Oct. 6
TEXAS:
Texas inmate Duane Buck argues he received death sentence due to his race
The Supreme Court left little doubt Wednesday that it will side with a black
Texas prison inmate who argues improper testimony about his race tainted his
death sentence.
The justices often are divided on death penalty cases, but conservatives and
liberals alike agreed that inmate Duane Buck is entitled to a new court
hearing.
The only issue in arguments at the high court appeared to be whether to throw
out Buck's sentence altogether and order a new punishment hearing. The court
also could merely instruct lower courts to decide whether the death sentence
can stand.
Buck has been trying for years to get federal courts to look at his claim that
his rights were violated when jurors were told by a defense expert witness that
Buck was more likely to be dangerous in the future because he is black.
In Texas death penalty trials, one of the "special issues" jurors must consider
when deciding punishment is whether the defendant they've convicted would be a
future danger.
"What occurred at the penalty phase is indefensible," Justice Samuel Alito said
in a comment that was widely shared by the 6 other justices who asked questions
Wednesday. Justice Clarence Thomas asked no questions, as is his custom.
The high court appeal is not a broad challenge to the death penalty in Texas,
the nation's leader by far in carrying out 537 executions since the Supreme
Court in 1976 allowed capital punishment to resume. Rather, it shows the
justices' heightened attention to the process in capital cases, from sentencing
to execution. This is especially true in older cases, like Buck's, in which the
quality of defense lawyers is at issue.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused attempts by
Buck's attorneys to reopen the case, blocking them from moving forward with an
appeal contending Buck's constitutional right to a competent lawyer was
violated.
Buck's case was among 6 in 2000 that then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn in
a news release said needed to be reopened because statements by the expert
witness, Dr. Walter Quijano, were racially charged. In the other 5 cases, new
punishment hearings were held and each convict again was sentenced to death.
Cornyn, a Republican, is now the state's senior U.S. senator.
Buck's lawyers contended the attorney general, by then Cornyn's successor Greg
Abbott, broke a promise by contesting his case, although the 5th Circuit said
while that circumstance was "odd and factually unusual," they could find
nothing in the case record to indicate the state made an error or promised not
to oppose any move to reopen the case. Abbott now is the state's governor.
Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller defended the appellate ruling Wednesday
because he said there is ample evidence to support a death sentence.
Buck, now 53, does not dispute that he shot and killed his ex-girlfriend, Debra
Gardner, 32, about a week after breaking up with her, and another man in 1995.
He also shot his stepsister, who survived.
Buck at the time was on parole after serving about a year of a 10-year prison
term for delivery of cocaine. He also had a previous conviction for unlawfully
carrying a weapon.
Still, no justice appeared to endorse Keller???s argument that the appellate
ruling should be upheld.
Christina Swarns, Buck's lawyer at the Supreme Court, sought at one point to
place Buck's case in the broader context of issues of race in the criminal
justice system, telling the justices that the need to eradicate racial
prejudice "is as urgent today as at any time in our nation's history."
The debate at the court was mostly over how the justices might rule in Buck's
favor.
The justices could decide there was a "constitutional violation in this case
and the court of appeals was wrong to say there wasn't," Chief Justice John
Roberts said. Such a ruling would result in a new sentencing hearing for Buck.
Justice Elena Kagan said a decision instead could focus on the appeals court's
approach to inmates who wish to reopen their cases in unusual circumstances,
which would leave the decision on the death sentence to a lower court. Such a
ruling might affect other inmates in the 3 states covered by the 5th Circuit -
Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Kagan cited figures produced by Buck's lawyers that prisoners in the 5th
Circuit are far less likely to be allowed to pursue their appeals than
prisoners in other Southern states.
(source: CBS news)
**********************
Texas cases put spotlight on death penalty
The U.S. Supreme Court heard several key cases from Texas during its last
session, and this term it is reviewing 2 with life-or-death consequences.
There's no way to predict whether the Texas cases will bring favorable
decisions for two condemned prisoners, much less lead to a sweeping
reevaluation of the death penalty. But experts are confident they will at least
dramatize the difficulties involved in capital punishment.
