Vance Receives Life, Not Death

Relatives of racist rapist-torturer-murderer Curtis Lavelle Vance help steady his mother, Jacqueline Burnett, after she testified today.

By Nicholas Stix

At 9:56 p.m., my reader-researcher David sent me the following Anne Pressly Trial update.

Nicholas,

This twitter (http://twitter.com/dgoins) update says that Curtis Vance receives life for murder of Anne Pressley. Your prediction was correct. The jury would not give the death penalty.

David

Yesterday, following the jury’s guilty verdicts on all charges, I wrote,

David reports that the jury took only two hours to return guilty verdicts. Such decisiveness in the verdict phase notwithstanding, considering that four jurors are black women, I rate Vance as having a zero percent likelihood of getting the death penalty, but hope that the jury will surprise me.

Unfortunately, they didn’t.

That means, as with August’s Letalvis Cobbins jury in Knoxville Tennessee, that at least one black woman lied during voir dire, in saying that she was willing to vote for the death penalty, if the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances.

While I was starting to look for a news story, my e-mail rang, with the following story from David, who noted,

Nicholas,

Here (http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2009/nov/12/vance-gets-life-sentence-beating-death/?breaking) is a news item from Arkansas. Note the photo (not very upset are they?) of Vance's family and the comments after the article.
David

Vance gets life sentence in beating death
BY ARKANSASONLINE

Curtis Lavelle Vance was sentenced to life in prison without parole in the beating death of TV anchor Anne Pressly on Thursday.
The jury convicted Vance, 29, of capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft of property on Wednesday….