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Thread: Richard Dean Hurles - Arizona Death Row

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    Richard Dean Hurles - Arizona Death Row




    Summary of Offense:

    On November 12, 1992, two witnesses observed Hurles in the Buckeye Public library looking at children's books. At about 3:00 p.m., two men tried to enter the library, but found the front door locked. As these men were trying to get in, another witness saw Hurles leaving from the rear door of the library. One of the men looked in a window, and saw a woman, who was the librarian, lying in a pool of blood.

    When the police arrived, they found that the victim's blouse was bloody, her skirt was pulled up around her waist, and she was naked from the waist down. The victim had been stabbed 37 times, and later died from these stab wounds.

    That same afternoon, Hurles went to his nephew's house and asked his nephew to give him a ride to the Phoenix Greyhound bus station. On the way to Phoenix, Hurles threw a bloody teeshirt and blue jeans into the desert. He was later arrested when the bus stopped in Wickenberg.

  2. #2
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On December 19, 2008, Hurles filed an appeal in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit over the denial of his habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir.../ca9/08-99032/

  3. #3
    Oral argument in the case of Richard Hurles was heard on October 7, 2010 in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judges Harry Pregerson, Dorothy W Nelson and Sandra Ikuta are overseeing the case. Expect the sentence to be overturned.

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    I'm guessing they're pretty liberal then? I don't really know a lot about the reputations of individual judges.
    Last edited by Moh; 06-16-2011 at 05:23 AM. Reason: spelling / punctuation

  5. #5
    Harry Pregerson will never vote to uphold a death sentence. I don't know much about Dorothy Nelson other than she's voted to overturn a lot of death sentences as well. Ikuta is a Bush appointee.. I see a 2-1 vote on this one.

  6. #6
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    RICHARD HURLES V. DORA SCHRIRO

    Appeals panel tosses Ariz. man's death sentence

    PHOENIX (AP) — An appeals court on Thursday threw out the death sentence of an Arizona man convicted in the brutal killing of a librarian in 1992, ruling that the judge in the case acted improperly and demonstrated potential bias.

    A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that Judge Ruth Hilliard showed potential bias in the murder trial and sentencing of Richard Hurles, 52.

    Hurles was convicted of the attempted sexual assault and first-degree murder of Kay Blanton, who was stabbed 37 times at a Buckeye library on the afternoon of Nov. 12, 1992. Blanton was conscious throughout the attack and was alive when paramedics arrived. She died from her wounds at a nearby hospital.

    Assistant Attorney General Kent Cattani said he likely will request a hearing by the full 9th Circuit Court while simultaneously appealing the panel's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. If those don't go his way, Cattani said he will seek a resentencing hearing for Hurles and request the death penalty anew.

    Two judges on the 9th Circuit panel ruled that Hilliard showed potential bias in Hurles' case even before trial, violating his right to due process, and that she should have recused herself from the case.

    Hilliard did not immediately return a call for comment Thursday.

    The 9th Circuit judges pointed to a ruling by Hilliard that denied a request from Hurles' attorney for the court to appoint another lawyer to help her handle the complicated capital case.

    The panel's opinion, written by Judge Dorothy Nelson, said Hilliard's ruling "commented on the overwhelming evidence of guilt the state had assembled against Hurles." It also said Hilliard called the case "very simple and straightforward."

    "This description leads to only one conclusion," Nelson wrote. "According to Judge Hilliard, the case was simple because he was obviously guilty. ... Judge Hilliard's statements thus indicate a prejudgment of the case against Hurles months before she would preside over his trial and, later, unilaterally sentence him to death."

    In a dissenting opinion, Judge Sandra Ikuta said there was no clear evidence that Hilliard acted wrongly. Ikuta described the crime as especially cruel.

    "The barrage of violence inflicted on Blanton, the fact that she was conscious throughout the attack, and her struggle to fight off her attacker all indicate she suffered terribly and far above the norm of even first-degree murder," she wrote.

    Hurles' attorneys say he suffers from mental retardation, an abusive childhood, and a long history of alcohol and drug abuse that started when he was 9 years old. Hurles was drunk and high on LSD just before Blanton's murder and said he had no memory of what happened in the library, according to court records.

    A few months before Blanton's murder, Hurles was released from a 13-year prison term for separate crimes.

    Read more: http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/ne...#ixzz1RSJumnBa

  7. #7
    Correctly predicted a 2-1 vote on this. Isn't it quite sad when you can just look at the Judges on the panel and pre-determine whether the case will be overturned or not? Harry Pregerson is a complete tool, and one of the worst Judges on the 9th Circuit. I can't wait until the guy retires. He makes some of the worst decisions, not even just in death penalty cases.

  8. #8
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    RICHARD HURLES V. CHARLES L. RYAN

    Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

    The opinion filed July 7, 2011, and appearing at 650 F.3d 1301, is withdrawn, Carver v. Lehman, 558 F.3d 869, 878–79 (9th Cir. 2009), and is replaced by the opinion filed concurrently with this order. Our prior opinion may not be cited as precedent to any court. Moreover, with the original opinion withdrawn, we deem the petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc moot. The parties may file a petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc with respect to the opinion filed together with this order.

    IT IS SO ORDERED.


    DISSENT

    IKUTA, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
    Today the majority offers a new way to evade AEDPA deference: make an unsupported—and unsupportable— assertion that the state court’s fact finding process is “unreasonable” for purposes of § 2254(d)(2). In this case, the state judge resolved a recusal motion based on the judge’s own understanding of whether her impartiality might be questioned. Nothing about that is unusual: federal courts, including this one, uniformly adopt this approach. See, e.g., Suever v. Connell, 681 F.3d 1064, 1065 (9th Cir. 2012); see also Miles v. Ryan, 697 F.3d 1090, 1090 (9th Cir. 2012). Yet the majority notes that the state judge did not hold an evidentiary hearing on the petitioner’s claim that recusal was appropriate, and concludes that “[a]ny appellate court to whom this defect was pointed out would be unreasonable in holding that [the state judge’s] fact-finding process was adequate.” Maj. op at 30.

    Of course this conclusion is wrong. Worse, this conclusion is likely to work mischief by casting doubt on whether state and federal judges can ever appropriately make recusal decisions without first holding evidentiary hearings. Making this conclusion even more absurd, the absence of an evidentiary hearing in this case is entirely irrelevant, because even if all the petitioner’s allegations were true, his due process rights were not violated.

    Because this opinion misreads the law, distorts the record, and casts off AEDPA deference on the basis of a non-existent fact-finding flaw, I dissent.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  9. #9
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    What a scathing dissent! Hopefully, the Ninth Circuit sitting en banc or, if need be, the US Supreme Court will overturn the panel's preordained decision.

  10. #10
    Harry Pregerson is a joke. The guy is like 91 years old and still on the bench. It's time for him to go. I don't recall this guy ever upholding a death sentence

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