"Death penalty overturned for man who killed 3," is Amanda Lee Myers' AP report, via the Arizona Daily Sun.
The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out the death sentences of a Tucson man who bludgeoned his girlfriend and her two children to death in 1984 after lying in wait for each of them, ruling that the murders weren't especially heinous even though they were "atrocious" and "senseless."
The state's highest court unanimously vacated two death sentences for James Granvil Wallace, 61, and imposed two sentences of life in prison for the children's killings. That's on top of the life sentence he's already serving for killing his girlfriend, Susan Insalaco.
While the justices wrote that the Feb. 1, 1984, murders of Insalaco, her son, Gabriel, 12, and her daughter, Anna, 16, in their Tucson apartment were heinous in layman's terms, they weren't according to the letter of the law.
That's because the justices found that Wallace didn't knowingly inflict more wounds on the family than he thought were necessary to kill them.
And:
"Even among capital cases, this case is atrocious," the justices wrote Tuesday. "Wallace's premeditated, brutal murders of Anna and Gabriel clearly were senseless, and the unsuspecting, defenseless victims were helpless."
But the justices said the case falls short of meeting the legal requirement for being especially heinous and, therefore, eligible for the death penalty.
In order to be especially heinous, prosecutors must prove that a killer relished in a crime, inflicted gratuitous violence or needlessly mutilated a victim. They could also argue that a crime was particularly senseless or victims were particularly helpless.
In Wallace's case, prosecutors only argued that he inflicted gratuitous violence. The justices disagreed, saying that every wound Wallace inflicted was meant to cause death because he didn't think he had yet inflicted a fatal wound.
The Arizona Supreme Court ruling in Arizona v. Wallace is available in Adobe .pdf format.
"Death penalty overturned for Arizona man who killed 3," is the Arizona Republic report by Michael Kiefer.
In 1986, the high court reduced Wallace's sentence for killing Insalaco to life in prison after ruling that robbery should not have been considered as an aggravating factor that justified a death sentence.
Tuesday's ruling determined that the bludgeoning deaths of the two children did not fit the definition of heinous or depraved. Therefore, both were commuted to life sentences with chance of parole after 25 years, to be served consecutively.
The sentence of death with no chance of parole was not in the Arizona statutes when the murders were committed, so the justices could only impose the lesser sentence of 25 years to life.
From Georgia, the Macon Telegraph carries the AP filing, "Sentencing phase begins in federal inmate's death."
The sentencing phase is beginning for a federal inmate who could face the death penalty for murdering his cellmate at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys on Wednesday will deliver opening statements in the penalty phase of Brian Richardson's trial.
He was convicted last week of the July 2007 killing of Steven Obara, who prosecutors say was targeted because he was a child molester.
Also from Georgia is a state case involving judicial ethics. "Defense lawyer for accused Athens cop killer ask judge to leave case," is the Athens Banner-Herald report by Joe Johnson.
Defense attorneys representing accused Athens cop-killer Jamie Hood officially have asked the judge who has presided over Hood’s death-penalty case since last summer to step down.
The attorneys claim that Western Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Lawton Stephens can’t be impartial because he personally knows the officer Hood shot and wounded and attended the funeral of the officer Hood killed.
“The Georgia Code of Judicial Conduct provides that ‘judges should disqualify themselves in proceedings in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned,’ ” attorneys state in the motion they filed late Friday afternoon.
“As such, the Honorable Lawton E. Stephens should voluntarily disqualify himself from judging this matter,” the attorneys with the Georgia Capital Defender Office argue in the motion.
But Stephens did not step down, and on Friday he issued an order directing Clarke County Clerk of Courts Beverly Logan to assign a different judge to decide whether he can remain on the case.
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