July 13 NEW YORK: Gallows May Await if Police Officer Dies Should the wounds Officer Russel Timoshenko suffered on Monday prove fatal, his death could set off a jurisdictional dance between state and federal prosecutors over whether his shooter faces the death penalty. New York State has not had a death penalty statute for more than three years, and the shooting prompted Rep. Vito Fossella, of Staten Island, to write yesterday to the speaker of the state Assembly, Sheldon Silver, calling on him to convene a special legislative session to pass a capital punishment law. The absence of such a state law has not meant the end of the death penalty in New York. With increasing frequency, a local federal prosecutor, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, has been bringing capital cases. In Brooklyn, where Officer Timoshenko and Officer Herman Yan were shot, federal prosecutors have asked juries in three separate cases in the past year to deliver death sentences. State and federal officials said yesterday that there were no current plans for the Justice Department to bring death penalty charges should the officer die. The case is being handled by the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles Hynes, who has so far charged one of three suspects. "It's highly unlikely that this is going to become a federal case," a Justice Department official who requested anonymity said. "It's a solid state case. Nicely packaged, and tightly wrapped. I would see no reason why it would go federal at this point." Mr. Hynes's spokesman, Jerry Schmetterer, said: "This case is being investigated and will be prosecuted by the Brooklyn district attorney." Brooklyn's U.S. attorney, Roslynn Mauskopf, did once take over a local case involving the shooting deaths of 2 police detectives. After the state's highest court invalidated New York's death penalty statute in 2004, Ms. Mauskopf sought capital charges against the man who murdered 2 officers in Staten Island in 2003, Ronell Wilson. Wilson, who was sentenced to death this year, had already been charged in state court. The move was for the purpose of seeking a death sentence. The lead trial attorney for Wilson, Ephraim Savitt, said federal prosecutors could conceivably pursue the same strategy in Monday's shootings as they did in the Wilson case. "I'm hoping that this officer survives, but if, God forbid, he doesn't, I predict the U.S. attorney's office will step right in," Mr. Savitt said of Officer Timoshenko. Not all crimes suit themselves to federal prosecutions. The Wilson death penalty prosecution transferred cleanly to federal court because the defendant, a member of a street gang, committed the murders during a gun deal. The case was brought under a federal racketeering law. Whether the shootings of officers Timoshenko and Yan violated federal law could pose a harder question to the federal prosecutors who will examine the case. The violence happened during a routine traffic stop in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens section of the borough, when the 2 uniformed officers pulled over a BMW whose tags did not match the vehicle. Officer Yan, who was shot twice, is expected to recover fully. Officer Timoshenko, paralyzed and unable to breathe on his own, is clinging to life. The prosecution could conceivably end up in federal court, Mr. Savitt said, because the shootings were intended to obstruct justice that is, to prevent the officers from discovering criminal activity among the BMW's occupants during the traffic stop. Even the illegal possession of guns by the suspects used in the shootings could be grounds for federal jurisdiction, Mr.Savitt said. Another death penalty expert, David Bruck, said the crime probably would not trigger federal jurisdiction. "Not all gun crimes are federal crimes," Mr. Bruck, a law professor at Washington and Lee University, said. "Federal law does now reach further than it ever did before, but it doesn't reach that far." Ms. Mauskopf has been nominated for a federal judgeship, but her confirmation has been delayed due to questions about her aggressive death penalty record raised by an opponent of capital punishment, Senator Feingold of Wisconsin. (source: New York Sun) OHIO: Federal appeals court throws out Cleveland man's death sentence A federal appeals court on Friday threw out the death sentence of a man whose lawyer did not sufficiently investigate the man's life for evidence that would have shown a violent and abusive childhood and a potential mental defect - evidence that the court said could have resulted in a lighter sentence. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new sentencing hearing that would have to begin within 6 months for Abdul Haliym, also known as Wayne Frazier. Haliym is to be released if he is not re-sentenced, the court said. "Had counsel conducted a thorough investigation, they could have presented a dramatically different picture" of Haliym's life, appeals Judge Eric Clay said in the ruling. Judge Gilbert Merritt concurred. Judge Eugene Siler Jr. voted to uphold the sentence. All 3 judges voted to uphold his conviction. A three-judge panel found Haliym guilty in the stabbing deaths of Joann Richards and Marcellus Williams on March 25, 1987, in Cleveland. Witnesses testified that Haliym stabbed the 2 after he and two other men came into the victims' apartment, threatened them and demanded money. The appeals court found that the trial court and the Ohio Supreme Court were presented with almost no mitigating evidence - evidence of his violent childhood, of his intense grief over the loss of his family and that Haliym potentially suffered from a mental defect resulting from a head injury. "It's been a long road for us and our client," said Robert Dixon, a Cleveland attorney representing Haliym. "We are extremely gratified by the decision." Assistant Ohio Attorney General Daniel Ranke said the attorney general's office would review Friday's ruling before deciding whether to appeal. The state could ask for a hearing by the full 6th Circuit or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. If there is no appeal, the case would go back to Cuyahoga County for a decision on a sentencing trial. (source: Associated Press) ***************** CHEATING DEATH----Reporters are tired of covering Ohios public executions "Reporters looked around and said, 'This is not news anymore'": Ohio has executed 26 men since the practice began anew in 1999. Statehouse news reporters this week held a meeting every bit as laborious as some of the more tiresome committee hearings they cover in the Ohio legislature. There were pointed disagreements and nitpicking over language and procedureand when the 90-minute meeting adjourned, participants werent entirely sure what they'd accomplished. The issue at hand was one of life and death. Well, death, anyway. The Statehouse press corps is trying to figure out howand whetherto uphold its self-imposed duty to cover executions. This matter was initially settled about 15 years ago, when Ohio was preparing for its 1st implemented death penalty since 1963. The Ohio Legislative Correspondents Association fought for and won the right to choose a pool reporter to witness each execution. Sandy Theis, the former Dayton Daily News and Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter who was OLCAs president at the time, said the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections' regulations about who was permitted to witness executions were outdated. "I think the CJ and UPI were two of the witnesses, and neither one existed," said Theis, referring to the now-defunct Columbus Citizen-Journal and United Press International, which no longer covered the Ohio Statehouse. "I think people realized that OLCA had a responsibility to be the witnesses. We cover state government, we cover those issues, and there was the belief that with the privileges you get there were some responsibilities." So the department agreed to provide a witness seat for a representative provided by OLCA as well as one for the Associated Press and for the local paper in the city in which the crime was committed. After watching the prisoner die, the OLCA pool reporter would then conduct what amounted to a press conference to answer questions from other correspondents about what had happened inside the death house. Back then the hard part was figuring out who would get to go. Reporters are competitive by nature and, naturally, more than 1 of them wanted to be there for what would be one of the biggest stories of the year. "I do remember how much interest there was in the 1st one, and I remember how long we waited for the 1st one," recalled Lee Leonard, the retired Columbus Dispatch Statehouse reporter. "We thought early on that Dick Celeste was going to have to be the 1st one to kill somebody, and then George Voinovichsurely it was going to come during his watch, and it didnt." To give all reporters a shot, OLCA came up with a lottery system for each execution. "OLCA needed to develop some kind of system that was fair so that a fight wouldn't break out over who got to cover one," Leonard said. "And it wasn't any different than the competitiveness that you have over any good story." Sure enough, that first executionof Wilford Berry on Feb. 19, 1999was a huge story, with live TV coverage and front-page treatment in all the state's papers. Another 2 years went by before the next execution, that of J.D. Scott, on June 14, 2001, and that was big news, too. But by the time John W. Byrd got his turn on Feb. 19, 2002, the novelty was starting to wear off. "J.D. Scott was big because it was the next one after Wilford Berry, and I'm guessing right after that it started going down," recalled Canton Repository reporter Paul Kostyu, who's now the president of OLCA. The state killed 2 more inmates in 02 and another 3 in 2003 before jumping to 7 in 2004. In all, Ohio has put 26 men to death since the reinstatement of capital punishment. "I would say probably after 10 or 12 the interest began to wane," said Leonard. "Then I think reporters looked around and said, Hey this is not news anymore.'" For obvious reasons, watching another person die isn't everybody's cup of tea. The task was probably even less desirable in the old days, prior to the state's 36-year hiatus, when inmates were killed in the electric chair at the Ohio Penitentiary, which could be more gruesome than the lethal injections of today. Theis said she once spoke to the late Bob Miller, an AP reporter, who was turned against the death penalty after he watched 1. "He was the last OLCAn to witness an execution at the electric chair. What Bob Miller said is he didn't anticipate the smell, and it shocked him," Theis said. "Back then I don't think people were mindful of that." Although state officials now are better at preparing reporters for what they are about to experience, some have declined to witness executions, and others who have gone have been disturbed enough that they didn't want to go back. Then there are the reportersperhaps a majority of OLCA memberswho