IOWA CITY (AP) — A judge removed one of two women from federal death row on Friday, saying lawyers for the Iowa woman convicted in the 1993 execution-style murders of five people failed to present evidence about her troubled mental state that could have spared her from execution.
In a 448-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett threw out Angela Johnson’s death sentence, saying her defense lawyers were “alarmingly dysfunctional” during the 2005 trial that made her the first woman to be sentenced to death in the federal system since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the punishment in 1976.
Attorney General Eric Holder and aides must determine within 60 days whether to appeal or continue seeking the death penalty for Johnson, said Assistant U.S. Attorney C.J. Williams, who prosecuted the case.
If they do not appeal, there will be a trial to determine whether Johnson, 48, will be sentenced to death. In that trial, her lawyers would be allowed to present evidence about her mental health that was omitted in 2005. If they decline to seek the death penalty, Bennett could sentence Johnson to life in prison without parole.
Bennett’s ruling doesn’t throw out her convictions; he said evidence of her guilt was overwhelming. Johnson and boyfriend Dustin Honken committed the murders to thwart a federal investigation that threatened to end Honken’s reign as one of the Midwest’s largest methamphetamine kingpins, and buried the bodies to cover them up.
After separate trials, jurors sentenced Honken to death for the murders of two children while Johnson was sentenced to death on four counts. Both were to die by lethal injection.
The bodies of the victims — drug dealers-turned-government witnesses Terry DeGeus and Greg Nicholson; Nicholson’s girlfriend, Lori Duncan; and Duncan’s daughters, Kandi, 10, and Amber, 6 — were found in shallow graves near Mason City in 2000. They were discovered after Johnson, serving time on drug charges, sketched out a locator map to a jailhouse informant.
Prosecutors said Johnson posed as a saleswoman to gain access to Duncan’s home in 1993, days before Honken was to plead guilty to drug charges. Honken and Johnson forced Nicholson to make a videotaped statement exonerating Honken. Afterward, they took him, Duncan and her children to a field and shot each of them in the back of the head at close range.
A month later, Johnson lured DeGeus, a former boyfriend, to a secluded location where Honken shot him several times and beat him with a baseball bat.
Bennett said that he understands his ruling will upset victims’ families, but Johnson’s defense was so riddled with missteps that her rights were violated.
“I believe that I have done my duty, in light of what is required by the Constitution — the foundational document of our nation’s enduring freedoms, including the right not to be put to death when trial counsel’s performance was so grossly constitutionally inadequate,” he wrote.
During the penalty phase of Johnson’s trial, Bennett said defense lawyers failed to present expert testimony about her mental health at the time of the murders that could have helped explain her involvement to jurors. He said they should have presented evidence about the impact of serious brain impairments, personality disorders and her prior methamphetamine use.
Bennett said defense lawyers also failed to present evidence that could have undercut the prosecution’s claim that she participated in DeGeus’ killing out of revenge, because of their prior relationship’s abusive nature. He said they should have had experts argue she was suffering from battered woman’s syndrome and wouldn’t have wanted him dead.
At trial, her attorneys argued the government’s case was built entirely on circumstantial evidence and that Johnson was ignorant of Honken’s intent to kill. They urged jurors to sentence her to life in prison, not death.
Iowa does not have the death penalty, and Bennett said few lawyers in the state had expertise in capital punishment. He said he tried to assemble a “dream team” of lawyers for Johnson — including Alfred Willett of Cedar Rapids; Patrick Berrigan of Kansas City, Mo.; and Dean Stowers of Des Moines — but they performed poorly.
Willett and Berrigan didn’t return messages Friday. Stowers agreed the defense team was dysfunctional.
“I’m happy she’s going to get a new shot at things because she deserves it,” he said.
Bennett, appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, has acknowledged his personal opposition to the death penalty. In a 2006 speech about the two capital murder cases, he said he set aside his personal beliefs in the interest of fairness. But he added he had “grave concerns” that the death penalty could be applied unfairly.
Death row inmate Jesse Joe Hernandez, set to be executed next week for the 2001 death of a 10-month-old boy in Dallas, is hoping that a ruling Tuesday from the U.S. Supreme Court could give him another chance to prove that the tragedy was not entirely his fault.
The nation’s highest court ruled that the failure of initial state habeas lawyers to argue that their client’s trial counsel was ineffective should not prevent the defendant from making that argument later on. Lawyers across the country, including those for at least two Texas death row inmates, were eagerly awaiting the court’s ruling in the Martinez v. Ryancase out of Arizona, which could expand appeals access for inmates.
“A procedural default will not bar a federal habeas court from hearing those claims if, in the initial-review collateral proceeding, there was no counsel or counsel in the proceeding was ineffective,” the court majority held.
Habeas lawyers investigate issues that could or should have been raised during a defendant’s original trial.
Brad Levenson, director of the Texas Office of Capital Writs, filed a petition with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday afternoon on behalf of Hernandez,arguing that his March 28 execution should be stayed, in part, because of the court’s ruling.
Although the ruling applies to federal courts, Levenson said, Texas’ highest criminal court should take its cue from the nation’s highest court and hear Hernandez’s claims.
Hernandez was convicted in 2002 for the death of a child who lived in the home where he lived at the time. Hernandez admitted he hit the child, who was rushed to the hospital, where he was put into a medically induced coma and then died after he was removed from life support.
In a writ filed Tuesday with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Hernandez argues that his actions did not directly cause the child’s death. Instead, an expert who recently reviewed the medical records concluded that the hospital gave the child a lethal dose of the drug pentobarbital and that he was pulled from life support too soon.
“There’s no way to tell at end of day whether he would have survived,” Levenson said. “Our expert said there’s a very real probability the child could have lived.”
Levenson said Hernandez’s trial lawyers and his initial appeals lawyers were ineffective because they failed to do further investigation and hire their own experts to find out why the child died. Levenson, who took the case only three weeks ago, hired a doctor who reviewed the medical records and determined that the little boy had not been diagnosed as brain-dead before he was removed from life support and that he was given toxic doses of pentobarbital.
“It’s not to say that Mr. Hernandez is not guilty of a crime, but he’s not guilty of capital murder,” Levenson said.
Current law, though, could prohibit Hernandez from arguing that because his original trial lawyers were ineffective by not further investigating the cause of death that he should get a new trial. Those kinds of claims must be raised from the beginning of the appeals process to be valid later on. And Hernandez’s previous habeas lawyers did not argue that he was inadequately represented.
Levenson said that even though Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling applies to claims made in federal court — not state writs like the one he filed — the same principle ought to apply.
“We’re saying the state courts should also take a look at these claims for the same reason the Supreme Court would take a look at them,” he said.
The ruling could also be a boon for death row inmateRob Will, who was convicted in 2002 of fatally shooting a Harris County sheriff’s deputy. Will says that the man he was with that night was the real shooter and that he is innocent.
In January, U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison denied Will’s pleas for a new trial but wrote that he lamented doing so because of “disturbing uncertainties” raised about his guilt.
Will is hoping the court’s ruling in Martinez will allow him to argue that he should get a new trial because both his trial lawyer and his state-appointed habeas lawyer were ineffective when they failed to track down several witnesses who have testified that the other man confessed to the killing.
The Supreme Court today, in Martinez v. Ryan, recognized that where a state habeas lawyer was ineffective for failing to raise a claim that trial counsel was ineffective, procedural rules will not bar a federal court from hearing those claims. Read the entire opinion below.
On August 7, 1985, Wiles murdered 15-year-old Mark Klima at a farmhouse in Rootstown. Mark’s parents owned the farm where Wiles had worked until January 1983. When Mark caught Wiles stealing valuables from the house, Wiles stabbed Mark 24 times and left the butcher knife buried in his back. Wiles fled to Georgia, but later confessed to authorities in Savannah, Georgia and detectives from Portage County, Ohio.
Mark Wayne Wiles, the condemned killer from Portage County, arrived this morning at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in preparation for his execution tomorrow. He was transported from the Chillicothe Correctional Institution where Death Row is now located.
Ohio will resume executions by lethal injection later this month, after blocking them for the past four months because of legal complaints that prison officials were not following the proper procedures.U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost denied a request by Mark Wayne Wiles to halt his execution, saying he trusts the state to “avoid the embarrassments” of the past, the Columbus Dispatch reports.
Wiles’ execution is scheduled for 10 a.m. on April 18 at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. He was sentenced to death for the 1985 murder of Mark Klima, 15.
Frost blocked other executions in recent months because the state repeatedly “failed to follow through on its own execution protocol.” By clearing the way for Wiles’ execution, Frost likely opened up Ohio’s execution schedule, which has about one inmate a month scheduled for capital punishment through early 2014.
Even though he denied Wiles’ stay request, Frost still criticized the state’s failures when it comes to carrying out the death penalty.
“Ohio’s new procedures look good on paper,” he said. “The protocol is constitutional as written, and executions are lawful, but the problem has been Ohio’s repeated inability to do what it says it will do.”
Wiles, 49, had worked for Mark Klima’s parents until January 1983. He returned about two years later, and mark caught him stealing family valuables. Wiles stabbed the teenager 24 times with a butcher knife. He fled to Georgia, but eventually confessed to the murder.
Public defender Allen Bohnert, representing Wiles, said he is reviewing the ruling with the thought of a possible appeal.
Mark Wiles sat in front of a window at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution, wearing a T-shirt and looking directly into the camera.
For about two minutes, the man who stabbed a teenager to death on a Portage County horse farm tried to put into words the apology he said he’s been wanting to offer for more than 25 years.
“All these years, I’ve wanted to say to you that I’ve always been sorry for what I did to your son Mark (Klima),” Wiles said, directing the comments to the parents of the boy he killed in August 1985. “He was an innocent victim of my selfish needs. I truly am sorry for taking his life and causing you and so many others so much pain and loss.”
The image, part of a taped apology presented to the state parole board Thursday and earlier sent directly to the Klima family, stood in stark contrast to the picture of Wiles painted by prosecutors: a “burglar of occupied homes” with a history of criminal behavior; “one of the most belligerent individuals” his high school principal had ever experienced; a man who tried to convince investigators that it was his 100-pound victim who threatened him with a knife.
“I can’t understand why they have to prolong (the case and the death penalty) so long when there’s a confession,” Charlie Klima, father of the murder victim, said in his own taped statement to the parole board. “He said he did it and he didn’t want to appeal it. I just don’t understand what the purpose of delaying it any longer or delaying it as long as it was. It just doesn’t make sense.”
He added, “I believe in the death penalty, and I think that he murdered our son and I think he should be executed….”
Wiles, 49, is scheduled for lethal injection next month, though it remains to be seen whether a federal judge will allow the state to resume executions, given the continuing legal battle over the constitutionality of Ohio’s death penalty protocols. A hearing on that issue is set for next week.
