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Tennessee death-row inmate’s conviction overturned – Michael Dale Rimmer

October 12, 2012 http://www.usatoday.com

8:33PM EDT October 12. 2012 – A Tennessee judge on Friday overturned the conviction and death sentence of a man who has spent 14 years on death row over the killing of an ex-girlfriend whose body was never found.

A USA TODAY investigation last year showed that Memphis prosecutors responsible for the case never told the man, Michael Dale Rimmer, or his lawyers, about an eyewitness who had told the police that two different men were inside the office around the time she disappeared, and that both had blood on their hands. One of the men that the witness identified was already wanted in connection with a stabbing.

Document: Court order

Shelby County Judge James C. Beasley Jr. wrote in a 212-page order released late Friday afternoon that Rimmer’s trial lawyers repeatedly failed to unearth that evidence, a “devastating” blow to his contention that someone else committed the crime. That problem was compounded, the judge wrote, because the lead prosecutor in the case, Thomas Henderson, made “blatantly false, inappropriate and ethically questionable” statements to defense lawyers denying that the evidence existed.

The case is the latest black eye for prosecutors in Memphis, who have been faulted repeatedly for failing to disclose evidence that could be helpful to defendants. In 2008, for example, a federal appeals court blasted the office in another death penalty case for a “set of falsehoods” that was “typical of the conduct of the Memphis district attorney’s office.” At least two other cases handled by Henderson — who went on to supervise all of Memphis’ criminal prosecutions — have come under scrutiny over similar lapses.
Beasley on Friday accused Henderson of “purposefully” misleading Rimmer’s lawyers, and making “comments to counsel and the court were both intellectually dishonest and may have been designed to gain a tactical advantage.”

Still, Beasley wrote, that conduct alone wasn’t enough to overturn Rimmer’s conviction and death sentence, because his lawyers could have discovered the evidence on their own if they had looked more carefully. Instead, he said, it was the “seriously deficient” investigation by Rimmer’s “overburdened” lawyers that required him to order a new trial.

John Campbell, Shelby County’s deputy district attorney general, said Friday he had not read the entire order and could not comment on specific findings. But he said prosecutors would either appeal the decision or re-try Rimmer for Ricci Ellsworth’s murder. “I can’t imagine ever not re-prosecuting the case,” he said.
Rimmer’s new lawyer, Kelly Gleason, said she “happy and relieved that the court has set aside this unjust conviction.”

Ellsworth, Rimmer’s former girlfriend, disappeared from the office of a seedy Memphis motel where she worked as an overnight clerk in February 1997, leaving behind only an office and bathroom soaked with blood. Her body has never been located.

Rimmer, then 30, was the obvious suspect. The two had dated, but the relationship soured, and Rimmer eventually went to prison for raping her. There, other prisoners said, he repeatedly threatened to kill Ellsworth, suggesting that he could make sure she was not found. Rimmer was arrested in Indiana a month after Ellsworth disappeared; police there found blood on the back seat of the car he was driving that they later said was consistent with samples taken from the motel office and from Ellsworth’s mother.

Still, a witness who visited the motel office around the time Ellsworth disappeared told the police that he had seen two different men inside, both with blood on their hands. When FBI agents showed him photographs of possible suspects that included a photo of Rimmer, he picked out a different man, Billy Wayne Voyles, who was already wanted in connection with an unrelated stabbing.

Rimmer’s lawyers, Beasley wrote, were unaware of those facts, though they could have learned of the witness’ identification if they had reviewed the “residual” evidence in the court clerk’s vault. Instead, he wrote, they relied on Henderson’s repeated representations that no such evidence existed. As a result, he wrote, the jurors who found Rimmer guilty of the murder and sentenced him to die never heard about it.

That witness, James Darnell, told a court for the first time that he had seen one of the men carry what looked like a heavy object wrapped in a comforter out of the motel office and load it into the trunk of a car.

