[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.J., MD., N.C.
May 19 TEXAS: URGENT ACTION APPEAL 18 May 2007 UA 118/07 Death penalty / Legal concern USA (Texas) Cathy Lynn Henderson (f), white, aged 50 Cathy Henderson is scheduled to be executed in Texas on 13 June. She was sentenced to death in May 1995 for the murder of a three-and-a-half-month-old baby, Brandon Baugh, in January 1994. On the morning of 21 January 1994, Brandon Baugh's parents left him with Cathy Henderson, who was the daily caregiver, at her home in Pflugerville, near Austin, Texas. When the child's mother returned to collect him later in the day, both he and Cathy Henderson had disappeared. The FBI arrested Cathy Henderson in Kansas City, Missouri, on 1 February 1994. Cathy Henderson admitted that she had killed the child, but stated that it had been an accident, which she has maintained ever since. She said that she had dropped the baby and that he had struck his head on a concrete floor. She said that after her efforts to resuscitate him had been unsuccessful, she had panicked, buried the baby's body and fled to Missouri, her native state. After the body was located on 8 February, Cathy Henderson was charged with capital murder. Under the Texas penal code, the murder of a child under six years old is punishable by the death penalty. The jury heard expert opinion that the head injuries sustained by the baby could not have been the result of an accidental fall from the defendant's arms. Dr Roberto Bayardo, who conducted the autopsy, stated that the nature of the injuries ''proved'' that Cathy Henderson had deliberately murdered Brandon Baugh by a blow to the head. For example, he said that the baby would have to have fallen ''from a height higher than a two-storey building'', or to have been ''involved in a motor vehicle accident'' in order to have sustained the head injury in question. Dr Sparks Veasey suggested that the death had occurred as a result of ''the child's head impacting in an extremely forceful manner a blunt surface -- a floor, counter top, a desk top, a wall''. The prosecution provided no crime scene evidence to support such hypotheses offered by its experts. The analysis of the amount of ''force'' necessary to break or shatter an object, including a skull, requires expertise in the sciences of physics and engineering, rather than medicine, and this has led to the science of ''biomechanical'' analysis. Prior to the trial, the defense lawyers had sought funds to hire an expert to conduct a biomechanical investigation of Cathy Henderson's claim that the baby's death had been accidental. The request was denied. The jury convicted Cathy Henderson of capital child murder and after finding that she would pose a danger to society if allowed to live, voted for execution. In an appeal just filed in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Cathy Henderson's current lawyers point out that the biomechanical analysis of infant head trauma has developed substantially in the dozen years since her trial. With accompanying reports from four experts, the appeal argues that the trial of Cathy Henderson would today be conducted against a fundamentally different scientific landscape than existed in 1995. For example, in his report, Dr Peter Stephens states that ''biomechanical consultation and testimony is essential to the understanding of any impact injury to the head, and is mandatory for any case proceeding to litigation, civil or criminal I would not contemplate assigning a cause and manner of death in any controversial case involving head injury without obtaining, or recommending consulting, a biomechanical evaluation.'' Dr John Plunkett, a forensic pathologist with an expertise in infant head trauma, states that while he agrees with the experts at trial that an impact injury caused Brandon Baugh's death, Dr Bayardo's conclusions were ''wrong'' and that he had ''strayed from his area of medical competence and expertise when he opined about the amount of 'force' sustained by Brandon Baugh, and opined that this 'force' could not have been sustained accidentally''. Dr Plunkett notes that the trial transcripts indicate that ''none of the medical witnesses in Ms Henderson's trial understood [the science of biomechanics]''. Dr Plunkett states that he has reviewed at least two cases of accidental falls of less than four and half feet involving infants that ''caused fractures virtually identical to Brandon's''. Dr Stephens concurs, stating that ''since 2000, physicians have increasingly recognized that lethal injury to the infant can, and does, occur from an accidental fall, even of a short distance It is simply incorrect to state that only a fall from a bunk bed, balcony, or upper story window can cause such an injury. Forensic pathologists, biomechanical scientists and many pediatricians now agree that such comparisons are without scientific merit and should not be made.'' In her report on the case, Dr Janice Ophoven notes: ''In the past, the characteristics of a fracture of the type
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS
May 16 TEXASexecution Prison escapee executed for killing Texas deputy Kansas prison escapee Charles Edward Smith was executed this evening for the fatal shooting of a sheriff's deputy who was trying to pull him over for stealing $22.50 worth of gasoline from a service station. Asked if he had a final statement, Smith replied, No sir. Smith, 41, was pronounced dead at 6:41 p.m., 11 minutes after the lethal drugs began to flow. The execution had been delayed slightly because of difficulty finding veins for the needles carrying the drugs. For a fleeting second, Smith glanced at friends and relatives of slain Pecos County Deputy Tim Hudson, including Gwynn Hudson Simmons, the officer's daughter, as they entered the death chamber. I'm glad he didn't say anything negative, she said. You wait on something 18 years that should have been done years ago, it's just the right thing to have happen. I doubt most taxpayers know that their money goes for this kind of thing to drag 18 years. I think we need to speed up the process... It's not a happy occasion for anyone, but it is justice and it's about my father and his life and honoring him. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to review his case. Smith and a cousin, Carroll Smith, had fled from a minimum security prison in Shawnee County, Kan., 5 days before the Aug. 19, 1988, slaying of Hudson, 61. Charles Smith had served about a year of a one- to five-year sentence for burglary, theft and aiding a felony. His cousin was serving seven to 25 years for burglary, theft and criminal damage to property. After escaping, Charles Smith, a native of San Bernardino, Calif., and Carroll Smith, from Houston, stole a truck and headed for Texas. They reached Houston and broke into several houses, stealing money, credit cards and other items, including the .357-caliber Magnum pistol evidence showed was the weapon used to kill Hudson, who had planned to retire in about 9 months. The pair, who had replaced the truck stolen from Kansas with a stolen van, got gas in Bakersfield in West Texas and drove off without paying. When Hudson tried to pull them over about 30 minutes later on Interstate 10 near Fort Stockton, Charles Smith opened fire. One of the shots went through Hudson's arm and into the deputy's chest, fatally wounding him. Evidence showed Hudson, who had worked in law enforcement in West Texas and New Mexico for some 30 years, apparently didn't know the men in the van were escapees, that he never drew his gun and had just radioed the license plate number to a dispatcher. The shooting prompted an extensive hunt for the deputy's killers across West Texas that ended with a wild police chase and shootout, the fugitives smashing through police roadblocks with a tractor trailer truck they stole after ditching and burning their van. Some 60 officers and a Customs Service helicopter were involved in the pursuit that reached speeds of more than 100 mph. Under arrest, Charles Smith made 2 videotaped confessions, according to court records. He was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. In 1992, his conviction was thrown out by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which ruled the trial judge improperly denied a challenge from Smith's lawyer during jury selection. In 1995, the same appeals court threw out a 2nd death sentence for improper jury instructions. 4 years later, he was sentenced to die a third time. He declined from death row to speak with reporters in the weeks preceding his execution. His cousin agreed to a life prison term and remains behind bars. Things just seemed to happen around Charles, lawyer Martin Underwood, who defended Smith at his trials, said this week. Smith's defense, which jurors dismissed, was that the slaying was unintentional. We just didn't have that much to work with, Underwood said. Smith's original Kansas conviction stemmed from a burglary where he and a companion stole a rifle that was used in a killing in Garden City, Kan. According to testimony at his capital murder trial, a fellow inmate in the Pecos County Jail said Smith told him killing a police officer fulfilled one of his lifetime goals. He also was remembered by jailers for singing the 1970s Eric Clapton rock song I Shot the Sheriff and amending the words to say, But in my case it was the deputy. Smith becomes the 14th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 393rd oveall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Smith becomes the 154th condemned inmate to be put to death since Rick Perry became Governor of Texas in 2001. At least a dozen other condemned inmates have execution dates in Texas in the coming months, 5 of them in June. Smith becomes the 19th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA, and the 1076th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (sources: Associated Press Rick Halperin) * Details Into Store Murder Revealed
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.Y., USA, N.C., TENN., PENN.
May 16 NEW YORK: Death penalty politics So what were Monday's deliberations by the state Senate all about, really? A rather lopsided vote to restore the death penalty, at least for the convicted killers of police officers, surely qualifies as a show of force. There's no question where the Senate's Republican majority, and 4 Democrats as well, stand in response to what death penalty proponents portray as open season on police officers. As Sen. Martin Golden, R-Brooklyn, put it, There is evil walking on the streets of the city and state of New York, endangering the lives of every single police officer. Still, a sense of futility prevails as well. There's enough opposition to restoring the death penalty, even for criminals vile enough to gun down the very people committed to protecting the larger public, among the Democrats who dominate the state Assembly that Speaker Sheldon Silver isn't inclined to so much as bring the matter up for a vote. Nor is Governor Spitzer pushing for a change in the law, despite his support for capital punishment under such circumstances. The arguments against the death penalty don't change, not even with 9 officers dead in the line of duty in less than two years, by a Senate count. Punishing killers by taking their own lives might appeal to certain, and understandable, instincts but it of course can't compensate for the irreplaceable loss of another life. Reserving capital punishment for the tiny percentage of killers who take the lives of police officers might well have the families of other murder victims asking why the law treats their losses differently. Nor is the death penalty the deterrent that its proponents claim it is, and were saying again on the Senate floor on Monday. That's countered by statistics showing states where the death penalty is enforced often have higher murder rates than those without the death penalty. Sen. Martin Connor, D-Brooklyn Heights, addressed that issue head on. I don't believe these vicious, vicious sociopaths are deterred by a death penalty, he said. To re-enact the death penalty -- for anyone, under any circumstances -- would raise the risk of perhaps the worst miscarriage of justice of all. Why would New York want to be in a position where an innocent man or woman could be put to death? Numerous death row inmates have been exonerated by DNA evidence in recent years. Wrongful capital murder convictions were so rampant in Illinois, for example, that then-Gov. George Ryan was compelled to impose a moratorium on executions 7 years ago. The Senate's approval of a narrowly constructed death penalty bill, regardless of the sentiments of the Assembly or the governor, leaves New York with the harshest and most unrelenting punishment of all for murders of any sort already on the books. That's life in prison without any possibility of parole. It's a fitting response to Mr. Golden and his call to vote for those that have died, those families that have lost loved ones ... to do what's right for officers and their families. That would be to continue to enforce the existing law. (source: Times Union) USA: Famous last words When I was in the Funeral Business here in Gulf Breeze, I used to get notices on strange tombstones and famous last words. It has always been of interest to me to know just what the last words of a person were, what did they leave this world saying?! Many of them are not so famous, as my uncle Elwood, when his last words were, Hold my beer and watch this! However, many people have had meaningful things to say just before they assumed room temperature. This article is not about them! When the doctor asked my old buddy and Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard if he had anything he wanted to say before he went under for his third heart operation, Lewis thought for a second and said, When does the last train leave for Albuquerque?' He never came to. I will always wonder if he knew those were going to be his last words, if he would have said something else, probably not! The last words of people that know they are going to die are interesting as well. In the case of convicted killers, some are quite memorable. When George Appel, a murderer, was sitting in the electric chair in New York in 1928 he said, Well, gentlemen you are about to see a baked appel! Now that's funny, I don't care if he died right after it or not! Remember, the death penalty is murder. That was Robert Drew right before lethal injection in Texas, August 2, 1994. He knew what he was talking about, in his case anyway! How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? French fries. Those were the last words of James French, as he sat in the electric chair in Oklahoma in1966. Now that is a sense of humor! You gotta love a killer like that! Most of us remember the last words of Gary Gilmore, the last man executed by firing squad in Utah, Jan. 17, 1977 Let's do it! They did! And about those last meals, I did not get my Spaghetti-O's, I got
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news---N.J., OKLA., CALIF., US MIL.
May 16 NEW JERSEY: Repeal death penalty New Jersey has taken another step on the path to abolishing capital punishment and we encourage the state Legislature to continue moving in that direction. During an emotional hearing last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 8-2 in favor of replacing capital punishment with life in prison without parole. The panel heard pleas from supporters and foes of the death penalty. In heart-wrench ing testimony, Sharon Hazard- Johnson implored lawmakers to keep and use the death penalty, particularly in the case of Brian Wakefield, who was sen tenced to death in the 2001 slaying of her parents in their Pleasantville home. Last week, the state Supreme Court upheld the death penalty for Wakefield. When a vicious person willfully kills someone, execute them, Hazard-Johnson told the Senate panel. Don't continue to put people like us through this. Several lawmakers pointed out that capital punishment should be reserved for such hei nous crimes as fatal sexual at tacks on children and acts of terrorism that claim the lives of innocent people. Ironically, the Senate hearing came just days after six people were arrested in a plot to kill soldiers at Fort Dix, a fact not lost on some legislators who spoke in favor of the death penalty. It is difficult to separate emotion from fact when debating capital punishment. The facts speak for themselves: The death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent; it is often discrimina tory; it can take the life of an in nocent person; it is more costly to taxpayers; and, depending on the method of execution, it can be cruel and unusual punishment. On the more visceral side, capital punishment seems to serve more as a form of revenge than justice. It is also an arbitrary way for lawmakers to say, This crime is so vile that it warrants the ultimate penalty. But emotion should not play a part in taking a human being's life, no matter how terrible the crime. New Jersey declared a moratorium on capital punishment in 2005 and commissioned a panel to study the issue. Earlier this year, the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission recommended that the state abolish capital punishment, saying it is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency. We agree. We encourage our state legislators to support the abolition of the death penalty. New Jersey can set a progressive example by becoming the 1st state to jettison capital punishment since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated it in 1976. (source: Editorial, The Times of Trenton) OKLAHOMA---new execution date Court Sets Execution Date For Death Row InmateMan To Die For 1996 Murder A man who was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of a Tillman County man will be executed on June 26, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has ruled. Jimmy Dale Bland, 49, was convicted of the Nov. 14, 1996, murder of Doyle Windle Rains, 62. Bland was arrested 2 days later for driving under the influence. At the time he was driving a vehicle owned by Rains. Bland later confessed to killing Rains at Rains' residence and hiding his body in a nearby field. Attorney General Drew Edmondson's office requested the execution date last month after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Bland's final appeal. Bland will be the 2nd person executed in Oklahoma this year. Corey Duane Hamilton, 38, was executed Jan. 9 for the execution-style slaying of 4 fast-food employees during a robbery in 1992. No other executions are scheduled. (source: KOCO News) CALIFORNIA: Here's a link to the proposed revised protocol, STATE OF CALIFORNIA SAN QUENTIN OPERATIONAL PROCEDURE NUMBER 0-770, EXECUTION BY LETHAL INJECTION: http://www.cya.ca.gov/Communications/docs/RevisedProtocol.pdf Arnie pushes for capital punishment ARNOLD Schwarzenegger wants to start executions in California after a 15-month moratorium. And that's bad news for the 666 prisoners awaiting execution in San Quentin State Prison, the nation's largest death row. Governor Schwarzenegger's officials have proposed a new execution chamber and the creation of a lethal injection team at San Quentin. Injection team members would be selected by the prison warden, trained and conduct rehearsals before scheduled executions. I am committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure that the lethal injection process is constitutional so the will of the people is upheld, Governor Schwarzenegger said yesterday. The moratorium on capital punishment started in February last year, when Judge Jeremy Fogel halted the execution of Michael Morales, a condemned rapist and murderer. Judge Fogel ruled in December that California's lethal injection procedures were cruel and unusual punishment. Yesterday the state said it would build a new Lethal Injection Facility at San Quentin. Officials said changes to the lethal injection protocol would result in the dignified end of life for the condemned inmate. California said that it would stick to a 3-drug
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALABAMA
May 16 ALABAMA: Condemned convicts deserve representation The propriety of the death penalty in a civilized society dedicated to the ideal of justice has been debated for decades. No agreement appears imminent between the 2 sides. But surely capital punishment advocates and opponents can agree on one issue regarding its implementation: Defendants whose lives hang in the balance are entitled to competent legal representation. Apparently, that is not the case in Alabama. Seven prominent members of the bar in our state including 3 former Alabama Supreme Court justices, 3 former State Bar presidents and a former Criminal Appeals Court judge filed a friend-of-the-court brief last week urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of 6 Alabama death-row inmates who claim they were denied adequate representation. Alabama's legal system regarding the provision of counsel to indigent death row inmates ... is in a state of crisis, the former judicial system officials said. Alabama is the only state that doesn't provide condemned inmates with attorneys for post-conviction appeals, The Birmingham News reported in a story on the filing. Other states have established post-conviction defender programs or have funds to assist indigent convicts with legal costs in the appeals process. Regardless of how one feels about capital punishment, surely all can agree that justice is the ultimate goal of the criminal justice system. And for justice to prevail, prosecution and defense must be sufficiently competent. Anything less is the equivalent of vigilantism. (source: Editorial, Decatur Daily)
[Deathpenalty] Urgent Action on Three Child Offenders at Risk of Imminent Execution in Saudi Arabia (UA 116/07)
URGENT ACTION APPEAL 17 May 2007 UA 116/07 Death Penalty/Fear of imminent execution SAUDI ARABIA Dhahian Rakan al-Sibai'I (m), Saudi Arabian national Mohamed Kohail (m), aged 22, Canadian national Sultan Kohail (m), aged 16, Canadian national The three named above, two of them child offenders, may all be at risk of imminent execution. Saudi Arabia is a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and has undertaken not to execute any offenders who were children when they committed the offence. According to the newspaper Okaz, Saudi Arabian national Dhahian Rakan al-Sibai'i was sentenced to death for a murder committed while he was still a child. He was held in a juvenile detention facility until he was 18 years old, when he was moved to al-Taif Prison. He has appealed to the family of the victim to pardon him: if this fails, he could be executed within days. All death sentences must be ratified by the Supreme Judicial Council, headed by the King, before they can be carried out. However, under Qisas (retribution), which is a punishment under Shari'a law, relatives of the murder victim can pardon the offender without compensation, or they can demand diya (blood money) in exchange for a pardon. When this happens, the death sentence is rescinded and the offender if often released. Negotiation of a pardon in the western part of Saudi Arabia is often initiated or facilitated by the Pardon and Reconciliation Committee. The Committee is said to be mediating on behalf of Dhahian Rakan al-Sibai'i to secure a pardon and prevent his execution. Canadian national Mohamed Kohail is also said to be facing execution for murdering a Syrian boy in January 2007. His 16-year-old brother Sultan Kohail is held with him in connection with the murder, but it is not clear whether he too has been sentenced to death. Mohamed Kohail was reportedly beaten to force him to sign a confession. BACKGROUND INFORMATION Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of offences. Court proceedings fall far short of international standards for fair trial, and take place behind closed doors. Defendants are rarely allowed formal representation by a lawyer, and in many cases are not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them. They may be convicted solely on the basis of confessions obtained under duress, torture or deception. In January 2006 the Saudi Arabian authorities told the Committee on the Rights of the Child (which monitors states' implementation of the CRC) that no one had been executed for offences committed when they were under 18 years of age since the CRC came into force in the country, in February 1996. The Committee urged the authorities to ensure that no child offenders were sentenced to death. RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible: - expressing concern at reports that Dhahian Rakan al- Sibai'I, who was a child at the time of the offence, and Mohamed Kohail, have been sentenced to death, and urging the authorities to ensure that these sentences are not carried out;. - expressing concern that Sultan Kohail, aged 16, may also be under sentence of death, and urging the authorities to commute his sentence if this is the case; - pointing out that the execution of child offenders is expressly prohibited by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Saudi Arabia is a state party; - reminding Saudi Arabia of its assurances to the Committee on the Rights of the Child that no executions of child offenders have been carried out since the convention came into force in Saudi Arabia; - calling on Saudi Arabia to take the necessary steps to halt the imposition of death sentences against child offenders, as recommended by the CRC Committee; - expressing concern at the recent increase in the number of executions in Saudi Arabia, against UN calls for moratorium on the death penalty and the international trend to abolish the death penalty. APPEALS TO: King Abdullah Bin 'Abdul 'Aziz Al-Saud The Custodian of the two Holy Mosques Office of His Majesty The King Royal Court Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Salutation: Your Majesty His Royal Highness Prince Naif bin 'Abdul 'Aziz Al-Saud Minister of the Interior Ministry of the Interior P.O. Box 2933 Airport Road Riyadh 11134 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Fax:011 966 1 403 1185 011 966 1 403 3614 Salutation: Your Royal Highness His Royal Highness Prince Saud al-Faisal bin 'Abdul 'Aziz Al-Saud Minister of Foreign Affairs Ministry of Foreign Affairs Nasseriya Street Riyadh 11124 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Fax: 011 966 1 403 0645 Salutation: Your Royal Highness COPIES TO: Ambassador Adel A. Al-Jubeir Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia 601 New Hampshire Ave. NW Washington DC 20037 Fax: 1 202 944 3113 Email: info at saudiembassy.net PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if sending appeals after 28 June 2007. Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, ARK., IND., FLA., ILL.
May 19 TEXAS: Mother charged with capital murderReport: 2 1/2-year-old girl died from blunt force trauma to the head In Brownsville, the mother of a 2 1/2-year-old Harlingen girl who died Feb. 17 has been indicted on a capital murder charge, a Cameron County District Attorneys Office spokesman said Friday. A grand jury indicted Melissa Elizabeth Lucio, 37, Chief First Assistant District Attorney Charles Mattingly said. The childs father, Roberto Antonio Alvarez, 36, was indicted on a charge of injury to a child, serious bodily injury by omission, Mattingly said. The pair were arrested the same day as the girls death, Mattingly said. The toddler was pronounced dead at the scene. In February, a Texas Department of Family and Protective Services spokeswoman said seven children, including the toddler who died in February, were removed from an apartment in 2004 and returned in November 2006. The parents had both found jobs, had taken anger management courses, random drug tests and counseling before a hearing was held to allow the return of their children, Regina Garcia, a Corpus Christi-area spokeswoman for the state agency, said. Monitoring by the Child Protective Service continued after the children were returned, she said. After the February death of the child, several relatives requested custody of the children, who were placed in foster care, Garcia said. A preliminary autopsy report said the toddler died from blunt force trauma to the head. Capital murder is punishable by Capital Life without possibility of parole or by the death penalty, Mattingly said. Injury to a child, serious bodily injury, by omission, is a 1st-degree felony, punishable by 5 to 99 years or life in prison and as much as a $10,000 fine, he said. (source: Valley Morning Star) ** Copperas Cove man pleads not guilty in death of infant son A Copperas Cove man on Friday pleaded not guilty to 2 charges, including one for capital murder, in connection with the injury and death of his 23-month-old son. Antoine Shields, 28, was arraigned in 52nd District Court before Judge Phillip Zeigler on one count of capital murder and one count of first-degree felony injury to a child in the March 24 death of Keyken Vanhardenberg-Wade. Coryell County District Attorney David Castillo said he has not decided whether he will seek the death penalty. Each case has to be evaluated independently. We will look at the totality of the circumstances to make that decision, Castillo said. Zeigler did not set a date for Shields' next court appearance. He is contemplating contacting a death penalty-certified defense attorney in anticipation of a death penalty being sought, which he is required to do by law, Castillo said. Anthony L. Smith of Temple is the court-appointed attorney for Shields, who was indicted Tuesday by a Coryell County grand jury. Smith said he plans to remain on the case, but he is not certified by the Court of Criminal Appeals as a death penalty-qualified attorney, and therefore may have to take second chair if the state pursues capital punishment. He is deeply saddened by the death of his child, Smith said of his client. This is a good opportunity to educate the public on signs of internal injuries and to know they need to seek medical help, especially young, inexperienced parents. The toddler's mother, 22-year-old Tashawna Vanhardenberg, also was indicted Tuesday on three counts of injury to a child. Her arraignment is scheduled for May 25. The indictment charged Shields with the death of his son by striking or causing (Vanhardenberg-Wade) to strike an unknown object or surface and then causing serious bodily injury by omission for subsequently failing to obtain reasonable medical care. Vanhardenberg also was accused of striking her son and failing to obtain medical care and was charged with causing serious bodily injury by failing to protect the child from Shields, according to the indictment. The grand jury decided the appropriate charges for each parent based on an investigation conducted by the Copperas Cove Police Department and the Texas Rangers, Castillo said. According to the arrest affidavits, Shields and Vanhardenberg told police conflicting accounts of the events leading up to the child's death. Police records state the parents told officers upon arrival the boy was injured when one of his siblings pulled a microwave down on top of the child's head at the Cactus Motel in Copperas Cove. However, when questioned separately, Shields told officers the child was injured when Vanhardenberg threw the boy and caught him by the leg, causing him to hit his head on the floor. According to the affidavit, Shields said that he was able to hear the bone shatter and break and that Keyken was then unable to walk or respond. When Vanhardenberg was questioned, however, she told police she had been away from home but returned to find the child, who was unresponsive, being held in the shower
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., ARIZ., MD., N.J., N.Y.
May 19 OKLAHOMA: Families of victims focus on wrongful convictions Top 10 states with highest number of exonerations: Texas - 28 Illinois - 27 New York - 23 Virginia - 10 Oklahoma - 9 California - 9 Louisiana - 9 Pennsylvania - 9 Massachusetts - 9 Missouri - 7 [source: The Innocence Project] The 8-year-old girl asked her great-grandmother if she would ever be able to hug her pa. I said, 'all we can do is hope and pray that you will,' said the great-grandmother, Shirley McCarty. She's going to get to next weekend, thank God. McCarty's son, Curtis Edward McCarty, was freed from prison after serving 22 years in prison for murder. Curtis McCarty, of Moore, was on death row for the 1982 murder of Pamela Kay Willis. But faulty forensic testimony from former Oklahoma City Police Department chemist Joyce Gilchrist led to the exoneration of Curtis McCarty. Gilchrist was terminated from the department in 2001 for allegedly doctoring trial evidence in several trials. Curtis McCarty was let go from prison on May 11. I couldn't believe we were standing in that jail hugging him and holding him, Shirley McCarty said of the day her son was released. We haven't even hardly slept. We've been sitting up to 2, 3 o'clock in the morning talking and reminiscing. Shirley McCarty, along with family members of others exonerated and the family of the victim in a wrongful conviction case, spoke at a news conference at the state Capitol on Friday to urge lawmakers to take a look at why exonerations keep occurring in the state. These families on both sides are being harmed over and over and over again when we have these rushes to justice where evidence is contrived or hidden, said Susan Sharp, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma. She has studied the effects of incarceration on the families of inmates. I think a beginning is what Christy's proposing where there's actual review so we can uncover the patterns in these cases, since we have such a problem here in Oklahoma. What Christy Sheppard is proposing is to create an exoneration review commission so experts can gather and discuss what happened in exoneration cases to see if an overall change needs to be made. The legislation, authored by Sen. Susan Paddack, D-Ada, passed the Senate but did not get heard in the House last year, and did not get heard in the Senate this year. Sheppard is the cousin of Debra Sue Carter, 21, who was raped and killed in 1982 after she got off work at the Coachlight Club in Ada. 2 men, Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson, were arrested and convicted of the murder a few years later. The 2 were released in 1999 after DNA evidence matched a different man. The case is detailed in John Grisham's book The Innocent Man. The commission Sheppard said she will push again next year is just a committee to not point fingers or place blame, but to truly look at these cases. It's not enough to say, 'well, someone has to pay,' Sheppard said. It has to be the right one. Nancy Vollertsen reflected on her brother, Greg Wilhoit, not being the right one. Wilhoit grew up in Tulsa, was a Boy Scout, had a paper route, listened to loud music and occasionally smoked a little marijuana, Vollertsen said. He got married and had 2 children, but on June 1, 1985, his wife was killed. About a year later he was arrested in connection with the murder. The evidence used against Wilhoit was a bite mark on his wife's body. A few dentists testified that the mark matched Wilhoit's teeth. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Vollertsen remembers first seeing her brother after the conviction. When they brought Greg into the visitor's area in handcuffs and leg irons and I saw him from my seat on the other side of the bulletproof glass, I suddenly realized I might never see him outside of this prison and that was more than I could bear, she said. But she has seen him outside of the prison because he was exonerated in 1993 when the 12 top forensic dental experts in the nation all said the bite marks did not match Wilhoit. After losing his wife, eight years of his life, the opportunity to raise his children, his livelihood, and his physical and mental health, Greg was free, Vollertsen said. But irreparable damage had been done. Sheppard hopes that others will not feel similar harm that wrongful convictions can create. She hopes the Legislature will listen next session and pass a measure to get a review commission set up. She said people who were against the commission believed it was soft on crime, but she disagrees. I really don't see how making sure the right prisoner's in prison is soft on crime, Sheppard said. (source: The Norman Transcript) ARIZONAimpending executino//volunteer Execution stay for Comer denied The Arizona Board of Executive Clemency and The Arizona Supreme Court both refused to consider a last-minute appeal for death row inmate Robert Comer, who is scheduled to die
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
May 19 GLOBAL: Majority of nations have halted executions Q: How many countries in the world dont have the death penalty? J.M., Raeford A: Amnesty International says 129 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. According to the group, which opposes the death penalty, that figure includes 89 countries that have abolished the death penalty for all crimes and 10 countries that have abolished it for all but exceptional crimes, such as war crimes. It also includes 30 countries, which are considered by Amnesty International to be abolitionist in practice because, while their laws still permit the death penalty, they haven't executed anyone for at least 10 years and are believed to be against the practice. Meanwhile, 68 other countries and territories retain and use the death penalty but, Amnesty International says, the number of countries that actually execute prisoners in any one year is much smaller. Most of those countries and territories are in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Caribbean. Sixteen of them are among the 50 least developed countries in the world, according to the United Nations. The most developed and economically significant nations that still use the death penalty are the United States, China, India and Japan. According to Amnesty International, 91 % of all known executions in 2006 took place in China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the United States. The group said it estimates that at least 1,010 people were executed in China last year (it says the actual figure may be between 7,500 and 8,000 people); 177 people were executed in Iran; 82 in Pakistan; at least 65 in Iraq; at least 65 in Sudan; and 53 in 12 states in the United States. (source: Catherine Pritchard, Fayetteville Observer)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., GA., OKLA.
May 18 TEXAS: 7th execution date tied to Bexar is set The record pace of Bexar County execution dates continued Thursday when a judge scheduled what could be the year's seventh lethal injection for a local murderer. The Aug. 29 date for John Joe Amador set the stage for two such executions in 2 nights. Kenneth Foster, the getaway driver in 1996 when one of his friends shot college student Michael LaHood Jr. during an attempted mugging, is currently slated to die on Aug. 30. Amador, 31, was condemned for the 1994 robbery and slaying of cabdriver Mohammad Reza Ayari. Texas has never put to death more than 4 murderers from Bexar County in a single year since the state instituted the electric chair in 1924. (source: San Antonio Express-News) Death for child rapists: House likes it, prosecutors don't Legislature: Bill heads to Perry, but high court to ultimately rule on issue Child rape is among the most horrible crimes. But is it as heinous as capital murder? Prosecutors and victims' rights groups throughout the state oppose making child rape punishable by death. They say a bill that received final approval in the House on Friday and is expected to be signed into law will leave child rapists with no reason to spare their victims' lives. Ultimately, however, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether child rape is punishable by death. Critics include Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins. Mr. Watkins said lawmakers are counting on voters who hear brief explanations of the measure on television and immediately support it. The death penalty should be reserved for the most heinous of crimes, Mr. Watkins said. This is a heinous crime but not a death penalty crime. Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley said he knows of no prosecutor in the state who strongly supports the death penalty for child rapists. Mr. Bradley testified before the Legislature about the proposed changes and has talked with prosecutors statewide. He said that some say the change won't affect them and others say they will merely carry out the law as they are required. I don't know of any [district attorney's] office across the state that wants to be a leader in saying, 'This is something we want,' Mr. Bradley said Dallas defense attorney Dan Hagood, a former Dallas County prosecutor who has worked on death penalty cases, said he strongly disagrees with anyone who says that child rape isn't as horrible a crime as capital murder. I can tell you a capital murder that's over in a moment - I try to rob you and I shoot you. Compare that to a little girl in a box who's been raped repeatedly by a man who's been to the ... [penitentiary] once before, he said. In my mind, you can't compare the suffering. The living might as well be dead. Feelings about the bill continued to run strong among state legislators during final debate Friday before the House voted to send a conference version of the bill on to the governor. It's just one more example where we think we have sort of a God-given right to intercede and kill another human being. That is flawed thinking, said Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth. It's unnecessary, and it's counterproductive. If Gov. Rick Perry signs the bill as expected, Texas would join 5 other states with the death penalty for certain crimes against children. Prosecutors could seek the death penalty the second time a person is convicted for any rape of a child under 6 or after the 2nd rape of a child age 7 to 14 when the attack involves a weapon or is particularly violent. 'Jessica's Laws' The bill is part of the Jessica's Laws movement, named for a 9-year-old Florida girl who was raped and buried alive by a convicted sex offender in 2005. In the end, the question of whether child rape is a capital crime won't be in the hands of legislators or prosecutors, said Southern Methodist University law professor Fred Moss. A 1977 U.S. Supreme Court decision forbade the death penalty for the rape of an adult woman but did not address the constitutionality of that punishment for younger victims, said Mr. Moss, a former federal prosecutor. It's interesting from a constitutional law perspective because the question that has been heading for the Supreme Court is whether you can have a death penalty case when a death has not been caused by the criminal conduct, he said. In the 1977 decision Coker vs. Georgia, the court ruled that the rape of an adult woman would violate the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The adult woman was actually a married 16-year-old. The court called death grossly disproportionate and excessive punishment for the crime of rape. The case that tests this law may not come from Texas, Mr. Moss said. Louisiana is the only state with a child rapist on death row. That case is now before the Louisiana Supreme Court. If the Louisiana justices rule that the death penalty is allowed under state law, the case will probably be
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., MO., ALA., ILL., N.Y.
May 18 CALIFORNIA: California Releases Revised Lethal Injection Protocol, Physicians Still Complicit On Tuesday, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger released a revised lethal injection protocol in hopes of reversing a moratorium on capital punishment in the state put in place by a February 2006 federal court ruling. From the LA Times: On Tuesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's legal affairs secretary, Andrea L. Hoch, and James Tilton, director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said the new protocol addressed all the issues U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel raised in finding that the state's previous procedures violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment Fogel ruled in December that the state's application of its death penalty law was broken, but said it could be fixed. He urged the governor to propose remedial action. California and 3 dozen other states use a 3-drug cocktail. Opponents argue that officials often fail to properly sedate inmates with a barbiturate against the searing pain of the final heart-stopping chemical. The inmate's reaction to the pain is masked by the intermediate drug, a paralytic, they say. A national study published in the Public Library of Science journal PloS Medicine in April found that 2 of the 3 drugs used in lethal injection are not administered properly to reliably ensure a humane death. State officials said Tuesday that they had considered switching to a single-chemical protocol. But they instead proposed to substantially revise the 3-drug protocol. The new plan appears to address the superficial concerns detailed in Fogel's ruling, but it doesn't get at the underlying problems that are intrinsic to capital punishment. A practice so outdated and vengeful as the death penalty arguably has no place in a modern democracy. In May of last year, I discussed a Nature editorial (subscription required) that laid out the role that physicians should play in ending this practice. Already, the AMA prohibits physicians from participating directly in executions, as it is seen as a violation of the Hippocratic Oath. Nature took this a step further, calling for physicians to abstain from any participation in developing California's new lethal injection guidelines: Earlier this year, a California court told state authorities that they must persuade an anaesthetist to oversee an execution, come up with a new protocol for lethal injections--or face a hearing on whether the punishment is inhumane. The last option now looks likely. If suitably qualified individuals refuse to help prepare a new protocol, the state will face the prospect of continuing to use amateurs to kill people with arbitrary and outmoded technology. Scientists often abjure political activity, and could in this case argue that they are merely providing a basis from which policy-makers can make decisions. But this decision must be taken by the physicians and scientists themselves. All that is required is a refusal to participate. Men and women of science and medicine should stand shoulder to shoulder on this. Don't advise, don't prescribe, don't inject. Let the death penalty die a natural death. Unfortunately, though, when perusing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's (CDCR) report on its new protocol, I found this: The CDCR also obtained the services of a nationally renowned anesthesiology. The consultant reviewed several proposed revisions to the Lethal Injection Protocol and provided comments to the CDCR. (Emphasis added.) Due to the typo in the document (and the strange lack of any additional documentation or reference to this shady figure), it was unclear to me what was meant by a nationally renowned anesthesiology. To clear this up, I gave the CDCR a call, and I talked to Deputy Press Secretary Bill Sessa (who was very helpful). He informed me that the person in question was in fact an anesthesiologist (i.e. a physician) and that the lack of documentation here was for privacy concerns. When asked whether it had been difficult to procure physician participation in formulating the policy, he told me that he would not be able to comment on that. This is a major disappointment to find out that a physician gave expert consultation to assist in developing California's new lethal injection protocol. Although it may seem natural to expect physicians to offer relevant advice when the potential for so much pain and suffering exists in this procedure. However, this only enables the state to perpetuate its death penalty practices. If all physicians were to fully abstain from any consultation regarding capital punishment, the practice would lose the last remaining shreds of credibility that it still desperately clings to, bringing about its timely and justified end. (source: The Scientific Activist) * All About Marin: New death row at San Quentin now an 'if', instead of 'when' STATE SEN. Carole Migden says
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----US MIL., USA
May 18 US MILITARY: Soldier's DNA matches semen from 1985 victim, expert testifies Timothy B. Hennis was acquitted in 1989 of killing Kathryn Eastburn and 2 of her young daughters. A military court is looking into the case. At Ft. Bragg, N.C., a government analyst testified Thursday that semen recovered from a woman who was killed with 2 of her young daughters matched the DNA of a soldier acquitted of the decades-old crime. Jennifer Lehn, a forensic analyst for the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, told a military court that there was virtually no chance someone other than Master Sgt. Timothy B. Hennis matched the semen sample. She described the odds as 1 in 12.1 thousand trillion among white men, and even more remote odds for other races. There are 6.5 billion people in the world, she noted. Hennis, 49, was recalled into the Army in October so he could be charged with the triple slaying in a military court. Double-jeopardy rules prevent the state from retrying him in a crime for which he has been acquitted. Hennis was convicted of the 1985 slayings and spent 2 1/2 years on death row before winning a second trial. After he was acquitted in 1989, he became a symbol of wrongful conviction, and his fight to prove his innocence was portrayed in a book and movie. The crime evidence was not tested for DNA until last year. The 6-foot, 4-inch soldier, heavier now than in his previous trials, and in need of reading glasses, appeared relaxed and confident during the hearing. He left the defense table during recesses to chat with his wife and mother-in-law, who sat in the front row of a courtroom filled mostly with reporters. Lehn testified that most of the DNA in the semen sample came from one person . Timothy Hennis, and the rest was that of the victim, Kathryn Eastburn, 31, who was raped. Eastburn and her daughters Erin, 3, and Kara, 5, were stabbed and left with their throats slashed at their brick ranch-style home near the base. Former Air Force Capt. Gary Eastburn, the husband and father of the victims, was out of town training at the time. Hennis met Kathryn Eastburn two days before the slayings when he went to her house to adopt the family's dog. After the killings, he reported to the sheriff's office with his wife and baby girl in response to a television bulletin saying that authorities wanted to speak to the man who was involved in the dog adoption. Hennis told police he never saw Eastburn again after the first meeting. The court hearing, called an Article 32 investigation, is similar to a preliminary hearing in a civilian courtroom. The investigating officer, who is like a judge, is Col. William Lee Deneke, a reservist who works as a federal prosecutor in Tennessee. He can recommend that a court-martial should proceed, or that the charges should be dismissed or modified. The final decision rests with Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, commanding general of the 18th Airborne Corps. It could be weeks before a decision. If tried and convicted in military court, Hennis again could face the death penalty. During cross-examination, defense lawyer Frank Spinner sought to show that authorities had been lax in storing the evidence over the decades. He also focused on what he said were flaws in the testing. He elicited testimony that Lehn had failed to determine whether she was in fact testing a semen sample, even though the sheriff's office had asked that she verify the substance as well as run its DNA profile. Lehn said the swab she tested, one of two that had been stored in a cardboard box, had been identified as semen in 1985, and she did not want to waste part of it reconfirming that it was semen. Cumberland County Sheriff's Sgt. Larry J. Trotter said there were neither inventories of what was in the cardboard boxes of evidence nor logs showing who had handled it. Trotter, who said he had decided to test the evidence as part of a cold-case investigation, told the court that when he went to inspect the boxes, he found that some bags had been torn open through wear and tear. He said the compromised evidence included bedding, and he repackaged it. Asked whether he had photographed or videotaped the evidence before he repackaged it, Trotter said: No, sir. That's a technique I have learned since. The defense called one witness, a former county crime technician, who testified that the evidence was inventoried when it was first collected and that one of the custodians of the evidence was later prosecuted for stealing hundreds of guns from evidence lockers. The defense also sought to show that sheriff's investigators never doubted Hennis' guilt and were stunned by his acquittal. Former Cumberland County Sheriff's Det. Robert Bittle testified that a composite drawing of a man seen leaving the Eastburn home the morning after the killings matched Hennis so closely that Bittle stopped in his tracks when he first encountered Hennis a few days later. Bittle now works as an investigator
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
May 18 GHANA: Amnesty International Writes to Attorney General On Abolition of Death Penalty THE CHRONICLE has been bombarded with series of letters from members of Amnesty International living abroad and addressed to Mr. Joe Ghartey, Attorney General and Minister for Justice reminding him of the need to abolish the death penalty in West African States and Mauritania. Amnesty International noted in the letter that for several years, it has observed a trend in favour of abolition in Africa and in West Africa where, since 2004, both Senegal and Liberia have abolished the death penalty. It noted that Ghana seems to fit in with this movement and that Amnesty International was very pleased to learn that in 2005 the Attorney General publicly stated his opposition to the death penalty. We are therefore urging you to take all the necessary measures to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Furthermore, as 152 people are imprisoned on death row according to the Ghana Prison Services, we are urging you to do everything in your power to adopt a moratorium on all executions and, we ask you to urge President J. A. Kufuor to use prerogative of mercy, as he did in 2003, by commuting all death sentences, the letter added. (source: Ghanaian Chronicle) GUATEMALA: Inmates in Limbo 21 inmates have spent years on death row in Guatemala because of a legal vacuum that has brought a de facto halt to executions but has done away with the president's right to pardon prisoners or commute their sentences. I have never been a trouble-maker, nor a lover of violence, said Carlos Garca*, a former Guatemalan police officer who has spent 11 of his 41 years of life in high security prisons, sentenced to death on charges of planning a kidnapping. In the Centro de Detencin Preventiva in Guatemala City, the dark-skinned man with a thick moustache told IPS he is innocent, and complained about the discrimination suffered by death row inmates. The only thing they haven't done is shackle us to the wall, he said. No executions have been carried out in this impoverished Central American country since 2000, but the death sentence remains in place, applicable to crimes like kidnapping (even if the victim does not die), rape of children under 10, and some drug trafficking-related offences. The death row inmates, 16 of whom were defended by court-appointed public defenders and five of whom have private attorneys, have spent between five and 11 years in prison, most of them in isolated wings of high security penitentiaries, and with no chance of exhausting the legal process available. During the government of Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004), Congress overturned an 1892 law on presidential pardons, leaving Guatemala without any procedure for prisoners to be pardoned or amnestied or to have their sentences commuted. The de facto moratorium has been in place since the law was repealed, David Augusto Dvila, in charge of the death penalty and extrajudicial executions programme of the non-governmental Institute for Comparative Studies in Penal Science of Guatemala, explained to IPS. That means Guatemala is in contravention of international conventions that it has ratified, like the American Convention on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the United Nations Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of Those Facing the Death Penalty, adopted in 1984 by the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Guatemala is one of only three countries in the Americas, along with Cuba and the United States, where the death penalty is still applicable to common crimes. A draft law to reinstate the presidential pardon power was introduced to Congress in August 2006 by the small Unionist Party. But according to Dvila, the draft law would actually be favourable to executing the death row inmates, because it would give the president only 30 days to decide on cases, and would allow the execution to go ahead if the president does not take a stance. Garca, one of 78 prisoners who escaped in 2001 from Infierno (Hell) -- as the Maximum Security Prison of Escuintla in the southeast of the country has been dubbed -- and were recaptured, said he does not believe in the justice system. The laws are ok, but not those who apply them, he told IPS. His court-appointed lawyer alleges that the courts did not respect the constitutional principle of equality when his client's sentence was handed down, because in similar cases, the death penalty has been commuted to life in prison. A father of five, whose partner left him, Garca said he does not think about death. You don't really accept that that moment will come, because that would be like accepting that I won't help take care of my grandchildren, just like I have missed out on raising my children. It's sad and fills you with a sense of desperation. The uncertainty, the not knowing if or when they will be
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----TEXAS
May 17 TEXAS: Prosecution Seeks Death Penalty In Tyler Man's Trial Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a 29-year-old Tyler man accused of killing 2 people. During a partial pretrial hearing in 114th District Judge Cynthia Stevens Kent's court, the judge said Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty in the capital murder case of Korrenthin Dwayne Baker. Baker and Timothy Johnson, 54, were each charged with capital murder and 3 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for the Sept. 26 shootings. The judge ruled on several standard motions during Baker's hearing but postponed the remainder of the proceeding for next week. Baker is being represented by attorneys Jeff Haas and Leslie McLean. Johnson is set for a pretrial hearing May 25. Prosecutors have not filed a notice to seek the death penalty against Johnson. Baker's trial is set for Oct. 29 and Johnson's trial is set for Jan. 7, 2008. Early on the morning of Sept. 26, Tyler police discovered Gary Mosley, 49, dead in a chair on the front porch of 2410 Madison St., and Unnice Rogers, 41, dead inside the residence. Found critically injured were George Cain, 37, and Presley Williams, 49. Police have said that Baker was the shooter and Johnson drove the getaway car. Baker and Johnson were charged with capital murder for the 2 killings and aggravated assault for the 2 people who were shot but survived, as well as an additional aggravated assault count for allegedly threatening Donald Donaldson, who police have said was present at the time of the shooting. (source: Tyler Morning Telegraph) Death Penalty for Molesters May Bring More Problems Than Good Texas' recent attempt to curb molestation brings punishments too tough to fit the crime. Last month, the Texas Senate passed a law allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty for a 2nd offense in child rape cases. In the Texas House of Representatives' version of the bill, the death penalty would be mandatory for a second offense. While child molestation is certainly a heinous crime, it is not of the same magnitude as murder. More importantly, there are many practical reasons why this good-intentioned law is misguided. One of the main reasons given for mandating the death penalty for child rapists is that a potential death sentence would deter people from committing the crime. However, logic and numbers do not support this claim. Nobody would choose to rape a child thinking his sentence will only be 25 years to life if caught, and then decide not to because the punishment has increased to the death penalty. Furthermore, if raping a child had the same sentence as raping and killing a child, criminals would be more likely to kill the child and not worry about leaving live evidence behind. Moreover, according to statistics from the FBI Uniform Crime Report compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center, a majority of states without the death penalty have lower murder rates than states with it. While there are exceptions, the numbers suggest that the death penalty is ineffective at best when it comes to deterring crime. If the purpose of using the death penalty is to punish the child rapist, one must ask if the punishment fits the crime. Child rape is despicable, but the death penalty is not an appropriate punishment for a crime that does not result in the death of another person. In fact, the death penalty for child rape is likely unconstitutional, as the Supreme Court decided in Coker v. Georgia that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment for the rape of an adult woman. However, taking an extreme stance appears to be part of the purpose of this new law. In a statement during his inauguration, Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said, 'If you're going to commit an unthinkable crime against a child, we'll show you what Texas tough means.' The statement reeks of tough-guy mentality, and is certainly a poor justification for implementing the death penalty. Dewhurst needs to catch up with modernity because modern society does not regard killing defenseless prisoners as a way to increase one's manliness. The purpose of the legal system is not to make the government appear 'macho,' but to preserve order through reasonable means. Government officials must make reasonable judgments that serve the public interest, not enhance their image as Wild West vigilantes. However, the greatest flaw in this proposal is that the people who should benefit from any new legislation on child molestation - state prosecutors and rape victims - do not support it. Many district attorneys and victims' groups in Texas oppose this new law for several reasons, which should be an indication that it is not in the public's best interest. One reason given by district attorneys is that this law will make successful prosecutions more difficult, Shannon Edmonds, state lobbyist for the Texas District and County
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----USA
May 17 USA: Prisoner-assisted homicide - more 'volunteer' executions loom Amnesty International When a capital defendant seeks to circumvent procedures necessary to ensure the propriety of his conviction and sentence, he does not ask the State to permit him to take his own life. Rather, he invites the State to violate 2 of the most basic norms of a civilized society - that the State's penal authority be invoked only where necessary to serve the ends of justice, not the ends of a particular individual, and that punishment be imposed only where the State has adequate assurance that the punishment is justified. United States Supreme Court Justice, 1990(1) You can read the entire report here: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR510872007 AI Index: AMR 51/087/2007-UNITED STATES OF AMERICA-Prisoner-assisted homicide more 'volunteer' executions loom When a capital defendant seeks to circumvent procedures necessary to ensure the propriety of his conviction and sentence, he does not ask the State to permit him to take his own life. Rather, he invites the State to violate two of the most basic norms of a civilized society that the State's penal authority be invoked only where necessary to serve the ends of justice, not the ends of a particular individual, and that punishment be imposed only where the State has adequate assurance that the punishment is justified. United States Supreme Court Justice, 1990(1) Robert Comer, Christopher Newton and Elijah Page have something in common, aside from being on death row in the USA. Each of these 3 men is assisting their government in its efforts to kill them. They have given up their appeals and are volunteering for execution. Robert Comer is scheduled for execution in Arizona on 22 May 2007, Christopher Newton in Ohio on 23 May, and in the week of 9 July Elijah Page is due to become the 1st person to be put to death in South Dakota since 1947. In addition, on 4 May 2007, the Tennessee Attorney General requested an execution date for Daryl Holton, a former soldier with a history of depression, who has effectively waived his appeals and has been found competent to do so. The execution of another volunteer, Carey Dean Moore, due to be carried out in Nebraska on 8 May 2007, was stopped by the state Supreme Court on 2 May in view of concerns not raised by Moore about Nebraskas use of the electric chair. In issuing its order, a divided Court noted that the unique problem presented by this case is that Moore has not asked for a stay. It added, however, that we simply are not permitted to avert our eyes from the fairness of a proceeding in which a defendant has received the death sentence, and that we have authority to do all things that are reasonably necessary for the proper administration of justice.(2) It seems that not all courts have adopted such a view, and volunteers have gone to their deaths despite concerns about the fairness of proceedings that put them on death row or about the reliability of determinations that found them competent to waive their appeals. About 1 in 10 of the men and women put to death in the USA since judicial killing resumed there in 1977 had given up their appeals. Outside of the 5 main executing states of Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma, Missouri and Florida, this figure rises to 1 in 5 for the remaining 28 jurisdictions that have executed since 1977. 4 of the first 5 executions in the USA after 1977 were of volunteers. Put to death by firing squad, electrocution, and gas, perhaps their personal pursuit of execution made it easier for the USA to stomach a return to a punishment that much of the rest of the world was beginning to abandon. 14 US states, and the federal government, resumed executions after 1977 with the killing of a prisoner who had waived his appeals. 5 of the states which have resumed executions, Connecticut, Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon and Pennsylvania, have yet to execute a non-volunteer. In other words, if the 8 inmates who have been put to death there had not given up their appeals, these 5 states would likely not yet have resumed executions. 20 of the 27 executions so far carried out in Kentucky, Montana, Nevada, Utah and Washington have been of prisoners who waived their appeals (see table at end of report). Race and mental health appear to be the strongest predictors of who will waive their appeals most volunteers are white males (as are the 5 prisoners featured in the second half of this report), and many have a history of mental disorders.(3) Nevertheless, a review of such cases suggests that any number of factors may contribute to a prisoners decision not to pursue appeals against their death sentence, including mental disorder, physical illness, remorse, bravado, religious belief, a quest for notoriety, the severity of conditions of confinement, including prolonged isolation and lack of physical contact visits, the bleak alternative of life imprisonment without the possibility of
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----US MIL., OHIO, ARIZ., TENN., FLA.
May 17 US MILITARY: Military jury finds airman not guilty in Iceland slaying At Bolling Air Force Bace (in Washington state), a military jury of 8 Air Force officers and 6 enlisted members has found Airman Calvin Eugene Hill not guilty of murder in the death of Airman 1st Class Ashley Turner. The panel came to its decision Wednesday, after listening to the defenders of Hill and his government accusers offer their final arguments in his court-martial Tuesday. She had been dragged to a room that was dark, and left to die, said Air Force Maj. Robert Luttrell, who offered the closing argument for the government. Her last sight was a [barbell] weight, used on her face. The accused is guilty of premeditated murder and obstruction of justice, Luttrell had told the jury Tuesday. Find him guilty, members. Turner was killed at Naval Air Station Keflavik, Iceland, on Aug. 14, 2005. Hill, 21, of Warren, Ohio, could have faced the death penalty if convicted. Turner, 20, of Frederick, Md., died just eight days before she was scheduled to testify against Hill for allegedly stealing her ATM card and personal identification number and withdrawing $2,700 from her bank account. Turner, a member of the 56th Rescue Squadron, was found unconscious and lying in a pool of blood by a fellow airman in a darkened television lounge just off her dormitory's 3rd-floor dayroom, where she had been running on the treadmill. Her skull had been fractured by a heavy, blunt object, and her spinal cord severed by a single thrust of a knife, prosecutors said. Hill, who had been friends with Turner but had not dated her, was arrested that night and placed in pretrial confinement. He was the only suspect charged in the murder. But the governments case is a rickety boat getting slapped by thousands of pounds of sea water, Air Force Capt. Jason Kellhofer, a member of Hills defense team, told the jury Tuesday. There were a lot of facts in this case that were not provided to you, Kellhofer said. The government wants to choose and pick. Instead of trying to solve the case, the government has focused all its energies on proving Hill's guilt, Kellhofer said in closing arguments. The prosecution has failed to consider anyone other than Airman Hill from Day 1, Kellhofer said. The jury trial, which opened April 25, was held at Bolling because Keflavik closed Sept. 30, 2006, making continued access to the crime scene more difficult for investigators on both sides of the case, and scattering the more than 90 witnesses interviewed by investigators and the defense. Some of the most important witnesses had to be located in Iceland and the United States and forced to testify. Among those was Hill's girlfriend, Vannee Youbanphot, a Thai woman who resides in Iceland. She testified that he had left her in his dorm room that evening at about 8:30, watching the movie Top Gun. Hill told her that he was going down to the 1st floor to meet with his supervisor. He returned sweaty and stinking so badly that she told him to take a shower, according to her testimony. The Hill trial featured more than 100 pieces of evidence that had to be processed in federal laboratories, including a pair of white Nike sneakers Hill wore the night of the crime. The sneakers were central to the case because investigators found tiny drops of blood on the laces and on the tongue of the shoe, which DNA tests showed were Turner's. But the defense team also accused the government of sloppy evidence handling. They argued that the blood could have gotten on the shoes after Hill was arrested and military police walked him down the same stairwell that Turner had been carried down on a stretcher. They also said that Hills shoe might have been contaminated with blood from sheets collected as evidence from the hospital where Turner was taken after being attacked. (source: Stars and Stripes) OHIO: Judge refuses to dismiss case but fines prosecutor's office A judge rejected a defendant's plea to dismiss capital-murder charges Wednesday to punish an assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor's misconduct. Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo declared a mistrial on May 2, late in the aggravated-murder trial of Fernando Newcomb, 28, of Cleveland. Russo declined on Wednesday to throw out the case. Instead, she ordered Prosecutor Bill Mason's office to pay a $26,204 fine to the court. That, Russo said, is at least how much it will cost taxpayers to retry Newcomb because of unconstitutional and apocalyptic closing-argument remarks of Assistant County Prosecutor Lawrence Floyd. In his closing arguments to jurors, Floyd commented on the fact that Newcomb chose not to testify at trial. Such comments are not permitted. Russo challenged prosecutors to appeal the fine, but warned that if it's overturned, she might fine Floyd personally. Mason called Russo's action gratuitous. His office hadn't decided by late afternoon whether to appeal the fine. Mason downplayed the fine
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., VER., N.J., CONN., ILL.
May 17 ARKANSAS: Did the West Memphis Three work alone? It was a gruesome discovery 14 years ago, the bodies of 3 boys mutilated in West Memphis. Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers were murdered while riding their bikes on May 5th, 1993. A jury convicted 3 teens in those murders. The teens are now known as the West Memphis Three. Now, one of the victim's mothers, Pam Hobbs, says she thinks there could be another killer still out there. For years, Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelly, and Jason Baldwin said they didn't do it. They say someone else murdered those little boys, and now the mother of one of the victims says she, too, wonders if someone else may have been involved. Stevie Branch was an honor roll student who had an active imagination and loved to sing. He wrote a song when he was 8-years-old. He was a very intelligent little boy. I could have had the next president had he not been murdered, says Hobbs. Hobbs remembers vividly the last time she spoke to her son. She says he asked if he could ride bikes with his friends on the afternoon of May 5th, 1993. He left her home and never came back. Investigators found Stevie's nude body along with the bodies of Michael Moore and Christopher Byers bound in a shallow creek off I-40 in Crittenden County. Hobbs adds, for the first 5 or 6 years it was hell on earth. If they could put that into words, if they could describe how I felt.' After a massive manhunt, police charged Damien Echols, Jessie Miskelley and Jason Baldwin with killing the boys. Echols got the death penalty. Miskelley and Baldwin got life in prison. I feel like the ones that killed my son, the three that were tried and convicted they are guilty. But I am like everyone else, was there someone else out there other than those three, says Hobbs. For years, investigators have denied the possibility of anyone else being involved in the murders, while websites devoted to the case poke holes in the detectives' work. The HBO documentary Paradise Lost also claimed West Memphis police botched the case. Action News 5 reporter Janice Broach covered the West Memphis Three case extensively. There were questions about other suspects who could have been involved. But even this week, investigators said they are certain the right people were convicted of the crime. They say they can't talk about it on camera, because every time they do, they receive death threats. Hobbs says she doesn't mind people supporting the West Memphis Three. She does think they are guilty. And she just doesn't know if they worked alone. If that's the way he wants to go down in history as a child murderer, then that's the road he chose to take in this life, adds Hobbs. Hobbs says she's forgiven Echols and anyone else connected to the murder of her son and hopes something positive can still come from the killings. If God would save their souls then the devil didn't accomplish anything out of this. He just made my life a little miserable, says Hobbs. Even though the West Memphis 3 are behind bars, this case is not over. There are people around the country looking at new DNA evidence. We've learned that some of those investigators will be looking at new evidence Thursday. (source: WMC TV News) VERMONT: Executing justice: A murder trial reignites Vermonts death penalty debate This article was posted on July 15, 2005 in the midst of a high-profile death penalty case in federal court, where prosecutors were pushing for the death penalty in a state that has not had the death penalty for more than 50 years. It has been almost 50 years since the death penalty was imposed in Vermont, and that 1957 sentence was commuted. 30 years later, the state Legislature officially abolished capital punishment. After the murder of a Vermont woman in 2000, lawmakers seriously considered reinstating it, and although that effort failed, the crime led to a federal trial in Burlington over the past month that has made the issue difficult to ignore. The victim was Tressa Terry King, a 53-year-old grandmother from North Clarendon who was kidnapped on Nov. 27, 2000, as she arrived for an early shift at the Rutland Price Chopper. Several hours later, King was beaten to death over the border in New York. One of her killers, Donald Fell, came from Pennsylvania, where he was subjected to beatings and sexual abuse as a child, saw his parents stab each other at age 5, and started drinking from a basement beer keg before he was 10. In June, forced to act by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, a Vermont jury convicted Fell, and on July 14, after a day of deliberations, decided that the 25-year-old murderer deserves death for his crime. The decision comes as juries across the United States increasingly have become reluctant to impose capital punishment and surveys indicate that support is growing for life in prison without parole as an alternative. Even Texas, which is responsible for a third of all U.S.
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----worldwide
May 17 Saudi Arabia displays bodies of 2 Ethiopians beheaded Saudi authorities yesterday beheaded 2 Ethiopians convicted of killing a Saudi national in an armed robbery and displayed their bodies in public after the execution, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, said Ali Mohammed Ali and Adel Adam Aman were found guilty of fatally shooting and robbing Khaled bin Karim bin Bakhash, the owner of a private telephone services center. A court ordered their bodies be displayed in a public place after the execution as a further deterrent because of the hideousness nature of the crime. The statement said they were executed in Jiddah but did not say specifically where their bodies were displayed. The process of displaying the body of an executed person is usually carried out by the executioners who fix the chopped head to the body and then either hang it from a pole or from a mosque window or balcony for about 2 hours during the noon prayer. The beheaded bodies are only displayed when there is a specific court order in cases considered particularly brutal, such as committing murder during an armed robbery. In February, the bodies of four Sri Lankans were strung up and displayed in a Saudi public square after they were beheaded for armed robbery, drawing criticism from Human Rights Watch, which said the kingdom violated international law because they men did not have lawyers. Separately, the Interior Ministry said in another statement that a Saudi national, Jalal bin Ahmed al-Marhoun, was executed yesterday in the northern city of Al-Jawf, after being convicted of smuggling hashish into the country. Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which people convicted of murder, drug trafficking, rape and armed robbery can be executed. Beheadings are carried out with a sword in a public square. Yesterday's executions brought to 70 the number of people, including 2 women, beheaded in the kingdom this year. The kingdom beheaded 38 people last year and 83 people in 2005. Also, Saudi Arabia beheaded a Saudi yesterday as it kept up a relentless pace of executions that has seen 77 convicts put to the sword already this year. The Saudi authorities have now carried out more than twice as many executions this year as in the whole of 2006 with more than 6 months still to go. Last year, 37 people were executed in the conservative Gulf kingdom, while 83 were put to death in 2005 and 35 the year before, according to AFP tallies based on official statements. The spate of executions has sparked mounting concern in Canada, which has 2 nationals facing possible death sentences for a murder they insist they did not commit. Mohamed Kohail, 22, of Palestinian origin, was arrested in January and accused of killing a Syrian youth in a vicious schoolyard brawl in Jeddah, Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Tuesday. His 16-year-old brother Sultan is also being held in relation to the death. In an interview by mobile phone from his prison cell, Kohail told the newspaper he had been pushed, slapped and abused, and forced into signing a false confession. Local police told him to admit to hitting the Syrian schoolboy if he wished to avoid a lengthy prison term, unaware the boy had died, he said, but after signing the document, he was charged with the boy's murder. Until last year, Kohail had lived with his family in a Montreal suburb, but returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was born, when his sister became ill, he said. Rodney Moore, a spokesman for Canada's foreign affairs department, acknowledged that Canadian officials are aware of the arrest of two Canadian citizens in Saudi Arabia. Consular officials have met with Saudi officials, Kohail and his family, Moore said, but refused to offer details because of Canadian privacy laws. Executions are usually carried out in public in Saudi Arabia, which applies a strict form of sharia, or Islamic law. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty. (source: Kuwait Times)