The parole board will offer its recommendation to Gov. John Kasich on March 23. The governor has final say on whether to grant clemency or allow the execution to take place as scheduled.
Members didn’t offer too many indications Thursday of the direction of their decision, though they did chastise Wiles’ attorneys for sending a copy of his taped apology directly to the murder victim’s family, calling the move insensitive.
The Klimas turned the tape over to prosecutors without watching it.
“I think after 26 years, an apology is kind of ridiculous,” Charlie Klima said in his taped statement to the board. “… I don’t have any interest in bringing back any more memories than has been (already) brought back in this situation.”
Wiles worked part time at Charlie and Carol Klima’s Shakespeare Acres in Rootstown from May 1982 until January 1983, when the family discovered about $200 missing from ransacked rooms of their home.
Wiles was the only other person on the property at the time; he left before being confronted.
Two years later, after serving time in prison for an unrelated burglary, Wiles returned to the farm, intent on stealing more money. He was caught in the act by Mark Klima, a straight-A student who had completed his freshman year of high school and who wanted to be a doctor. Wiles subsequently stabbed the teen with a foot-long kitchen knife, stole $260 and fled the state. Five days later, he turned himself into police in Savannah, Ga., signed a confession and returned to Ohio.
Legal counsel for Wiles based their clemency request on Wiles’ admission of guilt, his remorse over the killing and his good behavior while in prison.
“Mark does not believe that he deserves mercy, but he wants to live,” said Vicki Werneke, a federal public defender. “… Mark is so consumed with remorse and regret. … Mark doesn’t offer any excuses for what he did.”
A neuropsychologist testified, via video, that a head injury stemming from a bar fight in the days before the murder could have affected Wiles’ behavior.
A psychologist said Wiles abused alcohol and drugs, displayed anti-social behavior and likely suffered a brain injury that affected his actions and thinking.
Former and current legal counsel described their interaction with Wiles during his trial and post-conviction proceedings, saying he was respectful but was so remorseful about the killing that he did little to avoid the death penalty.
And two sisters and a brother-in-law described Wiles’ emotionally stifling upbringing, the industrial explosion that killed their older brother and their mother’s untreated bipolar disorder.
“I need you to know that I am sorry,”Wiles said in his taped apology, adding later, “When I’m executed, honestly, I hope that in some way it eases some of the pain that I’ve caused.”
But Portage County Prosecutor Vic Vigluicci said Wiles didn’t take responsibility for the crime at the time, initially denying involvement and then attempting to blame the teen for pulling a knife.
The prosecutor showed images of the murdered boy and described, in detail, the fatal wounds Mark Klima received to his back, the defensive wounds he had on his forearms and the bruises and scrapes on this face and forehead. mark
Prosecutors also said that Wiles had said he wasn’t drunk or high on the day of the crime. And they said a scan of Wiles’ brain days before the murder showed no damage or abnormalities.
Mark Klima’s parents were unable to appear before the parole board in person. Carol Klima recently suffered a stroke and has congestive heart failure. Her husband was at her side.
“We are a small family,” Virginia Klima Petrie, the murdered teen’s aunt, told the parole board in their place. “We don’t make a lot of noise. We live within our means and pay our taxes. We abide by the law. We are working members of our community. And we are the victims of a heinous murder of the only heir to the Klima family name.”
She added, “Enough is enough. … I beg you, let the parents of this murdered child have a moment of closure now before one of them dies. The family asks — no, we demand — justice now. Mark Wiles’ execution needs to be carried out as scheduled. Nothing else is acceptable.”
Execution date nears for murderer of Rootstown teen
Prison officials are moving ahead with plans to execute a Portage County man who murdered a Rootstown teen more than 25 years ago, despite delays on other executions this year after a judge raised questions about the state’s lethal injection protocol.
Mark Wiles will make his case for clemency before the state parole board next week in advance of his scheduled execution on April 18.
“We have not been made aware of any postponement for the Wiles execution,” said JoEllen Smith, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. “We are moving forward with our preparations.”
Whether Wiles makes the trip to the Death House at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility remains in question, however, as the state works to convince a federal judge that its execution procedures are constitutional.
Two executions were postponed after federal district Judge Gregory Frost ruled prison officials hadn’t followed their own written guidelines for executing an inmate late last year.
A hearing on the issues is scheduled for later this month, during which the state could present a revamped execution protocol. If it meets the judge’s approval, he could allow executions to take place as scheduled.
“The governor’s office at some point will approve a new protocol that DRC has been working on,” Attorney General Mike DeWine said. “Once they approve that protocol, we will present that to Judge Frost. … Judge Frost at that point will decide whatever he decides.”
There are executions scheduled in the state through January 2014, with Wiles next in line. He was sentenced to death for the 1985 murder of 15-year-old Mark Klima.
Wiles worked part time at the Klima horse farm in Rootstown several years before the murder but left after the family discovered $200 was missing.
After serving part of a prison sentence for an unrelated burglary, Wiles returned to burglarize the home, and Mark Klima caught him in the act.
Wiles stabbed the teen, a straight-A student who had completed his freshman year of high school, with a kitchen knife 24 times, stole $260 and fled the state.
Five days later, Wiles turned himself into police in Savannah, Ga., and signed a confession.
