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By Tim Sturrock
Macon Telegraph Staff Writer

A statistical snapshot of Georgia’s death row reveals something surprising: Ranked among the metropolitan centers with the highest number of convicted killers awaiting execution are two relatively rural midstate counties.

Combined, nine men who committed murder in Jones and Baldwin counties are waiting to die for their crimes. Five of those inmates killed in Baldwin County, four in Jones.

Those two counties, state statistics show, account for more current death-row inmates than all other midstate counties combined. The numbers from Jones and Baldwin are on par with more populated counties such as Fulton (Atlanta), Chatham (Savannah) and Muscogee (Columbus), each with five death-row inmates, according to the state Department of Corrections. Seven inmates from Cobb County (Marietta) sit on death row, the state said. Chris Adams, director of the Georgia Capital Defender, the state public defender’s office that deals with capital cases, said the number of death-row inmates from Jones and Baldwin counties is striking.

“It seems to be that there is something about (that) place that makes it different from the places all around it,” he said. “If I got a new case from there, that would be a red flag that I need to do some digging and find out why that is.”

While the number of death-penalty cases is high for Baldwin and Jones counties, there are not a disproportionate number of killings there.

For example, in 2004, Fulton County, with a population of more than 800,000, had 76 murder cases. Jones and Baldwin counties, with populations of 26,000 and 45,000, respectively, have had an estimated 70 murder cases combined during the past 25 years, officials said. There are no definitive answers for the apparent disparity.

Some officials say Baldwin’s and Jones’ death-row numbers are high because of a few particularly horrible crimes, while others say prosecutors have wide-ranging discretion on whether to pursue capital cases. Some point to Fred Bright, prosecutor for Jones, Baldwin and six other counties in the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit, as a prosecutor who aggressively pursues the death penalty.

Bright says he follows the legal guidelines when deciding whether to seek death for a particular crime.

“It’s not whether I want the death penalty or not. We’re guided by the law,” he said. “The final decision as to who is on death row falls on the jury, and the jury is the conscience of the community.”

Stephen Bright, who is not related to the prosecutor, is the president of the Southern Center for Human Rights and an opponent of the death penalty.

“Everybody thinks that death-penalty cases are decided by juries; however, they’re decided by DAs and plea agreements,” he said.

The Telegraph examined public records related to the state’s capital-punishment law, its death-row inmate population and interviewed prosecutors, sheriffs, the state’s leading capital-crime public defender and legal experts.

The documents and experts provide no universal explanation of how capital cases are prosecuted and decided in Georgia. But they do provide insight into the administration of the death penalty.

A recent report from the American Bar Association questions the fairness of death-penalty prosecutions.

“Our system cannot claim to provide due process … unless it provides a fair and accurate system for every person who faces the death penalty,” the report said.

‘WE’VE HAD SOME REALLY HEINOUS MURDERS’

Fred Bright, who has been the district attorney of the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit since 1994, has tried 12 death penalty cases.

All of those defendants were convicted, although only seven received the death penalty. The other five were given life sentences, he said.

“Unfortunately, we’ve had some really heinous murders here, and we don’t take the killing of another human being very lightly,” he said. He estimates about one in 10 cases in his district is a death penalty case.

But Bright said he doesn’t always seek the death penalty in cases where he could, and he sometimes allows plea agreements that spare someone’s life.

Of the current death-row tally, Bright said his circuit prosecuted 10 of those inmates – more than any other circuit in the state.

Recently, Bright filed to seek the death penalty against Brian Brookins, a Baldwin County man charged with shooting to death his estranged wife and her daughter. If Brookins is found guilty and sentenced to die, he would be the sixth man who has committed a crime in Baldwin County to be on death row. If that happens, Baldwin’s number of death-row inmates would surpass some urban counties, including Fulton.

Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills, considered by some prosecutors to be a death-penalty expert, has assisted several prosecutors in Georgia capital cases, and he has investigated several cases that ended with inmates going to death row.

Sills said the higher-than-average number of inmates from Bright’s district is partly because of Bright’s aggressiveness in seeking death for heinous crimes.

Sills said he thinks some DAs avoid seeking capital punishment because they are concerned about the expense and time spent on numerous legal motions. He thinks that idea is wrong-headed.

Prosecutors, he said, should always seek the death penalty whenever possible.

“If it meets the criteria, guess what? It’s taken out of the district attorney’s hands,” Sills said. “If the death penalty is not warranted, then the jury will not give the death penalty.”

But a recent American Bar Association study suggests that the discretion prosecutors use for capital cases isn’t always cut-and-dried. The study found that some prosecutors take into account a number of factors, including evidence, magnitude of the crime, a defendant’s mental disabilities, criminal record and background, a defendant’s family history and background, and even public sentiment.

