Nov. 18
INDIANA:
Suspected serial killer no longer wants to represent himself
A man charged in the strangling deaths of 2 women has decided not to represent
himself in his upcoming capital trial, according to court records.
Darren Vann, 44, of Gary, was scheduled to appear Wednesday before Lake
Criminal Court Judge Diane Boswell after he wrote to the court indicating he
wanted to represent himself.
One of Vann's defense attorneys, Gojko Kasich, filed a motion to cancel the
hearing along with an affidavit that Vann no longer wants to represent himself,
according to online court records. Boswell then canceled the hearing.
Vann is scheduled to appear in court again Dec. 18, and his trial is slated to
start Jan. 25.
He faces murder charges in the homicides of Afrika Hardy, 19, and Anith Jones,
35, of Merrillville. The Lake County prosecutor's office is seeking the death
penalty against him.
Hardy was found dead Oct. 17, 2014, in a bathtub at a Motel 6 in Hammond.
According to court records, Hardy met Vann through an online escort service.
Vann allegedly admitted to killing Hardy along with 6 other women whose bodies
were left in abandoned buildings in Gary, police said.
Jones was found Oct. 18, 2014, in an abandoned building in the 400 block of
East 43rd Street in Gary. Vann told detectives a mutual friend offered him
money and drugs to make Jones disappear, according to the affidavit.
Vann has not been charged in the homicides of the other women. The women are
Teaira Batey, Tanya Gatlin, Sonya Billingsley, Tracy L. Martin and Kristine
Williams.
(source: nwitimes.com)
NEVADA----new death sentence
Man sentenced to death in 2013 Lyon County killing-arson spree
A 27-year-old ex-convict was sentenced to death Tuesday for killing 5 people in
northern Nevada during a Mother's Day weekend murder spree in 2013. Jeremiah
Diaz Bean's fate had been decided in August by a state court in Yerington.
It was made official by Lyon County District Court Judge John Paul
Schlegelmilch, who also imposed maximum consecutive penalties totaling 78 to
195 years for Bean's other convictions including arson, robbery, burglary, auto
theft and theft using a firearm.
Bean was found guilty in July of fatally shooting Robert Pape and Dorothy Pape,
both 84, in May 2013 in one Fernley home, and Angie Duff, 67, and Lester
Leiber, 69, at a house around the corner.
The jury found him guilty of fatally shooting newspaper deliveryman Eliazar
Graham, 52, of Sparks, at an I-80 exit near the Mustang Ranch brothel east of
Reno.
Bean had been convicted of an unrelated burglary in January 2011 in Lyon
County. His probation was revoked 6 months later. He was jailed for about a
year and his parole expired in December 2012.
Bean initially agreed to plead guilty in the 2013 slayings in a plea deal that
would have spared him the death penalty. He changed his mind in November 2013
and stood trial this year.
A prosecutor told the jury that Bean robbed and killed his victims to get cash
to party on a Friday night, and he set the Pape home afire to try to destroy
the evidence.
Bean's defense attorney argued that Bean wasn't the only person to blame for
the killings.
Bean becomes the 81st inmate on death row at Ely State Prison.
The last execution in Nevada was Daryl Linnie Mack in 2006.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Suspect in siblings' deaths could face death penalty----Defendant "destroyed a
family within minutes," prosecutor said.
A man charged in the shooting deaths of 2 siblings in Southcrest earlier this
month was treated "as a family member" by the people he is accused of killing,
a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Felipe DeJesus Vega Meza, 38, was arrested last week after he was wounded
during a SWAT standoff in City Heights. He is accused of killing Arline Iribe,
20, and her brother Alexis Velarde, 22.
The pair were killed outside a home at Newton Avenue and South 43rd Street on
Nov. 8. Police said Velarde had tried to shield his sister from the gunfire.
On Tuesday, Vega pleaded not guilty in San Diego Superior Court to 2 counts of
murder and gun-use allegations. Because he also faces a special-circumstance
allegation of multiple murders, prosecutors have the option of seeking the
death penalty.
The District Attorney's Office had not yet announced whether it would seek
Vega's execution or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Such
decisions are usually made after a preliminary hearing has been held, and a
judge has determined whether prosecutors have enough evidence for the case to
go to trial.
At Vega's arraignment, Judge David Szumowski ordered the defendant to remain
held in county jail on a no-bail status and appointed the Public Defender's
Office to represent him in court. Vega is a Mexican citizen.
Deputy District Attorney Amy Maund told the judge that a sequence of events
before the shooting made the defendant angry and he "wouldn't let it go." At
some point, Iribe had enough and tried to leave the home where the shooting
took place, but the defendant would not let her go.
She called her brother, who tried to protect her, when Vega opened fire, the
prosecutor said.
"He destroyed the family within minutes," Maund said. She told the judge that
the victims were particularly vulnerable because they knew the defendant and
had treated him like family for years.
A warrant was issued for Vega's arrest. Police spotted his car, a green 1998
Oldsmobile Cutlass, Thursday night in Southcrest, not far from where the
killings occurred. A 20-minute pursuit ensued, during which the driver tossed a
handgun out of the car and onto Interstate 805.
The gun was recovered.
