Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (voice) 217-244-1478 (fax) fbo...@law.uiuc.edu <mailto:fbo...@law.uiuc.edu> (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- From: thenobelpeaceprizetor...@yahoogroups.com [mailto:thenobelpeaceprizetor...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Boyle, Francis Sent: Friday, October 21, 2005 2:47 PM To: 'thenobelpeaceprizetor...@yahoogroups.com' Cc: nppr...@compar.com Subject: [thenobelpeaceprizetoryan] Ryan Nominated for 2006!
ok. i just nominated George Ryan for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. I faxed the papers through and have a confirmed receipt. The original documents will follow by Federal Express to them. we can put out a press release too if you all want to along the lines of the one already put out. of course i cannot disclose the formal nomination papers themselves since they must remain confidential. i also called Ryan and thanked him for all his fine work against the death penalty and he extended his thanks to all of us for supporting him at this difficult time in his life. we had 4 lawyers draft the nomination papers: Jerry Boyle, Karen Conti, Greg Adamski and me. fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (voice) 217-244-1478 (fax) fbo...@law.uiuc.edu <mailto:fbo...@law.uiuc.edu> (personal comments only) _____ YAHOO! 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URL: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/private/deathpenalty/attachments/20051021/b0e27a3a/attachment.htm From rhalp...@mail.smu.edu Fri Oct 21 18:21:30 2005 From: rhalp...@mail.smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri Oct 21 17:16:29 2005 Subject: [Deathpenalty]death penalty news---TEXAS, IOWA, VA., USA Message-ID: <pine.wnt.4.44.0510211721210.2340-100...@its08705.smu.edu> Oct. 21 TEXAS: Woman Charged with 1st Degree Murder for Shaking Her Baby In Carter County, a woman accused of shaking her 3-month-old baby to death appeared before a judge this afternoon. KTENs Jocelyn Lockwood has the story. Authorities say 20-year-old Laura Renteria admitted to shaking her baby for about a minute. She was being held for unreasonable force against a child, but today the District Attorneys office upped those charges. Sometime over the weekend, Renteria brought her baby to Mercy Memorial hospital. The baby was injured so badly it was later flown to OU Medical Center where it died. Now, the District Attorneys office has upped her charge to 1st-degree murder. Laura Renteria told authorities she was frustrated with the child, and that she couldnt make it stop crying. At 1:30 today, she appeared before a Carter County judge, via video monitor, where she learned she is now being charged with the murder of her baby. "Well, anytime a child dies it is a difficult case, we see a lot of things up here, but certainly thats at the top as far as the most difficult cases to deal with emotionally, but nevertheless thats what we do," said Craig Ladd, Assistant District Attorney. "That's our job, it is to file charges based on what the evidence indicates." Renteria is being held in the Carter County jail on a 1-million dollar bond. Today, the judge set her hearing date for December 20th. First-degree murder charges mean Renteria could face life in prison, life in prison without parole, or the death penalty. (source: KTEN News) ******************** Families of the Executed to Gather for the First Time Survivors of people who were executed by the state will gather for the first time for a day of support, organizing, and the public launch of a project they are calling "No Silence, No Shame: families of the executed speak out against the death penalty." More than 20 survivors will come together in Austin, Texas on Thursday, Oct. 27 for the event, which is being held in conjunction with the annual conference of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. The day of organizing will feature a 4 p.m. public ceremony, which will take place at the Hyatt Regency on Town Lake. "Families of the executed are the death penalty's invisible victims," said Renny Cushing, Executive Director of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights (MVFHR). MVFHR, a non-profit organization of families of victims of murder and state execution who work against the death penalty, initiated the "No Silence, No Shame" project in order to draw attention to the effects of the death penalty on the relatives of the condemned. "As a victims' anti-death penalty organization, we challenge the notion that all victims want and need the death penalty in order to heal," Cushing said. "Our organization includes people who have lost a family member to murder and people who have lost a family member to execution. We know the 2 groups must stand together. With this project, we are bringing family members of the executed together to support each other and strengthen their voices of opposition to the death penalty." Family members of people who were executed are traveling to the gathering from Virginia, Tennessee, California, Missouri, North Carolina, Georgia, and Massachusetts. They will be joined by several family members of persons executed in Texas, a state that leads the nation in executions per year, having carried out 14 of the 42 executions in the United States so far in 2005 - more than any other state. The project's chief message is that the public needs to be made aware of the effect of executions on surviving family members. "You hear about the death penalty on the news, but you really don?t think about it until it affects you," said Billie Jean Mayberry, whose brother Robert Coe was executed in Tennessee in 2000. "I don't think people understand what executions do to the families of the person being executed. To us, our brother was murdered right in front of our eyes. It changed all of our lives." By telling their personal stories, the survivors also draw attention to some of the controversial issues inherent in the death penalty debate - like whether it should be deemed unconstitutional to execute persons suffering from mental illness. "Our son Larry was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic at the age of 21," said Lois Robison of Burleson. The Robisons tried desperately for years to get proper treatment for their son, only to be told, after each hospital discharge, that although he would likely get worse without further care, he was not violent and so was not eligible for long-term treatment. "Our son's first and only act of violence was to kill five people," Lois Robison said. Larry Robison was sentenced to death and executed in 2000. "How can a modern, civilized society choose to exterminate its ill citizens rather than treat them?" his mother wonders. One of the participants in the "No Silence, No Shame" gathering is Robert Meeropol. Meeropol is the Executive Director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, a foundation he started as a legacy to his parents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. In 1953, when Robert was six years old, his parents were executed by the United States government for "conspiring to steal the secret of the atomic bomb." Though the Rosenbergs' controversial case attracted considerable attention, Meeropol points out that the effect of executions on surviving children has been largely ignored. "As far as I know no one has studied how the execution of an immediate family member impacts children," Meeropol said. "We don't even know how many children have an immediate family member on death row in the United States today. Worse, we don't know the effect that having a parent executed will have upon their impressionable lives, and the cost society may pay for that impact." For the families involved in the "No Silence, No Shame" project, the gathering in Austin is just the beginning. The project plans to develop a network of families of the executed around the country, publish materials that educate policymakers about the effect of the death penalty on surviving families, and work with child welfare and mental health professionals to publicize the short- and long-term social costs of executions. (source: NCADP) IOWA: Republicans say they'll bring up death penalty again in January----Democrats call it politics Key Republicans say they'll again push for a vote on the death penalty during the next session of the Iowa Legislature, which begins in January. At least two members of a legislative committee plan to bring the issue up at their meeting next Wednesday. The state outlawed capital punishment in 1965, but Senator Jeff Angelo, a Republican from Creston, says recent crimes against children have Iowans rethinking that. "There are a lot of folks (who) say to us, you know, given the monstrosity of the some of the crimes that we're seeing, they believe that (the death penalty) may be justifiable," Angelo says. "I think it's even given death penalty opponents some pause when you think about some of the crime that we've seen." This past spring after the kidnapping, rape and murder of nine-year-old Jetseta Gage of Cedar Rapids -- allegedly at the hands of a convicted sex offender -- a few Republicans in the Senate proposed a limited death penalty that would apply in such child murder cases, but the Senate Democratic Leader refused to allow a vote on the proposal. The 50-member Iowa Senate's split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, so Republicans like Angelo would need to change the mind of that Democrat Leader to get a death penalty bill passed in the Senate. "I think that there are enough conservative Democrats to get us to 26 (votes to pass the bill)," Angelo says. "I would like to see the political pressure build to bring (the death penalty bill) to a vote." But Senate Democratic Leader Michael Gronstal of Council Bluffs says he will continue to block a vote on the death penalty. Gronstal says Republicans are "disingenuous" because Republicans held control of the Iowa Senate for eight years, and never passed the death penalty when they had a Republican Governor -- Terry Branstad -- who would have signed it into law. Current Governor Tom Vilsack, a Democrat, would veto any death penalty bill that reaches his desk. "They're shifting into full political mode," Gronstal says. "The only time Republicans really care about the political death penalty is...in election years." Gronstal accuses Republicans of "using" a tragedy for political gain. "I think that's the worst kind of politics," Gronstal says. "Taking an incredible tragedy like this and just playing politics with it when they know full well it won't pass the House, the Senate, or the governor won't sign it." Republicans, though, intend to campaign against Democrats who have opposed the death penalty as they believe a majority of Iowans support it. The trial of the man accused of sexually molesting Jetseta Gage is scheduled to start in January, and Roger Bentley, that man's brother, is the one accused of kidnapping, raping and killing the girl after his brother was accused of molesting Jetseta. (source: RadioIowa) VIRGINIA: Why Many Eyes Are on the Virginia Race This year's contest for governor of Virginia is being viewed as almost everything except a contest for governor of Virginia. It's said to be a test of the political impact of President Bush's growing unpopularity, of the wide popularity of incumbent Democratic Gov. Mark Warner and of the political skills of George Allen, the state's ambitious Republican junior senator. Well, yes, the Bush factor will be much studied, and it will be worth noticing if Warner helps elect Tim Kaine, the state's Democratic lieutenant governor, or if Allen gets Republican Jerry Kilgore, the former attorney general, across the finish line. But the election is between Kaine and Kilgore, and the most important national implications of November's voting will grow from issues -- in particular, the death penalty and sprawl -- that the 2 men are raising themselves. If Kilgore wins on the basis of a truly scandalous series of advertisements