[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., S.C., FLA., OHIO
Feb. 14 TEXASimpending execution Texas father makes personal plea to spare condemned son's life With his son's execution 9 days away, Kent Whitaker met Tuesday in Austin with the chairman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to personally request mercy for the child responsible for ripping his life apart. Thomas "Bart" Whitaker was sentenced to death for arranging the 2003 ambush that killed his mother and brother and severely wounded his father in their Sugar Land home. Even so, Kent Whitaker has forgiven his son - and he desperately wants Texas officials to honor his request to spare the life of "the last surviving member of my natural family." "Nobody in my family wants to see him executed, and I'm going to be thrown into a deeper grief at the hands of the state of Texas and in the name of justice, and I just feel there is a more appropriate sentence than execution," Kent Whitaker said after a half-hour meeting with David Gutierrez, chairman of the 7-member parole board. "Texas prides itself on being a victims' rights state," he said. "But being a victims' rights state should mean something ... even when the victim, as in this case, is asking for mercy and not just revenge." Whitaker said Gutierrez did not ask questions or react to his message or statements made by his brother, Keith Whitaker, and his 2nd wife, Tanya Whitaker. "It's extremely rare that a board member will meet with a victim, and we're very grateful that Chairman Gutierrez gave us the time out of his schedule to actually hear our heart and what this coming execution is going to mean to our family and the chaos it's going to put us in," Kent Whitaker said. "I can't tell you how it went; I don't know," he said. "I have been told that it will be a week from today before the votes are collected, so we're going to be in limbo for at least another week as to what they are going to choose to do." Last month, lawyers for Kent Whitaker filed a clemency petition asking the parole board to recommend that Gov. Greg Abbott reduce Thomas Whitaker's sentence to life in prison, and they presented an affidavit signed by the inmate that waives parole should his sentence be commuted. The petition argued that commutation would spare additional grief for Kent Whitaker, the crime's chief living victim, and that Thomas Whitaker's exemplary conduct on death row earned him the right to seek mercy - earning a college degree by mail, encouraging other condemned inmates to get their high school GED certificates and talking an inmate out of attacking a guard. The petition included affidavits from 4 former and current death row guards who called him a "model inmate" who follows orders, is respectful and easy going, and has been a positive influence on other inmates. The petition also noted that the shooter, Chris Brashear, was given a life sentence after pleading guilty to murder, while the getaway driver, Steve Champagne, agreed to a 15-year plea deal and testified against Whitaker. Prosecutors in the Fort Bend County district attorneys office oppose clemency, saying jurors chose to assess the death penalty even after hearing from Thomas Whitaker's father and learning that his accomplices had received lighter sentences. Knowing he faces long odds in reversing his son's punishment, Kent Whitaker said he hoped that Abbott would see an opportunity for a "win-win situation." "I know he doesn't want to appear to be soft on crime, and he never has been," Kent Whitaker said. "But some would argue that spending life in prison for the rest of your natural life is a harder punishment than being placed on death row for a short period of time. He could still be tough on crime by inflicting that very hard penalty ... and at the same time honor my rights, as a victim, to mercy in this case. "We're not asking them to forgive him or let him go, we just want them to let him live." (source: Austin American-Statesman) PENNSYLVANIA: Death penalty sought against man charged in Homewood fire that killed 3 The District Attorney will seek the death penalty against a man accused of starting a deadly house fire last year in Pittsburgh's Homewood section that killed 2 adults and a child. Martell Smith, 41, is charged with 3 counts of homicide for the deaths of Shamira Staten, 21, her 4-year-old daughter Ch'yenne Manning and Sandra Carter Douglas, 58, all of whom died in the fire at their Bennett Street home. Smith is accused of starting the fire at 2:20 a.m. on Dec. 20 after a bar fight earlier that night in Penn Hills. The altercation was allegedly with someone else who lived in the home. None of those killed were involved in the fight. "Yep, yep, I did it, they shouldn't (expletive) with me," a witness heard Smith say at the scene while the house burned, according to the criminal complaint filed the day after the fire. District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. cited 6
