Post by Anja on Jun 7, 2006 1:37:41 GMT -5
Death penalty vacated for child killer
A death-row inmate who admitted to killing his 2-year-old daughter by
setting her on fire will get another chance to avoid execution. The
Arizona Supreme Court unanimously decided Tuesday that Shawn Grell did not
give up his right to a jury sentencing when he waived his right to a jury
trial in 2000.
Grell admitted that on Dec. 2, 1999, he picked up his daughter Kristen
from day care, took her to a fast-food restaurant, bought a gasoline can
and drove her to a remote county island between Mesa and Apache Junction.
He said he laid his sleeping daughter down in the dirt, splashed gasoline
on her and lit a match.
She woke up and ran around in circles before succumbing.
Grell turned himself in a few hours later. He decided to let Judge Barbara
Jarrett of Maricopa County Superior Court decide his guilt rather than a
jury. Grell and the state agreed upon a certain set of facts to present to
Jarrett, and she convicted him of 1st-degree murder.
The agreement contained a provision that said he wouldn't give up any
rights he "may have" to a jury sentencing.
But Jarrett denied Grell's request for a jury sentencing, and she
condemned him June 2001, but a year later the U.S. Supreme Court declared
Arizona's law of judges determining death rather than juries
unconstitutional.
"Grell's stipulation was thus not a meaningless reservation of a
pipe-dream right," Justice Rebecca White Berch wrote in the 52-page
ruling.
(source: East Valley Tribune)
A death-row inmate who admitted to killing his 2-year-old daughter by
setting her on fire will get another chance to avoid execution. The
Arizona Supreme Court unanimously decided Tuesday that Shawn Grell did not
give up his right to a jury sentencing when he waived his right to a jury
trial in 2000.
Grell admitted that on Dec. 2, 1999, he picked up his daughter Kristen
from day care, took her to a fast-food restaurant, bought a gasoline can
and drove her to a remote county island between Mesa and Apache Junction.
He said he laid his sleeping daughter down in the dirt, splashed gasoline
on her and lit a match.
She woke up and ran around in circles before succumbing.
Grell turned himself in a few hours later. He decided to let Judge Barbara
Jarrett of Maricopa County Superior Court decide his guilt rather than a
jury. Grell and the state agreed upon a certain set of facts to present to
Jarrett, and she convicted him of 1st-degree murder.
The agreement contained a provision that said he wouldn't give up any
rights he "may have" to a jury sentencing.
But Jarrett denied Grell's request for a jury sentencing, and she
condemned him June 2001, but a year later the U.S. Supreme Court declared
Arizona's law of judges determining death rather than juries
unconstitutional.
"Grell's stipulation was thus not a meaningless reservation of a
pipe-dream right," Justice Rebecca White Berch wrote in the 52-page
ruling.
(source: East Valley Tribune)