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Thread: Lazale Delane Ashby - Connecticut

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    Lazale Delane Ashby - Connecticut




    Facts of the Crime:

    Convicted of raping and murdering his 21-year-old neighbor, Elizabeth Garcia, in her apartment on December 2, 2002.

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    March 28, 2008

    Lazale Ashby Sentenced to Death

    HARTFORD, Conn. -- A Hartford man convicted of raping and murdering his neighbor has been sentenced to death, making him Connecticut's youngest death row inmate.

    Lazale Ashby, now 23, turned 18 four days before killing 21-year-old Elizabeth Garcia in her Hartford apartment in December 2002.

    Hartford Superior Court Judge Carmen Espinosa sentenced Ashby to death on Friday, making him the tenth man on Connecticut's death row. He was convicted in 2007 of capital felony and other charges.

    A jury recommended the death penalty earlier this year.

    Garcia was an acquaintance of Ashby. She was found dead in her apartment after she failed to pick up her 2-year-old daughter from a neighbor.

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    Connecticut Supreme Court Rules Death Penalty Unconstitutional, Bars Execution Of Any Inmate

    By EDMUND H. MAHONY
    The Hartford Courant

    The Connecticut Supreme Court Thursday ruled 4-3 that the state's death penalty law, as it now stands, is unconstitutional and it barred the execution of the 11 state prison inmates now on death row.

    The law in question was enacted in 2012. It barred the "prospective" execution of those convicted of capital offenses after the date of enactment, but permitted the execution of those convicted before.

    "Upon careful consideration of the defendant's claims in light of the governing constitutional principles and Connecticut's unique historical and legal landscape, we are persuaded that, following its prospective abolition, this state's death penalty no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency and no longer serves any legitimate penological purpose," Justice Richard Palmer wrote for the majority.

    ""For these reasons, execution of those offenders who committed capital felonies prior to April 25, 2012, would violate the state constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment."

    When state lawmakers abolished the death penalty in 2012 but made the law prospective, it prompted legal challenges by attorneys representing those condemned to die by execution.

    The Supreme Court agreed to take up the law's prospective issue when it granted a request by Eduardo Santiago, whose death sentence was overturned two months after the repeal took effect.

    The justices ordered a new penalty phase for Santiago, saying the trial judge failed to disclose "significant and relevant" mitigating evidence for jury consideration when jurors decided to send Santiago to death row for the December 2000 killing of Joseph Niwinski in West Hartford.

    During the death penalty debate, some legislators questioned whether a prospective repeal would stand up in court. The provision was added following the high-profile trials of Cheshire home invasion killers Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, both of whom are on death row.

    In his 2013 arguments before the Supreme Court, Assistant Public Defender Mark Rademacher told justices that even Connecticut's top prosecutor was skeptical of the prospective repeal.

    "The problems with the prospective repeal were aptly summed up by Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane when he told the legislature that prospective repeal creates two classes of people," Rademacher said at the time.

    "One will be subject to execution and the other will not, not because of the nature of the crime or the existence or absence of any aggravating or mitigating factor but because of the date on which the crime was committed," Rademacher said Kane told legislators in March 2012.

    "That is untenable as a matter of constitutional law or public policy. I just wouldn't plain feel right doing it," Rademacher recalled Kane saying.

    Rademacher said no jurisdiction in the history of the United States has executed an offender after renouncing capital punishment. In Connecticut, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles — not the governor — has the power to commute a death sentence to life in prison.

    Senior Assistant State's Attorney Harry Weller argued in support of the new law, saying that prospective repeal was the legislature's intent. He said it is constitutional and argued against the justices ruling on just part of the law. If the effective date of the law is found unconstitutional, the law must be struck in its entirety, he said.

    Weller said he saw two outcomes, "and neither of them get the defendant what he wants." The first outcome, he said, would be to affirm the constitutionality of the new law. The second outcome would be a ruling that the new law is unconstitutional.

    "But if you do that, the entire act is unconstitutional," Weller said. "This defendant remains subject to the death penalty and the death penalty remains in place."

    Weller said the state's highest court has always deferred to the legislature in regard to decisions about Connecticut's death penalty.

    The last person to be executed in Connecticut was serial killer Michael Ross, and it occurred in 2005 only after Ross waged a legal fight to end his appeals and to have the sentence imposed.

    http://touch.courant.com/#section/-1.../p2p-84199697/

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Murder Victim's Mother Is "Angry" Her Daughter's Killer Won't See Death Penalty

    The Connecticut Supreme Court struck down the death penalty on Thursday, ruling it's unconstitutional

    A mother whose daughter’s killer sits on death row says she’s “angry” after the state Supreme Court struck down the death penalty on Thursday, ruling it's unconstitutional.

    “The only hope that I had for him to be confined and miserable for the rest of his life they’re taking that away too,” Betsy Betterini, mother of Elizabeth Garcia, said.

    In 2002, Garcia was the victim of a horrible crime, police said.

    Then 21-year-old was raped and killed in her Hartford apartment, police said.

    Her neighbor, Lazale Ashby, was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death.

    He had just turned 18 years old days before the attack.

    “He had no remorse,” Betterini said.

    Betterini says she hoped her daughter’s killer would be put to death. But she thought that Ashby living on death row was a punishment itself.

    “Death penalty would put you in a cell 6-by-6. I believe you only go out one hour a day and that could be during the day or the night. So he’s confined for 23 hours,” says Betterini.

    Betterini says she had found some closure in the sentence. Now that her daughter’s killer no longer faces the death penalty, Betterini feels that she’s lost something again.

    “The only hope that I had for him to be confined and miserable for the rest of his life, they’re taking that away too,” says Betterini.

    Betterini holds close the memories of her daughter and pictures of Garcia still adorn the family fridge.

    “She was very caring and loving. And she wasn’t prejudiced. She liked everyone,” says Betterini.

    “I go on with my life. I laugh. I work. I have fun. I go on vacations. But people really don’t understand that not a day goes by that I don’t think about my daughter.”

    http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/l...321837122.html

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    State Supreme Court Upholds Abolishment Of Death Penalty, Including For Death-Row Inmates

    By Alaine Griffin and Matthew Kauffman
    The Hartford Courant

    The Connecticut Supreme Court has upheld its decision to abolish the state's death penalty, including for inmates on death row.

    The 5-2 ruling, released Thursday, upholds the justices 4-3 decision last August that the death penalty was unconstitutional for all – including 11 convicts on Connecticut's death row – following the legislature's abolition three years ago of capital punishment in Connecticut. Lawmakers made the law prospective, meaning it applied only to new cases and kept in place the death sentences already imposed on those facing execution before the bill was passed.

    Attorneys for those on death row challenged the law, saying it violated the condemned inmates' constitutional rights. The ruling last August came in the case of Eduardo Santiago, who had faced the death penalty for the December 2000 killing of Joseph Niwinski in West Hartford. Santiago has been resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release.

    In the August ruling, the justices in the majority wrote that executing an inmate "would violate the state constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment" and that the death penalty "no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency."

    Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers, who joined with Justice Carmen E. Espinosa and Justice Peter T. Zarella in the August dissents, voted this time with the majority, saying she felt bound to the doctrine of "stare decisis," a Latin term meaning "stand by things decided."

    "Just as my personal beliefs cannot drive my decision-making, I feel bound by the doctrine of stare decisis in this case for one simple reason—my respect for the rule of law," Rogers wrote. "To reverse an important constitutional issue within a period of less than one year solely because of a change in justices on the panel that is charged with deciding the issue, in my opinion, would raise legitimate concerns by the people we serve about the court's integrity and the rule of law in the state of Connecticut."

    Rogers said, "stability in the law and respect for the decisions of the court as an institution, rather than a collection of individuals, in and of themselves, are of critically important value, especially on an issue of such great public significance as the constitutionality of the death penalty."

    In separate dissents, Zarella and Espinosa rejected the assertion that respect for precedent mandated Thursday's ruling, saying that doctrine should never be used to enshrine a flawed decision. And they pointedly noted that Rogers herself had blasted the original Santiago decision as "a house of cards, falling under the slightest breath of scrutiny."

    They also criticized Justice Richard A. Robinson, who came on the court after the Santiago decision and voted with the majority, along with justices Richard N. Palmer, Dennis G. Eveleigh and Andrew J. McDonald. Like Rogers, Robinson cited the importance of respecting precedent.

    "I cannot fathom how Chief Justice Rogers and Justice Robinson believe they respect the rule of law by supporting a decision that is completely devoid of any legal basis or believe it is more important to spare this court of the purported embarrassment than to correct demonstrable constitutional error," Zarella wrote.

    In switching her position on Santiago, Rogers wrote that overruling the case so soon after it was decided could lead to public perception that Supreme Court rulings are based on the personal whims of its members and would undermine predictability in the law.

    "The short answer to those concerns," Espinosa wrote, "is that they are unjustified and irrelevant when the prior precedent at issue is clearly wrong." And that is particularly true, she wrote, when the "clearly wrong, recently decided case" upended prior decisions and violated the rule of precedent.

    Zarella also dismissed the assertion that overruling the Santiago decision would send the message that closely decided cases can be revisited whenever there is a change in the Supreme Court membership. "My response is concise and simple: So what," he wrote. "This has been, and will always be the case."

    Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, in a statement released Thursday afternoon, said the ruling "reaffirms what the court has already said: those currently serving on death row will serve the rest of their life in prison with no possibility of ever obtaining freedom."

    Malloy noted that Connecticut in the last half century has executed only two inmates, both of whom volunteered for death.

    "Opinions on this issue vary, and it's critical that we respect that diversity of perspectives," Malloy said. "These are deeply personal and moral issues that we as a society are facing and the court has once again ruled on today. Our focus today should not be on those currently sitting on death row, but with their victims and those surviving family members. My thoughts and prayers are with them on this difficult day."

    Chief State's Attorney Kevin T. Kane said his office respects the decision and would "move forward" to re-sentence the individuals currently on death row to a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release.

    "The Division of Criminal Justice and I extend our deepest sympathy and condolences to the victims of these crimes and to their families," Kane said in a statement. "I also wish to express my appreciation to the dedicated professionals in the Division of Criminal Justice who have devoted so much of themselves throughout this process."

    In October, the high court denied a request by the chief state's attorney to postpone the Santiago decision, a ruling that followed its denial of a request by prosecutors to re-argue Santiago.

    Prosecutors then filed briefs arguing for the Santiago decision to be overruled in the pending appeal of Russell Peeler, who was sentenced to death for ordering the 1999 killings in Bridgeport of 8-year-old Leroy "B.J." Brown Jr. and his mother, Karen Clarke. The justices heard arguments on those briefs in January.

    Prosecutors said in deciding the Santiago case, the court "did not confine its analysis" to the actual claim raised -- whether enacting the 2012 law invalidated the death sentences of those sentenced before the law went into effect. The court made its ruling, prosecutors said, "for reasons having little or nothing to do with" enactment of the 2012 law and "erred in its ruling on lines of analysis and authorities the parties had not discussed."

    Prosecutors also argued that the justices relied on "flawed historical analysis" to justify their "departure from well-established principles of law" and incorrectly determined that state residents prior to the 1818 constitution gave the high court the authority to act independently to invalidate a penalty.

    Public defenders for Peeler made several arguments against overruling the Santiago decision in court briefs, pointing foremost to the legal doctrine of "stare decisis" -- letting decided issues stand. Senior Assistant Public Defender Mark Rademacher told the justices that the state faced an "uphill battle" in getting the ruling reversed.

    "What the state is asking this court to do ... is simply breathtaking," Rademacher said at the January hearing. "It is asking this court to overrule a long line of cases that have affirmed the court's authority as a constitutional matter to protect the citizens of this state against cruel and unusual punishment."

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecti...526-story.html

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Resentencing Delayed For Death Row Inmate Lazale Ashby Of Hartford

    By David Owens
    The Hartford Courant

    The resentencing of death row inmate Lazale Ashby was delayed Monday so that the daughter of his victim could be given the opportunity to attend the court hearing.

    Ashby, 33, was sentenced to death, plus 125 years, in March 2008 for the rape and murder of Elizabeth Garcia, a 21-year-old single mother. Garcia’s daughter Jayleah was 2 at the time of her mother’s death and is now 17.

    Prosecutor John Fahey, who with now-retired prosecutor Tom Garcia prosecuted Ashby in 2008, asked Hartford Superior Court Judge Laura F. Baldini to delay the resentencing so that Jayleah could attend the hearing if she chose to.

    Baldini said that it was her view that the state’s victim rights law meant Jayleah had to be be notified of the hearing and given the opportunity to be there.

    Ashby, who is also serving a 25-year concurrent sentence for fatally shooting Nahshon Cohen, 22, on Sept. 1, 2003, said nothing and showed no emotion during the brief hearing Monday before Baldini.

    Ashby was convicted in January 2008 after a trial for kidnapping, raping and strangling Garcia inside her Zion Street apartment. DNA linked Ashby, then 18, to the crime and then-Hartford detectives Andrew Weaver and Michael Sheldon elicited a confession from Ashby during an interview. Ashby held Garcia inside her apartment overnight from Dec. 1, 2002, into Dec. 2, 2002.

    The sentences of all death row inmates had to be revised after the state Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the death penalty was unconstitutional.

    Following that ruling, Steven Hayes, Joshua Komisarjevsky, Sedric Cobb, Russell Peeler, Jessie Campbell III and Daniel Webb were resentenced. Todd Rizzo, Richard Reynolds, Robert Breton, Richard Roszkowski and Ashby await resentencing.

    Ashby is due back in court May 21.

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecti...501-story.html
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    Ex-death row inmate sentenced to life for murder

    A former death row inmate was resentenced on Wednesday to life in prison for the 2002 slaying of a single mother.

    Lazale Ashby, 33, had his sentence converted as a result of the state Supreme Court decision to end capital punishment.

    Ashby, who was convicted in 2008, raped and strangled Elizabeth Garcia inside her Hartford apartment as her 2-year-old daughter watched television in another room.

    The victim's daughter, who is now 17, spoke at the hearing and described the pain of never knowing her mother, the Hartford Courant reported .

    "He should be deprived of his freedom and he must be reminded of the horrible things he's done," the teen said.

    The teen's grandmother, Betsy Betterini, told the Hartford Superior Court judge that her daughter Elizabeth would have been proud to see the teen as the courageous, college-bound young woman she has become.

    Ashby, who did not speak during the sentencing hearing, also is serving a 25-year sentence for a fatal shooting that took place in 2003. An appeal of his conviction in the Garcia case is pending.

    The state Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in 2015. 9 of the state's 11 former death row inmates have since been resentenced to life in prison.

    (Source: The Associated Press)
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    Supreme Court overturns conviction in case that sent Hartford man to death row, orders new trial. State says it will retry Lazale Ashby.

    By DAVID OWENS
    THE HARTFORD COURANT

    In a decision released Thursday afternoon, the Connecticut Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Lazale Ashby, now 35, for the Dec. 2, 2002 rape, kidnapping and murder of Elizabeth Garcia in Hartford.

    The court found that Ashby was denied his sixth amendment right to counsel when a fellow prisoner, Kenneth Pladsen, got him to make admissions about the case against him.

    But Ashby will not be getting out of prison any time soon. He is serving a 25-year sentence for murder for fatally shooting Nahshon Cohen, 22, on Sept. 1, 2003.

    In the Garcia case, the court found that trial court Judge Carmen Espinosa erred when she declined to suppress Pladsen’s testimony. The supreme court also found she erred when she did not give the jury an instruction on third-party culpability since saliva from an unidentified man was found on Garcia’s body. Ashby was 18 when Garcia was killed in her Zion Street apartment.

    The high court found that Pladsen was acting as an agent for the state and as a result Ashby was entitled to representation by a lawyer.

    During the trial, Espinosa conducted a hearing on the informant’s evidence and concluded Plasden had acted on his own and not at the direction of now-retired Hartford police Det. Andrew Weaver. Weaver met with the informant after receiving a letter from him, and told him would be interested in verifiable evidence of incriminating statements by Ashby and at one point asked the informant if he would wear a monitoring device with Ashby.

    There was no agreement, however, and Weaver told the informant that only a state’s attorney could make a deal with him. A prosecutor subsequently told Weaver not to speak with Pladsen.

    Pladsen, however, took it upon himself to obtain incriminating information from Ashby and later testified at Ashby’s trial.

    “We conclude that the state either knew or should have known that such a conversation was likely to end in further deliberate elicitation,” reads the decision by Chief Justice Richard A. Robinson. He was joined by justices Richard N. Palmer, Andrew J. McDonald, Gregory T. D’Auria, Maria Araujo Kahn and Steven D. Ecker.

    Prosecutor John Fahey agreed to allow Pladsen to seek a sentence modification, which was evidence of a benefit for his cooperation, the court found.

    Justice Raheem Mullins dissented, contending the state did not affirmatively seek information from Pladsen or offer anything in exchange for information. The court’s finding, he argued, makes “virtually every inmate who seeks out a state official to provide information ... an agent of the state unless the official responds with complete silence or affirmatively dissuades the inmate from seeking further information.”

    Fahey said Thursday evening the state will try Ashby again. “The state has every intention of retrying Mr. Ashby in accordance with the supreme court’s decision,” he said.

    Ashby was convicted at trial of two counts of capital felony, which was the state’s death penalty statute, murder, felony murder, first-degree sexual assault, three counts of first-degree kidnapping and first-degree burglary, and sentenced to death. That sentence was later changed to life without the possibility of release, plus 125 years, when the Supreme Court ended the state's death penalty.

    Other evidence included DNA linking Ashby to the crime and Ashby’s confession to Weaver and Weaver’s colleague Mike Sheldon.

    https://www.courant.com/news/connect...6py-story.html
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    Former death row inmate pleads guilty to murder and is sentenced to decades in Connecticut prison

    HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A former death row inmate in Connecticut, whose conviction was overturned in 2020, has pleaded guilty to a murder charge and been sentenced to 46 1/2 years in prison.

    Lazale Ashby, 38, entered his plea Monday as a part of an agreement with the prosecutor and the family of his victim, 21-year-old Elizabeth Garcia, his attorney, Joe Lopez, said Tuesday.

    Garcia was strangled inside her Hartford apartment in 2002 as her 2-year-old daughter watched television in another room, prosecutors said.

    This is the third time Lazale Ashby has been sentenced for killing Garcia. He was originally convicted of multiple charges including capital felony, sexual assault and kidnapping and sentenced to death in 2008. He was resentenced to life in prison in 2016 after Connecticut abolished the death penalty.

    The Connecticut Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Ashby in 2020 after finding his rights were violated during his original trial when the judge allowed testimony from another inmate who said Ashby made admissions about the crime in prison.

    https://www.greenwichtime.com/news/a...r-18336505.php
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