May 27 NEW YORK: Death penalty bill in Albany suffocated by politics ---- O'Mara among GOP pushing for a vote in Assembly, but speaker says 'no.' Debate over the death penalty is in full throat again at the Capitol, spurred by a spate of shootings of police officers. The arguments are familiar -- is it a deterrent or not? Does it represent justice? What about the issue of several death row inmates in other states being exonerated by DNA evidence? As Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a death-penalty supporter, has said, it is an issue on which both sides have well thought-out and strongly held beliefs. But as he has not said, what has been lacking in the debate is a clear measure of where the members of the state Assembly stand on the issue. Supporters of the measure, which would apply only to cop killers, want Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, to allow a vote on the floor of the Assembly. It has already passed the Senate, with bipartisan support. Silver has so far refused to allow a vote in the Assembly, saying that it is his sense that a majority of Democrats don't support it. The state's death-penalty statute, renewed in 1995, was invalidated by the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, in 2004, because it found part of the sentencing provision could be coercive to juries. No one has been executed in the state since 1963. The proposal now under consideration would apply only to people who kill law-enforcement officers. This is a case where what most people probably think happens in the Legislature collides with reality. Most people probably figure that when there's a controversial issue that needs to be settled, the Assembly and Senate vote on it, and it either passes or it doesn't. And the outcome will be decided by a majority vote. But the reality is bills are almost never allowed to come to the floor unless they are foreordained to pass. That's because the real decisions are made in private by members of the majority parties -- the Republicans in the Senate and the Democrats in the Assembly. So while a majority of the 150 members of the Assembly may very well support the bill -- certainly most of the 42 Republicans in the chamber do -- a majority of the 108 Democrats apparently don't. The system works this way because majority members are loathe to give the political minorities any say in policy. The majority members do their best to marginalize the lawmakers on the other side of the aisle. This tactic helps in elections, when majority-party candidates can say with some degree of accuracy that a vote for a minority-party candidate is a waste. Like much of the rest of the rules that govern the Legislature (partisan gerrymandering and lax campaign-finance limits, for example) this is done to enhance the power of the majority. Of course it has the minority Assembly Republicans screaming. "At least we should be able to bring (the death-penalty bill) to the floor of the Assembly for a debate," Assemblyman Thomas O'Mara, R-Horseheads, said at a meeting of legislators with Spitzer this week. Assembly Republicans have been banging their fists over such shenanigans for years, but the scores of them who have gone on to be members of the Republican majority in the Senate seem to lose their zest for minority rights when they join the upper chamber and wield the power. When asked about the lack of a vote on the issue, Silver pointed out that there have been several death-penalty votes in the Assembly this year and that the supporters numbered fewer than 50 each time. But O'Mara pointed out that those were attempts to tack a death-penalty amendment onto another measure, a strategy used by the minority when it has nowhere else to turn. Democrats declared the vote procedural and voted it down. O'Mara then renewed his call for a straight-up vote on the death penalty. But why would Silver allow a potentially politically embarrassing measure to come to the floor? Assembly member RoAnn Desitito, D-Rome, the bill's sponsor, had the most practical argument. "I continue to work with police agencies and others to try to build grass-roots support for the bill," she said. In other words, when enough constituents demand a vote on the measure to turn up the political heat high enough so that the damage from not voting exceeds that from bringing it to the floor, there will be a vote in the Assembly on the death penalty. And until and unless that happens, the vote won't be taken. (source: Opinion, Jay Gallagher is the Star-Gazette's Albany bureau chief; Elmira Star-Gazette) OHIO----new execution date Strickland urged to deny clemency The Ohio Parole Board recommended Friday that Gov. Ted Strickland not grant clemency for a Cincinnati man on death row. Clarence Carter, now 45, was sentenced to death in 1989 after he was found guilty of beating his cellmate to death in the Hamilton County jail annex. At the time, Carter was awaiting sentencing for a prior aggravated murder indictment. The