Rick Halperin
2018-02-01 15:56:53 UTC
Feb. 1
TEXAS----impending execution
John Battaglia to be executed Thursday after twice dodging death for murdering
his daughters
John David Battaglia is set to be executed Thursday - a punishment the Dallas
man has twice postponed.
Battaglia, 62, murdered his daughters, 9-year-old Faith and 6-year-old Liberty,
in 2001 at his Deep Ellum loft while their mother listened on the phone. He was
on probation for hitting his ex-wife, and she had been trying to have him
arrested for violating that probation.
"Mommy, why do you want Daddy to have to go to jail?" Faith was told to ask her
mother, moments before the girl begged for her life. "No, Daddy. Don't do it."
Battaglia fired on both girls while their mother was still on the phone.
Afterward, he went to a tattoo parlor to get ink on his left bicep in honor of
his slain daughters. He also left a message on their answering machine.
"Good night, my little babies," he said. "I hope you are resting in a different
place. I love you. I wish you had nothing to do with your mother."
Attorneys for Battaglia have appealed his sentence, saying he is mentally ill
and not competent to be executed. He was granted two stays of execution so he
could be evaluated for mental competency.
The condemned man is "convinced that his trial and conviction were a sham" and
that his death sentence is part of a conspiracy involving "the KKK, child
molesters and homosexual lawyers," court records show.
During a 2014 interview with The Dallas Morning News, Battaglia claimed he
wasn't responsible for his daughters' murders.
"I don't feel like I killed them," he said.
A mental health expert who testified during a competency hearing in November
2016 said Battaglia was probably faking or exaggerating his delusions to save
his life.
In September, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld State District Judge
Robert Burns' ruling that Battaglia is competent. Defense attorneys filed a
motion last week for a stay of execution with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Barring an 11th-hour reprieve, Battaglia is scheduled to die by lethal
injection at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Huntsville Unit.
Battaglia had a long history of domestic abuse before he killed Faith and
Liberty. He repeatedly hit his wife, Mary Jean Pearle, on Christmas Day 1999 in
front of their children.
After the couple split, he would make threatening phone calls. He was prone to
verbally abusing his family.
During a victim impact statement after Battaglia was sentenced to death in
2002, Pearle said that her daughters were hesitant about their weekly visit
with their father.
"Liberty hid under her bed, not wanting to go to dinner with you that Wednesday
night," Pearle said during the statement. "But I said, 'Oh, it will be OK.' I
trusted you with their lives."
Child killer John Battaglia is mentally unfit to be executed, psychologists say
Pearle has declined to talk about her ex-husband in recent years.
Battaglia also abused his 1st wife, Michelle Ghetti, who was hospitalized after
he beat her at a bus stop because she wanted to have him arrested for harassing
her. He was given 2 years' probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor.
Ghetti and her daughter, Christie Battaglia, spoke in favor of capital
punishment last April when Louisiana lawmakers discussed doing away with the
death penalty, according to The Advocate.
"If not for the death penalty, we'd be living in fear," Christie Battaglia said
of her father.
The execution would be the 3rd this year in Texas and the 2nd this week. 3
other executions are scheduled before the end of April, including that of a
Fort Worth man who killed a 5-year-old and her grandmother during a birthday
party. Erick Davila opened fire at the party, aiming for a member of a rival
gang.
A Dallas man was executed Tuesday night. William Rayford, 64, killed his
ex-girlfriend in 1999 while he was on parole for killing his estranged wife.
The execution was delayed 2 hours while the U.S. Supreme Court considered
last-minute appeals from his lawyers.
"Please try to find it in your heart to forgive me. I am sorry. It has bothered
me for a long time what I have done," Rayford said before his death at 8:48
p.m.
(source: Dallas Morning News)
******************
Dallas man set to die for killing daughters, 9 and 6
As her mother listened on the telephone, 9-year-old Faith Battaglia pleaded
with her father.
"No, daddy, please don't, don't do it!" the child begged.
Mary Jane Pearle yelled into the phone for Faith and her 6-year-old sister,
Liberty, to run. Then Pearle heard gunshots.
On Thursday, her ex-husband, John David Battaglia is set for execution for the
May 2001 slayings of their daughters.
"Merry ... Christmas," Battaglia told Pearle from his Dallas apartment, the
words of the holiday greeting derisively divided by an obscenity. She heard
more gunshots, then called 911.
Faith was shot 3 times and Liberty 5. Hours later, Battaglia was at a nearby
tattoo shop getting 2 large red roses inked on his left arm to commemorate his
daughters. It took 4 officers to subdue and arrest him when he walked outside.
A fully loaded revolver was found in his truck and more than a dozen firearms
were recovered from his apartment.
Battaglia's attorneys asked a federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court
to block his lethal injection - the 2nd in the nation this week and 3rd this
year, all in Texas - and review his case, arguing he is mentally incompetent
for execution. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest
criminal court, misapplied the Supreme Court's guidance when it ruled Battaglia
is competent for the death penalty, lawyers argued.
The Supreme Court has ruled prisoners can be executed if they're aware the
death penalty is to be carried out and have a rational understanding of why
they're facing that punishment. Attorneys for the 62-year-old Battaglia contend
he doesn't have that understanding.
Prosecutors said the high court hasn't defined "rational understanding" so the
Texas courts did an "exhaustive" analysis of cases to ensure proper legal
standards were followed. A state judge and the state appeals court found
Battaglia was competent, not mentally ill and was faking mental illness to try
to avoid execution. He was described as highly intelligent.
"The defendant is a vengeful, manipulative, cunning and deceitful person with
the motive and intellectual capability to maintain a deliberate ploy or ruse to
avoid his execution," State District Judge Robert Burns said in finding the
former accountant competent.
Battaglia's lawyers also argued to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that a
federal judge improperly denied their requests for additional money to hire an
expert to collect information about his competency, which long has been a focus
of appeals in the case.
Evidence showed Battaglia became enraged over his ex-wife going to police about
his harassment and likely arrest, and used the May 2, 2001, visit with their 2
young daughters to avenge his anger. That evening, Pearle left their daughters
with him for a planned dinner. She received a message that 1 of the girls had
called for her and it was during her returned call that the shootings occurred.
Battaglia told The Dallas Morning News in 2014 his daughters were his "best
little friends" and that he had photos of them displayed in his prison cell.
"I don't feel like I killed them," he said. "I am a little bit in the blank
about what happened."
Evidence at his 2002 capital murder trial showed at the time of the shootings
Battaglia was on probation for a Christmas 1999 attack on Pearle. His
profanity-laced Christmas greeting to his estranged wife during the shooting
was an apparent reference to that.
(source: therepublic.com)
*********************
Temple man indicted for capital murder in death of woman, child
A Temple man charged with killing his 1-year-old daughter and the child's
mother in November was indicted Wednesday on a capital murder charge.
A McLennan County grand jury indicted 26-year-old Christopher Paul Weiss in the
shooting deaths of Valarie Martinez, 24, and Martinez's baby, Azariah, who both
were found shot in the head Nov. 5 at Tradinghouse Creek Reservoir in eastern
McLennan County.
It was unclear Wednesday whether the McLennan County District Attorney's Office
will seek the death penalty in the case. If not, Weiss faces life without
parole if convicted of capital murder.
The indictment alleges Weiss committed capital murder by killing more than 1
person in the same criminal episode.
Weiss is represented by court-appointed attorneys Walter M. Reaves Jr. and Russ
Hunt Jr.
"We are still waiting for information about the case so we can move forward
with preparing a defense," Reaves said Wednesday.
Documents filed in the case indicate that Weiss, who is married with children,
had an affair with Martinez, who gave birth to Weiss' baby, Azariah. Weiss did
not want to be part of the child's life, affidavits state.
"Through the course of investigation, (the investigator) discovered that Weiss,
who is currently married, had an affair with the victim Valarie Martinez," the
warrant states. "When Weiss learned Martinez was pregnant, he stopped all
communication with her.
"Martinez located Weiss through social media and contacted Weiss' wife and
sister and told them about the child she and Weiss had. (Investigators) learned
that Weiss told his sister he did not want anything to do with Martinez or the
child and stated he wanted it to 'go away.'"
Martinez's body was found outside her car at McLennan Park 3, off Willbanks
Drive. Her daughter also was found shot in the head in a car seat inside the
car, Sheriff Parnell McNamara said.
Weiss was arrested about a week later near downtown Temple. Authorities said
Weiss was traveling with his wife when he was taken into custody.
According to an affidavit for search warrant issued for his truck, Weiss had
birth certificates for his family, including birth certificates for his other
children, clothing, several paychecks, electronic devices, two guns and
ammunition in his truck.
Martinez reportedly agreed to meet Weiss at Tradinghouse Creek Reservoir the
night before the bodies were discovered.
Weiss was the last person seen with the young mother and baby on the night of
Nov. 4, McNamara said. Investigators reported Weiss argued with Martinez about
his responsibilities to their child before Martinez agreed to meet Weiss with
her daughter.
"Weiss had been in communication with Martinez via cellphone and during an
interview, (he) stated he had not been in the area where Martinez was located,"
court records state. "Martinez had been in communication with a third party
whom she told she was 'hanging out' with Weiss who she referred to as 'bd' or
'baby daddy.'"
An affidavit for a search warrant for Weiss' phone says that Martinez told
someone she was going to meet Azariah's father at the lake and took her
daughter with her. Detectives interviewed Weiss twice during the investigation
and he "admitted that he was with Valarie at the location where her body was
found," records indicate.
In Weiss' arrest warrant affidavit, a witness told investigators that Martinez
told Weiss "she would make him pay child support if he was not going to be
involved in the baby's life." Weiss later spoke with investigators and denied
having an argument with Martinez about child support.
In mid-November, officials searched the Brazos River near Loop 340 for a
.22-caliber revolver believed to be used in the shooting deaths. No weapon was
found.
Weiss remains in the McLennan County Jail under $1 million bond.
(source: Waco Tribune)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Prosecutor seeks death penalty for inmate charged with murdering prison
sergeant
A prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for Craig Wissink, the inmate charged
with murdering a prison sergeant at Bertie Correctional Institution last year.
Wissink is accused of beating Sgt. Meggan Callahan with a fire extinguisher
that she'd brought to douse a fire inside the eastern North Carolina prison.
Wissink set the fire in a dormitory trash can, according to a prison
disciplinary report obtained by the Observer. Anthony Jernigan, who heads the
State Bureau of Investigation office that covers northeastern North Carolina,
previously said that investigators found the April 26 attack to be "violent and
deliberate."
"I think it's safe to say he did target her," Jernigan said. "It wasn't
random."
In a hearing last week, District Attorney Valerie Asbell told the court that
there was at least 1 aggravating circumstance in the case and that she was
seeking the death penalty.
After hearing from lawyers for both sides, Superior Court Judge Quentin Sumner
declared it a capital case and asked the state Capital Defender's Office to
provide a 2nd attorney for Wissink. Under state law, defendants in death
penalty cases are entitled to 2 lawyers.
Wissink, 36, is serving a life sentence for a June 2000 murder in Fayetteville.
His attorney could not be reached for comment Wednesday morning.
Callahan's mother, Wendy, told the Observer last year that she did not want to
see Wissink get the death penalty for her daughter's death.
"I don't have the right to take his life for what he did. It's not my choice,"
Wendy Callahan said at the time. "It's God's decision."
Ellis Boyle, a lawyer representing the Callahan family in a lawsuit against
Wissink, said Wednesday that the family doesn't want to comment on the court's
decision.
"The family respects the criminal process and hopes that justice is served,"
Boyle said. "They hope that the public respects their need for privacy and
remembers Meggan as a kind person."
Callahan, 29, was hired to work as an officer for the prison in 2012 and was
later promoted to sergeant.
An Observer investigation last year found that Callahan's unit was often
understaffed and that many of the officers there were untrained rookies. Only 4
of Callahan's officers were working the day she was killed, according to a
Department of Labor report. That's half the recommended number, several current
and former officers said.
At Bertie and in prisons across North Carolina, severe staff shortages endanger
officers and inmates, the Observer found.
At Pasquotank Correctional Institution, where four prison employees were
fatally attacked during an Oct. 12 escape attempt, about 25 % of officer
positions were vacant. Prosecutors announced last month that they will also
seek the death penalty against the 4 inmates charged in those attacks.
(source: charlotteobserver.com)
GEORGIA:
After record year for Georgia prison suicides, more seen in January
After ending a record year for inmate suicides, the Georgia Department of
Corrections said three inmates have apparently killed themselves within 2 1/2
weeks, 2 on the same day.
According to the Department of Corrections, the agency is investigating all
three deaths as apparent suicides. Corrections did not provide specifics about
how the inmates died.
2 deaths were early on Sunday.
First, Andrew Garland, who was serving a 10-year sentence for a 2016 aggravated
stalking and 5 years for the same crime committed in 2017, was found in his
cell around 1:15 a.m. at Rogers State Prison in Tattnall County in southeast
Georgia. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital 2 hours later on Sunday.
Also on Sunday, at 2:50 a.m., Christopher Mauldin was found dead in his cell at
Phillips State Prison in Buford. Mauldin was in prison for 2 burglary
convictions in Carroll County - 1 in 2009 for which he was sentenced to 12
years and the other burglary committed in 2015 for which he was sentenced to 15
years.
The 1st apparent state inmate suicide of this year was on Jan. 13 at Hays State
Prison in Summerville in northwest Georgia. Cecil Williams, serving 10 years
for a 2015 robbery by intimidation in Lowndes County, was found unresponsive in
his cell at 1:09 a.m.
?"Along with having policies in place that direct employees on the proper
monitoring of offenders who are believed to be suicidal, GDC is in the process
of developing an awareness campaign for use in communicating to the offender
population," Department of Corrections spokeswoman Joan Heath said in an email.
"We work diligently to identify practices that will improve our ability to
thwart suicide attempts. We have been, and remain, committed to the safety and
security of all offenders."
By the end of 2017, 15 state prisoners caused their own deaths, including 1 who
died at an area hospital so the DOC did not include him in the agency's inmate
suicide count.
In 2016, by comparison, 9 inmates committed suicide for the entire year.
The rate of Georgia inmate suicides last year was twice what it is nationwide.
With just over 52,000 Georgia prisoners, 15 suicides translates into a rate of
28.5 per 100,000 prisoners. The national rate is 17 inmate suicides per 100,000
prisoners.
In 2017, 1 of the inmates who is suspected of killing himself was on death row
and 3 were in isolation cells.
Prison officials have offered no explanation for the increase in apparent
suicides in recent months. But those outside the system question whether some
of the deaths could be attributed to a lack of mental health care. Others have
blamed the state's increased use of solitary confinement.
At least 2 federal lawsuits have been filed over the use of restrictive and
isolated cells. Inmates assigned to the "special management unit" at the
Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison near Jackson are placed in cells
that get no outside light and have solid metal doors out of which they cannot
see. The inmates spend 24 hours a day alone in those cells, without diversions
like reading or television, except 2 1/2 hours a week when they are let out for
exercise.
None of the inmates who have died this year were in the special management unit
at the times of their deaths.
(source: Atlanta Journal Constitution)
FLORIDA:
Florida Supreme Court upholds sentence of Orange County man on death row since
1970s
The Florida Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of a
murder in Orange County in 1976.
Only 4 inmates in Florida have been on death row longer than Henry Sireci,
convicted of stabbing a car dealer named Howard Poteet 55 times and slitting
his throat in 1975. Poteet's wife and son found him on the floor of the
dealership, records show.
Though Florida law now requires jurors to be unanimous when they recommend a
death sentence, that was not the case during Sireci's sentencing. A jury first
recommended he be executed using an electric chair in 1976 after only 20
minutes of deliberation.
Sireci's most recent death sentence, in 1991, was a non-unanimous 11-1 vote -
but it came well before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's death
penalty sentencing scheme in 2016. The Florida Supreme Court has been
overturning non-unanimous death sentences finalized after 2002, but leaving
older sentences as they are.
(source: Orlando Sentinel)
**************************
Justices reject 10 more death row appeals
Bringing the total number of similar rulings to 70 since early last week, the
Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected appeals from 10 death row inmates.
Like the earlier 60 cases, Wednesday's rulings involved death dow inmates who
were sentenced before a 2002 cutoff date.
The inmates' appeals stemmed from a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case
known as Hurst v. Florida and a subsequent Florida Supreme Court decision.
The 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found Florida's death-penalty sentencing
system was unconstitutional because it gave too much authority to judges,
instead of juries.
The subsequent Florida Supreme Court ruling said juries must unanimously agree
on critical findings before judges can impose death sentences and must
unanimously recommend the death penalty.
But the Florida Supreme Court made the new sentencing requirements apply to
cases since June 2002.
That is when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling known as Ring v. Arizona
that was a premise for striking down Florida's death-penalty sentencing system
in 2016.
In each of the 70 cases, the death row inmates had been sentenced to death
before the Ring decision and argued that the new unanimity requirements should
also apply to their cases.
The Florida Supreme Court has issued seven batches of rulings rejecting the
appeals.
The inmates who lost their appeals Wednesday were Robert A. Consalvo in a
Broward County case; Robert R. Gordon in a Pinellas County case; Anton J.
Krawczuk in a Lee County case; David Miller Jr. in a Duval County case; Joshua
D. Nelson in a Lee County case; Manuel Antonio Rodriguez in a Miami-Dade County
case; Henry Perry Sireci in an Orange County case; Jack R. Sliney in a
Charlotte County case; Steven Edward Stein in a Duval County case; and Gary
Richard Whitton in a Walton County case.
(source: news4jax.com)
***********************
Living On Death Row
No matter where you stand on the issue of the death penalty, many Americans
would agree that the process is deeply flawed.<>P> By the time someone actually
faces execution in Florida, they have often been living on death row - an
oxymoron if there was one - for at least 10 years and frequently much longer.
Eric Scott Branch was convicted more than 20 years ago for the murder of a
University of West Florida student. Word came down last week that the Feb. 22
execution will proceed as planned. In other words, Branch will have outlived
his victim by nearly 25 years. During those years, he, or she, has been a guest
of the Florida Department of Corrections, with state-funded food, housing and
medical care.
No one wants an innocent person put to death and it's in everyone's best
interest to have an effective appeals process in place. But if death by
execution seems inhumane to some, so too might living for 25 years with a death
sentence hanging over your head. And the slow appeals process may not be as
foolproof as we'd like it to be. The group Floridians for Alternatives to the
Death Penalty keeps a record of death row inmates exonerated over the years.
Their tally presently stands at 27, dating back to 1973.
Ours is an imperfect system at best, one that likely at least occasionally
kills an innocent man and also allows guilty individuals to effectively
sidestep their sentences.
Nonetheless, the beat goes on.
Branch's appeal was one of 10 from death row inmates the Florida Supreme Court
turned down Monday. Justices rejected another 10 appeals the next day.
3 other inmates who committed local crimes also had their death sentence
appeals denied Monday, including Ernest D. Suggs in a Walton County case, Frank
A. Walls in an Okaloosa County case, and Daniel Jon Peterka in an Okaloosa
County case.
Authorities say Branch attacked Susan Morris in January 1993 as she walked to
her car at the University of West Florida in Pensacola. Branch dragged Morris
into a nearby wooded area, where he beat, strangled and sexually battered her.
Branch then left Morris' body in a shallow grave and stole her car to flee the
state.
First Circuit Asistant State Attorney John Molchan said the court's decision to
reject 10 appeals in a single day made it clear that justices remain steadfast
in their decision not to review cases decided before 2002. The Tuesday rulings
further affirmed their stance.
(source: Editorial, creators.com)
*******
John Chapman testifies in death penalty case, claims self-defense
On the witness stand, hoping to save his own life in the face of claims he
murdered a woman he dated 3 years ago, John Eugene Chapman on Wednesday showed
little emotion even as he described the moment he said she pulled a knife on
him.
"I said, don't do that," Chapman told a Palm Beach County jury, who prosecutors
hope to convince to give Chapman a death sentence if they convict him of
1st-degree murder in the April 18, 2015 stabbing death of Vanessa Williams.
Chapman's defense team, led personally by Palm Beach County Public Defender
Carey Haughwout, has told jurors since the start of Chapman's trial last week
that the case isn't a murder at all but a case of self-defense.
Chapman himself echoed the sentiments Wednesday when he took the rare step of
testifying on his own behalf in the trial that is expected to end early next
week.
After Haughwout questioned him about the days leading up to his final deadly
confrontation with Williams inside a pickup truck parked near the entrance to
the Palma Vista apartment complex in west Boca Raton, the 28-year-old former
soldier who worked as personal security for an Army lieutenant colonel in Iraq
kept a measured, controlled tone as he explained for jurors how he wrestled a
knife away from Williams.
"It's like she was so intent on pushing that knife in my chest and I ... and
my, my training kicked in," Chapman said. "And then I'm defending myself. I
don't think. I don't feel."
Chapman said he didn't know how many times he ended up stabbing Williams. He
told investigators who arrested him a week later it was 5 times. Medical
examiners counted 20 wounds to her chest and body.
Chapman and Williams, who had dated on and off for 2 years, reconnected for the
last time several days before Williams' death, after Chapman's girlfriend in
Cape Coral confronted him about his communication with Williams and Chapman
decided to leave the house and move in with Williams.
That situation quickly devolved when the new living arrangements fell through,
and at some point Chapman said the 2 got high on flakka. On Williams' last
night alive, Chapman said, they met one of Chapman's friends in Fort Lauderdale
for a night of partying, and Chapman eventually told the 2 that he knew someone
who could sell them drugs in Cape Coral.
That sparked an ill-fated trip that eventually went awry and ended with
Williams and a friend leaving Chapman after he took off his clothes and waded
into a pond in what he called a "childish" attempt to curry sympathy from
Williams, who he said had been berating him earlier that night.
Williams eventually picked him up again, but the two fought again after Chapman
said Williams discovered text messages he traded with his estranged girlfriend
in Cape Coral asking to return home. Chapman said he then began to search for
his belongings inside the truck, only for Williams to tell him that she threw
everything he had out on State Road 441 somewhere.
"I snapped. I lost my composure," Chapman said, adding that he pulled her hair
because "It was the most childish response I could think of."
That was the start of the fight that would end Williams' 28 years of life.
Chapman said he later gathered her body and a few other items from the car and
dumped them in a ditch on 14930 Smith Sundy Road in unincorporated Palm Beach
County, where her body was discovered a day later.
Even during the toughest parts of Assistant State Attorney John Parnofiello's
cross-examination, Chapman never raised his voice and never expressed any
emotion deeper than mild bemusement.
Once he wrestled the knife away from Williams, Parnofiello asked Chapman,
wasn't she no longer a threat?
"We're already in the moment. We're in a fight," Chapman says, later adding
when Parnofiello pressed him: "This is a lot of thinking that I didn't do. I
didn't think about that kind of stuff."
Testimony in Chapman's case will resume next week.
(source: Palm Beach Post)
TENNESSEE:
Is Billy Ray Irick Fit for Execution?----The state plans to kill a man
convicted of rape and murder - and possibly suffering from severe mental
illness
Billy Ray Irick was just 6 years old the first time someone raised questions
about his mental health. It was March 1965, when he was in the first grade. His
school's principal referred him to the Knoxville Mental Health Center,
requesting a mental evaluation to determine, according to court documents,
"whether Billy's extreme behavioral problems and unmanageability in school were
the result of emotional problems or whether Billy suffered from some form of
'organic brain damage.'"
A clinical social worker at the center performed an assessment, noting that the
young boy "apparently mistreats animals" and that he had "for a couple of years
been telling people outside the home that his mother mistreats him, that she
ties him up with a rope and beats him." Later, a psychologist at the center who
interviewed Irick concluded that he was most likely "suffering from a severe
neurotic anxiety reaction with a possibility of mild organic brain damage." The
young boy, the psychologist noted, tended "to fear his own impulses."
Nearly seven years after those evaluations, a then-13-year-old Irick was living
at the Church of God Home for Children in Sevierville, Tenn. - a former
orphanage that provided care for abused and emotionally disturbed children. His
parents, whose mental and emotional stability had also been questioned, rarely
visited him between the ages of 8 and 13. But in June 1972, according to
testimony included in court documents, the facility arranged for Irick to visit
his parents at home.
According to court documents, the visit did not go well: "During the visit,
Billy used an axe to destroy the family television set, clubbed flowers in the
flower bed, and, in a very disturbing incident, used a razor to cut up the
pajamas that his younger sister was wearing as she slept. The razor was later
found in his sister's bed."
14 years later, in August 1986, Irick was convicted of the rape and murder of
7-year-old Paula Dyer. Last month, for the 3rd time in 4 years, the state of
Tennessee scheduled his death. 2 other executions scheduled by the state
Supreme Court will almost certainly be delayed because the men involved have
yet to exhaust their appeals, but Irick - who is now 59 and has been on death
row for more than 30 years - has fewer options remaining to keep him off the
gurney.
Irick is 1 of 5 inmates whose attorneys are planning to challenge the state's
new lethal injection protocol, citing emails that show the state has been
warned that a new cocktail of drugs could cause pain and suffering.
But there's another question that could be raised between now and Aug. 9, 2018,
when Tennessee intends to put Irick to death: Is he fit for execution? That
combination of words, "fit for execution," like so many in the lexicon of the
death penalty, twists the English language into a peculiar shape. But it is
crucial.
In the 1986 case of Ford v. Wainwright, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
executing an "insane" inmate runs afoul of the Eighth Amendment prohibition
against cruel and unusual punishment. How to determine whether a condemned
inmate is insane, however, was left a mostly open question. Writing on Ford v.
Wainwright, Justice Lewis F. Powell opined that it would be unconstitutional to
execute an inmate who is "unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer
and why they are to suffer it," and that is the standard that has been used in
many lower courts.
As of this writing, there is not a pending challenge to Irick???s competency
for execution, and his attorney, Gene Shiles, declined to comment for this
story. But court filings from years past, including one challenging the trial
court's decision that Irick was fit for execution, detail years of mental
health issues suffered by Irick, including some that were never heard by a jury
and have been largely blocked from full consideration by a court. They include
anecdotes like those above and other information that could shed light on his
state of mind at the time of the horrific crime for which he was sentenced to
death.
In 1999, as attorneys appealed Irick's case in federal court, an investigator
traveled to Knoxville to speak to potential witnesses. Surprisingly, the
investigator discovered that no one had interviewed members of Paula Dyer's
stepfamily, with whom Irick had been living in the weeks before her murder. The
investigator learned that "just days or weeks before Paula Dyer's death,"
Irick, wielding a machete, had chased a school-age girl down a Knoxville public
street in broad daylight "with the explanation that he 'didn't like her
looks.'" Ramsey and Linda Jeffers - the parents of Dyer's stepfather, Kenny
Jeffers - and their daughter Cathy signed affidavits attesting that Irick had
been "talking with the devil," "hearing voices" and "taking instructions from
the devil." Cathy Jeffers, the court document says, testified that Irick had
told her "the only person that tells me what to do is the voice" and that on
one evening, as paraphrased in the court filing, he'd been "frantic that the
police would enter the home and kill them with chainsaws."
After reviewing the Jefferses' affidavits, Dr. Clifton Tennison - the
psychologist who performed the initial mental health examination before Irick's
original trial - stated in an affidavit that he no longer had confidence in his
initial evaluation, which had been used to argue against an insanity defense.
"The information contained within the attached affidavits raises a serious and
troubling issue of whether Mr. Irick was psychotic on the date of the offense
and at any previous and subsequent time," he wrote.
2 more psychologists reviewed the affidavits and other records related to
Irick's mental health and concluded that he "suffered at the very least from a
dissociative disorder, and probably was schizophrenic or intermittently
psychotic."
In a brief filed in 2010, Irick's attorneys argued that he "was experiencing a
psychotic episode with hallucinations and/or delusions and that he has no
memory of the offenses themselves or his role in them." Further, they contended
that Irick did not, and could not, "have a rational understanding of his
pending execution because he has no memory of the offenses, does not believe
that he committed them, and has the emotional and social functioning of a
child."
Their efforts were blocked on procedural grounds, and the state Supreme Court
affirmed the trial court's judgment that Irick was "competent to be executed."
(source: Nashville Scene)
*********************** Attorneys trying to whittle down a group of Carter
County citizens into a pool of "sentence qualified" jurors for a double murder
trial found a way Wednesday to speed things along by agreeing to dismiss anyone
who would never, or who would always, vote for the death penalty.
Eric James Azotea, 46, of Johnson City, faces 2 counts of 1st-degree murder,
tampering with evidence and 2 counts of abuse of a corpse for the January 2015
deaths of Amber Terrell, 22, and Arthur Gibson, Jr., 36, both of Kingsport.
His trial starts next week, but Criminal Court Judge Stacy Street and attorneys
in the case - District Attorney General Tony Clark and Assistant District
Attorney General Dennis Brooks for the state and Gene Scott, Lesley Tiller and
Dan Smith for the defense - started "sentence qualifying" potential jurors on
Monday.
Sentence-qualified - often referred to as death qualified - means the juror
could vote for and impose the death penalty on Azotea if he is convicted of
1st-degree murder.
That process continued through late Wednesday as Street pushed to get at least
60 sentence qualified jurors.
Throughout the day, attorneys and Street pressed potential jurors about their
ability to be separated from their daily life to hear the case and be
sequestered for up to 2 weeks, if they have read or heard anything about the
case and if they could consider the death penalty as a possible punishment.
State prosecutors filed a notice early in the case to seek the death penalty if
Azotea is convicted of 1st-degree murder. Prosecutors must prove aggravating
factors exist and those must outweigh all mitigating factors.
(source: Johnson City Press)
**********
Judge to decide whether to take convicted Chattanooga serial rapist, murderer
off death row
A special judge must decide whether to release a convicted serial rapist from
death row who was found guilty in a 1988 murder in Chattanooga.
Harold Wayne Nichols received 60 years for the 1st-degree felony murder of
21-year-old Karen Pulley, an additional 15 years for aggravated rape, and was
sentenced to death in 1990. But a judge at the time incorrectly applied a vague
enhancement statute that sent Nichols to death row, his post-conviction
defenders argued Wednesday in Hamilton County.
And because of a United States Supreme Court decision from 2015 that's since
changed those statutes, prosecutors seemed to agree that Nichols, 57, is
eligible to be released from death row.
Now, it's up to Judge Don Ash to decide whether to accept these attorneys'
agreement. Ash was specially appointed to the case after Hamilton County
Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman, a former prosecutor, recused himself from
Nichols' post-conviction petition.
"If I accept this agreed order, we'll accept his [post-conviction] petition,"
Ash said Wednesday in a Hamilton County General Sessions courtroom. "I do have
legitimate concerns about whether this is appropriate or not."
Ash said he would release his opinion in the next 2 to 3 weeks, likely before
Nichols' next court date on March 14.
