Sept. 20
TEXAS:
1 Year Later: The trial of alleged BP serial killer Juan David Ortiz
Editors Note: 1 year later, the Laredo Morning Times is taking a look at the
fallout from the serial killings that shook the Gateway City to its core last
September. LMT reporters talked to the families affected the most after the
series of murders and a resulting investigation ended with the arrest of Border
Patrol agent Juan David Ortiz. One year later, the aftershock from the crimes
can still be felt in Laredo.
Ortiz appeared in court for a bond hearing on April 28, but his first attorney,
Joey Tellez, asked for more time to amend the application seeking bond
reduction. The hearing was reset for Aug. 8, but it was delayed and will be
held Oct. 3 in 406th District Court Judge Hale's court.
Webb County District Attorney Isidro "Chilo" Alaniz said the state is seeking
the death penalty. Unlike other murder cases, capital murder is a murder case
that factors in other elements, such as the circumstances of the case and how
serious it was.
Capital murder includes killing someone under the age of 10, killing police
officers or firefighters while carrying out their duties, or killing multiple
people in the same episode.
1 Year Later
This story is 1 section of a 6-part series that details the fallout of the
serial murders that affected the Gateway City last September.
"The decision to seek death is always a sensitive decision, because there's a
lot that goes into that decision," Alaniz said. "It's punishment reserved for
the most egregious, the most heinous and horrific murders that take place."
When it comes to motive, Alaniz said Ortiz made statements about the victims'
work, but that more aspects of the motive will appear as the trial goes on.
"There were statements made by him, and I know people always want to know the
reason why someone did something," he said. "That's something that we will
eventually develop in the trial. It's complicated."
Alaniz said anything can happen between now and 2021. With capital murder, he
said the jury must answer two questions to determine either the death sentence
or life without parole: if there are any mitigating factors or if the suspect
is a future danger.
"Is there a probability this person will commit crimes in the future?" he
asked. "Mitigating factors go to circumstances surrounding the case: medical
history, mental history, diseases, defects, other types of issues that the jury
can consider."
Ortiz is held at a $2.5 million bond, and it is up to the judge to decide when
or if there will be a bond reduction hearing.
"We will continue to argue that the bond be maintained at that amount," Alaniz
said. "We consider him a danger to society, and we consider him a flight risk,
just by the nature of the offense and the punishment."
(source: Laredo Morning Times)
ALABAMA----female may face death penalty
Lauderdale County capital murder suspect appears in court ? -- The suspect
could be facing more charges.
A capital murder suspect in Lauderdale County, Peggy Hall, went before a judge
Thursday morning.
The district attorney's office says she killed her ex-husband, Randall Bobo, at
his home on County Road 130.
Hall is being held at the Lauderdale County Detention Center. She is being held
without bond right now, and she could face additional charges. It's unclear
what those could be yet.
The district attorney said they charged her with capital murder, because she
came into Bobo's home with the intent to burglarize the place, and then ended
up shooting him. The district attorney says grandchildren saw it all happen.
Bobo and Hall have 2 adult children together, and the prosecutor says all of
that will factor into how they proceed.
"This is death penalty eligible, so we've got to make that decision in the next
coming days and weeks if we will ask for the death penalty. It's certainly
early in the investigation. We know what happened with the actual murder, but
there are still some other items that need to be checked out," Chris Connolly,
the Lauderdale County District Attorney, said.
He also said once the investigation is complete, Hall could be facing more
charges.
In court Thursday morning, the judge read Hall's charges to make sure she
understands them. She has a court-appointed attorney. We're waiting to hear
when her next court appearance will be.
(source: WAAY news)
KENTUCKY:
Should people under 21 be eligible for the death penalty?----The Kentucky
Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether the death penalty should be an
option for those ages 18-21.
The Kentucky Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Thursday over whether
the death penalty should be an option for those younger than 21 in the state
(it is already banned for those under 18 nationwide). The death penalty is a
contentious issue across the United States; some argue we shouldn’t have it at
all, and even those who support it disagree on how and when to use it.
The Constitution was written a long time ago, and it uses words and phrases we
don’t often hear today. A lot of it is pretty vague, too. As it turns out, its
vagueness is both its genius and the source of many of our modern legal
dilemmas.
“The Constitution is different from other laws,” said Douglas Linder, a
constitutional law professor with the University of Missouri Kansas City. “The
Constitution was meant to be a document that would be used for generations to
come; and that means being a little less specific, a little more vague in the
language that’s used.”
