August 13 TEXAS: Online sales of Death Row inmate's art investigated 2 state agencies are investigating whether condemned inmate James Vernon Allridge is violating Texas law and prison policies by selling greeting cards and other artworks over the Internet. Acting on complaints from crime-victims advocates, the Texas Attorney General's Office is reviewing whether Allridge's Web site, which features samples of his artwork and directions on how to order prints of his drawings of animals, flowers and landscapes, runs afoul of a 1997 statute that allows the state to seize the proceeds of those who profit from crimes. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is looking into whether Allridge's enterprise violates the ban on inmates running for-profit business from their cells. "All I can say is that our Office of Inspector General is conducting an investigation of that activity," said Mike Viesca, TDCJ's spokesman. Typically, Texas inmates can sell products made in prison craft shops -- leather works like belts and cowboy boots or carpentry efforts like cedar chests and wood carvings. The proceeds are deposited in commissary accounts, with which inmates can purchase toiletries, snacks and other personal items. But the head of the crime victims organization Justice For All said Allridge's Internet activity goes far beyond offering modestly priced arts and crafts. While many of his cards and drawings are sold for $10, prints of a large lion painting go for $465. "The long and short of it is, it's blood money," said Dianne Clements, the group's president. "If James Allridge were not on death row, no one would be buying his so-called artwork. He's not an artist. He's a murderer who draws pictures." Allridge is scheduled to be executed Aug. 26 for killing 21-year-old clerk Brian Clendennen -- himself an aspiring artist -- during a February 1985 robbery of a Circle K convenience store in Fort Worth. Allridge's lawyers are petitioning the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend that Gov. Rick Perry commute the sentence to life in prison based on his near blemish-free record on death Row. The petition, delivered to the 6-member board Wednesday, contains samples of Allridge's drawings, along with statements from four jurors at his trial and several former prison workers who say that the inmate has been rehabilitated during his time in prison. Allridge's lawyer, Jim Marcus of Houston, scoffed at the notion that Allridge was peddling so-called murderabilia. "I have not been notified of any investigation into James' artwork," Marcus said. "But I do not think that the statute that prevents profiteering from one's crimes applies to James." Marcus said the law targets "notorious" criminals who might seek to market personal artifacts or mementos from their crimes. His client is doing neither, Marcus said. "James is not notorious," he said. But Clements disagreed, saying that Allridge's works had caught the attention of actress Susan Sarandon, who last month visited the condemned man on death row in Livingston. Sarandon won an Oscar for her portrayal of Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who aids a condemned killer in the movie Dead Man Walking. "If he were not notorious, how does he attract the attention of someone like Susan Sarandon?" she said. (source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram) ************************** Plano homemaker still faces 2nd murder case after not guilty verdict Collin County jurors decided Thursday that a Plano homemaker's psychotic delusions left her unaware that it was wrong to drown her 2 young daughters last fall. Lisa Ann Diaz showed little reaction when state District Judge Mark Rusch announced a unanimous verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, more than 11 hours after jury deliberations began in her capital murder trial. While Ms. Diaz avoided an automatic life prison sentence for the Sept. 25 death of her 5-year-old daughter, Briana, two important legal hurdles remain after Thursday's verdict. Ms. Diaz still faces a capital murder indictment for killing her youngest daughter, Kamryn, 3, on the same day, and she must undergo more psychiatric examinations before Judge Rusch decides whether the 33-year-old should be committed to a state mental hospital. Minutes after the jury's decision, Michelle Acevedo gave thanks to the jurors for coming to the same conclusions she has about her younger sister. "I knew that my sister did not commit that crime in her right mind," Ms. Acevedo said, standing next to defense attorneys Robert Udashen and Darlina Crowder. "I just want to thank God, and thank all our family and friends for their support and their prayers." Given the chance, Ms. Acevedo said she planned to give her sister "a big hug and tell her how much I love her." Ms. Diaz's husband, Angel, was not present for the verdict, nor was her 16-year-old daughter from another marriage - both of whom testified on her behalf. Mr. Udashen said he believed a big factor in the verdict was six psychiatric evaluations that all came to the same conclusion - that his client was insane. "It doesn't matter how many doctors you bring in to examine Ms. Diaz, their opinions would all be that she was insane at the time she did this act," Mr. Udashen said. "That's got to be something that the jury found very important in reaching their decision." Mr. Udashen said Ms. Diaz is nervous and anxious about what will happen to her next, but she's thankful to the jurors. "This has been a very difficult trial for her, and it's taken a toll on her," he said. "She is better mentally - she's being treated and she's on medication - but she has her good days and bad days. "She misses her children," he said. Prosecutor Greg Davis said he respects the jury's verdict but has no regrets about taking the case to trial. "I'm really proud of what we did here, because I think it was very important - even though this was a very difficult case to try - that those two children had their day in court and they had the opportunity to be heard," Mr. Davis said. "That's why we tried this case. "[But] I don't think that most people believe that a mother can commit this type of murder unless she is insane - and that's a very strong presumption to overcome," he said. Mr. Davis said his office has yet to decide whether the 2nd indictment against Ms. Diaz will continue to trial or be dismissed. Throughout the 7-day trial, Mr. Davis pointed out that there was little or no documentation of Ms. Diaz's mental illness before the killings - and 2 statements from Ms. Diaz that suggested she knew what she did was wrong. Within hours of her Sept. 25 arrest, Ms. Diaz told a jailer she was ashamed of what she had done, according to testimony. And a month later, she told a psychiatrist during an interview in jail that she would have stopped if either her husband or a policeman were present that day. OTHER CASES Kenneth Pierott of Beaumont was arrested in April after his girlfriend's 6-year-old son was found dead of asphyxiation in an oven. Mr. Pierott is back in custody after he was acquitted in 1998 by reason of insanity for fatally beating his disabled sister with a dumbbell. Deanna Laney of the Tyler area bludgeoned two of her sons to death and severely injured a third on Mother's Day 2003. She is in a state mental hospital for an undetermined period. Andrea Yates of suburban Houston drowned her 5 children in a bathtub on June 20, 2001. She was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. "I can't think of a stronger piece of evidence than the words the defendant says herself," Mr. Davis said. But four psychiatrists - 2 appointed by the judge - and a psychologist found that Ms. Diaz had been deteriorating mentally for more than a year. When a battery of tests by specialists was unable to confirm her fears of having a terminal illness, her delusions spread to her daughters and led to hearing voices telling her it was time to end their suffering - and hers, they said. "She was thinking she was on a mission of mercy," Dr. Doyle Carson testified earlier this week. During the trial, the definitions of "wrong" and "insane" became important and difficult to agree upon. "We had four psychiatrists testify, and none of them could even agree on what the definition of insanity meant to them," Mr. Davis said. "It's a very subjective thing and shows just how inexact psychiatry can be here." For the term "wrong," one doctor quoted a dictionary while the others gave answers that sometimes included moral and legal interpretations of the word. Joe Lovelace, public policy consultant for the Texas chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, suggested changing the wording of the law. Under Texas' threshold for sanity, the defendant must know his actions were wrong. Mr. Lovelace said altering the wording to someone who could appreciate his actions were wrong would help make a distinction. Mr. Lovelace said it could have made a difference in the case of Andrea Yates in Houston, whose insanity defense was rejected by jurors in 2002. They instead found her guilty of capital murder. She was sentenced to life in prison for drowning three of her 5 children. She has not been tried in the deaths of the other 2. Prosecutors could prove she did certain things that showed that she knew what she was doing was wrong, Mr. Lovelace said. But she was in a mental state in which she couldn't appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions. "She said the devil made her do it," he said. George Dix, a University of Texas School of Law professor who specializes in criminal law, said the definition of wrong is also too ambiguous. Juries don't know whether they should make their decision based on whether someone knew that an act was simply illegal or whether it was morally wrong, he said. "In so many of the cases, and maybe in this one as well, the defendant was clearly impaired but clearly recognized what she was going to do would be wrong in a legal sense," he said. "But her perception of the moral wrongfulness and rightfulness of it was distorted." (source: The Dallas Morning News) ********************* Jury still out in Dilley killing A Frio County jury will resume deliberations this morning in the capital murder trial of a 36-year-old man accused of participating in the stabbing death of a Dilley store clerk last year. Jurors deliberated for more than 5 hours Thursday without reaching a verdict in Jesse Garcia's trial. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty against Garcia, saying the county's predominantly Catholic community would have made it difficult to seat a qualified jury. Garcia is the 1st of 2 defendants to be tried in connection with the death of Rachel Molina, a 23-year-old store clerk. Molina was attacked and killed at the Dollar Max in downtown Dilley on June 20, 2003, and $536 was taken. Garcia and Sylvia Cantu, both of Dilley, were arrested hours later in a Pearsall hotel. "This was simply murder for money," Assistant District Attorney Leslie Carranza said. Garcia's lawyer, F. Alan Futrell of San Antonio, told jurors his client didn't kill Molina and that prosecutors were unable to prove otherwise. "We don't know exactly what happened," Futrell said. Testimony in Garcia's trial began Tuesday and concluded Thursday before 3 p.m. Prosecutors introduced into evidence blood-stained clothes recovered from Cantu's home and a switchblade alleged to have been used to stab Molina. Cantu is scheduled to go to trial in October. (source: San Antonio Express-News) ARKANSAS: Arkansas drops effort to execute Mexican inmate whose attorneys say he is retarded The state has agreed it will not seek to execute a Mexican man whose attorneys say he is mentally retarded, and in return the inmate will drop appeals of his murder conviction. A federal judge approved the agreement Thursday between state prosecutors and attorneys for Raphael Camargo, 39, who was convicted of killing a young mother and her son. His lawyers argued that he had an IQ of only 55 and should not be executed under a 2002 Supreme Court ruling that executions of the mentally retarded criminals were unconstitutionally cruel. Camargo was convicted of killing Deanna Petree, 18, and her son, Jonathan Macias, who was 15 months old. He was sentenced to death in 1995 and again in 1997, after the state Supreme Court upheld the conviction but ordered resentencing. Camargo was 1 of 52 Mexican inmates in American jails that the World Court said had not been given proper legal assistance via their government. That decision was not at issue in court Thursday. (source: Associated Press) NEW YORK: Irish Law Student Interning in NY May Have Exonerated Death Row Inmate As luck of the Irish would have it, a law student from County Galway named Marcus Joyce reported for work here in late June as an intern for the Innocence Project and wound up not only helping in the probable exoneration by DNA testing of an accused murderer on death row, but also unearthing an obscure bit of evidence in the defendant's trial transcript that could, in theory, lead to the real killer. Mr. Joyce, 24, from the small coastal town of Renmore in western Ireland and given to understatement, said of his experience, "I've had quite a good summer." Innocence Project staff attorney Colin P. Starger, 34, who asked that certain details of the matter remain unpublicized during delicate negotiations with prosecutors, agreed with Mr. Joyce's assessment. He said exoneration in Mr. Joyce's case is expected to be announced soon by authorities of a southern state not known for the efficacy of its elections. Whether local detectives renew investigation into a particularly ferocious 6-year-old homicide is anybody's guess. What Mr. Joyce learned on June 28 - day one of his internship - was a lesson in new technology for matching samples of deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA), the foundation of a cell. In the case he was assigned, the so-called short-tandem-repeat test, or STR, ordered in October 2003 showed that DNA matter recovered from the fingernails of a murdered woman who apparently struggled with a knife-wielding assailant in 1997 absolutely did not match the defendant's genetic code. Under the old procedure available at the time of the crime - a sequence test in which there are fewer comparative genetic markers - a jury was unconvinced of the defendant's innocence. What Mr. Joyce discovered further in combing through the dense trial transcript was the small matter of three hairs plucked from the murder scene by forensic examiners. At trial, the prosecutor said such hair was irrelevant - a mere anomaly of the sort that occurs in any homicide investigation. But when Mr. Joyce subjected the hairs to the new STR testing, he found that they were all from the same unknown individual. Working with local out-of-state counsel, Mr. Joyce and Mr. Starger are now pressing for a whole new round of court-ordered DNA testing. Since the profile from the fingernails matches the hairs, "then we've really got the killer here," said Mr. Starger. "And it's not our client." The process of freeing their client from prison may run longer than Mr. Joyce's remaining few weeks in America. He will soon leave New York for his final year's study at the Inns of Court School of Law in London, far from his hometown in Ireland. Although his plan is to become a criminal defense barrister in the United Kingdom -- with automatic qualification in Ireland after four years' practice in the British courts -- Mr. Joyce will find no direct application abroad for his death penalty experience in the United States. Capital punishment was abolished long ago in western Europe. Yet Mr. Joyce is keenly interested in and much appalled by the death penalty in the United States and elsewhere. Why? "Because we don't have it, and because I don't ever want it," he explained. While European political leaders have determined that capital punishment is "uncivilized," he said, public opinion can be much different, requiring serious people to engage in constant debate. "The desire for a death penalty is based on emotion. It's a natural, human reaction -- exactly why it shouldn't be allowed," said Mr. Joyce. "The state is supposed to be above normal human emotive reaction." Eye-For-Eye Debate In the United States in particular, he said, politicians engage in an "almost biblical eye-for-an-eye" discourse to "look tough." For example, he noted, then-Governor Bill Clinton took time out from his 1992 presidential campaign to preside over the Arkansas execution of a young mentally retarded man -- bringing with him a press entourage. "You know what [Mohatma] Ghandi thought about eye-for-an-eye," said Mr. Joyce. "He said we'd all soon be blind." But moralisms from the likes of Ghandi are unlikely to change minds, Mr. Joyce acknowledges. When confronted with Europeans who favor capital punishment, he said, "You need to have information and data." Which is exactly why Mr. Joyce sought his internship at the Innocence Project, though he cites a more casual entry. "Some family friends knew Barry and Peter," said Mr. Joyce, referring to Innocence Project co-directors Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. "I had them put in a good word for me, and that's how I got it, to be blunt." Mr. Joyce is now able to tick off the relative statistics on violent crime in America, state by state, a recitation he said reveals both the falsity and irony of death penalty law: "Wherever the death penalty is in place, crime rates are significantly higher." Mr. Starger said of his intern, "You see that Marcus is very bright and very committed. It kind of boggles the mind that he's only 24. He's so much more mature. He's taken to [Innocence Project work] like a fish to water. He's brought energy and different style -- especially in writing briefs. "He uses a less confrontational approach," said Mr. Starger. "Instead of saying, 'The court got it wrong,' he'll say, 'It is respectfully submitted that the lower court ruling does not comport' -- Something like that. It's refreshing." (source: New York Law Journal) NEW JERSEY: Teenager in slaying to be tried as an adult -- Suspect is accused of woman's killing Authorities in Ocean County will prosecute as an adult a door-to-door magazine salesman accused of killing a Dover Township woman who opened her door to him. Azriel Bridge, who was 17 at the time of the killing, did not fight Ocean County Prosecutor Thomas Kelaher's attempts to have the case transferred to adult court. Executive Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Robert Gasser said Bridge, who is now 18, voluntarily waived jurisdiction of the juvenile court. He is charged with murder, felony murder and armed robbery in the June 9 beating death of 77-year-old Shirley Reuter. Bridge, who is from Chicago, was initially charged as an adult, but his case was transferred to juvenile court when authorities learned he was 17 years old, not 18 as he had initially told investigators. He turned 18 eight days after the fatal beating. Authorities say Bridge was working for a company affiliated with American Community Services when he approached Reuter's Chestnut Street house the afternoon of June 9. He asked for a glass of water, which she gave him. He returned to her house later in the afternoon, this time asking to use her bathroom, according to police and witnesses. A friend from Reuter's church was on the phone with Reuter when she commented that the salesman had returned. Police allege Bridge beat Reuter, a former choir director at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Dover Township, and stole checks from her. He is being held in the Ocean County Jail in Toms River in lieu of $500,000 bail. Reuter, a widow, was found the next evening when choir members went to check on her after she did not show up for rehearsal. By being handled in adult court, Bridge's case becomes eligible for the death penalty, although authorities have not yet announced whether they plan to make it a capital case. (source: The Star-Ledger) USA: ABC's fascinating In the Jury Room deglamorizes the legal process. Just when I thought TV had settled permanently into the late summer doldrums, along comes In the Jury Room, ABC's stunning new seven-part series. Each of seven shows follows a real-life capital case from the pretrial preparation stage through the trial, jury deliberations, and final verdict. In the Jury Room (Tuesdays, 10 p.m. ET), is not a reality show, but an unadorned, cinema-viriti-style documentary whose camera crew remains as unobtrusive as possible and allows the audience to come to a final conclusion for themselves. Though the crimes in question are violent-all but one of the five involve murder or manslaughter-they are treated without sensationalism; the show is about the juridical process itself. In fact, In the Jury Room is so engrossing, mature, and intelligent, I had to keep checking the channel to make sure I was really watching network TV. As fascinating as it can be to watch the legal process in action, In the Jury Room is the kind of show that might teach viewers once and for all that the courtroom is someplace you really, really don't want to be. (I've written before about America's insatiable appetite for procedural shows about the legal system.) More than any legal show I've seen, this one gets at the physical unpleasantness of the whole trial experience: the fluorescent-lit rooms, the hastily consumed bad food and warm soft drinks, the unremitting ugliness of both the surroundings and what happens in them. Not a single person on-screen is attractive; the closest we come is one juror who looks a little like a puffy Martha Plimpton with bad skin. The defendants seem like miserable, reprehensible lowlifes, but we can't help but notice that the scoundrels dragged in to testify against them (often in exchange for immunity deals) are hardly pillars of society themselves. Unlike Law & Order-type dramas or legal "reality" shows like Judge Judy or The People's Court, In the Jury Room takes you to a place where the moral high ground is nowhere in sight, and you just have to make do with the lesser of two scumbags. This week's subject is 47-year-old Mark Ducic, an unemployed deadbeat with a petty crime record. Ducic has been accused of killing his common-law wife and their landlord with a cocktail of deadly drugs via injection. The problem is, both victims were drug addicts already, and their deaths were first recorded by the coroner as suicides. It's only after a police informant, a former jail buddy of Ducic's, captures him on tape bragging about having caused the 2 deaths that the state charges him with murder. But as Ducic's lawyer points out, his client is a pathological liar; he also boasts about having been a Hell's Angel, a Mafia hit man, and a member of the elite 82nd Airborne military division. "You are a myth within a myth," his lawyer tells him wearily, but in fact, Ducic's Pinocchio tendencies are the basis of his defense, his only response to mass murder charges that carry a possible death-penalty sentence. (See, the show is educational: Who knew that two people counted as "mass murder"?) Even after 2 hours of grueling footage of testimony and deliberation, I honestly don't know whether I think Ducic is guilty or not, and I'm relieved not to be one of the jurors who agonize (often tearfully) over the life that has been put into their hands. In many of these jury-room scenes, as at the trial itself, In the Jury Room is almost unbearably intimate-it gives you that creepy feeling, not uncommon in successful documentaries, that you really shouldn't be overhearing this. One example: In court, Ducic hesitates at the last minute about putting his aged mother on the stand. "She'll break down," he whispers to his defense attorney. "That's good, that's what we want," comes the chilling reply, and Ducic assents. The filmmakers were clearly at pains to make their presence as unobtrusive as possible-the show was shot with two separate camera crews, one for the defense and one for the prosecution, to avoid any crossing over of confidential information between sides. The result is a document that, however bleak its subject matter, never intrudes on the dignity of its subjects or the gravity of the proceedings at hand. Next week's episode of In the Jury Room promises to be even more of a downer; in it, a wheelchair-bound woman in an abusive relationship stands accused of beating her 2-year-old daughter to death. As fodder for drama or run-of-the-mill prime-time journalism, this would be the kind of television that degrades both the watcher and the watched; in the hands of In the Jury Room, it's likely to do justice to both. (source: Dana Stevens (aka Liz Penn) writes on television for Slate and on film and culture for the High Sign; Slate)
