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Tuesday, 18 July 2017 13:39

Defense continues death penalty preparation in UBN racketeering case

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The defense team for Tyquan Powell, indicted in the murders of a Scotland Neck man and Gastonia woman, continues preparing for potential death penalty prosecution in the United Blood Nation case.

John R. Martin, an Atlanta attorney, is the appointed learned counsel in Powell’s case.

He noted in a motion filed last week he was seeking to be excused from a Criminal Justice Act budget training session scheduled in Raleigh later this month.

United States Magistrate Judge David S. Cayer allowed Martin to be excused from the session, according to an order filed in Charlotte Monday.

“The vast majority of the attorneys invited to the CJA training are representing clients who do not face the possibility of a death sentence, while Mr. Powell does,” Martin wrote in the order.  “Budgeting for death penalty cases is very different from the budgeting for regular felony cases.”

Martin noted he has already contacted Fourth Circuit Budgeting Attorney Larry Dash regarding a seed budget which precedes a stage I budget for attorney and expert expenses through the death penalty authorization process by the United States Department of Justice.

“Undersigned counsel has been the attorney in a number of federal death penalty cases (over 25) and as a result is very familiar with the specific budgeting procedures for potential death penalty cases,” Martin wrote, noting his co-counsel, Mitch Syers, will be attending the July 27 meeting in Raleigh.

“Excusing counsel, whose offices are in Atlanta, Georgia, from attending the scheduled CJA budgeting training will also serve to save expenses in the case,” Martin wrote. “Airfare from Atlanta to one of the suggested sites is around $600.”

Federal court documents released last month indicated Powell was eligible for the death penalty in the case which is tied to UBN racketeering counts and the murders of Jimmy Ray Daniels in Scotland Neck and Cheeontah Howard in Gastonia.

Lamonte Lloyd, of Scotland Neck, faces the same counts as Powell and has already entered a not guilty plea.

The original indictment in the case alleges the murders were based on racketeering activity by Lloyd, who goes by the street name Murder Mo and Moo, and Powell, of Charlotte, also known as Savage, who allegedly killed Daniels and Howard with premeditation and deliberation.

Daniels was shot and killed while sitting in his vehicle at Grace and Eleventh streets in Scotland Neck. The state had planned to call Daniels as a witness in the case of Jimmel Horton, which ended in a mistrial. Horton had been charged in the 2013 murders of Monte Hines and Chris Harrison.

In all, 83 members of the UBN were indicted following a five-state raid.

 

 

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