about the death penalty, it will encourage Republicans all over the country to pull a stained and tattered battle flag out of the closet. Kaine is a Roman Catholic who opposes the death penalty. "My faith teaches life is sacred," he says. "I personally oppose the death penalty." I cheer Kaine for being one of the few politicians with the guts to say this the way he does. It's disturbing that faith-based political stands that don't point in a conservative direction rarely inspire the church-based political activism that, say, abortion, arouses. Maybe some of the churches will examine their consciences. But Virginia has a death penalty on the books, so Kaine says plainly: "I take my oath of office seriously, and I'll enforce the death penalty." That's not good enough for Kilgore. You have to read much of the ad he ran on this issue to believe it. In the commercial, Stanley Rosenbluth, whose son Richard and daughter-in-law Becky were murdered, declares: "Mark Sheppard shot Richard twice and went over and shot Becky 2 more times. Tim Kaine voluntarily represented the person who murdered my son. He stood with murderers in trying to get them off death row. No matter how heinous the crime, he doesn't believe that death is a punishment. Tim Kaine says that Adolf Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty. This was the worst mass murderer in modern times. . . . I don't trust Tim Kaine when it comes to the death penalty, and I say that as a father who's had a son murdered." Rosenbluth has every right to his rage, and all of us empathize with his loss. What can't be justified is the exploitation of someone else's emotion for the crassest of political purposes, or the underlying message of the ad. Representing death row inmates is unpopular but essential because it allows the justice system to work -- and that includes finding guilty people guilty. Challenging prosecutors to make sure the wrong people aren't executed can actually be a service to crime victims. No one wants an innocent person put to death so the guilty party can remain at large to kill again. Then there was that astounding Hitler reference. What does Hitler, who is thoroughly dead, have to do with the future of Virginia? When a reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch asked Kaine about the death penalty and Hitler, Kaine struggled with what is the hardest case of all for capital punishment's opponents. "God grants life, and God should take it away," Kaine said as part of a lengthy and somewhat indeterminate answer. "[Do] horrible, heinous things deserve incredible punishment? You bet." Kaine was conflicted over this difficult hypothetical, and why not? I respect him for not giving the easy, political answer -- which, I confess, I would have been tempted to give: make an exception for Hitler, put him to death, next question. Kilgore, under fire for the ridiculous death penalty ads, moved on this week to other issues. So did Kaine. He is trying to win over previously Republican voters in Northern Virginia's rapidly growing Prince William and Loudoun counties by offering localities more tools to regulate development. "We can't just tax and pave our way out of traffic," Kaine says. "I'll give your community more power to stop out-of-control development that increases traffic." Note the conservative side of the anti-sprawl message: Kaine is talking about the limits of taxing and spending, and about the importance of local control. Sprawl is one of those issues with the potential to scramble existing political alliances. So, yes, the Virginia governor's race has national implications. It is a contest between backward-looking wedge politics and forward-looking problem solving. My hunch is that Virginia's voters know this. (source: Washington Post) USA: Despite Opposition, Lawmakers Push Limits to Defendants Rights After temporarily shelving a measure that would severely restrict the rights of criminal defendants to challenge state convictions in the federal court system and restrain federal judges from reviewing death-penalty convictions, the Senate is set to consider an alternate bill with many of the same provisions. The federal judiciarys policy-making body opposes the efforts. Last week, the Senate decided to delay a vote on The Streamlined Procedures Act (SPA) of 2005 after receiving two separate letters from the Judicial Conference cautioning that the act would interfere with federal courts ability to review all manner of capital convictions in state courts, The National Law Journal reported yesterday. Some Democratic Senators had raised objections to the act as well. Introduced by Senator Jon Kyl (R-Arizona), SPA would place barriers on defendants seeking federal review of their convictions under habeas corpus, a centuries-old legal maneuver providing the only means by which a person can bring a state conviction to the federal judiciary short of going to the Supreme Court. Additionally, the SPA would bar federal courts from opening examinations into many, if not most, state death-penalty convictions, according to the Congressional Research Service. Supporters of the SPA say the law is the only means to unclog what they see as a backlog of cases awaiting federal review. Opponents warn that passage of the bill represents a drastic departure from long-standing practices in the nations court system. Official court records show that the number of habeas cases resolved each year is nearly the same as the number filed, The National Law Journal reported, indicating that no such backlog exists. Instead of acting on the SPA, the Senate is preparing to hold hearings on an amended version offered by Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania). The Specter measure lessens restrictions on federal oversight but holds onto rules requiring a convict seeking federal review to demonstrate innocence before a federal court may intervene, The National Law Journal said. Senate hearings on Specters bill are schedule for October 26. (source: The NewStandard)
