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Executions

Larry Matthew Puckett Execution March 20, 2012



Summary of Offense: wPuckett was sentenced in Forrest County in 1996 for the 1995 murder and sexual assault of Rhonda Griffis of Sunrise. Puckett, a former Eagle Scout, beat Griffis to death with a club.

Victim(s): Rhonda Griffis

Time of Death: 6:18 p.m.

Manner of execution: Lethal Injection

Last Meal: For his last meal, Puckett requested macadamia nut pancakes with butter and maple syrup, shrimp and grits, an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen, a bag of Werther’s Originals caramel candy and an A&W root beer.

Final Statement: “No,” was the final word from Puckett’s mouth after being asked if he had any final statements.

William Gerald Mitchell Execution March 22, 2012



Summary of Offense: Mitchell was sentenced in Harrison County in 1998 for the November 21, 1995 murder of Patty Milliken, 38. Mitchell was on parole from a life sentence for a 1975 murder.

Victim(s): Patty Milliken

Time of Death: 6:20 p.m.

Manner of execution: Lethal Injection

Last Meal: Big plate of fried shrimp and oysters together, big strawberry shake, cup of ranch dressing, 2 fried chicken breasts and a coke.

Final Statement: "No"


Death Row Inmate Deaths

Roger Lynn Loyd - Georgia



Summary of Offense: Sentenced to death for the 1998 murder of three-year-old Tevin Hammonds. The state presented evidence that Loyd has admitted to molesting 15 children during his life.


New Execution Dates

Thomas Kemp - Arizona Execution - April 26, 2012



The Arizona Supreme Court approved the execution of a death-row inmate.

The court approved the death warrant Tuesday for 63-year-old Thomas Arnold Kemp.

Kemp was sentenced to death for kidnapping 25-year-old Hector Soto Juarez from outside his Tucson apartment in July 1992 and taking him into a desert area where he shot Juarez twice in the head.

Samuel V. Lopez - Arizona Execution - May 16, 2012



The Arizona Supreme Court approved the execution of a death-row inmate.

The court approved the death warrant Tuesday for 49-year-old Samuel Villegas Lopez.

Lopez is scheduled to be executed on May 16.

Lopez is on death row for raping, robbing and stabbing 59-year-old Estafana Holmes to death in her Phoenix apartment on October 1986.


Scheduled Executions

Mark Wayne Wiles - Ohio - April 18, 2012



On Friday the Ohio Parole Board with eight (8) members participating by a vote of eight (8) to zero (0) recommended to Honorable John R. Kasich Governor of the State of Ohio that executive clemency be denied in the case of Mark Wayne Wiles.

David Alan Gore - Florida Execution - April 12, 2012

A serial killer, who's set to be executed on April 12, appealed to the Florida Supreme Court.

The appeal was filed Wednesday on behalf of 58-year-old David Alan Gore.

He's set to die for the 1984 murder of 17-year-old Lynn Elliott in Indian River County. Gore also is serving life sentences for killing five other women.

His lawyers say Gov. Rick Scott was unfairly influenced to sign Gore's death warrant after meeting with a newspaper editorial board.

They also say Gore's rights were violated.


Stays Of Execution

Thomas Arthur - Alabama - March 29, 2012

Less than a week before he was scheduled to be put to death, an Alabama inmate has been granted his fifth stay of execution as an appeals court considers his objection to the state's lethal injection drug cocktail.

An appeals court on Friday postponed the March 29 execution planned for Thomas Douglas "Tommy" Arthur while the full court considers whether Alabama's lethal injection protocol is constitutional.


New Death Sentence

Mark Anthony Soliz - Texas

A Fort Worth man who killed two people during an eight-day crime spree was sentenced to death by a Johnson County jury.

The panel took only about an hour Friday before giving 30-year-old Mark Anthony Soliz the death penalty. Earlier this month, they deliberated just 10 minutes before finding him guilty of capital murder in the robbery and fatal shooting of 61-year-old Nancy Weatherly in her Godley home in June 2010.

During the monthlong trial, the jury also heard that before killing Godley, Soliz fatally shot 28-year-old Ben E. Keith deliveryman Ruben Martinez outside a Fort Worth convenience store.

The slayings were part of a crime spree that began June 22 and included thefts, burglaries, a carjacking and three other shootings.


Jury Recommended Death Sentence

Chris Collings - Missouri

The Phelps County jury in the case of State of Missouri vs. Christopher Collings recommended the death penalty for the convicted killer.

The jury returned to the courtroom just after 6:15 p.m. Friday after only 45 minutes of deliberations following closing arguments in day three of the penalty phase.

On Tuesday, Collings was convicted of First Degree Murder in the kidnapping, rape and death of 9-year-old Rowan Ford of Stella in 2009.



Current Death Row Inmates

Len Davis - Federal Death Row

Defense attorneys asked a federal judge Monday to overturn the death sentence or order a new trial for a former New Orleans police officer convicted of arranging a woman's killing in 1994.

The court filing argues that Len Davis has a serious mental impairment that rendered him incompetent to stand trial on charges he directed a drug dealer to shoot and kill Kim Groves after she filed a brutality complaint against him.

The defense lawyers also claim the Justice Department had a conflict of interest in prosecuting Davis.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said he couldn't immediately comment on Monday's court filing.

"We'll respond forcefully and swiftly," he said.

U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan has allowed Davis to represent himself during his post-conviction proceedings. His standby counsel, Capital Appeals Project attorney Sarah Ottinger and federal public defender Rebecca Hudsmith, said Davis shouldn't have been allowed to represent himself and will be executed if they don't act on his behalf.

A date for Davis' execution was expected to be set this month if he didn't challenge his death sentence.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case against Davis last year.

George Martin - Alabama

A former Alabama State Trooper convicted of murder wants a new trial.

George Martin received the death penalty for killing his wife 17 years ago.

Fox 10 News was surprised to see George Martin booked into Metro Jail Friday. That's because Martin has been on death row since 2000.

Martin's trip to Mobile was also news to the attorney general's office which prosecuted the former Alabama State Trooper.

The AG's office discovered the trip was the result of a clerical error which mistakenly indicated Martin had a hearing scheduled for Monday.

Martin was in the Metro Jail for only a few hours before he was sent back to Atmore.

But, he'll be back in town in about two weeks. That's when his hearing is set to request a new trial.

Martin was convicted in the 1995 arson murder of his wife Hammoleketh. Her body was burned beyond recognition in her car on an isolated road in Theodore.

Jason Sharp - Alabama

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals Friday reversed its decision granting convicted capital murder defendant Jason Sharp of Huntsville a new trial on the grounds that prosecutors improperly kept black citizens from the jury.

Sharp was convicted in August 2006 for the January 1999 rape and murder of Tracy Lynn Morris and remains under a death sentence.

John Clyde Abel - California

On Monday, the California Supreme Court left intact an Orange County jury's death penalty punishment for Abel's January 1991 cold-blooded robbery/murder of Armando Miller, a man who'd just exited a bank in Orange with $20,000 in cash for his market.

Nathan Dunlap - Colorado

A man on Colorado's death row for killing four people at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant nearly 19 years ago asked a federal court Tuesday to overturn his death sentence.

Attorneys for Nathan Dunlap told a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Dunlap is mentally ill and that his trial lawyers failed to adequately represent him.

Paul Koehler, of the state attorney general's office, told judges that Dunlap's previous attorneys had experience in death penalty cases, KUSA-TV in Denver reported.

Dunlap was sentenced to death after he was convicted of killing three teenagers and a mother of two at the Aurora restaurant in 1993.

Roger Cherry - Florida

A man who killed a 77-year-old DeLand woman in 1986 will not get off Death Row, a Circuit Court judge in Volusia County ruled Thursday.

Roger Cherry, 60, had sought to have his death sentence overturned because of mental retardation.

Judge Frank Marriott ruled Cherry did not meet the requirements to be declared mentally retarded other than his score on a standard IQ test, State Attorney's spokeswoman Klare Ly said.

Cherry was sentenced to die for killing 77-year-old Esther Wayne and to life in prison for burglary. The victim's 80-year-old husband, Leonard Wayne, died of a heart attack during the June 28, 1986 burglary.

Cherry has taken at least four IQ tests since he has been on death row.

Joseph P. Brown - Mississippi

On Thursday the Mississippi Supreme Court DENIED Brown post conviction relief.

Brown was sentenced in Adams County in March 1994 for the August 1992 murder of Natchez convenience store clerk Martha Day. Day was shot four times and died at the scene.

Sean Carter - Ohio

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide if a federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled correctly when it concluded that federal post-conviction appeals should be delayed for an Ohio man convicted of rape and murder.

The justices, without comment, agreed today to hear the case, a victory for Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine. The high court will hear oral arguments next fall.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that Sean Carter, convicted by a Trumbull County jury for the 1997 murder of his adoptive grandmother, suffered from such mental illness that he was not competent to have his appeals heard by the courts.

Rayshawn Johnson - Ohio

On Friday the Ohio Supreme Court granted Johnson a stay of execution pending final disposition of his direct appeal.

Joel Escobedo - Texas

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals sent the case of a condemned killer back to his trial court in Houston to examine again claims the convicted man is mentally impaired and ineligible for execution.

A jury in 1999 convicted Joel Escobedo of capital murder for robbing and fatally shooting a 65-year-old man at a Houston bus stop in 1998.

The 50-year-old Escobedo is among more than a dozen inmates who wound up on Texas death row after they were examined by psychologist George Denkowski. He's been reprimanded by a state medical board for questionable evaluation methods in criminal cases.

The court's ruling Wednesday allows Escobedo's trial court to accept the original findings or determine new recommendations to be delivered to the appeals court within 90 days.

Roger McGowen - Texas

A Houston man on death row for 25 years won an appeal that could get him a new punishment trial or see his sentence reduced to life.

Roger Wayne McGowen was condemned in 1987 for fatally shooting a 67-year-old woman during a Houston bar robbery in March 1986.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholds a lower court's ruling that instructions given to jurors didn't provide a way for them to consider his disadvantaged background.

The ruling posted late Monday is in line with other Texas capital cases of that era before the courts refined jury instructions.

The appeals court also rejected arguments that the 48-year-old McGowen is innocent, his trial lawyers were deficient and his long time on death row is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual.



Reversed/ New Trials/Resentnced/Released/Commuted

Angela Johnson - Federal

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett overturned the death sentence of a Forest City woman accused of helping her drug-dealing boyfriend kill five people in 1993.

Bennett, who originally imposed death sentences on both Angela Johnson and her boyfriend, Dustin Honken, in 2004 and 2005, issued a 448-page ruling Thursday in which he set aside the death sentences based on mistakes made by Johnson’s lawyers during trial.

Federal prosecutors now have 60 days to protest the decision.

Robert Gattis - Delaware

A federal judge said a former Delaware death row inmate can't get back a Playboy magazine that was seized from him.

Robert Gattis claimed in a 2008 lawsuit that officials violated his constitutional rights and prison policy by seizing a Playboy magazine he had ordered.

The judge ruled Tuesday that Gattis had no legitimate claim because he lost both an internal prison appeal as well as a court complaint seeking return of the magazine or its $6.99 face value. The judge said the fact that officials did not keep the magazine for a specified time period did not violate Gattis' constitutional rights.

Gov. Jack Markell commuted Gattis' death sentence to life without parole in January. In return, Gattis agreed to waive all further legal challenges related to his murder conviction.

Kenny Richey - Ohio

The attorney for a former death row inmate accused of threatening a judge wants his trial moved out of Putnam County and one of the two charges dismissed. Greg Meyers of the Ohio Public Defender's Office said Kenneth Richey cannot get a fair trial in Putnam County. He also wants the charge of violating a civil protection dismissed.

