July 27
TEXAS----impending execution
Stay of execution filed in Druery case
Attorneys for 32-year-old Marcus Druery — a Texas death row inmate from Bryan
scheduled to be executed next Wednesday — filed a stay of execution with the
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals this week.
Druery was sentenced to death by a Brazos County jury in 2003 for killing
20-year-old Skyyler Brown by shooting him in the head on Halloween 2002 on
Druery’s family’s ranch. After murdering Browne, Druery robbed him of cash, a
cellphone, pager and marijuana before setting his body on fire and dumping it
in a nearby stock pond.
The request to postpone the execution was sent late Wednesday, a day after
District Judge J.D. Langley denied motions filed by Druery’s attorneys asking
that a hearing be held and for two independent psychiatrists to be appointed to
assess if their client is competent for execution.
Defense attorneys Kate Black and Greg Wiercioch with the Texas Defense Service
have argued that while Druery may have a “factual understanding” that he’s
supposed to be executed next week, he doesn’t have a “rational understanding”
about why he’s been sentenced to the death penalty.
In their motion to the appeals court, the defense reiterated its position that
Druery meets the legal criteria for incompetency outlined by the Supreme Court
and asked the panel of nine state judges for more time so that the competency
issue can be further reviewed.
(source: The Eagle)
***********
Bryan Killer's Lawyers Seek Stay of Execution From Appeals Court
With just 6 days to go before his scheduled execution, Marcus Druery's lawyers
have officially filed an appeal to a higher court trying to stop the lethal
injection.
Tuesday, a local judge rejected a motion for a hearing to see if the
32-year-old is competent to be executed. Judge J.D. Langley also denied a
request to postpone the August 1 execution.
Late Wednesday, Druery's attorneys filed a motion to the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals for a stay pending a review of his competency.
Druery was convicted of the 2002 murder of Skyyler Browne, but doctors have
said he suffers from schizophrenia. Medical records were unsealed Wednesday by
Langley noting Druery's condition.
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, an inmate must know they are being
executed and why before they are put to death. Otherwise, it would be
considered cruel and unusual punishment.
Tuesday, prosecutors successfully argued that Druery's odd writings, statements
and requests demonstrate he is aware of his impending fate. Lawyers for Druery
say their client may have demonstrated a factual knowledge of the execution,
but he does not have a rational understanding because of his mental condition.
Druery would be the 1st Brazos County killer to be executed since Ynobe
Matthews in 2004. Druery was returned to the Polunsky Unit in Livingston
Wednesday after being in Brazos County for Tuesday's hearing.
(source: KBTX News)
****************
Judge Denies Psychiatric Evaluation for Schizophrenic Death Row Inmate
On July 24, a Texas county judge declined to order a psychiatric evaluation to
determine whether Marcus Druery is competent to be executed on August 1.
Earlier this month, Druery's attorneys requested a full investigation of his
mental status, arguing he hears voices, believes he is being poisoned with
feces-spiked food, and lacks the understanding of his legal situation required
under the constitution for execution. Reports by mental health officials at the
University of Texas show that Druery experienced ongoing mental health problems
and is schizophrenic. Prison medical records also show Druery was prescribed
anti-psychotic medications and his mental status has fluctuated during his
years on death row. Kate Black, one of Druery's attorneys, said that standards
set by the U.S. Supreme Court in Panetti vs. Quarterman require an inmate
facing execution to have a "rational understanding" of his crime and
punishment. In 2011, Druery claimed to be attacked by guards and prisoners,
saying, "They refused to unwire me from speakers. I was hooked up to speaker
system. I do not know who did it when, where or why. I thought I was supposed
to go back out to the world." Druery was sentenced to death for a
robbery-murder that occurred in 2002.
(source: DPIC)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Allentown Public Theatre explores 'The Exonerated'
Kirk Bloodsworth spent more than eight years on death row for the rape and
murder of a 9-year-old girl in Rosedale, Md. The problem was he didn't do it.
