Murder

CALIFORNIA : Man gets death penalty in 1988 murder of pregnant woman – Jason Michael Balcom

february 7, 2014 (latimes)

A man who raped and murdered a pregnant woman in her Costa Mesa home a quarter of a century ago was sentenced to death Friday.

 

Jason Michael Balcom strangled and stabbed 22-year-old Malinda Gibbons in the chest on July 18, 1988.

Her husband, Kent Gibbons, found his wife dead in their apartment, bound and gagged with his neckties. Police said she had been sexually assaulted.

At the time of the crime, Balcom, then 18, was living with his mother and aunt in a Costa Mesa motel less than a mile away from the apartment. He had been  released from juvenile hall just weeks before the murder.

Investigators cracked the cold case more than a decade later when DNA evidence linked Balcom, now 43, to the crime.

Balcom’s DNA was entered into a nationwide database in 2004 after he was convicted of rape in Michigan, where he and his mother moved after the murder.

He was serving a 50-year prison term when Orange County prosecutors extradited him  to stand trial.

In 2012, an Orange County jury convicted Balcom of first-degree murder with sentencing enhancements for murder during commission of sodomy, rape, robbery and burglary. But jurors deadlocked on whether to recommend the death penalty.

A second jury recommended the death penalty last year, a decision that was affirmed in Superior Court on Friday.

 

FLORIDA – Carlie Brucia’s killer appeals death sentence – Joseph Smith

february 5, 2014 (mysuncoast.com)

Carlie BruciaSARASOTA, Fla. – The man convicted of killing 11-year-old Carlie Brucia in 2004 is appealing his death sentence to Florida’s Supreme Court. 

Joseph Smith was found guilty of the 2004 kidnapping, sexual battery and murder of the young girl in Sarasota County.  Smith’s attorney claims a number of errors in his trial led to his death sentence.

Florida’s Supreme Court judges will hear the argument Wednesday.  Smith’s appeal requests a new trial or penalty phase.

This is the second appeal for Smith, who is currently on death row in a Tallahassee prison

 

 

Carlie Brucia

Florida Supreme Court hears argument of Longwood killer who asked for death penalty – William Roger Davis III

february 3. 2014 (orlandosentinel)

From the witness stand, the man who kidnapped, raped and strangled a Longwood used car lot receptionist asked jurors to give him the death penalty, and they did.

Today a government lawyer who defends death row inmates asked the Florida Supreme Court to go against his wishes and throw out his death sentence.

William Roger Davis III, 35, killed Fabiana Malave, Oct. 29, 2009. According to evidence at his trial, he abducted her at knifepoint from Super Sport Auto, the small car lot on U.S. Highway 17-92 in Longwood where she worked, drove her to the Orlando house where he lived, raped her then ordered her to get dressed and to get back on his bed, where he strangled her.

He then loaded her body into his SUV and drove around for hours before parking a few dozen feet from where he had abducted her, where Seminole County deputies spotted his vehicle then arrested him. Today, Davis was not on trial before the Florida Supreme Court. The judge who gave him the death penalty, Circuit Judge John Galluzzo of Sanford, was.

Nancy J. Ryan, a Daytona Beach assistant public defender, argued that Galluzzo made three technical errors in imposing the death sentence, reason enough to send the case back to Seminole County for a new hearing.

One of the biggest was that he didn’t give enough weight to Davis’ mental state at the time of the homicide, she said.

Davis and four mental health experts testified that he suffers from bipolar disorder and that he had been off his medication for a year and a half when he killed Malave.

His testimony about why he killed Malave was chilling.

“I don’t really have an answer for that,” he told a Seminole County Sheriff’s detective a few hours after the homicide. He went on to add that killing someone felt “pretty interesting. … squeeze the life out of somebody. … I feel liberated.”

And when asked if he’d do it again, his answer, “Oh, yeah.”

Galluzzo gave great weight to Davis’ testimony that if given the opportunity, he’d again go off his medication and would likely do violence to someone else, Ryan pointed out.

