TEXAS – Death row inmates loses appeal – Jerry Duane Martin

NOVEMBER 2, 2012 http://itemonline.com

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the conviction of an inmate sentenced to death for the murder of a Texas Department of Criminal Justice employee during an attempted escape from a Huntsville prison in 2007.

A jury found Jerry Duane Martin, 42, guilty of capital murder in 2009 for the death of correctional officer Susan Canfield. Martin used a stolen truck to ram a horse Canfield was riding while trying to prevent him and John Ray Falk Jr. from escaping from the Wynne Unit on Sept. 24, 2007.

Canfield was thrown from the horse and died as a result of head injuries she sustained when she struck the windshield of the truck and fell to the ground.

Jury selection is under way in Bryan for Falk’s capital murder trial for his role in Canfield’s murder. He is also facing the death penalty. Attorneys for the state and defense are interviewing potential jurors. More than 200 Brazos County residents were summoned and the process is expected to take a couple of more weeks.

The Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected Martin’s appeals, which contained 20 points of error during his trial three years ago. Among those, Martin’s attorneys alleged jury misconduct and that Martin should have been granted a new trial.

The defense argued Martin was denied an impartial jury because one juror withheld information that her family member worked for TDCJ when her husband had been a correctional officer for 18 months and had been stabbed by an inmate. The juror testified during a motion for a new trial that this did not influence her because it happened 17 years ago and her husband had said that he did not think the incident was a “big deal.”

Martin’s attorneys also noted that two other jurors were admitted to the jury who had ties to the Texas prison system. One had formerly worked at the Limestone County Detention Center and the other had been married to a man who was a correctional officer for 20 years.

The appeals court did not see any reason to overturn the trial court’s ruling and issued this opinion: “After reviewing appellant’s 20 points of error, we find them to be without merit. Consequently, we affirm the trial court’s judgment and sentence of death.”

Walker County grand jury indictments

A grand jury handed down the following indictments last week:

• Joe A. Thomas, illegal dumping commercial weight/barrel or drum.

• Juvenal Pimentel, possession of a controlled substance point grade one less than one gram.

• Willie Ray Shelton, possession of a controlled substance point grade two more than or equal to four grams but less than 400 grams.

• Christopher Tyrone Cooper, possession of a controlled substance point grade one less than one gram.

• Jerry W. Williams, driving while intoxicated third or more.

• Robert Cartwright, indecency with a child sexual contact.

• Angela Lee Morris, possession of a controlled substance point grade one more than or equal to one gram but less than four grams.

• Christopher Fazio, fraud possession of a controlled substance/prescription schedule I/II.

• David Karl Schneider, possession of a controlled substance point grade one less than one gram.

• Anthony Lamont Person Jr., possession of marijuana more than four ounces but less than five pounds.

• Kourtnae White, driving while intoxicated third or more.

• Jacqualine Christine Hardy, two counts of driving while intoxicated third or more.

• Shelton Bernard Hightower, possession of a controlled substance point grade one less than one gram.

• Leah Taylor Yeley, credit card or debit card abuse.

• Michael Quinn Sykes, credit card or debit card abuse.

• Robert Lee Austin III, credit card or debit card abuse.

• Kristin Winfrey, driving while intoxicated third or more.

• Christopher Damon Stuart, burglary of a building

Death row inmate Jason Sharp, convicted in 1999 Madison County slaying, to get new case review

NOVEMBER 1, 2012 http://blog.al.com

The Alabama Supreme Court wants the state’s criminal appeals court to take another look at the case of Jason Sharp, who is on death row after being convicted of the 1999 rape and murder of Tracy Morris.

The case took years to go to trial before Sharp was convicted in 2006.

The appeals process has bounced back and forth from various Alabama courts since Sharp’s lawyers alleged prosecutors improperly struck black would-be jurors from the jury pool.

Jason Sharp is led from Judge Laura Hamilton’s courtroom by Madison County Sheriff deputies from left, Sgt. Emmanuel Simmons, E.T. Burrows and Avery Miller after being sentenced to the death penalty Thursday Sept. 14, 2006 for the murder of Tracy Morris. (The Huntsville Times/Robin Conn)Brian Lawson | blawson@al.com

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that prosecutors must have race-neutral reasons for striking jurors. Both Sharp and Morris are white.

