Oct. 3 VIRGINIA: Death row inmate's appeal will not be heard in court The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to hear the appeal of Christopher Scott Emmett, who is currently on Virginia's death row for beating a co-worker to death with a brass lamp in a Danville hotel in 2001, according to the Washington Post. Emmett had claimed that his trial attorney failed to present to the jury an accurate portrait of his abusive childhood. Emmett is scheduled to be executed Oct. 17, although that is likely to be postponed as the Supreme Court hears a Kentucky case challenging whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. The Washington Post also reports that Emmett's attorneys are pursuing 2 other avenues of keeping him alive: A clemency petition that is before Gov. Timothy Kaine and a challenge to Virginia's method of lethal injection that is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals. Kaine granted a stay of execution in June. At the time, Kaine said the stay was needed to give the Supreme Court a chance to review Emmett's case. The Supreme Court had rejected Emmett's request for a stay of execution, but had not ruled on his request for a writ of certiorari. Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Hackett Souter and John Paul Stevens noted that they would have granted Emmett's request for a reprieve, but that was still one justice shy of the 5 needed. So, Kaine intervened. Emmett was convicted of the April 2001 murder and robbery of his friend and co-worker John Fenton Langley. Langley was beaten to death in a motel room at the Innkeeper on Riverside Drive in Danville. (source: Danville Register Bee) OHIO: Death row inmate in Putnam Cty awaits new trial Kenneth Richey claims he never murdered a little girl he was convicted 20 years ago of killing. On Tuesday, Richey was back in Common Pleas Court, this time seeking release on bond while he awaits his new trial. In August, a Federal Appeals Court ruled his lawyers mishandled the case and expert testimony was flawed. The court ordered Richey be retried or released. In 1986, Richey was convicted and sentenced to death for setting a fire in Columbus Grove that killed 2-year-old Cynthia Collins. Prosecutors said he set the blaze to punish a former girlfriend who lived in the same building as Cynthia's family. Richey has always proclaimed his innocence, and, on Tuesday, his legal team of six lawyers asked a judge to release him on bond while they prepare for a new trial. They were turned down by Judge Alan Travis. This case is getting international attention, reports News 11's Dick Berry. In fact, Richey grew up in Scotland and became a British citizen while behind bars. Reporters from the UK attended his bond hearing in Ottawa. Also on hand were his ex-wife, Wendy, and his son, Sean. His ex-wife is there, she says, "Because I believe he's innocent." Richey's been sitting on Ohio's death row since 1986, only recently establishing a bond with the son he never knew. "About three years ago is when we started talking again. and started getting to know each other again. Now we're inseparable," Richey's son, Sean, says. His trial is scheduled for Nov. 26. Bond is set at $10 million. Richey remains behind bars but uses 2 words to describe his day in court: "Pretty good." (source: WTOL News) MARYLAND: O'Malley asked to act quickly on death penalty House Republican leaders are asking Gov. Martin O'Malley to draft regulations immediately to reinstate the Maryland death penalty. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, has said in the past months he would not draft new lethal-injection guidelines required by the state's highest court before allowing the state to proceed with executions effectively creating a moratorium in Maryland. House Minority Leader Anthony J. O'Donnell, Southern Maryland Republican, and House Minority Whip Christopher B. Shank, Washington County Republican, say Mr. O'Malley shirked his constitutional duty to enforce the law. "In refusing to act to enforce that law, we believe, you have engaged in a de facto suspension of the law," Mr. O'Donnell and Mr. Shank wrote in a letter to the governor this week. "We consider this inaction to be not only an improper appropriation of legislative authority, but a deliberate omission of your duty to the oath of office." House Republicans sent a similar letter this week to House Speaker Michael E. Busch, Anne Arundel Democrat, and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., Southern Maryland Democrat, asking them to reprimand Mr. O'Malley. "I don't think I have anything to say about that today," Mr. O'Malley said yesterday. Mr. Busch and Mr. Miller were not available for comment. Mr. O'Malley fought this year to repeal the state's death penalty and recently said he would try again next year. The Maryland Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, ruled in December that Maryland could not carry out executions until it developed new guidelines for administering lethal injections. Attempts to repeal the death penalty failed in the General Assembly, along with an attempt to force Mr. O'Malley to draft new guidelines. 6 inmates remain on Maryland's death row. Republicans also asked Mr. O'Malley to rescind his two executive orders that allow child care and home health care workers to unionize. In both instances, Mr. O'Donnell and Mr. Shank argue, Mr. O'Malley co-opted power from the General Assembly. Lawmakers have defeated measures to allow unionization. No Maryland governor has been prosecuted for violating the oath of office, said Robert A. Zarnoch, counsel to the legislature. "It's a very tough thing to do." The lawmakers wrote to Mr. O'Malley: "You have elected to defy the Legislature and act through executive order. We feel that you have chosen to ignore the power of the people of Maryland and overstepped the boundary of separation of powers." A Cecil County judge last week issued a temporary restraining order barring Mr. O'Malley from enforcing the order allowing child care workers to unionize, but a Court of Appeals judge stayed the order at the attorney general's request. A Circuit Court judge is expected to hold a hearing later this month. (source: Washington Times) MISSISSIPPI: State seeks new execution date for Chickasaw man Earl Wesley Berry has reached the end of his appeals and should be executed, the state attorney general's office says. Attorney General Jim Hood filed legal pleadings Monday with the Mississippi Supreme Court, asking it to allow Berry to be put to death before the end of the month. Justice William Waller Jr. on Tuesday ordered Berry to file a response to the pleading by 1 p.m. Friday. Berry was convicted of kidnapping and murdering Mary Bounds of Houston in November 1987. He was convicted of kidnapping Bounds as she left First Baptist Church in Houston and of beating her and leaving her in the woods, where she died. The move by Hood's office came after the U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, declined to hear Berry's recent appeal. Berry has weathered a series of appeals and hearings in state court. He was first convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die in 1988 in Chickasaw County. The state Supreme Court overturned the death sentence from the 1st trial but let the guilty verdict stand. The state Supreme Court said the trial judge didn't tell the jury that Berry would receive life in prison without parole if the jury decided against the death penalty. Prosecutors held a 2nd sentencing hearing in 1992. Berry appealed again to the state Supreme Court, saying the lower court judge erred by not holding a hearing to determine why prosecutors excused all but one black person from the pool of potential jurors. The prosecution and defense can excuse a certain number of potential jurors without giving a reason. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the potential jurors cannot be dismissed for racial reasons. A majority of the state Supreme Court agreed and ordered the hearing. The lower court found against Berry's claim, which in 2001, the state's high court affirmed. (source: Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal) *************** So, how best to kill murderers & rapists? The death penalty, like abortion and religion, is among those topics to avoid if one wishes to keep the peace. Say you're at a party and you hear the words "partial birth" or "those godless devils" or "let's hang 'em all." You might just want to get out of Dodge and live to party another night. I've never been much on the death penalty on the theory that hard time is probably worse on a guy and that a life sentence might be cheaper on the budget than wading through the muck of endless appeals with herds of lawyers on the clock. But I've never been one to light candles and protest at the gates up at Parchman. There are only so many tears one can shed, and I prefer saving mine for those who've not raped and murdered. Just call me sensitive. The courts will soon readdress the issue of capital punishment and the "cruel and unusual" principle as it may apply to lethal injections. SHOOTIN' UP The irony of the lethal injection - the so-called death cocktail - is that it was created because the gas chamber and electric chair were about as subtle as a 2-by-4 across the forehead. Guys flopped and wiggled and moaned and sometimes seemed to sizzle and catch fire, which is pretty creepy. I recall the case of Jimmy Lee Gray, a rapist-murderer who did not go gently into that good Delta night. He was the 1st guy Mississippi put to death after the courts had recleared a path to capital punishment. Jimmy Lee raped a little girl and threw her in the mud, where she suffocated and died. Even for the usual band of candlelighters and protesters, he was hard to take. Anyway, we're sitting there in the old visitors center up at the prison farm within eyeshot of the gate as midnight approached and then passed. We sweated and waited and fought off mosquitoes as big as Buicks when the woman from The New York Times finally slammed her hand on the table and said something to the effect that if they don't kill this SOB soon, I'm going to miss my deadline. Even in matters of law and philosophy and religion, one has to wrestle with practical matters. At long last, Jimmy Lee, in a wisp of smoke, gave in to the gas and we made the paper. ALTERNATIVES? If lethal injection doesn't pass the smell test, then what? If you want painless, then Dr. J.I. Guillotin's contraption, the guillotine, invented during the French Revolution for humanitarian and efficiency reasons, would seem to be just the ticket. It separates noggin from neck in, dare we say, a heartbeat, though, I expect, there is no small amount of pre-chop terror involved. In order to soften its complicity, the government could simply give the murderous miscreant over to, say, Tony Soprano's real-life counterparts, who, I understand, are impeccable at making nuisances disappear. And, really, isn't that the point? (source: Orley Hood, Clarion Ledger) UTAH: Slayer's lawyers want off his appeal, deny trying to delay death-row case A Utah defense attorney told a judge Tuesday that he lacks the legal training to represent death-row inmate Douglas Stewart Carter in his appeal and asked to be allowed to withdraw from the case. Mark Moffat cited the complexity of death-penalty law and his lack of formal training in post-conviction work. He told 4th District Judge Lynn Davis he fears making a legal mistake that could have deadly consequences for his client. "I am not competent to represent Mr. Carter," he said. "We're dealing with a terribly complex, technical area of the law." The other defense attorney helping with the inmate's state post-conviction review, Leo Griffard, also is asking to be let off the case, but for financial reasons. Griffard and Moffat want Davis to appoint new lawyers to represent Carter, who killed a Provo woman in 1985. Thomas Brunker, an assistant state attorney general, objected to the requests to be taken off the case and to the appointment of new lawyers. He said Carter, who never graduated from high school, could proceed with his appeals on his own if Davis allows the two current lawyers to withdraw and no new lawyer will take the case. Gary Oleson, the son of victim Eva Oleson, also asked the judge to move the case along. "For nearly 23 years, our family has been trying to put this tragedy to rest," Oleson said. "These are simply delay tactics." Both defense lawyers emphatically denied they are trying to drag out the matter, but said they could end up in financial ruin. Neither has received any payment for their work in the case since January 2006. Both say the matter is losing them paying clients. The state caps the attorneys' fee for death penalty appeals at $37,500 and makes payments only after certain work is completed. Moffat said his law firm has put in about 506 hours of work in the case and is owed $10,000 from the state. Splitting the fee with Griffard for his assistance would give his firm $9.88 an hour, he said. "Lawyers getting paid less than $20 an hour is crazy," Moffat said. "Getting $9 an hour is insane." Griffard said he's not "some rich fat cat lawyer" trying to make money off the case and pointed out that he paid his own travel costs from Idaho to be at Tuesday's hearing. The Utah Division of Finance recently issued a $10,000 check for their work, but Moffat and Griffard said they will forgo payment so the money can be used for new lawyers. Davis said he will make a decision within 60 days on the requests to withdraw and to appoint new attorneys. In an unrelated case, 3rd District Judge Stephen Roth will hold a hearing today on whether he can force an unwilling attorney to represent death-row inmate Ralph Leroy Menzies in his appeal. The Menzies case has stalled because no qualified attorney has agreed to take the case. (source: Salt Lake Tribune) NORTH CAROLINA: Our View: Judge's order should have led to formal review of execution method Senior Administrative Law Judge Fred Morrison Jr. wasn't the first to push for death penalty prudence in North Carolina. For years lawyers and advocates for inmates and some physicians have urged North Carolina to reconsider its capital punishment process. In August, Morrison ordered top elected