March 22
PENNSYLVANIA:
DA Stedman disregarded my opposition to the death penalty
I was shocked and saddened when I opened the newspaper several weeks ago and
read an op-ed from Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stedman
("Governor's moratorium violates his oath of office," Perspective, Feb. 22) in
which he claims, "I have never pursued a death verdict when a family is opposed
and/or simply wants to avoid the appeals." His words did not ring true for me.
My father and stepmother were brutally tortured and murdered in 2001, and over
my sister's and my strong objection, Stedman sought the death penalty for 1 of
the 3 people who killed them.
The conversation my sister and I had with Stedman in the aftermath of losing
our father and stepmother was one I found very upsetting and bewildering. When
asked how my sister and I felt about the death penalty, we responded that we
didn't believe it would honor our father and stepmother.
What could have been a conversation that made us feel included and respected
ended with us feeling that our sentiments were deemed irrelevant and
unreasonable. In contrast to what he said in his op-ed, Stedman was quite clear
with us that despite our wishes, he would pursue the most aggressive punishment
possible.
Although my sister and I were my father's immediate family members, there were
other relatives who supported the death penalty and their views took priority.
During the trial, we met the family of 1 of the young men who was on trial. His
family grieved with us and was desperately sorrowful about the acts that had
occurred.
Regardless of our clear opposition to the death penalty, it was continually
said throughout the trial that justice was being sought for my family and me.
When the death sentence was announced, I heard a cry rise up from the family of
the young man who was condemned to death. It was a cry that I will never
forget. It was a cry I felt in my bones, and one that I understood deeply.
It was the same wail that I had cried upon learning of my own family members'
deaths. It is haunting that another death could take place in the name of
bringing me "justice." It is a burden I carry, and it is not something I need
or have ever supported.
In my family's case, 2 young men and 1 woman were convicted of murder; 1 of the
men, Landon May, is on death row. The other 2 are in prison serving life
without the possibility of parole. I do not feel that justice was served in 1
case over the others.
To me, justice means keeping violent criminals in prison, restrengthening our
communities after trauma, and investing in programs and services that prevent
future acts of violence.It also means providing victims' families with help
when it comes to understanding what to expect regarding grief, the funerals,
the trials, and the future.
Though some murder victims' families may not share my perspective on the death
penalty, we do share many common goals. We all oppose innocent people being
tried and executed for crimes they didn't commit. We all want a justice system
that is financially prudent, fair and effective.
The death penalty is exponentially more expensive than imprisonment for life,
and it has been proven that the current system does not deter any more murders
than locking up prisoners for life. Also, our current system has a track record
of making mistakes - 6 men have been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to
death in Pennsylvania since the 1980s. Our current system has an ugly history
of being unfair, especially to the poor and minorities.
Often, victims' family members are grouped into one category - one that desires
another death to obtain justice. Speaking with other victims' families, I know
we have different feelings about capital punishment, but another death will not
assist in my healing. I will not feel justice when capital punishment has been
implemented. It will not make me feel safer, or less angry, or facilitate
healing. It will not bring me peace. It will not bring my loved ones back.
As for victims' families, because we all feel differently, it seems appropriate
to neutralize emotions from the debate and prudent to call a moratorium while
exploring all aspects of capital punishment.
(source: Linell Patterson became active in anti-death penalty work in 2002,
shortly after her father, Terry Smith, and stepmother, Lucy Smith, were
murdered in their Ephrata home in 2001. She currently lives in
Virginia----Lancasteronline.com)
FLORIDA:
Jurors should be unanimous on death
Although the U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to review a case involving how
Florida juries recommend death sentences, the Florida Legislature shouldn't
wait for direction from Washington to ensure its system of sentencing is more
rigorous and fair.
Out of the 32 states that impose capital punishment, Florida is the only one
that allows a simple majority of jurors to recommend death sentences. That
standard in the penalty phase runs oddly counter to the earlier phase in which
juries must be unanimous on the question of a defendant's guilt or innocence.
The issue of life or death should be meted out with like certainty. It's
unsettling that such a momentous decision can be made by such a narrow margin,
with so much juror doubt.
The Supreme Court last week chose to consider next fall the case of Timothy
Hurst, 36, who in 2000 was convicted of the 1998 murder of Cynthia Harrison,
his co-worker at a Popeye's restaurant in Pensacola. The jury voted 7-5 to
recommend the death penalty, which was accepted by the judge.
Hurst appealed the sentence on the grounds that the jury didn't adequately
consider his defense's claim that he was mentally disabled, and that the
divided jury vote was unconstitutional. The issue revolves around a 2002
Supreme Court case, Ring v. Arizona, in which the court required that a jury,
not a judge, identify the aggravating factors necessary for increasing the
maximum punishment.
When Hurst's sentence was appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, the state
justices upheld it on the grounds that Florida's sentencing system wasn't
subject to the requirements of Ring v. Arizona. The U.S. Supreme Court has now
decided to address that conflict between state and federal jurisprudence.
However, the Florida Supreme Court, in its majority opinion, also urged the
Legislature to re-examine the state's capital sentencing statute "in light of
Ring and Florida's outlier status" and to bring Florida "closer to the
mainstream of capital sentencing states in regard to jury findings."
Thankfully, the Legislature is moving toward accomplishing that this session.
Monday, the Senate's Criminal Justice Committee by a 5-0 vote approved a bill
(SB 664) that would require unanimity in order for a jury to recommend that a
death sentence be imposed. Furthermore, it would require a jury to certify in
writing that each aggravating circumstance used to support its recommendation
of death was found to exist beyond a reasonable doubt by a unanimous vote, and
jurors would have to agree unanimously that aggravating factors outweighed
mitigating factors.
That's almost certain to reduce the number of death sentences in Florida. Of
296 cases the state heard from 2000 through 2012, only 102 of the death
recommendations were based on supermajority or unanimous agreement from the
jurors. It's fair to assume that many of those split jury decisions would not
pass muster under the proposed new standards.
The goal of the capital punishment system, though, should not be to put as many
convicts on death row as possible. It should be to mete out the ultimate
justice to those most deserving of it. That should be determined through the
most thorough, deliberative and fair way possible.
Passing SB 664 would not end the death penalty in Florida, and it most
certainly would not let the guilty go free - eligible felons still could
receive life in prison.
Regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court says regarding the Hurst appeal,
Florida should change how its jurors dispense the death penalty by ensuring
there is no reasonable doubt in both convicting and sentencing. If government
is to exercise its power to take the life of a citizen it must be held to the
highest standards of due process.
(source: Dayton Beach News Journal)
ALABAMA:
Execution info needs to be kept in the light
Sunshine Week, which ends Saturday, reminds us of the importance of access to
public information and open meetings. It's particularly near and dear to the
hearts of those of us in the news media.
But in truth, reporters and other professionals who gather information have no
more right to attend public meetings or look at public documents than anyone
else. The right is afforded to all people. News media representatives just
happen to exercise the right more frequently than most people.
And we think it's particularly appropriate to take note of a bill introduced in
the Alabama Legislature by Rep. Lynn Greer that would add the option of
electrocution as a method of executing the death penalty. A floor amendment was
added by Rep. Mac McCutcheon that would exempt all of the Department of
Corrections' policies and procedures related to executions from Alabama's open
records law.
Just about everything with regard to the death penalty is controversial.
Whether to favor or oppose the death penalty or favor or oppose using the
electric chair as a method of execution could be debated endlessly. It is not
the issue we choose to take on at the moment.
Whether you oppose or favor the death penalty, most would agree that there
could be no more serious use of state power than the power over life and death
itself. It is the use of state power in its most extreme form.
State government is supposed to be a projection of the people's will carried
out by their representatives. Citizens have a stake in everything that it does,
and it is their money that is used in all state functions. We can see nothing
that would possibly justify keeping from the people every detail of the most
serious and final of all state actions.
The bill is intended to circumvent actions that have made drugs used in lethal
injection executions difficult to obtain. We understand the frustration death
penalty proponents feel about this situation.
