August 29
TEXAS----impending execution
Death Watch: Crutsinger Seeks Last-Ditch SCOTUS Appeal----Following the Aug. 21
execution of Larry Swearingen, Crutsinger could be the fifth Texan killed this
year
By all prior accounts, Billy Crutsinger confessed to the double homicide of
Pearl Magouirk and her daughter Pat Syren shortly after he was arrested in
Galveston. Though he consented to the DNA testing used to convict him at his
2003 trial, Crutsinger has continued to fight his death sentence, even as his
options dwindle and his Sept. 4 execution date nears.
On Aug. 26, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Crutsinger's
requests for both an appeal and a stay of execution, with Circuit Judge James
E. Graves dissenting in each case. Days earlier, the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals also denied Crutsinger a stay as well as his request to "adequately
address what it means for a lawyer to be competent when representing a death
row inmate," according to his attorney Lydia Brandt, who told the Chronicle
that her client "never had a competent lawyer" throughout his initial state
appeals.
Brandt, who first took Crutsinger's case in 2008, said his prior appellate
counsel Richard Alley, who died in 2017, was "great as a word processor, who
cut-and-pasted claims from one client's pleading into the next client's
pleading and into the next, and the next, and the next." The question now
before the U.S. Supreme Court, in a petition filed Aug. 27 (in response to the
CCA ruling), is whether his appointment by the trial court violated
Crutsinger's 14th Amendment rights. Brandt asserts that Alley had a
"substantial history in the state and federal courts of a lack of
professionalism, unethical behavior, and an inability to competently represent"
death row clients, based on her review of numerous cases of Alley's from 1999
to 2007. (The SCOTUS filing features several pages of charts outlining issues
that had been "reproduced by Alley verbatim ... or were substantially similar"
to the arguments made in Crutsinger's appeals.)
Under Texas law, those seeking relief from the death penalty are entitled to
representation by "competent counsel," which Brandt now argues Crutsinger was
denied in 2003, when Alley was appointed to his case; his rights are now
further infringed because he has "no avenue to present documented evidence" of
Alley's incompetence. Graves agreed in his dissent: "Crutsinger must prove his
claim of ineffective assistance of counsel to ... establish that
'investigative, expert, or other services are reasonably necessary' to then be
able to prove his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. Such a circular
application is illogical." On Aug. 27, Brandt confirmed that she's working on
an additional request for relief from SCOTUS to be filed in response to the
5CA's "adverse decision" Monday night.
Without such relief, Crutsinger will be the 5th man executed by the state this
year, following the Aug. 21 death of Larry Swearingen, whose final motion,
filed with SCOTUS that morning, claimed the Texas Department of Public Safety
had "recanted and revised" "critical evidence" used to convict him. According
to his co-counsel at the Innocence Project, DPS "provided inaccurate testimony"
and has "conceded that its trace analyst should not have testified that the 2
pieces of pantyhose entered into evidence" – one the murder weapon used to
strangle 19-year-old Melissa Trotter in December 1998; the other allegedly
found in Swearingen's residence – were a "'unique' match or a match 'to the
exclusion of all other pantyhose.'" SCOTUS denied the motion that evening.
Earlier this month, however, the 5CA granted Dexter Johnson a last-minute stay
based on new arguments that he is mentally unfit to be executed. It's the
second stay Johnson's received this year; in April, a federal judge barred his
execution to give his new counsel more time to review the case. Johnson was
found guilty of capital murder in 2007 for the robbery, rape, and double
homicide of Maria Aparece and Huy Ngo.
But Huntsville isn't seeing a lull any time soon; Mark Soliz is scheduled to
die Sept. 10, with another 9 men set for lethal injection before the year ends.
A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s
independent news source for almost 40 years, expressing the community’s
political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene.
Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with
independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider
making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our
journalism on stands.
(source: Austin Chronicle)
***************************
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----44
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----562
Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
45---------Sept. 4----------------Billy Crutsinger--------563
46---------Sept. 10---------------Mark Anthony Soliz------564
47---------Sept. 25---------------Robert Sparks-----------565
48---------Oct. 2-----------------Stephen Barbee----------566
49---------Oct. 10----------------Randy Halprin-----------567
50---------Oct. 16----------------Randall Mays------------568
51---------Oct. 30----------------Ruben Gutierrez---------569
52---------Nov. 6-----------------Justen Hall-------------570
53---------Nov. 13----------------Patrick Murphy----------571
54---------Nov. 20----------------Rodney Reed-------------572
55---------Dec. 11----------------Travis Runnels----------573
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
CONNECTICUT:
Judge rules life sentence too “cruel” for former death row inmates
A federal court judge has ruled that Connecticut’s 11 former death row inmates
can sue the state for causing them “cruel and unusual punishment” when they
were resentenced to life terms.
In the case of Richard Reynolds, sentenced to death in 1995 for killing a
Waterbury police officer in 1992, U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill ruled
that Reynolds confinement for the rest of his life violates his rights under
the equal protection clause of the constitution.
In 2015, the state Supreme Court declared Connecticut’s death penalty to be
unconstitutional and Gov. Dannel Malloy signed a law ordering the state’s 11
death row inmates to be resentenced to life in prison without parole.
In his 57-page decision, Underhill relied partly on the comments of state
legislators who spoke in support of abolishing the death penalty to support his
conclusion.
“Life in prison is actually worse or even more punitive than being put to
death,” said state Sen. Joe Crisco Jr. of Woodbridge at the time.
“How one retains his sanity in an environment like that is incomprehensible,”
said Sen. Edith Prague of Columbia.
The judge ruled that the words from legislators, among others, showed
“overwhelmingly a clear legislative intent to punish death row inmates through
more restrictive conditions.”
Underhill issued a permanent injunction enjoining the state from placing
Reynolds in high security status which includes having him alone in his cell
for more than 21 hours a day, from being segregated from other inmates and not
being able to have visitors.
The state has 30 days to submit a status report to the judge detailing how they
have complied with his order.
Bridgeport State’s Attorney John Smriga, whose office prosecuted former death
row inmates Russell Peeler and Richard Roszkowski, said he is still reviewing
the decision.
(source: Connecticut Post)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Kirk Kovach: Abolish death penalty to prevent one from being wrongfully killed
Max Weber, a pre-eminent 19th-century political scientist, described the state
as “a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate
use of physical force within a given territory.”
In no way is that more clearly presented than in the exercise of capital
punishment. The death penalty is an anachronism, a relic of the past that ought
to be left in the past.
The United States stands alone in the West as the only nation to continue
executing its own citizens. Many of the states within our nation have ended the
practice, but those that continue it still execute inmates regularly.
But new revelations in separate cases last week in North Carolina should give
us pause, as they are indicative of the inescapable flaw of the death penalty:
innocent people die. In Raleigh, James Blackmon recently had all of his charges
dismissed. He spent the past 30 years incarcerated for the 1979 murder of a
college student. He didn’t do it.
The only evidence against him was his own confession, solicited while he sat as
a mentally ill patient in a Raleigh hospital.
During interviews with police, “he was wearing a Superman cape,” while he “also
spoke of being able to cause earthquakes and compared himself to Dracula.” The
only thing James was guilty of was being “eager to please,” as his attorney put
it.
In a similar case in Greenville, Dontae Sharpe was released after serving 24
years for a 1994 murder. A key witness in the trial recanted her testimony,
throwing a wrench into the narrative of the crime. In these cases, the men were
not slated for execution. It is a miracle that they weren’t.
In North Carolina, 142 people are on death row. Of them, 63% are minorities.
That number alone should give us pause, but another questions arises: how did
those convictions take place?
The Center for Death Penalty Litigation reports that an inordinate number of
black jurors were struck than white jurors. That is to say, all things the
same, if a juror was black, he was more likely removed than an equally
qualified white juror.
The fundamental idea behind our criminal justice system, a jury of our peers,
is often abridged.
The men recently released were not on death row, but plenty more are.
As a pure matter of statistics, there are people poised to be executed who did
not commit a crime, and plenty more who have already died at the hands of the
state.
The case for abolishing the death penalty is typically argued by
liberal-leaning voices in American politics, but the tide seems to be changing
in that regard.
In New Orleans, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty is holding its
first meeting. Criminal justice reform is becoming less of a third rail to
discuss in both major parties. The thinking is clear: how can we execute
someone with the prospect that he may be innocent?
For many, admission of guilt is enough to justify a sentence, but we see in the
case of James Blackmon, for example, that these admissions are not always
reliable. The primary concern of the state in this regard should be to protect
its citizens.
Life behind bars keeps violent offenders out of communities, but it also gives
technology time to advance and provides more ways to exonerate those imprisoned
wrongfully.
One person wrongfully killed is one too many.
(asource: Opinion; Kirk Kovach is from Rowan County and writes for
politicsnc.com----The Salisbury Post)
TENNESSEE:
How conservatives are making the best case against the death penalty----There
are many reasons to oppose capital punishment. People of faith have reasons to
be against it. So do people who see the inequities in the system.
Amy Lawrence is a conservative.
She has worked for Republican campaigns in Tennessee from the state legislature
to Congress. She used to support the death penalty. She now does not.
