Post by pumpkinpie on Jan 4, 2010 23:15:52 GMT -5
December 20, 2009
The uneven hand of justice in TN murders
Comparison of similar crimes leaves you wondering: Why is Gaile Owens facing execution?
By John Seigenthaler
There was no obvious link between the two recent national headlines.
One said: "Woman who killed preacher husband gets custody of their three children."
The other read: "Woman on death row loses her last appeal."
There are many striking factual similarities — and one stark difference — in the tragic stories of www.tennessean.com/article/20060325/PROMO/91220005">Mary Winkler and www.tennessean.com/article/20091209/NEWS03/912090391/Woman-on-death-row-awaits-execution-date-from-court">Gaile Owens, two Tennessee women who killed their abusive husbands 20 years apart.
Court documents in the separate cases recite the similarities:
• Both women, raised as fundamentalist Christians, suffered severe physical, sexual and emotional abuse from the spouses they killed.
• Both had small children — Winkler three daughters and Owens two sons — all younger than 12 at the time of the murders.
• Both of them were examined — some 20 years apart — by the same psychologist, Dr. Lynne Zager of Memphis, who said that both suffered from battered woman's syndrome — a condition that courts have recognized as "a female who is the victim of consistent, severe domestic violence."
• Both had concealed from relatives and close friends the suffering they endured at the hands of their husbands; both minimized the abuse when first questioned by police.
• Both were in financially troubled marriages and constantly were blamed by their husbands for being "spendthrift wives." Winkler had kited checks and argued with her husband about money the night before she killed him. Owens had stolen money from her employer, a doctor.
• Both women confessed when questioned by police, and both told the officers they blamed themselves for problems in their marriages.
• In both cases, the spousal abuse included lurid sexual details. In Owens' case, the sexual encounters were more violent and also involved her husband's extramarital affairs.
Mary Winkler's husband, Matthew, was a Church of Christ minister in Selmer in West Tennessee. In 2006, while he was in bed, she confronted him with a shotgun in an effort to discuss their marriage. With her children in the house, she shot him in the back, shattering his spine. Without calling 911, she left him to bleed to death while she drove with her daughters toward an Alabama beach.
Gaile Owens' husband, Ronald, was a nursing supervisor at Baptist Hospital in Memphis. He was beaten to death with a tire iron in 1985 by Sidney Porterfield, a complete stranger Gaile Owens hired on the streets of Memphis. He was never paid. Porterfield is on death row, and his most recent appeal asserts that he is mentally challenged.
Both women were invited at different times to tell their stories on Oprah Winfrey's show. Winkler did so. Owens declined.
The court documents also recite the stark difference in the two killings:
Mary Freeman Winkler, 36, indicted on charges of first-degree murder and convicted of voluntary manslaughter, served 67 days in a mental health facility after conviction and is now free. She has custody of her children and lives in McMinnville.
Gaile Kirksey Owens, 57, is due to be executed by lethal injection on death row at Tennessee State Prison. The state Supreme Court will soon set the date. Owens, who works as a clerk in the prison, would be the first woman executed by the state since Eve Martin, found guilty of murder, was hanged in 1820.
Judges, lawyers played part in differences
The dramatic difference in the sentences received by Winkler and Owens relates directly to the manner in which the two cases were tried, how their separate teams of lawyers handled their cases and how two different judges dealt with their "battered woman" defenses.
Winkler testified personally about the abuse she suffered. Her jury heard from her that she was subjected to mental and sexual abuse, forced by Matthew to watch pornographic films and required to wear seductive attire before having relations. The jurors also heard that she was required to engage in oral sex, which she believed to be "abnormal."
Owens did not take the witness stand in her own defense, so her jury did not hear her battered woman testimony nor about her spouse's cheating with a nurse who was his lover. Documents filed in her appeal detail the physical and emotional abuse that began on her wedding night and continued during marriage.
At the time of trial, Owens told her lawyers she would not testify in her own defense because she wanted to protect her young sons from the details of the sexual and emotional abuse she suffered from their father. Her lawyers say it is for this reason that she has consistently declined requests to tell her story to national news interviewers. The court documents disclose that the abuse included sexual penetration with objects that included a wine bottle and a marijuana pipe. Owens' husband accused her of not properly using birth control pills to prevent pregnancy. Just before the birth of their second son, as a result of rough sex, she suffered a torn placenta and was hospitalized.
Neither did her jurors learn of sexually explicit love letters her spouse had received from the nurse who was his paramour. The prosecutor claimed the letters did not exist, but they were returned by prosecutors to the nurse who wrote them. Police made notes of the letters and some of the sexually explicit language is contained in appeals documents.
At trial, Winkler, still in financial trouble, was surrounded by a team of experienced, able criminal lawyers, whose expenses were paid by her friends, many from her church. Friends also arranged her $750,000 bond. Her jurors heard that she suffered from post-traumatic stress as a result of battered woman's syndrome and had no recollection of pulling the shotgun trigger.
Judge Weber McCraw, who presided at her trial, permitted the jurors to hear expert testimony from Dr. Zager and other psychologists who had found that she was suffering from battered woman's syndrome.
Owens, also in deep financial difficulty, had trouble getting legal representation for her trial. Stephen Shankman, the first lawyer assigned by the court to represent her, immediately recognized that she had a battered woman defense. He withdrew, however, because she could not pay him.
Two other Memphis attorneys, Wayne Emmons and James Marty, then were named by the court to take over her case. When they learned that Owens was entitled to a battered woman defense, they asked the court to provide funds to employ an expert psychologist to develop that evidence.
Unlike Judge McCraw in the Winkler case, Judge Joseph McCartie allowed Dr. Zager to speak only to the narrow question of whether Owens was sane and competent to stand trial. Dr. Zager has filed an affidavit stating that had the court allowed her to do so, she would have told the jury about the "battered woman" evidence.
During a pre-trial motion, Emmons, in seeking help from psychologists, admitted that he knew little about the theory of battered woman syndrome. Judge McCartie told him to "school yourself, . . . either get into the books or talk to psychiatrists." Emmons withdrew from the case 30 days before trial, replaced by another Memphis lawyer, Brett Stein. At trial, Stein and Marty abandoned their battered woman defense and Owens' jurors heard not a word about the abuse she suffered. Two federal public defenders, Gretchen Swift and Kelley Henry, took over her appeal and submitted the first credible evidence that she was subjected to spousal abuse.
The clearest dichotomy between Owens' trial and Winkler's was related to their pleas. Winkler's jurors heard that she was "not guilty" on the grounds that she was a battered wife. Owens tried to plead guilty.
Expressing deep remorse for her actions, she told her lawyers she wanted to accept the prosecutor's offer: a guilty plea in return for a life sentence. She signed the plea-agreement document. But prosecutors then refused to accept it because Porterfield, the actual slayer, would not accept the same plea. Judge McCartie said he had "absolutely no authority" to accept her independent plea. Owens and Porterfield were tried together. The jury sentenced them to death.
As a result Gale Owens is the only inmate in Tennessee prison history to face execution after accepting a prosecutor's offer to plead guilty with a life sentence.
www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200912200210/NEWS03/912200335
The uneven hand of justice in TN murders
Comparison of similar crimes leaves you wondering: Why is Gaile Owens facing execution?
By John Seigenthaler
There was no obvious link between the two recent national headlines.
One said: "Woman who killed preacher husband gets custody of their three children."
The other read: "Woman on death row loses her last appeal."
There are many striking factual similarities — and one stark difference — in the tragic stories of www.tennessean.com/article/20060325/PROMO/91220005">Mary Winkler and www.tennessean.com/article/20091209/NEWS03/912090391/Woman-on-death-row-awaits-execution-date-from-court">Gaile Owens, two Tennessee women who killed their abusive husbands 20 years apart.
Court documents in the separate cases recite the similarities:
• Both women, raised as fundamentalist Christians, suffered severe physical, sexual and emotional abuse from the spouses they killed.
• Both had small children — Winkler three daughters and Owens two sons — all younger than 12 at the time of the murders.
• Both of them were examined — some 20 years apart — by the same psychologist, Dr. Lynne Zager of Memphis, who said that both suffered from battered woman's syndrome — a condition that courts have recognized as "a female who is the victim of consistent, severe domestic violence."
• Both had concealed from relatives and close friends the suffering they endured at the hands of their husbands; both minimized the abuse when first questioned by police.
• Both were in financially troubled marriages and constantly were blamed by their husbands for being "spendthrift wives." Winkler had kited checks and argued with her husband about money the night before she killed him. Owens had stolen money from her employer, a doctor.
• Both women confessed when questioned by police, and both told the officers they blamed themselves for problems in their marriages.
• In both cases, the spousal abuse included lurid sexual details. In Owens' case, the sexual encounters were more violent and also involved her husband's extramarital affairs.
Mary Winkler's husband, Matthew, was a Church of Christ minister in Selmer in West Tennessee. In 2006, while he was in bed, she confronted him with a shotgun in an effort to discuss their marriage. With her children in the house, she shot him in the back, shattering his spine. Without calling 911, she left him to bleed to death while she drove with her daughters toward an Alabama beach.
Gaile Owens' husband, Ronald, was a nursing supervisor at Baptist Hospital in Memphis. He was beaten to death with a tire iron in 1985 by Sidney Porterfield, a complete stranger Gaile Owens hired on the streets of Memphis. He was never paid. Porterfield is on death row, and his most recent appeal asserts that he is mentally challenged.
