US Sixth Amendment extended ensuring that immigrants have a constitutional right to be told by their lawyers whether pleading guilty to a crime could lead to their deportation, the Supreme Court said Wednesday. The high court’s ruling extends the Constitution’s Sixth Amendment guarantee of ”effective assistance of counsel” in criminal cases to immigration advice, especially […]
Archives for March 2010
Zeigler, Part VI
Zeigler, Part VI: On Preliminary Crime Scene Approach & Investigation Orange County Sheriff’s Office Detective Donald Frye was on duty in the Crime against Persons Section. After investigating the crime scene, he concluded that these four people did not die at the same time. With that, I agree. According to Frye, Mays had been shot […]
Zeigler, Part V
Zeigler, Part V: The Bodies Mr. Charlie Mays was savagely beaten, his face disfigured with blood coming through his skull, and he had been shot twice in the abdomen (once from the front and once from the back). Judging from the blood splatters, Mays had been beaten to death where he was found. The killer […]
Zeigler, Part IV
On March 12, 1976, Robert Eagan, then state attorney, wrote to Mayor Marvin Peele, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, and the Orange County Court House, that he is very concerned about the way the evidence in the Zeigler case is being handled. The entire letter is here: In Dec 1975, a quadruple murder took place […]
Hawley Harvey Crippen
I enjoyed reading Crippen by John Boyne about of course, Hawley Harvey Crippen. On October 18, 1910, almost 100 years ago, the murder trial of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen started at the Old Bailey, UK. It gripped the public, as had his flight with his mistress who was dressed as a boy, and the police chase across the […]
Hagy pleads no contest, sentenced to life
William R. Hagy Jr., convicted of first-degree murder for strangling a Roanoke woman in 1984, pleaded no contest today to the 1985 murder of another woman in her Old Southwest home and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Hagy, 49, was sentenced to two concurrent life terms by Roanoke Circuit Judge William Broadhurst. Under a plea […]
DNA: a civil right?
The Houston Chronicle has an interesting article related on DNA as related to the Skinner case. It discusses that the United States Supreme Court (USSC) must consider if inmates’ requests for DNA testing can be handled as civil rights claims — a question that has split the nation’s top federal courts. The USSC on Thursday […]
Update Ray Hagy trial
William Ray Hagy Jr., who was convicted this week of one 1980s murder and is accused of another, is to plead no contest Friday to resolve the remaining charges against him, said his attorney, Gary Lumsden. Ray Hagy, 49, also is to be sentenced Friday, the Roanoke Circuit Court Clerk’s office confirmed. Ray Hagy, who […]
Update Yolanda Baker Trial
Closing arguments have began in the Yolanda Baker trial. She went missing about 11 years ago and was legally declared dead in 2009. She was the mother to twins, a boy and a girl. This is only the third time that a “no body” murder case was tried in D.C. according to a U.S. attorney’s […]
The order to stay the Skinner execution
(ORDER LIST: 559 U.S.) WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2010 ORDER IN PENDING CASE 09-9000 SKINNER, HENRY W. V. SWITZER, LYNN (O9A743) “The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Scalia and by him referred to the Court is granted pending disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari. Should the […]
Hank Johnson to be exhumed
Hank Johnson was murdered more than 100 miles away from home almost two years ago and a key clue may be buried with him. His mother, Sandi Johnson will be at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery to watch what she thinks should have been done a long time ago. She believes he was buried with crucial […]
Zeigler, Part III
The Unusual Crime Scene, Zeigler (part 3): Despite that this large, dark furniture store was a crime scene with multiple bodies inside, police did not hesitate to enter it several times. Orange County Sheriff’s Office deputies and other officers violated basic rules of procedure by entering a dark crime scene knowing they will disturb evidence. […]
Execution halted for Hank Skinner!
The U.S. Supreme Court stopped the Hank Skinner execution about an hour before he could have been taken to the Texas death chamber. The brief order grants him the delay but does not ensure he will get such testing. The court order came as relatives of Busby were climbing the steps of the Huntsville prison […]
Hagy, presenting no defense, guilty of 1984 slaying
William Ray Hagy Jr. on Tuesday denied killing a Roanoke woman in 1984, speaking not from the witness stand in his murder trial but in a 2-year-old recorded interview played by prosecutors. “I have a feeling you’re going to charge me with this,” Hagy said in the conversation with the Roanoke police detective who reopened […]
Uncovering The Mystery Of The ‘Clinton Avenue Five’
Uncovering The Mystery Of The ‘Clinton Avenue Five’ is not an easy task. Police have cracked a major cold case that’s gone unsolved for more than 30 years. Five teenagers vanished on a summer day in 1978. But now, the family members of those missing have new reason for hope. For justice, because the boys are […]
Update Cynthia Denise McCray
Willam Hagy Jr. just pleaded not guilty in the cold case murder of Cynthia Denise McCray from 1984, see my post “Hagy goes on trial today in 1984 slaying.” Hagy’s defense attorney argued for and won a bench trial, meaning there will not be a jury to decide Hagy’s guilty or innocence. The judge delayed a […]
Hagy on trial today in 1984 slaying
Two Roanoke women killed less than six months apart. Their unclothed bodies left about a mile from each other. Both strangled during or after sex. For almost a quarter-century, any connection between the slayings of Cynthia Denise McCray, a 21-year-old black woman dumped under an Interstate 581 overpass, and Audrey Anne West, a 33-year-old white […]
Remains WWII bomber George Hadden found
It was summer 1943 and RAF volunteer George Hadden had set out on another dangerous bombing mission to Germany with his crew. The 20-year-old flight engineer, from Kings Heath, Birmingham, had signed up soon after the Second World War broke out. George had successfully completed other missions to the war-ravaged continent with his Stirling bomber […]
Tommy Zeigler, Part II
Tommy Zeigler is a quiet man, in control of his emotions, not wearing his heart on his sleeve and to most, he comes across as reserved. Very reserved. He used to be politically active behind the scenes in his hometown of Winter Garden, Florida. He had once led a successful drive to unseat a longtime […]
DNA lab offers help in Hank Skinner case
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals may be indifferent to the truth in the Hank Skinner case (focusing only on procedural questions), but Chromosomal Laboratories in Phoenix, Arizona, isn’t. In response to a plea by the Innocence Project, Chromosomal Laboratories in Phoenix, Arizona has offered its accredited DNA testing services to help pursue justice. The […]