Y’all are killing an innocent man’: Last words of ‘mentally ill’ Texas death row inmate executed for killing 12-year-old girl

October 11, 2012 http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Last Minute Appeal Denied For Texas Death Row Inmate

An inmate on death row used his last breath to protest his innocence of the murder of a 12-year-old girl as he was executed in Texas last night despite his legal team arguing he was mentally ill.

Jonathan Green, 44, was jailed for the abduction, rape and strangling of Christina Neal, 12, whose body was found at his home a month after she was reported missing in 2000.

Several last ditch appeals were made on the basis of his mental health in an attempt to save him from the death penalty but Green was given a lethal injection after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the arguments to spare him.

Too mentally ill: Attorneys argued that Jonathan Green should be spared execution for the murder of 12 year old Christina Leann Neal

The 11th-hour appeals delayed the punishment nearly five hours past the initial 6pm execution time and as the midnight expiration of the death warrant neared.

Asked by the warden if he had a statement from the death chamber gurney, Green shook his head and replied: ‘No’

But seconds later he changed his mind, adding: ‘I’m an innocent man. I never killed anyone. Y’all are killing an innocent man.’

He then looked down at his left arm where one of the needles carrying the lethal drug was inserted, and said: ‘I’ts me hurting bad.’

But almost immediately he began snoring loudly. The sounds stopped after about six breaths.

Green was pronounced dead 18 minutes later at 10.45pm.

 

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South Dakota set to execute two on death row – Robert due next week; Moeller wants his lawyers dismissed

October 9, 2012 http://www.argusleader.com

State Department of Corrections officials gave media representatives a tour Tuesday of the execution chamber and holding cell where death row inmates Eric Robert and Donald Moeller will live out the last minutes of their lives later this month.

Robert, 50, has pleaded guilty to the 2011 murder of corrections officer Ron Johnson and is scheduled to die by lethal injection sometime next week. Moeller, 60, was twice convicted of rape and murder in the 1990 death of Becky O’Connell and is scheduled to be executed the week of Oct. 28-Nov. 3.

Though Moeller’s execution date has been set, U.S. District Judge Larry Piersol still has to decide on Moeller’s request to cease any further action on a constitutional challenge to the state’s execution method by injection. The judge’s decision on the matter is expected any day.

Arkansas lawyers appointed at the federal level to represent Moeller want to continue with the challenge and have asked Piersol to find that Moeller isn’t competent to make decisions in his case. On Tuesday, Moeller sent a letter to Piersol reiterating that he wants the Arkansas lawyers removed as his counsel.

Also Tuesday, media representatives shot photographs and video in what inmates call the old hospital section of the state penitentiary.

The death chamber is a square room with a table in the middle that sits on a cylindrical metal pedestal.

A white mattress rests on the table with armrests to each side. Four leather straps are draped across the mattress for now, and there are leather straps on the armrests and at the foot of the mattress.

There are two windows on each of the west and north walls with blinds closed over them Tuesday. There are four separate offices on the other sides of the windows from which witnesses will watch the execution. Red letters above each window designate them as “A,” “B,” “C” and “D.”

A one-way mirrored window on the east wall hides what prison officials call “the chemical room” on the other side. There are four digital clocks in the execution chamber — each gives the time, the date and the temperature in the room. A long, black rod hangs down from the ceiling over the mattress with a microphone attached to it.

Just east of the execution chamber are three holding cells where Robert and Moeller will be housed before their executions.

Each cell has a toilet, a sink and a bed, as well as a white cabinet with three, open shelves that sits just to the right as you enter.

State statute allows the court to set the week of a scheduled execution, then leaves it to the warden to set a specific day and time depending on the needs of the institution and execution requirements, said Corrections spokesman Michael Winder.

