Sept. 29 NORTH CAROLINA: Wilson Man Avoids Death Penalty For Wife's Murder A Wilson man will spend at least 35 years in prison for killing his wife. Ricky Bailey pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and 1st degree kidnapping in exchange for the long prison sentence. Bailey kidnapped his wife, Dena, from a Food Lion Parking Lot in 2003 and shot her. Police found her body in her car on a Nash County farm. The plea deal may have spared Bailey's life. Prosecutors originally planned to seek the death penalty. (source: WRAL News) INDIANA: Death row inmate's lawyer makes last-ditch appeal In what may be the last step in a 22-year appeals process, attorneys for Indiana death row inmate Donald Ray Wallace have turned to the U.S. Supreme Court. Lawyers for the Midwest Center for Justice in Chicago have filed a document called a "petition for a writ of certiorari," asking the nation's highest court to review lower court decisions that have upheld Wallace's death-penalty sentence for the 1980 murders of a North Side Evansville family. Attorney Alan Friedman described the petition to the Supreme Court as based on a "hyper-legal technical argument," based on what Friedman and Midwest Center staff believe was a legal error made by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals when it upheld Wallace's sentencing in March by a 7-4 vote. "This is not an argument based on issues of guilt or innocence,'' said Friedman. "This is an argument based on a technical issue involving a legal question." Specifically, it involves issues about how the original trial judge in the Wallace case reached his decision 22 years ago to impose the death penalty after Wallace was found guilty of killing Patrick and Theresa Gilligan and their two young children in their home. Prosecutors said he killed the family after they walked in on him burglarizing their home. Wallace was eligible for the death penalty because of what are called "aggravating factors" surrounding the crime. In making his decision to impose the death penalty, the judge cited a number of aggravating factors. Among them were that Wallace was convicted of multiple murders and that the killings took place while he was committing another crime. The judge also noted Wallace's prior convictions as a juvenile. But since 2 of those convictions have been overturned during Wallace's appeals process, his attorneys argue that those prior felonies now are a "nonstatutory aggravating factor" that no longer can be used to justify imposing the death penalty. In the petition, Friedman cites decisions from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to support his argument. The Indiana Attorney General's office now has 30 days to respond. After that, the U.S Supreme Court will decide this term whether to hear the case. Friedman said the decision could come as early as December. Friedman said the Supreme Court traditionally has agreed to hear few petitions for writs of certiorari, but he believes the legal issue in the Wallace case is significant enough to warrant the justices' attention. "I think it's got a 50-50 chance," said Friedman. If the Supreme Court agrees to consider the case, it would prolong Wallace's time on death row and could mean that the case would be sent back to a district court for resentencing. If the Supreme Court declines to hear the case, Wallace's appeals would be nearly exhausted. An execution date would be set and the only step left would be for Wallace's attorneys to ask the Indiana governor to spare Wallace's life by granting him clemency. (source: Courier & Press) LOUISIANA: La. ranks No. 2 in the nation in rate of men killing women----Domestic violence is behind most cases Louisiana ranks 2nd in the nation in its rate of men killing women -- largely domestic violence murders -- in a new annual study released Tuesday by a gun-control advocacy group. Moreover, Louisiana is the only state to consistently rank among the top 5 worst states in the 7 years that the Violence Policy Center has researched this issue, said Marty Langley, its policy analyst and the lead author of the new study. It was based on 2002 information, the most recent statistics available from the FBI's unpublished Supplementary Homicide Report. The study is consistent with the FBI's Index of Crime by state for 2002, which shows that Louisiana ranked 2nd in its overall rate for murder and non-negligent manslaughter, with 593 such crimes and a rate of 13.2 people killed per 100,000 state residents. Only the District of Columbia fared worse. Louisiana had a rate of 2.91 out of every 100,000 women being murdered by men in the new study, with only Alaska ranked worse. In the center's 1999 study, Louisiana was the most lethal state for women. Last year, it was 4th-worst. "It says a lot about how women are treated in Louisiana. When are people going to wake up to the amount of violence against women?" said Joanne Schmidt, New Orleans' domestic violence project director. "We haven't, as a whole, focused enough attention on the issue." And more men need to step up and help instead of passing it off as a women's problem, she said. The Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., said a total of 67 Louisiana women died in 2002 at the hands of men, for whom guns were most often the weapon of choice. Most were killed by husbands, ex-husbands or boyfriends. The average age of those who died was 36, although 8 were younger 18 and four were 65 or older. New Orleans is making some progress, Schmidt said, citing a domestic violence murder count of 27 for 1997, compared with 8 last year. But she said the decrease is still