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Thread: Kenneth Earl Fults - Georgia Execution - April 12, 2016

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    Kenneth Earl Fults - Georgia Execution - April 12, 2016




    Facts of the Crime:

    Was sentenced to death in May 1997 in Spalding County for killing a neighbor, 19-year-old Cathy Bonds, after breaking into her home on January 30, 1996. Mr. Fults smothered her with a pillow and then shot her before stealing her car. Mr. Fults had a history of mental illness but no prior felony convictions.

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On July 31, 2009, Fults filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/geo...v00086/160617/

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On March 14, 2012, Fults' habeas petition was DENIED in Federal District Court.

    http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal...086/160617/71/

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    Habeas relief denied today by the 11th Circuit:

    http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opini.../201213563.pdf

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    The panel was unanimous: one Obama appointee (Jordan), one Clinton appointee (Marcus) and one G.H.W. Bush appointee (Dubona).

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    August 28, 2014

    Racist Revelation Will not Lead to Habeas Relief

    By DESHAYLA STRACHAN

    (CN) - A former juror's comment that the death sentence he handed down eight years ago was "what that nigger deserved" does not justify habeas relief, the 11th Circuit ruled.

    Kenneth Fults has been on death row in Georgia since 1997 after he pleaded guilty to the 1996 murder and kidnapping of his next-door neighbor, Cathy Bounds.

    Fulton invaded Bounds' home, wrapped electrical tape around her head, put a pillow over her and shot her in the back of the head five times.

    Jurors found it an aggravating circumstance that the murder took place during a kidnapping and that it was outrageous.

    It was not until April 2005, eight years after sentencing, that Fults claimed in an amended state habeas corpus petition that the "improper biases of jurors ... infected their deliberations," causing them to "improperly prejudg[e]" his case.

    In support of that claim, Fults provided a handwritten, signed and notarized affidavit from one of the sentencing jurors, Thomas Buffington, dated two days before the petition was filed.

    "I don't know if he ever killed anybody, but that nigger got just what should have happened," Buffington wrote. "Once he pled guilty, I knew I would vote for the death penalty because that's what that nigger deserved."

    Both the state court and a federal judge found the claim procedurally defaulted, and the 11th Circuit affirmed Tuesday that the claim is barred.

    In a footnote to the 22-page decision, the three-judge appellate panel noted that "Buffington denied having any racial prejudices" during voir dire questioning before the trial.

    Buffington had told the court back in 1997 "that it did not matter that Mr. Fults was black and that Ms. Bounds was white," the footnote states.

    In addition to not providing this information to the state habeas court, however, Fults also did not explain how he came to learn of Buffington's prejudices in 2005.

    Though Fults said that failure to address the juror prejudice claim on the merits will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice, the appellate panel noted that Fults "has never even tried to make the necessary showing of actual innocence required in this context, i.e., that 'but for [this] constitutional error, no reasonable juror would have found [him] eligible for the death penalty under applicable ... law.'"

    "Mr. Fults, in sum, has failed to provide any specifics to the state or federal courts as to why the claim of racial prejudice relating to Mr. Buffington was not raised until 2005," Judge Adalberto Jordan wrote for the court in Atlanta. "Without such information, the District Court did not err in ruling that this claim was procedurally barred."

    The ruling also affirms habeas denial to Fults on the basis of his supposed mental retardation.

    "In sum, Mr. Fults has not overcome the presumption of correctness afforded to the state habeas court's factual finding that he did not suffer from 'significantly subaverage intellectual functioning,'" Jordan wrote.

    http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/08/28/70860.htm

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On November 13, 2014, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit DENIED Fults' petition for en banc rehearing.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/search.a...es/14-9740.htm

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    Georgia inmate wants new hearing over juror's racial slur

    By MARK SHERMAN
    The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON - An African-American man on Georgia's death row is asking the Supreme Court for a new sentencing hearing because a white juror who voted for the death penalty later referred to him with a racial slur.

    Kenneth Fults was sentenced to death for the 1996 killing of Cathy Bounds, who was shot five times in the back of her head. Fults has been trying for 10 years to get a court to consider evidence that racial bias deprived him of a fair trial.

    Fults' lawyers obtained a signed statement from juror Thomas Buffington in which Buffington twice used the racial slur when referring to Fults.

    State and federal judges have so far rejected Fults' appeal. His case is on the justices' agenda when they meet on September 28. Buffington died last year.

    The appeal is striking in its use of a racial slur by a juror. But claims of racial bias regularly come before the court in its consideration of death-penalty cases.

    The justices already have agreed to hear argument over whether prosecutors improperly excluded all four African-American prospective jurors from the death penalty trial of another black defendant. That argument will take place in the fall.

