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Thread: Roger Lee Gillett - Mississippi

  1. #11
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Expert: Gillett case in limbo after death sentence overturned, but that's not unusual

    By Lici Beveridge
    The Hattiesburg American

    A man whose death row sentence for capital murder was overturned in June 2014 has been waiting four years for a new sentencing hearing — his case apparently forgotten and left collecting dust on a virtual shelf.

    And Roger Gillett, convicted of killing two people and transporting their bodies across state lines, is still listed on the Mississippi Department of Corrections as being on death row.

    While four years may seem like a long time, it's not all that unusual for a new sentencing hearing to take years to prepare, said Matthew Steffey, a professor of law at the Mississippi College School of Law in Jackson.

    "For a defendant to still be going through the legal process 14 years after the date of a death penalty crime is not especially unusual," he said. "This is hardly the oldest death penalty case in America."

    However, Steffey said, the longer a case is delayed the harder it is for the prosecution to present its case.

    "Witnesses die or become unavailable, evidence becomes lost," he said. "There are all sorts of practical reasons to explain this away."In addition, (Patricia) Burchell was not the district attorney in the original trial, so may need more time to get up to speed on the case," Steffey said.

    Gillett, who turned 44 on June 9, and his then-girlfriend, Lisa Jo Chamberlin, 45, killed Gillett's cousin Vernon Hulett, 34, and Hulett's 37-year-old girlfriend, Linda Heintzelman, because the victims would not open a safe. The two were killed in Hulett's Hattiesburg home believed to be around March 19-20, 2004.

    The couple's bodies were dismembered and placed in a freezer, which was taken to an abandoned farm in Russell County, Kansas, owned by Gillett's father and where Gillett and Chamberlin were believed to be living after they left Hattiesburg.

    Gillett and Chamberlin were arrested in Kansas and extradited to Hattiesburg to await trial in Forrest County.

    According to Chamberlin's videotaped confession played at her trial in 2006, Hulett and Heintzelman were beaten and stabbed. Hulett died first. Chamberlin said Gillett suffocated Heintzelman with a plastic bag she gave him after they discovered Heintzelman did not die from her other wounds.

    Gillett was tried in 2007. Both were convicted of two counts of capital murder and sentenced to death.

    Chamberlin's convictions were vacated in March 2017 by a three-judge panel in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals only to be reviewed six months later by the full court, which decided in March the convictions would stand.

    Chamberlin is listed as an inmate at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County. She is the only female inmate on Mississippi's death row.

    Gillett's sentence was vacated on June 12, 2014, by the Mississippi Supreme Court, which upheld his convictions but on the sentence sided with Gillett, who argued the sentence must be set aside if a jury is allowed to consider inadmissible evidence that it otherwise would not have.

    "The citizens of the state should be subject to the same protections when there is inadmissible evidence (allowed) to support an aggravator," said Scott Johnson with the Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, in an Associated Press story on the court's decision.

    That "inadmissable" evidence was Gillett's attempt to escape from the Kansas jail where he was held after his arrest. It was deemed irrelevant since it did not relate to the actual killings.

    A jury must consider a number of factors when deciding whether to sentence someone to death, including the severity of the crime, for instance if it was particularly heinous or committed during another felony such as robbery or rape. Escape or attempted escape may be considered if the capital crime was committed to help the perpetrator escape, but not in Gillett's case.

    In the state Supreme Court's 6-3 decision, justices said not every escape is considered a crime of violence under Kansas law. Former Justice Ann Lamar, who wrote the majority opinion, said the Kansas crime cannot be used to support a death sentence in Mississippi.

    On Sept. 18, 2014, the court denied the state's motion for rehearing, again remanding the case back to the Forrest County Circuit Court.

    In a sentencing hearing, evidence presented at trial must be presented again to a new jury to decided whether Gillett should receive the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

    "He doesn't get a second bite at being acquitted," Steffey said.

    Since theSupreme Court ruling, no other records appear on the court's website until a letter dated March 21 sent by the court to Johnson, Special Assistant Attorney General Jason Davis with the attorney general's office and Forrest-Perry CountyBurchell, asking for an update on the case's status.

    Two letters were returned to the court, filed April 24: one from Johnson, the other from Special Assistant Attorney Cameron Benton.

    Johnson in his letter said he is prohibited by law from practicing in any area other than capital post-conviction, so cannot be Gillett's attorney of record.

    "Please accept my apology for the delay in responding to your correspondence dated March 21, 2018, regarding the above-referenced matter," he wrote. "I was under the mis-impression that a staff attorney had already answered your inquiry. When the Mississippi Supreme Court entered a decision on June 12, 2014, vacating Mr. Gillett's death sentence, it is my understanding that my representation of him was concluded.

    "I say that because it appears that the District Attorney has had (since that date) the option of choosing to have Mr. Gillett sentenced to life without the possibility of parole or placing his case on the active trial docket for purposes of setting a new sentencing hearing."

    Johnson was not available for comment. Multiple calls to Kelsey Rushing of the Mississippi Office of the Public Defender's Capital Defense Division were not returned.

    Gillett's case, however, appears on an April 19 open docket listed on the public defender's website.

    Benton's letter says he contacted Burchell about the resentencing. He said she told him she is "considering all sentencing options and has, indeed, discussed a possible plea with Gillett’s attorney."

    "As of this writing, no sentencing date has been set," Benton said in the letter.

    A new sentencing hearing would be involved, time consuming and costly, Steffey said. A plea could avoid a new hearing, but that would mean the death penalty would be taken off the table.

    "A prosecutor is not going to brag that they've worked out a plea in a former death penalty case," he said. "It may be a resignation to the reality of the situation."

    The attorney general's office said the case is in Burchell's hands. Multiple calls to her office were not returned.

    https://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/...ned/696529002/
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  2. #12
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Hattiesburg man sentenced to death for 2004 murders is resentenced to life without parole

    By Lici Beveridge
    The Hattiesburg American

    A man sentenced to death for killing his cousin and his cousin's girlfriend in 2004, will no longer sit on death row.

    Roger Gillett, 44, and his then-girlfriend Lisa Jo Chamberlin were convicted of two counts each of capital murder for the deaths of Vernon Hulett, 34, and Linda Heintzelman, 37, at Hulett's Hattiesburg home, then putting their dismembered bodies in a freezer and taking them to an abandoned farm in Kansas.

    Gillett appealed his 2007 conviction. The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed his convictions in 2014 but overturned his death sentence because Gillett's jury was allowed to consider inadmissible evidence that it otherwise would not have.

    That "inadmissible" evidence was Gillett's attempted escape from the Kansas jail where he was held after his arrest. It was deemed irrelevant since it did not relate to the actual killings.

    A jury must consider a number of factors when deciding whether to sentence someone to death, including the severity of the crime, for instance if it was particularly heinous or committed during another felony such as robbery or rape. Escape or attempted escape may be considered if the capital crime was committed to help the perpetrator escape, but not in Gillett's case.

    In the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision, justices said not every escape is considered a crime of violence under Kansas law. Former Justice Ann Lamar, who wrote the majority opinion, said the Kansas crime cannot be used to support a death sentence in Mississippi.

    On Sept. 18, 2014, the court denied the state's motion for a rehearing, sending the case back to Forrest County Circuit Court.

    Four years later, Gillett was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    Before Gillett was resentenced, court documents show the victims' families were consulted by the district attorney, who "has carefully considered all matters pertinent to this case and that she will not seek the death penalty."

    Forrest County District Attorney Patricia Burchell said she could not comment on the case at this time.

    Chamberlin's convictions were vacated in March 2017 by a three-judge panel in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals only to be reviewed six months later by the full court, which decided in March the convictions would stand.

    Chamberlin, convicted in 2006, is listed as an inmate at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County. She is the only female inmate on Mississippi's death row.

    https://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/...ers/949284002/
    Last edited by Moh; 08-10-2018 at 09:35 AM. Reason: Hadn't included the whole article.

  3. #13
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Related:

    Supreme Court denies review in death row case of Mississippi woman

    Lisa Jo Chamberlin was convicted for the March 2004 killings of Linda Heintzelman and Vernon Hulett in Hattisburg

    By Waverly McCarthy
    WLBT News

    JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - The U.S. Supreme Court announced it will not review a Mississippi death row inmate’s case after her sentence was reinstated by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last year.

    Lisa Jo Chamberlin is the only woman on death row.

    She and her then-boyfriend, Roger Lee Gillett, convicted for the March 2004 killings of Linda Heintzelman and Vernon Hulett in Hattiesburg.

    Their bodies were found in a freezer at an abandoned farm in Kansas.

    Gillett also got the death penalty.

    https://www.wlbt.com/2019/06/28/supr...issippi-woman/
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