[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., VA., N.C., FLA.
September 20 TEXASnew execution date and 2 impending executions Death Watch: Double Dose2 executions in Huntsville next week 2 inmates face executions next week. Troy Clark is scheduled for lethal injection on Wednesday, Sept. 26. Daniel Acker is due the following evening. Both men claim they had no hand in the murders for which they were convicted, but for Clark, that insistence seems to have fallen on deaf ears. The most recent filing in his case was last November when the U.S. Supreme Court denied his appeal. Clark, from Tyler, Texas, was found guilty of the 1998 murder of Christina Muse, who was beaten and drowned in a bathtub, before her body was shoved into a barrel of lime and cement mix. According to the Houston Chronicle, Clark and some friends dumped the barrel in a remote area of the property that he lived on. When law enforcement found Muse's remains, they located a 2nd body decomposing nearby. Clark's original appellate lawyer Craig Henry argued that Clark's trial lawyer was "deficient" in his counsel, but Clark's second appellate attorney Jeffrey Newberry argued the same thing about Henry. In a 2014 appeal, Newberry wrote, "Henry's failure to present the mitigating evidence [to the appeals court] prevented the Fifth Circuit from considering ... evidence that transformed Clark's ... claim to such a degree that it was no longer the claim presented." But it's not clear what Newberry has since done to continue legal efforts on Clark's behalf. Today, anti-death penalty groups are calling on Gov. Greg Abbott and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to halt Clark's execution, including Dead Man Walking author Sister Helen Prejean. Acker, however, is in the throes of last-minute appeals. On Tuesday, Sept. 18, the Court of Criminal Appeals denied his latest request for relief as well as his motion for a stay. Though his clemency application is still pending, his attorney Richard Ellis confirmed Tuesday that he'll continue to fight for Acker's life, and said an appeal to SCOTUS is likely his next step. Acker, from Hopkins County, was convicted of capital murder in 2001 for the strangulation and dumping of his girlfriend Marquetta George's body. Since his arrest, Acker has held that George jumped out of his moving vehicle during a heated argument and was likely hit by another car. His most recent appeal alleges his innocence and argues that his due process was denied by the trial court's exclusion of evidence, as well as "false," "misleading," and "error"-filled testimony. Specifically, Acker's counsel claims it would have been all but impossible for him to strangle George while driving. The prosecution's trial argument relied heavily on the strangulation theory, but the state and its medical examiner later disavowed the possibility during a 2011 federal evidentiary hearing. The doctor suggested George was never strangled, and the prosecution then "contended that Mr. Acker pushed Ms. George from the truck, a theory that was never presented to Acker's jury." But that wasn't enough to sway the CCA. If last-minute relief is not granted, Clark and Acker will be the ninth and 10th inmates executed in Texas in 2018. (source: Austin Chronicle) * Alvin Braziel has been given an execution date for December 11; it should be considered serious. Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present35 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982present-553 Abbott#scheduled execution date-nameTx. # 36-Sept. 26---Troy Clark--554 37-Sept. 27---Daniel Acker555 38-Oct. 10Juan Segundo556 39-Oct. 24Kwame Rockwell--557 40-Nov. 7-Emanuel Kemp, Jr.558 41-Nov. 14---Robert Ramos--559 42-Dec. 4-Joseph Garcia---560 43-Dec. 11Alvin Braziel---561 44-Jan. 15Blaine Milam562 45-Jan. 30Robert Jennings-563 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) PENNSYLVANIA: Hearing for death row inmate set for Nov. 7 Convicted killer and death row inmate Brentt M. Sherwood is scheduled to appear in a Post Conviction Relief Act petition hearing Nov. 7 in Northumberland County Court. Following a status conference on Wednesday in front of Senior Judge Harold F. Woelfel Jr., defense attorney Edward J Rymsza, of Williamsport said the hearing at 1:15 p.m. in Jury Room 1 will involve Rule 801, which deals with the prior counsel's qualifications for defense in capital cases. Attorney William Ross Stoycos, of the state Attorney General's Office, declined comment. Sherwood, 39, who was convicted 11 years ago of beating his 4 1/2 -year-old stepdaughter to death, did not appear in court on Wednesday
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., VA., N.C., FLA.
June 28 TEXAS: Former death row inmate now eligible for parole, victim's family strikes back Noe Santana, whose 20-year-old cousin was kidnapped, raped and murdered in 1991, did not mince words when he had the chance Tuesday to talk to the killer. "When you're looking at yourself in the mirror, I hope you take that razor you shave your face with, shave your head with, and cut across your throat," Santana shouted at him in the courtroom. "There's nothing left for you in this life." Santana was in court to see 44-year-old Robert James Campbell's death sentence reduced to life in prison after he was declared intellectually disabled. Before he was sentenced, Campbell apologized to the family and wished them peace. "I would just like to offer my deepest and sincerest apologies for all I've hurt," he said softly. Campbell was convicted in 1992 of capital murder in the death of Alejandra Rendon, a bank teller he abducted while she was pumping gas. He spent 25 years on death row, survived an execution day, and is now eligible for parole after mental health professionals determined he is too disabled to be executed, prosecutors said Tuesday. The U.S. Supreme Court recently outlawed the execution of mentally disabled people, sending Campbell's case back to Harris County for evaluation. A prosecution expert declared him mentally disabled. Wearing the yellow jail uniform typically reserved for high-profile inmates, he appeared before Visiting Judge Michael Wilkerson, who sentenced him to life in prison. Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said the law in 1991 did not allow for the option of life without parole, so he will be eligible for parole. "Times have changed when it comes to people with mental disabilities," Ogg said. "It was with a heavy heart that our expert came back and agreed with the defense that Campbell is intellectually disabled so we were forced to withdraw our plan to seek the death penalty." Defense attorney Rob Owen, of Northwestern University School of Law, has in the past extended his condolences to the victim's family on behalf of the defense team, which included Burke Butler and Callie Heller of the Powell Project and Raoul Schonemann of the Capital Punishment Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law. "Robert expressed his remorse for his actions, apologized to everyone he had hurt, and said he would continue to pray that his victims find peace," Owen said Tuesday in an emailed statement. "We likewise extend our sympathy to the victims for the terrible loss they have suffered, and our appreciation to the District Attorney's office for their decision to forego further efforts to seek Robert's execution." Ogg said her office will protest all of Campbell's future parole hearings to remind officials of the brutality of his crime. "We can successfully fight his parole and keep Mr. Campbell behind bars," she said. "He was a person who was a predator in our society." Victim's advocate Andy Kahan said Campbell will likely go before the parole board within 6 months. He said Rendon's family will ask the board to deny parole and put Campbell on a special list in which he will not go before the board again for at least 10 years. If he is classified that way, he would only get parole hearings every decade, a comforting thought for Rendon's family. "Your last meal should be behind bars," Santana told the killer. (source: Houston Chronicle) PENNSYLVANIA: What it's like to spend 22 years on death row for a crime you didn't commit Nick Yarris served 22 years in solitary confinement on death row for a crime he didn't commit. He was stabbed, strangled, savagely beaten and came face-to-face with some of the most notorious serial killers America has ever produced, all the while knowing he was innocent. But, despite all this, despite being dismissed as a rapist and murderer, and feeling so low he asked a judge if he could be put to death, he considers himself 'extremely lucky'. 'Look at the physical features,' he told metro.co.uk from his home near Yeovil in Somerset, as he prepared to travel to Los Angeles to work on a biopic of his life. '[I] faced the death penalty but got out, acclimatised to society, overcame Hepatitis C, and went on to stand next to some of the most brilliant actors in the world performing in the Colosseum in Rome.' 'Guess what? There are 160 other men who have been proven innocent off death row. Not all of them are getting the same play. 'A lot of them go and die in abstract, terrible ways and they don't get anything.' It's true that the 56-year-old's case has been the subject of widespread coverage since his release from prison in Pennsylvania in 2004 after DNA proved his innocence. But anyone who has watched Netflix documentary The Fear of 13 or read Yarris' book by the same title will be able to testify that there is something particularly compelling about his
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., VA., N.C., FLA., ALA., NEB., USA
April 21 TEXAS: Texas is using "Of Mice and Men" to justify executing this man. Seriously. Bobby James Moore has an intellectual disability, yet he sits on death row because of deeply unscientific evidence Bobby James Moore has a lifelong intellectual disability, yet he sits on Texas's death row because the courts there used John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" to decide his fate. That's right - the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals went with a fictional novel over science and medicine to measure Bobby's severe mental limitations. The justices heard a vast body of evidence demonstrating these limitations, which meet the widely accepted scientific standards for defining intellectual disability. Then they rejected it all according to 7 wildly unscientific factors for measuring intellectual disability, drawn in large part from the fictional character Lennie Small. Bobby was no Lennie, they concluded, ruling that his disability wasn't extreme enough to exempt him from the death penalty. On Friday, the Supreme Court will decide whether to take Bobby's case. Executing people with intellectual disabilities is unconstitutional. The grey area is that the Supreme Court allows the states to define intellectual disability, leaving an opening for Texas to create a standard based partly on "Of Mice and Men." With its decision in Hall v. Florida 2 years ago, though, the Supreme Court made clear that states may not adopt definitions of intellectual disability that don't conform to accepted scientific standards. It's hard to come up with a less scientific standard than a novel written nearly 80 years ago. No one's life should depend on an interpretation of Steinbeck. Under current professional standards, a person with intellectual disability has significant deficits in intellectual functioning (IQ) and significant deficits in adaptive functioning (how well one adjusts to daily life) that manifest before the age of 18. Bobby has a clear intellectual disability that has been evident his entire life. Living in Houston in the 1970s, Bobby's family was so poor that they often went without food. Bobby and his siblings found discarded food in the neighbors' trash cans. When they got sick from the scraps, Bobby's siblings stopped eating from the trash cans, but Bobby never learned that lesson. He would eat the discarded food and get sick, over and over again. Growing up, Bobby rarely spoke. His teachers suspected that he had an intellectual disability, but they did not know what to do with him. They would ask Bobby to sit and draw pictures while they taught the rest of the class reading, writing, and math - or worse, they would send him to the hallway to sit alone. Bobby failed the 1st grade twice but was socially promoted to 2nd grade. His abusive and alcoholic father slammed the door in the face of the few teachers who tried to intervene on Bobby's behalf. When he reached age 13, Bobby still didn't know the days of the week, the months of the year, the seasons, or how to tell time. The school system finally acknowledged that Bobby should receive some intervention, and counselors recommended that his teachers drill him daily on this basic information. But by that point it was too late. The schools continued to socially promote him until he dropped out of school in the 9th grade. Without support for his disability and in an effort to escape his violent home life, Bobby was left to survive on the streets. He got caught up with the wrong crowd, and at 20 years old, he followed 2 acquaintances who had made plans to rob a store. Bobby was armed with a shotgun, though the group just wanted money and had no intention to kill anyone. But Bobby panicked when an employee screamed, and he accidentally discharged the shotgun. He did not learn until later that his shotgun blast had hit a clerk. Bobby was charged with homicide in 1980 and sentenced to death later that same year. He and his lawyers didn't have a chance to present evidence of his intellectual disability until more than 20 years later, when the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that the Constitution forbids the execution of people with intellectual disability. Bobby's attorneys then petitioned for a hearing to show that he should be exempt from the death penalty. They presented evidence from multiple experts and decades of records showing Bobby's intellectual disability. Over the years, his IQ scores have ranged from the low 50s to the 70s, with an average score of 70.66. Using the appropriate scientific standards, the judge found that Bobby met the current definition of intellectual disability and should be sentenced instead to life without parole. But the state appealed. That's when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals used its unscientific factors, roughly based on Lennie, to uphold Bobby's death sentence. The court ignored the Supreme Court's ruling in Hall that determining intelle
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., VA., N.C., FLA., LA., ARK.
