Markey Goff and Meshawna Jones
Tulsa County DA seeks death penalty for man in Chamberlain Park double homicide
By Samantha Vicent
Tulsa World
The Tulsa County District Attorney's Office on Tuesday filed its intent to seek the death penalty against an Oklahoma City man charged in the June 2016 slayings of two people at a north Tulsa park in the presence of two small children.
But the man's defense says there are concerns about his cognitive functioning.
Jacky Cardale Mayfield, 29, is scheduled for a jury trial Jan. 7, 2019, for the shooting deaths of 26-year-old Markey Goff and 31-year-old Meshawna Jones, whose bodies were found June 13, 2016, inside a Ford SUV parked at Chamberlain Park, 4940 N. Frankfort Ave.
Mayfield and his cousin, 27-year-old Rebecca Williams, were in court for a preliminary hearing Nov. 22, 2016, for first-degree murder and accessory charges, respectively. They were both ordered to stand trial before District Judge James Caputo.
However, Caputo pushed back Mayfield's arraignment multiple times for what court records indicate is a contention by Mayfield's defense team that his IQ is too low to be legally eligible to receive capital punishment.
Williams is due in court Dec. 4.
In a bill of particulars filed Tuesday, District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler asked for consideration of the death penalty due to the state's belief that Mayfield could be a continuing threat to society. He also noted that Mayfield has already been incarcerated for a 2006 conviction of assault and battery with a deadly weapon.
Caputo entered a not guilty plea on Mayfield's behalf Tuesday and scheduled a status conference for Dec. 15 to further discuss Mayfield's mental deficiency claim.
Asked whether Mayfield would like his appearance waived for that hearing, Mayfield and Assistant Public Defender Marny Hill said the defendant wants to be in attendance at every court appearance through his trial.
Hill and Caputo said they anticipate that Mayfield's jury trial will last at least three weeks and needs to be preceded by pretrial litigation regarding Mayfield's cognitive abilities. A motion filed by Hill in August says a 2005 evaluation revealed that Mayfield has a full-scale IQ of 65 and received a diagnosis of "mild mental retardation."
Hill also wrote that a summer 2017 evaluation of Mayfield at the Tulsa Jail indicated that a medical professional determined his IQ to be 69 and found he has "significant limitations in several adaptive functioning skills."
Kunzweiler said after Tuesday's hearing that the state has tried unsuccessfully for most of the past year to have its own expert evaluate Mayfield, but that neither side was able to reach "a meeting of the minds" for that to occur. He said the filing of the bill of particulars will ensure that all sides in the case have the opportunity to fully investigate the matter before arguments begin over issues such as what evidence will be admissible.
A bill of particulars, according to state law and legal precedent, must be withdrawn if a court determines that a defendant has mental retardation.
An acquaintance of Mayfield's testified during his preliminary hearing that Mayfield told her he killed two people at Chamberlain Park before he "sent a female back to wipe the car down," apparently for fingerprints. A 5-year-old boy and an infant in the vehicle were physically unharmed, and the boy exited the SUV and told a passerby he needed help, which led to a call to police.
Assistant District Attorney Isaac Shields, who is prosecuting the case, alleged Mayfield — a reported member of a subset of the Hoover Crips — shot Goff and Jones in the head after one of them refused to let him steal prescription pills.
Williams faces an accessory charge based on claims that she, acting on a request from Mayfield, took a phone from one of the SUV's occupants and destroyed it without telling anyone that she saw two people had been fatally shot.
A fellow inmate testified that Mayfield told him a gang contact had reached out to Mayfield in Oklahoma City to ask that he "hit a lick," or rob Goff, whom Mayfield knew, for the pills. He also said Mayfield told him he should have shot the children because the older child's statements to authorities were likely the cause of his arrest.
The death penalty request involving Mayfield is the third that Kunzweiler's office has filed since September, following bills of particulars filed against Gregory Epperson in the March strangulation death of Tulsa teenager Kelsey
Tennant and against Gerald Lowe and Michaela Riddle in the November 2016 fatal beating of Courtney Palmer.
Epperson's was the first under Kunzweiler's tenure as District Attorney.
Kunzweiler said it has been some time since Tulsa County has had three outstanding capital cases simultaneously. He said the facts in each case are significantly aggravating to warrant death penalty consideration.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local...4ef0e982a.html
Bookmarks