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Man gets life for ‘execution’ slaying of teen he ‘catfished’

homesafetytechpros — Sat, 06 Apr 2024 10:39:41 +0000

Jakari D. Webb, right, killed Telan K. Mann, left. Webb was immediately sentenced to life in prison without parole. (Victim’s photo from his obituary; suspect’s mug shot from prosecutors)

A Florida man was sentenced to life in a “catfishing” scheme to lure out and kill a 19-year-old gay man because he thought the victim had been spreading rumors that he was a homosexual.

Jakari D. Webb, 21, was found guilty of first-degree murder with a firearm in the killing of Telan K. Mann, 19. Webb was immediately sentenced to life in prison without parole.

“The defendant’s execution of our victim was a classic example of premeditation,” State Attorney R.J. Larizza said about the case in a statement. “He lay in wait, armed with a semi-automatic handgun. The fact that he shot our victim nine times leaves no doubt that his sole intention was murder.”

Webb’s defense attorney said the authorities could not link Webb to the murder, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.

But through court documents and testimony from investigators, authorities said they linked the defendant’s cellphone to the murder weapon, the victim and the homicide, and video surveillance tracked the defendant arriving and running away from the crime scene to a home, according to court documents.

Mann was killed on June 23, 2022. Officers patrolling an area near Oak Tree Circle and Forest Glen Boulevard in Daytona Beach heard gunshots and found Mann’s bullet-riddled body on a sidewalk in a pool of blood just before 2 a.m. Police said six empty shell casings lying around the victim gave the appearance the suspect was either with the victim or had been waiting for the victim before the shooting. Webb was arrested days later.

An affidavit showed a text thread between Webb and Mann to meet up — the victim’s final moments. Video footage showed Webb kneeling behind a grass hill at the corner of Oak Tree and Forest Glen, concealing himself from the victim, the affidavit said.

Video shows the victim walking around the small grass hill and the defendant firing multiple shots at him before fleeing. Detectives said they found video surveillance of the defendant running through the city of Daytona Beach Public Works parking lots and video showing him shirtless, holding a light-colored sweater and a black shirt, and hiding in bushes on the property.

In a Ring doorbell video, he was seen running into a yard, hiding behind an RV and then reemerging and ducking into a wood line as a vehicle passed, the document said.

After his arrest, Webb told investigators a shifting story about his whereabouts at the time of the murder, court documents said. When a detective confronted him about his inconsistencies and said police had video tracking his whereabouts, Webb pretended not to know what the detective was talking about.

“But after further interviewing,” the affidavit said, “Webb admitted to shooting Telan Mann and claimed it to be self-defense due to Telan Mann attacking him with a knife.”

Webb said he took the knife after he shot Mann before admitting the victim did not have a knife, the affidavit said.

Webb admitted to talking to Mann online since February 2022 through a fake Instagram account, court documents said describing the “catfishing” scheme. Webb also told police that Mann started saying Webb was gay and that some people began to believe it, the documents said.

“So Webb advised he created the fake Instagram to get back at Telan Mann,” the affidavit said.

He said the shooting was an accident and admitted the 9 mm handgun found underneath a basketball hoop was the firearm used to kill him, court documents said.

Mann’s obituary said he tried to live a life with peace and love.

“He loved people and the need to feel loved, he was always smiling, cheerful and was all about family,” the obit said.

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Idaho fails to execute serial killer Thomas Creech

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 23:07:30 +0000

An Idaho Department of Corrections vehicle patrols the exterior of the Idaho Maximum Security Institution near Kuna, Idaho on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Thomas Eugene Creech, inset, was set to be executed, but officials couldn’t stick an IV into his arm. (AP Photo/Kyle Green)

Idaho officials Wednesday morning halted the execution of the man who murdered five people because they couldn’t insert an IV into his arm to give him the drugs to kill him.

Thomas Eugene Creech, 73, was set to die Wednesday, but prison officials said they stopped the process when three different medical professionals tried eight times to stick the IV into him but failed, Idaho Department of Corrections Director Josh Tewalt told reporters afterward. They tried in Creech’s arms, legs, hands and feet. The warden halted the execution just before 11 a.m.

Officials began the lethal injection process hours after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to issue a stay to halt the execution. But after the failed attempt, his lawyers filed another emergency motion for an immediate stay of execution.

“Given the badly botched execution attempt this morning, which proves IDOC’s inability to carry out a humane and constitutional execution, undersigned counsel preemptively seek an emergency stay of execution to prevent any further attempts today,” his attorneys said.

Tewalt said Creech’s death warrant has expired and the IDOC is considering its next steps.

Creech’s attorneys issued a statement blasting prison officials.

“We are angered but not surprised that the State of Idaho botched the execution of Thomas Creech today,” the statement said. “This is what happens when unknown individuals with unknown training are assigned to carry out an execution … This is precisely the kind of mishap we warned the state and the courts could happen when attempting to execute one of the country’s oldest death-row inmates in circumstances completely shielded in secrecy despite a well-known history of getting drugs from shady sources.”

A statement from Thomas Creech’s lawyers in Idaho, who say he was stuck with a needle ten times in a botched attempt to execute him with “mysteriously acquired pentobarbital.” pic.twitter.com/qQc5zoLebx

— Maurice Chammah🍹🎻 (@MauriceChammah) February 28, 2024

An Associated Press reporter who witnessed the execution attempt described Creech mouthing, “I love you,” to family members in a separate witness room as officials tried to stick the IV.

Creech was being executed for murdering a fellow inmate, 22-year-old David Dale Jensen, in 1981. He was convicted of four other murders in Idaho, California and Oregon dating to the 1970s. His “last” meal consisted of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and ice cream.

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Idaho legislators advance bill to execute child rapists

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 19:00:28 +0000

Idaho Rep. Bruce D. Skaug addresses the state legislature about H.B. 515, a measure that would allow for the execution of certain sex offenders who victimize children.

Republican lawmakers in Idaho have proposed a new law that would allow certain sex crimes against children to be punishable by death. The move positions the state to join Florida in adopting a controversial measure that conflicts directly with Supreme Court precedent saying such executions would violate the Eighth Amendment.

Passed 57-11 mainly along party lines Tuesday, House Bill 515 amends the statute covering lewd conduct with child under age 12 with aggravating circumstances to carry a penalty of capital punishment. Co-sponsor Rep. Bruce Skaug, a Republican, has said that the death penalty would be used only for the most heinous cases such as repeat offenders. The bill next heads to the Idaho Senate for committee review.

Initially, Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, also a Republican, voted against the bill, but later reversed her decision once the vote had been ratified. Michelsen did not comment on the reasons for her changed vote. Prior to the vote, Mickelson told the Idaho Capital Sun that while she shares concerns over heinous crimes, that Idaho money would be better spent waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on other cases — referring to similar laws passed recently in Florida that are expected to reach the high court.

“There is a deep, dark, dark side in our culture, and it’s our job to protect the children,” said Skaug. “There are times when things are so wicked that retribution is appropriate.”

Skaug said that imposition of a death sentence under the law would be “very rare,” but promised, “but it will happen.”

He added, “And I say to you when you see that case, you read it in the newspaper you’re going to say this is the once case this needs to happen.”

Currently, Idaho law allows the capital punishment only in first-degree murder cases.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in the case of Kennedy v. Louisiana that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the death penalty for child rapists. Skaug said on the Idaho house floor that he believed that case was wrongly decided and made clear that he considered the legality of executing child rapists unsettled.

“Well there’s constitutional and there’s constitutional,” Skaug told House lawmakers. “Depends on the court of the day.”

Kennedy v. Louisiana was decided by a closely divided Court. None of the five justices — Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer, David Souter, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — who made up the majority are still on the Court.

Those in dissent were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas — three of whom are still on the bench, joined now by justices who have taken even more conservative positions than the late Justice Scalia did in many cases. Given the Court’s current makeup, the issue of capital punishment for child rape could very well be reversed.

Skaug told the Idaho legislature that he believed the current Court, without the five justices who made up the Kennedy v. Louisiana majority, would rule differently on the issue of executing child rapists.

ACLU of Idaho spokesperson Rebecca De León said that litigating the constitutionality of House Bill 515 was “a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.”

“I highly doubt it will reach the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court has already ruled on this,” De León continued. “We already have laws in place that punish people that don’t violate their Eighth Amendment rights.

Other opponents echoed De León’s concerns.

Rep. Jack Nelsen, the lone remaining Republican opponent of the bill, said he was primarily concerned about the judicious use of taxpayer money.

“Florida already passed this. It’s obviously in the courts,” Nelsen told the Idaho Capital Sun. “I see no reason to spend hard-earned Idaho taxpayer’s dollars on a bill that’s a little bit of time and patience, we’ll know what the outcome is.”

Likewise, Rep. John Gannon, a Democrat, said the House floor that the bill was unconstitutional and predicted that the Supreme Court would not reverse itself. Gannon said funding would be better used hiring additional detectives to solve crimes.

Nearly a year ago, Idaho passed a law that would allow death row inmates to be executed by firing squad.

Idaho last executed Richard Albert Leavitt in 2012 via lethal injection. The state is planning to execute serial killer Thomas Creech on Feb. 28. Creech is Idaho’s longest-serving death row inmate, who has been awaiting execution for over 44 years.

Another inmate, Gerald Pizzuto, Jr., a terminally ill man, has been on death row for three decades for the killing of two gold prospectors in 1985. Pizzuto’s execution was scheduled for last March, but was stayed because Idaho could not obtain the necessary drugs for use in the execution. The lack of available chemicals was one reason why Idaho chose to revive the legality of firing squad as a means of execution.

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Supreme Court doesn’t stop nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas

homesafetytechpros — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 21:59:11 +0000

U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court doesn’t stop nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 25, 2024, 10:26 am CST

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to intervene in the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in one of two pending appeals. (Image from Shutterstock)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to block the execution of a death row inmate who claims that he would be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment if Alabama tries to execute him again—this time using nitrogen hypoxia.

The Supreme Court declined to intervene in the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in one of two pending appeals. The Eighth Amendment argument before the high court was based on Alabama’s second attempt to kill the convicted murderer after executioners were unable to insert an intravenous line in November 2022, the New York Times reports here and here.

Smith’s lawyers say the experience caused trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder.

A second appeal claims that Alabama isn’t ready to try the untested nitrogen hypoxia execution method, and that the mask that it is using to deliver the nitrogen could let in oxygen, prolonging the death process, according to the New York Times.

Smith’s lawyers planned to take that issue to the Supreme Court after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Atlanta denied his injunction request Wednesday.

Other publications covering the case, besides the New York Times, include Reuters, the Washington Post and Law Dork.

Smith’s execution was scheduled for Thursday evening. He was convicted for his role in the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, a pastor’s wife.

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Sotomayor issues warning over nitrogen hypoxia execution

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 15:30:53 +0000

Left: Right: This undated photo provided by Alabama Department of Corrections shows inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted in a 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of a preacher’s wife. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP). Right: Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor poses for the official photo at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 7, 2022. (OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

The U.S. Supreme Court did not intervene to stop the nation’s first execution by nitrogen hypoxia — a move that all three justices of the court’s liberal wing opposed.

“With deep sadness, but commitment to the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment, I respectfully dissent,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a dissent issued Thursday afternoon regarding the then-pending execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith. Smith, 58, was put to death Thursday night.

As Law&Crime previously reported, Smith has been on death row since 1996 for his role in a gory murder-for-hire plot that left a minister’s wife dead after a vicious beating and repeated stabbing inside her Alabama home in 1988. After years of legal wrangling and a failed execution attempt in November 2022, Smith died by capital punishment on Thursday night, after Justice Clarence Thomas rejected Smith’s final appeal in a two-sentence denial earlier that day.

“The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied,” the order said. “The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.”

Sotomayor’s disdain for this rejection — and Alabama’s commitment to using nitrogen hypoxia to kill Smith — was apparent.

“Having failed to kill Smith on its first attempt, Alabama has selected him as its ‘guinea pig’ to test a method of execution never attempted before,” she wrote in her dissent. “The world is watching.”

Calling the nitrogen hypoxia method “untested” and noting that Alabama only released its “heavily redacted protocol under five months ago,” Sotomayor described the way Smith would experience his death in stark terms.

“What Smith knows is that he will be strapped to a gurney,” she wrote. “He will wear a nitrogen-supplying, off-the-rack mask for which the State has not fitted him or even tried on him. Once the nitrogen is flowing into the mask, his executioners will not intervene and will not remove the mask, even if Smith vomits into it and chokes on his own vomit.”

According to The Associated Press, Smith’s execution took around 22 minutes, and he was pronounced dead at 8:25 p.m. Smith was apparently conscious for several minutes, and The Associated Press described him as shaking and writhing on the gurney for at least two minutes, at times pulling against his restraints. His death by nitrogen hypoxia marked the first time that a new execution method was used since lethal injection was introduced in 1982.

Sotomayor said that Smith had valid legal challenges to the execution method, and admonished her fellow justices for “again” allowing Alabama to “‘experiment . . . with a human life,’ while depriving Smith of ‘meaningful discovery’ on meritorious constitutional claims.”

According to Sotomayor, allowing Smith to complete discovery into nitrogen hypoxia is valuable for future death row inmates, in addition to Smith.

“That information is important not only to Smith, who has an extra reason to fear the gurney, but to anyone the State seeks to execute after him using this novel method,” she wrote.

In her dissent, Sotomayor appeared to mourn a version of the Supreme Court that she described as having relatively recently valued Eighth Amendment protections.

“Not long ago, this Court remarked that “[t]he Eighth Amendment’s protection of dignity reflects the Nation we have been, the Nation we are, and the Nation we aspire to be,”” she wrote (citations omitted). “This case shows how that protection can be all too fragile.”

Her colleagues on the bench, she said, have “ignored Smith’s warning that Alabama will subject him to an unconstitutional risk of pain,” and recalled that he has already “survived to describe the intense fear and pain [he] experienced during Alabama’s tortuous attempts to execute [him].”

“This time, he predicts that Alabama’s protocol will cause him to suffocate and choke to death on his own vomit,” she continued. “I sincerely hope that he is not proven correct a second time.”

Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, issued a separate dissent emphasizing the “novel” use of the nitrogen hypoxia method.

“The State’s protocol was developed only recently, and is even now under revision to prevent Smith from choking on his own vomit,” Kagan wrote. She said that Alabama “declined to provide Smith with all the discovery respecting its protocol which he has requested,” and added that he “has a well-documented medical condition posing special risks” from the chosen method of execution.

Kagan wrote that in 2015, the Supreme Court set an “extremely demanding standard” for showing a potential violation of the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment — specifically, someone seeking an alternative method of execution must show that serious pain is “sure of very likely” to occur.

“Arguably, that standard can work fairly only when more is capable of being known about an execution method,” Kagan wrote. “To allow this Court to address that important issue, I would also grant Smith’s application for a stay of execution.”

The first attempt to execute Smith via lethal injection in November 2022 failed after intravenous lines needed for the procedure could not be connected to him properly and the clock ran out on the warrant to execute him. The state moved ahead with plans to execute him again, but that prompted a lawsuit from Smith in which he requested death by nitrogen hypoxia, for which protocols were incomplete at that point.

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SCOTUS gives go-ahead for nitrogen gas execution in Alabama

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 22:24:58 +0000

This undated photo provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections shows inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted in a 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of a preacher’s wife. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP, File)

The state of Alabama has tried to kill Kenneth Eugene Smith before. Now, with the U.S. Supreme Court’s tacit approval, executioners will have their chance once again on Thursday. This time using nitrogen gas.

On Wednesday, with no recorded dissents, the nine justices on the nation’s highest court declined to pause what will be the first of its kind: an experimental execution enacted by nitrogen hypoxia.

The court declined to say why it allowed the execution to go forward.

“The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied,” the terse order reads. “The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.”

The Yellowhammer State’s chosen method to kill Smith is supposed to work by the death row inmate inhaling nitrogen to the point that he does not receive enough oxygen to his tissues and eventually dies.

Alabama announced the first system of its kind in August 2023, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. State Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, announced that Smith would be the first person subject to nitrogen hypoxia in November 2023.

The 58-year-old was convicted of killing a reverend’s wife in a murder-for-hire plot in 1988. He was first sentenced to life in prison by jurors. Then, the trial judge overruled the jury and sentenced Smith to death. He has been on death row since 1996 and confessed to his role in the brutal beating and stabbing death of Elizabeth Sennett, 45.

Alabama initially tried to execute Smith in November 2022. For nearly two hours, medical executioners repeatedly tried to find the proper place to attach the intravenous lines needed. Eventually, the clock ran out on the warrant to execute him. The state moved ahead with plans to execute Smith again, which, in turn, prompted a lawsuit.

The second execution was paused by a federal appeals court in 2023 but a district court finally gave the go-ahead earlier this month.

In that order, U.S. District Judge Austin Huffaker noted that Smith himself requested execution by nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative method — highlighting the agony of the botched lethal injection.

Huffaker mused that the inmate asked to be executed this way simply because he was trying to delay his punishment as the state worked out its final protocols for death by nitrogen hypoxia.

Once that was done, Huffaker noted, Smith then changed course and argued that method would not be appropriate either.

“Now that Alabama is prepared to carry out his sentence using the method of execution he has consistently declared he prefers, the circumstances have changed,” the judge wrote. “And what was once highly unlikely is now a certainty. With that change, Smith now seeks to enjoin the Defendants from carrying out his death sentence using the Protocol, arguing it unconstitutionally superadds pain such that the court should order the Defendants to amend it or execute him by firing squad, a ‘relatively uncommon and archaic’ method.”

In his denied petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, Smith took note of the newness of the planned method of death — as well as the rare instance of a state trying to kill the same person twice.

“For its second attempt, the State obtained permission from the Alabama Supreme Court to employ nitrogen hypoxia — a novel method of execution that has never been attempted by any state or the federal government — using a recently-released and untested protocol,” defense attorneys wrote. “States have failed at executions before. But upon information and belief, if Alabama proceeds with its planned execution attempt, it will be only the second time in U.S. history that a state follows through with a second execution attempt after a previous, failed attempt.”

Anti-death penalty advocates are protesting on Wednesday night. At least some activists believe the discourse surrounding the experimental nature of the execution is a bit of a sideshow.

“The discussion that is missing in all of this hubbub around nitrogen hypoxia is the mental torture of a second execution attempt,” Death Penalty Action Executive Director Abraham Bonowitz said in a statement provided to Law&Crime. “That, and the fact that if Kenny Smith were on trial today, he could not be sentenced to death at all because his jury was not unanimous regarding his sentence, and jury overrides were outlawed in Alabama in 2017. Alabama’s capital punishment system as a whole is broken and cannot be trusted to get it right.”

Brandi Buchman and Elura Nanos contributed to this report.

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