[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., TENN., N.J.

[Rick Halperin]

April 1



TEXAS:

So children are a priority?


TEXAS legislators lack credibility when it comes to protecting our
children.

The Texas House recently passed a bill (HB 8) that would increase
penalties for people who molest children, and the state Senate is
considering a similar bill (SB 5).

Although I support efforts to protect children against child molesters, I
oppose these bills because they might actually prove harmful to children
and to law-enforcement efforts.

I also oppose these bills because they include a provision that allows
juries to give the death penalty for second-time child molesters.

Children can be protected by long-term incarceration and treatment of
child molesters  our death penalty in Texas doesn't need to be expanded!

And, such expansion might prove to be unconstitutional, anyway.

I am concerned that these bills are motivated more by politics than by a
genuine concern for our children.

My skepticism is based on statistics published by Texans Care for
Children, which say that among the 50 states, Texas has one of the highest
child-poverty rates. It also ranks near the bottom in terms of dollars
spent per child to prevent child abuse and neglect. It is clear that Texas
politicians have failed miserably when it comes to helping and protecting
our children.

The politicians who want to enact harsher punishments for child molesters
should first demonstrate that they are concerned about the thousands of
children who live in poverty, who don't have health insurance and who are
living in abusive and neglectful homes.

These politicians then might have more credibility when it comes to
passing stronger laws to protect children from child molesters.

DAVID ATWOOD--Houston

(source: Letter to the Editor, Houston Chronicle, Mar. 31)






CONNECTICUT:

Crime reporter Gerald Demeusy dead at 90


Gerald Demeusy, a crime reporter so well known that he once received a
wave from a serial killer in the electric chair, died Saturday after being
hospitalized with pneumonia. He was 90.

Demeusy covered crime for The Hartford Courant from 1953 to 1983. Before
that, he worked for the former Manchester (Conn.) Herald.

"Demeusy personally knew many of those who were executed, and he had a
million stories," said Courant columnist Jim Shea, who worked with Demusey
in the 1970s. "Back in those days he could often be found on death row
playing cards with the condemned prisoners. He was straight out of 'The
Front Page.'"

Demeusy covered six executions for The Courant, including the 1960 death
of Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky, whose crime spree he had chronicled for the
paper.

Taborsky and an accomplice murdered 5 men and 1 woman during the 10-week
robbery spree of liquor stores and gas stations in the Hartford area.

Taborsky waved to the reporter from the electric chair. Demeusy later
wrote a book about the case, "Ten Weeks of Terror."

Speaking at his retirement party in 1984, Demeusy described his career
this way:

"I heard the whine of bullets and dodged debris in prison riots, rode in
police cruisers, chased ambulances, tagged along on manhunts, covered
shootings, raced through flaming buildings and witnessed executions. I
wrote thousands of stories. ... Some of the best came out of court."

Demeusy is survived by 4 children. Funeral arrangements were incomplete
Sunday.

(source: Hartford Courant)






USA----impending federal execution

Execution Set For Arkansas Man In 1994 Kidnap-Rape-Murder


The federal government will bring an Arkansas man to Terre Haute to be
executed on April 16th.

Bruce Carneil Webster was convicted in the 1994 kidnapping and death of
Lisa Rene. The 16-year-old girl was raped, beaten and buried alive after
her abduction was recorded in a desperate 911 call.

The Bureau of Prisons says Webster is scheduled to die by injection.

Webster and Orlando Hall were among 5 men whom prosecutors said kidnapped
Rene from her Arlington, Texas, home. The girls body was found in a
shallow grave at a nature reserve in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on October 2,
1994.

Webster would become the 1st prisoner put to death by the federal
government since the March 18, 2003, and the 4th since the government
resumed executions in 2001.

(source: Associated Press)



TENNESSEE:

Death Penalty Case


A Polk County man may face the death penalty for allegedly murdering his
estranged wife's friend.

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Brad Waldroup. He's accused of
killing Leslie Bradshaw and attempting to murder his estranged wife. Last
August, Bradshaw went with her friend Penny Waldroup to deliver Waldroup's
children for a visit with their father. According to detectives, at some
point they started to argue and that's when Waldroup murdered Bradshaw and
injured penny.

Police say he murdered Bradshaw in front of his 4 children.

(source: WRCB TV News)






NEW JERSEY:

Death penalty in U.S. is topic, April 4


Anne James, executive director of the International Justice Project, will
present a lecture titled "The Death Penalty in the U.S.: The Sentence With
No Appeal" at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 4, in 1 Robertson Hall.

The International Justice Project is a human rights advocacy and research
organization based in the United Kingdom. James advises a number of
national and international governmental organizations and is a consultant
to the European Union on the use of capital punishment and related human
rights issues.

Additionally, she liaises with both military and civilian defense
attorneys in Guantanamo Bay cases and has done so since the opening of the
base 5 years ago. In 2006, she was awarded the Order of the British Empire
for services to human rights overseas.

The lecture is sponsored by the Liechtenstein Institute on
Self-Determination and the Program in Law and Public Affairs.

(source: Princeton University News)