[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., VA., S.C., GA., FLA., LA.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 24



TEXAS----impending execution

North Texas man set to be executed for killing family



A 45-year-old North Texas man who was convicted of murdering his wife and 2 
stepsons before raping his stepdaughter is set to be put to death.

Robert Sparks, 45, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Wednesday at 
the Huntsville “Walls” Unit.

That is if the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t step in.

Sparks, who has been on Texas death row since his conviction in 2008, is asking 
the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution, arguing that the jury 
specifically relied upon “the false testimony of prosecution expert A.P. 
Merillat when sentencing him to death. The appeal also claims that the 
courtroom bailiff wore a syringe tie on the date of jury deliberations, 
“creating an unacceptable risk of impermissible factors coming into play at 
trial.”

Court records show that just after midnight on Sept. 15, 2007, Sparks put his 
hand over the mouth of his wife, Chare Agnew, and stabbed her 18 times in her 
bed. Then, one at a time, he woke up his stepsons — 9-year-old Harold and 
10-year-old Raekwon — and stabbed them 45 times each, dragging their bodies 
into the living and stashing them under a comforter.

Next, he went after the girls, raping his 14-year-old stepdaughter on the couch 
while her younger sister watched. Afterward, he apologized to them for the 
rapes and murders — but said their mother had been trying to poison him.

Sparks was arrested a few days later and tried the following year.

If carried out, Sparks will be the 16th person executed in the United States 
this year and the 7th in the state of Texas.

(source: Huntsville Item)

*************************----stay of impending execution

Texas court halts the execution of Stephen Barbee to consider U.S. Supreme 
Court precedent----The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay in 
Barbee's case. He was set for execution on Oct. 2.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday temporarily stopped the execution 
of Stephen Barbee. He had been set to die Oct. 2.

Barbee, 52, was sentenced to death in Tarrant County in the 2005 murder of his 
pregnant ex-girlfriend, Lisa Underwood, and her 7-year-old son, Jayden. 
According to court records, Barbee initially confessed during police 
interrogation to killing them because he feared Lisa would tell his wife that 
he was likely the father of her unborn child and that he would have to pay 
child support. He later recanted the confession, which his lawyer argues was 
“the product of fear and coercion,” and has since maintained his innocence.

The Texas court stopped next week’s execution because Barbee’s attorneys at his 
short, two-and-a-half day trial, admitted to his guilt, likely in an attempt to 
secure the more favorable sentence of life in prison without the opportunity 
for parole. Barbee has said this concession of guilt was against his wishes, 
that he repeatedly told his lawyers he wanted to maintain his innocence and 
that his lawyers’ statement was “a complete surprise.”

The concession, Barbee argues, is a violation of his Sixth Amendment right to 
counsel. The argument was rejected earlier, but after a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court 
decision out of Louisiana, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered further 
review of the case.

In McCoy v. Louisiana, the high court ruled that “a defendant has the right to 
insist that counsel refrain from admitting guilt, even when counsel’s 
experienced-based view is that confessing guilt offers the defendant the best 
chance to avoid the death penalty.”

Though the ruling has been raised unsuccessfully in other Texas death penalty 
appeals, the state appellate court decided Barbee’s case requires an opinion 
the case's reach. The judges gave the state and Barbee 30 days to file briefs 
on issues involving the Supreme Court decision.

(source: The Texas Tribune)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----46

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----564

Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #

47---------Sept. 25---------------Robert Sparks-----------565

48---------Oct. 10----------------Randy Halprin-----------566

49---------Oct. 16----------------Randall Mays------------567

50---------Oct. 30----------------Ruben Gutierrez---------568

51---------Nov. 6-----------------Justen Hall-------------569

52---------Nov. 13----------------Patrick Murphy----------570

53---------Nov. 20----------------Rodney Reed-------------571

54---------Dec. 11----------------Travis Runnels----------572

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)

*************************----impending execution

Texas plans to execute a man who says DNA evidence could exonerate 
him----Rodney Reed’s lawyers have filed a lawsuit claiming Texas is violating 
his constitutional rights



TEXAS'S DEATH-PENALTY machinery is humming. Last year, the state carried out 
more than half of America's executions. So far this year, six out of 15 have 
been carried out in the state and that share will increase. A further nine 
inmates on death row are slated to die in Texas in 2019. After the execution 
set for September 25th of Robert Sparks—who in 2007 confessed to fatally 
stabbing his wife and two step-sons and raping his step-daughters—four 
executions are scheduled for October, three for November and one in December.

