[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., PENN., N.C., GA., FLA., ALA.
April 24 TEXASimpending execution Texas execution set for John William King in racist dragging death of James Byrd Jr.King and 2 other white men were convicted in the brutal East Texas murder of Byrd, who was black. King has claimed he's innocent and hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will stop his death. It’s been more than 2 decades since an infamous hate crime in East Texas, where 3 white men were convicted of chaining a black man to the back of a pickup truck, dragging him for miles and then dumping the remains of his body in front of a church. On Wednesday evening, John William King, 44, is set to become the 3nd man executed in the 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr. Lawrence Brewer was put to death in 2011 for the crime, and Shawn Berry is serving a life sentence. King had previously been involved in a white supremacist prison gang, and he is notoriously covered in racist tattoos, including Ku Klux Klan symbols, a swastika and a visual depiction of a lynching, according to court documents. But King maintains that he’s innocent in Byrd’s murder — claiming that Berry dropped him and Brewer off at their shared apartment before Byrd was beaten and dragged to death. In a last-minute appeal, King’s attorney argued that a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling entitles his client to a new trial because his original lawyers didn’t assert his claim of innocence to the jury despite King’s insistence. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals narrowly rejected this appeal in a 5-4 ruling Monday, and a petition is now in front of the nation’s high court. Byrd’s sister, who watched Brewer’s execution and plans to attend King’s on Wednesday, said she didn’t understand why King’s case has been tied up with numerous appeals. He was sentenced to death in February 1999. “He wants to find a way not to die, but he didn’t give James that chance,” said Louvon Harris. “He’s still getting off easy because your body’s not going to be flying behind a pickup truck being pulled apart.” Byrd’s brutal murder drew a spotlight on the small town of Jasper and violent racism in the modern world. Evidence at trial showed police found most of the 49-year-old’s body on June 7, 1998, with three miles of blood, drag marks, and other body parts — including his head — on the road behind it. At the beginning of the gruesome trail, police found evidence of a fight, Byrd’s hat and cigarette butts later tied to King, Berry and Brewer, according to court documents. The three men were arrested shortly afterward. Though King didn’t give an official statement to police or testify at his trial, he wrote a letter to The Dallas Morning News while awaiting trial proclaiming his innocence, saying Berry knew Byrd from jail and stopped the truck to pick him up after seeing Byrd walking down the road. King told The News that Berry then dropped him and Brewer off before leaving with Byrd alone. But in a jail note written to Brewer, he said he didn’t think his clothes police took from their apartment had blood on them, but his sandals may have had a “dark brown substance” on them. “Seriously, though, Bro, regardless of the outcome of this, we have made history and shall die proudly remembered if need be…. Much Aryan love, respect, and honor, my brother in arms,” King wrote, according to a court filing. Still, King maintained before and through his trial that he wanted to argue for his innocence and unsuccessfully complained to the court when he said his attorneys refused, his current lawyer, Richard Ellis, said in his latest appeals. King is claiming that because his attorneys instead conceded his guilt in the murder, a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling should allow him to get a new trial. In Robert McCoy’s case out of Louisiana, the high court held last year that a defendant has the right to choose the objective of his defense — so trial lawyers can’t concede guilt if the defendant wants to assert innocence. King said his lawyers didn’t assert his innocence, instead largely focusing on whether the murder could be considered death penalty eligible. The Jasper County District Attorney’s Office knocked the appeal, saying in a brief that King pleaded not guilty and his lawyers, unlike McCoy’s, didn’t concede guilt but were “substantially limited” based on the given physical evidence, his letter to The News and his jail note to Brewer. “Counsel could not create evidence where none was available, and counsel’s failure to manufacture exculpatory evidence where none existed is not equivalent to a ‘concession’ of guilt,” wrote Sue Korioth for the prosecutor’s office. The Court of Criminal Appeals tossed King’s appeal Monday without reviewing its claims based on its late timing, but two judges wrote short concurring opinions and four signed on to a dissent. Judge Kevin Yeary agreed with the court’s rejection, arguing there was no indication that McCoy’s ruling would apply retroactively to
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., PENN., N.C., GA., FLA., ALA.
