[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, OHIO, US MIL., ORE., COLO., KY.
Oct. 23 USA: Guantanamo defense: No war crimes if no war A U.S. military war tribunal is weighing a question that might seem better suited for a history class than a courtroom: How long has the United States been at war? The question is more than academic for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, whose lawyers are appearing before the tribunal this week at the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba, to seek the dismissal of war crimes charges that were approved by a Pentagon-appointed legal official. Al-Nashiri faces trial in a special tribunal for war-time offenses known as a military commission for allegedly orchestrating the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 as well as attacks on 2 other ships. But his lawyers say that since the U.S. wasn't at war at that time, the 47-year-old shouldn't be tried at Guantanamo. The fact of going to war is a decision by the political branches, either Congress or the president or both, attorney Richard Kammen said Monday. It's not something to be arrived at retroactively by a bureaucrat who is not appointed by Congress because it has huge consequences. Al-Nashiri's lawyers say that the U.S. wasn't at war until after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and then-President George W. Bush did not certify the existence of hostilities of any kind in Yemen until September 2003. The motion for dismissal is one of 21 matters set for consideration at a hearing that started Tuesday at the base, where the U.S. holds 166 prisoners, most of whom have not been charged with any crime. The hearing is scheduled to run through Thursday but officials were trying to condense the agenda because of the approach of Tropical Storm Sandy, which was heading north in the Caribbean Sea on a track to reach southeastern Cuba on Thursday. Al-Nashiri refused to attend the hearing, telling a legal official at the prison that he was boycotting to protest the use of belly chains to move him from his cell to court. The chief prosecutor, Army Gen. Mark Martins, argued that he should be required to attend at least so that he can be questioned about his motivations in open court in case the matter is ever reviewed in later appeals. The judge, Army Col. James Pohl, has previously said al-Nashiri can waive his right to attend pretrial hearing, as he did last week in the Sept. 11 case. Lawyers for al-Nashiri have said he opposes restraints that remind him of the harsh treatment he endured previously in U.S. custody as well as because he feels the proceedings are pointless since the government could detain him indefinitely even if he were acquitted. If he is acquitted he does life without parole in Guantanamo. If he's convicted he gets life without parole or death in Guantanamo, Kammen said. It's very easy to see somebody saying 'Why do I want to participate in this? I've got no real stake in the outcome.' Other items on this week's agenda include whether the U.S. government should turn over information about a man killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2002 who was identified in some media reports as the mastermind of the Cole attack. If he was killed based on the fact that he was the mastermind behind the USS Cole that's relevant, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes, his military lawyer. Al-Nashiri, who was born in Saudi Arabia to a Yemeni father and a Saudi mother, has been held at Guantanamo since September 2006. An allegedly senior member of al-Qaida, he was held for four years in the CIA's secret network of overseas prisons, where he was subjected to the enhanced interrogation program that included at least two instances of the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding. The government has said he was also threatened with a gun and a power drill because interrogators believed he was withholding information about possible attacks against the U.S. In November, he was arraigned on charges that include terrorism and murder for the attack on the Cole, which killed 17 sailors and wounded 37, as well as for orchestrating the October 2002 bombing of the French tanker MV Limburg, which killed one crewman, and a failed January 2000 plot on the USS The Sullivans. He could get the death penalty at a trial that his lawyers say is at least a year away. In making the case for the military tribunal, prosecutors lay out the history of what they see as al-Qaida's escalating war against the U.S., starting with an August 1996 declaration by Osama bin Laden calling for the murder of U.S. personnel serving on the Arabian peninsula, though it wasn't until a week after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that Congress and Bush approved an authorization for military force. Al-Nashiri's lawyers say that former President Bill Clinton repeatedly noted that the country was at peace in the aftermath of the Cole attack. A group of retired admirals and generals who served as senior military legal officials called for the military charges to be dismissed and for
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, OHIO
Sept. 26 USA (PUERTO RICO)possible federal death penalty Puerto Rico jury deliberates death penalty case in highly anticipated verdict A jury in Puerto Rico was deliberating Wednesday whether a convicted drug dealer should be executed for killing a girlfriend who was an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. It could be a landmark case for the U.S. territory, where the death penalty is constitutionally illegal and where the last execution occurred in 1927 by hanging. Although the local jury has the last word, the case against Edison Burgos Montes is being tried in a federal court, which allows for the death penalty. If the jury opts for capital punishment, Burgos would be executed on the U.S. mainland in a state selected by the Bureau of Prisons, said Lymarie Llovet, spokeswoman for Puerto Rico's U.S. Attorney's Office. If the jury rejects the death penalty, Burgos would be sentenced to life imprisonment, she said. Burgos was found guilty in late August of killing Madelyn Semidey Morales in July 2005. The jury began deliberating Tuesday morning and requested clarification Wednesday on several aggravating factors presented by prosecutors. In addition, an alternate juror replaced one juror who was dismissed for medical reasons. As they deliberated, dozens of people held a vigil outside the federal courthouse to protest the case. Among those are members of the United Evangelical Church, which condemned the death penalty. Today we are allergic to forgiveness and to the respect for life, the church said in a statement. The case also has stirred anger among Puerto Ricans who resent U.S. involvement in what they say are local affairs. Julio Muriente, co-president of a political party that favors independence, accused U.S. authorities of ignoring Puerto Rico's constitution. The U.S. government unilaterally imposes its will through the federal court, he said. The victim's mother, Georgina Morales, told El Nuevo Dia newspaper when the trial began in April that she does not believe in capital punishment. It's not sufficient punishment for me, said Morales. I want the justice system to impose the punishment, but I want it to be prison. Morales and other relatives have since declined to speak to the media, though the victim???s father, Carlos Semidey, gave news outlets a handwritten note this week lamenting that his daughter's body had not been found. If anyone knows where we can find her remains, please contact the necessary agencies so we can give her a Christian burial, it said. Madelyn Semidey also left behind 3 young daughters. Puerto Rico juries previously rejected death sentences for federal cases in 2005 and 2006. The U.S. Attorney's Office expects that 2 other death penalty cases will go to trial in January, Llovet said. In an effort to fight crime, Puerto Rico's government has asked federal authorities to assume prosecution of certain cases, including carjackings, drive-by shootings and weapon possessions. The island of nearly 4 million people reported a record 1,117 homicides last year. Puerto Rico banned the death penalty in 1929, 2 years after farmworker Pascual Ramos was hanged for beheading his boss with a machete. Prior to that, the U.S. military government had executed 23 people, all black and most of them poor or illiterate, after troops seized the island in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. When Puerto Rico approved its 1st constitution in 1952, it reiterated that capital punishment was illegal and constituted a human rights violation. But federal prosecutors have continued to seek the death penalty in certain cases. In 2000, Puerto Rican Judge Salvador Casellas ruled that applying the death penalty would violate Puerto Rico???s constitution as well as the federal statute concerning its status as a self-governing entity. His decision was overturned in 2001 by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, which ruled that Puerto Rico is subject to federal law. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld that decision. Puerto Rico joins 17 U.S. states that do not apply the death penalty. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Ohio woman pleads guilty in gruesome burning death In a move that would allow her to escape the death penalty, an Ohio woman pleaded guilty Wednesday in the gruesome killing of a woman found covered in burns and wailing in agony on the side of a rural road. As part of a deal with prosecutors, 20-year-old Katrina Marie Culberson pleaded guilty to 1 count each of aggravated murder, kidnapping and aggravated arson. Muskingum County Prosecutor Mike Haddox said that his office offered the agreement to Culberson in exchange for her guilty plea and on the condition that she testify against 2 others charged in the killing of 29-year-old Celeste Fronsman, of Akron. On Aug. 26, a driver found Fronsman on a road northeast of Zanesville in eastern Ohio. She had been raped
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, OHIO
Oct. 13 USA: Life after death row In 1992 Ray Krone, a former sergeant in the US Air Force, was sentenced to death row for the murder of Kimberly Ancona, a bar manager found stabbed to death in a restaurant near his home in Arizona. 10 years later, after running newly developed DNA tests on the victim's clothes, he was found innocent and freed. Krone was the 100th prisoner in the US to be exonerated from death row. Now a campaigner against the death penalty, he describes the long fight to clear his name Being arrested was quite a surprise. On the day they found the body, they brought me in to the police station and questioned me for 3 hours. I told them everything I knew and thought that would be the end of it. The next day they brought me to the police station to take blood and hair samples, as well as dental casts of my teeth, and they questioned me for yet another three hours. But again, I told them the truth. I knew I had nothing to hide. The next day was New Years Eve, December 31, 1991; I'd just got home and was in my driveway, getting out of my car, when all of a sudden a van screeched up behind me, the doors flew open and people were shouting Freeze! Don't move! Armed officers in full riot gear spilled out of the van and arrested me right there. Without any real evidence or any scientific support for it, the lead detective decided that I was guilty, and he acted on it quickly. I worked at the post office and it wasn't as if I was going anywhere. But within 2 days the analysis had come back confirming that my fingerprints, footprints and hair had been found on the victims body. That stuff couldn't possibly have come back from the lab in 2 days. I knew the fingerprints and strands of hair at the crime scene weren't mine. The footprints were of size 9 shoes and I'm a size 11. DNA testing wasn't as prevalent then as it is now and they simply said that whatever prints didnt match mine had nothing to do with the murder. The size 9 footprints at the crime scene were not only found in the kitchen where the murder weapon a butcher's knife was taken from, but they were also on the floor tiles next to where the body was discovered. I found out later that whoever made the initial police report had changed the killer's footprints to a size 11 to make it fit my profile, and when they went to my house they couldn't match them to any of my shoes. But then they found a local medical examiner who would testify that the bite marks on her body matched my teeth. It didn't matter what I said after that. It was like the frustration you feel when you're a kid and your parents blame you for something your brother or sister did, only this time it was a sharper intensity of pain and lasted for a lot longer. I was in contact with my sister regularly. I would tell her: Don't worry about it, I'll be out of here any minute. 7 months went by and I was put on trial for murder, but I was still telling her it would all work out. Then I got convicted and sent to death row. That was when it became a heck of a burden on my mom and my family. I was the oldest in the family, and had always been the responsible one my folks knew to trust me if I said everything would be all right. Death row changed that. When you get sent to death row you're in a little cell the size of most people's bathroom and youre kept separate from all the other inmates. You can see them in the distance and yell out to them, but you don't have any physical contact. I realised in a short time that if I was going to fight the system Id better get to know it. I started going to the law library, reading up on case law. Eventually it became known that the prosecutor had been withholding evidence and the Arizona Supreme Court granted me a new trial. The judge convicted me again, but said that there was lingering doubt of my guilt and sentenced me to life imprisonment instead of death row. In 2001 a new law was passed making it easier for inmates to request DNA testing. The police still had items of the victim's clothing so I asked the judge if I could have them tested. The prosecutor objected, as did the attorney generals office, but nevertheless the judge ordered that it go ahead. The Phoenix police department put some of the DNA into the nationwide data bank, which is where the DNA of convicted felons all over the US is stored, and it came back with a match. It was a man who had a history of sexual assaults on women and children and lived 500 feet from the bar in which the murder took place. I remember that day clearly from start to finish. It was April 8, 2002. A Friday. It began as just another day in prison but at noon I was told my attorney was on the phone. He asked me how I was doing and I said: Oh you know, fine, just another day in paradise. He laughed and said: What are you hungry for, Ray? and I said that I guessed I'd eat whatever was in the chow hall. But he kept on and said: No really, you want steak, seafood? How about a Margarita? I
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, OHIO, LA., KAN., N.H.
