June 12

MISSISSIPPI – UPDATE – Mississippi Supreme Court refuses Brawner reprieve

June 12, 2012 Source : http://www.commercialappeal.com

JACKSON — The Mississippi Supreme Court has denied a request to stay today’s execution of a Southaven man convicted of killing his 3-year-old daughter, his former wife and her parents.

The court’s decision on Monday capped a round of legal briefs filed in the case of 34-year-old Jan Michael Brawner, who is scheduled to die by injection at 6 tonight.

Brawner’s lawyer said he would file a petition this morning with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Brawner was sentenced to death for the April 25, 2001, shooting deaths of his daughter, Paige; his former wife, Barbara Craft; and her parents, Carl and Jane Craft. Brawner killed them in their Tate County home, stole about $300 and used his former mother-in-law’s wedding ring to propose to his girlfriend the same day, according to court records.

Brawner admitted to the killings. During the sentencing phase of his trial, he declined to have anyone testify on his behalf with mitigating testimony, which could have been used to sway jurors to spare his life.

“As far as life, I don’t feel that I deserve to live,” Brawner testified at the time.

Subsequent lawyers have argued that Brawner’s trial attorney did a poor job by not calling such mitigating witnesses as his mother and a psychiatrist, who could have testified about things that had happened to him in life.

Brawner’s lawyer, David Calder, had argued earlier Monday in a court filing that his client could be the first person executed in the U.S. on a tie vote of judges. The Mississippi Supreme Court voted 4-4 last week to deny a rehearing in the case. Justice Ann Lamar didn’t vote. She was district attorney in Tate County when the slayings occurred. By the time of the trial in April 2002, she was a Circuit Court judge, though she didn’t preside over the trial.

In court procedures, a tie vote usually means an earlier ruling stands.

Calder asked the justices to suspend court rules that prohibit people from asking a second time for a rehearing and to issue a stay of execution.

The court voted 4-3 against the motion to suspend the rules and against a stay of execution. Lamar and Chief Justice Bill Waller didn’t vote this time. A court spokeswoman said Waller was unable to attend Monday’s conference of justices. Waller voted to deny the rehearing last time.

Brawner went to his former in-laws’ home after learning his former wife planned to stop him from seeing their child. He gave conflicting statements to police and during testimony, saying at times he wanted to borrow money and at other times that he was going to rob his father-in-law.

Court records said he was waiting at the Crafts’ home when his former wife arrived with her mother and the child. After becoming agitated, he went to his car and got a rifle he had stolen from the house earlier in the day. He shot the former mother-in-law first, then his ex-wife. His daughter, Paige, watched the killings, court records said.

“After Brawner determined that Paige would be able to identify him, and in his words, he ‘was just bent on killing,’ he went back into the bedroom and shot his daughter twice, killing her,” court records say. He shot and killed Carl Craft when he got home from work and stole his wallet and the ring.

June 6, 2012 Source : http://www.clarionledger.com

A death row inmate is asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to stay his execution scheduled for next Tuesday and grant him a new hearing.

The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in a 4-4 earlier this week not to allow a rehearing on previous arguments in the case of Jan Michael Brawner. Justice Ann Lamar didn’t participate.

In court procedures, a tie vote usually means an earlier ruling stands. However, Brawner’s lawyers argue there’s precedent in Mississippi that says a tie vote in death penalty cases should favor the condemned inmate.

Brawner claims his previous appeals lawyer didn’t do a good job and he wants an oral hearing on the matter.

Brawner, now 34, was convicted of the 2001 killings of his 3-year-old daughter, ex-wife and former father-in-law and mother-in-law Tate County.

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June 6, 2012 Source : http://www.fox40tv.com

JACKSON, Miss.  – The Mississippi Supreme Court won’t reconsider an appeal from an inmate scheduled for execution June 12.

Jan Michael Brawner argued his legal case suffered because of ineffective assistance by Bob Ryan, former head of the state office meant to handle post-conviction appeals for people sentenced to death.

Brawner, now 34, was convicted of the 2001 killings of his 3-year-old daughter, ex-wife and former father-in-law and mother-in-law the Tate County community of Sarah.

According to trial testimony, Brawner went to his former in-laws’ home after learning his former wife planned to stop him from seeing their child; he also had no money and contemplated robbing his former in-laws. Brawner admitted to the killings at trial and told a prosecutor he deserved death.

Justices ruled 4-4 Tuesday not to reconsider Brawner’s appeal.

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

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

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

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

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

From left: Brawner, Simmons and Jackson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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