Dec. 11
PENNSYLVANIA----2 execution dates set (not serious)
Governor Corbett Signs Execution Warrants of 2 Men Convicted of Murder
Governor Tom Corbett today signed execution warrants for 2 men, 1 convicted of
killing a night watchman during a robbery in Jefferson County, and the other
convicted of killing 2 women, 1 - a witness to another homicide in
Philadelphia.
Robert Gene Rega was convicted in Jefferson County Court of 1st-degree murder
for the execution-style shooting of night watchman, 50-year-old Christopher
Lauth, during a robbery on the evening of Dec. 21, 2000.
Laquaille Bryant was convicted in Philadelphia County Court of 2 counts of
1st-degree murder for the shooting deaths of Chante Wright and Octavia Green in
the early morning hours of Jan. 19, 2008.
Both men are incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Greene.
Rega's execution has been scheduled for Jan. 28, 2014. Bryant's execution date
has been scheduled for Jan. 29, 2014.
The execution warrants signed today for Rega and Bryant were Governor Corbett's
28th and 29th warrants signed since taking office.
Executions in Pennsylvania are carried out by lethal injection. For more
information, visit the Department of Corrections online at www.cor.state.pa.us
and select "Death Penalty" from the left-side navigation bar.
Case Background:
Rega, now 47, was sentenced to death in June 2002 in Jefferson County Court.
Motivated by a lack of money to buy Christmas presents for his children, Rega
recruited several friends to go to a local motel and hold the night watchman
hostage, and then forced the owner to give them money from the ATM and safe.
The robbers went to the motel and confronted the night watchman, but the owner
could not be found. Changing their plans, Rega stayed with the watchman as his
companions loaded the safe into their car.
Once he was alone with the watchman, Rega shot and killed Lauth. A
pathologist's report indicated Lauth was on his knees with his arms raised when
he was shot 4 times, including the back and head.
Bryant, now 32, was sentenced to death twice in May 2010 in the Court of Common
Pleas, Criminal Division of Philadelphia County.
Bryant pled guilty to 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the shooting deaths of
Chante Wright and Octavia Green in the early morning of Jan. 19, 2008.
Wright had been a witness in an unrelated Philadelphia homicide that was
scheduled to go to trial in May 2008. She had been living in Florida through
the witness protection program, but left the program and returned to
Philadelphia on January 18, 2008 to visit her ailing great-grandmother.
On the day she returned, Wright repeatedly contacted Bryant. Wright and a
friend, Octavia Green, picked Bryant up in their rental car and drove around
the city. Around 2 a.m. on Jan. 19, 2008, Bryant - who was sitting in the rear
seat of the car - pulled out a gun and shot each woman 3 times, killing both.
Bryant later told a friend he believed he was going to be paid for killing
Wright for her role as a witness in the other homicide.
(source: Bradford Today)
**************
Pa. Senate confirms Jennifer Storm as state's victim advocate
Jennifer Storm, former executive director of the Dauphin County Victim /
Witness Assistance Program, was confirmed Tuesday as the state's new victim
advocate. Storm's confirmation cruised through the Pennsylvania state Senate on
a 50-0 vote.
The Office of the Victim Advocate was created in 1995 to represent the rights
and interests of crime victims before the Board of Probation and Parole and the
Department of Corrections.
Specifically, it is charged with providing notice to crime victims of the
potential for release of their offenders; and of their opportunity to offer
testimony in any parole or pardons proceedings, or to weigh on release plans.
It runs the confidential address program for victims of domestic violence, and
if a crime victim wants to engage an offender in a post-conviction dialogue,
the office also assists with that process.
In death penalty cases, it leads preparation for a victim who chooses to
witness an execution.
Storm, a 38-year-old Camp Hill resident, was nominated to the $113,272-a-year
position by Gov. Tom Corbett last month. She replaces Carol Lavery, whose
6-year term had expired.
Storm leaves Dauphin County after a 10-year tenure in which she was credited
with a number of program advances, including working with police to deliver
front-line services to crime victims or witnesses in police stations and at
crime scenes.
(source: Pennlive.com)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Reidsville man faces death penalty in 2007 homicide
David Nathaniel Allen will face the death penalty in Caswell County, N.C.,
after being charged with 1st-degree murder in a 2007 homicide.
Allen, 27, of Reidsville, was arrested in November and charged with 1st-degree
murder in the beating death of Edward Bruce Jones, 84, of Pelham. Jones' body
was discovered by family members after returning from out of town, said Chief
Caswell County Assistant District Attorney LuAnn Martin.
Autopsy results later revealed that he died from blunt force trauma to his
upper torso.
Martin said signs in the home indicated that Jones lived for a brief period of
time after he was attacked, and there was blood everywhere in the home. A
witness recently came forward and told police Allen confessed to the crime and
said his intent was to rob Jones.
Martin said a cellphone and cash were missing from Jones' home.
Prior to his death, Jones wrote a letter to the Caswell County Sheriff's Office
and said he thought Allen had stolen some things from him, Martin said. He said
in the letter that he didn't want to wrongfully accuse anyone, but Allen had
done some work for him and knew Jones kept large sums of cash in his home.
*****************
Death penalty sought for parents----Pair facing multiple charges in starvation
of 11-year-old
Dominique and Willie Lunsford Jr., are charged in the death of their daughter
and a Caswell County Superior Court judge decided Tuesday the state had enough
evidence to pursue the death penalty.
Dominique Lunsford was charged with 1st-degree murder, 3 counts of intentional
child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury, 1st-degree sexual offense and
indecent liberties with a child.
Her husband, Willie Lunsford Jr., has been charged with 1st-degree murder, 3
counts of intentional child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury, injury to
personal property, indecent liberties with a child and 1st-degree sexual
offense.
The Lunsfords are accused of killing their 11-year-old daughter, Danielle, by
starving her over a period of time. Danielle Lunsford was 8 when she was taken
to Danville Regional Medical Center on Oct. 2, 2010. When she arrived, the
little girl was in cardiac arrest, unresponsive and severely malnourished.
Chief Caswell County Assistant District Attorney LuAnn Martin said in court
Tuesday the Lunsfords home schooled all of the children and kept them away from
neighbors and relatives. Martin said the Lunsfords also moved frequently.
When the Lunsfords brought Danielle Lunsford to DRMC in 2010, she weighed only
35 pounds, Martin said. She was transported from DRMC to other facilities and
remained unresponsive until her death on Sept. 25 - after being on life support
for nearly 3 years.
While Danielle Lunsford was on life support, Martin said her weight increased,
which indicated there was no physical illness keeping the little girl from
gaining weight.
At Dominique Lunsford's bond hearing in October, her defense attorney, Theresa
Pressley, said the other children in the home tried to get Danielle to eat, but
the attempts were unsuccessful.
Danielle Lunsford's brother told police he had witnessed brutal beatings and
sexual abuse. All of the other children in the home had beds, Martin said,
except for Danielle who slept in the floor between her sisters' beds.
Prior to Danielle's death - but after she was hospitalized in 2010 - Dominique
Lunsford wrote and published a book about a girl who was raped by her father.
After the main character was raped, she began sleeping in the floor because her
bed is where the rape occurred.
Martin said the similarities between the book and the state's case are
chilling.
The Lunsfords will appear in Caswell County Superior Court on Jan. 14. No trial
date has been set yet.
(source for both: Danville Register & Bee)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
Hearing soon to ask to exonerate executed SC teen
A hearing that supporters say could exonerate a 14-year-old boy executed in
1944 for the killings of 2 girls will likely take place in the next month, a
prosecutor said Tuesday.
Solicitor Ernest A. "Chip" Finney III came to a rally by civil rights groups
who want to keep pressure on officials to clear George Stinney of all charges
in the deaths of 2 girls in Clarendon County.
Finney told the crowd he has no evidence to argue against a new trial for
Stinney. The trial has been requested by a law firm working on behalf of
Stinney's supporters. If a judge agrees, Finney said his office will have to
review whatever evidence they can find in the 69-year-old case.
It may not be much. The confession authorities used at the time has
disappeared. Supporters have suggested it was coerced through threats or an
offer of ice cream. Any transcript or other information from the trial is gone.
All that is left at the Clarendon County courthouse is a few pages of cryptic,
hand-written notes, according to the motion seeking a new trial.
Finney said South Carolina has never seen a case like this.
"I have to operate my office by the rules and regulations of the court system,
even though I might have a heart that says this young man was not treated
fairly and I want to give him a second chance," Finney said.
The rally was organized by George Frierson, a local school board member who
grew up in Stinney's hometown hearing stories about the case. He decided 6
years ago to start studying it and pushing for exoneration.
He carried with him a 2-inch thick binder full of stories, autopsy results,
pictures and other evidence.
"I don't see anything that is right. That's why we are demanding justice,"
Frierson said from the front of the sanctuary at Ebenezer Missionary Baptist
Church in Manning, where 60 years ago groups gathered to discuss their plans
for the case that would eventually become Brown v. Board of Education.
Frierson said he isn't happy that Stinney's exoneration may come down to a
single judge elected by the state Legislature. He will begrudgingly seek a
pardon if the judge rules against a new trial.
"The word pardon is to be forgiven for what you have done. He didn't do
anything," Frierson said.
At 14, Stinney was the youngest person executed in this country in the past 100
years, according to statistics gathered by the Death Penalty Information
Center. The black teenager was executed just 84 days after the two white girls
were killed in the tiny mill town of Alcolu, according to newspaper accounts.
The electrodes from the electric chair were too small to fit on his leg,
according to the articles.
The request for a new trial points out that at 95 pounds, Stinney likely
couldn't have killed the girls, ages 11 and 7, and dragged them to a ditch
where they were found, dead from being beaten in the head, likely with a
railroad spike.
The girls were headed to the poor side of Alcolu to pick flowers that day, and
deputies received a tip Stinney had been seen talking to them.
Authorities never spoke to Stinney's family. His sister would say later that
she was with them the whole time. She said the girls asked her brother where to
find flowers and Stinney told them he didn't know and walked away.
The rally started on the steps of the Clarendon County Courthouse, where
Stinney was the only black face among the hundreds of people in the courtroom
when he was tried in 1944. His family never saw him after his arrest.
Members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People were there, along with about
a dozen relatives of Stinney and a ninth-grade class from Kingstree High
School.
Graduation Coordinator Towanda Tisdale said she picked those students because
they are Stinney's age. The U.S. has since outlawed executing anyone under 18.
(source: Associated Press)
FLORIDA:
Murderer's relatives recount childhood of abuse in attempt to spare him death
row
Tara Jones hates crowds, airports and flying but this week travelled from
Okinawa, Japan, where her husband is stationed, to be at the Palm Beach County
Courthouse on Tuesday to try to spare her cousin from death row.
"I love my cousin and I'm here to support him," Jones said of Bruce Strachan,
who faces the death penalty for the 2009 1st-degree murders of his ex-wife and
2 others in Lake Worth.
Like nearly a dozen family members, Jones told the 12 jurors about the poverty,
violence and drug use that permeated the childhood she and Strachan shared.
Their mothers, who were sisters, were both crack addicts, Jones said. More
interested in scoring their next drug deal than raising their children, they
often left Strachan, his two siblings and Jones and her brother to fend for
themselves.
"We would go a while with no lights and no water," Jones, 32, testified,
stopping often to hold back tears. "We would go to the neighbors' house for
showers and use a water hose to flush the toilet."
They all learned at a young age to steal, she said. When their mothers left the
cupboards bare, they stole food. They also accompanied their mothers on
shoplifting sprees to help the women get merchandise they would sell to buy
more drugs.
Strachan's attorneys hope the testimony convinces jurors that the 30-year-old
should not be sentenced to die for shooting his 29-year-old ex-wife, Tamika
Murphy, and 24-year-olds Ronald Wright and Debbie Sears. The same jurors last
month convicted Strachan of the 3 murders.
The testimony designed to elicit sympathy for Strachan came a day after family
of the murder victims told jurors about the devastation Strachan caused when he
killed their loved ones with an AK47-style assault rifle.
Strachan, who spent much of his life in jails and juvenile detention centers,
isn't the only family member who has had run ins with authorities. His brother,
Dennis Strachan, 31, testified that he has served 2 stints in prison. His
sister, Dorothy Strachan, 28, who said she watched her brother take 22 Ecstacy
pills the night before the murders, said she has struggled.
Timothy Alexander, 30, who is Jones' brother, testified with his arms and legs
shackled. He is serving a life sentence for a 2008 home invasion robbery.
He also talked about the violence that permeated their young lives. Beatings
with extension cords were typical. His mother and Strachan's often got into
fights and police were called. Gifts were rare and rarely permanent.
"Like sometimes if we were fortunate and we got something for Christmas, (our
mothers) would steal it and go sell it," he said. "I think that hurt more than
just getting nothing."
Testimony is scheduled to wrap up Thursday. The jury will be asked to recommend
whether Strachan should be sentenced to life in prison or death by lethal
injection. Circuit Judge Karen Miller can override the recommendation, but
Florida judges rarely override a life recommendation because the state Supreme
Court has imposed a rigorous legal standard requiring that the judge give
"great weight" to the jury's recommendations and prohibiting override unless
the facts in favor of a death sentence are "so clear and convincing that
virtually no reasonable person could differ." The standard is so rigorous that
no Florida judge has imposed death through override since 1999.
If sentenced to death, Strachan would be the 1st in the county since 2001. That
sentence was later reduced to life.
(source: Palm Beach Post)
******************
Is Executing A Man With A Brain Disorder "Timely Justice"?
As the state legislature of Florida debated the Timely Justice Act - a law
designed to speed of executions in the Sunshine State - bill sponsor Matt Gaetz
pointed to the case of Frank Walls, quipping that:
If the Timely Justice Act becomes law, Mr. Walls is going to have to start
thinking about what his last meal is going to be.
The Timely Justice Act has become law, and Frank Walls, who was sentenced to
death for the murder of Ann Peterson (and life for the murder of Edward Alger)
is under consideration for clemency. If clemency is denied, then he indeed will
be eligible for an execution date.
Frank Walls was convicted of heinous crimes. But, State Representative Gaetz's
disturbing enthusiasm for his execution notwithstanding, Frank Walls should be
granted clemency. He is a remorseful prisoner with brain disorders that have
left him functioning at the level of a 12-year-old.
At the age of 12, Frank Walls contracted viral meningoencephalitis, an
inflammation of the brain that can result in psychiatric and developmental
problems. Within a year, he was placed in the "Emotionally Handicapped Program"
at school. At 16, he was diagnosed with organic brain dysfunction, with a
tendency towards "psychosis" and "hallucinations," "erratic mood swings he
doesn't recall," paranoid tendencies and poor impulse control. By 1985, two
years before the murder that would send him to death row, a child psychiatrist
had assessed him as suffering from organic brain dysfunction and bipolar
disorder.
In 2002, a psychiatric review of his case concluded that:
[D]ue to a combination of brain dysfunction and manic tendencies caused in part
by a viral meningoenchephalitis at the age of 12, Frank Walls was very
vulnerable to committing violence as he became increasingly unable to handle
adult responsibilities and demands.
Will Frank Walls' youth at the time of the crimes, his mental illness, and his
subsequent remorse, be taken into consideration?
Florida's clemency process is highly secretive and there have been no death
sentence commutations in 30 years. In 2006, the ABA wrote that:
Due to the confidentiality surrounding the clemency process, it is impossible
to determine the extent to which inappropriate political considerations impact
the Florida clemency process.
Clemency determinations are made by the (elected) Governor and his cabinet, 3
members of which are also elected. The passage of the Timely Justice Act with
its accompanying vocal exhortations in favor of more state killing has injected
yet another dose of politics into Florida's capital punishment system.
Florida's clemency-granting authorities, starting with Governor Rick Scott,
must rise above these political pressures. Clemency in the case of Frank Walls
is warranted, and Florida should grant it.
(source: Brian Evans, Amnesty International USA blog)
OHIO:
Ohio court weighs death sentence for killer of 3
The Ohio Supreme Court is hearing arguments for and against the death sentence
given a man convicted in the slayings of his 2 children and former
mother-in-law.
Attorneys for James Mammone III argue the 2010 trial should have been moved
outside of Canton in northeast Ohio because of publicity about the killings.
They also argue 2 potential jurors who said they supported the death penalty
should have been removed, and evidence presented during trial such as crime
scene photographs was inflammatory.
Prosecutors disagree that publicity affected the case. They say Mammone was
entitled to an impartial jury, not one that had never heard of the slayings.
The court planned to hear arguments Wednesday in Columbus, with a decision to
follow in several weeks.
(source: Associated Press)
KENTUCKY:
Man awaiting trial on 1982 Daviess murder charge dies in prison
A man who was awaiting trial in Daviess County on charges of killing an
Owensboro woman more than 3 decades ago has died in prison.
James Ray Cable, 65, died Dec. 3 at Kentucky State Reformatory in LaGrange. At
the time of his death, Cable was facing a murder charge in the 1982 beating
death of Owensboro resident Sandra Gail Kellems. Cable was also facing murder
charges and the possibility of the death penalty in 2 cases in Jefferson County
in the deaths 2 women in 1986 and 1989.
(source: Messenger-Inquirer)
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