parole board voted 6 to 3 to recommend that Carter's death sentence be upheld. Carter is scheduled for execution July 10 at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. To view Carter's clemency report, visit www.drc.state.oh.us/public.clemency.htm. (source: Cincinnati Enquirer) ********************** State killed Newton, erased his victim Former Huron resident Christopher Newton was a dead man talking and a dead man laughing before he became a dead man walking and then a dead man waiting. Newton walked the 17 steps from the death row holding cell to the death chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville on Thursday, about a month after he spoke with a Register reporter and said he was anxious for the state to kill him. But once in the death chamber, the state's executioners had difficulty finding a vein in the obese man's arms suitable for the shunts that would pump the lethal injection into his body. Why the state allows a death row inmate to become obese escapes me. The difficulty led to a nearly two-hour delay that included a bathroom break for the convicted killer before the executioners successfully placed the shunts and began pumping the lethal drug combo into his body. Newton finally got his death wish at 11:53 a.m. Thursday. In the end, however, Newton's execution was nothing more than a state-assisted suicide. And as appalling as that is, it gets worse. The state also acted as an accomplice in the 2001 murder that landed Newton on death row. The state became culpable when prison guards placed 27-year-old, 130-pound Jason Brewer into a cell with the 200-plus-pound Newton. Those guards should have known better, according to a state Parole Board report. "Mr. Newton planned the offense. He purposely arranged to be placed in protective custody, and even more importantly, he manipulated the situation in order to be placed in the cell with Jason Brewer," the report states. It's striking that a prison inmate could so easily manipulate prison guards in order to carry out his plan to kill. Newton choked and stomped Brewer to death and then drank the victim's blood, smearing it on his face. But the state's complicity is worse yet. Jason Brewer -- Newton's victim -- was a baby born to a world that just didn't care. It didn't care when he was alive, and it didn't care after he was dead. The details of Brewer's life are sketchy -- almost as if they had been swept under the rug -- but state officials did release some information. Brewer was molested in his childhood home and became a ward of the state. A Lucas County Children Services agency employee adopted him, but in short order began molesting Brewer. The adoptive father was convicted on charges related to the molestation in 1986. Before he was murdered, Brewer bounced from foster home to foster home and by 1994, when he was just (about) 20, Brewer faced a hefty prison sentence on an attempted aggravated burglary conviction. His public defender told the Register the judge in Brewer's case handed down a draconian sentence because the general mood at that time was a crackdown on crime. Society was safe, but Brewer, who never got one break in life, was not. This small man who had been a victim all his life was made a perpetual victim in prison. A victim to the very end. The state's bad behavior seems to never have been addressed. State prison authorities could not even provide the Register a photo of Brewer even though he'd been an inmate in their facilities for more than 5 years. The state couldn't provide information regarding the crimes Brewer had committed. There was even a current outstanding arrest warrant out of Maumee for Brewer's arrest, nearly six years after his grisly murder at the hands of Christopher Newton. Newton killed, he said, because he wanted to be on death row. In the end, maybe he got what he deserved Thursday. But the state's complicity in Brewer's death, and the fact that his killer wanted to die, are reasons enough to question the state's actions. Combine these with the miserable failure of the state's child welfare system in caring for the abused child that Brewer was, it makes me question whether this government, or any government, should ever have the power to kill. The state botched its responsibility to care for Brewer when he was a child no one cared for; it botched his incarceration; and it botched his killer's execution. The only thing state officials seem to have done effectively is making sure the details of Brewer's life disappeared. And that's not right. *************************** Watching execution left me conflicted I watched a man die Thursday. The execution of Christopher Newton made for one of the most difficult days of my career. I knew about the assignment a couple of weeks ago, but it didn't really hit me until a media briefing Thursday morning at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. The feeling was overwhelming. I struggled to keep my composure, knowing the execution was still more