Basically, death penalty opponents, having failed to convince voters or their
representatives to abolish the death penalty in many states, have harassed the
manufacturers of various drugs to the point that they refuse to sell those
drugs to states that use them for capital punishment. In doing so, they make it
impossible for states to use a method of execution that most adopted in order
to make executions less physically painful.
We do not oppose a portion of the bill that protects the identities of the
people involved in executions. And we understand why, given death penalty
opponents' tactics, the state would want to keep its vendors' identities
private.
But the state is carrying out the executions in the name of the people of
Alabama. And those people have a right to know about the process. It is too
important to be kept secret.
(source: Editorial, Tuscaloosa News)
**************************
Efforts to reinstate electric chair may face court trouble
Alabama lawmakers hope to save the death penalty by bringing back the electric
chair, but legal experts said the move could open the door to legal challenges,
or even the end of executions in Alabama.
"Lawyers from all over the country will assemble to take on cases against
electrocution," said Sharon Dolovich, a law professor at the University of
California in Los Angeles. "You'd be able to bring out all the horrible
evidence about people frying in the chair."
Earlier this month, the Alabama House of Representatives passed a bill that
would require the use of the electric chair to kill condemned inmates if the
U.S. Supreme Court declares lethal injection unconstitutional, or if the state
runs out of the drugs needed to conduct an execution.
Both outcomes are possible this year. Executions in Alabama are effectively on
hold until the U.S. Supreme Court reviews an Oklahoma case challenging the use
of the drug midazolam in executions, on the grounds that it constitutes cruel
and unusual punishment. Midazolam, which is also part of Alabama's execution
protocol, was used in a botched execution last year in which Oklahoma inmate
Clayton Lockett lived for 43 minutes after being injected.
Drug makers themselves are also putting the squeeze on lethal injection. After
the pharmaceutical company Akorn was named in court documents as a possible
maker of Alabama's midazolam, the company asked for the state to return any
drugs it bought for that purpose.
In a statement to The Star last week, the drug company Mylan also expressed its
opposition to the use of its drugs to kill inmates. Mylan is a maker of
rocuronium bromide, another drug in Alabama's lethal injection protocol, though
the drugmaker said it never directly sold any rocuronium to the state.
Alabama's electric chair, nicknamed "Yellow Mama," has been in storage for more
than a decade. It was the only method of execution until 2002, when state law
allowed inmates to choose between electrocution and lethal injection. Every
inmate since has chosen the gurney over the chair.
Supporters of the current electric chair bill said it will save capital
punishment from obsolescence. They said death penalty opponents, through suits
and boycotts against lethal injection, run the risk of crowding out the least
painful form of execution.
"My understanding is that we adopted lethal injection because it was more
humane," said Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, sponsor of the Senate version of the
electric chair bill. "It's what we'd all prefer."
Saving capital punishment
The advantage of the electric chair, Ward said, was that it has never been
struck down by the Supreme Court, despite past legal challenges.
But 1 question lingers. If the court finds it cruel and unusual to inject
inmates with deadly drugs, can a ruling against the chair - with its own
history of botched executions - be far behind?
Ward said that about half the lawyers he's spoken to about the issue expect
significant legal challenges to the electric chair. Still, he expects fewer
delays than with lethal injection, which can be challenged every time the drug
combination changes.
"We've had more challenges with the drug cocktails than we ever had with the
electric chair," he said.
13 years ago, however, lawmakers seemed convinced a ruling against the death
penalty was imminent. Back then, Alabama was one of only 2 states still using
the chair as the sole means of execution. Other states were rapidly switching
to lethal injection, largely because of high-profile mishaps, such as a 1999
incident when flames rose from a Florida inmate's head during an execution.
"If we don't pass this bill, we're not going to have a death penalty in Alabama
at all," then-Sen. Hinton Mitchem told the Associated Press in 2002, as he was
pushing a lethal injection bill through the Senate.