The state’s high court today denied a request by the State of Alabama to reconsider its order from last month, directing the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to allow Sharp’s attorneys and the state to file new briefs on the issue of whether Sharp received a fair trial.

The dispute centers the complaint by Sharp’s attorneys that the prosecution improperly struck all but two of 13 potential jurors who were African American. The defense struck the other two black potential jurors.

In December 2009, the Alabama Supreme Court overturned the conviction andordered a hearing before Circuit Judge Laura Hamilton, who presided over Sharp’s trial. The court required prosecutors to spell out their reasons for striking black jurors. If the prosecution, led by Madison County District Attorney Rob Broussard failed to persuade the trial court that the juror strikes were proper, Sharp would be entitled to a new trial.

The hearing was held and Hamilton ruled in June 2010 that prosecutors did not discriminate in picking a jury. The prosecution had argued a number of the black potential jurors said they opposed or would be reluctant to impose the death penalty, or didn’t appear to have the professional or social “sophistication” to comprehend technical DNA evidence.

Broussard said he struck twice as many white potential jurors based on the DNA issue and has insisted there was no discrimination in the Sharp case.

The sophistication argument was ridiculed by the defense for appearing to suggest the jurors weren’t intelligent enough. And in one instance, a woman with a bachelor’s degree from Alabama A&M University was excluded, the defense argued, but two white jurors with no college education did make the jury.

The case took another turn in February 2011, when the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that the prosecution had discriminated against the black members of the jury pool and said Sharp was entitled to a new trial.

But in February of this year, the same court, though with a slightly different make-up,reversed its decision from the previous year and said prosecutors did not discriminate.

That ruling was appealed by Sharp’s lawyers to the Alabama Supreme Court. The court ruled Oct. 18, that the lower court must let the two sides provide briefs to the appeals court on the issue of whether Hamilton’s ruling was correct that the prosecution did not discriminate against members of the jury pool.

Supreme Court To Hear Texas Death Row Inmate’s Case – Carlos Trevino

October 29, 2012 http://www.texastribune.org

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear the case of Texas death row inmate Carlos Trevino in a case that could determine whether a defendant in Texas has a right to “competent” attorney during habeas appeals — a challenge to a criminal conviction that considers whether the defendant’s constitutional rights were violated during his trial.

In March, the nation’s highest court decided inMartinez v. Ryan that the failure of state habeas lawyers to argue that their client’s trial counsel was ineffective should not keep the defendant from being able to make that argument later in the appeals process.

The question in the Trevino case is whether the court’s decision in Martinez applies in Texas, said Trevino’s lawyer, Warren Alan Wolf. The U.S. 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals decided in November 2011 that since the laws governing habeas appeals in Texas are different from those in Arizona, the Martinez decision does not apply.

Wolf said he had expected the court to select the case of John Balentine, another Texas death row inmate, as the one with which to decide the question. Balentine was an hour away from execution in August when the court granted him a stay to decide whether his state habeas attorney should have raised claims that his trial counsel had been ineffective. His trial lawyer, Balentine contended, failed to consider mitigating evidence that might have convinced jurors to sentence him to life rather than death.

Dissenting from the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals’ refusal to grant Balentine a hearing, two judges wrote that, “The issue of Martinez v. Ryan’s applicability to capital habeas petitioners in Texas presents an issue of exceptional importance.”

Trevino was convicted in 1997 of the rape and murder of 15-year-old Linda Salinas at a park in San Antonio. At the time, he was a member of the Pisteleros gang, and several other members were charged for the murder. Trevino was the only one sentenced to death.

Trevino’s first habeas attorney, Albert Rodriguez, did “no investigation” outside of the record that already existed, Wolf said, and then became sick and “didn’t want to proceed.” As a result, he explained, “Carlos never really got fair representation.

TEXAS – Death Row inmate didn’t commit murders, witnesses say – Lester Leroy Bower,

October 29,2012 http://www.star-telegram.com

SHERMAN — In a day of dramatic testimony Monday, two women implicated a gang of drug dealers in the 1983 slaughter of four men in a Grayson County airplane hangar.

After 29 years on Texas’ Death Row for the crimes, Lester Leroy Bower, who was a chemical salesman living in Arlington when he was arrested, hopes their accounts will help him win his freedom, or at least a new trial.

One of the women, identified in court as Witness No. 1, said her boyfriend told her that he participated in the killings on the October night they happened.

“He said he and his friends had gone there for a drug deal,” the witness said. “It didn’t go right and they had to kill some people.”

The boyfriend was identified in court as Lynn. Others in the gang were identified as Bear, Ches and Rocky, part of a methamphetamine ring operating in southern Oklahoma at the time, she said.

Several days after the killings, the woman testified, she heard Lynn and Ches discussing it.

“Ches was laughing, telling Lynn, ‘Did you see the guy’s face when you shot him in the head?’” the witness testified. “Lynn said, ‘I had to shoot him. He was running for the door.’”

The witness, who said she was the mother of a slaying victim, said she went to Bower’s defense lawyers in 1989 after learning that Bower had been convicted and faced the death penalty.

“As the mother of a homicide victim, I know how important it is to make the right person pay for what they did,” the witness testified. “I don’t believe Mr. Bower is that person.”

Bower’s lawyers have filed an appeal with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, arguing that new evidence points to the innocence of their 64-year-old client, the fourth-oldest man on Death Row. The appellate court ordered state District Judge Jim Fallon to hold this week’s hearing in Sherman, in part to build a record of testimony that can be used later in a decision on Bower’s fate.

Bower, a graying man dressed in orange prison coveralls, also testified Monday, the first day of the hearing.

The condemned man, who did not take the stand at his 1984 trial, denied killing the men but said his own lies contributed to his conviction. Bower admitted lying repeatedly to investigators to try to steer clear of the case, and to his wife, fearing that she would have been upset by his secret purchase of an ultralight aircraft.

Bower said he bought the aircraft from the victims shortly before they died.

“This is my doing,” Bower said Monday. “I’m responsible for my actions, my trying to stay out of this and lying to authorities. Lying to my wife, that’s probably where this started.”

Monday was the first time the testimony of Bower and other defense witnesses had been heard in state court. When Bower was sentenced to die, state law specified that new evidence could not be presented unless it had been discovered within 30 days of the conviction. That law has changed.

Some time after this week’s hearing, Fallon is expected to issue a ruling that could suggest upholding the conviction, recommend that Bower be released, or recommend a new trial. Ultimately, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will decide the case.

Grayson County prosecutors have vigorously contested alternate theories presented by the defense, saying Bower was convicted on the basis of strong circumstantial evidence. That included Bowers’ repeated lies to FBI agents and that he was known to have owned a firearm and exotic ammunition similar to that used in the crimes. Additionally, parts of the ultralight aircraft were discovered in his home.

The victims — Bob Tate, Philip Good, Jerry Mack Brown and Ronald Mayes — were found shot to death in a hangar five miles from Sherman, the Grayson County seat.

During Monday’s hearing, friends and relatives of the victims sat on one side of the crowded courtroom, supporters of Bower on the other. Robbie Dutton, Brown’s widow, listened from the first row, just behind the prosecution table.

“Just rehashing, you know,” she said of her feelings after Monday’s testimony concluded. “We’re not wanting him to be punished for something he didn’t do, but the evidence presented in 1984 was so damning.”

Nothing she heard Monday changed her belief in Bower’s guilt, she said.

“It’s hard to hear all of this again,” Dutton said.

Witness No. 1 testified that she was told of the killings hours after they occurred, while she and Lynn drove through Sherman.

“When he told me about all this, it was like my whole world shifted at that point,” she said. “It was like I just stepped into a TV movie.”

She also described her boyfriend’s behavior in the days after the killings.

“He would have a hard time sleeping,” she said. “He would have nightmares. He would be up pacing. He said he could see the man’s eyes he shot and he could hear the noise reverberating off the tin building.”

The second witness, identified as Witness No. 5, said she was the wife of Bear, who died of cancer five years ago. She testified that several times she heard her husband and the other men talk about a shooting in an airplane hangar in which four men were killed.

“I believe they committed the crime, yes,” she said.

Grayson County prosecutor Kerye Ashmore attacked the credibility of both women, citing their heavy drug use at the time of the slayings, and in the case of Witness No. 1, a felony conviction for forgery.

Bower also faces what likely will be a vigorous cross-examination as the hearing resumes today.

On Monday, Bower described meeting the men in the hangar and paying $3,000 cash as a down payment for the ultralight. But he hid his purchase.

