Sept. 15 USA: JUDGING JOHN ROBERTS: DEATH ROW RIGHTS----Senator cites Illinois case in grilling Roberts on executions Perhaps more than any other death penalty case, the exoneration of Anthony Porter changed the debate over capital punishment in Illinois. Porter was sentenced to death for a 1982 double murder in a South Side park, and in 1998 came within 50 hours of being executed. The Illinois Supreme Court halted the execution because of questions about his mental capabilities. University students and a private investigator then unraveled the case, with the investigator getting a videotaped confession from the real killer. Then-Gov. George Ryan, who watched on TV as Porter was set free, said Porter's exoneration helped change his views on the death penalty and contributed to his decision to impose a moratorium on executions. The issue was highlighted Wednesday in an exchange between Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Judge John Roberts Jr. during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Roberts' nomination to be chief justice. Leahy: On the issue of capital punishment, we've held in this committee a number of hearings that show some real flaws in the administration of capital punishment, you know, sleeping lawyers, drunk lawyers, lawyers didn't bother even to investigate or didn't have the funds to do it. More than 100 death row inmates have been exonerated. Some, though, who have spent years on death row in the most horrible conditions for a crime they never committed. I think Sen. [Dick] Durbin mentioned a situation out in Illinois where a Republican governor had to--and did, courageously I felt--extend clemency to a whole lot of people who had been on death row. Some say, and I think you have even said this, when they're exonerated it shows the system works. Well, let me tell you about the system in that case. One of the people is Anthony Porter, spent 16 years on death row. He was within 2 days of being executed. The system didn't work on behalf of the government doing [things]. A bunch of kids from Northwestern University who had taken as elective course--a course on journalism, and the teacher said why don't you look into a couple of these. And these kids went out and . . . dug up the information that was there available to the police, available to the prosecutor, available to the feds--nobody dug up. They found it, and . . . They got somebody else to confess. You said 2 years ago, and I remember being at that hearing--you said that on the startling number of innocent men sentenced to death and were later exonerated, you responded somehow showed the system worked in exonerating them. I worry about that statement. I really do. It has bothered me. You know, I voted for you for the Circuit Court, and there was a split vote in our party. But that one really bothered me, that statement. I found it almost mechanical, and I'll tell you why. When we have people say innocent people have been freed after years on death row shows the system is working. It doesn't. I think [Justice] Sandra Day O'Connor said a few years ago, if statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed. If that's the case, the system is not working. In Herrera we discussed that--the court grappled with, didn't ultimately decide, does the Constitution permit the execution of a person who is innocent? And now, as principal deputy solicitor general, you co-authored the amicus brief for the U.S. in the Herrera case. You said that a claim of actual innocence does not stay the ground for a federal habeas. Actually, you said, quote, "Does the Constitution require the prisoner have the right to seek judicial review of claim of newly discovered evidence, instead of being required to seek relief in the clemency process. In our view, the Constitution does not guarantee the prisoner such a right." So, let me ask you this, without going into the facts in Herrera, Is it your current personal view the death row inmate who can prove his innocence has no constitutional right to do so before a court before he is executed? Roberts: Well, senator, and this is the basis of the disagreement in Herrera. Herrera's not a case about actual innocence. . . . Leahy: Well, that -- Roberts: It's a question of whether you're entitled to bring a new claim. Leahy: But . . . listen to my question. Does a death row inmate who can prove he's innocent--do they have no constitutional right to do so in a court of law before they're executed? Roberts: The issue arises before you get to the question of proof, and the question is: Do you allow someone who has raised several claims over the years to suddenly say, at the last minute, somebody who just died was the person who committed the murder, and does that mean you start the trial all over again, simply on the basis of that last-minute claim, or do you require more of a showing at that stage? That's what Herrera was about. Now, I don't think, of course, that anybody who is innocent should suffer as a result of a false conviction. If they have been falsely convicted, and they are innocent, they shouldn't be in prison, let alone executed. . . . Leahy: But does the Constitution permit the execution of an innocent person? Roberts: I would think not, but the question is never: Do you allow the execution of an innocent person? The question is: Do you allow particular claimants to raise different claims 4, 5, 6 times--to say the person who just died committed the murder, let's have a new trial? Or do you take into account the proceedings that have already gone on? Leahy: I'm looking for broad principles here. You said--let me read it again--"Does the Constitution require that a prisoner have the right to seek judicial review of a claim of newly discovered evidence instead of being required to seek relief in the clemency process. In our view, the Constitution does not guarantee the prisoner such a right." Is that your view today? Roberts: I'm not in a position to comment on the correctness or incorrectness of particular court decisions. That's the court's precedent in Herrera. It