Posted on 04/05/2011 11:00:45 AM PDT by Hawk720
The U.S. Supreme Court granted a last-minute stay of execution for Cleve Foster, a convicted murderer scheduled to die later this afternoon in Texas.
The ruling follows the court's decision Monday afternoon to stay the execution of Daniel Cook, a convicted murderer who had been scheduled to die Tuesday in Arizona.
Both men raised claims that they had been denied the effective assistance of counsel, and the Supreme Court's back-to-back stays could signal its interest in tackling issues regarding the adequacy of representation, said lawyers for the inmates.
"I'm over the moon," said Maurie Levin, who represented Mr. Foster in his Supreme Court appeal.
A former army recruiter, Mr. Foster was convicted in 2004 of raping and murdering Nyanuer "Mary" Pal, a 28-year-old whom Mr. Foster had met in a bar.
Mr. Foster says he is innocent and alleges that his trial counsel improperly failed to secure a blood-splatter expert to question some of the facts supporting the prosecution.
The Texas Attorney General's Office declined to comment about the grant of stay. In a recent Supreme Court brief filed in the case, the office called Mr. Foster's claim that he had been denied effective representation "frivolous."
Mr. Cook was convicted in 1988 of committing two murders. He doesn't deny the murders but he sought a Supreme Court stay based in part on the claim that his court-appointed lawyer was so incompetent that Mr. Cook was forced to ultimately represent himself at trial.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I can’t believe they “stayed” the execution of the scumbag in Arizona. That lowlife piece of human debris is real scum.
Too bad the Supreme’s couldn’t stay the execution of the victims.
“Too bad the Supreme’s couldn’t stay the execution of the victims.”
My thoughts exactly.
It's hard to be "effective" when your client is guilty.
In other words spare no cost in defending the murderer and if he still is convicted then you were ineffective and he needs a new trial?
I wonder how Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan and Ginsberg voted?
I know that crew of Justices they really hate unborn children, love terrorists, illegals and socialized medicine, and they all seem to have a “soft spot” for convicted rapists/robbers/murderers and disdain for law-abiding gun owners.
This guy commited a horrific rape and murder, time to go.
Give the system a chance to work. Far too many folks have been on death row and found to have been completely innocent of the crimes that put them there in the last 20 years.
I believe in the spirit of the death penalty. I just absolutely believe that our criminal justice system isn’t sufficiently evolved enough to be entrusted with such power of punishment.
There are over 700 persons on Death Row in California.
How much does that cost the taxpayers?
I can’t believe they “stayed” the execution of the scumbag in Arizona. That lowlife piece of human debris is real scum.
________________________________________________________
Low life scum need to die. That being said it is wrong for them to die without adequate representation.
An employee of mine was convicted of child sexual abuse after his attorney who came to court drunk every day and never offered a word to try to help the man, The attorney took his house in payment and my employee got 199 years in prison.
I knew the man and he was not guilty. He told his stepson he could not go to a school dance until he cleaned up his room and when it came time to go the dance he held firm. That is what precipitated the accusation. There were three children, they admitted what they did later and never even got a tongue lashing from the judge.
I had a friend of mine appeal his case for him. The prosecution broke many state and local rules of the court in the first trial. The prosecution gave up in the end after going all the way to the state supreme court on the first trial and the guy got out of prison after having to wait for several years while all this transpired.
Prosecutors have all the power and money of the state and defendants sometimes have only some poor kid who just got out of law school to defend him if lucky and some drunk has been if not.
I do not begrudge the supreme court making sure someone has adequate representation in court, especially in a capital case. After he is properly represented then I’ll be glad to push the plunger on the hypodermic.
Hmmm....it’s gotta be a coincidence. The two states these cretins were supposed to be executed in....
Texas...and Arizona.
It couldn’t possibly be due to an ulterior partisan motive.
Nah!
Would you still be saying that....
if it was one of your loved ones that was tortured, raped/sodimized, and killed by them?
I'm sure that Sotomayor voted as one would expect from a wise Latina. Unfortunately.
Maurie Levin is “over the moon”
“... Mr. Foster and his roommate, Sheldon Ward, were convicted of murdering Ms. Pal on the night before Valentine’s Day in 2002. Her nude body was found in a creek bed in a wooded area the next morning. She had been shot once in the head.
The two had met Ms. Nyanuer (Mary) Pal at Fat Albert’s bar in Fort Worth. Witnesses said the three had chatted there, and that as Ms. Pal drove away, the two men followed in Mr. Foster’s truck.
Mr. Ward, who was 30 when he died of a brain tumor last year, had been one of the people Mr. Foster helped recruit into the Army. Prosecutors say that Mr. Ward pulled the trigger, but that Mr. Foster assisted him, including helping him dump Ms. Pal’s body.
Mr. Foster has said he had taken sleeping pills and was passed out at the time of Ms. Pal’s death...”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/us/06lethal.html?amp
He’s a double killer. a serial predator rapist-murderer:
http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2011-04-04/man-convicted-killing-refugee-accused-killing-texas-tech-grad-set-die-new
“... The men also were charged but never tried for the shooting death of Texas Tech graduate Rachel Urnosky, 22, at her Fort Worth apartment in December 2001...”
How much does that cost the taxpayers?
$63 million per year over normal incarceration costs according to this 2010 FOXNews piece
We have death row inmates waiting since Jimmy Carter was president. It's a "death penalty" in name only with 13 executions since '77 and more than that dead of other causes including health and suicide.
Sotomayor writes at a 3rd grade level and is a La Raza/MeCHA/LULAC toadie.
Grahamesty really wanted her and she was not even categorizied as “extreme.” Kagan is a card-carrying Communuist, too, but “our side” would not filibuster them.
We are weak and will eventually be overrun if we do not stand up and fight the Left and their Muslim allies.
two tortures
two rapes
two murders
at least
victims just in the wrong place at the wrong time and caught the attention of these serial murderers, everyone’s nightmare
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Texas-set-to-use-new-drug-in-Tuesday-execution-1320663.php
Yeah? Well your client's date, "Mary" Pal, is still 6 feet underground, Mr Levin..
I agree.
I’m in Illinois, and we’ve had tons of cases overturned because of lazy or corrupt cops who just wanted to prosecute someone, anyone.
I’m all for the death penalty, but I don’t support it in corrupt states such as Illinois.
I don’t know the details of this case, so I can’t really comment on it particularly.
I think any cop or judge that railroads a man into death row or life in prison, should finish out that condemned man’s sentence for him, if found that shenanigans took place to get the conviction.
If they used Dr. Henry Lee, he could have removed evidence from the crime scene as he did in LA, or testified about blood-spatter patterns via TV and convict a guy in NY.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7507444.html
U.S. Supreme Court blocks tonight’s Texas execution
On Tuesday morning, the high court agreed to reconsider its January order denying Foster’s appeal that raised claims of innocence and poor legal help during his trial and early stages of his appeals. ...
In its brief ruling, the court gave prosecutors 30 days to respond to the defense petition, after which the Supreme Court will decide if the appeal has merit.
end snips
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