Sept. 29
TEXAS----impending execution
Terry Edwards of Texas Receives Execution Date of October 19, 2016
Terry Darnell Edwards is scheduled to be executed at 6 pm CDT, on Wednesday,
October 19, 2016, at the Walls Unit of the Huntsville State Penitentiary in
Huntsville, Texas. 42-year-old Terry is convicted of murdering 34-year-old
Tommy Walker and 26-year-old Mickell Goodwin on July 8, 2002, in Dallas, Texas.
Terry has spent the last 12 years of his life on Texas' death row.
Terry graduated from high school. Prior to his arrest he worked as a carpenter,
laborer, and warehouseman. Terry had previously been arrested, convicted, and
served time for possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and
theft of property. He was paroled in 1999.
In early June of 2002, Terry Edwards was fired from his job at a Subway
sandwich shop in Dallas, Texas, allegedly for stealing money. On the morning of
July 8, 2002, Terry returned to the store, along with his cousin Kirk Edwards.
Kirk was armed. Terry and Kirk ordered the people in the store to lie down,
while they stole the security camera footage and money. Tommy Walker and
Mickell Goodwin were the 2 employees working. They were both shot in the head
from inches away.
The testimony of Michael Weast, who was preparing to leave when Terry and Kirk
entered the store, identified them as the robbers. Michael also identified Kirk
as the man with the weapon. Terry was arrested later that day while trying to
dispose of the weapon. He denied being the trigger man, instead claiming that
AT-Bone had shot Tommy and Mickell and later gave Terry the gun.
Terry and Kirk were both convicted. Terry received a death sentence. Kirk was
sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Terry was scheduled to be executed earlier this year on May 11, 2016. His
execution was rescheduled to October 19, 2016. The reason for rescheduling
Terry's execution was not given.
Please pray for peace and healing for the families of Tommy Walker and Mickell
Goodwin. Please pray for strength for the family of Terry. Please pray that if
Terry is innocent, lacks the competency to be executed, or should not be
executed for any other reason, that evidence will be presented prior to his
execution. Please pray that Terry may come to find peace through a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ, if he has not already.
(source: theforgivenessfoundation.org)
*******************
The Legal Fiction That Could Kill Duane Buck ---- A man's life hinges on the
Supreme Court's evaluation of racist testimony during his sentencing.
The island of Minorca is now part of Spain. Roughly 270 square miles in area,
it basks in the sunny Mediterranean some 75 miles east of its larger sibling,
Mallorca.
Minorca is also, however, located entirely within the Ward of Cheap, a district
covering the half-mile between Farringdon Street and Old Jewry within the City
of London.
You could look it up.
The island was magically imported into Cheap by the English Court of Common
Pleas in 1774. This ludicrous geographical fiction was the only way the court
could assert jurisdiction over a claim by a Minorca resident that the British
royal governor had assaulted and falsely imprisoned him.
Like the wandering island, most legal fictions grow up because they allow the
law to do things more easily.
But legal fictions can kill.
Consider this one: The acts of a lawyer in a capital murder trial are the
actions of the defendant. This fiction will be in play next week when the
Supreme Court hears Buck v. Davis, a last-ditch death penalty appeal from
Texas. Duane Buck is asking the Court to void his death sentence and order a
new sentencing hearing because the jury heard testimony that Buck, a black man,
was more dangerous than he would have been if he had been white. If Buck's
appeal is rejected, it will be largely because the incompetent lawyer who let
this impermissible, false, and unconstitutional "expert" testimony go to the
jury was his own state-supplied lawyer - and thus in a legal sense, Buck
himself.
No one questions that Buck is guilty of 2 horrible murders. After he was
convicted in 1997, the case, like all capital murder cases, moved on to the
"sentencing phase." In this phase, the prosecution can provide evidence to the
jury that the crime was "aggravated" by certain statutory factors (such as
having been especially cruel, or committed for money). The defense can present
almost any evidence it wants, in an attempt to "mitigate" the crime - to show,
for example, that a history of trauma or child abuse shaped the defendant's
actions, or that, if imprisoned for life, he will not commit violent acts
again. After this testimony, the jury can choose between death and life
imprisonment without parole.
