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Thread: William Ernest Kuenzel - Alabama

  1. #71
    Senior Member CnCP Addict TrudieG's Avatar
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    Heidi I humored you I got half way through and the only thing I got out of this was Poor Billy. I have no idea why that dinosaur Morganthau involved himself he was the District Attorney in Manhatten not in the deep south of Alabama and what he was reading was trial transcripts not any discovery. This is so one sided I almost wanted to get sick.

  2. #72
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Well I'm miffed. The link she sent me in a private message was a broken link. I wouldn't have made that post if it actually took me to the video.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  3. #73
    Senior Member Frequent Poster elsie's Avatar
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    I said it was not available.
    Proverbs 21:15 "When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous but terror to evil doers."

  4. #74
    Senior Member CnCP Addict Richard86's Avatar
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    Could be a location issue. Works for me in the UK, I'm watching it now. Although it didn't when I was in Greece earlier this week.

    I'll say what I said about Blackadder's videos about Robert Pruett, the video format doesn't make for a good objective evaluation of the issue (in criminal justice or any other issue).

    I bet what David Kochman and Robert Morgenthau put in writing is more in depth than this, as is the prosecution case.
    Last edited by Richard86; 05-29-2015 at 03:15 PM.

  5. #75
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    This one is for you LynnBenson

    Death row inmate loses appeal because of time limit


    By Tim Lockette
    The Anniston Star

    MONTGOMERY -- Death row inmate William Kuenzel waited too long to file his latest appeal, a state court ruled Monday.

    Kuenzel, who was sentenced to death more than 25 years ago for the 1987 murder of Sylacauga convenience store clerk Linda Jean Offord, sought to overturn that conviction on the grounds that a key witness in the case said one thing to a grand jury and another in the trial. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Kuenzel waited too long to press that claim.

    "Only when he did not obtain the relief he wanted in federal court did Kuenzel decide to pursue a state remedy," Judge Elizabeth Kellum wrote in the court's opinion.

    Kuenzel, 53, was convicted in 1988 of capital murder. Prosecutors said he killed Offord with a 16-gauge shotgun during a late-night robbery of Joe Bob’s Crystal convenience store. Kuenzel's roommate, Harvey Venn, testified that he waited in a car while Kuenzel went in to rob the store. Venn served 10 years in prison for his role in the robbery.

    Kuenzel's lawyers challenged the conviction in state court on the grounds that in Alabama, a person can't be convicted of a capital crime solely on the basis of an accomplice's testimony.

    Another witness, April Harris, told jurors in 1988 that she recognized Kuenzel and Venn at the store when riding past in a car about an hour before the killing. In 2010, Kuenzel's lawyers unearthed grand jury testimony that showed Harris saying she "couldn't make out" who was in the store.

    The inmate brought an appeal in federal court, and saw it rejected there. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Then he brought it back to the state appeals court. In their ruling, judges noted that appeals based on new evidence have to be brought six months after the evidence is discovered.

    David Kochman, Kuenzel's attorney, said he would apply for a re-hearing of the case, and if denied would try to take the matter to the Alabama Supreme Court.

    "I think the point is that this decision turns exclusively on procedure without considering the merits," he said. "This is a case where form cannot prevail over substance."

    Kuenzel was originally scheduled to die by lethal injection March 19, but his execution was stayed so the appeals court could hear his case.

    Drug challenge could continue

    Eight others, also scheduled for execution this year, saw their executions stayed when the U.S. Supreme Court took up a challenge to Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol.

    Like Alabama, Oklahoma uses midazolam as the first drug in a three-drug combination for lethal injection. The drug is supposed to kill the pain caused by the potassium chloride used to stop an inmate's heart. After a botched execution with the drug in

    Oklahoma last year, inmates argued that use of the drug was illegal under the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Alabama's scheduled executions were put on hold pending a ruling in that case.

    Last month, the Supreme Court upheld the use of the drug, saying that inmates hadn't identified another available drug that would cause less pain.

    The condemned Alabama inmates and the state attorney general had until Monday to file new motions in response to the Supreme Court ruling. An attorney for five of the inmates — not including Kuenzel — said his clients are continuing to challenge Alabama's execution protocol. He said Alabama's execution procedures may not be exactly the same as the procedures used in Oklahoma.

    "My clients and I know way more about Oklahoma's protocol than we do about Alabama's," said John Palombi, who works as a federal public defender in Montgomery. "That's the issue here."

    Asked for comment on the Supreme Court case, attorney general spokesman Mike Lewis said in an e-mail that the attorney general's office was in the process of filing motions to dismiss complaints by all eight inmates.

    Alabama hasn’t executed an inmate in two years, due to legal challenges and shortages of drugs.

    http://www.annistonstar.com/news/dea...cd66c5d1d.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

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

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

  6. #76
    Senior Member CnCP Addict TrudieG's Avatar
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    It was a nice try kudo's for that

  7. #77
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    L B has been stalking members on Twitter asking them to sign a petition to grant Billy Kuenzel a new trial. Could you imagine the cluster f*&k the legal system would be if petitioning the courts for new trials worked?
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  8. #78
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Alabama would change lethal injection method to execute 5 inmates

    Alabama has agreed to forego its current three-drug lethal injection combination method and use just one drug to execute five death row inmates.

    The state, however, rejected recent suggestions by two other condemned prisoners that hanging or firing squad are also possible alternatives to the state's lethal injection protocol.

    Attorneys for eight Alabama Death Row inmates have discussed methods of executions in recent court filings in their lawsuits claiming the state's current lethal injection method is painful and would violate the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. A ninth death row inmate plans to file next week. The Alabama Attorney General's Office in July sought to have all the lawsuits dismissed.

    "The state has 'offered' to execute our clients only by injecting them with repeated doses of midazolam until they die," John Palombi, Assistant Federal Defender Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama, stated in an email response to questions by AL.com on Friday.

    "The State does not concede that the present three-drug protocol is unconstitutional, yet claims this 'offer' should end our litigation challenging the constitutionality of the present three-drug protocol," Palombi writes. "This is not an acceptable resolution, because if the current protocol entails an unconstitutional risk of needless pain and suffering - and we believe it does - it should never be used to execute anyone."

    Polombi's office represents Alabama Death Row inmates Demetrius Frazier, Carey Dale Grayson, David Lee Roberts, Robin Dion Myers, and Gregory Hunt in separate lawsuits challenging Alabama's lethal injection protocol. That protocol calls for an injection of 500 milligrams of midazolam hydrochloride followed by 600 milligrams of rocuronium bromide to stop breathing, and then 240 "milliequivalents" of potassium chloride to stop the heart.

    Based on a previous U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in order to prevail on an Eighth Amendment method-of-execution claims of cruel and unusual punishment, inmates must name an alternative to the current method that is "feasible, readily implemented" and significantly reduces a substantial risk of severe pain.

    Polombi explained the alternate methods of execution they suggested in the five inmates' cases. "We pleaded three: a single dose of pentobarbital, a single dose of sodium thiopental or a single dose of midazolam," he stated.

    "The final suggestion (midazolam) is based solely on the testimony of Dr. Roswell Evans, the government expert in Florida and Oklahoma and Montana, who testified under oath in Oklahoma that a 500mg dose of midazolam would kill anyone within 30 minutes," Polombi stated. "Given these feasible alternatives, we question why the State insists on maintaining a protocol that includes a paralytic that would cause suffocation and masks any evidence that the inmate is suffering, and potassium chloride which is universally recognized to cause excruciating pain."

    The Alabama Attorney General's Office argued in court filings that pentobarbital and sodium thiopental are not available through "standard channels." The state was previously thwarted in an attempt to get execution drugs through the black market, according to news reports.

