death row

U.S. Supreme Court rejects appeal of Alabama Death Row inmate convicted in 2007 slaying of parents

 

November 27,2017

Alabama Death Row inmate James Scott Largin

Alabama Death Row inmate James Scott Largin(Alabama Department of Corrections)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it won’t hear the appeal of an Alabama death row inmate who was convicted in the 2007 killings of his parents in Tuscaloosa.

James Scott Largin, 46, earlier this year had appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court a December 2015 ruling by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals upholding his conviction and death sentence.

On Monday the high court, without opinion, refused to review his case.

Largin was sentenced to death by a Tuscaloosa County judge in 2009 for his capital murder conviction in the deaths of his parents, Jimmy, 68, and Peggy, 56.

“Peggy and Jimmy Largin were at home on the night of March 15, 2007, when they were shot multiple times with a .22 caliber rifle and their bodies were thrown down the stairs leading to the cellar in their home. Autopsy results showed that both victims died as the result of close-range gunshot wounds to the head,” according to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruling.

“This Court has independently weighed the aggravating and the mitigating circumstances as required by (Alabama law) … We are convinced, as was the circuit court, that death was the appropriate sentence for Largin’s capital crimes,” the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals stated in its order.

He was arrested after University of Alabama police found his parents’ car near the campus a few days after the murders, the Associated Press reported at the time.

A prosecutor at Largin’s original trial said Largin showed no remorse over the murders. The judge agreed with the jury’s recommendation that Largin be given the death penalty. His defense attorneys argued for life in prison without parole.

Death row inmate back in Newton County

Nov. 28, 2017

VINGTON, Ga. – Convicted murderer and death row inmate Rodney Renia Young was back in a Newton County courtroom Monday morning as his attorneys work to get him a new trial.

Young, 49, was convicted and sentenced to death by a Newton County jury in 2012 for the 2008 beating and stabbing death of 28-year-old Gary Lamar Jones in Jones’ Covington home.

According to media reports at the time, Young became enraged when Jones’ mother, Doris, moved to Georgia from New Jersey to live with her son after ending a seven-year relationship. She returned to the home on Benedict Drive around 11:30 p.m. March 30, 2008 and found her son bound to a chair, stabbed in the neck and bludgeoned with a hammer.

Young was arrested April 3 in Bridgeton, New Jersey by an agent from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations and an investigator from Newton County Sheriff’s Office.

During the hearing, attorneys from the Office of the Georgia Capital Defender and the American Civil Liberties Union questioned proportionality in the Georgia Supreme Court’s review of death penalty cases.

They also argued before Alcovy Judicial Circuit Judge Samuel Ozburn that Young’s constitutional rights had been violated during his 2012 trial because he wasn’t present at bench conferences that occurred during the trial and questioned the constitutionality of Georgia’s requirement that death penalty defendants prove intellectual disability beyond a reasonable doubt.

The attorneys said Young’s wearing of a “stun belt” during his trial also deprived him of the opportunity to participate in his defense and receive a fair trial.

Testifying about the “stun belt,” Young said wearing the belt made him feel uncomfortable and that he was unable to communicate with his attorneys.

“They told me I would get shocked if I moved,” he said.

Under cross-examination by Alcovy Judicial Circuit District Attorney Layla Zon, Young said he was never shocked during his trial. He also said he was never told he could not talk to his lawyers, nor did he ever communicate his discomfort with the belt during his trial.

Young was led into the courtroom at the Newton County Justice Center wearing his white Georgia Department of Corrections prison uniform and a blue jacket with a large white DOC on the back. His hands and feet were bound by handcuffs, leg shackles and a belly chain.

His lead attorney, Josh Moore of the Office of the Georgia Capital Defender, asked Ozburn to allow one of Young’s hands to be released from the handcuffs so he could take notes.

Ozburn gave Young’s attorneys 45 days to provide the law on the issue of proportionality review and the DA’s office an additional 45 days.

