News Brief — Coronavirus Effects Continue to be Felt in Capital Prosecutions

NEWS (4/​24/​20) — California: The death penal­ty tri­al of Kori Muhammad for the killings of four peo­ple in two sep­a­rate inci­dents end­ed with­out advanc­ing to a penal­ty phase just two days after a Fresno County jury con­vict­ed him of one count of first-degree mur­der and three counts of sec­ond-degree mur­der. The tri­al had been inter­rupt­ed by coro­n­avirus court clo­sures, with guilt-phase jury delib­er­a­tions halt­ed for four weeks in March, then com­plet­ed on April 22.

Prosecutors agreed to with­draw the death penal­ty in exchange for Muhammad’s with­draw­al of his insan­i­ty plea. A san­i­ty hear­ing had been sched­uled for April 27, 2020 in front of Judge Jonathan B. Conklin (pic­tured). The res­o­lu­tion of the case avoid­ed the neces­si­ty of bring­ing jurors, lay and expert wit­ness­es, the defense and pros­e­cu­tion teams, and court per­son­nel into the cour­t­house for a poten­tial­ly exten­sive penalty-phase proceeding.

NEWS (4/​24/​20) — Ohio: The Butler County Court of Common Pleas has resched­uled a hear­ing on a motion to sup­press evi­dence in the death-penal­ty tri­al of Gurpreet Singh, as a result of health con­cerns relat­ed to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. Singh is charged with killing his wife and three oth­er family members.

The sup­pres­sion hear­ing, which began with a day-long hear­ing in March, was ini­tial­ly con­tin­ued for two weeks and then delayed again until April 27. It is now sched­uled for June 22. It is antic­i­pat­ed that the pend­ing September 21, 2020 tri­al date will be resched­uled at that time.

NEWS (4/​22/​20) — California: Citing coro­n­avirus health con­cerns, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge has resched­uled an April 22, 2020 motions hear­ing and delayed the sched­uled May 12 pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing of 72-year-old Joseph DeAngelo, charged with 13 mur­ders and oth­er felonies alleged­ly com­mit­ted in the 1970s and 1980s in six California coun­ties. Prosecutors are seek­ing the death penal­ty against DeAngelo, alleged to be the so-called ​“Golden State Killer.” He and many of the 150 wit­ness­es expect­ed to tes­ti­fy at the pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing are in the age range that is most vul­ner­a­ble to the COVID-19 virus. 

The Sacramento County courts are cur­rent­ly closed until May 19. The court set a new June 29 date for argu­ment on the pend­ing motions in the case.

NEWS (4/​17/​20) — Nebraska: A Saline County tri­al court judge has issued an order post­pon­ing the first step of the sen­tenc­ing phase of Nebraska cap­i­tal defen­dant Aubrey Trail’s death-penal­ty tri­al. The penal­ty tri­al — which under Nebraska law con­sists first of a deter­mi­na­tion of whether aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances exist that make a defen­dant eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty and then a penal­ty hear­ing con­duct­ed in front of a three-judge pan­el — was pushed back from June 23 – 26 to December 15 – 18. 

A jury con­vict­ed Trail in July 2019 of first-degree mur­der in the killing and dis­mem­ber­ment of a store clerk. Trail, who slashed his neck with a razor in the court­room in June 2019 after curs­ing the jury, and emailed the Lincoln Journal-Star in January 2020 to say ​“If I am sen­tenced to death, I will file a suit to try and force the state to car­ry out the sen­tence in a time­ly fash­ion,” waived his right to have a jury decide his death-eligibility. 

This is the sec­ond sig­nif­i­cant delay in the penal­ty pro­ceed­ings for Trail. In February 2020, District Judge Julie Smith — who as General Counsel to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services had draft­ed the state’s exe­cu­tion pro­to­col — recused her­self from the sen­tenc­ing pan­el after charges that her par­tic­i­pa­tion in Trail’s sen­tenc­ing would cre­ate an appear­ance of judicial bias.