[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, WYO. OHIO, CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

March 29




USA:

Alberto Gonzales and the death penalty: A time for candor. A time for
fairness.


2 years ago, as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced confirmation
hearings, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty stressed
that the nation's chief law enforcement officer "must demonstrate the
highest commitment to fairness, due process and equal protection under the
law."

We based our opposition to Gonzales' confirmation on our belief that his
track record on death penalty cases in Texas failed to meet this
challenge. Time and again the legal analysis he provided to then-Gov.
George W. Bush on the eve of executions failed to include any discussion
of the most salient issues, including severe mental retardation and mental
illness, abysmally poor legal representation and, in more than a handful
of cases, even credible claims of innocence.

With the recent revelations that differences regarding the death penalty
played a role in the dismissal of at least three U.S. attorneys, our
fears, sadly, have been justified.

Then, as now, Mr. Gonzales placed Bush's political agenda above honesty,
integrity , and commitment to fairness. In Texas this took the form of
cursory review - and then denial in every single case but one - of
clemency applications as President Bush parlayed his "tough-on-crime"
persona into a successful run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Today, Mr. Gonzales' failed priorities have contributed to a politicized
federal death penalty system instead of one based on fairness and
integrity. Consider:

* At least 3 U.S. attorneys - Paul Charlton of Arizona, Margaret Chiara of
Michigan, and Kevin Ryan of California - were dismissed after clashing
with the Justice Department over death penalty policy. Although the final
decision has always rested with the U.S. Attorney General, a U.S.
attorney's recommendation that death should not be sought has
traditionally been given great deference - until recently.

* During the 6 years that President Bush has been in office (a span of
time marked by Mr. Gonzales and his predecessor, former Attorney General
John Ashcroft) the federal death penalty was sought 95 times, or about 16
times a year. That's twice as often as the 55 times it was sought during
the 8 years of the Clinton Administration, roughly seven times a year.

* Ominously, the Bush Department of Justice has sought the federal death
penalty in states where voters, through their elected representatives,
have rejected capital punishment. These jurisdictions include Iowa,
Massachusetts, Michigan, North Dakota, and Vermont, as well as Puerto Rico
and Washington, D.C. (New York, a state without a functioning state death
penalty, has a stunning 51 potential federal death penalty cases in the
works.)

Perhaps the most telling statistic: The size of federal death row has
tripled since Bush took office, while state death sentences and executions
are down sharply from their historic highs in the late 1990s. 3 federal
death row inmates already have been executed under the Bush
administration; another 4 federal death row inmates are nearing the end of
their appeals.

What does it say that the federal death penalty under Gonzales is
inconsistent with state trends, which show capital punishment is on the
wane? It says, simply, that the Bush Administration has chosen to
politicize the death penalty. That is wrong.

Both death penalty proponents and opponents agree on this: Fairness and
integrity must be present at the highest levels of our criminal justice
system, especially when a person's life is in the balance. That is why,
increasingly, groups such as murder victims' family members, religious
groups, and leaders in the law enforcement community are calling for
fairness.

Mr. Gonzales promised fairness in 2005 when he faced confirmation
hearings. He was not candid about his record on the death penalty then and
he is not candid today. It is past time for General Gonzales to tender his
resignation, for the President to nominate, and for the Senate to confirm
an Attorney General who will "demonstrate the highest commitment to
fairness, due process and equal protection under the law."

(source: NCADP; Rust-Tierney is executive director of the National
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty)

**********************

Prosecutors and the Death Penalty


As the scandal over the US Attorney purge intensifies, each day brings
stark revelations. From intimidating phone calls made to prosecutors'
homes to incriminating e-mails from the office of former White House
counsel Harriet Miers, to the lurking shadow of Karl Rove, it's a
political firestorm that threatens to reduce the career of Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales to ashes. But long before this controversy shed
light on the political maneuvering between the White House and the Justice
Department, two of the fired attorneys were engaged in a largely invisible
internal struggle with the Justice Department over its aggressive pursuit
of the death penalty.

Both Paul Charlton of Arizona and Margaret Chiara of Michigan have been
criticized for failing to seek death sentences with sufficient gusto. Both
US Attorneys were pressured to participate in an aggressive campaign begun
by former Attorney General John Ashcroft and continued by Gonzales to
extend the federal death penalty--particularly into jurisdictions without
death-penalty statutes of their own.

The expansion of the federal death penalty is in many ways old news.
Resurrected in 1988 and expanded by the 1994 Crime Bill, capital
punishment was again encouraged by the Patriot Act. Shortly after taking
office in 2001, Ashcroft amended a number of official US Attorney
protocols for capital cases; among the most controversial was a new
requirement that forced prosecutors to seek Attorney General approval in
plea bargains that would spare a defendant's life. But it was only when
Ashcroft began stepping into federal cases across the country, overriding
federal prosecutors and forcing them to seek death sentences that people
began to take notice.

In 2001 Charlton prosecuted Lezmond Mitchell for his role in a murder and
kidnapping on a Navajo reservation in Arizona. Citing the Navajo tribe's
opposition to capital punishment, Charlton opted not to seek the death
penalty. But Ashcroft overruled Charlton, forcing a capital trial. The
result: the only Native American on federal death row at the time.

Charlton would be overruled again, by Alberto Gonzales, in a 2003
drug-related murder case in which neither the weapon nor the victim's body
were ever found. (The defendant, Jose Rios Rico, is still awaiting trial.)
But the historic nature of the Mitchell case would set the stage for
prosections over the next six years in which the federal death penalty
crept into jurisdictions that had not seen capital cases of any sort for
decades. Michigan, for example, had not prosecuted a capital case in sixty
years when Margaret Chiara, a declared death-penalty foe, became a US
Attorney in 2001. Two years later, she would be overruled and forced to
prosecute a capital case described as "completely mystifying" by Kevin
McNally of the Capital Defense Network, which tracks federal capital
cases. In the murder case against Robert and Michael Ostrander, Ashcroft
was so zealously in favor of capital punishment that he rejected a plea
bargain arranged by Chiara in which Michael Ostrander would plead guilty
and implicate his brother, Robert, forcing the case to go to trial. As
McNally told the Grand Rapids Press in August 2003, "If a trial-level
prosecutor feels he can use another witness to shore up a case, how do you
overrule that decision a thousand miles away?

Yet the same thing happened in the case of Donald Fell in Vermont in 2002;
prosecutors had arranged a plea bargain that would have resulted in a life
sentence, only to be overruled by Ashcroft, who insisted that a death
sentence be sought instead. Unlike in the Ostrander case in Michigan,
which ended with life sentences, jurors in the first capital trial in
Vermont in fifty years voted for death. Other states where Ashcroft
overruled prosecutors--and where Gonzales has continued to overrule with
increasing frequency--include New York, which in January sent its first
defendant to federal death row in 50 years.

"Typically, the decision to seek the death penalty is made at the local
level and then the Attorney General has the ultimate say," says Wayne
McKenzie, a former prosecutor and program director at the Vera Institute
of Justice in New York. "The question here is: How much push is coming
from main justice down to the individual US attorneys encouraging [death
sentences]? As a US prosecutor, you have certain autonomy, but you also
have a certain amount of oversight. There are certain mandates that come
out of main justice."

"Main justice" is of course, the Attorney General's office, the ultimate
embodiment of a fundamental contradiction. "Federal prosecutors are
supposed to represent 'the people,'" says Angela J. Davis, a law professor
at American University Washington College of Law, "but they are nominated
by the President and confirmed by the Senate. How do 'the people' have any
connection to that?"

The answer, presumably, is through their representatives in Congress. But
consider New York Senator Charles Schumer, a death-penalty supporter who
has led the charge against Gonzales and who presided over the first set of
Senate Judiciary hearings on March 6. For all his moral indignation over
the attorney purge, Schumer has had nothing to say about the Attorney
General's overruling of prosecutors in capital cases in his own state. And
New York leads the country in the number of potential death penalty cases
in the federal pipeline: 51 as of February.

Federal prosecutors, after all, "serve at the pleasure of the President,"
and, like lawmakers, cannot completely transcend politics, even if they
are supposed to be, as Schumer insists, "bedrock neutral servants of the
law."

"The system as it stands is troubling enough," says Davis. "What's going
on now with Bush is that these attorneys are being removed not because
they aren't being accountable to the people; they're being removed because
they're not being accountable to the Bush Administration. That is
outrageous."

Besides Schumer, some of the most vocal Congressional critics of the US
Attorney purge, including Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy and Michigan
Representative John Conyers, hail from states that have been affected by
the Justice Department's aggressive pursuit of the death penalty, but
neither lawmaker has addressed the death penalty issue to date. Meanwhile,
the impact of the policy is already apparent. "In 2000, there was no one
on the federal death row from a jurisdiction that did not have the death
penalty," points out Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information
Center. "Now there are 6 on the federal death row from such places." He
adds, "The size of the federal death row has almost tripled from 2000 to
the present, during a time when state death row numbers have declined."
Indeed, the expansion of the federal death penalty is in direct opposition
to declining death penalty trends throughout the country--yet another
example of the Bush Administration's deliberate disconnect from its
constituents.

With the White House and DOJ officials engaged in a showdown with
Congress, the investigation phase of this scandal is just beginning. Thus
far, D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's influential chief of staff (and a former
adviser to Ashcroft) has been the only casualty. Regardless of the
results, a hard look at the Bush Administration's death penalty push is
long overdue. This needs to happen whether or not Gonzales survives. "In
Texas we believe in having a fair trial," Republican Senator John Cornyn
recently said, "and then we have the hanging."

(source: Opinion , Liliana Segura, The Nation)

*****************

ABA Report Outlines Trends in Criminal Justice


A new report from the American Bar Association Section of Criminal Justice
pulls together data from around the country to reveal trends in the
system. How are women's roles in violent crime changing? What steps are
some states taking in efforts to utilize the newest DNA technologies? How
do losses from cybercrime compare with losses from physical crime?

The State of Criminal Justice, 2006 addresses these topics and more,
including alternative sentencing and prisoner re-entry, parallel
proceedings, international anti-cartel enforcement, the death penalty, and
minority and juvenile crime.

The report marks the return of an annual review of the criminal justice
system compiled by the ABAs Criminal Justice Section. The views expressed
in the report represent the opinions of the authors and editors. They have
not been approved by the House of Delegates or the Board of Governors and
do not represent association policy.

The report reveals greater utilization of DNA evidence not only to convict
the guilty but also to free the innocent. While proposals for a universal
DNA database are still being debated, several states have taken the
initiative to collect DNA from all arrested individuals, and the Justice
Department is preparing rules that would mandate collection of DNA from
most people arrested or detained by federal authorities.

The ABA report also notes that some estimates are that losses due to
cybercrime now exceed the costs of physical crime. The future will likely
bring increased use of undercover online investigations, as well as more
prosecution of complex cases involving high technology.

There has been a significant drop in the number of death penalties in
recent years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The State
of Criminal Justice reports that among the likely reasons is "increased
awareness that the sentence of life without parole really means without
any possibility of parole." Further, the document states, the
international trend away from capital punishment has continued.

The dramatic increase of women within the criminal justice system means
that two issues must be addressed. First, women must have access to
similar programs to which men are currently entitled, such as
community-based programs and educational programs. But programs specific
to women must also be in place, such as health services.

Finally, the report includes a synopsis of Supreme Court cases during the
2005-2006 term related to criminal justice.

The report is available online at
http://www.abanet.org/abastore/index.cfm?fm=Product.AddToCart&pid=5090106
, or by calling the ABA Service Center at 800/285-2221.

With more than 413,000 members, the American Bar Association is the
largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world. As
the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the
administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and
judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal
education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the
importance of the rule of law in a democratic society.

(source: ABA)



WYOMING:

Death penalty possibility shakes family


The brother of convicted murderer Kent Alan Proffit Sr. cried when he took
the stand Wednesday to ask for his brothers life.

Proffit is "a very loving human being" who has always sacrificed himself
for others, Terry Proffit told jurors. The statements came during a court
hearing to determine whether his brother should be sentenced to death for
murdering 16-year-old Bryce Chavers to keep him from testifying against
Proffit in a sexual assault case.

He related how his teenage younger brother quit school after his father
died to help his mom with expenses. Even during Kent Proffits legal
struggles  first with sexual assault charges and then 2 murder trials  hes
been more concerned about his family's well-being than his own, Terry
Proffit said.

"This man has helped more people ..." he tried to say through sobs that
set off a chain of tears among his family and friends. "He deserves better
than this."

Defense attorneys Dion Custis and Craig Abraham called 2 of Proffits
brothers, 2 of his sisters, 2 of his friends and a brother-in-law to
convince jurors that Proffits 43-year-old life "has value." To quantify
that effect, Custis even drew an impromptu family tree with more than 40
names of people who would be affected by Proffits death.

Kent Proffit, himself, didn't break down until his son, Kent "Bubba"
Proffit Jr. told the court he loved his father.

Rayna Rogers, a Las Vegas-based forensic psychiatrist, told jurors that
Proffit is a person whose life revolves around helping others. Hes also
likely to become a victim in prison because he "is a very fearful, anxious
man who cannot stand up to confrontation. ... (In prison) he is either
going to be somebodys bitch, which means somebodys slave, or hes going to
be dead, in my honest opinion."

Rogers also said she has testified in eight or nine death penalty cases.
But she evaded Edelmans questions about how often she thought a death
sentence was appropriate and the number of times she said a capital
offender was a benefit to society. She also conceded that she disregarded
Proffits previous conviction in 19-year-old Jeremy Forquers death in
assessing his criminality.

"It was my judgment that he didnt have any meaningful role in the death of
Jeremy Forquer," she said.

(source: The Gillette News-Record)






OHIO:

Death Row Scot confident of appeal success


Death row Scot Kenny Richey says he is confident appeal court judges will
rule in his favour and release him.

But Richey, who grew up in Edinburgh, admits it could be "weeks, months or
years" before the decision is made.

Writing on the website she set up to campaign for his release, Karen
Torley said: "I have spoken to Kenny several times this week and he is
doing as well as he can in the circumstances he is forced to endure.

"Thankfully he still retains his sense of humour, which has helped him get
along all these years. He joked that I should start a new campaign to God
to stop us getting old.

"He is feeling positive that there will be a good decision from the 6th
Circuit Court of Appeals, though he doesn't know when this will happen. As
he says himself, 'it could be weeks, months or years'."

The 42-year-old has always protested his innocence over his conviction in
Ohio 20 years ago for an arson attack that claimed the life of a toddler.

(source: Edinburgh Evening News)





CALIFORNIA:

Former sheriff's officer now also accused of kidnapping

Paul R. Kovacich Jr., a former Placer County sheriff's sergeant, is
accused of the 1982 kidnapping and murder of his wife, according to an
amended indictment handed up against him last week by the Placer grand
jury.

The indictment also alleges that he used a firearm to murder his wife,
Janet Kay Kovacich, who was 27 when she disappeared.

The alleged actions warrant consideration for the death penalty. The
indictment cites a state Penal Code section that includes murder committed
during a kidnapping as a "special circumstance" marking it as a
death-penalty case.

A gag order prevents attorneys in the case from commenting.

Kovacich was indicted on a murder charge in September by the same grand
jury. However, there was no mention then of the kidnapping or firearm
allegations.

The 58-year-old defendant, who was rearrested last week after being free
on $1 million bail, is scheduled for arraignment on the amended charges
April 10 in Placer Superior Court.

Kovacich remains in the Placer County jail without bail.

(source: Sacramento Bee)

*******************

All About Marin: Migden scoffs at cost of new death row


CALLING ITS $337 million price tag "outrageous," state Sen. Carole Migden
wants San Quentin State Prison to scuttle plans to build a new death row.

The San Francisco Democrat, who represents Marin in the state Senate, said
the money would be better spent building new death row accommodations
"elsewhere," but she didn't specify a location.

In a letter this week to state Sen. Mike Machado, head of the Senate
budget committee, Migden said the proposed death row, smaller and much
more expensive than originally planned, would cost taxpayers almost
$300,000 per bed.

The San Quentin plan calls for replacing its overcrowded death row with a
768-cell complex that has more beds and modern security measures.

Migden urged Machado to reject Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget request
for $117 million to complete the funding for death row, urging that the
money be spent creating "lower-cost" beds for condemned inmates someplace
else.

(source: Marin Independent)