Jan 18 CALIFORNIA: Death penalty on table for suspect caught by Daily Press pressmen----Pleaded not guilty earlier his week to charges of murder and mayhem The suspect captured by employees of the Daily Press last August will be tried under special circumstances that could make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted. John Wayne Thomson, who is also wanted in connection to a murder in Washington state, pleaded not guilty earlier this week in San Bernardino County Superior Court to charges of murder and mayhem in connection to the July 31 death of Charles Hedlund, whose body was found in Davore, along the road in Cajon Pass. He also entered not guilty pleas in connection to one carjacking and 2 attempted carjackings. Thomson was previously charged with murder, robbery, carjacking and two counts of attempted carjacking. After learning more about the death, prosecutors opted to add an aggravated mayhem charge, which means Thomson could face a sentence of life in prison or the death penalty. Robert Bulloch of the county district attorney's office in San Bernardino said evidence suggests the circumstances sur- rounding Hedlunds death were "extremely gruesome" and the attempted carjacking victims were treated in a particularly "violent" and "callous" manner. State law prescribes special treatment for those convicted of extremely serious crimes, such as those Thomson allegedly committed, Bulloch said. Thomson was arrested after allegedly trying to steal a car near the newspaper offices Aug. 7. Daily Press pressmen Joe Iskandar and Rey Bantug were taking a break on a loading dock when they heard a woman screaming. The 2 jumped over a brick wall and grabbed Thomson. They used plastic zip ties from the pressroom to subdue Thomson until authorities arrived. (source: The Daily Press) ****************** Confessed Child Murderer Could Face Death Penalty A confessed child murderer in prison in Idaho, who is accused in the 1997 abduction and murder of 10-year-old Anthony Martinez of Beaumont, will face the death penalty if convicted, District Attorney Rod Pacheco said Thursday. Joseph Edward Duncan III has been a prime suspect in the case for more than a year since he was arrested in 2005 for kidnapping 2 children from their Idaho home and bludgeoning 3 members of their family to death. He later killed one of the children, a 9-year-old boy. To escape the death penalty in Idaho, he pleaded guilty and was imprisoned. However, other cases against him are still pending in Idaho, for which he could face death, authorities said. "While we can't bring Anthony back to you, we can bring his killer to justice," Sheriff Bob Doyle told Martinez's mother Diana Martinez, his father Ernesto Medina and his brother Marcos Medina at a news conference. The family stood alongside Doyle and District Attorney Rod Pacheco in front of the Larson Justice Center in Indio as they announced that Duncan will be charged Thursday with capital murder. Diana Martinez said her family thought for many years about whether they would want to see Anthony's killer face the death penalty. "We decided we would stand by whatever the D.A. decided, provided Joseph Duncan never see the light of day again," she said. Duncan will be charged Thursday with murder, lewd or lascivious acts on a child under 14 and torture. The special circumstances -- including committing the Idaho murders -- make Duncan eligible for the death penalty, Pacheco said. The D.A's office will seek Duncan's immediate extradition to California from Idaho, Pacheco said. Anthony was taken from near his Beaumont home on April 4, 1997. His nude body was found buried under rocks 15 days later on Berdoo Canyon Road, on the road to Joshua Tree National Monument -- some 90 miles from where he was snatched. A fingerprint found where Anthony's body was found allegedly matched Duncan's, authorities said. (source: CBS News) NORTH CAROLINA: Seeking mercy, seeking justice----Gov. Mike Easley hears from 2 sides on the pending execution of Marcus Robinson Last year, one of her sons was beaten to death. At the end of this month, another son is expected to be deployed to Iraq. Next week, a 3rd son is scheduled to be executed. On Wednesday, Shirley Burns pleaded for Gov. Mike Easley to spare the life of her youngest son, death row inmate Marcus Robinson, whose death by lethal injection is set for Jan. 26. "I'm just taking it one second at a time," Burns said of the different directions in which her sons are being pulled. "Right now, I'm dealing with Marcus." In April, the body of one of Burns' sons, Curtis Green, 36, was found beaten to death in a ditch along a Cumberland County road. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty against those accused of killing Green. Burns' other son, Reginald Green, 35, is serving in the U.S. Navy and expects to be deployed at the end of January. And Robinson, 33, has been on death row since 1994 after being convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Erik Tornblom. On July 21, 1991, at a Fayetteville convenience store, one of Tornblom's high school classmates, Roderick Williams, asked Tornblom to give him and Robinson a ride. Once inside the car, the two men forced Tornblom at gunpoint to drive to a side street and get out of the car. They used a sawed-off shotgun to shoot Tornblom in the face. They split what money they found in his wallet: $27. At trial, both men claimed the other shot Tornblom. Williams was sentenced to life in prison, and Robinson was sentenced to death. Those on both sides in Robinson's case came to the state Capitol on Wednesday to see the governor about whether Robinson would live or die. Easley met privately with prosecutors and lawyers representing Robinson. Meanwhile, Easley's legal counsel, Reuben Young, met separately with Burns, as well as one of Tornblom's older sisters, Pam White, and father, Richard Tornblom, who happened upon his son's murder scene while driving to the Sheriff's Office to report him missing. Afterward, the father declined to talk to reporters. Earlier in the day, White had said of her brother, "He helped everybody. That's why he was killed." She said she planned to tell Easley's staff that Robinson deserves to die. Prosecutors agreed. "There is no other appropriate judgment," Cumberland County District Attorney Ed Grannis told reporters after the clemency hearing. Cumberland County District Court Judge John Dickson, a former assistant district attorney who prosecuted Robinson, added, "There's no doubt in anybody's mind about the guilt of this defendant." Prosecutors also point out that Robinson has not been behaving in prison. Robinson has been disciplined for rioting, possessing weapons, assaulting others and tampering with locks. Keith Acree, a prison system spokesman, wrote in an e-mail message to The News & Observer, "Robinson's behavior has kept him locked up on various types of segregation almost constantly since 1995." Robinson's attorneys, Michael Ramos and Geoffrey Hosford, said they argued to Easley that Robinson's life should be spared for reasons ranging from the abuse he endured as a child at the hands of his alcoholic father to evidence about brain injuries he sustained as a child that could have mitigated his role in the crime. Burns, 56, of Hope Mills, said her husband was a soldier stationed at Fort Bragg. When her husband would drink, he would become abusive. "He would beat Marcus with a belt," she said. "Whenever I intervened, he became violent with me." Twice in 1976, the lawyers say, the abuse sent her son to the hospital -- once, he was unconscious with blood running out of his nose and mouth. As her son grew up, Burns said, he struggled with his studies and got into fights with other boys without thinking. "He was mostly a follower," she said, "not a leader." However, Burns said, her son has changed in prison. "I want people to know that Marcus is a person. He's more than a number. He's not the same person as when he went in. He's grown and matured," said Burns, who is the pastor at Snow Hill AME Zion church in Fayetteville. Asked whether she would be at Marcus' execution, Burns said, "Of course. I was there when he was born." (source: The News & Observer) ***************** A Christian response to death penalty issues Within the next 3 weeks, North Carolina is scheduled to execute three death-row inmates on three successive Fridays. According to Associated Press: "Scheduling 3 deaths so close together irks execution opponents who plan to keep pushing during the coming legislative session for a death penalty moratorium. Perhaps three executions so close together will at least help them teach more people about the flaws in the state's judicial system, they said." [1] Despite the fact that death-row inmates receive super due process of law that accounts for an average of 12 years of appeals, and that there exists no solid evidence of even one innocent nationwide being executed in over a hundred years, moratorium proponents, who are largely anti-death penalty advocates, have gained enough momentum in the Tar Heel State to cause Speaker Jim Black to establish a House Select Committee on Capital Punishment. That Committee held a public hearing two weeks ago; and out of 15 speakers who testified, only 2 one of which was me spoke against the proposed moratorium. Certainly the most striking moment of the public hearing was when Shirley Burns spoke. Burns currently has a son on death-row scheduled for execution in North Carolina on January 26. She informed lawmakers she had lived on both sides of the issue of capital punishment. Not only did she have a son scheduled for execution within a matter of days, but eight months earlier another one of her sons had been murdered. Her situation was definitely and most unfortunately unique and garnered the sympathy of what was almost exclusively an anti-death penalty audience, except maybe for some of the lawmakers present. Burns was also obviously very displeased with my remarks, which had preceded hers, characterizing them in this fashion: "I listen to the minister as he talked, but it seems to be an idea of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth How can I as a Christian ask for another person's life? I believe the Word of God when it says, 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' I also believe when it says, 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.'" The end of her speech was met with considerable applause. Although Burns' circumstances warrant understanding and sympathy, her position on the death penalty is neither Christian nor compassionate. The primary purpose of the death-penalty is not revenge. It is retribution. In On Capital Punishment, William H. Baker notes: "Retribution is properly a satisfaction or, according to the ancient figure of justice and her scales, a restoration of a disturbed equilibrium. As such it is a proper, legitimate and moral concept. Scripture makes a clear line of distinction between this doctrine and feelings of personal hatred by forbidding such feelings and the actions to which they would lead. Capital punishment as a form of retribution is a dictate of the moral nature, which demands that there should be a just portion between the offense and the penalty." [2] In fact, Jesus' quote in Matthew 5:38 of the Hebrew lex talinois, which is found in Exodus 21:23-25, was a statement of proper retribution by civil authorities. Its intention was to protect offenders from excessive penalties that didn't fit the crime. Unfortunately, however, some in Christ's day were using it as a justification for personal retaliation. In other words, when Christ spoke of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," He wasn't repudiating government's responsibility to maintain order, but correcting an illegitimate use of the text and advocating the way His followers should personally respond to offenses. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia properly makes this distinction when in God's Justice and Ours, he writes: "The death penalty is undoubtedly wrong unless one accords to the state a scope of moral action that goes beyond what is permitted to the individual. In my view, the major impetus behind the modern aversion to the death penalty is the equation of private morality with governmental morality." [3] In a day when crime is largely blamed on Freudian and secularist concepts of evil, the biblical doctrine of retribution has fallen on hard times. Yet God has ordained it that when humanity chooses, for whatever reason, to violate His law, a just penalty must be exacted. A holy and just God requires that a broken order in the Universe be restored. Thus, Christ's death for the sinner was based on the need for retributive justice to satisfy the legal demands of God's law, which says: "[T]he wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). In fact, without the substitutionary death of Christ on the Cross there could be no forgiveness or compassion from God. According to Christian thought, no one has the right for any reason to harbor malice, anger or bitterness toward someone on a personal level personal vengeance is denied. This is what Christ was preaching in Matthew 5:38-45 and what Paul advocated when he wrote: "Recompense to no man evil for evil avenge not yourselves, but rather give place to wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:17, 19). Still Christ affirmed retributive justice by His own death on the Cross and Paul said the government bears the sword as "the minister of God" for good and is an "avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil" (Romans 13:4). For compassion and its proper application on both a personal and social level to be genuinely experienced, an understanding of the biblical doctrine of retributive justice is an absolute necessity. For instance, no person can ever experience soul salvation until he or she realizes their offense to God in the violations of His law and that such actions are deserving of eternal retribution. God has demonstrated His compassion in that the requirements of retribution are met in Christ's sacrifice on the Cross. He died and suffered in one's place. Personal peace comes only through this understanding. Moreover, social peace comes only when compassion is directed toward the victims of crime and not its perpetrators. Retribution is the primary purpose of law and not the rehabilitation of the criminal or deterrence to criminal acts. Only when this is realized can the public be properly protected by the government and society's tranquility maintained. While anti-death penalty proponents from the faith community like Shirley Burns push for abolition and a moratorium on capital punishment in North Carolina, calling for citizens to forgive, they seem to forget that the persons with the greatest reason to forgive cannot because they've been murdered. Moreover, family members like Janice Hunter, whose 27-year-old daughter, Adrien, was brutally stabbed to death by serial killer Nathaniel White, can easily identify with her statement: "I have to go to the cemetery to see my daughter. Nathaniel White's mother goes to jail to see him and I don't think it's fair." [4] Indeed it isn't right in either the first or the latter circumstances and that's why God's Word in Genesis 9:6 declares to governments of all eras: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." One final quote by William H. Baker best addresses the main concerns of abolitionists and moratorium advocates: "Some claim it would be better for a guilty man to go free than for an innocent man to die. Such an ethic must assume that the failure to apply justice is better than the misapplication of justice. Must we be faced with a choice of equal evil over against equal