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Death Penalty News & Views 2007
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Death Penalty News & Views 2007
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Death Penalty 2007 News & Views Click Headline for Full Story December 2007
Court Orders New Competency Hearing in Trial of Mass Murderer
12-31-07 -- The state Supreme Court has ordered another hearing to determine whether mass murderer George Banks is too mentally ill to be executed. . . . A state court ruled in February 2006 that Banks, who killed 13 people in a 1982 shooting rampage, was delusional, psychotic and had no capacity to assist in his own defense. . . . But the high court, in a ruling filed Friday, said a Common Pleas court erred in barring the commonwealth's psychiatrist from testifying and then denied a second state expert witness time to prepare properly. . . . The justices ordered the lower court to "expeditiously" conduct a new hearing to allow the state to "present a meaningful case" on Banks' competency. They warned the lower court "not to be diverted by tangential notions and assertions."
THIS WEEK FROM DPIC
12-28-07 --It is a shameful distinction, but Texas is the undisputed capital of capital punishment. At a time when the rest of the country is having serious doubts about the death penalty, more than 60 percent of all American executions this year took place in Texas. That gaping disparity provides further evidence that Texas’s governor, Legislature, courts and voters should reassess their addiction to executions. . . . As Adam Liptak reported in The Times on Wednesday, in the last three years, Texas’s share of the nation’s executions has gone from 32 percent to 62 percent. This year, Texas executed 26 people. No other state executed more than three. . . . It is not that Texas sentences people to death at a much higher rate than other states. Rather, Texas has proved to be much more willing than others to carry out the sentences it has imposed. . . . The participants in Texas’s death penalty process, including the governor and the pardon board, are more enthusiastic about moving things along than they are in many states. Texas’s system also contains some special features, like the power of district attorneys to set execution dates. Prosecutors are likely to be more eager than judges to see an execution carried out. At 60% of Total, Texas Is Bucking Execution Trend
12-26-07 -- This year’s death penalty bombshells — a de facto national moratorium, a state abolition and the smallest number of executions in more than a decade — have masked what may be the most significant and lasting development. For the first time in the modern history of the death penalty, more than 60 percent of all American executions took place in Texas. . . . Over the past three decades, the proportion of executions nationwide performed in Texas has held relatively steady, averaging 37 percent. Only once before, in 1986, has the state accounted for even a slight majority of the executions, and that was in a year with 18 executions nationwide. . . . But enthusiasm for executions outside of Texas has dropped sharply. Of the 42 executions in the last year, 26 were in Texas. The remaining 16 were spread across nine other states, none of which executed more than three people. Many legal experts say the trend will probably continue.
Capital punishment loses ground, for good reasons.
12-23-07 -- IN MANY ways 2007 was a remarkable year in the history of the death penalty. Forty-two people were executed, the fewest since 1994 and down from last year's 53. According to a year-end report by the Death Penalty Information Center, fewer prisoners were sentenced to death in 2007 than in any year since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment. . . . Some of the downward momentum can be attributed to the Supreme Court itself, which imposed a de facto moratorium on executions until it decides whether lethal injection -- the most common method of execution in the country -- constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Roughly 40 cases involving the death penalty were put on hold as a result. END OF 2007 DEATH PENALTY REPORTS Legal Challenges Put Brakes on Executions Annual Total Hits a 13-Year Low
12-19-07 -- The number of executions in the United States hit a 13-year low in 2007, mostly because of a de facto moratorium on the death penalty prompted by challenges against the use of lethal injection, according to a report by a group that opposes capital punishment. . . . There were 42 executions in 2007, down from 53 last year and the lowest number since 31 people were put to death in 1994, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. . . . The most immediate reason is court challenges across the nation that focus on the constitutionality of the chemical combination used in lethal injections by all but one of the 36 states that have the death penalty. . . . There have been no executions since Sept. 25, the day the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge from two Kentucky death row inmates that the procedure violates the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The report said that more than 40 executions across the country have been stayed because of concerns about physical pain experienced during the procedure.
N.J. Ends Capital Punishment, Commutes All Death Sentences First state to legislatively repeal the death penalty since 1965, and since the Supreme Court reauthorized it in 1976
12-19-07 -- A quarter-century after it was reinstated and without it ever being used, New Jersey's death penalty is repealed. . . . Gov. Jon Corzine on Monday signed legislation that eliminates capital punishment as a sentence and replaces it with life in prison without parole. . . . At the same time, he commuted the death sentences of the eight men presently on death row at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton to life without parole. . . . "These commutations, along with today’s bill signing, brings to a close in New Jersey the protracted moral and practical debate on the death penalty," Corzine said at the signing ceremony. . . . New Jersey thus becomes the first state to legislatively repeal the death penalty since 1965 and also the first since the U.S. Supreme Court reauthorized capital punishment in 1976.
New Jersey Moves to End Its Death Penalty
12-14-07 -- The New Jersey General Assembly approved a bill eliminating capital punishment on Thursday, clearing the way for Gov. Jon S. Corzine to sign the measure as early as Monday. . . . Mr. Corzine said he would act quickly. “It will be very, very prompt,” he said at a news conference on Thursday. “I’m sure it will be within the next week.” . . . Once he signs the bill, New Jersey will become the first state in the modern era of capital punishment to repeal the death penalty. . . . The measure has moved at an unusually fast pace through the Legislature. In the last week, it passed a Senate committee, an Assembly committee and both houses, leading many Republicans to accuse the Democratic leadership of trying to rush the bill through a lame-duck session. . . . “I am ashamed the Assembly would consider this bill today,” said Assemblyman Richard A. Merkt, a conservative Republican from Randolph. . . . The voting did not break down exclusively along party lines, however. Three Republicans joined 41 Democrats in the Assembly to pass the bill, 44 to 36. Surprisingly, nine Democrats voted against the measure. On Monday in the Senate, 4 Republicans joined 17 Democrats to muster just enough support to get the 21 votes needed to pass a bill.
Texas sentences more people to
death than any other state in America, and the emotional toll on
its defence lawyers is so great that many only ever work on a
handful of cases. Not so Jerry Guerinot. He's defended 39 men
and women. The bad news: 20 have been sentenced to death. Is he
incompetent, or does he just get the 'hardest cases'?
12-3-07 -- A few miles west of downtown Houston, in his office on a scruffy industrial estate, Jerry Guerinot, probably America's most dangerous defence lawyer, reflects on his career. For a conscientious attorney, death penalty murder trials create 'absolutely the most pressure you can have', he says emphatically. 'You never want anybody to be sentenced to death on your watch. I'm never happy to see anybody get sentenced to death. I don't think anybody could ever be happy.' . .. Guerinot, a big man with a booming voice and thinning, silvery hair, says that at the age of 62 he's finally had enough of the legal death business in which he's toiled for more than 25 years. '[If] the state tries you for the death penalty in Harris County [the jurisdiction in which Houston sits], the chances of you getting it are huge. And the chances of you having it carried out against you are even bigger.' Guerinot is right - as of July this year, 98 Harris County men and two women have been dispatched since the US Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976. Houston has 1.3 per cent of America's population but carries out 10 per cent of its executions.
November 2007
New York's Last Death Row Inmate Resentenced
11-30-07 -- New York's last inmate on death row was resentenced to life without parole for the execution-style killings of five employees at a fast food restaurant. . . . John Taylor, whose death penalty sentence was overturned last month by the state's highest court, showed no emotion Thursday as he was led into a New York City courtroom nearly filled with relatives and friends of the victims. . . . "Look at me, John Taylor; look at me. Do you know the pain I am feeling for my child?" Jean Truman Smith said angrily as she gave her victim impact statement before the sentencing. Her daughter, 23-year-old Anita, was one of seven employees shot in the head by Taylor and a co-defendant in 2000 at a Wendy's restaurant in the Queens section of New York. . . . All the victims were blindfolded during a robbery and herded into the restaurant's walk-in freezer, where they were forced to kneel and were shot at close range. Two victims survived but were critically wounded. . . . Taylor, 43, shackled and handcuffed, avoided eye contact with the family members. States know that their lethal injection procedure may cause excruciating pain, yet they defend it anyway.
