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Thread: Samuel Howard - Nevada

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    Samuel Howard - Nevada


    Samuel Howard


    Facts of the Crime:

    Sentenced to death on May 4, 1983 for the 1980 murder of Dr. George Monahan.

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    April 12, 2010

    Inmate on death row for nearly 30 years

    CARSON CITY -- Jim Monahan has been wondering a lot in recent days why Samuel Howard is still alive after almost 30 years on Nevada's death row.

    "My mother has died. Most of my dad's friends have died, and he continues to live," Monahan said. "He has outlived almost everyone in my family. It makes no sense financially for the state of Nevada to keep paying for these guys to stay alive."

    "Executing Howard will not bring my father back," Monahan said, "but may bring a small amount of closure to me and my family."

    March 27 marked the 30th anniversary of the day Las Vegas police arrived at 12-year-old Jim Monahan's door and told him, his sister and mother that his father had been found shot to death in a van parked along Boulder Highway.

    George Monahan, a 39-year-old dentist, had given a test ride to a man who expressed an interest in buying the family van. Monahan was robbed of $2 and shot in the head.

    Samuel Howard, then 31, was arrested five days later in Downey, Calif. Police said that on at least 20 previous occasions, Howard requested test drives and robbed used car salesman and others who were selling cars.

    On May 4, 1983, Howard was sentenced to die for murdering George Monahan.

    Howard, now 61, remains incarcerated at Ely State Prison. Nevada provides him free room, board and medical care, even flying him by helicopter to University Medical Center in Las Vegas when he slipped into a coma in 1991.

    Letters he has written have been posted on Web sites for advocates for prisoners. He professes to be a born-again Christian.

    "God will help you make the right choices, but he will not help you make the wrong ones," Howard wrote in a letter in which he warned teenagers against drugs and premarital sex. "The choice is yours. You can follow Him now or suffer later. I don't want you or anyone to make the dreadful mistakes I have made in my life."

    Jim Monahan, now a marketing executive in Boise, Idaho, has never received a letter of apology from Howard. Monahan even wrote him last year. He continues to grieve.

    "I just wrote, 'You killed my dad. I am ready to start a dialogue with you,'" Monahan said. "You would think if he is a born-again Christian that he would be remorseful."

    Howard is one of 80 male prisoners on death row at the Ely prison. Twenty-nine of them were given death sentences before 1990. Seven have been on death row longer than Howard.

    Last year, state Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, introduced a bill to require the state to study the costs of keeping prisoners alive as they file legal appeal after legal appeal in a quest to keep from being injected with a lethal dose of poison.

    Anderson opposes capital punishment and figured, based on studies in other states, that Nevada could save million of dollars in legal expenses if it abolished capital punishment.

    The Assembly approved Anderson's bill, but it died in the state Senate. Several legislators questioned the need for a study because it was clear the cost of paying legal expenses for death row inmates was extremely expensive.

    Nevada prisons chief Howard Skolnik said he can do nothing to speed up the process that leads to executions, because inmates are legally entitled to appeals.

    "It is unfortunate the families of victims have to wait through the process for any form of closure, but our responsibility is to carry out the sentence and respect the offender's right to appeals," Skolnik said.

    Michael Pescetta, an assistant federal public defender in Las Vegas, represents Howard and has represented other inmates on death row. Pescetta declined to comment about Howard's case.

    But during the hearings on Anderson's bill, he outlined the expenses of death penalty cases:

    After a Nevada district court judge has sentenced someone to die, the case is automatically appealed to the state Supreme Court for a review by all seven justices.

    If he or she loses, the inmate can seek a new hearing by filing a writ of habeas corpus.

    The inmate can appeal unfavorable rulings to federal district court, then the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, then the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Federal courts often send cases back to the state for more district court and state Supreme Court review if the inmate didn't exhaust all available state remedies.

    Most often, the inmate claims ineffective counsel, that the trial judge didn't properly advise jurors, or that one or more aggravating factors necessary to invoke the death sentence were inappropriate.

    Pescetta told legislators that Nevada has executed 12 inmates since the death penalty was established in 1977. Only one was executed involuntarily. The other 11 decided to give up remaining appeals.

    Records show that 143 people have been sentenced to death in Nevada since the current death penalty law was passed. With 80 men still on death row, the figures mean that 51 either died while in prison or have had their sentences reduced to life imprisonment or less.

    At least three, Roberto Miranda, Victor Jimenez and Dwayne Stevens were freed through the efforts of lawyer Laura FitzSimmons, who presented evidence of their innocence.

    Miranda, who came to the United States in 1980 from Cuba as part of the Mariel boat lift, was set free after 14 years on death row. In 2004, he received a $5 million settlement for a lawsuit he filed against the Clark County public defender's office.

    Jimenez spent 10 years on death row before being granted a new trial on police misconduct charges. Rather than face another trial, he made a deal, pleaded no contest to second-degree murder, and was released from prison for time served.

    Stevens was on death row for eight years before winning a new trial at which he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He eventually was released.

    FitzSimmons said there is always a chance that an innocent person will be executed.

    "It's not a perfect system for anyone, especially for the victims, for the victims' families," she said.

    Republican state Assemblyman John Hambrick, a former U.S. Secret Service member, said justice is not served when the families of victims have to wait 30 years for closure.

    GOP Assemblyman Ty Cobb, a Reno lawyer, opposed Anderson's bill in part because he thinks capital punishment may reduce trial costs by encouraging guilty defendants to plea bargain to a reduced offense.

    Cobb said the long appeal process allowed death-row inmates by the courts was not something the Legislature can change.

    Jim Monahan knows about mandatory appeals, legal costs and the costs of incarceration.

    He also remembers returning to school three days after his father's death.

    "I never saw a counselor. I probably should have. I could have gotten into a lot of trouble in high school. I didn't."

    He moved to Oregon after high school and then to Idaho. He returns to Las Vegas for reunions of the Bishop Gorman Class of 1985. Invariably, the talk turns to his father, the murder and Howard.

    "I have some high school friends who are lawyers and watch what is happening with him," he said.

    Monahan has three young children. They sometimes ask about their grandfather.

    He won't tell them yet what happened, he said. They are too young to understand.

    "It is not going change anything if that guy is alive or dead. I know that," Monahan said. "But I would rather see him eaten by rats than to die peacefully."

    http://www.rgj.com/article/20100411/...early-30-years

  3. #3
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    On February 1, 2010, Howard filed an appeal in the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals over the apparent denial of his habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir.../ca9/10-99003/

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    Howard v. State

    Opinion Date: December 27, 2012

    Court: Nevada Supreme Court

    Appellant was convicted of robbery with the use of a deadly weapon and first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon and was sentenced to death. Appellant subsequently filed numerous post-conviction motions. This appeal involved the denial of Appellant's fourth post-conviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging his conviction and sentence. Appellant's counsel sought to file a substitution of counsel motion under seal. The motion was filed under seal. The State opposed the motion and moved to unseal it. Appellant responded by filing a motion to seal the State's opposition. The Supreme Court denied the State's motion and granted Appellant's motion. The State filed a motion for reconsideration of that order. Appellant then filed a motion to seal the reconsideration motion and any pleadings related to the substitution. Later, Appellant filed a motion to strike the motion for reconsideration and to direct the State's conduct respecting the various pleadings filed regarding the substitution motion. The Supreme Court granted the State's motion for reconsideration and denied Appellant's competing motions, holding that the documents Appellant sought to have sealed did not meet the requirements for sealing.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    Nevada Supreme Court rejects appeals in 3 death-penalty cases

    By Cy Ryan
    The Las Vegas Sun

    CARSON CITY — Three killers on death row, two from Clark County, have lost their appeals to the Nevada Supreme Court.

    The court, in a 5-2 decision by Chief Justice Mark Gibbons, rejected the appeal of Alfonso M. Blake, who fatally shot two women and wounded another in the desert outside of Las Vegas in March 2003.

    Blake fled to Los Angeles but was later arrested.

    In his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Blake claimed his attorneys at trial and in his first appeal were ineffective. He offered an insanity defense at trial, a claim the court rejected.

    Justices Michael Cherry and Nancy Saitta dissented and said Blake “presented substantial and compelling new mitigating evidence showing that his childhood was disturbingly dysfunctional and abusive.” They said Blake’s prior attorney should have raised this issue.

    In a separate ruling, the court unanimously denied the fifth appeal of Samuel Howard, sentenced to death for the March 1980 fatal shooting of Dr. George Monahan in Las Vegas.

    Howard maintained his attorneys were ineffective in his past appeals.

    The court also rejected the latest appeal of Avram V. Nika, sentenced to death for the 1994 fatal shooting of Edward Smith, who had stopped to assist Nika on the freeway 20 miles outside of Reno.

    http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2014...3-death-penal/

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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Howard's petition for certiorari.

    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Nevada
    Case Nos.: (57469)
    Decision Date: July 30, 2014
    Rehearing Denied: September 24, 2014
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  7. #7
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    On February 11, 2019, Howard filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ne...cv00247/135389

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    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Needs a subscription so can’t post but the Nevada Supreme Court has ruled that Howard is ineligible for execution and should be granted a new penalty hearing
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    Man on death row for nearly 40 years ruled ineligible for execution

    By David Ferrera
    Las Vegas Review-Journal

    A man who has spent nearly 40 years on Nevada’s death row is ineligible for capital punishment and should be granted a new penalty hearing, the state’s high court has ruled.

    Samuel Howard, 73, was given the death penalty in 1983 after he was convicted of robbing Las Vegas dentist George Monahan of $2 and fatally shooting him in the head in 1980.

    In a unanimous decision handed down Thursday and penned by Justice Douglas Herndon, the court found that a New York court had recently vacated Howard’s previous lone violent felony conviction, negating execution as a possible sentence.

    Prosecutors argued that capital punishment should have been upheld for Howard on procedural grounds, but the justices disagreed.

    “Howard demonstrated that he is actually innocent of the death penalty, establishing a fundamental miscarriage of justice,” Herndon wrote.

    Howard was initially given the death penalty based on two aggravating circumstances, one of which had been invalidated by the Nevada high court before the New York case was thrown out.

    The death penalty can be imposed in Nevada only when at least one of more than a dozen aggravating circumstances, such as a prior felony conviction for murder or the use or threat of violence, are found. A jury then weighs the aggravating circumstances and those in the defendant’s favor, called mitigating circumstances, to determine whether capital punishment is warranted.

    Under a new penalty hearing for Howard, a jury would decide between a sentence of life in prison with the possiblity of parole or without the possibility of parole.

    “Given that the statute clearly requires a conviction, we cannot salvage the aggravating circumstance based on the other evidence the State presented at the penalty hearing” for Howard, Herndon wrote. “Because the only aggravating circumstance supporting Howard’s death sentence is no longer valid, he is ineligible for the death penalty.”

    Attorneys, including Lance Hendron and federal public defenders Jonah Horwitz and Deborah Czuba, litigated Howard’s sentence for for years.

    “We appreciate the court’s well-reasoned and thoughtful decision on behalf of Mr. Howard,” Hendron said Friday.

    Nevada’s last execution was in 2006, when Daryl Mack was executed for the rape and murder of a Reno woman, Betty Jane May, in 1988.

    Scott Coffee, a public defender and board member on the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty, pointed to several other recent death penalty cases where the punishment has been reversed.

    “This is big. If you want to see the future of capital punishment and capital punishment litigation, you’d probably do well to look at this” and past cases, Coffee said. “We’ve never got this right, and I don’t think it’s possible to get this right.”

    Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., also said that more and more inmates are being taken off death row across the country after serving decades awaiting capital punishment.

    “It seems particularly futile when it takes 40 years to discover that the aggravating circumstances that were the basis for the capital prosecution in the first place are invalid,” Dunham said. “This illustrates one of the lesser known issues with capital punishment, which is that death sentences based on a defendant’s prior history are only as reliable as the prior convictions.”

    https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/.../?fr=operanews
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