[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, MONT., GA., MO.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 15


USA:

Catholic wrongly convicted seeks end to death penalty


If anyone has experienced sheer terror, its Kirk Bloodsworth.

Tried and found guilty of the brutal rape and murder of a 9-year-old
Rosedale, Md., girl, the barrel-chested crabber from the Eastern Shore was
sentenced to die in the gas chamber for his horrific crimes.

But Mr. Bloodsworth didnt have anything to do with what he was accused of.
A former Marine with no criminal record, he had been wrongly convicted and
would later become the first American on death row to be exonerated by DNA
testing.

But as he was led onto the grounds of the Maryland State Penitentiary in
Baltimore, Md., in 1985 on his first day on death row, no one believed his
story - least of all the other prisoners.

Handcuffed and shackled as he slowly made his way across the yard of the
penitentiary, Mr. Bloodsworth noticed other prisoners racing to the fences
to glimpse the monster they had heard so much about.

This was the man a Baltimore County jury convicted of beating Dawn
Hamilton with a rock, sexually mutilating her, raping her and strangling
her to death by stepping on her neck.

As the new prisoner shuffled onto the old prison campus, he was dwarfed by
the gothic structures tall granite walls, silver spires and imposing
turrets that loomed ominously over Forrest Street like a medieval castle.

Jeering at him, the inmates shouted repeated threats of violence.

"We're going to do to you what you did to that little girl, they screamed.
"We're going to get you, Kirk!"

Seated on the couch in the living room of his small home in Cambridge more
than 20 years later, pain was still visible on Mr. Bloodsworths face as he
recalled those long-ago events that forever changed his life. With his
brow deeply furrowed, the plainspoken 46-year-old man said he believed
hell is a place of torment and that his experiences must be similar to
those in that place of misery.

"I remember that 1st night in my cell and the smell coming from this
place," he said, recounting how roaches frequently scurried along the
walls of his small living quarters.

"Not only did it stink of every kind of excrement you could think of," he
said, "but you also could smell hatred - and it was all pointing at me."

The threats that greeted him when he first entered the state penitentiary
continued through the night and beyond, with inmates shouting through the
air vents how they planned to torture him.

Despite the strong temptation to despair, Mr. Bloodsworth said he decided
he would fight to prove his innocence. He believes God sustained him
through nearly 9 years of taxing prison life, sending him otherworldly
consolations and leading him into the Catholic Church.

With the same steely determination that got him through his prison ordeal,
Mr. Bloodsworth is now devoting the rest of his life to abolishing the
death penalty and seeking reforms of what he calls a "broken" criminal
justice system.

It's a battle he is convinced he has been called to win.

A journey of faith

On the day he was found guilty, Mr. Bloodsworth said he remembers being
housed in a Baltimore County holding cell with another man who sat in the
shadows. For 2 hours, the stranger didn't say a word as he ate a sandwich
and sipped an orange drink. Then he turned to his fellow prisoner and told
Mr. Bloodsworth not to worry. The Eastern Shore native couldn't tell if
the man was black or white because there wasn't much lighting, which he
said was "odd."

"Everything is going to be alright," Mr. Bloodsworth recalled the man
saying. "You'll be OK."

After Mr. Bloodsworth heard the guilty verdict and returned to the holding
cell, the man was gone and only half the sandwich remained. When he asked
the sheriff's deputy where the "other guy" was, the deputy responded that
Mr. Bloodsworth had been the only person in the cell.

Looking back, Mr. Bloodsworth thinks he was visited by an angel.

"Maybe I wanted to see something - I don't know," said Mr. Bloodsworth,
pausing to light up a cigarette - the white smoke of which swirled in soft
vaporous pirouettes near his now-graying hair.

"But I tell you what, he was as real as you are," he said emphatically.

The encounter with the "angel" wasn't Mr. Bloodsworth's only dealing in
the spiritual realm. Another time, he remembers being touched on the
shoulder with 2 fingers while he was alone in his cell. He thinks it was a
sign from God that he wasn't really alone.

Growing up in the Baptist and Methodist traditions, Mr. Bloodsworth had
attended a small Christian high school and had counted himself a believer.
His mother was a deeply devoted Christian who encouraged him to read the
Bible - an assignment he took up in earnest in prison, reading through the
Scriptures twice.

As a young man, Mr. Bloodsworth had worked for a funeral home where his
only exposure to Catholics came during funeral liturgies. That's where he
first learned to genuflect and was impressed by the reverence Catholics
showed in the practice of their faith.

While in custody with Baltimore County before going to death row,
parishioners from the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Towson
visited him and other prisoners during regular chapel services.

Encouraged by their visits, it was at the Maryland State Penitentiary
where Mr. Bloodsworth began deep theological discussions with Deacon Al
Rose, the Catholic prison chaplain there. The 2 would talk for 2 or 3
hours at a time. The more he learned, the more he wanted to convert.

At Easter time in 1989, Bishop John Ricard, Baltimore's former urban
vicar, visited Mr. Bloodsworth at Deacon Rose's invitation. Mr.
Bloodsworth had been studying his catechism for several months and was
ready to be received into the church.

Deacon Rose remembered that a guard asked the bishop to leave Mr.
Bloodsworth's cell, requiring the urban vicar to administer the sacraments
of confirmation and holy Eucharist through the bars of his closed cell
door. Standing underneath the gas chamber where Mr. Bloodsworth's life was
to be ended, Bishop Ricard completed the solemn rites that initiated him
into a new kind of life - a spiritual one Mr. Bloodsworth cherished.

Asked what it was like to receive Communion for the 1st time, Mr.
Bloodsworth softened his serious countenance and smiled.

"Oh, it was an honor," he said. "I felt clean. I felt accepted."

The bond between Deacon Rose and Mr. Bloodsworth was one that strengthened
over the years. The Catholic chaplain at the penitentiary for more than 3
years, Deacon Rose had heard plenty of inmates tell him they were
innocent. But Mr. Bloodsworth was one of the few he believed.

"You work enough years among inmates and you get a feel for how guys tell
stories," said Deacon Rose, now retired and ministering at St. Isaac
Jogues in Carney, Md. "There was no question in my mind this was a guy
speaking the truth."

One of Mr. Bloodsworths darkest days was when his beloved mother, Jeanette
Bloodsworth, died 5 months before the DNA evidence proved his innocence in
1993. Deacon Rose was the one to break the news of the death of Mrs.
Bloodsworth to her son. The deacon accompanied him to a private viewing of
her body with two armed guards.

"I told Kirk that your mom is up there in heaven," remembered Deacon Rose,
76. "The saints do intercede for us and I just believe that lady had
something to do with him getting the break with the DNA evidence."

Fighting for justice

Mr. Bloodsworth believes one of the main reasons he was arrested was the
tremendous pressure Baltimore County police were under to find the person
who had committed those heinous acts in the summer of 1984. 2 young boys
identified him as the person they saw near the crime scene and an
anonymous caller said he had been seen with the girl earlier in the day.

Mr. Bloodsworth, who never met the murdered girl, had told an acquaintance
he had done something "terrible" that day. He was referring to his failure
to buy his wife dinner, but it was used against him in a different
context.

Although he lived in the area of the crime, Mr. Bloodsworth had returned
to the Eastern Shore soon after the murder - making it look like he had
fled. Misfortune seemed to conspire against him at every turn.

The Maryland Court of Appeals overturned his conviction in 1986 because of
withheld information at his original trial, but he was again found guilty
by a 2nd jury and sentenced to 2 consecutive life terms. Of the nearly 9
years he spent behind bars, 2 of them were on death row.

Mr. Bloodsworth was the one who had first proposed the idea of DNA
testing. An avid reader in prison who served as the librarian, he learned
about the new technology in a book called "The Blooding." Robert Morin,
his attorney, was able to get his client tested.

It was exactly that post-conviction testing that proved Mr. Bloodsworth's
innocence in 1993. He was released and paid $300,000 in compensation - the
accumulated salary the state said he would have earned as a waterman. Gov.
William Donald Schaefer pardoned him that same year.

Mr. Bloodsworth said he had to endure the suspicions of many who believed
he had gotten off on a technicality. It was difficult for him to maintain
a job after his release because people thought he was a murderer. DNA
testing later identified the real killer - Kimberly Shay Ruffner, a man
who had been previously charged with sexually assaulting children. He pled
guilty to the Dawn Hamilton murder and is now serving a life sentence.

Ironically, Ruffner had been serving time for another crime in the same
prison as Mr. Bloodsworth. The 2 had lifted weights together.

"I tell you the difference between the day before they found who really
did it and day after was like I had just won the World Series for the town
of Cambridge," said Mr. Bloodsworth, who annually throws a "freedom party"
complete with steamed crabs and beer. "Everyone treated me completely
different."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mr. Bloodsworth, now remarried, has become an
outspoken advocate for the abolition of the death penalty, most recently
speaking in Annapolis in support of a bill that would replace the death
penalty with prison sentences of life without parole.

Working for The Justice Project, a Washington-based organization that
pushes for criminal justice reform, Mr. Bloodsworth lobbied for the
passage of a bill that provides funding for post-conviction DNA testing.
President George W. Bush signed the Innocence Protection Act of 2003 on
Oct. 30, a day before Mr. Bloodsworth's birthday. The act established the
Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program.

"We need to do post-conviction testing to find out if there are other
innocent people on death row before we start throwing switches," said Mr.
Bloodsworth, pointing out that since 1973, more than 150 people have been
wrongfully convicted and later freed from prison based on DNA evidence.

"If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone," he said.

Bishop Ricard, the man who welcomed Mr. Bloodsworth into the church, said
his story shows the urgency of abolishing the death penalty.

"It's a barbarian, grotesque way of meting out justice," said Bishop
Ricard, now bishop of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla.

"It's so clear that the administration of capital punishment in this
country is dismally unjust," he said. "It really singles out the poor and
minorities. If you have the money for proper legal counsel, you don't
receive the death penalty."

Bishop Ricard commended Mr. Bloodsworth for his contributions to the
abolitionist cause.

"I hope the very best for him," he said.

Forgiveness and fate

Mr. Bloodsworth acknowledged that he might have good reason to be angry
for all he's been through. But he doesn't hate the prosecutors who pursued
him, the police officers who arrested him, members of the community who
distrusted and harassed him, or the real killer who kept quiet all those
years.

"I forgive them all," Mr. Bloodsworth said. "God has to sort that out now.
I leave that all up to him."

The former discus-throwing champion admitted to some actions in prison
that dont square with his faith. Early during his sentence, he fended off
an attack by 3 prisoners in the shower. In order to prevent future
attacks, he later physically assaulted each of them.

"I don't know if it was the right thing to do, but it was the right thing
to do for me," he said. "I'm not proud of it at all, but it probably saved
my life in the end."

Returning to the importance of faith, Mr. Bloodsworth said his belief in
God made him a survivor.

"We all go through these trials in life," he said. "You just have to kind
of accept what happens to you with some sort of grace."

God never asks his people to have faith the size of a mountain, Mr.
Bloodsworth said, he just asks to have faith the size of mustard seed to
"move that mountain."

"That's what makes people achieve greatness," he said. "It's not
necessarily themselves, it's the electricity that drives them - it's that
lump of coal thats burning bright in their own soul that gets them through
it and for me thats God, the Catholic Church and my mother and what she
taught me."

Does he see any divine plan in the course of his life?

"I don't want to sound like I'm grandiose on my part, but it's certainly
something," Mr. Bloodsworth responded. "In the bigger sense of it all, I
think that maybe that was all meant to be. There is a bigger picture."

(source: The Catholic Review)

**********************

Justice Kennedy: Yes to Judicial Pay Hikes, No to Cameras at High Court


In a rare appearance Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy made an impassioned plea for
increasing judicial salaries and against allowing cameras in the Court.

The failure of Congress to give federal judges meaningful raises in recent
years is "threatening the excellence of the judiciary," Kennedy said,
adding that the traditional linkage between the salaries of judges and
members of Congress "has hurt the judiciary very badly."

The Judiciary Committee says Kennedy's appearance marked the 1st time "in
modern history" that a sitting justice has testified before the committee
on legislative matters.

As for cameras in the Court, Kennedy said more than once, "We don't want
it!" to the committee, whose ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of
Pennsylvania, introduced a bill last month that would require cameras at
Court proceedings. "Please, senator," Kennedy continued, pointedly urging
the Senate not to introduce the "insidious temptation" for justices to
shape their comments and questions from the bench into catchy sound bites.

Kennedy has made similar points in the past, but his impassioned tone
before the senators reached a level he usually reserves for students he
lectures about the rule of law. The topic for the hearing was billed as
"judicial security and independence," but the 2-hour session ranged far
and wide in subject matter.

Kennedy said that when the committee first asked Chief Justice John
Roberts Jr. if a justice could testify, it gave the Court "some pause."
But the justices decided it was worth doing. "This is an important time
for the judiciary," Kennedy said, making it clear that the salary issue
was foremost.

While recognizing "the intangible rewards of public service," Kennedy said
the current salaries are undermining the ability to recruit judges from
"the finest ranks of the practicing bar." Current pay for federal district
court judges is $165,200, appeals judges are paid $175,100, associate
justices earn $203,000, and the chief justice gets $212,100 a year. He
angrily noted that Supreme Court law clerks often earn more than justices
the 1st year after they leave the Court.

Justice Stephen Breyer, Kennedy said, told him recently that the ability
to teach was another intangible benefit of being a federal judge. But
Kennedy said that, ironically, judges -- whose pay used to exceed that of
professors -- are being lured off the bench into academia. Without
mentioning his name, Kennedy cited David Levi, who announced in January
that he will be leaving his post as the chief judge of the Eastern
District of California to become dean of the Duke University School of
Law.

Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he had already
introduced a bill calling for a cost-of-living increase for judges, and he
agreed with Kennedy that congressional reluctance to give judges raises
without also enacting raises for themselves should end. "The courts should
not be held hostage to Congress," Leahy said.

Specter also pledged that legislation to fix the pay situation would pass
in this session of Congress.

Specter went on to urge Kennedy -- and through him, the full Court -- to
see the wisdom of requiring cameras in the Court, telling the justice that
"the court's functions ought to be better understood." But Specter also
linked his campaign for cameras with his longstanding grievances about the
Court's recent run of overturning acts of Congress. Specter singled out,
as he often does, the Court's 2000 decision in United States v. Morrison,
in which the Court struck down a part of the Violence Against Women Act.
Allowing cameras to broadcast oral arguments, Specter suggested, might
help the public comprehend rulings like Morrison.

In his reply, Kennedy, with remarkable frankness, pushed back against
Specter's point, telling him that linking the Morrison case with the need
for cameras was "a non sequitur . ... It doesn't follow."

Kennedy acknowledged that the Court "probably should do more in the way of
teaching" about its workings but said camera access was not the way to do
it. With fervor, Kennedy said oral arguments are "a way of using the
attorney to have a conversation with ourselves and with the attorney" -- a
dynamic that would be ruined by the presence of cameras.

"We are judged by what we write," Kennedy said, not by questioning during
oral argument.

Specter seemed taken aback by Kennedy's strong resistance. If Congress did
pass his bill, Specter said in a conciliatory tone, "it would be our
opinion," which could then be overtaken by "your opinion." Specter did not
explain the comment.

On another subject, Specter asked Kennedy to account for the Court's
reduced docket of argued cases -- 75 to 80 per term, or roughly half the
number it was deciding 20 years ago. Kennedy said he was somewhat
mystified himself why the Court was not agreeing to resolve more conflicts
between the circuit courts of appeal. But he said the dearth in recent
years of new and complex federal statutes -- which often generate multiple
cases -- is one possible explanation for the smaller docket. Another, he
said, is that "we understand the boundaries of the administrative state,"
requiring fewer decisions on deference to executive agencies and other
administrative law issues.

Kennedy did note that the Court had recently granted review in a batch of
new cases, which he said signifies that "we're climbing back" toward a
docket closer to 100 cases per term. P> (source: Legal Times)






MONTANA:

Senate panel recommends abolishing death penalty


The state shouldn't be in the business of killing people, members of a
Senate panel said Thursday in recommending the death penalty be abolished.

The Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed the bill, 8-4, sending it to the
Senate floor for further debate.

Supporters of the measure by Sen. Dan Harrington, D-Butte, said the death
penalty could never be administered fairly and argued violence should not
be used to stop violence. The bill would commute death sentences to life
in prison and abolish capital punishment in the future.

"I don't think we always know who's innocent and who's guilty," Sen. Carol
Williams, D-Missoula, said. "As long as I feel there's the potential that
somebody may be innocently convicted of something, I think the government
shouldn't be in the business of executing Montanans." Opponents said the
death penalty can serve as a deterrent to criminals, and must be kept on
the books as an option for prosecutors.

"We're all given a choice in this life as to how we're going to live. ...
There comes a time where a society has a right to say 'No. No more,"' Sen.
Dan McGee, R-Laurel, said.

Efforts to abolish the death penalty have failed in each of the past three
legislative sessions. There are 2 prisoners on death row in Montana. The
state has executed 3 people since the death penalty was reinstated in the
1970s, including convicted murderer David Dawson this past summer at
Montana State Prison.

(source: Associated Press)

*********************

Abolish capital punishment?


The rich are never executed, only the poor and disproportionately
minorities. DNA science has gained release of 123 innocent convicts. So,
states are murdering some innocent persons. Unfair! It's insane that
states kill killers to teach that killing is wrong.

We alone of western industrialized nations legalize state murder. It
doesn't reduce murder. The 38 states doing death penalties have the same
murder rates as 12 non-death penalty states. Killing killers doesnt deter
killing.

Andy Rooney opposes death penalties saying, "Sometimes I want to throttle
them myself with my own hands." Not allowed.

Nowhere does Jesus say, "Kill the killers."

In Matthew 5:38 (TEV), Jesus says, "You have heard, get an eye for an eye
or a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you, 'Do not take revenge on someone
who does you wrong ... do good to those who hurt you!" So, quit the old
"eye for an eye" unchristian excuse for state vengeance killing.

The "No Parole Life Sentence" is tougher on killers than death. Forced to
endure living with their deeds, some may be reclaimed. And, it is much
cheaper than death penalties with all our legal protections against error.

Yet, errors keep happening.

Death penalties are unfair, insane, vengeful and more expensive.

SB 306 abolishes death penalties. Urge your state legislator's vote.

These churches support SB 306: Roman Catholic, United Methodist, United
Presbyterian, Episcopal, United Church of Christ, Christian, Unitarian and
Montana Association of Churches.

Vern Klingman

Billings

(source: Letter to the Editor, Billings Gazette)






GEORGIA:

State public defender office not suspending attorney payments


A Georgia public defender office is deferring for now the possibility of
suspending payment of attorneys' fees and expenses in death penalty cases
as it asks lawmakers for cash to ease a funding crisis, the agency's
director said Thursday.

Mike Mears, director of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council,
said his agency will take money from other programs to pay for capital
cases, but has no immediate plans to suspend payment to lawyers handling
capital cases.

The agency had said in a Feb. 1 motion in the case of accused courthouse
gunman Brian Nichols that if it didn't receive a $9.5 million supplemental
appropriation from the Legislature, it would have to suspend payment,
beginning Thursday, of all bills for attorneys fees and expenses in death
penalty cases - including the Nichols case - until it receives the
necessary funds to resume payment.

Mears said Thursday that while he has received no promise of getting the
money his office needs to continue its operations, recent conversations
his office has had with lawmakers make him hopeful. He didn't elaborate.

"What we're trying to do right now is to shift resources around so we
don't have to stop," Mears said. "We're taking it on a day-to-day basis
right now."

He declined to say what programs would take a hit to support capital
cases.

As of Dec. 31, the public defender council had already approved more than
$1.2 million for attorneys' fees and expenses in the Nichols case. That is
3 times the amount spent on an average Georgia death penalty case from the
beginning of the case through the initial appeal following a conviction,
according to Mears.

Mears said he couldn't project how much the Nichols case will ultimately
cost his office once it is complete, but he noted attorneys' fees and
expenses will increase at a faster rate now that the trial has begun.

Nichols, 35, was being escorted to a courtroom in the Fulton County
Courthouse in downtown Atlanta for the continuation of his retrial on rape
charges when he allegedly beat a deputy, stole her gun and went on a
deadly shooting spree on March 11, 2005.

He is accused of killing the judge presiding over the rape trial, Rowland
Barnes; a court reporter chronicling the proceeding, Julie Ann Brandau; a
sheriff's deputy who chased him outside, Hoyt Teasley; and a federal agent
he encountered at a home a few miles away that night, David Wilhelm.
Nichols surrendered the next day after allegedly taking a woman hostage in
her suburban Atlanta home.

Defense lawyers and prosecutors are currently poring through
questionnaires filled out by hundreds of potential jurors for the murder
trial, which began Jan. 11. Individual questioning of those potential
jurors by attorneys in the case will begin Feb. 26.

Nichols, who faces a possible death penalty if convicted of murder, has
pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors have rejected Nichols' offer to change his
plea to guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without
parole, according to Nichols' lawyer. A statement from District Attorney
Paul Howard's office on Wednesday said prosecutors believe a jury should
decide Nichols' sentence if he is convicted.

(source: Associated Press)






MISSOURI:

Federal jury weighs possible death penalty in Joplin killings


A reputed gang leader from Oklahoma convicted in the killings of 2 Joplin
residents should be spared execution because the government's case was
flawed, the man's lawyer told a federal jury weighing his fate.

But an assistant U.S. attorney prosecutor said Wednesday that Thomas "Mad
Dog" Smith, found guilty last week of conspiracy to commit murder, would
remain dangerous to others even if he were sentenced to life in prison.

"Isn't he going to do the exact same thing in prison as he did when he was
on the outside?" prosecutor Randy Eggert asked the jury, noting testimony
that Smith assaulted 2 inmates while in federal custody awaiting trial.

The U.S. District Court jury of 10 men and 2 women deliberated 6 hours
Wednesday before breaking for the night. Deliberations were set to resume
Thursday.

Smith, 33, who prosecutors say led a cell of Bloods gang members from
Tulsa, was charged in connection with the 1999 execution-style slayings of
Paris Harbin and Chandy Plumb in a Joplin apartment house.

Prosecutors said the gang members sold crack cocaine in the Joplin area
from September 1998 to December 2000. Smith was tried under the theory
that Harbin, 20, and Plumb, 25, were killed over stolen drugs and money.

Smith was all "about selling crack cocaine and making money," Eggert said
during Wednesday's closing arguments.

But defense attorney Susan Hunt argued that the death penalty should be
reserved "for the worst of the worst" defendants, and that Smith is not
one of them.

"He's never going to be free," Hunt said. "He's never going to walk the
streets."

Hunt pointed to problems with the federal government's case as reasons for
the jury to be reluctant to impose the death penalty.

"The evidence shows that 2 people did this, and there's only one who's
been charged," she told the jury.

One of the government's own witnesses, gang member Israel Ward, testified
that another gang member, Brian McDaniel, actually killed Plumb and then
gave the gun to Smith to kill Harbin.

Hunt said the prosecutors' case took so many twists and turns over the
years, with Ward even having been co-indicted with Smith at one time in
the murders, that it is clear the government still "doesn't really know
who killed who."

The defense listed 27 factors it said should lead the jury to opt for a
life sentence, including Smith's impoverished Tulsa childhood, his
parents' drug addictions and his own children's need for a father.

"Thomas Smith is a human being just like you and me," Hunt said. "But the
government wants to take all those human qualities away."

(source: Associated Press)