The last inmate to be executed in South Dakota, Elijah Page, was put to death July 11, 2007, at the state penitentiary in Sioux Falls

PENNSYLVANIA – Johnson sentenced to death in murder of wildlife conservation officer

October 9,  2012 http://www.examiner.com

An Adams County man has been sentenced to death for the murder of a law enforcement officer, Thursday, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The death penalty verdict carries an automatic appeal. Earlier in the week, Christopher L. Johnson, 29, of Carroll Valley, was found guilty of first degree murder in the Nov. 11, 2010 shooting death of Pennsylvania Wildlife Conservation Officer David L. Grove, 31, a Waynesboro native. The case against Johnson was heard by a 12-member jury composed of Lancaster County residents, who were chosen for the trial that was held in Adams County Court. The change of venire was granted due to pretrial publicity. That jury deliberated for about 30 minutes.

The penalty phase of trial began Tuesday afternoon and ended Thursday night when the jurors returned their recommendation for the death penalty. To find the death penalty was warranted, the jurors had to determine that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances. One of those circumstances was Johnson’s previous felony conviction.

Throughout the trial, which began the previous week, the prosecution painted a detailed picture of the shootout that led to Grove’s death. Officer Grove stopped a pickup truck, operated by Johnson, on Schriver Road, near Red Rock Road, in Freedom Township, Adams County. Grove was investigating a deer poaching incident., in connection with a poaching incident. Johnson had told police he fired at Grove because he did not want to go back to prison for illegally possessing a .45 caliber handgun when he was stopped.

At 10:32 p.m., that night, Officer Grove notified county dispatch that he had spotted a vehicle that was illegally using a spotlight to see deer. He also reported to county that he heard shots. Officer Grove pulled the pickup truck occupied by Johnson and another man and ordered them out of the vehicle. Grove then ordered Johnson to come to him.

Johnson was also wounded during the ensuing gun battle. On his way for treatment at York Hospital, Johnson told a state trooper who was accompanying him that he had been carrying the gun in his waistband. He said that when Officer Grove attempted to handcuff him, he drew the pistol and the shooting began. Officer Grove was shot four times.

A bullet fired by Officer Grove hit Johnson in the hip. Johnson fled the scene but was arrested and taken into custody the next day. A total of 15 shell casings fire from Johnson’s weapon were recovered at the scene. The fact that Johnson had to reload the pistol was another aggravating factor the jury considered in rendering its decision. Officer Grove fired 10 shots, from his .357-caliber Glock revolver.

The jury also found Johnson guilty of weapons offenses and game-law violations. That was another of the aggravating factors reviewed by the jury.

Grove can also appeal the conviction. Johnson has been committed to the State Correctional Institute at Rockview. Before a death sentence warrant can be signed by the governor, all of Grove’s appeals must be exhausted.

Claim Your Innocence's avatarClaim your Innocence

World Day on October 10 marks the date when activists around the world rally to oppose the death penalty and commemorate the day with educational events, demonstrations, and other initiatives to voice their opposition to this human rights violation.

We were creating this poster at the request of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (www.worldcoalition.org), an international coalition that opposes the death penalty. The World Coalition spearheads World Day, along with many other campaigns, in its efforts to end the death penalty around the world. This October 10, 2012 is particularly special, because it marks the tenth anniversary of the creation of the World Coalition.

The poster would be a pivotal piece in the World Day campaign as the rallying symbol for hundreds of death penalty activists around the world. Our main challenge was that the World Coalition’s Steering Committee specifically requested a positivemessage in the…

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Death penalty for children’ too much for Arkansas Republicans

OCTOBER 9, 2012 http://www.theweek.co.uk/

THE REPUBLICAN Party in Arkansas has withdrawn its financial support from three state legislature candidates who have variously advocated the death penalty for children and called for the deportation of all Muslims from America, described slavery as a “blessing in disguise” for Africans and labeled Abraham Lincoln a “war criminal”.

Candidate Charlie Fuqua and two sitting representatives, Jon Hubbard and Loy Mauch, have been cut off because of their radical beliefs, many of which have been branded as offensive by their own party.

In a book, God’s Law: The Only Political Solution, Fuqua claims there was “no solution to the Muslim problem short of expelling all followers of the religion from the United States”.

And, as the Arkansas Times reports, that is not the only eye-catching policy in God’s Law. He also advocates execution for children, arguing: “A child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society.” However, he is aware of the severity of the punishment and stresses: “The death penalty for rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly.”

Fuqua also suggests setting the minimum wage at zero and argues that people should only serve two years in prison. If they are not rehabilitated within that time, they should be executed, he says

Fuqua has lost his funding, but Arkansas Times blogger Max Bentley notes: “No party official has demanded money back or urged Fuqua to withdraw from the race. Majority control of the legislature is far too important for Republicans to abandon a candidate, no matter how extreme. Which tells you a little something about Republican majority governance.”

The Guardian’s George Monbiot is just one of those who has expressed shock at Fuqua’s remarks on Twitter, writing: “Ye gods! Republican candidate calls for death penalty for children who disrespect their parents.”

But Fuqua’s views are not the only ones drawing ire. Jon Hubbard, who has been a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives since 2010, has also caused outrage. In 2009 he self-published a book, Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative, which argued that slavery was a “blessing in disguise”. “Would an existence spent in slavery have been any crueler than a life spent in sub-Saharan Africa?” he pondered.

He also noted that despite the deaths of millions during centuries of slavery, there was a silver lining. “The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth”.

The third candidate to cause upset is Loy Mauch, who has also held his seat since 2010. Local radio station Kait8 reported: “Mauch called Abraham Lincoln a war criminal and defended slavery in dozens of letters to a Little Rock newspaper.” In 2007 he described Lincoln as a “neurotic Northern war criminal” in a letter to the Little Rock Democrat-Gazette and in 2009 asked: “If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it”? · 

 

Terry Williams Case Highlights the Need For Death Penalty Moratorium by David A.Love

  • David A. Love

Executive Director, Witness to Innocence

 

October 9, 2012 

When Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina stayed the execution of Terry Williams, she dealt a blow to the death penalty in Pennsylvania. Now the public has caught a glimpse of prosecutorial misconduct and evidence suppression in the application of the death penalty, and it isn’t pretty.

In her order, Judge Sarmina — a former prosecutor —issued a scathing indictment of the prosecutor in that case for hiding evidence that Amos Norwood was allegedly, a sexual predator who had molested Williams and other children.

Sarmina said “evidence has plainly been suppressed,” and accused former assistant D.A. Andrea Foulkes of engaging in “gamesmanship” and “playing fast and loose.” The judge also said Foulkes “had no problem disregarding her ethical obligations” in an attempt to win.

Given these developments, it is baffling that any governor or district attorney would want to hitch their wagon to the execution of Terry Williams.

The tainting of capital cases — the handiwork of renegade prosecutors, police officers and other actors in the criminal justice system — is part of the unseemly underbelly of the death penalty.

It is a broken, arbitrary system that discriminates against the poor and people of color. Over 130 capital convictions have been overturned in the Keystone state, the highest in the nation. And Pennsylvania’s death row population is nearly 70 percent of color, the highest percentage in the U.S., with the city of Philadelphia providing the bulk of the prisoners.

Executions are barbaric and a violation of international human rights law. And as Martin Luther King noted, “Capital punishment is against the better judgment of modern criminology, and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.” Moreover, innocent people are most certainly put to death.

Since 1973, 141 innocent men and women across the U.S. have been released from death row. They spent an average of ten years in conditions that can only be described as torture. Of these, six were wrongfully imprisoned on Pennsylvania’s death row. And official misconduct played a role in nearly all of their unjust convictions.

Nicholas Yarris, who was sentenced to death for the 1981 rape, abduction of murder of Linda May Craig in Delaware County, spent 22 years on death row before he was exonerated. His wrongful conviction was secured through perjured testimony of a jailhouse informant, and the refusal of the prosecution to hand over twenty pages of documents.

