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Thread: Lawrence Alfred Landrum - Ohio Execution - October 15, 2024

  1. #11
    Senior Member Member George's Avatar
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    Family keeps pushing for execution date

    CHILLICOTHE – After 28 years, a man sentenced to die for the murder of area resident Harold White continues to appeal, leaving the victim’s family grasping for finality.

    Lawrence Landrum, who was sentenced to death for the murder of 84-year-old Harold White, continues to work his way through all appeal options in federal court after Ross County Prosecutor Mathew Schmidt twice asked the court to set an execution date last year, Schmidt said.

    Landrum was sentenced for killing White during a 1985 burglary in Ross County.

    Johnida White, Harold White’s niece, said she was in college at the time of White’s death and has seen family members die without knowing when Landrum would be executed. Johnida White said she has written to judges and legislators repeatedly to get an execution date set.

    Until that happens, she says the family will not have closure.

    “It has just been an uphill battle for so long,” Johnida said. “We would really like to see this come to an end.”

    Schmidt said waiting for Landrum to reach death row has been delayed too much. He hopes the court will see fit in the near future to set a date for Landrum’s execution.

    http://www.chillicothegazette.com/st...date/16946157/
    Last edited by Helen; 10-09-2014 at 07:02 AM. Reason: no heading - spacing

  2. #12
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Arguments set in latest Landrum appeal

    Lawrence Landrum's latest attempt to stave off an execution date has been scheduled for oral arguments Oct. 7 before the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

    Landrum was convicted in the Sept. 19, 1985, death of Harold White Sr. during a burglary attempt in Ross County. He has been on death row since his conviction, but has avoided attempts to get an execution date set despite the fact that prosecutors have argued he should have exhausted all of his state and federal appeals.

    The delay has frustrated White's family members, including his niece, Johnida White, who has continued to push for an execution date to help bring some closure to the family. She said several members of the family have died while waiting for the date to be set and others have been battling serious illness.

    The Ohio Attorney General's Office confirmed this week that no hearing for setting an execution date has been scheduled, but that oral arguments in an additional appeal in federal court tied to claims of poor legal assistance during Landrum's trial have been set for 2 p.m. Oct. 7 in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    Making the case for additional oral arguments in a brief filed with the court Oct. 24, Landrum's Cincinnati attorney, Gerald Simmons, asks questions revolving around whether Landrum's trial counsel was ineffective by not calling a witness during the guilt phase of the trial who would have testified that co-defendant Grant Swackhammer had allegedly confessed to delivering the fatal blows. Simmons also questions whether the district court correctly handled that claim on an earlier appeal.

    According to the latest appeal, Landrum's defense counsel had been told by Rumeal Coffenberger before the trial began that Swackhammer, a juvenile at the time of the incident, had allegedly confessed to killing Harold White Sr.

    Coffenberger, however, was not called as a witness in the case until the sentencing phase after Landrum had already been convicted.

    The appeal states that the defense attorney erred in judgment by thinking that Coffenberger's testimony would be considered hearsay during the trial and would be ruled inadmissable – a decision that Landrum now claims prejudiced the case against him and would have impacted the decision to impose a death sentence.

    Simmons, in the appeal, also claims other instances in which Landrum was not adequately represented and that the weakness of the state's case made the failure to use Coffenberger's testimony all that more serious.

    In its response, filed Dec. 26, the Attorney General's office argues that, as supported by several witnesses at trial, "Landrum's involvement in the murder was compelling, and his death sentence was not dependent on a finding that he was the principal offender."

    The AG's office also feels that Landrum had opportunities that were not taken advantage of to make these claims on direct appeal and that since a unanimous verdict is required in a capital case, it is highly unlikely with the existing evidence that Coffenberger's testimony would have changed the outcome of the case.

