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Thread: Justin Underwood - Mississippi Death Row

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    Justin Underwood - Mississippi Death Row




    Facts of the Crime:

    Was convicted in the killing of a Flora woman in 1994. The body of Virginia Ann Harris was found near a lake in Madison County.

    On May 19, 2006, Underwood filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/mi...6cv00273/55737

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    May 3, 2010

    Mississippi court rejects death row inmate's appeal

    JACKSON, Miss. -- The Mississippi Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by death row inmate Justin Underwood, who said prosecutors withheld polygraph test results that could have helped his case.

    Underwood was convicted in 1995 in Madison County in the slaying of a Flora woman, Virginia Ann Harris, whose body was found near a lake in Madison County.

    Underwood had been arrested on an unrelated burglary charge but allegedly confessed to killing the woman. He allegedly claimed Harris begged to be killed.

    In his appeal, Underwood said polygraph tests on the victim's husband were inconclusive and that could have helped his case.

    The court disagreed in a ruling Thursday, saying the tests weren't inconclusive and weren't admissible in court, anyway.

    http://www.sunherald.com/2010/05/13/...w-inmates.html

  3. #3
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    High Court denies innocence petition for man sentenced to death in 1994 Flora murder

    A man sentenced to death in connection with a 1994 murder of a Flora woman will not have another day in court.

    The Mississippi Supreme Court has denied a petition for post-conviction relief filed by attorneys for Justin Underwood.

    Underwood was sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder of Virginia Ann Harris. Harris was shot four times and left to die at a cattle gap on old U.S. Highway 49.

    Underwood was 22 at the time.

    A petition for post-conviction relief was filed on Underwood’s behalf by the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, the office that handles appeals for most death row inmates in the state.

    Attorneys for Underwood filed the appeal saying there was new evidence in the case, that evidence in the case had been suppressed and that the state presented false testimony at Underwood’s trial. Underwood also claimed that he had ineffective counsel and that the jury relied on racial stereotypes to make its decision. He also was requesting forensic testing on some evidence recovered at the crime scene.

    Justices handled each of Underwood’s claims individually, including that new evidence had been uncovered, including his allegation that Lindsay Harris, the victim’s husband, was having an affair at the time of the murder.

    “At this stage, Underwood must show that... the new evidence was discovered after the trial... it could not by due diligence have been discovered before trial... it is material to the issue and not merely cumulative or impeaching... and it would probably produce a different result or verdict in the new trial,” the court wrote.

    The court said Underwood’s claims that Harris was the killer were not new evidence because Underwood “attempted to blame Harris as the perpetrator” at his initial trial.

    The defendant also raised questions about how officers obtained the gun and that there are new advancements in firearms science that could determine whether the gun recovered fired the bullets that killed Mrs. Harris.

    “He argued that if the state’s firearms expert had been prohibited from testifying or that the bullets recovered from the victim’s body were fired in the gun recovered from Underwood’s car or had been cross-examined about the scientific consensus, the result would have been different,” the court wrote.

    Justices disagreed, saying that suppressing that testimony or allowing cross-examination likely would not have made a difference “in light of Underwood’s confessions that he used the gun to kill the victim.”

    Mrs. Harris had been shot 4 times. One bullet traveled from her back through her right lung, diaphragm, and liver. A 2nd bullet struck the right side of her back and penetrated her right lung. A 3rd bullet hit Mrs. Harris went through her left ear and the left side of her neck before striking her right shoulder. The final bullet entered and exited the victim’s left arm, court records show.

    “The angles of the gunshot wounds were consistent with Mrs. Harris being on her knees and the shooter standing behind her,” according to testimony provided by Dr. Steven Hayne, who performed the autopsy.

    The state alleged that Underwood stole the gun from his uncle. Underwood’s uncle, Charlie Palmer, found the gun in his vehicle, a yellow Oldsmobile Cutlass, and reported it to deputies with the Madison County Sheriff’s Department.

    Underwood, though, claims that deputies found the gun by conducting a “warrantless search of Mr. Underwood’s car, contrary to Deputy Roberts’ testimony at trial,” his attorneys state.

    Attorneys for Underwood also say that the state had suppressed evidence, including a witness’ statement that he had seen the victim in the husband’s car headed toward the scene of the crime on the morning of the crime, as well as testimony from Deputy Sheriff Nate Johnson. According to an affidavit from Pamela Hannah, an investigator with the Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, Deputy Johnson “told me in the course of his investigation he had noticed that Mr. Underwood’s vehicle had a severe oil leak”.

    “Accordingly, he went and... searched the area where eye-witness testimony had located Mr. Underwood’s alleged vehicle at the time when the murder had taken place. Deputy Johnson reported this finding to Chief Deputy Sheriff Hubert Roberts. Based on the discovery, which trial counsel received from the state of Mississippi, however, it appears that this information was never shared with the defense.”

    Hannah said Johnson further said that when he appeared at the courthouse to testify, “another law enforcement officer instructed him to leave because that officer did not want the defense to be able to call Deputy Johnson as a witness.”

    Wilton “Parker” Rowland said in a similar affidavit that he “witnessed a senior deputy of the Madison County Sheriff’s Office tell Deputy Nathaniel “Nate” Johnson to leave the courthouse so as not to be available to be called as a witness by the defense.”

    Parker, who now lives in Cleveland, Ga., was a bailiff assigned to work the Underwood trial, he said.

    Johnson was still employed with the sheriff’s office at the time he spoke to Hannah at the time the affidavit was filed in March 2020. It was not known if he was still with the sheriff’s office today. We have reached out to Madison County spokesman Heath Hall to confirm and are waiting to hear back.

    Justices, though, ruled Underwood’s claims were subject to procedural time bars. “Notwithstanding... Underwood has not shown that the state suppressed any of this evidence or that with the evidence, the outcome of the trial would have been different.”

    Underwood also alleged the state presented false evidence. At trial, the state presented two type-written confessions from Underwood, one that he had broken into his uncle’s home and stolen a revolver, and a second one that he had used the revolver to kill the victim.

    “Underwood now claims that he never confessed and that officers had him sign blank forms, which were filled in later. But Underwood’s present claim that he did not confess at all is contrary to his previous position taken at the suppression hearing, in the direct appeal, and in the initial petition for post-conviction relief,” the court wrote.

    The suspect was arrested on March 9. That day, deputies say he admitted to breaking into his uncle’s home and stealing the tools and weapons.

    On March 10, deputies said he admitted to killing Mrs. Harris, shooting her at Bozeman Lake. “However, he stated that Mrs. Harris had asked him to kill her because her husband had given her AIDS,” court records state.

    Mrs. Harris, who was 63 when she died, did not have AIDS.

    Court records indicate that Underwood was arrested by Deputy Hubert Roberts and gave his initial statement to Terry Barfield, an investigator with the sheriff’s office, and W.H. Hathcock with the Mississippi Highway Patrol. The then-suspect gave his second statement to Barfield and Investigator Larry Saxton.

    Madison County Supervisor Paul Griffin, who was with the sheriff’s department at the time, said in a February 2020 affidavit that Roberts and other deputies at the time used several tactics to get information out of suspects, including “giving suspects blank forms to sign and then later typing in the information without the suspect knowing what they were signing, such statements, consents to search, and waivers of rights.”

    He said the tactics “resulted in most offenders, but especially young Black men, signing away their rights without realizing it and ending up in jail for weeks or months without a hearing.”

    In a follow-up affidavit filed in October 2020, he said he did not have “personal knowledge of any deputies giving suspects blank statement forms to sign, so the deputies could type up fabricated statements.”

    The high court said Underwood’s claims were not only procedurally barred but were “not credible and (are) bereft of merit.”

    We have reached out to Griffin and are waiting to hear back.

    Underwood brought up other claims as well, including one that the jury improperly relied on racial stereotypes in reaching its decision and another claiming that Lindsay Harris was having an affair at the time of his wife’s death.

    During Underwood’s trial, the defense suggested that Mr. Harris was seen multiple times in Flora on the day of the murder and had been “seen around town with a younger, blonde female,” according to court records.

    Mr. Harris, though, testified that he was at work at the time in Jackson.

    The incident occurred on Feb. 15, 1994. Harris spoke to his wife before leaving home that morning to travel to his produce business at the Farmer’s Market in Jackson. Mr. Harris left for home around 4:30 that afternoon, court records show.

    Mrs. Harris was not home when he arrived, and he discovered that her makeup drawer had been pulled open, the lights were on and a makeup bottle had been left upside down.

    Mr. Harris went to feed cattle around 5 p.m. and called authorities around midnight when his wife didn’t return.

    “Underwood’s alleged newly-discovered evidence... is nothing more than speculation and innuendo and, therefore, insufficient to warrant a new trial,” the state wrote in its response to Underwood’s petition.

    As for Underwood’s claims about racism on the jury, an affidavit from Jan Rodgers appears to back them up. The Madison resident served on the jury during the Underwood trial.

    She told the Office for Capital Post-Conviction Counsel that “an elderly Black juror gave an influential speech to jurors expressing his view that Mr. Underwood should be found guilty. the elderly Black juror stated, ‘we cannot keep letting these Black men get away with this.’

    Rodgers told CPCC that she “understood him to mean that we should convict Mr. Underwood as an example to Black men, who commit violent crimes more often than other races.” Following the speech, several members of the jury changed their votes to guilty, she said.

    The Supreme Court, though, disagreed, saying that the juror’s comments “do not rise to the level of the juror’s misconduct in that case (and that) nothing indicates that the jurors relied on racial stereotypes or racial animus in reaching their guilty verdicts.”

    Krissy Nobile, director of the CPCC, says she has not had a chance to read the court’s ruling.

    (source: WLBT news)
    "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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