May 3 USA: After Hiatus, States Set Wave of Executions Here in the nation's leading death-penalty state, and some of the 35 others with capital punishment, execution dockets are quickly filling up. Less than 3 weeks after a United States Supreme Court ruling ended a 7-month moratorium on lethal injections, at least 14 execution dates have been set in 6 states between May 6 and October. "The Supreme Court essentially blessed their way of doing things," said Douglas A. Berman, a professor of law and a sentencing expert at Ohio State University. "So in some sense, they're back from vacation and ready to go to work." Experts say the resumption of executions is likely to throw a strong new spotlight on the divisive national and international issue of capital punishment. "When people confront a new wave of executions, they'll be questioning not only how people are executed but whether people should be executed," said James R. Acker, a historian of the death penalty and a criminal justice professor at the State University at Albany. Texas leads the list with 5 people now set to die here in the Walls Unit, the state's death house, between June 3 and Aug. 20. Virginia is next with 4. Louisiana, Oklahoma and South Dakota have also set execution dates. Some welcome the end of the moratorium. "We'll start playing a little bit of catch-up," said William R. Hubbarth, a spokesman for Justice for All, a victims rights group based in Houston. "It's not like we have a cheering section for the death penalty." Mr. Hubbarth said. But, he added: "The capital murderers set to be executed should be executed post-haste. It's not about killing the inmate. It's about imposing the penalty that 12 of his peers have assessed." More inmates whose appeals have expired are certain to be added to execution rosters soon, including, in all likelihood, Jack Harry Smith, who, at 70, is the oldest of the 360 men and 9 women on Texas' death row (though hardly a row any more, but an entire compound). Mr. Smith has been under a death sentence for 30 years for a robbery killing at a grocery in the Houston area. "If it's my time to go, it's my time to go," said Mr. Smith, who maintains his innocence and was delivered by guards for a prison interview in a wheelchair. So far, at least 9 others elsewhere, including Antoinette Frank, a former police officer convicted of a murderous robbery rampage in New Orleans, have been given new execution dates, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-capital punishment research group that puts the latest death row census at 3,263. Dozens more are likely to get execution dates in coming months, but most under death sentences have not exhausted their appeals. Yet public support for capital punishment may be dwindling. Death sentences have been on the decline, and a poll last year by death penalty opponents found Americans losing confidence in the death penalty. "There will be more executions than people have the stomach for, at least in many parts of the country," said Stephen B. Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, a leading anti-death-penalty litigation clinic. Last year, Texas accounted for 26 of the 42 executions nationwide. That includes the last two people executed before the Supreme Court signaled a moratorium on executions while considering whether the chemical formula used for lethal injection in Kentucky inflicted pain amounting to unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. The justices ruled 7 to 2 on April 16 that it did not, while allowing for possible future challenges. But the scheduling of executions comes as prosecutors and juries have been turning away from the death penalty, often in favor of life sentences without parole, now an option in every death-penalty state but New Mexico. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, death sentences nationwide rose from 137 in 1977, peaked at 326 in 1995 and fell steadily to 110 last year. "We're seeing a huge drop-off," said Mr. Bright, attributing the decline to the time and trouble of imposing death sentences, and a recent wave of exonerations after DNA tests proved wrongful conviction. Close to 35 people have been cleared in Texas alone, including, just days ago, James L. Woodard, who spent more than 27 years in prison for a 1980 murder he did not commit. The 1st inmate now set for execution is William E. Lynd, 53, on Tuesday in Georgia. Mr. Lind was convicted of shooting his girlfriend, Ginger Moore, in the face during an argument in 1988, shooting her again as she clung to life, and a 3rd time, fatally, as she struggled in the trunk of his car. After burying her, he attacked and killed another woman he had stopped on the road. With 2 other executions pending but not yet scheduled in Georgia, the state seeks "clearance of the backlog," said Russ Willard, a spokesman for Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker. "We will work our way though the system at a much more rapid pace than we would have." Virginia which has executed 98 people since 1976, 2nd only to Texas, with 405 has the next scheduled execution: May 27, for Kevin Green, 30, for the 1998 slayings of Patricia and Lawrence Vaughn in their convenience store in Dolphin. 