[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.Y., N.C., GA., ALA., ARK.

[Rick Halperin]

June 19




TEXAS:

How many doses of lethal injection drugs does Texas have?



With execution drugs in short supply across the nation and increasing secrecy 
about the companies that provide them, The Texas Tribune is keeping track of 
movement in the state’s supply.

06 doses expire June 5, 2019

06 doses expire June 27, 2019

15 doses expire Jan. 12, 2020

Scheduled executions

Jul 31 Ruben Gutierrez

Aug 15 Dexter Johnson

Aug 21 Larry Swearingen

Sep 4 Billy Crutsinger

Sep 10 Mark Anthony Soliz

Oct 2 Stephen Barbee

Recent inventory changes

-1 dose May 1, 2019 Drugs removed from stock

+15 doses April 29, 2019 Drugs added to inventory

-1 dose April 24, 2019 Execution of John William King

Since 1977, lethal injection has been the method for executing Texas criminals 
sentenced to death. But the drugs used in executions have changed over the 
years, as the state has struggled to get a hold of enough life-ending doses.

Texas, along with other states that hold executions, has been engaged in a 
battle for years to keep an adequate inventory of execution drugs. Currently, 
the state uses only pentobarbital, a sedative it has purchased from compounding 
pharmacies kept secret from the public.

To promote transparency, The Texas Tribune has obtained the inventory history 
and current supply of execution drugs held by the Texas Department of Criminal 
Justice. The information, collected through continuous open records requests, 
is updated regularly with the available doses and recent changes to the state’s 
inventory.

In 2011, drug manufacturers began blocking their products from being used in 
lethal injections. As Texas’ struggled to perform executions, it turned to 
compounding pharmacies, state-regulated agencies that mix their own drugs 
without federal regulation.

When one pharmacy’s name became public, the owner said he received threats, and 
asked for the drugs to be returned. Texas refused, and the state Legislature 
passed a law in 2015 to maintain the privacy of any person or business involved 
in an execution, from the person who inserts the needle to the company that 
sells the drug.

Since then, Texas has kept enough pentobarbital in stock for scheduled 
executions, faring better than some other states. But the drugs haven’t come 
easy.

In 2016, Pfizer, the last-remaining open-market manufacturer of drugs that were 
used in executions, banned its products from being used for that purpose. 
Afterward, states that had regularly performed executions halted the practice 
as they are unable to obtain any drugs. Others rushed to schedule executions 
ahead of the expiration dates of their limited supply of drugs or switched to 
using a controversial sedative, midazolam, which was involved in botched 
executions in Oklahoma and Arizona.

Texas has been able to keep an adequate supply on hand, but part of that is 
because the state has repeatedly extended the expiration date of doses in stock 
— retesting the potency levels as the expiration date nears and then relabeling 
them. The practice has drawn sharp criticism from death penalty defense 
attorneys, who say the old drugs are causing painful executions.

Even with its relative security, Texas is always looking for new supplies. In 
2015, the state attempted to import from overseas a drug previously used by 
Texas in executions, sodium thiopental. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration 
seized the drugs and later ruled that they couldn’t be brought into the United 
States because they were unapproved and misbranded, but the state is fighting 
that ruling.

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

also: see: https://apps.texastribune.org/death-row/

(source for both: The Texas Tribune)

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

Man convicted in fatal 2013 shooting of West Texas deputy faces death penalty



A Nueces County jury convicted a man in the 2013 fatal shooting of a West Texas 
sheriff's deputy.

The jury found Gary David Green guilty of capital murder Monday in connection 
with the death of Upton County deputy Billy "Bubba" Kennedy, court records 
show.

Green, who is now facing the death penalty, was arrested in October 2013 after 
a shootout at a McCamey convenience store, according to the Associated Press.

The trial was moved from West Texas to South Texas because of a change of 
venue.

McCamey — which is in Upton County and has a population of around 2,000 people 
— is about 50 miles south of Odessa.

After weeks of jury selection, testimony began last week before visiting judge 
Tessa Herr. The jury returned a verdict in less than half an hour, according to 
a court official.

The trial's punishment phase is expected to start Wednesday. In Texas, capital 
murder is punishable by either life in prison without parole or the death 
penalty.

According to a news article from the Odessa American, Green's credit card was 
declined at the convenience store and he demanded free gas.

He was approached by Kennedy and another deputy, who ran a check on the truck's 
license plate, the article states. The truck has been reported stolen. When 
Kennedy went up to the vehicle's driver-side door, he unfastened his gun from 
its holster.

Green opened the door and fired at the deputy, the report states. Both officers 
reportedly returned fire, it states.

Last week, the clerk who worked that night described seeing Green's vehicle 
parked outside store and said he came in and tried to buy some items and gas. 
But his card didn't work and he tried to bribe her into giving him the items, 
she said.

The woman said she thought he was having a rough night and was just an upset 
customer when he mentioned that he didn't want anyone to die.

He took some items she gave him through a store program and left behind a debit 
card with his name - Gary Green.

(source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times)








NEW YORK:

Trump Refuses to Apologize for Central Park Five Death Penalty Ad



President Donald Trump again declined to apologize for promoting false 
accusations against 5 black and Latino teenagers convicted and then later 
exonerated of the 1989 rape of a jogger in New York City.

Trump has long been attached to the case of the “Central Park Five” because he 
ran a full-page ad in the New York Times less than a month after the attack 
calling for New York to “bring back the death penalty” for violent criminals. 
He has never apologized for the ad.

“You have people on both sides of that,” Trump told reporters at the White 
House on Tuesday after he was asked about the case. “They admitted their 
guilt.”

Netflix Inc. recently released a miniseries, “When They See Us,” that has drawn 
fresh attention to the incident. Trump has previously noted that the 5 
teenagers confessed in police interrogations.

A convicted murderer and rapist named Matias Reyes who was serving life in 
prison confessed in 2001 that he raped the jogger. His DNA matched 2 samples 
found on and near the victim, and he claimed to have acted alone. He wasn’t 
charged because the statute of limitations for the crime had expired.

The teenagers’ advocates have long contended that their confessions were 
coerced. A 2002 review of the case by the New York Police Department concluded 
there was no police misconduct. The review suggested Reyes’s claim he acted 
alone wasn’t credible, and that there was physical evidence that at least some 
of the teenagers may have been involved in the jogger’s rape or in other 
assaults in Central Park the same night.

The convictions of the 5 teenagers were vacated and dismissed in December 2002. 
Under Mayor Bill De Blasio, the city agreed to a $40 million settlement with 
the five men in 2014 without admitting wrongdoing. Trump called the settlement 
“outrageous” in 2016.

(source: bloomberg.com)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Testimony continues in Nathaniel Dixon murder trial



The testimony in the Nathaniel Dixon trial continued Monday in Buncombe County.

Dixon’s facing the death penalty after police say he killed a pregnant woman 
and severely injured her young child.

Monday afternoon, jurors heard audio from Dixon’s 1st interview with police.

It was from the day after Columbus Police took Dixon into custody in Ohio.

In that interview, Dixon told investigators where he was the night of and days 
leading up to the death of Candace Pickens.

Detective: "No one’s saying that we think that you like plotted this whole 
grand scheme or anything like that. I think something happened where 
temperaments got in a little bit maybe or something, you know, between you and 
her and like a heat of the moment kind of thing."

Dixon: "We never, we never got into it like that. Never once have we got into 
it that bad."

In that audio interview, Dixon goes on to tell investigators he was excited but 
nervous that Pickens was pregnant.

However, he continued to tell investigators he was not the one who shot 
3-year-old Zachaeus Waters and Pickens.

Asheville Police Department Detective Phil Allen also testified Monday. He told 
jurors what he saw when he got on the scene of Jones Park on May 12, 2016. He 
also testified how his team worked to track down Dixon by pinging his cell 
phone.

(source: WLOS news)








GEORGIA----impending execution

Attorneys representing condemned killer Marion Murdock Wilson Jr. are doing 
everything within their power to spare their client’s life.

Defense attorneys filed a motion Tuesday for a stay of execution in Butts 
County Superior Court in Jackson.

Wilson is scheduled to be executed by the State of Georgia at the Georgia 
Diagnostic and Classification Prison near Jackson at 7 p.m. Thursday.

Wilson was tried and convicted in 1997 of the sawed-off shotgun slaying of 
25-year-old Donavan Corey Parks, who lived in Baldwin County and worked as an 
officer with the Georgia Department of Corrections and part-time at a grocery 
store in Milledgeville. He was off-duty as a corrections office when he was 
shot to death on Felton Drive.

After jurors convicted Wilson of the murder of Parks, the same 12 jurors also 
deliberated on Wilson’s punishment — whether he should be sentenced to death or 
spend the rest of his life in prison. Jurors sentenced him to death.

Wilson’s defense attorneys, Marcia A. Widder, of Atlanta, and Brian S. Kammer, 
of Decatur, filed the motion on behalf of their client.

In support of his latest motion for a stay of execution, Wilson shows the 
following, according to court documents forwarded to The Union-Recorder from 
Katie Byrd, communications director with the Office of Attorney General Chris 
Carr.

An execution warrant was issued by Baldwin County Superior Court Chief Judge 
William A. Prior Jr. on June 5, 2019, which set a time for Wilson’s execution 
between June 20 and June 27, 2019.

“Mr. Wilson has filed with this court (Butts County Superior Court) a petition 
for Writ of Habeas Corpus, challenging the constitutionality of his sentence of 
death,” attorneys said in their motion. “Mr. Wilson has asserted grounds for 
relief, which warrant this court’s careful consideration and intervention. 
Thus, he respectfully requests that this court stay his execution and give him 
the opportunity to prove his constitutional claims for relief.”

In addition to the motion for stay of execution filed in Butts County Superior, 
defense attorneys also have filed a motion for leave to proceed in forma 
pauperis.

The petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus was submitted without prepayment of fees 
or costs in forma pauperis.

Wilson’s affidavit of poverty was attached to the court filing as exhibit A.

There had been no ruling from a judge in Butts County concerning Wilson’s 
latest motions as of Tuesday afternoon.

Defense attorneys, meanwhile, also have filed briefings with the Supreme Court 
of Georgia.

Attorneys contend that the Baldwin County Superior Court’s ruling to deny 
Wilson’s Extraordinary Motion for a New Trial (EMNT) “was in direct 
contravention of the procedures set forth in O.C.G.A. 5-5-41 (DNA statute) and 
wrong as a matter of fact and law.”

They maintain that the Supreme Court of Georgia should grant leave to appeal 
and a stay of execution to permit such appeal the consideration it is due, 
according to court records.

In their argument concerning their client’s EMNT motion, defense attorneys said 
the Georgia Legislature could not have been clearer in requiring the trial 
court to conduct a hearing on an EMNT requesting access to evidence for 
forensic DNA testing.

“The statute provides that the court shall order a hearing to occur if the 
court determines that the EMNT complies with paragraphs 3 and 4 of subsection 
(C) O.C.G.A. 5-5-41 (6) (A),” attorneys wrote in their briefs.

They went on to explain the purpose of such a hearing.

It shall be to allow the parties to be heard on the issue of whether the 
petitioner’s motion (Wilson) complies with the requirements of paragraphs three 
and four of this subsection, whether upon consideration of all of the evidence 
there is reasonable probability the verdict would have been different if the 
results of the requested DNA testing had been available at the time of trial, 
and whether the requirements of paragraph seven of this subsection have been 
established.