"Both of these cases are important and raise critical questions about the way
the death penalty is administered," said Kristen Clarke, president and
executive director of the Lawyers??? Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
One case, stemming from the conviction of Duane Buck for the 1995 murder of his
ex-girlfriend and her friend, "is one of the most important cases on the
Supreme Court docket this year," she said.
That case, Buck v. Davis, which the court heard on Wednesday, raises questions
about ineffective counsel and racial bias. The other case, Moore v. Texas,
involves the issue of courts use outdated standards to decide if someone is too
intellectually disabled to receive a death sentence.
David Dow, a University of Houston Law Center professor and attorney who has
represented dozens of death row inmates, said "arbitrariness" in death penalty
cases has previously raised the eyebrows of some justices.
Neither of these cases gets at that "in a straightforward way," he said, making
it unlikely that the court will issue an historic ruling on the death penalty.
"I would be extremely surprised if the court uses either one to issue some
broad pronouncement," he said.
Though ruled unconstitutionally cruel in 1972, the death penalty was reinstated
by the court 4 years later. States have since executed more than 1,400 people,
and more than 1 in 3 of those have died in Texas.
In a dissent to an Oklahoma lethal injection case last year, Justice Stephen
Breyer wrote that there is "a serious problem of reliability" with the death
penalty and that "the imposition and implementation of the death penalty seems
capricious, random, indeed, arbitrary." Justice Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
signed onto the dissent.
"I believe it highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth
Amendment," Breyer wrote. "At the very least, the court should call for full
briefing on the basic question."
Randy Schaffer, a Houston criminal defense attorney, said there has been "no
movement" by the court to undertake such a a review since then.
But Breyer's unease is widely shared. A recent Pew Research Center poll shows
just 49 % of Americans support the death penalty for those convicted of murder,
while 42 % oppose it.
Support for the death penalty has dropped 7 % since March 2015 and is at its
lowest mark in 4 decades, according to the pollsters.
Buck's case, however, is as complicated as the poll numbers are
straightforward.
After Buck shot his ex-girlfriend and her friend, killing both of them, a jury
could not sentence him to death unless it concluded unanimously, by law, that
he presented a future danger.
Buck received a death sentence after his attorney called a psychiatrist who
testified that because he is black, he was a greater risk of future danger.
That was a crucial mistake, according to the Texas Defender Service, which is
now representing Buck.
He is asking the Supreme Court to "consider his claim that his trial counsel
was constitutionally ineffective for knowingly introducing the
race-as-dangerousness testimony," the Defender Service said in a statement.
"Mr. Buck is ultimately seeking a new, fair, color-blind sentencing hearing."
While the racial test got the court's attention, Dow said the court ultimate
will decide a technical issue - whether Buck should be allowed to appeal. Moore
was sentenced to death in 1980 after killing a clerk in a robbery. His case
turns on intellectual disability and whether Texas uses outdated standards to
determine whether someone is eligible to be executed.
Schaffer said the Supreme Court took up both Texas cases on narrow grounds,
meaning that a big decision on the death penalty isn't likely.
Moreover, he said, "In the end, you do not have 5 votes up there to can the
death penalty."
Complicating matters is a vacancy on the court created by Justice Antonin
Scalia's death in February 2016. President Barack Obama's nomination to fill
the spot, with Appeals Court Justice Merrick Garland, has been stalled in the
U.S. Senate for more than 200 days.
In the end, Dow said the death penalty's demise is more likely to be gradual.
"States are just going to quit using the death penalty," he said, because it's
"just a waste of money."
Kathryn Kase, 1 of 4 attorneys representing Buck, said the justices were "very
receptive to our arguments" on Wednesday.
And while the constitutionality of the death penalty wasn't before the Court,
she said the case could influence the national discussion about race.
"It's an opportunity for the court to make a clear and powerful statement that
the American criminal justice system will not condone racial bias in a death
penalty case," she said.
