[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, NEV., FLA., MO.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 2


TEXAS:

Carjack murder suspect charged----Mass will be celebrated today for the
woman who was killed


Houston police announced late Friday that a 24-year old man has been
charged with capital murder in the carjacking and death of Jeanette
Gonzales, a 23-year old nursing student who disappeared Sunday from the
parking lot of the Hong Kong Market.

Juan Carlos Molina was charged Friday after Houston police arrested him
Tuesday for a probation violation related to an earlier narcotics
conviction, said Houston Police Department spokesman Alvin Wright .

Molina had been videotaped Monday by a surveillance camera at the Wal-Mart
Supercenter on State Highway 6, Wright said. The HPD widely distributed
that videotape.

Jeanette Gonzales' life was celebrated at two Catholic rosaries Thursday
and Friday. Her father, Alejandro Gonzales, said that Houston police had
told him that a suspect in his daughter's killing had been arrested and
jailed.

That is some comfort, as her family prepares to celebrate a funeral Mass
today for Jeanette, her father said.

"Still my daughter is dead,"Gonzales said Friday night. "But we are glad
there is that development in the case. I know that before she is put to
rest, those people are behind bars."

Jeanette Gonzales will be remembered at a memorial Mass today at 5 p.m. at
Notre Dame Catholic Church on Boone. She will be cremated Monday.

Gonzales said he did not know what he might say to Molina, his daughter's
accused killer.

"What could I say? Did he really need to kill my daughter, just to get
money from her?"

(source: Houston Chronicle)

*****************

Jourdanton murder confession tapes go missing


Prosecutors have asked a judge to allow them to use duplicate videotapes
of a murder confession from a Jourdanton man accused of killing an elderly
neighbor after the originals disappeared from a Jourdanton police storage
locker.

James Reece, the estranged husband of then-Mayor Tammy Clark, is accused
of beating 73-year-old Bernice Evans to death with a hammer Nov. 14, 2004.

Prosecutors say Reece made a confession to police that was recorded on 2
tapes. District Attorney Rene Pea said the tapes went missing around 3
weeks ago from an evidence locker, and said Jourdanton police are looking
for them.

He said he expects state District Judge Donna Rayes to rule the duplicates
admissible at a Sept. 21 hearing.

Police officials said no deliberate foul play is suspected. An
investigator there said officers believe the tapes were misplaced
accidentally, perhaps when someone was making a copy and then left the
original in the machine.

They say the duplicate tapes are identical to the original.

Pea called the tapes "a substantial piece of evidence."

Defense attorney Bill Baskette said he has been provided "duplicates of
the duplicates" and plans to review them for any inconsistencies before
the hearing. He said he'll also have a video expert look at the tapes for
any possible deletions or other mishandling.

"I'm still trying to determine if these copies are close enough or exactly
copies of what the originals would have shown," Baskette said. "If they're
not, then obviously they're not going to be admissible."

Baskette already had asked the confession be suppressed. He was prepared
to argue Aug. 24 that it had been coerced by Clark when she still was
mayor, but Rayes postponed the hearing in light of the missing evidence.

Clark "got him to make these statements in promise for her to use her
authority and power to help him, and then she turned her back on him,"
Baskette said.

Jourdanton police have said Reece killed his neighbor after Clark asked
him to tone down noise coming from his yard. Traces of blood were found on
the porch of the home Clark and Reece shared and Evans' body was found in
a swampy field a quarter-mile away.

Clark remained mayor for nearly a year after the killing. She was briefly
held in police custody in September 2005 during execution of a search
warrant, and abruptly resigned during a City Council meeting that October.
She was not charged in connection with the slaying.

(source: San Antonio Express-News)

************

Hits and Misses


Blessing a death case sham

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals could have struck a blow for justice
this week in a smarmy death case. Instead, the state's highest criminal
court sat on its hands, essentially blessing Bexar County District
Attorney Susan Reed's investigation of her own office. Worse, in her
previous job as a judge, she personally set the execution date for the man
in question, Ruben Cantu. He was put to death in 1993 for a robbery-murder
that has come into question because of witnesses' changed accounts. Is a
disinterested inquiry really too much to ask for?

