June 29
TEXAS----2 new execution dates
Execution dates set for 2 more Texas death row prisoners
2 more Texas death row prisoners — a North Texas man man who stabbed his family
and an Aryan gang member from El Paso who strangled a woman — are now scheduled
for execution this year.
Robert Sparks was sentenced to die in 2008 after a chaotic trial in Dallas
County, where he was convicted of murdering his wife and 2 stepsons before
raping his stepdaughter. He still has pending appeals in the case, but a judge
this week greenlit a Sept. 25 execution date, court records show.
Justen Hall was sent to death row in 2005, 3 years after strangling a woman
with an electrical cord. He is slated to die on Nov. 6, according to a prison
spokesman.
The Lone Star State has executed 3 men so far in 2019, and with the addition of
the 2 new execution dates, there are 8 more prisoners scheduled to die this
year.
Just after midnight on Sept. 15, 2007, Sparks put his hand over the mouth of
his wife, Chare Agnew, and stabbed her 18 times in her bed, according to court
records. Then, one at a time, he woke up his stepsons — 9-year-old Harold and
10-year-old Raekwon — and stabbed them 45 times each, dragging their bodies
into the living and stashing them under a comforter.
Next, he went after the girls, raping his 14-year-old stepdaughter on the couch
while her younger sister watched. Afterward, he apologized to them for the
rapes and murders — but said their mother had been trying to poison him.
He was arrested a few days later and tried the following year. On appeal, he
raised concerns about the possibility of false testimony offered by A.P.
Merillat, a state expert who told the court about the prison classification
system and claimed that Sparks could still pose a threat behind bars.
That claim is currently in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, along with one
about how a bailiff’s courtroom attire may have biased the jury. During the
punishment phase of trial — when jurors decided on whether Sparks deserved to
die by lethal injection — one of the bailiffs wore a necktie with an image of a
syringe on it.
It’s not clear whether the jury could see that tie, and so far courts have
decided it wasn’t enough to make a difference in the outcome of the case.
The attorneys representing Sparks — Seth Kretzer and Jonathan Landers — this
week questioned the decision to set an execution date with litigation still
pending in court.
“The Office of the Attorney General, which represents the state, filed a motion
asking for more time,” Kretzer told the Chronicle, “and yet the district
attorney’s office wants an immediate execution date. There’s no reason to force
the Supreme Court’s hand.”
The other condemned prisoner added to the list of upcoming executions has been
on death row for nearly 15 years for a murder stemming from a fight outside
drug house in El Paso.
On Oct. 28, 2002, Melissa Billhartz got in fight with a man she knew, and the
dispute escalated into an assault. Afterward, she said she wanted to call
police - and Hall and his friends became worried, fearing authorities would
discover the meth house.
The others opposed that plan, according to court records, but Hall left and a
few hours later showed up with the woman’s body in the back of a truck. He then
ordered a friend to go bury her and cut off her fingers with a machete so
police couldn’t find any DNA.
In the early years after he was sentenced to die, Hall asked to give up his
appeals. Later, his attorneys raised concerns about DNA testing on the cord
used to kill Billhartz, and suggested his confession was coerced.
But in 2016, Hall again asked to waive his appeals in a letter to the court.
“These walls 24/7 have broken me,” he wrote. “It is taking every last ounce of
will to even make it from day to day.”
The following year, he told a judge he was guilty and ready to die, assuring
the court he was mentally competent to make that decision. His attorney on
Friday did not respond to a request for comment.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
************************
State to seek death penalty in 2 capital murder cases
McLennan County prosecutors announced Friday that they will seek the death
penalty against 2 capital murder defendants.
For the first time since the cases were indicted, the district attorney's
office announced Keith Antoine Spratt and Christopher Paul Weiss will face the
death penalty in separate cases.
First Assistant District Attorney Nelson Barnes made the announcements Friday
during a status hearing in Spratt's case, saying that "with the facts of this
case and the defendant's background," his office will seek the death penalty.