June 8 USA: US: Exonerations Speed Change of Mind After more than a decade of DNA tests, appeals and waiting on death row, Texas prisoner Michael Blair is likely to be exonerated soon, further undermining public confidence in the infallibility of the U.S. death penalty system. Recent extensive DNA tests on microscopic hair samples established no link between Blair and a child who was murdered in 1993, according to state prosecutors. It is expected that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will grant Blair a new trial and that state prosecutors will then dismiss charges against him because they believe there is no evidence to convict him. There is no good faith argument to support the current conviction in light of the facts and the law..., John Roach, chief prosecutor for Collin County, said in an open letter to the press and public on May 23. All the DNA pointed toward his innocence, Philip Wischkaemper, Blair's attorney, told IPS. Blair -- convicted largely on the basis of microscopic examination of hair samples -- was nearly executed in 1999. This case starkly shows that the system makes mistakes and that those mistakes can have chilling consequences. Even more troubling is the reality that the kind of evidence that led to Michael Blair's wrongful conviction is used in countless cases nationwide every day, said Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, which assisted in the Blair case. The Innocence Project is a national organisation dedicated to exonerating people using rapidly advancing DNA techniques. The 1st DNA exoneration in the U.S. was less than 20 years ago. A key factor in convicting Blair of murder was bias against him because of his criminal history as a child sex offender, Wischkaemper said. 7-year-old Ashley Estell was found strangled in 1993 after being abducted from a busy playground in Plano, Texas. There were no sightings of her with him (Blair), no linkage with him, Wischkaemper said. Blair admitted abusing children -- when exonerated he will remain in prison for life for child sex offences -- but denied he had ever murdered. The crime was so emotionally charged that the trial had to be moved 300 miles away. At the time, everyone wanted to kill Michael Blair, Wischkaemper said. The legislature reacted by passing special laws, the so-called Ashley's Laws'', aimed at better tracking convicted child sex offenders and imposing stiffer sentences. If Blair is officially exonerated, he will join 129 other people who since 1973 have been found innocent while awaiting execution on death row in the U.S. These are not simply cases in which the defendant's sentence was reduced and he was later released. Nor are these cases where a subjective judgment was made that the defendants were probably innocent, even though they were found guilty, Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre (DPIC), said recently. Rather, the justice system had reviewed the death sentences and concluded that the people could not have been convicted of even the slightest offence related to the crimes, he added. Juries and judges in the U.S., apparently reflecting a growing public unease, are handing down significantly fewer death sentences today compared to a decade ago. The pace of exonerations has sharply increased in recent years and this has raised doubts about the reliability of the whole system, the DPIC said, commenting on this trend. I would say innocence is the most important issue in moving mainstream Americans away from the death penalty, Judi Caruso, director of Voices United for Justice, an abolition group, told IPS. They still believe that it's a moral punishment that someone should be put to death. But they're re-evaluating the system and considering that it is broken -- and broken beyond repair, Caruso added. The Innocence Project, begun in 1992, focuses exclusively on exonerations through DNA testing. It has helped free 16 people from death row. Other state-based innocence projects and individual attorneys have been behind most other exonerations in the U.S., many of which have not involved DNA evidence. Their work was crucial as only between five and 10 percent of criminal cases have evidence available that can be DNA-tested, according to the Innocence Project. The evidence may often be too old -- some people on death row were convicted of their crimes 20 or more years ago -- missing or inadequate. In 2001, the Centre on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern Law School analysed the cases of 86 of those exonerated and released from death row and found there were many common reasons. These included false testimony, mistaken identity and police and prosecutorial misconduct. Poor legal representation and false testimony is what kept Bo Levon Jones, a black man wrongly convicted of murder, on death row in North Carolina for 15 years, until May this year. Jones received two (court)-appointed attorneys that spent virtually no time or effort
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news---USA, OHIO, MISS., PENN., LA.
June 6 USA: Unabomber's brother, victim forge unique friendship If Gary Wright wanted nothing to do with anyone with the last name of Kaczynski, few would blame him. Even David Kaczynski would understand. After all, it was Kaczynski's brother, Ted, who tried to kill Wright with a bomb outside his Utah office in 1987. The blast sent him flying through the air, and more than 200 pieces of shrapnel tore into his body, some shards severing nerves in his left arm. But David Kaczynski and Wright have forged the type of bond that has taken them canoeing in the Adirondacks together and touring the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. They also travel the nation for speaking engagements about pain and reconciliation. He helped me see that I could reconnect, Kaczynski told CNN. There was hope that things would get better and not worse. Gary was, in some sense, my psychological lifeline through this terrible ordeal. Kaczynski recalls the moment just a few days before Thanksgiving in 1996 when he finally called Wright. He took a deep breath before dialing the phone number. The answering machine picked up. Hello, you've reached the Wright house at the wrong time, please leave a message. Kaczynski left a voice mail telling Wright that he was Ted Kaczynski's brother and that he would call back in a few days. Unlikely Friendship CNN's American Morning explores the unique relationship between the Unabomber's brother and a victim. It was David Kaczynski who earlier that year turned in his own brother to federal authorities as a suspect in the Unabomber attacks. Ted Kaczynski had just been arrested for carrying out a nearly 20-year bombing crusade against technology. He killed 3 people with his homemade bombs and wounded more than 20 others. Wright was the Unabomber's 11th victim. He was severely wounded outside his computer company in 1987 when he bent down to pick up a piece of lumber in the parking lot. It turned out to be a bomb planted by Ted Kaczynski. For some reason, I thought someone had come around the corner of the building and shot me with a shotgun, Wright said. When David Kaczynski and Wright finally spoke by phone, Kaczynski offered his apologies and then braced himself for Wright to lash out in anger. It's not your fault, Wright recalls telling Kaczynski. You really don't have to carry that [burden]. An intense feeling of relief overwhelmed Kaczynski. He had written letters to every victim's family. Only a few responded. And those who did had not offered Wright's warmth and compassion. The 2 men didn't know it at the time, but it was the beginning of their unlikely friendship. Kaczynski and Wright recently detailed the evolution of their relationship for CNN during a speaking appearance in Miami. I have learned things that no other victim of these set of crimes will ever know, and it's because of that relationship, Wright said. There's more knowing you have a good family that raised this person [Ted] and that one person inside the family doesn't define the whole family. They say that after their initial conversation, the phone calls became more frequent. Their families soon met. In fact, Wright traveled to New York and met David Kaczynski's mother and sat down in her living room, thumbing through family photo albums, looking at the childhood pictures and hearing stories of the boy who would become the Unabomber, the very man who tried to kill him. I've been able to see things, see photos that were outside of the norm, Wright said. See a family that was a family unit before something went wrong. In 1999, Wright and Kaczynski started traveling the country together telling their story. Thousands of miles on the road have developed a brotherhood born of tragedy. They admit their relationship is unique. There is a lot of pain for me with the word 'brother,' a lot of emotion, Kaczynski said. But I see Gary as my brother. Wright added, I don't take that lightly, either. I don't use that word, 'brother,' lightly. Kaczynski says Wright has not replaced Ted as his older brother, but Wright has clearly filled in. David Kaczynski says he doesn't know what his brother would think of the friendship. Ted Kaczynski has not spoken to his family since April 3, 1996, the day he was arrested. He's serving a life sentence at the supermax federal penitentiary in Florence, Colorado. David writes him letters on his birthday and holidays. Their mother writes Ted every month, he said. But a return letter has never arrived. Kaczynski and Wright see each other only a few times a year, typically when they give a speaking engagement. Kaczynski lives in New York; Wright still lives in Utah where he now works as a technical sales engineer in the biopharmaceutical and medical device industries. But both men say dealing with the aftermath of the Unabomber tragedy would have been a much lonelier road without this newfound brotherhood. I liken it to like World War II vets. They went through
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, OHIO, UTAH, CALIF., N.C., VA., N.M.
April 4 USA: Majority Of Americans Regard Death Penalty As Just Punishment Nationwide support for the death penalty has waned since 2003, though most Americans still regard it as a just punishment. The results of a Harris Interactive poll published in March indicate a majority of Americans think the death penalty poses no deterrent to crime, and innocent people have sometimes been convicted of murder. However, the poll shows most do not favor a decrease in the number of executions. Michael Miller, minister for United Campus Ministry-Wesley, said he opposes capital punishment on moral grounds. Miller, history lecturer, said people should be against the death penalty because an innocent person could be put to death and it is used disproportionately against poor and uneducated individuals. I think it's appropriate to punish people; I think it's even more than appropriate to rehabilitate people, Miller said. Clearly there are people who are so antisocial, so broken, so dangerous, they have to be kept from the mainstream of society. But I don't see anything in the teachings of Jesus that justifies the death penalty. Texas led the nation in executions with 26 last year, twice as many as all other states combined. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 405 people have been put to death in Texas since 1976. Virginia comes in second with 98 executions. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said capital punishment is more costly to taxpayers than other sentencing options. Dieter did not take a stand for or against the death penalty, but said if the people want it they ought to implement it justly. To do it right you need higher paid lawyers, better qualified lawyers, full appeals, experts allowed, DNA testing, psychiatric experts, mental retardation experts, et cetera - it is expensive, Dieter said. He said attempts at low cost implementations of the death penalty fail because such cases are likely to be overturned on constitutional grounds and result in new trials. According to a Death Penalty Information Center fact sheet, an average of 5 people were released from death row each year from 2000 to 2007 because of evidence of their innocence. The fact sheet cites studies indicating the odds of receiving a death sentence in North Carolina can rise by 3 1/2 times among offenders whose victims are white. A California study found people convicted for killing whites are about 3 times more likely to receive a death sentence than those who murdered blacks. Those convicted for murdering Latinos are 4 times less likely to receive the death penalty than if he or she murdered a white person. According to the fact sheet, 41 % of Texas death row inmates in 2006 were black. Black people comprise 12 % of the state's population. That's the problem with the death penalty. It tends to value lives differently based on a whole bunch of factors that have nothing to do with the crime, Dieter said. All dead people are not equal in the eyes of the death penalty. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Web site, Harris County leads all other counties with 120 death row inmates and Dallas County comes in 2nd with 46. District Attorney Sherri Tibbe said there are no death row inmates in Hays County, but she has one pending capital murder case. Tibbe said she has not called for the death penalty during her tenure. She declined to comment directly about whether or not her office would seek the death penalty in any case. It's the law in the state of Texas - the death penalty is an option, Tibbe said. It's always something you would consider as a prosecutor ... You do have the discretion, but you always consider the full range of punishments - the death penalty or life without parole when yo're looking at a capital murder case. You make the decision on a case-by-case basis. Dieter said because death penalty cases are expensive to pursue, district attorneys in counties with small budgets do not tend to ask for the punishment. He said the death penalty has more to do with politics than criminal justice. Dieter said some district attorneys, as elected officials, pursue the death penalty because it may help their political careers and make them appear tough on crime. The criminal justice system tends to say, 'you commit a certain crime, you get a certain punishment, and that's what we think is the proper punishment for a lot of reasons,' Dieter said. The death penalty doesn't work like that. It's very selective and symbolic. It's not punishment for murder. It's not even for the worst murders. The worst murderers typically don't even get the death penalty because they usually have good lawyers. So you have to wonder what purpose it is serving, and I think the political purpose is one of the chief ones. Miller said he presided over the funeral of a woman who was murdered. Miller said he found it difficult to believe the victim's family would be able to soon forgive
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, OHIO
Feb. 1 USA: UM researchers say lethal injection could violate Eighth AmendmentStudy suggests lethal injection causes unnecessary pain INSTRUMENTS OF DEATH: UM researchers say execution by lethal injection could violate the Eighth Amendment. A death row inmate is given a fatal dose of chemicals, but the excruciating pain, suffocation and burning sensation associated with the toxins will be masked by an anesthetic. Or, maybe it won't. A study published in May 2007 by Teresa Zimmers and Leonidas Koniaris, two researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, suggests the use of lethal injection to execute death row prisoners may be violating the Eighth Amendment, which protects against cruel an unusual punishment. [Before conducting the study] my colleagues and I, like most Americans, thought the lethal injection was like a medical procedure and therefore painless, Zimmers said. We were very surprised to discover that there is substantial proof of pain. Lethal injection, the most common form of execution in the United States, is currently considered to be the most humane form of capital punishment. Zimmers and Leonidas' research shows that in 43 out of 49 lethal injection executions, not enough painkiller was administered, and inmates were fully aware of their suffering. The researchers also discuss multiple problems with the lethal injection procedure, including a lack of training for the people who administer the serum and poor regulation of the process. There is a fairly entrenched opinion among prison officials that the current protocol is fail-safe, and if administered correctly, will result in a painless death, Zimmers said. The use of lethal injection is now being reviewed by the Supreme Court. The review began on Jan. 7, four years after two death row inmates from Kentucky sued the state claiming that death by lethal injection violates the Constitution. Though the court is focusing on defining the acceptable amount of pain allowed under the Eighth Amendment, some Supreme Court justices are not too worried about inmate suffering. This is an execution, not a surgery, said Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, refuting arguments that lethal injection causes an unnecessary risk of pain. The two inmates are asking to be euthanized, which is the same procedure used to put down pets. This method would render the inmate unconscious and induce death within a few minutes. Many states are refusing to change their protocol, including California, Florida and Texas. If you change, you are admitting that there was something wrong with the prior method, said Professor Deborah Denno, an authority on methods of execution as Fordham University to the New York Times. All those people you were executing, you could have been doing it in a better, more humane way. Nevertheless, 14 states plus the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty. Out of the remaining 37 states that allow the death penalty, including Florida, only Nevada demands that inmates be executed by electrocution. The Supreme Court's ruling on lethal injection is not expected until June 2008. Lethal injection as a form of execution is flawed and cannot be fixed, Zimmers said. There are so many flaws at so many levels. It would be better if it was discontinued. -Approximately 3,350 people are on death row in the U.S. Of these, 2 inmates have received the death penalty for a non-homicide crimes, although no one in the U.S. has been executed for a crime other than murder since 1964. -The last time the Supreme Court considered the humanity of the death penalty was in the case of Willie Francis, a Louisiana inmate sentenced to death in 1945. He was strapped into the electric chair and shocked, but somehow survived. He pleaded for his sentence to be commuted in the Francis v. Resweber case, but the court ruled that it was a technical malfunction and the state could attempt again. Francis was successfully executed in 1947 at the age of 17. (source: University of Miami Hurricane) * Is the death penalty an effective crime deterrant? YES There does seem to be evidence that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to some people and for that reason it should be available to judges. In the UK the death penalty for murder was abolished early in the 1960s. Since then, murder has gone from being almost unheard of to being a daily affair, so routine as to be hardly newsworthy. It is true that the crime rate had been slowly rising before the death penalty was abolished, but the explosion of violence since has been quite extraordinary. Not all of the increase can be attributed to abolition, of course, since society itself has changed a great deal. However, the absence of the death penalty has meant that no criminal, sexual pervert or street punk needs to worry about what he does. The worst penalty will be jail, with time off for 'good behavior'! There will always be the deranged few who
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----USA, OHIO
Sept. 2 USA: A Millionaire Club of High Court Justices On a Supreme Court dominated by seeming millionaires, the only woman justice and the only bachelor appear to be the wealthiest of its 9 members. In the justices' financial disclosure forms for 2005, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reported assets valued at between $6.4 million and $28 million, while Justice David Souter listed assets worth between $5.6 million and $26.3 million. But they are not alone in the Court's millionaire club. Only Justices Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy reported assets with a maximum possible value of less than $1 million. The 2005 forms of 8 of the justices were made public in June, but Justice Antonin Scalia received an extension on the filing deadline for undisclosed reasons. With the recent release of Scalia's form, it is now possible to rank the justices in order of assets reported, not including homes. The justices' holdings are reported in ranges of value, making precise totals impossible to calculate. For example, the estimate of Souter's wealth could be inflated by the fact that his investment in the Chittenden Corp., a Vermont bank holding company, is listed in a category that ranges from $5,000,001 to $25 million. Several of Ginsburg's assets are in the $1,000,001 to $5 million range, including her husband's salary as counsel to Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver Jacobson. Martin Ginsburg, a tax expert, is also a professor at Georgetown University Law Center. In descending order, here are the ranges for the other justices' asset totals, calculated by adding the lowest possible amounts and then the highest: Stephen Breyer: $4,125,080-$15,440,000 John Roberts Jr.: $2,235,063-$5,860,000 John Paul Stevens: $1,590,018-$3,480,000 Antonin Scalia: $700,019-$1,595,000 Samuel Alito Jr.: $665,025-$1,740,000 Clarence Thomas: $150,006-$410,000 Anthony Kennedy: $65,005-$195,000 As they often do, the financial disclosure forms also bear statistical witness to some of the controversies, life changes, and oddities justices faced in the past year. Scalia reported reimbursements for several trips to New York City, including one to serve as grand marshal for the Columbus Day parade and another to address journalists and others at the invitation of media giant Time Warner. When Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons, at the last minute, declared the talk off the record, sharp-elbowed New York journalists revolted and found creative ways to report what Scalia said, anyway. Daily News gossip columnist Lloyd Grove wrote about