Murder

TEXAS – Man gets death penalty in break-in deaths – Roderick Harris

May 21, 2012 Source : http://www.chron.com

DALLAS (AP) — A jury has decided a man should get the death penalty for capital murder in the fatal shootings of two brothers during a March 2009 Dallas home-invasion robbery.

A Dallas County jury reached its decision Monday afternoon on Roderick Harris after deliberating since last week. The same jury on May 10 found Harris guilty of capital murder in the deaths of Alfredo and Carlos Gallardo (gah-HAHR’-doh).

Witnesses said Harris entered the Gallardos’ home and confronted six family members inside, demanding wallets and valuables. When the robber tried to force the family into a walk-in closet, the brothers tried to defend the family and were shot.

Harris was shot and wounded by police after shooting at officers.

FLORIDA – Declared competent, convicted murderer receives new sentence

may 3 , 2012, source : http://www.baynews9.com

Carlos Bello was originally sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Detective Gerald Rauft in 1981. A change in his sentencing means he will spend life in prison.

Bello

TAMPA 

The man convicted of killing a Tampa police detective more than 30 years ago will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

According to Bay News 9’s partner newspaper the Tampa Bay Times, Carlos Bello claimed for decades he was too mentally ill to understand his conviction.

Bello was sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Detective Gerald Rauft in 1981. That sentence was later thrown out. Since then, Bello’s attorney said his client was too incompetent to understand court proceedings or his sentencing. But, last February a Hillsborough Circuit Judge declared Bello competent.

Within the past month Bello has shown an understanding of life in prison over a death sentence.

In court Wednesday he said understood perfectly that the court was offering life behind bars instead of the death penalty.

OKLAHOMA – Court upholds Oklahoma death row inmate’s sentence

april 23, source : http://www.bnd.com

OKLAHOMA CITY — A federal appeals court on Monday upheld an Oklahoma conviction and death sentence for a man who killed people in three different states, rejecting an argument that he suffers from bipolar disorder and lacked the mental capacity to waive his right to a jury trial.

Steven Ray Thacker, 41, asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to grant him a new trial in the December 1999 stabbing death of Laci Dawn Hill, 25, of Bixby. Thacker pleaded guilty in state court to first-degree murder, kidnapping and first-degree rape. Following a sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced Thacker to death for the murder conviction.

In its 62-page decision, the appeals court rejected Thacker’s arguments concerning competency and inadequate counsel. He claimed his defense attorney was ineffective in advising him to enter a blind guilty plea and not filing a motion to withdraw the guilty plea.

Thacker has also been convicted and sentenced to death in Tennessee for the Jan. 2, 2000, killing of a tow truck driver, Ray Patterson. He was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Forrest Boyd on Jan. 1., 2000, inside his home in Aldrich, Mo.

In the Bixby slaying, officials say Hill had advertised a pool table for sale at her Tulsa County home and Thacker answered the ad. Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents said Thacker admitted to pulling a knife on Hill and demanding money. He also allegedly said he took a credit card from her, forced her into his car and drove her to a cabin in Chouteau, where he raped and strangled her.

Hill was stabbed twice in the chest, wounds that penetrated her left lung and caused her to bleed to death, according to the appellate court’s decision.

Thacker had called Patterson to tow his car after it broke down as he was driving from Missouri toward Dyersburg, Tenn. Patterson towed the car to a service station, and Thacker tried to pay him with a stolen credit card. When the card was rejected, Thacker stabbed Patterson because he knew Thacker was wanted in other states, authorities said.

Thacker is currently in the custody of the Tennessee Department of Corrections, according to Jerry Massie of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. Online prison records indicate Thacker is confined at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

Thacker’s defense attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Randy Bauman, declined comment on the appellate court’s decision.

FLORIDA – George Zimmerman released from jail on $150,000 bail

april 23, source : http://www.suntimes.com

SANFORD, Fla. — George Zimmerman was released around midnight Sunday from a Florida county jail on $150,000 bail as he awaits his second-degree murder trial for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin.