(source: Courthouse News)
**********************************
Alexandria Lawyer Saves Innocent Man from Death Row----"It took a team of
people hundreds of hours to save one life. If we hadn't taken this case, he'd
be dead."
Alfred Dewayne Brown loves the Alexandria Waterfront. He enjoys visiting the
shops and restaurants in Old Town and meeting the family of his Alexandrian
lawyer, Brian Stolarz. Brown is closer with Stolarz than most clients are with
their attorneys. The 2 are good friends and even have matching tattoos: scales
of justice. Brown has the number "154" written above his, because Brown is the
154th inmate on death row to be exonerated. If it weren't for Stolarz, Brown
would be dead.
Brown joined Stolarz at the Lee Center on Sept. 29 to talk about Stolarz's new
book, "Grace and Justice on Death Row." Stolarz and Brown spoke about visits to
death row in Livingston, Texas. In 2003, Brown was accused of murdering 2
people in Texas, one of them a police officer, in a botched robbery. One of the
men who'd committed the murder said Brown had pulled the trigger. But Brown
told the court, and his lawyers, that he was at home the whole time, that he'd
even called his girlfriend at the time of the murder.
The trial lasted 3 days. Stolarz called it "fast food justice." Brown's
attorneys pressured him to take a guilty plea deal the state was offering, but
Brown maintained his innocence. Brown was convicted and sentenced to death.
In 2007, Stolarz was working in his office when a colleague asked if he was
interested in taking a pro-bono death penalty case. Stolarz travelled to
Livingston. As soon as he met Brown, he knew the man was innocent.
"It was like meeting me wife or child for the 1st time," said Stolarz. "It was
like a shot through my body."
Stolarz shared pictures of Brown's cell, narrow enough that standing in the
center Brown could touch both walls. Brown was in the cell 23 hours each day
for 10 years. Compared to his cell in the regular jail, Brown said it was like
going from a dog kennel to a bird cage.
"This place breaks people," said Stolarz. "One guy gouged out his eye and ate
it. After they took him to the infirmary, he gouged out the other one and ate
it too."
"I was able to learn how to read," said Brown. "I didn't let the cell get to
me." "While there, Stolarz said he also saw executions, showing the crowd the
gurney where the state carries out lethal injections. Stolarz said he promised
Brown he would never face execution, but wasn't sure at the time if he could
keep that promise. When he left the jail for the 1st time, Stolarz said he
threw up in the parking lot when the gravity of what he was about to work on
hit him. This was the beginning of a decade-long struggle for Stolarz, working
pro-bono, to prove Brown's innocence.
"The case against Brown was weak from the start. There was no forensic
evidence, DNA, gunshot residue, or fingerprints that put him at the scene. The
state's case was built on the testimony of one of the murderers and a witness.
Stolarz started with the witness, going out to the scene where the witness said
she'd been and realized there was no way she could have seen Brown clearly from
that position. Stolarz found and confronted the witness about this, who said
that she hadn't really seen him but that there was pressure from the District
Attorney's office.
"The police told her they'd take her kids away unless she testified," said
Stolarz.
Brown had also had a witness working in his favor, his girlfriend Ericka
Dockery, who'd said Brown was home the whole day and had called her from home.
But like the other witness, she was harassed by the District Attorney and even
jailed for 4 months until she agreed to recant her testimony.
"I interviewed her later and she said she'd had to choose between Dwayne
[Brown] and her children," said Stolarz.
"Dockery was difficult to find, but she eventually agreed to talk to Stolarz.
She told Stolarz that Brown had been home at the time of the murders, as she'd
originally said.
The more he looked into the case, the more Stolarz said he found the signs that
it had been mishandled by the state. The foreman of the grand jury for the
police officer shooting case was a police officer, put in place by the judge.
Brown's lawyer worked at a desk right next to the lawyer representing another
murder suspect in the case. Brown also has an IQ of 69 and legally someone with
an IQ below 70 cannot be executed. However, the state turned to Dr. George
Denkowski who gave Brown 4 extra points on the IQ test because he said Brown
was stressed at the time. As the investigation continued, Denkowski was
reprimanded by the state and agreed to stop reviewing death penalty cases.
Texas also abolished the "pick-a-pal" law that allowed judges to select who
served on juries.
The overlooked evidence of Brown's innocence kept piling up. Brown had received
a letter in jail from someone essentially confessing to the murder, who
included details of the murder that had never been made public.
"Dobbie [Brown], that wasn't nothing but one big set up for you," the letter
read.
Stolarz also spoke with 1 of the other men accused of murder, who swore an
affidavit that Brown was not there at the time of the murder.
The final piece of evidence that emerged came out of a retired police officer's
garage. After years of searching for a document that would prove Brown made a
call from the phone at home during the murder, a police officer found a record
buried deep in his garage. The record showed that not only had a phone call
been made from the house at the time of the murder, but an attached note
signified that the prosecutors had seen this document and did not share it with
the defense or submit it as evidence.
Stolarz reached into his pocket and presented the piece of paper.
"We spent 8 years looking for this one piece of paper," said Stolarz. "All that
work and it was found in a box in a police officer's garage."
Even after the District Attorney agreed to a new trial, it took 17 months
before the state's Court of Criminal Appeals accepted the motion.
Throughout the struggle to collect enough evidence to prove Brown's innocence,
Stolarz said there were several moments where he'd get depressed and feel like
the case was hopeless. It was in those moments, Stolarz said, that Brown would
give him the reassurance he needed. At first, Brown said it took him 3 years to
really trust Stolarz, but after he trusted the lawyer Brown said he never once
lost faith that Stolarz would fulfill his promise to get Brown free.
On June 8, 2015, that promise was fulfilled when the District Attorney's office
agreed to drop all charges. Now, Brown and Stolarz travel together to talk
about the experience and advocate for criminal justice reform. On their visit
to Alexandria, Stolarz said he and Brown went to the waterfront and watched the
boats on the Potomac.
"It took a team of people hundreds of hours to save 1 life," said Stolarz. "If
we hadn't taken this case, he'd be dead."
Brown and Stolarz's story resonated with those in attendance at the Lee Center.
Several spoke to Brown and Stolarz and asked questions. Afterwards, several
police and sheriff's deputies gathered around the 2 and took pictures with
them.
"This is a man who was pushed but did not fall," said Hadi Kamara, an 11th
grader at T.C. Williams High School. "Being here today and listening may create
some anger and disdain, rightfully so, but that's not why we're here. It's
about forgiveness.:
"I'm a 26-year veteran of the sheriff's office, I love my job," said Deputy E.
Todd Stubblefield. "All police are not bad. We have to learn to love and
forgive. We're in a crisis. We have to learn to work together, whether it's
Charlotte or Alexandria."
Barbara Swanigan said she has a brother she believes is in a similar situation
and said listening to Stolarz gave her hope.
"It was like a movie that came to life," said Benjamin Savage. "You have to
believe in yourself and never give up hope."
Behind Texas and Oklahoma, Virginia is the state with the 3rd most executions.
Stolarz said many of the legal problems that exist in Texas also exist in
Virginia.
"We need change in this state too," said Stolarz. "There is inadequate defense
for people [accused in death penalty cases]."
(source: Alexandria Gazette)
GEORGIA----impending execution
Man Convicted of Killing Cop to Be Executed This Month
A Georgia death row inmate convicted of killing an Atlanta police officer in
1997 is scheduled to be executed later this month.
Gregory Paul Lawler, 63, is scheduled to be put to death at 7 p.m. on Oct. 19
at the state prison in Jackson, Attorney General Sam Olens said in statement
Wednesday. Lawler was convicted of murder in the shooting death of Atlanta
police Officer John Sowa.
Authorities say Lawler also critically injured Officer Patricia Cocciolone.
Sowa and Cocciolone were trying to bring Lawler's intoxicated girlfriend home
after he left her in a parking lot following an argument, prosecutors said. The
officers escorted her up the front walk of the town house and knocked on the
door.
Lawler opened the door and yelled at the officers to get away from the door.
Once his girlfriend was inside, he tried to shut the door on them. Sowa put his
hand up to keep the door from shutting and said they just wanted to make sure
the girlfriend lived there and that she would be safe.
Lawler had placed an AR-15 rifle next to the door when he saw the officers
arrive, and he grabbed it and fired at them as they ran away, prosecutors said.
Lawler fired 15 times and used bullets that can penetrate body armor.
Cocciolone sent a radio distress call and when other officers arrived they
found Sowa lying hear the sidewalk and Cocciolone on the ground in the front
yard. Both officers' pistols were still in their holsters.
The responding officers got Lawler's girlfriend out of the apartment and had a
6-hour standoff with Lawler before a negotiator persuaded him to surrender.
Cocciolone was seriously injured, suffering gunshot wounds to her head, arm,
pelvis and torso and had to undergo extensive physical therapy. Despite the
fact that she was still relearning to read and write, she was the prosecution's
star witness at Lawler's trial in 2000.
If carried out, Lawler's execution would be the 7th in Georgia this year and
the most in a calendar year in the state since the death penalty was reinstated
nationwide in 1976. Georgia executed 5 inmates last year and in 1987.
(source: Associated Press)
FLORIDA:
Florida Supreme Court Hears Death Penalty Appeal
The Florida Supreme Court is considering more cases thrown into doubt by a US
Supreme Court ruling earlier this year.
The Hurst v. Florida ruling invalidating the state's death penalty system
continues to resonate in Florida's judiciary. Public defender Nada Carey says
Zachary Wood's conviction under the old procedure merits reconsideration - even
more so in light of recent actions on an Alabama case.
"On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the death sentence in a case called
Russell," Carey says. "They granted cert, vacated the death sentence and
remanded to the Alabama Supreme Court in light of Hurst."
Hurst threw out the old Florida system where the jury issues an advisory
sentence and the judge makes the final decision. Wood was convicted under that
scheme, and Alabama still uses a nearly identical system. The high court's
intervention could signal a more aggressive stance on the death penalty.
But Carey also argues Wood's statements to police make it clear another man,
Dillon Rafsky, directed Wood throughout the murder.
"He told Mr. Wood to get a shirt, get something to tie his feet," she says of
Rafsky's instructions to Wood. "[Wood] says at that point he may have punched
[the victim] - this is in his statement to police - so that Rafsky wouldn't
think he was going to snitch on him."
"So even in his statement to the police which was right after he got out of the
hospital there were indications he was scared of this guy."
Committing a crime under substantial domination from another is a mitigating
circumstance for capital sentencing. If mitigating factors outweigh aggravating
factors the defendant should be sentenced to life in prison rather than death.
(source: WFSU news)
MISSISSIPPI:
The Murder Trial That Won't Go Away
It was the summer of 1996, another Tuesday morning in July in Winona, Miss. At
around 9 a.m., Bertha Tardy, the owner of Tardy Furniture Store, called Sam
Jones and asked him to come in and train 2 new employees. When Jones arrived at
the store he discovered the bodies of Tardy, Robert Golden, Carmen Rigby and
Derrick Stewart, all shot in the head. Police found shell casings from
.38-caliber bullets and a bloody shoeprint at the scene. All 4 victims
eventually died.
Police interviewed local man Curtis Flowers later that afternoon after they
placed him at the scene of a burglarized car missing a .38-caliber pistol that
morning. Flowers consented to a gun residue test as well. Flowers had worked
briefly at Tardy Furniture at the start of the month before being fired after
not showing up for a few days. Police interviewed Flowers again 2 days later,
and he gave a different account of what he did on that Tuesday. Flowers moved
to Texas that September, but in March 1997, police arrested Flowers, brought
him back to Mississippi and indicted him on 4 separate counts of capital
murder.
Witness testimonies in Flowers' 6th trial revealed that $300 to $400 in cash
was taken from the store during the murders, and witnesses for the state said
that police found $235 in Flowers' headboard and that Flowers wore a 10 1/2
size shoe, the same size of the bloody footprint, another state witness said.
