May 12
TEXAS----impending execution
Convicted killer of 3 in Houston asking for execution delay
Derrick Dewayne Charles was a convicted burglar wanted by authorities for
ignoring mandatory meetings with his parole officer when he was arrested for
killing his 15-year-old girlfriend, her mother and her grandfather at their
home in Houston 13 years ago.
10 months later, Charles pleaded guilty in May 2003 to capital murder, leaving
a Harris County jury to decide whether he should spend the rest of his life in
prison or be sent to death row. Jurors decided he should be executed after
hearing about his extensive juvenile record, his burglary conviction and the
details of the killings.
Charles, now 32, is set for lethal injection Tuesday evening. His attorneys are
asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution. He would be the 7th
convicted killer executed this year in Texas, which carries out the death
penalty more than any other state.
The Houston man is 1 of at least 3 Texas inmates scheduled for lethal injection
over the next several weeks. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has said
it has enough pentobarbital to carry out 2 of the executions, meaning the
prison agency would need to replenish its supply of the difficult-to-obtain
sedative for capital punishment use or find a substitute drug to replace it.
Worried about future shortages, the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature is
considering changing state law to keep the identity of execution drugmakers
confidential. Suppliers have reported being threatened by death penalty
opponents, and the Texas Senate on Monday approved a measure that even would
keep death row inmates from knowing where the state is getting the drugs used
to execute them.
Charles was arrested a day after the bodies of Myiesha Bennett, her 44-year-old
mother Brenda Bennett, and 77-year-old grandfather Obie Bennett were found at
their northeast Houston home. People who knew them became alarmed after not
hearing from them for several days.
Relatives have said Brenda Bennett wasn't thrilled with her daughter's
relationship with Charles, who was 19 at the time.
Attorneys for Charles who are seeking to get the punishment halted say he is
mentally incompetent for execution and that the courts should authorize money
for psychologists and investigators, so the defense can develop those
arguments.
The Supreme Court has said condemned inmates must be aware they are about to be
executed and have a rational understanding of why they're being put to death.
Charles was diagnosed as mentally ill when he was a child and was deprived of
care and medication while growing up, one of his attorneys, Paul Mansur, told
the justices in a filing.
"This evidence ... raises substantial concern that the state of Texas may
execute an incompetent inmate," Mansur said.
Another appeal argued that the trial court violated Charles' constitutional
rights by refusing to appoint psychiatric experts and investigators.
State attorneys are opposing any delay in the punishment. They say questions
about whether Charles is mentally incompetent for execution were rejected by
courts earlier and that his lawyers improperly filed their constitutional
challenge.
"There is simply no evidence of any inherent mental illness or psychosis that
might call into question Charles' competency to be executed," Texas Assistant
Attorney General Fredericka Sargent told the justices.
Court records show a warrant was issued for Charles in February 2002, 2 months
after he was paroled after serving 8 months of a 3-year burglary sentence. He
met once with his parole officer, then failed to show up for other required
sessions.
Charles was arrested at a Houston motel where Brenda Bennett's car was found.
Police have said he told them he beat and strangled Obie Bennett. Myiesha
Bennett was choked with an extension cord, beaten with a box containing stereo
speakers and hit with a TV.
Brenda Bennett was thrown into a water-filled bathtub along with a plugged-in
TV. When that failed to electrocute her, she was dragged through the house,
raped and strangled.
Court documents indicate that Charles said he smoked marijuana soaked in
embalming fluid before the killings, then hallucinated while committing them.
(source: Associated press)
*********************
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----6
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----524
Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
7-----------May 12--------------------Derrick Charles------525
8----------June 3--------------------Les Bower------------526
9-----------June 18-------------------Gregory Russeau------527
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
***********************
Senate Approves Bill to Keep Execution Drug Providers Secret
A state Senate measure to keep the names of execution drug providers from the
public won initial approval on Monday in a 23-8 vote. Final passage is expected
on Tuesday.
State Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, told lawmakers her legislation, Senate Bill
1697, was a "practical solution" to the harassment and threats faced by
companies providing the state prison system with pentobarbital, the single drug
used in Texas to execute inmates convicted of capital murder.
"Discussion in the public area has led to a chilling effect for companies who
want to supply this compound to the state of Texas," she said. "There are very
few doses left of the drug that???s currently being administered."
In 2013, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice announced it had obtained
doses of pentobarbital from The Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy near Houston.
The agency turned to compounding pharmacies after manufacturers stopped
providing the lethal injection drug to the agency. The Woodlands pharmacy owner
told the agency that publicizing the transaction led to threats, and as a
result the agency stopped releasing the names of pentobarbital suppliers.
Last year, then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sided with TDCJ officials,
concluding that the names of compounding pharmacies could be kept secret, even
though such information had long been public. Adding more fuel to the debate, a
Travis County judge ruled in December that the state's prison system must make
the providers public.
State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, objected to Huffman's measure, citing
concerns about transparency.
"We are moving into an area here where we are talking about contracts with the
state that we are going to hide from the public," he said.
The state of Texas' lethal drug cache continues to remain low. Last week, the
state had only enough pentobarbital for two more executions, including the one
scheduled for Derrick Charles on Tuesday.
TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark verified on Monday that a recent pentobarbital
purchase means there will be enough for a 3rd execution scheduled on June 18.
A similar measure to keep secret the providers of lethal injection drugs has
been proposed by state Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo. The legislation made it
out of a House committee but hasn't come to the floor for a vote.
(source: Texas Tribune)
NEW YORK:
Richard Bartlett, Legislator Who Fought New York's Death Penalty, Dies at 89
Richard J. Bartlett, an upstate legislator who was instrumental in virtually
abolishing capital punishment in New York State and who, as an administrative
judge, oversaw a reorganization of the state's courts, died on Wednesday at his
home in Glens Falls, N.Y. He was 89.
The cause was congestive heart failure, his son, Michael, said.
Mr. Bartlett, a Republican assemblyman from Warren County at the time, made his
impact on penal law as chairman of the New York State Temporary Commission on
Revision of the Penal Law and Criminal Code. Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller
appointed him to the post in 1961. In 1965, the commission produced the 1st
major revisions of the penal law in 80 years and recommended, 8 to 4, that
capital punishment be abolished.
"The social need for the grievous condemnation of the gravest crimes can be
met, as it is met in abolition states, without resort to barbarism of this
kind," Mr. Bartlett and a majority of the commission concluded.
There were 21 prisoners on death row in New York at the time. The Legislature
limited the death penalty to people convicted of killing a peace officer acting
in the line of duty and to convicts serving a life sentence who murdered a
prison guard or an inmate in prison or while trying to escape. The bill cleared
the Assembly by a vote of 78 to 67, just 2 votes more than the constitutional
minimum needed for passage.
New York has not executed anyone since 1963. In 2004, the state's highest court
declared the death penalty unconstitutional.
Before Mr. Bartlett oversaw the merger and modernization of New York's court
system, it was a jumble of fiefs where meting out justice swiftly, even if it
was a priority, appeared to be a bureaucratic impossibility.
He set about overhauling it in 1974, when Chief Judge Charles D. Breitel of the
Court of Appeals named him the first chief administrative judge of a unified
state court system. During Mr. Bartlett's 5 years in the post, the Office of
Court Administration was established to centralize management of the state's
unwieldy trial court system, and a permanent Judicial Conduct Commission was
set up to hold accountable judges accused of misconduct.
Many of the changes he introduced in New York were embraced by other states.
Richard James Bartlett was born in Glens Falls on Feb. 15, 1926, the son of
George Bartlett, a special agent for an insurance company, and the former
Kathryn McCarthy, a nurse.
He graduated from Georgetown University and Harvard Law School. His wife, the
former Claire Kennedy, died in 2010. Besides his son, he is survived by a
daughter, Amy Bartlett; 2 grandsons; and a sister, Nancy Bartlett Horne.
Mr. Bartlett represented Warren County in the Assembly from 1959 through 1966.
After serving as chief administrative judge, he became dean of Albany Law
School and rejoined the law firm he co-founded, which is now known as Bartlett,
Pontiff, Stewart & Rhodes.
(soruce: New York Times)
DELAWARE:
Repealing death penalty a vital 1st step
Last week in the News Journal, a young African-American reporter wrote a column
titled "History proves justice for us is hopeless."
He was responding to a story about a Dover Police Department officer who was
caught by his dashboard camera kicking a suspect in the head, breaking his jaw
and leaving him unconscious.
He called for justice but wasn't expecting any. "Please excuse me if I don't
hold out any hope," he wrote. "I don't have any left."
His attitude is understandable. Our country's history of racial justice is
bleak.
But when the reporter wrote about losing hope, I couldn't help thinking about
Bryan Stevenson, a Cape Henlopen High School graduate who has spent his career,
his entire adult life, seeking justice for the most despised members of
society, those condemned to death row.
Speaking in December at the Eagle's Nest Fellowship Church near Milton,
Stevenson emphasized the importance of hope.
"Injustice prevails where hopelessness persists," said Stevenson, who heads the
Equal Justice Initiative in Birmingham, Ala.
"We can???t create justice unless we are hopeful."
Hopefulness has brought Stevenson a long way. A recent issue of Time magazine
counted him among "The 100 Most Influential People," with tennis great Serena
Williams providing a write-up about why he was picked.
That hopefulness helped him, just last month, free an Alabama man who had spent
nearly 3 decades on death row. (Stevenson was able to disprove the only
evidence against him.)
And that hopefulness brought him once again back to Delaware, where I met him
downstairs in Legislative Hall in Dover. He had come home, briefly, to speak to
legislators about repealing the state's death penalty.
He had arrived in Delaware the night before, and was leaving later that day to
present a speech in New York City. He squeezed me in between sessions with
state representatives.
Like last session, a bill repealing capital punishment in Delaware has passed
the state Senate with bipartisan support, including 2 Sussex County
Republicans, Sen. Gary Simpson of Milford and Sen. Ernie Lopez of Lewes. Last
time around the bill died in committee, never making it to the floor for a
vote.
That could happen again.
But there are reasons, as Stevenson might say, to be hopeful.
