June 22 CALIFORNIA: Death penalty likely averted----Judge dismisses kidnap charge in '82 murder case Former Placer County Sheriff's Deputy Paul R. Kovacich Jr. will not likely face the death penalty after a judge ruled to dismiss a kidnapping enhancement in an Auburn Courtroom Thursday. Kovacich, 58, has been held at Placer County Jail without bail since a second grand jury indictment alleged that he kidnapped and killed his wife Janet Kovacich with a firearm more than 2 decades ago. A defense motion to dismiss a use of a firearm enhancement was denied by Judge Robert P. McElhany. If convicted of 1st-degree murder with the enhancements, Kovacich could have faced the death penalty. But citing insufficient evidence on the kidnapping special circumstance, McElhany said the grand jury that indicted Kovacich may have not been advised of any laws relating to the enhancement. According to documents filed May 15 in Placer County Superior Court, a partial skull was found in Rollins Lake Oct. 22, 1995. No other evidence was collected at that time. In March 2005, DNA evidence collected in connection with the 1982 disappearance of Janet Kovacich along with human remains were sent to the Department of Justice's Richmond, Calif. laboratory for forensic analysis and confirmed to be that of Janet Kovacich. Due to a gag order, no one connected to the case can comment. Paul Kovacich, a former Placer County Sheriff's deputy, was arrested March 22 at the Foresthill home of his girlfriend, Dixie King. King, who worked as deputy for the Placer County Sheriff's Department, refused to testify before the grand jury, invoking her Fifth Amendment right. She was not in the courtroom Thursday. Kovacich has pleaded not guilty. A status conference has been set for 1 p.m. July 5 in Department 13 of the Placer County Superior Court. (source: Auburn Journal) PENNSYLVANIA: DA mulls death penalty A 68-year-old Minersville man will stand trial on charges that he killed a Saint Clair woman who refused to sit with him at a social function last month. Nevin George Wetzel, 401 Westwood St., Apt. B, appeared before Magisterial District Judge David A. Plachko on Thursday afternoon but, before testimony for the preliminary hearing began, both sides agreed to a stipulation that cut the proceeding short. Public defender Paul Domalakes and Schuylkill County District Attorney James P. Goodman agreed that any testimony presented would agree with the facts set forth in the criminal complaint filed against Wetzel by Saint Clair police Chief Michael Carey. Goodman told Plachko that the complaint itself proves the commonwealth has enough evidence to substantiate the charges. "The facts constitute a prima facie case," he said. Plachko agreed and ordered Wetzel to stand trial on the felony charge of criminal homicide, 2 felony charges of aggravated assault and two misdemeanor charges of simple assault. Goodman said it is too early to tell if he will seek the death penalty and that his office is reviewing the statutes governing the death penalty in a case. Wetzel was charged with killing Gloria M. Pauzer, 57, inside her 1st-floor apartment at 219 S. Second St. around 10 a.m. May 8. Before the hearing, Pauzer's 2 friends who live in the building sat in Plachkos courtroom waiting for Wetzel to be brought in. David Jones lives in a 2nd-floor apartment and said he was at work at the time of the homicide. When he came home, he saw the womans shoe and a trail of blood. "Her shoe was in the hallway and there was a trail of blood I thought it was paint," he said. Jones said he went into the apartment because Pauzer's door was slightly open and saw the body. Jones said he wished he was not at work that day. "If I would have been there, I would have got that son of a bitch," he said. Joseph Gall lives in a 3rd-floor apartment. "She was a nice lady, shed always say 'Hi' to you," he remembered. "Everyone liked her, the whole town knew her." Jones said that the day before, Pauzer put cushions on chairs on the front porch of the building. "We used to go out there, sit and talk and listen to the radio," Jones said. Plachko ordered Wetzel be returned to Schuylkill County Prison where he is being held without bail since his arrest hours after the slaying. Schuylkill County Coroner David J. Dutcavich determined that Pauzer died of a large wound that appeared to have been done with a knife or edged instrument. Carey said his investigation determined that Wetzel apparently made advances toward Pauzer, but the woman did not reciprocate. Carey said Pauzer told a friend that Wetzel told her he just got out of prison and if he wanted to get her, there was nothing she could do. After the killing, Carey said Wetzel was interviewed and admitted knowing Pauzer from the Senior Citizens Center in Pottsville. Wetzel said he began speaking with her a few weeks earlier and the 2 did not have an intimate relationship. As the interview continued, Carey said Wetzel told him that the day before the killing he became angry with Pauzer because she would not sit with him at the senior center and on May 8 he rode his bicycle from Minersville to Saint Clair to confront her. Wetzel said that he and Pauzer began to argue in the hallway of her apartment building and that the woman got a knife from her apartment and that made him angry, Carey said. The chief said Wetzel admitted that he pushed the woman to the floor and took the knife and attacked her with it. (source: Republican and Herald) ALABAMA----new execution date Execution date set for Tommy Arthur For the 2nd time in 25 years, an execution date has been set for Tommy Arthur. On Friday morning, the Alabama Supreme Court set Sept. 27 as the execution date for the 65-year-old Arthur, who was convicted of the murder-for-hire killing of his girlfriend's husband in Muscle Shoals. In April, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review an appeal for Arthur, setting the stage for his execution. "A lot of people will not believe it until it happens,'' said former Colbert County District Attorney James A. "Jap'' Patton, who prosecuted Arthur for what turned out to be the 1st of 3 times he would be convicted in the case. His convictions have been upheld by state and federal appellate courts, but Arthur can still seek relief in federal courts. This is Arthur's 2nd execution date. He was originally scheduled to die in April 2001, but received a delay from a federal judge so he could pursue another appeal. After that appeal was denied, Alabama Attorney General Troy King requested the state Supreme Court set a new execution date. Arthur was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for shooting Troy Wicker, of Muscle Shoals, through the right eye as he slept. The victim's wife, Judy Wicker, was involved with Arthur and testified she paid him $10,000 to kill her husband in 1981. Arthur was convicted and sentenced to death the 1st time on Feb. 19, 1983. That decision was overturned. In fact, 2 of his convictions were overturned. On Dec. 5, 1991, Arthur, for the 3rd time, was found guilty and sentenced to death. "We'll see what happens,'' Patton said after hearing of the new execution date. "We've been there before (with a date set). "He's had several chances, a lot of chances, and he's still around, but thankfully still locked up.'' Arthur came within seven hours of execution in April 2001, when a stay was granted on his claim that he did not have an attorney to handle his appeals. The courts later refused his bid for a new hearing. Judy Wicker was found guilty as an accomplice and was released after serving 10 years of a life sentence. At the time of the killing, Arthur was in a prison work-release center in Decatur, serving a sentence for 2nd-degree murder for killing his sister-in-law in Marion County. Arthur has continued to maintain his innocence, and has filed 2 actions in federal court seeking a stay of his execution and reversal of his case, according to Clay Crenshaw, director of the attorney general's capital litigation section. Crenshaw said Arthur seeks DNA testing and a separate action alleging that lethal injection is unconstitutional because it's cruel and unusual punishment. "Every inmate comes with filing a lethal injection lawsuit," Crenshaw said. "They try to delay their executions.'' He said Arthur can continue to appeal his execution in federal courts up until the last minute. There are 199 inmates on death row in Alabama, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections. 9 have been on death row longer than Arthur, with the longest being moved there on May 31, 1978. The last execution in Alabama was on Oct. 26, 2005, according to the department. (source: The Times Daily) ********************** Alabama court sets execution date in Muscle Shoals killing The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday set a Sept. 27 execution date for Thomas Douglas Arthur, who was convicted of the murder-for-hire slaying of his girlfriend's husband in northwest Alabama. This is Arthur's 2nd execution date. He was originally scheduled to die in April 2001, but received a delay from a federal judge so he could pursue another appeal. That appeal was recently turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court. The state attorney general's office then asked the state Supreme Court to set a new execution date, which it did Friday. Arthur, 65, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for shooting Troy Wicker of Muscle Shoals through the right eye as he slept. The victim's wife, Judy Wicker, was romantically involved with Arthur and testified she paid him $10,000 to kill her husband in 1981. At the time of the killing, Arthur was in a prison work-release center in Decatur, serving a sentence for 2nd-degree murder for killing his sister-in-law in Marion County. Arthur, who always maintained his innocence, was convicted of Wicker's murder and sentenced to death 3 times. Appeals courts overturned his 1st 2 convictions. Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw said Arthur has filed a separate federal court suit that challenges Alabama's use of legal injection for executions, and he could argue that his suit should result in another delay. (source : Associated Press) SOUTH DAKOTA: Death-row friendship coming to an end----Spearfish woman has stood by Elijah Page Pam Guettler of Spearfish has visited Elijah Page on death row more than a dozen times in the past year, and she says he has changed in the past couple months. "You can just see the eyes just go deader and deader," Guettler said. "They don't sparkle no more." Page is set to be executed the week of July 9 at the South Dakota penitentiary in Sioux Falls -- barring an unlikely last-minute appeal. He pleaded guilty to his part in the torture and murder of 19-year-old Chester Allan Poage in Higgins Gulch near Spearfish on March 13, 2000. One accomplice, Briley Piper, 26, is appealing his death sentence. Another, Darrell Hoadley, also 26, is serving a life sentence. Page, now 25, has rejected the chance to appeal. Gov. Mike Rounds, however, stayed Page's execution last Aug. 29, just hours before it was to be carried out, for fear the state's 3-drug lethal-injection procedure didn't match the 2-drug method called for in state law. Guettler, who was with Page on that execution day, said he was willing to be executed with just 2 drugs, even after an attorney explained it might be more painful. "He said go ahead and do it," Guettler said, adding Page had already eaten his "last meal." Earlier this year, the Legislature changed state law to allow prison officials to use the three-drug method -- or whatever method they choose -- but because Page was sentenced before the new law, he gets to make a macabre choice of 2 drugs or 3. "Eli doesn't care if it's 2 drugs or 3 drugs," Guettler said. Guettler first met Page shortly before the murder, when he dated her daughter, Misty. Pam Guettler saw something good in him right away -- in his sense of humor and in the kind way he treated her daughter. "I don't condone what he did," Guettler emphasized in an interview Thursday. "And I can't imagine what Dottie Poage is going through." (That's Chester Poage's mother, now of Rapid City.) After his arrest in Texas, a few weeks after the crime, Page confessed to the murder in horrific, step-by-step detail, describing how Poage repeatedly begged for his life. Judge Warren Johnson sentenced Piper and Page to die despite their confessions, citing the brutal nature of the murder. They've been on death row 6-1/2 years. During that time, Guettler and her husband, Art, and their son and daughter have stood by Page, visiting him monthly and, in recent weeks, twice a month. "We've become closer and closer," Guettler said. The Guettlers see Page in the prison's regular visiting area, but unlike other prisoners, who sit at tables with visitors, death-row inmates sit behind a window in a tiny room, using a telephone to communicate. During each 3-hour visit, Page is shackled to the floor and to a table. His dress is always the same: the white sneakers, gray sweatpants and white T-shirts that set the penitentiary's four death-row prisoners apart. There are several sessions on visiting days. When the Guettlers have the 8 a.m. slot, they leave Spearfish at 2 a.m. for the drive across the state. They prefer the later times, and so does Page -- mainly because the visiting room is more crowded. "He can people watch," Guettler said. Often during visits, Page lapses into silence. "We just sit there with him," Guettler said. But they also try to keep the conversation going. "We talk about everything," she said. Except 2 subjects. Page never talks about his childhood, which was marred by severe neglect and abuse. "He's just a child who fell through the cracks," Guettler said, but Page himself hasn't blamed his upbringing for his crime. (He was matter-of-fact when he told Guettler that a stepfather who abused him had died.) Page also doesn't talk about the crime. "That's one subject we stay away from," Guettler said. Rather, they keep the discussion light. For example, Page jokes with Art Guettler about procrastinating on projects at home. Page gets updates on Misty's 3 boys -- ages 2, 3 and 5 -- all born since Page has been on death row. Guettler has long since given up trying to persuade Page to appeal his sentence. One reason, she said, might be the prospect of spending the rest of his life in confinement. But she adds, "If Eli had a little bit of fresh air and was able to talk to people, I think he could spend the rest of his life in prison." Still, the Guettlers and members of Page's family say the main reason he has given up his appeals is remorse. "He's so sad," Guettler said. She thinks this next execution day -- 3 weeks away or less -- will be even harder for her and Page's family than the first one. Last August, she said, "You just poured your heart out to him." Page could have a family member witness the execution, but Guettler said that, like last summer, he declined. But Guettler will be in Sioux Falls for a last visit. She said Page's sister and father also plan to visit. For Guettler, it will be the end of a friendship maintained mostly on telephones and through a prison window into a very small room. "It has changed my views completely," said Guettler, who used to favor the death penalty. "I would have said he deserved to die." Now, she's opposed to it. "It's taught me not to judge people. That's up to God." Guettler still thinks there is something worth saving in Elijah Page -- as evidenced by the occasional sparkle in his eye -- even if he had to spend his life in prison. But Guettler also is certain Page realizes the enormity of what he has done. She described the end of a recent visit: "I happened to look back, and I wished I wouldn't have. He was looking at us. That face was so full of sorrow." (source: Rapid City Journal) *************** Ready To Die South Dakota's