May 6
TEXAS----impending execution
Waco robbery-drug deal gunman set to die Tuesday
Condemned Texas inmate Carroll Parr says he's OK with capital punishment but
doesn't believe he should be on death row and face lethal injection this week.
The 35-year-old Waco drug dealer known on the streets as "Outlaw" is set for
lethal injection Tuesday evening in Huntsville for a robbery and fatal shooting
following a drug deal 10 years ago.
Parr says he believes in capital punishment but disagrees in how it's carried
out. He says he didn't fatally shoot 18-year-old Joel Dominguez outside a Waco
convenience store but won't break his word to people involved in the slaying
and identify who he says actually did the shooting.
Witnesses at his trial in 2004, including a man who survived a gunshot wound,
said Parr was the gunman.
(source: Associated Press)
MARYLAND:
Md. death penalty repeal foes start petition; Official: Life without parole is
not enough
A day after Gov. Martin O'Malley signed a bill to repeal the death penalty in
Maryland, opponents of the measure announced a petition drive to allow voters
to overturn the law in 2014.
Del. Neil Parrott, R-Washington, and Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott
Shellenberger announced the petition drive for a referendum Friday outside
Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore.
Parrott is chairman of MDPetitions.com, which led successful efforts to get 3
measures on the ballot in 2012, including 1 to legalize same-sex marriage.
With O'Malley's signature yesterday, Maryland became the 18th state to abolish
the death penalty. Supporters of the death penalty repeal said Friday they're
ready for a referendum and believe Marylanders will uphold the repeal if the
decision is brought to them.
But Parrott, Shellenberger and Sen. James Brochin, D-Baltimore County, believe
voters will vote to overturn the law and keep the death penalty. If they don't,
life without parole would be the highest form of punishment in the state.
Standing outside Camden Yards near where Baltimore Marathon runners cross the
finish line each year, Parrott said life without parole wasn't enough.
"The question we have today is, what if?" Parrott said. "What if it was the
Baltimore Marathon bombing? What if a bombing occurred right here at Camden
Yards? What if a terrorist attack happened here at the Ravens stadium. With the
repeal of the death penalty, we would not have an adequate answer to solve the
problem of what if."
In the case of the Boston bombings, the federal government is allowed to purse
the death penalty.
One of O'Malley's top legislative priorities in 2013, the repeal was touted by
supporters as a way to save money in the state. They said the death penalty was
not a deterrent and cannot be administered without racial bias. O'Malley was
joined by NAACP President Ben Jealous at the signing Thursday.
In April, MDPetitions.com said it would not petition O'Malley's gun control
plan to the ballot in 2014.
But the group will put its resources into an effort to get the death penalty
repeal measure on the ballot. Parrott said the death penalty repeal was the
only statewide measure his group would seek to overturn from the 2013 General
Assembly session.
Shellenberger said the death penalty was a deterrent, keeping correctional
officers and others safe from the "thousands" of inmates already serving life
without parole.
"What do we tell our correctional officers and their families when an
individual who's serving life without parole can commit a murder and it cannot
be avenged in any way?," Shellenberger said.
At 11 a.m., MDPetitions.com began allowing Marylanders to sign the petition
online.
To petition the measure to referendum in November 2014, opponents need to get
55,736 signatures. 1/3 of those signatures are needed by midnight May 31 to
qualify to move forward.
Parrott has already submitted petition language to the Maryland State Board of
Elections, a step required for the effort to move forward. The governor's
office did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday.
But Jane Henderson, executive director of Maryland Citizens Against State
Executions, said in a statement her group is confident the public will support
the repeal.
"Marylanders are ready to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life
without parole," Henderson said. "The death penalty system is broken beyond
repair."
Before Parrott helped create MDPetitions.com, only one referendum to overturn a
state law had made it onto the ballot in 20 years, a 1992 attempt to overturn
Maryland's abortion law. That attempt failed.
MDPetitions.com led petition drives that placed three measures passed by the
General Assembly on the 2012 ballot : legalizing same-sex marriage, in-state
tuition for some immigrants who are here illegally, and the state's
congressional redistricting plan.
All 3 measures were upheld by the voters.
(source: Capital Gazette)
FLORIDA:
Drifter found guilty in Florida Keys killing of Cape Coral man
A drifter faces the death penalty this week after being convicted of killing a
Cape Coral man in the Florida Keys in 2009.
Jonathan LeBaron, 36, was found guilty of 1st-degree murder by a 12-person jury
on Wednesday. The penalty phase of the trial, in which the jury recommends a
sentence of life in prison or the death penalty, begins Tuesday.
LeBaron beat and stabbed Richard Gardner to death on Gardner's 43-foot boat,
Flo to Me, which he kept at a marina on Stock Island, just east of Key West.
Donald Gardner, Richard Gardner's brother, said he was relieved the jury didn't
buy LeBaron's story that Kristen Whitmore, a prostitute who became Gardner's
girlfriend, killed LeBaron.
But, he said he was opposed to the death penalty before the killing and still
is.
"I can't imagine a situation where I would feel that taking someone's life
would be the right way to punish them for having taken a life," he said. "My
brother wouldn't come back even if we put Jonathan to death tomorrow in some
ghastly way."
He said his brother worked at a Budweiser brewery in New Hampshire, where the
family is from, before Florida's balmy weather drew him to the Keys. After
living there for a while - during which time he owned and sold a gift shop - he
moved to the Cape but kept a boat in the Keys for fishing, he said.
Richard Gardner left behind a wife and 2 children, 1 of whom still lives in the
Cape, he said.
According to Key West newspaper The Citizen, prosecutors alleged that Whitmore
and LeBaron schemed to steal Gardner's boat and sail to Belize but the plan
fell apart when Gardner was killed during the attempted robbery.
Whitmore testified against LeBaron in exchange for an 18-year sentence.
The 2 were apprehended in Midvale, Utah, 12 days after the killing, according
to the Florida Keys Keynoter.
(source: News-Press)
MISSISSIPPI----impending execution
Murder in Mississippi
If the authorities in Mississippi have their way tomorrow, Willie Manning will
be strapped to a gurney and injected with chemicals that will paralyze his
lungs and stop his heart. It would be nice to know if he were guilty.
Manning, who is black, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1992
murders of 2 white college students. Manning has steadfastly professed his
innocence, but prosecutors claimed that "Negroid" hairs found in a car used in
the crime were likely his.
Now federal law enforcement officials are doubting the accuracy of tests
conducted on those hairs. In a recent letter sent to the county district
attorney and Manning's lawyers, a Justice Department attorney wrote that
"testimony containing erroneous statements regarding microscopic hair
comparison analysis was used in this case." In addition, the FBI has offered to
run more sophisticated tests.
But Forest Allgood, the DA who prosecuted Manning, has opposed any DNA testing.
And, the Mississippi Supreme Court agreed with him. In a 5-4 decision last
month, the high court ruled that "conclusive, overwhelming evidence of guilt"
was presented at Manning's trial, so the tests were unnecessary.
What, exactly, was the powerful evidence that incriminated Manning? The State's
star witnesses were a jailhouse snitch who said Manning confessed to him, and a
former girlfriend who linked Manning to the murder weapon. But the snitch has
recanted his testimony, while the girlfriend failed to tell the jury that
prosecutors cut a sweet deal with her on unrelated criminal charges -- and
received nearly $18,000 in reward money after testifying against Manning.
Manning was further implicated by witnesses who said he tried to sell items
from the female victim's car. That would be troubling if they'd actually seen
him remove the items at the crime scene rather than sell them later, as fences
commonly do. More important, Manning's fingerprints were not found in the car,
and several lifts also excluded the victims.
But Mississippi lawmen have refused to run the unmatched prints through
fingerprint databases that effectively identify criminals. Equally troubling,
the authorities have opposed DNA testing of the rape kit, even though the
female victim's body was discovered with her underwear partially removed. While
the original tests of the swabs did not find semen, modern methods have found
genetic profiles where none was detected at the dawn of the DNA era.
So why does DA Allgood want Manning put to death without the testing? It's
simply a stalling tactic, Allgood told the New York Times, a guilty man's
desperate maneuver to delay his execution. "There will be something else after
that," he said. "I think there has to be an end."
Perhaps Allgood should rethink his position, having been in this situation
before. In 1992, the same year of the crime that led to Manning's death
sentence, a Mississippi man named Kennedy Brewer was charged with raping and
murdering his girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter. Brewer spent 7 years on death
row in Mississippi, only to be later freed by DNA testing. The lead prosecutor
in the case? Forest Allgood.
Allgood also wrongfully prosecuted Lavon Brooks, who was locked up for 16 years
of a life sentence for murder before being cleared by DNA. That made Allgood
responsible for 1/3 of Mississippi's DNA exonerations, which total 6 of the 306
prisoners freed nationally by the tests.
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R.) is reportedly reviewing Manning's plea to
test the hairs, rape kit and fingerprints -- evidence he has fought to have
analyzed for more than a decade. The governor is probably Manning's best chance
to see Wednesday. Maybe Bryant will keep Allgood's track record in mind when
making this life-or-death decision.
More broadly, one wonders about a prosecutor's accountability in death penalty
cases like Manning's and Brewer's. If a resident of DA Allgood's county had
unjustifiably tried to kill someone, the prosecutor would rightly charge the
perpetrator with attempted murder. Should the same standard apply to the
prosecutor himself?
Similarly, if Willie Manning is killed without testing evidence that could
prove his innocence, what should happen to Forest Allgood?
(source: David Protess.President, Chicago Innocence Project; Huffington Post)
****************************************
A Stunning Error in Mississippi
Mississippi is scheduled to execute Willie Manning on Tuesday for his 1994
conviction for 2 murders. Mr. Manning is seeking DNA testing of hair,
fingernail scrapings and other evidence connected to the crimes. His lawyers
argue that no physical evidence links him to the crimes and that DNA testing
could prove him innocent and identify another killer.
But last week, by 5-4, the Mississippi Supreme Court approved the state's
motion to proceed with the execution, having denied Mr. Manning's motion for
DNA testing last month by the same vote.
Since 1989 in the United States, there have been 306 people exonerated by DNA
evidence after they were convicted, 18 on death row. In seven previous cases,
DNA testing has exonerated men convicted and imprisoned in Mississippi. In each
case, the killer left DNA at the crime scene.
Last week, the Justice Department provided extraordinary grounds for the state
to allow DNA testing in the Manning case. In a letter to the prosecution and
defense, the department said that testimony of an FBI analyst, who was a key
prosecution witness, "exceeded the limits of the science and was, therefore,
invalid."
That analyst testified that he could match a hair found at the crime scene to
an individual with "a relatively high degree of certainty" and that the hair
fragments collected from a victim's car "came from an individual of the black
race." The Justice Department concluded that it was "error for an examiner to
testify that he can determine that the questioned hairs were from an individual
of a particular racial group."
The FBI has now offered to do the DNA testing requested by Mr. Manning, who is
black. One dissenting opinion from the Mississippi Supreme Court said, "In
asking the jury to convict Manning, an African American, of the murder of 2
white students, the prosecution seems to have placed great emphasis on the fact
that hair samples, originating from an African American" were found in the car.
The prosecution, however, did not connect the hair to Mr. Manning. Clearly, the
Justice Department???s letter makes the emphasis placed on the hair samples
deeply problematic.
Mr. Manning's lawyers went back to the Mississippi Supreme Court on Monday to
ask that the court stay his execution and set aside his convictions based on
the Justice Department's acknowledgment that the FBI analyst's testimony was
false. That new evidence is crucial and stunning. The court should stay the
execution and let the DNA testing go forward, but if it does not, then Gov.
Phil Bryant must that.
The whole case underscores the often racially discriminatory application of the
death penalty in cases where the victims are white and the defendants are
black, one of many reasons that capital punishment should be abolished.
(source: Lincoln Caplan, New York Times blog)
*********************************
Death row inmate Willie Manning seeks reprieve ahead of execution
A Mississippi death row inmate sat Monday in a holding cell at the state prison
at Parchman awaiting word on a possible reprieve from Gov. Phil Bryant or the
state Supreme Court.
Willie Jerome Manning's attorneys asked the state Supreme Court on Monday to
stop his execution and allow him to seek post-conviction DNA testing of
evidence from the investigation into the 1992 slayings of 2 college students.
Manning insists DNA testing will show him innocent.
The execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday.
The Supreme Court, in separate identical 5-4 rulings, has declined to grant
Manning time for the tests and to stop his execution. The court gave the
attorney general's office until 4 p.m. to respond to Manning's motion. Bryant
spokesman Mick Bullock said Monday that the governor had not yet reached a
decision.
Manning was handed 2 death sentences for the slayings of Jon Steckler and
Tiffany Miller, whose bodies were discovered in rural Oktibbeha County on Dec.
11, 1992. Each was shot to death and Miller's car was missing. The vehicle was
found the next morning.
Prosecutors said Manning was arrested after he tried to sell some items
belonging to the victims.
The FBI has offered to conduct the DNA testing after saying its microscopic
analysis of evidence in the case, particularly of hair samples found in
Miller's car, contained erroneous statements. Manning's attorneys have seized
on that statement as key to seeking a stay of execution.
"This motion is compelled by the extraordinary admissions by the FBI," wrote
Manning attorney Robert S. Mink in the brief.
In its statement, the FBI says its expert should have testified that he only
determined that the hair fragments exhibited traits associated with
African-Americans, not that it came from an African-American.
Mink said the statement then given at Manning's trial was false.
"The FBI's misleading exaggeration of the hair's probative value was just what
the prosecution needed ... (it) allowed the prosecutor to make the incorrect
statistical argument that the hair increased the odds that Manning was the
perpetrator of the crime.
"This was an invaluable, though incorrect, argument in a case built primarily
on circumstantial evidence," Mink said.
Defense attorneys have denied the DNA testing is an "11th hour" gambit as
described by Attorney General Jim Hood. They said Manning has been trying to
get DNA testing dating back to 2001.
Hood said the state is prepared to conduct testing any time "there is
legitimate, exculpatory evidence" but "when the defense waits until the 11th
hour to raise such claims, which could not possibly exonerate their client,
courts are loathe to be subjected to these types of dilatory defense tactics."
In its 5-4 ruling on April 25, the Supreme Court said there was "conclusive,
overwhelming evidence of guilt" presented an Oktibbeha County jury.
The Supreme Court said the jury heard from Manning's cousin and a prison
cellmate that Manning has confessed to the slayings. The court said other
witnesses testified that Manning tried to sell them items that were later shown
to have been longed to Steckler and Miller.
Manning's girlfriend testified that days before the slayings Manning had been
firing a handgun at a tree behind their house, according to court records. FBI
experts testified they matched bullets from the tree to those recovered from
the scene of the slayings.
On Friday, the Innocence Project of Mississippi and Manning's brother filed in
Oktibbeha County a lawsuit that seeks a temporary restraining order that would
prevent the destruction of evidence in the case.
Robert McDuff, a Jackson attorney who represents the Mississippi Innocence
Project in the lawsuit, said the group wants to preserve the evidence for DNA
and other testing.