On November 20th it will be the turn of Rodney Reed, a 51-year-old black man 
who was found guilty of killing Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old white woman, in 
1996. Mr Reed has been on Texas’s crowded death row since 1998. At the trial, 
the main evidence connecting Mr Reed to the crime was strands of his DNA found 
inside Ms Stites’s body. Mr Reed said he had been having an affair with Ms 
Stites at the time of her death—and that he had sex with her the day before she 
was found strangled with her own woven leather belt on the side of a country 
road in Bastrop County, Texas.

No evidence put Mr Reed at the scene of the crime. Nor were there any 
eyewitnesses implicating him. Instead, prosecutors relied on Mr Reed’s semen 
found in a vaginal swab and presented this to jurors as the “smoking gun”. But 
Mr Reed and his legal team—including lawyers from the Innocence Project, an 
organisation dedicated to freeing wrongfully convicted prisoners and, in 
capital cases, fighting against their executions—argue that the trial was 
marred by unexamined evidence and false scientific claims. They argue that 
Jimmy Fennell, Ms Stites’s fiancé and a police officer at the time, should have 
been more closely investigated. Mr Fennell, who has denied involvement in Ms 
Stites’s death, was the primary suspect in the case for more than a year before 
suspicions turned to Mr Reed.

In a complaint filed in August—the latest in a series stretching back years—Mr 
Reed’s lawyers describe waffling in Mr Fennell’s testimony, his two failed 
polygraph tests and the “unusual” actions he took, including ditching his truck 
and closing his bank account while his fiancé was still missing. Before she 
died, it was claimed that Mr Fennell had been heard saying that he would kill 
Ms Stites by strangling her with a belt if she ever cheated on him. A decade 
later, Mr Fennell served a decade in prison for abducting and raping a young 
woman.

Mr Reed’s lawyers also observe that key testimony from a forensic scientist 
attesting to the timeline of Ms Stites’s death was later found (by the 
scientist’s admission) to be false and that eye witnesses had seen Mr Reed and 
Ms Stites together “at various times prior to her murder”, apparently 
supporting his claim that they had been in a relationship. All of this may cast 
doubt on the validity of Mr Reed’s conviction, but none of it proves his 
innocence.

For years, Mr Reed’s lawyers have been arguing that their client should get a 
new trial in which additional evidence—including DNA analysis of previously 
overlooked crime-scene items—could be introduced. During the original trial, 
neither Ms Stites’s clothing nor the murder weapon, the belt, was analysed for 
genetic material. But these garments and objects remain safely stored, have not 
been tampered with or compromised and could, plausibly, if tested, exonerate Mr 
Reed. In 2017, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas refused to order 
post-conviction DNA analysis because Mr Reed did not prove that “exculpatory 
DNA results would have resulted in his acquittal”. This June, the same court 
denied a similar request.

With avenues in state courts thus closed mere months before Mr Reed’s execution 
date, his lawyers’ latest attempt to get a federal court to order a new trial 
invokes both civil-rights law and the federal constitution. Denying Mr Reed a 
chance to prove his innocence, the complaint says, violates Section 1983 of the 
Civil Rights Act of 1871 affording individuals a hook for a lawsuit when states 
deny them constitutional rights. And there are a host of rights at stake, 
according to the complaint: Mr Reed’s right to due process, to be protected 
from cruel and unusual punishments, to access courts and to prove his 
innocence.

Mr Reed’s case has attracted national attention, including that of Sister Helen 
Prejean, an activist opposing the death penalty who wrote “Dead Man Walking”, a 
1993 book that inspired a film of the same name 2 years later. Sister Prejean 
visited Mr Reed’s family upon his previous execution date in 2015 and has 
served as an informal advocate. She recently tweeted that Texas seeks to 
execute him “even though several items from the crime scene—including the 
murder weapon—were never tested for DNA”.

