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Thread: Sir Mario Owens - Colorado

  1. #21
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Judge grants new hearing in Sir Mario Owens death penalty appeal over juror misconduct claim

    A Colorado judge has granted a new hearing in a death penalty appeal over allegations of juror misconduct that could throw the capital sentence into doubt.

    Christopher Munch, a senior district court judge in Arapahoe County who is presiding over the appeal of death row inmate Sir Mario Owens, ruled on Wednesday that Owens is entitled to a new hearing on one issue raised by his attorneys: Whether a juror in a prior trial against Owens failed to reveal a personal connection to a relative of one of the victims.

    Munch denied a new hearing on several other allegations of misconduct, including the defense’s claim that the juror lied about her educational background. Munch wrote in his order that there is not enough evidence of those claims to merit new hearings on them.

    Owens was convicted of murder in the deaths of three people — Gregory Vann, who was killed in 2004 in Aurora’s Lowry Park, and Javad Marshall-Fields and Vivian Wolfe, who were killed a year later. Marshall-Fields was wounded during the Lowry Park shooting and, prior to his death, planned to testify against another man implicated in that shooting. Owens was subsequently charged with all three killings, and his conviction in Vann’s murder was used by prosecutors to obtain a death sentence for Marshall-Fields’ and Wolfe’s murders.

    Attorneys for Owens have accused a juror in the Lowry Park trial of lying on her juror questionnaire and failing to disclose that she knew multiple witnesses who testified at trial. Hearings have already been held on a number of those allegations, but Owens’ lawyers asked for additional hearings on several new allegations. The one they were granted will focus on whether the juror knew and was friends with one of Marshall-Fields’ uncles prior to serving on the Lowry Park jury.

    If the Lowry Park verdict is thrown out, that will at a minimum place Owens’ death penalty case on hold. It could also lead to a new death penalty trial for Owens.

    The juror has already testified at several hearings, but when she was subpoenaed to appear at more this year and failed to, a warrant was issued for her arrest. Court records show she was arrested on the warrant last week and posted bail, with an order to attend another hearing next week.

    http://www.denverpost.com/2017/03/09...enalty-appeal/
    "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

  2. #22
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Fact's Avatar
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    This is an absolute debacle. Just grant the guy his new trial now. There's no point in prolonging it. The guy is a vile wretch, but his trial was without a doubt constitutionally deficient if any of this is true.

    Also, lock the juror up and throw away the key.

  3. #23
    Senior Member Member Big Jon's Avatar
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    Agreed. This case could lead to the state of Colorado eventually repealing the DP. There are two, possibly three or even four, DP cases coming up in CO. They will be heavily scrutinized for sure. The 2018 gubernatorial election will be one to watch in CO.

  4. #24
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Juror at center of misconduct claim testifies in Sir Mario Owens death penalty appeal

    By JOHN INGOLD
    The Denver Post

    CENTENNIAL — A juror at the center of a misconduct inquiry that could overturn a Colorado death sentence testified Monday in Arapahoe County District Court that she did not know relatives of the victim before serving on a high-profile murder trial that laid the groundwork for the death sentence.

    Instead, the juror said that she first met the uncles of Javad Marshall-Fields after the trial was over. In other testimony Monday, Marshall-Fields’ uncles affirmed the jurors’ statement, a blow to defense attorneys seeking to prove that death row inmate Sir Mario Owens should receive a new trial in two separate murder cases.

    Owens and another man, Robert Ray, were convicted and sentenced to death for the 2005 murders in Aurora of Marshall-Fields and Vivian Wolfe. Before that trial, Owens was convicted of murder in a separate shooting death in Aurora’s Lowry Park, an incident in which Marshall-Fields was wounded.

    On appeal, Owens’ attorneys have alleged misconduct by one juror in the Lowry Park trial — asserting that she lied on her juror questionnaire, knew and had contact with at least one witness during the trial and knew members of Owens’ and Marshall-Fields’ families. Most of those issues already have been debated, but a judge last month granted a new hearing to learn more about the juror’s connection to Marshall-Fields’ family.

    On the witness stand Monday, the juror, Stephanie Manuel, said repeatedly that she did not meet Marshall-Fields’ family until after the 2007 Lowry Park trial, an assertion Marshall-Fields’ mother and two of his uncles echoed. That conflicts with what at least two acquaintances have said, a defense investigator testified. It also conflicts with what one of Marshall-Fields’ uncles initially told defense attorneys.

    But, on the stand Monday, uncle Michael Baxter testified that he had been mistaken when he said this year that he had known the juror for 20 years, a statement he recanted the next day.

    “When you guys start bringing this up,” he said to a defense attorney, “it brings up all the bad memories and other stuff. And that’s hard. … It took a big part out of me when this happened.”

    http://www.denverpost.com/2017/04/17...or-misconduct/

  5. #25
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Judge denies new trial in Sir Mario Owens murder case

    By JOHN INGOLD
    The Denver Post

    A judge in Arapahoe County has denied a defense request to grant death row inmate Sir Mario Owens a new trial in a murder case that prosecutors later used to win the capital sentence against Owens.

    Senior Judge Christopher Munch concluded in an order issued Tuesday that Owens’ attorneys in the trial represented him adequately, the information prosecutors did not disclose to his defense attorneys did not taint the trial, and that a juror who later said she recognized several witnesses who testified during the case did not commit misconduct.

    “Owens is ‘entitled to a fair trial, but not a perfect trial,'” Munch wrote, quoting partly from a well-known Colorado Supreme Court ruling. “A fair trial is a trial whose result is reliable. Owens received a fair trial, and its result is reliable.”

    Owens was convicted of three murders tried in two separate cases. In the first, jurors found him guilty of murdering a man named Gregory Vann in Aurora’s Lowry Park in 2004 and also of trying to kill Vann’s friend Javad Marshall-Fields.

    In 2005, Marshall-Fields had been scheduled to testify against another man, Robert Ray, who had been charged as an accessory to murder in the Lowry Park case. But Marshall-Fields and his fiancée, Vivian Wolfe, were killed before he could. Owens was also charged and convicted for those murders, and he was sentenced to death. Prosecutors used Owens’ conviction in the Lowry Park case to provide a legal basis for the death sentence.

    Owens’ attorneys appealed both cases. Munch’s ruling on Tuesday deals with the defense’s request for a new trial in the Lowry Park case. The appeal of the death penalty case is still pending.

    In a statement issued shortly after Munch’s ruling was released, Owens’ defense attorney James Castle offered thoughts and prayers for the family members of the murder victims.

    “As the defenders of Mr. Owens we are saddened and disappointed in the decision of the court but it does not weaken our unflinching resolve to seek a just result,” he wrote.

    http://www.denverpost.com/2017/05/16...-murder-trial/

  6. #26
    Senior Member Member Big Jon's Avatar
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    That denial of a new trial is based on the 2004 murder case while the 2005 murder case is the one that sentenced Owens to death. Once the 2004 case clears the courts, the DP case should start clearing the courts since the prosecutors used the 2004 conviction to seek the DP in the 2005 case. Looks like it will be a long time before Owens is executed.

  7. #27
    Senior Member Member Big Jon's Avatar
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    Got this off my mobile phone: http://www.denverpost.com/2017/09/14...appeal-denied/

    Seems like Owens' state habeas appeal has been denied in district court. Next stop: court of criminal appeals then SCOTUS. Then state direct appeal (from my understanding with CO appeals for death row convicts, it's post conviction appeal followed by the direct appeal...perhaps similar to Idaho).

  8. #28
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    September 14, 2017

    Judge denies major appeal in Sir Mario Owens death penalty case

    By JOHN INGOLD
    The Denver Post

    In a massive and long-awaited order, an Arapahoe County District Court judge has denied the death penalty appeal of Sir Mario Owens — even though he found that prosecutors withheld some evidence that could have been favorable to Owens’ side.

    Senior Judge Christopher Munch ruled on Thursday that Owens, who was convicted of killing three people in two separate incidents, ultimately received a fair trial and was represented well enough by his attorneys. The ruling took nearly a decade to reach, and it means that Owens’ death sentence now likely moves to the next step of the appeals process. It could still be years more before Owens’ state and federal appeals are exhausted and a possible execution is scheduled.

    “The court concludes that Owens received a fair trial – one whose result is reliable,” Munch wrote on the last of his order’s 1,343 pages. “He also received a fair sentencing hearing — one whose result was constitutionally obtained, justified in law, and is rationally based upon the evidence.”

    Owens was first convicted of murder in 2007, in connection with the 2004 shooting death of 20-year-old Gregory Vann at a party in Aurora’s Lowry Park. The following year, in 2008, a different jury convicted Owens in the 2005 killings of Javad Marshall-Fields and Vivian Wolfe, both 22. He was sentenced to death.

    At the time of his murder, Marshall-Fields had been scheduled to testify against another suspect in Vann’s death, and prosecutors argued that Marshall-Fields and Wolfe, his fiancée, were killed to silence them. That other suspect, Robert Ray, was also convicted of killing Marshall-Fields and Wolfe and was also sentenced to death. As with Owens, his appeals are still pending.

