[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., USA
May 30 ALABAMAexecution Christopher Price executed in Alabama on Thursday; apologizes to victim’s family Hours before Alabama death row inmate Christopher Price was executed Thursday for the slaying of a minister 28 years ago, he apologized for that horrific crime in a statement to AL.com through his attorney. “I’m terribly sorry for the victim of my crime and his family. Neither he nor his family deserve what happened to him. No one deserves that,” Price said. Price, 46, was pronounced dead at 7:31 p.m. after being executed by lethal injection at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. Price was initially set to die by lethal injection on April 11, but the execution was called off just before midnight because the state said it didn’t have time to start the procedure before the death warrant expired. The Alabama Supreme Court set Thursday as a new execution date for Price in late April. Price was convicted in the 1991 robbery and slaying of Fayette County minister Bill Lynn, who was slain with a sword and dagger just days before Christmas that year, while he was wrapping presents for his grandchildren. The curtains opened to the execution viewing rooms at 7:11 p.m. The following minute, the warden read Price’s death warrant. Price’s last words were, “A man is much more than his worst mistake.” Twice at 7:15 p.m. Price lifted his head and looked down towards his feet. At 7:16 p.m., he opened and closed his eyes, before his stomach heaved 5 times. His breathing slowed, and at 7:18 p.m. a corrections officer performed a consciousness check. Price did not respond. The curtains closed to the viewing room at 7:26 p.m., and he was officially pronounced dead minutes later. According to Alabama Department of Corrections spokesperson Bob Horton, Price was visited by his wife and a friend on Wednesday. Thursday, he was visited by his wife, his uncle, and his attorney Aaron Katz. Wednesday, he made three phone calls, one to his attorney and two to his wife. Thursday, Price refused his breakfast but requested four pints of Turtle Pie ice cream for his final meal. Horton said Price’s wife, 2 aunts, uncle, cousin, and attorney were scheduled to witness the execution; but, only Katz was present in the room where Price’s family was to sit along with members of the media. Members of the victim’s family witnessed the execution, but their relationships to the victim were not disclosed due to a request from the family. The execution was scheduled for 6 p.m. Members of the media were transported to the area of Holman prison where executions are carried out around 5:45 p.m. but, before exiting the media van, Horton said media needed to go back to the press center. Upon return to the center at approximately 6:20 p.m., Horton said the process to prepare Price for his execution took longer than expected. He said there were no reported problems with the preparation. Following the execution, ADOC Chief of Staff Anne Hill said at the request of the Alabama Attorney General’s Office, the prison implemented the initial delay in order to allow the U.S. Supreme Court time to enter their order. At approximately 6:35 p.m. Thursday, the nation’s highest court denied the request for a stay. As the media van was leaving the gates of Holman at that time, an ambulance was spotted entering the facility grounds. Horton said the ambulance was not related to Price, but was transporting an inmate who had been injured earlier in the day in an unrelated incident to an off-site medical facility. No other information on that incident or inmate were immediately available. Hill delivered a statement from the victim’s family: “We would like to thank all of our friends and extended family for the love, prayers, and support through this long and difficult journey. Although this is not really closure, we are praying to finally have peace. Not only for us, but for the one we love and miss every day.” AG Steve Marshall released a statement following the execution, stating Lynn’s family “has finally seen Lynn’s killer face justice.” He also added that Price was “fighting until the very end to avoid facing the consequences of his heinous crime.” “…Lynn was ambushed, slashed, and stabbed with a sword and knife dozens of times. His killer, Christopher Price, dodged his death sentence for the better part of three decades by employing much the same strategy he has pursued today and tonight: desperately clinging to legal maneuverings to avoid facing his just punishment. In the end, justice got the last word. Tonight, Pastor Lynn’s family can finally begin to seek peace and closure.” Late Wednesday, Price appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution. In a response to Price’s U.S. Supreme Court motion, the Alabama Attorney General’s Office said in a filing, “Price obtained a de facto stay in April not due to the merits of his case, but rathe
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., USA
Sept. 21 ALABAMA: "An eye for an eye makes us all blind." Photographer Toshi Kazama's photographs of execution chambers, death row inmates and victims' families show the reality of the death penalty that most of us don't see. He also asks a very important question to people who support the death penalty. Straps dangle on a wooden chair. There's a faint dark burn mark on the middle of the seat. It's a chair used to kill death row inmates by electrocution in Alabama, US. The tailbone of the electrocuted inmate sometimes burns the seat leaving the mark, said Toshi Kazama, a New York-based photographer and death penalty abolitionist. Kazama was in Jakarta recently, exhibiting his photographs of execution chambers, portraits of children on death row and victims' families, mostly from the US and some countries in Asia. His photos recently lined a corridor in Plaza Indonesia as part of the Festival "A Week of Celebrating Life" organized by the Coalition for the Abolition of Death Penalty in ASEAN. Kazama's photographs show the reality of the death penalty. But he also has a question to ask the Indonesian public. In the 18 months of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration, 18 death row inmates, mostly convicted drug traffickers, have been executed by firing squad. Jokowi considers this a solution to the illegal drug trade and he has the support of a majority of Indonesians. According to a 2015 Indo-Barometer survey, 84 % of the Indonesian public supports the death penalty for drug traffickers. "I want to ask each and every one of you. Do you have the guts to kill this drug trafficker or murderer, with your own hands? Can you pull the trigger?" he asked. "I don't," he said. Kazama's questions come at a time when Indonesia and its neighbors in Southeast Asia are witnessing a rise in state-ordered killings. The festival in Jakarta comes a little over a month after the third wave of executions in Indonesia. "You have to understand, it's you who is doing the killing, not the executioner. He's just doing a job for you," he said. Recently, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, whose tough stance on fighting drug crime has encouraged the extrajudicial killing of more than 2,000 people, reportedly gave a green light for Jokowi to execute Philippine national Mary Jane Veloso. Sitting in the Mandarin Oriental on his last day in Jakarta before flying off to New York via Tokyo, Kazama talked about what had pushed