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Thread: Michelle Sue Tharp - Pennsylvania

  1. #11
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Michelle Tharp’s attorneys say she should not face death for starving daughter

    A Burgettstown resident who has been incarcerated for nearly two decades for the starvation murder of her daughter should not have to face the death penalty, her attorneys said Wednesday after emerging from a conference in the chambers of Washington County President Judge Katherine B. Emery.

    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered in 2014 Michelle Tharp should be resentenced for the 1998 death of 7-year-old Tausha Lee Lanham, who weighed less than 12 pounds when she died, because the public defender in her trial failed to present evidence of her mental state that might have resulted in a different punishment than the death penalty.

    James J. McHugh Jr., first assistant defender in the Defender Association of Philadelphia, said “so much time has passed, some 20 years since the original penalty phase, that significant family members have passed away,” so it would be impossible for them to testify about Michelle Tharp’s mental state at the time of Tausha’s death.

    The lack of their testimony would violate Tharp’s due-process rights and subject her to cruel and unusual punishment, McHugh asserted.

    “If we won, she would be subject to life (in prison) without parole,” McHugh said. “We’re just saying that they can’t execute her.”

    McHugh and Elizabeth Hadayia, assistant federal defender, have 60 days to file a motion on behalf of Tharp, 48, who is imprisoned in the State Correctional Institution at Muncy, Lycoming County. Tharp was not present in Washington County Court Wednesday.

    The prosecution will be able to respond to the motion by Tharp’s attorneys, presumably seeking to again empanel a jury to hear the death penalty phase.

    “I can’t talk about negotiations,” said District Attorney Gene Vittone. “It’s still pretrial. But it’s a death penalty case right now.”

    Emery will eventually schedule arguments before making a decision.

    The state’s highest court upheld Tharp’s first-degree murder conviction in 2000. Justice Max Baer called the evidence of Tharp’s guilt “overwhelming,” writing she not only denied Tausha meals but physically restrained the child so she could not feed herself and “remarkably … asked others to perpetuate the same abuse upon her own child.”

    Tausha was born prematurely in 1990 and spent the first year of her life in a hospital. Baer wrote, as the second of Tharp’s four children, “she was the sole target” of neglect and abuse. The other children were healthy and well-fed. In 1996, Tharp began living with Douglas Bittinger, with whom she had her fourth child.

    When Tharp was away, she instructed Bittinger not to feed Tausha, and, on several occasions, two or three days would pass without Tausha getting any food or drink.

    Bittinger was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to criminal homicide, endangering the welfare of a child and abuse of a corpse. Prosecutors said Bittinger’s crime was not preventing the abuse by his girlfriend, against whom he testified at trial. He is serving his sentence at the state prison in Mercer.

    Tharp claimed to have fed Tausha the day before she died, although a medical examiner testified the girl had not eaten for several days, that she suffered from malnutrition and her teeth were worn from grinding, common in juvenile starvation cases.

    A psychologist evaluated Tharp and determined she was competent to stand trial, but he diagnosed her with schizoaffective disorder, adjustment disorder with anxiety, depressive personality disorder and passive-aggressive personality disorder. The defense never called him to testify in support of an argument that her mental state should be a factor in the jury sparing her from the death penalty.

    Baer, in his 2000 order, noted Tharp’s argument that she also had a difficult childhood, was abandoned by her mother, was physically abused by her stepmother and the men in her life, that her father was convicted of both drug dealing and drunken driving, and she had below-average intelligence, repeated 10th grade and graduated nearly last in her class.

    Then-Washington County judge Paul Pozonsky took the unusual step of playing a country song in his courtroom at Tharp’s sentencing. “The Little Girl” tells of a neglected girl living in a house filled with domestic violence.

    http://www.observer-reporter.com/201...rving_daughter

  2. #12
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Attorneys argue for reduced sentence for woman convicted of starving daughter to death

    By The Observer Reporter

    Attorneys representing Michelle Tharp, who was convicted of the 1998 starvation death of her daughter, Tausha Lee Lanham, want a judge to reduce their client’s death sentence to life imprisonment.

    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld Tharp’s first-degree murder conviction obtained in 2000, but ordered a new penalty phase because it found her public defender was ineffective.

    James J. McHugh Jr., first assistant defender in the Defender Association of Philadelphia, and Elizabeth Hadayia, assistant federal defender, argued a dozen witnesses who had direct knowledge of Tharp’s parenting and mental state and Tausha’s medical condition have died during the nearly two decades between Tharp’s conviction and Monday’s arguments in Washington County Court.

    “Essentially, every critical witness is no longer here,” McHugh told President Judge Katherine B. Emery, referring to family members and medical professionals.

    Tausha lived her seven years in Burgettstown and weighed less than 12 pounds when she died. Tharp and her boyfriend at the time, Douglas Bittinger, reported her missing April 18, 1998, at a Steubenville mall, but police said they had dumped her body along a road in Follansbee, W.Va.

    Tharp claimed to have fed Tausha the day before she died, although a medical examiner testified the girl had not eaten for several days, she suffered from malnutrition and her teeth were worn from grinding, common in juvenile starvation cases.

    Tharp, 49, is serving her sentence at State Correctional Institution-Muncy, Lycoming County.

    Deputy District Attorney Jerome Moschetta objected to Tharp’s attorneys’ argument, telling the judge, “The substance of this testimony can still be presented to this jury.”

    Trial testimony from family members could be read into the record for jurors who would be empaneled to decide if Tharp should receive a death sentence or life imprisonment, and medical reports on Tausha’s diagnosis of failure to thrive, her digestive problems and her mother’s efforts to nurture her despite a chaotic home life could be submitted as evidence.

    Tharp’s attorneys said they view the reading of testimony from a trial 18 years ago to be vastly different than a person sitting on a witness stand and looking jurors in the eyes, asking them to spare Tharp’s life.

    McHugh said submitting medical records would cause jurors’ eyes to “glaze over,” and he asked the judge not to empanel jurors but to sentence Tharp to life imprisonment.

    “Their motion would be breaking new ground in both the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and in the United States of America,” Moschetta said.

    The defense claimed the late District Attorney John C. Pettit mischaracterized Tharp during the penalty phase of her trial as an uncaring mother, but Moschetta said the appellate court ordered a new penalty phase for Tharp not because of prosecutorial misconduct but on the grounds that her own trial counsel failed to do an effective job.

    On Monday, Tharp’s attorneys cited a psychiatrist’s interview with her co-defendant, Bittinger, who told the doctor, “Michelle did not starve the child.”

    The psychiatrist, who has since died, was not called as a witness during the 2000 trial before then-Judge Paul Pozonsky.

    Bittinger, 45, the father of Tharp’s fourth child, was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to criminal homicide, endangering the welfare of a child and abuse of a corpse. Prosecutors said Bittinger’s crime was failing to prevent Tharp’s abuse of Tausha, and he testified against Tharp at her trial.

    He is serving his sentence at State Correctional Institution-Albion.

    Tharp’s lawyers discussed their client’s intelligence quotient of 71 on a scale where 100 is considered normal, as well as the abuse and abandonment she, herself, had suffered. They said Tharp sought medical attention for the prematurely born Tausha, whose condition mystified doctors.

    Emery took the matter under advisement.

    https://observer-reporter.com/news/l...928c45d99.html
    "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

  3. #13
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Michelle Tharp appeals judge's decision in child starvation death

    By Barbara Miller
    Observer-Reporter

    A woman convicted of fatally starving her child has appealed a Washington County judge’s order that a jury should re-hear the death penalty phase of her case.

    Michelle Sue Tharp, who will turn 50 later this month, last had a local address in Burgettstown.

    She has been on death row since being convicted in 2000 for the first-degree murder of Tausha Lanham, 7.

    In December, Tharp took her criminal case to the state Supreme Court for the second time hoping that a decision by Washington County President Judge Katherine B. Emery can be overturned.

    The state Supreme Court in 2014 upheld Tharp’s conviction but decided instead to grant her a new proceeding in which a Washington County jury would decide if her penalty should be life imprisonment or death.

    Washington County President Judge Katherine B. Emery heard testimony and argument on Tharp’s behalf, but was not swayed by her attorneys’ arguments that the passage of time and deaths or unavailability of witnesses made it impossible to present an adequate case.

    The judge said prior testimony or depositions could be read into the record for the new jury to consider.

    Lacking from the trial in 2000 before then-judge Paul Pozonsky was testimony on Tharp’s mental state that might have resulted in a punishment other than the death penalty, her attorneys contended.

    In Pennsylvania, only a jury, not a judge acting alone, can impose a death sentence.

    The information about Tharp’s latest appeal came to light Friday in a teleconference convened before Judge John DiSalle while Emery is on medical leave.

    DiSalle noted Tharp’s filing with the state Supreme Court does not stop the case from proceeding on the county level.

    However, attorneys James McHugh and Elizabeth Hadayia won’t be representing Tharp if her case eventually goes before a jury.

    ”I think we need to get Ms. Tharp counsel,” McHugh said via speakerphone. “We’re not going to go forward with the matter.”

    McHugh recommended that a Philadelphia lawyer who is qualified to try a death penalty case be appointed by the court.

    DiSalle said another telephone conference, not yet scheduled, would include the attorney that McHugh mentioned.

    Assistant District Attorney John Friedmann said his office is answering Tharp’s petition filed with the Supreme Court, but when the Supreme Court might decide Tharp’s latest appeal is unknown.

    “Trial counsel needs to be appointed,” Friedmann said. “I don’t think we can ever be too early on that.”

    In ordering the new penalty phase in 2014, Justice Max Baer called the evidence of Tharp’s guilt “overwhelming,” writing she not only denied Tausha meals but physically restrained the child so she could not feed herself and asked others to perpetuate the same abuse.

    Emery noted in her six-page opinion that Tausha, who weighed only 11.77 pounds at age 7, lacked fat in parts of the body where it normally accumulates, and had extreme wear on her teeth from grinding.

    Tausha was falsely reported to have been abducted from a mall in Steubenville, Ohio, on April 18, 1998, when she actually died in bed at home.

    According to trial testimony, Tharp feared Washington County Children and Youth Services would take away her other children, so the death was concealed.

    Tausha’s body, in trash bags, was found dumped along a road in Follansbee, W.Va.

    Tharp is serving her sentence in the State Correctional Institution at Muncy in central Pennsylvania.

    https://observer-reporter.com/news/l...67c96aacd.html
    "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

  4. #14
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    I’ve gotten word that Tharp was resentenced and spared the death penalty. Can anyone help confirm?
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