Facts of the Crime:
Nooner was convicted and sentenced to death for the March 1993 robbery and murder of 22-year-old Scot Stobaugh.
Facts of the Crime:
Nooner was convicted and sentenced to death for the March 1993 robbery and murder of 22-year-old Scot Stobaugh.
August 17, 2007
AR Death-Row Inmate To Appear At Clemency Hearing
Lawyers for death-row inmate Terrick Nooner argued today that new analysis of videotape in the 1993 slaying of an Arkansas college student and Nooner's mental condition should halt his execution scheduled for next month. Federal public defender Julie Brain told the state Parole Board that an Australian university professor analysis of choppy footage of the shooting shows the killer as being 5-foot-6. Brain says Nooner is 5-foot-9, and added that co-defendant Robert Rockett is 5-foot-6.
She says Rockett has confessed in writing to the killing. He convicted of 1st-degree murder in the case and is serving a 65-year sentence. The men were charged with killing 22-year-old Scot Stobaugh at a coin-operated laundry. Nooner was convicted of capital murder in the death of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock student. He is seeking a clemency recommendation that would go to Governor Mike Beebe. Nooner is scheduled to be executed on September 18th.
Nooner today denied killing Stobaugh and told board members he could not remember if he had spent time with Rockett on the night of the shooting. He said he only knew Rockett because Rockett helped him with transportation. Nooner also said he had a marijuana habit during that time.
(Source: The Associated Press)
August 20, 2007
LITTLE ROCK (AP) - A divided Arkansas Board of Parole today rejected Terrick Nooner's plea for clemency, paving the way for the death row inmate to be executed next month.
The board's non-binding 4-3 recommendation to Governor Beebe was released this morning. The board last week heard testimony from Nooner and from relatives of Scot Stobaugh, who was killed in 1993 at a Little Rock coin laundry.
August 24, 2007
Court: Mental Exam Should Be Reconsidered For Nooner
A federal appeals court has ruled that a request for mental-health professionals to examine an Arkansas death-row inmate should be reconsidered in court.
Terrick Nooner, 36, is to be executed on Sept. 18. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis asked a lower court Friday to again examine a request on behalf of Nooner for the mental examination.
The state attorney general's office says the ruling could delay Nooner's execution.
Nooner was convicted of killing a University of Arkansas at Little Rock student, shooting him seven times during a 1993 robbery.
Lawyers for Nooner argued their request for the mental examinations was not an appeal of his original conviction in Pulaski County court. Instead, the lawyers said it was a means to try to have the court allow examinations the Arkansas Department of Correction has denied over the last year and a half.
September 7, 2007
Supreme Court denies condemned killer's request for stay of execution
The state Supreme Court on Thursday denied death row inmate Terrick Nooner's request for a stay of his scheduled Sept. 18 execution.
The high court, without elaboration also denied Nooner's request to hold an emergency hearing on his motion to disqualify the seven justices from proceedings in his case.
The court said Nooner's "somewhat unclear" motion for a stay failed to substantiate grounds on which the court could find good cause to order a delay.
However, the opinion does not end Nooner's effort to avoid execution in the 1993 slaying of a college student in Little Rock. He currently has 2 stay of execution requests pending in federal court, said state Assistant Attorney General Joe Svoboda.
Nooner was convicted of capital murder and aggravated robbery in Pulaski County Circuit Court and sentenced to die in the death of Scott Stobaugh, a 22-year-old University of Arkansas at Little Rock student who was killed while washing his clothes at a coin-operated laundry.
Gov. Mike Beebe set Nooner's execution date in July.
In August, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ordered a new hearing for Nooner, who claimed in a lawsuit that the state Department of Correction prevented mental health experts from conducting an evaluation of him.
On Aug. 31, Nooner's federal court-appointed attorney Julie Brain filed a motion with U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes to grant a stay of execution until the hearing on his mental evaluation is heard. No hearing date has been set.
The state attorney general's office Wednesday asked Holmes to deny the request, Svoboda said, arguing that Nooner did meet with mental health experts. Holmes was provided with visitations logs to show the meetings occurred, Svoboda said.
The attorney general's filing also asked that the case be moved to U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright's court because Wright is currently considering Nooner's lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection. 2 other death row inmates have intervened in the lawsuit.
Nooner has also asked Wright for a stay of the Sept. 18 execution until that lawsuit is addressed. No hearing date has been set.
The state Parole Board has recommended that Beebe deny Nooner's request for executive clemency.
Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said Thursday the governor has not made a decision on Nooner's clemency request.
(Source: The Arkansas News Bureau)
September 11, 2007
A federal judge has issued a stay in an execution scheduled next week for an Arkansas death-row inmate convicted of killing a university student at a coin-operated laundry in 1993.
Judge J. Leon Holmes issued the stay for inmate Terrick Nooner, who faced a September 18 execution date. The stay comes after the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled last month that a request for mental-health professionals to examine Nooner should be reconsidered in court.
Lawyers for Nooner have argued their request for the mental examinations was not an appeal of his original conviction in Pulaski County court. Instead, the lawyers say, it was an attempt to get examinations the Arkansas Department of Correction has denied over the last year and a half.
Since his incarceration, Nooner has made a number of rambling legal filings and statements about people poisoning his food, sexually assaulting him, performing witchcraft and "shooting up my blood" with drugs and poisons.
Julie Brain, a federal public defender for Nooner, declined to comment on the judge's stay.
(Source: The Associated Press)
September 25, 2009
A man who claims he, not an Arkansas death-row inmate, killed a university student at a Little Rock laundromat in 1993 gave conflicting testimony Friday during a federal court hearing aimed at sparing the prisoner from execution.
