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Thread: Willie Gene Wilks, Jr. - Ohio Death Row

  1. #11
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Wilks sentenced to death in Youngstown murder case

    YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — Wednesday, Judge Lou D’Apolito sentenced Willie Wilks to death after his conviction of murder in the death of Orora Wilkins in Youngstown last spring.

    Monday, April 28, a jury recommended the death penalty for Wilks, but D’Apolito had the final say.

    After the jury’s recommendation was read, Wilks’ brother Tracy Wilks responded saying Willie never got a fair shot at justice from the jury.

    “These crimes are happening in Youngstown. Why is nobody getting jurors from Youngstown? Why everybody gotta come from Poland and Canfield,” said Wilks. “They don’t know anything about what is going on in Youngstown but what they hear on the news.”

    It took three weeks to seat a jury in the capital murder case against Wilks, but just five hours for that same jury to return a guilty verdict on April 15.

    Wilks was screaming and kicking holes in walls as he was led from a Mahoning County Common Pleas courtroom where a jury found him guilty of aggravated murder.

    Wilks was accused of killing Wilkins and then turning his AK-47 on Alexander Morales Jr. last spring.

    Opening statements started last week that laid a narrative of revenge and rage that ended in the shooting death of Wilkins and the injuring of Morales as they sat on the front porch of a home on the city’s North Side.

    Prosecutors said Wilks was looking for Wilkins and her brother, Willie “Mister” Wilkins, to confront them about an alleged theft. He fired an AK-47 at Orora Wilkins and Morales, killing Wilkins.

    As Judge Lou D’Apolito read the guilty verdict, Wilks slammed the table where he was seated and shouted his innocence.

    “I didn’t do this,” screamed Wilks.

    The judge called for quiet in the courtroom and later told sheriff’s deputies to keep people inside while Wilks was taken out.

    In the hallway, Wilks started shouting at deputies and kicked a hole in the wall. Wilkins’ grandmother, Hattie Wilkins, was in the courtroom during the proceedings and said she was relieved by the verdict.

    “It all in God’s hands and God has showed his hand today,” said Wilkins.

    Wilks’ family did not want to go on camera, but his mother could be heard in the courtroom telling her son to ‘keep calm.” After court she said her son was caught off guard by the proceedings and didn’t expect a guilty verdict.

    http://wkbn.com/2014/05/07/death-pen...-murder-trial/

  2. #12
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Youngstown death-penalty case headed to Ohio Supreme Court

    By The Vindicator

    YOUNGSTOWN — The Ohio Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in the case of a Youngstown man sentenced to death for a 2013 murder.

    A Mahoning County jury found Willie Wilks, 46, guilty on seven counts after the 2013 murder of Ororo Wilkins.

    Judge Lou A. D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court upheld the jury’s recommendation to sentence Wilks to death.

    Wilkins, 20, was sitting on a porch when witnesses testified that Wilks shot Wilkins.

    The shooting followed an argument over a bank card between Wilks and members of Wilkins’ family.

    Wilks’ attorneys have argued the evidence wasn’t sufficient for a jury to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, citing the lack of DNA evidence and a murder weapon.

    The county prosecutor’s office argued that jurors found eyewitnesses credible and eyewitness testimony is sufficient to secure a conviction.

    Wilks’ attorneys also claim the prosecutor failed to present a grand jury with contradictory evidence from witnesses about the identity of the shooter.

    The prosecutor’s office cited a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision and argued the grand jury’s role is accusatory and investigatory, and providing exculpatory evidence is not necessary.

    To do so, would make the grand jury a preliminary trial body, the prosecutor argued.

    http://www.vindy.com/news/2018/jan/2...o-supreme-/?nw
    "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

  3. #13
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
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    Good that O'Neill will be off the OSC this Friday for the final ruling.

  4. #14
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    STATE v WILKS

    In today's opinions, the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and death sentence of Willie Wilks who approached the porch area of a Youngstown home with a semiautomatic rifle, shot a woman to death, and wounded a man holding an infant.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  5. #15
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Ohio Supreme Court upholds death penalty in 2013 murder

    By Justin Wier
    The Youngstown Vindicator

    YOUNGSTOWN - The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of a Youngstown man found guilty of a 2013 murder.

    Lawyers for Willie Wilks, 46, argued his case before the Supreme Court in January, but the high court issued a unanimous opinion Tuesday denying his appeal.

    A Mahoning County jury found Wilks guilty on seven counts for the 2013 killing of Ororo Wilkins. Judge Lou A. D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court upheld the jury’s recommendation to sentence Wilks to death.

    On May 23, 2013, Wilkins, 20, sat on a Park Avenue porch when witnesses testified that Wilks showed up with a semi-automatic rifle and shot her and another man who was holding a 5-month-old child.

    The other man survived, and the baby was not harmed.

    Wilks also shot at Wilkins’ brother and missed, witnesses said.

    The shooting followed an argument over a bank card between Wilks and Wilkins’ brother. Wilks threatened to kill him over the phone, according to court documents.

    The murder qualified as a death-penalty case under Ohio law because Wilks killed Wilkins while trying to kill two or more people.

    One argument put forth in Wilks’ appeal claimed the evidence presented to the jury wasn’t sufficient to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It cited the lack of DNA evidence and a murder weapon.

    Justice Judith French, writing for the court, ruled that prosecutors only need to have sufficient evidence, not the best possible evidence.

    “This evidence, if believed, would have convinced the average mind that [Wilks] was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” Justice French wrote.

    Of three men from Mahoning County on death row at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution, Wilks was the last to be convicted.

    The others are Scott Group, 53, and Warren Spivey, 48.

    In 2016, the high court denied Group a new trial in the 1997 killing of Robert Lozier at a downtown bar.

    In 2015, it denied to hear an appeal of a decision made by the 7th District Court of Appeals that ruled Spivey competent to be executed for the 1989 murder of Veda Vesper.

    http://www.vindy.com/news/2018/apr/2...death-penalty/
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  6. #16
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Edited:

    Court sets execution date for convicted Youngstown murderer

    The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence and set an execution date for the man convicted of murdering a Youngstown woman and shooting a man who was holding the woman's baby.

    The state's highest court on Tuesday denied the appeal of Willie G. Wilks and ruled that he be put to death on May 18, 2022.

    (source: WFMJ 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

  7. #17
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review petition for certiorari

    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Ohio
    Case Numbers: (2014-1035)
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  8. #18
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Youngstown killer’s execution put on hold by Ohio Supreme Court

    By Jeremy Pelzer
    cleveland.com

    The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to put on hold the scheduled execution of Willie G. Wilks while he appeals his conviction and death sentence.

    Wilks, a Youngstown resident, had been set to be put to death via lethal injection on May 18, 2022 for the 2013 murder of 20-year-old Ororo Wilkins and wounding of Alexander Morales Jr.

    But Wilks has been waiting five years for the Mahoning Common Pleas Court to hear his appeal for post-conviction relief, his attorney told the Supreme Court in a legal brief. Under previous Ohio Supreme Court rulings, death-row defendants are entitled to have their executions stayed until they exhaust one round of post-conviction relief and one motion for delayed reconsideration.

    In 2018, the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed Wilks’ conviction and death sentence.

    Even if the Supreme Court didn’t intervene, it’s unclear whether Wilks’ execution would have been carried out on schedule anyway. Ohio has a de facto moratorium on executions for more than two years because of ongoing problems with getting pharmaceutical companies to sell lethal-injection drugs to the state.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...rt/ar-BB1baRyq
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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