VA & ID: volunteering for DP a "fatal attraction"

From the Charlottesville Daily Progress, June 21:

Death request raises ethical, legal questions

Somewhere in the Charlottesville Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney sits a plea agreement that could lead to the execution of a city man accused of killing an 11-year-old boy. One of Waverly “Eddie” Whitlock’s defense attorney has said in court that his client wants to sign the agreement, which would request the death penalty as punishment for a capital murder conviction...

The act of volunteering for the death penalty, although uncommon, has raised legal, ethical and moral issues for others involved in capital cases... Following a client’s wishes can be more difficult if he wants to die.

August “Gus” Cahill, the chief deputy of the Ada County Public Defender’s Office in Idaho, represented death penalty volunteer Keith Eugene Wells in the early 1990s. Wells, who was killed by lethal injection in 1994 at age 31, was the first and only person to be executed in Idaho since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976...

After a judge sentenced Wells to death, Cahill said the case was reviewed and affirmed by the Idaho Supreme Court. Once the post-conviction process began, Cahill said Wells asked to drop any further appeals and fired the lawyers appointed after his sentencing. “He wasn’t suicidal,” Cahill said. “He didn’t want to be dead so much as go through a process that he thought would ultimately be fruitless...”

But see the Charlottesville Daily Progress, June 25:

Defender files motion to quit Whitlock capital murder case

A Richmond-based capital defender may no longer represent a Charlottesville man accused of killing an 11-year-old boy last summer.

Defense attorney David Baugh filed a motion late last week in Charlottesville Circuit Court to withdraw himself and the Office of the Capital Defender as counsel for Waverly “Eddie” Whitlock.

“In support of the motion for leave to withdraw, counsel would assert that there has arisen a conflict of interest between the defendant and his defense attorneys which ethically compels withdrawal,” the motion said...

ID: "he's a child, and I know that I am not the only one out here that's heart is breaking for him"

Chuck Peterson at Idaho Criminal Defense Blog is following the case of Zachary Neagle, a Canyon County 14-year-old accused of killing his father:

Community Support Grows For 14 Year-Old Kid Charged With Murder - Now He Needs A Good Experienced Lawyer

Support Grows For 14 Year Old Kid Charged With Murder

Channel 7 Interview With Zachary Neagle's Mom - Says She Had No Idea of Sexual Abuse

Bujak Blinked - Said The "M" Word - "Manslaughter"

ID: does wardrobe malfunction averted = justice malfunction avoided?

From The MountainGoat Report:

Wardrobe Ruling In 'Exotic Case'

Gender identity won't be on trial this June in Twin Falls County but it is difficult for many to believe otherwise.

If you haven't been following the story of Nastaran, or legally Majid, Kolestani, a transgender Iranian refugee accused in the shooting death of the man with whom she shared an apartment in Twin Falls, get caught up here...

Now from the Times-News comes the latest: "Kolestani can dress as woman, judge rules"... That the defense felt it necessary to make such a request says something about the territory in which Twin Falls County finds itself...

ID: the cost of justice in Lewiston

From the AP,via the P-I:

Murder trials boost N. Idaho county's expenses

Two murder trials in northern Idaho's Nez Perce County have caused the county to dip into special funds but the county hasn't gone over budget, an officials says...

UT: 60.4% chance of pissing off the DP jury pool

The story's less inflammatory than the headline, but still, an interesting way to start picking a "jury for life," from the Ogden Standard-Examiner:

Homicide defense motion excludes LDS jury members

The defense has filed a motion seeking to keep off Riqo Perea's jury any members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who adhere to the church's past teachings of blood atonement.

Such jurors would be much more likely to vote for an execution, according to the motion filed in 2nd District Court, where Perea faces the death penalty in a 2007 gang homicide. "Utah's population contains a significant percentage of members of one religion ... members of the LDS Church make up an estimated 60.4 percent of the state's population," reads the motion...

Just guessing here that the percentage of Mormons who adhere to anything close to blood atonement is more than a bit south of 60%. Also guessing that the Colorado Method hasn't spread to Weber County. Oh, and yes, this issue has come up in Idaho before.

SC: "Sleezie Boy" is representing himself

From the Charleston Post and Courier:

Sensational drama unfolding in courtroom

Some tips for defending yourself against a troublesome murder rap: ...Never, ever, begin a sentence "(Let's) say I shot someone five times..."

Volunteers

From the AP:

Ethics dilemma for lawyers when inmates seek death

John Delaney faced the toughest moment of his legal career - his condemned client wanted to drop his appeals and die by injection, an act Delaney opposed and had been trained to try to prevent. "What do you say?" asked Delaney, a public defender in northern Kentucky who represented Marco Allen Chapman.

