[Deathpenalty] death penaty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., OHIO, TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

September 13


TEXAS----new execution date

Execution date set for East Texas man who beat, killed 13-month-old during 
'exorcism'



An execution date is set for a Rusk County man accused of the beating death of 
a 13-month-child.

Blaine Milam, 28, was sentenced to death in 2010 for the death of 13-month-old 
Amora Carson during an alleged exorcism.

According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the execution date for 
Blaine Keith Milam, 28, is set for Jan. 15, 2019.

Amora died in December 2008 after she was fatally struck by Milam to rid her of 
demons. She was also bitten multiple times and beaten with a hammer.

(source: KTRE news)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----35

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----553

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

36---------Sept. 26---------------Troy Clark--------------554

37---------Sept. 27---------------Daniel Acker------------555

38---------Oct. 10----------------Juan Segundo------------556

39---------Oct. 24----------------Kwame Rockwell----------557

40---------Nov. 7-----------------Emanuel Kemp, Jr.--------558

41---------Dec. 4-----------------Joseph Garcia-----------559

42---------Jan. 15----------------Blaine Milam------------560

43---------Jan. 30----------------Robert Jennings---------561

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)

******************----impending execution

Execution delay sought for man convicted of hijacking bus, raping and killing 
passenger



The lawyer for a Tarrant County man set to be executed in November for 
hijacking a city bus, then raping and killing a passenger in Fort Worth in 1987 
is seeking a delay in the execution as he fights for DNA testing to be done in 
the case.

In a motion filed Friday, attorney Greg Westfall argues that DNA testing has 
never been done in the capital murder case that sent his client, Emanuel Kemp 
Jr., to death row.

He argued the case against Kemp was largely circumstantial and relied heavily 
on the testimony of a single witness - bus driver David Jeanfreau.

Westfall also filed a separate motion asking the court to withdraw Kemp's 
execution date - set for Nov. 7 - until the DNA motion and related issues "may 
be fully litigated."

County criminal court Magistrate Charles Reynolds issued an order Monday, 
giving the District Attorney's office 60 days to file a response to Westfall's 
motion.

Westfall declined to comment to the Star-Telegram, adding "the motion kind of 
speaks for itself."

Samantha Jordan, a spokeswoman with the Tarrant County District Attorney's 
office, said she could not comment on the motion Wednesday.

Reached by phone Wednesday, Jeanfreau said he remains sure of Kemp's guilt in 
the rape and fatal stabbing of Johnnie Mae Gray, a 34-year-old emergency room 
clerk at John Peter Smith Hospital who was a regular on his bus.

"I never had any doubt that this is the right guy," said Jeanfreau, who now 
resides in Colorado.

The crime

Kemp, who had a past history of aggravated robbery, had been released from 
prison days earlier when, officials say, he boarded a city bus late on May 27, 
1987.

David Jeanfreau, the bus driver, testified he was approaching the stop for 
Gray, a regular passenger, when he heard Gray say something about her purse and 
turned to see Kemp standing over his shoulder with a knife.

"This is a robbery," he testified Kemp told him.

Jeanfreau said he initially cooperated with Kemp because he believed it would 
save him and Gray, his lone passenger. He said he followed Kemp's order and 
drove to a secluded parking lot inside Trinity Park.

There, he testified, Kemp raped Gray on a bus seat, then began stabbing her.

Jeanfreau testified that when he yelled at Kemp to "Just get out. You got what 
you wanted. Why don't you just leave?'," Kemp turned the knife on him, stabbing 
him in the neck. Jeanfreau told jurors he was able to escape out the back door 
of the bus, jumped into the river, and then hailed down a passing motorist.

Police arrived in the early morning hours of May 28, 1987, to find Gray dead 
aboard the bus from multiple stab wounds.

4 days after the attack, Jeanfreau picked Kemp out of a police lineup as the 
person responsible, telling jurors he was "absolutely sure" he had picked the 
right man.

Kemp's defense attorney at the time, Leon Haley, argued that police never fully 
investigated other potential suspects in the case, including the bus driver.