“I was concerned how my wife would react,” Bower said. “I was quite sure she would not have approved.”

He said he was stunned and frightened when he heard of the slaughter a few days after it happened. The following January, FBI agents tracked Bower down through telephone records of his calls to one of the victims. When questioned, he said, he admitted inquiring about the aircraft but did not say he had visited the crime scene.

“Once I headed down the proverbial bad path, I kept on going,” Bower said. “I told them the same lie.”

 

TEXAS – Death penalty case reviewed – FARYON WARDRIP

October 26, 2012  http://www.timesrecordnews.com

A federal magistrate judge for the Northern District of Texas, Paul D. Stickney, is trying to decide what will happen with the death penalty case of convicted serial killer Faryion Wardrip in the appeals process.

Wardrip was sentenced to death in 1999 after being convicted of the murder of 20-year-old Terry Sims. He received life sentences for three other murders — Toni Gibbs, Ellen Blau and Debra Taylor.

Wardrip murdered at least four women in the North Texas area in the mid-1980s. The cases were unsolved for years.

Wichita Falls District Attorney Maureen Shelton was in Dallas on Wednesday to hear the appellate hearing.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals confirmed the death penalty decision.

“Once that happens, it switches over, and they can file a federal writ,” Shelton said. “The federal writ was filed Dec. 31, 2002.”

A district judge, Joe Fish, passes the case to Stickney, who makes a ruling on the case. Fish then decides whether to adopt the decision.

In July, 2008 Stickney ruled that he would allow a new punishment hearing because the defense attorney wasn’t effective, Shelton said. Fish approved the ruling April 19, 2010.

“Once that happened, the state of Texas is represented by the attorney general’s office in federal court.

The attorney general’s office appealed that decision to the Fifth Circuit, which is controlling over our area in New Orleans. The Fifth Circuit agreed with the state of Texas and vacated the district judge’s order,” Shelton said.

On June 10, 2011 Stickney and Fish were instructed by the Fifth Circuit to rework the case. Wednesday’s hearing is the result of the previous decisions.

“Once the magistrate issues his next ruling, and if the district judge adopts that, then the losing party, odds are, will appeal it,” Shelton said.

If the Fifth Circuit affirms the original decision for the death penalty, Wardrip’s attorneys can appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court does not have to hear the case.

No matter the outcome of the appeal, Wardrip still has three consecutive life sentences to serve for the deaths of Gibbs, Blau and Taylor.

Shelton said the murders were the most horrific she has ever known about in Texas.

“It’s the worst serial murder we’ve had in, certainly, our history, and I’d say even nationally this is a horrific serial murderer,” Shelton said. “I don’t know how you don’t seek the death penalty for somebody like that.”

When the case comes back to the state court, an execution date can be set.

Wardrip was sentenced to 35 years in prison for the death of Tina Kimbrew in 1986, and under old parole laws, was paroled after serving 11 years in prison.

According to a previous Times Record News story:

The time he spent in prison for Kimbrew’s death is at the heart of the appellate issue going through the federal system.

Wardrip’s request for relief on grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel during his trial included the assertion that his attorney — then-public defender John Curry, who has since died — should have presented evidence from his time in prison. Wardrip claimed the evidence should have shown he took classes, wrote for a prison newspaper and took part in a fundraiser for a young man with medical needs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEXAS – A Death Row Struggle Between Advocates and Lawyers – Preston Hughes III

October 25, 2012 Texas Tribune

LIVINGSTON — Preston Hughes III, a death row inmate, is 46 but seems much older, with white hair, thick glasses and a quiet, slow voice that rises only when the subject of his lawyer comes up.

Mr. Hughes, convicted in 1989 of fatally stabbing two young people, has tried multiple times to dismiss his court-appointed lawyer, Patrick McCann. He said that Mr. McCann, who has been his lawyer for 14 years, had not raised his claims of innocence and is “helping the state cover this up.”

Mr. McCann says he cannot comment on why he will not pursue these claims, which were not introduced in Mr. Hughes’s original trial. But Texas and federal law set a high burden of proof for new claims of “actual innocence” so late in the judicial process, a bar that Mr. McCann said was “almost impossible” to meet.

Mr. Hughes, who says he did not commit the murders, is scheduled to be executed Nov. 15. He says all of his lawyers have failed him. “They just want to do things on their own,” he said recently from death row in Livingston.

