Even after the trial, the convicted has 'rights', they will then file an appeal.  Most of the time it's bullshit, but still it keeps your emotions running high waiting for the outcome.

Be prepared for the defense to try and make the victim seem as though it were their fault and that they are the criminal.  Now, that should not be allowed, but the Judges let them do it.

I rely on my Parents of Murdered Children's group.  I can call them anytime I need to talk and they know what I am going through because they have all experienced the same horrors I have.

I hope it all works out for you, don't see how the trial could go wrong.  Get someone that you are comfortable talking to, it will help.

Hearing may decide fate of man on Missouri's death row in Chain of Rocks case

Sept. 14, 2012

ST. LOUIS • One is dead, one is on parole and one is serving a life term, but the fourth man convicted of throwing two sisters to their deaths off the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge two decades ago still has the court's attention in his bid for freedom.

Lawyers for Reginald Clemons, 41, will make their case here next week to a judge appointed by the Missouri Supreme Court to hear evidence and make recommendations on the claim he was wrongfully convicted.

The high court could do anything from leaving him on death row to throwing out his conviction.

The case has been watched by activists around the world, and is the primary focus of Amnesty International USA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign, its director, Laura Moye said Thursday. She plans to be at the hearing. The organization plans a rally for Clemons on Saturday.

"We were very struck by a long list of problems with the case, which to us was emblematic of the worst things that can happen in a death penalty," Moye said. She recited complaints about police misconduct, a lack of physical evidence and reliance on shaky witness testimony.

Not all of it will necessarily be a rehash of old issues.

A DNA test on evidence that might have been overlooked at the time of the trial may surface during what is expected to be a weeklong hearing at the Carnahan Courthouse downtown. What it shows has never been publicly revealed; lawyers in the case are under a gag order.

The case was especially riveting. Julie Kerry, 20, and Robin Kerry, 19, led a visiting cousin, Thomas Cummins, 19, to the unused span the night of April 5, 1991, to show him a poem they had scrawled there about peace and harmony. They encountered men who raped the women and forced all three into the Mississippi River. Only Cummins survived, and police initially discounted his story.

Detectives soon zeroed in on Clemons, Marlin Gray, Antonio Richardson and Daniel Winfrey. Evidence included a flashlight found on the bridge that was linked to Richardson, and Gray's possession of Cummins' watch.

Winfrey made a deal to testify in exchange for a 30-year term and has been paroled. The others were sentenced to death. Gray was executed; Richardson's penalty was changed to life without parole.

Clemons was just weeks away from execution in June 2009 when the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals blocked it. He then won a new review by the Missouri Supreme Court. It sees a number of appeals from death row inmates each year; most end up there twice. Clemons is receiving a rare third look through a "special master" process.

Jackson County Circuit Judge Michael Manners was appointed 'special master" to hear the evidence.

Clemons' lawyer argues in court filings that new evidence warrants a review of claims that his client's confession, which he later recanted, was beaten out of him. They point to the $150,000 settlement Cummins received from police in 2005 on his own claim that he was coerced into falsely confessing before quickly retelling the version of events that ultimately held weight with police and the courts.

The lawyer, Josh Levine, also argues that Clemons was not given the same treatment as Richardson, whom he argues was more culpable in the state's version of events. Cummins testified that he saw Richardson push the girls from the bridge.

Levine declined to comment for this story, as did Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster's office, which is representing the state.

Levine is expected to challenge "rape kit" test results from the body of Julie Kerry and three other police lab reports that came to the attention of the attorney general's office two years ago.

Nobody has been able to say whether the evidence was presented to defense lawyers at the time of Clemons' 1993 trial, which would be required if it favored his acquittal. Prosecution and defense lawyers have since said they don't recall having seen it then.

Officials have said there was a public record of its existence starting the year after the trial but the defense is disputing that.

A 1991 lab report, which predated DNA testing, indicated the rape kit showed no seminal fluid or sperm. In addition, Gray's pants were tested, based on semen stains and a hair found on them.

All the evidence has since been tested for DNA, but Manners issued a gag order last year after the Post-Dispatch requested the results.

The method of detecting semen in a tissue sample has not changed in two decades, although DNA testing might offer other identification possibilities.

Even so, it's unclear whether new DNA evidence would matter. Clemons initially confessed to raping only Robin Kerry, whose body was never found. Julie Kerry's remains were found moderately decomposed, about 300 miles downstream, three weeks after the crime.

