And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) >Date: Fri, 01 Jan 1999 22:57:32 +0100 >To: Chris Spotted Eagle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > Lulu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Elsie Herten/KOLA <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > Gary Night Owl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >From: Celine - CSIA/LPSG-France <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Fwd : Randy Reeves > >Dec. 29, 1998--- > >NEBRASKA: > >In Lincoln, the jury foreman in the murder trial of Randy Reeves is imploring state officials to commute Reeves' death sentence to life in prison. > >In a letter to the head of the state Parole Board, Alan Griffin said he likely would have voted to convict Reeves of a lesser crime if jurors had been given that option before deliberations. > >"Had we been given a choice, I would certainly have considered voting to convict him of a lesser degree of murder, and probably would have voted to convict him of second-degree murder," wrote Griffin, information systems coordinator for the Lincoln Planning Department. > >"I believe that Mr. Reeves does not deserve a sentence of death." > >Creighton University Law professor Dick Shugrue said such pleas are unusual, but not rare. "It doesn't happen often that a foreman makes a plea," he said. "But this is not a one in a 1,000-year occurrence." > >He said the letter's legal value was "zero." > >The request, addressed to Parole Board chairwoman Jean Lovell, was received Monday by the state Pardons Board. > >Reeves, 42, is scheduled to die in Nebraska's electric chair Jan. 14 for the murders of Janet Mesner and Vicki Lamm inside a Quaker meeting house in Lincoln March 29, 1980. > >An all-white Lancaster County District Court jury convicted Reeves April 1, 1981, on two counts of felony murder. Reeves is an American Indian. > >Before deliberations, trial Judge Dale Fahrnbruch rejected a defense motion to instruct the jury on second-degree murder and manslaughter, neither of which carry the death penalty. > >Griffin declined comment Monday. His letter to Lovell is part of the information parole officials have been collecting in the Reeves case. > >That information will be used by the Nebraska Board of Pardons when it considers Reeves' almost certain application for a commutation. > >Secretary of State Scott, a Pardons Board member, said Monday he did not "know how significant" the letter would be to the board. "It's certainly unusual to get a letter like this," he said. > >In the past, Moore said, he has asked those appearing before the pardons board who believed their sentences too harsh to support those assertions with juror statements. > >"I've said, 'Bring me some jury members,'" Moore said. "It never happened." > >Other Pardons Board members include Attorney General Don Stenberg and Gov. Ben Nelson. Nelson will be replaced Jan. 7 when Gov.-elect Mike Johanns is sworn into office. > >Stenberg's office had not yet received the letter, a spokeswoman said Monday. Johanns was expected to comment on the letter in a news conference this morning, spokesman Chris Peterson said. > >In his letter, Griffin said he remembered the frustration he felt during deliberations in trying to recall several weeks of complex trial testimony. Jurors could not take notes in the trial and could not review transcripts, he wrote. > >He said jurors discussed only whether Reeves was insane at the time of the murders. Jurors ultimately rejected defense arguments that alcohol and peyote, a hallucinogen, severely impaired Reeves' judgment. > >"Once that was done, our only choice was to find him guilty," Griffin wrote. > >Reeves was heavily intoxicated and under the influence of peyote when he climbed through a kitchen window of the Quaker meeting house early on the morning of March 29, 1980, and brutally stabbed Mesner and Lamm. > >He did not have a significant violent criminal record prior to the murders. > >Defense attorney Hutchinson said the letter underscored legal arguments she and other attorneys have made all along. > >"The irony is, what the jury foreman is saying is exactly what we've been arguing in theory," she said. > >Hutchinson and several of Reeves' former attorneys have claimed jurors were forced to convict him of a capital murder because the trial judge refused to give instructions on lesser homicides. > >The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Reeves on the issue in 1997, ordering Nebraska to either resentence or retry him. But in June, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the appeals court ruling. > >The high court said Nebraska courts are not required to give instructions because, under state law, neither manslaughter nor second-degree murder are considered lesser homicides to felony murder. > >"Federal courts have said it's a state court problem," Hutchinson said. "No court has ever said it's a terribly unfair situation to put a jury." > >Earlier this month, Hutchinson filed a motion in state district court arguing that Reeves' execution would violate the equal protection clause of the Nebraska Constitution. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for Jan. 4. > >"Right now, if you're a minority, you're five times more likely to get the death penalty in Nebraska," she said. > >2 of the 3 men executed since Nebraska resumed capital punishment in 1994 were black. > >Hutchinson acknowledged that Griffin's letter was void of value as a legal argument. > >"But that's why we have a pardons board, to look at the fairness of an issue," she said. > >"The person who sat through the whole trial and heard the whole thing is saying he (Reeves) does not deserve to die. That's what's significant." > >(source: Lincoln Journal Star) > > >Nebraska Board of Pardons: > >Governor-Elect Mike Johanns >State Capitol >PO Box 94848 >Lincoln, NE 68509-4848 >402-471-2244; Fax: 471-6031 > >Scott Moore, Secretary of State >State Capitol >Suite 2300 >Lincoln, NE 68509 >402-471-2554; Fax: 471-3237 > >Don Stenberg , Attorney General >State Capitol, Room 2115 >P.O. Box 98920 >Lincoln, NE 68509-8920 >402-471-2455; Fax: 471-3297 > > >---------------------- > >Rick Halperin >AI-Texas >E-mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] > <<<<=-=-=FREE LEONARD PELTIER=-=-=>>>> If you think you are too small to make a difference; try sleeping in a closed room with a mosquito.... African Proverb <<<<=-=http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ =-=>>>> IF it says: "PASS THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW...." Please Check it before you send it at: http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/library/blhoax.htm