Justices won't allow Alabama death row inmate's challenge
11-26-07 -- The Supreme Court on Monday refused to allow a death row inmate to try to prove his innocence through DNA testing. . . . Thomas Arthur, 65, was sentenced for the 1982 killing of Troy Wicker of Muscle Shoals, Ala. His execution has been set for Dec 6, but is expected to be delayed because of a pending Supreme Court case involving lethal injections. . . . The victim's wife, Judy Wicker, testified at Arthur's trial that she had sex with him and paid him $10,000 to kill her husband, who was shot in the face as he lay in bed. Earlier at her own trial, Wicker testified that a man burglarizing her home raped her, knocked her unconscious and then shot her husband.
California's high court seeks death penalty fix Justices propose to deal with the massive backlog by allowing case review to be transferred to lower courts.
11-20-07 -- The California Supreme Court on Monday called for a constitutional amendment to ease the backlog in the state's death penalty system, which takes an average of 17 years to execute a condemned convict -- twice the national average. . . . The amendment would permit the state's high court, which has had exclusive oversight of capital appeals since California became a state in 1850, to transfer review of some death penalty cases to lower courts. Chief Justice Ronald M. George, who announced the proposal, said he wanted the Legislature to put the amendment on the November 2008 ballot. . . . The system's delays and ensuing backlogs are bad for the condemned inmates, prosecutors and the public interest "in finality and enforcement of the law," George said in a phone interview Monday.
Both Sides Play Victim in Death Penalty Case Defense says police targeted wrong man in '89 murder probe, while prosecutor rails against media accounts' 'one-sided ideology'
11-14-07 -- The death penalty case of Troy Anthony Davis came before the Supreme Court of Georgia on Tuesday, with his lawyers claiming he is the victim of mistaken identity and a Savannah prosecutor claiming that the state is a victim of an unfair public opinion campaign. . . . Davis deserves a new trial because he was not responsible for the 1989 murder of Savannah policeman Mark Allen McPhail, one of his lawyers told the court. . . . "This is a case of reasonable doubt and innocence," Washington attorney Jason Ewart said. . . . Along with family members of Davis and McPhail, representatives from the organizations that turned Davis into a cause célèbre over the summer -- such as Amnesty International, the Southern Center for Human Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP -- attended the 40-minute argument. . . . Chatham District Attorney Spencer Lawton Jr. offered up thanks that the time for courtroom arguments had come.
Unequal Justice: Anyone can get a deal Chapter 2 in a five-chapter series.
11-12-07 -- The first time Eddie Mae Dudley committed murder, she stabbed a woman in a fight over a beer. . . . The second time, she shot one of her housemates – an elderly stroke victim who used a walker – when he wouldn't get out of bed. . . . Ms. Dudley served seven years in prison for No. 1. The only consequence for No. 2 was five years of probation. . . . If she committed a third murder today, she could get probation again. Many people with violent histories remain eligible forever because of little-known quirks in Texas law. . . . Ms. Dudley isn't the only two-time killer who's served probation in Dallas County since 2000. The Dallas Morning News identified two more. . . . Ronald Violet was already on probation for bludgeoning a man to death when he did it again. Before that, he'd been convicted of sexually abusing a girl. . . . Shane Webb's first murder earned him a 10-year prison sentence. After his release, he assaulted a girlfriend and then shot a man to death. . . . Other violent offenders who won probation include two men who murdered while trying to commit robbery – a crime potentially punishable by death.
Capital Cases Stalling as Costs Grow Daunting
11-5-07 -- When Hilton M. Fuller Jr., a semiretired judge of the silver-haired, Southern-gentleman variety, agreed to preside over the trial in a notorious courthouse shooting here, he took a job no one else wanted — the legal community was still in shock over the death of a judge, a court reporter, a sheriff’s deputy and a federal agent. . . . But now, two years later, the truly thankless nature of Judge Fuller’s task has become evident. The legislature has threatened to impeach him. Columnists have taken him to task. On Friday, the district attorney sued him in State Supreme Court. Even fellow judges have abandoned their usual reticence. On a recent afternoon, he received a copy of an e-mail message from a colleague calling him a “debacle,” an “embarrassment” and a “fool.” And the trial has yet to begin. . . . The anger directed at Judge Fuller revolves around an issue more and more states are being forced to confront — the rising cost of an adequate defense in death-penalty cases. Even as an examination of lethal injection by the Supreme Court has seemingly suspended the practice across the country, many experts predict that the cost issue will have far broader implications for the future of the death penalty. . . . States unwilling to pay the huge costs of defending people charged in capital cases may be unable to conduct executions. The Supreme Court should end both lethal injection and capital punishment altogether
11-2-07 -- Tuesday evening, Earl W. Berry, a Mississippi prisoner condemned to lethal injection, was just moments away from facing his fate when the Supreme Court wisely granted a stay of execution. Legal experts say that this decision signals to lower courts that a de facto moratorium on lethal injection is in place, at least until the Supreme Court hears a case on whether injection is cruel and unusual later this term. Although this is a step in the right direction, it is a distraction to the real issue at hand: the ultimate end of capital punishment. . . . It seems likely that the Court will maintain this moratorium on capital punishment until it issues a ruling on whether lethal injection is constitutional, which is appropriate when both the legality and morality of lethal injection remain in question. However, the case it will hear in January relates only to the mode of punishment, not its very existence. While the number of executions per year has dropped to 42 this year, its lowest level in more than a decade, we cannot let the moratorium distract us from the larger issues at stake. . . . Although lethal injection is less gruesome than other methods of execution, it is no less brutal. Research indicates that the anesthetic can wear off, while another drug keeps the condemned paralyzed, thus giving the illusion of serenity, underscored with massive unseen pain. The drugs are known to take anywhere between seven minutes to two hours to be effective, and finding a suitable vein is often a long, torturous ordeal. It is stupefying to fathom that lethal injection, which has been used for almost 25 years, is only now being seen as cruel and unusual punishment. October 2007
California may be forced to redesign executions A decision to toss latest plan would increase uncertainty over state's death penalty, already on hold because of a constitutional challenge.
10-31-07 -- California may have to go back to the drawing board to redesign how to execute condemned inmates by lethal injection, under a tentative ruling Tuesday by a Marin County Superior Court judge. . . . Judge Lynn O'Malley Taylor's decision to toss the state's design, if it becomes final, will cast more uncertainty on California's death penalty, already on a de facto moratorium for the last 20 months because of a constitutional challenge to lethal injection. . . . Critics across the country have objected that lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, contending that the three-drug cocktail that is used includes a paralyzing chemical that masks extreme pain. . . . The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a challenge to lethal injection in a Kentucky case.
Hello? Hello?! Criminal justice
10-31-07 -- During Presiding Judge Sharon Keller's tenure, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has been derided for seeing no harm when lawyers commit obvious errors. In its zeal to uphold convictions come what may, the court has been scolded by the U.S. Supreme Court for not following precedent. . . . But for sheer myopia, it's hard to top Keller's refusal to keep the court open long enough to accept an emergency appeal from a Death Row inmate about to be executed. . . . Even Keller's fellow judges were dumbfounded by her rigidity. . . . There's no question that rules exist for a reason. And justice does demand some finality. . . . But condemned killer Michael Richard's attempted appeal on Sept. 25 wasn't a baseless ploy to avoid execution for raping and fatally shooting Marguerite Dixon in 1986. . . . The last-minute scramble was set in motion by the U.S. Supreme Court's announcement earlier in the day that it would use a Kentucky case to decide whether the three-drug execution cocktail used by 36 states, including Texas, amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. ABA seeks execution moratorium Study of states finds 'deeply flawed' process, inequities
10-29-07 -- The American Bar Association, concluding a three-year study of capital punishment systems in eight states, found so many inequities and shortfalls that the group is calling for a nationwide moratorium on executions. . . . In a study to be released Monday, the attorney organization, which has more than 400,000 members, said that death penalty systems in Indiana, Georgia, Ohio, Alabama and Tennessee in particular had so many problems that those states should institute a temporary halt to executions immediately until further study can be conducted. . . . They were among eight states studied that provided the basis for the association's call to halt executions nationwide. . . . "After carefully studying the way states across the spectrum handle executions, it has become crystal clear that the process is deeply flawed," Stephen Hanlon, chairman of the ABA's Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project, said in a statement.