him to work on the theme of the death penalty. The chair - called Yellow Mama by the people in Alabama - was the 1st picture that he took of an execution chamber, he said. 20 years ago, Kazama was a successful commercial photographer who photographed famous musicians for CD covers and had his work appear in magazines such as Italian Vogue. "I was a pretty successful photographer and I only thought about myself," he said. In 1996, he decided to take pictures of juvenile death row inmates to explore a different path in his career. "To be honest with you, I thought I would do a couple of death row inmates and publish them in Time or Newsweek," he said. "I thought it would help my career. I had that idea in the corner of my mind too," he said. Kazama now in his late 50s, has always found the idea of killing someone as a form of punishment uncomfortable. Born in Japan, Kazama moved to the US at 15. He remembers being bewildered watching Hollywood movies in the theater and people cheered when the good guy killed the bad guy. The sinking feeling never left him as he grew up. "I got married. I have children. And this question that I had got bigger and bigger," he said. The death penalty then became a natural theme for him to explore outside of his commercial work. It was not easy to start this endeavor. He found a list of juveniles on death-row from university research. He learned that a 16-year-old boy name Michael Barnes in Alabama was on death row. He called the warden of the Alabama prison to ask permission and was immediately rejected and told never to call again. "I was a little amused by this so even though he told me to never call him back, I called him back. He got angrier obviously," he said. But the warden told him if the Alabama Department of Corrections gave their permission, he would have to follow suit. With the help of lawyers, Kazama asked permission from the Department of Corrections. After eight months, Kazama received permission. The warden turned out to be a genuinely nice guy, Kazama said. Meeting Barnes, his 1st portrait subject with an IQ of around 70, changed Kazama's life. "I had no idea who I was going to meet. I was so stunned. He wasn't a monster. He was a regular 16-year-old boy who I could easily find in my son's classroom," he said. "When that thought came, I started to think what if I was born like him? I would be on death-row and I would be photographed by this weird Asian
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., USA
April 16 ALABAMA: Death penalty trial date moved for man charged with strangling 91-year-old neighbor The death penalty trial for a Huntsville man charged with killing his 91-year-old neighbor has been pushed back from May to November. John Clayton Owens, 31, is charged with capital murder in the strangulation death of Doris Richardson at her home on Bide-A-Wee Drive, near Five Points in Huntsville. Owens lived part-time with his uncle, next door to Richardson, and sometimes mowed her grass. Richardson's body was found in her bedroom on Aug. 26, 2011. The trial date has been continued more than once. Last year, the defense had expressed concern about being prepared for trial. The defense attorneys said they needed more time to review DNA test results and the November trial date was pushed back to May 18, 2015. The case was being heard by Madison County Circuit Judge Billy Bell, but Bell retired this year. The case is now before Bell's successor Circuit Judge Alison Austin. Defense attorneys Brian Clark and Ron Smith and Madison County Assistant District Attorney Bill Starnes and Assistant DA Thomas Glover met with the judge this afternoon for a status conference. The new trial date was set during that meeting. Prosecutors said last year they would seek the death penalty for Owens. Huntsville Police Department investigator Charlie Gray testified in Owens' 2011 preliminary hearing that Richardson's house showed signs of disarray with drawers pulled out, contents dumped on the floor, an open safe and several open closet doors. Police had earlier reported about $1,200 worth of items had been stolen from the home. The day after Richardson's death was discovered Gray said he was contacted by Owens' uncle. Gray said several jewelry boxes and a coin box were found in the uncle's yard. A search of Owens' room yielded more jewelry boxes and a slip of paper with a combination that turned out to match the safe's. After that discovery Gray issued a police alert for Owens. He was soon picked up, Gray testified. Owens admitted burglarizing the house, Gray said, but he claimed to have done so several days before the murder and denied killing Richardson. ** Former Alabama death row inmate cuts deal, will be free within hours A former death row inmate Alabama who won a new trial 3 years ago will be free within hours, becoming the 2nd condemned Alabama prisoner ordered freed this month. William Ziegler, 39, had been awaiting execution since his conviction in 2001 for the slaying of Russell Allen Baker near the defendant's home at the time in Mobile County. His regular appeals exhausted, he won a rarely successful post-appeal challenge made directly to the trial judge. Prosecutors had been preparing to retry the case and as recently as November indicated they would again seek the death penalty. On Thursday, Ziegler accepted a plea bargain and that will allow him to walk free. He pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting murder, and Mobile County Circuit Judge Sarah Stewart sentenced him to the 15 years and 50 days he has been incarcerated. His attorneys said he will leave Mobile County Metro Jail as soon as authorities process him, which should take an hour or 2. "I know that you recognize God's grace," the judge told Ziegler, urging him to resist the temptation to be bitter. "I want you to appreciate that gift. You need to be very careful with your gift. ... The world is a very different place than it was 15 years ago when you went to jail." Stewart was not on the bench during Ziegler's 2001 trial, but she documented a litany of errors and abuses in an extraordinary 218-page ruling in 2012 and indicated that there was serious doubt about whether the defendant committed the murder. The judge cited three main deficiencies: --That Ziegler received substandard performance from his lawyers. --That the state withheld evidence about a witness who later recanted her testimony. --That a juror, when questioned about his views on the death penalty, lied during jury selection. Thursday marks the second time this month that Alabama has released a prisoner who had been facing execution. Anthony Ray Hinton got his freedom April 3 after nearly 30 years on Alabama's death row. Prosecutors in that case dismissed charges in the 1985 deaths of 2 fast-food workers after new testing on the defendant's gun could not prove that it fired the bullets use in the slayings. Ziegler was not yet 25 when Baker's body was found in a wooded patch off of Leroy Stevens Road in Mobile County. Authorities discovered that the victim and Ziegler had quarreled at a party and centered on him as the prime suspect. He was convicted along with 3 accomplices. On Thursday, Ziegler acknowledged that his conduct helped lead to the Baker's death. Relatives of both Ziegler and Baker came away from the hearing disappointed. O'Della Wilson, the defendant
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., USA, LA., FLA., NEV., CONN., OHIO, MD.
