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Thread: Jeffery William Paul - Federal Death Row

  1. #1
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    Jeffery William Paul - Federal Death Row


    Sherman Williams’ Grave

    IMG_0300.jpeg
    Jeffery William Paul


    Summary of Offense:

    Paul was convicted of murder, while aiding and abetting another, for the killing of 82-year-old Sherman Williams at the Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. According to evidence adduced at trial, on June 22, 1995, Paul and an acquaintance, Trinity Ingle, followed Williams from downtown Hot Springs to a walking trail in the National Park, where they first robbed and beat Williams, and then shot him in the head and shoulder. Paul and Ingle attempted to hide the body by dragging it away from the trail. Four days later, a hiker found Williams’s body under logs and rocks, with hands and ankles bound by duct tape.

    Paul was sentenced to death in 1997.

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Obama in unchartered waters over 1st execution under his administration

    On Wednesday, the Bureau of Prisons gave notice to a federal judge that it intends to set an execution date for Jeffery Paul, who was convicted in 1997 and sentenced to death for the robbery-murder of an 82-year-old National Park Service employee, Sherman Williams, on federal land in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1995.

    According to Politico, plans for the execution were disclosed by Justice Department lawyers in a lawsuit pending in Washington over federal lethal injection procedures.

    Three executions took place in the federal system under President George W. Bush, including that of Oklahoma City federal building bomber Timothy McVeigh in 2001, and the last execution was in March 2003.

    However, unlike his two most recent predecessors, Obama never had involvement before he became President with carrying out the death penalty or handing requests for clemency. However, he did work on reforms to state death penalty laws in Illinois while he was a state legislator there, the report said.

    When he was still a candidate for president, Obama had said he supported the death penalty in the case of "heinous" crimes.

    "I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances, for the most egregious of crimes," Obama said when criticizing a Supreme Court decision that rejected death sentences for child rape.

    http://news.oneindia.in/2010/12/24/o...ion-under.html

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On August 20, 2013, Paul filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/ind...cv00304/48396/

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On March 27, 2014, Paul filed an appeal before the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir...ts/ca7/14-1652

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Federal death row inmate wins stay

    A death row inmate once slated to be the 1st person executed by the federal government on President Barack Obama's watch has won an indefinite stay of execution from a federal judge.

    Jeffery Paul, 37, obtained the order Thursday from U.S. District Court Judge Richard Roberts after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in January that he was wrong to refuse Paul's request to join a pending lawsuit in which 3 other death row prisoners have challenged the federal government's lethal injection protocol. Those 3 prisoners are covered by a similar order barring their execution while the litigation proceeds.

    An attorney for Paul welcomed the judge's new order.

    "We were gratified that the Court of Appeals gave Mr. Paul a chance to vindicate his rights by joining the lawsuit, and it is equally gratifying to learn that his execution will be stayed so that he can pursue the case to its conclusion," Keith Rosen of Chadbourne & Parke said Thursday.

    In 2010, the federal Bureau of Prisons revealed plans to move forward with the execution of Paul, who was convicted in 1997 and sentenced to death for the robbery-murder 2 years earlier of 82-year-old retired National Park Service employee Sherman Williams on federal land in Hot Springs, Ark.

    However, in 2011, the Justice Department announced that all federal executions were on hold so the Bureau of Prisons could revise execution procedures as a result of a shortage of a drug commonly used for lethal injections: sodium thiopental. The new procedures have still not been published or approved, but government lawyers said in a court filing this week that federal officials "are in the final phases of finalizing the protocol."

    The last federal execution took place in March 2003. While no U.S. prisoner has been executed under Obama, 3 executions were carried out in the federal system under President George W. Bush, including that of Oklahoma City federal building bomber Timothy McVeigh. Before McVeigh was put to death in 2001 at the federal death row complex in Terre Haute, Ind., the federal government went almost 4 decades without conducting an execution.

    During his 1st presidential campaign, Obama said he supported the death penalty in the case of "heinous" crimes. "I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances, for the most egregious crimes," Obama said when criticizing a 2008 Supreme Court decision that barred death sentences for child rape.

    There are presently 59 people on federal death row in the civilian system and 5 in the military, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-capital punishment group. As of last year, the group tallied 3095 people on death row in the U.S., with the vast majority in state custody.

    (Source: politico.com)
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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    The Federal government is attempting to lift an injunction that is stopping Paul from being executed. In the filing they note his appeals have been exhausted for the past 10 years.

    https://assets.documentcloud.org/doc...417.1597980895
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Neil's Avatar
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    Why Barr can’t set dates for other people? It’ll take forever getting them executed. This batch erks me. They’ve languished on death row a lot longer than they should’ve have. This was because of the nonsense over the lethal injection drug at the time sodium thiopental. I dream of the day we ever got it back. We’d have very little drug shortages if that happened.
    Last edited by Neil; 08-20-2020 at 11:30 PM.

  8. #8
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Alfred's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Heidi View Post
    Obama in unchartered waters over 1st execution under his administration

    On Wednesday, the Bureau of Prisons gave notice to a federal judge that it intends to set an execution date for Jeffery Paul
    Hmmm how was this possible? What I understood from the recent federal executions is that the Attorney General (Barr) instructed the BOP to schedule executions.

    See for example https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/execu...r-and-her-nine "Attorney General William P. Barr today directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to reschedule the execution of Lezmond Mitchell".

    The 2010 article seems to suggest that back then the BOP had the initiative instead of the AG in setting dates.

  9. #9
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Stay of execution VACATED by District of Columbia United States District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan (Obama).

    https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin...2019mc0145-265

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Death row inmate wins habeas relief on robbery conviction, sentence

    By Olivia Covington
    The Indiana Lawyer

    A federal death row inmate convicted in an Arkansas murder and robbery has secured habeas relief against his robbery conviction and one of his death sentences.

    Jeffery William Paul — who is housed in the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, where federal executions are carried out — won habeas relief on Tuesday against his conviction of use of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, robbery, in violation of 18 § U.S.C. 924(c). Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson of the Indiana Southern District Court also vacated his death sentence, subject to a penalty phase retrial.

    However, Paul’s conviction of aiding and abetting a homicide, for which he was also sentenced to death, was not overturned.

    Paul was convicted in 1997 in Arkansas federal court of the robbery and shooting death of Sherman Williams.

    According to Magnus-Stinson’s order, Paul and a man named Trinity Ingle followed Williams into Hot Springs National Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where they took Williams’ wallet and keys, tied him up with duct tape and shot him in the head and shoulder. They then took $98 from Williams’ wallet and left his body in the woods before driving off in his car, which was later found in a pit in the national park.

    Paul was sentenced to death for both convictions.

    His convictions and sentence were upheld on appeal to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, and his collateral attack under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 was denied. He then filed for habeas relief in the Indiana Southern District Court, which stayed the case to allow Paul to pursue a success § 2255 motion.

    The 8th Circuit declined to authorize the successive motion, so Paul pursued habeas relief in the Indiana Southern District Court under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, known as the savings clause. He argued that he is actually innocent of murder, that he is ineligible for the death penalty due to a severe mental illness and that his conviction under § 924(c) must be vacated because “robbery” is not a crime of violence.

    Initially, Magnus-Stinson determined the actual innocence claim could not be raised under the savings clause, and even if it could, the claim would fail.

    She also determined the mental-illness claim is not yet ripe given that Paul’s execution has not been scheduled, and the Department of Justice has not indicated when it might resume federal executions.

    Further, while the judge found that “neither the indictment nor the jury instructions properly set out the elements of (the robbery) offense,” she also determined Paul could have raised that issue in a § 2255 motion. But she noted that while his indictment contained language similar to 18 U.S.C. § 2111, it did not include any statutory citation for robbery.

    Paul found success on his argument that his robbery conviction was not a crime of violence.

    Specifically, Magnus-Stinson pointed to Borden v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1817 (2021), which held that the phrase “violent felony” in 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(2)(B)(i) includes only offenses with a mens rea requirement of purpose or knowledge as to the violent actus reus.

    Borden was handed down long after Paul’s first 2255 motion, Magnus-Stinson noted, and it is a substantive rule that applies retroactively on collateral review, thus satisfying two of three elements Paul had to meet to bring a savings clause petition. The judge then determined Paul had proven the third element: that “there has been a fundamental defect in the proceedings that is fairly characterized as a miscarriage of justice.”

    Specifically, “neither Mr. Paul’s indictment nor his jury instructions required a showing that he knowingly used force during the course of a robbery. And in the circuit where Mr. Paul was convicted, the mens rea of knowledge did not apply to the force and violence elements of § 2111 robbery, which is the statutory robbery offense most resembling the conduct with which he was charged,” Magnus-Stinson wrote.

    “For these reasons, the robbery underlying Mr. Paul’s § 924(c) conviction did not require a knowing use of force, so it was not a crime of violence under Borden,” she held. “And conviction of an offense that is not actually criminalized constitutes a fundamental defect and a miscarriage of justice.”

    Magnus-Stinson then vacated Paul’s sentence for the robbery conviction, writing that “the jury was not asked to specify the offense or offenses for which it imposed the death penalty.”

    “Without such information,” she wrote, “the Court cannot determine whether Mr. Paul’s § 924(C) conviction influenced his sentence.”

    https://www.theindianalawyer.com/art...ction-sentence
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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