Sept. 1
TEXAS: New trial date is set in Swearingen case A judge set a Nov. 27 trial date this week for one of the men charged with capital murder in connection with the January 2004 deaths of a Corpus Christi man and woman. This will be the 3rd trial for Darrell Lee Swearingen in connection with the death of Isaac Eli Maldonado, 18, and Maldonado's girlfriend, Jenna Kay Patek, 19. Swearingen's 1st 2 trials ended with the juries deadlocked. Maldonado and Patek were shot on the 2nd floor of Maldonado's mother's house while they slept, police said. (source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times) ******************** Corrections officers to get raise in October Texas Department of Criminal Justice correctional officers at state prisons, including units in Beeville, will see a salary increase in their October paychecks. Gov. Rick Perry and the 2005 Legislature approved the annual salary increase last year. The latest pay increase will be effective in October and add about 3 % to their annual salaries, giving a correctional officer with 9 months' service an annual salary of $26,400, or about $2,200 per month. The beginning salary for a new officer also will be boosted to $1,870.48 per month, which increases to $2,024.98 after 3 months, service. (source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times) **************************** Behind the bars----Tour offers glimpse at jail cleanup The media tour's destination, Pod 6P of the Nueces County Jail, was not among those photographed in June by federal marshals and held up as emblematic of unacceptable conditions throughout the facility. Nevertheless, the tour guides from the sheriff's department said Thursday, its fresh paint and repaired plumbing fixtures are evidence of the progress they have made throughout the jail. Sheriff Rebecca Stutts said security conditions allowed the tour of 6P because there were few prisoners inside that pod. She said she called the tour in response to requests by the news media to inspect the facility after the removal of the federal prisoners. Reporters and photographers were asked not to show inmates' faces or to describe the layout of the facility. In the past six months, the jail has failed inspections from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, and in June, U.S. Marshals pulled federal prisoners. Those prisoners were a significant source of revenue - $45 a day for each, and the rough estimate was 100 federal prisoners a day. The sheriff's office said Thursday that much has changed in 6P. The smell of fresh paint hung in the air as men in black- and white-striped prisoner garb covered the walls in an institutional beige. But Stutts said more work must be done to pass inspection. "Jail standards has told me that until it is all done, it'll fail," she said. Terry Julian, executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, said any future inspection would be unannounced, but the commission has not received word that the jail is ready. "We will continue to work with the jail and provide technical assistance," Julian said. "Until it is complete, there is no need to spend money and send an inspector." Meanwhile, the department continues its attempts to bring the facility up to state standards. Chief Deputy Jimmy Rodriguez said the department has entered a standing contract with a plumber to repair the more than 3,000 valves in the facility - one of the biggest sources of routine maintenance concerns. Acoustic tiles, installed when the jail was built in 1991 to dampen the sound of 72 prisoners held in a concrete cube, also have been removed. Prisoners complained that pieces of the decaying tiles fell into their food. Jail officials will not replace those tiles, and now will monitor the pod for excessive noise levels. Stutts acknowledged that noise level could impact officer safety. If guards find it is difficult for inmates to hear orders, she said, the sheriff's office would go before the Commissioners Court to request a new ceiling. Julian said there is no specific jail standard governing noise level. Rodriguez said that while no prisoner ever submitted a written complaint about the tiles to jail staff, the jail standards commission heard those complaints from prisoners and faulted the facility for it. "They are the same tiles you see in restaurants," Rodriguez said. Sheriff's officials also expressed frustration with the slow pace of progress. Waiting for contractors has delayed some repairs. Security concerns also have slowed progress. Jail officials have to shift prisoners to different pods to allow some work to be completed. Other maintenance problems continue to mar the progress. In the shower area, which marshals faulted for excessive mold in one shower stall, an air-cooling pipe continues to collect condensing water. That water drips from the freshly painted ceiling, down freshly painted walls. The long streaks of water leave open the possibility of more mold, and the continued loss of revenue from the federal prisoners. "It's a problem," Stutts said. (source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times) ********************** Grudging justice----Cleared of charges in her baby's death, this mother deserves compensation for her years in prison By declining to retry 25-year-old Brandy Del Briggs in the death of her 2-month-old baby, Daniel, in 1999, Harris County prosecutors have admitted their evidence is inadequate to convict her. As the American legal system rests on the concept of being not guilty until so proved, that makes Briggs an innocent woman. A state law mandating $25,000 compensation for every year served in prison to wrongfully convicted people requires that the district attorney whose prosecutors won the original conviction sign a letter affirming the ex-convict's innocence. Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal has indicated he continues to doubt the innocence of Briggs, who agreed to plead guilty to injury to a child to avoid the more serious charge of murder. "It's not a situation where I can say she's completely innocent," Rosenthal said. "It's a situation where we can't prove our case." That sentiment is not far from declaring he believes she is guilty until proved innocent. Briggs was sentenced to 17 years and served five before a new attorney took up the case and appealed, resulting in her conviction being overturned. She claimed she made the admission of guilt on the advice of a lawyer who told her she did not have enough money to fully contest the murder charge. In a statement at the time, Briggs said she had shaken her child after finding him unconscious and barely breathing in his crib. Although the death was originally ruled a homicide, Harris County Medical Examiner Dr. Luis Sanchez later changed the autopsy finding to "undetermined cause of death." An examination of the child's body revealed no indication of shaken baby syndrome or blunt trauma. Other potential causes of the child's death emerged after Briggs was convicted: Possible injuries from a car accident, a birth defect in the baby's urinary tract and the faulty placement of a breathing tube when the boy was taken to Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital. Had such evidence been available at the time, it's doubtful Briggs would have been sentenced to prison. Whatever Rosenthal's personal beliefs or intuition about the cause of baby Daniel's death, he has admitted he cannot make the case against Briggs. Unless the definition of innocence in Harris County depends on Rosenthal's unsubstantiated opinions, that makes this one-time defendant innocent and qualified for state restitution funds. In the case of Josiah Sutton, a young man convicted of rape but exonerated by DNA evidence and pardoned by Gov. Rick Perry, Rosenthal took more than a year before finally sending out such a letter. That delay certainly created the impression of a prosecutor unwilling to admit his office had made a mistake even after hard evidence proved it. Having been made to wait eight months after her release from prison to learn charges against her had been dropped, Brandy Briggs should not have to wait another year to become eligible for state compensation for her ordeal. It's not the D.A.'s fault that Briggs had poor legal representation and pleaded guilty to a crime that likely never happened. Rosenthal would only enhance the stature of his office by issuing a letter stating the obvious: There is insufficient evidence to prove Briggs committed a crime, and she is innocent under the law. Case closed. (source: Houston Chronicle) ******************* Do the crime, do the time in the library----Duncanville Teen Court throws the books at youthful offenders Reading your way out of trouble is possible in Duncanville, where teens are sentenced to a literature-based program through a national pilot program sponsored by the American Library Association. Teens hoping to keep their records clean after minor offenses are referred by the Duncanville Teen Court as part of a sentence that includes community service, educational classes, counseling and teen court jury service. Urla Morgan was surprised by the caliber of youths serving their time at the Duncanville Public Library through the Great Stories CLUB (Connecting Libraries, Underserved teens and Books). "I thought maybe these would be teens who liked to engage in power struggles," the librarian said. "But they're just like you or me, as if we were attending a defensive driving course. "I've been delighted that I haven't had to extract their responses. It's been a very free-flowing thing. I don't see them as troubled. I see them as healthy and that they just got off the path a bit," Ms. Morgan said. A former high school English teacher, she hopes the program can be continued after the grant runs its course. "I am sparked to carry this on, but it has to be an organization that's bigger than me to back it up," she said. The American Library Association chooses books for the program that focus on a single character who struggles with a serious challenge. In one session, the students were given a copy of the sometimes grim Born Blue, a slice of white bread, an ice cream sundae and an Etta James CD. The book's main character, Janie, a blond, blue-eyed foster child, comforts herself by eating balled-up bread and sundaes and listening to Etta James music. "Janie was raised like really messed up, and she uses her gift for music to manipulate other people," said a teen participant who had been cited for speeding. Program directors did not allow names of the participants to be used in this story. "The story is interesting; we've developed a pattern of guessing what's going to happen next. Sometimes we're right, and sometimes we're wrong," the high school junior said. "If in the end, the character makes the right decision, that's great. And the people that can't relate will be able to say, 'I don't want to end up like that.' " Duncanville Teen Court coordinator Olivia Harrington said the Great Stories CLUB is a boon to the court's efforts. "I think it's great. It's a way for them to have some opportunity to learn about other teens and some of the problems teens have. For some, it may hit the nail on the head for them or they may know someone that's having this sort of problem," she said. ******************** Slayings put focus on local Aryans ---- Police say they killed suspected snitch and one of their own Aryan Brotherhood gang members thought Anthony Ormwell Clark was snitching on them, so they lured him to a Mesquite residence, killed him, and dumped his body in a pond, authorities say. They also killed a female gang member at the same home as a way to exact "internal discipline," police say. Police now believe her body lies at the bottom of Lake Ray Hubbard, one more victim of a criminal organization that has been spreading violence across the nation since white inmates in San Quentin founded the group to protect themselves against black and Hispanic gangs in the mid-1960s. FBI divers, assisted by Dallas Fire-Rescue, dredged parts of the lake Wednesday and Thursday, looking for the body of the woman, whom they declined to identify. They found nothing. But the 2 slayings offer a glimpse into the shadowy world of a local Aryan Brotherhood group, which authorities say invaded a quiet Mesquite neighborhood after one of its members moved into her late father's home in June. "The Aryan Brotherhood, first and foremost, is a criminal operation," said Mark Briskman, a regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. "There would be no compunction whatsoever to hurting someone or possibly murdering someone if they perceived you were in the way of their criminal operation. These victims probably got in the way." Since last Friday, FBI agents and local police have searched a home in Mesquite and another in Dallas and arrested more than a half-dozen people suspected of links to out-of-state Aryan Brotherhood groups. Authorities say the group's activities included killings and torture, robberies and thefts. The Dallas County probe stretches into New Mexico, where federal authorities on Tuesday captured the group's reputed ringleader, Jason Hankins, in Las Cruces. Mr. Hankins is being held on a capital murder warrant in the August slaying of Mr. Clark, 43. Dallas detectives traveled to New Mexico and searched a home where Mr. Hankins had been staying. Police say they found "valuable evidence" but would not elaborate. 3 other men and a woman - Courtland Ray Edmonds, Dale Clayton Jameton, Jennifer Lee McClellan and Richard Mann - also are accused in the Clark slaying. Mr. Jameton, William Chad Williams and Devanrin Manuel each face a capital murder charge in the woman's death. "This is just how this group handles their internal discipline," said Lt. Steve Callarman, a Mesquite police spokesman. "When they do things like this, then of course they'll tell everybody within their organization what they did and how they did it. That creates a sense of fear within their own organization not to cooperate with the police." Nationally, it's estimated that the Aryan Brotherhood has at least 15,000 members. Its Texas offshoot began in the early 1980s and has more than 400 members, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Federal officials estimate there are as many as 225 members in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. One suspected member is also accused of killing a Fort Worth police officer in late 2005. Authorities say Mr. Hankins' crew of as many as 20 members was loosely organized in a quasi-paramilitary structure, with Mr. Hankins holding the rank of general, Mr. Jameton and Mr. Edmonds being captains, and Mr. Mann a soldier. One suspect even drew detectives an organizational chart. The structure is "one way of enforcing internal discipline" to protect their criminal enterprise, said Mr. Briskman of the Anti-Defamation League. Mr. Hankins' group is also believed to have kept records related to discipline and grievances. Female members were considered property. Methamphetamine was the drug of choice. They told police that they weren't white supremacists but that they did believe in separatism. One had a swastika tattoo on his head. Authorities say Mr. Manuel was not a member but provided the group a "source of income." Officials would not elaborate. This didn't surprise Mr. Briskman, he said, because the Aryan Brotherhood's members are criminals 1st and racists 2nd. "To the extent that this guy helped them sell drugs or helped them commit their criminal acts, they would work with the guy," he said. History of crime In the weeks and months leading up to the slayings, several of the suspects, including Mr. Hankins, had been in and out of jail. Mr. Hankins, nicknamed Trooper, was a career criminal by the time he crossed paths with Mr. Clark - serving time on a drug charge - this summer in the Tarrant County Jail. After both were released, they started hanging out at Ms. McClellan's house on Duvall Drive in Mesquite, authorities say. Ms. McClellan had moved into the home, which belonged to her father, after he died in a motorcycle accident in mid-June in Dallas. Her grandfather inherited the house, and he "was letting her stay there because he felt sorry for her," Lt. Callarman said. Neighbors soon noticed the rough-looking characters coming and going from the home. "They have their heads shaved; they've got tattoos and all that kind of stuff," said one neighbor. "They're not doctors or lawyer-looking people." Mr. Clark was not an Aryan Brotherhood member, police say, but he hoped to do business with the group. "He is an innocent person who they thought implicated them in a drug sales," said Dallas police Lt. Michael Scoggins, a homicide supervisor. Police say they think Mr. Clark met his end Aug. 1. Mr. Clark called his girlfriend from a Bedford hospital and asked her to pick him up, police say. He told her that Trooper had borrowed his 2002 Ford Explorer. She called Mr. Hankins to let him know that Mr. Clark was in the hospital. Mr. Clark later told her that he was going to Mesquite with Trooper - later identified as Mr. Hankins. She never heard from or saw him again. Authorities allege that the suspects beat Mr. Clark on a back porch at the Duvall Drive home until he passed out. Then they dragged him back inside. Mr. Jameton and Mr. Hankins took the body, in Mr. Clark's vehicle, to Mr. Edmonds's home in the 1400 block of Shepherd Lane before dumping it in the pond, court records state. Mr. Clark's burned-out Explorer was later recovered in Mesquite. His decomposing body was found floating in a pond Aug. 6 near Interstate 20 and Dowdy Ferry Road in Dallas. He had been wrapped in a tarp and fencing and weighted down with concrete blocks. It took several weeks to identify him. Dallas detectives said they were stymied in their investigation until information from the FBI helped them unravel how the slaying occurred. That tip helped police get enough evidence to obtain search warrants last Friday for the two Dallas-area homes. As detectives questioned the group's members about the Clark slaying, Mesquite police also were tipped off about the woman's slaying and where the body could be found. "We got corroborating testimony from 2 different individuals that basically told the same story," Lt. Callarman said. He declined to be more specific. Last Friday's searches also quickly turned to arrests: Mr. Williams fled from police after driving by the Duvall home but was captured later that evening when he asked to use a telephone. Mesquite police captured Ms. McClellan and Mr. Jameton late Friday after they fled from police and wrecked their vehicle. Authorities say Mr. Williams, Mr. Jameton and Ms. McClellan had robbed a Mesquite home earlier that day. They face an aggravated robbery charge. Mr. Edmonds was arrested near his Shepherd Lane home. Mr. Mann was arrested Monday afternoon in Mesquite after he came to the police station to give a statement as a witness. "He wasn't aware he was wanted," said Sgt. Gene Reyes, a Dallas homicide supervisor. Involvement denied In a jailhouse interview, Mr. Edmonds denied being a member of the Aryan Brotherhood and accused police of trying to make headlines. He said he runs a remodeling business, was about to get married on the morning he was arrested, and has a baby on the way. Mr. Edmonds said that he didn't know Mr. Clark nor had he ever met him but that Mr. Hankins had been hanging with him. "His girlfriend called Jason looking for him," Mr. Edmonds said. "She thought he was off with some other girl doing heroin." Mr. Edmonds said that he knew the woman the others are accused of killing and that she stayed with him and his girlfriend. He said they kicked her out because she was doing drugs. When she disappeared, he said, he thought she had taken off do drugs and "would pop back up." Mr. Edmonds grew up with Mr. Williams and said he's not an Aryan Brotherhood member, either. "I don't believe he's got it in him to kill somebody," he said. He would not say whether any of the others were Aryan Brotherhood members. "That's for them to say," he said. "If they were Aryan Brotherhood, I don't know if they would like me saying that. I'm going to look out for my well-being on this one." THE SUSPECTS Members and associates of the Dallas-area Aryan Brotherhood taken into custody by police: JASON HANKINS, 32, is the "general" of the group and was known by the nickname Trooper. He was in prison from July 1995 until May 2005 after being convicted of 2 counts of burglary. He was arrested on a parole violation in late June 2005 and was in jail until late July. After a manhunt, he was arrested this week in Las Cruces, N.M., in the death of Anthony Ormwell Clark, 43. WILLIAM CHAD WILLIAMS, 20, has an extensive criminal history that includes convictions on attempted theft, car burglary, possession of a controlled substance and a weapons charge. He was also on probation for aggravated robbery and car theft. He was released after completing a court-ordered drug treatment program run by the Texas prison system in early June, and was arrested last Friday in the death of an unidentified woman. He faces 1 count of capital murder and 2 counts of aggravated robbery. DALE CLAYTON JAMETON, 28, nicknamed Tiger, got out of prison in late June after serving 6 years on burglary and drug convictions. He was in the Dallas County Jail in July on pending weapons and drug charges. He was apparently the boyfriend of Jennifer Lee McClellan. He faces 2 counts of capital murder - for Mr. Clark and the unidentified woman - and 2 counts of aggravated robbery. JENNIFER LEE MCCLELLAN, 31, also went by the alias of Mendy Sneed, faced pending charges of failure to identify and prescription fraud before her arrest in the Clark slaying. She also faces 2 counts of aggravated robbery. DEVANRIN MANUEL, 38, has a harassment conviction. He also was facing charges of assault and possession of a controlled substance. He is not thought to be a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. He faces 1 count of capital murder in the unidentified woman's death. COURTLAND RAY EDMONDS, 28, has convictions for theft and burglary of a building. He was known as Rabbit. Authorities allege that at least 1 of the bodies was brought to his home before being dumped. He faces 1 count of capital murder in the Clark case. RICHARD MANN, 33, faces 1 count of capital murder in the Clark case. (source for both: Dallas Morning News) NEW YORK: Personal journey to forgiveness inspires a book A bumper sticker on Lois Einhorn's office door challenges readers "To comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." While Einhorn, a professor of English, is hardly shy about challenging her students, she wasn't always open to discussing sensitive issues within the classroom. This contradiction was resolved through a 10-year healing process chronicled in her newest book, Forgiveness and Child Abuse: Would YOU Forgive? It's a brutally honest portrayal of the abuse she endured at the hands of her own parents. The book recalls how Einhorn's parents used Nazi-style techniques in physically and sexually abusing her and her sister. "As a child my sister and I were forced to torture and destroy animals," she said. "As an adult I was feeling antagonizing anguish because I participated." Years after her parents' deaths, Einhorn realized that she needed closure and wanted to know if the time had come to forgive. She shared her story with hundreds of people, asking them: "What would you do?" "Do you forgive your parents and how do you forgive yourself?" she asked. The result -- 53 contributors from all walks of life with inherently contradictory viewpoints on forgiveness. Writers include actor Edward Asner, singer and activist Pete Seeger and death-row inmate Billy Ray Riggs. Colleague and contributor Susan Thornton has known Einhorn for more than 20 years. "This book is an amazing document because it brings so many perspectives together," Thornton said. "Each time I read it I take away some new knowledge. It is like being part of a conversation among people I would not ordinarily meet. In reading this book one is in the company of Arun Gandhi, the grandson of the Mahatma, 'Hurricane' Carter, Dr. Bernard Siegel and other well-known figures, as well as in the company of members of the therapeutic community and other individuals like Lois who are survivors of ritual abuse. It's an extraordinary document." The responses are often surprising. While contributors do not agree on whether and how Einhorn can forgive, they seem to agree on the multiplicity of meanings the term forgiveness can carry. "There are many more points of view about forgiveness than I ever imagined," said Eric Loeb, the psychologist who helped Einhorn uncover the abuse and a contributor to the book. "Forgiveness is a side effect of healing, and is more of a gift to the forgiver than to the forgiven." Einhorn agrees. "You don't think there are that many takes on forgiveness," she said. "After reading them all, forgiveness went from being an F-word to being a reality. To me it's not a goal, it's a byproduct of healing and healing is an ongoing process." This healing experience has proved beneficial to Einhorn not only in her personal life but professionally as well. "What I teach now is very different," she said. "I designed three courses that clearly are a result of my healing, Communication Ethics and Social Action, Compassionate Nonviolent Communication and Communication and Film." Her classroom and teaching style promote an open dialogue where students feel free to disagree on issues such as racism, stereotyping and censorship. "All my courses now deal with sensitive topics with students expressing their ideas and feelings openly, honestly and authentically," she said. These courses are designed to challenge students and take them outside their comfort zones. "As a society, we're not taught how to deal with intense pain. Part of what I teach is the need to feel." This English professor's graphic, unflinching account has generated correspondences from fellow abuse victims worldwide. Readers from as far away as Australia, the Netherlands and Norway have reached out to Einhorn to share their own stories of abuse, to thank her for helping them to reach forgiveness and to look at forgiveness in a different light. In response to the book, Einhorn was honored as the 2004 Heroine of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace by the World Forgiveness Alliance. Past recipients include Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. In the afterword to Forgiveness Einhorn writes: "I don't know if we can create a better world using only compassionate, nonviolent communication, but I do know we can create a better world if we become more compassionate and less violent in our communication with others and ourselves." (source: Inside Binghamton University) FLORIDA: Death case lawyer defends tactic----A scathing Supreme Court minority opinion says Joe Episcopo ill served a convicted murderer by arguing his innocence in the penalty phase. The Florida Supreme Court upheld a death sentence Thursday for a Tampa killer, but two dissenting justices had some unusually harsh language for the man's attorney, cable news show staple Joe Episcopo. Even as the court said the death sentence for Patrick Charles Hannon should stand, 2 justices called Episcopo's representation of Hannon in the trial's penalty phase a "classic example of legal incompetency." Justice Harry Lee Anstead said Episcopo failed to investigate and present to jurors reasons why his client should live. The defense attorney maintained "a head-in-the-sand posture" that his client was innocent, Anstead said, despite a jury finding him guilty of a January 1991 double slaying. Justice Barbara J. Pariente concurred with the dissenting opinion. At age 26, Hannon was convicted of slitting one man's throat and shooting another man six times in a North Tampa apartment. Investigators suspected revenge as a motive because one of the victims had threatened a woman Hannon knew. During trial, Hannon maintained that he was not present during the killings. Attorneys agreed that a bloody handprint and fingerprint found in the apartment belonged to Hannon, but Episcopo said the blood came from pork chops and not the victims. Episcopo, a longtime Tampa lawyer with a clean Florida Bar record, said his client also insisted on presenting a "not guilty" strategy during the penalty phase, despite the trial judge's warnings against doing so. "I don't think it's fair that Anstead is blaming me," said Episcopo, who had not read the 120-page majority and dissenting opinions as of Thursday afternoon. A reporter shared the highlights. "He's trying to second-guess me when he wasn't privy to a lot of conversations that I had with my client." Episcopo, a former state and federal prosecutor, is perhaps best known for his regular appearances for legal commentary on cable TV shows, including Nancy Grace, The Abrams Report and Larry King Live. He tried 6 death penalty cases as a prosecutor; Hannon's case was his first as a defense attorney. Hannon initially refused to let anyone testify to try to spare his life but relented and allowed Episcopo to argue it was out of his client's character to commit murder. "What we're asking you to do is to give him a chance to clear his name, and he's going to need a lot of time," Episcopo said at trial. "If you put him on death row, he's got six years. That's not enough time." But Anstead said Episcopo never sought out other factors that might have bolstered his client's case: Hannon's heavy drinking and drug use, his checkered military service, his troubled home life or possible brain damage. Anstead said Hannon should be entitled to a new sentencing proceeding. "The case before us today presents a classic example of legal incompetency where it hurts the most - by counsel's blatant failure to investigate or present a case for life for a defendant already found guilty of capital 1st-degree murder," Anstead wrote. The four justices in the majority, however, said Episcopo had "specific tactical and calculated reasons" for his strategy. They agreed that Hannon failed to prove he had ineffective counsel at the trial or penalty phase. "Counsel's adoption of a strategy that focused on Hannon's character was the product of discussions with not only Hannon, but with his most intimate family members," the majority opinion