By any measure, the death penalty in America is in decline. Last year, 25 
prisoners were put to death in eight states, down from a peak of 98 executions 
across 20 states in 1999. The number of death sentences is falling, too: in 
2018, only 42 people were sent to death row compared to some 300 in the 
mid-1990s. Popular support for capital punishment has dwindled along with 
executions. In 1994, 80% of Americans approved of the death penalty for murder; 
last year, 56% did. Although William Barr, the attorney-general, announced in 
July that the federal government would resume executions of those sentenced to 
death for federal crimes—five are on the calendar for December and January, the 
first since 2003—capital punishment is an option in fewer and fewer states. In 
the past three years state courts have struck down the death penalty in 
Delaware and Washington; California’s governor imposed a moratorium in March; 
and in May, the New Hampshire legislature voted to abolish it.

This retreat has been prompted by a number of factors including capital 
punishment’s exorbitant cost. But the most distressing flaw of capital 
punishment is well illustrated by the uncertainties in Mr Reed’s story: the 
risk that the state may execute innocent people.

(source: The Economist)

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

Faculty members critique death penalty and American Justice System at seminar



In the 1st seminar of the fall 2019 University Lecture Series, three 
nationally-renowned faculty members discussed different perspectives critiquing 
the death penalty and United States criminal justice system.

The School of Undergraduate Studies hosted the lecture Monday evening at Bass 
Concert Hall. Professor Jordan Steiker, director of UT School of Law’s Capital 
Punishment Center, said the death penalty is not compatible with the ideas of 
human rights and decency, and the majority of the world’s developed countries 
have already erased the death penalty from their justice systems.

“In the long run, the death penalty seems destined to end,” Steiker said. “It 
is hard to imagine the death penalty as part of the American landscape 20 to 30 
years in the future.”

Steiker said prosecutors now rarely seek the death penalty as a result of 
increasing expenses for capital punishment cases, wrongful convictions and life 
without possibility of parole as a substitute for the death penalty.

Mary Rose, associate professor of sociology and law, said she attributes a 
decrease in death penalty cases to a broken legal system, where 95% of death 
penalty defendants take plea deals rather than face trial.

“Defendants should have a jury trial, but they probably won’t have one, and 
this is a reflection of a declining attachment to our liberties,” Rose said.

Trials are vanishing for almost all criminal and civil cases, and less than 2% 
of civil disputes are solved by trial, Rose said.

Rose said the trial by jury concept is withering, and this protection enacted 
by our founding fathers to safeguard our liberties is becoming a lost practice.

“The idea of citizens getting to decide on legal issues have gone away,” Rose 
said. “The jury is a protection against elites. A jury makes sure that the 
powerful don’t have a say in everything.”

At the end of the lecture, the speakers took questions from Twitter and the 
audience.

“I realized the legal system is so complex, and it is so important to get this 
insider perspective,” business honors freshman Sophia Lim said.

Students in undergraduate signature courses are required to attend at least one 
seminar in this series to allow first-year students to engage with leading 
faculty members.

“Our goal is not to change anyone’s mind on the death penalty,” said Brent 
Iverson, dean of Undergraduate Studies. “We are just trying to engage students 
to think about this controversial and complex topic.”

(source: (University of Texas) Daily Texan)

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

USA----impending/scheduled executions

With the execution of Mark Anthony Soliz in Texas on September 10, the USA has 
now executed 1,505 condemned individuals since the death penalty was 
re-legalized on July 2, 1976 in the US Supreme Court Gregg v Georgia decision.

Gary Gilmore was the 1st person executed, in Utah, on January 17, 1977. Below 
is a list of further scheduled executions as the nation continues its shameful 
practice of state-sponsored killings.

NOTE: The list is likely to change over the coming months as new execution 
dates are added and possible stays of execution occur.

1506-------Sept 25------------Robert Sparks------------Texas

1507-------Oct. 1-------------Russell Bucklew----------Missouri

1508-------Oct. 10------------Randy Halprin------------Texas

1509-------Oct. 16------------Randall Mays-------------Texas

1510-------Oct. 30------------Ruben Gutierrez----------Texas

1511-------Nov. 3-9-----------Charles Rhines-----------South Dakota

1512-------Nov. 6-------------Justen Hall--------------Texas

1513-------Nov. 13------------Patrick Murphy-----------Texas

1514-------Nov. 20------------Rodney Reed--------------Texas

1515-------Dec. 5-------------Lee Hall Jr.-------------Tennessee

1516-------Dec. 9-------------Daniel Lewis Lee---------Federal - Ark.

1517-------Dec. 11------------James Hanna--------------Ohio

1518-------Dec. 11------------Travis Runnels-----------Texas

1519-------Dec. 11------------Lezmond Mitchell---------Federal - Ariz.

1520-------Dec. 13------------Wesley Purkey------------Federal - Mo.

1521-------Jan. 13-----------Alfred Bourgeois----------Federal - Tex.

1522-------Jan. 15-----------Dusten Honken-------------Federal - Iowa

1523-------Jan. 16-----------Kareem Jackson------------Ohio

(source: Rick Halperin)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Death penalty sought for alleged Uni-Mart killer



The Lycoming County District Attorney’s office is seeking the death penalty 
against I-Keem Fogan for his alleged part in the deadly Aug. 4 robbery of a gas 
station.

Kenneth A. Osokow, district attorney, filed four reasons he was seeking the 
death penalty on Sept. 19, in a notice of aggravating circumstances, which is 
legally required in Pennsylvannia when capital punishment is pursued.

The document alleges Fogan held a person, Rhonda McPeak, for ransom, reward, or 
as a shield or hostage, killed the victim to prevent testimony in court, 
committed the killing while committing a felony, and knowingly created a grave 
risk of death to another person in addition to the victim.

“The Commonwealth hereby gives notice that it will seek the death penalty for 
the offense of criminal homicide,” according to the court record.

Those reasons to sentence Fogan to death have no weight until proven in court, 
said Osokow.

“Ultimately, it’s up to the court and jury, but those are the circumstances 
that we believe are applicable to the case,” he said.

“(Fogan) waived his arraignment,” added Osokow.

That hearing was scheduled for Monday. The defense council and district 
attorneys are slated to meet Oct. 28 for a status update.

If the DA is going to offer any deals, it will be at that update, said Nicole 
J. Spring, chief public defender.

“Homicide cases get scheduled in their own time — capital sentences, even 
longer,” she said.

In total, the charges held in the preliminary hearing on Aug. 30 were criminal 
homicide, 2 counts of criminal conspiracy to commit homicide, two counts of 
aggravated assault, robbery, carrying a firearm without a license, possessing 
instruments of crime and unlawfully restraining the victim.

Noah Stroup, 23, of Williamsport, who police allege acted as a lookout for 
Fogan the night McPeak was killed, is expected to be in court today at 8:30 
a.m. for a miscellaneous criminal motion before Judge Marc Lovecchio.

(source: Williamsport Sun-Gazette)








VIRGINIA:

Lawsuit calls for full public view of executions in Virginia



Prison officials are unconstitutionally limiting public access to executions in 
Virginia by blocking witnesses from seeing certain steps in the process, 4 news 
organizations allege in a federal lawsuit filed Monday.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond alleges that the 
department is violating the First Amendment by using curtains that block 
witnesses from seeing “crucial steps” in carrying out a lethal injection or 
electrocution — the 2 execution methods allowed under state law.

“These limits on witnesses’s ability to view Virginia’s executions severely 
curtail the public’s ability to understand how those executions are 
administered, or to assess whether a particular execution violates either the 
Constitution or the state’s prescribed execution procedures, or is otherwise 
botched,” the news organizations state in the lawsuit.

The Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to requests for 
comment on the lawsuit. A phone message was left and an email was sent to DOC 
spokespersons.

The state’s current execution manual, last updated in 2017, allows citizens and 
members of the media to view executions from a witness room separated from the 
execution chamber by a window. 2 curtains obstruct witnesses from seeing 
certain steps in the execution process.

