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FLORIDA – Defense: George Zimmerman in police custody

June 3, 2012 Source : http://www.palmbeachpost.com

MIAMI — George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer charged with murder in the killing of Trayvon Martin, surrendered to police Sunday and was booked into jail after having his bail revoked two days earlier.

Zimmerman’s legal team said in a tweet that he was in police custody. Zimmerman’s bail was revoked because the judge said he and his wife lied to the court about their finances so he could obtain a lower bond.

On Sunday afternoon, about 40 minutes before the 2:30 p.m. deadline to surrender, Zimmerman was listed as an inmate on the jail website. He was listed as being held without bail and having $500 in his jail account.

Prosecutors had said Zimmerman and his wife told the judge at a bond hearing in April that they had limited money, even though he had raised about $135,000 through a website. Defense attorneys said the matter was a misunderstanding.

Attorney Mark O’Mara announced earlier Sunday on his website that Zimmerman had arrived in Florida late Saturday evening ahead of his surrender. Zimmerman, who is charged with second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of the 17-year-old Martin, was ordered by a judge Friday to return to jail.

During a bond hearing in April, the couple had indicated they had limited funds. But prosecutors say Zimmerman had raised thousands through a website he had set up for his legal defense.

Zimmerman’s legal team said Sunday that they will ask for a new bond hearing to address those concerns, and that they hope Zimmerman’s voluntary surrender will show he is not a flight risk. Furthermore, the money Zimmerman has raised is in an independent trust and cannot be directly accessed by Zimmerman or his attorneys, according to the press release.

Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to the second-degree murder charge. He maintains he shot Martin in self-defense under Florida’s so-called “stand your ground” law because the teen, who was unarmed, was beating him up after confronting Zimmerman about following him in a gated community outside Orlando.

Zimmerman’s credibility could become an issue at trial, legal experts said, noting the case hinges on jurors believing Zimmerman’s account of what happened the night in February that Martin was killed.

Zimmerman wasn’t charged in the case until more than a month after the shooting. Protests were held across the nation, and the case spurred debate about whether race was a factor in Zimmerman’s actions and in the initial police handling of the case. Martin was black; Zimmerman’s father is white and his mother is from Peru.

Police in Sanford did not immediately arrest Zimmerman, citing the Florida law that gives wide latitude to use deadly force rather than retreat in a fight if people believe they are in danger of being killed or seriously injured.

Zimmerman was arrested 44 days after the killing.

Prosecutors pointed out in their motion that Zimmerman had $135,000 available when the bond hearing was held in April. It had been raised from donations through a website he had set up. They suggested more has been collected since and deposited in a bank account.

Shellie Zimmerman was asked about the website at the hearing, but she said she didn’t know how much money had been raised. Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester set bail at $150,000. The 28-year-old was freed a few days later after posting $15,000 in cash — which is typical.

Prosecutor Bernie De la Rionda complained Friday, “This court was led to believe they didn’t have a single penny. It was misleading and I don’t know what words to use other than it was a blatant lie.” The judge agreed and ordered Zimmerman returned to jail by Sunday afternoon.

The defense countered that Zimmerman and his wife never used the money for anything, which indicated “there was no deceit.”

The judge said he would schedule a hearing after Zimmerman is back in custody so he could explain himself.

Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Trayvon Martin’s parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, said his clients have always said Zimmerman should remain in jail until trial.

___

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MISSISSIPPI – Michael Brawner – Execution – June 12 2012 6.00 p.m EXECUTED 6:18 P.M.

FACTS from Mississippi Court  NO. 2004-DR-00913-SCT

The following facts were taken from this Court’s opinion on direct appeal. In December 1997, Brawner married Barbara Craft, and in March 1998, their daughter, Paige, was born. Brawner and Barbara divorced in March 2001, she was awarded custody of Paige, and they lived with Barbara’s parents, Carl and Jane Craft, at their home in Tate County. Brawner also lived with the Crafts off and on during his marriage to Barbara.
3. At the time of the murders, Brawner was living with his girlfriend June Fillyaw, in an apartment in Southaven. According to Brawner, they were having financial difficulties, and on top of that, he had also been told by Barbara that she did not want him around Paige. He testified that pressure on him was building because nothing was going right.
4. On the day before the murders, Brawner left his apartment in Southaven at 3:00 a.m. and headed toward the Crafts’ house, about an hour away. He testified that he thought he might be able to borrow money from Carl, although in a prior statement he said he had planned to rob Carl. While waiting on the Craft’s front steps from approximately 4:00 a.m. until 7:00 a.m., he took a 7-mm Ruger rifle out of Carl’s truck and emptied the bullets from it, because “he didn’t want to get shot.” A dog started barking, and Brawner hid until Carl went back inside, then ran away, thinking Carl might be getting a gun. He then drove back to his apartment.
5. Around noon the following day, April 25, 2001, Brawner again drove to the Crafts’ house, and knocked on the door, but no one was home. He then put on rubber gloves that he had purchased earlier that day, “took the slats out of the back door,” entered the house, and took a .22 rifle. He then went to Carl’s workplace and asked him if it would be OK to go out to the house to wait for Barbara and Paige so that he could see his daughter, to which Carl agreed.
6. Since Barbara and Paige did not return, Brawner decided to leave, and as he was doing so, Barbara, Paige, and Jane pulled into the drive. After a brief conversation with Jane and Barbara, Brawner became agitated and went to the truck and brought back the rifle that he had taken from the Crafts’ house earlier that day. Just as he told Barbara that she was not going to take Paige away from him, he saw Jane walking toward the bedroom and shot her with the rifle. He said he then shot Barbara as she was coming toward him, and went to where Jane had fallen and “put her out of her misery.” After this, he shot Barbara again and took Paige, who had witnessed the murders, to her bedroom and told her to watch TV. After Brawner determined that Paige would be able to identify him, and in his words, he “was just bent on killing,” he went back into the bedroom and shot his daughter twice, killing her. He then waited in the house until Carl came home from work, and when Carl walked through the door, Brawner shot and killed him.
7. Brawner stole approximately $300 from Carl’s wallet, Jane’s wedding ring, and foodstamps out of Barbara’s purse. He took Windex from the kitchen and attempted to wipe away any fingerprints he may have left. Brawner then returned to his apartment in Southaven, where he gave the stolen wedding ring to Fillyaw, asked her to marry him, and told her that he bought the ring at a pawn shop.

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ARIZONA – Arizona prison system sees high number of deaths

June 2, 2012 Source : http://tucsoncitizen.com

Arizona’s prison system has two death rows.

One is made up of the 126 inmates officially sentenced to death — 123 men at the Eyman state prison in Florence and three women at Perryville. Seven convicted killers from that group have been executed over the last two years.

slideshow Arizona prison inmate deaths

The other death row, the unofficial one, reaches into every prison in Arizona’s sprawling correctional system. No judge or jury condemned anyone in this group to death. They die as victims of prison violence, neglect and mistreatment.

Over the past two years, this death row has claimed the lives of at least 37 inmates, more than five times the number executed from the official death row. Among them are mentally ill prisoners locked in solitary confinement who committed suicide, inmates who overdosed on drugs smuggled into prison, those with untreated medical conditions and inmates murdered by other inmates.

Unlike state executions, these deaths rarely draw much notice. Each receives a terse announcement by the Department of Corrections and then is largely forgotten.

But correctional officers and other staff who work with inmates say many of these deaths are needless and preventable.

Arizona will spend $1.1 billion this year to lock up its 40,000 prisoners.

But there is another cost, one measured not in dollars but in human lives.

Over four days, an Arizona Republic investigation will reveal a prison system that houses inmates under brutal conditions that can foster self-harm, allows deadly drugs to flow in from the outside, leaves inmates to die from treatable medical conditions and fails to protect inmates from prison predators.

Today, The Republic focuses on suicides in the prison system, where there have been at least 19 in the past two years. Arizona’s official prison-suicide rate during that period was 60 percent higher than the national average. But suicides in prison are likely underreported, according to critics.

More than half of the suicides involved inmates in solitary confinement, including some with serious mental illnesses.

MONTANA – Canadian on death row deserves to live: co-accused – Rodney Munro

june 3, 2012 Source :http://www.ctv.ca

A man who was convicted along with Ronald Smith in the murder of two Montana men 30 years ago says his former partner-in-crime saved his life and deserves to live.

Rodney Munro, in an exclusive interview with The Canadian Press, has ended decades of silence and is speaking out in defence of Smith, 54, who sits on death row and whose fate is now in the hands of Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

“I thank God everyday for him,” Munro said about Smith in a telephone interview from his home in a quiet community in Western Canada.

On Aug. 4, 1982, Smith and Munro were hitchhiking in Montana when they caught a ride with Harvey Madman Jr. and Thomas Running Rabbit. Smith and Munro marched the two men into the woods and shot and stabbed them to death.

Both Canadians were charged with murder. Smith pleaded guilty to two charges of deliberate homicide and two charges of aggravated kidnapping in February 1983 and requested the death penalty. He rejected a plea deal offered by prosecutors which would have given him life in prison.

He later changed his mind and asked the District Court to reconsider the death penalty. That led to three decades of legal wrangling which is almost at an end.

Munro accepted the plea bargain and pleaded guilty to aggravated kidnapping. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison but was returned to Canada and released in 1998.

“It’s because of Ron that I’m out and doing as well as I am,” Munro said. “Because of what he said in court, I didn’t get the death penalty. And because of that I had a chance of actually getting out and trying to make something of myself.

“He saved my life.”

The Montana Board of Pardons and Parole has recommended that Smith not be granted clemency, even though he was described as a model prisoner during his 30 years at Montana State Prison at a hearing last month.

There was emotional testimony from both sides. Smith’s friends and family said he is a changed man who has rehabilitated himself. But the families of the victims said he deserves no mercy.

The state attorney downplayed Munro’s role in the killings and said it was Smith alone who should pay the ultimate price.

But Munro, who still speaks with Smith by phone every couple of weeks, said he was equally to blame and feels guilt about the murders.

“When you’re involved in what we were involved in, how can you not feel it? We put ourselves in a spot and two guys ended up dead and I think about it all the time,” he said quietly.

“They don’t want to know (about my role). That just brings up that he’s not the monster.

“I hate to say it this way, but it makes them feel better to think they’re killing a monster other than who he is.”

The two men had been taking 30 to 40 hits of LSD and consuming between 12 and 18 beers a day at the time of the murders.

Munro said he and Smith became friends after hanging out in the same circles and through mutual acquaintances.

“We could have been the Bobbsey twins. We kind of connected with each other and away we went. Our life revolved around booze, drugs and partying, and that’s just not who we are any more.”

Now married, employed and free of drugs and alcohol, Munro said he’s sad about what is happening to Smith.

He is also angry that the Canadian government’s support of Smith has been less than enthusiastic.

But Munro is hopeful that Schweitzer will have the political will to spare his friend’s life.

“Ron is not even close to the man he used to be. The guy has learned his lesson. I think we all have.”

Smith told his clemency hearing that he was “horrendously sorry” for his actions.

“I do understand the pain and suffering I’ve put you through,” he said to the victims’ relatives. “It was never my intent to cause any suffering for anybody. I wish there was some way I could take it back. I can’t.”

Munro wanted to send his own message to the families.

“We are just so sorry that this ever happened. If we could change it, we would, but how do you change the past?” he said.

“I think about it everyday and it’s what keeps me on the straight and narrow, making sure nothing like this will ever happen again.”

 

MISSISSIPPI – Henry Curtis Jackson – Execution – June 5, 2012 at 6.pm EXECUTED 6.13 p.m

FACTS
2. Jackson murdered four children, two of his nieces and two of his nephews, in an attempt to steal money kept in his mother’s safe in her home.On the evening of November 1, 1990,Jackson’s mother, Martha, and four of her older grandchildren went to church. Martha’s daughter, Regina Jackson, stayed home with her two daughters, five-year-old Dominique whom Jackson murdered that night, two-year-old Shunterica whom Jackson murdered, and four other of their nieces and nephews, three-year-old Antonio whom Jackson murdered and twoyear-old Andrew whom Jackson murdered, and eleven-year-old Sarah and one-year-old Andrean who were severely injured during these murders but survived.

