[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, N.J., VA., OKLA., IND.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 17


USA:

Court upholds challenge to death row interview ban----The federal prison
media policy focused too much on restricting rights rather than ensuring
the prison's security, the court held.


A federal policy prohibiting death row inmates from conducting
face-to-face interviews with reporters might have been enacted for
political rather than safety reasons, the U.S. Court of Appeals in
Indianapolis (7th Cir.) ruled on Tuesday.

The 3-judge panel sent the case back to the trial court, which had upheld
the Bureau of Prisons' (BOP) rule banning face-to-face interviews.

David Hammer, then a prisoner on death row, sued various Bureau of Prisons
officials in 2001, after he was denied face-to-face interviews with the
media. Between August and December 1999, Hammer conducted three in-person
interviews at the prison he was housed at in Terre Haute, Ind. But, in
2000, he learned the prison wouldn't allow him to speak in-person to
members of the press.

The new rule was put in place after fellow death row inmate Timothy
McVeigh spoke about the Oklahoma City bombing with 60 Minutes in March
2000. In response to the interview, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft
and former BOP Director Kathleen Hawk-Sawyer announced a blanket media
policy banning all federal death row inmates from giving face-to-face
interviews with reporters.

The policy also banned inmates from talking to the press about other
inmates, which created an especially difficult challenge for Hammer, since
he was placed on death row for killing a fellow prisoner.

The district court dismissed Hammer's initial suit at the pleading stage,
but the appeals court reversed and sent the case back for review. The
district court subsequently dismissed a number of Hammer's claims before
granting summary judgment to the defendants.

Back before the appeals court, Judge Llana Rovner again sided with Hammer,
noting that a jury must decide whether the media policy was a result of
negative press coverage or a valid safety and security concern.

"Ashcroft explained that his distaste for the content of interviews given
by death row inmates was the reason for the policy," Rovner wrote. "That
is direct evidence of the actual motivation, and it creates a genuine
issue of material fact as to whether (former warden Harley) Lappin was
motivated by a desire to prohibit a disagreeable viewpoint or to advance
prison security."

Stephen Key, general counsel for the Hoosier State Press Association,
which represents Indiana newspapers, said that although this is only a
preliminary victory, he remains hopeful that the policy will be changed.

"It was the speech issue that prompted the ban, and not the security issue
that was raised at a later date," Key said. "If that's the case, we feel
that the courts will rule that the ban should be lifted."

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a
friend-of-the-court brief in the case, which was joined by the Hoosier
State Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists,
urging the court to overturn the trial court's decision.

(source: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press)

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

Fleeing to Mexico Thwarts Death Penalty


A methamphetamine dealer who gunned down a deputy during a traffic stop in
Southern California. A man in Arizona who killed his ex-girlfriend's
parents and brother and snatched his children. A man who suffocated his
baby daughter and left her body in a toolbag on an expressway overpass
near Chicago.

Ordinarily, these would be death penalty cases. But these men fled to
Mexico, thereby escaping the possibility of execution.

The reason: Mexico won't send anyone back to the United States unless the
U.S. gives assurances it won't seek the death penalty  a 30-year-old
policy that rankles some American prosecutors and enrages victims'
families.

"We find it extremely disturbing that the Mexican government would dictate
to us, in Arizona, how we would enforce our laws at the same time they are
complaining about our immigration laws," said Barnett Lotstein, special
assistant to the prosecutor in Maricopa County, Ariz., which includes
Phoenix.

"Even in the most egregious cases, the Mexican authorities say, `No way,'
and that's not justice. That's an interference of Mexican authorities in
our judicial process in Arizona."

It may about to happen again: A Marine accused of murdering a pregnant
comrade in North Carolina and burning her remains in his backyard is
believed to have fled to Mexico. Prosecutors said they have not decided
whether to seek the death penalty. But if the Marine is captured in
Mexico, capital punishment will be off the table.

Fugitives trying to escape the long arm of the law have been making a run
for the border ever since frontier days, a practice romanticized in
countless Hollywood Westerns.

Mexico routinely returns fugitives to the U.S. to face justice. But under
a 1978 treaty with the U.S., Mexico, which has no death penalty, will not
extradite anyone facing possible execution. To get their hands on a
fugitive, U.S. prosecutors must agree to seek no more than life in prison.

