Aug. 25
NORTH CAROLINA:
Arrest made in death of Sanford woman found in Cary apartment
In Cary, a local man was arrested late Saturday night and charged with murder
in the death of Wendy Jean Johnson.
Daniel Scott Remington, 36, was taken into custody in Fayetteville and was
being held without bond in the Wake County Detention Center.
He was arrested several hours after the Cary Police Department named him as the
suspect in Johnson's death. Fayetteville police reportedly found Remington's
vehicle and tracked him down with a dog when he attempted to flee.
"We hope this arrest brings some measure of closure to Ms. Johnson's family,
and we appreciate the efforts of all those involved in bringing the suspect
into custody so quickly," Cary Police Capt. Randall Rhyne said in a written
statement.
Johnson, a 58-year-old Sanford woman, was found mortally wounded at the Hyde
Park apartment complex around 11 p.m. Friday. She was taken to Duke University
Medical Center but died of her injuries.
Remington, who lives on Gooseneck Drive, could face the death penalty if
convicted of murder. He has a history of brushes with the law in Wake, Durham,
Chatham, Lee and Cumberland counties, including convictions for felony breaking
and entering, felony larceny and felony possession of cocaine.
(source: News & Observer)
ALABAMA:
Capital murder trial of Dothan man begins Monday
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the capital murder trial of a
Dothan man who police believe killed another man 8 years ago for money and
drugs.
Marcus Dantrell Rivers, 27, is charged with capital murder in the shooting
death of Patrick Dixon, who police say was shot in the course of a robbery
April 19, 2006.
The shooting happened near the intersection of Hamilton Street and Third Avenue
in Dothan. It also left a second man wounded from the gunfire. Rivers faces
other felony charges related to the incident.
Rivers' case has lingered for several years and has been the subject of several
court actions.
2 other men were charged in connection with the shooting death of Dixon.
Everett Morton was convicted of capital murder and initially sentenced to
death, but an appeals court reversed the sentence after determining the judge
should have given the jury a charge for the lesser included offense of felony
murder. Morton received life in prison without parole. Michael James pleaded
guilty and was sentenced to 30 years.
Earlier this year, Circuit Judge Michael Conaway ruled Rivers is ineligible for
the death penalty because he is mentally retarded. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled
in 2002 that a mentally retarded person can't be subject to the death penalty
because it would be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Rivers can only
receive a sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of capital
murder.
Police believe Rivers was the trigger man in the shooting. Rivers gave a
statement to police the day after the shooting. Rivers' attorneys filed a
motion to suppress the statement, claiming he did not have the mental capacity
to waive his Miranda rights. The motion was denied.
Rivers is represented by Dothan attorneys Derek Yarbrough and Shaun McGhee.
Yarbrough applied for youthful offender status on behalf of Rivers, who was 19
at the time of the shooting, but Conaway denied the application.
(source: Dothan Eagle)
OKLAHOMA:
ACLU challenges Oklahoma over first amendment violation in execution----The
Guardian and the Oklahoma Observer join ACLU in arguing the state acted
unconstitutionally by drawing a screen during Clayton Lockett execution
The secrecy imposed by the state of Oklahoma over the botched execution of
Clayton Lockett is being challenged in a federal court as a violation of first
amendment press freedoms.
In a lawsuit lodged with the US district court for the western district of
Oklahoma on Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argues the state
acted unconstitutionally by drawing a screen between the death chamber and the
observation room before he was declared dead.
The ACLU is joined as plaintiffs in the lawsuit by the Guardian, the Oklahoma
Observer and journalist Katie Fretland, who was one of the reporters in the
observation room for the Lockett execution and filed for both outlets. The
lawsuit calls on the court to ban Oklahoma from denying reporters "meaningful,
uninterrupted and unedited access to the entire execution procedure".
"The state of Oklahoma violated the first amendment, which guarantees the right
of the press to witness executions so the public can be informed about the
government's actions and hold it accountable. The death penalty represents the
most powerful exercise of government authority ??? the need for public
oversight is as critical at the execution stage as it is during trial," said
the ACLU's staff attorney Lee Rowland.
The lawsuit argues that observers should have been granted an unimpeded view of
the process until Lockett was declared dead, or until the execution was called
off and the state began the process of resuscitating Lockett.
It is the latest in a raft of legal challenges that have been brought against
the spread of secrecy across the death penalty states. The Guardian and other
news organisations have brought a lawsuit in Missouri that seeks to force the
state to disclose the source of its lethal injection drugs, arguing that the
public's first amendment rights have similarly been violated.
Lockett's execution on 29 April was one of a series of recent botched
procedures that have provoked renewed debate about the moral and legal
justification of the death penalty in America. It took the state 43 minutes to
declare the convicted murderer and rapist dead, during which he was observed
writhing and groaning on the gurney.
The director of the Oklahoma department of corrections, Robert Patton,
officially called off the execution after 33 minutes because it was not
working, but 10 minutes after that Lockett was pronounced dead. In the
aftermath, the execution was widely condemned around the world and across the
US where President Obama called it "deeply disturbing".
For 27 of the 43 minutes of the execution, reporters present in the death
chamber were prevented from witnessing what was happening by a blind that had
been lowered across the window that separated the gurney from the viewing area.
A state official said at the time that the curtain would be lowered only
"temporarily" but it remained down throughout the rest of the proceeding until
Lockett was declared dead.
In her report, Fretland, recorded that "in a gesture that seemed to echo
Oklahoma's fierce commitment to secrecy in the way it carries out lethal
injections, the curtains were drawn over the execution chamber, obscuring the
gruesome spectacle from public view."
The ACLU and its co-plaintiffs want to see legal injunctions in place that
would prevent Oklahoma filtering the news about its execution procedures by the
time the next scheduled lethal injection takes place on 13 November. The
prisoner set to die on that date is Charles Warner, who was sentenced to death
in 2003 for raping and murdering a baby.
Warner had been scheduled to die on the same night as Lockett, but his death
was put on hold as the disastrous Lockett events unfolded.
Were the ACLU lawsuit to succeed, Oklahoma would be obliged to allow reporters
to witness the entire execution process beginning with the entry of the
condemned prisoner into the death chamber and including the insertion of
intravenous lines into his veins. Officials would also be prohibited from
preventing witnesses from seeing the prisoner at any stage up to the moment
when the prisoner is declared dead or the execution stopped.
(source: The Guardian)
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