March 22


CALIFORNIA:

Prosecutor Says Convicted Azusa Killer Deserves Death Penalty----Defense
Asks Jury To Consider Life Sentence


In Los Angeles, a prosecutor urged jurors Friday to recommend a death
sentence for an Azusa gang member convicted of four murders, saying it is
the appropriate verdict for a man who "truly enjoys killing people," City
News Service reported.

Defense attorney Pierpont M. Laidley countered that a death sentence would
not end the suffering of the victims' families and urged the nine-man,
3-woman panel to instead recommend a life prison term without the
possibility of parole for 26-year-old Ralph Steven Flores.

The jury is set to begin deliberations Monday on what sentence to
recommend.

Flores was convicted March 13 of three counts of first-degree murder in
connection with the May 14, 1999, slaying of 16-year-old Christopher
Lynch, who was shot to death while hosting a party for a young Hispanic
woman in the middle of territory claimed by Flores' gang in Azusa; the
shooting death of Miguel Reyes, who was killed outside a Christmas party
after being asked where he was from, either late that evening early the
following morning; and the Dec. 28, 2004, slaying of Fenise Luna, who was
beaten and strangled after agreeing to meet Flores and others.

He was convicted March 14 of first-degree murder in the Nov. 19, 2003,
slaying of Claudia Chenet, who was was shot to death outside her apartment
complex in the mistaken belief that she had cooperated with police in a
drug investigation that resulted in another gang member's arrest.

The panel additionally found true 5 special circumstance allegations,
including multiple murders and murder to further the activities of a
criminal street gang.

"The death penalty is reserved for those who have gone too far. Mr. Flores
has stepped over that line," Deputy District Attorney Ian Phan said in his
closing argument.

"He killed these people for his gang because he placed the gang before
anything else in his life," the prosecutor told jurors, adding that Flores
was "not ashamed" about what he had done "because this man truly enjoys
killing people."

"If we truly believe that the punishment should fit the crime -- then the
only appropriate punishment in this case is death," Phan told the panel.
"I ask you to return the only verdict that is fitting for this crime. If
not for Claudia, Alex and Fenise, then for whom?"

He had noted earlier that Flores cannot get the death penalty for Lynch's
killing because the defendant was 17 at the time, and minors cannot be
sentenced to death.

Flores' attorney told jurors to think about whether they still have any
lingering doubts about his client's guilt and continued to call question
to the accounts of key prosecution witnesses.

"I ask you to find that there is lingering doubt," Laidley said. "You are
deciding whether this man lives or dies. There is no DNA evidence that is
going to come in on a white horse and change this case."

The defense lawyer said prosecutors were seeking "an eye for an eye," and
told jurors that the victims' families would still miss them even if a
death sentence is imposed.

"I beg you to end this tragedy now. Sentence my client to life in prison
without the possibility of parole,"

(source: KNBC News)






OHIO:

WARREN COUNTY COMMON PLEAS COURT----Mason father seeks venue change for
death penalty trial

Attorneys for Michel Veillette also seek to have photos of slain wife,
kids barred from trial.

The Mason father accused of stabbing his wife to death and setting a fire
that killed their 4 children wants a trial held outside Warren County.

Attorneys for Michel Veillette filed for a change of venue in the death
penalty case.

The pretrial motion was one of about 60 filed Wednesday, March 19, in
Warren County Common Pleas Court in Lebanon by Veillette's defense
attorneys, Greg Howard and Tim McKenna, who stated the request was due to
the local pretrial publicity of the case.

The attorneys also are seeking to bar photographs of Veillette's slain
wife and children from being shown to the jury; to have jurors sequestered
during the trial; and for Veillette to be allowed to change from his jail
jumpsuit into civilian clothing for the trial, according to WKRC-TV
Channel 12.

Veillette, 34, a Canadian citizen, is accused of stabbing his 33-year-old
wife, Nadya Ferrari-Veillette, to death Jan. 11 during an argument over
his mistress and financial problems. According to police, Veillette then
poured and lit an accelerant upstairs while his children were inside
before jumping out a rear window of his Brackenview Court home.

His children, Marguerite, 8; Vincent, 4; and 2-year-old twins Mia and
Jacob died of carbon monoxide poisoning, according to coroner's reports.

A Warren County grand jury handed down a 15-count death penalty indictment
Feb. 15, to which Veillette pleaded not guilty during a Feb. 20
arraignment. Earlier this month, Veillette, who is being held without bond
in the Warren County Jail, waived his right to a speedy trial.

A hearing is scheduled before Judge James Heath on Tuesday, March 25, on a
defense motion to seal Mason Municipal Court documents related to the
case.

(source: Middletown Journal)






MISSOURI:

Activist walks to abolish death penalty


Andre Latallade, hip-hop artist and prison rights activist, also known as
Capital-X, will walk from New Jersey to Texas to advocate for the
abolishment of capital punishment in the US. He will walk 1700 miles
through 10 of the states with the highest execution rate. His objective is
to reach the governor's mansion in Austin, TX--what he dubs the "busiest
killing state in the country--before the Supreme Court's ruling on whether
death by lethal injection is a cruel and unusual punishment.

In September 2007 Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr., two death row
inmates in Kentucky after losing an appeal in the Kentucky Supreme Court
were able to get the Supreme Court to consider the fundamental question of
whether the mix of drugs used in Kentucky and elsewhere violates the
Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Currently there is
a moratorium on state-sanctioned executions while the Supreme Court
considers the constitutionality of that method of execution.

Latallade will begin his "Walk for Life" at 5 a.m. on March 31, 2008 at
the state house in Trenton, NJ, the 1st state to abolish the death penalty
in the last 40 years. He estimates that it will take 54 days walking eight
hours per day at 3.5 miles per hour with a respite from April 18-20 in
order to participate in a panel discussion at the Hip Hop Association's
HHEAL Festival in the Bronx, NY.

Uniting the families of murder victims and the families of the condemned,
Latallade in building bridges between the two groups is calling for the
acceptance of life sentences without parole instead of death sentences for
those found guilty of the crime.

A daily video blog documenting Latallade's journey will be posted here. To
contact Latallade send an e-mail here.

Editor's notes: According to a list compiled by The Missourinet,
currently, 46 men (25 white, 21 black) await execution dates in Missouri,
a state where death by lethal injection was upheld by the Eighth Circuit
Court. One of the inmates, Michael Taylor, was granted a stay of execution
in February 2006 based upon his claim that the method of execution by
lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment. But does it fit the
crime? Taylor and a friend named Roderick Nunley kidnapped a 15-year old
girl named Ann Harrison while she was waiting at a school bus stop in
Kansas City. Taylor raped her. The 2 perpetrators stabbed her over a dozen
times causing her eventual death.

Joe Amrine of Kansas City, however, spent 17 years on death row in
Missouri after wrongly being convicted of stabbing to death a fellow
inmate. He is one of over 125 men and women exonerated for capital crime
nationwide, since the advent of DNA testing.

(source: Joplin Independent)

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

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

Blunt submits Supreme Court brief supporting death for child rape


Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt has filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court
supporting the death penalty for child rapists.

The "friends of the court" brief supports the state of Louisiana, which is
defending a law authorizing the death penalty for offenders who rape
children younger than 12.

Blunt proposed a similar law for Missouri in December and encouraged
lawmakers in his State of the State address in January to pass such
legislation.

State lawmakers have introduced bills in the Senate and the House this
year that would allow the death penalty in forcible rape and forcible
sodomy cases involving children. Neither bill has made much progress.

Opponents have said such legislation could do more harm than good by
encouraging rapists to kill their victims, since the penalties would be
the same.

Blunt argues in the brief, filed Thursday, that the court "should not
foreclose a national debate on appropriate punishment for child rape," and
that discussion at the state level is the best way to determine a national
consensus.

It also references the case of Michael Devlin, the suburban St. Louis man
who kidnapped 2 boys  1 for more than 4 years  and sexually abused them
repeatedly before being caught early last year. Devlin was sentenced to
prison for 170 years and 74 life sentences.

Several states already have laws allowing the death penalty in child-rape
cases.

The Supreme Court case is expected to test those laws against the Eighth
Amendment to the Constitution, which bars cruel and unusual punishment. In
1977, the court decided that the death penalty for the rape of an adult
was cruel and unusual punishment.

