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Thread: Kevan Brumfield - Louisiana

  1. #1
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    Kevan Brumfield - Louisiana


    Police officer Betty Smothers




    Summary of Offense:

    Convicted and sentenced to death in the January 7, 1993 murder of Betty Smothers, a police officer for the Baton Rouge Police Department. She was ambushed during a robbery and shot multiple times.

    Henri Broadway was also sentenced to death in Smothers' murder. For more on Broadway, see: http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...henri+broadway

  2. #2
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    Judge: Brumfield can't be executed in cop's death

    U.S. District Judge James Brady has ruled that a man convicted in the 1993 ambush slaying of Baton Rouge Police Cpl. Betty Smothers is mentally retarded and cannot be executed.

    The Advocate reports (http://bit.ly/yO5hQy) East Baton Rouge Parish First Assistant District Attorney Prem Burns said Thursday the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals will be asked to review and reverse Brady's ruling - signed Wednesday- involving Kevan Brumfield.

    Smothers was working an off-duty security job when she was fatally shot, while driving a grocery store manager to a bank to make a night deposit. The manager survived the attack despite multiple gunshot wounds.

    Henri Broadway also is sitting on death row for his role in Smothers' killing.

    Smothers is the mother of former NFL running back Warrick Dunn.

    http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news...ru/?sports&nfl

  3. #3
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    Warrick Dunn doesn't want forgiveness to be confused with justice

    Warrick Dunn doesn't want forgiveness to be confused with justice.

    That's what motivated the former Florida State star running back to write a passionate letter regarding last week's ruling that Kevan Brumfield, sentenced to death in the 1993 ambush slaying of Dunn's mother, Baton Rouge, La., police Cpl. Betty Smothers. U.S. District Judge James Brady has ruled that Brumfield is developmentally disabled and cannot be executed.

    Dunn's 456-word response was initially published by TheHayride.com, a website geared to news and commentary on Louisiana and national politics, and in Dunn's hometown newspaper in Baton Rouge, The Advocate, on Wednesday. It's also Dunn's belief the ruling hinders the efforts of all law enforcement

    "To me that opens the doors for other individuals that feel like the law doesn't matter, we can do whatever we want to," Dunn told The Tallahassee Democrat.

    "So, they have to start a precedent. You have to put your foot down and say this can't happen. No one is going to want to be a police officer, to serve and protect the community, when they allow these things to happen. That's a travesty I would say."

    The U.S. Supreme Court has barred the execution of mentally retarded people. Brumfield, 40, who confessed to killing Smothers in an attempted robbery while she was on an off-duty assignment and was condemned to death by a jury, remains incarcerated in Angola State Prison outside of Baton Rouge.

    In October 2007, Dunn traveled to Angola State Prison and met face-to-face with Brumfield and told the convicted killer he had forgiven him. Henri Broadway, of Baton Rouge, also is sitting on death row fat Angola State Prison or his role in the Smothers killing. He is seeking a new trial.

    Dunn said he and his family were stunned by U.S. District Judge James Brady's ruling regarding Brumfield's mental health. Prosecutors have pledged to appeal. Dunn, as he stated in his letter, does not believe Brumfield is "mentally Challenged."

    "I didn't like the fact that was their angle and I felt like I needed to respond to that," Dunn explained. "It was a slap in the face in a sense."

    Dunn, 37, one of the most beloved players in FSU history, currently resides in Atlanta and remains extremely busy.

    A limited partner in the ownership group led by Arthur Blank of the Atlanta Falcons, Dunn returned to college last August because he wants to better understand the organization's overall structure and corporate America. He's enrolled in Emory University and working towards his master's degree in business administration.

    "I may look young, but I am stressed," Dunn said and laughed about his return to college for the first time since he graduated from FSU in 1997. "I am stressed."

    Also known for his charitable efforts, the five-time Pro Bowl running back for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons has helped 111 single-parent families in Tallahassee, Tampa, Atlanta and Baton Rouge realize their dream of home ownership.

    For 15 years, Dunn's Home for the Holidays program has provided $5,000 in down-payment assistance and complete home furnishings. Dunn has scheduled a reunion this summer in Atlanta for those families and has also worked towards expanding the program into every NFL city.

    Additionally, Dunn has held discussions with Baton Rouge officials and nonprofit groups and interviewed director candidates for his latest idea, called Betty's Hope. Dunn wants to provide grief counseling to children ages 5-18 who suffered the loss of a parent.

