March 19
PENNSYLVANIA:
Victim's wife: Keep me out of death penalty fight
Since Gov. Wolf declared his moratorium on the death penalty last month,
proponents of capital punishment have rallied around one case to push their
cause - the scuttled execution of Terrance Williams, a Philadelphia man
sentenced to die in 1986 for the beating death of a Germantown church
volunteer.
But on Thursday, the widow of one of Williams' victims, had a message for
critics of the governor's action: Leave me out of it
In a publicly circulated letter, Mamie Norwood, whose husband, Amos, was killed
by Williams in 1984, accused state Rep. Mike Vereb (R., Montgomery) and
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams of using her husband's slaying for
political gain.
"You have never spoken to me and do not speak for me," Norwood wrote, adding
that she had forgiven Terrance Williams long ago and did not want to see him
put to death.
She added: "Please don't use me . . . to get your name in the news. You should
be truly ashamed of yourselves."
Vereb and Seth Williams, who is not related to the convicted killer, have vowed
to fight the death penalty suspension in the state legislature and courts,
respectively.
Neither were immediately available for comment Thursday morning.
In court filings last month, the district attorney, a Democrat, likened Wolf's
action to that of a despot and sought to have it overturned at the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court.
"Our constitution does not allow the governor to satisfy his own personal
opinions by halting a capital murderer's sentence that was authorized by state
statute, imposed by a unanimous Philadelphia jury, and upheld by state and
federal courts," Williams said at the time.
Vereb, a former police officer, has circulated a state House Resolution
challenging the moratorium and condemning the governor's "astounding disregard
for the additional and unnecessary heartache he has now caused to the family
and loved ones of Terrance Williams' victims."
Norwood called Vereb's statement a "lie" in her letter Thursday, which was
distributed by a group of Terrance Williams' supporters, who operate the
website clemencyforterrancewilliams.com.
"I am shocked and upset that you and other politicians are using me and saying
things that are not true," she wrote. "You are the ones now causing me
unnecessary heartache."
None of the 186 inmates currently on death row in Pennsylvania benefitted more
from the timing of Wolf's February reprieve than Terrance Williams, 48, who had
been scheduled for execution March 4. Wolf's predecessor, Gov. Tom Corbett,
signed the man's death warrant in January.
Terrance Williams' lawyers had been fighting for years to stop his execution,
contending, among other reasons, that prosecutors withheld evidence that Amos
Norwood - a 56-year-old Germantown church volunteer - had sexually abused
Williams as a teen.
The governor cited Terrance Williams' case in a memo last month explaining the
reasoning behind his moratorium.
"There is no question that Terrance Williams committed a grievous act of
violence," he wrote. "The reprieve announced today does not question Williams'
guilt. Rather, I take this action because the capital punishment system has
significant and widely recognized defects."
(source: philly.com)
FLORIDA----new death sentence
Deltona wife killer gets death penalty for Miami Subs attack
A judge this morning gave the death penalty to a 44-year-old Deltona man
convicted of murdering his estranged wife by slashing her throat outside a
Miami Subs shop near Longwood 4 years ago.
Dwayne Fitzgerald White was convicted in October of 1st-degree murder by a
Seminole County jury. It also voted 8 to 4, recommending that he be put to
death.
From mass slayings to strange attacks, these are pictures of the most bizarre
and shocking crimes to happen in Florida.
Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. announced his ruling this morning without
fanfare during a 3-minute hearing.
White killed 42-year-old Sarah Rucker on Aug. 29, 2011, with what authorities
believe was a pocket knife. Her's was an especially brutal death. She had
nearly a dozen wounds to her neck and bled to death.
One was a 6 1/2-inch gash that severed her wind pipe and carotid artery.
Medical Examiner Marie Herrmann testified that the killer likely needed 4 blows
to make that wound.
In his 13-page sentencing order, the judge noted the number of knife wounds,
called her death especially cruel and wrote, "Dwayne Fitzgerald White, you have
not only forfeited your right to live among us, but under the laws of the State
of Florida, you have forfeited your right to live at all."
White's sentence comes less than 2 weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to
take up a challenge to Florida's death penalty from convicted killer Timothy
Lee Hurst.
He was found guilty of murdering a co-worker at a Pensacola Popeye's fried
chicken stand in 1998. His lawyers contend that Florida is violating the rights
of murderers by allowing judges to impose the death penalty without a unanimous
vote for the same sentence by juries.
In Hurst's case, the vote was 7 to 5.
This morning one of White's attorneys, Jeff Dowdy, chief of operations for the
Office of Public Defender in Sanford, asked Lester to consider the Supreme
Court's pending decision in the Hurst case.
"So noted," said the judge. Lester then asked Assistant State Attorney Jim
Carter what sentence he wanted imposed.
Death, Carter said.
Lester turned to Dowdy and asked the same question.
Life in prison, said Dowdy.
Lester gave White one last chance to speak and when the defendant had nothing
to say, pronounced sentence.
A fight in the front yard
A few hours before she was killed, Rucker had made a series of 911 calls from
her home in Deltona.
Jurors listened to recordings of her screaming at White and telling a
dispatcher that he had just thrown a bottle at her, pushed her to the ground,
hit her head and pulled a cell phone from her hand, but by the time Volusia
County deputies arrived, he was gone
It was just the latest in a series of violent episodes between the 2, she told
a dispatcher.
2 to 3 hours later, 2 men meeting up to car pool to a job in Tampa found
Rucker's body face down outside a now defunct Miami Subs shop at Interstate 4
at State Road 434.
White told Seminole County deputies that he had not seen Rucker since their
argument in her front yard about 2 a.m.
But investigators found two bloody hand prints on the wall of the sub shop that
matched White and used cell phone signals to show that he and Rucker had been
in the parking lot at the same time that morning.
At his trial White then changed his story, telling jurors that he was at the
scene but that Rucker was already dead when he arrived.
Authorities never found the knife, but prosecutors say White likely used a
pocket knife with a 4-inch blade.
In his sentencing order, the judge noted that White had been to prison before
and had earlier been convicted of three acts of violence. In one, two decades
earlier, he had hit Rucker with a wine bottle while she was pregnant.
In another, White had nearly shot a former roommate, the judge wrote.
Rucker was a surgery technician at Florida Hospital-Altamonte. The couple had
two children, now adults. Neither was in court today.
(source: Orlando Sentinel)
NEBRASKA:
Nebraska's Catholic Bishops Call for Repeal of Death Penalty
Nebraska's 3 Catholic bishops are calling for an end to the death penalty in
the state, saying it does not promote a culture of life when used out of
vengeance.
In a joint statement, the bishops call for the death penalty to be repealed in
Nebraska. Bishop William Dendinger of Grand Island said church teachings allow
capital punishment in some cases, but said those conditions do not exist in
Nebraska.
He said it is not in line with the bible's teaching.
He said, "Dignity of people is from conception to death. It is contrary to the
dignity of somebody to electrocute them. I just think that's the basis of it.
We can keep people safe. We have secure ways to keep people who can't live in
society, without the death penalty."
The joint statement states, "Our position is rooted in the teachings of our
faith. We ask those who disagree with us to reflect prayerfully on the words of
Jesus Christ himself: 'love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your heavenly Father.'"
The legislature's judiciary committee recently gave unanimous approval to a
bill by Senator Ernie Chambers repealing capital punishment.
The bill now moves to the full legislature, where it faces opposition from
those who say capital punishment is necessary.
(source: nebraska.tv)
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