Mark WoodworthCOLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — A northwest Missouri judge has barred the state Attorney General’s Office from prosecuting for a third time a Chillicothe man convicted of fatally shooting a neighbor more than two decades ago.
Platte County Circuit Judge Owens Lee Hull Jr. ruled Wednesday that prosecutorial missteps that led to Mark Woodworth’s previous convictions require “an independent review of this case by a prosecutor unburdened by past participation.”
The ruling means that prosecution in the third trial set for July now reverts to Livingston County. But a prior local prosecutor in that county originally refused to file charges against Woodworth, which led to the appointment of the Missouri attorney general.
Woodworth has been free on bail for nearly one year after the Missouri Supreme Court overturned his second conviction in Cathy Robertson’s death.
(AP) — Goodland police say an investigation into the death of a Kansas City, Mo., woman while she was jailed in western Kansas is nearly finished.
Police Chief Clifton Couch said Wednesday he expects to turn over investigative reports on the death of 58-year-old Brenda Sewell to the Sherman County Attorney later this week.
The county attorney will determine if any charges are warranted in the case.
Sewell died at a Goodland hospital Jan. 22, two days after she was jailed in Sherman County. Her family alleges she became ill while in jail and county jailers did not try to help her when she collapsed in the jail cell. They say jailers also had refused to give Sewell medication she carried for several illnesses.
Northwest Missouri State University student organizations, in collaboration with the University’s Wellness Services, are sponsoring a fashion show to promote healthy body image and self-esteem.
The “Every Day Angels Fashion Show” will begin at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 31, in the J.W. Jones Student Union Ballroom. The event is open to the public and admission is free.
Canned food donations also will be accepted at the door with the collection going to Operation Breakthrough in Kansas City.
The show will feature Northwest students modeling clothing in which they feel beautiful and that exhibits their personalities and interests. The show also will feature live entertainment by student performers.
“This fashion show is designed to help people accept who they are in their bodies and know everyone is beautiful in their own way,” said Christina Incontro, a peer education graduate assistant in Wellness Services.
The event is sponsored by To Write Love on Her Arms, Project Hope, Bearcats After Dark, Bearcat Peer Education, Minority Educators of Northwest and Wellness Services.
Funding for the event is provided through a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Missouri Suicide Prevention Project as well as a Bearcats After Dark.
At the first State of Missouri Agriculture event held in Jefferson City, State Senator Brian Munzlinger, Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, spoke of the importance of Missouri agriculture to our state’s economy, identified challenges for the future and reminded Missourians of the affordable and safe food Missouri farmers and ranchers provide.
“We appreciate the leadership of Senator Munzlinger for organizing an event to spotlight Missouri agriculture,” said Blake Hurst, president of Missouri Farm Bureau.
“As we consider the state of agriculture in Missouri, many issues come to the minds of our members. Passage this week by the U.S. Congress of a Farm Bill is the most pressing issue. As a general farm organization, we have looked at the Farm Bill’s impact on all sectors. We contend the conference report before Congress is a net positive. While the bill isn’t perfect, it will provide certainty–something farmers and ranchers haven’t had for a year and a half,” said Hurst.
“Missouri farmers and ranchers are always faced with challenges, such as the current shortage and spike in price of propane. Many poultry, hog, horticulture and other farming facilities depend upon propane as their heating source during the winter months,” said Hurst. “Agriculture also has to continually deal with a growing number of burdensome and many times needless governmental regulations that harm farmers and ranchers financially and can actually put them out of business.
Hurst continued, “This fall Missouri voters will have the opportunity to vote for Constitutional Amendment #1 which will help provide Missouri farmers and ranchers a level of protection from harmful and needless restrictions that would increase food costs and limit consumer choices. The Keep Missouri Farming amendment is the top priority of Missouri agriculture in 2014, and Missouri Farm Bureau will do everything possible to seek its passage.”
– See more at: http://www.mofb.org/NewsMedia/News.aspx?articleID=455&articleYear=2014#sthash.5uc4bvPf.dpuf
Following a week in which thousands of Missourians saw their propane costs nearly double, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill has called on one of the nation’s top consumer protection agencies to investigate the recent spike in propane prices.
McCaskill, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, demanded that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)-a federal agency designed to protect consumers from fraud and abusive practices associated with market speculation and manipulation-examine whether normal market forces are causing the dramatic spike in propane prices, or if opportunistic trading and price manipulation are at play.
“Millions of Americans are being forced to wonder how they will heat their homes while making the mortgage payment and putting groceries on the table,” McCaskill said. “Given the CFTC’s prior findings of manipulation in the propane market, it is critical that the government continue to ensure rural Americans that they not being harmed by opportunistic trading and price manipulation. As such, I request the CFTC investigate the propane market in the Midwest and ensure that any supply shortages or price increases are not due to harmful manipulation.”
(AP) – Missouri women would have to wait 72 hours to have an abortion after initially seeing a doctor under legislation endorsed by a state House committee.
The bill endorsed by the House Health Care Policy Committee on Wednesday would align Missouri with Utah and South Dakota as the only states with 3-day waiting periods.
Missouri’s current waiting period is 24 hours. Supporters of the bill say a woman needs more time to make such a substantive decision. Opponents argue extending the waiting period poses a logistical barrier designed to push a woman further into pregnancy before an abortion and increases the risks.
The bill now heads to the House Rules Committee for further consideration. It is sponsored by Republican Rep. Kevin Elmer, of Nixa.
(AP) — Federal prosecutors want a former Kansas doctor convicted of illegally possessing drugs and a gun to be sent back to prison for 10 years.
In a filing Wednesday, the government requested the maximum allowable sentence for former Goddard physician Lawrence M. Simons.
Simons was convicted last year of being a felon in possession of a firearm for giving a bail bondsman a pistol as partial payment in an unrelated domestic dispute. He was also convicted of unlawfully possessing controlled substances.
Prosecutors also want to tack on another 10 months for violating conditions of his release on a 2009 conviction for unlawfully distributing controlled substances.
The government cited incidents it contends show a person willing to intimidate and resort to violence to get what he wants.
In 1991, Herbert Smulls called jeweler Stephen Honickman and set up an appointment to meet at his store in suburban St. Louis. He said he wanted to buy a diamond for his fiancee.
Smulls
It was a set up. Smulls wanted to rob the store and took along a 15-year-old friend to help commit what became a far worse crime: Honickman was shot to death. Honickman’s wife, Florence, was also shot, but survived by faking death in a pool of her own blood until the assailants left.
Late Wednesday night, Smulls was put to death with a lethal dose of pentobarbital, Missouri’s third execution since November and the third since switching to the new drug that’s made by a compounding pharmacy the state refuses to name.
Smulls, 56, did not have any final words. The process was brief, Smulls mouthed a few words to his two witnesses, who were not identified, then breathed heavily twice and shut his eyes for good. He was pronounced dead at 10:20 p.m.
Florence Honickman spoke to the media after the execution, flanked by her adult son and daughter. She questioned why it took 22 years of appeals before Smulls was put to death.
“Make no mistake, the long, winding and painful road leading up to this day has been a travesty of justice,” she said.
His attorneys spent the days leading up to the execution filing appeals that questioned the secretive nature of how Missouri obtains the lethal drug, saying that if the drug was inadequate, the inmate could suffer during the execution process. The U.S. Supreme Court granted a temporary stay late Tuesday before clearing numerous appeals Wednesday _ including the final one that was filed less than 30 minutes before Smulls was pronounced dead, though the denial came about 30 minutes after his death.
When asked about the time between the appeal and the execution, Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman Mike O’Connell said, “I’m not familiar with that.”
Like Joseph Paul Franklin in November and Allen Nicklasson in December, Smulls showed no outward signs of distress in an execution process that took about nine minutes.
Missouri had used a three-drug protocol for executions since 1989, but makers stopped selling those drugs for executions. Missouri ultimately switched late last year to a form of pentobarbital made by a compounding pharmacy. The state claims that since the compounding pharmacy is part of the execution team, it is not required to disclose its name.
Smulls had a troubled life from the start. Born in St. Louis to an unwed 15-year-old, he was passed along to two other caregivers while still a toddler. As a young man he turned to crime and spent time in prison for robbery.
In the summer of 1991, he decided to rob again.
Honickman’s F&M Crown Jewels in the tony St. Louis suburb of Chesterfield was open by appointment only. Honickman agreed to meet with Smulls on the pretense that Smulls was buying a gift for his fiancee.
The encounter quickly turned violent. Honickman, shot and dying on the floor, pleaded with Smulls to stop.
“Enough already, take what you want,” Honickman said according to his wife’s testimony. The robbers took rings and watches, including the ones Florence Honickman was wearing. They apparently thought she was dead, as she’d been shot in the side and the arm, lying motionless in her own blood.
“I felt pain and terror while I lay on the floor playing dead while the murderers ransacked our office,” Florence Honickman said Wednesday night.
When police stopped Smulls 15 minutes later, they found stolen jewelry and weapons in his car, St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch said. Florence Honickman identified the assailants.
Smulls’ legal case was protracted over several appeals and over several years, finally ending in 2009 with the death sentence. His accomplice, Norman Brown, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
“It was a horrific crime,” McCulloch said. “With all the other arguments that the opponents of the death penalty are making, it’s simply to try to divert the attention from what this guy did, and why he deserves to be executed.”
Compounding pharmacies custom-mix drugs for individual clients and are not subject to oversight by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, though they are regulated by states.
Smulls’ attorney, Cheryl Pilate, contended the state’s secrecy regarding where the pentobarbital is made makes it impossible to know whether the drug could cause pain and suffering during the execution process.