"We're hoping to get this evidence tested and let the truth come out," McDuff
said Sunday. "Hopefully, the governor or the courts will stay the execution so
we can determine prior to the execution what the DNA shows. But even if they
don't, there are a lot of people who still want to see the evidence tested to
determine once and for all who is responsible for this crime."
(source: Associated Press)
COLORADO:
Procedure behind the death penalty in Colorado
Nathan Dunlap faces execution as early as August for the shooting deaths at a
Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in suburban Denver in 1993.
He was convicted and sentenced to be executed in 1996, and the U.S. Supreme
Court turned down his last guaranteed appeal in February. In April, a judge
scheduled Dunlap's execution for the week of Aug. 18, with the day to be set by
prison officials.
Colorado has executed only 1 person in the last 45 years.
With that in mind, 9NEWS Crime and Justice Reporter wanted to remind viewers of
the process a death-row inmate would go through if they were to be executed.
According to the Department of Corrections, there is no statutory timeline with
which the judge has to set a date for the execution.
The death warrant comes out of the county itself where the offender was
sentenced. The court or the judge signs the warrant and then it is served to
the Department of Corrections' executive director who picks the date of the
execution.
The DOC needs a warrant from the judge to pick a date and a time. Chief Judge
William Sylvester signed the death warrant for Nathan Dunlap on May 1.
The executive director signs the record book after the execution that has all
the names and dates of the people executed in Colorado.
Hickenlooper hasn't said how he would respond to a request for clemency. He met
Friday and Saturday with victims' family members and others to hear their
views.
(source: KUSA - TV News)
*****************
Governor asked to spare life of convicted killer
A man convicted of ambushing and killing 4 employees at a Colorado pizza
restaurant in 1993 had undiagnosed bipolar disorder at the time and should not
be executed, his lawyers argued Monday.
Nathan Dunlap's attorneys made the claim in a formal request to Gov. John
Hickenlooper for clemency, also saying Dunlap is remorseful and that he endured
severe physical and sexual abuse as a child.
Dunlap, 38, was convicted and sentenced to die in 1996 for the shooting deaths
of four workers who were cleaning a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in the Denver
suburb of Aurora after business hours. Three of the victims were teenagers.
Dunlap, then 19, had recently lost a job at the eatery.
The U.S. Supreme Court turned down Dunlap's last guaranteed appeal in February.
This month, a judge scheduled Dunlap's execution for the week of Aug. 18, with
the day to be set by the head of the Colorado Department of Corrections.
Hickenlooper hasn't said how he would respond to a request for clemency. He met
Friday and Saturday with victims' family members, prosecutors and others to
hear their views.
Hickenlooper appeared to be torn on the issue, said Bob Crowell, father of one
of the victims, who met with the governor Friday.
"We let him know that we are certainly for the death penalty being carried
out," Crowell said Monday. His 19-year-old daughter, Sylvia, was among the 4
killed.
Crowell estimated that 2 dozen family members of victims were present, and that
3/4 of them favored execution.
A spokeswoman for the district attorney said Monday prosecutors in the case
also met with Hickenlooper on Friday, but she did not know what they discussed.
The clemency petition acknowledges that Dunlap "committed his terrible crime"
but says he was in the first full manic episode he experienced as a result of
bipolar disorder.
The petition says three jurors who convicted Dunlap and sentenced him to die
now say they might have voted for life in prison instead had they known he had
bipolar disorder. The jurors are not identified by name.
Doctors from the state mental hospital judged that Dunlap was not mentally ill
before his 1996 trial but did note some "psychotic sounding" behavior, the
petition says. Dunlap's trial attorneys did not investigate his mental health
further, the petition says.
The state prison system began treating Dunlap for bipolar disorder in 2006, the
petition says. It says Dunlap had frequent episodes of bizarre behavior and
discipline problems, but those have ceased since the treatment began.
The petition includes an apology from Dunlap that reads in part, "I'm sorry for
the pain and suffering I've caused the victims' families and friends. ... I'm
sorry for the loss of life."
The petition includes letters of support for clemency from 15 retired judges,
eight former prosecutors, numerous clergy, civil rights and mental health
advocates and Dunlap's sister, Adinea M. Dunlap-Ashlock.
Dunlap-Ashlock's letter says she and her brother grew up in a dysfunctional
family but offers no details. The petition states that Nathan Dunlap's mother
touched him inappropriately and that his mother would experience manic episodes
that terrorized her children.
(source: Denver Post)
USA:
Damien Echols on the death penalty: "You can't teach people that killing is
wrong by killing someone"
Coming up this evening at 9, "Piers Morgan Live" welcomes back Damien Echols to
the program. Echols, a central figure in the infamous "West Memphis 3" case
which polarized a community, was imprisoned and on death row for more than 18
years, before being released in August 2011.
During the interview, Echols shares his thoughts on the issue of the death
penalty in light of the Boston bombing investigation. Because Boston bombing
suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is charged under federal law, under this
jurisdiction, the Justice Department will decide whether to actually seek the
death penalty for Tsarnaev.
"That's always going to be our first response," said Echols about issuing the
death penalty. "We want that as human beings, we want that sense of closure, we
want that sense of vengeance. But I think you have to rise above of what your
emotions tell you and start thinking about it from a more logical point of
view."
"You can't teach people that killing is wrong by killing someone. It's just -
it's not logical."
(source: CNN)
ARIZONA:
Jodi Arias Jury Mulls Murder Charge, Which Could Carry Death Sentence
Arizona jurors who begin their 1st full day of deliberations in the Jodi Arias
murder trial Monday will consider that the most serious charge facing Arias
could carry the death penalty.
The jurors also have the option of convicting Arias of 2nd degree murder,
manslaughter or acquitting her.
Prosecutor Juan Martinez repeatedly asked the jury during his closing
statements Thursday and Friday to convict Arias of 1st degree murder, arguing
that the killing was premeditated.
"The state is asking that you return a verdict of guilty, a verdict of first
degree murder, not just premeditated murder, but also felony murder, for no
other reason than it's your duty, and the facts and the law support it,"
Martinez said at the end of his statement Friday.
Arias had admitted to killing her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in June 2008,
but claims it was in self-defense after Alexander flew into a violent rage
during an argument. The defense has argued that Alexander had become
increasingly abusive sexually, physically and emotionally.
Her attorney, Kirk Nurmi, argued last week that Arias may have "snapped," when
she was fighting off Alexander, resulting in the gruesome killing that included
a gunshot wound to the head, 27 stab wounds, and a slit throat.
He asked the jury to consider manslaughter instead of the murder charges if
they were inclined to find Arias guilty of anything.
If Arias is convicted of 2nd degree murder or manslaughter, she will face up to
22 years in prison and will be sentenced by Judge Sherry Stephens in 30 to 60
days.
But if the jury agrees with Martinez and rules that Arias is guilty of
1st-degree murder, the four month trial will continue in the Maricopa County
courthouse, as the prosecution and defense begin arguing over aggravating and
mitigating factors that could lead to a death sentence.
In that hearing, Martinez will need to prove an aggravating factor -- that the
killing was cruel, heinous, or depraved -- in order to reach the death penalty
phase of the case.
The same 12 jurors who are deciding Arias' guilty this week will then rule on
whether an aggravating factor exists. If it does, the death penalty hearing
will begin in front of the same jury.
During the death penalty phase, the defense and prosecution will both give
opening statements, and then the jury will hear victim impact statements,
typically given by the family members of the individual killed.
Alexander's siblings have been seated in the front row of court each day of the
trial since it began.
Both sides can then present witnesses, and then Arias will have an opportunity
to speak directly to the jury and give her allocution statement. After closing
arguments, the same 12 jurors will deliberate about whether to give Arias the
death penalty.
If the jury sentences Arias to death, she will be the 3rd woman on Arizona's
death row.
(source: ABC News Radio)
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