Feds want more time to weigh death penalty

april 8, 2012 source : http://www.lasvegassun.com

Prosecutors want more time to decide whether to seek the death penalty for a legally dead Mississippi man charged with a kidnapping that resulted in the death of a 12-year-old Las Vegas girl whose body was found in Louisiana.

Thomas Steven Sanders was declared dead in Mississippi in 1994. He surfaced as a suspect in the death of Lexis Roberts, whose body was found in October 2010 in Catahoula Parish, La. The body of her mother, Suellen Roberts, was found the next month in Yavapai County, Ariz.

Sanders is charged with the child’s death in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, La.

Prosecutors have asked for a 30-day extension until Aug. 1 to decide on seeking the death penalty. The motion says defense attorneys agree with the request.

U.S. District Judge Dee Drell has not yet ruled.

Authorities have said in court records that Sanders confessed to killing the mother and daughter. His attorneys, however, have filed motions to prevent that information from being presented at trial. They argue Sanders asked for a lawyer, and questioning should have stopped.

At the request of Drell, U.S. Magistrate James Kirk investigated the confession issue and in March wrote a lengthy recommendation to allow the confession at trial. Kirk’s recommendation contained some of the most graphic details to become public about the killing.

According to the judge’s recommendation and other court documents, Sanders was living at a storage facility in Las Vegas when he met Roberts. A relationship developed and they planned to take her daughter on a trip to Bearizona, a wildlife park in Arizona near the Grand Canyon, for the Labor Day weekend in 2010.

They spent the night in a hotel and played in the swimming pool, court records said. On their way back to Nevada, Sanders pulled over in the desert “ostensibly so Suellen could shoot his .22 rifle” but instead he shot her in the head, Kirk wrote in his March filing, which drew upon the confession documents.

“Sanders then loaded Lexis, who was in hysterics over seeing her mother murdered, into the car and traveled to Louisiana. He took Lexis to a wooded area and shot her in the back of the head and, when she didn’t die, he shot her twice more in the head. When she still didn’t die, he tried to shoot her through the heart. When she still didn’t die, he cut her throat, killing her,” Kirk wrote.

Sanders‘ attorneys have been trying to get the confession thrown out based on the argument that questioning continued after he asked for a lawyer. Kirk disagreed, saying that Sanders only requested a lawyer to discuss certain questions: why he killed the mother and daughter, what he had been doing while in Nevada and whether he had worked for a mattress company.

Authorities in Louisiana and Arizona have said Sanders could face state charges.

Sanders walked away from his family in Mississippi in 1987 and they didn’t hear for him for years. His parents, brother and ex-wife petitioned a Pike County, Miss., court in July 1994 to have him declared dead. Despite the death certificate, Sanders was able to move about easily and undetected even though he was arrested over the years, including for drug paraphernalia and a number of traffic and motor vehicle incidents, all in Tennessee. He was sentenced to two years in jail in Georgia for simple battery.

He’s being held without bond. His trial is scheduled for January.

Ohio death penalty debate continues as executions start up again

april 7, 2012 source : http://www.the-daily-record.com

COLUMBUS — Attorney General Mike DeWine has released the 2011 Capital Crimes Annual Report, the yearly snapshot of Ohio’s Death Row, listing facts and figures about inmates who have been executed and those facing death.

It’s a timely survey, given the continuing debate over Ohio’s administration of the death penalty.

According to the report, 313 death sentences have been issued in Ohio since 1981, a number that includes multiple sentences for some individual inmates.

Of those, the state has executed 46. The first was Wilford Berry on Feb. 19, 1999. The most recent was Reginald Brooks on Nov. 15 of last year.

The average age of executed inmates was 45. Nineteen were black, 27 white, all men, serving an average of more than 16 years on Death Row.

They killed 76 people, including 17 children.

The highest number of executions in recent years was in 2010, when eight inmates received lethal injections. Five more were put to death last year.

Sixteen inmates had their death sentences commuted. Gov. John Kasich has granted clemency twice, for Shawn Hawkins (convicted of a drug-related double murder in Hamilton County in 1989) and Joseph Murphy (convicted of killing an elderly Marion woman in 1987).

Former Govs. Ted Strickland, Bob Taft and Dick Celeste commuted the sentences of five, one and eight Death Row inmates, respectively.

