Day: August 5, 2015

Texas: Cathy Lynn Henderson, babysitter convicted of murder, dies in hospital

Cathy Lynn Henderson, who dominated national headlines in 1994 for the the killing of 3-month-old Brandon Baugh, died Sunday after a month of hospitalization, her lawyer said Monday. She was 58.
Once just two days away from execution, the former babysitter spent nearly two decades in prison before winning a new trial in 2012. On June 12, just months before her case was to go to trial a second time, Henderson hobbled into the courtroom on crutches with the help of her lawyers and pleaded guilty to murder. She was sentenced then to 25 years in prison, but with credit for time served, she could have been released in four years.
Henderson was taken to the hospital on June 25 after she had trouble with her breathing. She was diagnosed with pneumonia and had a stroke during her stay.
Cathy Lynn Henderson passed away last night, at peace and without pain,” her lawyer, Jon Evans, told the American-Statesman. “In the last few weeks of her life she was relieved of a 21-year burden. Her version of the events of the tragedy of Brandon Baugh finally was given the proper respect and credence it deserved. She passed with that satisfaction.”
A sharply divided Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Henderson’s capital murder conviction and sentence in December 2012. The court upheld a recommendation by District Judge Jon Wisser that she have a new trial based on new scientific discoveries into the nature of head injuries.
Henderson claimed that Baugh died after slipping from her arms and falling about 4 feet to the concrete floor in her home in the Pflugerville area. She said she panicked, burying the boy’s body in a Bell County field before fleeing to Missouri, where she was found and arrested 11 days later.
Some supporters of the Baugh family said they were relieved to see Henderson plead guilty after years of lies and denials. But Brandon’s parents, grandmother and sister said they had been surprised and disappointed to learn she would not face a jury once more.
“I have no doubts that your plea today is not an act of contrition but another act of selfishness in order to gain your freedom,” Brandon’s father, Eryn Baugh, told Henderson on the witness stand on the day she took her plea.
Source: Statesman, Jazmine Ulloa, August 3, 2015

Not guilty plea in federal court for church shooting suspect; he wants opposite, lawyer says

The white man accused of gunning down 9 parishioners at a black church in Charleston wants to plead guilty to 33 federal charges, but his lawyer said in court Friday that he couldn’t advise his client to do so until prosecutors say whether they’ll seek the death penalty.
During a brief arraignment in federal court, defense attorney David Bruck said that he couldn’t counsel his client, Dylann Roof, to enter a guilty plea without knowing the government’s intentions.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Bristow Marchant then entered a not guilty plea for Roof, 21, who faces federal charges including hate crimes, weapons charges and obstructing the practice of religion. Appearing in court in a gray striped prison jumpsuit, his hands in shackles, Roof answered yes several times in response to the judge’s questions but otherwise didn’t speak.
“Mr. Roof has told us that he wishes to plead guilty,” Bruck said. “Until we know whether the government will be seeking the death penalty, we are not able to advise Mr. Roof.”
The federal prosecution, particularly on hate crimes, has been expected since the June 17 shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Church. Early on, officials with the U.S. Department of Justice said they felt the case met the qualifications for a hate crime, and Roof was indicted by a federal grand jury about a month after the killings.
Roof appeared in photos waving Confederate flags and burning and desecrating U.S. flags. Federal authorities have confirmed his use of a personal manuscript in which he decried integration and used racial slurs to refer to blacks.
Because South Carolina has no state hate-crimes law, federal charges were needed to adequately address a motive that prosecutors believe was unquestionably rooted in racial hate, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said during a news conference announcing Roof’s federal indictment.
18 of the 33 charges against Roof could potentially carry the death penalty, while conviction on each of the others could mean a life prison sentence. Each charge also carries the possibility of hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
Also during Friday’s hearing, Marchant accepted Roof’s application as an indigent defendant – meaning the state will pay for his attorneys – and formalized the appointment of Bruck and another defense lawyer, Michael O’Connell. Marchant set Aug. 20 as a deadline for attorneys to file pre-trial motions. No future hearings are scheduled in Roof’s case.
Marchant also heard briefly from victims’ family members, who at Roof’s bond hearing in state court expressed statements of mercy and forgiveness despite his alleged crimes. On Friday, several relatives made similar comments in federal court.
“We don’t hold no ill will,” Leroy Singleton, brother of Myra Thompson, said tearfully. “We’re going to let the system work it out.”
Gracyn Doctor, daughter of another victim, DePayne Middleton Doctor, said she misses her mother greatly but wouldn’t let Roof get the better of her.
“Even though he has taken the most precious thing in my life, he will not take my joy,” Doctor told the judge.
An attorney for the church said that the AME community nationally and worldwide would be watching the case closely as it moves forward.
“The world is watching,” Eduardo Curry told reporters outside the courthouse after the hearing. “What we want justice to be is mighty and fair.”
Roof also faces numerous state charges, including nine counts of murder and another potential death penalty prosecution. The Justice Department has not said if its case will come first, and the state also has not announced its decision on the death penalty.
Source: Associated Press, August 1, 2015

Case Targets Florida Death Penalty Sentencing

The U.S. Supreme Court this fall will hear arguments in a challenge to the way Florida sentences people to death — a challenge backed by 3 former Florida Supreme Court justices and the American Bar Association.
The case, which stems from the 1998 murder of an Escambia County fast-food worker, focuses on the role that juries play in recommending death sentences, which ultimately are imposed by judges.
Attorneys representing death row inmate Timothy Lee Hurst, including former U.S. Solicitor General Seth Waxman, contend that Florida’s unique sentencing system is unconstitutional. Supporting that position in friend-of-the-court briefs are former Florida Supreme Court justices Harry Lee Anstead, Rosemary Barkett and Gerald Kogan, along with the American Bar Association and seven former Florida circuit judges.
Part of the argument centers on what are known as “aggravating” circumstances that must be found before defendants can be sentenced to death. Hurst’s attorneys argue, in part, that a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling requires that determination of such aggravating circumstances be “entrusted” to juries, not to judges.
Also, they take issue with Florida not requiring unanimous jury recommendations in death-penalty cases. A judge sentenced Hurst to death after receiving a 7-5 jury recommendation.
“Florida juries play only an advisory role,” Hurst’s attorneys wrote in a May brief. “The jury recommends a sentence of life or death based on its assessment of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, but that recommendation has no binding effect. Moreover, the jury renders its advisory verdict under procedures that degrade the integrity of the jury’s function. Unanimity, and the deliberation often needed to achieve it, is not necessary; only a bare majority vote is required to recommend a death sentence.”
But in an earlier brief, attorneys for the state argued that the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court have repeatedly denied challenges to the sentencing process, including the Florida Supreme Court rejecting Hurst’s challenge. The state attorneys argued that a jury, in recommending the death penalty, has found facts that support at least one aggravating factor — which can be the basis for sentencing a defendant to death.
“Therefore, because the jury returned a recommendation of death, this court may infer the jury did find at least one aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt,” state attorneys wrote in a January brief in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The U.S. Supreme Court this week scheduled oral arguments in the case for Oct. 13, according to an online docket. The court agreed in March to take up the case.
Hurst, now 36, was convicted in the 1998 murder of Cynthia Lee Harrison, who was an assistant manager at a Popeye’s Fried Chicken restaurant where Hurst worked. Harrison’s body was discovered bound in a freezer, and money was missing from a safe, according to a brief in the case.
In sentencing Hurst to death, a judge found 2 aggravating circumstances — that the murder was committed during a robbery and that it was “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel,” according to the brief filed by Hurst’s attorneys. That brief, along with others in the case, were posted on an American Bar Association website and on SCOTUSblog, which closely tracks U.S. Supreme Court proceedings.
Much of the October hearing could focus on how to apply the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision — a major case known as Ring v. Arizona — to the Florida law. Hurst’s attorneys contend that the 2002 decision held that “findings of fact necessary to authorize a death sentence may not be entrusted to the judge.” They said Florida’s system undermines the juries’ constitutional “functions as responsible fact-finder and voice of the community’s moral judgment.”
The brief filed on behalf of Anstead, Barkett and Kogan raised similar arguments and said there is “no assurance that Florida death sentences are premised on a particular aggravating circumstance found by the jury.”
“And because jury unanimity is not mandated during the sentencing process, there is no assurance that a Florida jury’s death recommendation represents a reliable consensus of the community,” the brief said. “As a consequence, (the former justices) believe that the jury’s role is impermissibly denigrated and that there is an unacceptable risk that Florida death sentences are erroneously imposed, in violation of the Sixth and the Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.”
Source: WUSF news, August 1, 2015

