U.S. Department of Justice

(918)684-5100

“The victim impact testimony we presented was lawful, limited, and persuasive. The three-judge agreed that we, and the trial court, had followed the law. Under Fields’ interpretation, a victim’s spouse’s third cousin twice removed, who had only a passing acquaintance with the victim, could testify to victim impact, but the victim’s best friend for four decades could not. That would be absurd.” U. S. Attorney Sheldon J. Sperling

NEWS RELEASE

For Release: April 29, 2008
For Further Information Contact: Sheldon J. Sperling, United States Attorney, 918-684-5151

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – “United States Attorney Sheldon J. Sperling announced that the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the petition for rehearing en banc requested by Edward Leon Fields, Jr. “The due process march continues,” U.S. Attorney Sperling said. “Fields had filed the petition requesting a rehearing before the panel of judges on April 8, 2008.”

“Such rehearings involve consideration of the appeal by the entire panel of twelve regular appellate judges,” U.S. Attorney Sperling reported. “Rehearings must involve issues of extraordinary importance or appellate decisions which conflict with previously rendered opinions.”

“This issue had been addressed in the main appeal,” U.S. Attorney Sperling explained. “We called only three victim impact witnesses – a sister, a childhood friend, and a close family friend. The murdered couple had no children.”

“The victim impact testimony we presented was lawful, limited, and persuasive. The three-judge agreed that we, and the trial court, had followed the law. Under Fields’ interpretation, a victim’s spouse’s third cousin twice removed, who had only a passing acquaintance with the victim, could testify to victim impact, but the victim’s best friend for four decades could not. That would be absurd.”

“On July 10, 2003, the defendant murdered two unsuspecting campers in the Winding Stair Campground in LeFlore County, Oklahoma,” recalled U.S. Attorney Sperling. “On July 22, 2005, a federal jury returned a capital verdict. A mandatory appeal followed. The case was orally argued on October 1, 2007. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the capital sentence on February 25, 2008.”

“Fields argued in his petition that the Court improperly allowed the jury to consider victim impact testimony from other than the victim’s family. Testimony was presented by close friends of the victims as well as a family member. On appeal, Fields asked the Court to ‘reconsider its interpretation of the Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA) … .’ as it relates to the impact of victim witness testimony.”

“The defendant argued that in its February 25, 2008 affirmation of the sentences and finding of any error harmless, the Court was incorrect. The Court disagreed and denied Fields’ petition for a rehearing on the matter.”

“In its February 25 th decision, the Court rejected challenges to federal jurisdiction to try this case, to jury qualification, to the verdict form, to aggravating factors, and to victim impact. The court also denied a complaint that jurors should have found defendant’s asserted severe-disturbance mitigator. The appellate panel upheld the capital standard for weighing aggravating and mitigating factors. The Denver-based court also approved the district court decision to allow the ghillie-suit in the jury room and rejected a cumulative error claim.”

“On November 8, 2005, Edward Leon Fields, Jr., now age 40, formerly of LeFlore County, Oklahoma, was issued capital sentences for the double murder of a married couple from Texas who were camping in a federal campground. On July 22, 2005, a federal jury sitting in Muskogee for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, had returned a unanimous death penalty verdict against Fields.”

“For over two years, we anticipated that this day of sentencing reckoning would come,” U.S. Attorney Sperling had commented. “Words then failed to adequately depict the horror the defendant visited in graphic, premeditated, coldly calculating, malicious, wantonly violent, and ghillie-suited form to two wonderful people who were minding their own business and had done nothing to him.”

“DOJ Capital Unit Specialist Libby Lange is a brilliant appellate advocate and prosecutor. I am grateful for her work, the investigative persistence of Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and U. S. Forest Service Special Agents, and the tireless efforts of Victim Witness Specialist, Mary Jo Speaker.”

“There have now, however, been enough words,” U. S. Attorney Sperling said. “U.S. District Court Judge Ronald A. White spoke clearly in imposing the following sentences. On Counts 1 and 3, Murder in First Degree, death, with execution to be administered by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. On Counts 2 and 4, Use of Firearm, 405 months in prison to be served consecutively. On Count 5, Robbery with Firearm, 405 months in prison, to be served consecutively. And on Count 6, Burglary of an Automobile, 84 months in prison.

“A courageous and discerning jury had returned the capital verdict after three weeks of jury selection and trial and four hours of deliberation,” U.S. Attorney Sperling noted. “The death sentences were the result of a sentencing jury trial following defendant’s federal convictions for the murders of Charles and Shirley Chick, of Dallas.”

“We contended in closing that the defendant deserved the death penalty. The jury found that the defendant possessed the requisite homicidal intent, engaged in the substantial planning and premeditation to cause death, and committed multiple intentional killings in a single episode.”

“The jury found that the defendant: posed a future danger to the lives and safety of other persons; caused permanent loss to the victims’ family, friends, and community; and inflicted mental anguish on Mrs. Chick before her death.”

“Jurors also found 18 mitigating factors relating to the defendant’s life, family, and circumstances. Notably, however, the jury rejected four mitigators. The jury refused to find that defendant’s capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct and conform his conduct to the law was significantly impaired. The jury did not find that defendant committed the offenses under severe mental or emotional disturbance. The jury rejected the contention that defendant expressed remorse for his crimes. And the jury clearly declined the assertion that he will not pose a future danger to society by being imprisoned for life without possibility of release. The CTA 10 opinion cited our closing argument. ‘Which one of us would want to be in a cell next to someone who is capable of coldly attacking two innocent people who had done nothing to him?’”

“The defendant had been convicted on July 2, 2005, of two counts of first degree murder, two counts of firearm use resulting in death, assimilative crime robbery with firearms, and assimilative crime burglary of an automobile. Federal law applies Oklahoma state law concerning crimes committed on federal property.”

“On July 10, 2003, Charles and Shirley Chick were the lone campers in the forested Winding Stairs federal campground in the Ouachita National Forest,” U.S. Attorney Sperling continued. “While Charles and

Shirley enjoyed their last sunset, defendant donned his homemade sasquatch-like ghillie (sniper) suit, carried his camouflaged and large-scoped rifle, slipped into the nearby woods, and waited for dark to fall.”

“The victims, ages 47 and 50, returned to their campsite and sat at a picnic table. After dark fell, defendant shot Charles under his left eye. When Shirley ran from the table, defendant advanced and fired twice at her and hit her left foot. She struggled to a nearby van and opened the passenger side door as the defendant approached her, shot her in the head, observed that she was not yet dead, and shot her again.”

“The defendant went to the picnic table where Charles was still alive and shot him again. Defendant left the murder scene, returned later to rob the bodies and burglarize the van, went to work at his plastics manufacturing job the next morning, and resumed his regular activities.”

“The defendant was arrested a week later when a civilian tip enabled a focused inquiry concerning the defendant. Defendant had no prior criminal history. Although he may have met the victims several days before, defendant and victims were otherwise strangers to each other.”

“The defends advanced a complex mental mitigation defense and presented expert testimony which asserted hypoxia (oxygen deprivation) at birth, frontal lobe damage and judgmental impairment, bipolar disorder, a psychotic feature (command hallucinations), and hypermanic flip due to the impact of anti-depressant medication and dosage increases.”

“Although months prior to the murders defendant had both been medically treated for depression and asserted that he had heard voices, the prosecution successfully rebutted the asserted mental mitigation.”

In closing argument, United States Attorney Sperling had argued, “We would all like to figure the defendant out. But his actions were the product of conscious choices. He stalked, surveilled, shocked, savaged, and slaughtered two absolutely innocent people who had done nothing to him.”

“The defendant lived out his beliefs. He acted out his developed fantasy. He voluntarily chose to enter the darkened world of depraved criminality. He lacks the essential feature of civilized members of society, a conscience.”

“The defendant wants to be sent to his room as punishment. All with a civilized core must recoil with revulsion at what defendant did as the executioner of the innocent. Don’t give this defendant what he wants. In the name of justice, give him what he deserves.”

“The prosecution consulted and called as an expert witness, Dr. Jeff Mitchell, premier neuro-psychiatrist and Medical Director of the Laureate Psychiatric Hospital in Tulsa,” U. S. Attorney Sperling said. “Dr. Mitchell convincingly rebutted the notion that defendant had experienced a manic switch at the times before, during, and after the crimes.”

“Dr. J. Randall Price, a pre-eminent and highly experienced neuro-psychologist from Dallas with some 200 murder case evaluations under his belt, convincingly rejected the defense mental mitigation. Dr. Price persuasively opined that the defendant had characteristics of a sociopath or psychopath.”

“The jury rejected mitigating factors that the defendant’s capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or conform his conduct to the requirements of law was significantly impaired, regardless of whether his capacity was so impaired as to constitute a defense to the charge; that defendant committed the offenses under severe mental or emotional disturbance; and that defendant will not present a future danger to society by being imprisoned for life without possibility of release.”

United States Attorney Sheldon J. Sperling was lead counsel for the United States. Dennis A. Fries and Linda A. Epperley, Assistant Untied States Attorneys in the Eastern District of Oklahoma, served as associate trial attorneys.

The case was investigated by Special Agents of the United States Forest Service, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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