Appellate judge called 'out of control'
10-29-07 -- Sharon Keller won election to Texas' highest criminal court 13 years ago with a promise to be a staunch supporter of the death penalty and a "pro-prosecution" judge. . . . Since that time, Keller has risen to become the presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals with a term lasting until 2012. Depending on the point of view, she is either a tough-as-nails jurist or an ideologue who puts the execution of convicted criminals ahead of constitutional due process. . . . A fellow judge once accused her of turning the court into a "national laughingstock" after Keller said DNA tests clearing a convicted rapist were not conclusive because the man could have worn a condom. . . . And now 20 lawyers have filed a grievance against her with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct because on Sept. 25 she ordered the court clerk's office to close promptly at 5 p.m., denying death row inmate Michael Richard an opportunity to get a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court. Richard was executed a little more than three hours later.
Following Moratorium Trend, Court Halts Alabama Execution
10-26-07 -- A federal appeals court panel unanimously ordered a stay of execution on Wednesday for a terminally ill prisoner who was scheduled to die by lethal injection in Alabama on Thursday. . . . Lawyers representing the prisoner, Daniel L. Siebert, 56, filed an appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta after Judge Mark E. Fuller of Federal District Court in Alabama refused to stop his execution. Defense lawyers said the drug mixture used by the state could interact with Mr. Siebert’s cancer medications and cause excruciating pain. . . . The three-judge appeals panel, following a pattern set by other courts in recent weeks, said the execution would have to wait until the Supreme Court decided in the coming months whether lethal injections violated Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. . . . Fifteen other states have adopted the same posture on lethal injections, in effect creating a moratorium on death sentences nationwide.
Top Court in Georgia Again Delays an Execution
10-24-07 -- For the second time in four days, the Georgia Supreme Court on Monday ordered a stay of execution for a condemned prisoner, citing the United States Supreme Court’s decision to review the constitutionality of lethal injection as a method of execution. . . . The prisoner, Curtis Osborne, who was sentenced to death for killing two people in 1991, had been scheduled to die on Oct. 23 by lethal injection. . . . His execution will probably be delayed until the Supreme Court issues its ruling on lethal injection, expected next spring. . . . Mr. Osborne’s stay made it clear that Georgia has joined 16 other states that have effectively stopped lethal injections as they await a decision in Baze v. Rees, the case before the Supreme Court that challenges the deadly drug cocktail given to condemned inmates as a violation of the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. . . . On Thursday, the Georgia court reversed an earlier decision and postponed the lethal injection of Jack E. Alderman, who had been scheduled to die on Friday. . . . Arkansas, Ohio and Nevada also postponed executions last week.
Death Penalty Is Thrown Out in Wendy’s Killings
10-24-07 --Closing a chapter on one of the bloodiest crimes in recent New York City history, the state’s highest court today tossed out the death sentence imposed on a man for his role in the murders of five workers at a Wendy’s restaurant in Queens seven years ago. . . . The man, John B. Taylor, was the last remaining inmate on New York State’s death row. . . . The divided decision by the Court of Appeals not only ordered the trial court to resentence Mr. Taylor — almost certainly to life in prison without parole — but it also reaffirmed a landmark decision in 2004 that effectively invalidated the state’s death penalty law. . . . “We are ultimately left exactly where we were three years ago,” the court wrote in its 4-3 ruling. “The death penalty statute is unconstitutional on its face and it is not within our power to save the statute.” . . . Mr. Taylor was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death at his trial in Queens in 2000. He and an accomplice, Craig Godineaux, were found to have forced seven people into a walk-in freezer at the Wendy’s in Flushing, bound and gagged them, then placed them on their knees before shooting each in the head. . . . Two of the victims survived, and testified at Mr. Taylor’s trial. (Mr. Godineaux, who is mildly retarded, pleaded guilty to murder in the case and is serving a life sentence without parole.)
Feds push for capital punishment in Michigan cases Should they die?
10-19-07 -- Michigan, the first state to abolish capital punishment, has one man awaiting execution ordered by a jury in Grand Rapids and three more facing possible death penalties in Detroit. . . . The apparent contradiction stems from the fact Michigan, which banned the death penalty in 1847, is subject to capital punishment for certain federal crimes. . . . Marvin Gabrion has awaited execution at an Indiana prison since 2002, when a federal jury in Grand Rapids sentenced him to death in the murder of Rachel Timmerman. Gabrion gagged and bound her with tape, handcuffs and chains, weighted her with cinder blocks, then dumped her in Oxford Lake. . . . In Detroit, the federal government is seeking the death penalty for three men awaiting trial in the 2001 murder of security guard Norman "Anthony" Stephens during an armored truck robbery at a federal credit union in Dearborn. A hearing in the case is set for today.
The pro-death-penalty president wants Texas to give a death row inmate from Mexico a new hearing.
10-19-07 -- An oral argument in the U.S. Supreme Court last week featured an especially dramatic example of role reversal. The administration of George W. Bush, a former governor of Texas and an enthusiastic supporter of capital punishment, asked the justices to force the courts of his home state to grant a new hearing to a death row inmate. . . . That wasn't the only oddity. The administration asked the Supreme Court to order a new hearing for Jose Medellin, a convicted rapist and murderer from Mexico, because Bush -- not usually known for his deference to international organizations -- promised Mexico he would secure one after Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on American death rows (including 28 in California) won a victory in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. . . . The World Court found that the inmates had not been allowed to confer after their arrests with consular officials from their home country, a right guaranteed in the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which the United States ratified in 1969. In 2005, the international tribunal said the inmates deserved "a review and reconsideration of the convictions and sentences." Bush agreed.
Court Won't Take Up Delayed Executions The Supreme Court declined once again yesterday to decide whether a lengthy delay in carrying out a death sentence amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, this time in the case of an Arizona man who murdered two teenage girls. . . . Justice Stephen G. Breyer was the only justice to go on record as wanting to take the case, and he explained why: . . . "Joe Clarence Smith, petitioner in this case, was first sentenced to death 30 years ago. Due to constitutional error, the Arizona courts in 1979 set this first sentencing aside. Smith was again sentenced to death later that year. Due to ineffective assistance of counsel, the federal courts in 1999 set this second sentencing aside. Smith was again sentenced to death in 2004. He now argues that the Federal Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments forbids his execution more than 30 years after he was initially convicted.
20 Lawyers Join in Complaint Over Execution Stay
10-12-07 -- Twenty Texas lawyers have joined in a complaint to be filed with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct against Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller for closing the CCA clerk's office at 5 p.m. on Sept. 25, preventing an inmate's attorneys from filing an emergency request to stay his execution. . . . Within hours after the CCA closed its doors, the state executed Michael Richard for a 1986 murder. The U.S. Supreme Court had agreed earlier in the day that Richard was executed to consider a Kentucky case, Baze v. Rees, regarding whether the lethal injection method of execution constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. . . . Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), said at a news conference Wednesday that Richard's attorneys had to file a motion to stay in the CCA before they could file a motion to stay with the Supreme Court. Harrington said that Keller's decision short-circuited the effort to get Richard's motion before the high court. . . . "This is the kind of conduct that really shocks people's morality," Harrington said.
Lawyers fault death penalty procedures
10-10-07 -- State Sen. Jim Ferlo hopes that a new report castigating Pennsylvania's death penalty procedures will force a public hearing on his bill to impose a two-year moratorium on executions in the state. . . . The American Bar Association yesterday released a two-year study that claims there are "substantial shortcomings" in the way the state handles death penalty cases, a situation that could increase the chances of "not adequately protecting against the wrongful conviction of innocent people." . . . "This bar association report should be a major impetus to push my bill along," said the Highland Park Democrat. "When a major pronouncement from such a prestigious group of national and Pennsylvania trial lawyers comes along, it should help garner support for the bill."
Texas Ruling Signals Indefinite Halt to Executions By Ralph Blumenthal 10-3-07 -- Signaling an indefinite halt to executions in Texas, the state’s highest criminal appeals court late Tuesday stayed the lethal injection of a 28-year-old Honduran man who was scheduled to be put to death Wednesday. . . . The reprieve by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was granted a week after the United States Supreme Court agreed to consider whether a form of lethal injection constituted cruel and unusual punishment barred under the Eighth Amendment. On Thursday, the Supreme Court stepped in to halt a planned execution in Texas at the last minute, and though many legal experts interpreted that as a signal for all states to wait for a final ruling on lethal injection before any further executions, Texas officials said they planned to move ahead with more. . . . As a result, Tuesday’s ruling by the Texas court was seen as a sign that judges in the nation’s leading death penalty state were taking guidance from the Supreme Court and putting off imminent executions. . . . The Texas court order gave state authorities up to 30 days to explain in legal papers why the execution of the inmate, Heliberto Chi, should proceed. With responses then certain from defense lawyers, the effect of the order was to put off the execution for months, lawyers said.
September 2007
DAY THREE Prosecutors in Georgia are at odds over armed-robbery murders; some seek death, others almost always seek life. Juries tend to favor life sentences. Death penalty for certain crimes could be on way out
“A matter of life or death":
DAY ONE
• Of Georgia's 132 most heinous
murderers over a recent 10-year span, only 29 of them landed on
death row. The cases | Video: The victim's father
9-24-07 -- Two men begged a ride from a Wal-Mart shopper in Milledgeville. Minutes later he was dead, shot once in the head. The killers sit on death row. . . . Two men begged a ride from a college student at a Tifton nightclub. Minutes later he was dead, shot four times in the stomach and chest. The killers are serving life in prison and will be eligible for parole. . . . Two exceedingly similar crimes, just a few months and 135 miles apart. Two starkly different outcomes. . . . The murders illustrate what a two-year investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has revealed: Getting the death penalty in Georgia is as predictable as a lightning strike. Thirty-five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the death penalty nationwide after finding it was arbitrary and capricious in Georgia. . . . It still is. Reforms that persuaded the high court to reinstate the death penalty have fallen far short of the state's promises, the Journal-Constitution has found. DAY TWO Gang leader Ahmond Dunnigan directed two of the most horrendous murders imaginable, yet managed to avoid the death penalty — twice.
9-24-07 -- Marsinah Johnson set a goal for September 1993 in her day planner, tracing it in bubbly letters: Celebrate my birthday well. . . . She never had the chance. Johnson's turbulent life would end on a forlorn stretch of Atlanta railroad tracks four months before she could turn 14. . . . She died at the command of Ahmond Dunnigan, a baby-faced gang leader who presided over the gruesome torture-murders of Johnson and another teenage girl that year. . . . Dunnigan called his gang "Doom." . . . The crimes made a homicide detective cry on the witness stand. They qualified for Georgia's death penalty nine ways. . . . But a cascade of setbacks in Dunnigan's prosecution helped him escape execution not once, but twice. . . . If the death penalty was meant for the worst of the worst killers, how did it fail to snare Dunnigan? . . . The odds were in his favor: Even when confronted with some of Georgia's most notorious killings, DeKalb and Fulton prosecutors were among the least likely to secure a death sentence, a Journal-Constitution investigation found. . . . DeKalb sent no killer to death row from 1995 through 2004, and Fulton sent just two. The counties were home to a quarter of all death-eligible crimes in the state over the decade.
Appeals court upholds death sentence A juror's reciting Bible verses did not taint the verdict for Stevie Lamar Fields, a panel rules.
9-11-07 -- A federal appeals court Monday refused to overturn the death sentence of convicted murderer Stevie Lamar Fields, rejecting claims that the jury foreman had tainted penalty deliberations by reciting Bible verses, including "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth." . . . Fields was convicted in the 1978 rape, robbery and murder of Rosemary Carr Cobb, a USC student librarian. At the time, he was on parole for a manslaughter conviction. . .. During penalty deliberations, foreman Rodney White researched and recited for his fellow jurors several biblical passages, among them, "He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death." . .. Writing for the 9-6 majority, U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Pamela Ann Rymer said that the verses, as well as White's notes listing pros and cons of the death penalty -- including "deterrence" on the pro side and "human fallibility" on the con side -- were "notions of general currency that inform the moral judgment that capital-case jurors are called upon to make."
Appeals Court Likely Split on Death Penalty Law
9-11-07 -- The state's highest court, which struck down New York's death penalty statute three years ago, is now considering whether to reinstate capital punishment. . . . An appeal by the last inmate on New York's death row, John Taylor, reached the seven judges of Albany's Court of Appeals yesterday. Over five hours of oral arguments, it became clear that the three years since the court struck down the state's death penalty provision have not erased divisions within the court over whether it ruled correctly in 2004. . . . Question after question from one of the three judges who had dissented in that case, Robert Smith, indicated that he was wrestling with whether the court should disavow its rejection of the death penalty in its 2004 ruling on The People v. Stephen LaValle. . . . "How radical would it be to say that we made a mistake in 2004?" Judge Smith asked at one point. Prosecutors from the office of the Queens district attorney, arguing on behalf of the state, urged the court to do just that. It was at a Wendy's restaurant in Queens in 2000 that Taylor, 43, committed the five murders for which he was condemned. The district attorney for the borough, Richard Brown, has long advocated for the death penalty in the case.
August 2007
Judge calls for overhaul of California death penalty system Law article cites growing backlog of executions
8-31-07 -- The death penalty system in California is so backed up that the state would have to execute five prisoners a month for the next 10 years just to clear the inmates already on death row. . . . The average wait for execution in the state is 17.2 years, twice the national figure. And the backlog is likely to grow, considering the trend: Thirty people have been on death row for more than 25 years, 119 for more than 20 years and 408 for more than a decade. . . . These statistics were cited by an influential judge in a recent article, one in a small but growing number of critiques of California's death penalty machinery, which has proven so clogged that one jurist has called capital punishment in the state an "illusion."
Texas governor commutes death sentence for
8-30-07 --For the first time during his tenure, Texas Gov. Rick Perry commuted the death sentence of a condemned inmate, Kenneth Foster, who was scheduled to die Thursday night for driving his friends from the scene of a fatal robbery in 1996. . . . The rare reprieve for Foster, 30, halted what was to be the third execution this week in Texas. . . . Texas has executed 21 inmates in 2007, more than any other state. Last week, the state executed its 400th inmate since the death penalty was reinstated in 1982. . . . Gov. Perry signed the papers making the commutation official less than two hours after the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole voted 6 to 1 in favor of a recommendation of clemency.
Deception and the death penalty Christopher Hill’s Point of View 8-22-07 -- North Carolina's death penalty process is broken in so many ways that it may be irreparable. Its history is beleaguered by tales of prosecutorial misconduct and other government deceptions, including withholding evidence, misleading jurors and relying on false confessions. The latest embarrassment was confirmed recently in an order from Administrative Law Judge Fred G. Morrison, who found that state officials misled federal Judge Malcolm Howard in proceeding with last year's execution of Willie Brown. . . . In his order, Judge Morrison said that in 2006, attorneys representing the state's Department of Correction misled U.S. District Judge Howard into believing a doctor would be present to monitor the lethal injection death of Brown, a condemned man who had challenged the constitutionality of the state's capital punishment protocols. . . . Doctors are present at lethal injections to ensure the inmate is fully unconscious before being killed. Confident that his physician requirement would be satisfied, Howard denied Brown's request for a stay of execution and Brown was put to death.
Court lifts stay on executions 8-17-07 -- (AP) - Condemned inmate Michael Taylor could soon face an execution date - even as he plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case on the constitutionality of Missouri's lethal injection method. . . . A ruling Friday by a federal appeals court in St. Louis effectively cleared the way for the Missouri Supreme Court to set execution dates for Taylor and nine other condemned inmates sought by Attorney General Jay Nixon. . . . The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' action effectively lifted a federal district judge's stay on all Missouri executions that has been in place since June 2006. . . . What is now in effect is a three-judge appeals court panel decision in June that said Missouri's execution procedure is not cruel and unusual punishment. . . . The full appeals court on Aug. 7 refused to take up Taylor's case. . . . Taylor's attorney, Ginger Anders, said she will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the appeals court's decision. But she acknowledged the Missouri Supreme Court can act whenever it wants to set an execution date for her client. . . . The U.S. Supreme Court won't resume until the fall, but it could consider an expedited review.
California must reject the U.S. attorney general's effort to bend death penalty rules.
Religion, culture behind Texas execution tally
8-12-07 -- (Reuters) - Texas will almost certainly hit the grim total of 400 executions this month, far ahead of any other state, testament to the influence of the state's conservative evangelical Christians and its cultural mix of Old South and Wild West. . . . "In Texas you have all the elements lined up. Public support, a governor that supports it and supportive courts," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. . . . "If any of those things are hesitant then the process slows down," said Dieter. "With all cylinders working as in Texas it produces a lot of executions." . . . Texas has executed 398 convicts since it resumed the practice in 1982, six years after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a ban on capital punishment, far exceeding second-place Virginia with 98 executions since the ban was lifted. It has five executions scheduled for August.
8-6-07 -- Many people assume that execution by lethal injection is simple and gentle. It’s neither. An inmate is given three drugs to do three things: (1) Knock him out. (2) Paralyze him so he doesn’t flop around or gasp in a way that upsets witnesses. (3) Kill him. If a step goes awry, an inmate can be paralyzed, inadequately sedated or unable to move or cry out as the poisons do their agonizing work. . . . The job requires medical competence, but states have had a hard time finding skilled executioners. Most doctors refuse to do the ultimate harm; the American Medical Association and most other professional medical organizations forbid doctors to participate in executions. . . . A recent spate of botched executions has led some courts and states in the encouraging direction of halting the procedures and reviewing lethal-injection protocols, which have frequently been found to be flimsy and improvised. But other states have gone another, dangerous route. They have thrown a shroud over the procedure — a new executioner’s hood — to hide the system’s flaws and weaknesses. . . . One truly disturbing example, recounted by Adam Liptak in The Times, involves Missouri, where a doctor was revealed as an unqualified bumbler who admitted having confused the drug dosages in some of the more than 50 executions he had supervised. “It’s not unusual for me to make mistakes,” he said, blaming dyslexia. July 2007
A circuit court questions the "experience and competence" of masked executioners.
7-24-07 -- Less than a week after Gov. Charlie Crist lifted a moratorium on executions, a judge has halted the process for a death row inmate, raising new questions about the future of Florida's death penalty. . . . Circuit Judge Carven Angel in Ocala questioned the "experience and competence" of the hooded executioner who's paid by the state to apply lethal chemicals in the death chamber. . . . The judge, speaking during a court hearing Sunday, also questioned numerous protocols established after it took twice as long as normal for murderer Angel Diaz to die because the chemicals did not enter his bloodstream correctly. . . . The incident led to a seven-month moratorium on the death penalty in Florida, which ended last week when Crist signed a death warrant for rapist and murderer Mark Dean Schwab.
Former drug dealer on death row claims self-defense in 1994 shooting deaths
Back in the early nineties, when drug- and gang-related violence plagued the streets of San Antonio, Frank Moore was a hustler at the top of the game. . . . Moore, who went by the name Frank Mackie Jr., dealt primarily in crack cocaine and weapons in San Antonio's housing projects, the source of the street-crime epidemic responsible for the majority of homicides in the early 1990s. . . . Those who knew Moore say he maintained a low profile by keeping out of the public eye, relying on a close circle of associates and never getting high off his own supply. . . . As he sits on Texas' death row for fatally shooting two young men outside a local bar, Moore admits to committing numerous crimes in his 30 years on the streets. . . . But he firmly denies responsibility for the murders he was tried and convicted of, in not one, but two trials. . . . Moore, 48, has long maintained that he acted in self-defense on Jan. 21, 1994, the night he shot Samuel Boyd, 23, and Patrick Clark, 15, outside Wheels of Joy, a bar located a few blocks from the San Antonio housing projects where Moore ran his game. . . . But it was not until last year that a private investigator, who once worked against Moore and his gangland cohorts, came forward with information to corroborate his self-defense claims. Read the story, with video interviews Cantu case underscores need for outside review
7-16-07 -- Texas, the leading death-penalty state, too often fails to ensure airtight justice. . . . Responding to fears that a San Antonio man was executed for a murder he didn't commit, the Bexar County district attorney's office has finished a re-investigation and concluded that Ruben Cantu was guilty and properly paid with his life in 1993. . . . Many critics – us included – feel shortchanged by DA Susan Reed's review. For starters, Ms. Reed was the judge who set an execution date for Mr. Cantu. When a key witness recanted last year, the appearance of vested interest glared like neon and should have prompted her to call for outside review. . . . Instead, her office has produced what skeptics may always see as a mere obligatory answer to charges that officials concocted a case against Mr. Cantu. An outside analysis, even if it reached the same conclusion, would at least have the aura of legitimacy. . . . The sorry truth is that Texas has no established apparatus to consult when justice is strongly questioned. Lawmakers could have fixed this deficiency by approving creation of an innocence commission to study troubling cases and recommend fixes in the justice system. The proposal passed the state Senate this spring but died in the House, along with good sense.
Will Georgia Kill an Innocent Man?
Click for Thurgood Marshall Journalism Awards-2007
Troy Davis Supporters Deliver Letters to Parole Board
7-11-07 -- (APN) Supporters of death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis held a press conference Tuesday at the "Sloppy" Floyd Administration Building where the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles is headquartered. . . . Representatives from Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda (GCPA), the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia (ACLU), the US Human Rights Network, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference delivered over 4,000 letters asking for clemency for Davis to The Board at the conclusion of the press conference. . . . "We ask with one voice that the Georgia Board see Troy Davis’s case anew," Larry Cox, Executive Director of AIUSA, told the crowd.
Revised lethal injection plan assailed Lawyers for death row inmate Michael Morales say a revised protocol for executing convicts is 'even more ill-conceived' than previous versions.
7-5-07 -- Attorneys for condemned inmate Michael Morales told a judge overseeing a legal challenge to California executions that the state's new lethal injection procedures are "even more ill-conceived and deficient than the older versions." . . . The comments came in an amended complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose in response to proposed revisions to the state's procedures for executing death row inmates. . . . In December, Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled that California's lethal injection methods violate the 8th Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. . . . California, like three dozen other states that use lethal injection, employs a three-drug cocktail, which has been blamed for excruciatingly painful deaths of inmates nationwide. . . . The first drug, sodium thiopental, is a fast-acting barbiturate that is supposed to render the inmate unconscious before the other two drugs — pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the body, and potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest — are administered.
Ohio Inmate's Execution Not Constitutional, Lawsuit Says
7-2-07 -- The mother of a condemned inmate whose execution took almost 90 minutes -- an hour longer than is typical -- sued the head of Ohio's prisons Monday. . . . Irma Clark's lawsuit said the execution of Joseph Clark in May 2006 amounted to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment, and she wants the state to change the way it carries out death sentences. . . . Joining Clark and her family at a news conference Monday was Michael Manning, whose brother David was killed by Clark in November 1984. . . . "Nobody should have to die a horrible death," Manning said. . . . The lawsuit was filed in Cincinnati federal court on behalf of Clark's estate, which lists his mother as administrator.
Death-row reversals of fortune In 7 years, 50 Pa. inmates awaiting execution were spared by the courts.
7-2-07 -- Harrison "Marty" Graham was sent to death row in 1988 for strangling seven women, whose corpses he kept beneath piles of trash in his North Philadelphia apartment. In 2003, a state trial-court judge threw out the sentence, and Graham now is serving life. . . . Kenneth Ford was condemned to die after a jury found him guilty in 1991 of killing two women with a 10-inch Bowie knife in a West Philadelphia candy store. In 2002, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out the sentence, and Ford now is serving life. . . . Joseph Szuchon lived with his girlfriend in the city until she broke up with him and moved to Erie. In 1981, he fatally shot her there in a cornfield. In 2001, a federal appeals court threw out his death sentence, and Szuchon now is serving life. . . . In just the last seven years in Pennsylvania, an estimated 50 inmates who were facing execution have gotten new leases on life behind bars, as federal and state judges overturn death sentences at a rate that is buoying opponents of capital punishment and infuriating prosecutors. . . . Departures from Pennsylvania's death row - with 225 residents, the fourth largest behind California, Florida and Texas - have roughly equaled arrivals since 2000, and could soon eclipse them. . . . The appeals pipeline is clogged with condemned inmates fighting for life without parole, at the very least. Also since 2000, about 75 of them have scored significant interim victories - new sentencing hearings or retrials - typically after courts found serious legal errors in the way their original cases were tried.
June 2007
Common Sense on Capital Punishment 6-29-07 -- Our country seems to be able to come to the right conclusions over time, even when we’re being told over and over again that we're wrong. When I say the right conclusions, by the way, I mean conclusions supported by honest research and real evidence. I've got a good example -- capital punishment. . . . For decades, the self-proclaimed smart kids have been telling us that the death penalty just doesn't work. The people with the top jobs in academia and the news business have scoffed at the American people's insistence that executions prevent murder. . . . On the very surface of the issue, it would seem pretty obvious that an executed murderer can't murder anybody else -- but we’ve been told that we were wrong even about that. You've undoubtedly heard the old saw about executions actually motivating murderers to kill, presumably because what murderers really want is attention. The argument is a stretch, demanding that we believe that killers aren’t deterred by the consequences of being caught and executed. Without evidence, though, it's hard to rebut.