He focused too much on that and not enough on the fact that Davis suffered from an extreme emotional disturbance at the time, Ryan argued.

But Assistant Attorney General Stacey Kircher today told justices that Davis was not in an extreme emotional state.

“He does not appear to suffer from hallucinations,” she said. “He was very calm, reflective.”

After killing Malave, he put her body in his SUV and drove to a restaurant, to a music store to play with instruments, to a park to smoke, Kircher argued.

What he was doing, she said, was killing time until it got dark, when he planned to put Malave’s body back in her car at the car lot.

Justices made no decision today but asked questions of both attorneys.

Justice Barbara Pariente suggested that even if Galluzzo did not give enough weight to Davis’ mental state, there were many other valid legal reasons, carefully spelled out in the judge’s sentencing order, why the death penalty was the right sentence.

A Seminole County jury voted 7-5 to recommend death two years ago. The same jury had earlier rejected Davis’ argument that he was innocent because he was insane.

COLORADO: Holmes judge upholds law on ‘indifference’ murder

The judge in the Colorado theater shootings has upheld the constitutionality of one of the laws used to charge James Holmes with murder.

The judge on Friday rejected a request by defense lawyers to overturn the law making it a crime to commit murder with extreme indifference.

Holmes is accused of killing 12 and injuring 70 at an Aurora movie theater in July 2012.

He’s charged with 12 counts of murder with extreme indifference and 12 counts of murder with deliberation.

His attorneys argued the extreme indifference statute is vague and, therefore, unconstitutional. The judge disagreed.

Holmes is also charged with multiple counts of attempted murder. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

His trial is scheduled to begin in February.

(source: Associated Press)

George Zimmerman Not Guilty: Jury Lets Trayvon Martin Killer Go

George Zimmerman not Guiltytrayvon martin father tweets

After deliberating for more than 16 hours, a jury of six women on Saturday evening found George Zimmerman not guilty in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old in Sanford, Fla.

Zimmerman had pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder with an affirmative defense, claiming he had shot Martin to save his own life after being attacked by the teen on Feb. 26, 2012. The trial, televised nationally on cable networks and streamed live across the Internet on various sites, kept the country captivated awaiting a verdict on the tragic events that took place that rainy night.

Following four weeks of testimony, more than a dozen witnesses and a host of controversy, Zimmerman walked out of court a free man.

The case first drew national attention during the 44 days the Sanford Police Department took to decide that Zimmerman should be arrested and charged with murder. During that tense period, protests were held across the country calling for Zimmerman’s arrest. Those protests were buttressed by the controversy’s strong presence across the Internet, with hashtags like #JusticeForTrayvon becoming mainstays on Twitter. Celebrities including LeBron James and his Miami Heat teammates and Jamie Foxx were photographed wearing hooded sweatshirts like Martin had been wearing the night he died.

That night, Martin was walking back to the home of his father’s fiancee from a local 7-Eleven convenience store after purchasing a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles. He was spotted by Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, who thought Martin looked suspicious because of what he described as an unnaturally slow and meandering gait. Zimmerman called the police and proceeded to follow the teen through the Retreat at Twin Lakes, the gated community where Zimmerman lived and where Martin had been staying. A confrontation ensued, Zimmerman shot Martin, Martin died, and six weeks later, Zimmerman was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

On March 16, 2012, police released audio of the 911 calls made by Twin Lakes residents who were witness to the altercation between Martin and Zimmerman occurring near their homes. In one chilling call, a voice can be heard screaming for help in the background. The wailing ends as the loud crack of a gun shot rings out. Those screams and the question of who was making them would become pivotal for both the prosecution and the defense, with the implication being that the person screaming was the one being attacked.

As attention around the case mounted before the trial, details emerged about the teenager and the man involved in the fatal confrontation.