Wrongfully convicted of murdering a Philly mobster and a female companion, Neil Ferber spent fourteen months on death row. He was also the victim of false testimony from a jailhouse informant, and evidence of his innocence that was not handed over to his defense.

Harold Wilson, who was sentenced to death for the murder and robbery of three people in South Philadelphia, was exonerated through DNA evidence after spending seventeen years in prison. In 2003 a court ruled that the prosecutor in the original trial had eliminated potential black jurors.

In 2000, William Nieves was acquitted by a Philadelphia jury for a 1992 murder someone else committed, yet for which he was convicted in 1994. His original defense lawyer was paid $2,500 and had no experience handling capital cases. When he was retried, Nieves’ new lawyer had access to evidence that had been withheld from the defense. Nieves died of liver problems in 2005 due to improper medical treatment while in prison.

Thomas Kimbell was convicted of four murders in 1998, despite no evidence or eyewitnesses linking him to the crimes. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 2000 because the trial judge had unfairly excluded evidence pointing to his innocence. Kimbell was acquitted of all charges after a retrial in 2002.

Sentenced to die for a 1979 triple murder, Jay C. Smith was released in 1992. The state’s high court found that the D.A. had committed “egregious” misconduct by withholding crucial evidence.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations — a database of 973 of the 2,000 criminal exonerations over the past 23 years, including 32 exonerations in Pennsylvania — official misconduct was the second most common factor associated with murder exonerations in America, occurring in 56 percent of cases. Perjury and false accusations were found 64 percent of the time, followed by mistaken witness identification (27 percent), false confessions (25 percent) and false and misleading forensic evidence (23 percent).

With 200 people condemned to death, Pennsylvania has the fourth largest death row in America. With no voluntary executions in the state in half a century, the tragic story of Terry Williams has reopened the debate on capital punishment. We do not know how many of death row inmates would be free or serving a lesser sentence, but for an ethically challenged prosecutor who believed in winning over seeking justice. Given what we know, now is as good a time as any to shut down Pennsylvania’s broken death machine.

David A. Love is the Executive Director of Witness to Innocence, a national nonprofit organization that empowers exonerated death row prisoners and their family members to become effective leaders in the movement to abolish the death penalty.

Follow David A. Love on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidalove

TEXAS – Green gets stay 2 days before execution EXECUTED 10:45 p.m

October 9, 2012 http://www.news-journal.com/

Two days before his scheduled execution, a Montgomery man on Texas’ Death Row for the 2000 abduction, rape and strangulation murder of a 12-year-old Dobbin girl received a stay because he wasn’t given due process to prove he is mentally incompetent for execution, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Judge Nancy Atlas, in the Southern District of Texas, ruled that Jonathan Marcus Green, 44, who was convicted in 2002 for the murder of Christina LeAnn Neal, did not receive a fair opportunity to demonstrate that he is incompetent, “and thus the State of Texas denied him due process.”

But the Texas Attorney General’s Office plans to file a motion today asking the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate the stay.

Green is schizophrenic and “is not malingering,” said his appellate attorney, James Rytting.

“He is mentally ill … and he’s only gotten worse after being stuck in administrative segregation,” Rytting said.

In her written opinion, Atlas notes that 221st state District Court Judge Lisa Michalk, who denied Green a stay two days before he was to be executed on June 30, 2010, applied incorrect legal standards by seeking to determine if there was a change in Green’s mental capacity since his imprisonment in 2002.

“The correct question was whether Green was presently competent, regardless of his comparative mental capacity between 2002 and 2010,” Atlas wrote.

Green understood that he was convicted of killing Christina and was to be executed for that crime, the basis for Michalk’s finding that he understood why he was being executed, Atlas wrote.

But Green believed he was to be executed as a result of “spiritual warfare” between demons and God, Atlas found, and Michalk prevented Green from presenting relevant evidence, denied Green due process.

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UTAH – Death row inmate loses appeal on Provo murder conviction – DOUGLAS CARTER

October 9, 2012 http://www.heraldextra.com

SALT LAKE CITY — A convicted killer who stabbed and shot a Provo woman in 1985 moved one step closer to death on Friday after the Utah Supreme Court denied his appeal.

In a 14-page ruling, the supreme court rejected Douglas Carter’s claim that he was ineffectively assisted by his attorneys. Carter was convicted of killing 57-year-old Eva Oleson in 1985.He was sentenced to death, and the court’s ruling means his sentence is affirmed.

According to the ruling, Carter has been appealing his conviction and sentence since the 1980s. Court documents state that in 1989 his conviction was upheld but his sentence was canceled due to an erroneous jury instruction. However, in 1992 Carter was again sentenced to death and in 1995 the supreme court upheld the sentence.

Carter continued his appeals through the 2000s. He made a series of different claims, but citing extensive case law the supreme court ruled that only his assertion of ineffective assistance of counsel could be reviewed. The claim means Carter believes his attorneys failed to adequately perform their duties.

According to the documents, Carter believes his post-conviction attorneys didn’t consult with investigators and experts. He also reportedly believes there is mitigating evidence in the case, but said his attorneys never examined that evidence. In addition, Carter has claimed that police and forensic reports “cast real doubt on his guilt.”

But according to the decision, Carter failed to demonstrate that his attorneys were inadequate. The supreme court further notes that merely claiming ineffective assistance of counsel isn’t enough to win an appeal.

The ruling means Carter will continue toward execution.

Carter appeared recently before a Provo judge in December. At a hearing, Teresa Oleson testified that her mother-in-law, Eva, was midway through knitting a sweater when Carter tied her up and killed her. Teresa said Carter stabbed Eva in the back, among other things. She also pleaded with the court to move forward with the case, saying her family has been unable to experience closure for more than two decades.

Attorneys working on the case did not return calls seeking comment on Monday.

ARIZONA – Supreme Court to take up Arizona death-row case; competence at issue, ERNEST GONZALES

OCTOBER 8, 2012 http://www.azfamily.com/

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is slated to hear Arizona’s argument against a court-ordered delay in the execution of a convicted murderer.

Ernest Gonzales killed Darrel Wagner in 1990. He was sentenced to death in April 1992. While on death row, however, Gonzales,went insane  becoming unable to communicate with the lawyers handling his appeals in federal court. It’s the insanity that prompted an appeals court to issue  an indefinite stay of execution.

On Tuesday, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne will go before the Supreme Court and try to convince them to lift that stay.

While Horne says the existing court record should be considered in the appeal, Gonzales’ defense attorneys say his entitlement to effective legal counsel requires the 48-year-old to be mentally competent, which he is not.

Gonzales was 25 and had already served time when he stabbed Wagner to death in the course of burglarizing his home. He also stabbed Wagner’s wife, badly wounding her.

According to court documents, Gonzales showed signs of mental impairment, as well as violent tendencies, while in prison the first time. In 1990, after nearly 10 years on death row, the symptoms of mental illness reportedly became more serious.

While psychiatrists have determined that Gonzales is  psychotic, he has never been declared incompetent in court.

For years, lawyers have fought over the issue of Gonzales‘ competence and its relevance. While the state has insisted Gonzales‘ appeal is “record-based,” the defense has countered that Gonzales’ input is necessary considering the number of attorney involved in the case over the past 22 years.

Even as Horne makes Arizona’s argument, the justices will also hear a similar case out of Ohio.

It’s not clear when the Supreme Court might issue its ruling.

Arizona’s most recent execution was in early August. Daniel Wayne Cook was put to death for strangling two people two death in 1987. It was the state’s fifth execution of 2012, just two shy of the record seven executions in 1999.

If Arizona puts seven inmates to death this year, it could become the second-busiest death-penalty state after Texas.