July 20
TEXAS:
Man indicted in Kleberg County capital murder
A Kleberg County grand jury indicted a man Thursday on a charge of capital
murder in the May 14 death of Frank William "Will" Wearden, District Attorney
John Hubert said.
Michael Lee Lerma, 20, faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole
if convicted.
Wearden was seen early May 14 at a Kingsville bar, authorities said. His
vehicle later was seen on convenience store surveillance footage in Riviera.
Footage also showed a man attempting to use Wearden's credit cards at the
store's ATM. That man was identified as Lerma, a former employee at the store,
according to a news release from the Kleberg County Sheriff's Office.
Investigators interviewed a nearby farmworker who heard screams that morning,
leading authorities to blood spatters and eventually Wearden's body, tied up
and covered in grass in a ditch near a county road intersection.
Lerma was arrested at his home, where Wearden's pickup was parked outside, the
sheriff's office reported.
(source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times)
GEORGIA----impending execution
Court won't halt execution of Georgia death row inmate
A state court has declined to halt the execution of a Georgia death row inmate
set to die Monday. A Butts County Superior Court judge Thursday denied requests
filed by Warren Lee Hill's lawyer. Lawyer Brian Kammer argued Hill is mentally
disabled and shouldn't be executed. Similar requests are pending at the U.S.
Supreme Court.
The court said Hill has proven an IQ of 70 beyond a reasonable doubt, and he
meets the overall criteria for being mentally disabled by a preponderance of
the evidence.
But Georgia law requires death row inmates to prove beyond a reasonable doubt
they are mentally disabled to avoid execution, and the court said Hill failed
to do that.
Hill was serving a life sentence when he was convicted in the 1990 death of a
fellow inmate.
(source: Atlanta Journal Constitution)
OHIO:
Ohio death penalty committee looks at racial bias
An Ohio Supreme Court committee studying the state's capital punishment law on
Thursday rejected a recommendation to collect past data to detect racial bias
in death penalty cases.
The committee also postponed votes on a recommendation to collect information
in the future on all homicides that might be eligible for capital punishment as
another way of detecting racial bias. The committee considered but tabled a
proposal to analyze existing death penalty data collected by the state public
defender's office.
Those 2 proposals are likely to pass in the future when the committee gets more
details about the recommendations, said James Brogan, a former state appeals
court judge who is chairman of the committee.
Brogan said everyone agrees race shouldn't play a role in the death penalty,
but a number of studies nationally have already shown that is the case.
"We don't know exactly the role in Ohio, although it does appear that in a
number of cases, it seems more likely when a black defendant kills a white
victim, that they're more likely to receive the death penalty, than if a black
kills a black, which is disconcerting," Brogan said after the task force's
meeting.
"That indicates that race matters," he said.
Among precedents cited in the Race and Ethnicity subcommittee recommendations
is a 2005 Associated Press study that found that Ohio offenders who killed
white victims were more likely to face a death sentence than those whose
victims were black.
Numerous other studies of capital punishment laws around the country have also
found that death penalty charges are more likely when a victim is white than a
minority.
The committee approved a recommendation to require prosecutors, lawyers and
judges involved in death penalty cases to be trained to protect against racial
bias.
It also approved a recommendation to allow lawyers to seek the removal of
judges in cases where there is "a reasonable basis for concluding that the
judge's decision making could be affected by racially discriminatory factors."
Finally, the committee approved a recommendation requiring that defense
attorneys receive training in how best to proceed when they believe a potential
juror is removed for possibly discriminatory reasons.
The committee rejected the creation of jury instructions involving race in
death penalty cases that would also require jurors to report racial
discrimination voiced by other jurors during deliberations.
In 2009, North Carolina enacted its Racial Justice Act, directing judges to
reduce a death-row inmate's sentence to life in prison if they find race was a
significant factor in a convicted murderer receiving a death sentence or in the
composition of jurors hearing a case.
Lawmakers this month approved a scaled-back version of the law that death
penalty supporters say will rely less on statistics they call misleading. They
also say it will untie a log jam over the carrying out of executions in North
Carolina, where the state last put someone to death in 2006.
Kentucky has a similar law, the nation's first, but it has never been used in
court.
The recommendations the Ohio task force is considering would not create a
similar law.
Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor convened the task force while
making it clear it won't debate whether the state should have the death
penalty.
The committee of prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and death penalty
experts is looking at a variety of issues, from how the law affects minorities
to the role of clemency.
The committee is also studying whether Ohio's death sentences are proportional,
meaning that the nature of a crime committed by one condemned inmate is similar
to the crimes committed by others.
O'Connor says the committee's goal is to produce a fair, impartial and balanced
analysis of the state's 30-year-old law.
(source: Associated Press)
USA:
Death Penalty: States Transition to 1-Drug Executions
Both Yokamon Hearn and Warren Hill were scheduled to die on Wednesday.
While Texas put to death Hearn as planned, in the state's 1st execution using a
new process for lethal injection -- with 1 drug instead of a 3-drug mix --
Georgia Department of Corrections postponed Hill's execution until Monday at 7
p.m. to also make the switch to the single sedative pentobarbital.
Both states followed the same procedural change as other state criminal justice
departments -- including Ohio, Arizona and Idaho -- that have run into problems
finding the supply of the 3-drug mix. While the change revives the capital
punishment issue, it's not one causing much controversy.
Experts Richard Dieter and Kent Scheidegger both explained what the change
means in phone interviews with the NewsHour on Thursday.
Dieter is the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a
non-profit group that aims to present nonpartisan research on capital
punishment in the U.S. The organization has been recognized by death penalty
abolitionist groups as a champion of undermining capital punishment policy.
Scheidegger is legal director of Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a
non-profit based in California. He writes for the Crime and Consequences blog,
which focuses less on the defense of criminals and more on society's choice to
punish.
Dieter said the single-drug cocktail had been recommended by doctors and
defense attorneys:
The three-drug process is risky, two drugs are very painful and if the first
drug is not administered correctly, it is an excruciating form of execution . .
. Death takes longer with the one-drug process than the three-drug process,
which stops the heart very quickly. Last night's execution in Texas took about
25 minutes and usually these things are over in a few minutes.
"The pentobarbital is not a painful drug," said Scheidegger.
It in fact is a powerful sedative. And the argument always was, if the person
was not sedated by the 1st drug, he would feel pain by the 2nd and 3rd . . .
The 2nd reason is that the 2nd drug (pancuronium bromide) in the standard drug
protocol has largely become unavailable, and that I think is largely why Texas
switched.
Dieter also said it's hard for states to obtain the drugs.
One is simpler to get than three, plus one drug avoids the legal challenges of
pain the other drugs cause. It's a natural evolution and I think other states
will follow suit, but each state need to make necessary steps to do it right.
In both inmates' cases, the more controversial issue was whether their death
sentences could be considered cruel and unusual punishment.
Both Hearn's and Hill's attorneys argued that the inmates' low IQs should
prevent them from being put to death. The U.S. Supreme Court didn't step in on
Hearn's situation; Hill still awaits the High Court's decision.
(source: PBS)
*********************
Defense lawyers say Guantanamo court rigged to deliver death sentence
The Pentagon official overseeing the Guantanamo tribunal tried to rig the jury
selection process to boost the odds of obtaining a death sentence for a
prisoner accused of directing a deadly attack on a U.S. warship, defense
lawyers alleged on Thursday.
They asked the judge to drop the charges against Saudi defendant Abd al Rahim
al Nashiri, an alleged al Qaeda chieftain who is accused of choosing and
supplying the suicide bombers who drove a boat full of explosives into the side
of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen in 2000. The blast killed 17 sailors and
wounded dozens more.
The judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, did not rule on the request before a
pretrial hearing ended on Thursday at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base.
But he suggested that if there has been an attempt to exert improper influence,
the remedy would be to follow regular U.S. court-martial procedures for jury
selection rather than dismiss the charges.
The defense complaints focused on retired Vice Admiral Bruce MacDonald, the
Pentagon appointee overseeing the war crimes tribunals. He decides which cases
are referred to trial, whether defendants will face the death penalty, and
which military officers will make up the jury pool.
When he referred Nashiri's case for trial on capital charges that include
murder, attempted murder and terrorism, he included specific instructions on
how the judge was to carry out jury selection, something the defense
characterized as unprecedented bureaucratic meddling in matters usually left to
the trial judge.
MacDonald limited the number of challenges the lawyers could use to dismiss
jury candidates, and capped the number of jurors at 12.
A conviction and death sentence would require unanimous decisions by at least
12 jurors, so U.S. military courts typically empanel 14 or 15 to make sure they
do not drop below the quorum if someone gets sick or has to drop out during a
long trial, said Lieutenant Commander Stephen Reyes, one of Nashiri's lawyers.
MacDonald's instructions allow for the selection of alternate jurors who would
not vote unless the panel was reduced to fewer than 12, thus keeping to an
absolute minimum the number of jurors the prosecution would have to win over.
"?That is a panel that numerically favors a death sentence," Reyes said.
The chief prosecutor, Brigadier General Mark Martins, disputed there was
anything improper or prejudicial and said MacDonald was merely exercising the
authority given to him.
KANGAROO COURT, DASTARDLY DEFENDANT
Defense lawyers also asked that the charges be thrown out on grounds that
MacDonald was improperly appointed. They said he had so much authority - and no
boss - that the appointment should have required Senate approval.
The judge didn't rule on that request either but he did shed a little light on
what happened during a closed-hearing on Wednesday. The defense had asked that
the prosecution be ordered to turn over secret evidence related to Nashiri's
arrest in Dubai in 2002 and his four-year detention in secret CIA prisons
before his transfer to Guantanamo in 2006.
Pohl met privately with the lawyers to debate whether that could be discussed
in open court without revealing national secrets. He said Thursday that he had
postponed arguments on the matter until the next pretrial hearing, which starts
on October 23.
The defense has regularly called the Guantanamo tribunals unfair and defense
attorney Rick Kammen, who calls them a kangaroo court, wears a golden kangaroo
pin on his lapel.
The long delay in bringing Nashiri to trial and the defense criticism of the
tribunal have infuriated relatives and sailors who lost loved ones and
colleagues in the attack on the Cole.
A small group has made repeated trips to the remote Guantanamo base to attend
Nashiri's pretrial hearings. Some spoke to journalists after the hearing.
Saundra Flanagan, whose son Petty Officer 1st Class Kevin Rux was killed aboard
the Cole, called the defendant and his alleged al Qaeda conspirators "damn
dastardly, cruel and mean."
She said it may take a while longer to see justice done but "we'll be there
waiting and watching and listening and praying for the best outcome."
(source: Reuters)
*************************
War court----Accused planner of attack on USS Cole shuns Guantánamo court
session
The man accused of planning the attack on the USS Cole skips hearings in his
death-penalty case for the first time; Guantánamo war court dark until after
Ramadan The accused architect of al-Qaida’s USS Cole bombing skipped arguments
in his war crimes case Thursday, a day after both the public and the accused
were excluded from a hearing that discussed CIA intelligence.
All defense counsel Richard Kammen would say was that Saudi national Abd al
Rahim al Nashiri “voluntarily chose not to attend.” So guards did not move him
from his cell at the prison several miles away to the court at Camp Justice.
In all his earlier hearings, the man who was once waterboarded by CIA agents
showed up and watched the proceedings wearing the white prison camp garb of a
cooperative captive. But there was no explanation for his absence this time.
Kammen said he was barred from elaborating by the intelligence agencies’
security rules governing the “presumptive classification” of anything an ex-CIA
captive says.
Instead, the defendant’s chair sat empty as the judge, Army Col. James Pohl,
heard Nashiri’s lawyers argue to get the case dismissed, and if not get the
eventual death-penalty trial available for live television broadcasts. Pohl did
not rule on any of the motions.
The judge did however start the day by announcing that at the closed hearing a
day earlier it was decided to postpone until next time — Oct. 23-25 — arguments
on 2 secret defense motions that seek some sort of information about Nashiri’s
overseas capture and detention. But the motions are under seal, and the judge
said that he had the authority to close Wednesday’s hearing without elaborating
on the open-court record.
“No finding justifying closure was required,” he said.
Nashiri spent 4 years in the CIA’s secret overseas prison network before his
transfer to military custody in Guantánamo in 2006. According to declassified
investigations, U.S. agents interrogated him at gunpoint, with a revving power
drill to his head and while hooded — techniques his defense team considers
torture.
Attorneys for 14 media organizations objected to closure of discussions of
those motions, arguing the public has a keen interest in Guantánamo’s 1st
death-penalty tribunal.
