Death sentence upheld for Julie Love's killer

By Bill Rankin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The federal appeals court in Atlanta on Wednesday upheld the death sentence against a man convicted of one of Atlanta's most infamous murders -- the abduction and killing of 27-year-old Julie Love.

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Handout Julie Love was a fitness instructor.

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See caption Emanuel Hammond abducted Julie Love in Buckhead on the night of July 11, 1988.

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In a 116-page opinion, Judge Ed Carnes detailed Emanuel Hammond's violent past before he abducted Love in Buckhead on July 11, 1988. The terrified preschool fitness instructor could not have known that this was just the latest in a series of violent attacks against women by Hammond, the judge said.

"She could not have known about his vow to make sure that no more of his victims would live to testify against him," Carnes wrote. "She did know, however, that Hammond was cruel, violent and dangerous. Love, who was only five feet tall and weighed just a hundred pounds, knew that because Hammond kept beating her."

Love's remains were found a year later in a northwest Atlanta trash dump. She had been raped, bound with coat hangers and shot in the head with a sawed-off shotgun.

On Wednesday, the appeals court unanimously rejected Hammond's bid for a new trial. The court rejected one claim that Hammonds' lawyer was ineffective by failing to object when a prosecutor improperly told jurors that Hammond could one day be paroled if he was not sentenced to death.

Hammond, an auto mechanic, had abducted and assaulted at least three women before he killed Love. After one 1982 attack, Hammond drove a victim who had been twice raped by a co-defendant to police and told them what had happened.

Hammond's conscience may have saved a woman's life, the ruling said. "As far as the record shows," Carnes wrote, "that was the last time his conscience would make an appearance, belatedly or otherwise."

State Attorney General Thurbert Baker, who is running for governor, said he was pleased with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling. "Hammond is a violent, career criminal who fully deserves the death penalty for this senseless and heinous crime," he said.