Tag: criminal justice

  • Texas Executes Inmate For Fatally Capturing 3 Teenagers In 1998

    HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A person convicted of killing 3 youngsters whilst they slept in a Texas Panhandle house greater than 25 years in the past used to be performed on Wednesday, the 6th inmate to be put to dying within the U.S. this 12 months and the second one in as many days.

    John Balentine, 54, whose legal professionals had argued that his trial used to be marred by way of racial bias, gained a deadly injection on the state reformatory in Huntsville, Texas, for the January 1998 taking pictures deaths of Edward Mark Caylor, 17, Kai Brooke Geyer, 15, and Steven Watson, 15, at a house in Amarillo. Prosecutors stated all 3 had been shot as soon as within the head as they slept.

    Balentine seemed jovial as witnesses had been coming into the dying chamber, asking if any individual status close to the gurney may take away the sheet overlaying the decrease two-thirds of his frame “and therapeutic massage my toes.” Then he chuckled.

    After a temporary prayer from a religious adviser who held Balentine’s left foot together with his proper hand, the prisoner gave a brief commentary thanking pals for supporting him. Then he became his head to appear thru a window at seven kinfolk of his 3 homicide sufferers and apologized.

    “I’m hoping you’ll in finding on your middle to forgive me,” he stated.

    The moms of each and every of the 3 sufferers had been a number of the witnesses a couple of toes from him.

    He took two breaths because the deadly dose of the robust sedative pentobarbital started flowing thru intravenous needles in his hands, snored two times, yawned and started noisily snoring once more loudly. The snores — 11 of them —become gradually quieter, then stopped.

    At 6:36 p.m., quarter-hour after the medicine started, a doctor pronounced him useless. The sufferers’ witnesses then shared high-fives prior to leaving the dying chamber. They declined to talk with journalists in a while.

    Caylor’s sister, who used to be a number of the witnesses looking at him die, used to be Balentine’s former female friend, and prosecutors stated the shootings stemmed from a feud between Caylor and Balentine. Ballentine, then again, argued that Caylor and others had threatened his existence over his interracial dating. Balentine is Black. The 3 sufferers had been white.

    Balentine confessed to the murders. Certainly one of his trial legal professionals stated Balentine became down a plea settlement that will have sentenced him to existence in jail for the reason that racists threats he gained made him fearful of being attacked or killed whilst incarcerated.

    Legal professionals had been pursuing two criminal methods to save lots of their shopper prior to he used to be performed. The primary used to be to argue that his trial and sentencing had been tainted by way of racism. However Balentine used to be additionally amongst 5 Texas dying row inmates who sued to forestall the state’s jail machine from the use of what they allege are expired and hazardous execution medication. Regardless of a civil courtroom pass judgement on in Austin preliminarily agreeing with the claims, the state’s most sensible two courts have now allowed 3 of the 5 inmates collaborating within the lawsuit to be performed. Robert Fratta, 65, used to be put to dying Jan. 10 and Wesley Ruiz, 43, on Feb. 1.

    Jail officers stated the state’s provide of execution medication is protected.

    One at a time, Balentine’s legal professionals alleged the jury foreman in his case, Dory England, held racist perspectives and used racial slurs all over his existence and bullied different jurors who had sought after to condemn Balentine to a existence sentence into converting their minds. Lola Perkins, who were married to England’s brother, informed Balentine’s legal professionals that England “used to be racist towards Black folks as a result of this is how he used to be raised.”

    England, in a declaration prior to his dying in 2021, stated he driven for Balentine’s dying sentence as a result of he frightened if the accused used to be ever launched that England himself “would want to hunt him down.” On the other hand, England additionally stated he threatened to record every other juror to the pass judgement on for making prejudiced feedback when the individual “began going off about this Black man killing those white youngsters.”

    Balentine’s legal professionals additionally alleged prosecutors averted all potential Black jurors from serving on the trial and that Balentine’s trial attorneys referred to the sentencing complaints in a be aware as a “justifiable lynching.”

    Randall Sherrod, certainly one of Balentine’s trial legal professionals, stated Wednesday he may now not keep in mind the be aware however denied that he or the opposite legal professional, James Durham Jr., had any racist attitudes towards Balentine. Durham died in 2006.

    “I feel he were given an excellent trial,” Sherrod stated of Balentine. “I feel we had a just right jury. … We attempted to lend a hand John no matter manner shall we.”

    The U.S. Superb Court docket on Wednesday declined an enchantment from Balentine’s legal professionals to halt the execution in order that his claims of racial bias may well be correctly reviewed.

