[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, DEL., N.Y., VA., TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

April 12



USA:

The problem with measuring "evolving standards of decency" is that they
tend to evolve and devolve in multiple directions at the same time.

Trend It, Don't End It--Tracking the inscrutable social consensus on
capital punishment for rapists.

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case about whether-for the
first time in decades-a criminal can be executed for a crime that isn't
murder. Patrick Kennedy was convicted in 2004 for the rape of a child, his
8-year-old stepdaughter, and the state of Louisiana contends that his
crime is tantamount to murder and worthy of death. Nobody in this country
has actually been executed for anything other than murder since 1964,
although five states, including Louisiana, have laws permitting capital
punishment for the rape of young children. Several others are
contemplating broadening their laws to do the same. The court must
determine, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, whether the Eighth Amendment's
prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment bars the execution of someone
who didn't commit a murder but did violate a young child.

Kennedy is somewhat confounded by the quiet "moratorium" on executions the
United States is experiencing, while the high court mulls another case.
That one tests the constitutionality of the lethal injection procedures
used in Kentucky and all but one of the 38 states permitting capital
punishment. The court will decide the lethal-injection question this
spring. But, in the meantime, there's been a pause in capital punishment
since last September: a good opportunity to reflect on what life would be
like without it and to take the public temperature on the death penalty in
general.

Capital punishment in America has been in a slow-repeat, slow-decline for
years. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, which compiles
statistics on capital punishment nationally, the number of executions has
dropped steadily since 1998. Even before the 2007 moratorium took effect,
the execution numbers had hit a 10-year low of 53 in 2006. American
confidence in the death penalty has also dipped slightly: A Gallup poll
taken in 2006 showed that while two-thirds of Americans endorsed capital
punishment for murderers, given the choice between the death penalty and a
life sentence without parole, slightly more preferred life in prison for
the 1st time in decades.

This dip has been variously attributed to the reported 127 death-row
exonerations now logged by DPIC (though death penalty supporters strongly
dispute that statistic), as well as popular books by the likes of John
Grisham and pervasive evidence that racism still taints the capital
sentencing system. Still, public opinion on the death penalty remains in
favor of it-at least for murder. And while the number of states imposing
or contemplating moratoriums on the death penalty grows, many seem bent on
mending-not ending-the capital system with cleaner execution protocols and
higher-quality capital defense.

All of the statistics, polls, and trends I've just cited would be utterly
irrelevant to any legal discussion of whether a child rapist can be
executed, were it not for the odd constitutional test that weighs "cruel
and unusual" punishment against "evolving standards of decency." This is
an exercise in molar-grinding frustration for members of the Supreme Court
devoted to adhering to the Constitution's original text. When the Supreme
Court ended the death penalty for mentally retarded offenders in 2002 and
again for those who were minors at the time of their crimes in 2005, it
did so via an elaborate interpretive dance that required putting one
finger on the pulse of foreign courts and the other to the wind of
American public opinion. For those of us who are not big fans of public
hangings on the Pubclicke Square, the notion that standards of unusual
cruelty can "evolve" has its appeal. But the new fight over executing
child rapists reveals that attempts to measure the shifting winds of
public opinion for some ephemeral "national consensus" often says more
about which justice is doing the measuring than whatever it is that's
being measured.

The Supreme Court tackled the death penalty with regard to the rape of a
16-year-old in 1977, in Coker v. Georgia, and prohibited capital
punishment for the rape of an "adult." The majority found that "the death
penalty, which is unique in its severity, is an excessive penalty for the
rapist who, as such, does not take human life." Coker has since stood for
the general principle that the death penalty is unavailable for nonmurder
crimes, no matter how heinous. But Louisiana contends that child rape is
different from adult rape, and its Supreme Court, in upholding the death
penalty for Kennedy, wrote that "if the court is going to exercise its
independent judgment to validate the death penalty for any non-homicide
crime, it is going to be child rape."