“It will be a few months at least before he rules on that motion and likely as well on the motion for a new trial,” Zon said. “If he grants the motion for a new trial we will have to try the case again.

“If he denies the motion then he (Young) can appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.”

Layton lawmaker wants deeper look at Utah death penalty costs

November  27,  2017

A legislator is proposing an in-depth study of death penalty costs so the state will have unambiguous answers at hand as Utah’s capital punishment debate continues.

A bill filed by Rep. Stephen Handy, R-Layton, for the 2018 legislative session would order research of all costs associated with the prosecution and execution of a death penalty case and an expected 25 years of appeals. The data would be compared with the costs of a capital murder convict serving life without parole.

A legislative analyst in 2012 estimated a death penalty case cost $1.6 million more. But Handy said the study was very limited and did not consider all costs. Categories for the larger proposed study would include county and state prosecution and defense costs, plus court, jail and prison expenses.

The new study “doesn’t have to be pro or con death penalty,” Handy said, “but we hear in the Legislature that we should be making data-driven decisions. Let’s find out what it really costs, so when a (death penalty) bill comes up, we will be informed.”

Handy’s proposal comes as Wasatch Front counties continue to wrestle with the costs of death row appeals, such as Doug Lovell’s ongoing battle against his sentence in the 1985 murder of Joyce Yost of South Ogden.

Lovell’s court-appointed attorney for his current death penalty appeal squabbled with the Weber County Attorney’s Office over his payments, leading him to drop from the case last summer, according to previous coverage. Sam Newton was paid $71,500 by the county to represent Lovell in 2016, according to county financial records.

Newton’s replacement, Colleen Coebergh, has a contract for $100,000 to maintain Lovell’s indigent defense.

As capital appeals continue, “There is a very high emotional cost to the families and a cost to the taxpayers,” said Dave Wilson, a Weber County deputy attorney who helps coordinate public defender contracts.

The 2012 legislative study said more than two-thirds of a death penalty case’s costs are borne by the county government.

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics says 33 states and the federal Bureau of Prisons held 2,881 inmates under death sentence at the end of 2015. Utah has nine inmates on death row today, said Maria Peterson, Utah Department of Corrections spokeswoman.

Handy said he realizes his request for a cost study may run against the grain in the capital punishment-friendly Utah Legislature, which reinstated the firing squad option for executions in 2015. Lawmakers also have rejected periodic bills that aimed to drop the death penalty.

Most law enforcement officials support the death penalty, Handy said, recalling an occasion when Weber County Sheriff Terry Thompson “came at me like a house afire” during a public discussion of capital punishment.

“People who are such ardent supporters, they don’t care” about the costs, Handy said.

“But I look at it also as trying to adhere to mainstream conservatism,” Handy said. “This may not be the best use of hard-earned taxpayer dollars, with the costs of education and social services growing exponentially.”

The death penalty “is certainly no deterrent,” Handy argued. He said he wonders “what purpose it has, except for payback or from a vengeance standpoint now.”

In an interview, Thompson challenged Handy’s views.

“Nobody says, ‘Gosh, I love the death penalty,’” Thompson said. “But it is important for the most egregious offenses, when lives are taken, changed forever, and people have to live without their loved ones.”

Consider Charles Manson, the sheriff said.

California prosecutors secured a death sentence against Manson, but after the California Supreme Court overturned the death penalty, the cult leader lived on in prison for the murders he masterminded in 1969.

As a “moral, ethical” matter, “It would have been appropriate to have the death penalty as part of the pending punishment,” Thompson said.

“The costs associated with following through with the death penalty, in my opinion, are irrelevant,” the sheriff said.

Utah’s abbreviated review in 2012 pegged the direct cost of an execution at the Utah State Prison at $195,000. And, it said, “For every offender executed before age 76, there is a projected $28,000 savings per year.”

“There need to be some teeth in our laws for them to be effective,” Thompson said. “I truly believe the death penalty does deter, in many cases that we’ll never know.”

