St. Johns County Florida

FLORIDA – Jury: Death for Timothy Wayne Fletcher

June 13, 2012 Source : http://www.palatkadailynews.com

ST. AUGUSTINE – Convicted killer Timothy Wayne Fletcher should be executed for choking his step-grandmother after a jailbreak, a jury says.

It took the jury an hour to reach the decision Tuesday afternoon, faster than the 98 minutes it took them to find Fletcher guilty of murder and other crimes during a 2009 spree.
The jury voted 8-4 in favor of the death penalty.

“We’re very happy that the jury saw it the way we saw it and that is that the death penalty is appropriate for this case,” Assistant State Attorney Mark Johnson said. 

Fletcher was convicted May 25 of killing Helen Key Googe, 66.

The jury’s recommendation of the death penalty concluded a two-day penalty hearing at the St. Johns County courthouse, where the trial was moved because of publicity.

Fletcher, dressed in a white shirt, tie and dark slacks, showed little reaction to the decision.

Several relatives of Googe quietly cried as the stressful first-degree murder trial inched to a close.

Security was heightened for the announcement. Nine deputy sheriffs took up positions near Fletcher before the jury returned to Berger’s courtroom.

As he stood, Fletcher appeared tense. He looked around at the small crowd seated in the courtroom.

Googe, 66, was slain in her home in Bardin, where Fletcher told investigators later he believed she kept several thousand dollars. During video-taped questoning after his capture, Fletcher blamed Googe for her murder, saying she would have left alive had she not fought.

“She was fighting and kicking the whole time,” he said. “She never did quit fighting.”

Authorities say Fletcher stole a jack from a jail transport van and smuggled it into the jail, which he and cellmate Doni Ray Brown used to move a plumbing fixture from the wall.

The pair used the utility corridor behind the wall to reach an inadequately secured door and fled the jail about 2 a.m. on April 15, 2009.

Once outside the jail, they broke into and tried to steal a pickup and van before finding a pickup with keys in it at a tire shop, then drove to Googe’s house.

Fletcher was convicted of escape, first-degree murder, home invasion robbery, grand theft of a motor vehicle and burglary of motor vehicles.

Murder and other charges are pending against Brown.

Fletcher and Brown’s escape highlighted massive problems in the county jail, including security failures, overcrowding and shoddy maintenance.

An investigation cited personnel issues at the jail and resulted in several disciplinary actions after the escape. Paula Carter, the major in charge of the jail, retired. One corrections deputy was fired and seven others were disciplined.

Fletcher consumed methamphetamine inside the jail in the days leading to the jailbreak, according to testimony.

Fletcher and Brown were apprehended at Pomona Park after a massive manhunt three days after their escape.

A majority of the jurors rejected arguments by defense attorney Garry Wood that Fletcher should be spared and sentenced to life in prison. Wood said Fletcher suffered from mental illness and had a history of drug and alcohol abuse dating to adolescence.

Fletcher had a troubled childhood marked by domestic violence, Wood said.

“All of these things together matter,” he said.

Wood described Fletcher as “a mentally ill, abused person.”

Johnson, however, said Fletcher’s actions deserved the ultimate punishment.

“He wrapped his fingers around her neck and squeezed harder and harder,” Johnson said. “Justice cries out that he be sentenced to death.”

The jury’s recommendation of the death penalty triggers another pre-sentence hearing, this time without the jury, likely to be held in July.

FLORIDA – Death row inmate’s fate now up to Judge Berger- James Daniel Turner

May 10, 2012 Source : http://staugustine.com

A death row inmate convicted in a brutal stabbing death in a motel room in 2005 now must do what probably is familiar to him: wait.

James Daniel Turner was in court Wednesday for the second day of an evidentiary hearing in which his attorneys asked for a new trial. They said Turner’s former attorneys didn’t make the jury aware of significant mental health illnesses he had when Renee Boling Howard, 37, a mother of five, was stabbed to death at a Comfort Inn.

The hearing concluded before noon, and now Circuit Judge Wendy Berger will think over the matter before making a decision.

No date has been set for a decision.

On Tuesday, an expert witness for the defense said Turner suffers from bipolar and borderline personality disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and that the jury was not made aware of those diagnoses.

On Wednesday, an expert witness for the state said he does not believe Turner suffers from bipolar or borderline personality disorders.

Dr. Jeffrey Danziger, a Maitland-based psychiatrist and medical doctor, said the symptoms that led to those diagnoses were induced by Turner’s dependence on powdered methamphetamine, cocaine and alcohol and did not appear in the seven years he was in prison.

Danziger said Turner “does not suffer from bipolar disorder because he hasn’t had a manic episode that I am aware of.”

He said accounts of manic activities such as Turner’s spending of a $25,000 settlement in one week and unstable romantic relationships, including three failed marriages, could be attributed to the effects of the substances.

Rather, “he has some situational unhappiness, and that’s to be expected” because he is in prison and sentenced to death, Danziger said.

He said Turner had not exhibited borderline behavior while in prison, such as cutting himself, banging his head against a wall or attempting suicide.

And the ADHD?

“Maybe,” Danziger said. But even if he does suffer from that disorder, “it has little to do with (the murder) in 2005.”

Danziger agreed with several previous diagnoses that found that Turner has frontal lobe damage.

He said those findings were “not surprising for someone who has a history of heavy substance abuse and maybe suffered some knocks to the head,” including head trauma in substance-induced car accidents.

A jury in 2007 found Turner, then of Silverstreet, S.C., guilty of stabbing Howard on Sept. 30, 2005, at the St. Augustine motel off State Road 207 and Interstate 95 after escaping from a South Carolina prison and stealing a police car.

Prosecutors said he stabbed Howard several times before turning to see her crawling toward the door and stabbing her again.

Two of Howard’s children, a 10-month-old and a 2-year-old, were in the room, as was her 10-month-old grandchild. They weren’t injured, but Howard’s friend Stacia Raybon was attacked twice before locking herself in the bathroom.

If Berger grants a new trial, it would be the third for Turner.

Berger declared a mistrial during Turner’s first trial in July 2007 when a juror had a seizure during consideration of the fifth and final charge against the defendant.

Jurors found him guilty Nov. 29, 2007, during his retrial and later recommended the death penalty.

Dr. Miguel Mandoki, a Jacksonville psychiatrist, said during the first trial that he believed Turner was insane when Howard was killed in St. Augustine.

In addition to the death sentence, Berger sentenced Turner to life in prison for home invasion robbery with a deadly weapon, five years for the grand theft of Howard’s Ford F-150 pickup truck and 15 years for aggravated assault on a police officer.

St. Johns County Deputy Graham Harris had testified that he chased Turner south on State Road 207 at speeds between 90 and 100 mph. He said Turner put the pickup truck in reverse and rammed his patrol car before jumping off the Deep Creek bridge.