While Mr. McCann is suing the state over lethal injection procedures, arguing that prison officials would be “experimenting” on his client, a handful of advocates are publicizing what they believe is new evidence of Mr. Hughes’s innocence.

The advocates, who do not have legal training, are campaigning for Mr. Hughes’s exoneration and supporting his efforts to have Mr. McCann fired.

The issue of advocates’ doubting the work of lawyers is common in death penalty cases, especially as an execution date nears.

“Once the lawyers do the spadework, a lot of people want to come in,” said Jeff Blackburn, a lawyer who runs the Innocence Project of Texas, “and they don’t understand that we’re limited with the art of the possible here.” He called Mr. McCann a “great lawyer.”

The official facts of the crime, on their face, pointed directly to Mr. Hughes. On the night of Sept. 26, 1988, Shandra Charles, 15, and her cousin Marcell Taylor, 3, were fatallystabbed in a Houston field. A police sergeant reported that before she died, Ms. Charles identified the name “Preston” and said, “He tried to rape me.”

Detectives located Mr. Hughes in a nearby apartment complex. Investigators found evidence of blood on his clothing and a knife in his apartment, as well as Ms. Charles’s eyeglasses on his couch. Mr. Hughes, who said the glasses were planted, confessed to the murder during the investigation but then denied involvement during the trial. No biological evidence tied him directly to the crime.

Convicted and sentenced to death in 1989, Mr. Hughes had multiple appeals rejected. Then, this year, several unlikely advocates became interested.

John Allen, 64, a retired engineer in California, writes a blog called The Skeptical Juror. With the help of Barbara Lunsford, an accountant in Corpus Christi, and Ward Larkin, an activist from Houston, he has spent nine months and more than 100,000 words delvinginto the forensic and legal details of Mr. Hughes’s case. None of the three are affiliated with an official organization, and while Mr. Allen has written about other convictions in the past, he said he had stopped looking at other cases for now.

After reviewing documents related to the trial, appeals and evidence, he deduced that Ms. Charles must have lost brain function within two minutes, and she could not have told the police the name of her attacker. “This is a seemingly overwhelming case” of innocence, Mr. Allen said, adding that he also believed that the victim’s glasses were planted in the apartment, based on his review of crime scene photographs.

In September, Mr. McCann said he had never heard of Mr. Allen’s investigation. This week, he said Mr. Allen “sounds like a very sincere man who is attempting to right a wrong.”

“Like in fantasy football,” he said, “I think lots of people are happy to offer thought without skin in the game.”

As for Mr. Hughes’s petitions to have him replaced, Mr. McCann said he thought they were the product of desperation. “When a person is drowning,” he said, “they sometimes try to fight the guy holding a life preserver.”

Mr. McCann agreed that Ms. Charles would have “been unconscious in a matter of seconds based on the blood loss,” and so she could not have said Mr. Hughes’s name to the police. Despite being troubled by this evidence, he is not filing a claim of innocence.

“I find myself in an odd position,” he said, “because I’m ethically bound not to advance a claim I think is false.”

Mr. Allen learned about the case while investigating the work of James Bolding, the head of blood analysis for the Houston Police Department’s crime lab at the time, who testified at Mr. Hughes’s 1989 trial. Mr. Bolding tested for blood on Mr. Hughes’s knife while he was in the courtroom. Mr. Hughes said the blood came from a rabbit he had killed months before.

Judge George Godwin said at the time that he found the “cavalier attitude and lackadaisical attitude of doing tests right while we’ve got a jury waiting to come in and hear testimony unacceptable.” He nevertheless ruled that the testimony was permissible.

Mr. Hughes said he trusted Mr. Allen more than his lawyer, Mr. McCann. In September, Mr. Hughes filed a petition to have Mr. McCann replaced, and a court rejected it.

Mr. McCann plans to follow the case to the end. In September, he sued the Texas prison system, saying that by using a single drug for the execution, as a result of a recent policy change, officials would be experimenting on his client. The Court of Criminal Appeals, Texas’ highest criminal court, has ordered the civil court overseeing the case not to stay Mr. Hughes’s execution.

Mr. McCann does not know when the court will rule. “The unfortunate timing of this is it’s before a contested election,” he said.

