Sept. 16
TEXAS:
Plastic surgeon accused of hiring hitman could face death penalty
Thomas Michael Dixon, a successful Amarillo plastic surgeon and businessman,
now waits alone for the justice system to hone in on his accused role in the
death of a popular Lubbock physician 14 months ago.
Dixon is accused of paying David Neal Shepard about $9,000 to kill Joseph
Sonnier III in July 2012 out of jealousy that his former girlfriend was dating
the Lubbock pathologist.
Matt Powell, Lubbock County's criminal district attorney, has filed notice his
office intends to seek the death penalty, should Dixon go to trial.
No trial date has been set, however, and prosecutors have 3 murder trials - 1 a
death penalty case - tentatively scheduled between now and year's end in
Lubbock County District Courts.
A pretrial conference in the case is tentatively set for Oct. 4.
Shepard is scheduled to be sentenced today after pleading guilty Aug. 29 to
fatally shooting and stabbing Sonnier in the doctor's Lubbock home on July 10,
2012.
Dixon faces 2 counts of capital murder - participating in a murder for hire and
a murder that occurred during the commission of another felony, burglary of a
habitation. He has been in jail the last 14 months with bail set at $10
million.
A Lubbock police affidavit used to obtain arrest warrants for Dixon and Shepard
states the 2 Amarillo men were business associates, but offers no other
details.
Shepard's roommate, whose information apparently gave detectives the last
pieces of the puzzle, said Shepard told him Dixon gave him the gun he used to
shoot Shepard.
In addition, the roommate said, Shepard tried to commit suicide a couple of
days after the murder by slashing his wrists.
Dixon sewed up Shepard's wound, however, and told him to get away from the area
for a while.
Earlier this year, Dixon's attorneys filed a request asking prosecutors to
speed up the discovery process - the portion of the pre-trial period in which
the defense is given access to the prosecution's evidence and witness
statements - after police divers searched a lake in Amarillo and retrieved what
was thought to be evidence in the case.
(source: Avalanche-Journal)
CONNECTICUT:
Death penalty phase begins in Conn. triple murder
Jury selection is beginning in the death penalty trial of a Connecticut man who
fatally shot 2 adults and a 9-year-old girl in 2006.
The penalty phase of 48-year-old Richard Roszkowski's trial is set to start
Monday in state Superior Court in Bridgeport.
Roszkowski was convicted and sentenced to death in 2009. A judge overturned the
death sentence because of an error during jury instructions and ordered a new
penalty phase.
Roszkowski killed 39-year-old ex-girlfriend Holly Flannery, her 9-year-old
daughter Kylie and 38-year-old Thomas Gaudet in Bridgeport. Authorities say
Roszkowski wrongly believed Flannery was having an affair with Gaudet.
Roszkowski's lawyers objected to a new penalty phase. The state Supreme Court
is deciding whether the state's repeal of the death penalty last year for
future murders only is constitutional.
(source: Associated Press)
GEORGIA:
Georgia Death Penalty
An Atlanta-based advocacy group, All About Developmental Disabilities, is
launching a campaign aimed at changing part of Georgia's death penalty law.
The group says Georgia requires a person to prove intellectual disability
beyond a reasonable doubt to avoid a death sentence. The group says Georgia is
the only state that requires proof at that level. Most states that impose the
death penalty have a lower threshold for defendants to prove they are mentally
disabled, and some states don't set standards at all.
All About Developmental Disabilities says it plans to distribute thousands of
buttons, hold informal gatherings with legislators, and use social media in a
campaign that will run through Oct. 15.
The organization provides support services, advocacy and training to families
living with developmental disabilities.
(source: Associated Press)
*****************
Jury qualification to begin in small town massacre case
Prosecutors and defense attorneys for Guy Heinze Jr. are scheduled to start
questioning prospective jurors Monday.
Attorneys could take a full month to pick a jury to hear the death penalty
trial of a coastal Georgia man charged with killing his father and 7 others in
a mobile home 4 years ago.
Prospective jurors will be questioned about their opinions on the death penalty
and their exposure to pretrial media coverage of the slayings.
Final jury selection and the murder trial itself won't take place until Oct.
15.
Heinze has pleaded not guilty in the August 2009 slayings at the Brunswick
mobile home he shared with the victims.
(source: actionnewsjax.com)
OKLAHOMA:
Speeding up capital appeals
The U.S. capital appeals process is a broken and costly system that keeps both
the families of murdered victims and the convicted waiting too long for
justice.
Last week, Oklahoma executed its 4th inmate this year.
Anthony Rozelle Banks died by lethal injection for the 1979 murder of
25-year-old Sun I. "Kim" Travis, who was abducted from her apartment near the
University of Tulsa and murdered by Banks.
The case later became one of the first in Tulsa County to use DNA evidence,
which linked Banks, already in prison serving time for another murder, to the
crime.
As he lay on a gurney awaiting lethal injection, even Banks admitted his
execution was "justified."
On this one issue, we agree with Banks.
Yet it took him 14 years to get those words out - the time it took for his
conviction to wend its way through the state and federal appeals process.
The length of time is not atypical.
The lengthy period it takes to process capital appeals is diluting the
deterrent effect of having the death penalty in the first place - look at the
number of people sent to death row - and they keep arriving.
The costs of prosecuting capital cases - far more expensive than noncapital
murder cases, along with the cost of appeals, have become staggering.
The difference between a death-penalty case versus a life-without-parole case
can be as much as a half million dollars.
Since 2007, 6 states, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New York, New Jersey and
New Mexico have abolished their death penalty statutes.
Citizens in those states did so for economic and ethical reasons.
Many argue that the death penalty is unfairly and arbitrarily applied and
plagued by racial and economic disparities.
Wealthy people, charged with capital murder, are rarely executed.
There also is concern that the rate of error in convictions is too high.
But death penalty repeal efforts have not gained traction in Oklahoma and we
don't expect they will any time soon.
The state executes more inmates per capita than any other state with the death
penalty, and most Oklahomans are comfortable with that.
Many Oklahomans must be frustrated, if not enraged, about the cost of appeals
as well as time it takes for victims' families to see justice done.
In a large number of those cases, taxpayers are funding the costs of the
defense, the prosecution, the courts and the care and feeding of the inmate
throughout the process.
An inmate sitting in a cell awaiting court appeals isn't likely to commit more
heinous crimes against innocent members of the public.
But logic says that the longer it takes for punishment to take place, the less
likely it is to have a deterrent effect.
In 1996, Congress passed a law limiting the number of habeas appeals inmates
can pursue, yet appeals still take years. Death penalty issues are complex and
full of emotional and ethical issues.
Inmates are entitled to justice - no one wants an innocent person executed -
but victims' families and society at large also deserve justice.
How long must family members watch the same issues argued and reargued, as the
process becomes less and less about the crime and guilt and more and more about
technicalities?
These issues need attention in order to have a system with credibility, a
punishment that is a deterrent and a system where justice is served in a timely
and fair fashion.
In the end, there must be some kind of balance, which is what the current
system is sorely lacking.
(source: Editorial, Tulsa World)
NEVADA:
Trial opens in sex case against killings suspect
Opening statements are underway in the Las Vegas sex assault and robbery trial
of a self-described pimp who faces triple murder charges in a separate death
penalty case stemming from a shooting and fiery crash on the Strip in February.
A jury was sworn Thursday for 27-year-old Ammar Harris' trial in Clark County
District Court.
Harris has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from a woman's claim that he
forced her into sex acts and stole $600 from her in 2010.
Harris is due for trial in December on the murder and firearm charges in the
Strip carnage case.
Charges in the sex case had been dropped when the alleged victim moved to
Texas. But the case was resurrected when the woman returned to Las Vegas and
testified before a grand jury in the killings case.
(source: Associated Press)
WASHINGTON:
Washington state's racist death penalty; Washington state's justice system
provides less justice and more penalty to those who aren't as lily-white as its
juries.
There have been a slew of reminiscences and reflections on race in America in
the last month, occasioned by the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.
Some have been nostalgic and most are well-meaning, but, only a few have
focused on those arenas of American life in which little if any progress has
occurred over the past 50 years. Of these, none is more glaring or critical in
importance than what we have come to loftily refer to as the criminal justice
system.
The criminal justice process is the proverbial canary in the racial coal-mine
that is American society. Take a measure of how well or how poorly criminal
justice is administered - how fairly and equitably it distributes its sanctions
and punishments - and one has a pretty accurate picture of how far the scales
of justice are either in or out of balance in the nation.
Because it is the ultimate sanction that can be imposed, the application of the
death penalty, while an admittedly grim yardstick, is nevertheless one of the
most consistent measures of justice and equality in America. Precisely because
it focuses attention on individuals who are officially judged to be the least
desirable members of our society, any flaws in the process of condemning them
to death are dismissed far too easily. In the final analysis, for many people,
they get what they deserve ??? no matter how questionable the process of
getting them to the execution chamber might be.
Accordingly, many Americans are disinclined to ask questions about capital
punishment - about how and when it is applied, to whom and under what
circumstances. These very questions loom large in a current Washington death
penalty case in our state resting in the final stages of litigation.
Because the death penalty, when it is invoked, inevitably involves unimaginably
despicable stories, it's easy to become caught up in the individual horror of a
given case and to avoid looking at the process by which guilt is determined and
the sentence of death is imposed. This case is no exception. It embodies the
classical racial stereotype of a heinous crime and its aftermath: a 34-year-old
black man charged with the rape and murder of a 12-year-old white girl,
convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury.
Some will read this and find nothing amiss. Others, however, will pause -
precisely because of the stereotyped circumstances involved - and ask whether
the process by which the condemned man is scheduled to be executed is one that
is fair and equitable. Is it a process by which anyone found guilty of a
comparable crime under similar circumstances would likely receive the same
punishment?
If this question is asked in our fair state, the death penalty becomes a jungle
of contradictions. Prosecutors in Washington state often seek - or do not seek
- the death penalty for totally inexplicable and inconsistent reasons. The
courts in our state are renowned for reversing imposed death sentences. Over
1/2 of those imposed since capital punishment was reinstated in Washington in
1981 have been reversed. The racial disparities on Washington's death row,
however, remain one of its most glaring features.
Since 1981, the majority of those sentenced to death have been white, but only
two of those white sentencees have been executed. The rest have had their death
sentences vacated and a lesser sentence imposed or their cases ordered to be
retried.
This leaves us with the current death row populace. There are 8 men awaiting
execution in Walla Walla. 4 are black. All 4 were sentenced to death by
all-white juries. In other words, 1/2 of Washington's death row populace is
black in a state where black residents are less than 4 % of the total
population.
Faced with similar contradictions and inconsistencies elsewhere, state
legislatures around the nation are moving to abolish capital punishment. Where
legislatures lack the backbone to do so, several courageous governors -
including that of our neighbor to the south - have simply ordered the practice
to be suspended. It???s a moral plate up to which many of us hope our governor
will step.
(source: Guest Opinion, Herbert Locke----Crosscut.com)
USA:
Globe poll favors life term for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; Boston residents stick to
beliefs
By a wide margin, Boston residents favor life without parole instead of the
death penalty for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev if he is
convicted of the attack, a Boston Globe poll found.
The poll, conducted Sept. 5 through Sept. 12, showed that 57 % of respondents
support a life sentence for Tsarnaev, compared with 33 % who favor the death
penalty. Although capital punishment is barred in Massachusetts, Tsarnaev has
been indicted on federal charges, including using weapons of mass destruction,
that could bring the death penalty.
Federal investigators say that Tsarnaev, 20, and his brother, Tamerlan,
detonated 2 pressure cookers packed with explosives near the finish line of the
Marathon on April 15. 3 people were killed and more than 260 were injured, many
seriously. Tamerlan died April 19 in a shootout with police in Watertown.
The random telephone poll was conducted by the University of New Hampshire
Survey Center for the Globe and included responses from 704 adults in Boston.
The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 % points.
"I'm a strong opponent of the death penalty because I feel it serves no
purpose. It's not a deterrent," said Lawrence Watson, a Dorchester resident.
By a wide margin, Boston residents favor life without parole instead of the
death penalty for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev if he is
convicted of the attack, a Boston Globe poll found.
The poll, conducted Sept. 5 through Sept. 12, showed that 57 % of respondents
support a life sentence for Tsarnaev, compared with 33 % who favor the death
penalty. Although capital punishment is barred in Massachusetts, Tsarnaev has
been indicted on federal charges, including using weapons of mass destruction,
that could bring the death penalty.
Federal investigators say that Tsarnaev, 20, and his brother, Tamerlan,
detonated two pressure cookers packed with explosives near the finish line of
the Marathon on April 15. 3 people were killed and more than 260 were injured,
many seriously. Tamerlan died April 19 in a shootout with police in Watertown.
The random telephone poll was conducted by the University of New Hampshire
Survey Center for the Globe and included responses from 704 adults in Boston.
The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 % points.
US Attorney General Eric Holder will decide whether to seek the death penalty
in the case.
Preference for life without parole extended across political leanings, although
Democrats overwhelmingly supported that option, 61 to 28 %, while Republicans
narrowly backed a life sentence, 49 to 46 %.
Life without parole was endorsed by men and women, across all education levels,
and among white, black, and Hispanic respondents.
The results "don't surprise me, frankly," said Andrew Smith, director of the
UNH Survey Center. "Massachusetts is a state that has opposed the death penalty
for a long time. There's a long history there. People are not going to change
their long-held positions."
Although a life sentence without parole received support in nearly all
demographic categories, the penalty had more support from women than men - 64 %
and 50 % respectively - and from older and more affluent Bostonians.
Lawmakers in Massachusetts, which has not executed anyone since 1947, have
repeatedly defeated efforts to reinstate the death penalty. In 1997, however,
an attempt to reestablish capital punishment failed by a single vote in the
emotional aftermath of the abduction and murder of Jeffrey Curley, a
10-year-old from Cambridge.
Still, some respondents favor the death penalty in the Marathon bombing case
because of the indiscriminate violence that was unleashed.
"A lot of people were hurt, and a lot of families were affected," said Alicia
Jno-Baptiste, 36, of Mattapan, who supports the death penalty for Tsarnaev if
convicted. "They intended to kill thousands of people."
Life without parole is insufficient, she said, because "you still get to live.
You're still alive. You can still be happy," Jno-Baptiste said. "The people
they were trying to kill, they won't be able to do that stuff. He knows what he
intended to do, and I think he could live with that in jail and be pretty OK."
In other survey questions, Bostonians said by 53 to 37 % that the US government
can do more to prevent attacks such as the Marathon bombing. However,
respondents told pollsters, by 43 to 36 %, that they believed US intelligence
agencies did not have information about the Tsarnaev brothers that could have
prevented the bombings.
In the wake of the attack, Smith said, "a lot of the story was how much did the
feds know and could they have been more helpful in stopping the bombs. Only 1/3
of the people really believe that. I think there's a recognition among a lot of
people that these are unusual events and they are difficult to predict."
In May, Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis testified in Washington
before the House Homeland Security Committee that federal agents did not tell
local officials that they had investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev until after the
FBI identified his body. Tamerlan reportedly met with Muslim insurgents in 2012
in the restive Dagestan region of southern Russia.
"We were not aware of the 2 brothers. We were not aware of their activities,"
Davis testified. "We would have liked to have known."
Boston Democrats, by 47 to 31 %, said that federal intelligence agencies could
not have stopped the bombing plot. Independents and Republicans were more open
to the possibility that the blasts could have been prevented.
Independents, by 49 to 32 %, said the attack could have been stopped.
Republicans narrowly supported that premise, 40 to 38 %.
(source: Boston Globe)
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