With this week’s hearing over, the Guantánamo war crimes court went dark for
the month of Ramadan. Muslims were to begin fasting by day Friday in observance
of Islam’s holy month, and end days before resumption of hearings in the 9/11
terror case on Aug.22.
(source: Miami Herald)
*******************
Lawyers ask for Guantanamo trial to be televised
Lawyers for the alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind of the deadly 2000 attack on the
USS Cole demanded Thursday that his Guantanamo military tribunal be televised.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri's trial at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is
the first since the military tribunal system was reformed by President Barack
Obama's administration to make it fairer.
But there were howls of protest from defense lawyers and media outlets when
Wednesday's pre-trial hearing was held behind closed doors and without the
defendant -- who was barred due to the classified nature of proceedings.
Now Nashiri's defense attorney, Richard Kammen, is calling for the trial to be
televised.
"We don't request any greater intrusion in the system than already exists. We
require additional cable connection," he said. "We want to increase the
transparency, so a great amount of the public can see this event of national
and worldwide interest."
Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the suicide attack off the coast of Yemen,
which saw militants riding an explosives-laden skiff blow a 30-by-30-foot
(10-by-10-meter) hole in the USS Cole, a US Navy destroyer.
Nashiri, a Saudi citizen, faces the death penalty for allegedly masterminding
the bombing in October 2000 that left 17 sailors dead, and for a 2002 attack on
the French oil tanker MV Limburg that left one dead.
Guantanamo military trials can be watched by journalists and victims' families
who have authorization via a live closed-circuit broadcast at Fort Meade, a
military base in the eastern US state of Maryland.
"You have adopted a legal fiction... that Fort Meade is an extension of the
courtroom," Kammen told military judge, Colonel James Pohl. "Prosecutors say
they want a greater transparency. Let's take them at their word."
But prosecutor Justin Sher argued against the move, saying some "witnesses may
be reluctant to testify" if hearings are televised and pointing out that
transcripts would be available anyway on the tribunal's website.
Pohl is slated to make his decision before the next pre-trial hearings that run
from October 23 to 25.
The judge declined to recuse himself on Monday from presiding over the case
after Nashiri's lawyers cited a potential financial conflict of interest due to
the nature of his annual renewable contract with military authorities.
After being barred on Wednesday, Nashiri was free to attend Thursday's hearing
but chose not to.
(source: Agence France-Presse)
******************
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Let’s be honest: does anybody at this point like the Supreme Court?
Conservatives will never forgive them for Roe v. Wade, and while liberals might
be happy about their recent ruling in favor of the Affordable Care Act, for
many Democrats SCOTUS is still in the doghouse for the Citizens United ruling.
That being said, some people seemed to have missed the memo that just because
the Supreme Court is unpopular does not mean that its authority is void.
The state of Georgia, for instance, is planning to execute a mentally retarded
man, Warren Hill, on Monday, July 23, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling that
enacting the death penalty upon the mentally retarded was a violation of the
Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments.
The justification offered for this disregard for the Supreme Court’s ruling is
that Georgia law has the strictest standards for proving mental retardation,
being the only state that demands that the defense attorney prove “beyond a
reasonable doubt” that the defendant is retarded. In practice, this has proven
to be an “almost impossible” burden for defense attorneys; according to Ken
Levine, a law teacher at Emory, “The issue with Georgia setting its mental
health standard as high as it’s set is that it requires such a high level of
certainty that even scientists will rarely reach.”
While Georgia might consider themselves justified in executing Warren Hill,
what they are doing is still represents a flouting of the Supreme Court’s
authority. The man is clearly retarded: he has an IQ 0f 70, and in fact in 2002
a judge found him to be mentally retarded, according to a lesser standard of “a
preponderance of the evidence.”
Hill’s lawyer, Brian Kramer, perhaps put it best: ”This case highlights the
stark injustice in Georgia’s capital punishment system [. . .] The question is,
does a Supreme Court ruling count for anything in this state, or is it a paper
tiger?”
Apparently, Georgia does think that the Supreme Court is a paper tiger. The
state of Georgia’s impossibly high standards aside, the fact of the matter is
that this man fits the medical definition of being mentally retarded, and thus
executing him would be unconstitutional violation of his Eighth Amendment
rights as well as a violation of the authority of the highest court in the
country. For Georgia to circumvent this or any SCOTUS ruling on the grounds of
a technicality is a dangerous precedent to set.
Other politicians, however, already seem to think that the Supreme Court is
something they can ignore if they don’t like its decisions.
As I pointed out earlier, the Texas GOP platform calls for “Congress to
withhold Supreme Court jurisdiction in cases involving abortion, religious
freedom, and the Bill of Rights.” Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with the
way that the Supreme Court has ruled on a lot of issues, but I also recognize
that to deny that the Court has authority over certain issues if you don’t
happen to like the way it rules on those matters is to consign one entire
Branch of the government to powerlessness and irrelevance.
Similarly, Sarah Palin conveniently forgot about SCOTUS when discussing
abortion rights. When the rumor began to float around that the Condoleezza Rice
was being considered as Mitt Romney’s VP candidate, Palin explained how she
could tolerate Rice’s pro-choice position on abortion, saying, “I would
certainly prefer a presidential and vice presidential candidate who had that
respect for all innocent, precious, purposeful human life, and showed that
respect by being a pro-life candidate. We need to remember, though, that it’s
not the vice president that would legislate abortion, and that would be
Congress’ role. And we’ll keep that in mind.”
Actually, it’s not Congress’s role to “legislate abortion,” at least in the
sense that Palin wants abortion “legislated.” Palin obviously means she wants
abortion rights restricted, but after Roe v. Wade, Congress has about as much
power as the Vice-President to limit abortion, at least during the first
trimester: little to none. So for Palin to make the claim that Congress is in
charge of restricting or allowing abortions is misleading at best, and shows
that she either does not understand the full power of the Supreme Court’s
rulings or that she does not want to accept that authority.
I don’t like the way the Supreme Court has ruled on a lot of issues, and at
this point pretty much everyone has some bone to pick with the Justices. But
that does not change the fact that for now the Court’s rulings have the full
force of law behind them. Just because people want to ignore the Supreme Court
does not mean it will go away.
(source: Ryan Scott; The Handle)
SOUTH DAKOTA:
Donald Moeller: A Timeline
It took 22 years, but convicted child killer, Donald Moeller will finally be
executed for the brutal rape and murder of a 9-year-old Sioux Falls girl.
As Moeller now sits on death row awaiting his execution day, we look back at
the case that horrified and outraged KELOLAND viewers.
It was May 8 1990, when 9-year-old Becky O'Connell was first reported missing.
Police released a photo to the media in hopes she'd be found alive and okay.
But they later learned she had been kidnapped while on her way to a convenience
store to buy some candy.
The following morning her body was found in a wooded area in Lincoln County.
Her killer had driven her to a secluded area, raped and killed her by stabbing
and slashing her throat.
While investigators scoured the area looking for evidence, 1 man immediately
became a possible suspect.
"They say the man has a lengthy criminal history and in recent years his
actions have become increasingly violent against women and children,"
KELOLAND's Jessica Armstrong reported.
That man was Donald Moeller.
"We want to question him that doesn't necessarily mean he's a suspect, but it
certainly wouldn't rule it out," Lincoln County State's Attorney Jeff Masten
said.
But Moeller was nowhere to be found because he had fled South Dakota.
Then in February of 1991, Moeller was captured in Washington state and brought
back to Sioux Falls to face murder charges.
After a lengthy and emotionally charged trial, Moeller was convicted in 1992
and sentenced to die.
But the state Supreme Court overturned his conviction, ruling that improper
evidence was used at trial.
Then in 1997, Moeller was again convicted and sentenced to die. The state had
offered him a deal if he confessed to the killing.
"I don't think you can have any sympathy for this guy, he had an opportunity to
save his own life and he didn't take it," Lincoln County State's Attorney Scott
Abdallah said.
Moeller again appealed his conviction, but the state Supreme Court affirmed the
sentence.
Finally after exhausting all of his appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, on
Wednesday a judge set Moeller's execution date for the week of October 28th.
Moeller has a pending appeal claiming that South Dakota's death penalty is
unconstitutional, but Attorney General
(source: Keloland TV)
_______________________________________________
DeathPenalty mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A free service of WashLaw
http://washlaw.edu
(785)670.1088
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
