Jan. 24 NORTH CAROLINA: Murder trial on hold until 2010 Prosecutors are ready to try a man for the December 2007 slaying of a Statesville convenience store clerk and customer, but defense scheduling means the trial is more than a year away. Andrew Ramseur is charged with shooting clerk Jennifer Vincek and customer Jeff Peck to death during a robbery at a Broad Street convenience store in December 2007. The shootings were captured on the store's video surveillance system. Ramseur was arrested a day after the slayings and remains in custody. The state is seeking the death penalty. Assistant District Attorney Mikko Red Arrow said he and Ramseur's attorneys, Vince and Mark Rabil of the Indigent Defense Services, discussed scheduling of the case before Judge Chris Collier this week in Iredell County Superior Court. "The state announced it was ready for trial," Red Arrow said. But both Rabil brothers said they would be unavailable until next year because both are committed to trying cases older than Ramseur's in other counties. 2 defense attorneys are required on death penalty cases so a trial date cannot be set unless both are available. The Rabils work for the statewide Indigent Defense Services, which provides attorneys in capital cases, and both try cases across the state. Red Arrow said they agreed to start Ramseur's trial on Feb. 1, 2010. "We're not happy about it," he said. "But there's not a lot of choice. It's not for a want of us trying to get the case in court." Jennifer Peck, Jeff Peck's daughter, said she was disappointed the trial is still more than a year away. "I was a little upset," she said. "I'm ready to get this over with so we can get past it." (source: Statesville Record and Landmark) TENNESSEE----new execution date Court orders Dellinger to die June 3 The Tennessee Supreme Court rejected an appeal Thursday from a death row inmate convicted of murders in Blount County and Sevier County. James A. Dellinger, who was convicted in the 1992 shooting death of Tommy Griffin, claimed he had ineffective counsel. He identified a number of issues on which he said his conviction and sentence should have been reversed, claiming problems with imposing the state's death penalty among his points. The court filed a ruling Thursday upholding an appeals court judgment. The court ordered his death sentence be carried out on June 3. In 1996, Dellinger and Gary Sutton were convicted of first degree murder of Griffin and sentenced to death. Griffin, 24, was shot at close range with a shotgun, then his body was left alongside Little River in Townsend on Feb. 21, 1992. The body was found on Feb. 24. After an extensive investigation, Blount County authorities charged Sutton and Dellinger with Griffin's murder. The 2 Sevier County men were also charged by authorities there with the death of Griffin's sister, 34-year-old Connie Branam, whose charred body was found in her burned out car. Dellinger and Sutton were sentenced to life in prison after their conviction in Sevier County. The execution date brings some closure for the family, said 52-year-old Stella Griffin, older sister to both victims. Stella Griffin, a Sevierville resident, went to every trial in Blount County and Sevier County. That was the promise that she made her mother, who died in 1994, that she would go to each one. "There is so much -- so much that these people have done," said Stella Griffin, 52. "It killed my mama." She said Dellinger was a neighbor of both Connie's and Tommy's. They all lived on Gibson Hollow Road in Sevier County. Ten days before the murders, Gary Sutton moved in with Dellinger, she recalled. "They found them guilty. I know God had to be with us," she said. "He's been with us through all of this." (source: Maryville Daily Times) ******************** Reforms of Tennessee's capital punishment process face tough trials----Political, fiscal factors shadow death row issues The case arose from the brutal, senseless, unforgivable murder of an elderly Memphis couple in 1980. But Tennessee's criminal justice system was on trial last month when the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Gary Bradford Cone's appeal of his death sentence. More than 26 years after he was sentenced to death, Gary Cone's appeals continue. Those who support reforming Tennessee's death penalty procedures say a key goal is to reduce lengthy and costly appeals by providing more effective representation for defendants charged with capital crimes. The justices were incredulous and angry, according to the description in a lengthy New York Times report, when evidence was presented that the Shelby County district attorney's office had withheld important evidence from the attorney who represented Cone in his 1982 trial. The evidence purportedly supported Cone's claim that an amphetamine-fueled psychosis had contributed to his actions in the bludgeoning deaths of Midtown residents Shipley O. Todd, 93, and his 79-year-old wife, Cleopatra Todd. As damning as the argument appeared -- one Supreme Court justice said statements by the attorney representing the state of Tennessee were "utterly irrational" -- the bad press was misleading, according to John Campbell, an assistant district attorney in Shelby County who has been prosecuting first-degree murder cases since 1985. There had never been a hearing on the disclosure issue, Campbell said, before the case reached the Supreme Court. But the Cone case nevertheless sharpened the focus on a state death penalty system with a serious problem. How serious? More than 1/2 of the 184 persons sentenced to death in Tennessee since capital punishment was restored in 1977 have had their sentences set aside. Convicts on death row spend an average of 10 years there. 1 has managed to delay his execution since 1978. 26 men have spent 20 years or more fighting the ultimate punishment. 4 have been executed. 