January 12
NORTH CAROLINA:
Judge allows state to seek death penalty in deadly shooting of NC trooper
A strong law enforcement presence and dozens of family members watched as
Chauncy Askew entered a courtroom Friday wearing a bulletproof vest.
The judge approved District Attorney Jon David’s request to seek the death
penalty in his case.
Askew, 18, is charged with first-degree murder for his role in the shooting
death of State Trooper Kevin Conner.
He was arrested in late October without incident in Loris, S.C., after a
manhunt.
“When I saw him, I felt tears in my eyes,” said Early Gowans, Askew’s mother.
“I had to put my head down. I’ve never seen that before. I just don’t think my
son done it.”
Askew and Raheem Davis are accused of gunning down Conner in mid-October during
a traffic stop for a speeding violation on US 701 near Sellers Town Road in
Columbus County. Conner died after being taken to a local hospital.
David claimed in court that Askew was the one driving the stolen vehicle and
was responsible for pulling the trigger, firing a bullet that ultimately killed
Conner. Askew’s attorney, however, says there is no evidence to back that
claim.
“Seeking the death penalty for my son is wrong until they find that my son did
it - but I don’t think my son did that,” Gowans said.
Askew's attorney said his client is incompetent to stand trial, only scoring a
52 on an IQ test earlier this week and scoring a 56 in 2015. He said he was
hoping to get the rule 24 hearing continued, but the judge denied his request.
“His lawyer is doing the right thing,” Gowans said. “My son does have brain
damage because he has been in a car accident before. I hope they bring all that
before a judge.”
Ultimately, the judge agreed this is a capital case saying there are aggravated
factors. The judge asked the capital defenders office be called to get Askew a
second attorney.
According to David, a grand jury indicted Davis on Wednesday for accessory
after the fact to 1st-degree murder. His 1st-degree murder charge has been
dropped.
“I don’t think my son should be involved in this death penalty case alone,”
Gowans said. “I think other parties that was with him need to be treated the
same way as my son.”
An unsealed search warrant revealed Davis' mother tipped off investigators
about Askew’s involvement in the shooting.
(source: WECT news)
GEORGIA:
Death penalty on the wane in Georgia
Georgia prosecutors have long had a reputation for zealously seeking the death
penalty to punish heinous killers. And yet capital punishment in 2019 seems to
be going the way of the guillotine and the gallows: It’s disappearing.
A jury in Augusta imposed the last death sentence in Georgia in March 2014.
With no capital trials set for early this year, it’s all but certain the state
will go at least five years without a death sentence.
That span is the longest here since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital
punishment more than four decades ago. It wasn’t long ago when death sentences
were fairly routine in the state. Between 2007 and 2014, for example,
prosecutors convinced Georgia juries to hand down death sentences in 18 cases.
Pursuing a death penalty means a costly trial and decades of appeals. And it’s
now made more difficult by jurors’ growing reluctance to send convicts to their
death. The availability of a life-without-parole sentence, which is seen by
many as a more humane option, offers an alternative that district attorneys are
turning to more often.
Last year, Georgia’s district attorneys filed notices to seek the death penalty
in just three cases. That’s also the lowest number, on an annual basis, in
decades. It wasn’t that long ago when DAs sought death for dozens of cases a
year, such as in 2011 when they sought it 26 times or 2005 when they sought it
40 times, according to state records obtained by The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution under an Open Records Act request.
“Wow, I didn’t know that,” Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds said,
when told so few death notices were filed last year. He attributed the
precipitous drop to the ability of prosecutors to get sentences of life in
prison without the possibility of parole.
This is also reflected on a national level. Across the U.S., capital sentences
are reaching historic lows. Polls have shown increasing support for
life-without-parole sentences as opposed to the death penalty.
Last year, 42 death sentences were imposed nationwide, according to the Death
Penalty Information Center in Washington. That’s down from 83 such sentences in
2013 and 120 in 2008.
A decade ago, prosecutors in Georgia had to seek the death penalty against a
murder defendant in order to get the option of a life-without-parole sentence.
But in 2009 state lawmakers made a change that allows DAs to seek life without
parole in non-death-penalty cases. In Georgia, a sentence of life in prison
means an inmate can seek parole after serving just 30 years — a
life-without-parole sentence is the only way to be sure someone convicted stays
in prison.
In the Cobb County hot-car death case involving a toddler, Reynolds did not
seek death for the child’s father, Justin Ross Harris. Instead, Reynolds
obtained a life-without-parole sentence after Harris’s conviction.
“The majority of prosecutors around the state are now convinced that a
life-without-parole sentence actually means what it says,” said Reynolds, who
has sought the death penalty in one case during his 6 years as DA. “It’s made a
huge difference.”
Reynolds also acknowledged that the public’s attitude toward capital punishment
has shifted. “It’s now more difficult to obtain a death sentence because that’s
not necessarily what many of your citizens or jurors wish to be done these
days,” he noted.
Vernon Keenan, who retired Jan. 1 after serving 15 years as GBI director, said
he doesn’t believe the death penalty will be around much longer.
“I believe at some point it will go away,” he said. “It will either be
abolished by law or no longer used because the public no longer supports it.”
The state’s former top law man said he’s never supported capital punishment.
“It doesn’t accomplish much of anything,” Keenan said. “It doesn’t deter anyone
from committing the crime. They’re not concerned about the sentence because
they don’t think they’ll get caught.”
2018’s death-penalty cases
2 of the 3 cases where DAs sought death last year involved twin killings.
In March, Pierce County District Attorney George Barnhill announced he was
seeking death against Kenneth Jernigan for the Dec. 10, 2017, deaths of Dan and
Flora Hollman in the southeastern Georgia town of Patterson. Jernigan allegedly
killed the elderly couple by beating their heads with a stick or a metal object
during a burglary, according to court records. Jernigan, who had prior armed
robbery convictions, is also accused of setting fire to the Hollman’s residence
before leaving with about $40 in cash.
The Hollmans, who were semi-retired farmers, “were well liked and respected
elders in their community, never broke the law, both giving, sweet and generous
people,” Barnhill said.
“We have the death penalty as an option in Georgia,” the DA said. “It is a
legal and appropriate sentence where the evidence supports it and the proven
acts of the accused demand it. I decided it is appropriate to seek in this
case.”
Another death-penalty case is against James L. Smith is charged with the fatal
shootings of 31-year-old Shawna Ware and 33-year-old Sheena Jones in Cordele.
When authorities tracked down Smith to arrest him at a hotel, Smith opened fire
on the officers before finally surrendering, police said.
The third case is against Leon Lamar Tripp, who is charged with killing his
16-year-old stepdaughter in Augusta. The girl’s remains were found in a shallow
grave in March.
Whether those three cases go to trial remains to be seen. The state Office of
the Capital Defender, which represents almost everyone facing a death-penalty
prosecution in Georgia, has closed 69 cases since the beginning of 2015. Most
of the resolutions involved defendants who pleaded guilty in exchange for
sentences of life without parole.
Because the capital defender’s office has developed a good rapport with
district attorneys, both sides are now able to sit down and find common ground,
said Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council
of Georgia.
“That office has become real good at identifying mitigating factors for a
defendant and talking about that with prosecutors long before lines are drawn
in the sand,” Skandalakis said, referring to a point when DAs will no longer
negotiate a plea deal. “This has made a real difference, and you save the
resources and the time required of a death-penalty case and the victims don’t
have to go through the years-long process.”
Of the 69 closed cases, only five went to trial. In those, juries declined to
return a death sentence in all of them. Three of these cases involved the fatal
shootings of police officers and resulted in sentences of life without parole.
“From what I’m hearing from jurors, there are a lot of people who believe life
without parole is as harsh, if not more harsh, a punishment than the death
penalty,” said Jerry Word, who heads the state capital defender office.
