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Thread: Andrew Lee Thomas, Jr. - Tennessee

  1. #11
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    AG's office seeks rehearing in death penalty appeal case

    By Katie Fretland
    The Commercial Appeal

    The Tennessee Attorney General's Office has filed a petition asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit for a rehearing in the case of a man prosecuted by Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich for a 1997 Memphis murder.

    The Sixth Circuit ruled last month in favor of inmate Andrew Thomas in his death penalty appeal in the killing of armored truck guard James Day. The court found Thomas' prosecutor had a duty to disclose that an important witness against Thomas had been paid $750 by the federal government prior to the trial.

    The witness testified she wasn't paid, and Weirich has said she didn't know about the payment. Thomas has maintained his innocence.

    Thomas' attorneys and Assistant Attorney General Michael Stahl agreed that knowledge of the $750 payment is "imputed" to the state prosecutors. The meaning of "imputed" versus actual knowledge was discussed at a hearing in November before a panel of Sixth Circuit judges.

    "Imputed knowledge suggests knowledge," Judge Gilbert S. Merritt said.

    "That's right, your honor, it suggests knowledge, but there's no evidence that there was actual knowledge in this case," Stahl said.

    In the recent filing, state Attorney General Herbert Slatery, Solicitor General Andrée Blumstein and Associate Solicitor General Jennifer Smith argue imputed knowledge is "no knowledge."

    The petition includes a suggestion for rehearing before the full Sixth Circuit court.

    http://www.commercialappeal.com/stor...case/99016512/
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  2. #12
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Sixth Circuit denies AG's request to rehear death row case decision

    By Katie Fretland
    The Commercial Appeal

    The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has declined to reconsider a decision in favor of Tennessee death row inmate Andrew Thomas in the case of the fatal 1997 shooting of armored truck guard James Day in Memphis.

    The denial follows a decision by panel of judges in February that the state violated Thomas' due process rights when the prosecution failed to disclose to him that a witness had received $750 from the federal government before the trial.

    Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery, Solicitor General Andrée Blumstein and Associate Solicitor General Jennifer Smith had petitioned for a rehearing of the decision. Thomas' attorney, Robert Hutton, argued neither a rehearing by the panel of judges who issued the decision or review by the full court is warranted.

    No judge requested a vote on the suggestion to rehear the case before the full en banc court, resulting in a decision last week to deny the attorney general's request, according to court records. Judge Julia Gibbons, wife of former Shelby County District Attorney General Bill Gibbons, recused herself from participating in the court's ruling.

    With last week's ruling, both a rehearing by the panel of judges and by the full court have now been denied.

    The victim in the case was a Loomis Fargo armored car courier who was shot at lunchtime on April 21, 1997, at a Walgreens in the 4500 block of Summer. Day survived the shooting but died two years later on Oct. 2, 1999.

    The Safe Streets Task Force, a multiagency group of federal and state law enforcement, investigated and assisted in the federal trial of Thomas, and a member of the task force, Deputy U.S. Marshal Scott Sanders, requested the $750 payment that was made to a witness, Thomas' former girlfriend Angela Jackson, according to court records.

    After Thomas' federal trial, Thomas was tried for the murder of Day in state court, and the task force investigated and assisted with that trial also. Jackson also testified in the state death penalty trial, but neither Thomas nor defense lawyers were informed of the $750 payment.

    Jackson testified she wasn't paid, and Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich has said she didn't know about the payment.

    The attorney general's office has until mid-July to ask for review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Inmates are typically not moved until court proceedings have concluded, said attorney Robert Hutton.

    http://www.commercialappeal.com/stor...ion/100902520/

  3. #13
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review the State of Tennessee's petition for certiorari.

    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
    Case Numbers: (15-5399)
    Decision Date: February 24, 2017
    Rehearing Denied: April 19, 2017

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....ic/17-291.html

  4. #14
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Lawyers seek removal of Shelby County DA's office from man's retrial, Weirich personally handling case

    By Katie Fretland
    The Commercial Appeal

    Lawyers for a Tennessee man who was sentenced to death are asking a judge to disqualify Shelby County DA Amy Weirich’s entire office from involvement in his retrial.

    Weirich appeared in court Friday to address the case, which was continued until next week so the defendant, Andrew Thomas, can be brought to Shelby County from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

    The district attorney general is personally handling the case of Thomas, who won the new proceeding after a ruling last year by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that blasted the prosecutor’s failure to disclose that a witness who testified against Thomas had been paid.

    Weirich has maintained she did not know the witness, Thomas’ former wife Angela Jackson, had been previously paid by the federal government. According to court records, the payment was made after the end of a related federal trial held prior to the state death penalty case that Weirich prosecuted with now-Judge Jennifer Nichols.

    In court documents, the lawyers for Thomas cited Weirich’s inclusion last year by a Harvard Law School group in a study of prosecutorial misconduct and what a local news outlet called a “meltdown” on her Twitter page over a New York Times article about problems in her prosecution of another defendant, Noura Jackson. The lawyers point to these matters as part of the reason they allege Weirich has too much of a personal and political interest in redeeming herself to the public through Thomas' prosecution.

    “To avoid the actual conflict created by District Attorney General Weirich’s personal and political interest in Thomas’s case and to avoid the appearance of impropriety created by her involvement, the Court must disqualify the entire Shelby County District Attorney General’s Office from any retrial of Thomas’ case,” attorneys Robert Hutton, Kevin Wallace, Elizabeth Cate and Mollie Richardson argue.

    In response, Weirich said in court documents that there is no appearance of impropriety requiring her disqualification and that Thomas has also failed to demonstrate a conflict requiring the removal of her and her office.

    “The State submits the facts presented in defendant’s petition are cherry picked and do not give an accurate portrayal of the events surrounding the reversal of Thomas’ state court conviction,” Weirich said.

    Additionally, Weirich argues that all public officials face public criticism and commentary: “Such is the reality of serving as a public official.”

    Victim in case was shot during robbery

    There were two trials of Thomas, one in federal and one in state court in the case of the robbery and murder of James Day.

    Day, an armored truck driver picking up deposits from a Memphis Walgreens, was shot and paralyzed in 1997. Thomas was convicted and given a life sentence in federal court.

    After the trial ended, Scott Sanders, who worked on the multi-agency Safe Streets Task Force, authorized a payment to Angela Jackson, a witness in the case.

    Federal prosecutor Tony Arvin said, according to court documents, that Jackson was not informed beforehand that she would be receiving the payment.

    After Day died in 1999 following complications from the shooting, Thomas was prosecuted for murder.

    Arvin said nothing in the materials he provided to the Shelby County DA’s office mentioned the $750 payment to Jackson. He said he didn’t remember it until it came up at a hearing in 2011 where Thomas was asking to vacate his conviction.

    In the Sixth Circuit, judges keyed in on part of the state death penalty trial in which Weirich questioned Jackson, who denied being paid:

    "Have you collected one red cent for this?" Weirich asked, according to a trial transcript.

    "No, ma'am," Jackson replied. "I have not."

    The judges said in the ruling that the prosecutor's failure to disclose the evidence was "egregious."

    "This is all made even worse by the fact that the prosecutor failed to correct the record even after Jackson squarely denied receiving any 'reward' money in exchange for her testimony against Thomas," the court said.

    Researchers with Harvard Law School's Fair Punishment Project ranked the Shelby County DA's office highest in Tennessee for misconduct and reversals and included the Thomas case as an example.

    Problems with other cases

    Special prosecutors have been brought in during other Shelby County cases involving allegations of problematic conduct by prosecutors. In 2016, special prosecutors handled the retrial of Michael Rimmer. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death again for the killing of Ricci Ellsworth, who disappeared in 1997.

    In that case, Weirich announced in 2014 she would ask for the appointment of a special prosecutor to handle Rimmer’s retrial.

    A judge had found Rimmer’s defense counsel failed to effectively investigate the capital case and that the Shelby County prosecutor, Thomas Henderson, “purposefully misled” Rimmer’s counsel about evidence. Henderson, who later retired, pleaded guilty to professional rule violations and accepted a public censure from the state Supreme Court. While special prosecutors handled the retrial, the Shelby County office’s chief investigator and a victim-witness coordinator were allowed to help.

    In 2015, Weirich recused her office from the retrial of Noura Jackson in the death of Jackson’s mother, Jennifer Jackson.

    The Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee charged that during Jackson’s trial, Weirich improperly commented on her right to remain silent and that she failed to review a witness statement that wasn’t turned over to Jackson’s lawyers until after the trial.

    Weirich accepted a private reprimand and a panel of lawyers cleared a prosecutor who assisted on the case, Steve Jones.

