Missouri
Transgender inmate on death row asks for mercy
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — The first openly transgender woman set to be executed in the U.S. is asking Missouri’s governor for mercy, citing mental health issues.
Lawyers for Amber McLaughlin, now 49, on Monday asked Republican Gov. Mike Parson to spare her.
McLaughlin was convicted of killing 45-year-old Beverly Guenther on Nov. 20, 2003. Guenther was raped and stabbed to death in St. Louis County.
There is no known case of an openly transgender inmate being executed in the U.S. before, according to the anti-execution Death Penalty Information Center.
“It’s wrong when anyone’s executed regardless, but I hope that this is a first that doesn’t occur,” federal public defender Larry Komp said. “Amber has shown great courage in embracing who she is as a transgender woman in spite of the potential for people reacting with hate, so I admire her display of courage.”
McLaughlin’s lawyers cited her traumatic childhood and mental health issues, which the jury never heard, in the clemency petition. A foster parent rubbed feces in her face when she was a toddler and her adoptive father tased her, according to the letter to Parson. She tried to kill herself multiple times, both as a child and as an adult.
Parson spokeswoman Kelli Jones said the Governor’s Office is reviewing her request for mercy.
“These are not decisions that the Governor takes lightly,” Jones said in an email.
Komp said McLaughlin’s lawyers are scheduled to meet with Parson on Tuesday.
A judge sentenced McLaughlin to death after a jury was unable to decide on death or life in prison without parole.
A federal judge in St. Louis ordered a new sentencing hearing in 2016, citing concerns about the effectiveness of McLaughlin’s trial lawyers and faulty jury instructions. But in 2021, a federal appeals court panel reinstated the death penalty.
McLaughlin’s lawyers also listed the jury’s indecision and McLaughlin’s remorse as reasons Parson should spare her life.
Missouri has only executed one woman before, state Corrections Department spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said in an email.
McLaughlin’s lawyers said she previously was rooming with another transgender woman but now is living in isolation leading up to her scheduled execution date.
Pojmann said 9% of Missouri’s prison population is female, and all capital punishment inmates are imprisoned at Potosi Correctional Center.
“It is extremely unusual for a woman to commit a capital offense, such as a brutal murder, and even more unusual for a women to, as was the case with McLaughlin, rape and murder a woman,” Pojmann said.
Missouri executed two men this year. Kevin Johnson, a 37 year old who was convicted of ambushing and killing a St. Louis area police officer he blamed in the death of his younger brother, was put to death last month. Carmen Deck died by injection in May for killing James and Zelma Long during a robbery at their home in De Soto, Missouri, in 1996
Arizona
Driver cited for carpooling with inflatable Grinch
PHOENIX (AP) — The Grinch came early for an Arizona driver who tried to pass off an inflatable figure of the Dr. Seuss character as a passenger.
The Arizona Department of Public Safety says a state trooper last week noticed a car in a high-occupancy vehicle lane on Interstate 10 in Phoenix with a “Seusspicious-looking” green passenger.
While the gag may have caused the officer’s heart to grow, it did not stop the driver from getting cited for being in the HOV lane during a restricted time.
The agency, however, could not help but post a photo of the Grinch figure with the driver’s face blurred on its Twitter account.
Officials say they appreciate the “festive flair” but that the driver’s action was still illegal.
They are urging motorists to follow traffic laws.
Texas
El Paso Walmart shooting case gets new district attorney
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday named a new El Paso district attorney after the previous one resigned under mounting pressure over the handling of the 2019 Walmart attack that left 23 people dead and has yet to go to trial.
Abbott said Bill Hicks, a former judge and prosecutor, would “restore confidence” in El Paso after county officials last month took the extraordinary step of seeking to remove their elected district attorney. The Walmart shooting has put the office under scrutiny as the suspected gunman, Patrick Crusius, faces the death penalty if convicted.
Yvonne Rosales, a Democrat, resigned as her job came under jeopardy over accusations of incompetence involving hundreds of cases in El Paso and slowing down the case against Crusius, who has pleaded not guilty.
El Paso County Attorney Jo Anne Bernal, whose office sought to remove Rosales, said prosecutors “could not even tell the court what work had been done” recently when it came to the Walmart shooting.
Crusius was arrested soon after the Aug. 3, 2019, shooting. Police later said he confessed to driving to the border city from his home near Dallas to target Mexicans. Soon before the attack, he posted a racist screed online that railed against Hispanics coming to the U.S., according to prosecutors.
Indiana
State high court reinstates man’s murder conviction
CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) — Indiana’s high court has reinstated a Gary man’s criminal convictions, months after the state appeals court overturned his convictions in a fatal shooting at a gas station.
In Tuesday’s 5-0 ruling, the Indiana Supreme Court said that notwithstanding conflicts and uncertainties that could have led jurors to harbor reasonable doubt about Marquis Young’s guilt, there’s no basis for undoing their weighing of the evidence and reasonable inference he was guilty.
Justice Christopher Goff wrote for the court that there’s nothing preventing juries from returning a guilty verdict based entirely on circumstantial evidence, of which he said the case has plenty, The (Northwest Indiana) Times reported.
“No single ‘smoking gun’ was presented, but we cannot say that a reasonable fact-finder was unable to draw the conclusion that Young was guilty,” he wrote.
A Lake County jury convicted Young, 32, of murder and two counts of attempted murder in the May 2020 shooting that killed Dion Clayton, 27, and wounded two other men at a Gary gas station. He was sentenced last year to 115 years in prison.
In May’s 2-1 ruling, the state Court of Appeals had overturned the jurors’ verdict in a rare step that cited insufficient evidence. Judge Nancy Vaidik wrote that evidence in the case — including a cigarette butt found near the gas station with Young’s DNA on it — “comes nowhere close to proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
