Chester Allan Poage
Summary of Offense:
On March 13, 2000, Briley Piper and two other individuals kidnapped Chester Allan Poage and beat him to death. Afterwards, they returned to Poage's home and stole personal property and the victim's 1997 Blazer, which was used to leave the state. Prior to trial, Piper pleaded guilty to felony murder, kidnapping, robbery in the first degree, burglary in the first degree, and grand theft. Piper further waived his right to a jury trial on sentencing and the sentencing hearing was held in front of the trial court. After this hearing, the trial court sentenced Piper to death. He has appealed to the South Dakota Supreme Court.
The two other individuals, Darrell Hoadley and Elijah Page were arrested in connection with the Poage murder. Page, along with Piper pleaded guilty and left their sentencing up to District Judge Warren Johnson in a bench penalty phase proceeding. Both waived their right to have a jury empaneled for the penalty phase proceeding. Johnson found Page and Piper death penalty eligible upon finding that statutory aggravating circumstances were present, and accordingly sentenced them to death.
Page would later drop all of his remaining appeals and request to be executed. Elijah Page became the first South Dakota inmate to be put to death by the state in 60 years when he was executed by lethal injection on the evening of July 12, 2007.
Hoadley, meanwhile, elected to go to trial and while the jury in that case found him guilty; he was spared a death sentence when the jury instead recommended a life sentence. Hoadley is serving a sentence of life in prison without parole in the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls.
On April 3, 2002, the South Dakota Supreme Court remanded the Piper case to the trial court for further proceedings, including an evidentiary hearing, on Piper’s allegations of prosecutorial misconduct and disproportionality of his death sentence. The trial court had had no opportunity to consider those issues because the issues arose after the appeal had begun. In the remand order, the Court did not decide the merits of any issues on appeal. The matter was decided on remand by the Circuit Court, and it will now return to the South Dakota Supreme Court for further briefing and decision by that Court. The Supreme Court decided to start the appeal process over, and the Court thereafter received written briefs and heard oral argument in March, 2004. The Supreme Court issued its decision affirming the death sentence and the conviction on January 4, 2006. The matter thereafter was remanded to the Circuit court. To this point, no new execution date has been set. There are several rounds of habeas court in State and federal courts that Piper may pursue, and so no estimate of the time when the sentence may be carried out is possible at this time.
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