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Post by thinkinkmesa on Sept 4, 2013 23:01:36 GMT -5
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Post by thinkinkmesa on Sept 4, 2013 23:03:20 GMT -5
Ultimate penalty is back on table Prosecutors can seek the death penalty against a man convicted in Marion County of raping and fatally beating a 19-year-old woman in 1993 and dumping her body in an abandoned building, a federal appeals panel ruled Wednesday. Maurice Mason, 49, had argued state prosecutors shouldn’t be allowed to seek the death penalty against him because they missed a filing deadline after an appeals court threw out his death sentence in 2008. He said that doing so would amount to double jeopardy. A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. On Wednesday, the court found that although the state did miss a six-month deadline to pursue a death sentence against Mason, doing so was not enough to preclude them from starting the process again. The panel also rejected Mason’s double-jeopardy argument, saying there had been no finding that the prosecution had failed to prove its case at trial. Mason’s attorney didn’t return a call seeking comment. Robin Dennis’ mostly nude body was found inside an abandoned building in Marion County on Feb. 13, 1993. She had been beaten with a nail-covered board, had multiple skull fractures and semen was found inside here that forensic analysts said at trial matched Mason. The appeals panel gave the state a new six-month deadline to pursue the death penalty against Mason, who is being housed at Ross Correctional Institution in Chillicothe. A spokesman for the Ohio attorney general’s office didn’t immediately return a call for comment about if and when prosecutors will start the process of trying to get Mason sentenced to death. In a split decision, the same panel of the 6th Circuit threw out Mason’s death sentence in 2008, ruling 2-1 that he had poor legal help during the sentencing phase of his 1994 trial. More; www.marionstar.com/viewart/20130904/NEWS01/309040009/Court-Ohio-can-seek-death-penalty-1993-Marion-murder |
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Post by thinkinkmesa on Sept 5, 2013 21:47:40 GMT -5
Court: State can request death penalty in '93 murder Except; Gatterdam is seeking to obtain the DNA in the case for retesting. He said although his client knew Dennis, who was married, he always has maintained his innocence. “Obviously he’s anxious,” Gatterdam said of Mason. “He’s facing the prospect of the death penalty and now it’s getting closer to being a reality so I’m sure he’ll continue to be anxious. But we’re going to fight to prove he’s innocent.” More; www.newarkadvocate.com/viewart/20130904/NEWS01/309040064/Court-State-can-request-death-penalty-93-murder |
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Post by guest on Jun 25, 2016 12:02:29 GMT -5
Death penalty denied in 1993 rape, murder Maurice Mason's fate has been in limbo for more than 20 years after he was initially sentenced to death for the 1993 rape and murder of 19-year-old Robin Dennis. In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a further appeal involving the case, but on Monday, Marion County Common Pleas Judge William Finnegan ruled in favor of a defense motion that a January Supreme Court ruling, Hurst v. Florida, should be applied to this case and remove the death penalty on constitutional grounds. Since the June 1994 conviction and subsequent sentence, the case has repeatedly been moved between state and federal courts through the appeals process. In 2008 the death penalty was removed from the case, and then in 2013 it was decided the state could try to have it re-applied, though that process is scheduled for November. In his decision, Finnegan found that both Ohio and Florida had a "hybrid system" of death penalty sentencing in which the jury makes an advisory verdict but the judge makes the final decision, and that Ohio's capital sentencing law at the time of the 1994 verdict was unconstitutional. More; www.marionstar.com/story/news/crime/2016/06/24/death-penalty-denied-1993-rape-murder/86343118/ |
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Post by thinkinkmesa on Nov 12, 2018 21:36:51 GMT -5
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