One curtain covers the observation window before an inmate enters the execution 
chamber.

For lethal injections, the manual requires that the front curtain remain closed 
until after prison officials have strapped down the inmate and inserted the 
intravenous lines that will deliver the drugs. A second curtain shields the 
executioner and the administration of drugs from view throughout the execution 
process.

For electrocutions, the manual requires that the front curtain remain closed 
until prison officials have strapped the inmate to the electric chair and 
performed three actions. Those actions are not known because they have been 
redacted from the publicly available version of the manual.

The lawsuit says that the curtains prevent the public from inspecting the 
initial condition of inmates as they walk into the execution chamber.

During lethal injection executions, witnesses cannot monitor how IV lines are 
placed and whether the inmate experiences pain during the process. They also 
are unable to see how and when the different drugs used to sedate and kill the 
inmate are injected into the IV lines.

For executions, the front curtain prevents witnesses from monitoring whether 
the procedures are followed and evaluating the effects of those procedures on 
the inmate.

The lawsuit asks for a court order to ensure the public can view the entire 
process, from the moment an inmate enters the execution chamber through the 
moment of death.

The news organizations suing are: The Associated Press; Guardian News & Media 
LLC; BH Media Group, owner of the Richmond Times-Dispatch; and Gannett Co., 
Inc., owner of The News Leader of Staunton, Virginia. Harold Clarke is named as 
a defendant in his capacity as director of the Department of Corrections.

Execution witnesses used to be able to watch inmates walk into the chamber and 
be strapped down. The curtain was then closed so the public could not see the 
placement of the IV and heart monitors. After the curtain was reopened, inmates 
were asked whether they had any words before the drugs began flowing into their 
bodies.

In 2017, prison officials revised their procedures to keep more of the process 
out of public view after attorneys raised concerns about how long it took to 
place IV lines during the execution that January of convicted killer Ricky 
Gray.

News outlets reported that it appeared to take more than 30 minutes to place 
the IV lines and complete other procedures behind a curtain blocking the view 
of witnesses.

Gray was convicted of killing a Richmond family of 4, slashing their throats 
and setting their home on fire after they left their front door open while 
getting ready for a New Year’s Day party in 2006.

The decision to make more of the process secret was sharply criticized by 
attorneys and transparency advocates. At the time, a spokeswoman for the 
Department of Corrections said the decision to delay the opening of the curtain 
until after IV lines are placed would reduce stress on the staff placing the 
lines and could make the process go more quickly for inmates.

One inmate has been executed in Virginia under the new protocol, William Morva, 
in July 2017. Morva killed a hospital security guard and a sheriff’s deputy 
after escaping from custody in 2006.

During Morva’s execution, witnesses were not able to see him enter the death 
chamber so it was unclear when the process began.

Virginia has executed 113 inmates since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court 
reinstated the death penalty. The state now has just 2 inmates remaining on 
death row. No execution dates have been scheduled.

(source: The Washington Post)








SOUTH CAROLINA:

Defendant competent so SC death penalty trial can continue



A judge has ruled the death penalty trial of a man charged with killing 2 South 
Carolina bank employees during a robbery should continue because the defendant 
is mentally competent.

The federal judge halted Brandon Council's trial Friday after his lawyers said 
they weren't sure he understood the charges against him.

But the defense lawyers said in court Monday that a psychologist and a 
psychiatrist examined Council over the weekend and found him mentally 
competent.

Authorities say Council killed a teller and manager at CresCom Bank in Conway 
in August 2017.

Council's lawyers say he is guilty, but they are fighting to keep him from 
facing the death penalty.

Jurors are set to return to the courthouse Tuesday. Prosecutors have rested 
their case in the guilt phase.

(source: Associated Press)








GEORGIA:

Public Defender Council Would Furlough Staff to Meet Governor's Budget Cut 
Mandate----The council, which provides defense counsel to indigent criminal 
defendants, has asked to exempt staff wages from Gov. Brian Kemp's directive 
that state agencies cut 4% from their FY 2020 budget and 6% from their FY 2021 
budget.



