February 24
TEXAS:
Hearings rescheduled for 3 men accused of murdering Tyler gas station clerk
Hearings for 3 men accused of murdering a Tyler gas station clerk in 2017 have
been rescheduled.
According to Smith County judicial records, Lamarcus Hannah, 32; Kedarias
Oliver, 23; and Dameon Mosley, 25, who all face a capital murder charge in the
shooting death of Billy Dale Stacks, 62, have had their hearing dates pushed
back.
The men were initially set for plea hearings on Thursday and pre-trial
appearances on Friday, however, those were canceled.
According to CBS19's newspaper partner the Tyler Morning Telegraph, Smith
County District Attorney Jacob Putman says he hearings were rescheduled for
July 25 because DNA evidence testing will not be completed until late June.
On Saturday, January 28, around 3:30 a.m., officials with the Smith County
Sheriff's Office and the Tyler Police Department responded to a 911 call in
regards to an aggravated robbery at the Conoco gas station, located at 3319
North Northeast Loop 323 in Tyler.
When law enforcement arrived on scene, they discovered Stacks lying on the
floor with gunshot wounds.
A Smith County deputy who was near gas station when they call came in spotted a
vehicle turn onto a street that was a dead-end. When he attempted to pull the
vehicle over, a chase began.
The high-speed pursuit lasted approximately 10 minutes. One of the suspects got
out of the vehicle and ran into the woods near Interstate 20 and Highway 155.
The driver then escaped.
A perimeter was established and a Texas Department of Public Safety helicopter
was requested to perform an aerial search of the area. Texas Department of
Criminal Justice K-9s were brought in to conduct a ground search. The Smith
County SWAT team and DPS troopers also assisted.
The manhunt was called off when a Smith County patrol sergeant was driving
around the perimeter and spotted the Avenger that had been involved in the
pursuit abandoned and parked next to a church on Farm-to-Market Road 2015.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, law enforcement officials were able
to track down the owner of the abandoned vehicle involved in the incident, who
said they sold it to Mosley. During a search of the vehicle, officials said
they found the same type of ammunition that was used to kill Stacks.
When Mosley was contacted over the phone and confronted with the words, “Smith
County has your Dodge Avenger,” according to the affidavit, he responded with,
“I loaned my car to a friend of mine named Lamarcus Hannah.”
When contacted, Hannah agreed to an interview with the Smith County Sheriff’s
Office and admitted to driving the vehicle, according to the affidavit. The
document further states that Hannah said he was with Mosley and an unknown
friend of his during the morning of the robbery.
Hannah said Mosley and his friend left him at the friend’s house and Mosley’s
friend later returned saying they needed to pick up Mosley in the Avenger.
They drove to an area behind the Conoco and Hannah said Mosley got into the
vehicle instructing him to “floor it,” according to the affidavit. Hannah said
he didn’t stop when being pursued by law enforcement officials because he was
scared, and Mosley had a gun.
Smith County detectives and members of the Dallas Police Department took Mosley
into custody in Dallas on October 29, 2017. Hannah was also arrested on October
29. Oliver was arrested the next day.
The 3 remain held in the Smith County jail on bonds of $1 million.
Mosley, Hannah and Oliver's trials are scheduled to begin this fall.
Prosecutors initially elected to seek the death penalty for Mosley while Hannah
and Oliver face life in prison.
(sourceCBS News)
NEW HAMPSHIRE:
Respectfully, we support repeal of NH death penalty
As the hours of testimony before a New Hampshire House committee revealed
Tuesday, the state’s death penalty law is highly emotional for both its
supporters and detractors.
Each of us is informed by our life experiences, and even similar experiences
and beliefs can lead us to reach opposite conclusions.
On Tuesday, we heard the thoughtful testimony of two former attorneys general.
Kelly Ayotte, who prosecuted the Michael Addison capital murder case when she
was attorney general, argued that life in prison would not be adequate
punishment for a man found guilty in 2008 of gunning down on-duty Manchester
police officer Michael Briggs. In contrast, former attorney general Phil
McLaughin described a capital case in which a man was arrested and charged with
the murder of a child, only to be exonerated by DNA evidence. McLaughlin said
he kept a photo of the victim in that case on his desk to remind him that he
had been “absolutely certain about something, but was dead wrong.”
Many church leaders who oppose abortion also oppose the death penalty, arguing
all life is sacred; but some vehemently pro-life lawmakers also strongly
support the death penalty.
While many families of murder victims have said they do not want the state
killing in their name, some victims’ families feel the death of their loved
one’s killer brings closure.
Seacoast Media Group’s editorial board has consistently called for the repeal
of the death penalty, arguing the risk of human error is too high, minorities
and poor people are disproportionately sentenced to death, it doesn’t help the
families of murder victims heal, has not been proven a deterrent and is far
more expensive to taxpayers than sentencing someone to life without parole.
In 2009, following the Addison case and a second murder-for-hire case involving
a wealthy white defendant, who was sentenced to life in prison, the state
created a commission to study the issue and issue a report. The commission
narrowly voted in favor of keeping the death penalty, but its chairman, Judge
Walter Murphy, concluded: “There is no assurance that the death penalty does
what its advocates claim is its purpose; nor is there any reason to believe it
is necessary for public safety.”
New Hampshire’s death penalty applies in only seven scenarios: the killing of
an on-duty law enforcement officer or judge, murder for hire, murder during a
rape, certain drug offenses or home invasion and murder by someone already
serving a life sentence without parole.
In 2018, repeal of the death penalty passed both the House and Senate, was
vetoed by Gov. Chris Sununu and legislators were unable to muster enough votes
for an override of the veto.
In 2019, it appears death penalty repeal has the votes to pass both the House
and Senate and observers suggest enough senators are on record in support of
repeal to override a veto. Whether there are enough votes in the House remains
to be seen.
While we strongly support efforts to repeal the death penalty, we urge everyone
engaging in the debate to be respectful of those with differing points of view.
As former attorney general McLaughlin reminded us Tuesday, sometimes you can be
absolutely sure of something and be absolutely wrong. We need to be humble when
discussing matters of life and death and do our best to objectively and
dispassionately weigh the evidence and then act as our consciences dictate. We
believe the evidence strongly supports repeal of the death penalty in New
Hampshire.
(source: Editorial, fosters.com)
********************
Killing people who kill people is wrong
You know that support for the death penalty in New Hampshire is eroding fast
when the best that capital punishment proponents can do is to trot out Kelly
Ayotte for another round of fearmongering and flimflammery.
Ayotte is the former 1-term U.S. senator who, as New Hampshire’s attorney
general, was the lead prosecutor in the case of Michael Addison. Addison shot
and killed Manchester police officer Michael Briggs in 2006. He was convicted
and sentenced to death in 2008. Ayotte made her role in that case a centerpiece
of her 2010 campaign for Senate. (Significantly, emails from 2006 between
Ayotte and a campaign strategist appeared to show her considering the political
implications of the case for her.)
On Tuesday, Ayotte addressed the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety
Committee, which was considering a bill, HB 455, that would end capital
punishment in New Hampshire.
“If you repeal the death penalty, I want you to understand that Michael
Addison’s sentence will be commuted to life without parole, which would not be
just and would send the wrong message to criminals when it comes to killing
police officers in the state of New Hampshire,” she said.
Hogwash. First, the bill as written would not apply to Addison. Second, as
attorney general, Ayotte was an officer of the justice system, not the
vengeance system. Third, life without parole would be the very definition of
justice: Those convicted of heinous crimes would be forced to carry the weight
of their transgressions for the rest of their days — and, as we have suggested
before, perhaps come to a moral awakening, an acceptance of awful
responsibility. Finally, how can Ayotte support her assertion that the threat
of punishment would send a “message to criminals”?
She can’t, of course. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report shows no correlation
between the aggressive application of capital punishment and lower homicide
rates, and survey after survey — of the public, of the nation’s leading
criminologists, of more than 30 years of research on the issue — has concluded
that the death penalty should not be considered an effective deterrent to
crime.
Then there’s the malign influence of human error, faulty procedures, bias,
dishonesty and politics that has led to more than 160 people being wrongly
convicted of capital crimes since 1972. Even more horrifying, serious questions
have been raised about more than a dozen executions carried out since 1989.
Botched executions bring medieval barbarism to the modern death chamber and
traumatize all involved — corrections officials, doctors, nurses, family
members and other witnesses. It’s even a pocketbook issue: One estimate put the
cost of the Addison case to New Hampshire taxpayers at $5.5 million and
counting, compared with $1.4 million for 40 years of incarceration.
New Hampshire is the last state in New England with a capital punishment law
still on the books. A repeal effort failed in 2000 when it was vetoed by
then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat. 6 months ago, Republican Gov. Chris
Sununu vetoed a measure identical to the one now being considered, and he has
indicated that he will do so again. The difference: Last year’s measure passed
when the House and the Senate were both were controlled by Republicans, and the
effort to override Sununu’s veto fell just two votes short in the Senate. This
year, Democrats have a 14-10 majority in the Senate and a 223-167 majority in
the House. They will still need substantial Republican support to override a
veto, but that seems more likely than ever. According to Hannah Cox of
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, Republican support for
repealing the death penalty has grown dramatically since 2000. “A verdict is
taking shape across the nation,” Cox wrote last week on Newsmax.com,
“conservatives have turned against the death penalty.”
Those conservatives include Dan Passen, chair of New Hampshire College
Republicans, who tweeted on Tuesday, “There are so many reasons to overturn the
death penalty … a moral reason, a small government reason, a Christian reason,
a statistical reason, a fiscal reason, a pro-life reason. ...”
Indeed.
On Wednesday, the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee voted,
11-6, to recommend repeal. The bill now moves to the full House and a vote is
scheduled for March. Advocates of repeal, who far outnumbered death penalty
supporters at Tuesday’s hearing, believe they have the votes needed to override
a Sununu veto. At a fundraiser in Hanover last month organized by the New
Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, state Sen. Martha Hennessey,
D-Hanover, while advocating caution, told Valley News correspondent Matt Golec,
“I think we do have the numbers.”
Let’s hope she’s right. It is long past time that New Hampshire stop
threatening to kill people who kill people to show that killing people is
wrong.
(source: Editorial, Valley News)
OHIO:
Torture isn't justice
Ohio will not execute any more prisoners while officials search for a method of
lethal injection that does not torture the condemned as they die.
Gov. Mike DeWine announced this week that he would pause the executions in
Ohio.
The new governor is likely to draw criticism from several directions for his
choice — from death-penalty supporters who will urge him not to delay justice,
as well as from death-penalty opponents who would prefer Mr. DeWine end
executions entirely.
Mr. DeWine’s choice shows real leadership, something he has demonstrated
repeatedly in his first weeks in office.
Last month, a federal magistrate judge compared Ohio’s three-drug process of
executing inmates to torture. Ohio’s current protocol uses the sedative
midazolam to render the condemned inmate unconscious, followed by rocuronium
bromide to stop breathing, and then potassium chloride to stop his heart.
Lawyers for Warren Henness, who was convicted of aggravated murder in 1992,
have argued the dose of midazolam executioners plan to use is not likely to be
able to induce unconsciousness sufficient to prevent the inmate from
experiencing severe pain while the next 2 drugs are used.
But the judge stopped short of halting the Henness execution. Instead Mr.
DeWine made that call, staying the execution until Sept. 12.
The governor ordered Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to find
a new drug combination to use in executions. Expected court challenges to that
proposal mean the execution is likely to be postponed again.
“Ohio is not going to execute someone on my watch when a federal judge has
found it to be cruel and unusual punishment,” Mr. DeWine said.
Finding a lethal-injection method has been a struggle for Ohio. Authorities
changed the execution drugs after the January, 2014, execution of Dennis B.
McGuire took more than 25 minutes. Witnesses said he appeared to suffer greatly
as he died.
7 Ohio prisoners, including Henness, had been scheduled for executions this
year.
Whether Ohio should have a death penalty is a question worthy of debate.
Whether the state should deliver gruesome, painful deaths to prisoners —
regardless of their crimes — should not be.
The state should not be in the business of violating the constitutional
protection against cruel and unusual punishment because it is in too much of a
hurry to find an appropriate drug cocktail to legally execute condemned
prisoners. Mr. DeWine’s decision showed principled leadership and integrity.
(source: Editorial, Toledo Blade)
KENTUCKY:
Prosecutors to seek death penalty in triple murder case
Eastern Kentucky prosecutors will seek the death penalty in a Martin County
triple murder case.
Lance Ward, 29, of Williamson, West Virginia, is currently jailed awaiting the
trial, which is not scheduled until March 2, 2020. A Martin County grand jury
returned an indictment of murder charges in May 2018.
On March 23, 2018, Amber Lockhard, 31, Micah Sammons, 20, and Dereck L. James,
26, were found shot on Goff Branch, just off Route 292 in Martin County.
Lockhard was still alive at the scene and died later in the hospital.
The old dirt road leads to a former mountaintop mine site where people ride
ATVs and hunt.
Days later, Lockhard's missing vehicle was found across state lines in
Williamson, West Virginia.
Tony Skeans, the assistant commonwealth attorney of Paintsville, Kentucky, will
serve as the chief prosecutor.
Investigators say evidence found in Lockhard's car led to the charges against
Ward.
The Williamson man was first held at the Southwestern Regional Jail at Holden
on other charges, but later extradited to Kentucky.
(source: Williamson Daily News)
KANSAS:
The Topeka Capital-Journal----Grief, rage and search for peace convolutes
Kansas’ death penalty
It took the state of Texas more than two decades to execute the man responsible
for the grisly murder of the mother of U.S. Navy veteran Celeste Dixon. Dixon’s
emotional journey starting with the shooting death of Marguerite Dixon on Aug.
18, 1986, in Hockley, Texas, and carrying through the death by lethal injection
of convicted killer Michael Richard on Sept. 25, 2007, in Huntsville, Texas,
was a portal into grief, hate, compassion, revenge and healing.
Irreversible tragedy led Dixon to assess her advocacy of capital punishment.
She became uncomfortable with the reality of promoting, even looking forward
to, Richard’s final breath.
“I didn’t like the way I felt,” said Dixon, of Larned. “I didn’t want to let
anger control my life. And, of course, none of this was going to bring my
mother back.”
She concluded the death penalty offered a false promise of release from her
suffering. State-sanctioned executions aren’t the right answer to heinous
crime, she said.
Dixon recently shared thoughts on Kansas’ death penalty, along with five other
people with similar life-shattering experiences, with members of the House
Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee. The majority of these witnesses
argued for discontinuation of capital punishment. Kansas has 10 people under
sentence of death, but the state has executed no one in more than 50 years.
The fate of a bill introduced in the 2019 session to replace capital punishment
with a sentence of life without parole was sealed Friday moments after the
House committee deadlocked 6-6.
Rep. Russ Jennings, a Lakin Republican and chairman of the corrections
committee, broke the tie on House Bill 2282.
“The chair votes ‘no.’ The bill fails,” Jennings said.
Greg Smith, who works for the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department, urged
Jennings and his colleagues to repel the latest legislative attempt to draw a
curtain on capital punishment. He said advocates were again searching the
justice system for some “undetected, undefined or perceived error” with the
capital punishment statute to justify repeal.
He refuted claims that capital punishment was unconstitutional, too expensive,
failed as a deterrent, likely to exacerbate false convictions and unneeded
since no one had been executed in Kansas since reinstatement of the death
penalty in 1994.
Smith’s connection to the issue went beyond his role as a special deputy in the
sheriff’s department.
“I provide a unique perspective,” he said. “Not only have I responded to crime
scenes and worked with families of a homicide victim, I have been that family
member as well.”
A dozen years ago, Smith’s daughter, 18-year-old Kelsey, was kidnapped from a
mall in Johnson County before being raped and strangled by her abductor. The
killer, Edwin Hall, was eligible for the death penalty in Kansas and Missouri,
where her body was found. A plea agreement concluded by Kansas prosecutors
resulted in a sentence of life without parole — the same sanction sought under
the House bill.
“I refuse to be silent on this issue. I must speak on behalf of Kelsey. Her
voice won’t be silenced,” Smith said. “I can say that I support the death
penalty. To repeal it would be a miscarriage of justice.”
North Newton resident Stanley Bohn, who urged the House committee to abolish
the death penalty, was drawn into the debate after his sister was beaten,
raped, strangled and shot five times in her Indiana home on March 14, 1969.
Helen Klassen’s murderer was never apprehended.
Bohn said contemplating his sister’s last moments was painful, and the
execution of anyone responsible would serve only to fuel the family’s trauma.
“Enduring the string of hearings, trials, appeals and finally killing that
mentally twisted person would add to the load we carry,” Bohn said. “And, most
of all, ending executions could help us all to be more caring and humane
persons.”
Mary Head, of Lawrence, said she always opposed the death penalty on moral
grounds. Her view was challenged but unchanged when her sister, Patricia
Erikson, was shot to death by an intruder May 17, 1984, in Norwood, Colo.
A suspect in the case was identified, but no one was put on trial for the
murder.
“I still reject the death penalty for many reasons,” Head said. “But I
especially recognize that it fails to help families and communities in the
aftermath of tragedy. Kansas reinstated the death penalty in 1994, pours
millions into this system with few results and will do so for the foreseeable
future.”
(source: Topeka Capital-Journal)
Book: Ex-AG Sessions pushed for more death-penalty charges
After Brendt Christensen was charged with kidnapping resulting in the death of
Yingying Zhang, it was unclear if then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions
would sign off on federal prosecutors seeking the death penalty, especially
since the visiting UI scholar's body hadn't been found.
While the person holding that office ultimately makes the decision, the
attorney general doesn't necessarily get too involved in the process or let
personal views impact a decision.
But a new book by the FBI's former deputy director, Andrew McCabe's "The
Threat," alleges that the death penalty was a frequent concern for Sessions.
"He expressed frustration that many U.S. attorneys, in cases where the death
penalty was an option, were not recommending or pursuing the death penalty,"
McCabe wrote in his book, published last week. "It's nonsense, he would say.
'We have this law, and if we have the law then we've got to start using it.'
"Sessions spent a lot of time yelling at us about the death penalty, despite
the fact that the FBI plays no role of any kind in whether to seek the death
penalty — that's a job for (the Department of) Justice."
When a charge is eligible for the death penalty, the local U.S. attorney makes
a recommendation to the assistant attorney general, and a capital review
committee meets with prosecutors and defense attorneys before making a
recommendation to the attorney general.
The confidential process is outlined in the Justice Department's U.S.
Attorney's Manual.
In Christensen's case, that process began after his charge was upgraded in
October 2017 from kidnapping to kidnapping resulting in Ms. Zhang's death.
Because the trial was still scheduled for February 2018 at that point,
Christensen's attorneys have said they only had until Nov. 1, 2017, to file a
memo with the Justice Department outlining mitigating factors, calling it an
"unreasonably short period" that didn't allow the defense to "conduct even a
rudimentary mitigation investigation."
Ms. Zhang's family also submitted its recommendation to prosecutors.
On Jan. 19, 2018, prosecutors announced they'd seek the death penalty,
following "the decision and directive by Attorney General Jeff Sessions."
By all accounts, Sessions has always been a strong supporter of the death
penalty, dating back to when he was a U.S. senator from Alabama and before
that, the state's attorney general.
A New York Times op-ed once referred to Sessions as the "Grim Reaper of
Alabama."
While the op-ed's author, Stanford Professor John Donohue, told News-Gazette
Media he expected to see the number of capital cases increase under Sessions,
other experts said at the time that it was either unlikely or too early to
tell.
While just 2 notices of intent to seek the death penalty in federal cases were
filed in 2017, Sessions' 1st year as attorney general, that increased to at
least 15 last year.
That's the highest in a year since 2012, according to a database maintained by
the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project.
While almost 30 death penalty cases were sought per year during George W.
Bush's presidency, that dropped to fewer than 10 a year during the Obama
administration.
Sessions resigned on Nov. 7, 2018, at the request of President Donald Trump.
(source: The News-Gazette)
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