(source: Editorial, Dallas Morning News)






NEVADA:

Southern Nevada Correctional Facility Reopens


A prison south of Las Vegas that has been closed for 6 years will re-open
soon, for a new purpose and with a whole new group of corrections
officers.

Craig Parhola started his career here 25 years ago. Now he is back for the
reopening. He says corrections changed him and it could change the
graduates from his correctional facility as well.

Parhola used to be against the death penalty.

"There are just some people you can't help them," he says.

But he hasn't totally given up.

"We can help the kids through programs," Parhola says.

The renovated prison where he'll be working is Nevada's 1st large scale
attempt to help youth prisoners.

Andriana Lacey who graduated Friday is looking forward to helping youth
through classes that will prepare them for the real world.

"Everyone is human everyone makes mistakes," she says.

The graduates are in for a serious challenge. The inmates are some of the
toughest prisoners, says State Corrections Director Glenn Horton.

"They're going to test the system. They're going to try the system but we
can handle it," Horton says.

The legislature estimated that it would cost $15 million to renovate the
prison. By using prison labor they did it for $3.5 million. 89 prisoners
are scheduled to arrive on Wednesday.

This is the 1st prison in the state dedicated to offering programs to
youth. They include air conditioning, construction, auto shop and high
school diplomas.

(source: KLAS News)






FLORIDA:

Florida slay ringleader asks to be spared death penalty


In Daytona Beach, attorneys for the convicted ringleader in the beating
deaths of 6 people over an Xbox video-game system asked a judge yesterday
to spare him the death penalty because he has mental problems and was
abused as a child.

However, Troy Victorino, 29, did not take the stand on his own behalf,
saying only "No, sir" when Chief Circuit Judge Bill Parsons asked if there
was anything he wanted to tell the court. His attorneys also presented no
witnesses, saying they had already brought forth at trial all available
testimony speaking to Victorino's character.

A jury last month convicted Victorino and 2 other men of 1st-degree murder
for the 2004 slaughter of 6 people, including 2 former Lowell residents,
in a house in Deltona, Fla.

Victorino, a 6-foot-7-inch, 270-pound previously convicted felon,
allegedly organized the attacks with 3 younger men to retrieve an Xbox
system and other belongings from a house he was kicked out of squatting
in. The house was owned by the grandparents of Erin Belanger, 22, a Lowell
native who was living in a Deltona home with her boyfriend, Francisco Ayo
Roman, 30, also formerly of Lowell, and 4 others.

Defense attorneys for the three other men found guilty painted Victorino
as a manipulative, menacing figure who threatened the others if they
refused to participate.

Victorino was abused as a child and hospitalized for mental illness as
early as age 9, defense attorney Jeff Dowdy said.

He had exhibited strange indicators on brain tests that could mean mental
illness or damage to his frontal lobe, Dowdy said.

"He took the worst of the beatings because he was the oldest," Dowdy said.
"He can come up with this harebrained plan, but Victorino does not have
the ability to put the brakes on it, he doesn't have the ability to stop."

Prosecutor Leah Case said the defense's psychological experts never
pinpointed a specific mental illness or disorder, and Victorino's efforts
to create an alibi the night of the killings showed he was thinking
clearly.

"That's forethought, and that's logical thinking," she said. "It may not
be something we all want to have as far as the goal, but there was
goal-directed behavior."

The jury recommended death for Victorino and Jerone Hunter, but Parsons
will make the final decision. He scheduled sentencing for both Sept. 21.

Michael Salas and Robert Anthony Cannon, both 20, were sentenced to life
in prison without the possibility of parole. Cannon had pleaded guilty and
agreed to testify for the prosecution, but declared his innocence at trial
and refused to answer questions. On Monday, Parsons denied Cannon's his
motion to pull the plea and handed down the life sentence.

