Sept. 13 TEXAS: Court to hear pivotal death penalty appeal----States' rights, power of president, world law at issue in Mexican's case The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is expected to hear arguments Wednesday that will place the court between the rock of a controversial death penalty case and the hard place of international law. And to increase the stakes, the space in between involves presidential power. The case involves the 1994 conviction in Houston of Jose Ernesto Medellin for his part in the rape and murder of two teen girls. Although he has lived in the U.S. since he was a small child, Mr. Medellin was born in Mexico. He is arguing that his conviction is tainted by the state's failure to inform the Mexican consul of the charges against him, as required by international treaty. The state argues that Mr. Medellin never asserted the treaty obligation until a jury had placed him on Texas' death row. It argues that Mr. Medellin is asserting a constitutional right that is unavailable to U.S. citizens. The case, which has been rejected once by the Texas court, has profound importance in Mexico, where there is no civilian death penalty. Mexico has long complained that its citizens should not be subjected to the death penalty in the U.S. But the case is also being followed closely by those in the U.S. concerned by an unusual assertion of presidential power and by those who decry the growing influence of international law on U.S. cases. The Vienna Convention of Consular Relations, approved by the U.S. in 1969, requires that governments inform the appropriate embassy when they have arrested foreigners for serious crimes if the suspects request that they do so. But many suspects are not told that they can ask for such a step. Last year, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled that the U.S. was obligated to review all 51 complaints by Mexican citizens facing execution in Texas and several other states that the Mexican government had not been informed of their arrest. Armed with that ruling, Mr. Medellin appealed his death sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court. But in February, shortly before the case was to be heard, the Bush administration ordered the states to conduct the case-by-case review requested by the International Court. In June, the high court returned Mr. Medellin's case to the lower courts. Now back before the state's highest criminal court, the issues in the Medellin case have become more complicated. In a "friend of the court" brief, the Bush administration asked the court to consider the president's order as binding, reflecting his power to administer the nation's treaty obligations. But Alabama, Montana, Nevada and New Mexico - all of whom have Mexican citizens facing execution - asked the Texas court to, in effect, reject the presidential order without ignoring it. Viewing it as an affront to the state court systems, they have asked the Texas judges to consider the White House action only a "request." The states said the White House document, referred to as a presidential memorandum, is "clearly a request to the state courts rather than an order of any kind." "It is unlikely, to put it mildly, that President Bush intended his two-sentence memorandum to invite a judicial inquiry into such basic questions of constitutional structure," they wrote to the court. Tom Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who practices frequently before the U.S. Supreme Court, said that with so many interests at stake, the justices will follow the case closely. "The Supreme Court is very focused on it. The world is focused on it," he said. "It's a major case that will determine whether the U.S. is going to bend a little to world opinion or chart its own course." (source: Dallas Morning News) *************************** Gun at center of death row appeal----Woman's execution scheduled for Wednesday in slaying of family The gun inside 7-year-old Alton Newton's blue knapsack was the focus of the last-ditch legal battle lawyers were fighting in hopes of keeping the slain boy's mother out of the Texas death chamber Wednesday. Frances Newton Frances Newton, 40, faced lethal injection for the fatal shooting 18 years ago of her son, her 21-month-old daughter, Farrah, and her husband, Adrian, 23, at their Houston apartment. She would be the 13th prisoner executed this year in the nation's most active capital punishment state but only the third woman in Texas - and the 1st black woman - since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982. Nationally, she'd be the 11th woman executed since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 allowed the death penalty to resume after a decade-long hiatus. Ms. Newton, who denies involvement in the killings, spent Tuesday visiting with relatives at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Mountain View Unit outside Gatesville in Central Texas, where the state's 11 condemned women are held. It's about 140 miles northwest of Huntsville, where she would be taken for the lethal injection scheduled for after 6 p.m. today. Her attorneys waited for word from the U.S. Supreme Court, where they filed an appeal Monday after Texas courts, lower federal courts and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected their arguments that she was innocent. Claims her attorneys have made are that evidence used at her trial was improperly destroyed, that the gun linked to the slayings was not the only weapon recovered by police and that she has not been a problem inmate. Ms. Newton, accompanied by a cousin, found the bodies the evening of April 7, 1987. Her husband had been shot in the head, the 2 children in the chest. Ms. Newton acknowledges hiding a .25-caliber handgun in the bag at an abandoned house where it was recovered by police. Ballistics tests showed it was the gun used in the slayings, but her attorneys argued it wasn't the weapon Ms. Newton left there, that police recovered a 2nd weapon and the guns were switched. (source: Associated Press) NEVADA: Nevada high court urged to overturn death sentence The state Supreme Court was urged Tuesday to overturn the death sentence ordered for Alfonso "Slinky" Blake, an aspiring R&B artist convicted of killing 2 women and shooting a third in the southern Nevada desert. Robert Miller, deputy Clark County public defender, told the high court that the trial judge in Blake's case erred in letting jurors hear remarks about prior bad acts that hurt his temporary insanity defense. An expert witness for the defense testified that Blake suffered a brief psychotic disorder and then the prosecutor sought to undermine the testimony by bringing up several previous violent incidents in which Blake had been involved years earlier, Miller said. Chief Justice Nancy Becker questioned whether it would be wrong to allow references to such incidents as long as there was a "reasonable basis" to mention them. Miller said there's a requirement for what's known as a "Petrocelli hearing" outside the presence of jurors, in which prosecutors must get a go-ahead from a judge to present details about a defendant that they want the jury to know about. Deputy Clark County District Attorney Robert Daskas, the trial prosecutor, countered that there was no need for such a hearing in Blake's case. He added evidence of Blake's guilt was overwhelming. Daskas said Blake wanted the three women to work as topless dancers and give him part of their earnings, and when they refused he deliberately marched them into the desert and shot each of them twice. Nothing in the execution-style shootings suggested he was temporarily insane, the prosecutor added. Blake was sentenced to die after being convicted of two counts of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon and one count of attempted murder for the March 5, 2003, shootings. The murder victims were Sophear Choy, 19, and Priscilla Van Dine, 23. Choy's older sister, Kim, also was shot but survived. The high court will issue a ruling on Blake's appeal at a later date. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Spirko says he doesn't expect fair clemency hearing Death row inmate John Spirko told the Dayton Daily News that he doesn't expect to get a fair hearing on his request for clemency in the 1982 stabbing death of rural postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger. Spirko, who claims innocence, said he's a threat to the justice system "as long as I'm alive." "I'm a danger to them because I'm innocent," he said. "I'm a danger to the system because they don't want to admit that." Spirko, 59, was to die by lethal injection next Tuesday, but Gov. Bob Taft postponed the execution to Nov. 15 to give himself and the parole board extra time to consider clemency. Spirko called the board's unprecedented decision to have a complete rehearing of his case just window dressing. The new hearing, set for Oct. 12 in Columbus, is just designed "to dot the i's and cross the t's," Spirko said. (source: Dayton Daily News) CALIFORNIA: Man Testifies Against Men On Death Row In Murder Case---Charges Stem From Four Hollywood Hills Murders A man who pleaded guilty to murdering 4 people over a business dispute and testified against 2 other men now on death row for the crimes was sentenced Tuesday to 4 concurrent 15 years-to-life terms. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell imposed the sentence on Carlos M. Amador, 29, of Los Angeles, who pleaded guilty on Oct. 28, 2003, to 4 counts of 2nd-degree murder. The charges stemmed from the May 4, 2002, strangulation-arson killings of Gita Kumar, 42; her 18-year-old son, Paras; 16-year-old daughter, Tulsi; and 63-year-old mother-in-law Sitaben Patel at the family's Hollywood Hills home. Amador testified against Victor Govin, 38, of Studio City, and Pravin Govin, 36, of Cypress, who were convicted of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to death. Kennedy-Powell called the slayings "vicious and brutal" when she agreed last Thursday with a jury's recommendation that Pravin Govin be executed for the murders. Victor Govin was sentenced to death last year. Authorities said the killings stemmed from a business dispute over access to an alley between a hotel the Govins owned and one of the victims' family owned in the Universal City area. (source: Modesto Bee) NEW MEXICO: Death penalty decision not yet made in Eastside Locos case The Bernalillo County District Attorney says her office has not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty against three men accused of a string of murders. Ben Gallegos, Frankie Gallegos and Juan Calles are suspected members of the Eastside Locos, according to law enforcement officials. The 3 are charged with kidnappings, racketeering and murders stretching from 2000 to 2004. Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg says its unlikely a decision will be made on whether to try the case as a capital murder before it goes to a grand jury. "It's extremely rare that an investigation is ever complete at the time the case goes to the grand jury," she said. "It is continuing and once we have everything we feel that we need we will sit down and discuss the option of pursuing it as a death penalty case." Law enforcement agencies say the Eastside Locos have dealt drugs in Bernalillo and Valencia counties for a number of years. Ben and Frankie Gallegos and Juan Calles are currently in federal custody facing a variety of drug charges. (source: KOB TV News)