Utah’s Death Row

Michael Anthony Archuleta, 55, re-sentenced Dec. 21, 1989

Douglas Stewart Carter, 62, re-sentenced Jan. 27, 1992

Taberon Dave Honie, 42, sentenced May 20, 1999

Troy Michael Kell, 49, sentenced Aug. 8, 1996

Ronald Watson Lafferty, 76, re-sentenced April 23, 1996

Floyd Eugene Maestas, 60, sentenced Feb. 1, 2008

Ralph Leroy Menzies, 59, sentenced March 23, 1988

Von Lester Taylor, 53, sentenced May 24, 1991

Douglas Lovell, 59, re-sentenced May 4, 2015

Source: Utah Department of Corrections

16 last meal requests from Nevada’s death-row inmates

Convicted murderer Scott Dozier is scheduled to be executed Nov. 14, 2017, the first execution in Nevada in 11 years.  (STAYED)

He will be able to request a last meal, provided it can be prepared at Ely State Prison; no outside food can be brought in.

Below are the last meal requests of prisoners executed in the state of Nevada since July 1954.

Steak
Leroy Linden, executed July 15, 1954 for the murder of Clarence Dodd.

Salami, roquefort cheese and anchovies
Frank Pedrini, executed July 15, 1954 for the murder of Clarence Dodd.

Steak and chocolate ice cream
Earl Lewis Steward, executed Feb. 24, 1960 for the murder of Thomas Jessen.

Chicken, vegetable soup, cherry pie, cheese and coffee
Thayne Archibald, executed Aug. 21, 1961 for the murder of Albert Waters.

Filet mignon, tossed salad with Thousand Island dressing, asparagus, baked potato with sour cream and an unspecified dessert
Jesse Bishop, executed Oct. 22, 1979 for the 1977 murder of David Ballard.

Jumbo shrimp, french fries, tossed salad with French dressing, clam chowder, cookies and candy
Carroll Cole, executed Dec. 6, 1985 for the 1979 murder of Marie Cushman.

Four double bacon cheeseburgers, french fries and a large Coke
William Paul Thompson, executed June 19, 1989 for the 1984 murder of Randy Waldron.

Pepsi
Sean Patrick Flanagan, executed June 23, 1989 for the 1987 murders of James Lewandowski and Albert Duggins.

Pizza with anchovies, apple pie, chocolate ice cream, jelly doughnuts and soft drinks
Thomas E. Baal, executed June 3, 1990 for the 1988 murder of Frances Maves.

Lasagna, chicken Parmesan, salad and ice cream
Richard Allen Moran, executed March 30, 1996 for the 1984 murders of Sandra Devere, Russell Rhodes and Linda VanderVoort.

No special request — standard inmate meal
Roderick Abeyta, executed Oct. 5, 1998 for the 1989 murder of Donna Martin.

Steak, rice, corn, applesauce and a Sprite
Alvaro Calambro, executed April 5, 1999 for the 1994 murders of Peggy Crawford and Keith Christopher.

Crab salad, French bread, 4-ounce lobster tail, mango, cheesecake, vanilla ice cream and aloe juice
Sebastian Stephanous Bridges, executed April 21, 2001 for the 1997 murder of Hunter Blatchford.

Cheeseburger with onions, pickle and tomatoes; french fries; three slices of pepperoni pizza; one pint each of vanilla, chocolate and chocolate chip ice cream; apple; banana; orange; a 20-ounce Coke and a 20-ounce Pepsi
Lawrence Colwell Jr., executed March 26, 2004 for the 1994 murder of Frank Rosenstock.

Two cheeseburgers and a Coke
Terry Jess Dennis, executed Aug. 12, 2004 for the 1999 murder of Ilona Straumanis.

Fish sandwich, french fries and lemon-lime soft drink
Daryl Mack, executed April 26, 2006 for the 1988 murder of Betty Jane May.

Who’s on death row in York County murders?

