Apr. 11 TEXAS: Experts agree with Schlosser verdict District Judge Chris Oldner reluctantly ruled Plano mother Dena Schlosser innocent by reason of insanity in the murder of her 10-month old daughter on Friday. While Oldner said that he had no other choice but to make the determination, local psychologist Dr. Howard Gray Atkins, couldn't agree more with the judgment. "I think that this is the best decision for all intents and purposes," said Atkins. With the recent addition of testimony from the mental health provider and the exam that displayed evidence of Schlosser's brain tumor, many felt that innocence was the only verdict to be passed. "In my opinion the testimony that was given by the mental health official was sufficient, saying that she was psychotic," said Atkins. "As for the tumor, it's probably best to leave it be." Atkins agrees that Oldner had no other alternative at this point. "In terms as what went into his decision, I don't think he had any other choice with the brain tumor and testimony. I think that everyone is in agreement with that this woman is insane," said Atkins. "I'm glad that he had ruled the way that he did for all parties considered." Schlosser will be transferred the Texas State Hospital in Vernon for a 30-day-evaluation. Reports say after the judge receives a status report he will decide the next step and continue monitoring. "Having to live in a locked psychiatric facility institution isn't a free walk, but it's not the same as going to jail," said Atkins. The Plano-based family psychologist, with 30 years of experience, says that now the judicial system has to begin to reevaluate its insanity plea policies. "Andrea Yates is getting another trial as the judicial system is looking at an insanity plea," said Atkins. Curtis Howard, prosecutor in the Schlosser case wants to see the state consider adding a plea for guilty by reason of insanity. Howard says that there are a number of people in the criminal justice system with mental defects, Atkins understands but doesn't necessarily agree. "There are certainly are some people who are concerned that those that have committed a heinous crime, even if they are completely insane at the time -some people don't like the idea of them just walking around," he said. Yates was convicted of murder in 2002, but the conviction was overturned because a forensic psychiatrist gave false testimony. She again pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity for her 2nd trial. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. Schlosser's notoriety has joined the ranks of another Plano mother that killed her children. In November 2004, Lisa Diaz was found not guilty by reason of insanity for drowning her 2 children Brianna, 5, and Kamyrn, 3, in their bathtub. Defendants in both cases noted that post-partum disorder played a part in these episodes. Dr. Maryanne Watson says that post partum alone could cause a mother to perform such acts. "When a woman kills her children, typically it's because she's psychotic its not just post partum depression. It's post-partum, in association with psychosis," said Watson. Watson says that men have the same capability, but it's triggered by deep feelings of loss and aggression, rather than depression. "When a man kills his children it has to do with loss, either he is losing them or has the fear of losing them and becomes enraged," she said. "But when a mother kills her children she is truly psychotic." According to the Screening for Mental Health Foundation, 10 out of 15 women experience some level of post-partum depression. "There are millions of people that deal with depression and never hurt their children. Not all depression leads to psychosis," said Watson. "This is only a small minority and that is why diagnosis and analysis is very important." (source: Plano Courier-Gazette) ************************** Authorities are hoping to seek capital murder charges in fatal wreck that killed 18-year-old An innocent victim - a young man at the wrong place at the wrong time, Bryan Oliver Turner of Nederland left work Saturday night just like any other. As the 18-year-old pulled out of the Little Caesar's parking lot and headed westbound in his 2004 Toyota Scion onto Nederland Avenue and then across the FM 347 intersection, he was struck by robbery suspects fleeing authorities at an excessive rate of speed. Turner was pronounced dead at the scene. "We are all very saddened by Bryan Turner's death," Nederland Assistant Police Chief Tom Hicklin said Monday morning. "The chief (Darrell Bush) met with the family Sunday to express all of our condolences and our prayers to them." "(Bryan Turner) came from a good family. He was just a young man who was leaving work." At the other end of the fatal impact were aggravated robbery suspects, Humberto Cuevas, 20, and Romualdo Fuentes, 20, of Port Arthur. According to Jefferson County Sheriff Mitch Woods, Cuevas and Fuentes are believed to be responsible for 3 aggravated robbery incidents Saturday night in addition to causing the death of Turner. By Monday afternoon, local authorities were continuing their investigation