Ohio Death Penalty Information

Troy Anthony Davis execution date set in Georgia:  Carla Saavedra-Santiago of the Savannah Morning News notes here that a July 17 execution date has been set for Troy Anthony Davis, whose case has drawn wide attention recently because of new evidence in the case not reviewed in federal appeals proceedings.  Bill Rankin has this coverage for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 

AJC excerpt:
...On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Davis' final appeal. He was sentenced to death for killing Officer Mark Allen MacPhaill, 27, who responded to a fight outside a bus station and was shot repeatedly.

Since Davis' 1991 trial, six of the nine prosecution witnesses who implicated or named Davis as the killer have renounced much of the testimony used to convict him. This includes some who identified Davis at trial as the triggerman but who have since said they did not see him pull the trigger and were pressured by police to say otherwise.

In Davis' latest round of appeals in federal court, his lawyers have been stymied in their attempts to get this testimony considered.

(Earlier coverage of Davis case here -- and on the AIUSA website here; on NCADP's Abolish blog here, here, and here; and on the Troy Anthony Davis website here.)

Donna Roberts resentencing hearing scheduled in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court:  Christopher Bobby has this article in the Warren Tribune-Chronicle noting a new sentencing hearing for Donna Roberts scheduled for August 15 in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.  Roberts death sentence was voided by the Ohio Supreme Court in August, 2006, because of improper participation of the Trumbull County Prosecutor in preparing sentencing materials for Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge John Stuard.  The new sentencing will also take place before Judge Stuard.

• Earlier coverage of the Ohio Supreme Court's voiding of Donna Robert's death sentence is here.
• Earlier coverage of June 12 ruling by Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge Stuard denying Ohio death row inmate Roderick Davie's a request for a resentencing hearing based on a claim of improper communications between Judge Stuard and the Trumbull County Prosecutor here.

Even more on Panetti:  Ralph Blumenthal has this article in the New York Times, entitled "Death Penalty for Delusional Murderer Blocked," providing some context for yesterday's US Supreme Court Panetti ruling within the still-evolving jurisprudence for determining mental competency for execution.  Charles Lane has this article in the Washington Post, entitled "High court forbids Texas execution of schizophrenic."  Gary Fields has this coverage in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "Supreme Court Bars a Texas Execution."  Karl Keys has this analysis at Capital Defense Weekly, entitled "Panetti v. Quarterman: The latest installment of Goldilocks & Kennedy's captial jurisprudence."

More on US Supreme Court ruling in Panetti v. Quarterman:  Henry Weinstein has this article in the LA Times, entitled "High court spares mentally ill killer from execution."  Max Baker has this coverage in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, entitled "Supreme Court blocks Texas execution."  Reuters has this coverage, entitled "Delusional inmate can't be executed."  Patty Reinert has this article for the Houston Chronicle, entitled "Supreme Court halts Texas man's execution."

• Amy Howe has this concise legal summary and analysis of the ruling for SCOTUSblog, examining, in addition to the 8th amendment competency issue, the AEDPA successive habeas issue, and the AEDPA deference to state court (on determination of competency) issue.

Howe excerpt:
...Significantly, the Court declined to establish a rule that would govern all Eighth Amendment competency proceedings, creating a not-insignificant possibility (if the Fifth Circuit past is prologue) that the case could return to the Court in some later iteration. And although it isn’t clear what the long-term precedential effects of the Court’s ruling will be in the competency context, the Court also articulated (albeit almost in passing) a fairly expansive conception of when federal courts may find a state court’s application of a general legal principle “unreasonable” for AEDPA purposes. ...

• Amnesty Int'l USA has issued this press release: "Supreme Court Ruling in Scott Panetti Case 'A Much-Needed Step Toward a Humane America."

Excerpts from AI release:
..."The Supreme Court has taken a much-needed step toward a more humane America," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). "Perhaps now we can recognize that this country's resources would be much better spent improving the mental health system to help ensure that similarly tragic crimes are not committed in the first place."

..."Texas needs to recognize that it cannot flout the law as it sees fit," said Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn, director of AIUSA's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty. "The Supreme Court recognizes that someone as severely delusional as Scott Panetti simply should not be executed. Still, protection against the death penalty for those deemed "insane" is arbitrarily applied, woefully inadequate and out of step with most of the world, and that must change. This decision is a small step in the right direction."

US Supreme Court rules 5-4 to throw out death sentence of mentally disturbed Texas inmate in Panetti v. Quarterman:  More information and link to ruling (authored by Justice Kennedy) will be posted as it becomes available.  SCOTUSblog is providing live coverage of today's case announcements as they are read from the bench at this link.

Update:  Today's majority opinion in Panetti is here (30-page pdf) (Kennedy, joined by Breyer, Souter, Ginsberg, Stevens); dissent is here (21-page pdf) (Thomas, joined by Roberts, Alito and Scalia).

• Pete Yost has this early coverage for AP, entitled "Execution of mentally ill killer blocked.  Todd Gillman has this coverage for the Dallas Morning News (via WFAA.com)

Dallas Morning News excerpt:
The Supreme Court blocked the execution Thursday of a mentally ill Texas man whose lawyers say he is too delusional to understand the legal process.

Scott Panetti, a paranoid schizophrenic, shot and killed his in-laws 15 years ago in front of his estranged wife and their 3-year-old daughter. He now thinks that Satan is using the state’s penal machinery to stop him from preaching the Gospel.

The case posed the issue of how insane a person must be before a death sentence becomes unconstitutional, and the ruling came at the end of the Supreme Court’s term.

At trial, Mr. Panetti insisted on representing himself. He wore a purple cowboy costume, tried to subpoena Jesus, the pope and John F. Kennedy, and testified in the persona of his alter ego "Sarge." He'd been hospitalized for mental illness 14 times in the decade before the murders. Lawyers handling his appeal argued few, if any, death row inmates are as mentally incompetent and that putting him to death would amount to “mindless vengeance” with no retributive purpose.

Four lower courts did find him competent to stand trial, and a jury rejected his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

At oral arguments in April, justices wrestled with the puzzling situation of an inmate who knows he’s been convicted, knows what he’s convicted for, knows the state plans to punish him – but suffers from a delusion that makes him ascribe satanic motives to the authorities.

Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz, arguing for the prosecution, urged justices to focus on the central fact – essential to a legal finding of mental competence -- that Mr. Panetti understands that he is guilty of murder and that he faces execution for that murder.

The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the National Alliance on Mental Illness had all urged the Supreme Court to spare Mr. Panetti, arguing that regardless of current legal definitions, if a person has a mental disorder that “significantly impairs his or her capacity to understand the nature and purpose of the punishment,” that person isn’t competent to be executed. ...

AP excerpts:
...In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said that Panetti had petitioned the federal courts twice in his case, but that the law allows only one petition.

...Siding with Kennedy in the majority were Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Joining Thomas in dissent were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito. ...

(Earlier coverage of Panetti case here, here, here and here.)

Some recent related posts:

• Continuing questions over execution of the mentally ill
• A Growing Plea for Mercy for the Mentally Ill on Death Row
• Elaine Cassell commentary: "Executing the Mentally Ill and the Mentally Retarded; Three Recent Cases from Texas and Virginia Show How States Can Evade the Supreme Court's Death Penalty Rulings"
• Guy LeGrande case in NC stimulates debate over execution of mentally ill
• Ohio Supreme Court upholds conviction and death sentence of Donald Ketterer / Justices Stratton and Pfeifer call for ban on execution of mentally ill.

Chris Davey letter to the editor on slow pace of Ohio Supreme Court decision-making:  Ohio Supreme Court Public Information Director Chris Davey has this letter to the editor in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, entitled "Mitigating factors slowed Supreme Court's pace," in response to this June 20 PD editorial, entitled "Your Honor, wake up."

(Earlier coverage here.)

US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on federal death penalty:  The US Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution will be holding hearings on the federal death penalty this morning at about 9:30 AM. 

• A witness list and other official info is on the Senate Judiciary Committee website here (hat-tip SL & P).  Streaming video of the hearing will available on C-Span 3 at 9:30 AM at this link; audio only is available from the Judiciary Committee website here.
• The ACLU has released this related report (8-page pdf), entitled "The Persistent Problem of Racial Disparities in the Federal Death Penalty."

Update:  Senator Russell Feingold, who chaired today's Judiciary subcommittee hearing, has this article in today's edition of CounterPunch, entitled "Secrecy and the Federal Death Penalty: Were US Attorneys Fired for Recommending Against the Death Penalty?"

More on yesterday's ruling granting additional inmates inclusion in Ohio lethal injection challenge case:  Reginald Fields has this article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, entitled "6 more join lethal injection fight," on yesterday's US district court rulings in the Cooey v. Taft lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Ohio's lethal injection procedures.  The Warren Tribune-Chronicle has more coverage here.  The Bucyrus Telegraph Forum has this coverage.

Plain Dealer excerpt:
...On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Gregory L. Frost allowed six inmates - including Romell Broom and Billy Slagle of Cleveland and Mark Wiles of Portage County - to join the suit, making 15 death row inmates now plaintiffs.

One of the nine who already were part of the suit is Hamilton County's Clarence Carter, who is scheduled to die July 10, but likely will not because of a court-ordered stay of execution.

Following Carter would be Broom, whose execution date is Oct. 18. He was convicted of abducting, raping and murdering a 14-year-old Cleveland girl, Tryna Middleton, in 1984.

...The lawsuit, similar to litigation brought by inmates in other states, contends that the three-drug concoction used to kill does not assure that the inmate feels no pain during the process.

But a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, siding with the state, dismissed the case in March. In June, the full court refused to reconsider the decision, which said Cooey missed a filing deadline when bringing the case in 2004.

The Ohio public defender's office has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has not decided whether to take the case.

(Earlier coverage here.) 

New trial sought for Ohio death row inmate Stanley Jalowiec:  Brad Dicken has this article in the Elyria Chronicle Telegram on proceedings in Lorain County Common Pleas Court seeking a new trial for Stanley Jalowiec, based on information found recently in Elyria police files and not disclosed at the original trial indicating possible compromised witness testimony.

Excerpt:

...Gregory Meyers, an attorney with the Office of Ohio Public Defender, said the review of the information from Elyria police and county prosecutors showed several areas of concern, including whether law enforcement bought testimony from witnesses in exchange for helping with criminal charges.

...Meyers said former Assistant County Prosecutor Jonathan Rosenbaum and former Elyria police Detective Al Leiby both used their influence to help witnesses who testified against Jalowiec and the others, including Michael Smith, who testified he was in the car when the murder occurred, but had no knowledge of what was going to happen and hid in the back seat while the killing took place.

Also given a free pass by authorities, Meyers said, was Corrine “Queen Bee” Fike, whose car was the car used to drive Lally from Lorain County to Cleveland.

Fike was given a letter by Rosenbaum that gave her immunity in exchange for her testimony.

That information never was disclosed to defense attorneys, Meyers said, because Rosenbaum claimed it was never binding.

“She wanted immunity,” he said. “It induced her cooperation; it led to her testifying.” ...

Abolition Action Committee's "Starvin' for Justice 2007 - 14th Annual Fast & Vigil to Abolish the Death Penalty at the US Supreme Court:  AAC's annual civil action takes place June 29 through July 2.  Up-to-date information and press release is here (1-page Word doc.).