The argument

In his motion, Westfall points out that Kemp never confessed to the crime and 
that another rider on the bus, who'd been dropped off before the hijacking, 
failed to identify Kemp in a police lineup.

"This was, for the most part, a circumstantial case," Westfall states in the 
motion. "The bus driver was the only person to make an identification at the 
lineup, which was a cross-racial identification. He was the only identity 
witness to testify."

Westfall also argues that the only physical evidence in the case was a shirt 
found along with the dead woman's purse in the Botanic Gardens.

Other evidence included testimony that Kemp was seen getting out of a yellow 
Lincoln Continental before boarding the bus - the same kind of car owned by 
Kemp's mother, the motion states.

If DNA testing is conducted on biological evidence in the case - including a 
sexual assault evidence collection kit, a bus seat cover with a semen stain, 
and blood collected from the crime scene and a shirt - Westfall argues his 
client could be excluded as the source, undermining such circumstantial 
evidence.

His motion includes transcripts of testimony from two people who testified in 
Kemp's trial - Fort Worth crime scene officer Jim Varnon and Billie Shumway, a 
forensic serologist with the Fort Worth police crime lab.

Varnon testified that out of 14 identifiable latent fingerprints he collected 
from inside the bus, none belonged to Kemp.

Shumway testified that neither Kemp nor the bus driver could be excluded as the 
source of the semen stain found on the bus seat or the semen found in Gray's 
sexual assault kit. She testified the 2 men were among about 32 % of the males 
in Tarrant County who could have been the source based on their blood type.

"The results of her testing were imprecise to say the least, and included both 
(Kemp) and the bus driver in the population of persons who could have been 
responsible for the biological specimens found on the bus," Westfall states in 
his motion. "The total population who could have been responsible equated to 
about 1/3 of the males in Tarrant County."

A jury convicted Kemp in April 1988 and sentenced him to death.

"Punishment fits the crime"

Gray's mother died in 2004, online record searches show.

Jeanfreau said he's occasionally checked through the years to see if an 
execution date had been set for Kemp. But he said he has no plans to be there 
to see Kemp put to death by lethal injection, nor is he overly concerned about 
a possible delay in his date with death. After all, he said, it's already been 
31 years.

"I'm not really emotionally riveted by what happens to this guy," Jeanfreau 
said. "Clearly I think the public has supported his existence long enough with 
state funds, but I'm not obsessed with the execution date."

Still, Jeanfreau said, he believes "the punishment fits the crime."

"I have no objection to the death penalty when it's appropriate," he said.

Kemp has been on death row since 1988 and has had at least 1 prior execution 
date set. He was a week away from lethal injection when a federal judge 
intervened in 1999 and granted him a stay until the he could be appointed a new 
attorney.

His attorneys (Westfall has represented him since 1999) have previously argued 
that Kemp has schizophrenia and is too severely mentally ill to be executed.

Kemp, 52, was brought from death row and booked into the Tarrant County Jail on 
Aug. 29 on a bench warrant while his fate is determined.

He remained held there Wednesday.

(source: star-telegram.com)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Scott Wagner says he'll restore death penalty, sue pharmaceutical companies in 
opioid fight



Republican candidate for Governor, Scott Wagner, spoke about his ideas on 
fixing the opioid epidemic for the 1st time on Wednesday, at the Country Club 
of York.

Republican Scott Wagner wouldn't wait until he was sworn in as governor to 
fight Pennsylvania's opioid epidemic.

The day after winning the election, he would start inviting stakeholders to an 
opioid summit he'd plan for Tuesday, Nov. 27. The crisis is too dire to wait 
for a swearing-in ceremony in January, Wagner said.

About 5,500 Pennsylvanians died from drug overdoses in 2017, according to the 
most recent numbers available from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention. That's an 8 % increase from the previous year.

Gov. Tom Wolf and Attorney General Josh Shapiro aren't doing enough to fight 
the problem of opioid addiction in Pennsylvania, Wagner said.