It turned out this wasn’t Zimmerman’s first run-in with the law. He had previouslybeen accused of domestic violence by a former girlfriend, and he had also previouslybeen arrested for assaulting a police officer. More controversially, in July 2012, an evidence dump related to the investigation of Martin’s death revealed that a younger female cousin of Zimmerman’s had accused him of nearly two decades of sexual molestation and assault. In addition, she had accused members of Zimmerman’s family, including his Peruvian-born mother, of being proudly racist against African Americans, and recalled a number of examples of perceived bigotry.

The national focus on the case also brought into question, for some, the character and life history of Trayvon Martin. As time passed, websites like The Daily Caller found Martin’s posthumously scrubbed Twitter page, which featured the teen at times tweeting profanities and showing off fake gold teeth. To some, these behaviors, along with the hoodie Martin wore the night he was killed, were an indication that he was something other than an innocent teenage boy who was shot while walking home from the store. To others, the attention paid to Martin’s tattoos, gold teeth and hoodie were symptomatic of the same kind of stereotyping and profiling that led to Zimmerman’s assumption that the teen was “up to no good.”

While much of this background information proved inadmissible at trial, the characterizations of the two men helped drive an often racially charged polarization on the issue at the heart of the case — whether the killing of Trayvon Martin was self-defense or murder.

The prosecution argued that Zimmerman had profiled Martin, deeming him “suspicious,” as indicated by Zimmerman’s description of the teen to the non-emergency hotline he called for police assistance. The prosecution said that he then stalked Martin, initiating an unnecessary confrontation that led to his shooting the 17-year-old in the chest at point-blank range.

The defense maintained that Zimmerman was just walking back to his car when Martin confronted him, punching him in his face and knocking him to the ground. According to the defense, Martin then mounted Zimmerman and smashed his head into the concrete pavement multiple times, forcing the older man to shoot the teen in order to save his own life.

Testimony at the trial was, at times, contentious. Defense attorney Don Westaggressively questioned Rachel Jeantel, the friend to whom Martin was talking on the phone just before he was killed. Jeantel, who speaks English as a second language, kept her answers tersely short and stuck to her understanding of what had transpired that night, despite the defense’s attempts to undermine her account. Her perceived lack of polish on the stand, though, thrust the teenager into a national conversation about whether she had hurt or helped the state’s case.

The testimony of Dr. Shipping Bao, the medical examiner who performed the autopsyon Martin, was also highly contested. Bao often clashed with the defense as he repeatedly made sure that everyone in the courtroom understood the difference between what he saw as facts and what he considered opinions related to the case.

Both the prosecution and the defense went to great lengths to show who was screaming for help in the background of that 911 call. The prosecution called Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, and his brother, Jahvaris Fulton, who testified that it was Martin. The defense called George Zimmerman’s mother, father and a host of friends to testify that it was Zimmerman screaming.

Ultimately, there are only two people who ever knew for sure who was screaming for his life that fatal night. One of them is dead, and the other has been acquitted in his killing. And with that acquittal, this chapter of the Trayvon Martin case, one that has captivated and divided a country for almost 17 months, has been brought to a close.

Death penalty upheld for man in Las Vegas hammer killings – Thomas Richardson

November 14, 2012 http://www.lasvegassun.com

ARSON CITY — The Nevada Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision, has upheld the murder conviction and death penalty sentence for Thomas Richardson in the hammer slaying and robbery of two people in Las Vegas.

Richardson and Robert Dehnart agreed in September 2005 to rob and murder Steve Folker, who was at the home of Estelle Feldman, also killed with hammer blows to the head, records show.

Dehnart, who was the 18-year old son of Richardson’s girlfriend, agreed to testify against Richardson as part of a plea deal. He was sentenced to 20 to 50 years for first-degree murder and a consecutive 4 to 30 year term for robbery.

Chief Justice Michael Cherry dissented in the ruling, saying evidence against Richardson “was not overwhelming” and errors at trial required the conviction be overturned and a new trial ordered. Justice Nancy Saitta agreed with Cherry.

Richardson maintained he was in California at the time of the murders.

But the court’s majority opinion said the trial testimony of Dehnart “is sufficiently corroborated,” and substantial evidence supports the jury verdict.

The court said District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt was wrong in not permitting the defense in closing arguments to maintain Dehnart was lying to receive a lighter sentence.

But the court called it harmless error.

Cherry, in his dissent, said defense attorneys should have been allowed to argue that Richardson had returned to California before the time of the murder.

“As there was conflicting evidence of this crucial fact and no physical evidence placing Richardson in the home or even in the state at the time of the murders, (defense) counsel’s argument became much more vital to the defense,” Cherry wrote.

Cherry also wrote that evidence at the crime scene was mishandled, and a replica of the hammer used in the killing should not have been introduced at the trial.

‘I never killed anyone’: Death Row inmate scheduled to die Thursday offers medical proof police lied about key evidence

November 13,2012 http://www.dailymail.co.uk

A death row inmate set to die Thursday is pinning his final hopes on convincing people that his victim’s dying words never happened.

When police found La Shandra Charles bleeding from neck wounds in a west Houston filed in 1988, they claimed she whispered the name of her assailant, ‘Preston,’ before dying. 

That evidence, along with the police assertion that the girl said her attacker lived nearby, were key bits of evidence in convicting Preston Hughes 11, a New York-born warehouse worker.

But Hughes attorney now says it would be medically impossible for the girl to tell police anything about her attacker and he’s got medical testimony to prove it, the Houston Chronicle reports.

‘It is simply not medically feasible that this young woman, particularly given the fact that one’s heart rate accelerates during stress, and thus blood loss occurs more rapidly, could have spoken to the officers as they claimed,’ wrote Dr. Robert White, Dr. Robert White, who was chief medical examiner in Nueces County before joining the Fort Worth forensics department.

Defense attorney Pat McCann said it would take roughly 13 minutes for police to reach Charles after she was injured, a time frame that does not allow her to be conscious by the time authorities found her with the wounds she sustained.

Assistant District Attorney Lynn Hardaway has brushed aside McCann’s argument: ‘That’s obviously this guy’s opinion.’

Hardaway further noted that in the original police report an unnamed medical technician is supposed to have heard the dying girl’s accusation.

But the technician never testified. 

A state pardons board is to review Hughe’s request to have his sentence commuted Tuesday.

Hughes, 46, was convicted of the murders of both Charles and her cousin, Marcel Taylor, 3, who was also stabbed.

At the time of his arrest, Hughes was on probation for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, though he maintained innocence in that crime as well.

After his in the 1988 case, he offered two confessions to police but they contained contradictory statements.

In an interview at the time, he said the police didn’t type what he said.

He claimed that on the night of the murder he met with friends for drinks.

When he returned home he took his dog for a walk, crossing the field where the children were murdered.

He then went back to his apartment where he stayed until police knocked on his door.

‘I didn’t hear or see anything,’ he said. ‘I never killed anyone.

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TEXAS – EXECUTION – Ramon Hernandez, November 14, 2012 EXECUTED 6.38 p.m

Ramon Torres Hernandez, 39, was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m., 26 minutes after the lethal dose was administered. His lawyers had filed an appeal earlier Wednesday, but it was denied, paving the way for his execution for the murder of Rosia Maria Rosado in 2001.

Hernandez turned his head and addressed his brother, Daniel Hernandez, after the warden asked him if he had a final statement.
“Did I ever tell you, you have Dad’s eyes? I have noticed that in the last couple of days,” Ramon Hernandez said. “I’m sorry for putting you through all of this. Tell everyone I love them. It was good seeing the kids. I love them all, tell mom, everybody. I am very sorry for all the pain.”
 His brother, standing close to the glass and crying said: “I love you.”
Because Texas no longer allows inmates to order special last meals, Hernandez ate the same food as everyone else in his unitBecause Texas no longer allows inmates to order special last meals, Hernandez ate the same food as everyone else in his unit

Final confession sought from death row murderer

since then, prosecutors have also tied Ramón Hernandez, 39, to the murders of two young girls and say he could be responsible for even more killings.