The jury convicted Clemons without physical evidence of rape, and the presence of someone else's DNA would not necessarily rule him out as one of the killers. If he had raped Julie Kerry, he still might not have left evidence.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/hearing-may-decide-fate-of-man-on-missouri-s-death/article_83e1cd4c-8654-584b-9c17-537beafb12b7.html



***********************

This just makes me sick to hear.   

Jury recommends death for man found guilty in Franklin County murder

February 2, 2012

Update: Jury recommends death penalty at 9:40 p.m. after five hours of deliberation. A judge will ultimately determine if Vernell Loggins Jr. gets life in prison or the death penalty. Sentencing is set for March 12.
 
UNION • A jury found a Pacific man guilty of first-degree murder in the killing and dismemberment of his girlfriend in 2009.

The jury of 11 women and one man returned their verdict against Vernell Loggins Jr., 39, this morning after deliberating about six hours Wednesday.

Jurors had the option to convict Loggins of second-degree murder, but they agreed with prosecutors, who said Loggins showed "cool reflection" and deliberation in the stabbing death of Stephanie Fields, 25.

David Kenyon, a public defender, had argued Fields was killed in the middle of a fight and that there was no deliberation.

The sentencing phase, in which the jury will decide whether to recommend the death penalty, began this morning after the verdict.

Maintenance workers found parts of Fields' body Nov. 3, 2009, in a trash can left next to a bin at the Monroe Woods Apartments north of Interstate 44 near the Pacific exit, where Loggins, a trucker, lived.

Jurors on Monday saw graphic photos of Fields' body stuffed into the trash can under ice cubes with the lid glued shut, and of cut marks made to her bones. Her head and forearms had been cut off and were not in the trash can.

Mary Case, chief medical examiner of St. Louis County who performed the autopsy on Fields, testified that Fields had been stabbed 25 times and that her killer had also tried to cut off her right leg. Fields also had suffered badly bruised buttocks not long before her death, Case said.

Bags recovered from the trash bin contained a label from a new trash can, three empty ice bags, Walmart receipts for the can, mail addressed to Loggins and glue.

Jurors also saw a video from the Walmart in Eureka that showed a man buying that type of trash can, Tide laundry detergent and carpet cleaner about 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 2, 2009. That man, who wore a Cardinals baseball hat, left in an SUV registered to Loggins, court documents say. A man wearing the same hat returned that evening to buy glue.

Fields' blood was found in every room of Loggins' apartment, even in the ceiling fan. A shower curtain found in a Dumpster was soaked in her blood as well and there was no shower curtain in Loggins' apartment when police searched it.


http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/jury-recommends-death-for-man-found-guilty-in-franklin-county/article_481290a6-4cf8-11e1-b7de-0019bb30f31a.html

High court upholds Odenbaugh sentence

Dec. 10, 2011
The first-degree murder convictions and death sentence of a Bastrop man who gunned down his wife and mother-in-law with a 12-gauge shotgun and wounded his stepdaughter were affirmed by the Louisiana Supreme Court in an opinion released Tuesday, according to a news release from 4th District Assistant District Attorney Mike Ruddick.

Lee Roy Odenbaugh Jr., 47, was convicted by a Ouachita Parish jury in November 2008 on two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder in the Dec. 2, 2006, shooting that occurred at the Odenbaugh residence in Bastrop. During the penalty phase, the jury decided Odenbaugh should die by lethal injection.

"We are extremely pleased with the decision. The Supreme Court unanimously found that the verdicts and sentences were proper," said Ruddick, who prosecuted the case along with Dion Young and Holly Jones.

Odenbaugh was accused in the shooting deaths of his wife, Sondra Porter-Odenbaugh, 39, and her mother, Jessie Porter, 58, and the wounding of his stepdaughter, Jessica Cooper, 22, at the Odenbaughs' mobile home on Summerlin Lane.

According to the news release, Odenbaugh had been in an argument with his family earlier in the day and left. Later he returned armed with a 12-gauge shotgun and shot his mother-in-law as she sat in her car. He then shot and wounded his stepdaughter as she ran from the automobile.

Odenbaugh then went into the trailer and shot and killed his wife.

He was captured after a high-speed chase through Morehouse Parish.

