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Thread: James Terry Colley, Jr. - Florida Death Row

  1. #11
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Man accused of killing wife, friend could still face death penalty

    WJXT News Jacksonville

    ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. - The man deputies said shot and killed his wife and her friend last summer in St. Johns County had his efforts to block the death penalty in his case denied Tuesday by a judge.

    James Colley Jr. was arrested in Virginia last August, days after deputies said he shot and killed his estranged wife, Amanda Colley and her friend, Lindy Dobbins, at his wife’s St. Johns County home.

    Amanda Colley had filed for a domestic violence injunction the month before, which Colley violated.

    He had a hearing on the violation just before deputies said he shot and killed the women.

    A judge denied a motion by James Colley's lawyer to block the State Attorney's Office from seeking the death penalty if Colley is convicted on the murder charges. The lawyer filed the motion after the U.S. Supreme Court's Hurst ruling, which found Florida's death penalty process unconstitutional.

    The state Legislature enacted reforms to address the problems with the law, and the judge cited those reforms in denying Colley's motion.

    http://www.news4jax.com/news/man-acc...-death-penalty
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #12
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    Edited:

    2 accused of murder due in court


    By Ashley Harding
    news4jax.com

    ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. - Pretrial hearings will begin Wednesday morning in two high-profile murder cases in St. Johns County.

    James Colley Jr. is charged in the deaths of his estranged wife, Amanda Colley and her friend, Lindy Dobbins, at the couple's home in August of last year.

    In Colley's case, this hearing comes months after a motion to block the death penalty was denied.

    Text messages released in court documents show Colley was apparently unhappy about a relationship he believed his estranged wife had with another man. One text read, "Oh, and your boyfriend has been parking at the playground and walking around the back. The whole neighborhood knows!!!!! "

    Colley remains in the St. Johns County jail with no bond.

    http://www.news4jax.com/news/florida...urder-in-court
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #13
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Lawyers for man accused of killing wife, friend try to block death penalty

    By Ashley Harding
    WJXT Jacksonville News

    ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. - Lawyers for the St Johns County man accused of murdering his estranged wife and her friend last year are trying again to block prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.

    A status conference was held Thursday morning at the courthouse.

    James Colley, Jr. is charged with shooting and killing Amanda Colley and Lindy Dobbins -- minutes following his departure from the courthouse after pleading no contest to violating a domestic violence injunction his wife had against him.

    Colley’s attorneys asked that the death penalty be taken off the table earlier this year. It was denied by the judge.

    A new motion was filed this week.

    Colley was not in the courtroom Thursday, but the judge wants him present for the next hearing scheduled for Jan. 31. The judge asked that all parties be prepared to say when they’ll be ready to go to trial.

    Right now, a decision on the second death penalty motion is pending, because of changes Florida lawmakers will have to make to the death penalty law.

    http://www.news4jax.com/news/florida...-death-penalty
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  4. #14
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Death penalty still on table for accused wife killer

    By News4JAX.com Staff

    ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. - A St Johns County man accused of murdering his estranged wife and her friend in 2015 could still face the death penalty after a judge again denied a motion to block the death penalty in his case.

    James Colley, Jr. is charged with shooting and killing Amanda Colley and Lindy Dobbins -- minutes after he left a courthouse after pleading no contest to violating a domestic violence injunction his wife had against him.

    Colley’s attorneys asked twice that the death penalty be taken off the table, contending that recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, and changes made by the Florida Legislature, exclude any application of the death penalty in Colley’s case.

    But both motions have been denied by the judge.

    Colley’s case, like many others in Florida, has ground to a halt, as the courts wait for the Legislature to rewrite the death penalty law to require a unanimous jury recommendation.

    There is no trial date set for Colley.

    http://www.news4jax.com/news/florida...ed-wife-killer
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #15
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Lawyers for accused wife killer make 3rd attempt to block death penalty

    By News4Jax.com Staff
    WJXT Jacksonville

    ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. - Lawyers for a St. Johns County man accused of killing his wife and her friend in 2015 are trying, for a third time, to prevent the State Attorney's Office from seeking the death penalty if he's convicted.

    James Colley Jr. is charged in the murders of his wife, Amanda Colley, and her friend, Lindy Dobbins. He faces five other charges.

    On Wednesday, Colley's lawyers filed a motion asking a judge to find Florida's death penalty is still unconstitutional, despite recent changes by the Legislature.

    Another defense motion seeks a change of venue.

    An affidavit signed by Colley says, "It is not possible for me to get a fair and impartial trial in St. Johns County, Florida, because there is a great deal of prejudice against me."

    His lawyers tell the judge they expect the "enormous amount of pretrial publicity" to continue in the media.

    There's a hearing set for October on the new motions.

    http://www.news4jax.com/news/florida...-death-penalty
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  6. #16
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Colley to be tried in St. Johns County, judge says

    By Jarod Keever
    The St. Augustine Record

    The man accused of killing his estranged wife and her friend in a Murabella home in 2015 will be tried in St. Johns County, but prospective jurors may be subject to individual questioning about how much press coverage they have seen about the case, a judge ruled Tuesday.

    The decisions from Circuit Judge Howard Maltz came in response to two motions from James Terry Colley Jr.’s defense team asking for a change of venue in the case, as well as individual juror questioning on topics related to the death penalty and media coverage.

    The motions were among about 10 that Colley’s attorney, Garry Wood, argued before Maltz during a morning hearing at the St. Johns County courthouse.

    Colley, 37, was indicted in September 2015 on two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the August 2015 shooting deaths of 36-year-old Amanda Cloaninger Colley, and her friend, 39-year-old Lindy Mosler Dobbins. He is also facing two counts of attempted first-degree murder with a firearm, burglary with assault or battery, armed burglary and aggravated stalking after injunction.

    The 7th Circuit State Attorney’s Office is seeking the death penalty in the case.

    Wood argued that press coverage, both by The St. Augustine Record and various Jacksonville television stations, had already hampered his team’s ability to get an impartial jury for the coming trial and asked that Maltz move the trial to Volusia County.

    “Obviously because of the pretrial publicity issue, which we believe will taint our ability — has tainted our ability — to have Mr. Colley receive a fair and impartial jury within St. Johns County, we are obviously seeking that this trial be moved … ” Wood said.

    Maltz stopped Wood at that point to ask him how the coverage has tainted their ability to assemble a jury given that the jury selection, or voir dire, process hadn’t yet begun.

    Wood suggested that some of the news coverage included pieces of information that may not be admissible in the trial.

    But Maltz also wanted to know how long ago most of the stories with which Wood took issue had come out, saying that most recent stories that were “overwhelmingly merely statements of fact,” about coming court dates and how the case was progressing, wouldn’t seem overly problematic.

    Wood said the stories were “spread out” but cited one television story from early 2017 that he thought could be a problem if jurors had seen it.

    “Isn’t that issue easily resolved by questioning prospective jurors about … what information they have seen and their source of that information?” Maltz asked, setting up discussion about Wood’s second motion of the day for “individual, sequestered voir dire” in which individual prospective jurors would be asked questions outside the presence of the rest of the jury pool.

    Wood said the matter wouldn’t be resolved to his satisfaction because it relied too heavily on jurors’ ability to remember what they might have seen and risked having their memory be jogged as the trial progressed.

    After some additional discussion with Assistant State Attorney Jennifer Dunton about the nature of the case’s coverage so far, Maltz denied the motion.

    But he seemed to signal that he would be willing to split the difference with Wood when they discussed the possible individual sequestration of jurors during the selection process.

    Ultimately Maltz denied the part of Wood’s motion that asked for prospective jurors to be questioned individually regarding their opinions on the death penalty, but deferred his decision concerning how they would be questioned regarding media coverage, hinting that he would likely grant the motion after further consideration about a possible questionnaire for them.

    Wood argued that he was concerned if the prospective jurors were asked to discuss what they had seen or read about the case in front of other jurors, their answers could taint the rest of the pool.

    Maltz said that had not been a problem in the recent death penalty trial for Sean Alonzo Bush, but suggested he could see where it might become an issue at Colley’s trial.

    “I might be more inclined to in this case to do individual, sequestered voir dire on those who have heard about the case — in the sense of seeing or read about it — than I was in that case,” he said.

    He then floated the idea of having prospective jurors answer a brief questionnaire about what they have seen about the case.

    Wood and Dunton both agreed that might be useful, but they expressed some concerns about the logistics of how and when it would be distributed, and asked to be able to discuss the idea further.

    After denying the motion for individual voir dire with regards to the death penalty, Maltz said he would decide on the rest of the motion at a later date.

    “I am going to defer on the media issue for purposes of ruling today, but you know where my position is on that,” Maltz said.

    After arguments on several other motions, Maltz turned to the issue of scheduling and suggested he would like to see the case tried in April.

    Dunton said prosecutors could be ready for trial by February or March, but Wood said his team may be looking at May or June.

    Maltz scheduled a pretrial hearing for Nov. 28 to allow both sides to discuss any issues and set a trial date.

    “It’s my intention to set this case for trial at that time,” he said.

    Including jury selection, guilt phase and a penalty phase, if necessary, the entire trial could take a month.

    http://staugustine.com/news/local-ne...nty-judge-says
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  7. #17
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    No change of venue for man accused of slaying estranged wife, friend

    By Frank Powers
    News4JAX.com


    ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. - A St. Johns County man accused of murdering his estranged wife and her friend in 2015 will not have his trial moved, a judge has ruled.