(source: Chattanooga Times Free Press)
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TEXAS----impending execution
John Battaglia to be executed Thursday after twice dodging death for murdering
his daughters
John David Battaglia is set to be executed Thursday - a punishment the Dallas
man has twice postponed.
Battaglia, 62, murdered his daughters, 9-year-old Faith and 6-year-old Liberty,
in 2001 at his Deep Ellum loft while their mother listened on the phone. He was
on probation for hitting his ex-wife, and she had been trying to have him
arrested for violating that probation.
"Mommy, why do you want Daddy to have to go to jail?" Faith was told to ask her
mother, moments before the girl begged for her life. "No, Daddy. Don't do it."
Battaglia fired on both girls while their mother was still on the phone.
Afterward, he went to a tattoo parlor to get ink on his left bicep in honor of
his slain daughters. He also left a message on their answering machine.
"Good night, my little babies," he said. "I hope you are resting in a different
place. I love you. I wish you had nothing to do with your mother."
Attorneys for Battaglia have appealed his sentence, saying he is mentally ill
and not competent to be executed. He was granted two stays of execution so he
could be evaluated for mental competency.
The condemned man is "convinced that his trial and conviction were a sham" and
that his death sentence is part of a conspiracy involving "the KKK, child
molesters and homosexual lawyers," court records show.
During a 2014 interview with The Dallas Morning News, Battaglia claimed he
wasn't responsible for his daughters' murders.
"I don't feel like I killed them," he said.
A mental health expert who testified during a competency hearing in November
2016 said Battaglia was probably faking or exaggerating his delusions to save
his life.
In September, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld State District Judge
Robert Burns' ruling that Battaglia is competent. Defense attorneys filed a
motion last week for a stay of execution with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Barring an 11th-hour reprieve, Battaglia is scheduled to die by lethal
injection at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Huntsville Unit.
Battaglia had a long history of domestic abuse before he killed Faith and
Liberty. He repeatedly hit his wife, Mary Jean Pearle, on Christmas Day 1999 in
front of their children.
After the couple split, he would make threatening phone calls. He was prone to
verbally abusing his family.
During a victim impact statement after Battaglia was sentenced to death in
2002, Pearle said that her daughters were hesitant about their weekly visit
with their father.
"Liberty hid under her bed, not wanting to go to dinner with you that Wednesday
night," Pearle said during the statement. "But I said, 'Oh, it will be OK.' I
trusted you with their lives."
Child killer John Battaglia is mentally unfit to be executed, psychologists say
Pearle has declined to talk about her ex-husband in recent years.
Battaglia also abused his 1st wife, Michelle Ghetti, who was hospitalized after
he beat her at a bus stop because she wanted to have him arrested for harassing
her. He was given 2 years' probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor.
Ghetti and her daughter, Christie Battaglia, spoke in favor of capital
punishment last April when Louisiana lawmakers discussed doing away with the
death penalty, according to The Advocate.
"If not for the death penalty, we'd be living in fear," Christie Battaglia said
of her father.
The execution would be the 3rd this year in Texas and the 2nd this week. 3
other executions are scheduled before the end of April, including that of a
Fort Worth man who killed a 5-year-old and her grandmother during a birthday
party. Erick Davila opened fire at the party, aiming for a member of a rival
gang.
A Dallas man was executed Tuesday night. William Rayford, 64, killed his
ex-girlfriend in 1999 while he was on parole for killing his estranged wife.
The execution was delayed 2 hours while the U.S. Supreme Court considered
last-minute appeals from his lawyers.
"Please try to find it in your heart to forgive me. I am sorry. It has bothered
me for a long time what I have done," Rayford said before his death at 8:48
p.m.
(source: Dallas Morning News)
******************
Dallas man set to die for killing daughters, 9 and 6
As her mother listened on the telephone, 9-year-old Faith Battaglia pleaded
with her father.
"No, daddy, please don't, don't do it!" the child begged.
Mary Jane Pearle yelled into the phone for Faith and her 6-year-old sister,
Liberty, to run. Then Pearle heard gunshots.
On Thursday, her ex-husband, John David Battaglia is set for execution for the
May 2001 slayings of their daughters.
"Merry ... Christmas," Battaglia told Pearle from his Dallas apartment, the
words of the holiday greeting derisively divided by an obscenity. She heard
more gunshots, then called 911.
Faith was shot 3 times and Liberty 5. Hours later, Battaglia was at a nearby
tattoo shop getting 2 large red roses inked on his left arm to commemorate his
daughters. It took 4 officers to subdue and arrest him when he walked outside.
A fully loaded revolver was found in his truck and more than a dozen firearms
were recovered from his apartment.
Battaglia's attorneys asked a federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court
to block his lethal injection - the 2nd in the nation this week and 3rd this
year, all in Texas - and review his case, arguing he is mentally incompetent
for execution. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest
criminal court, misapplied the Supreme Court's guidance when it ruled Battaglia
is competent for the death penalty, lawyers argued.
The Supreme Court has ruled prisoners can be executed if they're aware the
death penalty is to be carried out and have a rational understanding of why
they're facing that punishment. Attorneys for the 62-year-old Battaglia contend
he doesn't have that understanding.
Prosecutors said the high court hasn't defined "rational understanding" so the
Texas courts did an "exhaustive" analysis of cases to ensure proper legal
standards were followed. A state judge and the state appeals court found
Battaglia was competent, not mentally ill and was faking mental illness to try
to avoid execution. He was described as highly intelligent.
"The defendant is a vengeful, manipulative, cunning and deceitful person with
the motive and intellectual capability to maintain a deliberate ploy or ruse to
avoid his execution," State District Judge Robert Burns said in finding the
former accountant competent.
Battaglia's lawyers also argued to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that a
federal judge improperly denied their requests for additional money to hire an
expert to collect information about his competency, which long has been a focus
of appeals in the case.
Evidence showed Battaglia became enraged over his ex-wife going to police about
his harassment and likely arrest, and used the May 2, 2001, visit with their 2
young daughters to avenge his anger. That evening, Pearle left their daughters
with him for a planned dinner. She received a message that 1 of the girls had
called for her and it was during her returned call that the shootings occurred.
Battaglia told The Dallas Morning News in 2014 his daughters were his "best
little friends" and that he had photos of them displayed in his prison cell.
"I don't feel like I killed them," he said. "I am a little bit in the blank
about what happened."
Evidence at his 2002 capital murder trial showed at the time of the shootings
Battaglia was on probation for a Christmas 1999 attack on Pearle. His
profanity-laced Christmas greeting to his estranged wife during the shooting
was an apparent reference to that.
(source: therepublic.com)
*********************
Temple man indicted for capital murder in death of woman, child
A Temple man charged with killing his 1-year-old daughter and the child's
mother in November was indicted Wednesday on a capital murder charge.
A McLennan County grand jury indicted 26-year-old Christopher Paul Weiss in the
shooting deaths of Valarie Martinez, 24, and Martinez's baby, Azariah, who both
were found shot in the head Nov. 5 at Tradinghouse Creek Reservoir in eastern
McLennan County.
It was unclear Wednesday whether the McLennan County District Attorney's Office
will seek the death penalty in the case. If not, Weiss faces life without
parole if convicted of capital murder.
The indictment alleges Weiss committed capital murder by killing more than 1
person in the same criminal episode.
Weiss is represented by court-appointed attorneys Walter M. Reaves Jr. and Russ
Hunt Jr.
"We are still waiting for information about the case so we can move forward
with preparing a defense," Reaves said Wednesday.
Documents filed in the case indicate that Weiss, who is married with children,
had an affair with Martinez, who gave birth to Weiss' baby, Azariah. Weiss did
not want to be part of the child's life, affidavits state.
"Through the course of investigation, (the investigator) discovered that Weiss,
who is currently married, had an affair with the victim Valarie Martinez," the
warrant states. "When Weiss learned Martinez was pregnant, he stopped all
communication with her.