first execution in 60 years is three weeks away. And Governor Mike Rounds says unless Elijah Page calls it off himself, it's most likely going to happen. Last year, Rounds delayed the execution because of a controversy concerning the number of drugs in the lethal injection cocktail. Page's fate now lies in his own hands, and his friends say he still wants to die. When Governor Mike Rounds called off Elijah Page's execution last summer, Page had already eaten his last meal of pork chops and potatoes. He was prepared to die. "I knew he wanted it, that he was ready for it. But I was happy in the respect that maybe, maybe in the year's time we could get a change out of him," Pam Guettler says. A year reprieve because of a lethal injection drug controversy wasn't enough time for Pam Guettler, Page's family friend, to convince the murderer not to go through with the execution. "I don't try. I don't ask him. Just every time I see him, I just say: are you sure? Are you sure? And he'll say yes," Guettler says. Death sentences typically take many years to carry out, because of the lengthy appeals process. But Page wrote a letter to the Governor's Office, ending his appeals and choosing to die. Gov. Mike Rounds says, this year, he sees no reason why it won't happen. "I do not at this point have any further questions that I would see delaying it. Mr. Page can at any time, right up to the very last 2nd decide that he wants to continue his appeals process, and could legally do so," he says. But Page's friends don't anticipate he will back down. They say when they visit him on Death Row at the state penitentiary, he's quiet. He spends much of the time looking out the window. They say, because he knows what's coming. "This last one, when we went to leave, we turned to wave goodbye to him and I wish I would never have done that. Because the look on his face was so full of sorrow. I think sorrow for what he's done. Sorrow for the idea he's going to hurt all of us," Guettler says. Gov. Rounds asks everyone to remember the families Page has already hurt... By torturing and killing Chester Allan Poage in a river near Spearfish. "What we want to make sure is that in South Dakota, justice is served. People sometimes forget about the victim, and they forget about the danger this person is to the people around him if he were ever to be back in the regular prison population," Rounds says. This year, the law regarding lethal injection drugs was changed so Rounds no longer sees it as a potential legal problem. That means in 3 weeks, the prison staff will once again prepare for the state's 1st execution in 60 years. And Page's friends will once again prepare to say their last goodbyes. Guettler doesn't know what she'll tell him. "You know, I dont' know. Because we poured our heart out last year. And it's going to be harder for us this year, because we got another year to get closer to him," she says. And the governor says a last-minute reprieve this time will have to come directly from Page's mouth. "It's up to him. In the meantime, we're prepared to carry out the execution at the appropriate time, and in the appropriate manner according to our law," Rounds says. The execution is set for the week of July 9. For security reasons, the Department of Corrections will not release the exact date until that week. Dottie Poage, the mother of murder victim Chester Allan Poage, was not available to comment for this story. But she was planning on attending the execution last year, and wants to see Elijah Page die for what he did to her son. (source: KELOLAND TV) OHIO: Hearing is scheduled in death-penalty case More than 20 years after he was given the death penalty for the murders of 2 people, Frederick Dickerson was given a new date for a hearing in Lucas County Common Pleas Court to learn if he will, in fact, be put to death. Visiting Judge Richard Knepper set a Nov. 26 hearing date before the 3-judge panel that originally decided Dickerson's case. Judges Knepper, Charles Doneghy, and George Glasser, who is retired, conducted the hearing in 1985 and have agreed to conduct the hearing in November. Dickerson, 51, returned to Lucas County from death row after the 6th U.S. District Court of Appeals in Cincinnati remanded the death-penalty portion of his case. In particular, the court will have to use sentencing guidelines that have gone into effect since the case was decided. Dickerson was convicted Nov. 5, 1985, in the shooting deaths of Nichole McClain, 15, and Kevin McCoy, 31, in a Pinewood Avenue apartment. Authorities at the time said he was looking for his estranged girlfriend, Denise Howard, who moved to the apartment with Mr. McCoy. Although the federal appellate court upheld his murder convictions, it remanded the death sentence because his attorney at the time did not adequately raise issues that should have been considered. A November date was chosen for the hearing to give defense attorneys time to sift through the nearly 2,000 pages of Dickerson's medical and prison records as well as give the defense time to hire a heart doctor to evaluate Dickerson's health. (source: Toledo Blade)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news------CALIF., PENN., ALA., S. DAK., OHIO
Rick Halperin Mon, 25 Jun 2007 00:09:30 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
