USA NEWS

Justice for Trayvon Martin National March and Rally, March 26, 2012 4:00 pm !

march 23,

WASHINGTON — President Obama did not mention race even as he addressed it on Friday, instead letting his person and his words say it all: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

Weighing in for the first time on the death of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager shot and killed a month ago in Florida by a neighborhood watch volunteer, Mr. Obama in powerfully personal terms deplored the “tragedy” and, as a parent, expressed sympathy for the boy’s mother and father.

“I can only imagine what these parents are going through. And when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids,” Mr. Obama said. “Every parent in America,” he added, “should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this and that everybody pulls together — federal, state and local — to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.”

While speaking movingly from his perspective as the father of two girls, one a teenager, Mr. Obama notably made no reference to the racial context that has made the killing of Trayvon and the gunman’s claim of self-defense a rallying point for African-Americans. Since Mr. Obama first began campaigning to be “president of all the people,” as his advisers would put it when pressed on racial issues, he has been generally reluctant to talk about race. And after his historic election as the first black president, Mr. Obama learned the hard way about the pitfalls of the chief executive opining on law enforcement matters involving civil rights.

source : New york time  read here.

This is not a case of death row, but a case of injustice and tragedy.

Trayvon Martin was killed.

In the moments before Martin was shot, he was on his cellphone talking to his girlfriend.

“He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man,” the girl told ABC News. “I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run but he said he was not going to run.”

Law enforcement officials in Sanford, Fla., investigating last month’s shooting of an unarmed black teen by self-appointed neighborhood watch leader George Zimmerman say they may have missed a possible racist remark made by Zimmerman to a 911 operator seconds before he shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

read the case, video on : Huffington post

Uptade march, 22  source CNN

Sanford, Florida (CNN) — After a no-confidence vote and demands for his resignation, pressure mounted Thursday on the police chief of the Florida city where unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin was killed.

Sanford city commissioners voted 3-2 Wednesday night in favor of a nonbinding measure of no confidence against Police Chief Bill Lee. It was not immediately clear what impact, if any, that would have.

City Manager Norton Bonaparte said Thursday that he would like an independent review of police action in the wake of the shooting.

NAACP President Ben Jealous, however, was more forthright. Parents, he said, don’t feel their children will be safe with Lee heading the police department.

“He needs to go right now,’ Jealous said.

Meanwhile, the uproar over Martin’s death continued to grow with another rally planned Thursday night at a Sanford church. The Rev. Al Sharpton was slated to lead that rally before news of his mother’s death.

Martin was fatally shot February 26 while walking to the house of his father’s fiancee in Sanford after a trip to a convenience store. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch leader, said he shot the teen in self-defense.

Zimmerman has not been arrested. A police report describes him as a white male; his family says he is Hispanic.

Public outrage over the shooting and police response reverberted well beyond Sanford, a racially mixed Orlando suburb.

Demonstrators crowded New York’s Union Square Wednesday night, in a protest attended by Martin’s parents. Many wore hoodies and carried Skittles, the type of clothing Martin was wearing and the candy he purchased from a convenience store the night he was killed.

CNN videos about Trayvon Martin : watch here

Lawmakers, Advocates Want End To Death Penalty In Md.

march. 20 source : CBS Baltimore

ANNAPOLIS, Md.  — The end of the death penalty in Maryland. That’s what some lawmakers and advocates are hoping to accomplish by the end of this legislative session.

Derek Valcourt explains they’ve got some hurdles to clear first.

They made their case to a House committee Tuesday but it’s a Senate committee that could give them the most resistance. Supporters say they are one vote shy of getting out of a Senate committee to the full floor, where they say they have enough votes in both chambers to pass it.

Erricka Bridgeford says justice for the 2007 murder of her brother won’t come by lethal injection.

“It’s not justice to me to have another dead body in place of my brother’s dead body,” Bridgeford said.

She’s one of several advocates calling on lawmakers to repeal Maryland’s death penalty. She’s joined by the NAACP, which points to the outrage over the September execution of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis as proof that attitudes toward the death penalty are changing.

“It’s a known fact that racism exists. We know that our system is not foolproof, so in that sense of the word, we need to move forward at this time not to have another Troy Davis,” said Gerald Stansbury, NAACP.

Read the full article and video click here

TEXAS – Court Ruling Could Affect Texas Death Row Cases

march, 21   source :http://www.texastribune.org

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 inmate Rob 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.


Arizona Supreme Court approves executions of 2 more death-row inmates

march, 20 source :http://www.therepublic.com

PHOENIX — The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday approved the executions of two more death-row inmates, one for the brutal rape and murder of a Phoenix woman and the other for killing a Tucson college student after robbing him.

Samuel Villegas Lopez, 49, is scheduled to be executed on May 16. Thomas Arnold Kemp, 63, is set for execution on April 26. If both executions are carried out, and if the state can carry out three other executions on its radar screen, Arizona would be on pace to match its busiest year for executions in state history.

The most inmates Arizona has executed in a given year since establishing the death penalty in 1910 was seven inmates in 1999.

Arizona has executed two inmates so far this year — Robert Henry Moormann on Feb. 29 and Robert Charles Towery on March 8. It could schedule three more on top of Lopez’s and Kemp’s executions, putting the state on pace to execute seven men this year.

The state executed four inmates last year.

Lopez was convicted for raping, robbing and stabbing 59-year-old Estafana Holmes to death in her Phoenix apartment on Oct. 29, 1986, after what court records described as a “terrible and prolonged struggle.”

Police later found a half-naked Holmes with three major stab wounds to her head, one on her face, and 23 in her left breast and upper chest. The 5-foot-2-inch, 125-pound woman had been blindfolded and gagged with her own clothing, and her throat had been slit.

Semen found on her body matched Lopez’s after he was arrested in a separate rape less than a week later.

Holmes’ apartment was in complete disarray, and blood was splattered on walls in the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. In a 1993 ruling from the Arizona Supreme Court upholding Lopez’s death sentence, the justices wrote that the state of the apartment and Holmes’ body showed “a terrific struggle for life” and called the killing a “grisly and ultimately fatal nightmare.”

“Obviously, the victim endured great physical and mental suffering over a relatively protracted period of time while she struggled for her life,” they wrote.

Lopez argued to the court that he didn’t deserve the death penalty because he said he didn’t torture Holmes, that none of the wounds he gave her were inflicted solely to cause pain, and that he “simply continued to stab the victim until she died.”

In a later unsuccessful appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Lopez argued that he deserved a sentence of life in prison rather than the death penalty. He said that he had ineffective attorneys who failed to present during trial a psychiatric expert who had hypothesized that Lopez was suffering from “pathological intoxication” at the time of the killing.

Pathological intoxication is considered a rare condition in which a person exhibits sudden and unpredictable behavior shortly after drinking a very small amount of alcohol.

Kemp, the other inmate approved for execution, was sentenced to death for kidnapping 25-year-old Hector Soto Juarez from outside his Tucson apartment on July 11, 1992, and robbing him before taking him into a desert area, forcing him to undress and shooting him twice in the head.

Juarez had just left his apartment to get food when Kemp and Jeffery Logan spotted him. They held him at gunpoint and used his debit card to withdraw $200 before driving him to the Silverbell Mine area near Marana, where Kemp killed Juarez.

The two men then went to Flagstaff, where they kidnapped a married couple traveling from California to Kansas and made them drive to Durango, Colo., where Kemp raped the man in a hotel room. Later, Kemp and Logan forced the couple to drive to Denver, where they escaped. Logan soon after separated from Kemp and called police about Juarez’s murder.

Logan led police to Juarez’s body, and Kemp was arrested.

Kemp has argued that his conviction was unfair because then-prosecutor Kenneth Peasley repeatedly told jurors that Kemp’s homosexuality was behind Juarez’s kidnapping and murder, and that the jury hadn’t been properly vetted for their feelings about gay men.

Kemp addressed the court during his sentencing trial when he was supposed to explain why he didn’t deserve the death penalty. Instead, Kemp said Juarez was in the country illegally and was “beneath my contempt,” and expressed contempt for Juarez, Logan, Peasley and reporters who had written about his case.

“I don’t show any mercy, and I am certainly not here to plead for mercy,” he said. “I spit on the law and all those who serve it.”

___

Arizona – The Supreme Court today, in Martinez v. Ryan

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.

Martinez v Ryan opinions

Larry Matthew Pucket execution scheduled today march 20, 2012 – updates of the last 24 hours

March 20, 2012 Execution of Larry Matthew Puckett
7:00 p.m. News Briefing
Parchman, Miss. – The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) today
conducted the mandated execution of state inmate Larry Matthew Puckett. Inmate Puckett was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. at Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.
MDOC Commissioner Christopher Epps said during a press conference following the execution that the evening marked the close of the Larry Matthew Puckett case. Puckett was sentenced to death in August 1996 for the Petal, Mississippi capital murder of Ms. Rhonda Hatten Griffis.
“The State of Mississippi – Department of Corrections has carried out a court order issued by the state Supreme Court. The role of the MDOC is to see that the order of the court is fulfilled with dignity,” said MDOC Commissioner Chris Epps. “Through the course of nearly 17 years, death row inmate Larry Matthew Puckett was afforded his day in court and in the finality, his conviction was upheld all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The cause of justice has been championed.”
“I ask that you join me in prayer for the family of Rhonda Hatten Griffis. It is our fervent hope that you may now begin the process of healing. Our prayers and thoughts are with you as you continue life’s journey,” said Epps.
Epps concluded his comments by commending Deputy Commissioner of Institutions/Parchman Penitentiary Superintendent Emmitt Sparkman and the entire Mississippi State Penitentiary security staff for their professionalism during the process.

 
 † Larry Matthew Puckett, 35, was put to death by injection and pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m
No,” was the final word from Puckett’s mouth after being asked if he had any final statements.

Epps said Puckett has also requested the opportunity to shower before his execution, but does not want a sedative before the injection.

“I asked him if he wanted one … he said he did not,” Epps said.

read more click here

from Mary Stennett Puckett
We have heard from the Governor and he has declined Matt’s clemency application. We have talked to Matt and he is calm and at peace. He asked that we not worry about him. We prayed that God would free Matt but God has a different definition for free. Matt will finally be free. I told him that he was put on this earth for a purpose and that was to teach us lessons. He asked that we not squander what we had learned and that if we can’t love our neighbor, then we cannot get right with God. We want to thank each and every one of you who joined us in this fight. We appreciate the petition signatures, the prayers and all the encouragement we as a family have received.

4:29 PM

Mississippi governor refuses to stop this evening’s execution

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant has refused to stop the execution scheduled for 6 p.m. tonight of a Mississippi man for the sexual assault and slaying of the wife of his former boss.

3;46 pm source : http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com

Puckett has asked for his remains to be released to his mother by way of Glenwood Funeral Home in Vicksburg.

3.29 pm  source : http://www.therepublic.com

 Puckett spent Tuesday visiting with relatives. He requested a last meal of Macadamia nut pancakes, shrimp and grits, ice cream cake, caramel candy and root beer.

Puckett has a petition before the U.S. Supreme Court to block the execution. Thousands have signed an online petition in support of Puckett, insisting he is innocent.

Puckett’s supporters hope to persuade Gov. Phil Bryant to stop the execution.

Puckett has requested that his body be released to his mother, Mary Puckett.

———————————————————————————————–

2.58 pm  source : http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com

Larry Matthew Puckett, set to be executed this evening, is currently visiting with his family.

Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said in a news conference at Mississippi State Penitentiary that six family members were meeting with Puckett as of 2 p.m.

Puckett, 35, was convicted in 1996 of the October 14, 1995 murder and sexual battery of Rhonda Hatten Griffis in Petal.

Epps said Puckett still maintains his innocence.

“He said there was more to the story,” Epps said.

Currently visiting with Puckett are his mother, Mary Puckett, his father, Larry Ross, two brothers, Edgar Puckett III and Paul Michael Puckett, stepmother Janie Ross and uncle Keith Stennett.

Epps said Puckett is reportedly “somber,” according to MDOC officers stationed outside his cell.

For his last meal, Puckett has requested macadamia nut pancakes with butter and maple syrup, shrimp and grits, an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen, a bag of Werther’s Originals caramel candy and an A&W root beer.

He has requested none of his family nor his attorney witness his execution, scheduled for 6 p.m. by lethal injection.

The victim’s mother and father, Cecil and Nancy Hatten of Hattiesburg, are scheduled to witness the execution.

Lamar County Sheriff Danny Rigel, Forrest County Sheriff Billy McGee and Sunflower County Sheriff James Haywood will witness the execution, along with the Hattiesburg American and three other media outlets.

Epps said more updates would be delivered to media soon.
Read more in tomorrow’s Hattiesburg American or later today at hattiesburgamerican.com.

30 min ago  12:30 pm source : Inmates rights miles apart

From Mary Stennett Puckett
I would like to ask that anyone that calls, emails or otherwise contacts Governor Bryant about Matt’s clemency to please be courteous and respectful. The Governor has a heart wrenching decision to make that will change the lives of many people and being unkind is not something that Matt or I would want his supporters to be. Thank you for all of your support and prayers. We are on the road now going to see Matt and we are praying for strength and mercy. Blessings to all of you…

Toll Free: 1-877-290-9487
601.359.3150
601.359.3741
info@governorbryant.com

update march, 20, 3.20 am  source http://www.wlox.com

watch the new video  click here 

Gov Bryant of Mississippi. Ask him to commute Matthew Puckett’s sentence to Life With Out Parole. He is scheduled to be put to death at 6pm. His phone number is 601-359-3150 His fax is 601-359-3741

march, 19 , 10.05 pm source : http://www.clarionledger.com

Mary Puckett, mother of convicted killer Matt Puckett, talks to the media at a protest against the death penalty. Puckett and others feel the judicial system failed on several levels and wrongly put her son on death row. Puckett is scheduled for execution today.

An anti-death penalty group says the testimony of a controversial forensic dentist helped put Larry Matthew Puckett where he is today: facing death by lethal injection in a matter of hours.

But the state attorney general’s office and others say Puckett will pay with his life for the life he took more than 15 years ago. Puckett, 35, is scheduled to be put to death today a little after 6 p.m. for the 1995 sexual assault and murder of Rhonda Hatten Griffis, 28, a mother of two from Forrest County.

In a rally Monday at the state Capitol , Mississippians Educating for Smart Justice, which opposes the death penalty, asked Gov. Phil Bryant to commute Puckett’s death sentence to life in prison without parole.

The group said it is also making a similar request for William Mitchell, who is scheduled to be put to death Thursday for the 1995 rape and murder of store clerk Patty Milliken, 35, who was killed in Harrison County.

The anti-death penalty group said it has collected more than 5,000 signatures on a petition asking Bryant to commute the sentences.

“The governor and his staff are currently reviewing the facts in these cases and have no further comment at this time,” Bryant’s spokesman, Mick Bullock, said Monday after the anti-death penalty rally.

About 50 people gathered in the first floor rotunda of the state Capitol for the rally.

“We are here to oppose as a whole the death penalty,” said Benjamin Russell of MESJ.

But Jackson resident Ann Pace, whose 22-year-old daughter, Charlotte Murray Pace, was killed by serial killer Derrick Todd Lee in 2002 in Louisiana, said the death penalty isn’t something that is morally wrong.

Pace said if she would have known the rally was taking place she would have been there with her signs in favor of the death penalty when it is judicially used.

“It’s not a good thing, it’s a tough thing you do to protect innocent people,” Pace said of carrying out executions.

Jim Craig, an attorney for death row inmates, said at the rally that Puckett and Mitchell didn’t get fair trials. Craig also criticized one of the state’s expert witness at Puckett’s trial, forensic dentist Michael West. Puckett’s attorneys have filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in hopes of blocking the execution.

read more click here

march 19, source :http://www.wlbt.com

Advocacy group calls for clemency in Puckett execution

watch the video click  here

Update : march 19 ,2012 source : http://www.wtok.com

Group Protests Executions
Jackson, Miss.
A group that opposes the death penalty protested two executions scheduled in Mississippi this week.

Thousands of people have signed an online petition seeking to block the execution of death row inmate, Larry Matthew Puckett.

He is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday at 6 p.m.

Puckett was convicted of sexually assaulting and killing his former boss’ wife when he was 18 years old.

His lawyers petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court last week to block the execution.

A group opposed to capital punishment spoke out Monday at the state capitol.

Mississippians Educating for Smart Justice want Gov. Phil Bryant to grant clemency to Puckett, as well as condemned killer, William Mitchell, who is also scheduled for execution this week.

“Neither of these men, William Mitchell or Matt Puckett, have had a fair trial,” said attorney Jim Craig. “Neither of them have had a real appeal. It’s time to quit hiding behind this fraud and accept the fact that our system is deeply flawed. And these two cases prove it.”

As of Monday, there were nearly 4500 electronic signatures on a petition called ‘Save Matt Puckett: stop an innocent man from being executed.’

click here for read more about case and updates

TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 2012
CERTIORARI DENIED
11-9290 PUCKETT, LARRY M. V. MISSISSIPPI
(11A875)
The application for stay of execution of sentence of death
presented to Justice Scalia and by him referred to the Court is
denied. The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.

Usa Supreme Court, march 14

No. 11A875  
Title:
Larry Matthew Puckett, Applicant
v.
Mississippi
Docketed:  
Linked with 11-9290
Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Mississippi
  Case Nos.: (2012-DR-00278)
~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings  and  Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mar 14 2012 Application (11A875) for a stay of execution of sentence of death, submitted to Justice Scalia.
Mar 16 2012 Response to application from respondent filed.
 
~~Name~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~Address~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~Phone~~~
Attorneys for Petitioner:    
Keir Michael Weyble Cornell Law School (607) 255-3805
  103 Myron Taylor Hall  
  Ithaca, NY  14853  
Party name: Larry Matthew Puckett
Attorneys for Respondent:    
Marvin L. White Jr. Assistant Attorney General (601) 359-3680
  450 High Street  
  P.O. Box 220  
  Jackson, MS  39205  
Party name: Mississippi

Update : Rob will

from freeRob Will (group-friends) (facebook)

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!

DELAWARE- Execution date set for Delaware Inmate – Shannon Johnson

march 14

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.

source : http://www.wdel.com

case click here

TEXAS – Execution dates set for two death row inmates

march 16, 2012

Execution dates were set for two Bexar County death row inmates, including one who was given a reprieve last month days before his scheduled execution, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Anthony Bartee, 55, was scheduled to die on Feb. 28 but was granted a reprieve to allow for additional forensic testing. Bartee’s attorney, David Dow, sent a letter to the court arguing the new May 2 date should not have been set because the DNA testing has not been completed. He said neither he nor his client was told of a hearing to set a new date, the letter said.

Bartee was convicted in the August 1996 robbery-murder of his friend David Cook.

An execution date of Nov. 14 was set for Ramon Hernandez, 40. Hernandez was convicted in the 2002 rape and murder of Rosa Rosado, 37, according to TDCJ.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Execution-dates-set-for-two-death-row-inmates-3413825.php#ixzz1pUUVRTTA

MISSISSIPPI – Death row appeal rejected – Jeffrey Havard

march 13, 2012

Havard

Read his case (his own words) :http://www.mississippi-justice.com/Jeffrey_Havard.html

source :http://www.clarionledger.com

The state Supreme Court has unanimously denied an appeal from death row inmate Jeffrey Havard, moving him one step closer to execution.

Justices last week rejected the 33-year-old inmate’s appeal, writing, “There is no merit to Havard’s claim that newly discovered evidence exists that supports his innocence. This issue is procedurally barred by time.”

On Feb. 21, 2002, 6-month-old Chloe Britt died, and prosecutors say Havard sexually abused and killed her. Havard was convicted of capital murder. He admits accidentally dropping her but denies sexually abusing and killing her.

Chloe’s mother, Rebecca Britt, who is convinced of Havard’s guilt, expressed gratitude Monday. “There wasn’t any doubt in my mind that was going to happen,” she said.

One of Havard’s attorneys on appeal, Graham Carner of Jackson, said they may seek a rehearing. “We’re considering doing it,” he said.

Havard’s case is also before U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett, where Havard is challenging his conviction on constitutional grounds.

The case before Starrett was stayed, pending the final decision by the state Supreme Court.

In looking through the records of the case, Havard’s attorneys on appeal noticed a reference to a videotaped statement by Rebecca Britt.

After repeated requests, they finally obtained the tape and believed her initial statement to authorities differed in tone and substance from the testimony she gave at trial.

In her initial statement, she told authorities Havard “loved Chloe,” that Havard changed her diapers and gave her bottles, and didn’t seem surprised Havard gave her daughter a bath.

But during the trial, she testified Havard never changed Chloe’s diapers and never bathed the child.

Havard’s attorneys allege his trial counsel was ineffective because they failed to use the statement to challenge Rebecca’s credibility.

Justices disagreed, saying Havard failed to explain how the statement would support his defense. “There is no reasonable likelihood that Britt’s testimony, if false, affected the judgment of the jury,” they wrote. “Havard cannot demonstrate how he was prejudiced.”

When Chloe was brought to the emergency room at Natchez Community Hospital, she was blue, and her eyes were fixed and dilated, according to medical reports. A nurse noticed her anus was dilated to the size of a quarter, and law enforcement was contacted.

At trial, pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne, who performed the autopsy, testified the death was a homicide, consistent with shaken baby syndrome, and that an anal contusion was “consistent with penetration of the rectum with an object.”

But Hayne has since acknowledged to Havard’s attorneys the contusion was found in an area easily injured and a rectal thermometer like the one used in the emergency room to check Chloe’s temperature could cause such a contusion but that he did not think it was likely.

Hayne also said he could not exclude that possibility.

Hayne found no anal tearing and said dilated anal sphincters also may be seen on people without significant brain function and that the contusion was not sufficient to determine a sexual assault occurred. A rape kit conducted at the time found no evidence of semen.

At The Clarion-Ledger’s request, world-renowned pathologist Dr. Michael Baden examined Hayne’s autopsy report and photographs and concluded there was no evidence of sexual abuse – or even of a homicide.

The injuries described at autopsy were consistent with “the baby being accidentally dropped and striking her head on the toilet tank as the father described,” Baden said.

The anal abrasion described in the autopsy can be the result of common causes, such as constipation, diarrhea, toilet paper or even rubbing against a diaper, he said.

Justices agreed anal dilation alone does not suggest sexual abuse. “However, as the state points out, Chloe’s dilated anal sphincter was discovered while Chloe was in the emergency room and still alive.”

The high court concluded the defense argument was procedurally barred, and even if it weren’t, “the issue is without merit.”

Jennifer Luttman, 30, of Pisgah, Ala., who dated Havard in 2001, is convinced Havard is innocent. “This is not in his demeanor to do something like this,” she said.

She praised his attentiveness to her son, Ryan, then less than a year old, even getting on the floor and playing.

Since Havard’s conviction, she has decided to pursue a career as a paralegal, she said. “My main reason for studying law is to help him.

my own comment :

rigor mortis—can often cause the anus to dilate after death.

Hayne testified at Havard’s trial that bruises, scratches, and cranial bleeding indicated a case of shaken baby syndrome. 

Rebecca Britt  changes her version of  statement.

if you read the trial, you realize that there are many contradictions