Eligible For Execution: The Story Of The Daryl Atkins Case

In the case of Atkins v. Virginia, Daryl Renard Atkins is accused of the kidnapping, robbery, and murder of Eric Michael Nesbitt. Atkins was also charged with use of a firearm while committing each of these offenses ("FindLaw's United States Supreme Court case and opinions.”, 2017). Atkins was convicted of capital murder and related crimes, by a Virginia jury and sentenced to death, but his case was appealed to the Virginia Supreme Courts, on the grounds that it is unlawful to put to death a person who has intellectual disabilities (Mental Retardation). Virginia Supreme Courts upheld the decision of the Virginia courts

Kerry Cook was a wrongfully convicted man who wrongly served twenty years in Texas's scandalous prison for the murder and rape of a twenty-one-year-old women named Linda Jo Edwards. His fight for release was said to be one of the worst demonstrations of police and prosecutorial misconduct in American history. He was tossed into a place for which no man could be assembled, and he sustained himself through beatings, molestation, and discouragement, however, he continued to fight against a justice system that wanted to control his voice and resisting to admit an error. During his twenty-year tenure, Cook went to the process of rehabilitation and education which helped him eventually regain his voice that the justice system tried to take from him.

In Oklahoma, Greg Wilhoit serves as an inspiration to end the infamous capital punishment. His wife was viciously murdered in Tulsa, Oklahoma on the 1st of June. Greg was alleged for the death of his spouse, and was found guilty when the bite marks found on his wife’s body matched his teeth. He was then put in jail and was sentenced to death in 8 years. However it was proven wrong and he successfully won the case, but he didn’t win the nightmarish trauma that strongly affected his mentality during those forlorn 8 years of false accusation. It led him to depression and eventually his miserable demise. Greg’s case is an example of an inaccurate and flawed judgment of death penalty. Everyone deserves a second chance, less allegations which cause wrong executions, and reverence to human rights.

The book Monster, by Walter Dean Myers, tells the tale of two young men being on trial for felony murder. Sixteen year-old Steve Harmon and twenty-two year-old James King are accused of participating in a robbery that caused the death of an innocent man. That innocent man’s name was Aguinaldo Nesbitt, and he owned a drugstore in Harlem. The Prosecutor, Sandra Petrocelli claims that Steve Harmon served as the lookout in the robbery, and also says James King was the one who pulled the trigger on the gun that killed Aguinaldo Nesbitt. Steve Harmon’s Attorney Kathy O’Brien does a great job of making Steve appear as a regular, respectful, smart kid, and seems to have a great interest in film which his teacher George Sawicki points out in his testimony. James King’s attorney, Asa Briggs, tries her very best to make King look innocent, but there isn’t much evidence that doesn’t put him at the crime scene. The state calls two witnesses that are very significant in deciding whether James King is guilty, and why Steve is not, and those witnesses are Richard “Bobo” Evans and Lorelle Henry. And the defense ( Kathy O’Brien) calls George Sawicki to the stand and he preaches about how great of a student and person Steve is, so it makes him look even more innocent to the jury. All of these witnesses make James King look

Virginia, in which a mild mentally retarded man named, “Daryl Renard Atkins was convicted of abduction, armed robbery, and capital murder” ("Atkins v. Virginia."). He was sentenced to death twice but that was overturned by a 6-3 vote by the United States Supreme Court and Justice Stevens had this to say when the verdict came : “Construing and applying the Eighth Amendment in the light of our 'evolving standards of decency,' we therefore conclude that such punishment is excessive and that the Constitution 'places a substantive restriction on the State's power to take the life' of a mentally retarded offender” ("Atkins v. Virginia."). What Justice Stevens is saying is it was no longer socially acceptable to put a mentally retarded person to death any

Just recently, a middle-ages man has been captured by the local police. Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Thomas Gilliland reported to the Houston Chronicle, ‘…that the relationship between Conley and the victims — who ranged in age from 6 to 50 — remains unclear.’ After the discovery, deputies applied capital murder to the bodies of six-children—ages 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 13. A David R. Conley was allegedly involved in an upset with the deputies that ended after the accused killer was persuaded to give in to the demands of the Harris County authorities. On a tip, deputies entered the residence to confront the abusive killing. However, according to sources—at a news conference Sunday afternoon—Chief Deputy Rim Cannon announce that the degree of

The appellant, Gary Cassidy, was living with his mother, Alice Bieber, in Windsor Ontario. The appellant’s mother went to bed while the appellant went out. The morning after Mrs. Bieber noticed her car was missing from the driveway. She assumed that her son had taken it out the night before. Alice, asked her son if he knew anything about her car being missing, the appellant denied knowing about the car and mentioned that Mrs. Bieber should report it to the police, which she did. Shortly after two police officers arrived at the appellant’s residence informing Mrs. Bieber that her car had been recovered in damaged condition the night before. She stated that her son may know something about her car. The officers started questioning the appellant. During questioning the appellant became upset and aggressive towards the two officers. The appellant started verbally abusing the officers, accusing them of trespassing and told them to get off of the property or he would make them. Mrs. Bieber tried to intervene but the appellant ignored her. Shortly after the appellant threatened the officers, he ran into the living room and grabbed one 12-guage shotgun off

Summary of the Case: Shortly after 9 p.m. on 10/23/1984, 21-year-old Christopher Hanson and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Saladena Bishop, were sleeping in Hanson’s truck on Hobart Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, when a man leaning through the open passenger window awakened Bishop. A second man approached the driver’s window and demanded Hanson’s wallet, threatening death. The man then took Hanson’s wallet and stabbed him 10 times. Both men then walked away. Hanson, who had a disorder that prevented his blood from clotting, died at the scene. Police recovered several pieces of a broken knife, a hat and some palm prints. Christopher Hanson’s father, Arthur, who had

In March 1906, Tennessee native Ed Johnson was sentenced to death for the rape of eighteen-year-old Nevada Taylor. Mr. Johnson supposedly choked the victim with a leather strap and subsequently sexually assaulted her. When testifying, the woman only had one adjective to describe the perpetrator, a word that damned the twenty-six-year-old to a guilty verdict; black. Although he had never been in possession of a leather strap, had a sound alibi verified by countless testimonies, and the rape victim never definitively identified Mr. Johnson during the trial, the all-white jury came to the conclusion that the African-American man was undeniably responsible for the cold-blooded atrocity. A day later, while sitting in his cell, a mob of white men dragged Ed Johnson out of the jailhouse, paraded him around the streets, and ultimately hanged the guiltless man at Walnut Street Bridge. The men then began to fire round after round at his lifeless body for the amusement of townsfolk who had gathered to watch the lynching, until, “one stray bullet severed the rope,” (Yellin 1). As the bloody corpse fell to the ground to the delight of the white children, “ one of the men put the barrel of his gun to Mr. Johnson 's head and fired five times,” (Yellin 1). The men faced no charges and nearly one hundred years later the Supreme Court found the viciously murdered man innocent. Unfortunately, when it comes to promoting justice for non-white Americans, the United States’ criminal justice system

Henderson shifts to a sentimental tone by describing the emotional effect this trial would have on the community. He appeals to sympathetic emotions by using the hyperbole “…the worst day this community has ever experienced” and macabre diction of “…portray this multiple murder as gruesomely as possible…,” to represent the horrific memories that the witnesses and surviving victims would have to go through if the case continues. The specific diction and hyperbole shock the reader and to create a sense of abstract tortures that the community would have to go through if the general attorney proceeded with the capital punishment. The author juxtaposes the negative effects with the ] positive decision of accepting Dylann Roof's plea and sentencing him to a life in prison without parole, which would include “tribute to the victims, focusing on the value of their lives and the consequences of their loss,” a description that has everything the community wants but the final decision the author, stresses, belongs to General Loretta E. Lynch. By mentioning the name and the statement that “The attorney general need only agree,” she becomes the audience for a few moments, pressuring her decision and asserting all the consequences of her decision if she decides to continue with the capital case.

For this assignment I got the opportunity to witness the Florida Supreme Court case Thomas Theo Brown V. State of Florida presided over by Chief Justice Jorge Labarga and a panel of other justices. This case was regarding the appeal of Thomas Theo Brown, a Wendy’s employee who was convicted for fatally shooting his co-worker, Ms. Juanese Miller, back in 2009. He had been sentenced to death following the guilty verdict of first degree murder. Mr. Brown filed a challenge to his conviction, wherein he stated a claim that he should be resentenced due to a lack of objection by his original counsel regarding a claim made by the prosecution. The claim not objected to was that the defendant, Mr. Brown, had premeditated the murder in spite of the fact that he had actually admitted to second degree murder.

In 1985, Memphis police officers were dispatched to a “prowler inside” call. Once officers arrived on scene, there was a women standing on her porch gesturing officers towards the adjacent home. The women told the officers she heard breaking glass and that someone was breaking into the home next door. An officer then went to the back door of the home and heard a door slam and observed someone running across the backyard. The fleeing suspect, later identified as Edward Garner, stopped at a 6 foot high chain link fence at the edge of the back yard. The officer with the aid of a flashlight was able to observe Garner’s face and hands and saw no obvious signs of a weapon. While Garner was kneeling down the bottom of the fence the officer yelled out “Police, Halt” while taking a few steps towards Garner. Garner than began to climb the fence and the officer believing that if Garner got over the fence he would avoid being captured, the officer shot him. The only thing on Garner was 10 dollars and a purse taken from the house.

On July 28th of 1984, Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, a 22-year-old college student and another woman was both brutally raped at knife point. During the attack, Thompson was attentive of her attacker’s appearance and anything else notable so if she survived the attack, she could assure the rapist would be caught and punished (prosecuted). Within a few days of the attack, the Burlington Police Department of North Carolina had determined a suspect through the composite Thompson made and arrested Ronald J. Cotton on August 1, of 1984. Thompson was able to identify Cotton under photo identification and then successfully chose him again in the physical line-up. The second victim, however did not chose Cotton in either of the lineups.

In Rhode Island v Innis 446 U.S. 291 (1980), Rhode Island police respond to a call from, Gerald Aubin, a taxicab driver, reporting he had been robbed by an assailant brandishing a sawed-off shotgun. While at the police station, waiting to give his statement, Mr. Aubin identified his assailant, a suspect in the murder of John Mulvaney, from a photograph on a bulletin board.

In Stephen Bright’s article, “The Death Penalty as the Answer to Crime: Costly, Counterproductive, and Corrupting” Bright asserts that capital punishment does not work because it is racially biased, the quality of the lawyers and attorneys supplied by the state to poor defendants is unfair, and that the law system currently in place does not accomplish its true goals. Bright defends his claim with logos and ethos by examining the opinions of judges and district attorneys, and by describing experience within the fields of human rights and law himself in order to persuade the reader to take up more cases for those on death row. Given the language used in this article Bright is writing to an audience with intermediate to professional experience within the field of law, and a willingness to adopt a new idea on the constitutionality behind the death penalty.