Jan. 10 TEXAS----foreign national to face death penalty Slaying of Dallas officer to be tried as capital case----Mexican citizen pleads not guilty in shooting; judge denies gag order A man accused of fatally shooting a Dallas police officer in November will face a possible death sentence when his case goes to trial in May, prosecutors announced Monday. The formal announcement by prosecutor Toby Shook had been expected for weeks. Attorneys for Juan Lizcano, a Mexican citizen, said they have been approaching the matter all along as if it would be a death-penalty case because the Dallas County district attorney's office has a longstanding tradition of seeking the death penalty in cases involving officers killed in the line of duty. If convicted of capital murder, a jury would decide whether Mr. Lizcano is executed or sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Officer Brian Jackson was shot Nov. 13, after he arrived to investigate a call from Mr. Lizcano's former girlfriend. She told police that Mr. Lizcano had threatened her repeatedly at her home in the 2400 block of Madera Street near North Henderson Avenue in Old East Dallas. Officer Jackson was shot as he and other officers searched for Mr. Lizcano, who was hiding outside his ex-girlfriend's home. The fatal shot entered through Officer Jackson's underarm in an area not protected by his bulletproof vest. Speaking through an interpreter, Mr. Lizcano pleaded not guilty to the charge during a brief hearing. His attorneys, Brook Busbee and Juan Sanchez, said they were concerned about publicity surrounding the case and asked District Judge Karen Greene to impose a gag order forbidding comment about the case outside the courtroom. "We fear the defendant will not be granted a fair trial because of pretrial publicity," Ms. Busbee said. Judge Greene denied the gag order request but said she would reconsider it if problems arise. Officer Jackson's wife, JoAnn DeMello Jackson, attended the hearing but made no comment as she left the courthouse. Mr. Shook said she had not been able to attend previous hearings and wanted to have a chance to see Mr. Lizcano in person. (source: Dallas Morning News) ******************** Statewide judicial candidates speak in city It's become a tradition in recent years to have statewide judicial candidates make an appearance in Gainesville every other January before the primaries. Keeping with that, in a meeting of the Cooke County Republican Women (CCRW) Thursday evening, standing 2nd Court of Criminal Appeals Justices Bob McCoy, Place 4, and Sue Walker, Place 5, and candidate Robert Francis, running for Place 8, spoke to an audience about the nature of their often overlooked positions and fielded questions from an audience of political activists. Speaking first, Robert Francis, who is opposing the incumbent judge for Place 8 on the 2nd Court of Criminal Appeals, on policy and the nature of his position. "If you live in Texas, you may vote for me," Francis said, to a question to what his jurisdiction would be. He faces Rep. Terry Keel of Austin and incumbent Charles Holcomb of Wimberly in the Republican primary election March 7. There is no registered Democrat running in the primary for the position. The salary for the position is $150,000 per year for a 6-year term. Pat Peale of Lake Kiowa asked what Francis would do differently than the incumbent if elected. "I wouldn't say the incumbent has done a bad job," Francis replied, though not particularly addressing any specific policy differences. Peale later introduced her son Clifford Peale as Francis' campaign treasurer. Angelo Nasche of Muenster asked Francis his thoughts on the death penalty. "You have to administer it carefully," Francis said. "You don't want someone innocent being executed." Francis added he has a Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, religious background, which guides his decision on capital punishment. Other questions involved how to best expedite (speed up) the trial process. Francis said DNA testing has eased the process of finding evidence in capital punishment cases, for instance. However, long trial dates persist. "Unfortunately, science advances faster than law does," he said. Walker spoke next, opting to discuss some personal details of her life to the group, as she discussed policy in previous visits to the CCRW when she was opposed on the ballot. She mentioned her appearance at the Cooke County Courthouse on New Year's Day 2005 to swear-in newly elected county officials. Walker said she is married to Kenny Walker and they have 2 children, 19-year-old Janie, who attends University of Texas at Austin, and 15-year-old Ben. Walker said her son is involved with an Optimist Club baseball league in Arlington, and she became disgruntled with some of the umpires available to youth sports teams. Frustrated, she enrolled in an umpire class and became one of the 1st female umpires in the area. Wayne Dodson of the Callisburg area asked Walker, "As an umpire, do you get yelled at?" "Oh yeah, but I let it roll off me," she said. On a more serious note, Walker answered a question about "the hardest part of the job." She said the volume of cases is the most difficult aspect of her bench. She said with a docket of about 1,500 cases per year and 7 judges, the court must offer an average of 3 opinions per day to keep pace. Walker also clarified some specific judicial terms such as "en banc" for the curious. She explained her court may hear "everything that can possibly be appealed, except for death penalty