Child-killer's sentencing begins again

[brucelanthier]

So, this POS is rational enough to rape and girl an 11 yr old and her sister but he is not rational enough to die for these crimes? How on earth do defense atty's like this one sleep at night?[/align][/align][/align]Posted on Mon, Aug. 13, 2007 [/align]Child-killer's sentencing begins again
BY JENNIFER LEBOVICH[/align]A Fort Lauderdale man convicted of killing two little girls almost a decade ago has an ''abnormal brain'' and was molested as a child, his attorney told a jury Monday.
Howard Steven Ault, 41, was convicted seven years ago of raping DeAnn Mu'min, 11, then strangling her and her 7-year-old sister, Alicia Jones.
Ault was sentenced to death in 2000 for the murders, but in 2003 the Florida Supreme Court vacated his sentence because of a mistake during the original jury selection.
The jury will be asked to decide whether to sentence Ault to life in prison or death by lethal injection.
Prosecutor Tim Donnelly told the jury that on the afternoon of Nov. 4, 1996, the two little girls -- straight-A students who had been homeless and living with their mother at a campsite in Oakland Park -- went to school and never returned home.
The search for the girls went on for two days, until their bodies were found decomposing in the attic of Ault's home in Fort Lauderdale.
Ault's defense attorney, Mitchell Polay, asked the jury to take ''great care'' before making a decision whether to sentence Ault to death.
Ault has an abnormal brain and was molested as a child by his older brother, his attorney contends.
''You'll see there's significant mental illness,'' Polay told jurors. ``There's problems with his brain. I'm going to ask you not to recommend death for someone who is sick.''
Broward Judge Marc Gold -- who presided over the trial in 1999 -- told prospective jurors during jury selection that Ault had been convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and other charges, including sexual battery and aggravated child abuse.
Gold emphasized that the mission of the jury is not to review whether Ault is guilty of the crime -- but rather, how he should be punished.
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[ipscshooter]

Attorneys are required by professional standards to zealously defend their clients. You say the guy is "rational enough" to rape and strangle children. There are those who would say that such actions are irrational, and the "abused as a child" defensehas gained a degree of acceptance as a mitigating factor that juries should consider when determining a defendant's sentence.

The attorney ispretty much required to present the defense, otherwise, the guy gets a slam dunk argument that he has received "ineffective assistance of counsel." I agree with you that the guy deserves death for his crimes. But, sometimes attorneys are appointed by the court to represent a defendant, and they have to present the arguments whether they agree with them or not...

[brucelanthier]

I understand what you are saying about atty's and I know about their requirements. I also understand that this atty is probably a good guy and good atty. I often just wonder what they might be thinking while they are fulfilling their professional requirements yet know that if they get the perpetrator off he will( not in this particular case)likely commit more and/or worse crimes. I am not really PO'd at the atty. Is there some mechanism for atty's to decline a case if they cannot wrap their minds around defending a POS like this?

I would also argue that ifthe POS in this casewere rational enough to know what he did was wrong (by hiding the bodies in the attic) then he is rational enough to die for it, abused as a child or not.

[ipscshooter]

Fortunately I don't do criminal law and haven't been faced with the situation.But, you are not permitted to knowlingly present false information to the court. So, if the guy tells you "I did it, I knew what I was doing, I planned all these details, and I've got a certificate from my psychiatrist that I'm completely sane... but, I want you to present an insanity defense"... Then I think you might be able to request that you be removed from the case. But, I don't think you're not allowed to say why if it means you have to violate the attorney-client privilege... You tell the court basically that there is an irreconcilable difference between yourself and the client in regards to the presentation of his defense.

[brucelanthier]

And now, the rest of the story. Hopefully this POS dies soon.

Gruesome drama nears final curtain
BY FRED GRIMM[/align]He confessed to anyone who listened. Police or reporters. It hardly mattered. He called. He wrote letters. He gave live interviews.
Steven Howard Ault defied his lawyers and sabotaged what meager legal strategy they could muster by incessantly describing how he killed those two little girls. How he molested other children. How he beat his pregnant wife.
He told how he raped a woman. He claimed he murdered another woman, a nameless stranger he met outside a Fort Lauderdale strip club, and dumped her body in the Everglades.
He bragged to reporters -- especially women reporters -- that he had left a string of victims ``from Florida to Texas.''
NEVER A DOUBT
Not long after his arrest on kidnapping, sexual assault and murder charges, he notified his lawyers by letter, ``I want to change my plea to guilty in exchange for the death penalty. . . . I want to waive all of my rights.''
Yet there he was Monday, 11 years after his arrest, in Broward Circuit Court, adding one more awful scene to a long-running legal saga everyone but Ault wants to end. And badly.
Three times in the course of these unending proceedings, Ault has demanded that his lawyers change his plea to guilty. Three times he changed his mind. Three times, over the years, Ault has fired his lawyers.
Of course, all this was only an empty exercise, staving off the inevitable. There has never been a moment's doubt that Ault was guilty of crimes that met, in horrifying detail, the requirements of the death penalty. One jury had already delivered a death recommendation. But a legal technicality brought him back to Broward Circuit Court for a reprise of the sentencing phase.
HORRORS RECITED
Ault, head shaved, looking content in a blue short-sleeved short and khaki pants, seemed pleased to be back on center stage. He seemed unmoved by the evidence of his crimes. And 11 years had done nothing to diminish the impact of that evidence.
The bodies of DeAnn Mu'min, 11, and Alicia Jones, 7, were found in his attic. A few hours later, he had told police, with the weird dispassion of someone describing a trip to the corner market, how he raped and strangled the older girl, then killed her baby sister.
Ault had molested other children. Two of his previous victims came back to testify last week and to tell how the effects of those violent encounters have lingered into adulthood. And the new jury heard the mother of the two murdered sisters. Her hurt was still vivid.
SYSTEM FAILURE
What the jury didn't hear was how Ault's awful crimes and public confessional had afflicted South Florida. With burglary and assault convictions and a rap sheet with three previous sexual assaults, Ault should have been in prison. But a negligent criminal justice system had placed him on ``house arrest.''
Ault inspired a brutal re-evaluation of the criminal justice system. A deputy was fired for failing to pursue an earlier investigation that should have put him behind bars for 25 years. Someone set fire to Ault's apartment building.
And the community was forced to wonder, too, if we had failed his two little murder victims, who had been sliding ever deeper into poverty, living with their mother in a old car and a tiny camper, not far from Ault's home.
Ault, in his many confessions, had reduced molested children and murder victims to bit players in his gruesome personal theater.
Hopefully, this will be his final act.
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