February 12
OHIO:
Final jury selection delayed in start of quadruple homicide trial
Final jury selection was delayed Monday in a Pedro, Ohio, quadruple homicide
case being held at the Lawrence County Courthouse.
Arron L. Lawson, 24, of Township Road 1051, Ironton, faces 4 counts alleging
aggravated murder in the 2017 death of 4 individuals.
His alleged victims Stacey Holston, 24; her son, Devin Holston, 8; Stacey's
mother, Tammie L. McGuire, 43; and McGuire's husband, Donald McGuire, 50; all
of Pedro, were shot to death Oct. 11, 2017, at the Holstons' home.
If found guilty for those deaths, Lawson faces a penalty of death.
Todd Holston, also was stabbed with a pocketknife inside the family's trailer
during the attack, but survived his injuries.
For other allegations, Lawson also was charged with aggravated burglary,
attempted murder and felonious assault of Todd Holston, the rape of Stacey
Holston, abuse of a corpse, kidnapping of Devin Holston, tampering with
evidence, theft of a motor vehicle and failure to comply with the order or
signal of a police officer.
Following the killings, Lawson is accused of having fled the scene. A manhunt
involving more than 100 Tri-State law enforcement officers lasted for 36 hours
before he was arrested along County Road 52.
Lawson appeared in court Monday in a button-down shirt with his long locks of
hair and long beard, which had been shaved shortly after his arrest, growing
back to their original state.
The trial is expected to last several weeks. The jury will be sequestered from
the outside world during deliberations.
Monday started with Judge Andy Ballard ruling in final motions and discussing
some juror issues before bringing in the remaining jurors for the final
selection. After about 20 minutes, however, an undisclosed issue occurred and
court was delayed until afternoon.
About 50 potential jurors will be cut Monday to the final 12, with a couple
alternatives. Dozens more had been cut during previous jury selection, which
started Jan. 28.
Each side will be given an hour and a half for opening arguments after the jury
is seated; however, Kirk A. McVay, assistant state public defender, said he
only would need 15 minutes. Lawrence County Prosecutor Brigham Anderson
represents the state on the case.
At one point it is expected the jury will be taken to view the locations of
where the alleged crimes took place. McVey said his client did not wish to
attend that.
Ohio death penalty laws require a death penalty case to be a bifurcated trial.
The 1st part of the trial will focus on his guilt or innocence.
If found guilty, Lawson will face a 2nd trial in which the same jury will
recommend a penalty or life in prison or death.
(source: The Herald-Dispatch)
INDIANA:
Wishawaka man pleads guilty ahead of third trial for triple murder
Wayne Kubsch pleaded guilty to murder Monday morning in a dispositional
hearing.
The hearing was unexpected, taking place just before jury selection was set to
begin in the 3rd murder trial against the Mishawaka man.
Kubsch has accepted a life without parole agreement.
Jury selection in this trial was supposed to begin Monday morning. This would
have been Kubsch’s 3rd trial.
In 2 prior trials, he was convicted and sentenced to death, but those outcomes
were overturned.
In the agreement announced Monday, Kubsch plead guilty to 2 counts of murder. 1
for Beth Kubsch and a 2nd for Rick Milewski.
Charges for the death of the 3rd victim, 10-year-old Aaron Milewski, will be
dropped as a part of this plea.
Prosecutors say they discussed this with the family and they agreed to it
because counts for Beth and Rick would already secure a life without parole
sentence.
Prosecutors say this new deal appears to have lifted a burden off the family’s
shoulders.
“It saves the family and the community a jury trial and the actual ultimate
sentence here is no different than if we had done a three-week trial and got to
the endpoint. Life without parole is life without parole and I think that’s a
very important feature of this particular agreement,” said Eric Tamashasky, St.
Joseph County chief deputy prosecuting attorney.
Sentencing is on March 8.
If the judge accepts the plea, Kubsch will spend the rest of his life in
prison. If the judge does not accept the plea, the case will go to trial.
Life without parole was the maximum the prosecution could have gotten after
deciding to drop the death penalty possibility.
The death penalty provision was a primary consideration in the first 2
convictions being overturned.
(source: WSBT news)
COLORADO:
Should State Legislators Repeal Colorado’s Death Penalty
The issue has been debated for decades and likely will be debated for decades
to come.
The death penalty is one of those issues that tends to elicit strong feelings
on both sides. It's also one of those issues where there's never going to be
agreement and ultimately will come down to which party is controlling state
government. Right now, that party is the Democrats.
There is currently no bill before the legislature on the matter, but it's very
possible there will be before the current session ends.
As controversial as the issue is, the fact is, the death penalty has virtually
been a non-factor since the national moratorium on executions was lifted back
in 1976. Since then, only 1 person has been executed in Colorado, and
currently, there are only 3 individuals on Colorado's death row.
Opponents of the death penalty say it's immoral and hypocritical. Supporters
will say the threat of the death penalty can help solve crimes and motivate
criminals to confess or to offer valuable information.
I can't say that I have strong feelings about the death penalty. I'm not so
sure that it is a deterrent to violent crime, but at the same time, it seems
right that if you purposely take another's life it should cost you your own. I
can definitely see both sides of this, and I'm always interested in the
perspective of others.
(source: Zane Mathews, KOOL news)
ARIZONA:
State to seek death penalty for man accused of killing Isabel Celis and Maribel
Gonzales----Isabel Celis and Maribel Victoria Gonzales were kidnapped and
killed in Tucson in 2012 and 2014.
Arizona will seek the death penalty for Christopher Matthew Clements, the man
accused of killing Isabel Celis and Maribel Victoria Gonzales.
According to a spokeswoman at Pima County Superior Court, the judge will be
issuing a notice specific to this filing in the next week or so.
Clements is facing 22 felony charges, including 2 counts of 1st-degree murder.
Celis was 6 years old when she vanished from her parents’ east-side home in
April 2012. Just 2 years later, a 13-year-old Gonzales disappeared while
walking to a friend’s house.
Both girls were found dead near Trico and West Avra Valley roads.
ISABEL CELIS TIMELINE
• April 20, 2012: 11 p.m., Isabel Mercedes Celis went to bed in her bedroom.
• April 21, 2012: Around 8 a.m., family members call 911 after they discover
Isabel is not in the house.
• April 22, 2012: FBI search dogs arrive from Virginia to aid in the search.
• April 23, 2012: Celis family and 88-CRIME post $6,000 reward.
• March 2017: Human remains discovered near North Trico and West Avra Valley
roads in rural Pima County.
• March 31, 2017: DNA analysis confirms remains are those of Isabel Celis.
• Sept. 15, 2018: Authorities announce indictment of Christopher Matthew
Clements in Isabel’s death.
MARIBEL GONZALES TIMELINE
• June 3, 2014: Maribel Gonzales leaves home to walk and visit a friend.
• June 4, 2014: Gonzales reporting missing by her family after she fails to
come home.
• June 6, 2014: Human remains discovered near North Trico and West Avra Valley
roads in rural Pima County.
• June 20, 2014: DNA analysis confirms remains are those of Maribel Gonzales.
• Sept. 15, 2018: Authorities announce indictment of Christopher Matthew
Clements in Maribel’s death.
(source: tucsonnewsnow.com)
OREGON:
Woman charged with murdering parents, attempting to kill neighbor faces death
penalty
Charging documents have been filed against a woman accused of killing her
parents and injuring a neighbor Friday in Oakridge.
Kelly Lynn Conrad, 39, was arraigned Monday in a Lane County Jail courtroom and
charged with 2 counts of aggravated murder and 1 count of attempt to commit
murder.
Conrad is accused of killing her parents, Milton Conrad, 71, and Karen Conrad,
64, in their Oakridge home Friday. She’s also accused of attempting to kill
Jimmie Lavonne Moffitt, a neighbor.
According to public records, Kelly Conrad and her parents lived at a West
Second Avenue home where police were called at 2:32 p.m. on a report of a
dispute. When officers arrived, Kelly Conrad was armed with a knife and
ultimately was taken into custody, police said in a Monday press release. In a
subsequent search, authorities found Milton and Karen Conrad dead in their home
and an injured Moffitt next door.
The charges of aggravated murder make Kelly Conrad eligible for the death
penalty.
(source: The Register-Guard)
USA:
Pittsburgh shooting: death penalty question looms over not guilty plea
The suspect in a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue in which 11 people died
pleaded not guilty to dozens of charges on Monday as his new lawyer, a
prominent death penalty litigator who represented one of the Boston marathon
bombers, signaled he might be open to a plea deal.
Authorities say Robert Bowers, a truck driver, killed 11 and wounded seven,
including five police officers, at Tree of Life Synagogue in October. He
appeared in federal court with attorney Judy Clarke, who expressed hope for a
resolution without a trial.
Clarke is known for negotiating plea deals that helped some of the nation’s
most infamous criminals avoid death row, among them the Unabomber Ted
Kaczynski, Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph and Arizona gunman Jared Lee
Loughner, who killed 6 people and injured 13 including the congresswoman
Gabrielle Giffords.
Clarke also represented the marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whom a jury
sentenced to death.
A spokeswoman for federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh has said a decision about
whether to pursue the death penalty against Bowers remains under review.
Assistant US attorney Troy Rivetti said in court on Monday that if Bowers does
opt for a trial, it could last about three weeks, not including any potential
penalty phase.
Bowers, who was shackled, said little, giving yes or no answers. He has been
held at the Butler county prison, about 35 miles north of the shooting scene.
On 29 January, a grand jury added 19 counts to the 44 Bowers was already
facing. The additional charges include hate crimes violations, obstruction of
religious belief and the use of a firearm during crimes of violence.
Bowers, 46, of Baldwin, Pennsylvania, is accused of targeting worshippers from
3 congregations on Saturday 27 October, during Sabbath services. Donna Coufal,
a member of the Dor Hadash congregation, said she attended the arraignment “to
bear witness”.
“It’s been a painful time,” she said, “but we remain strong as a community.”
Investigators say Bowers posted criticism of a Jewish charity on social media
before the attack, claiming it “likes to bring invaders that kill our people”.
Authorities said he raged against Jews as he carried out the shooting, then
told investigators “all these Jews need to die”.
(source: The Guardian)
US MILITARY:
The Hidden Segregation of Military Executions During the Civil Rights Movement
The knotted rope and the fire hose, the lunch counter and the poll tax — the
most notorious aspects of America’s ignominious record on race are well known,
but they are not the whole story. One chapter has remained largely hidden for
decades: how the United States Army, during the early years of the civil rights
movement, dealt with the crucible issues of race and capital punishment. Not
well, it turns out.
In the years between 1955 and 1960, all 8 white soldiers who were condemned to
death, each of them a murderer, saw their sentences commuted by the Eisenhower
Administration, the federal courts or the Army itself. Eventually they all won
parole too, and returned home to the embrace of their families and loved ones.
In contrast, the 8 convicted murderers who were hanged by the military —
summoned from death row cells in the sub-basement of Fort Leavenworth, Kans.,
and marched to the top of a wooden gallows — were all black.
The white men benefited from influential Washington politicians, the Army
brass, astute capital defense attorneys, public outcries and even a sympathetic
national press. Government records show how Washington’s elite often bent
backwards to find a reason to spare their lives. One white soldier drowned an
Army colonel’s only daughter, 8 years old, in shallow waters outside their base
near Tokyo; yet he went home. Another raped and slashed to death a 5-year-old
local girl in Okinawa: he too was set free.
Their black counterparts were seldom recognized, and never singled out for any
great lobbying effort to spare their lives. No Washington insiders rushed to
their defense; no press or public championed their cause. Generally, the most
encouragement they could draw would be in the form of a pitiful hand-scribbled
letter from their often-semi-literate mothers, pleading for mercy. “I am begger
for his life,” Mrs. Gentry Collier of Chattanooga, Tennessee, wrote the
Eisenhower White House. “…he was a good boy both white and colored love him he
ant never have ben in trouble tell he was in the army” (sic all).
The last doomed soldier from that era turned out to be a young black soldier
from southern Virginia. He was the 9th black soldier executed in that era and,
it would turn out, would be the last soldier executed by the Army to this day.
Private First-Class John Arthur Bennett, a descendant of tobacco-plantation
slaves, was accused and found guilty of raping and assaulting a young white
girl. The Army sentenced him to death, rape being then on the Army books as a
capital crime. He was 18 when taken into custody in then-Occupied Austria, and
he languished for 6 years on the army’s death row cellblock, a
metal-and-concrete chamber deep in the bowels of the main prison at Fort
Leavenworth, what many called “The Castle.”
By early 1961, when his case rolled into the start of the Kennedy
Administration, a black civil rights attorney from Bennett’s home community
took up his defense in hopes the country’s new commander-in-chief—a Democrat, a
Catholic, a liberal—would step in and save this final life. In his plea to the
President, he stressed that “a fundamental principle of an honest judicial
system must be equal justice for all,” and cited the fact that white soldiers
had been granted mercy.
But Kennedy was unmoved. He resisted taking up the matter of Private Bennett,
and preferred to let the earlier Eisenhower decision stand that Bennett be put
to death. Kennedy in those early months of his new administration had just
barely won the White House, and realized politically that his very thin margin
was boosted largely with white voter turnout in the Southern states. Nor was
the new young president affected by pleas from some in his New Frontier
administration who opposed capital punishment or last-minute telegrams from the
victim and her parents urging that Bennett live.
Still Bennett implored Kennedy to save him. He had already outlasted two stays
of execution. New evidence showed he suffered from a mental disorder and also
suffered from epileptic seizures throughout his life, and that he may have been
in the middle of an episode at the time of the assault. The young soldier and
his small-town attorney continued to hope Kennedy would change his mind and
commute this last death sentence, and with the presidential pen strike a major
blow against the long racial history of Army injustice.
From his cell deep below the Castle, Bennett’s eyes desperately followed the
prison clock as the hours drew down on April 12, 1961. Would be die at midnight
too? Or would the Army’s disgraceful record of sparing white soldiers and
executing only black troops at last come to an end?
They came for him, in the end. Today, the prison has long been torn down and
the Army has not hanged a soldier since then. But little else has changed. A
new modern Army death row currently houses 4 soldiers condemned to die. 3 are
men of color.
(source: Richard A. Serrano is the author of Summoned at Midnight: A Story of
Race and the Last Military Executions at Fort Leavenworth, newly released by
Beacon Press----Time Magazine)
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