Barnes declined additional comment on the case. Waco attorney, Russ Hunt, who
will represent Spratt along with his son, Russ Hunt Jr., said he was surprised
by the announcement.
"We will be ready and we will do our best for Mr. Spratt," Hunt said.
At the close of the hearing, 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother inquired
if prosecutors had made determinations in other pending capital murder cases.
Barnes said his office also had made a similar decision in Weiss' case.
Spratt, 30, is charged with shooting and killing Joshua Ladale Pittman in
December 2015. Spratt's co-defendant, Tyler Sherrod Clay, was sentenced to life
in prison with no parole after his capital murder conviction in December.
Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty against Clay.
Trial testimony showed that Clay hired Spratt to kill Pittman out of revenge
because Pittman reportedly robbed Clay after a dice game. A four-time felon
testified at Clay's trial that Clay first asked him to kill Pittman, but the
man was arrested and could not complete the task.
The man testified that Spratt, who later was jailed with him, told him that
Clay paid him $15,000 to kill Pittman, and that Clay still owed Spratt $5,000
for the hit job.
Strother said Friday that a large panel of potential jurors will be summoned to
court Oct. 18 to fill out questionnaires in Spratt's case. Potential jurors are
questioned individually in death penalty cases, and that process, which can
take 4 to 6 weeks, will start Oct. 28. Testimony in Spratt's trial is expected
to start Jan. 27, 2020, court officials said.
Weiss, 27, of Temple, is charged in the November 2017 shooting deaths of his
1-year-old daughter, Azariah, and the child's mother, Valarie Martinez, 24.
Both victims were shot in the head at Tradinghouse Creek Reservoir. Martinez’s
body was found outside her car at McLennan Park 3, off Willbanks Drive. Her
daughter was found shot in the head in a car seat inside the car, officials
said. (source: Waco Tribune-Herald)
**************************
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----43
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----561
Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
44---------Aug. 15----------------Dexter Johnson-----------562
45---------Aug. 21----------------Larry Swearingen--------563
46---------Sept. 4-----------------Billy Crutsinger----------564
47---------Sept. 10----------------Mark Anthony Soliz-----565
48---------Sept. 25----------------Robert Sparks-----------566
49---------Oct. 2------------------Stephen Barbee----------567
50---------Oct. 16-----------------Randall Mays-----------568
51---------Nov. 6-----------------Justen Hall---------------569
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
MISSISSIPPI:
Supreme Court denies review in death row case of Mississippi woman----Lisa Jo
Chamberlin was convicted for the March 2004 killings of Linda Heintzelman and
Vernon Hulett in Hattisburg.
The U.S. Supreme Court announced it will not review a Mississippi death row
inmate’s case after her sentence was reinstated by the Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals last year.
Lisa Jo Chamberlin is the only woman on death row.
She and her then-boyfriend, Roger Lee Gillett, convicted for the March 2004
killings of Linda Heintzelman and Vernon Hulett in Hattiesburg.
Their bodies were found in a freezer at an abandoned farm in Kansas.
Gillett also got the death penalty.
(source: Associated Press)
OKLAHOMA:
Court reinstates death penalty for man in Oklahoma slaying
A federal appeals court has reinstated the death sentence of an Oklahoma man
convicted in the fatal shooting of his lover’s estranged husband.
The full 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday voted 10-3 to overturn a
three-judge panel’s 2-1 ruling in 2017 that overturned the death sentence of
66-year-old James Pavatt on the grounds that the state failed to prove the
November 2001 shooting death of Rob Andrew was “especially heinous, atrocious
or cruel.”
Pavatt’s attorneys declined to comment.
Pavatt and Brenda Andrew were both convicted and sentenced to death after being
arrested in February 2002 while crossing back into the United States from
Mexico, where they had fled with Andrew’s 2 children following the shooting.
Rob was gunned down in the garage of his Oklahoma City home as he was picking
up his 2 kids for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Rob and his wife, Brenda, were separated at the time of his death.
Prosecutors said Brenda and Pavatt killed Rob for the insurance money, and both
were sentenced to death for the murder.
(source: Associated Press)
SOUTH DAKOTA:
During National Pride Month, South Dakota Schedules Execution in Case Tainted
by Anti-Gay Bias
In the midst of National Pride Month commemorating the 50th anniversary of the
Stonewall Riots and the birth of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, South Dakota
has issued a death warrant seeking to execute a gay man whose death sentence
was tainted by anti-gay bias. Charles Rhines (pictured) was sentenced to death
by a jury that, according to juror affidavits, was influenced by bigoted
stereotypes in reaching its decision. On June 25, 2019, in response to a motion
filed by state prosecutors, Pennington County circuit court Judge Robert A.
Mandel issued an order scheduling Rhines’ execution for the week of November 3
– 9, 2019.
Rhines’ sexual orientation became an issue in his trial after prosecution
witnesses testified that Rhines was gay. According to the affidavits, that
testimony provoked “lots of discussion of homosexuality” during jury
deliberations. One juror said “[t]here was a lot of disgust. … There were lots
of folks who were like, ‘Ew, I can’t believe that.’” In a 2016 sworn statement,
juror Frances Cersosimo reported that another juror had said “If he’s gay, we’d
be sending him where he wants to go” by sentencing Rhines to life in an
all-male prison. Juror Harry Keeney said in a sworn statement, “We also knew he
was a homosexual and thought he shouldn’t be able to spend his life with men in
prison.”
Following a 2017 U.S. Supreme Court decision that defendants could use
statements by jurors to show that racial stereotypes or animus had denied them
an impartial jury, Rhines’ lawyers asked the Court to extend that ruling to
include juror bias based upon a defendant’s sexual orientation. In April 2019,
the Court declined to review his case. Rhines’ attorney, assistant federal
defender Shawn Nolan, said at the time, “As Chief Justice Roberts wrote in an
earlier case, ‘[o]ur law punishes people for what they do, not who they are.’
New evidence – which has never been heard by any court – shows that some of the
jurors who sentenced Mr. Rhines to death did so because of who he was, not for
what he did.”
Rhines’ case highlights concerns about the persistence of bias against LGBTQ
people throughout the U.S. criminal justice system. A 2009 study of mock juror
questionnaires found that nearly half (45%) of respondents believed that being
gay “is not an acceptable lifestyle.” A 2011 study in the journal Pediatrics
found that nonheterosexual youth are disproportionately punished in school and
the justice system. Researchers from UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, a
think tank dedicated to research on sexual orientation and gender identity in
law and public policy, found that lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) people “were
three times more likely than straight people to be held in prisons and jails”
and face harsher sentences and prison conditions. LGB people were also more
likely to be sexually victimized while in custody, and more likely to be
subjected to solitary confinement.
Death sentences tainted by anti-gay bias and stereotypes are not uncommon in
the United States. In Calvin Burdine’s case—which gained notoriety because his
attorney slept through major portions of the trial—the prosecutor told the jury
that “sending a homosexual to the penitentiary certainly isn’t a very bad
punishment for a homosexual.” In a post-trial hearing, Burdine’s lawyer used
anti-gay slurs to refer to Burdine and other gay men. The book Queer
(In)Justice, which explores anti-LGBT bias throughout the criminal justice
system, says, “In capital cases a prosecutor must successfully undertake what
should be a morally difficult, ethically complex task of convincing a jury or
judge to kill another human being. To succeed, the prosecution must demonize,
dehumanize and ‘other’ the defendant … the process of dehumanization required
to obtain a death sentence is easier when the defendant is of a different race,
class, sexual orientation and/or gender identity than the jurors or judge.” One
example it offers is the trial of Wanda Jean Allen, who was executed in 2001
for the murder of her lesbian partner. Prosecutors emphasized Allen’s gender
non-conformity, calling her the “man” who “wore the pants in the family.” Judge
James F. Lane, who heard Allen’s appeal, wrote, “I find no proper purpose for
this evidence, and believe its only purpose was to present the defendant as
less sympathetic to the jury than the victim.”
(source: Death Penalty Information Center)
NEW MEXICO:
New Mexico sets aside final 2 death sentences
The New Mexico Supreme Court on Friday set aside the death penalty for the
final 2 inmates awaiting execution after the state's 2009 repeal of capital
punishment.
In a split decision, the state's highest court concluded that the death
sentences issued to Timothy Allen and Robert Fry were disproportionate in
comparison with comparable murder cases.
The cases were returned to a district court to impose life sentences to prison.
Allen and Fry, ages 56 and 45 respectively, will be eligible for parole after
serving 30 years, but would immediately begin serving additional sentences of
at least 25 years. Fry will not be eligible for release, the court said.
New Mexico repealed the death penalty in 2009. Allen and Fry remained on death
row because of prior convictions and their death sentences.
Allen was found guilty of kidnapping, attempted rape and the murder of
17-year-old Sandra Phillips in 1994.
Fry was sentenced to death in 2000 for fatally stabbing and bludgeoning Betty
Lee, a mother of 5.
In separate cases, Fry was sentenced to life in prison for 3 murders in 1996
and 1998 in San Juan County.
New Mexico's dormant capital punishment statute prohibits death sentences that
are excessive and disproportionate.
Justice Barbara Vigil, in the lead majority opinion, said there was little to
differentiate between the inmates' crimes and equally horrendous cases in which
defendants were not sentenced to death.
"We find no meaningful distinction which justifies imposing the death penalty
upon Fry and Allen," she said.
In the dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Judith Nakamura said the decision
overrides the Legislature's intention to preserve the death penalty for prior
sentences.
"The majority misstates the governing law and has done what our Legislature
would not: repeal the death penalty in its entirety," she said.
The Supreme Court previously affirmed the death sentence convictions issued
before the state's repeal of the death penalty as constitutionally allowable.
It agreed in 2013 to consider new appeals by Fry and Allen, and wavered for
years on ground rules for deciding whether the death penalty still fits the
crimes when considering other cases.
Defense attorneys urged the court to cast a wide net for sentencing in
comparable cases with more appalling murders involving defenseless children and
the elderly.
New Mexico's last execution in 2001 put to death child-killer Terry Clark after
he dropped all appeals.
He was the 1st person executed by the state since 1960.
Under New Mexico's 1979 death penalty statute, juries imposed death sentences
in 15 cases. State court officials say 7 of those sentences were reversed, 5
were commuted in 1986 by former Gov. Toney Anaya, a Democrat, and 1 inmate died
on death row.
In recent years, former Republican Gov. Susana Martinez sought unsuccessfully
to reinstate the death penalty in limited circumstances. She termed out of
office last year.
The court's 3-2 decision included 3 justices who remained on the complex case
involving Allen and Fry after retirement.
In a concurring opinion with the majority, retired Justice Charles Daniels said
he could not "honestly look anyone in the eye and say that executing these 2
defendants would be proportionate when compared to non-deadly punishment our
state has meted out in virtually all equally serious 1st-degree murder cases."
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Freed Farmworker Sues After Spending 25 Years on San Quentin’s Death Row
Vicente Benavides, a 69-year-old Californian native who spent 25 years on San
Quentin’s death row on false grounds, has filed a lawsuit against those who he
believes framed him back in 1991.
“I continue suffering from the injustice I lived through and the pain I must
carry for the rest of my life,” said Benavides through an interpreter,
according to ABC7.
On Wednesday, June 26, Benavides held a press conference together with his
attorney Ron O. Kaye outside First Street Courthouse in Los Angeles, where they
announced they had filed a lawsuit against Kern County, the City of Delano,
four law enforcement officials, the prosecuting district attorney, and a county
forensic pathologist, reported 23ABCNews.
They claim that Benavides was wrongfully imprisoned based on a trial featuring
fabricated evidence and witnesses who were pressured by law enforcement
officials to make false statements, which ultimately led to Benavides’s death
sentence for a crime he never committed.
“He was sent to death row in San Quentin as a child rapist. Do you understand
what that means?” his attorney Ron Kaye said. “They framed — and I don’t say
this lightly — they framed this innocent man,” said Kaye, according to NBC New
York.
Benavides was freed from San Quentin prison on April 19, 2018. That same day,
Kern County District Attorney Lisa Green announced that prosecutors had dropped
all charges against Benavides.
“Our professional and ethical standards require us to decline to re-try the
case when, upon an objective review of the facts, there is insufficient
evidence to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” she said, The Innocence
Project reported in 2018.
It was on November 18, 1991, when Benavides was arrested, and he was
incarcerated from that day on, for more than 25 years.
He was convicted in 1993 of 1st-degree murder and sexual assault of his
girlfriend’s daughter, 21-month-old Consuelo Verdugo. Initially, a forensic
pathologist concluded that the girl died from sexual assault, and several
medics also attested in court that the injuries were caused by sexual assault.
But in March 2018, the non-profit Habeas Corpus Resources brought the case to
the attention of the Supreme Court of California, which reexamined all evidence
and the medical experts’ statements, most of which were recanted by the
officials involved, because they said they hadn’t had full access to all the
medical files.
Those documents indicated that no traces of sexual violence were apparent. An
expert found the 1993 testimony against Benavides was deemed to be “so unlikely
to the point of being absurd,” Death Penalty Information Center noted in 2018
on its website.
It wasn’t until the child was admitted to a second hospital, that the child
incurred what appeared to be injuries to the anal and genital area, which were
likely caused by nurses struggling to insert a catheter into the urethra of the
dying child, DPIC said.
“All the evidence shows that she likely died from being struck by a motor
vehicle,” NBC recorded Kaye saying. And that was the probable cause why,
despite medical care, on November 25, 1991, Consuelo died.
The state Supreme Court concluded that there was no evidence of sexual abuse
before her death, and there were no legal grounds to hold Benavides any longer
in detention.
Deputy District Attorney Robert Carbone told 23ABCNews he still believes
Benavides is guilty of murder.
“I believe he killed this child — inflicted blunt force trauma on this child,”
he said.
(source: ntd.com)
*******************
California seeks to end execution lawsuit, cites moratorium
Gov. Gavin Newsom sought to end a long-running federal lawsuit challenging
California's lethal injection process on Friday, arguing that it is no longer
valid because of his moratorium on executions.
Death penalty opponents are challenging the state's plan to use a single
powerful barbiturate, instead of 3 drugs, to execute criminals.
Newsom's administration said in a court filing that there is no need to debate
the process because the Democrat halted executions in March for at least as
long as he is governor.
(source: Associated Press)
USA----impending/scheduled executions
With the execution of Marion Wilson Jr. in Georgia on June 20, the USA has now
executed 1,500 condemned individuals since the death penalty was re-legalized
on July 2, 1976 in the US Supreme Court Gregg v Georgia decision.
Gary Gilmore was the 1st person executed, in Utah, on January 17, 1977. Below
is a list of further scheduled executions as the nation continues its shameful
practice of state-sponsored killings.
NOTE: The list is likely to change over the coming months as new execution
dates are added and possible stays of execution occur.
1501------Aug. 15-------------Dexter Johnson-----------Texas
1502-------Aug. 15------------Stephen West-------------Tennessee
1503-------Aug. 21------------Larry Swearingen---------Texas
1504-------Aug. 22------------Gary Ray Bowles----------Florida
1505-------Sept. 4------------Billy Crutsinger---------Texas
1506-------Sept. 10-----------Mark Anthony Soliz-------Texas
1507-------Sept. 12-----------Warren Henness-----------Ohio
1508-------Sept 25------------Robert Sparks------------Texas
1509-------Oct. 1-------------Russell Bucklew----------Missouri
1510-------Oct. 2-------------Stephen Barbee-----------Texas
1511-------Oct. 16------------Randall Mays-------------Texas
1512-------Nov. 3-9-----------Charles Rhines-----------South Dakota
1513-------Nov. 6-------------Justen Hall--------------Texas
(source: Rick Halperin)
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