    At Fults' trial in 1997, Buffington told the judge and lawyers on both sides that he harbored no racial prejudice. Fults pleaded guilty to killing Bounds and a jury then sentenced him to death.

    But eight years later, an investigator who was part of Fults' legal team spoke to Buffington about his experience on the jury. Buffington, 79 at the time of the interview, twice used the slur in describing Fults.

    "Once he pled guilty, I knew I would vote for the death penalty because that's what that (N-word) deserved," Buffington said, according to the signed, April 12, 2005 affidavit in the court record.

    Court papers offer no explanation for why eight years elapsed between the trial and Buffington's comments to the investigator.

    Lindsay N. Bennett, an assistant federal public defender in Sacramento, California, who is representing Fults, said it is common in Georgia for a defendant's legal team to reach out to jurors at that stage of an appeal, but not earlier.

    "During the course of the interview about his jury service, he made the statements reflected in the affidavit," Bennett said. "They caught the investigator completely off guard because she had no reason to believe prior to that time that this was the case."

    Buffington further surprised the investigator by agreeing to sign the statement, Bennett said.

    Since including the sworn statement in Fults' file, however, state and federal judges have uniformly ruled against Fults. Prosecutors also have opposed Fults' efforts to get Buffington's remarks into court, although they acknowledged in their Supreme Court filing that their opposition is not meant "to imply that the use of this word is acceptable."

    State judges said Fults waited too long to present the statement from Buffington and did not explain why the evidence couldn't be found sooner. Federal judges in these circumstances generally defer to state courts, unless the ruling under appeal is obviously in error. A federal trial judge and three appellate judges agreed that Fults did not make a strong case for undoing the state court ruling.

    The Supreme Court is his last stop in the legal system, Bennett said. "At this point, he has essentially reached the end stages of his legal proceedings with no court having assessed the substantive evidence in this case," she said.

    http://www.cleveland19.com/story/299...rs-racial-slur

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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Fults' petition for certiorari.

    Docketed: May 13, 2015
    Linked with 14A822
    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
    Case Nos.: (12-13563)
    Decision Date: August 26, 2014
    Rehearing Denied: November 13, 2014

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/search.a...es/14-9740.htm

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Execution for Spalding County killer set

    By Rhonda Cook
    The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

    As Georgia prepares to execute a murderer next week, it announced Wednesday that another man, Kenneth Fults, will die by lethal injection on April 12.

    If Fults is put to death
    , he will be the fourth person Georgia has executed this year. Joshua Bishop is scheduled to die by lethal injection next Thursday for a 1994 murder in Baldwin County.

    Fults pleaded guilty to murdering his next door neighbor, Cathy Bounds, on Jan. 30, 1996, and only went on trial in so his punishment could be decided.

    A Spalding County jury decided Fults should die for his crime.

    Years later in an interview one of those jurors said he planned to vote for the death penalty even before the trial began and he used a racial slur when he referenced Fults. His appeals failed even though his lawyers argued that there may have been a racial element to his sentencing.

    Fults, now 48, told police he committed several burglaries during a week-long crime spree because he planned to use a stolen gun to kill his former girlfriend’s new boyfriend.

    Fults took one of those stolen guns, when he broke into his neighbor’s house.
    Bounds was home.

    She offered Fults her rings and begged for her life. Fults responded by taping Bound’s eyes closed by wrapping more than six feet of electrical tape around her head. He placed her face-down on her bed, put a pillow over her head and shot her five times.

    Fults described that murder, with a few details altered, in a letter written in gang code that police found at his trailer. Fults tried to convince detectives that he accidentally shot Bounds while in a dream-like state.

    Detectives found the stolen .22-caliber handgun he used to kill her hidden under his trailer.

    Confronted with the evidence against him, Fults pleaded guilty to murder, kidnapping and other felonies.

    On Thursday next week, Bishop is scheduled to die by lethal injection for murdering 43-year-old Leverette Lewis Morrison in Milledgeville. Bishop and co-defendant Mark Braxley murdered Morrison after spending the day drinking and smoking crack at Braxley’s Milledgeville. Bishop and Braxley planned to steal Morrison’s car while he was asleep. But Morrison woke when Bishop reached into his pants pocket for the key and they struggled.

    The two men used a car battery and a curtain rod to beat him to death, and they left his body near two dumpsters because he was too heavy to hoist him into the trash bin. They drove his car to a nearby pond and burned it.

    Bishop and Braxley also admitted they killed another man two weeks earlier. Braxley pleaded guilty and is serving life with the possibility of parole.

    At least one other Death Row inmate could see his execution date set in the next few weeks, Daniel Anthony Lucas who was sentenced to die for 1998 murder in Jones County.

    http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/e...ler-set/nqrGC/
    "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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