what Scalia might have said, including a pronouncement that he was trying to get out and about more. My kids have been working on me to get out and do more public appearances, Grove quoted Scalia as saying. They think it makes it harder to demonize you -- and I agree. That campaign, still in progress, produced 24 reimbursed trips in 2005. Another of Scalia's trips, reimbursed by the Federalist Society, is described blandly as: Sept. 28-Oct. 1 - Denver, CO, Lectures/Transportation, Food, and Lodging. It was the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Bachelor Gulch, to be precise, and the trip coincided with the swearing-in of Roberts as chief justice back in Washington. That coincidence gave ABC News the fodder to report, with video, that Scalia was playing tennis when Roberts was being sworn in. Speaking of Roberts, his form indicates that one of the chores he attended to before he was sworn in as chief justice was selling some of his stock holdings. In the week before he joined the Supreme Court, he shed relatively small amounts of stock in Agilent, AstraZeneca, and Coca-Cola, among others. But he retained larger holdings in Time Warner, Dell, and Microsoft. Roberts' decisions may reflect a problem that judges face when they sell securities to avoid conflicts of interest: They have to pay capital-gains taxes on the sale. High-level executive branch employees who sell stocks for that reason are allowed to defer their gains by investing in replacement property within 60 days. A bill that would grant the same deferral to judges has passed the House of Representatives and is pending before the Senate. Stevens' form evokes the memory of a happier day, Sept. 14, when he threw out the first pitch at a Chicago Cubs game, wearing a Cubs jersey bearing his name. His form notes that he was provided a box suite seating 12 [and] food. (source: Legal Times) OHIO: No evidence was hidden in Noling case, state says The Ohio attorney general's office has asked a federal judge to deny a death-row convict's plea to move his appeal to state court based on claims that prosecutors withheld evidence. State lawyers contend, in a motion filed this week in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, that evidence wasn't concealed in the death penalty case of Tyrone Noling, and that recent news reports raising questions about his guilt were a rehash of decade-old issues and facts already tried. Noling was convicted and sentenced to
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, OHIO, US MIL.
June 22 USA: Executing the Mentally Ill and the Mentally Retarded: 3 Key Recent Cases from Texas and Virginia Show How States Can Evade the Supreme Court's Death Penalty Rulings Since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on the death penalty in 1976, Texas and Virginia have led the country in executions; Texas has executed 366 defendants; Virginia, 95. Both states' death penalty verdicts have been subject to a high level of scrutiny in the past few years, by both state and federal courts. Over the past 2 months, three especially troubling cases played out in these 2 states; 2 are from Virginia, and one from Texas. The defendants whose lives hung in the balance were mentally ill or retarded and, in 1 case, both. In spite of Supreme Court decisions that should have limited the men's punishment to life in prison without the possibility of parole, prosecutors in both states were dead-set on seeing the men die. In this article, I will explain the current status of the law on executing mentally ill and retarded persons, and argue that in states like Texas and Virginia, the Supreme Court's mandate that these classes of persons be spared the ultimate penalty has been reduced to mere wishful thinking. The only good news here, as I will explain, is a conscientious decision by Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine to reexamine one of these cases. The Legal Standard for Not-Guilty-By-Reason-of-Insanity The 1968 Supreme Court decision of Ford v. Wainwright was unequivocal: The Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment bars the execution of a prisoner who is, by the applicable legal standard, insane. Before considering the standard when execution is at issue, it's useful first to consider the related, but distinct, standard to find a criminal defendant not guilty by reason of insanity - of which readers may be more likely to be aware. For a jury to find a defendant not guilty by reason of insanity, it generally must find that, by reason of mental defect or illness, the defendant did not appreciate the wrongfulness of the criminal conduct, and thus should not be held culpable under the law. At the minimum, to meet this standard, a person must be diagnosed or diagnosable with a mental disorder, personality disorder, or mental retardation, pursuant to the criteria set out in the current edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the standard psychiatric diagnostic handbook in the United States. Typically, at trial, a battle of experts is waged -- as prosecutor and defense psychologists give their varying opinions of the defendant's mental state at the time of the crime. Then jurors must decide who and what to believe - and apply the legal standard. As I wrote in a column explaining the 2002 verdict in the case of child killer Andrea Yates, the legal standard, especially in states like Texas, where Yates was prosecuted, and Virginia, often does not protect even very sick people from being found culpable. That's often because the law does not recognize that people suffering from delusions or psychosis can know what they are doing, but not know that it is wrong. Yates, for instance knew she was killing her children, but thought she was saving them by doing so. She was suffering from depression with delusional episodes. The Legal Standard for Not-Constitutional-to-Execute-Due-to-Insanity As I mentioned above, the standard in the execution context - though related - is different. As Justice Powell explained in his concurring opinion in Ford, to be spared execution on grounds of insanity, defendants must be unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it. (Emphasis added.) On this issue, too, a battle of experts is waged -- and the bottom line remains that even a diagnosis of severe mental illness does not, by law, render one incompetent to be executed. If a jury finds that a defendant's single point of clarity in an otherwise hopelessly deranged mind is that he knows the state wants to kill him to punish him for his crime, then that is enough to send him to his death. That brings us to the three recent Texas and Virginia cases. The Case of Virginia's Daryl Atkins The case of Daryl Atkins made it all the way to the Supreme Court - to little effect. In 2002, the Court held, in Atkins's case, that it was a violation of the Eighth Amendment to execute persons suffering from mental retardation - as defined by each state's law. Most states have adopted laws that mirror the DSM criteria: To suffer from mental retardation, a person must have an IQ below 70 and evidence of maladaptive functioning in everyday life. In addition, because the DSM defines mental retardation as a developmental disorder, it must have arisen during childhood --either as a congenital defect or as the result of trauma. Though the Court accepted Atkins's Eighth Amendment argument, it did not spare his life. Instead, it
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, OHIO, NEV., LA.
April 11 USA: Meet Clarence DarrowThe great American lawyer is portrayed in a one-man show Clarence Darrow was a man before his time - maybe a man of this time. So says Gary Anderson, who knows warts and all about the most celebrated, and hated, attorney in American history. He spent his life campaigning against many of the very things we face today, says Anderson. Darrow, a Columbo-looking kind of guy who wore slept-in suits in court instead of the French-cut clothes his wife bought, fought for civil liberties and against conspiracy laws. He saved 102 men from the death penalty, battled for civil rights and campaigned for separation between church and state. The fact that those same issues are hot topics today - decades after Darrow died in 1938 - motivates Anderson to introduce the lawyer to theatergoers who want to think and learn, all the while being entertained. The actor travels the country giving a one-man production titled Clarence Darrow: The Search for Justice. He gives the two-hour performance at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Peninsula at 415 Young's Mill Lane in the Denbigh area of Newport News. Admission is $15 in advance or $20 at the door; students are $12. On stage, Anderson wears the Darrow look - white crumpled shirt, wide tie and red suspenders. He speaks candidly about the lawyer's own jury-tampering trials and shares anecdotes to reveal his personal side. During the drama, you may even find him standing beside or in front of you, asking your opinion about some social issue. It's not unusual for people in the audience to get caught up in the moment, become mad or start crying, he says. It's an interactive production where I eliminate the wall between me and the audience and talk to people like Darrow, says Anderson. You have to be prepared for anything when you make it that interactive. Anderson's fascination, probable obsession, with Darrow goes back almost a decade when he first began his portrayals of the controversial lawyer who was born in 1857. About 60 to 70 biographies have been written about Darrow, but Anderson began to meet the man through his autobiography, which was simply titled The Story of My Life. The two best books on Darrow, he says, are Clarence Darrow for the Defense by Irving Stone, who also wrote The Agony and the Ecstasy, and People vs. Clarence Darrow by Jeffrey Cowan. Darrow is best known for the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, which, in some legal circles, is called the case of all times. In court, Darrow faced off with his best friend, lawyer and Christian fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan, in a Tennessee case examining the teaching of evolution in public schools. John Scopes, the teacher in question, and Darrow technically lost the case. The case took a toll on the aging Bryan, who died in his sleep 5 days after the trial ended. Throughout his career, Darrow was known for many things outside the courtroom - two wives, mistresses, big ego and volatile nature. Even so, Anderson views him as a misunderstood American hero who fought against threats to our way of life. The actor has taken up Darrow's cause to offset the years he personally never voted in elections but always complained about what government was doing, or not doing. I was an armchair quarterback, says Anderson, who sidesteps personal questions about age and acting background. Most Americans give lip service to what they think makes this country strong. I don't want to be that way anymore. He hopes his portrayal of Darrow makes people realize there are flaws in everyone - government officials and everyday people. Flaws aren't all bad, no matter how important or unimportant you are, he says. You can be a flawed human and still leave a legacy, he says. You fall down and you get up stronger. (source: Daily Press) OHIO: Catholic-school kids roll in to protest Ohio's death penalty After bicycling 140 miles from Cleveland to Columbus over the weekend, Jayson Gerbec still had enough energy to lead a student rally against the death penalty yesterday at the Statehouse. The 17-year-old senior at St. Ignatius High School was joined by about 200 other Catholicschool students from Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and other parts of the state who chanted, sang and spoke out against capital punishment. While they would like to see it abolished before another execution - Joseph Clark of Lucas County is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on May 2 - Gerbec said he knows it will take time. You may not see a difference now. Sooner or later, well be the adults. Well be cranking out the ballots. Wheels of Justice, as the rally was called, was inspired by Catholic students who regularly travel from Cleveland by bus to protest and pray outside the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, where inmates are executed. While there were many protesters at Lucasville for the qst few executions, the students from Cleveland often have been alone in their
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----USA, OHIO, CONN., LA.
