[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, TENN., VA., ILL.

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 2


OHIO----desire to expand state penalty law

Execution proposed for foster deaths ---- Child-welfare chiefs want
stiffer penalty for parents who kill


The states child-welfare directors want Ohio lawmakers to automatically
make it possible for foster parents who kill a child in their care to be
sentenced to death.

Although Franklin County Children Services has never had such a case go to
court, Director John Saros is among those leading the charge based on the
recent death of a 3-year-old developmentally disabled boy in Clermont
County.

"There is nothing more egregious than for a person who has come forward
saying, 'You can trust me,' to turn around and kill a defenseless child
who has been removed from their home because of abuse, neglect or another
troubling circumstance," Saros said. "I view it as an aggravating
circumstance that shouldnt be treated any differently than someone who
murders a police officer or firefighter."

That and other proposals for reform will be delivered to the legislature
soon, officials said.

Saros said Children Services also will be checking up on the 1,570 foster
children it has in private care after a state report blasted Lifeway for
Youth, the New Carlisle group charged to care for Marcus Fiesel.

In its report, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services faulted
Lifeway, which has 523 foster homes in Ohio and operates in six states,
for not watching carefully over the Middletown boy. died in August after
being left alone in a closet for 2 days, wrapped in a blanket and packing
tape, while his foster parents went to a family reunion in Kentucky.

Liz and David Carroll Jr. have been charged with murder, kidnapping,
felonious assault and child endangering.

The state report cites Lifeway for 15 violations, including failing to
conduct a complete home study, not visiting the home frequently enough,
allowing a relative to serve as a reference, lying about the amount of
training the couple received and overbilling the state for training.

Lifeway Executive Director Michael Berner did not return phone calls
yesterday.

Children Services stopped sending youths to Lifeways Cincinnati office
after Marcus death and sent caseworkers to visit the more 200 children who
the Franklin County agency had in Lifeway homes at the time. The agency
has sent 372 children to Lifeway so far this year; 198 remain in the
groups care, Saros said.

Instead of limiting its scrutiny to Lifeway, Children Services will
examine all of its 42 private foster-care companies as a precaution.

Children Services will ask the private groups in a few weeks for
electronic copies of criminal checks, details of parents backgrounds, home
studies, licenses, references and other materials for all the foster
parents caring for Franklin County children. Private agencies place 81
percent of the agencys foster children.

Although the effort will stretch Children Services capabilities and
funding, it is necessary, Saros said.

"99 of our foster parents are wonderful, caring people worthy of our
trust," he said. "But then you have the people who are duplicitous and are
willing to lie and misrepresent themselves who will always be difficult to
catch."

Several providers yesterday said they understand the need for additional
inspection.

"When something as incredibly terrible as this happens and youre in the
peoples business, you do everything possible to prevent further deaths,"
said Nicholas Rees, Buckeye Ranchs vice president of development.

Others said they hoped the increased scrutiny will be shortterm.

"I really understand Children Services need for this," said Robert J.
Marx, executive director of the Rosemont Center. "But I really worry that
if you ask for every home study, training record and piece of paper in a
foster parents file, no one will have time to do anything else."

Sometimes, he said, "bad people will do bad things," no matter the
safeguards.

State officials said they applaud efforts by individual child-welfare
agencies to protect the children in their care.

But the state is focused on getting the 54 recommendations in its report
adopted, said Dennis Evans, spokesman for the Department of Job and Family
Services. The reforms include toughening foster-care licensing and
screening standards.

The agency also is reviewing Lifeways operation to decide whether to
recertify the group when its license expires Jan. 18. The Public Children
Services Association of Ohio, which represents the states childwelfare
agencies, is drafting the death-penalty proposal and 3 other foster-care
measures directors say are needed:

 Matching children who have severe emotional, mental and physical
disabilities with people trained to care for their needs.

 Creating a new category of foster-care providers to make it easier for
people who want to help a particular child or siblings.

 Changing how funding works so that agencies also would be paid for
helping families keep their children, instead of simply providing funding
for foster care.

The associations executive director, Crystal Ward Allen, supports the
state proposals but said she worries they could have a chilling effect.

"Becoming a foster parent is already a daunting process, and we're about
to make it even more daunting," she said.

"We need to better support foster parents, not overload them."

(source: Columbus Dispatch)

**************

Court grants stay of execution----Local killer gets more time; victim's
family scorns ruling


Cincinnati killer Jerome Henderson, scheduled to be executed by the state
Tuesday, may have received some extra life Friday when the 6th Circuit
Court of Appeals granted him a stay of execution.

The Ohio Attorney General's office is immediately appealing the stay
hoping they can keep the execution on schedule, said spokesman Bob
Beasley.

The Cincinnati-based court did not give a reason for its 2-1 ruling. Judge
Alice Batchelder dissented.