injustice? The issue is that anything less than death is not the full measure of justice; thus, anything less than death is an injustice. The question must be settled, therefore, as to whether the death penalty is just, not as to whether lack of punishment is better than punishing the wrong person. The latter question really is irrelevant." [5] If the death penalty is just retribution, which it is, then it should be administered. If the death penalty can never be administered by a flawless judicial system, which it cannot, then suspending executions to improve its administration will never make it more just. NOTES: [1] Elizabeth Dubar, "Three Executions Set for Successive Weeks," Associated Press, http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070113/NEWSREC0101/70112030/-1/NEWSREC0201 [2] William H. Baker, On Capital Punishment (Moody Press 1985). pgs. 81,82 [3] Antonin Scalia, God's Justice and Ours, www.prodeathpenalty.com/scalia.htm [4] Geroge E. Pataki, "Death Penalty is a Deterrent," USA Today, March 1997 [5] Baker, p. 121 (source: Rev. Mark H. Creech is Executive Director of the Christian Action League of North Carolina, Inc. He was a pastor for 20 years before taking this position, having served 5 different Southern Baptist churches in North Carolina and one Independent Baptist in upstate New York. Rev. Creech is a prolific speaker and writer, and has served as a radio commentator for Christians In Action, a daily program featuring Rev. Creech's commentary on social issues from a Christian worldview. In addition to RenewAmerica.us, his weekly editorials are featured on the Christian Action League website and Agape Press, a national Christian newswire) NEBRASKA: Chambers' death penalty bill unlikely to get far Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers introduced a bill seeking to eliminate capital punishment, as he has every legislative session since 1973. Chambers' bill says that the state's experience with the death penalty has been "fraught with errors, frustration and delay due to constitutional mistakes in the statutes," among other things. "The existing capital punishment scheme is a failure and has taken an unacceptable toll on the state's reputation for simple fairness, basic decency and care for the dignity of human life," according to the measure. The bill (LB476) isn't likely to get far. In a pre-session survey by The Associated Press, 29 senators said they support the death penalty. 6 said capital punishment should be repealed. 9 were unsure or gave no answer and 5, including Chambers, did not participate on the survey. The closest Chambers came to having the law changed was in 1979, when his bill passed on a 26-22 vote but was vetoed by then-Gov. Charley Thone. (source: Associated Press) VIRGINIA----bills to expand state death penalty laws Committee approves death penalty bills The Senate Courts of Justice Committee approved 2 bills Wednesday that would expand the range of crimes for which a prosecutor could ask for the death penalty. Senate Bills 1116 and 1288 are both based on recommendations from the Virginia Crime Commission. SB 1116 would make the premeditated killing of a judge or subpoenaed witness a capital crime, eligible for the death penalty. SB 1288, meanwhile, would eliminate the "triggerman rule," which limits capital charges to the actual killer and not accomplices. There are already 3 exceptions to the rule, but SB 1288 would add more. Lawmakers have worked for several years on eliminating the triggerman rule but have failed to achieve consensus to pass such legislation. In Wednesday's meeting, committee counsel Steve Benjamin, a Richmond lawyer, disagreed with Michael McGinty of the Virginia Association of Commonwealth's Attorneys over legal definitions in an effort to determine what role a murder accomplice must play in order to be eligible for capital charges under SB 1288. Benjamin argued the role should be narrowly defined, while McGinty argued for a broader interpretation. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, agreed with McGinty, saying that a judge and jury should ultimately decide that question. Both SB 1116 and SB 1288 now go to the full Senate for consideration. (source: Roanoke Times) ********************* New Execution Date A murderer who bragged in a letter to prosecutors that he killed a teenage girl and tried to rape her has been scheduled to be executed on February 15th. Prince William County Circuit Court Judge Lon Farris set the execution date yesterday for Paul Warner Powell. Powell was convicted in 2003 for the 2nd time of the 1999 slaying of 16-year-old Stacie Reed of Manassas. The 28-year-old was 1st convicted in 2000 of capital murder for the slaying -- but the Virginia Supreme Court overturned that verdict. The Supreme Court ruled that he could not be executed because prosecutors lacked evidence that Powell tried to either rape or rob the girl. Prince William County Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert got that evidence when Powell wrote him a hate-filled letter. (source: WDBJ News) ************************ Final Wishes Do we really need another Back Page about the death penalty? That depends. Do we really need another execution in Virginia? In 2006, 4 people were executed in