Wagner accused Wolf of taking campaign money from pharmaceutical lobbyists and 
not holding drug makers accountable.

Wolf and Shapiro have spent time and money filing lawsuits against President 
Donald Trump, but they haven't sued pharmaceutical companies that flooded the 
state with addictive painkillers, Wagner said.

Shapiro and attorneys general in 40 other states last year launched an 
investigation into companies that make prescription painkillers and 
distributors that deliver them.

Wagner slammed that coordinated effort.

"Being in a coalition is like being the member of a card club," he said.

(source: York Daily Record)








FLORIDA----new death sentence

Man sentenced to death after killing cellmate



Daniel Craven, Jr. will be the 1st man sentenced to death in the 14th Judicial 
Circuit since Florida's new death penalty law passed in 2017.

Craven was found guilty in June by a Jackson County jury of killing his 
cellmate, John Anderson. The murder happened while the 2 were housed at the 
Graceville Correctional Facility in June 2015.

Craven stabbed Anderson to death with a shank.

When the jury found Craven guilty in June, they unanimously recommended the 
death verdict. Wednesday a judge agreed and sentenced him to death.

(source: WJHG news)

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

Jackson County Judge Sentences Man to Death



Wednesday, 14th Circuit Judge, Christopher Patterson, sentenced Daniel Craven 
Jr. to death, following the unanimous recommendation by the 12 person jury in 
the trial.

In June, Craven was found guilty of 1st degree murder, for stabbing his 
Graceville Correctional Facility cell mate, John Anderson, to death. He was 
already serving a life sentence from a 2011 murder in south Florida.

When the verdict was read, Craven was seen smiling.

Craven is the 1st person in the 14th circuit to receive the death penalty since 
the Supreme Court made changes to the capital sentencing law.

Those changes require that each juror votes and agrees on the death sentence, 
before the judge can impose such a sentencing.

(source: mypanhandle.com)

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

Judge grants killer's request to remain on death row



Jonathan Huey Lawrence's request that he remain on Florida's death row was 
granted Wednesday by Santa Rosa Circuit Court Judge David Rimmer.

Lawrence, a Santa Rosa County man who within 40 days in 1998 participated in 
the brutal murders of 2 people and tried to kill a third, originally was 
sentenced to die Aug. 16, 2000.

Rimmer upheld the death sentence Lawrence had received for killing Jennifer 
Robinson and mutilating her body. A rehearing of the penalty phase of his trial 
was required by court order because the jury that had convicted him recommended 
he die by an 11-1 vote.

The Florida Supreme Court has declared jurors must decide unanimously to impose 
the death penalty, and state law was changed in 2017 to reflect that decision. 
Sentences imposed decades ago across the state, like Lawrence's, are being 
reconsidered.

Lawrence was charged alongside Martel Rodgers with killing the 18-year-old 
Robinson on May 7, 1998. Court documents state the men drove Robinson to a 
secluded place, served her alcohol until she was intoxicated, had sex with her 
and killed her.

The men used a knife to remove Robinson's calf muscle, which they kept, and 
also took photographs of her body. Evidence, including the body part and 
photos, were located along with documentation that clearly indicated the murder 
had been planned.

After his arrest Lawrence also confessed to helping Rodgers kill Justin 
Livingston, Lawrence's cousin, on April 9, 1998. After Rodgers had stabbed and 
attempted to strangle Livingston, Lawrence finished him with several knife 
blows to the back.

Lawrence also pleaded to shooting through a house window in an effort to kill 
Layton Smitherman, who Lawrence didn't even know. He and Rodgers "had been 
driving around that evening looking to get into trouble, preferably to find 
somebody to shoot and kill," the court record said.

After 17 years on death row and with a re-sentencing hearing looming, Lawrence 
sent a handwritten note to Rimmer.

"I'm guilty of all my charges and deserve my death sentence. I've had no 
intention of putting the families, friends and loved ones of the people I 
deliberately help(ed) murder through all of these 20 long years of grief, 
suffering and loss to have to (e)ndure more," the note said.

Lawrence waived his right to have a jury hear the re-sentencing proceeding and 
to have mitigating factors heard in his defense, a news release from the State 
Attorney's Office said. The court had appointed a special counsel to provide 
mitigation evidence.

The new penalty phase began June 4 and mitigating factors were heard Aug. 20, 
the release said.

(source: nwfdaiynews.com)








OHIO:

High court issues stay on Hundley execution



The Ohio Supreme Court ordered a stay on the execution of Lance Hundley while 
his appeal remains pending.

Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court sentenced 
Hundley to death after a jury convicted him in the November 2015 beating and 
strangulation death of Erika Huff.

Hundley, 48, of Warren, was set to be executed Nov. 6.

In addition to the aggravated-murder charge that resulted from Huff's killing, 
the jury convicted Hundley of the attempted murder of Huff's mother, and 
aggravated arson for trying to burn his victims and Huff's Cleveland Street 
home.

Huff was confined to a wheelchair, and her mother arrived at the home after 
Huff's medical alarm went off.

Hundley's case qualified for the death penalty because he tried to kill 2 
people in the same course of conduct.

All defendants sentenced to death in Ohio have an automatic right to appeal 
their case to the high court. Hundley filed a notice of appeal in June shortly 
after Judge Sweeney imposed the death penalty.

(source: The Youngstown Vindicator)

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

Execution stalled for man convicted in Youngstown beating death, arson



The man convicted of a 2015 Youngstown beating death and arson case will not 
face the death penalty this fall- after the Ohio Supreme Court has agreed that 
he should receive a stay of execution.

The Supreme Court issued a ruling Wednesday granting a motion to give 
48-year-old Lance Hundley more time.

Hundley, who appealed his death penalty conviction in June, is scheduled to be 
executed on November 6th. However, the ruling from the Ohio Supreme Court 
orders that no execution date can be scheduled while appeals proceedings are 
underway.

Hundley was sentenced to the death penalty in June, following several years of 
criminal proceedings.

Hundley was found guilty on several charges, including aggravated murder, 
attempted murder, felonious assault, and aggravated arson in the death of 
41-year-old Erika Huff in 2015.

In June, Mahoning County Judge Maureen Sweeney sentenced Hundley to death for 
Erika Huff's murder and an additional 22 years in prison. 11 years for the 
attempted murder of Huff's mother Denise Johnson, and eleven more years for 
setting the home on fire.

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.

An online court docket does not yet have a date set for when the Ohio Supreme 
Court may hear arguments on the appeal.

(source: WFMJ news)








TENNESSEE:

Edmund Zagorski's Case Illustrates 'Tennessee's Death Penalty Lottery'----The 
state is set to execute Zagorski on Oct. 11 for 2 drug-related killings in 1983



Tennessee plans to execute Edmund Zagorski on Oct. 11 using the same lethal 
injection drugs that, according to medical experts, tortured Billy Ray Irick 
last month. The state's death penalty apparatus is up and running after being 
dormant for nearly a decade, and Zagorski's will be the 2nd of 3 executions 
scheduled in Tennessee this year.

A 63-year-old man who's been on death row for 34 years, Zagorski was convicted 
in 1984 for the murders of 2 Dickson County men, John Dale Dotson and Jimmy 
Porter. Authorities said the 2 men had planned to buy marijuana from Zagorski 
but that Zagorski shot them, slit their throats and robbed them. His case, like 
so many capital cases, includes a host of complicating factors, from his 
treatment after his arrest to the arguably arbitrary nature of his sentence.

Ahead of his trial, Zagorski reportedly told his lawyers that if he was 
convicted he preferred the death penalty, and confessed to the crimes. He would 
later challenge the admissibility of his statements, arguing that police had 
coerced him into confessing. A court filing from earlier this year lays out the 
argument that his confession and other damaging statements he made after his 
arrest - including waiving his right to counsel after first saying he didn't 
want to be questioned without a lawyer present - were involuntary and made 
under extreme duress in the Robertson County jail.