agreed with the administration position, which was not that innocent people should be subject to imprisonment or execution. (source: Chicago Tribune) UTAH: Killer once on death row gets March parole date Craig D. Marvel - once on death row for the murder of a fellow motorcycle gang member in 1975 - will be paroled March 7, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole has decided. Marvel was 1 of 3 members of a motorcycle gang who were sentenced to die for killing 26-year-old Michael Thomas Hogan, who was beaten, stabbed and choked and shot 14 times. Hogan was apparently killed for testifying against a gang leader in a Salt Lake City drug case. Hogan had moved to Price to escape reprisal, but was dragged from his motel room at gunpoint by the killers. His body was found in a canyon west of Price. Marvel - now 58 - will have served nearly 31 years behind bars by the time he is released. Co-defendant Gypsy Allen Codianna, 53, is to be released without parole supervision on April 26, 2011. The sentence of co-defendant Irvin Paul Dunsdon, 62, was terminated in August 1998. The 3 were on death row until 1980, when their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment by a 3rd District judge who found the prosecutor had failed to inform defense attorneys of an inconsistency in the testimony of a key witness. (source: Salt Lake Tribune) OHIO: Inspector questions Spirko's guilt----Prosecution witness has bad reputation, postal worker asserts In yet another strange twist in the case of condemned inmate John Spirko, a U.S. postal inspector has written a letter bashing the character of a key prosecution witness and concluding "it appears an individual who did not commit the crime is going to be executed." Postal Inspector Gregory A. Duerr of Cleveland, in a letter dated Aug. 31, called upon Chief Inspector Leroy Heath to request that Spirko's execution, now set for Nov. 15, be "delayed until the serious issues indicating innocence (are) truly resolved." By remaining silent on Spirko's execution, Duerr said, "the Inspection Service ... has placed itself on the side of injustice." Duerr said retired postal inspector Paul Hartman, whose testimony was critical in sending Spirko to death row in 1984, had a reputation for unprofessional conduct and was forced to retire early after several inspectors complained about him. Duerr said he was threatened by his superiors after he raised questions about Hartman's role in Spirko's conviction. "These are extraordinarily serious allegations," said Spirko's attorney, Thomas Hill of Washington, D.C. He said Duerr's letter indicates the postal service is "trying to sweep this all under the rug," but "we intend to get to the bottom of this." Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro's office received Duerr's letter Sept. 2, verified its authenticity and sent it to the state parole board and Spirko's attorneys Tuesday. The board has set a clemency hearing for Oct. 12. "We have taken the letter very seriously," said Petro spokeswoman Kim Norris, but issues of Hartman's credibility "have already been examined by the federal courts." Hartman interrogated Spirko numerous times in late 1982 and early 1983 about the August 1982 kidnapping and murder of Elgin postmaster Betty Jane Mottinger. The interviews weren't tape recorded, Spirko didn't sign any statements and sometimes there were no witnesses to the interviews. But Hartman said Spirko, now 59, knew details only the killer would know. Spirko's attorneys have said his so-called guilty knowledge could have come from newspaper accounts or from Hartman. (source: Dayton Daily News) ILLINOIS: Anti-death penalty activist Prejean speaks of human dignity Nicholas Hunt Jr. wondered if Sister Helen Prejean ever felt angry at the death row inmates she counseled. The 16-year-old's question came toward the end of her appearance Tuesday afternoon before about 370 students at St. Teresa High School. She may have become an internationally known anti-death penalty activist after publishing "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States" in 1993, but she replied that she feels the same outrage at murder that everyone else does. "No human life should ever be violated with violence like that," Prejean said. "But God's grace means that every human being has dignity, even those among us who have done terrible crimes." The 66-year-old Catholic nun pulled no punches at St. Teresa, although her audience there was younger than most she addresses. She said the 1st man she saw executed and his brother shot and killed 2 teenagers like themselves after finding the young couple parking in a remote area after a football game. But rather than talk more about him, she spoke instead of the unexpected example she found in the young man's father, Lloyd LeBlanc, who prayed the Lord's Prayer while in the morgue to identify the body of his son. Prejean said LeBlanc uttered the words "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" before he felt them because he knew Christ's message was one of love and forgiveness. "They killed my boy, but they're not going to kill me," he told her. Afterward, Jenny Durham, 17, said she admires Prejean for taking up a cause at odds with popular opinion. "She's not afraid to say 2 wrongs don't make a right," she said. Tuesday evening, Prejean received a standing ovation from more than 300 people after a speech at Millikin University's Kirkland Fine Arts Center. Even her call for people to sign a petition opposing the death penalty for Amanda Hamm and Maurice LaGrone drew no sounds of protest from her audience. The pair are charged with 1st-degree murder in the 2003 drowning deaths of her 3 children in Clinton Lake. Neil Baird, 62, of Decatur said Prejean has shown courage in reaching out to families of murder victims. "I used to think the death penalty was a deterrent," he said. "Now I know it's not." Prejean's stop in Decatur was sponsored by Macon County Citizens Opposing Capital Punishment and the Millikin University chapter of Amnesty International. (source: The Herald-Review)
