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Thread: Robert Allen Poyson - Arizona Death Row

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    Robert Allen Poyson - Arizona Death Row




    Summary of Offense:

    Leta Kagen, 39, Leta's 15-year-old son, Robert Delahunt, Roland Wear, 50, and Bobby Poyson, 21, lived in a remote area of Mohave County. On August 13, 1996, Frank Anderson, 48, and Kimberly Lane, 15, had been hitchhiking in the area, and Leta agreed to let Anderson and Lane spend the night.

    Anderson, Poyson, and Lane decided to kill Leta, Robert, and Roland, and steal Roland's truck and other property.

    Lane enticed Robert into a travel trailer on the property, where Anderson cut Robert's throat nearly from ear to ear with a bread knife. Anderson held the struggling boy down, and then assisted Poyson in driving the bread knife through Robert's ear, and out his mouth. Poyson finally ended Robert's struggling by crushing his skull with a rock.

    Three to four hours later, after eating dinner, Anderson and Poyson entered Leta's mobile home, and Poyson killed her by shooting her in her head with a rifle, as Anderson held a lantern for light. Roland awoke, and Poyson shot him in his mouth. Poyson then hit Roland with the rifle stock, and Anderson hit him with the lantern. Roland and Poyson struggled out into the yard, where Anderson gave Poyson a cinder block, which Poyson used to bludgeon Roland to death.

    Poyson was sentenced to death on November 20, 1998.

    Lane has since been released from prison after testifying against Anderson and Poyson. Anderson was also sentenced to death. For more on Anderson, see: http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...zona-Death-Row

  2. #2
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On March 17, 2004, Poyson filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/ari...cv00534/43439/

    On January 20, 2010, Poyson's habeas petition was DENIED.

    http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal...0534/43439/75/

    On March 19, 2010, Poyson filed an appeal before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir.../ca9/10-99005/

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    Judge denies one motion, takes another under advisement

    A Superior Court judge denied one motion Tuesday and took under advisement another filed by two men convicted of the 1996 triple murder in Golden Valley.

    Judge Rick Williams heard a motion to reconsider his ruling in August that denied a motion to depose a former judge in the case of Frank Anderson and Bobby Poyson, two of nine Mohave County inmates who currently sit on death row.

    Anderson, 62, was sentenced to death in December 2002 for killing a Golden Valley family in August 1996. His co-defendant, Poyson, 34, also received the death sentence after being convicted in November 1998 for the murders.

    A third co-defendant, Kimberly Lane, has since been released from prison after testifying against Anderson.

    The attorney for Anderson filed a motion to reconsider Williams’ original denial of a motion saying that former Superior Court Judge James Chavez violated the defendant’s rights by appointing an incompetent attorney to handle Anderson’s case.

    Assistant Arizona Attorney’s General J.D. Nielsen argued against the reconsideration that Anderson’s attorney vigorously advocated on behalf of Anderson and provided fair counsel.

    Williams denied the motion in August and again denied the motion Tuesday. He also took under advisement a post-conviction relief motion for Anderson and Poyson that included several issues including ineffective counsel and the use of lethal injection in executions.

    Anderson, Poyson and Lane were convicted of murdering Leta Kagen, her 15-year-old son, Robert Delahunt, and Roland Wear at Kagen’s Golden Valley home Aug. 12, 1996. Anderson and Lane had hitchhiked to Golden Valley from California. After the murders, the three suspects stole Wear’s pickup truck and fled to Illinois, where Anderson, after dropping Poyson and Lane off near Chicago, was arrested in southern Illinois.

    Daniel Wayne Cook of Lake Havasu City, 49, another death row inmate from Mohave County, is also awaiting a ruling from the Arizona Supreme Court whether to execute Cook, who received the death penalty in August 1988 for beating, torturing and killing two men in Lake Havasu City in July 1987.

    Cook’s post-conviction relief is expected back in Mohave County Superior Court to be determined by a criminal court judge. Whether the case returns to the Supreme Court depends on what happens in Superior Court. No date has been set in Superior Court.

    http://www.mohavedailynews.com/artic...f623088088.txt

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    ROBERT POYSON V. CHARLES RYAN

    In today's Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals opinions, the court AFFIRMED the district court's denial of Poyson's 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas petition challenging his conviction and capital sentence for murder.

    Partial concurrence and partial dissent by Judge Thomas.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    Court upholds death sentence in brutal Golden Valley triple-murder

    A federal appeals court upheld a death sentence Friday of a man who brutally murdered three Mohave County residents in 1996.

    Robert Poyson was 19 when he drove a bread knife into the ear of a 15-year-old boy he was staying with, then proceeded to beat the youth to death. He later shot two adults he was living with at the time.

    A divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Poyson’s argument that his abusive childhood and mental illness should have been counted in his favor by the judge who sentenced him to death.

    Poyson’s lawyer vowed to appeal Friday’s decision, saying that Supreme Court rulings handed down since his client’s sentencing made it clear mitigating evidence must be considered in capital cases, even if that evidence is not directly related to the crime.

    “History of mental illness, history of abuse in his family might have caused a sentencer to show mercy,” said Michael Burke, an assistant federal public defender representing Poyson in his appeal.

    Prosecutors did not immediately return calls Friday for comment on the ruling.

    Even if a higher court orders a new sentencing for Poyson, his guilt is not in question.

    In April 1996, Poyson was homeless when he was taken in by Leta Kagen, her son Robert Delahunt, 15, and Roland Wear, who were living in a trailer park in Golden Valley near Kingman. In August of that year, Kagen also took in Frank Anderson, 48, and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Kimberly Lane.

    Court records said Poyson, Anderson and Lane conspired to kill their hosts so they could steal the family’s truck and drive to Chicago, where Anderson told the others he had organized crime connections.

    The killing occurred on Aug. 13, 1996, when Lane lured Delahunt into a travel trailer, where Anderson slit his throat with a bread knife. When Poyson heard Delahunt screaming, he ran to the trailer and repeatedly slammed Delahunt’s head to the floor as Anderson held the victim down, the court said.

    At some point, Poyson shoved the knife so far into Delahunt’s ear that it came out his nose. When that did not kill Delahunt, his attackers continued to bash his head into the floor until he died.

    Poyson and Anderson then took the family’s rifle, borrowed bullets from a next-door neighbor and cut the telephone line to Kagen’s trailer in preparation for the next two killings.

    Later that night, Poyson shot Kagen and Wear while they were sleeping. Kagen died instantly, but Wear put up a fight that spilled outside the trailer where Poyson clubbed him with the rifle and Anderson hurled a cinder block at Wear’s back, knocking him to the ground.

    While Wear was on the ground, Poyson repeatedly dropped a cinder block on his head, killing him. They covered Wear’s body, took his wallet and keys and drove to Illinois, where all three were arrested several days later.

    Poyson was indicted on three counts of murder, one count of conspiracy and one count of armed robbery. He was convicted on all charges in March 1998 after a six-day trial.

    At his sentencing hearing in November 1998, Poyson presented evidence of his drug abuse and a troubled childhood that included emotional and physical abuse by various adults in his life. But the judge discounted those factors and said the aggravating factors – multiple killings for financial gain, among others – merited the death penalty.

    On appeal, Poyson argued that lower courts had not considered the mitigating evidence because it was not directly related to the killings. But the majority in Friday’s ruling wrote that while Arizona courts do have a “troublesome history” of excluding mitigating evidence, they did not violate the Constitution in this case.

    In a partial dissent, Judge Sidney Thomas said the law dictates that events like childhood trauma must be considered at sentencing, even if they do not explain why the defendant committed the crimes.

    “Poyson was deprived of his right to an individualized capital sentencing,” Thomas wrote.

    http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2013/0...triple-murder/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  6. #6
    Senior Member Member Jeffects's Avatar
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    A bit redundant I guess, but a nice perspective of the victims.


    September 1, 1996

    Family's Tough Road Ends in Tragedy

    BY JULIE TAMAKI and MARC LACEY
    The Los Angeles Times

    GOLDEN VALLEY, ARIZ. — They were a makeshift family, living in a tired white trailer, surrounded by dead cars, junk and old tires on the outskirts of this remote Arizona desert valley. They survived without electricity or running water, but were known as generous to strangers.

    The boy, 15-year-old Robert Delahunt, walked five miles to the main highway to catch the bus to school. Sometimes he'd get lucky and a neighbor would give him a ride. But more often than not, life was a tough hike for Robert, a stocky boy with a shy grin and a homemade haircut.

    At school, class bullies singled him out for attention, teasing his clothes and his hygiene. Former teacher Mary Stuart recalled how Robert would stay inside during recess--escaping into a world of comic book characters, which he had an exceptional talent for drawing--rather than risk abuse on the playground.

    "Let's just say I wouldn't have wanted to live his life," said Norma Woods, a counselor at Robert's school. "Kids at this age can be so cruel and Robert wasn't the cleanest boy in class because he didn't have running water at his home."

    The intensely private boy confided to Stuart that he didn't like the way his mother and her boyfriend always let people stay at their place: He was angry because visitors sometimes stole what little he had.

    Authorities say the last visitors did far worse.

    The bodies of Robert, his mother and his mother's boyfriend were found Aug. 15 at their desert home. Robert was stabbed, the others were shot. Police in Illinois later arrested a 14-year-old Lancaster runaway, her 48-year-old neighbor and Robert Poyson, a 20-year-old who had rented a room from Robert's mother at the trailer home.

    Police speculate the girl and Frank Anderson hitchhiked together from their Lancaster trailer park. Anderson's wife reported him missing on Aug. 3, shortly after the girl disappeared. How they found Robert and his family is not known.

    But if they wound up in the area without money or a place to stay, someone probably directed them to Robert's house. His mother, Leta Kagen, and her boyfriend, Roland Wear, had a soft spot when it came to taking in strangers, neighbors said.

    Kagen survived on a $200-a-month welfare check, while Wear got by working banquets at a Laughlin, Nev., casino, according to family members and court records. The couple's habit of taking in strangers was a sore point with friends and family, who warned them of the dangers.

    "Roland always tried to help people," recalled Wear's mother, Eileen Wear. "It was a pattern in his life for many years. He would take them in, give them a place to stay and then help them find a job."

    Kagen was the same way, according to her estranged husband, Elliot Kagen. It was how she met Robert Poyson during a gambling trip to Laughlin in February.

    Poyson struck up a conversation with the Kagens, and later asked for help renting a room. Elliot Kagen said his wife felt sorry for Poyson and offered to take him in.

    "Bobby said he had been living out on the streets and that he wanted to get his life together," Elliot Kagen recalled. "We thought, 'OK, we'd try to help him.' We thought we would be open-minded this one last time."

    Poyson moved into the Kagens' trailer home and worked busing tables at a local diner, Elliot Kagen said. Poyson paid $100 a month in rent until he abruptly quit his job earlier this year.

    "Bobby kind of had a crazy attitude at times," Elliot Kagen said. "I guess he snapped."

    Then, in mid-August, two strangers arrived at the trailer: an older man and a young girl who said they were father and daughter.

    Elliot Kagen said he didn't meet the strangers because he had been staying in Kingman, Ariz., about 10 miles away. When Leta Kagen and Wear failed to pick up Elliot Kagen one day to show him their newly purchased pickup truck, Elliot Kagen had a friend drive him to the trailer home.