In a discussion over the death penalty, we turn to the Eighth Amendment. It
reads:
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel
and unusual punishments inflected.
How much cash is too steep to demand for bail, though? Just how painful must a
punishment be before we decide it’s “cruel and unusual?” The language is vague,
and the Founders knew so as the wrote it.
“There was a congressman from Massachusetts,” Linder explained. “[He] said,
'Hey, wait a minute, this is awfully vague. Maybe some judge in the future is
going to say we can't cut people's ears off or we can't whip people, even
though we might need it, right?’ Even thought he made that objection, the
Congress went ahead and left the language as it was which a lot of people
interpret to suggest that they wanted the language to be vague. That they
wanted it to change, evolve over time.”
Yes, cutting people’s ears off as a punishment was a real thing we did. But, we
phased it out. The Supreme Court has deemed this process our “evolving
standards of decency.” For example, in 1992 it officially said that prison
guards can't beat prisoners. In 2005, the Court held that people couldn't be
put to death for crimes they committed before they were 18 years old, ruling
our "evolving standards of decency" meant that doing so would now be cruel and
unusual.
A similar question now sits before the Kentucky Supreme Court. Recent
developments in science have shown that brain development doesn't end until a
person is in his or her 20s, and therefore may lack full control over his or
her impulses. Some argue that our "evolving standards of decency" should
therefore ban the death penalty for anyone under 21. This, however, would be
new: of the 29 states that still have the death penalty, none currently have a
ban on this age group.
“Your case in Kentucky sort of suggests where a lot of these death penalty
cases are going,” Linder said. “The Supreme Court has shown a reluctance to
abolish the death penalty altogether, but it's taken a way the death penalty as
a possibility for mentally incompetent people, for minors, in cases other than
murder... so it's kind of an interesting question, I'll be interested to see
how it comes out there.”
(source: WHAS news)
TENNESSEE:
New Ruling Puts An End To Drawn-Out Death Penalty Case In Nashville
29 states allow the death penalty, and there are currently more than 2,600
people on death row.
Until recently, that list included Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman, who was convicted of
1st-degree murder for a stabbing and armed robbery in Nashville that left 1
person dead and another wounded.
But in August, a Tennessee judge reversed Abdur'Rahman's scheduled execution
and granted him a new sentence of life imprisonment, citing questions about the
fairness of his 1987 trial.
The ruling puts an end to a drawn-out legal process that took a toll both on
the defendant and victims. And as Samantha Max (@samanthaellimax) of member
station WPLN reports from Nashville reports, it's a common scenario in capital
cases.
(source: WBUR news)
MISSOURI----impending execution
Catholic bishops ask Missouri governor to halt upcoming execution
Missouri’s 4 Catholic bishops are asking Gov. Mike Parson to spare the life of
a convicted killer whose execution is approaching.
Russell Bucklew faces execution Oct. 1 for killing Michael Sanders in Cape
Girardeau County in 1996. The Southeast Missourian reports that the bishops are
urging Parson to change the sentence to life in prison.
Pope Francis has called for the “global abolition of the death penalty,” the
bishops wrote.
“As Catholic bishops, we have consistently opposed the use of the death
penalty. Evidence shows that the death penalty is often unfair and biased in
its application,” they continued.
“By ending the use of the death penalty, we can hopefully begin to break the
cycle of violence,” the bishops added.
An email message left Thursday with Parson’s spokeswoman wasn’t immediately
returned.
Bucklew is 51 and suffers from a rare condition called cavernous hemangioma,
which causes blood-filled tumors in his head, neck and throat. His lawyers say
he could suffer during the execution process.
The bishops said Bucklew’s “particular medical situation warrants special
consideration.”
(source: cruxnow.com)
****************************
Death Penalty Opponents Argue for Clemency in SEMO Murder Case
Convicted murderer Russell Bucklew's execution is scheduled for Oct. 1, but
next week the American Civil Liberties Union will present a petition with
30,000 signatures to Gov. Mike Parson, asking that Bucklew's sentence be
commuted to life in prison.
The ACLU also is meeting with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
next week in Washington to ask that group to weigh in.
Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU Human Rights Program, says the execution by
lethal injection would inflict excessive pain and suffering because Bucklew has
a rare disease that causes blood-filled tumors all over his body.