March 1 TEXASexecution Man executed in Texas for killing estranged wife’s family A Texas inmate was executed Thursday evening for the killings nearly 30 years ago of his estranged wife's parents and her brother, who was a police officer. Billie Wayne Coble received lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the August 1989 shooting deaths of Robert and Zelda Vicha and their son, Bobby Vicha, at separate homes in Axtell, northeast of Waco. Coble, 70, once described by a prosecutor as having "a heart full of scorpions," was the oldest inmate executed by Texas since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982. He told the 5 witnesses he selected to be in attendance that he loved them, then again said: "That'll be $5." Coble nodded to the witnesses and added, "take care." He gasped several times and began snoring. As Coble was finishing his statement, his son, a friend and a daughter-in-law became emotional and violent. They were yelling obscenities, throwing fists and kicking at others in the death chamber witness area. Officers stepped in and the witnesses continued to resist. They were eventually moved to a courtyard and the 2 men were handcuffed. "Why are you doing this?" the woman asked. "They just killed his daddy." While the witnesses were being subdued outside, the single dose of pentobarbital was being administered to Coble. He was pronounced dead 11 minutes later at 6:24 p.m. Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jeremy Desel said the 2 men were arrested on a charge of resisting arrest and taken to the Walker County Jail. The U.S. Supreme Court earlier Thursday turned down Coble's request to delay his execution. His attorneys had told the high court that Coble's original trial lawyers were negligent for conceding his guilt by failing to present an insanity defense before a jury convicted him of capital murder. A state appeals court had previously rejected Coble's request to delay Thursday's execution and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles turned down his request for a commutation. Coble "does not deny that he bears responsibility for the victims' loss of life, but he nonetheless wanted his lawyers to present a defense on his behalf," his attorney, A. Richard Ellis, said in his appeal to the Supreme Court. In Coble's clemency petition to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, Ellis said his client suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his time as a Marine during the Vietnam War and was convicted, in part, due to misleading testimony from two prosecution expert witnesses on whether he would be a future danger. Coble was the third inmate put to death this year in the U.S. and the second in Texas, the nation's busiest capital punishment state. "This is not a happy night," McLennan County District Attorney Barry Johnson said. "This is the end of a horror story for the Vicha family." J.R. Vicha, Bobby Vicha's son, said it would be a relief knowing the execution finally took place after years of delays. "Still, the way they do it is more humane than what he did to my family. It's not what he deserves but it will be good to know we got as much justice as allowed by the law," said J.R. Vicha, who was 11 when he was tied up and threatened by Coble during the killings. Prosecutors said Coble, distraught over his pending divorce, kidnapped his wife, Karen Vicha. He was arrested and later freed on bond. Nine days after the kidnapping, Coble went to Karen Vicha's home, where he handcuffed and tied up her three daughters and J.R. Vicha. He then went to the homes of Robert and Zelda Vicha, 64 and 60 respectively, and Bobby Vicha, 39, who lived nearby, and fatally shot them. After Karen Vicha returned home, Coble abducted her and drove off, assaulting her and threatening to rape and kill her. He was arrested after wrecking in neighboring Bosque County following a police chase. Coble was convicted of capital murder in 1990. In 2007, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial on punishment. On retrial in 2008, a second jury sentenced him to death. Crawford Long, the former first assistant district attorney in McLennan County who helped retry Coble in 2008, said his "heart full of scorpions" description of Coble was fitting. ? "He had no remorse at all," said Long, who retired in 2010. J.R. Vicha, 40, still lives in the Waco area. He eventually became a prosecutor for 8 years, a career choice inspired in part by his father, who was a police sergeant in Waco when he was killed. His grandfather was a retired plumber and his grandmother worked for a foot doctor. Vicha, now a private practice lawyer, is working to get a portion of a highway near his home renamed in honor of his father. "Every time I run into somebody that knew (his father and grandparents), it's a good feeling. And when I hear stories about them, it still makes it feel
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., PENN., N.C., GA., FLA.