cases" which automatically go to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Her courts jurisdiction includes 12 counties. McCoy followed Walker, who also shared more about the nature of his job and personal details. McCoy said he is also involved in baseball, but as a player. He said he plays as a 3rd baseman with an "old geezers" league. In between baseball practices, he added, he teaches law at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth. He is married to his wife of 13 years, Colleen, and they raise Great Danes. "It's very busy up there," he said, echoing that the court must offer 3 opinions per day to keep up. McCoy said there are times when he has had to work 7 days per week. "You can't do all the work you need to do in 40 hours a week," he said. He said his favorite time to report to work is Sunday evenings, when no one else is in the office and he may work uninterrupted. He said many judges prefer to take their work home but he prefers the office so he can focus. "I just like to go to work," he said. "There's something about the environment." McCoy said it helps that he "looks forward to going to work" in the morning. In club announcements, recently-elected CCRW President Veronica Harper announced Feb. 6 is the deadline for voter registration for the general election. She had each candidate present stand and introduce themselves. She also noted the Democratic candidates, though none were in attendance. Harper said the club expresses "great sorry and regret of loss" at the passing over the last year of members Ray Gaertner, Nita Harlow and Jim Lemming. (source: Gainesville Daily Register) USA: Questions of justice Flawed choices. More than 4 years later, the crime is still as horrifying as the day it happened. On June 20, 2001, Houston housewife Andrea Yates awoke in her neat, brick suburban house, saw her husband, a computer expert, off to work, then filled the bathtub and methodically drowned each of her 5 children. The youngest was 6 months old. Yates dialed 911 and later told police that she did it to save the youngsters from Satan. Yates, who had long been plagued by mental illness, was tried and sent to prison for life after the jury rejected her insanity plea in 2002. That verdict was overturned on appeal last year because the prosecution's key expert witness had given false testimony. On Monday, Yates was back in court to be tried again. Despite the intervening years, which featured a heated political debate over Texas' insanity defense and a partial rewrite of the law, Texas' options for dealing with Yates are almost as flawed as they were in 2001. The insanity defense in Texas - and many other states - is a crapshoot, both for defendants and the public. The standards for finding someone legally insane are confusing for juries and easy for lawyers to manipulate. Even when a person is clearly guilty of a heinous crime and clearly mentally ill, as in Yates' case, juries fear that finding him or her "not guilty by reason of insanity" is tantamount to letting that person loose. That's unlikely: Someone like Yates would spend years in a secure mental institution. But few states, including Texas, have laws that guarantee treatment for a specified period. And many state laws fail to fully protect the public against precipitous release. A handful of states are struggling to find the right balance. Laws should ensure that people get treatment and remain under the jurisdiction of the courts for the same period they would have served in prison. In Yates' case, that would have been for life. Defendants should be released only under strict conditions and with the assurance that they can get treatment even after release to make sure that they don't relapse. Such systems protect seriously ill defendants and public safety. Few would argue that Yates is sane. She has twice tried suicide, was released from a mental hospital weeks before the killings and was taken off anti-psychotic drugs. She is sick. And just as certainly, she is guilty of violent crimes. In such cases, the judicial system should provide better options. Unacceptable risk. Did the state of Virginia execute an innocent man 14 years ago? The answer could be a crucial turning point in this nation's bitter debate over the death penalty. Gov. Mark Warner has ordered new DNA tests that might prove whether a coal miner, who maintained his innocence even as he was strapped into a prison electric chair in 1992, committed the crime for which he was executed. Roger Coleman was convicted of the rape and murder in 1981 of his sister-in-law, Wanda McCoy. If the new tests clear him - results are due soon - it will be the first time in the history of the American death penalty that an executed convict was scientifically shown to have been innocent, say opponents of capital punishment. DNA testing has helped law enforcement solve cold cases. Even so, some prosecutors and legislators resist using it on closed cases. They argue that false convictions are rare, that reopenings are traumatic for victims' families and that thousands of guilty prisoners will inundate officials with frivolous demands for new tests. True, perhaps, but outweighed by the search for truth and the imperative to avoid incarcerating or executing the innocent. Around the nation, 172 inmates, including 14 who had spent time on death row, have been exonerated and released because of DNA evidence, says the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic that handles cases in which post-conviction DNA testing can yield proof of innocence. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the case of a man on Tennessee's death row who says post-conviction DNA testing proves he's not guilty. He's demanding a new hearing. Virginia's Warner leaves office Saturday, but other governors should follow his example. Last September, he ordered forensic scientists to review hundreds of cases dating to 1973 in which someone was convicted but no DNA analysis was done. The result: 2 men convicted of sexual assault who had been paroled after serving long sentences were exonerated by new testing. Warner pardoned them last month. No justice system is perfect, but the risk of executing the wrong person is unacceptable. The Coleman case in Virginia case could strengthen the argument for life imprisonment with no possibility of parole as an alternative to the death penalty. DNA testing can reverse an unjust verdict; nothing can reverse an execution. (source: Editorial, USA TODAY)< **************** Wrong on Human Rights For months, we have been arguing that the Bush administration has generally the right substantive agenda for badly needed changes at the United Nations, but that Ambassador John Bolton's scorched-earth alternative to diplomacy is undermining the prospects for successfully achieving these reforms. Now it turns out that our criticism has been only half-right in at least one crucial area - in restoring the United Nations' moral authority on human rights by excluding egregious violators from a new human rights monitoring council. Mr. Bolton's latest proposal on this gets the substance wrong as well. The problem with the current discredited Human Rights Commission is that its members are chosen by a system of regional rotation that fails to take into account the actual human rights performance of prospective members. The reform was originally intended to change that, by requiring the approval of at least 2/3 of the 191 member countries to win a seat on the new council. Mr. Bolton wants to defeat the whole purpose of that reform by automatically assuring seats for all five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - regardless of their own human rights records. That would, of course, guarantee a seat every year for the United States, despite what other countries may think of Guantnamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, the death penalty, or Washington's practice of secretly flying suspects to be interrogated in countries that countenance torture. It would also guarantee a seat every year to China, one of the world's most notorious human rights violators, and to Russia, whose own human rights record is less than stellar and which has never hesitated to gloss over the human rights abuses of dictatorships it considers friendly, like Cuba, for example. There are plenty of areas where special weight is, and should be, given to the Security Council's big five powers, which also happen to be world's 5 legally recognized nuclear weapons states. Most of these areas, appropriately, are in the Security Council's special domain of war, peace and sanctions. But the issue of human rights is very different. It is not about recognizing the interests of the powerful. It is about protecting the interests of the powerless. It would be nice if all of the big 5 could be trusted to do this. But not all of them can, either at home or internationally. Some of the people most in need of a strong U.N. voice on human rights live under tyrannies that have carefully cultivated Chinese or Russian favor: Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe, to name a few. Although Ambassador Bolton has repeatedly made it clear that he has little use or respect for the United Nations and would be happy to see the United States walk away from it, we have never questioned his commitment to reform its most dysfunctional institutions. But his behavior on this issue leaves us questioning his judgment, and that of his bosses in the State Department and the White House. (source: Editorial, The New York Times) ****************** Magazine reveals sobering facts about death penalty The Economist, a British newsweekly publication, recently wrote about American support for the death penalty. It was in the Dec. 17-23 issue, which appeared shortly after the Dec. 13 execution of California death row inmate Tookie Williams. Williams, a founder of the Crips street gang, had devoted himself to writing books urging kids to avoid gang life. The question was whether that recent activity should trump his earlier involvement in 4 brutal murders in 1979. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger argued that it should not, and refused to grant clemency. That action prompted The Economist, which opposes the death penalty, to make this argument in an editorial: "Even when it is carefully administered, Americas machinery of death still seems cruel and unusual. The United States is not the only democracy to retain the death penalty: Taiwan, Japan and India also do. But the number of executions it carries puts it closer to China, Iran and Vietnam." Its striking to note the difference between the United States and the countries in Europe and elsewhere that would seem to most closely share its democratic values. The 25 member countries in the European Union do not have the death penalty. Interestingly, murder rates in those countries are lower than the United States. The issue is not necessarily public safety. That can be achieved by holding the most violent criminals with no opportunity for parole. Even in Tookie Williams case, not even his supporters were advocating his release; they simply were calling for his execution to be stayed. Nor is the argument that the death penalty acts as a deterrent persuasive. After all, Texas, which has executed 355 people since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, has a higher murder rate than Wisconsin, which abolished capital punishment in the mid-19th century. It truly is sobering to consider the differences in attitudes between what we used to regard as our "European allies" and the United States toward the death penalty. Then think of the countries which are closer to the United States in the number of inmates put to death: China, Iran and Vietnam. (source: Editorial, La Crosse (Wis.) Tribune) NEW HAMPSHIRE: State should rid itself of unused death penalty law It is time to bring New Hampshires law into line with its current practices and those of almost all civilized countries in the world. It is time to end the death penalty in this state. Today House Bill 1422, sponsored by Portsmouth Democratic state Rep. Jim Splaine, will be heard before the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. It calls for the repeal of the death penalty, but requires anyone convicted of capital murder to spend his or her life in prison without the possibility of parole. In fact, no one has been executed in New Hampshire since 1939. After years of being without the death penalty, it was reinstated in 1990 only to have both houses of the state Legislature vote for repeal in 2000. It was only a veto from then Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen that kept the penalty on the books. There is no one on death row currently in New Hampshire and no death chamber in which to hold executions anywhere in the state. But because there is still a death penalty on the books here, state officials are being called on to execute someone convicted of murder outside the state. In 2003, Gary Lee Sampson, who killed 2 Massachusetts people and a man from Penacook, N.H., was sentenced to death by a federal court. However, because Massachusetts has no death-penalty law, the federal judge ordered Sampson to be executed here in New Hampshire. Sampson is currently going through the appeals process, but unless the death penalty is repealed in this state, it is probable New Hampshire will be called upon to execute a man who has not been found guilty of any crime in its courts. There are, of course, ethical and moral issues involved in support for - or opposition to - the death penalty, along with the financial questions about whether it is cheaper to go through the lengthy appeals process required in a death penalty case than to keep a man incarcerated for the rest of his life. But the real question hinges on whether the death penalty is a real deterrent to anyone considering killing another individual. With the specific criteria for instituting the death penalty in current New Hampshire law - that the murder take place during a rape or kidnapping, or that the victim be a law-enforcement officer or a judge - the deterrent value is obviously limited. If having such a law on the books offers no deterrent, is initially more costly because of the appeals process, hasnt been used in more than half a century, is open to abuse and groups New Hampshire with the likes of Iran, Saudi Arabia and China, it is time to get rid of it. We urge members of the House committee to vote to recommend passage of this bill to the entire House, encourage the full House and Senate to support it as they did in 2000, and for Gov. John Lynch to sign it into law as soon as possible. (source: Editorial, Portsmouth Herald) GEORGIA: DA to seek death penalty in Baldwin slayings The death penalty will be sought against a man accused of shooting to death his estranged wife and step-daughter at their Baldwin County home in October, Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Fred Bright said Monday. Brian Duane Brookins was indicted Monday by a Baldwin County grand jury on 2 counts of malice murder, 2 counts of felony murder, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, aggravated stalking and cruelty to children in the 3rd degree. Bright said he plans to file his intention to seek the death penalty this week or next. This is "as a heinous of a case of domestic violence as it gets, and a tragic execution of a innocent child," Bright said. Suzanne McDade Brookins, 44, and her daughter Samantha Giles, 15, were found dead at their Merry Drive home Oct. 14, authorities said. Authorities have said it appears Brookins was waiting for Suzanne Brookins and her daughter before shooting them. (source: Macon Telegraph) TENNESSEE----female to face death penalty Prosecutors Will Seek Death Penalty Against Exotic Dancer Tennessee prosecutors said they'll seek the death penalty against an exotic dancer who is already serving a life sentence for killing her boyfriend during a standoff with Florida state troopers. Melissa Gale Ferris pleaded not guilty Monday in the death of a Memphis stripper whose remains were found in a remote area of Mississippi. Ferris is already serving a life sentence for killing her boyfriend after a long stand-off with state troopers in a traffic stop in Interstate 95 in Jacksonville, Florida, on May ninth. The couple were on the run at the time from Memphis, where they were suspected in the stripper's disappearance. The stripper's remains were found May 24th after Ferris drew authorities a map. Tennessee prosecutors say the state will seek the death penalty for Ferris based on her conviction in her boyfriend's death. (source: Associated Press) *************** Judge's decision could delay Thompson execution A federal judge in Chattanooga has indicated he may stop the Feb. 7 execution of Gregory Thompson, the Tennessee death row inmate who confessed to the murder of Brenda Blanton Lane of Shelbyville 21 years ago. U.S. District Court Judge R. Allan Edgar on Friday granted a request from Thompson's Knoxville-based attorney, Dana Hansen Chavis, noting that Thompson had only exhausted his opportunity for relief in the Tennessee courts. Edgar is willing to consider more information in the case, but according to the sister of Thompson's victim, the execution could still be conducted Feb. 7. Thompson was convicted in 1985 for the murder of Lane, then a 28-year-old former Shelbyville Times-Gazette reporter. Her sister, Barbara Brown of the Longview community, survives. "It's a new deadline," Brown said Monday, referring to Edgar's call for more information in 30 days. "It might not change the execution date because there are 30 days between Thursday (when Edgar signed his order) and Feb. 7," Brown said. "So, I was looking at it as a routine step." Meanwhile, Brown maintains her position that Thompson should be executed. "I would like to see this end," she said, agreeing that in her view the appropriate conclusion to the 21-year saga would be Thompson's execution. Edgar previously postponed Thompson's Aug. 19, 2004 execution date. 6 months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a federal appeals court improperly reopened Thompson's case. That allowed Tennessee's Supreme Court to set the Feb. 7 date. Last month, that court refused to stop the execution. Yet now, Edgar has agreed to consider information on whether the execution should happen. "This is territory that's being revisited after being quiet for a couple of decades on the issue of insanity," said Randy Tatel, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing. The mental competency of an individual to be executed is the issue. However, lawyers in the Tennessee Attorney Generals Office have pointed out that Tennessee's standard to determine whether an inmate is competent to be executed is whether they know that they're to be killed and why. Those lawyers say Thompson knows he's to be executed because he was convicted of killing Lane. He used a rusty knife after abducting her from a Shelbyville Wal-Mart parking lot on Jan. 1, 1985 to get her car so he and his girlfriend could go to Marietta, Ga. "There's always somebody who will come up with a theory on law that will prevent an execution from happening," Sheriff Clay Parker said Monday. Chavis, an assistant federal community defender at the Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee Inc., wants a hearing on whether Thompson is competent to be executed. She also asked that his execution be held in abeyance until a hearing was conducted. Attorneys for the state opposed Chavis' request by arguing that the federal record on Thompson's sanity had not been supplemented with more evidence. Edgar then wrote that apparently the state contends that Thompson's failure to provide more information permits the court to immediately dismiss any efforts to spare the convict's life without anything more than what's in the federal record. Accordingly, Edgar ordered Thompson's defense team to provide any additional information that had been considered by Tennessee courts and to do so within 30 days of his order dated Thursday last week. Through Thompson's co-counsel in Nashville, Michael Passino, and information from Dr. Faye Sultan who's written about Thompson's condition, Chavis has increased the size of his psychiatric file. It's now about 4,000 pages long and much of that will be new to Edgar. On Monday, she claimed state officials have medicated Thompson "to disguise his insanity and ... he should not be executed." States should not execute people who are insane, she said. That, says Tatel, the executive director of the Coalition to Abolish State Killing, is his group's point, but he explains the legal situation. Thompson's trial attorneys didn't use the insanity defense. Now, insanity is offered as a reason to set aside the death sentence. "Is it an issue that can come back up?" Tatel asks. Parker said, "It's gotten to the point where execution is practically nonexistent." Prosecutors recognize the dilemma. "Do you spend $1 million to give somebody the death penalty or maybe one tenth that to keep them in jail for the rest of their life?" the sheriff asked. Thompson's insanity existed before he was convicted, his current defenders have said, claiming he left Shelbyville thinking the Ku Klux Klan was after him and that since his incarceration he's concluded that he can survive execution by electrocution because his TV shocks him when he touches it and he's "used to it." TCASK also says Thompson believes his victim works at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution where he's held. Since Thompson's conviction, "the state has submerged Greg in an ocean of anti-psychotic drugs," Chavis says. "Greg is medicated twice a day... The drugs the state is pouring into Greg cause chemically created behavior that masks his tortured insanity." Without those drugs, Thompson would return to his insanity at the time of the murder, she said. Justice is better served by imprisoning Thompson forever to bring closure to the case and dedicating the state's scarce resources to other areas. (source: Shelbyville Times-Gazette)