opt out of the execution lottery because their editors arent interested in the story and it isnt convenient for them to go. This has placed the burden on a handful of reporters who are willing to make numerous treks to the Lucasville death house. Kostyu said he and the Dispatch's Alan Johnson have a running joke between them that they're the execution "experts" because they've witnessed so many of them. "I've witnessed 5 executions," said Kostyu. "You're selected, and then the next one comes up and you're selected again, you're going, 'What's the odds of that?' Well, the odds are pretty great because the pool was so low." Leonard acknowledged he never witnessed an execution because Johnson was always willing to do it on behalf of the Dispatch. "My attitude always was, I'm not lusting after covering an execution," he said, "but if it comes my way I'll do it, because I think that's a reporter's job." Theis had a similar viewpoint. "I don't support the death penalty and would have done my job if I had to," said Theis, who now works for a public-policy interest group. "I'm glad I never had to." She probably would have had to, had she stayed at the PD. Cleveland's Statehouse bureau has dwindled from 5 reporters to 3, while other papers, such as the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Akron Beacon Journal, are now one-person shops. "I don't think anybody anticipated what we're seeing today, which is a shrinking Statehouse press corps and a rise in executions," Theis said. Tired of sending the same reporters time after time, the OLCA board decided to propose a new policy. On June 27 Kostyu and AP reporter Julie Carr Smyth, OLCAs VP, informed Statehouse reporters they would no longer be allowed to opt out of witnessing executions or conducting death-row interviews because of convenience. Only those who objected to watching an execution for personal reasons could be excused. The announcement set off a flurry of e-mails from alarmed reporters, and so Tuesday's meeting was scheduled to discuss the issue. Kostyu said he doesn't like telling fellow reporters what to do, but he believes it is crucial for OLCA to meet what he thinks is an important responsibility. "The state is executing somebody, and so somebody should be covering it," he said. "And if it's the Statehouse press corps then that would make sense. I don't see any other organization out there that would be in a position to do it instead." At Tuesday's meeting, Johnson and other Dispatch reporters were the most vocal proponents of a stricter policy. They said OLCA members have a duty not only to their employers but to the public through their fellow reporters, and the burden needs to be shared. The opposing faction was led by employees of the Statehouse news service Gongwer, who said they report extensivelyand solelyon the legislature and cannot afford to have their correspondents spending their day in Lucasville rather than a transportation committee hearing. After much debate, a compromise was reached that would allow news organizations to opt out of the execution poolbut those organizations will not be entitled to the OLCA pre-execution interviews or execution pool reports. Another compromise, advocated by the PD bureau, would allow a news organization to designate a full-time reporter who is not an OLCA member to interview condemned prisoners or witness their deaths. That proposal was adopted without objection. Theis said a similar idea was rejected when OLCA created the existing policy. "If you get some very small publication that hires a bunch of rookiesand there are a lot of papers like thatdo you want to hand them that responsibility?" she said. "Because you know how the press corps can be. They're pretty tough." "I agree wholeheartedly with Sandy," Kostyu said, "because I remember my 1st one, which was J.D. Scott. I was more nervous about responding to the media than I was actually witnessing the thing." Nevertheless, he sees the compromise as a necessary one to sell OLCA's reportersand their editors and publisherson a new policy. "We're in this difficult situation," he said. "We want more participation, but we don't feel like we can tell our member news organizations, 'You have to do it this way.'" For now, he and the OLCA board plan to draft a new policy that includes the compromises reached Tuesday. If members still object, they'll have another meeting. Theis, meanwhile, suggested simplifying things by creating a 1-reporter pool. "It sounds to me like they need to make a change," she said. "Do they want to just agree that since Alan Johnson does them all and does them well, just cede that to Alan?" (source: Columbus Other Paper) ********************* New petition to free Richey SUPPORTERS campaigning to save death row prisoner Kenny Richey have started a new petition to pressure Prime Minister Gordon Brown to take action on the case. A previous petition aimed at putting pressure on former Prime Minister Tony Blair to act on Richey's behalf attracted more than 2000 signatures, and supporters hope even more people will put their name to this one. Karen Torley, who runs the Kenny Richey Campaign from her home in Glasgow, said: "We want the Prime Minister to help ensure that Kenny has a fair and safe trial, where all the evidence can be heard for the first time." (source: Edinburgh Evening News) IDAHO: Suspect may face death penalty----Public safety: 2 bodies found buried at site of man's burning Boise home Ada County Prosecuting Attorney Greg Bower intends to seek the death penalty for what