Petitioner Louise Harris was married to the victim, a deputy sheriff, and was also having an affair with Lorenzo McCarter. She asked McCarter to find someone to kill her husband, and McCarter to that end approached a co worker, who refused and reported the solicitation to his supervisor. McCarter then found willing accomplices in Michael Sockwell and Alex Hood, who were paid $100 and given a vague promise of more money upon performance. On the appointed night, as her husband left for work on the nightshift, Harris called McCarter on his beeper to alert him. McCarter and Hood sat in a car parked on a nearby street, and Sockwell hid in the bushes next to a stop sign. As the victim stopped his car at the intersection, Sockwell sprang forth and shot him, point blank, with a shotgun. Harris was arrested after questioning, and McCarter agreed to bear witness to the conspiracy in exchange for the prosecutor's promise not to seek the death penalty. McCarter testified that Harris had asked him to kill her husband so they could share in his death benefits, which totaled about $250,000.
The jury convicted Harris of capital murder. At the sentencing hearing, a number of witnesses attested to her good background and strong character. She was rearing seven children, held three jobs simultaneously, and participated actively in her church. The jury recommended, by a 7 to 5 vote, that she be imprisoned for life without parole. The trial judge then considered her sentence, finding the existence of one aggravating circumstance, that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain, and one statutory mitigator, that Harris had no prior criminal record. The trial judge also found as nonstatutory mitigating circumstances that Harris was a hardworking, respected member of her church and community. Noting that Harris had planned the crime and financed its commission and stood to benefit the most from her husband's murder, the judge concluded that "the one statutory aggravating circumstance found and considered far outweighs all of the non statutory mitigating circumstances, and that the sentence ought to be death." App. 7. In separate proceedings, all the conspirators were convicted of capital murder. McCarter and Hood received prison terms of life without parole; Sockwell, the triggerman, was sentenced to death after the trial judge rejected a jury recommendation, again by a 7 to 5 vote, of life imprisonment.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-7659.ZO.html
Just an excerpt.
Topic: LOUISE HARRIS, Alabama (Read 3292 times)