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James Earl
SLAUGHTER
Real name: Jeffrey Leonard
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics:
Robbery
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder:
January 28,
1983
Date of arrest:
Next day
Date of birth:
February 3,
1963
Victim profile: Esther Stewart (consignment shop owner)
Method of murder: Stabbing
with knife
Location: Jefferson County, Kentucky, USA
Status: Sentenced to death on December 2, 1983
United States Court of
Appeals For the Sixth Circuit
SLAUGHTER, JAMES EARL,
DOB 2-3-63, was sentenced to death December 2, 1983 in Jefferson
County for the stabbing death of Ester Stewart, a Louisville, Kentucky
woman.
On the afternoon of January 28, 1983
Slaughter entered a clothing store with the intent to rob the store.
In the process of the robbery he stabbed and killed the owner. Police
arrested Slaughter the next day.
James Earl Slaughter robbed and executed the victim by stabbing her multiple
times in the chest as she worked at a used clothing store in Jefferson
County in 1983. The victim's blood was found on his clothes. The
killer confessed to the execution to a fellow inmate.
Victim:
Ester Stewart
Supreme Court rejects appeal in Ky. murder case
Associated Press
January
23, 2009
A former Kentucky death row inmate
convicted under an alias lost another appeal Thursday in his ongoing
efforts to have his conviction overturned.
The
Kentucky Supreme Court denied the appeal from Jeffrey Leonard, a
convicted murderer who wants justices to reconsider his conviction
based on a claim of ineffective counsel, in part because his lawyer
didn't know his real name. Leonard was convicted under the pseudonym
James Earl Slaughter.
The Supreme Court had denied a
motion in 2007 to overturn Leonard's conviction on his assertion that
his defense attorney had not fully investigated the case in order to
defend him. Justice Mary Noble, writing for a unanimous court,
declined to reopen the issue.
Allison Martin,
spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office, said prosecutors
were pleased with the high court's ruling. Leonard's defense attorneys
with the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy did not immediately
return calls Thursday seeking comment.
Leonard, a
brain-damaged Louisville man, spent nearly 25 years on Kentucky's
death row for the 1983 murder of Esther Stewart, who owned a
consignment store in Louisville. Before leaving office in 2007, former
Gov. Ernie Fletcher commuted Leonard's sentence to life in prison
without the possibility of parole.
In commuting
Leonard's death sentence, Fletcher cited concerns about whether his
lawyer had been ineffective.
Leonard was originally
represented by former Louisville attorney Ferdinand "Fred" Radolovich,
who surrendered his law license after being charged with perjury for
claiming he had handled four death penalty cases before Leonard's.
Investigators found that he actually had no experience as a lead
attorney in a capital murder case.
Appeals court upholds death sentence in slaying
of consignment shop owner
Lawyer's inaction was
challenged
Associated Press
June 14,
2006
A federal appeals court overturned a decision
to give a new sentencing hearing to a Kentucky death row inmate,
ruling the lawyer in the Louisville case acted reasonably during the
initial trial.
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in
Cincinnati voted 2-1 that the lawyer for James Earl Slaughter, 43, did
not have an obligation to research his client's family history.
Slaughter was sentenced to death for the January 1983 murder of Esther
Stewart, who owned "The Clothes Rack" consignment store in Louisville.
U.S. District Judge Jennifer Coffman ruled in 2001 that Slaughter
should get a new sentencing hearing because his trial lawyer, Fred
Radolovich, failed to find and interview many of Slaughter's family
members or have them testify.
Appeals judges Danny
Boggs and Alice Batchelder found Radolovich's performance "deficient,"
but not so bad that it unfairly affected the jury's decision.
In a dissent, Judge R. Guy Cole said there was a "reasonable
probability" that Slaughter would have been sentenced to life in
prison if Radolovich had done a better job during the sentencing phase.
"There is clearly a reasonable probability that the jury would have
sentenced Slaughter to life imprisonment had it been presented with
the evidence that was presented" on appeal, Cole wrote.
Coffman found that Radolovich had no experience with death-penalty
cases and was later indicted for perjury for testifying that he had
handled several cases in New York. The status of the perjury case
against Radolovich was not immediately available yesterday.
In granting Slaughter a hearing, Coffman ruled that Radolovich's
failure to thoroughly investigate Slaughter's background and find
family members to testify gave a 1-sided picture of the inmate to
jurors.
"They saw James Earl Slaughter, in many
senses, the man who never was, standing alone and defiant. Slaughter
was a man (who) testified recklessly; a man who apparently was so
unloved and so uncared for that not a single individual, relative or
friend would vouch for him, though his life hung in the balance,"
Coffman wrote.
Slaughter's lawyers, Kathleen Schmidt
of Shepherdsville and assistant public defender Marguerite Thomas of
Frankfort, did not immediately return calls yesterday.
