April 9
TEXAS----stay of impending execution
Appeals court stays Texas man's execution over claims of defense lawyer's
'racist ideology'
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday stayed the execution of a white
Dallas death row prisoner who argued that his trial attorney relied on "racist
ideology" to keep black jurors off the panel during his 1991 capital murder
trial.
Mark Robertson - who was scheduled for execution Thursday - was originally
sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of a friend and his 81-year-old
grandmother. But earlier this month, defense lawyers asked the court to
reconsider an earlier decision, and once again look at whether then-attorney
Michael Byck "engaged in purposeful discrimination" based on the belief that
black jurors would be less sympathetic to a white defendant.
The late Dallas attorney "brazenly recounted" his strategy and ideology during
a 1997 appeals hearing where he said he'd be "more than happy to violate
anybody else's rights" in an effort to defend his client. Ultimately, it was an
all-white jury that sentenced Robertson to death, after Byck and prosecutors
handling the case agreed to "indulge each other" in their "prejudices,"
according to court records.
The 3-page ruling on Monday doesn't offer any insight as to the court's reason
for granting a stay, merely outlining history of the case and noting that the
court "has determined that applicant's execution should be stayed pending
further order from this Court." Robertson's current attorneys did not
immediately offer comment on the decision.
The case started in August of 1989, after Robertson went to his friend's house
to do some crank and smoke some weed. Later that night, the then-21-year-old
and his friend, Sean Hill, went fishing in the creek out back.
They caught 7 catfish before Robertson shot his friend in the head.
"After I shot him, Sean fell in the water," Robertson wrote later in a
confession. "I then ran in the house through Sean's bedroom and into the
bathroom where I splashed some water over my face. I then walked into the den
where (Edna Brau), Sean's grandmother, was watching TV and I shot her once."
After the slayings, Robertson swiped his friend's drugs and the elderly woman's
purse before stealing her car and eventually fleeing to Las Vegas.
When police caught him, he offered a detailed and gory written confession.
During trial 2 years later, the jury also heard about how he murdered
19-year-old 7-Eleven clerk Jeffrey Saunders a week before the double killing at
Brau's house. That slaying - and Hill's - netted him 2 life sentences, while
Brau's killing put him on death row.
In 2003, his then-attorney won him a last-minute stay based on claims of false
testimony as to his future dangerousness behind bars. He later won the chance
at a new punishment, based on bad jury instructions - but the retrial still
ended in a death sentence. Last year, a Dallas County judge again signed off on
an execution date.
Now, with Robertson's death date off the calendar, there are 4 more prisoners
scheduled for death this year in Texas.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
******************
Texas court stops execution of Mark Robertson after claims of racist jury
selection----The court issued a stay of Thursday's execution after his lawyers
argued that Robertson's original trial lawyer discriminated against potential
jurors who were black.
In 2 weeks, 2 Texas executions have been stopped by the courts.
On Monday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the Thursday execution of
Mark Robertson, who was convicted nearly 30 years ago in the Dallas shooting
deaths and robbery of an elderly woman and her grandson.
His appellate lawyers asked the Texas court to stop his death because
Robertson’s original trial lawyer discriminated against potential jurors who
were black, claiming they would “not be sympathetic” toward his client.
Robertson’s trial was held before an all-white jury.
The court ruling stayed the execution of Robertson, who is white, pending
further order without any comment.
Robertson, 50, first asked the court to look into the claim of racial
discrimination more than 20 years ago, but the Court of Criminal Appeals denied
his appeal. Last week, his lawyers asked the court to reconsider the denial, in
part because recent court decisions have condemned racial discrimination in the
criminal justice system — like in the Texas case of Duane Buck.
In 2017, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that Buck’s death sentence was tainted by
racist testimony that indicated Buck was more likely to be a future danger to
society because he is black. In an oft-cited opinion, Chief Justice John
Roberts indicated any racial bias in testimony affects fairness, claiming “some
toxins can be deadly in small doses.” Buck has since been resentenced to life
in prison.
“By now there should be no confusion on this matter — racial discrimination in
the administration of justice is intolerable,” said Jeremy Schepers,
Robertson’s current attorney, in a statement last week before the ruling.
Less than 2 weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court halted the Texas execution of
Patrick Murphy after he claimed the state's policy prohibiting Buddhist
chaplains in the execution chamber was religious discrimination. Since then,
the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has changed its policy to allow no
advisers of any religion into the death chamber.
Robertson was first sentenced to death in 1991 in the 1989 murders of
81-year-old Edna Brau and her 19-year-old grandson, Sean Hill. Robertson, 21 at
the time, was friends with Hill and had gone over to his house and used drugs,
according to court records. Later, while Robertson and Hill were fishing behind
the house, Robertson shot Hill once in the head. He then went inside and killed
Brau before stealing Hill's drugs and Brau's purse, jewelry and car.
He was arrested more than a week later in Las Vegas in Brau's car and confessed
to police, telling them he "didn't know what to do" and was relieved to be
arrested "because I didn't have to run anymore."
Robertson received the death penalty for Brau's death. He also confessed to the
murder of a 19-year-old convenience store clerk, Jeffery Saunders, which he
committed 10 days before the other killings. He took $55 from the register.
Thursday was Robertson's 2nd execution date. He was previously set for death in
2003 but his execution was stopped as the courts wrestled with jury
instructions in death penalty cases. In 2008, the Court of Criminal Appeals
tossed Robertson's death sentence and he got a new punishment trial — where
jurors opt for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole
or death. He was again sentenced to death.
2 men have been executed in Texas so far this year. With Robertson's stay, the
courts have stopped the scheduled deaths of 3 men in 2019.
(source: The Texas Tribune)
*****************
Judge rejects appeal from Houston death row prisoner whose lawyer slept during
trial
One of the lawyers repeatedly slept through trial and the other had never
handled a capital murder before. But last week a Houston federal judge decided
that was good enough to keep George McFarland on death row, despite his
longstanding claims of innocence and a conviction based largely on the
testimony of a single, tentative eyewitness.
The Harris County man was sentenced to die in 1992 for the slaying and robbery
of a local grocer, a 43-year-old man gunned down while walking back to his
store with a bag of cash from the bank. There was never any physical evidence
tying McFarland to the murder, but his primary attorney only cursorily prepared
for the case, barely consulted with co-counsel, put on no evidence and dozed
through key parts of the whirlwind 4-day trial.
"I'm 72 years old," former defense attorney John Benn later told a court. "I
customarily take a short nap in the afternoon."
The high-profile case sparked decades of legal wrangling and an award-winning
movie, but it particularly resonated in Harris County in light of an earlier,
more infamous sleeping lawyer case that helped usher in legislative changes to
indigent defense and ended with the overturning of a local man's death
sentence.
Yet in McFarland's case, U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes determined Tuesday
that the attorney's dozing was "appalling" and "regrettable" – but in the end
decided it didn't matter because at least 1 of the 2 defense attorneys was
awake at all times, so the accused was never entirely without counsel.
"It's amazing how cavalier the courts have been with regard to this case," said
Yale Law School visiting lecturer Stephen Bright. "It's unconscionable."
Tuesday's opinion came more than a decade after the case landed in Hughes'
court but, for unclear reasons, the jurist did not make a decision until months
after a Houston-area activist wrote a higher court to complain about the delay.
Rusty Herman, McFarland's current attorney, did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
On an unseasonably warm night in late 1991, a robbery crew gunned down Kenneth
Kwan, the owner of C&Y Grocery north of Loop 610. The father of 3 was on the
way back from the bank with $27,000 in hand when a robbery crew opened fire.
Carolyn Bartie, a civilian worker at the Houston Police Department, was a
regular customer who happened to be sitting outside to witness the whole
shooting. Early on, she tentatively identified McFarland in a photo line-up –
though her initial description of the shooter didn't match the man accused.
None of the alleged accomplices was arrested or ever testified, and no prints
or physical evidence tied any of the suspects to the crime.
Still, McFarland - who had a criminal background and a history of drug use -
was arrested six weeks later after his teenage nephew called Crime Stoppers and
said he'd heard the older man confess to a robbery. The teen later recanted,
after McFarland had already been sent to death row.
For trial, McFarland hired Benn based on the recommendation of friends. But the
elderly attorney hadn't tried a capital case in more than two decades, and
started nodding off during jury selection. When the judge spotted the potential
problem, he appointed Sanford Melamed – who had no capital experience – as
co-counsel.
When asked if he'd really been snoozing during trial, Benn first said the court
proceedings were just "boring" and later contended that he'd been "thinking,"
not napping. But, unlike in the other sleeping lawyer case - where Joe Cannon
dozed throughout Calvin Burdine's trial - McFarland had a 2nd attorney, and the
courts so far have zeroed in on that.
Generally, the judge conceded, lawyers should not sleep during trial.
"The court does not approve of a sleeping lawyer," Hughes wrote. "This is
unacceptable by an attorney in any case and particularly in a case of this
magnitude."
But in this case, Texas courts already found that it didn't matter because at
least 1 of the 2 attorneys was awake - even though other attorneys later
alleged Melamed was badly prepared.
"This is not a case where the trial court ignored a defendant's constitutional
rights," Hughes wrote. "The prosecution engaged in no misconduct. While not
perfect, the attorneys made efforts to defend McFarland. Viewing the evidence
and McFarland's choice in trial, McFarland has not shown that a different
strategy would have ended in a different result. It is regrettable that Benn
slept through trial. That does not change the fact that the court of criminal
appeals did not misapply the law."
(source: Houston Chronicle)
*************
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----42
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----560
Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
43---------Apr. 24----------------John King---------------561
44---------May 2------------------Dexter Johnson----------562
45---------Aug. 21----------------Larry Swearingen--------563
46---------Sept. 4----------------Billy Crutsinger--------564
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
*********************
USA----countdown to nation's 1500th execution
With the execution of Billie Wayne Coble in Texas on February 28, the USA has
now executed 1,493 condemned individuals since the death penalty was
relegalized on July 2, 1976 in the US Supreme Court Gregg v Georgia decision.
Gary Gilmore was the 1st person executed, in Utah, on January 17, 1977. Below
is a list of scheduled executions as the nation approaches a terrible milestone
of 1500 executions in the modern era.
NOTE: The list is likely to change over the coming months as new execution
dates are added and possible stays of execution occur.
1494-------Apr. 11------------Christopher Price---------Alabama
1495-------Apr. 24------------John King------------------Texas
1496-------May 2--------------Dexter Johnson------------Texas
1497-------May 16-------------Donnie Johnson-----------Tennessee
1498-------Aug. 15------------Stephen West-------------Tennessee
1499-------Aug. 21------------Larry Swearingen---------Texas
1500-------Sept. 4------------Billy Crutsinger---------Texas
(source: Rick Halperin)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Sander guilty in triple murder case. Jury will now decide on death penalty.
Convicted of 1st-degree murder Monday, Jonathan Sander again lashed out at his
victims’ family, mouthing an obscenity and dismissing an order from the judge.
“Put me to death,” he told Superior Court Judge Graham Shirley. “That’s what’s
happening anyway.”
Jurors found Sander guilty on all 3 counts of 1st-degree murder in the 2016
triple slaying of his neighbors the Mazzella family, triggering the question of
whether the 55-year-old will receive the death penalty.
The decision came after 2 weeks of evidence capped by Sander’s recorded
confession, in which he described blasting in the door and killing his former
best friend Sandy Mazzella with a shotgun. His neighbor’s wife, Stephenie, and
76-year-old mother, Elaine, also died from close-range shotgun wounds.
Sander said he entered the Mazzella house in a blackout rage brought on by his
neighbors accusing him of molesting an underage member of their family, a crime
he denied. Sander told a Wake County sheriff’s deputy afterward, “I wanted to
kill him so his family would be hurt like my family was.”
As friends led a sobbing Sal Mazzella, the husband of Elaine and father of
Sandy, from the courtroom after the verdict, Sander yelled, “See you soon, Sal.
Have a nice day.”
Sander then mouthed an obscenity to Mazzella.
The jury had left the room prior to Sander’s outburst, but Shirley warned him
to watch his words. 2 weeks ago, on the trial’s 1st day, Sander was escorted
from the courtroom after yelling an expletive at the elder Mazzella as he wept
on the witness stand. Shirley warned him that he would watch his own trial via
remote broadcast if he caused another outburst. He has been handcuffed and
shackled for the duration of the trial.
Sander’s conviction sets up the possibility of capital punishment, an
increasing rarity in North Carolina.
The state has not executed an inmate since 2006, and most prisoners on death
row have been waiting there for at least 2 decades, according to the nonprofit
Center for Death Penalty Litigation. No death sentences were handed down
statewide in 2017 or 2018.
Last month, a Wake County jury condemned convicted killer Seaga Gillard to
death for a double murder at a Raleigh motel, part of a string of crimes
targeting sex workers.
The penalty phase of Sander’s trial resumes Tuesday.
(source: newsobserver.com)
*****************
Trial over death of 2-year-old points out that capital cases, once routine, now
reserved for the worst of the worst
Jaxson Swain never had a chance. He was only 2 when prosecutors say he was
tortured to death inside a drug den.
Testimony offered so far in the trial of Charles Thomas “Tommy” Stacks, the
33-year-old accused of committing that atrocity, tells us this is so. The
little boy suffered mightily before he died in August 2015. His head was bashed
in and his arms and legs covered by bruises and human bite marks.
Jaxson’s mother, we’ve been told, was a heroin addict and sometime prostitute
who’d leave him in the care of Stacks, her dealer/pimp, and his wife, while she
hustled for dope money.
The boy had been punched, kicked and God knows what else throughout his short
life. His older sister, now 11, testified to that last week.
That cute little boy, memorialized in a photograph wearing a tiny jacket and
tie, never had a chance.
The question now playing out in Forsyth Superior Court is simple: Should the
man accused of killing a true innocent be afforded a chance of his own? Jurors,
who so far have been moved to tears at least twice, will determine that in the
next few weeks.M
A steep decline
At last count, 144 inmates in the North Carolina Department of Correction — 3
of them female — are languishing on the state’s death row.
Thirteen of them are from Forsyth County. One is Blanche Taylor Moore, the
infamous Black Widow who in 1990 was sentenced to die. A guy named Wayne Laws,
of Davidson County, has been on death row the longest, having been convicted in
1985 — in the middle of the Reagan administration.
A capital murder trial, once routine in North Carolina, has become a rare
occurrence.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, just 14 death sentences have
been imposed in the state since 2009 — a 90 % decline from the record 241
handed down from 1991-2000.
Part of the reason is a change in state law, which once put the death penalty
on the table for anyone charged with 1st-degree murder, that allows prosecutors
more discretion in deciding who should face the ultimate punishment.
The idea, which is as it should be, was to make it so only the absolute worst
of the worst would find themselves on trial for their lives.
Since 2010, only 6 of the 490 people currently in prison for murder have had
juries recommend a death sentence. The most recent was last month when a Wake
County jury decided that a 30-year-old man deserves to die for killing a
pregnant woman and her boyfriend during an attempted robbery.
Here in Forsyth County, only 2 men have been sentenced to death in the past 10
years.
One was in 2010 for killing an elderly volunteer with the Meals on Wheels
program and another in 2014 for decapitating his estranged wife in front of
their children.
The N.C. Supreme Court ordered in 2018 a new sentencing for the wife killer.
Prosecutors have not decided whether to pursue the death penalty again. Putting
kids through that again would be harsh.
Only the cruelest, the most sadistic and the most brutal were subjected to
capital trials — as the revised law intended. The worst of the worst.
Then came Tommy Stacks.
Time will tell
State v. Stacks, being tried on the 5th floor of the Forsyth County Hall of
Justice, has turned into a stomach-churning, slow-moving orgy of objections and
acrimony.
Prosecutors moved toward resting their case today and turning matters over to
defense lawyers, who spent much of the trial’s first week fighting to keep
jurors from viewing photographs of Jaxson’s injuries and attacking a jail-house
snitch who recounted conversations in 2015 with Stacks while they were locked
up in adjoining cells.
The snitch, a glib, fast-talking heroin addict/convicted felon named Joshua
Justice, described a home where small children were herded into a bathroom so
“adults” could get high.
Justice testified Stacks told him that the night Jaxson was injured, Stacks was
“dope sick” — suffering from withdrawal — and angry that the boy’s mother,
Candace, took off with the last of the drugs in the house.
Stacks said he felt “like a demon possessed,” Justice testified, and said that
he “didn’t intend to kill (Jaxson)” before adding “I’m tired of talking about
it. It’s not like he’s not in a better place.”
God I hope that’s true. We’ll never know if a loving grandparent or an aunt, a
teacher or school counselor or even a foster family could have made a
difference in that little boy’s life.
But we do know this: the last person executed in North Carolina was Samuel
Flippen, a Forsyth County man who was killed in 2006 by lethal injection for
punching a 2-year-old girl so hard that internal organs ruptured.
Because capital cases are so rare and the punishment has all but been stopped
by the courts, the state of North Carolina v. Stacks may yet turn into yet
another expensive, time-consuming and futile exercise.
Jaxson Swain never had a chance. We’ll soon know whether the man accused in the
boy’s death is allowed what a 2-year-old boy never was — a chance to live.
(source: Winston-Salem Journal)
FLORIDA:
Man facing death for father's premeditated murder in line for resentencing
John William Campbell, who was once Citrus County’s only felon on Florida’s
death row, is again on track to getting either life in prison or executed for
his father’s murder.
Campbell appeared Monday afternoon in front of Circuit Court Judge Richard
“Ric” Howard for an update on his resentencing.
Howard asked 45-year-old Campbell, who has been incarcerated for roughly eight
and a half years — pre-and-post conviction — how he was doing.
“You’re looking well, sir,” the judge said to the Inverness man. “It’s been a
while, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, sir, it has,” replied Campbell, who was dressed in a red inmate uniform,
had short, salt-and-pepper hair and was wearing Coke-bottle glasses.
Howard had ordered Campbell’s death by lethal injection in March 2013 for
hacking his 68-year-old father, John Henry Campbell, to death with a hatchet in
August 2010 at his Inverness home.
Citrus County Circuit Court Judge Richard “Ric” Howard reads convicted murderer
John Campbell’s sentencing order at a March 2013 hearing while holding the
murder weapon Campbell used to attack and kill his father in August 2010.
Campbell received the death penalty for bludgeoning his father with the
hatchet, killing him in his Inverness home.
Howard was also the judge that later vacated Campbell’s death sentence on an
appeal in June 2017, court records show.
Howard’s ruling to drop Campbell’s execution and repeat his sentencing, a
mandate upheld last December by the Florida Supreme Court, was based on the
U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Hurst v. Florida.
High court justices ruled in their January 2016 opinion that Florida’s
death-sentencing procedure was unconstitutional because a state judge could
impose a felon’s execution even though a majority of jurors voted against it at
sentencing.
Following Campbell’s January 2013 trial conviction for premeditated murder, 8
of 12 jurors voted that his crime warranted death, which Howard affirmed later
that March, according to court records.
“We knew it would be coming back,” Assistant State Attorney Pete Magrino said
Monday after Campbell’s hearing about the case reopening due to Hurst.
At Campbell’s eventual sentencing hearing, attorneys will present case evidence
to a jury panel of at least 12 people who will re-decide Campbell’s fate.
If there’s unanimous vote for it, Campbell will go back to death row.
If not, Howard must sentence Campbell to life in prison, said Magrino, who’s
been prosecuting the case since a Citrus County grand jury indicted Campbell
for murder in September 2010.
Campbell was arrested in August 2010 following a high-speed chase with
sheriff’s deputies from Citrus and Hernando counties, who were pursuing him as
a suspect in his father’s murder and an armed robbery, prior reports show.
Campbell was driving at speeds over 120 mph when police deployed stop sticks on
U.S. 19 at the Citrus-Hernando County line, causing him to travel off-road and
strike an empty Citrus County Sheriff’s Office patrol car.
He was taken into custody and airlifted to a St. Petersburg hospital.
Julie Morley, who was challenging Campbell’s death sentence as an attorney with
the state’s office of the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, said Monday
she’ll transfer Campbell’s “more than 12 crates” of case files to the Public
Defender’s Office in Inverness.
Assistant Public Defender Edward Spaight, who will represent Campbell in his
resentencing alongside Michael Lamberti, asked Howard to set June 18 as
Campbell’s next status date, which the judge agreed to.
Campbell also said he was fine with having Lamberti continue to represent him
even though Campbell claimed in his appeals the Brooksville lawyer was
ineffective counsel during his trial a little over 6 years ago.
“I waive all conflicts with the P.D.’s office,” Campbell said to Howard.
Campbell will return back to the state prison in Starke until he’s needed back
in court, Howard allowed.
“If it’s just procedural, I would ask to waive his appearance,” Spaight said.
“If it’s something substantive we would transport him back him.”
(source: Citrus County Chroniclce)
ALABAMA----impending execution
Inmate asks appeals court for stay ahead of Thursday execution
An Alabama inmate set to be die Thursday evening has asked an appeals court to
stay his execution.
Christopher Price is set to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Thursday at
Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. He was convicted in the 1991 robbery
and slaying of Bill Lynn and was sentenced to death by a jury’s vote of 10-2. A
judge upheld the jury’s recommendation and sent Price to death row.
Price had asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama
for a stay of execution, arguing the Alabama Department of Corrections’
three-drug lethal injection cocktail could cause Price severe pain during his
execution. The 46-year-old also claimed the state’s refusal to allow him to
elect the newly approved nitrogen hypoxia method denies him equal protection
under the Constitution.
The Alabama Attorney General’s Office claimed in a filing Price was given the
forms necessary to elect a change of execution method from lethal injection to
nitrogen hypoxia last summer, when all other inmates on death row were given
the same opportunity. The state says Price neglected to make that election. The
AG’s Office called the current lawsuit a “meritless delay tactic.”
Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Kristi DuBose denied the stay of execution
and noted Price did not elect to choose nitrogen hypoxia by the cutoff date,
and that the gas is not readily available since the state has not yet developed
a protocol for those types of executions.
Price’s appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals was dated Saturday, but
made available in court records Monday morning.
Lynn, a minister at Natural Springs Church of Christ, was fatally stabbed with
a knife and sword outside his home in the Bazemore community three days before
Christmas in 1991. Court records state Lynn was putting together Christmas
presents for his grandchildren, when the power went out. He walked outside to
check the power box when he was attacked.
Records state Lynn suffered 38 cuts, lacerations, and stab wounds, and one of
his arms was almost severed. He died en route to a local hospital. His wife,
Bessie Lynn, was wounded in the attack but survived her injuries.
Price was arrested in Tennessee several days after the slaying and was
convicted in 1993.
(source: al.com)
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