April 12 MISSOURI: Prosecutor to seek death penalty in cocaine-injection slaying A prosecutor said Tuesday that he will seek the death penalty for 2 people accused of injecting a former Macon County prosecutor with a lethal dose of cocaine. The notice of intent was filed by Christian County Prosecutor Ron Cleek. Thomas Naumann, 49, and Crystal Broyles, of Nixa, are both charged with first-degree murder in the death of David Masters, 52. His body was found last month along the James River. Last week, Cleek dropped murder charges against Brandi Storment, 23, of Springfield on in exchange for her full cooperation with investigators. Investigators say Masters was confronted by housemates Broyles and Naumann because he allegedly was 3 weeks behind on rent and had made unwanted sexual advances toward Broyles. Masters was killed after telling Broyles and Naumann he wanted to die of a cocaine overdose instead of being shot. His body was found the next day, with what a pathologist said was more than 40 times a lethal dose in his system. (source: Associated Press) NEVADA: Judge rejects recusal request The judge set to preside over the new penalty hearing for a man who was originally sentenced to death for the 1998 execution-style killings of 4 young men has decided not to recuse himself from the case over a potential conflict of interest involving the judge's law clerk. Chief Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas on Friday filed an emergency motion asking the Nevada Supreme Court to rule on whether District Judge Lee Gates should be prohibited from handling Donte Johnson's re-sentencing. The reason: Gates' law clerk, Nancy Bernstein, was previously an intern in the district attorney's office and worked on part of the prosecution's case against Johnson. On April 4, Daskas had asked Gates to recuse himself from the new penalty phase scheduled to start April 19. Gates took the issue under advisement, and on April 7 announced that he had decided not to recuse himself from the case. That prompted Daskas to seek a ruling from the state's highest court. Johnson has stipulated he would not raise the issue in any future appeals he files after his new penalty phase, but he could technically still raise the issue as part of an ineffective counsel claim. He could argue his attorneys were ineffective in advising him that no conflict of interest existed to require Gates to recuse himself. The Nevada Supreme Court ordered a new penalty phase for Johnson after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that only a jury could impose the death penalty. A 3-judge panel had sentenced Johnson to death after the original jury could not agree on the penalty. Johnson was sentenced to death row by the three-judge panel for the murders of Matthew Mowen, 19, Jeffrey Biddle, 19, Tracey Gorringer, 20, and Peter Talamantez, 20. They were killed in August 1998 in a house they had rented on Terra Linda Avenue in southeastern Las Vegas. Johnson was aided in the killings by 24-year-old Terrell Cochise Young and 23-year-old Sikia Smith. Young and Smith were both sentenced to life in prison for the shootings. The Nevada Supreme Court, however, ordered a new trial for Young, saying District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski failed to addresses Young's contention that there was animosity and a lack of communication between the accused killer and his court-appointed lawyer Lew Wolfbrandt at the 1999 trial. Young made several motions to replace Wolfbrandt, but they were denied by Pavlikowski. Young complained that Wolfbrandt failed to see him in jail for 8 months. Young's new trial is scheduled before District Judge Nancy Saitta on Sept. 12. (source: Las Vegas Sun) IOWA: Jury selection begins in federal death penalty case Jury selection begins this morning in Sioux City in the federal death penalty trial of Angela Johnson. The 43-year-old Klemme native is the former girlfriend of Dustin Honken, who was convicted last fall in the drug slayings of 5 people, including two children, in the Mason City area in 1993. The jury recommended the death penalty. Johnson is charged with conspiring with Honken in the execution-style slayings. Attorneys predict Johnson's trial will last about as long as Honken's 8-week trial and feature much of the same evidence...but Johnson's trial will also feature some unique twists, including testimony about her mental state in the days after the bodies were discovered. Johnson tried to commit suicide in jail after the bodies were found by investigators who used a map she drew and gave to a jailhouse informant. (source: RadioIowa News) LOUISIANA: Court OKs conviction, death penalty in killings of Clinton couple A death sentence was upheld Tuesday for Gregory "Boo" Brown, convicted in the 1998 execution-style killings of a Clinton couple. The state Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, rejected a list of issues raised by Brown in the deaths of William and Ann Gay. The victims, both in their 60s, were kidnapped from their patio as Brown and 4 other men engaged in what the court called a campaign of terror. The couple was shot to death and burned beyond recognition when their car was set afire in Baton Rouge. Investigators said the violence started when Brown and two others appeared at the home of Ikie Roberts, a neighbor of the Gays, and Brown beat Roberts with the claw end of a hammer while the other 2 men fled in Roberts' truck. Roberts was able to easily identify Brown, who lost 1 eye in a 1996 shootout. After the attack, Roberts went to another Clinton home, tried to steal a pickup, and left a blood-soaked fingerprint on the door handle. DNA tests showed the blood belonged to Brown and Ikie Roberts. Investigators said Brown then went to the Gays' home and kidnapped them because he needed a ride to Baton Rouge. In the trial, Brown's defense lawyer said Brown lost the ability to control his behavior when he was shot in the face in 1996 while committing an armed robbery. Fragments of the bullet remain in Brown's brain, preventing him from making correct decisions. That issue became part of the appeal, questioning whether Brown is so mentally impaired that he cannot be executed. The Supreme Court rejected the argument, noting that Brown exhibited "intact survival mentality" by destroying all traces of evidence in his crime by burning the victims in their car, cleaning out his house and eluding police for 82 days after the crime. The court also rejected Brown's challenge of Roberts' identification, along with a long list of other challenges. Brown's case was handled by the Capital Appeals Project in New Orleans, and a spokeswoman said an appeal to federal court was a certainty. (source: Associated Press) NEW YORK: Albany Panel Closes Door on Death Penalty Measure Democrats in the State Assembly closed the door today on reviving the death penalty in New York State this year, handing a significant victory to groups that are trying to build national momentum against capital punishment. With a vote by a key Assembly committee, the state's death penalty law now appears likely to stay off the books for some years to come. The state's top court struck down the law in June, finding a central element of its sentencing provisions unconstitutional, and the opposition in the Assembly is unlikely to change anytime soon because there is so little turnover among incumbents in Albany. New York also joins a handful of states where politicians have stepped away from death penalty laws that their predecessors enacted in 38 states after the United States Supreme Court restored capital punishment in 1976. The State Legislature passed its law in 1995, although New York has never executed a person under it. Opponents of the death penalty from around the country packed a Capitol hearing room here today to mark the Assembly's action, and hailed it afterward as an important moment in the continuing legal and political battles over the future of the laws. In particular, they noted that some supporters of the 1995 law had now changed their minds on the death penalty's infallibility, a shift they hope to stoke elsewhere. "There is going to be a ripple effect coming out of Albany against capital punishment, no question," said Shari Silberstein, co-director of the Quizote Center, a national religious group that is pressing for moratoriums on executions, who attended the hearings. "When a major state like New York moves away from the death penalty, other states take notice and ask questions of their own." The Democratic resistance to the death penalty could also inject an uncertain political element into the 2006 races for governor and Legislature in New York. Gov. George E. Pataki showed the emotional appeal of the issue in 1994 when he unseated Mario M. Cuomo in part by promising voters that he, unlike Mr. Cuomo, would sign a death penalty law. The Assembly's action today came at a half-hour meeting of the chamber's Codes Committee, which voted 11 to 7 against a bill that would have made changes to the death penalty law to address the state Court of Appeals decision in June. All 11 nays came from Democrats; the committee's 4 Republicans and 3 Democrats voted to send the bill to the floor of the Assembly, where the prospect for passage was expected to be close. "The death penalty is, in effect, killed for this year," said Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, a Democrat who is chairman of the committee, and one of the members who backed the law in 1995 but voted against it today because of new, personal doubts. (source: New York Times) FLORIDA: Senate Panel OKs $5 Million Cap for Wrongfully Committed Innocent people who were wrongfully imprisoned could seek up to $5 million in compensation for lost wages, attorney fees and other losses under a bill approved Tuesday by a Senate panel. The measure was motivated by the case of Wilton Dedge, a Brevard County man who was released from prison last summer after serving 22 years for a rape he didn't commit. Dedge wants lawmakers to give him $5 million for the nearly 8,000 days he spent in prison to compensate for his lost wages, the money his family spent to defend and visit him and the work done by the lawyers who fought for his exoneration. However, a competing House proposal would let Dedge and other wrongfully imprisoned people seek either $200,000 or a package of health and education benefits. That measure (HCR 1879) would let people to seek more money from the Legislature if they had won a lawsuit. Dedge hasn't yet sued. The Senate measure (SB 1964) is modeled after the way government compensates people who have property seized for roads or other public projects, according to Sen. Dan Webster, a Winter Garden Republican who was given the job of figuring out a possible solution by Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon. The Senate Judiciary Committee, which Webster chairs, voted unanimously for the bill. Noting that it differed significantly from the House position, Webster said he tried to avoid "emotionalism" and find a middle ground. He said the Senate bill was good public policy that upheld fundamental principles like honoring the values of life, liberty and property. The Senate bill sets up a way to compensate people who are imprisoned but later found by "clear and convincing evidence" to be innocent of the crime or of being an accomplice to the crime. Wrongfully incarcerated people could seek compensation for lost wages, attorney fees, court fines, loss of assets, lost earning capacity, work done for the state during imprisonment, the cost of counseling and a "reasonable amount of any other losses." But the state would not be liable for punitive damages or damages for "pain and suffering, humiliation, loss of consortium, emotional distress or similar damages" under the bill. People who commit other felonies or who plead guilty would not be eligible for compensation. After being found innocent by a court, a person would begin negotiations with the office of the state attorney general. If those negotiations failed to result in an acceptable settlement, the person could go to court. Any compensation would be offset by the amount of money the state paid to provide health care or education to the person in prison. The first $500,000 would be paid in a lump sum and any compensation over that amount would be paid through annuity payments over a decade. --- On the Net: Florida Legislature: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/ (source: Associated Press)
