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Thread: Michael Anthony Archuleta - Utah Death Row

  1. #11
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    I think he will file federal appeals.

  2. #12
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Surprise!

    Utah death row inmate seeks stay of execution

    A death row inmate is asking a Utah judge for a stay of an April 5 execution by firing squad while he pursues a review of his state conviction and sentence in the federal courts.

    Attorneys for Michael Anthony Archuleta filed a notice of his intention to file a habeas corpus petition on Feb. 10 in Salt Lake City's U.S. District Court. Such requests consider whether a person's conviction and sentence are constitutional.

    Court papers say Archuleta, 49, is entitled to a stay while federal courts review the case.

    Archuleta has not previously appealed his 1989 capital conviction in the federal system. Five state court appeals have been rejected, however — the last in November.

    A state judge signed a death warrant on Feb. 8 for Archuleta's execution. A federal judge has not yet set a date for a hearing. The case had been filed under seal until last week.

    Assistant Attorney General Tom Brunker on Tuesday told The Associated Press the state does not oppose a stay of Archuleta's execution.

    Court papers filed to date by Archuleta's attorneys do not indicate what arguments they will mount in asking the federal court to consider the case.

    Archuleta and co-defendant Lance Conway Wood were convicted in separate trials in 1989 of the murder of Southern Utah University student Gordon Church.

    The three men met in a Cedar City convenience store on Nov. 22, 1988, and then went to nearby Cedar Canyon where Church was raped and beaten. Archuleta and Wood then drove Church, 28, to a remote location about 80 miles north of Cedar City, where Church was tortured and beaten to death and his body abandoned.

    Archuleta was sentenced to die for the crime and Wood was sentenced to life in prison.

    In Archuleta's last state appeal, attorney James Slavens argued the convicted man deserved a new trial because Wood had taken primary responsibility for the crime in a 2009 court affidavit. Slavens said the confession could have swayed a jury to impose a life sentence in Archuleta's case, rather than the death penalty, Slavens said.

    Justices sided with state prosecutors who said Wood's 2009 statement was part of a changing explanation, not a confession.

    Archuleta is one of nine men on Utah's death row.

    The state last held an execution in June 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by firing squad for the 1985 shooting death of a Salt Lake City attorney during a botched escape attempt at a courthouse.

    http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/usa...xt|FRONTPAGE|s

  3. #13
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Execution temporarily stayed in brutal 1988 murder case

    A federal judge has halted the April 5 execution date for Michael Anthony Archuleta, who had requested to die by firing squad for the murder of a Southern Utah University student.

    In an expected move, Archuleta, 50, decided to pursue an appeal in federal court, prompting U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell to sign an order to stay an execution warrant for April 5 that had been signed in state court in February. The stay was issued last month.

    "This stay shall remain in place through the entry of final judgment in this matter and will remain in effect until the issuance of the mandate by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals," Campbell stated in the order.

    She noted that Archuleta has not yet pursued an appeal in federal court.

    Archuleta was sentenced to death in connection with the Nov. 22, 1988, murder of Gordon Ray Church, 28. Church offered Archuleta and Lance Conway Wood, who were both on parole, a ride after meeting the pair at a gas station.

    After driving into a nearby canyon, where the two men threatened to rob Church but instead began to severely beat and torture the man before raping him with a tire iron and burying him in a shallow grave.

    Wood told his parole officer and led investigators to the body the next day. He was ultimately sentenced to life in prison without parole.

    Archuleta's most recent appeal — on the grounds that he had ineffective assistance of counsel in both his trial and subsequent appeals — was rejected by the Utah Supreme Court in November 2011.

    http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=19838512
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  4. #14
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    In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Archuleta's petition for writ of certiorari was DENIED.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  5. #15
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Utah death row inmate appeals conviction in federal court

    Death row inmate Michael Anthony Archuleta has filed petition in federal court overturn his conviction for the torture slaying of a Southern Utah University student in 1988.

    Archuleta's attorneys challenge Utah's death penalty law as constitutionally flawed among 16 claims cited in the petition. They also argue that he had deficient counsel during his trial and post-conviction appeals in state court.

    The 182-page document includes a lengthy recitation of Archuleta's life, starting with his being abandoned by his teenager mother and placed in foster care at age 3. It describes his life of alcohol and drug use starting at an early age, as well as mental health problems, learning disabilities and crime.

    "I really think it's a compelling story that should have been discovered long ago," said Ken Murray, an Arizona federal public defender who represents Archuleta.

    Archuleta, 50, and co-defendant Lance Conway Wood were convicted in separate trials in 1989 of the murder of SUU student Gordon Church.

    The three men met in a Cedar City convenience store on Nov. 22, 1988, then went to nearby Cedar Canyon, where Church was raped and beaten. Archuleta and Wood then drove Church, 28, to another location, where Church was tortured and beaten to death.

    Archuleta was sentenced to die and Wood to life in prison. Archuleta claims in his petition that the sentences were disproportionate.

    Murray said Archuleta isn't claiming innocence, but there are questions about culpability and who actually did what.

    Tom Brunker, head of the capital appeals section in the Utah Attorney General's Office, said it's clear to him who had greater involvement in the killing.

    "Archuleta testified at his trial that Lance Wood did almost everything, and Lance Wood testified at his trial that Archuleta did almost everything," Brunker said.

    Evidence at trial did not equally implicate the two, but Wood had blood splatter on his clothes, while Archuleta's "pants were drenched in blood from the knees down," he said.

    "I think the fact that Archuleta's pants were drenched with the victim's blood more strongly supports Lance Wood's version that he was mostly a bystander while Archuleta did the actual killing," Brunker said.

    Archuleta turned to federal court because his appeals in state court have run their course. He's now asking the court to reconsider his conviction under federal law.

    "It's a very narrow standard for relief," Brunker said.

    http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...ral-court.html

    __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ______

    Habeas filing here: http://dockets.justia.com/docket/uta...7mc00630/62874
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  6. #16
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Edited:

    Michael Archuleta and the death penalty: 28 years later


    IN THE CASE OF ONE OF THE MEN SENTENCED IN THE MURDER OF GORDON RAY CHURCH, THE APPEALS PROCESS HAS DRAGGED ON FOR NEARLY THREE DECADES

    By Bree Burkitt
    The Spectrum

    Michael Anthony Archuleta has been on death row for 28 years.

    Since he was sentenced to death in 1989 for the brutal murder of Gordon Church, Archuleta, now 54, has spent his days waiting for his own demise in a cell at the Utah State Prison.


    The prosecutors, investigators and witnesses have all moved on with their lives. Many have moved away or retired, forgetting many of the details of the crime as the years fade away.


    But Archuleta hasn’t. Instead, the convicted murderer has spent the time fighting his own fate in the court system, doing everything possible to delay his seemingly inevitable execution.


    His case isn’t unusual, though. Nationwide, a startling trend has emerged as the time between conviction and execution continues to grow with each passing year.


    Archuleta was just 25 years old when he murdered 28-year-old Southern Utah University student Gordon Ray Church on Nov. 21, 1988.


    According to trial testimony, Archuleta and 20-year-old Lance Conway Wood had picked up Church at a Cedar City gas station before driving him to Cedar Canyon where Archuleta raped him after Church revealed he was gay.

    They then stuffed Church’s still-conscious body into the back of his own car to drive him more than 70 miles to a remote location in Millard County. The brutality continued there as Archuleta attached jumper cables to Church’s testicles, using the car battery to shock him. He was also sodomized with a tire iron, beat to death with a car jack and buried in a shallow grave.

    Injuries to Church's skull were so severe that a medical examiner later testified that they appeared similar to if his head had been run over by a truck.

    Following two separate trials, Archuleta and Wood each were convicted of capital murder.

    Wood was sentenced to life in prison. Archuleta was sentenced to death.

    Over the past 28 years, Archuleta has never actually come close to execution.

    The case has been bogged down in appeals since the initial conviction in the Fourth District Court in 1989. The Utah Supreme Court upheld the conviction shortly after. A second appeal claiming his trial attorneys and first set of appeal lawyers were ineffective was also rejected.

    Archuleta’s former attorney, James Slavens, asked the Utah Supreme Court for a new trial — or at least a new penalty phase — in 2011 after Wood took primary responsibility for the murder. In the statement, Wood allegedly confessed to the crime without hesitation.

    In this version, Archuleta wasn’t an active participant in the torture or the murder — he just moved the body. Slavens argued Wood's confession could have swayed a jury to opt for a life sentence, instead of death.

    Additionally, Slavens claimed Archuleta’s previous attorneys could have easily obtained the affidavit from Wood, which he stated was another indication of ineffective assistance.

    The Utah Supreme Court ultimately denied the request.

    In 2012, his scheduled firing squad execution was inevitably stayed to pursue a federal appeal.

    The case took a new turn when a petition filed in federal court claimed Archuleta was ineligible for execution because he was “intellectually disabled.”

    “We have presented evidence to the court that Michael does have an intellectual disability, therefore he has a merited claim that he should be exempt from execution,” David Christensen, former lead attorney in the case from the Utah Federal Defender's Office, said.

    Christensen resigned from the Federal Public Defender’s Office this month.

    Christensen's claim wasn’t a valid defense until 2002, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that intellectually disabled defendants were not eligible for the death penalty as it was considered to be cruel and unusual punishment because the deficiencies generally associated with disabilities are known to reduce culpability.

    Archuleta’s mental health history was investigated extensively during trial preparation, but it was never delved into at length during the trial or penalty phase. A board-certified forensic psychologist did not uncover any brain damage or recommend any possible lines of defense based on his mental health or intellectual levels. Some evidence was presented about a previous diagnosis of low intellectual functioning, though.

    Court documents reveal multiple red flags in his youth. He was born into “deplorable conditions” to a 16-year-old mother. She was immediately placed in reform school, leaving the child to be raised by “abusive grandparents.” He was later taken into custody by the Charitable Trust and Custody Services of the LDS Church at the age of three. The child was “in a filthy state” and covered in cigarette burns. He was later placed with a foster family that eventually adopted him.

    As a child and teenager, Archuleta suffered from ADHD and was sent multiple times to the Utah State Hospital and other mental health facilities. He may have been sexually assaulted during one of these stays, court filings reveal.

    During the first post-conviction review in state court, a psychologist evaluated Archuleta for any mental health defenses and she was unable to find any evidence of intellectual disability. IQ tests have generally placed Archuleta in the mid-80s. A score of 100 is average, while 70 is often the marker for intellectual disability.

    Another petition found Archuleta suffered from a neurocognitive impairment that heavily affected his ability to write and spell.

    The state district court refused to hear the claim on the grounds the defense had made a tactical decision not to present it when they originally could have. State law requires the claim to be brought up as soon as it is discovered, according to Andrew Peterson, assistant solicitor general for the Utah Attorney General's Office.

    Peterson, who has been on the case since 2013, believes the intellectual disability claim is likely just an attempt to slow down the appeals process.

    “He’s never presented evidence that he was intellectually disabled,” Peterson explained. “His attorneys sort of guess he is.”

    The Utah Attorney General’s Office agreed to have him evaluated at one point, but the court ruled against it.

    “The court wouldn’t even allow the expert to go into the prison to evaluate him because he’s not even allowed to present all of the information because of the timeliness issue,” Peterson said.

    The matter was ultimately sent back to the Utah Supreme Court for review as federal law prohibits the court from hearing any claim that hasn’t already been presented to the lower courts. Several other claims had also been raised and the state moved to separate them from the intellectual disability matter to proceed separately.

    Prior to his resignation, Christensen had told The Spectrum & Daily News in an email that they were still briefing the issues on appeal to the Utah Supreme Court. Oral arguments have not been scheduled at this time, but those familiar with the case estimate they could take place as early as this fall.

    Archuleta’s new public defender, Charlotte Merrill, did not respond to a request for comment.

    There’s no clear answer as to when — or if — Archuleta will ever face execution. The appeals could go on for years.

    http://www.thespectrum.com/story/new...ons/393431001/
    "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."
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  7. #17
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Intellectual disability claim now at the center of decades-old death penalty case before Utah Supreme Court

    By Jessica Miller
    The Salt Lake Tribune

    A Utah man who has been on death row for nearly 30 years is back in state court fighting his capital murder conviction.

    Attorneys for Michael Anthony Archuleta, now 55, argued before the Utah Supreme Court on Wednesday that their client is intellectually disabled, and therefore, legally cannot be executed.

    The claim was initially made in a federal court appeal for Archuleta, who has been on Utah’s death row since his December 1989 conviction of the brutal murder of 28-year-old Southern Utah State College student Gordon Ray Church.

    But because the intellectual disability claim had not been brought before the state courts before, that portion of the federal appeal was sent to the state’s highest court for consideration.

    Archuleta’s attorney, Charlotte Merril, argued Wednesday that her client’s previous counsel in state court was “conflicted, underqualified and underfunded” and failed to see the “red flags” of Archuleta’s intellectual disability.

    Lawyers with the Utah attorney general’s office countered by arguing that Archuleta’s current attorneys waited until the last possible moment to raise the concern in an effort to further delay appeals that have stretched for decades. He called it a “victory” for a defense team to delay an execution, noting that the 2012 federal appeal has been at a near stand-still since Archuleta’s attorneys raised concerns of intellectual disability.

    “A guilty person on death row has every incentive to wait until the last possible minute to gum up claims,” argued Aaron Murphy, assistant solicitor general.

    But Merril disagreed.

    “Sitting on death row while intellectually disabled is not a victory,” she said.

    The Utah Supreme Court took the matter under advisement, and will issue a written ruling. If the high court rejects the arguments — making it the sixth time that the state courts has rejected Archuleta’s appeals — the federal appeal will still continue.

    On Nov. 21, 1988, then-parolees Archuleta and Lance Conway Wood drove Church to a remote location in Millard County. There, they attached jumper cables to Church’s testicles, used the car battery to shock him, raped him with a tire iron, beat him with a car jack and buried him in a shallow grave.

    In separate trials, Archuleta and Wood each were convicted of capital murder. Wood was sentenced to life in prison, while Archuleta was sentenced to death.

    He is one of nine men currently on Utah’s death row.

    https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/01/...-penalty-case/

  8. #18
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    Archuleta’s Atkins claim has been denied by the Utah Supreme Court.

    https://law.justia.com/cases/utah/su.../20160419.html
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  9. #19
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Attorneys for Utah death row inmate want AG's office removed from case

    Attorneys for death row inmate Michael Anthony Archuleta are asking to have the Utah Attorney General's Office removed from his appeals, claiming the office represents too many state agencies with conflicting roles in his case.

    Attorneys for a man who has been on Utah's death row for more than 3 decades are seeking to have the Utah Attorney General's Office disqualified from the appeal due to an alleged conflict of interest.

    Michael Anthony Archuleta, 59, and Lance Conway Wood were convicted in separate trials in 1989 of the murder of Southern Utah University student Gordon Church in 1988. Wood was ordered to serve life in prison but Archuleta was sentenced to death.

    Since his conviction, the case has resulted in numerous appeals both to the state and federal level. Archuleta's attorneys have claimed that he has a history of intellectual disability.

    In October, Archuleta's defense team filed a motion in Millard County's 4th District Court seeking to determine whether the attorney general's office has a conflict of interest in the case. The motion was originally sealed — a move that was challenged by a group of media representatives including KSL.com, the Deseret News, the Salt Lake Tribune and the Millard County Chronicle Progress.

