[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----TEXAS, NEV., USA, ORE./CALIF., ILL.

[Rick Halperin]

July 31


TEXAS:

Bardot begs for death row killer


Brigitte Bardot has begged the governor of Texas in an open letter to
pardon convicted killer Farley C. Matchett before he is executed later
this year.

Matchett, 43, who Bardot says has been in jail for more than 13 years,
says he acted in self-defense when he stabbed his victim in 1991. His
execution date has been set at Sept. 12.

"This man has unintentionally committed a serious fault, since he acted in
self-defense. He is not a gangster, not a child's rapist, not a serial
killer either," the French film star said in a letter to Governor Rick
Perry published on Monday.

"I beg you to please pardon Farley Matchett," she added.

Bardot, 71, who also campaigns for animal rights, said she had already
written to U.S. President George W. Bush and spoken to a U.S. embassy
official in Paris about Matchett's case.

Texas has executed 371 people since the state resumed capital punishment
in 1982, 6years after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a national death
penalty ban. The figure is a U.S. record.

"Dear Mr Governor, by according your pardon, your mercy, to Farley
Matchett to live, you would make me a wonderful favor and I will always be
thankful to you," she said in English.

(source: Reuters)

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

Justice for Yates, illness


I have read about Andrea Yates' verdict of not guilty by reason of
insanity, along with the outcry that she should have been sentenced to
life in prison again. I feel she has received justice.

It is sad that she is only now getting the care she needs, care she
couldn't get before because we as a country and the insurance community
don't want to pay for adequate mental health care for those who need it.
We consider those who have mental health issues weak-willed. They are not;
they are just as sick as someone who has the socially acceptable illness
of, say, appendicitis.

As a country, we went too far in cutting access to state-funded care when
the first psychiatric drugs became available. Yes, those drugs are
wonderful and many people could be released from the hospital. These drugs
work well but only when you take them. Many of them have awful side
effects. Many mentally ill people refuse to take their medications unless
someone watches them.

Margaret S. Carol

***

Why recant story now?


I have followed with interest the articles in the Express-News and Houston
Chronicle concerning a possible wrongful execution of Ruben Cantu in 1993.
Yet I have not read one word that I feel would lead one to believe this
happened.

What I do see here is a determination to sully retired San Antonio Police
Sgt. Bill Ewell's reputation, not to mention the district attorney's
people. Surely Ewell has a right to be concerned about how the
reopening/development of this case is going since it is clear the
reporters are trying to cast suspicion on him and others in law
enforcement.

Regarding conversations from the tapes of Ewell and others involved in the
DA's office, it's not as if Ewell and others don't know that police lines
are recorded. There was nothing incriminating or suspicious about these
conversations. The biggest problem is that if the eyewitness wants to
recant his story, why, oh why, did he not do so before Cantu was executed?
Why now?

Could this possibly be an attempt to embarrass the state over the death
penalty during an election year? Something does not add up.

Donna Howington

***

Focus on crime victims


I'm getting tired of people sympathizing with criminals.

In his comment "Questions should halt death penalty" (July 23), David
Atwood stated that 11 men who were executed in Texas - out of 371 - might
have been innocent. If these men had a plausible reason for claiming
innocence, I would most certainly want those claims investigated.

However, Atwood believes that if a handful of innocent men have been
executed - although none completely proven innocent - that is enough
reason to spare hundreds, if not thousands, of criminals their punishment
due.

Every year, 15,000 people are murdered in the U.S., and those victims
deserve justice. If savage murderers are given life in prison, they are
still able to have contact with loved ones, read, listen to music, watch
TV, be defended by the ACLU and Atwood, have candlelight vigils in their
honor by Hollywood liberals and even record albums and give college
commencement addresses.

How about we focus on the victims and their families, not the vicious
criminals?

Atwood and anti-death penalty zealots don't grasp the reality that if you
intentionally take someone's right to life, your right to life should be
taken as well.