His clemency hearing is set for 9 a.m. Thursday, March 15.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court has set execution dates for a Cleveland man who killed his wife and brother-in-law and a northeast Ohio man who repeatedly stabbed a teen who interrupted a burglary.The dates announced Tuesday are some of the farthest in the future set in recent years by the court, which schedules when death row inmates die.The court set an April 18, 2012 execution date for 48-year-old Mark Wiles, who killed 15-year-old Mark Klima (KLEE’-muh) at a farmhouse in Portage County in 1985.The court also set a June 6, 2012 execution date for 52-year-old Abdul Awkal (ab-DUHL’ AW’-kuhl) of Cleveland, who killed estranged wife Latife Awkal (la-TEEFF’-eh AW’-kuhl) and brother-in-law Mahmoud Abdul-Aziz (MAKH’-mood ab-DUHL’-ah-ZEEZ’) in 1992, in a room in Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH’-guh) County Domestic Relations Court.Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/art…#ixzz1PGW3mH7J
Execution is set for murderer of Rootstown teen The Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday set an April 18, 2012 date for the execution of a death row inmate convicted in the August 1985 stabbing death of a 15-year-old Rootstown boy.Mark W. Wiles, 48, who has spent 25 years on Ohio’s death row, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection for the Aug. 7, 1985, murder of Mark Klima, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections website.Wiles had worked as a farmhand at the Klima family horse farm, Shakespeare Acres, three years prior to the murder. He was suspected of stealing money from the family during that time.After being convicted of an unrelated burglary and spending 18 months in prison, Wiles, then 22, broke into the Klima house looking for money. Mark Klima surprised him and was stabbed 13 times with a kitchen knife, which Wiles left sticking out of the boy’s back.Wiles fled the state with $260 stolen from the Klima residence, and later turned himself in to authorities in Savannah, Ga. He was tried in January 1986 by a panel of judges — Joseph Kainrad, Robert Kent and George Martin — and convicted of murder.Former Portage County Prosecutor John Plough prosecuted the case.The U.S. Supreme Court previously declined to hear Wiles’ appeal. He remains in the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown awaiting execution.A clemency hearing date has not been set, according to the ODRC.http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/5050800
CASE UPDATE: We had some success with the filing to the Court and been granted a Certificate of Appealability, which means we have something to work with going forward to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Thank you all for your Solidarity and Support for Rob. He is so appreciative!
For all those who support Robert Will, its the filing day, I think Rob did not get much sleep that night, I hope that finally justice removes the shit they have in their eyes, and that justice finally recognize his mistakes, that all these years is an innocent in the death row,when he should have to enjoy life. I cross my fingers so that finally he has a right judgment, a man handcuffed to the ground, can not grasp a gun and shot. That consideration be given confessions that were made by the real guilty. that all evidence of his innocence was finally held in consideration. I send all my positive thoughts for Rob. I stand with U.
David Gore and his cousin, Freddie Waterfield, picked up fourteen-year-old Regan Martin and seventeen-year-old Lynn Elliott, who were hitchhiking to the beach on July 26, 1983. Gore and his cousin drove the girls back to his house, took them to his bedroom, handcuffed them each, and then separated them. Gorecut Regan’s clothes off her and sexually assaulted her on three separate occasions. After Gore left Regan, she heard Goretell Lynn that he would kill her if she did not shut up. Gore had told Regan to be quiet or he would kill her too. Gore then put Regan in a closet, where she heard two or three gunshots. When Gore returned, he put Regan in the attic, where she was later rescued by the police. A witness testified that a girl (Lynn) ran naked down the driveway of Gore’s home, and Gore, who was also naked, was chasing her. Gore caught Lynn and threw her to the ground, then dragged her to a tree and shot her twice in the head.
Resentenced to death on December 8, 1992.
Co-defendant information:
Regan Martin testified that she was “pretty sure” that Waterfield left Gore’s house, and she did not see or hear him after the girls arrived at Gore’s house. On July 25, 1984, Waterfield, for his involvement in the murder, was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment on one count of manslaughter.
Born in 1951, in Florida, David Gore resembled the stereotypical Southern redneck, weighing close to 275 pounds, and such a firearms fan that he studied gunsmithing in his free time. He also studied women, but in a different fashion. He lost one job as a gas station attendant after the owner found a peephole Gore had drilled between the men’s and women’s restrooms. Born in 1952, cousin Fred Waterfield was another product of Florida’s Indian River County. He was a high school football star whose bad temper and liking for violent sex made him and David seem like brothers. In 1976, they put their heads together and decided to combine their favorite sports by hunting women.
Their first attempts were embarrasing. Following a female motorist outside Yeehaw Junction, Fredflattened her tires with a rifle , but the intended victim escaped on foot. Later, the cousins followed another woman from Vero Beach to Miami, giving up the pursuit when she parked on a busy street. Their first successful rape took place near Vero Beach, and while the victim notified police, she later dropped the charges to avoid embarrassment in court. By early 1981, Gore was working days with his father as caretaker of a citrus grove, patrolling the streets after dark as an auxiliary sheriff’s deputy. Fred had moved north to Orlando, managing an automotive shop, but he made frequent visits home to Vero Beach. Together they recognized the potential of Gore’s situation, packing a badge by night, killing time in deserted orchards by day, and Fred offered to pay cousin Dave $1,000 for each pretty girl he could find. It was an offer David could not refuse. In February 1981, David found 17-year-old Ying Hua Ling disembarking from a school bus, tricking her into his car with a flash of his badge. Driving her home, Gore“arrested” her mother and handcuffed his captives together, then phoning Waterfield in Orlando before he drove out to the orchard. Killing time while waiting for his cousin, David raped both victims, but Fred was more picky. Rejecting Mrs. Ling as too old, he tied the woman up in such a fashion that she choked herself to death while struggling against her bonds. He then raped and murdered the teenager, slipping David $400 and leaving him to get rid of the corpses alone in an orchard a mile from the Ling residence.