Evolving standards
In fact, a court ruling against the chair wasn't exactly right around the
corner. Nebraska retained the electric chair until 2008, when the Nebraska
Supreme Court rejected it under a state constitutional ban on cruel and unusual
punishment: a ban almost identical to the one that appears in the Eighth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
"Besides presenting a substantial risk of unnecessary pain, we conclude that
electrocution is unnecessarily cruel in its purposeless infliction of physical
violence and mutilation of the prisoner's body," the justices wrote.
In the Nebraska case, the court found that electrocution can burn inmates'
bodies, that it doesn't necessarily kill instantly, and that some inmates have
lived through the initial prescribed jolt of electricity. Much of that evidence
wasn't available to the U.S. Supreme Court when it considered its 1st challenge
to electrocution, back in 1890 when the chair was 1st introduced as an
alternative to hanging.
Since then, law professors said, the nation's highest court has rarely taken up
cases that challenge an execution method as unconstitutionally cruel. And the
Supreme Court has never shot any method down.
"It's difficult to say with any degree of certainty," said Meghan Ryan, who
teaches Eighth Amendment law at Southern Methodist University's law school.
"It's true they've never ruled against it, but the court also considers
'evolving standards of decency' in these cases."
The court doesn't consider the "unusual" part of "cruel and unusual"
separately, Ryan said. Still, the rarer a punishment, the more likely the court
will say it doesn't fit modern standards of decency.
"If you look simply at the number of states using a method, the outlook for the
electric chair isn't good," Ryan said.
Dolovich, the UCLA professor, said it might not take a Supreme Court case to
end execution. If lower federal courts reject it with no disagreement between
them, the Supreme Court might not take up the issue at all. While Supreme Court
opinions are hard to predict, she said, there's a "good chance" there will be
rulings against the chair in other federal courts.
Ryan said the current situation, with states reverting to older methods of
execution to avoid problems with lethal injection, is unusual in history.
"For the most part, the movement has always been forward, to methods we felt
were more humane," she said.
(source: Anniston Star)
LOUISIANA:
Prosecutor apologizes for his role in sending innocent man to death row
In a letter published Friday in the Shreveport Times, he pleads for
compensation for the man exonerated last year but battling cancer.
Marty Stroud was 33 years old when he fought to have Glenn Ford sentenced to
death. Stroud was relatively new in his role as assistant district attorney in
Caddo Parish, Louisiana, when Ford was indicted on a charge of 1st-degree
murder for the 1983 killing of a watchmaker who ran a jewelry store in
Shreveport.
"The case took about a week and a half," Stroud recalls now. Ford, a black man
before an all-white jury, was convicted and sentenced in 1984. He remained on
death row for three decades. It was the 1st and only death sentence Stroud won
as a prosecutor.
A.M. "Marty" Stroud III of Shreveport, La., wrote a letter of apology,
published Friday by the Shreveport Times, for his role in sending Glenn Ford,
who has been exonerated, to death row for 30 years.
Last year, Ford was declared a free man and released from prison. His attorneys
said upon his release he was sentenced because of questionable testimony as
well as inexperienced defense. The lawyers he had during his initial trial had
not tried a case before a jury before, Stroud said.
Other men had also initially been charged in the shooting of Isadore Rozeman,
the watchmaker, but those charges were later dismissed.
In 2013, Ford's attorneys say they were told that a confidential informant for
the Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office pointed to one of those other men as the
person who killed Rozeman, though precise details remain unclear.
In March 2014, after prosecutors and Ford's attorneys filed motions to vacate
his conviction, the state district court ordered his release. However, more
than a year later, Ford is still fighting the state for compensation. He's also
facing an advanced cancer diagnosis.
Stroud knows all of this. He says he knows now that Ford was innocent and he
knows Ford's trial "was fundamentally unfair."
He knows Ford is dying, and he knows the state is not paying Ford for the
decades he lost.
"When he was exonerated last year, I was thrilled," Stroud, 63, said in a
telephone interview Friday. "I thought that justice had been done."
'FULL OF MYSELF'
A.M. "Marty" Stroud III, who grew up in Shreveport and is an attorney there,
read about Ford's problems getting the state to pay him in the Shreveport
Times.
Stroud could not believe it, so he began working on a letter to the editor of
the newspaper to try to put his thoughts together.
All of the things that had bothered him about the case, and all of the things
about the case that had built up in him over the sleepless nights, poured out
into the letter.
"I'm not one to write letters or get on soapboxes or anything like that,"
Stroud said. "But I felt that in this particular case, I had a unique view of
what had happened, since I actually was there and had watched the progress
through the system all these years."
The result, which totals more than 1,500 words, was published online Friday by
the Shreveport Times and widely circulated on social media. In the bracing
letter, Stroud apologized for his role in taking away 30 years of Ford's life.
He says he was "arrogant, judgmental, narcissistic and very full of myself."
Stroud explained why he had turned against the death penalty he so eagerly
sought in 1984, and he expressed both his remorse for what he did and his
apology to Ford for what cannot be undone.
"I was not as interested in justice as I was in winning," he wrote.
He recalled that late in the trial, while arguing for the death sentence, he
mocked Ford for wanting to stay alive to try to prove his innocence, adding: "I
continued by saying this should be an affront to each of you jurors, for he
showed no remorse, only contempt for your verdict."
Stroud continued: "How totally wrong was I."
He went on to work for a private firm after leaving the District Attorney's
Office in 1989.
Stroud has worked on a mix of civil and criminal cases, including mounting
defenses in death-penalty cases.
EXONERATION TALLY RISES
"I have a stain because I participated in the proceeding that, looking back on,
it was fundamentally unfair," Stroud said in the phone interview. He said he
knew that Ford's attorneys had not practiced criminal law and that he knew "it
was a mismatch from the beginning."
Stroud also began seeing problems with a larger issue in the proceedings: The
fact that Ford was not just found guilty, but found guilty and sentenced to
death, which means he could have been executed before his innocence came to
light.
The letter from Stroud comes as prosecutors around the country are putting
increasing resources into trying to overturn false convictions.
The country had a record number of exonerations last year, a tally boosted by
the efforts of prosecutors, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.
Mistaken convictions are a particular concern when they involve death
sentences. 6 of the people exonerated last year had been sentenced to death,
the registry said.
Wrongly executing someone is "the ultimate nightmare," Attorney General Eric
Holder Jr. said recently. But Holder, who opposes the death penalty, called
this an "inevitable" feature of the current capital punishment system, which
relies on the judgment of people who can make mistakes.
Ford was the 144th death row inmate cleared since 1973, and he had spent more
time on death row than any of these other inmates, the Death Penalty
Information Center reported.
Stroud's unease with the death penalty has grown and deepened over the years,
and he says Ford's case illustrates why he now opposes capital punishment.
He said after being on both sides of the issue, he has determined that it does
not work.
"All it is is state-assisted revenge," he said, adding: "We can't do it. It's
arbitrary, it's capricious. And I believe that it's barbaric."
Stroud was confident in his case in 1984, but he wishes now he had done more to
look into the rumors that other people were involved in the crime.
In hindsight, he realizes he was an eager prosecutor less than a decade out of
law school, one who wanted to make a name for himself.
BARRIER TO COMPENSATION
In Louisiana, the wrongfully imprisoned can receive up to $250,000 in
compensation. Ford is trying to get the state to pay him for the years spent in
prison, but court documents show that the state says he should not be given
money because he went to a pawn shop to sell items that had been stolen from
Rozeman's store. Attorneys for Ford said last year that one of the other men
initially charged in the killing had given him jewelry to pawn.
Ford has also filed lawsuits claiming he was wrongfully imprisoned and that he
was denied necessary medical care after signs emerged he may have cancer.
Within months of his release from the notorious Angola Prison last year, Ford
was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer; he currently has stage 4 lung cancer,
according to legal filings submitted in federal court this month.
In his letter, Stroud calls for Ford to be given "every penny" called for by
Louisiana's law governing compensation for the wrongfully convicted. He also
says he hopes for compassion he does not believe he has earned.
"I end with the hope that Providence will have more mercy for me than I showed
Glenn Ford," he wrote. "But I am also sobered by the realization that I
certainly am not deserving of it."
(source: Press Herald)
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