Florida man struggles to build life after death row exoneration

Seth Penalver dropped to the floor and wept into his chair when a Florida jury declared him not guilty in the shooting deaths of three people during a 1994 home invasion.
After 3 trials and 18 years in prison – including 13 on death row – a Broward County jury in 2012 found Penalver not guilty of capital murder in the 1994 slayings of Casmir Sucharski, 48, Marie Rogers, 25, and Sharon Anderson, 25.
Little did he know about the struggles that lay ahead. His release from prison marked a new chapter, one that’s been filled with ups and downs, given his prolonged absence from society. Despite his acquittal, he says he struggles to find work because of his background, which includes 2 prior nonviolent felonies.
“You Google my name and it lights up the screen. I’m 20 years minus a resume, so it’s hard,” he said.
Experts say Penalver’s struggles with reintegration are typical for death row exonerees or people found to be wrongly convicted. On paper, they’re no longer offenders, but they’re not quite free of the stigma or psychological impact of their incarceration. The duration of their incarceration can strain personal relationships, creating a void in support systems after their release. Additionally, they often lack access to the same career or counseling services available to parolees because technically, they’re not on parole.
“The media attention tends to focus on how people got wrongly convicted, what in the system led to these cases, and those are important stories worthy of attention,” said University of North Carolina at Greensboro professor Saundra Westervelt, author of “Life After Death Row: Exonerees’ Search for Community and Identity.”
“But the story doesn’t end there. There’s a slew of practical problems they have to figure out how to manage.”
The state could help improve prospects for exonerees by providing monetary compensation and reintegration services, said Westervelt, a board member of Witness to Innocence, which works to abolish the death penalty and provide support to former death row inmates.
Only 30 states have laws that provide monetary compensation to wrongly convicted people, which can include death row exonerees. And in many states, including Florida, they come with limits. In some states, access to monetary compensation is available only for people exonerated by DNA evidence, who receive an official gubernatorial pardon or who don’t have prior felonies.
A crime unfolds on video
Local media dubbed the triple slayings the “Casey’s Nickelodeon murders” because Sucharski was an owner of Casey’s Nickelodeon, a Miramar nightclub where he met aspiring models Rogers and Anderson. The 3 were shot dead in Sucharski’s home in Miramar, Florida, early in the morning of June 26, 1994.
Penalver and co-defendant Pablo Ibar were charged in the crime after witnesses identified them in grainy home surveillance video showing 2 men breaking into Sucharski’s home. Penalver surrendered to law enforcement in August 1994 after a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Penalver stood trial three times for the murders. His first trial with Ibar in 1997 ended in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of guilt. The cases were severed, and Penalver was tried again in 1999 and sentenced to death on charges of murder, attempted robbery and burglary.
The Florida Supreme Court overturned Penalver’s verdict in 2006 based on a series of evidentiary and constitutional errors related to witness testimony and identification. Given the absence of physical evidence connecting Penalver to the crime and questions about the identification of the men in the surveillance video, “the witnesses’ statements presented at trial were of paramount importance,” the judges wrote in their ruling.
An expert witness who viewed the tape said that he couldn’t identify anyone from it, but that the person in the video had facial characteristics inconsistent with Penalver’s facial structure. Some people who knew Penalver said the video wasn’t him or they couldn’t tell. One said she couldn’t tell from the face, but the subject’s gait was like Penalver’s. Another told the police that it was Penalver, but then testified in court that she couldn’t say whether it was him or not.
With respect to this last witness, the prosecution argued that she changed her testimony after meeting with the defense, improperly suggesting — with no evidence to support it — that the defense had tampered with her, the court found. The court also found that the prosecution improperly admitted hearsay testimony that an alternate suspect was out of state, when there was no evidence that the suspect was out of state. The prosecution also presented evidence implying that Penalver had been suicidal and wrongly used that suggestion to imply consciousness of guilt, the court said.
“In light of the scant evidence connecting Penalver to this murder and the consequent importance of identifying the individual depicted on the videotape in sunglasses and hat, we conclude that the improperly admitted evidence and the State’s suggestion that the defense tampered with or suborned perjury by an identification witness meet the cumulative error requirements outlined above and require reversal,” the court said in its opinion.
The video magnified the uncertainty, making the strength of the remaining evidence all the more important, said Temple University law professor Jules Epstein, who specializes in forensics. Appellate courts assess error based on the magnitude of the mistakes and their cumulative impact.
“The weaker the rest of the evidence, the more significant the mistakes are. Conversely, the stronger the remaining evidence, the impact of mistake goes down,” Epstein said.
Stepping up for the wrongfully convicted
Penalver says he gets by on odd jobs and government assistance in the form of food stamps. He would like to attend school or learn a trade, but living hand to mouth makes it impossible to find time or money for education, he said.
Compensation from the state would help, but under the “clean hands” provision of Florida’s Victims of Wrongful Incarceration Compensation Act, Penalver is ineligible because of his 2 prior nonviolent felonies, which are unrelated to the triple slayings he was accused of.
“Just because I had prior felonies in the past, that shouldn’t mean I can’t be compensated for what was done to me,” he said. “It’s hard getting back on your feet; anything would help.”
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal, August 1, 2015

Not a killing state: Is Colorado prepared for the death penalty?

The majority of Coloradans want their state to kill James Holmes. But if he receives the death penalty, the Department of Corrections may not be ready.
Convicted murderer James Holmes is now awaiting his sentence.
He faces the death penalty for his crimes, a punishment 2/3 of Coloradans believe he deserves.
But lethal injection drugs are increasingly hard to obtain. If the jury sentences Holmes to death, is Colorado actually capable of carrying it out?
Like all 31 states that still allow capital punishment, Colorado uses lethal injection as its primary means of execution. But it almost never happens: The 1997 death of Gary Lee Davis remains the state’s only execution in almost 50 years, and the only time Colorado has ever performed a lethal injection. We are, in the words of death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean, “not a killing state.”
The Colorado Department of Corrections, tasked with performing executions, doesn’t even keep drugs for the procedure on hand. Their shelf life is less than the average 10 years it takes for a death penalty appeals process.
In March of 2013, 5 months before death row inmate Nathan Dunlap was scheduled for execution, The Denver Post reported that CDOC was still struggling to acquire a crucial drug.
Tom Clements, CDOC’s then-director, wrote a letter to 97 compounding pharmacies across the state in an attempt to acquire sodium thiopental, a rapid-onset anesthetic critical to the state’s lethal 3-drug cocktail.
Clements sought the pharmacies’ help because the drug is now nearly impossible to find ready-made. Hospira Inc, the only producer in the nation, stopped making it in 2011. The E.U. has blocked its export for use in executions. But compounding pharmacies are less than eager. In March this year, the American Pharmacists Association called upon its members to stop providing any drugs for use in executions.
In light of Clements’ letter, the ACLU in 2013 submitted an open records request to CDOC asking for a copy of its execution protocol. (The agency initially didn’t comply, forcing the ACLU to file a lawsuit.)
What they found was troubling. Colorado law demands lethal injection be administered with “a lethal quantity of sodium thiopental or other equally or more effective substance sufficient to cause death.”
The protocol from 2011 calls for Sodium Pentothal, the name brand of sodium thiopental. But the 2013 protocol, with no change in state law, calls for “Sodium Pentothal/Pentobarbital,” implying that the 2 are interchangeable despite being 2 different drugs. (When pentobarbital was used in the 2014 Oklahoma execution of Michael Wilson, he reportedly said he felt his “whole body burning.”)
Colorado is not the only state scrambling for alternatives. Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah have authorized the use of the gas chamber, electrocution and the firing squad, respectively, if lethal injection drugs become unavailable. And the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that midazolam, the controversial drug linked to multiple botched or prolonged executions across the country, is constitutional for use in lethal injections.
Ultimately, the ACLU’s investigation came to a halt when Gov. John Hickenlooper granted Dunlap an indefinite stay of execution. But the discrepancy between protocol and state law raises concerns about the secrecy that goes along with lethal injection.
