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Thread: Stephen Michael West - Tennessee Execution - August 15, 2019

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    Stephen Michael West - Tennessee Execution - August 15, 2019


    Wanda Romines


    Sheila Romines


    Stephen Michael West


    Facts of the Crime:

    West was sentenced to die by a jury for stabbing Lake City residents Wanda Romines, 51, and her daughter Sheila Romines, 16, near their home by Big Ridge State Park on March 17, 1986. He also raped Sheila. Twenty-four years old when the crime occurred, West was also found guilty of larceny and aggravated kidnapping of the Romines.

    West was sentenced to death on March 25, 1987.

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    State files to set execution date for convicted Union Co. killer

    The state of Tennessee has filed to set a date to execute a man convicted in the 1987 abduction, rape, and murder of a woman and the abduction and murder of her mother.

    Stephen Michael West was convicted of the 1987 murders of Wanda and Sheila Romines.

    A court found West guilty of the aggravated rape of Sheila Romines and the aggravated kidnapping and first degree murder of both Sheila Romines and her mother Wanda.

    The jury found as aggravating circumstances that the murders were especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel; that they were committed to avoid arrest or prosecution; and that they were committed while the defendant was engaged in first degree murder, rape, or kidnapping.

    After a series of appeals spanning up to the middle of April, including the United States Supreme Court choosing not to take the case at the beginning of March and denying another petition in April, the state is arguing that West has completed a 3-tier appeals process.

    http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story...storyid=120568

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    Flooding extends death row inmate's time to fight execution

    A man convicted of the 1987 murder of a Union County mother and daughter will get another 2 weeks to fight the state setting his execution date, as his attorneys are having difficulty reaching the inmate due to flooding.

    Stephen Michael West was convicted of the 1987 murders of Wanda and Sheila Romines. A court found West guilty of the aggravated rape of Sheila Romines and the aggravated kidnapping and 1st degree murder of both Sheila Romines and her mother Wanda.

    The United States Supreme Court has twice declined to take up West's appeal, so the state of Tennessee filed to set an execution date for West.

    His attorneys requested and were granted a 2-week extension to file their response to the state's request.

    His attorneys said in their request for an extension that they plan to demonstrate "that no court has ever evaluated Mr. West's extensive mitigating evidence under the proper legal standard, that the imposition of the death penalty in this case would be grossly unfair where the actual killer of both victims received a life sentence, and that no execution date should be set for a prisoner suffering from severe mental illness."

    His attorneys will now have until Monday, May 24 to respond.

    (Source: WBIR News)

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    Execution date set in 1987 Union County double murder

    The state of Tennessee has set a date to execute a man convicted in the 1987 abduction, rape, and murder of a woman and the abduction and murder of her mother in Union County.

    A court found Stephen Michael West guilty of the aggravated rape of Sheila Romines and the aggravated kidnapping and first degree murder of both Sheila Romines and her mother Wanda.

    In an order from the state Supreme Court filed Wednesday, the court set West's execution for 10:00 p.m. central time on November 9, 2010.

    "We conclude that Mr. West has failed to present any legal ground or factual basis for denying the State's motion to set an execution date or for issuing a certificate of commutation to the Governor," the order stated.

    In the original trial, the jury found as aggravating circumstances that the murders were especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel; that they were committed to avoid arrest or prosecution; and that they were committed while the defendant was engaged in first degree murder, rape, or kidnapping.

    After a series of appeals spanning up to the middle of April, including the United States Supreme Court choosing not to take the case at the beginning of March and denying another petition in April, the state argued that West had completed a 3-tier appeals process.

    http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story...9&provider=rss

    Order here:

    http://www.tsc.state.tn.us/OPINIONS/...ion%20Date.pdf

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    West attorneys seek to delay his execution

    Attorneys for death row inmate Stephen Michael West have sought to delay his execution set for next month with a complaint filed in Davidson County Chancery Court.

    The complaint filed Monday claims officials of the Tennessee Department of Correction haven't followed proper protocol in West’s case, and that execution by electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment, violating the Eighth and 14th Amendments.

    West is currently being held at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution and is to be electrocuted Nov. 9. He was convicted in 1987 of stabbing to death Wanda Romines and her 15-year-old daughter, Sheila Romines, as well as raping the teenager.

    He is due in court on Friday.

    West’s suit claims that under the new execution protocol enacted in April 2007, those who committed a crime before Jan. 1, 1999, and are sentenced to death should be allowed to elect electrocution or lethal injection within 30 days before the execution date.

    Those who committed a death-penalty crime after Jan. 1, 1999, are to be executed by lethal injection following the new protocol.

    While West signed a form electing electrocution for a previous execution date in March 2001, that execution never happened. According to the complaint, he has since not been given a new form as provided by the new execution protocol, even though the complaint claims other inmates have.

    The complaint also asks the court to rule execution by electrocution unconstitutional under both the state and federal constitutions, listing numerous accounts of grisly scenes of botched executions.

    Assistant Federal Community Defender Stephen A. Ferrell filed the complaint and on behalf of West. He did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

    The filing names Correction Commissioner Gayle Ray, Deputy Commissioner David Mills, Assistant Commissioner of Operations Reuben Hodge and Riverbend Warden Ricky Bell, along with John Doe executioners, as defendants.

    The attorney general's office has 30 days to respond.

    (Source: The Nashville City Paper)

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    The US Court of Apppeals for the Sixth Circuit today denied West a Certificate of Appealability challenging Tennessee's lethal-injection protocol.

    Opinion is here:

    http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions...0a0688n-06.pdf

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    Tenn. inmate fights for stay as execution nears

    A Tennessee inmate who came within hours of dying in the electric chair is again facing execution — this time by lethal injection and with fewer chances for a reprieve.

    Stephen West, 48, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Tuesday evening in Nashville for the 1986 stabbing deaths of Wanda Romines and her 15-year-old daughter Sheila Romines in Union County.

    In February 2001, West came within 10 hours of being electrocuted. West, who previously had refused to speak to attorneys working to save his life, was granted a stay by a federal judge when he decided to pursue federal appeals.

    But this time around West has completed the standard federal appeals process and his request for a stay was dismissed by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week. Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen declined to intervene when West's attorneys asked for clemency, spokeswoman Lydia Lenker said.

    Attorney Roger W. Dickson of Chattanooga said the defense will petition the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to stop the execution.

    "We are doing everything we can to get the execution stayed," he said Friday.

    West's latest appeal claimed that autopsy results from a previous execution in Tennessee indicate that the inmate may not have been unconscious when he died.

    Tennessee uses a three-drug lethal injection protocol. The first drug is a barbiturate that is supposed to render the condemned inmate unconscious called sodium thiopental, which has been in short supply and has caused the delay of some executions around the country.

    Tennessee officials say they have enough of the drug to execute West and expect to carry out another lethal injection in December. However, a London-based group opposed to the death penalty filed suit this week to try to prevent a British company from exporting the drug that could be used in the execution of a third Tennessee inmate scheduled for early 2011.

    Edmund Zagorski, who has been convicted of committing two murders in 1983, is scheduled for execution on Jan. 11. Dorinda Carter, a corrections spokeswoman, said the issue should have no effect on West's scheduled execution.

    Carter said she cannot say where Tennessee obtained the drug for West's execution.

    The autopsy of Steve Henley, who was executed in 2009, indicated that the level of thiopental in his body after the execution was inadequate to cause unconsciousness, according to West's appeal. After the first injection, inmates are given two other drugs: pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes muscles, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

    The appeal also said that witnesses during the execution reportedly saw his face turn blue and purple and said the autopsy suggests he died from suffocation while he was not properly anesthetized.

    No state official has ever claimed that there were any problems with Henley's execution and the catheters used during the execution were properly placed, according to the autopsy.

    Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham Law School, said a similar argument was made in California using autopsy results of death penalty inmates who had been executed.

    "This has been ongoing matter on the level of thiopental that inmates are getting," she said.

    Denno said there could be a number of explanations for why thiopental levels in an autopsy would be low. She said certain physiological characteristics of the inmates, such as whether they were heavy drug users, could change the effects of thiopental. Also if the injection is not done properly the drugs wouldn't go into the vein, but into the surrounding tissue, she said.

    In an opinion issued by the appeals court on Thursday, Judge Danny Boggs wrote that West's arguments against the lethal injection procedure in Tennessee were made too late. However, Circuit Judge Karen Nelson Moore argued in a dissent that West's appeal was timely because the autopsy results on Henley weren't released until earlier this year.

    "The key feature of this case is that West has alleged new evidence showing that the practice of the lethal injection method in Tennessee has caused extreme pain and suffering, constituting a violation of the Eighth Amendment," Moore wrote.

    West's attorneys also say he should not be executed because he is mentally ill. His attorneys have said he has been diagnosed with psychotic features, borderline personality disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder and was severely abused as a child.

    West and another man, Ronald Martin, were accused in the murders of the Romineses. According to court records, Martin and West got off work at a McDonald's fast food restaurant in Lake City and went to the Romines home in Union County in the early morning hours of March 17, 1986. Martin, who was 17, reportedly knew the teenage girl and the two men were allowed in the home.

    Sometime between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., the daughter and mother were stabbed to death. The teenager was raped before she was killed and stabbed 17 times in the abdomen. Fourteen of the wounds were described as "torture type cuts," according to the Tennessee Supreme Court's ruling upholding the conviction and death sentence.

    Wanda Romines suffered "a number of deep stab wounds," one of which severed an artery and caused her to bleed to death within a few minutes.

    West testified that Martin had threatened him with a gun at the crime scene and Martin also threatened to kill West's pregnant wife and unborn child if West fled the scene or approached the police.

    West's attorneys also claimed that after the two were arrested, Martin told a cellmate that he was the one who had killed the mother and daughter, not West. But a recording of that alleged confession was not allowed to be used as evidence in the trial.

    Martin was a juvenile at the time of his arrest and therefore not eligible for the death penalty. Martin pleaded guilty and was given two life sentences, which he is currently serving.

    http://www.necn.com/11/06/10/Tenn-in...37c0017929c97e

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    Tenn. Supreme Court grants temporary stay for West

    he Tennessee Supreme Court granted a temporary stay for Stephen Michael West on Saturday, granting the death row inmate a postponement through Nov. 30.

    The 48-year-old was scheduled to be executed Tuesday evening in Nashville for the 1986 stabbing deaths of Wanda Romines and her 15-year-old daughter Sheila Romines in Union County.

    West's federal public defender, Stephen Ferrell, said Saturday he was glad that they were given the three-week stay to address their claims against Tennessee's lethal injection procedure.

    It's the second time judges have stepped in to halt the execution of West, who was hours away from death in 2001 when a judge granted him a stay so he could pursue federal appeals.

    The court made the decision so that the Davidson County Chancery Court can hear evidence in a lawsuit West's attorneys filed alleging that prisoners executed by lethal injection experience unconstitutionally severe pain. The lawsuit claims the first drug in Tennessee's three-drug lethal injection protocol does not adequately anesthetize prisoners, violating the Constitution's Eighth Amendment.

    Ferrell said he expects there will be a hearing in the coming weeks to present evidence.

    "Our goal is to show the current practice (of lethal injection) is unconstitutional," he said.

    West had completed the standard federal appeals process and his request for a stay was dismissed by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week. Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen declined to intervene when West's attorneys asked for clemency, spokeswoman Lydia Lenker said.

    West's latest appeal claimed that autopsy results from a previous execution in Tennessee indicate that the inmate may not have been unconscious when he died.

    The autopsy of Steve Henley, who was executed in 2009, indicated that the level of sodium thiopental in his body after the execution was inadequate to cause unconsciousness. Thiopental is a barbiturate that is supposed to render the condemned inmate unconscious.

    After the first injection, inmates are given two other drugs: pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes muscles, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

    The appeal also said that witnesses during the execution saw Henley's face turn blue and purple and said the autopsy suggests he died from suffocation while he was not properly anesthetized.

    No state official has ever claimed that there were any problems with Henley's execution and the catheters used during the execution were properly placed, according to the autopsy.

    Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham Law School, said a similar argument was made in California using autopsy results of death penalty inmates who had been executed.

    "This has been ongoing matter on the level of thiopental that inmates are getting," she said.

    Denno said there could be a number of explanations for why thiopental levels in an autopsy would be low. She said certain physiological characteristics of the inmates, such as whether they were heavy drug users, could change the effects of thiopental. Also if the injection is not done properly the drugs wouldn't go into the vein, but into the surrounding tissue, she said.

    In an opinion issued by the appeals court on Thursday, Judge Danny Boggs wrote that West's arguments against the lethal injection procedure in Tennessee were made too late. But the Tennessee Supreme Court justices decided to err on the side of caution, noting in their order: "Decisions involving such profoundly important and sensitive issues ... are best decided on evidence that has been presented, tested, and weighed in an adversarial hearing."

    Sodium thiopental has been in short supply and has caused the delay of some executions around the country.

    Tennessee officials say they have enough of the drug to execute West and expect to carry out another lethal injection in December. However, a London-based group opposed to the death penalty filed suit this week to try to prevent a British company from exporting the drug that could be used in the execution of a third Tennessee inmate scheduled for early 2011.

    Edmund Zagorski, who has been convicted of committing two murders in 1983, is scheduled for execution on Jan. 11. Corrections spokeswoman Dorinda Carter said the issue should have no effect on West's scheduled execution.

    Carter said she cannot say where Tennessee obtained the drug for West's execution.

    West's attorneys also say he should not be executed because he is mentally ill. His attorneys have said he has been diagnosed with psychotic features, borderline personality disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder and was severely abused as a child.

    West and another man, Ronald Martin, were accused in the murders of the Romineses. According to court records, Martin and West got off work at a McDonald's fast food restaurant in Lake City and went to the Romines home in Union County in the early morning hours of March 17, 1986. Martin, who was 17, reportedly knew the teenage girl and the two men were allowed in the home.

    Sometime between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., the daughter and mother were stabbed to death. The teenager was raped before she was killed and stabbed 17 times in the abdomen. Fourteen of the wounds were described as "torture type cuts," according to the Tennessee Supreme Court's ruling upholding the conviction and death sentence.

    Wanda Romines suffered "a number of deep stab wounds," one of which severed an artery and caused her to bleed to death within a few minutes.

    West testified that Martin had threatened him with a gun at the crime scene and Martin also threatened to kill West's pregnant wife and unborn child if West fled the scene or approached the police.

    West's attorneys also claimed that after the two were arrested, Martin told a cellmate that he was the one who had killed the mother and daughter, not West. But a recording of that alleged confession was not allowed to be used as evidence in the trial.

    Martin was a juvenile at the time of his arrest and therefore not eligible for the death penalty. Martin pleaded guilty and was given two life sentences, which he is currently serving.

    In February 2001, West came within 10 hours of being electrocuted. West, who previously had refused to speak to attorneys working to save his life, was granted a stay by a federal judge when he decided to pursue federal appeals.

    But this time around West has completed the standard federal appeals process and his request for a stay was dismissed by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week. Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen declined to intervene when West's attorneys asked for clemency, spokeswoman Lydia Lenker said.

    http://www.necn.com/11/06/10/Tenn-in...37c0017929c97e

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    Relatives speak out on West's stay of execution

    The cousin of Wanda and Sheila Romine lashed out against the man convicted in their rape and murder Monday. This after the state Supreme Court granted Stephen West a stay of execution after his lawyers claimed lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.

    Convicted rapist and murderer Stephen West has been on death row more than two decades. He was scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday for the 1986 rapes and murders of Wanda Romines and her 15-year-old daughter Sheila, in Union County. West's legal team appealed his death sentence citing cruel and unusual punishment.

    "I really think that's absurd for him to ask something like that," said the Romines' cousin Eddie Campbell.

    But the state supreme court agreed with West's lawyers, saying the state has ignored evidence that executed prisoners suffer "extreme and unnecessary pain."

    "The pain and suffering that Wanda and Sheila had to go through, and suffering that Jack, their husband and father, and the rest of the family had to go through for the last 24 years is unreal," said Campbell.

    Taxpayers have spent more than $780,000 keeping West locked up on death row. This is the second time courts have stayed his execution.

    "I think every taxpayer should be up in arms about something like that. It's ridiculous. This should've been over in 24 hours, let alone 24 years," said Campbell.

    The 8th Judicial District Attorney's Office released a statement saying it was "disappointed to hear that the execution of Steven Michael West had been stayed. It has been over 20 years since he was tried and convicted by a Union County Jury and sentenced to death for the rape, kidnapping and murders of Sheila and Wanda Romines. He has exhausted all available appeals and now seeks to challenge the death penalty procedures in Tennessee as being cruel and unusual. We are confident that the Attorney General's Office has competent and experienced appellate attorneys who will vigorously advocate the State's position that our lethal injection procedures do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. We are hopeful that once resolved, this issue will not be raised by other prisoners who have received the death penalty in Tennessee."

    West's stay expires on November 30th. A Davidson County Chancery Court will hear evidence on West's claims that Tennessee's lethal injection procedure is unconstitutional.

    http://www.volunteertv.com/news/head...4.html?ref=844

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    Nashville judge to hear arguments from inmate against Tennessee's lethal injection procedure

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Nashville judge will hear arguments from attorneys for a death row inmate challenging the state's lethal injection procedure.

    Stephen Michael West was scheduled for execution on Nov. 9 but was given a temporary stay to address his claims in Davidson County Chancery Court in front of Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman on Thursday. His execution was reset for Nov. 30.

    West's attorneys claim the first drug in Tennessee's three-drug lethal injection protocol does not adequately anesthetize prisoners and causes them to experience unconstitutionally severe pain.

    The 48-year-old inmate was sentenced to death for the 1986 stabbing deaths of Wanda Romines and her 15-year-old daughter, Sheila Romines, in Union County.

    http://www.whnt.com/news/sns-bc-tn--...,3981769.story

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