and looking into the option of charging the 2 suspects with capital murder. "2 robbery's occurred in our jurisdiction and one in Nederland," Woods said during a press conference Monday. "We believe one man would rob store patrons outside the convenience stores with the use of a box cutter and that the other man drove." Woods said the 1st robbery occurred shortly after 10:20 p.m. Saturday in Nederland at the EZ Mart on the corner of Nederland Avenue and U.S. 69. Shortly afterward, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department responded to a call at a similar robbery at the Exxon Express Store on Spurlock Road and FM 347. With a description of the car - a green 1993 Honda Accord - spreading across law enforcement scanners like wildfire, it was only a matter of minutes before sheriff's deputies spotted the car leaving the third robbery scene, Crossroads Convenience Store - which is also located on Spurlock Road and FM 347. "As soon as the suspects saw the deputies' cars, they left the Valero station at a high speed," Woods said. "Because of the high volume of motorcycle traffic on the road following the event at Ford Park Saturday night, the deputy backed off of the pursuit to ensure that no one was endangered." According to Woods, the suspects first exited the Valero station heading southbound in the northbound lanes of FM 347. Righting the error and crossing back into the right lanes, Cuevas - the driver of the car - then proceeded to head down FM 347 into Nederland where he struck Turner. Woods said the entire pursuit lasted less than 5 minutes and that deputies followed procedures at all times. Turner was pronounced dead at the scene by Judge Tom Gillam. Cuevas and Fuentes were taken to the Medical Center of Southeast Texas, where Cuevas was treated and released into police custody. Fuentes sustained a head injury and is still undergoing medical treatment. "This is a tragedy ... a truly horrible thing," Woods said of Turner's death. "I know this is a parent's worst nightmare. This was a completely senseless loss of human life." "The responsibility of this accident lies with the suspects, and because so we are working jointly with the Nederland Police Department, the DPS and the district attorney on the case." The Department of Public Safety and Nederland Police Department are creating a reconstruction of the accident to present to the district attorney's office, Woods said. Because a series of armed robberies resulted in the death of Turner, Woods added that he hopes the accident reconstruction and the evidence presented to the district attorney will lead to capital murder charges. Woods also noted that he hopes to have his department's investigation to the district attorney by the end of the week. Until then, Cuevas has been jailed on 3 counts of aggravated robbery with a combined bond set at $750,000. He is being held at the Jefferson County Jail. Fuentes has not been charged at this time and is listed in critical condition at St. Elizabeth Hospital. Woods said Fuentes will also be charged with 3 counts of aggravated robbery once released into police custody. If charged with capital murder, both men could face the maximum penalty of death or life in prison. Both Cuevas and Fuentes have a record of misdemeanor crimes. (source: Port Arthur News) *************** Murder influx strains DA's office, county budget -- Murder rate strains DA's office, could become budget issue The high number of recent local homicides has spread thin the Midland County District Attorney's Office, spurring an atypical sharing of case burden in the office, District Attorney Al Schorre said Monday. "Everybody on the felony floor of the office now has a significant murder case," Schorre said of how prosecutors have spread the uncommon case load. "We have spread capital murder cases around to other people in the past but generally (First Assistant District Attorney Teresa Clingman) and I handle those cases," he said. "Generally we only have one of those cases at a time, if we have one, and at this time we have three capital defendants." In addition to defendants indicted for capital murder, Schorre's office also is preparing to prosecute four defendants on statutory murder charges, meaning some the office's younger prosecutors are getting an early opportunity to prosecute a murder case. "We're giving more people a chance to handle a homicide case, due to the case load being what it is," Schorre said. The increased case load has not meant focusing any less energy on less serious offenses, said Assistant District Attorney Tim Flathers, who is handling the office's prosecution of Aldo Rene Pacheco, a 36-year-old Odessa man indicted for capital murder in the Jan. 16 shooting deaths of his former wife and her friend. "Certainly our office expects us to, and the judges expect us to, keep up with all the rest of the cases as well," Flathers said. "We do not diminish ourefforts on any of the other cases. It's just a matter of making sure we have some extra time and resources to put into the bigger cases." Schorre said an influx of felony charges in addition to the