The brief also is signed by 28 state lawmakers, including Kansas City area
Republicans Sen. Luann Ridgeway and Reps. Jason Brown and Tim Flook.

(source: Kansas City Star)




VERMONT:

Man in potential death-penalty case arraigned


A New York City man who police say was part of a drug robbery in South
Burlington in 2002 and shot his partner execution style a day later in a
Saratoga, N.Y., hotel room was arraigned on federal charges Friday that
could carry a death penalty.

Roger K. Aletras, 36, of the Bronx, pleaded not guilty to 5 drug
trafficking and weapons charges during his arraignment before Magistrate
Judge Jerome J. Niedermeier at federal court in Burlington and was ordered
detained pending trial.

Aletras, who has a lengthy criminal record, is serving a 19-year sentence
in the federal prison system on unrelated firearms charges. He appeared in
court wearing orange prison attire.

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Darrow said after Aletras' arraignment
that the Justice Department was in the process of deciding whether to seek
the death penalty in Aletras' case but that no decision has been made.

Vermont has no death penalty, but the death penalty can be imposed on
individuals convicted in federal court in Vermont of certain crimes.

According to police and court documents, on Dec. 16, 2002, Aletras and his
partner, Kevin Arkenau, 25, of Brick Township, N.J., stole 50 pounds of
high-grade marijuana at gunpoint from two women during a rendezvous at the
Holiday Express.

The women had brought the marijuana to South Burlington from Hogansburg,
N.Y., police said. Both women were later convicted on drug-related
charges.

Aletras and Arkenau then drove to Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where Arkenau
checked into a Sheraton Hotel. Saratoga police were called to the hotel a
day later after the hotel's cleaning staff found Arkenau's body inside his
hotel room.

Police later determined that Arkenau had been shot twice in the head while
he was sleeping.

Aletras was questioned by police about the killing in 2003 and
subsequently imprisoned after police say they discovered he was carrying a
handgun. As a convicted felon, he was not allowed to possess firearms.

A federal grand jury in Burlington indicted him in January in connection
with Arkenau's slaying.

The five-count indictment includes charges he used a firearm during a
crime of violence, used a firearm to kill and during a drug-trafficking
crime, conspired to commit armed robbery, possessed marijuana with the
intent to distribute and possessed a firearm as a convicted criminal.

If the death penalty is pursued in the case, it would set up the 2nd
capital trial in Burlington since 2005.

Donald Fell, 27, of Rutland was convicted in federal court 3 years ago of
abducting a Clarendon woman, stealing her car and later beating her to
death in New York state.

He is on death row at a federal penitentiary in Indiana while his case is
under appeal.

(source: Burlington Free Press)






COLORADO:

Proposal kills death pena to free funding for cold cases


With 18 unsolved homicides in Fort Collins and Larimer County, and more
than 1,200 statewide, a victims' rights group is pushing for increased
funding to find the killers.

And they're proposing to do it by replacing the state's death penalty.

"We have killers walking among us, murderers living in our neighborhoods,"
said Howard Morton, executive director of Families of Homicide Victims and
Mission Persons. "It's a shame that a life has been ended violently and
the perpetrator never been prosecuted."

A law passed last year established a cold case task force at the Colorado
Bureau of Investigations; but with limited funding. Morton said using the
$3 million appropriated annually for the state's rarely used death penalty
law would speed things up.

"If you're murdered in Colorado, the chances are 3 in 10 that your
murderer will never be prosecuted," Morton said. "How would your family
deal with that?"

Nationally, the "clearance" rate for homicides has been declining, from 76
% in 1978 to 62 % in 2005, the latest year for which federal statistics
were available.

Cases can go cold for reasons ranging from uncooperative witnesses to
incompetent investigations.

In Larimer County, some of the unsolved murders date back a century, as is
the case of Joseph Allen, who was found beaten to death in 1907 in Fort
Collins.

There's 21-year-old Jessica Arredondo, who was run off the road, beaten
and left in a ditch in 1988.

And someone out there knows what happened to Gay Lynn Dixon on Jan. 30,
1982, and her family is still hoping that person will step forward.

Dixon was last seen alive leaving a high school keg party; her body was
found in Rist Canyon the next morning, her jaw broken and 3 bullet wounds
to the head. Shed been 17 for less than 2 months.

"The hope that I have is that the people who were around and the
information that they have," said Laurie Wideman, Dixon's sister, last
summer. "I hope that, as they mature, they'll be able to come forward."

Peggy Hettrick, who was found fatally stabbed and mutilated in Fort
Collins in 1987 is not on the list, likely because her case was considered
"solved" when Morton's group compiled this list.

But earlier this year, a judge freed and vacated the life prison sentence
of Tim Masters, the man convicted in her death. Morton said it's possible
Hettrick would not be included on the list now because her case remains
under active investigation by Colorado Attorney General John Suthers.

Morton said he's learned over the past 5 years that hammering on local law
enforcement to reopen cases is often unproductive. The new law requires
agencies to turn over cold cases to Colorado Bureau of Investigation if
survivors request it.

"The objective is to get more resources to effectively address our
unsolved murders," Morton said.

That being said, he added, "the time to solve a crime is when it happens,
not 20 years later. We need to put those people behind bars."

(source: The Coloradoan)






USA:

Highest Lawman Prepares to Meet Highest Court


Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey may have spent nearly 2 decades as a
federal judge, but he confessed yesterday that he still gets the jitters.

As he prepares to argue the government's side in a Supreme Court case next
week, Mukasey told reporters that he has already endured 2 dress
rehearsals -- and may do a third before his turn at the high court
Tuesday.

He will ask the justices to reinstate one count in a criminal conviction
of Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian terrorist who drove a car full of explosives
across the border in the final days of 1999, in what authorities have
called a millennial bombing plot. At issue is whether Ressam's conviction
on a charge of carrying explosives while committing another felony should
be restored.

"You mean, am I nervous?" Mukasey asked reporters assembled in his ornate
conference room yesterday. "Yes. This is probably the first and only case
I'm ever going to argue" before the high court, he said.

The informal session marked his second news roundtable since joining the
department in November. In the course of an hour, Mukasey cracked jokes,
asked an interlocutor not to address him with the honorary title "General"
and continued to field questions even after his media director moved to
get up from the table.

Mukasey's style contrasted markedly with that of his predecessor, Alberto
R. Gonzales, who rarely shared his views with the press and held few
unscripted public appearances.

The Bronx-born Mukasey drew international attention last week during a
news conference in London, where he told the audience that he was "kind of
hoping that" accused terrorists about to be tried before U.S. military
commissions would not be sentenced to death lest it fulfill their desire
to become "martyrs." But yesterday, he declined to comment further on the
issue.

He also affirmed that his conversations with the president were private
and should remain so. "One of the things I have to do as attorney general
is watch my mouth, as we used to say in my old neighborhood," Mukasey
said.

But he took on several other hot topics: It is, he said, too soon to
consider creating an Enron-style Justice Department task force to police
fraud in the subprime mortgage lending industry, even though the FBI has
opened 17 criminal probes into possible wrongdoing by mortgage lenders,
investment banks and other companies. Securities regulators are
investigating 2 dozen more.

"We're still looking for information that's coming in and legal theories
to answer the questions of what prosecutions can be brought and whether
there's a . . . larger criminal story that can be told here," Mukasey
said.

As he has previously, Mukasey argued for congressional reauthorization of
a government surveillance initiative contained in the Protect America Act.
The law expired last month, and the administration is pressing the House
of Representatives to rework its plan to mesh with Senate legislation.
Negotiations have foundered over the issue of retroactive legal
protections for telecommunications companies that helped federal
authorities after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Mukasey said it is difficult to see a path to compromise at this point.
"The fatwas and other [terrorist] directives do not have an expiration
date," Mukasey warned. "The only weapon we have is intelligence. A large
part of that is electronic intelligence."

As chief judge in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Mukasey handled
numerous terrorism cases, including the 1995 trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman,
commonly known as the "blind sheik," who was accused of plotting to blow
up numerous sites in New York. But Mukasey expressed surprise at the
variety of threats he hears about in morning briefings.

(source: Washington Post)




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