[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, MD., VER., US MIL., FLA., GA.
Nov. 24 TEXAS: Survivors relieve fatal Tarrant bombing every Thanksgiving The week of Thanksgiving always brings pain for Susan Blount and Lynne Wright. But this one with an old capital murder case newly hanging in the balance could be even tougher than usual. On Thanksgiving Day 1985, near Fort Worth, a bomb killed Mrs. Blount's husband and daughter and Mrs. Wright's son. This year, anger and frustration compound their grief. Michael Roy Toney, who was convicted of the murders and who has repeatedly declared he was framed stands a good chance of having his conviction overturned. The Tarrant County district attorney's office said last month that it violated Mr. Toney's constitutional rights when it withheld exculpatory evidence from his lawyers before trial. Prosecutors filed a joint motion with Mr. Toney's appellate attorneys urging that he be granted a new trial. A decision from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is expected within weeks. They're dragging it all up again, Mrs. Blount, 63, said from her home in the Pacific Northwest. It's never going to go away. From Texas' death row, Mr. Toney said he awaits vindication. Our fight is not over, but we have taken the hill, he wrote in a recent message to supporters. Now we must fight the final battle, and through prayer, resources, truth, determination, dedication and hard work, we will prevail. Such talk infuriates Mrs. Wright, 61, who is Mrs. Blount's sister. Her son, Michael Columbus, was 18 and studying to be a pilot when the blast killed him. She and the family still firmly believe Mr. Toney was the bomber. He hasn't begun to pay for this horrible crime, she wrote in a family response to the district attorney's admissions. Their bodies burned beyond recognition that Thanksgiving Day. ... The huge hole in our hearts will never heal. A bomb in a briefcase A briefcase containing the bomb was left on the steps of the Blount family trailer at the Hilltop Mobile Home Park, near Lake Worth. Angela Blount, 15, and her brother, Robert, 14, carried it inside. Angela opened the briefcase. The blast killed her and her father, Joe Blount, along with Mr. Columbus. Robert was blown from the trailer, alive but so badly burned his shoes melted to his feet. Police ultimately came to believe the bomb had been meant for someone else and had been put at the Blount home by accident. The case remained open until 1997, when Mr. Toney was charged. In jail on an unrelated charge, Mr. Toney had told another inmate about the bombing, and the inmate informed police. Mr. Toney and the inmate later said it was only a ruse to get the inmate out of jail. While no physical evidence connected him to the crime, prosecutors relied on his best friend and his ex-wife, who testified Mr. Toney had a briefcase near the mobile home park the night of the murders. Mr. Toney says he had been in the area fishing earlier, but not the night of the bombing. The witnesses did not get a good enough look at the briefcase to make it a solid match with the one that held the bomb. Mr. Toney was convicted in 1999 and sentenced to death. But the best friend, Chris Meeks, was a heavy drinker who later recanted, and then reaffirmed his testimony. The ex-wife, Kim Toney Ninham, has admitted having memory loss caused by exposure to toxic chemicals during military service in the Persian Gulf War. Mr. Toney's appellate lawyers discovered that prosecutors failed to give Mr. Toney's original defense attorneys at least 14 key investigative documents. One of the documents revealed that Mr. Meeks told police he had once intended to murder Mr. Toney. Another showed that Ms. Toney Ninham initially did not recall Mr. Toney carrying a briefcase on the night of the bombing. Only after an investigator employed a cognitive interviewing technique three days later did she remember the briefcase. Mr. Toney's lawyers contend that this technique amounted to planting the idea of a briefcase in the mind of Ms. Toney Ninham. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that prosecutors must reveal any exculpatory evidence to the defense. The lead prosecutor in the Toney case, Mike Parrish, has retired. Mr. Parrish did not respond to phone messages requesting comment. But in a May 2008 deposition he said repeatedly he could not remember if he gave Mr. Toney's defense lawyers copies of the documents in question. Alan Levy, head of the criminal division for the Tarrant County district attorney, said he does not know if the omission was deliberate or accidental. It's really not clear what the reasons were, he said. Family feels in the dark Mrs. Blount said the mishandling of the case angers her. Before the 1999 trial, she said, I looked at Mike Parrish and everyone else who sat at that table, and I said, 'I want this done the right way, because I can't see myself going through this again.' Robert Blount said the district attorney's office has done little to keep the family informed. They're basically
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., WASH., IDAHO, USA, US MIL., PENN.
Nov. 24 NEW HAMPSHIRE: Penalty phase of NH death penalty case continues Jurors deciding whether to sentence Michael Addison to death for killing a Manchester police officer heard more about the defendants violent past. Manuel Andrade testified Monday that Addison put a gun in his face and pulled the trigger twice when the 2 were high school students in 1996. He said he felt lucky when none of the bullets discharged. Several Boston police officers familiar with Addisons early criminal activities also took the stand, including officers who said Addison threatened to kill his mother when he was a teenager. The jury already has convicted Addison of capital murder in the 2006 death of Officer Michael Briggs. (source: Associated Press) WASHINGTONimpending execution Bishops ask Gov. Gregoire to stop Wash. execution The state's Catholic bishops are asking Gov. Chris Gregoire to commute the death sentence of Darold Ray Stenson. The bishops are asking that Stenson instead receive life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Stenson, 55, is set to be executed Dec. 3. He was convicted of aggravated murder for the 1993 shooting deaths of his wife and a business partner while his 3 young children slept nearby in his Clallam County farmhouse. Seattle Archbishop Alex Brunett, Spokane Bishop William Skylstad, and Yakima Bishop Carlos Sevilla made the request in a letter to Gregoire on Friday. Gregoire's office did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment. The bishops wrote that while they understand the responsibility of the state to punish Stenson, there remains no moral justification for imposing a sentence of death. Violence begets violence both in our hearts and in our actions, they wrote. By continuing the tradition of responding to killing with state-sanctioned killing, we rob ourselves of moral consistency and perpetuate that which we seek to sanction. Stenson would be the 1st inmate put to death since 2001 if none of his pending appeals is granted. Stenson has long claimed he didn't commit the murders, and is one of just two inmates in recent years to continue to appeal his death sentence. When Stenson called authorities in 1993 to report the deaths, he suggested that his business partner, Frank Hoerner, had killed Denise Stenson and then shot himself in another room. Prosecutors have said Stenson, struggling financially and in dire business straits, shot the 2 in order to collect $400,000 in life insurance. A federal appeals court lifted a stay last month, and prison officials are preparing for the execution to go forward as scheduled. Several walkthroughs have already been conducted, with another still to come this week. Because he declined to choose between lethal injection and hanging, Stenson would be killed by lethal injection if the execution goes forward as planned. Since 1904, 77 men have been executed in Washington, the last being James Elledge in August 2001. No woman has ever been sentenced to death in the state. (source: Associated Press) IDAHO: Duncan to stand for appeal hearing In Boise, defense attorneys for Joseph Edward Duncan III are criticizing a hearing scheduled by a federal judge to determine whether the convicted killer wants to appeal his death sentence. The defense lawyers, who are in only a standby role, contend the U.S. District Court in Boise no longer has jurisdiction. They contend in court papers that any issues related to Duncans appeal should be heard in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Duncan, 45, has been sentenced in federal and state courts for a 2005 rampage that started in northern Idaho and stretched into western Montana. A convicted pedophile, Duncan murdered 3 members of a Coeur dAlene family, then abducted, sexually abused and tortured 2 children before killing 1 of them at a Montana campsite. After his legal team filed a notice of appeal last week, Duncan sent a letter to the court stating that he didnt want the appeal. Lodge set a hearing for Monday. (source: Associated Press) USA: Convictions upheld in embassy bombings In New York, a federal appeals panel has upheld the convictions of three men in the 1998 bombings of 2 U.S. embassies in Africa. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the men received a fair trial. The Aug. 7, 1998 attacks at U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. A trial of 4 men in the attacks ended with convictions just weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The ruling only pertains to 3 of the 4 defendants because one of them initially appealed but then withdrew his appeal. All of them were sentenced to life in prison, including 2 who were eligible for the death penalty. Authorities said Osama bin Laden, who remains under indictment in the case, directed the attacks through his al-Qaeda network. Besides bin Laden and these 4, 17 others have been indicted in the case.
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----WASHINGTON
URGENT ACTION APPEAL Take action online at: http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoEb=2590179template=x.ascxaction=11478 24 November 2008 UA 323/08 - Death penalty USA (Washington State) Darold Stenson (m), white, aged 55 Darold Stenson is scheduled to be executed in Washington State on 3 December. He has spent 14 years on death row for two murders committed in 1993. In the early hours of 25 March 1993, Darold Stenson telephoned the police from his home at Dakota Farms in Clallam County in the west of Washington State, where he ran a business raising and selling exotic birds. He told the operator that Frank has just shot my wife, and himself, I think. When the police arrived, Darold Stenson took them to a bedroom where his business partner Frank Clement Hoerner was dead on the floor with a bullet wound to the head and a revolver nearby. Stenson then took the police to another bedroom where his wife, Denise Ann Stenson, was on the bed, also with a bullet wound to the head. She was airlifted to hospital, but died the following day. A subsequent investigation concluded that Hoerner had not killed himself, but had been hit in the head outside and dragged into the bedroom where he had been shot in the head at close range. The investigation also revealed that Darold Stenson owed Hoerner a large amount of money, and also that he had taken out a life insurance policy on Denise Stenson. Darold Stenson was arrested on 8 April 1993, and brought to trial a few months later. He was convicted on 11 August 1994 of the two murders. After a sentencing hearing on 18 August, he was sentenced to death. Darold Stenson has not filed a clemency petition. He has, however, maintained his innocence of the crime and has been pursuing a stay of execution in the courts in a bid to obtain modern DNA testing of evidence from the crime. BACKGROUND INFORMATION Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally. Today, some 137 countries are abolitionist in law or practice. In 2007, the UN General Assembly voted for a moratorium on executions pending global abolition. There have been 1,135 executions in the USA since judicial killing resumed there in 1977, four of them in Washington State. There have been 36 executions in the USA this year. The last execution in Washington was carried out in August 2001. Executions in Washington State are carried out by lethal injection unless the condemned prisoner chooses hanging as the preferred execution method. Executions are carried out at the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla. The death penalty in the USA is marked by arbitrariness, discrimination and error. More than 120 people have been released from death rows in the country since 1976 after evidence of their innocence emerged. DNA testing played a major role in proving the innocence of more than a dozen of these prisoners. Studies have consistently shown that race, particularly race of victim, plays a role in who is sentenced to death. Eighty per cent of those executed in the USA since 1977 were convicted of killing white victims. Geographical disparities are also evident, with a handful of states accounting for a vast majority of the country's executions, and some counties accounting for disproportionate use of the death penalty within states. The quality of legal representation has also repeatedly been shown to be a factor in US capital justice. The myth that the worst of the worst crimes and offenders receive the death penalty in the USA became an issue in Washington State in recent years after Gary Ridgway avoided the death penalty in 2004 despite confessing to having committed 48 murders, mainly of prostitutes and runaways. The prosecution agreed to a plea arrangement whereby Ridgway would provide information about the crimes in return for a life sentence. In March 2006, a divided Washington State Supreme Court considered the issue in the case of a state death row inmate convicted of three murders. The five in the majority wrote that the moral question of whether those on death row can be executed while a serial killer is given a life sentence is best left to the legislature. The four dissenting judges argued: When Gary Ridgway, the worst mass murderer in this state's history, escapes the death penalty, serious flaws become apparent. The dissenting opinion pointed out that the problem went beyond the Ridgway case: If the Ridgway case was the only case at the far end of the spectrum, perhaps his penalty of life in prison rather than death could be explained or dismissed. Ridgway, however, is not the only case in which a mass murderer escaped death. When the Ridgway and other cases of people convicted of serial killing are considered, the dissenters stated, the staggering flaw in the system of administration of the death penalty in Washington is revealed. These cases exemplify the arbitrariness with which the penalty of death is
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, GA., PENN.