Five months later, on July 15, David made a trip to Round Island Park, looking for a blonde to fill his cousin’s latest order. Spotting a likely candidate in 35-year-old Judith Daley, Gore disabled her car, then played Good Samaritan, offering a lift to the nearest telephone. Once inside his pickup, Gore pulled out a pistol, cuffed his victim, and called cousin Fred on his way to the orchard. Waterfield was happier with this delivery, writing out a check for $1,500 after both men finished with their victim. Two years later,Gore would tell about Judith Daley’s fate, describing how he “fed her to the alligators” in a swamp ten miles west of Interstate Highway 95. A week later, Gore fell under suspicion when a local man reported that a deputy had stopped his teenage daughter on a rural highway, attempting to hold her “for questioning.” Stripped of his badge, Davidwas arrested days later, when officers found himcrouched in the back seat of a woman’s car outside a Vero Beach clinic armed with a pistol, handcuffs, and a police radio scanner. A jury deliberated for thirty minutes before convicting him of armed trespass, and he was sentenced to five years in prison. Turning down psychiatric treatment recommended by the court, he was paroled in March of 1983.
A short time after Gore‘s release, his cousin moved back home to Vero Beach, and they took up where they left off. On May 20, they tried to abduct an Orlando prostitute at gunpoint, but she slipped away and left them empty-handed. The next day, they picked up two 14-year-old hitchhikers — Angelica Lavallee and Barbara Byer — raping both before Gore shot the girls to death. Byer’s body was dismembered, and buried in a shallow grave, while Levallee’s was dumped in a nearby canal.
On July 26, 1983, Vero Beach authorities received an emergency report of a nude man firing shots at a naked girl on a residential street. Surrounding the suspect house, owned by relatives of Gore, officers found a car in the driveway with fresh blood dripping from its trunk. Inside, the body of 17-year-old Lynn Elliott lay dead with a bullet in her skull. Outnumbered by the police, Gore surrendered, directing officers to the attic where a naked 14-year-old girl was tied to the rafters.
As the victim told police, she had been thumbing rides with Lynn Elliott when Gore and another man picked them up, flashing a pistol and driving them to the house, where they were stripped and raped repeatedly in separate rooms.Elliott had managed to free herself, escaping on foot with Gore in pursuit, but she had not been fast enough. Gore’s companion had left in the meantime, and detectives turned to their suspect in to find out who he was.
Gore cracked while in custody, describing crimes committed with his cousin. On January 21, 1985,Fred Waterfield was convicted in the Byer-Levallee murders, receiving two consecutive life terms with a specified minimum stint of 50 years before parole. Gore received the death penalty for his part in the crimes. Both are still currently incarcerated in Florida.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court has refused to stay serial killer David Gore’s execution. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday.
The justices on Monday unanimously rejected several arguments by Gore’s lawyers.
That includes their contention a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision dealing with ineffective counsel applies to his case.
The state justices ruled that opinion appears to apply only to federal rather than state court proceedings.
One of Gore’s lawyers, Martin McClain, says the ruling will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and that other federal court options also are being considered.
Gore is to be executed for murdering a 17-year-old girl in Indian River County nearly 30 years ago. He also is serving life terms for killing five other girls or women.
Letter: Letter writer misrepresents position on Gore‘s execution
In her March 24 letter, Diane DuBose could’ve made points about David Gore and the death penalty without misquoting and blatantly distorting several points in my March 18 letter.
I stated, “Although I’m against the death penalty, the David Gore case has made a mockery of the system.” Now, please pay attention, Ms. Dubose: Since Florida has the death penalty, Gore should’ve been executed a long time ago, whether I favor the death penalty or not. His living all these years made a mockery of the system. Are we clear now?
Hopefully DuBose will be much more responsible and much less emotional with future letters, and not misrepresent other viewpoints.
Mother’s annual tribute to late daughter keeps light on serial killer
Every year, on July 26, Jeanne Elliott places a simple remembrance for her daughter in the Press Journal.
Lynn Elliott died on July 26, 1983.
She was 17.
There’s nothing to indicate how she died. Only longtime residents would know.
She was serial killer David Gore’s final victim.
Beverly Hilton explained in a letter to the editor what the name means to her.
“A memory that has stayed with me since I moved to Vero Beach in 1982 is the murder of 17-year-old Lynn Elliott,” she wrote. “A question that remains in my mind is why her killer, David Gore, is still alive. Exactly what does the death penalty mean?”
That letter to the editor appeared in the Press Journal eight years ago.
Gore, now 56, remains on Florida’s death row at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford.
A former auxiliary deputy with the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office, Gore killed six women between February 1981 and July 1983.
Gore’s cousin, Fred Waterfield, was convicted of manslaughter in Lynn Elliott’s death. Waterfield, also at Raiford, is serving two consecutive life sentences for the murders of two teen girls, Barbara Ann Byer and Angelica LaVallee.
As longtime residents know, details of the gruesome Gore-Waterfield killings are hard to stomach. It’s almost unimaginable that something so heinous happened in the county.
Hilton has written multiple letters through the years — all but one in either late July or early August, coinciding with Jeanne Elliott’s remembrance in the Press Journal — to ask the same questions about Gore. According to our electronic library, she has written eight letters about Gore since 1999.
“It’s kind of one of my causes,” Hilton said Thursday. “I just thought it was terrible. He deprived her, and her family, of the joys of growing up, getting married and having a family. I have a daughter right around that same age, and I think, ‘If that would have been her … ’
“Why do they issue a death penalty? What does that really mean?”
Elliott said she appreciates Hilton’s letters to the editor.
“I thought about calling her several times, but I didn’t know if she would be receptive to that,” Elliott said.
Other members of the community have written similar letters to the editor.
An excerpt from Dr. James Copeland Jr.’s strongly worded letter in 2002:
“If the state doesn’t want to put him to death, then bring him back to Vero Beach for 24 hours and I am sure he will no longer be a problem.”
Contacted Thursday, Copeland, who is now retired, said he has written two letters to the editor — as well as personal letters to the last two governors, Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist — regarding Gore.
“Nothing’s happened,” Copeland said Thursday. “In my opinion, he should have been hung by his you-know-what.”
After Monday’s remembrance appeared in the Press Journal, a reader, Hank Parman, called and encouraged me to write about Gore avoiding his state-ordered execution.
“I’ve always felt bad over what happened,” he said. “That guy is still up there sucking up tax dollars. I thought he was going to be put away by now. And here we are, 27 years later.”
Jeanne Elliott, 67, wants to live long enough to see Gore executed.
“That would be the closure,” she said.
After Gore is executed, she said she will remove the words “Sail On Silver Girl” from the annual remembrance.
When asked what “Sail on Silver Girl” meant, Jeanne Elliott started crying.
It’s a line from the song “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel.
Do a Google search and look up the lyrics to “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
Knowing what happened to Lynn Elliott, the “Sail on Silver Girl” part will tug at your heart.
Russ Lemmon: Aspiring film editor contemplates making documentary on Gore-Waterfield killings
It was one of those moments where you realize just how much time has passed.
When Michael Denninger told me his age (30), I did a quick calculation in my head.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “That means you were 3 years old when the last killing occurred.”
He nodded his head in agreement.
Which, from my perspective, makes what he is contemplating — a feature-length documentary about serial killers David Gore and Fred Waterfield — both fascinating and admirable.
Fascinating because he has no memory of, or any connection to, what happened. Admirable because he wants to undertake a substantial project like this.
Denninger, an aspiring film editor, has been engrossed in research since early August. The timing coincides with the columns I wrote about Jeanne Elliott’s annual memorial for her daughter, Lynn, who was the last victim.
He read “Innocent Prey” — the 1994 book by Bernie Ward — in just two days.
“I couldn’t put it down,” he said. “It’s definitely a page-turner, even 16 years after it was published.”
He also went to the Indian River County Main Library to look at old Press Journal articles from that era. He purchased a DVD of the television program “Crime Stories,” which featured the case.
He’s trying to come up with a new angle to tell the horrific story.
“Serial killers are fascinating to me as a psychology major (at Barry University) … but I can’t think of an angle to come from for the documentary,” he said. “I’m trying to think of something that would be unique and fresh.
“It is just something I’d like to do to honor the memories of the victims of these two monsters, but I can’t figure out how to do it properly. … It keeps bubbling up to the surface of my mind after I push it back down, so maybe I’ll think of some way to approach it eventually.”
As I told Denninger, I’d love to sit in on a brainstorming session. (Note: If you would be interested in participating in such an exercise, I’ll be happy to pass on your name and contact information.)
“You have to have a hook,” said Denninger, a video production specialist at Indian River State College. “You need something that people will talk about.”
Gore’s avoidance of the death penalty being carried out is one possibility.
The impact the killings had on a small community is another.
He’s also interested in the “familial aspect” — about how Waterfield supposedly manipulated his cousin, Gore.
In talking with Denninger, I described the feedback I received after the July 30 and Aug. 6 columns on the killings. I stated the obvious: The fact thatGore is still alive really sticks in the craw of this community.
Shining the light on that judicial travesty would be a winner in these parts, I told him. Whether it would have national appeal is unknown.
Denninger, a New York native, graduated from Sebastian River High School in 1998. He was in the school’s International Baccalaureate program.
The Gore-Waterfield killings meant little to him back then.
“I had heard stories about them in high school,” he said.
It was a movie during that same era — “Pulp Fiction” — that spurred his interest in becoming a film director.
“As soon as I saw that, I knew I wanted to make movies,” he said.
But his project would not resemble “Pulp Fiction” in any way.
“I wouldn’t want to fictionalize it,” he said. “I would want to do real-life interviews. It would have to be a documentary.”
Respecting the families of the victims would be of paramount importance, he said.
It’s just a matter of finding the right angle.
“He’s so meticulous, and he’s so smart,” said his wife, Heather. “Whatever he decides to do, it will be interesting.”
Old building stands as reminder to a painful part of Indian River County’s history
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, Fla. – It’s an ugly reminder of a terrible time in Vero Beach’s history.
The auto repair shop once operated by Fred Waterfield is now an abandoned, crumbing building.
Waterfield is in prison for the rest of his life.
His cousin, David Allan Gore, is awaiting execution on Florida’s Death Row.
It’s here, at the old auto repair shop on Oslo Road near 43rd Avenue, where investigators arrested Waterfield in 1983.
The arrest of Waterfield and Gore ended the cousins’ two-year crime spree which included the rape of seven women and murder of six.
Much has changed since 1983. Oslo Road is now four lanes instead of two. A Publix stands where there used to be woods. And many people who drive by the old building probably don’t know its history.
William Smith remembers that time well. A lifelong resident of Vero Beach, he’d like to see the building demolished.