The neighborhood watch volunteer was wearing a brown jacket and blue jeans and carrying a paper bag. He walked out staring straight ahead and following another man also carrying bags and didn’t look over at photographers gathered outside. He then followed the man into a white BMW vehicle and drove away.

His ultimate destination is being kept secret for his safety and it could be outside Florida.

Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester said at a hearing Friday he cannot have any guns and must observe a 7 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew. Zimmerman also surrendered his passport.

Zimmerman had to put up 10 percent, or $15,000, to make bail. His father had indicated he might take out a second mortgage.

Zimmerman worked at a mortgage risk-management company at the time of the shooting and his wife is in nursing school. A website was set up to collect donations for Zimmerman’s defense fund. It is unclear how much has been raised.

Bail is not unheard of in second-degree murder cases, and legal experts had predicted it would be granted for Zimmerman because of his ties to the community, because he turned himself in after he was charged last week, and because he has never been convicted of a serious crime.

Prosecutors had asked for $1 million bail, citing two previous scrapes Zimmerman had with the law, neither of which resulted in charges. In 2005, he had to take anger management courses after he was accused of attacking an undercover officer who was trying to arrest Zimmerman’s friend. In another incident, a girlfriend accused him of attacking her.

Zimmerman, 28, fatally shot Martin, 17, Feb. 26 inside the gated community where Zimmerman lived during an altercation. Martin was unarmed and was walking back to the home of his father’s fiancée when Zimmerman saw him, called 911 and began following him. A fight broke out — investigators say it is unknown who started it.

Zimmerman says Martin, who was visiting from Miami, attacked him. Zimmerman says he Martin in self-defense, citing Florida’s “stand your ground” law, which gives broad legal protection to anyone who says they used deadly force because they feared death or great bodily harm.

Zimmerman was not charged for over six weeks, sparking national protests led by Martin’s parents, civil rights groups and the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Martin was black; Zimmerman’s father is white and his mother is from Peru.

Earlier Sunday, Zimmerman’s attorney was working to secure the money for bail and a safe place for Zimmerman to stay. But residents in Sanford, where Martin was killed, didn’t expect a ruckus once Zimmerman was released.

City commissioners said they hadn’t received calls from nervous residents. Protesters didn’t show up outside the jail. And talk at one local coffee shop seldom focused on the case.

“It’s just kind of a non-issue now,” said Michele Church, a server at Mel’s Family Diner. “That’s pretty much all anybody in Sanford wanted, was an arrest, so it could be sorted out in the court system.”

On Friday, a Florida judge agreed to let Zimmerman out on $150,000 bail. Defense attorney Mark O’Mara has said there are several options for where Zimmerman should go, but would not disclose any of them. Lester on Friday indicated Zimmerman would be allowed to leave the state if arrangements with law enforcement could be made for him to be monitored. He will be fitted with an electronic device.

About a half-dozen photographers and cameramen camped outside the Sanford jail Sunday, focused on the door marked “Bonds Rooms,” where other people who had been arrested and released on bail exited. Zimmerman had entered the jail about a week earlier after more than a month of nationwide protests calling for his arrest.

“The mood in Sanford has calmed down tremendously,” said Sanford Commissioner Patty Mahany, whose district includes the neighborhood where Martin was killed. “I think now that people are able to see the justice system taking place, even though they understand it’s going to be quite slow, people are willing to just remain calm and really we’re all getting back to our daily routines.”

A spokeswoman for the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office declined to release any information about whether they were increasing patrols or security.

Defense attorneys for other high-profile clients who awaited trial on bail have said Zimmerman should leave Florida and refrain from going out in public. Sanford residents say they aren’t expecting to see him around the neighborhood anytime soon.

“They’ve already said they’re going to move him to a safe place,” Church said. “Everyone has calmed down. That’s all anyone in Sanford wanted, an arrest.”

