June 28 NEW YORK: DeAngelis will seek the death penalty Rensselaer County District Attorney Patricia DeAngelis will seek the death penalty against 1 of the 3 men in the Christopher Drabik case. This is despite last week's ruling by the state's highest court, which found a key element of New York's death penalty law violates the constitution. DeAngelis plans to seek the death penalty against Gregory Heckstall and Michael Hoffler, and life in prison for Lance Booker. The three are accused of killing Drabik -- a police informant -- on Dec. 30, 2003 in Lansingburgh. (source: Capital News 9 News) CALIFORNIA: Scanlan will again face death penalty San Mateo County prosecutors will again ask a jury to sentence confessed murderer Seti Scanlan to death. Scanlan has admitted to killing bank manager Alice Martel during a 2002 robbery and had begged a San Mateo County jury to sentence him to death for the crime. Earlier this month, however, jurors deadlocked 9-3 on whether he deserved the death penalty, and a mistrial was declared. On Monday, prosecutors asked San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Robert Foiles to order a retrial of the penalty phase for Scanlan, 26. The new jury trial, which starts Sept. 7, will focus on whether Scanlan should be sentenced to death or to life in prison without parole. "Death is really the warranted punishment," said chief deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe, noting that Scanlan had led 10 armed robberies, shot a police officer and killed Martel. "It's the right way to go." Prosecutors decided to retry the case after discussing the possibility with Martel's widower, David. "His feelings are of Number 1 importance to us," Wagstaffe said. Wagstaffe, who was the prosecutor in the 1st penalty trial, has interviewed some of those jurors about "what mattered to them and what didn't" and said he will modify his strategy for the 2nd trial. He wouldn't elaborate, not wanting to give the defense a strategic advantage. Jurors had told the Mercury News that some dissenters didn't want Scanlan to be executed because of his violent childhood in American Samoa. For now, the defense team will again be led by attorney Cliff Cretan, who had created a sympathetic portrait of Scanlan for jurors by outlining his childhood. Cretan said he wasn't surprised by the district attorney's decision to retry. "I'm disappointed in the sense that it was a lot work, a lot of expense, a lot of turmoil for witnesses on both sides," he said. On the eve of opening arguments for his last penalty trial, Scanlan tried to fire Cretan and represent himself, but a judge wouldn't allow it, saying the move would disrupt and delay the proceedings. If Scanlan renews that request before the next trial gets underway, Wagstaffe said it must be granted because Scanlan has a constitutional right to represent himself. Cretan said he and his client have discussed the possibility but have made no decision. (source: Mercury News) FLORIDA: Jury Votes Boca Raton Man Deserves Death Penalty--Russell Hudson Accused Of Terrorizing Couple, Killing Man A Fort Lauderdale jury is recommending death for a man convicted of murder after having the victim call his father to leave a final message. Russell Hudson, 34, wiped his eyes with a tissue as jurors affirmed their 7-5 vote. The Boca Raton-area man terrorized Lance Peller, 22, and his girlfriend at their Deerfield Beach apartment. Peller was shot in the head. The girlfriend was kidnapped but got away by jumping out of a moving car. Hudson had been free for 2 years after serving less than 1/2 of a sentence for a Miami stabbing death. The defense said Hudson's 1st victim had victimized him in a child prostitution ring. ******************************** Panhandle killer who wanted death penalty gets life in prison In Panama City, a judge refused to grant a killer's death wish Monday and sentenced him instead to life in prison without parole at the request of prosecutors and the victim's family. David Ronald Nolan, 35, of nearby Parker, sought the death penalty for fatally beating 29-year-old Michael Sessions with a hammer on Oct. 9, 2001, in a motel room. Circuit Judge Don T. Sirmons declined, saying no aggravating factors had been offered to justify a death sentence, The News Herald of Panama City reported for Tuesday editions. "You want me to give you some?" Nolan replied. "Do you want me to kill again? Is that what this is about?" The last inmate executed in Florida, John Blackwelder, said he killed another prison inmate just so he could be convicted of first-degree murder and put to death. Blackwelder had been sentenced to life for a series of sex convictions before the murder. He was lethally injected May 26. Sirmons also gave Nolan a second life sentence for robbery with a deadly weapon and two five-year terms for auto theft and violating probation. All are to run consecutive to each other and his first-degree murder sentence. Nolan pleaded no-contest to all counts last week after rejecting an offer from prosecutors that would have given him a guaranteed life sentence on a reduced charge of 2nd-degree murder instead of risking a possible death sentence for 1st-degree. Prosecutors initially filed a notice that they would seek a death sentence but withdrew it Friday at the request of Sessions' mother, Jannie Shivers. "Ms. Shivers wishes to have finality in this case and believes that (Nolan) should be left to consider his act and the consequences during life in prison," wrote Assistant State Attorney Joe Grammer. (source for both: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: N.C. House co-speakers dodge their duty in refusing to allow vote on death penalty freeze The co-speakers of the North Carolina House of Representatives are willing to take the chance an innocent person will be executed rather than get into a controversial issue in an election year. That is political pandering at its worst. The N.C. Senate last year approved a two-year moratorium on executions while the system by which North Carolina puts people on Death Row is examined by a select committee, with special emphasis on the impact of race, income and prosecutorial conduct. Why? Because the North Carolina system is broken, that's why. Alan Gell spent years on Death Row even though prosecutors had evidence that showed he could not have committed the murder of which he was convicted. Gell now is a free man, having been acquitted at his retrial in February, but what if he had been executed? Getting sentenced to death is "like being picked in a lottery. ... It's totally arbitrary," said former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Burley B. Mitchell Jr., who supports capital punishment. "We've got to figure out how to lessen the number of innocent people who are put on Death Row," law professor Richard Rosen said at a symposium in Asheville this spring. Your chances of "winning" this lottery are considerably greater if your victim is white, especially if you belong to a minority group. A study of North Carolina murder cases from 1993 to 1997, done for the Common Sense Foundation of the North Carolina Council of Churches, shows the courts were nearly twice as likely to impose the death penalty if the victim was white. In those white-victim cases, a death sentence was more than twice as likely if the defendant was a minority. Further, a non-white who murders a white is nearly 4 times as likely to receive a death sentence than if the victim were another non-white. When the study was refined to consider only "death- eligible" homicide cases and to factor in the criminal record of the defendant, the results were unchanged. "No matter what analyses we have performed, and no matter what stage of the process we have examined, the fact that the homicide victim is a white person ... makes death significantly more likely to be imposed," investigators Isaac Unah and Jack Boger wrote. On top of this is the economic disparity. 9 in 10 defendants facing capital charges cannot afford lawyers. That suggests a person contemplating homicide had better check first to make sure his victim is neither poor nor dark- skinned. Nevertheless, Co-speakers Jim Black and Richard Morgan won't allow a vote on the moratorium bill because, they say, it is a controversial issue. Apparently it is among them, as Morgan opposes the moratorium. That in itself is puzzling. How can anyone object to making sure that innocent people are not put to death? A statewide poll released in May showed that 63 % of North Carolinians, and 73 % of those living in Western North Carolina, support a temporary moratorium. Also, nearly 3 in 5 said a legislator's vote on the moratorium made little or no difference in how they will vote, and only 12 % said it would make them less likely to vote for a given candidate. That suggests there is little political risk in voting for a moratorium. Support for the moratorium comes from religious and civic organizations all over North Carolina. More than a score of cities, including Asheville, and 3 counties have passed pro-moratorium resolutions. Unfortunately, unless Morgan budges, North Carolina's 120 state representatives, who can determine whether such a moratorium will become law, won't even get a chance to vote. (source: Editorial, Asheville Citizen-Times, June 26)
