Page 8 of 9 FirstFirst ... 6789 LastLast
Results 71 to 80 of 89

Thread: Joseph Edward Duncan III - Federal

  1. #71
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    Child-killer Joseph Duncan still fighting death sentence

    By Betsy Z. Russell
    The Spokesman-Review

    Although child-killer Joseph Duncan waived his right to appeal his triple death sentence for the 2005 kidnapping, torture and murder of a 9-year-old North Idaho boy, Duncan, through a team of attorneys, is now pressing a series of continued challenges.

    That’s in part because more than two years after Duncan waived his appeals, he changed his mind. Courts said it was too late for his direct appeal, but he’s now in the midst of the next stage, his habeas filings, in which his attorneys can challenge aspects of his conviction and sentencing on constitutional grounds. These challenges start in the U.S. District Court but can be then appealed again to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Duncan’s case already has been to the U.S. Supreme Court twice; the high court refused to review it each time.

    Last week, federal prosecutors in Idaho filed their legal arguments responding to Duncan’s 231-page “motion for collateral relief,” which his attorneys filed last winter.

    “None of Duncan’s contentions have merit,” prosecutors wrote in their conclusion, after going through, in detail, Duncan’s arguments on various legal and procedural grounds.

    Duncan’s attorneys are raising arguments ranging from questioning the constitutionality of the death penalty to suggestions that Spokane attorney Roger Peven’s early withdrawal from Duncan’s case due to unrelated personal problems sabotaged Duncan’s case – even though the confessed murderer and child rapist pleaded guilty to all the charges, including multiple murder charges.

    “Duncan attempts to lay the blame for every asserted error at the feet of Roger Peven,” federal prosecutors wrote. “After Peven revealed personal and substance abuse issues that had affected his ability to represent Duncan, the court permitted him to withdraw as lead counsel. But Duncan never wanted for attorneys, and enjoyed the services of the nation’s most celebrated capital-defense lawyer, Judy Clarke, as an advisor to his team of lawyers and eventually, in Peven’s stead, as lead counsel.”

    Duncan’s appellate attorneys, led by Assistant Federal Defender Lindsay Bennett in Sacramento, are offering an array of other grounds as well for overturning his death sentence.

    They’re suggesting a possible “miscarriage of justice” because Duncan’s history of being abused as a child wasn’t detailed to jurors. Duncan himself refused to allow that evidence to be presented, saying he didn’t want his past experiences presented as an “excuse for his behavior” and that childhood abuse he suffered was “irrelevant.”

    He acted as his own lawyer during his federal sentencing trial and refused to present any of that evidence. But much of it came out anyway, when the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ordered U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge to hold a “retroactive competency hearing” to determine, in open court, whether Duncan was mentally competent. He had lawyers at that six-week 2013 hearing, and after Lodge again found him competent, they appealed unsuccessfully both to the 9th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Duncan’s lawyers also are suggesting Duncan wasn’t mentally competent to plead guilty in 2007, though at the time he was represented by a team of attorneys and consulted with them on the decision. They’re alleging he had ineffective assistance of counsel in that decision, violating his constitutional rights.

    Federal prosecutors counter that the lawyers didn’t seem to question Duncan’s competency until he fired them and took over his case himself.

    Duncan’s lawyers say his legal team was pressed for time to prepare for his trial because Peven’s departure, and his lack of early preparation work, had left them far behind schedule, and U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge wouldn’t grant their requests for more delays in the case.

    When they advised Duncan to plead guilty to the crimes and move on to the sentencing phase of the trial – something he’d been indicating all along he wanted to do – “this was triage, pure and simple,” Clarke wrote in court documents, “motivated exclusively by our need for more time to prepare.”

    There are other claims Duncan is raising, including that a 2015 Supreme Court case changed the interpretation of one of the three charges under which he received the death penalty; and that video evidence shown in court of Duncan torturing his young victim, Dylan Groene, was prejudicial and shouldn’t have been shown.

    Prosecutors responded that the graphic videos showed exactly what jurors needed to see “in order to decide if a defendant should receive the greatest punishment,” including the presence of aggravating factors such as committing the offense in a “heinous, cruel or depraved manner” and with a “vulnerable victim.” “Such evidence can be expected to be horrific,” the U.S. attorney’s office wrote. “They showed precisely what Duncan did.”

    Now that the government has responded, Duncan’s lawyers have until Jan. 30 to file a reply. Then, Lodge could hold a hearing, or rule on the arguments as submitted. After his decision, further appeals could follow.

    It’s part of a lengthy series of steps, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, that must occur before a criminal defendant can be executed. Just three federal executions have been carried out since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988; the last one was in 2003.

    “It is a long, long road,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Syrena Hargrove, who worked on the latest filing for the Idaho U.S. attorney’s office.

    In addition to the three death sentences for the kidnapping, torture and murder of Dylan, Duncan received nine life sentences for his 2005 attack on Dylan’s family at their Wolf Lodge Bay home. Duncan killed Dylan’s mother, older brother and mother’s fiance before kidnapping the family’s two youngest children. Only Dylan’s then-8-year-old sister, Shasta, survived the ordeal.

    Duncan remains on federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana. Aged 42 at the time of the crimes, he is now 54.

    http://www.spokesman.com/stories/201...eath-sentence/

  2. #72
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Somewhat related

    Dad ordered out of kidnap survivor's N. Idaho house

    A man living in a home built for his daughter after she survived one of the region's most horrific crimes has been ordered to move out.

    A northern Idaho judge on Thursday ruled Steve Groene is an unlawful tenant in the Coeur d'Alene house owned by a charitable trust set up to benefit his daughter.

    Shasta Groene and her family were victimized by child molester and serial killer Joseph Duncan III in 2005. Her mother and her mother's boyfriend were killed as was an older brother. Duncan took the younger children, then 8-year-old Shasta and another brother, 9-year-old Dylan, to a primitive campsite in Montana for seven weeks. Dylan was killed there.

    He was convicted of multiple crimes and is now on death row.

    A home was built for Shasta with donations from community members, but the now-21-year-old has since moved near Boise. The charity wants to sell the house to continue providing her with financial support.

    But Steve Groene has continued to live there, and asked a court for ownership of the property.

    "There is an implied contract ... which provided me, together with Shasta, an equal equitable interest in the home built for us," he told the court. But Judge Richard Christensen rejected that argument.

    Steve Groene, 60, was a blues-rock singer until throat cancer brought multiple rounds of radiation, chemotherapy and surgeries and left him without vocal cords. He says he now lives on disability payments of less than $1,000 a month. He was served with an eviction notice last summer.

    "They are going to basically make me homeless," said Steve Groene, who has called the charity "wolves in sheep's clothing."

    The Shasta Groene Charitable Trust managers say their obligation is to Shasta, not her father. She is supposed to assume ownership of the house when the trust expires on her 25th birthday, unless the house is sold before then.

    Attorneys for the trust say it owns the house, not Shasta.

    http://www.kmvt.com/content/news/Dad...493347091.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  3. #73
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    Newport, United Kingdom
    Posts
    2,454
    Convicted killer Joseph Duncan loses appeal to escape death sentences

    The convicted killer who brutalized a Coeur d’Alene area family in 2005 just got a fresh seat back on death row.

    U.S. District Court Judge Edward Lodge ruled against Joseph Edward Duncan III on Friday on a 12-argument appeal by the killer, who initially pleaded guilty to all state and federal charges. In 2008, a jury sentenced Duncan to three death sentences that attorneys later challenged.

    Except for one pending legal matter, Lodge found against Duncan in all arguments and affirmed two of three death sentences against him.

    “Duncan claims the combination and cumulative effect of the problems and errors he alleges occurred from the beginning to the end of his case, deprived him of his constitutional rights to a fair and reliable proceedings and due process and, as a result, his conviction and death sentence should not be allowed to stand,” Lodge wrote on Friday. “For the reasons stated in this order, except as to count seven, the court finds Duncan’s claims are without merit.”

    Duncan became one of the region’s most notorious criminals in 2005 for his gruesome attacks on a family that lived in the Wolf Lodge Bay area just east of Coeur d’Alene.

    Duncan’s crime spree was triggered on May 16, 2005, when he saw 8-year-old Shasta Groene playing in her yard as Duncan – a registered sex offender – drove by on Interstate 90.

    Duncan left the interstate and attacked the family at its home. Duncan used duct tape and zip ties to bind Brenda Groene, 40, her boyfriend, 37-year-old Mark McKenzie and her 13-year-old son, Slade Groene, before using a claw hammer to bludgeon them to death. Duncan then kidnapped Shasta and 9-year-old Dylan Groene and drove them to Montana where he sexually molested them multiple times before killing Dylan. Shasta Groene was discovered and Duncan arrested at a Coeur d’Alene restaurant on July 2.

    In 2008, after Duncan pleaded guilty, the federal jury handed down three separate death sentences, one each for the convictions of kidnapping, sexual exploitation and use of a firearm resulting in the death of Dylan.

    On November 15, 2008, Duncan sent a letter to Lodge stating “if any appeal is initiated on my behalf, it is done contrary to my wishes.” Lodge later concluded after a hearing that Duncan did, indeed, seek to waive his right to appeal the death penalty sentences.

    “Nevertheless, the Ninth Circuit heard the appeal ‘for the limited purpose of reviewing the district court’s competency determinations’ and concluded that (Lodge) erred by not holding a competency hearing to determine whether Duncan competently waived his right to appeal,” court records state.

    In 2009, after weeks of testimony in connection to a separate child murder case in California, a judge and jury determined that Duncan was competent.

    Lodge later ruled in 2013 that Duncan was competent at the time he waived his appeal in 2008, which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in 2015.

    Then in 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request by Duncan’s attorneys to consider the case. In 2017, Duncan filed the most recent petition, which Lodge ruled on Friday.

    Lodge’s order Friday “denies Duncan’s post-conviction claims and upholds Duncan’s convictions and sentences on all counts with the exception of one,” wrote Stephon Kenyon, the clerk of U.S. District Court in Idaho. “Duncan’s sentences on two of the three death penalty counts are affirmed as are his multiple life sentences and additional terms of imprisonment on all of the non-capital crimes.”

    In the California case, Duncan was convicted of killing 10-year-old Anthony Martinez, bringing him a total of 11 life sentences in addition to the death sentences.

    Duncan, now 56, awaits his death sentence while residing in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

    http://www.spokesman.com/stories/201...th-penalty-ag/
    "How do you get drunk on death row?" - Werner Herzog

    "When we get fruit, we get the juice and water. I ferment for a week! It tastes like chalk, it's nasty" - Blaine Keith Milam #999558 Texas Death Row

  4. #74
    aclay
    Guest
    Why do inmates on Federal death row stay there for so long and when do you think this guy will be executed?

  5. #75
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    4,795
    Fed Inmates are on for a long time because the judiciary and the fed do not want to carry out executions. (Their current excuse is a LI lawsuit that hasn't seen any movement for years.) It's highly unlikely that the fed will never carry out another execution before all their sentences are commuted to life by a Democrat administration.
    Last edited by Mike; 10-02-2019 at 08:52 AM.

  6. #76
    Senior Member Frequent Poster NanduDas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2018
    Location
    California
    Posts
    419
    Considering that Trump has been fairly outspoken about his support for the death penalty, I’m very surprised this administration hasn’t made any effort to start things up again in Terre Haute. Last I heard, 23 federal inmates have exhausted their appeals.
    "The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer." -Theodore Roosevelt

  7. #77
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    Related:

    Steve Groene, father of kidnapping survivor Shasta Groene, passes away

    According to Shasta, her father died after a long battle with lung cancer

    By Gretchen Parsons
    KTVB News

    COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — Steve Groene, the father of Shasta Groene, who survived a series of gruesome crimes in the Coeur d'Alene area back 2005, has died.

    According to post from Shasta on her Facebook page, her father died after a long battle with lung cancer.

    In 2005, convicted serial killer Joseph Duncan killed Shasta's mother Brenda Groene, her older brother Slade Groene, and her mother's boyfriend Mark Mckenzie.

    After the killings, Duncan took Shasta and her younger brother, Dylan, into a forest where he raped and tortured the siblings for weeks and then eventually murdered Dylan.

    Shasta was eight years old at the time and the only victim to walk away alive.

    Duncan is currently in federal prison after being sentenced to death.

    A family representative said Steve and Shasta were able to spend time together in October 2018, when Shasta got married in North Idaho.

    Steve Groene had also battled throat cancer for years, and talked with a robotic device since having surgery.

    A family spokesperson said Steve often talked about seeing his sons Dylan and Slade in heaven one day.

    https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/lo...7-0c40c987e0f5
    "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

  8. #78
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
    Location
    Tennessee
    Posts
    7,318
    On January 17, 2020, Duncan filed an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ci...s/ca9/20-35022
    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

  9. #79
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    True crime podcast features KREM 2 coverage of Joseph Duncan case

    SPOKANE, Wash — The true crime podcast True Crime Chronicles, produced by KREM’s parent company Tegna, is featuring the case of convicted serial killer Joseph Duncan, who kidnapped Shasta Groene and murdered her family in Coeur d'Alene.

    VAULT Studios weekly podcast True Crime Chronicles delves into the 2005 murder of a Coeur d’Alene family before kidnapping and molesting two of the family’s children.

    The episode features KREM Photojournalist Brett Allbery sharing his memories of the case as well as KREM’s extensive archives covering the shocking murder of the family and kidnapping of two of the family’s children.

    You can listen to the episode on Apple podcasts..

    Duncan, a convicted sex offender, murdered Brenda Groene, her boyfriend and son at their home near Coeur d'Alene. Shasta Groene and her brother, Dylan, were kidnapped by Duncan and molested. Dylan was eventually murdered.

    https://www.krem.com/article/news/cr...a-6bda9902b6f2
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  10. #80
    Senior Member CnCP Legend
    Join Date
    Oct 2018
    Posts
    2,243
    Duncan, on death row, now facing aggressive brain cancer

    By Shawn Vestal
    The Spokesman-Review

    Joseph Duncan may not receive the death penalty after all, but not because he’s won an appeal.

    Duncan, who’s on death row in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, has been diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer, and it may well be moving faster than the wheels of justice.

    As part of Duncan’s on-again, off-again attempts to appeal his death sentence for some of the most heinous crimes ever committed in this region, his current attorney has asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for more time to prepare arguments.

    One of the reasons, according to recently filed court documents, is Duncan’s diagnosis of glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer for which he underwent surgery last year. Duncan has declined chemotherapy and radiation, and a doctor estimated on Nov. 20 that his life expectancy was “probably” between six months and a year, according to filings made Jan. 21.

    “Due to Mr. Duncan’s terminal diagnosis, counsel has had to spend time addressing his medical issues and monitoring his condition,” wrote assistant federal defender Jean Giles. “Counsel has scheduled more legal calls than would be typical for this stage of legal proceedings. Further, counsel has found Mr. Duncan is experiencing some memory problems, which requires counsel to explain concepts and repeat facts.”

    Duncan is a violent sexual predator who could make the most committed death-penalty opponent clamor for an exception. In 2005, he killed Brenda Groene, her boyfriend and her 13-year-old son in their home near Coeur d’Alene, and kidnapped two of Groene’s other children: Shasta, who was 8, and Dylan, 9. He tortured and abused the children unspeakably, and killed Dylan; he was caught with Shasta at the Coeur d’Alene Denny’s seven weeks after he kidnapped them.

    His crimes were, in every particular, extraordinarily vicious, and he pleaded guilty to state charges resulting in the death penalty; he was also charged in federal court on kidnapping and aggravated sexual abuse charges, among others, for which he was convicted and sentenced to death. He pleaded guilty in the killing of a 10-year-old boy in California, and he confessed to killing two girls in Seattle for which he was not charged.

    His court history has been strange and convoluted. He represented himself in the penalty phase of the federal trial, and following his conviction he waived his right to an appeal. His attorneys have subsequently argued unsuccessfully that he wasn’t competent to make that decision; the Ninth Circuit rejected that argument in 2015, and the Supreme Court declined to take it up.

    His attorneys have argued since that Duncan received ineffective counsel, along with several other constitutional claims. Judge Edward Lodge rejected that appeal in 2019, and Duncan’s attorneys are now asking the Ninth Circuit to review that decision and allow them to bring an appeal.

    Duncan’s health problems were raised in the documents filed in the course of pursuing that case.

    Giles wrote that she learned Duncan had undergone brain surgery in October 2020, and she attached a medical record from a consultation with a Bureau of Prisons doctor dated Nov. 20.

    In it, Dr. William Wilson, wrote that Duncan is “terminal and has declined again oncology consultation suggestions for radiation and chemotherapy.”

    Wilson wrote that he discussed end-of-life preparations with Duncan and suggested he take ibuprofen to deal with headaches. He wrote that he had consulted the warden and suggested that someone help Duncan keep his cell clean. “It might be a little much for him to consistently bend over and clean the area considering his balance issues,” he wrote.

    He said Duncan’s life expectancy was likely six to 12 months – less than three to nine months by now.

    You can consult your own sense of justice – or karma – in deciding how to respond to this news. But it seems pretty likely that cancer will kill Joseph Duncan before the federal government has a chance to.

    https://www.spokesman.com/stories/20...facing-aggres/

Page 8 of 9 FirstFirst ... 6789 LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •