[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS
Sept. 25 TEXASimpending execution Last Words on Death Row: Texas Inmate 9th To Be Executed This Year Texas is scheduled to execute its 9th prisoner this year today as death row inmate Cleve Foster, 48, fights for a last-minute stay from the United States Supreme Court. Foster was convicted in 2002 of helping his roommate, Sheldon Ward, kill a Fort Worth, Texas, woman and hide her body in the woods. Ward, however, wrote a death-bed note before he died in jail saying that he acted alone, and Foster had nothing to do with the murder. Foster maintains his innocence. Foster has been scheduled to die 4 times over the past year, but has received 3 stays of execution from the Texas Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, Foster is hoping the country's high court will step in and give him 1 more stay. If the court does not stay the execution, Foster will be killed by lethal injection at 7 p.m. EST. In the following pages, take a closer look at this year's death row inmates - and their final statements of innocence, acceptance, or praise for their beloved Texas Rangers baseball team. Their statements were recorded by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. (source: ABC News) Texas Death Row Inmate Seeks 4th Stay of Execution Death row inmate Cleve Foster, a former military recruiter, is hoping the courts will for the 34th time in a year stay his execution, which is scheduled for Tuesday evening. After the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals denied his appeal, Foster's lawyer, Maurie Levin, filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. She said on Monday that the justices had called for the record in the case, a step they don't always take. They're taking it seriously, said Levin, who is also an adjunct professor and co-director of the Capital Punishment Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin. Foster and his roommate, Sheldon Ward, were convicted of the 2002 murder in Fort Worth of Nyanuer Mary Pal. Police found the body of Pal, who had been shot, in the woods. DNA evidence in Pal's body later connected Foster and Ward to the crime. Both men were sentenced to death. Ward died in prison in May 2010. While he was on death row, Foster's lawyers said, Ward wrote a note and also told others that Foster was not involved in the murder and that he had acted alone. In his pleas, Foster argues that Ward's statements prove his innocence. He also argues that he received ineffective legal assistance since his lawyers did not present key evidence to the jury, including a note Ward wrote at the time of the crime taking sole blame for the murder. The lawyers were also ineffective, he argues, because they did not use a blood-spatter expert to dispute the state's theory that Foster and Ward murdered the victim in one location and carried her body to another. The state, in a response filed Monday with the U.S. Supreme Court by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, said, Foster advances no compelling reason in this case, and none exists. Ward's confessions, the state contends, were inconsistent and incompatible with one another, containing differing details. And, the state argues, the jury's decision to convict Foster would not have changed with additional testimony about where the victim died. Foster's 1st execution date, Jan. 11, 2011, was stayed just 10 minutes before he was scheduled to undergo lethal injection. Before his 2nd execution date - April 5, 2011 - Foster and fellow death row inmate Humberto Leal filed a civil lawsuit challenging Texas' decision to change its lethal injection protocol from 3 drugs to 1. The Texas Supreme Court eventually dismissed that lawsuit, but the U.S. Supreme Court stayed Foster's execution again. Foster's execution was scheduled a 3rd time for Sept. 20, 2011, but the high court stayed that as well. Levin said she is hopeful for a 4th stay because the U.S. Supreme Court last month stayed the execution of John Balentine, who has made similar claims of inadequate legal help. In its response to the U.S. Supreme Court, the state argued that Foster is simply trying to stall his inevitable, and just, ending. Foster's assertions reveal his claim to be nothing more than a meritless attempt to postpone his already-delayed execution, state lawyers wrote. (source: Texas Tribune) * Death row inmate contests the drug Preston Hughes, who has been on death row for 23 years for fatally stabbing a teenage girl and a toddler, is suing the state of Texas over the drug it plans to use to execute him in November, claiming officials are experimenting on him and other inmates. Hughes, 46, is arguing that prison officials, facing a shortage of drugs for the 3 drug cocktail formerly used for lethal injection, did no medical testing before changing the protocol to using a single drug, according to court records. They are experimenting on death row inmates because
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., FLA., USA, PENN.
Sept. 25 INDIANA: DePauw hosts man freed from death row A Chicago man who spent more than 10 years behind bars for rape and murder will talk about his experience on Florida's death row during a 2-day event at DePauw University in Greencastle. Delbert Tibbs is an African-American who was exonerated and declared innocent in 1982. He was arrested in 1974 and convicted of murder and rape by an all-white jury and sentenced to death. He will lecture on From Death Row to Freedom: One Man's Story of Wrongful Conviction, the Death Penalty, and American Justice at 6 p.m. today at the Peeler Auditorium at DePauw. According to information on his website (www.delberttibbs.com), Tibbs vehemently denied the charges. A mass movement was organized to fight for his life, spearheaded by his friends and family. Freedom fighters such as 1970s activist Angela Davis and others entered the fray. The Florida Supreme Court overturned the conviction but did not order the lower court to cease and desist prosecution. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1982, the state's attorney in Lee County, Fla., dropped the case as he stated that his witnesses' credibility would be questionable to a jury. The story of Tibbs' clash with the criminal justice system has been told in the play The Exonerated, by Jessica Blank and Eric Jensen. Today's public session is sponsored by the Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw. (source: The Tribune Star) FLORIDAimpending execution Lawyers says death row inmate is likely insane, ask governor to delay execution Lawyers for a Florida man say the state should halt his pending execution because he is likely insane. An attorney for John Errol Ferguson wrote Gov. Rick Scott on Monday and asked him to delay the Oct. 16 execution so psychiatrists could examine Ferguson. Ferguson, now 64, was convicted of murdering 6 people execution-style in a drug-related crime in Carol City in one of the worst mass killings in Miami-Dade history. Ferguson was also convicted in the murders of 2 Hialeah teenagers who had been on their way to a church meeting in January 1978. Ferguson's attorneys say that he has long exhibited symptoms of schizophrenia and has been plagued by hallucinations and delusions. Ferguson is slated to die by lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Raiford. (source: Associated Press) Florida GOP Launches Revenge Campaign Against Justices Who Ruled Against Gov. Rick Scott On Friday, ThinkProgress reported that a Pennsylvania Tea Party group vowed revenge against 2 state supreme court justices who joined a recent decision that unanimously rejected a lower court order upholding a voter suppression law. Now, the Florida GOP wants to play this game as well: The party announced late Friday that its board voted unanimously this week to oppose the retention of Supreme Court Justices Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince, who were all appointed by Democratic former Gov. Lawton Chiles and who have ruled against several major priorities of Republican Gov. Rick Scott's administration. If the justices are not retained, Scott would appoint replacements. While the collective evidence of judicial activism amassed by these 3 individuals is extensive, there is 1 egregious example that all Florida voters should bear in mind when they go to the polls on election day, said spokeswoman Kristen McDonald in a statement. These 3 justices voted to set aside the death penalty for a man convicted of tying a woman to a tree with jumper cables and setting her on fire. The Florida GOP's decision to base its PR campaign against these justices around a death penalty decision is rather ghoulish, but it is both familiar and unsurprising. 26 years ago, California Republicans led a $5.6 million campaign to oust California Chief Justice Rose Bird and 2 of her colleagues. Although the campaign outwardly focused on the death penalty, its top supporters included the Independent Oil Producers Agency, the Western Growers Association, the late anti-tax activst Howard Jarvis and the Free Market Political Action Committee. Bird's opponents knew they couldn't run an effective campaign by attacking her for being insufficiently friendly to wealthy corporations and other interest groups, so they chose instead to hide their true motives by focusing on the death penalty. In 1996, Tennessee conservatives ran a similar playbook, ousting Justice Penny White because she voted to overturn a single death sentence. Significantly, only 19 % of the state's voters participated in the retention election, demonstrating the ability of a well-funded campaign to shape the outcome of a judicial race, since the campaign only needs to rally a small group of voters in these very low profile elections. It now appears that the Florida Republican Party is operating off the same playbook. Like the California
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, CALIF., ARIZ.
Sept. 25 OHIO: YEAR AFTER COMMUTATIONNo future, but it beats death for spared man Joseph Murphy, 47, was on death row for 24 years. Joseph Murphy knows he will die in prison. He just doesn???t know when. He's OK with that. I have accepted the fact I will be here the rest of my life, he said. Whatever happens in here, it's better than it was at home. Murphy was supposed to be executed by the state on Oct. 18, 2011, for the 1987 throat-slashing murder of 72-year-old Ruth Predmore during a robbery at her home in Marion. Over 24 years, courts at all levels had rejected his appeals. His attorneys, public defenders Pamela J. Prude-Smithers and Kathryn L. Sandford, knew Gov. John Kasich was their client's last hope. On Sept. 26 last year, Kasich intervened, commuting Murphy's death sentence to life without the possibility of parole. Kasich said considering Murphy's brutally abusive upbringing and the relatively young age at which he committed this terrible crime, the death penalty is not appropriate in this case. Murphy, 47, who spent most of his life - beginning at age 6 - in juvenile lockups, mental-health wards and prison, now faces the prospect of living the rest of his days with no hope of freedom. The 3rd of Stella and Jerry Murphy's 6 children, he was raised in a West Virginia tarpaper shack with no plumbing or electricity. His mother often failed to feed him as a child, and his father beat him and his siblings with switches, belts and extension cords. Murphy was stabbed in the head with a steak knife by his brother, raped by a man who supplied Murphy's father with moonshine and set on fire to prevent a children's services worker from seeing welts on his back from recent beatings. Prison is the only real home Murphy knows. He calls himself state-raised. After spending 2 decades alone in a cell, Murphy now has a cellmate and is housed in a unit with dozens of other prisoners. It was mind-rattling, he said during an interview last week at the Toledo Correctional Institution, where he was transferred from death row at the Ohio State Penitentiary at Youngstown. It was kind of hard being around a bunch of people. ... It's hard getting used to the noise. In nearly a year in Toledo, Murphy hasn't had an infraction, said Darlene Mitchell, assistant to the warden. He has corresponded with Peg Predmore Kavanagh, the 68-year-old niece of Murphy's victim. Kavanagh testified via video in support of clemency for Murphy at the Ohio Parole Board hearing last year. I was trying to encourage him to find a job once he went into general (prison) population, she said in a telephone interview from Florida. I was very much disappointed with the letter I got from him in some respects. He hinted around to me about money. He said he was waiting for God to send him a money order to help with toothpaste and slippers and other things. I helped save his life. I'm very proud of what I did, but I'm disappointed in him. She hasn't written back. Murphy has a job earning $16 a month as a porter at the prison. He also referees inmate sports competitions and washes inmates' jerseys. He hopes to get a better job, paying $24 a month. Inmates buy their own toiletries, personal items and snacks. His abusive father is dead, and Murphy hasn't had a single visit, letter or call from his mother or 4 brothers. At first, I was upset. I wrote to them and said I was off death row, he said. I sent her more letters and cards at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but she didn't write back. I love my mother to death and I always will. But it seems like she's upset that I wasn???t executed. (source: Columbus Dispatch) CALIFORNIA: Death penalty repeal close in poll California voters are closely divided on a November ballot measure to repeal the state's death penalty law, with significant differences in support among regions and age groups, a new Field Poll reports. The survey found that Proposition 34, which would make life in prison without parole the maximum punishment for murder, was opposed by 45 % of likely voters and favored by 42 %, with 13 % undecided. The results amounted to a statistical tie, since the poll's margin of error was 4.3 % points. The poll, released Tuesday, was conducted Sept. 6-18 among a random sample of 468 voters. The Field Poll also reported that Prop. 31, which would revise the state's budget process, trailed 40 to 21 % among likely voters. The remaining 39 % were undecided, a reflection of the lesser attention the ballot measure has received. Prop. 31 would require most new state laws to describe how they would be paid for, would allow the governor to cut state spending unilaterally during a fiscal emergency, and would change the state budget from a one-year to a 2-year process. It would also transfer about $200 million a year from the state to local governments to run programs now administered statewide. Prop. 34 will
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----INDIA, S. AF., EGYPT, MALAYSIA
