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Thread: Jamelle Edward Armstrong - California

  1. #1
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    Jamelle Edward Armstrong - California




    Summary of Offense:

    On December 29, 1998, Armstrong and two cohorts, Kevin Pearson and Warren Hardy (who were also sentenced to death for their roles in this crime), had been drinking. On the street, they kidnapped Penny Keprta, dragging her into cover alongside a freeway. They raped her, and violated her with a fencepost. They beat her to death with over a hundred wounds, and also bit her. They robbed her as well. They tried to conceal her body. Armstrong claimed he had been involved only in the abduction and robbery, but was a bystander to the sexual assaults and murder.

    Armstrong was sentenced to death in Los Angeles County on July 16, 2004.

    For more on Hardy, see: http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...t=warren+hardy

    For more on Pearson, see: http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...t=warren+hardy

  2. #2
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Armstrong's direct appeal has been fully briefed before the California Supreme Court since December 28, 2017.

    http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.g...xTMCAgCg%3D%3D

  3. #3
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On November 7, 2018, oral argument will be heard in Armstrong's direct appeal before the California Supreme Court.

    http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/c...rs/SNOV718.PDF

  4. #4
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    In today's opinions, the California Supreme Court REVERSED Armstrong's death sentence on direct appeal.

    https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/d...ts/S126560.PDF

  5. #5
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Man convicted in torturous killing of Long Beach mother in 1998 is sentenced to life in prison after death penalty reversal

    By Emily Rasmussen
    Press-Telegram

    A man convicted of torturing and killing a Long Beach mother more than two decades ago was re-sentenced to life without parole in prison on Tuesday, March 30, after his previous death sentence was overturned by the California Supreme Court.

    Jamelle Armstrong, who was 18 at the time of the murder, was one of three men convicted and sentenced to death for the killing of Penny Stigler, 43, on the night of Dec. 29, 1998. Stigler’s autopsy showed 11 broken bones and more than 100 injuries.

    The California Supreme Court upheld Armstrong’s conviction, but overturned his death sentence two years ago because multiple prospective jurors were improperly excused from trial, the court’s opinion stated. Three justices dissented from the majority opinion, agreeing that the prospective jurors were improperly excused, but argued that Armstrong’s conviction should have also been overturned.

    The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office could have pursued a second death sentence, but did not as part of George Gascon's directives to not seek the death penalty, agency spokeswoman Pamela Johnson said.

    Armstrong did not speak at the hearing at the Long Beach Courthouse on Tuesday morning. Judge Laura Laesecke said Armstrong was given the maximum possible sentence and that he already received a “great benefit” from the District Attorney’s office not pursuing death.

    “In my opinion, it should have remained a death case,” she said.

    Armstrong’s lawyer declined to comment.

    No family members of Stigler were in court Tuesday or could be reached by a reporter.

    Each of the three men involved in the murder was tried and convicted separately. Kevin Pearson and Warren Hardy, Armstrong’s older half-brother, were the other two men.

    Armstrong, the defense’s sole witness, was convicted and then sentenced to death in 2004.
    Stigler, also known as Penny Keprta, was a mother of three walking to a grocery store when the three strangers attacked, robbed, raped, tortured and killed her at nearly 11 p.m. that night, according to court documents.

    The three men had been drinking and came across Stigler underneath the 405 Freeway underpass near Wardlow Road when Stigler, a White woman, made racist comments toward the group, all of whom were Black men, court records show.

    Hardy offered money to Stigler for oral sex, then Stigler pushed past Hardy and Pearson and she slapped Armstrong, according to court records.

    Pearson then ran toward Stigler and attacked her, knocking her to the ground, and told Armstrong to hold her down, court records show. Pearson stole Stigler’s food stamps, then raped her.

    Prosecutors contend that Armstrong continued to hold Stigler during the rape, but Armstrong testified that he let her go after Pearson took the food stamps.

    The three men then kicked Stigler and threw her body over a fence into a dark embankment near the freeway. There, court records show, Pearson used a 3-foot-long wooden stake to hit her repeatedly. Pearson and Hardy also used the stake to rape her.

    All three were arrested later that week and Armstrong admitted his involvement in the crime to detectives.

    After Armstrong was sentenced to death, the case was automatically appealed and was going through that process until the February 2019 decision to reverse the death penalty.

    Armstrong’s lawyers argued that at least four prospective jurors were improperly excused from participating in the trial, because prosecutors during jury selection dismissed them due to their views on the death penalty. Court records showed that during questionnaires, the four prospective jurors said they would keep an open mind on whether or not they would want to vote for the death penalty in a case.

    But after asking a series of hypothetical questions on the death penalty, prosecutors at the time said they were excused due to their answers.

    The California Supreme Court justices agreed with Armstrong’s lawyers that if the prospective jurors could put their personal views aside to follow the law, they should not have been excused.

    Armstrong’s lawyers also argued that his case was unfair because there were no Black men on the jury. While the majority of justices denied that motion, the three dissenting justices called that problematic.

    Pearson’s death sentence was reversed by the California Supreme Court in 2012, which ruled that a potential juror during the sentencing portion of his trial was improperly dismissed. Prosecutors retried the sentencing portion of the case and Pearson was sent back to death row by another jury in 2013.

    Teddy Keprta, Stigler’s son who was 14 when she was killed, said Pearson should get the full punishment of death at the 2013 sentencing.

    “Unfortunately, your death will be quick and painless, unlike what you did to my mother,” he said.

    Pearson’s automatic appeal is pending after the second death sentence. Hardy also remains on death row and his case was closed in 2018, court records show.

    https://www.presstelegram.com/2021/0...alty-reversal/
    "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. #6
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Neil's Avatar
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    Appeals like this shouldn’t even be allowed. If you have an anti death penalty juror deciding life or death, you know that person is going to vote for life. California’s Supreme Court is a joke a for going along with this. However, I expect nothing less from California.

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