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From Kentucky Lantern

By Lantern Staff

A federal appeals court has upheld the capital sentence of Kentucky’s longest-serving death row inmate.

In a 2-1 ruling the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the death sentence of Karu Gene White, who was 19 when he and two juveniles were charged in the brutal 1979 murders and robbery of three elderly shopkeepers in Breathitt County. Lula Gross, 74, her husband Charlie Gross, 75,  and Lula’s brother, Sam Chaney, 79 were beaten to death inside the small grocery store where they also lived. White had heard that they were keeping a large amount of cash in the store.

White was convicted and sentenced to death in 1980.

In his latest appeal White argued that during the penalty phase of his trial his lawyers failed to present mitigating evidence that could have persuaded at least one juror to block his death sentence.

Judges Alice M. Batchelder and Amul Thapar ruled that the Kentucky Supreme Court had properly considered and rejected White’s argument,

“After a horrific life that culminated in his committing horrific murders, Karu Gene White had his day in court decades ago. A jury of his peers found him guilty of murder. He was sentenced to death. Despite years of delay the truth persists: neither the law nor just stand in the way of  his sentence.”

In her dissent Judge Jane B. Stranch cited numerous instances when White, whom she said was “physically, mentally, and emotionally abused,” could have suffered brain  damage as a child, evidence she said his lawyers should have presented to the jury during the sentencing phase.

“His family members alternated between neglecting him and engaging in extreme violence towards him including shooting at him, forcing him out of his home, and forcing him to drink urine,” Stranch wrote in her dissent. “He witnessed the death of a sibling as a result of the same behavior that was directed towards him on a routine basis and the death of his own father at the hands of an uncle. He suffered head injuries and showed signs of mental incapacitation. He was exposed to drugs and deliberately fed alcohol at a young age. He was exposed to inappropriate sexual activity … and much of that sexual activity was violent, including rapes and beatings of underage family members in his presence, often by his own father. He developed the same antisocial behaviors that lead to the murders because of this abuse. There was too much mitigating evidence to ignore.”

Executions have been on hold in Kentucky since 2010 when Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd foundthat the state’s lethal injection protocol was incon­sis­tent with state law and pro­vided no safe­guards to pre­vent the execution of an inmate who is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled or crim­i­nal­ly insane.

Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman has asked Shepherd to lift the ban on capital punishment, saying the Beshear administration’s regulatory changes have brought the state into compliance with his 2010 ruling.

The Kentucky Supreme Court in October 2024 unanimously rejected Coleman’s request to end Shepherd’s injunction. Coleman filed a motion  in December 2024 asking Shepherd to dissolve the injunction and allow executions to proceed.

Twenty-five people are on Kentucky’s death row.

Kentucky has executed three people since 1976, when the U.S.  Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty; Kentucky has had no executions since 2008.