Kennedy's lawyers measure the national discomfort with executing child
rapists by counting to 2: the number of people on death row for
nonhomicide offenses. They also count to zero: the number of criminals
executed for a rape since 1964. For its part, the state of Louisiana
argues in its brief that public sentiment is tilting its way: "[S]ocietal
awareness" and "outrage" over the sexual violation of children is rising,
and the enactment of "Megan's laws" reflects a punitive new approach to
child rapists. Louisiana also points out that "the rape of a child under
twelve is a crime like no other," and that the physical and psychological
effects of child rape are devastating. It also engages in some counting,
i.e., the number of state legislatures trending toward making certain
nonhomicide offenses a capital crime: 38 % of death penalty states now
punish some nonhomicide crimes with the death penalty.

International jurists and social scientists have also weighed in. A
friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Kennedy from British law scholars
and former law lords includes citations to the Moroccan and Nigerian penal
codes-a tactic guaranteed to send several justices into near-irreversible
clinical despair. Another brief, from the National Association of Social
Workers, warns that if child rape becomes a capital crime, victims will be
less likely to report abuse, and rapists more likely to kill them. Several
other states write in support of Louisiana, urging the court not to meddle
with the independent state legislatures. Which leaves the high court in
the unenviable position of having to measure whether the generalized
public support for capital punishment may be canceled out by the slight
recent decline in that support, which must in turn be weighed against
efforts in some states to execute a broader range of criminals. All of
which should somehow be tested against whatever the foreign courts might
think.

Depending on how you look at it, and at which level of generality you
elect to start counting, we are witnessing either a burgeoning new trend
for executing rapists-or the last gasps of capital punishment.

The problem with measuring "evolving standards of decency" is that they
tend to evolve and devolve in multiple directions at the same time.
Patrick Kennedy's lawyers are right about the broad American distaste for
executing nonmurderers. Louisiana is also right that the trend is shifting
toward expanding the types of crimes eligible for capital punishment.
Americans generally support the death penalty but still worry it's applied
unfairly and now seem to increasingly favor life without parole. They
still want the option of capital punishment but apparently wish to
exercise it a few dozen times per year only. For the high court, it's a
monumental challenge: distilling all of these trends and counter-trends
into some broad, workable constitutional rule, a rule that somehow
reflects the emerging "national consensus" that we may like the idea of
capital punishment far more than the reality of it.

(source: SLATE)






DELAWARE:

Legal community turns out for death penalty seminar----Similar public
forum scheduled for Tuesday in Wilmington


A competent and fully funded legal defense for those facing the death
penalty is not only morally necessary but a legal obligation.

That was the message from Robin Maher, executive director of the American
Bar Association's Death Penalty Representation Project to more than 250
members of Delaware's legal community at a daylong seminar Friday on
capital punishment.

The crowd included judges, private attorneys, public defenders,
prosecutors and other court officials.

Maher also outlined the ABA guidelines for defending an indigent person in
a death penalty case, which she said represent minimum standards that
should be met and have been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"A competent and effective defense is expensive," she said, noting the New
Mexico state Supreme Court recently barred state prosecutors from seeking
the death penalty if adequate funding is not provided for the defendant's
legal representation.

The death penalty in Delaware and across the nation is currently on hold
while the U.S. Supreme Court considers a case that argues that lethal
injection as currently practiced amounts to unconstitutionally cruel and
unusual punishment.

The seminar was organized by the Delaware Supreme Court's Office of
Disciplinary Council. Chief Counsel Andrea Rocanelli said the interest
from the legal community was so great in the free seminar that they had to
move it from the state's Carvel Building to a meeting room provided by
Bank of America at its Rodney Square offices.

"The attendance, the interest and the questions by members of the audience
demonstrate the bar's commitment to adjudicating these cases properly,"
she said.

Several speakers emphasized that if a state gets it right the 1st time --
at trial -- they end up saving money in the long run with fewer appeals,
re-trials or re-sentencing.

Other topics discussed Friday included federal appeal laws for capital
cases, workloads for defense attorneys in capital cases and an update on
the legal challenges to lethal injection.

While Friday's event was essentially the state's legal community talking
to itself about capital punishment, the public will be part of a similar
event set for Tuesday.

Widener University School of Law and area civic groups will be presenting
a free public forum on the death penalty and race.

Professor Sheri Lynn Johnson of Cornell University Law School, who
co-founded the Cornell Death Penalty Project 15 years ago, will be the
featured speaker at "Race and the Death Penalty: Is Justice Color Blind?"

Participants on the panel discussion to follow Johnson's talk will include
Widener professors Robert L Hayman Jr. and Judith L. Ritter (who also was
part of Friday's event) and Kiesha N. Hudson, an assistant federal public
defender in Philadelphia.

The event begins at 7 p.m. in the Ruby R. Vale Moot Courtroom at Widener's
Delaware campus on Concord Pike.

(source: The News Journal)






NEW YORK:

Sister Helen Prejean arrives to honor Sister Karen


Years before her murder on Good Friday 2006 at the hands of one of the
parolees she was trying to help, Sister Karen Klimczak made a clear
declaration of her belief in the sacredness of life. She signed a card
stating that if someone were to cause her death, she would not want the
life of that person taken in retribution. To Sister Karen, the death
penalty was "morally repugnant."

Sister Karen's position was in alignment with the tradition of the
Catholic Church on this issue. In his shaping of the current teaching,
Pope John Paul II said that, "for all practical purposes, the death
penalty is never morally acceptable."

The 5th of the Ten Commandments is foundational: "Thou shalt not kill"
(Exodus 20:13). Here God calls us to reverence the gift of life  our own
and our neighbors  regardless of what we, as fallible human beings, judge
to be the moral value of that life.

In our day, one of the most prominent among those who have been called to
the ministry of the sanctity of human life is Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ.
Sister Helen began her prison ministry in 1981 when she dedicated her life
to the poor of New Orleans. While living in the St. Thomas housing
project, she became pen pals with Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of
2 teenagers who was sentenced to death.

Upon Sonniers request, Sister Helen repeatedly visited him as his
spiritual adviser. In doing so, her eyes were opened to the Louisiana
execution process. Sister Helen turned her experiences into the book "Dead
Man Walking." The book was on the New York Times best-seller list for 31
weeks, as well as the international best-seller list. It has been
translated into 10 languages and was developed into a major motion picture
starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. "Dead Man Walking" was also
nominated for a 1993 Pulitzer Prize.

Sister Helen Prejeans more recent books include "The Death of Innocents:
An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions and Questioning Capital
Punishment." As the founder of Survive, a victim's advocacy group in New
Orleans, she continues to counsel not only inmates on death row, but the
families of murder victims, as well.

Here in Buffalo, we have a unique opportunity to sit at the feet of Sister
Helen Prejean and share her experience of resurrection in the face of
execution.

"Picking Up the Peaces: A day with Sister Helen Prejean in memory of
Sister Karen Klimczak" will take place on Sunday. The day includes the
play, "Dead Man Walking" at 2 p.m. in the Buffalo Academy for Visual and
Performing Arts, 450 Masten Ave.; a benefit dinner at 5 p.m. for the
Sister Karen Center for Nonviolence; and a 7:30 p.m. presentation by
Sister Helen at Ephesus Cathedral, 341 Grider St.

(source: Opinion;The Rev. Vivian Ruth Waltz is director of the SSJ Sister
Karen Klimczak Center for Nonviolence----The Buffalo News)






VIRGINIA:

Kaine under fire for death penalty 'backdoor' hiatus


Lawrence T. Vaughan says Kevin Green should die. And a Virginia jury
agreed.

Green fatally shot Mr. Vaughan's wife in 1998 as he robbed the couple's
convenience store.

But Green, 30, and three other killers scheduled for execution were
granted a reprieve this month by Gov. Tim Kaine until the Supreme Court
decides whether lethal injection is "cruel and unusual punishment"  and
therefore unconstitutional.

Politicians and victims' families say Mr. Kaine acted prematurely because
the Supreme Court had not yet ruled on the condemned prisoners' final
appeals and because Virginia still authorizes the use of the electric
chair.

"It is a backdoor way to at least temporarily get rid of the death
penalty," said Sen. Kenneth Thomas Cuccinelli, Fairfax Republican. "When
you do stuff like this, you really knock off the effect of the death
penalty. He is undercutting the value of it to Virginia."