than 90 minutes away. I said a quick prayer, asking God to help me get through the experience. While some of my media colleagues typed on laptops, I paced nervously or passed the time watching a pair of starlings tend to their nest. We waited in a large visiting room with a children's area featuring a tiny table set, alphabet rug and kiddie books -- a reminder that even the worst criminals have families. I found myself thinking about Newton's family. While his parents are deceased, he had a visit with his sister, three of his brothers, a cousin and a niece. I wondered how they felt. None of them planned to witness the execution. They couldn't afford a funeral. Newton was going to be cremated, his ashes to be turned over to his spiritual adviser. At the same time, I wished I knew more about Jason Brewer, the man Newton savagely murdered. None of his family witnessed the execution. One of the reporters heard he had only an aunt in Michigan. The only people there on his behalf were three members of the Richland County Prosecutor's Office. When it was time, prison officials led the four media witnesses to the execution chamber in another building. We passed a black hearse on the short walk. The tiny viewing room couldn't have been more than 12-by-15 feet. In contrast to the chilly visiting area we had just left, the viewing room was stuffy and hot. The only chairs were for the selected witnesses, 3 each for Newton and the victim. Reporters and prison officials had to stand. We watched the execution team prep Newton in an adjacent room via closed-circuit television. It was like watching TV on mute. As EMTs struggled to insert shunts in Newton's arms -- he weighed 265 pounds -- the minutes turned into an hour, then an hour and a half. I impatiently fidgeted and leaned against the wall. Prison officials had told us not to talk. Newton seemed to take the delay better than I did. He frequently talked and laughed with the people who were prepping him to die. With the IV finally hooked up, Newton entered the execution chamber, a dimly lit room with only a bed -- 4 straps on each side -- and a digital clock on the yellow brick wall. I thought of Newton's soul. I interviewed him for about 45 minutes in March -- he wanted to speak out about the delay in his scheduled February execution -- and was struck by his admission he would kill again if given the chance. At the same time, he said he had turned his life over to God and expected to go to heaven. I found the paradox impossible to reconcile. In spite of Newton's crime, the savagery of which defies explanation, I felt for him as 4 intravenous drugs gradually caused his body to shut down. He wasn't a stranger to me since I interviewed him, though I don't profess to know or understand him. Newton seemed to be gone several minutes before he was pronounced dead. His forehead and fingertips had turned blue. I felt conflicted, knowing the responsibilities of my job but at the same time feeling I had no right to be there for such a private moment. When it was over, we walked outside, greeted by bright sunshine. Only when I reached my car did I allow myself to cry. (source: Mark Caudill, Mansfield News Journal) ******************************** The killing joke Cruel and unusual? Christopher Newton laughed until the end. Seems the mirthful, girthful murderer from Huron gave the jailers some consternation Thursday, when they couldn't find a vein in his chubby arm into which to drip the death-dealing chemicals the state decreed he must receive for the grisly death of his cellmate. The delay between Newton's appointment with his maker and the actual stoppage of his heart was the longest in the history of the state's death penalty, it was reported. And that fact was duly noted and entered into the ledger by those who would argue the death penalty is cruel and unusual. Cruel? Maybe. What good way is there to take a life? But the history of state-sanctioned death has gone, the last few centuries, from various forms of S&M to the rope to the firing squad to electrocution (and our own native son, Thomas Edison, wasn't above using electrocution as a sort of backhanded marketing scheme for his direct-current electricity, showing how rival George Westinghouse's alternating current was much more efficient at killing) to gas to the almost clinical sterility of lethal injection. Progress, if you want to call it that, or an attempt to salve our societal conscience, but there was little societal concern in Newton the day he stomped and strangled Jason Brewer for -- well, the excuse changed with the day of the week and the person to whom Newton was talking. The fact is, our various forms of civilizaton have always depended on designating certain of us to do dirty work for the sake of our peace of mind. Sometimes we call them soldiers, sometimes we call them executioners. We've decided we need them, and so we have them. Newton's laughter may have been a form of whistling past -- or into -- the graveyard. But