Day: November 14, 2012

PENNSYLVANIA – Governor signs execution warrant for Clearfield County man. Mark Newton Spotz

November 13,2012 http://triblive.com

Gov. Tom Corbett signed an execution warrant on Tuesday for a Clearfield County man convicted of kidnapping and robbing a woman who was slain during a four-county killing spree in 1995.

Mark Newton Spotz received the death penalty for killing three women — including Penny Gunnet, 41, of York County — in Clearfield, Schuylkill, York and Dauphin counties. His execution is scheduled for Jan. 8.

The slayings began on Jan. 31 when Spotz fatally shot his brother, Dustin, during a fight at the family home.

Gunnet, the third person to die, was on her way home from work on Feb. 2 when she stopped her car at an intersection in York. Spotz, armed with a gun, forced his way into the car and drove around before shooting Gunnet twice at close range. He abandoned her and the car.

After killing another woman that day, Spotz drove around the Carlisle area, picked up friends, bought drugs and went to a motel. There, he bragged about how he killed his brother and “these other women,” a Corbett spokeswoman said.

Gov. Ed Rendell declined a Vatican request in 2003 to commute Spotz’s death sentence because he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Christian counseling while in prison and helped develop programs to guide young people in avoiding violent crime.

Death Row exoneree Randy Steidl
 to speak Nov. 27 at NKU

November 13, 2012 http://www.lanereport.com

 

As part of the Journey of Hope Tour sponsored by the Northern Kentucky University Chase American Constitution Society, the ACLU of Kentucky and the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, NKU will host a free public lecture by death row exoneree Randy Steidl on Tuesday, Nov. 27, at noon in room 302 of the James C. and Rachel M. Votruba Student Union.

Steidl and a co-defendant were convicted for the 1986 murder of newlywed couple Dyke and Karen Rhoads in the small town of Paris, Ill. The two maintained their innocence but it was not until Northwestern University journalism students got involved that Steidl’s case received a proper review.

The entire case against Steidl was based on unreliable eye-witness testimony. Even though their stories conflicted with one another, both witnesses claimed to be present on the night of the attack and both described a gruesome scene. Yet, in spite of the violent stabbing that occurred, there was no physical evidence tying Steidl to the crime.

It was only after the in-depth investigative journalism conducted by Northwestern students that new information was uncovered and old evidence invalidated. With the aid of a local police officer, students were able to present enough evidence of Steidl’s innocence to call for a new trial. Eventually, all charges were dropped and Steidl became the 18th person to be released from the Illinois death row because of a wrongful conviction.

Steidl described his ordeal in a CNN interview. “Torture,” he said. “Actually being innocent and knowing that the state of Illinois wants to kill me for something I did not do.”

His NKU visit comes just weeks after the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights called on state lawmakers to abolish the death penalty and less than one year after a team of Kentucky legal experts published a 400-page report alleging serious flaws within the state’s death penalty system.

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‘I never killed anyone’: Death Row inmate scheduled to die Thursday offers medical proof police lied about key evidence

November 13,2012 http://www.dailymail.co.uk

A death row inmate set to die Thursday is pinning his final hopes on convincing people that his victim’s dying words never happened.

When police found La Shandra Charles bleeding from neck wounds in a west Houston filed in 1988, they claimed she whispered the name of her assailant, ‘Preston,’ before dying. 

That evidence, along with the police assertion that the girl said her attacker lived nearby, were key bits of evidence in convicting Preston Hughes 11, a New York-born warehouse worker.

But Hughes attorney now says it would be medically impossible for the girl to tell police anything about her attacker and he’s got medical testimony to prove it, the Houston Chronicle reports.

‘It is simply not medically feasible that this young woman, particularly given the fact that one’s heart rate accelerates during stress, and thus blood loss occurs more rapidly, could have spoken to the officers as they claimed,’ wrote Dr. Robert White, Dr. Robert White, who was chief medical examiner in Nueces County before joining the Fort Worth forensics department.

Defense attorney Pat McCann said it would take roughly 13 minutes for police to reach Charles after she was injured, a time frame that does not allow her to be conscious by the time authorities found her with the wounds she sustained.

Assistant District Attorney Lynn Hardaway has brushed aside McCann’s argument: ‘That’s obviously this guy’s opinion.’

Hardaway further noted that in the original police report an unnamed medical technician is supposed to have heard the dying girl’s accusation.

But the technician never testified. 

A state pardons board is to review Hughe’s request to have his sentence commuted Tuesday.

Hughes, 46, was convicted of the murders of both Charles and her cousin, Marcel Taylor, 3, who was also stabbed.

At the time of his arrest, Hughes was on probation for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, though he maintained innocence in that crime as well.

After his in the 1988 case, he offered two confessions to police but they contained contradictory statements.

In an interview at the time, he said the police didn’t type what he said.

He claimed that on the night of the murder he met with friends for drinks.

When he returned home he took his dog for a walk, crossing the field where the children were murdered.

He then went back to his apartment where he stayed until police knocked on his door.

‘I didn’t hear or see anything,’ he said. ‘I never killed anyone.

Related articles

Daylong hearing set in death sentence appeal – Michael Addison

November 13, 2012 http://bostonglobe.com

The state’s only death-row inmate will have his day in court — all day — when the New Hampshire Supreme Court hears arguments pertaining to his sentence.

Michael Addison was sentenced to death for fatally shooting a 35-year-old Manchester police officer, Michael Briggs, in 2006, when Briggs tried to arrest him on robbery charges.

The justices in Addison’s case will be deliberating the death penalty for the first time in more than 50 years — deciding, among other things, whether Addison’s sentence is just or was a product of passion or prejudice.

The justices will hear arguments in the case beginning Wednesday morning, holding four blocks of hearings that are scheduled to end at 3 p.m.

Court observers say the daylong hearing on Addison’s conviction and death sentence is unprecedented. A typical hearing before the justices lasts half an hour.

If his sentence is upheld and carried out, Addison — now 32 — would be the first convict executed in New Hampshire since 1939.

Former chief justice John Broderick, now dean of the University of New Hampshire School of Law, said the court, on occasion, has granted more time for arguments.

‘‘But an entire day? I don’t know of another case where that’s happened,’’ Broderick said.

Attorneys for Addison have raised 22 issues, with everything from the constitutionality of the state’s death penalty statute to the political ambitions of Kelly Ayotte, a former attorney general and current US senator, in their appeal.

Addison’s lawyers want the court to vacate his death sentence and order a new sentencing hearing. They stress that jurors determined Addison shot Briggs to evade arrest, but rejected the state’s argument that he shot Briggs with the intention of killing him.

Before Addison’s case could reach this point, the state Supreme Court first had to fashion the method it would use in weighing the fairness of his death penalty.

Addison’s lawyers argued his case should be compared with all other death penalty cases in this state and others, to test whether racial bias or other factors influenced his sentence. Addison is black; Briggs was white.

The only other New Hampshire capital case in decades to reach the penalty phase was that of John Brooks, who was convicted of plotting and paying for the killing of a handyman he suspected of stealing from him. A jury spared him a death sentence in 2008 — the same year Addison was sentenced to die.

But the court ruled in October 2010 that it would compare his death sentence with cases ­nationwide in which a police officer was killed in the line of duty.

The court stressed, in its 41-page ruling, that comparison cases do not have to precisely mirror the details of Addison’s case.

‘‘Ultimately, no two capital murder defendants are alike,’’ the ruling states. ‘‘Perfect symmetry and uniform consistency are not possible under a statutory scheme that requires juries to make individualized sentencing decisions based upon the unique circumstances of a case, given the nature of the crime and the character and background of the defendant.’’

Ray’s Mom Petition : Read and share when u can

Another post on the blog from Ray’s mom :

In Pennsylvania anything is probable in the not so justice system there. the innocent may be prosecuted and the guilty go free due to the political corruption and police, DA and coroner, medical examiner that are untrained in death scene investigation. My son died from poison and the coroner refuses to allow an investigation. Their word over rules that of the DA or prosecutor.

My petition is here :http://www.causes.com/causes/794844-regulation-of-coroner-and-medical-examiner 

the blog http://www.justiceforraymond.wordpress.com

Many thanks for what you are doing and perhaps with proper publicity we can effectively change the justice system. Contact me – I welcome participation

Read – Amanda Hodge and Shaun Hodge

Amanda wrote this post on the blog, i  share with u : 

My name is Amanda Hodge My husband Shaun Hodge is currently incarcerated at Riverbend Maximum Security Inst. in Nashville Tennessee his lawyers have recently discovered new evidencane in his case..and have filed a writ of error coram novis petition in the case..my husband has been incarcerated 13 yrs. and is innocent and was wrongfully convicted anyone that would like to follow his case we’d love the support!Shaun Alexander Hodge