Arthur Lee Giles - Alabama
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Summary of Offense:
Arthur Lee Giles and Aaron Lee Jones were convicted for the November 10, 1978 attack in which Willene and Carl Nelson were shot and stabbed to death in the pre-dawn hours. Three children, ages 10, 13 and 21, were critically wounded, but survived. The children's 85-year-old grandmother also survived. Giles had worked for Carl Nelson picking vegetables, and after a night of drinking went with Jones to the Nelson house, intending to rob them. The oldest of the children, Tony, who was 21 at the time, testified that he was awakened just after 3 a.m. when Giles turned on the light in the bedroom Tony shared with his 10-year-old brother, Charlie. Carl Nelson confronted Giles and told him to leave, but minutes later Tony Nelson found Giles at the house's back door, and Giles shot him twice. Jones and Giles then made their way through the house, shooting and stabbing its occupants. After a wounded Tony got to his feet and made his way to his parents' bedroom, he found Charlie and 13-year-old Brenda, stabbed, shot and bloody, but alive at the foot of their parents' bed. Jones and Giles were tried separately, both receiving a death sentence.
Giles is currently the longest-serving inmate on Alabama's death row.
For more on Jones, who was executed on May 3, 2007, see: http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...ht=aaron+jones
After Thursday execution in 2005 slaying, why is Scottsboro triple-murderer still in court 12 years later?
James Ben Brownfield Jr. -- convicted of killing his sister, brother-in-law and 3-year-old great-nephew on Christmas Eve 2001 -- was in Jackson County Circuit Court for an appeals hearings this week, and the process is still years from its end, said District Attorney Charles Rhodes.
Brownfield's hearing was postponed Thursday because of a scheduling conflict and he was returned to Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer. Only hours later, Andrew Lackey, 28, was executed at Holman Correctional Facility for the 2005 Halloween night slaying of an 80-year-old World War II veteran in Athens.
Both were brutal attacks. Brownfield, 39, was convicted of killing his sister, Brenda McCutchin, and her grandson, Joshua Hodges, by beating them with a claw hammer in their sleep, and then stabbing to death his brother-in-law, Latham McCutchin. Police found scrawled messages on the walls of both homes, including "Killing is my business" and "It's about to pick up."
Brownfield confessed to the slayings on two videotapes admitted at trial.
Lackey was convicted in Limestone County in 2008 of stabbing elderly Charlie Newman 70 times as the man begged, "Let me pray for you."
Rhodes said he was surprised Lackey's execution occurred in what is a relatively short time for the appeals process until he learned Lackey made a request to stop appeals. In June 2012, Lackey asked to be put to death.
The longest-serving of Alabama's 192 death row inmates is Arthur Lee Giles, 54, who was convicted 34 years ago for the 1978 murders of Carl and Willene Nelson in Morgan County. Their three children and the children's 85-year-old grandmother were wounded in the attack but survived.
Although Brownfield's hearing, which was continued until August, will likely mark the end of his available state appeals, his attorneys are expected to file appeals in federal court if this ruling is not in their client's favor.
"It could still be several years yet," Rhodes said. "After this point, they've used up every avenue in the state system and will try to get into the federal system and show some kind of constitutional violations they will have alleged to have occurred."
Rhodes, who prosecuted Brownfield in 2004, is not the attorney for the appeals. Those are handled by the state Attorney General's Office, but Rhodes said he was in court as a consultant for the state during Brownfield's hearing this week.
The hearing before Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Holt will determine if anything occurred in Brownfield's initial conviction to warrant granting a new trial.
The prosecution had the videotaped confessions and DNA evidence in the initial trial and the Alabama Supreme Court upheld the conviction in a 2009 ruling.
http://blog.al.com/breaking/2013/07/...ion_in_20.html