It's a question that has arisen 131 times since states resumed executions in 1977, and each time it leaves defense lawyers struggling against their training to act in the best interest of their clients and justice...

Attorneys are required to follow the client's wishes or have themselves removed from the case, said Michael Mello, a Vermont Law School professor who teaches ethics and death penalty law. "Their hands are pretty well tied," Mello said. "These are the cases that haunt you. This is the most hideous of cases."

That's how Gus Cahill felt when his client, Keith Eugene Wells, told him he wanted to die. Wells was convicted of beating a couple to death in 1990 in Idaho. He went through the mandatory appeals, then decided to waive any remaining legal options and was lethally injected in 1994. "I really liked Keith," said Cahill, a public defender in Boise. "You're just thinking, 'Oh, my God, I feel so sorry for being part of what Keith wanted to do...'"

I knew Gus from my Ada County p.d. time, and look up to him still. Keith Wells' choice had to have put him in a horrible bind.

I wish John Delaney well. Marco Allen Chapman is set to die this Friday night.

Bearing witness

Something remarkable and sad from The Urban Monk:

Why I Watch People Die

I cannot escape the fact that not far away a man is being taken into a room, strapped down and killed. And he may deserve it or he may not, but he is there not for the lives he took, but because he was the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I know that, and it terrifies me, and it will not leave me alone...

ID: "suprise, suprise"

Spell-check's broken on the KMVT website:

A suprise in court today

A man who faces 1st degree murder charges in the death of an 18-year old Twin Falls resident was back in court... John McElhiney's court appearance was short and took a surprising turn... Current attorney, Marilyne Paul and county prosecutor Grant Loebs met with Judge Bevan before the hearing took place. Once court was in session Judge Bevan said their (sic) was clearly a irreconcilable conflict between the defendant and public defenders office...

In other Twin Falls murder news:

Transgender Iranian refugee charged with murder in shooting

A man previously described as a woman was rolled into a Twin Falls courtroom on Friday in a blue wheelchair to face a murder charge...

ID: hellbent defendant, carwreck ahead

At this point, I just want to turn away for a while from the unfolding Joseph Duncan death penalty pro se debacle. If you're interested, Betsy Z. Russell of the Spokesman-Review's Eye on Boise blog has your best running coverage.

ID: Alisha Murphy murder verdict questioned

From the Twin Falls Times-News:

Murphy's attempt to overturn murder conviction moves on - Scientist says consulting several experts could have changed outcome of trial

Alisha Ann Murphy always said she didn't kill her husband... and has tried to overturn her own conviction for years... A judge in Twin Falls on Wednesday decided her second and latest attempt was premature... pending appeal with the Idaho Supreme Court. But Murphy's plight hasn't lost heat...

DC: murderer of pd intern guilty

From WLJA:

D.C. Man Convicted of Killing Public Defender Intern

The U.S. Attorney's Office says a Washington man has been convicted of killing an intern with the Public Defender Service last year... Twenty-one-year-old Donnell Harris was found guilty Monday of second-degree murder while armed in connection with the death of Michael Richardson...

WA & ID: murderer Braae says he's "just not the type that gives up easily"

From the Olympian:

Questions linger over fate of missing women

When "Cowboy" Mike Braae was arrested after jumping off a 40-foot bridge into an Idaho river during a police chase..., it marked the end of what investigators say was a trail of rapes, slayings and domestic violence... Braae faces a possible 56-year prison sentence in a Thurston County courtroom July 24 for raping and murdering Lori Jones in Lacey in 2001, but investigators think he eluded justice for years...

In a letter to the editor (pdf file), Braae indicates that rather than the label "Cowboy Mike," he would prefer, "El Esclavo de Dios y El Defensor de la Fe." "Chupacabra" and "pendejo" could work too.

ID: little miss can be wrong

From the Idaho Mountain Express:

Supreme Court upholds Johnson convictions

The Idaho Supreme Court has upheld Sarah Johnson's convictions of killing her parents in 2003... Now 21, Johnson was 16 at the time...

From the Times-News:

Justices reject Sarah Johnson appeals - Court says 2005 murder conviction was legal

The Idaho Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously upheld the conviction of Sarah Johnson for murdering her parents five years ago in their Bellevue home... Johnson was given two life sentences after a jury handed down a guilty verdict on two counts of first-degree murder for shooting her parents, Alan and Diane Johnson...

Update: I take that back, I hope she's doing fine - she does have a colorable ineffective assistance claim. See the Idaho Supreme Court opinion here (pdf file).

ID: supreme Sarah Johnson smackdown

Heckling during oral argument, in front of the state Supremes, perhaps from the state Supremes, reported by Cassidy Friedman by the Times-News:

Supreme Court weighs Johnson case

Idaho Supreme Court justices will have to decide whom to blame for Sarah Johnson's botched defense: the judge or her attorney. Guessing from the blasting that Johnson's absent attorney received, the furious scribbling by reporters and the astonishment of Johnson's family each time a new heckle was uttered, it's not looking good for the attorney.

Members of the state's Supreme Court heard arguments on Johnson's appeal Friday, over three years after an Ada County jury found her guilty... (of) first-degree murder... (At trial), defense attorney Bob Pangburn harped the same line, "no blood, no guilt" - meaning that since no blood spatter was found on Johnson, the triggerman must have been somebody else.

Never did that defense seem more regrettable than Friday when Justice Roger S. Burdick, at Johnson's appeal, called that once memorable line "some silly jingle." As it turned out just before the jury's deliberation, the defense blew into a rage when the judge instructed the jury they could just as easily find Johnson guilty of murder by aiding and abetting someone else to do it because the two accusations are one and the same by Idaho law. To be guilty of the charge, she didn't have to be the one who pulled the trigger.

"Why wouldn't a competent defense attorney say, 'OK, she's being charged with first-degree murder,' (and) prepare a defense that goes either way?" asked Justice Warren E. Jones...

Fair question, that. It'll be asked in post-conviction proceedings too.

ID: this is the song that never ends

From the Times-News:

Discovery Channel revisits Johnson murder case

Discovery Channel crews have launched a week of filming for the storied Sarah Johnson murder case. The uncommon trial of a girl charged with shooting her parents already has been highlighted in an unending stream of national media coverage... Now, Discovery Channel, which will debut a new show, "Solved," in the fall, is featuring the Wood River Valley with a decidedly law enforcement bent...

ID: трагедия / tragedy

A sad task ahead for my honorable former co-counsel Marilyn Paul, from the Twin Falls Times-News:

Parents of child who died from burns charged with manslaughter

A court interpreter and public defender shuffled between Inna Gorbenko, 28, and her Russian-speaking boyfriend, Stepan Kutran, 31, as both were charged Wednesday with one count of involuntary manslaughter and one misdemeanor count of injury to child. The couple left their children inside a home that burned Tuesday...

A sad assessment from my honorable former opponent Grant Loebs, from the Times - News and from KMVT:

"My office is now facing the largest and most complex caseload in Twin Falls history... Twin Falls County finds itself the murder capital of the state."

ID: Mark Lankford, guilty again

The local sites don't seem to have posted this AP item yet; it's fairly significant, from the Houston Chronicle:

Former Idaho Death Row Inmate Convicted in Retrial of Murdering Texas Couple

A jury has convicted former death row inmate Mark Lankford of killing a Texas couple in 1983 in north Idaho. Lankford was granted a new trial after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled he must be retried or released because of a jury instruction error in his first trial. Jurors in Wallace, Idaho, deliberated not quite four hours before finding Lankford guilty...

No intent to seek the death penalty this time. Updates as they come.

Update from the Shoshone County News Press: Lankford Found Guilty

ID: the "you've done this so many times before" basis for a knowing, voluntary and intelligent plea

I would be crestfallen to hear a judge say these words to a client of mine, even if they were true. From the Twin Falls Times-News:

Murder defendants McElhiney, Heredia appear in court

(C)oming before Judge Stoker on Thursday, Fredy Heredia-Juarez lost his bid to undo a guilty plea he says he didn't mean to make. Heredia told the judge when he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder... he believed he was getting a sweeter deal than he actually got.

Stoker rejected a litany of reasons Heredia gave for entering a false plea... The judge said Heredia had pleaded guilty so many times, to so many people and in a variety of ways that even if his then attorney Greg Fuller plugged words into Heredia's mouth and railroaded his client into a poor decision, it would hardly matter...

Stoker expressed deep concern that too many innocent defendants in the U.S. plead guilty falsely. He said this was not one of those cases...

ID: Mark Lankford suits up for 2nd trial, 23 years after 1st

From the Idaho Statesman:

N. Idaho jury selected for Lankford trial

Jurors have been selected for the new trial of a man previously convicted and sentenced to death in the slaying of a couple vacationing in northern Idaho in 1983. Second District Judge John Bradbury told the jurors on Monday that Mark H. Lankford was granted a new trial last year because of an error in jury instructions during his 1984 trial...

At least some of the jurors in Shoshone County did not recognize Lankford, who appeared in court in a suit and tie. "I'll be honest, I thought he was a lawyer," one juror told defense attorney Charles Kovis...