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Thread: Howard Hawk Willis - Tennessee Death Row

  1. #11
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Supreme Court Upholds Death Sentence For Man Guilty In East Tennessee Murders

    The Supreme Court has affirmed the convictions and sentences of death for Howard Hawk Willis for killing two East Tennessee teenagers and dismembering one of them.

    In 2010, a Washington County jury convicted Mr. Willis of two counts of premeditated murder and one count of felony murder in the perpetration of a kidnapping, for the 2002 deaths of 17-year-old Adam Chrismer and his 16-year-old wife, Samantha Chrismer. The jury sentenced Mr. Willis to death on each conviction. In 2015, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the convictions and the sentences of death.

    On appeal to the Supreme Court, Mr. Willis argued that the trial court should have excluded certain incriminating statements he made to his ex-wife because she was acting as an agent of the government at the time the statements were made. Mr. Willis made the statements to his ex-wife during in-person meetings with her at the Washington County jail and at a detention facility in New York, and also during recorded telephone calls from jail. He claimed that the admission into evidence of the statements violated his right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

    The Court held that there was no violation of Mr. Willis’s right to counsel. The Court first noted that Mr. Willis made some of the incriminating statements to his ex-wife before he was indicted, and he had no constitutional right to counsel at that time. After Mr. Willis’s indictment, the State discouraged the ex-wife from having any further contact with Mr. Willis, and he did not offer proof at trial that the State agreed to have the ex-wife act as its agent or that the State had any control over her actions. Consequently, as to incriminating statements Mr. Willis made in person to his ex-wife after his indictment, the proof showed only that the State willingly accepted information from a cooperating witness.

    Finally, as to Mr. Willis’s incriminating statements made by telephone, Mr. Willis admitted that every telephone call he made from jail was preceded by a recording that informed him that all calls are subject to monitoring and recording, so he implicitly consented to the monitoring and recording of his telephone conversations with his ex-wife. The Court held, then, that the admission into evidence of the incriminating statements did not violate Mr. Willis’s constitutional rights.

    After a full review of the record and all of the evidence, the Court concluded that the proof fully supported the convictions and the sentences of death.

    Chief Justice Sharon G. Lee filed a separate concurring opinion, in which she agreed that Mr. Willis’s death sentence is proportionate to the penalties imposed in similar cases but reiterated her disagreement with the manner in which the Court conducts proportionality review.

    To read the Court’s opinion in State v. Howard Hawk Willis, authored by Justice Holly Kirby, and the separate opinion of Chief Justice Lee, go to the opinions section of http://tncourts.gov/press/2016/07/06...nessee-murders

    http://www.chattanoogan.com/2016/7/6...-Sentence.aspx

  2. #12
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Willis' petition for certiorari.

    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Tennessee, Eastern Division
    Case Nos.: (E2012-01313-SC-DDT-DD)
    Decision Date: July 7, 2016
    Rehearing Denied: August 23, 2016

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....es/16-6995.htm

  3. #13
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Howard Hawk Wills files post-conviction petition in 2002 double murder

    By BECKY CAMPBELL
    The Johnson City Press

    Howard Hawk Willis, imprisoned for 15 years in the murder of a married teenage Georgia couple, filed another motion in Jonesborough recently, attempting to have his conviction overturned based on a violation of his Miranda rights.

    It’s an issue that other judges have refused to hear, and one that Willis, serving two death sentences at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, refuses to let go.

    Willis, now 66, filed a petition for post-conviction relief, a motion for appointed counsel and a motion requesting a stay of execution in Washington County Criminal Court last month. The case will land in front of Judge Lisa Rice, but she hasn’t taken any action on the filings yet.

    From the beginning — when Willis was picked up on a federal parole violation in October 2002, which he said was based on false information, and then questioned about the disappearance of Adam and Samantha Chrismer that same month — Willis has maintained his innocence in the couple’s death. He said Adam Chrismer and Samantha’s stepbrother were planning to set Willis up for the murder of his own stepfather, Sam Thomas.

    The two cases intertwined to some degree — Thomas’ headless body was found in Georgia around the same time the Chrismer couple was killed and dismembered — although no one was ever charged with Thomas’ death.

    Willis has also continued to maintain that his Miranda rights were trampled over and over as investigators questioned him after he made multiple requests for an attorney. Along with the Miranda issue, in the initial post-conviction relief filing, Willis revisits suppression hearings regarding search warrants held by former Judge Lynn Brown — hearings that Willis said was filled with perjured testimony and without his being represented.

    “What was filed is a bare-bones post-conviction,” Willis said in a phone interview this week. “The DA used perjured testimony in the suppression hearing. … They used perjured testimony at trial.”

    Willis’ ex-wife, Wilda Willis, played a key role for investigators to get a confession out of Willis. She agreed to wear a wire, and investigators put her in a room to visit Willis. He said all along that she was an agent of the state and obtained a false confession without Willis waiving his Miranda rights, but Judge Brown denied suppression of that evidence.

    Willis was given appointed attorneys multiple times before ultimately being forced to represent himself at trial. He was convicted in June 2010, nearly eight years after the Chrismers were killed.

    The state Office of the Post-Conviction Defender assisted Willis with the initial filing and is likely the attorneys who will represent him in the motion. At this time, Willis has an execution date of July 12. Death penalty cases are eligible for a long list of appeals before an execution can take place.

    http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/Cour...le-murder.html

  4. #14
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Judge appoints new attorney in Howard Hawk Willis appeal

    By Nate Morabito
    WJHL-TV News Channel 11

    JONESBOROUGH, TN - Despite an infamous death row inmate's desire to again represent himself as he seeks a new trial, a judge denied Howard Hawk Willis' request Tuesday.

    Almost eight years after a jury convicted him, the double murderer returned to a Jonesborough courtroom. During Tuesday's court hearing, Judge Lisa Rice granted Willis' request to end his relationship with his current attorney, but denied his request to represent himself. Instead, she appointed him another lawyer.

    Willis represented himself at trial after problems with multiple other attorneys. He's facing the death penalty for the 2002 murders of Samantha and Adam Chrismer.

    Willis will return to court in November as he continues his quest for a new trial.

    http://www.wjhl.com/local/judge-appo...eal/1219972738
    "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.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #15
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Death row inmate who acted as own attorney seeks new trial

    By TRAVIS LOLLER
    The Associated Press

    A Tennessee man on death row who was forced to act as his own lawyer is seeking a new trial, claiming multiple violations of his constitutional rights.

    Howard Willis was sentenced to death in 2010 for the murders of teenage newlyweds, 17-year-old Adam Chrismer and 16-year-old Samantha Leming Chrismer, both of Chickamauga, Georgia. The boy’s head and hands were found by fishermen in Boone Lake in northeastern Tennessee in October 2002. The bodies of both teens were found a few days later in a storage unit rented by Willis' mother in Johnson City.

    Willis burned through nine lawyers before the judge ruled that he would have to represent himself, accusing him of sowing conflict with his attorneys in an effort to avoid a trial. Willis’ current attorneys say that characterization is unfair.

    Representing himself at trial, Willis claimed that he was set up and that there was no evidence tying him to the murder weapon. The jury found otherwise and sentenced him to death.

    In his bid for a new trial, Willis claims the original was unfair because he was forced to act as his own attorney and because he wasn’t afforded sufficient resources to defend himself, among other claims.

    Many of the attorneys left the case for reasons that had nothing to do with Willis, such a conflicts of interest or the need to care for a seriously ill relative.

    As for the other attorneys, Willis had legitimate complaints about their work, his new petition argues. One attorney spent only nine hours reading the discovery material in the case between his appointment at the end of May 2005 and his withdrawal three months later.

    “Although it is inconvenient to have to replace a lawyer, if there are legitimate complaints about the performance of that lawyer, a citizen should be entitled to raise those issues and have the right to counsel protected, especially when they are facing the death penalty," the petition reads.

    In its response, attorneys for the state said many of Willis' complaints have already been considered by other courts and found to be without merit.

    “The record clearly indicates that petitioner abused the dignity of the court by attempting to manipulate the court in order to delay or disrupt a trial,” the state’s response said. “If the petitioner was prejudiced ... the State would contend it was the direct result of his own calculated behavior.”

    When the Chrismers were murdered in 2002, Willis was a Georgia trucker who was out on bond after an arrest in New York, where he was accused of smuggling cocaine from Texas to Brooklyn.

    Willis was already a suspect in the teens' deaths when he was arrested in Tennessee on a bond violation. His New York attorney called the jail to invoke his right to representation and right to silence — meaning he should not be questioned about the Chrismers without his lawyer present. Law enforcement sought to circumvent that by working with Wills' ex-wife to solicit a confession in a taped jailhouse conversation.

    Willis' belief that the confession was obtained illegally — and should have been thrown out — was a major point of conflict with his attorneys. He felt they were not doing enough to get the confession tossed. For instance, they never called his New York attorney to testify.

    Willis' conflicts with his attorneys led to several withdrawing from the case. In 2008, the trial court judge ruled Willis had forfeited his right to an attorney. Willis appealed but lost. With the appeal over, he had only a few months to prepare his defense, according to the petition. That preparation was also seriously hindered by the fact that he was incarcerated. When he wanted to review previous court cases, he would have to leave a list on a Thursday for an investigator or public defender to bring the following Monday.

    Willis asked the court to fund three expert witnesses he hoped to have testify at his trial. He wanted to raise doubts about the prosecution's theory that the Chrismers were killed at Willis' mother's house, and rebut testimony from the state's entomologist that blow flies found in the storage unit with the bodies matched blow flies found at the home. He asked for money for an expert on false confessions, a crime scene expert and an entomologist.

    In the end, the judge only approved funding for an entomologist, and that person wasn't provided with the same raw data used by the state's expert — a fact that was used to make him look untrustworthy at trial, according to the petition. Meanwhile, witnesses for the state included a forensic anthropologist, crime scene analysts from both the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and a medical examiner.

    The multiday hearing on Willis' petition for post-conviction relief is scheduled to begin Monday in Washington County Criminal Court in Jonesborough.

    https://news.yahoo.com/death-row-inm...145909481.html
    "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

  6. #16
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Double murderer’s attorney believes 6th Amendment right wasn’t upheld

    By Clarice Scheele
    WJHL News

    JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. (WJHL) — Death row inmate Howard Hawk Willis’s defense team is working to prove that their client’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel was not upheld in his original case.

    This comes from his prior conviction where he represented himself in court.

    “In this case, Mr. Willis did not have an attorney in his murder, capital murder trial where he was facing execution by the state,” said attorney Joshua Hedrick. “And that put him at a significant disadvantage.”

    In 2010, Willis was sentenced to death for the 2002 murders of Adam and Samantha Chrismer, two teenagers from Georgia. Their bodies were found in a storage unit in Johnson City.

    Willis went through nine different lawyers before the court decided to no longer appoint lawyers to him, forcing him to represent himself. Even with this, Willis had an “elbow attorney” that provided legal counsel during the trial.

    “I mean it’s like saying we’re going to take your quarterback and we’re going to tie his hands behind their back and then we’re going to say ‘well, we lost the game,'” said Hedrick. “Well sure because he’s at a significant disadvantage.”

    Witnesses brought to the stand have expressed the relationship between Willis and his past attorneys.

    Former attorney Jim Bowman testified Monday about how Willis made it difficult for him to do his job and would insist Bowman take another strategy other than the one he wanted to talk about.

    Hedrick says citizens should still have a right to voice their opinion about their representation.

    “If they have a complaint, especially about a lawyer, they should be entitled to raise it,” said Hedrick. “We should not be in a situation where we’re chilling or reducing a citizen’s right to say, ‘excuse me, I don’t feel like I am being treated properly by my government.'”

    Willis’s defense team anticipates the proceedings to wrap up on Wednesday.

    https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/doub...-wasnt-upheld/
    "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.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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