February 19 TEXASimpending execution Local man convicted of killing 3 scheduled to die Billy Wayne Coble, 70, who was convicted of the 1989 slayings of his brother-in-law Bobby Vicha, a Waco police sergeant, and Vicha’s parents in Axtell, is set to die on Feb. 28, having exhausted all of his avenues to appeal. Coble, 70, learned last week the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had rejected his latest request for a stay of execution, citing it as a, abuse of the appeals writ process, which cleared the way for imposition of his sentence. The execution would be the 2nd of the year in Texas. Coble was convicted of the killings of Bobby Vicha and his father and mother Robert and Zelda Vicha, then of tying up 4 children who were at the scene, restraining and kidnapping his estranged wife Karen Vicha Coble, whom he’d threatened to rape and kill. He led authorities on a high speed chase into Bosque County but was caught and arrested after he wrecked his car. He has been granted several stays of execution over the years after filing a number of appeals on several different grounds. Coble has a federal appeal pending but it, too, likely will not be successful. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Coble’s latest appeal in that court last October, soon after which 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson set the execution date. Coble has a list of appeals. The only successful one was filed in 2007 with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. It resulted in the dismissal of the death sentence and an order for re-trial on punishment after the court’s opinion stated Coble’s jury faced 2 questions that were unconstitutional. The punishment re-trial ended with the same result, a death sentence. Truman Simons, a former police officer, sheriff’s deputy and now a private investigator, worked on the Coble case back in 1989. “He killed his (father-in-law) first and wrapped him up in a rug,” Simons said. “Then he tied up the 2 kids and shot Bobby Vicha. “Then he ...waited in the garage where he killed Zelda (Vicha) and kidnapped (his estranged wife) Karen,” Simons said. Former McLennan County Assistant District Attorney J.R. Vicha, one of the children Coble tied up that day, was only 11-years-old at the time his family was murdered. The boy, along with 2 of his cousins, were tied up inside the home while the killings took place. During the 2008 punishment re-trial trial, prosecuted by retired Assistant District Attorney Crawford Long, Long told the jury that Coble “has a heart filled with scorpions.” (source: KWTX news) NEW HAMPSHIRE: Urge NH lawmakers to repeal death penalty Have you heard the name Huwe Burton? He was convicted of murdering his mother in 1991. He was exonerated a few weeks ago. He had been proven innocent. Fortunately, he had not been put to death. We have a way to prevent future Huwe Burton’s from being executed: repeal the death penalty. Our Constitution demands proof beyond a reasonable doubt for a criminal conviction, sometimes described as “proof to a moral certainty.” But hundreds of convicts found guilty to a moral certainty have been exonerated through the work of Innocence Projects around the country. What about confessions? Aren’t they morally certain enough for you? Well, no. Police are experts at extracting them, whether they’re true or not. People who are easily influenced, who aren’t too bright, who feel guilt about something are easy game. Huwe Burton confessed. He was 16 at the time. One out of every four Innocence Project exonerations involved a confession that was eventually proven false. Fingerprints? The 2009 National Academy of Sciences report showed that they’re only slightly more accurate than chance. Ah, but DNA: the Gold Standard! DNA is an important tool. But it is no better than the people who analyze it. DNA can be transported from one place to another. A handshake can lead to your DNA being found at a crime scene 500 miles away. The results can be hard to read and hard to interpret. A claim of a 1 in 4 trillion chance of error is ridiculous if, say, there’s a 1 in 30 chance that the DNA analyst got it wrong. And there was a DNA analyst in Texas some years ago who never analyzed DNA. She just declared that everything was a match, leading to dozens of false convictions. Who else might be cheating? The strongest argument against the death penalty, to my mind, isn’t whether we have a moral right to take the life of a criminal, or whether the Code of Hammurabi (you know: “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”) is appropriate for use in 21st Century America. It’s humility. “Moral certainty” is a mirage. Our talent for discerning truth isn’t good enough to allow us to say “we know he’s a murderer. Kill him.” Some people dismiss the execution of innocents as collateral damage, an unfortunate but necessary by-product of eliminating murderers from our midst. Who’s the
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., PENN., N.C., GA., FLA.
