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COLORADO -Judge to rule if death penalty case against Montour will be postponed

february 27, 2014 (Denverpost)

Less than a week before opening arguments are scheduled to begin in the death penalty case against an inmate who beat a corrections officer to death, prosecutors are asking the judge to eliminate several defense witnesses or postpone the trial.

More than 11 years after Edward Montour killed 23-year-old Eric Autobee, jury selection in his second trial began on Jan. 6. During jury selection, defense attorneys filed a motion asking the judge to hear new evidence they say proves Montour was wrongfully convicted in 1998 of killing his 11-week-old daughter, Taylor.

On Thursday, Douglas County District Court Judge Richard Caschette will hear arguments about Montour’s 1998 conviction, whether more than a dozen defense witnesses will be allowed to speak at trial and if the trial will be postponed.

Opening arguments are scheduled to begin on Tuesday.

Montour was serving a life sentence for her death when he beat Autobee to death in the kitchen of the Limon Correctional Facility in 2002. He plead not guilty by reason of insanity in August.

But defense attorneys filed a motion on Feb. 2, arguing that Taylor’s death was an accident, not a homicide. Montour repeatedly told authorities in 1997 that he dropped Taylor — who defense attorneys now say had an undiagnosed bone disease — as he stood up from a rocking chair.

On Tuesday, almost 17 years after Taylor’s death, the El Paso County Coroner amended the manner of death on Taylor’s death certificate from homicide to unknown. Based on the amended death certificate, defense attorneys have asked the judge to drop the death penalty against Montour.

Prosecutors filed a motion on Wednesday, asking the court to eliminate some of the defense witnesses connected to arguments about Montour’s 1998 conviction because of untimely notice, incomplete endorsements and a delay in providing the prosecution with reports. If the judge allows the witnesses to speak at trial, prosecutors are asking him to postpone the trial “for the months needed” to evaluate and respond to the experts they say the defense has been “secretly cultivating for many months.”

According to the prosecution’s motion, defense attorneys have repeatedly violated court orders without punishment by filing motions and introducing witnesses well beyond deadlines set by the judge. Repeated violations created “an intended and significant tactical disadvantage,” prosecutors argued.

Defense attorneys filed a response to the motion Thursday morning, objecting to both of the prosecution’s requests.

According to defense attorneys, prosecutors have been on notice since late 2012 that defense attorneys were investigating and would likely challenge Montour’s prior conviction.

Postponing the trial would make the jury biased and prevent Montour from receiving a fair trial, defense attorneys argue. The jury selection process would likely have to be redone.

A total of 3,500 jury summons were sent out before jury selection started in January.

Eric Autobee’s father, Bob, will be at the hearing on Thursday. Bob Autobee, who originally supported seeking the death penalty against Montour, has forgiven his son’s killer in recent years.

In past months he has become a public opponent of the death penalty.

On Wednesday, Caschette ruled that the Autobee family may not ask a jury to spare Montour the death penalty if he his convicted. He may, however, tell the jury about Montour’s character.

FLORIDA – Opening statements begin in death penalty case resentencing – Richard Michael Cooper

february 26, 2014 (tampabay)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Man has witnessed all of Florida’s executions in the past 25 years

february 26, 2014

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — John Koch has a plastic container of manila envelopes that he sorts through rarely.

Each envelope contains hand-written notes, usually a script, and a piece of audio that is mostly cassette tapes.

“Now I’m putting them on CDs, I’m getting smart now,” said Kock.

The envelopes are dated with name written on them. The names represent every Florida inmate who’s received the death penalty in almost the last 25 years, some of whom have been the subject of Oscar-winning films.

“I saw Aileen Wuornos go,” he said.

Others like Allen Lee Davis of Jacksonville become known for a lavish request.

“His last meal was a large lobster tail, fried potatoes, half a pound of shrimp. This man was a large man,” Koch said.

Koch’s also documented a notorious murderer who went down in state history.

“I watched also the first woman to be executed in the state of Florida,” he said “That was Buenoano.”

Koch landed his front row seat at the hands of a policy within the Florida Department of Corrections. It allows news reporters to serve as witnesses during an execution.

“They give you two pencils and they give you a notebook to write on,” Koch said.

Koch is a Florida native who has been on the radio in the Live Oak area since the mid-1970s. He’s as much as an institution as the Dixie Grille where he likes to grab breakfast from time to time.

Koch began witnessing executions after one of Ted Bundy’s victims was found near Suwanee River State Park.

“I was there the day Robert Leonard, then Sheriff Robert Leonard, brought out the little girl’s body,” he said. “And I broke the story.”

About a decade later when Bundy was set to be electrocuted in 1989 Koch made sure he saw the story through. “And I started fighting on my end to get in there.”

He says he vividly remembers what happened when Bundy walked into the room.

“He looked over at the chair and you could see him give up,” Koch said. “That moment, that moment, he realized he ain’t going nowhere. It’s over.”

Koch says he also realized no one had ever regularly reported on what happens when an inmate is brought in to die. “What was the process? How does it work? What’s going on?”

So, he chose to continue witnessing executions as a way to inform people about a decades-old process that’s largely private and controversial. To this day members of the Catholic Church hold signs outside the Duval County Courthouse to show their opposition to capital punishment.

“Punishment is not the answer. The answer is you get the person to change. And it doesn’t change the horror that’s gone on or the loss that’s gone on,” says a protester outside the courthouse.

Koch though refrains from opinion and tries his best to remove himself from what’s happening in front of him.

“What’s your immediate feeling after watching somebody die? Nothing really,” he said. “Because they would have no feelings for you, none whatsoever.”

Each time he just writes down what he sees.

“I’ve always watched the hands. That always tells me a lot, whether they are nervous, they’re calm,” Koch said. “You can see the communication going back and forth between the team leader and the executioner.

“It’s gory. I hate it. It’s not fun watching people die whether they deserve it or not. I can feel the soul being wrenched early before it’s time. I sense all of that, but I put that aside and I’ve got 30 seconds to tell you a very important story.”

In all Koch has reported on the death of 63 Florida inmates and he doesn’t have plans to stop. He says people tell him to turn what’s inside his manila envelopes into a book.

But for now, he wants to stick to the only job he says that gives him goose bumps.

“Yeah, yeah, see, look at the goose bumps. I still get them and that is the reason I do any of this.”

Oklahoma death row inmates sue over drugs’ secrecy

february 26, 2014

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Two Oklahoma death row inmates scheduled to be executed next month sued state corrections officials Wednesday for details about the drugs that will be used to execute them, including their source.

Under state law, no one may disclose who provides Oklahoma with the three drugs it uses to execute condemned prisoners. Lawyers for Charles Warner and Clayton Lockett fear the men could suffer severe pain if Oklahoma is allowed to maintain a “veil of secrecy.”

“Plaintiffs have no means to determine the purity of the drug which may be used to execute them, and whether that drug is contaminated with either particulate foreign matter or a microbial biohazard that could lead to a severe allergic reaction upon injection,” the lawyers wrote in their state court lawsuit.

Lockett is to be executed March 20 for the 1999 shooting death of a 19-year-old Perry woman. Warner is to be executed on March 27 for the 1997 death of his girlfriend’s 11-month-old daughter. The men seek a restraining order that would halt their executions. A hearing on that will be held Tuesday before District Judge Patricia Parrish in Oklahoma City; clemency hearings set for this week and next week remained on the Parole and Pardon Board’s schedule Wednesday. .

Oklahoma shields its drug suppliers’ identities to protect them from potential reprisal, Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie said Wednesday. He said the agency was aware of the inmates’ lawsuit but declined to comment. Diane Clay, director of communications for Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, said the office had received the petition and is reviewing it.

“We can confirm that Oklahoma is in compliance with the law,” Clay said.

Oklahoma and other states that have the death penalty have been scrambling for substitute drugs for lethal injections after major drugmakers — many based in Europe with longtime opposition to the death penalty — stopped selling to prisons and corrections departments.

Under previous protocol, inmates continuously received a sedative while paralytic drugs actually killed them. As supplies dried up, Oklahoma dropped its requirement that inmates receive a sedative continuously and began to shield what it would disclose.

“Thus, at the same time that defendants are turning to untested and untried execution methods, they are also shielding information about the execution methods from meaningful disclosure or scrutiny,” the lawyers wrote. They also claim the executions should be stopped because the Department of Corrections purportedly changed the protocol without sufficient notice to the public.

Lawyers for the Oklahoma inmates do not challenge the men’s guilt or the use of lethal injection, just the state’s policy of not disclosing how it intends to kill the two.

“If you don’t know what they’re using there’s no way to know if it is cruel and unusual punishment,” Susanna M. Gattoni, one of the lawyers representing Lockett and Warner, said in a telephone interview.

They suggest that a Tulsa compounding pharmacy challenged by lawyers for a Missouri death row inmate who was executed early Wednesday may have supplied Oklahoma with its lethal drugs. The Apothecary Shoppe, in a deal with lawyers for Michael Taylor, agreed not to supply pentobarbital, a sedative, for Taylor’s execution.

They also say a veterinary medicine supplier may have provided the pentobarbital to the state; the drug is also used to euthanize animals.

Warner and Lockett’s lawyers said in their lawsuit that compounding pharmacies are not regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and that, as a result, there is a risk that the two Oklahoma inmates could suffer as they die.

A spokeswoman for The Apothecary Shoppe didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment.

Compounding pharmacies, which custom-mix prescription drugs for doctors and patients, are generally overseen by state boards, although a law adopted last year allows larger compounding pharmacies to register with the FDA and submit to federal inspections.

Gattoni and her colleagues say substandard pentobarbital could leave inmates fully conscious as drugs to paralyze them and stop their heart are administered.

“There will be at most only a few seconds for them to make any physical or verbal sign of distress before they are paralyzed,” they wrote.

“Plaintiffs will experience extreme pain and suffering when the third drug — potassium chloride — is administered to stop their hearts, but their paralysis by vercuronium bromide will mask their suffering from witnesses.”

The lawyers say they believe Oklahoma used compounded pentobarbital as the first drug in a January execution. Michael Wilson’s final words were, “I feel my whole body burning,” and then he didn’t move.

After Death Row in Texas, I’m Fighting to End the Death Penalty – Kerry Max Cook

february 22, 2014

My name is Kerry Max Cook, but for two decades, I was known as “Cook, Execution number 600.” Innocent of the murder and rape I was accused of in 1977, my home became a tiny death row cell in Texas, the state that kills more people than anywhere else in the U.S. by far — including 141 of my fellow inmates before my release in 1999. By then, my only brother had been murdered and my Dad had died of cancer. My Mom died soon after. I was stabbed, raped and routinely abused on death row. My ordeal spanned two generations of the Smith County District Attorney’s office, two wrongful convictions, two reversals of conviction, a walk to the execution chamber, and three capital murder trials. My legal team and I have been unable to find a worse case of prosecutorial misconduct in Texan history.

I avoided a fourth trial only by pleading no contest, while making no admission of guilt. I have never been officially exonerated. Author John Grisham said, “If it were fiction, no one would believe it …”

I am, in fact, innocent. Another man’s DNA was found on the victim’s clothing two months after my release. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals accused Smith County prosecutors of “willful misconduct” in my case. Nonetheless that office remains determined to stop me clearing my name. My lawyers are working to file an application for writ of habeas corpus in coming months, hopefully prompting the appeals court in Austin to officially exonerate me and end my 36-year-old nightmare.

It all began in 1977. I was 20 and working as a bartender when a waitress said the manager wanted to see me. I stepped into a pitch-black room that was usually lit by fluorescent lighting and fumbled for the switch. Suddenly, hands reached out to grab both sides of me. The silver Smith & Wesson handcuffs crashed down on my wrist and I heard the detective’s words, “Kerry Max Cook, you’re under arrest for the capital murder of Linda Edwards” — a name I didn’t even recognize.

At the police station, they used my head as a toilet plunger. I knew the policeman was lying as he rammed my head repeatedly down the bowl filled with dark urine, screamed at me to confess and told me they had found my DNA on the body. I wept for my mother and father, for anyone, to help.

Even though I still bear the mental and physical scars and ongoing indignities of my wrongful conviction and imprisonment, I consider myself lucky. I have a wife and son. I have powerful allies — including Amnesty International, which found me in a dark cell and helped raise awareness of my wrongful conviction in 1991. It literally saved my life. I was so proud to be introduced by Susan Sarandon at Amnesty’s Bringing Human Rights Home concert in Brooklyn February 5 and address the audience as my 13-year-old Kerry Justice Cook looked on. I was proud to honor a powerful, global movement of activists who carry Amnesty’s torch for human rights — including my right to life. That is why I support Amnesty’s abolition work and the efforts by courageous activists on the ground, most urgently in New Hampshire, where a repeal vote in the state House is anticipated early next month.

The death penalty should be abolished across the United States, and everywhere. We do not need any more mistakes. We know that 143 people have served time on US death rows for crimes they were wrongfully convicted of. And imagine this. On appeal, the only question becomes whether the defendant received a fair and impartial trial. So if the evidence is made up, like in my case, you die.

The price of this system is a life. Of course the odds are stacked in your favor if you have access to financial resources, but you won’t be surprised to hear that you don’t meet too many people like that on death row.

One of death row’s other dirty little secrets is that it is a repository for every conceivable mental illness. Its population consists largely of untreated, traumatized children who grew up into broken adults. There are exceptions, of course, but I do not believe that even the guilty on death row are irredeemable. As Rosalind says in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, “Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders.” If my case proves anything, it is that only time can tell if someone is guilty.

No prosecutor should have the power to end another human life. No other living soul should endure what I did. So I am praying now for victory, by Amnesty International USA and all those who are pushing to end this barbaric practice, in New Hampshire, and everywhere. Then, my nightmare will be over.

Click here to read more about Kerry’s fight for justice, and here to read about his work on self-empowerment.

Should we use the death penalty?

february 21, 2014

I was shuffling through one of my many boxes of “stuff” a few days ago (looking for my passport, which I successfully located) when I ran across a bevy of old writings.

Short stories and other creative writing I authored in junior high, poems, position pieces, and those “papers” we all had to do in junior high and high school.

One such handwritten paper was on my opposition to the death penalty. It was written in 1988.

Growing up, I fiercely opposed putting prisoners to death. Re-reading this paper, I was reminded why, at the time, I had such ardent resistance to it. Killing our prisoners, I reasoned, put us in some pretty awful company around the world. The vast majority of countries do not practice the death penalty on its prisoners. And, if we were to lead by example, we shouldn’t either.

In high school and college, I supported the efforts of Amnesty International, writing letters to foreign countries. I did then and still believe in the work that group does to shine a light on international countries that do not share our beliefs in human rights.

Groups like the Innocence Project, too, have put the spotlight directly on our justice system, helping free at least 18 people from Death Row since 1992. People that were wrongly convicted. This, too, back in 1988 was a concern outlined in my paper.

Over the years, though, it has been harder and harder to support a 100 percent, no death penalty stance.

Then, there was Pamela Butler in 1999. The sweet little girl rollerblading her way through the neighborhood, innocently enjoying her childhood when a monster named Keith Nelson took that away.

Nelson was convicted and sentenced to death for her rape and murder. Of course, he still sits on federal Death Row, where he has been since 2002. He’s been awaiting his execution longer than Pamela Butler had on this earth.

There is just something patently wrong with that.

Now, 15 years later, we have an eerily similar case with a girl the same age and in a circumstance that is just too awful to fathom.

Hailey Owens lost her life this week, likely at the hands of another monster, Craig Michael Wood.

In 1988 I couldn’t imagine strapping these two to a chair in our old gas chamber and flipping the switch to initiate the toxic fumes.

After following the Butler story and driving to the church field where she was murdered in 1999, I was so disgusted I think my views even then started to change.

Now with a daughter by my side, and reading the report on Wood and his alleged acts against a little girl, I can’t find my way to letting him live. I just simply cannot.

Much consternation around the death penalty filters from the amount of time it takes (see Nelson) to actually exact the justice.

The hosts of a local radio talk show, “Dana and Parks” on 98.1 KMBZ have coined the phrase, “If we know, you go” when referring to death penalty cases, a nod to some sort of compromise on cases where we do not have iron-clad proof of the killer. Otherwise, in their view, inject them and get it over with.

Anymore, I really don’t care if a Keith Nelson or, if he’s guilty, Craig Michael Wood can be rehabilitated or ever contribute something to society.

I don’t want to sound cold or heartless, but in these types of cases, 2014 John just cannot agree with 1988 John.

The deaths of Pamela Butler and Hailey Owens were just too painful to think otherwise.

 

John Beaudoin is the publisher of the Lee’s Summit Journal. To comment, call 816-282-7001 or e-mail jbeaudoin@lsjournal.com.

Jason Michael Hann has been convicted of killing his 2-month-old son and 10-month old daughter and hiding their bodies in storage units.

february 21, 2014

INDIO, Calif. — A man who has been convicted of killing two of his infant children and hiding their plastic-wrapped bodies in storage units in Arkansas and Arizona was sentenced to death Friday in a California courthouse.

Jason Michael Hann, 39, who is already serving a 30-year sentence for the murder of his 2-month-old son, Jason, received the death penalty for the slaying of his 10-month-old daughter, Montana.

“These kids never had a chance of life,” said Bruce Price, an alternate juror who supported the death penalty decision. “This guy was trying to cover up his crimes as he went along.”

Some jurors initially resisted sending Hann to his death, but they eventually agreed to recommend that he die for his crimes. Riverside Superior Court Judge James Hawkins upheld the death sentence, denying a defense motion to reduce the sentence to life without parole.

Hann did not speak in his own defense. He sat in court, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, showing no signs of emotion.

Montana’s mother, Krissy Lyyn Werntz, was also charged in the killing. Her trial is scheduled to start on March 17.

Hann killed his infant daughter with a blow to head in Desert Hot Springs in 2001. Prosecutors said Hann wrapped her body in duct tape and plastic bags, then hid it in a blue “Tupperware-type” container stashed in a storage unit in Arkansas.

The body was found a year later after Hann stopped making payments on the storage unit. The contents of the unit were auctioned off, and the body was discovered by the new owner.

Hann and Wertz were arrested in 2002 at a motel in Portland, Maine. A day after the arrest, investigators found the body of the second infant, Jason, in a storage unit in Lake Havasu, Ariz. The boy, who had been killed in Vermont in 1999, and was also in a rubber container.

When the couple was arrested in Maine, they had in their custody a new child, a month old boy who also showed signs of abuse, including broken ribs, bleeding under his skin and internal injuries.

After the court hearing Friday, Price said the abused child was more proof that Hann deserved death. If the boy had not been saved, he likely would have suffered the same fate as his siblings, the juror said.

“(Hann) had already committed a crime against someone and he was in the process of doing the same thing,” Price said. “He got what he deserved.”

Innocence: List of Those Freed From Death Row

Last exoneration October 25, 2013 (#143)

Number of cases in which DNA played a substantial factor in establishing innocence: 18
Average number of years between being sentenced to death and exoneration: 10.1 years

NR*
 NAME
 ST
 RACE
 CONVICTED
 EXONERATED
 YEARS BETWEEN
 REASON
 DNA **
1 David Keaton FL B 1971 1973 2 Charges Dismissed
2 Samuel A. Poole NC B 1973 1974 1 Charges Dismissed
3 Wilbert Lee FL B 1963 1975 12 Pardoned
4 Freddie Pitts FL B 1963 1975 12 Pardoned
5 James Creamer GA W 1973 1975 2 Charges Dismissed
6 Christopher Spicer NC B 1973 1975 2 Acquitted
7 Thomas Gladish NM W 1974 1976 2 Charges Dismissed
8 Richard Greer NM W 1974 1976 2 Charges Dismissed
9 Ronald Keine NM W 1974 1976 2 Charges Dismissed
10 Clarence Smith NM W 1974 1976 2 Charges Dismissed
11 Delbert Tibbs FL B 1974 1977 3 Charges Dismissed
12 Earl Charles GA B 1975 1978 3 Charges Dismissed
13 Jonathan Treadway AZ W 1975 1978 3 Acquitted
14 Gary Beeman OH W 1976 1979 3 Acquitted
15 Jerry Banks GA B 1975 1980 5 Charges Dismissed
16 Larry Hicks IN B 1978 1980 2 Acquitted
17 Charles Ray Giddens OK B 1978 1981 3 Charges Dismissed
18 Michael Linder SC W 1979 1981 2 Acquitted
19 Johnny Ross LA B 1975 1981 6 Charges Dismissed
20 Ernest (Shujaa) Graham CA B 1976 1981 5 Acquitted
21 Annibal Jaramillo FL L 1981 1982 1 Charges Dismissed
22 Lawyer Johnson MA B 1971 1982 11 Charges Dismissed
23 Larry Fisher MS W 1984 1985 1 Acquitted
24 Anthony Brown FL B 1983 1986 3 Acquitted
25 Neil Ferber PA W 1982 1986 4 Charges Dismissed
26 Clifford Henry Bowen OK W 1981 1986 5 Charges Dismissed
27 Joseph Green Brown FL B 1974 1987 13 Charges Dismissed
28 Perry Cobb IL B 1979 1987 8 Acquitted
29 Darby (Jesse) Tillis IL B 1979 1987 8 Acquitted
30 Vernon McManus TX W 1977 1987 10 Charges Dismissed
31 Anthony Ray Peek FL B 1978 1987 9 Acquitted
32 Juan Ramos FL L 1983 1987 4 Acquitted
33 Robert Wallace GA B 1980 1987 7 Acquitted
34 Richard Neal Jones OK W 1983 1987 4 Acquitted
35 Willie Brown FL B 1983 1988 5 Charges Dismissed
36 Larry Troy FL B 1983 1988 5 Charges Dismissed
37 Randall Dale Adams TX W 1977 1989 12 Charges Dismissed
38 Robert Cox FL W 1988 1989 1 Charges Dismissed
39 James Richardson FL B 1968 1989 21 Charges Dismissed
40 Clarence Brandley TX B 1981 1990 9 Charges Dismissed
41 John C. Skelton TX W 1983 1990 7 Acquitted
42 Dale Johnston OH W 1984 1990 6 Charges Dismissed
43 Jimmy Lee Mathers AZ W 1987 1990 3 Acquitted
44 Gary Nelson GA B 1980 1991 11 Charges Dismissed
45 Bradley P. Scott FL W 1988 1991 3 Acquitted
46 Charles Smith IN B 1983 1991 8 Acquitted
47 Jay C. Smith PA W 1986 1992 6 Acquitted
48 Kirk Bloodsworth MD W 1984 1993 9 Charges Dismissed Yes
49 Federico M. Macias TX L 1984 1993 9 Charges Dismissed
50 Walter McMillian AL B 1988 1993 5 Charges Dismissed
51 Gregory R. Wilhoit OK W 1987 1993 6 Acquitted
52 James Robison AZ W 1977 1993 16 Acquitted
53 Muneer Deeb TX O 1985 1993 8 Acquitted
54 Andrew Golden FL W 1991 1994 3 Charges Dismissed
55 Adolph Munson OK B 1985 1995 10 Acquitted
56 Robert Charles Cruz AZ L 1981 1995 14 Acquitted
57 Rolando Cruz IL L 1985 1995 10 Acquitted Yes
58 Alejandro Hernandez IL L 1985 1995 10 Charges Dismissed Yes
59 Sabrina Butler MS B 1990 1995 5 Acquitted
60 Joseph Burrows IL W 1989 1996 7 Charges Dismissed
61 Verneal Jimerson IL B 1985 1996 11 Charges Dismissed Yes
62 Dennis Williams IL B 1979 1996 17 Charges Dismissed Yes
63 Roberto Miranda NV L 1982 1996 14 Charges Dismissed
64 Gary Gauger IL W 1993 1996 3 Charges Dismissed
65 Troy Lee Jones CA B 1982 1996 14 Charges Dismissed
66 Carl Lawson IL B 1990 1996 6 Acquitted
67 David Wayne Grannis AZ W 1991 1996 5 Charges Dismissed
68 Ricardo Aldape Guerra TX L 1982 1997 15 Charges Dismissed
69 Benjamin Harris WA B 1985 1997 12 Charges Dismissed
70 Robert Hayes FL B 1991 1997 6 Acquitted
71 Christopher McCrimmon AZ B 1993 1997 4 Acquitted
72 Randal Padgett AL W 1992 1997 5 Acquitted
73 Robert Lee Miller, Jr. OK B 1988 1998 10 Charges Dismissed Yes
