Aug. 16 GEORGIA: Judge tried to speed up Nichols jury selection with no luck For a few tantalizing hours Saturday, it looked like jury pool selection in the Brian Nichols murder case would be complete, and a tired and increasingly cranky group of lawyers would get next week off. Before the 1st juror was questioned Saturday morning, Superior Court Judge James Bodiford told prosecution and defense attorneys he would shrink the pool of jurors needed for the final jury selection of 12 and 6 alternates from 90 to 88 if five of six jurors on the Saturday interview schedule qualified. Atlanta and Fulton County news Bodiford even altered the interview format to put the spurs to the process that has dragged on for 30 days with lawyers grilling some prospective jurors for more than an hour with repetitive questions. None of that worked. Only 2 of 6 jurors questioned Saturday were qualified bringing the total number of qualified jurors to 85, out of 232 who have been questioned and testy attorneys snipped at each other at the end of the day. Instead of a week, they will get 3 days off before jury pool selection resumes Thursday, and they again will be seeking 90 jurors for the pool. The following Tuesday, Judge Bodiford will hear pre-trial motions, and the Tuesday after that Sept. 2 he will announce the date of final jury selection and begin hearing pre-trial motions. On Monday, Sept. 22 more than 3 1/2 years after Nichols is accused of murdering Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes and three others on March 11, 2005 his trial is scheduled to begin in courtroom 6B of Atlanta Municipal Court. Highlights of the week: Juror No. 227, a businessman, said if Nichols got death, instead of life, the court would be showing him mercy. "I believe the death penalty is the easy way out," the man said. "If he committed the acts why don't we put him away for life without parole?" The potential juror didn't have in mind a prison sentence where the convicted could lift weights, take classes or work. He favored a prison like the federal "Supermax," where the prisoner spends 23 hours a day locked away by himself. He also criticized the cost of seeking the death penalty when such a severe alternative is available. District Attorney Paul Howard has turned down Nichols' offer to accept a life sentence if Howard drops his pursuit of the death penalty. Juror No. 227 was excused from the jury pool. Juror No. 205 knows a bit about crime. A robber once placed a gun at his head; his mother was murdered by her boyfriend; and he was arrested when he was 25 during a drug sweep even though he didnt have drugs on him and spent a short spell in jail. He was willing to risk prison after his mother was killed in Adair Park when he armed himself and was on the lookout for the boyfriend. "I told my sister if I see him, I will kill him," he said. "That was my intention." But fate intervened when an Atlanta police detective investigating his mother's murder spotted the gun, inquired about it, and disarmed him. Juror No. 205 joined the jury pool. Juror No. 274 is a veteran of jury service, having served on both criminal and civil juries over the years. Verdicts, he noted, usually required a lot of discussion. "It takes a lot of patience," he said. But it also takes intact civil rights to sit on a jury, and Juror No. 274, a man in his 60s, had 2 felony convictions: 1 in the 1970s for theft, and 1 this year for a felon in possession of a firearm. Convicted felons can have their civil rights restored. But Juror No. 274 wasn't one of them, even though, as he told the court, he had never been in prison and always managed to vote, which is also against the law for convicted felons. Bodifords staff checked and confirmed the man's rights had not been restored. He advised the juror how to get his rights back, then booted him from the pool. Juror No. 278 said he didn't live in Atlanta when Nichols committed the shootings and only remembered the case vaguely from national news reports. He thought it would be interesting, he said, to spend a few months on jury getting a bird's-eye view of the case. And, as such, he has done his best to follow the court order and ignore news about the case. "As soon as I heard the name, I block my ears, close my eyes and tell my wife to tell me when it is over," said the Unitarian from Massachusetts. Juror No. 278 also believed the death penalty is "morally reprehensible" and should be abolished. Still, he said, he could consider death if the prosecution made a convincing argument. Prosecutors tried to get him booted from the jury pool, asking him if he thought he could realistically vote to sentence Nichols to death. "I believe I was asked to just consider it," said the man, parsing words as deftly as lawyers have for the past 5 weeks. "I would discuss it was it my fellow jurors and I would have to be strongly persuaded." Juror No. 278 slipped into the pool. (source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution) NORTH CAROLINA: A gentle Garner dissident is jailed, unbowed----Execution protester gets a 15-day term Among the women confined at the jail on Hammond Road are prostitutes, crack users and an occasional domestic aggressor. Then there's Mary Rider, a 48-year-old mother of 8, with a master's degree in social work from UNC-Chapel Hill. For a jailbird, Rider, who lives in Garner, is not typical, but neither was her sentence. 2 years ago, on the night the state executed death row inmate Sammy Flippen, she and 3 others were arrested outside Central Prison when they walked a few yards onto the prison driveway and knelt in prayer. They were charged with 2nd-degree trespassing -- a misdemeanor. For that act of civil disobedience, Wake County Superior Court Judge Michael Morgan last week sentenced Rider to 15 days in jail. 3 of her fellow protesters paid a fine. Rider, who was found guilty by a lower court, appealed her verdict and got a jury trial. A Roman Catholic who opposes the death penalty -- along with abortion, euthanasia and war -- Rider purposely risked arrest and jail time to stand by her convictions. It's a position she had taken many times as a champion of sanctity-of-life issues. But the judge didn't want to hear about it. "Every step of the way the worst-case scenario had happened," said Rider, who didn't expect such a long jail sentence. Rider built her defense around First Amendment, free speech and religious freedom claims and brought in two high-powered witnesses to testify on her behalf. But Morgan ruled that the testimony of UNC-CH constitutional law professor Dan Pollitt was inadmissable, and strictly limited the testimony of Duke University theologian Stanley Hauerwas. "We wanted to establish to the jury what Mary's motives were," said Tim Vanderweert, Rider's attorney. "This wasn't simply a trespassing case. But the judge took away Mary's defense." Morgan was on vacation this week and couldn't be reached. Had constitutional expert Pollitt been given a chance, he said, he would have explained to the jury that there were at least 3 cases in which the Supreme Court upheld the First Amendment right of free speech over state laws. "In most First Amendment cases someone violates a local law, whether it's disturbing the peace, trespassing or inciting a riot," Pollitt said. Hauerwas was ready to point out that Rider's action was not the irresponsible act of an individual, but part of a larger tradition of civil disobedience rooted, in this case, in Catholic obligation to resist what it believes is evil, such as the death penalty. Instead, a jury of 12 found Rider guilty. Morgan gave Rider a suspended sentence of 15 days in jail and one year of unsupervised probation. He also asked her to pay court costs totaling $235. Rider, however, refused to pay the court costs. "I cannot in good conscience give my money to a system that doesn't provide justice," she told the judge, referring both to her own case and to a system that sentences people to death by execution. Instead, she offered to do community service. But Morgan told her she could not pick her own sentence and ordered her taken into custody immediately. Beliefs hold firm Rider does not regret her action. She and her husband, writer and social activist Patrick O'Neill, are steadfast in their beliefs. The 2 run the Father Charlie Mulholland Catholic Worker House in Garner, where they welcome people with no place to stay. They hold vigils outside Central Prison each time there is an execution. They were among a group that protested Aero Contractors, a flight company based at the Johnston County Airport, that they say transported terrorism suspects to countries where they can be tortured. "In a round-about way, the judge did me a favor," said Rider. "Because he gave me the harshest possible sentence, people say I inspired them to work harder to end the death penalty." That doesn't mean Rider relishes the jail time. This week she missed her daughter Veronica's 1st day at Exploris Middle School. On Thursday night she missed seeing four of her children perform in the play "Honk" at the Garner Towne Players. And this weekend, her oldest daughter will go back to UNC-Wilmington without her mother to see her off. Perhaps most of all, she is needed at home because her youngest child, Mary Evelyn, 3, has Down syndrome, and this week had surgery to put tubes in her ears. Friends, however, have offered to help and have come by with food. One woman volunteered to fold laundry. Meanwhile, Rider, who has one more week in jail, said she's using the time to listen to the women around her -- something she said she was trained to do. She said she used to drive down Garner Road and see prostitutes waiting for rides and wonder what she could do to help them. Now she's beginning to see a bit more of what they go through. That she said is not only an opportunity -- it's a gift. (source: News & Observer)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----GA., N.C.
Rick Halperin Sat, 16 Aug 2008 23:01:16 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
