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

[Rick Halperin]

January 24




TEXAS----impending execution

Death Watch: Last-Ditch Efforts to Avert 2019’s 1st Execution----Robert 
Jennings files new motions in 1988 murder case

The state still hopes to execute its 1st inmate of 2019 before January's end. 
Blaine Milam was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Jan. 15, but with 24 
hours left to live, he was granted a stay by the Texas Court of Criminal 
Appeals and his case was remanded back to the trial court. Now Robert Jennings 
is fighting for a similar outcome. Sched­uled to die on January 30 – his second 
execution date – the Houston native filed in November a stay request and appeal 
with the U.S. Supreme Court, and a separate motion for relief in federal court 
on Tuesday, Jan. 22.

Jennings, now 61, was convicted of capital murder for killing Houston Police 
Officer Elston Howard in 1988 while attempting to rob an adult bookstore. 
SCOTUS last denied Jennings relief in January 2016, but eight months later he 
narrowly escaped the needle when the CCA first stayed his execution to further 
review claims that the state destroyed a police interview from shortly after 
his arrest, in which Jennings expressed remorse for shooting Howard. The 
interview, Jennings argued, should have been used as mitigating evidence that 
could have swayed the sentencing jury.

Jennings' most recent motion argues ineffective trial counsel – specifically 
that his previous claims "received no review on the merits in any court," which 
"seriously affects the integrity of the prior proceedings in this case." The 
filing references the Supreme Court's 1976 decision to reinstate the death 
penalty, which calls for execution only if a jury was "empowered to give a 
reasoned moral response to evidence of that person's life and character," an 
opportunity Jennings argues he was denied. He also argues that the Supreme 
Court's ruling in Penry v. Lynaugh, which was decided during his trial, found 
that Texas' statute on capital sentencing often "failed to comply" with the 
Eighth Amendment because it didn't allow jurors to "impose a sentence directly 
related to the personal culpability of the defendant." Though the Penry 
decision made headlines in Houston when Jennings was being tried, his appeal 
argues, his trial attorneys didn't take notice and the jury received inaccurate 
instructions.

In September, shortly after Jennings' latest death date was set, his longtime 
appellate attorney Randy Schaffer filed a motion to appoint "conflict-free" 
counsel for his client in federal court. Jennings' Jan. 22 appeal argues that 
Schaffer failed to raise all available "extra-record" claims, and that 
Jennings' new legal team (led by Edward Mallett) had less than 90 days to 
review the case and take action before his looming execution. The 60-page 
filing concludes that Jennings' case is "extraordinary" and deserves to be 
reopened; according to the Houston Chronicle, Jennings has also asked the Texas 
Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant him a commutation. Should Jennings be the 
first inmate to die in the new year, he'll be the 559th person killed by the 
state since the death penalty's return in 1976.

(source: Austin Chronicle)

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

Texas: Revealing execution drug supplier would endanger death penalty



Urging the Texas Supreme Court to allow prison officials to continue hiding the 
identity of an execution-drug supplier, a lawyer for Texas argued Wednesday 
that unmasking the pharmacy could endanger the company’s employees and the 
state’s ability to put prisoners to death.

The pharmacy, in an urban area and open to the public, is a “soft target” for 
any frustrated death penalty opponent who believes violence could deter 
companies from selling execution drugs to the state, Ari Cuenin, an assistant 
solicitor general for Texas, told the court during oral arguments in Austin.

Defense lawyers representing death row inmates already were given all pertinent 
information about the pentobarbital doses sold to Texas for use in executions, 
including testing on potency and purity, when the legal challenge began in 
2014, Cuenin said.

“The only piece of information that is left in this case is the one piece of 
information that law enforcement needs to provide any measure of safety to the 
pharmacy that is involved in this case,” he said. “Its only defense is 
anonymity.”

In Supreme Court briefs, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office has characterized 
the legal fight as a “collateral attack on the death penalty” by those who want 
to disrupt the state’s ability to administer the death penalty.

But Phil Durst, a lawyer for the 3 defense attorneys who sought the information 
while representing death row inmates in 2014, said in legal briefs that the 
state’s “sky is falling” worries were exaggerated because there has never been 
any violence, or threat of violence, directed at a lethal-drug supplier that 
was known to the public in Texas or any other state.

Speaking to the court Wednesday, Durst said the state’s open records laws 
already allow government-held information to be kept secret if its release 
would produce a substantial threat of physical harm.

Mere worries about possible violence, like those raised by prison officials, 
are not enough, he said.