Pilate also said she and her defense team used information obtained through open records requests and publicly available documents to determine that the compounding pharmacy is The Apothecary Shoppe, based in Tulsa, Okla. In a statement, The Apothecary Shoppe would neither confirm nor deny that it makes the Missouri drug.
Pilate said the possibility that something could go wrong persists, citing recent trouble with execution drugs in Ohio and Oklahoma. She also said that previous testimony from a prison official indicates Missouri stores the drug at room temperatures, which experts believe could taint the drug, Pilate said, and potentially cause it to lose effectiveness.
Some Missouri lawmakers have expressed reservations about the state’s execution procedure. On Tuesday, Missouri Senate Democratic Leader Jolie Justus introduced legislation that would create an 11-member commission responsible for setting the state’s execution procedure. She said ongoing lawsuits and secrecy about the state’s current lethal injection method should drive a change in protocol.
9:30 p.m. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared an appeals court stay that had been delayed the Wednesday execution of a Missouri death-row inmate.
The court’s ruling, however, left Missouri less than three hours to meet an 11:59 p.m. deadline to execute Herbert Smulls.
Smulls, 56, was sentenced to death for killing a suburban St. Louis jeweler and badly injuring his wife during a 1991 robbery.
Smulls’ attorneys filed several appeals, mostly challenging the state’s refusal to disclose the name of the company that supplies its execution drug.
7:55 p.m. (AP) – The execution of a death-row inmate in Missouri is still on hold pending a court fight.
Missouri’s attorney general asked the U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday to clear an appeals court stay that is delaying the Wednesday execution of Herbert Smulls.
The high court had issued a temporary stay shortly before Smulls was scheduled for execution at 12:01 a.m. The Supreme Court lifted that stay around 5 p.m., but another appeal is still pending.
Under stay law, the state has until the end of the day to carry out the execution.
Smulls’ attorneys filed several appeals, mostly challenging the state’s refusal to disclose the name of the company that supplies its execution drug.
Smulls was sentenced to death for killing jewelry store owner Stephen Honickman during a 1991 robbery.
5:30 p.m. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has denied last-minute requests to halt the execution of a Missouri man convicted of killing a local jeweler two decades ago.
The high court issued a temporary stay less than three hours before Herbert Smulls was scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.
But the court lifted the stay without explanation late Wednesday afternoon, meaning the execution can move forward.
Smulls’ attorneys were challenging among other things the state’s refusal to disclose where it obtained its lethal injection drug. The state says the name of the compounding pharmacy isn’t public record, because it’s considered part of the execution team.
The 56-year-old Smulls was sentenced to death for killing Stephen Honickman and badly injuring his wife during a 1991 robbery of their suburban St. Louis store.
The Missouri Western men’s basketball team continued to play well at home cruising to a 99-71 victory over the Lincoln Blue Tigers. The Griffons shot a season best 66.7-percent (38-57) from the field improving to 9-10 overall and 4-7 in MIAA play.
The Griffons shot a sizzling 64.5-percent (20-31) taking a 51-30 lead into halftime against Lincoln. The 51 points is the most points in the first half this season by the Griffons. Missouri Western had eight players score with Ryan Devers, Adarius Fulton and Dzenan Mrkaljevic each dumping in nine.
The Griffons used a 31-14 run opening up a 20 point lead at 36-16 lead after a Wes Mitter layup with 5:35 to play. The Blue Tigers tried to make a comeback cutting the Griffon lead to 14 with 2:50 to play but the Griffons outscored the Blue Tigers 8-1 down the stretch taking their biggest lead of the game into the locker room.
The Griffons dominated the points in the paint outscoring Lincoln 30-8. The Griffons mad 5-of-9 long range shots and 6-of-7 free throws. Fulton made three of the Griffons five long range shots in the frame.
The Blue Tigers shot just 37.9-percent (11-29) from the field with Joshua Buie leading the way with 12 points on 4-of-8 shooting.
The Griffons continued to play well offensively in the second half leading by as many as 31 points at 92-61 with 5:12 to play. The Griffons outscored the Blue Tigers 28-14 in the paint in the frame. The Blue Tigers drop to 2-17 overall and 0-11 in MIAA play.
The Griffons dominated the points in the paint outscoring Lincoln 58-22. Missouri Western had five players score in double figures with Devers leading the way with 24 on 8-of-9 shooting. Cortrez Colbert, Dareon Jones, Charlie Marquardt and Mrkaljevic all finished with 16, 15, 14 and 13 respectively.
The Griffons had 21 assists on the night with Mrkaljevic leading the way with five. Nine different Griffons had an assist in the game.
The Blue Tigers had two players score in doubles figures with Buie leading the way with 35 points on 12-of-19 shooting. Jeremy Jackson pitched in 12.
The Griffons return to action on Saturday, February 1st with an MIAA afternoon game against the Lindenwood Lions. Game time is set for 3:30 pm in the MWSU Fieldhouse and will be broadcast on 680 KFEQ AM.