The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution requires that, if an accused can't
afford private counsel, a lawyer must be provided. Buck's trial lawyer, Jerry
Guerinot, was appointed by the court and paid by the state. Guerinot did
something that, on first hearing, seems all but unimaginable - he presented an
"expert" who testified that Buck was more likely to commit future violent
crimes because he is black.
As Adam Liptak of The New York Times outlined in a stunning 2010 profile,
Guerinot seems to have been one of the least successful death-penalty lawyers
in American history. Twenty of his clients have been sent to death row. (He is
now out of the capital-defense business.) It was Guerinot who retained
psychologist Walter Quijano as an "expert" witness for the defense at
sentencing; it was Guerinot who asked Quijano on the stand what factors the
jury should use to judge Buck's future dangerousness. "It's a sad commentary
that minorities, Hispanics and black people, are over represented in the
Criminal Justice System," Quijano responded.
On cross examination, the prosecution re-emphasized this point: "the race
factor, black, increases the future dangerousness for various complicated
reasons; is that correct?" Quijano said "yes."
Any 1st-year law student knows that defense counsel should not knowingly offer
evidence that is inadmissible and harmful to the client and that it is improper
to argue that a defendant's race should lead to a harsher sentence.
The state of Texas also knows this perfectly well. As far back as 2000, 3 years
after Buck's trial, the Texas attorney general's office admitted that seven
death sentences based on racist testimony by Quijano violated the defendants'
"constitutional right to be sentenced without regard to the color of [their]
skin." The Attorney General, and now Texas Republican Senator, John Cornyn,
promised that the state would not oppose motions for new sentencing hearings
from these defendants.
Then in 2002 Texas got a new attorney general: Republican Greg Abbott. When
Buck asked a federal district judge to order a new sentence hearing, Abbott's
office reversed course. It did object, arguing - falsely - that Buck's case was
the only one in which Quijano testified for the defense. (The Texas AG office
did not respond to a request for a comment on the switch.)
This is 2 fictions in 1 - 1 real, the other legal: The genuine falsehood is
that Buck's case was unique; subsequently it became clear that in at least 1
other case, Quijano had been a defense witness. The legal fiction is that,
under any conception of justice, there's a difference between having an
unscrupulous prosecutor offer the unconstitutional evidence and having your own
lawyer do it - a difference so great that it should determine whether you live
or die.
At this point, the procedural nightmare that is federal habeas corpus law
becomes relevant. Buck had already made one federal habeas application before
the Texas AG's announcement. In order to justify a 2nd habeas motion, Buck was
required to make "a substantial showing of a denial of a constitutional right."
Otherwise, his claims were "procedurally defaulted."
Buck argued that the submission of the racist testimony to the jury
demonstrated that his lawyer had been ineffective - so ineffective as to
violate the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a fair trial with "assistance of
counsel." He also noted Cornyn's admission that several defendants' rights had
been violated by Quijano's testimony in their cases, and Abbot's subsequent
about-face in his case. A federal district judge, and later a 3-judge panel of
the Eleventh Circuit, were deeply bored by this 2nd habeas application. They
denied it, saying that that Buck didn't raise the matter in time. (This is
called "procedural default.") The U.S. Supreme Court denied review in 2011.
In 2013, however, the Supreme Court changed the background law: In a case
called Trevino v. Thaler, the Court examined Texas's system of state appeals.
It concluded that the system, by "design and operation," Texas law made it
practically impossible for defendants to be on time with ineffective assistance
claims.
Thus, the near-absolute bar on new federal habeas petitions should be waived,
the Court said, when the defendant has a "substantial claim" of ineffective
assistance. This decision offered Buck another chance to ask a federal court
for a new sentencing hearing.
The district court, however, yawned again - the damage from Quijano's
testimony, it said, was "de minimis," meaning insignificant. After all, Quijano
had only referred to Buck's race twice; and, the court added, it is an
"indisputable fact that African Americans and Latinos are overrepresented in
the criminal justice system." Meanwhile, there was other, non-racial evidence
to support a jury's conclusion that Buck would be dangerous if allowed to live.
Thus, in effect, the use of the racist testimony was harmless, the court said.
Buck sought to appeal. Even to be heard at the court of appeals, he had to
first ask the district court for a "certificate of appealability" - a judge's
statement that he had made "a substantial showing of the denial of a
constitutional right." The district court denied it, saying that Buck had no
case at all.
Under the law, the appeals court must affirm that denial by a district court
unless it's clearly wrong. The prisoner must show that "jurists of reason"
could disagree with the judge's ruling.
The appeals court panels said no such judge could agree with Buck: "Buck has
not made out even a minimal showing that his case is exceptional." It
dispatched Abbot's change of heart in a footnote: "Because it does not change
the outcome of this appeal, we need not explore whether such a promise was made
or how explicit it was." No "jurists of reason" could disagree, the panel held.
The panel opinion was by Judge Jerry Smith, who during his three decades on the
bench has emerged as a kind of appellate Judge Roy Bean. In 1996, Smith wrote
an opinion overruling a Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, on the
grounds that the Court probably didn't really stand behind it. (Reasonable
appellate judges ordinarily understand that they don't get to overturn Supreme
Court opinions.) Smith's decision was repudiated by the Court in 2 subsequent
cases.
While the Supreme Court was considering the Affordable Care Act "individual
mandate" case, Smith ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to write him a letter
explaining political comments by President Obama. (Reasonable appellate judges
ordinarily understand that the president and the United States are not the same
thing; when the U.S. is a party to a case, the president isn't, and is thus not
subject to the Court's political supervision.) But even for Smith, there was
something breathtaking about his breezy assertion that "jurists of reason would
not debate that Buck has failed to show extraordinary circumstances justifying
relief."
Why?
Well, flashback to 2011, when the Supreme Court rejected Buck's 1st petition. 2
justices - Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan - dissented from that
denial of review. In an opinion by Sotomayor, they said: "a petitioner must
show that 'jurists of reason could disagree with the district court's
resolution of his constitutional claims or that jurists could conclude the
issues presented are adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.'
Buck has met this standard."
This was precisely the question before the Fifth Circuit panel. When Buck asked
for rehearing by the full court, the majority denied it. But 2 judges
dissented. "A proper, threshold inquiry into Buck's claim would have revealed
that reasonable jurists could disagree with the district court's conclusions,"
their dissent said.
The bald-faced claim that no real judge could find Buck eligible for relief is
belied by the record. Let's just say it is legal fiction.
Speaking of legal fictions, in that 2011 petition, Justice Samuel Alito, joined
by Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer, answered Sotomayor's dissent
with a statement that Buck's case did not warrant review. It was true that the
defense had offered Quijano as a witness in other cases, contrary to what the
state had claimed, Alito said; but in those other cases, it was the prosecutor
who asked the questions about race. "Only in Buck's case did defense counsel
elicit the race related testimony on direct examination," Alito wrote. Again,
Buck did it to himself.
Now the High Court has granted review again, and we will see what kinds of
"jurists of reason" sit in our exalted temple of justice, whose entrance is
inscribed with one of the greatest legal fictions: "Equal Justice Under Law."
(source: Garrett Epps is a contributing editor for The Atlantic. He teaches
constitutional law and creative writing for law students at the University of
Baltimore. His latest book is American Justice 2014: 9 Clashing Visions on the
Supreme Court; The Atlantic)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Hearing begins to determine if Anthony Nguyen should get the death penalty
The mother of Shelia Pace Gooden took the stand Wednesday morning in a hearing
to determine if Anthony Vinh Nguyen should get the death penalty for her
daughter's mother.