The pursuit ended in City Heights, where police blocked him in at an apartment
complex carport on Van Dyke Avenue at Myrtle Street. Police said he got out of
the car about 12:20 a.m. and reached for his waistband while turning toward
officers and crisis negotiators.
An officer fired a round at Vega, hitting him in his chest.
(source: San Digo Union-Tribune)
WASHINGTON:
Washington Legislature should move to end the death penalty ---- The Washington
Association of Prosecuting Attorneys has the right idea to push for direction
on the death penalty. The final decision should rest with Olympia lawmakers,
who need to exhibit moral leadership, take a vote and say no to capital
punishment.
Washington's death penalty is an albatross - a massively expensive punishment,
applied unevenly, that needs to be abolished.
The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys has the right idea. Sensing
a shift in public opinion, the group, whose membership is split, sent a
letterto the Legislature asking that a referendum on the death penalty be sent
to voters in 2016.
A better idea is for lawmakers to take up this issue, explore the waste of
public resources and inequity in its application, and pass a law repealing the
death penalty. Gov. Jay Inslee, who announced a moratorium on executions during
his tenure, has said that he would sign it.
Bills with bipartisan support have been introduced in Olympia. But so far, none
have even squeaked out of committee. A ballot measure that fails could set this
abolition movement back.
40 years ago, Washingtonians voted for Initiative 316 to support capital
punishment. As the prosecutors note in their statement, most residents today
didn't participate in that election. This is a tough issue for public servants
who've seen the worst of the worst and work to comfort the families of murder
victims. The prosecutors are not taking a formal position, pro or con. Instead,
as they write, we "want to know that when we embark on the long and difficult
process of capital punishment for the worst crimes inflicted upon our community
that we are doing so with the support and approval of the people we represent."
In 2 recent, horrific cases, King County juries have opted against the death
penalty. Joseph McEnroe, who murdered 6 members of his girlfriend's family in
2007, including a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old, was spared. So, too, was
Christopher Monfort, who murdered Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton on
Halloween night 2009.
King County, like Pierce and Snohomish counties, still has the resources to
seek the death penalty. According to a Seattle University study, capital cases
in Washington cost an extra $1 million on average. In practice that means
defendants are much more likely to face the death penalty if the crime is
committed in a wealthier county. It's an arbitrary version of justice by
geography.
Inslee's 2014 moratorium did not settle the question. State Attorney General
Bob Ferguson still defends the state against cases brought by death-row inmates
challenging their sentences. And a prosecutor anywhere in the state could seek
a death-penalty case tomorrow.
Washington thankfully isn't burdened with some of the systemic death-penalty
outrages that characterize other states, from racial disparity to prosecutorial
misconduct. And most of those executed in the state over the last three decades
have told their attorneys not to bother with appeals. 18 men in Washington have
had their death-penalty sentences reversed by appellate courts.
State lawmakers should take a stand.
(source: Editorial board members are editorial page editor Kate Riley, Frank A.
Blethen, Ryan Blethen, Brier Dudley, Mark Higgins, Jonathan Martin, Thanh Tan,
Blanca Torres, William K. Blethen (emeritus) and Robert C. Blethen
(emeritus)----Seattle Times)
USA:
Donald Fell fights death penalty law
A Vermont man facing the federal death penalty for the 2000 killing of a woman
abducted from outside a Rutland supermarket is asking a judge to declare the
death penalty law unconstitutional, court documents say.
In documents filed in federal court Monday, attorneys for Donald Fell argue the
federal death penalty is unreliable, arbitrary and adds "unconscionably long"
delays in cases. "Most places within the United States have abandoned its use
under evolving standards of decency," the attorneys say.
They contend that U.S. Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader
Ginsburg earlier this year "issued a clarion call for reconsideration of the
constitutionality of the death penalty."
It also noted that the Connecticut Supreme Court, relying largely on Breyer and
Ginsburg's arguments, found that state's death penalty unconstitutional.
"Mr. Fell asks this Court to (rule)... that the federal death penalty, in and
of itself, constitutes a legally prohibited cruel and unusual punishment
prohibited by both the Fifth and Eighth Amendments," his filing said.
Fell, 35, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005 for the 2000 killing of
Terry King, a 53-year-old North Clarendon grandmother who was abducted in
Rutland and later killed. A judge last year ordered a new trial for Fell
because of juror misconduct during the original trial.
The trial is scheduled for next fall.
U.S. Attorney Eric Miller said his office would respond to the defense filings
at the appropriate time.
Vermont has no state death penalty; Fell was sentenced to death under federal
law.
In 2002, the judge then hearing the case declared the federal death penalty
unconstitutional. But 2 years later, an appeals court overturned that ruling,
allowing the trial to go forward.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said
a decade's worth of data has accumulated showing the legal problems with the
federal death penalty since the ruling allowing Fell's case to go forward.
There's more evidence the federal death penalty is overwhelmingly applied in
Southern states that have state death penalties, and there are significant
racial disparities in the application of the federal death penalty as well,
Dunham said.
"You can expect going forward that there will be constitutional challenges of
this type filed in most, if not all, federal capital prosecutions," Dunham
said.
(source: Burlington Free Press)
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