Jan. 22 USA: Gonzales Questions Habeas Corpus In one of the most chilling public statements ever made by a U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales questioned whether the U.S. Constitution grants habeas corpus rights of a fair trial to every American. Responding to questions from Sen. Arlen Specter at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 18, Gonzales argued that the Constitution doesn't explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights; it merely says when the so-called Great Writ can be suspended. "There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution; there's a prohibition against taking it away," Gonzales said. Gonzales's remark left Specter, the committee's ranking Republican, stammering. "Wait a minute," Specter interjected. "The Constitution says you can't take it away except in case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless theres a rebellion or invasion?" Gonzales continued, "The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesnt say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended" except in cases of rebellion or invasion. "You may be treading on your interdiction of violating common sense," Specter said. While Gonzales's statement has a measure of quibbling precision to it, his logic is troubling because it would suggest that many other fundamental rights that Americans hold dear also dont exist because the Constitution often spells out those rights in the negative. For instance, the First Amendment declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Applying Gonzales's reasoning, one could argue that the First Amendment doesn't explicitly say Americans have the right to worship as they choose, speak as they wish or assemble peacefully. The amendment simply bars the government, i.e. Congress, from passing laws that would impinge on these rights. Similarly, Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution states that "the privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." The clear meaning of the clause, as interpreted for more than two centuries, is that the Founders recognized the long-established English law principle of habeas corpus, which guarantees people the right of due process, such as formal charges and a fair trial. That Attorney General Gonzales would express such an extraordinary opinion, doubting the constitutional protection of habeas corpus, suggests either a sophomoric mind or an unwillingness to respect this well-established right, one that the Founders considered so important that they embedded it in the original text of the Constitution. Other cherished rights including freedom of religion and speech were added later in the first 10 amendments, known as the Bill of Rights. Ironically, Gonzales may be wrong in another way about the lack of specificity in the Constitution's granting of habeas corpus rights. Many of the legal features attributed to habeas corpus are delineated in a positive way in the Sixth Amendment, which reads: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; [and] to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses." Bush's Powers Gonzales's Jan. 18 statement suggests that he is still seeking reasons to make habeas corpus optional, subordinate to President George W. Bushs executive powers that Bush's neoconservative legal advisers claim are virtually unlimited during "a time of war," even one as vaguely defined as the "war on terror" which may last forever. In the final weeks of the Republican-controlled Congress, the Bush administration pushed through the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that effectively eliminated habeas corpus for non-citizens, including legal resident aliens. Under the new law, Bush can declare any non-citizen an "unlawful enemy combatant" and put the person into a system of military tribunals that give defendants only limited rights. Critics have called the tribunals "kangaroo courts" because the rules are heavily weighted in favor of the prosecution. Some language in the new law also suggests that "any person," presumably including American citizens, could be swept up into indefinite detention if they are suspected of having aided and abetted terrorists. "Any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission," according to the law, passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in September and signed by Bush on Oct. 17, 2006. Another provision in the law seems to target American citizens by stating that "any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States ... shall be punished as a military commission may direct. Who has "an allegiance or duty to the United States" if not an American citizen? That provision would not presumably apply to Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda, nor would it apply generally to foreign citizens. This section of the law appears to be singling out American citizens. Besides allowing "any person" to be swallowed up by Bushs system, the law prohibits detainees once inside from appealing to the traditional American courts until after prosecution and sentencing, which could translate into an indefinite imprisonment since there are no timetables for Bushs tribunal process to play out. The law states that once a person is detained, "no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions." That court-stripping provision barring "any claim or cause of action whatsoever" would seem to deny American citizens habeas corpus rights just as it does for non-citizens. If a person cant file a motion with a court, he cant assert any constitutional rights, including habeas corpus. Other constitutional protections in the Bill of Rights such as a speedy trial, the right to reasonable bail and the ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" would seem to be beyond a detainees reach as well. Special Rules Under the new law, the military judge "may close to the public all or a portion of the proceedings" if he deems that the evidence must be kept secret for national security reasons. Those concerns can be conveyed to the judge through ex parte or one-sided communications from the prosecutor or a government representative. The judge also can exclude the accused from the trial if there are safety concerns or if the defendant is disruptive. Plus, the judge can admit evidence obtained through coercion if he determines it "possesses sufficient probative value" and "the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement into evidence. The law permits, too, the introduction of secret evidence "while protecting from disclosure the sources, methods, or activities by which the United States acquired the evidence if the military judge finds that ... the evidence is reliable." During trial, the prosecutor would have the additional right to assert a "national security privilege" that could stop "the examination of any witness," presumably by the defense if the questioning touched on any sensitive matter. In effect, what the new law appears to do is to create a parallel "star chamber" system for the prosecution, imprisonment and possible execution of enemies of the state, whether those enemies are foreign or domestic. Under the cloak of setting up military tribunals to try al-Qaeda suspects and other so-called "unlawful enemy combatants," Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress effectively created a parallel legal system for "any person" American citizen or otherwise who crosses some ill-defined line. There are a multitude of reasons to think that Bush and advisers will interpret every legal ambiguity in the new law in their favor, thus granting Bush the broadest possible powers over people he identifies as enemies. As further evidence of that, the American people now know that Attorney General Gonzales doesn't even believe that the Constitution grants them habeas corpus rights to a fair trial. (source: Axis of Logic; Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.') NEW JERSEY: Wrongly convicted man speaks out on time spent behind bars 8 years, 11 months and 19 days, that is how long Kirk Bloodsworth spent in prison, wrongly convicted twice for the brutal rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl who was found half-naked, her skull crushed in a working class area of Baltimore County. That is one year and 12 days short of a decade that Bloodsworth spent in the Maryland Penitentiary, carrying the stigma of a child-killer like a bull's-eye until DNA evidence reversed the courts findings in 1993. Now, 14 years later, Bloodsworth is speaking about his time behind bars, making a stop at the United Methodist Church in Mantua Township Monday night with the New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. During his speeches, Bloodsworth recalls his days in the Maryland Penitentiary and explains how the criminal justice system failed him. "If you can execute an innocent person than the system is broken," he explained. The moment Bloodsworth walked into the ominous black brick prison he felt the weight of his conviction. In the prison hierarchy, convicts in for killing or raping a child are at the bottom of the list. "Anything that you see on television, it is a grain of salt, it does not do it justice," Bloodsworth of his time behind bars. "I would see someone get stabbed every other day, then everyone would calm down and get along. It is not sinister, it is more like insidious because you don't hear anyone scream, it happens out of earshot." >From his cell, the prison's air ducts carried the whispers of his fellow inmates, each calling for his death. Outside his cell the words became more than threats. In the shower one inmate threw a hot, soapy wash cloth in his face before splitting the back of his skull with a sock full of batteries. Another stabbed him in the calf with a shank. "You are the filth from the bottom of their shoe," he said pointing to his sneaker's sole. "People throw feces on you, (they threw) a bottle filled with urine and feces on me while I was reading my bible." He was serving time on a life sentence, 2 years of his 8 on death row in a cell directly under the gas chamber. One day, the chamber was tested with a live pig while Bloodsworth sat in his cell beneath, listening to the gas take effect. "I swear you could hear the squealing going on," he said. "It was bad." Through it all Bloodsworth maintained his innocence, he appealed his conviction only to be found guilty again. He read like a madman, devouring some 3,000 books in his 8 years until he came upon Joseph Wambaugh's The Blooding, a book detailing the true-life capture of Colin Pitchfork a man who raped and killed 2 girls in Narborough, Leicestershire through DNA fingerprinting. "I figured if it could convict someone it could set someone free," he explained. In 1992 the courts tested DNA evidence gathered from the crime scene, determining that Bloodsworth could not have been the killer. Finally, in June of 1993 became the 1st man in America ever to be released from death row from DNA evidence, an experience that he described as the happiest moment in his life. "You check your lottery numbers and win the mega millions," he said. "It couldn't compare (to that day)." And the DNA evidence didn't only free Bloodsworth, it found the real killer, a man named Kimberly Shay Ruffner, who was serving time in the same prison as Bloodsworth for a series of similar crimes. "He slept in the same prison for five years," Bloodsworth exclaimed. "I gave him library books and saw him working out in the yard. All those years he never said anything." Less than 24 hours after he was released, Bloodsworth began talking about his time inside, eventually becoming an activist who champions causes that examine the criminal justice system. In New Jersey he appeared before a bipartisan death penalty commission appointed by former-governor Richard Codey. On Jan. 2, the commission recommended that the state abandon the death penalty, calling for life in prison without parole as a suitable alternative. Governor John Corzine supported the commissions findings and the legislature is currently working with their suggestions. "We don't want to see the convicted murders released," explained Abraham J. Bonowitz, field manager for New Jerseyan's for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "Even if you like the idea of a death penalty, the evidence shows that it doesn't work in the current system." New Jersey currently has 11 people on death row, including Sean Padraic Kenney formerly Richard Feaster who sits on death row for the 1993 killing of a Deptford gas station attendant. The state has executed 361 people sentenced to death, but has not executed anyone since 1976. Kirk Bloodsworth was featured in the book "Bloodsworth," by Tim Junkin and will appear at the United Methodist Church in Mantua Township tonight at 7:30 p.m. (source: Gloucester County Times) *********************** Ex-death-penalty supporter affirms life's value Re Porus P. Cooper's Jan. 8 column against the death penalty, "Full circle on executions": When I was younger, I instinctively was for the death penalty. I believed it could be a deterrent. I subscribed to the eye-for-an-eye philosophy. If someone harmed someone I loved, I would want him or her to pay. But when I really thought about it, I changed my mind. Why? Because being antiabortion makes me "pro-life." How could I support what amounts to state murder yet believe abortion is wrong? It didn't wash. I had to make a decision. In addition to being antiabortion (and anti-euthanasia), I became anti-death penalty. Now, people on either side of the abortion and death-penalty debates can argue for or against my view: that an unborn child is less than human or not, that a murderer is not deserving of a break or is. My outlook feels right for me. It boils down to this: When we devalue any life, we devalue all life. That said, I think our judicial system needs an overhaul. Stop the slap on the wrist for murderers, rapists and repeat offenders. Give life without parole to convicted murderers. Support victims and their families. Patricia Quigley Mantua ** Evil deserves no less Porus P. Cooper's recounting of the Pine Hill family's murder in the '80s hit home with me, as my wife lived in Pine Hill and I grew up in Somerdale. I strongly favor the death penalty. The only punishment fit for so evil an entity as Louis Giambi would have been to deny him life among the human race. I envision him sitting in prison reading the newspaper, hanging out, perhaps working in the laundry, sort of doing nothing - but living just the same. It is disturbing to me that he will witness all the accomplishments of the human race for his entire life - great medical breakthroughs, electric autos, etc. Equally disturbing, he lives with the hope of release. As the death penalty wanes, there will be a campaign to abolish life without parole. This is New Jersey; they recently released a man who killed 2 police officers. There have been miscarriages of justice, but to use this as rationale to let savages go unpunished is incomprehensible. Simply being allowed to live is to not be held accountable. Efforts by criminals to avoid the death penalty reinforce this position. We abandon the Stuart family by allowing a savage like Giambi to possess what he has wantonly taken from them. Rocco J. Saraullo Vincentown ** Penalty's haunting toll I testified before the commission that has recommended replacing New Jersey's death penalty with life without parole. While I would like to think my testimony was persuasive, what really made an impact on me was the testimony of other witnesses, including the rape victim who had to deal with the knowledge that her identification sent an innocent man to prison for 10 years; the brother who followed his conscience and turned in his brother, who was subsequently executed despite assurances to the contrary; and the men who spent years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence. Beyond being a waste of money, an ineffective deterrent, and implemented illegally, the death penalty exacts a huge toll in human suffering. Wanda Foglia Bala Cynwyd The writer is coordinator of the M.A. in criminal justice program at Rowan University. (source: Letters to the Editor, Philadelphia Inquirer) NORTH CAROLINA: The death penalty has outlived its time It's been more than 3 years since the state Senate approved a two-year moratorium on executions, but the House still has not passed a similar bill, and so there is no pause in North Carolina executions. A moratorium would allow the practice of capital punishment to be carefully studied in order to determine whether it has "fatal" problems. Although polls show a majority of North Carolinians support a moratorium, policy-makers should know that one is not necessary. Capital punishment experts already know well the problems that plague death penalty practice here and nation-wide. I've just completed a study of scholarly experts on capital punishment -- people who have long taught and conducted research about the death penalty -- and they overwhelmingly oppose the penalty, call for its abolition and favor alternatives that include life imprisonment without parole. The experts offer 3 main reasons for their opposition. First, the death penalty fails to achieve its goals of retribution, deterrence and incapacitation. Because killings so rarely lead to an execution in the United States, capital punishment does not achieve justice for society or for relatives of murder victims, does not sufficiently scare would-be murderers and does not kill enough murderers to have any impact on the murder rate. Nationally, between 1977 and 2005 there were 575,437 murders and non-negligent homicides. These led to only 6,934 death sentences and 1,004 executions. Thus, only 1.2 % of the killings led to death sentences, and only 0.17 % have resulted in an execution so far. >From 1977 to 2005, North Carolina averaged only 14.5 death sentences and 1.6 executions per year, in spite of suffering approximately 594 murders annually. The rarity of the death penalty is precisely why it is so ineffective and inefficient. 2nd, the application of the death penalty in the United States is plagued by significant biases based on race, social class and gender. Killers of whites are far more likely to be executed than killers of blacks -- regardless of the race of the killer -- but especially when the killer is black and the victim is white. Further, virtually every person on death row is poor, consistent with evidence that what determines who gets executed is not the heinousness of the crime but the quality of the defense. And citizens in every state with capital punishment are remarkably squeamish about executing women. Third, there is a serious risk that capital punishment will be used against the factually innocent. Not only do we know that 113 people have been released from death row since 1977 (including three from North Carolina), some believe that states have recently executed innocent people. Clear cases of innocence have emerged in Texas, Missouri and Florida. The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, established last year, will likely catch some wrongful convictions, but it is unrealistic to expect it to discover them all. Judged by any standard, the death penalty is a failed policy. It fails to meet its goals, and the costs clearly outweigh the modest benefits. Death penalty supporters may react with a call for more executions. Logically, that would make capital punishment more effective at achieving retribution, deterrence and incapacitation. But the reality is that prosecutors are not willing to seek the punishment, juries are not willing to impose it and counties and states are unwilling to pay the enormous costs to carry out the death penalty with greater frequency. For every execution in North Carolina, taxpayers must pay more than $2 million above the costs of a life sentence. This is an enormous waste of resources that could be invested in crime prevention strategies that would save lives. The right thing to do is to end executions once and for all. 12 states and the District of Colombia already live without the death penalty; only 9 of 29 states with the penalty have carried out at least 1 execution per year since 1977 (only one of those -- Texas -- averaged more than 4 executions per year); and the United States is the only Western industrialized country still using capital punishment. These facts show that the punishment is one we could easily live without. The General Assembly should abolish capital punishment. It is ineffective, inefficient, plagued by serious problems and unfixable. source: Commentary; Matthew Robinson is associate professor of criminal justice at Appalachian State University and author of "Death Nation: The Experts Explain American Capital Punishment," to be published in March.) ALABAMA: AG seeks execution date in Montevallo murder In Montgomery, attorney General Troy King asked the Alabama Supreme Court on Monday to set an execution date for a man convicted in the 1980 rape and killing of an elderly Alabama woman in her Montevallo home. Darrell Grayson and a co-defendant were convicted in the beating and suffocation death of Annie Laura Orr, 86, whose home was ransacked and burglarized. "The murder and brutal torture inflicted upon this elderly lady - who had trusted her assailant and hired him to work in her yard - was savage," King said in a statement. "For nearly a quarter century, this murderer has lived and evaded the penalty rightly imposed for his wickedness. It is past time for justice to be delivered for the family of Mrs. orr and for the citizens of Alabama." Grayson, who was 19 at the time, and Victor Kennedy, who was executed in 1999, admitted they repeatedly raped the victim, and prosecutors used their statements as aggravating circumstances to get the death penalty. King is pushing for an execution date in Grayson's case for the second time. An earlier execution date in 2003 was postponed while Grayson pursued an unsuccessful federal civil rights appeal. Although Grayson is now pursuing a different federal civil rights appeal challenging the procedure by which lethal injection is administered, King said this appeal is an abusive delaying tactic. (source: Associated Press) ***************** Huntsville Prosecutors Rule out Death Penalty in Starvation Case Huntsville prosecutors told a judge they will not seek the death penalty against Natashay Ward, who faces trial in the starvation deaths of her 3 children in 2005. Ward's attorneys will ask a jury on February 12th to determine if the Huntsville woman is mentally competent to stand trial. A grand jury indicted Ward last February in the deaths of 8-year-old Christopher O- Ward; 9-year-old Latrica L- Ward; and 11-year-old Shanieka Y- Ward. Their bodies were discovered February 4th of 2005, in Ward's southwest Huntsville apartment. Ward pleaded not guilty to the charges in April because of mental disease or defect. Madison County Circuit Judge Loyd Little asked the prosecutors to notify the court by Friday if they would seek the death penalty. Prosecutors could not be reached for comment on why they ruled out capital punishment. (source: Associated Press) NEW YORK: An imperfect system discredits death penalty I am not one of the "bleeding hearts" who are soft on crime. However, another good reason to do away with the death penalty is our justice system. Witnesses make mistakes, and in many cases may be a little biased. Peace officers sometimes lie as was exposed a while back when New York state troopers fabricated evidence that sent people to jail. When I asked an officer of the court about the judicial system she said, "Well, it's not the best, but it's the best we have." That statement alone should be enough to do away with the death penalty. If not, how about this one: I discussed the pros and cons of the death penalty with a proponent of execution, his statement was "Anyone executed by mistake should be considered collateral damage." Is this the American mindset today? GEORGE P. KISKIEL----Rome (source: Letter to the Editor, The Utica Oberser-Dispatch)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, N.J., N.C., ALA., N.Y.
Rick Halperin Mon, 22 Jan 2007 23:06:26 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