May 15 TEXASnew execution date Arnold Prieto has been given an execution date of January 21, 2015; it should be considered serious. Executions under Rick Perry, 2001-present-276 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982-present515 Perry #scheduled execution date-name-Tx. # 277Aug. 6Manuel Vasquez---516 278Sept. 17--Lisa Coleman-517 279Jan. 21---Arnold Prieto518 280Jan. 28---Garcia White-519 (sources for both: TDCJ Rick Halperin) * Convicted Killer Of Wife And 2 Stepsons Loses Death Penalty Appeal Texas' highest criminal court has refused an appeal from a Dallas man sent to death row for fatally stabbing his 2 stepsons during a 2007 attack that also killed his wife. 40-year-old Robert Sparks contended a witness at the punishment phase of his capital murder trial provided false testimony regarding his prison classification if a jury chose life without parole rather than a death sentence. Dallas County prosecutors said the testimony was not incorrect. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said Wednesday the appeal fell short of legal requirements and dismissed it without considering its merits. Sparks was condemned for slayings where 9-year-old Harold Sublet Junior was stabbed at least 45 times, 10-year-old Raekwon Agnew was similarly stabbed and Sparks' wife, Chare Agnew, died of 18 stab wounds. (source: Associated Press) ** How Texas Keeps Putting the Intellectually Disabled on Death Row The Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional but gave states wiggle room 2 hours before he was supposed to be executed in Texas Tuesday night, a federal appeals court granted Robert James Campbell a stay of execution after deciding that new evidence of intellectual disability was more than sufficient to merit further consideration. Campbell, now 41, arrived on death row at age 19 after he was convicted of abduction, rape, and murder in 1991. His lawyers say that state files recovered in recent weeks include IQ tests indicating an IQ of 68 when Campbell was tested as a child and 71 at the time when he arrived on death row. When Campbell???s lawyers gave him an IQ test last month, he scored a 69. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that executing intellectually disabled individuals violated the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The Court said that an IQ of under approximately 70 demonstrates disability. However, the Atkins decision left states to define what it refered to as mental retardation. (Though clinicians now use the term intellectually disabled, the courts still use this older term.) Most states have opted to use the clinical definition of intellectual disability, which is based on 3 factors: limitations in intellectual functioning; limitations in adaptive behavior; and the onset of these limitations before age 18 (after age 18, it is considered dementia). Like the Supreme Court, the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities uses IQ to measure intellectual ability, with a score of around 70 and as high as 75 qualifying as limited. The adaptive behavior standard is key because it distinguishes intellectually disabled individuals from those who are able to meet the demands of everyday life despite a low IQ. But a number of states have established their own definitions, so that prisoners who test as intellectually disabled in one state could be eligible for execution in another. Texas, for example, uses a set of guidelines known as the Briseno factors, which consider whether people who knew the individual as a child think he was intellectually disabled and act in accordance with that determination; whether the individual carried out formulated plans or conducted himself impulsively; whether the individual can lie effectively; and whether his offense required forethought, planning, and complex execution, among other considerations. The Briseno factors, which were written by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, ask Texas citizens to compare the inmate to the character of Lennie from Of Mice and Men. Most Texas citizens might agree that Steinbeck's Lennie should, by virtue of his lack of reasoning ability and adaptive skills, be exempt [from execution], they read. By implication, an individual who seems less impaired than the fictional character would not be exempt. The Briseno factors are not recognized by a single clinical or scientific body. In 2012, Texas executed Marvin Wilson, a convicted murderer who had undergone 5 IQ tests that determined his IQ was 61. The only psychological expert to express an opinion at his trial said he was intellectually disabled. Wilson read at around a 5-year-old's reading level and sucked his thumb into
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., PENN., N.C., GA., FLA.
Feb. 19 TEXAS: BOOKS: The Wrong Carlos Argues Texas Executed an Innocent Man One of the strongest accounts pointing to the execution of a probably innocent man in recent times concerns the case of Carlos DeLuna, who was executed in Texas in 1989. In a forthcoming book, The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution, Professor James Liebman of Columbia Law School describes his investigation into the case, along with a team of students. The investigation uncovered serious problems in DeLuna's case, including faulty eyewitness testimony and the police's failure to investigate another potential suspect. DeLuna maintained his innocence and said another man, Carlos Hernandez, committed the crime. Hernandez and DeLuna looked so similar that their own families mistook photos of the men for each other. Moreover, Hernandez had a history of violent crimes like the one for which DeLuna was executed. The book and its accompanying website provide evidence of a grave mistake with police and witness records, trial transcripts, photographs, and more. The Wrong Carlos will be released in July 2014 but is available for pre-order now. (J. Liebman, The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution, Columbia University Press, forthcoming July 2014). (source: Death Penalty Information Center) * Death penalty an option for man accused of killing Chris Kyle The man charged with the murder of Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield can receive the death penalty, despite efforts from his lawyers in court on Tuesday. Eddie Ray Routh was in a Stephenville courtroom Tuesday morning for a pre-trial hearing. Routh is accused of shooting and killing Kyle and Littlefield at a gun range near Glen Rose last year. Defense attorney's asked the judge to take the death penalty off the table and life without parole, but the judge would not. Prosecutors haven't said if they intend to seek the death penalty or not, yet. Routh's lawyers also asked to have testimony banned from a prosecution expert witness that Routh could be a danger in the future. The judge denied that motion. The court heard dozens of other routine motions, including one to suppress statements Routh made to officers after his arrest. That motion will be carried over to another hearing in March. The trial is scheduled for May and Routh remains jailed on a $3 million bond. (source: myfoxdfw.com) NEW HAMPSHIRE: Gov. Hassan wants to hear more on death penalty repeal Gov. Maggie Hassan said Wednesday she wants to hear from law enforcement officials, among others, before she makes a final decision a whether to sign a death penalty repeal bill if it reaches her desk. Speaking with the Portsmouth Herald editorial board, Hassan said she wants to hear from other people, especially people in law enforcement about what a repeal would do and how it would impact them. The bill is currently in the state Legislature. Hassan, a Democrat from Exeter, also said that she would not support a bill that retroactively waived the death penalty for convicted police officer murderer Michael Addison because I don't believe a governor or a legislature should change the decision of a jury. Having said that, she did say that as a matter of faith and conscience, I don't support the death penalty. A repeal bill last week passed the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee by a vote of 14-3. Hassan spoke to the editorial board on a wide range of topics, including marijuana, casinos and gun background check legislation. (source: Seacoastonline.com) PENNSYLVANIA: Teenage satanist serial killer Miranda Barbour says death penalty is too inhumane and cruel for her; The Craigslist murderer, who says she notched up victims on the handle of her favourite knife, begs to be spared lethal injection Teenage satanist serial killer Miranda Barbour has notched up as many as 100 victims, but says she should be spared the death penalty because it is too inhumane. The 19-year-old Craigslist murderer - who admits wiping out between 22 and 100 victims over 6 years - is now begging to be spared lethal injection because she says execution is a cruel and inhumane punishment. Her lawyers have filed papers saying: The criminal justice system is fallible... subjecting inappropriate persons to the death penalty. The self-confessed murderer claims she had a favourite knife and added notches to the handle every time she murdered another victim found on the online classified ad site Craigslist. But police have not said whether they have found the knife, which would confirm her story. Newlywed Barbour, who is being compared to the serial killer in TV show Dexter because she claims she only killed bad people, confessed to the staggering death toll when she was pressed for her total number of victims. In a prison cell confession, Barbour, arrested along with her husband, said she
