Sept. 19
TEXAS:
Hall's competency called into question in capital murder case
A man facing the death penalty for capital murder told a judge there are times
when the trial gets so intense he is unable to focus or assist his counsel in
his defense.
The court examined Gabriel Hall's competency Friday to determine whether he was
fit to continue the trial.
Judge Travis Bryan III found Hall competent after hearing Hall's answers to
questions such as: "Do you know what you're on trial for?" "Do you understand
the roles of the attorneys?"
Hall said there were times he is unable to participate in his defense because
he is overwhelmed, but one of his attorneys agreed he was competent at the time
of the evaluation.
A competency evaluation is simply to determine a defendant's mental state at a
point in the trial. If Hall would have been found incompetent, the court would
have had to make a decision on how best to continue.
Competency is not the same as insanity. Insanity is a legal issue determined by
a jury's verdict.
Hall faces life in prison or the death penalty for killing 68-year-old Edwin
Shaar in the College Station man's Deacon Drive garage in October 2011, and
seriously injuring his wife, Linda. A jury found Hall guilty on Sept. 11.
The majority of the day was committed to hearing expert witness testimony out
of the presence of the jury to make sure the testimony is valid and admissible
in court.
Law requires expert testimony to be validated before a jury can hear it.
The jury will return Monday at 9 a.m. to continue the punishment phase of the
trial.
4 mental health professionals told lawyers what their testimony would include.
They're to present mitigating evidence to try and show the jury that Hall
deserves life in prison without parole over the death penalty.
Bethany Brand, a psychologist at Towson University in Maryland, streamed in via
webcam as the first expert witness of the day. She specializes in trauma and
dissociative, or multiple personality, disorders. She said at the time of the
crime, Gabriel Hall suffered from a dissociative disorder, post-traumatic
stress disorder and major depression that contributed to his behavior.
She said he also suffered from an anxiety disorder characterized by pulling out
his hair. She said this didn't contribute to the crime, but speaks to Hall's
anxiety.
She said Hall did not lack the ability to know right from wrong, and did not
lack the ability to make choices -- though the mental disorders may have
influenced him.
Another psychologist, Jolie Brams, said Hall was negatively impacted by trauma
experienced in his early childhood and after he was adopted by Wes and Karen
Hall when he was 11.
She said he did not receive the proper nurturing from his adoptive family that
would have helped him cope with the damage extreme poverty did to him in the
Philippines.
(source: The Eagle)
VIRGINIA:
Va. Supreme Court decision lets officials withold more government records
The state Supreme Court protected execution manuals and other materials from
public view this week, a decision with potentially far reaching implications
for public access to a slew of government documents unrelated to Virginia's
death penalty.
With the decision, a majority of the justices determined that much of
Virginia's Freedom of Information Act doesn't require government agencies to
redact sensitive information from requested documents. In many cases, state and
local officials can simply decline to release anything at all if the law
exempts part from release.
"The question before us is whether an agency is required to redact an exempt
document that may contain non-exempt material," Justice Cleo Powell wrote for
the court. "We agree with the Commonwealth that an agency is not required to
redact under these circumstances."
Open government advocates lamented the decision, fearing some government
officials will now deny access to otherwise public records because of minor
inclusions. Coalition for Open Government Executive Director Megan Rhyne said
the decision goes against one of FOIA's most basic tenets: That Virginia
governments should lean toward access.
"I'm fairly depressed about this," Rhyne said Friday.
The case dealt detailed information about Virginia's execution protocols. Del.
Scott Surovell, D-Mount Vernon, requested the floor plan of the state's
execution chamber, schematics of the state electric chair and various manuals
from the Department of Corrections. Department officials said releasing that
information would have endangered security, and argued that they shouldn't have
to produce redacted copies.
The resulting high court opinion seems to indicate that, unless the relevant
area of FOIA includes key phrases, state agencies don't have to redact
documents. By Rhyne's count only 4 FOIA exemptions include both key phrases.
More than 30, but not nearly all of them, use at least 1.
"The implications are huge," Rhyne said.
Brian Coy, spokesman for Gov. Terry McAuliffe, said the administration would
study the opinion, which was released Thursday. He said it was too soon Friday
to say whether the administration would advise state agency heads how to treat
future records requests in light of the decision.
The court did say, though, that state officials maintain the discretion to
redact and release sensitive documents. State officials have some times argued
that they don't have the discretion to release exempted documents under FOIA,
when in fact the law says they do.
2 of the 7 justices, Bernard Goodwyn and William Mims, concurred with much of
the majority opinion in this case, agreeing that the courts should give
deference to agencies that reject FOIA requests over security concerns. But
they disagreed about the duty to redact, saying the majority opinion allows
public bodies to exempt entire records over single sentences.
Mims, who wrote the partial dissent, argued that a public body "must release
the requested record, and it may redact the exempt information in its
discretion."
Justice Jane Marum Roush didn't participate in the court's review. She was a
circuit judge until late July, when McAuliffe appointed her to the state's high
court. Surovell's original case came through her courtroom, and she decided in
favor of releasing documents.
That decision has now been reversed in part and remanded in part by the high
court.
The state's Freedom of Information Council is in the middle of a legislatively
mandated 3 year review of the state's FOIA laws, and this new opinion will be
part of that study, according to Del. Jim LeMunyon, a FOIA Council member.
Daily Press Executive Editor Marisa Porto is also a council member, and
recently joined both the council subcommittees tasked with reviewing the laws
exemptions. The Daily Press has argued for some time now that significant FOIA
reforms are needed.
LeMunyon, R-Chantilly, has also favored reform, and said Friday that
legislation may be needed to clarify the law on redactions. He said the court's
opinion seems out of line with FOIA's intent.
"I'm just 1 guy ... but I would find that hard to believe that was the intent
of the legislature," LeMunyon said.
Rhyne was not hopeful for change.
"I have not seen a willingness over the last few years for legislators to go
against whatever a court has come down with," she said.
(source: Daily Press)
GEORGIA:
Court Sets Execution Window for Only Woman on Ga. Death Row
A court has set a 7-day execution window for Georgia's only female death row
inmate, whose execution was halted in March because of a problem with the
lethal injection drug.
Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens said in a news release that a Gwinnett
County Superior Court judge issued an order Friday saying Kelly Renee
Gissendaner may be executed between noon on Sept. 29 and noon on Oct. 6.
Gissendaner was scheduled for execution at 7 p.m. March 2. Corrections
officials told reporters about 11 p.m. that they were postponing the execution
"out of an abundance of caution" because the lethal injection drug appeared
"cloudy."
Gissendaner was convicted of murder in the February 1997 slaying of her
husband. Prosecutors said she conspired with her lover, who stabbed Douglas
Gissendaner to death.
(source: Associated Press)
**************
Stop Execution of Kelly Gissendaner
To: Nathan Deal, Governor of the State of Georgia
Use your power to stop the execution of Kelly Gissendaner by insisting that her
sentence be commuted to life in prison without parole. She is a woman who has
been profoundly transformed while in prison. Kelly is a mother, a theologian,
and a pastoral figure to many.
Do not let this travesty of justice happen on your watch. Do not squander the
opportunity to extend mercy.
Why is this important?
This week the state of Georgia issued a new warrant for Kelly's execution. She
is scheduled to be put to death on Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - unless we act
now.
Kelly's story is one of redemption and transformation.
Convicted for her part in planning the 1997 murder of her husband, Doug
Gissendaner, Kelly has been transformed during her time in prison. She has
accepted full responsibility for her crime and has become a powerful voice for
good. While incarcerated, she has been a pastoral presence to many, teaching,
preaching, and living a life of purpose. Kelly is a living testament to the
possibility of change and the power of hope. She is an extraordinary example of
the rehabilitation that the corrections system aims to produce.
Despite the testimony of clergy, educators, former inmates, corrections
officers, and Kelly's own children pleading for their mother's life, the
Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has condemned Kelly to death.
Earlier this year, Georgia twice planned to execute Kelly and then postponed,
first because of snow, and then because the drugs secretively prepared for her
execution were "cloudy." In August, the courts ruled that Georgia was free to
set a new execution date.
The Board of Pardons and Paroles' denial of clemency is an outrageous
miscarriage of justice.
As people of faith, we hold that all life is sacred. We also believe in mercy.
Shaped by these beliefs, we are calling on Governor Nathan Deal's Board of
Pardons and Paroles to commute Kelly's sentence from death to life in prison
without parole.
Time is running out, and we need you to join us in calling on Georgia Governor
Nathan Deal to stop the execution of Kelly Gissendaner.
For more information: http://www.kellyonmymind.com
How it will be delivered----This petition and all signatures collected will be
emailed to Governor Nathan Deal, and we will tell the media about our campaign.
(to sign petition:
ttp://action.groundswell-mvmt.org/petitions/governor-deal-use-your-power-to-stop-the-execution-of-kelly-gissendaner
(source: groundswell-mvmt.org)
FLORIDA:
Prosecutor, activist argue over death penalty at Tiger Bay Club forum
The political Tiger Bay Club hosted a debate Friday between a prosecutor who's
argued dozens of death penalty cases and an advocate fighting for changes to
the capital murder legal system. The issue isn't going away, either, with State
Attorney Angela Corey hoping to plan an all-day forum in the coming year.
Friday's event was held at the University Club of Jacksonville in the
Riverplace Tower on the Southbank.
Bernie de la Rionda, who prosecutes many Jacksonville death penalty cases and
acts as senior managing director for the State Attorney's Office, argued the
death penalty is necessary to distinguish between particularly heinous murders
and other killings. Heinous murders, he argued, demand the death penalty.
Kristina Musante, who works for the American Civil Liberties Union but is not
an attorney, came to Jacksonville to coordinate the Justice 4 Jacksonville
Coalition, which is requesting death penalty reforms. She argued that the way
death penalty cases are prosecuted and decided is error prone. She argued the
death penalty is far more costly than sentences of life without parole. She
said 25 people have been exonerated from Florida's death row since 1973, and
she believes the state has executed people who did not murder.
In response to a question about whether making executions more public would
deter crime, de la Rionda said he'd like to bring back firing squads to
Florida.
Obtaining the drugs necessary for executions is more difficult, he said,
because the drugs are made in European countries that object to executions. But
"bullets are pretty cheap, and they're very quick," he said. If Florida can't
get the drugs, then it should use firing squads, he said.
Corey said she wished the debate separated the issues of the financial cost of
the death penalty, the possibility of innocence and the purpose of the death
penalty.
"I would address those concerns in different ways," she said. "We can speak to,
'Is it too expensive?' in a much different way."
Musante also said a Jacksonville man sentenced to death was exonerated, but de
la Rionda disputed that. Corey later said the prosecution dropped the death
sentence, but that doesn't mean he was officially exonerated or declared
innocent.
The death penalty, Corey said, isn't about deterring future crimes, though that
would be a positive outcome if it happens. The death penalty is about
administering justice in the face of particularly wicked murders. "There are
certain crimes that cry out for the harshest punishment available under the
laws," Corey said. Death "is the deserving punishment for those crimes."
The issue is important, Corey said, and she would like to organize a full-day
forum in the coming year where the issue can be discussed more in-depth. When
Harry Shorstein was state attorney and she was prosecuting death penalty cases,
she said, she took part in a forum at St. Johns Cathedral, her home church.
Tom Collins, a board member with the Tiger Club and a physicist, said he, too,
would've liked to hear a debate based more in ethics and philosophy rather than
one that used specific emotional anecdotes. He opposes the death penalty, but
he said de la Rionda and Musante should've tried to answer questions about what
types of justice society needs when a murder occurs.
