HOUSTON (July 24, 2013)–State District Judge Mary Lou Keel has set a Feb. 5, 2014 execution date for Suzanne Basso, 59, who’s held on women’s death row in Gatesville.

Basso was convicted of capital murder in the death in 1998 of Louis Musso, 59, a mentally impaired man in Harris County who was beaten with belts, baseball bats and hands and kicked with steel-toed boots.

He was also bathed in a solution of beach and pine cleaner and scrubbed with a wire brush.

His body was unrecognizable after the attack, authorities said.

Basso led the group of six attackers, records show.

The motive for the murder was an insurance policy in which she was named the beneficiary.

Evidence showed she had promised to marry Musso, convincing him to leave family and friends in New Jersey and moving to Texas.

July 24, 2013

Ronell Wilson, whose first death sentence for killing two undercover police detectives was overturned, was sentenced again on Wednesday to die by a federal jury that heard gripping testimony about his time in jail, where he roamed freely after the shootings, intimidated fellow inmates and fathered a child with a guard.

The anonymous 12-member jury took just five hours to reach its decision to return Mr. Wilson to federal death row, where no other New Yorker has served time in six decades.

As the jury foreman responded to preliminary questions from a 22-page verdict sheet, Mr. Wilson, 31, slumped forward with his chin in his hands as the tension rose in the courtroom in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. When the foreman finally said “yes” to the death penalty, Mr. Wilson leaned back and looked over to his family. They wept as he was led away.

Outside the courthouse on Wednesday, Rodney Andrews Sr., the father of one of the victims, Detective Rodney J. Andrews, said that he was pleased with the outcome. “He’s done too many things,” Mr. Andrews said of Mr. Wilson. “He’s proven that he’s not going to change.” Mr. Andrews said that he wanted to watch Mr. Wilson’s execution, and when asked why, he replied, “For satisfaction.”

Detective Andrews’s wife, MaryAnn, said she was too emotional to speak. The family of Detective James V. Nemorin, the other victim, did not attend court on Wednesday.

In a statement, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said: “It was an assault on the society that those officers represented, and for that reason their murders had to be answered with the full force of punishment at society’s disposal. To do otherwise is to invite chaos.”

Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney for the Eastern District, whose office prosecuted the case, said that she hoped the verdict would bring closure to the victims’ families.

Mr. Wilson’s lawyers declined to comment. A judge is expected to formally sentence Mr. Wilson in the fall.

The legal case against him has lasted more than a decade.

On March 10, 2003, Mr. Wilson killed Detective Andrews, 34, and Detective Nemorin, 36, who were participating in a sting operation to buy an illegal gun. He shot each once in the back of the head at point-blank range on a secluded street on Staten Island.

 In choosing the death penalty, the jury unanimously found that prosecutors proved every element of their case, including that Mr. Wilson committed the murders for financial gain and that he poses a future danger.

The jury rejected arguments posed by the defense — that life in prison was punishment enough and that Mr. Wilson’s rough childhood filled with bad influences should spare him from death. Only one member of the jury found that the federal prison system could restrict Mr. Wilson’s inappropriate behavior. Only two found that “Ronell Wilson’s life has value.” None felt that his background mitigated against the imposition of the death penalty.

 Death penalty trials are exceedingly rare in New York, where the state’s highest court struck down the death penalty in 2004 and where capital cases at the federal level are often resolved before trial.

 Federal prosecutors vigorously sought the death penalty against Mr. Wilson, taking the case from state prosecutors on Staten Island, when capital punishment at the state level was invalidated. They won a death verdict in 2007, the first one in New York since 1953.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his death sentence in 2010, ruling that the prosecutor had violated Mr. Wilson’s constitutional right not to testify by telling jurors that if Mr. Wilson had felt any remorse, he would have taken the stand. The panel commuted the sentence to life in prison without parole, but prosecutors decided to again seek death.

 With Mr. Wilson’s guilt never in doubt, the question at the heart of the monthlong sentencing trial was: How much punishment is enough?

Prosecutors argued that prison alone would not do. The prosecutors showed a dramatic video of several guards at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn storming into a recreation pen to retrieve Mr. Wilson, who had refused to be handcuffed. When the guards emerged from the pen with Mr. Wilson, he smiled.

One of their witnesses described seeing a guard, Nancy Gonzalez, walk away from Mr. Wilson’s cell one day, leaving him there with his pants down and his genitals exposed. Mr. Wilson had several sexual encounters with Ms. Gonzalez, fathering a child, Justus, who was born in March.

Defense witnesses described Mr. Wilson’s difficult childhood, during which he shuttled between relatives as his mother, an alcoholic and drug addict, was often absent. He spent years in an overcrowded and squalid home, where the adults who influenced him were criminals.

Life in prison was punishment enough, Mr. Wilson’s lawyers argued, for someone who never really had a chance.

But Celia Cohen, one of the prosecutors, said that only the death penalty assured justice. “He’s not going to stop until he’s dead,” she said in her closing argument. “Truer words were never said.”

http://www.nytimes.com

ATMORE, Alabama – Andrew Lackey was executed by lethal injection at Holman Correctional Facility Thursday evening for the 2005 murder of an 80-year-old World War II veteran he was trying to rob.

