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Thread: Ledell Lee - Arkansas Execution - April 20, 2017

  1. #31
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    BREAKING: #SCOTUS denies all five requests for a stay of execution for Ledell Lee. There are no noted dissents.

    https://twitter.com/chrisgeidner/sta...77022435696640
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    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  2. #32
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    Arkansas Puts Ledell Lee to Death, in Its First Execution Since 2005

    VARNER, Ark. — The State of Arkansas, dismissing criticism that it intended to rush too many prisoners to their deaths too quickly, on Thursday night carried out its first execution in more than a decade. Using a lethal injection drug that has been the subject of sharp constitutional debate, the state plans to execute three more men by the end of the month, before its supply of the chemical expires.

    Ledell Lee, who was condemned to death for the murder of Debra Reese more than 20 years ago in a Little Rock suburb, died at 11:56 p.m. Central time at the Cummins Unit, a prison in southeast Arkansas, after the reprieves he had won in federal and state courts were overturned. He received injections of three drugs: midazolam, to render him unconscious; vecuronium bromide, to halt his breathing; and potassium chloride, to stop his heart.

    A spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Correction, Solomon Graves, said Mr. Lee had requested holy communion as his last meal.

    An evening of appeals kept Mr. Lee alive as his death warrant neared its midnight expiration. The Supreme Court, as well as a federal appeals court in St. Louis, issued temporary stays of execution while they considered his legal arguments. In Little Rock, the Arkansas capital, Gov. Asa Hutchinson monitored developments at the State Capitol.

    At one point on Thursday night, the United States Supreme Court nearly halted Mr. Lee’s execution, but decided, 5 to 4, to allow the state to proceed with its plan, which had called for eight prisoners to be put to death over less than two weeks. The court’s majority — which included the newest justice, Neil M. Gorsuch — did not explain its decision, but in a dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer complained about how the state had established its execution schedule because of the approaching expiration date of Arkansas’s stock of midazolam.

    “In my view, that factor, when considered as a determining factor separating those who live from those who die, is close to random,” Justice Breyer wrote. “I have previously noted the arbitrariness with which executions are carried out in this country. The cases now before us reinforce that point.”

    It was not clear until Thursday night, after years of legal maneuvering that intensified in recent days, that Mr. Lee, 51, would be executed. Through his lawyers, who raised concerns about his intellectual capacity and the personal conduct and conflicts of some people who were involved in his trial, Mr. Lee maintained his innocence, and a state judge’s ruling threatened to block the state from using one of its execution drugs.

    But the courts ultimately allowed his death sentence to be carried out, making him the first prisoner in Arkansas to be executed since 2005. He had been sentenced to death in 1995 after a jury found that he had murdered Ms. Reese with a tire thumper in Jacksonville. In a 1997 ruling that upheld the conviction, the Arkansas Supreme Court said Mr. Lee had struck Ms. Reese 36 times with the small bat-shaped tool, which her husband had given her for protection.

    The Arkansas Parole Board said this month that Mr. Lee’s plea for executive clemency was “without merit,” and this week, the courts repeatedly rebuffed arguments to, at the least, delay his execution.

    “The verdict has been attacked, appealed and considered multiple times here and in higher courts, and this court will not now substitute its own judgment for that of the jurors two decades removed,” Judge Herbert T. Wright Jr. of Circuit Court in Little Rock wrote in an order on Tuesday.

    As Mr. Lee’s lawyers spent Thursday urging the courts to spare his life, the cascade of legal developments did not affect the stay of execution that another inmate, Stacey E. Johnson, received on Wednesday evening, about 24 hours before he was scheduled to be put to death.

    Mr. Johnson has also claimed innocence, and the State Supreme Court’s decision will allow for new forensic testing of some evidence. He was convicted of the 1993 rape and murder of Carol Heath, whose two children, according to the state, “were left alone overnight with their mother’s lifeless body.”

    Some of the most pitched legal clashes surrounding Arkansas’s planned executions centered on the state’s execution drugs, including midazolam, a common sedative that has been used in executions in the United States since 2013.

    The drug was conceived decades ago as an alternative to Valium, and it grew in popularity to become one of the world’s essential drugs, a pharmaceutical staple for procedures like colonoscopies. But as states struggled to obtain drugs for executions, they began to turn to midazolam, which has also been known as Versed, as a way to render prisoners unconscious before infusions of other drugs that cause excruciating suffering.

    Most executions involving midazolam have gone as planned. But a handful — in Alabama, Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma — were criticized as botched, and some opponents argued that the drug had not sedated prisoners enough to allow them to die painless deaths. In 2015, the United States Supreme Court upheld the use of midazolam as an execution drug, but its future has remained a subject of deep dispute that has bounced among the nation’s trial and appellate courts.

    Arkansas was merely the latest stage for a debate that has centered on the Eighth Amendment’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment. A Federal District Court judge in Little Rock moved on Saturday to block the Arkansas executions because of her concerns about midazolam. That decision was later overturned.

    But the state also faced resistance in the courts because of how it purchased the second of its lethal injection drugs, vecuronium bromide. The nation’s largest pharmaceutical distributor, McKesson Corporation, accused the state of deceiving it as part of an end-run around restrictions on the sales of drugs that can be used in lethal injections.

    According to the company, the Arkansas Department of Correction did not disclose its intent for the drug, which the state had struggled to purchase elsewhere. The inadvertent sale, the company said, was improper, and it demanded that Arkansas return the drug.

    Judge Alice Gray of Circuit Court in Little Rock issued an order blocking the state from using the drug, effectively staying the executions. The state, which denied wrongdoing, appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday.

    “No valid legal theory supports McKesson’s argument that a person who purchases a product must use that product in a certain way as dictated by the seller after the completion of the transaction, or must return the product on demand by the seller after the completion of the transaction,” lawyers for the state wrote in their appeal.

    The State Supreme Court agreed with the attorney general’s office on Thursday evening and lifted Judge Gray’s order, allowing prison officials to use the drug it bought from McKesson last summer.

    Mr. Lee’s execution prompted immediate criticism.

    “Today is a shameful day for Arkansas, which is callously rushing the judicial process by treating human beings as though they have a sell-by date,” Amnesty International said in a statement. “While other states have increasingly come to the conclusion that the capital punishment system is beyond repair, Arkansas is running in the opposite direction from progress. This assembly line of executions must stop, and this cruel and inhuman punishment should be ended once and for all.”

    But Arkansas officials cast the execution as a milestone.

    “Tonight, the lawful sentence of a jury which has been upheld by the courts through decades of challenges has been carried out,” the Arkansas attorney general, Leslie Rutledge, said in a statement. “The family of the late Debra Reese, who was brutally murdered with a tire thumper after being targeted because she was home alone, has waited more than 24 years to see justice done. I pray this lawful execution helps bring closure for the Reese family.”

    Speaking at the prison, Mr. Hutchinson’s spokesman, J. R. Davis, said, “It’s a moment of reflection, but at the end of the night, the right thing was done.”

    https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/2...ww.google.com/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  3. #33
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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  4. #34
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    Happy to see AR officially back in the mix. Good for them, and good riddance to 1 less thug.

  5. #35
    petedeamon
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    The one reality that seems to be paramount with these that murder and torture is that they want from society what they were unwilling to give to their victims......mercy.

  6. #36
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    Jacksonville City Council calls special vote after executed death row inmate’s family files lawsuit

    JACKSONVILLE, Ark. – The City Council has scheduled a special vote on a proposed order for Friday at 6 p.m.

    This meeting was called after Patricia Young, Ledell Lee’s sister filed a complaint against the City for the denial of her Freedom of Information Act request to release and test the physical evidence in Jacksonville Police Department’s custody.

    Her brother Ledell Lee was convicted for a 1993 murder and later executed in 2017. Young’s attorney proposed an order that stated the city would release the requested physical evidence to her under the FOIA.

    The City of Jacksonville Attorney, said she as well as the Attorney General’s office do not interpret physical evidence to be a public record that is available for release for public inspection under FOIA.

    If this order is approved the city will maintain physical custody of all the evidence, have it tested at a mutually agreeable facility, and share the results of said testing with Young and her counsel.

    https://www.kark.com/news/local-news...files-lawsuit/
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  7. #37
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Arkansas City Agrees To DNA Testing In Ledell Lee Case

    An Arkansas city council has agreed to allow new tests on fingerprint and DNA evidence relating to a man Arkansas executed in 2017.

    The Jacksonville City Council voted Friday to allow the new tests on evidence that from Ledell Lee‘s family contends the tests could exonerate Lee of the 1993 slaying of Debra Reese.

    This comes after the American Civil Liberties Union and the Innocence Project asked a state judge to force Jacksonville authorities to release fingerprint tests and DNA they say supports claims convicted murderer Lee was innocent of the murder.

    The groups filed the lawsuit on behalf of Patricia Young, Lee’s sister.

    Lee insisted to the end that he was innocent of the slaying.

    “This lawsuit was always about finding the truth, and we’re glad the Jacksonville City Council has decided to do the right thing and allow this evidence to be tested,” said Holly Dickson, interim executive director and legal director of the ACLU of Arkansas. “While nothing can undo the injustice of Ledell Lee’s execution, tonight’s vote is a positive and long-overdue step that could well identify the real perpetrator of the crime. We thank Jacksonville city leaders for standing on the side of openness and hope to receive the court’s approval. Arkansans deserve the truth.”

    Lee was the 1st of 4 inmates Arkansas executed in 2017 before its supply of a lethal injection drug expired.

    The ACLU and Innocence Project joined his case days before he was executed by Arkansas, but were unable to get new testing before his scheduled execution.

    The groups at that time identified “serious flaws in the evidence used to convict Lee” and DNA evidence that reportedly belonged to the killer, but was never tested with modern technology.

    According to court documents filed Thursday, attorneys for Lee’s family say “no physical evidence directly tied Mr. Lee to the murder of Ms. Reese.”

    The lawyers say that crime scene evidence shows that “whoever killed Ms. Reese was not wearing Ledell Lee’s shoes or clothing.” They also say that the shoe pattern on Reese’s cheek does not match the pattern of Lee’s shoes.