In 1993, Bloodsworth became the 1st death-row inmate in the United States to
have his conviction overturned using DNA evidence. His story is the subject of
a book and an upcoming film and he has become an activist in the anti-death
penalty movement and an advocate for due process for those accused of crimes.
His case is unbelievable, but not rare. Almost 300 people have been exonerated
through DNA evidence following their conviction.
5 of their stories are told in "The Exonerated," a play that uses the words and
thoughts of people wrongly convicted. The provocative and insightful play,
written by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, premiered in New York City on Oct.
10, 2002, at 45 Bleecker Theater and ran for two years. Since then it has been
produced by regional theaters around the country.
On Friday and Saturday, Allentown Public Theatre presents a staged reading of
the play as part of a three-weekend Actors in Action Festival. Each performance
of "The Exonerated" will be followed by a panel discussion. On Saturday night,
Bloodsworth is part of the panel. Friday night includes Vincent Moto, who spent
more than 10 years in prison for a rape and burglary he did not commit. The
panel will also include director Felix Mayes, and Marissa Bluestine, the legal
director of Pennsylvania Innocence Project.
Allentown Public Theatre Director Joshua Neth believes theater can make people
talk about social issues and help effect change. Last year the company raised
the issue of pedophilia and child abuse with its production of David Harrower's
chilling drama "Blackbird." It hopes to raise public awareness with "The
Exonerated."
Allentown Public Theatre member Susan Weaver, who is panel moderator, has been
an advocate against the death penalty since her student days. Today she is a
font of knowledge and has reams of research at her fingertips.
"I was surprised that the death penalty does not save us money, but it actually
costs more to execute a person with all the subsequent legal appeals and
lawyers' fees than it does to just keep him in prison for life,'' Weaver says.
"This is not only a very dramatic play, but an important play."
Blank and Jensen, who have since married, are New York-based actors. They got
the idea to write the play after attending a conference about the death penalty
at Columbia University. After listening to stories about those wrongly
convicted and sentenced to prison, the couple spent the summer of 2000
interviewing exonerees throughout the United States.
The play is written for a nine-member cast, with each member playing multiple
roles in addition to the exonerees. The script includes the thoughts of family
members, lawyers, judges, prison guards and policemen involved with each case.
Blank and Jensen wrote the play as a plea for understanding. It moves between
1st-person monologues and detailed scenes in courtrooms and prisons. The
stories of the exonerees are interwoven to paint a picture of the American
justice system and 5 people who persevered to survive it.
Bloodsworth says he was exonerated through a quirk of fate.
"After spending years trying to get a new trial and a new attorney, I was
reading mystery writer Joseph Wambaugh's book, 'The Blooding,' " says
Bloodsworth. " 'The Blooding' is about how DNA found a killer in an English
village after the police took DNA from an entire village. And as I read the
story, I thought to myself, 'If someone can be convicted by DNA, why can't I be
exonerated by DNA?' So I called my lawyer."
2 years later Bloodsworth was a free man.
"I have seen this play many times," says Bloodsworth, who speaks without
bitterness, and with a self-deprecating humor. He talked about his trial and
conviction dispassionately.
"When all this happened in 1984, DNA was not an acknowledged and legitimate
legal tool. Now there are still people on death row waiting for DNA testing to
help them."
Bloodsworth was convicted of the rape and murder of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton
based on a witness account and circumstantial evidence.
At the time he was 22, newly married, an honorably discharged Marine and he had
just moved to the area. "A next door neighbor saw a composite sketch in the
newspaper and called the police, and said that the sketch looked like her new
neighbor," Bloodsworth says. "The police arrested me even though the only
eyewitness said the assailant was short, skinny and had tanned skin. I am a
former Marine discus champion, over 6 feet tall with red hair, bushy side burns
and a mustache. I weighed 230 pounds and no one could call me skinny. I was
definitely the athletic type. Also I did not have tanned skin. Because of my
light skin color, my skin burns and never tans."
