Dec. 7
TEXAS:
Court backs project probing innocence claims
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, after years of criticism for favoring
prosecutors, is supporting a proposal for a project using law students to
investigate prisoners' claims they were wrongfully convicted.
The project could involve a network of clinics, like those at the
University of Houston and the University of Texas at Austin, that probe
inmate claims.
Students re-examine evidence and in some cases conduct new investigations
that can include additional DNA testing, examination of evidence by expert
witnesses and further crime-scene analysis.
The appeals court will ask legislators to increase its $20 million fund to
teach defense lawyers, prosecutors and judges about handling the claims,
Judge Barbara Hervey said.
"If an innocent person is in prison, the entire system has failed," Hervey
said. "We need to get them out."
She has met with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and his general counsel. The
judge plans to meet with state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chairman of
the Senate's Criminal Justice Committee, about how to set up the projects.
Since the Center for Actual Innocence opened at the UT Law School in 2003,
about 10 students have screened more than 1,000 claims of innocence from
inmates. About a dozen cases selected are in the early stages of
investigation.
The Texas Innocence Network opened at the University of Houston Law Center
in 2000. It has been credited with helping free James Levi Byrd of Fort
Worth and Josiah Sutton of Houston.
Convicted of robbery, Byrd spent 5 years in prison before being freed 2
years ago after the law center helped investigate his innocence claim.
A new DNA test set freed Sutton last year after 4 1/2 years behind bars.
With help from law and journalism students at St. Thomas University in
Houston and Lamar University in Beaumont, UH students have screened about
5,000 cases.
"We've identified cases where (the prosecutors) have made mistakes, and
the consequences of their mistakes is pretty ... significant," said lawyer
David Dow, who leads the clinic.
6 cases are pending review.
(source: San Antonio Express-News)
CONNECTICUT:
No Reprieve----Rell Cites Horrors Of Ross' Victims As She Rejects
Execution Delay
Edwin Shelley lies awake nights trying to imagine the terror his
14-year-old daughter, Leslie, felt as she sat bound in serial killer
Michael Ross' car Easter Sunday 1984. She listened as Ross raped and
strangled her best friend, April Brunais, before he reached back into the
car to make Leslie his seventh victim.
Shelley in a handwritten letter recently asked Gov. M. Jodi Rell if she
could comprehend his child's anguish. "I can't," Shelley said Monday. "I
asked her if perhaps she could."
Rell's answer to Shelley and the state's citizens was a strongly worded
statement Monday that she would not grant Ross a reprieve.
The governor also said she would veto any legislative attempt to abolish
or place a moratorium on the death penalty. That stance will force
legislators to coalesce into an overwhelming majority - one that could
override a veto - if they wish to halt Ross' Jan. 26 execution.
Even those who say they will work tirelessly to halt the execution whisper
that the votes are not there.
Rell made it clear she heard Edwin Shelley's plea - a letter tucked in the
same folder as a letter from Ross, who also implored her not to grant a
reprieve.
Ross, 45, has waived further appeals and became a "volunteer," in
death-penalty jargon. A reprieve would have posed a potentially
insurmountable hurdle between Ross and his desire to hasten his execution.
"The words of Mr. Shelley seared my heart; the words of Michael Ross did
not," Rell said.
In announcing her decision, Rell cited two decades of legislative debate
over capital punishment - during which she, as a lawmaker, was a
proponent. And she cited the oath of office she took to uphold the laws of
the state of Connecticut.
"To uphold the existing laws of Connecticut is to uphold the death
penalty," she said. "It was the legislature which put the death penalty on
the books many, many years ago ... And it will be up to the legislature to
take the death penalty off the books, if that is their will."
Said Shelley: "I cannot express the joy it brought in hearing that."
For Rell - who took office July 1 when former Gov. John Rowland resigned
amid an impeachment inquiry and federal investigation into corruption in
his administration - the reprieve issue was her 1st real crucible. There
has not been in execution in Connecticut - or in New England, for that
matter - since Joseph Taborsky was electrocuted May 17, 1960, for a string
of robberies and execution-style slayings in the mid-1950s.
"In many respects this was the first gut-check this governor has had, and
she wasn't going to suffer any fools," observed John Pavia, a Quinnipiac
Law School professor.
Rell, in her public statement Monday, spoke in a forceful voice about the
sleep she lost during her immersion in the horrific details of Ross'
crimes, and of how her thoughts turned more than once to her own daughter.
"For I stand before you not only as a governor, but as a mother," Rell
said. "I gave life - to a daughter and a son. I do not wish to see
anyone's life taken away."
Rell was quick to note that there was no question of possible innocence or
other compelling issues that might warrant a reprieve. Ross has confessed
to killing 8 women, including the four for whose killings he was sentenced
to death.
Attorney T.R. Paulding, who represents Ross, said Ross will be "relieved"
by Rell's decision. Though Paulding won't meet with Ross until later
today, he is confident Ross, who has a small television set in his "death
cell" at Osborne Correctional Institution at Somers, is well aware of the
news. Paulding notified Ross when he learned of Rell's scheduled
announcement.
Paulding said he was not offended by Rell's forceful statements about the
"repugnant" nature of Ross' crimes and her lack of sympathy for his fate.
"I certainly understand her reaction, as well as that of the general
public, to what happened," Paulding said. "From my end, I'm one of those
few people who has known Mr. Ross for the past 10 years - the Michael Ross
who's been treated with [`chemical castration' drugs]. I see an awful lot
of valuable traits in him. If the governor or anyone ever had that
opportunity to get to know him, they might potentially be a little less
harsh."
Rell "is doing what I think she has to do for the benefit of the citizens
of the entire state, in her opinion," Paulding said.
House Speaker-designate James Amann, who last week called on Rell to
reject any notion of a reprieve, said he doubted the legislature would act
to halt the execution. "I've had more calls on this issue from reporters
than I've had from the public," Amann said. "There doesn't seem to be a
huge groundswell of folks coming forward to say they want to have this
debate."
Amann was among several people who labeled Ross "the poster child" for the
death penalty. Ross' admission - coupled with the sheer volume and
brutality of his crimes and the arrogance he expressed early on - make him
less than sympathetic.
"In order to get the death penalty in Connecticut you've got to be bad,"
Amann said. "But Michael Ross obviously is the poster child for it." Pavia
agreed.
"There are no issues of guilt, no issues of mental competence, no issues
of racism," Pavia said. Ross is white, as were seven of his 8 victims. "If
you believe in the death penalty, this is an appropriate case for it,"
Pavia said.
Kim Harrison, a lobbyist for the Connecticut Conference of the United
Church for Christ, which is a member of the Connecticut Network to Abolish
the Death Penalty, said she and other advocates of abolishing the death
penalty hope to save Ross in the remaining 6 weeks. But she acknowledges
it's an uphill battle.
"In a state that hasn't executed anyone in 44 years, with the kind of
crimes Mr. Ross committed, it makes it even more difficult," Harrison
said. But she thinks Rell's statement Monday may rattle into action those
who believe it can't happen here.
Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, said Rell
effectively undermined any legislative attempt to repeal the death
penalty.
"Today's decision by Gov. Rell does not change the principles behind my
opposition to the death penalty," Williams said. "But it does change the
political landscape and ends any realistic chance this legislative session
of replacing Connecticut's death penalty law with a sentence of life in
prison without possibility of parole."
Ross could change his mind up to the time of his execution - set for 2
a.m. Jan. 26 - and initiate the appeals he still has available to him. He
also could apply to the Board of Pardons to commute his sentence to one of
life without possibility of parole, but the board will not act of its own
volition. Ross would have to initiate that as well.
Barring a change of heart, the only thing that stands between Ross and
death by lethal injection is success by the public defenders who have
filed court documents against Ross' wishes in Superior Court and in the
U.S. Supreme Court. The public defenders, who represented Ross for 17
years, say he is clinically depressed and incompetent to waive further
appeals. They say they are professionally and ethically obligated to work
to save his life.
A hearing on Ross' case is scheduled for Thursday in New London Superior
Court, at which time Ross may make his last public appearance.
Paulding has filed court documents objecting to the public defenders'
motions and stating that Ross has no desire to return to court and will
waive his need to appear. But it is unlikely his wish will be granted.
Rep. Steven Mikutel, D-Norwich, represents the district in which 3 of
Ross' killings occurred, including those of Leslie Shelley and April
Brunais.
He applauded Rell's decision, and said he will seek an investigation by
the Public Defender Commission into the expenditure of taxpayer dollars to
foist a defense on Ross.
Mikutel is questioning the competence of the public defenders to claim
Ross is incompetent.
"The question is whether the public defenders' office is acting in a
rational manner in going above and beyond their responsibilities," Mikutel
said.
Several Republicans attended Rell's announcement and voiced support for
the death penalty and her decision.
Sen. John McKinney, the new deputy Senate Republican leader, said Rell had
clearly made a personal decision on a difficult issue.
"I saw emotion from her at the podium," McKinney said as he stood at the
back of a large, third-floor room at the state Capitol. "I saw a governor
who understands the gravity of this decision, yet is very firm in her
beliefs. Clearly, it's a difficult decision, but I think it's the right
decision. My position is similar to the governor's. I do support the death
penalty in limited circumstances. I think the facts of Michael Ross' case
would certainly meet anyone's criteria of the most heinous and cruel
crimes imaginable."
Rep. William Hamzy, an attorney and member of the legislature's judiciary
committee, said, "For this particular guy, in this particular
circumstance, this is open and shut."
(source: Hartford Courant)