    Landrum is seeking either a new trial, sentencing relief or having his case remanded to a lower court for further consideration.

    http://www.chillicothegazette.com/st...peal/70832266/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  3. #13
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On October 7th, Landrum's Sixth Circuit panel will be made up of Judges Boggs (Reagan), Batchelder (G.H.W. Bush) and Gibbons (G.W. Bush).

    http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/calendar...052015_arg.pdf

  4. #14
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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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

  5. #15
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Lawrence Landrum v. Carl Anderson

    In today's Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals opinions, the court AFFIRMED the district court’s DENIAL of Landrum’s Rule 60(b) motion for reasons other than those relied on by the district court.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  6. #16
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On February 22, 2016, Landrum filed an appeal before the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ci...ts/ca6/16-3151

  7. #17
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On April 12, 2016, the Sixth Circuit DENIED Landrum's petition for en banc rehearing.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es\16-5203.htm

  8. #18
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Landrum's petition for certiorari.

    Appeals exhausted. Ruling could result in execution date.
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  9. #19
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Supreme Court won't hear death row inmate's appeal

    A Ross County man on death row for a murder more than three decades ago has exhausted his latest round of appeals for a new trial.

    Lawrence Landrum, 55, was sentenced to death in 1986 for the September 1985 murder of 84-year-old Harold White Sr. Trial testimony indicated that Landrum and a teenage co-defendant were burglarizing White's apartment when he came home and threatened to call the police. The teenager struck White on the head with a railroad bolt and Landrum then delivered the fatal wound by cutting his neck.

    Landrum had previously exhausted his appeals in the case but got another chance due to a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a different case. Landrum's appeals have centered around claims of ineffective counsel both during the trial and in initial appeals because a potential witness had not been called upon to testify. Landrum's appeals have argued the man would have testified that Landrum's co-defendant, Grant Swackhammer, then 14 years old, had told him after White was killed that he was the one who cut White's throat, not Landrum, then 24 years old.

    A district magistrate initially opined in 2012 that Landrum's argument had merit, but it was rejected in subsequent appeals courts, most recently in February by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Landrum had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case, but on Monday the court denied his request.

    Ross County Prosecutor Matt Schmidt said he will once again file a motion asking the Ohio Supreme Court to set Landrum's execution date. He previously filed two motions, but they were denied because Landrum had the new avenue to appeal his case .There is no set timeframe for when the Supreme Court will set a date.

    Ohio is set to resume executions in January after about a two-year hiatus due to the botched execution of Dennis McGuire in 2014. McGuire, who was on death row for the rape and murder of a pregnant woman in 1989, was the first in Ohio to be executed using a two-drug method. Father Lawrence Hummer from St. Mary's Church was at McGuire's execution and told the Gazette they could have smothered him quicker, saying it took 26 minutes for McGuire, who was gasping loudly, to die.

    Executions were subsequently stopped as Ohio officials struggled to obtain the drugs needed even after promising to shield any pharmacy providers from the public. Earlier this month, officials said they will be using a three-drug method similar to one it used for several years when executions resume in January, according to the Associated Press. The first drug sedates inmates, the second paralyzes them, and the third stops their hearts.

    http://www.chillicothegazette.com/st...peal/92348620/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  10. #20
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Pending verification from clerk of court Ohio Supreme Court. I was the second person to call about the possible misprint of Frazier's name.

    State v Landrum

    In today's Ohio Supreme Court motion and procedural rulings the court set an execution date of February 12, 2020 for Landrum.

    Ross App. No. 1330. This cause came on for further consideration upon appellee’s
    motion to set an execution date.

    Upon consideration thereof, it is ordered by the court that the motion is
    granted.

    It is further ordered that James P. Frazier’s sentence be carried into
    execution by the warden of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility or, in his
    absence, by the deputy warden on Wednesday, the 12th day of February, 2020, in
    accordance with the statutes so provided.

    It is further ordered that a certified copy of this entry and a warrant under the
    seal of this court be duly certified to the warden of the Southern Ohio Correctional
    Facility and that said warden shall make due return thereof to the Clerk of the
    Court of Common Pleas of Ross County.
    Pfeifer and O’Neill, JJ., dissent.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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