[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----USA, CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

May 4



USA:

Exonerations Change How Justice System Builds a Prosecution----DNA Tests
Have Cleared 200 Convicts


Jerry Miller is the newest poster child of the wrongfully convicted, the
200th to be exonerated by DNA evidence -- after he spent 25 years behind
bars in Illinois for a rape he did not commit.

But Miller, a black man, hardly stands out in the crowd of the exonerated.
Of the 200 people whose convictions have been overturned as a result of
DNA evidence since 1989, 60 % have been black or Latino, according to the
Innocence Project, a liberal organization that works to free the
wrongfully convicted. Of those exonerated after a rape conviction, 85 %
were black men accused of assaulting a white woman.

In contrast, black men are accused in 33.6 percent of rapes or sexual
assaults of white women, according to a 2005 Bureau of Justice Statistics
study of victims.

< "What it says to me is that, ultimately, if you are a black man charged
with sexually assaulting a white woman, the likelihood that you will be
convicted, even if you are stone-cold innocent, is much, much higher,"
said Peter J. Neufeld, a co-director of the Innocence Project who asserted
that the 200 exonerations "are the tip of the iceberg."

The overturning of convictions based on DNA evidence is prompting changes
in criminal procedures that reach beyond race. States and cities are
starting to enact or consider laws to change decades-old police methods
such as eyewitness identifications and police interrogations that lead to
confessions.

"The exonerations have been an extremely important force in getting the
legal system to recognize there's a problem," said Gary L. Wells, an Iowa
State University psychology professor whose research led to new practices
in eyewitness identification. "I've been working at this for 30 years, and
before DNA they pretty much ignored the studies."

In New Jersey, where four convictions were overturned by DNA evidence, the
state attorney general issued a directive requiring law enforcement
agencies to electronically record police interrogations for all violent
crimes to guard against false confessions, said Paul H. Heinzel, a deputy
attorney general for the state.

At least 500 smaller police jurisdictions have begun to tape confessions,
and 20 states -- including Maryland, Virginia, California, Florida and
Tennessee -- are considering it.

"Police and prosecutors I've talked to thought it was a good thing," said
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), a former county prosecutor whose state
started taping 11 years ago, after a ruling from its supreme court. "It
builds police credibility. People talked about it being too expensive. But
I would put buying a cheap tape over paying some of these
multimillion-dollar wrongful-conviction judgments any day."

New Jersey also led the way in discarding the old police lineup, in which
victims and witnesses identified suspects first from an array of
photographs and later from an in-person lineup as detectives intent on
solving the case stood by, sometimes offering encouragement. The state now
presents individuals -- in person or in photos -- one after the other so
witnesses cannot compare one member of a lineup to another, making
relative judgments "about which individual most looks like the
perpetrator," according to guidelines set by the New Jersey attorney
general.

Bad eyewitness identifications contributed to 75 % of wrongful convictions
in cases that were overturned by DNA evidence, according to the Innocence
Project. Georgia, West Virginia, Connecticut, New Mexico and Texas, where
25 convictions were overturned by DNA evidence, are now considering
legislation that would similarly change eyewitness identifications.

Miami is considering an overhaul of its procedures, said John F. Timoney,
chief of police. The city now videotapes all confessions. DNA evidence is
tested in every rape case. The city has collected more DNA evidence than
its labs can test. Timoney said he is in discussions with the district
attorney over whether to implement a sequential process for eyewitness
identification.

Joshua Marquis, district attorney for Clatsop County, Ore., and vice
president of the National District Attorneys Association, warned against
the new eyewitness procedures. He called the process an unproven fad that
could unwittingly set perpetrators free.

"It's way far from being established that this is the magic bullet," he
said, adding that prosecutors want "eyewitness identification that is
valid."

Miller was a young Army veteran and line cook when he was identified as a
rapist and arrested in September 1981. Police said his face resembled the
composite sketch created from the memory of the victim, who was attacked
in a parking garage and stuffed in the trunk of her car by an assailant.

Miller protested, saying he was at home watching Sugar Ray Leonard box
Tommy Hearns in their famous bout. He offered a witness to corroborate his
alibi: his father, who watched with him. "I can remember all of that like
it was yesterday," Miller said. "I thought somebody set me up."

Miller was convicted after witnesses identified him during his trial.
Police stored the evidence, including a slip with semen that led to
Miller's exoneration. At a news conference last week, the Illinois state
attorney general apologized.

It was not the first apology after a wrongful conviction. Jennifer
Thompson Cannino apologized to Ronald Cotton, whom she misidentified in
1984 after she was raped in Greensboro, N.C. Cotton served nearly 10 years
before he was exonerated by a DNA test in 1995.

Cannino, who is white, toured the country with Cotton, who is black, to
speak out against eyewitness identifications and composite sketches. She
said police helped influence her to choose the wrong man.

"When you sit down and look at the choices in front of you, the hundred
noses, the hundred eyebrows, you try to get the best eyes, eyelashes, the
best lips," she said. "When the composite was finished and I was asked,
'Does it look like the man who attacked you?' I said, 'Yes, it looks like
the man.' "

Guided by the composite, Cannino said she picked Cotton out of
photographs. "I did get verbal and nonverbal encouragement: 'Good job. Way
to go,' " she said. "In the lineup, I looked for somebody who looked like
the photograph. And Ronald Cotton was doomed."

In a second trial three years later, she continued to insist that Cotton
raped her, even when the true rapist came forward. DNA testing confirmed
the second man's guilt.

"Thank God the investigator in my case felt that he needed to hold on to
evidence," she said. "Had it not been for that, Ron Cotton would still be
in prison today."

(source: Washington Post)






CALIFORNIA:

Jury urges death penalty for man who murdered 11-year-old girl


An Oakland man should be sentenced to death for raping and strangling an
11-year-old girl in 1999 after luring her inside his apartment with the
promise that she could play video games, a jury decided Thursday.

Alex Demolle, 32, showed no visible reaction when Fil Cruz, clerk for
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman, read the verdict of the
6-man, 6-woman jury. The panel reached its decision after about 4 days of
deliberations.

Goodman is scheduled to sentence Demolle on Sept. 6.

On March 20, the same panel convicted Demolle of 1st-degree murder along
with the special circumstances of rape and lewd acts with a child for
killing Jaquita Mack in his apartment in Oakland's Fruitvale district on
July 23, 1999.

"His whole family is going to suffer from his execution, and that shows
how much Jaquita's family suffered from her murder," said defense attorney
Daniel Horowitz. "It's a tremendous tragedy."

Horowitz, whose wife, Pamela Vitale, was murdered by a teenage neighbor in
Lafayette in 2005, said this will be the last death-penalty case he would
handle. "I just don't want to be doing these kinds of cases," he said.
"It's just not where I want to be, because of the emotional aspect and
where I want to put my energy."

During his closing argument in the penalty phase of the trial, Deputy
District Attorney John Brouhard grimaced with effort while placing his
hands around the neck of a Styrofoam head representing Jaquita. He
squeezed the head for a minute, which the prosecutor told jurors was the
minimum amount of time it took for Demolle to kill the girl.

"We're just very pleased that this jury's verdict has restored some sense
of justice for Jaquita and her family," said Brouhard, who singled out the
work of Oakland homicide Sgt. Derwin Longmire for investigating the case.
Longmire was in court Thursday.

During the penalty phase of the trial, jurors heard anguished testimony
from Jaquita's family and teacher at Schilling Elementary School in Newark
and listened to details about two other incidents that brought Demolle to
the attention of police.

The 1st incident was a fight in 1990 in which the defendant, then 15, and
other teenagers assaulted a 13-year-old boy at 35th Avenue and Foothill
Boulevard in Oakland after the boy had argued with a girl, Brouhard said.
The victim, who suffered a broken arm and a swollen jaw, testified in the
case.

The 2nd incident happened in 1998, when Demolle allegedly threatened a
construction worker who complained after Demolle parked his car on wet
asphalt in Hayward. "Holler at me again, and I'll shoot your ass," Demolle
allegedly told the construction worker, Brouhard said.

Defense witnesses during the penalty phase portrayed Demolle as a role
model, a "gentle giant" and somebody who had a "passion for fishing" who
never attacked any children in his family or at his church.

(source: Associated Press)