Feb. 14 OHIO: Jury finds man guilty in murder of infant; Ross spared death penalty A jury concluded today that John V. Ross II killed his son but spared him from the death penalty. Deliberating about nine hours over two days, jurors convicted Ross, 29, of murder, a lesser charge of reckless homicide, felonious assault and child endangering. Ross, of Akron, was accused of aggravated murder in the July 7 death of his 11-week-old son, John III, but was found not guilty on that charge, which carried a possible death sentence. Sitting between his lawyers at the defense table, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and tie, Ross showed no emotion as the verdicts were read. Sheriff's deputies quickly led him out of the courtroom. Nina Woofter, the mother of the dead child, said afterward she did not know how to feel about the not-guilty verdict on the aggravated murder charge, but she did say she felt justice was served. ''Nobody really knows what happened that day but God and Mr. Ross, and I feel God's hand was in all of this and his will has been done. That's just what I believe, but I feel justice has been done here,'' Woofter said. Summit County Common Pleas Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove scheduled sentencing for 9:15 a.m. Thursday. According to Ohio law, Ross faces a prison sentence of 15 years to life for the murder conviction. ''What Judge Cosgrove does with the other charges is not known at this time. It's up to her,'' defense lawyer Kerry O'Brien said. Felonious assault carries a sentence of two to eight years, and the potential sentence for reckless homicide is 1 to 5 years. Cosgrove could run those sentences consecutively to or simultaneously with the sentence for murder. Jurors, who met with the lead investigator, Akron Police Detective Gary Shadie, and lawyers from both sides after the verdicts were announced, declined to comment to news reporters before leaving the courthouse. Trial testimony According to testimony in the 5-day trial, Ross was the only adult present in a run-down, two-story home on Newton Street on the hot and humid morning of the baby's death. Woofter, 24, had been living there with Ross, their son, two dogs, a pet rabbit and 6 other children she had from another relationship. She was at work that morning at a Rally's restaurant in Barberton. Woofter testified that she left home shortly after 9 a.m., taking a bus to Barberton. She learned of the baby's death when police picked her up at work and drove her back to Newton Street in the early afternoon. In a recorded statement to Shadie two days after his son's death, Ross said the city turned off the water at the home shortly after Woofter left for work. He said he spent the next couple of hours in a juggling act trying to keep the children in line while feeding them and tending to the needs of his son. When Little John, as he was called, would not stop crying, Ross said he picked the baby up and placed him face down under a blanket on a sofa in the cramped living room. It was at that point, prosecutors contended, that Ross used a child car seat and pressed it down on the baby for a full minute, they said to quiet him. Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Greg Peacock, in his opening statement, called the car seat the murder weapon. To prove the aggravated murder charge, prosecutors had to convince the jury that Ross purposely killed his son. In closing arguments Thursday, defense counsel Nathan A. Ray played the tape of Ross' police statement for the jury. Quietly and calmly, Ross described what it was like in the house in the moments before the child's death. ''I couldn't think. There was so much going on, I was just trying to keep [the baby] quieter,'' Ross said. Calling 911 When he discovered his son wasn't breathing, Ross said, he put the child on the floor and attempted to revive him by doing chest compressions. Ross said he then ran out of the house, looking for a pay phone to call 911 because his cell phone was broken. The jury also heard the 4-minute tape of the 911 call. Ross could be heard breathing heavily throughout much of it. Paramedics were sent to the home at 11:39 a.m. They found the baby on his back on the living room floor, with his arms and legs outstretched. ''We knew right away that we weren't going to do any life-saving measures,'' paramedic Robert Alestock testified. Autopsy reports Assistant Summit County Medical Examiner Dorothy E. Dean, who performed the autopsy, determined the cause of death was asphyxiation from compression of the torso, with a contributing cause of ''occlusion,'' or blockage, of the airways. Dean, who said she found evidence of 21 rib fractures, said the manner of death was homicide. Her findings were subjected to a withering attack Thursday in more than 3 hours of testimony by the defense's lone witness, Jonathan L. Arden, a court-certified expert in forensic pathology. Arden, a former chief medical examiner in Washington, D.C., and the No. 2 man in New York City for 9 years, told the jury that he reviewed Dean's findings. In his opinion, the cause and manner of death should have been classified as ''undetermined.'' Arden testified that he found no hard evidence of asphyxiation because there were no fresh injuries to the ribs. After jurors left the courthouse, O'Brien said he learned earlier during discussions with them that there was a split over the testimony of the two expert witnesses, Dean and Arden. ''I think the jurors had a tough time determining whether or not Mr. Ross intended to kill his son. I think 2 camps developed on the expert witnesses and they could not unanimously agree on the aggravated murder charge,'' O'Brien said. John Saros, executive director of Summit County Children Services, said Woofter's 6 other children have been in the custody of foster parents in 3 area homes. Woofter said she is working on a case plan to get the children back. (source: Akron Beacon Journal) ARIZONA: Family of slain pregant woman seek death penalty The family of a pregnant woman shot to death last week, whose premature baby boy died Thursday, said they are pushing for the death penalty against the man now facing 2 1st-degree murder charges in connection with their deaths. The family of Angel Bollinger, 21, who was shot Feb. 5 at a home in the 1000 block of Martin Road in an unincorporated area south of Coolidge, also has set up a bank account at Wells Fargo Bank seeking donations for her surviving son, Tramell Powell, 2. Shelly Lister, Bollingers older sister, said Friday that Bollinger was a wonderful mother who loved her children and said she formerly worked at a daycare center, but was preparing to go to cosmetology school. Bollinger, 7 months pregnant, was pronounced dead on arrival at Case Grande Regional Medical, and her son, Cornell Angel Bollinger was born at 11:17 p.m., less than 30 minutes after his mother died, Lister said. Cornell, who weighed a little more than 2 pounds, was pronounced dead at Phoenix Children's Hospital at 1:30 a.m. Thursday, according to Lt. Tamatha Villar of the Pinal County Sheriffs Office. "She was a wonderful mom who was extremely proud," Lister, of Florida, said. "Those babies meant the world to her. We're all pulling together for Tramell, who is going to need all the help in the world. My sister's death is a horrific thing to have happened, and its hard for us to think right now." Tramell now will be raised by his father and Bollinger's younger sister, Samantha Bollinger, Lister said. Angel Bollinger was the middle sibling of 3 girls in her family. Their mother, Roberta Bollinger, died at age 31 in 1996, also the victim of a homicide in New Mexico when Angel was 8, Lister said. Lister said that 2 men are serving life sentences in a New Mexico prison for their mother's murder, but they would like to see the person responsible for Angels death get the death penalty. A Pinal County grand jury handed down a 4-count indictment against Ronald Thompson, 31, of Coolidge, on Thursday in connection to the murders of Bollinger and her son, according to Pinal County Superior Court documents. Thompson, who is being held in the Pinal County Jail in Florence without bond, was charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder, 1 count of attempted murder and 1 count of misconduct involving a weapon. Bollinger's boyfriend, Harvey Rushing Jr., 23, was shot in the arm during the altercation, and is expected to recover from his injury, according to Villar. "Were hoping he gets the death penalty," Lister said. "That's what we want." (soruce: East Valley Tribune) CALIFORNIA: Killer of 90-year-old Lafayette woman gets life with no parole A onetime traveling magazine salesman was sentenced today to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder and sexual assault of a 90-year-old Lafayette woman in her home in 2005. The body of Elizabeth Ann Vuori was found bound and gagged in her bed at her Moraga Boulevard home on Dec. 10, 2005. Her keys, $18,000 in savings bonds and $200 in cash had been stolen from the home. One month later, a national database linked DNA from the home to Missouri resident Richard Craig McNew, 35, who had been working in Vuori's neighborhood for the Missouri-based magazine-subscription company, Overachievers. A candidate for the death penalty, Richard McNew struck a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty in December to murder, robbery, burglary, forced sexual penetration and special allegations in exchange for a life prison term. Vuori's nephew said at today's sentencing that Vuori was a member of the Mount Diablo Peace Center who passionately campaigned for social justice. "We spoke against you getting the death penalty because she fought against the death penalty," Alan Phillips said. "She was a really kind and warm, generous human being and I'll miss her. We'll all miss her." McNew, who identified himself as a Christian, said during his apology to the family today that Vuori was alive when her left her home. "I did not intend to kill her of anyone else in my life," McNew said. "I'm very sorry." (source: San Jose Mercury News) ******************** California's Crowded Prisons A 3-judge panel has tentatively ordered California to reduce the population of its desperately overcrowded prisons by as much as 1/3, or as many as 55,000 prisoners, over the next 3 years. The ruling was an extreme step but a necessary one. Like many states, California is putting too many people behind bars for too long, and it doesnt have the money to build more facilities. Instead of appealing, as it has vowed to do, California should get to work overhauling its misguided incarceration policies. California's 33 prisons were designed to house 84,000 inmates; they now hold more than 150,000. In some cases, prisoners are being triple-bunked in gymnasiums and other places not intended to be used for housing. There are not enough medical facilities or enough personnel to ensure that prisoners get the mental health and medical treatment they need. The court found that California was violating the prisoners' Eighth Amendment rights which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment and it ordered the state to reduce the inmate population to levels closer to the systems intended capacity. The court concluded that this could be done through a variety of means without endangering public safety. A large number of California prisoners are behind bars for technical parole violations. Others are in for minor, nonviolent crimes. Inmates like those can and should be released, and given help to reintegrate into society. The state's limited prison space should be used for people who truly need to be there. It is not ideal when a court has to intervene so directly in managing prisons. But California has been unwilling, on its own, to run a prison system that complies with the Constitution. There are now 2.3 million people behind bars nationwide many for nonviolent crimes. And many state prisons are badly overcrowded. Incarcerating people who do not need to be is not only illegal and inhumane, it is a bad crime-fighting strategy. For many inmates, particularly young people in for minor offenses, prison becomes a training ground for a life of crime, rather than a deterrent. It also is enormously expensive. In a newly released report, The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization for criminal justice reform, notes that many states have begun to enact more enlightened prison policies in large part for budgetary reasons. This country needs to be a lot smarter about who it puts in prison in the first place, and who would be better off in drug-treatment programs and other nonprison environments. It has to do a better job of educating prisoners and giving them jobs skills. And it needs to devote more energy and money to prisoner re-entry, the critical moment when prisoners are released and need help getting jobs, housing and onto the right path. The recent California ruling should not be seen as a mass distribution of get-out-of-jail-free cards. The court was rightly insisting that the state provide every prisoner it holds with constitutionally acceptable living conditions. It also was prodding California to come up with smarter, more cost-effective and more humane imprisonment policies something state officials should have done on their own a long time ago. (source: Editorial, New York Times) USA: States vary in their billing of guardians for youths' detention Here's a look at how the 10 states with the largest juvenile probation populations handle whether to bill families for the cost of detaining a youth: California: State law allows counties to set and charge a daily probation fee to families deemed able to pay. Texas: Does not charge daily probation fees. Juvenile court judges can order a family to pay, but usually do not. Florida: State law allows juvenile court judges to charge families a cost-of-care fee of $1 a day for probation, $5 a day for detention or residential housing. The amount judges bill varies. Pennsylvania: State law requires counties to seek all available money from parents before tapping the state to pay for residential probation. Counties' domestic relations departments determine how much to bill parents, usually based on a sliding scale similar to child support. New York: Does not charge daily probation fees. Ohio: Does not charge daily probation fees. The state allows counties to redirect child support payments to pay the cost of holding a youth in probation. Michigan: State law allows juvenile court judges to bill parents or legal guardians the cost of care, based on a sliding scale and the ability to pay, for a youth during detention, with daily rates set by detention facilities, usually a fraction of total costs. Illinois: State law allows county juvenile court judges to bill parents and legal guardians a fee for the time a youth is detained. Georgia: Does not charge daily probation fees. Indiana: State law allows county courts to seek reimbursement from families for children held in detention unless judges find parents are unable to pay or justice would not be served by ordering payment. The amount judges bill varies, averaging $25 a month. (source: Los Angeles Times) NORTH CAROLINA----re: federal death penalty case Feds cite shotgun blast in death-penalty decision in UNC slaying Federal prosecutors say Demario James Atwater fired the final shot that killed the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's student body president nearly a year ago. In a notice of intent to seek the death penalty, prosecutors said Eve Marie Carson was "particularly vulnerable" when Atwater "fired a single shotgun round from close range through the victim's hand and into her brain." She had already been wounded by 4 small-caliber gunshots, the notice said. Prosecutors filed the notice Friday in U.S District Court. It does not indicate whether investigators believe Atwater might have fired any of the other shots. According to Chapel Hill police search warrants returned last June, investigators believe both Atwater and Laurence Alvin Lovette Jr. shot Carson. An autopsy found Carson, 22, was shot with a shotgun to the right temple and also sustained a wound to her right hand likely because she had raised her right arm to protect herself. Atwater, 22, was indicted in October on a federal carjacking charge resulting in death in connection with Carson's slaying. Last month, federal prosecutors announced they would seek the death penalty if he is convicted. Chapel Hill investigators believe Atwater and Lovette, 18, kidnapped Carson and forced her to withdraw $1,400 from ATMs before killing her in the early morning of March 5. Police found her body in a neighborhood several blocks from the UNC campus while responding to reports of gunshots. According to Friday's filing, which outlines the federal government's reasoning for seeking the death penalty, Atwater killed Carson "to eliminate her as a possible witness to other offenses, including, at least, kidnapping, carjacking and robbery." Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall has said he is also seeking the death penalty for Atwater on state charges, which include 1st-degree murder, robbery and kidnapping. It's still unclear whether Lovette will face any federal charges. Because he was under age 18 at the time of the crime of which he is accused, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling makes him ineligible for the death penalty. (source: WRAL News) _______________________________________________ DeathPenalty mailing list DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/deathpenalty@lists.washlaw.edu/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A free service of WashLaw http://washlaw.edu (785)670.1088 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