Lackey was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m.

Four of Lackey’s family members, including his mother, father, brother and aunt, were in attendance.

A jury convicted Lackey, 29, of the Halloween night murder in 2005 of Charles Newman, 80, at Newman’s Limestone County home. Lackey beat, shot and stabbed Newman. Authorities say he was seeking money.

Lackey became the first inmate executed in Alabama since Christopher T. Johnson of Escambia County received a lethal injection Oct. 20, 2011.

A Limestone County jury convicted Lackey in 2008. He had dropped all appeals and asked for his execution to be scheduled.

Lackey, wearing glasses and with trim, dark hair, was already strapped to a gurney when a curtain opened at 6 p.m. to allow witnesses to see him. He looked around briefly, then laid his head on the pillow.

Holman Warden Gary Hetzell read the execution order and asked Lackey if he had anything to say.

“No sir, I don’t,” Lackey replied.

Lackey’s mother, father, brother and aunt witnessed the execution in silence, his mother and father holding hands. The four had visited Lackey earlier today, Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett said.
A man and two women witnessed the execution on behalf of the victim’s family. The Department of Corrections did not have their names.

Shortly after Lackey declined to make a statement, Holman Chaplain Chris Summers approached the gurney, touched Lackey’s hand and spoke to him. Lackey nodded and Summers knelt to pray.

The drugs seemed to to take effect within a couple of minutes. Lackey’s chest and abdomen convulsed slightly for several minutes. That was followed by what appeared to be several minutes of shallow breathing. He remained still and quiet for several minutes until a corrections officer closed the curtain at 6:15 p.m.

Source: Al.com, July 25, 2013

Portugal has said it “profoundly laments” the execution of a female death row prisoner in Texas, who became the 500th inmate to be executed in that American State.

In a statement published on its website the Portuguese government said that while it “acknowledges the severity of the crimes committed” by Kimberley McCarthy, who was executed last month, and “sends it condolences to the victims’ families”, “Portugal reiterates its opposition to capital punishment in all circumstances, without exception.”

“The death sentence represents an irreversible loss of human life, and there are studies that contradict its respective deterrent effect”, it stressed. Portugal appeal to the State of Texas to “reflect on the application of capital punishment and to reconsider its application”, as did the State of Maryland in March this year when it decided to abolish the death sentence.

Kimberley LaGayle McCarthy, 52, became the 500th inmate to be executed in Texas since the death penalty was reinstated in 1982. She was executed by lethal injection on 26 June after being convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of her 71-year-old neighbour, a retired college professor, in 1997, during a home robbery.

She was also a suspect in the murders of 2 other elderly Texas women, for which she was never tried.

According to NBC news, “there are currently 283 men and women on death row in Texas; a State where a death row inmate is executed every 3 weeks (…) a rate that far exceeds that of any other state.”

Historically, Portugal was 1 of the first countries in the world to abolish capital punishment. The method used in Portugal was by hanging.

Hanging was first abolished “for all crimes” in 1911 before being reinstated “only for military crimes in war time with a foreign country and only in the ‘Theatre of war’”, in 1916.

It was eventually abolished for good and in all circumstances in 1976. The last execution in Portugal took place in Lagos (Algarve) in 1846.

In related news, the Portuguese Government has also published a declaration condemning the alleged execution of a Luso-Chinese citizen.

Information that has recently surfaced suggests Lau Fat Wai, who had duel Portuguese-Chinese nationality, was executed in China in February this year.

Should the reports be confirmed the Portuguese government says it “profoundly deplores” the execution.

Portugal says it will not contest the fact that Chinese authorities may not have been aware of the man’s duel nationality, and while it recognises the sovereignty of the Chinese judicial system in trying Lau Fat Wai for the crimes of which he was accused, Portugal is sorry that its repeated requests for leniency, made since 2009, were not enough to avoid the application of capital punishment.

“Portugal’s commitment to the fight to abolish the death sentence, in which we were historically pioneers, is unquestionable, and we are opposed to the application of capital punishment in all circumstances worldwide.”

Portugal’s position, made public on Tuesday this week (23 July) was “urgently transmitted to the Chinese Ambassador in Lisbon.”

Source: The Portugal News Online, July 25, 2013

february 26, 2014 (tampabay)

LARGO — A jury has been selected and opening statements are scheduled to start at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the resentencing of Richard Michael Cooper, who has been on death row for 30 years after being convicted in a triple murder.

A federal appeals court threw out Cooper’s death sentence in 2011 after finding that a jury should have heard evidence of abuse Cooper suffered as a child during the sentencing phase of his trial.

It took a day and a half to seat a jury to hear the evidence on what sentence Cooper should receive for his role in the 1982 deaths of Steven Fridella, Bobby Martindale and Gary Petersen — remembered since as the “High Point murders.”

Cooper’s guilt is not in dispute. On the morning of June 18, 1982, Cooper and three others — Jason Dirk Walton, Terry Van Royal and Jeffrey Hartwell McCoy — drove to Fridella’s Largo residence looking for cocaine or money.

