August 19
NORTH CAROLINA:
6 death row prisoners in North Carolina to get their day in court
In 2002, Quintel Augustine went on trial accused of murdering a Fayetteville
police officer — a notorious case that forced prosecutors to pick a jury in
Brunswick County, 90 miles away.
Augustine was 25 but had already served two terms in prison.
The officer, Roy Gene Turner Jr., was a 5-year veteran of the Fayetteville
force, who left behind a fiancee and a 6-month-old child.
But another distinction has kept this case in disputeever since: Augustine was
black, and the officer, like every member of the jury that handed down the
death penalty, was white.
Court filings argue that Cumberland County prosecutors improperly used race as
a primary factor in choosing Augustine's jurors. In one case, a potential juror
was described in handwritten notes as a "black wino," and then rejected. Notes
for a white juror, who was accepted, read "drinks--country boy--OK."
Next week, the N.C., Supreme Court will consider whether Augustine and 3 others
on death row should have their sentences reduced to life in prison.
This reprieve had already been granted to all 4 of them under the state's
Racial Justice Act, which let prisoners seek relief when they could show racial
prejudice in jury selection. But their death sentences were restored when the
legislature repealed the law in 2013.
2 more death row defendants will argue that their cases were tainted by the
same racial bias the courts have already found with the other four defendants,
and they are requesting a hearing to present that evidence.
Their advocates argue the Supreme Court has the chance to restore a tool
created to root out widespread prejudice in the legal system dating back more
than a century.
Death row debate
In 2009, when the Racial Justice Act was passed, the minority population in
North Carolina had reached 34 percent, according to the nonprofit Center for
Death Penalty Litigation. But of the 142 prisoners on death row, nearly 1/2
were convicted by juries with no minority representation.
A 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Batson v. Kentucky, forbid prosecutors from
rejecting jurors on the basis of race alone. But researchers at Michigan State
University found in a 2012 study of North Carolina death-penalty trials that
black jurors were 2.5 times more likely to be struck.
Critics of the law called it so broad that it created a loophole for any
defendant given capital punishment. When he signed its repeal in 2013, Gov. Pat
McCrory said, “Nearly every person on death row, regardless of race, has
appealed their death sentence under the Racial Justice Act,” according to the
Associated Press.
But its defenders at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation cite “a mountain”
of evidence that already shows decades of bias, and overturning the law serves
as a means for ignoring it.
“Whether you look at it from a legal perspective or a common-sense perspective,
it doesn’t make much sense to say we’re going to create this mechanism to see
if there’s racial bias, we’re going to find all this evidence and then we’re
going to repeal the law,” said David Weiss, attorney with the center.
Only four people had sentences reduced under the act before its repeal: Tilmon
Golphin, Christina Walters, Marcus Robinson and Augustine — all of them
convicted of murder in Cumberland County. The other two seeking the same
chance: Andrew Ramseur and Rayford Burke, both from Iredell County.
Their attorneys come from the center, the ACLU, the NAACP, the state appellate
defender’s office and private practice. N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein’s
office will handle the case for the state. A spokeswoman for Stein’s office
declined to comment on active litigation.
Black jurors rejected
In Ramseur’s case, a black 21-year-old defendant got the death sentence from an
all-white jury. All of the qualified black jurors were rejected, his attorney
Daniel Shatz wrote in a 2016 brief.
During his 2010 trial in Statesville, four rows of courtroom seats were
cordoned off with crime-scene tape, forcing his family to sit in the back,
Shatz wrote. Racially charged comments appeared on a local newspaper website,
including “He should be hanging from the nearest traffic light as a warning to
the rest.” The court declined to change the trial location or allow a Racial
Justice Act review.
Walters, one of the few women on the state’s death row, was sentenced to death
in 2000 for her part in a series of gang-related murders in Fayetteville.
During her trial, prosecutors rejected 10 out of 14 qualified black jurors and
4 of 27 whites, wrote center attorney Shelagh Kenney in her brief.
One black woman was struck, Kenney wrote, because her brother had been
convicted on an unrelated gun charge. The woman told prosecutors that she and
her brother were not close and his criminal record would not affect her jury
service. At the same time, a non-black juror was chosen despite having a
brother jailed on a murder charge and writing him regular letters.
In Robinson’s case, the prosecutor asked a potential black juror if he had
graduated from high school or had trouble reading — questions not asked of any
others, wrote ACLU attorney Cassandra Stubbs in a 2018 brief. Half the black
jurors were rejected compared to 14 % from other groups.
Robinson was the first to be granted relief under the act.
“Never before has any legislature enacted a statute designed to remedy
suspected systemic racial bias in capital sentencing,” Stubbs wrote, “only to
repeal such a statute when the racial bias was found.”
(source: newsobserver.com)
FLORIDA:
Condemned to death, Tampa cop killer returns to court seeking new
trial----Dontae Morris is on death row for the 2010 shootings of Officers David
Curtis and Jeffrey Kocab.
Almost a decade ago, 2 Tampa police officers were murdered.
A city grieved. A legion of cops hunted a killer and demanded justice. A jury
would later see video of the officers shot in the head as they attempted to
arrest a man during a traffic stop. The same panel decided the killer should be
executed.
This month, a crack opened on the past and death row inmate Dontae Morris
returned to the Hillsborough County Jail just before noon on Aug. 1. He brought
with him hopes of a new trial in the slaying of Officers David Curtis and
Jeffrey Kocab.
Lawyers for Morris are set to present evidence in a Tampa courtroom this week
as they try to persuade a judge that his 1st trial was not a fair one.
They say a key witness against Morris lied, that the jury was tainted by video
images of the aftermath of the shootings, and that the trial attorneys failed
to present evidence concerning Morris’ mental state.
The effort is a long shot. The state’s highest court has previously upheld
Morris’s convictions and death sentences. But the hearing will feature some new
arguments and testimony that might look like a trial.
In addition to the officer killings, Morris was convicted in the separate
murders a few weeks earlier of Rodney Jones and Derek Anderson.
He received a life sentence for killing Jones, and a third death sentence in
Anderson’s murder. The sentence in the Anderson case was later overturned
because the jury was not unanimous in its recommendation for capital
punishment. Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek a new death
sentence in the case.
Morris, now 33, was the subject of the largest manhunt in Tampa history in the
four days that followed the June 29, 2010, slayings of Officers Curtis and
Kocab.
At 2:13 a.m. that day, Curtis stopped a red Toyota Camry that had no license
tag. The car pulled over on the southbound side of 50th Street, just north of
Interstate 4. The driver was Cortnee Brantley. In the passenger seat was
Morris.
The dashboard camera in Curtis’ patrol car captured the officer’s brief
conversation with the pair. When asked his name, the passenger could be heard
saying, “Morris … Dontae … D-O-N-T-A-E … M-O-R-R-I-S.”
Curtis scribbled down the name and Morris’ birth date on a notepad, and
returned to his car. When he ran the name through a police database, he
discovered Morris had an active warrant for writing bad checks.
He called for backup. Kocab arrived. The 2 officers walked to the car’s
passenger side. Curtis told Morris he had a warrant and asked him to step out.
Morris rose, as though he was going to comply. But he quickly drew a gun and
shot both officers.
He then ran off. Brantley sped away.
The officers lay dying before passersby saw them a few minutes later and dialed
911. Both men were declared dead at Tampa General Hospital.
A confidential informer later brought Morris to a South Tampa law office, where
he was delivered to police in exchange for $90,000 in reward money.
Key to the state’s case was the testimony of Ashley Price, a 1-time girlfriend
of Morris who testified that Morris spoke with her in the hours after the
shootings and confessed to killing both officers.
But lawyers for the office of the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, a state
agency that represents death row inmates, say they have 2 witnesses who can
testify that Price lied. They argue that she was pressured to cooperate with
police and prosecutors to secure a conviction.
The lawyers have also challenged the decision to let jurors see portions of
dashboard camera video in which panicked officers try to revive their
colleagues. And they question Morris’ death sentences, arguing that his trial
lawyers failed to adequately probe his background and upbringing.
What’s more, the new appeal rehashes findings from psychological experts that
were presented to a judge but not the jury. These experts found that Morris has
a below-average IQ and “borderline intellectual functioning."
New evidence includes the results of brain scans Morris underwent while on
death row. The exams revealed signs that he may have suffered a brain injury,
according to his appellate attorneys.
“The flaws in the system which sentenced Mr. Morris to death are many,” they
wrote in a court paper. “These errors cannot be harmless. The results of the
trial and sentencing are not reliable.”
(soruce: tampabay.com)
********************
Man accused of ambushing, killing 2 Kissimmee officers heads to trial Monday
The man accused of killing 2 Kissimmee police officers will head to trial
Monday.
If Everett Miller is convicted, state prosecutors will seek the death penalty.
It's been 2 years since the Kissimmee Police Department suffered its most
painful loss in the history of the department.
The area near Cypress Street was turned into a solemn crime scene 2 years ago
where officers tried to help Sgt. Sam Howard and officer Matthew Baxter and
track down the person who ambushed and fatally shot them.
Cellphone video later posted on Snapchat shows Baxter minutes earlier with
Miller and Baxter calling Howard for backup.
Gunfire is heard erupting minutes after Howard arrived to disperse Miller and
several others along the street.
Miller was later captured at a neighborhood bar and charged with 2 counts of
1st-degree murder.
During Miller's trial, an array of mental health experts will testify about his
state of mind in the days leading up to the night the 2 Kissimmee officers were
killed.
The most recent judge's order last week denied Miller's request to wear his
Marine Corps uniform at trial.
(source: WESH news)
OHIO:
DeWine Rejects Idea Of Using Fentanyl In Executions
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is dismissing a legislator's proposal to use fentanyl
to execute death row inmates as the state struggles to find a lethal injection
protocol that will be approved by the courts.
DeWine says fentanyl, which has led to thousands of fatal overdoses in Ohio,
isn't an option and likely would not pass "constitutional muster." Republican
State Representative Scott Wiggam is seeking co-sponsors for a bill to use
fentanyl seized by law enforcement agencies for executions. The State of
Nebraska used fentanyl obtained from a pharmacy to execute a prisoner last
year. DeWine canceled the execution of convicted killer Warren Henness in
January after a federal judge expressed concerns about Ohio's lethal injection
protocol.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
‘Boy Next Door Killer’ convicted of murdering Los Altos native
A jury has found an aspiring actor who prosecutors called “The Boy Next Door
Killer” guilty of fatally stabbing two Los Angeles-area women, including a Los
Altos High School graduate who was killed the night she was planning to meet
actor Ashton Kutcher for drinks.
The jury on Thursday (Aug. 15) in Los Angeles also found Michael Gargiulo
guilty of the attempted murder of a woman who fought back and sent him fleeing,
leading to his arrest in all 3 cases and a 4th for which he’s awaiting trial in
Illinois.
Gargiulo, 43, was convicted in the murder of 22-year-old Ashley Ellerin in her
Hollywood home in 2001 on a night when she was about to meet Kutcher, who
testified at the trial. Her father was in court for the verdict.
Ellerin grew up in Los Altos and attended Santa Rita Elementary School, Egan
Junior High School and Los Altos High. After graduating in 1996, she was
accepted into the UCLA Fine Arts program.
At the time of her death, Ellerin was a student at the Fashion Institute of
Design and Merchandising.
Gargiulo also was convicted of the 2005 murder of 32-year old Maria Bruno in
her El Monte home, and the 2008 attempted murder of Michelle Murphy in a
stabbing attack in her Santa Monica apartment.
Jurors who deliberated for 3 days also found Gargiulo guilty of several
special-circumstance allegations, including lying in wait and multiple murders,
which make him eligible for the death penalty or life in prison with no
possibility of parole.
A final phase of the trial is set to start Tuesday, when jurors will determine
whether Gargiulo was sane at the time of the killings.
Gargiulo sat in court in a lavender dress shirt and slacks with eight sheriff’s
deputies standing behind him. He showed no reaction when the verdict was read.
A native of the Chicago area who moved to Los Angeles in the late 1990s,
Gargiulo had acting aspirations and worked as an air conditioning repairman and
Hollywood nightclub bouncer at the time of the attacks.
Little physical evidence
With little physical evidence tying him to the scenes of two killings,
prosecutors urged jurors to look at the cases connectively, citing uncannily
similar patterns in home-invasion attacks that were all in places near his
residence at the time.
While some media outlets referred to him as “The Hollywood Ripper,” prosecutors
dubbed him “The Boy Next Door Killer.”
Allowed to cite evidence from the Illinois case, they said all four attacks
were the work of a skilled serial killer who studied the lives, homes and
habits of victims that he stabbed quickly, powerfully and repeatedly with a
knife that he knew how to use, and studied ways to cover his tracks.
“Those similarities point to one man, one killer: Michael Gargiulo,” Deputy
District Attorney Garrett Dameron said during closing arguments.
The defense relied heavily on the lack of forensic or eyewitness evidence
putting Gargiulo at the scenes of the killings. A shoe-covering bootie with
Bruno’s blood and Gargiulo’s DNA was found near her apartment in a complex
where they both lived.
“It’s incomprehensible to me that you can make a case against someone when you
can’t even prove where they were,” defense attorney Dale Rubin said during
closing arguments.
Gargiulo’s attorneys suggested that both women were killed by the last men who
saw them alive: Bruno by her estranged husband, Ellerin by her apartment
manager, with whom she’d had a sexual relationship.
Gargiulo’s attorney Daniel Nardoni suggested the apartment manager was driven
to a jealous rage because of Ellerin’s upcoming date with Kutcher.
Kutcher’s testimony
Kutcher, who in 2001 was a rising star of “That ’70s Show,” testified early in
the trial that he and Ellerin were just getting to know each other and had made
plans to go out together for drinks. He said he arrived at her Hollywood home
very late and assumed she had gone out without him when he got no answer at the
door. “I remember the next day, after I heard about what happened, I went to
the detectives and said, ‘My fingerprints are on the door,’” Kutcher testified.
“I was freaking out.”
The first and most important witness in the case was Murphy, a fitness buff who
fought off the much larger Gargiulo in 2008 and caused him to cut himself,
leaving a trail of blood as he fled. That evidence against him was so
overwhelming that defense attorneys conceded it was him though they argued his
mental state was such that he did not know what he was doing.
In the prosecution’s closing argument, Dameron praised Murphy, whose resistance
against Gargiulo led to his arrest.
“Michelle Murphy, because of her strength and courage, allowed investigators to
work backwards,” Dameron said. “This case begins and ends with Michelle
Murphy.”
(source: padailypost.com)
OREGON:
Fix ‘retroactive’ death-penalty bill in special session
Senate Bill 1013 was the Oregon Legislature’s attempt to get as close as
possible to abolishing the death penalty without going to voters. By
significantly narrowing the definition of aggravated murder — the only crime
that carries the possibility of capital punishment — lawmakers could largely
shut down the pipeline of people to death row.
It was both a clever strategy and a pessimistic one. Legislators leveraged
their statutory authority to take away the death penalty as an option long
before a case ever got to a jury. But it also reflected their suspicion that,
if asked, Oregon voters would reject a call to amend the constitution and
abolish capital punishment.
However, as reports by The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Noelle Crombie show, SB 1013
was an even bigger legislative sleight of hand. The law doesn’t just guarantee
fewer death-penalty cases in the future; it rewrites the possible outcomes for
existing death-penalty cases for crimes committed decades ago.
Although the bill’s champions, Rep. Jennifer Williamson and Sen. Floyd
Prozanski, repeatedly assured colleagues and the public that the bill was not
retroactive, they failed to explain how selective their definition of
“retroactive” was. Even prosecutors and top attorneys at the Oregon Department
of Justice, which handles death penalty appeals for the state, didn’t
understand until recently the potential impact of the new legislation on an
unknown number of pending aggravated-murder cases. The lack of transparency and
outright misdirection that has tainted the legislative process should offend
Oregonians regardless of their position on the death penalty.
While Williamson denies that there’s any problem with the legislation,
Prozanski, to his credit, concedes the new law needs additional work to limit
the reach of SB 1013. Without Williamson’s support, he has asked Gov. Kate
Brown to convene a special session before the law goes in effect on Sept. 29.
The governor should acknowledge the legislation’s fatal lack of transparency,
recognize the public interest in having an informed debate incorporating all
the implications of this bill and grant Prozanski’s request.
From the start, Williamson and Prozanski repeatedly assured colleagues,
prosecutors and the public that the new definition of aggravated murder created
in SB 1013 would not be “retroactive.” Under SB 1013, the charge of aggravated
murder can only be filed against defendants accused of killing 2 or more people
in a terrorism act; killing a child younger than 14 intentionally and with
premeditation, killing another person while incarcerated for a previous murder;
or killing a law enforcement, correctional or probation officer. The law
designated other crimes previously included in the aggravated murder category
as 1st-degree murder.
Unfortunately, we’re all learning now that the legislators’ use of
“retroactive” is far different from the way a layperson — and even top justice
attorneys — understand the word. While many would assume that the new
definition of aggravated murder would apply only to crimes occurring on or
after SB 1013’s Sept. 29 effective date, the reality is that the legislation
imposes the new definition on proceedings for which the expected sentencing
date occurs on or after Sept. 29. So under SB 1013, any death-penalty defendant
who wins a new trial or a new sentencing on appeal would have their charges
re-evaluated under the narrower definition of aggravated murder.
This only came to light after a recent Washington County decision in the case
of accused killer Martin Allen Johnson. Johnson, originally convicted and
sentenced to death for the 1998 rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl, won the
right to a new trial after an appeals court found in 2017 that his first trial
was compromised by ineffective counsel. But with the passage of SB 1013, his
attorneys successfully argued that the girl’s killing no longer met the
standards for aggravated murder. With the lesser charge of first-degree murder,
Johnson won’t face the possibility of the death penalty. The state’s solicitor
general then recognized the broad implications of the law, alerting prosecutors
earlier this month in an email, which reporter Crombie obtained.
It seems strange that justice officials, including the solicitor general, would
not be aware that the law would so dramatically change the nature of the death
penalty appeals that his team handles. But as Aaron Knott, DOJ’s legislative
director noted to The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board, the clear message
from Williamson and Prozanski was that the law would not be retroactive. Knott,
who spoke with the editorial board before Williamson clarified her views, had
assumed there was a drafting error in the law that failed to incorporate the
legislators’ intent.
Williamson made other misleading comments that raise questions about the
integrity of the process surrounding this bill. She specifically told The
Oregonian/OregonLive’s Aimee Green in early July that SB 1013 would not affect
the resentencings of defendants granted reversals through appeals. She noted
that legislators had specifically passed another bill, Senate Bill 1005, to
prevent that for death-row defendants, including Angela McAnulty, who killed
her 15-year-old daughter, and Billy Lee Oatney, who raped and murdered a
34-year-old woman, both of whom are awaiting resentencing.
Williamson told Green that lawmakers “wanted their intent to be clear so they
added the language, on the advice of legislative lawyers,” the story states.
In a call with The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board last week, Williamson
offered shifting explanations for why she made those statements. First, she
ascribed it to a mistake on her part and then suggested she had misstated the
bill number that SB 1005 was fixing. (SB 1005 primarily resolves a
retroactivity problem in SB 1008, a juvenile-justice reform bill). She also
theorized that she might have thought McAnulty and Oatney’s crimes would still
be considered aggravated murder under the new definition. They are not.
In any event, her position now is clear. She does not support Prozanski’s
efforts to limit the law so that those facing resentencing — as opposed to
those whose convictions are overturned — fall under pre-SB 1013 definitions.
This law and its potential impacts have created a mess. Legislation,
particularly bills on such life-and-death issues with broad impact, should not
turn on the semantic games that legislators play. Victims’ families, who
already endure a long appeals process for death penalty defendants, don’t
deserve to be collateral damage in the Legislature’s attempted end-run around
the death penalty.
There is a strong case to be made that the death penalty is inhumane,
ineffective and a waste of taxpayer dollars. Elected leaders and criminal
justice reform advocates could easily show Oregonians all that the state would
gain if they would vote to amend the constitution and abolish capital
punishment.
But that’s the key element. It should be up to voters to get rid of the death
penalty, not legislators. If lawmakers and the governor want to preserve that
chance, they should recognize how such questionable maneuvers as those in
passage of SB 1013 put their goal at risk. There are six weeks before the law
takes effect. They should use them well to come clean with Oregonians.
(source: Editorial, The Oregonian)
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