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Thread: Donald Fell - Federal

  1. #11
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    Juror denies misconduct in Vt. death penalty case

    A Vermont juror in the 2005 death penalty trial of Donald Fell is denying that he committed juror misconduct by taking a trip to the crime scene during the trial.

    Fell's lawyers are complaining that the jury which convicted Fell in the 2000 killing of Rutland supermarket worker Theresa King engaged in misconduct during the trial.

    The juror told the U.S. District Court judge on Thursday that he actually made the trip to Rutland to the scene of King's kidnapping and location in New York where she was killed in 2010, five years after the trial.

    He also denies that he pointed a shotgun at a fellow juror during deliberations. He says he pretended to point a gun but that there was no firearm in the jury room.

    http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/ar...se-4734016.php

  2. #12
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    Prosecutors contesting Donald Fell's death sentence want to interview him

    Federal prosecutors fighting for the execution of a former Rutland man on federal death row want to interview him and have him undergo a mental health evaluation.

    The prosecutors are contesting the legal appeals filed by the attorneys for Donald Fell who are seeking to prevent his execution for his role in the 2000 abduction and killing of a Rutland supermarket worker.

    The prosecutors want to ask Fell about the conduct of his trial attorneys, which are being called into question by the attorneys handling Fell's appeals.

    "Clearly Fell's own conduct and statements necessarily informed counsel's actions and the opinions of the defense's experts. As such, the government requests that this court compel petitioner to submit to a deposition," prosecutors wrote in documents filed in federal court in Burlington.

    Fell was found guilty in 2005 and sentenced to death for the killing of Terry King of North Clarendon, who was abducted when she arrived for work at a Rutland supermarket. She was later killed in New York state.

    Fell's attorneys have opposed allowing prosecutors to interview him.

    Part of Fell's appeal centers on what his attorneys say was misconduct by three members of the jury that sentenced him to death.

    Fell is on death row at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana

    http://www.therepublic.com/view/stor...Penalty-Appeal
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  3. #13
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    Juror in Fell death-penalty case slams defense appeal tactics

    A member of the jury that sentenced Donald Fell to death in 2005 for his role in a grisly murder broke her silence Wednesday, accusing Fell’s lawyers of attacking her character as a way to get him a new trial or lesser sentence.

    Joyce Gagnon, 71, of Williston said Fell’s lawyers were supposed to use a recent closed-door court hearing to find out why, during the jury selection process prior to Fell’s trial, she didn’t reveal an instance of sex abuse in her distant past.

    Instead, the lawyers turned the hearing into an interrogation about her parenting of a son who later had run-ins with the law.

    “They victimized me on the stand,” Gagnon said, speaking of the questioning of her by Fell’s lawyers at an Aug. 16 hearing at U.S. District Court in Burlington. “They tried to make me look like, I don’t know, that I was incompetent.”

    Gagnon said the lawyers wrongly accused her of abandoning her son when he was a toddler and then not telling them about her son’s criminal problems as a young man.

    “They’re dragging me and my son through the mud,” she said. “It’s hard to grasp a hold of why. I wish I was never on that jury.”

    The son, now 50, is employed and has not been in criminal trouble for seven years, she said.

    This week, a new filing with the court revealed that Fell’s lawyers have subpoenaed the state Corrections Department for all paperwork related to the son’s time in state jails and all contacts with probation and parole officials.

    The disclosure was contained in a motion filed by Vermont Attorney General’s Office that asked the court to quash, or dismiss, the subpoenas, citing confidentiality rules.

    Attorney Lewis Liman of New York City, lead member of the Fell defense team, declined comment regarding its decision to zero in on Gagnon’s parental skills and on her son’s criminal record.

    “Out of respect to the jurors, Mr Fell intends to communicate through his pleadings and briefs to the Court and not otherwise,” Liman wrote in a statement to the Burlington Free Press.

    Fell, 33, is on death row at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., for the 2000 kidnapping and killing of Terry King, a 53-year-old grandmother from North Clarendon.

