[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., PENN., N.C., GA., FLA.

[Rick Halperin]

February 19



TEXAS----impending execution

Local man convicted of killing 3 scheduled to die



Billy Wayne Coble, 70, who was convicted of the 1989 slayings of his 
brother-in-law Bobby Vicha, a Waco police sergeant, and Vicha’s parents in 
Axtell, is set to die on Feb. 28, having exhausted all of his avenues to 
appeal.

Coble, 70, learned last week the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had rejected 
his latest request for a stay of execution, citing it as a, abuse of the 
appeals writ process, which cleared the way for imposition of his sentence.

The execution would be the 2nd of the year in Texas.

Coble was convicted of the killings of Bobby Vicha and his father and mother 
Robert and Zelda Vicha, then of tying up 4 children who were at the scene, 
restraining and kidnapping his estranged wife Karen Vicha Coble, whom he’d 
threatened to rape and kill.

He led authorities on a high speed chase into Bosque County but was caught and 
arrested after he wrecked his car.

He has been granted several stays of execution over the years after filing a 
number of appeals on several different grounds.

Coble has a federal appeal pending but it, too, likely will not be successful.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Coble’s latest appeal in that court last 
October, soon after which 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson set the 
execution date.

Coble has a list of appeals.

The only successful one was filed in 2007 with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of 
Appeals.

It resulted in the dismissal of the death sentence and an order for re-trial on 
punishment after the court’s opinion stated Coble’s jury faced 2 questions that 
were unconstitutional.

The punishment re-trial ended with the same result, a death sentence.

Truman Simons, a former police officer, sheriff’s deputy and now a private 
investigator, worked on the Coble case back in 1989.

“He killed his (father-in-law) first and wrapped him up in a rug,” Simons said.

“Then he tied up the 2 kids and shot Bobby Vicha.

“Then he ...waited in the garage where he killed Zelda (Vicha) and kidnapped 
(his estranged wife) Karen,” Simons said.

Former McLennan County Assistant District Attorney J.R. Vicha, one of the 
children Coble tied up that day, was only 11-years-old at the time his family 
was murdered.

The boy, along with 2 of his cousins, were tied up inside the home while the 
killings took place.

During the 2008 punishment re-trial trial, prosecuted by retired Assistant 
District Attorney Crawford Long, Long told the jury that Coble “has a heart 
filled with scorpions.”

(source: KWTX news)








NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Urge NH lawmakers to repeal death penalty



Have you heard the name Huwe Burton? He was convicted of murdering his mother 
in 1991. He was exonerated a few weeks ago. He had been proven innocent. 
Fortunately, he had not been put to death. We have a way to prevent future Huwe 
Burton’s from being executed: repeal the death penalty.

Our Constitution demands proof beyond a reasonable doubt for a criminal 
conviction, sometimes described as “proof to a moral certainty.” But hundreds 
of convicts found guilty to a moral certainty have been exonerated through the 
work of Innocence Projects around the country.

What about confessions? Aren’t they morally certain enough for you? Well, no. 
Police are experts at extracting them, whether they’re true or not. People who 
are easily influenced, who aren’t too bright, who feel guilt about something 
are easy game. Huwe Burton confessed. He was 16 at the time. One out of every 
four Innocence Project exonerations involved a confession that was eventually 
proven false.

Fingerprints? The 2009 National Academy of Sciences report showed that they’re 
only slightly more accurate than chance.

Ah, but DNA: the Gold Standard!

DNA is an important tool. But it is no better than the people who analyze it.

DNA can be transported from one place to another. A handshake can lead to your 
DNA being found at a crime scene 500 miles away. The results can be hard to 
read and hard to interpret. A claim of a 1 in 4 trillion chance of error is 
ridiculous if, say, there’s a 1 in 30 chance that the DNA analyst got it wrong. 
And there was a DNA analyst in Texas some years ago who never analyzed DNA. She 
just declared that everything was a match, leading to dozens of false 
convictions. Who else might be cheating?

The strongest argument against the death penalty, to my mind, isn’t whether we 
have a moral right to take the life of a criminal, or whether the Code of 
Hammurabi (you know: “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”) is 
appropriate for use in 21st Century America. It’s humility.

“Moral certainty” is a mirage. Our talent for discerning truth isn’t good 
enough to allow us to say “we know he’s a murderer. Kill him.”

Some people dismiss the execution of innocents as collateral damage, an 
unfortunate but necessary by-product of eliminating murderers from our midst.

Who’s the murderer then?

Our State legislature will consider a repealing the death penalty this week. 
Please tell your legislators: it’s time to drop the pretense of certainty. It’s 
time for repeal.

David Hirsch

Portsmouth

(source: Letter to the Editor, seacoastonline.com)

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

Let officials know you oppose executions, by Joe Schapiro



Once again the New Hampshire Legislature will be taking up a bill to abolish 
the death penalty.

On Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 10 a.m., the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety 
Committee will hold a public hearing on House Bill 455 for people on both sides 
of the issue to testify.

There are many reasons to oppose the use of state sanctioned executions and 
many of them have been elaborated on in letters to the editor in this paper 
over the years. They include, but are not limited to financial considerations, 
racial and socioeconomic disparities, wrongful/mistaken convictions, the lack 
of evidence of deterrence, and the traumatic effects on those involved in 
executions.

For me, however, there is one over-arching reason to abolish the death penalty. 
There is no moral, religious or legal justification for taking the life of a 
person who is currently harmless by virtue of his or her incarceration. This is 
a lesson ingrained in our parenting, schools and religious institutions. Do not 
hurt others who are not an immediate threat to you. Capital punishment is not 
needed to protect others because a person guilty of such a heinous crime would 
otherwise be in prison for the rest of their life without parole.

It is time for New Hampshire to abolish the death penalty and join all of the 
other New England states and the great majority of western democracies 
throughout the world. Last year the House and Senate voted for repeal of the 
death penalty only to have it vetoed by Gov. Sununu, who cited his 
responsibility to law enforcement and family members of violent crime. 
Meanwhile, the governor refused to meet with law enforcement personnel and 
family members of murder victims opposed to the death penalty.

Please call your representatives, senator and governor and tell them that New 
Hampshire can live without the death penalty. Better yet come to the Statehouse 
Tuesday and tell them directly. It’s democracy in action.

JOE SCHAPIR

288 Church St.

Keene

(source: Opinion; This writer, a Democrat, represents Cheshire District 16 in 
the N.H. House----Keene Sentinel)

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

Death penalty repeal from a medical and psychiatric perspective



Once again, New Hampshire is considering repeal of the death penalty. I have 
been involved with the effort to repeal the death penalty in New Hampshire for 
the last nine years as the physician member of the Board of the New Hampshire 
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NHCADP). In representing medicine in 
this effort for repeal I have written and lectured on this issue on numerous 
occasions.

The repeal bill HB 455 in the legislature this year replaces capital punishment 
with imprisonment without the possibility of parole. There are many arguments 
for repeal from both sides of the aisle. Repeal is not a partisan issue; it 
cuts across so many different perspectives: religious, moral, pragmatic, legal, 
financial, racial, economic, medical and psychiatric/psychological. I will 
offer arguments for repeal here primarily from a medical and 
psychiatric/psychological perspective.

Organized medicine (the American Medical Association) has opposed physicians 
participating in the process of administering the death penalty since July 
1980. The reason for this prohibition of physicians participating in process of 
killing a prisoner is that it is a violation of Section 1 of the AMA’s 
Principles of Medical Ethics which states that “a physician shall be dedicated 
to providing competent medical care, with compassion and respect for human 
rights.” It is unfortunate that other less qualified medical personnel have 
been employed in the procedures of administering lethal injections, often 
inadequately and always inhumanely, in violation of these important ethical 
principles.

