Dec. 12
TEXAS----new death sentence
Jury sends confessed killer to death row
Alton and Darla Wilcox finally received justice after a Brazoria County jury
condemned the man who stabbed them with a death penalty verdict Wednesday,
District Attorney Jeri Yenne said.
The 7-woman, 5-man jury needed only a few minutes Wednesday morning before
returning their verdict in District Judge W. Edwin Denman's Angleton courtroom:
Death for James Harris Jr.
(source: thefacts.com)
**************
Death Penalty Upheld In Fort Worth Slaying
The state's highest criminal court has upheld the murder conviction and death
sentence given to a Fort Worth man for a 2010 convenience store holdup that
left 2 men dead.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday rejected what attorneys for
38-year-old Kwame Rockwell said were 21 errors at his Tarrant County trial last
year. The appeal included claims that evidence was both improperly admitted and
insufficient to convict him and send him to death row, that some jurors
improperly were excused and some arguments made by prosecutors in closing
statements were improper.
A 22-year-old store clerk, Daniel Rojas, and a 70-year-old bread deliveryman,
Jerry Burnett, were fatally shot.
Rockwell was arrested 4 days later in San Antonio after trying to flee from
police.
(source: Associated Press)
*********************
New penalty trial for man on death row since 1986
An El Paso man convicted and sent to death row for the slayings of 2 women
almost 30 years ago has won a new punishment trial.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday agreed with a trial judge's
findings that Angel Galvan Rivera had poor legal help at his 1986 trial in El
Paso.
Rivera's appeals lawyers argued his trial attorneys didn't properly investigate
Rivera's background or present evidence that could have convinced jurors to
decide on a sentence other than death.
The former cook was 27 when 62-year-old Iona Dikes and 82-year-old Julia
Fleenor were found strangled at their El Paso home in October 1984. The house
had been set on fire. Evidence also showed they both had been raped.
(source: Associated Press)
************** ---- impending execution and Vienna Convention issues
Texas Plan to Execute Mexican May Harm U.S. Ties Abroad, Kerry Says
The scheduled execution next month of a Mexican national by the State of Texas
threatens to damage relations between the United States and Mexico and
complicate the ability of the United States to help Americans detained
overseas, Secretary of State John F. Kerry has warned Texas officials.
The Mexican, Edgar Arias Tamayo, 46, was convicted of shooting and killing a
Houston police officer who was taking him to jail after a robbery in 1994. Mr.
Tamayo, who was in the nation illegally, was not notified of his right to
contact the Mexican Consulate, in violation of an international treaty known as
the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. That violation, an international
tribunal???s order for his case to be reviewed and a judge's recent decision to
set Mr. Tamayo's execution for Jan. 22, are now at the center of a controversy
that has attracted the attention of the State Department and the Mexican
government.
Despite Mr. Kerry's involvement, there has been no sign that Texas officials
plan to delay the execution. On Wednesday, Mr. Tamayo's lawyers asked Gov. Rick
Perry to grant him a 30-day reprieve and petitioned the Texas Board of Pardons
and Paroles to commute his death sentence to life in prison. They are using Mr.
Kerry's letter, sent to Texas officials in September, to highlight the
international issues at stake.
In 2004, the top judicial body of the United Nations, the International Court
of Justice, ordered the United States to review the convictions of Mr. Tamayo
and 50 other Mexican nationals whose Vienna Convention rights, it said, were
violated and who were sentenced to death in the United States. The
international court, also known as the World Court, found that United States
courts had to determine in each case whether the violation of consular rights
harmed the defendant. In the 9 years since the World Court's decision, no
United States court has reviewed the Vienna Convention issues in Mr. Tamayo's
case, said Maurie Levin, one of his lawyers.
In a letter sent to Mr. Perry and the Texas attorney general, Mr. Kerry took
the unusual step of weighing in on a state death-penalty case, arguing that Mr.
Tamayo's execution would affect the ability of the United States to comply with
the international court's order in what is known as the Avena case. The World
Court???s judgment is binding on the United States, Mr. Kerry wrote, and
complying with it ensures that the federal government can rely on Vienna
Convention protections when aiding Americans detained abroad.
"I have no reason to doubt the facts of Mr. Tamayo's conviction, and as a
former prosecutor, I have no sympathy for anyone who would murder a police
officer," Mr. Kerry wrote, describing his concern as a "process issue" that
could impact the way Americans are treated overseas. "Our consular visits help
ensure U.S. citizens detained overseas have access to food and appropriate
medical care, if needed, as well as access to legal representation."
Mr. Kerry also shared with Mr. Perry and the Texas attorney general, Greg
Abbott, a letter sent to him earlier this year by Mexico's ambassador to the
United States, Eduardo Medina Mora, who wrote that "this issue has become and
could continue to be a significant irritant in the relations between our 2
countries."
Texas officials, including Mr. Perry, have argued that the state is not
directly bound by the World Court's decision and that it is a matter best
handled by federal officials and Congress, where legislation ordering the
states to comply with the tribunal's judgment is pending. "It doesn't matter
where you're from - if you commit a despicable crime like this in Texas, you
are subject to our state laws, including a fair trial by jury and the ultimate
penalty," Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Mr. Perry, said when asked to respond
to Mr. Kerry's letter.
In 2008, Texas executed another Mexican national, Jose E. Medellin, who was
part of the Avena case and was convicted in the rape and murder of 2 teenage
girls in Houston. Before Mr. Medellin's execution, President Bush ordered Texas
and other states to review the convictions of Mr. Medellin and the other
Mexican nationals whose consular rights were violated. But the Supreme Court
ruled in 2008 that the president had no authority to order state courts to
abide by the World Court's decision, agreeing with the arguments made by
Texas's then-solicitor general, Ted Cruz, now one of its senators in
Washington.
Mr. Medellin was executed 4 months after the Supreme Court's ruling in
Hunstville, Tex., site of the state's death chamber, the busiest in the
country. In his 2010 book, "Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington,"
Mr. Perry wrote that 3 justices did not agree with the state's position,
"perhaps believing instead that international law should trump the laws of
Texas."
(source: New York Times)
CONNECTICUT:
Lawyers keep 'difficult and disturbing secrets'
Only once have I had to take the witness stand to plead the Fifth Amendment
privilege against self-incrimination.
I was seeking permission to withdraw from representation of a man on death row.
My former partner and I were handling his appeal, trying to keep the state from
killing him. When a conflict arose between my interests and the interests of
the client, I asked the court for permission to stop representing him. The
state thought it a ruse, another delay tactic to prevent justice's needle from
reaching the vein of the condemned.
I knew better. I knew that I had erred in a way that could land me behind bars
if the state knew, and could prove, the truth. So I refused to answer certain
questions when called to the witness stand, asserting that answering those
questions could tend to incriminate me.
A long time has passed since then. The statute of limitations has expired, and
the truth can no longer imprison me.
"Can we mail this?" our paralegal asked me one hectic day. It was a letter
addressed to a 3rd party. It was written by our client.
"Sure," I said. After all, what's the cost of a postage stamp? The state was
trying to kill this man, surely we could give him the courtesy of a postage
stamp.
A month later, the same paralegal appeared ashen at my doorstep.
"You better look at this," she said.
She handed me a letter apparently written by the same client. Could we mail
this one to a 3rd party, just as we had previously done?
It was a stunning sort of letter, directing the recipient to purchase assault
weapons, and accompanied by detailed drawings of the area surrounding death
row. People were likely to get killed if this plan were taken seriously. What
was in that first envelop we mailed?, I wondered.
We didn't mail this 2nd letter. I sought opinions from respected lawyers
throughout New England and got all sorts of different responses, ranging from
"destroy it," to "send it out of state" so as to prevent the state from finding
it, to "turn it over to the state." Along the way, I learned that sending that
1st letter along was a violation of federal law; I was an unwitting felon.
There are all sorts of potential conflicts a lawyer faces in the day-to-day
practice of law, avoiding them can yield difficult choices.
Deciding whether to represent a person accused of having committed a horrendous
crime rarely presents any sort of conflict. So long as the accusations arise
from completed conduct, the only limitation is purely subjective - can a lawyer
provide zealous representation of the accused despite the accusations? Some
lawyers, for example, will not represent people accused of certain crimes, the
sound of the allegations themselves are so disturbing, the lawyer can't commit.
Or the matter may cut too close to home.
"What if the man had abused your child?" folks often ask. The answer is simple:
I could not represent a person accused of injuring a loved one of mine, and I
would not consider it.
In the death-row inmate's case, different sorts of conflicts arose.
Truth be told, had I learned that he had shot his way out of captivity, I would
have been rooting for him. The death penalty is as savage as the crime it seeks
to avenge. Transforming civil society into the state of nature, making
ministers of justice into executioners, relieves those targeted for death from
the obligations of citizenship, that position is as old as Thomas Hobbes's
Leviathan, written in the 17th century.
But things weren't so simple for me. What was in that first letter? What if
there were an active plot? What if someone came to harm because I had failed to
act? Much though I deplore the death penalty, I did not believe, and do not
believe now, that my opposition to it gives me the right to endorse violence as
a means of defeating it.
I opted to turn the escape plans over to the Commissioner of Corrections, who
appeared one Sunday afternoon in my office together with a representative of
the Attorney General's office.
"I think you should have these," I said, sliding the plans across a conference
table.
"I won't answer any questions about how these came into my possession."
It was a quick meeting.
What now of my relationship with the client?
I had betrayed him in a fundamental way, disclosing his chance for liberty, and
perhaps life itself, to those who had vowed to kill him. What's more, my
interests were now in conflict with the client's. I had not told the state
about the 1st letter. The client knew. What if the client told the state about
my earlier crime? Could he trade that testimony for something that would
benefit him?
It didn't take long for lawmen to start asking questions. I refused to answer
them on Fifth Amendment grounds. The investigation went nowhere.
But my relationship with the client, a man whose case I cared deeply about, was
destroyed. I never spoke to him again after turning the letter over the
commissioner. I did not want to give him a chance to say that I had tried to
influence him, thus opening myself to a witness tampering charge. The potential
conflict fell like a cleaver, separating our interests forever.
The Jimmy Hoffa Rule is one of those bright-line tests that simplifies the life
of a criminal defense lawyer. I will defend you against those accusing you of
having engaged in misconduct prior to your becoming my client. But once you
seek to enlist me in other unlawful acts, the line is crossed, and I cannot
represent you with the clear-minded devotion to your interests required by the
law. Hence, you can tell me you killed Jimmy Hoffa, and I will defend; just
don't ask me to help you hide his body, or, as in this case, to aid or assist
in causing harm to come to others.
Lawyers keep difficult and disturbing secrets. That is the nature of the
attorney-client privilege. But that privilege can be penetrated if lawyer and
client agree to commit a crime or some act of fraud. There are lawyers sitting
in prison who learned this the hard way.
Only once did I plead the Fifth Amendment in open court. I placed my interest
against potential criminal prosecution above those of my client, who sought to
escape from a death sentence by violent means. More than a decade after doing
so, I still sometimes awaken in the dead of night agonizing over the choices I
made in that case, still hoping that my now former client will defeat the
state's intent to kill him.
(source: New Haven Register)
FLORIDA:
Testimony done in Strachan death-penalty trial without defendant testifying;
closings after lunch
Testimony has ended in the penalty phase of the triple murder trial of Bruce
Strachan, who faces a potential death sentence for the 2009 Lake Worth shooting
deaths of his wife and 2 of her friends.
Before Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Karen Miller dismissed jurors for lunch
Thursday, Strachan confirmed to her that he did not want to testify to jurors
who will either recommend life in prison or a death sentence for him for the
deaths of Yamika Murphy, Debbie Sears and Ronald Anthony Wright. The same jury
last month convicted Strachan of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder in the case.
The jurors returned this week for the 2nd phase of the trial, and for the past
3 days Strachan's defense team has presented testimony from Strachan's
relatives, school and child welfare agencies and experts in the hopes of
convincing the jury to opt for life.
The last defense witness was Boca Raton clinical psychologist Francis Crosby,
who began testifying Wednesday about his evaluation of Strachan based on a
handful of session with him along with interviews with relatives and a review
of records in his case.
Strachan had "a galaxy of negative influences in his life" that set the stage
for him to wait outside Murphy's Lake Worth apartment with an AK-47 assault
style rifle on the night of the murders, according to Crosby. Strachan was also
under the influence of the drug ecstasy at the time, Crosby said, and had an
undiagnosed depression and a series of other psychological issues that left him
unable to cope with the deterioration of his marriage to Murphy.
Jurors are expected to return to court Thursday afternoon to hear closing
arguments in the case and will begin deciding their recommendation afterwards.
(source: Palm Beach Post)
MISSISSIPPI:
Mississippi death row inmate wins high court appeal
The Mississippi Supreme Court has ordered a Harrison County judge to determine
if Alan Dale Walker was given adequate legal representation during a sentencing
hearing in which he got the death penalty.
Alan Dale Walker said in court documents his attorneys were inadequate at 2
stages of his case - during the penalty phase of his trial and in the following
post-conviction proceedings.
The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision Thursday, said Walker has shown that he
was prejudiced by the actions of his attorney and hearing was needed.
The court said if the Harrison County judge finds that Walker's legal
representation was deficient, he will vacate the death sentence and hold a new
sentencing hearing.
Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. and 3 other justices said none of the information
provided the court by Walker was good enough to support his claim that his
attorney didn't do a good job.
Walker, now 47, was convicted of kidnapping, raping and drowning Konya Edwards
on Sept. 8, 1990. She met Walker in a nightclub and an accomplice testified
Walker forced the woman into sexual acts at Crystal Lake in Harrison County.
The accomplice said he and Walker held Edwards under the water until she died.
Walker was sentenced to death in 1991. He was given consecutive sentences of 35
years for rape and 30 years for kidnapping.
(source: Clarion Ledger)
OHIO:
Ohio court weighs death sentence for killer of 3
The Ohio Supreme Court has heard 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 heard arguments Wednesday in Columbus, with a decision to follow in
several weeks.
*********************
Pregnant woman's condemned killer asks Ohio board for mercy, cites childhood
abuse, neglect
A condemned inmate who raped and killed a pregnant woman deserves mercy because
of his chaotic and abusive childhood and the failure of his original attorneys
to work hard enough on his behalf, the defendant's new lawyers are arguing
before the Ohio state Parole Board.
Death row prisoner Dennis McGuire was also mentally, physical and sexually
abused as a child and has impaired brain function that makes him prone to act
impulsively, the lawyers said in a filing with the board, which hears McGuire's
case for clemency Thursday.
"Dennis was at risk from the moment he was born. The lack of proper nutrition,
chaotic home environment, abuse, lack of positive supervision and lack of
positive role models all affected Dennis' brain development," the lawyers said
in the filing.
McGuire is scheduled to die Jan. 12 for the February 1989 stabbing death of Joy
Stewart in western Ohio's Preble County.
The state plans to use a never-tried lethal injection process on the
53-year-old McGuire, with the specific chemicals to be announced two weeks
before the execution.
Those chemicals were to have been used on death row inmate Ron Phillips in
November, but he received a reprieve until July after he expressed a desire to
donate his organs. In granting the reprieve, Gov. John Kasich said he wanted to
allow time for medical experts to study whether Phillips could donate non-vital
organs, such as a kidney, before being executed. Phillips' mother has kidney
disease and a sister has heart problems.
Ohio's supply of its former drug, pentobarbital, has expired, and FDA-regulated
versions are no longer available because the manufacturer has put it off limits
for executions.
That leaves Ohio with 2 choices. The 1st is a specialty dose of pentobarbital
from compounding pharmacies, which are registered with the state but not
federally regulated.
The 2nd is a 2-drug combination of a sedative, midazolam, and a painkiller,
hydromorphone, which has never been used in a U.S. execution.
Prosecutors in Preble County say a death sentence is appropriate for such a
shocking crime. Stewart, 22, was newly married and about 30 weeks pregnant when
she was killed.
"One can scarcely conceive of a sequence of crimes more shocking to the
conscience or to moral sensibilities than the senseless kidnapping and rape of
a young, pregnant woman followed by her murder," prosecutors said in their
filing with the board.
DNA tests over the years have established McGuire as the killer.
McGuire's attorneys say a plea bargain that was offered to McGuire but rejected
should be taken into consideration, since it shows the state at one time didn't
believe a death sentence was necessary.
Prosecutors say McGuire's decision not to accept that offer is part of his
refusal to accept responsibility for the crime.
(source for both: Associated Press)
KENTUCKY:
Court: Should man get new sentence in murder case
The Supreme Court seemed unsure Wednesday on whether it should order a new
sentencing hearing for a man who confessed to kidnapping, raping and killing a
16-year-old girl in Kentucky.
The justices heard arguments over Robert Keith Woodall's death sentence for
kidnapping and killing Sarah Hansen on Jan. 25, 1997, after forcing her from a
convenience store in western Kentucky. Woodall acknowledged that he raped the
girl and slit her throat twice before taking her body to Luzerne Lake and
throwing it in the water.
A jury sentenced him to death for the murder plea, which U.S. District Judge
Thomas B. Russell overturned in 2009 because a judge refused to tell the jury
not to draw any conclusions about his choice not to take the stand at his 1998
capital sentencing hearing.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, which the Supreme
Court is now reviewing.
Without being told to not consider Woodall's silence, jurors are left to "using
the right to silence as a penalty, which is the natural inclination," Woodall's
lawyer, Laurence E. Komp, said. "So they're going to hold his failure to
testify against him."
But when it comes to sentencing hearings, it's on the defendant to present his
case on why his sentence should be reduced, said lawyer Susan Roncarti Lenz, a
Kentucky assistant attorney general. "He bears the burden of proof on that and
he bears the consequences from failing to meet his burden on that," she said.
Justices are expected to make a decision sometime next year.
The case is White v. Woodall, 12-794.
(source: Associated Press)
*************
Former Investigator Hopes Death Sentence Will Be Upheld in '97 Murder Case
The United States Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in the case of a
Kentucky man who once faced the death penalty after pleading guilty to
murdering a 16 year old girl in 1997. The High Court's decision to take the
case has some people in Greenville re-living it.
In 1998, Robert Kieth Woodall, 39, pleaded guilty to raping and murdering 16
year old Sarah Hansen in January 1997. Woodall's defense attorneys say the
initial trial judge acted wrongly by not instructing the jury to not consider
Woodall's refusal to testify during his sentencing hearing.
Woodall's appeals resulted in a federal judge overturning the sentencing phase
and, thus, the death penalty. Kentucky's Attorney General would later appeal
that decision to the United States Supreme Court.
"For the 1st time in the history of Muhlenberg County, to my knowledge, there's
a case going before the United States Supreme Court," said Greenville Mayor Ed
DeArmond. "This is a historic day and I just hope it brings back some positive
results."
Before becoming mayor, DeArmond was a lieutenant with Kentucky State Police. He
says he has a personal interest in the case because he spearheaded the field
investigation that ultimately resulted in Woodall's arrest. He still believes
that Woodall deserves the death penalty and the U.S. Supreme Court should
uphold his sentence.
"I can tell you it caused me to probably retire," DeArmond said. "I probably
might have stayed another four or five years but it took a lot out of me
personally."
Hansen, who was 16 at the time of her murder, is described as vibrant, a
cheerleader and band member. DeArmond says she epitomized what ever parent
wants their child to be.
"It's a tragedy that the Hansen family shouldn't have to relive 17 years after
the fact," DeArmond said. "How [the Hansen family' has handled it, it's
remarkable. I've never seen anything like it."
(source: tristatehomepage.com)
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