Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (voice) 217-244-1478 (fax) [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- From: Boyle, Francis Sent: Friday, April 15, 2005 1:37 PM To: '[email protected]' Cc: [email protected]; 'sissel' Subject: RYAN OK!
I received a letter from the Nobel Institute confirming that Ryan is among 199 candidates. The decision will be announced mid-October. fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (voice) 217-244-1478 (fax) [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> (personal comments only) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/private/deathpenalty/attachments/20050415/943b7ad7/attachment.htm From [email protected] Fri Apr 15 16:28:28 2005 From: [email protected] (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue Aug 16 12:15:48 2005 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS., KY., N.C., TENN., MO., VA. Message-ID: <[email protected]> April 15 TEXAS: Murderers don't get precedence Regarding the Chronicle's April 14 article, "Study: Inmates suffer during lethal injections / Inadequate anesthesia may cause 4 in 10 to stay conscious": Let me be sure I've got this straight. Inmates who have been convicted and sentenced to die by the hand of the state of Texas for such evil acts as rape, torture and murder may feel pain when they are put to death? And this is a concern? What about those they killed and the horror the victims suffered at the hand of these fiends? There are 2 other death penalty solutions: execution by firing squad or death by hanging. Rarely have these failed to produce a quick and virtually painless death - well, at least, no more painful than the deaths experienced by the victims of those heinous crimes. These methods can also be cost-effective. Texas taxpayers who are furious at spending millions each year just to house and then execute those on death row will be glad to save some money. And if the Texas prison system really wanted to boost its bottom line, it could also allow viewing of executions. I hope we can all agree that the rights of men and women who murder others should not take precedent over the horrible crimes they committed or the feelings of the victims' families and those of the general public. LORI McNEIL - Stafford (source: Houston Chronicle) *********************** Man gets life for 2 killings----Lone juror's vote prevents death penalty After deliberating for nearly 5 hours Thursday, jurors sentenced Bevy Lee Wilson to life in prison for beating a Flour Bluff man and his 10-year-old son to death. Jurors found Wilson guilty of capital murder in the Feb. 9, 2003, beating deaths of Richard Carbaugh, 34, and his son, Dominic, who were found in the kitchen of their Barton Street apartment. The murder weapons, a claw hammer and a metal pipe, were found nearby. Wilson, 46, who could have been sentenced to death, stood with his hands behind his back and showed no emotion when the verdict was read. He will spend at least 40 years in prison before he is eligible for parole. "My condolences to the family of Richard and Dominic," Wilson said after jurors left the courtroom. Defense attorney Douglas Tinker said there will be an appeal. When Tinker and prosecutor Mark Skurka polled the jury, Skurka said jurors indicated that they voted 11 to 1 for the death penalty. It required a unanimous vote. During closing arguments Thursday, Wilson became angry and called Skurka a liar. Once jurors left the room to begin deliberations, Wilson told District Judge Sandra Watts that prosecution witness Thomas Sower was responsible for the killings, which defense attorneys had tried to prove during the trial. Sower testified that he, Wilson and Carbaugh smoked marijuana and methamphetamine the day of the killings and said he saw Wilson beat Carbaugh and Dominic with the hammer. Tinker said jurors, who declined to comment about the verdict, questioned why Sower was not indicted. During the three-week trial, jurors heard testimony that Sower's boot prints and fingerprints were found at the crime scene and that Wilson had little blood on his clothes. However, Wilson's friend, Marine Soliz, testified that Wilson had admitted to killing Carbaugh and that he had asked her to get rid of his bloody clothes. Carbaugh's sisters, Vanessa Rizzo and Michelle Brown, said they were pleased with the verdict. "I'm not mad," Rizzo said. "I think he does feel something. I did not know him on drugs or off, but being in jail for two years thinking about it, he had to feel something." Brown said she does not believe she ever will forgive the man who killed her brother and nephew. "I'll just take the good memories and go with those," she said. "It's always going to be hard because he is still breathing and Dominic and Ricky are not." Wilson's mother, Millie Talley, and his sister, Linda Buentello, waited for news of the verdict at home. Talley, who has missed only one visitation day since Wilson went to jail following his arrest, said she is relieved that her son is not going to death row. "I am pleased, but I know he is innocent," she said. "They had evidence on the other guy. They never found my son's fingerprints on nothing. It's not right. He has a 10-year-old son. He would not hurt a kid. Never, never. He might kill for a kid, but he would not hurt a kid. God knows he didn't, either." (source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times) ********************** Mental Illness be Damned That's the message the government of Texas is sending to its citizens. Unless a mentally ill person has plenty of money and/or is fortunate enough to have health insurance with decent mental health benefits, Texas would just as soon kill him as help him. In 2001, Texas ranked 46th in the nation in mental healthcare spending. In 2003, the Texas legislature slashed millions of dollars from the state's 2004 mental healthcare programs. Under the 2004 budget, Medicaid will no longer pay for adults to visit: Psychologists, Licensed counselors, Social workers, or Marriage and family therapists. The 2004 budget originally included drastic reductions in children's mental healthcare benefits. Fortunately, these cuts were disapproved by the Federal government. But other cuts and changes include: Complete elimination of In Home and Family Support for mental health, 11% reduction in services for mental retardation, and 61% reduction in In Home and Family Support for mental retardation. "A lot of bad people" These budget cuts are only the latest evidence that Texas is a dangerous place to live. For years advocacy groups have been urging the courts, legislators and governors of Texas to re-examine the state's policies regarding mentally ill and retarded criminals. It would seem that Texas Judge Michael McCormick of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals summed up the state's attitude when he said, "The reason we have so many people on death row is plain and simple: We have a lot of bad people committing capital murders, and we are doing something about it." "Bad people." Consider the following cases: Larry Robison - executed 1/21/2000 - Robison's family had tried for years to get help for him through the Texas state healthcare system, but he never remained hospitalized because "he wasn't violent." The 1st time his paranoid schizophrenia led him into violence, he killed 5 people. Would those people be alive had he received treatment? Gary Graham - executed 6/22/2000 - Graham was an abused and neglected child with a history of mental illness. In addition, his conviction was based on flimsy evidence and even jurors thought his defense lawyer made no effort to defend. Did he deserve the death penalty? John Satterwhite - executed 8/16/2000 - Satterwhite was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic with an IQ of 74. The European Union even petitioned then Governor George W. Bush to commute his sentence. There were serious questions regarding his trial and conviction. James Colburn - executed 3/26/2003 - Colburn had a long history of paranoid schizophrenia, and during his trial was sedated to the point of falling asleep. Kelsey Patterson - executed 5/18/04 - Patterson's paranoid schizophrenia was so severe that he was twice found not guilty by reason of insanity in previous nonfatal shootings, treated, and released. Sentenced to death for a double homicide, Patterson's condition was such that the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles even recommended to Governor Rick Perry that his sentence be commuted, but Perry refused. John Paul Henry - There was no question that John Paul Penry, who has an IQ of between 50 and 63 and the mind of a 7-year-old child, was guilty. Penry's death sentence has been overturned by the US Supreme Court twice, and twice Texas has re-sentenced him to death. The 2nd time the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded; a Texas jury then found that Penry was not retarded and thus eligible after all for the death penalty. He is still on death row. Kenneth Lee Pierott - Pierott was found innocent by reason of insanity of the beating death of his older sister in 1996 and was released from a state hospital 2 years later. In April of 2004 he murdered a child. The system surely failed that child. Tragic Consequences Graham and Satterwhite may well have been innocent. But even putting aside the question of whether death is an appropriate punishment for the others, one can argue that their victims might be alive today had their mentally ill killers received the help they needed in time. Larry Robison's parents did everything they could to get treatment for their son but were stymied by the system - and five people died. Both Kelsey Patterson and Kenneth Pierott were known to be violent, were in the state's custody, but were released without any assurance that treatment would continue, with tragic consequences. And now, by reducing the availability of mental healthcare even further, the State of Texas may well be setting up more potential killers, more victims, and more work for the executioner. (source: Bipolar.com) KENTUCKY: Trial to decide if lethal injection constitutional The 2 views on lethal injection are starkly and vehemently opposite, much like opinions on the death penalty itself. Assistant Attorney General David Smith compares the use of lethal injection to carry out capital punishment as no different from intravenous procedures used routinely in medical procedures. Susan Balliet, a Department of Public Advocacy attorney, said lethal injection brings on a "death that is pure torture." A Franklin County judge will decide whether the procedure rises to the level of cruelty banned by the U.S. and Kentucky constitutions. Beginning Monday, Circuit Judge Roger Crittenden preside over a bench trial brought by two Death Row inmates that challenge the procedures used by the Corrections Department in administering lethal injections. During next week's proceedings, Balliet will present her side of the case. An anesthesiologist and a pharmacologist will be among 20 witnesses testifying, she said. The attorney general's office will present its response in May. Crittenden, citing questions about the lethal injection process, issued a stay of execution for Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. just days before he was scheduled to be put to death on Nov. 30, 2004 for the 1990 murders of a Lexington couple. Bowling, 52, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit along with Ralph Baze, whose appeals also are nearing an end. Baze, 49, was convicted of killing Powell County Sheriff Steve Bennett and deputy Arthur Briscoe during an attempted arrest on Jan. 30, 1992. The state has executed one person by lethal injection, Eddie Lee Harper, in 1999. The only other execution in Kentucky in the last two decades was Harold McQueen, who was electrocuted in 1997. There are 36 inmates now on Death Row in Kentucky, according to the Corrections Department's Web site. Since 1998, inmates who were under death sentence at the time have been allowed to choose between electrocution or injection as the method of execution. If an inmate refuses to make a choice, lethal injection is administered. Inmates sentenced since 1998 are to be put to death by lethal injection. The state administers a series of three drugs to carry out the execution. The drugs are designed to relax and put inmates to sleep before killing them. Balliet said lawyers for the inmates will present evidence that the 1st drugs do not get into the bloodstream before the killing drugs are administered. The result, she said, would likely be an excruciating death. Balliet said some of the evidence comes from the autopsy performed on Harper after his execution. Smith said the lawsuit is another side door attempt to obstruct the death penalty. "If you successfully attack the process, you're in effect delaying, postponing, perhaps even preventing the punishment from being carried out at all," Smith said in a telephone interview. Balliet said the lawsuit challenges the procedures, the drugs and the training of the personnel used in lethal injection. She said it is not an attack on the death penalty, which retains overwhelming support in the General Assembly. "If we win this lawsuit, we won't abolish the death penalty," Balliet said. But the proceeding will certainly delay any executions, at least for Baze or Bowling. After Crittenden's ruling, the case will almost certainly be appealed. (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: Felons Might Need To Trade Rights To Use Innocence Commission Felons who want a proposed independent panel to review their innocence claims must be willing to give up some of their legal rights in the process, the Supreme Court's chief justice told a Senate panel Thursday. Justice Beverly Lake Jr. spoke out on behalf of a proposed bill that would create the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, which would investigate complaints of wrongful convictions. The panel was recommended last month by a task force examining the state's criminal justice system during a series of publicized wrongful convictions, including the murder case of Darryl Hunt. Hunt spent 18 years in prison for the slaying of a Winston-Salem woman before DNA evidence exonerated him. The commission would rapidly examine credible claims of innocence that weren't considered during court appeals that examine legal procedure, or claims stemming from new evidence. "It would give an expedited process whereby we could press through and look at some of these cases," Lake told the judiciary committee. But before the innocence commission took up a case, the defendant would have to give up the right to the attorney-client or spousal privileges that may have been used in previous trials to withhold certain information. Authorities could prosecute the defendant if the commission uncovers crimes not previously discovered. The conditions would screen out gratuitous requests, said Chris Mumma, the task force's executive director. Committee members such as Sen. R.C. Soles, D-Columbus, questioned whether the requirement was too severe. "If you're sitting over there on death row and you know you're not guilty and you can prove it, I don't see why you need to waive your constitutional rights and admit you stole your grandmother's