May 7
TEXAS:
FBI releases details in investigation, shooting that led to Fort Worth
officer’s death----Since 2016 police have traveled cross country to highlight
lives and families of officers who died in the line of duty. This year,
Cannonball Memorial Run stopped in Fort Worth to honor Garrett Hull’s family.
More details of what led to the shooting death of police officer Garrett Hull
in September were released on Monday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Hull, 41, was a criminal intelligence officer with the Fort Worth Police
Department and was fatally shot on Sept. 14 by a man suspected in a string of
armed robberies that had been occurring at Hispanic bars and cantinas over the
summer and into September.
Days before the robbery, detectives identified 2 possible suspect vehicles — a
truck and an SUV — from surveillance video related to 2 of the robberies,
according to the FBI.
Officers had identified the driver of the SUV and on Sept. 9, a robbery
detective requested a Special Response Team to keep watch of the SUV. Officers
then saw the driver of the SUV meet up with a truck that matched the
description of the 2nd vehicle.
Detectives didn’t have enough information to issue an arrest warrant yet, so
they began surveillance on the 2 vehicles, the FBI said.
On Sept. 13, officers from several different units — including the criminal
intelligence unit — followed the driver of the SUV to a bar at 403 W. Biddison
St., in the Worth Heights neighborhood.
The occupants of the SUV watched the bar until just after 10 p.m. They then
left and picked up a 3rd person at a nearby gas station.
The 3 suspects were later identified as Timothy Huff, 33, Dacion Steptoe, 23,
and Samuel Mayfield, 33.
At 11:28 p.m., the SUV parked at a vacant home near the bar. About 30 minutes
later, the surveillance footage at the bar showed that the men went into the
back patio of the bar. 2 of the men immediately pointed handguns at customers.
The customers were forced to the ground and their belongings stolen. One of the
men went inside and continued to rob patrons, the FBI said.
Detectives who were watching outside became aware of the ongoing robbery when a
customer ran out of the bar followed by a masked man who pointed a gun at the
runner. The suspect ran back inside the bar, the FBI said.
Meanwhile, uniformed officers in an unmarked van and truck parked close to the
front and rear bumpers of the suspects’ SUV. They took positions around the
vehicle, the FBI said.
Huff, Steptoe and Mayfield ran out of the bar and toward the SUV, but when they
saw officers, they turned and ran in different directions.
Officers spread out to chase the men. One officer followed a banging sound that
came from a nearby home and found that the door had been kicked in. Mayfield
was standing inside the home. He complied with the officer’s order to lie down
on the ground and was arrested.
A the same time, Steptoe was spotted by an officer after he jumped a fence
behind another home. He ignored commands to stop and continued to run.
The FBI said that one of the officers yelled, “Gun, gun, gun!”
Hull, a 17-year police veteran, had just left the area where Mayfield was
arrested and joined the chase of Steptoe.
Just before midnight, Steptoe ran through a small opening between the front of
a parked truck and the corner of a house. An overhead floodlight lit the
opening, but everything beyond the hood of the truck was in darkness, the FBI
said.
When Hull reached the opening, Steptoe fired 2 shots with a 9mm handgun. Hull
took cover and shot back at Steptoe, but Steptoe continued to shoot and hit
Hull in the head.
Another officer returned gunfire and Steptoe fell to the ground. Steptoe began
to stand up with the firearm in his hand, the FBI said, and a third officer
commanded him to stop moving, but Steptoe didn’t comply. 2 officers fired
again, and Steptoe fell with his firearm still in his hand. He was later
pronounced dead.
At the same time, other officers ran to Hull and put him into a marked patrol
vehicle. He was pronounced dead later that day.
Huff was found by officers in a nearby garage. Police found a weapon, mask and
“proceeds” from the bar robbery near where he was caught, according to an
arrest affidavit.
Both Huff and Mayfield are jailed and charged with capital murder in Hull’s
death. Bail in the capital murder case is set at $1 million for each.
In December, Huff’s attorney filed a motion seeking a reduction in bond. It was
denied.
On April 23, state prosecutors filed a notice that they will seek the death
penalty for both men.
Trial dates have not yet been set.
Details of the deadly night were released in the FBI’s report on officers
killed and assaulted in 2018. Hull was one of three officers killed in Texas
last year. A 37-year-old officer with the Richardson Police Department was shot
and killed in an ambush on Feb. 7. In Dallas, a 27-year-old officer was killed
on April 24.
Last month, Hull’s wife, Sabrina Hull, announced an initiative to keep her
husband’s memory alive.
Mission 3105 asks people to carry out on random act of kindness every day
during the month of May. Hull’s badge number was 3105.
(source: star-telegram.com)
NEW HAMPSHIRE:
Victims’ families often oppose death penalty
The governor’s message in vetoing House Bill 455 to repeal the death penalty
perpetuates the myth that the families of murder victims support the death
penalty. That is untrue. As a member of the Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty, I have attended legislative hearings for the last 13 years and in that
time I have heard scores of victim family members offer testimony on the death
penalty. Over 90% of those family members who took the time to come to Concord
and endure the emotional toll of recounting their experiences testified in
favor of repealing the death penalty. Their reasons varied, but there was one
universal theme: An execution would not give them the one thing they want above
all else – to have their loved ones back – and they did not want the government
to kill in their names.
BARBARA KESHEN
Concord
(source: Letter to the Editor, Concord Monitor)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
SC prosecutors seeking death penalty in killings of woman and her daughter
Prosecutors say they plan to seek the death penalty against a 33-year-old man
charged with killing a woman and her 8-year-old daughter.
WPDE-TV reports prosecutors filed their intention for a death penalty trial for
Jejuancey Harrington last month in Marlboro County.
Authorities say 36-year-old Ella Lowery was found dead in her Bennettsville
home in May 2017, prompting a nearly 2 week search for her missing daughter.
Investigators say Iyana Lowery's body was then found in a swamp and her DNA was
found in the trunk of Harrington's car.
Authorities have not given a motive for the killings and a gag order was issued
in the case 6 days after the girl's body was found.
(source: Associated Press)
FLORIDA----impending execution
Judge rejects move to stop Bobby Joe Long’s execution. Prosecutor: ‘He’s not
entitled to pain free death.’
A Tampa judge has denied an effort to stop the scheduled May 23 execution of
Bobby Joe Long, a Tampa Bay area killer who murdered 8 women in the 1980s.
Hillsborough Circuit Judge Michelle Sisco issued an order Monday afternoon
rejecting arguments from Long’s defense, including the contention that
Florida’s lethal injection drugs might cause Long to have a seizure during the
execution.
Long’s case now heads to the Florida Supreme Court. His defense must file
initial arguments by Thursday and the state must respond by Monday. The defense
can then respond to the state’s arguments by May 14, after which the court will
decide whether oral arguments are necessary.
If the state high court denies Long’s claims, he can still make a final appeal
in the federal system, with the last stop the U.S. Supreme Court.
The state’s lethal injection procedure was the focus of a daylong hearing
Friday in a Tampa courtroom. Doctors testified about the effects of etomidate,
a sedative that is the first of three drugs the state uses to kill the
condemned.
Florida is the only state that uses etomidate in its lethal injection protocol.
The state adopted the sedative in January 2017. Since then, five men have been
executed. One of them, Eric Branch, screamed and thrashed on the death gurney
as the lethal drugs entered his body. Opinions differed, though, about whether
his final acts were a response to pain or simple theatrics.
The state’s previous execution procedure called for midazolam, a drug that has
become difficult for states to acquire because pharmaceutical companies object
to its use in executions.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Long’s death warrant last month in the murder of
Michelle Denise Simms. The 22-year-old former beauty contestant, who worked as
a prostitute, was abducted, raped and murdered in May 1984.
Amid the debate over whether the drugs would cause needless suffering,
prosecutors suggested that whatever happens to Long would be justified.
“He’s not entitled to a pain-free death,” said Assistant Attorney General
Christina Pacheco. “Michelle Simms certainly didn’t have one in this case.”
In order to challenge the drug’s use, the law required the defense to argue
that an alternative, less painful execution method was readily available.
Long’s attorney, Robert Norgard, begrudgingly suggested the drugs pentobarbital
or fentanyl might be available to the Department of Corrections.
“I think it is absolutely absurd that I have to stand up here and tell the
courts what I think a better way would be to kill my client,” Norgard said at
the end of Friday’s hearing. “But we’re playing with the cards we’re dealt.”
If Long’s execution proceeds, it will be the 1st under DeSantis, who took
office in January. His predecessor, Rick Scott, ordered 28 executions, the most
of any Florida governor.
(source: The Ledger)
*****************
Judge rules against serial killer Bobby Joe Long, says he'll be given lethal
injection----The convicted Florida serial killer told a judge the dosage for
lethal injection would be too painful and unconstitutional.
Infamous Florida serial killer Bobby Joe Long will be executed this month by
lethal injection, a judge ruled Monday.
Attorneys for Long had previously questioned anesthesiologists and clinical
pharmacists about the drugs used in lethal injection. His team argued that Long
suffers from seizures and a traumatic brain injury and the drugs used in lethal
injection would cause too much pain.
His defense team said it would be "cruel and unusual punishment."
A Hillsborough County judge, however, ruled Monday and denied Long's request to
vacate his conviction and death sentence.
Long's execution date is set for 6 p.m. May 23.
Long admitted to authorities he had killed 10 women in Hillsborough and Pasco
counties. 10 homicides occurred in the Tampa Bay area over about 8 months in
1984, all attributed to Long.
The victims ranged from 18 to 28 years of age, and investigators said most of
the victims were strangled and 1 was shot.
Long was not present during a court heart last week to discuss his request to
vacate his death sentence.
The family of victim Chanel Williams was there, however.
"To have this person find excuse after excuse not to face his judgment. It's
time," Lula Williams, Chanel's mother, said Friday. "He did that wrong, pay for
it. You got to pay for your sins."
(source: WTSP news)
********************
Ted Bundy Acting As His Own Lawyer Made For a Sadistic Show During His Murder
Trials----Netflix's Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile only told part
of the story.
Though he had a constitutional right to representation, Ted Bundy—the
pathologically controlling serial killer and former law student—was determined
to steer his own defense when he was inevitably tried for his many crimes in
1970 and 1980. These trials were at the heart of Netflix’s new film, Extremely
Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, which told Bundy’s story from the perspective
of his then-girlfriend, Elizabeth Kendall. And as the film dramatized,
America’s 1st nationally broadcast court case was a complete circus.
Though he would later admit to 30 murders, Bundy was convicted of just three
killings in two separate Florida trials: a 1979 trial for his attack on four
college students at Florida State University’s Chi Omega sorority house, and
the 1980 trial for the murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach. Events from both
trials were condensed into one court case in Extremely Wicked.
Bundy Briefly Considered a Guilty Plea
While in the Netflix film, Bundy (played by Zac Efron) was adamantly opposed to
pleading guilty, the real killer briefly considered a plea deal for the Chi
Omega killings. The Extremely Wicked director also helmed the documentary
Confessions of a Killer in which Bundy’s former lawyer Michael Minerva said
that Bundy initially agreed to plead guilty in exchange for life imprisonment
rather than risk the death penalty at trial. But when he arrived in court,
ostensibly to plead guilty and save his own life, Bundy instead launched into a
pompous speech.
It’s my position that my counsel, 1, believe that I am guilty. 2, that they
have told me they see no way of presenting effective defense, and in no
uncertain terms they have told me that. And 3, that they see no way of avoiding
conviction. Your Honor, if that does not raise itself to the level of
ineffectiveness of counsel, I don’t know what does.
Bundy later admitted that he never had any intention of pleading guilty.
Minerva tried to withdraw from the case, but the judge only allowed him to
retreat to an advisory role with Bundy serving as the head of his own defense.
Bundy hadn’t even finished law school, and his hubris in thinking himself
qualified to act as an attorney would cost him his life.
Bundy Was Consistently At Odds With His Own Counsel
Bundy spent the entire case fighting not only the prosecution but his own
public defenders, who thought that his confidence that he could serve as his
own lawyer was proof that he was too incompetent to stand trial. “It was just a
very difficult situation,” said one of Bundy's attorneys Margaret Good in
Confessions of a Killer, “because there were times where he was just very
erratic, impulsive, and strange.”
In court, Bundy pulled stunts and grandstanded. He brought insignificant
requests before the judge, and asked for both more exercise time and a
typewriter. According to prosecutor Larry Simpson, Bundy even filed a “motion
for a change of menu” because he was sick of eating grilled cheese sandwiches.
Bundy Took Pleasure in Cross-Examining First Responders
Most disturbingly, the killer seemed to find pleasure in cross examining first
responders about his crime scenes. Though overviews of the gruesome details of
his murders served only to alienate the jury from him, Bundy seemingly relished
in reliving the details of his crimes by demanding that others describe them on
the stand.
In the most ridiculous moment of his trials, Bundy stood up in court during his
sentencing after being convicted for the rape and murder of 12-year-old
Kimberly Leach and asked his girlfriend, Carol Ann Boone, to marry him. He’d
learned of an obscure Florida law that rendered a proposal accepted in open
court constituted a legal marriage. (Boone and Bundy were divorced in 1986.)
In the end, Bundy was found guilty and sentenced to death in both his trials.
He spent 9 years on death row, and only finally confessed before his execution
in 1989.
(source: esquire.com)
ALABAMA----impending execution
Inmate Asks US Supreme Court to Stay Execution, Weigh Youth
An Alabama man facing execution next week for his role in the 1997 slayings of
4 people has asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay, arguing it should weigh
the fact that he was 19 at the time.
Attorneys for Michael Brandon Samra filed the request last week to stay the
scheduled May 16 execution.
The court has barred executing anyone under 18 at the time of their crimes.
Samra's attorneys asked the court to weigh whether knowledge of brain
development and evolving standards of decency merit extending that age to 21.
"This court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence should reflect the reality that a
person's neurological and psychological development does not suddenly stop on
his 18th birthday," his attorneys wrote last week.
Samra was convicted of helping friend Mark Duke kill Duke's father, the
father's girlfriend Dedra Mims Hunt, and her 2 daughters, 6-year-old Chelisa
Hunt and 7-year-old Chelsea Hunt in Alabama's Shelby County.
Prosecutors said the Shelby County slayings happened after Duke became angry
when his father wouldn't let him use his truck. They said the teens executed a
plan to kill Duke's father and then killed the others to cover up his death.
Authorities said Mark Duke killed his father, Hunt and the 6-year-old girl and
that Samra slit the throat of 7-year-old Chelsea at Duke's direction while the
girl pleaded for her life.
"The murders which were committed with a gun and kitchen knife were as brutal
as they come," lawyers for the state wrote in the motion to set an execution
date.
Duke was 16 at the time of the slayings. Samra was 19. Both were sentenced to
death. However, Duke's death sentence was converted to life without parole
after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled prisoners couldn't be put to death for
crimes that happened while they were younger than 18.
Samra's attorney wrote in the court filing that Duke was the driving force
behind the slayings and that Samra, who had borderline level intelligence, was
the "minion."
"Indeed, while Samra bore responsibility for the death of 1 person, his
culpability paled in comparison to that of his co-defendant who plotted,
planned, and killed 3 of the victims for revenge." Samra's attorneys wrote.
(source: Associated Press)
***************************
Anthony Ray Hinton found his calling on death row, but it’s our job to fix
system that sent him there
“Do you think you were chosen to do what you do?”
The way former Alabama death-row inmate Anthony Ray Hinton asked me that
question as we waited for the start of his sold-out lecture at Seattle’s First
Baptist Church last week made it clear he wanted to know whether I believed
that God, more than anyone earthbound, had tapped me to write about justice.
My response was to laugh.
The post-lecture Q&A would be moderated by me, so I’d jotted down a few
thoughts and questions in a little notebook the night before. That’s exactly
one of the questions I’d written for him. He must have been reading my mind.
You see, Hinton, who’s 62, once had every reason to curse God, and not many
reasons to embrace the idea of divine guidance.
Hinton spent 28 years on death row for two robbery-murders in the Birmingham,
Ala., area in the mid-1980s.
The police turned up one day while Hinton, then 29, was mowing his mother’s
lawn; they arrested him.
Hinton did not commit the murders. There was no witness or fingerprint evidence
indicating that he had.
A victim in a 3rd attempted attack survived and picked Hinton out of a photo
lineup as his assailant. In fact, Hinton was at work 15 miles away when it
happened.
The gun that state firearms examiners said was used in the killings belonged to
Hinton’s mother, and it hadn’t been fired in 25 years.
On his way to the police station that day, Hinton was told by an officer about
the law that actually mattered in Alabama: the code of Southern racism.
It didn’t matter if he killed those people or not. He was poor and black. Black
people were always trouble. What’s more, he’d be prosecuted, tried and judged
by white people. That’s just how it was in Alabama. White people didn’t need
evidence of evil to see it in black men’s faces. They were guilty until proven
innocent.
The prosecutor who brought the charges had a history of keeping African
Americans off of juries. One of the detectives in the case was accused by
federal prosecutors of shocking black prisoners with electric cattle prods and
injecting them with hypodermic needles to get confessions. Hinton’s public
defender was so incompetent that he hired an unqualified civil engineer with
bad vision to run ballistics tests on the bullets.
Hinton was simply going to have to take one for team.
The travesty of Hinton’s prosecution, conviction and death sentence, to say
nothing of the time he spent living with an expiration date looming over him,
would break an ordinary human.
Hinton is extraordinary.
The prison gave him a copy of the Bible when he was locked up on death row. He
threw it under the bed in his five-by-seven cell. For a time, the man who was
taught to always tell the truth and who used Biblical teachings to process the
events around him, shunned God.
Delivered bright and early weekday mornings, this email provides a quick
overview of top stories and need-to-know news.
Eventually he would become a kind of spiritual leader among the inmates of
death row, comforting those who had afflicted others and honoring their
humanity, even though they had stolen just that from their victims.
But here’s the thing. Hinton didn’t do it.
Every 10th inmate currently on death row today may be innocent, too.
The death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Since then, 1,465 men, women and
children have been put to death by the federal government and individual
states, says a report by the Equal Justice Initiative, founded by Bryan
Stevenson, the attorney who worked for more than a decade to prove Hinton’s
innocence.
But since 1973, 165 death-row inmates have been exonerated, according to data
collected by the Death Penalty Information Center.
In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously voted to overturn Hinton’s
conviction based on the poor performance of his attorney, and they ordered a
new trial. Before that could happen, a lower-court judge dismissed the flimsy
case outright.
Hinton walked out of prison on April 3, 2015.
“The sun does shine,” he said as he stepped outside as a free man for the first
time in the three decades that had been taken from him. That line serves as the
title of his equal-parts disturbing and inspiring memoir.
(source: Seattle Times)
LOUISIANA:
Death penalty stays in La.
Louisiana's Senate rejected a bill that would have allowed voters to decide
whether to abolish the death penalty here late Monday afternoon.
Senate Bill 112 by Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge, needed 2/3 approval to be
put on the ballot as a constitutional amendment, but his colleagues voted
overwhelmingly against the measure.
The final vote: 25-13.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, viewed historically as little more than a
speedbump on condemned inmates' road to the death chamber, in recent weeks has
halted the lethal injection of 4 inmates with execution dates approaching.
It was Claitor's final attempt to ban the death penalty as a senator. He is
termed-limited.
But Claitor was passionate in his last stand against execution.
"It's a morally wrong thing to do and at the end of the day, it cheapens life,"
he said.
Claitor had won committee approval to bring the bill to the Senate floor.
During the committee hearing some proponents said their faith supports the
sanctity of all life and cited the fallibility of the justice center.
"Killing, whether it be on the streets or government sanctioned, is wrong,"
said state Rep. Terry Landry, D-New Iberia, who also has his own bill in the
House to abolish the death penalty.
Landry likely won't move forward with his bill after seeing its fate in the
Senate.
A former superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, said his view has
evolved having once supported the death penalty.
"I now believe the death penalty is wrong," Landry said.
Only one person has been executed since 2008 and he was put to death only after
waiving his appeals.
Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, has suspended executions because of the
state's inability to procure its preferred drug for lethal injection, the
method of execution here.
"Justice can never be wrought by killing a human being," said Rob Tasman,
executive director of the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops, during the
committee hearing.
But other faith leaders said scripture supports the death penalty during the
hearing.
"There are times when this punishment is appropriate," said the Rev. Will Hall,
a Baptist minister.
(soure:Monroe Star News)
*********************
Report: Louisiana spends $15.6 million per year to maintain death penalty
Louisiana spent an average of at least $15.6 million annually to maintain its
capital punishment policy between 2008 and 2017, despite only executing one
person during that time.
That’s according to a new report critical of the death penalty by Calvin
Johnson, retired chief judge of the Orleans Criminal District, and William
Quigley, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans.
“For this cost, the capital punishment system produces little results,” the
authors say. “The greatest likelihood in every case is death in prison, despite
the broad costs expended on the death penalty.”
96 % of potential capital cases result in a reduced charge, a non-capital trial
or a plea, the report says. Of the cases that proceed to trial, 60 % result in
sentences other than a death sentence, which means only 1.6 % of the potential
capital cases result in a death sentence. And of the 1.6 percent of cases that
result in a death sentence, 83 % are ultimately reversed with others resulting
in a natural death before appeals are exhausted, the report says.
Louisiana last executed someone in 2010, a murderer and rapist who voluntarily
waived his right to appeal his death sentence. Before that, the last execution
was in 2002.
Some death penalty advocates, including Attorney General Jeff Landry, have
blamed Gov. John Bel Edwards for the lack of recent executions. The Edwards
administration says the drugs needed for the state’s lethal injection protocol
have become impossible to acquire.
With that in mind, Rep. Nicholas Muscarello, R-Hammond, has proposed House Bill
258, meant to carve out a public records exception to protect drug
manufacturers who don’t want to be publicly associated with the death penalty.
The hope is that companies would be more willing to provide the drugs if they
could do so secretly. Similar measures have been adopted in 17 states, said
Michelle Ghetti with the Attorney General’s office when the bill was discussed
in committee last week.
Opponents said the bill would hinder government transparency and
accountability.
“What you’re proposing is a bill whereby the taxpayers – my money, your money –
we essentially wouldn’t know how it was being spent,” said Rep. Royce
Duplessis, D-New Orleans.
“We made a commitment to the taxpayer when we told them that we would put the
person to death,” Muscarello countered. His bill would help the state fulfill
that commitment, he argued.
The criminal justice committee approved the bill with no objections. The
governmental affairs committee, which handles public records exemptions, will
take it up next.
Meanwhile, there are 2 pending bills that would eliminate the death penalty
entirely.
House Bill 215 by Terry Landry, D-New Iberia, would eliminate death as a
possible penalty for offenses committed after August 1. Current law allows for
the death penalty for 1st-degree murder, 1st-degree rape of a victim under 13
years old, and treason. That bill has not yet been heard in committee.
Senate Bill 112 by Sen. Dan Claitor, a Baton Rouge Republican and former
prosecutor, calls for a state constitutional amendment to ban the death
penalty. Constitutional amendments must be approved by 2/3 of lawmakers in each
body of the legislature and a majority of voters.
Claitor’s bill is scheduled for consideration by the full Senate on Monday
after getting out of committee this week.
(source: David Jacobs is a Baton Rouge-based award-winning journalist who has
written about government, politics, business and culture in Louisiana for
almost 15 years----Watchdog.org)
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