April 13 NEW YORK: Judiciary Budget Escapes Governor's Vetoes Governor George E. Pataki yesterday signed off on a judiciary budget that includes $69.5 million for retroactive judicial pay raises, although additional legislation is needed before that money can be spent and salaries are actually increased. Although the judges are still a step away from securing the pay hike they have been denied since 1999, they are also a step closer. Mr. Pataki's decision to leave the judiciary budget alone, especially when he is highly critical of legislative spending and used his line-item veto power to slash 202 items costing some $2.9 billion, is a positive sign for the judges. Line-Item Veto While Mr. Pataki's commentary on the judiciary budget was conciliatory, he took direct aim at an overall state spending plan that he has said spends too much and reforms too little. In using his line-item veto, Mr. Pataki latched on to two recent Court of Appeals opinions that grant the executive extraordinary power over the public fisc. 2 years ago in Silver v. Pataki, 4 NY3d 75, a deeply divided Court of Appeals said the Legislature cannot substitute its judgment for that of the governor in a budget bill. More recently, in City Council of New York v. Bloomberg, 2006 NY LEXIS 149, the Court said the executive can refuse to implement legislation that he deems unconstitutional. Mr. Pataki, in a pile of veto messages released this week, invoked both Court of Appeals decisions, claiming that many of his vetoes cannot be overridden. While the judiciary emerged unscathed - so far - from what is becoming a continuing battle between the governor and a Legislature intent on countering at least some of his vetoes with an override vote, the New York State Bar Association, the Capital Defender Office and the New York State Defenders Association were not as fortunate. Mr. Pataki vetoed a line-item that would have allocated $100,000 to the state bar for an experimental program in electronic recording of custodial interrogations, a $500,000 appropriation for the Capital Defender Office and a $400,000 allocation for the New York State Defenders Association. On the state bar and state defenders matters, Mr. Pataki used identical language in his veto messages and essentially said overall spending is too high and the state must cut back. He did not address the merits of either proposal. However, on the Capital Defender measure, the governor said that without an effective death penalty, he "strongly object[s] to providing the Capital Defender Office with additional funding for capital defense services," suggesting such services are unnecessary until and unless the Legislature restores capital punishment. At the press conference yesterday, he signaled out the Legislature's increased appropriation for the Capital Defender Office as a particularly egregious waste of taxpayer money. Since June 2004, when the Court of Appeals in People v. LaValle, 3 NY3d 88, declared part of the death penalty statute unconstitutional, the governor has promoted corrective legislation, which the Democratic-controlled Assembly will not pass. The LaValle problem centers on a mandatory charge in which the trial judge must tell a penalty-phase jury that failure to reach unanimous agreement on a sentence of either death or life without parole will result in a paroleeligible term. In a 4-3 vote, the Court of Appeals found the deadlock provision unconstitutionally coercive and unseverable, which effectively rendered the capital punish statute unenforceable. 'Taylor' on Horizon Sometime next year, the Court will have an opportunity to revisit LaValle when it hears People v. Taylor, the socalled "Wendy's murder" case. John Taylor was convicted of killing 5 employees of a Wendy's restaurant in Queens and was condemned to death by a jury seated before Supreme Court Justice Stephen W. Fisher, now of the Appellate Division, Second Department. Justice Fischer, anticipating the Court of Appeals' ruling in LaValle, did not deliver the mandatory charge that the Court later said was constitutionally infirm. Mr. Pataki and key Republican senators have suggested that if the Assembly Democratic leadership will not pass legislation to address the LaValle problem, a newly configured Court of Appeals may well reinstate capital punishment. 2 judges in the LaValle majority could be gone by the time the Court hears Taylor, and one of them would be replaced by Mr. Pataki. Judge George Bundy Smith's term expires in September, and while the veteran jurist has said he will re-apply, allies to the governor have made clear the administration has no intention of reappointing Judge Smith. If Judge Smith, who has consistently opposed the death penalty, is replaced by a pro capital punishment jurist, it could swing the Court. Additionally, Judge Albert M. Rosenblatt, who voted with the LaValle majority, is retiring Jan. 1, 2007. But he will be replaced by the next governor. Mr. Pataki is not seeking re-election. The 2 Republicans seeking to succeed Mr. Pataki, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld and former Assemblyman John Faso, strongly support the death penalty and have vowed to bring it back if elected. Democratic Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who is running for governor and well ahead of all potential challengers in the polls, supports capital punishment, but only in extraordinary cases. Democrat Thomas Suozzi of Long Island, who is challenging Mr. Spitzer for the party's gubernatorial nomination, opposes the death penalty. Meanwhile, the staff of the Capital Defender Office has been cut from 59 to 7, with 4 attorneys left on staff. Its budget is a fraction of what it was a few years ago, and last year the administration barred the agency from spending about half of the money that it had been allocated. "The governor along with his prosecutorial allies wants to have his cake and eat it," said Capital Defender Kevin M. Doyle. "There is the declared intention of seeing the death penalty judicially revived when John Taylor's case is heard by a reconstituted Court of Appeals. With this veto, we are being cut at our roots. We are in grave danger of the LaValle decision having brought merely a cease-fire during which there was a unilateral disarmament." Scott Reif, a spokesman for the governor, said Mr. Pataki "has made clear that absent the death penalty, which he has repeatedly urged the Assembly to fix, this isn't a good appropriation." (source: New York Law Journal) SOUTH CAROLINA: Slaying suspect could face death penalty The 15th Circuit Solicitor's Office announced today its intention to seek the death penalty for Louis Michael "Mick" Winkler, accused in the March 6 slaying of his estranged wife. Greg Hembree, 15th Circuit solicitor, made the announcement today at a court hearing for Winkler. The judge then denied bond for Winkler on charges of murder; assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature; and first-degree burglary. On March 6, Rebekah Grainger, 50, was found shot to death