Shawn Garner

(source for all: Letters to the Editor, San Antonio Express-News)

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

New jury to choose killer's punishment


In Fort Worth, jury selection is scheduled to begin today in the new
punishment phase of a Kennedale auto mechanic who was sentenced to death
more than a decade ago for drowning a 4-month-old boy and fatally shooting
the boy's father.

Last year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the 1991
conviction of James Eugene Bigby, 51, but overturned his sentence, saying
the jury's instructions lacked "brevity and clarity" and that jurors were
"shackled and confined" when considering whether his mental illness was a
mitigating factor.

Bigby, who doctors say is paranoid schizophrenic, confessed to fatally
shooting Mike Trekell and drowning Trekell's infant son, Jayson, in a sink
Dec. 24, 1987, but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Hours before he was convicted and sentenced, Bigby grabbed a loaded gun
from a drawer in state District Judge Don Leonard's bench, charged into
Leonard's chambers and pointed the gun at the judge.

Leonard and a prosecutor wrestled the gun away from Bigby, and Leonard
continued to preside over the case.

Bigby's defense attorney, J. Warren St. John, said he will have to prove
that Bigby is not a future threat to society and that life in prison is
appropriate punishment.

Jury selection is expected to last about 3 weeks.

The trial will be held in state District Judge Elizabeth Berry's court.
The prosecutors and defense attorneys were not involved in the 1991 trial.

(source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

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

A just, if belated, verdict


In finding Andrea Yates not guilty by reason of insanity, a jury in
Houston has finally accomplished what the Texas judicial system should
have determined in the first place.

Ms. Yates, 42, murdered her five children by drowning them in the family
bathtub back in 2001. But there is little doubt that she was deeply
psychotic at the time - and still is.

Even her attorney concedes that she "will be forever mentally ill," and
almost certainly will remain in state custody for the rest of her life.
That's the way it should be.

The question is why Texas authorities wasted time and tax dollars in
seeking the death penalty against Ms. Yates to begin with, a verdict that
was overturned on appeal and led to a 2nd trial.

Only a hopelessly disturbed individual would murder her own children in
such a callous manner.

She had a long history of mental illness, and there was no indication that
anything but that illness caused her to commit this most heinous act.

We support the death penalty in most cases, but no one can argue
persuasively that Ms. Yates has gotten off easy, despite the not guilty
verdict.

If, despite treatment in a state mental hospital, she remains in the
throes of psychosis, she will be trapped for the rest of her life in a
personal hell that most of us only dread to imagine.

If she is cured, by virtue of some miracle drug or treatment, Ms. Yates
will then be forced to openly confront what she did - erased the lives of
her 5 small children, aged 6 months to 7 years, because in her delirium
she believed they had to be killed to be saved from eternal damnation.

In either case, how much worse a penalty could society expect?

(source: Editorial, Toledo Blade)






NEVADA:

Weighing life or death----You'd be surprised at how Clark County decides
which defendants face the death penalty


The veteran defense lawyer never thought he'd be so happy to see a client
get convicted of 2nd-degree murder.

As the verdict was announced last week, Deputy Public Defender Scott
Coffee bowed his head and took a deep breath. He smiled as he clapped his
client, Arie Redeker, on the shoulder.

Redeker, convicted in the 2002 killing of his girlfriend, Skawduan Lanna,
had escaped death row, a possibility that loomed had he been convicted of
1st-degree murder. Instead, he now faces 20 years to life in prison.

"From the day it landed on my desk," Coffee says, "I knew this wasn't a
death penalty case."

When prosecutors charge someone with first-degree murder, they must also
confront a crucial decision: Should the defendant face the death penalty
if convicted? The Clark County district attorney's office uses an in-house
panel - the Death Penalty Assessment Committee - to weigh such life and
death decisions.

Until now, little has been known publicly about how the committee
functions, including who serves on it. The district attorney's office and
defense lawyers have waged numerous court battles in the past over what
prosecutors say is their right to conduct their decision-making in private
and without explanation. But that penchant for secrecy has spawned a raft
of concerns.

The committee's decisions seem arbitrary, say some defense lawyers, who
also say defendants are routinely "overcharged" with the death penalty to
give prosecutors a better negotiating position in court.

"I've been doing this work for 10 years, and I still can't predict which
cases are going to become death cases," defense attorney JoNell Thomas
says. "My experience is that they often will file a death penalty notice
as a plea-bargaining tool."

Perhaps worst of all, defense lawyers say, District Attorney David Roger
and his top aides have expressed no interest in letting them present the
panel with reasons their clients should not be pursued for death.

Says Special Public Defender David Schieck: "They've told us to go pound
sand."

But Roger and his top criminal prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney
Christopher Lalli, say there has been an open offer for defense attorneys
to make their case before the committee but that they always have declined
because they don't want to disclose too much about their case before
trial.

Schieck rebuts the notion of the committee's openness by pointing to a
case in which one of his assistants tried to get the committee to
reconsider its decision and allow vital mitigating evidence - and was
flatly refused.

Both Schieck and Curtis Brown, chief deputy Clark County public defender,
say Roger has refused to establish a policy regarding defenders'
participation. Defenders aren't advised of when the meetings take place,
for example, and haven't known, as Roger suggests, that they could address
the committee , defense lawyers say.

"If they're now saying it's something we're allowed to do, that's great,"
Brown says. "I'll take advantage of it."

The whole purpose of the committee, say Roger and Lalli, is to make the
process of reaching decisions less arbitrary. They say they only pursue
the death penalty for the defendants who truly deserve it - those
characterized by the U.S. Supreme Court as "the worst of the worst."

Roger adds that criticism from defense attorneys should be viewed with
skepticism: "These are people who are opposed to the death penalty on
constitutional, legal and moral grounds."

And the claims of overcharging? "That's immoral, and it's not something we
engage in," Lalli says.

The committee was formed in 1995 by former District Attorney Stewart Bell
in an effort, he says, to make the process "fairer and more consistent."

Prior to its formation, the individual prosecutor assigned to a murder
case would decide whether to pursue the death penalty, says Bell, now a
District Court judge.

Roger and Lalli say the process now begins after the defendant is indicted
or charged with murder. The deputy district attorney handling the case
then fills out an assessment form, which includes the defendant's criminal
history and the perceived overall strengths and weaknesses of the case.
State law gives prosecutors 30 days after charges are levied to file a
notice to seek the death penalty.

Cases are brought before the committee, they say, only if the deputy finds
any "aggravating factors" - special circumstances that state law says must
exist for prosecutors to file a death-penalty notice. Those circumstances
can include such factors as committing a murder while already in prison or
on probation; while committing a robbery; or killing a policeman in the
line of duty.

Copies of the assessment then go to committee members, who study it before
meeting. In addition to the 6 regular members - Roger; Lalli; Chris Owens,
head of the major violators unit; Steve Owens, the capital case
coordinator; Jim Tuftland, the chief appellate division attorney; and Ron
Bloxham, head of the office's case assessment unit - the prosecutor
handling the specific case also attends the meeting.

The committee averages two or three meetings a month. Some are brief and
others can take several hours or longer, depending on how many cases are
up for review, how complex they are, and how much disagreement there may
be. Roger will not say whether the committee's decisions need to be
unanimous.

The committee examines the aggravating factors involved, he says, and
considers the likelihood of a jury imposing the death penalty and whether
the case would hold up on appeal.

Statistics provided by Roger's office show that since he took office in
January 2003, through June 8 of this year, the committee has approved
filing death-penalty notices in 53 of the 145 cases they reviewed - or 37
% of the time.

A higher percentage of such notices were filed from 1997 to 2002, under
Bell. In those years, 79 of 151 cases - or 52 % - were approved for a
death-penalty notice.

Prosecutors could not provide the names of the 53 defendants they approved
the death penalty for, but District Court officials provided a list that
showed 49 death-penalty cases filed by prosecutors since 2003.

30 of those cases still await trial , and 8 defendants pleaded guilty to
avoid the possibility of a death sentence.

In the remaining 11 cases, the defendants were found guilty, but only 2
were sentenced to Nevada's death row. The majority of the others were
sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Defense lawyers say these numbers confirm their notion that prosecutors
seek the death penalty far too often.

Critics say they also suspect that a larger-than-average percentage of
minority defendants are finding their way onto death row here.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Michael Pescetta, considered among
Nevada's top death-penalty experts, says part of the problem is the
composition of the committee. It hasn't had a black member, he says, since
Johnnie Rawlinson left the district attorney's office in 1998 to become a
federal judge.

"If you have a white victim, they appear more likely to see that as a
death case because that's the kind of victim they can identify with,"
Pescetta says.

In the 49 cases provided by the District Court, the race of the defendants
could not be determined, and prosecutors said they could not provide those
statistics.

According to a Nevada Supreme Court report, district attorney's offices
reported that in 2003, 33 blacks and 30 whites were accused of committing
murder or voluntary manslaughter. The race of 28 defendants was reported
as "unknown" for that year.

In 2004, 25 blacks and 48 whites were charged with murder or voluntary
manslaughter, according to the report. The race of 29 defendants was
reported as "unknown."

The Death Penalty Information Center in Washington pegs the current
death-row population in Nevada at 81, ranking 13th of the 38 states that
have a death penalty. There have been 12 executions in the state since the
death penalty was reinstated in 1973.

Of those 81 death row inmates , 31 are black, 41 are white, 8 are Hispanic
and 1 is Asian, according to a spring 2006 report by the NAACP Legal
Defense and Educational Fund. Brown, of the public defender's office, says
the race factor is obvious in certain Clark County cases.

Why, for example, didn't prosecutors seek the death penalty for Sandy
Murphy and Rick Tabish in the Ted Binion murder case, when there were 4
aggravating circumstances surrounding the killing?

"What is it about them - other than they were rich, attractive white
people - that made them ineligible for the death penalty?" Brown asks.

Roger declines to talk about the Binion case but insists both he and his
committee are colorblind: "It means absolutely nothing to me, as far the
race of the victim or the defendant."

Meanwhile, defense lawyers point to cases in which they say their client,
black or white, was unjustly targeted for the death penalty.

Robert Davis was charged with murder with a deadly weapon for the 1998
shooting of a transient named Billy Ray Owens in North Las Vegas.
Defenders unsuccessfully argued to the state Supreme Court that despite
the fact that Davis had suffered from a wide array of mental illnesses his
whole life - after confessing to the crime, he was transferred to Nevada
directly from a mental health prisoner facility in New York - prosecutors
unfairly refused to consider that history when they filed their death
notice against him. Davis' trial is scheduled to begin next month.

Defense lawyer Coffee argued in trial that when Redeker strangled his
girlfriend, Lanna, with a telephone cord on Oct. 22, 2002, he was acting
out of rage, or "a rash impulse." The year before, Redeker set fire to his
garage, though by that time Lanna had moved out and no one was home . He
pleaded to 2nd-degree arson for that crime, and prosecutors attempted to
use that 2nd-degree arson conviction as an aggravating factor to pursue
death. The Supreme Court struck that down, leaving as the only aggravating
factor the fact that Redeker was on probation at the time of the murder.
Redeker will be sentenced next month.

Roger says he will not talk about the reasons the committee decided the
defendants in those cases should be pursued for death, in part because all
are ongoing.

Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas, 1 of 2 prosecutors assigned to the
Redeker case, says he had no quarrel with the jury's verdict.

But he argues that all three of the elements for first-degree murder
existed in Redeker's case - premeditation, deliberation and willfulness -
and that the district attorney's office correctly sought death in the
case.

After the verdict, jurors said that a majority of them immediately thought
Redeker deserved only a 2nd-degree murder conviction and that majority
grew during the several hours of deliberation. All but 2 jurors eventually
voted for 2nd-degree murder.

1 of the jury's majority, identified only as Chuck, said in the end it was
clear that although Redeker deserved harsh punishment, he shouldn't die
for his crime.

"This is a guy who wasn't a cold-blooded killer," the juror said. "He
didn't deserve to be up for the death penalty."

(source: Las Vegas Sun, July 28)






USA:

If killing is wrong, Bush should end war


"The president believes that murder is wrong." Those are the exact words
of Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, in defending President
Bush's veto of the bill to allow federal funding for stem cell research.

That leaves Bush with some explaining to do. If he really believes that
murder is wrong, why did he launch and still support the war in Iraq where
people are murdered on a daily basis? Why does he support Israel's current
military operation in Lebanon where the intent is to murder terrorists and
where innocent civilians are being murdered? Why does he support capital
punishment, which is also murder? Why does his Department of Defense exult
in the number of insurgents killed by our forces? Again, that is murder,
plain and simple.

Bush can't have it both ways. If murder is wrong, then Bush cannot be
selective as to which murders are condemned while other murders are
condoned. With what twisted logic can Bush make life-saving research
impossible, while at the same time lend his support for the murder of
those who oppose us? I find Bush's veto reprehensible and unworthy of the
leader of the free world.

And what does Bush do with the Mosaic commandment, "Thou shalt not kill"?
Since Bush prides himself on being a born-again Christian, what does he do
with Jesus' statements against murder?

I think our ancestors would describe Bush as speaking with a forked
tongue. It would be nice if Bush would get it straight - if he thinks that
murder is wrong, then he will have to rethink many of his decisions and
actions. You cannot pick and choose which murders you will support. Murder
is murder, period.

DEAN L. FRANTZ ---- New Haven

(source: Letter to the Editor, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette)

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

Capital punishment exacts revenge


There is controversy here in Montana over by what means capital punishment
should be administered. The bottom line is the word "revenge."

Sometimes relatives of the slain victim will come in anger or hatred to be
in attendance at where the guilty person is to be given the death
sentence. This is revenge.

If one is incarcerated in jail for many years, he may ponder and possibly
feel remorse for what he has done. He may be transformed into becoming a
decent Christian. The death penalty may snuff out that opportunity.

Does God want revenge? The answer is clear!

Robert Flanagan----Billings

(source: Letter to the Editor, The Billings Gazette)






OREGON/CALIFORNIA:

Letters bridge gap between two disparate men, paths ----- Prison - An
Oregon retiree and a San Quentin death row inmate have formed an unlikely
friendship


Roger Minthorne always preached that life was precious. He never fished or
hunted. He was the kind of man who'd capture the spiders his children
found crawling in their rooms and just carry them outside. Even television
shows had to pass his test. He banned "Dragnet" because the cops carried
guns.

So the mail that shows up at the Newberg retirement center where he lives
with his wife would seem to make no sense. For the past 15 years, the
80-year-old retired sales rep has traded letters twice a month with Ron
Seaton, a murderer living on death row in California's toughest prison.

"I'm not judging the man's actions," Minthorne said, holding a thick file
of letters. "That's not for me to decide. He was reaching out for another
human, and I saw I could meet that need. I thought I was helping him, but
he's taught me, too. When you give of yourself, you find joy in that
experience."

Minthorne, who writes two letters a month and gets two in return, flew to
San Quentin a few years back to visit the man he calls a friend. "The 1st
thing he did was give me a hug," Minthorne recalled. "I'm small of
stature, and he lifted me right off the floor."

Minthorne, a teetotaler, has been married 59 years and is the president of
the Friends Church in Sherwood. He and his wife raised 3 children and a
foster child. They have 12 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. He's a
successful businessman who has amassed numerous real estate holdings and
is on the board at George Fox University.

Seaton, from what he's revealed in his letters, has had problems with
booze all his life. He has no wife, one son who's serving 30 years in
prison and no extended family. Seaton admitted in letters that he's always
been involved in crime and was convicted and sent to death row for beating
a man to death with a hammer.

"He deserves punishment for what he did, and he is being punished,"
Minthorne said. He paused and looked out the window, searching for the
words to explain his unusual friendship. "This a corner of my life, an
interesting corner," he said.

Life, he added, "is like an orchestra. Each instrument is important. Ron
has added to the blend that is my life."

The relationship started with a Christmas letter from the Friends Church
in England. Friends, also known as Quakers, are pacifists. Each year,
church members in England send notes of encouragement to death-row inmates
in prisons across the world. One found its way to Seaton and he replied. A
friend of Minthorne's in the English church contacted him to see whether
he could send Seaton some stamps.

"Who would turn down that simple request?" Minthorne asked. "I sent a
sheet of 100 stamps, and Ron used the first stamp to write me a letter. He
also sent a photo of himself to let me know he was black. That led to many
years of correspondence."

Nancy Laughland, one of Minthorne's daughters, said her father has always
been a letter writer and a man inclined to "pick up strays."

"He befriends all kinds of people," Laughland said. "If no one had a place
to go, he'd bring them to our house. It's more than my father being
tolerant. He believes in the redemptive quality of man. Bad men can
overcome evil and become good men. I think he sees that Ron isn't the same
person he once was."

Minthorne and his wife adopted a foster child and raised her like their
own daughter. They let an African exchange student attending George Fox
University live rent-free with them for 2 years, bought him a computer and
paid for his airfare to and from home. When his church sponsored a refugee
family from Vietnam years ago, Minthorne bought a house for the couple and
their 6 children and let them live there rent-free for 10 years.

"They were able to save their money and provide for their family," he
explained. "They had $50,000 to make a down payment on a home in Beaverton
and were able to send each of their children through college. Look how all
those lives have made the world better."

He looked out the window again.

"I know what it's like to be at a low point in life," he said. "When my
1st child was born, my wife and I had $16. All my life I've prayed and
asked for guidance to help others. I've allowed the Lord to lead me and
share what I have."

He opened the file to reveal letters. He keeps a copy of his letters --
always typed and dated -- and those of Seaton's, which are handwritten.

"Ron has learned because we write each other," Minthorne said. "Over the
years, his spelling has improved, and he's just a better writer. He's
gained confidence."

In the letters, Seaton and Minthorne share details of their different
lives. Minthorne writes that he and his wife are going on vacation and
that the weather in Oregon has been good. Seaton talks about life in the
yard, fights and the daily hassles that come with prison. Some letters are
filled with the mundane -- discussions about high blood pressure and
Minthorne's grandchildren -- and, given the context, surprising -- Seaton
commenting on the death of Don Knotts, the actor who portrayed Barney
Fife.

Seaton, who signs his letters "love ya, Ron," has told Minthorne that he
didn't "know how I could do this without your letters."

"I once told Ron that we were going to the Panama Canal, and he wrote back
and said we should stop in Texas in this small town to meet his mother,"
Minthorne said. "I sent him maps to show where the Panama Canal was in
relation to Texas."

Minthorne thumbed through the file, pulling out the letters and glancing
at them, skimming over the sentences.

"He knows me," he said. "But I've learned a lot from Ron. He's allowed me
to see life from his point of view, what it means to be disadvantaged and
have few opportunities. It makes me grateful for what I have in my life."

He closed the file.

"The greatest satisfaction in the journey of life is helping others along
the way," Minthorne said. "The more we invest in other lives, the more we
get out of life. I'm no hero. I just sent a man postage stamps."

(source: The Oregonian)






ILLINOIS:

Illinois murder case raises issue of legal aid


Julie Rea Harper, acquitted of murder last week after a 9-year legal
battle, may become Exhibit A in a movement to provide more state resources
to murder defendants.

Harper's supporters, a state legislator and even the prosecutor who tried
to lock her up for life say she should have had access from the beginning
to the same high-quality legal defense that Illinois taxpayers provide to
death-penalty defendants.

"This case bothers me. It raises questions," said Rep. Paul Froelich,
R-Schaumburg, who is considering legislation to expand the state's special
fund for death-penalty defendants to include other murder defendants. "The
prosecutor can say, 'OK, I'm not going to seek death,' and you shut off
that assistance."

When Harper, of Lawrenceville, Ill., now 37, was charged in 2000 with her
young son's murder, prosecutors chose not to seek the death penalty. That
decision turned out to be a mixed blessing for Harper, who claims a masked
intruder killed her son, Joel Kirkpatrick, 10, on Oct. 13, 1997.

Illinois' death-penalty reforms of the late 1990s included state-funded
resources available for defendants who might face execution, providing
them with experienced lawyers, private investigators and other aid. But
none of that is available for defendants like Harper, who potentially
faced life in prison but not execution.

Harper was represented in her 1st trial by a public defender who, her
supporters say, wasn't experienced enough to handle the case. The jury
convicted her, and she served 2 years of a 65-year sentence before she won
a new trial in 2004.

Harper was acquitted in her 2nd trial last week in Carlyle after a legal
team from Chicago took her case free of charge.

"When they took the death penalty off the table, that meant losing the
resources that normally are at the disposal (of capital-murder
defendants). Julie was put at a tremendous disadvantage" in her first
trial, said Larry Golden of the Downstate Innocence Project. "For us, this
case is first of all about Julie, but (also) the larger problems of the
criminal justice system."

Harper was represented in her second trial by Northwestern University's
Center on Wrongful Convictions and prominent Chicago attorney Ron Safer.
Safer estimated last week that Harper's defense - culminating in 2 weeks
of expert testimony, forensic analysis, extensive transcripts and even a
scientific assessment of whether there was dew on the grass around her
home the night of the murder - would have cost upward of $1 million to a
paying client. Asked why he took the case, Safer said: "I was a prosecutor
for a lot of years. I know an innocent defendant from one that's guilty."
Safer said he believed that expansion of the Capital Litigation Trust Fund
would "even the scales of justice" in murder cases. "What happens if we
don't devote half a million to a million dollars in free legal services?"

But others say expanding the fund could be prohibitively expensive to the
state and would divert resources from other parts of the criminal justice
system.

"The first step should be to assist counties in increasing the salaries of
prosecutors and public defenders, rather than expanding a fund that will
benefit a few high-powered lawyers," said state Sen. William Haine,
D-Alton, a former Madison County state's attorney. "Day in and day out,
these public defenders are representing people charged with very serious
crimes" other than murder.

Haine noted that even in its current, limited form, the trust fund is
vulnerable to abuse. Many believe that was illustrated in 2004 by
Minnesota lawyer John Paul Carroll, who, in defending convicted
child-killer Cecil Sutherland of Mount Vernon, tapped the fund for more
than $2 million, including $900,000 for his own fee.

A reform measure

The Capital Litigation Trust Fund was set up in the fallout of revelations
in the 1990s that Illinois had sent more than a dozen innocent men to
death row. Then-Gov. George Ryan declared a freeze (still in force today)
on all executions, pending reforms to the system. Among the reforms was
the establishment of the fund.

It guarantees death-penalty defendants the right to 2 private attorney
with capital-murder trial experience, with the state paying them up to
$140 an hour, plus additional funding for other defense expenses. The
state allocates about $4.5 million a year for the program, which has
funded about 200 cases since it started in January 2000 but has provided
nothing in the hundreds of non-death-penalty murder trials in Illinois
every year.

Ed Parkinson, a special prosecutor in the Harper case, said Friday that he
wouldn't oppose expanding protections of the trust fund. "I actually think
that would be a good idea," said Parkinson, who has pursued Harper through
2 trials and is still convinced of her guilt. "It does seem kind of unfair
that if the prosecutor doesn't seek death, the defendant doesn't get those
resources."

Parkinson said he hadn't sought the death penalty because it's difficult
to win a death-penalty case with circumstantial evidence - which is all
the state had - and added that Harper's status as a young mother would add
to the difficulty. "There aren't many mothers on death row."

Harper's case rallied supporters in part because her story of the masked
intruder was later validated, some believe, by the confessions of Tommy
Lynn.

Sells.

A convicted serial killer who once lived in St. Louis, Sells is now
awaiting execution in Texas for one of at least a dozen murders that
authorities believe he committed. He has claimed at various times to have
been Joel's real killer, though prosecutors have vehemently rejected that
claim.

(source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch)