[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, TENN., ARK., MO.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 18




OHIO:

Accused killer of Beavercreek man to be sentenced in Carolina case



The man accused of killing a Beavercreek man in front of his children is 
scheduled to be sentenced for an unrelated case in South Carolina federal court 
before his potential death penalty case moves ahead in Dayton's U.S. District 
Court.

Sterling H. Roberts, 35, is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 28 in U.S. District 
Court in Greenville, S.C. Roberts pleaded guilty in November 2017 to being a 
felon in possession of a firearm, according to federal court records.

Roberts, Tawnney Caldwell and 4 others have been indicted for the Aug. 15, 
2017, death of Robert "Bobby" Caldwell, who was shot in Riverside in front of 
his 3 sons - 1 of whom (Jacob) was missing for a year before being located by 
law enforcement in August.

Roberts and Tawnney Caldwell could face the death penalty if they are convicted 
as charged. Also charged are Chance Deakin, Christopher Roberts, James Harmon 
and Chandra Harmon.

A hearing Thursday in Dayton's U.S. District Court for Chandra Harmon, Deakin, 
and Christopher Roberts was continued after an in-chambers conference involving 
defense attorneys and one assistant U.S. attorney.

Multiple defendants have requested and received permission to file motions 
under seal because of sensitive information.

(source: mydaytondailynews.com)








TENNESSEE:

A Tennessee inmate who won a last-minute reprieve sparing him from execution 
last week may be running out of options, and a new date with the death chamber 
could be set as early as the end of the month, court records show.



Edmund Zagorksi, who was sentenced to die in 1984 for killing 2 men he robbed 
during a drug deal, has no new execution date scheduled after the state's plans 
for a lethal injection last Thursday were cancelled amid a flurry of legal 
maneuvers. They included a court order that he die in the electric chair, at 
his request.

Those moves may have set back possible execution a few weeks at best. Court 
filings indicate Zagorski, who has spent 34 years on Tennessee's death row, 
could get an execution date as early as Oct. 28.

Just a day before his previously scheduled execution, the 6th U.S. Circuit 
Court of Appeals issued a stay that could have delayed it for many months. But 
the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the stay the next day and also declined to 
hear a separate appeal challenging Tennessee's 3-drug lethal injection 
cocktail.

Meanwhile, a 3rd federal court ordered Tennessee to honor Zagorski's request to 
die in the electric chair, rather than by lethal injection. Zagorski's attorney 
said the inmate believes electrocution would be quicker and less painful.

That last decision, by a U.S. District Court judge in Nashville, apparently 
prompted Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam to put a temporary halt to the execution.

Although inmates whose offenses occurred before 1999 have the option to choose 
electrocution, under Tennessee law, Zagorski gave the state only 3 days' notice 
of his choice. But when the Department of Correction said it would go forward 
with lethal injection, Zagorski's attorneys asked the court to intervene.

Correction officials never said whether they would be able to carry out an 
electrocution on such short notice, but Haslam said in a statement his reprieve 
would "give all involved the time necessary to carry out the sentence in an 
orderly and careful manner."

Once the 10-day reprieve expires, the Tennessee Supreme Court can set a new 
execution date. It must be at least 7 days later.

Meanwhile, with its stay lifted, the 6th Circuit is fast-tracking Zagorski's 
case before that venue - a claim of poor legal representation at trial. But it 
is unclear whether that case could be heard and decided before another 
execution date.

Jurors sentenced Zagorski to death in 1984 after finding him guilty of shooting 
John Dotson and Jimmy Porter and slitting their throats. The victims had 
planned to buy marijuana from Zagorski. Prosecutors said Zagorski never had any 
marijuana but set the men up to rob them and then killed them to cover it up.

Zagorski's attorney Kelley Henry has said the legal team is reviewing its 
options.

(source: Associated Press)








ARKANSAS:

Arkansas justices challenge ethics charges over judge's case



Arkansas Supreme Court justices on Wednesday challenged efforts to sanction 
them over the court's decision to prohibit a judge who participated in an 
anti-death penalty demonstration from hearing any execution-related cases.

The justices filed a lawsuit with their court challenging the charges related 
to the decision to disqualify Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen from 
handling any death penalty cases. Justices disqualified Griffen last year, days 
after he was photographed on a cot outside the governor's mansion last year 
wearing an anti-death penalty button and surrounded by people holding signs 
opposing executions.

Earlier the day of the demonstration, Griffen blocked the state from using a 
lethal injection drug over claims the company had been misled by the state.

A three-member of the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission has charged 
all seven of the court's justices over the move. The panel said the court never 
gave Griffen notice or an opportunity to be heard over his removal from death 
penalty cases. The charges are set to go before the full nine-member 
commission, which could recommend suspending or removing the justices if 
they're found to have violated judicial rules of conduct.

"The commission has no jurisdiction over decisions of a judge rendering a 
decision on issues of law," the lawsuit said.

David Sachar, the commission's executive director, said he had not seen the 
filing and the commission would respond accordingly.

An attorney for the justices said all 7 members of the court would recuse from 
hearing the lawsuit. Gov. Asa Hutchinson will have to name special justices to 
hear the case.

The lawsuit was filed by Chief Justice Dan Kemp and Justices Jo Hart, Shawn 
Womack, Karen Baker and Rhonda Wood. Justices Courtney Goodson and Robin Wynne 
did not join the lawsuit.

The ethics complaint against the justices was filed by Griffen, who was charged 
earlier this year by the disciplinary panel over the demonstration. Griffen had 
sued the justices over his disqualification, claiming it violated his 
constitutional rights, but a federal appeals court dismissed the case. The 
justices' lawsuit on Wednesday cited that dismissal in seeking an end to the 
ethics case against them.

(source: Associated Press)





MISSOURI:

Executioners Lobby for Death Row Inmate at High Court



A Missouri death row inmate's Supreme Court fight has support from unlikely 
allies: former executioners.

The group of ex-prison officials - wardens, superintendents, commissioners, and 
even executioners themselves - aren't directly involved in Russell Bucklew's 
case. But they've filed an amicus - or "friend of the court" - brief with the 
justices to share firsthand reflections on administering the ultimate 
punishment.

They're trying to help Bucklew avoid it. Or at least to avoid the way the state 
wants to do it.

Bucklew argues his impending execution by lethal injection would violate the 
Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

His rare and severe health conditions - leading to compromised veins and other 
ailments - mean the necessary injections would cause him to suffer needlessly, 
replete with bursting and bloody tumors, he says. He'd rather be killed by 
lethal gas, which he argues would be less cruel.

But Missouri wants to kill him its way.

The Nov. 6 oral argument comes as executions across the country have gone awry, 
leading to potentially painful episodes for inmates. It's more than the 
Constitution can tolerate, they've argued with little success.

About 3 % of all executions from 1890 to 2010 were botched, according to the 
Death Penalty Information Center. The numbers for lethal injection are more 
than twice as bad.

But even if prisoners like Bucklew put forward alternative - potentially less 
painful - methods of execution, the law doesn’t automatically accept the 
proposal, leading to legal fights like the one here.

The former officials join Bucklew in that fight.

"Such executions do not serve the State's interests in finality or justice," 
they argue. "Instead, they make public servants parties to barbarism."

Their brief is a "moving testament to the human toll that these executions 
exact on our public servants - our men and women in uniform who have to carry 
them out," Bernard Harcourt told Bloomberg Law. Harcourt, a professor at 
Columbia Law School, represented Doyle Lee Hamm, whose botched execution 
attempt earlier this year the ex-officials cite as an example of what can go 
wrong in situations like Bucklew's.

"We rarely hear about the extent of the psychological damage to all the men and 
women who are involved in these executions, the wardens and officers, the 
attorneys and paralegals, the chaplains, and so many more," said Harcourt. 
"Most people don't even know the number of people who are touched, and don’t 
really care."

But Bucklew shouldn't get an "exemption" from capital punishment, the state 
maintains, pointing to his "vicious crime spree" over 2 decades ago, where he 
committed murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, rape, escape from jail, and 
assault. Missouri's lethal injection method "is the most humane and effective 
method of execution available," the state says.

Heavy Burden

The ex-officials agree with Bucklew that his execution would run afoul of the 
Constitution.

But their argument isn't framed in purely altruistic terms. They want the court 
"to consider not only the immorality of executing a man using cruel and unusual 
means, but also the harm to public servants who participate in such an act."

They emphasize "the heavy burden that executions place on the people who must 
carry them out - a burden that becomes intolerable when, as here, there is a 
grave risk that a botched execution will result in excessive pain and 
suffering."

It's bad enough when inmates don't present dire circumstances like Bucklew's, 
they explain to the justices. "Even when everything goes according to plan, 
standing face-to-face with an inmate and taking his life is a substantial 
burden to carry." The psychological consequences of carrying that burden, they 
note, "are well-documented, and can be severe."

It leads some employees to substance abuse and to experience "symptoms of 
post-traumatic stress including depression, flashbacks, nightmares, pain with 
no known physical origin, and dissociative disorders."

But the burden will be especially heavy if the state has its way here, they 
contend. There's a "substantial probability that the process will be lengthy 
and will end only when Mr. Bucklew either suffocates or drowns in his own 
blood," the former officials warn. When an execution results "in unnecessary 
pain and suffering, the burden of participation becomes unbearable."

(source: Bloomberg News)






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

Attorneys for Pablo Serrano again move to preclude death penalty



Attorneys for an undocumented immigrant accused of killing a New Florence man 
in 2016 are again asking a St. Louis judge to preclude the death penalty from 
his case.

Pablo Serrano-Vitorino is accused of killing Randy Nordman on March 8, 2016 at 
Nordman's home. Serrano was on the run at the time for allegedly killing 4 
people in Kansas. Nordman's death started a massive manhunt in Montgomery 
County and authorities captured Serrano nearly 24 hours later.

Serrano's lawyers filed a motion Tuesday claiming that Missouri's "capital 
sentencing scheme" violates several court cases argued across the country.

They alleged that if a jury deadlocks on the death penalty decision, even if 
the majority of jurors are in favor of life in prison, a judge could rule in 
favor of the death penalty anyway.

Serrano's attorneys, Heather Vodnansky and Chelsea Mitchell, quoted a case out 
of Maryland that referred to that structure as "the height of arbitrariness."

They also filed a motion to strike 4 of the statutory aggravating circumstances 
from the reasons why Serrano should be sentenced to death.

Prosecutors will cite aggravating circumstances in a death penalty case. For 
Serrano, prosecutors included more than a dozen, including that Nordman's 
killing showed a disregard for the "sanctity of all human life," which is 
commonly cited by prosecutors pursuing the death penalty.

Vodnansky wrote that 4 of the aggravating circumstances, that Serrano committed 
the murder of Nordman "while [he] was engaged in the commission of another 
unlawful homicide," be struck. They refer to the 4 people he is accused of 
killing in Kansas. She said that they should be struck from the list because 
the people were killed before Nordman's death, not during, and so should not be 
part of this case.

Former Cole County prosecutor Bill Tackett said Tuesday's filings are typical 
in a death penalty case. He said both sides will want to follow due process as 
completely as possible to make sure that the wrong person doesn't get put to 
death or that a conviction isn't eventually overturned on appeal because due 
process wasn't followed.

"Seasoned death penalty lawyers, regardless of which side they're on, they know 
where the boundaries are," he said. "The defense is going to push it because 
that's their job, and they should push it."

Tackett said death penalty cases are extremely meticulous, and it can take up 
to 10 years before the convicted person is put to death because of the appeals 
process.

(source: ABC News)