The statute thus contemplates that questions concerning the factual basis of 
the pleadings will be addressed at a hearing conducted before the court and 
that disposing of the case on the basis of briefs is not appropriate.

Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Stephen A. Bradley and Beth Burton, 
a deputy attorney general for the State of Georgia, responded that because the 
statute does not contemplate the filing or a reply brief in support of the 
EMNT, the trial court could not have abused its discretion in ruling without 
first providing Wilson the opportunity to file one.

“While it is true that the statute does not contemplate the filing of a reply — 
that is because it mandates that issues regarding the validity of the 
allegations be addressed at a hearing,” the respondents said. “The fundamental 
requirement of due process is the opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time 
and in a meaningful manner.”

Wilson’s EMNT alleges each of the specific pleading requirements of O.C.G.A. 
5-5-41, defense attorneys contend.

“Even though at the pleading stage, Mr. Wilson was not required to prove his 
entitlement to testing — that proof is intended to be presented at the 
mandatory hearing the trial court denied — his allegations sufficiently met the 
statutory pleading requirements, and accordingly mandated a hearing before the 
trial court.”

In a May 30 order, the trial court concluded that Wilson’s EMNT failed to 
satisfy some of the required showings — to wit that DNA results favorable to 
Wilson would raise a reasonable probability that defendant would have been 
acquitted if the results of the DNA testing had been available at the time of 
the conviction, in light of all the evidence in the case. And that such 
evidence would not have created a reasonable probability of a different 
sentencing verdict; that the identity of the perpetrator was or should have 
been a significant issue in the case; and that the EMNT was not filed for the 
purpose of delay.

“The state defends each of these findings, although they are based on critical 
mistakes of fact and law,” defense attorneys contend.

Defense attorneys said Fred Bright, the late district attorney, who was 
assisted in the prosecution of the case by Bradley, who now is the district 
attorney, placed significant importance on the necktie that Parks was wearing 
on the night he was shot to death.

Bright did that in both the culpability and the sentencing phases of trial in 
his argument that Wilson, contrary to his statement, was actively involved in 
the robbery and murder of Parks, and at sentencing pointing out that Wilson was 
in fact the shooter.

“The evidence, moreover, of Mr. Wilson’s guilt and culpability, apart from the 
necktie, was hardly overwhelming,” defense attorneys said. “Although the 
prosecutor had sufficient evidence to establish that Mr. Wilson had knowledge 
of (co-defendant Robert Earl) Butts’ plans to commit a robbery and nonetheless 
got into the victim’s car with him, the prosecutor’s evidence that Mr. Wilson 
was actively engaged in the robbery and murder was underwhelming at best. The 
prosecutor had Mr. Wilson’s statements in which Mr. Wilson admitted to knowing 
that Butts intended to rob someone that evening and had a weapon, though Mr. 
Wilson denied that did anything more than remain seated in the back of the car 
while Butts forced Mr. Parks out of the car and shot and killed him.”

Even though Wilson was tried 1st for the murder, and Butts tried 2nd, it was 
Butts who was 1st executed by the state. His execution was carried out last 
year.

(source: The Union-Recorder)

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

Marion Wilson Files Clemency Plea in Georgia



Arguing that Marion Wilson did not kill anyone and did not intend that a 
killing occur, lawyers for the Georgia death-row prisoner have filed a clemency 
petition urging the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute 
Wilson’s sentence to life without parole. The Board, which declassified 
Wilson’s petition allowing it to be released to the public, is scheduled to 
hold a clemency hearing on Wednesday, June 19, 2019, 1 day before Wilson is 
scheduled to be executed. Wilson’s petition emphasizes three arguments for 
clemency: that Wilson neither killed nor planned to kill the victim, Donovan 
Parks; that the prosecution grossly exaggerated Wilson’s juvenile record and 
gang involvement to make him appear more deserving of the death penalty; and 
that the jury was never presented significant mitigating evidence concerning 
the chronic deprivation, abuse, and neglect Wilson experienced throughout his 
childhood.

Wilson was convicted of the 1996 killing of Donovan Parks. Robert Earl Butts, 
who was executed in 2018, was tried separately for the same murder and 
sentenced to death after prosecutor Fred Bright told the jury that the state’s 
evidence proved that Butts had pulled the trigger. Both Butts and Wilson were 
seen asking Parks for a ride and getting into his car. Soon after, Parks was 
found dead of a shotgun wound. Wilson’s attorneys argue that Bright, who 
prosecuted both men, “certainly believed that Butts was the more culpable 
party” because he offered a plea deal to Wilson but not Butts. Wilson, who was 
only 19 at the time Parks was killed, rejected the plea offer “largely out of 
fear that, as a young, small-statured inmate, he would be endangered in general 
population at a maximum-security prison.” Wilson suspected Butts intended to 
rob someone, but has long maintained that he had no idea Butts planned to hurt 
or kill anyone. Wilson went to trial 1st and was convicted. Although the 
prosecution presented no evidence that Wilson was the shooter, Bright 
nevertheless argued to the jury in the penalty phase that he had been the 
triggerman. At Butts’ trial 1 year later, Bright contradicted that argument, 
presenting evidence that Butts committed the killing. “That the prosecution 
falsely maintained that Marion was the shooter in order to obtain the death 
penalty was, and still remains, highly unethical and contrary to the State’s 
higher duty of probity and truthfulness in any criminal proceeding,” the 
clemency petition states.

The clemency petition also highlights other false statements by the prosecution 
that it says gave the jury a “grossly distorted version of [Wilson]’s teenage 
years and gang involvement.” “Bright’s presentation of Marion’s juvenile record 
during sentencing was rife with hyperbole and outright falsehoods,” the 
petition says. Among the hyperbole, Bright told the jury that Wilson “tried to 
burn down a duplex apartment” when he was 12 years old. In reality, Wilson and 
two other pre-teen friends were playing in an abandoned duplex unit and tried 
to warm themselves by lighting paper and rags on fire. A responding police 
officer said “there was ‘not enough accelerant’ on the smoldering rags and 
papers to do any damage and that the ‘fire never really caught.’” On the 
subject of Wilson’s alleged gang affiliation, his lawyers say the prosecution 
“took several statements of youthful bravado and presented them out of context, 
playing on the county’s prevalent gang paranoia to present a hyperbolic image 
of the gang menace facing the community.” Bright had twice been found by the 
Georgia Supreme Court to have made bad faith statements attempting to link 
crimes to gangs when there was no evidence they were gang-related. However, 
Wilson’s trial lawyer failed to present evidence to the jury contradicting the 
prosecutor’s false assertions.

Finally, Wilson’s clemency attorneys provided the Board with extensive 
mitigating evidence that trial counsel failed to present to the jury. They 
write: “Wilson’s life — from conception to incarceration — was characterized by 
instability, neglect, abuse and trauma. Teachers, social workers and family 
friends remember a warm, intelligent and creative child yearning for a 
nurturing environment but trapped in a hopeless situation. Subjected to racism 
throughout his childhood by his extended family, school and the broader 
community for his biracial identity, Marion struggled to find himself and 
gradually succumbed to the self-destructive lifestyle that resulted in his 
imprisonment as a juvenile offender at the age of 17. What makes Marion’s 
childhood even more tragic is that it is clear that for a few brief periods in 
his life when he actually had a modicum of stability, security and emotional 
and moral support, he was able to thrive.” Because of trial counsel’s failures, 
they said, “[t]he jury that sentenced Marion to death was wholly unaware of his 
history of pervasive and prolonged abuse and neglect at the hands of numerous 
adults in his life, as well as evidence of impaired cognitive function and 
organic brain damage.”

