April 8 GEORGIA: 'Aggravated circumstances' led to death penalty decision----DA seeks capital punishment in slaying of Pendergrass officer Killing a working policeman is such a heinous crime that Piedmont District Attorney Tim Madison decided last week to seek the death penalty for the man accused of killing a Pendergrass officer. Richard Whitaker, 27, of Flowery Branch, faces charges of felony murder, aggravated assault on a peace officer, possession of fire-arms by a convicted felon and 5 others. Police officer Chris Ruse was shot and killed Dec. 29. Madison filed a notice of intent March 31 with the Jackson County Superior Court that cites 3 reasons for seeking the toughest possible punishment for Whitaker. "After we reviewed the case and interviewed the witnesses, it appeared there were 2 occasions of aggravated circumstance, one for murder and the second for murder to avoid a lawful arrest (of Whitaker himself)," Madison said. "To seek the death penalty there has to be at least one and in this case there were 2," he said. A 3rd factor in the decision is that Whitaker allegedly committed the crime while out on bond after a conviction for possession of methamphetamine and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, according to the notice. The trial's next step will be a first appearance hearing followed by an arraignment, which should happen sometime in the next 60 days, Madison said. The other man with Whitaker during the incident, Nolan Leon Chauvin IV, pleaded guilty to lesser charges last month. As part of Chauvin's plea bargain, he has agreed to testify against Whitaker, Madison said. Whitaker and Chauvin are being held in the Jackson County jail without bond. Ruse was 45 at the time of the Dec. 29 shooting, which happened about one mile from the Hall County border on U.S. 129. Authorities said Ruse had attempted to pull over a pickup truck for a traffic violation. (source: The Gainesville Times) IOWA: Death penalty debate is needed, McKibben says Sen. Larry McKibben, R-Marshalltown, said Friday he still wants to have a debate over the death penalty, no matter what the Senate Democratic leader says. Sen. Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, the leader of the Senate Democrats, has said that there is no chance of such a measure being approved and called it a political issue. "Everything we do in the Legislature is a political issue. That's the nature of the business," McKibben told the Marshall County Pachyderm Club. "Does Sen. Gronstal want to be responsible for killing the child killer bill?" The provisions that McKibben will introduce will make convicts eligible for the death penalty in certain Class A felony situations involving in a minor. McKibben said those who were convicted of killing a minor, plus an additional conviction for either kidnapping or raping that minor would be eligible for capital punishment. (source: Times-Republican) ********************** Death penalty debate, truth bill hit skids The prospect of reinstating Iowas death penalty reared its head again this week at the Statehouse. A group of Republican senators are insisting it be a part of legislation with get-tough measures for sex offenders. But Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs said hell refuse to let the divisive issue become a part of a debate on sex offender penalties and accused Republicans of playing politics on the issue. "We will not debate a death penalty in the Iowa Senate," Gronstal said. And House Speaker Christopher Rants, R-Sioux City, has said there aren't enough votes to pass the death penalty in the House, where the GOP maintains a slim 51-49 margin. Gridlock grips session With the clock ticking down on the Iowa Legislatures 2005 session, House Speaker Rants frustration boiled over this week. He complained that a number of bills that have passed the House are ending up on the Senate scrap heap as legislators try to adjourn by April 29. Rants blamed Senate Democrats for blocking the measures, and accused them of breaking Senate rules in order to shelve them. Gronstal, the Senate Democratic leader, was unapologetic and said this session was supposed to be about finding common ground between the parties. "The House has passed a number of bills that we think are pretty bad bills, and were not going to take them up in the Senate," Gronstal said. One of those bills would have allowed employers to use a worker's hair to test for drug use, a bill opposed by many Democrats. Rants and Gronstal arent the only ones squabbling. Disagreements even remain between Republican camps in the House and Senate on the budget. Senate Republican Leader Stewart Iverson of Dows said its time to start coming together. "I dont know how we