Oct. 20 ALABAMA: Alabama set to execute man for 2005 death of his infant son An Alabama man who has spent just four years on death row for the suffocation and beating death of his infant son is set to die by lethal injection on Thursday. The execution of Christopher Thomas Johnson, 39, is scheduled for 6 p.m. local time at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. Johnson made the rare move of pleading guilty to capital murder in the 2005 death of his 6-month-old son Elias Ocean Johnson. The inmate requested the death penalty, which was granted in February 2007, and waived all appellate and intervention measures on his behalf. One law professor said Johnson's brief stay on death row is unusual and could possibly be among the shortest on record nationwide. Donald Q. Cochran, a former prosecutor and a professor at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, said the only other case he could recall following such an abrupt timeline was that of confessed Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh was executed in 2001, 6 years after committing his crime. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the average time an inmate spends on death row awaiting execution is 14 years, with many waiting longer than 20 years. Johnson would be the 6th inmate executed in Alabama this year and the 38th put to death nationwide in 2011. Johnson represented himself at trial. He testified he killed his son because "he hated his wife, didn't want to be near her and didn't want to worry about her threats of putting him in jail for alimony or child support," according to documents filed by the state Attorney General's Office. Johnson offered no mitigating circumstances for his crime, and the trial court found the "the heinous, atrocious and cruel" nature of the murder outweighed any justifications that could have been offered, records show. According to court documents, Johnson tried to quiet Elias while his wife slept. After several unsuccessful attempts in the early morning hours, he "laid on top of Elias, covered Elias' mouth with his hand for extended periods of time, and forced his fingers into the child's mouth and down his throat to stop the crying." He also struck the child with his hand. When the child's mother awoke, Elias was unresponsive and cold to the touch. The forensic pathologist who performed Elias' autopsy testified during the trial that the infant suffered at least 85 separate injuries. Suffocation and head trauma were cited as the causes of death. In a statement issued by Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, executive director Esther Brown said even though the organization respects Johnson's right to have the death penalty imposed, they questioned his motives. "We are a prisoner organization and therefore respect a prisoner's wishes. Nevertheless, we question Mr. Johnson's mental stability, which would allow him to make this kind of decision," Brown said. (source: Reuters) USA (MASSACHUSETTS/NEW HAMPSHIRE)federal death sentence thrown out Judge throws out death penalty against man convicted in 3 killings in Mass., NH A federal judge on Thursday threw out the death penalty against a man convicted of killing 3 people in Massachusetts and New Hampshire during a weeklong crime spree in 2001 and ordered a new trial. Chief U.S. Disrict Judge Mark Wolf ruled that Gary Sampson was denied his constitutional right to have his sentence decided by an impartial jury and that he is “entitled to a new trial to determine whether the death penalty is justified in his case.” Sampson, a drifter who was raised in Abington, pleaded guilty to carjacking 2 Massachusetts men after each picked him up hitchhiking. He said he forced both men to drive to secluded spots, assured them he only wanted to steal their cars, then stabbed them repeatedly and slit their throats. He then fled to New Hampshire, broke into a house in Meredith and strangled a 3rd man. In a motion for a new trial, Sampson’s lawyers argued that 3 jurors had given inaccurate answers to questions they were asked during the jury selection process. Wolf found that 1 of the jurors had intentionally and repeatedly answered questions dishonestly in an attempt to avoid talking about subjects that were painful to her. She never disclosed, for example, that her husband had a rifle and had threatened to shoot her, that she had ended her marriage because of her husband’s substance abuse and that her daughter had served time in prison because of a drug problem. Wolf said in his ruling that if the woman had disclosed those things during the jury selection process, the court would have found that there was a “high risk” that after listening to the evidence at Sampson’s trial, her decision on whether to sentence Sampson to death could have been influenced by her life experiences. Wolf said the woman likely would have been excused from servi
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., USA, COLO.
April 18 ALABAMA: AG asks court to set execution dates for 2 Wiregrass killers When Pat Jones heard her mother's murderer may soon be executed, she was hopeful, but cautious. Its been 17 years since Willie McNair was convicted of the 1990 murder of Ella Foy Riley in Henry County. Since then, McNair has been on Alabama's death row awaiting execution. "Until I'm sitting down there and I actually see it and know it is going to happen, I'm not going to get my hopes up," said Jones, whose mothers murder prompted her to become a victim's rights activist and organize the local chapter of the group known as VOCAL Victim's of Crime and Leniency. Jones' hope comes from an announcement that state Attorney General Troy King has filed motions asking the Alabama Supreme Court to set an execution date for McNair, another convicted murderer from the Wiregrass and a third man. The announcement comes just 2 days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the execution method of lethal injection does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Along with McNair, King asked for execution dates for Phillip Hallford, convicted of the 1986 murder of 16-year-old Charles Eddie Shannon in Dale County and Jimmy Dill, convicted for the 1991 murder of Leon Shaw of Jefferson County. Earlier this week the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Kentucky legal challenge to lethal injection, rejecting the claim that it was cruel and unusual punishment. There had been no executions in the United States using this method for about 7 months. A Henry County jury heard evidence that indicated McNair stabbed Riley to death after he asked to borrow $20 and she then allowed him into her home for a glass of water. A Dale County jury convicted Hallford after hearing evidence he used his daughter to lure her boyfriend to a secluded bridge. He then shot Shannon 3 times and threw him over the bridge. "Justice has too long been delayed in each of these cases, and in many more," King said in a written release. (source: Dothan Eagle) USA: Supreme Court MemoJustice Stevens Renounces Capital Punishment When Justice John Paul Stevens intervened in a Supreme Court argument on Wednesday to score a few points off the lawyer who was defending the death penalty for the rape of a child, the courtroom audience saw a master strategist at work, fully in command of the flow of the argument and the smallest details of the case. For those accustomed to watching Justice Stevens, it was a familiar sight. But there was something different that no one in the room knew