How can the public stay informed about the death penalty when no organization will publicly admit to selling the drugs? How do we determine what drugs count as an “equally or more effective substance to cause death” without being able to properly test them?
Gov. Hickenlooper’s stay of execution for Dunlap means the state, at least for now, isn’t actively seeking out lethal injection drugs. His office didn’t return requests for comment, but the governor has said publicly that he will not allow an execution during his term. The other 2 men on death row will not exhaust their appeals for years.
If sentenced to death, James Holmes can expect the appeals process to take 10 years or more.
By that time, Colorado’s lethal injection protocol – and indeed, its stance on the death penalty – could look quite different.
Source: The Colorado Independent, July 30, 2015

North Carolina wants easier, more secretive executions

The national debate over capital punishment has proceeded in a variety of disparate directions, with some states deciding to end the practice altogether. But in North Carolina, the Republican-led legislature has apparently concluded that the status quo on executions needs to be tweaked in a more alarming way – making it easier for the state to kill people with greater secrecy.
With little debate, the North Carolina Senate voted along party lines 33-16 Monday night to approve a bill aimed at restarting executions in the state.
The legislation, House Bill 774, would repeal the current law requiring that a physician be present to monitor all executions …. The bill would also remove from public record the names of companies that make, supply or deliver the drugs used in lethal injection, and it would exempt the execution protocol itself from the oversight of the state’s Rules Review Commission.
There would be no public oversight of the protocol, nor would that information – from the types of drugs to the doses to the sequence – be required to be made public.
According to local reports, North Carolina hasn’t been able to kill any of its prisoners since 2006, in large part because doctors in the state balked, creating a de facto moratorium.
So, GOP state lawmakers determined that if state law requires doctors to oversee executions, and doctors won’t go along, it’s time to change the law so that doctors need only sign the death certificate after the execution takes place. Instead, the new state law would allow physician assistants, nurse practitioners, or EMTs to monitor the executions.
As for the secrecy, North Carolina has a Public Records Act, but this new push would create an exception to the state law – when North Carolina kills prisoners with a chemical cocktail, the contents can be kept secret. The names of the pharmaceutical companies that supply the drugs will also be hidden from public scrutiny.
The name of the legislation is the “Restoring Proper Justice Act,” apparently because its sponsors’ sense of humor leans towards the macabre.
A report from the News & Observer added that the state House, which also has a Republican majority, has already approved a similar measure, but the 2 versions will have to be reconciled and passed in each chamber.
Gov. Pat McCrory (R) has not yet said whether he intends to sign the bill. The state currently has 148 people who’ve been sentenced to death.
Source: MSNBC news, July 30, 2015