Meanwhile, Martin’s parents published a “Card of Thanks” in The Miami Herald obituary page Sunday. The note says Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin express their appreciation for all the public’s support since their son’s death. The notice includes a photograph of Trayvon Martin dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, similar to one he was wearing the evening he was killed.

“Words will never express how your love, support and prayers lifted our spirits and continue to give us the strength to march on,” the letter says.

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FLORIDA – Zimmerman’s Bail Set at $150,000 in Martin Shooting

april 20, 2012 source :http://www.nytimes.com

A Florida judge on Friday set George Zimmerman’s bail at $150,000 in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and imposed restrictions on Mr. Zimmerman’s release from jail.

During the bail hearing, Mr. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who has been charged with second-degree murder for shooting Mr. Martin to death, offered an apology to the victim’s parents, who were in the courtroom.

“I wanted to say I am sorry for the loss of your son. I did not know how old he was,” Mr. Zimmerman, 28, said, speaking publicly for the first time about the Feb. 26 shooting. “I thought he was a little bit younger than I am. I did not know if he was armed or not.”

Mr. Martin’s parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, showed no emotion during Mr. Zimmerman’s remarks. They left shortly before the hearing ended and were whisked by their lawyer across a parking lot to a waiting car.

In setting bail, the judge, Kenneth R. Lester Jr., said that Mr. Zimmerman could have no contact with Mr. Martin’s family and no access to alcohol or firearms and that his movements would be monitored electronically. Judge Lester also set a curfew that would require Mr. Zimmerman to remain at home from 7 p.m. until 6 a.m. and require him check in with the authorities every three days.

Mr. Zimmerman will not be released from jail on Friday. The judge said that he wanted to make sure that security measures were in place for Mr. Zimmerman, who has received death threats.

Mr. Zimmerman’s family members testified that they would assume responsibility for his whereabouts when he is released from jail.

Testifying by telephone, Mr. Zimmerman’s wife, Shellie Nichole Zimmerman, said that she would also notify the court and law enforcement officials if she lost contact with Mr. Zimmerman for any reason before his trial.

 Judge Lester had agreed to allow Ms. Zimmerman and other members of the Zimmerman family, including his father, Robert, and his mother, Gladys, to testify at the hearing by telephone out of concern for their safety.

Mr. Zimmerman, 28, dressed in a white shirt, dark suit and gray tie, was shackled and wore a somber expression during the proceedings as he sat next to his lawyer, Mark O’Mara.

He showed no expression as his wife calmly answered questions from both Mr. O’Mara and Bernado De La Rionada, an assistant state attorney.

Ms. Zimmerman said she and her husband had been married for almost five years and that she did not believe that he posed a flight risk. She said she spoke with him every day by phone when he was in hiding in the weeks before his arrest.

Mr. De La Rionada asked her whether she believed her husband was a violent person. She replied, “No.”

Mr. Zimmerman has spent nine days in the Seminole County jail since his arrest, which came six weeks after he shot and killed Mr. Martin, 17, who was unarmed and walking through a small gated development in Sanford. Mr. Zimmerman told police he shot Mr. Martin in self-defense.

The case, which led to protests and marches around the country, raised questions about Florida’s expansive self-defense law and racial profiling after Mr. Zimmerman was not immediately arrested after the shooting on Feb. 26 and remained free for weeks. Widely criticized for not moving quickly enough on the case, both the Sanford police chief and the local prosecutor stepped aside.

Gov. Rick Scott appointed Angela B. Corey, a state attorney from the Jacksonville area, as a special prosecutor to manage the case. Ms. Corey brought the maximum possible charge against Mr. Zimmerman, outlining in court papers that he had profiled Mr. Martin based on his race before following him as he walked through the development.

If convicted of second-degree murder, Mr. Zimmerman, could face life in prison.

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ALABAMA- Dothan man sentenced to death for third time – Jerry Jerome Smith

april 18, 2012 source : http://www2.dothaneagle.com

Randolph Flournoy said he’ll never forgive Jerry Jerome Smith for killing his brother more than 15 years ago.

Jerry Smith

“God already done spoken through the judge,” said Flournoy.

Houston County Circuit Court Judge Michael Conaway sentenced 41-year-old Smith to death Wednesday, affirming a recommendation by a jury returned earlier this year.

It became the third time a Houston County judge has sentenced Smith to death for the same capital murder convictions.

A jury found Smith guilty of killing Willie James Flournoy, 40, of Dothan, Theresa Ann Helms, 26, of Wicksburg and David Lee Bennett, 29, of Midland City. The three people were killed at a Sturgeon Court residence on Oct. 19, 1996, which police had described as a crack house. All three people were shot to death in the home.

Several months ago the state Supreme Court upheld Smith’s conviction, but reversed his sentence.

The judge could have affirmed the jury’s recommendation of the death penalty or overturned it and issued a sentence of life in prison without the opportunity for parole.

“Let’s go ahead and give him his last meal,” Flournoy said. “You can not pat the devil on the head and think he’s going to change.”

Marvin Helms said Smith fatally shot his sister seven times.

“I’m tired of coming here for the same thing,” Helms said. “He shot two men less times than he shot my sister. They don’t need to give him life. They need to go on and kill him. They need to take him down to sparky.”

According to the deathpenalty.org website, the primary method of execution is lethal injection in Alabama, although inmates convicted before 2002 can choose either electrocution or lethal injection.

In contrast, Bobby Bennett, the brother of David Lee Bennett, said he disagreed with the court’s sentence.

“I think it should’ve been life without parole. Maybe God can use this young man, even in prison,” Bennett said. “I just don’t believe in taking a man’s life. Who are we to judge?”

Bennett recalled his brother as a forgiving person.

“I still believe in chances even though my brother didn’t have any,” Bennett said. “God brings closure. God forgives, and so must we.”

Conaway heard arguments from Smith’s attorney, Aaron Gartlan, and Houston County District Attorney Doug Valeska before making his ruling.

Attorney David Hogg, who also represented Smith, said his client’s first two sentences were reversed. The death sentence was reversed because of comments made by some of the relatives of victims in the murders during the jury selection of the trial.

Valeska referred to Smith as someone who ran a drug trafficking enterprise. Valeska also said Smith has shown the court no remorse.

Smith turned down an opportunity to say anything before the court made its ruling.

“All he wanted was money for his drug enterprise,” Valeska said. “Jerry Jerome Smith is the worst of the worst. In the history of the city of Dothan no one has ever killed three people and tried to kill a fourth. We don’t call for vengeance, we call for justice.”

Gartlan asked the court to consider reports he turned in to the court indicating his client was mentally retarded.

“We were not allowed to develop that issue with the jury,” Gartlan said. “They were not allowed to consider the full picture.”

The state Supreme Court upheld the court’s ruling that Smith was not mentally retarded, which in the state of Alabama would have prevented him from facing the death penalty.

The Supreme Court’s opinion said Smith’s actions of “systematically” killing three people and attempting to kill a fourth after his gun jammed were not the actions of a mentally retarded individual.

Gartlan said the Supreme Court’s ruling did not limit him from presenting his client’s mental retardation as mitigating evidence.

Valeska told the Eagle earlier that it was a death penalty case because two or more people were killed at the same time, and that they were killed during a burglary.

US – Science lacking on death penalty deterrent

april19, 2012 source :http://www.sbs.com.au

Scientific research to date provides  no useful conclusion on whether the death penalty reduces or boosts the murder rate, said US report. 

Scientific research to date provides no useful conclusion on whether the death penalty reduces or boosts the murder rate, said a report by the US National Academy of Sciences on Wednesday.

A committee of scientists reviewed research done over the past 35 years and found it was “not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide rates,” said the report.

“Consequently, claims that research demonstrates that capital punishment decreases or increases the homicide rate by a specified amount or has no effect on the homicide rate should not influence policy judgments.”

