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Thread: Alvie Copeland Kiles - Arizona Death Row

  1. #1
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    Alvie Copeland Kiles - Arizona Death Row



    Valerie Gunnell



    Shemaeah, 5 and Lecresha, nine months





    Summary of Offense:

    Kiles lived in Yuma with his girlfriend, Valerie Gunnell, and her two daughters, nine-month-old Lecresha and five-year-old Shemaeah. On February 9, 1989, Kiles used a bumper jack to bludgeon Valerie to death in their home. He then killed the two children because they started "screaming and hollering" as he killed their mother.

    Kiles bragged about the murders to an acquaintance and took him on a tour of the murder scene, during which Kiles stepped on Valerie's head. Lecresha's body was later found floating in a canal in Mexico, but Shemaeah's body was never found.

    After first being sentenced to death in 1989, Kiles was re-sentenced to death on June 13, 2006.

  2. #2
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    August 10, 2009

    The Arizona Supreme Court on Monday upheld the guilty verdict and death sentence of a Yuma man convicted of bludgeoning his girlfriend to death.

    In a unanimous decision, the justices rejected various arguments by Alvie Copeland Kiles that there were irregularities in the trial that found him guilty of the 1989 death of Valerie Gunnell. These range from claims of ineffective assistance of counsel to what he said was extensive pre-trial publicity, notably nearly 100 articles about the case in the Yuma Daily Sun.

    The justices also were not swayed by his arguments that he should be spared the death penalty.

    Monday’s ruling does not end Kiles’ legal fight: He still has issues he can present to federal courts, including the constitutionality of the death sentence.

    It also does not affect separate guilty verdicts or sentences against him for the murder of Gunnell’s two daughters, one age 5, the other 9 months.

    While he was sentenced to death after a first trial, those convictions were overturned; a second jury could not agree on punishment, resulting in consecutive sentences of life behind bars. He did not appeal.

    According to testimony at the trial, Kiles admitted to a neighbor killing Gunnell, with whom he fought over stealing her food stamps to support his cocaine habit. Kiles also said he killed the girls because they were “crying and hollering and screaming.”

    When the neighbor doubted the story, Kiles took him in the apartment which had blood on the floor and all over the walls and ceilings.

    Gunnell’s body revealed she died of skull fractures and a brain laceration. The younger daughter, whose body was found in a canal in Mexico, also revealed head injuries; the body of the older daughter never was found.

    Kiles argued he could not be guilty of premeditation because he was intoxicated and that the jury should have been instructed about that.

    But Justice Michael Ryan, writing for the high court, said the evidence presented to the jury was enough for them to find premeditation. That included Kiles going to his car and getting his tire iron, and returning to the apartment to kill Gunnell.

    Anyway, Ryan wrote, intoxication is only a defense in question of whether someone did something intentionally. He said it is irrelevant in cases of first degree murder to whether someone acted intentionally.

    Ryan also said there was nothing wrong with holding the trial — Kiles’ second — in Yuma despite 98 articles in the Yuma Daily Sun which detailed evidence in the case including that he had told some people he was guilty. The justice said that, at best, the evidence showed regular media coverage during the 10 years between the crime and the new trial and there was nothing to show that the extent of the coverage was presumptively prejudicial to Kiles.

    The high court also said there were enough “aggravating circumstances” around the murder, including multiple deaths and that the crime was committed in an especially cruel or heinous fashion to overcome any claims by Kiles that he should be spared the death penalty.

    http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/142804

    No. 09-8515 *** CAPITAL CASE ***
    Title:
    Alvie Copeland Kiles, Petitioner
    v.
    Arizona
    Docketed: January 12, 2010
    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Arizona
    Case Nos.: (CR-06-0240-AP)
    Decision Date: August 10, 2009
    Rehearing Denied: September 2, 2009

    ~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Nov 9 2009 Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due February 11, 2010)
    Jan 25 2010 Order extending time to file response to petition to and including March 11, 2010.
    Mar 2 2010 Order further extending time to file response to petition to and including April 12, 2010.
    Apr 12 2010 Brief of respondent Arizona in opposition filed.
    Apr 28 2010 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of May 13, 2010.
    May 17 2010 Petition DENIED.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....es/09-8515.htm

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Family still waiting for justice for Valerie Gunnell

    Over 20 years ago, a family was shattered.

    And for over 20 years, Wadie and Harmon Burton have waited for the killer of their daughter and grandchildren to receive justice.

    “I feel the legal system has no feeling for the victims,” said Harmon Burton. “All the attention is on the criminal.”

    On Feb. 9, 1989, Alvie “Copie” Kiles murdered Valerie Gunnell and her two children, 5-year-old Shemaeah and 9-month-old Lecresha, with a tire iron in her Yuma apartment.

    “Copie destroyed my family that night,” said Wadie Burton, Valerie's mother. “He took a part of me that I will never get back again.”

    Kiles was convicted on three counts of first-degree murder in 1989 and sentenced to death, but a Yuma County Superior Court vacated the charges and sentence after ruling he received inadequate counsel.

    At the retrial in 2000, a jury convicted him on the murder charges but could not agree on the death sentence, so he was sentenced to life in prison.

    In 2006, a jury in Maricopa County discovered aggravating factors in the case and sentenced him to death, which Kiles and his attorneys immediately appealed.

    “A lot of people don't understand the long process (the victim's family) has to go through,” said Lorenzo Gunnell, Valerie's brother. “People see it on the news that this person was convicted of murder and they think it's over with. But it's not. It's just the beginning.”

    The trials and appeals over the past 22 years have forced Burton's family to continue to relive the horror of that February night.

    “When I have to go to (an appeal), it opens everything up all over again, just like it was 1989,” said Wadie. “I have to sit there and listen to it. I have to sit there and look at him. I have to see the pictures of my grandchildren and daughter, and it hurts.

    “There are some things I refuse to even hear. I have to walk out of the courtroom because I can't take it.”

    With the resurfacing of Kiles' name every few years, the family has been prevented from completely healing and moving past the tragedy.

    “It quiets down for awhile and you start slowly moving on,” said Gunnell. “But then you get a news flash about an appeal and you're getting subpoenaed back to court again.

    “It's like a wound that's trying to heal. But every time it's about to close, someone tears it open again and again. As long as he is breathing and fighting for his life, our lives are put on hold and we are not able to move forward.”

    Kiles' last appeal made it all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court, where he admitted to the murders but claimed the death penalty should not apply in his case because premeditation was impossible since he was intoxicated when he committed the crimes. It was rejected in 2009.

    “Why does he get to keep coming back?” Gunnell asked. “Where's the loophole to allow this? They aren't coming back from the dead.”

    Although the appeal was rejected, Kiles is unlikely to receive a warrant of execution anytime soon. When Kiles received the death sentence in 2006, it restarted the appeals process from the beginning, which means, unless something significant changes, it will take another 15-20 years before he faces execution, according to the Arizona Attorney General's Office.

    “Something is wrong with the system when a man can be convicted of three murders, twice, and expect to still be alive 40 years afterwards,” Gunnell said. “When someone is convicted, they should pay for it.

    “I understand life is precious, but there was a trial and a jury handed down a judgment. It's been appealed multiple times. What gives a killer the right to still be fed and (housed) off of hard-working people's money?”

    Despite the difficulties her family has endured, Wadie maintains she will never waver in her struggle to see justice for her daughter and grandchildren.

    “We've been through hell and back and we're still going through it. But I'll continue to go through it until they cover my head with dirt.”

    http://www.yumasun.com/articles/kile...#ixzz1T1k6xFcO

  4. #4
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On November 6, 2017, Kiles filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ar...v04092/1063261

  5. #5
    aclay
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    Is this guy almost done with his appeals?

  6. #6
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Not at least until 2030.
    "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

  7. #7
    aclay
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    Another 10 years? I hope you're wrong. This crime was really brutal.

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