July 29
CONNECTICUT:
Resentencing Of Another Death Row Inmate Scheduled
Sedrick "Ricky" Cobb, sentenced to death for kidnapping, raping and killing
22-year-old Julia Ashe of Watertown in 1989, will be resentenced Aug. 5 as
Connecticut continues to dismantle its death row.
Cobb, 54, will be the 4th inmate to officially leave death row once he is
sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release and the 1st of 4
awaiting resentencing in Waterbury Superior Court.
Cheshire home invasion killers Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky and
Russell Peeler Jr., convicted of ordering the murders of a mother and her
8-year-old son in Bridgeport, have already had their death sentences voided and
were sentenced to life following the state Supreme Court's ruling in May that
affirmed the justices' August 2015 decision banning capital punishment in
Connecticut.
Cobb was waiting in the parking lot of a Waterbury department store the night
of Dec. 16, 1989 as he watched Ashe, a University of Connecticut student, park
her car and go inside the building to Christmas shop. Cobb then flattened 1 of
her tires.
When Ashe returned to her car just after 8 p.m., Cobb offered to help change
the tire and she accepted his offer. Once the tire was changed, Cobb asked for
a ride to his car, parked at a nearby gas station.
Once in the car, Cobb grabbed Ashe around the neck and ordered her to drive to
a nearby wooded area. He forced her into the back seat, rummaged through her
purse, then raped her.
He bound Ashe's wrists and ankles with packing tape and stuffed her glove down
her throat and taped her mouth shut. He then carried her, alive, to a dam and
threw her 24 feet into the ice and water below.
Ashe survived the fall and struggled to stay alive. She rubbed her taped wrists
on a jagged piece of metal fence that went around the dam and was able to break
free. She reached the bank and made it out of the water but somehow either fell
back or was pushed in. She was not able to get the gag off of her mouth.
For more than a week, investigators searched for Ashe, a graphic artist, until
her body was discovered in the icy water by a group of children on Christmas
Day.
At 2 points during Cobb's time on death row, he announced that he wanted to
forgo his appeals and face execution. He later changed his mind.
In April 2012, Connecticut legislators abolished the death penalty but made the
law prospective, meaning it applied only to new cases and kept in place the
death sentences already imposed before the bill was passed.
Death-row attorneys challenged the 2012 law, saying it violated the condemned
inmates' constitutional rights.
Critics of capital punishment also argued that the death penalty laws were
impractical and that executions were rarely carried out. Connecticut's only
execution in the last half-century was the lethal injection of serial killer
Michael Ross on May 13, 2005. Ross, who had spent 2 decades on death row, had
not exhausted all his appeals, but waived them and asked to be executed.
In August 2015, the state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that capital punishment
should be banned for all defendants, saying in the majority decision that
Connecticut's death penalty no longer comported with societal values and served
no valid purpose as punishment. The justices affirmed their decision in another
ruling last May.
(source: Hartford Courant)
VIRGINIA:
Prosecutor to seek death penalty after jury finds man guilty in 2013 slaying of
Virginia state trooper in Dinwiddie
A Dinwiddie County jury on Thursday found Russell E. Brown III guilty of
capital murder in the March 2013 shooting death of master trooper Junius A.
Walker, rejecting defense claims that Brown was psychotic and legally insane at
the time of the killing.
After 8 hours of deliberation over 2 days, and on the 14th day of the trial,
jurors found that Brown had the mental capacity to appreciate the consequences
of his actions when he shot Walker 4 times in his police cruiser off Interstate
85.
"Finally, justice for Walker," Elizabeth Walker, the trooper's widow, said
minutes after the verdicts were read, her eyes red with tears.
Brown, 31, bowed his head as the court clerk began to read the jury's 6
verdicts, revealing he was found guilty on all counts. One of his attorneys
rubbed Brown's back to console him.
After consulting with attorneys, Dinwiddie Circuit Judge Paul W. Cella
adjourned the proceeding for the day, instructing the 6-man, 6-woman jury to
return today to begin the sentencing phase of the trial. Both sides plan to
call witnesses.
Dinwiddie Commonwealth's Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill said she will seek the
death penalty but declined further comment until after today's sentencing
hearing. Brown also could be sentenced to life in prison.
To obtain the death penalty, prosecutors must prove there is a probability that
Brown would commit future criminal acts that would constitute a continuing
threat to society, or that his conduct in committing the crime for which he was
convicted was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it
involved torture, depravity of mind or an aggravated battery to the victim.
The jury also found Brown guilty of attempted capital murder of trooper Samuel
Moss and attempted murder of truck driver Thomas Hales, along with 3 firearm
counts for each of the murder or attempted murder charges.
In a frenetic gunbattle, Brown exchanged shots with Moss after killing Walker,
and fired several rounds at Hales in his truck after he saw Walker's cruiser in
the woods and stopped to investigate. Neither Moss nor Hales was hit.
As other officers began to arrive at the scene, Brown fled into the woods,
dropped his .308-caliber Saiga semi-automatic rifle and began to disrobe,
leaving behind all his clothes. He was found a short time later hiding naked in
the back of a vehicle in a salvage yard between U.S. 1 and I-85.
Walker's cruiser caught fire after rolling into the woods, and officers risked
their lives trying to recover the trooper's body under what they believed was a
continuing threat of gunfire. Brown could not be seen and police initially were
unaware he had fled.
Brown's defense team - composed of deputy capital defender Karin Kissiah,
assistant capital defenders Seth Shelley and Shameka Hall, and private defense
attorney Jacqueline Reiner - had no immediate comment on the trial's outcome.
Brown had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. 2 forensic psychologists -
1 hired by the defense, the other by the prosecution - issued opinions that
Brown was insane at the time of the March 7, 2013, killing.
The more prominent of the 2, Dr. Evan Nelson - who performed a 2nd-opinion
sanity evaluation on Beltway sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, as well as Ricky Gray, who
with a companion killed Bryan and Kathryn Harvey and their daughters in
Richmond - said Brown suffered from bipolar disorder with psychotic features
that included delusions, and believed he was on a religious mission from God
when he encountered Brown off I-85 and shot him.
In closing arguments to jurors Wednesday, Reiner called Nelson the "best" in
his field. Baskervill largely dismissed insanity as the reason for Brown's
actions, calling him "crazy like a fox."
Insanity defenses are considered rare, and experts say only 1 in 10 cases
reviewed by sanity evaluators such as Nelson meet the criteria for an insanity
defense.
The defense had a lower legal burden of proof than the prosecution.
Virginia law requires the defense to prove their case by what's called a
preponderance of the evidence, which means just enough evidence to make it more
likely than not that Brown was insane, or greater than 50 %.
In contrast, the prosecution must prove the defendant is guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt, which means there is a great likelihood that the defendant
willfully, deliberately and with premeditation committed capital murder for the
purpose of interfering with the performance of the trooper's official duties.
Jurors had the option of finding Brown guilty of capital murder, guilty of a
reduced count of 1st-degree murder, not guilty by reason of insanity or not
guilty.
The jurors so far have devoted nearly 3 weeks of their time since being called
for jury duty with scores of other Dinwiddie residents on July 11. After an
exhaustive jury selection process took 6 days, a 12-person jury, with 4
alternates, was seated July 19, and testimony and presentation of evidence got
underway.
(source: Richmond Times-Dispatch)
OHIO:
Froman Wants Change of Venue in Death Penalty Trial
The man accused of murdering a Mayfield woman and her 17-year-old son nearly 2
years ago is requesting that his trial be moved because of a racial imbalance
in the county in which it's to be held.
According to the Journal-News, Terry Froman, who is African-American, wants the
trial moved out of Warren County, Ohio because it's 90 % white. The paper also
reports Froman has filed a motion to fire his court-appointed attorneys.
Froman, from Brookport, Ill., faces the death penalty for the murder of Eli
Mohney and the kidnapping and murder of Eli's mother, Kim Thomas. Froman also
shot himself after being stopped by police outside Cincinnati.
Froman faces charges in Graves County after his trial in Ohio.
(source: WKMS news)
USA:
Federal appeals court rejects plea from Gary Lee Sampson----Sampson wanted
evidence excluded from upcoming death penalty trial
A federal appeals court has rejected an emergency plea from convicted killer
Gary Lee Sampson. Sampson wanted to have evidence excluded from his upcoming
death penalty trial.
Sampson pleaded guilty to carjacking and killing 2 men in 2001.
A federal judge ordered a new sentencing trial after learning a juror had lied.
The new trial is set for September.
Sampson was also convicted of killing 58-year-old Robert Whitney, of Meredith.
(source: WMUR news)
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