Feb. 21 USA: Purge vengeance from civilized society In response to the Feb. 11 letters to the editor from Mela ine M. Wesby and Irmgard Mokos (Death-penalty foes don't consider killers' victims): Vengeance and extraction are not the answers to our social problems. I lost my older brother as a teenager, and after 30 years I still wonder what life would be like if he had not been killed by a drunken driver. Although his death was very painful, not once did I hear from my parents that they wished the perpetrator dead. Rather, from the very beginning, I heard nothing other than forgiveness. Asking the state to murder someone as punishment for a crime won't change the fact that the crime was committed - and it won't bring back the victim or victims of the original crime. Vengeance is not a just thing; Christ was adamant in his teaching about that. Vengeance breeds hatred; hatred breeds intolerance; intolerance breeds crime; and crime breeds vengeance. This is a vicious circle that a civilized society such as ours must seek to overcome. Once we as a society can hold human life as sacred - all human life as sacred - we can then begin the journey to a peaceful world and peaceful coexistence. Gerard Kreutzer, Parma (source: Letter to the Editor, Cleveland Plain Dealer) OHIO: Case closedDespite continuing questions, Portage officials reject a second look into the Trimble episode Summit County Sheriff Drew Alexander's suggestion for an independent investigation into the shooting death of Sarah Positano has been quickly, firmly and unfortunately rejected by Portage County officials. Victor Vigluicci, county prosecutor, and David Blough, Brimfield Township police chief, see little chance that anything would be gained. In terms of finding out more about who shot Positano, they are right. James Trimble is on death row for killing the 22-year-old Kent State University student, his third victim in a shooting rampage last year that began on Jan. 21. There is no question Trimble pulled the trigger. Alexander is rightly concerned about putting questions surrounding Positano's death to rest. Trimble insisted from the beginning that a police sniper was in the apartment just after negotiations that could have freed Positano were concluded, a muzzle flash triggering the accidental discharge of Trimble's handgun. A complete explanation for all the bullet holes and fragments in the apartment has never been presented. To his credit, Portage Sheriff Duane Kaley was initially open to an outside investigation. Alexander's question stands: Why not clear the air? Even the remote chance that an officer decided to enter the apartment on his own should trigger a thorough review of how effectively a force drawn from the entire region worked together. A small army eventually mobilized in response to Trimble's rampage. Metro SWAT, which handled the hostage scene, had 28 officers from various departments on hand. Brimfield police, the Portage County sheriff, the Ohio Highway Patrol, Kent and Tallmadge police and, after Positano was shot, the Summit County SWAT team were also involved. An independent investigation would not be an academic exercise, as Vigluicci and Blough contend, but would provide valuable lessons for the future. Beyond resolving the circumstances surrounding Positano's death lies an important opportunity for a thorough review of police procedures and practices during extreme circumstances, an armed killer on the loose, exchanging fire, taking a hostage. Notification of the surrounding neighbors, for example, presented a problem. They learned from fellow neighbors and never received police protection. Trimble, meanwhile, eluded police for hours. No one would wish that such horrifying circumstances would repeat themselves in the near future. But it is not too much to expect that those involved in responding to protect the public take every opportunity to learn from the past. (source: Editorial, Akron Beacon Journal) CONNECTICUT: Death Penalty Issues Are Lecture's Topic An Ohio Northern University law professor will discuss the global state of the death penalty during a lecture at Trinity College March 2. Victor Streib will discuss how the death penalty system is affected by discrimination, poverty and human error at 5 p.m. at Mather Hall on the campus in Hartford. The lecture is the 1st memorial lecture named for Fred Pfeil, a Trinity English professor who died in December of cancer. Pfeil, a human rights activist, was 56. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 860-297-2029. (source: The Hartford Courant) LOUISIANA: Man cleared in 2001 Bossier Parish slaying A convicted killer will continue to spend the rest of his life in prison after being cleared on Monday of an unrelated 1st-degree murder allegation that could have led to a death sentence. A 7-man, 5-woman Bossier Parish jury deliberated about an hour before finding Gerod Brewer
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news-----USA, OHIO, PENN., ORE., UTAH
Dec. 29 USA: Taking Innocent Life Earlier this month, the state of North Carolina executed Kenneth Boyd -- who became the 1,000th person put to death in the United States since the Supreme Court permitted executions to resume in 1976. The 1,001st, Shawn Paul Humphries, was put to death in South Carolina hours later. The 1,002nd, Wesley Baker, followed in Maryland the next week, the 1,003rd in California and the 1,004th in Mississippi. At this rate, the next thousand will not take anything like 3 decades. And that, in all likelihood, means that an innocent person will be executed relatively quickly. While these five men were not innocent, it is exceedingly improbable that all of their fellow inmates were rightly convicted. The faster the death chambers do their work, the sooner an innocent person will be put to death. The latest probably erroneous execution to come to light is that of Ruben Cantu, who was executed more than a decade ago in Texas for a brutal robbery-murder that took place in 1984, when he was 17. Recently, the Houston Chronicle published a remarkable series revealing that the lone eyewitness, who was shot multiple times during the incident but who survived to testify against Mr. Cantu, has recanted. The evidence against Mr. Cantu was limited to the testimony of this man, Juan Moreno. Likewise, Mr. Cantu's co-defendant now says that he and another teenager committed the robbery. David Garza, who served a sentence for his role, now says that Ruben Cantu had nothing to do with the murder. . . . I should know. This isn't the 1st time serious questions of innocence have arisen after an execution. Last year, the Chicago Tribune reported on the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was also executed in Texas. The case against him for burning down his home and thereby killing his children was, the paper reported, based primarily on arson theories that have since been repudiated by scientific advances. More recently, prosecutors in St. Louis reopened the case of Larry Griffin, whom the state of Missouri executed in 1995; they are no longer convinced that the state convicted the right person. Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) reportedly may order the retesting of physical evidence in the case of Roger Keith Coleman, who went to his death in 1992 proclaiming that an innocent man is going to be murdered tonight. It is certainly possible, in any of these cases, that the evidence of innocence is chimerical and that the conviction was correct. But in the long run a society that insists upon an irrevocable punishment guarantees injustice. (source: Editorial, Washington Post) OHIO: Triple-homicide suspect may face death penalty The man accused of committing a triple homicide Tuesday remained behind bars Wednesday night on a $1 million bond. Commonwealth's Attorney Jack Porter said he must decide whether to seek the death penalty against Michael Richardson Sr. No one has been sentenced to death in Campbell County since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The 45-year-old pressman is charged with three counts of murder. Newport police said he killed his wife, Joyce Richardson, 45; his daughter, Sunshine Richardson, 18; and her boyfriend, 16-year-old Phillip Leslie. The bodies were found Tuesday morning at the family's yellow Cape Cod home on Laycock Lane. The family's pet dog also was found shot to death. Investigators said weapons had been stashed throughout the home, including a .50-caliber rifle on a tripod in the living room aimed at the front door. Police filed papers in Campbell District Court Wednesday that said Richardson gave a recorded statement. He will be arraigned at 9 a.m. today in District Court. A preliminary hearing will likely be Jan. 5. Newport police spokesman Tom Collins said Richardson told investigators that family problems had been growing and he just snapped after having a difficult day at work. Richardson left his job at Coral Graphics, a printing company, around 3 a.m. Tuesday saying he was going to get some lunch. He never returned. Relatives, family and investigators gave no more clues Wednesday about what could have triggered the shooting. Richardson does not have a criminal record in Campbell County. He recently had sued the parent company of bigg's grocery stores. Richardson claimed he slipped and fell Sept. 6, 2003, in the Florence store. Lawyers defending bigg's claimed in court filings that Richardson had a prior back injury. Sunshine, who was with her father when he fell, had been deposed by a bigg's lawyer this year. During that deposition, Sunshine was asked to talk about the relationship she had with her father. She said her father enjoyed taking her fishing at A.J. Jolly Park, but that catching fish to eat made her sad. Sunshine said she planned to major in psychology at Northern Kentucky University after graduating from Newport High School in May. Neighbor and family friend Chrissy Jones said Richardson
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----USA, OHIO, VA., IND., MISS.
Dec. 15 USA: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Congressman Dennis KucinichDoug Gordon (202) 225-5871(o); (202) 494-5141(c) Kucinich Introduces Bill to Abolish Federal Death Penalty Bill, Introduced Today, Co-Sponsored By 39 Members Of Congress Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), today, introduced legislation to abolish the federal death penalty. The Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 2005, currently co-sponsored by 39 Members of Congress, will put an immediate halt to executions and forbid the imposition of the death penalty as a sentence for violations of federal law. The death penalty is not an effective deterrent, stated Kucinich. Homicide rates in states with the death penalty are no lower than rates in abolitionist states. Of the twelve states without the death penalty, ten have murder rates below the national average. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 122 men and women have been released from death row due to evidence of innocence. In addition, an audit released in late 2003 found that death penalty cases in Kansas cost significantly more than comparable non-death penalty incarcerations. The median cost for a death penalty case was $1.26 million while the median cost for a non-death penalty case was $740,000. Imposition of the death penalty is also racially and economically biased. I strongly believe that violent offenders must be severely punished and prevented from committing future crimes, continued Kucinich. However, capital punishment is not the answer. The death penalty is not a deterrent, allows innocent people to be executed, and marginalizes the United States' in the fight for human rights in the international community. Joining Kucinich on the bill are Reps. Neil Abercrombie, Michael Capuano, William Lacy Clay, Emanuel Cleaver, John Conyers, Elijah Cummings, Danny Davis, William Delahunt, Sam Farr, Bob Filner, Raul Grijalva, Luis Gutierrez, Alcee Hastings, Maurice Hinchey, Michael Honda, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Dale Kildee, Carolyn Kilpatrick, James Langevin, Barbara Lee, John Lewis, James McGovern, Cynthia McKinney, Edward Markey, Gregory Meeks, Gwen Moore, James Oberstar, John Olver, Major Owens, Charles Rangel, Bobby Rush, Jose Serrano, Pete Stark, Edolphus Towns, Nydia Velazquez, Maxine Waters, Diane Watson, Melvin Watt, and Lynn Woolsey. (source: Common Dreams, Dec. 14, 2005) *** Death penalty is dead wrong The Rev. Jesse Jackson led a group of protesters across the Golden Gate bridge - to no avail. Groups brandishing anti-death penalty signs and Save Tookie placards kept a vigil around San Quentin Prison - to no avail. After nearly 25 years on death row, after a refusal for clemency from California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stanley (Tookie) Williams was led handcuffed and shackled into the death chamber at 12:01 Tuesday. The founder of the notorious Los Angles gang the Crips, was pronounced dead at 12:35 a.m. Then the protests began in other countries. In Austria, Schwarzenegger's birthplace, some wanted to have his citizenship revoked. And in his hometown of Graz, some demanded a stadium be renamed the Stanley Tookie Williams Stadium. And in Rome, Pope Benedict's official commentator on justice, Renato Cardinal Martino, said: We know the death penalty doesn't resolve anything. Even a criminal is worthy of respect because he is a human being. The death penalty is a negation of human dignity. I would add only that capital punishment is a negation both of the human dignity of the person executed and of the dignity of each one of us. On both sides of the ocean, Christian groups contended that Williams should have received clemency because he had converted and turned his life around. And he had indeed spoken out and written a number of books intended to steer kids away from the gang life. He had been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize three times. Others argued that Williams's conversion from gang member to peacemaker was but a ploy for clemency and that he had never truly expressed remorse for his crimes or those of the Crips. Most of this rhetoric around the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams is both right and wrong. And most of it misses the point. The point is not that a condemned criminal who converts ought to have his death sentence commuted to life. That is nonsense. Converts to what? Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism? Or just Christianity? Tookie Williams did not speak much about a religious conversion while on death row, so we really don't know whether he converted to Christianity. Perhaps not. However, it is certainly true that the western world prefers its jailhouse conversions to take place on the road to Damascus, rather than, say, on the road to Mecca. Many an inmate has converted to Islam and there has been little outcry against his execution. But witness the case of Karla Faye Tucker who became a Christian while in jail and whose Feb., 1998 execution in Texas was hugely protested. Solely on
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----USA, OHIO, FLA., IND., KY.
Nov. 11 USA: Engaged in a Very Civil WarThe Federalist Society has reshaped the legal system without ever going to court. It began in 1982 with a handful of law students at Yale and the University of Chicago who saw themselves as minorities. They were conservatives. As a counter to liberal orthodoxy, they formed a legal debating group they called the Federalist Society. And in a hint of things to come, their first faculty advisor at the Chicago chapter was professor Antonin Scalia, soon to be the most influential conservative on the Supreme Court. This week, in a moment of triumph, the Federalist Society - now with 35,000 members and chapters at every major law school in the nation - is holding its annual meeting at the Mayflower Hotel, a few blocks from the White House. Not only are conservative judges no longer a minority, 2 of the society's favorites, new Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr., are poised to add their strict constructionist voices to the high court. These days, the one-time college debating society is seen by both friends and critics as the legal branch of the vast right-wing conspiracy. It brings together prominent conservative judges, Bush administration lawyers, Cabinet officers, law professors and roomfuls of young lawyers who hope to assume their places in the future. They share a common concern: that courts and judges have taken on too much power in America's democracy and that this judicial activism should be replaced by what Roberts described as a modest and limited role for the judiciary. In fact, in large measure, they have already reshaped the courts. Conservative judges, many of them products of the Federalist Society network, have come to dominate the federal bench. On Thursday, President Bush hosted the group's leaders for an early morning meeting at the White House. As another sign of the society's close ties to the Bush White House, the speaker for Thursday's dinner was Bush's beleaguered political strategist Karl Rove. Many liberal advocates admit they look with envy at what the Federalist Society has achieved. They have been unbelievably successful in a short time, said Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union. They have taken over the courts and the government. If you go to their meetings, you see the attorney general, senators, the solicitor general. I wish we had the same kind of presence. Though the society has sometimes been portrayed as secretive, its debates are not only open but are usually balanced with liberal voices. Strossen, a New York Law School professor, regularly participates in Federalist Society meetings on campuses. Radicals in Robes, the recent book by University of Chicago Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein, attacks what he sees as a new wave of conservative activism in the federal judiciary. Some conservative judges would like to strengthen property rights and use the courts to roll back federal laws on the environment, civil rights and workers' protections, Sunstein argues. He was invited to this year's meeting to debate his book and its thesis. I really like them, he said of the Federalist Society. They talk about ideas in a serious way. And they are genuinely respectful of competing views. In a bow to the society's success, several liberal professors founded the American Constitution Society four years ago as a counter to the Federalist Society. It has organized chapters at 138 law schools and holds an annual meeting that has drawn speakers such as Supreme Court Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). But Strossen concedes the liberal group has not yet achieved the same presence at law schools. It still has a way to go, she said. The Federalist Society has managed to influence the law without going to court. Unlike the ACLU, it does not file lawsuits and legal briefs. Nor does it takes stands on legislation in Congress. It does not even officially endorse and lobby for its own members, such as Alito, when they are nominated to the Supreme Court. When Harriet Miers was nominated, we had vocal members on both sides of that debate, Northwestern University law professor Steven G. Calabresi, one of the four original founders of the group, said of Bush's failed choice for the Supreme Court. He noted that former Judge Robert H. Bork, a hero to many conservatives, said the selection of Miers was a disaster. True to their roots, Federalist Society members seem most enthralled by debates over legal philosophy. This year's conference is focused on the theme of originalism, the theory that the Constitution should be interpreted strictly based on its words and 18th century history, not on how concepts such as liberty and equality are seen today. As the Federalists know - and few others would recall - then-Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III gave a speech in 1985 calling on the Supreme Court to adopt the
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----USA, OHIO, N.C., ALA., ILL.
