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Thread: Edward Earl Davis - North Carolina Death Row

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    Edward Earl Davis - North Carolina Death Row


    Mark Ronald Lane




    Facts of the Crime:

    Convicted in 1992 of the shooting death of Mark Ronald Lane during a robbery at the Leicester pawn shop Lane's father owned. Lane was shot three times after he drew a handgun on the would-be robber. Davis had been paroled in Ohio 10 months before the killing for a 1975 murder in which he stabbed a man to death during a burglary to steal the man's television set.

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On April 7, 1995, the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld Davis' death sentence on direct appeal.

    http://nc.findacase.com/research/wfr...0550.NC.htm/qx

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    With executions in limbo, families wait for justice

    Every day, it comes to him.

    Sometimes it's a momentary jolt when he sees an old friend of his son's from high school. Or maybe it surfaces when he glances at the framed picture of his son, appearing so young and strong in his red Erwin High wrestling singlet, looking into the camera with a young man's confidence, the kind cemented by a state championship.

    Other times, George Lane just sort of drifts off in his mind, maybe wondering how many kids his boy would have now, and if they, too, would be fearless and fun-loving. With all his heart, Lane believes the only solace — the only real closure, if life truly offers such a thing — he and his wife, Dorothy, will ever have will come only when Mark's killer is put to death, as the state mandated in 1992.

    "You think about it every day, every time you pick up the paper and you see a murder or a death penalty, not just in this state but in any state, where somebody has slipped through the cracks," Lane said, sitting in the office of his store, Leicester Pawn & Gun. "And you wonder when you're going to get the letter that says he slipped through the cracks and he's now been relieved of his death penalty.

    "You think, 'Why does he have the right to do that, when 12 persons on a jury convicted him of first-degree murder and they determined that he should receive the death penalty?'"

    Like several other states, North Carolina is struggling with its death penalty and what will happen to the 150 prisoners on death row, including nine men from Buncombe County. Another man sits on federal death row.

    The Tar Heel state has not had an execution since 2006, and the death penalty is mired in a de facto moratorium while lawyers and judges sort out legal cases pinned to two separate issues: the makeup of juries and possible discrimination against blacks being litigated under the now-defunct Racial Justice Act, and the legality and constitutionality of our death penalty drug protocol.

    "There's no official moratorium — the legislature has never said it's going to halt executions — there are just so many court cases and litigation that nothing has happened, and nothing is scheduled," said Keith Acree, a spokesman for the N.C. Department of Public Safety, which oversees corrections.

    Historically, North Carolina has not been reluctant to employ the death penalty. Since 1910, when the state took over executions from the counties, North Carolina has put to death 404 men and women, including 43 between 1984 and 2006, according to the N.C. Department of Public Safety.

    U.S. Supreme Court action essentially eliminated the death penalty in 1962, but it returned nationally in 1976 and in North Carolina in 1984.

    Today, Mark Lane's killer, Edward Earl Davis, remains where he's resided since the early 1990s: on death row at Raleigh's Central Prison.

    Davis, 58, and his half-brother, Roger D. Hood, 42, were convicted in the Aug. 16, 1991, slaying of Lane, with Davis receiving the death penalty and Hood getting life in prison.

    "I can't even imagine what it's like to lose a child," said Dorothy Lane, who's been married to George for 23 years. "But now, after so many years, I've seen it just come over George — I've seen him become so sad, so many times — I know you can't ever get over the death of a child."

    The legal issues at hand

    Ken Rose, senior staff attorney with the N.C. Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Raleigh, knows victims' families continue to endure stomach-churning grief, and he says those feelings are valid.

    "But the death penalty is a public policy that has to involve a purpose for the society that is more than just revenge on a behalf of a particular person or family, no matter how much we sympathize with their loss," Rose said.

    Two separate issues have sidetracked executions since 2007 and likely will for the foreseeable future.

    "First and foremast is the lethal injection litigation, which has been ongoing since 2007," Rose said. "There have been two important injunctions imposed; the most recent in 2014, and that prohibits the state from executing anybody."

    Litigation on that issue started in state court but is now in the federal court system.

    One of the legal questions is whether the protocol for an execution — the specific manner in which lethal drugs are administered — has to go through the state rule-making process, Rose said.

    Typically, any state agency enacting regulations has to put the proposed procedures through the public rule-making process, which usually involves publishing the proposal and taking public comment.

    The question is whether that procedure applies in the death penalty protocol. That issue went to federal court and has now been remanded back to Wake County Superior Court for a decision.