not enough. "It takes time to change attitudes" toward women, she said, noting that Louisiana had a "head and master" law, which gave control of property in a marriage to husbands, until 1981, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional, and that the state didn't make it illegal for a man to rape his wife until 1990. Chief Fred Williams, head of the criminal investigations bureau in the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office, said that in 2002, his agency had a total of 38 homicides, with 7 of them domestic violence murders in which all the victims were women killed by men. Last year, there were 41 homicides, with 7 of them domestic violence deaths and women as the victims in 5 of those cases. The agency is making positive changes in this area, he said. For example, it now uses a mandatory arrest policy in domestic violence cases, whereas in the past, sometimes the victim would be allowed to back out of pressing charges. Lou Irwin, a clinical social worker and president of the No Abuse Coalition of local mental health professionals who operate batterer intervention groups, called Louisiana's poor showing "tragic." "It's a reminder to people who work in domestic violence of the need to collaborate more thoroughly and take seriously the situations that come our way" because lesser violence, while bad in itself, can lead to murder, he said. (source: Times-Picayune) CALIFORNIA: Suspected killer faces death penalty The suspected killer of UC Davis sweethearts John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves was charged with the murders during a brief appearance Tuesday in a courtroom at the Sacramento County Jail. Judge Timothy M. Frawley formally charged Richard J. Hirsch-field, 55, with the 1980 murders. The burly Hirschfield, sporting an unkempt beard and dark glasses, stood silently as the charges of rape and murder with special circumstances were read. He faces the death penalty if he is convicted. Hirschfield did not enter a plea. His public defender, Linda Parisi - who wonders what took so long between the time his DNA was matched in August 2002 to evidence at the murder scene and his arrest on Saturday - requested that the arraignment be continued. Hirschfield's next court appearance is set for Oct. 21. The most startling news of the proceedings turned out to be a mistake: Frawley charged Hirschfield with raping Riggins as well as Gonsalves, but that apparently was in error. Riggins was beaten with a blunt object and had deep scratches on his body from apparently fighting back during the attack. But he was not raped, one source said after the hearing ended, a detail that local television stations reported then corrected on evening broadcasts. Homicide investigators ushered Sabrina's parents, George and Kim Gonsalves, into the courtroom just before the proceedings began. Poised and even smiling at times, Kim Gonsalves said she was "happy" to see the case moving forward. Media outnumbered spectators at the hearing. George Gonsalves emphasized during an impromptu sidewalk press conference that he wants Hirschfield's time in custody to be "hard time" and that he and his family had been "waiting for this for a long time." No Riggins family members attended. However, Jerry Adler, a former Davis mayor and longtime family friend, was on hand and plans to attend subsequent hearings on the family's behalf. Adler had the grim task of identifying the couple's bodies when they were taken to the morgue on Dec. 22, 1980, two days after they were abducted in Davis. Hirschfield's court appearance Tuesday was swift and rather routine. However, prosecutors familiar with him in Washington state - where he was serving time for molesting two girls at a public swimming pool - have offered the following advice: Expect the unexpected. Known for courtroom theatrics in past cases, including reportedly claiming mental incapacitation at times, Hirschfield fought his extradition to California. He did this by forcing authorities to prove he was Richard Hirschfield, something that was done last Thursday in a matter of hours via fingerprints and other identity tools, said Clallam County (Wash.) prosecutor Jill Landis. She said Hirschfield denied the identification based on sovereignty theories popular with rural constitutionalists. At one point, Landis noted, Hirschfield denied he was Richard Hirschfield because his name was spelled in all capital letters on court documents. "He likes to play games," Landis said. It would be nothing new to this case. Its strange, unusual and often agonizing history has included two separate high-profile and apparently unrelated arrests 15 years apart, professional jealousy and outright rancor among investigators and prosecutors in Yolo and Sacramento counties, questionable evidence handling, and a November 2002 suicide by what could have been the key witness. Hirschfield's younger brother Joseph Hirschfield, who once lived near the ravine in Rancho Cordova where the bodies were discovered, implicated himself in the murders but said little else in a brief suicide note. Nothing has come easy since the foggy night 24 years ago when the Davis High School graduates, both 18, disappeared after a production of "The Davis Children's Nutcracker." And with Richard Hirschfield, it appears that trend will continue. Unlike in June when Hirschfield was publicly named a suspect for the first time to little fanfare, investigators are now getting a number of new tips they hope will help them place Hirschfield in Davis the weekend of the slayings. They can be reached at (916) 874-5201. (source: The Davis Enterprise)
