Feb. 8
TEXAS—-federal death penalty trial
Ellis Joseph Mosher will face death penalty for murder of fellow inmate
Federal prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty when a
capital murder trial will enters the punishment phase Monday.
After 8 days of testimony, jurors deliberated less than 1 hour Thursday
before convicting Ellis Joseph Mosher of capital murder for killing a
fellow inmate at the federal prison outside Beaumont on Sept. 10, 1998.
Mosher, 32 and originally from Pennsylvania, chased down 46-year-old
Stanley Moseley and stabbed him multiple times with a 13-inch improvised
blade in plain view of prison guards who testified in the trial, according
to prosecutors. Before opening arguments, Mosher testified outside the
jury's presence that Moseley had stalked, attacked and raped him.
U.S. District Court Judge Thad Heartfield barred Mosher's court-appointed
defense attorneys, J.D. Hamm and James Makin, from suggesting Mosher
killed Moseley in self defense.
The defense attorneys, according to the judge's ruling, had not
established that Mosher faced an imminent threat and had no alternatives
to attacking Moseley.
Moseley was serving a 188-month sentence for a Louisiana bank robbery.
Mosher was serving a sentence for kidnapping and using a firearm during a
crime, both of which occurred in Maryland.
If not sentenced to die, Mosher faces life in prison.
(source: Beaumont Enterprise)