The Georgia Public Defender Council will have to furlough public defenders 
across the state for 10 days between now and next June to meet Gov. Brian 
Kemp’s budget-cut requests, according to state budget documents.

In addition, the council—which provides lawyers to indigent criminal defendants 
across the state—has proposed the elimination of its capital defender office in 
fiscal year 2021 to save an additional $4.3 million in state funds. That 
proposal is dependent on passage of a state law abolishing the death penalty.

In August, Kemp directed state agencies to cut 4% percent from their FY 2020 
budget, which ends June 30, 2020, and 6% from their FY 2021 budget. Kemp 
notified the agencies that he intended for the requested cuts to take effect 
beginning Oct. 1. He said he was ordering the cuts in order to fund a number of 
“strategic goals.” Those goals reflect campaign promises the governor made 
prior to his election last November.

Georgia has more than $2.5 billion in its reserve “rainy day fund,” according 
to state budget documents.

Council officials wouldn’t comment on the new budget directives. But in memos 
to the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, the council’s interim 
director, Jimmonique Rodgers, has asked the governor and his budget staff to 
exempt public defender salaries, arguing that agency expenditures are “aligned 
with constitutional and statutory requirements.”

On Monday, the director of the governor’s Office of Planning and Budget sent a 
memo to state agency heads stating that despite the Kemp’s goal of a “leaner” 
state government, “Budget reductions are meant to identify opportunities to 
make state government more efficient through technology, by eliminating 
duplicative services, or by streamlining regulations, not through eliminating 
core services to taxpayers or across the board reductions in force or 
furloughs.”

The memo asked agencies proposing a reduction in force or services to contact 
her office to explain why “alternative scenarios or other efficiencies” are not 
an option.

The memo was forwarded to The Daily Report by Kemp spokeswoman Candice Broce in 
response to questions about whether the governor might grant the PDC’s 
exemption request or support eliminating the death penalty in order to achieve 
his budget goals.

“Public defender offices are much like hospital emergency rooms. We must accept 
every eligible client that needs our services,” Rodgers said in an Aug. 20 memo 
The Daily Report obtained in response to a public records request. “The absence 
of counsel means that the prosecutors cannot try cases, and the courts’ 
criminal dockets stall. This poses not only a logistical problem for local 
jails, prosecutors and courts, but also one of public safety and constitutional 
concerns,

More than 90% of council funds are dedicated to paying the salaries and 
benefits of public defenders across the state, contracting with private 
attorneys to avoid conflicts associated with defending multiple co-defendants 
in a single circuit, payments to defense experts, and travel expenses 
associated with defending cases, the memo said.

Contract public defenders are paid a flat fee that doesn’t include mileage 
reimbursements, Rodgers’ memo said. Without an exemption from the governor, 
those contracts will also have to be reduced, she said.

District attorneys and their staffs are not included in the governor’s proposed 
budget cuts, nor are members of the state judiciary.

Kemp’s goals include reducing gang activity and human trafficking, according to 
state budget documents. Doing so will likely increase criminal prosecutions 
involving multiple defendants that would require additional lawyers in order to 
avoid conflicts that could arise if defendants were represented by a single 
defender, Rodgers’ memo said.

The number of funded positions also is dictated by state law and consent 
decrees stemming from previous lawsuits challenging the constitutional 
inadequacy of what was until 2003 an informal patchwork of county-appointed 
public defenders. But the agency is “historically lean,” according to the memo.

Public defenders opened 144,224 new cases in the state’s 43 circuits in FY 
2019—a 20% increase since FY 2017, the memo said.

4 positions at the central office have been open for months, according to 
Rodgers’ memo. The council also didn’t receive state funds this year to hire 
nine juvenile public defenders mandated by state law.

‘Starve the defense’

Attorney Bryan Tyson, a partner at the Atlanta offices of Taylor English Duma 
who served as the council’s executive director from 2015-2018, said his biggest 
concern about cutting agency funding “is that the judges and prosecutors are 
not having to make similar cuts.”

“Having public defenders furloughed at this time means slowing down the system. 
And that’s not good for anybody,” he said. “You can only prosecute people as 
fast as a public defender can defend them.”

The council, he added, “is still underfunded, compared to what it really needs 
to be.”

Tyson also defended the capital defender office, saying it is staffed with 
“extremely high quality lawyers,” and is currently considered a model for 
capital defenders across the country. Even though there are fewer death penalty 
cases being tried, he said that capital caseload has remained “relatively 
steady” because of appeals and reversals of some death cases that must be 
retried. Tyson also expressed skepticism that the state legislature would bar 
the death penalty any time soon.

“One of the major problems that has been identified when you greatly increase 
resources on the prosecution side and don’t have the same kind of increase on 
the defense side, cases are not properly defended,” said Stephen Bright, a law 
professor at Yale and Georgia State universities, who as head of the Southern 
Center for Human Rights successfully sued a number of Georgia counties over 
inadequate or nonexistent public defenders. “If you want to guarantee innocent 
people are convicted in Georgia courts, cut the public defender budget.”

Bright said that having full-time public defenders who are trained, supervised 
and provide high-quality professional representation is essential to the 
integrity of the criminal justice system.

“We know the overwhelming majority of people accused of crimes in the court 
system cannot afford a lawyer,” he added. “An adversary system cannot work if 
you starve the defense.”

Bright said that until former Gov. Sonny Perdue, now U.S. secretary of 
agriculture, signed the law establishing the Public Defender Council, the 
ad-hoc system of contract public defenders was “an absolute disgrace.”

“You can’t snap your fingers and create a public-defender system overnight,” he 
added. “It takes time and resources and people. … Having full-time public 
defenders who are trained, who are supervised, providing high-quality 
professional representation is essential to the integrity of the adversary 
system.”

(source: law.com)








FLORIDA:

Michael Jones loses bid to show prospective jurors autopsy photo ahead of his 
murder trial



Lawyers representing murder suspect Michael Jones lost a motion argued in court 
Monday to be able to show prospective jurors in his death penalty trial graphic 
photographs of victim Diana Duve, who was found strangled in June 2014.

The unusual defense request came a day before 200 prospective jurors, in groups 
of 50 or 60, will show up at the Indian River County Courthouse to start a 
two-day process of filing out lengthy questionnaires ahead of Jones’ jury 
selection, which begins Oct. 1.

A former wealth management advisor for PNC Bank, Jones, 36, is accused of 
killing Duve at his Vero Beach apartment in the early hours of June 20, 2014. 
Police said he transported her body in the trunk of her car to a Melbourne 
shopping plaza that was discovered days later.

If Jones is convicted at trial, he could face the death penalty.

In court, Assistant Public Defender Dorothy Naumann told Indian River County 
Circuit Judge Dan Vaughn they want prospective jurors to see a photo of Duve 
while she was alive, one of her dead in the trunk of her Nissan Altima and an 
autopsy photo taken by a Brevard County medical examiner.

The purpose, she said, “was to make sure the jury is as fair as possible.”

“If I come in and I tell the jurors what’s in the pictures or merely that they 
are going to be seeing gory, graphic photos, that's not going to explore 
whether or not these jurors are truly going to be biased when they actually see 
the photos themselves,” Naumann argued.

She told Vaughn that based on case law, the issue of whether to permit the 
three photos during jury selection was “entirely within your discretion.”

“Considering what’s at stake in this case, I think it’s certainly worth making 
the request of this court,” Naumann said. “I know it’s something that’s 
upsetting to the victim’s family and I’m cognizant of that.”

“No, you’re not,” said Duve’s stepfather Bill Andrews, from his seat in the 
courtroom next to her mother Lena Andrews.

“Obviously our responsibility here is only to Mr. Jones in trying to make sure 
that we do as good of a job as we can,” continued Naumann, “to make sure that 
he’s getting an unbiased jury that’s not going to be persuaded to vote for 
death merely by seeing these pictures. I think showing them the pictures is 
going to be the most effective way to get an honest answer to that question.”

Chief Assistant State Attorney Tom Bakkedahl flatly disagreed.

The defense request, he said, was “tantamount to trying to get an advanced 
opinion on the evidence from the jurors.”

“The defense has no clue what particular photographs we intend to offer as it 
relates to either crime scene or autopsy,” Bakkedahl said.

