Oct. 19
USA:
Executing teens cruel, unusual and barbaric----Outside of the United
States, only seven countries still execute minors.
Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Roper v. Simmons,
which will re-evaluate whether the state may continue executing juveniles.
Because the death penalty itself is immoral, the Court must terminate this
more particular evil.
The only state interest the death penalty serves is the public's sadistic
need for retribution (a civilized word for "revenge"). The death penalty
has never been found to deter crime. In an attempt to ensure the executed
are guilty, the Court requires so many procedural safeguards that it costs
more to kill them than let them live their days behind bars.
Furthermore, these procedures are only an attempt - mistakes are still
made. When DNA or other evidence exonerates an imprisoned individual, it's
unfortunate he or she lost years of his or her life to the state's
mistake, but the state corrects its error, if tardily. If the state has
already murdered the innocent person, the correction effectively never
comes.
That the death penalty is cruel is intuitive. The question is whether it
is unusual. As the American Psychological Association and American Medical
Association noted in amicus briefs, studies have new conclusions on
minors' immaturity. While there must be consequences for crimes committed,
juveniles' lives should not end for actions taken before their
consciences, moralities and personalities have matured.
Much has been made of the international trend against the death penalty in
general and particularly against executing juveniles. On this issue, the
United States is in poor company. Outside of the United States, only
China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia and Yemen still execute minors. Normally, international opinion is
only illustrative. But in this case, other states' practices are legally
relevant as it shows how unusual the execution of a 16-year-old is. Even
in the United States, where 19 states allow executions of teenagers, only
three have performed them in the last decade.
Executing juveniles is cruel, unusual and barbaric It must stop. If the
Court fails to do so, 19 state legislatures must.
(source: The Minnesota Daily)
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Time to stop executing children
Juveniles sometimes commit horrific crimes, some unimaginable even for
adults. But all nations of the world except two -- the United States and
Somalia -- refuse to put youthful offenders to death.
Even Iran and Congo have repudiated the practice in recent years.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in a Missouri case
that may lead to the banning of executions in this country for those who
commit such crimes before they turn 18. The court struck down capital
punishment for perpetrators age 15 or younger in 1988, ruling that
executions amounted to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The following year, however, it upheld
the death penalty for 16-and 17-year-olds.
When the court drew the line at 16 for executing murderers, Justice Sandra
Day O'Connor, writing for the 5-4 majority, noted that a majority of the
states still permitted executions for 16-and 17-year-olds. She said a
national consensus existed against executing those younger than 16 but not
those older. Since that ruling, 6 states have joined those that prohibit
execution of those younger than 18. Nineteen states still permit the death
penalty for those younger than 18, and 22 executions of juvenile offenders
have been carried out since 1976. According to the American Bar
Association, more than 70 are on death row right now. In addition to the
national-consensus standard used in the 1988 and 1989 rulings, the court
will consider research done in the intervening years about the development
of children's brains. Health organizations such as the American Medical
Association and the American Psychological Association filed
friends-of-the-court briefs citing research showing that executing those
younger than 18 is to "hold them accountable not just for their acts, but
also for the immaturity of their neural anatomy and psychological
development."
While one justice in particular, Anthony Kennedy, expressed skepticism
over the mental development arguments against executing those younger than
18, there is little question that a nationwide and worldwide consensus has
developed against executing those younger than 18. As states have done in
this country, nations around the world have moved in the same direction.
Today, the United States is the only nation with an organized government
that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which
prohibits executing juvenile offenders.
While holding young people responsible for their crimes, the United States
must join the rest of the world in prohibiting the execution of those
younger than 18.
(source: Sedalia Democrat)
TEXAS:
Gaitan faces murder----Woman pregnant at time of shooting
The Wichita Falls man accused of shooting 24-year-old Stella Perez to
death has also been charged in the death of her unborn baby.
A preliminary autopsy report showed Perez was in her 1st trimester of
pregnancy when she was killed this month outside 1029 Ridgeway in north
Wichita Falls, an arrest affidavit said.
Steven Ray Gaitan, 27, 1602 Dodge, was charged with capital murder in
connection with the Oct. 5 shooting. Bond was set at $100,000 on the
capital murder charge.
The arrest affidavit gave this account:
Perez was at the house on Ridgeway for her son's 8th birthday party. A man
she was dating was also there, and the two started arguing. The man chased
Perez around her car and shot and killed her.
Perez's son saw the incident and pointed out the man who shot his mother
from a photo line-up.
An autopsy report from the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office listed
the cause of death as a gunshot wound and found it consistent with
homicide. The report also said Perez - a single mother of 2 boys - was in
the early stages of her 1st trimester.
Police charged the suspect with capital murder because "during the
commission of Perez's murder, he also caused the death of another (Stella
Perez's unborn child), an individual under the age of 6 years old," the
affidavit said.
"I never did get to see whether it was a boy or a girl. He took that life
away, too," Stella Perez's father, Julian Perez, said Monday. He said her
family had known she was expecting a baby.
Julian Perez said he never expected to go through something like this and
no matter what happens, "It's not going to bring my daughter back."
For him, that's the hardest part.
"Then to see my grandsons crying for their mother at nighttime," he said.
His family is caring for Perez's 2- and 8-year-old sons.
"The little one, he sees my daughter's car out there and he starts saying
'Mommy's car, Mommy's car.'" The little boy woke up crying for his mother
in the middle of the night a few days ago.
He hasn't dealt with a lot of his own grief yet. That's coming a little at
a time.
"She was thinking of coming to live with me in Corpus," he said of his
daughter. "I was looking forward to that."
He said the case is only beginning and there's a long road ahead. He said
he would be in favor of the death penalty if that time came, and said he'd
like to be there.
He said his whole family felt the loss of Stella Perez, and nothing can
take that away.
"It's not going to cure this ... loneliness and sadness that I have," he
said.
Gaitan was being held in the Wichita County Jail Monday on the capital
murder charge and a murder charge for Perez's death. He was also charged
with burglary of a habitation and aggravated assault in connection with an
incident Oct. 2. His total bond was set at $400,000.
(source: Times Record News)
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Age not only factor in determining justice
Monday's Amarillo Globe-News told the story of Panhandle native Keitha
Morris, who along with her boyfriend, John White, was brutally murdered by
Clyde Durbin Jr. while on a picnic in Austin in 1969.
Durbin was released from prison in August after serving 35 years.
While the story begs the question of how Durbin avoided capital
punishment, must less ever saw freedom again, it also raises another
point.
Durbin was 21 when he decided to take the lives of 2 other human beings.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week it will address the
constitutionality of executions for individuals convicted of heinous
crimes at 16 and 17.
Durbin's case is an example of how each case should be judged individually
and not according to a broad definition of justice that ignores
responsibility and accountability.
Had Durbin been four years younger when he shot White in the back of the
neck and later killed Morris with a massive blow to her skull, should he
somehow not be held to the same degree of justice as a 21-year-old?
Justice should be administered according to the specifics of each case,
such as whether the guilty had a clear understanding of right and wrong,
and not an automatic assumption based on age.
Texas, which allows the death penalty for those convicted of crimes at 17,
has been the target of capital punishments opponents, and will surely be
affected by any Supreme Court ruling.
The justices for the highest court in the land need to ask themselves if
murderers such as Clyde Durbin Jr. deserve leniency at the age of 17 but
then, due only to the passage of time, deserve the full force of justice.
(source: Editorial, The Amarillo Globe-News)
***********************
Decision expected in capital murder case
A jury is expected today to come back with a verdict in a capital murder
case in which defendant Joe David Padron, 28, faces the death penalty.
The jury deliberated for about an hour Monday afternoon before taking a
recess until 9 a.m. today in Judge Jose Longoria's 214th District Court.
Padron is accused of the gang-related killing of Jesus Omar Gonzalez and
John Commisky, both 19, on Nov. 12, 2002, in the 2900 block of Mary
Street.
Padron and Martin Robles, 25, were arrested in November and charged with
capital murder. Robles already has been tried, convicted and sentenced to
death.
******************
Man set to be tried in deaths of 2 women -- Carlos Lopez spent years in
mental wards
The capital murder trial of a man who has claimed to be God and Elvis
Presley likely will take a week, with testimony starting as early as 9
a.m. today in 28th District Court.
Jury selection in the case of 49-year-old Carlos Lopez of Corpus Christi
started Monday afternoon. Both the prosecution and defense say Lopez is
mentally prepared to stand trial after 11 years of treatment and
medication in the state system for the criminally insane.
Lopez is charged in the July 1, 1992, stabbing deaths of Mary Kocurek, 89,
and Estefana Munoz, 80, who were patients at the former Riverside Hospital
in Calallen. The hospital now is Corpus Christi Medical Center-Northwest.
In August, Lopez was deemed competent to stand trial by state
psychologists, according to Gail Gleimer, chief prosecutor at the Nueces
County District Attorney's Office.
If Lopez shows signs of mental illness, the murder trial will be put on
hold and another trial will take place to determine whether he should be
taken to a facility for mentally ill defendants. If Lopez appears
competent, jurors may not hear about his history of mental illness.
"That issue will not be allowed to be brought up during trial," Gleimer
said.
The district attorney's office is seeking life imprisonment, not the death
penalty, for one count of capital murder - killing one or more people in a
single incident, Gleimer said.
