Oct. 11 ILLINOIS----Book Review 'The Man Who Emptied Death Row: Governor George Ryan and the Politics of Crime' by James L. Merriner At the outset of "The Man Who Emptied Death Row," his biography of George Ryan, James L. Merriner astutely identifies the challenge faced by a writer trying to chronicle the life and political career of the now-imprisoned former governor: reconciling "a petty and ruthless grafter who was also a moral entrepreneur against capital punishment..." By the end, Merriner excuses none of Ryan's well-documented corruption, but seems to come down on the side of the man who, in his last days in office, estranged from his own party and a target of federal prosecutors, refocused the nation's long-running debate over capital punishment by pardoning four Death Row inmates and commuting the sentences of all the others. But to get there the reader must endure what feels like a rehash of Ryan's well-known political career and eventual downfall. Ryan's beginnings as a small-town pharmacist. His deliberate climb up the ladder of state politics to the governor's mansion. His trial, conviction and prison sentence that may leave him to die behind bars. All without revelations that might drive a reader through this book. "The Man Who Emptied Death Row" reads little differently from the deep coverage of Ryan's career by Chicago's newspapers and lacks the dramatic and tragic arc that the story holds. To be sure, Ryan is no easy subject. Although he agreed to speak with Merriner, the charges at his trial were off-limits. And because he is not by nature an introspective man, or at least one who can or cares to articulate any emotions, Ryan in the end is of little help to the author, except for some tired anecdotes about the many political and legislative deals he helped to craft, or the ordinary people he aided. What's more, there is little sense that Merriner plumbed Ryan's motivations through those closest to him, other than former Gov. James Thompson, whose law firm provided Ryan's multimillion-dollar trial defense at no cost, and a handful of other Illinois politicians. Instead, Merriner spends far too much time on Ryan's months-long federal corruption trial without a behind-the-scenes look at it. There is little if anything we did not already know. For a book that suggests it is about Ryan's work on the death penalty, that fascinating aspect of Ryan's career is handled far too briefly and with too little reward for the reader. Merriner does ask the question that many observers asked: Was Ryan's stance on capital punishment just a way to deflect attention from his legal troubles? The author concludes Ryan's commutations were a genuine response to his discomfort at having to be the last gatekeeper before an inmate's execution, particularly when the system was so prone to error. But Merriner fails to dig deeper, to examine how Ryan was influenced by the law professors and others at Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions, and how his struggle over whether to commute all the state's death sentences overwhelmed the governor's staff in those final days. Merriner also makes some simple factual errors. At one point, he says the Tribune investigated the death penalty case involving Steve Manning for a January 1999 series. The Manning case, in fact, was part of the newspaper's November 1999 investigation of Illinois' capital punishment system. There is a great human drama in Ryan's life and career. A story with real sweep. As one of the reporters who investigated the state's death penalty and Ryan's handling of it for the Tribune, I have eagerly awaited a penetrating look at the man who left such a lasting mark on that troubled system. Sadly, "The Man Who Emptied Death Row" is not that book. -- The Man Who Emptied Death Row: Governor George Ryan and the Politics of Crime By James L. Merriner Southern Illinois University Press, 240 pages, $29.95 (source: review by Steve Mills, reporter, Chicago Tribune) ALABAMA: The Alabama Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to the state's lethal injection procedures. But there's much not to like about our death penalty Alabama's Supreme Court signed off last week on the state's new lethal injection procedures, which are designed to ensure an inmate is unconscious before getting drugs that induce paralysis and stop the heart. The court rejected the appeal of a condemned prisoner who had claimed, in part, that lethal injection would subject him to "an unnecessary risk of agonizing pain." In ruling against Rick Allen Belisle, judges pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision upholding Kentucky's lethal injection protocol and to Alabama's recent effort to make its procedures even safer for inmates. Before the Kentucky ruling, recall, lethal injection was creating a big legal stir across the country because of concerns that inmates could be conscious as they suffered a paralyzing, suffocating death. In an abundance of