at Bay Tree Golf Colony Resort condominiums in Little River. Winkler, who hid from police for two weeks before being captured March 20 in a wooded area near the Eagle Nest Golf Club in Little River, has been charged in her death. He currently is at J. Reuben Long Detention Center. (source: Myrtle Beach Sun News) USA: Nun stomps to snuff out death penalty St. Joseph Sister Helen Prejean, author of the text that brought the brutality and flaws of capital punishment to the forefront, continues in her second book, "Death of Innocents," to challenge the morality of the death penalty from both a human and a Catholic perspective. As the keynote speaker April 4, Sister Prejean was a featured guest at Lewis University's annual Signum Fidei Lecture. Addressing a crowd in the university's fieldhouse only days before Christians and Jews prepare to mark the Passion of Christ and Easter along with the commemoration of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt during the Passover, she urged attendees to engage those they encounter in "a dialogue" that promotes a better understanding of the issues related to the death penalty. Her latest eyewitness account of the reality of the death penalty is pursued similarly to the experience detailed in her 1st book, "Dead Man Walking," which was published in 1993. The book that climbed to the top of the New York Times Bestseller's List was made into an equally popular movie, released in 1996 and starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. The author, whose first publication was nominated in 1993 for a Pulitzer Prize, details in the "Death of Innocents" the preponderance of unethical practices in regard to the execution of an indigent black man with an IQ of 65 and the conviction of a Virginia man based on testimony from a "jailhouse snitch." In this latest book, Sister Prejean dedicates the final chapters to challenging the conservative right wing along with those who oppose abortion while advocating on behalf of the death penalty. "There's no convincing the right wing," she said in an interview with the Catholic Explorer after a 45-minute presentation. "You have to take on their argument, then dispute it," she said. Frequently, right wing conservatives rely on certain passages in the Bible that seem to support the death penalty, but "they're taking it out of context; it's a form of scriptural violation," she said. Even one of the leading Catholic members on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia, has a habit of misrepresenting Catholic theology as it relates to Pope John Paul II's encyclical, "Evangelium Vitae," she noted. The document, meaning "The Gospel of Life," had been amended and she conjectured it was likely the meeting she had with the pope was influential in a decision to amend it in a way that opposes the death penalty as an option. In the meeting, Sister Prejean said, she focused on the details of state executions, drawing similarities to the notion of torture. Meanwhile, Sister Prejean said in her book she argues against Scalias interpretation of Catholic social justice. "As Catholics, we don't (advocate) the killing of our fellow human beings anymore." Her challenge is based on Pope John Paul II's reference in the amended encyclical to "absolute necessity" as it applies to the death penalty in the modern world. He authorized changes to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as well. The change turned on a perception of "redemption. The death penalty is never about redemption," she said. Sister Prejean attempted also to shed light on the idea that prejudice contributes to the commission of the death penalty. Citing passages from "The Death of Innocents," she told the crowd about an analysis she conducted on the historical underpinnings of executions in this country. She exclaimed, "It's no accident that 80 % of executions occur in former slave states--Texas, Florida, Louisiana." Having moved in the '80s from the outskirts of New Orleans to the inner city, Sister Prejean explained, "then I got an education. I lived in the suburbs and never before touched the poor. "I began to see the other side of the great American dream. I began to see the suffering." The total lack of resources or options under the law or access to honest due process served as a revelation to the nun who had been a vowed religious for 20 years. "I began to see the underside of the American dream where 37 million people live in poverty." Sister Prejean revealed the details and heart-wrenching circumstances of convicted murderers Patrick and Eddie Sonnier, their mother, along with members of victims' family, Eula and Lloyd LeBlanc, from the first book. The events leading up to the arrest and conviction on a charge of murder for Joseph Roger O'Dell and Dobie Gillis Williams were equally as disturbing, said Sister Prejean, who focuses on the details of such in her most recent book. The nun who has become nationally recognized for her anti-death penalty stance took special pains to laud the efforts led by former Illinois Gov. George Ryan. The man who is currently on trial for allegations of corruption, Ryan's term of office was highlighted because he initiated a death penalty moratorium and investigative commission that discovered at least "113 wrongfully convicted" persons who have been or were on death row. Many were proven to have been falsely executed, she said. However, she also pointed out the brutality of the murder for which Sonnier was convicted. She said she was "appalled" upon learning the specifics of the 1977 killing of David LeBlanc, 17, and Loretta Ann Bourque, 18, in a remote area in Louisiana. Over the past 22 years, Sister Prejean has been a spiritual advisor to those who face the death penalty and has witnessed 6 executions. She has learned the awful details of murder victims along with their families as well as the destructive elements that plague the convicted felon and their families. The nun has come to the conclusion that "Jesus had a way of looking at (life) from the point of view of the downtrodden and that's what I'm still learning," she said. Conjuring the image of the cross, she said, imagine "Jesus wrapping one arm around them (the victims and their families) and the other around the murderers and their families. Jesus loves both sides. We are all his children." During the final days of Lent, Sister Prejean urged attendees to become "moral wedges" on the issue of the death penalty, working to enlighten pro-lifers who distinguish between innocent babies and guilty murderers. The bishops in the United States have declared that pro-life includes advocating on behalf of all human beings, she said, admitting that it can be a difficult process. "We have to make that journey. This is Lent and I invite you to engage people in dialogue" in communities and on college campuses. (source: Catholic Explorer)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.Y., S.C., USA
Rick Halperin Thu, 13 Apr 2006 11:35:27 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
