23 September 2010 :

Jessie A. Quintanilla has death sentence reduced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Quintanilla, 42, hispanic, was sentenced to die for killing an officer (Lt. Col. Daniel Kidd) at Camp Pendleton on March 5, 1996. According to testimony at his court martial, Quintanilla was drunk at the time of the shooting, beset by family and financial problems, and angry at a poor job evaluation and being denied a spot as a recruiter. In 2006, a military appeals court set aside the death penalty decision and sent the case back to Camp Pendleton for a new sentencing hearing. The appeals court ruled that the trial judge had acted improperly when he allowed the prosecution to eliminate from the jury pool an enlisted Marine because of an allegedly inflexible attitude against capital punishment. But the sentencing hearing was delayed when Quintanilla was found by military doctors to be a paranoid schizophrenic and unable to assist in his own defense. After treatment and medication, Quintanilla was found competent. The new sentencing was an agreement between prosecutors, defense attorneys and the air-wing commanding officer. In exchange for lifting the death penalty, Quintanilla waived his right to further appeals of his conviction. The last Marine execution was in 1817.

16 April 2010 :

A 14-person military jury today sentenced Master Sgt. Timothy Hennis to die for the murders of Kathryn Eastburn and and her 5-year-old and 3-year-old daughters in 1985. This is the 2nd time a soldier has received a death sentence at Fort Bragg in the last 5 years. Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar was sentenced to death on April 28, 2005 (see) for a grenade and rifle attack on his own comrades during the opening days of the Iraq invasion. His case is still in the appeals phase. Soldiers sentenced to death are sent to the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. If Hennis is executed, it would be by lethal injection. Under military law, the president must approve all death sentences. The last execution took place in 1961.

12 April 2010 :

A 14-member military jury was unanimous in its guilty verdict on three specifications of premeditated murder for Army Master Sgt. Timothy B. Hennis, 48, white, meaning Hennis could face the death penalty for a triple murder in May 1985. Hennis was escorted out of the Fort Bragg courthouse his hands cuffed in front of him as they were in July 1986, when he was first sentenced to death for the rape and murder of 31-year-old Kathryn Eastburn, and the murders of two of her young children, Kara, 5, and Erin, 3. After his initial conviction in 1986, Hennis was granted a retrial because of the inappropriate use of inflammatory evidence by the prosecution. At the retrial, Hennis was acquitted in 1989 in North Carolina's court system when the defense discredited the witnesses and demonstrated that a neighbor who resembled Hennis could have been the murderer. Hennis The Army commenced its prosecution in 2006 after DNA testing - unavailable to investigators in the 1980s - matched Hennis to sperm from Eastburn's body. The jury reached its verdict after following three weeks of testimony. The same jury now must consider whether to sentence Hennis to death. A death sentence requires another unanimous vote by the jury; otherwise, Hennis faces life with the possibility of parole.

27 February 2010 :

Marine's death sentence overturned. Wade Walker, a Marine who has spent nearly 2 decades on death row for plotting the murder of 2 fellow Marines and helping to cover up the crimes was resentenced to life in the brig, after the appeals court overturned his original sentence. Lance Cpl. Walker was sentenced to death by a general court martial in 1993 for the murder of Lance Cpls. Rodney L. Page and Christopher Q. James, both of whom were killed within days of each other in Jacksonville, N.C., in March 1992. Lance Cpl. Kenneth Parker, who fired the weapon in both murders, also received a death sentence — he now is the only Marine on death row. Walker was sentenced on 2 counts of conspiracy to commit premeditated murder, 2 counts of premeditated murder, robbery, adultery and kidnapping. He appealed and, in July 2008, the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals tossed out the conspiring to commit premeditated murder and robbery convictions involving Page. It upheld all the others, including an adultery conviction for an affair Walker had with James' wife, but it overturned the sentence, requiring the new punishment. His most recent court-martial began at Quantico in late January and, on Feb. 4, the jury — seven officers and 6 enlisted Marines — found Walker guilty once again of the 2 charges the appeals court had tossed out. They sentenced him today to life in prison, reduced his paygrade to private, and gave him a dishonorable discharge from the Corps for all charges. The jury needed a unanimous decision for Walker to once again receive the death penalty. It's unclear how many jurors favored death and how many sought life in prison because they are prohibited by law from disclosing that information. The case dates back to March 26, 1992, when Walker and 5 other Marines were drinking in the barracks at Camp Lejeune, N.C., discussing rumors that a group of white males planned to lynch a black person on base, according to court records. The intoxicated Marines were angry about the racial rumors and decided to send their own message. They threw a shotgun in the back of their car and took off, planning to find and kill a random white person, then take his wallet to make the murder look like a robbery gone bad, according to court documents. Pointing out Page, Walker said that was "the guy" they were going to get. Parker then shot Page in an alley at close range while Walker remained in the car. 4 days later, Walker and Parker drove to James' house. Their plan was to invite him to a party at the barracks so they could lure him out of the house and kill him. The 3 Marines drove to a deserted road in the woods, where Walker and Parker pulled James out of the car. Parker shot him in the chest with the same shotgun. Walker and Parker got back in the car and drove away. The case will automatically be appealed to the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals, which overturned the original sentence. In October, Parker appeared at Camp Lejeune for an evidentiary hearing where he tried to claim he was mentally retarded, which would have automatically taken him off of death row. However, a psychologist said his IQ was 92, close to the average score of 100. A person must have an IQ of 70 or below to be considered mentally retarded. Parker's appeal is still pending. (See also 24/11/2008)