caution, Alabama added steps to try to make doubly sure inmates were unconscious before getting drugs that courts have agreed would otherwise result in a "terrifying, excruciating death." Those new steps in Alabama's execution process include calling the inmate's name, brushing his eyelashes and pinching his arm to make sure he is really unconscious. Only after those steps are drugs given to paralyze the inmate and stop his heart. In ruling that Alabama's method of execution doesn't violate the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, the state Supreme Court in a sense gave its stamp of approval to the new procedures - which, all things considered, probably are an improvement. But there is still much that is wrong with Alabama's death penalty, serious shortcomings that, unfortunately, there's been no serious attempt to fix. These shortcomings include insufficient efforts to make sure innocent people aren't executed, to make sure those facing the ultimate punishment have a competent legal defense and to make sure the penalty is applied fairly. As it stands, the death penalty is imposed arbitrarily, almost randomly, and not necessarily with any regard to the viciousness of the crime. What should be irrelevant factors, such as the race of the victim, plays a role. So does sheer luck. Ensuring a quality defense might go a long way toward addressing these problems in the future. But efforts to ensure adequate legal representation are sporadic across the state, and there's still the issue of those who are already on death row. A number of them were tried and sentenced to death with lawyers whose pay for preparing for the case was capped at $1,000. The court may have no problem with the precise method the state plans to use to put Belisle to death for the 1999 murder of a convenience store clerk in Boaz. But the people of Alabama should have big problems with the way their state imposes the death penalty. (source: Birmingham News) OHIO: Judges order new sentence for Ohioan on death row A federal appeals court in Cincinnati has ordered that a death row inmate who beat a woman to death should be resentenced because his lawyers didn't fully investigate his abusive childhood. A 3-judge panel in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a split ruling Friday in the case of 30-year-old Rayshawn Johnson of Cincinnati. He was convicted of aggravated murder in the November 1997 death of his neighbor. Prosecutors said Johnson entered her house through an unlocked back door and beat her to death with a baseball bat. The Ohio Supreme Court rejected Johnson's appeals. But a U.S. district court ordered a new sentencing after agreeing that he wasn't effectively represented during sentencing. The appeals court affirmed that decision. Prosecutors had argued that the defense attorneys couldn't be blamed because the grandmother and other people they interviewed had not provided information about the negative influence of Johnson's family. (source: Associated Press) MISSOURI----new death sentence Mo. man gets death sentence in taped sex killing In Independnece, a suburban Kansas City man who videotaped the death of a woman he suffocated during sex has been sentenced to death. Richard Davis was sentenced Friday for killing 41-year-old Marsha Spicer in May 2006. A jury convicted the 44-year-old Davis of 1st-degree murder in July. Davis received life sentences on more than 20 other charges. He was also previously found guilty in the sexual attack of a 36-year-old woman in April 2006 and is charged with capital murder in her death. (source: Associated Press) MONTANA: Group against death penalty rallies in Helena When Shujaa Graham tells his story of living on death row, he weeps. Sent to death row in 1976, he lived there until he was eventually acquitted. He was in Helena Friday with other former death row inmates and also relatives of those on death row as part of World Day Against the Death Penalty events. The "Journey of Hope...from Violence to Healing" tour, which held 60 events this week in Montana, seeks to end the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without parole. Graham grew up poor in the South. At 11, he followed his mother to California. Soon he was caught up in gangs and crime. At 18, he received 4 years for robbery. While in prison, he became active in the prison justice movement and learned to read and write. But then on Nov. 22, 1973, a guard was killed. Graham was charged with the crime. Perhaps it was because he was outspoken and a leader, he said. On death row, much of his time was spent in solitary confinement. The cell was so small he could touch all the walls from where he sat on his bed. Then, he said, there were beatings by guards. The prison guards yelled "dead man walking" whenever they took him from his cell into the prison yard. The sea of prisoners would part for him to walk in solitude. The words still echo in his head. "I fought for my life," he said, tears