Governor Sununu has offered two reasons for his opposition to repeal of the 
death penalty. He expressed his interest in supporting crime victims and 
supporting the death penalty for the most heinous crimes. I think we can all 
agree that there is no more heinous crime than murder, yet we had more than 
14,000 murders in the United States last year. Would we as a society want to 
murder 14,000 more if we found their murderers and were able to prosecute them 
successfully? What about the mistakes, as there have been well over 160 
exonerations already? Or are some murders more heinous than others? With all 
due respect, and I mean this sincerely, is a school teacher’s death by murder, 
or a brother’s or sister’s death by murder, or a child’s death by murder, less 
heinous than a policeman’s death by murder?

As a psychiatrist I have been concerned about violence throughout my career. 
There is certainly too much violence in our world and in our country. As a 
society we need to focus on reducing violence, not condoning it. Violence of 
course comes in many forms, from bullying in our schools to sexual, physical 
and emotional abuse in our homes and workplaces, and of course murder in our 
homes and streets. We certainly don’t punish bullies by bullying them, nor 
should we punish abusers by abusing them, nor should we punish murderers by 
murdering them. Elective murder by the state is not the best we can do as a 
civilized society. We can do better, and we should. It is not a good example to 
murder to show that murder is wrong.

Let me discuss healing, as healing from wounds is what we as physicians try our 
best to do in our practice of medicine. Psychiatrists focus of course on 
emotional wounds, which we know can be just as traumatic and long lasting as 
physical wounds, if not more so, likely more so. Emotional wounds can actually 
last a lifetime, if not even longer, as we have seen from stories of children 
of holocaust survivors. Murder of a loved one is such a trauma, such a deep 
emotional wound, that healing is at best a long and tortuous road, requiring as 
much support and love a family and community can provide. Do we honestly think 
that putting a convicted murderer to death by taking 10 to 20 or more years of 
trials and appeals helps the process of healing for victims (family members, 
colleagues and friends) of the crime of murder? Many years of publicity and 
personal appearances by family and others just perpetuates the pain and 
re-opens the wounds of such a violent death of a loved one. Administering the 
death penalty thus interferes with healing, with the emotional attempts at 
“closure” for the victims of murder, rather than “strengthening the laws for 
crime victims.”

In thinking about wounds related to the death penalty there is another 
important factor to consider, namely the emotional wounds inflicted on those 
individuals who are involved in the procedures and administration of the death 
penalty. As a member of the Board of the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the 
Death Penalty I have heard and read about the effects on those individuals who 
participate in the process of administering the death penalty, the actual 
process of killing of those on death rows around the country. Judges, wardens, 
prison workers, prosecutors and defense attorneys have all experienced 
depression, anxiety and PTSD as a result of participating in the death penalty 
process. Since we all know that killing is really only reasonable if we have no 
other choice to defend ourselves or others, do we want to continue to subject 
so many individuals and state workers to this “heinous” process of killing when 
life without parole is available as an alternative?

I have discussed above only some of the many sound and compelling reasons why 
the death penalty is unreasonable for our state and society to maintain. I am 
reminded often of the final lines of John Donne’s 17th century poem “No Man is 
an Island” as a potent argument for ending the death penalty:

“Any man’s death diminishes me,

because I’m involved in mankind,

and therefore never send to know

for whom the bell tolls;

it tolls for thee.”

Once again I implore the NH House and Senate and then Governor Sununu consider 
an end to the death penalty in New Hampshire. The state of New Hampshire should 
appropriately join all the other New England states and end the random, 
arbitrary and racial/economic inequity of the death penalty and allow healing 
from the wounds of killing to take place. Hopefully New Hampshire will approve 
HB 455 and allow New Hampshire to no longer “kill (convicted murderers) to show 
that killing is wrong.”

Dr. Leonard Korn of Portsmouth is the Immediate Past President of the New 
Hampshire Medical Society.

(source: Opinion, Letter to the Editor; fosters.com)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Jury selection to begin anew in death penalty case



More than 6 years after Matthew Mathias, 37, a resident of Washington’s West 
End neighborhood, died of gunshot wounds, a lengthy jury-selection process is 
scheduled to begin this morning in the case of Brandon Wolowski, against whom 
prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Jurors who are opposed to capital punishment are prohibited from serving on 
such a case, so the court administrator casts a broad net to find those who 
would be able to impose the penalty if they decide the facts warrant it.

Opening statements and testimony are now pegged to begin March 11.

Judge John DiSalle previously set aside several days in September and October 
for the defense and assistant district attorney to interview and choose a dozen 
jurors, plus alternates, to sit in judgment on the case.

Testimony did not begin as anticipated last fall because Wolowski’s emergency 
petition for reconsideration by the state Supreme Court was still pending.

When the state’s highest court ruled Dec. 5, it denied Wolowski’s request for a 
new judge to be assigned to preside over his case.

In Pennsylvania, a unanimous jury verdict is the only way a death sentence can 
be imposed.

Wolowski was 18 at the time of the killing, Jan. 8, 2013. In addition to 
Mathias’ slaying, Wolowski is charged with the attempted homicide of the man’s 
girlfriend, Michelle Powell, who identified the shooter as a man named 
“Brandon” and gave police a general description.

Police have said attempted robbery of guns kept in a safe led to the killings. 
Mathias’ obituary said he was an avid gun collector who had worked as a 
mechanic. Wolowski also is charged with attempted robbery and aggravated 
assault.

His court-appointed attorney, Noah Geary, argued unsuccessfully last year 
before DiSalle that because of Wolowski’s age, and claims of suffering from 
fetal alcohol syndrome and a learning disability, the defendant should have had 
a parent or adult present when police questioned him the night Mathias was 
slain.

“The defense has failed to point the trial court toward any case law or other 
authority which supports the theory that the defendant should have been treated 
as a juvenile,” DiSalle wrote as part of a 19-page opinion and order.

City police Lt. Daniel Stanek testified at a hearing last year under 
questioning by Deputy District Attorney Leslie Ridge that he could not detect 
any learning disability in Wolowski during his interrogation.

Geary, in seeking to have all charges against Wolowski dismissed, also 
questioned the legality of Wolowski’s arrest, but DiSalle, as part of the 
document filed Sept. 14, found that police had “the requisite probable cause.”

The last death penalty case heard in Washington County Court was that of Jordan 
A. Clemons, now 29, who was convicted in 2015 of murdering Karissa Kunco, 21, 
of Baldwin Borough, Allegheny County.

Her throat had been slashed and her body was found in January 2012 in a Mt. 
Pleasant Township woods.

An automatic review of Clemons’ conviction and penalty by the state Supreme 
Court recently upheld Clemons’ conviction.

Clemons is being held in the State Correctional Institution at Greene County.

(source: observer-reporter.com)

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

Jury refuses to impose death penalty for American Legion murder



Robert “Rocky” Anderson Jr. showed no emotion Monday as a Cumberland County 
jury decided he shouldn’t be executed for a June 2016 murder inside the 
Haines-Stackfield American Legion post in Carlisle.

Instead, the jurors decided Anderson, 41, should spend the rest of his life in 
prison with no possibility for parole for the slaying of Daniel “DJ” Harris.

The jury deliberated about 90 minutes before opting for a life sentence. The 
same panel deliberated more than 13 hours over three days last week before 
convicting Anderson on Friday of 1st-degree murder for Harris’ killing.

Defense attorney Heidi Eakin said the murder verdict will be appealed.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Kimberly Metzger argued during the 2-week 
trial that Anderson killed Harris amid a violent feud between their families. 
Harris was shot 8 times as he sat in a booth in the legion on West Penn Street.

