Jan. 14 CALIFORNIA: Nanny charged in death of toddler Santa Clara County prosecutors are pursuing a homicide charge against a nanny accused of killing a 22-month-old Palo Alto girl in her care. The suspect, 26-year-old Claudia Gabrielle Granados of Tracy, appeared in Superior Court on Tuesday to face 1 count of child abuse homicide for the death of Sarah Howell. Medical examiners determined the girl died of severe blunt force trauma to her head. Granados is expected to enter her plea March 1. Prosecutors said Granados was a nanny employed by William Howell and Denise Provost, both doctors who live in Palo Alto. On the night of Sept. 14, the couple left their infant in the care of Granados, authorities said. Later that night, Granados went to the home of a neighbor for help when the baby lost consciousness. The neighbor called 911 and reported that the baby was unresponsive. The child was taken to Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and died the next day, authorities said. Investigators later determined that Granados was the only person with the girl at the time she was injured. Granados was arrested Dec. 21. Prosecutor Dan Nishigaya declined to comment on a possible motive, how the girl was injured or whether a weapon was used. Granados remains in jail on $1 million bail. (source: San Francisco Chronicle) ***************** The case against an execution----DONALD BEARDSLEE'S BRAIN DAMAGE WASN'T KNOWN BY JURORS AT THE TIME Juror Robert Martinez says if he'd known that Donald Beardslee was severely brain damaged, he never would have recommended the death penalty for Beardslee's part in 2 1981 murders. Had Martinez known that neither of the ringleaders of the murder plot had been sentenced to death, he would not have asked Beardslee, an unwitting patsy, to pay the ultimate price for the slaying of Patty Geddling and Stacy Benjamin. Today, thanks to modern brain-imaging technology, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger knows what Martinez and his fellow jurors didn't: that Beardslee's actions were the result of severe brain damage that impaired his ability to make decisions. Considering this new evidence, executing Beardslee on Jan. 19 would be a cruel miscarriage of justice. In a petition that will be heard by the state Board of Prison Terms today, Martinez and 2 other jurors call on the governor to commute Beardsley's sentence to life without the possibility of parole. So does Daniel Vasquez, the former warden of San Quentin prison and a strong supporter of the death penalty. Recent brain scans show that Beardslee has severe damage to the right hemisphere, which makes him unable to handle social situations appropriately or make decisions in stressful circumstances. He's OK if he can just follow orders -- as he did in the Air Force and at San Quentin, where he is an exemplary inmate. But out in the world, his eagerness to follow orders has gotten him into trouble. In 1981, he was living in Redwood City while on parole for killing a woman in Missouri. (He had confessed to that crime but also said he was never sure he committed it.) He befriended a prostitute who drew him into a depraved murder plot. Though Beardslee immediately confessed his role to police and helped convict others in the group, he was the only one sentenced to death -- a fact the jury never knew. The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the death penalty for the mentally retarded, but not for those who have other, even more devastating mental impairments. There is, however, a precedent in California for clemency in this case. In 1967, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan commuted the death sentence of a brain-damaged man who firebombed his girlfriend's home, killing her 3-year-old son. Reagan based his decision on test results from a newfangled gadget, the 16-channel encephalograph, which hadn't been available at the trial. This week, in a letter urging clemency, four California church leaders reminded Schwarzenegger that "throughout history, great leaders have been remembered as much for their compassion as their conquests." (source: Editorial, San Jose Mercury News) FLORIDA: Death-row inmate wins resentencing The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday gave convicted killer Jermaine "Bugsy" LeBron a chance to leave death row when, for the 2nd time, it ordered a new sentencing hearing because of what it called an error by the trial judge. LeBron, 30, was convicted of the November 1995 shotgun murder of Larry Neal Oliver Jr., 22, a Belle Isle man prosecutors say was killed for the customized red pickup he worked 2 jobs to keep up. The case generated so much publicity in Central Florida that the original trial in October 1997 -- which ended in a mistrial -- and a 2nd trial, in which he was convicted in February 1998, were moved to Pinellas County. Thursday's ruling nullified the death sentence Chief Orange-Osceola Circuit Judge Belvin Perry handed down in August 2002. Perry also sentenced LeBron to death in 1998, but the state Supreme Court ordered a new sentencing hearing. The jury's vote for death was 7-5 both times. The justices determined that testimony from a Kissimmee police sergeant about a second shotgun attack in 1995 for which LeBron was convicted should not have been admitted because it prejudiced the jury. Oliver's mother, Rebecca, said Thursday's ruling hit the family hard. If there is another sentencing hearing, Rebecca Oliver said, she plans to be there to represent her son. Whatever the outcome, she said, she and her husband, Larry Neal Oliver Sr., will accept it and continue to keep their son's memory alive through such events as an annual Orlando truck show named for him. "We just pray about it and say, 'Lord, do what you think is the right thing,'" said Rebecca Oliver, who now lives in South Carolina. Danielle Tavernier, a spokeswoman for the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office, said no decision has been made on whether to seek the death penalty again. First, the Florida Attorney General's Office, which handles appeals for the state, has 15 days to decide whether it will ask the Supreme Court to hear the case again, said Carolyn Snurkowski, assistant deputy attorney general for criminal appeals. The best LeBron can hope for, said his attorney, Robert Norgard, is life in prison because the Supreme Court did not void LeBron's 1st-degree murder conviction. "To have somebody go from being on death row to having a life sentence is major," said Norgard of Bartow. "I mean, neither option is attractive to the individual. [But] the difference