The report was issued by the NAS’s National Research Council, which convened a Committee on Deterrence and the Death Penalty to look at available evidence on how the death penalty may affect murder rates.

A previous report by the NRC in 1978 found that “available studies provide no useful evidence on the deterrent effect of capital punishment.”

In the decades since that report, “a considerable number” of studies have attempted to judge how well it works, or does not, and have reached “widely varying conclusions,” the latest report said.

“Fundamental flaws in the research we reviewed make it of no use in answering the question of whether the death penalty affects homicide rates,” said Daniel Nagin, professor of public policy and statistics at Carnegie Mellon University and chair of the committee that wrote the report.

“We recognise that this conclusion may be controversial to some, but no one is well-served by un supportable claims about the effect of the death penalty, regardless of whether the claim is that the death penalty deters homicides, has no effect on homicide rates or actually increases homicides.”

Until now, a key flaw in the research has been the failure to account for how punishments such as life in prison without the possibility of parole may affect homicide rates.

Also, a number of assumptions have hobbled previous studies, particularly by assuming that potential murderers actually consider the risk of execution and respond accordingly.

Instead, researchers going forward must perform more rigorous studies that assess how potential criminals view the death penalty and its likely effect on their actions, the report said.

Better methods for future research include collecting data that consider both capital and non-capital punishments for murder and doing studies on how potential murderers perceive a range of punishments in homicide cases, it said.

Just 15 percent of people who have received the death sentence since 1976 have been executed, “and a large fraction of death sentences are reversed,” added the report.

The members did not examine the moral arguments for or against capital punishment, or the costs involved.

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NORTH CAROLINA – Guilty But Innocent – Henry Alford

april, 17, 2012 source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com

The recent flurry of news stories involving inmates claiming innocence but accepting guilty pleas in exchange for release from prison warrants some discussion. The particular plea bargain is known as an “Alford plea” and originated in the United States Supreme Court case of North Carolina v. Alford in 1970. The Supreme Court upheld the plea agreement entered by the trial court, despite defendant’s protests of innocence, and determined that since defendant was adequately advised of the plea arrangement by his lawyer and entered the plea voluntary, the plea bargain would stand. The underlying facts of the case are relevant to this discussion.

Henry Alford had been indicted on a charge of first-degree murder in 1963. Evidence in the case included testimony from witnesses that Alford had said after the death of the victim that he had killed the individual. Court testimony showed Alford and the victim argued at the victim’s house. Alford left the house, and afterwards the victim received a fatal gunshot woundwhen he opened the door responding to a knock.

Alford was faced with the possibility of capital punishment if convicted by a jury trial. The death penalty was required pursuant to North Carolinalaw at the time if two conditions in the case were satisfied. The defendant had to have pleaded not guilty, and the jury had to decide not to recommend a life sentence (this is not the law today). Had Alford pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, he would have avoided the death penalty and been sentenced to life in prison. The defendant did not want to admit guilt. Alford pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and said he was doing so to avoid a death sentence if he had been convicted of first-degree murder after attempting to contest that charge. Alford was sentenced to 30 years in prison, after the trial judge in the case accepted the plea bargain and ruled that the defendant had been adequately apprised by his lawyer.

Alford filed an appeal requesting a new trial arguing he was forced into a guilty plea because he was afraid of receiving a death sentence. The Supreme Court of North Carolina ruled that the defendant had voluntarily entered the guilty plea, with knowledge of what that meant. Following this ruling, Alford petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, which upheld the initial ruling, and subsequently to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit which ruled that Alford’s plea was not voluntary, because it was made under fear of the death penalty. “I just pleaded guilty because they said if I didn’t, they would gas me for it,” wrote Alford in one of his appeals.