"The tumors that he has are likely to burst during execution," Dakwar points
out. "That would really cause a gruesome situation where he could choke and
suffocate."
Bucklew's conviction states that he murdered his ex-girlfriend's new partner,
fired at that man's 6-year-old son - but missed - then raped the ex-girlfriend,
and shot and wounded a police officer.
Later he escaped from jail and attacked the ex-girlfriend's mother with a
hammer.
He appealed his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in
April that Missouri may proceed with the execution.
Dakwar laments the high court's ruling, noting that the U.S. has signed
international treaties that ban torture.
"The majority of the court unfortunately concluded that the Eighth Amendment
doesn't guarantee a painless death," he states. "This conclusion is in
violation of international human rights law."
The ACLU also argues that there were significant problems during the
post-conviction litigation, maintaining the attorney borrowed $27,000 from
Bucklew's elderly parents and failed to investigate them or present evidence of
childhood abuse, lead poisoning and opioid abuse to the court.
(source: WSIU news)
CALIFORNIA:
Jerry Brown says murder-accessory reform law he signed will stand up
In his final year in office, former Gov. Jerry Brown helped push through a bill
limiting who can be charged with murder, a parting shot in his campaign to roll
back decades of tough-on-crime history in California.
Now the law, under challenge by prosecutors across the state, is all but
certain to end up before the California Supreme Court.
Brown, in an interview Wednesday, said he was certain of its constitutionality
when he signed it.
“I’m confident that this Supreme Court will scrutinize this law with full
fidelity,” he said.
SB1437 restricted when an accomplice to a fatal crime could be charged with
murder.
Previously, anyone who participated in a crime that resulted in a homicide
could be held criminally liable for murder, even if he or she was not present
for the actual killing. Advocates argued that prosecutors wielded the law
disproportionately against women and minorities.
Under the new law, accomplices can be charged with murder only if they directly
solicited or assisted with a homicide or “acted with reckless indifference to
human life.” It does not apply to killings of police officers.
The bill narrowly passed last year in the face of opposition from prosecutors,
after behind-the-scenes lobbying by Brown’s office. The governor ultimately
signed it without comment.
“It’s a simple matter of justice,” Brown said Wednesday.
He said the old accomplice liability law was “a very broad, sweeping provision
that caught people in its net that were certainly less culpable than the actual
perpetrator.”
“What we need to do is have a policy that’s human, that has proportionality,”
he said.
Proponents say at least a dozen people, mostly in the Bay Area and Los Angeles
County, have been resentenced and released since the change took effect Jan. 1.
But in many counties, prosecutors are aggressively fighting inmates’ efforts
and have sued to stop the law, arguing that it violates several voter-approved
initiatives.
The matter is now before an appellate court, where state Attorney General
Xavier Becerra offered his support.
Brown said he was also thinking about California’s overcrowded prisons when he
signed the law. During his last term, he worked to undo some of the effects of
fixed sentencing structure that began under his 1st governorship in 1976.
He blamed local district attorneys for helping to build a “bloated criminal
code” and stacking sentences to force defendants to plead guilty to longer
sentences.
“They certainly don’t all need to be caged for the decades that they’re being
caged now,” Brown said.
He declined to comment on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision in March to suspend the
death penalty, granting reprieves to nearly 740 inmates on death row.
Brown was a vocal opponent of capital punishment early in his political career,
but later defended death sentences as state attorney general. He defied calls
to grant clemency to death row prisoners before leaving office in January.
“I generally try to refrain from providing a running commentary on my
successor,” Brown said.
(source: San Francisco Chronicle)
OREGON:
Decision not to redo death penalty law met with anger, joy
Republican lawmakers were left fuming and justice reform advocates elated after
Oregon’s governor decided against calling a special session of the Legislature
to have lawmakers review a new law narrowing death penalty cases.
Despite assurances by Democratic lawmakers during the 2019 legislative session
that the measure, which takes effect on Sept. 29, does not apply to crimes
committed before that date, a top Department of Justice lawyer subsequently
said it applies to cases sent back for retrial or new sentencing hearings and
current cases awaiting trial.
“This bill was passed under false pretenses and it should be fixed,” GOP state
Sen. Denyc Boles said on Twitter. ” This is wrong.”
Sen. Floyd Prozanski, a Democrat from Eugene who helped get the bill passed,
had urged a special session of the Legislature to clarify the scope of the new
law.