    Defense attorneys raised numerous concerns about Owens’ convictions, including an allegation of juror misconduct during the Lowry Park trial that Munch denied earlier this year. Munch ruled in his Thursday order, though, that prosecutors improperly withheld evidence during the case — by not disclosing numerous instances in which they provided witnesses money or other benefits.

    For instance, prosecutors did not tell Owens’ attorneys that they had promised and later given a car to one key witness. Other witnesses received undisclosed lenience in separate criminal cases facing them. In at least one instance, prosecutors did not reveal that a witness had been present at another shooting while in the witness protection program and preparing to testify in Owens’ case. Prosecutors also withheld information about money that witnesses were paid as informants or in the witness protection program.

    Defense attorneys said the evidence could have been used at trial to question the credibility of the witnesses. But, in each instance, Munch concluded that the evidence wasn’t significant enough to overturn the trial. At best, Munch said, the evidence would have been considered “helpful” but not outcome-changing.

    “He must establish more than helpfulness to sustain a claim of constitutional error,” Munch wrote.

    Chief Deputy District Attorney John Hower, one of the prosecutors on the case, said some of the evidence was not disclosed due to oversight. In other instances, Hower said prosecutors believed it wasn’t the kind of information that was required to be shared. There was no deliberate attempt to hide evidence, Hower said.

    “We certainly are very pleased with his ruling,” Hower said of Munch’s order. “It is clear he gave great consideration to all the evidence and the claims presented, and we believe he came up with the correct ruling.”

    In a written statement, Jonathan Reppucci, one of Owens’ appellate attorneys, said: “We disagree with the court’s conclusion that none of this matters and can be tolerated in Colorado in any case, never mind a capital one. This is a sad day for Mr. Owens, his family and the Colorado criminal justice system.”

    Defense attorneys have seven days to decide whether to appeal Munch’s order. The next step would be directly to the Colorado Supreme Court, a relatively faster track created by a state law designed to speed up death penalty appeals. Owens’ case would be the first test of the new track at the state’s highest court. Defense attorneys and prosecutors would have to file their respective briefs in the appeal by next summer.

    “This is new ground,” said Ann Tomsic, a chief deputy district attorney in Arapahoe County who was a prosecutor on Owens’ case.

    Timeline in the Sir Mario Owens murder cases

    July 4, 2004: Gregory Vann, 20, is shot and killed in Aurora’s Lowry Park. Vann’s friend Javad Marshall-Fields is wounded in the shooting.

    July 13, 2004: Robert Ray is arrested and charged as an accessory in the Lowry Park shooting. He later posts bond.

    June 19, 2005: Marshall-Fields is threatened and warned not to testify against Ray.

    June 20, 2005: Marshall-Fields, 22, and his fiancée, 22-year-old Vivian Wolfe, are shot to death while driving on Dayton Street in Aurora. An intensive police investigation follows.

    Aug. 12, 2005: Ray’s charges in Vann’s killing are upgraded to first-degree murder.

    Sept. 29, 2005: An arrest warrant is issued for Sir Mario Owens on charges of first-degree murder in connection with Vann’s killing.

    March 8, 2006: A grand jury indicts Ray and Owens on charges of first-degree murder in Marshall-Fields’ and Wolfe’s killings.

    Nov. 3, 2006: A jury finds Ray guilty of attempted murder and of being an accessory to murder in the Lowry Park shooting. It does not find him guilty of first-degree murder.

    Jan 30, 2007: A separate jury convicts Owens of first-degree murder in Vann’s killing.

    June 16, 2008: Owens is convicted of first-degree murder in Marshall-Fields’ and Wolfe’s killings. He is sentenced to death. Prosecutors used Owens’ conviction in the Lowry Park shooting as evidence in arguing for the death penalty.

    June 8, 2009: Ray is convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for Marshall-Fields’ and Wolfe’s killings.

    July 30, 2012: New attorneys for Owens file a major appeal, arguing that Owens received an unfair trial because of withheld evidence and mistakes by his attorneys.

    April 13, 2016: Judge Gerald Rafferty, who presided over the case from the beginning, is fired. Court administrators say Rafferty violated the conditions of his short-term contract.

    Sept. 14, 2017: Judge Christopher Munch, who took over the case after Rafferty, finds that prosecutors withheld some evidence but denies Owens’ appeal.

    http://www.denverpost.com/2017/09/14...appeal-denied/

  9. #29
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Colorado Mennonite investigator jailed after refusing to testify in death penalty case

    "Instead of looking at all of the options, the court has chosen the most punitive action to try to break her will," said Newman, who noted Lindecrantz could have been allowed to remain free while she works on an appeal of the contempt order


    By Colleen Slevin
    Aurora Sentinel

    DENVER | A defense investigator in a Colorado death penalty case is behind bars after refusing to testify for prosecutors, saying that helping their effort to execute a defendant would violate her religious beliefs.

    A judge ordered the jailing of Greta Lindecrantz, a Mennonite who opposes capital punishment, on Monday after she repeatedly refused to answer questions about her work on the defense team of Robert Ray, one of three men on Colorado’s death row.

    Lindecrantz, dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit, refused to answer questions again in court Tuesday and was returned to jail. She has been ordered to return to court on Wednesday, her attorney Mari Newman said.

    “Instead of looking at all of the options, the court has chosen the most punitive action to try to break her will,” said Newman, who noted Lindecrantz could have been allowed to remain free while she works on an appeal of the contempt order.

    Ray’s defense team is challenging his death sentence partly by arguing that he did not have an effective legal team.

    Prosecutors apparently subpoenaed Lindecrantz to testify to back up their case that he did have good representation. They previously questioned Ray’s original lawyers as part of the appeal proceedings.

    Newman said Lindecrantz worked for those lawyers and noted that prosecutors already also have access to Lindecrantz’s report and other documents on her work.

    The lawyer said Lindecrantz would testify if not for the possibility that her testimony could be used to put Ray to death. She said Lindecrantz compared her predicament to being asked to shoot a gun at Ray, not knowing if it was loaded.

    “She cannot be a cog in the machinery of death,” Newman said.

    Ray and co-defendant Sir Mario Owens were sentenced to death for the 2005 killings of Javad Marshall-Fields and his fiancee Vivian Wolfe. Marshall-Fields had witnessed an earlier shooting that Owens was convicted of.

    Vikki Migoya, a spokeswoman for District Attorney George Brauchler, said the office would not comment on Lindecrantz because it usually does not talk outside court about proceedings, especially when many of the filings have been sealed.

    One of Ray’s defense lawyers, Greg Greer, did not return a telephone message seeking comment.

    Closing arguments in the appeal had been expected Wednesday. However, the Colorado Independent, which was the first to report Lindecrantz’s jailing, reported that the prosecution and defense said they cannot present their arguments because Ray’s claims about having ineffective counsel are linked with claims that prosecutors withheld key evidence from Ray’s original defense team during his trial.

    https://www.aurorasentinel.com/news/...-penalty-case/
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  10. #30
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Mennonite investigator remains jailed after court ruling

    By KATHLEEN FOODY
    ABC News

    A Colorado criminal defense investigator who refused to testify for the prosecution in a death penalty case because she says it's against her Mennonite faith will remain jailed after an appeals court on Friday ruled against her request to testify under alternative conditions.

    Greta Lindecrantz, who opposes capital punishment, requested to be called as a witness by the court instead of in response to the prosecutors' subpoena.

    District Court Judge Michelle Amico ruled against her Friday, and the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld the decision.

    The appellate court ruled that any burden to Lindecrantz's rights "must give way to the state's paramount interests in ascertaining the truth and rendering justice."

    "Ms. Lindecrantz is in a tough spot — caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. We take no pleasure in declining to extricate her. But the state of the law being what it is, decline we must," the appeals court judges wrote in their 3-0 decision.

    Lindecrantz was jailed Monday after she repeatedly refused to testify about her work on the defense team representing Robert Ray, who is on death row.

    Ray and co-defendant Sir Mario Owens were sentenced to death for the 2005 killings of Javad Marshall-Fields and his fiancee Vivian Wolfe as they drove on a suburban Denver street. Javad Marshall-Fields was scheduled to testify against Ray and Owens in another case.

    Mari Newman, Lindecrantz's attorney, said her client feared that her refusal to testify would be used against Ray and she wanted to suggest an alternative to Amico. Newman told the appeals court that her client's religious beliefs prevent her from being used "as a tool of those seeking to execute a fellow human being," but she was willing to testify through another path.

    Matthew Grove, an assistant solicitor general representing Amico, argued that the request would make the judge a participant in the case rather than a "neutral arbiter" and "upend" normal court procedure.

    "What we can't have, just from a systemic standpoint, are witnesses who decide they can start dictating terms" when responding to a subpoena, he said.

    Ray's current defense team is challenging his death sentence, partly by arguing that his legal team wasn't effective during trial in 2009. Prosecutors seeking to have the sentence upheld have argued that his representation was good and subpoenaed Lindecrantz, along with questioning Ray's original defense team.

    http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/j...-case-53477456
    Last edited by CharlesMartel; 03-03-2018 at 02:15 AM.
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