Sept. 25 INDIA: Govt seeks time from SC in Abu Salem case Attorney General G E Vahanvati informed the Supreme Court on Monday that India was working out the way forward with Portugal after the latter's supreme court ruled that New Delhi had breached the order extraditing gangster Abu Salem by charging him with offences punishable with death sentence. Vahanvati told a bench of Justices P Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi that India was trying to find out from Portuguese government, both informally and formally, what steps are to be taken in future after their courts ruled that India had breached the November, 2005, order extraditing Salem from Lisbon to New Delhi. The Portuguese courts had unanimously held that while seeking extradition, India had promised under Rule of Speciality that it would not try Salem for any charge attracting death penalty or a sentence beyond jail term for 25 years. Armed with the Portuguese SC's decision, Salem had requested the SC of India to quash TADA charges against him in the Mumbai blast case and Section 302 IPC charges in the case relating to murder of businessman Pradeeep Jain as both these charges could attract death penalty on conviction. Vahanvati's request for four weeks was accepted by the court, which adjourned hearing on Salem's petition. (source: The Times of India) ** Uphold Kasab sentence, Maharashtra requests Prez The Maharashtra Home Ministry has put up a request note to President Pranab Mukherjee to uphold the death sentence of the lone surviving 26/11 Mumbai terror attack gunman Ajmal Kasab who has moved a mercy petition. Home department sources said the mercy petition moved by Kasab came to the state home department last week and Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil as per the protocol attached his suggestion before despatching it to the Chief Minister's Office. The petition is before the Maharashtra chief minister who in turn may put up his suggestion before forwarding to the governor who in turn will despatch it to the Ministry of Home Affairs in New Delhi for further perusal. The convict, who along with his cohorts had spewed death on the streets, terminus station and hotels in his 'mercy petition,' stated that he was brain-washed by his trainers and (he) did not realise the gravity of his act as he carried out his act in a state of haze; in view of this, the sentence should be brought down from death penalty. The Supreme Court on August 29, upholding the conviction and death sentence in 26/11 attacks, stated that Kasab had now shown the slightest twinge of conscience. On September 15, Arthur Road Jail officials handed Kasab (lodged in a high-security cell) a certified copy of death sentence conformation; the 25-year-old gunman while being handed over the copy as per the procedure was also informed about the options including that of mercy petition. However, till date, it is not known as to whether Kasab had already consulted his lawyer with regard to mercy petition option. (source: The Deccan Herald) * Death row convict: Sarabjit Singh accuses jail authorities of 'severe torture'The Indian convict wrote letters to family saying that he was being slow poisoned in Kot Lakhpat jail. Death row convict Sarabjit Singh has maintained in a letter that he is being slow-poisoned and mentally tortured by authorities of Kot Lakhpat jail. He added that owing to constant harassment in jail his health has deteriorated severely. Singh addressed a copy of his letter to his sister Dalbir Kaur, and his daughters Sonia Gandi and Ponam Kaur. The letters were delivered via Singh's counsel Advocate Awais Sheikh when he visited India from August 14 to August 29. Quoting from the letter, Sheikh said Singh accused the jail officials of conspiring to drive him insane and ridiculing him when he asked them for painkillers. Singh's letter to his family in India was given wide coverage by the Indian media which amounted to severe criticism for Pakistan. Sheikh said he could not decipher the script of the letters as they were written in Hindi. No permission Sheikh has been barred from meeting his client in jail by orders of the Punjab Home Department. The advocate said that Singh's family members had sent some food and money for him which Sheikh wanted to deliver, but the jail authorities denied him permission. Sheikh said that in 2009 the Lahore High Court had given him permission to meet Singh. Therefore, the jail authorities' prohibition was tantamount to contempt of court. He added that he will file a contempt of court petition against the home secretary for not giving him permission to meet his client. Sheikh maintained that he had been meeting Singh in jail since July 2009 by orders of the court. He said the court had ruled that: If the petitioner moves an application to the home secretary, he shall be allowed to meet the condemned
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., KY.
Sept. 25 ALABAMA: Obese Ohio inmate's attempt to avoid execution as good a reason as any for us to consider other weighty issues involving death penalty The story is the kind that makes you laugh, even though you know you shouldn't. To make a long story short: An Ohio inmate claims he is too fat to be executed. No, really. Ronald Post, who is scheduled to be put to death Jan. 16, worries the gurney is no match for his 480-plus pounds. He worries his weight and related health issues will pose other problems in any attempt at lethal injection. There is a substantial risk, his lawyers wrote, that any attempt to execute him will result in serious physical and psychological pain to him, as well as an execution involving a torturous and lingering death. The argument isn't as frivolous as it might sound. In 1994, a 400-pound inmate in Washington state was deemed too fat to hang; a judge agreed the risk of decapitation was too high. And weight has been an issue in lethal injections as well. In 2007, it took the state of Ohio 2 hours to get an IV started in an inmate who tipped the scales at 265 pounds. So why should Alabamians care? Well, if current projections are right, the odds are pretty good that Alabama will confront this issue someday. A new report last week estimates that if something doesn't change between now and 2030, close to 63 % of adults in Alabama will be obese. That projection has huge implications for Alabama's future health and its medical costs. It stands to reason that it could also have implications for the future population of Alabama's death row. But the story of Ronald Post also offers an opportunity to consider weighty questions that have nothing to do with the fitness of inmates facing the death penalty -- and everything to do with our fitness to carry out those sentences. Is Alabama's legal system fit enough to ensure that everyone charged with a capital crime is represented ably and agressively at trial? Is it fit enough to be comfortable that people won't be falsely accused and convicted? Is it fit enough to assure that the death penalty will be applied uniformly and fairly? Hardly. Year in and year out in Alabama, more than 60 % of murder victims are black. But 80 % of those awaiting execution were convicted of crimes involving white victims, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, a Montgomery nonprofit that defends condemned prisoners. While only 6 % of murders involve black defendants and white victims, the organization found, 60 % of black prisoners on Alabama's death row were convicted of killing a white person. Were some of them sentenced to death for crimes of unspeakable cruelty? Yes. But there's no consistent pattern that death is reserved for defendants who have committed the worst crimes. Show us one terrible murder that ended with a death sentence, and we can show you dozens of terrible murders that did not. If we are going to execute people, the line between life and death should be linked to the seriousness of the offense. But all too often, the decision seems to rest on such side issues as the status of the accused, the race of the victim, even the location of the crime. One reason our death penalty is applied so haphazardly is because we do a poor job of ensuring the accused have a quality legal defense. The Equal Justice Initiative says more than half of the state's condemned inmates, for instance, were represented by appointed lawyers who could spend no more than $1,000 on out-of-court work to prepare for the trial. That's precious little preparation. Even though improvements have been made, the quality of legal representation still can vary, and there's no system at all for providing lawyers for death row inmates in their later appeals. This layer of extra scrutiny, though sometimes criticized, is often crucial in exposing fundamental injustices in death-penalty cases. The most fundamental injustice of all, of course, would be a wrongful conviction that sent an innocent person to his grave. That, too, is an ongoing concern. At least a half-dozen people sent to Alabama's death row in the past three decades were subsequently cleared. And, in recent years, DNA exonerations across the country have painfully demonstrated the fallibility of our justice system. We now know without question that eyewitnesses can be mistaken, jailhouse snitches can lie, scientific experts can botch their analysis of bullets and hair, and police can extract false confessions. And we know that appeals courts can look at the cases against innocent defendants and see overwhelming evidence of guilt. With Alabama's history of bigotry and injustice, the state must be particularly mindful about the way it administers justice today, especially where questions of race are concerned. Bryan Stevenson, the executive director of Equal Justice Initiative, puts it like this: Would we accept a German death penalty
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., CALIF.
Sept. 25 TEXASexecution Texas executes ex-Army recruiter after 3 reprieves A former Army recruiter failed to win a 4th reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court and was executed Tuesday evening in Texas for participating in the shooting death of a woman he and a buddy met 10 years ago at a bar. Cleve Foster was pronounced dead at 6:43 p.m. CDT, 25 minutes after his lethal injection began and 2 hours after the high court refused to postpone his punishment. 3 times last year the justices stopped his scheduled punishment, once when he was moments from being led to the death chamber. His attorneys argued he was innocent of the 2002 slaying of Nyaneur Pal, a 30-year-old immigrant from Sudan. They also said he had deficient legal help at his trial and in early stages of his appeals and argued his case deserved a closer look. Foster, 48, also was charged but never tried for the rape-slaying a few months earlier of another woman in Fort Worth, Rachel Urnosky. In the seconds before the single lethal dose of pentobarbital began, Foster expressed love to his family and to God. When I close my eyes, I'll be with the father, he said. God is everything. He's my life. Tonight I'll be with him. He did not proclaim innocence or admit guilt. He did turn to relatives of his 2 victims, saying, I don't know what you're going to be feeling tonight. I pray we'll all meet in heaven. As the drugs began taking effect and while he was repeatedly saying he loved his family, he began snoring, then he stopped breathing. 3 of the 9 Supreme Court justices - Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor - would have stopped the punishment, the court indicated in its brief ruling. Last year - in January, April and September - the justices did intervene and halted his execution, once only moments before he could have been led to the death chamber. It's offensive to us the frivolous appeals that were thrown up at the Supreme Court last minute, said Terry Urnosky, whose 22-year-old daughter's death was blamed on Foster and a partner, Sheldon Hale. One stay after another, just delaying the closure our families sought. Urnosky, his wife, and Pal's uncle and aunt stood a few feet away from Foster and watched the execution through a window. It's like ripping off a deep scab each time, preventing the wound from being able to start healing, Urnosky said. Now the wound can start closing. Maurie Levin, a University of Texas law professor representing Foster, argued the Supreme Court needed to block it again in light of their ruling earlier this year in an Arizona case that said an inmate who received poor legal assistance should have his case reviewed. Foster and Ward were sentenced to die for killing Pal, who was known as Mary Pal and was seen talking with the men at a Fort Worth bar hours before her body was found in a ditch off a Tarrant County road. I am as certain of Foster's guilt as I can be without having seen him do it, Ben Leonard, who prosecuted Foster in 2004, said last week. A gun in the motel room where Foster and Ward lived was identified as the murder weapon and was matched to Rachel Urnosky's fatal shooting at her apartment. It wasn't the violent death that both Mary and my daughter experienced, Urnosky's father said. I feel it was way too easy, but it is what it is. Foster blamed Pal's slaying on Ward, one of his recruits who became a close friend. Prosecutors said evidence showed Foster actively participated in her death, offered no credible explanations, lied and gave contradictory stories about his sexual activities with her. The 2 were convicted separately, Ward as the triggerman and Foster under Texas' law of parties, which makes participants equally culpable. Pal's blood and tissue were found on the weapon and DNA evidence showed both men had sex with her. At his trial, prosecutors presented evidence Pal wasn't shot where she was found; that Ward alone couldn't have carried her body to where it was dumped; and that since he and Foster were nearly inseparable and DNA showed both had sex with her, it was clear Foster was involved. A Tarrant County jury agreed, and both received the death sentence. Ward died in 2010 of cancer while on death row. Foster grew up in Henderson, Ky., and spent nearly 2 decades in the Army. Records showed court martial proceedings were started against the sergeant first class and he was denied re-enlistment after allegations he gave alcohol to underage students as a recruiter in Fort Worth and had sex with an underage potential recruit. He'd been a civilian only a short time when the slayings occurred. Foster becomes the 9th condemned individual to be put to death this year in Texas and the 486th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Foster becomes the 247th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry became Governor in 2001. Foster