he called an "especially heinous" murder in which the remains of two people were buried at a house on the Boise Bench. Todd Colton Hagnas, 38, of Boise, was arrested on a felony arson charge after investigators said he set his home on fire. Police later discovered 2 bodies, later identified as Hagnas' roommates, buried under the house and in the back yard. Authorities charged Hagnas with 2 counts of murder. Jeffrey Alan Willett, 48, died from blunt force trauma to the head and Jody Collingsworth, 36, died from a slashed neck, the Ada County Coroners Office said. Idaho code stipulates that a person may be eligible for the death penalty under several aggravating circumstances. Bower cited these elements of the crime: The murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity; The defendant exhibited utter disregard for human life; The defendant, by his conduct has exhibited a propensity to commit murder that will probably constitute a continuing threat to society. MISSOURI: Death penalty opponents still seeking clear-cut case of innocent's execution Death penalty opponents still are seeking the ultimate case: the one that offers clear evidence that an innocent person was executed. They had hoped that Larry Griffin's conviction and execution for the 1980 drive-by killing of Quintin Moss in St. Louis would qualify. Such a case, they hoped, would finally turn public and political sentiment against executions. But Thursday, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce released a report that concludes the right man was executed in the case. Joyce had reinvestigated the case after a 2005 report by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund raised questions about Larry Griffin's guilt. The ultimate case remains elusive. "They are looking so desperately for that case," said Joshua Marquis, a board member for the National District Attorneys Association. "I'm not so arrogant to believe there won't be a day when it will come. It's very unlikely, but not impossible." A clear case of the execution of an innocent person in the recent past would refute U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's declaration last year that there has not been "a single case not one in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit." While allowing that the number of wrongful executions may be small, University of Michigan law school professor Samuel R. Gross, who led the fund investigation in the Griffin case, thinks wrongful executions already have been proved. "I think there are cases where it's clear-cut," he said, citing both Griffin's case and a case in Bexar County, Texas. But prosecutors and other death penalty supporters do not want to admit that innocent people have been executed, he said. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit research group in Washington, 124 people have been exonerated from death row. "Many of these exonerations came frighteningly close to their execution date," said Colleen Cunningham, of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty. "Errors clearly abound in death penalty cases." In fact, a poll this year shows that most Americans 87 % believe that an innocent person already has been executed. But only 55 percent said it had affected their opinion about the death penalty, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. "Some people still think executing an innocent person is collateral damage," said David Elliot, of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Elliot said he thinks the death penalty will be abolished only when the public decides it's not worth the trouble. "People are going to have to see it collapse under its biases, blunders and bureaucracy," he said. Some say public support for the death penalty already is eroding. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, executions, death sentences in state courts and the death row population all dropped between 1999 and 2006. Perceptions about the death penalty may be affected by unfair news coverage of new investigations into executions, said Marquis, the district attorney in Clatsop County, Ore., who speaks across the country about the death penalty. Allegations of innocence get more attention from the media than reviews that support a conviction, he said. "In all fairness to reporters, it isn't news when the expected happens," Marquis said. "But it's intellectual dishonesty in the death penalty debate when they just fall off the radar." Some death penalty opponents suggest that independent commissions should review cases like Griffin's. They say prosecutors are unlikely or less likely to objectively criticize work by their own offices. "Here we have the prosecutors reviewing their own work," Gross said. "I can't imagine anything more self-serving." But Joyce and other prosecutors say the cases already have been reviewed multiple times by juries, federal judges, state and federal appeals courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, and often reviewed again by the prosecutor's office when concerns are raised. "The defense attorneys are trained to poke holes in stuff," Joyce said. "Our perspective is different. We wanted to see a complete picture of everything." Prosecutors say that an independent commission would be subject to the same criticism and would undermine the country's justice system. (source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.Y., OHIO, IDAHO, MO.
Rick Halperin Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:13:58 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
