Sept. 24
TEXAS----impending execution
North Texas man set to be executed for killing family
A 45-year-old North Texas man who was convicted of murdering his wife and 2
stepsons before raping his stepdaughter is set to be put to death.
Robert Sparks, 45, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Wednesday at
the Huntsville “Walls” Unit.
That is if the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t step in.
Sparks, who has been on Texas death row since his conviction in 2008, is asking
the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution, arguing that the jury
specifically relied upon “the false testimony of prosecution expert A.P.
Merillat when sentencing him to death. The appeal also claims that the
courtroom bailiff wore a syringe tie on the date of jury deliberations,
“creating an unacceptable risk of impermissible factors coming into play at
trial.”
Court records show that just after midnight on Sept. 15, 2007, Sparks put his
hand over the mouth of his wife, Chare Agnew, and stabbed her 18 times in her
bed. Then, one at a time, he woke up his stepsons — 9-year-old Harold and
10-year-old Raekwon — and stabbed them 45 times each, dragging their bodies
into the living and stashing them under a comforter.
Next, he went after the girls, raping his 14-year-old stepdaughter on the couch
while her younger sister watched. Afterward, he apologized to them for the
rapes and murders — but said their mother had been trying to poison him.
Sparks was arrested a few days later and tried the following year.
If carried out, Sparks will be the 16th person executed in the United States
this year and the 7th in the state of Texas.
(source: Huntsville Item)
*************************----stay of impending execution
Texas court halts the execution of Stephen Barbee to consider U.S. Supreme
Court precedent----The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay in
Barbee's case. He was set for execution on Oct. 2.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday temporarily stopped the execution
of Stephen Barbee. He had been set to die Oct. 2.
Barbee, 52, was sentenced to death in Tarrant County in the 2005 murder of his
pregnant ex-girlfriend, Lisa Underwood, and her 7-year-old son, Jayden.
According to court records, Barbee initially confessed during police
interrogation to killing them because he feared Lisa would tell his wife that
he was likely the father of her unborn child and that he would have to pay
child support. He later recanted the confession, which his lawyer argues was
“the product of fear and coercion,” and has since maintained his innocence.
The Texas court stopped next week’s execution because Barbee’s attorneys at his
short, two-and-a-half day trial, admitted to his guilt, likely in an attempt to
secure the more favorable sentence of life in prison without the opportunity
for parole. Barbee has said this concession of guilt was against his wishes,
that he repeatedly told his lawyers he wanted to maintain his innocence and
that his lawyers’ statement was “a complete surprise.”
The concession, Barbee argues, is a violation of his Sixth Amendment right to
counsel. The argument was rejected earlier, but after a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court
decision out of Louisiana, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered further
review of the case.
In McCoy v. Louisiana, the high court ruled that “a defendant has the right to
insist that counsel refrain from admitting guilt, even when counsel’s
experienced-based view is that confessing guilt offers the defendant the best
chance to avoid the death penalty.”
Though the ruling has been raised unsuccessfully in other Texas death penalty
appeals, the state appellate court decided Barbee’s case requires an opinion
the case's reach. The judges gave the state and Barbee 30 days to file briefs
on issues involving the Supreme Court decision.
(source: The Texas Tribune)
********************
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----46
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----564
Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
47---------Sept. 25---------------Robert Sparks-----------565
48---------Oct. 10----------------Randy Halprin-----------566
49---------Oct. 16----------------Randall Mays------------567
50---------Oct. 30----------------Ruben Gutierrez---------568
51---------Nov. 6-----------------Justen Hall-------------569
52---------Nov. 13----------------Patrick Murphy----------570
53---------Nov. 20----------------Rodney Reed-------------571
54---------Dec. 11----------------Travis Runnels----------572
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
*************************----impending execution
Texas plans to execute a man who says DNA evidence could exonerate
him----Rodney Reed’s lawyers have filed a lawsuit claiming Texas is violating
his constitutional rights
TEXAS'S DEATH-PENALTY machinery is humming. Last year, the state carried out
more than half of America's executions. So far this year, six out of 15 have
been carried out in the state and that share will increase. A further nine
inmates on death row are slated to die in Texas in 2019. After the execution
set for September 25th of Robert Sparks—who in 2007 confessed to fatally
stabbing his wife and two step-sons and raping his step-daughters—four
executions are scheduled for October, three for November and one in December.