A Forsyth County jury convicted Nguyen, 24, on Tuesday of 1st-degree murder,
1st-degree kidnapping, 1st-degree burglary and armed robbery in Gooden's death.
Forsyth County prosecutors said Nguyen and 2 other men -- Daniel Aaron Benson,
25, and Steven George Assimos, 24 -- broke into Gooden's home at 700 Magnolia
St. in the Ardmore neighborhood at 11:30 p.m. Oct. 10, 2013, held her hostage,
ransacked her house and stole a flat-screen TV worth $200.
Nguyen shot Gooden 3 times -- once in the right leg, once in her right eye and
once in the right side of her head, prosecutors said.
The jury spent about 8 hours over 2 days in deliberation before coming back
with the guilty verdicts just before 4 p.m. Tuesday.
Sarah Plowman Swaim said her daughter had 5 children and 5 grandchildren. 4 of
those grandchildren never got meet Gooden, Swaim said.
Gooden always worked 2 full-time jobs most days of the week, including at
Waffle House on Jonestown Road, where she was a waitress, she said.
The last time she saw her daughter alive was on Oct. 9, 2013, while both were
visiting a relative in the hospital, Swaim said.
"It has been hard on the family," she said.
Swaim said Gooden's children have struggled to deal with Gooden's death.
One of her children, Cory Joe Prince, testified during the trial that he became
homeless after Gooden died. He lived with Gooden and had problems with drugs
and alcohol. Prince was with Gooden when Nguyen, Assimos and Benson broke into
the house. All 3 men knew Prince and according to testimony, they had come to
Gooden's house to rob Prince.
Prince testified that he ran out of the back side of the house when he heard
gunshots and called 911.
Swaim said she has held a vigil at Gooden's house and has depended on her faith
in God to help her through her grief.
"I just get up in the morning and pray and get through the day," she said.
Nguyen's attorneys, David Botchin and John Bryson, will present evidence
beginning at 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon in Forsyth Superior Court. The hearing
is expected to last up to 2 days.
(source: Winston-Salem Journal)
ALABAMA----new death sentence//female
Jury votes 10-2 to execute Saraya Atkins for robbery-murder
A jury in Mobile County yesterday voted 10-2 to execute Saraya Atkins for the
2014 shooting death of Robert Perry.
After a little more than 7 hours of deliberations over 2 days, the jury read
their verdict Wednesday Morning at Circuit Court.
After the verdict was read Judge Michael Youngpeter told the jury that the
decision was merely a recommendation. Youngpeter will make the final ruling on
the sentence on Nov. 3 at 2:00 p.m. inside his courtroom.
Family members of Atkins and Perry did not show any emotion after the verdict
was read. Atkins, dressed in a white buttoned down blouse and gold cardigan
turned to her mother, Shawnette Spicer and said, "I'm alright mama," before
being led out of the courtroom by deputies.
Before leaving the courtroom Spicer hugged one of Perry's family members and
said, "God bless you. I'm sorry and I love you. I'm not mad at you."
Both families declined to speak to the media after leaving the courtroom.
Mobile District Attorney Ashley Rich said no one in the courtroom was happy
about the outcome.
"They're not happy that someone received the death penalty," said Rich. "Saraya
Atkins made those choices and put us in trial and put us in a death penalty
case."
Atkins was convicted earlier this month of capital murder, robbery and theft in
the death of 66-year-old Perry.
Prosecutors said Atkins and another woman, Kymberli Lindsay, 27, shot Perry to
death on March 11, 2014.
The shooting came after Perry had been asked by his stepdaughter Stephanie
Finney, 45, to take her to look at a used car she wanted to purchase from a man
on Craigslist. Perry, said Rich earlier in the trial, drove his wife's red
Toyota Prius to Finney's home on Bayou Jonas Drive to pick her up.
Finney had planned on cashing her $1,900 income tax check at the money store in
the Walmart in Tillman's Corner to meet the seller of the used car at that same
Walmart.
Rich told jurors Atkins had been facing some personal troubles of her own that
led her and Lindsay to cross paths with Perry and Finney that day.
Rich, during the trial said Atkins and Lindsay decided to ride to the Bel-Air
Mall and find a license plate to steal off another white Chevrolet vehicle that
matched her own. Rich said video surveillance at the Dillard's store shows both
women unscrewing the license plate off a woman's vehicle and putting it on
Atkins car.
As soon as Finney left the store, Lindsay followed her to see what vehicle she
got into before getting back in the car with Atkins. Perry and Finney drove to
the back side of the Garden Center at Walmart to meet the seller of the used
car. Atkins and Lindsay pulled into a parking space at a distance and watched.
Finney decides not to buy the car after checking it out with Perry and they
decide to head home. Atkins and Lindsay realize this and follow the pair, 15
miles away, to Bayou Jonas Drive. Once they get about half way up the street,
Atkins speeds up and cuts Perry off forcing him to slam on his brakes and hit
the rear of Atkins car in the wet weather.
"She gets out the car with that loaded revolver screaming, 'Give me your
wallet,'" said Rich.
Perry rolled down the window and tried to give her his wallet and Atkins
screams again.
"I don't want your wallet. I want her wallet," said Rich to the jurors.
Finney handed her wallet to Atkins, who reached inside the driver side window
with the revolver to get the wallet. Perry tried to grab the gun and the wallet
fell. He told Finney to run before the first gunshot went off and missed Perry
going through the open passenger door as Finney tried to escape.
During the struggle for the gun, Perry gave up and tried to slide out the
passenger side of the car. The 2nd shot struck Perry in the left arm and
pierced his jugular vein and exited his right side. The 3rd gunshot went into
the driver seat and into the gas tank.
"She opens the car door as he's dying and takes the wallet and flees," said
Rich.
(source: al.com)
***************
Death penalty recommended for convicted murderer
A Mobile County jury has recommended the death penalty for convicted murderer
Saraya Atkins.
Atkins, of Michigan,was convicted of killing Robert "Bobby" Perry on Tuesday,
March 11, 2014.
According to officials, Atkins accomplice, Kymberli Lindsay of Mobile, was
inside Walmart scoping out the right target to follow when Perry and his
stepdaughter stopped to cash a check for money to purchase a car advertised on
Craigslist.
When Perry's stepdaughter went inside, investigators said, that is when the 2
women chose their target.
Deputies said once Atkins and Lindsay were apprehended, they confessed they had
"intentions" of robbing someone; it was just a matter of finding the right
person.
(source: WALA news)
OHIO----new death sentence
Jury recommends death sentence for Glen Bates
It took jurors about 2 hours to find Glen Bates guilty of killing his
2-year-old daughter. On Wednesday, the same jury decided in less than an hour
to recommend a death sentence.
Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Megan Shanahan will announce Oct. 17 whether
she will accept the jury's recommendation.
Throughout the trial, which began last week, Bates showed no emotion. Wednesday
was no different. As Shanahan read the jury's decision aloud, he sat in a
chair, staring ahead blankly.
Before deputies led him out of the courtroom, he turned toward family members
including his mother and said, "I love you, too."
Bates was found guilty Monday of charges including aggravated murder and child
endangering in the death of his daughter, Glenara. The cause of death was acute
and chronic head injuries, battered child syndrome and starvation. The most
serious head injuries, prosecutors said, happened when Bates, 34, swung Glenara
into a door frame "like a baseball bat."
Prosecutors said that act was intended to kill Glenara. The incident was
described by Glenara's now-10-year-old sister during testimony.
"Imagine what he did to that 2-year-old girl who he had a duty to care for and
protect," Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Rick Gibson told jurors
Wednesday. "Imagine him swinging her the way (her sister) described."
When she died on March 29, 2015, she weighed 13 pounds. Bates' onetime
girlfriend, 30-year-old Andrea Bradley, also faces the same charges. Bradley's
case is being handled separately.
"It was a chamber of horrors, where (Glenara) was being bitten, burned and
finally was bashed against a wall," Assistant Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier said.