purse," Soles said. Lake responded: "Standing by his constitutional rights ended up with him being on death row. The idea here is if he is truly innocent and feels he can prove it then he ought to be willing to go that last step and reveal whatever he has." The seven-member commission selected by the chief justice would act as an investigative grand jury of sorts. Mumma envisions law schools providing the first cursory look at innocence claims. Those students could then forward potential cases to the commission, she said. Mumma also runs a Durham center when Duke and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill law students examine wrongful-conviction cases. If 5 of the 7 commission members determine there is enough evidence for further review, case documents would be forwarded to the courts. A three-judge Superior Court panel in the district where the original conviction took place then would convene. The charges would be dismissed if all three judges determine there "is clear and convincing evidence" that the defendant is innocent. There are no appeals to the judges' ruling, but defendants could file additional requests for review with the commission. Now, erroneous criminal convictions can be overturned or vacated, but only the governor can only grant a "pardon of innocence." Gov. Mike Easley did that for Hunt last year. Otherwise, North Carolina's legal system has no way to reverse a wrongful conviction, said Dick Taylor, a task force member and executive director of the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers. Pitt County District Attorney Clark Everett said he and probably most other DAs in the state support the thinking behind the commission. But without requiring a prisoner to waive certain rights, Everett cautioned, commission hearings could turn into a new trial. Peg Dorer of the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys also would like the commission's proceedings to be open to the public, like other meetings in the court system. (source: The Associated Press) TENNESSEE: Prosecutors to again seek death penalty for man convicted in '86 murder Prosecutors in Coffee County will soon be trying to track down witnesses from a 19-year-old murder case in hopes their memories haven't faded - that is, if the witnesses are still among the living. Finding those people, and their recollections of the 1986 slaying of engineer Julie Guida, will be important as a jury decides whether to impose a death sentence again on the man convicted of killing her. "It's a problematic issue, for sure," said Ken Shelton, assistant district attorney general. "I mean, we're talking 19 years. We had one witness that was well into his 60s, near retirement age. He would now be in his 80s. It's a concern." Her killer, Wayne Lee Bates, had his death sentence overturned by a federal appeals court last month. Bates, who turns 47 years old today, remains incarcerated at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Sometime during the next six months, jurors in Coffee County will be asked to hear the evidence in the case and determine whether Bates will return to death row. Orders overturning a sentence in a capital case are rare, said Sue Allison, public information officer for the state administrative office of the courts. "But it does happen," she said. In 1997, death row inmate John David Terry of Nashville received a new hearing after an appeals court ruled that the jury had been given faulty instructions in Terry's 1988 sentencing hearing. The former preacher, who was convicted of killing his church's handyman, was again sentenced to die at the new hearing. He committed suicide in 2003. In 1999, another death row inmate, Preston Carter of Memphis, was granted a 2nd sentencing hearing 5 years after his first. A new jury also returned him to death row. The March 23 decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati overturned Bates' death sentence, not his conviction. The appellate court said prosecutors in the case prejudiced the jury when one of them referred to Bates as a "rabid dog" during the initial sentencing hearing. The justices said then District Attorney General Charles "Buck" Ramsey and Shelton had engaged in "highly improper" behavior. Ramsey is retired now. Shelton would not comment on the appellate judge's criticism. Guida, 28, was working temporarily at Arnold Engineering Development Center near Tullahoma when she was slain while jogging. Bates, a drifter, killed her by shooting her with a shotgun after escaping from a jail in Kentucky. A new sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the state attorney general receives an order from U.S. District Court in Nashville. Shelton said he expects the order will be sent to the state in the next 7 to 10 days. "That starts the clock ticking for the 180-day period during which this sentencing hearing is to take place," Shelton said. (source: The Tennessean) MISSOURI: Man who killed grandmother moves closer to execution A Missouri inmate sentenced to death for fatally beating and stabbing his grandmother more than 30 times to get money for crack cocaine says that woman would not want him executed. Facing scheduled death by injection April 27, Donald Jones, 38, absorbed another legal setback this week, when the Missouri Supreme Court refused to intervene. Jones said he expected to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Jones' family - including 2 uncles, the sons of slain Dorothy Knuckles - wants Gov. Matt Blunt to spare Jones' life and commute his sentence to a life term without parole, arguing that the murdered 68-year-old grandmother wouldn't seek vengeance against the grandson. "Just having their love and their forgiveness has been a tremendous comfort for me," Jones said Thursday by telephone from the maximum-security Potosi Correctional Center, insisting that "I can say most confidentally" Knuckles - a Christian - wouldn't be vengeful against the grandson who killed her. "My grandmother and my family were all raised in church, strong Christians," he said. "I know for a fact she wouldn't want this at all." Jones said he hasn't circled his scheduled execution date on his calendar. "The 27th will be here when it gets here," he said. "The only thing I can control is today; that's always been my approach to the situation. "I have all the faith and know God can turn this around in no time." Blunt has said through a spokeswoman that he planned to review the case, having asked the state Board of Probation and Parole to offer a recommendation. Messages were left Friday with Blunt's office and with Jones' Columbia attorney. Jones could become the 63rd Missouri inmate to be put to death - all by injection - since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1989. Jones would be the 1st to be put to death at the 2-year-old Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, about 60 miles southwest of St. Louis. Missouri's last execution was March 16, when Stanley Hall was put to death for abducting a woman and throwing her over a Mississippi River bridge railing in 1994. All but one of Missouri's executions since 1989 have been carried out at the Potosi prison, about 25 miles west of Bonne Terre. The other execution was at the prison in Jefferson City. Condemned prisoners will continue to be housed at Potosi and be brought to the Bonne Terre prison to wait out the days and hours before their execution. Jones said he was high on PCP-laced crack cocaine when he went to his grandmother's St. Louis home in March 1993 to ask the woman for more money for drugs. When Knuckles lectured him about his abuse of drugs and refused to give him cash, Jones first beat her with a butcher's block of knives, then repeatedly stabbed her. Jones took the grandmother's videocassette recorder, some money and the keys to her car, then sold the VCR and rented out the vehicle to get 2 pieces of crack cocaine. Jones was arrested 3 days later. Jurors convicted him in June 1994 after just 3 hours of deliberations, recommending the death sentence for 1st-degree murder and a life term for armed criminal action. The next month, a judge condemned Jones despite pleas by his family - including the victim's sons - to spare Jones' life and order him imprisoned for life without parole. (source: Associated Press) VIRGINIA: Slipping Standards for the Death Penalty Statements by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in its decision upholding the death penalty for Robin Lovitt [Metro, April 7] offered troubling examples of how low the standards for capital punishment have become. While acknowledging that the destruction of evidence that might have exonerated Mr. Lovitt was a "serious error in judgment," the court was comforted that the error was not made in "bad faith." Since when is a serious mistake made without malice not still a serious mistake? The court commended the lower court for going "out of its way to consider every piece of evidence," as if to do so when a man's life is at stake should not be expected. Regarding defense arguments that challenge the quality of Mr. Lovitt's court-appointed attorneys, the court oddly described those attorneys as "seasoned" and suggested that drawing attention to Mr. Lovitt's "horrific" childhood might have hurt his case. It is difficult to see how the outcome for Mr. Lovitt could have been worse. Most troubling, however, is the message delivered by the court in its ruling -- a message that is at once paranoid and demagogic. Those who would dare to cite imperfections in verdicts resulting in the death penalty should not overlook all that "went right" in those cases and that, after all, our system is "as fair and conscientious as human beings can make it." The court's statement is a thinly veiled admonishment -- the type that we seem to be hearing more often in the national arena -- that those who dare to point out our nation's flaws without noting its successes are not sufficiently patriotic. I am not certain of the point at which our federal courts became apologists for an "imperfect system," but when it comes to the death penalty, conservatives and liberals alike should demand more. DON BEALE ---- Arlington (source: Letter to the Editor, Washington Post)
