Jan. 25
TEXAS----impending female execution
Former local resident facing death penalty
A former local resident is facing the death penalty next week, after being
convicted of the brutal 1997 murder and robbery of a Dallas County woman.
Kimberly Lagayle McCarthy, 51, is set to die Tuesday. McCarthy was born in
Greenville in 1961, but was living in Dallas County at the time of the murder.
McCarthy was twice convicted of the July 1997 murder of Dorothy Booth, 70.
McCarthy's original 1998 conviction on a charge of capital murder was
overturned on appeal. McCarthy was convicted of capital murder again in October
2002.
According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, McCarthy had worked as
an occupational therapist, waitress, home health care worker and laborer and
had previously been convicted and sentenced to prison on a charge of forgery,
but was released on parole in December 1991.
McCarthy was convicted of entering Booth's Lancaster residence on July 21, 1997
with the intent to rob the victim. A struggle took place and Booth was stabbed
numerous times, resulting in her death. McCarthy then used Booth's credit
cards, as well as Booth's vehicle for transportation.
McCarthy is believed to be among the 1st Hunt County natives to face the death
penalty.
Former South Dakota residents Billy John Galloway and Kevin Scott Varga were
executed in 2010 in connection with the 1998 murder in Greenville of Maj. David
Lawrence Logie.
Adam Kelly Ward was convicted in 2007 of capital murder and is currently facing
the death penalty in connection with the 2005 death of Commerce Code
Enforcement Officer Michael "Pee Wee" Walker. Ward does not currently have an
execution date scheduled.
There are 6 murder cases pending in Hunt County, including 5 capital murder
charges. At least 3 of the indicted capital murder cases could carry the death
penalty upon the conviction of the defendants charged.
(source: The Herald-Banner)
OHIO:
Former death row inmate Joe D'Ambrosio, finally free, speaks out: Regina Brett
Attempted murder. That's what Joe D'Ambrosio wants the prosecutors to be
charged with.
He says the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office tried to kill him by
withholding 10 pieces of evidence at his trial, evidence that could have led to
a not-guilty verdict.
Instead, D'Ambrosio sat on Ohio's death row for more than 20 years.
He is finally free.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider the state's appeal
against him. The ruling wipes D'Ambrosio's legal slate clean.
They can erase the charges but they can't give him back his life.
D'Ambrosio was 26 when the police arrested him on Sept. 26, 1988 for the murder
of Tony Klann. He's now 50 with nothing to show for his life except a '97 Ford
Ranger with no radio, no air-conditioning and crank windows.
D'Ambrosio is angry at the prosecutors who withheld information, who called him
a liar on the stand.
"They had the truth in their files," he said. "They're all guilty of attempted
murder . . . . They tried to do to me what they said I did."
Take a life.
What would he like to tell the prosecutors who withheld the evidence?
"I'll see you in court," D'Ambrosio said. "I'm going to use their law to get
justice for me."
D'Ambrosio plans on filing a civil lawsuit.
He has always proclaimed his innocence. He maintains that he was in his
apartment the night Klann was killed. At the time, Sgt. Joseph D'Ambrosio had
been honorably discharged from the Army after four years. He had no criminal
record.
D'Ambrosio took the stand at his trial in front of a 3-panel judge. He'd grown
up watching Perry Mason. He expected his attorney to prove his case. He
expected to walk out free.
One word changed his life forever:
Guilty.
"I was floating over my body looking down over the defense table and judge,"
D'Ambrosio said. "It was like a dream ??? no, a nightmare."
In prison, he clung to his faith. God sent him a Catholic priest, who happened
to be a registered nurse and an attorney.
He says his belief in God and his innocence kept him sane while he was behind
bars
Father Neil Kookoothe, pastor at St. Clarence Catholic Church in North Olmsted,
was visiting an inmate on death row at the Mansfield Correctional Institution.
The inmate told him to see the guy in the next cell who was probably innocent.
D'Ambrosio asked Father Neil to read his court transcript. The priest read it
in one night.
Father Neil looked D'Ambrosio straight in the eye and said, "Tell me you didn't
do this. If you ever, ever lie to me, I will drop you like a hot potato."
Joe looked him dead in the eye and said, "I did not kill Tony Klann and had
nothing to do with it."
With the help of the priest and endless attorneys, the guilty verdict
unraveled. It took over 20 years.
What was D'Ambrosio's worst day on death row?
Pick a day, any day. The day they came to tell him his mom had died. The day he
found out the Ohio Supreme Court denied his retrial. Every day locked in a cell
with one tiny window and solid wall with a slot big enough for the food tray to
pass through. Every day he wasn't allowed to touch another human without a
glass wall or fence or phone between them.
What kept him sane?
"My belief in God and my innocence," he said.
When Joe was released from prison 2 years ago, every time he came to a door he
waited. That's how it worked in prison. The guards opened the doors, not the
inmates.
Freedom still amazes him. To be able to vote, to see the sky. He hadn't seen
stars in 20 years.
He got his best night sleep on Monday, after the U.S. Supreme Court decision.
He watched it on a computer with Father Neil, then he went home and slept for
12 hours.
Joe D'Ambrosio will never get the apology he deserves from the Cuyahoga County
Prosecutor's Office. They still insist he is guilty and believe they could have
proved it at another trial.
Rick Bell, criminal investigations chief for the prosecutor's office, insists
that D'Ambrosio was not exonerated.
"To use the word exonerated is a misrepresentation," he said Tuesday. "He has
not been found innocent."
But in this country's legal system, we are each presumed innocent until proven
guilty by a court of law. That court tossed out the guilty verdict, so
D'Ambrosio is innocent.
Bell couldn't tell me why prosecutors withheld those 10 pieces of evidence.
He did share changes that have been made in the prosecutor's office but
insisted that those changes were made since Joe's case, but not because of it.
The office created a case management system where each prosecutor is ethically
responsible for his or her own case files from beginning to end instead of
having many prosecutors touch each case file.
The office switched to an electronic case management system so every scrap of
paper is date-stamped and placed electronically in the file and retained
forever. This allows the prosecutors to see what was provided to defense
attorneys.
Joe D'Ambrosio is the 6th person on Ohio's death row to be set free and the
140th inmate on death rows across America to be exonerated.
His future is a mystery. He moved back to North Royalton where he grew up.
He's got no pension, no retirement. He'll get $35 a month in Social Security.
"I didn't pay into it. I have zero," he said. "I have my truck and my
apartment. They took everything from me."
He works as a subcontractor doing odd jobs. He hopes a civil lawsuit will
compensate him for the missed years of work.
If he could peer into the future, what would he like to be?
He paused for a long moment before answering:
"Happy, I hope."
(source: The Plain Dealer)
FLORIDA:
Khalid Pasha found guilty after represnting himself in death penalty murder
trial
Self-representation did not pay off for Khalid Pasha, who chose to defend
himself against 2 1st-degree murder charges in a death penalty trial.
On Friday, it took a jury less than an hour to find him guilty.
They had seen the state's evidence - the blood of his 43-year-old wife Robin
Canady and her 20-year-old daughter Ranesha Singleton on his face and clothes
and a knife inside his van.
They had also heard his version, which placed him at the murder scene,
discovering their bodies in a remote cul-de-sac at the Woodland Corporate
Center on Waters Avenue, then driving away with no plan to tell anyone.
The verdict did not appear to surprise Pasha, 69. He scanned the jury without
emotion.
No one met his gaze.
The jury was the 2nd to find him guilty of the August 23, 2002 murders.
He stood trial in 2007 and was sentenced to death, but the Florida Supreme
Court later reversed the convictions.
At issue was Pasha's desire to represent himself. He was denied the ability
then, and the Supreme Court ruled it was his right.
This verdict came 35 minutes quicker than the last.
Jurors will reassemble on February 11 for the penalty phase of the trial, to
hear an expected 3 days worth of evidence and decide whether to recommend that
Pasha be put to death.
Something will be different in round 2, Pasha has decided:
He will be represented by a death-qualified private attorney.
(source: Tampa Bay Times)
IOWA----bill to re-introduce death penalty
Lawmaker says he'll introduce death penalty bill
A Republican lawmaker was backed by the parents of slain children as he called
for the reinstatement of Iowa's death penalty.
Milo Sen. Kent Sorenson announced Friday he would introduce a measure that
would establish capital punishment for the 1st time since the 1960s.
The death penalty would be limited to people convicted of first-degree murder
in which a victim was kidnapped or sexually abused or if the victim was a
child.
Among those standing with Sorenson were Heather and Drew Collins, whose
daughter Elizabeth was killed after disappearing last July with her cousin,
Lyric Cook.
Sorenson says he'll also propose four other measures dealing with kidnapping
and sex offense convictions.
The chairman of a Senate panel says he won't consider the bill, but Sorenson
says he'll seek public hearings.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA----new death sentence
Hirschfield gets death penalty for 'sweetheart' murders
The man convicted of killing two teenage UC Davis students more than 30 years
ago has been sentenced to death.
Judge Michael Sweet handed down the sentencing to Richard Hirschfield, 64, on
Friday. A jury recommended the death penalty for Hirschfield in December.
Earlier in the morning Sweet denied Hirschfield a motion for a new trial. The
judge also rejected a motion which would have limited the sentence to life in
prison without the possibility of parole.
While rejecting the motions, Sweet said the evidence showed Hirschfield
displayed a "high degree of cruelty and callous disregard for human life."
He was convicted in November of kidnapping and murdering 18-year-old University
of California, Davis students, John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves in 1980.
Hirschfield was also convicted of sexually assaulting Gonsalves.
The pair was abducted on Dec. 20 1980 in Davis after volunteering at a
children's production of the "Nutcracker" ballet.
Prosecutors said they were on their way to Gonsalves' sister's birthday party.
Their bodies were discovered two days later in a grassy ravine near the area
which has since been developed into the Folsom Auto Mall.
Prosecutors said they were tortured, their heads wrapped in duct tape, and
their throats slashed.
(source: KCRA News)
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