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Thread: Fred Furnish - Kentucky Death Row

  1. #1
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    Fred Furnish - Kentucky Death Row






    Facts of the Crime:

    Was sentenced to death on July 8, 1999 in Kenton County for the murder of Ramona Jean Williamson. On June 25, 1998, Furnish entered into Mrs. Williamson’s Crestview Hills home, strangled the victim to death. After killing Mrs. Williamson, Furnish used her debit cards to withdraw money from her bank accounts. The jury also found Furnish guilty of robbery, burglary, theft and receiving stolen money by fraud. Furnish, who had several convictions for theft and burglary, spent nearly a dozen years behind bars in Kentucky and Indiana. Each time he was released, he soon returned to prison for another burglary. By the time he was released in April 1997, he had hit a prison guard, adding an assault charge to his record.

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Death row inmate's lawyers claim old lawyers incompetent

    Lawyers for convicted killer Fred Furnish will be in Kenton Circuit Court this week trying to get their client’s conviction overturned, but the death row inmate doesn’t want to be there.

    Fred Furnish claimed in court filings that the handcuffs and shackles he will be required to wear will be “uncomfortable.” He also said the hearing would to too “stressful” and he would just prefer to stay at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville and monitor the proceeding by telephone.

    The 44-year-old Furnish of Covington didn’t find a sympathetic ear with Special Judge Jay Delaney. He ordered Furnish to attend the hearing that could last through Friday.

    Furnish argued in the filings that he had complete faith in his attorneys even though Furnish hasn’t been happy with any of his prior attorneys. This week’s hearing is to determine whether he had effective counsel at his trial, sentencing and re-sentencing a few years back.

    Furnish’s current public defenders, Meggan Smith of LaGrange and Jamesa Drake of Frankfort, are trying to show the previous lawyers were so bad their representation was equivalent to Furnish having no lawyers at all.

    “Fred’s trial attorneys were inexperienced and unprepared, and their failure to conduct any meaningful fact investigation was well documented before the trial even began,” Smith wrote in one pleading. “Fred’s attorneys failed to adequately cross-examine the Commonwealth’s witnesses ... ”

    Smith and Drake have filed more than 1,000 pages with the court they claim proves Furnish’s prior lawyers failed to interview their own witnesses, failed to suppress evidence obtained in violation of their client’s constitutional rights and reneged on a promise to develop an accomplice theory.

    Furnish’s lawyers also wanted tax dollars to pay for experts on hearing impairment and a host of other ailments. Delaney denied that request too.

    Furnish’s hearing has become an issue in the proceedings. Smith claims Furnish couldn’t hear what was going on in his first trial. For the upcoming hearing, the courthouse is providing him “amplifying headphones.”

    Taxpayers are paying to have Furnish’s mother travel 40 miles from Guilford, Ind., to Covington so she can testify on her son’s behalf. Also expected to testify is Furnish’s mother and sister.

    Furnish was sentenced to death in July 1999 for the strangulation of Ramona Jean Williamson a year earlier in her Crestview Hills home. He then used her debit cards to withdraw money. The jury also found Furnish guilty of robbery, burglary, theft and receiving stolen money by fraud.

    Furnish, who had several convictions for theft and burglary, had spent nearly a dozen years behind bars in Kentucky and Indiana. Each time he was released, he soon returned to prison for another burglary. By the time he was released in April 1997, he had hit a prison guard, adding an assault charge to his record.

    He is also serving a sentence of life without parole for 25 years for the strangulation of 70-year-old Doris Bertsch in her Kenton Hills home in June 1998.

    The other man sitting on death for a Northern Kentucky killing won a hearing Thursday on his claim of being mentally disabled and ineligible for execution. Gregory Wilson was convicted in 1988 for the kidnapping, rape and killing of Deborah Pooley in Covington.

    That hearing will also be held in Kenton Circuit Court but a date has not been set.

    http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2...rs-incompetent
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Lingering Death Penalty Case Takes Toll On Families

    A death penalty case that has gone on for 14 years has two families grieving – one over the lack of progress toward an execution and the other upset that they can't apologize for the actions of a convicted killer.

    Gayle Williamson Cummings and Michelle Hubert have spent the week in Kenton Circuit Court sitting just feet apart as attorneys argue over whether 44-year-old Fred Furnish should get a new sentencing hearing.

    Cummings said Furnish should have been executed by now for the death of her mother, Ramona Jean Williamson.

    Furnish's sister, Hubert, said the family wants to apologize to Cummings, but can't find the way to do it.

    Furnish is on death row after being convicted of strangling Williamson in her Crestview Hills home in June 1998.

    http://www.wlwt.com/news/31139316/de...#ixzz1wYdelazg
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On November 26, 2019, Furnish filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ke...9cv00170/90875

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    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Distributed for conference September 29, 2020.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....c/19-8197.html
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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Furnish's petition for certiorari.

    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Kentucky
    Case Numbers: (2018-SC-000126-MR)
    Decision Date: October 31, 2019

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....c/19-8197.html
    "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

  7. #7
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    I worked many years with Freddies dad. Freddie was a great kid who as a teenager got addicted to dope and turned into an animal. So sad, his father is as nice a man you could ever meet.

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