Murray Newman, a Houston defense lawyer, said he believed Mr. McCann was doing his best and cared about Mr. Hughes. “He works so hard on these cases. It’s like losing a family member,” Mr. Newman said.

From death row, Mr. Hughes sees it differently, as he plays basketball during his hour of recreation every day, eats food he calls “pitiful” and learns about court decisions from a small, black radio.

 

“We don’t like each other,” he said of Mr. McCann. “I don’t feel somebody who doesn’t like me is going to do anything for me.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Utah could join states allowing prisoners to donate organs

octobre 18,2012 http://www.sltrib.com

A Utah lawmaker wants to make it possible for inmates to do a final good act if they happen to die while serving time.

Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, is again proposing a bill that would allow inmates to voluntarily agree to posthumously donate their organs. In the 2012 session, his bill passed the House but time ran out before it could be considered by the Utah Senate. The criminal justice interim committee approved the inmate medical donation act on Wednesday.

“In some respects, it’s a way for someone who is trying to pay their dues to society to get one last shot on their way out,” he said in an interview.

Over the past four years, an average of 15 inmates have died each year while incarcerated, according to the Utah Department of Corrections. The department began including organ-donor consent forms in the paperwork given to inmates during orientation at the end of 2011 after speaking with Eliason about his proposal.

“They liked the idea so much they implemented it anyway even though it did not become law,” Eliason said.

Mike Haddon, Corrections deputy director, told the interim committee that inmates are being given donor forms as they go through medical and dental screenings upon arrival at the prison. He said that in the past, organ donation “was a consideration” for some inmates as they passed away.

But Eliason still wants it enshrined in statute so the policy isn’t subject to the whims of changing administrations. He said he also plans to include jails in this year’s draft legislation.

Laws governing organ donation by either living or deceased prison inmates — a population that numbers about 2 million — vary from state to state. Federal law prohibits compensating donors for organs, and that bars prisoners, like others, from benefiting in any way.

Nationwide, there are 116,000 people on the waiting list for organs; about 80 percent are waiting for a kidney, according to data from the United Network for Organ Sharing. There have been about 16,586 transplants so far this year, most using organs from deceased donors. In Utah, 705 people are on waiting lists for organs, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

A single healthy donor can provide up to 24 different organs and tissues — from kidneys to skin to corneas — that can help others, Eliason said.

…………………………………………………………….

By doing some research on the states that allow organ donation, I discovered a website called G.A.V.E (prisoner organ donation) from willing Inmates. http://www.gavelife.org/

G.A.V.E. is an organization set up to make a difference in the organ shortage in the U.S. with the help of willing and healthy volunteer prisoners.  Prisoners frequently ask to help through living kidney donations or multiple donations after execution to anyone in need.  However, they are just as frequently denied unnecessarily by prison administration and transplant authorities.

There are typically only between 10,000-15,000 donations given annually which provide organs for a small fraction of the greater than 112,000 Americans on waiting lists.  Yet inmates make up nearly 2,000,000 potential donors.  If just 1% chose to participate and were allowed to do so, this would nearly double the number of current organ donations in the U.S. While this won’t solve the problem, it will have a dramatic impact.

This site explores why donations from willing prisoners are not occurring now and advocates for a change to allow healthy and willing inmates the opportunity to save lives.

If the interested visitor finds the content and ideas of this site intriguing, meritorious, or worthy of debate, G.A.V.E. welcomes your input.  Of course, G.A.V.E. is looking for your support, but the quickest way to kindle a fire is to rub two opposing opinions together.

OHIO – Court to weigh DNA testing for man given death penalty in 1990 Portage County slaying – TYRONE NOLING

october 15, 2012 http://www.ohio.com/

COLUMBUS: The Ohio Supreme Court plans to hear arguments in the case of a condemned inmate whose attorneys argue DNA testing could help exonerate him.

At issue is the case of death row prisoner Tyrone Noling, convicted in 1996 of fatally shooting an elderly Portage County couple at their home.

The Supreme Court on Monday scheduled a Jan. 8 hearing for arguments from both sides.

Noling has been on death row at the Ohio State Penitentiary since his conviction in the slayings of Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig at their Atwater Township home.

The Hartigs, both 81, were shot multiple times in the chest April 5, 1990, as they sat at their kitchen table, according to the police investigation.

Lawyers for the Ohio Innocence Project want to test a cigarette butt found at the scene against DNA profiles of offenders in a national database, including a convicted killer who was executed.