But after 2 trials and 2 pro bono lawyers, Bloodsworth was convicted and sent
to death row.
"When I was finally released, I didn't now how to resume my new life and live
in the real world."
Since his release, Bloodsworth has become a well-known public speaker about his
experiences as a death-row inmate. He has also has worked for The Innocence
Project, which was co-founded by Barry Scheck in 1992. Scheck received his 15
minutes of fame as a member ofO.J. Simpson's defense team as a DNA expert. The
Project is dedicated to using DNA evidence to exculpate individuals of crimes
for which they were wrongfully convicted.
"I had a tough time, and after 19 years it is still difficult, but I try not to
be bitter,'' says Bloodsworth. "Dawn Hamilton was the real victim. But what is
frightening is that what happened to me can happen to anyone at any time."
Bloodsworth has become a symbol of the fight against the death penalty. He is
the subject of a feature documentary being made by indie filmmaker Gregory
Bayne, "Bloodsworth: An Innocent Man." He also co-wrote with Tim Junkin,
"Bloodsworth: The True Story of the First Death Row Inmate Exonerated by DNA."
Felix Mayes, an area actor who is directing "The Exonerated" for Allentown
Public Theatre, says his experience with prejudice and racial violence give him
insight into the issues explored in the play.
Mayes, who grew up in Newark, N.J., is half African-American and half Puerto
Rican. He says he was saved from his neighborhood when he received a
scholarship for school in Connecticut. From there he was accepted into
Muhlenberg College in Allentown and discovered his talent as an actor.
"I have personally seen gang violence and know the effects of prison on the
families," says Mayes, who has had several family members incarcerated. Some,
he says, rightly, but others, he believes, wrongly.
"A lot of this anger against the death penalty and criminals is fueled by
racism and Josh felt that I would bring a racial freshness to the play. The
play tells an important story about how prison affects the relationships of
those on the inside with those on the outside."
610-820-6704
'THE EXONERATED'
•What: Allentown Public Theatre presents a staged reading of play based on true
stories of wrongly convicted people who were exonerated. The reading is part of
a three-part Actors in Action Festival.
•When: 8 p.m. July 27- 28
•Where: America on Wheels, Long Haul Room, 5 N. Front St., Allentown
•How much: $15
•What else: Free post-show talk featuring cast members director Felix Mayes;
Marissa Bluestine, legal director, Pennsylvania Innocence Project, and exoneree
Vincent Moto on July 27 and Kirk Bloodsworth on July 28. Free pre-show
reception 6-7:30 p.m. July 28 in the HubCap Cafe, America on Wheels.
•What's coming: "Dinner with Marney" by Jennifer Santos of Easton, a comedy of
manners about a Thanksgiving dinner from hell, 8 p.m. Aug. 3-4, America on
Wheels. Tickets: $15.
(source: Allentown Morning Call)
COLORADO:
Tragedy compounded: Killers' parents become instant pariahs
As news crews swarmed outside the tile-roofed house of accused shooter James
Eagan Holmes’ parents in an upscale suburb of San Diego, a stranger 1,300 miles
away in Texas grieved for those inside.
“I’ve been worried about the family,” said Lois Robison, 78. “I know what it’s
like to find out your son has killed several people.”
Last Friday, when Holmes allegedly opened fire in a movie theater in Aurora,
Colo., his parents, Robert and Arlene Holmes, were instantly thrust into a club
that no one wants to join: family members of notorious killers.
Like the parents of Tucson shooter Jared Loughner, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy
McVeigh and Columbine High School killers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris,
they’re quickly becoming pariahs, publicly reviled for raising a monster.
But a group organized on behalf of murder victims’ families urges compassion
and understanding for the families of murderers, too.
