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Thread: Gregory Esparza - Ohio

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    Gregory Esparza - Ohio




    Summary of Offense:

    On February 12, 1983, Esparza murdered 38-year-old Melanie Gerschultz at the Island Variety Carryout in Toledo. Ms. Gerschultz worked in the carryout. Wearing a ski mask, Esparza shot Ms. Gerschultz in the neck and stole money from the cash register. Esparza told his sister and a fellow jail inmate about the robbery-murder.

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On July 12, 1996, Esparza originally filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/ohi...cv07434/77539/

    On March 22, 2013, after various remands and abeyances over the years, the Federal District Court DENIED Esparza a Certificate of Appealability (COA).

    http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal...434/77539/210/

    On March 28, 2013, Esparza filed an appeal before the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir...s/ca6/13-3358/

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On May 24, 2013, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit DENIED Esparza's habeas petition.

    Today, the US Supreme Court DENIED Esparza's certiorari petition.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es/13-6656.htm

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    Gregory Esparza v. Ed Sheldon

    Argued: July 30, 2014
    Decided and Filed: August 28, 2014

    In today's opinions, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals AFFIRMED the district court's DENIAL of Esparza's petition for habeas relief.

    SUTTON, Circuit Judge. Three decades ago, Gregory Esparza murdered Melanie
    Gerschultz for just over a hundred dollars in cash. An Ohio jury sentenced him to death. After the Ohio state courts refused to alter his sentence, Esparza unsuccessfully sought habeas relief in federal district court. Because the Ohio courts reasonably rejected his claims, we affirm.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On October 2, 2014, Esparza's petition for rehearing en banc was DENIED by the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es\14-8665.htm

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Esparza's petition for certiorari.

    Appeals exhausted decision could result in an execution date.

    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
    Case Nos.: (13-3358)
    Decision Date: August 28, 2014
    Rehearing Denied: October 2, 2014
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    Death-row prisoners, victims' families wait as Ohio seeks execution

    By Alan Johnson
    The Columbus Dispatch

    When Melanie Gershultz drew her last breath on the floor of the Island Variety Carryout in Toledo on Feb. 12, 1983, no one used a cellphone to call police. The first primitive, bulky mobile phones weren't available until later that year.

    Ronald Reagan was president and the horror of 9/11 was nearly two decades away.

    For most of the intervening 33 years, Gregory Esparza, the man convicted for killing Gerschultz, has been on Death Row in Ohio. He has moved from prisons in Mansfield and Lucasville, and most recently to Chillicothe, but he has been locked in a one-man cell.

    It's been two years since Ohio's last execution, and it will be at least another year before another one happens because of continuing problems securing drugs for lethal injection. That means many of the 138 men and one woman on Death Row are racking up long stays at taxpayer expense.

    The five longest-serving inmates have spent a combined total of more than 150 years on Death Row.

    More than two dozen Death Row inmates have died from disease while awaiting execution.

    Jonida White, 56, has been waiting 30 years for the execution of Lawrence Landrum, the man convicted for killing her uncle, Harold White Sr., 84. Landrum slashed White's throat during a burglary at his Chillicothe home on Sept. 19, 1985. The coroner's office testified at the trial that they had trouble obtaining a blood sample because White's body was nearly drained of blood.

    The original judge in the case died, as have several of White's family members.

    "It's so emotionally draining," White said. "It's unconscionable the state lets this nonsense continue."

    Ohio Public Defender Tim Young, whose office defends many convicted killers, said he sympathizes with White and other victim families. But he says speeding things up would increase the risk of executing an innocent person.

    Young says the question isn't about hastening executions, but fairness.

    "We don't have a system in any way that's remotely fair in terms of gender, race and geographic disparity," he said. "The process is fundamentally broken."

    One of the reasons for the long delays on Death Row is an intentionally created, multistep legal process designed to make sure all necessary precautions are taken when the ultimate punishment is at stake. Add in delays based on DNA evidence and diminished mental capacity, plus challenges to the lethal injection process and years accumulate on Death Row.

