[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, S.C., FLA., ALA., LA., OHIO

2018-02-02 Thread Rick Halperin






Feb. 2



TEXASexecution

Killer John Battaglia Asked 'Am I Dead?' And Taunted Ex-Wife During Execution 
For Murder of 2 Young Daughters




Without remorse or humility until the end, killer John Battaglia, who murdered 
his 2 young daughters in his Texas home in 2001, laughed and taunted his 
ex-wife as he was executed Thursday.


Battaglia saved his last words for his ex-wife Mary Jean Pearle, the Dallas 
Morning News reported. "Well, hi, Mary Jean. I'll see y'all later. Bye," he 
said to Pearle, who had come to watch him die.


As he drew his last breaths, 17 years after Battaglia had killed her 2 
children, Pearle was heard to say "I've seen enough of him" as she walked away 
from his motionless body, separated by a glass window.


Battaglia's demeanor was described as "jovial" as he prepared to meet his end 
by lethal injection at Texas's Huntsville Unit.


Strapped to the gurney, Battaglia looked around as witnesses entered. "How many 
people are there? Oh, that's a lot," he said.


Shortly after being administered with the injection, the 62-year-old continued 
to speak. Looking to the chaplain standing at his feet Battaglia asked: "Am I 
still alive?" He smiled and grinned before finally saying "Oh, here, I feel 
it."


Battaglia was the 3rd man executed in Texas since the start of 2018 and the 2nd 
killer from Dallas put to death since the start of the week.


In May 2001 he shot his 6 and 9-year-old daughters Liberty and Faith in his 
Deep Ellum home while his wife listened to the ordeal over the phone.


Battaglia forced Faith to confront her mother in the call, moments before he 
took her life. "Mommy, why do you want Daddy to have to got to jail?" she asked 
before she was heard begging for her life. "No, Daddy. Don't do it," she said.


The execution concludes a series of court battles over Battaglia's mental 
competency. The courts twice granted a stay of execution so that he could be 
evaluated. Final efforts by his attorneys to delay the execution were 
ultimately unsuccessful.


According to the Guardian there had been fears Battaglia's execution would be 
botched amid a spate alarming scenes in Texas executions. The use of old and 
poorly regulated sedatives, also used in this most recent execution, amounted 
to almost unsuccessful procedures in the case of Anthony Shore on January 18 
and William Rayford on January 30.


In Battaglia's case it took 22 minutes for the inmate to be pronounced dead 
following the lethal injection.


(source: CNN)



Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present30

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982present-548

Abbott#scheduled execution date-nameTx. #

31--Feb. 22Thomas Whitaker549

32--Mar. 27Rosendo Rodriguez III--550

33--Apr. 25Erick Davila---551

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)



Texas' Death Row: Still alive and well in 2018



On Tuesday night, a Texas death row inmate named William Rayford was executed 
for the 1999 killing of his ex-girlfriend, Carol Lynn Thomas Hall.


On Thursday, John David Battaglia was executed by the state of Texas. In 2001, 
he killed his 2 daughters, aged 6 and 9.


Thomas Whitaker will be executed merely weeks after Battaglia, if all goes 
according to plan. Whitaker co-conspired to murder his mother, father, and 
brother in 2003 - only his father survived.


There's no denying that Rayford, Battaglia, and Whitaker are all abominable 
people who committed horrific crimes. But 2 executions in 1 week, with another 
scheduled only 3 weeks later, begs the question: Should the state of Texas be 
executing its people at all? Are we perhaps too prolific in our executions? In 
2017, Texas carried out 7 executions, leading the pack as the state that puts 
the most people to death. Arkansas carried out 4, with Florida and Alabama each 
coming in at 3. Many states have taken the death penalty largely out of use, 
but it remains in vogue here.


Texas' use of the death penalty isn't just bad from a moral or comparative 
lens. Part of the reason why the death penalty is so fraught with problems is 
because the justice system is fraught with problems - lack of adequate 
resources, lack of quality indigent defense, and prosecutorial misconduct all 
come into play. As a result, tons of state resources are spent retrying death 
row inmates and appealing court decisions.


For example, Rayford's legal team filed an appeal, and his lawyers asked to 
stay the execution. They claimed that in 2000, Rayford's sentencing trial was 
affected by racial prejudice, as the trial lawyer inappropriately implied that 
race was a factor in prison violence. The case was even filed with the U.S. 
Supreme Court.


Rayford's lawyers also appealed to a federal court in Dallas, claiming that he 
was "improperly denied money for appeals," per Houston Chronicle's report, and 
that Rayford may 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, S.C.., FLA., ALA., LA.

2017-06-27 Thread Rick Halperin






June 27



TEXASnew execution date

Robert Pruett has been given an execution date for October 12; it should be 
considered serious.



Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present24

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982present-543

Abbott#scheduled execution date-nameTx. #

25-July 27-Taichin Preyor-544

26-Aug. 30-Steven Long545

27-Sept.7--Juan Castillo--546

28-Oct. 12-Robert Pruett--547

29-Oct. 26-Clinton Young--548

30-Jan. 30-William Rayford549

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)



Texas death row inmate loses at U.S. Supreme Court, could face execution 
dateThe U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a Texas death row inmate Monday, 
making Erick Davila's case ineligible for review in federal court.



A Texas death row inmate whose case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme 
Court could now face an execution date after the justices ruled against him in 
a 5-4 decision Monday morning split among ideological lines. The man was 
convicted in the 2008 shooting deaths of a 5-year-old girl and her grandmother 
in Fort Worth.


The question before the high court in Erick Davila's case was whether claims of 
ineffective assistance of counsel during state appeals should be treated the 
same as during the original trial. Appellate courts throughout the country have 
ruled differently on the issue, a situation that often prompts the Supreme 
Court to step in. In the Monday opinion presented by Justice Clarence Thomas, 
the justices ultimately decided that the different types of lawyers should not 
be treated the same, making Davila's case ineligible for consideration in 
federal court.


"Because a prisoner does not have a constitutional right to counsel in state 
postconviction proceedings, ineffective assistance in those proceedings does 
not qualify as cause to excuse a procedural default," Thomas wrote in his 
opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Anthony Kennedy, 
Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch.


Justice Stephen Breyer, a notable death penalty critic, wrote a dissenting 
opinion, joined by liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and 
Elena Kagan.


"The fact that, according to Department of Justice statistics, nearly 1/3 of 
convictions or sentences in capital cases are overturned at some stage of 
review suggests the practical importance of the appeal right, particularly in a 
capital case such as this one," Breyer wrote in his dissent.


Davila's case started in Fort Worth in 2008, when he fatally shot a rival gang 
member's 5-year-old daughter and mother during a child's birthday party, 
according to court documents. Davila, now 30, claims he only meant to kill his 
rival, Jerry Stevenson. In his confession to police he stated he was trying to 
get Stevenson and "the guys on the porch."


If the jury had believed Davila only intended to kill 1 person, he would have 
been ineligible for a capital murder verdict and the death penalty would have 
been off the table. In this case, Davila must have intended to kill multiple 
people to be found guilty of capital murder.


During deliberations, the jury asked the judge for clarification on the intent 
issue, and the judge said Davila would be responsible for the crime if the only 
difference between what happened and his intention was that a different person 
was hurt. He did not affirm to the jury that Davila must have intended to kill 
more than 1 person to be found guilty.


It's that jury instruction that Davila's long, complicated case hinged upon. 
His lawyer at trial objected to the instruction, but was overruled. But in his 
automatic, direct appeal after being convicted and sentenced to death, his new 
lawyer never mentioned the judge's instruction, even though that is the appeal 
where death-sentenced individuals raise what they think are wrongdoings from 
the trial. Afterward, during his state habeas appeal, which focuses on issues 
outside of the trial record, the lawyer didn't fault the previous lawyer for 
not raising the issue on direct appeal.


The next step in the death penalty appeals process after going through state 
courts is to move into the federal court system. But federal courts generally 
can't rule on issues that could have been raised in state appeals. So, when 
Davila's current lawyer, Seth Kretzer, tried to claim his client's direct 
appellate lawyer was inadequate for not raising the issue of an improper jury 
instruction by the judge, the federal courts said they couldn't look at the 
issue because it could have been raised by the state habeas appellate lawyer.


"The way the law works right now is if the trial counsel made a mistake, the 
federal court could save the inmate's life, but if the appellate counsel made 
the mistake, they would