"Those statements were the product of inhumane conditions and unconstitutional 
coercion," the filing reads, "because Zagorski was placed in solitary 
confinement in an unventilated metal hotbox for seven (7) weeks during the heat 
of the summer, which decimated him physically and mentally, made him mentally 
ill and suicidal, and led him to give statements in order to end the unbearable 
conditions."

The filing goes on to detail how Zagorski's mental health deteriorated as he 
was held in solitary confinement. He was put on an antipsychotic medication 
and, on one occasion, "was brought to the emergency room with 'acute anxiety,' 
he was 'sweating [and] anxious' and in an 'uncontrollable rage,' having beaten 
his knuckles bloody against the metal wall."

Zagorski's attorneys argue in the filing that no Tennessee court has fully 
considered the evidence and issues around his pretrial statements. They even 
raise doubts about Zagorski's guilt.

But further, Zagorski's case is a perfect example of a phenomenon highlighted 
in a report published earlier this year in the Tennessee Journal of Law and 
Policy. The Intercept's Liliana Segura wrote about some of the report's 
findings last month following Irick's execution. Titled "Tennessee's Death 
Penalty Lottery" and authored by attorneys Bradley MacLean and H.E. Miller Jr., 
the 97-page document casts Tennessee's death penalty as a "cruel lottery" that 
metes out the ultimate punishment on an arbitrary basis.

As part of the research for the report, Miller conducted a survey of 
Tennessee's 1st-degree murder cases. Among his findings, as cited in the filing 
in Zagorski's case: "Over the past 40 years, Tennessee has convicted more than 
2,500 defendants of 1st degree murder. Among those 2,500+ defendants, only 86 
defendants (3.4%) received sustained death sentences, and only 6 defendants (or 
1 out of 400) were executed."

In the filing, Zagorski's attorneys argue at length that his death sentence in 
particular is arbitrary and, thus, unjust when compared with the sentences 
other Tennesseans have received for crimes that are similar or worse. To begin 
with, they argue that prosecutors in Zagorski's case acknowledged that death 
was not required for justice - they offered Zagorski 2 life sentences in 
exchange for a guilty plea, but pursued the death penalty when Zagorski 
insisted on going to trial. Moreover, they detail how other drug-related 
homicides have been handled by the state's justice system.

According to the filing: "At least 20 (twenty) other persons convicted of 
drug-related double homicides (or worse) have not been sentenced to death, but 
to life imprisonment," and "while triple and double drug-related homicides in 
Tennessee have resulted in life sentences, there is a long list of persons who 
have committed triple, quadruple, quintuple, and even sextuple homicides in 
Tennessee for whom the punishment imposed has been only life imprisonment."

Zagorski's attorneys go on to cite specific cases, such as that of Henry 
Burrell and Zakkawanda Moss, who are serving life sentences for the murder of 6 
people.

Now, after more than 3 decades on death row, Zagorski's execution date is less 
than 30 days away. He's been scheduled to die before, but this time - in light 
of the fact that Tennessee executed an inmate a month ago - his chances of 
being strapped to a gurney and wheeled into the execution chamber seem higher.

Gov. Bill Haslam's office confirms to the Scene that they have received 
Zagorski's application for clemency and that the governor and his legal staff 
are reviewing the request. Zagorski's Memphis-based clemency attorney, Robert 
Hutton, tells the Scene that out of respect for the governor he's not 
discussing the specifics of the case for now.

Hutton does say, though, that Zagorski is an extraordinarily rehabilitated man 
who hasn't been written up once for behavior issues in his 34 years in prison. 
He also notes a problematic detail about Zagorski's sentence: When Zagorski was 
tried in the early '80s, the jury did not have the option of sentencing him to 
life without parole. Today, every state with the death penalty gives juries 
that option.

Meanwhile, the legal fight over Tennessee's controversial new lethal injection 
protocol continues. A Nashville judge upheld the protocol ahead of Irick's 
execution, but the dozens of death row inmates challenging are appealing that 
decision. The Tennessee Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in the case 
on Oct. 3, just 8 days before the state plans to use the drugs again.

(source: Nashville Scene)