Nov. 24 NEW YORK: Death penalty bill faces delays -- Silver wants public hearings on reinstating statute; Pataki calls move "obstructionist" In Albany, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said Tuesday he will hold public hearings on the future of the death penalty before any new law is passed, a move the Pataki administration called "obstructionist."Silver's decision to hold 2 public hearings in December and January effectively puts on hold an attempt by Republican Gov. George Pataki and Senate's GOP majority to quickly get the death penalty law back in operation. "The Legislature is now faced with the profound question of whether the death penalty should be reinstated in New York, and, if so, what form any new statute should take," Silver said in a written statement Tuesday. "These hearings will provide invaluable information that we will use in making these decisions." But Lynn Rasic, a Pataki spokeswoman, blasted Silver for what she called "obstructionist behavior." "Speaker Silver claims to favor the death penalty but he's giving New Yorkers the runaround by refusing to allow a vote on this important legislation," Rasic said. "He continues to play games when New Yorkers have clearly called for justice for those who have committed the most serious crimes." In June, the Court of Appeals, the state's top court, ruled the law was unconstitutional as crafted by Pataki and the Legislature in 1995. The problem stemmed from the law's sentencing provision, which gives jurors the choice of death, or life without parole. If they fail to agree, they are told, the judge will give the criminal a sentence that includes parole. Lawyers argued that jurors might be swayed into choosing death over the possibility the criminal could be let out of jail. With Pataki's backing, the Senate adopted legislation in August to correct the defects cited by the court. Before the vote, however, many senators argued against passing a new law without holding hearings to review the past 10 years' worth of experience with the law. They also protested the governor's use of message of necessity, which allowed the bill to be rushed through in less than 24 hours, less than the usual 3 days required to review a bill. Silver refused to consider that legislation, although he has said he wants the death penalty reinstated. The public hearings are set for Dec. 15 in New York City and Jan. 25 in Albany. Since the death penalty was reinstated in New York in 1995, 7 men have been sentenced to die. None were executed. The state has spent about $170 million on death penalty cases. (source: Times-Union) WASHINGTON: New Death Sentence Precedent in Washington State Stands Back in 2003, Gary Ridgway, Washington state's "Green River Murderer," confessed to 48 murders of women, under a plea bargain with the state http://resist.ca/~kirstena/pageridgwayconfessions.html). He is deemed "the "nation's worst serial killer." The "bargain" was Ridgway plead guilty and confess, after months of 14 hour a day interrogations, and the abuse which is routine to beat these "free will confessions" out of people, and in return for his "free will confessions," he would escape the death penalty and instead spend his life in jail with no chance of parole. Then in 2004, Charles Champion, a black male in the same jurisdiction, was accused of killing one white male police officer ( http://resist.ca/~kirstena/pageridgwayprecedent.html ). And was threatened with death if convicted. The attorneys for Champion argued that the death sentence is reserved for only the most heinous of crimes. And since the threshold of a white male murdering 48 women, many of whom were minority women, was not enough to trigger a death sentence, then certainly a black male murdering 1 white male could not meet that threshold. This week (Nov. 23, 2004) Charles Champion entered a plea bargain of guilty, in return for the removal of the threat of the death sentence, which was a real threat earlier in his case. It appears the Ridgway precedent argument was not all in vain. This Ridgway precedent has been brought up in several important murder cases in Washington state since the plea bargain deal was struck in 2003. Certainly, having to kill *more than* 48 women in cold blood to receive the death penalty has put a monkey wrench in prosecutors plans, and the ease with which they can make a death penalty stick, to be sure. This one plea bargain has literally upset the landscape of criminal law in Washington state, in my opinion, and it will be very interesting to see how this plays out. To up the bar for the death penalty in Wa. state to need to be above 48 counts of murder is really a radical change. I do not know what the bar was before, but I am sure it was lower than that! The problem is, if you offer a plea bargain of life for confessions to one murderer, you have to offer that to all murderers who are no more egregious, or else law starts to become completely arbitrary, which is very dangerous and defies equal representation under the law. In an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ( http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/150176_champion27.html), Tracy Johnson reports Champions attorney, Jackie Walsh, as saying, "In death penalty cases, the death sentence has to be reasonable in light of the decision to seek death in other cases - Mr. Maleng cannot make a special rule for Gary Ridgway." Johnson also reports that "Walsh said that Maleng, by choosing not to seek a death sentence for Ridgway, "has expanded the reasons why death is not appropriate" and must now re-evaluate Champion's case. She and attorney Rita Griffith contend that prosecutors' process to decide who should face the death penalty has been either "entirely arbitrary or it is irrational and racist," noting Champion is black and Ridgway is white." Walsh has said also about the Ridgway precedent not applying to others, "You're rewarding someone for killing more people. That theory has no rational sense to it." ( http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/157067_death17.html ) The Seattle Times reported a Superior Court judge in Wa. state saying in Jan. 2004, "I think we're going to find a lot more motions like this in death penalty cases by defense attorneys. By definition, almost anybody else is going to be a lesser criminal than Gary Ridgway. The question is whether it's fair to spare Ridgway and not spare someone who by definition committed a lesser crime." ( http://www.cjpc.org/dp_greenriver_killer.htm ) Prosecutors have tried to argue there were very unusual circumstances in the Green River/Ridgway case. You could say that the prosecutors were willing to forego death