July 22
TEXAS/CONNECTICUT:
Dallas fugitives agree to return to face possible death penalty
2 young men, accused of killing a Dallas store owner over 2 boxes of onions and
her uneaten lunch earlier this month, waived extradition back to Texas Friday
where they could face the death penalty for the crime.
Lamarcus Mathis, 19, and a 17-year-old youth, whose name is being withheld by
the Connecticut Post because of his age, both told Superior Court Judge Earl
Richards they will not oppose being returned to Texas during. Both are charged
with capital murder in Texas.
Police said the 17-year old youth, who is originally from Connecticut, has an
outstanding arrest warrant from Meriden but wouldn't disclose the nature of
that warrant.
The 2 were arrested by members of the U.S. Marshal Violent Crime Fugitive Task
Force at an apartment house on Grand Street here after arriving in the city by
bus from Dallas.
They had been the subject of a nationwide manhunt and a reward had been offered
for their arrest.
According to Dallas police, on July 3, the duo allegedly killed 64-year-old Jin
Kim Ha in the grocery store that she owned with her husband.
Police said both men were tied to the murder from the store's surveillance
camera.
In the video, police said Ha is seen with her husband locking the fence in
front of the convenience store at East Illinois Avenue and Overton Road when
the 2 suspects drive up to the store. When Jin Ha and her husband see the men,
they crouch down next to their Honda minivan.
A man who police say is Mathis snatches a box Ha is carrying -- which contained
uneaten portions of her lunch and some onions -- while a man police believe to
be Williams holds a gun in each hand and shoots at the couple.
While one man is running away with the box, the other shoots at Ha one more
time.
Ha, wounded, can be seen struggling to get back on her feet. She collapses near
the back of her car in the arms of her husband. She died at Baylor University
Medical Center.
(source: Connecticut Post)
OHIO:
Anthony Sowell Found Guilty, Faces Death Penalty
Anthony Sowell was found guilty today by a jury for aggravated murder and a
host of other charges stemming from the deaths of 11 women at his Imperial
Avenue house. It took 15 hours for the jury to come to a decision.
This really is just the beginning, however. As the PD reminds us, Sowell faces
the death penalty and the mitigation phase of this circus begins soon. Sowell's
lawyers will obviously argue he should not be killed.
The same jury that came back with this verdict will decide Sowell's ultimate
fate. Judge Ambrose will take their recommendation and decide a sentence, but
he cannot condemn Sowell to death unless the jury decides on that punishment.
Eventually, it will be over and some measure of closure can be brought to the
families of the victims. Once again, RIP: Telacia Fortson, Diane Turner, Janice
Webb, Nancy Cobbs, Tonia Carmichael, Tishana Culver, Leshanda Long, Crystal
Dozier, Amelda Hunter, Michelle Mason and Kim Yvette Smith.
(source: Cleveland Scene Weekly)
FLORIDA:
For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):
http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa22511.pdf
UA 225/11----Issue Date: 22 July 2011----Country: USA (Florida)
FLORIDA EXECUTION SET 33 YEARS AFTER CRIME
Manuel Valle, a Cuban national, is due to be executed in Florida on 2 August.
He was convicted of the murder of a police officer in 1978. He was 27 years old
when first sent to death row. He is now 61. He is being denied access to a
meaningful clemency process.
On 2 April 1978, Officer Louis Peña of the Coral Gables Police Department in
Miami, Florida, was shot dead after stopping Manuel Valle and Felix Ruiz in
their car. Officer Gary Spell, who arrived at the scene separately, testified
that Manuel Valle had shot Officer Peña and then fired two shots at Officer
Spell. Manuel Valle was charged with murder and attempted murder. Felix Ruiz
was charged as an accessory and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Manuel Valle was sentenced to death in May 1978. In 1981, the Florida Supreme
Court ruled that his lawyer had been prevented from adequately preparing a
defense due to the speed with which the case had been brought to trial. At a
new trial in 1981, Manuel Valle was again sentenced to death, but this sentence
was overturned by the US Supreme Court in 1986. In 1988, a new jury voted by
eight to four that Manual Valle be sentenced to death.
On 30 June 2011, Governor Rick Scott signed a death warrant in Manuel Valle’s
case setting his execution date. The warrant stated that executive clemency was
not appropriate. The state has said that a clemency process has been held, but
the only information on any such process found by Manuel Valle’s current
lawyers is a request made in 1992 by the then-Governor Lawton Chiles that a
clemency investigation be conducted. Manuel Valle’s lawyers have said that they
can find no evidence of any clemency proceedings having been conducted, either
in the 1990s or under the current governor. They have stated that "without
notice, without the opportunity to be heard, without counsel, Mr. Valle’s
clemency proceedings, if any, did not comport with due process". If any such
proceeding has been conducted, the lawyers have asserted, "It was conducted in
complete secrecy without counsel"
The US Supreme Court has stated that executive clemency is the "fail-safe" in
the criminal justice system, to provide the possibility for remedy or relief
not provided by the judiciary. Under article 6.4 of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty ratified by the USA in 1992, "anyone
sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of the
sentence". Respect for this right can only be achieved through a meaningful,
transparent process, with the participation of the prisoner and his or her
counsel. No such process has been conducted here, in violation of the USA’s
international obligations.
PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in your own language:
- Acknowledge the seriousness of the crime for which Manuel Valle was sentenced
to death and explaining that you are not seeking to downplay the suffering
caused;
- Express concern that Manual Valle has not had access to a meaningful and
transparent clemency procedure, as required under international law, and urge
that this be rectified;
- Point to the cruelty of the death penalty, not least subjecting someone to 33
years on death row, and note that in that time, scores of countries have
abolished the death penalty as they have come to recognize its risks, costs,
ineffectiveness, and its incompatibility with fundamental human rights
principles;
- Urge Governor Scott to prevent this execution and to ensure commutation of
Manuel Valle’s death sentence.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, AND BEFORE 2 AUGUST 2011 TO:
Office of Governor Rick Scott, State of Florida, The Capitol, 400 S. Monroe
St., Tallahassee, FL, 32399-0001, USA
Fax: 1 850 487-0801
Email: rick.sc...@eog.myflorida.com
Salutation: Dear Governor
URGENT ACTION
FLORIDA EXECUTION SET 33 YEARS AFTER CRIME ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Manuel Valle is a Cuban national. According to his current lawyers, he was not
informed after his arrest in 1978 of his right to seek assistance from the
Cuban authorities, as required under the Vienna Convention on Consular
Relations. Cuba ratified this treaty in 1965 and the USA ratified it four years
later (see also http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/063/2011/en).
Manuel Valle has been facing execution for 33 years, a torment deepened by the
fact that during his time on death row more than 60 of his fellow inmates have
been taken from their cells and killed by the State of Florida. The US Supreme
Court has not ruled on whether prolonged confinement on death row violates the
US Constitution, but individual Justices have raised concerns. In 1995, for
example, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that executing a prisoner who had been
on death row for 17 years arguably negated any deterrent or retributive
justification for the punishment, supposedly the two main purposes of the death
penalty. In 2002, in the case of an inmate who had been on death row for more
than 25 years, Justice Stephen Breyer stated that if executed, the prisoner
would have been "punished both by death and also by more than a generation
spent in death row’s twilight. It is fairly asked whether such punishment is
both unusual and cruel." Three years earlier, he had written that "It is
difficult to deny the suffering inherent in a prolonged wait for execution – a
matter which courts and individual judges have long recognized", and added that
"death row conditions of special isolation may well aggravate that suffering."
In 1996, a Florida Supreme Court judge noted that death row prisoners in
Florida, as now, "are maintained in a six- by nine-foot cell with a ceiling
nine and one-half feet high. These prisoners are taken to the exercise yard for
two-hour intervals twice a week. Otherwise, these prisoners are in their cells
except for medical reasons, legal or media interviews, or to see visitors….
These facilities and procedures were not designed and should not be used to
maintain prisoners for years and years."
The last execution in Florida was in February 2010. This would be the first
execution under Governor Rick Scott, who took office in January 2011. Ordinary
judicial appeals in Manuel Valle’s case were completed in October 2007, opening
the way for his execution to be scheduled. His lawyers are challenging the
"arbitrary and standard-less power given to Florida’s Governor to sign death
warrants". A week before Governor Scott signed Manuel Valle’s death warrant in
June, he was criticized in the media for not having signed such a warrant
during his first six months in office. In those months he had been contacted in
writing by the murder victim’s daughter in this case asking why Manuel Valle’s
death warrant had yet not been signed.
The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions has
said that "transparency is among the fundamental due process safeguards that
prevent the arbitrary deprivation of life", and that "persons sentenced to
death, their families, and their lawyers should be provided with timely and
reliable information". Lawyers for Manuel Valle are arguing that he has been
denied access to records to which he is entitled, including in relation to the
state’s lethal injection procedures and its acquisition of execution drugs.
They are also challenging the legality of the execution procedures. In the past
year, following the suspension and then ending of production by the sole US
manufacturer of sodium thiopental, the anesthetic component of the three-drug
mix used by most of the USA’s death penalty jurisdictions, states have
scrambled for alternatives (see USA: An embarrassment of hitches,
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/058/2011/en). Some have turned to
pentobarbital as a substitute, including Florida in June 2011. The
Denmark-based manufacturer of pentobarbital has condemned use of its drug in
executions, and has also questioned its efficacy for this purpose. On 1 July
2011, it announced that it would now use a “specialty pharmacy” program that
would deny distribution of the drug to prisons in US states using lethal
injection.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty unconditionally. There have
been 1,263 executions in the USA since judicial killing resumed there in 1977,
including 29 this year. Sixty-six men and two women have been executed in
Florida since 1977.
Name: Manuel Valle (m)
Issue(s): Death Penalty
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This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including contact
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END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL
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