April 8 TEXAS: Murderer aims to speed up execution----Selwyn Davis expected to pursue only a required appeal. In a move that could trim his stay on Texas' death row from the norm of about 10 years to less than 2, condemned killer Selwyn P. Davis wants to waive most of his appeals, according to his lawyer. Ariel Payan, Davis' appeals lawyer, declined to say why Davis doesn't want to carry out all of his appeals. During his October trial in Travis County, Davis' lawyers said he conceded that he fatally stabbed Regina Lara, his ex-girlfriend's mother, at her 381/2 Street apartment. But they argued that his crime was not committed in the course of a burglary and robbery, as charged, and that therefore it didn't fit Texas' definition of capital murder. Davis killed Lara during a 2-day crime spree that began when he beat his ex-girlfriend, fracturing her eye socket, and poured rubbing alcohol over her head and threatened to set her on fire, according to testimony. During the capital murder trial, Davis stuck his middle finger up at Lara's family. It is uncommon for death row inmates to waive their appeals, and some defendants who initially say they don't want to appeal change their minds, according to death penalty lawyers. These include William Murray, a North Texas man condemned in 1998. Murray, convicted of killing an elderly woman in Kaufman, said in 1999 that he wanted his execution expedited. He is still on death row after years of appeals, including a legal fight to reinstate his appellate rights. Just over a year after Angel Maturino Resendiz was sentenced to death in 2000 for killing a Houston doctor, the confessed serial killer acknowledged his guilt and said he wanted to waive his appeals in the case. But his mental competency to do so was questioned, and a series of appeals was eventually filed on his behalf. He was executed in 2006. The average stay on Texas' death row is 10 years and 3 months, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Since Texas reinstated the death penalty in the early 1980s, the inmate with the shortest stay on death row before execution was Joe Gonzales, who was executed in 1996 after eight months there. Gonzales, a roofer, was convicted in Potter County of the murder and robbery of his boss in Amarillo and waived his appeals. Davis, 26, was sent to death row in Livingston from Travis County on Oct. 17, 2007, two days after his death sentence was announced. On Nov. 20, he wrote the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals a letter. "I would like to cancel my appeals," the letter said, in part. "All of them!" Last month, the court entered an order stating that Texas law guarantees a review by the Court of Criminal Appeals of a death penalty conviction and sentence. Payan said Davis has agreed to cooperate in that so-called direct appeal. But Payan said that Davis wants to waive his right to file applications for writ of habeas corpus in federal and state courts, the process by which inmates can challenge the legality of their incarceration. That process, which takes years to run its course, can be waived. Once briefs are filed by Davis and the state in the direct appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals is under no time limit to issue an order. Payan said some decisions are reached within months and others take years. He estimates the quickest Davis' case could be disposed on appeal and ready for an execution date would be in a year and a half. Executions in Texas have been on hold since September as the U.S. Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of lethal injection. A decision is expected this summer. Davis is in the Travis County Jail and will appear Friday before state District Judge Julie Kocurek, who presided over his trial. The Court of Criminal Appeals ordered Kocurek to question Davis on a series of issues related to his appeals, including whether he wants to waive any rights, and if so, whether he makes that waiver knowingly and intentionally. Even if he did waive his right to appeal, the court would examine the trial record in its own review of the case, said University of Texas law professor Rob Owen, co-director of the school's Capital Punishment Clinic. "There is a very strong public interest in ensuring that the Court of Criminal Appeals reviews every death penalty at least once to ensure conformity with basic fundamental rights," Owen said. Owen said that Davis' history of mental problems his lawyers argued in trial that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder coupled with the "dehumanizing conditions" on death row could have led to Davis' decision. Owen said that Kocurek will need to learn whether Davis' "decision or this desire was a product of a rational thought process or an unfettered will" before allowing him to waive any rights. (source: Austin American-Statesman) ARKANSAS: Murderer Sentenced To Death A long day at the end of a long week of trial concluded at 9 p.m. Friday when a jury found James Aaron Miller guilty of 3 counts of capital murder and determined that he should be sentenced to death. The 7-woman, 5-man panel deliberated about four hours on the guilty verdicts and about 2 hours on the sentences, then left without hearing the judge hand down the penalty it recommended. After asking Miller if he had anything to say before sentencing the defendant declined Judge James O. Cox told him he will be sent to the Arkansas Department of Correction, where he will remain until he is executed by lethal injection on May 7. Miller, 32, was charged with capital murder in connection with the December 2006 slayings of his girlfriend and her two children Bridgette Barr, 28, Sydney Barr, 5, and Garrett Barr, 2. Police found the victims decomposing bodies Dec. 26 when they performed a welfare check on Miller, which his vacationing father had requested after receiving several distressing text messages from him. Medical examiners later determined Bridgette Barr had been strangled to death on or about Dec. 22; her daughter was smothered, then stabbed to death 1 or 2 days later; and her son died of suffocation. The boy's time of death was undetermined because of damage to his body, which had been placed in a hot oven after death. Prosecuting Attorney Gunner DeLay, who elicited Miller's complete confession to all three murders Wednesday, said the verdict was "just" and "right," and the jurors followed the law as he had asked them to do. "The community is going to be proud, because the system worked," he said. "I'm a father of 4 children myself. It was very hard emotionally on our entire legal team, because were all fathers." DeLay's team included Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Dan Shue and deputy prosecutors Michael Wagoner and Aaron Jennen. "We identified with Ray Barr," DeLay said, referring to Bridgette Barr's ex-husband and the custodial father of their children. Barr testified Monday that he had made holiday visitation arrangements with his ex-wife and then couldn't reach her to pick up the children on Dec. 24 or 25. He learned of their deaths Dec. 26 when Fort Smith police asked him to come to the station about a matter regarding his family. During the sentencing phase Friday afternoon, Barr presented a heart-wrenching compilation of family pictures and read a victim-impact statement. "I always put my children first," he read. "When Bridgette and I divorced, I fought 2 years for custody, not because of anything about Bridgette but because of Aaron Miller. I knew he was a violent and abusive man." Barr told a reporter the death sentence gives him "some" closure and peace. He also said he never believed Miller was mentally ill, which Miller claimed in his defense. Defense attorneys Coy J. Rush Jr. and David L. Rush had pursued the mental-incapacity defense in the face of overwhelming evidence that Miller did commit the murders. Had the defense succeeded, the jury could have found him not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. In their sentencing deliberations, jurors considered aggravating and mitigating circumstances and were permitted to consider evidence of Miller's mental problems among mitigators. The Rushes added a separate claim that Miller was mentally retarded. But the state held sway in almost every aspect of the case. Although the capital-murder charges included lesser charges 1st-degree murder for the children, and 1st- and 2nd-degree murder for Bridgette Barr jurors unanimously found Miller guilty of the maximum charge in each case. The sentencing phase led to similar results. The jury decided Miller was not mentally retarded at the time of the slayings, and that all aggravating circumstances presented by the state were proven beyond reasonable doubt. As for mitigating circumstances, they found none existed in the murders of Bridgette and Sydney Barr. In the murder of Garrett Barr, they found Miller's capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was impaired by mental disease or defect, intoxication, or drug abuse. Dozens of relatives and friends of the victims sat together during trial, and emotions reached a peak during Miller's testimony Wednesday. When the defendant divulged previously unadmitted details of Garrett Barr's dying struggle, loud sobs could be heard and several people hurriedly left the room. Those same supporters lined up to embrace and thank DeLay when the sentencing verdict was delivered. Other people to give victim-impact statements included Brian Baxter, Bridgette Barr's younger brother, who declared Miller took Bridgette away from the family but would never take away her memory, which still makes them smile. Linda McCormack, Ray Barr's mother, said every day she thinks about how "terrible scared" her grandchildren must have been, and how she loved to hear their little voices saying "Meemaw, I love you." David Rush, who told the jury a life sentence was the only way to end this story because a death sentence would be appealed for years, told a reporter: "This was a tragedy for all concerned." (source: Fort Smith Times Record) FLORIDA: Convicted murderer's appeal: Juror favored death penalty Convicted killer Paul Evans should not be put to death because a juror involved in the case was predestined to invoke the death penalty, Evans' attorney told the Florida Supreme Court on Monday. An attorney for Evans, sentenced to death for the 1991 murder-for-hire killing of Alan Pfeiffer, asked the court to throw out the death penalty because his trial attorney erred in allowing a juror who told officials she would likely invoke the death penalty if Evans was found guilty. "The juror said she was not going to follow the laws in terms of the death penalty," said Suzanne Myers Keffer, Evans' attorney. When asked, the juror said she was a "9 on a scale of 10" to invoke the death penalty, Keffer said. Justices, however, were skeptical, saying the veteran trial lawyer assigned to Evans' case, Assistant Public Defender Mark Harllee, made decisions based on the best interests of his client. "What you're asking us is to micromanage the jury selection process," said justice Barbara Pariente. Monday's court date was the latest chapter in a 17-year saga. Evans entered the mobile home of Alan Pfeiffer shortly before 9 p.m. March 22, 1991, and shot him three times. The murder, the jury ruled, was part of a conspiracy launched by Connie Pfeiffer to kill her abusive husband and collect a $120,000 life insurance payout. During his unsuccessful direct appeal in 2001, Evans' attorney Gary Caldwell tried to poke holes in the state case by saying Connie Pfeiffer may have instead pulled the trigger hours later, killing her estranged husband in a conspiracy that would not be unraveled for 6 years. Connie Pfeiffer is serving life in prison. The conspirators' alibi, which included being seen at a local fair the night of the shooting, was not unraveled until 1997, when law-enforcement officials convinced conspirator Sara Thomas to come forward. Evans, 19 at the time of the murder, was sentenced to death in June 1999 by a 9-3 vote. He is being held at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford. The high court made no ruling Monday. (source: Palm Beach Post) **************** Bush's privatization of death row counsel is questioned With little debate or fanfare, one of former Gov. Jeb Bushs privatization efforts may fade away this year. The Senate Judiciary Committee passed Senate Bill 1690 unanimously Tuesday. Among other things, the bill would return control of attorneys representing death row inmates back to the state. In 2003, Bush and legislative allies successfully privatized the northern region of the Capital Collateral Regional Council the unwieldy name for state-paid attorneys to provide appellate representation for death row inmates. The central and southern regions of the group stayed under state control. But the bill's sponsor, Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa, said Tuesday that the Florida Supreme Court had made it clear that it had questions about the quality of representation provided by the rotating cast of private attorneys in the privatized north Florida region. CCRC attorneys have provided more thorough review of death row appeals, but that additional cost may raise eyebrows in the budget-sensitive Legislature this year. (source: Sarasota Herald Tribune) USA: Death penalty diminishes U.S. moral standing The colored criminal, Clifton Harris, well known as the Auburn murderer, was hanged this noon, in the jail-yard here, until he was dead, according to the terms of the sentence pronounced. The body dropped about 8 feet and for about a couple of minutes swung to and fro. The death struggle was terrible. To some it seemed as if the wretched man was conscious after he fell and drew up his body, and that his chest heaved convulsively. 25 minutes after the spring was touched the body was cut down and placed in a common pine coffin. It was examined by the physicians present and found that the death was caused by strangulation and that the neck was not broken. The Maine Legislature abolished the death penalty in 1887. It's long past time for the rest of the nation to follow Maine's example. There is nothing new in the debate over the death penalty. Proponents call for justice and retribution. Despite evidence to the contrary, some claim capital punishment deters crime. Opponents argue that death is imposed on those least able to defend themselves -- especially poor people and racial minorities -- and that the judgment is subject to errors that cannot be corrected after the wrong person has been executed. DNA evidence has brought freedom to far too many people wrongfully convicted for anyone to doubt that innocent people have been executed. The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments in a case that has held up executions for about a year. That case, stemming from Kentucky, involves claims that lethal injections used to execute prisoners are unconstitutional because they can inflict unnecessary pain and suffering. In an effort to make killing modern, rapid and constitutional, states have changed the way they execute people. The electric chair was thought to be a better way to kill than the hangman's noose. Then injections perverted medicine from healing to killing. The decision about whether this process is constitutional may matter to technicians but it ignores the greater question. Justice Harry A. Blackmun recognized that in a decision issued on Jan. 22, 1994. "... the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination...and mistake," Blackmun wrote in a minority opinion in a death penalty case. "From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. ... It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies." Blackmun said he believed that the court "eventually will conclude that the effort to eliminate arbitrariness while preserving fairness in the infliction of (death) is so plainly doomed to failure that it and the death penalty must be abandoned altogether. I may not live to see that day, but I have faith that eventually it will arrive. The path the court has chosen lessens us all." It seems unlikely that the current Supreme Court will change course. However, there may be progress in some states. New Jersey abolished capital punishment in December. That leaves 36 states and the federal government where death is still considered justice. Texas remains the undisputed leader of this morbid process. The New York Times reported that in the last 3 years as several other states have backed way, Texas' share of the nation's executions has gone from 32 % to 62 %. David R. Dow, a law professor in Houston who has represented death row inmates, told the Times he thinks the day is not far off when essentially all executions in the United States will take place in Texas. "The reason that Texas will end up monopolizing executions," he said, "is because every other state will eliminate it." Capital punishment is a disgrace, a barbaric remnant long discarded by most of the nations of the world. Dozens of countries continue to execute people, but just 6 -- China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan and the United States account for 90 % of the executions. In November, the United States joined Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, Sudan and Zimbabwe in opposing a United Nations resolution declaring that the death penalty "undermines human dignity" and that there is "no conclusive evidence" of its deterrent value and "any miscarriage of justice is irreversible and irreparable." That is ugly company for our nation to keep, ugly support for an indefensible policy. The resolution passed. The United States failed. (source: David B. Offer is the retired executive editor of the (Maine) Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel) *************** Constitutionality Of Death Penalty For Child Rapist To Be Reviewed By U.S. Supreme Court Another landmark decision is expected to be issued by the U.S. Supreme Court as it reviews the constitutionality of imposing the death penalty on a child rapist. The case involves Patrick Kennedy, a Louisiana resident, found guilty of raping his stepdaughter, who is 8. 30 years ago the Supreme Court thumbed down imposing the death penalty on a rapist whose victim was a 16-year old married woman, classified then by the court as an adult. The decision on the Kennedy case is much awaited across the nation since allowing death penalty for child rape in Louisiana would lead to other states passing a similar law. So far 5 states have passed legislation approving capital punishment for rapists of young children. Even before the Supreme Court comes out with its decision, social workers have warned approval of the imposition of death penalty may only discourage reporting similar crimes since most of rapists of young victims are relatives or friends. The justice will hear the Kennedy case on Wednesday. Kennedy was convicted in 2003. The case was elevated to the Supreme Court on Sept. 11, 2007. Jeffrey Fisher, Kennedy's lawyer told USA Today, there has been no executions for rape in over 43 years in the U.s. "Although rape is a very serious crime, no rapist should be punished more severely than the average... murderer, why by definition is not subject to capital punishment." (source: All Headline News) *********************** People Who are Well Represented at Trial do not Get the Death Penalty."---- Legal Representation and the Death Penalty Opening remarks in the Senate's Subcommittee on the Constitution Hearing on "The Adequacy of Representation in Capital Cases" As a result of the litigation before the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection as a method of execution, there is currently a de facto moratorium on executions in this country. This presents us with an opportunity while executions are paused to take stock of one of the most serious problems still facing many state capital punishment systems: the quality of representation for capital defendants. That is the purpose of this hearing. Specifically, today we will examine the adequacy of representation for individuals who have been charged with and convicted of capital crimes at the state level. We will discuss the unique challenges of capital litigation, and the unique resources and training capital defenders need to be fully effective. The Supreme Court held in 1932, in Powell v. Alabama, that defendants have the right to counsel in capital cases. The Court explained that an execution resulting from a process pitting "the whole power of the state" against a prisoner charged with a capital offense who has no lawyer, and who may in the worst circumstances even be illiterate, "would be little short of judicial murder." Those are strong but appropriate words. Over the following decades the Supreme Court continued to recognize the importance of the right to counsel, ultimately concluding in 1984 in Strickland v. Washington that the Sixth Amendment guarantees not just the appointment of counsel, but the effective assistance of counsel. Yet as the witnesses today know from the variety of perspectives they bring to this issue, these constitutional standards are just the beginning. The work done by a criminal defense attorney at every stage of a capital case, and the experts and resources available to that attorney, can literally mean the difference between life and death. This is not a hypothetical. The right to effective assistance of counsel is not just a procedural right; it's not just lofty words in a Supreme Court decision. Failing to live up to that fundamental obligation can lead to innocent people being put on death row. Just last week an inmate in North Carolina, Glen Edward Chapman, was released after nearly 14 years on death row, bringing the number of death row exonerees to 128 people. A judge threw out Mr. Chapman's conviction for several reasons, including the complete failure of his attorneys to do any investigation into one of the murders he was convicted of committing--a death that new evidence suggests may not have been a murder at all, but rather the result of a drug overdose. Local prosecutors decided not to retry Mr. Chapman, and dismissed the charges. According to North Carolina newspapers, Mr. Chapman's incompetent defense was mounted by 2 lawyers with a history of alcohol abuse. News reports indicate that one admitted to drinking more than a pint of 80-proof rum every evening during other death penalty trials, and the other was disciplined by the state bar for his drinking problems. Yet despite all this, Mr. Chapman on the day of his release is quoted as saying, "I have no bitterness." This after nearly 14 mistaken years on death row. Mr. Chapman's story is astounding, but it is not unique. The quality of representation in capital cases in this country is uneven, at best. And the story also illustrates a critical point: The right to counsel is not abstract. It absolutely affects outcomes. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has stated it about as plainly as possible: "People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty." Obviously, inadequate representation is not unique to capital cases. But the challenges presented in a death penalty case are unique, and the consequences of inadequate representation catastrophic. Capital cases tend to be the most complicated homicide trials, and the penalty phase of a capital case is like nothing else in the criminal justice system. To do these cases right, at the trial, penalty, appellate, and state post-conviction stages, requires vast resources and proper training--not only for the defense attorneys who need to put in hundreds of hours of work, but also investigators, forensic professionals, mitigation specialists and other experts. Yet those resources are not available in all too many cases. We will hear more about that from our witnesses today. These realities have led people of all political stripes--both supporters and opponents of the death penalty--to raise grave concerns about the state of capital punishment today. Judge William Sessions, the former FBI Director appointed by President Reagan, was unable to join us in person today, but he submitted written testimony, which without objection I will place in the record. In it he notes that while he supports capital punishment, "[w]hen a criminal defendant is forced to pay with his life for his lawyer's errors, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system as a whole is undermined." Unlike Judge Sessions, I oppose the death penalty. But as long as we have a death penalty, we owe it to those who are charged with capital crimes, we owe it to our criminal justice system, and we owe it to the principles of equal justice on which this nation was founded, to make sure they have good lawyers who have the resources they need to mount an effective defense. This is not just the right thing to do. It is not just a high aspiration we should try to achieve at some point in the distant future. It is a moral imperative. And it is one that this country has failed to live up to, for far too long. (source: CounterPunch----Russell Feingold is a US senator from Wisconsin) CONNECTICUT: Death Penalty Possible In Home Invasion Case Capital felony, rape and other new charges filed Monday against Leslie T. Williams, the recently released sex offender charged in the violent home invasion here March 30, would make Williams eligible for the death penalty if convicted. Williams, 31, was charged by warrant in Superior Court in New Britain with two counts of capital felony and single counts of murder, 1st-degree aggravated sexual assault and first-degree kidnapping with a firearm. In court, Judge Joan Alexander ordered the warrant sealed at least until Williams' next court date of April 18. She also placed a gag order on everyone involved in the investigation and court case, telling them not to make any statements outside of the courtroom "to preserve the integrity of this case." The hearing Monday afternoon was brief, with Williams saying very little and only quickly glancing around the courtroom when a half-dozen marshals escorted the Waterbury man in. The new charges involve the abduction and death of Mary Ellen Welsh, 61, who was visiting her friend Carol Larese's Woodhaven Drive home when Williams burst into the house, armed with a gun. Williams shot Larese, 66, in the head and left her for dead in the basement, then kidnapped Welsh, driving away with her in her SUV, police said in a report issued last week. Welsh, a 61-year-old retired pulmonary therapist ill with cancer, was found dead of gunshot wounds in a sand pit in Bristol early April 1. Hours earlier, police captured Williams when he crashed Welsh's SUV in Watertown while being pursued by police. Williams has been locked up since his arrest March 31; his bail is set at $5 million. In court records released last week, Williams told police he initially wanted to rob the women of money and a car but decided he had to kill them because he feared they could recognize him. Williams was released from prison on March 4 after serving 8 years for the rape of a child. Police said he was on a weekend robbery spree when he barged into Larese's house. In the courtroom Monday, family and friends of the victims sat solemnly in 2 rows, watching the quick proceeding. They declined comment afterward. Also there to watch was Hope Yusuf of Waterbury, a half-sister of Williams who last saw and talked with him about a decade ago. The 2 have the same father but different mothers and were raised in separate families with little contact with each other, she said. "My heart really goes out to the families of the lady who died and the one who nearly did," said Yusuf, 44, who works for a Waterbury-area nonprofit that works with at-risk children. "This is horrible. When I heard it, all I could do is cry." She said she came to court because she thinks her brother needs psychological help, "regardless if it turns out he has to spend the rest of his life in prison." She said her brother has been troubled since age 7, when their father, Leslie T. Williams, was shot to death as he sat in his car in Naugatuck in February 1985. The fatal shotgun blast was fired by a stepson, Monel Ruiz, who was 16 at the time. Ruiz was sentenced in 1985 to serve up to 25 years in prison. "Since our father's death, all my brother did was live in darkness," Yusuf said. "He had no one to look up to. He never finished school. He never got the proper help. From what I'm told, he was killing cats as a kid. If that's not a sign, what is?" (source: Hartford Courant)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, ARK., FLA., USA, CONN.
Rick Halperin Tue, 8 Apr 2008 22:51:14 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