Richey spent 21 years on death row for a crime he said he didn't commit. He was sentenced to die for the 1986 arson death of a two year-old Columbus Grove Girl. He was granted a new trial after a federal appellate court ruled his trial attorneys didn't do an adequate job representing him. He accepted a plea deal for time served and was released in 2008.

Angel Luis Reyes - Pennsylvania

Angel Luis Reyes, 67, was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for the 1993 drowning death of his 4-year-old daughter, Marcia Reyes, in exchange for a waiver of any further appeals in the case.

Reyes had been sentenced to death by two penalty-phase juries and had another penalty hearing scheduled for next month. Gov. Edward G. Rendell had signed a warrant for his death in January 2010 that scheduled an execution by lethal injection the following March.

The Federal Defenders Association of Philadelphia moved to stay Reyes’ execution that February, however.

A new death penalty hearing was scheduled for next month, but the girl’s mother, Julie E. Martinez, consented to the sentencing agreement carried out Wednesday by Judge Barry Dozor.


Justin Wolfe - Virginia

About 35 former prosecutors, law enforcement officers and judges are calling on the state of Virginia to drop its appeals case to have a capital murder conviction against Justin Michael Wolfe reinstated, according to a Virginia Lawyer's Weekly blog post.

Wolfe, of Chantilly, has been on death row since 2002 after he was convicted and sentenced in Prince William County for ordering the murder of his marijuana dealer, Daniel Robert Petrole Jr. at his home in Bristow, Va. The prosecution's key witness, triggerman Owen Merton Barber lV testified against Wolfe at trial, but told the Eastern District Court of Virginia in November 2010 that Wolfe was not involved.

U.S. District Court Judge Raymond A. Jackson vacated all charges against Wolfe, including the murder-for-hire charge, in July of 2011 on the grounds that the prosecution withheld evidence that would have been favorable to Wolfe's defense.

The state is appealing the ruling to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to have the conviction and death sentence against Wolfe reinstated. A hearing is set for May 17.

But a recent friend-of-the-court brief (amici brief) published by a group of former officials says prosecutors suppressed evidence that would have impeached Barber's testimony in court, including an original testimony by Barber in which he admitted to investigating officers that he acted alone and that police presented him with an informal deal to avoid the death penalty by testifying against Wolfe.

Supreme Court Denials

Robert Fairbanks Jr.
Daniel Greene - Georgia
Jodi Lee Miles - Maryland
John Lotter - Nebraska
Anthony Apanovitch - Ohio
Gary Otte - Ohio
John Michael Bane - Tennessee
David Renteria - Texas
John Quintanilla - Texas


State By State Death Penalty News

Connecticut

The long drive to abolish the death penalty in Connecticut marked another milestone Wednesday when it cleared a key legislative committee.

The 24-19 vote in the judiciary committee broke largely along party lines and came on the same day a new Quinnipiac University poll was released, showing broad support for capital punishment among state residents.

"Connecticut voters said, 62-31 [percent], that repeal was a bad idea,'' Sen. John Kissel of Enfield, the ranking Republican on the committee. "For those of my colleagues who feel that they know better, I would say that the people of Connecticut are pretty darn smart. They know that we use the death penalty pretty rarely, but they believe that it has a valuable function in our state."

The poll of 1,622 registered voters in Connecticut was conducted March 14-19 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

Kentucky

The Kentucky House has approved a resolution to establish a task force to develop a plan for implementing the recommendations of an American Bar Association report on the death penalty.

The resolution offered by Rep. Jesse Crenshaw, a Lexington Democrat, passed the House Thursday by a 73-18 vote with nine members not voting.

Crenshaw said the ABA's Kentucky Death Penalty Assessment Report offered suggestions for improvements to the way death penalty cases are handled, including improvements in the areas of retaining evidence and clarifying instructions to juries.

The former federal prosecutor, who favors use of the death penalty, said that between 1976 and 2011 in Kentucky, 78 people were sentenced to death, but 50 of those cases were overturned.