death penalty news September 24, 2005
CALIFORNIA: Death Penalty Recommended Jurors Friday recommended the death penalty for a man who kidnapped, sexually assaulted, stabbed and suffocated a 9-year-old neighbor girl 14 years ago. The seven-woman, five-man panel deliberated about 10 hours over three days before deciding that Manuel Bracamontes, 42, deserved the ultimate punishment for killing Laura Arroyo of Otay Mesa on June 19, 1991. Formal sentencing is set for Dec. 14. "I want to say thank you to the jury because they made a good decision," said Laura's father, Luis Arroyo. "We're happy today because justice was made," Arroyo said outside the courthouse. "(Bracamontes) had to pay for the damage he did to my dear girl." Members of the Bracamontes family broke into tears when the verdict was read. They later chose not to speak to reporters. "He make a lot of pain, for my family and his family," Arroyo said about the defendant. None of the attorneys could comment because of a gag order placed on them by Judge John M. Thompson. Five witnesses testified they saw the defendant in the victim's condominium complex on the night the youngster disappeared after running downstairs to answer the doorbell. Her body was discovered the next morning on a sidewalk in front of a business three miles away. She had been stabbed 11 times in the chest, abdomen and neck, had six chop wounds to the head and had been suffocated. Until a week before her death, Bracamontes had lived in a unit across the way from her family with his then-girlfriend, Maggie Porter, and their children. He married Porter while awaiting trial. Bracamontes had been a suspect, but police did not have enough evidence to arrest him until 2003, when investigators with the newly formed Cold Case Unit of the District Attorney's Office re-tested DNA samples held at the Chula Vista Police Department. The pipefitter was arrested in October 2003 after a DNA match was made from sperm taken from the victim's body, Peed said. A crime scene reconstructionist testified that the girl was most likely sexually assaulted in a car before being carried to the murder scene, where she was hacked with a gardening tool and stabbed. Laura would have been 23 years old Friday, her father said. The District Attorney's Office advised him that it could be 15 years before Bracamontes is executed. (source: FOX6) NORTH CAROLINA: Organizers hope play sparks discussion on death penalty Kerry Max Cook spent 22 years on death row for a murder he didn't commit. Cook was arrested in the 1977 rape and murder of a 21-year-old woman in Tyler, Texas. Prosecutors built a case against him based on a bungled investigation. He was finally exonerated in 1999. You can hear Cook's story and others at Theatre-on-a-Stick's production of "The Exonerated." The award-winning play opened Friday at Brown Penn Recreation Center in Ridgeview. The play, written by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, tells the true stories of six people who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to die. They spent between two and 22 years on death row before being cleared. All the play's dialogue comes from court records and interviews with the play's subjects. "The Exonerated" puts a human face on the debate about capital punishment, says Ray Mills, who directed the play. "It's a very personal issue," said Mills. "It's a religious issue. It cuts to the core." Cast member Duane Muhammad is vice president of the North Carolina-based People of Faith Against the Death Penalty. He hopes the play will educate audiences on inequalities in the justice system. "I think this play brings light to some issues we need to examine," Muhammad said. "We need to try to ensure that these kinds of things don't happen." Several performances will be followed by open discussions. After Sunday's performance, Darryl Hunt and Jennifer Cannino will speak. Hunt was exonerated in 2004 after 18 years in prison. He was wrongly convicted of raping and fatally stabbing a woman in Winston-Salem in 1984. Cannino, also from North Carolina, was a victim who wrongly identified her attacker from a photo lineup in 1985. Ten years later, DNA evidence proved the man was innocent. Now, Cannino speaks out against the death penalty. Panel discussions will be held after performances at Lenoir-Rhyne College on Friday and Oct. 2. Mills hopes the play will spur dialogue about the death penalty. "The important thing is to have a discussion about it," he said. WANT TO GO? What: Theatre-on-a-Stick's production of "The Exonerated" When: Tonight, Thursday, Friday and Oct. 1 at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Where: Tonight and Sunday's performances are at the Brown Penn Recreation Center, 735 Third St., SW. Next weekend's performances are at the Belk Centrum on the campus of Lenoir-Rhyne College, 625 Seventh Ave., NE. Rated: R Cost: $10 for adults, $5 for seniors and students. A number of scholarship tickets are available to those in need of financial assistance. For more information: Call 466-0920. (source: Hickory Daily Record) INDIANA: Death penalty takes too long I agree that Alan Matheney should get the death penalty and get it now, not 10 or 12 years down the road! That is what angers me the most about the death penalty. I believe every state should have that penalty. However, what I don't believe is how long and how many appeals he probably is getting to get out of it. I believe that if he has been found guilty of that crime and there is no doubt about the fact that he committed it, then his punishment should be carried out swiftly. However, it just seems that for some reason that can't happen. He did not allow his wife any appeals or any regard for her pleas while he was beating her to death and we should not allow him any either. As far as I am concerned, he has already lived too long since the killing of his wife. Then to have to listen to him plead for clemency -- come on! Give him what he asked for and now so the taxpayers don't have to keep on feeding him, taking care of him and having to listen to him beg for something he doesn't deserve. CAROL J. BURDINE Mesquite, Texas (source: Opinion, The Truth Online Edition) PENNSYLVANIA: Death penalty not sought Accused killer Brian D. Landau will not lose his life if convicted of the stabbing death of recent St. Joseph's University graduate Kristin Mitchell on June 3 in the upscale apartment the couple shared in Conshohocken. District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. opted not to have the prosecution go after the death penalty because there are not sufficient aggravating circumstances in the case, according to Assistant District Attorney Wallis W. Brooks. However, Brooks said Friday, she will be seeking a first-degree murder conviction, which carries an automatic life sentence. Brooks' comments came after a Montgomery County Court hearing at which the 28-year-old Landau was formally advised of the charges against him. With Mitchell family members looking on and holding hands, Landau, clad in a navy blue prison uniform, pleaded not guilty to charges of first- and third-degree murder and possession of an instrument of crime. Missing from the list of charges was voluntary manslaughter, which was held as a charge at Landau's preliminary hearing last month. "We do not believe this is a manslaughter case," Brooks said. "We believe the killing was intentional." Landau has been held without bail at the county prison since his arrest on June 3. Mitchell, a 21-year-old Maryland native, had graduated from the university just a month before her slaying. Mitchell and Landau, a former Delaware County resident and a convicted armed robber who was on parole at the time of the killing, shared a recently constructed apartment at the upscale Riverwalk at Millennium complex in Conshohocken. While Mitchell's name was on the apartment lease, Landau's name was listed as an occupant. The couple may have first met at an Ardmore restaurant where they were both employed although Landau also had a job with a Web-based resume and profile company, according to prosecutors. A fight broke out between the pair after Mitchell ordered Landau out of the apartment, according to prosecutors. That dispute got out of hand, Landau told authorities, after Mitchell allegedly slashed at him with a kitchen knife. Authorities first learned of a possible problem on June 3 at about 9 a.m. when emergency room personnel at the Riddle Memorial Hospital in Delaware County contacted state police to tell police they were treating Landau for knife wounds. Landau allegedly told the medical staff that his girlfriend had stabbed him during a fight and that he did not know whether she was still alive, the complaint said. Landau later that day told authorities that some of his wounds were self-inflicted in an aborted attempt to commit suicide, according to the complaint. Conshohocken police went to Mitchell's apartment in the 300 block of Washington Street where they discovered her lifeless body lying on the bed under a comforter. Mitchell bled to death from some 50 stab and slash wounds, according to the coroner's report. (source: Norristown Times-Herald) Competency hearing for murderer Banks set Oct. 3 Ten months after the state Supreme Court ordered a competency hearing held "expeditiously" for mass murderer George Banks, a date has finally been set. Luzerne County President Judge Michael Conahan scheduled the hearing for Oct. 3 inside the Bernard C. Brominski Courthouse building in Wilkes-Barre. Banks' lawyer, Albert J. Flora Jr., had requested to move the competency hearing at the more secured federal courthouse in Scranton due to several death threats he received after the appellate court issued Banks, 63, a temporary stay of execution on Dec. 2, 2004. Judge Conahan and Flora could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon. Flora said previously that Banks would have to attend the competency hearing in person. However, Judge Conahan's order does not say whether the hearing will be held via videoconference or with all parties together in one courtroom. As of late Friday afternoon, there was no hearing scheduled by videoconferencing for Oct. 3 and the Luzerne County Sheriff's Department had not received a court order to transport Banks from the State Correctional Institution at Graterford, Bucks County. If Banks does attend in person, Sheriff Barry Stankus said security will likely be elevated. "We're going to have to address the security issue on Monday or Tuesday of next week to find out where Banks is going to be," Stankus said. "We're going to have to find out where he is going to be housed either at the county (correctional facility) or at the state prison in Dallas. "If the hearing is by video, then we don't have to be there in force," Stankus said. Banks was granted a stay of execution less than 29 hours before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection for killing 13 people, including five of his children, during a Sept. 25, 1982, shooting rampage in Wilkes-Barre and Jenkins Township. The appellate court sent the case back to Luzerne County for the competency hearing to determine if Banks is sane to be put to death and to determine if he is mentally stable to initiate clemency proceedings with the state Board of Pardons. In its order that stayed Banks' execution, the Supreme Court ordered the competency hearing to be held expeditiously. Since December 2004, Banks' lawyers, prosecutors and the state Department of Corrections spent considerable amount of time arguing over the release of Banks' prison records. After months of debate, Judge Conahan on Sept. 15 ordered and directed the DOC to produce all of its records related to Banks to his lawyers by Sept. 25. Flora claimed Banks suffers from severe mental illnesses and is unable to make rationale decisions about his case. (source: The Citizens Voice)
