A Palm Beach County jury on Tuesday recommended a life sentence for a man convicted last month of a strangulation murder near Lake Worth 30 years ago.
Under a Florida law revised this year, the death penalty cannot be imposed without a unanimous jury vote. The jurors voted 9-3 in favor of a life in prison term for Rodney Clark, and Circuit Judge Charles Burton immediately imposed that punishment.
While Clark smiled at his lawyers after the verdict, two of murder victim Dana Fader’s three children left the courtroom satisfied their long wait for justice was over.
“It’s done, behind us now,” said Kolby Manis, standing next to his older sister, Angela Fader Sampler. “We just wanted him off the streets. He’s not going to hurt anybody else for a while, at least.”
They were just 5 and 10 years old when their mom was raped and killed in the back seat of her car. A younger brother, named J.P., was three years old. After the slaying, the siblings were raised by different relatives, but they eventually settled near each other in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Earlier Tuesday, Assistant State Attorney Reid Scott argued Clark deserves capital punishment.
“There’s simply no place for him in society,” Scott said, displaying a photo of the 27-year-old lifeless victim after she was found. “He deserves the ultimate penalty.”
The case went cold until Clark’s arrest five years ago based on DNA evidence. The Jackson, Miss., man was found guilty at a trial last month.
“He chose to be the boogeyman on June 20, 1987, and chose to commit unspeakable acts on Dana Fader,” the prosecutor told the jury.
But Public Defender Carey Haughwout said her 50-year-old client — mentally scarred by childhood abuses and racism, along with more recent physical infirmities — never intended to torture Fader during the random attack.
“Is Rodney Clark beyond redemption?” she asked. “Is the evil so great and the act so horrible?”
The defense highlighted the testimony of Miami forensic psychologist Jethro Toomer, who said Clark suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other neurological problems that require prescription drug treatment.
“You’re not talking about a sociopath,” Toomer told the jury.
Before Fader died, she worked some days as a seamstress for her family’s upholstery business, and other days as a cashier at the Breakers hotel in Palm Beach.
Haughwout responded that she didn’t dispute “it was a terrible crime.” But she argued it wasn’t a murder with a high degree of suffering.
“What murder isn’t heinous?” the attorney said. “What murder isn’t cruel?”
After two hours of deliberations, the jury decided that Clark shouldn’t die for his crimes.
Source: SunSentinel, Marc Freeman, Sept. 19, 2017
Colorado: DA will not seek death penalty for accused Berthoud killer
District Attorney Cliff Riedel will not seek the death penalty in the case against the Berthoud man accused of killing his ex-girlfriend last summer.
Tanner Flores, now 19, is accused of shooting 18-year-old Ashley Doolittle in Larimer County before driving her body to a small town on the Western Slope last June.
In a pretrial conference at the Larimer County Justice Center on Monday, Riedel told Eighth Judicial District Judge Gregory M. Lammons that he would not seek the death penalty in the case, which goes to trial next week.
In Colorado, the death penalty is only an option for Class 1 felonies when the prosecution declares ahead of time in writing that they will seek it, which triggers a separate sentencing hearing after a guilty verdict is reached.
At that hearing, attorneys debate aggravating factors, and the jury votes on whether to give the defendant life in prison or the death penalty. The decision must be unanimous.
Flores has been charged with two Class 1 felonies: first-degree murder after deliberation and felony murder. He has also been charged with felony second-degree kidnapping.
Although the death penalty remains legal in Colorado, only one person has been executed in Colorado in the last 50 years. Three people currently sit on death row, but Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper granted the man closest to being executed an indefinite reprieve in 2013, citing inconsistencies in the law's application and the difficulties in obtaining the drugs necessary for lethal injection, according to reporting by the Associated Press.
A jury could not unanimously decide on execution for James Holmes — the man who killed 12 people and injured dozens more in an attack on a movie theater in Aurora in 2012 — despite finding him guilty on 165 counts of murder and other charges.
He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Source:
The Coloradoan, Cassa Niedringhaus, Sept. 19, 2017
Prosecutors seek death penalty for suspect in stabbing death of 73-year-old Lebanon man
Boone County Prosecutor Todd Meyer said Wednesday that he will seek the death penalty for a teenager accused of fatally stabbing a 73-year-old man in his Lebanon home.
Zachariah B. Wright, 19, Lebanon, faces 23 charges in connection with the June 18 slaying of Maxwell Foster and the assault of his wife, 68-year-old Sonja Foster.
Meyer said the community is still reeling from the brutal incident.
"The crimes this defendant is alleged to have committed are horrific and serve as everyone's worst nightmare," Meyer said in a written statement. "Being awakened in your home, in the middle of the night, to find an intruder standing over you armed with a knife.
"I have given this decision considerable thought and deliberation and, after meeting with the victim's family, presenting the case to the Indiana Prosecuting Attorney Council's capital litigation committee and after speaking with members of the Indiana attorney general's office. I have come to the conclusion that seeking the death sentence in this case is the right decision."
Meyer said Wright will remain in Boone County Jail without bond until his trial begins Dec. 4.
Wright faces one count each of murder, attempted murder, attempted rape, aggravated battery, criminal confinement, sexual battery, attempted arson, unauthorized entry of a motor vehicle, attempted burglary, obstruction of justice and false informing, as well as three counts of burglary and nine counts of theft.
Aggravating factors in Meyer's decision to seek the death penalty include the fact that Wright was on probation at the time of the murder and that he is suspected of also attempting to commit burglary, arson and rape during the commission of the murder.
"When someone commits this type of crime he should have to face the ultimate penalty, which, in the state of Indiana, is a sentence of death," Meyer said.
According to court documents, Wright fatally stabbed Foster and attempted to rape his wife before trying to set her nightgown on fire. Investigators believe Wright first broke into a nearby home on Pearl Street and stole two vests and a pickax.
Afterward, he broke into a vehicle and later stole a bicycle, which he rode to the Foster home on the 500 block of Dicks Street, Meyer said.
Officers found Maxwell Foster with an undetermined number of stab wounds, police said. Sonja Foster was assaulted once inside the home and again after she managed to escape the house. She eventually was able to escape and get help from a neighbor.
Police found a pair of jeans inside Wright’s home covered in blood that later tested positive for the DNA of both Maxwell and Sonja Foster.
Wright has been charged in six other cases since July 2015, including theft, illegal consumption, burglary and criminal mischief, according to online court records.
Source:
IndyStar, Justin L. Mack, Sept. 20, 2017
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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
