Sept. 28 TEXAS: JURY SELECTION BEGINS IN CAPITAL MURDER CASE Attorneys began individually questioning possible jurors Monday who will ultimately decide the fate of a man who faces the death penalty. Individual jury selection will continue each day until a panel is picked to hear the capital murder case of Jamarcus Warren, who is accused of ordering the murder of Shaun Pickens. About 800 Smith County citizens were called for group jury selection and 267 appeared in August. About 228 were left to begin reporting for individual jury selection on Monday. Warren's trial is set to begin Oct. 17 in 241st District Judge Jack Skeen Jr.'s court. The defendant, charged with the shooting death of Pickens on Jan. 15, 2004, is represented by F.R. "Buck" Files Jr. while Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham and First Assistant DA April Sikes are prosecuting the case. Warren, 29, faces the death penalty or life in prison if convicted of capital murder. The defendant was set to go to trial when a mistrial was granted in March after his former attorney was taken to a Travis County detoxification center. 7 jurors had been selected when Skeen granted a motion for withdrawal by Warren's hired Houston lawyer, Shawn Roberts, who was repeatedly late for hearings and was a no-show on occasion. Warren was on the lam for about 7 months before he was caught in Houston by U.S. marshals. He is also linked to a 2001 bank robbery in Tyler and a 2004 ordered killing of a 2nd man in Gregg County, officials have said. Co-defendants Bryson Carey and Stefany Campos have both agreed to plead guilty and testify against their alleged gang leader, Warren, who officials believe ordered co-defendant Cornet "Pokey" Meekins to carry out the murder. Pickens was shot in the head and left inside a vehicle off County Road 2209. The defendants allegedly belong to a street gang called the Chapel Hill Hoover Five Deuce Crips. (source: Tyler Morning Telegraph) ***************** Convict charged in Arlington woman's 1985 death----Prosecutor says Curtis Don Brown is likely a serial killer The letter arrived at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota on March 14, 1985. Sharyn Kills Back, 18, a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe, wrote that she was coming home in two weeks to visit. The next day, Sharyn disappeared. A week later, members of her family received a phone call from Arlington police, who informed them that Sharyn was dead, found strangled with a rope in a south Arlington storm drain. "She did come home in two weeks, but in a different way," said Suzanna Kills Back, Sharyn's older sister. For 20 years, the family prayed for an answer. On Tuesday, another phone call from Arlington police finally brought one. Curtis Don Brown, a convicted murderer recently charged in another Fort Worth woman's 1985 slaying and a person of interest in more than a dozen others, had been linked through a DNA database to Sharyn's rape and strangulation. Arlington police obtained a capital murder arrest warrant Tuesday against Brown, who remains in the Tarrant County Jail. "It's just a big relief," Suzanna Kills Back said. "I want to go someplace and just holler out loud." Alan Levy, chief of the criminal division of the Tarrant County district attorney's office, said he plans to seek the death penalty against Brown. He said that Brown's criminal past and the randomness with which he selected his victims "certainly puts him in a category of murderers likely to have multiple homicide victims." "It has all the earmarks of a serial killer," Levy said. Asked whether he considers Brown a serial killer, Levy replied, "I do now." Tim Moore, Brown's attorney, said Tuesday he would not discuss the latest accusation against his client until seeing the evidence. Fort Worth police "went to great lengths when these murders were happening to assure the public that this wasn't a serial killer," Moore said. "Now they want everyone to think it's the same person, so I don't know where they're coming from." Sharyn's case was reopened after Fort Worth cold case Detective Manny Reyes and homicide Sgt. J.D. Thornton met with Arlington investigators in March, sharing their suspicions that Brown may be responsible for several slayings in the area in the mid-1980s. Brown had already served 19 years of a life sentence for murdering Jewel Woods, a 51-year-old nurse, outside her east Fort Worth apartment in 1986, when Fort Worth police learned in February that a DNA database had linked his profile to semen found on the body of Terece Gregory. Gregory, 29, was found floating in the Trinity River on May 30, 1985, one day after she had disappeared after driving away from a downtown Fort Worth bar. She was raped and shot. Brown was charged with capital murder in connection with her death in May. Fort Worth police immediately began re-examining 25 unsolved homicides that occurred while Brown lived in Tarrant County, determining that more than a dozen required a closer look. At their suggestion, Arlington homicide detectives Jim Ford and John Bell did the same, reopening Sharyn's case and 6 others. On Friday, Arlington police received confirmation from the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office that Brown's DNA matched sperm taken from Sharyn's body and clothing, Sgt. Mark Simpson said. The link did not surprise Fort Worth police. "Similar results from other Fort Worth cases or out-of-state cases would not be surprising either," Thornton said. "His MO [method of operation], the fact that he targets strangers and the amount of traveling he was doing during that period makes it highly likely that he has not been caught for every crime of this type that he has committed. "There are other victims out there," Thornton said. Sharyn disappears Sharyn Kills Back, the youngest girl among 9 siblings, longed for a life outside the Pine Ridge reservation where she had spent her life. At age 16, she set out for the Clearfield Job Corps Center in Utah, undergoing 2 years of vocational training in a program for minorities. "I was happy for her because she was happy," said Blanche Kills Back, another sister. "Life on a reservation is hard. She wanted to go and explore the world." When she had completed her training, Sharyn was given an option of 3 places to work in: Stockton, Calif., Atlanta or Arlington. "I told her to take Stockton, California," Blanche Kills Back recalls. "She chose Texas. I don't know why." Sharyn's mother was apprehensive. Audrey Ione Bad Hair constantly warned her daughter not to walk by herself. Sharyn assured her mother that she was safe and had friends who gave her rides so she would not have to walk. But that wasn't always the case. On the evening of March 15, 1985, it was already dark when Sharyn asked her roommate, Barbara Bouknight -- a friend she had met in the Clearfield Job Corps Center in Utah -- to walk with her to a friend's house. About a block from the apartment near East Park Row Drive and Texas 360, Bouknight changed her mind. She turned to head back to the apartment, but within a minute or two changed her mind again. "When I turned back around, I didn't see her," Bouknight recalled Tuesday in a telephone interview from New Mexico. "She was already gone." When Sharyn didn't return home that night, a worried Bouknight called police. Bouknight said she was told she had to wait a span of hours before a missing-persons report could be filed. "I couldn't wait," Bouknight said. "I didn't know what to do. I kept going out looking for her. I couldn't sleep." 2 days later, on March 17, Bouknight filed a missing-persons report with police. A week later, with still no word, Bouknight spotted a story on the news about an unidentified woman whose body was found in Arlington. Fearful that the body was Sharyn's, Bouknight called Arlington police again. "That's when the detective came out and talked to me, then showed me some pictures," Bouknight said. "I said, 'Yes, that's her.'" When discovered by a plumber on March 23 near the 1400 block of Bandera Drive, Sharyn's face and the front of her body were caked in mud. A 2-foot length of rope was knotted around her neck. She was fully dressed. The Fort Worth police crime lab examined trace evidence in the case but could find no clue to the woman's attacker. "Using 1985 technology, they were not able to detect any sperm," Ford said. Because of the string of disappearances and slayings of other young women at the time, many in southwest Fort Worth, Ford and other detectives from area agencies met with a Fort Worth police task force to discuss the cases. "Sharon Kills Back was among the many cases we looked at and compared," Ford said. "There was not any physical evidence to match it to any other cases at that time." Two decades later, after meeting with Fort Worth police in March, Arlington police asked the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office to look at the evidence again. Using new technology, the office was able to extract a DNA profile from sperm found in the sexual assault test kit and Sharyn's clothing, Ford said. "It is amazing what modern technology can do," Ford said. Thornton said DNA tests on the unsolved Fort Worth cases have only ruled out Brown's involvement in one of the deaths, an elderly woman found slain inside her house on Jan. 25, 1985. "We have received some results and have been unable to exclude Brown in any of those cases. They require further testing," Thornton said. "On some of the other cases, we have not yet received initial results." Coping with the loss While other families still wait, friends and family of Sharyn said they're grateful to finally have an answer but still struggle with Sharyn's loss. "I blame myself now," Bouknight said. "Maybe she would still be alive today if only I had gone with her that day. I don't think this guy would have gotten both of us if I were there." Sharyn's mother also struggled with guilt, her daughters said. "When she passed away, my mom blamed herself," Suzanna Kills Back said. Less than 3 years later, Sharyn's mother died of complications from diabetes. "It took a toll on her," Suzanna Kills Back said. "She just really went downhill fast. She was only 45 years old when she died." 3 summers ago, Sharyn's father, Mowis Kills Back, died, also from complications of diabetes. "It's just sad that Mom and Dad aren't here to hear it," Blanche Kills Back said. (source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram) CALIFORNIA: Peterson Trial Inspires New State Law A new state law, inspired by the Scott Peterson murder trial in Redwood City last year, makes it easier for counties to recoup money spent on high-profile criminal trials. AB 27, authored by Assemblymen Gene Mullin, D-South San Francisco, and Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City, was signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday. The new law came about as a result of the 2004 Peterson trial in which San Mateo County incurred approximately $900,000 in costs but was not fully reimbursed by Stanislaus County until May of this year. Peterson's wife Laci was murdered in Stanislaus County in December 2002. "AB 27 is a compilation of lessons learned from the Peterson trial," Mullin said. "AB 27 ensures that counties hosting expensive high-profile trials from distant jurisdictions are not burdened with the costs." The new law sets out a procedure and a timetable for counties that host high profile change of venue trials to be paid in a timely manner. It will also ensure that in the future counties will not be reluctant to host these types of trials, according to Mullin. "It will, I think in the long term, make counties more willing to take on these types of cases," Mullin said. Peterson is currently on California's death row at San Quentin State Prison awaiting an appeal of his murder conviction. (source: Bay City News) FLORIDA: Carter guilty in triple slaying----First-degree murder verdicts mean he faces the death penalty. With each verdict, the gasps were a little louder from the huge gallery of relatives who'd gathered in a Jacksonville courtroom Tuesday to hear the fate of the man who killed their loved ones. Guilty of 1st-degree murder in the death of Liz Reed. Guilty of 1st-degree murder in the death of Glenn Pafford. Guilty of 1st-degree murder in the death of Courtney Smith. The verdicts were meaningful, relatives said, not because they established that Chip Carter, Reed's former boyfriend, killed her, the man she was dating and her 16-year-old daughter. That was a foregone conclusion from the trial's outset last week after Carter and his lawyers admitted the slayings. What was significant, relatives and prosecutors said, is that the verdicts mean Carter now faces the death penalty after jurors return Oct. 12 to recommend sentences in the 2002 murders at Reed's Arlington home. At the least, he'll get 3 life sentences. "It's been a long haul for us. I just thank the Lord it ended the way it did," said William Pafford, Glenn Pafford's father. "I want him to pay for what he did to my son." Jurors deliberated less than 2 hours before finding Carter, 51, guilty of premeditated murder in the shooting deaths that his public defenders argued were committed in a jealous heat of passion. He testified he took a .22-caliber hunting rifle to Reed's house "to get answers" after she stood him up for a date. He and his lawyers said Courtney was shot first by accident as he and Reed struggled over the gun. He said he couldn't explain why he then shot Reed and Pafford. But Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda contended Reed or Pafford was shot 1st and Courtney was shot because she was a witness. He said Carter planned the shootings, possibly for weeks, as he repeatedly drove through Reed's neighborhood checking for Pafford's truck. After the murders, Carter fled to Mexico and dropped the murder weapon in the Rio Grande. He was detained briefly by Mexican police but was released and eventually returned to the United States. He was apprehended last year in Kentucky after a state trooper recognized him from a wanted poster. Carter stood stoically as the verdicts were read and chatted briefly with his lawyers before returning to jail. They said they will fight to keep him off death Row. "We're preparing for the penalty phase, and we believe there's substantial mitigation," Public Defender Bill White said. He mentioned Carter's Air Force record and work history. The families of the victims gathered in a hallway outside and exchanged hugs and tears. "We're just thankful that this part of the nightmare is over ... and the jury saw it for what it was," said Kay Null, Reed's stepmother. They promised de la Rionda they'd be back en masse for the sentencing phase of the trial, where they will be permitted to testify about the impact of the murders. "We're not done yet," de la Rionda told them. "We're halfway there." (source: The Florida Times-Union) GEORGIA: Exonerated inmate on death row speaks to students about experience In a Pennsylvania field on May 2, 1984, Juan Melendez was eating his lunch under an apple tree with other migrant workers when FBI agents, pointing guns, approached them and ordered them to lie on the ground. When the agents asked for Melendez, he raised his hand. He then was arrested and extradited to Florida on a 1st degree murder charge. A jury of 11 whites and one black convicted Melendez less than 3 days after the trial began. He was sentenced to death. On Jan. 3, 2002 - 17 years, 8 months and 1 day after he arrived at prison Melendez was exonerated and set free. Thats the story Melendez told a crowd of about 150 Tuesday in the University School of Law. Melendez, who only spoke Spanish at the time of the trial, talked about the problems he had with his original trial lawyer and the lack of an interpreter. "The only evidence they had against me was the plea deals' testimonies and both witnesses had criminal records," Melendez said. He recalled cockroaches in the cells, rats climbing his blanket at night and thoughts of suicide. "I had to find, think and trust something more powerful than the system," he said, referring to his Christian faith. Upon his release from prison, Melendez said he dedicated himself to opposing the death penalty. "The death penalty is an issue that we should fight as human beings," he said. After the speech, some listeners said they were affected by Melendez's story. Jennifer Hart, a second year law student at the University from Homerville, said Tuesday she was undecided on the death penalty. "It's not an easy issue," she said. Hart said she could see why families whose loved ones are victims of murder would want the death penalty. But, she added, there are a lot of people wrongly convicted and that is important to address. Femi Obadina, a 1st year law student from Roswell, said he was undecided, but the speech "definitely leans me more against the death penalty." He said he thought Melendez had a good point - that there is human error in the system. The speech was hosted jointly by the American Constitution Law Society, the Hispanic Law Students Association and the National Lawyers Guild. Melendez will speak Thursday at Mercer University and Oct. 10 in Vienna, Austria, said Judi Caruso, a criminal defense attorney and board member of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, who organizes Melendezs speaking engagements. (source: The Red and Black, University of Georgia)