On Monday morning, Metzger argued that 2 aggravating factors justified a death 
sentence.

First, she said, Anderson committed another felony during the murder by having 
a firearm. A prior conviction barred him from having a gun, she said.

Secondly, Metzger said, Anderson placed others in the legion in the “grave risk 
of death.”

Michael Palermo, another of Anderson’s lawyers, countered that mitigating 
factors, including Anderson’s “horrid childhood,” weighed against a death 
sentence.

Questioned by President Judge Edward E. Guido, the jury foreman said the panel 
found 1 aggravating factor - Anderson’s illegal possession of a gun - was 
outweighed by several mitigating factors Palermo cited.

Those mitigators, the foreman said, were Anderson’s life experience, his 
apparent desire to protect his family, his strong work ethic and mentorship.

Guido is to sentence Anderson to life in prison in March.

(source: pennlive.com)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Group asks NC Supreme Court to find death penalty unconstitutional



A group including former law enforcement officials, judges and prosecutors are 
asking the North Carolina Supreme Court to find the death penalty 
unconstitutional and do away with the practice in the state, according to a 
release from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The brief - which is signed by 12 people including a former Superior Court 
judge, District Attorney and homicide detective - was filed Friday by the 
Promise of Justice Initiative, the ACLU’s Capitol Punishment Project, Henderson 
Hill, and the 8th Amendment Project as council.

According to the ACLU, the group filing the brief argues that the death penalty 
is “used so rarely that it serves no purpose and should be considered ‘cruel or 
unusual’ under the state constitution.”

“The time has come to consider whether the system of capital punishment that 
currently operates in North Carolina violates the evolving standards of 
decency,” the group wrote.

“The brief points to statistics showing North Carolina has largely abandoned 
the death penalty. No one has been executed since 2006, and in the past 7 
years, the state has averaged less than 1 new death sentence per year,” the 
ACLU’s release states. “It also cites studies showing that the death penalty 
does not deter murder, that it is imposed arbitrarily, and that a significant 
number of people sentenced to death are innocent. Lastly, they argue that the 
death penalty is part of a ‘sordid history’ of lynching and racial terror.”

(source: WBTV news)

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

Group takes on death penalty in court brief



A former Superior Court judge is among those asking the North Carolina Supreme 
Court to find the death penalty unconstitutional because its rare use means it 
serves no purpose.

In a friend-of-the-court brief , the group also argues that the death penalty 
is "cruel or unusual" under the state constitution. The Promise of Justice 
Initiative filed the brief Friday.

The American Civil Liberties Union said in a news release that former Superior 
Court Judge Leon Stanback signed the brief, as did former District Attorney Rob 
Corbett and former Wake County Chief Homicide Detective Steve Hale.

The group filed its brief in the case of Rayford Burke, a North Carolina death 
row prisoner who's challenging his sentence under the state's Racial Justice 
Act. Legislators repealed the act in 2013.

(source: Associated Press)








GEORGIA:

Bishops ask Supreme Court to hear case on racism in death sentencing



3 U.S. bishops have called on the Supreme Court to take up the case of a death 
row inmate in Georgia whose sentence may have been prejudiced by the racism of 
a juror.

“There is no toxin more pernicious than hatred based on racial stereotypes,” 
the bishops warned in a Feb. 17 opinion piece in The Atlantic.

They said that despite some progress in overcoming racism, it still exists in 
America today.

“Whenever personal prejudices surface in a trial, society relies on appellate 
courts and especially the Supreme Court to rectify these biases.”

The opinion piece in The Atlantic was written by Archbishop Wilton Gregory of 
Atlanta; Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, Florida, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ 
Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; and Bishop Shelton Fabre 
of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, chairman of the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee 
Against Racism.

The bishops pointed to the case of Keith Tharpe, who was convicted in 1990 of 
two counts of kidnapping and the murder of his sister-in-law, Jacquelyn 
Freeman.

Tharpe was scheduled to be executed in September 2017. The Supreme Court 
intervened with a temporary stay of execution just hours before the inmate was 
set to be put to death. The Supreme Court ordered a federal appeals court in 
Atlanta to re-examine the claim that one juror’s racist views had prejudiced 
the case. In an affidavit after the trial, the juror had used racial slurs and 
said he “wondered if black people even have souls.”

The appeals court barred Tharpe’s appeal on procedural grounds and ruled that 
the Supreme Court’s 2017 opinion allowing courts to consider evidence of 
jurors’ racial prejudice could not be retroactively applied to Tharpe’s case.

Now, Tharpe has asked the Supreme Court to consider the merits of his case - to 
examine whether the inmate was unconstitutionally sentenced to death based on 
the racism of a juror. The Supreme Court has yet to announce whether it will 
take up the case.

Since there is clear evidence that racism may have played a part in Tharpe’s 
sentence, the bishops said, the Supreme Court should take up the case and 
“correct the clear, documented racism in the case by granting him a new 
sentencing hearing.”

Last November, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a pastoral 
letter recognizing the stain of racism on the history of the United States and 
reaffirming the importance of fighting the sin of racism today.

The letter, entitled “Open Wide Our Hearts – The Enduring Call to Love,” 
stressed that racism is a failure to recognize human dignity.

“In our pastoral letter, we explain that racism comes in many forms—and one of 
them is the sin of omission,” the bishops said in the opinion piece for The 
Atlantic.

“This occurs when individuals, communities, and even churches remain silent and 
fail to act against racial injustice when it is encountered. To do justice 
requires an honest acknowledgment of our failures and the restoring of right 
relationships among us. That’s why we are speaking out about Tharpe’s case.”

Archbishop Gregory, Bishop Dewane, and Bishop Fabre offered prayers for Freeman 
– Tharpe’s victim – and her family.

They also noted that the Catechism teaches that the death penalty is as 
inadmissible violation of human dignity, even for those who have committed 
violent crimes.

“As bishops, we take very seriously Jesus’s call to visit those in prison,” 
they said. “We have visited prisoners, including those on death row. In most 
parishes with prisons or jails, a priest or deacon visits every week to offer 
religious services.”

“We have been blessed to witness true rehabilitation and meet prisoners who 
earnestly seek redemption through God’s grace.”

The bishops emphasized their duty as religious leader to insist that racism be 
challenged on the grounds that “we are all brothers and sisters, equally made 
in the image of God.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court must intervene in his case to ensure that fairness is 
protected and justice is defended—before it’s too late,” they said. “To do 
nothing would be tragic not only for Tharpe, but for our collective dignity.”

(source: Catholic News Agency)








FLORIDA:

Jury recommends death in Haines City murders



By unanimous vote, jurors agreed Monday to recommend that convicted murderer 
Michael Anthony Gordon be executed for the brutal home-invasion killings of 2 
Haines City women in 2015.

Gordon, 39, wearing a light blue Oxford shirt, a gray cable-knit sweater vest, 
black slacks and shackles on his ankles, showed no emotion as Circuit Judge 
Jalal Harb read the jury’s decision. But as Harb was thanking the 12 jurors for 
their service, Gordon smiled and waved to a reporter videotaping the 
proceedings.

The jury deliberated about 5 hours Monday to reach its verdict, which is solely 
a recommendation. The final decision on sentencing rests with Harb, who must, 
however, give the recommendation great weight in making his decision.

No sentencing date was set Monday, but Harb scheduled a status hearing for 
April 26.

Last week, the same 12 jurors deliberated about 6 hours before convicting 
Gordon of 1st-degree murder for the stabbing deaths of Patricia Moran, 72, and 
her 51-year-old daughter, Deborah Royal, on Jan. 15, 2015. Jurors also found 
him guilty of robbing the Cash America Pawn Shop in Auburndale with 3 other 
assailants earlier that day, and firing on law enforcement during a pursuit 
that ended in the Chanler Ridge subdivision in Haines City.

The 1st to be caught was Devonere McCune, 26, who was taken into custody 
moments after the assailants’ car crashed near the entrance to the subdivision 
and the four ran from the car.

Gordon would be captured next after murdering the women and crashing Moran’s 
car through the garage door of her home in an attempt to escape, according to 
court testimony. He drove across an open field, amid gunfire from officers, 
before slamming into an embankment along Lake Confusion.

He was shot 4 times, but recovered.

On Monday, in his closing argument to jurors, Assistant State Attorney Paul 
Wallace argued 4 reasons for recommending the death penalty, including Gordon’s 
violent past and the cruelty of the murders.

Prosecutors are limited to 16 statutory reasons for seeking the death penalty, 
while defense lawyers are unlimited in presenting arguments for mandatory life 
imprisonment.

Wallace stepped through previous convictions against Gordon involving violent 
crimes, including a Lakeland shooting that left a man injured and a 2005 prison 
stabbing, in which Gordon was charged with using a blade carved from a 
toothbrush.

Wallace also recounted the vicious nature of the killings, and Gordon’s efforts 
to avoid capture after the pawn shop robbery.

“The only reason he took a life was because he was bound and determined that he 
was going to avoid being arrested for the crimes that he had already committed 
on that particular day,” Wallace told jurors. “Patricia did not pose a threat 
to him other than being able to scream out and alert the officers who were 
coming by then, by the dozens, to flood the whole neighborhood. That is why he 
cut her throat, to prevent her from being able to cry out, and that is why he 
continued to stab her even though she valiantly fought for her life.”

In his closing statement Monday, Clearwater defense lawyer Bjorn Brunvand 
reminded jurors that Gordon has been diagnosed with brain damage, likely dating 
to infancy and exacerbated by his father’s physical abuse, according to defense 
testimony.

He said the damage to Gordon’s brain is concentrated in an area that causes him 
to react violently when angry.

“His brain doesn’t function the way it’s supposed to function,” he told jurors.

The problems, Brunvand said, began surfacing as early as grade school.

“He was constantly getting in trouble, constantly doing things he wasn’t 
supposed to be doing,” he said. “That corroborates that something was going on 
with him at the time that basically caused him not to be able to act in the 
manner and the way that we’re supposed to.”

Upon his release from prison in April 2014 after serving 9 years for an 
aggravated battery conviction, Gordon failed to take his prescription 
medication regularly and began self-medicating with street drugs, including 
synthetic marijuana, Brunvand told jurors Monday.

“Not only do we have brain damage, but we have someone whose brain is clouded 
by this behavior and by the use of these drugs and the actions of the 
psychotropic drugs,” he said. “So you say, well, he can make decisions. He 
should have made better decisions. The problem with that is he can’t make 
better decisions.”

After Harb announced the jury’s decision Monday, Mary Feiock expressed relief 
that the jury recommended death for the killer of her mother and her sister, 
but said the memories of the trial will continue to haunt her.

“I’m glad it’s over, but to have sat there and have heard what he did to them, 
and to know that my sister came out and saw my mother like that, and how much 
pain they were in — it’s going to take a long time to get past that,” she said 
after court.

Gordon is the 2nd of 4 co-defendants to face a jury in the 2015 rampage. In 
October, Terrell Williams was sentenced to life in prison after a jury found 
him guilty of 1st-degree murder, armed robbery and attempted murder of a law 
enforcement officer, among other charges. He and co-defendant Jovan Lamb were 
arrested within hours of Gordon’s capture.

Williams, 33, was convicted under the state’s felony murder law, which holds 
all co-defendants legally responsible when someone is killed during the 
commission of a violent crime, including armed robbery.

Jovan Lamb, 33, is scheduled for trial in September, but no trial date has been 
set for McCune. They are both being held without bail in the Polk County Jail 
pending trial.

(source: theledger.com)