Days before Stephen Micheal West's scheduled execution, his lawyers pleaded for Gov. Bill Lee to spare his life, saying he did not commit the killings that put him on death row 33 years ago.
West, 56, was sentenced to death for the 1986 murders of a woman and her 15-year-old daughter in their Union County home in East Tennessee. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Aug. 15.
His team of lawyers agrees that he was at the scene and that he raped the 15-year-old before she died. But they said his co-defendant Ronnie Martin, who was 17 at the time of the crime, was the one who stabbed the women to death while West stood by, frozen in the face of the carnage.
Martin pleaded guilty to 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the case, and is serving a life sentence — he will be eligible for parole in 2030. Martin was not eligible for the death penalty because he was a minor at the time of the crime.
West's lawyers cited a recorded jailhouse confession between Martin and his cellmate, and a conversation Martin had with an acquaintance as evidence that he committed the brutal crime.
Lawyers cite abusive childhood, mental illness
"Steve was not psychologically equipped to deal with the terrible situation he found himself in," the lawyers wrote in a 28-page clemency petition submitted to Lee's office last month.
"An important question is, if Steve did not intend for either victim to be killed, how could he just stand by and watch while Martin did?" the petition reads. "The answer to this question lies in Steve’s own tragic background."
Much of the petition focuses on West's traumatic childhood, when his lawyers say his parents "either neglected or brutalized him" regularly. The attorneys argue that abuse caused or exacerbated a series of severe mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder.
His mental health was never discussed at trial because his parents paid for his lawyers and wouldn't allow it, the petition states. Rules bar federal courts from considering West's mental health on appeal.
West's lawyers see Lee as a final option.
West's brother said it seemed like “Satan had returned from hell” when their mother wouldn't take her medication. He remembered her beating West mercilessly.
West's sister remembers their mother hitting him so hard with a broom that it splintered and snapped. His ankles were broken at least seven times as a child, according to the petition.
His sisters snuck food to him when his parents wouldn't feed him, according to the petition. Sometimes they would mix ketchup with water and give it to him in a baby bottle, the petition states.
As a result of his tumultuous childhood, the petition states, West developed a series of disorders that made it possible for him to disassociate in the face of trauma. They argue he did just that the morning the Romines were killed.
Wanda Romines, 51, and Sheila Romines were both stabbed to death while their hands were bound behind their backs.
Sheila was stabbed 17 times in the stomach. At trial, a forensic pathologist said 14 of those stab wounds were consistent with “torture-type cuts.”
"It is only with the horrible details of abuse and the resulting psychological trauma that one can possibly understand Steve’s involvement in this crime, yet the jury heard none of it," the petition reads.
Lawyers: West 'made a positive impact in the lives of others' while in prison
West now has deep remorse for his involvement in the crimes, his lawyers said. In a statement included with the petition, he says it was "a cowardice move that I didn’t help those ladies."
His subsequent dedication to Christianity, and his positive impact on inmates and staff at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, also laid the groundwork for mercy, his lawyers said.
The clemency petition includes statements from a nurse who treated West in prison, his brother and former jurors in his case who believe West deserves a reprieve.
West participates in Men of Valor, a Christian prison ministry focused on helping inmates rehabilitate themselves. Lee was a former member of the organization's board.
"He has made a positive impact in the lives of others. He still has the capacity to do so going forward," West's lawyers wrote to the governor. "Please use your unique, constitutionally authorized power to intervene in this case, show mercy where no one else could, and correct a manifest injustice."
On Thursday, Lee said he had received the petition and was considering it.
"These decisions are very difficult and deserve a lot of deliberation. And that's what we're doing," Lee said. "I wrestle with this very much, because it's a very difficult decision. But we're in that process."
Source: The Tennessean, Staff, August 2, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde