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Thread: Todd Kelvin Wessinger - Louisiana

  1. #31
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Wessinger's petition for certiorari.

    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
    Case Numbers: (12-70008)
    Decision Date: July 21, 2017

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....c/17-6446.html

  2. #32
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    U.S. Supreme Court rejects one of condemned killer Todd Wessinger's petitions; another pending

    BY JOE GYAN, JR.
    THE ADVOCATE

    More than two decades have passed since an East Baton Rouge Parish jury decided Todd Wessinger should die for killing two Calendar's Restaurant employees during a 1995 robbery, and the Baton Rouge man is still fighting for a new trial.

    That fight, however, could be nearing an end.

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 8 effectively rejected the 50-year-old Wessinger's claims that the performance of his attorneys during the jury selection and guilt phases of his 1997 trial was constitutionally deficient, and that prosecutors failed to provide his defense team with evidence favorable to him.

    "We are glad that the Supreme Court has reviewed the claims raised by Wessinger in his federal appeal and rejected the vast majority of them," East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III said.

    Wessinger has another petition pending at the high court challenging the performance of his lawyers during the trial's penalty phase.

    "At this point, we are awaiting the Supreme Court's decision on the pending petition," said Federal Public Defender Rebecca Hudsmith, who represents Wessinger.

    Moore said his office is hopeful the high court will reject Wessinger's remaining claims in the next couple of weeks.

    "Obviously, this has been a long and arduous process for the victims' families. We hope to bring them some sense of finality in the near future," he added.

    Wessinger is on death row for fatally shooting Calendar's manager Stephanie Guzzardo, 27, and fellow worker David Breakwell, 46, at the now-closed Perkins Road restaurant on Nov. 19, 1995.

    Wessinger, a former Calendar's dishwasher at the time, shot a third employee in the back. That worker survived. Wessinger's gun jammed when he tried to shoot a fourth employee in the head.

    Guzzardo's father, Wayne Guzzardo, has told The Advocate that Wessinger dying for his crimes would mean justice for his daughter.

    Last summer, a federal appeals court in New Orleans reinstated Wessinger's death sentence, which had been thrown out by Senior U.S. District Judge James Brady in 2015. Brady, who passed away last month, had ruled Wessinger's attorneys provided him ineffective assistance at the penalty phase of his trial.

    Wessinger claims his trial attorneys, Greg Rome and the now-deceased Billy Hecker, were appointed to represent him just six months before the trial began and were ill prepared.

    In Wessinger's petition, which was denied Jan. 8 by the Supreme Court, Hudsmith argued that Wessinger's lawyers failed to interview eyewitnesses and other key state witnesses and otherwise failed to conduct an adequate investigation into the guilt phase of the trial. She also alleged Wessinger's attorneys failed to investigate and present a coherent theory of defense against first-degree murder and the death penalty.

    "The end result was a guilt phase trial at which no defense was presented against the State's theory of the crime and the level of (Wessinger's) culpability," she wrote. "This lack of investigation and preparation and failure of advocacy adversely affected the entire trial and the fundamental fairness of the proceeding."

    In their opposition to his Supreme Court petition, prosecutors countered that Wessinger received constitutionally effective counsel throughout the proceedings and has failed to show how any error by his attorneys prejudiced him to the point of depriving him of a fair and impartial trial.

    "Despite the fact that two attorneys represented this petitioner at trial, and he had the assistance of experts and investigators, petitioner blatantly argues to this Court that no investigation was done," East Baton Rouge Parish Assistant District Attorney Dale Lee, Special Assistant Attorney General John Sinquefield and Assistant Attorney General Kurt Wall argue in the opposition. "This is blatantly inaccurate and contradicted by the state court record."

    Sinquefield prosecuted Wessinger.

    They also noted that Wessinger "effectively mooted" the efforts of his trial attorneys during the guilt phase by admitting the crime to a defense psychiatrist. Wessinger told the psychiatrist he had shot at least three people, and that after he heard he was a suspect he fled to the Dallas area. The psychiatrist testified at the trial.

    The main problem encountered by Wessinger's attorneys at the guilt phase of his trial was the "overwhelming evidence" against him, the prosecutors added.

    That evidence, they said, included eyewitness testimony, the recovery of the murder weapon, witnesses who indicated Wessinger test-fired the gun, his boasting before and after the crime.

    Wessinger's attorneys "had the unenviable task of defending a guilty murderer who left a trail of guilt behind him that even a blind man could follow," the prosecutors stressed.

    Hudsmith also argued in Wessinger's petition that his attorneys failed to challenge one of the 12 jurors who Hudsmith says explicitly admitted during jury selection that she would vote for the death penalty automatically if a guilty verdict was returned.

    Prosecutors pointed out, however, that the woman responded affirmatively when asked if she could consider mitigating factors.

    And although Hudsmith also argued the state suppressed evidence that was both material and favorable to the defense, prosecutors said the state provided "open file" discovery to Wessinger's attorneys.

    http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rou...426e62aa1.html

  3. #33
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Wessinger's second petition for certiorari. Justice Sotomayor dissented.

    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
    Case Numbers: (15-70027)
    Decision Date: July 20, 2017
    Rehearing Denied: August 21, 2017

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....c/17-6844.html

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/...18zor_pnk0.pdf

  4. #34
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    'One step closer to justice,' slain woman’s father says of Supreme Court ruling in 1995 Baton Rouge murder case

    By Joe Gyan Jr.
    The Advocate

    The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected yet another appeal from condemned Baton Rouge killer Todd Wessinger, who was sentenced to die 21 years ago in the 1995 slaying of two restaurant employees during a 1995 robbery.

    A nearly unanimous high court on Monday, without issuing written reasons, denied Wessinger's latest application for relief, a claim that the performance of his attorneys during the penalty phase of his 1997 trial was constitutionally deficient.

    “It’s one step closer to justice,” Wayne Guzzardo, the father of murder victim Stephanie Guzzardo, said Tuesday in response to the high court ruling.

    East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III called it a “final resolution,” but Wessinger’s attorney vowed that the fight is not over.

    Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the court's lone dissent that Wessinger was sentenced to death by a jury that wasn't presented with what she called "significant mitigation evidence" — including a major neurocognitive disorder that compromises his decision-making abilities — that may have convinced jurors to spare his life.

    "That outcome is contrary to precedent and deeply unjust and unfair," she stated.

    Special Assistant Attorney General John Sinquefield, who as an East Baton Rouge Parish assistant district attorney prosecuted Wessinger, said he hopes the Supreme Court’s latest ruling begins the last steps of carrying out the East Baton Rouge Parish jury's verdict and death sentence.

    “This is a giant step forward,” he said.

    However, Federal Public Defender Rebecca Hudsmith, who represents Wessinger, seized on Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion and pledged to “continue to seek avenues of relief and a fair trial for Mr. Wessinger.”

    “I am encouraged by Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor’s acknowledgement, as found by U.S. District Judge James J. Brady, that Mr. Wessinger received layers of ineffective assistance of counsel such that a jury deciding his fate never considered the significant mitigation evidence in the case,” Hudsmith said.

    Brady, who died in December, threw Wessinger’s death sentence out in 2015, ruling that his attorneys provided him ineffective assistance during the penalty phase of his trial. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the death sentence last summer.

    The Supreme Court earlier this year rejected Wessinger's argument that his attorneys performed below constitutional standards during the jury selection and guilt phases of his trial.

    “This has been a very long, tedious journey for the Guzzardo family,” Moore said Tuesday. “Since the jury verdict we have continued to respond to each and every challenge raised to overturn this conviction and sentence. After more than twenty years of litigation, we are satisfied with this final resolution and are convinced that justice has been served.”

    Wessinger, 50, is on death row for fatally shooting Stephanie Guzzardo, 27, and co-worker David Breakwell, 46, at the now-closed Calendar's Restaurant on Perkins Road on Nov. 19, 1995. Guzzardo was the manager.

    Wessinger, a former Calendar's dishwasher at the time, shot a third employee in the back. That worker survived. Wessinger’s gun malfunctioned when he tried to shoot a fourth worker in the head.

    In her dissent, Sotomayor said Wessinger as a child suffered a stroke that affected how the left and right sides of his brain communicate. She also said he has a hole in the area of his brain associated with executive functioning.

    “The jury never considered this evidence at sentencing, or other mitigation about Wessinger’s family history of poverty, alcoholism, and domestic violence, because Wessinger’s trial counsel did not attempt to discover it,” she wrote.

    The Supreme Court repeatedly has held that the failure to perform mitigation investigation constitutes deficient performance, the justice added, saying the investigation of mitigation evidence and its presentation at sentencing are “crucial to maintaining the integrity of capital proceedings.”

    “Wessinger will remain on death row without a jury ever considering the significant mitigation evidence that is now apparent,” she concluded.

    Executions in Louisiana have been on hold since 2014 when Brady temporarily stayed them as a result of a lawsuit challenging the state’s lethal injection protocols. U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick extended Brady’s order indefinitely in January, a month after he died. She has scheduled a July 17 status conference in the case.

    Louisiana’s last execution was in 2010, when Gerald Bordelon was put to death for killing his 12-year-old stepdaughter in 2002. Drug shortages have forced state corrections officials to rewrite its execution plan several times since 2010.

    http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rou...58cb016ed.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #35
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    The Middle District Court of Louisiana vacated Wessinger’s death sentences 12/20/22 on an ineffective counsel claim and remanded to the trial court for a new penalty phase.

    https://documents.deathpenaltyinfo.o...2022-12-20.pdf
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

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  6. #36
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    ‘We’re going to fight it:’ Family members, prosecutors urge Gov. not to consider death row inmates’ clemency pleas

    By Lester Duhé
    WAFB News

    BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - There are many people unhappy after nearly every inmate on Death Row at Angola asked Governor John Bel Edwards to spare their lives.

    Including some family members of the victims, of the killers who are currently on death row.

    51 of the state’s most notorious killers submitted applications to the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole Tuesday, June 13, asking to change their punishment from the death penalty to life imprisonment without the chance of parole.

    Governor Edwards weighed in on the very topic he could have the final say on, at the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge meeting Wednesday, June 14.

    “The pardon board is going to take those up, and I’m going to be very measured with what I say publicly because I have never told an individual member of the pardon board or collectively what I would want them to do.

    I think they have to exercise their own judgment,” said Gov. Edwards (D).

    The governor has taken a firm stance against the death penalty recently, calling for lawmakers to abolish it back in April of this year. However, the few efforts to do that didn’t go far this Regular Legislative Session.

    “You all know how I feel about the death penalty itself, because I made multiple statements about it over the last several months, including in my State of the State (address), when I pointed out that in the last 20 years, there’s been one execution, and I think six exonerations. In addition to that, somewhere around 50 people in the last twenty years have left death row in order to be sentenced to life or otherwise for whatever mitigating factors there’s been. So, I have real challenges with the death penalty, especially as it is practiced in Louisiana, the cost of it and so forth,” said Edwards.

    Cecilia Kappel is the executive director of the Louisiana Capital Appeals Project and led a team of attorneys to submit the requests.

    “The people on our death row are not there because these are the worst of the worst crimes. They are there because they are poor, black, young, mentally ill, or disabled. This is not a class of people that deserves to be put to death,” said Kappel on Tuesday to WAFB.

    The thought of the governor even considering this request has Wayne Guzzardo appalled.

    “Me and my wife haven’t slept in two days. But we do this all the time man, but for this time is for all the marbles,” said Guzzardo.

    In 1995, Todd Wessinger shot three people inside the Calendar’s restaurant in Baton Rouge, including Guzzardo’s daughter, Stephanie.

    Wessinger was sentenced to death in 1997 but is still on death row even after constant appeals. And Guzzardo believes he deserves to stay there.

    “Til the day I die, or the day my wife dies, we’re going to fight it until the end. I mean, there ain’t no two ways about it. I mean, he wasn’t remorseful,” said Guzzardo.

    The request is also baffling some longtime well-known prosecutors who put some of these criminals on Death Row, like former EBR First Assistant District Attorney and current Chief Deputy Attorney General John Sinquefield.

    “It would be an absolute injustice, in fact a tragedy to the family members of the victims of these 51 people on death row and have been convicted by a jury and sentenced to death. These cases have been in the judicial system for years, most of these people are represented by very capable attorneys, and they’re in the very stages of the appellate or post-conviction procedure, and the outcomes should be left to the courts. These secondary victims have been engaged in years of court proceedings, and it would absolutely destroy some of these family members, for the persons convicted of murdering their loved ones, to be just arbitrarily released from the death penalty,” said Sinquefield in a statement to WAFB.

    “But these applications have to be individually scrutinized and judged, and I don’t act on any of them, unless and until the requisite vote of the pardon board happens. And so, it just doesn’t make sense to get too far in front of that,” said Gov. Edwards.

    The Board of Pardons & Committee on Parole has to review and investigate each application before it reaches the governor. That process can take up to a year.

    But with Governor Edwards leaving office in six months, he could not ever see these appeals on his desk.

    https://www.wafb.com/2023/06/15/were...lemency-pleas/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  7. #37
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    Parole board denies clemency for Todd Wessinger, death row inmate condemned for 1995 double murder

    By Jonathan Shelley
    WBRZ

    BATON ROUGE - The Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole on Monday will hear the pleas for clemency from five death row inmates, including a man who was convicted in the 1995 murders of two people at Calendar's restaurant on Perkins Road in Baton Rouge.

    The fate of Todd Wessinger has already been batted around the courts since his 1997 trial.

    In 2017 -- the year of last significant ruling -- the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling and reinstated Wessinger's death sentence.

    Those seeking clemency, however, say Wessinger suffers from mental deficiencies that date to a pediatric stroke, and note that he was sentenced by an all-white jury that, they say, was unaware of the condition. Wessinger is Black.

    Wayne Guzzardo, whose daughter, Stephanie, was one of the victims, has attended numerous appeal hearings over the years and has testified before the legislature, urging the State to carry out the death sentence.

    Others whose cases will go before the Board on Monday are:

    -Jimmie Duncan

    -Bobby Hampton

    -Nathaniel Code

    -Clarence Harris

    The hearings begin at 8:30 a.m.

    https://www.wbrz.com/news/man-condem...-board-monday/
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

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