Joe Briley, Fred Bright’s predecessor in the Ocmulgee circuit, said he dealt with criticism while in office because of the frequency with which he sought the death penalty.

“I’ve been accused of aggressively seeking the death penalty,” Briley said. “I can’t see why other DAs didn’t seek the death penalty.”

Briley advocates always seeking the death penalty no matter what the defendant’s history.

“I never saw a defendant who didn’t have a bad childhood,” he said, “I cannot judge. That’s for a jury to decide.”

Stephen Bright, the Southern Center for Human Rights president, said the fact remains that some DAs are more apt to seek the death penalty than others, and it’s that latitude that disturbs him and others who oppose capital punishment.

“The prosecutor has the discretion whether or not to seek the death penalty,” he said. “The death penalty is never required. Some very seldom seek it, some seek it at every opportunity.”

IS THE SYSTEM FLAWED?

There is no detailed study that compares how cases that fit death-penalty criteria are adjudicated in various judicial circuits, said Anne Emanuel, a member of a team of legal experts for the American Bar Association.

Emanuel said the death penalty appears to be applied unequally in Georgia and that the state needs to study whether that’s true.

“We’re concerned there are inappropriate disparities,” she said. “Whether or not you get the death penalty shouldn’t depend on what part of the state you live in.”

The recent ABA study, which doesn’t address whether the death penalty is right or wrong, recommends that a state commission review death-penalty filings and ensure that the death penalty is being pursued in a similar way. That is something Fred Bright predicts would lead to more appeals and probably wouldn’t work in the long run. “I question not only its practicality, but I even question the legality of it,” he said.

Stephen Bright compared differences in how district attorneys across Georgia seek the death penalty to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the death penalty in 1972.

That decision determined that the death penalty was meted out in an arbitrary way, he said. Some defendants, he argued, were being sent to death row, while others who committed similar crimes were not.

At the time, three Supreme Court justices said race was a factor in determining who would die for their crimes.

In 1976, the death penalty was reinstated in Georgia after the Legislature approved a list of circumstances that limited the number of possible capital crimes. But Stephen Bright said there are still discrepancies in seeking capital punishment, only with a smaller range of crimes.

Studies show that people who kill whites are more likely to receive the death penalty than people who kill blacks, he said. For example, blacks make up 65 percent of all Georgia murder victims, but 80 percent of the state’s death-row inmates were convicted of killing whites, he said.

Fred Bright said race was not a factor in any of the death-penalty cases he prosecuted. Of the nine death-row inmates from Jones and Baldwin counties, four of them murdered blacks, he said.

He also said he has never had an all-white jury in a death penalty case, and in one case, a majority-black jury sentenced a black man to death in 1997 for shooting a white Baldwin County sheriff’s deputy.

Stephen Bright said race played a role in why so few death-row inmates came from Fulton County.

In general, blacks tend to oppose the death penalty, he said, and because Fulton is a majority-black county, it hasn’t been pursued there as often, he said.

Through a spokesman, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard declined to comment.

NO DEATH ROW INMATES FROM BIBB COUNTY

Bibb County, which has a population of about 155,000, has no inmates currently on death row.

It is among several midstate counties without a single capital sentence waiting to be carried out, including Twiggs, Peach, Crawford, Wilkinson and Dooly counties. Houston County has two, while Monroe, Laurens and Macon counties have one each.

Howard Simms, district attorney for Bibb, Crawford and Peach counties, said one of his predecessors, Willis Sparks, rarely sought the death penalty because he was concerned that those cases would be overturned on appeal. With the exception of a case against Keith Patillo, for which he did seek capital punishment, Sparks ended up reaching plea agreements.

Patillo was sentenced to die for the 1987 rape and beating death of Stephanie McLamb. His sentence was later commuted to life because he was considered mentally retarded.The last person to be executed for a Bibb County crime was Terry Mincey, who was on death row for nearly 20 years before he was put to death in 2001.

Simms said that in 1997, Charles Weston, another of his predecessors, sought the death penalty against Reginald Acres, who killed his estranged wife, his 8-month-old daughter and his wife’s pregnant cousin. Eventually, Weston made a plea deal after prospective juror questionnaires showed that jury pools were biased against the death penalty, Simms said.

Simms said his philosophy about the death penalty is that he should seek it whenever appropriate.

Since the beginning of 2005, Simms has filed intent to seek the death penalty against four people, two of whom are accused of chopping a man into 10 pieces and burning his body.

Crystal May Carver and Shay Allen Morey were charged with murder in February 2005, accused of killing Carver’s husband, Bobby Gene Wagner. He was hacked to pieces in a Bibb County motel and dumped in Twiggs County.

In another case, Jomekia Dechelle Pope is accused of burning his girlfriend to death last summer. And earlier this month, Simms announced that he will seek the death penalty against 19-year-old Brandon Parker on charges that he stabbed a 72-year-old Macon grandmother to death in December.

Since he took office in January 2001, Simms has pursued the death penalty against two people in trials, though juries decided against capital punishment. Still, Simms said that doesn’t mean Bibb County juries are anti-death penalty.

“I don’t think it’s fair to say Bibb County juries won’t give the death penalty,” he said. “They haven’t had a whole lot of opportunities.”

To contact: email Tim Sturrock or call 744-4347.

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ON DEATH ROW

BALDWIN COUNTY

John W. Hightower
Age: 61
On July 12, 1987, apparently after a domestic squabble, 44-year-old John W. Hightower of Baldwin County shot and killed his wife, Dorothy, and her two daughters, Sandra Reaves, 22, and Evelyn Reaves, 19. John Hightower told detectives he had planned to kill himself, but he was arrested in nearby Putnam County before he could. John Hightower was sentenced to die for the three murders.

Joshua Bishop
Age: 31
Joshua Bishop was tried in early 1996 for malice murder and armed robbery in the death of Leverette Morrison, a Milledgeville native who had been visiting from Savannah. Morrison was visiting his children in Milledgeville at the time of his death in June 1994.

An autopsy showed that Morrison was beaten on the head and face with a blunt object. However, a murder weapon was never found.

Authorities have said Bishop and Mark Braxley wrapped his body in a sheet, placed it near a trash bin, and burned Morrison’s 1984 Jeep Wagoneer near a pond. Braxley pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence for murder.

Braxley, Morrison and Bishop had all been drinking together before the killing.

Robert Wayne Holsey
Age: 40
Robert Wayne Holsey was sentenced to die for the murder of Baldwin County sheriff’s deputy Will Robinson. Early in the morning of Dec. 17, 1995, Robinson responded to an armed robbery at a convenience store in which the suspect was seen driving away in a red Ford Probe. Four minutes after the robbery, Robinson stopped a car fitting that description in a motel parking lot not far from the scene. A gun battle ensued, and Robinson died of a wound to the head. Within four hours, Holsey was in custody.

Robert Earl Butts
Age: 28
Marion Wilson
Age: 29
Robert Earl Butts and Marion Wilson were each convicted separately for the March 28, 1996, shotgun slaying of Donovan Corey Parks. Wilson was sentenced to death in 1997, while Butts was sentenced to death the following year.

District Attorney Fred Bright built his case around evidence that Parks gave Butts and Wilson a ride from the Wal-Mart on North Columbia Street but was later forced to drive to Felton Street, off Ga. 49. The 24-year-old victim was found face down on a rural street with a fatal gunshot wound to the back of the head. His wallet and car were missing. His blue Acura Vigor was found burning in Macon the next day.

JONES COUNTY

Eddie W. Finney Jr.
Age: 49
Eddie Finney was sent to death row for killing two Macon women. Finney, along with Johnny Mack Westbrook, kidnapped, robbed, bound and then beat to death the women, Thelma Kalish, 67, and Ann Kaplan, 65, in September 1977. Westbrook was sentenced to death but that sentence was later overturned.

Keith Tharpe
Age: 47
Keith Tharpe was convicted in 1991 for kidnapping and murder. Tharpe kidnapped his sister-in-law, Jacquelyn Freeman, and then killed her in September 1990. Tharpe kidnapped his wife in the same incident, though she was able to escape.

Daniel Lucas
Age: 27
Brandon Rhode
Age: 26
Daniel Lucas and Brandon Rhode are on death row for killing a father and his two children. On April 23, 1998, Kristin and Bryan Moss stepped off their school buses and into their home, followed minutes by their father, Steven Moss. They interrupted a burglary inside their Griswoldville Road home and were shot a total of 13 times.

SOURCE: Telegraph archives

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DEATH PENALTY FACTS

Since 1973, more than 120 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. Five inmates in Georgia have been exonerated during this period.

Georgia ranks ninth in the United States in the number of death row inmates with 107.

According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, the South has the highest murder rate, and accounts for more than 80 percent of all executions.

SOURCE: www.deathpenalty.org

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GEORGIA CASES CHANGE U.S. LAW

In Furman v. Georgia in 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated all death penalty laws in the country based on the inherent arbitrariness of their application. Capital punishment was suspended between 1973 and 1976.

In 1976, in Gregg v. Georgia, the court upheld Georgia’s new capital-sentencing procedures, concluding that they had sufficiently reduced the problem of arbitrary and capricious imposition of death associated with earlier statutes.

SOURCE: www.law.umkc.edu

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