On November 20th it will be the turn of Rodney Reed, a 51-year-old black man
who was found guilty of killing Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old white woman, in
1996. Mr Reed has been on Texas’s crowded death row since 1998. At the trial,
the main evidence connecting Mr Reed to the crime was strands of his DNA found
inside Ms Stites’s body. Mr Reed said he had been having an affair with Ms
Stites at the time of her death—and that he had sex with her the day before she
was found strangled with her own woven leather belt on the side of a country
road in Bastrop County, Texas.
No evidence put Mr Reed at the scene of the crime. Nor were there any
eyewitnesses implicating him. Instead, prosecutors relied on Mr Reed’s semen
found in a vaginal swab and presented this to jurors as the “smoking gun”. But
Mr Reed and his legal team—including lawyers from the Innocence Project, an
organisation dedicated to freeing wrongfully convicted prisoners and, in
capital cases, fighting against their executions—argue that the trial was
marred by unexamined evidence and false scientific claims. They argue that
Jimmy Fennell, Ms Stites’s fiancé and a police officer at the time, should have
been more closely investigated. Mr Fennell, who has denied involvement in Ms
Stites’s death, was the primary suspect in the case for more than a year before
suspicions turned to Mr Reed.
In a complaint filed in August—the latest in a series stretching back years—Mr
Reed’s lawyers describe waffling in Mr Fennell’s testimony, his two failed
polygraph tests and the “unusual” actions he took, including ditching his truck
and closing his bank account while his fiancé was still missing. Before she
died, it was claimed that Mr Fennell had been heard saying that he would kill
Ms Stites by strangling her with a belt if she ever cheated on him. A decade
later, Mr Fennell served a decade in prison for abducting and raping a young
woman.
Mr Reed’s lawyers also observe that key testimony from a forensic scientist
attesting to the timeline of Ms Stites’s death was later found (by the
scientist’s admission) to be false and that eye witnesses had seen Mr Reed and
Ms Stites together “at various times prior to her murder”, apparently
supporting his claim that they had been in a relationship. All of this may cast
doubt on the validity of Mr Reed’s conviction, but none of it proves his
innocence.
For years, Mr Reed’s lawyers have been arguing that their client should get a
new trial in which additional evidence—including DNA analysis of previously
overlooked crime-scene items—could be introduced. During the original trial,
neither Ms Stites’s clothing nor the murder weapon, the belt, was analysed for
genetic material. But these garments and objects remain safely stored, have not
been tampered with or compromised and could, plausibly, if tested, exonerate Mr
Reed. In 2017, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas refused to order
post-conviction DNA analysis because Mr Reed did not prove that “exculpatory
DNA results would have resulted in his acquittal”. This June, the same court
denied a similar request.
With avenues in state courts thus closed mere months before Mr Reed’s execution
date, his lawyers’ latest attempt to get a federal court to order a new trial
invokes both civil-rights law and the federal constitution. Denying Mr Reed a
chance to prove his innocence, the complaint says, violates Section 1983 of the
Civil Rights Act of 1871 affording individuals a hook for a lawsuit when states
deny them constitutional rights. And there are a host of rights at stake,
according to the complaint: Mr Reed’s right to due process, to be protected
from cruel and unusual punishments, to access courts and to prove his
innocence.
Mr Reed’s case has attracted national attention, including that of Sister Helen
Prejean, an activist opposing the death penalty who wrote “Dead Man Walking”, a
1993 book that inspired a film of the same name 2 years later. Sister Prejean
visited Mr Reed’s family upon his previous execution date in 2015 and has
served as an informal advocate. She recently tweeted that Texas seeks to
execute him “even though several items from the crime scene—including the
murder weapon—were never tested for DNA”.