They parked a distance away and, wearing ski masks, crept toward the home at 6351 143rd Ave. Among them they carried a .357 Magnum revolver, a .22 rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun, according to court records.

They had originally planned to rob the men inside while they slept. But someone recognized one of the intruders, and the plan changed.

Fridella, Martindale and Petersen were bound with duct tape and forced to lie on the floor. Cooper, then 18, confessed to shooting Fridella twice with the shotgun. Cooper’s attorneys called no witnesses in his defense, arguing that he was under the spell of Walton, whom Cooper had described as “a Charles Manson-type figure.”

Cooper’s conviction and sentence were upheld on appeal. In 2011, the federal 11th Circuit again affirmed the conviction but tossed out the death sentence because of evidence the first jury never heard. That included frequent beatings at the hands of his hard-drinking father, Phillip “Socky” Cooper, who earned his nickname as a Golden Gloves boxing champion.

The elder Cooper beat his children with “boards, switches, belts and horse whips,” leaving welts all over their bodies, sometimes for offenses as small as not knowing their multiplication tables.

The abuse was so constant, a school principal, fearing he was making things worse, “stopped calling their father when Cooper would get in trouble because Cooper would show up at school beaten and with bruises all over him,” the court said.

Cooper’s stepbrother and sister also said no one had contacted them to testify at the first trial.

March 11, 2014

AUSTIN  — A week to the day that a jury sentenced Brandon Daniel to death by lethal injection for the April 2012 killing of Senior Austin Police Officer Jaime Padron, officials transferred him to Death Row.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials confirmed Daniel is in the Polunsky Prison in Polk County, Texas, after authorities transferred him on Friday.

Jurors — 10 women and two men — found Daniel guilty of capital murder after more than eight hours of deliberations and nine days of testimony.

“You are a coward and I hope you rot in hell,” Johnny Padron, Jaime’s older brother, said in a brief statement to Daniel following the sentence.

Amy Padron, Jaime’s ex-wife, also took the stand after the sentence was handed down, giving an emotion-packed speech where she read letters from her 8 and 12-year-old daughters.

“You made me cry,” one of the letters read. “Now it is your time to cry in prison for the rest of your life.”

“There are so many things you took away,” Matt Baldwin said to Daniel. Baldwin was Padron’s old partner in San Angelo. “I don’t know why you did it. I don’t care. So many lives were destroyed by what you did.

“Any moments of fame you may think you had, I want you to know that you lost,” Baldwin added. “You confirmed Jaime was the winner. Jaime was the hero.”

The weight of the jury’s life-or-death decision was not lost among those in the courtroom.

“You guys had a very difficult task. Your lives will never be the same from here on out,” Linda Diaz, Jaime’s sister, said to the jury. “You were doing your job. Please don’t carry this on your shoulders. You followed the instructions you were given.”

Daniel was remanded into custody to be transferred to The Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Prosecution’s closing arguments

“He is a future danger, and there is not one good reason not to sentence him to death,” said prosecuting attorney Bill Bishop, ending his argument.

Before closing, Bishop told jurors everything that can be considered to Daniel’s benefit came from him — adding that all of the defense experts only got their information from Daniel himself.

“It cannot be trusted. It is all his grand design,” said Bishop, referencing Daniel trying to find a Xanax and Ambien defense while in jail. “He laid out the clinical words he was supposed to say but he could not explain them.”

Bishop went on to say that Daniel gets his self-worth by taking pictures of himself with a gun, blowing a hole in his ceiling and taking a picture of the damage. Yet, Bishop pointed out that Daniel’s motive for having that gun on April 6, 2012, is still a mystery.

“For 22 months, he has pondered upon that and still cannot give an explanation as to why he took a loaded .380 to Walmart,” said Bishop. “You take a loaded .380 to Walmart to kill somebody, and that is what he did.”

Bishop said Daniel’s intention was not escape or to run away the morning of April 6, 2012.

“His intention was far more sinister,”-said Bishop, describing Daniel readying his weapon as he ran. “This is someone who gains his self-worth through evil that he has done.”

Bishop went on to describe Daniel’s fascination with Columbine and the Boston Marathon bombings.

The life of Jaime Padron was remembered by Assistant District Attorney Gary Cobb.

“In our society, we are critical of police until we need police,” said Cobb who reminded the jury about Padron’s military service in the Marines and his desire to serve the community.

Cobb called the shooting “A cold-blooded assassination” and said Jaime Padron’s two daughters already will be paying a price for the rest of their lives. He said a sentence of life in prison would force them to pay again. In a letter from jail, Daniel wrote he was “living the dream, retired at age 25.” In the patrol car ride after the shooting, he said he at lease would not have to work or pay for food.

“The man murdered your father in cold-blood and you will, as an adult when you start paying taxes, will pay for his room and board,” said Cobb as he posed the scenario. “If that is what passes for justice in this community, we should tear that flag down and blow up this courthouse, because it is wrong.”

Defense’s closing argument

Brad Urrutia took the floor for defense, talking about the Texas sentencing law.

“The next time he leaves prison will be in a coffin,” he said.

Urrutia said Daniel is going to a place where hardened criminals go to do time, not a club with a pool or tennis courts. In addition, Urrutia told the jury there is a pattern of the state trying to deceive the jury.

“They aren’t lying to you,” he said. “They are just trying to hide the truth.”

Urrutia said the alleged list that Daniel kept with jailers’ name on it doesn’t exist or else it would have been introduced as evidence. He continued to say that with all the talk about coded letters, the state never disclosed that, decoded, the letter said, “I love you, mom.”

Urrutia continued on during closing arguments to tear into inmate informant Louis Escalante’s testimony.

“You can’t trust a word that man says,” said Urrutia. “He is a liar … They [the prosecution] got in bed with Mr. Escalante and had to live with his fleas.”

He questioned: “They [the state] wants you to take a man’s life, and they bring you that kind of evidence to do it? … You really, really, should demand better evidence from your DA. It should not be half-truths and innuendo.”

Russell Hunt said Daniel’s life can still produce positives even behind prison walls. He mentioned Daniel’s intelligence and potential that allowed him to become a software engineer at Hewlett-Packard and develop programs still being used today.

“Brandon Daniel has expressed remorse and has responded to psychiatric medication in jail,” Hunt said about the prospect of Daniel’s future in prison.

Daniel’s sister has been sitting two rows behind the defense table for the entire trial and has spent much of it crying. His family may also be considered a mitigating factor.

“This person has value. He has value to others and is loved by others for  a reason.”

kxan.com

march 11, 2014

march 14, 2014

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – The man found guilty in the fatal beating of a boy in Fayette County has now been sentenced to the death penalty.

The jury recommended that Patrick Haney should face the death penalty one day after finding him guilty.

(Photo Credit: Pennsylvania State Police/KDKA)

On Tuesday, Haney was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of 4-year-old Trenton St. Clair. It only took the jury 90 minutes to reach a guilty verdict.

Today, Haney showed no emotion as the jury’s decision was announced. The judge then imposed the sentence.

Prosecutors claimed Haney regularly beat the child and had an excuse for every bruise.

On Monday, the child’s mother, Heather Forsythe, testified against Haney after reaching a plea bargain. There will be no homicide charges for her after pleading guilty to reckless endangerment charges and she will face two-and-a-half to five years in jail.

Three days before he died, Forsythe described seeing Haney abusing the child.

“He was standing over my child,” she said. “I saw him hitting and slapping my child and he kicked him with the side of his foot. Trenton was crying.”

She testified she told authorities he fell at the urging of Haney.

“I told police he fell down the steps in hopes I’d be taken somewhere else. I told them I wanted to be separated from Patrick.”

But the 4-year-old was pronounced dead at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown. Later Forsythe told police Haney abused the boy.

RELATED LINKS
Haney Found Guilty In 4-Year-Old Fayette Co. Boy’s Beating Death (3/11/14)
More Reports About This Case

march 17, 2014

SPARTANBURG, S.C. —After hours of deliberation a Spartanburg County jury issued the death sentence for Ricky Blackwell.

A short time later the judge confirmed the death sentence for the murder of 8-year-old Brooke Center.

The judge said the sentence is to be carried out on June 14, 2014.

Blackwell was also found guilty of kidnapping Brooke Center, he was sentenced to 30 years in jail on that charge.

Prosecutors called the fatal shooting revenge because Blackwell’s now ex-wife was dating the girl’s father.

The jury’s options were life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.

The seven men and five women seated on the jury found him guilty as charged in just 20 minutes of deliberations earlier in the week.

At 3 p.m. Sunday, the jurors began deliberating Blackwell’s punishment, they returned the sentence just after 8:30 p.m. Sunday.

Before they were released to discuss a possible sentence, a judge told them they must decide whether Blackwell suffers from an intellectual disability, or as stated in court, a mental retardation.

If jurors had found him not to be mentally competent at the time of the crime, they would not have been able to proceed with the death penalty, according to South Carolina law.

The judge told the jurors to come to a death sentence, they had find aggravated circumstances were present when Blackwell committed the crime.  The judge said the two things they could consider aggravators in this case were the age of the victim and the fact it happened during a kidnapping.

The death sentence recommendation had to be a unanimous vote.

Closing arguments began in this sentencing phase began Sunday at 11 a.m., when Blackwell asserted his right to remain silent when the judge asked him if he’d like to make remarks.

Blackwell did not address the jury at any point during the case.

“What a wonderful individual Brooke was,” said solicitor Barry Barnette in his closing arguments.

He told jurors to look at the case closely.

Barnett expressed his disgust with the defense’s assertion that Blackwell suffers from an intellectual disability.

“I got mad,” said Barnette.  “You look at the evidence and no other doctor has ever diagnosed him as such until they paid a doctor from North Carolina to come down and testify that he was. He is not mentally retarded. It’s an insult to people who have this disability. They only did it to spare his life.”

Furthermore, Barnette said Blackwell was a certified employee of several companies where his mental competence would have been questioned.

Barnette got on his knees to illustrate how tall Brooke was and said Blackwell “meant to kill Brooke Center.”