But Rico Valdez, who serves as the appellate division chief for the Bexar County District Attorneys Office, fears Hernandez may take the answers to those unsolved murders to the grave since prosecutors are nearly out of time. It is the eleventh hour for Bexar County prosecutors seeking a confession on at least two more murders from Hernandez and they are doing everything they can in the next 24-hours to get him to talk.

“We’re still hopeful in the hours that we have left that we’ll have that opportunity, but there are no guarantees,” explained Valdez.

Valdez has been working to get a confession from Hernandez on two unsolved murders ever since the DA’s office first learned about the cases.

According to Valdez, “Jennifer Taylor and Laura Gamez, they disappeared or they were last seen in November 9, 1994 and their bodies were discovered April 15, 1995 the next year.”

The young girls’ bodies were discovered on a ranch belonging to Hernandez’ uncle in Bandera County one year after they were killed.

“Unfortunately, because the bodies had been exposed to the elements we weren’t able to obtain any DNA linking Hernandez directly to the crime.”

But he added Hernandez’ style of killings from the murder and rape of Rosado from 2001 and two young cousins: Sarah Gonzales and Priscilla Almarez in 1994 matches the murders of Taylor and Gamez.

The DA’s office was able to obtain indictments for Hernandez in the killings of those two cousins dating back to 1994. The deaths of Taylor and Gamez are still considered unsolved.

The DA’s office has once again reached out to Hernandez through his attorney in recent days to get answers in those unsolved cases. He has declined speaking to them again. However, prosecutors remain optimistic that he will change his mind.

November 13, 2012 http://www.mysanantonio.com

Ramon Hernandez stands as jurors enter the courtroom for his trial in the death of Rosa Maria Rosado on  October 1, 2002. Photo: ROBERT MCLEROY, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS / SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

Ramon Hernandez is set to be executed Wednesday for the 2001 abduction, rape and killing of Rosa Maria Rosado.Rosa Maria Rosado, 37 was found dead in a shallow grave near UTSA Boulevard and Loop 1604. / SA

But the man prosecutors have called a serial rapist and murderer is known to have other victims.

Rosado, whose body was found in a shallow grave near Loop 1604 and UTSA Boulevard, was the first of five victims authorities connected to Hernandez or named him as suspect. It was his only conviction.

The single mom, 37, was snatched from a bus stop near Highway 90 and Military Drive. She was bound with tape, had her head covered and was driven to a Culebra Road motel, where she was killed.

By the time Hernandez was linked to Rosado’s homicide, the families of Sarah Gonzales, 13, and Priscilla Almares, 12, had been searching seven years for answers in the young cousins’ killings.

This is a composite image of Sarah Beth Gonzales (left) and her cousin Priscilla Almares (right) before they were murdered in 1994. Gonzales was 13 and Almares was 12 at the time of the murders. The man responsible for the murders, Ramon Hernandez, is scheduled to be executed on November 14, 2012. Hernandez, however, is being executed for murdering and raping another woman, Rosa Maria Rosado, 37, in 1994. This image was provided by Sarah Beth Gonzales' father, John Gonzales. Photo: JOHN DAVENPORT, San Antonio Express-News / © San Antonio Express-News

“I can’t explain the feeling; I can’t explain the hurt,” said John Gonzales, father of Sarah and uncle to Priscilla. “Unless you walk in my shoes, you just can’t imagine it. You’re kind of numb. There’s disbelief it happened.”

For Gonzales, there also was disbelief that police had found his daughter’s killer. But after they told him about DNA evidence that linked Hernandez to the crime, he finally could stop searching.

Hernandez also is the main suspect in a 1995 Bandera County case involving two teens reported missing about a month before Sarah and Priscilla.

At the time of all of the homicides, Hernandez was on parole for breaking into a house and allegedly raping a woman.

While Hernandez wasn’t convicted in the killings of Sarah and Priscilla, Gonzales said justice was done because authorities announced they closed the case using DNA.

Gonzalez said no one from their family planned to witness the execution.

Hernandez, 41, declined to comment. His attorney, Robin Norris, requested a commutation of Hernandez’s sentence to life without parole, arguing that his client was a party to the crime but didn’t rape or kill Rosado.

Norris pointed to Hernandez’s co-defendant, Santos Minjarez, as the main culprit.

Minjarez also was sentenced to death in a separate trial. He died of natural causes in Jan. 2012 before his execution was set.

Hernandez was afraid of Minjarez and he also was withdrawing from addictive medication prescribed as part of his parole, Norris said.

The medication was to treat anxiety and post traumatic stress disorders that developed after Hernandez watched his father get shot in front of him, he added. That made Hernandez more susceptible to Minjarez’s suggestions, Norris said.

“Clearly he’s responsible in some measure for this,” Norris said. “But in the past, the governor has commuted a sentence if the person didn’t commit the offense by his own person.”

The status of the commutation request wasn’t available. Both Hernandez and Minjarez pointed to each other as the murderer in their separate trials, according to previous stories. Prosecutors pointed to Sarah and Priscilla’s cases to show a pattern.

“They were like sisters,” Gonzales said. “They disappeared together. They found them together and we buried them together.”

The two girls last were seen on Timbercreek Drive the evening of Dec. 16, 1994. They were expected at their church for caroling, Gonzales said. Their bodies were discovered in Rodriguez Park the next day.

At least the girls were found quickly, Gonzales said.

That wasn’t the case with Laura Gamez and Jennifer Taylor, both 15 when reported missing two days apart in November 1994, previous reports state. Their bodies weren’t found until April, 1995, according to previous stories.

After San Antonio police linked Hernandez to Rosado, Sarah and Priscilla, Bandera County authorities revealed he was the prime suspect in the deaths of Laura and Jennifer.

An autopsy couldn’t determine rape, but they had been strangled, a previous report states.

The Express-News was unable to find the families of either teen.

Bexar County First Assistant District Attorney Cliff Herberg said recently that investigators still hoped to talk to Hernandez about the unsolved cases.

Whether Rosado’s family planned to attend the execution wasn’t known. Rosado’s sister declined to comment. Attempts to reach Rosado’s daughter weren’t successful.

She was 14 when her mom was killed and the first to report her missing after Rosado failed to come home from a night shift at a telemarketing firm April 1, 2001, court documents said.

“Mom, please call and let me know you are OK,” read a sign she posted in her neighborhood, a previous report said. “I miss you, please come home. Love Patricia.”

Hernandez’s girlfriend Asel Abdygapparova led police to Rosado’s body five days after she was abducted.

Then 26 and a University of Texas at San Antonio exchange student from Kazakhstan, Abdygapparova was pregnant with Hernandez’s child, who would be born after her arrest.

She was with Hernandez and Minjarez when Minjarez spotted Rosado as a possible robbery victim, previous stories said.

They grabbed her from the bus stop and took her to the motel, she told police. She left to buy a shovel and bleach while Rosado was raped.

Police first considered Abdygapparova a witness but later arrested her. Prosecutors wanted the death penalty.

She feared Hernandez and was under control, she said during testimony in her defense. Jurors sentenced her to life in prison but an appeals court overturned that decision in 2007. She’s still in Bexar County Jail awaiting a new trial.

Her attorney didn’t return calls for an interview request.

Gonzales takes no comfort in Hernandez’s execution. It took many years of praying to forgive Hernandez and to tame the anger he felt.

“It festers inside of you; it eats you up and can totally destroy you” he said.

He and knows the pain Hernandez’s mother will feel. He does not wish that on anyone, he said.

“I did tell his mom that one day she would walk in my shoes,” Gonzales said. “I said to her when he did go to prison she would have the opportunity to write him or go visit him. Now for me, for my family, when we want to go see (Sarah and Priscilla), we can’t physically see them. We go anyway. … They are just shells now. Their spirits are in Heaven.”

TEXAS – ‘We got him,’ murder victim’s father says after Cummings gets death sentence

November 8, 2012 http://www.wacotrib.com

While Rickey Donnell Cummings was on his way to death row, one of the fathers of his murder victims was headed to the cemetery to tell his son “we got him.”

Jurors in Waco’s 19th State District Court deliberated about 3 1/2 hours Wednesday before returning a death sentence for Cummings in the 2011 ambush-style slayings of two men at an East Waco apartment complex.

Cummings’ defense attorneys had hoped to spare him the death sentence, telling jurors that the death penalty should be reserved for the worst of the worst.

Rickey Cummings flashes the peace sign while leaving Waco’s 19th State District Court, where he was sentenced Wednesday to death for a March 2011 double-murder at a Waco apartment complex.
Rickey Cummings flashes a peace sign after being sentenced to death in Waco’s 19th State District Court.
Rod Aydelotte / Waco Tribune-Herald

Prosecutors countered that the 23-year-old alleged Bloods gang member’s “callous, blood-thirsty” actions, plus an escalating spiral of violence, make him an ideal candidate for execution.

As Cummings was led from court, he smiled at his family members and told them he loved them and to keep their heads up. They said they loved him, too. He flashed a peace sign on his way to jail.

Cummings was convicted of capital murder Friday in the March 2011 shooting deaths of Tyus Sneed, 17, and Keenan Hubert, 20, as they sat in the back seat of a car at the Lakewood Villas apartment complex, 1601 Spring St.

Demontrae Majors, 22, and Marion Bible, 23, who were in the front seat of the car, were wounded but managed to flee to the safety of a nearby apartment.

Surrounded by family members and smiling occasionally, Robert Sneed, Tyus Sneed’s father, remained emotional, as he has been throughout the trial.

“It’s over,” he said. “We got him, we got him, we got him. Now, it’s time to go to Tyus’ grave and tell him we got him.”

Sneed said at least one of his family members was present each day of the 12-day trial.

“My son was innocent,” he said. “It’s not been two years. He’s had two birthdays already. He would be 19. Happy birthday, son.”

The soft-spoken Sneed told Cummings, “May God have mercy on your soul” in his victim-impact statement after the sentence was read.

Hubert’s father, Artemus Matthews, had a different, anger-laced message for Cummings, whom he called a coward in his courtroom statement.

“I hope they kill you over and over and over,” Matthews said, taking note of Cummings’ tattoos. “You must like needles. They’ve got one waiting for you down there. . . . You’re going to come home in a body bag.”

Prosecutors say tattoos on Cummings’ back are associated with the Bloods street gang, and a defense prison expert testified Tuesday that Cummings would be identified as a Bloods member when he got to prison because of the numerous gang-related markings.

Cummings and his family members denied he was in a gang, saying the tattoos represent his home in East Waco.

Cummings’ testimony

Cummings testified during the first phase of the trial that he was dealing drugs several blocks away when the shootings occurred.

He said he was spotted at the complex because he rushed there after hearing a description of the car involved and feared it was his brother’s car.

After the trial, several of the victims’ family members said Cummings’ case should be a life lesson for those considering joining a gang.

“There will be no wanna-be Rickey Cummings after the lethal injection,” said Tyus Sneed’s aunt, Boreshio Jackson.

McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna, who tried the case with assistants Michael Jarrett and Greg Davis, praised the prosecutors, investigators and staff for “helping bring justice for these victims and their families.”

“We are extremely pleased with the jury’s verdict and careful consideration they gave this case,” Reyna said. “Also, we are pleased that we were able to achieve justice for the families of Tyus Sneed and Keenan Hubert as well as Marion Bible and Deontrae Majors.

“Rickey Cummings’ pattern of escalating violence and brutality were choices that he made. This jury’s verdict sends a strong message that violence in McLennan County will be met with firm justice and the utmost consequences.”

For Davis, a seasoned prosecutor who formerly worked in Collin County, Cummings marks the 20th capital murder defendant he has put on death row. He told jurors in closing statements that Cummings has a “wicked, corrupt and callous mind.”

“He is not like us,” Davis said. “He is wicked and beyond redemption. He is a man without excuses and he is here because of his own actions.”

Before the jury went out to deliberate, Davis told them, “May God guide you and may he give you the courage to do what needs to be done.”

Hunt said after the trial he was disappointed and a little surprised by the death sentence because he thought the state had not met its burden in proving that Cummings deserves to die.

Jury’s decision

In arriving at its decision, jurors answered three special issues: that Cummings would be violent in the future; that he caused the deaths or intended to kill or anticipated that a life would be taken; and that there was not sufficient mitigating evidence to warrant a sentence other than death.

The jury also had the option of sending Cummings to prison for life with no chance for parole.

Court officials and a host of courthouse deputies made jurors inaccessible after the trial. One juror reached at home by phone declined comment, and two others did not return messages.

Cummings’ mother, Elma Richards, said her family will contact the Innocence Project because they think he is not guilty. She also denied her son is a gang member.

“My baby is innocent. He did not do this,” she said.

She said Cummings is staying strong for his family during the ordeal, while they remain supportive of him.

“He came in with a smile, and he walked up out of here with a smile,” she said.

Cummings’ younger brother, Darvis Cummings, Albert Love and Kennedy Hardway also are charged in the shooting deaths.

Reyna has announced his office also will seek the death penalty against Love, but no trial date is set.

Hubert and Sneed each were shot eight times, and the car they were in had at least 20 bullet holes in it, including rounds from an AK-47-style assault rifle.

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FLORIDA – Jacksonville man faces death penalty again after getting life in first murder case. DeShawn Leon Green

Octobre 30, 2012 http://m.jacksonville.com

For the second time, the state is attempting to put DeShawn Leon Green on Death Row.

Tuesday the state began prosecuting Green, 28, in the murder of Robert Lee Kearney and the attempted murder of Katherine George. The two were both victims of a drive-by shooting outside Jacksonville’s Confederate Point Apartments in March 2009.

Police said Kearney, 24, and George, then 20, were outside the apartments when a vehicle pulled up and more than a dozen shots were fired from a rifle. Prosecutors are arguing that Green fired those shots with a AR-15 assault rifle he’d nicknamed “Baby.”

Assistant State Attorney Richard Mantei said Green shot the two because friends of his had been shot at earlier in the night by Kearney, and Green was out for revenge.

“The defendant in this case pulled the trigger at least 13 times,” Mantei said to the jury. “He was there to settle a score.”

But defense attorney Francis Shea argued that the real shooters blamed Green and pointed the finger at Bruce Brice Jr., the man police believe Kearney fired a gun at earlier in the night but didn’t wound.

When police questioned Brice and another witness, they didn’t mention Green at all. It wasn’t until months later that they fingered Green as the culprit, Shea said.

“Mr. Brice had everything at risk,” Shea said. “While Mr. Green had no motive.”

Green was previously convicted in the August 2009 shooting of Willie Golden, 28, in a home on West 26th Street. The prosecution withdrew seeking the death penalty because the jury said premeditation wasn’t proven.

Prosecutors said Green killed Golden in retaliation of a drive-by shooting on a drug house that Green ran just two streets over from the shooting.

Green also faces a third trial for the murder of Bryan Clemons, 23, who was gunned down with an assault rifle in April 2009 as he sat in a chair in a home on West 13th Street.

The Clemons killing was the result of an ongoing dispute between two groups of men from Green’s Grand Park neighborhood and the nearby Flag Street area.

The dispute began in November 2008 when the two groups fought over a drink thrown at a nightclub. The next day, Clemons’ brother, Jerry, was slain in a drive-by shooting at West 14th and Canal streets.

Green is also eligible for the death penalty in the killing of Clemons.