Both women were invited at different times to tell their stories on Oprah Winfrey's show. Winkler did so. Owens declined.
The court documents also recite the stark difference in the two killings:
Mary Freeman Winkler, 36, indicted on charges of first-degree murder and convicted of voluntary manslaughter, served 67 days in a mental health facility after conviction and is now free. She has custody of her children and lives in McMinnville.
Gaile Kirksey Owens, 57, is due to be executed by lethal injection on death row at Tennessee State Prison. The state Supreme Court will soon set the date. Owens, who works as a clerk in the prison, would be the first woman executed by the state since Eve Martin, found guilty of murder, was hanged in 1820.
Judges, lawyers played part in differences
The dramatic difference in the sentences received by Winkler and Owens relates directly to the manner in which the two cases were tried, how their separate teams of lawyers handled their cases and how two different judges dealt with their "battered woman" defenses.
Winkler testified personally about the abuse she suffered. Her jury heard from her that she was subjected to mental and sexual abuse, forced by Matthew to watch pornographic films and required to wear seductive attire before having relations. The jurors also heard that she was required to engage in oral sex, which she believed to be "abnormal."
Owens did not take the witness stand in her own defense, so her jury did not hear her battered woman testimony nor about her spouse's cheating with a nurse who was his lover. Documents filed in her appeal detail the physical and emotional abuse that began on her wedding night and continued during marriage.
At the time of trial, Owens told her lawyers she would not testify in her own defense because she wanted to protect her young sons from the details of the sexual and emotional abuse she suffered from their father. Her lawyers say it is for this reason that she has consistently declined requests to tell her story to national news interviewers. The court documents disclose that the abuse included sexual penetration with objects that included a wine bottle and a marijuana pipe. Owens' husband accused her of not properly using birth control pills to prevent pregnancy. Just before the birth of their second son, as a result of rough sex, she suffered a torn placenta and was hospitalized.
Neither did her jurors learn of sexually explicit love letters her spouse had received from the nurse who was his paramour. The prosecutor claimed the letters did not exist, but they were returned by prosecutors to the nurse who wrote them. Police made notes of the letters and some of the sexually explicit language is contained in appeals documents.
At trial, Winkler, still in financial trouble, was surrounded by a team of experienced, able criminal lawyers, whose expenses were paid by her friends, many from her church. Friends also arranged her $750,000 bond. Her jurors heard that she suffered from post-traumatic stress as a result of battered woman's syndrome and had no recollection of pulling the shotgun trigger.
Judge Weber McCraw, who presided at her trial, permitted the jurors to hear expert testimony from Dr. Zager and other psychologists who had found that she was suffering from battered woman's syndrome.
Owens, also in deep financial difficulty, had trouble getting legal representation for her trial. Stephen Shankman, the first lawyer assigned by the court to represent her, immediately recognized that she had a battered woman defense. He withdrew, however, because she could not pay him.
Two other Memphis attorneys, Wayne Emmons and James Marty, then were named by the court to take over her case. When they learned that Owens was entitled to a battered woman defense, they asked the court to provide funds to employ an expert psychologist to develop that evidence.
Unlike Judge McCraw in the Winkler case, Judge Joseph McCartie allowed Dr. Zager to speak only to the narrow question of whether Owens was sane and competent to stand trial. Dr. Zager has filed an affidavit stating that had the court allowed her to do so, she would have told the jury about the "battered woman" evidence.
During a pre-trial motion, Emmons, in seeking help from psychologists, admitted that he knew little about the theory of battered woman syndrome. Judge McCartie told him to "school yourself, . . . either get into the books or talk to psychiatrists." Emmons withdrew from the case 30 days before trial, replaced by another Memphis lawyer, Brett Stein. At trial, Stein and Marty abandoned their battered woman defense and Owens' jurors heard not a word about the abuse she suffered. Two federal public defenders, Gretchen Swift and Kelley Henry, took over her appeal and submitted the first credible evidence that she was subjected to spousal abuse.
The clearest dichotomy between Owens' trial and Winkler's was related to their pleas. Winkler's jurors heard that she was "not guilty" on the grounds that she was a battered wife. Owens tried to plead guilty.
Expressing deep remorse for her actions, she told her lawyers she wanted to accept the prosecutor's offer: a guilty plea in return for a life sentence. She signed the plea-agreement document. But prosecutors then refused to accept it because Porterfield, the actual slayer, would not accept the same plea. Judge McCartie said he had "absolutely no authority" to accept her independent plea. Owens and Porterfield were tried together. The jury sentenced them to death.
As a result Gale Owens is the only inmate in Tennessee prison history to face execution after accepting a prosecutor's offer to plead guilty with a life sentence.
www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200912200210/NEWS03/912200335
There was a mountain of evidence Gail Owens was abused and she's sitting on death row. Her lawyers weren't much help to her at that time, it doesn't sound like.