Board denies clemency for condemned Okla. inmate


May 17, 2013 12:37 CDT


OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has denied clemency for a death row inmate scheduled to be executed next month.
 
The five-member board voted 3-2 Friday against commuting the death sentence of James Lewis DeRosa. He faces a June 18 execution for the stabbing deaths of 73-year-old Curtis Plummer and 70-year-old Gloria Plummer in 2000.
 
During the hearing, DeRosa expressed remorse for the LeFlore County couple's death and took responsibility for the killings.
 
Four members of the Plummers' family urged the board to deny clemency.
 
Prosecutors say DeRosa had worked at the Plummers' ranch. They allege DeRosa and John Eric Castleberry slashed the Plummers' throats and left the scene with $73 and the couple's truck.
 
Castleberry pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

www.kokh-tv.com

The fate of Aurora theater shooter James Holmes may hinge on a death row inmate
 
By Valerie Richardson
 
The Washington Times Thursday, May 16, 2013

DENVER — The fate of one Colorado mass murderer has become entwined with that of another as Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper struggles with whether to save the life of a notorious death row inmate.
 
Mr. Hickenlooper is considering a petition to grant clemency for 38-year-old Nathan Dunlap, convicted by a jury in 1996 of killing four employees at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora. The execution, which would be the first in Colorado since 1997, has been set for the week of Aug. 18.
 
Complicating the process is that any decision the governor makes could have a ripple effect on the case of James Eagan Holmes, 25, the suspect in the highly publicized Aurora theater shooting. The July 20 massacre left 12 dead and 58 injured.
 
Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler has announced that he will seek the death penalty for Mr. Holmes. If Dunlap’s sentence is commuted to life in prison, however, critics say it would inevitably boost Mr. Holmes‘ chances of avoiding execution.
 
“The natural question that would flow to John Hickenlooper if he commutes the sentence of Nathan Dunlap is, ‘Why aren’t you doing that for everyone on death row or everyone facing the death penalty?’” said former Denver deputy district attorney Craig Silverman.
 
Leading the campaign against clemency is Mr. Brauchler, who was still in law school at the time of the Chuck E. Cheese shooting but was elected in November as district attorney for the 18th Judicial District. Both the Dunlap and Holmes cases are being handled by that office.
 
Mr. Brauchler declined to discuss the ongoing Holmes prosecution, but said that a clemency grant would have consequences that extend far beyond the Dunlap case. There are currently two inmates other than Dunlap on the state’s death row.
 
“It would be precedential. I don’t remember any governor overturning a death-penalty conviction in Colorado,” said Mr. Brauchler. “I think the anti-death penalty people know this, and that’s why they’re pushing so hard for clemency.”
 
Indeed, Mr. Hickenlooper is under intense pressure to spare Dunlap’s life from capital-punishment foes as well as members of his own party. His chief of staff, Roxane White, posted messages on Twitter earlier this month expressing her opposition to the Dunlap execution.
 
Meanwhile, Mr. Hickenlooper infuriated fellow Democrats in March when he snuffed a bill that would have banned capital punishment in Colorado.  (This begs the question:  If you don't use the DP on the likes of Dunlap why have it at all?)

Granting clemency to Dunlap would help mend fences with his critics on the left, say analysts.
 
“I think he wants in the worst possible way to grant clemency to Dunlap,” said former Colorado Republican Party chairman Dick Wadhams. “I don’t think the chief of staff goes out there on her own with a view that’s inconsistent with the governor’s viewpoint. That’s just not done.”
 
In an interview last week with radio host Mike Rosen, the governor said he had spent the last several months meeting with dozens of stakeholders, including prosecutors, defense attorneys and family members of those killed.
 
“We’ve been working on this for a year, and working very focused for last 41/2 months, so I’ve met now with dozens and dozens and dozens, 60 to 70 family members of victims, not just of this tragedy but other capital punishment cases,” Mr. Hickenlooper said on Mr. Rosen’s KOA-AM show.
 