    King was kidnapped as she was arriving to work at a Rutland supermarket, and later was beaten to death by Fell and an accomplice in upstate New York as she pleaded for her life.

    The killers previously had slain Fell’s mother and a companion of hers in Rutland and were fleeing when they encountered King and decided to take her car.

    Vermont has no death penalty, but Fell was tried and convicted under federal law. The accomplice, Robert Lee, died in prison before his trial.

    Gagnon is one of three jurors whom Fell’s defense team claims were dishonest with lawyers while being considered for spots on the jury, or who engaged in improper conduct once they were on the panel. The federal government says nobody did anything wrong.

    In Gagnon’s case, Fell’s lawyers alleged she lied on a juror questionnaire by not disclosing she was the victim of sexual abuse when she was a little girl.

    Gagnon said the incident occurred so long ago — and was not considered a crime at the time — that she forgot about it when she was asked if she was ever a victim of a crime.

    “You ask any of my friends, and they will tell you I am honest to a fault,” she said. “This could all be solved with a lie-detector test.” Such tests are inadmissible in court, however.

    The Burlington Free Press does not identify victims of alleged sexual crimes without the individual’s permission. In this case, Gagnon agreed to be identified by name.

    Gagnon said when her son was a toddler, she briefly gave custody of him to the state when she, as a teen mother, sank into a deep depression after her husband was burned to death in a highway construction accident.

    “They stood in court and tried to tell me I abandoned my son when he was a baby,” Gagnon said of Fell’s lawyers. She said she was so depressed after her husband died that she would sleep for three or four days at a time.

    “I needed someone to take care of my son,” Gagnon said. She said she regained custody of the boy after she recovered, and she raised him.

    Later, when her son was a teenager, she discovered he was doing drugs. She said she gave him an ultimatum: Get help, or move out. He chose to leave home, and later was charged with possession of cocaine and marijuana, among other crimes.

    Gagnon said she was unaware of the extent of her son’s criminal history until she was questioned about it by Fell’s attorneys.

    “A lot of it I had never heard about until that day,” she said.

    According to court papers, Fell’s defense is now seeking to redact, or black out, details connected with Gagnon’s son that are contained in a transcript of the Aug. 12 hearing. The document is scheduled to become public Nov. 29.

    Federal prosecutors are opposing that redaction request.

    “Few if any of Fell’s proposed redactions address the childhood sexual abuse matter,” the prosecutors wrote in a court filing. “Instead, one of Fell’s attorneys examined the juror aggressively and at length about her son’s criminal history. ... The bulk of the redactions have to do with that collateral matter.”

    Gagnon said she reluctantly came to the decision to support giving Fell the death penalty.

    “I’m a person who can’t kill an insect,” she said. “I don’t like the idea of killing people, of killing anyone.”

    She said other jurors helped convince her to vote to sentence Fell to death because of the brutal nature of his crime.

    http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/a...appeal-tactics
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  4. #14
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    Lawyers in Donald Fell death-penalty case raise new juror misconduct allegations

    Claim involves fourth juror in challenge against 2005 death-penalty sentence


    By Sam Hemingway

    Another juror who sat on the death-penalty trial of Donald Fell in 2005 has been accused of withholding personal information during the jury-selection process, Fell’s legal team contends in a new filing at U.S. District Court in Burlington.

    According to the document, a Barre man listed as Juror 27 in court papers answered “no” to a question about whether he had ever been charged with a crime.

    Fell’s lawyers said they recently discovered that Juror 27 was convicted of driving under influence in 1982 and was charged, but not convicted, of an assault in 1981.

    “There is significant reason to believe that these concealed facts evince an inability of Juror 27 to consider the facts of Mr. Fell’s case impartially,” Fell’s lawyers wrote in a 411-page amended motion asking the court for a new trial or a reduced sentence.

    Efforts by the Burlington Free Press to contact Juror 27 on Monday were unsuccessful.

    Fell was charged, along with Robert Lee, in the grisly, drug-fueled kidnapping and beating death of North Clarendon grandmother Terri King in November 2000, shortly after the Fell and Lee killed Fell’s mother and a friend of hers in Rutland.

    Lee later died in jail. Fell was convicted after a trial in summer 2005 of killing King and then was sentenced to death by the seven-man, five-woman federal jury. He is on death row at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.

    Vermont does not have the death penalty, but Fell was tried under federal law in the first capital case in the state in 50 years.

    Fell’s legal team, which took over his defense in 2009 from the lawyers who represented him at trial, stated in their filing that they also have new evidence supporting misconduct charges they levied against three other jurors earlier this year.

    The three jurors underwent rare court proceedings this summer before Judge William K. Sessions III during which they had to answer questions about their behavior.

    Federal prosecutors, in a filing last week, told Sessions that the new claims by Fell’s lawyers should be thrown out because they were filed long past a deadline for making such allegations, and because they were unnecessarily intrusive.

    “Following an extraordinary investigation into the lives of the jurors who convicted him by a team of (lawyers), Fell now seeks to turn the tables and put his jurors on trial, for perjury or false statement,” the government filing stated.

    Fell’s lawyers stated that their new evidence against the other three jurors includes claims that:

    • Juror 26 hid the fact he had misdemeanor convictions in the 1990s for driving under the influence and non-payment of wages.

    • Juror 143 answered “no” on the jury questionnaire when asked if he had ever been accused of a crime when Vermont State Police records show he was investigated, but not charged, with stealing property from a public recreation area.

    • Juror 162 was not candid about disclosing details of her son’s criminal history and substance abuse problems, and did not disclose she once filed a criminal complaint against an “ex-partner.”

    The new disclosures about Juror 162 were referred to in the the government’s objection to the filing by Fell’s lawyers.

    Fell’s lawyers, in their motion, blacked out all 24 pages of its claims against Juror 162, apparently because the initial allegation made by Fell’s lawyers against the woman involved evidence she failed to disclose she was the victim of a sexual assault 50 years ago.

    The woman, Joyce Gagnon of Williston, told the Burlington Free Press last month that the sexual assault incident occurred when she was a little girl, and she forgot about it when answering a question regarding whether she was ever the victim of a crime.

    “They’re dragging me and my son through the mud,” said Gagnon, who gave the Free Press permission to use her name. “It’s hard to grasp a hold of why. I wish I was never on that jury.”

    http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/a...nclick_check=1

  5. #15
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    Fell lawyers continue push to discredit juror in court filing

    Lawyer alleges juror made 'knowing and intentional' omissions

    By Sam Hemingway

    Lawyers for Donald Fell are continuing their push to discredit a woman juror from the 2005 trial who helped put Fell on death row for the drug-fueled kidnapping and killing of a North Clarendon grandmother.

    In papers filed recently at U.S. District Court in Burlington, Fell’s legal team asked federal Judge William Sessions III to allow them to review the substance abuse treatment records for the son of the juror, Joyce Gagnon of Williston.

    “Mr. Fell is under a sentence of death, and he has an exceptionally urgent need to protect his opportunity for the full and fair airing of the facts in support of his juror misconduct claim,” the filing by Fell’s defense attorneys stated in part.

    At issue is a dispute over what Gagnon, identified in court papers only as Juror 162, told lawyers in the case during the jury selection process prior to the trial.

    Fell’s lawyers have contended Gagnon lied on a juror questionnaire by not disclosing she was the victim of sexual abuse when she was a little girl 50 years ago.

    Gagnon, in an interview with the Burlington Free Press last year, said the incident occurred so long ago — and was not considered a crime at the time — that she forgot to mention it.

    The newspaper does not identify victims of alleged sexual crimes without the individual’s permission. In this case, Gagnon agreed to be identified by name.

    During a closed-door inquiry before Sessions last summer, Gagnon was also questioned about her son’s criminal record. In the new filing by Fell’s lawyer, Gagnon is accused of lying about the extent of her knowledge of her son’s substance abuse problems.

    “Mr. Fell has uncovered facts proving that Juror 162’s son’s history of substance abuse is far more extensive than Juror 162 disclosed,” the filing said. “Mr. Fell can already prove that these omissions and misstatements by Juror 162 were knowing and intentional.”

    Fell’s lawyers have also attacked the credibility of two other jurors from his trial as part of an effort to win Fell a new trial or a reduced sentence.

    Fell was charged, along with Robert Lee, of abducting Terri King as she was arriving for work at a Rutland supermarket in 2000, and then beating her to death after driving to New York State. Lee died in prison before his trial.

    Fell was convicted in 2005 of kidnapping with death resulting and sentenced to be executed. He is on death row at a federal facility in Terre Haute, Ind.

    http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/a...nclick_check=1

  6. #16
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    Juror misconduct hearing in death-penalty case will stretch three days

    Tuesday marked the first of three days of hearings in U.S. District Court in Burlington on juror misconduct in the death-penalty trial of Donald Fell in 2005.

    Three jurors — identified in court papers as jurors 26, 143 and 162 — either misled attorneys during the jury selection process about their backgrounds or engaged in questionable conduct while serving on the jury, lawyers for Fell contend.

    Three witnesses, including two ex-significant others of juror 143 and a lawyer who had interviewed jurors 143 and 162 after the trial about experiences during the trial, were called to testify Tuesday. More witnesses who will speak to the alleged questionable conduct are expected to be called Wednesday and Thursday.

    The Fell case stretches back to 2000, when he and a cohort, Robert Lee, were charged with abducting and later killing Terry King, a 53-year-old grandmother from North Clarendon, as she arrived for work at a Rutland supermarket.

    The two men had allegedly encountered King while fleeing their alcohol- and drug-fueled murder of Fell's mother, Debra Fell, and her companion Charles Conway in Rutland. Lee committed suicide in prison in 2002.

    The Fell case marked the first time in 50 years a person was sentenced to death in Vermont.

    Witnesses testified Tuesday that juror 143, whose name was not disclosed on the court record, visited the scene of the crime — including Fell’s mother’s house and the Rutland supermarket — to “see it for himself” while acting as a juror in 2005.

    Fell has been incarcerated on death row at a federal prison in Terry Haute, Ind., since being sentenced in 2005.

    http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/a...tch-three-days
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  7. #17
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    US judge orders new trial for Donald Fell

    He's accused of killing three people in cold blood 14 years ago. Donald Fell is on death row awaiting execution. Now, a federal judge says the 34-year-old is entitled to a new trial citing juror misconduct in Fell's capital murder case.

    "We're just looking forward to a fair and impartial trial and we hope everything turns out alright," said Alexander Bunin, defense attorney in an interview with WCAX in 2005.

    On Nov. 26, 2000, then-20-year-old Fell and his accomplice, Robert Lee, were accused of killing Fell's mother, Debra, and her friend, Charles Conway, at her Rutland home after an argument over the radio volume.

    From there, investigators say the two men fled to the nearby Price Chopper where they carjacked and abducted a supermarket employee on her way into work. Police say the men drove Terry King, 53, to New York, where they beat the North Clarendon grandmother to death as she prayed for her life. Fell and Lee were arrested four days later in Arkansas, allegedly confessed to the three murders and were returned to Vermont to face federal kidnapping and murder charges.

    "This is our terror attack on our family," King's sister Barbara Tuttle told WCAX in 2002. "To me, Donald Fell doesn't deserve to live. He deserves to die just like any criminal who takes an innocent human life."

    Lee hanged himself in prison. Fell was sentenced to death in 2005.

    In 2006, King's daughter Karen Worchester told WCAX: "When Donald Fell is six-feet under-- and I know he is not going to the same place my mother is-- that is going to be our justice."

    Justice that's been challenged.

    Last summer, Fell's lawyers argued the jury that found him guilty was tainted because one of the jurors allegedly investigated the case on his own, traveling to Rutland to view the crime scene and telling other jurors of his observations, lying about his actions and supposedly coercing another juror into changing her vote. Two other jurors are accused of lying about their pasts during jury selection.

    Thursday, Judge William Sessions, a longtime opponent of the death penalty, overturned Fell's 2005 conviction. Judge Sessions said the conduct violates the fundamental integrity of Fell's trial.

    WCAX reached out to Vermont's federal prosecutor for comment. Tris Coffin says his office is still reviewing the case and would not comment on the news of a new trial.

    http://www.wcax.com/story/26107306/u...or-donald-fell

    Family outraged by overturned death penalty conviction

    People who knew and loved Terry King of North Clarendon are stunned Friday after a federal judge threw out the conviction of Donald Fell, the man police say killed her in a drug-fueled spree. The ruling yesterday ordered a new trial, but that could mean the family is facing another lengthy legal process years after they thought they were close to getting justice.

    "It's like a nightmare that never goes away, you just get to thinking things might be normal and pow, up it comes again," said Bob Maxham, King's brother-in-law.

    Bob Maxham says he's been quiet during the 14 years since his sister-in-law, Terry King, was murdered. But for his wife, Barbara Tuttle, and the rest of King's loved ones he says he cannot be quiet anymore.

    "It just boggled my mind, I couldn't believe they were going to put this put these people through this again," said Maxham.

    The ruling Thursday throws out the 2005 conviction of Donald Fell, who was on death row for kidnapping King outside the Rutland Price chopper in 2000, then killing her as she begged for her life.

    Judge William Sessions finding that revelations after the trial that a juror went to the crime scene and told jurors information not presented at trial undermined the verdict writing:

    "Juror 143 violated the fundamental integrity of Fell's trial by deliberately undertaking an independent investigation," said Sessions.

    Fell's legal team, which worked to uncover the juror misconduct, told WCAX in a statement, "we are extremely gratified by the Court's decision to grant Mr. Fell a new trial."

    When the jury came back with the death penalty verdict in 2005, King's family thought the 5 years of legal wrangling then had been long.

    "I thought of my sister, at that moment and i just became overcome with emotion, because I said this is for you Terry," said Tuttle in a previous interview with WCAX.

    Tuttle is recovering from surgery and declined to talk about the new ruling on camera, but her husband spoke for her blaming the judge.

    "If it was his wife that was kidnapped and butchered, you can bet he'd feel different about it," said Maxham.

    While Sessions presided over Fell's trial that ended with a death sentence, he had earlier ruled the death penalty unconstitutional. King's sisters were outspoken proponents of the death penalty for Fell. And Maxham says it is not likely they would agree if prosecutors try to avoid another trial by making a plea deal that does not include death.

    "The family, of course they want to see him put to death. I guess its how strong are they? How much more of this can they take? But they really have to take it, what are they going to do," said Maxham.

    The ruling raises questions about what happens now for King's family and for Fell. It shines a light on the problem of juror misconduct. Reporter Kristen Kelly spoke with former federal prosecutor Jerry O'Neill Friday.

    O'Neill: "When you read the case there is no doubt that Judge Sessions made the right decision. There is a piece in his opinion where he references an supreme court opinion, which says death is different in the federal system and the thoughtful states like New York. If you’re going to put someone to death, you have a lot of procedural protections. Once someone's dead, you can't set aside the conviction and when you read through the opinion and you see what this particular juror did, the underlying conduct and how he lied to the court about it, it's difficult not to reach the conclusion," said O'Neill.

    Kelly: And explain what is so egregious about what the juror did?

    O'Neill: Well the juror did as reported in the opinion several things, the principal one of which is contrary to specific instruction from court. He went down and did his own investigation, he went down to the scene looked at it, came back and told other jurors about it, provided an affidavit after trial then lied about it in court.

    The reason why it’s so bad is we want jurors to decide the case based upon info they received in the courtroom, we don’t want them doing their own investigation.

    Kelly: So how is this allowed to happen? You've tried a whole bunch of cases, have you ever seen this happen before, a juror doing their own investigation?

    O'Neill: I have not, not that I'm aware of had an instance with a juror doing his own investigation, but I stress that I'm aware of, you never know what jurors are going to be doing and Judge Sessions gave them clear instructions with respect to this. Crystal clear instruction about it. There's nothing that anybody on the defense team, the U.S, attorney's office or the judicial system did wrong. It's one juror.

    O'Neill says sequestering juries is one way to try to stop juror misconduct, but it is expensive. Defense attorneys also do not like sequestered juries because they are more likely to convict.

    Kelly: One thing that one member of the family said to us was that because of Judge Sessions' views on the death penalty, he should not have been handling this case in the first place.

    O'Neill: Judges are supposed to make their decisions based on the facts and the law. He made a decision finding the statute was unconstitutional, the second circuit reversed, and i don't think anybody could say he has handled this anything other than absolutely straightforwardly, whatever his personal views have been since then.

    Kelly: Talk about the difficulty now, I mean prosecutors, what do they do to retry the case? Offer a plea deal? The family has been through a lot.

    O'Neill: I think Judge Sessions realizes this and how difficult this is going to be for the family. He really regrets it himself. He didn’t have a choice. The government can do one of three things. It can appeal his decision, I don't think they would be successful in getting it overturned, but I could be wrong. They can work out some kind of plea agreement in connection with it, or they can retry the case. Those are the three options.

    Kelly: And if you try to retry a case what, 14 years after the crime, what are the difficulties of that?

    O'Neil: Well, you certainly have potential difficulties with witnesses having died, you have potential difficulties with witnesses having failed in their memories, but you have a transcript from the earlier trial. If someone has died you can use the transcript of that. If someone has failing memory you can use that transcript to refresh that recollection, and let's be realistic, in this instance, the facts aren't much in dispute, the question is what the disposition should be.

    http://www.wcax.com/story/26116779/f...lty-conviction
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  8. #18
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    How a rogue juror turned Fell case upside down

    NORTHFIELD – John Lepore is a 52-year-old state Transportation Agency environmental biologist who likes to hunt and fish in his spare time.

    He's divorced, has no children and lives in a two-story home on a quiet street a few blocks from downtown Northfield.

    According to a jury panel chart obtained by the Burlington Free Press, Lepore also is the previously unidentified Juror 143, the person blamed in U.S. District Court Judge William K. Sessions' sharply worded decision last month ordering a new trial in the death-penalty case of Donald Fell.

    Fell was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005 for kidnapping North Clarendon grandmother Terry King from a Price Chopper parking lot in Rutland and beating her to death in New York as she pleaded for her life.

    "Juror 143's brazen disobedience, dishonesty, and unwillingness to decide the case based upon the evidence presented at trial ... now invalidates Fell's conviction," Sessions wrote in his July 24 ruling.

    Trial rules strictly prohibit jurors from considering any evidence other than what is presented to them in court through testimony and documents.

    Sessions based his decision on evidence uncovered by Fell's lawyers that indicated Lepore went to Rutland during the trial to personally investigate crime scenes connected to the case, that he told fellow jurors about his findings, and that he allegedly lied about his travels when questioned under oath before Sessions last year.

    Tristram Coffin, the U.S. attorney for Vermont, said last week his office has made no decision on the government's next move.

    Among the options: foregoing a new trial and reaching a plea deal with Fell's lawyers that spares him the death penalty in exchange for a life term in prison.

    King's family is adamantly opposed to that idea.

    "He has a choice, and he's choosing to live," King's daughter Lori Hibbard of Rutland said of Fell last week. "My mother didn't have a choice on whether she could live or die. So I think that he should die."

    Lepore did not respond to efforts by the Free Press to reach him for comment in person, by email and by telephone.

    For their part, King's family members say they have no hard feelings toward Lepore. In an interview, they contended Lepore's actions were harmless, because Fell admitted to the crime anyway.

    Instead, they blame Sessions for finding an excuse to call for a new trial because the judge, they say, was philosophically opposed to the death penalty.

    Sessions had ruled in 2002 that part of the federal death penalty was unconstitutional, only to have his decision overruled by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals two years later.

    "He used Juror 143 as a scapegoat to get the ruling he wanted," Hibbard said of Sessions.

    Being Juror 143

    On May 11, 2005, Lepore was among scores of candidates who filled out a 34-page questionnaire about his background and qualifications for sitting on the jury in the Fell case.

    The vetting was thorough, given the notoriety and media attention the case had attracted.

    Records show Lepore was among 65 finalists for the jury. The 65 were selected from a pool of 240 potential jurors, all of whom were questioned face-to-face over three weeks by lawyers for the government and for Fell.

    Answers to the written questionnaire were designed to provide the lawyers a peek at who the prospective jurors were.

    Lepore and the other jury candidates were asked a wide range of questions: if they were fluent in any foreign languages, what books they had read recently, what their hobbies were, if they were ever witnesses to or victims of a crime.

    To that last question, Lepore had answered, "I was robbed by two older kids on 'collection day' when I was a paperboy, age 12."

    His answer to Question 64 was telling. It asked him if, when given the choice between voting for the death penalty and voting for life in prison, whether he would always vote for the death penalty.

    "'Always' leaves no room for educated judgment," he wrote on the printed form. "The facts of the case would need to be evaluated before reaching a decision."

    On June 9, 2005, Lepore was picked to be on the jury, along with six other men and five women. Twelve days later the trial — the first capital murder case in Vermont in nearly 50 years — began. Vermont has no death penalty, but Fell was tried under federal law.

    The outcome of the trial on the criminal charge phase was never in doubt after Fell's lawyer at the time, Alexander Bunin, told the jury during opening arguments that Fell was guilty as charged.

    "Donald Fell admits his responsibility," Bunin told jurors. "We are not denying that."

    Instead, the approach of the defense was to persuade the jury to spare Fell from death.

    Bunin tried to convince the panel that Fell's crime was the result of a troubled childhood and extreme intoxication at the time of the kidnapping and killing of King, who was 53 when she was slain.

    The jury was unmoved. Fell was quickly convicted after a four-day trial, and the next nine days were spent in a separate penalty phase debating whether he should be sentenced to death.

    On July 14, after nine hours of jury deliberations, the panel voted unanimously that Fell should be executed.

    Lepore's Rutland trip

    For the next five years, the story about Lepore's traveling to Rutland during the trial to check out the crime scenes in the Fell case remained a secret.

    That changed Dec. 18, 2010, when, according to court records, two investigators for Fell's new team of lawyers stopped by Lepore's Northfield home to speak with him.

    The investigators, as part of an effort to dig up evidence that would justify a new trial for Fell, had been fanning out across the state to interview the jurors about the case.

    Lepore, just back from deer camp, recalled he was "on a pretty good bender" when the two investigators knocked on his door, he would testify at an August 2013 hearing before Sessions, according to a transcript of that court proceeding.

    "I thought they were Jehovah Witnesses," Lepore said. "Then they mentioned my name, and I'm like 'errr?' And then they said, 'We'd like to ask you a few questions.'"

    According to court documents, Lepore over the next couple of hours told the investigators about how he had gone down to Rutland during the guilt phase of the trial to look over the location where King was abducted and where Fell had lived with his mother, Debra Fell.

    "We discussed ... the trip to Rutland during the trial when I looked at the mother's house on Robbins Street and the Price Chopper," a statement prepared by the investigators and signed by Lepore a day later stated in part.

    The police have contended that Fell and Lee were responsible for killing Debra Fell and her boyfriend, Charles Conway, at Fell's mother's home the during a drug- and alcohol-fueled binge the night before King's abduction and murder.

    Lepore told the investigators he wanted to see the home where Fell lived to see if it matched the defense claims about Fell's disadvantaged past.

    "The mother's neighborhood wasn't great, but it was okay," his signed statement said. "She was just trying to live her life."

    The statement also said Lepore, during jury deliberations, took an unloaded gun that was an exhibit at the trial and pointed it at a fellow juror as a way of persuading the juror to vote for a death sentence.

    Lepore, testifying before Judge Sessions last August, said the investigators concocted a statement that inaccurately recounted what he had said and pressured him into signing it.

    "There was no gun pointed at anybody," he testified. "During the deliberations we didn't have any firearms in there. ... I simulated, simulated pointing a gun at somebody."

    Efforts by the Burlington Free Press to reach other Fell jurors for comment on Lepore's conduct during jury deliberations were unsuccessful.

    Lepore said he did eventually drive by the Price Chopper and Robbins Street sites. He said he remembered making the trip by motorcycle, a vehicle he did not own at the time of the trial.

    "I didn't go to Rutland during the trial," Lepore said at the hearing last August. "Not me; no other juror went to Rutland."

    'Nobody knows'

    The last word on Lepore's trip to Rutland came March 18.

    That day, Fell's lawyers called to the witness stand two past girlfriends of Lepore's to refute the former juror's denials about the excursion.

    Janice DeGoosh, who began a relationship with Lepore shortly after the trial ended, testified that Lepore told her about his plans to go to Rutland while the trial was ongoing.

    Kaulene Kelsey, who was living with Lepore at the time of the trial, told Sessions that Lepore took her with him on a trip to Rutland while the case was pending.

    "I asked him specifically should he be here, that ... it didn't seem to me like this was something he should be doing," Kelsey testified. "He basically said that he wanted to see things for himself, and nobody knows he is there so it won't make any difference."

    But Judge Sessions determined to the contrary. His ruling that the juror's actions were so inappropriate to merit throwing out not only the death-penalty sentence but also the conviction itself has left everyone involved uncertain on next steps. Victim Terry King's relatives say they're willing to endure another trial to ensure Fell is executed. Federal prosecutors say they have yet to decide how to proceed.

    No hearings in the case are scheduled. Sessions has ordered the defense and the prosecution to submit written proposals by Sept. 30 about what to do next.

    For now, Fell remains on death row at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.

    http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/s...case/13496439/

  9. #19
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    US to appeal new trial order in death penalty case

    MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Federal prosecutors said Monday they would appeal a judge's decision granting a new trial to a man on death row for murder because one of the jurors in the trial visited the crime scene and discussed the case outside of court.

    The two paragraph notice to appeal the July decision by U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions III to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York was filed Monday.

    The notice did not lay out the basis for the appeal of Sessions' decision.

    Donald Fell's lawyers did not return calls and emails Monday seeking comment.

    Vermont does not have a death penalty, but Fell was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005 under federal law for the kidnapping and death of Terry King, 53, the North Clarendon woman who was abducted as she arrived for work at a Rutland supermarket. King was later killed in New York.

    A jury found Fell and later sentenced him to death.

    Efforts to reach King's family on Monday were unsuccessful.

    In Sessions' July decision, he said the juror, identified in court papers as juror 143, disobeyed multiple court orders to not discuss the case outside of court, thus violating Fell's right to a fair trial.

    http://www.chron.com/news/article/US...se-5772678.php

  10. #20
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Plea deal off the table, trial next in Vt. death penalty case

    A potential life saving deal for accused killer Donald Fell is off the table as federal prosecutors say they plan to take their death penalty case to trial for a second time.

    In December, the U.S. attorney's office in Vermont was discussing a plea deal that would send Fell, accused of killing Terry King of North Clarendon, to prison for life.

    But less than two months later, acting Vermont U.S. Attorney Eugenia Cowles said the deal is off the table after a discussion between her office and the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington ended with the decision to seek the death penalty again in a case that began more than 14 years ago.

    “As with all capital cases, it was a department-wide decision involving the Department of Justice,” Cowles said today. “The Department of Justice has made the decision this should be a death penalty case.”

    Cowles did not say whether the federal prosecutor's office in Vermont concurred with the decision and she said there was no timetable yet for when Fell new trial would begin.

    Fell, 34, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005 for killing King. But after almost nine years on death row, Judge William Sessions last year overturned the conviction based on the misconduct of a juror who traveled to Rutland and examined crime scenes while Fell's trial was taking place.

    http://www.rutlandherald.com/article...STIN/150219997
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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