“They couldn’t find anybody more ready to knock that thing over than I, just for what it stands for,” says Smith. “Why is it even there?”
Several people have offered to tear down the building. It should be demolished soon.
On 04/19/84, Gore filed a Direct Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court, citing the following errors: errors in voir dire, failing to suppress his confession, admission of two prejudicial photographs, juror interruption of defense’s closing argument, as well as other procedural matters. Gore challenged his death sentence on a number of grounds: failing to provide a list of aggravating circumstances prior to trial, error on jury penalty phase instructions, error in restricting closing arguments, and failure to prove the existence of certain aggravating circumstances. On 08/22/85, the FSC affirmed the conviction and imposition of the death penalty.
Gore filed a petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court on 12/18/85 that was denied on 02/24/86.
Gore filed a 3.850 Motion with the Circuit Court on 02/24/88 that was denied on 04/19/88.
Gore filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with the Florida Supreme Court on 04/04/88 and a 3.850 Motion Appeal on 04/22/88, citing numerous issues; however, only one was commented upon by the FSC: ineffective assistance of counsel in failing to present pertinent non-statutory mitigating evidence that his cousin, Waterfield, exerted an influence over Gore that mitigated his participation in the crime. On 08/18/88, the FSC denied the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus and affirmed the Circuit Court’s denial of the 3.850 Motion.
Gore filed a federal Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with the U.S. District Court on 02/14/89 that was granted and his death sentence was vacated.Gore raised seventeen issues, but the most important issue was the failure of the trial court to consider non-statutory mitigating evidence. As a result of this, the USDC held that a fundamental error had occurred.
The State filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals on 11/12/89, and on 05/29/91, the USCA affirmed the decision of the USDC.
The State then filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court on 10/18/91 that was denied on 01/21/92.
On 12/08/92, Gore was resentenced to death. The jury recommended a death sentence by a vote of 12-0.
On 12/15/92, Gore filed a Direct Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court, citing sixteen errors, nine of which were considered by the FSC: denial of challenges for cause in the jury selection process, misleading the jury to believe that parole was possible, improper finding of an aggravating circumstance (prior violent felony conviction), error in jury instructions, unproven aggravating circumstances (avoid arrest, HAC, CCP), admission of improper testimony from a prosecutor, improper admission of a police officer’s testimony, an unqualified judge to rule over a capital sentencing proceeding, and the resentencing violated a constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial. The FSC upheld the death sentence on 07/17/97.
On 07/14/98, Gore filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court that was denied on 10/05/98.
Gore filed a 3.850 Motion with the Circuit Court on 09/30/99 and amended on 01/08/02 and 11/22/02. The motion was denied on 06/14/04.
Gore filed a 3.850 Motion Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on 07/23/04, and on 07/05/07, the FSC affirmed the denial of the motion. A mandate was issued on 09/26/07.
Gore filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with the Florida Supreme Court on 04/28/05 that was denied on 07/05/07. The FSC issued a mandate on 09/26/07.
On 10/02/07, Gore filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus in the USDC Middle District that was transferred to the Southern District on 10/09/07. This petition was denied on 04/11/08.
On 07/07/08, Gore filed a Habeas Appeal in the United States Court of Appeals that was denied on 09/12/08.
On 11/28/07, Gore filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court that was denied on 02/19/08.
On 02/06/09, Gore filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the United States Supreme Court that was denied on 05/18/09
Editorial: The time for David Gore to die for his brutal crimes is long past due
August 9, 2011
David Gore has gamed Florida’s judicial system long enough.
It’s time for the state — and Gov. Rick Scott, in particular — to bring this sordid, tragic tale to an end.
Scott should sign the death warrant for Gore. Then Gore should be executed.
Gore killed six women in Indian River County between February 1981 and July 1983, and buried their bodies in the canal banks near Oslo Road. His victims — four of them teenagers — all were denied a future. In an instant, their families lost a loved one. (In the case of Gore’s first two victims — 17-year-old Ying Ling and her mother, Hisang Ling, 48 — the family lost two loved ones.)
Thankfully, Gore was caught and arrested in 1983, and sentenced to death in 1984. As part of a plea deal, he also was given five consecutive life sentences.
Ponder that for a moment: Gore was sentenced to death in 1984. This is 2011. He has been sitting on death row for 27 years.
Is this what passes for justice in our state?
In January 1989, Gov. Bob Martinez signed a death warrant for Gore. Two weeks later, U.S. District Judge Williams Hodges ordered a stay of execution 48 hours before he was to be put to death.
This was just one of many delays throughout the years that prolonged Gore’s execution.
Gore now has exhausted all of his appeals, according to the state Attorney General’s Office, and his fate is in the hands of Scott, who signed his first death warrant June 30, for the execution of Manuel Valle. Valle is slated to be executed Sept. 1.
The families of Gore’s victims — and countless other people in Indian River County and throughout our region who’ve grieved along with them — are looking to Scott to do the right thing and put David Alan Gore to death.
There never will be closure for the families of Gore’s victims. There can, however, be justice.
The time for Gore to die for his brutal crimes is long past due.
Letters for use in Gore’s clemency hearing due this week
Serial killer David Gore can’t be executed until he receives a clemency hearing.
He’s a day closer to receiving one.
Sentenced to death 28 years ago, Gore — who killed six women in the early 1980s — has beaten the odds at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford. The average length of stay on death row before execution is 12.91 years, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
The State Attorney General’s office recently contacted family and friends of Gore’s victims and asked them to write a letter describing how they have been impacted by the crime.