Lopez has spent the last 2 months in the county jail after spending 11
years in the state mental hospital for the criminally insane.
"He's a very ill man, there's no question about that," defense attorney
Eric Perkins said. But since Lopez has been medicated, Perkins said his
client has been able to understand and cooperate with him.
While he was being held in the Nueces County Jail in late 1992 and early
1993, Lopez talked about being hexed, hearing voices and reading minds
through television sets, according to testimony.
Lopez also claimed during competency hearings that he was a U.S.
president, God and Elvis Presley. He also spoke of a career as a Civil War
soldier.
(source for both: Corpus Christi Caller-Times)
************************
Man accused of putting boy in oven found competent
A Beaumont man accused of killing a 6-year-old boy whose body was found in
an oven has been ordered back to Jefferson County by a judge after
physicians at a state hospital determined he was competent to stand trial.
Kenneth Pierott, 28, was expected to be returned from the Vernon State
Hospital by Oct. 25, state District Judge Layne Walker's court said
Monday.
Walker sent Pierott to a state hospital to receive treatment in July after
defense attorneys presented evidence from 2 doctors that he was
incompetent to stand trial.
Pierott's murder trial originally was set for September.
Defense attorney Tom Burbank said he hasn't received any reports from the
state hospital but would review them with 2 doctors hired on Pierott's
behalf.
Burbank said it was likely that Pierott's competency would be questioned
again. "He does have something mentally wrong with him," Burbank said.
If Pierott can't remember what he did or assist with his defense, the
issue will resurface, Burbank added.
"It isn't that we are trying to circumvent anything, we just have to make
sure his rights are protected," he said.
Jefferson County District Attorney Tom Maness did not immediately return a
phone message left Monday by The Associated Press.
Pierott is accused of killing Tre-Devin Odoms, whose body was found in an
oven at his mother's home in April. Pierott had been dating the boy's
mother.
Police said the oven's pilot light was not lit so there was no heat source
to the oven, which was turned to 600 degrees.
According to a court document, Pierott believed the child was "draining
the life" from his 2-year-old son, Jacory, and "he needed to kill Trey so
that Jacory could breathe."
An autopsy report indicated the boy died from asphyxia due to smothering.
Burbank said Pierott could be tried early next year and would claim
insanity.
In Texas, defendants are presumed sane. The insanity defense requires a
defendant to prove he suffers from a severe mental disease or defect and
didn't know his actions were wrong.
Pierott previously was found innocent by reason of insanity in 1998 for
using a dumbbell to fatally beat his disabled 25-year-old sister.
He was released from a state hospital after 4 months of treatment.
(source: Associated Press)
***********************
Houston Play Features Exonerated Inmates Play Runs Through October
A new play at Houston's Alley Theater highlights the controversy of death
row inmates who are wrongly imprisoned, Local 2 reported Monday.
"The Exonerated" is the true stories of six former Texas death row
inmates. They were freed after being proved innocent.
Many who have seen the documentary-style play were riveted by the story.
"I didn't think it was going to touch me as much as it did," said Carolyn
Defoore, an audience member.
"I've heard people gasp at times in this play. I hear people start to
sniffle," said Philip Leihl, an actor.
Leihl plays Kerry Max Cook, a Texas man on death row for the murder of a
college co-ed. Twenty-one years later, his conviction was overturned
because of prosecutorial and police misconduct.
"I can't really even come close to understanding what this guy went
through," Leihl said.
"The system is run by humans. Humans make mistakes and innocent people
will unfortunately be executed as long as we have capital punishment,"
said Paul Nugent, Kerry Cook's attorney.
Nugent, who worked pro-bono for 10 years to free Cook, called "The
Exonerated" a must-see for Houstonians.
"The Houston crime lab is basically shut down. We have now learned that
the DNA tests were terribly unreliable and that can certainly lead to
innocent people being convicted," Nugent said.
The production is actually a 2-part evening. The 1st is the performance
itself. The 2nd is a talkback session during which the audience can ask
questions to the cast members and also high-profile attorneys, professors
and judges.
The unusual format is striking a chord in audience members.
"It really made you think, 'Oh, my God.' How can we think it's OK to have
people out there that have gone through that?" Defoore said.
"I've not always been against the death penalty. Watching this play,
though, tonight I can say I've probably changed my mind," said Heidi
Stratton, an audience member.
The actors said they're not politicians, but they hope "The Exonerated"
will make people question the system.
It was written by husband and wife playwrights, Jessica Blank and Erik
Jenson. They interviewed 40 former exonerated death row inmates for it.
The play runs through Oct. 31.
For more information, visit www.alleytheatre.org.
(source: Click2Houston.com)