74 Curtis Kyles LA B 1984 1998 14 Charges Dismissed
75 Shareef Cousin LA B 1996 1999 3 Charges Dismissed
76 Anthony Porter IL B 1983 1999 16 Charges Dismissed
77 Steven Smith IL B 1985 1999 14 Acquitted
78 Ronald Williamson OK W 1988 1999 11 Charges Dismissed Yes
79 Ronald Jones IL B 1989 1999 10 Charges Dismissed Yes
80 Clarence Dexter, Jr. MO W 1991 1999 8 Charges Dismissed
81 Warren Douglas Manning SC B 1989 1999 10 Acquitted
82 Alfred Rivera NC L 1997 1999 2 Charges Dismissed
83 Steve Manning IL W 1993 2000 7 Charges Dismissed
84 Eric Clemmons MO B 1987 2000 13 Acquitted
85 Joseph Nahume Green FL B 1993 2000 7 Charges Dismissed
86 Earl Washington VA B 1984 2000 16 Pardoned Yes
87 William Nieves PA L 1994 2000 6 Acquitted
88
 Frank Lee Smith – died prior to exoneration FL B 1986 2000 ** 14 Charges Dismissed Yes
89
 Michael Graham LA W 1987 2000 13 Charges Dismissed
90 Albert Burrell LA W 1987 2000 13 Charges Dismissed
91 Oscar Lee Morris CA B 1983 2000 17 Charges Dismissed
92 Peter Limone MA W 1968 2001 33 Charges Dismissed
93 Gary Drinkard AL W 1995 2001 6 Charges Dismissed
94 Joaquin Jose Martinez FL L 1997 2001 4 Acquitted
95 Jeremy Sheets NE W 1997 2001 4 Charges Dismissed
96 Charles Fain ID W 1983 2001 18 Charges Dismissed Yes
97 Juan Roberto Melendez FL L 1984 2002 18 Charges Dismissed
98 Ray Krone AZ W 1992 2002 10 Charges Dismissed Yes
99 Thomas Kimbell, Jr. PA W 1998 2002 4 Acquitted
100 Larry Osborne KY W 1999 2002 3 Charges Dismissed
101 Aaron Patterson IL B 1986 2003 17 Pardoned
102 Madison Hobley IL B 1987 2003 16 Pardoned
103 Leroy Orange IL B 1984 2003 19 Pardoned
104 Stanley Howard IL B 1987 2003 16 Pardoned
105 Rudolph Holton FL B 1986 2003 16 Charges Dismissed
106 Lemuel Prion AZ W 1999 2003 4 Charges Dismissed
107 Wesley Quick AL W 1997 2003 6 Acquitted
108 John Thompson LA B 1985 2003 18 Acquitted
109 Timothy Howard OH B 1976 2003 26 Charges Dismissed
110 Gary Lamar James OH B 1976 2003 26 Charges Dismissed
111 Joseph Amrine MO B 1986 2003 17 Charges Dismissed
112 Nicholas Yarris PA W 1982 2003 21 Charges Dismissed Yes
113 Alan Gell NC W 1998 2004 6 Acquitted
114 Gordon Steidl IL W 1987 2004 17 Charges Dismissed
115 Laurence Adams MA B 1974 2004 30 Charges Dismissed
116 Dan L. Bright LA B 1996 2004 8 Charges Dismissed
117 Ryan Matthews LA B 1999 2004 5 Charges Dismissed Yes
118 Ernest Ray Willis TX W 1987 2004 17 Charges Dismissed
119 Derrick Jamison OH B 1985 2005 20 Charges Dismissed
120 Harold Wilson PA B 1989 2005 16 Acquitted
121 John Ballard FL W 2003 2006 3 Acquitted
122 Curtis McCarty OK W 1986 2007 21 Charges Dismissed Yes
123 Michael McCormick TN W 1987 2007 20 Acquitted
124 Jonathon Hoffman NC B 1995 2007 12 Charges Dismissed
125 Kennedy Brewer MS B 1995 2008 13 Charges Dismissed Yes
126 Glen Chapman NC B 1994 2008 14 Charges Dismissed
127 Levon Jones NC B 1993 2008 15 Charges Dismissed
128 Michael Blair TX O 1994 2008 14 Charges Dismissed Yes
129 Nathson Fields IL B 1986 2009 23 Acquitted
130 Paul House TN W 1986 2009 23 Charges Dismissed
131 Daniel Wade Moore AL W 2002 2009 7 Acquitted
132 Ronald Kitchen IL B 1988 2009 21 Charges Dismissed
133 Herman Lindsey FL B 2006 2009 3 Acquitted
134 Michael Toney TX W 1999 2009 10 Charges Dismissed
135 Yancy Douglas OK B 1995 2009 14 Charges Dismissed
136 Paris Powell OK B 1997 2009 12 Charges Dismissed
137 Robert Springsteen TX W 2001 2009 8 Charges Dismissed
138 Anthony Graves TX B 1994 2010 16 Charges Dismissed
139 Gussie Vann TN W 1994 2011 17 Charges Dismissed
140 Joe D’Ambrosio OH W 1989 2012 23 Charges Dismissed
141 Damon Thibodeaux LA W 1997 2012 15 Charges Dismissed Yes
142 Seth Penalver FL W 1999 2012 13 Acquitted
143 Reginald Griffin MO B 1983 2013 30 Charges Dismissed  

Virginia approves new lethal injection drug

february 21, 2014

Virginia’s Department of Corrections has approved the use of a new drug as part of its lethal injection protocol, amid difficulties carrying out executions.

Midazolam is one of the two drugs used in an Ohio execution that took 24 minutes and led to a lawsuit from the family of the inmate, who allege his prolonged death amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

Used in surgery to calm patients and induce sleepiness, midazolam will serve as an alternative first drug in Virginia’s three-drug protocol, according to the department. It will stand in for pentobarbital or thiopental sodium, drugs that states across the country have found difficult to acquire as manufacturers have started refusing to sell their products for use in executions.

Records show that Virginia’s Department of Corrections purchased several doses last fall of both drugs used in the Ohio execution, midazolam and hydromorphone. Use of the second drug has not yet been approved in the state, nor has the department announced a switch from a three-drug to a two-drug protocol.

“There are no plans to move to the two-drug protocol used in Ohio,” said Lisa E. Kinney, spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections.

Officials in Virginia have told lawmakers that they cannot find reliable supplies of the drugs they need to carry out executions — leading to an aborted attempt in the state legislature this year to use the electric chair as a backup when lethal injection is unavailable.

The state’s supply of all the drugs currently authorized for use in executions will expire in the spring of 2015.

Virginia has executed 110 inmates since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s and is second only to Texas in overall executions. There are currently eight inmates currently on death row in the state.

NEW JERSEY – Exonerated death row survivors spread message to halt death penalty – Kirk Bloodsworth and Shujaa Graham

february 20, 2014

Two men who were on death row before being found to be wrongly accused spoke Thursday night in Newark at the invitation of advocates who would like to abolish the death penalty.

Kirk Bloodsworth and Shujaa Graham, members of Witness to Innocent, shared their experiences at the University of Delaware as part of a series of events supported by a group of local religious leaders and the Delaware Repeal Project.

In the coming days 15 members of Witness to Innocent will attend events at Delaware churches and community hubs, including the Delaware Theatre Company in Wilmington, in an effort to promote Senate Bill 19, which would end the death penalty in the state.

On Saturday, a group of local religious leaders plan to gather to call on state leaders to support the measure during an event at Limestone Presbyterian Church, 3201 Limestone Road, in Wilmington. The public is invited to gather at the church at noon Saturday to speak to members of Witness to Innocent, see a presentation and take part in a roundtable discussion.

Bloodsworth was the first person in the United States to be exonerated by DNA evidence, according to Witness to Innocent, where he serves as director of advocacy. In 1985 he was sentenced to death in Baltimore County, Md., for the murder and rape of a 9-year-old girl. A year later, DNA evidence revealed he was wrongly convicted, according to his profile on the Witness to Innocent website.

Graham was sentenced to death after the 1973 slaying of a prison gaurd in California, according to Witness to Innocent. His conviction was overturned in 1979 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Two years later he was found innocent and released, according to Witness to Innocent’s profile of Graham online.