Local Court Ruling: Shonda Walter Spared Death Penalty

LOCK HAVEN — Clinton County Senior Judge J. Michael Williamson has “vacated” the death penalty in the case of Shonda Walter, 37,  the Lock Haven woman sentenced to death in 2005 for murdering a neighbor with a hatchet.

The brutal homicide occurred in March of 2003, the victim James Sementelli, 83, of N. Summit St., Lock Haven. A jury deliberated less than 30 minutes April 18, 2005, finding Walters guilty of first degree murder; the next day the same jury sentenced her to death.

Williamson recently issued a court order reducing the death penalty to life in prison. He wrote:

“With respect to the death penalty, as noted by every other judge who has considered this case, based upon the fact that the defendant was represented by totally incompetent counsel in the penalty phase of these proceedings, the imposition of the death penalty by the jury in this case is vacated.”

The order said based upon a Commonwealth agreement not to further seek the death penalty, “the sentence of the court is that the defendant…shall undergo life imprisonment in a state correctional institution without the possibility of parole.” Walter currently is housed at the state facility in Muncy.

The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year declined to hear the Walter case challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty.

That court decision came in January of this year. News media accounts at the time said the Supreme Court offered no comment as it turned away the Walter’ challenge. Her attorney, Daniel Silverman, had argued the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment because “our standards of decency have evolved to the point where the institution is no longer constitutionally sustainable.” In the appeal to the court Walters through her counsel asked the justices to determine if the imposition of the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The court offered no comment supporting or dissenting from the decision to reject the case.

Silverman said Walter had been “ill-served by counsel, leaving serious questions about her guilt and eligibility for the death penalty.” Attorney Stephen Chadwick Smith had been her counsel at the time of the trial. Silverman said Walter, who is black, “joined a mostly black death row,” what he called “a system that even a state supreme court committee has acknowledged is plagued by racial discrimination.”