Twenty-two inmates died in prison either of natural causes or suicide before their death sentences being carried out.

Eight were deemed mentally retarded and, thus, not eligible for death sentences. Eight are pending resentencing. And 71 had their sentences blocked by judicial action.

That leaves 154 people on Ohio’s Death Row, most of whom have been relocated from the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown to the Chillicothe Correctional institution, located about 50 miles south of Columbus.

Four of those received death sentences last year. A dozen have dates set for their lethal injections.

Mark Wiles, convicted in the brutal knifing death of a Portage County teen, is next in line on April 18, pending any additional legal challenges.

Green light

The report was released a few days before a federal court ruled Ohio could move ahead with Wiles’ execution.

But Judge Gregory Frost didn’t mince words concerning Ohio and the death penalty.

In a decision last week, he declined a request from legal counsel for Wiles to stop his scheduled execution, opening the door for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to restart lethal injections after several months of delays.

But Frost made it clear prison officials better get it right this time.

He’s understandably skeptical, writing in his decision, “Ohio has time and again failed to follow through on its own execution protocol. The protocol is constitutional as written and executions are lawful, but the problem has been Ohio’s repeated inability to do what it says it will do.”

He added later, “They must recognize the consequences that will ensue if they fail to succeed in conducting a constitutionally sound execution of Wiles. They must recognize what performing a constitutionally sound Wiles execution and then returning to the flawed practices of the past would mean.”

Death penalty-free

Two Democratic state lawmakers continue to call for an end to the death penalty in Ohio, “raising fervent opposition” to Judge Frost’s decision last week,

Reps. Nickie Antonio, from the Cleveland area, and Ted Celeste, from the Columbus area, are sponsors of legislation that would ban the death penalty, replacing it with life in prison without parole.

Last week, they pointed to Connecticut, the 17th state in the country that has ceased putting inmates to death.

“Moving forward with executions is a step backward for Ohio,” Antonio said in a released statement. “Now is the time for Ohio to join policy leaders throughout the country and move to life without parole.”

Celeste added, “Connecticut will soon be the fifth state in the past five years to abolish this barbaric, outdated form of punishment. Public opinion is clearly changing with regard to capital punishment, and I am hopeful that Ohio will soon be able to capitalize on this momentum as well.”

Conn. Ends Death Penalty, But Not For 11 Men On Death Row

april 7 , source : http://www.thedailybeast.com

Can you call it abolition if you’re still executing people? David R. Dow considers Connecticut’s hair-splitting new law, and wonders whether our focus on innocence is to blame.

On the website of The New York Times, there’s an old photo of a man named William Petit standing next to his wife, Jennifer, and their two daughters, Hayley and Michaela, 17 and 11. They look peaceful and content, a portrait of happiness

Dr. Petit is the only one of the four still alive. On Aug. 6, 2007, his wife and daughters were brutally murdered in their Cheshire, Connecticut home. The manner of their shocking deaths helps explain an otherwise bizarre development: The Connecticut legislature is going to abolish the death penalty, but not until the Petit killers are put to death.

In a crime so chilling that even some death-penalty opponents I know reconsidered their opposition, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky entered the Petit house at three in the morning. They beat Dr. Petit unconscious with a baseball bat, tied him up in the basement, and went upstairs. There, Hayes raped Jennifer while Komisarjevsky attacked Michaela. The men strangled Jennifer to death and tied the girls to their beds. Then they set the house on fire.

With his legs still bound, Dr. Petit broke out of the basement and stumbled across the yard.  He screamed to his neighbor for help. Twelve hours later, Hayes and Komisarjevsky were under arrest. Connecticut juries sentenced both men to death.

And now they are the last two men to be sentenced to death in the state, because last week, by a vote of 20 to 16, the Connecticut Senate voted to abolish the death penalty. The bill will now move to the House, where it is certain to pass, before being signed by Gov. Daniel Malloy.

Yet Hayes and Komisarjevsky, along with nine other inmates, remain on Connecticut’s death row, their sentences unaffected by the new law. How can that be? How is it possible for a legislature to decide that the death penalty should be eliminated, but only after we first execute 11 more men?

The morality of the death penalty has nothing to do with error. It is not even about deterrence; and for most people, it is not about cost. It is about belief.