Robert Rockett contradicted himself and later acknowledged he is left handed after watching surveillance camera footage of a gunman shooting Scot Stobaugh to death at a Fun Wash laundromat on March 16, 1993. Though much of the shooting occurs off-camera, the footage appears to show the gunman using his right hand to hold the .22-caliber pistol that killed the University of Arkansas at Little Rock student.
That, assistant state attorney general Kelly Hill said, shows prosecutors properly sent Terrick Terrell Nooner to death row for the slaying. Hill's questioning repeatedly left Rockett, already convicted as a co-conspirator in Stobaugh's slaying, trying to explain away contradictions in a confession he made to federal public defenders trying to save Nooner from lethal injection.
Stobaugh died during one of the last robberies Nooner and Rockett committed during a string that left another woman dead at a Jacksonville store and included the gunpoint robbery of a Bryant Pizza Hut. Nooner shot Stobaugh seven times in the back and side during the robbery, only taking $20 and a checkbook as Stobaugh's unlocked car idled in the parking lot. Witnesses later testified at trial that Nooner bragged about committing the slaying and had Stobaugh's checkbook and a handgun like the one used in the crime.
Nooner received the death penalty for Stobaugh's slaying and Rockett later received a life-without-parole sentence in the case of the woman killed at the Jacksonville store, as well as additional sentences for Stobaugh's death and the other robbery. Double jeopardy rules prevent prosecutors from trying Rockett again for Stobaugh's slaying.
The state Supreme Court upheld Nooner's conviction in 1995. The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider the case. Federal public defenders appealed Nooner's sentence in 2007, claiming an analysis of the surveillance footage and Rockett's confession showed Nooner didn't shoot Stobaugh.
Hill repeatedly showed through questioning that Nooner said he wanted to kill those he robbed and openly boasted about his crimes, while Rockett made sure to wear gloves, a ski mask and stay out of the view of surveillance cameras.
"You were a pretty careful robber, right?" Hill asked.
Rockett said he implicated Nooner in the shooting at the time because he was scared of the death penalty and he heard Nooner talking loudly about it in jail, implicating him. However, Hill suggested Nooner wasn't yet at the lockup.
Another woman called to the stand said Rockett told her he committed the slaying. However, she acknowledged under cross-examination that she repeatedly changed her stories in recent years and had trouble remembering things as she drank alcohol and smoked crack cocaine at the time of the robbery spree.
U.S. District Judge J. Leon Holmes gave no indication as to when he might make a ruling regarding Friday's hearing. Nooner faces no scheduled execution date as a challenge to lethal injection remains before the state's Supreme Court.
Nooner, 38, has made a number of rambling legal filings and statements about people poisoning his food, sexually assaulting him, performing witchcraft and "shooting up my blood" with drugs and poisons while imprisoned. He spoke loudly with his public defenders before court began about being a saint and his body being used "to spread the radiation the federal agents have."
Nooner tried twice to get Holmes' attention at the end of the hearing, but his public defender didn't let him make a statement about those claims. Stobaugh's family, seated among others watching the court proceeding, simply shook their heads.
http://www.pbcommercial.com/articles...ath_appeal.txt
January 27, 2010
Judge dismisses suit over '93 LR laundromat death
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A federal judge has rejected a death-row inmate's claim that surveillance tape proves his innocence in the 1993 slaying of a college student at a Little Rock laundromat.
In an order issued Monday, U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes found that inmate Terrick Nooner's claims don't prove his innocence in the shooting death of student Scot Stobaugh.
At a September hearing, Nooner's attorneys argued that another man, Robert Rockett, was the gunman and that surveillance tape proved Nooner's innocence. Holmes rejected that claim, noting that the gunman in the video was right-handed and that Rockett said he was left-handed.
Stobaugh was shot seven times in the back and side at a Fun Wash in Little Rock. Nooner was sentenced to death and Rockett was convicted as a co-conspirator.
http://www.wxvt.com/Global/story.asp?S=11804197
Nooner's certiorari petition was denied in today's US Supreme Court orders.
Inmate Personal Information
DOB: 03/17/1971
Race: Black
Gender: Male
Crime and Trial Information
* County of conviction: Pulaski
* Number of counts: One
* Race of Victim: White
* Gender of Victim: Male
* Date of crime: 03/16/1993
* Date of Sentencing: 09/28/1993
Legal Status
Current proceedings:
Appeal pending in 8th Cir.
Attorneys
Bruce Eddy
Julie Brain
Scott Braden
Josh Lee
Court Opinions
Nooner v. State, 907 S.W.2d 677 (Ark. 1995) (affirming conviction and sentence), cert. denied, 517 U.S. 1143 (1996); Nooner v. Norris, 163 F.3d 602 (8th Cir. 1998) (affirming denial of habeas corpus); Nooner v. State, 1999 WL 239875 (Ark. April 22, 1999); Nooner v. State, 4 S.W.3d 497 (Ark. 1999) (affirming denial of post‐conviction relief); Nooner v. Norris, 402 F.3d 801 (8th Cir. 2005) (affirming dismissal of habeas corpus), cert. denied, 547 U.S. 1137 (2006); Nooner v. Norris, 499 F.3d 831 (8th Cir. 2007) (reversing dismissal of habeas corpus); Nooner v. Norris, 2010 WL 129650 (E.D. Ark. Jan. 11, 2010) (denying habeas corpus); Nooner v. Hobbs, 2010 WL 1876168 (E.D. Ark. May 06, 2010) (denying motion to amend judgment).
Legal Issues
On habeas petition in E.D. Ark:
(1) newly discovered evidence of actual innocence
(2) prosecutorial misconduct
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