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Thread: Robert Douglas Smith - Arizona

  1. #1
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    Robert Douglas Smith - Arizona




    Facts of the Crime:

    Sometime between March 11 and March 14, 1980, Smith, Joe Leonard Lambright and Kathy Foreman picked up Sandra Owen, a young woman with mental problems, who was hitchhiking in the Tucson area. Smith raped Ms. Owen twice and the group took her to a remote area in the mountains outside Tucson. Lambright and Smith then killed the victim by choking her, stabbing her and hitting her in the head with a large rock. They concealed her body by covering it with rocks and the body was not discovered until one year later. Lambright and Smith were tried in a joint trial before two separate juries. Ms. Foreman testified against them in exchange for a grant of immunity.

    Smith was sentenced to death on May 27, 1982.

    Lambright was also sentenced to death. For more on Lambright, see: http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...zona-Death-Row

  2. #2
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On June 2, 2010, Smith filed an appeal before the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals over the apparent denial of his habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir.../ca9/10-99011/

  3. #3
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On March 16, 2015, oral argument will be heard in Smith's appeal before the Ninth Circuit sitting en banc.

    http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/calendar...6-18&year=2015

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    A federal appeals court has ordered that an Arizona death-row inmate convicted of the 1980 killing and rape of a Tucson hitchhiker be resentenced to life in prison

    TUCSON, Arizona — A federal appeals court has ordered that an Arizona death-row inmate convicted of the 1980 killing and rape of a Tucson hitchhiker be resentenced to life in prison.

    A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel Thursday overturned state court findings and ruled that Robert Douglas Smith was ineligible for capital punishment.

    The panel's two-judge majority said that's because Smith's defense showed he was intellectually disabled both before he turned 18 and when 29-year-old Sandra Owen was killed in March 1980.

    A dissenting 9th Circuit judge disputed the majority's conclusion that Smith was intellectually disabled when Owen was killed and said the federal court should have deferred to the Arizona court findings.

    http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/sto...nce-Overturned
    "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

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    The panel was made up of Judges Reinhardt (Carter), Schroeder (Carter) and Callahan (G.W. Bush).

    Reinhardt wrote the majority opinion, while Callahan wrote the dissent.

    https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datasto...4/96-99025.pdf

  6. #6
    Moderator Dave from Florida's Avatar
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    How predictable! Unfortunately for us, Carter had a load of vacancies to fill at the 9th and the new 11th Circuit. Thankfully Reagan whipped him or we would have more judges like Reinhardt, Schroeder and Merritt.

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Fortunately, Reinhardt's the last full-time Carter appointee left on the Ninth Circuit. It does boggle the mind though how he manages to get onto so many panels in death cases given that the Ninth has 29 full-time judges not to mention all of the ones on senior status such as Schroeder.

  8. #8
    Moderator Dave from Florida's Avatar
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    Unfortunately, William Fletcher is still on the Court. His Mother Betty, was appointed by Carter and served until her death a few years ago.

    Ultra liberal. Her son is as bad as she was.

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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  10. #10
    Senior Member Frequent Poster joe_con's Avatar
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    Third Arizona Inmate to die from other than execution this year, AZ might beat out CA for death other than executions this year.

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