Jan. 16 TEXAS: 2nd accused killer in infamous KFC mass slayings wants new judge 1 of 2 men accused in the notorious Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant killings committed a quarter-century ago wants the judge removed from his upcoming trial. Darnell Hartsfield is facing a possible death sentence when he is tried for 5 capital murder charges for the abduction and shooting deaths of five people from the Kilgore KFC in 1983. Hartsfield's cousin, Romeo Pinkerton, 49, of Tyler, pleaded guilty in October to his role in the slayings. In his plea, made in the midst of his capital murder trial that could have resulted in a death sentence, he accepted 5 life prison terms. In a printed handwritten motion from prison, where Hartsfield already is serving a life prison sentence for perjury, he is asking state District Judge J. Clay Gossett be off his case. In the 5-page note received 2 weeks ago by the court in Rusk County in Henderson, Hartsfield said he believed Gossett is biased after heading earlier grand juries related to the KFC slayings and was the trial judge in a 2005 KFC-related case where Hartsfield was convicted of perjury and given a life prison sentence. "To proceed in the upcoming KFC capital (sic) murder trial, would be a denial of due process," Hartsfield, 46, wrote. "Judges (sic) action to continue in prosecution will be improper and prejudiced." Gossett said Tuesday the request was not something he could do himself and a hearing would have to be held on the matter. No date has been set. No trial date for Hartsfield has been set. Prosecutors have asked it be moved from Henderson because of publicity in the high-profile case that became one of Texas' longest unsolved mass murders. Gossett moved Pinkerton's trial to New Boston, in far northeast Texas. Gossett said he was attending a judicial conference later this month and planned to ask judges from the Dallas and San Antonio areas about moving the trial there and about availability of courtroom space, likely in the fall. The inquiry may be moot depending on the outcome of Hartsfield's request he be removed, the judge said. "I may not even be on the case," Gossett said. The 5 victims were found dead along an East Texas oilfield road about 15 miles from the KFC restaurant in Kilgore where they were abducted during a holdup the previous night, Sept. 23, 1983. During opening statements of Pinkerton's trial, prosecutors for the 1st time disclosed a third person was involved in the slayings, that DNA tests confirmed he had raped 1 of the female victims. The rape also had never been disclosed publicly. In December, KFC Corp. reinstated a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of that 3rd person. The restaurant company issued a similar reward after the slayings but it never was claimed. Killed were David Maxwell, 20; Mary Tyler, 37; Opie Ann Hughes, 39; Joey Johnson, 20; and Monte Landers, 19. All but Landers worked at the restaurant about 25 miles east of Tyler and 115 miles east of Dallas. Landers was a friend of Maxwell and Johnson and was visiting them as the restaurant was closing for the night. Pinkerton, a convicted burglar, had been to prison at least 5 times and had been out of prison just 2 days when the crime occurred. DNA technology not available until recently showed Pinkerton's blood was found on a napkin at the scene. Blood from Hartsfield, who was arrested for aggravated robbery 3 days after the slayings, was found on a box of cash register tapes. (source: WOAI News) ********************* A Deer Park business owner has been arrested for harboring an illegal alien accused of capital murder of a Houston Police Department officer. Robert Lane Camp, 47, the owner of Camp Landscaping, Deer Park, was charged by criminal complaint with encouraging Juan Leonardo Quintero-Perez, the accused killer of HPD Officer Rodney Johnson, to unlawfully enter the U. S. and with harboring Quintero. The complaint, filed on Monday by U. S. Attorney Don DeGabrielle and Special Agent in Charge Robert Rutt of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Investigations, alleges the Deer Park man housed Quintero knowing he had been deported and returned illegally. Camp was arrested Wednesday morning upon surrendering to federal authorities at the U.S. Marshals Service. He was expected to make his initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Wm. Smith Wednesday. According to court documents, Quintero was charged with the state felony offense of indecency with a child in 1998. Quintero identified Camp as his employer when he was arrested. Camp posted a $10,000 bond on Quintero's behalf to affect his release from state custody. Following his conviction for the state offense and the imposition of a probationary sentence, Quintero was deported from the United States by federal authorities, but illegally returned to the country in 1999. Camp is accused by a federal criminal complaint of aiding Quintero to illegally return to the country in 1999, and providing Quintero with a job and a residence to lease upon Quintero's illegal return. The criminal complaint against Camp alleges that in September 2006 Quintero was pulled over by HPD Officer Johnson while driving one of Camp's work vehicles. Quintero was subsequently arrested for failing to provide a driver's license, handcuffed and placed into the HPD patrol car. State prosecutors alleged that Quintero shot Johnson from the back seat of the patrol car with a gun he had hidden on his person, causing Johnson's death. Quintero, charged with the capital murder of Johnson in September 2006, is presently in state custody pending trial. He faces the death penalty if convicted. "This prosecution demonstrates the consequences a U.S. citizen faces when he or she decides to harbor or assist an undocumented alien to enter the United States and to employ that alien unlawfully," DeGabrielle said. "The shooting of HPD Officer Johnson was a tragic incident that could have been avoided." "Officer Rodney Johnson's terrible murder illustrates that hiring and harboring of illegal aliens is not a victimless crime," Rutt said. "Many illegal aliens, especially aliens with criminal convictions, are desperate to avoid being detected and apprehended. These people, also tend to take desperate actions, and the results are often tragic." Each of the 2 federal felony offenses alleged in the complaint carry a statutory maximum punishment of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine upon conviction. Johnson, 40, was sworn in as an officer in December of 1994. He was a highly decorated officer who received 2 life saving awards during his tenure with the police department. One heroic act came in January 1998 when he conducted a water rescue of a physically challenged driver trapped in rising floodwaters. On another occasion, Johnson risked his life to save mentally challenged individuals trapped inside a burning house in April of 1998. (source: Houston Community Newspapers) OKLAHOMA: Parker found guilty on murder charge In Ardmore, a Carter County jury found James Eric Parker guilty of 1st-degree murder, 1st-degree burglary, and kidnapping on Tuesday after an emotional final day in court. Parker was convicted of killing Danny Watterson in June of 2006 and kidnapping his wife, Kimberley. Family and friends shed tears as they looked on in court on Tuesday as the murder trial of James Eric Parker continued at the Carter County Courthouse. Compelling arguments were made on Tuesday as attorneys for both sides made their closing statements. The jury saw its most intimate look yet into James Eric Parker's state of mind in the months leading up to Danny Watterson's killing Judge Lee Card told the jurors Tuesday morning that they must arrive at a unanimous decision either guilty of manslaughter in the first degree, guilty of murder in the 1st degree, or not guilty of any charges. The atmosphere in the courtroom Tuesday morning was extraordinarily emotional at one point when defense attorney John Echols read from Parker's private diary. His son broke down in the audience when he heard what his father had written about how proud he was of his children and his hopes for their future. Then, Parker himself started crying. Now, the jury will reconvene at 9:30 Wednesday morning to decide if Parker will face the death penalty. (source: KXII News) ALABAMA: Lawyers describe how Derrol Shaw killed 4 Walter Hill was asleep in his home when Ryan Evans and Derrol Shaw broke in, duct-taped his hands and feet, stole some money and jewelry then shot him several times, a prosecutor said in a capital murder trial today. After setting Hill's house on fire, Shaw and Evans escaped in a new red pickup truck the 91-year-old church deacon had bought himself as a treat, the prosecutor, Mara Sirles told jurors. The truck was abandoned a few blocks away, near where Evans was living. The jury began to learn details this morning of the 4 capital murders in June 2006 for which Shaw, 20, has pleaded guilty. The jury was impaneled to ratify his plea, which is required by state law. 5 days after killing Hill on June 9, 2006, Shaw confronted Evans for bragging about the crime, Sirles told jurors. Evans had given his girlfriend a stolen necklace and had started wearing other jewelry the two men had stolen, testimony showed. Shaw first killed Evans, 19, Sirles, told jurors this morning. The teen's 81-year-old grandmother, Evelyn Martin, had recently returned from church and went to her basement after hearing the commotion. Shaw shot and wounded her. He taped her arms and legs then he went upstairs to where John Martin, 82, was watching television in his favorite easy chair, Sirles told jurors. Shaw shot him to death, then went back downstairs to finish off the grandmother, Sirles said. Sirles and Joe