Other countries, including France and Canada, also demand such "death
assurances." But the problem is more common with Mexico, since it is often
a quick drive from the crime scene for a large portion of the United
States.

"If you can get to Mexico  if you have the means  it's a way of escaping
the death penalty," said Issac Unah, a University of North Carolina
political science professor.

The Justice Department said death assurances from foreign countries are
fairly common, but it had no immediate numbers. State Department officials
said Mexico extradited 83 suspects to the U.S. in 2006. Most were wanted
on drug or murder charges.

The U.S. government typically pays more attention to those entering the
country from Mexico than it does to those trying to leave the U.S. But
Texas authorities have begun making checks of vehicles and drivers heading
south on the 25 international bridges that connect the state to Mexico.

The initiative, announced in October, was originally intended to catch
drug smugglers taking cash or stolen cars into Mexico, but "we would hope
it would be a deterrent for fugitives" as well, said Allison Castle, a
spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry.

In the North Carolina case, local authorities and the FBI are working with
Mexican law enforcement to hunt down Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, a
21-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in Mexico. He is accused of
killing 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach in mid-December, months
after she accused him of rape.

Wanted posters and information on Laurean have been distributed to the
Mexican media.

Also recently, prosecutors in Dallas pledged not to seek the death penalty
if Mexico extradites Ernesto Reyes, a man accused of killing and burning
the body of a University of North Texas student last year. That
extradition request is still pending.

John Walsh, host of TV's long-running "America's Most Wanted," which plans
to devote Saturday's episode to the Marine case, said the delays and
death-penalty compromises needed to get fugitives returned can be
heartbreaking for victims' families.

"It's not about revenge. It's not so much about closure. It's about
justice," he said.

Lotstein, the prosecutor's assistant in Phoenix, said the county has
agreed to drop the death penalty in a number of cases: "The option we have
is absolutely no justice, or partial justice."

(source: Associated Press)






NEW JERSEY:

N.J. Closes Death Row


It's official. Before 2007 came to a close, New Jersey became the 1st
state in the United States in 40 years to abolish the death penalty.

With a stroke of a pen, Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine signed a law
eliminating the states death sentence and replacing it with life without
the possibility of parole. The measure was the culmination of a concerted
statewide campaign.

In January 2007, a 13-member, appointed commissionincluding a police
chief, a couple of prosecutors and a father who lost his daughter to a
violent crime in 2000recommended abolishing the death penalty. In addition
to citing concerns about the risk of executing an innocent person, the
commission found that the death penalty was a poor deterrent to crime,
increasingly "inconsistent with evolving standards of decency," and not
worth the financial and emotional costs.

Activists took these findings to the streets, the legislature and the
public. In early December, after heated floor debates the state Senate and
Assembly both passed the measure.

"Nobody wants to execute the wrong person," says Abe Bonowitz, field
manager for New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "More
importantly, the strength of murder victims' families to be present and to
share their tragedy was a way of helping legislators understand that the
death penalty just creates more pain."

Other statesincluding Maryland, New Mexico and South Dakotaare considering
similar measures. In Illinois, a moratorium on executions has remained in
place since 2000, when former Republican Gov. George Ryan halted
executions in light of the revelation of wrongful convictions in the state
and around the country.

Nationally, no executions have taken place since Sept. 25, 2007, when the
state of Texas executed Michael Richard hours after the U.S. Supreme Court
agreed to examine the constitutionality of lethal injection. Since then, a
de facto moratorium on executions is pending a Supreme Court ruling on
whether lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and
unusual punishment.

Public confidence in the death penalty has eroded over the last decade,
according to a June 2007 poll released by the Death Penalty Information
Center. The poll, conducted by RT Strategies, found that 40 % of Americans
believe that they would be disqualified from serving on a jury in a death
penalty case because of their moral beliefs. Moreover, 58 % think
executions should be halted temporarily while procedures are looked at
more closely. The poll also found that a whopping 87 % of people believe
that an innocent prisoner was executed in recent years, and nearly 70 &
think that the wrongful execution of an innocent person is inevitable with
capital punishment. The findings of another study, conducted by Mark
Peffley and Jon Hurwitz, recently published in the American Journal of
Political Science, found that race matters when it comes to public opinion
on the death penalty.

When a random set of white people were asked, "Do you favor or oppose the
death penalty for persons convicted of murder?" 36 % said that they
strongly favored the death penalty. Another random set of white people was
asked the same question, but with a slight variation: "Some people say
that the death penalty is unfair because most of the people who are
executed are African Americans. Do you favor or oppose the death penalty
for persons convicted of murder?" In response to this question, 52 % said
that they strongly favored the death penalty, an increase of 16 %

. To explore this disparity, Peffley and Hurwitz took a closer look at
what whites and blacks believe causes crime. They found that whites were
more likely to believe that personal failings were the primary cause of
crime rather than social factors, such as poverty and inequality.

Yet, as African Americans continue to be sentenced to death
disproportionatelycomprising nearly 42 % of the U.S. death row
populationthe New Jersey victory should be seen as a blow to racism in
America. Additionally, since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 80
% of people executed have been executed for murders involving white
victims, according to a 2003 Amnesty International report.

Meanwhile, in the race for the White House, talk about the death penalty
is rare among the candidates. The top 3 contenders for the Democratic
nominationSen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.), Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and former
Sen. John Edwardsall support the death penalty.

Indeed, even though Obama sponsored death penalty reform legislation
during his tenure as state senator in Illinois, he supports capital
punishment in cases so heinous that the community is justified in
expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate
punishment, according to his bestselling autobiography, The Audacity of
Hope.

Of the Democratic candidates, only Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) and former
Sen. Mike Gravel oppose the death penalty.

But as states like New Jersey and Illinois show, it doesnt have to be
presidential contenders who lead the nation away from capital punishment.

(source: In These Times)






VIRGINIA:

Atkins' death sentence commuted to life----Man convicted almost 10 years
ago in Langley airman's murder


The death sentence for Daryl Atkins sentence was commuted to life in
prison Thursday after a York County judge found that prosecutors had
failed to turn over potential favorable evidence to his lawyers during his
1998 murder trial.

Atkins, a Hampton man who has been on death row for 10 years, was
convicted of in the 1996 killing of Langley Airman Eric Nesbitt.

Atkins was sentenced to death despite evidence offered by the defense that
he was mentally retarded. His appeal went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which
ruled in 2002 that it's unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded.

A new jury decided in 2003 that Atkins wasn't retarded and upheld the
death sentence, but that verdict was also overturned because of errors
made during the trial.

He was scheduled for a new trial on the retardation issue this year, when
allegations surfaced that prosecutors withheld evidence during the
original 1998 trial.

(source: Daily Press)






OKLAHOMA:

Convicted killer gets death sentence for a 3rd time


A man convicted of beating a University of Oklahoma student to death at a
recreation center has been formally sentenced for a third time to die for
the crime.

Alfred Mitchell was convicted of killing Elaine Scott at the center where
she worked in 1991.

His previous death sentences were overturned in 2001 and 2006 by appeals
courts because of improper evidence, prosecutorial misconduct and judicial
bias.

Mitchell's 3rd sentencing hearing ended last month with a jury again
recommending the death penalty and he was formally sentenced Wednesday in
Oklahoma County District Court.

(source: Associated Press)






INDIANA:

Death Penalty Sought In Gary Triple Murder


Prosecutors in Lake County, Ind., will seek the death penalty against a
man accused of killing his family last summer.

Prosecutors say Kevin Isom shot his wife and her daughter and son inside
the family's apartment in Gary on August 7, 2007. He was charged with
three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of 40-year-old
Cassandra Isom, 17-year-old Michael Moore and 13-year-old Ci'Andria Cole.

According to a court affidavit, Isom allegedly told investigators that he
shot his family because his wife was going to leave him. He also said she
had been supporting the family on her own and that he had not been
working.

Now Isom also faces 4 attempted murder charges for allegedly shooting at
police officers who had responded to a hostage situation at the Lake Shore
Dunes complex, where Isom allegedly killed his wife and stepchildren.

"Every death is traumatic to a police officer, but the death of children
perhaps hit them more. For the officers who came under fire, it brings
home the danger they face," said Gary Police Cmdr. Sam Roberts.

"We have to send a message to the public that we cannot allow anyone to
harm our officers," added Gary Police Det. James Bond.

Isom is currently being held at the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Ind.

Gary police investigated 71 homicides in the city last year.

(source: CBS News)