1 inhabitant recently died there with no help from the state. A legislative study committee headed by state Sen. Doug Jackson, D-Dickson, and Rep. Kent Coleman, D-Murfreesboro, will make another attempt this year to reform Tennessee's system for moving death penalty cases through the investigation, trial court and appeals processes. But few of the changes favored by the committee are regarded as strong bets for passage in the General Assembly. That doesn't mean the concerns of those who support death penalty reform won't get a fair hearing from the new GOP leadership in the legislature, said Senate Republican Leader Mark Norris of Collierville. Despite an increase in the concern about crime, Norris said, "I don't know anyone who would use that to leverage someone's life. Everyone is concerned to make sure that justice is done and done appropriately. No one wants to see anyone executed who shouldn't be." One reform of criminal investigation procedures that is likely to pass would encourage law enforcement officers statewide to record custodial interviews of murder suspects. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, encouraged by the study committee, has taken the lead on that issue and virtually assured its passage. Less likely to succeed, but not out of the question, is a measure that would require DNA evidence to be preserved throughout a convict's incarceration. The current law covers preservation only for the duration of the appeals process. Political risks But significant progress on other death penalty reform measures is going to take a vigorous, sustained effort. Most Tennesseans support the death penalty in general, and in the current climate, a politician who supports reform runs the risk of producing material for an attack ad during his or her next re-election campaign. The political risks are not insurmountable, though, said Memphis attorney Mike Cody, a former state attorney general, federal prosecutor and member of the Constitution Project, a national task force that completed a lengthy study of the death penalty in 2006. "The only way to overcome that is to say that all of us should want to have guilty people convicted and punished, but none of us should want an innocent person convicted or, more important, put to death," Cody said. "We're not talking about a person who, in fact, committed a murder. We're trying to protect someone who did not commit a murder but is, in fact, caught up in the system due to either prosecutorial abuse, inadequate defense lawyers or some other reason." Members of the Constitution Project task force did not agree on whether murderers should be put to death, Cody said. "But all of us agreed that ... if people through the legislative process insist on having the death penalty, it's incumbent on the state and the citizens to do what they can to be sure it's fairly administered." Economic ramifications Of course, the economic climate also tends to dampen prospects for improvements in criminal justice. One of the most important goals of death penalty reformers in Tennessee is the establishment of a commission to set standards, train and oversee the selection of appointed defense attorneys who represent indigent clients and provide better funding for attorneys, who in some cases aren't paid enough to cover their office overhead. As with many other legislative initiatives, however, it's difficult to see past the initial investment required. No one knows how much money the proposal to create an indigent defense commission might save taxpayers in the long run by ensuring more effective trial representation and reducing costly appeals. And the initiative does not have the support of prosecutors, a high hurdle to cross in a law-and-order state. Nor do many prosecutors support the notion of allowing defense attorneys to browse through prosecutors' files in capital murder cases, a reform that supporters say could eliminate appeals based on the claim that prosecutors withheld information that could have aided the defense. Opponents say the so-called open-file discovery could subject witnesses to harassment or perhaps even identity theft. Proponents point out that a form of open-file discovery has been adopted with some success by Davidson County Dist. Atty. Gen. Victor S. "Torry" Johnson III. "Nobody has come up with a valid argument why it shouldn't be done," said Brad McLean, executive director of the pro-reform group The Tennessee Justice Project, pointing out that excluding certain types of information from the open-file rule could ease prosecutors' concerns. But that, opponents say, would put prosecutors right back where they started -- defending themselves against allegations that they withheld evidence. Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons says prosecutors are committed to their obligation to release exculpatory evidence. But many object to the kind of written protocols such as those being advocated by death penalty reformers. "The minute you deviate," he said, "you raise an issue that doesn't have merit." Mental illness exceptions There is little hope, either, for passage of one of the least understood goals of Tennessee's death penalty reformers -- excluding people with severe mental illnesses from the death penalty. Reformers believe a life sentence with no parole would be more appropriate in such cases. But among the nation's 36 death penalty states, only Connecticut excludes 1st-degree murder convicts from the death penalty because of mental illness. Many states, including Tennessee, don't allow death sentences for the mentally retarded. But excluding convicts with psychotic disorders lacks broad support. Among other handicaps, the idea can easily be confused with the unpopular verdict of not guilty for reasons of insanity. Like so many other aspects of the reform movement, there is little doubt that the proposal to make defendants with severe mental illnesses ineligible for the death penalty would save money, but it is difficult to say how much. That makes supporters of reform realistic about the dim prospects for immediate progress, but determined to stay on the case. "This may not be the best year," says Jackson, the primary reform sponsor in the Senate, "but we will have to deal with this in the future. Few things are as profound as the government taking the life of a citizen." Few things are as expensive, either. 3rd time for Cone The case that resulted in the Supreme Court spanking for Tennessee last month was not an unfamiliar one to the justices. It was the 3rd time Cone's lawyers had traveled to Washington to plead for his sentence to be set aside. On 2 previous occasions, the high court has reversed rulings from the federal appeals court in Cincinnati that had favored Cone, a Vietnam veteran whose behavior may have been influenced by post-traumatic stress disorder, or perhaps by excessive drug use -- after so much time, that question seems almost moot. The legal question, as usual in old capital murder cases, is not so much about Cone himself but rather an arcane, technical matter -- whether and when federal courts are free to reconsider state court rulings in capital cases. This time, 28 years after his arrest, the court may be poised to send Cone back to court again. In the meantime, he continues to serve as an exhibit in the case against capital punishment in Tennessee -- growing old and collecting mold in his home on death row. (source: Michael Kelley is an editorial writer for The Memphis Commercial Appeal) ***************** Tennessee lethal injection battle could delay February execution Deep in the chambers of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, the future use of Tennessee's 3-drug protocol for lethal injection executions is being determined this week. In turn, those deliberations will likely determine whether or not the state's next execution the scheduled Feb. 4 lethal injection of convicted murderer Steve Henley will take place. A hearing in federal court today could put that execution on indefinite hold. The appellate court panel heard oral arguments from the State of Tennessee's legal team as well as lawyers for condemned inmate E.J. Harbison on Tuesday. The hearing will help determine whether or not District Court Judge Aleta Traugers 2007 ruling deeming Tennessees lethal injection method unconstitutional will stand. Trauger's ruling has already effectively ground executions to a halt in the state as most death row inmates are by law to be executed through lethal injection. In strong language, Trauger ruled the state's 3-drug execution protocol was unconstitutional, constituting cruel and unusual punishment and a violation of the Eighth and 14th Amendments. Tennessee law only allows the use of lethal injection for inmates whose capital offense occurred after Dec. 31, 1998. Inmates with offenses prior to that date can choose between lethal injection and the electric chair. "The decision is important in that what the district court found was that the protocol the state was going to use posed a substantial risk of serious harm in the sense it would be cruel and unusual punishment," said Dana Chavis, Harbisons assistant federal community defense attorney based in Knoxville. "She (Trauger) found there was a substantial risk of Mr. Harbison not being rendered unconscious by the 1st drug." Chavis continued to explain the objections to the 3-drug protocol, stating essentially that though immobile and seemingly unconscious the 1st drug 5 grams of Sodium Thiopental in 200 cc of sterile water would still allow the condemned to feel the effect of the 2 subsequent drugs designed to stop their breathing and then their heart. It is a process Trauger in her ruling said would not provide a proper safeguard against pain but rather ''a terrifying, excruciating death.'' Though the Harbison case and the related Trauger ruling have far-reaching implications for capital punishment in the state, more immediately it will impact the scheduled execution of Henley in less than 2 weeks. Henley was convicted in 1986 of the murders of Fred and Edna Stafford in rural Jackson County. Henley first shot the couple in a dispute over money allegedly owed Henley's family. He then poured gasoline on the Staffords home and burned it with the couple inside Edna Stafford was wounded, but still alive when the blaze was set. District Judge Robert Echols has a show cause hearing set for his courtroom today where both sides in the Henley case must demonstrate if there is any reason Echols should not hold the case in abeyance pending the appellate courts ruling. Before Echols court, Henley is presently relying on the Trauger ruling to keep him out of the death chamber. Henley chose lethal injection as his method of execution. State attorneys do have some recent legal victories to point to in the national lethal injection battle. A high-profile Kentucky capital case stopped all lethal injection executions last year as the U.S. Supreme Court mulled the constitutionality of Kentuckys similar lethal injection method. The State of Kentucky prevailed in the case, and Tennessee's attorney general expressed confidence in an appellate court win in the Harbison case. "The State maintains that its existing lethal injection protocol is constitutional in all respects under the U.S. Supreme Courts decision last year in Baze v. Kentucky," Solicitor General Mike Moore told The City Paper in an e-mailed statement. "At yesterdays argument, we respectfully urged the court to issue a ruling in the case promptly so that pending executions may go forward without further delay." (source: Nashville City Paper) OKLAHOMA: Tulsa man receives 137-month term in double murder case A Tulsa man whose plea agreement allowed him to avoid the death penalty in a double-murder case gets 11 years and five months in prison for being an accessory. 24-year-old Robert Fellows pleaded guilty in 2007 to 2 counts of being an accessory after the fact to the 2004 fatal shootings of Shelly and Ples Vann Jr. Fellows testified for the prosecution last year at the 1st-degree murder trial of Phillip Summers, who was convicted and given 2 death sentences. At the trial, prosecutors theorized that the killings were linked to gang rivalry and a belief among Summers and other Hoover Crips members that Lawrence Tennyson was responsible for killing 1 of Summers' brothers, Charles. Shelly Vann was the mother and Ples Vann was the stepfather of Tennyson, who was then a leading member of the Neighborhood Crips gang. Tennyson testified that he didn't kill Charles Summers in January 2004. District Judge Tom Thornbrugh gave Fellows credit for time he's served since April 29, 2004. (source: KTEN News, Texas) _______________________________________________ DeathPenalty mailing list DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/deathpenalty@lists.washlaw.edu/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A free service of WashLaw http://washlaw.edu (785)670.1088 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