The letters will be included in the final report given to the Clemency Board, which includes Gov. Rick Scott and Cabinet members.
They were given a Feb. 1 deadline to submit the letters.
Carl and Jeanne Elliott — whose 17-year-old daughter, Lynn, was Gore’s final victim — collaborated on a one-page letter. (They divorced in 1986, three years after Lynn was killed, but they are working together to see that Gore is executed.)
Lisa Burford, one of Lynn’s classmates, also submitted a one-page letter.
She spent the first two paragraphs talking about her friendship with Lynn and the “what-ifs” that will never be answered.
In the third paragraph, Burford, 46, urged members of the Clemency Board to consider what Lynn never got to experience in life.
“I choose to also remind you of how her death impacted HER by sharing what she was never blessed to do, and how guilty I feel that I did,” she wrote. “She never graduated from college, got married, or felt the joy of motherhood. She never had the opportunity to start a career, or two.
“She never had the pleasure of lunching with her mother and sharing that she was getting married, expecting her firstborn, or buying a house. She never had the chance to do the everyday mundane tasks that many of us complain about, because she never had the chance to live!!”
I called Burford on Monday and asked her about the heartfelt letter.
“I’m not a huge proponent of the death penalty,” she said, “but there are situations where there is no other alternative — and this is one of them.”
With Wednesday’s deadline for the victim-impact letters looming, it’s anyone’s guess when the clemency hearing will be held. I tried without success to get anyone in Tallahassee to go on the record regarding a possible timeline.
No one would say if we’re talking days, weeks or months.
“It sounds like this case may well be in the final stages,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. “Typically, clemency hearings are done only close to an execution.”
In a Jan. 17 letter to the State Attorney General’s office, a representative from the Florida Parole Commission indicated the victim-impact letters needed to be received by Feb. 6 to be included in the final report to the governor.
So, the report could be in Scott’s hands as early as next week.
Pete Earley’s new book “The Serial Killer Whisperer” has turned a spotlight of sorts on Gore. The book includes letters written by the serial killer. It was the No. 1 best-seller in nonfiction again last week at the Vero Beach Book Center. (The store reports 70 copies have been sold.)
Burford, who lives in West Palm Beach, said she wants to see the death penalty carried out because Carl and Jeanne Elliott have waited so long for justice.
“Knowing the agony they went through, and knowing how they want the outcome to be, that’s why it’s very important for me,” the former Lisa Pyle said.
Several local residents — including Rick Lane, Beverly Hilton, Charles Searcy and Kim Massung — have written letters urging the governor to sign Gore’s death warrant. Lane says he continues to do it because of the respect he has for Carl Elliott, whom he worked with at the Sheriff’s Office.
Burford and Lynn Elliott met in sixth grade at what is now Gifford Middle School.
“She was from the beach side of Vero, and I was from the country side of Vero,” she said.
They have birthdays just one day apart. (“That’s a big deal when you’re 11,” she said.) She visits Lynn’s grave every year on Lynn’s birthday.
Perhaps this year she’ll have some good news to tell her.
Gov. Rick Scott has signed the warrant for David Alan Gore to be put to death for the 1983 rape and murder of a teenage girl on the Treasure Coast.
Gore’s execution is scheduled for April 12 at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison.
The death-row warrant is the fourth for Scott.
Earlier this year he signed the warrant for Robert Waterhouse, who was out on lifetime parole for second-degree murder in New York when he was convicted of killing of a St. Petersburg woman, Deborah Kammerer, in 1980.
Last year, Scott signed the death warrants for Oba Chandler, convicted of murdering a woman and her two daughters who were vacationing in Tampa from Ohio in 1989, and convicted cop killer Manuel Valle.
Russ Lemmon: Gore’s execution date (April 12) circled on her calendar
Lee Martin is planning to make the 7- to 8-hour drive from her Georgia home to Raiford to witness serial killer David Gore’s execution.
“I’m not going to miss it,” she said. “I want to see that man die.”
On Tuesday, Gov. Rick Scott signed Gore’s death warrant. The execution, by lethal injection, is scheduled for April 12 at the Florida State Prison.
Martin’s daughter, Regan, and Lynn Elliott were abducted by Gore and his cousin, Fred Waterfield, on July 26, 1983. Gore shot and killed Lynn, who was 17. Regan, 14, survived the ordeal.
Gore, now 58, killed six women in the early 1980s.
Lee Martin, 74, said she wants to be at the execution to show support for Jeanne Elliott, the mother of Lynn.
As of Tuesday, Regan Martin said she was undecided whether she would be attending.
“Whatever she decides is all right with me,” Lee Martin said.
Meanwhile, she described herself as “elated” over news about the governor signing Gore’s death warrant.
“I really wish I could have been there to see the look on his face when he was told April 12 was going to be his last day on earth,” Lee Martin said. “I would have given anything to see that look on his face.”
A Delaware death row inmate who has waived his right to all further appeals of his conviction and death sentence has been sentenced to die by lethal injection.
A Superior Court judge set an April 20 execution date for Shannon Johnson during a brief hearing Wednesday. Johnson waived his right to a requirement that the execution be held no sooner than 90 days from the sentencing date.
Johnson was sentenced to death for the 2006 murder of a man whom he found sitting in a car with Johnson’s former girlfriend. He later shot the former girlfriend, but she survived.
After the state Supreme Court upheld his conviction and death sentence, Johnson said he did not want to pursue any further appeals.
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