The state says previous tests have excluded Noling as the smoker of the butt and says new testing would prove nothing.

A lower court judge has twice denied the request.

Inmate who threatened Texas senator using smuggled phone renews death wish in letter to AP – RICHARD TABLER

October 13, 2012 http://www.therepublic.com/

HOUSTON — Four years after his threatening calls from a smuggled cell phone prompted an unprecedented lockdown of the entire Texas prison system, death row inmate Richard Tabler is chafing at 24-hour video surveillance in his cell, a ban on nearly all visitors and his unsuccessful efforts to waive his appeals and expedite his execution.

The convicted killer recently sent a handwritten letter to The Associated Press blaming his “idiotic” cell phone use for his isolation and the court’s refusal to comply with his request for a speedy execution.

“It’s no longer about justice,” Tabler wrote in the four-page letter received this month by the AP.

“The only reason I’m still here … is because of the political bull crap surrounding the cell phone situation.”

Tabler, 33, who has been on death row for five years, gained notoriety in October 2008 when the Texas Department of Criminal Justice disclosed he had used a cell phone smuggled into his prison to repeatedly call, among others, a Texas lawmaker.

He has asked the court on multiple occasions to waive his appeal and schedule an execution for killing two people in 2004, but a judge last year denied the request. His lawyers are also opposed Tabler’s efforts and have raised questions over whether he is competent to make such a decision.

“He and I reached an understanding a long time ago that I wasn’t going to help him to die but I wouldn’t stand in his way, so to speak,” said lawyer David Schulman, who’s long been involved in Tabler’s case and visits the inmate. “All we’ve done is challenge his competency and go through the writ process. … It’s not a pleasant situation for anybody involved. Certainly none of his lawyers are having a good time.”

While illegal cell phones have plagued prisons nationwide, it was Tabler’s brazen, threatening calls to state Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate panel that oversees the prison agency, that gave the inmate instant notoriety. Those calls were among more than 2,800 traced to Tabler’s phone, which apparently got passed around to other inmates on his death row wing at the Polunsky Unit outside Livingston in East Texas.

Texas prison officials locked down more than 150,000 inmates statewide — some of them confined to their cells for weeks — while officers swept the state’s more than 100 prisons to seize hundreds of items of contraband, including cell phones and items related to them.

Since then Tabler has received round-the-clock monitoring on a prison wing normally reserved for inmates with execution dates, while his visitors are restricted to his spiritual adviser and lawyers.

Prison officials defend their treatment of Tabler, noting his troubled history behind bars.

“This offender presents a security risk because of his numerous disciplinary infractions, including obtaining contraband,” prison agency spokesman Jason Clark said. “The housing area is not exclusively for offenders on death watch and can be utilized by the agency to monitor those who attempt to break the rules or harm themselves.”

Tabler’s prison record includes at least two instances where he’s tried kill himself.

His restrictions also prohibit him from visits with reporters.

“That makes you wonder what they don’t want me telling the media,” Tabler wrote.

Tabler repeatedly has asked his appeals be dropped and he be put to death for gunning down Mohammed-Amine Rahmouni, 28, and Haitham Zayed, 25, in 2004 in a remote area of Killeen in Central Texas. Evidence showed Rahmouni was manager of a strip club who banned Tabler from his place. Zayed was a friend of Rahmouni. Tabler also has acknowledged killing two dancers from the club, was charged with their slayings but hasn’t been tried.

“Please understand that I’ve never questioned my death sentence, as I’ve admitted/confessed to my crime,” Tabler wrote. “I’m guilty, no question about it.

“I’m no saint … but at least I’m man enough to take responsibility and not lie about it.”

Last year, a federal judge conducted a hearing on Tabler’s motion seeking execution, ultimately ruling Tabler’s belief his family was in danger if he didn’t go through with the punishment made the request involuntary. Earlier this year, Tabler wrote the judge again seeking execution, but his lawyer and state attorneys opposed the request and the judge agreed with them and denied Tabler. The nature of the family threats is unclear.

Tabler’s case is on appeal at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals with a newly assigned lawyer who’s obtained a time extension to mid-December to get familiar with the case. The appeal rejected by a federal judge in Waco raised questions over whether Tabler is mentally ill and incompetent to decide whether to volunteer for execution and challenged issues from his 2007 trial.

“He lives under pretty harsh conditions at the prison … and his conditions are more onerous than other people,” said Marcy Widder, his court-appointed attorney. “It has some connection to the cell phone mess.”

Schulman said he believes the courts are being careful with Tabler’s requests to die.

“Think of the situation,” Schulman said. “In one hand he’s telling them I want to die. On the other hand, he’s telling them they’re making my life miserable.”

 

Tennessee death-row inmate’s conviction overturned – Michael Dale Rimmer

October 12, 2012 http://www.usatoday.com

8:33PM EDT October 12. 2012 - A Tennessee judge on Friday overturned the conviction and death sentence of a man who has spent 14 years on death row over the killing of an ex-girlfriend whose body was never found.

A USA TODAY investigation last year showed that Memphis prosecutors responsible for the case never told the man, Michael Dale Rimmer, or his lawyers, about an eyewitness who had told the police that two different men were inside the office around the time she disappeared, and that both had blood on their hands. One of the men that the witness identified was already wanted in connection with a stabbing.

Document: Court order

Shelby County Judge James C. Beasley Jr. wrote in a 212-page order released late Friday afternoon that Rimmer’s trial lawyers repeatedly failed to unearth that evidence, a “devastating” blow to his contention that someone else committed the crime. That problem was compounded, the judge wrote, because the lead prosecutor in the case, Thomas Henderson, made “blatantly false, inappropriate and ethically questionable” statements to defense lawyers denying that the evidence existed.

The case is the latest black eye for prosecutors in Memphis, who have been faulted repeatedly for failing to disclose evidence that could be helpful to defendants. In 2008, for example, a federal appeals court blasted the office in another death penalty case for a “set of falsehoods” that was “typical of the conduct of the Memphis district attorney’s office.” At least two other cases handled by Henderson — who went on to supervise all of Memphis’ criminal prosecutions — have come under scrutiny over similar lapses.
Beasley on Friday accused Henderson of “purposefully” misleading Rimmer’s lawyers, and making “comments to counsel and the court were both intellectually dishonest and may have been designed to gain a tactical advantage.”

Still, Beasley wrote, that conduct alone wasn’t enough to overturn Rimmer’s conviction and death sentence, because his lawyers could have discovered the evidence on their own if they had looked more carefully. Instead, he said, it was the “seriously deficient” investigation by Rimmer’s “overburdened” lawyers that required him to order a new trial.

John Campbell, Shelby County’s deputy district attorney general, said Friday he had not read the entire order and could not comment on specific findings. But he said prosecutors would either appeal the decision or re-try Rimmer for Ricci Ellsworth’s murder. “I can’t imagine ever not re-prosecuting the case,” he said.
Rimmer’s new lawyer, Kelly Gleason, said she “happy and relieved that the court has set aside this unjust conviction.”

Ellsworth, Rimmer’s former girlfriend, disappeared from the office of a seedy Memphis motel where she worked as an overnight clerk in February 1997, leaving behind only an office and bathroom soaked with blood. Her body has never been located.

Rimmer, then 30, was the obvious suspect. The two had dated, but the relationship soured, and Rimmer eventually went to prison for raping her. There, other prisoners said, he repeatedly threatened to kill Ellsworth, suggesting that he could make sure she was not found. Rimmer was arrested in Indiana a month after Ellsworth disappeared; police there found blood on the back seat of the car he was driving that they later said was consistent with samples taken from the motel office and from Ellsworth’s mother.

Still, a witness who visited the motel office around the time Ellsworth disappeared told the police that he had seen two different men inside, both with blood on their hands. When FBI agents showed him photographs of possible suspects that included a photo of Rimmer, he picked out a different man, Billy Wayne Voyles, who was already wanted in connection with an unrelated stabbing.

Rimmer’s lawyers, Beasley wrote, were unaware of those facts, though they could have learned of the witness’ identification if they had reviewed the “residual” evidence in the court clerk’s vault. Instead, he wrote, they relied on Henderson’s repeated representations that no such evidence existed. As a result, he wrote, the jurors who found Rimmer guilty of the murder and sentenced him to die never heard about it.

That witness, James Darnell, told a court for the first time that he had seen one of the men carry what looked like a heavy object wrapped in a comforter out of the motel office and load it into the trunk of a car.