[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., CALIF., N.C.

[Rick Halperin]

June 5


GEORGIA:

Opening day in death penalty trial


Dorian Frank O'Kelley told a friend that he and a man on trial "did the
fire" in 2002 to conceal two deaths.

"What did you do with the women?" John Owen testified before a Chatham
County Superior Court jury this morning.

"(O'Kelley) said 'he slit their throats,'" Owen said. "He raped the little
girl."

Prosecutors are using O'Kelley, who has already been convicted and
sentenced to death, as the backbone of their case against Darryl Scott
Stinski.

Stinski, 23, is charged with murder in the 2002 slaying deaths of Susan
Pittman and her daughter, Kimberley.

In his opening statement, assistant district attorney Greg McConnell told
jurors evidence would show O'Kelley was "giddy" after the crimes during a
television interview the next day.

The state contends that Stinksi was an active participant in the crimes,
including striking Susan Pittman with a bat.

Lead defense lawyer Michael Schiavone conceded to a jury of 10 women and 2
men that the case was "awful."

"Nobody is trying to avoid responsibility in this case," he said.

But he urged jurors to "individualize" the respective roles of each man
charged in the case.

Defense lawyers are attempting to show that O'Kelley often made violent
threats but that no one took him seriously. They contend Stinski was a
scared 18-year-old who was more afraid of Dorian than anything else.

Stinski, 23, has pleaded innocent.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Stinski.

Co-defendant Dorian Frank O'Kelley, 25, was convicted and given two death
sentences after his trial in 2005.

(source: Savannah Morning News)






CALIFORNIA:

ALAMEDA CO.: UPDATE: JURORS BEGIN DELBERATIONS IN RAMIREZ DEATH PENALTY
TRIAL


After hearing contrasting recommendations from a defense lawyer and
Alameda County's head prosecutor, jurors today began deliberating the fate
of a Newark man who was convicted of murdering San Leandro police officer
Nels "Dan" Niemi 2 years ago.

In his closing argument in the penalty phase of the trial of 24-year-old
Irving Ramirez, Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff said Ramirez
deserves the death penalty for what Orloff described as "the viciousness
and brutality" he displayed in murdering San Leandro police officer Nels
"Dan" Niemi 2 years ago.

Orloff said Ramirez displayed "a selfish motive" in choosing to shoot
Niemi seven times rather than face being arrested when the officer came to
the intersection of Doolittle Drive and Belvedere Avenue in San Leandro
about 11 p.m. on July 25, 2005, to respond to a disturbing the peace call.

Orloff said Niemi, 42, who is survived by his wife and two children, found
Ramirez and 4 other men hanging out on the street and drinking liquor but
shot Niemi because he didn't want to be arrested for violating the terms
of his probation for a prior drug conviction by carrying 2 guns and drugs
that night.

Orloff said Ramirez shot Niemi once in the head and then 6 more shots
after the officer was on the ground.

The county's top prosecutor told jurors, "Your job is to do justice and
justice in this case is telling this defendant that what he did deserves
the most severe sanction our law calls for," which is the death penalty.

But Deborah Levy, 1 of 2 lawyers who represent Niemi, asked jurors to
"show mercy" toward him and spare his life.

"American justice isn't an eye for an eye," she said.

Levy said the death penalty should be reserved for "the worst of the
worst" and she believes Ramirez isn't in that category or in the same
class as notorious murderers such as Charles Manson, the Columbine
killers, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, the Zodiak Killer, the Trailside Killer,
Jeffrey Dahmer and Seung-Hui Cho, the gunman at Virginia Tech.

Levy told jurors, "You can honor the memory of a warm, generous special
man (Niemi) who was shot down in the line of duty by bringing back a
verdict of life in prison without parole."

At the end of the guilty phase of Ramirez's trial on May 10, jurors
convicted him of 1st-degree murder as well as the special circumstances of
murdering a police officer during the performance of his duties and
committing murder to avoid arrest for the shooting death of Niemi.

At the end of the penalty phase, the same jurors will choose between
recommending either the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

Jurors began their deliberations after their lunch break today.

In the guilt phase of Ramirez's trial, Michael Berger, Ramirez's other
lawyer, admitted to jurors that Ramirez killed Niemi but said he did so
without any deliberation, a key component of 1st-degree murder.

Ramirez, who had been drinking cognac and beer to celebrate his birthday,
was so drunk that he panicked without being fully aware of what he was
doing, Berger said.

Levy told jurors today that "the fact that he (Ramirez) was intoxicated is
a mitigating factor (in favor of recommending life in prison instead of
the death penalty) because if he hadn't been drunk he wouldn't have killed
officer Niemi."

Levy also said that Niemi, who joined the San Leandro Police Department in
2002 at a relatively old age after working in the computer industry, knew
that serving as a police officer "is a dangerous life."

She cited statistics showing that in 2005, the year Ramirez murdered
Niemi, 55 law enforcement officers in the U.S. were killed on the job and
67 died in job-related accidents.

Ramirez's family members testified last week that he had a tough childhood
because his native El Salvador was in the midst of a brutal civil war when
he was born in 1982 and he had to live with his grandparents for several
years after his parents immigrated to the U.S.

But Orloff said today, "Thousands of people left El Salvador, came to the
U.S. for a better life and most found it."

Referring to Ramirez, Orloff said, "But some people chose a different
path."

Orloff said he believes the death penalty is the only appropriate sentence
for Ramirez.

He told jurors, "Mr. Ramirez has already stolen Dan Niemi's life. Don't
let him steal his moral constituency."

(source: CBS News)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Judge Rules Out Death Penalty in Woman's Murder Trial


Durham prosecutors failed Tuesday to persuade a judge that they should be
able to ask a jury to make the defendant in a Durham murder trial the 5th
woman on North Carolina's death row.

Christy Crittenton, prosecutors charge, is a cold and calculated gold
digger who helped three others kill 71-year-old Edwin Knowles last July.
Knowles was found pistol-whipped and shot to death in his Bahama home.

"I would argue circumstance show she knew what was going on and what was
going to happen," Assistant District Attorney David Saacks told Superior
Court Judge Orlando Hudson.

Not so, defense attorney Jay Ferguson told Hudson.

"She wasn't even in the house when the shooting occurred," Ferguson said.

Both sides agreed Knowles was Crittenton's sugar daddy. Ferguson said she
visited him only to borrow money, while Saacks said her visit was about
robbery and turned into murder.

Even though Crittenton didn't fire the shot that struck Knowles, she led
the trigger man to his home, the prosecutor told Hudson.

Saacks argued that Crittenton's criminal background should be considered,
including her 1993 conviction for killing a former Durham police officer.
In the end, however, Hudson ruled that there was not enough evidence to
support the death penalty in the case.

If convicted, Crittenton will face an automatic life sentence instead.

Prosecutors indicated they still plan to seek the death penalty against
the shooter in Knowles death.

The last time prosecutors sought the death penalty against a woman was
when Barbara Stager was convicted in 1989 of 1st-degree murder for a 1988
killing and sentenced to die. She received a new trial, however, and was
given a life sentence instead in 1993.

(source: WRAL News)