Please, Abolitionists, CALL ASAP:
Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell
225 Main Capitol Bldg.
Harrisburg, PA 17120
Fax:(717)783-4429
Tel:(717)787-2500
email: governor@state.pa.us
This pending state killing is NO April Fools Joke, not from any facet of this multi-layered American tragedy. I decided to post the most recent news from the Pennsylvania Gov's office as well as posting a much earlier article. This also brings up the value in connections and discussions between Abolitionists and those who would seek to prevent drug crime.
HARRISBURG, Pa., Feb. 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Governor Edward G. Rendell today signed an execution warrant for Richard Boxley, 40, who was sentenced to die for killing a rival drug dealer in Reading in 1997.
In 2000, Boxley was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for fatally shooting Jason Bolton. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the murder conviction, but vacated the death sentence and called for a new penalty hearing. After the second penalty hearing in 2004, Boxley was again sentenced to death. In 2008, the state Supreme Court affirmed that sentence and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.
Boxley's execution by lethal injection is set for April 1. He is held at the
State Correctional Institution at Graterford.
Governor Rendell has now signed 85 death warrants.
The Rendell administration is committed to creating a first-rate public education system, protecting our most vulnerable citizens and continuing economic investment to support our communities and businesses.To find out more about Governor Rendell's initiatives and to sign up for his weekly newsletter, visit here
SOURCE Pennsylvania Office of the Governor, Chuck Ardo +1-717-783-1116
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The following article is from MUCH earlier - 2004 - yet with some interesting twists and comments...
New York man gets death for second time in murder
Jurors decide that Richard Boxley deserves to be executed for a drug-related killing. The same sentence was ordered after a 2000 trial but later overturned by the state Supreme Court.
By Mary E. Young Reading Eagle
A New York City man has been sentenced to death a second time for the murder of a Reading man in a drug dispute.
After six days of testimony, a jury of five women and seven men deliberated for more than two hours before deciding Wednesday night that Richard Boxley, 36, should be executed for murdering Jarvay "Jason" Bolton, 24, of 1001 Chestnut St. in the 100 block of South Sixth Street on June 11, 1997.
The jury reached the same conclusion as the first jury did in 2000, when Boxley was convicted of the murder.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the conviction but overturned the death sentenced because Judge Stephen B. Lieberman did not allow lawyers to question, in detail, each juror about the death penalty.
Bolton’s aunt, Deborah Moss, did not get to hear the jury’s decision because she and other family members had to be on the last bus leaving for New York City.
Before she left around 7 p.m. Wednesday, Moss said she would be saddened by the outcome, no matter what the jury decided.
"It bothered me that Jarvay was here," she said. "He caused Reading pain, too. He was a good child and a good teenager. However, he got involved with some bad guys here.
"Whatever he did, he would have went to jail for it. But it wasn’t up to Richard Boxley to take his life."
In closing arguments before Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl, defense attorney John J. Grenko told the jury that Boxley has a nugget of good in him, and that he would be unable to share that good with anyone if the jury sentenced him to death.
"He has done bad things," Grenko said. "There’s no denying that.
"But those things do not rise to the level that is warranted to take his life. Putting him in jail for the rest of his life, without the chance of parole, is an adequate and appropriate punishment for what he did."
Bolton put himself in danger by dealing in drugs and firing back when co-defendant Jose Busanet had a shootout with Bolton about a month before the murder, Grenko said.
"I beg you: Spare Richard Boxley his life," he told the jury.
But District Attorney Mark C. Baldwin said the evidence proved that the two factors needed by law to support the death penalty existed in Boxley’s case.
Other lives were endangered because children were playing on the sidewalk, and adults were sitting on their porches where the murder took place, he said.
And Boxley has a history of violent crime, including two robberies and a firearm violation while he was on parole, Baldwin said.
Boxley and Busanet killed Bolton because Bolton was Busanet’s drug-dealing rival, he said.
"Richard Boxley had no ax to grind," Baldwin said. "Richard Boxley had no motive to kill Jason Bolton. He was brought here for one purpose and one purpose only — to take part in the killing of Jason Bolton."
According to testimony:
Boxley plotted with Busanet, also known as Tito Black, to kill Bolton.
They went with Wilson Melendez, a friend of Busanet’s, to the 100 block of South Sixth Street in the middle of the afternoon.
When Bolton approached, Boxley and Busanet began firing.
Bolton died of gunshot wounds to his chest.
Busanet, 31, was convicted and sentenced to death. He is on death row in the State Correctional Institution at Greensburg, Greene County.
Melendez, 26, is serving three to six years in state prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit the murder.
Contact reporter Mary Young at 610-478-6292 or myoung@readingeagle.com. (NOTE: this article is FIVE years old and this reporter may not be available.)
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