    In 2003 while playing for the Falcons, Dunn began receiving counseling to help him cope with the grief he experienced following his mother's murder. Having spent years being a father figure to younger brothers and sisters, even while at FSU, Dunn had never before taken time to care for himself or feel happy.

    Dunn said he hopes to expand Betty's Hope to other issues, such as children whose parent or parents are incarcerated.

    While Dunn has released his anger towards Brumfield, Dunn remains steadfast in his belief that justice has not been served following last week's ruling.

    Dunn detailed in his letter how Brumfield and Broadway planned the late night ambush outside a local bank as Smothers and a local store manager made a routine night deposit. The store manager survived despite being shot four times.

    "It (crime) didn't affect just my life," Dunn said. "It affected my family's life. He affected many people. He affected a community."

    http://www.tallahassee.com/article/2...xt|frontpage|s

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    On March 12, 2012, the State of Louisiana filed an appeal in the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals over the granting of Brumfield's habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir.../ca5/12-30256/

  5. #5
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    Today the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's judgement granting habeas relief to Brumfield.

    http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions...-30256-CV0.pdf

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    That was a real smackdown. Almost certainly, an en banc rehearing will be denied--especially since two members of the three-judge panel are Democratic appointees. So, if Louisiana can sort out its lethal-injection issues, Mr. Brumfield may actually meet his maker by year's end.

  7. #7
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    And the article

    Federal appeals court: Brumfield is not retarded, can be executed

    Condemned killer Kevan Brumfield is not mentally retarded and can be put to death for the 1993 ambush slaying of Baton Rouge police Cpl. Betty Smothers, a federal appellate court ruled Wednesday in reversing a federal district judge.

    A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said U.S. District Judge James Brady erred in concluding in February 2012 that Brumfield, of Baton Rouge, is mentally retarded and ineligible for execution.

    An elated East Baton Rouge Parish First Assistant District Attorney Prem Burns, who prosecuted Brumfield, said she expects Brumfield’s attorney to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    That attorney, Nicholas Trenticosta, could not be reached for comment. He contends Brumfield is mentally retarded.

    The U.S. Supreme Court has barred the execution of mentally retarded people.

    Burns said she will immediately ask that an execution date be set if the high court lets the appellate court’s decision stand.

    “I just screeched,” she said of her reaction to the 5th Circuit’s reversal. “I’ve had that case since the day she was killed.”

    Former NFL running back Warrick Dunn, the oldest of Smothers’ six children, starred at Catholic High School in Baton Rouge and Florida State University.

    “Yesterday was the anniversary of her death, and it was Warrick’s birthday on Sunday,” Burns said Wednesday.

    Smothers, 36, was working an off-duty security job when she was fatally shot shortly after midnight on Jan. 7, 1993, while driving a grocery store manager to a Jefferson Highway bank to make a night deposit.

    The manager, Kimen Lee, survived the attack despite being shot numerous times.

    Henri Broadway, of Baton Rouge, also is on death row for his role in the Smothers killing. He is seeking a new trial. He has not raised a mental retardation claim.

    Brumfield, who was convicted and sentenced to die in 1995, was accused of firing the bullets that killed Smothers.

    Broadway, who was tried after Brumfield in 1995, was accused of firing some of the shots that wounded Lee.

    Chief 5th Circuit Judge Carl Stewart wrote for the three-judge panel that state District Judge Richard Anderson considered both the intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior prongs of Louisiana’s test for mental retardation and properly denied Brumfield’s request for an evidentiary hearing on his mental retardation claim.

    “Based on the evidence in the record, we conclude that the state court did not clearly err in determining that Brumfield did not meet his burden of presenting a prima facie case of mental retardation under Louisiana law,” Stewart stated.

    Stewart added there was no reason for Brady to conduct the hearing he later held in 2010 on Brumfield’s mental retardation claim.

    “Even if we were to consider the new evidence presented to the (federal) district court,” Stewart wrote, “we likely would hold that Brumfield failed to establish” that he is mentally retarded.

    Fifth Circuit Judges Carolyn King and Edith Jones joined Stewart on the panel.

    Psychologists Victoria Swanson and Ricardo Weinstein testified in Brady’s courtroom that Brumfield is mentally retarded while forensic psychiatrist Robert Blanche, clinical psychologist Donald Hoppe and clinical neuropsychologist John Bolter testified Brumfield is not retarded.

    Brady found that Brumfield has “significant limitations in intellectual functioning’’ and “significantly limited conceptual skills.’’

    “If we as a society are to effectuate the evolving standard of decency contemplated by the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, we must accept as a given that certain cases will present unfortunate facts which, when viewed under the law, result in an outcome at odds with majoritarian sentiment,” Brady wrote in his 2012 ruling. “This may be one of those cases in the eyes of some.”

    Shortly after Brady ruled Brumfield was mentally retarded, Dunn stated in a letter to The Advocate, “From my view, his use of ‘mental retardation’ as a defense is offensive and morally wrong.”

    http://theadvocate.com/home/8047167-...t-brumfield-is
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  8. #8
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    Condemned killer wants to join suit

    More disclosure sought on lethal injection protocol

    By Joe Gyan, Jr.
    The Advocate

    Condemned Baton Rouge cop-killer Kevan Brumfield is seeking federal court permission to join in a lawsuit, filed by two other death-row inmates in 2012, that challenges Louisiana’s execution process.

    Brumfield, who does not have a scheduled execution date, wants to know more about the state’s lethal injection procedures.

    Brumfield’s motion to intervene in the suit by Christopher Sepulvado and Jessie Hoffman came just two days after a federal appellate court ruled earlier this month that he is not mentally retarded and can be put to death for the 1993 ambush slaying of Baton Rouge police Cpl. Betty Smothers.

    “We moved to intervene to protect his interests. When we lost (at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals), we just filed to protect his interests,” said Nicholas Trenticosta, one of Brumfield’s attorneys, on Wednesday.

    Trenticosta said he will ask the 5th Circuit to reconsider its Jan. 8 ruling. He added he is prepared to take Brumfield’s case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Sepulvado, of DeSoto Parish, was convicted and sentenced to die for fatally beating and scalding his 6-year-old stepson, Wesley Allen Mercer, at his Mansfield home in 1992. He is scheduled to be executed Feb. 5.

    Hoffman was convicted in St. Tammany Parish in 1998 for the kidnap, robbery, rape and murder of 28-year-old advertising executive Mary “Molly” Elliot two years earlier. He does not have an execution date.

    U.S. District Judge James Brady ruled in February in the suit Sepulvado and Hoffman filed against the state that Louisiana officials had provided too little information about the execution methods and the drug that will be used in the injection.

    The state disclosed last year that it planned to switch from using three chemicals to one *— a single dose of pentobarbital — to execute inmates. But officials refused to specify the protocol for carrying out executions.

    The 5th U.S. Circuit in December upheld an August decision by the same court that Sepulvado’s due-process rights were not violated when the state withheld details of how it performs executions.

    Pentobarbital was not used the last time Louisiana executed an inmate, Gerald Bordelon in 2010. The state said one of the three chemicals it did use on that occasion — sodium thiopental — is no longer available.

    Sepulvado’s attorneys say even pentobarbital has become unavailable over the past six months, forcing some states to consider changing the method of execution.

    In asking to intervene in Sepulvado’s suit, Brumfield’s attorneys argue “there is a substantial risk that this drug will be changed at the last minute or illegally compounded.”

    His attorneys also contend that pentobarbital — unlike sodium thiopental — is not fast-acting and its use alone would likely result in a slow and excruciating death in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

    “Mr. Brumfield is at a substantial risk of suffering a lingering or unnecessarily painful death due to the nature of the drug itself, which may be expired and/or obtained from unregulated and unlawful sources,” his attorneys write.

    Brumfield, of Baton Rouge, is seeking, among other things, a court order barring the state from carrying out an execution with expired or compounded drugs.

    His motion to intervene is pending before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Riedlinger.

    Henri Broadway, also of Baton Rouge, likewise is on death row for his role in the Smothers killing.

    http://theadvocate.com/news/8163279-123/story.html

  9. #9
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    Unbelievable. The Supreme Court just granted cert to this thug.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/c...514zr_6kg7.pdf

    And yet they denied the Hurles case......amazing.

  10. #10
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    High court to hear Louisiana death row appeal

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from a death row inmate in Louisiana who claims he should not be executed because he is mentally disabled.

    Kevan Brumfield was convicted in the shooting death of off-duty Baton Rouge police Cpl. Betty Smothers in 1993.

    A federal judge ruled that Brumfield was mentally disabled and thus protected from execution under a Supreme Court decision in 2002.

    But the federal appeals court in New Orleans reversed the judge's ruling. The justices said Friday they will review that ruling.

    The case will be argued in March.

    http://www.hickoryrecord.com/news/us...f2ab7e2e6.html

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