The solicitor said Brooke was shot four times – once in the leg, neck, head and a final shot in her back after she fell to the ground.

“It was no accident,” Barnette shouted in the courtroom.

The solicitor put a Nelson Mandela quote on a projector for the jury to see – which read, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children.”

Barnette then showed a picture of a memorial already set up in Brooke’s honor in her community.

“This will affect people for the rest of their lives,” said Barnette.

Barnett began to tear up as he showed the final images to the jury.  It was a side by side comparison of Brooke playing baseball and her lying dead by a swing set after the shooting.

Several jurors were observed wiping tears from their eyes.

The defense presented its closing arguments after a short recess.

Blackwell’s attorney, Bill McGuire, opened up saying he wished photos like they’d just seen not be shown in court.

“He is 55 years old, in poor health and will not last long, but I’m asking you to send him to prison,” McGuire told the jury.  “If the death penalty can do some good, if it could bring Brooke Center back, I’d be the first to say do it, but it won’t.”

McGuire said the jury should let Brooke’s legacy be celebrated by the memorials and ceremonies in her honor instead of sentencing Blackwell to death.

“Imagine if a sign said, “In honor of Brooke we killed a man,” said McGuire.

The public defender portrayed Blackwell as a distraught individual whose marriage was ending.   McGuire said Blackwell was suicidal and tried to kill himself by overdosing on prescription pills before the deadly shooting.

“(If) he’s not a danger to us, then don’t use lethal force,” said McGuire.  “Ricky is mentally retarded. He scored in the bottom 2 percent on IQ tests. Those were reliable tests,” said McGuire.

McGuire stated a person with an intellectual disability like Blackwell could learn skills to perform the jobs he held in the past, referring to the prosecution’s attack on why he was not diagnosed with a disability before this point.

“He has a relationship with God,” said McGuire.  “Everybody he has touched in his life says he is caring, gentle, a good man. See him through the eyes of the people who knew him.”

“He is sorry for what he has done,” said McGuire. “Do you, as a human being, have to kill him? The answer is no. You don’t have to kill Ricky Blackwell.’”

april 9, 2014

Tennessee wants to execute death row’s longest-standing resident.

Donald Wayne Strouth, 55, has been on death row since 1978 for the murder of a second-hand store owner in Kingsport. He’s accused of knocking out and slashing the throat of Jimmy Keegan in a robbery, leaving his body behind in his store, where his wife later found him.

Strouth, who was known to carry a hawkbill knife, was seen by witnesses afterward with blood still on his hands.

He outlived the man who was convicted alongside him, Jeffrey Dicks. Dicks, like most death row inmates over the past decade or so, died not by execution but by natural causes when he suffered a heart attack in 1999.

But Tuesday, Tennessee’s Supreme Court set a date for Strouth’s execution: March 15, 2016.

It may seem far off, but the justices built in time for an ongoing lawsuit dealing with the secrecy of Tennessee’s death penalty to run its course. Eleven death row inmates are suing the state to turn over details about how it plans to perform its lethal injection, trying to overcome a 2013 law that sealed many of those details behind a veil of secrecy. They argue that if they don’t know what the state is using to kill them and where it came from, there’s no way to know whether the execution meets constitutional safeguards against “cruel and unusual punishment.”

That lawsuit, which is ongoing, has pushed back at least one execution date.

Strouth has argued that he suffers from brain damage and mental illness, but the state’s Supreme Court was unswayed.

He is at least the 10th death row inmate to have an execution date. Billy Ray Irick, who raped and murdered a 7-year-old Knoxville girl in 1985, is scheduled to die first, on Oct. 7. The state is awaiting an execution date for an 11th inmate.

Tennessee has not executed a prisoner since 2009.

april 9, 2014

A Grove City man sentenced to death for a pair of Hocking County murders he did not commit is turning to the Ohio Supreme Court in his bid to be declared wrongfully imprisoned.

Dale Johnston has attempted for more than 20 years to win a court judgment so he could seek monetary damages for the seven years he spent on Death Row before being freed when an appellate court overturned his convictions.

He now is asking the justices to reverse a Feb. 20 ruling by the Franklin County Court of Appeals that threw out a trial-judge’s finding he was illegally detained for the 1982 dismemberment slayings of his stepdaughter and her fiancé.

The appellate judges ruled that the judge erred when he retroactively extended a 2003 change in the wrongful-imprisonment law to Johnston’s case.

Johnston and his lawyer are arguing the appellate ruling, sought by the office of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, misinterprets the law and asks the justices to rule in his favor.

“It may be safe to say that no reasonable person in the history of the world would or could review the facts surrounding these gruesome homicides and think anything other than Dale Johnston is and was an innocent man victimized by Ohio’s criminal justice system,” his lawyers wrote in their filing.

Johnston was sentenced to die in the electric chair in 1984 for the shooting deaths of Annette Cooper, 18, and Todd Schultz, 19, whose bodies were cut up and buried in a cornfield and thrown into the Hocking River.

In 2008, Chester McKnight, a drifter and drug addict, confessed to killing the couple and was sentenced to life imprisonment, freeing Johnston to again pursue his quest to be declared wrongfully imprisoned.

