June 1 TEXAS: 5th suspect charged in Houston game room shooting A 5th person has been charged with capital murder in the fatal shooting of a 54-year-old man during a robbery at a southwest Houston game room May 13, police said. Luis Eduardo Rodriguez, 35, was with 3 other men and a woman who allegedly robbed the Kung Fu Club game room in the 12300 block of Bellaire, police said today. Jian Guo Wang of the 9200 block of Clarewood, died during the incident. Wang was working at the game room around midnight May 13 when a group of people entered the business and attempted to rob its customers, police said. Wang confronted them and was shot, police said. The suspects fled with an undisclosed amount of money. Christian Calderon, 17; Fernando Santacruz Gomez, 24; Eric Gomez, 20; and a female juvenile have all been charged with capital murder in the case, police said. (source: Houston Chronicle) ****************** Another Texas tragedy----Mother's hanging of children and herself is a sad warning that signs of depression must be heeded. Earlier this week, a North Texas mother, Gilberta Estrada, apparently hanged three of her four daughters in the family's mobile home and then hanged herself. The youngest child, 8 months old, survived. Estrada had told neighbors she was depressed. It's a devastating story: A mother who by all accounts loved and cared for her babies took their lives and her own. What deepens the sadness is that similar incidents have happened with frightening regularity in Texas over the last few years, beginning with the internationally publicized case of Andrea Yates. In June 2001, Yates drowned her 5 children in the family bathtub in their Clear Lake home. The Yates tragedy raised awareness of postpartum depression, an illness that manifests itself after the birth of a baby. In extreme cases it can result in postpartum psychosis, a combination of depression and mania with psychotic features such as hallucinations and paranoia, often accompanied by suicidal or homicidal thoughts. It occurs in about one in 1,000 new mothers. This was the uncontested diagnosis in Yates' case. She was originally convicted of capital murder but a 2nd trial found her not guilty by reason of insanity. Her youngest child, Mary, was 6 months old. Postpartum depression is more prevalent than any obstetric-related condition for which women are routinely screened and affects 10 % to 20 % of all new mothers. But it is rarely screened for. This must change. Increased public awareness and resources to recognize and treat this form of depression are necessary, not only for the health of the mother, but for the mental, emotional and physical well-being of her children. Unfortunately, the same horrific incidents that have raised awareness of postpartum depression have also frightened many women suffering from it. Unwilling to be identified with such extremes, they may isolate themselves even further. Up to 70 % of women have a touch of "the baby blues" after giving birth, a mild postpartum moodiness, beginning a few days after giving birth and subsiding within a few weeks. Postpartum depression, however, usually manifests itself within the first six weeks and can last a year or longer. Texas, not usually a champion of social services, has been a leader in this area a result, in large measure, of the Andrea Yates publicity. A law was passed in 2003 that obliges health-care providers to inform all new mothers about PPD. Houston's Mental Health Association distributes brochures on the subject to Houston's WIC (Women, Infants and Children's) clinics. Nationally, a bill pending in the House of Representatives would provide education and screening on PPD has garnered 119 co-sponsors. A companion bill in the Senate is in committee and looking for co-sponsors. But more must be done. Women in this situation are often isolated, with poor marital support, living in poverty, with multiple children, and often ashamed to reveal negative thoughts and impulses, especially when relatives and friends are rejoicing. Families and friends must watch for these symptoms and intervene if the mother is not seeking help. Physicians must screen their patients and make referrals to available resources when indicated. Citizens can pressure legislators to support funding and resources. Everyone has a stake in protecting all new mothers from mental illness, and thereby protecting their children. (source: Editorial, Houston Chronicle) OHIO----stay of impending execution Federal judge delays execution of inmate who joined injection lawsuit In Columbus, a federal judge has delayed the July execution of an inmate allowed to join a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection. US District Court Judge Gregory Frost granted Clarence Carter's request to delay his July 10th execution while the lawsuit works it way through the courts. Frost's decision did not take into account a ruling by a federal appeals court today involving how long death row inmates have to file appeals challenging Ohio's execution method. Frost says he knows the issue before the appeals court could affect his decision regarding Carter and other prisoners suing over injection. But Frost says until that issue is settled, he believes Carter had the ability to join the lawsuit and ask for a delay. (source: Associated Press) ********************* Botched execution angers Ohio abolitionists On May 24, Ohio set a new recordfor the length of time taken to execute a prisoner. The medical technicians worked for 90 minutes to put shunts into the veins of Christopher Newton, so long he had to be allowed to get off the execution table to have a bathroom break. During this time activists barraged the office of Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland with phone calls, threatening to alert the media. Once the injection of lethal chemicals began, it took an additional 16 minutes for Newton to die, compared to an average of 7.5 minutes. According to the Associated Press report, his stomach contorted, his chin shook and his body had two mild convulsions. This indicates that the deadly "cocktail" was not performing as expected. Prison officials blamed Newtons weight for the difficulty in finding veins. Newton was 6 feet tall and weighed 265 pounds. Kathy Soltis of the Cleveland Coalition Against the Death Penalty and the Cleveland Lucasville Five Defense Committee, made the following comment: "The sentence, to which we object in absolute terms, is death, not death preceded by torture. Being stuck repeatedly with needles is not part of the deal." A year ago, the botched execution of Joseph Clark took more than 80 minutes, much of the delay also caused by difficulties in finding a vein. Clark begged to be killed in some other way. The prison system promised to make procedural changes to prevent a recurrence. Following Clark's traumatic execution, a group of prisoners filed a class action lawsuit challenging the lethal injection method. The courts have allowed executions of inmates who are plaintiffs in this suit. The ACLU of Ohio called for an immediate end to all executions in light of two botched executions a year apart. Gov. Strickland stated that the May 24 debacle "is not a justification for a change of position regarding the death penalty in Ohio." He is also "personally satisfied that everything was done" to show consideration for Newton. The Cleveland Lucasville Five Defense Committee has been active in the movement to bring the broad opposition to the death penalty to Gov. Strickland's attention, including the use of a postcard campaign circulated through its prisoner network. To contact Gov. Strickland on this issue, people can write to him at 77 South High Street, Columbus, OH 43215, fax 614-466-9354, or call 614-466-3555. For Web mail, go to governor.ohio.gov, click on "Constituent Affairs," and then click on "Contact the Governor." (source: Workers World) USA: Local groups oppose Bush nominee over racial slur-----Leslie Southwick of Mississippi is accused of condoning the use of the word in a decade-old opinion A U.S. congressman, civil rights leaders and black veterans had strong words in Houston on Thursday for the Texas-born judge who is President Bush's latest nominee to the federal appeals court for Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Leslie Southwick of Mississippi is the 3rd nominee for a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals seat Bush has tried to fill since 2002. The president sent his nomination to the Senate last June. Senate Democrats have blocked the confirmations of former U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering of Mississippi and Jackson, Miss., lawyer Mike Wallace. All 3 nominees are white. Civil rights and gay rights groups and the Congressional Black Caucus oppose Southwick's nomination as does one of the caucus's local members, Rep. Al Green, D-Houston. "We are demanding that this nominee be withdrawn," Green said during a news conference outside Houston's federal courthouse. "We beg that the president give consideration to other persons who are capable, competent and qualified, and please Mr. President, please do not exclude minorities." Green and others, including Mary Ramos, national civil rights director for the League of United Latin American Citizens, oppose Southwick because they say he condoned the use of a racial slur in a decade-old opinion. While on the Mississippi Court of Appeals, Southwick joined a majority decision to reinstate a white social worker who admitted calling a black colleague an offensive name. Houston lawyer Drew B. Tipton questioned whether one case was indicative of the judge's record. "Except for this case, I haven't heard any other opposition about him," said Tipton, Houston chapter president of the Republican National Lawyers Association, which has endorsed Southwick. "It certainly does not evidence a pattern of hostility against anyone or any people who are of a particular race." Southwick graduated from Rice University in 1972 and received his law degree from the University of Texas in 1975. The New Orleans-based appeals court has 15 active judges. One is black, three are Hispanic, and two are from Mississippi. People of color comprise large percentages of the circuit's population: 51 % of Texans, 40 % of Mississippi residents and 38 % of Louisiana residents, according to 2006 Census estimates. "There are talented people everywhere," said Houston civil rights lawyer Alamdar Hamdani, a former board member of the Texas ACLU. "(Bush) needs to appoint somebody for the 5th Circuit that represents and appreciates the diversity of the 5th Circuit." (source: Houston Chronicle) ********************* Fallout from Duke case clouds future rape trials----New doubts from jury selection to victim credibility Duke University once again competed for the national title in men's lacrosse, and life seems to be returning to normal after the dismissal of rape charges against three of the school's student-athletes. But in courtrooms in Houston and throughout the country, the celebrated Duke rape case has wrought significant changes in the way sexual assault cases are pursued and prosecuted. The false allegations of rape that nearly destroyed the lives of the 3 young lacrosse players were tailor-made for tabloid journalism. In the wake of blanket news coverage of the case, prosecutors and defense attorneys are now wary of prospective jurors who may have changed their "personal opinions" of anyone involved in a sexual assault case. Personal opinions, of course, are the roadblocks to impartiality that can undermine any jury and can ruin the chances for a fair trial. The jury selection process has always been a key component in any trial, but the Duke case has raised the stakes even higher in sexual assault cases. When attorneys in these trials interrogate prospective jurors, they fire a series of questions to help identify people who can render opinions based solely on the evidence presented at trial. In a larger sense, the 5 questions included here serve as a quick litmus test on the lingering effects of the Duke rape case. Do you believe that women who bring rape charges are likely to lie? The woman who filed rape charges against the three Duke lacrosse players gained instant notoriety and lasting infamy for being discredited. The reversal in her fortunes will affect the nearly 200,000 women who will report rapes or sexual assaults during the coming year, because many prospective jurors may now harbor serious doubts about the credibility of these victims. Historically, it has been an uphill battle to get the law to recognize that rape victims are as credible as any other crime victims and it would be a shame if the Duke case reversed the progress that has been made. Do you believe that women of color are less credible than Caucasian women? The Duke case did nothing to help the cause of equal justice for victims of color. Contrary to what many people believe, women of all races are victimized at about the same rate. Despite this fact, in-depth studies across many jurisdictions confirm that sentences meted out for crimes against women of color are typically less severe than sentences for similar assaults against white women. The Duke case threatens to exacerbate an already-entrenched predisposition against minority victims and their assailants. Do you believe that black women are disposed to bring false charges against white men? That's what happened in the Duke case, but history says the gender and racial tables are usually turned the other way. When Harper Lee wrote about a white woman pursuing false charges against a black man in her To Kill a Mockingbird masterpiece, her plot followed an all-too-familiar scenario. Throughout our history, weak or false charges of rape were often brought against black men accused of raping white women. Some innocent men were punished, and even those blacks who were guilty were likely to suffer more severely than their white counterparts. In 1972, the last year that raping adult women could earn assailants the death penalty, the 80 rapists on death row were overwhelmingly black and their victims were overwhelmingly white. Fortunately, today, we no longer see rape charges used so blatantly as a tool of oppression against blacks. Do you believe that any innocent person can beat false charges? Perhaps they can, but the Duke students could afford excellent attorneys who uncovered important evidence and proved how the prosecutor failed to disclose exculpatory material. Nationally, poor defendants who receive appointed counsel are often assumed to be guilty by their attorneys, who often fail to investigate their cases adequately. In too many cases, these lawyers pressure their clients to plead guilty and accept plea bargains to avoid long sentences. Do you believe that prosecutors are inclined to bend the truth? The vast majority of prosecutors act in an ethical manner, so it would be wrong to let the Duke case bring disrepute to prosecutors generally. It's becoming clear that the district attorney was unscrupulous and using the forum of a high-profile trial to further his political ambitions, but every profession has a few bad apples. If he winds up disciplined or disbarred for his conduct, the Duke case could rightly give us confidence that our system can indeed bring justice for the right people. In a typical sexual-assault trial, the prosecution and the defense will be allowed to "strike" (dismiss) a number of potential jurors and the 5 questions cited here will help give lawyers the information they need to make their final jury selections. But in a larger sense, the way that prospective jurors answer these and other questions will show us how deeply the Duke case has altered America's sympathies for rape victims and our overall perceptions of the justice system. (source: Sandra Thompson is the UH Law Foundation Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center, where she directs the Criminal Justice Institute; Houston Chronicle) ***********************8 Mumia Abu-Jamal and many others: Prisoners of Injustice We are warned by the scriptures, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has instructed us, of circumstances when the innocent are unjustly persecuted by the rulers of the day. In the Book of Psalms 94:19-21, David the Psalmist asks, "Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?" and we see throughout the U.S. penal system hundreds of thousands of Black men, Latino men and Native American men who are nothing more than political prisoners of injustices inflicted on them by "the throne" in this modern time. The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, argued recently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, is just one example. An exhaustive list of names can be compiled. We recently observed the 200th exoneration of an innocent man through DNA evidence. There have been more than 100 men proven innocent while on death row. Innocent. Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on death row since 1982. He was convicted and sentenced to death, in what he and his supporters around the world insist was a flawed trial, marred by the racist manipulation of the jury selection process by prosecutors, a process which was permitted by an overtly hostile, racist trial and appellate judge. "We did not come together just for Mumia. Our fight is for all political prisoners," says Pam Africa of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal. There is a long list: Imam Jamil Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown), accused of killing an Atlanta sheriffs deputy; jailed Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who sits in Leavenworth Prison for his involvement in a shootout in which an FBI agent was killed; former Black Panther Party member Geronimo Pratt was exonerated and freed, but we lost Shaka Sankofa (Gary Graham), executed in Texas; and Gary Tyler in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Then there is California inmate Ruchell Magee, who, on August 7, 1970, was the jailhouse lawyer in the Marin County California courtroom, testifying for another inmate, when 17-year-old Jonathan Jackson brandished a shotgun and kidnapped the judge, 2 prosecutors, and 3 jurors as hostages in a "jailbreak plan" to free his jailed brother, George Jackson. Like Mumia Abu-Jamal, Mr. Magee's case bears witness to the scripture: Framed "by mischief of law." An internationally known, prize-winning journalist and activist, Mr. Abu-Jamal had become well known, prior to his arrest in 1981, as a crusading radio reporter who exposed racism and brutality among the Philadelphia Police Department. That department has been plagued by scandals accusing police of widespread misconduct, corruption, and evidence planting, charges similar to those which came to light in Mr. Abu-Jamal's case. The intense level of politicization of this case, and the venom with which police groups have attacked Mr. Abu-Jamal, suggests that they are after vengeance, rather than justice. Mr. Magee, on the other hand, was known only among other inmates who valued his skill in court hearings as a "jailhouse lawyer." Although he was not a part of Mr. Jackson's jailbreak plan, Mr. Magee decided, spontaneously, to join. He has spent more than 41 years in California prisons for what were originally petty crimes, aggravated, however, by his persistent complaints that he remains unjustly imprisoned. Mr. Magee testified that he decided his chances would be better attempting to break out of jail, where he had received no justice, with an armed man he had never seen before, than they would be if he remained in the clutches of those who had consistently denied him justice and a fair hearing. He said his choice was easy: Follow freedom. Whether we are inside or outside the "Criminal Just-Us," or "Criminal Injustice System," we remain subject to an unjust people. The U.S. jails are bulging; more than 2 million inmates disproportionately Black malesfill the American jails. This Criminal Industrial Complex, which profits from the forced labor for pennies-on-the-dollar of inmates, is also very adept at blaming the victim for the crime. Nelson Mandela is a case in point. Mr. Mandela was labeled a terrorist and convicted in an apartheid court of law. He was imprisoned for 27 years before being pardoned and released. When all the people of his country were permitted to vote, Mr. Mandela was elected President. Like the apartheid government in South Africa, we have seen that the U.S. government is well able to expand the law for whom it pleasesits "White"-collar criminals. For them, there are pardons and judicial "golden parachutes." And this country can certainly straiten the law for whom it pleases, the Black, the poor, the dispossessed. We stand in solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal, Jamil El-Amin, Leonard Peltier, Ruchell Magee, The Cuban 5all of America's political prisoners. It is just a matter of time before we celebrate their release and their full and complete exoneration. (source: FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com) NORTH CAROLINA: Capital punishment finds fewer supporters Fewer than 60 % of North Carolinians support the death penalty, an Elon University poll found in April, a drop from 64 % in 2005. The number still might impress timid legislators, but it doesn't meet the standard required in a court of law. In a poll that really counted, 2/3 of the jurors in a Guilford County courtroom Tuesday favored the death penalty for double-murderer William James Schreiber, but the one-third who didn't were enough to spare his life. All 12 jurors agreed about Schreiber's guilt. They heard compelling evidence that he murdered Teri Marie Sokoloff, stabbing her 14 times, and drowned her 8-month-old child -- gruesome, heinous crimes. Sokoloff's father, John Land, wondered after Schreiber was sentenced to 2 consecutive terms of life in prison how any killer could be more deserving of the death penalty. But, in a statement to News & Record reporter Jonathan Jones, he added: "I can understand that some people do not vision any situation under which the state should put someone to death." He's right, and those people are increasing in number. Once, prosecutors easily could fill out a jury in capital cases without accepting anyone absolutely opposed to the death penalty; now it's harder. Central Prison's death row has received only one new inmate in 2007, continuing a long decline. Juries more frequently prefer the option of life in prison without parole, even in response to terrible murders. Another part of the equation is the standoff between the N.C. Medical Board and the state. The board won't allow physicians to participate in executions, while the N.C. Department of Correction requires a physician to monitor the administration of lethal chemicals. The conflict has moved into the courts, but a resolution seems unlikely. In effect, an execution moratorium exists, with no one put to death since last August. So, why should juries add anyone else to a death-row line that isn't moving? Legislators could end the stalemate by eliminating the death penalty. Most people might say they'd rather keep the option for use in the worst cases, but few ever have to make that life-or-death decision. A real jury was put in that position this week in one of the worst imaginable cases and could not agree to impose the death penalty. The legislature can save other juries from having to struggle with those decisions, stop the legal challenges and let the N.C. Medical Board focus on healing people by ending an outdated and inconsistently applied punishment. All lawmakers need is as much courage as a few jurors who say it's punishment enough to lock up killers like Schreiber for the rest of their lives. (source: The News & Record) ************************* DAs want death penalty decision A death penalty moratorium remains alive at the General Assembly. A bill to study the issue was given the go-ahead to hear debate Thursday. At the same time, a judge already has executions on hold in North Carolina. Now, many district attorneys are furious and want a decision one way or the other. Some lawmakers say it's time to stop executions for two years and study the issue. "We think the people of North Carolina want a death penalty but they want it fair," Rep. Paul Luebke, D-Durham, said. "They don't want to see poor people on death row because they couldn't afford a good lawyer." "Where we're able to look at reforms so the innocent don't get executed and it only reserves the death penalty for those who are most worthy of the death penalty," death row attorney Mark Kleinschmidt added. A federal judge says a doctor must take part in executions, but the state medical board says any doctor who does could lose their license. The dispute has put executions on hold. Death penalty supporters want to pass their own law. "The bill by Rep. Moore and Sen. Phil Berger would take away the ability of the medical board to discipline doctors who attend an execution," Rep. Paul Stam, R-Wake, said. With the issue still up in the air in the court system a moratorium bill here at the legislature, many district attorneys say they just don't know what to do and aren't moving forward with death penalty cases. "It's really hard to tell victims what's going on in our system," Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby said. "There's so much confusion, so many obstacles that have been artificially put in the way it's really not fair to the victims and it's not fair to the public." Iredell District Attorney Garry Frank adds, "Let's don't keep the prosecutors held out there in limbo when the public says they're never going to be executed anyway." "Just vote it up or down," Forsyth County District Attorney Tom Keith said. "Either have it or not. It's either morally right or morally wrong but don't just nibble us to death." There is no time frame for lawmakers to take up the bill. The committee could wait as long as next year to debate the proposal or never take it up at all. (source: News 14 Carolina) ****************** Prosecutors say more funds needed Some of North Carolina's district attorneys believe that their offices are being shortchanged by the General Assembly when it comes to providing enough money for attorneys, technology and training. They issued what they label "A Call to Justice," saying that lawmakers should meet the financial demands of the office that is constitutionally charged with prosecuting cases in the state. "Every one of these duties deals with decisions to be made about real life human beings," said Davidson County District Attorney Garry Frank, president of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys. Beginning salary for an assistant district attorney is $34,694, according to the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys. That makes recruiting and retaining assistant prosecutors difficult, said Alamance County District Attorney Rob Johnson. Johnson said he is often unable to hire people who were interns in his office while in law school once they graduate. "Very few of them can come to work as an assistant district attorney after they graduate from law school because of the high tuition debts," Johnson said. Frank said that 90 percent of graduating lawyers have taken on debt because of law school. Their median educational loan debt is $84,000, he said. Craven County District Attorney Scott Thomas said that "it's tough" trying to fill assistant district attorney positions with recent law school graduates when they can make more money working for a private law firm. 2 Senate leaders - Majority Leader Tony Rand, D-Cumberland, and Minority Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, - offered support for the DAs. "The whole system needs to be examined," Rand said. "It is not proper what we pay assistant district attorneys today." "As times have changed, we need to look at their compensation," Berger said. Thomas said that district attorneys also need the manpower to comply with constitutional and statutory mandates regarding assisting crime victims. New technology is needed to meet the demands of new laws that require prosecutors to turn over all information in files in felony cases to defense attorneys, Johnson said. Johnson said that modern technology could save the time of assistant districts attorney and legal assistants, who often have to stand over copy machines to get information to defense attorneys. "They would be able to provide defense counsel with a disk or transmit it by e-mail," Johnson said. 4 areas of concern * Technology. Prosecutors and assistants are using "1980s technology in a 21st century world," Davidson County District Attorney Garry Frank, president of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys said. * Adequate compensation. Assistant districts attorney are the lowest-paid attorneys in state government, he said. * Training. The state needs to keep pace in providing training for the attorneys who have to prosecute the cases. * Resolution to the death penalty stalemate. Frank said that the state needs to resolve whether to continue having the death penalty and not continue having a "de facto moratorium" while death penalty issues remain in the courts. (source: Burlington Times News) ********************* Boggess found guilty of killing student A jury found Todd Boggess, the 31-year-old man charged with killing a Wilmington honor student 12 years ago, guilty of 1st-degree murder. The verdict came just before noon today in Durham County Superior Court. Testimony began May 14 in the 2nd trial of Boggess for the killing of Danny Pence, the Wilmington honor student who in August 1995 was bludgeoned to death in the woods off Terry Road in northern Durham County. Boggess was convicted of the 1st-degree murder of Pence in 1997 and sentenced to death. But the N.C. Supreme Court overturned the verdict in 2004, citing a trial error by the judge. This time around prosecutors did not seek the death penalty. Prosecutors and defense lawyers gave their closing arguments in the 2nd trial Tuesday. Pence, a handsome, dark-haired 17-year-old who took great pride in his Ford Mustang, encountered Boggess and his then-girlfriend Aug. 25, 1995, at Johnny Mercer's Pier, a teenage hangout at Wrightsville Beach. Pence was trying to sell his car so he could buy a motorcycle. Boggess, a drifter at the time, talked Pence into letting him and his girlfriend, Melanie Gray, a 14-year-old from Durham, take a test drive. That drive ended 12 hours later at the ruins of an old country home in the woods off Terry Road in northern Durham County. During the journey, prosecutors said, Pence was tied up, blindfolded and eventually beaten to death with a board, rocks and bricks. Prosecutors and defense lawyers agreed during the trial that Boggess played a part in the killing of Pence. Where they differ is whether the defendant's participation was of his own volition. Defense lawyers laid out an unusual defense -- that Boggess, a survivor of years of sexual assault by his father, drifted into a state of unconsciousness in the woods near the crime scene. Boggess, according to the defense, was sexually abused by his father from age 7 until well into his teenage years. The incidents occurred in the woods, in the back of the family car, in the home and other places. To cope with the abuse, defense lawyers said, Boggess had learned how to go into an altered state. Defense lawyers used the "automatism theory," legal jargon for a complex and sometimes controversial explanation for why a defendant is not guilty of the charges against him. At the crucial moment when Pence was struck in the woods in northern Durham County, defense lawyers argued, Boggess was in that altered state. Dr. George Corvin, a psychiatrist in Raleigh who was the defense's only witness, testified that a number of things triggered memories for Boggess of the childhood abuse he had suffered. Boggess' father, a convicted pedophile who died between the 1st and 2nd trial, often abused his sons in the back of a car and in the woods near their home, Corvin testified. Once, Corvin said, a young Boggess curled up in the fireplace of the family's home, frustrated that cries for help had been ignored for years by his mother and law enforcement authorities. Defense lawyers Steven Freedman and Jim Glover of Chapel Hill argued that Boggess could not be held accountable for the killing because his mind could not control his body. Assistant District Attorney Mitchell Garrell urged jurors to look at the case in a different way. Boggess, Garrell argued, planned the muder during a 12-hour journey that started at the Wrighsville beach pier and ended near the crumbling chimney in northern Durham County. Garrell also argued that Boggess had tortured Pence, beating him numerous times. "Nobody disputes that this defendant had a terrible childhood," Garrell said during the trial. "But this defendant was not a child being acted upon. He was in charge of this operation." But the defense argued otherwise, giving the jurors much to weigh during their deliberations. "I'm hoping that somebody in the jury room will speak up for Todd Boggess," Freedman said. "He didn't have anybody speak up for him when he was little." (source: News & Observer)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, OHIO, USA, N.C.
Rick Halperin Fri, 1 Jun 2007 17:27:24 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