3. While Regina and the children were at the house watching television, Jackson parked his car two blocks away, walked to the house, and cut the outside telephone line. He then knocked on the door and was allowed inside. While inside, he picked up the phone and indicated it was not working. Regina headed to a neighbor’s house to place a call to check the phone. Before going very far, Jackson told Sarah to call Regina back. Regina came back in and, followed by her daughter Shunterica, sought Jackson in the kitchen. Jackson told Regina to take Shunterica back into the television room. She did so and upon her return to the kitchen Jackson grabbed her from behind. With one hand around her neck and one around her waist, he walked her down the hall to the boys’ room. He asked for her paycheck. Regina told him she had no money. Jackson then asked for the combination to his mother’s safe. When Regina said she did not know it, he pulled out knives and shoved them into her throat and waist. Regina yelled for eleven-year old Sarah, who came running and jumped on Jackson’s back. The three
struggled, during which Jackson told him that he had to kill them. Sarah begged him to just get the safe and leave.
4. Meanwhile, the smaller children had followed Sarah down the hall, and Jackson called them into the room where they obediently remained. He then took Regina into an adjacent room and tried to open the footlocker where he believed the combination to the safe was kept. Jackson then began stabbing Sarah in the neck, then took Regina and Sarah into the boys’ room where he tried to tie them up. Regina, who had already been stabbed several times, picked up some iron rods that Jackson had brought in from the bathroom, and started hitting him with them. Jackson then went and picked up the baby, one-year old Andrea, and used her as a shield. Regina relinquished the rods and let him tie her up with a belt. He stabbed her again in the neck.While Regina watched, Jackson picked up her daughter, two-year old Shunterica, by the hair, stabbed her, killed her, and laid her on a bed.

5. While Regina and Sarah were struggling to stay alive, Jackson started dragging the safe down the hall which awakened five-year old Dominique. Dominique came down the hall calling for her mother, at which time, as Regina testified, Jackson told Dominique that he loved her,but then stabbed her, killed her and threw her on the floor. After killing Dominique, Jackson
walked over to Regina and again shoved a knife in her neck. Regina then pretended she was dead.
6. Sarah tried to comfort her baby sister, Andrea, and told three-year old Antonio to run for help. Jackson called Antonio back. Regina had fainted by this time and Jackson was trying to wake her up. He then grabbed Sarah again and began stabbing her in the neck. After the knife broke off in her neck, he ran to the kitchen, retrieved another knife, stabbed her again and threw her on a bed. Sarah, too, then pretended she was dead. She heard Antonio yelling for help and saw Jackson kneeling over him. While Sarah did not actually see Jackson stabbing him, she testified that ” I saw his hand moving when he was over him. I didn’t see but I knew he was doing something cause my little brother was hollering.” She likewise did not witness the stabbing of two-year old Andrew, but when she saw him, “[h]e was on the bottom of the bed and his eyes were bulging and his mouth was wide open.” Sarah was able to jump from the bed and escapeout the front door. She hid behind a tree across the street and watched as Jackson came outside, looked around, and went back inside.
7. Upon Jackson’s last view of the room, Regina and Andrea appeared dead, and the four children, five-year-old Dominique, three-year-old Antonio, two-year-old Shunterica and twoyear-old Andrew, were all dead.
8. Shortly after the murders, Angelo Geens, Martha Jackson’s cousin and neighbor, returned to his home at about 8:30 p.m. Sarah ran to him from where she had been hiding and told him that Regina and the others were in the house and that her uncle Jackson had killed them all. Geens carried her into his house and called the police and an ambulance. Deputy Sheriff J.B. Henry and Deputies Tindall, Berdin and Fondren arrived at the scene and discovered the bodies of the four children. Leflore County Coroner James R. Hankins  pronounced the four children dead at the scene. From the house, the bodies of Shunterica,
Dominique, Andrew, and Antonio were sent to the Deputy State Medical Examiner for forensic pathology examinations.

Source :

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF MISSISSIPPI
NO. 98-DR-00708-SCT
HENRY CURTIS JACKSON, JR.
v.
STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

MISSISSIPPI – Miss. court sets execution dates for 2 of 3 men

May 24, 2012 Source : http://www.clarionledger.com

From left: Brawner, Simmons and Jackson

From left: Brawner, Simmons and Jackson / Miss. Dept. of Corrections

Mississippi will not execute three men on three consecutive days in June, after the state Supreme Court set execution dates a week apart for two men and declined to set a date for a third.

Attorney General Jim Hood’s office had asked earlier this month that justices set execution dates for Henry Curtis Jackson Jr., Gary Carl Simmons Jr. and Jan Michael Brawner on June 12, 13 and 14, respectively.

Justice David Chandler, joined by Justices James Kitchens and Leslie King, dissented, citing claims that Brawner’s case, in its early stages, was handled by a law clerk who hadn’t yet passed the bar exam.

“Because the issue of whether a non-lawyers purported representation of Brawner during critical stages of the proceedings never has been addressed by this court and the issue is now clearly before the court, we would allow Brawner to file a successive motion for post-conviction relief on this issue,” Chandler wrote.

  • Brawner, 34, was convicted of the 2001 killings of his 3-year-old daughter, ex-wife and former father-in-law and mother-in-law in Sarah, a Tate County community west of Senatobia.
  • Brawner went to his former in-laws’ home after learning that his former wife planned to stop him from seeing their child, trial testimony showed. He also had no money and contemplated robbing his former in-laws, according to testimony. Brawner admitted to the killings at trial and told a prosecutor he deserved death.
  • Jackson, 47, was convicted of stabbing two nieces and two nephews, ranging in age from 2 years to 5 years, at his mother’s home near Greenwood in 1990. He also was convicted of stabbing his adult sister and another niece, who both survived. Prosecutors said Jackson, 26 at the time, planned to steal his mother’s safe and kill the victims.

On Wednesday, the court set June 5 as the execution date for Jackson on an 8-0 vote. It also set a June 12 execution for Brawner on a 5-3 vote. Meanwhile, it ordered Hood’s office to reply to Simmons’ claims that his original lawyers were ineffective at trial and that he never later had lawyers good enough to point out shortcomings.

Current lawyers argue Simmons should get a chance to be resentenced because they have evidence that Simmons may have post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental illnesses and had suffered from abuse as a child. They’re also seeking a court order allowing access to an expert for a mental evaluation.

  • Simmons, 49, was convicted for shooting and dismembering Jeffrey Wolfe. Wolfe was killed in August 1996 after he went to Simmons’ Pascagoula home to collect on a drug debt, according to court records. Timothy Milano, Simmons’ co-defendant and the person authorities said shot Wolfe, was convicted on the same charges and sentenced to life in prison.
  • Simmons worked as a grocery store butcher when he and Milano were charged with killing Wolfe. Police said the pair kidnapped Wolfe and his female friend and later assaulted the woman and locked her in a box. Police found parts of Wolfe’s dismembered body at Simmons’ house, in the yard and in a nearby bayou.

Simmons and Brawner both said their legal causes suffered in part because of ineffective assistance by Bob Ryan, formerly head of the state office meant to handle post-conviction appeals for people sentenced to death. Five justices, though, said Brawner’s claims have already been litigated and that courts had decided against them.

MISSOURI – Another Canadian on U.S. death row fights to stay alive – ROBERT BOLDEN

June 1, 2012 Source : http://www.theprovince.com

Robert Bolden, a Canadian on death row in the U.S. A lawyer representing a Canadian on death row in Indiana wants Ottawa to advocate to save her client's life. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO

While Alberta-born killer Ronald Smith awaits the outcome of his high-profile bid to avoid execution for a 1982 double-murder in Montana, the U.S. government is engaged in a court battle with another Canadian citizen facing the death penalty in a little-known case in Indiana — ensuring that the controversial issue of capital punishment will be kept alive for years in Canada regardless of Smith’s fate in the coming months.

The case of Robert Bolden — a 48-year-old, Newfoundland-born man convicted of killing a Missouri security guard during a botched bank robbery in St. Louis in 2002 — only recently came to the attention of the Canadian government, partly because Bolden moved to the U.S. as a toddler with a drug-addicted mother who used forged documents to emigrate from Canada.

Bolden’s lawyers have launched an appeal aimed at winning a new trial and overturning his death sentence, largely on the basis that he was “deprived” of what could have been “vital” consular assistance by the Canadian government when he was arrested almost 10 years ago and later in his bid to avoid execution.

“The consulate’s assistance would have been critical to Mr. Bolden’s defence,” states a petition filed on behalf of the Canadian death-row inmate by Jennifer Merrigan, a lawyer with the Kansas City-based Death Penalty Litigation Clinic.

The petition was backed by a detailed affidavit from Gar Pardy, a retired Canadian public servant who headed the consular affairs section at the federal Department of Foreign Affairs from 1995 to 2003, during which time he led several diplomatic missions to prevent Canadians from being executed abroad.

But in a 200-page counter-argument filed last week at the U.S. District Court in Missouri, the U.S. Department of Justice insisted that prosecutors “had every reason to believe that Bolden was a United States citizen” at the time of his arrest, and that defence claims that the death sentence might never have been pursued or secured because of Bolden’s Canadian citizenship are unfounded.

“Bolden alleges that the (U.S.) government deprived him of the ‘unique and pivotal role’ of the Canadian Consulate, violating his due process right and right to a fair trial,” states the Department of Justice submission. “This claim is facially implausible. The ‘unique and pivotal role’ the consulate plays is to inform a foreign national of his rights as a defendant in the United States and explain the differences in the American legal system.”

Bolden “had no need for a ‘cultural bridge’,” the statement contends, “because he was very familiar with our legal system. Bolden had been convicted of three prior felonies and has been arrested numerous times.”

The Department of Justice submission recalled Ley’s “unique qualities, his aspiration to become a police officer, his exceptional gift of helping others, the excruciating pain he suffered after Bolden shot him twice in the head, and the catastrophic impact of his death on his family.”

Bolden was born in Stephenville, Nfld., in June 1963. His mother, identified in court documents as “S.D.” Decker, is described as a heroin-addicted, white prostitute who died in the U.S. in 2001. Bolden’s father was an unidentified black American soldier stationed at the U.S. military’s former Harmon Air Force Base in Stephenville, which was closed in 1966.

Alleged racism directed at Decker because of her biracial child appears to have prompted her move to the U.S. around 1966, according to Merrigan.

Bolden was principally raised by the St. Louis-based family of another U.S. soldier with whom Decker  had a fleeting relationship in Newfoundland.

In an interview with Postmedia News, Merrigan said the option of life imprisonment was never adequately explored in the Bolden case because Canadian officials didn’t get a chance — due to the actions of prosecutors and the oversights of defence lawyers — “to weigh in on whether the U.S. government should pursue the death penalty.”

She added that a thorough investigation of Bolden’s early childhood in Newfoundland by his original defence lawyers would have illuminated deep-rooted social and psychological challenges flowing from his mother’s troubled background — a potentially mitigating factor in death-penalty cases in the U.S.

“The Decker family’s history of interpersonal violence, verbal abuse, mental illness, addiction, and diabetes — none of which was explored by counsel — is the genetic and psychosocial cornerstone of Robert Bolden’s life story,” states the petition to overturn his death sentence.

John Babcock, a spokesman for Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Diane Ablonczy — who oversees consular issues for the Conservative government — confirmed that Bolden is a Canadian citizen and added: “Mr. Bolden was convicted of the very serious charge of murder. Canadian officials are providing Mr. Bolden with consular assistance, and will continue to do so.”

Bolden is being held in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Until October 2007, the Canadian government’s long-standing policy was to automatically seek clemency for Canadians facing execution in foreign countries.

Then, in response to a Postmedia News story about Canadian diplomats lobbying Montana’s governor to commute Smith’s sentence, the Conservative government halted those efforts and declared a new policy of reviewing clemency requests on a “case-by-case” basis — which Prime Minister Stephen Harper said was more in keeping with his government’s tough-on-crime agenda.

The Federal Court of Canada later ruled that the government had acted unlawfully by ending its support for Smith and ordered it to resume clemency efforts.

In December, ahead of Smith’s clemency hearing last month in Montana, the Canadian government sent a letter requesting that Smith be spared execution for “humanitarian reasons.” But opposition critics and Smith’s lawyers panned the letter as a lukewarm expression of the Canadian government’s formal opposition to capital punishment, which was abolished in this country in 1976.

Montana’s parole board has recommended to the state’s governor, Brian Schweitzer, that Smith be denied clemency. But Schweitzer, whose final term as governor automatically ends on Dec. 31 this year, is not likely to be in office by the time an outstanding lawsuit related to Montana’s lethal-injection is resolved early next year, clearing the way for an execution date to be set for Smith.

FLORIDA – George Zimmerman’s Bond Revoked In Trayvon Martin Case

June 1, 2012

A Florida judge on Friday afternoon revoked bond for George Zimmerman, the man charged with second-degree murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, and ordered that he turn himself in within 48 hours.

Prosecutors had asked Seminole County Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. to revoke Zimmerman’s bond because they contend that he was disingenuous at an earlier bond hearing when Zimmerman’s family and attorney claimed that he was cash broke. The motion filed by prosecutors claims that Zimmerman “misrepresented, mislead [sic] and deceived the court.”

During a bond hearing on April 20, Lester set Zimmerman’s bond at $150,000, and days later Zimmerman walked free. It was later revealed that Zimmerman had received upward of $200,000 from supporters, a sum that he did not reveal to the judge or to his own attorneys.

At that April hearing, defense attorney Mark O’Mara questioned Shelly Zimmerman, George Zimmerman’s wife, who said she had no idea how much was in the account.

Prosecutors claimed that Zimmerman and his wife knowingly colluded to hide those funds, collected through a Paypal account attached to a website that Zimmerman launched to raise funds for his defense and thank his supporters.

“This court was led to believe they didn’t have a single penny,” Prosecutor Bernie De la Rionda said at Friday’s hearing. “It was misleading, and I don’t know what words to use other than it was a blatant lie.”

According to the conditions of Zimmerman’s release, he was to be monitored by GPS and surrender his passport.

During Friday’s motion hearing, prosecutors said that Zimmerman also failed to disclose or turn over a second passport in his possession. According to the motion, Zimmerman acquired a second passport in 2004 after filing a claim with the State Department that his original passport was lost or stolen.

But, according to prosecutors, while Zimmerman was in custody at the Seminole County jail on April 17, he had a conversation with his wife in which the couple discussed the second passport. The conversation was recorded by jail officials:

Defendant: Do you know what? I think my passport is in that bag.Shelly Zimmerman: I have one for you in safety deposit box…

Defendant: Ok, you hold on to that.

“It really is important what the judge did, because this whole case — the crux of this case — is about George Zimmerman’s credibility,” Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Martin’s family, told The Huffington Post not long after the judge’s ruling. “The court found that Zimmerman was dishonest, that he lied in court.”

Zimmerman, who was arrested 44 days after the Feb. 26 shooting in Sanford, Florida, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

At Friday’s hearing, prosecutors asked that a list of witnesses’ names and other evidence, which per Florida law would be part of the public record, not be released; defense attorney O’Mara also asked that the records be kept sealed. But a number of news organizations — including national news outlets such as the Associated Press,The New York Times, CNN and CBS News, as well as local agencies like the Orlando Sentinel — have filed a legal motion to ask that the judge allow all such documents to be made public.

The evidence, according to the Sentinel, includes five statements that Zimmerman gave authorities, crime scene photos that show Martin’s body and cellphone records for both men.

De La Rionda said that to make those records public could jeopardize the state’s case against Zimmerman.

“What’s occurring, unfortunately, are cases are being tried in the public sector as opposed to in the courtroom,” De La Rionda told Lester. “We are in a new age with Twitter, Facebook and all these things I’ve never heard of before in my career. Everybody gets to find out intimate details about witnesses. That never occurred before. Witnesses are going to be reluctant to get involved.”

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TEXAS – State Backs DNA Testing for Hank Skinner

June 1, 2012 Source :http://www.texastribune.org

Reversing its decade-long objection to testing that death row inmate Hank Skinner says could prove his innocence, the Texas Attorney General’s office today filed an advisory with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals seeking to test DNA in the case. 

“Upon further consideration, the State believes that the interest of justice would best be served by DNA testing the evidence requested by Skinner and by testing additional items identified by the state,” lawyers for the state wrote in the advisory.

Skinner, now 50, was convicted in 1995 of the strangulation and beating death of his girlfriend Twila Busby and the stabbing deaths of her two adult sons on New Year’s Eve 1993 in Pampa. Skinner maintains he is innocent and was unconscious on the couch at the time of the killings, intoxicated from a mixture of vodka and codeine.

Rob Owen, co-director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Capital Punishment Clinic, said he was pleased the state “finally appears willing to work with us to make that testing a reality.”

The details of the testing, he said, will still need to be arranged to ensure the evidence is properly handled and identified.

“Texans expect accuracy in this death penalty case, and the procedures to be employed must ensure their confidence in the outcome,” he said in an emailed statement. “We look forward to cooperating with the State to achieve this DNA testing as promptly as possible.”

State lawyers have opposed testing in the case, arguing that it could not prove Skinner’s innocence and that it would create an incentive for other guilty inmates to delay justice by seeking DNA testing. Today, though, the state reversed its course and has prepared a joint order to allow the tests.

Since 2000, Skinner has asked the courts to allow testing on crime scene evidence that was not analyzed at his original trial, including a rape kit, biological material from Busby’s fingernails, sweat and hair from a man’s jacket, a bloody towel and knives. Owen told the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals last month that if DNA testing on all the evidence points to an individual who is not Skinner, it could create reasonable doubt about his client’s guilt. 

The advisory comes a month after that hearing before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, in which the judges on the nine-member panel grilled attorneys for the state about their continued resistance to the testing even after a spate of DNA exonerations in Texas. In Texas, at least 45 inmates have been exonerated based on DNA evidence.

“You really ought to be absolutely sure before you strap a person down and kill him,” Judge Michael Keasler said at the May hearing.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, praised the Texas Attorney General’s move on Friday. Legislators last year approved a bill that Ellis wrote amending the state’s post-conviction DNA testing law to allow for such analysis in cases like Skinner’s. Under the measure, inmates can obtain testing even in instances where they had the chance to test the DNA at trial but did not do so and in cases where the DNA was tested previously but new technology allows for more advanced testing.

In Skinner’s case the state had long argued that he should not be allowed to test the DNA evidence because he had the opportunity to do so at his trial but chose not to. He sought testing again after the DNA measure was approved last year.

“Now we will have certainty in the Skinner case because we will have analyzed all the evidence,” Ellis said in a statement. “There should be no lingering questions in capital cases.”

Kentucky changing its execution method

June 1, 2012 Source : http://www.wkyt.com

Executions in Kentucky could resume later this year after a move Thursday by the state’s Justice Cabinet. The death penalty has been on hold for nearly two years because of questions in part over the injection method used to execute inmates.

Dennis Briscoe has waited a long time for justice since Ralph Baze murdered his father and uncle. The convicted killer has lived on death row for nearly two decades. He’s one of several inmates who has exhausted his appeals and challenged the three-drug injection method as cruel and unusual punishment.

Claims that Kentucky’s three-drug cocktail violates the Eighth Amendment are not new. In 2007 the United States Supreme Court ruled the method constitutional. However that was before other states began using a single-drug system some consider more humane because of problems with the ingredients in the three-drug cocktail.

Debate over the competing methods was a critical factor that led a Franklin Circuit judge to temporarily halt executions across the state. Last month that judge ordered the Department of Corrections to consider a change. Now state officials say they will propose a new system by the end of July. “I’m glad to see a proactive move by the Department of Corrections in order to help fix this situation we have with the death penalty currently,” Briscoe said.

If that new system proposed allows for a single-drug execution, the judge in the case has ruled that any claims of cruel and unusual punishment by inmates will be dismissed. “I’m optimistic now that there’s going to be this recent move, this recent change,” Briscoe said, “However, I’m cautious as well because there could be a whole nother line of arguments.”

Today’s developments could lead to a new system as early as late summer.