“They can’t have a vague assertion of risk, and ... it can’t be just a possible 
threat of physical harm. It can’t be a risk of public protest, criticism or 
lost business,” Durst told the court. “It can’t even be a substantial threat of 
property damage, although there is no evidence of property damage anywhere, in 
any state on earth, involving this.”

What prison officials want is a court ruling that allows them to withhold 
public information based on worries of possible harm, and that would go too 
far, he argued.

Durst said 3 other points were important to consider:

• Prison officials were directed to identify the drug supplier used in 2014, 
and that pharmacy is apparently no longer supplying the state, so revealing its 
name cannot be a safety threat.

• If recent media reports naming a Houston pharmacy as the state’s supplier 
were accurate, “there cannot be a substantial threat of physical harm because 
the name is already out there,” he said.

• The identity of execution drug suppliers is required to be kept secret under 
a law passed by the Legislature in 2015, so the case is about a small “slice of 
time” that does not affect current or future suppliers, Durst said.

When Supreme Court Justice Paul Green asked the state’s lawyer if the 2014 
pharmacy was still supplying execution drugs to the state, Cuenin said he 
didn’t know.

What is important, Cuenin added, is that the court establishes a standard that 
lets law enforcement articulate how releasing certain information to the public 
can lead to violence or other harm.

“Here it is equally intuitive and straightforward that someone might want to do 
harm to individuals who provide the thing the state needs to carry out the 
death penalty,” he said.

Chief Justice Nathan Hecht pushed back, noting that there is no record of 
“actual, threatened violence” against execution drug suppliers.

“The way law enforcement has to look at risk in this case has to account for 
the fact that every past supplier identified has stopped producing lethal 
injection drugs,” Cuenin said.

But Justice Jeff Boyd jumped in, saying open records law allows governments to 
withhold information that could lead to physical harm, not protect companies 
from bad publicity, boycotts or threats of economic harm.

Law enforcement experts, Cuenin replied, have identified a safety risk in this 
case.

“There are a small handful of other issues that activists have used actual 
violence to carry out attacks to try to end that activity when other means of 
protest have proven unsuccessful. For some activists, the goal is ending the 
activity by any means necessary. In the death penalty context, the goal is to 
end the death penalty, and every supplier that backs out is one step closer,” 
he said.

The court is expected to issue its opinion on the case before the end of June.

(source: Austin American-Statesman)

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

The Tattooed Star of the ‘Progressive Prosecutor’ Movement Braces for His 1st 
Death Penalty Trial----Mark Gonzalez wants a jury to help him decide whether 
Nueces County should keep sending people to death row.



In mid-January 2017, a couple of days after Mark Gonzalez was sworn in as 
Nueces County’s new district attorney, a deputy prosecutor approached him to 
ask how the office should handle the Arturo Garza case. Garza, who has 
reportedly admitted to beating his pregnant girlfriend to death in May 2015, 
had been charged with 2 counts of capital murder under Gonzalez’s 
tough-on-crime predecessor, Republican Mark Skurka — one charge for Susanna 
Eguia, who was 7 months pregnant at the time of her death, and another for the 
fetus. After defeating Skurka in the November 2016 election, it was up to 
Gonzalez whether to seek the death penalty for Garza.

“Part of me was, like, ‘Oh, wait, you guys don’t figure that out?’” Gonzalez 
told me. It was the first time he truly felt the weight of the decision.

2 years later and halfway through his 1st term, Gonzalez says he’s still 
conflicted about the death penalty. In an interview last week, he said he wants 
to know what the people of Nueces County believe before deciding whether his 
office should keep seeking death sentences. It’s a question he thinks a jury 
can help him answer.

Gonzalez will soon get what he calls his 1st “test case,” with jury selection 
scheduled for Garza’s trial Wednesday. Gonzalez, who says he’ll participate in 
the trial, told me he even planned to admit to jurors that he’s not sure 
whether Garza should die before ultimately asking them to decide. “I can’t say 
I’m pro-death,” Gonzalez told me. “I can’t say I’m pro-anything, but I am very 
pro-giving this and entrusting this to the jury to make the decision.”

Texas Defender Service counts 6 cases, including Garza’s, where Gonzalez has 
kept death on the table as a possible punishment during his 1st 2 years in 
office. Death penalty attorneys say Gonzalez’s wait-and-see approach shirks a 
basic responsibility of the office he holds: determining and advocating for a 
punishment he thinks is appropriate. “When a jury walks into that courtroom, 
the expectation is that the prosecution is a set of experienced law enforcement 
officials who have worked on a series of cases and have decided that death is 
appropriate in this particular one,” said Amanda Marzullo, executive director 
of Texas Defender Service, a nonprofit legal group with investigators assisting 
Garza’s defense team. “[Gonzalez] can’t relegate that responsibility to the 
public. That is his job.”

Gonzalez’s tortured stance on the death penalty complicates his image as the 
tattooed star of the “progressive prosecutor” movement. In November, the former 
defense attorney posed shirtless for a Washington Post story heralding a new 
wave of district attorneys who are “freezing the use of the death penalty, 
decriminalizing marijuana possession, diverting low-level offenders to classes 
and treatment instead of jail, seeking less severe sentences, and vowing to 
aggressively prosecute police-involved shootings.”

Except some of the DAs under that “progressive prosecutor” umbrella have kept 
pursuing death sentences. That’s despite a larger national trend away from 
capital punishment and a growing consensus that it’s exorbitantly expensive, 
doesn’t deter crime and, like many tools of the criminal justice system, has 
been disproportionately wielded against people of color.

Still, contributing to that downward trend in capital sentences are prosecutors 
who, while they haven’t sworn off the death penalty entirely, promise to use it 
sparingly. For instance, Harris County DA Kim Ogg, who has pushed marijuana 
decriminalization and bail reform, has said she’ll seek the death penalty in 
only in the most extreme cases. After taking office Ogg established a capital 
review committee of senior prosecutors with death penalty experience to help 
vet cases. Newly elected, reform-minded DAs in Dallas and San Antonio have said 
they’ll be similarly cautious.

Gonzalez said he consults with prosecutors in his office whenever they charge 
capital cases, but described no particular criteria or process for deciding 
when to pursue a death sentence. Texas Defender Service counts six cases, 
including Garza’s, where Gonzalez has kept death on the table as a possible 
punishment during his 1st 2 years in office, a number Gonzalez doesn’t contest. 
“We know when it may be an option that we consider, and we definitely know when 
it’s not,” he said when I tried to clarify.

Garza’s defense team is baffled by how Gonzalez has handled the case. Richard 
Rogers, a Corpus Christi lawyer appointed to represent Garza, said that for 
months his client has been willing to plead to life without parole in order to 
avoid trial and a possible death sentence. “You have a defendant who is willing 
to take life without parole, he has not shown himself to be a violent person in 
prison who has attacked other people, and so I feel the state is almost 
obligated to allow him to do that,” Rogers told me. “Because bottom line: 
Either way the guy is going to die in prison.”

While Garza has admitted to a horrific crime, Marzullo said it’s not the kind 
of case that would normally result in prosecutors seeking death. “You see 
terrible, multiple-victim cases out there in neighboring counties with 
conservative prosecutors who are not seeking death in those cases,” she said. 
“I cannot think of another prosecutor in the state of Texas who would seek 
death in this case.”

Marzullo also bristles at the idea that Gonzalez could decide whether to keep 
pursuing death sentences based on one randomly selected jury’s reaction to one 
tragic case, as if that illustrates the larger voting public’s views on capital 
punishment. Since the death penalty hasn’t been waived in the case, jury 
selection will likely weed out anyone harboring serious doubts about it. “It’s 
death penalty proponents, by and large, who typically end up on that jury,” 
Marzullo said. “His job is to make a determination about the punishment he 
thinks is right. It’s a moral question, it’s a complicated question, but it’s a 
question he clearly is not taking seriously.”

Gonzalez himself questions whether he’s taking the right approach, at one point 
telling me, “Sometimes I ask myself whether this is kind of like the cowardly 
way to do it, or maybe even the chickenshit way of doing it.” He admits to 
having deep reservations about the death penalty, and he hired a first 
assistant prosecutor who won’t touch cases involving capital punishment out of 
moral opposition. During our talk, Gonzalez told me one of his mentors gave him 
the book Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson to read before his swearing-in. In the 
book, the Equal Justice Initiative co-founder chronicles his fight against the 
injustices of the justice system, including his work helping free a wrongfully 
convicted black man who’d been sent to death row. “I don’t want any of those 
things I read about in that book to actually happen in my county,” Gonzalez 
told me.

Gonzalez sounds more like a prosecutor now than when he first took office. 
Toward the end of our interview, he told me that talking with victims and their 
families has been the hardest part of the job. He said he often thinks about 
his young daughters and how he might want the harshest punishment if anyone 
ever harmed them. Despite his comments about putting Garza’s fate in the jury’s 
hands and letting the public decide, he seemed to acknowledge that the decision 
was ultimately his.

“It’s a shitty place to be in, I’ll tell you that much,” he said. “You gotta 
make that decision, and sometimes you wish you didn’t have to. Like I said, 
it’s a shitty place to be.”

(soruce: Texas Observer)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Death penalty to be sought in rape, strangulation murder



Prosecutors say they plan to seek the death penalty against a man accused of 
breaking into a central Pennsylvania home and raping and strangling an elderly 
woman.

48-year-old Kristopher Gartrell is charged with criminal homicide, rape, 
kidnapping and arson, among other charges in the murder of 87-year-old Virginia 
Barbour.

Adams County prosecutors say they will seek capital punishment if he is 
convicted of 1st-degree murder. They said execution is warranted because other 
felonies were committed, the victim would have been a witness on those charges, 
she was tortured and the defendant has a "significant history of felony 
convictions."

Prosecutors allege that he entered the Huntingdon Township home the day before 
Thanksgiving, forced Barbour to give up her valuables, raped and strangled her 
and tried to set the house on fire.

(source: Associated Press)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Judge approves death penalty trial for final defendant in Enfield quadruple 
homicide



Halifax County prosecutors can pursue capital murder cases against all 4 men 
charged with killing 2 couples in an Enfield home in 2017.

Matthew Lewis Simms, 26, of Enfield, Keyon Quarice West, 25, and James Edward 
Powell, 26, both of Roanoke Rapids, and Dontayvious Devonte "Moochie" Cotton, 
25, of Weldon, all face 4 counts of 1st-degree murder.

Janice Harris, James Harris, Peggy Whitley and James Whitley were shot on Aug. 
21, 2017, while sitting at the Harrises' kitchen table playing cards, 
authorities said.

Superior Court Judge Alma Hinton agreed last May that there was enough evidence 
against Simms, Powell and Cotton to declare them capital cases. But a hearing 
in West's case was postponed because he changed attorneys.

West's attorneys said in court Wednesday that the state has "very weak evidence 
of guilt" against him, noting he was implicated in the case by Powell. They 
also argued that the death penalty is unconstitutional in the case because West 
is black, the four victims were white and Halifax County has a history of 
racial discrimination in handing down death sentences.

But Hinton rejected that claim and ruled there was enough evidence against West 
to pursue a possible death sentence against him.

"It's just hard to wrap your mind around the fact that they could give your son 
the death penalty for what somebody else said," Latisha Whitaker, West's 
mother, said after the court hearing.

Whitaker said she doesn't believe her son was involved in the crime, calling 
him the "backbone for our entire family" and a loving father.

"Keyon is a good kid. He's my oldest son. He has a family out here that loves 
him. He's not that type of person. I can't being to understand why this is 
happening," she said. "I've got to try to be strong for everybody, because I 
know I have to be strong for him, and this is a lot."

Authorities said a family member found the four bodies while checking on the 
Harrises at their Fishing Creek Road home in the Glenview community west of 
Enfield. Some items were missing from the home, but there were no apparent 
signs of a struggle, authorities said at the time.

Halifax County Sheriff Wes Tripp has said that the home might have been 
targeted and the killings might have been gang-related. But authorities have 
provided few details of their investigation and what led them to the 4 
suspects.

Jim Harris, 88, was a gunsmith and had a federally licensed firearm business 
that he ran out of his home.

James Whitley, 76, was a farmer and his 67-year-old wife a former hairstylist. 
Janice Harris, 72, was an administrative assistant for a local builder.

"We just want justice for the family and for the people in North Carolina, [so] 
you can shut your doors at night and be safe in your homes," said Robert Dees, 
the Harrises' son.

"It's one thing to know your parents are sick and you can say good-bye. But 
[it's hard when] you never get the chance to say good-bye or make more 
memories, and our family was very close," said the Harrises' daughter, Debbie, 
who didn't want to provide her last name.

"They were a loving family, and for somebody to do something like this is 
beyond belief – beyond belief," Debbie's husband, Donald, said, adding that she 
still breaks down when the shootings are discussed.

The case is back in court in March. It remains to be seen whether the four 
defendants will be tried together or separately and whether any of them will 
testify against the others.

(source: WRAL news)








FLORIDA:

Man flies from Hawaii to forgive killer



This is the story of a desire for closure and personal peace so strong that 
finally finding it — through the unconditional forgiveness and love Jesus 
preaches through the Bible — drove a man to fly from his home in Hawaii, twice, 
to LaBelle to read a poem for his mother’s convicted killers.

Bubba Wayne O’Connor, co-defendant in the murder of 72-year-old Cherry Ermine 
(aka Cherry Chasen), had his turn to face a judge at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 22, 
at the Hendry County Courthouse.

Before the sentencing, two of Ms. Ermine’s sons read impact statements to the 
packed courtroom. Richard Chasen spoke directly to the defendant, granting him 
forgiveness and asking him to find a way to “make things right” while he is in 
prison.

Steven A. “Zander” Chasen opened with a prayer and then recited a poem he wrote 
called “In The Crosshairs of Time.” He turned to face the defendant and said, 
“I have forgiven you.” The courtroom was immediately filled with teary eyes and 
quiet sobbing. O’Connor received 2 concurrent life sentences without parole, 
plus 30 years. Restitution was also imposed.

O’Connor followed the woman who was sentenced to life in prison in February 
2018 in atoning for their 2016 killing and assault that nearly left Ms. 
Ermine’s friend dead as well. Instead, that man survived and became the state’s 
star witness in the cases.

But first, O’Connor had to face Ms. Ermine’s youngest son in the LaBelle 
courtroom and listen to his plea that O’Connor turn his life around and toward 
the promise of God’s Word.

Zander Chasen of Wailuku (Maui), Hawaii, previously had written to this 
newspaper to inform people that he and Ms. Ermine’s oldest son, Richard, would 
be present to give impact statements in court for O’Connor’s sentencing 
hearing. Mr. Chasen said his poem titled “In the Crosshairs of Time” was his 
expression of forgiveness.

Both defendants threw themselves on the mercy of the court, and after Mr. 
Chasen flew from Hawaii the first time, to read his poem to Wendy Michelle 
Soucier, she received a life term last year. Zander wrote the poem after 
choosing to forgive the defendants, asking that the death penalty not be 
considered even though the state attorney had pursued it. The text:

‘In The Crosshairs of Time’

My mother loved her 5 children very much.

Capturing memories on film was her typical crutch.

She spent her life in religion and didn’t know true love,

So her identity became motherhood and not Christ from above.

Her life then changed through a simple prayer,

A relationship with Jesus, the ultimate form of care.

My mother’s now in heaven, a place of perfect peace,

She is no longer lonely, she is no longer deceased.

Forgiveness is now offered to those who took her life.

Repent, Wendy and Bubba, so God can remove your strife.

In the crosshairs of time you can transform;

You can then minister in prison; you can be reborn.

Let go of your past and simply receive.

Jesus loves past your sin, even though he still grieves.

Both of you hurt many people, and now it is done.

The waves of mercy now reflect from Jesus the Son.

On Oct. 11, 2016, a Hendry County grand jury had indicted the 2 suspects from 
Lehigh, O’Connor, then 42, and Soucier, then 49, in the killing that took place 
on Aug. 6, 2016, at the residence of Frank Jansson in Hendry County. On Nov. 30 
of that year, the 20th Circuit State Attorney’s Office filed notices of intent 
to seek the death penalty in the cases against the 2.

O’Connor and Soucier were indicted on charges of 1st-degree murder, attempted 
1st-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon and 1st-degree burglary.

Twentieth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Abe Thornburg was the prosecutor.

According to authorities and Zander Chasen’s accounts posted on a Gofundme.com 
website, the pair traveled to the home of Frank Jansson, 69, which 72-year-old 
Ermine was visiting, spending a peaceful time on the property. The burglars 
were high on crack cocaine when they traveled to Mr. Jansson’s property with 
intent to rob him. When they arrived, they brutally killed Ms. Ermine and left 
her for dead. During the burglary, Mr. Jansson arrived back at his property 
after shopping when the pair attacked him, also leaving him for dead, but Mr. 
Jansson survived the attack.

Mr. Chasen, 46, traveled from Hawaii last week to be in Hendry County for the 
sentencing and still was making plans hours before his departure last Thursday 
with his wife, Julie, to speak in a local church on Sunday about forgiveness 
prior to their reading during the hearing.

They put up a Gofundme page to help cover their travel expenses and income loss 
from their trip of forgiveness: 
gofundme.com/witness-forgiveness-mom-039s-murder.