For one, Gov. Markell, after a protracted silence on the issue, has said he
would sign the bill. This is new.
2nd, it has become clear - even painfully obvious - that our system of justice
is badly flawed.
In July, Delaware's chief medical examiner was fired for his office's
mishandling of evidence.
Worse, the country's most respected crime lab, the FBI's vaunted forensic unit,
provided "flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence
over more than a 2-decade period before 2000," according to a Washington Post
article.
The cases included "those of 32 defendants sentenced to death." Supposedly,
scientific hair and bite mark comparisons were largely bogus.
Sadly, it gets worse. For years, these problems were kept secret. Prosecutors
and defendants alike weren't notified.
This is the system of justice we trust to carry out the ultimate punishment?
But Stevenson sees reason for hope. Maryland has abolished the death penalty;
Pennsylvania's Gov. Tom Wolf recently issued a moratorium on executions.
Now it's Delaware's turn. "Because I'm from Delaware," Stevenson said, "I have
a deep interest in our state taking a step forward."
He doesn't consider death penalty repeal as an end in itself, despite its
importance. He sees it as a beginning.
"I'm really worried, to be honest, about the lack of progress on racial
justice, generally, in the state of Delaware," he said.
"Our state has not evolved very much when it comes to racial justice,"
Stevenson said. "There are no people of color on the appellate bench. Wealth
still matters more than culpability in criminal trials."
Delaware, he said, has not dealt with its past. "We've never said or done
anything to really change this history that begins with slavery and continues
through lynching and segregation," he said.
And when he talks about slavery, he's not just talking about enforced
servitude.
He's talking about the narrative that justified slavery, the narrative that
held blacks were inferior.
The 13th Amendment ended slavery, but not the narrative supporting it.
But that can change.
"Repeal of the death penalty is a really important first step to say we are
going to create a new future, when it comes to how we manage inequality and
poverty," Stevenson said.
At 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, a rally will be held outside Legislative Hall in Dover
to show support for repealing the death penalty, featuring Black Thought of
Jimmy Fallon's "Tonight Show."
At 11 a.m., the House will convene a hearing on Senate Bill 40, which would end
capital punishment.
Bryan won't be there in person, but his spirit of hopefulness will.
"If it gets to the floor, I think it will pass," he said. "And that's why I
think it's an exciting time in the state. If you put the death penalty behind
us you can focus on other issues."
(source: Don Flood, CapeGazette.com)
******************
Entire House should vote on death penalty bill
The biggest question facing Senate Bill 40 is whether it will live to Thursday.
The proposed ban on executions in Delaware goes before a House committee
Wednesday morning. The Judiciary Committee hearing should be a lively one, with
testimony from death penalty proponents and opponents as well as a protest
rally featuring a musician from The Roots, the house band of "The Tonight Show"
starring Jimmy Fallon. The bill has already passed the Senate, in a close vote.
Several legislative observers do not think it will get that far in the House.
They expect it to be voted down in the committee and never come to the full
House for a vote.
That would be wrong.
The committee should approve the bill so that the full House can vote on it. By
now, most people have formed their opinions on the bill and the death penalty
in general. The voters deserve to know how their representatives will vote.
That, of course, puts the pressure on the elected officials. However, that is
their job.
Delaware has 15 inmates on death row. This bill would not affect them. It would
only affect those convicted after the bill is passed. The issue is a tough one,
of course. People often are torn. Some opponents of the death penalty see the
issue clearly: They want it stopped. Some, including victims' family members
and law enforcement officials, point out that the real viciousness was in the
murder that was committed. The arguments have been tough. When determining a
life-or-death policy for the public, the arguments must be tough. They must be
tested.
Many people have responded by falling back on old positions. However, the
debate has changed minds.
Gov. Markell, for example, has said he would sign the bill if it passes the
Legislature. He has allowed 2 executions to go forward while he was governor.
Now, he says, he has doubts. The governor points to the recent revelations that
FBI forensic analysts gave flawed testimony in hundreds of cases across the
country. The testimony was based on mistaken conclusions from evidence tests
over a 2-decade period. Of the 268 cases examined so far, The Washington Post
has reported, the FBI's analysts testified wrongly in favor of the prosecution
in 257. Of these, the inmate has already been executed or died in prison in 14
cases. Hundreds more have been thrown in doubt.
In addition, Delaware's own medical examiner department is recovering from a
scandal that involved tampered and missing evidence.
For Gov. Markell, the chances of a mistake are too high. It would be an action
that cannot be undone. For him, the whole process has been thrown into doubt.
Obviously, the issue is a crucial one for a democracy. A lot is at stake.
The committee system was designed to weed out bad bills, or ones that do not
have enough legislative or public support.
This bill does not fit that description.
It is an urgent, important issue for the state. The committee should let the
full House vote on it.
(source: Editorial, delawareonline.com)
ALABAMA:
Grandmother who ran her granddaughter to death sentenced to life in prison
That is what Alabama grandmother Joyce Hardin Garrard told her granddaughter's
bus driver, Raeanna Holmes, when Holmes stopped at the house on her end-of-day
route on Feb. 17, 2012: Savannah Hardin was in trouble for lying about some
candy she took from a classmate. As punishment, her grandmother told the
9-year-old to run.
Across the street that day, according to court testimony, neighbors Chad and
Jolie Jacobs watched with increasing concern as Savannah ran for more than 3
hours, with her 50-year-old grandmother shouting: "I didn't tell you to
stop!"As the punishment continued, and Savannah was later ordered to run while
carrying firewood sticks, the neighbors assumed that the elementary school
student was getting an occasional respite. But that wasn't true, and by the
time the neighbors attempted to intervene, at about 6:30 that evening, Savannah
was on the ground, vomiting, as her grandmother shouted: "Get up! I better not
have to tell you again!"
Savannah had a seizure and was hospitalized. She died days later from extreme
physical exertion, an autopsy ruled. Her grandmother was convicted of capital
murder earlier this year.
On Monday, Judge William Ogletree sentenced Garrard to life in prison without
the possibility of parole.
Ogletree's decision is in line with an earlier recommendation from a jury to
spare Garrard the death penalty. The jury was split 5 to 7 in favor of life
imprisonment, a sentence that prosecutors supported, AL.com reported. But in
Alabama, a judge can override the sentencing decision of a jury in a capital
case such as Garrard's.
Alabama judges have opted for the death penalty in cases in which a jury has
recommended life imprisonment 101 times since 1976, according to a report from
the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama. Overrides have gone the other way -
from death to life - just 10 times, by contrast.
The witness accounts from Holmes and Chad and Jolie Jacobs contained
excruciating details from the moments that prosecutors argued led to Savannah's
death.
They also contained regret: "I wish I had done something a lot sooner," Jolie
Jacobs said. Holmes said she felt "partly responsible" for the girl's death.
Holmes initially caught Savannah in the lie that led her grandmother to punish
her so severely. "I should have paid for those candy bars," the bus driver
said.
In the end, prosecutors determined that 2 women were responsible for Hardin's
death: Garrard and Hardin's stepmother, Jessica Hardin, who was also charged
with murder. Prosecutors have accused Hardin of failing to intervene in
Garrard's treatment of her stepdaughter. Hardin is still awaiting trial and
plans to plead not guilty.
According to a sketch of the day in question, which was detailed by AL.com,
Holmes told Garrard on a Friday morning that she had caught Savannah in a lie.
The girl had taken some fundraiser candy from another student, eaten it and
left the wrappers on her seat on the bus. At first, Savannah denied taking the
candy, but she later confessed.
Soon after, Garrard called the mother of the girl from whom Hardin had taken
the candy, made an offer to pay for the candy bars Savannah had taken and said
her granddaughter was in big trouble. According to testimony from the mother,
Juanita Sweatt, Garrard also indicated that she suspected that Savannah was
bullying Sweatt's daughter.
After getting off the phone, Sweatt asked her daughter about Savannah. She
denied that Savannah had ever hit or bullied her on the bus. Garrard's tone on
that 1st phone call was enough to prompt Sweatt to call her back after speaking
to her daughter. "I didn't want Savannah to get in trouble for something that
didn't happen," Sweatt said, according to an account of her testimony from the
Gadsen Times.
Garrard has a different explanation for what transpired that afternoon:
Savannah was running because the 9-year-old "asked me to coach her," the
grandmother testified. "Instead of coming in 2nd in her running class at
school, she wanted to come in 1st."
She said Savannah's punishment was to pick up sticks in the yard, an activity
that Garrard said she did, too, because "I felt just as responsible for her
lying as she was." According to the version of events Garrard gave at the
trial, Savannah was injured when she fell while Garrard stepped inside.
Prosecutors presented testimony indicating that Garrard's story changed more
than once in the hours after Savannah was hospitalized.
Witness accounts don't paint a complete picture of what happened that
afternoon, but they do contradict elements of Garrard's story.
Holmes stopped by the house on her route home, after Hardin didn't take the bus
at the end of the day. Her exchange with Garrard was captured on a surveillance
video on the bus. Holmes saw Hardin picking up sticks in the yard. Her
grandmother said that the girl was "gonna learn" not to lie and that she would
"run until I tell her to stop."
Across the street, Chad and Jolie Jacobs first noticed Savannah at about 4
p.m., running in a short pattern around the yard of Garrard's house, they
testified. At 5 p.m., they said, Savannah was carrying sticks for firewood as
her grandmother continued to yell in a "hateful, hostile" tone.
By 6:30 p.m., after the couple had come back home from a short trip, Savannah
was on the ground in the yard, vomiting.
Here's how AL.com summarized the couple's testimony of the scene:
"Get up! I better not have to tell you again!" Jolie said she heard Garrard
yell.
By this time, the child was begging to stop. Jolie said she thought she heard
"skin on skin" across the street, as though Joyce was striking the child.
Savannah was vomiting. Still Joyce barked at her to carry the wood, even as she
was crying.
Savannah was on her hands and knees. Joyce tried pouring water into her mouth,
telling her she'd better drink up or she couldn't go to the bathroom. The water
was running out of her mouth.
It was at that point that the couple decided to intervene. But medics were
already arriving at the house.
Savannah's stepmother had placed a 911 call to get help for the girl. According
to testimony from Lori Beggs, the dispatcher who took that call, Jessica Hardin
and Garrard were unusually calm, considering that they told the dispatcher that
Savannah was unconscious after a seizure.
Hardin did not mention that her stepdaughter had been running and told the
dispatcher that she had fallen off a step. She was on the ground in the front
yard when paramedics arrived.
Savannah was naked from the waist down when Mountainboro volunteer firefighter
Justin Hairrell arrived at the scene, he testified. Her bottom half was covered
in a wet blanket, and she was wearing a soaked T-shirt.
Garrard's attorneys asked Ogletree to keep Garrard in prison for life, telling
the court: "The worst punishment you could give is to send her to the
penitentiary as the grandmother who ran her grandchild to death."
(source: Washington Post)
OHIO:
Lawmakers want to exclude mentally ill from death penalty
A major change in Ohio capital punishment policy by excluding "serious mentally
ill" offenders from execution is expected to be introduced Tuesday in the Ohio
Senate.
Sens. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, and Sandra Williams, D-Cleveland, have been
working on legislation stemming from recommendations made by the Ohio Supreme
Court Death Penalty Task Force in April 2014. The mental illness exclusion,
along with about a dozen other task force recommendations, are planned to
eventually be introduced in the General Assembly.
The bill would bar execution of people who, when they committed the crime,
suffered from a serious mental illness that impaired their ability to "exercise
rational judgment in relation to their conduct, conform their conduct to the
requirements of the law, or appreciate the nature, consequences or wrongfulness
of their conduct," according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness Ohio,
which supports the legislation.
While the Seitz-Williams bill would forbid their execution, seriously mentally
ill defendants could still be prosecuted and sent to prison for murder.
In a letter to lawmakers seeking support for the bill, NAMI and the Ohio
Psychiatric Physicians Association said, "We believe that those who commit
violent crimes while in the grip of a psychotic delusion, hallucination or
other disabling psychological condition lack judgment, understanding or
self-control. Until such time as the U.S. Supreme Court decides on this
question, the responsibility for prohibiting the execution of such individuals
in Ohio rests with the Ohio General Assembly."
"The death penalty is not the answer to the problem of violence committed by
persons with severe mental disorders," the letter continued. "The better policy
is access to appropriate mental health care - ideally before such a tragedy
occurs - and, most definitely, in place of executing some of Ohio's most
critically ill individuals."
Seitz's office said in addition to he and Williams, the bill has 12 co-sponsors
so far, 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats.
Other task force proposals be unveiled in the legislature in the future are
establishing a statewide indigent death-penalty litigation fund in the Ohio
Public Defender's office; requiring certification for coroner's offices and
crime labs, and prohibiting convictions based solely on uncorroborated
information from a jailhouse informant.
(source: Columbus Dispatch)
NEBRASKA:
'Words don't adequately describe the sadness''----Unspeakable' acts: 5-year-old
was alive when he was thrown into river, law official says
5-year-old Josue Ramirez-?Marinero was alive and asleep when his 25-year-old
half brother ripped the boy from his car seat and tossed him over a bridge rail
into the Elkhorn River, according to a law enforcement official familiar with
accounts of that night.
Roberto C. Martinez-Marinero, 25, reportedly admitted to authorities that he
killed his mother, left his 11-month-old half brother in a dumpster in La Vista
and then threw 5-year-old Josue into the Elkhorn River.
For those "unspeakable" acts, Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said Monday
that he will seek the death penalty against Martinez-Marinero.
Kleine said the killing conjured up images of previous child deaths, including
the November 2000 killing of 7-year-old Tramar Chandler, who had witnessed the
murder of his 13-year-old sister and the attempted murder of his mother. Arthur
Lee Gales is on death row for those killings.
"These are the kind of cases that never leave you," Kleine said. "Words don't
adequately describe the sadness and gravity and senselessness when something
like this happens to a child."
Most nonsensical, authorities say, is why Martinez-Marinero allegedly sought to
eliminate witnesses and then, soon after, admitted to his mother's slaying.
Authorities allege that Martinez-Marinero told a couple of acquaintances that
he had killed his mom. He then went to police and made the same admission.
That left a question looming Monday: If he purportedly was willing to admit his
actions, why would he attempt to get rid of his brothers?
The case came perilously close to 2 child deaths, Kleine noted. 11-month-old
Angel was spared when an alert passer-by heard rustling in a dumpster and
rescued the boy. A garbage truck was scheduled to unload the trash bin the next
day - and Angel almost certainly would have died in the crush, Kleine said.
There was no such salvation for Josue.
The boy's body was discovered Monday morning about a mile south of the U.S.
Highway 275-West Center Road bridge.
According to authorities:
Martinez-Marinero and his mother, Jesus Ismenia Marinero, had been arguing
about money in the weeks before the killing.
Sometime during the night of May 5 or into the morning of May 6, their argument
escalated at the apartment he shared with his girlfriend near 20th Street and
Poppleton Avenue.
Martinez-Marinero told law enforcement officials that his mother slapped or
swatted at him. He lost it.
He beat his mother in the face and head with a baseball bat and then stabbed
her multiple times, Kleine said.
A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said she
suffered as many as 20 stab wounds.
Martinez-Marinero's girlfriend, Gabriela Guevara, reportedly was with
Martinez-Marinero when his mother was killed and helped dump her body near
Fourth and Cedar Streets.
She also was with Martinez-Marinero when Angel was left in the trash bin in La
Vista and when Josue was thrown into the Elkhorn River.
Martinez-Marinero and Guevara reportedly have 2 young children of their own.
Guevara faces up to 55 years in prison on the 5 accessory counts.
Martinez-Marinero, who has no criminal record, faces life in prison or the
death penalty.
Under state law, Kleine said, 2 aggravating factors exist that could merit the
death penalty: multiple slayings; and Josue was killed to eliminate a witness
to a slaying.
After 4 days of searching, Josue's body was spotted by searchers on a Waterloo
Fire Department rescue boat at 10:23 a.m. Monday, a mile downstream of the
bridge, Omaha Police Capt. Kerry Neumann said. The body was on the east bank,
stuck in tree branches.
At 11:30 a.m., Neumann said, Omaha Fire Department divers recovered the body
with the help of the Waterloo fire crew.
Crime lab technicians examined the body to confirm an identity; an autopsy will
follow.
Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert issued a statement Monday afternoon, noting that
Omaha is a "supportive, caring community that will keep this family in our
prayers."
"I am heartbroken for the family of Ismenia Marinero and her son Josue,"
Stothert said in the statement. "Gratefully, little Angel survived and has been
reunited with his family. Omaha police and firefighters, with help from many
agencies, worked for many days to find little Josue. Many are parents
themselves, who worked with compassionate determination to bring the emotional
search to a conclusion."
Waterloo Fire Chief Travis Harlow said the "ultimate goal" was to find Josue's
body. Severe weather pulled crews off the river about 1 p.m. Sunday, he said,
but they were back searching at 8 a.m. today.
More than 100 officers from the FBI, Omaha police and local law enforcement
agencies spent the weekend searching a milelong stretch of West Center Road
east of the Elkhorn River. They reportedly were looking for the baseball bat
and knife and possibly a cellphone. Those items had not been found as of Monday
night.
DJ Ginsberg of the United States ATV Search & Rescue team said he was relieved
to know the search for Josue was over. About 14 members of the team searched
both sides of the river Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
"I'm just glad that his body was found," Ginsberg said. "There can now be
closure for the family."
The search for Josue may have closure, but the search for answers does not.
As relatives and friends heard Monday that searchers had found Josue, his baby
sitter, Teresa Rivera-Avelar, sobbed uncontrollably. Rivera-Avelar - who
watched Josue and Angel 6 days a week - spent time with Ismenia Marinero and
her boys just hours before they disappeared.
"I spent all of my time with them. They (Josue and Angel) grew up at my house,"
she said. "I loved Josue as my own child, and Ismenia was my best friend."
A fund has been set up for the Ramirez-?Marinero family. Make a donation at any
Omaha U.S. Bank branch.
(source: omaha.com)
USA:
Colorado movie gunman's lawyers object to 'upsetting' testimony
Lawyers trying to avoid the death penalty for Colorado movie massacre gunman
James Holmes objected on Monday when prosecutors tried to bring testimony the
defense called "upsetting" from investigators at the bloody crime scene in July
2012.
Public defenders for Holmes, 27, argued that the former graduate student's
right to a fair trial would be jeopardized by lurid details of the scene where
12 people were killed and 70 wounded at the packed midnight premiere of a
Batman film in a Denver area multiplex. Prosecutor Rich Orman responded with
scorn.
"The upsetting thing is that the defendant went into a theater of innocent
people and shot! The upsetting thing is the defendant shot a little girl,"
Orman said, his voice shaking with emotion.
"The upsetting thing is the crime."
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Holmes, who has pleaded not
guilty by reason of insanity to multiple counts of murder and attempted murder.
Beginning the 3rd week of the trial that is expected to last 4 to 5 months,
attorneys for the former neuroscience graduate student objected to prosecution
plans to call a fingerprint expert who examined the bodies.
The defense lawyers said the testimony was likely to be "upsetting" and
"unnecessary" because it follows multiple other law enforcement witnesses who
described finding the victims inside theater nine of the Century 16 cinema in
Aurora.
Arapahoe County District Court Judge Carlos Samour ruled that the prosecution
can present evidence on identifying the dead, as long as it does not belabor
the point. He said he would deal with defense objections on a
question-by-question basis.
The jury also heard from an FBI special agent who showed photographs of Holmes'
bomb- and booby-trapped apartment.
Among the images was a calendar hanging on his bedroom wall with the date of
the massacre, July 20, 2012, circled next to a number 1 and the mathematical
symbol for infinity.
His public defenders say Holmes suffers from schizophrenia and was not in
control of his actions when he plotted and carried out the attack. They concede
that he opened fire in the theater, and say only his state of mind should be in
question.