pouring down his face as he addressed a group of about 50 at the Lewis and Clark Library. "I thought I knew prison," he said. "When I went to death row, it was a whole new reality." The California Supreme Court eventually overturned Graham's conviction, and in 1982, after 14 years in prison, he was acquitted and set free. Since then, he's tried to rebuild his life, he said. He has 3 children, the youngest playing baseball on scholarship at a college in Mississippi. "I'm thankful to be here," Graham said, "so I can stand up and fight for human justice." Even on his happiest days, watching his son play baseball, hes haunted by death row memories. "I don't want no one to experience what I have, that's why I fight." Bill Babbitt travels the country telling the story of his brother, Manny, a Vietnam vet, executed by lethal injection on his 50th birthday. Manny served 2 tours of duty in Vietnam. "But it was his 3rd tour of duty in America the war he fought in his head that killed him," said Bill. Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoid schizophrenia, Manny was released from a mental hospital without anyone informing his family he was dangerously mentally ill, said Bill. Bill found himself turning his brother over to Sacramento police, when he discovered Manny was responsible for Leah Shendel's death in December 1980. Bill feels betrayed. The police told him it was unlikely the state would pursue the death penalty against Manny. However, the district attorney did. It was Mannys execution that galvanized David Kaczynski, brother of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, to speak out against the death penalty, David told the crowd. "We're not executing the worst murderers," said David. "We're executing those with the worst attorneys." Race and poverty are determining factors in who winds up on death row, he said. Both Ted and Manny were charged with 1st degree murder, both suffered from mental illness, both were turned over to the police by their brothers, both killed white victims, and both had all-white juries, said David. Ted, who is white, well educated and from a privileged background, received life in prison without parole, although he committed three premeditated murders, said David. Manny, who was black, was a 6th-grade dropout. His victim died of a heart attack following an assault Manny committed during a PTSD episode. "Look at these 2 stories," said David. "Where is the justice?" Words engraved over the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., state "equal justice under law." "These words are a profound aspiration for our culture and our democracy. But the way the death penalty is applied in this country makes a mockery of this aspiration." (source: Independent Record) CALIFORNIA: Police suspend search for body of boy slain by serial killer in 1968----Acting on new information, investigators had been excavating a site near a Moorpark freeway offramp, looking for the remains of Roger Dale Madison. Los Angeles police suspended the search today for the body of a 16-year-old boy who was stabbed to death by a child serial killer in 1968 and believed to be buried near the 23 Freeway in eastern Ventura County. Acting on new information, investigators on Monday began excavating a site near the freeway offramp at Tierra Rejada Road in Moorpark in search of the remains of Roger Dale Madison. Mack Ray Edwards, a former neighbor and friend of the boy's family, confessed to police in 1971 that he killed 6 children, including Madison. Police suspended the search about 1 p.m., said Det. Vivian Flores of the Los Angeles Police Department. "It's really hard for me," Flores said. "The team wanted to go through the weekend. ... How do you go to sleep at night when you have not finished what you need to do? But we have to move on. We did what we had to do. Did I bring him home? No. It's very disheartening." Sherry Barlow, Madison's sister who flew in from Oklahoma this week, planned to go to the excavation site this morning to provide her brother with a long-delayed memorial. "Even if they don't find anything, I can stand there close to where he is and say goodbye," said Barlow, 53. "Because I never got a chance to say goodbye." The last time anyone in his family saw Roger alive was in December 1968, when he left the family's Sylmar home after an argument with his father about smoking. The family thought he had run away. 2 years later, her mother sat down with Barlow and her younger sister Annie to tell them the bad news. "She said she had something to tell us about Roger," Barlow said. "Me or my sister asked when he was coming home. She started crying and said he's not coming home." Roger had been murdered, police told the family -- and not by a stranger but by Edwards, a trusted friend and neighbor. Married and the father of two children, Edwards lived 5 houses down from the Madisons and was a regular visitor. "He was practically a part of the family," Barlow said. Edwards, a heavy-equipment operator, got along well with her father because the 2 had worked in construction, Barlow said. He also displayed a soft side and the ability to relate to the children, especially the boys, she said. Edwards' teenage son was a frequent companion of Roger and his older brother, Rick. It was Edwards who taught Barlow's 2 older brothers to drive and once stayed at their home all night helping nurse Barlow's sick dachshund, Lady, back to health, she said. Throughout it all, he never revealed a dark side. After a botched kidnapping of 3 local girls in 1970, Edwards turned himself in to police and confessed to killing 6 children over 15 years. Edwards said he stabbed Roger in an orange grove in Sylmar and dumped his body somewhere near the 23 Freeway, which was under construction at the time. He later told a Los Angeles County sheriff's jailer that the real number of his victims was closer to 2 dozen. Edwards hanged himself in his cell at San Quentin in 1971. But before his death, he provided key details that led investigators to the site where he disposed of his 1st victim, 8-year-old Stella Darlene Nolan, who disappeared in 1953. Her remains were discovered in Downey, under 8 feet of earth, near a bridge abutment under the 5 Freeway. Edwards also told detectives about killing Roger and using a bulldozer to dispose of his body in a "compaction hole," used during freeway construction to determine if the soil can support the structures being built above it. But Edwards did not give a precise location. Without additional information, police didn't know where to look. Barlow, whose family left California more than 12 years ago, said she had thought about her brother a lot over the years but never believed authorities would find his body. The monstrous nature of Roger's killer was something that Barlow struggled for years to come to grips with as she sought out details of his death. Barlow said she read and reread an article about her brother's killing and Edwards' other victims in True Crime magazine. "I couldn't comprehend a person doing that," she said, "especially to Roger." There was one other haunting detail Barlow's mother told her about the police investigation: Edwards had also planned to kill her oldest brother, Rick; his girlfriend; and another young couple. He was going to bury them somewhere in the foothills. The 2nd of 5 children -- 2 boys and 3 girls -- Roger was a soft-spoken, easy-going and kind boy, Barlow said. He loved animals and music, especially rock 'n' roll. As a teenager, he was as comfortable playing sports with his friends as he was watching over and playing Barbies with his younger sisters on the front porch. In her mind, Barlow can still see Roger playing the guitar in his room. Barlow, who was only 13 when Roger disappeared, said her parents rarely talked about his death because his murder was so devastating. She particularly sensed the heavy burden on her mother, who would sometimes cry when talking about her son. Barlow and her siblings sought comfort from each other. When her parents died, she said, the family decided to keep their ashes in an urn in the hope that one day they could bury them together with Roger. But she thought that day would never come. Then last year, the LAPD, Los Angeles County sheriff's and Pasadena and Torrance police departments announced that they were investigating the long-forgotten child murder cases. The new effort was prompted in part by the research of Pasadena author Weston DeWalt, who in 2006 interviewed Edwards' widow and other relatives. Once the investigation was made public, police received tips that helped narrow their search for Roger's body. 2 sets of search dogs brought in at different times homed in on the same patch of ground next to the 23 Freeway, police said. This summer Barlow got a call from an LAPD detective at her home in McAlester, Okla. The detective said she thought they had found the place where Edwards had buried Roger. "I was just in shock, because it had been 40 years," Barlow said. "I was probably in shock for several days until it really sunk in that she was trying to find his body, his remains." Authorities are digging near a freeway offramp in Moorpark. So far, they have not found any remains, frustrating some of the detectives. Today is the last day of the search. Barlow and her daughter, Rebekah Kelton, will visit the site this morning. She hopes this trip will let her finally get past his horrible death. "I've been saying a prayer every night that they find some of his remains," she said. If that happens, they will be buried with the ashes of her parents. If not, a chaplain will administer last rites"Maybe I can have some peace," she said. (source: Los Angeles Times)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ILL., ALA., OHIO., MO., MONT., CALIF.
Rick Halperin Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:05:11 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