Odenbaugh's trial was moved to Ouachita Parish because of pretrial publicity in Morehouse Parish.

http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20111210/NEWS01/112100312

ronivgw (+0/-0)   JeffcoCitizen (+411/-1)   -   gil is a good person whos all heart   In topic   Today at 12:01:23 AM

Ronivgw, I think you might be in the wrong place.  You need to go to MammasTalkin where you belong.


WE HAVE ANOTHER TROLL

Not only that, but he didn't even meet with his sister or mother who sat in a wheelchair outside of the courthouse waiting for him.  The marriage will end as quickly as it began.

I do not think they are innocent.  They claim to have evidence that will clear their names, but yet where is it?  Why are they asking for a pardon if they have evidence that will prove they are innocent?  Too many questions that go unanswered.

He lies during interviews too.  He said that he has never been in trouble before.  That is such bullshit!  He's been institutionalized and threatened his parents and said that he liked to drink blood because it made him feel like GOD.

He claims that he never knew Misskelley, but yet all the interviews police had with his family and friends said he did hang out with Misskelley.

He claims Misskelley is retarded, but he is not.  He's not the sharpest knife, but far from retarded.

They did not have alibis and his mother lied for him (that's why I think she is a piece of shit too).  She said that he was never in trouble, but if you read the 500 files you will see differently and she was concerned about him 'being into devil worship'.

Those three men murdered three-eight-year-old little boys.  They were sexually abused, tortured and murdered.  They (Baldwin & Echols) even bragged about it.

All the media is going on is propaganda brought on by HBO and some celebrities who profit on murderbilia.

If there were some real journalists who would give them some hard questions and take them down to their last pair of shit stained underwear, but their not giving interviews to any of them.

I cannot stand their groupies either and Lorri Davis is one.  She is probably sisters to MammasTalkin.  Same kind of woman.

http://wm3truth.com/

Appeal denied.  Convicted of 2nd degree murder and is sentenced to probation and he's appealing???  He has balls as big as church bells.

Missouri Appeal Court Eastern District
October 4, 2010

http://www.courts.mo.gov/file.jsp?id=49610

Oklahoma death row inmate asks appeals court to reverse 2 death sentences, order new trial

October 04, 2011
OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma death row inmate convicted in the machine-gun slayings of four people on Memorial Day 2005 should have his convictions and sentences reversed, a defense attorney told an Oklahoma appeals court Tuesday.

Gilbert Ray Postelle, 25, was found guilty by an Oklahoma County jury of four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of James Alderson, Terry Smith, James "Donnie" Swindle Jr. and Amy Wright on May 30, 2005. Their bodies were found outside a south Oklahoma City mobile home and each had been shot multiple times.

Postelle received two death sentences and two sentences of life in prison without parole. But defense attorney Andrea Miller of the Oklahoma County Public Defender's Office told the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals that Postelle should get a new trial because of legal errors at his first trial, a troubled childhood that included early exposure to drugs and the fact that others prosecuted in the case were not sentenced to death.

"It is not the appropriate sentence," Miller said during oral arguments in the case.

Assistant Attorney General Seth Branham urged the court to uphold Postelle's convictions and sentences, arguing that any errors during his trial were harmless and that Postelle told two witnesses following the shootings that he was responsible.

"Those admissions directly connect the defendant to these murders," Branham said.

The five-judge court took the case under advisement and did not indicate when it may hand down a ruling.

Prosecutors accused Postelle of plotting with his father, brother and a family friend to kill the victims. Prosecutors said they believed Swindle was responsible for a motorcycle accident that crippled Postelle's father, Earl Bradford Postelle, in February 2004.

Prosecutors claim the victims were herded out of the mobile home and that someone emptied a 30-shot magazine of an AK-47 assault rifle into them. Another six shots were fired into Swindle's head with a rifle.

In 2007, Earl Postelle was declared incompetent to stand trial because of brain injuries suffered in the motorcycle accident. Gilbert Postelle's older brother, David Postelle, was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

The family friend, Randall Wade Byus, also was charged with murder in the case but those charges were dropped after he reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and testified against Gilbert Postelle.

Miller told the appeals court that Byus' testimony is the reason Postelle got the death penalty. She said Byus testified that Postelle committed the shootings, but that no other evidence puts the assault rifle in his hands.