between spending your life in prison and dying is very significant." The Supreme Court ruling acknowledged "unusual problems" with the LeBron case. Rather than simply voting on LeBron's guilt or innocence, the jury that convicted him was told to make additional findings of fact. The trial jury found that LeBron was not the person who shot Oliver at a Buenaventura Lakes house where LeBron lived with several other people and that he did not possess a gun during the shooting. However, they also found him guilty of murder. "Seldom does this Court review capital cases in which the guilt phase produces such specific, and seemingly inconsistent, verdicts," the court wrote in its 5-1 ruling. The Supreme Court instructed the trial court not to allow any evidence during a resentencing hearing that would indicate LeBron actually shot Oliver, including testimony from a detective who at the 2002 sentencing hearing said LeBron had confessed. "We are simply mandating that the trial court fulfill its capacity as the guardian of the constitutional rights accorded every criminal defendant in this state," the opinion reads. Justice Peggy Quince dissented, writing that the Oliver murder and the second shotgun attack were not similar enough to create a prejudicial effect. Justice Charles Wells recused himself. (source: Sun-Sentinel) NORTH CAROLINA: Death-row inmate accused in 3rd killing----Squad announces charge in 17-year-old case After more than 17 years, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said they have found the person who abducted a 19-year-old as she waited for a ride after work, then slit her throat. The man, whom police call a serial killer, already sits on death row for robbing, raping and killing 2 women. On Thursday, police charged Terry Alvin Hyatt, 47, with killing a third woman: Jerri Ann Jones. Thursday's charges mark the 4th cold case Charlotte-Mecklenburg police have closed in 4 weeks. On Dec. 23, the department's cold-case squad pressed charges in the 1990 death of Sherry Denise Jenkins. On Jan. 1, police arrested a man in Florida in the 1989 slaying of 16-year-old Chrystal Ann Taylor. And last week, they charged a man in the 1984 death of 23-year-old Cynthia Gayle Dotson Wilson. "We're pleased with the recent success we've had. We always thought this work was necessary," said David Phillips, a homicide detective who has worked exclusively on cold cases since the team was formed in 2003. "It's long overdue." Phillips remembers the death of Jerri Jones. The now-veteran cop had only been working for the police department about a year when she disappeared. On July 8, 1987, Jones had finished her shift as a cashier at a Harris Teeter on North Graham Street and Sugar Creek Road and was waiting for a ride from a boyfriend, police said. She wasn't seen alive again. 2 days later, police found her naked body about a mile away. Her throat had been slit. The case made headlines across the city, Phillips recalled. Police conferred with other jurisdictions that had similar cases. They tried to interview a man arrested in a rape case. But they said Thursday that at the time they never suspected Hyatt, a man who had just gotten out on parole and was working construction jobs in and around Charlotte up until the late 1990s. He was arrested in 1999 for murders that happened 20 years earlier. In April 1979, Harriet Delaney Simmons left her job in Raleigh and headed to Nashville, Tenn., to visit a friend. The 40-year-old never showed up. Her car, with a suitcase and thermos still inside, were found at a rest stop west of Statesville. About a year later, her skull and skeleton were found in Buncombe County. Meanwhile, 21-year-old Betty Sue McConnell had disappeared in Buncombe County, just four months after Simmons' disappearance. She had called her mom to say she was leaving work and was headed to an Asheville bowling alley to meet a friend. She showed up the next morning, soaking wet and gasping for breath in an Asheville couple's driveway. She said she'd been stabbed and thrown in the nearby French Broad River, court records show. She soon died from the five stab wounds to her chest. 2 months later, another woman was abducted at knifepoint, according to a court record. But she persuaded the man not to rape her. He let her go. She later testified against Hyatt. He pleaded guilty on a charge of kidnapping and armed robbery and was sent to prison. No connection was made to the earlier slayings, though. Hyatt was released on parole in 1987, police said. Within months of his release, Jones was dead. It wasn't until May 1999 that Hyatt faced any murder charges. After a man came forward saying he witnessed McConnell's rape, Hyatt was indicted in the 1979 deaths of McConnell and Simmons. It would take another 5 years before police matched his DNA to evidence from the scene of Jones' killing. Still her family had held out hope that her killer would be found. In 1994, when Charlotte-Mecklenburg police formed a cold-case squad similar to the one that is combing over old cases today, her father spoke to the Observer. "I've never given up hope," J.R. Jones said then. "I figure sooner or later something will turn up, some piece of evidence." On Thursday, her now 58-year-old father said the hope had never died, even though a decade had passed since police first reopened her case. "I just wish somebody got him a long time ago," he said, "that they'd kept him in prison." He recalled the petite, 85-pound teen who had been a flag girl in her high school band in Kentucky. After moving to Charlotte to live with him, she studied business administration at Central Piedmont Community College, while working at Harris Teeter. "I still miss my daughter," he said. "I think about her and wonder what she would do and where she'd be in her life today." (source: Charlotte Observer) *********************** Death sentence is eyed in tailgate party slayings One of 2 men accused of killing 2 Chicago-area residents at a North Carolina football game pleaded guilty Thursday to unrelated charges of armed robbery and burglary, a move a prosecutor said makes it possible to seek the death penalty in the murder case. After Tim Johnson, 22, made his plea, Wake County, N.C., Assistant District Atty. Susan Spurlin said that she could argue for Johnson to face the death penalty if he is convicted in the slayings, because then he would have been found guilty of 2 violent crimes. Tim Johnson and his brother, Tony, 20, are accused of fatally shooting Kevin McCann, 23, of Chicago, and Brett Johnson Harman, 23, a Marine from Park Ridge, on Sept. 4. (source: Chicago Tribune)