They suffer in a different way than those who lose loved ones to violence, said
Renny Cushing, founder and executive director of Murder Victims' Families for
Human Rights, or MVFHR, which has organized support sessions for killers'
families.
“I became really painfully aware of the ostracism that takes place,” said
Cushing, whose father was murdered in 1988. “Immediately, there’s this thought
that families must have done something to cause this, that the apple doesn’t
fall far from the tree.”
That’s all too familiar to Robison, a retired3ird-grade teacher. Her son, Larry
Keith Robison, was executed in 2000 in Texas for the grisly murders of 5
people, including an 11-year-old boy. He had been diagnosed with paranoid
schizophrenia at age 21, 3 years before the 1982 murders.
Though it’s been nearly 30 years since the crime, Robison still clearly recalls
the shock and horror of the early days -- and the reaction of some in the
community of Burleson, Texas. Reporters surrounded her home; in ensuing
months, some parents asked to have their children removed from her class.
No longer were they Ken and Lois Robison, the local schoolteachers.
“We became the parents of a mass murderer,” said Robison.
It’s a shift that happens quickly as a restless public searches for someone or
something to blame for senseless acts of murder, said Cushing.
Indeed, Arlene Holmes, 58, a registered nurse, and Robert Holmes, 61, a
scientist, are being publicly reviled. Some Internet commenters have called
them “abusive” and suggested that they are responsible for their son's alleged
acts.
“Where were YOU Mother why didn’t you take care of him,” read one NBCNews.com
comment. “To me it sounds like a bad mother.”
Another expressed “pity” for the family -- but with a twist:
“I know that if it had been one of my sons who did this I would be absolutely
shattered (not that it could ever be one of them as there must have been
signs.)”
The Holmes family has expressed sorrow for the 12 people killed and 58 injured
in the attacks, and, through their lawyer, asked for privacy as they grapple
with the situation.
They indicated they would stand by their son through the ordeal.
“I think anyone can imagine how they’re feeling, anyone who’s ever been a
parent,” said lawyer and family spokeswoman Lisa Damiani at a press conference
Monday.
Families of murderers are grief-stricken after such a tragedy, but, unlike the
families of the victims, they may feel they have no right to their feelings,
said Bud Welch, whose 23-year-old daughter, Julie, was killed in the Oklahoma
City bombings in 1995.
Welch met with Bill McVeigh, the father of Timothy McVeigh, who was executed
for the crime.
“It’s really difficult for them, it really is,” said Welch, a member of MVFHR,
which opposes the death penalty for murderers. “Bill McVeigh can never say
anything publicly about anything Tim did that was nice.”
Instead, the family members of the killers struggle for the rest of their lives
with shame and guilt over their loved one’s acts.
“I said, 'Bill, you have nothing to apologize for. You did not do it. You did
not contribute to it,'" Welch recalled.
That message has provided some solace to other families of murderers. Welch met
with the parents of Eric Harris, 1 of the 2 killers who led, and died in, the
1999 Columbine High School shootings.
Public sentiment vilified Wayne and Kathy Harris, Eric’s parents, and also Tom
and Sue Klebold, the parents of Dylan Klebold, the other Columbine shooter.
“People were so angry. They said, ‘How were those boys raised?’” Welch said.
“They weren’t raised any damn different than any of the kids in Littleton.”
Lois Robison said she and her husband, Ken, now 81, have found comfort and
empowerment in speaking out about their son's crime, and about the need for
adequate care for mental illness. They had great support from family members
and those in the community who knew them, she added.
"When this happened, my husband said 'We can do 1 of 2 things,'" Lois Robison
recalls. "We can crawl into a cave and pull a rock in there behind us. Or we
can tell the truth and try to keep it from happening to someone else.'"
Bud Welch said he’s tempted now to reach out to victims of Aurora, both the
families of those who were killed -- and the family of the alleged killer.
“These family members in Aurora, they’re going through so much grief. They need
so much help,” he said. “The family of shooter? God only knows they’re going
through hell, too.”