    A protection request for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to briefly keep the execution additionally failed and the Texas Court docket of Legal Appeals denied a request to stick Ballentine’s execution over allegations that “racism and racial problems pervaded” his trial. The appeals courtroom denied the keep on procedural grounds with out reviewing the deserves.

    On Wednesday afternoon, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously declined to trip Balentine’s dying sentence to a lesser punishment or to grant a 30-day reprieve.

    “With no thorough judicial attention of Mr. Balentine’s claims, we will don’t have any self assurance that the dying verdict isn’t tainted by way of racial bias,” stated Shawn Nolan, certainly one of Balentine’s legal professionals.

    Potter County District Legal professional Randall Sims, whose jurisdiction comprises Amarillo, the place the murders passed off, had driven for the execution to move ahead. On Monday he declined to remark forward of the execution.

    Koda Shadix, the more youthful brother of Geyer, one of the crucial sufferers, stated in a video posted on-line final week that he used to be disappointed by way of efforts to extend justice.

    Balentine has “proven no regret and completely does now not care what he did. All he cares about is his existence,” Shadix stated.

    Lozano reported from Houston.

    Apply Juan A. Lozano on Twitter at https://twitter.com/juanlozano70.

  • Marilyn Manson Intercourse Attack Investigation Is going To Prosecutors

    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Detectives have passed the result of their 19-month investigation into sexual attack allegations towards Marilyn Manson to prosecutors, who will believe whether or not to record felony fees, government stated Tuesday.

    Investigators from the the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division gave the case of the 53-year-old rocker, whose criminal title is Brian Hugh Warner, to the District Lawyer’s Place of job on Monday.

    A observation at the handoff gave no new main points at the investigation, however the sheriff’s division prior to now stated detectives had been investigating sexual attack and home violence allegations relationship from 2009 to 2011 that came about in West Hollywood, the place Manson lived on the time.

    Manson’s representatives didn’t in an instant reply to a request for remark, however his lawyer has known as the allegations “provably false.”

    The investigation incorporated a November seek of Manson’s house, the place media units and different pieces had been seized.

    Government have now not recognized the ladies concerned, however a number of have publicly alleged that they had been bodily, sexually and emotionally abused via Manson across the time of the incidents below investigation, and a few have civil filed proceedings.

    They come with “Recreation of Thrones” actor Esmé Bianco, whose lawyer stated she additionally gave interviews to regulation enforcement.

    Manson is himself suing his former fiancee, “Westworld” actor Evan Rachel Wooden, whose February 2021 Instagram publish alleging he had “horrifically abused me for years” activate the wave of public allegations towards him.

    The swimsuit calls her attack allegations fabricated, and stated she and any other lady used false pretenses together with a phony letter from the FBI to persuade different ladies to come back ahead.

    Wooden’s legal professionals stated in court docket paperwork that the swimsuit is meritless, and an instance of the retaliation he lengthy threatened Wooden with if she spoke out about his abuse.

    Manson emerged as a musical megastar within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, referred to as a lot for relationship public controversy as for hit songs like “The Gorgeous Other folks” and hit album’s like 1996’s “Antichrist Famous person” and 1998’s “Mechanical Animals.”

    The Related Press does now not normally title individuals who say they have got been sexually abused until they have got come ahead publicly as Bianco and Wooden have.

  • ‘F**relations’ Duh!′ John Oliver Thinks You’ll ‘Scream At Your TV’ After Seeing This

    “Final Week This night” host John Oliver mentioned on Sunday that TV presentations have fed a large fantasy about justice in the USA, and that’s the perception that the appeals procedure can repair wrongful choices.

    The truth is slightly other.

    Or as Oliver put it, the machine is “basically fucked,” with wrongfully convicted other folks languishing in jail.

    “It truly appears like our machine is largely to blame till confirmed wealthy or fortunate,” Oliver mentioned after highlighting one of the maximum egregious instances. “And that has to switch, as a result of we can not stay letting probably the most susceptible be casualties of a machine that cares extra about fast and ultimate choices than in fact right kind ones.”

    In a single clip performed by means of Oliver from “The Innocence Information” on Netflix, Philadelphia District Lawyer Larry Krasner ― who has labored to unfastened the wrongfully convicted, particularly in instances involving police misconduct ― mentioned justice method making sure the to blame don’t stroll unfastened and that the blameless aren’t locked up as an alternative.

    “That ain’t proper,” he mentioned. “I imply, duh!”

    “Yeah, he’s proper: Fuckin’ duh!” Oliver mentioned. “You’ve more than likely already been screaming that at your TV for the final quarter-hour.”

    And that was once sooner than he were given to what could have been his maximum outrageous instance: