Dec. 2 WASHINGTON: Yates says his death penalty is unfair Lawyers for serial killer Robert Yates have asked the Washington state Supreme Court today to throw out his death sentence and take a new look at the way capital punishment is being meted out. Yates says it's unfair to be sentenced to die for killing two Pierce County women when he received only a long prison term after confessing to 13 killings in Spokane. His lawyers also note that Green River Killer Gary Ridgway got life in prison despite confessing to slaying 48 women. Yates was sentenced to 408 years in prison in 2000 after confessing to the 13 killings in a plea deal with Spokane County prosecutors. He was separately convicted and sentenced to death in 2002 for killing 2 Tacoma-area women. His lawyers say Yates believed those slayings were part of the Spokane agreement that spared his life. (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: Jury Deliberates On Death Penalty For Gaston County Man Keith Hall is convicted of killing 4 people in Charlotte in 2004. Today a jury in Gastonia will decide if he will get the death penalty. The judge has given the jury until 3:00 this afternoon to reach a decision. If a decision has not been made by then, deliberations will continue next week. Police say Hall and his former girlfriend Crystal Goins broke into a house in Paradise Point in Charlotte and shot and killed 4 people. (source: WSOC TV News) FLORIDA: A trial court will decide if a death row inmate set for execution next month should get a new trial because a key witness has recanted his testimony, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The high court voted 5-2 to grant the request by Angel Diaz to order that a circuit judge in Miami consider the recanted testimony issue. The justices also ordered that the ruling must be made by 5 p.m. Sunday. It then can be appealed to the Supreme Court. Diaz is scheduled to die Dec. 13 for the fatal shooting of a Miami topless club manager in 1979. Another inmate at the Miami-Dade County Jail, Ralph Gajus, testified at his 1984 trial that Diaz, who spoke only in broken English, used hand signs to imply he was the triggerman. A lawyer for Diaz asked the high court to send the case back to the trial court to consider a recently obtained sworn statement from Gajus saying that he lied on the witness stand. Gajus said in the statement that he was angry with Diaz for leaving him out of a plan to escape and police promised to help him with his case if he testified. Gajus later was sentenced to 20 years in prison for 2nd-degree murder. Justices Charles Wells and Kenneth Bell dissented from the high court's decision without explanation. The state argued Diaz made the same argument about the recanted testimony in prior appeals so he should be barred from raising it again although the sworn! statem ent is new. The high court set a Monday deadline for appealing the trial court's ruling. Diaz also has appealed to the justices on other grounds. Diaz previously was convicted of another murder in his native Puerto Rico. He also escaped from prisons there and in Connecticut. (source: Associated Press)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----WASH., N.C., FLA.
Rick Halperin Sat, 2 Dec 2006 14:54:52 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