we have to ask ourselves, in the hour he lay bloodied and beaten on the floor of the cell of their shared cell before Newton deigned to tell the guards what he'd done -- how hard was Jason Brewer laughing? (source for both: Viewpoints, Sandusky Register) DELAWARE: Charbonneau gets 20 years in prison Linda Lou Charbonneau received a sentence Friday of 20 years in prison for her role in the deaths of her husband and ex-husband. Charbonneau, 59, had her 2004 death sentence overturned in a state Supreme Court ruling in 2006. As her retrial was under way in March, Charbonneau pleaded guilty to 1 count of 2nd-degree murder. A key witness in the case -- Charbonneau's daughter and 1 of her 2 co-defendants - refused to testify. The guilty plea - to one charge of 2nd-degree murder - carried a possible sentencing range of 10 to 20 years in prison. Charbonneau's death penalty conviction was overturned when the state Supreme Court ruled she deserved a new trial because of the state's decision not to place both co-defendants on the stand. That meant defense attorneys could only question one of the 2 co-defendants. (source: News Journal) MISSISSIPPI: ACLU asks judge to make MDOC honor pact against excessive force at prison The American Civil Liberties Union has asked a federal judge to force Mississippi to honor part of an agreement it made to stop using excessive force at Parchman prison. The Mississippi Department of Corrections and the ACLU have been in negotiations over changes in the prisons Unit 32, which houses about 1,000 inmates, including those on death row. Those negotiations have recently slowed, said Margaret Winter, attorney for the ACLU's National Prison Project. Winter said the ACLU feels "an urgency" because the use of excessive force continues. She pointed to photos of a prisoner she said was recently beaten. Winter said the inmate is mentally ill. As part of an agreement, MDOC has been releasing pictures and videotapes of investigations into the use of excessive force at the prison. Pictures sent to The Associated Press by the ACLU and included with documents filed Monday with the U.S. District Court in Aberdeen show head injuries to an inmate identified as Kevin King by the ACLU. "So it's a real breakthrough now to begin to see what actually goes on there, and some of it's quite shocking," Winter said. "There's a climate there that needs to change, and I think the photographs touched emotion and tell us a lot about the degree of force thats being used." Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said through a spokeswoman that he had not seen the ACLU motion and had no comment "other than we trust the judgment of the court to make the right ruling." In the photos, King is shown bleeding from a head wound. The ACLU alleges the blow to the head was inflicted by a Parchman guard while King was in the shower and out of view of security cameras. Court documents say the officer, identified as Takeo Clark, contended King attacked him after King left the shower. The ACLU said Clark's beating of King on the head with handcuffs came the day after King was released from the psychiatric ward. After King was subdued, restrained and made to kneel, the ACLU said a video shows another guard, Stevie Anderson, spraying a chemical into King's wound on the crown of his head. Neither guard was disciplined, though Clark resigned afterward, Winter said. Winter said the incident is an example of how MDOC has done too little to make needed corrections at Parchman. She said many inmates in Unit 32 fall into the same category as King. The ACLU sued to stop prison officials from placing some inmates in administrative segregation for lack of anywhere else to house them. Once there, Winter said, the inmates are caught in an often violent cycle because of terrible conditions. She said mentally ill inmates often act out because of their disorders, then receive severe punishment. "A lot of the extreme conditions send people around the bend," she said. "They would send sane people around the bend, let alone somebody who may already be mentally fragile." The ACLU and MDOC settled the lawsuit last summer. A judge gave them until June 1 to work out the details, though MDOC recently asked to push back that deadline. The ACLU wants the MDOC to come up with a classification system for Unit 32, to properly document and investigate the use of force and to give mentally ill inmates adequate care so that their disorders dont lead to further discipline. Winter said MDOC recently stopped responding to the ACLUs requests for negotiations. "It's human rights," Winter said. "We have a country that one of our proudest claims to fame is that we don't torture people in prison. Being sent to prison and being locked up and losing one's liberty is the punishment." (source: Associated Press)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.Y., OHIO, DEL., MISS.
Rick Halperin Sun, 27 May 2007 20:21:37 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