break the impasse, but we're going to have to do that pretty soon or well be sitting here on July 4th," Iverson said. (source: Quad Cities Times) *********************************** Woman could face death penalty In 1993, Angela Johnson was dating Dustin Honken, who had turned his knack for college chemistry into one of the biggest methamphetamine operations in the Midwest. That year, prosecutors say, Johnson helped Honken kill 5 people, including 2 children, to protect his drug ring. Honken was convicted last fall for his role in the slayings and, for the 1st time in 40 years, an Iowa jury recommended the death penalty. The case will be revived Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Sioux City, Iowa, where attorneys will begin picking a jury for Johnson's trial. If convicted, she also would face the possibility of a death sentence. "That would be rare," said David McCord, a Drake University law professor. Of the 136 people nationwide who were sentenced to die in 2004, only 5 were women, McCord said. "It's also relatively unusual for both perpetrators to get death sentences for the same crime, simply because one perpetrator's actions are usually worse than the other," McCord said. Prosecutors say Johnson, 42, who grew up in Klemme, Iowa, helped Honken kill 2 former meth dealers who had agreed to testify against him. Greg Nicholson was killed in July 1993, along with his girlfriend, Lori Duncan, and Duncan's 2 daughters, Kandi, 10, and Amber, 6. In Honken's trial, forensic experts testified that Nicholson and Lori Duncan each were bound, beaten and tortured before they were shot in the head with a gun Johnson allegedly bought at a Waterloo, Iowa, pawn shop. The two children also were shot. All 4 were buried in shallow graves near Mason City, Iowa. A second dealer-turned-informant, Terry DeGeus, disappeared months later. Relatives say that on the night he disappeared, DeGeus told them he was going to meet Johnson, his former girlfriend. The bodies were found in 2000, only after Johnson gave a hand-scrawled map to a jailhouse informant. Honken, who was the 1st Iowan to face the death penalty in more than four decades, has filed post-trial motions and is awaiting sentencing by U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett. No one in Iowa has been executed for an Iowa crime since 1963, two years before the state's death penalty was abolished. But federal prosecutors exercised their authority to seek the death penalty because this case involved the murder of federal witnesses and children. Attorneys in Johnson's trial have spent years arguing over the evidence, jury selection, juror anonymity and trial location. Earlier this year, Bennett hinted that he might move the trial to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, or to a federal courthouse in Minnesota, given the media attention for Honken's trial. After sending more than 1,200 questionnaires to potential jurors across northern Iowa, Bennett ruled that an impartial jury could be seated in Sioux City, where Honken's trial had been held. Johnson's trial could have a few twists of its own, including possible arguments about her mental health 5 years ago. Earlier this year, defense attorneys told Bennett that, if the case enters the penalty phase, they would bring up a suicide attempt by Johnson. In October 2000, one day after the bodies were found, Johnson tried to commit suicide in the Black Hawk County Jail. She subsequently was treated by mental health professionals, according to court papers. Johnson's lawyers also have notified the court they want Honken made available to testify on her behalf if the penalty phase becomes necessary. Honken currently is being held in federal prison in Marion, Ill., where he is serving a sentence on drug charges. Attorneys say jury selection could take 2 weeks. (source: Omaha World-Herald) ARIZONA: Killer of family satisfied with death sentence An admitted triple killer is satisfied to return to death row, his attorney says. A Pima County Superior Court jury gave James Granvil Wallace, 55, 3 death terms yesterday for the 1984 slayings of his Tucson girlfriend, Susan Insalaco, 36, and her children, Anna Monzon, 16, and Gabe Monzon, 12. "Jim Wallace is happier with the death verdicts than he would be if they had given a life verdict," said his disappointed defense attorney, Eric Larsen. "He has never forgiven himself and would have had great difficulty seeing someone else extend him some forgiveness," Larsen said. Wallace was previously sentenced twice to death by a judge. Those sentences were overturned on appeal. Juries, not judges, now determine whether to impose death sentences. Jurors could have chosen life with parole possible after 25 years. The Tucson Citizen erred yesterday in reporting sentencing options. Life without parole was not an option in his case because such terms did not exist when Wallace was convicted. Larsen said jurors might have feared Wallace could be paroled in four years because he has served more than 20 years. Judge Virginia Kelly could have imposed consecutive life sentences. Larsen had presented 24 reasons in favor of a life sentence, including Wallace's chronic alcoholism since adolescence and a mentally ill mother. Deputy County Attorney Rick Unklesbay said Wallace chose his lifestyle. "He wants to be a drunk," Unklesbay said. "He wants to be an alcoholic. He wants to live life the way he wants to live life." The alcoholism and dysfunctional childhood are an "excuse," Unklesbay said, for Wallace's abhorrent behavior after Insalaco ordered him out of her house. Wallace beat Anna Monzon with a baseball bat until it broke, pummeled her with another and stabbed her in the neck with the broken bat. Gabe Monzon and Insalaco were beaten to death with a pipe wrench. "It is not revenge" to impose death, Unklesbay said. "It is justice." Larsen said Wallace has many avenues of appeal. (source: Tucson Citizen) ********************** Man resentenced to death for slayings of girlfriend and her children A jury Thursday ordered 3 death sentences for James Granvil Wallace, ending a resentencing trial for the 54-year old man convicted in the 1984 murders of his girlfriend and her 2 children. Wallace, who pleaded guilty to the triple murder, was originally sentenced to death on all counts, but on appeal U.S. District Judge William D. Browning ordered the resentencing in September 2002, said Pima County Superior Court spokesman Dave Ricker. Wallace was originally sentenced without an adequate examination of his background. The jury decided last week that aggravated factors made Wallace eligible for the death penalty and issued the sentence Thursday. Wallace confessed to the Feb. 1, 1984 slayings of his girlfriend, Susan Insalaco, 36, and her two children, Anna Monzon, 16, and Gabriel Monzon, 12, in her mobile home near Marana. Insalaco ordered Wallace to move out because of his alcohol abuse, but instead of leaving he stayed and attacked her children and her one by one as they returned home. He beat them to death with a baseball bat and a pipe wrench and turned himself in the following morning. Wallaces defense argued that a history of family abuse and longtime drug and alcohol abuse, including huffing glue and gasoline, severely impaired his mental condition. Wallace, an unemployed carpenter at the time of the murders, had been on death row in the Arizona State Prison at Florence since May 1985. (source: The Arizona Daily Star) ALABAMA: Experts question gun bill's impact A bill moving through the Alabama Senate to expand the death penalty to murders committed with federally banned assault weapons would do little or nothing, authorities say, because those guns are not illegal anymore. Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, won a 9-2 vote Wednesday from the Senate Judiciary Committee for his proposed rewrite of the state death penalty statute. Smitherman said his bill was inspired by discussions with Birmingham police, who lost 3 officers to shots from an SKS rifle last summer. But the SKS is legal, as are most of the guns listed on Smitherman's original bill. He rewrote it to allow the death penalty for murders committed with weapons that are federally banned. Smitherman said he believed this change would cover murders with fully automatic weapons. But the ATF says he's mistaken. "There are no federally banned guns, either," said Carl Bengtson, supervisory special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives. "They need to do some more tweaking." A federal law that had banned assault weapons was allowed to expire last year. Owners of automatic weapons, sometimes called machine guns, face specific tax and registration laws. But as long as a buyer pays $200, fills out a registration application and passes a background check, he or she can legally own an automatic, Bengtson said. Few such guns are used in homicides, though. "We haven't had a real big problem with machine guns being used since the gangster era," Bengston said, referring to the 1920s gangster, not the 1990s gangsta'. Few actually used: A Florida State University study of guns used in crimes found that less than 1 % of murders, even in high-crime areas such as Miami and Chicago, were committed with fully automatic weapons. Smitherman said his interest in the issue stems from conversations with police. Although the triple slaying occurred with a legal weapon, and killing a police officer already is a death-penalty crime, he and officers wanted to toughen the death penalty laws beyond that occurrence. "Once I started discussing it with them, they were excited that something was being done about those automatic weapons, especially the illegal ones," said Smitherman. "There were no discussions about what's banned and what's not. That didn't come into play. The conversations I had with them wasn't that sophisticated." His original bill named numerous semi-automatic, military-style rifles, most of which are cheap, flashy guns commonly known as "assault weapons." A 1994 federal law banned assault weapons. But it was allowed to sunset last year. The Bush Administration did not renew the ban, legalizing guns such as AK-47s and AR-15s. Compromise: The substitute bill - the current version - was the result of a compromise. Smitherman, who is a lawyer, said he was satisfied with the original bill, which named weapons that are legal and don't have to be registered. "In my move to get it passed, it was a compromise with the NRA and other members of the Legislature ... concerned about the limitations placed on their ability to use a weapon," he said. He said he believes the current version will cover crimes with certain guns, such as guns that are illegal to import or semiautomatics that have been altered to be fully automatic. Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law firm that represents poor people on death row, says Alabama does not need a broader death penalty law; it already sentences more people per capita to death than any other state. Alabama prosecutors can seek the death penalty for someone convicted of intentional murder with any one of 18 aggravating factors, such as murder of a police officer or a child under 14. "There are nearly 300 people awaiting capital trials," Stevenson said. "Judges can't find lawyers to assign to these cases; the cost of these cases is creating a fiscal crisis and expanding the statute will do absolutely nothing to improve public safety. This is the kind of ill-advised crime policy-making that has created many of the problems the state is struggling to recover from." (source: Birmingham News) ****************************** Victim wanted death penalty in Rudolph case It sounds like a page-turning fiction novel. A nurse walks into work one day and wakes up two weeks later the victim of a fatal bombing. But its reality to Alabama nurse Emily Lyons, a survivor of the 1998 abortion clinic bombing that killed police officer Robert "Sande" Sanderson. And as Eric Robert Rudolph agreed to plea guilty on Friday to that bombing and to another in Atlanta, another chapter in Lyon's life came to a close. "We'll be living with this forever," said Lyons' husband, Jeff Lyons, who is writing a book about his wifes experience. "But this is a huge chapter," he said. Lyons hopes to have his book, "Life's a Blast," published in the next three or four months. The book is not a pro-choice or pro-life book, but tells the story of Emily Lyons surviving a tragedy. Things are finally settled in the case, he said, although it was not the legal outcome he and his wife had wanted. The 1998 bombing destroyed one of Emily Lyons' eyes and left the other damaged. The bomb's shrapnel, nails, are still in her skin and she was recently scheduled for her 20th operation, Jeff Lyons said. The couple had hoped for the death penalty, but they were approached several weeks ago and asked if they would instead approve of four life sentences. The trade-off would be information on where Rudolph had hidden 250 pounds of dynamite. "We gave up the sentence we wanted so people in Murphy would be safe," Jeff Lyons said. "It's ironic that we're helping the people who once admitted they would help Rudolph hide." Emily Lyons told CNN on Friday afternoon that "for me, 4 life sentences in prison is not punishment enough." "We wanted the punishment to fit the crime," Jeff Lyons said. "This deserved a cut above the normal sentence. He meticulously planned the bombing. He sat across the street and set it off by remote control. It wasn't one person he was mad at. It wasnt done in the heat of passion." It wasn't the legal outcome they had hoped for, but the Lyonses agreed the plea agreement was the right thing to do. They had known there was dynamite hidden in Murphy for a week, and they knew it had to be found before someone was hurt. Maybe Rudolph got what he wanted in the end, Jeff Lyons said. "He got to tell the government what sentence he wanted, so maybe he did win in the end," he said. "But he's going to die in prison. And its kind of hard to see that as a win." It definitely makes for an interesting ending in their book, he admits. (source: Citizen-Times)