The state has more than 200 autopsy photos, he said, which they’re working to 
narrow to a “reasonable number” to show Jones’ jury after it's seated.

Bakkedahl further argued that Florida law bans releasing autopsy photos and 
only the ones presented at trial would be viewed by the public.

“The Florida Legislature has recognized that the release of photographs of this 
nature to the public is damaging to the decedent’s loved ones and friends,” he 
argued. “It’s an unnecessary distribution of these images when the vast 
majority of these folks won’t be on the jury.”

He urged Vaughn to deny the motion.

Naumann countered that if the request is granted, only jurors left in the pool 
after the court dismisses people because of bias, hardship issues or exposure 
to pretrial publicity will see the images.

“We have to weigh the interests here,” she said, “and I think that Mr. Jones’ 
interest in making sure his jury can be objective is more important than any of 
the other interests mentioned.”

Hours after the hearing, Vaughn issued a ruling rejecting the defense motion.

"This court will exercise its authority and deny this request," Vaughn wrote. 
"Certainly the defense is free to question potential jurors about the effect 
viewing graphic crime scene and/or autopsy photographs may have or their 
ability to be fair and impartial."

In a separate motion still pending, Jones’ lawyers want Vaughn to throw out 
evidence of a photo lineup conducted by Melbourne police officers with a cab 
driver law enforcement authorities said drove Jones from Brevard County to Vero 
Beach after he abandoned Duve’s car.

The attorneys claim officers failed to follow proper protocol when the cab 
driver positively identified Jones as the passenger he picked up at a Melbourne 
Wendy’s parking lot.

(source: tcpalm.com)








LOUISIANA:

Brother and sister facing death penalty return to court, trial set



Matthew and Ebony Sonnier, the brother and sister facing the death penalty for 
the Oct. 2017 murders of Latish White, Kendrick Horn and Jeremy Norris, were 
back in the Rapides Parish courthouse on Monday.

Attorneys were putting the final touches on arguments on a few defense motions 
that aim to get evidence suppressed that was obtained during the arrests of the 
two, including the search of Matthew's truck and statements made to police.

Ebony was in court first on Monday where capital defense attorneys from New 
Orleans tried to continue to build a case of an improper arrest when she was 
picked up by Pineville Police for questioning.

When the murders took place, as Pineville Police searched Ebony's house, she 
was handcuffed and taken to the police department for questioning after 
detectives discovered suspected drugs in her home and that she had an 
outstanding warrant through the Alexandria Police Department.

Officer Susan Mosley, who worked for Pineville Police at the time, told the 
court that she advised Sonnier of her rights as she cuffed her and place her in 
her unit to transport her to the station. Once she arrived, one arm remained 
cuffed and Sonnier spoke with detectives about the case involving her brother.

As we learned, Sonnier was never given her Miranda rights at the station. Det. 
Will Smith testified that, at the time, Sonnier was only considered a witness, 
not a suspect.

"Did she say she didn't want to talk or request an attorney?", asked special 
prosecutor Hugo Holland. "No," replied Smith.

Mosley told the court that she provided pizza for Sonnier, as well as tissues 
when she cried.

Ebony's attorneys believe it was a bad arrest and argued that Sonnier didn't 
know why she was shackled on the outstanding Alexandria warrant. Dennis Moore, 
who represents Ebony, also questioned a time stamp on the search warrant to 
sweep Ebony's home and what appeared to be an earlier draft of Smith's report 
that stated that he informed his officers that he successfully obtained the 
warrant that conflicted with the time that it was actually obtained.

Judge Mary Doggett will make a decision on the motions at a later date.

Matthew's appearance in court was brief. This time, the defense wamted to 
suppress evidence regarding the search of his truck.

One witness, Det. Miranda Collura with Pineville Police, testified. She 
explained how detectives were able to track down the truck and address.

Judge Chris Hazel will will make a decision on the motions at a later date.

Meanwhile, a trial date was set for Matthew for Aug. 24, 2020. As it stands 
now, Ebony's trial is set to take place in March, but it could be continued to 
a later date.

(source: KALB news)