Court to rule on inmate's wish to die
Man admitted brutally murdering children

Louisville Courier-Journal By Brett Barrouquere, Associated Press
Marco Allen Chapman wants to die by lethal injection after admitting he brutally killed two children and left their sister and mother for dead.
Now, the Kentucky Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on the legality of Chapman's request.
The case is unprecedented in Kentucky -- posing the question of whether a defendant can waive all his rights and request an execution. It also has the unusual twist of putting prosecutors and Chapman on the same side -- arguing for the death sentence to be upheld -- while Chapman's court-appointed defense attorneys seek to save him from committing what they call "suicide by court."
The Kentucky Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments Thursday.
Chapman, who has declined multiple interview requests, pleaded guilty in December 2004 to killing 7-year-old Chelbi Sharon and 6-year-old Cody Sharon in their home in Warsaw, Ky. Chapman also admitted attacking 10-year-old Courtney Sharon, who played dead after being stabbed several times, then raping and trying to kill their mother, Carolyn Marksberry, during the August 2002 assault. A judge granted his request to be sentenced to death.
(The Associated Press does not normally identify victims of sexual assault, but Marksberry has discussed her ordeal in television broadcasts.)
Prosecutors say the attack was revenge for Marksberry advising a friend to end a relationship with Chapman.
Volunteering for a death sentence is not new. Since 1977, when Gary Mark Gilmore waived his appeals and stepped before a firing squad in Utah, 124 inmates in 26 of the 38 states with a death penalty law have waived appeals and asked to die.
A second Kentucky death row inmate, Shawn Windsor, is attempting the same thing as Chapman. Windsor pleaded guilty in 2006 to killing his wife and son and asked for execution.
What makes Chapman's case groundbreaking, lawyers said, is his decision to waive trial and sentencing by a jury. Professors who teach criminal law have found Chapman's case disturbing.
Michael Hoffheimer, a criminal law professor at the University of Mississippi, said a ruling giving deference to a client's decision to seek a death sentence could be troubling because it would take away multiple legal safeguards to ensure that a competent, guilty person is put to death.
"Permitting defendants to make decisions that increase the risk of wrongful convictions is bad policy," Hoffheimer said. "The rights to life and liberty are unalienable. They should be accorded greater weight than the right to control one's legal defense."
Cornell University law professor John Blume, who wrote an analysis of death penalty volunteers for the University of Michigan Law Review, said attorneys have no obligation to aid a client in dropping appeals. But, Blume said, a court must make sure there are no issues about the defendant's guilt and that the defendants are competent and "the desire to drop the appeals is not a desire to end their life but rather they are motivated by an acceptance of responsibility for their crimes."
Chapman's court-appointed attorneys, Donna Boyce and Randall Wheeler, declined interview requests. Vicki Glass, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky attorney general's office, declined to comment because the case is pending.
Chapman has said several times that he is waiving his appeals and wants to be executed.
In 174 pages of briefs with the high court, Boyce and Wheeler argue that the trial judge mishandled the case and that Chapman was depressed and seeking to use court proceedings to commit suicide. They want a new sentencing hearing for Chapman after he has been treated for depression.
Because Chapman was found competent multiple times, prosecutors said in briefs, his plea and sentence should be allowed to stand.
"The fact of the matter is that preferring death over life imprisonment is not state-assisted suicide," Assistant Attorney General David Smith wrote.