[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., PENN., DEL., ALA., MISS.

[Rick Halperin]

May 16



TEXAS----film review

‘Trial by Fire’ Review: A Strong Case Against the Death Penalty



Like the 1995 picture “Dead Man Walking,” “Trial by Fire” was created by 
filmmakers who believe that capital punishment is barbaric both as policy and 
in practice. This fact-based film takes the argument a step further in its 
details: While “Walking” was about a confessed killer who sought spiritual 
redemption, “Trial by Fire” details the state killing of a man many believe to 
have been innocent of the crime for which he was convicted.

The man was Cameron Todd Willingham, who was found guilty of killing his 3 
daughters by arson in 1991. Some time before his execution in 2004, various 
authorities were presented with evidence that the fire had not been set by 
Willingham and that his protests of innocence were sincere.

Directed by Edward Zwick (“Glory,” “The Last Samurai,” and more recently, “Jack 
Reacher: Never Go Back”) from a script by Geoffrey Fletcher (“Precious”), the 
movie is based on a New Yorker article by David Grann. The story as told by 
Grann is detailed and linear, in a prose style both spare and refined. The 
dramatization hems and haws, incorporating flashbacks, fantasy sequences and 
other features intended to add intrigue to the narrative and depth to the 
characterizations. They wind up feeling like window-dressing, though.

Expertly acted throughout — Jack O’Connell does his level best to make 
Willingham more than the standard-issue Hollywood Complex Roughneck, while 
Laura Dern, as a prison pen pal who becomes a defense ally, is a reliably 
elevating presence — the movie’s raw facts are sufficient to rouse viewer 
indignation. But the material arguably calls for a more proactively provocative 
approach. Where are old-school cinematic firebrands like Sam Fuller or Phil 
Karlson when you need them?

Trial by Fire

Director----Edward Zwick

Writer----Geoffrey Fletcher

Stars----Laura Dern, Jack O'Connell, Emily Meade, Jade Pettyjohn, Jeff Perry

Rating----R

Running Time----2h 7m

(source: New York Times)








NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Faith-based reasons to repeal the death penalty



The N.H. Council of Churches is a body of many diverse denominations, ranging 
from Protestant to Orthodox to Unitarian Universalist. All these denominations 
regard the use of capital punishment as unacceptable and support its repeal.

We thank our legislators who made a clear, bipartisan vote to repeal the death 
penalty. Lawmakers voted out of their deeply held spiritual beliefs, so we urge 
them to keep the faith and override the veto of House Bill 455. That bipartisan 
faith vote frequently cites three reasons to oppose the death penalty:

First, in Genesis 1:26, we read, “God said, ‘Let us make (humanity) in our 
image, after our likeness.’” Christians believe every human life is sacred, 
even when that person denies the dignity of others. We recognize that the 
sacredness of life is a gift from God, neither earned through good behavior nor 
lost through heinous acts.

Second, that sacred dignity is in every person equally since all people have 
the same divine Creator. We want to believe that here we serve justice 
impartially and equally. Unfortunately Christians know that we make mistakes 
and poor decisions. We cannot leave choices about life and death to fallible 
justice systems administered by error-prone humans.

Finally, God can redeem any person, no matter their past, and bring them to the 
forgiveness and mercy. The death penalty closes off the possibility of God’s 
redemption through our presumption that we know better than God.

For these reasons and more, we urge our legislators to cast a faith-filled, 
bipartisan vote to bring to an end the death penalty in our state.

The Rev. JASON WELLS

Pembroke

(The writer is executive director of the New Hampshire Council of Churches.)

(source: Letter to the Editor, Concord Monitor)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Death row inmate headed to evidentiary hearing in 2020



The defense attorney for convicted killer and death row inmate Brentt M. 
Sherwood said he is ready for appeal for a Post Conviction Relief Act petition 
to proceed.

Defense attorney Edward J. Rymsza and attorney William Ross Stoycos, a senior 
deputy through the state Attorney General's office, appeared in front of Senior 
Judge Harold F. Woelfel Jr. on Wednesday afternoon in Northumberland County 
Court. An evidentiary hearing is also scheduled for Feb 10, 2010.

The defense is "absolutely" ready, said Rymsza.

Sherwood, 39, was convicted 12 years ago of beating his 4½-year-old 
stepdaughter to death. Sherwood, a former Northumberland resident, was 
sentenced to death in May 2007 after a Northumberland County jury convicted him 
of 1st-degree murder in the December 2004 beating death of his 4½-year-old 
stepdaughter, Marlee Reed. During the trial, Sherwood admitted punching and 
kicking the child repeatedly in their Northumberland home, but claimed he was 
high on cocaine and did not mean to kill her.

Sherwood, seeking relief from a conviction of first degree murder and the 
imposition of the death penalty, has originally listed 106 different reasons 
why he should be awarded a new trial, including ineffective counsel, 
inappropriate or unlawful procedures from the late Judge William Harvey Wiest, 
procedural deficiencies and errors or omission of record, according to a 
342-page Post Conviction Relief Act motion that was originally filed in 2012.

Stoycos said the evidentiary hearing involves expert witnesses, and the case 
must go through the discovery phase before moving forward.

"We will be ready to proceed when the time comes," said Stoycos. He declined 
further comment.

Sherwood, currently incarcerated at State Correctional Institute-Greene in 
Waynesburg, is one of 140 inmates currently on death row in Pennsylvania.

On Feb. 13, 2015, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced a halt to all 
executions. He said the moratorium will continue until he has "received and 
reviewed the forthcoming report of the Pennsylvania Task Force and Advisory 
Commission on Capital Punishment, established under Senate Resolution 6 of 
2011, and there is an opportunity to address all concerns satisfactorily." 3 
legislators from the Philadelphia area recently introduced legislation to 
repeal the death penalty.

(source: The Daily Item)

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

This former death row inmate now makes jewelry out of his home in the Philly 
suburbs for other exonerees



Kirk Bloodsworth has been through hell. In 1984, at 22, he was charged in 
Maryland with the murder of a girl he didn’t know — 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton. 
She had been sexually assaulted, strangled, and beaten with a rock. Bloodsworth 
was convicted and sentenced to death.

The problem was, he wasn’t guilty.

Bloodsworth spent 9 years in prison, including 2 years on death row, reading 
and trying to find a way out. He found it in DNA testing after discovering the 
work of British geneticist Alec Jeffries. DNA testing eventually led 
authorities to Kimberly Raffner, an acquaintance in Bloodsworth’s cellblock 
whose DNA matched the sample found on Dawn’s underwear. Raffner eventually 
confessed. On June 28, 1993, nearly a decade after he was convicted, 
Bloodsworth became the first person on death row exonerated by DNA evidence in 
the United States.

Just over 25 years later, Bloodsworth has become a part of the movement to end 
capital punishment. Now, he crosses the country telling firsthand prison 
stories and serves as interim executive director of Witness to Innocence. He 
has settled in Ambler, and has discovered a new passion: silversmithing. Detail 
of one of the Daethrow Exoneree “Championship Rings� that Kirk Bloodsworth, 
who was exonerated for a murder he did not commit, is now making for other men 
who have served prison time but have since been exonerated. He became a jeweler 
after leaving prison. .

Bloodsworth started a company called Bloods Stones, making fine jewelry to 
honor his history, including a DNA pendant — a necklace with a handcrafted 
strand of DNA at the bottom — and “exoneree rings,” which he plans to give to 
all 351 Americans who went through what he did. His signature piece is a 
28-gram ring that was inspired by a dream he had in prison about a football 
commissioner giving him Super Bowl-type ring.

“I wanted to give them a token of appreciation to represent what they have 
endured as people. And it will go down in history,” he says. “So, 100 years 
from now, some antique roadshow will have one and say, well, Kirk Bloodsworth 
made these, and it’ll be a whole history about wrongful conviction. Some of my 
relatives will probably say, ‘This was handed down through time.’ And someone 
can say, ‘This is what your grandfather or your grandmother, or your 
great-grandmother went through.’”

Raymond Santana, who at 14 was one of the Central Park Five wrongfully 
convicted of rape and assault, is one of the recipients of Bloodsworth’s rings. 
“I was definitely proud," says Santana, who was an executive producer of The 
Innocent Man, a documentary about Bloodsworth. "It’s like a championship ring, 
us exonerees overcoming these obstacles, like the criminal justice system. Us 
being fighters and not giving up.”

Bloodsworth doesn’t make just wrongful-conviction jewelry. He also handcrafts 
rings, bracelets, and necklaces inspired by nature and by women’s inherent 
beauty. They’re dotted with bright blue and green stones, and are made out of 
metal or beads.

He’s come a long way, he says, through a passion he found out of boredom.

“I’ve been doing it for three years now. I never realized I would love this 
work,” Bloodsworth says. “My partner, who I live with, she does beading. So I 
asked her, can I try it? I was just looking for something to do. I was driving 
myself crazy — I had just left my job in the middle of nothing. But, man, when 
I found that, I wound up beading everything she had in a week. I’m an obsessive 
beader.”

He found silversmithing in the same way. “I started watching videos of this 
stuff and the rest is history. I just went crazy,” he says. “I watched 400 
videos, and then I went to school for it for two months, out in San Francisco, 
and I’ve been doing it ever since. I’m mad about it. When I say mad — madly in 
love.”

For now, Bloods Stones will remain a big part of Bloodsworth’s story. “I can’t 
really see myself not doing it, but I can’t see myself not supporting abolition 
of the death penalty, either. Time is valuable, and I want people to realize 
that this took a big chunk out of my life. But I want to have fun,” he says. 
“There’s no sense in life to sit the hell around and feel sorry for yourself. 
We’re all going to meet an end. So what are you going to do while you’re 
waiting? Eat the good food, smell the flowers because, my God, it could be all 
be taken from you in a split second. So, yeah, I’m happy making jewelry.”

(source: phyilly.com)








DELAWARE:

Delaware legislators aim to overturn court, reinstate death penalty



3 years after Delaware’s Supreme Court ruled capital punishment 
unconstitutional, state lawmakers say they can reinstate the death penalty 
while abiding with the constitution. Delaware’s House of Representatives voted 
to reinstate the death penalty the following year. But a Senate committee never 
released it to the floor for a vote.

Now 2 Republican and 2 Democratic lawmakers are trying again.

They argue it’s constitutional because it would require a jury’s unanimous 
decision that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and that the 
offense is eligible for the death penalty under the statute. The judge must 
also agree with the jury and make the final ruling.

Those deemed guilty but mentally ill would be exempt.

“You must be 100% sure — not 99 — but 100% sure the crime was committed by that 
individual or individuals,” said state Rep. William Carson, D-Smyrna, one of 
the bill’s sponsors.

State Rep. Sean Lynn, D-Dover, who sponsored the 2016 measure to abolish the 
death penalty, said those safeguards in the bill will not change disparities 
within the criminal justice system.

“While I have not seen the bill yet, I also have never seen a bill reinstating 
the death penalty that addresses the inherent bias and racial disparities that 
exist in implementing such a policy,” said Lynn, who also chairs the House 
Judiciary Committee, which is likely to debate the legislation before a vote on 
the floor.

“The facts are that no matter what protections proponents put in place, the 
death penalty is not administered equally to all defendants without bias. I 
remain morally opposed to the death penalty,” Lynn said. “I simply do not 
believe that the state should be in the business of killing its citizens.”

The NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund said 42% of death row inmates are 
African American. In Delaware, African American defendants who have allegedly 
killed white victims are 6 times more likely to be sentenced to death than 
African Americans accused of killing African Americans.

However, supporters including state Rep. Steve Smyk, R-Milton, who was the 
prime sponsor of 2017’s measure to reinstate the death penalty, believe capital 
punishment can deter crime. “There are two types of criminals. Those who act on 
impulse regardless of what ramifications there could be for their actions. Then 
there’s another sliver of society that calculates the consequences of their 
actions,” he said.

Line-of-duty killing of a police officer, corrections employee, firefighter, or 
paramedic is among the list of aggravated circumstances outlined in the 
proposed statute. Efforts to reinstate the death penalty follow 2017 killings 
of Delaware State Police Corp. Stephen Ballard and correctional officer Lt. 
Steven Floyd who were on duty when they were slain.

Several police and correctional officer associations support the measure.

However, Democratic lawmakers already have voiced their concerns about the 
effort.

A spokesman for state Attorney General Kathy Jennings, a Democrat, said the 
death penalty does not deter crime and has been disproportionately used against 
low-income defendants and people of color.

Chief Public Defender Brendan O’Neill echoed those thoughts.

“Reviving the death penalty is a wrong-headed and misguided pursuit. The death 
penalty is a costly and ineffective deterrent to crime that is prone to 
irreparable mistakes,” he said. “This would be a step backwards for Delaware.”

(source: WHYY news)








ALABAMA----impending execution

Man Convicted in 4 Killings Set for Execution in Alabama----A man convicted of 
murder in a quadruple killing after a dispute over a pickup truck is set for 
execution in Alabama.



A man convicted of killing 4 people, including 2 young girls, in a dispute over 
a pickup truck is set for execution Thursday evening in Alabama.

Michael Brandon Samra, 41, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at the 
state prison at Atmore.

Samra and a friend, Mark Duke, were convicted of capital murder in the deaths 
of Duke's father, the father's girlfriend and the woman's 2 elementary-age 
daughters in 1997. The 2 adults were shot and the children had their throats 
slit.

Evidence showed Duke planned the killings because he was angry that his father 
wouldn't let him use his pickup.

Duke and Samra were both originally convicted of capital murder and sentenced 
to death, but Duke's sentence was overturned because he was 16 at the time of 
the killings and the Supreme Court later banned executing inmates younger than 
18 at the time of their crimes.

Samra was 19 at the time and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to delay his 
execution while the Kentucky Supreme Court considers whether anyone younger 
than 21 at the time of a crime should be put to death, but the justices refused 
.

Gov. Kay Ivey hasn't acted on a request for a reprieve on the same grounds. The 
clemency request also said Duke was more to blame for the killings than Samra.

Court documents show Duke and Samra killed the four at a home in Pelham, a 
Birmingham suburb, on March 23, 1997. The day before, Mark Duke and his father, 
Randy Duke, got into a heated argument over the man's refusal to let the son 
borrow his truck.

After enlisting friends to help, Mark Duke killed his father with a gunshot to 
the face and Samra shot the man's girlfriend, Dedra Mims Hunt, who survived and 
fled to another part of the house.

Mark Duke found the woman in a bathroom and shot her, court documents show. Out 
of bullets, he then used a knife to slit the throat of the woman's 6-year-old 
daughter, Chelisa Hunt. Samra cut the throat of the woman's 7-year-old 
daughter, Chelsea Hunt, as she begged for mercy while Duke held the child down.

In a letter to the governor seeking mercy for the inmate, Samra's lawyer said 
his client confessed to the slayings, expressed remorse and participated only 
at Mark Duke's request.

Two other men who were teenage friends of Samra and Mark Duke at the time of 
the killings served prison sentences for lesser roles. David Layne Collums and 
Michael Lafayette Ellison, both now 39, were accused of helping plan and 
cover-up the slayings.

Another execution is scheduled Thursday in Tennessee , that of 68-year-old Don 
Johnson, who was condemned to die for the 1984 suffocation slaying of his wife.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Convicted killer Michael Samra's lawyer says his execution, set for Thursday, 
will not fix things: 'There is only tragedy in a death sentence'----The SC bans 
executing inmates who were younger than the age of 18 at the time they 
committed their crimes. A move to include 19 and 20-year-olds in the ban was 
rejected



Convicted killer Michael Samra's lawyer says his execution, set for Thursday, 
will not fix things: 'There is only tragedy in a death sentence'

Michael Samra is set to be executed by lethal injection on May 16 at William C. 
Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, after the United States 
Supreme Court rejected a stay on his death sentence. The Supreme Court, on 
Tuesday, May 14, announced that it has refused to consider expanding its ban on 
executing people who committed their crimes as juveniles, declining to review 
Samra's case who was involved in a quadruple murder at the age of 19.

"This was our last attempt to put a stay on Michael's execution, it's been 
denied," Samra's attorney Steven Sears told MEA WorldWide (MEAWW). "I am 
disappointed but I understand that there are divisions in the court. They did 
not explain their ruling but they went against it."

The SC bans executing inmates who were younger than the age of 18 at the time 
they committed their crimes. Sears, along with chief attorney John Magrisso, 
had asked the SC Justices to consider including 19 and 20-year-olds in their 
ruling too. The Justices, however, denied their request.

Mark Anthony Duke was 16 years old when he decided to kill his family of four, 
including two children in Shely County, Alabama, on March 22, 1997. He involved 
19-year-old Michael Brandon Samra in his plotting and two of his other friends 
who were in a getaway car outside Duke's home. The 16-year-old shot and killed 
his father Randy Duke, his fiancée Dedra Mims Hunt and 1 of her 2 daughters, 
6-year-old Chelisa Nicole Hunt. Meanwhile, Samra slit the throat of the other 
child, 7-year-old Chelsea Marie Hunt. The 2 assailants used knives to slit the 
throats of the children after they ran out of bullets.

Duke initiated the bloodbath because he was angry at his father for refusing to 
let him borrow a pickup truck, according to statements made by co-defendants. 
Samra was the one who admitted his involvement in the crime and led authorities 
to the murder weapons.

The teenagers, Duke and Samra, were handed the death penalty after their 
trials. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, in 2005, however, overturned 
Duke's death penalty owing to his age at the time he committed the crime. He is 
currently serving a life sentence without parole. David Layne Collums and 
Michael Lafayette Ellison, who were in the getaway car, were released from 
state prisons in March 2013.

Samra, however, continues to be on death row and is set to be executed on 
Thursday. He is now 42 years old. Samra's attorneys said that they have a 
clemency petition with Alabama Governor Kay Ivey in their last-ditch effort to 
save Samra's life. However, they believe that it might be too late to expect 
the clemency grant to come through.

"We still have a clemency petition pending with the governor of Alabama. She 
was contacted yesterday, she said she's considering it but we have not heard 
much from her side so far," Sears said.

When asked if he was expecting the clemency to be granted before Thursday, 
Sears added: "I don't expect that the clemency will be granted before the 
execution day, that is Thursday. Although, I hope it is. If it is granted after 
Thursday, it won't do any good. This whole thing started with a tragedy that 
cost 4 people their lives, and now we are going to make it five people and 
that's not going to really set things right."

When Duke's revised sentence was brought into the conversation, Sears said that 
it is not justice "to give a heavier punishment to a peripheral figure who 
wasn't the main planner or instigator of the crime." The attorney said that it 
would be a mistake for Samra to be sentenced to death for this crime.

Magrisso, Samra's other attorney, has accepted his client's fate, releasing a 
statement saying: "We offer our condolences to the family and loved ones of 
Randy Duke, Dedra Hunt, and Chelisa and Chelsea Hunt, and to the parents and 
loved ones of Michael Samra."

He added, "The loss of life is always a tragedy, no less so when it is the 
State who seeks to inflict that loss. There is only tragedy in a death 
sentence, tragedy in the act that leads a state to seek a death sentence, 
tragedy in the taking of another mother's child when the death sentence is 
carried out."

(source: meaww.com)

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

‘Our darkest moment’: Family speaks about 4 murdered in 1997 ahead of killer’s 
execution



It was Chelisa Nicole Hunt’s first beauty pageant. The 6-year-old’s blond 
ringlets were curled tight as she stood ready for the competition that Friday 
night at Thorsby Elementary School.

Chelisa won second alternate and told her family she thought she wanted to 
compete in the next pageant, too. While her mother changed Chelisa out of her 
competition dress and got the girls ready to go to her fiancé's house for the 
weekend, Chelisa’s sister, 7-year-old Chelsea Marie Hunt, played a game of 
Trouble with her dad. Chelsea won.

The day after the pageant, the little girls were found dead in their future 
stepfather’s Pelham home, their throats slit with kitchen knives.

Their mom, Dedra Mims Hunt, 29, and her fiancé, Randy Duke, 39, were found shot 
to death in Duke’s home. The girls lived with their father in Thorsby to stay 
in the school they attended before the divorce, but stayed with their mother on 
the weekends. They arrived at the Duke house just after the pageant, and were 
murdered the next day.

Duke, Hunt, Chelisa and Chelsea were killed on March 22, 1997. Randy Duke’s 
son, Mark Anthony Duke, and his friend, Michael Brandon Samra, were convicted 
in the quadruple slaying the next year. According to court records, Mark 
Anthony Duke came up with the murder plot because Randy Duke refused to allow 
him to use a pickup truck.

More than 22 years after the gruesome murders shocked Shelby County, Chelsea 
and Chelisa’s paternal aunt, Tara Hunt Simmons, can vividly recall the day of 
the pageant.

The girls’ laughter that night is something Simmons will never forget. “Little 
did we know there would be no other pageants, no more board games and after 
that weekend my brother would never go back to his home again,” she said. “He 
could not stand being there without his little girls.”

The home where he learned to cook and wash clothes, and how to put little 
girls’ hair into ponytails, would never be the same.

According to court records filed by the Alabama Attorney General’s Office to 
the U.S. Supreme Court, Mark Duke and Samra brought 2 guns to Randy Duke’s 
home, where the teenagers planned to kill everyone inside.

Mark Duke fatally shot his father in the head, while Samra shot Hunt in the 
face. Although injured, Hunt fled upstairs with her daughters. Hunt and Chelisa 
sought shelter in an upstairs bathroom, while Chelsea hid under a bed.

Samra and Mark Duke ran after them, and Mark Duke shot and killed Hunt after he 
kicked in the bathroom door. Then, out of bullets, Mark Duke got 2 knives and 
pulled Chelisa from behind the shower curtain and slit her throat. The teens 
then pursued Chelsea, who was fighting back from under the bed. As she 
struggled, Mark Duke held her down and Samra slit her throat.

Samra eventually admitted to his role in the crime and was sentenced to death 
in 1998.

Mark Anthony Duke was also originally sentenced to death, but his sentence was 
later overturned and changed to life in prison pursuant to a U.S. Supreme Court 
ruling banning execution for offenders who committed their crimes while they 
were juveniles. He was 16 at the time of the slaying.

Because Samra was 19 at the time of the killings, his death sentence wasn’t 
changed. Although his attorneys have argued that the ruling should apply to 
offenders up to the age of 21 at the time of their crimes, the nation’s highest 
court has declined to stay his execution or review the case. He is set to die 
Thursday at 6 p.m. by lethal injection at William C. Holman Correctional 
Facility in Atmore.

Simmons plans to attend the execution with her brother, Hunt’s ex-husband and 
the girls’ father.

Even though Hunt and the girls’ father were divorced, she was still very much 
part of the Hunt family. “Dedra was a wonderful mother and she knew the girls 
living with their dad and remaining in the same school was what was best for 
them. So, she sacrificed and did what was best for them,” Simmons said. “Dedra 
was family, a piece of paper couldn’t change that.”

Having divorced parents didn’t make life awkward for Chelsea and Chelisa, 
Simmons said. They loved being around their family. “Their parents always did 
what was best for them and [Hunt and her ex-husband] were still great friends.”

Simmons said Chelsea, the older of the girls, was a tomboy and loved life. She 
was a protector, and always watched out for her little sister. Chelisa was 
totally opposite—she was “prim and proper,” Simmons said, and when people asked 
what she wanted to be when she grew up, she always responded, “a mommy.”

Hunt was “blunt but tender hearted,” Simmons said, a perfect mix of her 
daughters. “Dedra was so much fun… She stood for what was right even if she had 
to stand alone. She was a little guarded, but if she was your friend, she was a 
true friend that you could count on,” Simmons said. “She was one of the best 
friends I’ve ever had.”

Before the murders, Randy Duke had recently proposed to Hunt, and she said yes. 
They had been together about a year and although Simmons said she didn’t know 
him well, Randy Duke would come over with Hunt and was always sweet and 
attentive to both his new fiancée and her daughters. “I did question Chelsea 
and Chelisa about Randy [Duke] and Mark [Duke], as any aunt would do. They 
always had the best things to say about Randy [Duke],” Simmons said.

Simmons’ favorite memories of the girls involve them smiling, laughing, and 
joking with everyone they knew. She said the girls loved spring and would help 
she and their other aunt plant flowers. “One year we thought it would be cool 
to plant seeds and let the girls watch them grow,” Simmons remembered. “We had 
40 plants that year that made it, so [Chelsea and Chelisa] came up with the 
sweetest idea and gave them to the mothers at church on Mother’s Day.”

Another memory—a vacation she didn’t know would be the girls’ last—stands out 
as one of Simmons’ favorites. “All of my siblings, their kids and our parents 
went to the beach. Somehow [the girls’ father] and I ended up with all the kids 
in our room. We let them jump on the beds, have brownies for breakfast and stay 
up all night watching movies. We were on vacation after all!”

She remembers all the small, seemingly unremarkable moments with her young 
nieces, like going trick-or-treating every year, trying to make Chelsea like 
cashews, and putting a pet bird on Chelisa’s shoulder. As it turns out, Chelsea 
had to eat a whole bag of cashews to realize she didn’t like them; Chelisa was 
worried the bird would eat her curls, which she desperately “needed.” And, as 
it turns out, those are some of Simmons’ most treasured memories.

After the murders, the community came together to honor the girls and built an 
elementary school gym in their honor. “The town of Thorsby and the little 
children—their classmates—came together not only during our darkest moment in 
life, but this community’s darkest moment,” Simmons said.

There were fundraisers for the gym and for the funerals. School officials 
brought in counselors to talk to the girls’ classmates and their teachers.

The little girls were buried holding hands, just like they often did in life. 
“They were so close,” Simmons said. “The best of friends, and they shared so 
many stories and secrets. Now they argued like sisters do, but you didn’t see 
one without seeing the other somewhere close by.”

Hunt was buried next to her daughters.

The Mims and Hunt families are close today and consider each other family, 
because as they’re often reminded, family is all they have.

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected Samra’s latest plea, and he currently is 
seeking clemency from Gov. Kay Ivey ahead of his execution. Mark Hall, the lead 
investigator on the slaying and now the mayor of Helena, said he believes Samra 
should finally face his punishment.

“I am not surprised by the request for a stay by the offender, but I’m reminded 
that the innocent victims of these horrific and senseless murders-- two adults 
and two small children-- did not have that option on that terrifying night when 
they were brutally murdered," Hall wrote in a statement.

"It is my opinion that when a court hands down a final sentence for violent and 
heinous crimes, and all other court appeals have failed, and a conviction is 
upheld by those courts, then that sentence handed down should be served. 
Convicted murderers, who have exhausted all means of the possibility of 
acquittal in a capital murder case should serve every day, every hour and every 
minute of the sentence they were given, and that includes the death penalty 
when it is imposed.

"Those innocent victims, and the families of those victims, deserve no less.”

(source: al.com)








MISSISSIPPI:

There are inmates on death row. But Mississippi hasn't executed anyone in 
years.



Mississippi hasn't had an execution in 7 years, but could a recent U.S. Supreme 
Court ruling in a Missouri case pave the way for executions to resume?

Nearly four years after upholding the use of lethal injections, the court's 
five conservative justices ruled against death row inmate Russell Bucklew's 
claim that it would cause him particularly gruesome pain, suggesting instead 
that it was just another delaying tactic, USA Today reported last month.

Bucklew's challenge was to the use of a lethal dose of pentobarbital.

A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of 2 Mississippi death row inmates and joined 
by 4 others was put on hold last July until the U.S.Supreme Court ruled in the 
Missouri case.

Lawyers for Mississippi death row inmates asked for the delay, and State 
Attorney General Jim Hood didn't oppose the motion.

Hood's office spokeswoman, Margaret Ann Morgan, said Wednesday, "Our case is 
still stayed. We are continuing to review the decision in the Missouri case as 
well as our options moving forward."

Jim Craig, an attorney for some of of the inmates, said there is a May 26 
deadline, which is 30 days after the Bucklew opinion becomes final, to report 
to Judge Henry Wingate about the case.

Craig, however, said that no matter the outcome of the federal lawsuit, don't 
expect an execution in Mississippi this year. He said the losing side will 
surely appeal, meaning the case likely won't be completed this year.

Craig said the Bucklew decision makes clear that they are entitled to present 
evidence of methods from other states to show that the Mississippi Department 
of Corrections could adopt their proposed alternative, which is to use one 
fatal dose of a barbiturate like pentobarbital.

"Even before Bucklew, we were trying to get evidence from states that use the 
1-drug alternative with pentobarbital (Georgia and Missouri, for example) to 
show that MDOC could do the same," Craig said. "We’ve been having some 
difficult fights getting that discovery, but Bucklew strongly supports our 
argument. We are still studying all the other ways that the Bucklew decision 
applies to our case."

(source: Clarion Ledger)