said. Episcopo said he made the right decision in this case, even if a couple of jurors called him afterward to try to convince him that his client was guilty. "If we had gone the other route and lost, then it would have been, 'You didn't follow your client's wishes,' " Episcopo said. "And he's the one who was on trial for his life." (source: St. Petersburg Times) ARKANSAS----female foreign national faces possible death sentence Judge sets Mendez murder trial for Feb. 26 The mother accused of smothering her 3 children has been ruled mentally competent to stand trial with the ability to help in her own defense, according to a report from the Arkansas State Hospital. A Feb. 26 trial date was scheduled for Paula Mendez, who is charged with 3 counts of capital murder. The charge stems from the deaths of her children, 5-year-old twins Samuel and Samantha Morales and 8-year-old Elvis Morales. Ninth Judicial District Circuit Court Judge Ted Capeheart set the trial date during a progress hearing Thursday in the Sevier County Courthouse. A request for an independent mental evaluation was requested by Mendez's defense attorney, Llewellyn Marczuk with the Arkansas Public Defender Commission. In making a request before Capeheart for an independent mental evaluation, Marczuk noted the report said Mendez "has a reasonable degree of rational understanding." "Does it mean she gets 70 %? With three capital murder charges, it should be 100 %," said Marczuk. The defense attorney also said the report "claims she has mental disease" but "can effectively assist counsel." Marczuk said the report said she has "sufficient present ability." The children were found Jan. 28 in the family's house in north De Queen near U.S. Highway 71. Arturo Morales of Manhattan, N.Y., the father of the children, had called the Sevier County Sheriff's Office and reporedly told the dispatcher his estranged wife had called him to say she had killed the children. The children had been placed in a bed in the master bedroom and were dressed in school clothes, lying on their backs with their arms folded. The capital murder charges carry a potential sentence of life in prison without parole or death by lethal injection. During Thursday's hearing, Marczuk also requested permission to photograph her living conditions at the Sevier County jail to determine if the jail might be a factor to reduce her current mental ability. He said the psychiatrist wanted to see where she lives in jail and if the conditions could cause "distress." Capeheart granted and ordered the release of Mendez's medical, psychological and psychiatric records maintained at the Sevier County jail. Capeheart also granted the request to transport Mendez at 9 a.m. on Sept. 19 to the Office of the Arkansas Public Defender Commission in Little Rock for a visit with Dr. Jose Silva and her defense team. Mendez will be unrestrained during the time of her visit with her experts and her defense team. The visit will end Sept. 20 and Mendez will be returned to the Sevier County jail. Capeheart also granted the request to transport Mendez at 9 a.m. on Sept. 19 to the Office of the Arkansas Public Defender Commission in Little Rock for a visit with Dr. Jose Silva and her defense team. Mendez will be unrestrained during the time of her visit with her experts and her defense team. The visit will end Sept. 20 and Mendez will be returned to the Sevier County jail. Also during Thursday's hearing, while Prosecutor Tom Cooper and Marczuk were discussing potential hearing dates, the attorney representing the Mexican government (the United States of Mexico), said she would be unable to attend some of the potential hearings on the suggested dates. Cooper objected to allowing the attorney representing the Mexican government help determine hearing dates. The attorney is Danalynn Recer with the Gulf Region Advocacy Center in Houston. Cooper said Recer should be listed as the attorney of record if she intends to argue the case before the court and also ask for suppression of evidence. Recer was retained by the public defender commission because of international treaties requiring the Mexican government to be represented in capital murder cases. Mexico has no death sentence while the U.S. allows for the death penalty. Mendez is a Mexican national and not a U.S. citizen. Capeheart ordered the attorneys to research the treaties and make a formal request in a hearing scheduled for Sept. 15. Capeheart also said the independent mental evaluation will be returned to the court Nov. 3 at 10:30 a.m. Other progress hearings will be Oct. 12, Dec. 21, and Jan. 11. Marczuk also said an investigator hired by the public defender commission had interviewed the father of the victims in New York. He also said a mitigation specialist would be needed to go to Mexico to obtain documents needed for the trial. Marczuk said the attorneys were having difficulty obtaining documents from Mexico and it would require a specialist to actually go to Mexico to obtain the documents. But he did not identify the documents in court. (source: Texarkana Gazette)
