March 28
TEXAS:
Legislature must fix Texas death penalty; THE POINT - Lawmakers have neglected
their duty to put greater specificity in the law.
Texans who support capital punishment might want to believe that the system has
evolved into an excruciatingly fair, airtight application of society's utmost
punishment.
If only that were the case, this newspaper might not stand with opponents of
state-sponsored killing.
Each year brings a new set of execution dates that expose weaknesses in the
system and offend the sense of justice. We trust that state lawmakers are alert
to them and are willing to apply fixes.
Take Texas law on executing the intellectually disabled. Actually, there really
isn't a law, despite the Supreme Court's 2002 landmark imperative against
executing people with low IQs. The Texas response relies in part on a Court of
Criminal Appeals ruling suggesting that someone like the fictional, dull-witted
character Lennie in Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men is the type who ought to
be spared the executioner's needle. Allusions to American literature have no
place in deciding life-and-death matters in Texas.
The Legislature has neglected its duty to put greater specificity in the law,
despite a steady flow of condemned inmates whose mental abilities have been in
question.
Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, has legislation (SB 226) to remedy this. It would
have the courts treat questions of intelligence like sanity questions,
impaneling a jury to decide the matter before trial.
Today, the same jurors who decide guilt-innocence also decide whether a person
they just convicted is bright enough to be killed. The Ellis bill would
separate the matters and take emotion out of the mix.
This bill should pass and fill an embarrassing void in Texas law.
It was also embarrassing for the state when lawyers for mentally ill killer
Scott Panetti discovered in the Houston Chronicle on Oct. 30 that his execution
date had been set 2 weeks prior and was just weeks away. That's right: There
was no direct, official notification to counsel that the state obtained a death
warrant - and the clock was ticking toward an appeals deadline.
The remedy for this shamefulness would be companion bills by Rep. Senfronia
Thompson, D-Houston, (HB 2110) and Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, (SB
1071). Texans should not tolerate stealth death warrants.
Nor should Texans tolerate the idea of an execution before all relevant
evidence has been tested for DNA evidence that might bear on the case. Yet
that's not a guarantee today, because of a screwy court decision requiring a
defendant to prove "a reasonable likelihood" of biological material that could
be tested. How might a defendant produce that proof if not through testing?
Hence, a remedy by Ellis (SB 487) to eliminate this Catch-22 in state law.
This list of fixes could go on, but we'll mention just one more: the right of
Texans to know everything about the execution process. That means everything -
right down to the drugs used, their supplier and expiration dates. A bipartisan
bill (HB 1587) by Reps. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, and Tony Tinderholt,
R-Arlington, would secure the public's right to know.
(source: Editorial, Odessa American)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Montgomery County taxpayers pay $105K to defend double killer
Montgomery County taxpayers will have to pick up a tab of more than $100,000 in
legal fees for a man who insisted on representing himself at trial and ended up
with 2 death sentences.
Judge William R. Carpenter has ordered the county to pay defense attorney
Stephen G. Heckman, the court-appointed trial counsel for Raghunandan
Yandamuri, $60,000 for his work in Yandamuri's behalf, and defense lawyer Henry
S. Hilles III, Yandamuri's court-appointed penalty phase counsel, $45,600 for
his efforts to save Yandamuri's life.
A jury last October convicted Yandamuri on 2 1st-degree murder charges stemming
from the October 2012 stabbing death of 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna and the
suffocation death of Saanvi Venna, her 10-month-old granddaughter, in a botched
kidnapping-for-ransom.
Heckman, appointed trial counsel by the court in November 2012, performed 952.8
hours of legal services for Yandamuri including 165 hours of in-court time and
787.8 hours of out-of-court time, according to a detailed billing that Heckman
provided the court.
In capital cases, Montgomery County pays court-appointed lawyers $75 an hour
for out-of-court work and $150 an hour for in-court time, according to Court
Administrator Michael R. Kehs. However, each case is also reviewed on an
individual basis by the president judge and administrative judge, Kehs added.
The court last July set a cap of $30,000 but that does not pertain to this case
since both lawyers were appointed prior to the cap, he added.
After repeated attempts to change Yandamuri's mind, Judge Steven T. O'Neill
granted Yandamuri's request to represent himself at trial.
No reason was offered in open court as to why Yandamuri wanted to represent
himself but it was apparent at earlier hearings both Yandamuri and Heckman
disagreed on what avenues of defense should be pursued in the case.
At the same time O'Neill gave the OK for Yandamuri to represent himself, the
judge directed Heckman to serve as Yandamuri's standby counsel to aid Yandamuri
in legal matters and to be prepared to take over the case if Yandamuri changed
his mind.
Hilles' billing covered the 681.7 hours of legal services he performed in
Yandamuri's behalf including 165 hours of in-court time and 516.7 hours of
out-of-court time.
Unlike Heckman, Yandamuri did allow Hilles to represent him during the
death-penalty phase of the trial.
When the trial concluded with the jury handing Yandamuri 2 death sentences,
Hilles said he believed that Yandamuri, who worked in the information
technology field, could have spared himself the death penalties if he had
allowed Heckman to represent him at the trial and followed Heckman's
recommendations.
The charges against Yandamuri stem from an incident that began on Oct. 22,
2012, at 1:15 p.m. when Upper Merion police were dispatched to the Marquis
Apartments complex in response to a 911 call reporting both a killing and a
missing child.
When they arrived, they found the lifeless body of the grandmother in the
kitchen.
The grandmother, a native of India, had arrived in the United States in June
2012 for a 6-month visit to see her new grandchild.
Police could not find the baby but they did find a ransom note asking the
parents for $50,000 in cash. That note included the nicknames of the parents,
nicknames known only to close family friends.
Authorities, including township police, county detectives and the FBI, held out
hope through the week that the child would be found alive.
Yandamuri was brought to the police station for questioning on Oct. 25. After
initially denying any involvement in the incident, Yandamuri allegedly admitted
he was responsible for the death of the grandmother and the baby, according to
the criminal complaint.
Acting on information that Yandamuri gave them, authorities found the baby's
body in an unused sauna in another building at the apartment complex at about 4
a.m. on Oct. 26, 2012.
Yandamuri gave both a written and videotaped confession but later maintained
those confessions were coerced from him by detectives.
(source: The Intelligencer)
NORTH CAROLINA:
NC lawyers face bar complaints for Racial Justice Act work
2 defense attorneys face accusations of professional misconduct for a piece of
their work on the first successful challenge under the Racial Justice Act.
Gretchen Engel, director of the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty
Litigation, and Cassandra Stubbs, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties
Union Capital Punishment Project, were among a team of attorneys who used the
short-lived law to convert a North Carolina death row inmate's sentence in 2012
to life without possibility for parole.
Now the attorneys face possible punishment from the N.C. State Bar.
Some legal analysts have characterized the allegations of wrongdoing as so
minor and "questionable" that they think politics could be at play.
It is unclear who filed the complaints against the attorneys. That's not part
of the public record.
At issue is whether Engel and Stubbs violated professional codes of conduct in
relaying information to the courts after interviewing 2 African-American men
excluded from serving on the 1994 jury that decided the fate of Marcus Reymond
Robinson.
Robinson, an African-American male, was sentenced to death almost 2 decades ago
for the 1991 killing of Erik Tornblum, a white teenager.
In April 2012, Judge Gregory Weeks issued a landmark ruling in Cumberland
County Superior Court saying prosecutors across the state had engaged in
deliberate and systematic racial discrimination when striking black potential
jurors in death penalty cases.
Under the Racial Justice Act, Weeks was able to reduce the death sentence for
Robinson to life in prison with no possibility for parole.
Prosecutors, according to a Michigan State University Law School study that was
part of the record in the Robinson case, used peremptory challenges to remove
blacks from juries more than twice as often throughout North Carolina as they
used them for whites. In Cumberland County, it was almost 3 times as often.
Prosecutors have disputed those statistics and immediately banded together not
only to appeal the Weeks ruling but to orchestrate the overturning of the
unique North Carolina law that allowed inmates to use statistics to bolster
claims of racial bias.
Engel and Stubbs recently found out that someone filed complaints against them
with the State Bar, the organization that oversees North Carolina lawyers.
The bar allegations focus on sworn statements the attorneys introduced from the
men who had been part of the 1994 jury pool but not selected for the panel.
The bar complaint contends the lawyers included inaccurate information for the
court to consider that ranged from a wrong address to a recollection from one
of the potential jurors that did not jibe with the official trial transcript.
When Engel and Stubbs received notice of the allegations against them,
according to their attorneys Amos Tyndall of Chapel Hill, and Brad Bannon and
Alan Schneider of Raleigh, they brought them to the attention of Judge Weeks.
"He noted that the affidavits were not introduced for substantive purposes, and
the purpose for which they were introduced was not even in dispute," Bannon and
Schneider, the attorneys for Stubbs, said in a joint statement. "He gave them
no weight, and he did not rely on them in 378 pages of orders explaining his
rulings."
The Racial Justice Act proceedings for Robinson extended over 20 days of
testimony. Eighteen witnesses testified, and more than 298 exhibits were
included in the record.
"Weeks also made another important finding," Bannon and Schneider said in a
statement echoed by Tyndall, the attorney for Engel. "[I]f there were any
inaccuracies in the 2 affidavits, they were not the product of intentional
misconduct, willfulness or bad faith."
Engel and Stubbs plan to ask for hearings before the State Bar to fight the
complaints.
Legal scholars and analysts with no ties to the cases of Racial Justice Act
proceedings questioned whether the high-profile nature of the Robinson case
might be playing a part in the misconduct allegations.
"The State Bar does not explain publicly why it chooses to proceed on some
complaints from the public and not on others, so we have to guess," said Bernie
Burk, a UNC-Chapel Hill law professor with expertise in ethics and professional
responsibility. "The Racial Justice Act case at issue is very high-profile and
extremely controversial, with many people holding strong views on both sides.
And the complaints suggest that the people who accused the defense lawyers
believe that the discrepancies they've identified were, in the words of the
ethical rules, 'prejudicial to the administration of justice.'
"Given the high profile and intensity of the controversy and the gravity of
what the accusers claim, the Bar may have felt that the best course is to hold
a formal proceeding that will result in an evidentiary record and a reasoned
decision, so that everyone will understand the reasons for the result."
Michael Frisch, a Georgetown University law professor who worked for 18 years
as a bar prosecutor for the District of Columbia, wrote about the 2 cases on a
blog he started to offer insight into such proceedings.
"I look at this prosecution, and I see the charges looking very questionable to
me," Frisch said in a telephone interview Friday. "I wouldn't see them
prosecuting this if it was Joe Schmo on the street or a prosecutor. And as a
result, this is leading me to believe this is a politically motivated
prosecution."
(source: Charlotte Observer)
FLORIDA:
We must review, improve state's death-penalty process
Florida's death-penalty process needs improvement.
Recently the Florida Senate Criminal Justice Committee voted 5-0 to pass Senate
Bill 664, a bill that would require, in capital-case penalty-phase proceedings,
that a jury vote unanimously, rather than by a simple majority, to recommend
sentences of death. Sen. Thad Altman, R-Viera, filed this bill, as he has done
during the past several legislative sessions.
This is the 1st time the bill received a vote.
Altman's effort responds to State v. Steele, a state Supreme Court opinion that
urges the Legislature to revisit the death-penalty statute to address a
significant anomaly in the law.
The state Supreme Court noted that Florida is an outlier - the only state to
allow penalty-phase juries both to recommend death sentences and to find the
presence of aggravating circumstances surrounding a capital crime (a legal
threshold for imposing death sentences) by a simple majority.
Florida law requires juries to vote unanimously to convict a defendant at
trial; and while judges are the final sentencing authorities, they must place
great weight upon juries' penalty-phase sentencing recommendations (either
death or life in prison without the possibility of parole).
The backdrop is compelling.
More death sentences reportedly were imposed in Florida recently than in any
other state; more executions have been carried out during the administration of
Gov. Rick Scott than during the administrations of any of his contemporaries
within a comparable time frame; and according to the Death Penalty Information
Center in Washington, D.C., more exonerations have occurred in Florida than in
any other state since 1973.
The Senate's Bill Analysis and Fiscal Impact Statement notes that the U.S.
Supreme Court recently agreed to review Hurst v. Florida, a capital case in
which the jury recommended a sentence of death by a vote of 7-5.
The court will consider "whether Florida's death sentencing scheme violates the
Sixth or Eighth Amendments in light of that court's decision in Ring v.
Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002)."
The Ring decision required that juries, not judges alone, must make the crucial
factual determinations that would subject a convicted murderer to the death
penalty. The Florida Supreme Court has not applied Ring to Florida's
non-unanimous jury recommendations.
If the Legislature ultimately passes - and Scott signs - Altman's bill, Florida
would more favorably align with virtually every other capital-punishment state
in the U.S. All require some form of unanimity.
Beyond the unanimous jury legislation, the Florida Bar Board of Governors
recently renewed its support for a comprehensive review of Florida's entire
death-penalty process by all branches of government.
Irrespective of whether one supports or opposes capital punishment, a review by
state officials arguably is long overdue.
(source: Op-Ed; Raoul Cantero, a former state Supreme Court justice appointed
by Gov. Jeb Bush, practices law in Miami. Mark Schlakman, of FSU's Center for
the Advancement of Human Rights, was on the ABA's Florida Death Penalty
Assessment Team. Tallahassee Democrat)
*******************
Father of starved infant to stay in Polk County Jail
Roy Stephens, who's accused of starving his newborn infant to death last
December, will remain in jail without bond until he stands trial, a circuit
judge ruled Friday.
Circuit Judge Donald Jacobsen stated in his ruling that the presumption of
guilt is great enough to justify holding Stephens in custody.
In a hearing earlier in the day, Stephens' lawyers had sought pretrial release
for him, saying the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy on the
22-day-old baby, Betsey Kee Stephens, hadn't adequately explored other causes
for her death. But Jacobsen rejected that argument.
Defense lawyer Byron Hileman, representing Stephens, said he wasn't surprised
by the judge's ruling, in part because the state is seeking the death penalty
against his client.
"The granting of bond in a death penalty case is extremely rare," he said
Friday. "I know of one case in 40 years. But the hearing did give us an idea of
the state's theory in the case, and that will help us in preparing our
defense."
Stephens, 48, and his 23-year-old wife, Ruby, of Tennyson, Ind., were visiting
family in Polk County last Christmas when they told emergency responders in
Lakeland their 22-day-old baby, Betsey, had stopped breathing.
An autopsy revealed the baby weighed only 4 pounds and 1 ounce, and she had no
food in her stomach or intestines, indicating she hadn't been fed for at least
a day, according to testimony Friday.
Stephens and his wife told authorities the baby had been fed regularly since
she was born Dec. 1, and had been breastfed as recently as 2 hours before she
died, police reports said.
Both Ruby and Roy Stephens are charged with 1st-degree murder, aggravated child
abuse and aggravated manslaughter of a child, and prosecutors are seeking the
death penalty for both.
Both will be back in court for a status hearing May 7.
In Friday's hearing, Associate Medical Examiner Vera Volnikh testified the baby
had lost 36 % of her birth weight by the time she died on Dec. 23.
"She was extremely dehydrated," Volnikh said. "There is no fat tissue on the
baby. You can see the outline of the bone under the skin. There's no fat in the
cheeks."
Most babies lose about 5 percent of their birth weight in the first couple
weeks of life, she said, but 36 % was extremely abnormal. Hileman asked Volnikh
if she considered other causes for the child's condition, including
failure-to-thrive syndrome. He suggested through a litany of questions that the
medical examiner didn't probe far enough before ruling the cause of death as
starvation by neglect.
"Her investigation of causability was limited to routine tests," Hileman said
in his argument to Jacobsen.
Volnikh said she checked for parasites and infection in the baby's
gastrointestinal system, and looked for genetic abnormalities.
"This child didn't have any," she said. She said those issues generally lead to
a slow decline in health.
"This child was 22 days old," she said. "Any mother could see that this baby is
not gaining weight."
Assistant State Attorney John Waters argued the baby's empty stomach and
bladder provided medical evidence that she wasn't being fed. He also cited the
Stephens' efforts to collect on a $10,000 life insurance policy on their
daughter the day after she died.
"That goes to the mindset of these individuals," he said.
(source: Panama City News Herald)
ALABAMA:
Bill would shroud executions in secrecy
Among the functions of state government, nothing even approaches the
significance of execution, of taking the life of an individual as the ultimate
punishment for crime. The solemn weight of that responsibility should never be
discounted and if there is any action of government that should be open and
transparent, surely it is this one.
Yet the entire process - the death of a human being at the hands of the state -
would be shrouded in secrecy if a bill now before the Legislature passes in its
current form. That cannot be allowed to happen.
This is not about whether the state should impose capital punishment, although
our state certainly could use some serious debate of that issue. It is about
whether the death penalty is to be imposed in secrecy, whether a person may be
executed by the state in a process hidden from its citizens.
We find the prospect profoundly disturbing. And we also find disturbing the
unjustified insertion of language into a bill that began as a measure dealing
with the identity of companies or persons who make the drugs used in lethal
injections. That at least is a debatable matter, but the bill has been
dramatically transformed to empower the Department of Corrections to operate in
a legally impenetrable atmosphere.
The bill now states that "any person who participates in an execution or
performs any ancillary function related to an execution" is covered by the same
shield of secrecy as the drug manufacturers and thus "shall be confidential,
shall not be subject to disclosure, and shall not be admissible as evidence or
discoverable in any action of any kind in any court or before any tribunal,
board, agency or person."
Such sweeping language is troubling enough, but a briefer insertion in the bill
is even more damaging to the public interest. In fact, it likely renders that
blanket secrecy language redundant.
This portion of the bill states that DOC "policies and procedures" regarding
executions are exempt from "Section 36-12-40." Most people, probably even most
legislators, wouldn't know that Section 36-12-40, not otherwise identified in
the bill, is the state's open records act.
The effect of this bill would be to deny Alabamians any opportunity to know
anything about executions carried out by the DOC. No matter how hideously
botched an execution might be, no matter what legitimate questions there might
be about injection drugs or electrocution, no matter how much a situation might
cry out for inquiry, the door to information is locked as tight as a
maximum-security cell.
That is utterly wrong and cannot be condoned. The bill goes before a Senate
committee this week, where this shameful, secretive language should be stricken
at once.
(source: Montgomery Advertiser)
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