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Thread: Charles Russell Rhines - South Dakota Execution - November 4, 2019

  1. #11
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Charles Rhines timeline: The crime and the time on death row

    Charles Rhines is on death row for the 1992 murder of Donnivan Schaeffer in Rapid City. Here is the history of the case:

    July 11, 1956: Charles Russell Rhines born in McLaughlin, S.D. He is the 4th of 4 children.

    1973: Rhines quits high school, enlists in U.S. Army, infantry, stationed in Ft. Carson, Colo., and South Korea

    1977: Rhines arrested for 3rd-degree burglary out of Bon Homme County after break-in to residence of rivals at University of South Dakota, Springfield, where he'd been attending school as a non-traditional student. Served just over seven months at South Dakota State Penitentiary.

    1979: Rhines arrested for armed robbery, commission of a felony with a firearm. Sentenced to 10 years. Served time from 1980-86 in Washington due to trouble with other inmates in South Dakota.

    1986 - 1990: Lived/worked in Seattle, Wash., area at various restaurants, salvage yards, factories

    Feb. 1991 - Feb. 20, 1992: Employee of Dig Em Donuts, Rapid City.

    March 8, 1992: Breaks into Dig Em Donuts, steals cash, murders 22-year-old Donnivan Schaeffer

    March 11, 1992: Returns to Seattle, Wash., and begins committing small-scale thefts with prison friend Matt Mighell.

    May - June 1992: Rhines convinces former roommate Sam Harter to come to Seattle area. Harter brings girlfriend Heather Shepard. Mighell, Harter, Shepard and Rhines continue small-time theft. Rhines tells Shepard about Schaeffer's murder, later threatens to kill her

    June 19, 1992: Rhines arrested in Seattle.

    Jan. 1993: Rhines sentenced to death for the murder of Donnivan Schaeffer

    1996: South Dakota Supreme Court upholds death sentence for Rhines

    2000: Rhines files federal habeas corpus action

    March 2005: U.S. Supreme Court orders South Dakota courts to review Rhines case.

    2012: Rapid City Judge Thomas Trimble rules against Rhines in state habeas appeal. State Supreme Court again upholds ruling the following year

    Jan. 2014: U.S. Supreme Court denies to review S.D. Supreme Court decision

    Jan. 2014: State of South Dakota seeks to dismiss federal habeas appeal

    (Source: The Argus Leader)
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  2. #12
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    SD death row inmate Rhines loses federal appeal

    The U.S. District Court of South Dakota denied Charles Russell Rhines’ petition to overturn his conviction and death sentence for the 1992 murder of Donnivan Schaeffer.

    Schaeffer, 22, was killed during a burglary of a doughnut shop in Rapid City.

    “The federal court’s ruling affirms that Charles Russell Rhines’ murder conviction and capital sentence are appropriate and constitutional. My thoughts and prayers are with Donnivan Schaeffer’s family, who have waited 24 years for justice in this case,” said South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley.

    Tuesday’s decision doesn’t end the appeal process. According to a release from the AG’s office, Rhines has the right to appeal the district court’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit and, ultimately, to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    http://www.kotatv.com/news/south-dak...ppeal/38026986
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  3. #13
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Death penalty upheld in 1992 murder of Rapid City man at doughnut shop

    The U.S. District Court for South Dakota has upheld the conviction and death sentence for a man convicted in the 1992 murder of a 22-year-old Rapid City man who was stabbed to death at a doughnut shop.

    According to state Attorney General Marty Jackley, the motions filed by Charles Russell Rhines were denied by the federal court. Rhines had sought a motion for habeas corpus relief and to amend the penalty he received.

    Rhines was convicted in the murder of 22-year-old Donnivan Schaeffer in Rapid City on March 8, 1992.

    Rhines, now 59, was charged with fatally stabbing Donnivan Schaeffer, 22, during a burglary at a Rapid City doughnut shop in March 1992. Schaeffer, a part-time employee at the shop, walked in on Rhines while he was robbing the shop.

    “The Federal Court’s ruling affirms that Charles Russell Rhines’ murder conviction and capital sentence for the horrific murder of Donnivan Shaeffer are constitutional. My thoughts and prayers are with the Schaeffer family, who have waited 24 years for justice in this case,” Jackley said in a news release on Thursday.

    A Pennington County jury convicted Rhines of first degree murder in 1993 and returned a sentence of death. Rhines’ conviction and death sentence were affirmed on direct appeal by the South Dakota Supreme Court in 1996. Rhines’ conviction and sentence were also affirmed on state habeas proceedings by the state trial court and South Dakota Supreme Court.

    With the conclusion of his federal trial court habeas corpus proceedings, Rhines can file a notice of appeal within 30 days to the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit and, ultimately, to the United States Supreme Court. Rhines must obtain permission from the federal court to pursue an appeal.

    http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/loc...448297881.html
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  4. #14
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    On August 15, 2016, Rhines filed an appeal before the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ci...ts/ca8/16-3360
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  5. #15
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On January 11, 2018, oral argument will be heard in Rhines' appeal before the Eighth Circuit. The panel will be made up of Judges Loken (G.H.W. Bush), Gruender (G.W. Bush) and Kelly (Obama).

    http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/webcal/jan18stl.pdf

  6. #16
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    This guy currently has an appeal pending at SCOTUS. An appeal from state court. Apparently he is claiming anti-gay animus should invalidate his death sentence.
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  7. #17
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Shep3's Avatar
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    I read it was total nonsense I'm gayer than disco and even I thought he was grasping at straws no where outside of San Fran would have treated him any different back in 1990's and by that's periods standards the supposed homophobia was mild at worse.

  8. #18
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Supreme Court rejects appeal from gay inmate in South Dakota

    By Daily Journal

    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is rejecting an appeal from a gay death row inmate in South Dakota who says jurors were biased against him because of his sexual orientation.

    The justices did not comment Monday in leaving in place the death sentence for Charles Rhines. He was convicted in the stabbing death of a doughnut shop employee in Rapid City, South Dakota, in 1992.

    Rhines tried to persuade the court to take an interest in his case after the justices last year ruled that evidence of racial bias in the jury room allows a judge to consider setting aside a verdict. Rhines said one juror said Rhines should not be sentenced to life in prison because he is gay and would be housed with other men.

    http://www.dailyjournal.net/2018/06/...nti-gay-juror/
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  9. #19
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Supreme Court won't hear case of death-row inmate who claimed jurors were homophobic

    Defense lawyers said jurors knew that Charles Rhines was gay and thought "he shouldn't be able to spend his life with men in prison."

    By Pete Williams
    NBCNews.com

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up the appeal of a South Dakota man who claimed that anti-gay juror bias put him on death row.

    "Charles Rhines is a gay man, and the jurors at his capital trial knew it," his lawyers said in urging the court to take up the case. But prosecutors said it was the brutal nature of the crime that led the jury to impose a death sentence, not his sexual orientation.

    During trial deliberations, jurors sent a note to the judge asking whether a life sentence would allow Rhines to mix with the general inmate population, brag about his crime to young inmates, or have a cellmate. Defense lawyers said jurors contacted years later said they knew Rhines was gay and some thought "he shouldn't be able to spend his life with men in prison."

    Comments by jurors during deliberations are normally off limits, and state and federal rules prohibit judges from hauling jurors back into court to explain their verdicts. But in 2017 the Supreme Court said exceptions must be made in cases where there's evidence that racial bias affected the verdict.

    "Blatant racial prejudice is antithetical to the functioning of the jury system and must be confronted in egregious cases," the court held, despite the general rule of jury secrecy.

    Lawyers for Rhines said that same rule should apply in cases of anti-gay juror bias. They cited statements made by jurors in the case that a life sentence would be "sending him where he wants to go." Another was quoted as saying: "There was a lot of disgust. This is a farming community."

    But prosecutors said those statements gathered by defense lawyers years after the trial were unreliable. The juror who said Rhines might be locked up with other men meant it as a joke but immediately admitted it was "stupid," the state's legal brief said.

    The Supreme Court's 2017 ruling on racial bias in deliberations did not apply to claims of bias based on sexual orientation, the prosecutors argued.

    The state also said the jury reached its verdict after learning the details of the 1992 murder. Rhines was burglarizing a donut shop when 22-year-old Donnivan Schaeffer, who worked there after hours, came in. Rhines stabbed him in the abdomen and back. As Schaeffer begged for his life, Rhines drove the knife into the base of his skull.

    Sentenced to death in 1993, Rhines is now 61 and has waged a long legal battle. His current lawyers wanted the South Dakota courts to consider the possibility of anti-gay bias and to order a new sentencing hearing

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...te-who-n884196
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  10. #20
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    OP-ED

    His crime was horrendous, but so was the reason jurors sentenced him to death. He’s gay.

    BY LEONARD PITTS, JR.
    The Miami Herald

    So it looks like Charles Rhines is going to executed — and it’s probably because he’s gay.

    Well, not only that. There’s also the matter of his committing an especially heinous murder in 1992. Rhines, caught burglarizing a doughnut shop in Rapid City, South Dakota by an employee named Donnivan Schaeffer, stabbed the 22-year old in the abdomen and back. Then, as Schaeffer pleaded for his life, Rhines thrust the blade into the base of his skull.

    Point being that this guy is no hero or martyr. He is undeserving of pity.

    That said, the circumstances of his case — more specifically, his sentencing — ought to concern anyone who believes in equal justice under the law. It seems that, in deciding what sentence to impose — death or life without parole — jurors worried that, as a gay man, Rhines might enjoy prison. They thought condemning him to that all-male environment would be like the old folk tale about Br’er Rabbit tricking Br’er Fox into throwing him into the briar patch where he wanted to be all along.

    So they gave him death.

    Evidence of the effect of Rhines’ sexuality on the panel’s reasoning abounds. Jurors sent the judge a note asking if he would be housed in general population, if he might “brag” to “young men” about his crime, if he might ever marry or have conjugal visits, if he would have a cellmate. As if that weren’t enough, several jurors later issued sworn declarations affirming how homophobia warped their deliberations.

    One juror was quoted as saying that putting a gay man in prison would be “sending him where he wants to go.” Another quoted a fellow juror as saying Rhines “shouldn’t be able to spend his life with men in prison.” A third reported that, “There was a lot of disgust” in the jury room. “This is a farming community.”

    That sort of thinking, should it need saying, is idiotic. Unfortunately, it made sense to the only people whose opinions mattered.

    As it happens, the Supreme Court ruled last year that jury deliberations can be impeached if it can be proven they were tainted by racial bias. Rhines’ lawyers reasoned that if racism is enough to question a jury’s decision, homophobia should be, too.

    But last week, the court declined to hear Rhines’ appeal. It’s a disappointing decision. If equal justice means anything, it means a judge or jury may not heap an added penalty based on some facet of cultural identity. Whether grounded in race, religion, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity, bias has no place in our legal system. The high court had a chance to make that clear, but punted instead.

    And Rhines got kicked in the teeth by Lady Justice. No, it couldn’t happen to a more-deserving individual. But the issue at stake here is a lot bigger than him.

    It’s also bigger than anyone’s position on the death penalty. The view from this corner is that capital punishment is a barbaric vestige of frontier justice, biased in just about every way — race, gender, class, geography — that a thing can be. Beyond that, it is expensive, immoral and irreversible.

    But even the person who supports state executions should be unsettled by this non-ruling, should want the questions raised here definitively decided as soon as possible. Either the ideal of equal justice is a foundation of our system — or it is not.

    If it is, how can we countenance the notion that sexual orientation — or religion, or race or anything else — can so brazenly function as a thumb on the scale? That’s not how justice is supposed to work. Whether the sentence is life or death, one thing should be immutably true: in America, you are punished for what you did.

    Not for what you are.

    http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/o...213672629.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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