They say the jury could be prejudiced against Holmes if the prosecution
persists in its strategy of calling crime scene technicians to give detailed
testimony, interspersed with heart-wrenching accounts from wounded survivors.
The prosecution says Holmes carried out the massacre because he had lost his
girlfriend and career, and had a "longstanding hatred of mankind."
(source: Reuters)
*******************
Neuro-expert testifies for Tsarnaev
This is the 2nd post in a series about the application of neuroscientific
research about the adolescent brain to the defense of Dzohkar Tsarnaev, who was
found guilty last month of bombing the Boston Marathon in April 2013.
Now, in the sentencing phase of the trial, the defense called Jay N. Giedd last
week. Geidd, chief of brain imaging in the Child Psychiatry Branch, National
Institute of Mental Health, is a prominent child and adolescent psychiatrist
who specializes in brain imaging.
As we predicted in our earlier post, the expert witness described the
development of the prefrontal cortex, the area instrumental in planning,
impulse control, and judgment, relative to the limbic, or emotion-regulating,
systems of the brain. Dr. Giedd indicated that the average teen's prefrontal
cortex - recall, Tsarnaev was 19 when he participated in the bombing - is only
1/2 as developed as it will be by the time its owner reaches his late 20s. As a
result, the capacity of the prefrontal cortex to override the aggression or
excitation mediated by the limbic portions of the brain tends to be weak during
the adolescent years.
Dr. Giedd also spoke of teens' predilection for choosing smaller, short-term
rewards over long-term gains: They are "less worried about longer-term
consequences." The implication here is that Tsarnaev's brain, like all teen
brains, was especially sensitive to pressure by peers and loved ones. The
approval of his domineering older brother Tamerlan, this narrative suggests,
was made even more compelling for Dzohkar because of the way his brain
functioned.
On cross-examination, though, Dr. Geidd acknowledged large variations in brain
development across individuals. He further granted that "Even under age 10,
they can do quite well with planning and consequences" and that there is much
we don't yet know about drawing strong connections between features of the
brain and a given teen's behavior. Trying to grasp the brain's complexity, he
noted, is "humbling business."
It is also humbling to try to infer a killer's state of mind - that is, his
motives and understanding of right and wrong. Here, the immature brain strategy
loses much of its force: still developing or not, teens' basic moral schema are
formed well before age 19. One does not need a fully formed brain to know that
blasting nails and ball bearings into a crowd has lethal and personally tragic
consequences. Any 9 year-old who is not intellectually deficient grasps the
finality of death and understands that killing innocent people is wrong.
Although many teens might impulsively go on a joy ride or two with older
friends or foolishly stay out late the night before a morning exam, virtually
none seriously consider murdering others, let alone undertake the act of doing
so.
How did the jury seem to respond to the information about the teen brain? We
can't tell from news reports whether the defense invoked vivid brain images
(though we imagine that such exhibits would have been noted in the press
coverage), but according to Jack Lepiarz, WBUR reporter, the testimony on the
teen brain did not seem "sexy" relative to the gore-filled exhibits of jagged
wounds and torn limbs presented by the prosecution during the guilt phase.
But how much influence would images wield if they had indeed been shown? During
the earlier days of neurolaw, judges and prosecutors worried that brain scans
would be too compelling, or "prejudicial," to juries. That might have been the
case a decade ago when multi-colored brain scans were a novelty in media
coverage. Perhaps by now, however, many laypersons have become inured to them.
Recall the case of Herbert Weinstein discussed in the previous post. He was the
executive who strangled his wife during an argument and then pushed her out the
window of their Manhattan high-rise to make her death look like a suicide.
Weinstein, as we noted, was discovered to have a large fluid-filled cyst in the
right orbitofrontal cortex. Reportedly, the prosecutor was not impressed with
the hypothesis that the cyst led him to commit murder, but he agreed to a plea
deal because he thought the jury would be persuaded by the images.
In a 2009 case of an Illinois defendant named Brian Dugan, the judge, too, was
concerned about the prejudicial power of brain scans. Dugan faced the death
penalty for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a 10-year-old girl. To vacate
his death sentence, the defense team turned to fMRI to buttress the claim that
he was a psychopath, a morally disabled man whose sickness was such that he
could not feel right from wrong or that he did not care about the distinction.
As a psychopath, Dugan would have known that killing and raping an innocent
person was against the law, but he would have been poor at empathizing
emotionally and perhaps even regarded the misery he'd inflicted on others as
being "their problem, not mine." Under testing conditions, Dugan's fMRI showed
diminished activity in the "paralimbic system," an interconnected set of
emotion-processing structures in the brain.
At trial, however, the judge did not allow the psychologist called by the
defense, Dr. Kent Kiehl of the University of New Mexico, to display scans of
the defendant's abnormal paralimbic activity; he worried that they might
confuse or mislead the jury. As a compromise, he allowed Kiehl to show jurors a
diagram of the findings and to explain their meaning. In the end, the jury was
unmoved and sentenced Dugan to death.
In the courtroom there are, of course, so many variables that impinge on
jurors' views: the quality of the lawyering, the strength of witness testimony,
the appeal of the defendant himself, and so on. In controlled lab studies,
scientists have explored whether brain images can seduce participants into
accepting logically flawed statements, but the findings have been mixed. Other
work on prospective jurors suggests that scans may sometimes, but not always,
lessen the amount of punishment participants mete out to presumed criminals.
The scans, it seems, hold less persuasive power than neurobiological language
to dampen observers' intuition about blaming the perpetrator.
Some scientists argue that brain-based explanations of immoral or antisocial
actions are effective antidotes against stigma. If people view mental illnesses
as diseases of the brain, their reasoning goes, they may be less likely to
blame offenders for their misbehavior. Research supports this possibility but
there is a largely unappreciated flip side: attributing people's bad behavior
to bad brains (or genes) rather than poor character or a bad childhood leads
others to believe that these individuals are more dangerous and resistant to
treatment or rehabilitation. Biological explanations of mental illness and
addiction further fuel pessimism about the likelihood of recovery and the
effectiveness of treatment.
Thus far, then, it would appear that its influence on the jury may well have
been minimal. If so, this is all for the good. No game-changing information was
imparted by the neuroscientist's testimony last week. For one thing, the
testimony was about teens as a group, not about Tsarnaev himself; nor was it
about a defect per se. Also, his crime has a compelling psychological
explanation that no neuroscience story can readily explain away.
Nor did his testimony tell us much that psychologists - and many parents - have
not already known for decades, namely, that many adolescents prioritize
short-term rewards over long-term punishments. Tsarnaev was almost certainly
influenced by his brother and swayed by his emotional appeals, but he
repeatedly elected to follow his brother's directives. His efforts were planned
and protracted, and his actions sustained by a set of internally consistent, if
profoundly hateful, beliefs. Tsarnaev's story is a human tragedy, a tale of
devastating personal choices about which developmental neurophysiology has
precious little to add.
(source: Dr. Sally Satel and Prof. Scott O. Lilienfeld , guest blog; Washington
Post)
**********************
Police violence, executions, Gitmo: US grilled by UN human rights panel
The UN Human Rights Council called out the US over the disturbing trend of
excessive force being used against minorities by law enforcement agencies,
adding that the US has "largely failed" to follow up on recommendations made in
2010.
Appearing before the so-called Universal Periodic Review, which all 193 UN
countries must submit to every 4 years, US ambassador to the council Keith
Harper and acting US legal advisor Mary McLeod were quizzed regarding recent
cases of police brutality.
Namibia UN representative Gladice Pickering called on US officials to
"collaborate closely with marginalized communities to fix the broken justice
system that continues to discriminate against them, despite recent waves of
protest over racial profiling and police killings of unarmed black men."
James Cadogan, a senior counselor in the US Justice Department's civil rights
division, told the meeting in Geneva his country must strive to ensure that
"our civil rights laws live up to their promise," before rattling off a list of
cases of high-profile killings of unarmed black men by the US police.
"The tragic deaths of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Michael Brown in Missouri,
Eric Garner in New York, Tamir Rice in Ohio, and Walter Scott in South Carolina
have... challenged us to do better and to work harder for progress," he said.
In the case of Freddie Gray, 6 police officers have been charged in connection
with Gray's death. The public is closely watching the results of such cases,
coming as it does just months after the death of Michael Brown, the unarmed
black teenager who was shot and killed in Ferguson, allegedly as his arms were
raised in a surrendering gesture.
One of the outgrowths of these unfortunate incidences has been the so-called
Black Lives Matter movement, which began as a hashtag after George Zimmerman's
acquittal for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in 2013, and gained momentum
following the shooting of Michael Brown.
Cadogan said criminal charges have been brought against more than 400 law
enforcement officials in the last 6 years, the AP reported.
Human Rights Watch says the US has "largely failed" to introduce the UN's
recommendations from 2010. These included not only the subject of police
brutality, but also the study of racial inequalities regarding the death
penalty.
"The US has been strong on process and short on substance," Antonio Ginatta, US
advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement ahead of the
latest review.
At the same time, the US heard calls to close Guantanamo Bay, the detention
facility on Cuban territory where over 100 men continue to be held, as well as
reining in Internet surveillance, the AP reported.
Representatives from Brazil and Kenya expressed concern over the full extent of
America's surveillance system, brought into the light of day in 2013 by NSA
whistleblower Edward Snowden. Last week, a federal appeals court ruled that the
National Security Agency's program to collect data on phone calls violates the
Constitution.
David Bitkower, a deputy assistant attorney general with the US Justice
Department, said the government does not collect intelligence to suppress
dissent or to give businesses an advantage, and insisted there is "extensive
and effective oversight to prevent abuse," according to the AP.
The US officials also heard criticism over the continued use of the death
penalty.
Swedish UN representative Anna Jakenberg Brinck called for a "national
moratorium on the death penalty aiming at complete abolition."
Other countries, including France, pushed for "full transparency" in the types
of drugs being administered during executions, following news that some death
row inmates suffered lingering pain and death during their executions.
The United States ranks 5th in the world in executions after China, Iran, Saudi
Arabia and Iraq, according to Amnesty International.
(source: rt.com)
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