| Sources |
- [S104] Cocke County, Tennessee, and its People, Cocke County Heritage Book Committee, (Walsworth Publishing, 1992), 241.
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 4 Jun 2006.
The Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of Jonathan Wesley Stephenson in connection with the 1989 killing of his wife and set the execution date for October 11, unless it is delayed by another court decision or the governor.
Friday's 4-1 decision may signal an end to the Stephenson case, which has moved up and down the Tennessee court system for 17 years. The 42-year-old Talbot man was convicted in a 1990 trial of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first degree murder in connection with the shooting death of 26-year-old Lisa Gail Stephenson in the Bruner's Grove community of Cocke County. Appeals courts have twice reversed the sentence but left the convictions intact. In a re-sentencing hearing in October 2002, a second Cocke County Circuit Court Jury levied the death penalty on the murder charge and Circuit Judge Ben W. Hooper II handed down a consecutive sentence of 60 years on the conspiracy conviction. "The defendant's sentence of death is affirmed and shall be carried out on the eleventh day of October, 2006, unless otherwise ordered by this court or proper authority," wrote Supreme Court Justice Janice M. Holder in an 18-page opinion joined by Chief Justice William M. Barker and justices E. Riley Anderson and Cornelia A. Clark. Justice Adolpho A. Birch Jr. said in a four-page dissenting opinion that he would have overturned Stephenson's death penalty based on the defendant's right to confront his accusers "face to face." After a four-hour hearing in April 2003, Judge Hooper overruled each of 42 grounds for appeal presented by defense attorney John E. Herbison, of Nashville. The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the 16 grounds for a new trial which were presented to it in 2005, and the state supreme court chose five of those grounds to discuss in detail in its decision released on Friday. The two most significant issues discussed by the high court in its opinion on Friday were whether Stephenson's convictions for both first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder violate the U.S. Constitution's provision against "double jeopardy"-being punished twice for the same crime-and whether Judge Hooper should have allowed the previous testimony of two witnesses to be read to the jury during the re-sentencing hearing. Lesser issues presented to the high court are whether Judge Hooper should have suppressed Stephenson's statement to police, whether Cocke County Circuit Court has jurisdiction to re-sentence the defendant, and whether the sentence is proportionate to the crime committed in light of the fact that Stephenson's co-defendant received a sentence of life in prison. The Stephenson case has a lengthy, sometimes complicated, history. Stephenson was convicted in a jury trial in 1990 of killing his wife in December 1989. Co-defendant Ralph Thompson received a sentence of life in prison after a separate jury trial in Cocke County criminal court. After being sentenced to death as a result of the 1990 criminal court trial, Stephenson began the process of appealing the verdict and the sentence. Appeals courts have consistently upheld Stephenson's convictions for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, which carried a 60-year prison term, but his sentences for the killing itself have twice been overturned. The Tennessee Supreme Court overturned Stephenson's first death sentence in 1994 because jurors were given incorrect written instructions for their verdict. The justices found "a fundamental error" in the jury instructions and sent the case back to Cocke County Circuit Court for a retrial. On the eve of that retrial, Stephenson reached a plea-bargain with prosecutors which called for a sentence of life without parole consecutive to the 60-year sentence on a conviction for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Stephenson later appealed that sentence, and the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the sentence and again sent the case back to the trial court for further proceedings. The appeals court held that Stephenson was given an illegal sentence because a term of life without parole was not an option when the crime was committed in 1989. Stephenson and his attorneys-Carl R. Ogle, of Jefferson City; Tim Moore, of Newport; and Herbison-argued in 2002 for a life sentence, which could have resulted in parole after Stephenson served a 25-year sentence. But the jury listened to the evidence in the case and sentenced the defendant to death by lethal injection on Tennessee's Death Row. Ogle and Moore were court-appointed counsel, and Herbison, a Nashville attorney who specializes in appellate work, was retained by the Stephenson family to represent the defendant on appeal. Stephenson was convicted in connection with the shooting death of Lisa Stephenson in an isolated section of the Bruner's Grove community on December 3, 1989. According to testimony during the trials of the 17-year-old case, the victim died as a result of a single gunshot wound to the head in what District Attorney General Al Schmutzer called "a murder for hire." By its verdict, the jury found that the prosecution's "aggravating factor"-that the killing of Lisa Stephenson was a killing done for remuneration or the hope of remuneration-out-weighed the defense's evidence of "mitigating factors." Those factors, defense attorneys argued, included the defendant's lack of a previous criminal record, the life sentence received by co-defendant Ralph Thompson in the case, that the defendant has adjusted well to prison life and makes significant contributions to other inmates and the prison system itself, and the love and support of his family. Stephenson was convicted of recruiting Thompson with the