Roberts began laying out the prosecution's basic case this morning against Shaw, who already is serving a life term for several carjackings and attempted murder he committed in the months leading to the murders. Shaw agreed to plead guilty in the capital murders of Hill, the Martins and Evans in exchange for a sentence of life without parole. Prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. When a defendant pleads guilty to capital murder, Alabama law requires a jury to determine that the state proved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. (source: Birmingham News) USA: The punishment fits the times-----The Supreme Court just heard the case brought to determine whether lethal injection constitutes 'cruel and unusual punishment.' But perhaps society isn't as caught up in the method as in the verdict itself. From the Brazen Bull to hanging to the electric chair, the death penalty has evolved through the ages. Have we? Nothing becomes politics quite like death. With a presidential election approaching and three important cases before the Supreme Court, the country is once again grappling with the death penalty. Politicians and citizens alike are debating how and whether we should kill those who kill others. The debate over the mechanics of execution stretches back to the earliest forms of capital punishment. It seems that, like madness, there must be a method to our morality at least when it comes to executions. As the public has grown more uneasy with the death penalty, it has insisted on less painful methods of execution. Indeed, in the current cases, one of the drugs in the standard "3-drug cocktail" appears primarily for the benefit of onlookers by preventing any manifestation of pain by the subject, even if he is in agony. It reflects a long desire to somehow take the discomfort out of execution. But for whom, the executed or the executioners? Pain has long been a surrogate issue for a deeper unease with death as a punishment. At one time, pain was part of the purpose of the moral execution. Early practitioners sought ever more gruesome and prolonged methods. Phalaris, the tyrant of Agrigentum (571 to 556 B.C.), used his infamous Brazen Bull, which was designed so that a man placed inside over a fire would roast while his moans were amplified through a series of tubes as soothing music for the tyrant. The Romans punished parricide (murder of a parent) by putting the condemned into a sack with a dog, a rooster, a viper and an ape then throwing the sack into the water. In the USA, executions were recorded almost immediately upon the landing of Europeans. In 1608, George Kendall was executed in Virginia for plotting against the Crown. By 1612, Virginia Gov. Sir Thomas Dale enacted the Divine, Moral and Martial Laws, which mandated the death penalty for virtually any conceivable crime, from trading with the Indians to killing chickens. Colonial executions included hanging, beheading, drowning, burning and breaking at the wheel (where a person was tied to a wagon wheel and his limbs were broken; then the shattered limbs wrapped around the wheel spokes). With the age of enlightenment, the idea of executing someone in a way to heighten suffering came into disrepute as states sought uniform methods of capital punishment. A walk through the history of capital punishment in the USA is useful in considering where we've been and where today's discussion might lead us: Hanging: With uniformity now the goal, the preferred method quickly became hanging. By 1853, it was the method of execution in 48 states and territories. The ideal is to break the individual's neck at the end of the initial plunge down the rope. But if the rope is too short, the person is strangled to death and can linger for as much as an hour writhing in pain. If the rope is too long, decapitation can occur (as shown in the execution of Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam Hussein's half-brother). Hangings also became the focus of public disorder with large crowds and heavy drinking. The method robbed society of a sense of moral superiority as men twisted at the ends of ropes before drunken crowds. This led to the anti-hanging movements of the late 19th century. In 1885, New York Gov. David Bennett Hill condemned hanging as coming "down to us from the dark ages." He called upon legislators to look to science for a way of "taking the life ... in a less barbarous manner." A solution was suggested by none other than Thomas Edison: electricity. The electric chair: The use of the electric chair was as much a financial as a moral debate. Edison was in a fierce competition with George Westinghouse over the standard current. Edison wanted the electric chair to use Westinghouse's AC current so that it would be associated with lethality (as opposed to his own DC current). He won both the fight over execution method and the standard current. The 1st to be dispatched electrically was William Kemmler in 1890 in New York for the murder of his mistress. It was his case that led the Supreme Court to adopt a hands-off approach on the methods of execution, despite nightmarish failures. Frederick Leuchter, a mechanical engineer who maintained electric chairs in the 1980s, admitted that, when certain problems occur, "you're literally boiling the person to death." In Wayne Robert Felde's execution in Louisiana in 1988, his flesh was burned off, exposing part of his skull to witnesses. The execution of Allen Lee Davis in 1999 in Florida resulted in blood pouring down his shirt. The chair can routinely cause hair to ignite, flesh to burn, genitals to explode and ears to burn away. The method is so cruel that it has been denounced in use on animals. Again, society became uneasy with a method that seemed to mirror the overt violence that led to the execution. Though it was used by 26 states in 1949, states soon discovered another appealing method: gas. Gas chamber: The 1st to die in a gas chamber was Gee Jon in Nevada in 1924. The state first tried to simply pump cyanide into his cell while he slept, but the bars allowed too much gas to escape. The modern desire to minimize pain found a poor outlet in gas. The effect of the gas is to cause "cellular suffocation" and acidosis (production of lactic acid), creating a sense of drowning or strangulation. As courts began to find it to be cruel and unusual, gas chambers fell out of favor as states again sought the ideal method of execution. Lethal injection: This form of execution was not particularly new when it became the rage in death circles. The idea of killing someone with injected poisons goes back to 1888. But the method seemed a perfect match for modern sensibilities. In 1973, California Gov. Ronald Reagan endorsed lethal injection from his personal experience with horses, noting that he knew "what it's like to try to eliminate an injured horse by shooting him. Now you call the veterinarian and the vet gives it a shot and the horse goes to sleep that's it." The public embraced the idea, figuring that if it was OK for a beloved mustang, it must be OK for a condemned murderer. Though in 1977 Oklahoma became the first state to adopt lethal injection, the first to die by the method was Charles Brooks in 1982 in Texas. Thirty-five states and the federal government now use lethal injection. Where the electric chair became the symbol of cruelty of death, lethal injection showed the banality of death. Indeed, the public continues to view it as a benign, antiseptic and scientifically based process despite its casual and unscientific development. The 3-drug cocktail used in all states can be traced to the Oklahoma medical examiner, Jay Chapman. In 1976, a state legislator wanted to avoid the cost of repairing the state's electric chair or building a gas chamber and solicited his advice on alternatives. Chapman suggested the use of "an ultra-short-acting barbiturate" like sodium thiopental and a neuromuscular blocking drug like pancuronium bromide. A third drug, potassium chloride, was later added to stop the heart. Chapman later admitted: "I didn't do any research. I just knew from having been placed under anesthesia myself, what we needed." Even the amounts of these drugs in the standard protocol were based on convenience or accident. When a Texas official (who helped develop the procedure) was asked why he specified 5 grams of sodium pentothal, he admitted that "the only thing I had on hand was a 5-gram vial. And rather than do the paperwork on wasting 3 grams, we just gave all 5." The 1st drug, sodium thiopental, has proved a particular concern. It is so fast-acting and short-lived that patients have reported waking up in the midst of surgery and, while feeling the pain of surgery, being unable to cry out. In a 2005 study of 49 executions in the USA by the respected British medical journal The Lancet, researchers found that 21 individuals were probably conscious when they were killed by the final dose of potassium chloride. Notably, the second drug pancuronium bromide preserves the appearance of a peaceful and painless end. Yet, it also prevents a subject from manifesting pain. In Tennessee, it is a crime to use pancuronium bromide to kill pets, but it is used for human executions. Human error also remains a principal cause of botched executions. In Florida in 2006, prison officials succeeded in not only missing the veins of condemned Angel Diaz, but also shoving the needles through his vein and into his muscle. It took 34 minutes and 2 doses of chemicals to finally kill him. Also last year, Ohio officials took 27 minutes to find a vein on Joseph Clark, only to have the vein collapse. It then took 30 minutes to find another vein as Clark lay moaning on the gurney. He was declared dead 90 minutes after the beginning of the execution. Once widely accepted, capital punishment's support has been falling significantly in polls. When asked, only half of the public supports it when given the alternative of life without parole. Last month, New Jersey became the first state in 42 years to ban the death penalty. As many as 120 people on death row have been exonerated through DNA testing, and in the 36 states that allow capital punishment, executions have reached their lowest level in 13 years. (Last year, 42 people were executed.) Likewise, death sentences have dropped 60% since 1999. Given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, the Kentucky cases will almost certainly result in an endorsement of lethal injection. The court did not appear to have a majority in oral arguments for striking down lethal injection or even tweaking the three-drug cocktail. Indeed, Justice Antonin Scalia objected that "this is an execution, not surgery." As citizens demand less pain in delivering death, the focus of the capital punishment debate might be shifting. Reducing the levels of pain or error in executions will not alter the fact that this remains a violent act committed by society. In this sense, pain might have lost its viability as a surrogate for this deeper debate over capital punishment. Perhaps with the reduction of pain through chemicals and the increase of reliability through DNA, society will be forced to move beyond the surrogates and deal directly with the fundamental moral question: Has death itself become the intolerable element of the death penalty? Key rulings The U.S. Supreme Court has evolved with society in its view of the death penalty. While upholding its constitutionality generally, the court has gradually restricted its application though with the two Bush appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, that trend could be either arrested or reversed. Here are a few of the most important rulings: * In 're Kemmler' (1890):Rejected challenge of the use of the electric chair as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment; suggested that the method of execution is primarily a state issue. * Furman v. Georgia (1972):In a fractured 5-4 decision (with nine opinions), the court struck down Georgia's death penalty statute (which voided similar statutes in 40 states), thus suspending the death penalty and commuting the sentences of 629 people on death row to life in prison. * Gregg v. Georgia (1976):Upheld new state statutes that created a more careful application of the death penalty based on aggravating and mitigating factors. With such procedures, the court found that the death penalty does not violate the Eighth Amendment. * Coker v. Georgia (1977):Struck down a death sentence that was rendered for the rape of a woman. Because the woman was not killed, the verdict was deemed excessive under the Eighth Amendment. * Atkins v. Virginia (2002):Barred the execution of mentally retarded inmates as cruel and unusual (rejecting an earlier decision to the contrary) based on the evolving standards and new consensus of society. * Roper v. Simmons (2005):Barred the execution of individuals who committed their crimes as juveniles on Eighth Amendment grounds. (source: Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors----USA Today) *************** The Supreme Message: What Is Cruel and Unusual? It was inevitable that the United States Supreme Court would come to the point in time to consider the burning question of what is cruel and unusual punishment. This question is a most interesting one, especially in view of the fact that when our country was in its infancy and just after the American Colonies had joined together to become individual states, they ratified the United States Constitution along with the Bill of Rights. Cruel and unusual was not specifically defined in the Bill of Rights, but most of our founding fathers were reasonable and prudent men who were also well educated. I presume that they believed that most citizens of average intelligence would use common sense to make that determination. We should also remember that during the late 1700's and into the 1800s public hangings for certain serious crimes was an acceptable punishment. I might add that this form of punishment was also a graphic deterrent to those crimes. The firing squad was also an accepted form of punishment by our military for certain very serious crimes against society and our country's national security interests. Some persons would argue that death by a firing squad is most certainly cruel and unusual. Then others could make the argument that a bullet to the brain is quite expeditious and merciful! Again, remember that at the writing of our countrys constitution death by hanging and by firing squad was acceptable and was not challenged by any practicing attorney or advocacy group. And if I have overlooked any challenge on this issue during that time of our countrys history, I