officials to hear the death penalty detractors out, a step that should have occurred years ago. But the Council of State rejected Morrison's order Tuesday, and in doing so missed an opportunity to ensure that the process is as fair and safe as possible. The Council of State - comprised of the governor, lieutenant governor and other elected leaders of the state's executive branch of government - said Morrison didn't have the jurisdiction to decide the issue. That may or may not be true, but the logic behind Morrison's ruling is sound. And the council is remiss for ignoring it. The 3 drugs used for lethal injections are unreliable. The cocktail is supposed to render death row inmates unconscious to prevent their pain and suffering, then paralyze their muscles, and finally stop their hearts. But the process can fail, leaving inmates paralyzed but not unconscious, unable to cry out as they endure excruciating pain and, finally, suffocation. When the procedure doesn't work, inmates suffer the kind of cruel and unusual punishment that the Constitution bans. There are other major problems. Earlier this year lethal injections were put on hold as questions about the role of doctors during executions were resolved. In North Carolina, death row sentences are not meted out in a fair and consistent manner. According to the Common Sense Foundation, poor defendants with court-appointed lawyers are more likely to end up on death row. And the odds of getting a death sentence are 3.5 times higher if the victim is white. This year the Council of State ignored two opportunities to review execution protocol - first during the brief moratorium, and then later following Morrison's decree. It's no wonder that the public's support of the lethal-injection process is waning. It will continue to drop until lawmakers are willing to find and fix cracks in the system. (source: The Fayetteville Observer) **************** BODIES WERE FOUND NEAR AIRPORT----Death penalty case goes to jury; Man convicted in 1996 shooting deaths of wife and her daughter 12 jurors are expected to sit around a table this morning and talk for the first time about whether they want to let Ricky Graham live or die. Graham, convicted last week in the decade-old murders of his wife, Tracy Coleman, and her 1-year-old daughter, Rishea, is facing the death penalty or life in prison without parole. Jurors heard final arguments in the sentencing phase of his trial Tuesday. In his closing, Graham attorney Norman Butler pleaded with jurors to spare his 43-year-old client. "There is no justification for what he did. There is none," Butler told the jurors. "I know you think about the baby. I do too. But will killing Ricky Sylvester Graham bring Ms. Coleman back or Rishea back? We would do it, if it would. I believe he would volunteer to do it. But it won't bring them back." Graham was convicted of shooting Rishea and 26-year-old Coleman in the head in May 1996, a month before Graham was set to go on trial for stabbing Coleman. The mother and daughter were found buried in shallow graves near Charlotte/Douglas International Airport. Prosecutors contend that Graham killed Coleman so she couldn't testify in the stabbing case. "The defendant tried to get Tracy to leave town, so she wouldn't be available to testify against him," Assistant District Attorney Glenn Cole told the jury. "When she wouldn't agree, this defendant threatened her and told her she would not make it to court. And, of course, she never did." Graham was convicted in the knife attack and sentenced to at least nine years in prison. He was still there when he was charged in 2001 with the murders of Coleman and Rishea. "Tracy will never be there to watch T'Keyah (another daughter) grow up. She'll never be there to give her advice. She'll never know if she has grandchildren. Her opportunities are gone," Cole said. "Rishea will never know what it's like to run. She'll never learn to talk. She never had an opportunity to grow up." Family members sitting the courtroom wept as Cole spoke. He told jurors the death penalty is reserved for the most extreme crimes and that the murders of Coleman and Rishea fit that category. But Butler argued otherwise. He said death is appropriate in cases where a lot of people are killed and when there is no "redeeming value in the accused." He said Graham has changed. And he asked jurors to consider that Graham has a well-below-average IQ, was raised without a male role model in his life, and suffers from a personality disorder. "You have the right and the power," he said, "to choose life." (source: Charlotte Observer)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., OHIO, MD., MISS., UTAH, N.C.
Rick Halperin Wed, 3 Oct 2007 10:56:56 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