N.Y. Appeals Court Hears Death Case
6-29-07 -- The federal appellate court in Manhattan heard its first death-penalty appeal in more than 40 years yesterday. The three-judge panel sharply questioned the government about its strategy during the trial of Donald Fell, who was sentenced to death in Vermont in 2002. . . . Fell, 27, confessed to killing his mother and her boyfriend with an accomplice on November 26, 2000, and the next morning, kidnapping a 53-year-old grandmother, Teresa King, in Vermont, and murdering her across the state line in upstate New York. . . . That death-penalty sentence was the first to come out of Vermont since 1957, but it was later commuted. . . . A defense attorney for the condemned man asked the judges to overturn the death sentence on the grounds that the jury should not have been allowed to hear testimony about Fell's interest in Satanism as a youth.
Expert: Fell's best chance is now Death verdicts seldom
overturned after one appeal 6-29-07 -- The appeal process of Donald Fell's death sentence could take more than a decade, and each step along the way he does not prevail it gets more and more unlikely that he will succeed in overturning his sentence, according to a death penalty expert in Vermont. . . . Michael Mello, a Vermont Law School professor, said Wednesday that the first direct appeal of a death penalty sentence is statistically the point where a defendant has the best chance to get a favorable decision. . . . "These judges and their law clerks and the folks in the clerk's office are agonizing over this," Mello said. "They will know that if the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upholds (the trial court's verdict), it is extremely likely that Donnie Fell is going to be killed, and that will weigh on all of them." . . . Fell, who is on federal death row in a Terre Haute, Ind., prison, for his role in killing a North Clarendon woman, Terry King, nearly seven years ago, did not attend the oral arguments held in his first direct appeal case Wednesday before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.
6-25-07 --"It is intolerable for the judicial system to treat people this way." That's what four dissenting U.S. Supreme Court justices said of the treatment of Keith Bowles. In denying Bowles the ability to appeal of his murder conviction, the high court demonstrated it puts process ahead of justice. . . . Bowles, an inmate in Ohio serving a sentence of 15 years to life, missed a federal filing deadline for his appeal by three days. He had followed a federal district judge's instructions, but the judge had provided him with erroneous information. . . . One would think that the court system could adjust things slightly for a situation like this. Relying on the directions of a federal judge is a pretty good excuse for missing a deadline. . . . And in fact, the high court had established the "unique circumstances" doctrine for just such a happenstance.
Death penalty in case thrown out
6-26-07 -- A fractured federal appeals court has overturned the death penalty in a case against an Indiana man who raped and killed a 10-year-old neighbor while out on parole in 1993. . . . The shocking details of the case against Christopher M. Stevens prompted Indiana lawmakers to pass Zachary's Law, which created the Indiana Sex Offender Registry in 1994. The law was named after Stevens' victim, Zachary Snider. . . . Stevens has appealed his conviction to four different state and federal courts, claiming his lawyers were ineffective because they did present an insanity defense. All of the courts upheld the conviction and the death penalty. . . . But on June 18, a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the death sentence hearing against Stevens should be tossed out and reheard using evidence that should have been presented the first time around.
Oklahoma prepares to execute terminally ill inmate despite objections of death penalty foes 6-26-07 -- (AP) — A death row inmate with terminal cancer was down to his final appeal Monday, the day before his execution, after a judge dismissed his claim that the state's lethal injection method unconstitutionally causes excruciating pain. . . . Death penalty opponents who question the need to execute someone who has as little as six months to live anyway have rallied around Jimmy Dale Bland, a two-time killer who shot his 62-year-old employer in the back of the head 11 years ago. . . . "It won't take much to kill him. He's half dead now," said Bud Welch of Oklahoma City, a board member of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty whose daughter was killed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. . . . Diann Rust-Tierney, executive director of the Washington-based coalition, said the case raises ethical issues. Nation Prepares for Three Executions Oklahoma, Georgia, and Texas to Execute Inmates on Same Day
6-25-07 -- Three states will be executing inmates on Tuesday. Texas, Oklahoma and Georgia have scheduled executions, bringing the number of executions this year to 27. . . . There have been 1,080 executions in the United States since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977. Texas accounts for 394 of these executions. . . . Oklahoma will execute Jimmy Dale Bland by lethal injection for the 1996 murder of Doyle Windle Rains, 62. Attorneys for Bland asked for a stay of execution because Bland is terminally ill with lung cancer that has spread to his brain and hip bone, and is said to be "on the verge of death". Members of the Rains family urged the state to go ahead with the execution, according to Crime and Punishment /About com. This will be Oklahoma's second execution this year. On January 9, Corey Hamilton was executed. . . . Georgia will execute John Washington Hightower, 63, by lethal injection, for the murders of his wife Dorothy Hightower and two stepdaughters Evelyn Reaves and Sandra Reaves in July of 1987. . .. Texas will execute Patrick Bryan Knight, 39, by lethal injection for the murders of his then neighbors Mary Ann and Walter Werner. A co-defendant Robert Bradfield was also convicted of capital murder, and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Editorial: Judge, jury and executioner
6-22-07 -- This just in: A state district judge in New Mexico has declared the death penalty unconstitutional. . . . This will most assuredly be news to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reinstated capital punishment in Gregg vs. Georgia in 1976, and has upheld the death penalty numerous times in the past three decades. . . . District Judge Tim Garcia out of Albuquerque recently declared capital punishment unconstitutional following a murder case. According to Garcia, during the sentencing phase, juries are "tainted by a premature jury determination during the evidentiary phase of a trial," so therefore a separate jury must consider sentencing. . . . Two state judges have disagreed with similar opinions in the past, including District Judge Stephen Quinn of Portales. . . . Speaking of juries, Garcia is already the judge, and now he has made himself the jury on the constitutionality of capital punishment. NEW JERSEY N.J. Justices Rule Death Penalty Barred if Single Juror Finds Defendant Mentally Retarded
6-20-07 -- A defendant can escape the death penalty if he convinces a single juror that he is mentally retarded, a divided New Jersey Supreme Court ruled on Monday. . . . The majority, in State v. Jimenez, A-75-2006, rejected prosecutors' arguments that the jury must be unanimous. The court held per curiam that mental retardation is analogous to a mitigating factor, which the U.S. and New Jersey supreme courts have held does not need to be decided unanimously. . . . "Because the finding of mental retardation is like a dispositive mitigating factor, we hold that if a single juror finds defendant has met his burden of proving mental retardation by a preponderance of the evidence, defendant is not eligible to receive a penalty of death," wrote the majority, comprised of Chief Justice James Zazzali and Justices Jaynee LaVecchia, John Wallace and Roberto Rivera-Soto. Justice Helen Hoens did not participate.
6-11-07 -- WHEN FIVE justices of the US Supreme Court rejected a death row inmate's challenge to his sentence last week, they acknowledged that a capital defendant has the right to trial by an impartial jury -- one that is drawn from a pool that has not been tilted in favor of the death penalty by selective challenges to would-be jurors. Having recognized that principle, though, the justices went on to eviscerate it. . . . In an opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court ruled that a Washington state judge had the discretion to grant a prosecutor's request to strike "Juror Z," who supported the death penalty but nonetheless expressed some reservations. In doing so, the Supreme Court has given prosecutors permission to try to stack juries toward death, by seeking an all but unconditional commitment to the death penalty on the part of jurors.
Death Penalty Appeal Without a Lawyer A Dozen Alabama Death Row Inmates Are Without Lawyers, Advocates Say
It took an Alabama jury less than 30 minutes to convict Larry Smith of murder and recommend that a judge send him to his death. . . . With his life at stake and his last appeal deadline fast-approaching, Smith found a white-shoe Washington, D.C., law firm to take his case for free. His Washington attorneys discovered that Smith's trial lawyer had never shown the jury evidence that suggested Smith might be innocent. They persuaded a judge earlier this year to grant Smith a new trial. . . . In any other state in the nation, the government would have provided Smith a free attorney to challenge the fairness of his trial. Alabama is the only state in the country that does not provide poor death row inmates with lawyers for post-conviction review of their cases. . . . A dozen of the nearly 200 Alabama death row inmates are without lawyers, according to Bryan Stevenson, director of the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama. . . . "It's shameful and it's a disgrace," said Bill Bowen, a former judge on Alabama's Court of Criminal Appeals. "This is the last stage. If you have any chance at all, it has to be asserted by an attorney now before you're strapped to the gurney." May 2007
Justices Uphold Night Stalker Convictions, Death Sentence
5-30-07 -- The Supreme Court refused to review the convictions and death sentence Tuesday for serial killer Richard Ramirez, the so-called Night Stalker who killed 13 people in California in the 1980s. . . . The justices declined without comment to act on Ramirez's appeal. His killing spree terrorized the Los Angeles area in 1984 and 1985. Satanic symbols were left at murder scenes and some victims were forced by the killer to "swear to Satan." . . . Ramirez, convicted in 1989, is not likely to be executed any time soon. He still has another round of federal appeals to pursue, and the state's death penalty has been on hold for the past 15 months on order of a federal judge.
Louisiana Court Backs Death in Child Rape
5-23-07 -- The Louisiana Supreme Court yesterday upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of raping an 8-year-old girl. Legal experts say the man, Patrick Kennedy, is the only inmate on death row in the United States who was not convicted of committing or participating in a killing. . . . “Looming over this case,” Justice Jeffrey P. Victory wrote for the majority in the 6-to-1 decision, “is the potential for the defendant to be the first person executed for committing an aggravated rape in which the victim survived” since the enactment of a 1995 state law that allows capital punishment for the rape of a child under 12. . . . In 1977, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty could not be imposed for the rape of an adult woman. The justices said the penalty would be disproportionate to the crime and was therefore forbidden as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. But they left open the question of whether child rapists might be sentenced to death. . . . There has not been an execution for rape in the United States since 1964, and no one has been executed for a crime that did not involve a killing since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Before the Supreme Court suspended the death penalty in 1972, 16 states and the federal government authorized it for rape.
Crist to restart death penalty The state's prison system changes clear the way for lethal injections.
5-10-07 -- Gov. Charlie Crist said Wednesday that he is ready to resume lethal injections after the prison system announced changes to its death penalty procedures. . . . Department of Corrections Secretary Jim McDonough made the changes - including enlarging the death chamber and increasing training - to avoid a repeat of the botched execution of Angel Diaz five months ago. . . . Executions have been halted since Dec. 13, when it took 34 minutes to kill Diaz, twice as long as normal. . . . Crist, who was in South Florida on Wednesday, told the Miami Herald he's ready to start signing death warrants now that McDonough had reported the improvements. . . . "I need to carry out my duty as governor," Crist said.
California’s new secret death chamber Death penalty: U.S. states widen scope for executions (FCN, 10-05-2006) Death Penalty Focus of California (Death Penalty Focus) Campaign to End the Death Penalty 5-8-07 -- (FinalCall.com) - Politicians and death penalty opponents are outraged over revelation that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) began construction on a new death chamber at San Quentin State Prison, without notifying state lawmakers or the public. . . . Activists charge that the problem is three-fold: 1) The “secret” construction occurs during a federal review of California’s execution process and San Quentin Death Chamber facilities; 2) It is shrouded beneath a high-profile issue; and 3) The CDCR is using prisoners to build the chamber. . . . Seth Unger, CDCR Press Secretary, told The Final Call that the $399,000 edifice is being built in an effort to comply with a federal judge’s mandate that the facility and its lethal injection protocols be revamped, and that it is part of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to present a remodeled lethal injection facility by a May 15 deadline. Late last year, Judge Jeremy Fogel placed a moratorium on all California executions, ruling that the current method of lethal injection is a violation of a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
April 2007 Drugs Used in Executions May Cause Paralysis, Pain for Conscious Inmates
4-24-07 -- The cocktail of drugs used for lethal injections is unreliable and could render inmates paralyzed but not unconscious, unable to cry out as they experience excruciating pain and eventually suffocate, according to a new scientific analysis. . . . The analysis, released yesterday and based on published data about the three drugs used and public records of executions in North Carolina and California, concluded that the protocol does not dependably induce a quick, painless death. . . . "This raises the possibility people are being tortured and you can't see it because they are paralyzed," said University of Miami surgery professor Leonidas G. Koniaris, who led the analysis. "I'm not sure a civilized society should be doing this." . . . The analysis comes at a time of turmoil over the use of lethal injection. At least 11 states have suspended executions after botched injections raised questions about the procedure and its administration.
Lawyers want state to analyze entire process, not just methods
4-23-07 -- The American Bar Association has stepped into the death penalty discussion in Tennessee, saying the system is so flawed that Gov. Phil Bredesen ought to extend the moratorium on executions well past May 2. . . . In February, Bredesen called for a 90-day halt to executions, citing concerns about how inmates are put to death by lethal injection and electrocution. An execution is scheduled for May 9. . . . But the ABA, which neither supports nor opposes the death penalty, says Tennessee needs to be fixing more than the method it uses to people to death. . . . Too many blacks on death row, bad lawyers representing the accused, and good ones faltering under the demands of heavy caseloads are among the problems cited in a report to be released today. . . . "Governor Bredesen clearly has given sober consideration to how executions are carried out in Tennessee," ABA President Karen J. Mathis said in a press release. "Now it is time for him and for the state as a whole to devote even more thorough analysis to how the state reaches the decision to sentence someone to death." . . . Mathis is scheduled to appear at a press conference in Nashville this morning to call on Bredesen to extend the moratorium beyond the three months.
Risk of innocent Texan executed "profoundly troubling" to 5th Circuit judge
4-16-07 -- Texas' death penalty is fast becoming the central focus of the national debate over capital punishment, both in the media and at the US Supreme Court - the poster child for a practice that's declining in most other states and nations. The American Constitution Society blog has a good preview of three Texas capital cases awaiting review by the US Supreme Court, authored by Ana Otero of Texas Southern University law school. Her article quoted 5th Circuit Judge Carolyn Dineen King who finds "profoundly troubling" the risk that an innocent man will be executed. I must say that from my experience with capital cases, there is usually a great deal of evidence that the defendant is, in fact, guilty. But the lengthy investigation of the Houston crime lab, which exposed evidence of serious problems such as falsified test results, including DNA test results, and the tailoring of report to fit police theories certainly suggests that even scientific evidence, to which we normally attach considerable confidence, can be flawed. Only God’s justice is perfect justice. The assessment of the death penalty, however well designed the system for doing so, remains a human endeavor with a consequent risk of error that may not be remediable.” (South Texas Catholic News, Oct. 20, 2006)
Lawyers: Inmate trying 'suicide by court' 4-9-07 -- (AP) — Like scores of inmates in other states, Marco Allen Chapman wants to go ahead with his execution after admitting he brutally killed two children and left their sister and mother for dead. . . . What makes Chapman's case different, lawyers say, is his decision to waive trial and sentencing by a jury, and then ask to be sentenced to death. His own lawyers say Chapman is trying to use the legal system to commit "suicide by court." . . . On Thursday, the Kentucky Supreme Court is to hear arguments on the legality of Chapman's request, part of the automatic appeals process in capital cases. . . . Chapman, who has turned down multiple interview requests, pleaded guilty in December 2004 to killing Chelbi Sharon, 7, and Cody Sharon, 6, in their home in the northern Kentucky community of Warsaw. Chapman also admitted stabbing Courtney Sharon, 10, who survived, then raping and trying to kill their mother, Carolyn Marksberry, during the 2002 assault. . . . A judge granted his request to be sentenced to death. March 2007 Supreme Court Blocks Execution of Ohio Inmate Who Scattered Victim's Remains
3-21-07 -- The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the execution of a man who had been scheduled to die Tuesday for killing a woman and scattering her remains across two states. . . . Kenneth Biros had waited for the decision hours past his 10 a.m. scheduled execution time at Ohio's death house. . . . The justices' one-sentence decision agreed with two lower courts that delayed the execution so he could continue arguing that Ohio's method of lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused earlier Tuesday to allow a hearing before the full court to consider the state's appeal. . . . The execution team had been waiting while the high court debated, and was ready to administer the lethal injection if the court granted the state's request to proceed with the execution. . . . "To put these poor people through that is just not right," defense attorney Timothy Sweeney said of Biros and his family.