Home Invasion

I believe the answer to that question has to do with two troubling features of the modern anti-death-penalty movement. The first is the excessive reliance on the concept of innocence. The second is the often tepid, tone-deaf response from the abolitionist community to unspeakable crimes like the one that destroyed the Petit family.

The innocence revolution—driven largely by advances in DNA analysis—has been undeniably dramatic. Forty-four states now have innocence projectsdevoted to identifying and helping gain the release of innocent prisoners. Nationwide, nearly three hundred men have walked out of prison exonerated, after DNA proved beyond question we sent the wrong man to jail.

And as these cases began to permeate the public consciousness, death-penalty opponents seized on them as a tactic: None of those 289 exonerated inmates, they said, would have been released if he had been executed. The possibility of error became the central argument in the abolitionist brief.

Measured along one metric, the tactic has paid off: When the most recent abolition becomes official, Connecticut will be the fifth state in the past five years (along with New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Illinois) to have repealed the death penalty.

But that metric does not tell the full story. Connecticut has not actually executed anyone since Michael Ross, who waived his appeals, was put to death almost seven years ago. Before Ross, the state had not executed anyone in more than 30 years.  In Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and New Mexico, there were a combined 26 people on death row when capital punishment was stricken from the books.

In contrast, in the remaining death penalty states, more than three thousand men await execution.

With Connecticut now on the abolition side of the ledger, only 10 of the 33 states with a death penalty have executed someone in the past five years. Meanwhile, Texas alone has executed nearly half the people put to death in America since 2007 (102 out of 232).

read full article

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ALABAMA – Larry Smith. Marshall County Man Set Free; Was Once On Death Row

april, 6  source : http://whnt.com

A Marshall County man was released from jail Friday after serving more than 17 years in prison.  He was even on Alabama’s death row for capital murder.

Larry Randell Smith hugged his mother, Sherry Miller, as soon as he walked out of the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office.  Other friends waited to greet him.

Smith was convicted in August 1996 of the September 1994 robbery and shooting death of his friend, Dennis Harris.

He appealed, and his conviction and death sentence was upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court in 1999.

Smith continued to appeal, and in 2010, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously ruled that he had an ineffective attorney defending him.

On Friday, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit armed robbery in the first degree.

District Attorney Steve Marshall said prosecutors are comfortable with the resolution because the victim’s mother, Diane Maier, believes it is appropriate.

“The mother of the victim, who sat through the original trial as well as the [capital punishment hearing], firmly believed that Larry Smith did not pull the trigger and kill her son,” Marshall said.

“She believed he was involved, but also believes that Larry Smith can help that family determine who else was involved in the murder of her son.  She felt it was very important that that be part of what happened.”

Maier is in poor health and was not present for this court appearance, but affirmed her support for Smith during a phone call with prosecutors Friday morning.

The district attorney said the plea agreement was also due to a lack of evidence.

“This is a murder case that’s almost 20 years old,” said Marshall. “For us to be able to go back and retry it was next to impossible.”

“I think any time you have delay in the prosecution of cases, it is to the disadvantage of the prosecution,” Marshall added.  “It was a significant disadvantage in this case to have the facts presented to us almost 20 years later to have to deal with it.”

Prosecutors said some witnesses do not recall the circumstances of of their trial testimony before, and there are witnesses who have changed their testimony from what they initially told law enforcement.

Marshall said the investigation into the murder of Dennis Harris will continue, and as part of the plea agreement, Larry Smith will be interviewed further by investigators.

“One of the things that was important to [Harris’ mother] is that Mr. Smith be released to be able to cooperate with law enforcement,” Marshall said.

“Mr. Smith’s lawyers have had an investigator working on this case for several years. They have information that otherwise law enforcement did not have available to them previously that they have been willing to provide and are obligated to provide.”

Larry Smith said he is ready to move forward with life after serving 17 years and 5 months in prison, much of it on death row.

“I’m just glad it’s over and I’m ready to go home,” he said.

Smith’s mother said she is ready to fix her son a home-cooked meal for the first time in nearly two decades.

“I’m on top of the world, I thank God for this, for his freedom,” Smith’s mother said.

“It’s been miserable. I can’t say the words of what I’ve been through. It’s been so depressing.

“I knew all these years my son was innocent. Something he did not do.”

Miller said her relationship with the victim’s mother has helped her through it.

“We’ve been good friends through all these years, she’s been wonderful support,” Miller said about Diane Maier.

“She knows that my son was innocent. She never had no doubts. From day one she knew he was innocent.”

Smith and Miller said they hope to soon go camping and fishing together.

LOUISIANA – Todd Wessinger – execution may 9, 2012 STAYED

Update 25 april source : http://www.ktbs.com

BATON ROUGE, La.

A federal judge in Baton Rouge has granted a temporary stay of execution for a man convicted in the 1995 slaying of two workers at a now-closed restaurant.
The Advocate reports Todd Wessinger was scheduled to be executed May 9 but U.S. District Judge James Brady granted the stay while he reviews arguments presented Wednesday by his attorneys, who asked for a permanent stay of the death penalty order.
Brady did not say when he would rule on the request.
Wessinger, a former dishwasher at a now-closed Calendar’s restaurant, was found guilty and sentenced to die by lethal injection for fatally shooting 27-year-old Stephanie Guzzardo and 46-year-old David Breakwell on Nov. 19, 1995.

 

acts from The Supreme court Louisiana

This case arises from the murder of two employees of Calendar’s Restaurant in Baton Rouge on Sunday, November 19, 1995, at approximately 9:30 a.m. The evidence shows that defendant, a former employee at Calendar’s, rode his bicycle tothe restaurant that morning armed with a .380 semi-automatic pistol. Mike Armentor, a bartender at the restaurant, saw defendant just outside of the restaurant, and they exchanged greetings. Immediately after entering the restaurant through a rear door, defendant shot Armentor twice inthe back. Although Armentor sustained severe abdominal injuries, he survived. Defendant then tried to shoot Alvin Ricks, a dishwasher, in the head, but the gun would not fire. As Ricks ran out of the restaurant, defendant attempted to shoot him in the leg, but the gun misfired. As he was running across the street to call 911, Ricks told Willie Grigsby, another employee of the restaurant who escaped the restaurant without being seen by defendant, that he had seen the perpetrator, and the perpetrator was Todd. Ricks also told the 911 operator that the perpetrator was Todd.

Stephanie Guzzardo, the manager on duty that morning, heard the commotion and called 911. Before she could speak to the operator, defendant entered the office, armed with the gun.  After a short exchange with Guzzardo, in which she begged for her life, defendant, after telling her to “shut up,” shot her through the heart. Guzzardo died approximately thirty seconds after being shot. Defendant then removed approximately $7000 from the office. Defendant next found David Breakwell, a cook at the restaurant who had been hiding in a cooler, and shot him as he begged for his life. Defendant then left the restaurant on his bicycle. EMS personnel arrived at the scene shortly there after, and Breakwell died en route to the hospital.

Defendant was eventually arrested and charged with two counts of first degree murder. Testimony adduced at trial established that defendant had asked one of his friends to commit the robbery with him, and that he planned to leave no witnesses to the crime. Several people also testified that they had seen the defendant with large sums of money after the crime. The murderweapon was subsequently discovered, along with a pair of gloves worn during the crime, at an abandoned house across the street from defendant’s residence. One of defendant’s friends testified that defendant had asked him to remove the murder weapon from the abandoned house.
Defendant was convicted of two counts of first degree murder for the deaths of Breakwell and Guzzardo and sentenced to death. The jury found three aggravating circumstances:

(1) that defendant was engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of aggravated burglary orarmed robbery;

(2) that defendant knowingly created a risk of death or great bodily harm to more
than one person; and

(3) the offense was committed in an especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel manner.

read full opinion

Update april 12, 2012  source :http://www.therepublic.com

Attorneys for convicted killer Todd Wessinger, who is scheduled to be executed May 9 for the 1995 slaying of two workers at a now-closed Baton Rouge restaurant, has asked a federal judge to reconsider his recent denial of a new trial or sentencing.

The Advocate reports (http://bit.ly/HDLBlg ) Todd Wessinger’s attorneys also asked that his execution be stayed.

Wessinger’s attorneys want U.S. District Judge James Brady to hold an evidentiary hearing on Wessinger’s federal constitutional claims. The attorneys argued that Brady issued his ruling Feb. 22 without ever holding such a hearing.

Wessinger, a former dishwasher at the restaurant, was found guilty and sentenced to die by lethal injection for fatally shooting 27-year-old Stephanie Guzzardo and 46-year-old David Breakwel on Nov. 19, 1995.

“This Court’s actions throughout these proceedings led Mr. Wessinger to believe that evidentiary hearings would take place,” Wessinger’s current attorneys — Danalynn Recer, of The Gulf Region Advocacy Center in Houston; Soren Gisleson, of New Orleans; and federal public defender Rebecca Hudsmith, of Lafayette — contend in court filings.

Those attorneys electronically filed a motion Tuesday in federal court in Baton Rouge to alter or amend Brady’s judgment. A supporting memorandum was electronically filed Wednesday.

In February, Brady rejected a dozen claims raised by the Wessinger, 44, including allegation that his trial attorneys provided ineffective assistance during jury selection and the guilt and penalty phases of his 1997 trial in Baton Rouge.

East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III said Wednesday he believes the judge’s decision “was sound and based on the facts presented by the record.”

“It seems that the defense is arguing that everyone involved in this case did something wrong, including the defense lawyers, experts and the court — that is everyone but the defendant, who committed a particularly brutal murder,” Moore stated.

“I hope that the execution date will remain intact although I anticipate more filings on behalf of the defendant to upset the carrying out of the jury’s verdict,” he added.

Brady, who described the state’s evidence against Wessinger in the guilt phase as “overwhelming,” said in his ruling that Wessinger faults his attorneys’ penalty phase preparation for not probing further into his childhood and upbringing.

Wessinger contends such an investigation would have led to evidence of a physically and mentally abusive childhood, possible mental defects and an alienation from society that led him to believe he did not belong.

Brady ruled that Wessinger is not attacking the quality or thoroughness of the investigation but “does not like the way his story was spun for the jury.”

“This is a clear factual error inconsistent with the record which must be revisited,” Wessinger’s attorneys argue in their memorandum.

“At penalty phase, trial counsel generally painted a rosy picture of Mr. Wessinger as ‘a caring and present father, a brother who cared for his handicapped sister growing up, and a hard worker from a stable family.’ Because trial counsel had not hired a mitigation specialist nor conducted any independent life history investigation, the presentation was an incomplete and inaccurate view of Mr. Wessinger,” his current attorneys maintain.

“It is not the case, as this court suggests, that trial counsel conducted the investigation and made strategic choices about what to present,” Wessinger’s attorneys add.

Georgia – Daniel Greene – execution – april 19, 2012 7 p.m. CLEMENCY

april 10

Georgia Department of Corrections
Brian Owens, Commissioner

Director of Public Affairs
Joan Heath

Contact: Office of Public Affairs (478) 992-5248

STATE OF GEORGIA

For Immediate Release

Greene Execution Media Advisory

Forsyth – Condemned murderer Daniel Greene is scheduled for execution by lethal injection at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 19, 2012, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. Greene was sentenced to death for the 1991 murder of Bernard Walker.

last meal consisting of fried chicken, french fries, strawberry sundae and a soda.

Media witnesses for the execution are: Greg Bluestein, The Associated Press; Jim Mustian, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer; Joe Kovac, Macon Telegraph; Coreen Savitski, WMGT; and Randall Savage, WMAZ.

There have been 52 men executed in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1973. If executed, Greene will be the 30th inmate put to death by lethal injection. There are presently 96 men and one woman on death row in Georgia.

The Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison is located 45 minutes south of Atlanta off Interstate 75. From Atlanta, take exit 201 (Ga. Hwy. 36), turn left over the bridge and go approximately ¼ mile. The entrance to the prison is on the left. Media covering the execution will be allowed into the prison’s media staging area beginning at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday.

april 2, 2012  source : http://www.gfadp.org

A judge has signed an order scheduling the execution of a former high school football star from Taylor County for the week beginning April 19.
Daniel Greene was sentenced to death for the 1991 killing of 19-year-old Bernard Walker, who was trying to help a convenience store clerk who had been robbed and stabbed by Greene. The clerk survived.
Greene, a 6-foot 5-inch, 350-pound former high school football standout, was tried in Clayton County in 1992 because of pretrial publicity. He was convicted of other crimes in Houston and Macon counties.
After killing Walker, Greene later drove to the home of a Macon County couple who had previously employed him as a farm laborer. Greene burst into their home, got their car keys and then stabbed Willie and Donice Montgomery multiple times. The couple survived.
Greene then drove to another convenience store in Warner Robins and pulled a knife on the store attendant, who gave Greene money from the cash register. Greene stabbed her in the back of the shoulder before fleeing. He was later arrested at a relative’s home and confessed to the crimes in a videotaped interview, saying he needed money for crack cocaine, according to court records.
The Georgia Department of Corrections is soon expected to pick a date and time for Greene’s execution.

Georgia Department of Corrections
Brian Owens, Commissioner

Director of Public Affairs
Joan Heath

Contact: Office of Public Affairs (478) 992-5248

STATE OF GEORGIA

For Immediate Release

Greene Execution Media Advisory

Forsyth – The Taylor County Superior Court has ordered the execution of convicted murderer Daniel Greene. The Court ordered the Department to carry out the execution on a date between April 19, 2012 and April 26, 2012. Commissioner Brian Owens has set the date for April 19, 2012 at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson at 7:00 p.m.

Greene was convicted of the 1991 murder of Bernard Walker. If executed, Greene will be the 30th inmate put to death by lethal injection.

Media interested in a picture of Greene and a listing of his crimes may go to the Department of Corrections website (www.dcor.state.ga.us).

Related articles
No. 11-8738      *** CAPITAL CASE ***
Title:
Daniel Greene, Petitioner
v.
Carl Humphrey, Warden
Docketed: February 10, 2012
Linked with 11A476
Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
  Case Nos.: (09-15723)
  Decision Date: June 28, 2011
  Rehearing Denied: August 22, 2011
~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings  and  Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nov 8 2011 Application (11A476) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from November 20, 2011 to January 19, 2012, submitted to Justice Thomas.
Nov 12 2011 Application (11A476) granted by Justice Thomas extending the time to file until January 19, 2012.
Jan 19 2012 Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due March 12, 2012)
Feb 15 2012 Brief of respondent Carl Humphrey, Warden in opposition filed.
Feb 29 2012 Reply of petitioner Daniel Greene filed. (Distributed)
Mar 1 2012 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of March 16, 2012.
Mar 19 2012 Petition DENIED.
~~Name~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~Address~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~Phone~~~
Attorneys for Petitioner:
Jeffrey L. Ertel Federal Defender Program, Inc. (404) 688-7530
    Counsel of Record 100 Peachtree Street, Suite 1700
Atlanta, GA  30303
jeff_ertel@fd.org
Party name: Daniel Greene
Attorneys for Respondent:
Sabrina D. Graham Assistant Attorney General (404) 656-7659
    Counsel of Record Office of the Attorney General
40 Capitol Square
Atlanta, GA  30334-1300

Ken Richey – Freed death row Briton in plea deal

april 5, 2021  source : the press Association

A Scotsman released from prison four years ago after spending two decades on Ohio’s death row has agreed to a plea deal over accusations that he threatened a judge who prosecuted his original case.

Ken Richey agreed to enter a guilty plea to a felony charge next week and will face no more than three years in prison, said Todd Schroeder, an assistant prosecutor in Putnam County.

Richey pleaded not guilty in January to charges that he left a threatening telephone message for the judge in the north-west Ohio county. Authorities said he called the courthouse on New Year’s Eve from his new home in Tupelo, Mississippi, warning the judge that he was coming to get him.

Richey was on death row for 21 years after being convicted of setting a fire that killed a two-year-old girl in 1986. He denied any involvement and became well-known as he fought for his release.

Following years of appeals, a federal court determined his lawyers mishandled the case, and his conviction was overturned.

County prosecutors initially planned to retry him, but Richey was released in 2008 under a deal that required him to plead no contest to attempted involuntary manslaughter. He also was ordered to stay away from the north-west Ohio county and anyone involved in the case.

Richey, though, carried a lifetime of bitterness over his conviction and could not stay out of trouble once outside of prison.

He returned to Scotland in 2008, but just over a year later, he was accused of breaking into an apartment and beating a man with a metal pipe. Those charges were later dropped when a witness failed to back the man’s story.

