May 31
FLORIDA:
Dubose appeal at standstill due to ethics allegations of defense
attorney----He's charged in death of 8-year-old DreShawn Davis
It has been 31 months since the Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments in
an appeal of one of the most high-profile murder cases in recent Jacksonville
history.
But a ruling on whether Rasheem Dubose will get off death row for the murder of
8-year-old DreShawna Davis appears unlikely to occur anytime soon.
The appeal has become bogged down over charges of unethical behavior made
against attorney Richard Kuritz, who defended Dubose at trial on appeal. The
judge who sentenced Dubose to death, Lawrence Haddock, has cited Kuritz with
unethical behavior, and The Florida Bar has filed a formal complaint against
the Jacksonville lawyer that could lead to him being punished.
Lawyers for Kuritz have said he did nothing wrong, but Dubose's appeal appears
to be in a holding pattern while the ethics complaint goes through the system.
The complaint focuses on how Kuritz dealt with a juror who later told him she
had been bullied into convicting Dubose. Haddock asked the Bar to investigate
Kuritz in 2014 after the Florida Supreme Court sent the case back to
Jacksonville and instructed him to look into the allegations of juror
misconduct.
Haddock, who declined to comment for this story, found there was no misconduct
and accused Kuritz of hiding that he simultaneously represented Dubose and the
juror, Tomi Chavez, for 2 traffic tickets and in a civil personal injury
lawsuit while he was handling Dubose's appeal. The appeal hinged on Chavez's
account that juror misconduct occurred. Kuritz has said in court filings that
he did his legal work for Chavez after she was a juror in the case.
Chavez said other jurors, in a racist manner, made fun of the way Dubose spoke,
researched the case on their cellphones while they deliberated and debated
whether a teardrop tattoo on his face was a gang symbol or a sign that he'd
killed someone.
In a 2014 email to the Times-Union, Chavez said jurors were already familiar
with the case before the trial began.
"The other jurors had knowledge of this because they watched the news and lived
in Jax," Chavez said, while saying she now lives in Hawaii.
Supreme Court justices expressed incredulity at the allegations when Kuritz
went before them and argued that Dubose's 2010 conviction and death sentence
should be thrown out because of juror misconduct.
Kuritz told justices Chavez contacted Assistant Public Defender Fred Gazaleh
after the jury found Dubose guilty but before returning for a penalty phase.
She then contacted private attorney Mitch Stone with the same concerns and
asked to speak to the judge before the penalty phase began, but was turned away
by a bailiff.
Kuritz said he didn't find out about the juror's concerns until after the jury
had recommended Dubose had been sentenced to death by an 8-4 vote.
"I've never seen anything like this," said Chief Justice Jorge Labarga. "I'm
concerned that it took this much effort on behalf of a juror to bring something
to the attention of the trial judge."
Rather than ruling on the appeal, justices sent the case back to Haddock.
Haddock ruled in the spring of 2014 that Chavez's allegations of misconduct
were not credible and blasted Kuritz for taking them to the Florida Supreme
Court on appeal without ever revealing she was his client in unrelated cases.
Kuritz knew it was a conflict of interest, Haddock said.
The Florida Bar investigated the situation for over a year before filing a
formal complaint against Kuritz in January 2016. That complaint says Kuritz was
wrong to speak to Chavez without first informing Haddock and prosecutors about
what he was doing. It also accuses Kuritz of writing an affadavit for Chavez to
sign and then saying another lawyer wrote it.
Attorney Matthew Kachergus, who is representing Kuritz, has argued in motions
that Kuritz only spoke to Chavez after she contacted him.
Kachergus declined to comment for this story, but in court filings he said the
Bar complaint should be dismissed.
Circuit Judge Elizabeth Blackburn, who is based in DeLand, has been appointed
as the "referee" in the case who will hear the complaint against Kuritz and
rule on whether he committed any ethical violations and recommend a punishment
if she decides Kuritz did something wrong.
Kuritz could face a reprimand, a suspension from practicing law or disbarment,
although disbarments are rare and usually only occur after a lawyer has been
found to have made multiple ethics violations.
The Florida Supreme Court will make the final decision but usually gives ample
consideration to the referee's recommendation. The Supreme Court appears to be
waiting for the Bar complaint to conclude before ruling on Dubose's appeal.
Justices usually rule on death-penalty appeals within a year of oral arguments.
Dubose sent a letter to the Supreme Court in March 2016 asking what was going
on with his case.
"It's been about 2 years on my direct appeal now with no answer from the
Supreme Court yet," Dubose said in his letter. "... I'm just sitting here in
the blind not knowing anything what's going on sir."
The clerk of court wrote Dubose back at the Union Correctional Institution in
Raiford telling him his case was still pending and if he had any other
questions he should contact Kuritz.
DreShawna, who died in 2006 protecting her cousins from a hail of bullets into
her home, became the face of Jacksonville's state-leading homicide rate and
galvanized city leaders to do something about it.
The Jacksonville Journey anti-crime initiative was launched soon after
DreShawna's death and is credited with helping lower the homicide rate.
(source: Florida Times-Union)
MISSISSIPPI:
I Spent More Than 6 Years as an Innocent Woman on Death Row
I was 18 when I was convicted of murdering my baby and sentenced to death, and
25 when I was finally found innocent.
The new season of Orange is the New Black will be available on Netflix starting
next weekend. I won't be watching it. I lived it.
I was 17 and living in Columbus, Mississippi, in 1989. One night, I went to
check on my beautiful 9-month-old son, Walter. He wasn't breathing. I scooped
him up and frantically rushed to the neighbor next door, who could not help me.
I ran downstairs where another girl took my baby, started CPR, and advised me
what to do. I performed CPR all the way to the hospital. The CPR left bruises
on his chest. At the hospital, the doctors said they had done all they could.
The next morning, I went down to the police station as I had been asked to do.
When I got there, a detective yelled at me, "You know you killed your baby. You
stepped on him with your feet and smashed him on the floor. You killed him."
I was alone with no lawyer or parent with me. I told him I tried to save my
baby. He wrote down what I said and threw it in the garbage. He yelled at me
for 3 hours. No matter what I said, he screamed over and over that I had killed
my baby. I was terrified. I was put in jail and not allowed to attend Walter's
funeral.
When I was 18, I was convicted of murdering my baby and sentenced to death. As
a death row prisoner, I was alone in my cell for 23 hours a day. It was a good
thing: if the other women could have gotten near me, they would have killed me
because they thought I deserved to die. In prison, you have to constantly watch
your back.
Around the time my other son Danny was 5 years old, he asked me on the phone,
"Are they going to kill you with a needle?" It is a question no child should
ever have to ask his mother or father.
My own mother fought to prove my innocence. I was lucky: attorneys Rob McDuff
and Clive Stafford Smith took my case pro bono. They got me a new trial and
called witnesses who said I had been trying to resuscitate Walter with CPR.
That's where the bruises came from. My new attorneys also showed that my son
died from a hereditary kidney condition. There was no murder at all.
I was 25 years old when I was finally found innocent. I am the only woman ever
exonerated and freed from death row in the United States.
I wish I could say that it is rare for innocent people to be convicted and
sentenced to death. But it's not. Since 1973, 144 people have been exonerated
and freed from death row in the U.S. I provide support to many of these men
through my job at Witness to Innocence, a nonprofit organization that helps
people who have been exonerated from death row and their loved ones.
A study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that more than 4% -
1 in every 25 - of the death sentences in the U.S. are imposed on people who
are innocent. This should be a cause for outrage. If 1 in 25 bank transactions
were inaccurate, no one would stand for it.
Recently, a group of former governors, judges and other important people got
together and issued 39 recommendations to make the death penalty more fair and
accurate. Even if every reform was adopted, innocent people would still get
convicted and sent to death row. As long as human beings are in charge, they
will make mistakes. If we can't get the death penalty right every time, we
shouldn't do it at all.
You can change the laws, but you can't change some things about human nature.
There will always be people who want to advance their careers by putting people
to death. Some of those people will be innocent, like me, and most of them will
be poor, isolated and African American or Latino.
I was a teenager who, less than 24 hours before, had lost my precious baby boy.
Ambitious men questioned, demoralized and intimidated me. In that state of
mind, I signed the lies they wrote on a piece of paper. I signed my name in
tiny letters in the margin to show some form of resistance to the power they
had over me. People who say they would never sign a false confession have never
been in my shoes.
When I first went to prison, I hated the people who railroaded me onto death
row. Then I realized that I could be bitter and angry, but the only person it
would hurt was me. I made a decision to fill my heart with love, try to be
happy every day, and help other people. You can choose to be positive or you
can choose to be negative. And that's the choice that makes all the difference
in the world.
(source: Sabrina Butler is the Assistant Director of Membership and Training at
Witness to Innocence. She still lives in Columbus, Mississippi, with her
husband of 19 years and 3 children----TIME Magazine)
OHIO:
Court to hear arguments in condemned killer's DNA appeal
The Ohio Supreme Court is hearing arguments in an appeal involving a death row
inmate who sought DNA testing on a cigarette butt found near the scene of the
1990 double murder that led to his sentence.
At issue is whether there is a constitutional appeals process for death row
prisoners who have requests for DNA testing denied after a trial is over.
Defendant Tyrone Noling was convicted of killing Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig at
their Portage County home in 1990, but he maintains his innocence.
Noling contends technological advances make it possible to identify who smoked
the cigarette and determine whether that person was among other previously
undisclosed suspects.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday.
(source: Associated Press)
ARIZONA:
Convicted killer given chance to get off Arizona's death row
An Arizona man convicted of murder and robbery will get another chance to
escape the death penalty.
It was a mistake for a Maricopa County Superior Court judge not to tell jurors
that if they did not sentence Shawn Lynch to death that he would be sentenced
to life behind bars, with no chance of parole, 6 of the justices of the U.S.
Supreme Court said in an unsigned opinion Tuesday morning.
Had jurors been given that information they might have decided not to impose
the death penalty, the majority said.
Today's ruling drew a dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas. Joined by Justice
Samuel Alito, Thomas said it was the "sheer depravity" of the crime that caused
jurors to sentence Lynch to death, not the question of whether he might ever
get out of prison.
Lynch and Michael Sehwani met James Panzarella in March 2001 at a Scottsdale
bar. All 3 went to Panzarella's residence early the next morning, according to
court records.
The victim's credit cards were used during the next 2 days.
Panzarella was eventually found in his home tied to a chair with his throat
slit.
Police also found credit card receipt from purchases made that morning at a
supermarket and convenience store.
Lynch and Sehwani were arrested later that day. Sehwani had Panzarella's credit
cards and checks in his wallet. And in the truck and motel room he and Lynch
were using they found the keys to Panzarella's car, a pistol belonging to the
victim and a sweater with Panzarella's blood on it.
Blood on Lynch's shoes matched the victim's DNA.
During sentencing, prosecutors argued that jurors should consider Lynch's
future dangerousness when determining proper punishment. But the trial judge
refused to let defense counsel tell the jury that under Arizona law, the only
alternative sentence was life without parole.
The majority, in today's ruling, conceded that there was a chance Lynch could
be released after 25 years.
But the justices pointed out that could happen only through executive clemency.
And they said that was not enough of a possibility to let jurors think if they
did not sentenced Lynch to death that he might be released.
(soruce: tucson.com)
USA:
Supreme Court's Divide Over Death Penalty on Display in New Orders
The Supreme Court issued 2 opinions in death-penalty cases Tuesday, alternately
upholding and invalidating executions in cases that exposed the justices
searing divide over capital punishment.
In separate, unsigned opinions, the court's majority upheld a death sentence in
Louisiana and voided 1 in Arizona, sparking sharp dissents from pairs of
liberal and conservative justices, respectively.
The Arizona case involved Shawn Patrick Lynch, convicted of a 2001 murder and
robbery that required either a death sentence or life imprisonment. At
sentencing, prosecutors seeking the death penalty suggested Mr. Lynch could be
dangerous if ever set free, but the trial judge prevented the defense from
rebutting that argument by informing the jury that Arizona had abolished
parole.
Arizona insisted there was no error, because after 25 years in prison Mr. Lynch
could apply for executive clemency. Moreover, the state said, theoretically the
Legislature someday could create a parole system.
The justices said these arguments couldn't overcome a line of precedent dating
from 1994, when they ruled the Constitution's due-process clause provides
capital defendants a right to respond to "future dangerousness" claims by
arguing they are ineligible for parole.
In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito,
recited the cold facts of the crime: Mr. Lynch and an accomplice slit the
throat of a man they met in a bar, James Panzarella, and went on a spending
spree with his money until their arrest 2 days later.
The "sheer depravity" of Mr. Lynch's crime, "rather than any specific fear for
the future" was justification enough for a death sentence, Justice Thomas
wrote, quoting an earlier dissent by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
In the Louisiana case, however, it was Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in dissent.
The majority rejected the petition from Lamondre Tucker, who was 18 years old
when he shot and killed his pregnant girlfriend in 2008.
Justice Breyer observed that Mr. Tucker was convicted in Caddo Parish, which
"imposes almost half the death sentences in Louisiana, even though it accounts
for only 5% of that State's population and 5% of its homicides."
"One could reasonably believe that if Tucker had committed the same crime but
been tried and sentenced just across the Red River in, say Bossier Parish, he
would not now be on death row," Justice Breyer wrote. The dissenters renewed a
call they made in a 2015 case: to consider whether the death penalty itself
violates the Constitution.
The court ruled in a third murder case Tuesday, reversing without dissent a
Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that gave a convicted murderer
sentenced to life-without-parole a new avenue of appeal.
Federal courts generally aren't permitted to hear claims that were defaulted in
state court under what the justices call "an independent and adequate state
procedural rule."
The California Supreme Court established such a rule in a 1953 case, called In
re Dixon, when it held a defendant cannot raise a claim through habeas corpus,
a form of secondary appellate review, if he or she failed to bring it up on the
initial direct appeal.
In 2004, that court cited Dixon in a one-line order denying an appeal from
Donna Kay Lee, who was convicted, along with her boyfriend, of stabbing the
boyfriend's mother and ex-girlfriend to death. She was sentenced to life
without parole.
Last year, the Ninth Circuit reinstated Ms. Lee's appeal, reasoning that while
California's Dixon rule was "independent" of federal law, it was not "adequate"
because the state supreme court had cited it in only 12% of the habeas
petitions it denied over a 2-year period.
"The Ninth Circuit's decision profoundly misapprehends what makes a state
procedural bar 'adequate,'" the Supreme Court said. "The purportedly missing
citations show nothing," the justices said, since the state court may have
dismissed the other petitions for other reasons, the Dixon rule is widely known
and established, and nearly every state and the federal justice system follow
similar procedures.
(source: Wall Street Journal)
**********************
Case involving Charleston church shooter tests the limits of forgiveness
Family members of the victims of the Charleston, South Carolina, church
shooting captivated the country last year when they offered the attacker,
Dylann Roof, forgiveness instead of fury.
"You took something very precious from me. I will never talk to her again. I
will never, ever hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your
soul," Nadine Collier, the daughter of one of the women Roof killed, said
during his court appearance on June 19, 2015, according to The Washington Post.
However, these same men and women must now accept federal and state
prosecutors' plan to seek the death penalty, and some have already done so
wholeheartedly.
"What would give me full closure would be if I were the one who pushed the
plunger on the lethal injection, or if I were the one to pull the switch on the
electric chair or if I was the one to open the valve on the gas chamber," said
Steve Hurd, whose wife, Cynthia, was killed by Roof, to the Associated Press.
Hurd's rage, as well as the tacit support of other family members, surprised
some observers who wondered why the urge for revenge often wins out over the
desire to forgive.
"If the families of Roof's victims can find the grace of forgiveness within
themselves; if the president can praise them for it; if the public can be awed
by it - then why can't the Department of Justice act in the spirit of that
grace and resist the impulse to kill?" wrote author Ta-Nehisi Coates, in a
column for The Atlantic.
Faith leaders have been asking similar questions for centuries, leading many to
view the death penalty as an essentially religious issue.
Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. adults (19 %) say religious beliefs have the biggest
influence on their thinking about the death penalty, according to a 2011 study
from Pew Research Center.
"Religion is woven into this debate in complicated and often unpredictable
ways. There's no single (path) from scripture to a political view," said Eric
Owens, associated director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public
Life at Boston College, to the Deseret News in February.
It's been more than 10 years since the government executed a convicted
criminal, but Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced May 24 that the Justice
Department would seek the death penalty for Roof.
"The nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm compelled this
decision," she said in a written statement, according to USA Today.
"The 33-count federal indictment charged Roof with nine murders, three
attempted murders and multiple firearms offenses," the article noted.
Roof also faces local charges, and he's been indicted by a South Carolina grand
jury, USA Today reported. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty there, as
well, when the case is heard in January 2017.
(source: Deseret News)
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