Philly man on death row for killing unborn child & her mother to get new sentencing

Source: Philadelphia Daily NewsJan.迷你倉旺角 03--DESTINYTHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN HER NAME -- DIED INSIDE JENNIFER PENNINGTON'S WOMB AFTER THE WOMAN WAS SHOT IN THE FACE NEAR A STONE BRIDGE IN FAIRMOUNT PARK IN 2005. -- that would have been her name -- died inside Jennifer Pennington's womb after the woman was shot in the face near a stone bridge in Fairmount Park in 2005.Harold Murray IV, 36, of Philadelphia, was one of three men charged in the revenge-murder case that originated in Montgomery County. He received a death-penalty sentence for killing Pennington and her unborn child.Prosecutors, according to local news accounts after the verdict, said the "death-penalty verdict for the murder of the unborn child sends a strong message about the importance of human life in Montgomery County."The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued its own strong message about the case in a recent ruling, however, citing one key detail of which everyone -- including the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office, defense attorneys and even the judge presiding over the case -- was apparently unaware.Defendants can be charged with murdering an unborn child in Pennsylvania, but they can't receive the death penalty for it."Respectfully, that the murder of Pennington's unborn child was submitted to the jury as a death-eligible offense is shocking and calls into question the validity of the penalty phase as a whole," Supreme Court Justice Max Baer wrote.Although the state argued that the error was ultimately moot because the sentencing jury would have been presented the same evidence for the death-penalty phase of Pennington's murder, the Supreme Court ordered that Murray, locked up at the State Correctional Institution Greene in Wayne County, must have amini storagenew penalty hearing.Deputy District Attorney Thomas McGoldrick, who helped to prosecute the case, said his office has not made a decision on how it will proceed."We're aware of the Supreme Court case and we are thoroughly reviewing all our options," McGoldrick said yesterday.Murray and Ernest R. Morris were robbed of crack cocaine, cash and their cellphones Jan. 30, 2005, and, according to the state Supreme Court opinion, Pennington, of Norristown, helped set them up. Pennington later went to a Motel 6 in King of Prussia, where she, two male robbers and another woman had sex, drank tequila and took drugs, the opinion stated, while Murray, Morris and a third man, Maurice Jones, began to track them down.The three men kidnapped Pennington at a Wawa, and Murray and Morris, the opinion says, shot and killed one of the men, Shawne Mims, when they found him naked and unarmed at a nearby Best Western hotel. The pair then drove Pennington to Fairmount Park, where Morris shot her twice in the face and left her for dead. Pennington was visibly pregnant, the opinion stated.Murray was sentenced to life in prison for Mims' murder and received death-penalty sentences for both Pennington and her unborn child. Murray's lawyer for the trial, Daniel-Paul Alva, said his client received a fair trial but noted that everyone, including himself, missed the "glaring" death-penalty issue."I'm gratified that he is getting a new sentencing hearing," Alva said.Philadelphia serial killer Gary Heidnik was the last man executed in Pennsylvania, dying by injection on July 6, 1999.On Twitter: @JasonNarkCopyright: ___ (c)2014 the Philadelphia Daily News Visit the Philadelphia Daily News at .philly.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