Shonda Walter, a 36-year-old Black woman on Pennsylvanias death row
"Shonda Walter is one of two women who currently sits on Pennsylvanias death row. Pennsylvania has two womens prisons, Muncy and Cambridge Springs..
The question of how Shonda Walters ended up on death row may be the final nail in the coffin of the death penalty in the United States. Shonda Walters story hinges on the State-allotted destiny for young, low and no-income, Black women.
Shonda Walter was tried and convicted for murder. At the time of the murder, Shonda Walter was in her early 20s. At her first trial, Shonda Walters lawyers were a hot mess. They freely conceded her guilt to the jury, and they never presented her, or the jury, with any options or explanations. In her appeal, the judge described her attorney as unintelligible. The Pennsylvania appeals court found that Shonda Walter had indeed had terrible representation, and then went on to uphold the conviction and sentence....
Shonda Walter has new attorneys who have filed a brief with the Supreme Court. Her attorneys argue that the ordinariness, the typicality, of Shonda Walters case, or pre-ordained fate, means the death penalty is unconstitutional. The adjudication of death sentences is capricious, arbitrary, and bears more than a `taint of racism...."
http://www.womeninandbeyond.org/?p=19712
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Shonda Dee WALTER
"Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: To steal and sell his car to pay off court debts and gain entry into the Bloods street gang in Lock Haven
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder: March 25, 2003
Date of birth: July 16, 1979
Victim profile: Her neighbor, 83-year-old James Sementelli
Method of murder: Beating 66 times with a 10-inch hatchet
Location: Lock Haven, Clinton County, Pennsylvania, USA
Status: Sentenced to death on April 19, 2005..."
http://murderpedia.org/female.W/w/walter-shonda.htm
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Could One of These Cases Spell the End of the Death Penalty?
Abolitionists seek the perfect case for a Supreme Court challenge.
"Last June, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer suggested that the death penalty might be close to its ultimate demise. Rather than try to patch up the death penaltys legal wounds one at a time, he wrote in a dissent to Glossip v. Gross, to which Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg added her name, I would ask for a full briefing on a more basic question: whether the death penalty violates the Constitution....
On Friday, the high court will discuss whether to hear a challenge to the death sentence of a Pennsylvania woman named
Shonda Walter. Her case is one of several posed as direct responses to Breyers invitation to attack the death penalty head-on...
Shonda Walter, whose case will be discussed in a conference of the judges on Friday, was convicted in 2005 of killing 83-year-old James Sementelli with a hatchet in the small, central Pennsylvania town of Lock Haven. She was 24 years old. Walters current defense team argues that her trial was unfair in part because her trial lawyer openly conceded her guilt to the jury (she tried to have a new lawyer appointed, but the judge refused). In an appeal, the trial lawyer made arguments that one judge described as unintelligible. Her new lawyers argue that Walter emerged from an arbitrary process which fails to limit the death penalty to the worst offenders....
https://www.themarshallproject.org/...spell-the-end-of-the-death-penalty#.L2cKJt40k
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Supreme Court Faces Decisions On Where To Go Next With The Death Penalty
"WASHINGTON Five months after two Supreme Court justices made clear that they have serious questions about the constitutionality of the death penalty, lawyers are bringing plenty of related cases to the justices...
Frontal Constitutional Challenge
Shonda Walter, sentenced to death in Pennsylvania in 2005, has brought the most significant challenge to the justices, asking earlier this month for the court to address the fundamental question of the constitutionality of the death penalty head on.
The question presented is whether, in all cases, the imposition of a sentence of death violates the Eighth Amendments prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments, Walters lawyer, Daniel Silverman, writes.
Walter was convicted of murder and sentenced to death for the 2003 killing of an 83-year-old man, James Sementelli.
This is of course the most significant of claims that could be brought to the justices, as it asks for the court to end the death penalty across the board, across the country.
Walters lawyer argues that the death penalty should be abandoned for two reasons: First, our standards of decency have evolved to the point where the institution is no longer constitutionally sustainable.
Second, the assumptions underlying this Courts reinstitution of the death penalty after Furman have proved wrong, flawed, or illusory, Walters lawyers continue. They argue the reliability of the process put in place since the 1970s cases ending and then approving the use of the death penalty still dont protect against wrongful executions and that arbitrariness and racial discrimination remain...."
http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidne...ons-on-where-to-go-next-with-the-d#.apJrwx6yV
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Supreme Court of the United States
No. 15-650 *** CAPITAL CASE ***
Title:
Shonda Walter, Petitioner
v.
Pennsylvania
Docketed: November 17, 2015
Linked with 15A403
Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Eastern District
Case Nos.: (645 CAP)
Decision Date: July 20, 2015
"Jan 15 2016 Rescheduled..."
http://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docketfiles/15-650.htm
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The Death Penalty Endgame
JAN. 16, 2016
"How does the death penalty in America end?
For decades that has been an abstract question. Now there may be an answer in the case of
Shonda Walter, a 36-year-old black woman on Pennsylvanias death row. On Friday, the Supreme Court met to discuss whether to hear a petition from Ms. Walter, who is asking the justices to rule that in all cases, including hers, the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendments ban on cruel and unusual punishments...
Shonda Walters case is the first to take up Justice Breyers challenge. Ms. Walter was convicted of murdering an 83-year-old man named James Sementelli. Her appointed lawyers put on no defense and offered no argument that might have spared her from a death sentence. Pennsylvania appeals courts agreed that she had inexcusably bad representation, but they still upheld her conviction and sentence. Since Ms. Walter does not fit the special categories of defendants who are shielded from the death penalty, her appeal is based on the claim that all executions violate the Constitution...."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/o...dit_ty_20160119&nl=opinion&nlid=73927810&_r=0
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SHONDA WALTER,
Petitioner,
v.
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA,
Respondent.
_____________________
Petition for Writ of Certiorari to
the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
THIS IS A CAPITAL CASE
----------------------------------------------
QUESTION PRESENTED
Recently, Justice Stephen Breyer suggested that rather
than try to patch up the death penaltys legal wounds one
at a time, the Court should entertain full briefing on a
more basic question: whether the death penalty violates the
Constitution. Glossip v. Gross, 135 S. Ct. 2726, 2755
(2015) (Breyer, J., dissenting). This case, which seeks a
writ of certiorari following the affirmance on direct appeal
of Petitioners death sentence, provides this Court that
opportunity. The question presented is:
Whether, in all cases, the imposition of a sentence of
death violates the Eighth Amendments prohibition against
cruel and unusual punishments...."
http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/pdf/Shonda_Walter_Petition.pdf
WS thread: http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...es-in-hatchet-attack-Lock-Haven-25-March-2003
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