murders have been piling up since November, the month of the first recent homicide when Monica Ayala Palmer allegedly dragged cab driver Richard Cullum to death in east central Midland. The upsurge can be partially attributed, Schorre said, to the prosperous economic climate Midland is currently experiencing. "There are a lot of contributing factors, but that's the pattern that we have gone through. You get a real upswing in cases when there is a boom and you get a real upswing in cases when there is a bust. And again, there are a lot of factors, but I think that people have more money to go out and party on, frankly, and I think that on a lot of our cases that has been the problem -- they have been drug and alcohol related." Adjudication of capital cases where the death penalty is sought against a defendant have cost the county in recent history about $200,000, a good mark up from the cost of a non-capital murder, which Schorre said typically carries a price on par with many other felony cases. Of the three current capital defendants, prosecutors only have announced they will seek the death penalty against Palmer. Funding death penalty cases Death penalty cases are more expensive for many reasons, including higher compensation paid to court appointed defense attorneys, hiring expert witnesses, longer trials, more research into a defendant's background, more detailed attention to due process and generally heightened scrutiny of cases by both prosecutors and defense. "General and psychological background of the defendant become very important to both sides of the case and so a lot more research is done, plus you will have competing psychologists in many instances with death penalty cases," Schorre said. Death penalty defense teams also typically are provided with a county-funded investigator and mitigation expert. "A mitigation expert basically is in charge of the real detailed background of the defendant," Schorre said. "They will (investigate questions such as) what kind of home he grew up in, what his school records were like, were there any kind of abuse situations they grew up in, what is (the defendant's) psychiatric history as well as their current psychiatric status. All those different factors that normally you don't look into quite as much in just a regular case." The county budget is designed to weather unforeseen expenses by means of a contingency fund, though it is not yet clear if drawing on the fund will be necessary to pay for adjudicating current murder and capital murder cases, County Judge Bill Morrow said. "If all the cases went to trial in one year we would exceed what we have in contingency when you consider the other unforeseen needs of the county," Morrow said. County Auditor Veronica Morales said she has not received invoices for any charges to the county for pending murder or capital murder cases. "Budget presentations are scheduled for Wednesday, May 10 through Friday, May 12," Morales said. "Each department comes in and lets everybody know what the needs are for their department. And I'm sure at that point the district courts will address the needs for additional moneys for these types of cases." (source: Midland Reporter-Telegram) OKLAHOMA----new execution date////inmate is 74 years old 74-year-old death row inmate to be executed June 1 A June 1 execution date was set today for a 74-year-old death row inmate. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals set the for John Albert Boltz who was sentenced to death for killing his 23-year-old stepson 22 years ago in Pottawatomie County. Boltz was convicted of the April 18th, 1984, murder of Doug Kirby. Kirby was stabbed 11 times after confronting Boltz about threats Boltz had made to Kirby's mother, Pat Kirby, who was married to Boltz. Pat Kirby had told Boltz she wanted a divorce earlier that day. Boltz argued he acted in self-defense. (source: Associated Press) VIRGINIA: Jury sees harrowing images of 9/11 terrorism Jurors saw more disturbing evidence of the effects of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks as the focus of an al Qaeda plotter's sentencing trial shifted Tuesday from the World Trade Center to the Pentagon. Prosecutors showed videos of the destruction and still photographs of charred bodies -- horrifying exhibits in a trial studded with unsettling images. As prosecutors played the 4 video clips, Zacarias Moussaoui could be seen at the defense table nodding and mouthing the Arabic words "Allahu akbar," meaning "God is great." Moussaoui, 37, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent, admitted last year that he conspired with al Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for 9/11, to hijack and crash planes into prominent U.S. buildings. Last week, jurors agreed with federal prosecutors that Moussaoui's lies to FBI agents after his arrest resulted in 9/11 deaths. The jurors now must decide whether Moussaoui will be executed for his role in those deaths. FBI Agent Jacqueline Maguire testified that the nose of the Boeing 757 that crashed into the Pentagon penetrated to the building's 3rd ring, known as the "C" ring. Photos showed a blackened, gaping hole in the outer wall. "Burn all Pentagon next time," Moussaoui stated outside the jury's presence. Jurors also saw 4 photos of intact human remains, one showing a charred body under the debris. Maguire said remains were scattered across 3 floors. The Pentagon attack killed 184 people -- 53 passengers and 6 crew members on board American Airlines Flight 77-- and 125 military and civilian personnel inside the building. The trial is taking place at the federal courthouse outside Washington, less than 10 miles from the crime scene. Prosecutors on Wednesday will turn the jury's attention to the 4th hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 'Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!' Flight 93's cockpit voice recording will be publicly played for the 1st time. As a preview, jurors heard transmissions late Tuesday documenting the moment the hijackers stormed the cockpit. "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!" said a voice over the radio. "Mayday! Get out of here! Get out of here!" Earlier, 2 families who lost loved ones in the attack on the Pentagon shared their stories. And, 2 survivors and one emergency responder also gave harrowing accounts of watching office mates die and crawling in the smoky darkness to safety. Shari Tolbert, whose husband, Vince, was a naval intelligence officer, described breaking the news of his death to the oldest of their 3 children, Amanda, who was 9 at the time. "Your daddy's not coming home. He's not coming home today. He's not coming home tomorrow. He's not coming home," Tolbert said. She maintained her composure until a prosecutor asked what her loss meant. "I get to raise three kids alone. I never get to have a 50th anniversary. My daughter gets to go to father-daughter dances with her grandfather and uncle," Tolbert said. "I get to go to bed alone." Dr. Rui Zheng said she felt guilty for switching her parents' return flight to China from September 10 to September 11. "If I didn't change their flight tickets, everything would have turned our differently. They would still be alive today and enjoying their lives," she testified. 'His skin came off in my hands' Police officer Jose Rojas told jurors he saved 8 people that morning. "You could hear people inside the building moaning, groaning, screaming," he said. The first man he rescued was badly burned, Rojas testified. "He slid back, because his skin came into my hands," he said. Rojas said he dug his fingernails into the man's arms to hoist him over the window ledge. Army Lt. Col. John Thurman said the impact sounded like a bombing and felt like an earthquake. "It seemed like a curtain of fire came pouring down" into his second floor office, he said. The floor got very hot. 3 of his office mates died. "I felt this incredible sense to take a nap. That's when it hit me -- I was gonna die," Thurman said. "I just got very angry." It helped him summon the strength to make it to an emergency exit. Navy Lt. Nancy McKeown was disoriented by the attack. She dove under her desk and, she testified, "I thanked God for my life insurance. Every time I took a breath it felt like my insides were on fire." Before shifting to the Pentagon attack, prosecutors wrapped up testimony and evidence about the World Trade Center attacks. About 30 witnesses told jurors about the trade center losses. Michael Williams, whose 24-year-old son, Kevin, was a bond salesman killed inside the south tower, told jurors how joyous wedding plans turned to somber funeral arrangements. Instead of raising a toast to a groom, he said, he delivered a eulogy. Williams' wife, Pat, shed a tear as Williams described how it fell upon her to call the hotel in Hawaii to cancel the honeymoon. "There's no drugs, there's no alcohol, there's no friend that can take that pain away," Williams said. (source: Associated Press) TENNESSEE: Fingerprint evidence needs scrutiny To the editor, To those opposed to capital punishment, another arrow has been placed in their quiver in light of the story about the FBI and the Madrid bombing. The FBI reportedly matched a fingerprint on a plastic bag at the Madrid bombing that killed 192 people on March 11, 2004, with that of Brandon Mayfield of Portland, Ore., an attorney and a Muslim. The FBI was absolutely so convinced the prints were Mayfield's that they kept him in jail under the auspices of the Patriot Act. The FBI was given a scathing review for its handling of the case but the point here is that future defense attorneys can now point to the possible unreliability in capital cases. Until now, fingerprint evidence has generally been regarded as scientifically solid and irrefutable. Now, there can be a reasonable doubt inserted in a defense argument. We have seen many on death row released because DNA evidence cleared them. Now, perhaps fingerprints will come under closer scrutiny. David Grubbs Forest Glen Court (source: The Daily News Journal)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news------TEXAS, OKLA., VA., TENN.
Rick Halperin Tue, 11 Apr 2006 23:17:36 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