In Florida, a death penalty sentencing only needs a 7-5 vote from the jury. The
Supreme Court will hear a case next summer to decide if that meets the
constitutional requirements for punishing someone by execution.
In the meantime, Musante said, the State Attorney's Office should wait to
prosecute any death penalty cases until after that decision. Otherwise, if the
Supreme Court rules non-unanimous decisions unconstitutional, the state may
have to re-hear those cases at great cost, Musante said.
She also pointed to the murder case involving Shelby Farah, who was killed at a
MetroPCS store 2 years ago in Brentwood. Farah's family doesn't want the State
Attorney's Office to pursue the death penalty. Most death penalty cases require
years of appeals, and sometimes those cases have to be reheard. Musante said
the State Attorney's Office shouldn't pursue the death penalty if the victim's
families don't want it.
De la Rionda, though, urged people to contact the state Legislature about
removing what he called frivolous motions that stall these appeals after
they've been sentenced.
"I will forever believe in the death penalty," he said. "I think some murders
are so, so, so horrific, so heinous. I think the issue becomes, Why does it
take so long?"
(source: jacksonville.com)
************
Florida Attorney General wants to hire more attorneys
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi says she needs to hire more attorneys to
handle a growing number of cases.
Bondi this week submitted her 2016 budget request to the Florida Legislature.
It included a request to spend nearly $650,000 to hire six more senior
attorneys in her criminal and capital appeals division.
Under law, Bondi's office is responsible for handling appeals of any criminal
cases prosecuted across the state. The Department of Legal Affairs also
represents the state in death penalty cases.
Her budget request states that this past fiscal year, her office handled nearly
23,000 new appeals. This was an 8 % increase over the previous year. Bondi's
office states that currently her attorneys are handling more than 100 cases a
year.
The Department of Legal Affairs has nearly 1,400 positions.
(source: Associated Press)
LOUISIANA:
Final state appeals for convicted serial killer Derrick Todd Lee were rejected
Friday, case now moves to federal courts ----'No basis' for new trial in 2002
slaying
Louisiana's highest court put an end Friday to condemned serial killer Derrick
Todd Lee's state court appeals, more than a decade after he was convicted and
sentenced to death in the brutal 2002 slaying of 22-year-old LSU graduate
student Charlotte Murray Pace in her Baton Rouge home.
The state Supreme Court said it found no error in state District Judge Richard
Anderson's August 2014 ruling that rejected Lee's request for a new trial.
The high court also stated it found "no basis" for sending the case back to
Anderson for an evidentiary hearing and "no grounds" for throwing out his
1st-degree murder conviction and death sentence.
"That's awesome. That's wonderful news. I'm so stunned, "Pace's mother, Ann
Pace, said when told of the action taken by the Louisiana Supreme Court. "It's
been 11 years (since the 2004 trial). I had almost given up hope that it would
finish this 2nd part."
Lee's attorney, Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana director Gary
Clements, said he will now take Lee's case to U.S. District Court in Baton
Rouge for the federal post-conviction relief stage - a stage that can take
years.
"The Supreme Court's ruling is a huge step toward final resolution as we have
finally completed all appeals and post-conviction relief at the state level,"
East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III said. "I only hope
that post-conviction proceedings at the federal level will move quickly and
that the state Supreme Court's ruling will ease some of the frustration that
the families are feeling."
Justice Scott Crichton wrote Friday that evidence showing Lee killed Pace in a
"brutal and vicious manner" was both overwhelming and horrific. She was stabbed
81 times with a knife and screwdriver; her throat was slashed; and a clothing
iron was used to bludgeon her head, fracture her skull and crush her eyeballs,
he noted.
"This writ denial marks the end of Lee's state court proceedings, finally
bringing some measure of closure to the families of the multiple victims that
have been irreparably affected by his hideous crimes," Crichton stated.
At the penalty phase of Lee's trial in the killing of Pace, East Baton Rouge
Parish prosecutors introduced evidence of 4 other murders that he allegedly
committed: Pam Kinamore, Gina Wilson Green and Carrie Lynn Yoder, all of Baton
Rouge, and Trineisha Dene' Colomb, of Lafayette.
Lee, 46, of St. Francisville, claims - among other things - that he received
ineffective assistance of counsel at the guilt and penalty phases of his trial
in Baton Rouge. Clements also contends Lee was incompetent when he was put on
trial, and that Lee is mentally ill and brain-damaged and cannot be executed.
DNA linked Lee to the murder of Pace, but Clements on Friday characterized the
DNA evidence as highly questionable.
The state Supreme Court disagreed.
"(Lee) has alleged there existed significant doubt as to the presence of sperm
on Pace's body and that only unreliable evidence linked him to the other
victims," the high court said. "Other than mere technical allegations, (Lee)
does not assert or provide any evidence suggesting he should have been excluded
as the source of the DNA recovered from Pace or the other victims."
Julia Naylor, a DNA analyst at the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab, testified
at Lee's trial that the probability of Lee being randomly matched with the
genetic profile recovered from Pace's body was 1 in 3.6 quadrillion, the court
added.
Pace was killed May 31, 2002, in her Sharlo Avenue home. Authorities testified
she had been raped in addition to being bludgeoned and repeatedly stabbed.
Lee also was found guilty at another trial of 2nd-degree murder and sentenced
to life in prison in the January 2002 slaying of Geralyn Barr DeSoto, of Addis.
Diane Alexander, of Breaux Bridge, who Lee attempted to rape and kill,
testified against Lee at the DeSoto and Pace trials.
(source: The Advocate)
******************
Death penalty by committee: How Caddo makes the decisions
Caddo prosecutors must decide whether they will seek the death penalty if
Grover Cannon, the man accused of killing Shreveport police officer Thomas
LaValley, is indicted as charged and his case goes to trial.
And even as he continues to fight criticism over some of his past death penalty
decisions, acting Caddo District Attorney Dale Cox gives us a look at how those
life-or-death determinations are made in his parish.
Cox recoils at suggestions that he's a "Blunt Spokesman for the Death Penalty,"
as spelled out in national media reports this summer. "'Dale Cox wants a death
penalty! Therefore, we have a death penalty'," the acting district attorney
says as he slams his fist on his desk. "It is nothing like that."
To the contrary, Cox says deciding whether to seek the death penalty in Caddo
now is a group decision. Shortly after assuming the role of acting district
attorney in April, he formed a committee comprised of himself and 7 other
lawyers who meet after every homicide indictment.
"These lawyers are the most experienced lawyers in our office," Cox says.
"These are the lawyers who have tried other capital cases."
In cases of 1st-degree murder (the charge Cannon faces if the grand jury
returns such an indictment next month), the committee must decide whether to
seek the death penalty. "It's not every homicide case. In fact, it's not every
1st-degree murder case that we automatically seek the death penalty," Cox says.
However, statistics show that almost 1/2 of all death sentences in Louisiana
over the past 5 years were rendered in Caddo. And Cox was a prosecutor on a
third of those cases.
But he still says seeking the death penalty is the exception rather than the
rule. "I think the last three homicide cases that we've met on we have not
sought to seek the death penalty in any of them."
While such a committee is not required by law, it's something Cox says he's
advocated for the past 20 years. "Any of us can get tunnel vision on a
particular case, or a particular set of facts, or on a particular person."
The panel may take hours, days or even longer to finally decide whether a case
merits seeking the death penalty, the assistant district attorney says. "Unless
there is a very strong consensus to seek the death penalty, we don't seek it."
On a related note, Cox has said he would not seek the Caddo district attorney
post in elections Oct. 24. His announcement came just one week after receiving
national criticism over a New York Times article about his record of sending
convicts to death row.
(source: KSLA news)
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