in his case, because they felt the families of the dead deserved the confessions and needed that more than his death. But that could be argued for all victims families. All victims of murder would like to have closure in the death of a loved one. It is also argued by prosecutors that each case is different. The prosecutors in the Champion case, argued that the decision to push for the death penalty in Champions case was based on the premise that shooting a police officer is an "attack on the system" which deserves special prosecution (as if attacking and killing 48 women is *not* an attack on "the system," whatever that means). Additionally, the slain police officers sister is quoted as saying she "wants it to be clear to everyone that if you kill a police officer, you face execution." Thank god someone other than her and the prosecutor had the good sense to realize that 48 womens lives are indeed at least equal to one cops life worth! But now that we see the Champion cases outcome, it looks like that argument that killing one cop is worse than killing 48 women, from the prosecutor, did not work. As Champion has eluded the death sentence in his plea bargain this week. The prosecutors in Champions case say the Ridgway precedent did not affect the Champion case, but I think it did. It appears to me that the prosecutors who struck up the deal for life for confessions with Ridgway have created a quicksand they cannot get out of now. They do not appear to be succeeding at squelching the Ridgway case out of other case defenses. The Ridgway case appears instead to be influencing local criminal prosecutions in an important and substantial way. Another Washington state murder case, involving the murder of Rachael Burkheimer, by John Anderson and John Whitaker, actually was delayed waiting for the Ridgway convictions to resolve, feeling that the outcome would influence said case. As reported on Court TV ( http://www.courttv.com/news/2003/1104/greenriver_ctv.html?sect=4 ), "We thought that the state should take what happens in Ridgway into consideration," said Anderson's public defender Susan Gaer. "The Supreme Court is required to look at proportionality, and by the same token prosecutors, when they are making the death penalty decision, should look at proportionality." Prosecutors did not oppose that delay, and the deadline for that case was moved up to wait for the Ridgway case to resolve. Attorneys for the two murder suspects argued that killing one woman is less than killing 48 women, like Ridgway, so if he escaped the death penalty, so should their clients. Finally, the prosecutor in the Burkheimer case did not seek the death penalty for Burkheimers murderers in her plea bargain offer. The prosecutor in the Burkheimer case says that the Ridgway plea bargain had no impact on the plea bargain offered the two prosecuted for Burkheimers murder. Yet the case was delayed for said convictions! My guess is the Ridgway conviction *did* in fact influence the Burkheimer case. Other persons raising the Ridgway precedent with regard to their own cases include Dayva Cross, Covell Thomas, and Robert Yates. Robert Yates was sentenced to death for 2 murders, and now his attorney is arguing that conviction cannot stand in light of the Ridgway precedent. So people who have already been convicted of crimes are now raising this Ridgway issue on appeal. The fallout from the Ridgway plea bargain is spreading like wildfire. Washington state is 1 of 38 states still using the death penalty. This Ridgway plea bargain has constructively undermined the free use of the death penalty in Washington state. For more information on plea bargains and torture for confessions, please visit http://resist.ca/~kirstena/pagepleabargains.html (source: Kirsten Anderberg, Infoshop News) FLORIDA: 4 death row inmates lose appeals, 1 gets new sentencing 4 death row inmates lost appeals Wednesday, including a North Carolina prison escapee who killed a north Florida woman abducted from a grocery store parking lot and a former mental patient who killed and mutilated a high school senior in the Panhandle. The Florida Supreme Court also rejected the appeal of a death row inmate who claimed he was high on LSD when he raped and killed a Panama City woman in her home, and it refused to order DNA testing for a death row inmate condemned for the murder of a Florida State University student who was camping in Ocala National Forest with his sister. But in a 5th capital case Thursday, the high court agreed with a trial judge that a man who fatally stabbed his fiance in central Florida deserved a new sentencing hearing. Donn Duncan, 59, was condemned for the 1990 murder of Deborah Bauer in the Orange County home they shared. A trial judge ruled that Duncan deserved a new penalty hearing because mental health issues that might have resulted in a life sentence were not presented at the 1st penalty hearing. 6 justices fully concurred in that unsigned ruling; Justice Harry Lee Anstead partially concurred. The 4 inmates who lost appeals: - Anthony Wainwright, 34, killed a Fort White mother after escaping from a North Carolina prison in 1994. Carmen Tortora Gayheart, 23, was abducted at gunpoint from a Winn-Dixie parking lot as she loaded groceries into her Ford Bronco in April 1994. Wainwright and Richard Hamilton drove Mrs. Gayheart, the mother of children ages 3 and 5, to a deserted area in Hamilton County where she was repeatedly sexually assaulted, possibly strangled and then shot twice in the head. Mrs. Gayheart, a student at Lake City Community College, disappeared 2 days after Wainwright and Hamilton walked away from a minimum-custody prison in Carteret County, North Carolina. Wainwright, who had been serving 10 years for burglary, was captured with Hamilton the day after Mrs. Gayheart's kidnapping following a shootout with a trooper in Mississippi. - Jeremiah Rodgers, 27, pleaded guilty in the mutilation death of Jennifer Robinson, an 18-year-old senior at Pace High School. Her body was found in May 1998 in a shallow grave in northern Santa Rosa. Robinson was shot in the head while on a date with Rodgers. He and co-defendant Jonathan Lawrence cut off part of her leg and stored it in a freezer. - Paul Everett, 25, was condemned for the murder of 31-year-old Kelli Bailey, who was suffocated after her neck was broken by a violent pull and twist in November 2001. - Loran Cole, 38, was convicted of killing an 18-year-old college student and raping his sister after befriending the siblings in the Ocala National Forest. John Edwards, a Florida State University student, died from a slashed throat and 3 blows to the head in February 1994. (source: Associated Press)
