The Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of H.R. Hester for the first degree murder of Charles Haney.
At the time of the crime, Mr. Hester was living with Mr. Haney and Hester’s ex-wife, Dora Mae Hester, who was the live-in caretaker for the elderly Mr. Haney. On December 14, 1999, Mr. Hester returned home after drinking all day and asked Ms. Hester for 10 dollars to buy more beer. When she refused, Mr. Hester held Mr. Haney and Ms. Hester at knifepoint and then bound the victims with duct tape. He doused the victims and their mobile home with kerosene, set the mobile home on fire and left the victims to die.
Ms. Hester managed to escape, but suffered severe injuries in the fire, which led to the double amputation of her feet and lower legs. Mr. Haney died in the fire from smoke inhalation and severe burns. Mr. Hester surrendered himself to the authorities later that evening.
In March 2005, a McMinn County jury convicted Mr. Hester of aggravated arson, first degree murder and attempted first degree murder and sentenced him to death.
In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice William C. Koch, Jr. the Court addressed for the first time whether a trial court may replace a juror after the guilt phase of the trial, but before the sentencing phase deliberations began. Following the guilt phase of Mr. Hester’s trial, a juror became ill and was taken to the emergency room. The trial court designated an alternate juror, who had been seated throughout the trial and sentencing hearing proceedings, for the sentencing phase.
After examining similar cases throughout the country, the Supreme Court determined that 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.” Therefore, the Court concluded the trial court did not err in replacing the ill juror with an alternate juror.
The Court also examined Mr. Hester’s argument that he was denied his right to represent himself. Due to ongoing delays, the trial court removed Mr. Hester’s lead counsel from the case and appointed a new attorney. Mr. Hester disliked the new lead attorney. He requested that she be fired and that he be allowed to represent himself. The trial court denied Mr. Hester’s request. The trial court, however, excused the new lead attorney after Mr. Hester threatened to have her family killed. The trial court then appointed the original lead attorney to take the case to trial.
The Supreme Court found that the trial court erred in its assertion that Mr. Hester could not represent himself due to a lack of understanding of the law. However, the Supreme Court concluded that the trial court did not commit error by denying Mr. Hester’s request to represent himself. In reaching this conclusion, the Supreme Court cited the trial court’s finding that Mr. Hester’s request to represent himself was not genuine and instead was part of his ongoing effort to manipulate the process in order to reinstate his original lead counsel.
Mr. Hester also challenged the constitutionality of the state’s lethal injection protocol. He argued that the “Lancet study,” a reference to an article published in a British medical journal, warrants finding Tennessee’s drug protocol for lethal injections to be cruel and unusual punishment. The Court rejected this claim citing the conclusions of various courts throughout the country that have dismissed the study as unreliable.
The Supreme Court rejected all of the other arguments raised by Mr. Hester in his capital case and affirmed the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals. The Court held that the sentence was not imposed arbitrarily, nor was the sentence excessive or disproportionate. The Court set Mr. Hester’s execution date for October 11, 2011