Feb. 27 TEXAS: Suspect in guard's death appears in courtBilly Joel Tracy asks judge for the return of hot pot, noodles A Texas inmate facing the death penalty in connection with the brutal beating death of a Telford Unit guard last year was in a Bowie County courtroom for a pretrial hearing Friday afternoon. Billy Joel Tracy, 38, is accused of pummelling correctional officer Timothy Davison, 48, to death with a metal tray-slot bar July 15 during a routine transport between a recreational day room and a cell in administrative segregation at the Barry Telford Unit in New Boston, Texas. Last month Bowie County District Attorney Jerry Rochelle announced the state is seeking the death penalty for Tracy. During that hearing, Tracy asked 102nd District Judge Bobby Lockhart about getting some packages of Ramen noodles and a "hot pot" returned to him that were confiscated along with all of his other personal belongings from his cell in Telford. The conversation again turned to Tracy's property at Friday's hearing. When Lockhart asked him about the items at Friday's hearing, Tracy said they were "stolen." Tracy said he has received some property back, but not all. Mount Pleasant lawyer Mac Cobb, Tracy's lead defense attorney, said he has made inquiries concerning Tracy's personals, specifically a typewriter. Two Texas Department of Criminal Justice correctional officers stood on either side of Tracy, each with a hand on the inmate's biceps, during the hearing. Tracy stood in a crisp white jumpsuit with "ad seg" printed in red capital letters on his back. "One item of concern, there was a typewriter taken from his quarters at the prison," Cobb said. "Up until today, as far as the defense and Mr. Tracy are concerned, it was a mystery as to what happened to it. I understand it is in DPS (Department of Public Safety) custody being analyzed. The OIG (Office of Inspector General) hasn't provided a report yet. We may want to have our expert examine it." Assistant District Attorney Kelley Crisp said she and others from her office as well as the defense are planning a visit to Telford to photograph and video the crime scene. "This is going to disrupt the operations of the prison substantially, so we're (the state and defense) going together," Crisp said. "We're going to need an order to bring in outside cameras and video equipment." The lawyers also discussed the state's ongoing effort to provide the defense with copies of or access to all evidence in the case. Crisp said her office is working with prison officials to acquire Tracy's medical and psychological records, as well as documents, autopsy photos and other materials to give to Cobb and Texarkana lawyer Jeff Harrelson, who is sitting second chair for the defense. Tracy is being held at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, approximately four hours from Texarkana. The distance makes it difficult for Cobb, Harrelson, the defense's investigator and mitigation expert to consult with Tracy. Crisp asked Lockhart if it would be possible for the court to pen an order directing TDCJ to move Tracy to the Coffield Unit in Tennessee Colony, Texas, which is slightly closer to Texarkana and Mount Pleasant. Rochelle said his office is concerned about the security of TDCJ staff. "I still would defer to the decision making of TDCJ. They know best how to house this individual," Rochelle said. "But if they have the ability to house him where the defense has requested, the state has no objection." Tracy has a long history of violence both in and out of prison. Tracy's prison history began in 1995 when he was just 18 and sentenced to a 3-year term for retaliation in Tarrant County. Three years later, in 1998, Tracy was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, plus 20 years for burglary, aggravated assault and assault on a public servant in Rockwall County. In 2005, Tracy received an additional 45-year term for stabbing a guard with a homemade weapon at a TDCJ unit in Amarillo. Tracy was sentenced to 10 years in 2009 for attacking a guard at a TDCJ unit in Abilene. Tracy's violent behavior toward prison staff led to his placement in administrative segregation where he is allowed out of his cell for an hour each day for recreation. Davison, who had less than a year of experience with TDCJ, was walking Tracy back to his cell in administrative segregation when Tracy allegedly managed to free one of his cuffed hands, grab Davison's tray-slot bar and use it like a baseball bat to beat him. Tray-slot bars are used to manipulate the rectangular opening in a cell door at mealtime at Telford and 1 other Texas prison unit, according to prison sources. Lockhart scheduled the case for another pretrial hearing April 1. If convicted of capital murder, Tracy faces life without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. (source: Texarkana Gazette) PENNSYLVANIA: Death penalty: State-
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., VA., N.C., FLA., LA.
June 11 TEXAS: Embattled Federal Judge Called For Texas To Execute 8 To 12 Times As Many Inmates Per Year According to a complaint filed last week against federal appellate Judge Edith Jones, Jones suggested that African-Americans and Hispanics are predisposed towards violent crime and that the death penalty is a public service because it allows inmates to "make peace with God." Should these allegations against Judge Jones be proven, they will be only the latest examples of a career's worth of nonchalance regarding executions. Indeed, as far back as 1990, a much younger Jones proposed a series of reforms to Texas' execution procedures that would have increased that state's execution rate by as much as 12 times. In an article for the Texas Bar Journal entitled "Death Penalty Procedures: A Proposal for Reform," which is available through the legal research service HeinOnline, Jones decries a capital punishment system in Texas which she views as too inefficient, in large part because judges delay executions by taking time to review death sentences to determine that they were lawfully handed down. Indeed, at one point Jones blames the slow rate of executions on "the frequent, human reaction of most judges . . . to defer a decision if any element of a case raises doubts, or to grant a temporary stay for further consideration." To speed along Texas' ability to kill death row inmates, Jones proposes that Texas schedule "4 to 6 executions per month, commencing 6 months to 1 year from the date" those execution dates are made public. Notably, in the 5 years prior to when Jones wrote this piece, Texas executed an average of just under 6 inmates per year, so the immediate impact of her proposal would have been to multiply the state's execution rate 8 to 12fold. It's also worth noting that Texas' execution rate did spike significantly in the years after Jones wrote this piece. Most significantly, during the four years after Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which limited the ability of death row inmates to challenge their sentences in federal court, Texas executed an average of 33 people per year. Nevertheless, in the modern era of American death penalty law, Texas has never executed the 48 to 72 people per year suggested by Jones' piece. The deadliest year for Texas inmates was 2000, when 40 people were executed. 15 people were executed last year. Nevertheless, Jones concludes her list of proposals for expediting Texas' executions by suggesting they could be viewed as "too lenient" because they would "take more than 4 years to conclude all the currently pending capital cases." A decade after publishing this proposal, Jones joined 2 opinions claiming that a man whose attorney slept through much of his trial could nonetheless be executed. Even without Jones' proposal for a wave of executions, Texas has a higher execution rate than any other state. More than 1/3 of all U.S. executions took place in Texas since 1976, when the Supreme Court announced the modern constitutional regime governing death penalty cases. (source: thinkprogress.org) Did Racism Land Killer On Texas Death Row? There is a growing call to retry the punishment phase of a man on Texas death row. The question is not whether Duane Buck shot 3 people and killed 2 in 1995, it is whether he should die for it. At issue is the fact that a psychologist at Buck's 1997 capital murder trial, Dr. Walter Quijano, said "yes" when asked whether Buck is more likely to be dangerous because he is black. Christana Swarns, director of the criminal justice project for the NAACP legal defense fund, said that Buck did not have any prior convictions. "It's a stunning and outrageous case," she said, "where you have someone condemned to die because he is African American." Swarns said that Buck's life was saved by the U.S. Supreme Court before his scheduled September 2011 execution. 2 U.S. Supreme Court justices agreed that Buck's death sentence requires review. Former Texas Gov. Mark White narrated a new documentary on the case called "A Broken Promise in Texas: Race, the Death Penalty and the Duane Black Case." He said that he hopes the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will give Buck a new opportunity for a re-sentencing hearing. Sarah Kinney with the Harris County District Attorney's Office said that the psychologist in question was involved in 7 cases. 5 of the defendants have had punishment retrials and are now all serving life sentences in prison. However, she said, Buck's case is different because Dr. Quijano was called to testify by the defense. [alsosee: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD6WWN38ZGc&feature=youtu.be] (source: CBA News) PENNSYLVANIA: Request for psychiatric evaluation delays jury selection in murder trial Newly filed court documents reveal that a request for an emergency psychiatric evaluatio
