Barring

Convicted killer Christa Gail Pike is asking a federal court to bar the state from killing her.

Having exhausted — for now, at least — state court appeals, Pike is now turning to U.S. District Court in what is proving an 18-year battle to escape death row for the 1995 slaying of romantic rival Colleen Slemmer at the now-defunct Job Corps training program for troubled youth, then in Fort Sanders.

In a 123-page petition filed on Pike's behalf, Assistant Federal Defender Stephen A. Ferrell lists a host of reasons why Pike's constitutional rights were violated in both the 1996 trial in Knox County Criminal Court and penalty phase and those violations ignored by Tennessee's appellate courts.

Among them is a claim that executing Pike via lethal injection would amount to "cruel and unusual punishment" because she was "a mentally ill, cognitively impaired, immature adolescent" at the time of the killing.

Old Time Murder

Nineteen year-old Madeleine Smith may have been charged in 1857 with poisoning her lover, Emile L’Angelier, but her real sin was having sex – a lot of sex – out of wedlock.

Her mistake was to write him frank and passionate letters, described by the trial judge as ‘without any sense of decency’, which L’Angelier threatened to send to her father when she cooled on the idea of marriage, having secretly engaged herself to someone else.

No Choice

A jury of eight women and four men will start deliberating Friday morning in Erie County Court in the homicide trial of 31-year-old Rachel A. Kozloff.

The prosecution and defense ended their closing arguments at about 3:55 p.m. today, and Judge Shad Connelly adjourned the courtroom for the day. He said he will give the jury its instructions at 9 a.m. Friday, with deliberations to follow.

The defense in its closing argument characterized Kozloff as an abused and frightened girlfriend who acted in self-defense when she fatally shot her boyfriend, Michael Henry, 31, in April because he attacked in a rage whose origin Kozloff could not specify.

"She was forced to kill a man she cared for," Kozloff's court-appointed lawyer, Jamie Mead, said in his 55-minute closing argument. "No one wants to do that ... but she had no choice."

Meidinger

It took three tries to kill Jennifer Daugherty after she was tortured by six roommates in a Greensburg apartment two years ago, an accused accomplice testified Thursday.

Melvin Knight repeatedly plunged a kitchen knife into Daugherty, but she was still alive, Amber Meidinger testified Thursday. Ricky Smyrnes grabbed the knife and slit Daugherty's wrist, Meidinger said.

“Ricky comes out and says the (expletive) still ain't dead,” Meidinger told the Westmoreland County jury who must decide if Smyrnes should be convicted of first-degree murder.

When that did not work, Smyrnes directed Knight to get Christmas lights they used to wrap around Daugherty's neck and choke her, Meidinger said.

She spent nearly five hours on the witness stand as prosecutors seek the death penalty against Smyrnes, 26, formerly of Irwin and McKeesport.

Knight, 23, formerly of Swissvale, was sentenced to death in August.

Meidinger, 23, of Greensburg testified she has no plea deal and faces a possible death sentence if convicted.

The witness, speaking slowly and at times sobbing, said Daugherty's killing came after Smyrnes called “family meetings” of the group.

Smyrnes devised the murder plan and forced Daugherty to write a fake suicide note, Meidinger said.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/3438227-74/daugherty-smyrnes-group#ixzz2KJ0XiTqD 
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