[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----USA, COLO., ALA., CALIF., PENN., MO.

[Rick Halperin]

August 18


USA:

Attorney general back to his old Texas death-penalty tricks


When George W. Bush was governor of Texas and Alberto Gonzales was his
legal counsel, the 2 of them had a system. The morning of an execution,
Gonzales would send a memo to Bush summarizing the facts of the case and
giving Bush the opportunity to stay the killing. At the bottom of each
memo, the "governor's clemency decision" would be made with a simple
checkmark next to the word "GRANT" or "DENY."

Invariably, Bush checked "DENY," even, notoriously, in the case of Terry
Washington, a 33-year-old with the mental capacities of a 7-year-old. (The
Supreme Court in 2002 ruled the execution of the mentally retarded
unconstitutional.) By the end of his 6 years as governor, Bush had
approved the execution of 150 men and 2 women, the most of any governor in
American history.

Gonzales drafted execution memos for the first 57 executions before
becoming secretary of state and a justice of the Texas Supreme Court. As
Alan Berlow wrote 4 years ago in The Atlantic, "a close examination of the
Gonzales memoranda suggests that Governor Bush frequently approved
executions based on only the most cursory briefings on the issues in
dispute. In fact, in these documents Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprise
the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel,
conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of
innocence."

Gonzales and Bush have again positioned themselves to be "fast-track"
arbiters of executions -- for the whole nation. It's a disturbing
usurpation of powers previously held by federal judges.

It's even more disturbing that Gonzales is the one writing the new rules.
His truthfulness and activities as attorney general and as Bush's counsel
(from his support of torture to his attempt to strong-arm John Ashcroft,
the previous attorney general, while Ashcroft was in a hospital bed, to
his machinations over politically motivated firings of federal
prosecutors) have been suspect.

There's no question that death penalty appeals are long, as they should
be, and expensive. The average time for death-row inmates from sentencing
to execution rose from 4 years in the early 1980s to 11 years now. But
numerous states, including Florida for a while, halted executions as
problems with execution methods have multiplied and inmates have been
found wrongly convicted. In Florida alone, 22 people have been freed from
death row, while 397 inmates are awaiting execution. Delays are not the
problem. Hurrying the executioner's conveyor belt is.

Until now, federal judges alone had the authority to speed up appeals once
a death-row inmate's appeals had been exhausted in state courts. But a
little-noticed provision in the USA Patriot Act reauthorization last year
strips judges of that authority and grants it to the attorney general.
Gonzales' Justice Department is about to write the new rules.

But Congress already ratified a fast-track approach in 1996. That's the
system designed to give federal judges leeway in deciding how fast to
handle a death-penalty appeal, once the judges have established that all
necessary procedures had been followed in state courts. The death penalty
is a barbaric practice that shouldn't be part of American justice. But so
long as it is, severe and, if necessary, cumbersome checks, including the
judgments of federal judges, should be a minimum. Gonzales intends to
remove that minimum and replace it with -- his judgment.

Neither Gonzales nor this administration can be trusted to write fair and
just rules regarding the death penalty.

(source: News-Journal)






COLORADO:

Seeking the death penalty


El Paso county district attorney John Newsome is asking for the death
penalty in the Marco Lee case. He is accused of killing Springs police
officer Kenneth Jordan. Former District Attorney Jeanne Smith says seeking
the death penalty is the hardest decision made by a prosecutor. "To stand
up and ask a jury of twelve to take a persons' life is extremely serious,
so it is very hard."

Marco Lee is accused of shooting police officer Kenneth Jordan last
December.

The D.A. is asking for the death penalty. Former prosecutor Jeanne Smith
knows how agonizing that decision can be. During her tenure, she sought
the death penalty for George Woldt. He is convicted for the kidnap, rape
and murder of 22 year old Jacine Gielinski.

She explains, "the proof in a death penalty case has to be strong because
it is going to be analyzed with a fine tooth comb." State law outlines
when the death penalty is warranted. But a D.A.'s office must consider
many other factors - including what lies ahead for the victim's family.

Smith says a typical murder case takes two years from the time of arrest
to sentencing. A death penalty case can take decades. George Woldt was
sentenced to death, but a supreme court decision overturned the sentence.
Would she seek it again if she could go back and do it over?

"The decision to request it is done with such care. It is not something
you second guess and question whether you were right or wrong. You start
down that road and you don't look back." Since 1967 only 1 person has been
executed in the state of Colorado.

(source: KOAA News)






ALABAMA----new death sentence

Byrd gets death sentence for motel slayings


A Jefferson County judge sentenced Roderick Byrd to death this morning for
his involvement in a triple homicide at a motel near Birmingham's airport
on Thanksgiving Day 2005.

Byrd is the 2nd man to be condemned for the shooting deaths of Kim Olney,
John Aylesworth and Dorothy Smith during a robbery at the Airport Inn.
Brandon Mitchell was sentenced to death in the case in January.

Olney was the desk clerk, Aylesworth had checked out and was waiting for a
ride home to Texas and Smith was about to check in when they were taken
hostage by Byrd and Mitchell.

Byrd's attorneys, Everett Wess and Emory Anthony Jr., argued that Mitchell
actually killed all 3 victims. Byrd's borderline level of mental
retardation and that he witnessed his own mother's murder at age 8 also
were factors in favor of a sentence of life without parole, they said.

But prosecutors Arnita Brown Foster and Danny Carr said Circuit Judge Bill
Cole should follow the jury's recommendation of a death sentence during
Byrd's trial in June. Byrd killed Aylesworth, while Mitchell killed Olney
and Smith, Foster said.

"Just as they executed those three people on Thanksgiving Day, he has to
pay for it," she said in today's 3-hour sentencing hearing. "We believe he
is deserving of the death penalty."

(source: Birmingham News)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Execution warrants signed for Phila., Lehigh men


Gov. Rendell yesterday signed execution warrants for Anthony Washington of
Philadelphia's Logan neighborhood and Raymond Solano of Lehigh County.
Washington's execution is scheduled for Oct. 9 and Solano's for Oct. 11.

Washington, 38, was convicted of shooting Tracey Lawson, 29, an unarmed
security guard, once in the face after Lawson tried to stop him and 2
accomplices from escaping after a 1993 holdup at the Save-A-Lot market in
the 2500 block of Kensington Avenue. Washington is an inmate at Graterford
Prison.

Solano, now 28, was sentenced in 2003 to die for the murder of 21-year-old
Armondo Rodriguez. He is an inmate at the State Correctional Institution
at Greene.

Pennsylvania has executed 3 people since reinstating the death penalty 29
years ago. All 3 voluntarily ended their appeals.

(source: Philadelphia INquirer)

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

Decision on Miller's death sentence due next week


A Dauphin County judge may decide next week whether convicted killer and
former death row inmate Joey Miller is so mentally retarded that he cannot
be executed.

Common Pleas Judge Jeannine Turgeon told lawyers on both sides of the case
that she would probably issue her ruling without taking further legal
written or oral arguments.

Turgeon made her remarks after concluding a lengthy hearing today that
followed several other hearings aimed at establishing whether Miller lacks
"adaptive functioning" in enough areas for him to be declared ineligible
for the death penalty due to mental retardation.

In 1993, Turgeon sentenced Miller, now 43, to death after a Dauphin County
jury convicted him of murder. Miller killed four women and tried to kill
two others in the five years before he was arrested in 1992.

Turgeon's hearings were the result of a state Supreme Court order that
directed her to determine whether she was correct in later vacating
Miller's death sentence based on a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which
barred execution of the mentally retarded.

Under that ruling, attorneys for Miller need only prove that their client
is mentally deficient in 2 areas of "adaptive functioning." The case could
serve as a template for state legislation which would establish procedures
to be used in capital cases involving possibly mentally retarded
defendants.

John Sebastian O'Brien II, a board-certified forensic psychiatrist and
licensed attorney called by Miller's attorneys as an expert witness, told
Turgeon that Miller suffered from "significant sub-average intellectual
function."

Referring to an obscenity-laced recording of a telephone conversation
carrying heavy racial undertones which Miller had from prison with his
daughter in which he tells her, "If they want me to play dumb, I'll play
dumb," O'Brien questioned even Miller's ability to do that.

"I don't think he's smart enough to play dumb. That's my opinion," O'Brien
said under questioning by defense attorney Billy H. Nolas.

Miller's reading, writing and math skills have been judged to be at the
second-grade level. Earlier this month, the Dauphin County detective who
got Miller to confess told Turgeon that Miller told him that he raped and
killed minority women because he thought police were unlikely to pursue
their disappearances.

Dauphin County District Attorney Edward M. Marsico Jr. produced letters
Miller wrote his office in 1998 in which Miller urges him to help bring
about his execution in an attempt to show that Miller was fully capable of
"adaptive functioning."

"It's been six years, and it's time to put an end to this," Miller wrote.

Marsico also produced O'Brien's expert testimony from other court hearings
including one in which he appeared as a prosecution witness  in which he
determined the defendant to have the necessary cognitive functions to
qualify him as a death penalty defendant.

Miller, an admitted cocaine and alcohol abuser, was able to negotiate the
drug culture to obtain cocaine and was able to maintain personal hygiene
despite problems in that area as a teenager, indicators which demonstrated
his cognitive ability, Marsico demonstrated.

While still on the witness stand O'Brien expressed puzzlement over
Miller's letter. "I don't think I've ever seen that. Why would he be
writing to you guys?" he asked Marsico.

"Because he's a smart man," Marsico answered.

"Or not," Turgeon, added.

The legislation appears stuck on whether a jury or a judge should make the
determination of mental disability. Prosecutors have lobbied to make it a
jury question after a determination of guilt, but civil liberties groups
and advocates for the mentally disabled want a judge to decide the
question before a trial.

Opposing bills were offered in the House and Senate in 2003 but have been
stalled.

The last prisoner executed in Pennsylvania was Gary Heidnik of
Philadelphia who died July 6, 1999.

Heidnik was only the third inmate executed in the state after the U.S.
Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

(source: The Patriot-News)






CALIFORNIA----new death sentences

LA judge sentences triple murderer to death


A Los Angeles judge has sentenced a man convicted of murdering 3 teenagers
in 1984 to death for a 2nd time.

47-year-old Mauricio Silva was in prison in 2001 when the California
Supreme Court overturned his 1986 death sentence. The court had found that
the exclusion of 5 Hispanics from the prospective jury pool tainted the
jury's death verdict. Silva is Hispanic.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Johnson, who re-imposed the death
sentence Friday, described Silva's actions as quote- "extraordinarily
vicious and inhuman."

Johnson ordered Silva be delivered to San Quentin's death row within 10
days.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Accused San Jose cop-killer ruled eligible for death penalty


A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge ruled Friday that accused
cop-killer DeShawn Campbell is not mentally retarded.

The ruling will allow the district attorney's office to seek the death
penalty and knocks down perhaps the final obstacle to trial in the
controversially lengthy case.

Prosecutor Lane Liroff said he will seek the death penalty if Campbell is
convicted of the 2001 shooting death of San Jose police officer Jeffrey
Fontana. A trial in this case - whose long legal delays have frustrated
the Fontana family and the police department - may be scheduled at a
hearing next week.

Edward Sousa, Campbell's attorney, said he would appeal Judge Diane
Northway's decision, which he said "surprised and disappointed" him.

"In making the ruling, we believe the court ignored significant evidence
and rejected the uncontradicted expert opinion of four nationally renowned
experts in the field of mental retardation," Sousa said.

Mary Jenkins, Campbell's aunt, said: "How can she say that he is not
retarded? He has the mind of a little kid."

But Liroff praised Northway's decision as "thorough, well-written and
fair."

He said it would allow him to immediately ask for a trial date and to
eventually select a "death-penalty qualified jury," which Liroff described
as a pool of "people who would appreciate the seriousness of this case."

Sandy Fontana, the mother of the slain officer, gave her thanks to the
prosecutor and the judge, and said, "Now we can move forward to the
trial."

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty is cruel and
unusual punishment for convicts who are mentally retarded. The court left
it up to states to decide what constitutes mental retardation.

Northway wrote in her 16-page decision that Campbell's defense team had
not proved that Campbell was retarded. Yes, he had consistently low IQ
scores, so low that they could mean he was mildly mentally retarded. But
she said other evidence and testimony, from grades, teachers, relatives,
letters and work history, was mixed.

While Campbell was in special education classes, other evidence seemed to
indicate a higher level of proficiency, the judge noted. Campbell had
passed 3 of 4 high school proficiency tests, had worked at Mervyn's, Toys
R Us and Great America, had a driver's license, maintained a car and put
together a rap recording.

She said testimony from Campbell's parents - who had said Campbell had
trouble with such basics as hygiene and putting on his own clothes - may
have been unreliable.

"The motive of the reporter, certainly if they are a parent, would be to
slant, shade or exaggerate the responses so as to save the life of their
son," Northway wrote.

Northway also wrote that a 1997 audio recording of Campbell and
then-prosecutor James Hammer demonstrated that Campbell - who was being
interviewed for another crime - was "articulate."

San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis said the department was "ecstatic" with
the decision.

"Because it has been almost 6 years since Jeff was slain, there are some
officers who have been very disappointed with the legal system," Davis
said. "The very system Jeff died for was letting him down.

"This ruling shows that our system works," Davis said.

The issue of mental retardation came before any trial on Campbell's actual
guilt because his attorneys took the option of trying the controversial
and complex matter before a judge, as opposed to a jury that had just
convicted their client of murder.

(source: San Jose Mercury News)

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

2 men get life terms for jail murders


2 members of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang will get life in prison
without the chance of parole for plotting the murders of 2 black inmates,
after a jury deadlocked on whether to recommend the death penalty.

A federal jury deliberated about 41/2 days before announcing the deadlock
Thursday. Jurors voted 9-3 in favor of the death penalty for Wayne
Bridgewater and 11-1 against the death penalty for Henry Michael Houston,
authorities said.

The men will be sentenced to life Oct. 16, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman
for the U.S. attorney's office.

The case was part of a larger indictment that federal prosecutors hope
will eventually dismantle the Aryan Brotherhood, a violent white
supremacist organization accused of running powerful gambling operations
and drug rings from inside some of the nation's most dangerous prisons.

At least a half-dozen other trials are pending in Southern California,
where federal prosecutors are handling Aryan Brotherhood cases from across
the country, assistant U.S. Attorney Terri Flynn said Friday.

Bridgewater, 55, of Washington state, and Houston, 45, of California, were
convicted of involvement in the Aug. 29, 1997, murders of 2 inmates at a
federal prison in Lewisburg, Pa.

Bridgewater was serving time there for a series of Washington state bank
robberies and for assault for stabbing a black inmate 25 times at another
federal prison in 1981, Flynn said. The man survived.

Houston, who originally was sent to prison for drug crimes, was in the
Lewisburg prison after he was convicted of a marijuana trafficking scheme
in the federal prison in Lompoc, Flynn said.

Prosecutors said that while at the Pennsylvania prison, Bridgewater and
Houston helped kill black inmates Frank Joyner and Abdul Salaam. They were
killed after Bridgewater and another gang member, Al Benton, got an
invisible-ink message that said "War with D.C. Blacks" -- a reference to a
black prison gang.

Defense attorney Steven White said prosecutors misinterpreted that
message, which was a warning about a gang war brewing in other federal
prisons and not an order to kill.

White also argued at trial that Houston never stabbed anyone and that
Bridgewater acted in self-defense when he stabbed one black inmate and
helped kill another.

(source: Associated Prss)




MISSOURI:

Ruling clears way for court to set execution date for Michael Taylor


Condemned inmate Michael Taylor could soon face an execution date  even as
he plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of
Missouris 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.

A federal district judge's stay on Missouri executions had been in place
since June 2006.

Earlier this year, a 3-judge appeals court panel said that Missouri's
execution procedure was not cruel and unusual punishment. The full appeals
court refused this month to take up Taylor's case.

Taylor's attorney, Ginger Anders, said she would ask the U.S. Supreme
Court to review the appeals court's decision.

The debate centers on the administration of 3 drugs to accomplish the
execution. The argument is that if the initial anesthetic does not take
hold, a 3rd drug that stops the heart can be excruciatingly painful. But
the inmate would not be able to communicate the pain because of a 2nd drug
that paralyzes the person.

Missouri is among at least 9 states that have put executions on hold while
grappling with whether lethal injection is inhumane.

Taylor, convicted of killing 15-year-old Ann Harrison in Kansas City in
1989 after kidnapping her from a school bus stop, was hours away from
being executed in February 2006 when the procedure was halted.

(source: Associated Press)