March 18
MISSOURI:
Missouri executes Cecil Clayton, state's oldest death-row inmate --- Inmate had
appealed on grounds that he was diagnosed as severely mentally impaired
The state of Missouri executed its oldest death row inmate on Tuesday - a man
who was mentally impaired from a work accident that removed a large portion of
his brain - after his final appeals failed at the US supreme court.
The execution of Cecil Clayton, 74, was delayed for several hours, while the
supreme court weighed appeals from Clayton's defense attorneys.
Lawyers acting for Clayton, 74, had called on the nation's highest court to
intervene and stay the execution. In a petition to the nine justices, they
argued that it would be unconstitutional to execute the prisoner because under
a series of rulings in recent years the supreme court has banned judicial
killings of insane and intellectually disabled people.
Clayton lost about a fifth of his frontal lobe in 1972 when a splinter from a
log he was working on in a sawmill in Purdy, Missouri, dislodged and slammed
into his skull. The damage has had a long-term impact on his character and
behavior, with a succession of medical experts chronicling problems ranging
from uncontrolled rage to hallucinations and depression.
The frontal lobe has an important function in controlling impulse and emotion.
In 1996 Clayton murdered a police officer, Christopher Castetter, who was
called to a house where Clayton had broken in. There was no dispute about his
guilt, though there was intense debate about whether he should have been
protected from the gurney.
Elizabeth Unger Carlyle, attorney for Cecil Clayton, said of the supreme court
decision:
Cecil Clayton had - literally - a hole in his head. Executing him without a
hearing to determine his competency violated the constitution, Missouri law and
basic human dignity.
Mr Clayton was not a 'criminal before the sawmill accident that lodged part of
his skull into his brain and required 20% of his frontal lobe to be removed. He
was happily married, raising a family and working hard at his logging business.
Medical experts who examined 74-year-old Mr. Clayton said he couldn't care for
himself, tried but couldn't follow simple instructions, and was intellectually
disabled with an IQ of 71. He suffered from severe mental illness and dementia
related to his age and multiple brain injuries. The world will not be a safer
place because Mr Clayton has been executed.
In 2002 the US supreme court ruled in Atkins v Virginia that it was
unconstitutional to put to death an intellectually disabled person (previously
known as mental retardation) under the 8th amendment prohibition of cruel and
unusual punishment. Last year that protection was strengthened in Hall v
Florida which obligated states to consider several indicators of intellectual
disability, not just an IQ cut-off score.
(source: The Guardian)
***********************
The execution of Cecil Clayton and the biology of blame
In 1974, 2 months after having a portion of his brain removed due to an
accident at the sawmill where worked, Cecil Clayton checked himself into a
mental hospital, frightened by his suddenly uncontrollable temper.
Previously, Clayton had been an intelligent, guitar-playing family man,
relatives said. He abstained from alcohol, worked part time as a pastor and
paid weekly visits to a local nursing home.
But after the accident, which necessitated the removal of 20 % of his frontal
lobe, everything changed.
"He broke up with his wife, began drinking alcohol and became impatient, unable
to work and more prone to violent outbursts," Clayton's brother Marvin
testified at trial.
In 1979, he visited William Clary, a doctor who examined him for extreme
anxiety, depression and paranoia.
"I can't get a hold of myself, I'm all tore up," Clayton told the doctor,
according to court filings from his attorneys.
Clayton's spiraling mental state and increasingly violent behavior came to a
head in 1996, when he shot and killed Christopher Castetter, a sheriff's deputy
responding to a domestic disturbance between Clayton and his girlfriend.
Clayton was eventually convicted of murder, and executed via lethal injection
in Bonne Terre, Mo., Tuesday night.
His death brought to an end to nearly 2 decades of litigation during which it
seemed that Clayton's brain, rather than the man himself, was on trial.
"The effects of his 1972 accident left him blameless for the 1996 murder," read
a petition filed by his defense, asking for a stay of execution from the U.S.
Supreme Court. It was accompanied by an image of his brain scan, which shows a
sizeable chunk of his brain missing from the right-hand side.
Clayton's attorney, Elizabeth Unger Carlyle, reiterated the defense???s stance
in a statement released shortly after he was executed: "Mr. Clayton was not a
'criminal' before the sawmill accident that lodged part of his skull into his
brain and required 20 % of his frontal lobe to be removed," she said.
In other words, Cecil Clayton wasn't responsible for the shooting of a police
officer - not fully. Instead, attorneys claimed the root of the killing was in
that missing piece of his frontal lobe.
That argument - that a person's brain anatomy ought to change the way we assign
guilt - has become an increasingly common one, according to Duke law professor
Nita Farahany.
"The more we understand about neuroscience we see that even subtle
abnormalities can affect human behavior," she said in a phone interview.
"People are using neuroscience to argue, 'It's not my bad character, it's my
bad brain,'" she said.
Farhany is a member of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical
Issues and an expert in the growing field of neurolaw, which examines how brain
science is and ought to used in the legal system. She monitors cases where
neuroscientific data has been brought as evidence and found a marked upswing in
the past few years.
But as MRI scans and electroencephalogram recordings of brain activity are
brought out of the examination room and into the courtroom, the focus of a
trial shifts from assigning guilt to assessing mental and moral blame.
"As we develop better technologies for probing the brain, we detect more
problems, and link them more easily to aberrant behavior," neuroscientist David
Eagleman wrote in an essay for the Atlantic. "... When a criminal stands in
front of the jury's bench today, the legal system wants to know whether he is
blameworthy. Was it his fault, or his biology's fault?"
Neuroscience has revealed that humans have a lot less control over their
actions than they like to think, Eagleman said. Brain injuries - particularly
ones to the frontal lobe, like Clayton's - can radically reduce the ability to
make decisions and check impulses.
And though it didn't work for Clayton, that understanding has helped others
avoid the death penalty in recent cases. In 2013, prison escapee and convicted
murder John McCluskey was sentenced to life without parole rather than the
death penalty after his defense presented MRI evidence showing significant
abnormalities in his frontal lobe. The headline in Wired read "Did brain scans
just save a convicted murderer from the death penalty?" 2 years earlier, a
juror at the trial of a Florida man who stabbed his wife and step-daughter said
brain scans convinced him not to vote for the death penalty.
"It turned my decision all the way around," juror John Howard told the Miami
Herald.
Though there aren't enough of these cases for a large enough sample size for
serious study, research has shown that scientific evidence about a hypothetical
defendant's brain function is likely to limit a sentence's severity. A 2012
study in Science found that, on average, judges subtracted a year from an
imaginary convict's sentence after being told he was genetically predisposed to
violence.
"Those who read about the biological mechanism subtracted a year, as if to say,
'This guy is really dangerous and scary, and we should treat him as such, but
the biological evidence suggests that we can't hold him as responsible for the
behavior," James Tabey, a co-author of the study, told the New York Times.
Even though neuroscientific evidence has been shown to be increasingly
compelling in recent years, Farahany isn't surprised that it wasn't helpful in
Clayton's case. The more than 20-year gap between Clayton's accident and his
crime weaken the argument that he was unable to control his behavior. And
though Clayton's brain was clearly abnormal, there is not enough research to
definitively say the missing part of his frontal lobe caused him to commit
murder.
"That piece is missing literally and figuratively," she said. " ... Once
neuroscience gets to the point of causal explanations, in retrospect we might
look back at it and say, 'Here's why he did what he did.'"
It's an exciting - but also worrying - possibility for neurolaw researchers. On
one hand, neuroscience may help judges figure out when treatment rather than
imprisonment is the more helpful option for someone who, for biological
reasons, can't control his or her behavior.
On the other hand, neuroscience has increasingly shown that none of us can
really control our behavior.
"Saying, 'My brain made me do it' can be problematic because our brains make us
do everything," Farahany said. "Your preferences, your desires, your will power
- a lot of that you have no control over."
Eagleman, in his essay, agrees.
"The choices we make are inseparably yoked to our neural circuitry, and
therefore we have no meaningful way to tease the 2 apart," he wrote. "The more
we learn, the more the seemingly simple concept of blameworthiness becomes
complicated, and the more the foundations of our legal system are strained."
Then the inclusion of MRI and EEG scans as trial evidence is not just a
scientific or legal question, Eagleman and Farahany believe, but a
philosophical one. In a justice system predicated on the idea that people act
with free will, what does it mean to recognize that so much of behavior is
biological rather than rational?
"Criminal law is going to have to grapple much more seriously with why people
do what they do," Farahany said.
(source: Washington Post)
NEBRASKA:
Death penalty costly in dollars and for victims' families
It is very difficult and emotional to discuss the policies that are involved in
matters relating to taking a person's life, whether they are addressing
abortion or the death penalty.
It is a lawmaker's duty to act with a great deal of thought and deliberation
when coming to a decision on this topic. This is why I want to share with you
where I stand on the death penalty and how I arrived at my position on this
issue.
Over the past few years, I have spoken with family, friends, clergy of various
Christian denominations, constituents and people who have been affected by the
death penalty. As a result of this process, I have come to the decision that I
am against the death penalty. I have always been pro-life when it comes to the
unborn and I believe that the State of Nebraska and its laws should be
reflective of a pro-life culture. Though the people on death row are criminals,
it should not be in the state's interest to end their lives, just as it should
not be in the state's interest to end the life of an unborn child.
Something that I found startling while researching this topic is the cost
associated with the death penalty. Since 1976, when capital punishment was
reinstated in the United States, Nebraska has spent an estimated $100 million
on death penalty cases and has executed 3 people. This cost is so high because
prosecution in death sentence cases costs $3 million, nearly 3 times as much as
the cost of $1.1 million in prosecution for life without parole cases.
As a fiscal conservative, I see this as your tax dollars being wasted. Not only
is the death penalty expensive to the tax payers, it also yields no tangible
result because our state has been unable to acquire the drugs necessary to
perform an execution. This is why we have not carried out an execution in
almost 2 decades.
The death penalty is also unfair to the ones who are most traumatized by the
murder, the victim???s family. On average, a death row inmate appeals their
case 7.76 times. This forces the families to relive the case over and over, a
process that takes decades and often ends without resolution. On the other
hand, a life without parole sentence is only appealed an average of 1.64 times,
giving the family a final sentencing outcome.
For these reasons, I have signed onto LB268, a bill that seeks to change the
death penalty to life without parole.
I want to invite you to 2 town halls I will be having in the District on March
27. I will be having a coffee in Seward at the Civic Center located at 616
Bradford St., in the West Fire Place room that starts at 7:30 a.m. Later that
day I will be having a lunch in York at Chance R located at 124 W 5th St.,
starting at noon. I look forward to talking with you about issues that are
being discussed in the Unicameral.
As always, I am honored by the faith that you, the voters of District 24, have
placed in me. My door is open and I have made it a goal to be accessible to the
constituents of our district. You may continue to follow me on Facebook at
Kolterman For Legislature and on Twitter at @KoltermanforLegislature. My office
in the State Capitol is Room 1115, which I share with my colleague Senator Bob
Hilkemann from Omaha. Stop by anytime. My e-mail address is
mkolter...@leg.ne.gov and the office phone number is 402-471-2756. Kenny
Zoeller, my legislative aide, and Katie Quintero, my administrative aide, are
always available to assist you with your needs. If I am not immediately
available, please do not hesitate to work with them to address your concerns,
thoughts, and needs.
(source: Sen. Mark Kolterman, York News-Times)
KANSAS:
Advocates seek repeal of capital punishment
Conservative Republican political figures and the president of a Benedictine
College pro-life student group delved Tuesday into ramifications of Kansas law
authorizing convicted killers to be sentenced to death.
During a gathering on the 1st floor of the Capitol rotunda, voices of Bill
Sutton, Anthony Brown and Laura Peredo were added to the complex, protracted
debate about the stalled House bill repealing capital punishment in Kansas.
These advocates also set the stage for Ray Krone and Ron Keine, who are
intimately aware of life-or-death struggle occurring in states that embrace the
ultimate penalty. They are among 150 people wrongfully convicted of murder,
sentenced to die and later released from death row in the United States.
"9 days from my execution, a police officer 4 states away was walking down the
street," said Keine, who was convicted of murdering a University of New Mexico
student in 1974. "He said he experienced a religious epiphany. He walked into
the nearest church and he confessed to the crime I was on death row for."
Krone, who works with Keine at the death-row survivor organization Witness to
Innocence, spent 10 years in prison, including 2 years on death row, after
being found guilty of killing a Phoenix bartender in 1991. He was freed when
DNA evidence proved he wasn't responsible for the woman's death.
The U.S. Air Force veteran had been working for the U.S. Postal Service when
arrested. Seven months later, he was on trial for murder.
"I had nothing to worry about, of course, because I was innocent," Krone said.
"I was convicted by that jury. I was sentenced to death because I declined to
show remorse. How do you show remorse for something you didn't do?"
His admonition: "If they can do it to me, they can do it to anyone. Let your
voices be heard."
The 1st-person accounts were delivered at the invitation of the Kansas
Coalition Against the Death Penalty, which is working to generate support for
abolition of capital punishment. The pending legislation would replace the
death penalty with life in prison without possibility of parole. It would not
apply retroactively.
In February, the coalition brought Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Mennonite and
Episcopal church leaders to the Capitol to make the case state-sanctioned
executions conflicted with God???s message of redemption and reconciliation.
They also argued the death penalty didn't serve as a deterrent to crime and
that prosecution of capital cases cost an estimated $395,000 each as opposed to
$98,000 for a noncapital case.
The death penalty was reinstated in Kansas in 1994, but the state hasn't
executed anyone since 1965.
Sutton, a Republican state representative from Gardner, picked up on these
topics in remarks Tuesday.
"I try to make sure every dollar spent by the Kansas taxpayer gets a return on
that investment," Sutton said. "There are millions of dollars - millions of
dollars - spent on death penalty trials and the appeals process. We don't have
anything to show for it. There's exactly zero utility for the tax dollars
spent."
Brown, a former Republican House member from Eudora, said his service in the
Legislature was tied to core principles that included a perspective on abortion
that life started at conception. He believes state lawmakers need to respect
all life created by God.
"All life has the same value. Anything that interrupts that continuum of life
is inherently wrong," he said.
Peredo said many campus pro-life groups focused exclusively on abortion, but
Ravens Respect Life at Benedictine College was committed to repeal of capital
punishment and acknowledgment life extended from conception to death.
Gov. Sam Brownback, an anti-abortion Republican who would hold the veto pen if
the House and Senate passed a repeal bill, didn't participate in the rally.
He did say in an interview prior to the event that anti-abortion activists had
increasingly been drawn into the capital punishment conversation.
"You hear it connected," Brownback said. "You hear it said more frequently
now."
(source: Capital Journal)
CALIFORNIA----new death sentence
Iftekhar Murtaza Gets Death for Attack on Indian American Family
Iftekhar Murtaza, convicted of killing the father and sister of his
ex-girlfriend in a fiery attack on the Indian American family's Southern
California home, has been sentenced to death, reports AP.
The OrangeCounty district attorney's office said 30-year-old Iftekhar Murtaza
was sentenced March 3 in Santa Ana.
He was convicted for the murders of 56-year-old Jay Dhanak and his 20-year-old
daughter Karishma in 2007.
Prosecutors say he killed the pair in a plot to reunite with his
then-18-year-old ex-girlfriend Shayona Dhanak after she ended their
relationship citing her Hindu family's opposition to her dating a Muslim.
Authorities say Murtaza and a friend burned the family's Anaheim Hills home and
kidnapped and killed Dhanak's father and sister, leaving their bodies in a
park.
A jury recommended Murtaza receive the death penalty.
According to an earlier report in India-West, Murtaza was convicted in 2013 of
the murders of the father and sister of his ex-girlfriend, and the attempted
murder of her mother, in what prosecutors say was an ill-conceived attempt to
reunite the couple.
"We're very pleased with the verdicts," said prosecutor Howard Gundy at the
time.
Dhanak's mother Leela was stabbed and left for dead after the home was torched,
but she survived.
2 of Murtaza's friends were convicted in the killings, and 1 of them was
sentenced to life in prison.
(source: indiawest.com)
********************
Robert Durst charged with 1st degree murder, may face death penalty
Robert Durst, the son of New York City real estate tycoon Seymour Durst, has
been charged with 1st degree murder of Susan Berman, and may even face death
penalty.
Durst first made news back in 1980's, when his wife, Kathie, disappeared, and
again in the early 2000s when he was the subject of a multi-state manhunt but
was released of murder, TMZ.com reported.
Now, the L.A. County D.A. has charged Durst with 1st degree murder with special
circumstances, as Berman, who had been a close friend of accused, was about to
talk to NY investigators about the disappearance of his wife in 2000, but was
found murdered in her house.
HBO had released a documentary on the subject titled 'The Jinx,' which
described Berman as a confidant of Durst and his mouthpiece, and the producers
of the documentary are said to have helped authorities nab Durst.
Prosecutors will decide later whether or not to seek the death penalty.
(source: Business-Standard)
********************
Appeal seeks to overturn death sentence for child killer Duncan----Lawyers for
Joseph Edward Duncan III, convicted of killing 10-year-old Anthony Martinez of
Beaumont in 1997, work to overturn death sentences in 2005 murder of Idaho boy.
The future of a condemned child-killer whom a now-retired Riverside County
judge described as the most evil person he's ever met is now in the hands of
the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Lawyers for Joseph Edward Duncan III, sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for
the 1997 murder of 10-year-old Anthony Martinez of Beaumont, are trying to
overturn a U.S. District Court judge's 2013 ruling that Duncan was mentally
competent when he waived his right to appeal 3 death sentences imposed in Idaho
for the 2005 kidnapping, rape and murder of a 9-year-old boy.
Judges Susan Graber, Raymond Fisher and Milan Smith heard from them and Idaho
federal prosecutors Tuesday in San Francisco; they could issue their ruling at
any time. Duncan, 52, did not attend the hearing; he remains on death row in
Terre Haute, Indiana.
It could be the last major court procedure before federal authorities set an
execution date: if the 9th Circuit sides with U.S. District Judge Edward
Lodge's ruling, Duncan is out of options.
That's welcome news in Riverside County, where a jury ruled nearly 6 years ago
that Duncan was mentally competent. Veteran Superior Court Judge David B.
Downing, who retired in 2013, sentenced him to 2 terms of life in prison after
prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty because he'd already been
condemned in the Idaho case.
"The problem with the death penalty in California is it takes 30 years to carry
out," Downing told The Press-Enterprise on Tuesday. "The federal death penalty
is much faster."
While Duncan's case here has long been resolved, Riverside officials still are
involved in Idaho proceedings as witnesses. Many testified during a 7-week
hearing in Boise 2 years ago, and Anthony's brother and mother testified during
the 2008 capital trial.
Duncan, who is among 62 people on federal death row, served as his own lawyer
during that trial, though famed anti-death penalty lawyer Judy Clarke, now
representing accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, sat by to assist
at his request.
But Duncan has since embraced legal representation: The Riverside County Public
Defender's Office brokered his 2011 plea deal, and his lawyer during the
retroactive mental competency hearing in Boise was Michael Burt, a noted
anti-death penalty lawyer past whose clients include Lyle Menendez and Night
Stalker Richard Ramirez.
He's now represented by Joseph Schlesinger, chief of the death penalty appeals
unit in the Federal Public Defender's Office in the Eastern District of
California.
Schlesinger told the 9th Circuit panel Tuesday that Lodge's 2013 ruling focused
on Duncan's comptency in planning the crimes, interacting with jail guards and
others instead of his state of mind when he waived his right to appeal.
Schlesinger also has requested the 9th Circuit to allow Duncan to appeal even
if they agree he was mentally competent, saying he was "clearly a disturbed
individual" whose waiver was "very peculiar."
"We don't have somebody who's clearly ready to accept their punishment,"
Schlesinger said. "We don't have somebody who wants to die, which makes this
different from practically every other waiver in a death penalty case this
court has ever had."
But Idaho U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson noted that Duncan made a point of formally
waiving his appeal instead of just not filing an appeal, and he told an FBI
agent he did so because he knew his lawyers might file one without his
permission.
"The record is very clear that in November of 2008, this defendant did not wish
to appeal," Olson said.
Both attorneys spoke for just 20 minutes; judges also have detailed briefings
from both sides to consider.
Anthony's murder had gone unsolved until Duncan confessed after he was arrested
at a Denny's in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in July 2005, with 8-year-old Shasta
Groene, 6 weeks after he kidnapped the girl and her brother Dylan. He had
killed their mother, her boyfriend and her 13-year-old son.
Dylan's remains were found at a remote campsite in the Lolo National Forest in
Montana. Duncan told investigators he had an "epiphany" that stopped him from
killing Shasta; that statement has been a focus of the mental competency
proceedings.
Though he has never been charged, Duncan also has confessed to killing two
girls in Seattle in 1996, just after he was released from prison after raping a
boy at gunpoint when he was 17. He was facing child molestation charges in
Minnesota when he abandoned his apartment in Fargo, N.D, in May 2005, where he
studied computer science at North Dakota State University, after completing a
spreadsheet weighing out the consequences and benefits of embarking on a
murderous rampage.
Downing said the Idaho murders were the worst he's ever heard of, and he heard
of many during his years on the bench.
"He clearly is the evilist of the evil," Downing said. "If anybody deserves the
death penalty, it's Duncan."
(source: Press-Enterprise)
USA:
Poland wants US to rule out death penalty for Gitmo detainees
Poland wants the United States to rule out the death penalty for 2 men who were
tortured by the CIA in its territory before being transferred to Guantanamo
Bay, according to a government letter released Tuesday.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has condemned Poland for hosting
secret CIA prisons, saying it knowingly abetted the unlawful imprisonment and
torture of Guantanamo-bound detainees Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian, and Saudi
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in 2002-2003.
"Given the decision in al-Nashiri vs Poland, the government has decided to ask
the United States for diplomatic assurances in favour of the plaintiff," the
Polish foreign ministry said in a letter addressed to the Warsaw-based Helsinki
Foundation for Human Rights.
"The government is also taking action to fulfil the obligations imposed (by the
ECHR) on Polish officials in the two cases", the ministry added in the letter
made public by the foundation.
The ECHR warned in its ruling that al-Nashiri could be sentenced to death in
the US and asked Poland to find a way to eliminate the risk of the penalty,
which is banned in Europe except for Belarus.
The trial of 49-year-old al-Nashiri, who allegedly led Al-Qaeda operations in
the Gulf, could begin in September in the United States.
A Council of Europe committee warned that al-Nashiri and Zubaydah -- 43 and
allegedly Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man -- risk appearing before a military
commission that could use evidence obtained under torture.
Poland's former president Aleksander Kwasniewski acknowledged in December that
the EU member hosted a secret CIA prison.
(source: Agence France-Presse)
***********************
Death-penalty expert joins defense for Benghazi attack suspect Abu Khattala
Attorneys for Libyan terrorism suspect Ahmed Abu Khattala asked a federal court
Tuesday for more time to review evidence after adding a death-penalty expert to
the team.
U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the District agreed to postpone a
scheduled Wednesday hearing to May 19, as both sides requested, to continue
preparing for the trial of the suspected ringleader of the September 2012
attacks against U.S. outposts in Benghazi, Libya.
Cooper's order continues a series of expected delays in the closely watched
case, which presents federal prosecutors in the District with the rare but
sought-after challenge of handling one of the country's most important
terrorism trials and presents defense attorneys with the unusual prospect of a
death-penalty case in the nation's capital.
Abu Khattala was indicted in June for the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks that killed
U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and 3 other Americans. U.S. Special
Forces captured him in June during a raid in Libya.
Abu Khattala pleaded not guilty in the fall to charges eligible for the death
penalty, including murder, conspiracy and destroying a U.S. facility. The U.S.
government has called Abu Khattala the commander of the Ubaydah Bin Jarrah
militia, which sought to establish Islamic law in Libya.
Prosecutors have turned over more than 17,000 pages of material, most of it
classified, but expect to produce thousands more within the next week,
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael C. DiLorenzo wrote in a joint motion with
Assistant Federal Public Defender Michelle Peterson.
Meanwhile, Khattala's public defender team has added three attorneys since
January who have had to obtain security clearances: Eric Leslie Lewis and
Jeffrey D. Robinson of the Lewis Baach law firm, and New York-based
death-penalty expert Richard Jasper.
Federal law requires that capital defendants be appointed at least one
experienced death-penalty lawyer. Since Congress reinstated the federal death
penalty in 1988, only a handful of eligible cases have gone to trial in the
District, and no D.C. jury has imposed a death sentence.
As a result, federal defenders reached out to Jasper, who has represented 30
such clients , including 2 federal defendants, mafia boss Vincent Basciano and
ex-postal worker Ronald Mallay, who was sentenced to life for racketeering and
murder in the Eastern District of New York and elsewhere.
Lewis's firm specializes in international investigations, with clients
including Middle Eastern governments and Arabic-speaking Guantanamo detainees.
Robinson, formerly with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, has a
background in civil rights, government affairs work and post-conviction capital
defense.
(source: Washington Post)
****************
Columbine Shooting Survivor Is Potential Juror in Trial of Aurora Theater
Shooter James Holmes
When Juror #737 received his summons to report to jury duty in Colorado, he was
overwhelmed with painful memories.
Now in his early 30s, the juror had been a student at Columbine High School
when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris opened fire in 1999, killing 13 of his
classmates and injuring 20 more. Among the victims: his prom date.
The man was even more horrified when he was assigned to the jury pool of James
Holmes, who is charged with the Aurora theater shooting that left 12 people
dead and injured least 70 others.
'My knee jerk reaction was, 'I can't do this,' he said in court on Monday,
according to CBS News.
The juror says he had given the matter "tons of thought" and determined that he
could be a more capable juror because he had experienced a mass shooting.
The juror said that it took "a decade of therapy to get over the shooting," but
that he would be able to be fair and impartial.
The judge agreed, qualifying Juror #737 to move on to the final stage of jury
selection.
Holmes, who pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, faces the death penalty
in the shooting.
A final jury will be chosen in April.
(source: The Denver Post)
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