November  21,  2017

There are nearly 200 people on death row in Pennsylvania. Thirteen of them — all men — were convicted and sentenced to death for murders committed in York County.

One currently is awaiting a resentencing hearing, another is awaiting a new trial.

Since 1985, Pennsylvania governors have signed hundreds of execution warrants.

Three executions have been carried out — two in 1995 and one in 1999– since a 10-year national moratorium on the death penalty ended in 1977.

Gov. Tom Wolf put a moratorium on the death penalty in 2015 citing a need for further study.

York County death row inmates, who all are housed at the maximum security prison in Greene County, are:

·Paul Gamboa-Taylor

Gamboa-Taylor was sentenced Jan. 23, 1992, after pleading guilty to the May 18, 1991, hammer slayingsof four family members: his wife, Valeria L. Gamboa-Taylor; their two children, Paul, 4, and Jasmine, 2; and another child, Lance Barshinger, 2.

He received a life sentence for killing his mother-in-law, Donna M. Barshinger.

·Hubert Lester Michael Jr.

Michael was sentenced March 20, 1995, after pleading guilty to the July 12, 1993, abduction and shooting death of 16-year-old Trista Elizabeth Eng in the Dillsburg area.

Michael unsuccessfully attempted to withdraw his guilty plea. Execution warrants were signed in 1996 by Gov. Tom Ridge and 2004 by Gov. Ed Rendell.

·Mark Newton Spotz 

Spotz was sentenced April 24, 1996, for the Feb. 2, 1995, shooting death of Penny Gunnet, 41, of New Salem.

Gunnet was his third victim in a four-day crime spree through central and eastern Pennsylvania.

Spotz also received death sentences for the murders of June Rose Ohlinger of Schuylkill County, and Betty Amstutz, 71, of Cumberland County.

An execution warrant for the York County conviction was signed by Ridge in 2001. He received a stay in the Gunnet murder in 2001.

·John Amos Small 

Small was sentenced June 19, 1996, after being convicted of murder and attempted rape of 17-year-old Cheryl Smith.

Smith’s body was found in West Manheim Township in 1981.

Execution warrants were signed in 2001 by Ridge and in 2009 by Rendell.

·Kevin Brian Dowling

Dowling was sentenced Dec. 14, 1998, for the Oct. 20, 1997, shooting death of Jennifer Lynn Myers inside her art and frame shop just outside Spring Grove.

An execution warrant was signed in 2007 by Rendell.

·Milton and Noel Montalvo

Milton was sentenced Feb. 14, 2000, and Noel was sentenced April 14, 2003, for the April 19, 1998, stabbing deaths of Miriam Asencio-Cruz and Manuel Ramirez Santana inside Cruz’s York apartment.

Rendell signed an execution warrant for Noel Montalvo in July 2010 and signed one for Milton in January 2011. Milton Montalvo is awaiting a resentencing hearing

·Harve Lamar Johnson

Johnson was sentenced Nov. 16, 2009, for the April 7, 2008, beating death of 2-year-old Darisabel Baez, his girlfriend’s daughter, in York.

·Kevin Edward Mattison

Mattison was sentenced Dec. 17, 2010, for the Dec. 9, 2008, robbery and shooting of Christian Agosto in York.

Mattison had previously been convicted of third-degree murder and served prison time in Maryland.

·Hector Morales

Morales was sentenced Jan. 21, 2011, for the 2009 shooting death of Ronald “Country” Simmons Jr.

Police said Morales broke into Simmons’ York home and shot him six times because Simmons was set to testify in a drug case.

·Aric Shayne Woodard

Woodard was sentenced to death Dec. 18, 2013, for the Nov. 7, 2011, beating death of 2-year-old Jaques Omari Twinn.

·Timothy Matthew Jacoby

Jacoby was sentenced to death Oct. 9, 2014, for the March 31, 2010, shooting death of Monica Schmeyer, 55, while he burglarized her West Manheim Township home.

·Also of note

Daniel Jacobs was sentenced to death Sept. 18, 1992, for the Feb. 10, 1992, stabbing death of his girlfriend, Tammy Lee Mock of York, and life in prison for the drowning of their 7-month-old daughter, Holly Danielle Jacobs.

Federal courts overturned Jacobs’ conviction and death penalty for Mock’s murder in 2005, ruling his jury should have been informed his mental deficiencies might not have allowed him to form the specific intent to kill Mock.

While Jacobs continues to serve a life sentence for Holly’s death, he will stand for re-trial in 2016 for Mock’s murder. The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections still lists him as a death row inmate.

LOUISIANA – Man freed from death row blames conviction on racial bias

November 21,  2017

BATON ROUGE, La. –  A biased autopsy and a prosecutor’s racism and religious fervor corrupted the murder case against a black man freed from Louisiana’s death row, a federal lawsuit says.

Rodricus Crawford, 29, sued the Caddo Parish coroner and district attorney’s offices last Thursday, one year after the Louisiana Supreme Court overturned his first-degree murder conviction in the death of his 1-year-old son.

Crawford’s lawsuit claims authorities recklessly disregarded medical evidence that his son, Roderius Lott, had pneumonia and died of natural causes. Investigators accused Crawford of smothering the child at their Shreveport home in February 2012.

The suit also says Crawford was deprived of a fair trial by a prosecutor with a “racist world view” who followed a “biblical command” to secure the death penalty against black defendants.

That prosecutor, former acting District Attorney Dale Cox, is an outspoken advocate of the death penalty who told a reporter he believes the state needs to “kill more people.” Cox personally prosecuted one-third of the Louisiana cases that resulted in death sentences between 2010 and 2015, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Caddo Parish has a “well-known history of racism and the arbitrary application of the death penalty,” the lawsuit says.

The night before his son’s death, Crawford and the child were sleeping in a fold-out couch. Relatives called 911 after Crawford woke up the next morning and noticed his son wasn’t moving or breathing.

The parish coroner had a “preconceived suspicion” that the child had been smothered to death based on the family’s race and neighborhood where they lived, the suit says. The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy didn’t take routine tissue samples that would have shown the timing of the child’s injuries, the suit says. The pathologist also falsely claimed that bacteria found in the child’s blood may have come from a contaminated sample, it adds.

Their “preconceived expectations and theories were based on race and racism, and they operated with deliberate indifference to these accepted professional standards of practice,” the lawsuit says.

The suit describes Crawford as a “proud and loving father” and accuses Cox of falsely portraying him as an absentee dad during his trial.

“This argument was based on racial stereotypes and animus, and not upon the facts of this case,” it says.

Cox said Monday that he hadn’t seen the lawsuit and couldn’t comment on its allegations. John Prime, a spokesman for both the coroner and district attorney’s offices, said he can’t comment on pending litigation.

James Stewart, who also is named as a defendant in the suit, became the first black district attorney in Caddo Parish after Cox decided not to run for election.

Crawford was sentenced to death in November 2013 and remained on death row until the state Supreme Court reversed his conviction last year. The district attorney’s office declined to retry him.

South Carolina Schedules First Execution in more than Six Years

November 20,  2017

South Carolina has scheduled its first execution in more than six years.

The State Department of Corrections said Friday it had received an order from the South Carolina Supreme Court setting a December 1 execution date for 52-year-old Bobby Wayne Stone.

Stone has been on death row for 20 years in connection with the 1996 shooting death of a sheriff’s sergeant.

Who are the women on death row in Arizona?

November  20, 2017

There are currently three women on death row in Arizona, and one woman who was executed.

Sammantha Allen was sentenced to death August in the killing of her 10-year-old cousin, Ame Deal. Her husband, John Allen, was also sentenced to death on Thursday, making Sammantha and John the first couple in the state to be sent to death row, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections.

