National Roundup

Alabama
State sets new execution date for inmate for 1991 murder
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama has rescheduled the execution of a state inmate who had a lethal injection called off in February when the U.S. Supreme Court sided with his request to have his personal pastor with him in the death chamber.

The Alabama Supreme Court set an Oct. 21 execution date for 51-year-old Willie B. Smith III, who was convicted of the 1991 kidnapping and murder of 22-year-old Sharma Ruth Johnson in Birmingham.

In February, the state called off Smith’s execution on the night he was to have been put to death. The decision came after the U.S. Supreme Court maintained a lower court injunction, saying he could not be executed without his personal spiritual advisor present in the room with him. The state at the time maintained only prison staff would be allowed in the room.

Alabama officials wrote in a court filing that the state recognized “its policy restricting access to the execution chamber to institutional chaplains was unlikely to survive further litigation” and “reached an agreement with Smith to allow his spiritual advisor to minister to him in the chamber.” The Alabama Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to an email asking about the change in procedures.

Prosecutors said Smith abducted Johnson at gunpoint from an ATM, stole $80 from her and then took her to a cemetery where he shot her in the back of the head. The victim was the sister of a police detective.

“The murder of Ms. Johnson, which was committed during the course of a robbery and kidnapping, was as brutal as they come, and there is no doubt that Smith committed those offenses,” lawyers with the attorney general’s office wrote in the request to set the execution date.

The Alabama Supreme Court set an October execution date for Smith even though a judge has scheduled a 2022 trial on claims related to his intellectual capacity.

His lawyers have argued the state failed to give Smith, who has an IQ below 75, required assistance under the Americans with Disabilities Act in filling out forms that affected the timing of his execution.

“We are disappointed that the attorney general asked for and the Alabama Supreme Court set a date for Mr. Smith’s execution despite the fact that a lawsuit he filed two years ago is progressing through discovery and is set for trial early next year,” federal defender John Palombi wrote in an email.

Palombi added, “The state is attempting to moot this lawsuit out before his case can be heard. We will continue to fight against this premature attempt to execute Mr. Smith.”

The Alabama attorney general’s office has disputed that Smith’s rights were violated.

Oklahoma
Board sets dates for high-profile death-row inmates
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board has set tentative dates for clemency hearings for high-profile death row inmate Julius Jones and five others who have exhausted their legal appeals.

The clemency hearings for the inmates would take place 21 days before their scheduled executions, according to The Oklahoman.

Formal approval of the hearing dates will not be made until the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals weighs whether the capital punishments may move forward.

Execution dates were sought  by Attorney General John O’Connor last Thursday after a U.S. district judge ruled that six death row inmates were eligible since they had not identified an alternative method in an ongoing constitutional challenge to the state’s protocols for lethal injection.

Jones is convicted of killing an Edmond man in his driveway in 1999.

Attorneys for him and the five other death row inmates have asked U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot to reconsider his Aug. 11 ruling that cleared the inmates for execution.

They argue in court filings that Jones has a second commutation hearing scheduled before the Pardon and Parole Board on Sept. 13 and Jones has “remedies available in the federal district court proceedings” challenging the constitutionality of Oklahoma’s lethal injection protocols intended for use in his execution.

The board anticipates having the commutation hearing wrapped into Jones’ clemency hearing tentatively scheduled for Oct. 5.

Gov. Kevin Stitt will get the final say in the case if the board recommends commuting Jones’ sentence.


Maine
Man pleads guilty to baseball bat killings of 4
LOWELL, Mass. (AP) — A Maine man who used a baseball bat to beat his mother, his grandparents and his grandparents’ caretaker to death in Massachusetts in 2017 has pleaded guilty.

Orion Krause, 26, of Rockport, Maine, was sentenced Wednesday in Lowell Superior Court to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years ago after pleading guilty to four counts of second-degree murder, according to the office of Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan.

Krause had originally faced four counts of first-degree murder but admitted to the lesser charges under a plea deal with prosecutors.

The deal took into account Krause’s lack of criminal record, his relative youth and his mental health condition at the time of the killings, prosecutors said.

“The resolution of this case today in no way can erase the incalculable loss felt by the family and friends of these victims,” Ryan said in a statement.

Krause, who had recently graduated from Oberlin College, apologized in court and told the judge he was in a “psychotic state” at the time.

The victims killed in the Groton home on the evening of Sept. 8, 2017 were identified as Krause’s mother, Elizabeth Krause, 60; his grandparents Elizabeth Lackey, 85, and Frank Lackey, 89; and Bertha Mae Parker, 68, of Tewksbury, a home health care worker caring for the Lackeys.

The cause of the death of all four was determined to be blunt force trauma, with injuries to the brain and skull, prosecutors said.

Krause, who was 22 at the time of the slayings, was naked and covered in mud and cuts when officers found him at a neighbor’s house, according to the documents. He told officers: “I murdered four people.” After police wrapped him in a sheet, he began to sing quietly, according to the records.

Krause contacted one of his former professors shortly before the killings and told him of his intentions to kill his mother. The professor called police.