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Executions


Jonathan Marcus Green - Texas Execution - October 10, 2011




Summary of Offense: On June 21, 2000, in Montgomery County, Texas, Green kidnapped Christina LeAnn Neal, 12, from a private residence. Green took the child to his home where he killed her by strangling her to death. The child had also been sexually assaulted. Green buried the victim in his backyard, then dug up the body and placed it inside his home behind a chair.

Victim(s): Christina Neal

Time of Death: 10:45 p.m.

Manner of execution: Lethal Injection

Last Meal: Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, beans, and mixed veggies

Final Statement: Asked by the warden if he had a statement from the death chamber gurney, Green shook his head and replied, "No."




Scheduled Executions


Eric Robert - South Dakota Execution - October 15, 2012



On Friday the execution date and time were set for Eric Robert.

Robert's execution will take place Monday, October 15 at approximately 10:00 p.m.

State law allows for the judge in a capital punishment case to appoint a week for the execution to occur. The exact date and time of the execution is left to the warden's discretion. The warden is required by state law to publicly announce the scheduled day and hour of the execution not less than 48 hours prior to the execution.

Robert is being executed for the slaying of Correctional Office Ronald "RJ" Johnson during a failed escape attempt from the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls.

Robert was serving an 80-year sentence on a kidnapping conviction when he and inmate Rodney Berget attempted to escape the prison.

Lawyer Mark Kadi told The Associated Press Saturday night that 50-year-old Eric Robert requested ice cream for his last meal before he dies. Robert is fasting for the 40 hours prior to the execution for religious purposes, so his last meal was on Saturday.

Robert had moose track flavor ice cream


John Ferguson - Florida Execution - October 16, 2012



The Florida Supreme Court granted 64-year-old John Errol Ferguson a two-day stay of execution Thursday so the justices can hear another appeal. The stay expires at 4 p.m. on Oct. 18

A judge ruled a convicted mass killer is legally competent to be executed.

Circuit Judge David Allen Glant on Friday ruled against 64-year-old John Errol Ferguson in Starke. Ferguson is being held at nearby Florida State Prison.

Defense lawyer Christopher Handman said he will appeal to the Florida Supreme Court in Tallahassee.

Ferguson was convicted of killing eight people in South Florida. Six victims died in a drug related, execution-style mass killing in Carol City in 1977. Two Hialeah teenagers were slain on their way to a church meeting in 1978.

Glant upheld Gov. Rick Scott's finding that Ferguson is competent. The Supreme Court has stayed his execution for two days until next Thursday to hear the case.


Donald Moeller - South Dakota Execution - Week of October 28, 2012




A judge is allowed a South Dakota death row inmate to dismiss his case challenging the constitutionality of South Dakota's execution protocol, clearing the way for his upcoming execution.

Donald Moeller is set to die the week of Oct. 28 for the 1990 slaying of 9-year-old Becky O'Connell. He wrote Judge Lawrence Piersol from the state penitentiary on Tuesday saying he no longer wants to be represented by Arkansas-based federal public defenders and wants the federal case bearing his name dismissed.

The Arkansas attorneys say Moeller is incompetent and incapable of making voluntary and rational decisions. They wanted to press forward with arguments.

The case has focused on whether South Dakota's use of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital in a one-drug method would inflict cruel and unusual punishment.



Stays Of Execution



Larry Swearingen - Texas



Ninth state District Court Judge Fred Edwards ruled that convicted killer Larry Ray Swearingen failed to establish his innocence at an evidentiary hearing in February and March, sending Swearingen's case back to the state Court of Criminal Appeals.

Swearingen, 41, originally was sentenced to death in June 2000 for the abduction and murder of 19-year-old college student Melissa Trotter. Her body was found Jan. 2, 1999, in the Sam Houston National Forest, 25 days after she was last seen leaving the Lone Star College-Montgomery campus on Texas 242.

On Oct. 1, Edwards issued his findings that Swearingen has not proven "even by a preponderance of the credible evidence" that Swearingen is innocent of the capital murder of Trotter.

"Based upon the foregoing findings of fact and conclusions of law, the Court respectfully recommends to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that habeas corpus relief be in all things denied," Edwards stated in his ruling.

Edwards is to forward all the documentation from the habeas corpus proceeding relief to the TCCA in Austin.




New Execution Dates


Garry Thomas Allen - Oklahoma Execution - November 06, 2012



Garry Thomas Allen, 56, is scheduled to be put to death on Nov. 6 — the date of the general election. Allen was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for the 1986 shooting death of his fiancée, Lawanna Gail Titsworth, outside a children's day care in Oklahoma City.

Titsworth, 24, had moved out of the home she shared with Allen and their two sons four days before her death. A police officer responding to a 911 call tussled with Allen before shooting him in the face, documents indicate. Allen was hospitalized for about two months for treatment of injuries to his face, left eye and brain.

Last month, a federal judge rejected Allen's request for a hearing on his claim that he is mentally incompetent and ineligible for the death penalty. Allen has appealed that order to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.



George Ochoa - Oklahoma Execution - December 04, 2012



A man convicted in the 1993 slayings of a man and his wife in Oklahoma City is scheduled to die Dec. 4.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Thursday set the execution date for 38-year-old George Ochoa.

Ochoa was sentenced to die for the July 1993 killings of Francisco Morales and his wife, Maria Yanez, inside the couple's home.

Ochoa's first trial in 1995 ended in a mistrial, but he was retried in March 1996 and convicted of first-degree burglary and two counts of first-degree murder. A co-defendant, Osvaldo Torres, also was sentenced to die for the killings, but Torres' death sentence was commuted by former Gov. Brad Henry to life in prison without parole.




Current Death Row Inmates


Richard Dale Stokley - Arizona Death Row



On Monday the Arizona Attorney General’s Office has asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for a Cochise County man who raped and murdered two teenage girls in 1991 and threw their naked bodies in a flooded mineshaft.

On Oct. 30, the high court will consider whether to issue a death warrant for Richard Dale Stokley, 60. If the justices issue the warrant, Stokley’s execution would be set for early December.

On July 8, 1991, Stokley and Randy Brazeal kidnapped two 13-year-old girls near Elfrida in Cochise County and took them to a remote area, where they raped them. Fearing the consequences, they agreed to kill the girls and each man strangled one of the girls. To ensure that the victims were dead, Stokley repeatedly stomped on them and stabbed each of them in the right eye. Stokley and Brazeal then threw the bodies down a water-filled mine shaft.


Steven Hayes - Connecticut Death Row

A man on Connecticut's death row for killing a mother and her two daughters in 2007 wants to waive his appeals and volunteer for execution, a newspaper reported Thursday.

Steven Hayes wrote in a letter to the Hartford Courant (http://cour.at/TCFlRg) that he cannot live with what he calls "cruel and unusual punishment" by prison staff at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers. In the letter dated Sept. 29, he wrote that he would make a formal announcement about his decision later.

"I was willing to live with the intense grief from my past actions, and I still am willing," Hayes wrote. "However, I cannot live with the intense tourcher (sic), torment, harassment, and the resulting psychological trauma dished out by the Dept. of Corr. staff here at Northern."

Correction Department spokesman Brian Garnett said a disciplinary report led to Hayes losing prison visits for 30 days. Garnett said the department provides for safe and humane supervision of inmates.

The state Public Defender's Office capital defense unit is handling Hayes' appeal. The unit's leader, Michael Courtney, declined to comment to the newspaper on any recent discussions attorneys have had with Hayes.


Garland Bernell Harper - Texas death Row



A Harris County man's death sentence for fatally stabbing his 38-year-old girlfriend and strangling her two daughters was upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

The state's highest criminal appeals court on Wednesday rejected what Garland Harper's attorneys said were eight errors from his trial two years ago. They include jury selection issues and challenges to his confession being allowed into evidence.

Harper was living in a Houston condo with Triska Rose in 2008 when he accused her of cheating on him. She was tried up, stabbed and had her throat slit. Also killed were her 15- and 7-year-old daughters.

Defense attorneys said he was mentally ill with a drug problem. He had a previous prison record for robbery.


John Allen Rubio



After the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to overturn his conviction, John Allen Rubio may still have some chances to get his conviction overturned.

It could be up to the U.S. Supreme Court or the courts that will hear his writ of habeas corpus to decide if Rubio, 32, of Brownsville, should be retried for the murders of the three children of his common-law wife Angela Camacho in March 2003, authorities said.

The habeas corpus has yet to be filed, but is expected to be filed sometime next year, Rubio’s attorney said. It is not yet known what will be included in the habeas.

The Court of Criminal Appeals issued its ruling on Wednesday.

A Hidalgo County jury in July 2010 convicted Rubio of four counts of capital murder for the slayings of his common-law wife’s three children — Julissa Quesada, 3; John Esteban Rubio, 14 months; and Mary Jane Rubio, 2 months — in March 2003. Rubio is the biological father of one of the children.

Rubio was sentenced to the death penalty and remains on death row at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit in Livingston.


John Ramirez - Texas Death Row



An appeal from Texas death row inmate John Henry Ramirez was turned down on Wednesday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Ramirez was convicted of capital murder for the 2004 stabbing death murder of Times Market employee Pablo Castro.

In his appeal, attorneys argued he had ineffective trial counsel. They also claimed tight courtroom security, like leg shackles and an increased law enforcement presence, could have biased the jury.

Ramirez was arrested four years after he stabbed Castro to death in order to steal just over one dollar in cash.




New Death Sentences


Timothy Fletcher - Florida Death Row



On Friday, Circuit Court Judge Wendy Berger sentenced Timothy Wayne Fletcher to the death penalty.

A St. Johns County jury recommended the death penalty for Fletcher, who was found guilty in May on charges that include the murder of his step-grandmother, Helen Key Googe.

Fletcher, 28, of Palatka, was also found guilty of escape, grand theft and home-invasion robbery, that came after his escape from the Putnam County jail with another man in April 2009.

The trial and the penalty phase of the trial were being held in St. Johns County because of pre-trial publicity in Putnam County.




Reversed/New Trials/Resentenced/Released/Commuted


Dayton Rogers - Oregon Death Row

The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday vacated the death penalty imposed on Oregon's most prolific serial killer, sending his case back to Clackamas County Circuit court for resentencing.

Dayton Leroy Rogers, dubbed the "Molalla Forest Killer," was found guilty in 1988 and 1989 of killing seven prostitutes and dumping six of their bodies in the woods near Molalla. He has been on -- and off -- Death Row ever since, while his attorneys have filed a series of appeals.

In its ruling, the state's high court said Clackamas County Circuit Judge Ronald D. Thom erred when ordered certain "juror anonymity" procedures that precluded Rogers and his defense attorneys from learning the identities of potential jurors, undercutting their ability to help pick an impartial jury.

The high court also said Thom erred when he admitted testimony during the penalty phase about a homosexual relationship Rogers had as a teenager.

The court said the jury error was sufficient grounds for reversal. The court declined to decide whether the testimony error was an independent ground for reversal.

Gregory D. Horner, Clackamas County chief deputy district attorney, said the ruling came as a surprise.

Horner said prosecutors had not yet determined how they will respond to the ruling.


Michael Rimmer - Tennessee Death Row



A Tennessee judge on Friday overturned the conviction and death sentence of a man who has spent 14 years on death row over the killing of an ex-girlfriend whose body was never found.

A USA TODAY investigation last year showed that Memphis prosecutors responsible for the case never told the man, Michael Dale Rimmer, or his lawyers, about an eyewitness who had told the police that two different men were inside the office around the time she disappeared, and that both had blood on their hands. One of the men that the witness identified was already wanted in connection with a stabbing.

Shelby County Judge James C. Beasley Jr. wrote in a 212-page order released late Friday afternoon that Rimmer's trial lawyers repeatedly failed to unearth that evidence, a "devastating" blow to his contention that someone else committed the crime. That problem was compounded, the judge wrote, because the lead prosecutor in the case, Thomas Henderson, made "blatantly false, inappropriate and ethically questionable" statements to defense lawyers denying that the evidence existed.

The case is the latest black eye for prosecutors in Memphis, who have been faulted repeatedly for failing to disclose evidence that could be helpful to defendants. In 2008, for example, a federal appeals court blasted the office in another death penalty case for a "set of falsehoods" that was "typical of the conduct of the Memphis district attorney's office." At least two other cases handled by Henderson â?? who went on to supervise all of Memphis' criminal prosecutions â?? have come under scrutiny over similar lapses.
Beasley on Friday accused Henderson of "purposefully" misleading Rimmer's lawyers, and making "comments to counsel and the court were both intellectually dishonest and may have been designed to gain a tactical advantage."

Still, Beasley wrote, that conduct alone wasn't enough to overturn Rimmer's conviction and death sentence, because his lawyers could have discovered the evidence on their own if they had looked more carefully. Instead, he said, it was the "seriously deficient" investigation by Rimmer's "overburdened" lawyers that required him to order a new trial.

John Campbell, Shelby County's deputy district attorney general, said Friday he had not read the entire order and could not comment on specific findings. But he said prosecutors would either appeal the decision or re-try Rimmer for Ricci Ellsworth's murder. "I can't imagine ever not re-prosecuting the case," he said.

Ellsworth, Rimmer's former girlfriend, disappeared from the office of a seedy Memphis motel where she worked as an overnight clerk in February 1997, leaving behind only an office and bathroom soaked with blood. Her body has never been located.




Jury Recommended Death Sentences


Marvin Cannon - Florida

On Wednesday a jury handed down an advisory sentence of the death penalty to Marvin Cannon, of Quincy, for a fatal stabbing that occurred on Christmas Eve in 2010.

Cannon was convicted on 5 charges including: first-degree murder, attempted first degree murder, armed robbery, attempted armed robbery and arson. Cannon and an accomplice were involved in a robbery and stabbing of two men that left one man dead on Christmas Eve in 2010.

The jury handed down the verdict in a 9-3 decision.



Capital Case Guilty Verdicts


Preston Strong - Arizona
William Woodard - Georgia
James Davis Morrison - Texas
Steven Nelson - Texas




US Supreme Court Denials
Edward Schad - Arizona Death Row
William Charles Payton - California Death Row
Jeffey Hutchinson - Florida Death Row
Robert Ybarra - Nevada Death Row
Timothy Richards - North Carolina Death Row
Angelo Fears - Ohio Death Row