Case delayed in children’s deaths
Heather Markum, a woman charged with reckless homicide in the death of her two children in a car crash in February 2008, had her case delayed Tuesday by Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman.
The case has been delayed several times, and Steelman criticized Markum’s appointed attorney, Jane Buffalo, and the district attorneys prosecuting the case for contributing to the trial being pushed back.
“I am not trying to point any fingers … but this case has been pending for a long time,” he said.
Steelman set a trial date for March 2011.
According to the accident report, Markum failed to yield the right of way when she tried to make a lefthand turn and was struck on the passenger side by another car.
Her children were not restrained, and she admitted at the scene to drinking three beers, police said.
Death sentence upheld for Hester
The Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence for a man found guilty of killing an elderly man in 1999.
The court set H.R. Hester’s execution date for Oct. 11, 2011.
Hester, who was sharing a home with victim Charles Haney because his ex-wife was a live-in caretaker for the elderly man, duct-taped Haney and his wife and set their mobile home on fire after Haney refused to give him $10 to buy beer. Haney’s wife escaped the fire.
Hester was convicted by a McMinn County jury of aggravated arson, first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder and sentenced to death in March 2005.
He argued that the court erred in the trial because it replaced a juror after the guilt phase of the trial but before the sentencing phase deliberations began, according to the ruling.
The juror had become ill and was taken to the emergency room.
The Supreme Court rejected Hester’s claim. There is “substantial authority finding that statutory provisions similar to ours authorize the replacement of jurors with alternates during the sentencing phase of a capital proceeding,” Justice William C. Koch Jr. wrote in the unanimous opinion.