    “As I have said from the beginning, an error was made,” Weirich said last year. “Human errors are going to be made. We touch over 200,000 cases every year.”

    Noura Jackson eventually entered an Alford plea on a reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter and was later released. She has maintained that she’s innocent.

    Judges recuse themselves from case

    Multiple Shelby County Criminal Court judges have recused themselves from hearing proceedings in the Thomas case, including Nichols, who prosecuted Thomas with Weirich and was recently appointed to the bench by Gov. Bill Haslam with Weirich as a reference.

    Judge Lee Coffee, who was employed as a prosecutor in the Shelby County DA’s office when Thomas was prosecuted, recused himself, citing an advisory opinion by the chair of the judicial ethics committee.

    “(The) Court finds that disqualification is mandatory to avoid any inferences or appearances of a conflict,” Coffee wrote. “Since the petitioner alleges prosecutorial misconduct and bad faith as a ground that resulted in the order for a retrial, this Court finds that voluntary recusal is appropriate and mandatory.”

    Judge James Lammey recused himself citing the reasons in Coffee’s order and said the case should also not be assigned to Judge Bobby Carter or Judge John Campbell for the same reasons.

    The case is currently in the court of Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Mark Ward.

    https://www.commercialappeal.com/sto...uct/341902002/
    Last edited by CharlesMartel; 02-17-2018 at 12:45 AM.
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  5. #15
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Special judge named to hear motion against Shelby County DA's office

    By Linda A. Moore
    The Commercial Appeal

    Judge William Acree will hear arguments to remove the Shelby County District Attorney General's office from the retrial of a man sentenced in 2001 to death row.

    Attorneys for Andrew Thomas, who is now at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, filed a motion to have Criminal Court Judge Mark Ward disqualify himself from the retrial as well as from the hearing to remove the DA's office.

    Ward ruled that he would hear the new trial himself, but he asked the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts to provide a special judge to oversee proceedings in a motion to disqualify the DA's office.

    Acree is a former circuit court judge for the 27th Judicial District in West Tennessee, which includes Obion and Weakley counties. He also served as president of the Tennessee Judicial Conference.

    Andrew Thomas' murder conviction

    Thomas was first convicted in federal court in the 1998 in the armed robbery of James Day, a courier with Loomis, Fargo and Co. Day was shot in the back of the head and robbed while at a Walgreens store on Summer Avenue in April 1997.

    Paralyzed after the shooting, Day testified in the robbery trial and Thomas was sentenced to life in federal prison.

    Day died in 1999 from complications caused by the gunshot wound. In 2001 Thomas was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.

    But in 2017 Thomas was awarded a new trial after his attorneys learned that his ex-girlfriend, Angela Jackson, had been given $750 by a member of the Safe Streets Task Force, a multiagency group of federal and state law enforcement officers who investigated and assisted in the federal trial. The payment was made in 1998, which was after the federal robbery trial and before Day died.

    Jackson denied getting paid in the state trial and prosecutors have said the payment was not disclosed to them.

    The case was prosecuted by Amy Weirich, now the Shelby County district attorney general and Jennifer Nichols, who is now a criminal court judge. Weirich said they didn't know about the payment until 2011.

    And because Ward made a donation to Nichols' campaign for judge, defense attorneys asked that he remove himself from the case.

    https://eu.commercialappeal.com/stor...ice/673183002/
    In the Shadow of Your Wings
    1 A Prayer of David. Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry! Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit!

  6. #16
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Memphis inmate pleads guilty to 1997 murder

    WMC Action News 5

    A convicted armed career criminal plead guilty to killing an armored car courier in a 1997 robbery on Thursday.

    Andrew Thomas is already serving a life sentence for federal crimes.

    The 46-year-old was sentenced to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder in a settlement approved by the widow of the courier, James Day.

    Day survived 29 months before dying of complications from the gunshot wound to his head. In court, his widow thanked Thomas for his plea and for “freeing me from my own cemetery.”

    Two years ago, a federal appeals court overturned Thomas’s 2001 conviction and death sentence in the case, and awarded him a new trial.

    Before being convicted of murder and sentenced to death, Thomas was convicted of three felony charges related to the same case.

    He also had 16 prior armed-robbery convictions and has been sentenced to death.

    https://www.wmcactionnews5.com/2019/...guilty-murder/

    He entered and Alfred plea and got 25 years.
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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