June 1 TENNESSEE: Jury Being Selected In Nashville In Murder Of Officer Julie Jacks ---- State Seeking Death Penalty Against Isaac Jones A jury is being selected in Nashville to hear charges against the man accused of killing Chattanooga Police Officer Julie Jacks in May 2002. The state is seeking the death penalty against Isaac Jones, who was a Chattanooga State student at the time the officer was shot multiple times. Criminal Court Judge Doug Meyer is to return the jury to Chattanooga for the trial. District Attorney Bill Cox and his top assistant, Barry Steelman, are prosecuting. Jones is represented by Karla Gothard and Mary Ann Green of the public defender's office as well as attorney Rich Heinsman. Authorities say Jones killed Officer Jacks with her own gun after she tried to take him into custody near Parkridge Hospital. He had been taken to the hospital for an evaluation after he began acting in a bizarre way while taking final tests at Chattanooga State. He had run off from the hospital shortly before the shooting. (source: The Chattanoogan) VIRGINIA: Death penalty in quadruple killing a first for both sides A year of work culminated in one moment for the lawyers who tried Anthony B. Juniper - the moment when jurors recommended that Juniper be put to death for the murders of 4 people. The jurys decision marked 2 firsts. It was the 1st time Commonwealths Attorney John R. Doyle III had sought the death penalty since taking office. And it was the 1st time defense lawyers B. Thomas Reed and Cynthia Garris, who each had defended more than a dozen men against the death penalty, saw a client sentenced to the ultimate punishment. Now that Juniper has been sentenced, all the lawyers involved can talk about his case outside the courtroom. For the prosecutors, the year of preparation reinforced their belief that seeking the death penalty against Juniper was just. For the defense lawyers, the months leading up to the trial, and the trial itself, led to frustration with a client who would not help them, even to help himself. Juniper, 33, was convicted in January of 4 counts of capital murder for killing his ex-girlfriend, Keshia Stephens; her brother, Ruben E. Harrison III; and her 2 small children, Nykia, 4, and Shearyia, 2. The crime happened in Stephens apartment on Kingston Avenue in January 2004. Three Norfolk prosecutors tackled the case - Karen Burrell, Philip G. Evans II, and Doyle. Their work began almost the same day as the crime. "Right away you know it's a capital offense, killing a child, killing another person," Doyle said. "You have 4 counts of capital murder." Capital murder charges do not always mean that prosecutors will seek the death penalty. In a 2003 case, Doyle opted to accept the defendants guilty plea. Adrian O. Robinson abducted 2 nuns from Georgia, brought them here, and killed and decapitated one of the women. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years and 6 months, with no possibility of parole. The plea meant he would not face trial or the death penalty. In Juniper's case, Doyle said, seeking the death penalty was warranted. "You have to be confident and comfortable with the decision that you're doing the right thing," Doyle said. "If you're unsure, you better re-examine." As the months passed, prosecutors' confidence in their decision grew. Junipers violent history with Stephens and her children emerged during interviews with witnesses. During the trial, prosecutors called witnesses who testified that Juniper hit Stephens. She had once called police to her home because Juniper used duct tape to bind and gag her. "The revelation continued to grow as to how much of a horror the victims had lived in before their lives were taken," Evans said. In some ways, the prosecutors became counselors. Burrell dealt most closely with Stephens family, although some could not talk to her because they were still too angry about the killings. Some could not bear sitting through the trial, listening to the details . Ruben Harrison Jr., father of the adult victims, came every day. "He was clear on wanting the system to work," Burrell said. Doyle handled the questioning of Renee Rashid, who testified that she drove Juniper to Stephens house that morning. She played with Stephens daughters briefly, then left. She heard shots as she pulled away. "She knew she was the last person to be with the little girls, to make them laugh," Doyle said. "She was haunted." She was also scared. She had to testify in front of Juniper, and had to sit through a tough cross-examination. "Nothing like this has ever happened to her before," Doyle said. "She had a lot of courage." The trial itself lasted more than two weeks, each day a grueling succession of witnesses. Burrells work with the family made her feel more strongly about the picture she wanted to paint with her opening statement. Evans handled a day and a half of forensic evidence, and guided weapons experts, DNA analysts, and medical examiners through dense, wordy reports. Doyle questioned Rashid and gave the closing argument. After the jury found Juniper guilty, all 3 waited tensely for the sentence. "I was feeling kind of - " He paused. "I'm not sure how to describe it. A moment of reckoning." For Doyle, he knew he would respect whatever decision the jury made . "At the end of the day, what the jury decides I can accept," he said. "That's the system." Reed and Garris knew almost immediately that Juniper's case would be hard to defend. "I was thinking, 'This is going to be a bad one,'" Garris said. They had that mountain of evidence to contend with, along with Juniper's attitude. "He's probably the most difficult client I've ever had to deal with," Garris said. "He did very little to help himself." He often complained about the conditions of his incarceration, rather than discussing his case, Reed said. "He felt he was singled out" inside the jail, Reed said, "almost like an animal in a zoo." Both Reed and Garris said Juniper hesitated to provide details that could have helped in his defense. "I couldn't help him if he wouldn't talk to me, trust me," Reed said. "From his perspective I'm just another stranger in the room with a profound impact on his life." Reed and Garris had worked together on capital murder cases before, and knew they could rely on each other. Dozens of motions needed to be filed with the court. They hired an investigator to help provide the answers Juniper could not or would not. Their past work served them well. Garris had defended John R. Hefelfinger on a capital murder charge when he was accused of dismembering and decapitating a 12-year-old girl in 1999. When she first looked at the crime scene photos, she said, her eye would twitch. "I looked at the pictures 2 to 3 times a day until I stopped doing it," she said. "I knew if I did it, it would bother a jury." Reed knew that prosecutors would consider making a "worst of the worst" argument to jurors. "They would make the argument that we need not have the death penalty if we don't apply it in this case," Reed said. "I'd think every day 'How do I stop Jack Doyle from making that argument?'" Finally, they had to decide on strategy. Juniper insisted on a vigorous defense, Reed said. It made Reeds job more difficult. "If you have a client that the commonwealth has serious, overwhelming evidence against, it would be easier to defend him if the client accepts responsibility and shows remorse," Reed said. "In the absence of an expression of remorse you dont give a judge or the jury any reason to impose a life sentence." After Reed and Garris attended a seminar on death penalty cases, they decided to concentrate their efforts on the second phase of the trial, in which the jury determines what sentence to impose. "That's a hard sell," Reed said. "It could be interpreted as we think hes going to be convicted, or we think hes guilty." Reed agreed to do the majority of cross-examination during the trial, so that if jurors found Juniper guilty, Garris could ask them to spare his life. As the trial drew closer they both found themselves mentally running through the case. "All I did was think about Anthony Juniper," Garris said. "In the middle of the night, you just end up obsessing, going over checklists." They also had to work to protect themselves. One appeal tactic for people sentenced to death is to attack the effectiveness of their lawyers. During the trial, Garris and Reed continued to contend with Juniper's attitude. He frequently seemed sullen, almost angry. He slumped in his seat, sometimes moving to address Garris. His lawyers said Juniper went into the trial resigned to its outcome. "I yelled at him to stop it," Garris said, "that it wasn't a done deal, that the jury hasnt decided." Jurors took about 2 hours to make the decision. "By the time the jury came back I had prepared myself for it," Garris said. "Maybe because I had obsessed so long. Maybe because I knew I had done everything that I could." 27 years of criminal defense work "tends to harden you," Reed said. "You're going to win some and lose some," Reed said. "To keep coming back tomorrow, you have to accept defeat. To accept defeat you have to know you did everything you could." (source: The Virginian-Pilot) ******************* Evidence destroyed, prisoner awaits death sentence Arlington Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Kendrick recently set July 11 as the date of execution for Robin Lovitt. Jack Payden-Travers, executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty released the following statement upon learning of the proposed execution. "This is the only execution to be scheduled in Virginia this year. Given the facts in Mr. Lovitt's case, we certainly hope that this execution is blocked by either the U.S. Supreme Court or through an act of clemency on the part of Gov. Mark Warner. "It is ironic that just after Gov. Warner's order requiring the re-examination of 161 DNA cases, including those of men on death row, that the attorney general should move to have a date of execution set. As DNA is a factor in Mr. Lovitt's case, it would seem that at the very least, no further action should have been taken until the accuracy of the DNA testing in Lovitt's case had been definitively established. "Lovitt's case presents what may be a unique set of circumstances. Post-conviction DNA testing, which the Virginia Forensic Lab has proposed as a safeguard against future mistakes, as occurred in the Earl Washington Jr. case, can't be conducted for Robin Lovitt. (Earl Washington sat on death row for 9 1/2 years, his execution date set, and was exonerated nine days before his execution date.) "In the Lovitt case in 2001, a judge ordered that all evidence from the trial be destroyed. The order was carried out on May 23, 2001, in spite of the fact that 3 weeks earlier, a Virginia law had gone into effect requiring the preservation of all biological evidence in felony trials. "Additionally, the same court had appointed Robin counsel for further appeals, and Lovitt had an appeal pending in the Supreme Court of the United States at that time. Although the Virginia Attorney General's office admitted that the destruction of evidence was a 'complete mistake' and the Virginia Supreme Court found it to be a 'serious error in judgment,' Virginia has set an execution date for Lovitt. "What we have here is a situation where the Virginia Forensic Lab's examination resulted in an inconclusive reading that could neither affirm nor exonerate Lovitt from the crime. This is the same conclusion that the lab erroneously reported in their testing of the DNA in Earl Washington Jr.'s case. "Are we going to proceed with an execution in a situation where the same scientist's erroneous testing could be the determining factor? The State of Virginia destroyed the supposed murder weapon, a pair of bloody scissors that could have proven Robin's innocence. How can the Commonwealth now proceed to execute this man after knowingly and willfully destroying evidence in an ongoing murder case?" If you would like to petition Governor Warner to re-think Robin Lovitt's execution, based on these facts, please write him at The Honorable Governor Mark R. Warner, State Capitol, 3rd Floor, Richmond VA 23219. (source: Fauquier Times-Democrat) IOWA----female faces death sentence in federal death penalty trial Angela Johnson eligible for death penalty----Trial enters penalty phase, jury to decide convict's fate A federal jury agreed Tuesday that the death penalty can be considered as an option in the trial of a woman convicted of helping kill 5 people in 1993. Angela Johnson, 41, was found guilty last week of 10 counts of aiding and abetting her former boyfriend Dustin Honken in the execution-style slayings of two federal informants and 3 others, including 2 children, as part of a plot to undermine a federal investigation into Honken's multistate methamphetamine operation. Under federal law, defendants must meet certain criteria to be considered eligible for the death penalty. When the trial resumed Tuesday, lawyers from both sides presented arguments before asking the jury to decide if Johnson is eligible for the death penalty. Prosecutors said the death penalty should apply because the murders were premeditated, the victims killed in a cruel and heinous manner, and two of the victims - the young girls - were especially vulnerable. The jury deliberated for more than 2 hours before concluding the death penalty should apply on all 10 counts. The jury found the adult victims were tortured and suffered serious physical abuse, according to the verdict form. The jury also found that the young girls were vulnerable and that Johnson intentionally engaged in conduct involving lethal force against all 5. The case now goes to the penalty phase where jurors will decide whether to recommend that Johnson receive the death penalty. Lawyers say the penalty phase could last up to 2 weeks. The government is expected to argue that Johnson obstructed justice, poses a future danger to society and that relatives of the victims were affected by her actions. The defense is expected to present a series of mitigating factors as a basis for the jury supporting a less severe punishment. Johnson's lawyers said a potential witness would be Johnson's former boyfriend, Dustin Honken, who is currently in federal custody. Through his lawyers, Honken made it known during a court hearing that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to testify. The jury deliberated 7 hours last week before finding Johnson guilty of five counts of conspiracy to commit murder as part of a drug conspiracy, one count each for the deaths of Gregory Nicholson, Lori Duncan, Kandace Duncan and Amber Duncan, all of Mason City, and Terry DeGeus of Britt. She also was found guilty of 5 counts of committing murder while engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise - 1 count again for each of the victims. (source: Associated Press) KANSAS: Death penalty review on tap The Kansas death penalty law won a reprieve Tuesday from the U.S. Supreme Court. It remains to be seen whether the justices reverse a Kansas Supreme Court decision to strike down the law. But for now, state officials are pleased that they have a chance to argue the statute's constitutional merits to the nation's highest court. The court's decision means the death sentences of John E. Robinson Sr. and 6 other convicted murderers have a chance of being reinstated. The Kansas Supreme Court had commuted their sentences to prison terms. Lawmakers and prosecutors said the announcement showed that they had been right to gamble on the U.S. Supreme Court intervening in the case. Sen. John Vratil, a Leawood Republican who leads the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the court must have seen something in the case that was worth its time. "It may be the court wants to make a statement on the death penalty," he said. In December the state court struck down the capital punishment law, ruling 4-3 that language concerning jury instructions was unfair to defendants. The instructions had to do with how juries weigh evidence. The law required jurors to vote for capital punishment - rather than life imprisonment - in those instances where the evidence for and against execution was equal. Juries haven't received those instructions in years, but the requirements were never deleted from the death penalty statute. The state asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal. Lawmakers could have easily fixed the law to answer the state court's concerns, but any chance at reinstating existing death sentences would have been lost. On Tuesday, while vacationing with his family in Colorado, Attorney General Phill Kline said via telephone that he was pleased. "I will personally argue this case," he said. Death-penalty opponents said they hoped the Supreme Court would uphold the ruling - perhaps using it to broadly condemn capital punishment. "Someday this penalty has to go down in our nation of human rights," said Sister Therese Bangert, a Kansas City, Kan., Catholic nun who lobbies against the death penalty. "If our case could be that, what a joyous moment that could be." If the justices reverse the Kansas court's ruling, it would mean that the death sentences would stand for those currently on death row, including Robinson. He was convicted of killing eight women and girls in Kansas and Missouri over a span of 15 years and was sentenced to death in Johnson County. Five other men now sit on death row. Another awaits sentencing. The high court's decision to take up the case "gives the families of the victims one more shot at having the jury verdicts carried out," said Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, an Independence Republican. "The U.S. Supreme Court was the only avenue available to them." But if the court upholds the Kansas court's ruling, those sentences would be converted to prison terms, and lawmakers will have to fix the law to reinstate the death penalty for future crimes. That would mean prosecutors could not seek the death penalty in some high-profile prosecutions now under way across the state. The current death penalty law has been around since 1994, but no one has been put to death in Kansas since 1965. The case that the U.S. Supreme Court accepted involves Michael Marsh II of Wichita, who was sentenced to die for the 1996 murders of a woman and her young daughter. In its ruling, the Kansas Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Marsh. Many had said that the chances of the U.S. Supreme Court taking the case were slim. The court only takes about 1 percent of the cases that it is asked to hear each year. Kline had estimated that there was only a 1-in-7 chance that the high court would take up the appeal. Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison, who prosecuted Robinson and argued that he should receive a death sentence, said Monday that he always had thought there was a good chance the U.S. Supreme Court would review the Kansas court's ruling. He also thinks there is a good chance that the justices will uphold the law's constitutionality. "It was written very responsibly," he said of the Kansas law, which narrowly defines the kinds of cases that apply. "I believe Kansas has one of the best statutes in the nation." Robinson, 61, is the only person from Johnson County to receive a death sentence since Kansas reinstated capital punishment in 1994. 2 other local cases could be affected by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision. Benjamin Appleby is charged with the 2002 attempted rape and killing of Leawood teenager Ali Kemp. In Wyandotte County, Errik Harris is awaiting trial for his alleged role in the killing of four persons that same year. Appleby, 29, was charged late last year, and his case has been delayed in part to see what might happen with the death penalty law. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for mid-August. Ali Kemp's father, Roger Kemp, said he would continue to trust Morrison's judgment on whether to seek the death penalty for Appleby, but he said he thought Monday's decision was good news. "I think the option needs to be there for the citizens of the state of Kansas," Kemp said. Harris, 29, is facing trial later this year on 4 counts of capital murder. "That's what we were hoping for," Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerry Gorman said of Monday's news that kept open the option of a death sentence in Harris's case. Harris is a co-defendant of Darrell L. Stallings, who was found guilty of capital murder last year for the shooting deaths of five persons in June 2002. However the jury that convicted him could not reach a unanimous decision to impose a death sentence. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison. -- First glance - The men on Kansas' death row, whose punishment had been reduced to life in prison, might yet be executed if the U.S. Supreme Court reverses the Kansas Supreme Court. On death row - Gary Kleypas, convicted for the 1996 killing and rape of Carrie Williams in Pittsburg. Kleypas' death sentence was struck down and he is now being resentenced. - Michael Marsh, convicted for the 1996 killing of Marry Ane and Marry Elizabeth Pusch in Wichita. - Gavin Scott, convicted for the 1996 killing of Doug and Beth Brittain in Sedgwick County. - Reginald and Jonathan Carr, convicted of a series of crimes in 2000 that included rape, kidnapping and the murders of Jason Befort, Brad Heyka, Heather Muller, Aaron Sander and Ann Walenta in Sedgwick County. - John E. Robinson Sr., convicted of the murders of Izabel Lewicka, Suzette Trouten and Lisa Stasi in Johnson County. Also convicted of killing 5 persons in Missouri. - Douglas Belt, convicted of the 2002 killing of Lucille Gallegos in Sedgwick County. (source: Kansas City Star)