Gov. Kate Brown said late Wednesday that as much as she wanted a special
session there would be none because stakeholders and legislators had failed to
craft language to fix bill and line up enough votes to pass the redo.
Prozanski said Thursday there were enough votes in the Senate but not in the
House.
(source: Associated Press)
USA:
American Bar Association Death Penalty Representation Project Has Removed 100
Prisoners from Death Row
In February 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned
the conviction and death sentence of Tennessee death-row prisoner Andrew Lee
Thomas, Jr., ruling that Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich
had unconstitutionally withheld evidence that a key prosecution witness had
been paid for her cooperation in the case and then deliberately elicited
perjured testimony from the witness that she had not received “one red cent”
for her cooperation. Last month, pro bono lawyers from Winston & Strawn reached
a plea deal for Thomas with Memphis prosecutors for a 25-year sentence that
took Thomas off death row.
Winston & Strawn was recruited by the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty
Representation Project in 2006 to represent Thomas. The Project has worked for
the past 33 years to persuade law firms to agree to provide free representation
to unrepresented or underrepresented death-row prisoners across the country.
Thomas’ resentencing marked the 100th prisoner taken off of death row as a
result of the efforts of volunteer lawyers recruited by the Project.
On September 19, 2019, the Project will hold its annual dinner acknowledging
the work of pro bono lawyers. The keynote speaker for the event is Philadelphia
District Attorney Larry Krasner, whose office on September 11 argued to the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court that it should strike down the death penalty in the
state because of the commonwealth’s systemic failure to provide competent
defense representation to indigent capital defendants.
The U.S. Supreme Court declared in 1989 that the Sixth Amendment does not
guarantee counsel for capital prisoners in post-conviction or habeas
proceedings, leaving many death-row prisoners to navigate the complex system of
capital appeals alone. Since it began keeping case-placement records in 1998,
the Project has assisted more than 350 prisoners with their death-penalty
appeals. 100 of those cases have now resulted in final grants of relief that
have permanently taken the Project’s clients off of death row.
Among the 100 are 15 people who were released from prison on evidence of
innocence. Five received executive clemency to reduce their sentences, and the
rest were resentenced to life in prison or a term of years after their lawyers
showed that the death sentences in their cases had been unconstitutionally
imposed. In announcing the 100th release from death row on September 3, the
Project said, “[n]ot one of these victories came easily, in a system that is
designed to leave death sentences in place even in the face of overwhelming
evidence that execution would be unjust. Every life saved by the Project’s
volunteer lawyers is a testament to the dedication, compassion, creativity, and
countless hours of work devoted by these skilled advocates.”
The announcement also stressed the importance of pro bono counsel, even in
cases that result in execution. “The Project counts every case placed with pro
bono counsel as a victory, regardless of the eventual outcome. Without the
assistance of counsel, a prisoner has no voice in the legal system to tell his
story and seek help from the courts. In the absence of a constitutional
guarantee of counsel, volunteer attorneys represent access to justice for their
clients and integrity in the criminal justice system.”
Among the examples of prisoners who won relief with the assistance of the ABA
Death Penalty Representation Project is Joe Lee Guy, a Texas prisoner whose
trial attorney had been disciplined by the state bar more than a dozen times.
The unlicensed investigator hired by the attorney “transitioned from defense
investigator to mercenary,” in the words of the 2004 district court decision
vacating Guy’s death sentence. The investigator befriended the victim’s mother
and coached her on her testimony against Guy, the very person the investigator
was supposed to be assisting. Guy’s pro bono counsel located more than 50
mitigation witnesses to testify about Guy’s abusive childhood and low IQ, which
the investigator had failed to discover.
Pennsylvania prisoner Jimmy Dennis was freed in 2017 thanks to the efforts of
pro bono counsel. His lawyers uncovered exculpatory evidence that prosecutors
had withheld: a statement implicating two alternative suspects, a statement
from a prisoner who described a phone call with people who said they were the
actual assailants, and a receipt that corroborated Dennis’ alibi that he had
been on a bus elsewhere in Philadelphia when the murder occurred. In 2013, the
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania vacated his
conviction, writing that he “was wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to
die for a crime in all probability he did not commit.” The district attorney at
that time offered him a no-contest plea to lesser charges, which allowed for
his release, but denied him a full exoneration and the opportunity to seek
compensation for the 20 years he was wrongfully incarcerated.
(source: Death Penalty Information Center)
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