Jan. 17 USA: Court upholds challenge to death row interview ban----The federal prison media policy focused too much on restricting rights rather than ensuring the prison's security, the court held. A federal policy prohibiting death row inmates from conducting face-to-face interviews with reporters might have been enacted for political rather than safety reasons, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Indianapolis (7th Cir.) ruled on Tuesday. The 3-judge panel sent the case back to the trial court, which had upheld the Bureau of Prisons' (BOP) rule banning face-to-face interviews. David Hammer, then a prisoner on death row, sued various Bureau of Prisons officials in 2001, after he was denied face-to-face interviews with the media. Between August and December 1999, Hammer conducted three in-person interviews at the prison he was housed at in Terre Haute, Ind. But, in 2000, he learned the prison wouldn't allow him to speak in-person to members of the press. The new rule was put in place after fellow death row inmate Timothy McVeigh spoke about the Oklahoma City bombing with 60 Minutes in March 2000. In response to the interview, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and former BOP Director Kathleen Hawk-Sawyer announced a blanket media policy banning all federal death row inmates from giving face-to-face interviews with reporters. The policy also banned inmates from talking to the press about other inmates, which created an especially difficult challenge for Hammer, since he was placed on death row for killing a fellow prisoner. The district court dismissed Hammer's initial suit at the pleading stage, but the appeals court reversed and sent the case back for review. The district court subsequently dismissed a number of Hammer's claims before granting summary judgment to the defendants. Back before the appeals court, Judge Llana Rovner again sided with Hammer, noting that a jury must decide whether the media policy was a result of negative press coverage or a valid safety and security concern. "Ashcroft explained that his distaste for the content of interviews given by death row inmates was the reason for the policy," Rovner wrote. "That is direct evidence of the actual motivation, and it creates a genuine issue of material fact as to whether (former warden Harley) Lappin was motivated by a desire to prohibit a disagreeable viewpoint or to advance prison security." Stephen Key, general counsel for the Hoosier State Press Association, which represents Indiana newspapers, said that although this is only a preliminary victory, he remains hopeful that the policy will be changed. "It was the speech issue that prompted the ban, and not the security issue that was raised at a later date," Key said. "If that's the case, we feel that the courts will rule that the ban should be lifted." The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, which was joined by the Hoosier State Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists, urging the court to overturn the trial court's decision. (source: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press) ********************** Fleeing to Mexico Thwarts Death Penalty A methamphetamine dealer who gunned down a deputy during a traffic stop in Southern California. A man in Arizona who killed his ex-girlfriend's parents and brother and snatched his children. A man who suffocated his baby daughter and left her body in a toolbag on an expressway overpass near Chicago. Ordinarily, these would be death penalty cases. But these men fled to Mexico, thereby escaping the possibility of execution. The reason: Mexico won't send anyone back to the United States unless the U.S. gives assurances it won't seek the death penalty a 30-year-old policy that rankles some American prosecutors and enrages victims' families. "We find it extremely disturbing that the Mexican government would dictate to us, in Arizona, how we would enforce our laws at the same time they are complaining about our immigration laws," said Barnett Lotstein, special assistant to the prosecutor in Maricopa County, Ariz., which includes Phoenix. "Even in the most egregious cases, the Mexican authorities say, `No way,' and that's not justice. That's an interference of Mexican authorities in our judicial process in Arizona." It may about to happen again: A Marine accused of murdering a pregnant comrade in North Carolina and burning her remains in his backyard is believed to have fled to Mexico. Prosecutors said they have not decided whether to seek the death penalty. But if the Marine is captured in Mexico, capital punishment will be off the table. Fugitives trying to escape the long arm of the law have been making a run for the border ever since frontier days, a practice romanticized in countless Hollywood Westerns. Mexico routinely returns fugitives to the U.S. to face justice. But under a 1978 treaty with the U.S., Mexico, which has no death penalty, will not extradite anyone facing possible execution. To get their hands on a fugitive, U.S. prosecutors must agree to seek no more than life in prison. Other countries, including France and Canada, also demand such "death assurances." But the problem is more common with Mexico, since it is often a quick drive from the crime scene for a large portion of the United States. "If you can get to Mexico if you have the means it's a way of escaping the death penalty," said Issac Unah, a University of North Carolina political science professor. The Justice Department said death assurances from foreign countries are fairly common, but it had no immediate numbers. State Department officials said Mexico extradited 83 suspects to the U.S. in 2006. Most were wanted on drug or murder charges. The U.S. government typically pays more attention to those entering the country from Mexico than it does to those trying to leave the U.S. But Texas authorities have begun making checks of vehicles and drivers heading south on the 25 international bridges that connect the state to Mexico. The initiative, announced in October, was originally intended to catch drug smugglers taking cash or stolen cars into Mexico, but "we would hope it would be a deterrent for fugitives" as well, said Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry. In the North Carolina case, local authorities and the FBI are working with Mexican law enforcement to hunt down Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, a 21-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in Mexico. He is accused of killing 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach in mid-December, months after she accused him of rape. Wanted posters and information on Laurean have been distributed to the Mexican media. Also recently, prosecutors in Dallas pledged not to seek the death penalty if Mexico extradites Ernesto Reyes, a man accused of killing and burning the body of a University of North Texas student last year. That extradition request is still pending. John Walsh, host of TV's long-running "America's Most Wanted," which plans to devote Saturday's episode to the Marine case, said the delays and death-penalty compromises needed to get fugitives returned can be heartbreaking for victims' families. "It's not about revenge. It's not so much about closure. It's about justice," he said. Lotstein, the prosecutor's assistant in Phoenix, said the county has agreed to drop the death penalty in a number of cases: "The option we have is absolutely no justice, or partial justice." (source: Associated Press) NEW JERSEY: N.J. Closes Death Row It's official. Before 2007 came to a close, New Jersey became the 1st state in the United States in 40 years to abolish the death penalty. With a stroke of a pen, Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine signed a law eliminating the states death sentence and replacing it with life without the possibility of parole. The measure was the culmination of a concerted statewide campaign. In January 2007, a 13-member, appointed commissionincluding a police chief, a couple of prosecutors and a father who lost his daughter to a violent crime in 2000recommended abolishing the death penalty. In addition to citing concerns about the risk of executing an innocent person, the commission found that the death penalty was a poor deterrent to crime, increasingly "inconsistent with evolving standards of decency," and not worth the financial and emotional costs. Activists took these findings to the streets, the legislature and the public. In early December, after heated floor debates the state Senate and Assembly both passed the measure. "Nobody wants to execute the wrong person," says Abe Bonowitz, field manager for New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "More importantly, the strength of murder victims' families to be present and to share their tragedy was a way of helping legislators understand that the death penalty just creates more pain." Other statesincluding Maryland, New Mexico and South Dakotaare considering similar measures. In Illinois, a moratorium on executions has remained in place since 2000, when former Republican Gov. George Ryan halted executions in light of the revelation of wrongful convictions in the state and around the country. Nationally, no executions have taken place since Sept. 25, 2007, when the state of Texas executed Michael Richard hours after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to examine the constitutionality of lethal injection. Since then, a de facto moratorium on executions is pending a Supreme Court ruling on whether lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Public confidence in the death penalty has eroded over the last decade, according to a June 2007 poll released by the Death Penalty Information Center. The poll, conducted by RT Strategies, found that 40 % of Americans believe that they would be disqualified from serving on a jury in a death penalty case because of their moral beliefs. Moreover, 58 % think executions should be halted temporarily while procedures are looked at more closely. The poll also found that a whopping 87 % of people believe that an innocent prisoner was executed in recent years, and nearly 70 & think that the wrongful execution of an innocent person is inevitable with capital punishment. The findings of another study, conducted by Mark Peffley and Jon Hurwitz, recently published in the American Journal of Political Science, found that race matters when it comes to public opinion on the death penalty. When a random set of white people were asked, "Do you favor or oppose the death penalty for persons convicted of murder?" 36 % said that they strongly favored the death penalty. Another random set of white people was asked the same question, but with a slight variation: "Some people say that the death penalty is unfair because most of the people who are executed are African Americans. Do you favor or oppose the death penalty for persons convicted of murder?" In response to this question, 52 % said that they strongly favored the death penalty, an increase of 16 % . To explore this disparity, Peffley and Hurwitz took a closer look at what whites and blacks believe causes crime. They found that whites were more likely to believe that personal failings were the primary cause of crime rather than social factors, such as poverty and inequality. Yet, as African Americans continue to be sentenced to death disproportionatelycomprising nearly 42 % of the U.S. death row populationthe New Jersey victory should be seen as a blow to racism in America. Additionally, since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 80 % of people executed have been executed for murders involving white victims, according to a 2003 Amnesty International report. Meanwhile, in the race for the White House, talk about the death penalty is rare among the candidates. The top 3 contenders for the Democratic nominationSen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.), Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and former Sen. John Edwardsall support the death penalty. Indeed, even though Obama sponsored death penalty reform legislation during his tenure as state senator in Illinois, he supports capital punishment in cases so heinous that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment, according to his bestselling autobiography, The Audacity of Hope. Of the Democratic candidates, only Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) and former Sen. Mike Gravel oppose the death penalty. But as states like New Jersey and Illinois show, it doesnt have to be presidential contenders who lead the nation away from capital punishment. (source: In These Times) VIRGINIA: Atkins' death sentence commuted to life----Man convicted almost 10 years ago in Langley airman's murder The death sentence for Daryl Atkins sentence was commuted to life in prison Thursday after a York County judge found that prosecutors had failed to turn over potential favorable evidence to his lawyers during his 1998 murder trial. Atkins, a Hampton man who has been on death row for 10 years, was convicted of in the 1996 killing of Langley Airman Eric Nesbitt. Atkins was sentenced to death despite evidence offered by the defense that he was mentally retarded. His appeal went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2002 that it's unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded. A new jury decided in 2003 that Atkins wasn't retarded and upheld the death sentence, but that verdict was also overturned because of errors made during the trial. He was scheduled for a new trial on the retardation issue this year, when allegations surfaced that prosecutors withheld evidence during the original 1998 trial. (source: Daily Press) OKLAHOMA: Convicted killer gets death sentence for a 3rd time A man convicted of beating a University of Oklahoma student to death at a recreation center has been formally sentenced for a third time to die for the crime. Alfred Mitchell was convicted of killing Elaine Scott at the center where she worked in 1991. His previous death sentences were overturned in 2001 and 2006 by appeals courts because of improper evidence, prosecutorial misconduct and judicial bias. Mitchell's 3rd sentencing hearing ended last month with a jury again recommending the death penalty and he was formally sentenced Wednesday in Oklahoma County District Court. (source: Associated Press) INDIANA: Death Penalty Sought In Gary Triple Murder Prosecutors in Lake County, Ind., will seek the death penalty against a man accused of killing his family last summer. Prosecutors say Kevin Isom shot his wife and her daughter and son inside the family's apartment in Gary on August 7, 2007. He was charged with three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of 40-year-old Cassandra Isom, 17-year-old Michael Moore and 13-year-old Ci'Andria Cole. According to a court affidavit, Isom allegedly told investigators that he shot his family because his wife was going to leave him. He also said she had been supporting the family on her own and that he had not been working. Now Isom also faces 4 attempted murder charges for allegedly shooting at police officers who had responded to a hostage situation at the Lake Shore Dunes complex, where Isom allegedly killed his wife and stepchildren. "Every death is traumatic to a police officer, but the death of children perhaps hit them more. For the officers who came under fire, it brings home the danger they face," said Gary Police Cmdr. Sam Roberts. "We have to send a message to the public that we cannot allow anyone to harm our officers," added Gary Police Det. James Bond. Isom is currently being held at the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Ind. Gary police investigated 71 homicides in the city last year. (source: CBS News)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, N.J., VA., OKLA., IND.
Rick Halperin Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:58:16 -0600 (Central Standard Time)