Allen is the fourth woman to be sentenced to death in Arizona. She joins Wendi Andriano and Shawna Forde, who are currently on death row. The Arizona State Prison Complex – Perryville is where female death row inmates are housed.

Eva Dugan

Crime: January 1927

Executed: February 21, 1930

Dugan was found guilty of killing Arthur Mathis, a rancher near Tucson.

Dugan grew up a frontierswoman, floating from town to town for work. She met Mathis in Tucson, and he hired her immediately to work as his housekeeper. The Prescott Courier from May 1979 implies the relationship was a kind of arrangement.

A young man named Jack moved in with Mathis and Dugan, then Mathis was never seen again. Dugan and Jack skipped town.

Dugan and Jack sold Mathis’ car in Amarillo, Texas, the Pima County Sheriff discovered. Dugan was tracked to New York and arrested for grand larceny.

Months later, a man bought some land near the Mathis ranch. He was driving stakes for a tent when he discovered a shallow grave. The red-headed remains were identified as Arthur Mathis.

Dugan was sentenced to death.

“If I was a flapper with pretty legs, I never would have been convicted and given the death penalty,” she reportedly said.

Dugan was hanged February 21, 1930. When the gallows trap sprang, her body fell and she was decapitated.

The scene caused five people to faint.

Dugan’s gruesome death lead to capital punishment reform in Arizona. A year after the horrific incident, Arizona stopped executions by hanging and began using the gas chamber.

Wendi Andriano

Crime: October 8, 2000

Andriano was found guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of her husband. A jury found Adriano had killed her husband, Joe Andriano, by beating him with a barstool and slitting his throat.

Joe Andriano had been diagnosed with a terminal illness when Wendi Andriano was pregnant with their second child.

The night of Oct. 7, 2000, Wendi called 911 in the early-morning hours to get Joe medical help. She called a coworker in her apartment complex to help watch the kids. The coworker said he saw Joe lying on the floor in the living room. He was in the fetal position, vomiting and weak.

When paramedics arrived, Wendi sent them away, saying Joe was dying of cancer and had a do-not-resuscitate order. Paramedics left.

Andriano called 911 again at 3:39 a.m. Paramedics found Andriano in a bloody shirt, and Joe dead on the floor. There was a bloody barstool nearby. Joe had fatal head injuries and a stab wound to his neck.

The medical examiner determined Joe had been hit on the head at least 23 times. He also had sodium azide, a pesticide, in his system.

Andriano claimed she had tried to help Joe take his own life, and when the assisted suicide attempt failed, the two fought. Andriano said she hit Joe with a barstool in self defense.

Andriano was sentenced to death. She is appealing. She filed a federal habeas corpus appeal in April 2016.

Shawna Forde

Crime: May 30, 2009

Forde was found guilty in the first-degree murders of Raul and Brisenia Flores.

Forde, a rogue Minutemen leader on the Arizona border, burst into the Flores home in Arivaca, Arizona, in the middle of the night along with Jason Eugene Bush and Albert Robert Gaxiola.

Dressed in camouflage, Forde, Bush and Gaxiola claimed to be agents looking for fugitives. They took jewelry, then shot Raul Flores, his daughter, 9-year-old Brisenia, and his wife, Gina Gonzales.

Gonzales survived the attack by pretending to be dead. Gonzales was calling 911 when the intruders came back. Gonzales fired a shotgun at them, wounding Bush.

Evidence showed Forde planned the attack, though Bush pulled the trigger. Both Forde and Bush were sentenced to death.

Sammantha Allen

Crime: July 12, 2011

Allen was found guilty in the killing of 10-year-old Ame Deal.

Sammantha and John Allen lived in a home near Broadway Road at 35th Avenue with Ame Deal and many others.

Ame faced severe abuse in the home, court documents said.

Deal died after she was locked in a plastic box that was left outside overnight in the Arizona summer. Deal was being punished for taking a popsicle. She died of suffocation and heat, according to court documents.

Sammantha Allen was sentenced to death. John Allen was later also sentenced to death in November.