Mr. Vaughan, who was shot twice during the robbery that netted $9,000 from
the Brunswick County store he and his wife ran for 18 years, said Green
should die as scheduled and not wait for the high court's decision, which
is expected in July.

"My wife was already dead and he turned around and shot her two more
times," Mr. Vaughan, 68, said. "I think if you kill someone else you
should get the same punishment."

Mr. Kaine defended his decision to impose the temporary moratorium against
critics who say it was unnecessary because the state offers those on death
row a choice between lethal injection and electrocution.

"None of the upcoming people has chosen the electric chair, and the law
says the default method is lethal injection," Mr. Kaine, a Democrat, said
through his spokesman, Gordon Hickey.

However, Virginia Department of Corrections spokesman Larry M. Traylor
said the prisoner is not obligated to choose a method until 15 days from
the execution date. 3 of the prisoners had not reached the 15-day window,
and the 4th declined to choose.

Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell said that was why he objected to
the governor's moratorium.

"Other death-row inmates affected by the governor's actions have yet to
select a method of execution as Virginia law provides, and only lethal
injection cases are at issue in the [Supreme Court] case," said Mr.
McDonnell, a Republican widely expected to run for governor next year.

Mr. Kaine, who opposes the death penalty, pledged to uphold the law during
his campaign for governor. He has carried out four executions since taking
office in January 2006. Before the blanket moratorium, Mr. Kaine blocked
two executions.

His Republican rival for governor in 2005 ran television ads attacking Mr.
Kaine's death penalty stance, claiming he would oppose the practice even
for Adolf Hitler. Another ad featured the widow of Winchester police Sgt.
Rick Timbrook, who was fatally shot by Edward Nathaniel Bell 9 years ago.

"I don't trust Tim Kaine to uphold that law," said Kelly Timbrook.

Bell, 42, was among those who received a reprieve on April 8.

Bell fatally shot Sgt. Timbrook, 32, in the forehead during a foot chase.
The police officer's son was born 2 months later.

"I cannot feel sorry for Edward Bell whatsoever, and I am fighting for his
death," said Sgt. Timbrook's father, Richard Timbrook. "Maybe this sounds
cold, but there are some people who do not deserve to live."

Mr. Cuccinelli, a Fairfax Republican who is running for state attorney
general, also said it was customary for a governor to wait until all legal
appeals are exhausted before issuing a stay of execution.

"If the governor is using the Supreme Court as an excuse to delay the
execution, that is a straw-man argument, given the Supreme Court's ability
to rule on the execution of Bell even if Kaine took no action," he said.

The Supreme Court has granted a stay of execution in every case since the
justices agreed in September to hear the lethal injection case. The court
in October issued a stay on the execution of Christopher Scott Emmett,
convicted of robbing and killing his co-worker, John Langley, in Danville,
Va., in 2001.

Delegate Adam P. Ebbin said the governor was showing "respect for the
Supreme Court's review process."

"It seems like a prudent and reasonable step to postpone these particular
executions until we know the Supreme Court has acted," said Mr. Ebbin,
Arlington Democrat. "The governor has indicated time and again he will
enforce the death penalty when it has been sentenced, but in these cases
there is some doubt into what is the permissible method of execution."

Virginia has executed 98 criminals since the death penalty was reinstated
in 1976  more than any state but Texas, which has executed 405. Since
1995, when Virginia began offering lethal injection as a humane
alternative to electrocution, 70 inmates have been executed using the
three drug "cocktail" the Supreme Court is considering.

In January, the high court heard a case brought by 2 Kentucky death row
inmates who argued that the toxic cocktail used by 36 states causes
unnecessary pain and suffering.

(source: Washington Times)






TENNESSEE:

Female death row inmate lashes out during appeal


A death row inmate lashed out in court, shouting and sobbing during an
appeal on her death sentence for killing an 18-year-old Knoxville Job
Corps student.

Christa Gail Pike was 18 when she was sentenced to death for the murder of
Colleen Slemmer. She has been in a Knoxville criminal court for the past
week on appeal for the 1995 slaying.

She got tired of listening during the 5th day of testimony on Friday and
shouted that she was sick of people saying she was a bad person.

But half an hour later, she calmed down and the appeal hearing concluded
Friday.

(source: Associated Press)