"The crime scene evidence contradicts Randall Byus' testimony," said Miller, arguing that Postelle's jury should have received a legal instruction that accomplice testimony cannot alone support a conviction and must be corroborated. She said that instruction was not given by the trial judge, District Judge Ray Elliott.

"The jury should have had the opportunity to decide that," she said.

Branham said the jury in David Postelle's trial did not receive the accomplice corroboration instruction following the testimony of a different witness and the appeals court ruled it was harmless error. But several judges, including Presiding Judge Arlene Johnson of Oklahoma City, indicated the court might be less inclined to rule that way in a death penalty case.

Miller said Postelle has an IQ of only 76 and suffers from neurological issues because he has used methamphetamine since he was 11 years old. She also complained that Elliott did not instruct jurors that Postelle's brother received life sentences in the case although prosecutors had sought the death penalty.

"This jury should have been allowed to consider that nobody else was sentenced to death," she said.

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/cbd37c4b24494dd7b1bf0bb5d06101e5/OK--Quadruple-Slaying-Appeal/

Oklahoma appeals court affirms death sentence in Montana man's stabbing at Oklahoma City motel

October 05, 2011
OKLAHOMA CITY — A man convicted of stabbing a 19-year-old Montana man to death in a motel room on New Year's Day 2002 has lost his appeal to have his death sentence overturned.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the death penalty given to Tremane Wood by an Oklahoma County jury that convicted him of first-degree murder for the Jan. 1, 2002, death of Ronald Reuben Wipf. Wood, 31, also was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for armed robbery and conspiracy to commit a felony in the case.

In its nine-page opinion, the appellate court rejected Wood's claims that he has received ineffective legal assistance since appealing his conviction and sentence. Wood claims his appellate counsel has not alleged that the defense attorney at Wood's trial was ineffective for not hiring a forensic pathologist to challenge the victim's autopsy report.

The court said it rejected Wood's appeal "because he cannot show a reasonable probability that the outcome of his trial would have been different had post-conviction counsel done so."

Wood's post-conviction attorney, James T. Rowan, said Wednesday he was disappointed in the ruling. "But it's only one hurdle in a long train of hurdles," Rowan said.

The appeals court ruling states that Wood's first name has sometimes been misspelled Termane in the state court record. It also says Wood has a separate appeal pending in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City.

Prosecutors alleged that Wood and his brother, Zjaiton Wood, 34, robbed Wipf and another Montana man, Arnold Jonathan Kleinsasser, before the stabbing. Zjaiton Wood was sentenced to life in prison without parole and an additional 120 years for the robbery and killing.

Wipf and Kleinsasser were working on a harvesting crew at a farm in Chickasha. The two men were members of the Hutterites of the Riverview Colony, a religious sect in Montana, and had returned to Oklahoma after spending the holidays with their families.

Prosecutors allege that Kleinsasser and Wipf met two women, Lanita Sue Bateman and Brandy Lynn Warden, at a restaurant on New Year's Eve 2001 and that they offered to have sex with the pair for $210. But prosecutors alleged that the women were setting the men up to be robbed.

Bateman, 29, was sentenced to life in prison plus 101 years for her role in the crime. Warden, 30, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and testified against Bateman in exchange for a 45-year prison sentence.

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/a38ef438a7b8444fa622424ac9529b72/OK--Motel-Murder-Appeal/

Supreme Court of Kentucky opinion
CORRECTED : MARCH 29, 2011
MODIFIED: MARCH 24, 2011
CORRECTED: SEPTEMBER 20, 2010
RENDERED : AUGUST 26, 2010
TO BE PUBLISHED

http://opinions.kycourts.net/sc/2008-SC-000383-MR.pdf

Exonerated death row inmate charged with retail theft
In 1998, man came within days of being executed

September 25, 2011
A former death row inmate whose release from prison in 1999 provided a crucial spark in the push to abolish Illinois' death penalty was back behind bars Saturday, accused of stealing deodorant from a South Side store, Cook County prosecutors said.

Anthony Porter, 56, was arrested just before noon Friday after an employee at Walgreens, 6330 S. King Drive, reported seeing him take four Dove deodorants from a shelf, tuck them in his waistband and walk past the cash registers toward the exit, according to court documents. Porter, who lives about five blocks from the store, was charged with felony retail theft.

Porter has had some minor legal troubles — including domestic disturbances — since he was exonerated 13 years ago of murdering a couple in the Washington Park neighborhood in 1982.