April 9, 2014

A hearing to determine whether convicted murderer Gregory A. Bowman would once again face the death penalty has been delayed for a year because he has a terminal illness.

Bowman, 62, is facing sentencing for a murder 35 years ago in St. Louis County. Circuit Judge David Vincent, the judge presiding in Bowman’s case, set the hearing for April 27, 2015.

Bowman was convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of 16-year-old Velda Rumfelt who was abducted from a busy Brentwood, Mo., intersection. DNA found in Rumfelt’s underwear was a 1 in 459 trillion match to Bowman.

Bowman, who also was convicted of killing two young women from Belleville, denied his guilt in the Rumfelt case from the witness stand to then-St. Louis County prosecutor Joe Dueker at the first sentencing hearing in 2009.

The Missouri Supreme Court overturned his death sentence in 2011. The court ruled that during the sentencing phase of the trial, the judge erred when he allowed testimony regarding Bowman’s conviction of the murders of 14-year-old Elizabeth West and 21-year-old Ruth Ann Jany, both of Belleville.

“It would be hollow if he passes away in prison but as long as he doesn’t hurt any other women, we can live with that,” said Teresa Rumfelt, Velda Rumfelt’s friend and sister-in-law. “He’s the lowest of the low. We would rather see him executed, but, at this point, we will take what we can get.”

“We were aggravated about what happened with the (Missouri) Supreme Court,” Teresa Rumfelt said. “We followed the rules and we did what we were supposed to do and he still slipped out just like he did over there.”

West was abducted from West Main Street in Belleville. Her body was found in a small creek near Millstadt on May 5, 1978. Two months later, Jany was abducted from a Belleville bank’s parking lot. Her skeletal remains were found a year later in a field near Hecker.

Both the St. Clair County convictions were overturned after St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporters questioned the manner in which his confession was obtained.

The newspaper reported that Bowman was “tricked” into confessing by former investigator Robert Miller, who got jail prisoner Danny Stark to plot an escape with Bowman, who confessed to delay his transfer to Menard Correction Center where he was to serve a sentence for abducting another Belleville woman from a coin laundry.

Associate Judge Richard Aguirre found the confession to Miller was not given freely and gave Bowman a new trial. Bowman posted bond and was released from jail for the first time in 29 years.

His freedom didn’t last long.

Former Belleville Police Chief James Rokita, then retired, took a DNA profile offered by Bowman in the Belleville cases to Missouri and urged investigators there to compare it to their cold cases.

Scientists were able to discover the semen in Rumfelt’s underpants. Prosecutors said Bowman allowed Rumfelt to dress after her rape, preserving the DNA that would eventually be matched to Bowman’s DNA profile.

Bowman was free just over a week before he was arrested for the Rumfelt murder. This time, the trial would be in St. Louis County, where Bowman would face a capital murder case.

Steve Evans, Bowman’s defense attorney, argued that Bowman’s conviction was the only one in the state based solely on DNA evidence. Evans argued further that the DNA evidence should have never been sent to Missouri for comparisons to cold cases there.

Jurors voted to convict Bowman of Rumfelt’s murder. Her body was discovered June 6, 1977, in a field near the Six Flags amusement park in Eureka, Mo. She had been raped and strangled with a shoestring, and her throat had been slashed.

After Bowman received the death sentence in Missouri, then St. Clair County State’s Attorney Robert Haida dismissed the West and Jany murder charges.

Bowman remains in the Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri.

April 11, 2014

The Florida Supreme Court unanimously upheld the conviction and death sentence for the man authorities said masterminded the robbery and killings of Byrd and Melanie Billings nearly five years ago.

Leonard Patrick Gonzalez Jr., 40, was convicted in 2010 of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of home invasion robbery with a firearm.

Gonzalez led a group of men who forced their way into the Billings home in Beulah in July 2009 and gunned down the couple during an attempted robbery. The Billingses had 17 children, 13 of them adopted. Nine of the children were home at the time of the killing.

On Feb. 17, 2011, Circuit Judge Nicholas Geeker followed a jury recommendation and sentenced Gonzalez to death.

In imposing the death sentence, Geeker found as aggravating factors that Gonzalez had a conviction for a prior violent felony, that the murder was committed during the course of a robbery, and his crimes were heinous, atrocious and cruel.

In upholding the conviction, the state Supreme Court found that the convictions were supported by competent, substantial evidence, according to the State Attorney’s Office.

“We’re very pleased with the decision and the court’s opinion on the sentence and use of the death penalty,” said Assistant State Attorney John Molchan, who prosecuted Gonzalez along with State Attorney Bill Eddins.

Although Gonzalez’s direct appeal was denied, he still can attempt to have his conviction or sentence overturned.

Gonzalez has the option to seek post-conviction relief, a review of whether deficiencies in his attorney’s performance led to Gonzalez’s conviction. He also can file a petition for a U.S. District Court to review the case, which could overturn the conviction or overturn his sentence.

April 15, 2014

A man with a history of mental illness has been sentenced to death by a jury for killing a South Dakota hospice nurse as part of a plot to assassinate President Barack Obama.

James McVay pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder in 2012 in connection with the stabbing death of 75-year-old Maybelle Schein.

McVay, 43, said he killed Schein and stole her car as part of his plan to drive to Washington and kill the president.

The Sioux Falls jury chose the death penalty, though jurors could have sentenced McVay to life in prison without parole.

Authorities said McVay walked away from a minimum-security prison in July 2011 in Sioux Falls and was mixing cough syrup and alcohol when he climbed under Schein’s slightly open garage door, entered her house, killed her and drove away in her car.

After Schein’s car was reported stolen, police used a tracking service in the vehicle to find McVay on Interstate 90 near Madison, Wisconsin. He was arrested after a brief chase.

Madison Police Officer Kipp Hartman testified that he was trying to get McVay to reveal his name when McVay began saying he ‘killed a little old lady’ in South Dakota and stole her car to get to Washington, D.C., to kill the president.

Prosecutor Aaron McGowan said McVay stabbed Schein nine times, with the final blow cutting her vocal cords and carotid artery, causing her to bleed to death within 16 seconds.

But public defender Traci Smith yesterday said McVay’s characterization by the prosecution as monstrous did not square with the facts of the case or his history, the Argus Leader reported.

Smith said McVay’s mental health was not properly monitored or cared for by the prison staff. She added that McVay poses no threat when his illness is cared for.

June 28, 2015

TAMPA — Thirteen years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juries, not judges, should decide death sentences, Florida stands alone in how its justice system imposes capital punishment.

“Florida’s capital sentencing system is unique among all 33 American jurisdictions that permit capital punishment,” the American Bar Association says in a brief filed before the nation’s highest court. “Indeed, the Florida Supreme Court has characterized Florida as ‘the outlier state.’ ”

Now the nation’s highest court is poised to consider in its next term whether Florida needs to change its system for deciding whom to execute.

The issue concerns the role of juries in death penalty decisions. It’s an aspect of the state’s system of capital punishment that courts have struggled with for years.

In Florida, as in other states, when defendants are convicted of murder in a death penalty case, juries hear evidence regarding the existence of “aggravating factors,” or aspects of the case that weigh in favor of a death sentence, as well as “mitigating factors,” information that favors a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In recommending a sentence, a jury determines whether aggravating factors in a case outweigh the mitigating circumstances and justify the imposition of a death sentence.

But Florida juries, unlike most other states, are told their decisions are merely advisory, and that the judge will make the ultimate determination over whether to sentence a defendant to death. Trial judges in Florida are required to make their own, independent findings and are permitted to impose sentences different from jury recommendations.

Juries in Florida also are not required to reach unanimous decisions on the existence of specific aggravating factors or on whether to recommend a death sentence.

No other state allows the imposition of a death sentence without jurors either finding unanimously that a specific aggravating factor has been established or unanimously finding that capital punishment is appropriate.

The American Bar Association, which takes no position on the overall constitutionality of the death penalty, is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to direct Florida to make changes and require jurors to specify which aggravating factors they have unanimously found to be present. The association wants the high court to require jurors to unanimously agree on the imposition of death sentences.

The American Bar Association reviewed the state’s death penalty system in 2006 and found the need to improve its fairness and accuracy.

Among the findings was that there was significant confusion among jurors in capital cases. “Research establishes that many Florida capital jurors do not understand their role and responsibilities when deciding whether to impose a death sentence,” the association’s report stated.

The ABA also concluded that not requiring jurors to be unanimous “reduces the jury’s deliberation time and thus may diminish the thoroughness of the deliberations.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 threw out Arizona’s system of capital punishment, ruling it was unconstitutional because judges, not juries, determined the existence of aggravating factors and sentenced defendants to death.

Months later, the Florida Supreme Court left intact the state’s system of capital punishment, concluding that the U.S. Supreme Court had repeatedly reviewed it and found it constitutional.

The state’s high court noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to hear the appeal of one of the Florida defendants challenging the state system, even after it made the Arizona decision.

That Florida appeal involved Amos Lee King, who was later executed for the 1977 murder of Natalie “Tillie” Brady inside her Tarpon Springs home. Brady was raped, stabbed and beaten while King was in a nearby prison work-release program.

The state Supreme Court called in 2005 for the state Legislature to make changes to the state’s death penalty law to require unanimity in jury recommendations. But state lawmakers didn’t act.

In the ensuing years, the state Supreme Court continued to hold that the state’s death penalty system is constitutional. One of those rulings came in the Escambia County case of Timothy Lee Hurst, convicted of murdering coworker Cynthia Harrison in a robbery at Popeye’s restaurant on May 2, 1998.

The state Supreme Court initially upheld Hurst’s conviction and death sentence but later granted him a new penalty phase hearing on the grounds his original defense lawyer failed to properly pre­sent and investigate mitigating evidence relating to his borderline intelligence and possible brain damage. At the conclusion of the second sentencing hearing, jurors returned a verdict of 7-5 in favor of death.

Hurst appealed again to the state Supreme Court, which upheld his death sentence, rejecting arguments that included assertions the jury should have been required to unanimously find a specific aggravating circumstance and unanimously decide his sentence.

The state Supreme Court noted in its Hurst ruling that it has previously concluded that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Arizona case did not require juries to make specific findings of aggravating factors or to make unanimous decisions regarding death sentences. The Florida court refused to revisit its prior rulings.

Hurst also argued the jury should have been required to determine whether he was mentally disabled, a finding that would have barred the implementation of the death penalty. After hearing testimony from witnesses and experts, the trial judge ruled that Hurst was not mentally disabled.

The state Supreme Court ruled that although some states require such findings be made by juries, Florida is not one of those states, and the U.S. Supreme Court has not mandated that procedure.

Hurst appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case in its next term, which begins in October.

June 28, 2015

TAMPA — Thirteen years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juries, not judges, should decide death sentences, Florida stands alone in how its justice system imposes capital punishment.

“Florida’s capital sentencing system is unique among all 33 American jurisdictions that permit capital punishment,” the American Bar Association says in a brief filed before the nation’s highest court. “Indeed, the Florida Supreme Court has characterized Florida as ‘the outlier state.’ ”

Now the nation’s highest court is poised to consider in its next term whether Florida needs to change its system for deciding whom to execute.

The issue concerns the role of juries in death penalty decisions. It’s an aspect of the state’s system of capital punishment that courts have struggled with for years.

In Florida, as in other states, when defendants are convicted of murder in a death penalty case, juries hear evidence regarding the existence of “aggravating factors,” or aspects of the case that weigh in favor of a death sentence, as well as “mitigating factors,” information that favors a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In recommending a sentence, a jury determines whether aggravating factors in a case outweigh the mitigating circumstances and justify the imposition of a death sentence.

But Florida juries, unlike most other states, are told their decisions are merely advisory, and that the judge will make the ultimate determination over whether to sentence a defendant to death. Trial judges in Florida are required to make their own, independent findings and are permitted to impose sentences different from jury recommendations.

Juries in Florida also are not required to reach unanimous decisions on the existence of specific aggravating factors or on whether to recommend a death sentence.

No other state allows the imposition of a death sentence without jurors either finding unanimously that a specific aggravating factor has been established or unanimously finding that capital punishment is appropriate.

The American Bar Association, which takes no position on the overall constitutionality of the death penalty, is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to direct Florida to make changes and require jurors to specify which aggravating factors they have unanimously found to be present. The association wants the high court to require jurors to unanimously agree on the imposition of death sentences.

The American Bar Association reviewed the state’s death penalty system in 2006 and found the need to improve its fairness and accuracy.

Among the findings was that there was significant confusion among jurors in capital cases. “Research establishes that many Florida capital jurors do not understand their role and responsibilities when deciding whether to impose a death sentence,” the association’s report stated.

The ABA also concluded that not requiring jurors to be unanimous “reduces the jury’s deliberation time and thus may diminish the thoroughness of the deliberations.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 threw out Arizona’s system of capital punishment, ruling it was unconstitutional because judges, not juries, determined the existence of aggravating factors and sentenced defendants to death.

Months later, the Florida Supreme Court left intact the state’s system of capital punishment, concluding that the U.S. Supreme Court had repeatedly reviewed it and found it constitutional.

The state’s high court noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to hear the appeal of one of the Florida defendants challenging the state system, even after it made the Arizona decision.

That Florida appeal involved Amos Lee King, who was later executed for the 1977 murder of Natalie “Tillie” Brady inside her Tarpon Springs home. Brady was raped, stabbed and beaten while King was in a nearby prison work-release program.

The state Supreme Court called in 2005 for the state Legislature to make changes to the state’s death penalty law to require unanimity in jury recommendations. But state lawmakers didn’t act.

In the ensuing years, the state Supreme Court continued to hold that the state’s death penalty system is constitutional. One of those rulings came in the Escambia County case of Timothy Lee Hurst, convicted of murdering coworker Cynthia Harrison in a robbery at Popeye’s restaurant on May 2, 1998.

The state Supreme Court initially upheld Hurst’s conviction and death sentence but later granted him a new penalty phase hearing on the grounds his original defense lawyer failed to properly pre­sent and investigate mitigating evidence relating to his borderline intelligence and possible brain damage. At the conclusion of the second sentencing hearing, jurors returned a verdict of 7-5 in favor of death.

Hurst appealed again to the state Supreme Court, which upheld his death sentence, rejecting arguments that included assertions the jury should have been required to unanimously find a specific aggravating circumstance and unanimously decide his sentence.

The state Supreme Court noted in its Hurst ruling that it has previously concluded that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Arizona case did not require juries to make specific findings of aggravating factors or to make unanimous decisions regarding death sentences. The Florida court refused to revisit its prior rulings.

Hurst also argued the jury should have been required to determine whether he was mentally disabled, a finding that would have barred the implementation of the death penalty. After hearing testimony from witnesses and experts, the trial judge ruled that Hurst was not mentally disabled.

The state Supreme Court ruled that although some states require such findings be made by juries, Florida is not one of those states, and the U.S. Supreme Court has not mandated that procedure.

Hurst appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case in its next term, which begins in October.