The 6 victims were left in the house bloodied and bruised, all dead from
blows to the head causing severe skull fractures and brain injury, the
medical examiner determined.

He said the injuries were similar to those inflicted in high-speed car
wrecks.

Several of the bodies were also mutilated with stab wounds and cuts after
death, and some victims were missing most of their teeth.

Also killed were Michelle Nathan, 19; Anthony Vega, 34; Roberto Gonzalez,
28, and Jonathan Gleason, 17.

(sources: Lowell (Mass.) Sun & Associated Press)






MISSOURI:

Death sentence for killer reduced to life


With the St. Louis prosecutor's support, a judge has lifted the death
sentence of a man who represented himself in a murder trial and later
protested that his court-appointed assisting counsel had failed him.

Charles W. Armentrout III had faced execution for killing his 81-year-old
grandmother with a souvenir baseball bat on March 18, 1995, because she
refused to give him money for drugs. Despite repeated warnings from 2 St.
Louis Circuit Court judges, Armentrout, now 41, insisted upon representing
himself during his trial downtown in February 1998.

The court provided him with 2 public defenders as "stand-by counsel," but
Armentrout handled both the trial and penalty hearing before Circuit Judge
David C. Mason. Armentrout told the jury he had "been a bad person all my
life" and admitted that he planned to rob his grandmother, Inez Notter -
but claimed that another man killed her.

Notter's body was found stuffed in a trunk in the basement of her home in
the 4200 block of Neosho Street. Armentrout had lived with her there for
about 6 months.

The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence in
December 1999. One year later, lawyers for Armentrout filed another appeal
alleging that he had been "denied effective assistance at counsel, due
process, equal protection, a fair trial, a fair penalty phase, and was
subjected to cruel and unusual punishment."

On Aug. 9, Judge Mason signed an order reducing Armentrout's sentence to
life without parole. Nels C. Moss, acting as a special assistant to St.
Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, told Mason that Joyce had agreed to
the reduction in sentence in return for Armentrout's promise to
permanently drop all appeals.

In the terms signed by Armentrout, he says, "I desire to avoid the
sentence of death." Mason read the final paperwork in court and asked
Armentrout if he had objections, according to a transcript.

"No, it's just perfect," said Armentrout, who was returned to the Potosi
Correctional Center.

Moss, a former assistant circuit attorney now in private practice, was one
of the prosecutors at Armentrout's trial. He helped Joyce on the appeal.

Moss said he was concerned that the federal courts, which have narrowed
death penalty applications in recent years, might order a new trial on
grounds that no defendant should be allowed to represent himself in a
capital case. Death row inmates almost invariably file in federal court
after exhausting state appeals.

"I think judges should tell him, 'You made your choice. You can't complain
now,'" Moss said. "But do we want to risk trying this whole thing over
again, 11 years after the fact and with witnesses scattered? The answer is
no. He's still in prison for life."

Armentrout's 2001 appeal alleged that the 2 public defenders assigned to
help him "failed to investigate his background, which contains substantial
mitigating evidence and evidence of diminished capacity."

Armentrout called no witnesses during the trial and did not testify. He
subpoenaed his mother for the penalty hearing, but on the witness stand
she characterized him as her "former son."

On March 23, 1998, when Mason sentenced him to death, Armentrout argued
with the judge and presented a list of 89 complaints about his trial.
"I've gotten the shaft from the right, the left and the middle," it said.

Christopher E. McGraugh, a lawyer for Armentrout, said the theory of the
appeal "is a little more complicated" than a man choosing to defend
himself, and losing. He said Armentrout wanted the St. Louis Circuit Court
to pay for specialists to help develop his defense, but Mason told him he
could get that from the public defenders.

"So there was a conflict of his rights that put him in something of a
Hobson's choice - if you want to represent yourself, you can't have the
money for experts," McGraugh said. "He has the constitutional right to
both."

McGraugh said the appeal was strengthened by a federal ruling 2 years ago
affirming the right of death penalty defendants to expert assistance. He
said the order reducing Armentrout's sentence was "a good outcome."

(source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch)