Nov. 11 NEW JERSEY: State Supreme Court tosses man's murder conviction ----Justices overturn verdict in mysterious Cherry Hill death-penalty case In February 1991, Dede Rosenthal vanished. Police sent to her Cherry Hill apartment by worried co-workers found her keys on the kitchen counter, her cat on the balcony, her car in the parking lot. Her disappearance was featured on the television show, "Unsolved Mysteries." Four years later, Charles Reddish, who worked and lived in Rosenthal's apartment complex, confessed to murdering the 32-year-old woman but later recanted. He was eventually tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Yesterday, the New Jersey Supreme Court overturned Reddish's conviction after concluding he did not receive a fair trial. Camden County Prosecutor Vincent Sarubbi said Reddish, now 43, will be retried "at the earliest possible time." The high court, in a 6-0 decision by Justice James Zazzali, concluded the judge who presided at Reddish's 2001 trial improperly gave jurors "a one-sided picture of the evidence at trial." The justices also concluded that jurors should not have been told that, at the time he confessed to killing Rosenthal, Reddish had been arrested "on charges unrelated to this case." Zazzali said those two errors may have prejudiced jurors against Reddish in a case "with little independent physical evidence." Rosenthal's body has never been found, according to Bill Shralow, a spokesman for Sarubbi's office. According to the opinion, Rosenthal left her job at the Elwyn Institute in Vineland, where she trained staffers to work with autistic children, on a Friday afternoon in 1991 and never returned. Later that day she spoke by phone with a female friend and her boyfriend. Early the next morning, a downstairs neighbor heard a loud thump in Rosenthal's apartment. When police went to Rosenthal's apartment the following Wednesday, they found no sign of struggle and no odor of death, according to the opinion. Her passport was still in her apartment; her briefcase and coat were left in her car. Their investigation found that no airplane, train or bus ticket had been purchased in her name. A break in the Rosenthal case did not come until October 1995, when Reddish was arrested for murdering his girlfriend, Rebecca Wertz, and sexually assaulting her 14-year-old daughter. He is serving two life terms for his convictions on those charges. While he was being held on suspicion of Wertz's murder, Reddish gave taped statements to police and a newspaper reporter. Based on those confessions and other evidence, Zazzali said a jury could conclude that Reddish, high on cocaine, entered Rosenthal's apartment looking for sex, beat and suffocated her and returned a couple of nights later to dump her body in a Salem County landfill. At trial, Reddish claimed he was "deluded" when he confessed to killing Rosenthal. He presented three witnesses who said they saw her the month after her disappearance at a bar in Jackson Township. Reddish also argued that he should have been allowed to act as his own lawyer during the trial. The court ruled that capital defendants have a right to act as their own lawyers but it is not absolute. It ordered that a lawyer always be on "standby" to take over the case if a capital defendant's poor advocacy "unmistakably prevents a fair trial." Assistant Attorney General Boris Moczula said the ruling has created "an extremely hazardous terrain for second-guessing" but the court had little choice, as it had to balance a defendant's right to argue his own case against the need to be certain that a death sentence is warranted. (source: Newark Star-Ledger) TENNESSEE----stay of impending execution Federal court stays execution of man convicted in wife's murder A federal court in Memphis stayed the execution of a Shelby County man on Wednesday, less than a week before he was scheduled to be put to death. Donnie Johnson, 53, was convicted in 1985 of suffocating his 30-year-old wife, Connie, on Dec. 8, 1984, by stuffing a plastic garbage bag into her mouth. In August the Tennessee Supreme Court set a Nov. 16 execution date, but U.S. District Judge Bernice Donald granted Johnson a stay because of two other death row cases - Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman and Philip Workman - pending in the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. "The court finds that the petitioner has established that he maintains a likelihood of success on his motion for relief from judgment," the order said. "Given this court's and the 6th Circuit's treatment of similar cases, the court finds that the equities favor issuance of a stay of execution in this matter." The two other death row cases both deal with claims of prosecutorial misconduct, an issue Johnson has also raised. Johnson's federal public defender, Chris Minton, declined to comment, citing a new policy by his office not to speak to the media. Sharon Curtis-Flair, spokeswoman state Attorney General Paul Summers, also declined to comment. Johnson was convicted after work-release inmate Ronnie McCoy testified that he left Johnson and his wife alone for about 15 minutes at a camping center that Johnson managed. McCoy said he came back, found her dead and helped Johnson dispose of her body by leaving it in her van at the Mall of Memphis, where it was found the next day. Johnson has maintained his innocence and accuses McCoy of robbing and killing his wife. Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Adolpho A. Birch was the only dissenting justice for setting an execution date in August. Birch wrote he believed Johnson raised a valid legal issue when he showed that his trial counsel had previously represented McCoy, which represented a conflict of interest. (source: Associated Press) NEBRASKA: Man gets death for 5 murders in bank robbery 1 of 4 men convicted in a botched bank robbery in Nebraska in which 4 employees and a customer were killed was sentenced to death Wednesday. Jorge Galindo, 23, was sentenced by a three-judge panel, which supported a Madison County, Nebraska, jury's decision last December that he should die in the state's electric chair. He showed no emotion as the verdict was read. Galindo was convicted of five counts of murder in December for his part in the shooting deaths at a U.S. Bank branch in Norfolk, about 90 miles northwest of Omaha. The September 26, 2002, attempted heist was one of the deadliest in U.S. history. District Judges Robert Ensz, Jeffre Cheuvront and Kristine Cecava rejected defense arguments that Galindo's judgment was clouded by methamphetamine and that he had faced pressure from ringleader Jose Sandoval. They agreed with the defense that he had cooperated with police, but said that didn't outweigh his lack of remorse. Juries also found Sandoval and co-defendant Erick Vela eligible for the death penalty, and they await sentencing hearings. A fourth man, Gabriel Rodriguez, convicted of acting as a lookout, was sentenced to five consecutive life terms. Galindo shot assistant bank manager Lola Elwood at her desk as he and two other gunmen fanned out at the bank, prosecutors said. Also killed were Evonne Tuttle, a bank customer, and employees Jo Mausbach, Samuel Sun and Lisa Bryant. Surveillance tapes indicate the gunmen were in the bank for only 40 seconds, and no money was taken. Defense attorney Doug Stratton said he would appeal the sentence on a number of constitutional issues raised during Galindo's trial. Nebraska is the only state with electrocution as its sole means of execution. Lawmakers have been debating whether to switch to death by injection. (source: Associated Press) ILLINOIS: Death-penalty committee remains in limbo -- Governor hasn't named representative A committee designed to review changes to Illinois' death penalty system has been in limbo for nearly a year because Gov. Rod Blagojevich hasn't appointed a representative to the panel. It's the 2nd time in 8 months that Blagojevich has been slow to appoint people to important committees. Critics said it shows the governor is more bark than bite. "There is a lot of talk and ceremony from the governor's office, but little follow-through," state Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale, said Wednesday. A spokesman for the governor's office said it is taking longer than usual because they want to select a well-qualified candidate. At issue is the state's Capital Punishment Reform Study Committee, which was created as part of the reform of the state's death-penalty system signed into law by Blagojevich in January. The panel is charged with issuing an annual report on the status of those reforms. Earlier this week, Dillard and state Sen. Art Turner, a Chicago Democrat, sent a letter urging Blagojevich to pick up the pace, saying time is running out for the panel to issue its annual report. "This committee is the tool with which (we) can analyze and monitor the effect of this (death penalty) legislation," wrote Dillard and Turner. "It is important that we begin this task as soon as possible." "We're just encouraging the governor to get going. It's been a year," said Dillard. Blagojevich spokeswoman Rebecca Rausch said the governor is "very close to making this appointment." "We just wanted to be very thoughtful and deliberate," Rausch said. A similar situation occurred in April when it was revealed that the governor, who made ethics reform the cornerstone of his 2002 campaign, hadn't made his appointments to a panel designed to oversee ethics complaints. "This pattern of no follow-through by the governor's office is pretty troublesome, especially on ethics and death penalty reform," said Dillard. (source: Pantagraph) PENNSYLVANIA: Jury can't agree on death sentence----Catasauqua man was convicted of killing Allentown man. A Catasauqua man convicted in a 2003 Allentown slaying won't die by lethal injection thanks to a deadlocked Lehigh County jury. The jury deliberated the sentence for Terrance Bethea, 41, for about 4 hours Wednesday night after hearing a day's worth of emotional testimony. The jury convicted Bethea of 1st-degree murder Monday in the shooting of Carlos Juarbe of Allentown. At about 9:30 p.m., Judge Edward D. Reibman accepted the jury's report that additional time would not help it reach a unanimous decision, which is required for a death sentence. If all jurors are unable to agree on the death penalty, the sentence is automatically life in prison without parole. However, Reibman deferred sentencing until a Nov. 24 hearing. The jury earlier convicted Bethea of 2nd-degree murder in the shooting of another victim, Oscar Rosado, 35, who was in Juarbe's S. Fourth Street apartment when gunfire erupted on April 13, 2003. That conviction carries an automatic sentence of life in prison. "I don't think it's all that surprising," said First Assistant District Attorney Maria Dantos, observing that many jurors find it hard to sentence a man to death. "Our victory was Monday night," Dantos said. The prosecution alleged that Bethea shot Juarbe, who had several gunshot wounds, and that co-defendant Junius Burno, 37, of Lansford, fired more shots into Juarbe and then shot Rosado. Burno faces trial in January. Bethea, who did not testify in his trial, took the witness stand Wednesday and proclaimed his innocence. When his lawyer asked him about his childhood, which was part of the defense argument for sparing Bethea's life, Bethea said, "I don't think they care what my childhood was like." He then launched into a long soliloquy about how prosecution witnesses lied and the truth didn't come out. His lawyer, Richard Webster, stood at the podium as Bethea almost yelled into the microphone, "I didn't do this murder. I didn't kill that man." He said he was in Juarbe's apartment when the shootings occurred but didn't fire any weapons. At one point, Bethea said his lawyer told him "not to get into this" but he wanted to say he was innocent. In his closing argument to the jury, Webster said the defense accepted the verdict. Dantos asked Bethea who shot the two men. "Which story is it today?" she asked, referring to a previous statement Bethea made to police that intruders came into the apartment and committed the killings. Bethea pointed his finger at Dantos but wouldn't answer the question when she repeated it several times. He said he didn't know the names of the people. The prosecution contended that there were three aggravating factors that made the killing worse and warranted the death penalty. The 1st was that Bethea has a significant history of felony convictions involving violence. Twenty years ago, Bethea pleaded guilty in an armed robbery and burglary, and also entered a plea to assaulting parole officers. The 2nd factor was that there were multiple murders in this case. And the 3rd was that the killings occurred during a felony. The prosecution contended that Bethea and Burno went to the apartment to rob Juarbe. The prosecution said Bethea and Juarbe had been friends, but the friendship had ended before the killings because Juarbe suspected Bethea of robbing him. At the time of the slayings, Juarbe, 45, was a disc jockey in local clubs. Bethea, before his arrest, had been attending computer classes at Allentown Business School. Families of Juarbe and Bethea cried on the witness stand as they described their love for both men and what the men meant to them. Both men were described as good fathers and caring people by their children, siblings and other relatives. (source: Morning Call) KANSAS: Elms escapes death sentence Kansas' death row roster just got shorter. Stanley Elms will return to a Sedgwick County Courtroom next week, where he will be re-sentenced for a 1998 killing. Elms was sentenced to death in 2000 for the murder of Regina Gray. Police found the 29-year-old in her west Wichita apartment. Her throat was cut. DNA showed Elms had sex with Gray just before she died. The new sentence is in return for Elms agreement to drop his appeal to the Kansas Supreme Court for his conviction. Prosecutors agreed to stop seeking the death penalty. Both sides agree the death sentence would have been reversed, following a 2001 Kansas Supreme Court decision. That ruling found the state's death penalty law constitutional, but said jurors in the trial of Gary Kleypas received confusing jury verdict forms, and the law didn't give them enough guidance to determine when to impose the sentence. Kleypas' new sentence is still pending. 6 men currently wait execution. Douglas Belt will likely be added to that list next week. A judge is set to approve his sentence, following his conviction for the murder and attempted rape of Lucille Gallegos. (source: KWCH News)