Upcoming Execution Raises Questions of Appropriate Sentence
Since her arrest, Henderson has maintained that the child's death was accidental. Henderson said that she is sorry for Brandon's death and that she feels regret every day for the pain she caused his family. Watch an interview of Henderson with the Kansas City Star (Windows Media Player). . . . There are currently 50 women on death row. If Cathy Henderson's execution takes place, she will be the fourth woman executed in Texas since 1976. . . . The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Henderson's recent appeal. She is seeking clemency from Texas Governor Rick Perry. Read Henderson's petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court. See also DPIC's item on this case.
Florida Commission Recommends Changes to More Lawmakers Take a Stand Against Death Penalty Eleven states react to bad convictions, botched executions
3-5-07 -- A perfect storm of problematic executions, wrongful convictions and recent court rulings against the practice of lethal injection has led a growing number of states to challenge the death penalty through lawsuits and legislative action. . . . Adding still more to the momentum are a public backlash against the cost of capital cases and the development of more effective defense techniques, such as mitigation specialists who humanize death row inmates. . . . Eleven states have halted some or all executions -- including Florida and Maryland in December -- and more lawmakers have been speaking out against the death penalty. . . . Last month alone, Maryland's governor urged legislators to replace the death penalty with life without parole, North Carolina's governor said executions should be halted until issues surrounding lethal injection are solved and Montana's Senate voted to abolish the death penalty.
Lethal injections are horribly flawed
3-5-07 -- The state of Florida says that only a licensed physician or podiatrist is qualified to deal with something as minor as an ingrown toenail. But to execute another human being, no medical training is necessary. In fact, the person who led the team that put to death Angel Diaz in December said he had no medical qualifications whatsoever. . . . No one but a qualified expert with solid medical credentials should be engaged in the tricky and delicate process of administering lethal injections. And Diaz's botched execution puts an exclamation point on why. . . . Witnesses say Diaz was clearly in pain during the 34 minutes he took to die - double the normal amount of time. While state officials deny it, others who attended the execution say Diaz looked to be struggling for breath and grimacing as the execution team pumped 14 syringes of chemicals and saline into him. February 2007
Judge rejects secrecy for death penalty data
2-26-07 -- A federal judge refused Friday to strengthen state officials' ability to keep deliberations secret as they develop new procedures to put condemned prisoners to death by injection and end a moratorium on executions in California. . . . Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had sought an unusual court order to keep most records of the state's deliberations and expert consultations under seal, proposing rules that would require defense lawyers or the media to prove the need for disclosure of any document. Schwarzenegger said confidentiality would promote candid advice and internal debate, but The Chronicle and other news organizations argued that the order would exclude the public from the death penalty debate. . . . Schwarzenegger has ordered changes in lethal injections in response to a Dec. 15 ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel, who said numerous flaws in the state's implementation of capital punishment -- poor screening and training of prison staff, substandard facilities and equipment, and a lack of planning and monitoring -- created an undue risk of a botched execution and a slow and agonizing death for the condemned inmate.
Review of lethal injection complete A panel says the state can do better and will submit suggestions to Gov. Crist this week.
2-26-07 -- A commission that has studied Florida's lethal injection procedures acknowledged Saturday that what happened to Angel Diaz likely will happen again. . . . But the panelists said the Department of Corrections can be better prepared to handle a similar situation. After a seven-hour meeting Saturday, they will make recommendations to Gov. Charlie Crist this week. . . . Diaz, condemned for the 1979 murder of a Miami bar manager, took nearly twice as long as normal to die during his Dec. 13 execution. An autopsy showed needles tore through Diaz's veins, spilling lethal chemicals into his flesh and creating the possibility of suffering prohibited by the Constitution. He suffered foot-long burns on each arm.
Experts testify on botched execution
2-13-07 -- A Florida inmate wasn't properly sedated and could have felt like he was suffocating in a botched execution last year, a medical expert told the state's lethal injection commission Monday. . . . Witness descriptions of Angel Diaz gasping for air indicate the inmate felt the effect of a paralyzing chemical used in Florida's three-drug cocktail, said Columbia University anesthesiologist Dr. Mark Heath. . . . "That is a classic sign — that fish out of water look — of a person who is partially paralyzed who is struggling to gasp for breath," he said. . . . Diaz's Dec. 13 execution took about 20 minutes longer than the typical execution and required a rare second round of lethal chemicals. Then-Gov. Jeb Bush subsequently halted all executions and created the 11-member commission to investigate. . . . Monday's hearing included testimony by Alachua County Medical Examiner Dr. William Hamilton, who conducted Diaz's autopsy. He said the autopsy revealed that Diaz had a heart condition that would have caused lethal drugs to kill him faster. Death Penalty Bears Down on O'Malley, Kaine Legislatures Are Preparing to Debate Bills on Repealing or Expanding Executions
2-12-07 -- The governors of Maryland and Virginia have much in common: Both Martin O'Malley and Timothy M. Kaine are considered rising stars in the Democratic Party. Both grappled with violent crime as big-city mayors and have wives who have served as judges. And both are practicing Catholics who have voiced personal opposition to the death penalty. . . . Now they share something else: Both face decisions on that divisive issue that will be watched closely in their states and beyond. . . . O'Malley, who was sworn in last month, has pledged to work with lawmakers to repeal Maryland's death penalty -- and could effectively halt executions through the end of his tenure even without their support, given a recent court ruling. . . . Kaine, who was sworn in last year, presides over a state where executions are far more frequent. He soon could have to decide whether to sign bills to expand capital punishment in Virginia.
Executioner's words disturb panel
2-12-07 -- The lead executioner in a botched lethal injection testified on Friday that the team had to empty 14 syringes of chemicals and saline solution into Angel Diaz. . . . The executioner told a panel studying the state's lethal injection protocols that they pumped the cocktail into both of Diaz's arm. He surprised some observers by saying he had gone to the second arm in other executions as well. . . . He added that he did that on those other occasions on his own volition - not on the advice of medical staff. . . . "That's because I thought I should do it," he said, later adding, "In my opinion, when the execution begins the executioner is in charge." At least 6 states buck U.S. trend
2-7-07 -- At least a half-dozen states are considering broadening the death penalty, countering a national trend toward scaling back its use. . . . Lawmakers have proposed legislation that would increase the range of crimes eligible for execution. In Texas and Tennessee, for example, legislators want to include certain child molesters who did not murder their victims. . . . "The hope is that these monsters will see that Texas is serious about protecting children," says Rich Parsons, spokesman for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. Dewhurst, a Republican, is working with state senators to draft legislation that would make repeat offenders subject to capital punishment in some cases. "If they understand they could face the ultimate punishment," they might "think twice," Parsons says. . . . Virginia is considering bills that would make accomplices to murder, as well as killers of judges and court witnesses, eligible for the death penalty. . . . "I'm a believer in the deterrent effect of the death penalty," says Republican Delegate Todd Gilbert, a state prosecutor who sponsored two of the measures. "I know a number of states are reconsidering their position on the death penalty. … I feel confident Virginia's system is set up to work." January 2007
Broader Scope for Execution Approved STATE SENATE BILL: Some Accomplices In Slayings Could Get Death Penalty
1-24-07 -- The Virginia Senate voted to expand capital punishment Tuesday by making accomplices eligible for the death penalty even if they didn't do the killing. . . . The bill, which goes to the House of Delegates, would reverse the state's 30-year-old "triggerman rule." . . . Under the policy, the state can execute only the person who performed the killing -- the one who pulled the trigger or plunged in the knife or did the beating. Over time, exceptions have been approved for crimes of terrorism, murder for hire or drug conspiracy. . . . The rule complicated the state's effort to try Washington area sniper John Allen Muhammad on a capital offense because it was in dispute whether he or Lee Boyd Malvo fired the rifle during their 2002 killing spree. Muhammad was eventually tried, convicted and sentenced to death using the terrorism exception. . . . "There are clearly situations where people are as culpable and blackhearted as the person who pulls the trigger," said Mark D. Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg), sponsor of the bill to repeal the rule.
New Jersey Commission
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“When in Gregg v.
Georgia the Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to capital
punishment, this endorsement was premised on the promise that capital
punishment would be administered with fairness and justice. Instead, the
promise has become a cruel and empty mockery. If not remedied, the
scandalous state of our present system of capital punishment will cast a
pall of shame over our society for years to come. We cannot let it
continue.” -- United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, 1990 -- |
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2007 Death Penalty News & Views
Archived 01/05/08
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Updated: 02/04/2012
THE
TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT
