US Supreme Court upholds Texas death convictions

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld death sentences for 2 Texas inmates, including a man accused of leading a gang responsible for several murders, and refused to reconsider the case of a British grandmother condemned for killing a woman and kidnapping her newborn son.

Dexter Darnell Johnson, 22, was convicted of the June 2006 shooting deaths of a young couple during a carjacking. Investigators said the Houston man was the ringleader of a group responsible for dozens of robberies and at least four homicides.

The justices also upheld the conviction of Max Soffar, 54, for a shooting rampage at a bowling alley that killed 3 people in 1980.

The court also refused to rehear its rejection of an appeal from Linda Carty, a 51-year-old British grandmother convicted of murdering her neighbor and taking the victim's 4-day-old son in 2001. Carty maintains her innocence, but prosecutors said she was desperate to have child after a miscarriage. The infant was found unharmed.

Carty is among 10 women on death row in Texas, the nation's busiest death penalty state. 13 lethal injections have been carried out this year and 2 more are scheduled for this week.

Execution dates haven't been set for Johnson, Soffar or Carty.

Johnson was condemned for the slayings of Maria Aparece, 23, of Sugar Land, and her 17-year-old boyfriend Huy Ngo, of Houston. Aparece was from the Philippines and a pre-nursing student. Ngo, who was Vietnamese, had moved to Houston with his family from France

At the time of his arrest, Johnson was an 18-year-old 9th-grade dropout.

The couple was talking in Aparece's car outside Ngo's Houston home when they were confronted by Johnson and a companion, according to testimony at Johnson's trial. The victims were thrown in the backseat, driven away and robbed. Aparece was raped before both were forced into a wooded area and fatally shot in the head. Their bodies were found about a week later.

When a Harris County jury sentenced Johnson to death in 2007, he threw a chair in the courtroom and had to be tackled by sheriff's deputies.

Soffar spent 23 years on death row before a federal appeals court threw out his conviction in 2004, citing inadequate counsel. He was retried in 2006, and convicted again for the July 1980 fatal shooting of 17-year-old Arden Alane Felsher during a robbery of a Houston bowling alley. 2 other people also were killed in the rampage: Stephen Allen Sims, 25, an assistant manager at the bowling alley, and Felsher's 17-year-old boyfriend, Tommy Lee Temple.

Gregory George Garner, then 18, was shot in the head and lost his left eye. He survived and testified against Soffar, who was not tried for the 2 other deaths.

Soffar and Johnson likely have another round of appeals before their executions become imminent, but Carty has nearly exhausted her appeals. Her lawyers sought a rehearing after the justices in early May refused to review her case.

Carty, originally from St. Kitts when it was part of the British Virgin Islands, had been in Houston nearly 20 years when she was arrested for the May 16, 2001, slaying of her Houston neighbor, Joana Rodriguez, and the abduction of Rodriguez's son.

She said she played no role in the crime, but prosecutors said Carty planned to steal Rodriguez's baby because she didn't want her common-law husband to leave her. The infant was found unharmed in a car. Rodriguez, 20, was found dead in the trunk of another car with her mouth and nose taped shut and a plastic bag over her head.

Carty has been seeking a new trial, contending her trial attorneys did little to defend her.

Her most recent appeals lawyer was obtained through the British government and Britain also had filed a brief supporting Carty's appeal before the high court.

Source: Associated Press, June 28, 2010

Comments

Florida executes Michael Tanzi

Florida on Tuesday executed a death row inmate described by one local detective as a "fledgling serial killer" for the murder of a beloved Miami Herald employee. Florida executed Michael Tanzi on Tuesday, 25 years after the murder of beloved Miami Herald employee Janet Acosta, who was attacked in broad daylight on her lunch break in 2000. Michael Tanzi, 48, was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford and pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. ET.

Afghanistan | Four men publicly executed by Taliban with relatives of victims shooting them 'six or seven times' at sport stadium

Four men have been publicly executed by the Taliban, with relatives of their victims shooting them several times in front of spectators at a sport stadium. Two men were shot around six to seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the centre of Afghanistan's Badghis province, witnesses told an AFP journalist in the city. The men had been 'sentenced to retaliatory punishment' for shooting other men, after their cases were 'examined very precisely and repeatedly', the statement said. 'The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace but they refused.'

South Carolina executes Mikal Mahdi

Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers A man facing the death penalty for committing two murders was executed by firing squad on Friday, the second such execution in the US state of South Carolina this year. Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers, an off-duty police officer, and the murder of a convenience store employee three days earlier. According to a statement from the prison, "the execution was performed by a three-person firing squad at 6:01 pm (2201 GMT)," with Mahdi pronounced dead four minutes later.

USA | Why the firing squad may be making a comeback

South Carolina plans to execute Mikal Mahdi on Friday for the murder of a police officer, draping a hood over his head and firing three bullets into his heart. The choice to die by firing squad – rather than lethal injection or the electric chair – was Mahdi’s own, his attorney said last month: “Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils.” If it proceeds, Mahdi’s execution would be the latest in a recent string of events that have put the spotlight on the firing squad as a handful of US death penalty states explore alternatives to lethal injection, by far the nation’s dominant execution method.

I spent 16 years in solitary in South Carolina. This is what it did to me. | Opinion

South Carolinian Randy Poindexter writes about the effects 16 years of solitary confinement had on him ahead of South Carolina’s planned execution of Mikal Mahdi , who spent months in solitary as a young man. For 16 years, I lived in a concrete cell. Twenty-three hours a day, every day, for more than 3,000 days, South Carolina kept me in solitary confinement. I was a young man before I was sent to solitary — angry, untreated and unwell. I made mistakes. But I wasn’t sentenced to madness. That’s what solitary did to me. My mental health worsened with each passing day. At first, paranoia and depression set in. Then, hallucinations and self-mutilation. I talked to people who weren’t there. I cut myself to feel something besides despair. I could do nothing as four of my friends and fellow prisoners took their own lives rather than endure another day of torturous isolation.

South Carolina | Man who ambushed off-duty cop to face firing squad in second execution of its kind

Mikal Mahdi, 48, who was found guilty of killing an off-duty police officer and a convenience store worker, is the second inmate scheduled to executed by South Carolina's new firing squad A murderer who ambushed and shot an off duty police officer eight times before burning his body in a killing spree is set to become the second person to die by firing squad. South Carolina's highest court has rejected the last major appeal from Mikal Mahdi, 41, who is to be put to death with three bullets to the heart at 6pm on April 11 at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Mahdi's lawyers said his original lawyers put on a shallow case trying to spare his life that didn't call on relatives, teachers or people who knew him and ignored the impact of weeks spent in solitary confinement in prison as a teen.

Louisiana | Lawyers of Jessie Hoffman speak about their final moments before execution

As Louisiana prepared its first execution in 15 years, a team of lawyers from Loyola Law were working to save Jessie Hoffman’s life. “I was a young lawyer three years out of law school, and Jessie was almost finished with his appeals at that time, and my boss told me we needed to file something for Jessie because he’s in danger of being executed,” Kappel said. Kappel and her boss came up with a civil lawsuit to file that said since they wouldn’t give him a protocol for his execution, he was being deprived of due process, and the lawsuit was in the legal process for the next 10 years.

Lethal Injection, Electric Chair, or Firing Squad? An Inhumane Decision for Death Row Prisoners

South Carolina resumed executions with the firing squad killing of Brad Sigmon last month. Mikal Madhi’s execution date is days away. The curtain shrieked as it was yanked open to reveal a 67-year-old man tied to a chair. His arms were pulled uncomfortably behind his back. The red bull’s-eye target on his chest rose and fell as he desperately attempted to still his breathing. The man, Brad Sigmon, smiled at his attorney, Bo King, seated in the front row before guards placed a black bag over his head. King said Sigmon appeared to be trying his best to put on a brave face for those who had come to bear witness.

Arizona | The cruelty of isolation: There’s nothing ‘humane’ about how we treat the condemned

On March 19, I served as a witness to the execution of a man named Aaron Gunches, Arizona’s first since 2022. During his time on death row, he begged for death and was ultimately granted what is likely more appropriately described as an emotionless state-assisted suicide. This experience has profoundly impacted me, leading to deep reflection on the nature of death, humanity, and the role we play in our final moments. When someone is in the end stages of life, we talk about hospice care, comfort, care, easing suffering and humane death. We strive for a “good death” — a peaceful transition. I’ve seen good ones, and I’ve seen bad, unplanned ones.

Execution date set for prisoner transferred to Oklahoma to face death penalty

An inmate who was transferred to Oklahoma last month to face the death penalty now has an execution date. George John Hanson, also known as John Fitzgerald Hanson, is scheduled to die on June 12 for the 1999 murder of 77-year-old Mary Bowles. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday set the execution date. The state’s Pardon and Parole Board has a tentative date of May 7 for Hanson’s clemency hearing, executive director Tom Bates said.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog