August 28
NORTH CAROLINA:
Lawyers square off over death sentence being reimposed
Nearly 22 years after Tilmon Golphin and his younger brother gunned down a
Cumberland County deputy and a state trooper on Interstate 95 near
Fayetteville, Golphin’s lawyers went before the N.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday
morning to argue for his life.
The question at hand: Was North Carolina wrong to reinstate the death penalty
for Golphin after Cumberland County Superior Court Judge Gregory Weeks commuted
his death sentence to life without parole in 2012?
The state Supreme Court faces this same question with 3 +other Cumberland
County convicted murderers who also in 2012 had their sentences commuted to
life without parole under North Carolina’s short-lived Racial Justice Act. The
other 3 cases were argued before the court on Monday.
The court also on Monday heard arguments from two convicted murderers from
other counties who were denied the opportunity to use the Racial Justice Act to
try to commute their sentences before the legislature repealed the law in 2013.
The state legislature passed the Racial Justice Act in 2009 to address
institutional racism thought to be in North Carolina’s criminal justice system.
It gave death row defendants an opportunity to prove in court that racism was a
factor in the conduct of their trials.
If they could prove this, the judge was to convert their death sentences to
life without parole.
In the 4 Cumberland County cases, Weeks was persuaded that the prosecutors used
their peremptory challenges during jury selection to prevent black jurors from
being seated on their juries solely because they were black — a violation of
the jurors’ constitutional rights to serve their communities. It was argued
that this was done based on a perception that black jurors would be less likely
to sentence someone to death.
The 4 inmates were removed from death row.
The Supreme Court overturned Week’s rulings in December 2015, saying he had
made mistakes that biased his decisions. Golphin and the other three inmates
were returned to death row.
In January 2017 another judge (Weeks having retired) dismissed the inmates’
Racial Justice Act claims because the Racial Justice Act had been repealed.
Lawyer Jay Ferguson told the justices that this was wrong.
He said that once Golphin’s sentence was reduced from death to life without
parole, the state was legally and constitutionally barred from reverting the
sentence back to death. Some of Ferguson’s key points from his arguments and
legal brief:
• He believes that Golphin was technically acquitted of the death sentence when
his sentence was converted to life in prison, and to re-impose the death
sentence is a form of double-jeopardy — the state is not allowed to prosecute
someone more than once for the same crime once jeopardy is considered to have
attached to the case.
• He thinks the legislature’s decision to repeal the Racial Justice Act was
aimed specifically at Golphin and the other three defendants. It’s
unconstitutional to pass a law designed to punish specific individuals (a
concept known as a “bill of attainder”).
• The constitution also prohibits “ex post facto” laws — those that impose a
punishment retroactively. Ferguson contends Golphin, under the Racial Justice
Act, was sentenced to life in prison. The repeal law of 2013, he said, can’t
take that away without violating the ex post facto provisions in the state and
federal constitutions.
• Golphin’s right to use the Racial Justice Act was “vested” with the passage
of the law and the state can’t take away a vested right. For this, Ferguson
cited a state Supreme Court of 1869 regarding a former Confederate soldier
accused of committing murder during the war.
North Carolina had passed an amnesty for former Confederate soldiers for crimes
they committed during the Civil War. Later the amnesty was repealed and the
state tried to prosecute a soldier accused of murder. The Supreme Court said
the amnesty was a vested right and could not be taken away, so the soldier
couldn’t be prosecuted. In Golphin’s case, Ferguson says his life sentence
can’t be upgraded to death.
Senior Deputy Attorney General Danielle Elder urged the justices to keep
Golphin on death row.
“The defendant here has not been acquitted of the death penalty,” she said.
Weeks’ ruling that changed Golphin’s sentence was procedural, and not his
criminal liability. “Acquittal” happens when there is a determination that the
prosecution’s evidence is insufficient to determine if someone committed a
crime, she said.
Elder’s arguments and brief also contend:
• Golphin’s right to use the Racial Justice Act never became “vested” because
he never received a final order that granted him the life sentence — this would
have happened had the Supreme Court upheld the 2012 ruling instead of rejecting
it in 2015.
• There is no ex post facto issue, she said. Specifically, neither the Racial
Justice Act nor its repeal boosted the punishment for 1st-degree murder beyond
the death penalty — and the death penalty was on the books for 1st-degree
murder when Golphin killed the law officers.
• The law that repealed the Racial Justice Act was not a bill of attainder, she
said, because Golphin’s death penalty had been imposed by a trial years before.
Part of the reason bills of attainder are unconstitutional is that they punish
specific people without a trial.
The Supreme Court chamber was filled with spectators on Tuesday for Golphin’s
case. The slain trooper’s widow and younger brother were on the front row.
Only 6 of the 7 justices heard the case because Chief Justice Cheri Beasley
recused herself. She was a defense lawyer for Golphin in 1998.
(source: Fayetteville Observer)
**********************
Death row inmates appeal to North Carolina Supreme Court, citing racial bias
The Supreme Court of North Carolina is set to hear the case of 6 death row
inmates who say a repealed state law should still allow them to be re-sentenced
to life without parole, since they were able to successfully demonstrate that
racial bias was a factor in their death sentences.
The court is scheduled to hear arguments Monday and Tuesday in the cases of 4
death row inmates who briefly were re-sentenced to life without parole when
state legislators approved the Racial Justice Act in 2009, the AP reports.
Under the Racial Justice Act, four inmates had used statistics to prove that
their race was a “significant factor” in their trials, thus leading to a judge
converting their sentences to life without parole.
Legislators repealed the Act in 2013, and the four inmates were sent back to
death row without a new hearing.
North Carolina's Supreme Court justices also will hear from attorneys for two
other death row prisoners whose Racial Justice Act claims were not decided
before the law was repealed, the AP says.
More than 130 inmates brought claims under the Act when it was law, but these
four were the only cases adjudicated successfully and then mooted, Slate
reported.
A statistical study conducted by Michigan State University’s College of Law
found that prosecutors struck qualified black jurors in North Carolina at far
higher rates than white jurors, AP reported.
North Carolina currently has 142 people on death row, 63% of whom are non-white
in a state that is 29% non-white, the AP reports.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the death penalty is today
“inadmissible,” because “there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of
the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes,” and
“more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due
protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the
guilty of the possibility of redemption.”
(source: Angelus News)
**************************
2 Members of the ‘Exonerated Five’ to Speak at Duke Sept. 2----The event is
free and open to the public, but tickets are required
2 members of the Exonerated 5, formerly known as the Central Park 5, will speak
at Duke University on Monday, Sept. 2, in Page Auditorium.
The 7 p.m. event, “Now They Hear Us: Living Without Regret and Inspiring Future
Generations,” will feature Yusef Salaam and Raymond Santana in conversation
with professor Mark Anthony Neal, chair of Duke’s Department of African &
African American Studies.
The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Tickets can
be obtained starting at 11 a.m. Aug. 28 from the Duke University Box Office, or
online at tickets.duke.edu (a service charge will apply). There is a limit of 2
tickets per person.
Parking is available in the Bryan Center Parking Garage for a fee of $5 per
vehicle, cash only. The event is sponsored by the Department of African &
African American Studies and Duke Law School.
The following day, Tuesday, Sept. 3, Salaam and Santana will participate in a
12:30 p.m. panel discussion at Duke Law School, Room 3041, which is also free
and open to the public. Tickets are not needed to attend. Professor James
Coleman, co-director of the law school’s Wrongful Convictions Clinic, will
provide introductions and law professor Brandon Garrett, a leading scholar of
criminal procedure, scientific evidence and wrongful convictions, will
interview them about their experience in the criminal justice system.
Visitor parking is available in the Science Drive lot.
“Mr. Salaam and Mr. Santana are powerful speakers with a remarkable story to
tell. Their arrest and conviction was used nationally to characterize black
youths as increasingly dangerous criminals, yet it was a flawed criminal
justice system that terrorized these innocent young men,” said Jamie Lau, a
clinical professor of law and the supervising attorney for Duke’s Center for
Criminal Justice and Professional Responsibility.
“Their story is a cautionary tale for any aspiring or practicing lawyer, as our
justice system fails to function properly when criminal charges and
prosecutions are brought in haste, when we fail to recognize and mitigate
against our own biases, and when we take shortcuts rather than fastidiously
searching for the truth,” he said.
Many are already familiar with the story of Salaam, Santana and the three
others -- Korey Wise, Antron McCray and Kevin Richardson.
As boys, they were tried and convicted for the brutal 1989 attack of a young
woman jogging in New York City’s Central Park. In 2002, a convicted murderer
and serial rapist, linked to the case by DNA evidence, confessed to the crime,
exonerating the 5 men. By the time the court vacated their sentences, withdrew
all charges and removed them from the sex offender registry, they had each
served between 5 and 13 years in prison.
Santana, who served 5 years before he was exonerated, is an activist, producer,
fashion designer and founder of Park Madison NYC. Salaam, wrongfully convicted
at age 15, is now a motivational speaker and advocate who addresses disparities
in America’s criminal justice system. He serves on the board of The Campaign to
End the Death Penalty, and in 2016 received a Lifetime Achievement Award from
President Obama.
Documentarians Ken and Sarah Burns raised awareness of their case in the 2012
documentary, “The Central Park Five,” which told the story from the perspective
of the five men. Filmmaker Ava DuVernay produced a four-part Netflix
miniseries, “When They See Us,” that was released earlier this year to critical
acclaim. DuVernay dubbed them the Exonerated 5 to better reflect their status
and reclaim their humanity.
“The case highlights the urgency needed to address the many fault lines that
exist in our criminal justice system and in the newsrooms and courts of popular
opinion across the nation,” Neal said. “That Mr. Santana and Mr. Salaam, along
with their peers, have been given this rarest opportunity to see some semblance
of justice, years after the fact, and are brave enough to share the deep trauma
that they are still attempting to transcend, should be inspiration to all.”
Co-sponsors are the Office of Black Church Studies, the Center for Muslim Life,
the Dean of the Social Sciences, Duke Student Affairs, Duke Chapel, the Forum
for Scholars and Publics, the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture, the
Office of Faculty Advancement and Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.
(source: duke.edu)
FLORIDA:
Murder defendant abandons representing himself
For the 3rd time since his arrest in January 2015 on allegations of 1st-degree
murder, Jovan Lamb has abandoned his effort to represent himself on the
charges.
His lawyer, Jaime Garcia of Tampa, had withdrawn from Lamb’s case during a
hearing last Thursday, saying the 2 could not agree on a defense strategy. Lamb
then told Circuit Judge Jalal Harb he wanted to proceed without a lawyer.
But on Tuesday, he changed his mind.
“I corresponded with my family, trying to hire an attorney,” Lamb said. “That’s
not going to work. I did personal research at the facility there on that, and
that’s not going to work. So that’s what persuaded me to make my opinion there
on that today.
“I can’t represent myself,” he said. “At this point, I have no choice but to
ask you to appoint counsel. I inquired with my family about hiring an attorney,
and that’s not possible. I went through 2 attorneys already that we’ve hired,
so that’s not possible. I was hoping that was possible. That was my main goal.
But that’s not possible anymore. So from my standpoint, being incarcerated at
the Polk County Jail, I don’t have the access to the materials I need to be
adequate in representing myself, so I don’t think it’s in my best interest to
do so.”
Lamb, 34, of Haines City, was scheduled to stand trial in two weeks on
allegations of murder, robbery, grand theft and attempted murder of a law
enforcement officer, and faces mandatory life in prison if he’s convicted of
murder. On Tuesday, Harb agreed to delay the trial.
Lamb had been arrested Jan. 14, 2015, along with Michael Gordon, Terrell
Williams and Devonere McCune, on allegations he had robbed an Auburndale pawn
shop at gunpoint and had led officers on a high-speed chase to Haines City,
where he and others had run from their car after it had crashed at the entrance
to Candler Ridge subdivision.
Separate juries already have convicted Gordon and Williams, and Williams has
begun serving a mandatory life sentence. Prosecutors are seeking the death
penalty against Gordon, who was found guilty of brutally stabbing 72-year-old
Patricia Moran and her daughter, Deborah Royal, 51, after forcing his way into
their Candler Ridge home and stealing their car. The jury unanimously
recommended the death penalty against Gordon for the killings, but Harb hasn’t
imposed sentence yet.
The other 3 co-defendants also were charged with their murders on allegations
they participated in the violent crimes that led to those killings. McCune is
scheduled to stand trial in December.
Lamb first stated he wanted to represent himself in June 2015 — 5 months after
his arrest. In a 13-page handwritten letter to the court, he cited a litany of
reasons why he wasn’t satisfied with Lakeland lawyer Lee Adam Cohen’s
representation.
Lamb represented himself for about a month before his family hired Tampa lawyer
Guillermo Gomez Jr., according to court records. Three years later, in April
2018, Gomez withdrew from the case, citing a conflict of interest, and Lamb’s
family hired Garcia.
But in February, Garcia sought to withdraw from the case, citing irreconcilable
differences between himself and Lamb. Harb granted the motion April 5, but at a
hearing in May, Lamb’s mother testified that she had been talking with Garcia
about returning to the case, and he had agreed. On May 9, Garcia filed a notice
in court records stating he would be representing Lamb.
His representation remained in place until last week.
Lamb’s mother, Deborah, declined comment on her son’s case Tuesday.
(source: theledger.com)
USA:
New hearing, President Trump clemency sought for Kansas killer set to be
executed----In 1998, Jennifer Long left high school early and disappeared.
Years later, Wesley Purkey admitted to abducting, raping and murdering her in
his Lansing home. 20 years later, she will have a memorial to honor her.
Attorneys for a federal death row inmate who confessed to killing a Kansas City
teenager have asked for a chance to present claims that his trial lawyer was
ineffective and failed to investigate his traumatic childhood, evidence the
jury that sent him to death never heard.
Wesley Ira Purkey’s lawyers on Tuesday said they filed a petition for writ of
habeas corpus and requested a stay of his execution, which is set for Dec. 13.
They also said they filed a petition seeking clemency from President Donald
Trump, urging him to commute Purkey’s death sentence to life in prison without
the possibility of parole.
Purkey’s attorneys have said his youth was marked by horrific abuse. The
petition noted that as a child, Purkey was sexually abused by alcoholic family
members and a Catholic priest, trauma that affected his development and
contributed to his behavior, his lawyers said.
“Mr. Purkey is not ‘the worst of the worst,’” his attorney, Rebecca Woodman,
said in a statement. “Had the jurors heard this information, at least one of
them might have voted for a life sentence.”
Purkey is among 5 death-row inmates across the country set to be executed in
the next 5 months. The executions, which were announced in July by the Justice
Department, would be the 1st carried out by the federal government since 2003.
In 1998, Purkey drove into Kansas City from his home in Lansing, Kansas, where
he spotted 16-year-old Jennifer Long. He asked the teen if she wanted to party,
and she got in his pickup truck.
Later in his basement, Purkey raped Long, stabbed her repeatedly and used a
chainsaw to cut her body into pieces. He burned her remains in a fireplace and
then dumped her ashes 200 miles away in a septic pond in Clearwater, southwest
of Wichita.
Nine months later, Purkey was arrested in the killing of 80-year-old Mary Ruth
Bales, of Kansas City, Kansas. He pleaded guilty to her murder and was handed a
life sentence.
Then in November 2003, a federal jury in the Western District of Missouri found
Purkey guilty of kidnapping Long, resulting in her death. Prosecutors sought
the death penalty.
Purkey has remained at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Long’s mother, Glenda Lamont, was overjoyed when she learned Purkey was set to
be executed, saying she planned to attend it.
“I don’t want to say that I’m happy,” Lamont said in July. “At the same time,
he is a crazy mad man that doesn’t deserve, in my opinion, to be breathing
anymore.”
In a statement Tuesday about the new filings, Purkey’s attorneys said his
“traumatic upbringing” was never fully investigated by his trial attorney, who
has had more clients sentenced to death in federal court than any other defense
lawyer in America.
Among a “myriad” of legal violations in Purkey’s case, his trial attorney also
hired a friend to conduct investigative matters after that person was fired
from a public defender’s office for serious misconduct, according to Purkey’s
attorneys.
Purkey’s habeas petition details his struggles with mental health and
addiction, issues his attorneys say run in his family. In his clemency
petition, Purkey asked that Trump consider his dementia diagnosis and his
remorse for his crime, according to his attorneys.
“He has not forgiven himself, and so he cannot ask for forgiveness from you or
your office,” Purkey’s attorneys wrote in his clemency petition, which included
a photograph of Purkey with his daughter and her family. “He asks only for your
intervention, which would simply permit him to die in prison, at this late
stage of his life.”
(source: kansascity.com)
***********
Some Pittsburgh Jews upset by decision to seek death penalty in synagogue
attack
2 of the 3 congregations that met inside the Tree of Life synagogue in
Pittsburgh said they were saddened and disappointed with the news that federal
prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty against a man accused of killing 11
Jews at their place of worship last year.
Leaders of both the New Light and Dor Hadash congregations had written to
Attorney General William Barr to beg him not to pursue capital punishment for
Robert Bowers. 4 of the 11 people killed in the massacre, considered the
deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history, were members of those congregations.
But on Monday (Aug. 26), 5 federal lawyers filed a motion in the United States
District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, saying Bowers’ alleged
crimes justify a death penalty sentence. They cited 5 reasons, including
Bowers’ lack of remorse, his religious animus toward Judaism and Jews and his
substantial planning and premeditation.
Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of New Light Congregation vowed Tuesday to continue to
fight the death penalty, which he believes is contrary to Jewish teachings. He
also said it would re-traumatize the survivors of the Oct. 27 massacre.
READ: A rabbi pleads with AG William Barr: Don’t bring the death penalty to
Pittsburgh
Perlman said he thought prosecutors were trying to curry favor with the Jewish
community by seeking the death penalty.
“But what the administration needs to understand is that if they took a poll of
the Jewish community they would find out Jews are very much opposed to this for
religious reasons,” he said.
(source: Religion News Service)
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