"It wasn't a quick death. It was a long, painful death."
A jury of 4 men and 8 women, along with 4 alternates, listened to about an hour
of testimony Wednesday, as Bates' attorneys presented three witnesses to try to
convince them that he should be spared the death sentence.
Against the advice of his attorneys, Bates chose not to give a statement
Wednesday.
His attorneys asked the jury to sentence him to life without the possibility of
parole.
Defense attorney Norm Aubin said life without parole "is probably worse than a
death sentence."
"Every single day, he'll think about what got him to this point," Aubin said,
adding: "What he did was horrific, but there's something there worth saving."
Bates' mother, a childhood friend, and a former girlfriend with whom he has a
12-year-old son testified, but shed little light on the kind of person Bates
is.
The former girlfriend's testimony was videorecorded earlier this week in her
bedroom as she lay in bed, because of health issues. Stacy Jones testified that
their son, who has autism, would be devastated if his father is sentenced to
death. It wasn't clear how often Bates saw the boy, although Jones said they
exchanged letters.
Bates, she said, "taught him a lot, has been his protector and friend."
According to Jones' testimony, Bates fathered at least 6 additional children
with 3 other women, including Bradley.
Bates rejected at least 2 plea deals before deciding to stand trial. If he'd
accepted those deals, he would have faced a minimum of 15 years to life in
prison.
It was Bradley who carried Glenara's cold and limp body into Cincinnati
Children's Hospital Medical Center on March 29, 2015.
(source: cincinnati.com)
INDIANA:
Johnson County Prosecutor Brad Cooper faces possible sanctions for press
comments
Johnson County Prosecutor Brad Cooper could be sanctioned for criticizing the
judge who set aside the death penalty for convicted killer Michael Dean
Overstreet.
The Indiana Supreme Court's disciplinary commission complaints says Cooper's
comments to IndyStar and The Associated Press in November 2014 violated
attorney ethics rules.
"I was angry and suspicious when this case was sent to a distant judge who is
not accountable to the Johnson County citizenry or a grieving mother who
couldn't even afford to drive up for the hearing," Cooper told IndyStar via a
text message for a story published Nov. 20, 2014.
"The idea that this convicted rapist murdering monster is too sick to be
executed is nothing short of outrageous and is an injustice to the victim, her
mother, the jury and the hundreds of people who worked to convict this animal."
The complaint cites another comment Cooper made the same day to The Associated
Press:
"Once this case got shipped to a distant judge who is not beholden to the
voters and citizens of Johnson County, it didn't surprise me that she didn't
want to create the headache for herself by keeping with this case.... I think
the idea that this rapist murderer is basically too sick to be executed is
ridiculous."
The comments came after St. Joseph Superior Judge Jane Woodward Miller ruled
that Overstreet was not competent to be executed. Overstreet was convicted and
sentenced to death in the 1997 murder and rape of Franklin College student
Kelly Eckart, 18.
The Indiana Supreme Court transferred the case after Johnson Superior Judge
Cynthia Emkes, who presided over Overstreet's trial, removed herself for health
reasons.
The commission claims Cooper's comments violated a professional conduct rule
barring lawyers from making false statements "concerning the qualifications of
a judge."
If he's found to have violated the rule, punishment could range from an
admonishment to suspension or loss of his law license.
The Overstreet trial was one of the highest-profile trials in Johnson County
history. Cooper, then the county's chief deputy prosecutor, was part of the
team that won the death penalty case in 2000.
Cooper, in a written response to the commission's complaint, admitted that he
was accurately quoted in the IndyStar story.
"He emotionally responded to an inquiry from a reporter at the Indianapolis
Star and did so via text messaging," Cooper's attorneys wrote.
Cooper is scheduled to appear in Richmond on Oct. 5 for a half-day disciplinary
hearing before Wayne Superior Judge Charles Todd Jr.
Cooper told IndyStar on Thursday that he looks forward to defending himself and
declined further comment.
(source: Indianapolis Star)
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