When will he decide? “I’m not setting a timeline for myself, but there is an urgency to get this done in the coming weeks,” he said.
 
In their May 6 clemency petition, Dunlap’s attorneys attest that their client suffers from bipolar disorder, which was undiagnosed at the time of the 1996 trial, and that he was in the throes of a manic episode at the time of the shooting.
 
The mental health of Mr. Holmes, who showed up at the first several hearings with a blank stare and orange-dyed hair, is likely to be an issue raised by his defense.
 
Dunlap’s attorneys have also released a video and note from Dunlap in which he apologizes for “the pain and suffering I’ve caused the victims’ families and friends I wish there was something more that I could do to relieve any pain.”
 
Mr. Brauchler has countered by releasing letters from victims’ relatives, jurors and a former friend of Dunlap’s urging the governor to respect the jury’s decision. Several of those, including Bobby Stephens, the lone shooting survivor, have appeared recently on Denver television talking about the damage inflicted by Dunlap.
 
Dunlap was 19 when he burst into the restaurant after closing time Dec. 14, 1993, shooting five former co-workers after he was fired. He told authorities afterward that killing them was “better than sex.”
 
Sandi Rogers, whose 17-year-old son Benjamin Grant was killed in the massacre, said that she and other victims’ family members met with the governor May 3. Her message for him: Do nothing.
 
“What I’ve been saying is that there needs to be more about Ben [and the other victims], because if their names were mentioned every time Nathan Dunlap’s name was mentioned, people would realize this isn’t about Nathan Dunlap,” said Mrs. Rogers. “This is about those four people. That’s where the focus needs to be.”

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/16/clemency-in-one-colo-mass-shooting-could-impact-2n/#ixzz2TYjbtFgs

Gov. Hickenlooper releases list of clemency consultations


12:28 PM, May 15, 2013 Associated Press

DENVER (AP) - Gov. John Hickenlooper has spoken with seven prosecutors and two defense attorneys as he ponders whether to grant clemency to Nathan Dunlap, who faces execution in August for ambushing and killing four people in 1993.
 
Hickenlooper's office provided a list to The Associated Press on Tuesday of 15 officials the governor has spoken with. The list also includes three investigators and a victim-witness assistant in the prosecutor's office.
 
Hickenlooper also spoke with victims, family members and others whose names haven't been released.
 
Hickenlooper hasn't said when he will decide. Dunlap's execution is scheduled for the week of Aug. 18.
 
Dunlap has been on death row since 1996, when a jury convicted him of killing four employees at a pizzeria. Dunlap had recently lost a job there.

www.9news.com

Guest commentary...

Forgive, but you should still execute Nathan Dunlap

Posted:   05/16/2013 12:01:00 AM MDT
By Joe Meverden

Nathan Dunlap should be forgiven. Nathan Dunlap should also be executed. And whether one is a person of faith or not, there is no contradiction in holding these two views simultaneously.

Twenty years ago, Nathan Dunlap walked into a Chuck E. Cheese family restaurant, similar to one I frequent with my own children, and brutally murdered four innocent people. His act was cold, calculated and evil. But Dunlap did more than murder innocent people. He attacked the peace, dignity and security of an entire community, of relatives and friends, of an organization and its employees who once made a living by bringing joy into the lives of children, and untold numbers of people who would look over their shoulders in fear of their own co-workers until time would dull the memory of the crime.

As individuals, we need to forgive. Jesus Christ gave that command to his followers in their relationships with each other. And he did it for good reason. Forgiveness is the only way to let go, to move on, to not be held back by the ghosts and sorrows of the past. Personal revenge must be rejected; it offers false promises of closure and does not deliver the emotional release one might seek.

The sad truth is that in this life, we may never be free of residual pain and suffering from crimes committed against us as individuals. But we can forgive in our hearts and our minds, catching a glimpse of the hope of the life to come by doing so. However, the authorities chosen by our communities have a different responsibility, one that is also commanded by God. That responsibility is to meet convicted criminals with appropriate punishment. For those who commit the ultimate crime — the intentional, premeditated and unwarranted killings of other human beings — that punishment is execution.

This responsibility is given to trained authorities not directly impacted by the crime for a reason: They can serve as police, guards, district attorneys, judges, jurors, legislators, governors, and executing staff, providing a degree of dispassionate objectivity as they carry out the investigations, trials and sentences.

So, it is intellectually dishonest to suggest that the heinous and senseless act of a murderer who terrorized innocent victims to their deaths at his own hands somehow resembles a thoughtful process developed corporately over time and by debate for the purpose of assuring that a convicted criminal will never again pose a threat to innocent people.

There is no comparison; only contrast. When we execute a criminal through legal means, we are not continuing a cycle of violence; we are rooting out violence and ensuring that the offender can never act out in violence against another victim. Further, we should not mistake as conclusive evidence against the efficacy of capital punishment what is merely inconclusive research that cannot prove whether capital punishment is an effective deterrent or not.

For followers of Jesus Christ in particular, it is important to remember that the same New Testament that teaches us to forgive those who offend us personally (Matthew 18, Mark 11, Luke 6) also teaches that governing authorities are sanctioned by God for the purpose of dispensing punishment to those who commit crimes against others (Romans 13, 1 Peter 2).

The ancient metaphor used in the New Testament is roughly translated as "to bear the sword." That metaphor stands for execution. And those chosen to "bear the sword" in our society have a responsibility to our communities to carry out the sentences that have been established by our legal process. As individuals, we must always forgive. But the authorities must never forget that they "bear the sword" for a reason.

Joe Meverden is a pastor at Path-makers Church in Castle Rock.

Read more: Forgive, but you should still execute Nathan Dunlap - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_23251895/forgive-but-you-should-still-execute-nathan-dunlap#ixzz2TT8Xm9IB

If I ever move to Colorado this is where I will go to church! 

'Y'all are getting away with murder': Final words of the police killer executed in Texas for 1999 shooting

 

By Helen Lawson

PUBLISHED: 03:22 EST, 16 May 2013  | UPDATED: 04:29 EST, 16 May 2013 

A man who murdered a police officer was executed in Texas last night, using his last words to accuse police of 'killing innocent kids'.

Jeffrey Demond Williams, 37, received a lethal injection just over an hour after his last-day appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court failed.

Asked to make a final statement before his death, Williams spoke quickly and angrily.

'You clown police,' he said, accusing them of 'killing innocent kids, murdering young kids.'

'Y'all are getting away with murder all the time,' he continued. 'When I kill one or pop one, y'all want to kill me.'

He finished by saying: 'God has a plan for everything.

'I love everyone that loves me, I ain't got no love for anyone that don't love me.'

He briefly picked up his head as the lethal drug took effect, then took several deep breaths and began gently snoring, reports the Associated Press.

Williams was pronounced dead at 6:36pm CDT, 26 minutes after the lethal drug was administered.

He becomes the sixth prisoner to be put to death in Texas this year.

'I have no sympathy for him,' said Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers Union.

'Continuing to the very end ridiculing the police just shows what kind of thug he is.'

Hunt joined dozens of officers and supporters, several on roaring motorcycles, outside the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit while the execution was carried out inside.

Enjoy your dirt nap scumbag!

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2325376/Jeffrey-Demond-Williams-Final-words-police-killer-executed-Texas-1999-shooting.html#ixzz2TSo127IK

Fla. Supreme Court rejects appeal from killer of 10-year girl: Execution set for May 29


THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  May 15, 2013 - 11:38 am EDT
 
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — The Florida Supreme Court is rejecting a final appeal from the killer of a 10-year-old-girl.

Elmer Leon Carroll is scheduled to die by lethal injection on May 29. He was convicted of raping and suffocating a girl after breaking into her Orange County home almost 23 years ago.

Carroll's attorney argued that he should be spared for several reasons including that his client is mentally ill.

The Supreme Court rejected the arguments, including the mental illness claim. The court ruled that they were brought up at the last minute and cannot be made now. 

Carroll killed Christine McGowan of Apopka, the night before Halloween in 1990. Carroll was living next door at a homeless men's mission and was arrested within hours of the girl's body being found.

www.therepublic.com

Letters urge governor to deny clemency for Nathan Dunlap, sentenced to death for 4 murders

Wayne Harrison

DENVER - Gov. John Hickenlooper is being asked to "show courage" by denying clemency for Nathan Dunlap, sentenced to death for killing four employees of an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese during a robbery in 1993.

Letters to the governor from the Arapahoe County District Attorney and his deputy district attorney, the jury foreman on the last Colorado death penalty case from State Representative Rhonda Fields and from a former co-worker were made public Friday.  All of them argued that Nathan Dunlap deserves the death penalty for his crime because he admitted killing all four employees to eliminate witnesses in the case.

The only other inmates on Colorado's death row were also convicted of killing a witness in a criminal case, the son of Rep. Fields, who was scheduled to testify against them.

The jury foreman on the Robert Ray case, who did not want his name released, wrote Hickenlooper, telling him "Mr. Dunlap, as he stated himself, killed people because they would be witnesses. Freedom, peace and justice are all values worth more than any one of our individual lives."

The foreman called the Chuck E. Cheese murders as "Aurora's original mass shooting." He also addressed augments that racism played a part in placing Dunlap on death row.

"You must trust that your citizens are not racists or ignorant fools," the jury foreman wrote.  "Show the nation that Colorado does not tolerate cowardly acts of mass murder."

Rep. Rhonda Fields wrote the governor about her personal experience in the death penalty trials of Robert Ray and Sir Mario Owens -- the two men convicted of killing her son and his fiancé.

Fields also argued that racism did not play a part in any of the three death penalty verdicts -- all rendered in Arapahoe County.

"It was not the fault of the DA back in 1993 or the DA in 2005 that Dunlap, Ray and Owens all chose to commit their murders in Arapahoe County.  It was the nature of the murders, not their locations, that cause the death penalty decisions."

She called it "offensive" to suggest that race played a part in any of the cases.

Regarding the Ray and Owens death penalty verdicts, Fields wrote, "… the jurors believed that the killing of witnesses was the main factor that required the death penalty."   She added, "I know that Dunlap, when asked why he killed his victims, answered that it was because they were witnesses to his crime."

She concluded her letter to the governor by saying, "I think that granting clemency would send the wrong message to criminals and to witnesses."

District Attorney George Brauchler and Chief Deputy District Attorney Matt Maillaro wrote a joint letter to to Hickenlooper, stating, "He (Dunlap) took the lives of four Colorado citizens and justice requires he now pays with his own."

"We ask you to take the courageous stop of not granting his request for executive clemency," the two also wrote.

"It's not John Hickenlooper putting Nathan Dunlap to death, it's the governor of the State of Colorado defending the process that has lead us here," Brauchler told 7NEWS reporter Marc Stewart.

A former Chuck E. Cheese co-worker and high school acquaintance of Nathan Dunlap also wrote Gov. Hickenlooper, urging him to not grant clemency for the condemned murderer.

The woman, who did not want to publicly identified, told Hickenlooper, "(Dunlap) was always a vindictive, evil and mean dark person."

She said Dunlap is a "bad person, he always has been and I believe he always will be … His actions did not just happen to occur on this one horrible night, it was from the monster that he always was."

The woman relates personal interactions with Dunlap at school and at work where she said he used "intimidation and fear."

The woman said she was scheduled to work the night of the murders but had changed her schedule in order to babysit. She said that decision saved her life.  She is now a nurse.

-- DA's response: http://ch7ne.ws/11Z9LxB

-- Ray jury foreman and Rep. Fields responses: http://ch7ne.ws/16niHmb

-- Letter from co-worker who was supposed to work the night of the shooting: http://ch7ne.ws/10odAtF

Dunlap has been sentenced to die by lethal injection during the week of Aug. 18.  The last person executed in Colorado was Gary Lee Davis in 1997. 

Before that, the last person executed in Colorado was Luis Monge in 1967. Monge was executed in the gas chamber for murdering his wife and three children. Prior to his death, Colorado averaged one execution per year for the years the gas chamber replaced hanging in the state, which was 1934.

www.thedenverchannel.com

Execution Wednesday for Policeman's Killer


By MICHAEL GRACZYK NBCDFW.com

Updated 1 hour 17 minutes ago

When Houston police arrested Jeffrey Demond Williams for gunning down a plainclothes officer working an auto theft assignment, the slain officer's handcuffs dangled from one of Williams' wrists.
 
Witnesses said they saw the officer, 39-year-old Troy Blando, start to cuff Williams, who then began struggling, grabbed a gun under his clothing with his free hand and shot the 19-year police veteran before running off on foot.
 
Williams, 37, was set for lethal injection Wednesday evening. He'd be the sixth Texas prisoner executed this year.
 
Officers found Williams a block from where he shot Blando on May 19, 1999. Besides the handcuff, he still was carrying the 9 mm pistol determined to be the weapon used to fatally shoot Blando in the chest.
 
Attorneys for Williams appealed Tuesday to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution, after lower courts refused to do so. They contend that he received poor legal help in earlier appeals, and that those lawyers should have argued that his trial lawyers had failed him. The trial lawyers should have provided jurors with more than superficial mitigating evidence of Williams' mental impairment to show he did not deserve a death sentence, they said.
 
"There is a reasonable probability, but for trial counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different," attorney Jonathan Sheldon told the high court.
 
State attorneys have said Williams' appeals were strategically filed with his execution imminent, that no federal law authorizes the court relief being sought and that arguments raised were "wholly unpersuasive on the merits," according to Georgette Oden, an assistant Texas attorney general.
 
Blando was in an unmarked vehicle, working surveillance at a southwest Houston motel where authorities suspected auto theft activity. Williams pulled into the parking lot about 9 a.m. driving a Lexus. A check of the license plate showed the car was reported stolen the previous week. His fingerprints were found on the Lexus and also on Blando's vehicle, evidence showed.
 
The mortally wounded Blando managed to radio his location and tell a dispatcher he'd been shot. He also provided a description of his attacker and exchanged gunfire with him.
 
"I don't know about you, but I know about me, and I want to get somebody there to save my life," Lyn McClellan, the former Harris County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Williams, said last week. "That's in my mind, I'm all about preservation."
 
Instead, Blando was focused on his job, McClellan said.

"Here's the guy, here's what he looks like and here's what he's wearing. And of course, one handcuff on his wrist. It ought to be easy to identify him," the former prosecutor said. "The fact he takes time to give a description of the person and the direction of travel, it's just beyond pale, beyond the line of duty. And that's what these guys do all the time."
 
At his trial, lawyers tried to show Williams was unintelligent, had emotional problems and didn't deserve to die.
 
Prosecutors said Williams had good parents and plenty of chances at help, even from the U.S. Navy, which discharged him after disciplinary problems. Evidence showed Williams gave investigators five taped confessions the day he was arrested.
 
Williams said he fired in self-defense, feared Blando could have been a carjacker and didn't know Blando was an officer. In another confession, he acknowledged knowing he was shooting a policeman.
 
Court records show Blando, although in plain clothes, was carrying his badge around his neck.  Testimony and confessions also linked Williams to four robberies, another shooting and an attempted robbery.
 
Williams would be the 498th Texas prisoner put to death since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982. At least eight others have executions scheduled in the coming months.
 
www.nbcnews.com

...and no I don't know why the Texas media advisory keeps getting crossed out...

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Media Advisory: Robert Lynn Pruett scheduled for execution

AUSTIN – Pursuant to a court order by the 156th District Court of Bee County, Robert Lynn Pruett is scheduled for execution after 6 p.m. on May 21, 2013.

In 2002, a Bee County jury found Pruett guilty of murdering Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) Correctional Officer Daniel Nagle while Pruett was incarcerated in the McConnell Unit of TDCJ.

FACTS OF THE CASE
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit described the facts surrounding the murder of Daniel Nagle as follows:

Pruett was sentenced to 99 years in prison for his role in the 1995 murder of Ray Yarborough. His father and brother were also convicted for their roles in the Yarborough murder.

On December 17, 1999, while in prison, Pruett missed getting a hot lunch and was given a sack lunch. He attempted to take his lunch into the recreation area, which was in violation of prison rules. Officer Nagle told Pruett that he needed to eat his lunch before going to the recreation area, and wrote a disciplinary charge against Pruett. Later that afternoon, when Nagle was in his office adjoining a multi-purpose room, Pruett stabbed Nagle eight times with a “shank” made of a metal rod sharpened to a point at one end, and wrapped in tape at the other end. According to the autopsy report, Nagle died from a heart attack that he suffered as a result of the trauma caused by the stab wounds. The murder weapon and a torn disciplinary report against Pruett, charging him with attempting to take food into an unauthorized area, were found at the scene of the attack.

John Lee Davis of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Office of Inspector General testified that after Pruett was arrested, Pruett stated, “Go ahead and run that disciplinary case on me now. Oop, I want to call my first witness, Officer Nagle. Oops, he’s dead.” Davis said that Pruett then began laughing.

Much of the remaining evidence against Pruett consisted of testimony from inmates. Inmates Allen Thompson and Johnny Barnett testified that they were in the multi-purpose room and saw and heard Pruett attacking Nagle. Inmate Anthony Casey testified that he heard Pruett talking about a weapon with another inmate before the attack. Casey, through a recreation yard window, later saw Pruett near Nagle’s desk, and then saw Pruett remove his clothing in a hallway and push it through a gas port into the recreation yard. Inmates James Dale Keller, Robert Michael Lewis, and Jimmy Mullican testified that they witnessed Pruett’s attack on Nagle from the craft shop across from the multi-purpose room. Inmate Harold Mitchell testified that he was in the multi-purpose room before the attack. He said that Pruett came into the room and suggested that he leave because Pruett was going to “do something.” When Mitchell questioned Pruett, Pruett said that he was going to kill Nagle. According to Mitchell, Pruett said that he was tired of life in prison and wasn’t going to kill himself, but didn’t have a problem making the State do it for him.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY
On June 26, 2001, a Bee County grand jury indicted Pruett for murdering Daniel Nagle.

On April 23, 2002, a Bee County jury convicted Pruett of capital murder. After a separate punishment proceeding, the same jury sentenced Pruett to death on April 30, 2002.

On Sept. 22, 2004, Pruett’s conviction and sentence were affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on direct appeal. Pruett did not appeal the state court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Instead, he filed an application for habeas corpus relief which was denied by the Court of Criminal Appeals on Oct. 19, 2005.

On Oct. 18, 2006, Pruett filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Corpus Christi Division. The federal court denied Pruett’s petition on Aug. 10, 2010.

On Dec. 27, 2011, the Fifth Circuit rejected Pruett’s appeal and affirmed the district court’s denial of habeas corpus relief.

Pruett filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court on May 12, 2012, but the Supreme Court denied certiorari review on Oct. 1, 2012.

On Feb. 11, 2013, the 156th state district court issued an order setting Pruett’s execution date for May 21, 2013.

On May 9, 2013, Pruett filed in Bee County district court a motion for post-conviction DNA and palm print testing and a motion to withdraw the execution date.

PRIOR CRIMINAL HISTORY
Under Texas law, the rules of evidence prevent certain prior criminal acts from being presented to a jury during the guilt-innocence phase of the trial. However, once a defendant is found guilty, jurors are presented information about the defendant’s prior criminal conduct during the second phase of the trial – which is when they determine the defendant’s punishment.

During the penalty phase of Pruett’s trial, jurors learned that Pruett was convicted of murder in 1995 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Pruett was serving this life sentence when he murdered Daniel Nagle.

www.tdcj.state.tx.us

TDCJ website still has Pruett listed to get snuffed on 5/21/13 and today the media advisory comes out.  Perhaps the ultra liberal Texas Tribune jumped the gun when it reported the 60 day stay! 

Convicted Houston cop killer set to die Wednesday


Posted: May 14, 2013 9:10 AM CDT Updated: May 14, 2013 9:10 AM CDT

By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - Attorneys for a 37-year-old Texas death row inmate are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution this week for the fatal shooting of a Houston police officer 14 years ago.

Jeffrey Demond Williams is set for lethal injection Wednesday evening in Huntsville for gunning down 39-year-old Troy Blando.

Blando was working as a plainclothes officer doing auto theft surveillance when he stopped Williams, who was driving a stolen Lexus. As Blando was putting handcuffs on Williams, he was shot.

Williams' lawyers argue his punishment should be halted while the high court reviews whether his legal help at his trial and in earlier stages of his appeals was deficient.

When Williams was arrested shortly after the shooting, he was still wearing the officer's handcuff on 1 of his wrists.

www.kswo.com

If there was a thread started on this I coudn't find it...

Abortion Doctor Kermit Gosnell Guilty of First Degree Murder

BY ENJOLI FRANCIS AND TERRY MORAN (@TerryMoran)

May 13, 2013

Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell was found guilty today of first degree murder in three of four infant deaths.
 
Gosnell was also convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a female patient who was given a lethal dose of sedatives and pain killers in 2009.
 
Gosnell, 72, could face the death penalty.

The verdict came hours after the jurors alerted the judge that they were deadlocked on two counts. The judge told the jurors to try again for a unanimous verdict. The decision came on the jury's 10th day of deliberations.
 
It was not clear which of the more than 200 counts in the case, which include racketeering, had deadlocked the jury.
 
Gosnell was accused of performing late-term abortions on four babies who were born alive, but were then allegedly killed by Gosnell.
 
For two months, the jury heard often grisly testimony, including from members of Gosnell's staff. Eight staffers have pleaded guilty to several crimes. Prosecutors said none of the staff were licensed nurses or doctors.
 
Gosnell ran the Women's Medical Society in West Philadelphia for decades until February 2010, when FBI agents raided his clinic looking for evidence of prescription drug dealing.
 
Instead they found, as reported in a nearly 300-page grand jury report released in 2011, a filthy, decrepit "house of horrors."
 
Blood was on the floor, the clinic reeked of urine and bags of fetal remains were stacked in freezers. The clinic was shut down and Gosnell's medical license was suspended after the raid.
 
Despite repeated complaints to state officials over the years -- as well as 46 lawsuits filed against Gosnell -- investigators said in the report that state regulators had conducted five inspections since the clinic had opened in 1979.
 
Gosnell's lawyer Jack McMahon maintains his client served his community and never killed a live, born baby.
 
The grand jury report, however, said there had been hundreds of "snippings," in which live babies were born and then killed.
 
"Gosnell had a simple solution for the unwanted babies he delivered. ... The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors into the back of the baby's neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that 'snipping,'" the report alleged.
 
The report also said that many of the women patients were infected with sexually transmitted diseases from contaminated instruments, had suffered from botched procedures or had been given overdoses of dangerous drugs.

www.abcnews.com

Houston Policeman's Killer Set to Die Loses Appeal


By: Associated Press Email

Posted: Mon 11:47 AM, May 13, 2013

A federal appeals court has refused to stop the scheduled execution this week of a man convicted of killing a Houston police officer 14 years ago this week.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Monday rejected an appeal from 37-year-old Jeffrey Demond Williams.

Williams is set to die Wednesday evening in Huntsville for fatally shooting 39-year-old Troy Blando as the officer was trying to handcuff him the morning of May 19, 1999, in a Houston motel parking lot.

Williams was driving a stolen car and Blando was in plain clothes working an auto theft assignment. Blando managed to radio a description of his attacker and police arrested Williams a short time later.

Williams' lawyers still could appeal the 5th Circuit ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

www.kbtx.com

I couldn't have said it better myself...