    The other related issue involves the separation of powers. The legislature has given "almost unlimited authority to the Secretary of Public Safety to devise and enact a protocol, as far as drugs can be procured, training of staff, and the credentials of staff," Rose said.

    "All of these things may seem esoteric, but the truth is we've seen executions in several places that have been botched, in some cases taking over an hour or more," Rose said.

    Death penalty opponents also have questioned if the protocol constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment," which the U.S. Constitution prohibits.

    Before the legal challenge, North Carolina had used a three-drug protocol to bring about death: a fast-acting barbiturate to relax the prisoner, followed by a paralytic drug, then a potassium chloride to stop the heart.

    "The problem with that, we had argued, if the barbiturate does not work or is administered in error, then the person would be tortured and you wouldn't know it, because the paralytic makes a person unable to move, speak or able to do anything," Rose said.

    In 2013, the Department of Public Safety adopted a single-drug protocol, but the issue remains in the court system.

    The second thread of legal challenges surrounds the Racial Justice Act cases. Two cases are pending in the N.C. Supreme Court concerning the application of the act, while several others remain pending in superior court.

    The Lanes and other families question why the act, passed in 2009 but then repealed two years later, even applies in many of these cases in which the convicted murderer and victim are of the same race.

    All of the nine Buncombe County prisoners on death row filed motions under the act to have their death sentences converted to life without parole. Statewide, four of these cases are on appeal to the N.C. Supreme Court, and Rose said decisions could come down any day the court is in session.

    "In general the issue does not depend on the race of the defendant or the victim," Rose said. "It has been a practice in the state of excluding African-American jurors by prosecutors using pre-emptive strikes."

    The implication is that juries therefore have not been truly representative of the population.

    "The issue is about participation in the jury," said Sean Devereux, an Asheville attorney who has represented Davis in his post-conviction appeals. "People are entitled to a jury of their peers, and there is a perception that African-Americans see things differently."

    Hard to understand

    None of this placates the Lanes, and much of it seems like legal hair-splitting.

    "My son did not get a reduction in his death sentence to life, and the man who took this away from him should not have this benefit, either," George Lane wrote to the Attorney General's office in 2013, after being notified of Davis' appeal under the Racial Justice Act.

    No one disputes that Eddie Davis is a bad character. Before killing Lane, Davis was convicted of murder in the 1975 stabbing death of a 60-year-old man in Columbus, Ohio. He was paroled the year before he killed Mark Lane.

    He and Hood conducted armed robberies at a McDonald's in Canton, as well as others in Georgia and Tennessee. Davis had escaped jail in Tennessee, where he was being held on a robbery charge, before the Lane murder.

    The Lanes said trial testimony showed that Davis and Hood had been in their shop, at that time located farther west in the heart of the Leicester community, earlier in the day. They returned just before closing at 6 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 16, 1991.

    Mark Lane, 22 at the time and never one to back down, was shot at three times, once in the hand and twice in the abdomen, and died. His girlfriend was in the shop with him.

    "They made her get down like a dog and crawl into the office," Dorothy Lane said.

    The men were arrested more than a week later in Savannah, Georgia, after a high-speed chase across two states.

    George Lane said the convicts were cold-blooded and merciless, and that lack of empathy weighs heavily in his mind when it comes to Davis getting the death penalty and any potential suffering he may endure.

    "Why should I care or the society care what kind of pain or agony he goes through when they're putting him to death? My son had no choice of what his agony was when he was laying on the floor and they shot him the third time," Lane said. "So why does this enter into it? He's guilty. So if they shoot him by firing squad, or they hang him, or chop his head off, he's got it coming to him."

    The bigger picture

    Since 1976, when the ultimate penalty was reinstated in the U.S., America's prisons have put to death 1,397 people. But 18 states no longer have a death penalty, and another three have enacted moratoriums.

    Recent exonerations of death row inmates, as well as botched executions, have begun to erode support for executions. Since 1973, 150 people have been exonerated and freed from death row in 26 states, including nine in North Carolina, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

    Studies have also found that minorities are much more likely to receive a death penalty.

    Public opinion also seems to be shifting. A 2013 poll of 600 North Carolinians by Public Policy Polling found 68 percent of respondents support replacing the death penalty with life without parole if the offender had to work and pay restitution to the victim's family, while 63 percent supported repealing the death penalty if the money saved was redirected to effective crime fighting tools.

    Devereux said the country may be reaching a point where the death penalty simply no longer makes sense, particularly from an economic standpoint.

    Duke University released a study in 2009 that found the state could save at least $11 million annually by abolishing the death penalty. The average cost for housing a standard state prison inmate in North Carolina is almost $80 a day, while the estimate for a death row inmate is nearly $96 daily, according to the N.C. Department of Public Safety.

    Studies have also shown the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to crime.

    Devereux said Buncombe County, like much of North Carolina, saw an increase in death penalty cases in the 1990s because of state legislation that gave prosecutors little leeway in pursuing life in prison instead of the death penalty in cases involving an aggravating factor, such as another felony being committed during the murder.

    Statewide, the number of death sentences in North Carolina has steadily declined, with three last year, one in 2013 and none in 2012. In 2011, three were handed down, compared to four in 2010, two in 2009 and one in 2008. The trend mirrors the nation — Amnesty International noted the number of death sentences nationwide "has been lower than any time since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976."

    Nationally, executions also have declined, from a high of 98 in 1999, to 43 executions in both 2011 and 2012.

    At their shop on New Leicester Highway, the Lanes have an extensive video surveillance system, and most employees carry firearms.

    The Lanes hope and pray for the only type of closure that will satisfy them: a letter from the state telling them that Davis' execution has been scheduled. Both are deeply religious, and they feel the Bible calls for harsh punishment for those who intend to deprive others of life, as George says, those who "wake up in the morning intending to do bad."

    Only the ending of Davis' life would allow them to move on with theirs.

    "It would give me closure to know that I don't have this still hanging over me and wondering what's going to happen," Lane said. "It's a part of my life that I could close."

    History of executions in North Carolina

    Public hangings were common in North Carolina until the state took over administration of the death penalty in 1910.

    Walter Morrison, a laborer from Robeson County, became the first man to die in the electric chair in 1910. Between 1910 and 1961, the state executed another 361 people.

    Since 1910, there have been three methods to carry out executions, all at Central Prison in Raleigh. For the first 28 years, the state used the electric chair. In 1936, the state first used the gas chamber. In 1983, inmates waiting for execution were allowed to choose lethal injection or the gas chamber. In 1998, lethal injection became the state's only method of execution.

    http://www.citizen-times.com/story/n...tice/22072159/

  4. #4
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Death penalty law changes aim to restart NC executions

    ASHEVILLE – For Asheville businessman George Lane, any development that might bring about the execution of his son's killer is good news.

    That's why Lane enthusiastically supported state lawmakers' approval earlier this month of the Restoring Proper Justice Act. The new law amends the state's capital punishment procedures with the aim of restarting executions in North Carolina after a nine-year hiatus.

    Lane, the 79-year-old owner of Leicester Pawn & Gun, still tears up when he talks about his son, Mark, who was 22 when he was shot and killed during a robbery at the store on Aug. 14, 1991. Mark, a state champion wrestler his senior year at Erwin High, was Lane's youngest son.

    "The horrible thing for my family is that one minute I've got a son, and the next minute I don't," Lane said.

    Mark Lane's killer, Edward Earl Davis, has been on death row since 1992.

    "I hope to be able to hang on until they kill him," said Lane, who turns 80 in December.

    The Restoring Proper Justice Act passed with easy majorities in the House and Senate and was signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory on Aug. 5. It removes some of the impediments to executions, including dropping the requirement that a licensed physician be present during an execution.

    Doctors had been reluctant to participate because such an action violates their medical ethics. The revision allows other medical professionals, not just doctors, to oversee an execution.

    The new law also allows the state to exempt information about drugs used in lethal injections and the companies that manufacture them from public records laws. Drug manufacturers and pharmacies have shied away from providing drugs for executions because of bad publicity, and some states including Oklahoma have procured experimental drugs.

    North Carolina is one of 31 states with a death penalty, but because of legal challenges no executions have been carried out in the state since 2006.

    "Currently, North Carolina has the death penalty, but there has been some difficulty carrying out those punishments," said Rep. Brian Turner, a Democrat from Biltmore Forest who joined with Republicans in passing the legislation. "This change will allow these sentences to be carried out the way the courts intended."

    But death penalty opponents and proponents alike say the law changes likely won't jumpstart executions anytime soon because of ongoing legal challenges.

    "I don't think this is going to lead to a rash of executions," Turner said. "I don't think this law will turn North Carolina into Texas."

    David Weiss, an attorney with the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, an anti-capital punishment nonprofit that provides legal services to about a third of the state's 148 death row inmates, agreed.

    "I think that's what they are trying to do (resume executions), but as a practical matter that's not what it's going to accomplish," Weiss said. "There are still a lot of thorny problems the courts are trying to figure out."

    Courts are still wrangling with the question of whether North Carolina's lethal injection procedure constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, which the U.S. Constitution prohibits.

    Weiss pointed to botched executions in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona in 2014, with the condemned man in each case appearing to writhe in pain and the process taking much longer than planned. In the Oklahoma execution, experimental drugs were used.

    "The courts have an obligation to review the execution procedure to make sure what's proposed doesn't violate that (cruel and unusual punishment) rule," Weiss said.

    The second thread of legal challenges surrounds Racial Justice Act cases in which defendants are raising questions about whether racial bias played a role in a conviction and death sentence. The issue doesn't always depend on the race of the defendant or victim but can involve the racial makeup of juries. Death penalty opponents say prosecutors have excluded African-American jurors in some cases.

    Nationally, botched executions and recent exonerations of death row inmates, including Henry McCollum last year in North Carolina, have eroded public support for executions, and the number of executions has dropped, Weiss said.

    Since 1973, 150 people have been exonerated and freed from death row in 26 states, including nine in North Carolina, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

    McCollum, North Carolina's longest serving death row inmate, was freed last year after three decades because of new DNA evidence that showed he was innocent of the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.

    Since 1977, when a 10-year national moratorium on executions ended, 1,413 people have been put to death in the U.S., according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Of that, 528 were in Texas. Nationally, the number of executions gradually increased from 1977 to a peak in 1999, when there were 98 executions, and gradually decreased since then. So far in 2015, 19 people have been executed.

    Weiss said the Restoring Proper Justice Act "really increases the chance that an execution could be botched and for an execution to be cruel and unusual punishment. It seems like we should be increasing the safeguards instead of taking them away. Just as a matter of basic human decency, we should have safeguards to ensure it's done predictably."

    George Lane has heard the arguments against the death penalty, but he still believes with all his heart that Edward Davis should pay the ultimate price for killing his son.

    Davis had been a menace to society for years before he killed Mark Lane, George Lane said. He was convicted of murder in the 1975 stabbing death of a 60-year-old man in Columbus, Ohio. He was paroled the year before he killed Mark Lane.

    As part of a crime spree that included the Leicester robbery, Davis and another man carried out armed robberies at a McDonald's in Canton, as well as others in Georgia and Tennessee. Davis had escaped jail in Tennessee, where he was being held on a robbery charge, before the Lane murder.

    "They let out a criminal and thought he was rehabilitated, but right away he was out robbing and killing," Lane said. "He deserves what he gets."

    Twenty-four years after his son's murder, he said Davis' execution, if it ever happens, "will bring closure. I wouldn't have to think about it anymore."

    People convicted of murder and sentenced to death from Buncombe County, along with the date they were sentenced:

    Edward E. Davis, March 12, 1992

    Randy L. Atkins, Dec. 8, 1993

    Leslie Warren, Oct. 6, 1995

    Jamie L. Smith, May 10, 1996

    James F. Davis, Oct. 2, 1996

    Phillip Davis, Aug. 22, 1997

    Lyle May, March 18, 1999

    James Morgan, July 8, 1999

    Terry A. Hyatt, Feb. 7, 2000

    Source: N.C. Department of Public Safety

    Public hangings were common in North Carolina until the state took over administration of the death penalty in 1910.

    Since 1910, the state has executed 404 people. After a moratorium on executions from 1962 to 1984, North Carolina put 43 people to death between 1984 and 2006. One Buncombe resident was among those inmates — Zane Hill — who was executed on Aug. 14, 1998.

    Since 1910, there have been three methods to carry out executions, all at Central Prison in Raleigh. For the first 28 years, the state used the electric chair. In 1936, the state first used the gas chamber. In 1983, inmates waiting for execution were allowed to choose lethal injection or the gas chamber. In 1998, lethal injection became the state's only method of execution.

    Currently, 148 people are on death row in North Carolina, including two women. Of that total, Buncombe has the third highest number from among the state's 100 counties, with nine, trailing only Forsyth (14) and Wake (10), according to N.C. Department of Public Safety records.

    Executions by decade:

    1910-20 — 50

    1921-30 — 58

    1931-40 — 130

    1941-50 — 108

    1951-61 — 15

    1962-84 — 0

    1985-2006 — 43

    2007-present - 0

    Source: N.C. Department of Public Safety

    http://www.citizen-times.com/story/n...ions/32190845/

  5. #5
    sisterofvictim
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    Unsure where NC Racial Justice Act Motion stands.
    Last edited by Moh; 03-05-2017 at 01:51 PM. Reason: The North Carolina Supreme Court decision has already been posted above.

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