MASON CITY – A notorious Iowa woman who was convicted of helping a drug kingpin of murdering 4 people will face a sentencing hearing in August.
Angela Johnson, age 50 and formerly of Klemme, was sentenced to death on June 21, 2005, for the first time ever by a federal jury in Iowa for her role in aiding methamphetamine mastermind Dustin Honken in the murder of two adults and two children, whose bodies were later discovered in southwest Mason City.
In 2012, on appeal, a federal judge Mark Bennett threw out the sentence due to supposed “deficiencies” in her legal defense counsel and ordered a new sentencing trial. Her conviction stands, however, and a federal jury will only decide whether she will face death or life in prison.
At a federal hearing, the sentencing trial will commence in August with just selection. In oral arguments, Johnson’s attorney made it clear that the new jury will be able to hear all of the evidence that was presented at the 2005 trial where Johnson received the death penalty. However, the jury will not be told or argued to by prosecutors that Johnson was involved with pre-meditation or substantial planning in the 1993 crimes. There is a witness list of 75-80 persons.
Honken was sentenced to death in 2004 and is being held at a Colorado maximum security prison.
Johnson is being held at the Carswell Federal Medical Center in Texas.
It’s funny because she convicted herself. She told a jailhouse narc where the kids were buried. Then they KNEW she had been in on it. What a dummy. She tried to commit suicide when the kids were found.
People who knew here said she was a real sociopath. She’d knock people off barstools and stuff. People who had their legs entangled in the chair and then they’d break their legs.
LVS : Taking the life of another isn’t the human thing to do and we’re supposed to be humans. Taking away all their privileges for life give them day after day after day to live with what they did. Yes, it’s at public expense but it’s the human way that our system was based upon. Spreading the word so other inmates get the word gives the person far more punishment in the long run. The best thing to do is hope they are not accepted by other inmates. Then and only then, will their peers teach them what hell is really like and they get to live it, long before they get sent there.
Correction. The best way for penal colonies to be run is to place every inmate in solitary confinement, with NO CONTACT ever to other inmates, and in the case of murder convictions or other seriously violent and heinous crimes: NO CONTACT with any visitors either. NONE. Just locked up in a small cell and fed the basic equivalent of bread and water. You forfeit your life when you have taken another’s maliciously. Prisons have become a social colony and a lifestyle. I would design all new prisons for 100% solitary confinement. The word penitentiary is based on the word penance. One does not perform penance socializing and lifting weights with other prisoners. You’d see the prison populations drop dramatically if my system were adopted…however we all know the prison industrial complex doesn’t want that. They want to set it up like a mini resort for men and women, this way it appears that “ah prison ain’t so bad…it’s a good thing they are doing for prisoners”. They want people to think that as incarceration rates climb. If prison was run the way it’s supposed to, prison would be thought of as a bad place to go, and therefore the crime rates would go down…which is what people are supposed to want…when they are thinking normally.
as much as I like the idea, we both know it will never be adopted; too many “experts” believe violent prisoners can be reabilitated.
Only in America can you get a fair and proper trial as is your constitutional right.
Or would you prefer justice as it is served in North Korea for example? They don’t even have trials, they pull you out of the house and shoot you, not for committing a crime, but being the relative of someone you “don’t like”.
There are many more examples in the world today.
I would rather have justice take it’s proper course, than err on the side of one innocent person. We could then look back and be proud that we did it right.
That first line of last paragraph should read:”I would rather have justice take it’s proper course, than err on the side of one innocent person loosing his life”.
@Observer-I disagree with you on this child killer. She has had her trial and was convicted and is now just playing games to stay alive at our expense. I could easily pull the trigger on this one.
Who is the “one innocent person” here, I’m all for Korean justice in this case.
Yes LVS, continue to spend money we don’t have. :((
She should have been hanged immediately so she couldn’t continue to waste our tax money.
It looks like she has been eating better then a lot of people on the street, better get a XXL rope.
Only in America
This monster helped kill a lady with 2 little girls and she thinks she was wrongly tried in court!! There should be no court just a public stoning by the family in central park, or she needs a lobotomy so she can get led around like a worthless piece of shit.
What were the “deficiencies” in the sentence of the two innocent girls.. The original sentence should be carried out.