[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, IOWA, CALIF., USA
Feb. 24 OHIO: High court declines to hear death row inmate's appeals The Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday denied 2 motions by an attorney for death row inmate Nathaniel E. Jackson, including 1 asking them to reconsider their decision last year not to vacate his death sentence. The court announced it will not hear Jackson's appeals because of lack of jurisdiction. Jackson, 45, remains on death row, with a scheduled execution date of July 15, 2020, according to Trumbull County assistant Prosecutor LuWayne Annos. However, Annos said Jackson has 2 appeals still pending: a Writ for Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking re-sentencing, which was denied last August by Ohio's high court, and an appeal before Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Ronald J. Rice, which seeks a motion for leave for a new trial. Rice took over the case from the late Judge John Stuard, who re-sentenced Jackson to death on Aug. 14, 2012, after being ordered to do so by the Ohio Supreme Court because of the judge's error during the 1st sentencing after the 2002 trial. Jackson was found guilty in the 2001 murder of Robert Fingerhut of Howland and was sentenced to death by Stuard. Jackson remains on death row at Chillicothe Correctional Institution. The 11th District Court of Appeals vacated Jackson's initial death sentence when it found an assistant prosecutor improperly assisted the trial judge in preparing the sentencing opinion. Jackson's co-defendant, Donna Roberts, also convicted of murdering Fingerhut, is awaiting a decision in her 3rd appeal for relief from the Ohio high court. Roberts, the only woman on Ohio's death row, claimed Rice had re-sentenced her without physically seeing her in court for a penalty phase. In Jackson's appeals to the Ohio Supreme Court, the court on Wednesday refused Jackson's bid for post-conviction relief that Rice denied in 2013 and the 11th District court affirmed in 2014. The high court also refused to hear Jackson's appeal for a new trial, which both Stuard and the 11th District court denied. An attempt to reach Jackson's attorney, assistant state public defender, Randall L. Porter of Columbus, was unsuccessful. Donna Roberts lived with Fingerhut, her ex-husband, on Avalon Drive in Howland and Fingerhut had two life insurance policies worth a total of $550,000 in which Roberts was named the sole beneficiary. Roberts began an affair with Jackson, which continued while Jackson was confined in the Lorain Correctional Institution. While in prison, Jackson and Roberts exchanged numerous letters and spoke by phone, with the prison authorities recording many of the conversations. Passages from the letters and calls indicated the 2 plotted to murder Fingerhut, and at Jackson's request, Roberts purchased a ski mask and pair of gloves for Jackson to use during the murder. Roberts picked up Jackson from Lorain Correctional when he was released and 2 days later, Fingerhut was shot to death in his home. Police searched the house and found 145 handwritten letters and cards that Jackson sent to Roberts and when they recovered Fingerhut's stolen car in Youngstown, they found a bag with Jackson's name on it with 139 letters Roberts had sent to him. When Jackson was arrested, he claimed he shot Fingerhut in self-defense. (source: Tribune Chronicle) IOWA: Iowa GOP senators seek reinstatement of limited death penalty A group of majority Senate Republicans wants to reinstate a limited death penalty in Iowa in cases where an adult kidnaps, rapes and murders a minor. Senate File 335 would restore capital punishment in Iowa for the 1st time since 1965 by establishing a 2-pronged process whereby a jury or judge could convict a perpetrator of committing multiple Class A offenses and separately a decision could be rendered to execute the offender via lethal injection. Any death penalty conviction would automatically be appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court and juvenile offenders would not be eligible for capital punishment. "It's narrowly scoped," said Sen. Jake Chapman, R-Adel, 1 of 6 GOP senators who introduced a death penalty measure on Wednesday. Sen. Rick Bertrand, R-Sioux City, also filed a death-penalty bill with slightly different provisions. "Right now there is no criminal charge difference," said Chapman, who noted that committing one or more Class A felonies carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment so there's no deterrent for a kidnapper or rapist not to kill the victim. "What this says is that if you do all 3, you are going to be in line for the death penalty," he noted. "Not only is it a deterrent from someone thinking of taking that next step having kidnapped and raped and then considering killing that individual, it also is - for me - the penalty is fitting for the crime. So you have 2 aspects: you have the deterrence but then you also have if it does happen, what is the proper, just punishment for
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., N.C., FLA. ALA., MISS.
Feb. 24 PENNSYLVANIA: State High Court Upholds Death Penalty For 'Greensburg 6' Ringleader The state Supreme Court has upheld the 1st-degree murder conviction and death penalty imposed on a man in the torture death of a mentally disabled woman in western Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that the commonwealth's highest court said Wednesday that there was enough evidence for the Westmoreland County jury to convict 30-year-old Ricky Smyrnes and to sentence him to death. Smyrnes was 1 of 6 people charged in the February 2010 death of 30-year-old Jennifer Daugherty in a dingy Greensburg apartment. He argued that evidence was improperly allowed and jurors didn't correctly weigh penalty phase evidence. In 2013, it took a jury just under 4 hours to condemn Smyrnes to death. Investigators called him the ringleader of the so-called "Greensburg 6." The state Supreme Court last fall overturned the death sentence imposed on 27-year-old Melvin Knight, saying jurors should have been told that he had no criminal record. (soruce: KDKA news) NORTH CAROLINA: Defense says Wake County man who murdered in-laws, shot wife 'snapped'Closing arguments made in Wake County double murder Closing arguments wrapped up Thursday in the trial of a Wake County man who murdered his in-laws and shot his estranged wife in the face and chest, nearly killing her. The jury will resume deliberations on Friday morning at 9:30 a.m. Lawyers for Nathan Holden don't dispute that he did it. They're trying to keep him off death row. Holden is charged with 1st-degree murder in the fatal shootings of 57-year-old Angelia Smith Taylor and 66-year-old Sylvester Taylor near Wendell in April 2014. He also shot his estranged wife LaTonya Allen as the couple's 3 children were huddled in a nearby closet listening. In his closing, prosecutor Jason Waller outlined the couple's troubled history, including multiple episodes of domestic violence by Holden before the shootings, and how Allen had filed for a restraining order and was working towards getting a divorce. He said Holden refused to accept that the marriage was about to end. "It's about hate. It's about selfishness. It's about hating someone that took something from you," said Waller. But Holden's defense argued he should be convicted of second-degree murder, saying the attack was not premeditated. "He didn't want it, didn't plan for it to happen," offered defense attorney Elizabeth Hambourger. "Nate did snap." The couple separated back in December 2013. The doctor who operated on Allen's chest wound called her survival miraculous during testimony earlier in the trial. In court Friday, a social worker said that when she interviewed Holden two days after the murders he told her that "they got what they deserved." Social worker Larna Haddix told jurors Holden blamed Allen for the crime. "'All this was her fault. If she just would have answered the phone,'" Haddix explained. "That he continuously tried to call her all day. He called her and called her and she wouldn't answer the phone. And if she would have answered the phone none of this would have happened." She then inquired about why he would take it out on his in-laws. "I asked him why he would do that, you know, they were very nice people," Haddix said, to which Holden reportedly replied, "'What's done is done. They got what they deserved.'" (source: WTVD news) FLORIDA: Sievers in court after judge rules he can't hand-pick death penalty lawyer Mark Sievers, who is accused of orchestrating the 2015 killing of his wife, Teresa, made a brief appearance in Lee County Circuit Court in Fort Myers on Thursday after a judge ruled Wednesday that Sievers' lawyers could not hand-pick a public, death-qualified attorney to help represent their client. After the state attorney's office announced in June that prosecutors would be seeking the death penalty against Sievers, his private defense attorneys, Michael Mummert and Antonio Faga, filed a motion in late December asking Lee Circuit Judge Bruce Kyle to appoint Gregory J. Messore, a death-qualified criminal trial attorney, as Sievers' co-counsel. Mummert and Faga argued in their Dec. 29 motion that although Sievers was being represented by private lawyers, his case "is an exceptional circumstance where court-appointed counsel is necessary and constitutionally required." The motion asked Kyle to appoint Messore to Sievers' case, "not merely because Mr. Sievers is unable to bear the costs of retaining two lawyers, but because the Defendant's Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel mandates Mr. Messore's appointment." Sievers had paid Mummert and Faga at the onset of his case but has run out of money since his February 2016 arrest, his lawyers argued last year. But Kyle, who in November had declared Sievers "indigent," or unable to pay for certain expenses