By any measure, the death penalty in America is in decline. Last year, 25
prisoners were put to death in eight states, down from a peak of 98 executions
across 20 states in 1999. The number of death sentences is falling, too: in
2018, only 42 people were sent to death row compared to some 300 in the
mid-1990s. Popular support for capital punishment has dwindled along with
executions. In 1994, 80% of Americans approved of the death penalty for murder;
last year, 56% did. Although William Barr, the attorney-general, announced in
July that the federal government would resume executions of those sentenced to
death for federal crimes—five are on the calendar for December and January, the
first since 2003—capital punishment is an option in fewer and fewer states. In
the past three years state courts have struck down the death penalty in
Delaware and Washington; California’s governor imposed a moratorium in March;
and in May, the New Hampshire legislature voted to abolish it.
This retreat has been prompted by a number of factors including capital
punishment’s exorbitant cost. But the most distressing flaw of capital
punishment is well illustrated by the uncertainties in Mr Reed’s story: the
risk that the state may execute innocent people.
(source: The Economist)
*****************************
Faculty members critique death penalty and American Justice System at seminar
In the 1st seminar of the fall 2019 University Lecture Series, three
nationally-renowned faculty members discussed different perspectives critiquing
the death penalty and United States criminal justice system.
The School of Undergraduate Studies hosted the lecture Monday evening at Bass
Concert Hall. Professor Jordan Steiker, director of UT School of Law’s Capital
Punishment Center, said the death penalty is not compatible with the ideas of
human rights and decency, and the majority of the world’s developed countries
have already erased the death penalty from their justice systems.
“In the long run, the death penalty seems destined to end,” Steiker said. “It
is hard to imagine the death penalty as part of the American landscape 20 to 30
years in the future.”
Steiker said prosecutors now rarely seek the death penalty as a result of
increasing expenses for capital punishment cases, wrongful convictions and life
without possibility of parole as a substitute for the death penalty.
Mary Rose, associate professor of sociology and law, said she attributes a
decrease in death penalty cases to a broken legal system, where 95% of death
penalty defendants take plea deals rather than face trial.
“Defendants should have a jury trial, but they probably won’t have one, and
this is a reflection of a declining attachment to our liberties,” Rose said.
Trials are vanishing for almost all criminal and civil cases, and less than 2%
of civil disputes are solved by trial, Rose said.
Rose said the trial by jury concept is withering, and this protection enacted
by our founding fathers to safeguard our liberties is becoming a lost practice.
“The idea of citizens getting to decide on legal issues have gone away,” Rose
said. “The jury is a protection against elites. A jury makes sure that the
powerful don’t have a say in everything.”
At the end of the lecture, the speakers took questions from Twitter and the
audience.
“I realized the legal system is so complex, and it is so important to get this
insider perspective,” business honors freshman Sophia Lim said.
Students in undergraduate signature courses are required to attend at least one
seminar in this series to allow first-year students to engage with leading
faculty members.
“Our goal is not to change anyone’s mind on the death penalty,” said Brent
Iverson, dean of Undergraduate Studies. “We are just trying to engage students
to think about this controversial and complex topic.”
(source: (University of Texas) Daily Texan)
**********************
USA----impending/scheduled executions
With the execution of Mark Anthony Soliz in Texas on September 10, the USA has
now executed 1,505 condemned individuals since the death penalty was
re-legalized 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 further scheduled executions as the nation continues its shameful
practice of state-sponsored killings.
NOTE: The list is likely to change over the coming months as new execution
dates are added and possible stays of execution occur.
1506-------Sept 25------------Robert Sparks------------Texas
1507-------Oct. 1-------------Russell Bucklew----------Missouri
1508-------Oct. 10------------Randy Halprin------------Texas
1509-------Oct. 16------------Randall Mays-------------Texas
1510-------Oct. 30------------Ruben Gutierrez----------Texas
1511-------Nov. 3-9-----------Charles Rhines-----------South Dakota
1512-------Nov. 6-------------Justen Hall--------------Texas
1513-------Nov. 13------------Patrick Murphy-----------Texas
1514-------Nov. 20------------Rodney Reed--------------Texas
1515-------Dec. 5-------------Lee Hall Jr.-------------Tennessee
1516-------Dec. 9-------------Daniel Lewis Lee---------Federal - Ark.
1517-------Dec. 11------------James Hanna--------------Ohio
1518-------Dec. 11------------Travis Runnels-----------Texas
1519-------Dec. 11------------Lezmond Mitchell---------Federal - Ariz.
1520-------Dec. 13------------Wesley Purkey------------Federal - Mo.
1521-------Jan. 13-----------Alfred Bourgeois----------Federal - Tex.
1522-------Jan. 15-----------Dusten Honken-------------Federal - Iowa
1523-------Jan. 16-----------Kareem Jackson------------Ohio
(source: Rick Halperin)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Death penalty sought for alleged Uni-Mart killer
The Lycoming County District Attorney’s office is seeking the death penalty
against I-Keem Fogan for his alleged part in the deadly Aug. 4 robbery of a gas
station.
Kenneth A. Osokow, district attorney, filed four reasons he was seeking the
death penalty on Sept. 19, in a notice of aggravating circumstances, which is
legally required in Pennsylvannia when capital punishment is pursued.
The document alleges Fogan held a person, Rhonda McPeak, for ransom, reward, or
as a shield or hostage, killed the victim to prevent testimony in court,
committed the killing while committing a felony, and knowingly created a grave
risk of death to another person in addition to the victim.
“The Commonwealth hereby gives notice that it will seek the death penalty for
the offense of criminal homicide,” according to the court record.
Those reasons to sentence Fogan to death have no weight until proven in court,
said Osokow.
“Ultimately, it’s up to the court and jury, but those are the circumstances
that we believe are applicable to the case,” he said.
“(Fogan) waived his arraignment,” added Osokow.
That hearing was scheduled for Monday. The defense council and district
attorneys are slated to meet Oct. 28 for a status update.
If the DA is going to offer any deals, it will be at that update, said Nicole
J. Spring, chief public defender.
“Homicide cases get scheduled in their own time — capital sentences, even
longer,” she said.
In total, the charges held in the preliminary hearing on Aug. 30 were criminal
homicide, 2 counts of criminal conspiracy to commit homicide, two counts of
aggravated assault, robbery, carrying a firearm without a license, possessing
instruments of crime and unlawfully restraining the victim.
Noah Stroup, 23, of Williamsport, who police allege acted as a lookout for
Fogan the night McPeak was killed, is expected to be in court today at 8:30
a.m. for a miscellaneous criminal motion before Judge Marc Lovecchio.
(source: Williamsport Sun-Gazette)
VIRGINIA:
Lawsuit calls for full public view of executions in Virginia
Prison officials are unconstitutionally limiting public access to executions in
Virginia by blocking witnesses from seeing certain steps in the process, 4 news
organizations allege in a federal lawsuit filed Monday.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond alleges that the
department is violating the First Amendment by using curtains that block
witnesses from seeing “crucial steps” in carrying out a lethal injection or
electrocution — the 2 execution methods allowed under state law.
“These limits on witnesses’s ability to view Virginia’s executions severely
curtail the public’s ability to understand how those executions are
administered, or to assess whether a particular execution violates either the
Constitution or the state’s prescribed execution procedures, or is otherwise
botched,” the news organizations state in the lawsuit.
The Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to requests for
comment on the lawsuit. A phone message was left and an email was sent to DOC
spokespersons.
The state’s current execution manual, last updated in 2017, allows citizens and
members of the media to view executions from a witness room separated from the
execution chamber by a window. 2 curtains obstruct witnesses from seeing
certain steps in the execution process.
One curtain covers the observation window before an inmate enters the execution
chamber.
For lethal injections, the manual requires that the front curtain remain closed
until after prison officials have strapped down the inmate and inserted the
intravenous lines that will deliver the drugs. A second curtain shields the
executioner and the administration of drugs from view throughout the execution
process.
For electrocutions, the manual requires that the front curtain remain closed
until prison officials have strapped the inmate to the electric chair and
performed three actions. Those actions are not known because they have been
redacted from the publicly available version of the manual.
The lawsuit says that the curtains prevent the public from inspecting the
initial condition of inmates as they walk into the execution chamber.
During lethal injection executions, witnesses cannot monitor how IV lines are
placed and whether the inmate experiences pain during the process. They also
are unable to see how and when the different drugs used to sedate and kill the
inmate are injected into the IV lines.
For executions, the front curtain prevents witnesses from monitoring whether
the procedures are followed and evaluating the effects of those procedures on
the inmate.
The lawsuit asks for a court order to ensure the public can view the entire
process, from the moment an inmate enters the execution chamber through the
moment of death.
The news organizations suing are: The Associated Press; Guardian News & Media
LLC; BH Media Group, owner of the Richmond Times-Dispatch; and Gannett Co.,
Inc., owner of The News Leader of Staunton, Virginia. Harold Clarke is named as
a defendant in his capacity as director of the Department of Corrections.
Execution witnesses used to be able to watch inmates walk into the chamber and
be strapped down. The curtain was then closed so the public could not see the
placement of the IV and heart monitors. After the curtain was reopened, inmates
were asked whether they had any words before the drugs began flowing into their
bodies.
In 2017, prison officials revised their procedures to keep more of the process
out of public view after attorneys raised concerns about how long it took to
place IV lines during the execution that January of convicted killer Ricky
Gray.
News outlets reported that it appeared to take more than 30 minutes to place
the IV lines and complete other procedures behind a curtain blocking the view
of witnesses.
Gray was convicted of killing a Richmond family of 4, slashing their throats
and setting their home on fire after they left their front door open while
getting ready for a New Year’s Day party in 2006.
The decision to make more of the process secret was sharply criticized by
attorneys and transparency advocates. At the time, a spokeswoman for the
Department of Corrections said the decision to delay the opening of the curtain
until after IV lines are placed would reduce stress on the staff placing the
lines and could make the process go more quickly for inmates.
One inmate has been executed in Virginia under the new protocol, William Morva,
in July 2017. Morva killed a hospital security guard and a sheriff’s deputy
after escaping from custody in 2006.
During Morva’s execution, witnesses were not able to see him enter the death
chamber so it was unclear when the process began.
Virginia has executed 113 inmates since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court
reinstated the death penalty. The state now has just 2 inmates remaining on
death row. No execution dates have been scheduled.
(source: The Washington Post)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
Defendant competent so SC death penalty trial can continue
A judge has ruled the death penalty trial of a man charged with killing 2 South
Carolina bank employees during a robbery should continue because the defendant
is mentally competent.
The federal judge halted Brandon Council's trial Friday after his lawyers said
they weren't sure he understood the charges against him.
But the defense lawyers said in court Monday that a psychologist and a
psychiatrist examined Council over the weekend and found him mentally
competent.
Authorities say Council killed a teller and manager at CresCom Bank in Conway
in August 2017.
Council's lawyers say he is guilty, but they are fighting to keep him from
facing the death penalty.
Jurors are set to return to the courthouse Tuesday. Prosecutors have rested
their case in the guilt phase.
(source: Associated Press)
GEORGIA:
Public Defender Council Would Furlough Staff to Meet Governor's Budget Cut
Mandate----The council, which provides defense counsel to indigent criminal
defendants, has asked to exempt staff wages from Gov. Brian Kemp's directive
that state agencies cut 4% from their FY 2020 budget and 6% from their FY 2021
budget.
The Georgia Public Defender Council will have to furlough public defenders
across the state for 10 days between now and next June to meet Gov. Brian
Kemp’s budget-cut requests, according to state budget documents.
In addition, the council—which provides lawyers to indigent criminal defendants
across the state—has proposed the elimination of its capital defender office in
fiscal year 2021 to save an additional $4.3 million in state funds. That
proposal is dependent on passage of a state law abolishing the death penalty.
In August, Kemp directed state agencies to cut 4% percent from their FY 2020
budget, which ends June 30, 2020, and 6% from their FY 2021 budget. Kemp
notified the agencies that he intended for the requested cuts to take effect
beginning Oct. 1. He said he was ordering the cuts in order to fund a number of
“strategic goals.” Those goals reflect campaign promises the governor made
prior to his election last November.
Georgia has more than $2.5 billion in its reserve “rainy day fund,” according
to state budget documents.
Council officials wouldn’t comment on the new budget directives. But in memos
to the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, the council’s interim
director, Jimmonique Rodgers, has asked the governor and his budget staff to
exempt public defender salaries, arguing that agency expenditures are “aligned
with constitutional and statutory requirements.”
On Monday, the director of the governor’s Office of Planning and Budget sent a
memo to state agency heads stating that despite the Kemp’s goal of a “leaner”
state government, “Budget reductions are meant to identify opportunities to
make state government more efficient through technology, by eliminating
duplicative services, or by streamlining regulations, not through eliminating
core services to taxpayers or across the board reductions in force or
furloughs.”
The memo asked agencies proposing a reduction in force or services to contact
her office to explain why “alternative scenarios or other efficiencies” are not
an option.
The memo was forwarded to The Daily Report by Kemp spokeswoman Candice Broce in
response to questions about whether the governor might grant the PDC’s
exemption request or support eliminating the death penalty in order to achieve
his budget goals.
“Public defender offices are much like hospital emergency rooms. We must accept
every eligible client that needs our services,” Rodgers said in an Aug. 20 memo
The Daily Report obtained in response to a public records request. “The absence
of counsel means that the prosecutors cannot try cases, and the courts’
criminal dockets stall. This poses not only a logistical problem for local
jails, prosecutors and courts, but also one of public safety and constitutional
concerns,
More than 90% of council funds are dedicated to paying the salaries and
benefits of public defenders across the state, contracting with private
attorneys to avoid conflicts associated with defending multiple co-defendants
in a single circuit, payments to defense experts, and travel expenses
associated with defending cases, the memo said.
Contract public defenders are paid a flat fee that doesn’t include mileage
reimbursements, Rodgers’ memo said. Without an exemption from the governor,
those contracts will also have to be reduced, she said.
District attorneys and their staffs are not included in the governor’s proposed
budget cuts, nor are members of the state judiciary.
Kemp’s goals include reducing gang activity and human trafficking, according to
state budget documents. Doing so will likely increase criminal prosecutions
involving multiple defendants that would require additional lawyers in order to
avoid conflicts that could arise if defendants were represented by a single
defender, Rodgers’ memo said.
The number of funded positions also is dictated by state law and consent
decrees stemming from previous lawsuits challenging the constitutional
inadequacy of what was until 2003 an informal patchwork of county-appointed
public defenders. But the agency is “historically lean,” according to the memo.
Public defenders opened 144,224 new cases in the state’s 43 circuits in FY
2019—a 20% increase since FY 2017, the memo said.
4 positions at the central office have been open for months, according to
Rodgers’ memo. The council also didn’t receive state funds this year to hire
nine juvenile public defenders mandated by state law.
‘Starve the defense’
Attorney Bryan Tyson, a partner at the Atlanta offices of Taylor English Duma
who served as the council’s executive director from 2015-2018, said his biggest
concern about cutting agency funding “is that the judges and prosecutors are
not having to make similar cuts.”
“Having public defenders furloughed at this time means slowing down the system.
And that’s not good for anybody,” he said. “You can only prosecute people as
fast as a public defender can defend them.”
The council, he added, “is still underfunded, compared to what it really needs
to be.”
Tyson also defended the capital defender office, saying it is staffed with
“extremely high quality lawyers,” and is currently considered a model for
capital defenders across the country. Even though there are fewer death penalty
cases being tried, he said that capital caseload has remained “relatively
steady” because of appeals and reversals of some death cases that must be
retried. Tyson also expressed skepticism that the state legislature would bar
the death penalty any time soon.
“One of the major problems that has been identified when you greatly increase
resources on the prosecution side and don’t have the same kind of increase on
the defense side, cases are not properly defended,” said Stephen Bright, a law
professor at Yale and Georgia State universities, who as head of the Southern
Center for Human Rights successfully sued a number of Georgia counties over
inadequate or nonexistent public defenders. “If you want to guarantee innocent
people are convicted in Georgia courts, cut the public defender budget.”
Bright said that having full-time public defenders who are trained, supervised
and provide high-quality professional representation is essential to the
integrity of the criminal justice system.
“We know the overwhelming majority of people accused of crimes in the court
system cannot afford a lawyer,” he added. “An adversary system cannot work if
you starve the defense.”
Bright said that until former Gov. Sonny Perdue, now U.S. secretary of
agriculture, signed the law establishing the Public Defender Council, the
ad-hoc system of contract public defenders was “an absolute disgrace.”
“You can’t snap your fingers and create a public-defender system overnight,” he
added. “It takes time and resources and people. … Having full-time public
defenders who are trained, who are supervised, providing high-quality
professional representation is essential to the integrity of the adversary
system.”
(source: law.com)
FLORIDA:
Michael Jones loses bid to show prospective jurors autopsy photo ahead of his
murder trial
Lawyers representing murder suspect Michael Jones lost a motion argued in court
Monday to be able to show prospective jurors in his death penalty trial graphic
photographs of victim Diana Duve, who was found strangled in June 2014.
The unusual defense request came a day before 200 prospective jurors, in groups
of 50 or 60, will show up at the Indian River County Courthouse to start a
two-day process of filing out lengthy questionnaires ahead of Jones’ jury
selection, which begins Oct. 1.
A former wealth management advisor for PNC Bank, Jones, 36, is accused of
killing Duve at his Vero Beach apartment in the early hours of June 20, 2014.
Police said he transported her body in the trunk of her car to a Melbourne
shopping plaza that was discovered days later.
If Jones is convicted at trial, he could face the death penalty.
In court, Assistant Public Defender Dorothy Naumann told Indian River County
Circuit Judge Dan Vaughn they want prospective jurors to see a photo of Duve
while she was alive, one of her dead in the trunk of her Nissan Altima and an
autopsy photo taken by a Brevard County medical examiner.
The purpose, she said, “was to make sure the jury is as fair as possible.”
“If I come in and I tell the jurors what’s in the pictures or merely that they
are going to be seeing gory, graphic photos, that's not going to explore
whether or not these jurors are truly going to be biased when they actually see
the photos themselves,” Naumann argued.
She told Vaughn that based on case law, the issue of whether to permit the
three photos during jury selection was “entirely within your discretion.”
“Considering what’s at stake in this case, I think it’s certainly worth making
the request of this court,” Naumann said. “I know it’s something that’s
upsetting to the victim’s family and I’m cognizant of that.”
“No, you’re not,” said Duve’s stepfather Bill Andrews, from his seat in the
courtroom next to her mother Lena Andrews.
“Obviously our responsibility here is only to Mr. Jones in trying to make sure
that we do as good of a job as we can,” continued Naumann, “to make sure that
he’s getting an unbiased jury that’s not going to be persuaded to vote for
death merely by seeing these pictures. I think showing them the pictures is
going to be the most effective way to get an honest answer to that question.”
Chief Assistant State Attorney Tom Bakkedahl flatly disagreed.
The defense request, he said, was “tantamount to trying to get an advanced
opinion on the evidence from the jurors.”
“The defense has no clue what particular photographs we intend to offer as it
relates to either crime scene or autopsy,” Bakkedahl said.
The state has more than 200 autopsy photos, he said, which they’re working to
narrow to a “reasonable number” to show Jones’ jury after it's seated.
Bakkedahl further argued that Florida law bans releasing autopsy photos and
only the ones presented at trial would be viewed by the public.
“The Florida Legislature has recognized that the release of photographs of this
nature to the public is damaging to the decedent’s loved ones and friends,” he
argued. “It’s an unnecessary distribution of these images when the vast
majority of these folks won’t be on the jury.”
He urged Vaughn to deny the motion.
Naumann countered that if the request is granted, only jurors left in the pool
after the court dismisses people because of bias, hardship issues or exposure
to pretrial publicity will see the images.
“We have to weigh the interests here,” she said, “and I think that Mr. Jones’
interest in making sure his jury can be objective is more important than any of
the other interests mentioned.”
Hours after the hearing, Vaughn issued a ruling rejecting the defense motion.
"This court will exercise its authority and deny this request," Vaughn wrote.
"Certainly the defense is free to question potential jurors about the effect
viewing graphic crime scene and/or autopsy photographs may have or their
ability to be fair and impartial."
In a separate motion still pending, Jones’ lawyers want Vaughn to throw out
evidence of a photo lineup conducted by Melbourne police officers with a cab
driver law enforcement authorities said drove Jones from Brevard County to Vero
Beach after he abandoned Duve’s car.
The attorneys claim officers failed to follow proper protocol when the cab
driver positively identified Jones as the passenger he picked up at a Melbourne
Wendy’s parking lot.
(source: tcpalm.com)
LOUISIANA:
Brother and sister facing death penalty return to court, trial set
Matthew and Ebony Sonnier, the brother and sister facing the death penalty for
the Oct. 2017 murders of Latish White, Kendrick Horn and Jeremy Norris, were
back in the Rapides Parish courthouse on Monday.
Attorneys were putting the final touches on arguments on a few defense motions
that aim to get evidence suppressed that was obtained during the arrests of the
two, including the search of Matthew's truck and statements made to police.
Ebony was in court first on Monday where capital defense attorneys from New
Orleans tried to continue to build a case of an improper arrest when she was
picked up by Pineville Police for questioning.
When the murders took place, as Pineville Police searched Ebony's house, she
was handcuffed and taken to the police department for questioning after
detectives discovered suspected drugs in her home and that she had an
outstanding warrant through the Alexandria Police Department.
Officer Susan Mosley, who worked for Pineville Police at the time, told the
court that she advised Sonnier of her rights as she cuffed her and place her in
her unit to transport her to the station. Once she arrived, one arm remained
cuffed and Sonnier spoke with detectives about the case involving her brother.
As we learned, Sonnier was never given her Miranda rights at the station. Det.
Will Smith testified that, at the time, Sonnier was only considered a witness,
not a suspect.
"Did she say she didn't want to talk or request an attorney?", asked special
prosecutor Hugo Holland. "No," replied Smith.
Mosley told the court that she provided pizza for Sonnier, as well as tissues
when she cried.
Ebony's attorneys believe it was a bad arrest and argued that Sonnier didn't
know why she was shackled on the outstanding Alexandria warrant. Dennis Moore,
who represents Ebony, also questioned a time stamp on the search warrant to
sweep Ebony's home and what appeared to be an earlier draft of Smith's report
that stated that he informed his officers that he successfully obtained the
warrant that conflicted with the time that it was actually obtained.
Judge Mary Doggett will make a decision on the motions at a later date.
Matthew's appearance in court was brief. This time, the defense wamted to
suppress evidence regarding the search of his truck.
One witness, Det. Miranda Collura with Pineville Police, testified. She
explained how detectives were able to track down the truck and address.
Judge Chris Hazel will will make a decision on the motions at a later date.
Meanwhile, a trial date was set for Matthew for Aug. 24, 2020. As it stands
now, Ebony's trial is set to take place in March, but it could be continued to
a later date.
(source: KALB news)
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