except the eight other justices. In the decision issued 30 minutes earlier in which the court found Kentuckys method of execution by lethal injection constitutional, John Paul Stevens, in the 33rd year of his Supreme Court tenure and four days shy of his 88th birthday, had just renounced the death penalty. In an opinion concurring with the majoritys judgment, Justice Stevens said he felt bound to "respect precedents that remain a part of our law." But outside the confines of the Kentucky case, he said, the time had come to reconsider "the justification for the death penalty itself." He wrote that court decisions and actions taken by states to justify the death penalty were "the product of habit and inattention rather than an acceptable deliberative process" to weigh the costs and risks of the penalty against its benefits. His opinion, which was not separately announced in the courtroom, was the culmination of a remarkable journey for a Republican antitrust lawyer. During his tenure, Justice Stevens, originally an opponent of affirmative action, has changed his views on that and other issues. "Learning on the job is essential to the process of judging," he observed in a speech in 2005. But it is on the death penalty that his evolution is most apparent. He was named to the Supreme Court by President Gerald R. Ford at a time when ferment over capital punishment was at a peak. Less than 4 years earlier, the court had invalidated every death penalty statute in the country, and states were racing to draft laws that would test the courts tolerance for a fresh start. In July 1976, little more than 6 months after taking his seat, Justice Stevens announced the opinion for the court in Jurek v. Texas, 1 of the 3 cases by which the justices gave their approval to a new generation of death penalty statutes. The defendant, Jerry Lane Jurek, had been convicted of kidnapping a 10-year-old girl from a public swimming pool and then raping and killing her. The new justice's opinion described the crime in vivid detail before concluding that Mr. Jureks death sentence was constitutional because "Texas has provided a means to promote the evenhanded, rational and consistent imposition of death sentences under law." During the child rape argument on Wednesday, it was the lawyer for Louisiana who was giving the vivid description of the crime, recounting in grisly anatomic detail the injuries inflicted on
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news---ALA., USA, N.J.
Nov. 26 ALABAMA: High court nixes Ala. death row case The Supreme Court on Monday refused to allow a death row inmate to try to prove his innocence through DNA testing. Thomas Arthur, 65, was sentenced for the 1982 killing of Troy Wicker of Muscle Shoals, Ala. His execution has been set for Dec 6, but is expected to be delayed because of a pending Supreme Court case involving lethal injections. The victim's wife, Judy Wicker, testified at Arthur's trial that she had sex with him and paid him $10,000 to kill her husband, who was shot in the face as he lay in bed. Earlier at her own trial, Wicker testified that a man burglarizing her home raped her, knocked her unconscious and then shot her husband. In April, Arthur's lawyers sued the state claiming that the inmate was being deprived of his rights and was entitled to DNA testing of critical pieces of physical evidence, including a rape kit, bloodstained clothing and hairs aimed at showing that someone other than Arthur committed the murder. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta affirmed a federal judge's dismissal of Arthur's lawsuit, citing the authority of federal courts to dismiss such claims that are speculative or are filed too late in proceedings. Arthur filed his claim 5 days before the state of Alabama moved to set an execution date. The case is Arthur v. King, 07-397. (source: Associated Press) USA: Unfit to executeStates know that their lethal injection procedure may cause excruciating pain, yet they defend it anyway. For years, the conventional wisdom has been that lethal injection is a humane means of execution. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. In one case, which the Los Angeles Times reported on this month, the federal government is carrying out executions with the assistance of a doctor who was barred from participating in Missouri's lethal injection procedure. In 2006, a federal court in Kansas City, Mo., found that Alan R. Doerhoff's dyslexia interfered with his ability to administer the drugs correctly -- making him the only doctor in the country who has been barred by a federal court from participating in lethal injection executions. Despite this finding and his public reprimand for failing to disclose more than 20 malpractice suits against him, Doerhoff continues to assist with federal executions in Indiana. Thirty-seven states have selected potentially excruciating chemicals, and many have delegated administration of those drugs to unfit personnel. As a result, it is virtually certain that inmates have needlessly suffered painful deaths and that more will continue to do so -- unless states and the federal government substantially revise their methods. In January, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Baze vs. Rees, a case that will set the standard for determining whether the pain and suffering inflicted during lethal injection violates the 8th Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Governments thus may be required to take greater care in administering lethal injections. The prevailing method of lethal injection employs three drugs that simultaneously create a risk of terrific pain and conceal that pain from all observers. The first chemical is a volatile, difficult-to-administer anesthetic. The second paralyzes all the inmate's muscles, including his diaphragm. The third burns intensely as it courses through the veins toward the heart, where it induces cardiac arrest. Insufficiently anesthetized inmates thus lie paralyzed while experiencing conscious suffocation and searing pain before death. Execution by lethal injection need not be so inherently painful. Experts agree that other drugs could cause death without the risk of also causing undue suffering. Because the states have selected drugs that are so sensitive to error, however, it is imperative that they employ the right people to administer them. But numerous states employ people who are manifestly unfit. States try to conceal their personnel's qualifications, but some details have begun to emerge. In one California case, an execution team leader had sole control over the addictive anesthetic, even though he had been disciplined for bringing illegal narcotics into the prison. Other members of that same team were allegedly never trained in the procedures and became so confused when preparing the anesthetic that they may have administered one-tenth of the intended dose. In a separate incident, massive quantities of the anesthetic disappeared, and no one knows how much was actually administered to inmates. Unsurprisingly, courts presented with such evidence in California and other states have begun to find that unqualified personnel's participation in executions creates a significant risk of excruciating pain. If they fail to employ people capable of, among other things, correctly mixing the drugs and setting the intravenous lines, states are inviting problems. The paralyzing drug usually hides the exec
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., USA, FLA. WASH.