3 other Virginia inmates also have been given dates in June and July. Louisiana has set a July 15 execution date for 2 inmates, including the former police officer, Ms. Frank, 30. She was convicted of killing a fellow officer, Ronald Williams, and 2 Vietnamese workers, Ha Vu and her brother, Cuong Vong, at their familys restaurant in New Orleans during a robbery in 1995. But appeals may delay her execution and that of the 2nd inmate Darrell Robinson, convicted of killing 4 people. South Dakota, which has recorded only 15 executions since 1889, set a week's window of Oct. 7-13 for the execution of Briley Piper, 25. He pleaded guilty to the torture murder of Chester Allan Pogue, 19, who was forced to drink hydrochloric acid and then stabbed and bludgeoned to death in 2000. One accomplice was executed last year and another is serving life without parole. The 1st Texas inmate now re-scheduled for death, on June 3, is Derrick Sonnier, 40, convicted of stalking, stabbing and strangling a young mother, Melody Flowers, and her baby son in Humble, north of Houston, in 1991. Mr. Sonnier, who turned down a request this week for an interview, had forbidden his trial lawyer from calling family members as mitigating witnesses, costing him a chance for life in prison without parole, said his appellate lawyer, Jani Maselli. In another of the 5 latest scheduled Texas executions, a July 22 date was set for Lester Bower, 60, convicted of killing a former police officer and 3 other men near Sherman in 1983. Mr. Smith, the oldest death row inmate, lost his Supreme Court appeal in February and said he was resigned to an execution date soon as well. "I'd hate to go before my time," he said, a gaunt figure seated in a wheelchair and speaking by phone behind glass in the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Tex., where the condemned are housed until the day they are driven to Huntsville to die. Asked if the prospect of an end to his confinement came as any relief, he said, "In a way it does." "Death is death," Mr. Smith said. "If they stick a needle in your arm or shoot you in the head, it's cruel and inhuman punishment, taking a human life." Yet, he said, "a life sentence is a whole lot worse it's torture." (source: New York Times) *********************** Inmates in 2 states have dates with executioner----If last-minute appeals fail, Earl Wesley Berry could be executed Monday He could die by injection on his 49th birthday Berry's would be 1st execution since Supreme Court upheld lethal injection Georgia also plans an execution next week Earl Wesley Berry came within 21 minutes of dying at the hands of the state of Mississippi in October, before the Supreme Court issued a last-minute stay. Mississippi officials are pushing to execute Earl Wesley Berry on Monday. It is 7 months later, but Berry's time on death row may soon come to an end, with state officials pushing for an execution Monday, his 49th birthday. "It's time for this defendant to pay for the crimes he committed in 1987," Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said. Mississippi and Georgia plan executions next week, moving quickly after the Supreme Court ruled April 16 that Kentucky's lethal injection procedures were constitutional. The decision prompted about a dozen states to announce that they would resume capital punishment in the next several months, to clear a backlog stretching back to September. "There will surely be future legal challenges brought by the method of execution," said Solicitor General Ted Cruz of Texas, where the most executions by far have taken place in the past 32 years. But he said the recent high court decision "makes clear that the method of execution that virtually every state uses is consistent with the U.S. Constitution." Not so fast, said Berry's lawyer, James Craig. "There's a very strong political push to execute as many prisoners as possible," he said of Mississippi officials. "It's no surprise they're seizing this moment and moving forward with the execution even though there are serious problems with Mississippi's procedures and even though their own records show Mr. Berry is mentally retarded." His legal team is filing last-minute legal appeals and a request for clemency from Gov. Haley Barbour. If Mississippi's high court opts to delay Monday's execution, Georgia could have the dubious distinction of conducting the first execution since September, when the Supreme Court issued a de facto moratorium while it considered the larger constitutional questions over lethal injection. In Georgia, William Earl Lynd was convicted of the murder of his girlfriend, Virginia "Ginger" Moore, in Berrien County two decades ago. Prosecutors told jurors that Lynd shot her twice in the head and then shot her a third time, this time fatally, after he heard her continuing to move in the trunk of the car where he had put her. Death penalty opponents plan vigils across Georgia on Tuesday, when the execution is set to take place. "It's a shame, and it's very sad Georgia is leading the way in the new resumption of executions in the United States," said Laura Moye, chairwoman of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "They're trying to send a message they're tough on crime, but they're acting irresponsibly." Although both Berry and Lynd are white, Moye said that far too often, other factors unfairly play a part in who is prosecuted for capital crimes. "Factors like race, class and the county where the crime occurred have much more to do with who goes to death row than the actual heinousness of the crime." Human rights groups also raise the possibility that an innocent person could be put to death. They point to Friday's release in North Carolina of Levan "Bo" Jones, an African-American man who spent 14 years on death row before a judge said the evidence was faulty and overturned his murder conviction. The charges have been dropped. Local prosecutors see things differently. "There's been no evidence in this state -- and I'm not aware of any in the country -- that any demonstrably innocent person has been put to death," said Tommy Floyd, chairman of the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia. "As well as the human system we have devised, the death penalty is carried out fairly and appropriately" in his state. As district attorney in Henry County, just south of Atlanta, his office has prosecuted 10 capital defendants over the years. "No prosecutor I know wants to execute an innocent person," he said. But critics point out that it is virtually impossible to get a legal ruling on a person's guilt or innocence after he has been put to death, for reasons including that no one else has legal standing to bring such a case and that it would waste valuable court time to review the cases of people who are beyond help. Virginia has set a May 27 execution date for death row inmate Kevin Green, and the state is proceeding on schedule, said David Clementson of the Virginia attorney general's office. Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois and Oklahoma have indicated that they will resume capital punishment as soon as possible. Officials in Texas have four executions scheduled in June and July. Antionette Frank of Louisiana would be the first woman put to death in 3 years if her July death warrant is carried out. Even South Dakota, which has sent only 1 inmate to death in 3 decades, has scheduled lethal injection for Briley Piper in October. All but one of the 36 states with capital punishment use a three-drug mixture: an anesthetic, a muscle paralyzer and a heart-stopping substance. Berry's lawyer and death penalty opponents had argued that if an inmate is not given enough anesthetic, he could be conscious enough to suffer excruciating pain without being able to express that fact because of the paralyzer. Nebraska is the only state that does not use lethal injection, but its use of the electric chair was ruled unconstitutional in February. The last execution in the United States was September 25, of Michael Wayne Richard in Texas. The execution took place hours after the high court agreed to decide on the constitutionality of lethal injection. Mississippi uses only two grams of sodium thiopental, the anesthetic used to render condemned inmates unconscious. Kentucky and other states use 3 grams, a standard the Supreme Court judged to be constitutional. Georgia officials say they use 3 grams. But Mississippi has no plans to change. "There have been no signs, no proof, nothing whatsoever that would support the confusion that three grams would put someone under deeper than would two," Hood said. "So we're going to stay with our same policies and protocols." But Berry's attorneys have made the drug mixture a major part of their last-minute appeals of his death sentence for the 1987 murder of a Houston, Mississippi, woman who was kidnapped and beaten to death. "If they get it wrong, [Berry] will not be anesthetized; he will not be unconscious; he will suffocate to death," said Craig. "That is not the kind of execution the American public will stand for." For the family of his victim, Mary Bounds, the waiting is the hard part, 21 years after the crime. "Suddenly everything is brought back as though it were yesterday," said Gena Watson, who was 27 when her mother was murdered. "We're dealing with the grief of her death all over again, and it's hard." (source: CNN) NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina frees 8th death row inmate----Charges dropped over problems with evidence and defense attorneys Another North Carolina man once condemned for murder will walk free. Levon "Bo" Jones of Duplin County, N.C., spent 13 years on death row, convicted of robbing and shooting a well-liked bootlegger. In 2006, a federal judge ordered Jones off death row and overturned his conviction, declaring his attorney's performance so poor that his constitutional rights had been violated. Friday, Jones became the eighth North Carolina man spared execution after charges against him were dropped. Judges turned the inmates loose after discovering a variety of problems in their cases, ranging from hidden evidence to inadequate defense attorneys. The latest release comes as the legal system is re-examining the use of capital punishment in North Carolina. The death penalty has been on hold in the state since 2007. It has faced several legal attacks, including a case that challenges doctors' participation in executions. Jones was sentenced to die for the death of Leamon Grady, who was robbed and shot in his home in February 1987. After being taken off death row in 2006, Jones remained in prison awaiting a prosecutor's second try at a conviction. On Thursday, Duplin County District Attorney Dewey Hudson decided to give up. He said he'll ask a judge Friday to drop all charges against Jones and let him go. A new trial for Jones had been set to begin May 12. Hudson, who also prosecuted Jones in 1993, had planned to ask a jury later this month to send Jones back to prison for life. Then, his case crumbled. Lovely Lorden, the state's star witness and Jones' former lover, recanted her claims that Jones killed Grady. In an affidavit that Jones' attorneys filed in April, Lorden said, "Much of what I testified to was simply not true." She said a detective coached her on what to say at Jones' trial and that of co-defendant Larry Lamb. Lorden's new testimony also casts doubt on the conviction of Lamb, who is serving a life sentence. Another co-defendant, Ernest Matthews, pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder and was released in 2001. Hudson doesn't believe Lorden's change of heart. "She's lied one time or another, then or now," Hudson said. He said he won't risk taking Lorden before another jury. (source: McClatchy-Tribune) TENNESSEE: Tennessee authorities to pursue death penalty against Mendenhall Tennessee prosecutors say, if given the chance, theyll pursue the death penalty against accused serial killer Bruce Mendenhall a former trucker from Illinois accused of killing at least 4 women. If Mendenhall is convicted, the Davidson County prosecutors office says it will seek the death penalty against him for the alleged murder of Sara Nicole Hulbert, whose body was discovered June 26, 2007, at a Nashville truck stop. The Associated Press reported that Susan Niland, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors office, said jury selection is set for Jan. 26. Mendenhall pleaded not guilty to the charges. An Indiana prosecutor has also charged Mendenhall with murder in the July 12 murder Carma Purpura, 31, The AP reported. That charge was based on blood evidence seized from a bag in Mendenhalls truck. (source: Land Line Magazine) ALABAMA: Father, son face death penalty 2 Tennessee men accused of killing a Lauderdale County man during a 2007 robbery and burglary face the death penalty after being indicted on capital murder charges. William David Nard, 48, and his son, Greg Leon Nard, 26, both of Iron City, were indicted by the April session of the Lauderdale County grand jury. They were served Friday with notice of the indictments. A 3rd defendant, Norman Earnest Widdowson, 43, also of Iron City, was indicted on a murder charge. He does not face the possibility of the death penalty but could receive up to life in prison if convicted. All 3 had originally been charged with murder. The trio is accused of killing James Gregory Wright, 42, at Wright's home on Lauderdale 130 north of Greenhill on Jan. 27, 2007. They were arrested Feb. 2, 2007. Lauderdale District Attorney Chris Connolly said the capital murder charges are the result of the homicide occurring during the commission of another felony. "The evidence shows the murder was committed during a 1st-degree robbery and a 1st-degree burglary," he said. Each of the defendants has pleaded not guilty. Defense attorney Dane Perry, of Florence, who represents William Nard, said Friday that he has not received a copy of the indictment. He is surprised the charges were upgraded to capital murder. "I don't think this is a capital case. It does not merit a capital indictment," Perry said. The death penalty and life in prison without parole are the only sentencing options for someone convicted of capital murder in Alabama. Connolly said the three defendants made statements to investigators that connected them with Wright's death. He said evidence collected from the defendants also connected them with the crime. After their arrest, investigators said a disagreement over a $70 debt might have been the motive for the homicide. Connolly said Widdowson's charges were not upgraded to capital murder because there is no evidence he participated in the burglary or robbery. William Nard is being held without bond at the Franklin County Jail in Russellville. Greg Nard is being held without bond at the Walker County Jail in Jasper. Widdowson remains in the Lauderdale County Detention Center. (source: Florence Times Daily)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, N.C., TENN., ALA.
Rick Halperin Sat, 3 May 2008 12:07:16 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