    Attorneys for James Colley Jr. had argued for a change of venue, because of what they called “enormous” pretrial publicity.

    A judge denied that motion, along with a motion to take the death penalty off the table and a third motion seeking to exclude victim impact evidence.

    Colley's next pretrial hearing is Nov. 28. A trial date has not been set.

    Police said Colley left a courtroom after pleading no contest to violating a domestic violence injunction, went to his wife, Amanda's, St. Augustine home and shot and killed her and her friend, Lindy Dobbins.

    According to evidence released in the case, Colley was apparently unhappy about a relationship that he believed his estranged wife had with another man.

    That man was one of four people inside Amanda's home when Colley came from the backyard, pulled out a handgun and started shooting into the home's sliding glass doors, according to deputies.

    Deputies said he began yelling, "Where is he?" as he tried to find the man, who had run out of the house.

    Colley also ransacked the home before the murders and confessed to his father minutes after the shootings that he shot the two women, according to deputies.

    https://www.news4jax.com/news/no-cha...ed-wife-friend
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  8. #18
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    November 28, 2017

    April trial date set for man accused of slaying estranged wife, friend


    By Frank Powers
    News4JAX.com

    ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. - An April 9 trial date was set Tuesday for a St. Johns County man accused of killing his wife and her friend in 2015.

    James Colley Jr. is charged in the murders of his estranged wife, 36-year-old Amanda Colley, and her friend, 39-year-old Lindy Dobbins.

    Authorities said the two women were gunned down at Amanda’s home shortly after Colley left St. Johns County court, where he’d pleaded no contest to violating an injunction his wife had against him.

    Colley’s lawyers have filed several motions to block the State Attorney’s Office from seeking the death penalty, but they’ve all been denied.

    His next pretrial hearing is Feb. 14.

    https://www.news4jax.com/news/florid...ed-wife-friend
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  9. #19
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    Colley in court Tuesday; trial to begin in July

    By Jared Keever
    The St. Augustine Record

    The man accused of killing his estranged wife and her friend in a 2015 shooting in Murabella won’t go to trial until July.

    Circuit Judge Howard Maltz filed an order to continue and reschedule the trial in the state’s case against James Terry Colley Jr. in late February after the defense team asked for a continuance.

    The trial had been scheduled to begin next month.

    Colley, 37, was indicted in September 2015 on two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the August 2015 shooting deaths of his estranged wife, 36-year-old Amanda Cloaninger Colley, and her friend, 39-year-old Lindy Mosler Dobbins. He is also facing two counts of attempted first-degree murder with a firearm, burglary with assault or battery, armed burglary and aggravated stalking after injunction.

    The state is seeking the death penalty in the case.

    Colley was in court with his attorneys, Garry Wood and Terry Shoemaker, on Tuesday for hearings on two defense motions that Maltz denied.

    At the end of the hearings, Maltz discussed the new schedule with the defense team and assistant state attorneys Mark Johnson and Jennifer Dunton.

    Both sides acknowledged the July 9 start to jury selection and a July 16 start to the guilt phase of the trial.

    Maltz, on Tuesday, also scheduled a May 8 status conference with time set aside to hear any additional motions that may be filed in the interim.

    http://www.staugustine.com/news/2018...-begin-in-july
    Last edited by Helen; 04-09-2018 at 12:38 PM. Reason: added news source

  10. #20
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    St. Augustine man's attorney wants to keep domestic violence charge quiet in double homicide trial

    James Terry Colley, Jr., 35, is accused of shooting his estranged wife and her friend to death back in 2015, and his defense has requested for information regarding a domestic violence charge to be left out of the pending trial

    By First Coast News

    The defense attorney for a St. Augustine man accused of killing his wife and her friend has requested for information regarding a domestic violence charge against his client to be left out of the pending trial.

    James Terry Colley, Jr., 35, is accused of shooting his estranged wife and her friend to death back in 2015.

    Prior to the alleged shooting, Colley had a pending domestic violence charge as of Aug. 27, 2015.

    His attorney, Gary Wood, described the nature of the charge as "objectionable," according to the motion filed by Wood.

    The attorney also requested the court to leave out Colley's plea regarding the charge of violation of probation in the domestic violence case. Colley's attorney does not want a pending charge to be able to sway the opinion of the court in this separate murder case.

    The introduction of testimony or evidence regarding the case would "violate the Defendant's right to a fair trial," according to Wood.

    Colley's trial has been set for July 9.

    https://www.firstcoastnews.com/artic...l/77-568245987
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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