April 3 ALABAMA: Jeffco death sentences highest since '76 -- 7 condemned since last June; Alabama leads nation in per-capita death penalties Jefferson County judges have condemned seven killers in the last 9 months, equaling the county's largest concentration of death sentences since capital sentencing resumed in Alabama in 1976, records show. The latest was Brandon Washington, who was sentenced to death on March 27 for a robbery and murder. Judges also imposed 7 death sentences between June 1997 and March 1998. Bryan Stevenson, a death penalty critic, said the latest trend shouldn't be a surprise in a state that leads the nation in per-capita death sentences, where jury sentence verdicts can be less than unanimous and judges may override the jury's wish. "There is no question in my mind," said Stevenson, executive director of the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative. "Alabama has one of the most expansive death penalty statutes in the country." The number of death sentences in Jefferson County ebbs and flows. Some years no death sentences are imposed. But death sentences have increased in the county since the Legislature expanded the death penalty to include drive-by shootings. The county averaged one death sentence a year before those laws took effect in 1993, and four a year since. The number of death sentences nationally and elsewhere in Alabama has dropped since 1998, statistics show. Jefferson County has bucked that trend. It accounted for nearly 1/2 of Alabama's death sentences in 2005 and 2006. One explanation may be the volume of capital murder cases in Jefferson County, said David Barber, Jefferson County's district attorney. Jefferson County and its cities had 143 homicides last year, resulting in 97 murder warrants. More than 1/2 of those defendants face charges of capital murder, which carries a potential death sentence. "Maybe we've just had more of them lately," Barber said. "It could be that we've had stronger cases lately. Or maybe jurors are fed up with violent crime. There's no way to study it because it's not a science. All you can do is guess until the cows come home." Heinous crimes: The circumstances of the murders may be a factor, said Barber and Dan Filler, a law professor at the University of Alabama who leads capital defense seminars. 5 of the killers condemned since last June committed multiple murders. In the other 2, the victim was under age 21. In every trial, jurors are the X factor, Barber said. The chemistry among jurors, their experiences and subconscious biases all can affect their votes on conviction and sentencing. "When you take 12 total strangers and lock them up in a pressure cooker, you never know what will come out," he said. Take, for example, the cases of condemned killers Kerry Spencer and Nathaniel Woods, who were sentenced to death last year in the 2003 murders of 3 Birmingham police officers. Spencer was the triggerman, while Woods never fired a shot. But their 2 juries had starkly different reactions. Spencer's jury recommended life without parole, while Woods' jury voted for death. "If we had Spencer's jury for Woods, who knows if they even would have convicted him," Barber said. "You just never know how it will shake out." Easier sentence: Alabama makes it easier for trials to shake out in favor of a death sentence, Stevenson said. Jurors only recommend sentences, and it only takes 10 votes to recommend death. Almost two-thirds of the 38 states that allow capital punishment require unanimous sentencing verdicts. Kenneth Eugene Billips is the only recent condemned killer in Jefferson County with a unanimous jury verdict for death. Alabama is the only state that allows judges to override juries when the majority calls for the lesser sentence, Stevenson said. 2 of the 7 recent death sentences in Jefferson County, including Spencer's, involved judges overriding jury votes for life without parole. "Judicial override is responsible for 20 to 25 % of the death sentences in Alabama," Stevenson said. Alabama, which is 23rd in population nationally, has the 6th-largest death row in the country, with 194 condemned killers, state and federal figures show. Alabama also leads the nation in per-capita death sentences, with 1 for every 24,000 people, federal figures show. "Alabama has 1/2 the population of Georgia, but routinely sentences 4 times more people to death," Stevenson said. "It always will be good politics to say I'm all about more death sentences and more executions." (source: Birmingham News) USA: Death Penalty Reevaluated With all the political and economic issues going on around us these days, it can be very easy to miss the truly newsworthy stories that foreshadow important changes in what society considers humane and acceptable. The issue regarding the death penalty, including the way it is used and whether it should be used at all, can potentially be a very divisive issue for Americans, and currently,
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----ALA., USA, TENN., N.Y.
Mar. 1 ALABAMA: Breathing life into a moratorium By political standards, a moratorium on the death penalty isn't particularly sexy legislation. Certainly not as sexy as, say, bills that would make torching a church a life-without-parole offense or that would outlaw disruptive protests at funerals. A rash of church burnings in Alabama has stirred up public sentiment about this particularly vile brand of arson. And Fred Phelps, a viciously anti-gay preacher from Kansas, has created a furor across the country with his protests at funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. (Phelps contends God is punishing America for tolerating homosexuals.) There's been no comparable attention-getter in Alabama when it comes to the death penalty. But that doesn't mean the moratorium bill doesn't deserve as much serious consideration from legislators as the politically palatable church arson and funeral bills. A committee that is considering all 3 measures could vote today to send the death penalty bill out to the full House of Representatives for a vote. Members of the House Judiciary Committee should do so. If passed, the moratorium would mean a three-year break from executions in Alabama - a break that would give the state time to make sure the death penalty is applied fairly and accurately. Among other things, the bill would require the state to implement the American Bar Association's guidelines for lawyers in capital cases. The guidelines essentially demand lawyers who take on this life-or-death work be competent in their jobs and be specifically trained in handling death penalty cases. The House bill, sponsored by Merika Coleman, D-Midfield, also calls for the system to be scrubbed clean of racism. Currently, blacks are overrepresented among condemned inmates - and even more seriously underrepresented on the victim side. Blacks make up a majority of murder victims, but of victims whose killers go to death row, the overwhelming majority are white. This disparity persists even for similar crimes and criminals. It's an indefensible system, one that doesn't come close to ensuring justice. The least legislators should do is call a temporary halt to executions so the problems can be studied and, if possible, fixed. If The News editorial board had its way, Alabama would scrap the whole system. But if Alabama is going to have capital punishment, it must at least ensure the right people are getting sentenced to death and for the right reasons. The moratorium bill is a place to start. (source: Opinion, Birmingham News) USA: Citizen Healer, Do No Harm Since 1973, 122 people in the USA sentenced to death by the unanimous verdict of a jury of their peers, have been exonerated. How many other innocent men and women languish on death row, or worse, have been executed for crimes they did not commit? Executing the wrong man is nothing new in the United States. In 1828, Patrick Fitzpatrick of Detroit was hanged for the rape and murder of an innkeepers daughter. 7 years later, his roommate confessed to the crime. As a result of the Fitzpatrick case and other travesties of justice, the 1st official act of the new state of Michigans legislature was to ban the death penalty. On March 1, 1847, Michigan became the 1st English-speaking government in the world to outlaw executions. Now we commemorate March 1 as International Death Penalty Abolition Day. The US as a whole remains one of the few remaining bastions of democratic support for the death penalty. One hundred and twenty nations have no capital punishment. No EU member executes its citizens, nor do our neighbors, Canada and Mexico. The UN has repeatedly endorsed an international moratorium on capital punishment. There are some reasons for national optimism. In 2002 the US Supreme Court declared the execution of the mentally disabled unconstitutional; the execution of juveniles was abolished in 2005. Like Michigan, 12 states have no capital punishment statute; Illinois and New Jersey have moratoria in effect, and the death penalty laws of Kansas and New York have been nullified. Many mainstream religious institutions in the US oppose capital punishment as a violation of the right to life. Recent polls suggest that voters prefer life without parole as an alternative to the death penalty. And just last week, after Michael Morales had exhausted all appeals for the murder of Terry Winchell a quarter century ago, and after he had been given his last meal in the "death watch cell," 2 anesthesiologists had the moral courage to uphold the Hippocratic principle to do no harm. They refused to participate in Mr. Morales execution. When that occurred, the prison bureaucracy still had 24 hours before the death warrant expired. Failing to find any credentialed health care professional to lend a hand, however, the state reluctantly called off the killing. Mr. Morales will live at least until May, when a hearing will be held in federal court to sort out the clinically Byzant
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news --- ALA.;USA; PENN.
death penalty news September 23, 2005 ALABAMA -- impending execution: Family Killer Execution Tonight Death row inmate John W- Peoples Junior is waiting on word for the U-S Supreme Court with his execution only a few hours away. Peoples is scheduled to die at 6 p-m at Holman Prison near Atmore for the murders of a Pell City couple and their ten-year-old son. Peoples appealed to the U-S Supreme Court to delay his execution after the Alabama Supreme Court rejected his appeal and Governor Riley denied clemency. Peoples was convicted of killing Pell City businessman Paul Franklin, his wife, Judy Choron Franklin, and their 10-year-old son, Paul Franklin Junior, in 1983 and fleeing in their vintage Corvette. (source: AP / WTVM9) USA: Pro-Life & Pro-Death Penalty BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Here is Cher in Tampa, Florida. Welcome, Cher. Nice to have you on the program. CALLER: Hi, Rush. It's nice to talk to you. RUSH: Thanks. CALLER: This guy that called a few minutes ago aggravated me so much. I listen to you on the road all the time, but this guy just warranted a call talking about the differences, "How can we be against abortion and for the death penalty?" RUSH: Cher, Cher, Cher, Cher, Cher. Remember my advice? Don't argue with an idiot because people will not be able to tell the difference. CALLER: I tell you, I just don't understand how people cannot see the difference between an innocent child and a murderer. RUSH: You don't have to say this, everybody does. I'm telling you, this did not require any argument or debate. It didn't. I understand your outrage. You need to learn to be happy when this stuff happens. You need to learn to be happy when these people are willing to announce what they believe and how they lie about what we believe or what they stupidly believe we believe, whatever it is, but this is a new reason to celebrate. I know it's tough. I know it's tough to celebrate this -- CALLER: It's aggravating. RUSH: Yeah, it's aggravating. It's offensive, but it's stupid. CALLER: It really is. RUSH: It's absolutely stupid. It's literally stupid. CALLER: Well, it's not the only stupid thing he said, but that one just really stuck out. People can't actually -- you're hearing that more and more in the press, that comparison, and it's just -- they can't truly believe everybody is that stupid. RUSH: Look it. The way I look at it, if that's the best the guy could come up with, they're hopeless anyway. Pro-life and pro-death? I mean, abortion and the death penalty is a... I'll take this one on because I do get this one a lot. People who are on the cusp, just learning about politics, just learning to follow the ebb and flow, and they want to get it right, and they don't quite know who to listen to and who not to listen to, people on both sides sound persuasive, and this is a question that I do get frequently. "Rush, how do you explain the fact that you are pro-life, anti-abortion, but you're pro-death penalty?" And that to me is a softball hanging curve waiting to be knocked out of the park. Here's the answer. Why am I pro-life? Because life in the womb is the essence of innocence. The utter essence of innocence. Somebody who is to be put to death, not only does the Bible talk about it, not only does our Constitution talk about it (when they say nobody should be denied the right to life, liberty, pursuit the happiness without due process) someone who is condemned to death in this country has been judged by a jury of his peers and 14 years minimum of appeals, to have committed atrocious, unspeakable acts of mayhem and murder on at least another citizen and sometimes multiple citizens. There's nothing innocent whatsoever, and in terms of a just punishment, it fits. People say, "Well, what about the deterrent factor?" I don't care whether it deters anybody or not. I never looked at punishment of crime as a deterrent. I look at it as a punishment. But the whole argument fails when somebody wants to try to compare the utter essence of innocence that is a baby in the womb to a convicted murderer? That's why I say, had I engaged this caller this way, it would not have registered because, understand that you're not dealing with people who are acting on thoughts. It's pure raw emotion, and in most cases it's hatred and rage, and you have to understand this about them, too. They insulate themselves from these intellectual arguments and discussions by telling themselves they're superior to everybody else. They know more, that they're elitists, they've got a better handle on things and if we don't see it their way we're just unenlightened, we're just hopelessly stupid and dumb, reactionary racist, sexist, bigot homophobic, whatever. It's just the exact opposite. They're the bigots, they're the closed-minded ones, they're the intolerant ones, they're the ones that are incapable of thought and as such if we want to start ta
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news-----ALA., USA, TENN.
Feb. 26 ALABAMA: Alabama appeals court rules in four death penalty cases 2 death row inmates - 1 convicted of raping and killing a 10-year-old girl and the other convicted of 2 pawn shop killings - will get a chance to try to get out from under their death sentences. On Friday, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Willie Earl Scott must get a new sentencing order and that a judge must take another look at Marcus Presley's claims of having an ineffective attorney in his trial. Both were tried in Jefferson County. In other capital murder cases Friday, the appeals court upheld the convictions and death sentences of Charlie Washington in Elmore County and Timothy Flowers in Baldwin County. In Scott's case, the Court of Criminal Appeals issued a 5-0 decision rejecting all of his challenges to his convictions. But the judges ruled that a judge's order sentencing him to death was flawed because the judge considered factors that weren't proper, including the age of the girl. The court ordered Circuit Judge Gloria Bahakel to rewrite the sentencing order, considering only the factors allowed by state law. "If necessary, the trial court may reweigh the aggravating circumstances and the mitigating circumstances and resentence Scott," Judge Sue Bell Cobb wrote for the Court of Criminal Appeals. In the appeal, the state attorney general's office conceded that the judge's sentencing order was flawed and must be redone. Scott was convicted of capital murder in 2002 for the asphyxiation and rape of 10-year-old Latonya Sager, who was found dead in her bed on Sept. 11, 1999. Semen with DNA matching Scott's was found on her thigh. Scott, who was 19 at the time, was also convicted of the rape and attempted murder of an acquaintance the same day. Scott held her head in a toilet and threatened to kill her, but changed his mind and raped her a 2nd time. Scott fell asleep after the 2nd rape and she escaped, the appeals court said. In Presley's case, the appeals court ordered Circuit Judge Mike McCormick to take another look at whether the defendant's attorney was ineffective at trial. The court noted that in the sentencing phase of Presley's trial, the attorney presented no evidence about Presley's alleged abuse as a child or that he had been diagnosed as mentally retarded with an IQ of 60. If Presley is retarded, "it would preclude imposition of the death sentence," Cobb wrote. Presley was 16 when he was arrested for the July 1996 slaying of pawn shop owner John Burleson and shop manager Janice Littleton. They were shot execution-style in the back of the head during an armed robbery at a pawn shop in Westover. In the other capital murder cases, the appeals court: -ruled that the conviction and sentence received by Charlie Washington were proper for the beating deaths of Julian and Florence McKinnon on Jan. 20, 2003. The Millbrook couple employed Washington as a handyman, and their home was burglarized during the slayings. -ruled that the conviction and sentence received by Timothy Flowers were appropriate for the kidnapping, robbery and shooting death of Tommy Philyaw on Nov. 27, 2000. The Perdido man was killed and his body set afire so Flowers and 4 others could steal a little more than $1,000 from his Christmas club savings account. (source : Associated Press) USA: Bush, War and Juvenile Executions -- Waiting for Roper v. Simmons Try to keep in mind that people have inherent value only in democracies, and not under fascist or totalitarian regimes. That people are absolutely disposable in the United States is indicative of just such a regime, and this is merely one of many symptoms. Rather than merely addressing the symptoms, you may wish to consider the root causes as well. I wish the best of luck to anti-death penalty activists in either case. It is at least positive that they address the problem at all. Unfortunately, the United States appears to have already slipped over to the dark side. The way back could be extremely difficult, if it is possible at all, without major social upheaval. RONALD J. ZANGER (source: Letters, The Nation) Public defenders feel the strain from complex courtroom science The sheets of paper spread across a table in Christine Funk's law office include a jumble of numbers, graphs, codes and a chart that could pass for a bingo card. Funk flips through them, explaining how one number helps unlock another and how a careful analysis of all of them determine whether fluid samples from a rape victim match the DNA of a suspect - her client. There's little doubt a prosecutor will raise the DNA evidence in court, so Funk needs to be ready to give jurors her interpretation. "There's such a presumption that if the words 'DNA evidence' appear, it's better than a signed confession," says Funk, one of the few public defenders in Minnesota with a deep understanding of DNA evidence. "Don't misunderstand, not every person accused of a crime in
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----ALA., USA, CALIF., FLA.
Jan. 7 ALABAMA: Expert cited for false claims in Texas helped FBI hunt Rudolph A forensic psychiatrist whose erroneous testimony caused a Texas murder conviction to be thrown out Thursday helped in the FBI hunt for bombing suspect Eric Rudolph and could be a figure in his federal death penalty trial. Acting as a government consultant, Dr. Park Dietz helped agents focus on Rudolph as a suspect in the fatal bombing of an Alabama abortion clinic in 1998. He also helped investigators tie that blast to earlier bombings at Atlanta's Olympic park in 1996 and two other sites in Atlanta in 1997. Rudolph is scheduled for trial in the Birmingham bombing this spring. Dietz was cited Thursday by an appeals court in Texas as it overturned the murder conviction of Andrea Yates in the deaths of her children. The 5, ranging in ages from 6 months to 7, were drowned one by one in a bathtub. The court said Dietz was wrong when he testified that he had consulted on an episode of the TV show "Law & Order" involving a woman found innocent by reason of insanity for drowning her children. The testimony implied that Yates could have mimicked what she saw on TV, but attorneys later learned that no such episode existed. Dietz is president of Park Dietz and Associates of Newport Beach, Calif. Dietz did not immediately return an e-mail message seeking comment. Despite Dietz's work in the Rudolph hunt, prosecutors have filed papers indicating they do not plan to use him as a witness in their main case against Rudolph. However, they left open the possibility that Dietz could testify in the penalty phase of the case should jurors convict Rudolph. A former investigator who helped in the more than 5-year search for Rudolph said Deitz provided agents with an early profile of a then-unknown suspect after the Olympic bombing, which killed a woman. "When Eric was identified, he fit right in," said Charles Stone, a former Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent who has co-authored a book about the manhunt due out this spring. Deitz later provided profiling information to help in the search for Rudolph. U.S. Attorney Alice Martin and the defense both declined comment on Dietz and any possible effect the ruling in the Texas case might have on the case against Rudolph. But the decision from Houston in the Yates case could give Rudolph's defense ammunition to attack Dietz's credibility should prosecutors choose to bring him into the case. Court documents show prosecutors in Alabama, in response to a defense request, have given Rudolph's lawyers a report prepared by Dietz in the Rudolph case. (source: Associated Press) USA: Tipping Supreme Court's delicate balance Will the new year give us a new Supreme Court justice? Or 2, maybe 3? Statistically, that should happen. The current court has not changed for 10 years, and that hasn't happened for 180 years. The likeliest to create a vacancy is Chief Justice William Rehnquist. He has indicated no intention of retiring - on the contrary. But doctors say that an 80-year-old undergoing chemotherapy for thyroid cancer cannot expect to remain active for very long. And so, though no one wishes Justice Rehnquist ill, there is much discussion about whom President Bush is likely to nominate. He has said he will choose someone who "knows the difference between personal opinion and strict interpretation of the law." But it isn't certain what that means, exactly, when applied to an individual. The president has also said he will apply no "litmus test." On the other hand, the announcement that he will resubmit the names of 20 appeals court and district court nominees who didn't make it in the last Congress suggests that he is squaring off for a confrontation with filibuster-wielding Democrats. History teaches that a president can nominate someone he considers to be on his wavelength, only to find a justice harkening to a different drummer once safe behind the judicial curtains. Former President Eisenhower, asked once what mistakes he had made in office, responded, "Two, and both are on the Supreme Court." He was referring to liberals Earl Warren and William Brennan. Former President Nixon could have said the same about Harry Blackmun, whom he nominated after judges Clement Haynsworth and Harrold Carswell were rejected by the Senate. As one of the "Minnesota Twins," with Chief Justice Warren Burger, he was considered a reliable conservative. But, in time, Justice Blackmun became more and more liberal. He opposed capital punishment and a ban on flag burning. And he ended up writing the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. What makes the next appointment so critical is the current delicate balance on the court. The lineup is generally considered to be 3-3-3: conservatives Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas; liberals Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer; and the swing moderates O'Connor, Souter, and Kennedy. Replacing Rehnquist would not change the balance unless his successor turned out to surp
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----ALA., USA
July 20 ALABAMA: Alabama AG brief opposes juvenile death penalty ban A U.S. Supreme Court brief filed by Alabama's attorney general argues that the death penalty should not be banned for juveniles. Alabama Attorney General Troy King submitted his friend-of-the court brief in April and uses as examples seven Alabamians sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were 16 or 17. King argues that the Alabama cases "leave little room for doubt that at least some adolescent killers most assuredly have the mental and emotional wherewithal to plot, kill and cover up in cold blood. They should not evade full responsibility for their actions by the serendipity of chronological age," King wrote. His brief is filed in Roper v. Simmons, a Missouri case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. The state of Missouri appealed the case after the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that executing people who committed their crimes as juveniles was unconstitutionally cruel. Groups arguing against executing juveniles include Nobel Peace Prize winners, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the Child Welfare League of America, 48 nations including the European Union, dozens of religious groups and the American Bar Association, which filed their own brief in the case Monday. "Older adolescents behave differently than adults because their minds operate differently, their emotions are more volatile and their brains are anatomically immature," the psychiatrists argued. "Executing adolescents does not serve the recognized purposes of the death penalty." Offering grisly details of children being stabbed, King gave as his first example the Shelby County case against Mark Duke, convicted of killing his father, his father's girlfriend and her young daughters. Duke was 16 at the time. Alabama is one of 19 states that permit the execution of juveniles, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. 5 of those states - Delaware, Texas, Utah, Oklahoma and Virginia - signed on to King's brief. With 14 juvenile offenders on death row, Alabama has more than any state except Texas. The state has not executed a juvenile since 1961. Various problems in the cases against the juveniles have dragged some of the appeals out for decades. Timothy Davis, one of the convicts listed by King, has been locked up since 1978, when he was 17. He is now 43. All juvenile offenders executed in Alabama have been blacks convicted of crimes against whites, said Victor Streib, a professor at Ohio Northern University who tracks juvenile death penalty cases. In his brief, King details several crimes in which there were multiple victims, including cases of young children and elderly people killed by teens. He writes that a "constitutional rule taking capital punishment off the table for all such offenders would have no footing in the real world, it should be rejected." (source: The Birmingham News) USA: Advocacy Groups Urge High Court to Ban Death Penalty for Juveniles More than a dozen Nobel Prize winners, 50 foreign countries, former U.S. diplomats, the nation's largest doctors' organization and several child advocacy groups urged the Supreme Court on Monday to ban executions of individuals who committed murder when they were juveniles. The pleas came in friend-of-the-court briefs filed in Roper vs. Simmons, a case the Supreme Court will consider in October. The advocacy groups contend that the death penalty for juveniles violates evolving standards of decency, serves no legitimate purpose and is excessive in light of a growing body of evidence showing that the mental capacity of juveniles is limited. "Executing juvenile offenders violates minimum standards of decency now adopted by nearly every other nation in the world, including even autocratic regimes with poor human rights records," said Thomas R. Pickering, a career diplomat and former undersecretary of State for political affairs who served in Democratic and Republican administrations. "Countries whose human rights records are criticized by the United States have no incentive to improve their records when the United States fails to meet the most fundamental, baseline standards," said the brief filed on behalf of Nobel laureates, including former President Carter, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Polish labor leader Lech Walesa and the Dalai Lama. Five nations - the United States, China, Congo, Iran and Pakistan - have executed juvenile offenders in the last 4 years, according to the brief submitted on behalf of the diplomats. "In no other area of human rights does the United States consider these nations to be our equals," the brief said. The Supreme Court last considered the issue in 1989, when it ruled that it was permissible to execute a person who had committed murder at the age of 16 or 17. The court earlier had rejected the death penalty for murderers 15 or younger. The high court is be
