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Thread: Jody Lee Miles - Maryland

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    Jody Lee Miles - Maryland




    Facts of the Crime:

    Convicted in the 1997 shooting death of Edward Joseph Atkinson, an Eastern Shore community theater manager.

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On August 13, 2007, Miles filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/mar...v02135/151811/

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    MILES v. STATE

    Md. Court Upholds Standard for Death Penalty

    ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Maryland's highest court has ruled that the standard jurors use in deciding whether to impose the death penalty is constitutional.

    The Court of Appeals, by a 4-3 vote on Tuesday, disagreed with Jody Lee Miles' claim that the process for weighing the circumstances of the crime is unconstitutional in Maryland, because it doesn't use the court's highest threshold of certainty.

    Miles was sentenced to death for the 1997 robbery and murder of theater manager Edward Atkinson of Salisbury. He is one of five men on death row in Maryland.

    http://www.wboc.com/story/15512380/m...-death-penalty

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    On Maryland's Death Row: Jody Miles

    Jody Miles, 39, convicted in March 1998 of killing a man at a roadside in Mardela Springs, Md., has been on Maryland’s death row for 11 years.

    According to court records, Miles met and killed Edward Joseph Atkinson on April 2, 1997, with a single gunshot to the back of the head at point blank range.

    Miles, of Ridgely, Md., was later arrested for the murder based on evidence recorded by a neighbor who was listening to his personal police scanner and unintentionally heard a cell phone conversation between Miles and his wife, court records state.

    After his arrest April 22, 1997, Miles told investigators that he was hired by a loan shark to collect a package from Atkinson. The two met at a roadside in Wicomico County. Miles later told police that the victim did not produce the package.

    According to court documents, Miles said that he became afraid for his life when the victim would not face him, then reached into the inside of his jacket. Miles pressed the gun to the back of Atkinson’s head and killed him with one shot, according to his own confession. Miles dragged the body into a nearby woods, fled the scene, then returned a day later with the intention of burying the body, court documents state.

    By then, Wicomico County police had discovered Atkinson’s abandoned vehicle on the side of the road, according to court records.

    Court documents indicate that on April 2, 1997, Atkinson was picking up a tuxedo rental at a mall in Salisbury, Md., when he received a page. He left the mall immediately and was last seen alive driving his Toyota Camry down Old Bradley Road in Mardela Springs. Fifteen minutes afterwards, a witness heard a single gunshot.

    Dorothy Atkinson, the victim’s mother, notified police when Atkinson did not show up for dinner at home and for a play he was slated to direct. A search ensued, and police found Atkinson’s Toyota near Old Bradley Rd at 9 p.m. on April 3, 1997.

    The next morning, Atkinson’s brother, Robert Atkinson, and a friend returned to the scene. Led by a trail of footprints, they discovered Edward Atkinson’s body in the woods. Atkinson’s pockets had been emptied, and police matched cowboy boot footprints found near the car with the footprints made in the woods.

    When Robert Atkinson contacted his brother’s credit card companies, he learned that the cards were used at an ATM in Cambridge, Md., a gas station in Harrington, Del., two department stores and a Shuckers Pier 13 Restaurant in Dover, Del. During the next two weeks, police circulated a composite sketch drawn from the recollection of two Tru Blu gas station attendants.

    On April 15, 1997, Caroline County resident James Towers was in his home listening to police and fire department communications on a scanner. The scanner picked up a cell phone conversation between Jody Miles, and his wife, Jona Miles, court records show. Towers overheard the two talking about avoiding the Tru Blu gas station, which had been mentioned in the local news. Towers decided to record the conversation, in which the husband and wife discussed destroying evidence of the murder.

    Towers notified the police, and a deputy in the Caroline County Sheriff’s Department identified the voice of Jona Miles. Later a Delaware State Police detective who knew the couple identified the voices of Jody and Jona Miles. Caroline County Police arrested Jona Miles April 22, 1997. She told them she had thrown her husband’s murder weapon into the Choptank River and disposed of his boots and blood-stained clothes in a dumpster in Centreville, Md.

    Police recovered the gun and arrested Jody Miles 20 days after the death of Edward Atkinson. He was charged with first-degree felony murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, robbery and use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence.

    Miles confessed to the murder, then pled not guilty in Queen Anne’s County Circuit Court, claiming that all evidence obtained after what his lawyer argued was an illegal wiretap, including his admission, should be stricken from the record. In 1998, the Queen Anne’s court threw out everything but the confession, and on March 19, sentenced him to death.

    Miles’ murder conviction appeal was denied in September 1998 when the court decided there were no errors made in the trial. His motion for a new sentence was denied in 2000. Miles has been denied nearly a dozen post-conviction petitions and appeals since.

    Jody Miles is one of five men on Maryland’s death row.

    Source

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    On March 19, 2012, the US Supreme Court denied Miles' certiorari petition out of state court.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es/11-7932.htm

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    Maryland death penalty is only for treason, lawyers argue

    The Maryland Court of Appeals heard a new argument against the death penalty Thursday, when attorneys for a man convicted of a 1997 murder argued that the state's constitution only allows capital punishment in cases of treason.

    Public defender Brian Saccenti argued that a clause in the Maryland Declaration of Rights referring to "sanguinary laws" limits the death penalty to crimes that threaten the stability of the state government.

    "We have ways to fairly incapacitate people that we lacked in 1776," Saccenti told the judges, arguing that the state can be protected without executions.

    James E. Williams, a senior counsel with the Maryland Attorney General's office, argued in reply that the framers of the state's constitution intended for the death penalty to be used in a range of cases — and that one went on to sign death warrants as governor.

    "The legislature has determined that a narrowly construed death penalty does serve the safety of the state," he added.

    The appeal was brought on behalf of Jody Lee Miles, who was convicted in 1998 of a Wicomico County killing.

    http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/mar...,5053129.story
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    In any case, Maryland's electorate voted in favor of a new constitution and Declaration of Rights in 1867. So, even from a strict originalist viewpoint, conditions in 1867 would seem to be more germane than those in 1776.

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    Court upholds constitutionality of death penalty

    Maryland's highest court has rejected a claim by a man on death row that his sentence is unconstitutional.

    The Court of Appeals ruled on Monday against Jody Lee Miles' claim that the Maryland Constitution limits capital punishment to treason against the state government. The Daily Record reports (http://bit.ly/1bQyzeM) that the court ruled 6-1.

    Miles was sentenced to death for the 1997 robbery and murder of theater manager Edward Atkinson of Salisbury. He is one of five men on death row in Maryland.

    Maryland lawmakers abolished the death penalty this year, but the five men had been sentenced before the law was abolished.

    Monday's ruling only affects the five condemned men.

    http://www.chron.com/news/crime/arti...ty-5011434.php
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

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    Death row inmate: Executions repealed for me, too

    Lawyers for Jody Lee Miles say executions illegal following death penalty repeal

    By Ian Duncan
    The Baltimore Sun

    Death row inmate Jody Lee Miles asked an appeals court this week to rule that Maryland's death penalty repeal applies to inmates who were already sentenced to die when executions were outlawed last year.

    Attorneys for Miles, who was convicted in a 1997 murder on the Eastern Shore, said the General Assembly was so thorough in its dismantling of the laws that governed capital punishment in Maryland that the state no longer has the authority to kill anyone.

    "Mr. Miles cannot be executed and his sentence must be set aside," the attorneys wrote.

    Miles is among four inmates on death row — a fifth died last weekend — who have been in limbo since a 2006 court decision that threw out procedures for lethal injections.

    The repeal of the death penalty last year has made their situations even more complicated. Miles' lawyers, in mounting the first challenge based on repeal, argue it offers them a chance at resolution.

    No new rules for executions were put in place after 2006. Legislators took away the authority of the state corrections department to come up with regulations for death sentences, Miles' attorneys argued in papers filed Wednesday with the Court of Special Appeals, making executions illegal.

    A spokesman for the corrections department has said its lawyers told officials they no longer have the power to develop new regulations. But the Attorney General's Office, which is handling the appeal for the state, declined to comment on the specifics of Miles' argument. It has until the end of the month to file a response in court.

    Miles was convicted in 1998 of the robbery and murder of Edward Joseph Atkinson, a musical theater director, and sentenced to death.

    Atkinson's brother, Wayne Atkinson, said he was not aware of the latest appeal but said he expected the courts would reject Miles' arguments, as they have done several times before.

    "Only thing he's doing is soaking up the government's money," said Atkinson, 52. "And we're paying for it."

    Miles is seeking a new sentence. The move was contested by prosecutors from Wicomico County, where the killing took place.

    "He was tried under the law which existed at the time and he was sentenced to death," said Joel Todd, an assistant state's attorney. "To me the clear legislative intent when the death penalty was done away with ... was that the bill was not to affect anyone who had been sentenced to death."

    A judge in Queen Anne's County rejected Miles' move last year.

    Judge Thomas G. Ross acknowledged that the lack of rules for executions was "troubling" but found that even after the repeal went into effect, the Division of Corrections retained the authority to develop new rules.

    Attorneys for other death row inmates in the state could not be reached for comment.

    Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, who has been closely involved with the campaign to eliminate the death penalty, said she did not understand the repeal to affect those already on death row.

    "We've been working on the death penalty repeal for almost a decade," the Baltimore Democrat said. "To just get the bill moving, to get the issue moving in any kind of way made a lot of sense to usv… whether it was retroactive or any kind of active."

    Gladden said a botched execution in Oklaholma this week — the three-drug cocktail apparently failed to sedate the inmate, and he moaned and struggled against restraints before dying of a heart attack — underscored her belief that it's impossible to execute someone humanely.

    "The people who saw that … are going to have nightmares for the next 20 years," she said.

    Gladden, who is a public defender, said she thinks it's unlikely Miles will prevail in court. She said she wants to introduce a bill next year aimed at getting him and the other three inmates off death row.

    The other avenue open to the four men is to seek a commutation of their sentence from Gov. Martin O'Malley. The governor's office has said he will consider each case individually, but the repeal act limited his powers. He is required to impose a sentence of life without parole if he makes a change.

    Miles' attorneys argue that he should eventually have a chance to apply for parole.

    If all Miles' efforts are successful and ever gets out of prison, Atkinson said he'd be ready.

    "Let him out of jail, I'll kill him myself," he said. "I don't care."

    http://articles.baltimoresun.com/201...jody-lee-miles

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    Md. AG wants inmate's death sentence rescinded

    By Brian Witte
    Associated Press

    BALTIMORE — Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler said Thursday that the death penalty should no longer apply to an inmate whose sentence was imposed before Maryland abolished capital punishment last year.

    Gansler announced that he was filing a brief with the Maryland Court of Special Appeals to support attorneys for Jody Lee Miles.

    Miles was convicted in the 1997 robbery and murder of Edward Atkinson, a musical theater director, in Wicomico County.

    Maryland's repeal of capital punishment does not affect the four men on death row, and they are still under a death sentence. But, Gansler noted, Maryland no longer has regulations and procedures to carry out an execution, even for a crime and a sentence imposed before the repeal of capital punishment.

    He said it is wrong to have Miles under a death sentence when Maryland has abolished capital punishment.

    Gansler is asking the court to impose a sentence for life without parole.

    The filing relates only to Miles' case, Gansler said, but it opens the door for attorneys for the other three inmates to pursue similar requests with the courts to replace capital sentences with prison terms of life without parole.

    http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7...ed.html?pg=all

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