welcome a correction. In the arena of serious criminal conduct the typical violent perpetrator often uses cruel and barbaric acts that cause great pain and suffering during their violent attacks that leave their victim(s) seriously incapacitated, dead or dying. They certainly could care less that their aggressive violent behavior is cruel or unusual toward the person or persons they attack. What is sad or downright wrong is that too often the criminal suspect escapes justice when their attorney uses a legal technicality or loophole in the law to "get their client (the suspect) a walk" on the criminal charge(s). The question/challenge that has been made or brought through a law suit on behalf of 2 death row inmates is regarding the process of lethal injections. The plaintiffs in the law suit through their attorneys are claiming that death by lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. Oh, really? I don't have the details of those inmates' cases and what their violent behavior or aggressive acts were that resulted in the death(s) of their victim(s), but it is very probable that most law-abiding citizens would describe them as painful, cruel and/or unusually gruesome. While thinking about this issue, it has occurred to me that of all the people who die on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, there are a small percentage of those who pass away in their sleep. I have thought at certain times in my life that people who die in their sleep die a peaceful death. Id like to think that when someone suffers a massive heart attack or a stroke while sleeping that they did not experience any pain or suffering. I cannot imagine that it is a cruel and unusual way of passing from this life to the next. It would seem to me that death by lethal injection is a similar or same type of process. On the other hand, there are those folks who think that a hang nail is cruel and unusual situation. I think it highly likely these are the same people who think that individual responsibility for a person's negative or anti-social actions do not merit any serious or life-changing consequences. This is especially true if there is even a slight possibility that someone else can be blamed for the person's actions. In the absence of someone to blame, an organization, a group or a system will suffice for the responsibility that properly belongs to the perpetrator of the illegal act or the aggressive/destructive behavior. I know that many persons come from single parent homes, broken families and poor neighborhoods. I came from a poor neighborhood in Alvin, Texas, in the late 1940s. A very large percentage of those persons decide to rise above their challenges and circumstances, and they become productive citizens who also take personal responsibility for themselves and what they do. They make positive choices that lead to a better life and they become important building blocks for our successful and viable society. We must all be part of the solution and hold each other accountable for the choices we make. It is too easy to make excuses or blame someone else for our mistakes. Juveniles learn very early in life to blame someone else for their mistakes or their lack of responsibility. Is it possible that some persons are more inclined to avoid personal responsibility? Is it possible that this character trait has more to do with genetics than learned behavior? Or is it also possible that some persons are pre-disposed to be irresponsible in their behavior whenever their early childhood rearing environment facilitates or reinforces the "blame others first" mentality? And so the question or the definition of what is cruel and unusual punishment against another person will once again be reviewed and decided by a group of men and women in black robes. I don't believe that collectively they have the wisdom that King Solomon possessed. Let us hope and pray that the United States of America Supreme Court Justices will ask God for the wisdom they need to make the high moral decisions that we, the people, need for them to make for us and for our posterity. The decisions of the United States Supreme Court are not infallible and throughout our country's history some of the decisions have been reversed because they were improper or immoral. I believe we can all agree that their decisions have a serious impact on all of our citizens, and not just for the next election cycle but for generations! May the upcoming supreme message from our high court help save our nation, under God, with justice for all. (source: Commentary; Jes Garza is a retired Houston Police Officer and currently a Captain for the Harris County Constable's Office, Precinct One----The Family Badge)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, OKLA., ALA., USA
Rick Halperin Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:41:44 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
