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Thread: Paul Gamboa-Taylor - Pennsylvania Death Row

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    Paul Gamboa-Taylor - Pennsylvania Death Row


    Paul Gamboa-Taylor


    Facts of the Crime:

    On May 18, 1991, Taylor, his wife Valerie, and their three minor children, Paul, Jasmine and Rockelle, lived in York, Pennsylvania, with Valerie's mother, Donna Barshinger, and Donna's infant son Lance. Appellant came home that night at approximately 1:00 a.m. and found everyone asleep, except for Valerie who was out. Despondent over his drug addiction and his wife's indifference to his narcotics dependency, Appellant went to his tool box and retrieved a ball-peen hammer. Appellant, armed with this hammer and a kitchen knife, first went to the bedroom of his sleeping mother-in-law, Donna, and hammered her three times in the head and then slit her throat and face with the knife, killing her. Leaving her blood-soaked body, he turned his attention to Donna's two-year-old baby, Lance. Lance was bludgeoned to death with the hammer, which Appellant used on the left side of the child's head at least five times until he bled through the mattress and onto the bedroom floor. Across the hall from Donna's and Lance's bedroom Appellant's three children, Jasmine, Paul, and Rockelle, were asleep in another bedroom.

    Appellant entered this room and attacked two-year-old Jasmine and four-year-old Paul. Jasmine sustained three hammer blows to the head and Paul was subjected to being hammered five times in the head. Neither child survived. Rockelle, the youngest child, however, was spared and placed by Appellant unharmed in the living room, where he and little Rockelle waited eleven hours, or until noon, for Valerie's return. Valerie was with a friend, Tina Smith, from about 9:00 p.m. the previous evening until noon when Tina brought Valerie home so that she could pick up a pair of slacks. Once Valerie was inside the house, however, Appellant went to Tina's car and told her that Valerie would give her the slacks later that day and Tina left. Appellant then hammered Valerie to death, tied a green plastic bag over her head to gather the blood and added her lifeless body to the carnage, placing it beside the body of Jasmine, whose corpse had been covered with a white sheet and pillows. Appellant then hid the hammer under the kitchen sink and attempted to commit suicide by slashing his wrists and stabbing himself in the abdomen. When neither of these attempts brought about death, Appellant tried to electrocute himself in the bathtub with an electric hairdryer. Finally, Appellant called 911 for help and the police were dispatched to the source of the call. Upon arriving, the police could hear screaming in the house and broke in to find Appellant naked in the bathtub and blood everywhere along with Appellant's victims and little Rockelle. Appellant was hospitalized for his injuries and survived. During his subsequent incarceration, Appellant wrote a letter of confession to the police on June 15, 1991, admitting his guilt.

    Gamboa-Taylor was sentenced to death in York County on January 23, 1992.

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    No. 07-11036 *** CAPITAL CASE ***
    Title:
    Paul Gamboa Taylor, Petitioner
    v.
    Jeffrey A. Beard, Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, et al.
    Docketed: May 21, 2008
    Linked with 07A691
    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
    Case Nos.: (04-9016)
    Decision Date: September 20, 2007
    Rehearing Denied: November 27, 2007

    ~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Feb 12 2008 Application (07A691) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from February 25, 2008 to April 25, 2008, submitted to Justice Souter.
    Feb 20 2008 Application (07A691) granted by Justice Souter extending the time to file until April 25, 2008.
    Apr 25 2008 Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due June 20, 2008)
    Jun 18 2008 Order extending time to file response to petition to and including July 21, 2008.
    Jul 21 2008 Brief of respondents Jeffrey A. Beard, Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, et al. in opposition filed.
    Jul 31 2008 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of September 29, 2008.
    Aug 28 2008 Reply of petitioner Paul Gamboa Taylor filed. (Distributed)
    Oct 6 2008 Petition DENIED.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...s/07-11036.htm

  3. #3
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    January 12, 2009

    Death row inmate seeks new trial

    On death row for 17 years for one of the most brutal mass murders in York County history, Paul Gamboa-Taylor is back in county court seeking a new trial.

    Gamboa-Taylor, now 48, pleaded guilty in 1992 to five counts of murder and received four death sentences and one life sentence for the 1991 slayings of five family members.

    He was sentenced to life for the bludgeoning death of his mother-in-law, 42-year-old Donna Barshinger, and was sentenced to the death penalty for the hammer slayings of Barshinger's 2-year-old son, Lance; his wife, Valerie Gamboa-Taylor, 23; and their two children, Paul, 4, and Jasmine, 2.

    Appeal attorneys for Gamboa-Taylor allege that his trial counsel, Chief Public Defender R. Bruce Evanick, had represented Donna Barshinger's husband in a previous legal matter and therefore had an undisclosed conflict of interest.

    According to court records, after the murders and a suicide attempt, Gamboa-Taylor made a full confession to York City Police. Evanick successfully had that statement barred from trial. From prison, Gamboa-Taylor then reportedly wrote a second confession to police.

    In January 1992, Gamboa-Taylor appeared before Judge John H. Chronister and pleaded guilty to five counts of criminal homicide. In a degree of guilt hearing, Chronister determined all five homicides were first-degree murders.

    After Gamboa-Taylor ordered Evanick not to raise any mitigating circumstances, Chronister handed down the death penalties.

    Gamboa-Taylor's attorneys, members of the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Public Defenders Office in Philadelphia, argued Monday before Chronister that Evanick, who died in December 2007, failed to have Gamboa-Taylor properly evaluated for competency or advise the court of his abusive childhood before sentencing.

    Federal Public Defender Matthew Lawry argued that Gamboa-Taylor was not competent at the time he waived his rights before Chronister.

    Lawry called Dr. Gillian Blair, a psychologist who examined Gamboa-Taylor in 1998, six years after he was deemed competent for trial, who said Monday that doctors in 1992 were wrong.

    Blair said those doctors' notes reflected, among other mental health issues, that Gamboa-Taylor suffered from auditory hallucinations, had suicidal ideations and thought he was "possessed by the devil."

    "Based on that information, I do not believe I would have found him competent," she said.

    Gamboa-Taylor's hearing is scheduled to continue today.

    http://ydr.inyork.com/ci_11436826?source=rss

  4. #4
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    Pennsylvania v. Taylor

    Opinion Date: May 29, 2013

    Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

    Appellant Paul Gamboa Taylor appealed the PCRA court's dismissal of his third PCRA petition as untimely and finding trial counsel did not have a conflict of interest during his representation of appellant. Appellant, through PCRA counsel, filed a third PCRA petition alleging, for the first time, at the time he entered his guilty pleas, trial counsel had a conflict of interest which adversely affected his representation of appellant. Appellant contended trial counsel's representation of a a family member of his victim, and that representation was a conflict of interest. Specifically, appellant contended this conflict of interest caused trial counsel to abandon appellant's interests and begin working against him. The Commonwealth filed a motion to dismiss the third PCRA petition as untimely. The PCRA court ultimately determined trial counsel did not have an actual conflict of interest during his representation of appellant. Based on this determination, the PCRA court concluded there was no newly-discovered evidence of a conflict of interest that would bring appellant's petition within one of the PCRA's timeliness exceptions. Accordingly, it found the petition untimely and denied it. Upon review, the Supreme Court agreed, and concluded that the PCRA court properly found appellant failed to satisfy the newly-discovered evidence exception. His third PCRA petition was, therefore, untimely.
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  5. #5
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Um, could an execution date actually now be in the offing in Pennsylvania?

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    Senior Member Frequent Poster Fact's Avatar
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    There will be one. Whether they go through with it is a completely different story. Sigh.

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    What's left for him at this point? His federal appeals have been exhausted and now he's lost his third state post-conviction petition. Does Pennsylvania still have lethal-injection challenges to be resolved?

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    There could always be a rogue Federal or state judge willing to accept a successive petition. It's happened before.

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    Wow. I understand the need for due process, but 22 years for this one seems completely crackers (there are a lot of cases where 22 years is way too long, but in this case it seems especially insane). He killed a bunch of people, wanted to die himself, confessed, and pled guilty. I'm not sure how many cases I've read about on this website that are more open and shut than this one.

  10. #10
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    In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Gamboa-Taylor's petition for writ of certiorari was DENIED.

    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Eastern District
    Case Nos.: (584 CAP)
    Decision Date: May 29, 2013
    Rehearing Denied: August 13, 2013

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