(source: NBC News)
************************
Death penalty foes won't take a stand in Colorado
James Holmes and the death penalty: In the aftermath of the Aurora, Colo.,
slaughter, the question went forth on all of the political chatter shows: "Will
this reopen the debate over gun control?"
In the aftermath of the Aurora, Colo., slaughter, the question went forth on
all of the political chatter shows: "Will this reopen the debate over gun
control?"
That's the script. When heinous monsters kill people with guns, we tend to talk
about the problem of guns. Or rather, people in Washington, New York and other
big cities tend to talk about the problem of guns, because they think guns are
the problem. There's an irony there, of course, given that such cities tend to
have the worst gun-related murder rates — Chicago these days has the equivalent
of an Aurora every month — and they are the places where guns are hardest to
come by, legally.
Regardless, the gun debate flashed for the briefest of moments, like a round of
heat lightning that fails to herald a storm, and then disappeared.
Instead, the conversation has moved to other familiar topics. What to do about
the mentally ill? How much blame does our violent popular culture deserve? Etc.
These are good questions. But you know what debate seems conspicuously absent?
Should we execute James Holmes?
Death penalty opponents are fairly mercenary about when to express their
outrage. When questions of guilt can be muddied in the media; when the facts
are old and hard to look up; when the witnesses are dead; when statistics can
be deployed to buttress the charge of institutional racism: These are just a
few of the times when opponents loudly insist the death penalty must go.
But when the murderer is white or racist or his crimes so incomprehensibly
ugly, the anti-death-penalty crowd stays silent. It's the smart play. If your
long-term goal is to abolish the death penalty, you want to pick your cases
carefully.
But the simple fact is, if the death penalty is always wrong, it's wrong in the
politically inconvenient cases too.
The standards of newspaper writing and civic discourse require that we call
Holmes the "alleged" culprit in this horrific slaughter. That's fine, but if
the facts are what we've been told they are, then we know this man is guilty
and the jury will not have a hard time saying so.
We don't know whether he's mentally ill, but odds are he isn't. Indeed,
criminologists and psychiatrists will tell you that most mass murderers aren't
insane. But the public debate is already caught up in a familiar tautology.
What Holmes did was an act of madness, therefore he must be a madman. And if
he's a madman, we can't execute him because he's not responsible for his
actions. And if he's not responsible, then "society" must be. And we can't
execute a man for society's sins. So: Cue the debate about guns, and funding
for mental health, and the popular culture.
Well, I say enough. I favor the death penalty. I don't support killing insane
or mentally disabled people who are truly not responsible for their actions,
but I don't believe that committing an "act of madness" necessarily makes you a
madman. But committing an act of wanton evil makes you an evil man.
Evil and madness are not synonyms. Societies that cannot distinguish between
the 2 are destined to get more of both.
If the death penalty is always wrong, let us have an argument about James
Holmes, a man many Americans are aware of, informed about and interested in.
Let us hear why the inequities of the criminal justice system require his life
be spared. Fight the death penalty battle on this battlefield.
That won't happen. It won't happen in part because nobody on the Sunday talk
shows wants to debate the death penalty when the case for it is strong. They
like cases that "raise troubling questions about the legitimacy of the death
penalty," not cases that affirm the legitimacy of the death penalty.
But it also won't happen because death penalty opponents understand that when
the murderer is unsympathetic, the wise course is to hold your tongue until the
climate improves.
It remains an open question whether Colorado will seek the death penalty.
Prosecutors know that doing so would add years and millions of dollars in extra
costs because opponents have so gummed up the legal works. That way they can
complain about the outrageous costs of a mechanism they themselves have worked
to make prohibitively expensive.
I say, let us give Holmes a fair trial. If convicted, execute him swiftly. If
you disagree, explain why this man deserves to live.
(source: Jonah Goldberg is an editor-at-large of National Review Online and a
visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; Chicago Tribune)
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