He had been just 50 hours shy of being executed in 1998 when his attorneys won a stay of execution by raising concerns about Porter's mental competence at the time of the murder trial.

Porter was released from prison the next year after Northwestern University journalism professor David Protess, his students and a private investigator obtained a statement from another man who said he killed the couple.

That victory helped lead to the creation of the Medill Innocence Project, which contributed to the exoneration of 11 wrongfully convicted men, including five who were on death row. Protess recently retired amid controversy over the Innocence Project's techniques in another recent case.

Former Gov. George Ryan has said Porter's release was the primary event that focused his attention on Illinois' flawed capital justice system. Ryan, now in federal prison for corruption, declared a moratorium on executions the next year and cleared death row in 2003 by commuting to life in prison the death sentences of more than 160 inmates.

Gov. Pat Quinn abolished Illinois' death penalty in March.

Porter received $145,875 in restitution from the state in 2000, but five years later a jury rejected his claim for $24 million in a lawsuit alleging Chicago police conspired to wrongfully charge him in the slayings.

On Saturday, as a prosecutor detailed Porter's criminal history, Porter quietly urged his attorney to clarify that he had been exonerated of the double-homicide.

Judge Peggy Chiampas ordered Porter held in lieu of $10,000 bail.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-anthony-porter-arrested-0925-20110925,0,4976099.story

Idaho inmate challenges execution

September 23, 2011
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho death row inmate Paul Ezra Rhoades has filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the state's method of execution.

Rhoades, who was convicted of three murders in Idaho Falls and Blackfoot in 1988, says lethal injections are frequently botched. He also argues Idaho's protocol for administering lethal injections doesn't require enough training or experience for the execution team, and that other problems with the system would render his execution unconstitutional.

Rhoades is one of a handful of Idaho death-row inmates whose cases may be nearing an end. The state Department of Correction, in anticipation of at least one execution occurring within the next year, has been taking several steps to prepare — including updating its execution protocol and building a new execution chamber. The previous chamber, which has been only used once in the past five decades, was contained inside a trailer.

Department spokesman Jeff Ray said the execution protocol is still being drafted, but it's designed to fully comply with all U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

Rhoades was given two death sentences for raping and murdering 34-year-old Idaho Falls teacher Susan Michelbacher, whose bullet-ridden body was found in March 1987. He also was given two death sentences for the first-degree murder and kidnapping of 24-year-old Stacy Dawn Baldwin, a Blackfoot convenience store clerk. She was shot to death in February 1987.

Rhoades was also sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to the March 1987 shooting death of 21-year-old Nolan Haddon, a Blackfoot man who worked at an Idaho Falls convenience store.

Over the past several years, Rhoades has appealed several aspects of his case. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide next month whether it will consider his remaining challenge — a claim that a lower court should have had an evidentiary hearing when deciding whether his attorneys effectively represented him during sentencing.

Deputy Attorney General LaMont Anderson says he expects the high court to decline to hear Rhoades' case. If Anderson is right, the process of setting an execution date may begin: The 9th U.S. Court of Appeals can lift the stay of execution it placed on Rhoades' case, freeing the state attorney general to ask a Bonneville County judge to issue a death warrant, and that request clearing the way for a judge to set an execution date within 30 days of issuing the order.

But Rhoades' challenge to Idaho's lethal injection method — contained in more than 200 pages of documents filed late this week — means a judge in Boise's U.S. District Court can put everything on hold to allow time for the court to consider the method of execution.

Anderson says it's anyone's guess what happens then.

"This is the first time since 1957 we've had an execution that wasn't a volunteer. From my perspective, we're in uncharted ground," he said.

But even if Idaho's methodology is initially found unconstitutional, it will be modified to meet court standards, Anderson said.

"The bottom line is that Idaho is not going to allow the prevention of an execution based on a defect in the protocol," he said. "We'll fix the protocol if there's any deficiency found."

Rhoades' attorney, Oliver Loewy with the Federal Defenders of Idaho, wasn't immediately available to comment on the case.

Because Idaho Department of Correction officials say the protocol is still being drafted and can't be released, it's not clear how closely the version included in Rhoades' lawsuit matches the one being adjusted by the department.

The draft protocol mentioned in the lawsuit was obtained through a public records request from March 2011. It calls for the use of three chemicals: sodium thiopental (an anesthetic), pancuronium bromide (a drug to paralyze muscles) and potassium chloride (a drug to stop the heart).

There has been a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental, but the draft addresses that possibility by allowing the state to substitute pentobarbital if the first drug can't be found, according to the lawsuit.

http://www.chron.com/news/article/AP-NewsBreak-Idaho-inmate-challenges-execution-2186177.php

Lawyers Seek Details on Ohio Executioner's Cancer

September 23, 2011
The Ohio executioner known only as Team Member 17 has cancer, and a federal judge is allowing lawyers for a condemned inmate to seek details about his condition despite state concerns their request is merely meant to annoy and embarrass him.

The legal battle comes amid a renewed debate over the death penalty after the execution this week of a Georgia inmate whose pleas of innocence sparked worldwide outrage.

It also opens a window into the secrecy-shrouded lives of the teams responsible for putting inmates to death. States conscientiously protect their identities to shield them from harassment and questions about medical ethics.

Lawyers for condemned inmates often raise 11th-hour questions in an effort to buy their clients time, and often they're successful. The information about the Ohio executioner's health is relevant because it bears on his "ability to fulfill the demands of that position," U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost said Tuesday.

Inmate Joseph Murphy, 46, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Oct. 18 for slashing the throat of Ruth Predmore in Marion in a 1987 robbery that netted her penny collection. The Ohio Parole Board recommended life without the possibility of parole Friday morning on a separate request for mercy, saying Murphy had a horrific childhood. Gov. John Kasich has the final say.

Ohio's execution team consists of three individuals who prepare and administer the drug and a bigger group that serves as security, escorting inmates to the death chamber. The training executioners receive for inserting IVs has long been fought over in several lawsuits.

Team Member 17 is a full-time prison guard at Oakwood Correctional Facility in Lima who does not insert IVs as part of his regular job, according to testimony he gave in a related federal lawsuit two years ago.

Like all Ohio executioners, he volunteers for the procedures, which take place at the maximum-security prison in Lucasville. He has been both a backup executioner, preparing the drugs beforehand, and the administrator of the injection.

Team Member 17 has had cancer at least since May 2010, when he missed the execution of Michael Beuke, a hitchhiker who killed three people in the Cincinnati area in 1983 and was put to death last year, according to a court document filed by the state seeking to shield information about the cancer. The state proceeded without Team Member 17 and without finding a backup.

The court documents say nothing about the type of cancer or how he is being treated.

The only previous exposure he had to inserting IVs was during his part-time work as a volunteer emergency medical technician, he testified. At that time, he had served on the execution team for several years. He said he joined the team after the prison warden asked him.

He couldn't recall exactly what he did during the 2005 execution of Herman Ashworth, who beat a man to death in 1996.

"I might have been the one that pushed the drugs on that one there, but I'm not sure," he testified in 2009.

A car accident caused him to miss the January 2010 execution of Vernon Smith, a Toledo man who shot a store clerk in 1993, according to court documents.

Murphy's lawyers "have produced no evidence that Team Member 17's physical condition has had any effect on the performance of his duties related to the conduct of court-ordered executions," Thomas Madden, an assistant Ohio attorney general, wrote Sept. 14.

The state opposed the request by Murphy's attorneys as intrusive and potentially putting the executioner's identity at risk. The state also said the judge should recognize a physician-patient privilege.

Murphy's attorneys say they agree the executioner should remain anonymous but argued that his health has everything to do with his job.

"There are hundreds of different types of cancer," federal public defender Carol Wright said in a Sept. 16 filing. "The symptoms, treatment, prognosis, and other factors are dependent on the type of cancer."

The relevance of an executioner's health has arisen elsewhere. A judge banned Dr. Alan Doerhoff from participating in Missouri executions after he acknowledged in 2006 he had dyslexia and it was not unusual for him to make mistakes.

The same year in California, a judge said the state had inconsistently screened execution team members, including the lead executioner, who had post-traumatic stress disorder from his work in prisons.

Arizona removed an execution team member after a judge's 2009 order noting the man had been treated for post-traumatic stress disorder following military service in Iraq.

During the 2009 hearings in federal court, a doctor testified that Ohio's chief executioner — Team Member 18 — was being treated for several ailments, including diabetes, hypertension, obesity and depression.

At the time, Frost ruled that while Team Member 18's health didn't affect executions, the issue could be raised in other cases.

The judge wrote, "This is not to say that the physical or mental health of an execution team member can never give rise to an issue that informs the constitutionality of Ohio's process."

In 2009, Ohio became the first state to switch to a single drug for executing inmates instead of the usual three-drug cocktail. It switched to a different single drug this year because of a shortage. In both cases, other states followed suit.

Frost has noted problems with Ohio's execution procedures but said they fall short of violating the constitution. In July, he ruled the state didn't follow its own rules for executions on everything from staffing to checking an inmate's veins, a decision that has postponed three executions while the policies are changed.

In September 2009, executioners — including Team Member 17 — tried for more than an hour to find a suitable vein in inmate Romell Broom, only to have to postpone the execution.

On Wednesday, Georgia executed Troy Davis for the murder of an off-duty police officer despite his insistence that he didn't do it, a case that captured the attention of thousands worldwide, including former President Jimmy Carter and the pope.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/lawyers-seek-details-ohio-executioners-cancer-14587710

Innocence group seeks DNA testing in 'Fatal Vision' case

9/21/11
WILMINGTON, N.C. — The North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, which has worked to free inmates believed to be wrongfully convicted, has offered to help pay for DNA testing in a high-profile triple murder on Fort Bragg 41 years ago.

But federal prosecutors say there's no reason to test items, even though defense attorneys say DNA evidence found at the crime scene doesn't match their client or anyone else involved in the case.

Jeffrey MacDonald, 67, a former Army doctor, is serving three life terms for the 1970 murders of his pregnant wife and two young daughters that spawned the book and television miniseries "Fatal Vision." He has always maintained that four drug-crazed hippies killed his family.

In June, a federal appeals court ordered U.S. District Judge James Fox to consider DNA and other evidence that raise questions about MacDonald's guilt. The court ordered DNA testing in the case in 1997, but judges had refused to review the test results on procedural grounds.

They were the matters addressed before Fox in a Wilmington courtroom Wednesday. The matter could be decided later on this year.

"It's bittersweet, because it's been a very long haul, and it's way overdue," Kathryn MacDonald, MacDonald's wife since 2002, said Wednesday. "When you take it in the light of the evidence as a whole, there's no doubt you have an innocent man in prison."

Defense attorneys say a hair was found under the fingernail of one of Jeffrey MacDonald's daughters and contend that DNA helps prove the theory of intruders.

Christine Mumma, executive director of the Center on Actual Innocence, said advances in DNA testing in recent years could produce more evidence in the case.

The center agreed to help pay for more tests in the case, partly because MacDonald agreed that all the evidence at the crime scene should be tested again.

"It's not just about the legal issues. It's about shining light on all the evidence," Mumma said.

Defense lawyers also argued Wednesday that a sworn statement by former deputy U.S. Marshal Jimmy Britt also casts doubt on MacDonald's guilt.

Britt, who is now dead, said the original prosecutor during MacDonald's trial threatened a witness who said she was at the MacDonald home when the murders occurred but that she couldn't remember what happened because she had been taking drugs.

That witness, Helena Stoeckley, died in 1983, but affidavits from her mother and boyfriend at the time of the murders also support the marshal's claim.

Fox set a hearing for Oct. 31 regarding the affidavits. He could decide that the case should be retried or vacate the conviction.

Mumma has two weeks to file with the court a list of evidence that she wants to be tested. Prosecutors, who said they plan to challenge Mumma's request, have until Dec. 1 to file a brief on the matter.

"I believe that the truth is there, whether you want to look at it or you don't, and the government's strategy from Day 1 has been to keep all the evidence apart, suppress the evidence that they didn't want the jury to hear," Kathryn MacDonald said.

"Things that we've uncovered have been through the Freedom of Information Act or people coming to us with the information," she added.

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/10162316/

I can't believe how the media is STILL spinning this.  I also heard that a couple of MacPhail's family members smiled once the execution was over.  I think it was one of the news reporters who witnessed the execution.  I also heard reports that the mob protesting the execution were rejoicing when they thought he was getting a stay.  Can anyone see this as being biased?

If the victim's family were smiling it was because they finally got justice and were probably glad this circus was coming to a final close.

The media has done such a spin job on this that I really think people actually believe this guy was innocent.  I however do not!