Richey returned to the US and was arrested in Minnesota in 2010. He was charged with assault after his 24-year-old son told police his father grew angry, smacked him with a baseball bat and threatened to kill him after the pair had been wrestling.

Prosecutors in Ohio said Richey was still wanted on a warrant in Minnesota.

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Linda Carty – Gran Appeals To UK To Save Her From Execution

april 5 2012  source : http://news.sky.com

watch interview : click here

The British Government has said it is doing all it can the save the life of a British grandmother who has spent 11 years on Death Row in the United States.

Linda Carty, 53, could receive a date for her execution at any moment after her final attempts to secure a new appeal failed.

She would become the first British woman to be executed in 50 years.

She was convicted of killing a young mother in Texas a decade ago but has always said she was framed.

Her lawyers believe she was failed by the American legal system and admit her situation is “desperate”.

Carty spoke to Sky News on Death Row in Texas and told us: “I am 110% innocent. I know I didn’t commit this crime. They took 11 years of my life for something I know I didn’t do.”

She was born on the Caribbean island of St Kitts before its independence from Britain and now wants support from the UK.

“If you don’t then you’re telling me there’s no value to my life and if you do intercede it is saying that every British national, it doesn’t matter whether we were born in the mother country or in the colonies, we matter,” Carty said.

“We are British. I can’t wash off my nationality with soap and water. I am going to always be British.”

Ms Carty said she feels sympathy for the family of victim Joana Rodriguez.

“She was somebody’s child too, somebody’s daughter. For me it’s not only a healing process but its to show the families that the person you’ve been hating all these years did not commit this crime,” she said.

Ms Carty is being represented by the campaign group Reprieve.

Director Clive Stafford-Smith said her best chance of avoiding the death penalty was clemency.

Rick Perry, the longest serving governor in the Texas’ history, has now signed off on 242 executions since December 2000 – the most of any governor ever.

Read Greg Milam’s blog on executions in the US

The Foreign Office said it is putting pressure on the authorities in Texas.

“The Prime Minister and British Government are deeply concerned by the position Ms Carty is in,” it said in a statement.

“We are committed to using all appropriate influence to prevent the execution of any British national.

“We are working closely with Ms Carty’s legal team to ensure their work to secure clemency is supported by appropriate political representations.”

Since her conviction, Ms Carty has been held at the Mountain View unit in Gatesville where all of the women on death row in Texas are held.

She admitted she fears her death sentence.

“I won’t get up and ask the British Government to go out in the public and lobby for me had I known that I am guilty because then it would be an embarrassment not only to myself and my family but also the country that I love.

“So for me when I say I am innocent and that I didn’t commit this crime I mean that.”

:: Meanwhile, the Connecticut Senate has voted to repeal the state’s death penalty, moving it one step closer to becoming the fifth US state in five years to abandon capital punishment. The measure now moves to the House of Representatives.

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Connecticut may be latest state to repeal death penalty

april 5 2012

(CNN) — The Connecticut Senate on Thursday voted to repeal the death penalty, setting the stage for Connecticut to join several states that have recently abolished capital punishment.

In the last five years, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Illinois have repealed the death penalty. California voters will decide the issue in November.

The bill now goes to the House of Representatives, where it is also expected to pass. Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, has vowed to sign the measure into law should it reach his desk, his office said.

“For everyone, it’s a vote of conscience,” said Senate President Donald Williams Jr., a Democrat who says he’s long supported a repeal. “We have a majority of legislators in Connecticut in favor of this so that the energies of our criminal justice system can be focused in a more appropriate manner.”

In 2009, state lawmakers in both houses tried to pass a similar bill, but were ultimately blocked by then-Gov. Jodi Rell, a Republican.

Capital punishment has existed in Connecticut since its colonial days. But the state was forced to review its death penalty laws beginning in 1972 when a Supreme Court decision required greater consistency in its application. A moratorium was then imposed until a 1976 court decision upheld the constitutionality of capital punishment.

Since then, Connecticut juries have handed down 15 death sentences. Of those, only one person has actually been executed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonpartisan group that studies death penalty laws.

Michael Ross, a convicted serial killer, was put to death by lethal injection in 2005 after giving up his appeals.

“It’s not a question of whether it’s morally wrong, it’s just that it isn’t working,” said Richard Dieter, the group’s executive director. “I think when you hear of 15 to 20 years of uncertain appeals, that’s not closure and that’s not justice. It’s a slow, grinding process.”

Eleven people are currently on death row in Connecticut, including Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, who both were sentenced for their roles in the 2007 murders of the Petit family in Cheshire, Connecticut.

The high-profile case drew national attention and sparked conversations about home security and capital punishment. In vetoing the measure to eliminate the death penalty in 2009, Rell cited the Cheshire deaths.

Dr. William Petit, the sole survivor in that attack, has remained a staunch critic of repeal efforts.

“We believe in the death penalty because we believe it is really the only true, just punishment for certain heinous and depraved murders,” Petit told CNN affiliate WFSB.

Advocates of the existing law say capital punishment can act as a criminal deterrent and provides justice for victims.

Opponents say capital punishment is often applied inconsistently, can be discriminatory and has not proven to be an effective deterrent. They also point to instances in which wrongful convictions have been overturned with new investigative methods, including forensic testing.

“Mistakes can be made and you may not know about it until science later exposes them,” said Dieter.

But a recent Quinnipiac poll found that 62% of Connecticut residents think abolishing the death penalty is “a bad idea.”

“No doubt the gruesome Cheshire murders still affect public opinion regarding convicts on death row,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz.

That number jumps to 66% among Connecticut men, and drops to 58% among the state’s women, according to the poll.

The Senate’s proposed law is prospective in nature, meaning that it would not apply to those already sentenced to death.

Texas – TDCJ wants to block release of lethal injection drug info

april 3, 2012 source : http://www.chron.com

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is refusing to disclose the size of its stock of a key pharmaceutical used in executions, saying doing so would endanger its drug makers and suppliers.

The charge comes in a brief filed with the Texas Attorney General’s Office in response to a December query by an British newspaper concerning the contents of state’s death house medicine chest. The agency said releasing such information would provide ammunition for Reprieve, a British anti-death penalty group that successfully has pressured drug makers to stop selling to executioners.

Likening Reprieve’s campaigns to those of violent prison gangs, the brief written by TDCJ Assistant General Counsel Patricia Fleming asserts that releasing information “creates a substantial risk of physical harm to our supplier. … It is not a question of if, but when, Reprieve’s unrestrained harassment will escalate into violence…”

TDCJ is seeking authorization not to answer questions posed in a December public information request by Ed Pilkington, the New York correspondent for The Guardian, a national British newspaper. An attorney general’s response is expected this month.

Pilkington sought to determine how much pentobarbital, one of three drugs used in executions, the death house had in stock. He also asked how the agency met requirements that a second “back up” dose of lethal drugs be available at executions.

“I was very surprised by the language they chose to use, which was pretty inflammatory, really,” Pilkington said. “Obviously, there is an international disagreement over the death penalty. … Usually that discourse is conducted in a civilized manner.”

He called the claim that the prison system’s drug suppliers were in jeopardy, “pretty far-fetched.”

‘Public interest’

Joseph Larsen, a lawyer for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, said Pilkington’s questions go to the “heart of how effectively TDCJ performs its official functions.”

“The whole idea behind the Texas Public Information Act is that the governmental bodies do not get to control the information that underlies political discussion,” he said. “Specifically, the governmental body does not even get to ask why a requestor wants certain information. How then can a governmental body base its argument for withholding on what use it anticipates will be made of the information if released?”

In a 2008 case, the Attorney General’s Office sided with TDCJ in denying Forbes magazine the names of companies that supplied execution drugs, noting that “releasing the names of the companies would place the employees of those companies in imminent threat of physical danger.”

Drug’s maker pressed

An appeals court rejected that ruling the following year.

Pentobarbital was added to the state’s lethal cocktail in May 2011, replacing sodium thiopental after that drug’s maker stopped production, in part because of Reprieve’s anti-drug agitation.

Reprieve followed by directing international pressure on Lundbeck, pentobarbital’s Danish maker, obtaining a July 2011 agreement that the company no longer would sell to prisons in death penalty states. The production plant later was sold, but the new owner abided by the agreement.

Reprieve also targeted a pharmaceutical company that had supplied sodium thiopental to Arizona. On its website, Reprieve posted photos of the supplier’s office along with its tax returns and the name, phone number and address of its owner.