Feb. 22
TEXAS:
Former death row inmate seeks $2 million in state compensation
Former death row inmate Alfred Dewayne Brown filed a request Monday for almost
$2 million dollars in state compensation saying he spent more than 12 years
behind bars because he was wrongfully convicted.
State senator Rodney Ellis and lawyers for Brown said the 33-year-old is
eligible for a lump sum of $973,589 plus an annuity in that amount to be paid
annually for the rest of his life.
Brown was freed from prison last year, and his case has been dismissed but no
official has said he is "actually innocent."
See a timeline of the case in the gallery above.
However under the Tim Cole Act, a state law providing compensation for the
wrongfully convicted, Brown fits the definition of "exonerated," according to
his lawyers.
"No 'magic words' are required anymore," said Neal Manne, one of Brown's
attorneys. "The magic is in the fact that you're released."
In a red and white plaid button down shirt and jeans, Brown said little Monday
except that he is working in construction and enjoying spending days with his
family.
"I'm good," he said. "Just staying around family."
Brown spent 12 years and 62 days in jail, including a decade on death row after
being convicted of capital murder in the fatal shooting of officer Charles
Clark and clerk, Alfredia Jones during the robbery of a check-cashing store in
2003.
The dismissal still rankles Houston police officers who have said, through
their union officials, they continue to believe Brown was part of a gang of 3
men involved in the check cashing store robbery turned double murder. Clerk
Alfredia Jones was killed in the shooting.
Brown was released from jail June 8 after a police detective came forward with
telephone records in the case that could have aided Brown's defense. The
records might have bolstered Brown's alibi that he spent the day at his
girlfriend's home. The state's highest court reversed the conviction and sent
the case back to Houston.
Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson decided last year that there was
not enough credible evidence in the case for a re-trial and dismissed the
charges, freeing Brown.
That course of events is enough to show that he is presumed innocent, his
lawyers said. The state comptroller will be in charge of distributing the money
and other benefits, including free healthcare and free college tuition.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Jury recommends life in prison for Travion Smith for murder of Raleigh mom
After hearing closing arguments Monday in the death penalty phase of the
Travion Smith murder trial, the jury has recommended life in prison. A Wake
County jury hasn't recommended the death penalty since 2007.
Last week, Smith was convicted of beating and stabbing of 30-year-old Melissa
Huggins-Jones, who was found dead by her 8-year-old daughter inside their North
Hills apartment in May 2013. Smith and another man climbed up to a 2nd-floor
balcony to get into her apartment after breaking into cars in the neighborhood
to steal small valuables.
In her closing arguments, prosecutor Melani Shekita told jurors Huggins-Jones
was killed for just an iPhone.
During the trial, the defense called several members of Smith's family to
testify about his abusive childhood, trying to get the jury to spare his life.
But in her closing, Shekita attacked that evidence.
"Travion didn't live behind a white picket fence and have the perfect life -
nobody does," offered Shekita as she pointed out that Smith has siblings who
did succeed despite the difficult childhood.
Shekita said Smith did suffer from ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, and
depression - for which he was prescribed medication. But over the objection of
the defense, she argued many middle school students suffer from similar
conditions but don't kill people.
"They're trying to blame his mother and his father," said Shekita.
In his closing, prosecutor Jason Waller said Smith deserved the death penalty
for the brutality of the crime. He said he and his accomplice stabbed
Huggins-Jones 18 times in her bed - even stabbing her in the face. He said it
took her a while to die as she bled out.
"She went to bed with her daughter down the hall and these guys came in and did
this! Why? For an iPhone," said Waller.
In her rebuttal, defense attorney Phoebe Dee asked jurors not dismiss how hard
Smith's childhood was. She said when his father learned his mother was
pregnant, he beat her and punched her in the stomach in an attempt to cause a
miscarriage. She called his upbringing incredibly difficult at the hands of 2
parents who didn't want him.
Defense attorney Jonathan Broun asked for a sentence of life in prison without
the possibility of parole - calling that harsh and severe enough for the crime.
Broun told jurors the death penalty should be reserved for "the worst of the
worst and "that's just not Travion."
Last September, Smith's accomplice Ronald Anthony pleaded guilty to 1st-degree
murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. The plea deal spared
him the death penalty.
Charges against Sarah Redden, who allegedly acted as lookout and who agreed to
testify against Smith, remain.
(source: ABC news)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
Senate Panel to Consider Lethal Injection Secrecy Bill
A bill that would veil lethal injections in secrecy has risen from the dead.