Mr. Smirky deserves death penalty

by Rich Tosches

I am, I suppose, a liberal. Born in Massachusetts. As a child, I sat with my family behind President John F. Kennedy and his family in a church in Hyannisport. I eventually forgave Ted Kennedy for Chappaquiddick. I voted twice for Obama. I don't think James Madison had AR-15 rifles in mind when he wrote the Second Amendment.

Oh, and I lived for 16 years in - gasp - Los Angeles. You know ... California.

So today we face another long go-round about the morality of the death penalty and whether Chuck E. Cheese killer Nathan Dunlap deserves to be given an injection of drugs and sent to the big sleep. Here now, my 2 cents: When Dunlap is dead and that silly smirk fades from his face, hand me the shovel and let me dig the hole.

For years, I've read and listened to the arguments from those who oppose capital punishment. Former ABC News correspondent Greg Dobbs of Evergreen summed it up nicely in the Post's editorial pages earlier this year.

"It is inhumane," he wrote. "It is inequitably applied; it doesn't deter murderers; it is outlawed in a growing number of states; it leaves Colorado in a league with distastefully barbarous nations like Iran and North Korea; and, maybe most appalling, it has surely led innocent people to their deaths in other states, if not Colorado."

Then he wrote: "But I'm for it anyway."

Me, too.

First, Nathan Dunlap is not an innocent person. Of that we are absolutely, positively certain. And if we are going to end his lousy, worthless life, let's be reminded always of what he did. In December 1993, he returned to the pizza restaurant in Aurora where he once worked - he was fire - and hid in the bathroom until the place closed for the night. Then he shot and killed employees Ben Grant and Colleen O'Connor, both 17; Sylvia Crowell, 19; and 50-year-old Margaret Kohlberg. He shot another worker, Bobby Stephens, in the face at point-blank range. Stephens lived.

Then, because he had a really lousy childhood, Dunlap stuffed his pockets with Chuck E. Cheese giveaway key chains, game tokens and about $1,500 in cash and walked away, leaving 5 people in gigantic, growing pools of blood.

From the day he was arrested - which took police all of 24 hours because they weren't exactly dealing with Einstein � Dunlap mocked it all. He smiled when a human being would cry. He laughed when an actual person would feel remorse. When family members of the people he killed showed their grief in court, Dunlap smirked.

He was found guilty by a Colorado Springs jury in 1996 and he laughed some more. I was in the courtroom in March of that year when the same jury sentenced him to death and I watched the same goofy smirk again.

He kept up the taunting for some 17 years as our finely tuned judicial system wallowed in its own paperwork and appeals processes.

The appeals failed to stem the tide. Recently, Arapahoe District Judge William Sylvester set an execution date for the week of Aug. 18. And Dunlap, through his lawyers, suddenly began crawling and groveling, begging Gov. John Hickenlooper to spare his poor, sad, misunderstood life.

From Mr. Smirky himself, in a neat little video prepared by his attorneys: "I regret what I did. I regret what I did to those victims' families and Bobby Stephens."

What he regrets - the only thing he regrets - is the end of the appeals process and a slow, shackled walk to the death chamber.

Here's part of a letter to the governor that Dunlap "wrote" by himself with, I am sure, no help from his legal squad: "I can complain about the process and the situation I'm in but after everything is said and done, I killed four people and tried to kill a fifth, in cold blood knowing the pain I would cause."

Awww. Now Nathan is sorry.

With any luck at all, on a warm summer day or cool Colorado evening this August, he will have a lethal drug pumped into a vein and he will die.

I hope the door to hell hits him in the rear end on his way in.

www.denverpost.com

The only place I agree to disagree is the fervor to execute cop-killers.  I don't necessarily think that being a law enforcement officer should be the aggravating factor that it is since there is a known inherent risk that comes with consciously picking it as a career, that ordinary citizens don't have to face.

They are also sworn to serve and protect and will rush to the aid of a complete stranger in a dangerous and perhaps deadly situation...when an ordinary citizen will turn and run the other way!  It is for that reason that cop killers should be one of the first to get their juice.