Nov. 24 OHIO: Ohio court weighs 4 execution date requests After arguing with his mother in her Cincinnati apartment, crack cocaine addict Jeffrey Hill stabbed Emma Hill 10 times in the chest and back, stole $20 and spent the money on cocaine. He then returned to the apartment and stole another $80. That was March 23, 1991. On July 1, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters asked the Ohio Supreme Court to set an execution date for Hill. The pending request is among 4 before the state Supreme Court and one of several expected to come in the next few months. Ohio has between 15 and 20 inmates who have exhausted their appeals and are probably eligible or ripe in the language of attorneys for an execution date, according to both the State Public Defenders Office and the Ohio Attorney General. The number is unprecedented for a state that has executed 28 inmates since 1999 but which still has a majority of its original death row inmates behind bars. There are 177 men and 2 women currently on death row. We havent had this kind of situaton in Ohio before where we've had this many cases all ripe, Matt Kanai, head of the Attorney Generals capital crimes unit, said Monday. The beginning of what could be a steady flow of execution requests began in April after the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling on a Kentucky inmate's appeal, upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection. Up until that decision, the nation had experienced a seven-month unofficial moratorium on executions while the high court heard arguments in the case and made its ruling. After the decision, the Ohio Attorney General's Office asked prosecutors to coordinate how they filed their requests for fear of swamping the state Supreme Court. We weren't really sure what the Supreme Court of Ohio would do if it received 16 execution requests in one fell swoop, Kanai said. We tried to have the prosecutors exercise some discretion in avoiding that kind of logjam. The result: County prosecutors have asked for execution dates in just 8 cases since April. 2 of them were denied, and 2 were granted: for Gregory Bryant-Bey of Toledo and Richard Cooey of Akron. Cooey was executed last month for raping and killing two University of Akron students in 1986. Bryant-Bey was executed Wednesday for killing and robbing a Toledo collectibles store owner in 1992. The remaining 4 requests are pending before the Ohio Supreme Court. State Public Defender Timothy Young said hes hopeful the court will not set too many dates too soon. I don't believe as a society we have a stomach for execution on top of execution on top of execution, Young said Monday. Each of these cases is such a momentous step, he said. It seems to me you need to take each of those cases very individually and make sure you've considered all the facets of it. Deters' request for Hill to be executed is currently the oldest by almost 2 months pending before the Ohio Supreme Court. Hill's family, including three uncles and an aunt the siblings of Emma Hill are adamant they don't want Jeffrey Hill executed and have asked Deters not to oppose their nephews request for clemency. It's doing the family no good to kill another family member because he made the mistake of being out there on crack cocaine, said Eddie Sanders, Jeffrey Hill's uncle. Deters, a longtime prosecutor with a reputation for taking a hard line on death penalty cases, told the family he cant go along with their request. He said he appreciates their concerns but a jury composed of members of our community sentenced Hill to death after hearing the details of the crime. As the prosecutor of Hamilton County representing the people of the State of Ohio, I am loathe to do anything to undermine the jury's deliberative judgment, Deters wrote the family in a July 24 letter. (source: Associated Press) GEORGIA: Nichols was abused as a child, psychiatrist says Brian Nichols suffered from sexual abuse, an emotionally and often physically distant mother, and a drunken and neglectful father, according to a psychiatrist who testified Monday. Dr. Richard Dudley Jr. told a Fulton County jury that Nichols' parents provided for him financially and sent him to private military and Catholic schools, but the 36-year-old multiple murderer still was traumatized as a child. Dr. Richard Dudley Jr. testified Monday that Brian Nichols suffered abuse and neglect as a child. Dudley, of New York City, testified in the penalty phase of Nichols' death penalty trial. The jury convicted Nichols on Nov. 7 of 4 murders and other crimes committed after he escaped on March 11, 2005 during his rape trial at the Fulton County Courthouse. Nichols killed Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, who was presiding over his rape trial, court reporter Julie Ann Brandau, Sheriffs Deputy Sgt. Hoyt Teasley and David Wilhelm, an off-duty U.S. Customs agent. The jury now must decide whether Nichols should be sentenced to life in prison or put to death. The penalty