The defendant appealed to the US Supreme Court with Justice Byron White writing for the majority. In a 6 to 3 decision, the Court held that for the plea agreement to be accepted, the defendant must have been advised by a competent lawyer who was able to inform the individual that his best decision in the case would be to enter a guilty plea. The Court ruled that the defendant can enter such a plea “when he concludes that his interests require a guilty plea and the record strongly indicates guilt.” The Court only allowed the guilty plea with a simultaneous protestation of innocence as there was enough evidence to show that the prosecution had a strong case for a conviction, and the defendant was entering such a plea to avoid this possible sentencing. The Court went on to note that even if the defendant could have shown that he would not have entered a guilty plea “but for” the rationale of receiving a lesser sentence, the plea itself would not have been ruled invalid. As a factual basis existed that could have supported Alford’s conviction, the Supreme Court held that his guilty plea was sustainable while the defendant himself still maintained that he was not guilty.

full article : click here 

FLORIDA – Zimmerman’s Attorney Wants Judge Out, Records Sealed

The attorney for George Zimmerman filed a motion late Monday asking the court to recuse the judge in the case over a possible conflict of interest.

Mark O’Mara, Zimmerman’s attorney, requested that Seminole Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler be removed after she revealed that her husband works with Mark NeJame, a CNN legal analyst. Last week, after O’Mara agreed to take Zimmerman as a client, NeJame revealed that he had been approached by Zimmerman—the 28-year-old neighbourhood watchman accused of second-degree murder in the killing of Trayvon Martin—about representing him. NeJame declined, but suggested five lawyers, including O’Mara, to Zimmerman, reports The Cutline.

On Friday, Recksiedler said she would consider stepping aside.

Meanwhile, several news organizations—including CNN, USA Today and the Miami Herald—petitioned the court to reverse an order sealing records in the case.

O’Mara told CNN Monday he wants them sealed to prevent the steady flow of leaks that have already marred the case.

“It’s an overall philosophy of trying to keep the information flow concentrated within the court system,” O’Mara said. “It’s much better handled there. And, again, if information like this, even a police report with names on it, gets out, then my concern is that they’re going to be spoken to. They’re going to be questioned. There’s going to be four or five different statements from this one witness, let’s say, and then we have to sift through all of that to try and get to what is the truth.”

O’Mara said he’s also concerned about the safety of the witnesses.

US – Estimates of Time Spent in Capital and Non-Capital Murder Cases

A Statistical Analysis of Survey Data from Clark County Defense Attorneys
Terance D. Miethe, PhD.
Department of Criminal Justice
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
February 21, 2012

I. Introduction
A survey was designed to provide average estimates of the time spent at various stages of criminal processing for the defense of capital and non-capital murder cases. Defense attorneys were asked to use their personal experiences over the past three years to estimate the number of hours they spent in pretrial, trial, penalty, and post-conviction activities in a “typical” capital and non-capital murder case. Separate questions were asked about their experiences as “lead attorney” and “second chair” in these typical cases. A total of 22 defense attorneys completed the survey. The largest group of survey respondents were attorneys within the Public Defender’s office (n=10), followed by the Special Public Defender’s office (n=9) and the Office of Assigned Counsel (n=3). To provide some context for the time estimates provided by these defense attorneys, this survey data was also supplemented with general case processing information on a sample of 138 murder cases sentenced in District Court between 2009 and 2011. The Clark County Court’s electronic record system was used to identify these murder cases and to construct summary statistics on case processing (e.g., average time between court filing and sentencing; number of total meetings with parties present, number of orders and motions filed). These court statistics were analyzed separately for each major type of sentence (i.e., yearly maximum sentences, life with possibility of parole, life without possibility of parole, and death sentences). For the survey data included in this report, the median score (i.e., the middle score of a distribution) is used as the average estimate of time spent at each stage of criminal processing. The median is the most appropriate measure for these analyses because (1) it minimizes the impact of extreme ratings and (2) the distribution of time estimates across respondents is not normally distributed. Under these conditions, the median, rather than the mean, is the appropriate summary measure of central tendency.

read the full report : click here