    “We are grateful that the Jacksonville City Council tonight voted to do this testing,” said Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. “This DNA and fingerprint evidence quite possibly holds the key to who killed Debra Reese in 1993. It should have been tested before Ledell was executed. By voting to turn over the evidence for testing now, the Council members have shown that they are earnest in their pursuit of the truth and justice for the citizens of their city. We thank them for their courage.”

    Reese was sexually assaulted and murdered in her own home on the morning of Feb. 9, 1993. Police say she was approximately hit “36 times with a tire thumper.”

    Lee was arrested about an hour after the murder after witnesses claimed they saw him walking down the street. He was arrested at his mother’s house and Lee’s brother told police that the two went to make a payment at a Rent-A-Center store “shortly before noon.”

    In April of 2017, a Pulaski County Circuit Court judge denied a motion set forth by the ACLU, which asked for new DNA testing for Ledell Lee’s case.

    If the new testing is granted and concludes that Lee was not responsible for Reese’s murder, it would be the first time an innocent man was executed under Arkansans’s modern death penalty.

    (source: 5newsonline.com)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
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  8. #38
    Senior Member Frequent Poster NanduDas's Avatar
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    New testing in Ledell Lee case finds 'unknown male' DNA on murder weapon

    New DNA testing that was completed four years after the State of Arkansas executed Ledell Lee for the 1993 murder of Debra Reese was released on Friday.

    In January 2020, the Innocence Project and ACLU requested new DNA testing in Lee's case. Attorneys said that no physical evidence connected Lee to the murder and there were "serious flaws in the evidence to convict Lee."

    The testing concluded that Lee's DNA was not on the wooden club or a bloody shirt found at the scene.
    According to the test results, DNA of an "unknown male" was found on the wooden club that was reportedly used as the murder weapon and the shirt.

    The testing concluded that there is "moderate support" that blood on Lee's left shoe could belong to Reese.

    "I immediately thought this is something we needed to determine and establish before we executed back in 2017," said Furonda Brasfield, a local attorney.

    She followed the case closely and protested against Lee's execution for lack of definitive proof.
    "We begged the Attorney General not to ask the Governor for these dates to be set," said Brasfield.

    "Before you execute someone make sure you examine all of the evidence carefully, especially DNA evidence because we know now that the DNA evidence can be compelling and definitive to say one way or the other," said Brasfield.
    In a statement given to THV11, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said:

    "The courts consistently rejected Ledell Lee's frivolous claims because the evidence demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt that he murdered Debra Reese by beating her to death inside her home with a tire thumper. After 20 years, I am prayerful that Debra's family has had closure following his lawful execution in 2017."

    The Innocence Project and ACLU said five of the six hairs tested for mitochondrial DNA excluded Lee as the source. Lee could not be "excluded as a potential source" in one of the hairs.

    "Mitochondrial DNA testing analyzes DNA shared by all individuals in a common maternal line, including distant relatives; it can be used to exclude known individuals as the source, but cannot be the basis for absolute identification or individualization," the ALCU and Innocence Project said in a press release.

    No potential matches have been found in the national DNA database.

    Reese died after she was sexually assaulted in her own home in February 1993. Police say she was hit around 36 times with a "tire thumper."

    Even up to the day of his execution, Lee maintained his innocence.

    https://www.thv11.com/mobile/article...9-52099d7ed00f
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  9. #39
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    Arkansas governor reacts to new DNA evidence in executed inmate's case

    Arkansas death row inmate Ledell Lee was executed in 2017 after a jury found him guilty of murdering Debra Reese almost 25 years prior. But new DNA testing from the 1993 killing revealed genetic material from a man other than Lee.

    Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who set the date for Lee's execution, said on Tuesday that the new evidence is inconclusive and a jury found Lee guilty based on the "information that they had."

    "Whenever you make tough decisions, whenever you have to carry out the decision of a jury, you realize that it's been reviewed by the supreme court at every level," Hutchinson said at a news briefing. "They affirmed the convictions and it's my duty to carry out the law. The evidence obviously that's been uncovered is inconclusive and the fact is that the jury found him guilty based upon the information that they had."

    Lee's family, with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Innocence Project, requested that his case be reviewed in January of 2020. The groups said the technology present in the mid-'90s to analyze the evidence was not sufficient to convict him of the murder.

    Last year, the city of Jacksonville agreed to allow new tests on fingerprints and DNA evidence after the groups sued.

    The ACLU and the Innocence Project said on Tuesday the testing revealed DNA material from an unknown male other than Lee on the wooden club used to kill Reese and a bloody shirt that was wrapped around it. The groups said the DNA profile did not match any in a national database.

    https://katv.com/newsletter-daily/ar...d-inmates-case
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  10. #40
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    He was never retried for the murder of Christine Lewis because his death sentence for Debra Reece was upheld and he was convicted of two rapes. He was linked thru DNA to the murder of Christine and the rapes.

    So the next time someone says he is innocent I would just ask "Is he, is he really innocent?"
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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