"I think this is a waste of taxpayers' money," said Shirley Acoff, the
victim's sister. "How would those judges feel if, 21 years after Henderson
had killed their sister, their family was still being tortured by her
death while he gets to live and the taxpayers support him?"

In March 1985, Mary Acoff was found nude in her Mt. Auburn apartment with
multiple stabbings - 13 to her throat alone - her head and upper body
beaten.

Witnesses reported seeing Henderson near the scene of the crime and police
found Henderson's fingerprints in Acoff's kitchen and her blood on
Henderson's coat, according to the prosecutor's report.

"He did it, and he's shown no remorse," said JoAnn Acoff, the victim's
daughter. "The law says that the sentence for killing somebody for
absolutely no reason at all is death. Why is this man still alive?"

Henderson's attorney, Dave Stebbins, said he suspected an appeal would not
be successful. He said Henderson's case probably wouldn't be resolved
until another case, Cooey v. Taft, is settled.

In that case, lawyers are arguing that lethal injection - Ohio's procedure
for the death penalty - should be declared cruel and unusual punishment
and, consequently, unconstitutional.

Since Henderson made many of the same claims regarding lethal injection, a
previous court allowed Henderson to join in Cooey's case but did not stay
his execution.

Ron Springman of the Hamilton County Prosecutor's office said that an oral
hearing was scheduled in the Cooey case on Thursday at the 6th circuit.

(source: Cincinnati Enquirer)






TENNESSEE:

Reid Says He's Ready To Die


Convicted serial killer Paul Dennis Reid was back in court Friday.

Reid said he wants to end appeals, so he can be executed. Reid is on death
row for killing seven fast food workers back in 1997.

The question before a judge is whether Reid is competent to make
decisions.

"I've made the conscious decision ma'am to withdraw my appeal," Reid said.

Reid answered questions in Judge Cheryl Blackburn's courtroom about why he
wants to withdraw a petition, which would essentially end the appeals
process in the Captain D's case.

"I don't believe there's anything that could entertain me to, to continue
forward. I'm just totally exhausted over this," Reid said.

Reed murdered 16-year-old Sarah Jackson and 25-year-old Steve Hampton as
they were opening the restaurant.

Several days later, police found Reid's fingerprint on Hampton's video
rental card, which someone found along side Ellington Parkway.

Reed said the government has secret tapes that will exonerate him.

"My every physical word and my every physical movement has been recorded
since February 1985 to the current date now," he said.

Reed called all of his attorneys ineffective because they cannot obtain
the tapes. His defense attorneys put a forensic psychiatrist on the stand
who called Reed incompetent, but he said he is ready to die by lethal
injection.

"Well, I'm a Christian and I believe I'll go to heaven by my spiritual
beliefs," he said.

This is the 2nd time Reid has asked a judge to stop the appeals process
and allow an execution to go forward.

In June 2003, Reid was within hours of dying when he changed his mind and
signed a petition allowing an appeal.

The judge took Friday's testimony under advisement. She can either grant
Reid's wish allowing a new execution date or she can order another hearing
to see if Reid is competent to make decisions on his own.

After the hearing, Reid was taken back to Brushy Mountain State Prison in
East Tennessee.

(source: NewsChannel 5)

*************************

Tennessee judge considers Texan's latest attempt to drop appeals


A judge is studying the latest effort by condemned killer Paul Dennis Reid
to drop his appeals and be executed.

Reid, formerly of the Fort Worth, Texas suburb of Richland Hills,
terrorized the Nashville area in 1997 and was later convicted of three
incidents of multiple murder covering a three-month period. He received 7
death sentences for the string of slayings at fast-food restaurants in
Nashville and Clarksville.

Reid had paroled in 1990 in Texas after serving 7 years of a 20-year
sentence for aggravated armed robbery at a steakhouse in the Houston area.

At the height of the Tennessee rampage, fast food restaurants closed early
out of fear for their employees, or were forced to close at night because
they could not find workers willing to risk their safety.

Reid has twice come within hours of execution as his appeals proceeded and
he wavered about whether to drop them.

Reid answered questions Friday in Criminal Court Judge Cheryl Blackburn's
courtroom about why he wants to withdraw a petition, which would
essentially end the appeals process in two of the execution-style
slayings.

"I don't believe there's anything that could entertain me to, to continue
forward. I'm just totally exhausted over this," Reid told Blackburn. "I'm
a Christian, and I believe I'll go to heaven by my spiritual beliefs."

The judge took Friday's testimony under advisement. She can either grant
Reid's wish allowing a new execution date or she can order another hearing
to see if Reid is competent to make decisions on his own.

In July, he was within a day of execution when he won a stay over his
competency. In 2003 he came within hours of execution before he was talked
into resuming his appeals and got a stay.

A drifter who moved from Texas to Nashville to attempt a career in country
music, Reid was fired as a dishwasher from a Shoney's restaurant on Feb.
15, 1997, for losing his temper and throwing a plate that hit another
worker.

The next day, Sarah Jackson, 16, and Steve Hampton, 25, were slain
execution-style at a Captain D's restaurant not far from the Shoney's.

In March 1997, Ronald Santiago, 27; Robert A. Sewell Jr., 23; and Andrea
Brown, 17, were shot and killed in a midnight robbery at a McDonald's a
few miles from the Captain D's.

A month later, Angela Holmes, 21, and Michelle Mace, 16, were kidnapped in
a robbery at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store in Clarksville, about 50
miles northwest of Nashville. Their throats were slashed and their bodies
were dumped at Dunbar Cave State Natural Area.

Reid was arrested in June 1997 and linked to the murders after attempting
to kidnap and kill the Shoney's manager who fired him.

After Friday's hearing, Reid was returned to Brushy Mountain State Prison
in East Tennessee.

(source: Associated Press)






VIRGINIA:

Kaine holds fate of man on death row----Walton's execution slated as
competence evaluation continues


Preparations are under way for the Dec. 8 execution of Percy Levar Walton,
whose fate is still in the hands of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.

Less than two hours before Walton's scheduled execution June 8, Kaine
granted him a six-month stay so experts could determine if Walton, said to
be schizophrenic, was competent to be executed.

Kaine noted at the time that the most recent mental evaluations of Walton
had been performed several years earlier and that it is possible Walton,
"no longer knows why he is to be executed or is even aware of the
punishment he is about to receive."

Kevin Hall, a Kaine spokesman, said yesterday that the evaluation of
Walton by 3 experts is still under way and that no decision had been
reached.

John J.P. Howley, a New York lawyer who handled Walton's clemency petition
to Kaine, said Wednesday that psychiatrists Mark Mills and Anand
Pandurangi have seen Walton and that psychiatrist Alan Arikian should have
seen him by now.

"I have no idea what they've concluded. I am waiting to hear back from the
governor's office whether they are going to let me know," he said. "I'm
not getting any reports directly from the doctors."

He said he hopes to gain some access to what the doctors have concluded so
he can argue his case. In prior examinations, Pandurangi was hired by
Walton, Arikian worked for the state, and Mills was appointed by the court
as a neutral assessor.

In an e-mail, Wednesday Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia
Department of Corrections, noted that Kaine's order last June "also states
that 'Absent further intervention by this office, the execution will take
place on Dec. 8, 2006.'

"So, we are preparing for a Dec. 8 execution unless we hear otherwise,"
Traylor said. The execution, if conducted, would be by injection, he said.

Walton's lawyers and some experts contend that he is too mentally ill to
be executed, but courts have disagreed because Walton understood he was to
die for the murders, a standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986.

Walton's lawyers contend Walton does not understand that execution will
mean the end of his physical existence. He told one psychiatrist that when
people die they go to the graveyard, "but then everybody comes back."

J. Tucker Martin, spokesman for Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell,
said this week that, "the Attorney General agrees with the many prior
court rulings in the Walton case. These rulings have repeatedly found that
Walton is competent, is not mentally retarded, and his execution is
constitutional."

Walton pleaded guilty in 1997 to the slayings of Jessie Kendrick, 80, and
Elizabeth Kendrick, 81, and Archie D. Moore Jr., 33. The 3, who lived near
Walton in Danville, were shot to death in 1996.

(source: Richmond Times-Dispatch)

*************

Virginia killer's sanity questioned as execution looms


>From their cells on Virginia's death row, the inmates can hear Percy
Walton laughing.

His chuckles, the inmates say, come from nowhere, and are often mixed with
shouts and incoherent babbling. He talks back to voices only he can hear.
He once told a psychiatrist he plans to go to Burger King--after he is
executed.

On Friday, Walton is scheduled to die. And Walton, his attorneys say, has
no idea.

Walton, 28, came within two hours of death on June 8 when Gov. Timothy M.
Kaine delayed the execution for 6 months to allow for new evaluations of
the triple killer's mental condition and competence. Kaine is reviewing
the results of those evaluations as he considers Walton's request for
clemency.

The debate over Walton's mental state has raged for nearly a decade. No
competency hearing was held before he was sentenced to death, and various
mental evaluations have yielded conflicting results.

In its Ford v. Wainwright decision in 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court found
that executions of the insane are unconstitutional. In a concurring
opinion, Justice Lewis Powell concluded that "the Eighth Amendment forbids
the execution only of those who are unaware of the punishment they are
about to suffer and why they are to suffer it."

Because of that, much of the controversy surrounding Walton has focused on
whether he understands that to be executed would mean the physical end of
his life. Several mental health specialists who have evaluated Walton have
given differing opinions, and Walton himself has given conflicting
answers.

"Percy was and remains deeply schizophrenic and mentally retarded," said
Walton's attorney, Nash Bilisoly. "He still has no concept as to the fact
that he's going to die or why and, in our view, it makes no sense to
execute someone in that condition."

But the attorney who prosecuted the case thinks otherwise.

"No issue of insanity was raised at trial," Danville Commonwealth's
Attorney William Fuller said. "This is all something that's allegedly
materialized later. I suspect that if you and I had been on death row for
10 years in the type of setup there, that we'd have some problems, too."

Walton pleaded guilty in 1997 to the murders of Jessie and Elizabeth
Kendrick, a couple in their 80s, and 33-year-old Archie Moore. The
Danville residents were robbed and shot in the head; Moore's body was
found stuffed in a closet, his corpse doused in cologne. At trial, Fuller
called Walton "a sadistic, ruthless and cold-blooded murderer who has no
conscience."

Walton was three days from execution in 2003 when a judge granted a stay
so experts could explore his mental state. In subsequent hearings, a
prison guard testified that Walton refused to shower, complaining about a
man in a white suit sitting on a gray box in his cell. One prison
psychiatrist testified that Walton was "floridly psychotic."

Three mental health professionals who evaluated Walton after his
conviction conducted the recent evaluations ordered by Kaine. They include
an expert approved by the defense, one selected by the prosecution and a
third chosen by a federal judge. In their earlier evaluations, they each
presented conflicting conclusions on whether Walton understood the concept
of death.

In the past, Walton has said that after he is executed, he will go to
Burger King, take a trip to the shopping mall and hopefully ride a
motorcycle, among other things. He told one psychiatrist that an execution
means "sleep for rest of life ... until someone comes to see you." More
recently, Walton has been unable to offer any coherent response to
questions about his execution, his attorney says.

But Walton also once said his execution would be "an end" or "the end,"
and said before his trial that the "chair is for killers," indicating to
some that he may understand his punishment.

In letters to The Associated Press, several of Walton's fellow death row
inmates said his behavior is consistently bizarre, describing him as
"nuttier than a fruitcake," "crazy as a bed bug," and "a walking talking
cukoo (sic) bird." His prison nickname is "Crazy Horse."

Inmate William Van Poyck, who has been on the row with Walton for 7 years,
said Walton is unable to engage in any meaningful conversation, responding
to most questions with a monotone "yeah" or "no."

"I've served approximately 34 years in adult prisons, which is to say I've
got a lot of experience being around truly insane men, and Percy ranks
right at the top of crazy guys I've encountered," wrote Van Poyck, a
Florida death row inmate being held in Virginia.

The Kendricks' daughter, Barbara Case, said she is unsure about Walton's
current mental state, though she believes he was sane when he committed
the murders.

"He was in his right mind--he was just mean," said Case, 68, of Brandon,
Miss. "I've had people tell me they really believe he's unbalanced, and he
may be since he's been locked up for nine years now."

Case said she has forgiven Walton for murdering her parents, whom she
describes as a loving, hardworking couple who cared deeply for their
family and community.

She remains ambivalent about Walton's fate. If he is executed, she says,
she hopes he has repented. If he lives, she says, she hopes he will spend
each day thinking about what he did.

"If something happens December 8th and (Walton) doesn't die, it's not
going to bother me one bit," Case said. "Because you know what? I really
think the worse punishment ... is for him to be locked up the rest of his
life."

(source: Associated Press)






ILLINOIS:

Freed death row inmate indicted in alleged attack


A former death row inmate whose wrongful conviction helped halt executions
in Illinois has been charged in an alleged attack on his longtime
girlfriend.

Anthony Porter, 51, was indicted on a felony domestic battery charge
Thursday by a Kankakee grand jury and faces up to 7 years in prison if
convicted, officials said. Authorities say Porter struck 28-year-old Tracy
Bell in the face with a beer bottle until it shattered and sliced into her
cheek, requiring dozens of stitches.

Porter was freed from prison in 1999 after another man confessed to a
double murder for which Porter served nearly 17 years.

Bell, the mother of Porter's 5 children, told the Chicago Tribune Thursday
that she wanted the charge dropped. Kankakee County State's Attorney Jamie
Boyd said Bell has not requested that the case be dismissed."

Porter has been jailed at the Jerome Combs Detention Center since the Nov.
22 incident. His bond was increased from $25,000 to $50,000 after the
grand jury upgraded the original misdemeanor domestic abuse charge to a
felony. He is scheduled to appear in court Dec. 7.

His attorney, James Montgomery Jr., said he has not heard from Porter in
the last week.

Porter's case helped prompt former Gov. George Ryan to halt all executions
in Illinois over fears that a flawed system had led to the wrongful
convictions of 13 death row inmates.

(source: Associated Press)