Dec. 13
TENNESSEE:
Defendant in 2007 ATM slaying may be spared death penalty trial----Murder trial
delayed after judge's ruling of intellectual disability
She used to bring flowers, but they were always removed.
So, last month, Jannie Traylor simply stood by the ATM machine on Murfreesboro
Pike in silence, then shook her head and drove back home to Clarksville.
For Traylor, there has been plenty of head shaking, but little resolution, in
the 4½ years since Herbert Clayton, an Iraq War veteran, was shot in the eye
and killed while Traylor was 8 months pregnant with their 2nd child. The couple
were preparing to marry.
Traylor hoped the man accused of killing Clayton would go on trial this week,
but the murder trial of Christopher Lee Davis, 24, has been put on hold so the
state can review a judge’s ruling that Davis does not qualify to be tried under
the death penalty because he is intellectually disabled.
“This should have been wrapped up years ago,” said Traylor, who said she is
still baffled that Clayton survived war only to be killed in the United States.
“I’m disgusted with the whole process.”
Prosecutors announced they would seek the death penalty against Davis in April
2008, 10 months after, they say, he fatally shot Clayton, 26, in a robbery
attempt on June 13, 2007, at an automated teller machine on Murfreesboro Pike.
Davis and three other men are charged in the killing, which occurred soon after
they carjacked a man in Trousdale County.
Davis was previously charged in a 2005 shooting but was set free in January
2007 after a witness refused to cooperate and the case fell apart.
Roger Moore, a senior assistant district attorney general in Nashville, said
Davis qualifies for the death penalty because he has prior felonies for crimes
of violence and because he murdered Clayton during a robbery. Moore said there
are several reasons the case has yet to go to trial, including the fact that
Davidson County prosecutors allowed the defendants’ cases in Trousdale County
to be resolved first.
In that case, Davis was sentenced to 49 years for aggravated robbery,
carjacking, attempted 1st-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping. He is
currently incarcerated at the West Tennessee State Penitentiary and is eligible
for parole in 2015.
After the conviction, a trial was set in Nashville. Moore said it had to be
canceled, however, when his co-counsel’s husband died. The trial was
rescheduled to begin this week.
“In the meantime, the defendant filed a motion to have the judge declare him
mentally disabled so as to have him disqualified from the death penalty,” Moore
said. “That was filed and so we had an 11th-hour hearing on that.”
At the Nov. 21 hearing, Judge Monte Watkins heard from neuropsychologist Pamela
Auble and reviewed records of Davis’ “educational and mental ability,”
including IQ tests, academic records and school disciplinary records. In an
order filed the next day, Watkins said Davis has an IQ below 70, has shown an
intellectual functional disability since at least the first grade and appears
to have “limitations in adaptive behavior” evidenced by his disciplinary record
in school and prior crimes.
Moore hopes to appeal Watkins’ ruling, and the trial has been put on hold in
the interim.
“Our position was that he didn’t meet the criteria under the statute,” Moore
said. “We either appeal it now or never. We are asking our Attorney General’s
Office to appeal it.”
Sharon Curtis-Flair, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office, said “we
are working with the District Attorney and considering our options.”
Davis’ attorney, Paul Bruno, declined to comment.
Difficult to explain
As the years have dragged on, Traylor said, she has struggled to explain what
happened to Clayton to her children, 5 of whom were fathered by the veteran.
“Trying to explain to a 4-year-old what happened is very difficult,” Traylor
said, referring to Allyson, the daughter she was pregnant with when Clayton was
shot, “and the rest of the children just have memories of him. I don’t think
she understands what murder means or anything. It’s pretty harsh to tell them
that. I just tell them that Daddy is in heaven watching over them.
“Nobody should have to go through this. We still have his pictures up. We have
quite a bit of memories. I’m grateful for that. I was with him for 4 years.”
Traylor is re-engaged and said she plans to enlist in the Air National Guard.
Noting that Davis was allegedly in the middle of a dayslong crime spree when he
is accused of shooting Clayton, Traylor said she believes Davis knew what he
was doing and shouldn’t be spared a death penalty trial.
“He planned it out,” she said.
Aside from noting aggravating factors that he believes qualify Davis for the
death penalty, Moore would not comment on the internal discussions that led
District Attorney General Torry Johnson to ultimately decide to seek it.
Johnson, who has been in office since 1987, has historically sought the death
penalty sparingly. A 2004 study by the Comptroller of the Treasury looked at
first-degree murder cases over a 10-year span and found that Johnson sought
death in only three out of 42 cases. Shelby County prosecutors, by comparison,
had 21 capital trials for 58 murder cases.
The same study found that the majority of Tennessee’s life without parole cases
were in Nashville.
If the state chooses to appeal Watkins’ ruling and succeeds, Nashville could
see its 1st capital trial since the 2006 prosecution of Melvin Crump, who
sexually assaulted and killed a 69-year-old woman inside her home. A Nashville
jury did not give Crump the death penalty, and he was sentenced to life in
prison.
Jason Bobo avoided a capital trial in 2009 when he confessed to the
execution-style killing of 2 pizzeria employees during an armed robbery in
2007. Bobo is serving 2 life sentences without the possibility of parole.
The last person to receive a death sentence in Davidson County was Robert
Leach, a Texas parolee convicted of murdering two elderly Antioch women and
robbing and raping one of them.
The last person executed in Tennessee was Cecil Johnson, who was put to death
in 2009. Johnson was convicted in a 1980 Nashville robbery-homicide that left 3
people dead, including a 12-year-old boy.
(source: The Tennessean)
ALABAMA:
Judge denies homicide suspect's motion to suppress confession
In a taped confession to Lee County sheriff’s detectives last year, accused
killer Brian Casey claims he paid two men $5,000 to strangle childhood friend
Larrick Sikes with a zip tie and he shot another man, Ryan Vanderson, after
ordering him to his knees.
Casey, who is representing himself, was scheduled to face trial Tuesday in
Sikes’ death but filed a motion to suppress the confession, which was played in
court.
Speaking calmly and dressed in his red inmate jumpsuit, Casey argued he was
under influence of narcotics and alcohol at the time and had also invoked his
right to have an attorney present before the confession was made.
Circuit Judge Edward J. Volz Jr. denied the motion, ruling Casey appeared to
talk willingly to detectives and his rights were not violated. He has until
Jan. 4 to determine if he will retain a lawyer or continue representing
himself.
In the statement, Casey talked at length about the deaths of Sikes and
Vanderson.
“I said, ‘Look, I’ll give you $5,000 to off this (expletive),’” Casey said
about the killing of Sikes. He even claims he provided the zip tie used to
strangle Sikes in a car on Oct. 20, 2010 and he spoke with the alleged killer
afterward.
“He said he did put up a pretty good fight, kicked the windshield in or
something like that and broke it,” Casey said.
He claimed Sikes had insulted him several times and he had called police on him
in a case involving driving offenses.
Sikes’ burned body was found off Luckett Road Extension in east Lee County.
Casey also is accused of shooting Vanderson and setting fire to Vanderson’s
home 5 days earlier.
“I raised up the pistol, I said, ‘turn around,’ he said, ‘whats the matter?’”
Casey tells detectives in the statement. “I said, ‘kneel down,’ he kneeled down
and I shot him in the back of the head.”
Vanderson, Casey said, had disrespected him in dealings related to his air
conditioning business.
Casey also described how he sprayed bleach all over the house before setting it
on fire.
“Bleach is an accelerant,” he said. “It also drives you crime scene guys
crazy.”
Detectives also said they received a letter from Casey confessing involvement
in the killings and asking for the death penalty. Similar letters were sent to
a judge and the state attorney’s office.
Casey on Tuesday denied writing the letters, although detectives said he
admitted sending them.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA----new death sentence
Jury recommends death penalty for LA serial killer
Jurors on Tuesday rejected a plea for a serial killer to be shown leniency
because of an abusive childhood and instead recommended he get the death
penalty for murdering 6 women and a teenage girl.
Michael Hughes, 55, was already serving a life sentence for the killings of 4
women when a jury convicted him last month of murdering 2 other women and
15-year-old Yvonne Coleman in the "Southside Slayer" case. Also among his
victims was the niece of ex-Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.
Hughes, dressed in a sleeveless sweater, tan pants and powder-blue shirt,
showed no emotion as the verdict was read.
In issuing their verdict, the jury ignored a plea made earlier in the day by
his attorney for a sentence of life in prison without parole.
"You don't have to kill him," lawyer Aron Laub implored the jury during closing
arguments. "The law does not compel it."
Laub cited Hughes' troubled, violent childhood in asking for leniency.
However, jury forewoman C.J. Johnson, 49, said after the verdict was read that
the seven-man, five-woman panel wasn't swayed by the argument.
"We just thought the crimes were so egregious, we couldn't give the minimum
time," said Johnson, who called the decision "serious and sobering."
Laub declined to comment after the jury made its recommendation. Deputy
District Attorney Beth Silverman said the verdict was rewarding.
Hughes, a former security guard, was investigated by a task force looking into
the killings of dozens of women by the so-called "Southside Slayer." Police
later concluded at least 3 serial killers, including Hughes, were stalking
women during a crack cocaine epidemic that led some women onto the streets as
prostitutes in order to support their habits.
Pizza deliveryman Chester Turner was convicted in 2007 and sentenced to death
for killing 10 women and a fetus in Los Angeles in the 1980s and '90s. He has
been charged with 4 additional killings and ordered to stand trial.
In addition, investigators arrested Lonnie Franklin Jr., a South Los Angeles
mechanic, last year as part of the "Grim Sleeper" slayings. He has pleaded not
guilty to 10 counts of murder and one of attempted murder.
Prosecutors suspect Franklin shot or strangled 10 women and girls between 1985
and 2007, dumping their bodies in alleys near his home.
DNA evidence tied Hughes to the murders that authorities say were committed for
sexual gratification. His victims were strangled and some of their nude bodies
were posed for discovery with their legs spread in order to shock whoever found
them, prosecutors said.
Hughes' victims included Coleman and Verna Williams, 36, both killed in 1986;
and Deborah Jackson, 32, in 1993. Williams and Jackson were both prostitutes.
He was convicted 13 years ago of the 1992 murders of Theresa Ballard, 27, and
Brenda Bradley, 37, the niece of the former mayor; and the 1993 killings of
Terri Myles, 33, and Jamie Harrington.
In her closing argument, Silverman said Hughes was an opportunistic predator
who targeted prostitutes and other women society might not care about. She
called the murders vicious and callous and said jurors should show the same
mercy to Hughes that he did to his victims.
"If there ever was a case where the death penalty is appropriate, it's this
case," Silverman said.
Laub countered his client had a lost childhood, saying Hughes' mentally
unstable mother beat him repeatedly for 12 years with an extension cord. The
violence eventually led Hughes to become an alcoholic and crack addict, his
attorney said.
"That's not a childhood. That's a laboratory for destruction," Laub said.
Hughes is scheduled to be sentenced by a judge March 29. If sentenced to die,
he would join more than 700 inmates on death row.
(source: Associated Press)
******************
Public Safety, Innocence and Cost: Replacing the Death Penalty is California's
Only Viable Option
If any good has come out of California's current economic challenges, it has
been that pragmatism may have overtaken emotionalism in our public discourse.
With the state's physical and social infrastructure in decline, along with
seemingly institutionalized budget deficits, Californians can ill-afford to
support nonsensical public policies that are costly and ineffective. The death
penalty certainly qualifies as both.
For decades the death penalty has been viewed as the definitive "tough on
crime" litmus test. Those opposing capital punishment were considered as being
more concerned with the perpetrators of crime than the victims and their
unconscionable pain.
Not too long ago, it would have been political suicide to run for any of
California's statewide offices in opposition to capital punishment.
But that political landscape has changed.
According to a recent Field poll, when provided the choice between life without
parole and capital punishment -- life without parole is preferred 48 % to 40 %.
In 2000, the same question was asked and 37 percent preferred life without
parole.
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978, there have been 13 executions
and the state's death row population has ballooned to roughly 721 -- the
nation's largest.
For every reason to support the 13 executions in California since 1978, there
are four billion arguments to be opposed. The 4 billion reasons represent the
total cost to execute those 13 individuals, which translates to roughly $300
million per person.
In lieu of these staggering statistics, the "SAFE California Act," is rapidly
gathering signatures to qualify on the November 2012 ballot. The "SAFE
California Act" would replace California's multibillion-dollar death penalty
with life imprisonment without parole.
The act would accomplish three things:
• Replace California's death penalty with life in prison without the
possibility of parole.
• Require inmates to work and pay restitution to the victims' compensation
fund.
• It would allocate $100 million over three years to solve more murders and
rapes in California and protect our families.
Support to replace the death penalty with life without parole is based on the
simple acronym P.I.C. (Public Safety, Innocence and Cost).
Between 1999-2008, 46 % of homicides in California went unsolved. Alameda
County had the highest rate with 61.5 percent of unsolved murders.
Which benefits California more: an ineffectual death penalty policy or
resources going toward local law enforcement to reduce the dramatically
high-unsolved murder rate?
Moreover, replacing the death penalty with life without parole eliminates the
most ghoulish of outcomes--the execution of an innocent person. Support for the
death penalty means there must be an error percentage that one finds
acceptable.
Support for the death penalty has traditionally focused on the guilty, those
whose crimes are so heinous that their deaths fail to create controversy. By
replacing the death penalty with life without parole, it shifts the focus on
the innocent. There can be no appeals once the execution has taken place.
The resources wasted on the death penalty would be unacceptable for any other
area of government. It is the need for perceived safety that has blinded
society to the hemorrhaging of resources that could be better spent elsewhere.
Replacing the death penalty with life without the possibility of parole is to
formalize what California already has unofficially. The likelihood of someone
dying of illness or age while on death row is greater than receiving a lethal
injection. Support for capital punishment represents the last area where
California maintains a pre-Enlightenment perspective.
If enhanced public safety, eliminating the possibility of executing the
innocence and reducing cost to the state are not enough to support the Safe
California Act, consider the argument that its passage would place California
on a level of modernity on par with Rwanda, Haiti and Mozambique.
(source: Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist;
Huffington Post)
USA:
Death penalty isn't working
The death penalty doesn't work. Where the death penalty is used, violent crimes
escalate and become more violent.
DNA evidence has proven that states have executed innocent people, because of
that, some states have abolished the death penalty. Illinois abolished the
death penalty. The numbers show that where the death penalty does not exist,
violent crimes actually decrease. The cost to execute a person far exceeds
locking him up for life.
We continue to line up the efforts under way to end the death penalty both
nationally and internationally. Back in 2007 the United Nations voted in
support of an idea of having a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. Also
in 2007 New Jersey abolished the death penalty. The American Bar Association,
no less, wants a moratorium, temporarily halt of executions, while fairness of
the death penalty system can be studied and improved upon.
The United States is one of the most violent countries in the world. Gun crime
goes through the roof. Children killing children in big cities goes on
unabated. Even mass executions would not stop it, only increase it. Violence
begets violence and no amount of tough on crime will ever stop that.
The climate we live in is beyond breakdown in civil discourse. It is evil. It
is anti-life. It continues to degenerate. From agreeing to disagree, it attacks
persons. Ideology renders facts irrelevant.
A culture of selfishness drives the national debate. It is "me, me, me!" The
basic necessities of life have a price tag. Poverty is a crime. The use of the
death penalty reflects this.
The death penalty does not address the causes of violent crime. It further
romanticizes power. The way the media continue to advertise executions as
justice only perpetuates a culture of vengeance.
Jerry Tobin----Jackson
(source: Letter to the Editor, Jackson Clarion Ledger)
**********************
Newt Gingrich A Hypocrite For Supporting Death Penalty For Marijuana Smugglers,
Gary Johnson Says
Longshot GOP presidential candidate Gary Johnson attacked frontrunner Newt
Gingrich for supporting the death penalty for marijuana smugglers even though
he has admitted to smoking the drug himself during graduate school.
Gingrich "proposed the death penalty for marijuana -- for possession of
marijuana above a certain quantity of marijuana -- and yet he is among 100
million Americans who smoke marijuana," Johnson told MSNBC’s Alex Witt over the
weekend.
An outspoken critic of federal drug control policy, Johnson added he "would
love to have a discussion with [Gingrich] on the fact that he smoked pot, and
under the wrong set of circumstances, he proposed the death penalty for
something, potentially, that he had committed?"
That's not quite right. Even under Gingrich's draconian proposal, nobody could
be sentenced to death for smoking pot. But Johnson does effectively highlight
one of the more outrageous pieces of drug policy to be introduced before
Congress, and pushed by the GOP presidential front runner no less. In 1996 the
former House Speaker sponsored the Drug Importer Death Penalty Act, under which
importing more than two ounces of certain illegal substances -- including
marijuana -- can be punishable by life imprisonment or the death penalty.
Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, has been open with the media about his
own experiences smoking pot. After a paragliding accident in 2005, Johnson
asserted "marijuana really helped [him] deal" with the pain, and in an
interview with the New Republic he joked, "I never exhaled. His policy position
on medical marijuana flows naturally from that experience.
But Gingrich, who smoked pot while in graduate school in the '60s, wants to
have it both ways.
"That was a sign we were alive and in graduate school in that era," he told New
York magazine in 1995 of his illegal drug use. And in 1982, he penned a letter
to the Journal of the American Medical Association calling for the legalization
of medical cannabis. Federal law, he wrote, "continues to define marijuana as a
drug 'with no accepted medical use,' and federal agencies continue to prohibit
physician-patient access to marijuana. This outdated federal prohibition is
corrupting the intent of the state laws and depriving thousands of glaucoma and
cancer patients of the medical care promised them by their state legislatures."
While it's hard to pinpoint exactly when Gingrich went from calling for
marijuana legalization to introducing legislation sentencing pot smugglers to
death, his peculiar evolution certainly merits an explanation.
"See, when I smoked pot it was illegal," he reportedly told the Wall Street
Journal's Hilary Stout in 1996, "but not immoral. Now, it is illegal AND
immoral. The law didn’t change, only the morality... That's why you get to go
to jail and I don't."
(source: Huffington Post)
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