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Thread: Edward Thomas Wilson - Nevada Death Row

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    Edward Thomas Wilson - Nevada Death Row


    Officer James Hoff




    Summary of Offense:

    Convicted and sentenced to death for the 1979 killing of an undercover Reno narcotics officer, James Hoff. Hoff was making what he thought was a drug buy for about $16,000 when Wilson and three other men turned on him and stabbed him repeatedly. The others, John Olausen, Fred Stites and David Lani, got life terms

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    On August 14, 1998, Wilson filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/nev...cv01174/21843/

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    WILSON V STATE

    The Nevada Supreme Court upheld the death penalty Thursday for the third time against a man who pleaded guilty to the 1979 killing of James D. Hoff, an undercover Reno police officer for whom a memorial to fallen officers is named.

    In a 6-0 ruling, justices also clarified a previous ruling involving "aggravating circumstances" used in assessing the justification of death sentences.

    Edward Thomas Wilson pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for killing Hoff during an undercover drug sting in June 1979 and was sentenced to death by a three-judge panel. Now 52, he is the longest serving inmate on Nevada's death row.

    Hoff was posing as a drug dealer when he met with Wilson on June 24, 1979, and discussed buying 10 ounces of cocaine from Wilson. They agreed to meet later that night to complete the deal.

    Unbeknownst to Hoff, Wilson and John Olausen were plotting to kill the drug dealer, and they enlisted the help of two others, David Lani and Fred Stites. All were teenagers or in their early 20s at the time.

    Shortly after Hoff met Wilson, the listening devices on Hoff's car malfunctioned, preventing his backup from hearing what was happening, and other officers lost sight of him on several occasions.

    Hoff was ambushed by the four near Idlewild Park in Reno. He was stabbed numerous times, his body found a few hours later buried under a pile of rocks in a drainage ditch.

    In his latest appeal, Wilson argued other felonies committed during the crime couldn't be used as aggravators to justify the death sentence, under a previous state Supreme Court ruling involving the "felony murder" rule.

    Under Nevada's "felony murder statute," prosecutors don't have to prove intent to kill, only that a murder occurred while another felony crime was being committed to charge first-degree murder.

    But in those cases, the high court in 2004 held that a defendant can't be convicted of first-degree murder using a particular circumstance, such as a killing that occurred during a robbery, and then have robbery used again as an aggravating circumstance in the penalty phase of a trial.

    Wilson maintained that he pleaded guilty solely to felony murder, and therefore prosecutors could not use robbery and kidnapping to justify seeking the death penalty.

    The justices disagreed.

    "Wilson pleaded guilty to the charge of first-degree murder, which included allegations that the killing was willful, deliberate and premeditated and that it was committed in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of a felony," Justice James Hardesty wrote for the court.

    Justices also said Wilson was instructed during his plea that he was pleading guilty to premeditated as well as felony murder.

    The court concluded, "We therefore hold that the use of a felony aggravator is not precluded where the defendant has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder based on premeditation and deliberation and felony murder."

    Olausen's death sentence was earlier overturned by the high court and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Stites and Lani also got life terms in the case.

    The James D. Hoff Peace Officer Memorial was dedicated in Reno's Idlewild Park on Oct. 22, 1988, and now bears the names of 115 Nevada officers killed in the line of duty.

    http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011...-ld-writethru/

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    Appeal of cop-killer conviction rejected

    The latest in a long series of appeals in the case involving a Reno narcotics officer’s slaying was rejected this week by the Nevada Supreme Court.

    John Olausen is one of four people convicted in the murder of undercover officer James Hoff in 1979. He and two others — David Lani and Fred Stites — are serving life sentences without possible parole for the killing.

    Edward Thomas Wilson, labeled the ringleader in the crime, was sentenced to death and is now the longest-serving death row inmate in Nevada.

    The state Supreme Court upheld the district court decision dismissing Olausen’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, pointing out that he filed the petition more than 26 years after his original appeal of the conviction. The order states that the petition is “successive because he had previously litigated several post-conviction petitions for relief and it constituted an abuse of the writ as he raised claims new and different from those raised in his previous petitions.”

    The order signed by justices Jim Hardesty, Michael Douglas and Michael Cherry says the petition again challenges the denial of his motion to withdraw his guilty plea. They say that was ruled on in his original appeal.

    The petition says Olausen has identified new evidence in his case, but the order points out that he didn’t actually identify any new evidence.

    The court also rejected his claim that he was innocent of murder.

    Olausen originally was sentenced to death along with Wilson but was resentenced to life in prison in 1989.

    http://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/gov...-court-olausen

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