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Thread: Steven Alan Petric - Alabama

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    Steven Alan Petric - Alabama




    Facts of the Crime:

    Convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection on October 15, 2009 for the capital murder of Toni Lim, nearly two decades after she was found dead in her Homewood apartment and three years after DNA evidence linked him to the crime scene. Petric has continued to maintain his innocence, saying he had only consensual sex with Lim, 23. Someone else, Petric contends, bound her hands and wrists and hogtied her, sexually assaulted her, slit her throat and stabbed her in the back of the neck before leaving her in bed, bleeding with a gag around her neck, on March 9, 1990.

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    August 15, 2009

    Birmingham, Alabama jury recommends execution for Steven Petric for 1990 murder

    Steven Petric should be executed by lethal injection for the 1990 rape and murder of Toni Lim in Homewood, a Jefferson County jury ruled Friday after struggling with a sentencing verdict since mid-week.

    The jury's 10-2 vote for the death penalty is advisory. Circuit Judge Bill Cole will sentence Petric Oct. 15.

    The jury of 7 women and 5 men announced 3 times Thursday and Friday morning that they were deadlocked.

    A majority of the panel first favored the lesser sentence of life without parole then swayed toward the death penalty. But the jury could not reach the minimum vote tally for a verdict until about noon Friday.

    Lim, 23, was found in her bedroom on March 9, 1990. She was nearly nude and bound, with a black T-shirt covering her slit throat and a deep knife wound to the back of her neck.

    Mara Sirles, a Jefferson County prosecutor, described the crime to jurors as "sadistic and cruel."

    Petric wasn't charged until 2006, when DNA from the crime scene matched his DNA in a national database. At the time he was serving a 26-year prison sentence in Illinois for armed robbery.

    Members of Lim's family declined comment after the verdict, as did Petric's wife.

    Doug Finch, a Homewood police sergeant who reopened the cold case in 2004, said Petric's capital murder conviction and recommendation of death would bring closure not only to Lim's family, but also to the families of other women Petric has attacked.

    Prosecutors tried to introduce evidence of attacks on 5 other women - 3 of whom had been raped and 1 who was killed in a similar manner as Lim. In all but 1 case, the assailant stole a wedding ring, which a prosecutor termed as Petric's trophies.

    Cole allowed the jury to hear about the 1994 rape and murder of Debra O'Rourke and a 1994 attack on Tina Hillock, both in the Chicago area.

    "There are other victims," Finch said after the verdict. "The human tragedy in this is how many people's lives have been affected. When I originally met Tina Hillock she almost fainted when I mentioned his name."

    The defense team of Charles Salvagio, Ed Tumlin and Amber Ladner plans to appeal. Salvagio said Thursday and Friday that he was concerned the jury was forced into its verdicts.

    On Thursday, the jury reported that at least 1 member felt intimidated by Petric's wife, after she testified in the sentencing portion of Petric's 2-week trial. Friday, the jury foreman sent word to Cole that some members felt pressured about their decision.

    "If they felt pressure today, I've got to wonder if they felt pressure during the guilt phase," Salvagio said.

    "This certainly was a difficult decision-making process," Joe Basgier, the other prosecutor, said after the sentencing verdict. "The most important thing is he never will have another opportunity to terrorize a woman."

    (Source: The Birmingham News)

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    October 16, 2009

    Man sentenced to death in 1990 Homewood murder after DNA links him to victim in cold case

    BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- A man who was convicted of the 1990 murder of a Homewood woman has been sentenced to death.

    Steven Petric received the sentence today, 3 years after DNA evidence linked him to Toni Lim's murder.

    The 23-year-old woman was found dead in her Homewood apartment and thecrime when unsolved for 16 years until a national database matched DNAfrom the crime scene to Petric's.

    Petric, who is 48, has continued to maintain his innocence and said he only had consensual sex with Lim.

    Shewas found hogtied in her bedroom with her throat slit and a deep knifewound to the back of her neck. She had been sexually assaulted and herwedding ring had been stolen.

    Petric has been incarcerated since 1994, and was in an Illinois prison when the DNA match was found.

    http://blog.al.com/live/2009/10/man_...ce_in_199.html

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    On February 15, 2013, affirmed by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals on direct appeal.

    http://statecasefiles.justia.com/doc...?ts=1370466475

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Petric's petition for certiorari.

    Lower Ct: Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama
    Case Nos.: (CR-09-0386)
    Decision Date: February 15, 2013
    Rehearing Denied: August 30, 2013
    Discretionary Court
    Decision Date: May 23, 2014
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    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    The trial court’s granting of Petric’s petition for post-conviction relief has been affirmed by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.

    https://law.justia.com/cases/alabama...r-17-0505.html
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    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    An update: Petric was booked into the Jefferson County Jail on February 3, 2022 pending his retrial.

    http://sheriff.jccal.org/NewWorld.In...Detail/-320832
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Former Ala. Death Row inmate given new trial in woman’s 1990 murder rejects offer of life with parole

    By Carol Robinson
    al.com

    A man convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in the 1990 slaying of a Homewood woman who was found bound, beaten, raped and stabbed with her throat slit has turned down the possibility of one day being set free and instead wants to take his chances with a jury - again.

    Steven Alan Petric was convicted in 2009 in the brutal death of 23-year-old Toni Lim.

    The Alabama Court of Appeals three years ago affirmed a lower court ruling granting a new trial for the death row prisoner based upon claims of ineffective representation at trial.

    Petric, now 61, appeared in a Jefferson County courtroom Wednesday for a hearing on a series of motions filed in his case.

    During that hearing, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Michael Streety learned that the District Attorney’s Office had offered Petric a sentence of life with the possibility of parole in exchange for a guilty plea.

    Petric’s lawyers – Scott Brower, Wendell Sheffield and Anthony Bowling – told the court Wednesday that their client had rejected the prosecutors’ offer. The judge asked Petric if that was correct, and he replied, “Yes sir.”

    Streety set a May 2024 date for Petric to be tried again. Jefferson County Deputy District Attorneys Neal Zarzour and Misty Reynolds are prosecuting.

    Lim, a student and employee of Sammy’s strip club on Valley Avenue, was discovered slain on March 9, 1990, inside her Raleigh Villas apartment that she shared with a roommate.

    The roommate found Lim’s body when she returned from work about 8 p.m.

    The roommate, Martha Milinda Higginbotham, previously testified there was no forced entry at the apartment and that Lim had told her that a man named “Steven” was going to help her fix the brakes on her car.

    Higginbotham also said that a man named “Steven” sometimes gave Lim a ride home from school.

    When Lim was found lying on her bed in her apartment, her body was covered with a blanket and her head was covered with a pillow.

    An autopsy showed she had suffered a stab wound to the back of her neck and a large cut across her throat. She was wearing only a shirt and a bra.

    A blood-soaked t-shirt was tied loosely around her neck.

    Her hands were tied behind her back with pantyhose. Court records show an exercise rope was tied tightly around her right wrist and the rope extended down to her ankles, which were bound by the rope.

    The rope was tied in such a way that it would tighten if Lim’s legs were straightened.

    Lim’s case went unsolved for more than a decade, until 2006 when a routine submission of his DNA to a national database matched DNA found at the scene of Lim’s death.

    Petric has maintained his innocence, saying he had only consensual sex with Lim.

    At the time Homewood police charged Petric with Lim’s murder, he was serving a 26-year prison sentence for armed robbery in Illinois.

    During his Alabama trial, prosecutors portrayed a pattern by Petric of attacking women at knifepoint before stealing their wedding rings.

    Several women came forward to say he attacked them in the early 1990s.

    Jurors in the Birmingham trial heard about two other attacks on women in 1994 in Illinois that prosecutors attributed to Petric, one fatal and one non-fatal.

    The judge barred testimony in the trial about three other attacks against women, two in the Birmingham area and one in Illinois. Petric has a criminal history dating back to 1979.

    The Alabama jury convicted Petric in August 2009.

    Jefferson County Circuit Judge Bill Cole sentenced Petric to die by lethal injection. Petric had this to say at the time:

    “I know it is customary for the defendant to ask the family for mercy, but how can I? I’m not guilty.’’

    In February 2018, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tracie Todd overturned Petric’s conviction.

    Todd in 2021 was temporarily removed from the bench after a scathing 100-page report by the Judicial Inquiry Commission that alleged abuse of power. The Lim case was cited in that complaint.

    The Alabama Court of the Judiciary last year found Todd guilty on one charge of violating judicial ethics and suspended her without pay for 120 days.

    According to deathpenaltyinfo.org, prosecutors said DNA evidence from semen and cigarette butts linked Petric to the crime, and they presented extensive evidence arguing that Petric had raped and murdered the woman he had been dating in Illinois.

    Todd ruled that Charles Salvagio, Petric’s first attorney, had unreasonably failed to investigate the Illinois case and failed to rebut the prosecution’s claims by showing that the jury there had acquitted Petric after video footage showed he had been elsewhere when those crimes were committed.

    The court further found that Salvagio, who died in 2020, had unreasonably promised the jury during his opening statement that the defense would show that another man who knew the victim had committed a similar murder, without having reviewed the record of the other case.

    At the close of the prosecution’s case against Petric, the defense was provided with a DNA report that cleared the alternate suspect of the other murder, leaving counsel without a defense.

    State prosecutors appealed Todd’s ruling, but the Alabama Criminal Court of Appeals on Aug. 14, 2020, granted Petric a new trial and ordered Petric brought back to the Jefferson County Jail to be held until the conclusion of his new trial.

    Petric was booked back into the county lockup on Feb. 3, 2022, and remains held without bond.

    https://www.corrections1.com/capital...AkAc8TLOtR41b/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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