    "I knew something was wrong as soon as we drove up," Kagen said. "The house was pitch black and it was only 9 p.m. I knew Leta would have still been up so the oil lamps should have been burning."

    "I went inside and that's when I found my wife," Kagen said. "I felt her and she was stiff as a board."

    Police later discovered Wear's body beneath a stack of wood behind the trailer home. Robert Delahunt was found stabbed to death in a smaller trailer nearby.

    Police arrested Frank Anderson three days later in Anna, Ill., driving Wear's pickup truck. Anderson, who was nicknamed "the ice cream man" by neighborhood youngsters in Lancaster, was later charged with three counts of murder. His wife has since moved to Texas. Interviews with neighbors, employers and court records describe a persuasive talker who had no serious trouble with the law.

    http://articles.latimes.com/1996-09-...1_trailer-park

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    ROBERT POYSON V. CHARLES RYAN

    Rehearing Denial Spurs Harrowing Warning

    A rift in the 9th Circuit over "causal nexus" review may not be fixed in time to save the life of a man on death row in Arizona, but it must be fixed, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski and a dozen other judges warned Thursday.

    The federal appeals court in San Francisco denied Robert Poyson's petition for habeas corpus relief in March. Poyson was convicted and sentenced to death in 1998 for brutally killing three people who had offered the homeless 19-year-old a place to stay in rural Arizona.

    Poyson argued in his federal petition that state appellate courts had improperly refused to consider his history of substance abuse as a mitigating factor for sentencing after applying an unconstitutional causal nexus test.

    The 9th Circuit found on appeal that the record of the Arizona Supreme Court's ruling on the case did "not reveal whether the court considered the absence of a causal nexus as a permissible weighing mechanism ... or as an unconstitutional screening mechanism." Because such ambiguity generally precludes habeas relief, the three-judge appeals panel denied the petition.

    That prompted both a vigorous dissent from Judge Sidney Thomas and a petition for a full-court review from Poyson.

    In his dissent, Thomas argued that the Arizona court had indeed "unconstitutionally excluded mitigating evidence from its consideration because the evidence was not causally related to the crimes." That exclusion clearly deprived Poyson his "right to an individualized capital sentencing determination under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments," Thomas wrote.

    "In short," he added, "if there is any legitimate reason to believe that a court has excluded mitigating evidence from consideration, we should grant habeas relief so that a proper weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors can occur."

    The 9th Circuit denied Poyson's petition for new hearing Thursday, causing Chief Judge Kozinski to issue his stern warning.

    "Just how obvious does a state court's constitutional error have to be when a man's life is on the line?," Kozinski wrote in a dissent joined by Judge Thomas as well as Judges Harry Pregerson, Stephen Reinhardt, M. Margaret McKeown, Kim McLane Wardlaw, W. Fletcher, Richard Paez, Marsha Berzon, Mary Murguia, Morgan Christen and Paul Watford.

    Adopting Thomas's previous dissent "chapter and verse," Kozinski argued that the circuit must come to terms with the casual nexus issue soon because "there are many more cases in the pipeline where state courts in our circuit applied a causal nexus test before affirming a sentence of death."

    "We can't long continue down the path forged by the majority, which forces panels to choose between two materially different standards of review in causal nexus cases: the newly minted 'clear indication' standard and our traditional approach of scrutinizing the record and asking whether it 'appears' that a constitutional violation occurred," he wrote.

    Kozinski added that, "we must suture this fissure in our circuit law, and soon. Tragically for Robert Poyson, when we do so, it will come too late to save him. But come it will."

    http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/11/07/62755.htm
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  8. #8
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    I believe that was a 15-12 vote with quite a few Democratic appointees upholding Poyson's sentence.

  9. #9
    Moderator MRBAM's Avatar
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    Can someone explain what the issue was here that made the 9th seemingly "uneasy"?

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Is it because they are worried that there are factors that were not taken into account during sentencing, and perhaps a sentence of LWOP should have been considered???

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