The proposed law, sponsored by 4 Republican senators, would protect the
identities of companies that sell lethal injection drugs to the state
Department of Corrections, and exempt those purchases from state procurement
laws and pharmacy board regulation. It would also protect the identities of the
execution team, and of any pharmacists involved in mixing lethal injection
drugs.
It's a reflection of just how hard it's become for states to buy drugs for
lethal injection.
Last year, Corrections director Bryan Stirling told senators South Carolina had
run out of drugs with which to kill people - and said the state hadn't been
able to buy more. Many companies have quit selling drug for executions, and the
American Pharmacists Association has called on its members not to provide such
drugs.
The bill, S.553, could help the state get those drugs - or not. There's still
no guarantee that any company would be willing to sell South Carolina any of
the drugs allowed for lethal injections, even without the fear of being
identified publicly. And states aren't sharing information, possibly out of
fear their sources will dry up.
Opponents say the bill isn't needed.
"There are no executions on hold because of this [lack of lethal injection
drugs]," says Mandy Medlock, executive director of Justice 360, saying it'll be
several years before the appeals process runs out for anyone on death row in
South Carolina. "There's nothing urgent."
Her group also opposes the secrecy provisions of the bill, saying it could
shield botched executions from public scrutiny. In recent years, several
executions in other states have been drawn out and apparently painful,
particularly as states experiment with alternatives to the lethal injection
drugs that have become so hard to get.
"If the government is going to exercise the awesome power of taking the life of
one of its citizens, it must do so with transparency and accountability,"
Justice 360 writes.
But Sen. Mike Fair, one of the bill's sponsors, says opponents are just trying
to delay the bill because they oppose the death penalty. This bill, he says, is
about allowing the Department of Corrections to do its job.
"If you want to end capital punishment, let's do it with a bill or let's do it
with an amendment to our constitution or at least a referendum and let the
people decide," Fair says. "This is not the way to go about it."
Last spring the Senate Corrections and Penology Committee, which Fair chairs,
split 7-7 on the bill. That meant the bill didn't advance out of committee to
the Senate floor - but the tie vote didn't kill the bill, either.
Then, Dylann Roof killed 9 people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston -
including Sen. Clementa Pinckney, who was also a member of the Corrections and
Penology Committee.
Fair says it didn't feel right to be talking about the death penalty after
Pinckney was killed - and he didn't want to "give the appearance of trying to
be opportunistic." So the bill was put on the back burner until this year.
The committee membership has shifted since Pinckney's killing and the new
session; it's unclear whether the bill will come up against another tie vote.
The committee has 6 Democrats and 8 Republicans.
Fair said last week he'd heard a compromise was in the works.
But people on both sides of the discussion told Free Times they sat down
together Thursday morning following a committee meeting, having been told there
was a proposed compromise, only to find that neither side had such a
compromise. The meeting lasted no more than 30 seconds.
Laura Hudson, executive director of the South Carolina Crime Victims' Council,
wants the bill passed quickly.
"We don't want people who are manufacturing the drugs to be harassed by
people," Hudson says. "We have the death penalty in this state. We delay it
enough making sure we have the right person," she said, explaining that no
victim would ever want the wrong person executed, but that the appeals process
is long enough.
The committee could vote on the bill this week.
(source: Free Times)
FLORIDA:
Inmate in death penalty ruling seeks life in prison
A death row inmate whose case led to the U.S. Supreme Court rejecting Florida's
death-penalty sentencing system is arguing that he should be sentenced to life
in prison.
An attorney for Timothy Lee Hurst filed a motion Friday in the Florida Supreme
Court asking that it send the case to a lower court for imposition of a life
sentence. A challenge by Hurst led the U.S. Supreme Court last month to issue
an 8-1 ruling that found Florida's death-penalty sentencing system
unconstitutional.
The ruling said juries -- not judges-- should be responsible for imposing the
death penalty and that Florida's system of giving power to judges violated
Hurst's Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury. State lawmakers are rushing
to approve changes in the death-penalty system to comply with the U.S. Supreme
Court decision, which also has spurred a debate about how the ruling should
apply to inmates who were sentenced under the law that was struck down.
Hurst was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of fast-food worker Cynthia
Harrison in Pensacola. Harrison, an assistant manager at a Popeye's Fried
Chicken restaurant where Hurst worked, was bound, gagged and stabbed more than
60 times. Her body was found in a freezer.
The motion filed Friday does not take issue with Hurst's guilt but says he
should be sentenced to life in prison because he has "fundamentally been denied
his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial" in sentencing.
(source: news4jax.com)
NEVADA:
Convictions, death sentence upheld for Las Vegas killer
The Nevada Supreme Court has upheld the murder convictions and death sentence
of Gregory Hover, who was found guilty by a Las Vegas jury in 2013 of killing 2
people during a crime spree that also involved a rape and robbery.
In a 6-1 unpublished decision, the court rejected numerous challenges brought
by Hover either as being unwarranted or because any mistakes were deemed to be
harmless error.
"Hover contends that the cumulative effect of errors warrants reversal of his
convictions and sentences," the court majority said in upholding the jury's
verdict and sentence. "However, a defendant is not entitled to a perfect trial,
merely a fair one."
Justice Michael Cherry dissented, arguing that several of the errors at Hover's
trial affected his right to a fair trial.
During Hover's penalty hearing in Clark County District Court in May of 2013,
prosecutors described Hover as a racist who took pleasure in the suffering of
his Hispanic victims. Defense lawyers said Hover had endured abuse as a child
in Oklahoma but lived a normal life as a husband and father in Las Vegas before
turning violent.
Hover was employed as a process server when he kidnapped 21-year-old Prisma
Contreras from a parking lot on East Tropicana Avenue. He proceeded to rape,
stab and strangle her.
The young mother's body was found in a burned-out car south of Boulder City on
Jan. 15, 2010.
Hover also was convicted of fatally shooting 64-year-old Julio Romero during a
robbery on Jan. 25, 2010.
(source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)
USA:
The Speaker for the Dead: Antonin Scalia and the Truth
For a long time now, I've been waiting with diligent patience to write 3
articles: 1 on the passing of former President George W. Bush, 1 on the passing
of former Vice President Dick Cheney and 1 on the passing of now-former Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
The novelist Orson Scott Card developed, in his writings, an idea for someone
known as the Speaker for the Dead. A Speaker does not spit-polish and shine the
departed at the graveside, doesn't eulogize inflated greatness or create a
polite fiction to please and soothe. The Speaker tells the unvarnished truth
about the one going into the ground: the good, the bad and the ugly.
Today, I stand as Justice Scalia's Speaker for the Dead.
First, the good: Justice Scalia dedicated his life to public service and
scholarship in the law. He met his wife, Maureen McCarthy, on a blind date in
1960 and died with his wedding ring still on his finger. The couple raised five
sons and four daughters together. Among his boon companions was Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg, who knew him from their shared days on the DC Circuit. The two
made a long-standing ritual of sharing family dinner every New Year's Eve. If
Justice Scalia was not loved by most, he was surely loved by many.
The bad and the ugly, unfortunately, require more time in the telling.
Whatever Justice Scalia may have been to his family and friends, he was to the
nation a wrecking ball. One may try to deny that he was a racist, a sexist, a
homophobe, an unabashed authoritarian and in the end a simple, shabby
ward-heeling Republican lackey. The black-letter truths about the man, buried
in his decisions for the majority and the minority, as well as his oft-quoted
public comments, tell the true tale. It is abundantly clear that Mr. Scalia
approached his duties with a broad sense of entitlement, exclusion and venom.
The man had a lot of hate in his heart, and it poured out onto the pages of his
decisions in vigorous abundance.
Justice Scalia, by way of his argument in Bush v. Gore to stop the vote
counting in Florida, was instrumental in giving us George W. Bush, which gave
us Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, September 11, the ongoing
Afghanistan War, WMD lies, the Iraq war with millions dead and maimed and
displaced, the horror of ISIS, torture as accepted policy, surveillance as a
fact of life, the assassination of constitutional law, absolute corporate rule,
the disaster of Hurricane Katrina and the demolition of the US economy.
Why? Because of his interpretation of the "questionable legality" of counting
all the votes cast. Teachers from now until judgment day will speak of Bush v.
Gore in the way they speak of Dred Scott and Brown v. Board as pivot points in
history, moments that changed the world. Scalia's was not a positive moment,
and bodies are still hitting the floor because of it.
Justice Scalia ruled in favor of Citizens United because, he claimed, the
framers of the US Constitution would welcome the power and influence of modern
billion-dollar multinational corporations, despite the fact that Jefferson and
the others regularly railed against corporate power with militant vehemence.
Hell, the Boston Tea Party was a protest against corporate hegemony.
Don't tell that to Tony. "Most of the Founders' resentment towards corporations
was directed at the state-granted monopoly privileges that individually
chartered corporations enjoyed," he wrote in his concurrence. "Modern
corporations do not have such privileges." Yeah, right. Tell that to the tax
man.
Justice Scalia ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby's desire to discriminate against
basically whoever they want because they think Jesus is whispering in their
ear. In his dissenting opinion against same-sex marriage, he railed against the
"civil consequences" of people who love each other consecrating their union.
When Anthony Graves, a Black man, was spared the death chamber by court
exoneration in Texas, Scalia argued in dissent that Graves should still be
executed because established proof of innocence should not upend a standing
court decision, even if that decision is decisively proven wrong.
Justice Scalia ruled against a petition to drop a sodomy law directly aimed at
the LGBTQ community, claiming the people in favor of the law were "protecting
themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral
and destructive." Justice Scalia's disdain for anyone not heterosexual has been
well documented. "Of course it is our moral heritage that one should not hate
any human being or class of human beings," Scalia wrote in 1996. "But I had
thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible - murder, for
example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals - and could exhibit even 'animus'
toward such conduct. Surely that is the only sort of 'animus' at issue here:
moral disapproval of homosexual conduct."
Murderers, serial infidelity, dog killers, cat stranglers ... homosexuals. All
"reprehensible" in the same pile. Justice Scalia was an equal opportunity
despiser.
Last, but not least, the ugly: The passing of Justice Scalia after a Texas
quail hunt with a pillow over his flapped face has perfectly deranged the 2016
GOP presidential race, the GOP majority in Congress and politics in general.
The conspiracy theories are flying faster than barn swallows with a beakful of
meth. OBAMA DID IT. Anything to turn a buck. Right, Alex Jones? If you didn't
exist, God would have to invent you just so people could have something to
think about while taking a dump. Push, splash, wipe, flush, and so much for
that.
You just have to love the instantaneous GOP reaction to Scalia's passing. Obama
can't appoint a new justice in his last year in office - that's unprecedented!
(Justice Kennedy, nominated by Ronald Reagan, was voted to the bench in 1988,
Reagan's last year in office). Obama can't make an interim Supreme Court
appointment - that's unprecedented! (The venerable Justice Brennan was an
interim appointment back when the Senate enjoyed the presence of Joe McCarthy).
History Fail, precedent Fail, in Technicolor.
Republicans in Congress are twisting themselves into strange rhetorical knots
trying to argue against President Obama's ability and duty to nominate Scalia's
successor. The issue came up in 2008, George W. Bush's last year in office. At
that time, Sen. Chuck Grassley said, "The reality is that the Senate has never
stopped confirming judicial nominees during the last few months of a
president's term." Now, he's against it.
Sen. Lamar Alexander said back then, "Just because it's a presidential election
year is no excuse for us to take a vacation. And we're here. We're ready to go
to work."
Sen. John Cornyn said back then, "Now is the perfect time because, of course,
we're in a presidential election year and no one yet knows who the next
president will be. What a unique opportunity to establish that regardless of
the next president's party, the nominees will be treated fairly and on the
basis of their qualifications, and not on the basis of ancient political
squabbles." Now, he's against it, too.
The GOP candidates are falling all over themselves in a mad rush to keep the
guy in the round room from nominating someone supremely qualified to screw up
their plans to make being gay or a woman essentially illegal, to put a pistol
in every pot, to shoot every undocumented immigrant on sight, to declare
corporations the sole ruling entities in the nation, and to rain bombs and fire
down upon the rest of the world for a tidy fee. Scalia's open seat is what the
2016 election will henceforth be about: abortion, Planned Parenthood, LGBTQ
rights, war and how far hate itself can go before it goes too far.
Justice Scalia, who was Reagan's dying breath, hurt people. We will be 10
generations getting out from under his legacy. His impact beggars
quantification, but cannot be denied. The man took a hammer and chisel to the
best aspects of our civil society and did sore damage for decades. He thought
he was funny. In the end, he was the joke.
Speaking of jokes, there is an old yarn about a man who would go to the
newsstand every morning, buy a newspaper, scan the front page, growl, and then
throw the paper away in disgust. One day, the paperboy who ran the stand ginned
up enough courage to ask the man what it was he was looking for. "The
obituaries," the man replied. "But sir," said the boy, "the obituaries are on
page 30." The man looked the boy square in the eye and said, "When the bastard
I'm looking for dies, he'll be on the front page."
... and there he is. I can officially check one off my list. As for George and
Dick, well ... I contemplate Bob Dylan: "I'll watch while you're lowered down
to your death bed, and I'll stand o'er your grave 'til I'm sure that you're
dead."
Amen.
(source: Op-Ed; William Rivers Pitt, Truthout)
US MILITARY:
Oscar-nominated film spotlights death-row veterans, combat PTSD
A film that raises questions about veterans' mental health care, capital
punishment and justice for troubled troops is on the short list for an Oscar on
Feb. 28.
The 30-minute documentary "Last Day of Freedom" tells the story of former
Marine Manuel Babbitt through the eyes of his brother Bill. Babbitt was
executed in California in 1999 after being convicted of beating an elderly
woman to death in Sacramento in 1980.
Babbitt - "Manny" to family and friends - had suffered a head injury as a
child, and despite having learning disabilities and dropping out of school in
7th grade at age 17, was recruited by the Marine Corps. He went to Vietnam and
later developed a host of mental health issues, including schizophrenia, severe
post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse.
"They was able to discern his physical wounds and was able to patch them up,
but they never got around to patching that wound in his head," Bill says in the
film.
Through a melange of film footage and animation using more than 30,000 drawings
and sketches, filmmakers Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman follow Manny
Babbitt's life from childhood to grave, focusing on his struggles but also on
the system they believe failed him.
"One of the things we really wanted to uncover is the complexities of the death
penalty and of veterans' care," said Hibbert-Jones, an associate professor of
art at the University of California-Santa Cruz. "The fact that someone would go
to war and serve their country and then be failed by that country is a complete
travesty."
The movie is among 5 vying for the Academy Award for best short documentary.
Going into the competition, it already has a bevy of accolades, including the
best short film award at the International Documentary Association, as well as
the jury and best filmmaker awards from the Full Frame Documentary Film
Festival.
Hibbert-Jones said the 6-year project began as an effort to understand the
impact of gang violence and PTSD on youth.
"But as we listened to Bill's story, it was so powerful ... it really speaks to
the issues of the judicial system, who goes to war for us, race and politics,"
she said.
The exact number of combat veterans facing capital punishment in the United
States is unknown. An extrapolation from several states released last November
estimates that 275 to 300 of the country's 3,057 inmates on death row are
veterans.
Manny Babbitt is emblematic of many of these cases, Hibbert-Jones said.
"Sadly, Manny's is not an unusual case," she said.
Babbitt joined the Marine Corps under a program that admitted service members
with IQs or physical standards lower than the accepted norm. He was struck in
the head and hand by shrapnel at Khe Sanh, Vietnam, and returned to combat a
week after he was wounded.
When he got home, he began displaying symptoms of PTSD, including flashbacks
and nightmares, according to Bill. He began abusing drugs and alcohol, and
turned to crime, robbing gas stations and breaking into homes.
He was caught, convicted and sentenced to prison but served most of his time in
a mental hospital. After he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he was
let out. He went to live with Bill and his family, and during that time, he
broke into the home of Leah Schendel, 78, and beat her to death.
In the film, Bill talks about figuring out Manny participated in the crime and
choosing to turn him in.
"I was so grateful for these cops, you know? They were going to make it right,
somehow," Bill Babbitt says. "I told my family it was going to be alright."
After Manny was convicted and efforts to appeal the case failed, he was
executed on his 50th birthday. In the year before his death, the Marine Corps
awarded him his Purple Heart in prison.
Hibbert-Jones, a native of England, and Talisman, an Israeli veteran, that they
have lifelong feelings against the death penalty, viewing it as cruel and
unusual punishment.
But Hibbert-Jones said in cases involving the mentally ill, the punishment
seems even more egregious.
"We have been showing this film at universities, and people say, 'This was
years ago. This doesn't happen today.' But that's not true. These issues have
not gone away," she said.
Nearly 40 years after Babbitt was discharged, the Defense Department does not
know how many troops have been discharged with combat-related mental health
disorders, according to the Government Accountability Office.
According to a report published in 2015, the Army, Marine Corps and Navy do not
accurately label the reasons for discharges ineligible for disability pay,
making it impossible to know how many service members in the past decade have
been kicked out for misbehavior that may be related to PTSD or other
combat-related disorders.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation in 2013 by The Gazette of Colorado
Springs found that the Army continues to discharge troops who have
combat-related mental issues for misconduct and poor behavior without examining
the connection between the 2.
The report also found that Army psychologists face pressure to clear troops for
discharge from superiors who want to thin the ranks.
Hibbert-Jones said she would like to win in order to shine a spotlight on the
plight of veterans' mental health and capital punishment.
"One of our hopes for the film is it will reach audiences that might not
otherwise be aware of these issues," Hibbert-Jones said.
"Last Day of Freedom" is currently available on Netflix.
(source: Military Times)
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