    Attorney General Mike DeWine's 2014 annual capital crimes reported said the average age of 53 men executed in Ohio since 1999 was 45.73 years. They spent at average of 16.63 years on Death Row.

    The Rev. Jack Sullivan Jr., a Cleveland native who is executive director of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, has the perspective of a family member of a murder victim who opposes capital punishment. His sister, Jennifer, was murdered in Cleveland in 1997; the killer was never caught.

    "We did want law enforcement to find the person who murdered Jennifer. But the family never wanted that person executed," Sullivan said. "The thought of revenge never occurred to us."

    Sullivan said that while some murder victim families want to see the killer executed, "others just want support to help the family move along and move forward."

    http://www.dispatch.com/content/stor...ion-drugs.html

  8. #8
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Toledo man convicted of 1980s murder taken off death row

    WTOL

    TOLEDO, Ohio — A Toledo man convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1983 is now off of death row.

    A Lucas County judge vacated the death sentence for Gregory Esparza. He had filed an appeal, saying prosecutors back in the 80s withheld evidence during his trial.

    The judge agreed, saying he was still guilty of killing a clerk at an east Toledo carryout, but that he should not be put to death.

    Esparza has been transferred from a state prison to the Lucas County Jail while he waits for a new sentencing hearing.

    https://www.wtol.com/article/news/cr...4-f6dabacca2f1
    "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

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  10. #10
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    Ohio death row inmate resentenced, could get parole

    AP

    An Ohio prison inmate who has spent nearly four decades on death row in the murder of a convenience store clerk has been resentenced to a term that could allow his release on parole.

    Lucas County Judge Stacy Cook vacated Gregory Esparza's death sentence and imposed a new term of 30 years to life with credit for time served, The (Toledo) Blade reported. Two months ago, Cook had declared capital punishment unconstitutional in the case because prosecutors had failed to disclose evidence in his original trial.

    “God is good for everyone,” Esparza said to relatives Friday as he was escorted from the courtroom back to the county jail.

    Esparza, now 60, was convicted in 1984 of aggravated murder and aggravated robbery with gun specifications in the February 1983 death of Melanie Gerschutz. The 38-year-old wife and mother was working the cash register at Island Variety in East Toledo when she was shot during a robbery of $110 from the register,

    Esparza’s initial appeals were denied but a public records request in 1991 turned up a large number of police reports, interviews, and other documents never given to his defense attorneys. A federal appeals court in 1995 overturned the death sentence citing a “defective indictment,” but the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision. A 2016 appeal was denied on the grounds that federal courts had assessed the 1991 evidence, but a state appellate court later said no court had yet addressed the 1991 evidence in the context of capital punishment.

    Cook wrote that although prosecutors may have been unaware of the 1991 evidence, the defense should have had it. More importantly, she said, some of the evidence indicated that Esparza didn't act alone and therefore “may not have been the principal offender,” so the death penalty could not be imposed.

    In Friday's hearing, Esparza said he had been just 21 and a “confused, lost soul” at the time of the crime but the rigors of life on death row for so long had helped him mature.

    “God knows I am not a killer,” he said. “Even when offered life without parole if I gave up my appeals, I chose execution.”

    Marsha Raymond, Gerschutz's daughter, a teenager at the time of her mother's slaying, told the court that the defendant "committed murder in cold blood.”

    “I am so grateful that I had such an amazing mom, but unfortunately because of his actions my family fell apart," she said. "My dad couldn’t speak about my mom, and he (Esparza) talks about a young child being abused? My younger brother was six years old. He has no memories of my mother.”

    Julia Esparza, Esparza’s sister, said the family was happy to see this day come.

    "It has been very emotional,” she told the newspaper. “We appreciate the justice system.”

    https://www.wfmj.com/story/48202315/...uld-get-parole
    "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

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