Georgia’s Death Row
About 50 defendants in Georgia now face death-penalty prosecutions, and some
are scheduled to stand trial in the coming months.
Among them is Ricky Dubose, 1 of 2 inmates accused of killing 2 state
correctional guards during a prison bus escape in June 2017. Because of
pretrial publicity, the case will be tried in Brunswick on Sept. 30.
And Tiffany Moss, who is acting as her own attorney, is now tentatively
scheduled to face a death-penalty trial in Gwinnett County in April. Moss is
accused of starving her 10-year-old stepdaughter to death in 2013.
As this unfolds, the state is soon expected to start setting execution dates
for death-row inmates whose appeals are all but exhausted.
In December, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of Ray
Cromartie, who sits on death row for the April 1994 fatal shooting of a
convenience store clerk during an armed robbery in Thomasville. On Monday, by a
6-3 vote, the high court also declined to hear the appeal of Donnie Lance, who
was sentenced to death for the November 1997 killings of his ex-girlfriend and
her new boyfriend in Jackson County. In a rigorous dissent, Justice Sonia
Sotomayor said Lance’s trial lawyers “failed even to look into, much less to
put on, a case for sparing Lance’s life.”
The fact so few death sentences are being imposed now in Georgia also points to
the difference competent defense lawyers can make, said Stephen Bright, a law
professor at Georgia State, Georgetown and Yale law schools.
“Those are people who were sentenced to death some time ago often with lawyers
who were not qualified to try a death-penalty case,” Bright said of the inmates
about to receive execution dates. “They are also people who would not be
sentenced to death today.”
(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
INDIANA:
State court suit aims to ban Indiana death penalty
A lawsuit naming Gov. Eric Holcomb filed on behalf of a prisoner on Indiana’s
death row urges a state court to issue an injunction halting capital punishment
and rule that the state’s ultimate criminal penalty violates the Indiana
Constitution.
The suit was filed Tuesday in LaPorte Superior Court, which has jurisdiction
over the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. The prison houses Indiana death
row and the state’s lethal injection chamber.
Fort Wayne attorney David Frank filed the suit on behalf of inmate Roy Lee
Ward, who is on death row at Michigan City after he was convicted in 2001 of
the rape and mutilation killing of 15-year-old Stacy Payne in Spencer County.
Spokespeople for Holcomb and Attorney General Curtis Hill, whose office would
represent the Department of Correction and presumably the governor’s office in
this litigation, did not immediately respond Friday to email messages seeking
comment.
The Indiana Supreme Court in June 2012 affirmed Ward’s sentence, but his
execution was stayed by a federal judge later that same year. While Ward faces
no execution date after almost two decades on death row, the complaint filed
Tuesday contends that no other death row inmates do, either, and that the death
penalty is arbitrary and capricious. The suit argues Indiana should follow the
lead of other states including Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin that have
outlawed the death penalty.
“In 2018, the Supreme Court of the State of Washington unanimously declared the
use of capital punishment to be unconstitutional under its state constitution,”
the complaint says. Washington, where eight people are on death row, had not
carried out an execution since 2010.
Similarly, Indiana has not carried out an execution since 2009, the complaint
says, and the state has 9 death row inmates — 7 of whom, including Ward, are
under an active sentence of death.
Ward’s suit attacks the death penalty on four Indiana Constitution grounds,
contending it violates:
• The equal protection clause of Article 1, Section 1;
• Article 1, Section 15, which holds that no one “confined in jail, shall be
treated with unnecessary rigor”;
• Article 1, Section 16, barring cruel and unusual punishment, and;
• Article 1, Section 18, declaring the state’s penal code “shall be founded on
the principles or reformation, and not of vindictive justice.”
Frank contends the state’s only rationale for the death penalty is
“vindictiveness and vengeance,” in violation of Section 18.
“Hopefully the state will take notice that the use and implementation of
capital punishment in Indiana has become arbitrary and capricious,” he said
Friday in a telephone interview. “There has been no execution in 10 years, and
the number of men on death row is now in single digits.”
Frank said the suit is not about relitigating the guilt of the inmates. If the
death sentence were ruled unconstitutional, death sentences would be commuted
to life in prison without parole. Senate Bill 301, introduced in the Indiana
General Assembly by Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, would do just that,
along with abolishing the death penalty.
“Certainly, we acknowledge all of them were convicted of very serious offenses,
but I think the average and reasonable person could ask the state, ‘Why them?’”
Frank said of the inmates on death row. “… We don’t know what the state will
use to execute people, and we don’t know who they will execute. … When the
state offers no legitimate explanation for its use, it’s time to get rid of
it.”
The suit also comes as the Department of Correction is on the defensive in
court cases seeking information about drugs it could use to carry out a lethal
injection.
DOC has not publicly identified a lethal injection protocol it would use in the
event an execution were ordered. The Indiana General Assembly in 2017 slipped
last-minute language into the budget bill known as “the secrecy statute.” Among
other things, that language forbid anyone in the supply chain of lethal
injection drugs from disclosing what those drugs are.
That language undermined a judge’s order requiring DOC to make public certain
information about drugs and substances it had on-hand that could be used in a
lethal injection. Marion Circuit Judge Sheryl Lynch in November struck down the
secrecy statute on First Amendment and multiple other constitutional grounds.
Separately, the Indiana Supreme Court in February 2018 ruled DOC did not need
to go through public rulemaking in developing a lethal injection protocol in
another case Frank brought on Ward’s behalf. The Indiana Court of Appeals had
previously ruled DOC was not exempt from public rulemaking processes under the
Administrative Rules and Procedure Act.
The case challenging the constitutionality of the Indiana death penalty before
LaPorte Superior Court 2 Judge Richard Stalbrink is Roy Ward v. Gov. Eric
Holcomb, et al., 46D02-1901-PL-69.
(source: The Indiana Lawyer)
TENNESSEE:
Ex-husband facing death penalty for murder of Shadow McClaine asks to move
trial
The ex-husband of slain soldier Shadow McClaine has requested a change of venue
for his upcoming murder trial.
According to Maj. Martin Meiners, Public Affairs Officer at Fort Campbell,
Jamal Williams McCray appeared in a Fort Campbell courtroom Jan. 9 for an
Article 39a hearing, a session of a court-martial called by the military judge
before the jurors are seated.
The presiding judge, Col. Timothy Hayes, addressed numerous motions filed by
the prosecution and defense. McCray is facing the death penalty in the case,
and motions to dismiss the capital offense and set aside capital instructions
were both denied by the judge.
McCray’s request for a change of venue in the trial, as well as other motions,
were tabled until the next hearing scheduled for Feb. 25.
A motion to produce privileged communications was also denied. McClaine went
missing in September 2016 and her remains were found in January 2017 after an
extensive search. McCray and Spc. Charles Robinson III were charged with
homicide in her death.
Williams-McCray is also charged with sexual assault, aggravated assault, and
obstruction of justice.
Robinson pleaded guilty at his court-martial in September 2018. He was
sentenced by a judge to life imprisonment without parole, reduction in rank to
private, forfeiture of all pay and a dishonorable discharge. However, based
upon a pretrial agreement, he will not serve an excess of 25 years. Robinson
also received credit for 558 days of pretrial confinement.
Charles Robinson
Robinson said he was supposed to be paid $10,000 by McClaine’s ex-husband to
kill her and help hide the body. Robinson said he used a box cutter and a knife
to kill her but Sgt. Jamal Williams-McCray paid him only $200.
McClaine’s remains were found 2 years ago on Jan. 23. As the anniversary
approaches, a candlelight vigil has been planned for that day to honor her
memory. The public is invited to gather at the site where her remains were
found, near Exit 19 off I-24 and Maxey Rd. at 6 p.m. The vigil will be held
regardless of weather, according to organizers.
(source: clarksvillenow.com)
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