    On Friday, Archuleta's attorneys withdrew their request to have their conflict of interest motion sealed, stating that the Utah Department of Corrections "has now changed its position or, at the very least, indicated a misunderstanding of the scope of its prior stipulation sealing the relevant records. For that reason, Mr. Archuleta has no personal interest in keeping these records protected."

    Archuleta's attorneys note that the attorney general's office represents "three agencies responsible for different roles in this litigation and, despite acknowledging its conflict, failed to implement a timely screening between conflicted attorneys," according to the motion to determine conflict of interest.

    The motion says the attorney general's office:

    •Represents the Department of Human Services, which is assigned to conduct independent mental evaluations of Archuleta to determine intellectual level.

    •Represents the Department of Corrections, which has custody of Archuleta as well as custody of "sensitive documents" related to him and would be assigned to execute him.

    •Represents the state with its own lawyers fighting Archuleta's appeal of his death sentence.

    These deputy attorneys general representing different departments all report to the same person, Attorney General Sean Reyes, and that creates significant conflicts of interest, the motion claims.

    Defense attorneys claim the attorney general's office interfered with the Department of Human Services' ability to properly conduct a nationwide search for experts to evaluate Archuleta. Department officials had asked for more time to find evaluators, noting that COVID-19 was reducing the pool of qualified people willing to conduct an evaluation. The attorney general's office, however, did not want another delay and encouraged the Department of Human Services to use its own experts while allegedly stating, "Every day that passes is a day that Mr. Archuleta's sentence is thwarted," according to the motion.

    Human Services officials ultimately "abandoned its out-of-state search" and appointed 2 in-state experts, the motion states, and only imposed a screening measure among the attorneys general after their experts were appointed.

    Archuleta's attorneys also contend that the attorney general representing the state "communicated extensively" with the attorney general representing the Utah Department of Corrections to facilitate a meeting with one of the state's experts and the warden of the prison about Archuleta's "functioning and abilities." The state's attorney general also asked the corrections attorney general for "sensitive documents," including prison visitor logs and names of Archuleta's contacts, even though the corrections attorney general classified those records as private, the motion states.

    "Because both UDC and the state are represented by colleagues in the same agency, UDC was unable to make an independent decision whether to exercise its discretion to release Mr. Archuleta's private records to the state," the motion claims.

    Archuleta's attorneys say the conflict is further illustrated by the state attorney general promising the corrections attorney general that the state wouldn't share the private documents with anyone other than their investigative and litigation team and would not use the documents in court. "This would presumably mean the state's AG would withhold these records from Mr. Archuleta's counsel and retained experts, despite this court's order that custodians of governmental agency records must provide private and controlled records upon request."

    "To Mr. Archuleta's counsel's knowledge, there has been no screening mechanism created between" the attorney general representing the state, the attorney general representing the Department of Human Services and the attorney general representing the Department of Corrections, the motion alleges.

    "The decisive issue here ... is: whether the AG's screening is sufficient to avoid disqualification. It is not," Archuleta's attorneys wrote.

    The attorneys conclude their filing by stating "this motion is not made for the purpose of harassment: it is based on established rules and case law and is made to protect Mr. Archuleta's constitutional due process rights. Facing the most severe penalty, it is imperative to protect his rights and due process in the determination of his death eligibility."

    On Tuesday, the attorney general's office filed a motion requesting additional time to respond to Archuleta's motion for disqualification.

    "Because of scheduling conflicts and other ongoing caseload demands — including the preparation and filing of a United States Supreme Court amicus brief and a 4-day evidentiary hearing in another capital case — no counsel for the state is or has been available to prepare the state's response to the motion," the attorney general's office wrote in its motion.

    The state is requesting a deadline of Dec. 29 to file its response.

    (source: KSL news)
    "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

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