    If he won't dismiss the five lawsuits, the AG's office asks instead that U.S. District Court Judge Keith Watkins order the prison system to execute the five men using only midazolam – the 500 milligrams and more if needed.

    The AG does not suggest changing the state's lethal injection method for all death row inmates, only for those five.

    The AG's office declined comment. "We have no comment beyond what was filed in court," said Joy Patterson, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Attorney General's Office.

    Hanging or firing squad?

    The other two similar lawsuits the AG's office seeks to have dismissed are those by death row inmates Tommy Arthur and Anthony Boyd.

    Arthur and Boyd are each represented by different attorneys.

    Both Arthur's and Boyd's attorneys mentioned hanging and firing squad, in addition to alternate lethal injection drugs, as less painful options.

    The AG's office argues firing squads and hanging are not realistic alternatives.

    Arthur's contention that a firing squad is an alternative to midazolam ignores Alabama laws pertaining to the method of execution, the AG's office argues. "Alabama law allows for a single method of execution: lethal injection, although under certain conditions (not applicable here), an inmate may elect to be executed by electrocution," the AG's office stated in a filing.

    "Firing squad is not a method contemplated by or provided in the Code of Alabama, and as such, utilizing this method without lethal injection and electrocution being declared unconstitutional would take a statutory amendment," the AG's office argues.

    Boyd's attorneys had suggested that alternatives to lethal injection were firing squad or hanging.

    "Boyd's vague reliance on older methods of execution — but not the older method that is currently available in this state (electrocution) —is curious at best, and suggests to the Defendants that the 'alternatives' Boyd proposes are not his true selections, but merely an attempt to circumvent the" U.S. Supreme Court's rules, one AG court filing stated.

    Judge Watkins had not ruled on the AG's request for dismissal of all seven cases as of Friday.

    The AG's office also has asked that a similar lawsuit by death row inmate Christopher Lee Price be dismissed. Price has alleged that "properly compounded versions of either pentobarbital or sodium thiopental" are alternatives to midazolam that are readily available to Alabama. The AG has said that's not the case.

    Last year the AG had sought the executions of nine inmates - Arthur, Frazier, Boyd, Roberts, Myers, Hunt, Price, along with Christopher Eugene Brooks, and William Ernest Kuenzel.

    The Attorney General's Office recently asked the Alabama Supreme Court to set an execution date for Brooks, whose conventional appeals ended last year when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his case. The Federal Public Defender's Office, which also represents Brooks, said it also plans to file a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Alabama's lethal injection similar to the five other inmates it represents.

    Kuenzel, who argues he is innocent and did not appeal on the lethal injection issue, lost an appeal last week before the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. David Kochman, an attorney for Kuenzel, said they would appeal the decision and hoped the Attorney General's Office would hold off seeking an execution date for Kuenzel while the appeals continue.

    The Alabama Supreme Court had stayed his execution in February until further notice.

    http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/in...lethal_in.html

  9. #79
    Moderator Ryan's Avatar
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    Death row inmate asks Alabama Supreme Court to review case

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A death row inmate has asked the Alabama Supreme Court to review his case arguing jurors never heard critical evidence that could have proven his innocence.

    In the appeal filed Monday, lawyers for Bill Kuenzel said prosecutors withheld evidence in the 1987 slaying of a Sylacauga convenience store clerk Linda Offord.

    A witness, who placed Kuenzel at the scene, initially told the grand jury she couldn’t see who was at the store that night. A man, who testified that he waited in the car while Kuenzel killed the clerk, owned the same gauge shotgun as the murder weapon.

    A group of religious leaders filed a motion in support of his appeal.

    The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals in July ruled Kuenzel missed the deadline to raise the new evidence claim.

    http://wkrg.com/ap/death-row-inmate-...o-review-case/

  10. #80
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    VICE.COM - - An Alabama Man's Long, Nightmarish Quest for a New Murder Trial
    smfh!
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

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