts state acquittal."

Medwed said he believes a conservative "textualist" such as Kavanaugh, meaning 
a justice who believes legal statutes should be interpreted strictly as 
written, may "interpret the double jeopardy clause strictly to ban separate 
trials even in separate jurisdictions," which could have implications for 
President Trump.

"In theory, [Trump] could pardon someone like [former national security adviser 
Michael] Flynn from a federal conviction down the road and states might be 
barred from prosecuting Flynn for crimes related to the same underlying event," 
Medwed wrote.

Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of 
Law, said 4 justices have to agree to hear a case, so Kavanaugh's placement on 
the court could affect the types of matters that are considered.

Among the test cases that could be accepted for review are those dealing with 
the Second Amendment, Waldman said, noting that Kavanaugh as an appellate judge 
dissented against a ruling upholding a state assault weapons ban.

Other upcoming cases deal with gerrymandering and whether the government can 
inquire about a person's citizenship status on a census form, Waldman said by 
phone.

"We're a few days into a new constitutional era," said Waldman, a former 
speechwriting director in the Clinton administration. "If the court is 
aggressive and activist, it really will create a period of conflict" between 
the court and the broader public.

(source: Boston Globe)