Witnesses also said that the gunshot residue test revealed 1 particle in the
back of Flowers' right hand. Eye witnesses placed Flowers at both his uncle's
car missing the .38-caliber pistol and near Tardy Furniture on Tuesday morning.
1 witness testified that he saw 2 African-American men outside of Tardy
Furniture that morning. Witnesses for the defense testified that they were
promised payment or implied they would get reward money for testifying against
Flowers.
6 trials and 20 years later, Flowers sat in Parchman with an affirmed
death-penalty conviction from the Mississippi Supreme Court - until the U.S.
Supreme Court got involved in the case.
Flowers' first 3 trials all ended in convictions and death sentences, but none
of the convictions stuck. The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the outcome of
the first 2 trials due to prosecutorial misconduct, specifically that the
prosecutor had admitted evidence from other victims in the 1st trial and
arguing facts not in the evidence in the 2nd trial. It reversed the 3rd trial,
finding that the prosecutor had racially discriminated in the selection of jury
members. Then there were 2 subsequent mistrials, in which the juries were more
racially balanced, but resulted in 2 hung juries, unable to reach a unanimous
verdict.
In trial number 6, the jury had 11 white jurors, more than the previous 2
trials, resulting in a conviction and death sentence for Flowers.
Flowers, who is black, appealed his case back up to the Mississippi Supreme
Court, claiming, in part, that the jury-selection process violated his
fundamental rights under the Sixth and the 14th amendments. The Mississippi
Supreme Court disagreed and sentenced him to death by lethal injection in late
2014.
That court denied Flowers' motion for rehearing at the outset of 2015, so his
lawyers filed a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court. This summer,
the high court vacated the State's high court judgment in Flowers' 6th trial
and remanded the case.
"The case is remanded to the Supreme Court of Mississippi for further
consideration in light of Foster v. Chatman," the June order from the U.S.
Supreme Court states.
Of Race and Juries
To understand the history of Flowers' case and the claims of racial
discrimination in jury selection, it is vital to understand the history of
landmark cases in the same vein.
When a person goes on trial for capital murder, jury selection is a natural
part of the process - and a part that can sway the outcome. In 1986, the trial
of James Kirkland Batson in Kentucky led to new limitations for prosecutors who
attempted to strike potential jurors.
Both prosecutors and defense attorneys get an equal number of strikes during
jury selection in death-penalty cases. Often, jurors are removed due to a
conflict of interest in the case or because they have a predisposed inclination
to not sentence someone to death on principle.
Removing a potential juror based on race or gender, however, is illegal. The
Batson case solidified this standard nationally. The prosecutor in Batson's
case removed all 4 African Americans from the jury pool, and Batson challenged
the action under the Sixth and 14th Amendments. The U.S. Supreme Court sided
with Batson and found that while a defendant is not entitled to have a jury
completely or partially composed of people of his own race, the state is not
permitted to use its peremptory challenges to automatically exclude potential
members of the jury because of their race, a case summary from the U.S. Courts
says.
The Batson case set a new standard: mainly that defendants in a criminal case
can make an Equal Protection claim if they can show that race was a the reason
a potential jury member was struck, the state must come forward and give an
explanation for their exclusion.
If they succeed in proving another non-race-related reason for striking the
juror, the onus goes back on the defendant. In Timothy Foster's case, his
lawyers were able to prove their claim with a public-records request.
Foster was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in Georgia, which
the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. Foster filed for public records, however,
which revealed what the U.S. Supreme Court found to be convincing evidence that
lawyers rejected potential jurors due to their race. "A draft affidavit from an
investigator comparing black prospective jurors and conclude(ed), 'If it comes
down to having to pick one of the black jurors, [this one] might be okay," the
U.S. Supreme Court opinion says.
On June 20, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Mississippi Supreme
Court's opinion, which sentenced Flowers for execution, asking the court to
consider the case in light of the Foster precedent. Alison Steiner, an attorney
with the Office of the State Public Defender, says the U.S. Supreme Court
granted review to only a handful of cases - out of dozens. She said the chances
of getting a petition for writ of certiorari granted in a death-penalty case
are low.
"Although the opinion is vague, the context suggests that there is something
about the issue raised in this case (Flowers) that 6 members of the court did
think (the outcome in) Foster required looking at again," Steiner said.
The Mississippi Supreme Court has set a briefing schedule for Flowers' case for
this fall and winter. Flowers has filed a separate petition for post-conviction
relief in the Mississippi Supreme Court as well.
(source: Jackson Free Press)
OHIO:
US Supreme Court rejects appeal from Ohio man on death row
The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand a man's conviction and death sentence for
the Ohio killing of a youth counselor.
The Springfield News-Sun (http://bit.ly/2d9rVJ5 ) reports the court rejected an
appeal Monday from 41-year-old Jason Dean, who was convicted in 2006 of killing
Titus Arnold during a 4-day shooting spree in Springfield.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled 6-1 last year that Dean showed little remorse and
the circumstances of the slaying during a robbery outweighed any evidence Dean
presented in his favor.
The state Supreme Court had previously ordered a new trial for Dean even as the
justices acknowledged substantial evidence of his guilt. That unanimous ruling
said a Clark County judge was so biased against Dean's attorneys that it
tainted his trial. Dean was re-tried and sentenced to death.
(source: The Daily Journal)
TENNESSEE:
Death sentence can be arbitrary
Arbitrary administration has been among the factors that persuaded 20 states to
overturn or abolish the death penalty and convinced governors in 4 others that
moratoriums were necessary.
The notion that capital punishment is administered in an arbitrary basis has
for many years fueled the argument that the death penalty is unconstitutional.
Arbitrary administration has been among the factors that persuaded 20 states to
overturn or abolish the death penalty and convinced governors in 4 others that
moratoriums were necessary.
Elsewhere, delays in carrying out executions have driven up the cost associated
with capital punishment, fueling one of the other arguments against it.
The late Tennessee Supreme Court Chief Justice Adolpho A. Birch, known for his
unhesitating willingness to rule against capital punishment when necessary,
gave us one of the more persuasive examples of the arbitrariness problem.
Victim-impact testimony given by relatives during the sentencing phase of
murder trials "is unsettling because its use encourages the jury to quantify
the value of the victim's life and urges the finding that murder is more
reprehensible if the victim is survived by a bereaved family than if the victim
had not family at all," he said.
This week an article produced by the USA TODAY network provided some hope that
the arbitrariness argument may progress beyond anecdote and toward a fuller
understanding of how unfair the death penalty can be.
An analysis by a group of lawyers who examined more than 2,000 1st-degree
murder cases in Tennessee, where the death sentence was reinstated in 1977,
showed, for example, that of 2,095 1st-degree murder cases in Tennessee
identified since 1977, only 193 resulted in death sentences.
And of those 193, 104 - or 54 % - have been reversed, nearly 1/2 because the
lawyers who represented the defendants at trial were found to have been
ineffective. Only 0.3 % of those defendants convicted were executed.
The lawyers, compiling evidence for a motion asking Nashville Criminal Court
Judge Monte Watkins to deem the death penalty unconstitutional, also found that
only 48 of 95 counties in the state have imposed a death sentence.
Defendants who kill 2 or more victims are 7 times more likely to receive a
sentence of life in prison or life without parole, they found, even though
multiple victims are a factor juries can consider in handing out a death
sentence.
And, perhaps in the most persuasive evidence of arbitrary administration of the
ultimate punishment for crime, 10 out of 14 capital punishment cases in
Tennessee over the past 10 years involved African-American defendants.
It would be a tall order, indeed, to eliminate the arbitrariness problem, which
can batter the emotions of victims' families as it leaves the fate of convicted
murderers subject to whim.
While some crimes are so heinous that they argue for taking the life of the
perpetrator, whether that punishment is actually carried out seems little more
than a roll of the dice.
(source: Editorial, Memphis Commercial Appeal)
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