[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., N.C., MISS., OHIO, USA

[Rick Halperin]

February 3




TEXAS:

20 years later, justice for the lynching of James Byrd Jr. might finally be 
complete



John William King did not wear a white sheet or a pointed hood in court. When 
his February 1999 trial began, his plain street clothes covered prison tattoos 
defense attorneys did not want the jury to see, including one of a black man 
hanging from a tree inside King's arm.

It was one of 1,000 details I did not ever wish to know about a 24-year-old 
white man being described as either "the boy next door" or the alleged 
"mastermind" behind the horrific murder of James Byrd Jr., who was dragged by a 
pick-up. Others used one word to sum up King and the crime: evil.

20 years ago this month, King became the first white man in Texas sentenced to 
die for killing a black man in more than 100 years, and finally an execution 
date has been set. The earlier case was hardly comparable, given the victim was 
a favorite slave. The victim's Tyler County owner was livid after a white 
farmer, James Wilson, murdered his property; Wilson was executed in 1854.

While many believed King might be executed 1st and make more legal history, his 
fellow defendant, Lawrence Russell Brewer, was executed in 2011. Brewer was 
sentenced a few months after King. A 3rd person involved in the lynching, Shawn 
Allen Berry, got life in prison.

Even now, I wonder if most people fully comprehend the magnitude of how 
extraordinary and rare the level of justice in Jasper was. Or that a lynching 
could still happen in Texas. All 3 culprits were found guilty of capital murder 
for a racially motivated crime in a Southern state. That is almost unheard of 
in American legal history.

In January, the Dallas news director who assigned me to the so-called Texas 
Trial of the Century of this case asked how I felt about King's scheduled April 
execution date. I was stunned. I had not heard that a judge signed the order, 
making it official. To stop it would require a reprieve from a higher court or 
Gov. Greg Abbott.

During his 2 decades on death row, King vigorously fought the decision, 
maintaining his innocence despite irrefutably damning evidence. Now, King's 
appeals have been exhausted and his life-death circle is being drawn as these 
words are being written.

Pondering how jurors, Byrd family members and prosecutors struggled with three 
death penalty trials, I have seen greater interest over the last few years 
because of a surge in hate crimes and a new generation hoping for answers. Like 
the female student who recently said to me, as a tear rushed down her face, "I 
was born the same month and year he was dragged. Why don't they teach us this?"

Like countless others, I have never accepted that some people simply do not 
want to talk about or lecture on the myriad lessons from Jasper. Since I became 
the black woman who wrote the book about the Jasper dragging, it is 
disappointing when I'm invited to shut up about something that deserves more 
debate. Not discussing Jasper will never change what happened on Huff Creek 
Road. Not confronting homegrown terrorism is to downplay its existence.

Thanks to a lifetime of being targeted, ticketed, threatened and taken to jail 
on one occasion driving through those Piney Woods, I was in no hurry to spend 
my nights in a little town where a horrific crime had been perpetrated against 
someone black like me. But I went.

20 years later, the strained faces of my media colleagues remain freshly in my 
mind as we milled about the Jasper County Courthouse lawn in a daze at what we 
were covering. We were driven by our intense quest to make world citizens grasp 
the humanity of a black man, the real Jasper. We did our best to be respectful 
of the Byrd parents and sisters who showed tremendous dignity and courage. It 
inspired nearly every reporter assigned to cover this unthinkable tragedy, a 
story unlike any other in our careers.

In February 1999, I sought counsel for my depression and rage. Working on the 
story provided an outlet for my sadness, a way to honor the important history 
being made and to give America the best reporting I could muster. Today, I know 
one thing for sure: John William King will not be wearing a white sheet or a 
pointed hood when the state of Texas carries out his execution.

(source: Commenantry; Joyce King is a writer in North Texas and the author of 
several books, including one about the murder of James Byrd Jr.----Dallas 
Morning News)








VIRGINIA:

Coffee Shop Talks: “Requiem for a Courageous Fool: Marie Deans and Her Struggle 
Against the Death Penalty”



Called Virginia’s Angel of Death Row, Marie Deans spent much of her adult life 
working with death row prisoners in South Carolina and Virginia. In his new 
book, Todd Peppers, the Henry H. & Trudye H. Fowler Professor in Public Affairs 
at Roanoke College and a visiting professor at Washington and Lee University’s 
law school, tells the story of the person who won reduced sentences for over 
200 death-row inmates, including helping to exonerate Earl Washington Jr., a 
Culpeper man who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in Virginia.

When: 8 to 9 p.m.

Where: Mill Mountain Coffee And Tea, 17 E. Main St., Salem

Cost: Free

(source: roanoke.com)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Pasquotank Correctional murder trial moved to Dare County



In a rare but not unheard of move, an October murder trial for a Pasquotank 
County defendant will be held in Dare County.

North Carolina law provides that criminal trials be held in the county where 
the offense occurs. There are provisions, however, for moving trails to another 
location and, according to a lawyer for Mikel Edward Brady II, this case meets 
those guidelines.

According to Brady’s attorney, a relocation is necessary to avoid possible jury 
bias.

Brady is 1 of 4 inmates charged with murder following an October 12, 2017 
failed escape attempt at Pasquotank Correctional Institution in Elizabeth City. 
During the attempt, 4 state employees at the prison were killed in the 
incident: correctional officers Veronica Darden, Wendy Shannon, Justin Smith 
and maintenance mechanic Geoffrey Howe.

Autopsy reports released last year from the Office of the Chief Medical 
Examiner’s office showed the employees died from being hit or stabbed.

Reports indicate that at the time of the failed escape attempt, Brady was 
serving a prison sentence for the attempted 1st-degree murder of a state 
trooper in Durham County.

After the Pasquotank County deaths and disturbances – including a fatality – at 
Bertie Correctional Institution, the State Employees Association of North 
Carolina issued a report saying the state’s prison facilities are dangerously 
understaffed. The report urged lawmakers to undertake major changes that 
address the shortage including hiring more officers, better pay for officers, 
tougher penalties for inmates who attack officers and separating the Division 
of Adult Corrections and Juvenile Justice from the Department of Public Safety.

A copy of the SEANC report may be found at http://www.seanc.org/?prisonreform.

Brady and three other inmates – Wisezah Buckman, Seth Frazier and Jonathan Monk 
– are facing 1st-degree murder charges in addition to other offenses.

If convicted, each could face the death penalty.

(source: thecoastlandtimes.com)

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

1st murder trial set in fatal North Carolina prison attack



A North Carolina inmate now knows when he'll face trial for his life on murder 
charges after the state's deadliest attempted prison breakout.

District Attorney Andrew Womble said Friday a judge set Oct. 7 for the 
death-penalty trial of 29-year-old Mikel Brady. He would be the 1st of 4 
inmates from Pasquotank Correctional Institution to be tried.

They're accused of using hammers and scissors from a prison workshop to kill 4 
employees on Oct. 12, 2017. Eight other prison employees were injured.

Brady was already serving time for attempted murder after shooting a North 
Carolina state trooper who pulled him over in Durham in 2013. He was a fugitive 
from Vermont on a probation violation when he shot the trooper at close range 
in the face, hands and right shoulder.

(source: Associated Press)

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

42 Years After Death Sentence, Federal Appeals Court Says Charles Ray Finch 
‘Actually Innocent’



A federal appeals court has found 80-year-old Charles Ray Finch (pictured) 
“actually innocent” of the murder for which he was convicted and sentenced to 
death in North Carolina 42 years ago. The pronouncement came in a unanimous 
ruling issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 
Fourth Circuit on January 25, 2019. In that decision, Chief Judge Roger L. 
Gregory wrote that “Finch has overcome the exacting standard for actual 
innocence through sufficiently alleging and providing new evidence of a 
constitutional violation and through demonstrating that the totality of the 
evidence, both old and new, would likely fail to convince any reasonable juror 
of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” The U.S. Supreme Court has never 
recognized innocence alone as grounds to overturn a conviction, so the appeals 
court could not set Finch free. Instead, the panel reversed a lower court’s 
denial of relief and sent the case back for adjudication of constitutional 
violations relating to Finch’s innocence claim. Jim Coleman, Finch’s lawyer and 
the co-director of the Duke Wrongful Convictions Clinic, said he now hopes to 
convince North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein to “remedy the miscarriage 
of justice in joining us in a motion to overturn Ray’s conviction and release 
him without any further proceedings in court.”

Finch was convicted and sentenced to death in 1976 for the killing of Richard 
“Shadow” Holloman during a failed robbery attempt, but he has consistently 
maintained his innocence. In 1977, the North Carolina Supreme Court reduced his 
sentence to life in prison after the U.S. Supreme Court had declared the 
state’s then-mandatory death penalty law unconstitutional. The Fourth Circuit 
identified significant problems with the evidence used to convict Finch. He was 
subjected to “suggestive lineups,” in which he was the only suspect dressed in 
a three-quarter length jacket, the same style of clothing that the eyewitness, 
Lester Floyd Jones, said the perpetrator was wearing. Such lineups have since 
been declared unconstitutional. “These procedural issues support Finch’s 
allegations of constitutional error that he was misidentified by Jones,” Judge 
Gregory wrote. “No reasonable juror would likely find Finch guilty beyond a 
reasonable doubt if it knew the high likelihood that he was misidentified by 
Jones both outside and inside the courtroom as a murder suspect because of the 
impermissibly suggestive lineups.” The court also noted that Jones, who the 
court said “had cognitive issues, struggled with alcoholism and had issues with 
short-term memory recall,” told police that the killer was armed with a 
sawed-off shotgun and had never mentioned to the police that the shooter had 
any facial hair. At the time Holloman was killed, Finch had a long beard and 
distinctive sideburns. A new review of the autopsy evidence decades after the 
crime disclosed that Holloman had been killed with a pistol, not a shotgun and 
new ballistics evidence contradicted prosecution claims that the shells found 
at the crime scene matched a shotgun shell found in Finch’s car. Other 
witnesses also indicated they had been pressured into providing testimony 
implicating Finch. “This new evidence,” the court said, “not only undercuts the 
state’s physical evidence, but it also discredits the reliability of Jones.”

The Fourth Circuit opinion also addressed whether Finch might be guilty under 
the felony-murder rule, which would require only that he participated in the 
robbery, even if he did not shoot Holloman. The court identified two problems 
with this argument. First, though the state now says that Finch’s conviction 
relied on the felony-murder rule, the trial court “provided inconsistent 
instructions to the jury regarding felony murder but ultimately required the 
jury to find that Finch fired the fatal shot in order to convict him of 
first-degree murder.” Second, if Jones misidentified Finch, and he was not 
actually present for the robbery, he could not be guilty even under the 
felony-murder rule. “Criminal liability under any theory, including the 
felony-murder rule, would not attach to Finch if there is no evidence that he 
was at Holloman’s store during the murder,” the opinion stated.

(source: Death Penalty Information Center)








MISSISSIPPI:

Man accused of murdering 8 wants to look nice for trial



Attorneys for Willie Cory Godbolt, accused of murdering 8 people including a 
Lincoln County Sheriff’s deputy in 2017, are asking the court to allow their 
client to skip the jail garb for proceedings in favor of civilian attire. 
Godbolt is charged with 4 counts of capital murder, 4 counts of 1st degree 
murder, 2 counts of kidnapping and armed robbery. He was formally arraigned in 
Lincoln County Circuit Court March 12, 2018, and his lead attorney, Alison 
Steiner, has also asked that only one media representative be allowed to take 
photographs, which would then be shared with other media outlets.

Circuit Court Judge David Strong will make a ruling on both motions Tuesday at 
1 p.m.

A 2nd hearing is set for Feb. 22 at 9 a.m. for Strong to make a ruling on 
several motions filed by the Jan. 10 deadline.

Since the state has announced its intent to seek he death penalty for Godbolt 
if he is convicted, Steiner said the defendant’s appearance in the courtroom 
“must accord him all the same dignity and respect as any other courtroom 
participant.”

Because he is of high press and public interest, his appearance will be 
“significantly scrutinized and photographed and those images will likely be 
distributed statewide,” she wrote in the motion.

Steiner said since Godbolt has been compliant with all orders and is securely 
guarded, he should be allowed to change into civilian clothing at the 
courthouse before proceedings.

She also asked for pool video and still cameras for press coverage to reduce 
the number of images taken of her client in the courtroom.

Other motions made by Steiner and Jason Tate with the Lincoln County Public 
Defender’s office include:

• Motion to use the “Stennis Method” to select jury, where the prospective 
jurors are divided into panels to be questioned as opposed to being questioned 
individually or as a whole.

• Motion for severance of multi-count indictment.

• Motion for change of venue outside of Lincoln County and other “similarly 
tainted” counties as a result of media coverage and also that friends and 
family of the victims live in adjoining counties.

• Motion to preclude the imposition of a death sentence in the event of a 
conviction.

• Motion to keep the victims’ family and friends from sitting near the jury and 
showing emotion in the courtroom during the trial.

• Motion to prohibit a uniformed police presence in the courtroom or any place 
where jury or prospective jurors may be present, and bailiffs not be allowed to 
take jurors to businesses or venues that display memorial tribute materials or 
other displays about the victims in this case or other fallen police officers.

• Motion to prevent interference with defense investigation.

• Motion to preclude the sheriff’s department from bringing the defendant into 
court in shackles and to preclude the use of a shock belt or electrical current 
device on the defendant.

(source: magnoliastatelive.com)








OHIO:

Couldn’t Ohio simply use fentanyl for executions?



As Ohio struggles to come up with an execution protocol that doesn’t raise 
cruelty concerns, many are asking an obvious question: Why not use fentanyl, 
the narcotic that tragically has pushed thousands of Ohioans through the 
euphoria they were seeking and into the death they likely weren’t?

As with so many other issues surrounding the death penalty, the answer is 
complicated. But a big part of it is that it is becoming increasingly difficult 
— even bordering on impossible — for states to obtain fentanyl or any other 
drug used in executions.

Convicted killer Warren Keith Henness of Columbus was slated to be put to death 
Feb. 13. But Gov. Mike DeWine on Jan. 25 delayed the execution until September, 
citing a federal judge’s ruling that likened Ohio’s execution protocol to 
“waterboarding,” and saying it “would feel as though fire was being poured” 
into a prisoner’s veins.

Magistrate Judge Michael R. Merz said the process seems to violate 
constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment, but he allowed 
Henness’ execution to go forward anyway. He cited a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court 
decision requiring convicts such as Henness to propose a viable alternative if 
they argue that the state’s method of killing them is cruel and unusual.

In addition to the U.S. Constitution, however, DeWine is bound by the Ohio 
Constitution, which also prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. He also is 
bound to follow Ohio Revised Code 2949.22 which says the condemned person must 
be executed with “a lethal injection of a drug or combination of drugs of 
sufficient dosage to quickly and painlessly cause death.”

Fentanyl seems as if it might fit that description. David Stebbins, the federal 
public defender who represents Henness and many other Ohio death-row inmates, 
said he thought state officials might be considering the drug for executions.

When asked whether that was the case, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and 
Correction spokeswoman JoEllen Smith would say only, “As directed by the 
governor, the department has begun assessing options for execution drugs and 
possible alternative drugs.”

In a regulatory sense, the death protocol is governed by Ohio Department of 
Rehabilitation and Correction Policy 01-COM-11. It says that “Ohio intravenous 
executions must use 1) Pentobarbital; or 2) Thiopental sodium; or 3) A 3-drug 
combination of: a. Midazolam Hydrochloride; and b. One of the following three 
drugs: i. Vecuronium bromide; or ii. Pancuronium bromide; or iii. Rocuronium 
bromide; and c. Potassium Chloride.”

Under pressure from anti-death penalty activists, manufacturers stopped 
supplying Pentobarbital and Thiopental, which led prison officials to start 
using the three-drug cocktail starting with Midazolam. Merz said medical 
testimony convinced him that the drug doesn’t block pain and thus the procedure 
was cruel. That’s what prompted DeWine to delay Henness’ execution.

State officials now face similar problems with every other execution drug, said 
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a 
Washington, D.C., group that studies the death penalty but takes no position on 
its general propriety.

Ironically, Nevada planned to execute a man last summer using fentanyl but had 
to postpone the procedure when the maker of another drug in the cocktail — 
Midazolam — sued, forcing a postponement. The company, Alvogen, said it “does 
not condone the use of any of its drug products, including Midazolam, for use 
in state-sponsored executions,” NPR reported.

The condemned man, Scott Dozier, later killed himself, but Alvogen prevailed in 
a lawsuit arguing that Nevada got its drugs through subterfuge, Dunham said.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s Midazolam or fentanyl. The use of controlled 
substances for an execution is not an approved medical use and states are on 
notice,” Dunham said.

Manufacturers might see the method that Ohio uses to get its drugs as 
subterfuge.

In a 2014 court hearing, Mary Denise Dean, a pharmacist for the Ohio Department 
of Mental Health and Addiction Services, testified that she ordered the drugs. 
She said she had them delivered to the agency’s Columbus headquarters and then 
drove them to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, where 
the state’s death house is located.

Agency spokesman Eric Wandersleben wouldn’t answer last week when asked whether 
manufacturers knew that some drugs ordered by the Department of Mental Health 
and Addiction Services are intended for use in executions.

Doing so is a risky business for the agency, Dunham said.

“One of the things Gov. DeWine may have to deal with is if an agency buys drugs 
for a legitimate medical use, but diverts them for executions, the 
manufacturers might direct suppliers not to provide drugs at all,” he said.

Those aren’t the only complications. If state officials can find a supply of 
fentanyl, it’s a matter of legal dispute whether they can unilaterally change 
the drug protocol the way they have in the past.

A lawsuit on behalf of Death Row inmate James D. O’Neal in Franklin County 
Common Pleas Court argues the current execution protocol is invalid because it 
was put into effect without following state law governing the adoption of such 
agency rules. Ohio Revised Code 111.15 requires that administrative rules be 
reviewed by a legislative panel before adoption unless there is an emergency, 
in which case they can be adopted only temporarily.

O’Neal’s attorney, Assistant State Public Defender Randall Porter, declined to 
comment on the desirability of fentanyl as an execution drug.

“Our goal is to have (the execution protocol) declared invalid and see where it 
goes from there,” he said.

Such procedural and supply problems — along with changing public attitudes and 
expanded opportunities for the condemned to show their innocence — have led to 
an 85 % decrease in the number of executions since the mid-1990s, Dunham said.

(source: Columbus Dispatch)








USA:

Death Penalty Drama ‘Clemency’ Wins Sundance Grand Jury Prize----"One Child 
Nation" wins documentary prize; audience awards go to "Brittany Runs a 
Marathon," "Knock Down the House," "Queen of Hearts" and "Sea of Shadows"

Chinonye Chukwu’s “Clemency,” a drama starring Alfre Woodard as a prison warden 
agonizing over capital punishment, has won the Grand Jury Prize for dramatic 
films at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, which handed out its awards at a 
ceremony in Park City on Saturday evening.

Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang’s “One Child Nation” won the Grand Jury Prize for 
documentaries.

(source: thetelegraph.com)

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

Lawyer wants murder trial before gun trial



The attorney for a Streator-connected Chicago man, charged with 10 gang 
murders, is trying to save time for the court, while helping his client.

Romeo Blackman, 23, was charged in October in Chicago federal district court 
with heading a street gang in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood, which murdered 
10 people between January 2014 and July 2016. One of the murder victims was a 
Streator man.

Blackman was also charged in 2017 in federal court with stealing guns from a 
South Streator gun shop in June 2016.

Blackman's public defender, Christopher Grohman, filed a request this week that 
asked the judge to order the gang murder charges be either prosecuted before 
the stolen gun charges or for both cases to be prosecuted in tandem.

Grohman said it would be a "grave waste" of time, money and effort to pursue 
the gun case first. Grohman pointed out evidence to be used by the government 
in the gun case, will also be used for the murder prosecutions. In this 
connection, Grohman said prosecutors will claim the motive for one of the 
killings, involved the gun shop thefts, and ammunition stolen from the shop was 
used in one of the other slayings.

Further, Grohman contended if Blackman is first found guilty in the murder 
case, which carries either a mandatory life sentence or the death penalty, 
prosecutors will not likely still go after him on the gun charges.

In addition, if Blackman first goes to trial for the guns and is found guilty, 
he would appear uncooperative, because he forced the government to try him. 
This appearance of being uncooperative, would hurt him if it later came time 
for sentencing for the murders.

(source: mywebtimes.com)