Davis Case On U.S. Supreme Court Docket

Whether Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis should get the chance to have his high-profile case heard by the nation’s high court-might be determined soon. The Davis-case is on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court today. Since the Davis conviction for the killing of a Savannah police officer almost 20 years ago, several witnesses have recanted testimony. Still, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says it was "unpersuaded" by affidavits supporting Davis, and cleared the way again for execution. The Davis-case has drawn the attention of former president Jimmy Carter, the Pope, and several high profile U.S. lawmakers, among others.

Former Judges, Prosecutors Throw Support Behind Death Row Inmate

27 former judges and prosecutors filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the appeal of death row inmate Troy Davis to avoid execution. Among those who signed onto the brief Wednesday are former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and ex-Congressman Bob Barr, once U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.

Davis' attorneys have asked the high court to send his case back to a federal judge for a hearing. They say that to execute him without a full and fair hearing on his claims of innocence would be unconstitutional.

Davis was sentenced to die for the 1989 slaying of Mark MacPhail, an off-duty Savannah police officer. Seven of nine key witnesses against Davis have recanted their testimony.

House Decides Against Split Jury for Death Sentences

The state House will vote today on a bill that would allow prosecutors to seek life without parole sentences. Currently that's only possible if they first ask for the death penalty. The move comes after the Brian Nichols case, which cost the state millions of dollars because the prosecution had asked for the death penalty.

But the bill was sent back to committee before reaching the floor.

Republican House leaders were considering an amendment that would allow the death penalty if at least nine members of a jury agreed. But they decided against amending the bill.

Change To Death Penalty Law

The state Senate has approved legislation which would allow prosecutors to seek life without parole against convicted killers without first pursuing the death penalty. Under current law, prosecutors may not obtain a sentence of life without parole unless they first seek the death penalty.

Preston Smith, a Rome Republican, says such capital trials are time-consuming and costly.

The bill now moves to the state House.

(Associated Press)

Dealth penalty sought in Eve Carson case

Federal prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty against the man charged with killing Athens native Eve Carson.

Carson was the student body of the University of North Carolina who was found shot to death in Chapel Hill, North Carolina last spring.

The U S Attorney office says Attorney General Michael Mukasey has approved the request to seek execution of 22-year old Demario Atwater. Atwater pleaded not guilty last month to four federal charges including carjacking resulting in death. His trial is set for November.

Date set for death row inmate's appeal

An appeals court will hear arguments on whether death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis can file a second federal challenge to his conviction.

A three-judge panel from the 11th U.S. Circuit of Appeals will convene December 9 to consider what the defense calls new evidence.

Davis was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail.

Courts have intervened three times since July 2007 to stop the execution. Davis was scheduled to die October 27 but was granted yet another stay of execution.

Nichols trial enters sentencing phase

The death penalty phase of the Brian Nichols trial is set to begin this morning in Atlanta. Nichols was found guilty last week in the fatal shootings of four people in spring 2005, in a spree that began in a downtown Atlanta courthouse. The dead included a judge, court reporter, deputy and federal agent. The sentencing phase was delayed from Monday--Nichols’ lawyers were given two days to prepare for another round of witnesses.

Death row inmate seeks stay

Attorneys for death row inmate Troy Davis have asked the state Supreme Court to stay his execution while they appeal his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Davis is scheduled to be executed in one week, on Sept. 23. He was convicted of the 1989 murder of Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail. The Georgia pardons board denied clemency Friday for Davis after a day of hearing from eyewitnesses with lingering doubts about whether he killed the off-duty officer.

(Associated Press)

No Clemency for Troy Davis

Georgia's board of pardons and paroles has denied clemency for death row inmate Troy Davis. Davis appealed to the board today and asked to commute his sentence to life in prison. Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing a Savannah police officer, but nearly everyone who testified against him have recanted. The case has attracted international attention. Davis is scheduled to die by lethal injection in less than 2 weeks.

Plea to spare Alderman's life rejected

The federal appeals court in Atlanta rejected an appeal of death row inmate Jack Alderman. condemned to die Sept. 16 for the 1974 slaying of his wife in Chatham County.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal judge's denial of Alderman's challenge to Georgia's lethal injection method.
The district court judge had dismissed Alderman's appeal, saying he waited too long to raise the claim after the Legislature adopted lethal injection in October 2001.
The Georgia Supreme Court issued a stay of execution in October while the U.S. Supreme Court considered the issue of lethal injection. The nation's high court ruled earlier this year that it does not violate the Constitution.
Georgia has executed two men since then.

State moving fast to resume executions

Georgia, which became the nation's first to hold an execution after the Supreme Court upheld lethal injections, is now attempting its third in just a month.

Meanwhile, only two other states - Mississippi and Virginia - have put inmates to death.

The moves come after a seven-month nationwide halt on executions while the court considered the constitutionality of the method.

That's about to change. Texas, which has led the nation in executions since the 1970s, has 14 scheduled into the fall. And eight other states have set execution dates before the summer's end, according to Capital Defense Weekly, a Web site for death penalty lawyers.

Why was Georgia so quick out of the box?

Experts say Georgia has a shorter waiting period - a maximum of just 29 days - than some other states to move forward with an execution once a death warrant is signed. Once the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April that the three-drug lethal injection method used by most states was constitutional, Georgia was able to move with almost no delay.

And there were already several cases in the pipeline when the high court took up the lethal
injection challenge. The backlog was created in part because Georgia held only one execution between 2006 and 2007.

"In some ways, it's the luck of the draw," said Georgia Department of Corrections spokesman Paul Czachowski.

William Earl Lynd's execution on May 6 was the first in the nation after the April Supreme Court ruling. He was convicted of killing his live-in girlfriend in Berrien County two decades ago.

Samuel David Crowe was scheduled to die on May 22 but had his sentence commuted to life in prison without parole just hours before he was to be put to death.

The state is set to move forward with its third execution on Wednesday for Curtis Osborne, for killing a Spalding County couple in 1990.

Bill Hoffmann, an attorney representing Osborne, said he can't fault the state for its aggressive strategy.

"We had a stay awaiting the decision, and now it's been lifted," he said. "The state's gotta do what the state's got to do."

Still, Sara Totonchi of the Southern Center for Human Rights, said she's been surprised by the fast early pace Georgia has set.

"Why the rush?" she asked. "Is this really an area where Georgia wants to be leading the nation?"

Prosecutors dispute that the state is moving quickly at all, noting that Lynd, Crowe and Osborne have each been on death row for almost two decades.

"What rush? Just look at how old these cases are," said Rick Malone, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia.

There's no denying that politics also plays a role in the scheduling of death penalty cases, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.

He said "informal slowdowns" take place in states where politicians are less enthusiastic about capital punishment, while cases move more quickly in states where influential leaders are in favor of the death penalty.

"I would say the political shifts in Georgia favor executions and so you are seeing that," he said.

Even if more executions are scheduled in Georgia this year it's unlikely the state will surpass the record of 23 conducted in 1935, when the Georgia's death row was using the electric chair.

Four executions were performed in both 2001 and 2002. That's the highest number since the state adopted lethal injection as its method of execution in October 2001.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the issue of capital punishment.

(The Associated Press)

State court lifts stays of execution

The Georgia Supreme Court lifted stays of execution for two convicted murderers yesterday.

The executions of Jack Halderman and Curtis Osborne were at a halt as the US Supreme Court determined the constitutionality of lethal injections. It ruled the method legal in April.

Halderman was sentenced to die in the 1974 slaying of his 20-year old wife for 20 thousand dollars in life insurance. Osborne faces execution for the 1990 murders of two people found in a car. Their execution dates have not been set.

Death penalty appeal denied

A federal appeals court rejected a Georgia inmate’s bid to overturn his death sentence in the 1986 murder on St. Simon’s Island.

Robert L. Newland was convicted of attempting to rape, and then murdering neighbor Carol Sanders Beatty.

Newland claimed his legal council was ineffective, that it failed to appeal what he says was a forced confession. He also says more should have been done to show the jury his past as they determined his punishment.

Georgia Execution

The State Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied convicted killer, William Earl Lynd's request for clemency. His attorney's immediately filed an appeal with the Georgia State Supreme Court seeking to stay his execution.
If the court denies his request he is scheduled to die by lethal injection tomorrow night at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. He will be the first person put to death since the U.S. Supreme court decided that lethal injection does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
Kentucky inmates challenged the lethal injection protocol several months ago. Many states, including Georgia, delayed scheduled executions. Georgia uses the same three drug combination as Kentucky.
In 1988 Lynd was sentenced to death for killing his girlfriend, Virginia Moore. He will be the 18th inmate in Georgia put to death by lethal injection. The state currently has 109 men and 1 woman

on death row.

Senate says no to House death penalty proposal

The state Senate Thursday halted a move by the House to allow judges to impose the death penalty without a unanimous jury verdict.

The original Senate bill was meant to give prosecutors more leeway to pursue life without parole sentences in some capital cases, including felony murder. However, in a surprise move, the House added a provision that would have allowed judges to sentence defendants to death even if one or two members of the jury voted against it.

Speaking from the well, Republican Preston Smith of Rome said the measure would destroy the death penalty law.

"But now, if the jury is unable to reach a unanimous verdict, then the judge asks what their last vote was. They have made no recommendation. And whatever their last vote was, he dismisses them and he imposes a sentence of death, life without parole, or life".

In a 44-7 vote, the Senate rejected the House amendment. The two sides must now reach a compromise or abandon the measure altogether.

--from Valarie Edwards at the Capitol

House votes to change death penalty law

The state House voted yesterday to grant judges the ability to impose the death penalty, even if a jury does not unanimously endorse the punishment. Current state law forbids the death penalty if one or more jurors disapprove of the sentence in a case.

The move divided Georgia’s Republican legislators. GOP sponsors of the bill say the change will prevent convicted murders from avoiding the death penalty because of a sole dissenter. GOP opponents warned that putting life-or-death decisions in the hands of one judge jeopardizes fairness and justice.

House members voted 112-55 to pass the measure. It is the chamber's second attempt to change the law in as many years.

Brian Nichols case: new legislation and new trial date

The Georgia House wants to shore up the state's ailing statewide public defender system. A bill approve today would require counties to chip in with funding for some death penalty defenses. It's a response to the state's case against accused courthouse gunman Brian Nichols. His death penalty trial has infuriated lawmakers and racked up at least $1.8 million in defense charges before a jury has even been chosen.

Today the judge overseeing the Nichols case said he will soon announce a date to resume the trial. Nichols' trial has been on hold indefinitely for several months because of a lack of money to adequately fund Nichols' defense. Nichols is accused of killing four people in March 2005 while fleeing custody at the Fulton County Courthouse.

Nichols' death penalty trial spurs legislation

A special committee investigating a high-profile death penalty case has recommended legislation that would reform how Georgia handles death penalty cases. Republican House Majority Whip Barry Fleming heads the committee which looked into the case of Brian Nichols. Nichols is charged with killing four people two years ago while fleeing custody at the Fulton County court house. His defense has already cost taxpayers 2-million dollars.

Representative Fleming blames out-of-control spending on the part of public defenders.

"This is not what should be expected. This was beyond what should have happened. There was mismanagement that went on in this situation and we want to send a strong signal that we don't want that to happen again."

Additional legislation recommended by the committee would only allow active elected judges to hear death penalty cases.

"Having that local, elected judge involved with his county commissioners who have to help fund this, at some point, we think will bring some responsibility and someone watching the till at the end of the day."

Finally, the committee has recommended the state negotiate a flat fee -- rather than an hourly arrangement for state-paid defense attorneys in death penalty cases.

Milledgeville jury convicts Baldwin County man

A jury in Milledgeville over the weekend found a Baldwin County man guilty of the murder of his wife and 15-year-old stepdaughter. 36-year-old Brian Duane Brookins faced 7 counts in the October 2006 murders. The state is seeking the death penalty in the sentencing phase.

Judge: Nichols will face death penalty if convicted

Today a Superior Court judge denied a request to bar the death penalty if accused Fulton County Courthouse killer Brian Nichols is convicted of murder. The judge also denied a request to delay Nichols’ trial. He did order the state public defender's office to pay certain expenses related to Nichols' defense. Nichols’ lawyers say the public defenders’ office is underfunded, partially because Nichols’ defense has already cost the state nearly 2-million dollars.