Nov. 5 USA: The Death Penalty Is No Deterrent Regarding the Oct. 26 news story Measure Would Alter Federal Death Penalty System; House Legislation to Renew USA Patriot Act Would Loosen Some Provisions for Execution: While it would be fascinating to learn from Rep. John Carter (R-Tex.) how he reasons that fanatics who blow themselves up in service to extremist causes would be deterred by death penalty sentences, most studies do not bear out his belief that fear of the death penalty deters would-be murderers. The Death Penalty Information Center details, state-by-state, sad statistics revealing that states that execute the most suffer the highest numbers of murders. Perhaps Mr. Carter also can advise U.S. citizens how by reducing American standards of justice we can improve our stature in the civilized world. Most civilized nations deplore our death penalty practices already. Shouldn't we leave a few vestiges of justice for all in place, if only to give Karen Hughes some talking points for public diplomacy? ANNE V. HAMILTONArlington (source: Letter to the Editor, Washington Post) *** Katrina gives Farrell new missionActor, social activist was on Coast to discuss death penalty In Biloxi, actor and outspoken human rights activist Mike Farrell came to the Gulf Coast on Thursday to speak on issues that he holds close to his heart -- his opposition to the death penalty and support for human rights. He left Friday afternoon with a new cause tugging at his heart: the plight of people who lost so much to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. I've been in war zones, and this is very reminiscent, said Farrell on Friday from the front passenger seat of a van driven by Sarah Landry of D'Iberville, Miss. She showed the celebrity visitor something of what is left -- and what is gone -- in her town. The tour, organized by the sponsors of Farrell's talks in Mobile, also gave Farrell firsthand looks at damaged -- in many cases flattened -- sections of Biloxi and Gulfport before the actor caught his plane back to California. Landry, a housing director for the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, gave Farrell a running narration about the storm's deadly effects and efforts to get the decimated Gulf Coast communities back on their feet. Also along for the ride were Sister Magdala Thompson, Sister Marilyn Graf and Dr. Mark Moberg of the University of South Alabama anthropology department -- all members of the board of directors of QUEST for Social Justice, an interfaith group in Mobile that emphasizes civic action. This has been an education, said Farrell after witnessing block after block of homes knocked off their foundations, of leaning trees with branches filled with clothing and debris, and of wrecked casino barges dumped by the horrendous storm surge in resting places hundreds of yards from their original moorings on the water. It's devastating, positively devastating to see the scope of the damage, Farrell said. To magnify what we've seen by I don't know what and then carry it out to the quantity of the inconceivable is a thing impossible to comprehend. Farrell, who is famous for his roles on the television programs M*A*S*H and Providence, spoke Thursday night about his opposition to the death penalty to an estimated audience of 200 at the Alabama School of Mathematics Science in Mobile. When he spoke at the University of South Alabama on Friday morning before heading west to view the hurricane-ravaged Mississippi coastline, he expanded the topic to include wide-ranging infractions against human rights. Sponsors of Farrell's visit to the area were QUEST for Social Justice, USA's College of Arts and Sciences and department of sociology, anthropology and social work, and the Sisters' Council of Mobile. Farrell said he requested to see the hurricane devastation because it is impossible to fully comprehend the enormity of disasters -- whether manmade or natural -- merely by looking at images on TV. I've been in refugee camps in places where wars were taking place, and you come home and see that Americans saw it on television, but they don't smell it. They don't experience it, he said. Farrell said he doesn't know how he will help the victims of Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Alabama on Aug. 29. Minutes after the whirlwind tour concluded, he was still processing what he had seen, but he promised to tell others about the situation at every opportunity. The actor and activist routinely travels far and wide in his efforts to promote human rights around the world and speak out against the death penalty in America. He took on the cause of seeking a moratorium on the death penalty during his years on TV's M*A*S*H, which concluded its 11-year run on CBS in 1983. At the conclusion of his Friday morning speech at USA, an audience member asked Farrell if a ban on the death penalty would prevent families of murder victims from attaining closure. There is
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----USA, OHIO/USA, PENN.
June 21 USA: Death Penalty Trials To the Editor: Re Prosecutorial Racial Bias in Texas (editorial, June 14): When the Supreme Court threw out Thomas Miller-El's death sentence (on the grounds that blacks were systematically excluded from serving as jurors in his case), the court paved the way for it, or a future court, to examine a more substantive question: whether any death penalty trial can ever be a fair one. No defendant in a capital case in the United States - black, white or other - is afforded a fair trial under our current system. Each is tried by a jury from which the state has excluded anyone who says he or she opposes the idea of a fellow human's being put to death. When do you suppose the court will acknowledge that barring potential jurors on such grounds is no different from excluding them on the basis of race, religion or gender? Frank McNeirney National Coordinator, Catholics Against Capital Punishment Bethesda, Md., June 14, 2005 (source: Letter to the Editor, New York Times) OHIO/USA: Judge: Demjanjuk can be deported John Demjanjuk, the Seven Hills man suspected of being a Nazi war criminal, is a big step closer to deportation. Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Michael Creppy ruled Thursday that Demjanjuk, 85, can be deported based on his service as a Nazi death camp guard during World War II. Demjanjuk has until June 30 to appeal. In 2002, a federal court found that Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian national, was a sentry at three concentration camps and lied about his wartime past when he entered the United States in 1952. The federal courts stripped him of his U.S. citizenship. In December he lost his appeals to regain citizenship, paving the way for deportation. Creppy's June 16 opinion said Demjanjuk was removable from the United States by clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence. Creppy said the federal courts showed Demjanjuk prevented the escape of prisoners held by the Nazis, leaving them to abuse and almost certain death. At one of the camps, the judge said, thousands of Jews were murdered by asphyxiation. Demjanjuk's attorney, Thomas Elliot, called the deportation proceedings unfair and said the retired autoworker has been the victim of mistaken identity for 28 years. Elliot said Creppy appears to be biased because he wrote law review articles about aggressive prosecution of war criminals. Creppy appointed himself to the deportation case. Elliot plans to ask Creppy to step aside at the next hearing, June 30, when the court will decide to which country Demjanjuk will be sent. The case began in 1977, when the Justice Department, citing a Nazi identification card with Demjanjuk's name, birth date and parentage, asked a federal judge to revoke Demjanjuk's citizenship. Officials in the former Soviet Union provided the card to investigators, saying that Soviet soldiers found it in a Nazi training camp. The Justice Department found nearly a dozen survivors of the Nazi death camp at Treblinka who identified Demjanjuk as Ivan, a Ukrainian guard who tortured Jewish inmates and operated gas chambers that exterminated an estimated 900,000 people. In 1981, Demjanjuk was stripped of his citizenship by a federal judge. Two years later, while Demjanjuk was being considered for deportation to Ukraine, Israel requested his extradition to stand trial on war-crimes charges. A 3-judge panel in Israel found Demjanjuk guilty of war crimes and sentenced him to death. In 1991, his lawyers produced testimony from 37 Treblinka death camp guards and forced laborers who identified another man, Ivan Marczenko, as Ivan the Terrible. In July 1993, Israel's Supreme Court overturned Demjanjuk's conviction. He was released from prison on Sept. 22, 1993, and returned to his family in Seven Hills. In 1998, his U.S. citizenship was restored, and the Justice Department began anew its efforts to revoke his citizenship and deport him. (source: Cleveland Plain Dealer) PENNSYLVANIA: Killer uses low IQ defense Defense attorneys argue Karl Chambers should not be executed because of mental retardation. In the mid-1970s, Karl Stephenson Chambers, a 7th-grade special-education student in the York City School District, had an IQ of 60. In 1994, Chambers, a convicted killer, was tested in prison and determined to have an IQ of 74. According to Dr. Stanley E. Schnieder, a licensed psychologist who has examined Chambers and provided those numbers, the medical community considers anyone with an IQ of less than 75 as mentally retarded. Now Chambers' defense team is trying to keep the 41-year-old off death row, arguing the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the execution of mentally retarded prisoners is cruel and unusual punishment. This is Chambers' 3rd time in York County Common Pleas Court for sentencing. His 1st 2 death sentences here for the 1986 beating death of 70-year-old Anna Mae Morris were vacated on appeal. His 1st-degree murder conviction was affirmed by the appellate courts.
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news --- USA; OHIO/USA
death penalty news August 16, 2005 USA: Catholics and the Death Penalty It's not clear where Turley got his misinformation. In a column about Judge Roberts' personal views on controversial social issues, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, declared that Roberts could face difficult questions on the Supreme Court if he had to take up a death penalty case. According to Turley, who claims he was raised in the Catholic Church, the church believes the use of the death penalty is an immoral act. But that's just false. Article 2267 of the Catholic catechism, an authoritative compendium of church teaching, says the church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against criminals. It's not clear where Turley got his misinformation. Turley brought this up in the context of saying that Roberts could end up being chastised by his possible colleague, Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the most conservative members of the court (and a devout Catholic). Turley said that Last year, Scalia chastised Catholic judges who balk at imposing the death penalty?another immoral act according to the church Scalia had said that The choice for a judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral is resignation, rather than simply ignoring duly enacted constitutional laws and sabotaging the death penalty. Not only was Turley saying that Roberts would have a problem endorsing the death penalty, he was saying that Scalia may be violating church teaching by endorsing it. But the charge is clearly false. Even on the anti-death penalty website of Americancatholic.org, you read that the Catholic Church opposes the death penalty in nearly all cases The phrase nearly all means that the church supports the death penalty in some cases. As such, the church can hardly hold a position of believing the death penalty is immoral. It's true that Scalia, a Catholic, has said that judges who oppose capital punishment should resign. But that's not a contradiction of church teaching. Scalia says the death penalty is not immoral and that support for it has been part of Christian and Catholic tradition in the old and new testaments. Because of the actual church position, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, where Turley resides, has never argued that capital punishment is inherently immoral. He cannot make that argument because that is not the position of the church. Turley should either go back to church or go back to school. (source: Accuracy in Media, aim.org) OHIO / USA: UC sociologist traces the evolution of the execution, USA Past and present, the witness to the execution continues to have a profound impact on the method of the execution, its procedure and its publicity, according to a University of Cincinnati researcher. At the 100th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Philadelphia, Annulla Linders, UC assistant professor of sociology, presents her paper, The Return of the Spectacle? The Modern Execution Event in the United States. Linders' presentation takes place at 2:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 15, at the ASA meeting in Philadelphia. Early findings from Linders' study suggest that the more recent practice of involving the victim's family in witnessing the execution has once again resulted in personalizing capital punishment, contradicting efforts in the 19th century to bar executions from becoming a public spectacle. Viewed as a mirror held up to the execution, the audience is a constitutive element of the execution and, in this sense, not only carries the potential to grant (or deny) legitimacy to the execution event, but also provides capital punishment with a set of cultural meanings that reaches far beyond any particular execution, Linders writes. Linders defines four general areas of audience influence that have led to contemporary conflicts in capital punishment: Pain and technology - The courthouse hangings have evolved into a humane and painless form of execution, sparing the audience emotional turmoil and avoiding embarrassment for the state. Outrage over electric chair and gas chamber executions has made lethal injection the most common form of execution today. Procedures and professionals - Linders reports that the emotional demands of execution witnesses who are family members of the victims are challenging the precision and efficiency sought by prison officials and secured by the involvement of disinterested professionals in such a way that the success of the execution can no longer be measured exclusively in terms of efficiency. Publicity and public access - Public viewing of executions came to an end in the 19th century, but the publicity issue is back again with the debate over televised executions. Linder says the issue has arisen repeatedly over the last few decades, and most recently in the
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news --- USA, OHIO, GEORGIA
death penalty news July 19, 2004 USA: Juvenile Death Penalty Opposed; Opinion to be Shared in Supreme Court Case The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Society for Adolescent Medicine (SAM) released a joint policy statement today opposing the death penalty for juvenile offenders, which is under consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Roper v. Simmons. We should never, ever kill teenagers, said AAP President Carden Johnston, M.D. Regardless of the crime, rehabilitation and treatment should always be the course of action for young people at the state, federal and international level. According to the joint statement, the vast majority of adolescents in the juvenile and criminal justice systems suffer from serious psychological and physical health problems. They are also more likely to have been victims of child abuse or neglect and to have experienced school failure or learning disabilities. We view the execution of juvenile offenders as the most fundamental failure of society, said SAM President Andrea Marks, M.D. It is our responsibility to give every adolescent the support they need to grow up to lead healthy, responsible, and productive lives. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Roper v. Simmons case during its next session scheduled to begin in October. The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 60,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults. SAM is a multidisciplinary organization of 1400 health professionals committed to improving the physical and psychological health and well being of all adolescents. (source: American Academy of Pediatrics / Yahoo! News) End To Juvenile Executions Urged Former President Jimmy Carter, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the American Medical Association and 48 nations are among those lobbying the Supreme Court to end the execution of killers who committed their crimes before age 18. The United States is among only a handful of nations that allow the practice. The high court will reconsider this fall whether such executions are constitutional. A collection of death penalty opponents on Monday planned to challenge the practice. By continuing to execute child offenders in violation of international norms, the United States is not just leaving itself open to charges of hypocrisy, but is also endangering the rights of many around the world, said the filing on behalf of Nobel Peace Prize winners, including Mr. Carter and Gorbachev. Countries whose human rights records are criticized by the United States have no incentive to improve their records when the United States fails to meet the most fundamental, baseline standards, it said. The 25-nation European Union, plus Mexico, Canada and other nations argued that execution of juvenile killers violates widely accepted human rights norms and the minimum standards of human rights set forth by the United Nations. Mexico noted separately that three of the 73 current death row inmates condemned for killings that took place before they were 18 are Mexican nationals. The American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association and other medical and mental health groups also told the court they oppose execution of teen killers, as did the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Diplomats including former undersecretary of state Thomas Pickering and former ambassador to France Felix Rohatyn argued that growing international consensus against such executions leaves the U.S. diplomatically isolated. The United States executed more young killers than the rest of the world combined between 1990 and 2003, the diplomats' filing said. In the past four years, only five nations have executed juveniles, the diplomats said: Congo, China, Iran, Pakistan and the United States. In no other area of human rights does the United States consider these nations to be our equals, the filing said. Two friend-of-the-court briefs filed earlier support continuation of the practice. (Our) experience strongly indicates that a bright-line rule categorically exempting 16- and 17-year-olds from the death penalty no matter how elaborate the plot, how sinister the killing, or how sophisticated the cover up ? would be arbitrary at best and downright perverse at worst, lawyers for Alabama, Delaware, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Virginia told the court. Those states are among 19 that allow execution of killers who were 16 or 17 at the time of the crime. Not all states that allow the death penalty apply it to underage killers, and no state allows the execution of those who were younger than 16 at the time of the crime. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case from Missouri, where the state Supreme Court declared juvenile
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news---USA, OHIO, VA., S.C.
Jan. 27 USA: Anti-death penalty film builds a strong case The Exonerated is a simple drama sitting on one side of a very convoluted issue. Adapted by actor-director Bob Balaban with sensitivity and, for that matter, courage, from the award-winning off-Broadway play, the TV movie weaves six independent stories of real-life criminal injustice into one powerful and troubling documentary-style tale. It stars Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover and Aidan Quinn, among others. 5 men and 1 woman -- all on death row in U.S. prisons at one time, and all innocent of the crimes for which they were incarcerated -- share their shattering stories while sitting on stools and framed only by a jet-black background. One by one they appear on camera, talking -- in stark detail and even with humor -- about their lives, their loves, what led to their arrests, what happened in their trials and what it was like being sentenced to die for a crime they did not commit. What makes The Exonerated extraordinary, moving and ultimately satisfying in all its desolate bittersweetness is that the scripted dialogue comes directly from the former inmates themselves, compiled by writers Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank through interviews, letters, transcripts, case files and the public record. The low-budget movie was produced by Court TV, so there's no need to ask who was lured by the paycheck. For all of us, this was obviously not about making money, says Quinn, who plays Kerry Max Cook, a Texan sentenced to death for rape and murder in Tyler, until DNA evidence proved him innocent. By then he'd spent 22 years behind bars. Sarandon plays Sunny Jacobs, a young mother who, with her common-law husband, Jesse, was convicted of killing two police officers in Palm Beach County, Fla., in 1976. The real killer -- who'd cut a deal in exchange for testifying against Sunny and Jesse -- eventually recanted his testimony, exonerating the couple. But only after Sunny had spent 16 years in jail and Jesse had been put to death in the electric chair. (This is the notorious 1990 case where the chair malfunctioned, giving its critics the chance to point out its barbaric nature.) When the actors gathered for a Court TV press conference recently to discuss the film, it was a funereal, politically charged affair that would take a surprising, sharp turn by its end. Asked whether any of the actors were even somewhat neutral in their stance on capital punishment, one of them quickly responded. When you have the death penalty joined with the miscarriage of justice, somebody pays the ultimate price that they shouldn't have paid, said Brian Dennehy, who plays Gary Gauger. (In 1993, Gauger discovered the bodies of his parents, who'd been murdered on their northern Illinois farm. He was coerced into making what prosecutors claimed was a voluntary confession. Convicted and sentenced to die, he was freed years later -- only after a group of law students fought to overturn his conviction.) The real problem with [the death penalty] is there's no way to administer it, Dennehy says. So if the system doesn't work, then you have to take this most grievous element of punishment away from it. The Exonerated breaks the rules for television dramas -- even movies created for basic cable, where there's greater freedom to tackle risky topics. For starters, it confronts a difficult, highly controversial subject without the usual please-everyone coyness. Although The Exonerated never really comes out against the death penalty, it builds quite a case. The stories of these individuals speak extremely eloquently [on the issue]; the film doesn't have to proselytize, says Delroy Lindo, who plays the seminary student and poet Delbert Tibbs, convicted in 1974 of rape and murder on virtually no evidence by an all-white jury. Lindo and the others are certain that anyone who watches The Exonerated couldn't possibly come away from the experience with a pro-death penalty stance intact. But that's the thing. Will anyone who firmly believes in the death penalty even watch? Particularly in Texas, a bastion of pro-death penalty sensibilities and the leader in executions in the United States? Toward the end of the press gathering, Court TV's outspoken host and former criminal prosecutor Nancy Grace was asked about her feelings on the subject. She launched into the story of her fiance, who in 1982 was robbed and killed for $35. The murderer was caught and sentenced, but when asked at the time whether she wanted to seek the death penalty, Grace said no. I've had 20 years to think about it, she says now, of her decision. I was wrong. Grace says The Exonerated is an important piece, and it shows injustice in our system. But now she firmly believes in giving a jury the option of the death penalty -- a sentiment that, in this setting, delivered a jolt of its own. In an attempt to put things into perspective, a somewhat stunned-looking Sarandon said that crime victims and the victims of legal
