Nov. 30
USA:
Richard Jaffe's Quest for Justice: Rethinking the Death Penalty in America
The following is an excerpt from Richard Jaffe's book, Quest for Justice:
Defending the Damned.
One bleak November night, a lone man pointed a gun at a young female cashier
and demanded money at a grocery store in Homewood, Alabama, a suburb that
stands on the edge of both Birmingham and the affluent town of Mountain Brook.
After the cashier doled out a few hundred dollars in rolled cash and coins, the
robber left. Shaken, the cashier called 911, reporting the armed robbery.
The 911 operator alerted the police departments from Homewood, Mountain Brook
and Birmingham. Officers from all 3 jurisdictions quickly responded, but before
they could apprehend the robber violence erupted.
A 23-year-old store manager followed the robber out of the grocery store. The
unarmed manager and the robber played a dangerous game of "cat and mouse" for 2
or 3 minutes. As the robber started to cross the street, the store manager came
closer to him. The robber turned and pointed his gun at the store manager, who
retreated toward the store entrance. Then the store manager retraced his
pursuit.
The robber again turned and pointed his gun. The young manager again retreated.
Finally, they both disappeared deep in a dark trailer park across the street.
They were out of sight of both the cashier and a customer who had witnessed the
alarming scene through the store???s plate glass windows.
Within 5 minutes of the cashier's call to 911, two Homewood plainclothes police
officers arrived on the scene. After speaking to the cashier, they approached
and entered the trailer park. Three confused students walked out on the front
porch of their trailer after hearing "Halt! Police!" and 2 gunshots. The
officers ordered them to go back inside, close the door and remain there until
further notice. Several other residents later reported they also heard the
sounds of 2 rapidly fired gunshots. For some unknown reason, the plainclothes
police officers raced from the trailer park after the shots were fired.
Additional police officers who had arrived at the grocery store converged on
the darkened trailer park. No more than 30 minutes after the trailer residents
heard the gunshots a group of three officers searching for the robber found Bo
Cochran hiding in thick brush just outside the trailer park, approximately 1/4
mile from the scene of the shooting. The police located a .38 revolver in the
bushes about ten feet from Bo. Officers noticed that the worn weapon appeared
rusty and brown, with a scratched 4-inch barrel.
When an officer examined the weapon, he discovered that the cylinder contained
four rounds and turned clockwise. He further noted and later put in his report
that from the position of the cylinder, the weapon???s most recent turn would
not have discharged a bullet, because it was empty. The last time someone
pulled the trigger, the gun did not fire. Trailer residents had reported
gunshots, but when the officers came upon Bo Cochran and his gun, they
discovered the weapon was cold and without the scent of burned gun powder.
The officers did not conduct a Paraffin test, then a standard test, to
determine the probability of whether a person had recently handled or fired a
gun. 1 of the 3 officers conducting the search put a gun to Bo's head and said,
"I ought to put a bullet right through your head."
With his heart pounding, Bo was curled up in a fetal position among the dark
weeds and grassy woods. The officers immediately cuffed and thoroughly searched
him, finding nothing of interest and no money of any kind. Before placing him
in a nearby squad car, two other officers searched Bo, again finding nothing.
It wasn't until 45 minutes after the reported gunshots that, after an intense
search, numerous officers discovered the store manager's lifeless corpse under
the trailer shared by the 3 students. The body was still warm. About an hour
after the students heard the shots, officers went inside their trailer and took
their statements.
When the coroner arrived at the scene, he examined the dead store manager's
body. He discovered that one penetrating gunshot to the manager???s left arm
travelled through his side, perforated his heart and caused his death. The
bullet lodged in his right arm. This was very significant, because the bullet
did not pass through his right arm; there was no exit wound. The long sleeve
shirt covering the young man's right arm bore no bullet hole.
The coroner never found the bullet, nor did a search party of police officers
who searched both that night and over the next several days using a metal
detector. However, the coroner did find a rather large scraping mark at the
site of the entrance wound in the manager's right arm, as if someone had used a
pocketknife to remove the bullet.
Crime scene photos revealed no signs of blood on the grass or grass marks on
the store manager's clothes. It seemed at least 2 persons must have lifted the
young man???s body and placed it far underneath the trailer.
At the police station, the booking officers searched Bo for a third time. This
time, they claimed to find a wad of money in a jacket pocket that already had
been searched twice. The money matched that found in a grocery sack in the
trailer park by another group of officers who had been conducting a search for
shell casings, bullets and any other potential evidence.
When the officers "discovered" the rolled money in Bo's jacket, Bo yelled out,
"You planted that money on me! You planted it! You already searched me twice.
You planted it!"
The officers responded by booking Bo for capital murder.
About Richard Jaffe:
(source: Richard S. Jaffe is the Senior Partner of the Birmingham, Alabama law
firm of Jaffe & Drennan, P.C., specializing in the areas of criminal defense
and civil rights. A criminal trial lawyer for 36 years, Jaffe has been board
certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy as a Criminal Trial
Specialist since 1984 and is listed in both Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers of
America, which in 2012 named him among the top 50 lawyers in Alabama.
As a legal commentator and analyst, Jaffe has provided commentary to local and
national audiences on high-profile cases including the O.J. Simpson and Casey
Anthony trials, and most recently, the impending George Zimmerman
trial----Opposing Views)
**********************
Death penalty not just
In his Local View column "Death penalty a question of just punishment" (Nov.
25), J. Kirk Brown admits that our justice system is susceptible to human
error. This alone should be enough to abolish the death penalty.
How can we, in good conscience, take the life of another human being if we're
unable to determine guilt with absolute certainty? In a civilized society,
there is no plausible excuse for taking the life of another human being when a
viable alternative exists. Life without the chance of parole is less expensive,
just as effective, and, if we are in error, some form of restitution is
possible.
It seems the only just option is to end the outdated and barbaric practice of
putting people to death.
Chris Shepherd, Lincoln
(source: Letter to the Editor, Lincoln Journal Star)
FLORIDA:
State to appeal Supreme Court ruling
State Attorney Angela Corey is preparing documents to challenge a recent
Florida Supreme Court ruling that threw out a 2010 death penalty handed down in
the 2007 murder of a Middleburg woman who worked in an Orange Park veterinary
clinic.
Nov. 15, Florida's highest court voted 5-2 to throw out the March 2010 death
sentence handed to Michael Renard Jackson, 42, for raping and killing Andrea
Boyer in the early morning of Jan. 23, 2007.
The court based its decision on written transcripts of the trial, as opposed to
talking with jurors. By state law, cases involving the death penalty are
automatically sent to the high court for appeal. The court stated that a video
presented as evidence in the guilt phase of the trial was prejudicial to the
jury because investigating officers "repeatedly expressed their personal
opinions about Jackson's guilt and the victim's character and family life,"
according to Supreme Court documents.
However, Corey said there is a huge irony involved in the ruling.
"The irony is we don't believe the video impacted the jury's decision in light
of the overwhelming evidence we had," she said in an interview with Clay Today.
"It's interesting that this is a point of contention on the appeal because we
went to great lengths to redact out any statements the defense thought were
legally objectionable [prior to the trial]."
Corey said her staff are in the midst of preparing documents asking that the
high court re-hear their case in the Nov. 15 ruling.
"We are absolutely pushing that they reconsider their ruling in light of all of
the other evidence," Corey said. "We have asked the Attorney General for a
re-hearing with the Supreme Court."
Corey said that the Supreme Court decision is somewhat perplexing because of
the manner in which the ruling was determined.
"No one polled the jurors," she said. "The jurors rendered their decision based
on everything they heard. No one has interviewed the jurors to find out
[whether they had been prejudiced]."
Corey praised the work of the public defenders and her team who worked to
prosecute Jackson and said "trials for very difficult" but her staff is
prepared to re-try Jackson if the high court refuses to reconsider its ruling.
"We were shocked by the reversal," Corey said. "We will go right back into the
courtroom and send him back to death row."
Jackson remains on death row until the State Attorney's Office files for a
re-hearing of the ruling. Jackson's new trial could get underway as early as
March 2013 if the Supreme Court refuses to reconsider its ruling.
According to evidence in the case, Boyer, who was 25 at the time of death, was
strangled and beaten to death with a fire extinguisher at the Wells Road
Veterinary Medical Center early in the morning of Jan. 23, 2007.
"We are absolutely pushing that they reconsider their ruling in light of all of
the other evidence. We have asked the Attorney General for a re-hearing with
the Supreme Court."
(source: Clay Online)
MARYLAND:
Repealing Maryland's death penalty; Follow advice of 2008 commission
In 10 of the past 12 General Assembly sessions, bills to repeal the death
penalty in Maryland have failed to reach the floor of either chamber. In all
likelihood, another effort will be made in 2013.
Whether such a measure will get further this time around is uncertain. Gov.
Martin O'Malley, a strong death penalty opponent, is expected to decide in the
next few weeks whether to make a serious push for repeal in Annapolis. Soon
after taking office in 2007 he made the case against the death penalty, which
the state reinstituted in 1978.
Some would argue that Maryland, which is among 33 capital punishment states,
took adequate safeguards to prevent "misuse" of the death penalty when it
tightened requirements for its application in 2009. Since then, at least one of
three types of evidence is needed to apply the ultimate punishment: DNA or
other biological data, a videotape that ties a suspect to the crime or a
videotaped confession.
Never mind the fact that no one has been executed in the state since 2005,
there are some compelling reasons to repeal the death penalty altogether.
--As a 2008 study in Maryland noted, the cost of a death sentence in Maryland
is about three times higher, or $1.9 million more, than the cost of a
comparable non-death penalty case. Figure that price tag, like everything else,
has gone up in the past 4 years. All told, the death penalty has cost Maryland
at least $186 million, the study concluded. Legal, procedural and appeals costs
mount in capital cases.
--1 argument used by death penalty supporters is that it serves as a deterrent
for criminals. But, as an April report by the National Research Council of the
National Academies pointed out, studies claiming as much have proved
fundamentally flawed. A council committee recommended that the studies "not be
used to inform deliberations requiring judgments about the effect of the death
penalty on homicide."
--Studies over the years have borne out that the combination of a black
offender and a white victim greatly raises the chances for a death sentence. In
2008, one of the findings of the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment, a
23-member panel created by the legislature, was that racial disparities exist
in the state's capital sentencing system. That's one reason the national NAACP
testified last session for abolishment of the death penalty in Maryland.
--Regardless of the reliability of DNA testing, it is not foolproof. The Death
Penalty Information Center maintains a list of death-row inmates nationwide who
subsequently have been exonerated over the years. As of Oct. 1, the number
stands at 141, including one in Maryland - Kirk Bloodsworth. The thought of
even 1 innocent person being executed should be enough to chill even the most
ardent capital punishment booster. --The argument probably most often used in
support of the death penalty is that it brings a sense of justice or closure to
the family of victims. The pain felt by these families cannot be minimized. But
studies show that many families of crime victims suffer increased stress and
delayed healing when death penalty cases drag on through the necessary appeals
process. And, as the mother of a student murdered in 1998 noted in 2006
testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee, there is no such thing as closure
when someone dear to you is slain. Sen. Lisa A. Gladden (D-Dist. 41) of
Baltimore and Del. Samuel I. "Sandy" Rosenberg (D-Dist. 41) of Baltimore want
language added to a repeal bill this year that would allocate funds saved in
court costs to support the families of murder victims.
There are other reasons to oppose the death penalty, but the most sensible
might be that as a society we haven???t really evolved unless we can keep from
stooping to the lowest aberrant behavior.
As Benjamin R. Civiletti, who chaired the Maryland Commission on Capital
Punishment, which recommended repeal of the death penalty, put it 4 years ago:
"There is no good and sufficient reason to have the death penalty and plenty of
reasons against it." Legislators this session should take heed of the
commission recommendation and repeal the death penalty. In the process, they
would leave a lasting legacy they could always look back at with pride.
(source: Gazette)
ARIZONA----impending execution
Convict to be executed in murders of 2 teens as accomplice runs free
On a carefree summer day in July of 1991, 2 13-year-old girls climbed into a
pickup truck and were never seen alive again.
Evidence shows that 2 men were responsible for the rape and murder of Mandy
Meyers and Mary Snyder in Elfrida, AZ. The small town is about a hundred miles
southeast of Tucson in Cochise County.
1 of those two men, Richard Dale Stokley, 60, is scheduled to be executed by
the state of Arizona next Wednesday.
The other man, Randy Brazeal, 41, was released from Prison in July 2011.
"You kind of wonder where her family would be now. How many kids would she
have," said Dennis Hancock, who married Mandy's mother, Patty, just a week
before the murders.
"She wanted to be 13, she wanted to be able to babysit on her own and she
wanted to be a cheerleader," said Patty Hancock. "And she got to do all 3."
Richard Stokley confessed to raping, strangling and stabbing 1 of the girls and
dumping her body down a water-filled mineshaft.
Brazeal, who was 19 at the time, turned himself in to authorities in Chandler
the day after the girls were killed, claiming Stokley held him hostage while he
raped and murdered the girls.
But Stokley claimed Brazeal was a willing participant and assisted in killing
the girls to cover up their crimes.
"The man is guilty as sin. He knows he did it, even though he still won't admit
to it," said Patty Hancock.
"This was a period of time where science was progressing," said Rod Rothrock,
who was lead detective on the case with the Cochise County Sheriff's Office.
Investigators had evidence they could try to use to disprove Brazeal's story,
but they knew science, ultimately, would be the key in cracking the case.
DNA testing, however, in 1991 was very new and test results were slow to come
back. In fact, this was the 1st case in Arizona where DNA testing was used in
court.
The problem for prosecutors was that Brazeal had the right to a speedy trial.
The prosecutors did not want to take their chances so they cut a plea deal.
Randy Brazeal received a 20-year prison sentence for 2 counts of 2nd-degree
murder.
Rothrock said the DNA results came in just a few weeks later. They revealed the
presence of Brazeal's semen inside Mandy.
"It is my opinion that Mr. Brazeal is no less guilty than Mr. Stokley, and I
believe that DNA test proves that," Rothrock said.
"With the evidence that they did have, Randy Brazeal should be sitting right
next to Richard Dale Stokley. And I will say that until the day I die," said
Patty Hancock.
Brazeal walked out of prison last July. Patty Hancock is trying to have him
served with papers forcing him to pay court-ordered restitution. She believes
he is living in Arkansas with family members.
Meanwhile, Stokley attorney Dale Baich told CBS 5 News he will appeal to the
U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution sometime before the end of the week.
Baich is arguing that Stokley received ineffective assistance from a previous
attorney.
If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, Stokley's execution would be put
on hold indefinitely.
(source: KPHO News)
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