Since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Georgia’s death-penalty statute in 1976, 
the state has executed only one prisoner whom the evidence showed did not 
commit the killing — Kelly Gissendaner, who was convicted of planning and 
covering up her husband’s murder. The petition argues that “[b]y virtue of the 
prosecutor’s misconduct and his trial counsel’s incompetence, Marion Wilson 
faces death while others, far more culpable, are spared.” it states, asking the 
board to “afford Marion a chance to accept the deal he did not have the 
maturity or foresight to take over 20 years ago, and allow him to prove himself 
worthy” of a lesser sentence.

(source: Death Penalty Information Center)

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

Slain man's brother frustrated by 23-year wait for justice



Chris Parks is ready to stop checking the number of days since his brother was 
murdered.

For more than 2 decades he's periodically tracked how many days go by before 
the 2 men convicted of killing him are executed. On Thursday, when the 2nd is 
scheduled to die, the days will number 8,484.

Marion Wilson Jr. and Robert Earl Butts Jr. were convicted of murder and 
sentenced to death in the March 1996 slaying of 24-year-old Donovan Corey Parks 
in Milledgeville, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta.

The state executed Butts, who was 40, in May 2018. Wilson, 42, is set for 
execution Thursday.

"What they did to him was not humane. It wasn't fair," Parks said, a tear 
sliding down his cheek.

That day is etched in Parks' memory. He had dreamed the night before that 
someone killed his brother, and he was relieved in the morning to see Donovan 
on the couch.

Before the day ended, his nightmare had become reality.

Parks said his brother went to church the evening of March 28, 1996, and then 
to Walmart to buy cat food.

Witnesses saw Wilson and Butts, who prosecutors said were gang members, 
standing behind him in a checkout line. A witness heard Butts ask Parks for a 
ride.

Butts was in the front passenger seat and Wilson was in the back as they left 
the parking lot, witnesses said. Wilson told investigators Butts pulled out a 
sawed-off shotgun, ordered Parks to drive and then ordered Parks out of the car 
and shot him once in the back of the head, according to court documents. The 
pair then stole Parks' car.

Parks' father, Freddie, found him lying along the road, but the shotgun did so 
much damage that he wasn't sure it was his son.

Chris Parks, 42, is frustrated that it's taken more than 2 decades for Butts 
and Wilson to be executed.

"Donovan was arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced and executed within 30 
minutes for being nice, for being caring," he said.

Meanwhile, he said, Butts and Wilson had years to fight for their lives. 
Lawyers for both men argued in court filings that the death penalty is an 
unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.

"What's cruel and unusual is to snatch a man from his vehicle by his necktie so 
tight that he probably can't speak or breathe," Parks said. "What's cruel and 
unusual is to lay that man down on the cold asphalt and to take his life as if 
he was worth nothing more than gum on the bottom of a shoe."

When he died, Donovan Parks was working 2 jobs — as a prison guard and at a 
Winn-Dixie grocery store — to make money to study to become a prison counselor.

"He wanted to help those inmates that were in for the long ride, as well as 
those who were getting ready to transition back to society," Chris Parks said. 
"He believed that having those conversations and working out those issues that 
they had would make them better individuals."

Donovan and Chris Parks' mother had died just under a year before Donovan's 
murder, and the family's house caught fire about 6 months after. Overwhelmed by 
tragedy, Chris Parks fled Milledgeville and joined the Army.

He now works in cybersecurity and lives just outside Atlanta with his wife and 
4 children — the oldest, a daughter, named Corey in honor of her late uncle.

Parks thinks about his brother every day and wishes he could call him to 
complain or seek advice. He's heartbroken that his children were robbed of the 
opportunity to meet their uncle, who was artistic like Chris' two daughters and 
sensitive like one of his sons.

Parks witnessed Butts' execution last year.

Georgia executes prisoners using an injection of the sedative pentobarbital. 
Strapped to a gurney with his arms outstretched to either side, the prisoner 
appears to fall asleep as witnesses watch from the other side of a large 
window.

"Honestly, it made me angry," Parks said of Butts' execution. "What I saw was a 
man who was unremorseful. What I saw was a man being put to sleep as if he were 
getting a root canal."

Still, he plans to be there again — with his wife, his dad and his stepmother — 
sitting in the front row of the witness area, to watch Wilson draw his final 
breaths.

"Execution doesn't bring him back," he said, referring to his brother. "But 
what execution does is it offers a starting point for myself, my dad, our 
family, to finally get some sort of closure and to start healing."

(source: Associated Press)








ALABAMA:

Non-unanimous death sentences stain Alabama’s justice system



No matter how you feel about the death penalty, all Alabamians should be 
troubled by at least one aspect of Christopher Price’s execution last month. 
The state killed Price even though the 12 jurors who convicted him didn’t all 
agree that he deserved to die for his crime.

2 jurors who heard all the evidence at Price’s trial believed the appropriate 
punishment was life without parole. But because Alabama permits juries to 
impose the death penalty without a unanimous vote in favor of it, that wasn’t 
enough to spare his life. A 10-2 jury vote for execution was enough to sentence 
Price to death.

Alabama is the only state that allows judges to impose a death sentence based 
on a non-unanimous jury sentencing verdict. This practice is a travesty of 
justice, and it needs to stop.

The death penalty is becoming increasingly rare in the United States, with more 
and more states abandoning capital punishment entirely. 21 states have outlawed 
the death penalty, and many others that still allow it haven’t executed anyone 
in decades. New Hampshire abolished the practice on the same day Alabama killed 
Price.

But even among states that still allow capital punishment, Alabama’s structure 
is outdated. And Alabama is the only state that doesn’t provide any 
post-conviction legal assistance for indigent inmates on death row.

In 2017, with the specter of federal court intervention looming, Alabama 
finally became the last state to forbid judicial override. This practice allows 
judges to sentence defendants to death despite a jury recommendation of life 
without parole. Even so, the judicial override ban was not retroactive. More 
than 30 people sent to our state’s death row as a result of this practice are 
still there.

The Eighth Amendment prohibits both cruel and unusual punishments. And 
Alabama’s non-unanimous death sentences are yet another cruel, unusual relic 
that should be cast aside.

Almost every other state with the death penalty has decided that when jurors 
disagree whether a person convicted of a capital crime deserves capital 
punishment, the sentence should be life imprisonment. The threshold is high 
because the stakes are so high: Putting someone to death is irreversible. It’s 
a weighty moral decision that cannot be made lightly.

But errors are all too frequent. Nationwide, one person on death row has been 
exonerated for every 10 executions conducted since 1976. No one would use a 
doctor who accidentally killed one out of every 10 patients. And no legislator 
should refuse to add legal safeguards to a system that carries so much risk of 
wrongful executions.

People shouldn’t be put to death when the entire jury of their peers can’t 
agree on a death sentence. Ask yourself if you are comfortable with the state 
ending someone’s life even when jurors who heard all the evidence have decided 
death isn’t justice.

Alabama’s criminal justice system is riddled with injustices, and many of the 
needed reforms are complicated. But ending non-unanimous death sentences would 
be a simple, reasonable step toward bringing sentencing practices up to modern 
standards. Alabama should take that step forward.

(source: Dev Wakeley is a policy analyst at Alabama Arise, a nonprofit, 
nonpartisan coalition of congregations, organizations and individuals promoting 
public policies to improve the lives of low-income Alabamians----Opelika 
Observer)






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Capital murder trial logjam in Autauga may be coming to an end



The logjam of capital murder cases in Autauga County, going back to 2016 and 
2017, may be breaking.

Two cases are set for trial this summer, Keon Cain’s trial is scheduled to 
begin the week of July 22; and Santwone Cornelius Jones’ trial on unrelated 
charges is on the docket for the week beginning Sept. 16. A third case, that of 
Willie Foster, is yet to be set.

There are gag orders in place in all cases, meaning prosecutors and attorneys 
can’t comment. Information for this story came from court records or action in 
previous hearings or court proceedings.

The trials of Cain and Jones are expected to each take 2 weeks, including the 
penalty phase. If both men are convicted of capital murder, the penalty phase 
begins immediately. The same jury will hear evidence from the prosecution and 
defense and then determine the sentence. The only 2 options in a capital 
conviction are life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death 
penalty.

The death penalty is on the table in both cases, according to previous comments 
from the district attorney’s office before the gag orders were in place.

Cain, of Prattville, faces three counts of capital murder in a July 3, 2017 
triple homicide.

More: Capital murder trial set in Prattville barbershop massacre

Assistant District Attorney Josh Cochran addressed the court and told Circuit 
Judge Bill Lewis what evidence the state expected to present during Marty 
Morgan’s guilty plea last month. Morgan, 36, of Prattville, is Cain’s 
co-defendant. He pled guilty to one count of capital murder.

Cochran said Morgan struck Eddie Dean Scott and Al Seals Benson in the head 
with a cinder block, causing their death by blunt force trauma. Previous 
testimony during preliminary hearings brought out that Morgan also shot both 
men with a handgun. Anthony Smith, owner of the barbershop, was allegedly shot 
by Cain with a 410.ga. shotgun inside the business.

Smith staggered out of the barbershop and collapsed in the parking lot of a 
convenience store located next door. Cain approached Smith and allegedly shot 
him in the back of the head, killing him, Cochran said.

The crime, with multiple victims well-known in the community, shocked 
Prattville, a city that prides itself on a low crime rate. At the time, 
Prattville Police Chief Mark Thompson labeled the incident an armed robbery 
gone wrong at the Hook-Up Barber and Style Shop. The business is near the 
intersection of U.S. Highway 82 and Highway 14.

Morgan has not been sentenced. He is expected to testify against Cain.

Jones, 26, of Montgomery, faces capital murder charges in the May 21, 2016 
shooting of John Michael Taylor, 57, of Prattville, courthouse records show. 
Taylor was found lying in Cobbs Ford Road by a passing motorist.

The capital murder charges were filed because prosecutors feel the murder was 
committed during the commission of a robbery, said Chief Assistant District 
Attorney C.J. Robinson.

2 Montgomery teenagers are also charged with capital murder the case.

Lil’ Roderick Williams, 17 and Devonte Raymon Hill, 18, were each indicted on 
capital murder charges by the Autauga County Grand Jury, courthouse records 
show. The trials for Williams and Hill have not been set.

(source: Montgomery Advertiser)








ARKANSAS:

Friend charged with murder of ex-Arkansas state senator who was found slain 
outside her home----Rebecca O’Donnell, 48, was charged with murder, abuse of a 
corpse, and tampering with physical evidence Monday.



A friend and onetime campaign aide for a former Arkansas state senator found 
dead outside her home has been charged with her murder.

Rebecca O’Donnell, 48, was charged Monday with murder, abuse of a corpse and 
tampering with physical evidence in the death of former state Sen. Linda 
Collins-Smith.

O’Donnell and Collins-Smith, 57, were friends and worked together last year, 
Collins-Smith’s former press secretary Ken Yang previously told NBC News. 
O’Donnell, a former campaign staffer for Collins-Smith, was taken into custody 
Friday, according to Arkansas State Police.

Police discovered Collins-Smith’s body outside her home in Pocahontas, 
Arkansas, on June 4. According to Henry H. Boyce, the prosecuting attorney in 
the case, it took investigators two days to identify the former senator using 
dental records because her body was in an “advanced state of decomposition.”

Gregg Parrish, the executive director of the Arkansas Association of Public 
Defenders, said O’Donnell does not have the means to hire her own attorney.

Collins-Smith served in both the Arkansas House and its Senate. In 2017, she 
introduced a controversial transgender “bathroom bill” that would have required 
people to use the bathrooms that correspond to their assigned sex.

(source: NBC News)