"Martinez located Weiss through social media and contacted Weiss' wife and
sister and told them about the child she and Weiss had. (Investigators) learned
that Weiss told his sister he did not want anything to do with Martinez or the
child and stated he wanted it to 'go away.'"
Martinez's body was found outside her car at McLennan Park 3, off Willbanks
Drive. Her daughter also was found shot in the head in a car seat inside the
car, Sheriff Parnell McNamara said.
Weiss was arrested about a week later near downtown Temple. Authorities said
Weiss was traveling with his wife when he was taken into custody.
According to an affidavit for search warrant issued for his truck, Weiss had
birth certificates for his family, including birth certificates for his other
children, clothing, several paychecks, electronic devices, two guns and
ammunition in his truck.
Martinez reportedly agreed to meet Weiss at Tradinghouse Creek Reservoir the
night before the bodies were discovered.
Weiss was the last person seen with the young mother and baby on the night of
Nov. 4, McNamara said. Investigators reported Weiss argued with Martinez about
his responsibilities to their child before Martinez agreed to meet Weiss with
her daughter.
"Weiss had been in communication with Martinez via cellphone and during an
interview, (he) stated he had not been in the area where Martinez was located,"
court records state. "Martinez had been in communication with a third party
whom she told she was 'hanging out' with Weiss who she referred to as 'bd' or
'baby daddy.'"
An affidavit for a search warrant for Weiss' phone says that Martinez told
someone she was going to meet Azariah's father at the lake and took her
daughter with her. Detectives interviewed Weiss twice during the investigation
and he "admitted that he was with Valarie at the location where her body was
found," records indicate.
In Weiss' arrest warrant affidavit, a witness told investigators that Martinez
told Weiss "she would make him pay child support if he was not going to be
involved in the baby's life." Weiss later spoke with investigators and denied
having an argument with Martinez about child support.
In mid-November, officials searched the Brazos River near Loop 340 for a
.22-caliber revolver believed to be used in the shooting deaths. No weapon was
found.
Weiss remains in the McLennan County Jail under $1 million bond.
(source: Waco Tribune)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Prosecutor seeks death penalty for inmate charged with murdering prison
sergeant
A prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for Craig Wissink, the inmate charged
with murdering a prison sergeant at Bertie Correctional Institution last year.
Wissink is accused of beating Sgt. Meggan Callahan with a fire extinguisher
that she'd brought to douse a fire inside the eastern North Carolina prison.
Wissink set the fire in a dormitory trash can, according to a prison
disciplinary report obtained by the Observer. Anthony Jernigan, who heads the
State Bureau of Investigation office that covers northeastern North Carolina,
previously said that investigators found the April 26 attack to be "violent and
deliberate."
"I think it's safe to say he did target her," Jernigan said. "It wasn't
random."
In a hearing last week, District Attorney Valerie Asbell told the court that
there was at least 1 aggravating circumstance in the case and that she was
seeking the death penalty.
After hearing from lawyers for both sides, Superior Court Judge Quentin Sumner
declared it a capital case and asked the state Capital Defender's Office to
provide a 2nd attorney for Wissink. Under state law, defendants in death
penalty cases are entitled to 2 lawyers.
Wissink, 36, is serving a life sentence for a June 2000 murder in Fayetteville.
His attorney could not be reached for comment Wednesday morning.
Callahan's mother, Wendy, told the Observer last year that she did not want to
see Wissink get the death penalty for her daughter's death.
"I don't have the right to take his life for what he did. It's not my choice,"
Wendy Callahan said at the time. "It's God's decision."
Ellis Boyle, a lawyer representing the Callahan family in a lawsuit against
Wissink, said Wednesday that the family doesn't want to comment on the court's
decision.
"The family respects the criminal process and hopes that justice is served,"
Boyle said. "They hope that the public respects their need for privacy and
remembers Meggan as a kind person."
Callahan, 29, was hired to work as an officer for the prison in 2012 and was
later promoted to sergeant.
An Observer investigation last year found that Callahan's unit was often
understaffed and that many of the officers there were untrained rookies. Only 4
of Callahan's officers were working the day she was killed, according to a
Department of Labor report. That's half the recommended number, several current
and former officers said.
At Bertie and in prisons across North Carolina, severe staff shortages endanger
officers and inmates, the Observer found.
At Pasquotank Correctional Institution, where four prison employees were
fatally attacked during an Oct. 12 escape attempt, about 25 % of officer
positions were vacant. Prosecutors announced last month that they will also
seek the death penalty against the 4 inmates charged in those attacks.
(source: charlotteobserver.com)
GEORGIA:
After record year for Georgia prison suicides, more seen in January
After ending a record year for inmate suicides, the Georgia Department of
Corrections said three inmates have apparently killed themselves within 2 1/2
weeks, 2 on the same day.
According to the Department of Corrections, the agency is investigating all
three deaths as apparent suicides. Corrections did not provide specifics about
how the inmates died.
2 deaths were early on Sunday.
First, Andrew Garland, who was serving a 10-year sentence for a 2016 aggravated
stalking and 5 years for the same crime committed in 2017, was found in his
cell around 1:15 a.m. at Rogers State Prison in Tattnall County in southeast
Georgia. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital 2 hours later on Sunday.
Also on Sunday, at 2:50 a.m., Christopher Mauldin was found dead in his cell at
Phillips State Prison in Buford. Mauldin was in prison for 2 burglary
convictions in Carroll County - 1 in 2009 for which he was sentenced to 12
years and the other burglary committed in 2015 for which he was sentenced to 15
years.
The 1st apparent state inmate suicide of this year was on Jan. 13 at Hays State
Prison in Summerville in northwest Georgia. Cecil Williams, serving 10 years
for a 2015 robbery by intimidation in Lowndes County, was found unresponsive in
his cell at 1:09 a.m.
?"Along with having policies in place that direct employees on the proper
monitoring of offenders who are believed to be suicidal, GDC is in the process
of developing an awareness campaign for use in communicating to the offender
population," Department of Corrections spokeswoman Joan Heath said in an email.
"We work diligently to identify practices that will improve our ability to
thwart suicide attempts. We have been, and remain, committed to the safety and
security of all offenders."
By the end of 2017, 15 state prisoners caused their own deaths, including 1 who
died at an area hospital so the DOC did not include him in the agency's inmate
suicide count.
In 2016, by comparison, 9 inmates committed suicide for the entire year.
The rate of Georgia inmate suicides last year was twice what it is nationwide.
With just over 52,000 Georgia prisoners, 15 suicides translates into a rate of
28.5 per 100,000 prisoners. The national rate is 17 inmate suicides per 100,000
prisoners.
In 2017, 1 of the inmates who is suspected of killing himself was on death row
and 3 were in isolation cells.
Prison officials have offered no explanation for the increase in apparent
suicides in recent months. But those outside the system question whether some
of the deaths could be attributed to a lack of mental health care. Others have
blamed the state's increased use of solitary confinement.
At least 2 federal lawsuits have been filed over the use of restrictive and
isolated cells. Inmates assigned to the "special management unit" at the
Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison near Jackson are placed in cells
that get no outside light and have solid metal doors out of which they cannot
see. The inmates spend 24 hours a day alone in those cells, without diversions
like reading or television, except 2 1/2 hours a week when they are let out for
exercise.
None of the inmates who have died this year were in the special management unit
at the times of their deaths.
(source: Atlanta Journal Constitution)
FLORIDA:
Florida Supreme Court upholds sentence of Orange County man on death row since
1970s
The Florida Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of a
murder in Orange County in 1976.
Only 4 inmates in Florida have been on death row longer than Henry Sireci,
convicted of stabbing a car dealer named Howard Poteet 55 times and slitting
his throat in 1975. Poteet's wife and son found him on the floor of the
dealership, records show.
Though Florida law now requires jurors to be unanimous when they recommend a
death sentence, that was not the case during Sireci's sentencing. A jury first
recommended he be executed using an electric chair in 1976 after only 20
minutes of deliberation.
Sireci's most recent death sentence, in 1991, was a non-unanimous 11-1 vote -
but it came well before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's death
penalty sentencing scheme in 2016. The Florida Supreme Court has been
overturning non-unanimous death sentences finalized after 2002, but leaving
older sentences as they are.
(source: Orlando Sentinel)
**************************
Justices reject 10 more death row appeals
Bringing the total number of similar rulings to 70 since early last week, the
Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected appeals from 10 death row inmates.
Like the earlier 60 cases, Wednesday's rulings involved death dow inmates who
were sentenced before a 2002 cutoff date.
The inmates' appeals stemmed from a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case
known as Hurst v. Florida and a subsequent Florida Supreme Court decision.
The 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found Florida's death-penalty sentencing
system was unconstitutional because it gave too much authority to judges,
instead of juries.
The subsequent Florida Supreme Court ruling said juries must unanimously agree
on critical findings before judges can impose death sentences and must
unanimously recommend the death penalty.
But the Florida Supreme Court made the new sentencing requirements apply to
cases since June 2002.
That is when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling known as Ring v. Arizona
that was a premise for striking down Florida's death-penalty sentencing system
in 2016.
In each of the 70 cases, the death row inmates had been sentenced to death
before the Ring decision and argued that the new unanimity requirements should
also apply to their cases.
The Florida Supreme Court has issued seven batches of rulings rejecting the
appeals.
The inmates who lost their appeals Wednesday were Robert A. Consalvo in a
Broward County case; Robert R. Gordon in a Pinellas County case; Anton J.
Krawczuk in a Lee County case; David Miller Jr. in a Duval County case; Joshua
D. Nelson in a Lee County case; Manuel Antonio Rodriguez in a Miami-Dade County
case; Henry Perry Sireci in an Orange County case; Jack R. Sliney in a
Charlotte County case; Steven Edward Stein in a Duval County case; and Gary
Richard Whitton in a Walton County case.
(source: news4jax.com)
***********************
Living On Death Row
No matter where you stand on the issue of the death penalty, many Americans
would agree that the process is deeply flawed.<>P> By the time someone actually
faces execution in Florida, they have often been living on death row - an
oxymoron if there was one - for at least 10 years and frequently much longer.
Eric Scott Branch was convicted more than 20 years ago for the murder of a
University of West Florida student. Word came down last week that the Feb. 22
execution will proceed as planned. In other words, Branch will have outlived
his victim by nearly 25 years. During those years, he, or she, has been a guest
of the Florida Department of Corrections, with state-funded food, housing and
medical care.
No one wants an innocent person put to death and it's in everyone's best
interest to have an effective appeals process in place. But if death by
execution seems inhumane to some, so too might living for 25 years with a death
sentence hanging over your head. And the slow appeals process may not be as
foolproof as we'd like it to be. The group Floridians for Alternatives to the
Death Penalty keeps a record of death row inmates exonerated over the years.
Their tally presently stands at 27, dating back to 1973.
Ours is an imperfect system at best, one that likely at least occasionally
kills an innocent man and also allows guilty individuals to effectively
sidestep their sentences.
Nonetheless, the beat goes on.
Branch's appeal was one of 10 from death row inmates the Florida Supreme Court
turned down Monday. Justices rejected another 10 appeals the next day.
3 other inmates who committed local crimes also had their death sentence
appeals denied Monday, including Ernest D. Suggs in a Walton County case, Frank
A. Walls in an Okaloosa County case, and Daniel Jon Peterka in an Okaloosa
County case.
Authorities say Branch attacked Susan Morris in January 1993 as she walked to
her car at the University of West Florida in Pensacola. Branch dragged Morris
into a nearby wooded area, where he beat, strangled and sexually battered her.
Branch then left Morris' body in a shallow grave and stole her car to flee the
state.
First Circuit Asistant State Attorney John Molchan said the court's decision to
reject 10 appeals in a single day made it clear that justices remain steadfast
in their decision not to review cases decided before 2002. The Tuesday rulings
further affirmed their stance.
(source: Editorial, creators.com)
*******
John Chapman testifies in death penalty case, claims self-defense
On the witness stand, hoping to save his own life in the face of claims he
murdered a woman he dated 3 years ago, John Eugene Chapman on Wednesday showed
little emotion even as he described the moment he said she pulled a knife on
him.
"I said, don't do that," Chapman told a Palm Beach County jury, who prosecutors
hope to convince to give Chapman a death sentence if they convict him of
1st-degree murder in the April 18, 2015 stabbing death of Vanessa Williams.
Chapman's defense team, led personally by Palm Beach County Public Defender
Carey Haughwout, has told jurors since the start of Chapman's trial last week
that the case isn't a murder at all but a case of self-defense.
Chapman himself echoed the sentiments Wednesday when he took the rare step of
testifying on his own behalf in the trial that is expected to end early next
week.
After Haughwout questioned him about the days leading up to his final deadly
confrontation with Williams inside a pickup truck parked near the entrance to
the Palma Vista apartment complex in west Boca Raton, the 28-year-old former
soldier who worked as personal security for an Army lieutenant colonel in Iraq
kept a measured, controlled tone as he explained for jurors how he wrestled a
knife away from Williams.
"It's like she was so intent on pushing that knife in my chest and I ... and
my, my training kicked in," Chapman said. "And then I'm defending myself. I
don't think. I don't feel."
Chapman said he didn't know how many times he ended up stabbing Williams. He
told investigators who arrested him a week later it was 5 times. Medical
examiners counted 20 wounds to her chest and body.
Chapman and Williams, who had dated on and off for 2 years, reconnected for the
last time several days before Williams' death, after Chapman's girlfriend in
Cape Coral confronted him about his communication with Williams and Chapman
decided to leave the house and move in with Williams.
That situation quickly devolved when the new living arrangements fell through,
and at some point Chapman said the 2 got high on flakka. On Williams' last
night alive, Chapman said, they met one of Chapman's friends in Fort Lauderdale
for a night of partying, and Chapman eventually told the 2 that he knew someone
who could sell them drugs in Cape Coral.
That sparked an ill-fated trip that eventually went awry and ended with
Williams and a friend leaving Chapman after he took off his clothes and waded
into a pond in what he called a "childish" attempt to curry sympathy from
Williams, who he said had been berating him earlier that night.
Williams eventually picked him up again, but the two fought again after Chapman
said Williams discovered text messages he traded with his estranged girlfriend
in Cape Coral asking to return home. Chapman said he then began to search for
his belongings inside the truck, only for Williams to tell him that she threw
everything he had out on State Road 441 somewhere.
"I snapped. I lost my composure," Chapman said, adding that he pulled her hair
because "It was the most childish response I could think of."
That was the start of the fight that would end Williams' 28 years of life.
Chapman said he later gathered her body and a few other items from the car and
dumped them in a ditch on 14930 Smith Sundy Road in unincorporated Palm Beach
County, where her body was discovered a day later.
Even during the toughest parts of Assistant State Attorney John Parnofiello's
cross-examination, Chapman never raised his voice and never expressed any
emotion deeper than mild bemusement.
Once he wrestled the knife away from Williams, Parnofiello asked Chapman,
wasn't she no longer a threat?
"We're already in the moment. We're in a fight," Chapman says, later adding
when Parnofiello pressed him: "This is a lot of thinking that I didn't do. I
didn't think about that kind of stuff."
Testimony in Chapman's case will resume next week.
(source: Palm Beach Post)
TENNESSEE:
Is Billy Ray Irick Fit for Execution?----The state plans to kill a man
convicted of rape and murder - and possibly suffering from severe mental
illness
Billy Ray Irick was just 6 years old the first time someone raised questions
about his mental health. It was March 1965, when he was in the first grade. His
school's principal referred him to the Knoxville Mental Health Center,
requesting a mental evaluation to determine, according to court documents,
"whether Billy's extreme behavioral problems and unmanageability in school were
the result of emotional problems or whether Billy suffered from some form of
'organic brain damage.'"
A clinical social worker at the center performed an assessment, noting that the
young boy "apparently mistreats animals" and that he had "for a couple of years
been telling people outside the home that his mother mistreats him, that she
ties him up with a rope and beats him." Later, a psychologist at the center who
interviewed Irick concluded that he was most likely "suffering from a severe
neurotic anxiety reaction with a possibility of mild organic brain damage." The
young boy, the psychologist noted, tended "to fear his own impulses."
Nearly seven years after those evaluations, a then-13-year-old Irick was living
at the Church of God Home for Children in Sevierville, Tenn. - a former
orphanage that provided care for abused and emotionally disturbed children. His
parents, whose mental and emotional stability had also been questioned, rarely
visited him between the ages of 8 and 13. But in June 1972, according to
testimony included in court documents, the facility arranged for Irick to visit
his parents at home.
According to court documents, the visit did not go well: "During the visit,
Billy used an axe to destroy the family television set, clubbed flowers in the
flower bed, and, in a very disturbing incident, used a razor to cut up the
pajamas that his younger sister was wearing as she slept. The razor was later
found in his sister's bed."
14 years later, in August 1986, Irick was convicted of the rape and murder of
7-year-old Paula Dyer. Last month, for the 3rd time in 4 years, the state of
Tennessee scheduled his death. 2 other executions scheduled by the state
Supreme Court will almost certainly be delayed because the men involved have
yet to exhaust their appeals, but Irick - who is now 59 and has been on death
row for more than 30 years - has fewer options remaining to keep him off the
gurney.
Irick is 1 of 5 inmates whose attorneys are planning to challenge the state's
new lethal injection protocol, citing emails that show the state has been
warned that a new cocktail of drugs could cause pain and suffering.
But there's another question that could be raised between now and Aug. 9, 2018,
when Tennessee intends to put Irick to death: Is he fit for execution? That
combination of words, "fit for execution," like so many in the lexicon of the
death penalty, twists the English language into a peculiar shape. But it is
crucial.
In the 1986 case of Ford v. Wainwright, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
executing an "insane" inmate runs afoul of the Eighth Amendment prohibition
against cruel and unusual punishment. How to determine whether a condemned
inmate is insane, however, was left a mostly open question. Writing on Ford v.
Wainwright, Justice Lewis F. Powell opined that it would be unconstitutional to
execute an inmate who is "unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer
and why they are to suffer it," and that is the standard that has been used in
many lower courts.
As of this writing, there is not a pending challenge to Irick???s competency
for execution, and his attorney, Gene Shiles, declined to comment for this
story. But court filings from years past, including one challenging the trial
court's decision that Irick was fit for execution, detail years of mental
health issues suffered by Irick, including some that were never heard by a jury
and have been largely blocked from full consideration by a court. They include
anecdotes like those above and other information that could shed light on his
state of mind at the time of the horrific crime for which he was sentenced to
death.
In 1999, as attorneys appealed Irick's case in federal court, an investigator
traveled to Knoxville to speak to potential witnesses. Surprisingly, the
investigator discovered that no one had interviewed members of Paula Dyer's
stepfamily, with whom Irick had been living in the weeks before her murder. The
investigator learned that "just days or weeks before Paula Dyer's death,"
Irick, wielding a machete, had chased a school-age girl down a Knoxville public
street in broad daylight "with the explanation that he 'didn't like her
looks.'" Ramsey and Linda Jeffers - the parents of Dyer's stepfather, Kenny
Jeffers - and their daughter Cathy signed affidavits attesting that Irick had
been "talking with the devil," "hearing voices" and "taking instructions from
the devil." Cathy Jeffers, the court document says, testified that Irick had
told her "the only person that tells me what to do is the voice" and that on
one evening, as paraphrased in the court filing, he'd been "frantic that the
police would enter the home and kill them with chainsaws."
After reviewing the Jefferses' affidavits, Dr. Clifton Tennison - the
psychologist who performed the initial mental health examination before Irick's
original trial - stated in an affidavit that he no longer had confidence in his
initial evaluation, which had been used to argue against an insanity defense.
"The information contained within the attached affidavits raises a serious and
troubling issue of whether Mr. Irick was psychotic on the date of the offense
and at any previous and subsequent time," he wrote.
2 more psychologists reviewed the affidavits and other records related to
Irick's mental health and concluded that he "suffered at the very least from a
dissociative disorder, and probably was schizophrenic or intermittently
psychotic."
In a brief filed in 2010, Irick's attorneys argued that he "was experiencing a
psychotic episode with hallucinations and/or delusions and that he has no
memory of the offenses themselves or his role in them." Further, they contended
that Irick did not, and could not, "have a rational understanding of his
pending execution because he has no memory of the offenses, does not believe
that he committed them, and has the emotional and social functioning of a
child."
Their efforts were blocked on procedural grounds, and the state Supreme Court
affirmed the trial court's judgment that Irick was "competent to be executed."
(source: Nashville Scene)
*********************** Attorneys trying to whittle down a group of Carter
County citizens into a pool of "sentence qualified" jurors for a double murder
trial found a way Wednesday to speed things along by agreeing to dismiss anyone
who would never, or who would always, vote for the death penalty.
Eric James Azotea, 46, of Johnson City, faces 2 counts of 1st-degree murder,
tampering with evidence and 2 counts of abuse of a corpse for the January 2015
deaths of Amber Terrell, 22, and Arthur Gibson, Jr., 36, both of Kingsport.
His trial starts next week, but Criminal Court Judge Stacy Street and attorneys
in the case - District Attorney General Tony Clark and Assistant District
Attorney General Dennis Brooks for the state and Gene Scott, Lesley Tiller and
Dan Smith for the defense - started "sentence qualifying" potential jurors on
Monday.
Sentence-qualified - often referred to as death qualified - means the juror
could vote for and impose the death penalty on Azotea if he is convicted of
1st-degree murder.
That process continued through late Wednesday as Street pushed to get at least
60 sentence qualified jurors.
Throughout the day, attorneys and Street pressed potential jurors about their
ability to be separated from their daily life to hear the case and be
sequestered for up to 2 weeks, if they have read or heard anything about the
case and if they could consider the death penalty as a possible punishment.
State prosecutors filed a notice early in the case to seek the death penalty if
Azotea is convicted of 1st-degree murder. Prosecutors must prove aggravating
factors exist and those must outweigh all mitigating factors.
(source: Johnson City Press)
**********
Judge to decide whether to take convicted Chattanooga serial rapist, murderer
off death row
A special judge must decide whether to release a convicted serial rapist from
death row who was found guilty in a 1988 murder in Chattanooga.
Harold Wayne Nichols received 60 years for the 1st-degree felony murder of
21-year-old Karen Pulley, an additional 15 years for aggravated rape, and was
sentenced to death in 1990. But a judge at the time incorrectly applied a vague
enhancement statute that sent Nichols to death row, his post-conviction
defenders argued Wednesday in Hamilton County.
And because of a United States Supreme Court decision from 2015 that's since
changed those statutes, prosecutors seemed to agree that Nichols, 57, is
eligible to be released from death row.
Now, it's up to Judge Don Ash to decide whether to accept these attorneys'
agreement. Ash was specially appointed to the case after Hamilton County
Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman, a former prosecutor, recused himself from
Nichols' post-conviction petition.
"If I accept this agreed order, we'll accept his [post-conviction] petition,"
Ash said Wednesday in a Hamilton County General Sessions courtroom. "I do have
legitimate concerns about whether this is appropriate or not."
Ash said he would release his opinion in the next 2 to 3 weeks, likely before
Nichols' next court date on March 14.
(source: Chattanooga Times Free Press)
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