“My mother attempted to dial 911 when she saw Wendy and Bubba arrive to rob the 
house and was brutally killed with scissors and a kitchen knife (while trying) 
to report a home invasion. My mom’s dog Daisy had major trauma for weeks and 
was found at a dog shelter shortly after the incident. I traveled to Florida to 
represent the family and get my mom’s ashes and finish up what had to be done.

“Frank was stabbed several times and hit with a concrete block on the head and 
was left for dead. Miraculously, Frank lived to tell the tale and is, in fact, 
a star witness in this case. The State of Florida sought the death penalty and 
eventually settled for life in prison with no chance of appeal or parole for 
both defendants. Bubba’s girlfriend, who drove the van around for the 
robberies, was charged with 10 years for accessory to murder.

“My heart is to see both Wendy and Bubba receive both forgiveness and 
salvation, which makes no sense to anyone except Jesus Christ who transforms 
lives from the inside out. I now have peace that my mother is in heaven since 
she gave her heart to Jesus in the final years of her life,” Mr. Chasen wrote.

(source: caloosabelle.com)








OHIO:

Federal magistrate OKs Ohio execution despite fears of ‘severe pain and 
needless suffering’



A federal magistrate has ruled that Ohio’s lethal-injection cocktail is likely 
an unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment akin to waterboarding, but 
he is allowing an execution next month to proceed because the condemned didn’t 
present a viable alternative way to die.

Magistrate Michael Merz ruled last week that Ohio can move ahead with the 
execution of Columbus murderer Warren Keith Henness on Feb. 13 using a 
combination of 3 drugs: midazolam (as a sedative), a paralytic drug, and 
potassium chloride to stop his heart.

In his decision Jan. 15, Merz singled out problems with using midazolam in 
executions, noting that he ruled in 2017 that the 3-drug cocktail was 
unconstitutional (his decision was later overturned on appeal).

“If Ohio executes Warren Henness under its present protocol, it will almost 
certainly subject him to severe pain and needless suffering,” Merz wrote.

“Reading the plain language of the Eighth Amendment, that should be enough to 
constitute cruel and unusual punishment.”

He cited testimony from medical witnesses that high doses of midazolam and 
other drugs cause pulmonary edema, which he described as “painful, both 
physically and emotionally, inducing a sense of drowning and the attendant 
panic and terror, much as would occur with the torture tactic known as 
waterboarding.”

However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that Death Row inmates 
challenging how they will be put to death must show that an alternative means 
of execution is “available,” “feasible,” and can be “readily implemented.”

Henness proposed 2 alternatives: drinking secobarbital in a sweet liquid such 
as apple juice, or an oral injection of 4 drugs – midazolam, digoxin, morphine 
sulfate, and propranolol.

Merz rejected both ideas, noting that neither method has ever been used to 
carry out an execution. He also cited testimony that it could take more than an 
hour for Henness to die using either of the options he suggested and that 
Henness failed to show that there is a readily available source of the drugs.

Merz concluded that he was not “comfortable” with his ruling but had to abide 
by the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Henness was convicted of murdering his drug-abuse counselor, Richard Myers, in 
1992. Prosecutors said Henness kidnapped Myers, shot him 5 times at an 
abandoned water-treatment plant, severed Myers’ finger to get his wedding ring, 
then drove around in Myers’ car for several days forging his checks and using 
his credit cards to get cash and buy crack cocaine.

Henness has maintained his innocence.

Ohio, like many other states with the death penalty, has struggled to obtain 
lethal-injection drugs since European pharmaceutical companies cut off further 
sales on moral and legal grounds.

After the controversial execution of killer Dennis McGuire in January 2014, 
Ohio imposed a 3-year moratorium on executions as it worked to find a new 
lethal-injection protocol – and suppliers willing to sell them the drugs.

Since the moratorium was lifted in 2017, Ohio has executed 3 people using the 
current 3-drug cocktail – all without complications or unexpected problems.

(source: cleveland.com)

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

Ohio Supreme Court won’t reopen Clayton man’s death sentence appeal



The Ohio Supreme Court has decided not to reopen the appeal of a Clayton man’s 
death sentence.

Lawyers representing Austin Myers, 24, can still seek post-conviction and 
habeas appeals.

Wednesday morning, the state high court’s decision was announced in the case of 
Myers, sentenced to death in Warren County for murdering Justin Back, 18, of 
Warren County.

Myers was convicted in 2014 of murdering Back, a childhood friend. Back was 
about to join the U.S. Navy.

Myers became the youngest person on Ohio’s death row at the time.

(source: ohio.com)