Virginia, 2 executions coming in back-to-back weeks. There were no executions in 2005. Who would have guessed that "the machinery of death," to use Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmuns apt description, would crank back up during Gov. Tim Kaines time in office? When I think back over 2006, of course, circumstances close to home come to mind like a recurring nightmare. People reading this may wonder at first if I've forgotten the murders of the Harvey, Tucker-Baskerville and Casper family members that began the year with a bone-chilling blast of shock and horror. I have not. But I also recall the prosecutions in those cases to date, and the inconsistent and inexplicable results that the legal system has served up so far. (The trial in the Casper family murders is scheduled for the end of January.) In the court proceedings in the Harvey and Tucker-Baskerville cases, the death penalty was imposed only for the murders of the Harvey children. The lives of any of the adults did not carry the same weight in the balance of justice, apparently. It was as if the death penalty had to be imposed for the sake of the children, in the name of the children, and I cant imagine anything further from the truth. Would a child demand that the man be killed for his crime, despite his pleas for mercy and forgiveness? Is that what we teach our children? I think about this whenever I read the stories about the Harvey children and how their young friends have chosen to remember them. These stories are so touching because they are affirmations of the innocence and joy of life. They speak to the heart of a child. Our own insistence on death as satisfaction speaks of a cold-hearted, death-dealing legal system that has, truly, taken on a life of its own. It offers no reasons for imposing death in one case but not in another. No wonder the American Bar Association went on record in February 1997 calling for a nationwide moratorium on executions. What will 2007 bring with respect to the death penalty in Virginia and elsewhere? I have no idea. Then again, even if I tried to predict, you would not want to bet on it. I was once naive enough to think (and hope and pray) that the 1st execution after the death penalty was reinstated across the nation in 1976 would also be the last. 30 years ago, Gary Gilmore arranged for himself to be shot by a firing squad in Utah, playing up every detail for the benefit of an all-too-eager audience. It should have ended right there; instead, that 1 execution fed a public blood lust for many more to come. Virginia has helped lead the way in executions since then, second only to Texas. It is a distant 2nd, to be sure, but realize that Texas has a much larger population and a hang-'em-high tradition that borders on crazed public ritual. Instead of dealing with the death-penalty issue head on, Gov. Kaine has tried to "position himself." He has often said that he has a moral opposition to the death penalty, but that he will nonetheless carry out the dictates of the law. When moral conviction comes into conflict with the law, I always thought moral conviction was supposed to win out. Gov. Kaine knows well the example of Sir Thomas More, the Catholic Churchs patron of lawyers and politicians. This great man opposed Henry VIII on moral grounds, and yes, he was executed for it. Kaine has lately worked to shift attention to his suggestion that, since death by lethal injection is a much more humane procedure, the inmates option to die in the electric chair should be taken away. The idea that death by lethal injection is a humane option is in serious doubt right at this point, though. Death by lethal injection has been put on hold recently in California and Florida. In Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush issued a moratorium following a lethal injection execution that was anything but smooth and humane. In California, a federal judge entered a temporary stay on lethal injection executions, finding that the particular procedure used could not be guaranteed to be free of the "risk of an Eighth Amendment violation," referring to the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Similar legal challenges are under way in a number of states. Of course, these side issues distract us from the main point: It's wrong to take another persons life when he poses no continuing threat of harm. Any child can tell you that. Yet the state argues to take the life of defendants in case after case. Perhaps it is time for Gov. Kaine with sufficient indications of popular support to act on his moral conviction and do the right thing. Perhaps it is time to dismantle the machinery of death forever. In that way, Virginia can abandon a barbaric practice and move forward to take its stand with the vast majority of governments around the world. (source: Style Weekly; As a former attorney, Mike Sarahan worked on aspects of the federal challenges brought by death row inmates James and Linwood Briley. Opinions expressed on the Back Page are those of the writer and not necessarily those of Style Weekly)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., N.C., NEB., VA.
Rick Halperin Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:12:54 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
