Summary of Offense:
Resentenced to death on January 16, 2008 for the May 10, 1991 murder of 77-year-old Mina Johnson, who was killed while Odom was on the run from a murder sentence in Mississippi.
Summary of Offense:
Resentenced to death on January 16, 2008 for the May 10, 1991 murder of 77-year-old Mina Johnson, who was killed while Odom was on the run from a murder sentence in Mississippi.
January 15, 2008
Killer Faces Death Sentence, Then Life Behind Bars
A 2-time killer who raped and murdered an elderly Memphis woman will still have a life sentence hanging in Mississippi after his death sentence has been served in Tennessee.
46 year-old Richard L. Odom has been on Tennessee's death row since 1992 for murdering 77-year-old Mina Johnson, who was killed while Odom was on the run from a murder sentence in Mississippi.
3 Tennessee juries sentenced Odom to death, but the 1st 2 sentences were overturned on appeals.
Judge Chris Craft handed down Odom's 3rd death sentence Monday.
Craft also ruled that the death sentence and Odom's unfinished life term in Mississippi must run consecutively, meaning 1 must end before the other starts -- and the Tennessee sentence goes 1st.
The judge called him "one of the worst of the worst."
(Source: The Associated Press)
No. 91-07049 STATE OF TENNESSEE v. RICHARD ODOM
Death penalty for convicted murderer, rapist Richard Odom upheld on 3rd try
The Tennessee Supreme Court today upheld the death sentence of a Mississippi man convicted of raping and murdering an elderly woman in 1991 in a Medical Center parking garage.
The case of Richard Odom has been up and down the appellate court ladder several times and at one stage cost one justice her seat when opponents accused her of being soft on crime.
Odom has been sentenced to death by three separate Shelby County juries over the past 20 years, though until today the case had been overturned on appeal
He was convicted and sentenced to death for raping and stabbing to death 77-year-old Mina Ethyl Johnson in May of 1991 as she was exiting her car in a parking garage at Madison and Pauline.
In 1992, Odom was sentenced to death the first time, but the state Supreme Court overturned the sentence after finding that the murder did not meet the legal definition of heinous, atrocious and cruel.
The decision then became a rallying cry for victims’ rights advocates who helped oust Justice Penny White in 1996 when she was up for a retention vote.
Three years later, a new jury sentenced Odom to death, but the Supreme Court in 2004 again reversed the sentence, ruling that state prosecutors should not have been allowed to give the jury graphic, violent details of a prior murder by Odom.
In 2007, yet a third jury heard the evidence and sentenced him to death, the sentence affirmed today by the high court.
“We conclude that because the sentencing hearing was performed in accordance with this state’s statutory mandates and procedural rules regarding capital sentencing hearings, the defendant’s death sentence was not arbitrarily imposed,” Justice Gary Wade wrote in the unanimous opinion.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news...st-richard-od/
In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Odom's petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis was DENIED.
On May 23, 2018, Odom filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/te...8cv02355/80835
In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Odom's petition for certiorari.
Lower Ct: Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, Western Division
Case Numbers: (W2017-01027-CCA-R28-PD)
Decision Date: October 20, 2017
Discretionary Court Decision Date: April 23, 2018
https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....c/18-5231.html
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