Sept. 11
PENNSYLVANIA:
Philadelphia judge calls for more evidence in bid for execution stay
Terrance "Terry" Williams was back in Philadelphia on Monday, sitting quietly,
hands and feet shackled, as lawyers tried to persuade a Philadelphia judge to
block his Oct. 3 execution.
Sounding skeptical, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina
listened to two hours of vigorous argument by Williams' lawyers and
prosecutors.
Sarmina then gave Williams' team until Friday to supplement their claim of
newly discovered evidence that Williams killed Amos Norwood in 1984 after years
of sexual abuse - not to rob him.
Sarmina told defense attorneys Billy Nolas and Shawn Nolan she considered their
new evidence - a 2012 statement by Marc Draper, Williams' confessed accomplice
- too vague for a late plea to stay the execution.
"What's the basis of Draper's knowledge?" asked Sarmina. "That doesn't make it
so just because someone says it."
Deputy District Attorney Ronald Eisenberg told Sarmina that nothing in
Williams' petition was new and that his claims of sexual abuse had been
rejected by state and federal appeals courts.
Eisenberg called the petition a "massive public relations campaign" to fuel
Williams' effort to persuade the pardons board and Gov. Corbett to grant
clemency.
In a separate proceeding, Williams' attorneys on Thursday filed a clemency
petition with the pardons board asking it to commute the death sentence to life
in prison without chance of parole.
The clemency petition was signed by more than 160 supporters, including former
judges and prosecutors, child advocates, and sexual-abuse experts - and
Norwood's widow, Mamie Norwood, 75.
On Monday, Philadelphia's Roman Catholic archbishop, Charles J. Chaput,
reiterated his support for clemency, writing: "Terrance Williams deserves
punishment. No one disputes that. But he doesn't need to die to satisfy
justice."
The pardons board will privately interview Williams on Thursday and hold a
public hearing Monday in Harrisburg. The five-member board must unanimously
recommend clemency for Corbett to consider the nonbinding recommendation.
Corbett signed Williams' death warrant Aug. 9 in what would be the state's 1st
execution since 1999.
At issue before Sarmina is a sworn Jan. 9 statement by Draper, 46, who pleaded
guilty to participating in Norwood's killing and became the key prosecution
witness against Williams at his 1986 trial.
Draper, serving life for Norwood's killing, testified that Norwood was killed
in a robbery, and authorities said Williams used Norwood's credit cards to
gamble at an Atlantic City casino.
Williams had just turned 18 and was a Cheyney University freshman when he was
arrested. Norwood was last seen leaving his Mount Airy home June 11, 1984, to
work at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Germantown.
Four days later, a boy walking his dog found Norwood's charred body propped
against a gravestone in Ivy Hill Cemetery in West Oak Lane. He had been beaten
to death with a tire iron.
A month later, police charged Draper, 18, the son of a police Civil Affairs
Unit officer, who implicated Williams.
In his recantation, Draper said he told homicide detectives in 1984 that
Williams and Norwood had a sexual relationship and Williams killed Norwood in a
rage over the abuse.
Nolas said Draper now says detectives "didn't want to hear about the
homosexuality. They wanted it to be a robbery."
Draper also told detectives Williams admitted to him that on Jan. 26, 1984, he
had stabbed to death Herbert Hamilton, 50, after Hamilton had made sexual
advances.
Nolas told Sarmina that had the jury that condemned Williams known of Draper's
original statement to detectives, it would have returned the same verdict as
the jury in the Hamilton case.
Williams was found guilty of 3rd-degree murder in Hamilton's killing. Draper
was also a key witness in that case and told of Williams' self-defense claim.
(source: Philadelphia Inquirer)
OHIO:
Man Facing Death Penalty Pleads Not Guilty
A Browning Avenue man facing the death penalty pleaded not guilty Tuesday to
charges that allege he an 8-year-old boy when he sprayed an apartment building
with assault rifle bullets.
Shawn Wilson, 21, entered the plea Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas
Court. Bond was set at $5 million and his case was assigned to Judge R. Scott
Krichbaum.
Wilson was indicted on aggravated murder charges with death penalty
specifications for allegedly killing Bryce Linebaugh. The indictment alleges he
planned to kill someone prior to the shooting and that he killed a child less
than 13 years old.
Wilson is also facing 2 counts of improperly firing a gun into a home, 1 count
of felonious assault with an automatic sentencing enhancement for using a gun,
and tampering with evidence.
Police said Wilson argued with a woman Aug. 19, the night before the shooting.
Wilson, according to police, went to the woman's apartment building in the
Rockford Village complex the next day and fired multiple shots from an assault
rifle. One of the bullets struck Linebaugh, who was days away from starting the
second grade at Harding Elementary School, in the head while he was sleeping in
an apartment next to the woman's.
Police said they recovered the murder weapon and Wilson's car, which was tested
for gunshot residue.
Wilson's criminal history includes charges of receiving stolen property,
disorderly conduct, improper handling of a firearm and carrying a concealed
weapon.
(source: WKBN News)
OREGON:
Oregon man suspected of killing father, woman, could face death penalty
A Eugene man could face the death penalty if convicted of aggravated murder in
the death of his father and his father's domestic partner.
Johan Stevon Gillette did not enter a plea at Monday's arraignment. He's
expected to return to a courtroom in the Lane County Jail next week after a
grand jury reviews evidence in the case.
The 37-year-old is accused of killing 73-year-old James Gillette and
71-year-old Anne Dhu McLucas on Friday on family property. He was a former
firefighter who owned timberland south of Eugene. She was a former dean of the
University of Oregon School of Music and Dance.
The Register-Guard reports authorities have not said how the two were killed or
what may have been the motive.
(source: Associated Press)
IDAHO:
Judge: Duncan can be examined by government expert ---- A federal judge says
prosecutors can have their own psychologist interview a convicted child killer
as they fight to prove he was competent when he waived his right to appeal his
death sentence.
A federal judge says prosecutors can have their own psychologist interview a
convicted child killer as they fight to prove he was competent when he waived
his right to appeal his death sentence.
But U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge said in a ruling last week that he won't
necessarily let them present any of the expert's findings in court - that will
be decided down the road.
Joseph Edward Duncan III was sentenced to death in 2008 after admitting he
kidnapped and tortured 2 northern Idaho children before killing one of them. He
gave up his appeals, but his former attorneys fought the sentence on his
behalf, and last year the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Lodge to
hold a retroactive competency hearing to determine if Duncan was mentally
competent back in 2008 when he waived his rights.
That ruling set into motion a complicated legal process with high stakes:
Duncan, though convicted of five murders spanning three states in three
separate courts, has only been sentenced to death in Idaho's federal case, and
that sentence is now in jeopardy.
During his 2008 sentencing hearing, federal prosecutors said Duncan snatched
Dylan Groene and his 8-year-old sister from their northern Idaho home on a
spring day in 2005 after killing their older brother, mother and mother's
fiance. Duncan kept the children at a remote Montana campsite for weeks before
killing Dylan and returning with Dylan's sister to Coeur d'Alene, where he was
arrested.
After Duncan was given 3 death sentences in Idaho's federal court for Dylan's
murder and other federal crimes, prosecutors in northern Idaho's Kootenai
County opted not to seek the death penalty for the murders of Slade and Brenda
Groene and Mark McKenzie, and a state court judge sentenced Duncan to life in
prison.
Likewise, in a subsequent trial for the 1997 murder of 11-year-old Anthony
Martinez in Riverside County, Calif. - which Duncan confessed after his arrest
in Idaho - the local district attorney opted not to seek the death penalty
after talking with Martinez' family and noting that Duncan already faced death
3 times over from Idaho's federal court case.
John Hall, a spokesman for the District Attorney's office in Riverside County,
Calif., said Monday they were confident that Duncan's death penalty would be
upheld. The Riverside County prosecutors are working with the U.S. Attorney's
Office in Idaho for the competency hearing, he said.
The case will hinge on Duncan's state of mind about 4 years ago. When Duncan
first decided to represent himself in 2008, his attorneys claimed he wasn't
competent. The judge, Lodge, had him examined by a local psychologist who found
that while Duncan's thoughts were "somewhat unusual," Duncan wasn't delusional
and that he'd waived his right to an attorney knowingly and voluntarily.
But Duncan's attorneys have argued that despite sometimes giving the appearance
of being capable of rational thought, Duncan is mentally ill and didn't have
the capacity to make a rational decision about whether to waive his appeals.
"Like most delusional individuals, Mr. Duncan's capacity for rational thought
varies across different decision-making domains," his attorney Michael Burt
wrote in a court document filed late last week.
If Lodge finds that Duncan wasn't competent when he gave up his appeals, the
judge will have to assess whether he was competent during his sentencing
hearing. That could lead to a new sentencing hearing, or a new sentence of life
in prison.
"In this particular case, as the Court is well aware, the Court's decision may
very well determine whether Mr. Duncan lives or dies," Burt wrote.
U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson has pointed out in court filings that established
case law clearly shows that a pattern of consistent, rational behavior,
thinking and decision-making over a long period of time tends to show at a
defendant's decision-making process at any one time was rational.
Duncan was examined by several experts in the months before and after his
decision to waive his appeal, Olson noted, and the courts' own expert as well
as a California court found Duncan to be competent.
The competency hearing is set for January 2013.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
LA judge refuses to order one-drug executions
A judge turned down a bid Monday by the Los Angeles County district attorney to
order the immediate execution of two death row prisoners by a new single-drug
injection method.
Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler said he did not have jurisdiction to
order the procedure that has never been used in California.
Executions in the state have been on hold for years while appellate courts
consider the legality of the 3-drug protocol now in place.
There are currently 725 prisoners on death rows in California, where voters
will consider a ballot initiative in November that would replace the death
penalty with life in prison without possibility of parole.
At Monday's hearing, Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley
suggested a virtual end-run around the current logjam in the 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals over the way executions are done.
Deputy District Attorney Michelle Hanisee said the 3 drugs used previously are
no longer available.
The decision by Judge Fidler came as San Mateo County District Attorney Steve
Wagstaffe asked a judge to set an execution date for Robert Fairbank, who was
sent to death row for a 1985 murder.
A judge is expected to consider Wagstaffe's request in October.
Cooley's motion involved the requested execution of 2 murderers who have been
on death row for more than 25 years.
Mitchell Sims and Tiequon Cox have exhausted all of their appeals. Cox, a gang
member, was convicted of shooting four people in 1984.
Sims was convicted of shooting a pizza delivery man in Glendale in 1985 after
killing 2 co-workers at a restaurant in Hanahan, S.C.
(source: Associated Press)
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