promise of a truck, a boat, and a motor to come with him to Cocke County and kill Lisa Stephenson after luring the victim to the Bruner's Grove community to receive some money Stephenson was supposedly owed. Although testimony indicated that the defendants came to Cocke County together, there was conflicting testimony as to which man actually fired the fatal shot. Each man accused the other of pulling the trigger. Concerning the double jeopardy issue, the supreme court again held that "conspiracy to commit a crime is a different offense from the crime that is the object of the conspiracy." Defense attorneys had argued that court decisions in 2000 and 2003 had changed Tennessee law and now supports their position that a person cannot be convicted of a crime and conspiracy to commit the same crime. "We disagree that our prior holding has been affected by either [of those cases] and reaffirm that it is constitutionally permissible for the defendant to be convicted of and sentenced for both first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder," Justice Holder wrote for a unanimous court. "The defendant's conviction for first-degree murder required proof of his criminal responsibility for the victim's death and proof of the victim's death," the opinion continues. "However, his conviction for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder required proof of an agreement to commit the murder, not necessarily proof of a killing." The sole issue where there was a division in the court was whether the previous testimony of two witnesses should have been read to the jury during the re-sentencing hearing. During the original trial, witnesses Glen Brewer and Michael Litz testified that Stephenson had approached them in the weeks before Lisa Stephenson's murder and offered them money and property to kill the victim. But at the time of the re-sentencing hearing, prosecutors told the court that Brewer was in ill health-although not too ill to travel-and living in Oklahoma. And despite several attempts to locate him, Litz could not be found, prosecutors said, although the defense said their investigator had located Litz in prison. Instead of requiring the witnesses to appear in court, Judge Hooper allowed their testimony during the original trial to be read to the re-sentencing jury. Herbison argued that allowing that testimony to be read, even though it included defense cross-examination, violated Stephenson's right to confront all witnesses against him in court. And the Tennessee Constitution further requires that the state's "Confrontation Clause" means that the witness and defendant must meet "face to face" in the courtroom. But the supreme court overruled this argument, saying a trial is a different proceeding from a sentencing hearing. "The United States Supreme Court has never expressly ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to confrontation does not apply at sentencing; however, the various circuit courts of appeal have repeatedly so held," Justice Holder wrote. "Even if the Confrontation Clause were deemed to apply to capital sentencing proceedings, the defendant's rights under that clause were not violated," the opinion continues, because "although the witnesses were not present at sentencing, the defendant had an opportunity to confront both witnesses at trial and the entire cross-examination of each witness was read to the jury at the re-sentencing hearing." But Justice Birch disagreed with the court's majority and wrote that he would have overturned Stephenson's death sentence. "It is disingenuous to argue that the sentencing phase of a capital murder case tried before a jury is not a critical part of a 'criminal prosecution' covered by [the state and federal] constitutions. For instance, no one would seriously contend that the...right to counsel does not apply during capital sentencing hearings," Justice Birch wrote. "The majority focuses on the fact that the defendant had the opportunity to cross-examine these witnesses at the guilt phase of his trial," he continues. "This ignores the fact that there is no evidence that the state made efforts to procure their testimony or that they were unavailable to testify at the re-sentencing hearing. "I find it significant that the testimony of these men went directly to the critical issue in this case...whether the defendant had employed co-defendant Ralph Thompson to commit the murder for remuneration or the promise of remuneration. I would find that without a showing of unavailability, it was error to admit their prior testimony," Justice Birch wrote. Birch further argued that "I do not agree with the imposition of the death penalty in this case because I continue to believe that the comparative proportionality review protocol currently embraced by the majority is inadequate to shield defendants from the arbitrary...imposition of the death penalty." The court's four-justice majority ruled that the death penalty was not arbitrary or disproportionate, even in light of the fact that Thompson received a life sentence and may be eligible for parole soon. "The defendant approached at least two persons offering payment to kill his wife before he conspired with Thompson to murder Mrs. Stephenson," Justice Holder wrote. "He instigated the plan to murder his wife, offered Thompson remuneration for the killing, and was present at the scene when her premeditated murder took place. There was also no evidence presented to show that the defendant exhibited remorse for killing his wife. "The defendant's relationship to the victim and his role as leader in instigating and planning the murder distinguishes him from Thompson," the opinion concludes. Stephenson's next avenue of appeal is a request to the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
Stephenson death sentence stands; execution set for October 11
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1963 - (61 years)
(Age 80 years)