Death Row, Serial Killers, Teen Killers. Women On Death Row Executions
The Idaho Death Row for Men is located at the Idaho Maximum Security Facility Institution in Kuna. The Idaho Death Row for Women is located at the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center. The State of Idaho primarily uses lethal injection for their executions.
Timothy Dunlap Idaho Death Row
James Hairston Idaho Death Row
Gerald Pizzuto Idaho Death Row
Jonathan Renfro was sentenced to death by the State of Idaho for the murder of a police officer. According to court documents Police Sgt. Greg Moore was investigating a suspicious person in a neighborhood that had been plagued recently by thefts. When the Officer approached Jonathan Renfro would pull out a gun and shoot the Officer, Renfro would then steal the Officers gun and speed off in his car. Jonathan Renfro would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.
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A judge sentenced Jonathan Renfro to death for the murder of Coeur d’Alene Police Sergeant Greg Moore back in 2015.
He was sentenced to death for the first degree murder charge, then also life without parole plus 19 years for other non-capital offenses.
A jury decided Renfro should receive the death penalty on Saturday after a lengthy trial. Renfro was found guilty of murder for Moore’s death back on October 13.
In May 2015, Moore stopped Jonathan Renfro while walking through a Coeur d’Alene neighborhood that had become the victim of recent car burglaries. Investigators said Renfro pulled out a gun, shot Moore, took the officer’s gun and then sped off in his car.
Monday, there was very limited seating in the courtroom for Renfro’s sentencing. Officers from the Coeur d’Alene Police Department and Moore’s family filled the seats.
Gerald Pizzuto was sentenced to death by the State of Idaho for beating two people to death. According to court documents Gerald Pizzuto would rob a cabin in Idaho County where he tied up the two occupants, Berta Herndon, 58, and her nephew Del Herndon, 37, and proceeded to beat them with a hammer. After a hammer failed to kil Del he would shoot him in the head. Gerald Pizzuto would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
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t is possible Idaho’s government could seek a death warrant as early as October for the execution of one of its nine death row inmates, as the inmate’s attorneys say the state is trying to give them little notice of when the date will be.
The inmate is Gerald Pizzuto Jr., 64, who in 1986 was sentenced to die. He was convicted of murder for the deaths in 1985 of Berta Herndon, 58, and her nephew Del Herndon, 37, at a cabin in Idaho County, according to the Associated Press. Prosecutors say he wanted to steal money from the pair, and that he tied their hands and legs before he beat them both with a hammer and shot Del Herndon with a .22 caliber rifle when the hammer blows failed to kill him, the Lewiston Tribune reported.
Pizzuto’s attorneys appealed the case, and raised the question of whether he has an intellectual disability, which would bar him from execution. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was unconvinced, however, according to the Associated Press.
The U.S. Supreme Court may hear Pizzuto’s case during its October session, but if it doesn’t, it is possible the state could seek a warrant to execute him.
Attorneys “indicated in a pleading that the State could request a death warrant as early as October 2020,” according to a court document Pizzuto’s attorneys filed on Monday.
That document was filed as part of a legal action that began in March, on behalf of Pizzuto and another death row inmate, Thomas Creech, who may be the next to face execution. The attorneys are from Federal Defender Services of Idaho, a nonprofit organization funded by yearly grants from Congress.
Pizzuto’s lawyers are worried because they say the state is trying to provide little notice of when the execution will take place. They’re concerned because Pizzuto is in poor health — he’s in hospice and he has bladder cancer, according to court documents. The Idaho Department of Correction has refused to say where the drugs used to kill Pizzuto would come from, and his attorneys are worried the drugs used could have an adverse reaction with his medication or his health issues, resulting in an elongated, torturous death. In addition to that, the department has, in the past, not said which drugs it will use during an execution until relatively soon before the killing.
The Idaho Department of Correction has told the Idaho Press on numerous occasions the department does not comment on pending litigation.
Attorneys are sparring over the meaning of an April 8 order from the case’s judge requiring the department “to inform the court 14 days in advance if the state sets an execution for Pizzuto that, if carried out, would moot his claims before he can fully and fairly litigate them in this case.”
Pizzuto’s attorneys argue this means that, since the date of execution is included in a death warrant, the department must give them 14 days’ notice before they seek a warrant. Attorneys for the state of Idaho disagree — they say the order means they must give 14 days’ notice before the execution itself.
Pizzuto’s attorneys say they can’t determine if the execution will be inhumane without more notice and information.
“Without the execution plan, that substantial undertaking is obviously impossible,” according to Monday’s court document. “And with the plan, it will take a significant amount of time, which is exactly what the (state is) intentionally depriving the plaintiffs of by withholding any information about how the execution will be carried out.”
After days of trial in 2019 unrelated to Pizzuto’s case, a 4th District Court judge ordered the department to turn over the source of some of the drugs, but the state filed an appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court.
Not long before that trial, the department had also declined requests from Pizzuto’s attorneys about the possible execution
It was all the way back on Dec. 18, 2018, that the plaintiffs asked the defendants for basic information about the State’s intentions for their executions, including what drugs would be used to kill them,” according to Monday’s court document. “For twenty months and counting, the defendants have refused to provide that information to the plaintiffs, even while threatening to execute Mr. Pizzuto less than three months from today. Instead, the defendants are waiting to divulge the information until shortly before the execution, so as to prevent Mr. Pizzuto from having the chance to fully investigate and prepare potential claims before they are extinguished by his death.”
As a solution, Pizzuto’s attorneys are seeking a stay of execution to avoid a “blizzard of onerous litigation” should the state ask for a death warrant in the coming months. They write it “offers the Court a far more straightforward way of managing the case and giving itself time to carefully resolve Mr. Pizzuto’s serious claims.”
“An administrative stay of perhaps six months, or whatever other amount of time the Court thought appropriate would be ‘only intended to preserve the status quo’ to provide space to consider the issues in the case,” according to Monday’s court document.
A judge hasn’t made a decision about a stay yet. The next deadline in the case is Wednesday, when attorneys must file more information about their interpretation of the April 8 order.
If Pizzuto is executed, he would be only the third Idahoan executed in decades. The state’s most recent execution was that of Richard Leavitt in 2012, which came on the heels of Paul Ezra Rhoades’ execution in 2011. Prior to that, the state had had a long gap in executions.
As Pizzuto’s attorneys pointed out, a judge in Rhoades’ case noted the department’s lack of notice of execution.
“Nine years ago, this Court indicated that it was ‘troubled’ by IDOC’s penchant for announcing critical information about executions at the last minute,” they wrote. “Nine years later, IDOC continues to deliberately withhold the most basic parts of its plans for executions— including the drug to be used—until the eleventh hour.”
Erick Hall was sentenced to death by the State of Idaho for two separate sexual assaults and murders. According to court documents Erick Hall would commit the first sexual assault and murder in 2000 and would sexually assault and murder a second woman in 2003. The first victim was a flight attendant who was walking along a hiking trail when she was abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered. Hall would throw her body in the Boise river. The second victim was abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered. Hall would dispose of her body in the foothill area. Erick Hall was tried separately for both murders and in each he was convicted and sentenced to death.
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The Idaho Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a man condemned to death row twice for two separate murders.
In the written ruling issued Wednesday, a majority of the Justices agreed that Erick Virgil Hall was given a fair trial and had adequate representation when he was tried and sentenced to death for the kidnapping, rape and murder of flight attendant Lynn Henneman. Two justices dissented with the majority opinion, however, saying they agreed Hall was guilty of the crimes — but felt there were errors made in the process of sentencing him to the death penalty.
Henneman was on a lay-over in Boise on Sept. 24, 2000, when she took a walk on the Boise Greenbelt. Prosecutors said that’s when Hall kidnapped her, raped her and strangled her with a sweater.
The investigation went without a suspect for three years — until police investigating the rape and murder of Cheryl Ann Hanlon in the Boise foothills questioned Hall, and realized his DNA sample matched swabs collected from Henneman’s body.
Hall was later also sentenced to death for Hanlon’s murder.
James Hairston was sentenced to death by the State of Idaho for two murders committed during a robbery. According to court documents James Hairston and an accomplice forced their way into an elderly couples home and proceeded to execute the two victims, William and Dalma Fuhriman both seventy two years old. The robbery netted less than a hundred dollars. James Hairston was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.
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James Hairston was sentenced to death Friday by a judge for killing two elderly Downey residents in what the judge called executions for money.
The death penalty was ordered by 6th District Judge Peter McDermott for Hairston, 20, who becomes the 19th death row inmate in Idaho and the youngest.
The sentence came in a packed courtroom including family members of the victims and members of the jury that convicted Hairston of first-degree murder.
Hairston, Grand Junction, Colo., was convicted in September of murdering William “Duke” and Dalma Fuhriman, both 72, at their rural Downey farmhouse. Police said the robbery netted Hairston and an accomplice $30, a credit card and a saxophone.
Hairston also was convicted of robbery, and McDermott sentenced him to life in prison with no possibility of parole for that crime.
McDermott said it was a hard decision to impose the ultimate penalty, but he believes Hairston is a cold-blooded, pitiless killer who would kill again if paroled from prison or if he escaped from a less than secure prison setting.
He said Hairston gets a “rush” from shooting people.
“You basically executed these two individuals to be financially rewarded,” McDermott told Hairston.
Hairston, standing between public defenders Randy Schulthies and Tom Eckert, showed no emotion as the sentences were imposed.
Bannock County Prosecutor Mark Hiedeman said Hairston would be taken to the maximum security state prison in Boise.
No execution date was set, but it will be set aside for the Idaho Supreme Court’s automatic review in all death sentence cases.
Co-defendant Richard Klipfel, 27, received a fixed prison term of 20 years to life for his part in the crime. He also is from Grand Junction.
A Grand Junction convenience store clerk, Crystal Bunker, who was shot in the head in a robbery two days before the Downey murders on Jan. 6, was in the courtroom.
She testified at Hairston’s trial that he shot her during a holdup.
“I hope it can help with closure,” she said as she hugged members of the Fuhriman family.
The family hoped McDermott would impose the death penalty, said Jessie Fuhriman, a daughter-in-law of the couple.
“Nothing can bring them back, but that is the most that he (Hairston) can give in restitution, and the Lord will take care of him after that,” she said.
A son of the couple, Crae, also wanted the death penalty.
“I don’t think he has any remorse or any bad feelings for what he did.”
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1996/nov/16/judge-sentences-man-to-death-20-year-old-james/