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., S.C., FLA., OHIO
Dec. 17 TEXASnew death sentence Texas ex-justice of the peace sentenced to death for revenge murder A Texas jury on Wednesday sentenced to death a former justice of the peace convicted of murdering a suburban Dallas prosecutor's wife in a revenge plot, with the judge saying he acted like some of the most notorious killers in recent U.S. history. The same jury that convicted Eric Williams, 47, on Dec. 4 of murdering Cynthia McLelland sentenced him to death after deliberating for less than 4 hours. Williams has also been charged with murdering District Attorney Mike McLelland, who was Cynthia McClelland's husband, and Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse. Prosecutors said Williams wanted to get back at them for obtaining a theft conviction that cost him his job and law license. After the verdict, Dallas County Judge Mike Snipes told Williams that he was never fooled by his lawyer-like demeanor in the courtroom, likening him to Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer. The people of Kaufman County have been scared for a year. They do not have to be scared any more, Snipes said. Hasse was gunned down outside the Kaufman County Courthouse on Jan. 31, 2013, and the McClellands were fatally shot inside their home on March 30, 2013. Williams' estranged wife, Kim, who is also charged with capital murder and will be tried separately, told jurors on Tuesday that Eric Williams began forming a mental hit list of people involved in his prosecution. She added that Cynthia McLelland was not on that list but her husband later told her he considered McLelland collateral damage. Williams never looked up from the table as the victim's family members told him how these murders impacted their lives. Nathan Foreman, Cynthia's son, said that the loss of his mother is a hole that can never be filled. I believe it's important not to hate, I work on that daily. But I cannot forgive and I cannot forget, he said. (source: Reuters) *** The Price of DeathWhy capital punishment cases are in steep decline, even in Texas. Just before sunrise on a spring morning last year, Larry Maples shot and killed his wife, Heather. He had tracked her to the home of a former boyfriend, a ranch hand named Moses Clemente. Maples shot and wounded Clemente. He then called 911, handed his Colt .45 revolver over to the sheriff's deputies and confessed. It was a shocking event for Van Zandt County, a largely agricultural swath of East Texas with roughly 50,000 residents. The local authorities had never sent someone to death row, but Maples - by shooting Clemente along with Heather Maples and thereby aggravating the murder - qualified for the death penalty under state law. It was up to the young district attorney, Chris Martin, to decide whether to seek that punishment. Martin had been telling reporters he might seek the death penalty, but behind closed doors with the victim's family and Clemente, the D.A. said he wasn't sure the case was strong enough to convince a jury that Maples should be executed. County officials around the country have had to raise taxes and cut spending to pay for death penalty trials. He said, 'If we go with the death penalty, Maples will get more attorneys,' Lori Simpson, Heather's sister, recalled. There will be more witnesses, expert testimony, and then he will get an automatic appeal. That could cost millions of dollars, and your family doesn't want to go through those appeals, and we don't want to spend the money on that if we're not able to get capital punishment.' Martin's concerns about the public expense of a death-penalty prosecution, which Clemente confirmed, were remarkable only for the bluntness with which Martin expressed them. While many prosecutors are still reluctant to admit that finances play a role in their decisions about the death penalty, some of them - especially in small, rural counties - have been increasingly frank in wondering whether capital punishment is worth the price to their communities. You have to be very responsible in selecting where you want to spend your money, said Stephen Taylor, a prosecutor in Liberty County, Texas. You never know how long a case is going to take. Some prosecutors are far more blunt, and even hyperbolic, as they lament the state of affairs. I know now that if I file a capital murder case and don't seek the death penalty, the expense is much less, said James Farren, the district attorney of Randall County in the Texas panhandle. While I know that justice is not for sale, if I bankrupt the county, and we simply don't have any money, and the next day someone goes into a day care and guns down five kids, what do I say? Sorry? Since capital punishment was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976, the cost of carrying out a death penalty trial has risen steadily. Increasing legal protections for defendants has translated into more and
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., S.C., FLA., OHIO, KY.
Dec. 15 TEXAS: Defense expected to call 17 more witnesses in punishment phase of Kaufman DA murder trial The defense team is expected to wrap up its case today in the sentencing phase of Eric Williams' capital murder trial. Williams was convicted Dec. 4 of killing Cynthia McLelland, the wife of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland. The couple was shot to death in their home near Forney over Easter weekend 2013. Prosecutors say the killings, and that of McLelland's top deputy Mark Hasse, was revenge for their prosecution of Williams for stealing county computer monitors. He ultimately lost his post as a justice of the peace and was disbarred as a result. Last week, Williams' attorneys called 29 character witnesses, many of them friends he knew decades ago. They will call 17 more witnesses today. Among the witnesses called Monday was Mark Calabria, who runs a Kaufman law firm with his wife. He said they hired Williams to work there after he graduated from law school. Williams stayed there a few years before he was fired. He was taking court appointments and not giving the law firm its share, Calabria said. Calabria seemed reluctant to tell the jury about how Williams left the firm. He testified that Williams got along well with people as an attorney and before as a court coordinator. Many people have describes Williams as withdrawn, but Callabria said Williams was more of a nerd, a geek. Calabria said that he wishes he had reached out to Williams after he was convicted of stealing the computer monitors in 2012. Regina Forgarty, another witness who testified Monday, worked for Eric for the five months he was justice of the peace. She testified that Williams tried to improve technology in the courts and wanted to set up Wi-Fi and video conferencing. She said he was diligent and a hard worker. 2 sisters, Heather and Andrea Jones, testified that they separately lived with Williams and his now-estranged wife, Kim Williams, because their mother was married to an abusive man. They said they spent time with Kim Williams, who is also charged with capital murder, and rarely saw Eric Williams. He kept to himself the whole time we were there, Andrea Jones testified. Eric Williams spent a lot of time in an office inside the house. He would just sit in there and work. Williams has spent most of the morning's testimony looking down at the defense table. He doesn't appear to watch the witnesses as they testify. He faces either the death penalty or life in prison without parole. Jurors must be unanimous to deliver a death sentence. The defense again asked for a continuance today, but that request was denied by Judge Mike Snipes. (source: Dallas Morning News) * Punishment phase resumes for convicted ex-official The punishment phase is set to continue in the trial of a former North Texas public official convicted of capital murder in a revenge plot against prosecutors. Proceedings are set to resume Monday. Eric Williams was convicted of fatally shooting Cynthia McLelland, found dead last year with her husband, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland, in their home near Dallas. Williams, accused of killing Mike McLelland, is also accused in the slaying 2 months prior to the couple's deaths of an assistant prosecutor. Defense attorneys Friday portrayed 47-year-old Williams in a sympathetic light in an effort to spare him the death penalty, calling on childhood friends who described the former justice of the peace as considerate. Prosecutors say Williams plotted revenge after being convicted of stealing county equipment. (source: Associated Press) ** A Legal Victory for Anti-Death Penalty Activists Last week a Texas judge ruled the state has to reveal the names of the compound pharmacies that manufacture the drugs used in lethal injections. Death Penalty opponents say it's only about transparency, but legal experts say it's about harassing those companies with a social media campaign. Attorney Maurie Levin, one of 3 lawyers who the judge agreed with, says it just about transparency. It is whether or not the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is entitled to hold secret information about how they carry out executions. Levin says she's also concerned about the safety of the drugs because she says those pharmacies are not properly regulated. But KTRH legal expert Chris Tritico says there's more to it. The anti-Death Penalty activists want to write letters and have a social media campaign against these drug manufacturers for selling drugs to states. Tritico says it's easy for a social media campaign to go international. The state is expected to appeal. (source: KTRH news) PENNSYLVANIA: Producer Developing '7 Days to Live' Death Row Exoneration Saga The story of a Pennsylvania man who spent 22 years on death row before being
