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Thread: Anthony Bell - Louisiana Death Row

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    Anthony Bell - Louisiana Death Row


    Leonard Howard, 78


    Gloria Howard, 72



    Erica Bell, 24


    Anthony Bell


    Summary of Offense:

    Bell was convicted of shooting and killing four-in-laws inside the Ministry of Jesus Christ Church in Baton Rouge on May 21, 2006. Bell was also convicted of shooting and killing his wife, Erica Bell, later that day at a nearby apartment complex. During the guilt phase of the trial, Bell represented himself.

    Husband and wife Leonard Howard, 78, and Gloria Howard, 72, were shot and killed at the church May 21, 2006, along with Darlene Selvage, 47, and Doloris McGrew, 68.

    Claudia Brown — the church pastor and Bell's mother-in-law — was shot and injured at the church. She testified against Bell at his trial.
    Bell's 24-year-old wife, Erica Bell, was fatally shot in the parking lot of a nearby apartment complex later that day.

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    April 17, 2008

    The jury in the Anthony Bell murder trial has recommended that he be sentenced of death. The verdict came down at 9:12pm Thursday. The jury deliberated for nearly two hours.

    Bell had no visible reaction to the verdict, said WAFB 9NEWS Reporter Jim Shannon, who was in the courtroom when the verdict was announced. There were no outbursts from the courtroom.

    Bell was convicted last week of shooting and killing four-in-laws inside the Ministry of Jesus Christ Church in Baton Rouge on May 21st, 2006. Bell was also convicted of shooting and killing his wife, Erica Bell, later that day at a nearby apartment complex. During the guilt phase of the trial, Bell represented himself.

    The penalty phase began Thursday morning -- after a five-day hiatus during which defense attorneys sought the additional time to prepare. In February, Bell fired his court-appointed public defenders, Greg Rome and Margaret Lagattuta. On Saturday, Bell asked state District Court Judge Todd Hernandez to reappoint Rome and Lagattuta to handle his defense in the penalty phase. They wanted 60 days to prepare, but Tuesday the State Supreme Court granted the attorneys two days.

    The jury was been sequestered for the duration of the trial.

    (Source: The Associated Press)

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    September 13, 2008

    Bell sentenced to die for 5 slayings

    A state judge formally sentenced convicted mass murderer Anthony Bell on Thursday to die by lethal injection for killing his wife and 4 in-laws in a May 2006 shooting spree in Baton Rouge.

    District Judge Todd Hernandez followed a jury's April 17 recommendation that Bell be executed for fatally shooting 4 of his in-laws at the Ministry of Jesus Christ Church and then kidnapping his wife from the Dallas Drive church and shooting and killing her at an apartment complex.

    Bell did not react when Hernandez sentenced him. As deputies led him from the courtroom, the 27-year-old Bell — dressed in an orange-and-white striped prison jumpsuit — looked at family members in the audience and said, "I love you. Never stop fighting."

    Before sentencing Bell, Hernandez denied a motion filed by Bell to once again fire his court-appointed attorneys. The judge also denied a motion for a new trial filed by those attorneys.

    Bell, who fired public defenders Greg Rome and Margaret Lagattuta in February, represented himself in the guilt phase of his trial but asked Hernandez to reinstate the lawyers during the penalty phase.

    The judge allowed the lawyers to act as Bell’s standby counsel during the guilt phase of the trial.

    Before leaving court Thursday, Bell thanked Rome and Lagattuta for their assistance.

    Bell, who was found guilty April 11 on 5 counts of 1st-degree murder and 1 count of attempted 1st-degree murder for wounding his mother-in-law inside the church, received 5 death sentences from Hernandez and a 50-year prison term on the other conviction.

    Husband and wife Leonard Howard, 78, and Gloria Howard, 72, were shot and killed at the church May 21, 2006, along with Darlene Selvage, 47, and Doloris McGrew, 68.

    Claudia Brown — the church pastor and Bell's mother-in-law — was shot and injured at the church. She testified against Bell at his trial.

    Bell's 24-year-old wife, Erica Bell, was fatally shot in the parking lot of a nearby apartment complex later that day.

    Hernandez appointed the Louisiana Indigent Defender Assistance Board to handle Bell's capital appeal.

    (Source: The Advocate)

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    August 9, 2010

    Attorneys: Bell trial ‘mockery’

    Attorneys for condemned mass murderer Anthony Bell, of Baton Rouge, claim his 2008 trial was a “mockery of justice’’ because the presiding judge allowed Bell to represent himself, which they say turned out to be a “complete disaster.’’

    East Baton Rouge Parish prosecutors counter, however, that state District Judge Todd Hernandez took “painstaking measures’’ to ensure Bell’s waiver of counsel was made “knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily.’’

    In documents filed at the Louisiana Supreme Court, Bell’s appellate attorneys paint Bell as a man of “diminished competence’’ and with “significant intellectual limitations’’ and they say Hernandez never should have let Bell represent himself.

    “From this initial error cascaded a host of others, as the District Court used Mr. Bell’s self-representing status as a sword against him to cut him off from fundamental protections intended to ensure fair proceedings and reliable verdicts,’’

    Sarah Ottinger and Blythe Taplin with the New Orleans-based Capital Appeals Project contend in an 85-page brief filed at the Supreme Court.

    Prosecutors argue that Bell “made the decision to represent himself with ‘his eyes wide open,’ and now he must deal with the consequences of that choice.’’

    “The record clearly illustrates that (Bell) knowingly and intelligently chose to represent himself at trial and that his assertion of that choice was clear and unequivocal,’’ Assistant District Attorney Allison Rutzen asserts in an 88-page brief filed last month at the high court.

    Bell’s attorneys are asking the court to reverse his first-degree murder convictions and death sentences.
    Rutzen is asking the justices to affirm the convictions and sentences.

    She says Bell’s elimination of two generations of a family in their place of worship in front of children and grandchildren was “beyond cruel and atrocious.’’

    The court is scheduled to hear Bell’s case on appeal Sept. 10 in New Orleans. The justices recently set that date.

    Bell, now 29, was accused of fatally shooting four of his in-laws inside the Ministry of Jesus Christ Church on May 21, 2006, and then kidnapping his wife, Erica Bell, from the Dallas Drive church and shooting and killing her in the parking lot of a nearby apartment complex.

    He fired his court-appointed attorneys in February 2008 and represented himself in the guilt phase of his trial but asked Hernandez to reinstate the lawyers during the penalty phase. The judge allowed the lawyers to act as Bell’s standby counsel during the guilty phase of the trial.

    During the lead-up to the trial, two psychologists tested Bell — who dropped out of school after the ninth grade — and found his IQ to be in the low 50s. In the courts, the benchmark IQ for mental retardation is 70. However, during the trial, neither of the psychologists could say Bell is mentally retarded.

    One, a defense witness, said he did not have enough information to determine if Bell was retarded. The other, a prosecution witness, testified there was no way Bell was retarded.

    The jury rejected Bell’s mental retardation defense.

    Rutzen labels Bell’s mental retardation claim “a sham.’’ He was issued a Louisiana driver’s license with no restrictions in 2000 and renewed the license, again with no restrictions, in 2005, she notes.

    “Although (he) scored in the mildly mentally retarded range … on two occasions, both of the doctors who administered those tests suspected (him) of malingering,’’ she notes.

    Bell was found guilty April 11, 2008, of five counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder. Six days later, the same East Baton Rouge Parish jury recommended he die by lethal injection.

    In September 2008, Hernandez formally handed Bell five death sentences and a 50-year prison term on the attempted murder conviction.

    Bell claims Erica Bell found out he had an affair with her mother, and that his wife shot and killed the four members of her own family before fatally shooting herself.

    Bell’s attorneys say in his appeal that two months after his trial, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Indiana v. Edwards that trial courts have the authority to deny the right of self-representation to defendants who — despite being competent to stand trial with counsel’s assistance — are not mentally competent to do so on their own.

    “By no means does Edwards require states to subject defendants who wish to waive their right to counsel to a higher degree of competency,’’ Rutzen counters.

    Bell’s attorneys also allege that Bell was prejudiced by the introduction of 7-year-old Destiny Mills’ testimony and videotaped statement.

    Mills, the daughter of murder victim Darlene Selvage, was 6 at the time of the shootings and was inside the church when her mother was killed. She pointed out Bell in the courtroom as being the man who shot her mom.

    While Mills sat on the witness stand, jurors watched a videotaped interview that a child advocate conducted with the girl days after the church massacre.

    Bell’s attorneys contend Mills’ videotaped interview and her trial testimony reflect that the child’s memory was “tainted’’ by information she learned after the shootings in the media. They also claim the girl could not distinguish between actual and imaginary memories.

    “D.M. gave chillingly accurate descriptions of the victims’ bodies, the placement of those bodies, and the events leading up to and directly after the murders,’’ Rutzen says.

    “However, D.M. did say that defendant shot Erica in the church parking lot and again at the apartment complex. When asked how she knew about the events at the apartment complex, D.M. told (the child advocate) that she had seen it on the news … ’’ she acknowledges.

    Rutzen, though, says the fact that Mills described a male shooter “clearly rebuts (Bell’s) defense that Erica was the shooter.’’

    http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/100...?showAll=y&c=y

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    September 11, 2010

    State Supreme Court hears Anthony Bell case

    NEW ORLEANS, LA (WAFB) - The state's highest court heard motions Friday in the case of a man convicted of gunning down five people.

    Anthony Bell was sentenced to death for the murders of his wife and four of her family members four years ago. During his trial, he did something many didn't expect in representing himself. That was the key issue at the State Supreme Court. His attorneys want his conviction overturned and a new trial.

    The scene was absolute chaos. A Sunday church service turned into a crime scene in a matter of seconds as Bell opened fire on five members of his wife's family. A few hours later, he shot his wife, Erica, at her home.

    The issue before the court Friday was whether a person can serve as their own lawyer in a death penalty case.

    Sarah Ottinger is representing Bell now and she says he never should have been allowed to serve as his own attorney. "We're asking for something right now state law doesn't require and that is that this court create a higher level of competency to stand trial," said Ottinger. She argued he was forced to do so.

    Justice Jeannette Knoll disagreed. "He has that right," said Knoll. "He was cautioned, but that's the American system."

    Ottinger said the issue was whether Bell understood what that would be when he waived his right to an attorney.

    The East Baton Rouge District Attorney's Office said Bell was completely competent and both the guilty verdict and death sentence should stand.

    During his first trial, two out of three doctors and a judge said Bell was competent.

    "I was at the DA's office for a month when the case was tried," said Allison Rutzen with the EBR DA's Office. "I sat in the trial every single day and to tell you quite honestly, I think this man did a better job that I could have done my first month."

    Bell is currently in a cell at Angola, waiting for the justices to make a decision.

    http://www.wafb.com/global/story.asp?s=13135291

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    High court upholds death penalty in church deaths

    The murder convictions and death penalty for Anthony Bell, who killed four of his in-laws and his wife after bursting into a Baton Rouge church in May 2006, were upheld Tuesday by Louisiana's Supreme Court.

    Bell, who the court record said was 26 at the time of the shooting, was convicted in 2008 on five counts of first-degree murder in the death of his wife Erica and four of her relatives, and one of attempted first-degree murder in the shooting of her mother.

    Erica Bell's relatives were shot as Sunday services were ending at the small Ministry of Jesus Christ Church, where her mother, Claudia Brown, was pastor. Bell kidnapped Erica from the church and shot her at a nearby apartment building parking lot.

    Only Claudia Brown survived.

    The Supreme Court rejected defense arguments that Bell was mentally retarded and could therefore not be legally executed, citing expert testimony and evidence regarding Bell's work history.

    "There is nothing in the record from which it can be concluded that the jury erred in rejecting the defendant's claim of mental retardation," Tuesday's ruling by retired Judge Philip Ciaccio, who was sitting in for Justice Catherine Kimball, said.

    There were no dissents in the ruling, which notes that Bell can now take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20...-church-deaths

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    In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Bell's petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis DENIED.

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    Killer of 5, sentenced to death, seeks new trial

    A judge gave prosecutors until July 23 to respond to condemned killer Anthony Bell's latest court filing that claims the Baton Rouge man was not competent to stand trial in the 2006 slaying of his wife and four in-laws, let alone represent himself at the guilt phase of the 2008 trial.

    The petition asks state District Judge Todd Hernandez to reverse Bell's first-degree murder convictions and death sentences and order a new trial.

    The Advocate reports (http://bit.ly/1ctCfTE) Bell appeared briefly in Hernandez's courtroom Wednesday.

    Bell was accused of fatally shooting four of his in-laws inside the Ministry of Jesus Christ Church on May 21, 2006, then kidnapping his wife, Erica Bell, from the Dallas Drive church and shooting and killing her in the parking lot of a nearby apartment complex

    http://www.ctpost.com/news/crime/art...al-5148329.php
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court DENIED Bell's petition for certiorari.

    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Louisiana
    Case Numbers: (2016-KP-0511)
    Decision Date: April 24, 2017

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....ic/17-139.html

  10. #10
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    On March 1, 2018, Bell filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/lo...8cv00196/53689

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