Articles Posted in Criminal Appeals

In April of 2014, Dale Lee Varner of Davenport, IA was found guilty of vehicular homicide in an incident that occurred in September of 2012. At his May 2014 sentencing, Varner was given a 10-year sentence which was later suspended by a Scott County District Judge who instead gave Varner three years of probation.

Varner, who was 45 when the accident occurred, allegedly ran over Martin Eason, a 23-year-old man who Varner said made him worried about the safety of himself and his children when Eason ran out into the roadway and began waving his arms as Varner was dropping his children off at the babysitter’s.

According to a news report at Radio Iowa, Varner admitted he “hit the gas” in hopes that Eason would move out of the roadway. Eason didn’t move, and was run over and dragged by the car; he later died from his injuries. While there was a lesser charge on the table, involuntary manslaughter, the jury decided to convict Varner of vehicular homicide, a more serious charge.

On April 16, 2013 letters which included ricin were delivered to President Obama, Sadie Holland, a Mississippi judge, and Senator Roger Wicker of MS. Shortly thereafter, 41-year-old James Everett Dutschke was arrested by federal authorities on charges he manufactured ricin and sent the potentially deadly chemical through the mail in the letters mentioned above. Now, Dutschke is appealing his conviction once again.

Dutschke pleaded guilty to the charges against him, and is currently serving a 25-year sentence in a Colorado federal prison. Last month, he appealed his conviction claiming the charges were flawed because ricin was listed in the charges as a “biological” weapon rather than a “chemical” weapon. He also now claims he is innocent of the allegations against him, and that his attorney at the time was ineffective. In that appeal, Dutschke was unsuccessful as U.S. District Court Judge Sharion Aycock concluded he waived those rights by initially pleading guilty. Aycock said that at the time he pleaded guilty, he told the court he was satisfied with his lawyer.

Dutschke was required to serve his 25-year sentence in solitary confinement, an administrative measure imposed by the U.S. Dept. of Justice; he appealed this measure as well earlier this year.

Last year, Rio Arriba County Sheriff Tommy Rodella was found guilty of violating a man’s civil rights during a traffic stop. The incident occurred when Rodella was off-duty; the traffic stop gone bad cost Rodella his job, and left him facing a ten year sentence.

According to the New Mexico Political Report, Rodella and his son were driving a jeep when Rodella allegedly chased down a motorist and pulled him over after the man tapped his brakes and flipped the sheriff off. The motorist, a man, said he was upset because he was being tailgated by Rodella’s jeep. After chasing the man down, Rodella and his son allegedly forced the man out of his vehicle at gunpoint. Rodella only showed the man his sheriff’s badge once he was on the ground, slapping it against the victim’s face.

On February 2 of this year, 40-year-old Brian Fitch Sr. was found guilty of the murder of Scott Patrick, a Mendota Heights police officer; he was also convicted of the attempted murder of three other officers. Fitch allegedly shot Patrick during a traffic stop in West St. Paul in July of 2014.

According to news reports, Fitch was a known drug dealer. He was driving a Pontiac Grand Am the day of the shooting, a vehicle that did not belong to him. Because of this, Patrick was not aware of Fitch’s criminal history when he stopped him, and was shot three times from the driver’s side window. He died instantly, although eyewitnesses to the incident nor squad car video could positively identify Fitch. Fitch was arrested in St. Paul later that day and charged with murder and attempted murder following a shootout that took place prior to his arrest.

It was announced on KARE 11 yesterday that Fitch is now appealing his conviction. Fitch claims that he should have been tried in two different counties, as the fatal shooting of Patrick occurred in one county, while the shootout with police who were attempting to apprehend him took place in another county. News reports state jurors were drawn from Ramsey and Dakota counties in the consolidated trial.

In 1990, Johnny Hincapie, a Colombian immigrant, was one of seven men convicted in the stabbing death of 22-year-old Brian Watkins, a Utah man who was in New York with his parents for the U.S. Open tennis tournament when he was killed in a subway station. Now, Hincapie has been set free on a $1 bail by State Supreme Court Justice Eduardo Padro, who said new evidence that Hincapie may not have been involved in the crime warranted a new trial.

Hincapie has been in prison for more than two decades and was sentenced to 25 years to life in stabbing death of Watkins. During his incarceration, he has completed high school and earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree, according to a news article at Kutv.com. Hincapie maintains he is innocent of the allegations against him, and said that he was in a different area of the subway station when the stabbing occurred. He is now 43 years old.

Watkins and his parents were on their way to dinner when according to police, the family was jumped by a group of young men who were attempting to rob money from innocent people so they could go to a dance hall. Watkins’ mother was reportedly kicked and punched by the gang, his father slashed. Watkins is said to have chased the gang of attackers up two stairways after being stabbed in the chest before he collapsed beneath a turnstile.

In 2006, Dallin D. Fort who is now 39 years old was found guilty of raping a relative who was 9 years old at the time the alleged rape occurred in 2003. Now, the Washington Court of Appeal’s Third Division has overturned Fort’s conviction and granted him a new trial.

The decision was unanimous among the three-member panel, who vacated Fort’s 132-month sentence at Airway Heights Corrections Center because of the fact jurors were questioned by the judge in private prior to the beginning of the trial. The appeals court made its decision based on State v. Frawley, a previous Washington Supreme Court opinion that found unless the judge made a written ruling determining a court closure was justified, jury selection could not take place outside the courtroom. Prior to this decision, Washington judges presiding over sex crimes cases routinely questioned potential jurors in private.

Fort appealed his conviction twice, the first time just months following sentencing in early 2006. The appeals court found that because the issue of a public trial was not brought up in the first appeal, Fort’s lawyer at trial provided ineffective counsel. Fort’s conviction in the first appeal was confirmed.

In 1998, Julie Jensen was found dead in the Pleasant Prairie home she shared with her husband, Mark Jensen, and their two children. Initially the death was thought to be a suicide, however in 2007 Mark Jensen was put on trial for first-degree intentional homicide for allegedly poisoning his wife with antifreeze. In February 2008, Jensen was sentenced to life in prison at the Kenosha County, WI Courthouse.

On Tuesday, September 8 of this year, Jensen won an appeal overturning his conviction for the death of his wife, however according to news reports he remains in prison while prosecutors decide whether to retry him for the death of Julie Jensen.

At issue was the admission of a handwritten note from Jensen’s wife that was improperly accepted into evidence, according to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The note said, “if anything happens to me, he would be my first suspect.” Appeals court judges, in a 2-1 decision, said that use of the letter by prosecutors violated the defendant’s constitutional right to face his accusers. The letter was written two weeks prior to Julie’s death, according to news reports.

In November of 1999, Eric Brown of Pontotoc pleaded guilty to the murder of a woman he had been in a relationship with. The woman was pregnant at the time, and Brown was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years for the death and manslaughter of Shorelonda Moore and her unborn child.

Brown was in a relationship with another woman at the time of his relationship with Moore, and had children with both. He married the other woman, who was not named in news reports. A few days later, Brown reportedly strangled Moore behind a Pontotoc restaurant. According to a news article at the Daily Journal, Brown and his wife drove the victim’s vehicle to Memphis where they proceeded to douse it with gas and set it on fire after parking it in an alley. Moore’s body was discovered the next day.

Brown appealed his murder conviction, which was recently upheld by the Mississippi Court of Appeals. The defendant argued upon appealing his conviction and sentence that due to the fact the Circuit Court did not conduct a competency hearing prior to accepting his guilty plea, his fundamental rights were violated. The appeals court did not agree, and upheld Brown’s conviction and life sentence on Tuesday, August 11.

In April of this year, 25-year-old Aaron Hernandez, former tight end for the New England Patriots, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the June 2013 shooting of Odin Lloyd in a deserted industrial park. Lloyd was allegedly dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancée, according to a news article at NBC. Hernandez was sentenced to life in prison without parole in the shooting death.

When he was arrested, Hernandez had been awarded a $40 million contract with the New England Patriots, who went on to win the Super Bowl while he was on trial for the murder. Throughout the trial, legal experts claimed the evidence against Hernandez was circumstantial; they also said there was no clear motive for the shooting given to the jury. Prosecutors revealed a surveillance video taken at the defendant’s home shortly before the shooting in which Hernandez was holding what appeared to be a gun. In addition, a marijuana joint was found near the victim’s body that had both his own and Hernandez’s DNA on it.

While the gun used in the murder was not recovered, Shaynna Jenkins, Hernandez’s fiancée, did testify that he asked her to remove a large box located in the basement of their home. Jenkins testified that she never looked to see what was inside the box, and that she put it in a Dumpster. Defense attorneys did not argue that Hernandez was present when Lloyd was shot, but said two others who were present at the time committed the crime. Defense attorney James Sultan said that Hernandez was simply a 23-year-old kid at the time who didn’t know what to do upon witnessing a shocking killing.