“I had gone back and forth on it for years,” said Lawrence, who now heads up
the Tennessee chapter of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, “but
when I started looking at whether it made practical sense, it just didn’t add
up to my conservative values.”
Lawrence may seem to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Tennessee has
executed five people in the last year with another scheduled in December and 2
more in 2020.
Republican Gov. Bill Lee has shown no interest in intervening either to stop an
execution or end the practice of capital punishment.
But conservatives who oppose the death penalty insist that they are on the
rise. Republican-sponsored bills to abolish the death penalty came up in 11
states this year, according to Hannah Cox, the national manager for
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.
New Hampshire abolished the death penalty with Republican support, though over
the objections of the state’s Republican governor.
There are many reasons to oppose capital punishment
Conservatives who oppose the death penalty do so for a multitude of reasons.
Libertarians believe it is not the government’s place to kill people, social
conservatives can’t square killing people on one hand and arguing against
killing the unborn on the other, while uniting all of these strands is a basic
distrust that the government can get it right.
Since 1973, 166 people across the country have been exonerated from death row,
according to the Death Penalty Information Center, many of them decades after
being sent there.
In addition to the well-documented racial inequities, the death penalty is
increasingly geographically concentrated. A 2013 DPIC study found that 2% of
the counties in the United States account for a majority of the country’s death
sentences since 1976, due to applicable laws, prosecutorial discretion and
other factors.
However, entire states are on the hook for the bill once that person moves onto
death row, and that ends up more expensive than life without parole.
“It’s a failed big government program that does not use our tax dollars
efficiently,” Cox said.
Attorney General Barr: Barr's Mueller report rollout was disgraceful. I can't
believe I miss Jeff Sessions.
Tennessee is no exception to the rule. Of the 56 people presently on the
state’s death row, 33 were convicted in West Tennessee and 26 are from Shelby
County. Nine were convicted in Middle Tennessee and 5 are from Davidson County.
14 were convicted in East Tennessee and 7 are from Knox and Hamilton counties.
This, Cox points out, while the violent crime rate in the state remains above
the national average, according to the latest statistics.
The argument that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime has always been
shaky at best.
Tennessee had no executions during a 40-year period
“I have a list of executions in Cook County beginning in 1840,” the legendary
defense lawyer Clarence Darrow said in 1924. “… Ninety poor unfortunate men
have given up their lives to stop murder in Chicago. Ninety men have been
hanged by the neck until dead, because of the ancient superstition that in some
way hanging one man keeps another from committing a crime.”
Darrow is hardly a conservative, for the purposes of this column, but he
nevertheless authored perhaps the best argument against the death penalty in
American history in the Leopold and Loeb trial.
Tennessee has nearly turned against the death penalty before. Gov. Frank
Clement attempted to push for the abolition of executions in 1965, mostly on
religious grounds, saying, “Can anyone deny that human judgment is inadequate?”
The effort failed by 1 vote in the legislature, and Clement subsequently
commuted the sentences of the 5 prisoners on death row. The state didn’t hold a
single execution from 1960 until 2000. To my knowledge, no one missed it.
Support for the death penalty was something I was taught as a child, and I
didn’t question it. It only seemed fair and right that people who were capable
of doing the worst to other human beings pay that price themselves.
I have not been comfortable with that sentence for a number of years, though,
and this recent burst of executions has made it impossible for me to avoid.
My faith as I have come to understand it — that Jesus died so we don’t have to
— has served as a guide. But as a person who believes deeply in drawing
conclusions from the available facts no matter where they lead, I have decided
there is nothing fair about the death penalty at all. It is shot through with
arbitrary variables that guarantee misfires, mistakes and miscarriages of
justice.
Anyone who would maintain a system that kills an innocent person in order to
make way for the probability that it will kill the guilty even most of the time
should challenge their own priorities.
Support for the death penalty is a feeling. It feels right. But feelings are no
way to make government policy.
I was wrong, and so is the state of Tennessee.
(source: Opinion; Alex Hubbard is assistant opinion editor for The Tennessean,
where this column originally appeared----USA Today)
********************
DA Glenn Funk Seeks to Drop Death Penalty in Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman Case ----
Funk says 'overt racial bias has no place in the justice system' and
prosecutors must never mislead
Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk stood in a courtroom Wednesday
morning and told Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins that Nashville death row
prisoner Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman should not be executed next year because of
misconduct by the prosecutor in his 1987 case, including racial discrimination
in jury selection.
Funk submitted a proposed order that would vacate Abdur'Rahman's death sentence
but keep him in prison for the rest of his life. Abdur'Rahman and his attorney,
Bradley MacLean, signed the proposed order in court and Watkins will likely
rule on whether to accept it by tomorrow.
“Overt racial bias has no place in the justice system,” Funk told the court,
adding that “the pursuit of justice is incompatible with deception. Prosecutors
must never be dishonest to or mislead defense attorneys, courts or juries.”
Abdur’Rahman, a black man, has been on death row for 32 years, since he and an
accomplice were convicted of killing Patrick Daniels and stabbing Norma Jean
Norman during a robbery. Norman survived, and her 2 daughters — both of whom
were present during the attack — sat in the front row of the court gallery on
Wednesday. The remarkable development comes less than 2 weeks after the state
of Tennessee executed its fifth prisoner in just over a year. Abdur'Rahman was
scheduled to be executed on April 16, 2020.
In a 2016 motion, MacLean argues that then-Nashville Assistant District
Attorney John Zimmerman — who is now a prosecutor in Rutherford County — had
discriminatory intent during jury selection when he struck 2 prospective
African American jurors. Pointing to contradictions between the prosecution’s
stated reasons for striking those jurors and “the truth derived from the record
and the prosecution’s own notes,” MacLean argues that Zimmerman was relying on
“false, racist stereotyping” of black people. MacLean argues that in the case
of one prospective black male juror, Zimmerman falsely claimed the man
“appeared uneducated” and “had a reduced intellect.”
MacLean reiterated those details in court on Wednesday, adding that Zimmerman's
notes from the trial further exposed a racist strategy. In a filing from this
week, MacLean notes that prosecutors identified each prospective juror by race
and, using their own ranking system, "ranked the African American jurors whom
they struck as equal to or higher than most of the White jurors whom they did
not strike."
But the problems with Abdur'Rahman's case don't end there. His defense attorney
has since admitted that he failed to do his job in 1987 and told the ABA
Journal in 2011 that “Abu-Ali is on death row because of me." Zimmerman also
suppressed evidence the defense was entitled to see.
As MacLean noted in court Wednesday, Funk himself is already on record
condemning Zimmerman for racist comments about jury selection. In a November
2015 letter to the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference, Davidson
County District Attorney Glenn Funk highlights and disavows comments Zimmerman
made at an annual conference. In one instance, Funk writes, Zimmerman said “he
would strike jurors with a 37215 area code, an affluent part of town, if the
case involved people from ‘the inner city’ because ‘in Nashville, rich people
don’t care about what happens in East Nashville.’”
Funk goes on: “While the racial implications in the previous comment were
inferential, his next statements were blatant advice to use race in jury
selection. Specifically, Mr. Zimmerman described prosecuting a conspiracy case
with all Hispanic defendants. He stated he wanted an all African-American jury,
because ‘all Blacks hate Mexicans.’”
More recently, Zimmerman — who is now a prosecutor in Rutherford County — was
accused in a lawsuit of targeting Egyptian business owners, falsely claiming
they were selling illegal “marijuana derivatives.” All charges related to the
bogus busts — known as “Operation Candy Crush” — were later dropped.
On Wednesday morning, Funk emphasized that Abdur'Rahman's guilt was not in
question and said he'd spoken to the victims and their family members before
the hearing.
"Last week and yesterday I spoke with George Daniels, the brother of murder
victim Patrick Daniels," Funk said. "He advised that he would still like to
'burn his ass' and in a separate comment he stated that he wants this case to
be over to finally have closure. He vowed 32 years ago to honor his brother by
seeing this case to the end. I also spoke with Norma Jean Norman last weekend
and yesterday who was the victim, in count 2, of the stabbing. Her position is
that she is at peace and has forgiven Mr. Abdur'Rahman but she does not want
him to ever be released from prison. I spoke with [Norman's 2 daughters] and
they still bear the emotional scars of being children cowering in a bedroom and
hearing the murder of Patrick Daniels and then having to see their mother crawl
into their bedroom with the butcher knife still stuck in her back ... These
women do not exactly share their mother's forgiveness of Mr. Abdur'Rahman but
they are supportive of her position."
He went on to say, however, that "a prosecutor's job is to pursue justice and
to do so" with honesty and integrity. With his proposed order, Funk conceded
that Zimmerman had fallen far short of that standard and refused to stand by
his conduct.
Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, MacLean said the murder of
Daniels, the attack on Norman and the trauma done to her daughters as well as
other family members "cannot be mitigated." He praised Funk's move to vacate
the death penalty.
“Fortunately today, the district attorney general performed his rightful
function," MacLean said. "It takes moral courage to correct a 32-year-old
wrong. It takes political courage to correct a wrong for which you are not
responsible. For that kind of courage, Mr. Abdur’Rahman and his entire legal
team are eternally grateful.”
(source: Nashville Scene)
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