April 11 PUERTO RICO: Murder case unites Puerto Ricans against death penalty----Capital punishment prohibited on island, but Washington says federal crimes an exception. The possible execution of two men convicted of murdering a security guard is arousing broad opposition in this U.S. territory, where some are calling it only the latest intrusion by the federal government into local affairs. Puerto Rico abolished capital punishment in 1929, but Washington has reserved the right to execute suspects convicted of federal crimes. Now Lorenzo Catalan Roman and Hernando Medina Villegas, convicted by a federal jury last month in the 2002 shooting death of Gilberto Rodriguez Cabrera during an armored-car robbery in the central town of Gurabo, could become the 1st islanders to be put to death in nearly 80 years. The sentencing phase of the trial begins today before U.S. District Judge Juan Perez Gimenez in San Juan. "This is what it means to live in a colony," said island Sen. Maria de Lourdes Santiago, a member of the Puerto Rico Independence Party. "A court from another country, at the request of prosecutors who respond to the government of that country, can punish with death a Puerto Rican for a crime committed on Puerto Rican soil, without it mattering that our constitution prohibits it." It isn't only the minority independentistas who object. The island House and Senate, both controlled by the statehood-seeking New Progressive Party, have approved resolutions registering their opposition. The New Progressive Party Resident Commissioner Luis Fortuno, the island's non-voting delegate to Congress, was sounding out colleagues on the possibility of exempting Puerto Rico from capital punishment. And Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila, the leader of the commonwealth-supporting Popular Democratic Party, has asked U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez not to seek the death penalty here. "When the Department of Justice has to make the decision of whether to request of a jury to consider the death penalty, one of the elements they must take into consideration is the community," said Acevedo Vila, an attorney by profession. "This is so deep in terms of the values of the Puerto Rican community that it's in our constitution." On an island where the homicide rate is three times the national average, not everyone opposes capital punishment. Some here say the possibility of execution could deter would-be criminals. "Our values are going down the drain," said Miguel Martinez, a 60-year-old security guard in San Juan. "The death penalty may be the only way to revive respect for them." But if callers to radio programs and statements by politicians are any indication, opposition to capital punishment here appears both overwhelming and broad-based. The cause appears to have united Puerto Ricans across ideological lines like none since the campaign against the Navy's practice bombing of Vieques. "Puerto Ricans massively reject the death penalty," said Julio Fontanet, president of the Puerto Rico Bar Association. The largest organization of island lawyers already has filed its objections with the federal government, the Organization of American States and the United Nations. The American Civil Liberties Union, the Legal Assistance Society and the Caribbean Justice and Peace Project also have weighed in against executing Catalan and Medina. Amnesty International organized a protest outside the federal courthouse here on Good Friday calling for "No more crucifixions." Puerto Rico wrote the prohibition of capital punishment in its commonwealth constitution of 1952. In 2000, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court found that any application here of the death penalty is unconstitutional. But the following year the 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston overturned that ruling, saying the island is subject to federal law. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld that decision. Catalan and Villegas were accused in three armed robberies of Ranger American Armored Services in 2001 and 2002. Rodriguez was shot during the third robbery, outside the Saulo Rodriguez Credit Union in Gurabo in March 2002. Another guard was wounded. During the trial at U.S. District Court in San Juan, the defense argued that the case should have been tried in local courts. But federal prosecutors said they had jurisdiction because the shooting interfered with interstate commerce. Defense attorney Juan Alvarez said the shooting, which was captured on videotape and lasted 31 seconds, was not premeditated. "They reacted, they didn't think," he said during closing arguments. A jury must find premeditation to impose the death penalty. But prosecutor Lynn Doble called the evidence against the men "solid and decisive." She told jurors that Rodriguez's last words were, "No, no, please, no." The same jury now will hear the penalty phase of the trial. Prosecutors may present evidence of aggravating circumstances, such as information about the manner of the killing, any criminal record of the defendants and the impact of the killing on the victim's family. Any member of the victim's family may testify before the jury in what is called a victim impact statement. The defense may present mitigating evidence, such as the defendants' life experience, details of their roles in the killing, and remorse they feel. After instructions by the judge and closing arguments by both sides, the jury will decide for each defendant between death or life without release from prison. The case of Catalan and Villegas is the second here in which the U.S. attorney general has authorized federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. 2 men who faced the death penalty in a murder trial last year were acquitted. Seven other suspects awaiting federal trial here could face execution. The attorney general has authorized prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Carlos Ayala Lopez, who is to be tried this year for the shooting death of a Department of Veterans Affairs officer in 2002. The U.S. Department of Justice is studying possible death-penalty certification in the cases of 2 men and a woman accused in the carjacking and beating death last year of a man in the north-coast town of Dorado and three men accused in the disappearance of a local woman in 1999. Puerto Rico's last execution was in 1927 when a farm worker was hanged for beheading his boss with a machete. (source: The Morning Call) OHIO: Jury Selection Begins in Highway Shootings Attorneys for Charles A. McCoy Jr. face one of the toughest courtroom challenges: They must paint a picture of a delusional man even as a jury looks over at a calm, collected and medicated defendant. "It's going to be a horse race," said Andrew Haney, one of three attorneys for McCoy, a 29-year-old with a history of paranoid schizophrenia who is charged in a deadly string of highway shootings around central Ohio between October 2003 and February 2004. Jury selection in his trial began Friday and the trial is expected to last until mid-May. Panelists must decide if McCoy goes to prison, death row or to a mental hospital. McCoy has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to aggravated murder and assault in 12 shootings -- including the fatal shooting of 62-year-old Gail Knisley. He could face the death penalty if convicted of aggravated murder. Law professors say it will be hard to prove that firing his handgun toward houses, a school and moving vehicles meant that he intended to kill the people inside. That proof would be essential for the 8 attempted murder charges and the possibility of a death sentence. On the other side, McCoy's attorneys are using one of the most unpopular and least successful strategies in a jury trial. Many juries see the insanity defense as tantamount to confessing but trying to escape punishment. It would take three separate unanimous votes for the jury to recommend a death sentence. They would have to convict McCoy of aggravated murder in the death of Knisley, who was being driven to a doctor's appointment; agree that the killing was part of a pattern of behavior trying to kill 2 or more people; and, after a sentencing phase, recommend execution. Franklin County Prosecutor Ronald O'Brien said he has to prove only that McCoy intended the "natural and probable consequences" of firing at a moving vehicle with a person driving it. He compared it to firing into a crowded stadium knowing that someone could get hit. Most of the defense's evidence will involve McCoy's 10-year history of paranoid schizophrenia, which causes delusions and inappropriate emotions. The insanity plea is used in fewer than 1 % of felony cases and rarely succeeds, said Thomas Hafemeister, director of legal studies at the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. (source: Associated Press) NEW YORK: Death penalty objection [New York has not executed anyone since 1963 and had no death penalty for 30 years until a new law was enacted in 1995. 7 defendants were sent to death row since then. But the state's highest court overturned three of the death sentences on technical grounds before finally ruling in last June that the law could not be enforced because of the "deadlock instruction" provision. The Court of Appeals found there was a substantial risk of coercing jurors into voting for death when they were told that a judge would sentence a defendant to life with parole if the jury could not decide between death and life without parole]. Pat Clark finds flaws in the argument that families of murder victims deserve to see the killers get the death penalty. "There is this assumption that in order to provide needed closure ... that you have to provide the death penalty," said the vice chairwoman of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation and executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation who participated in a forum at New City Library yesterday sponsored by the Lower Hudson Valley chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union and 16 other organizations. Clark, whose uncle and cousin were murdered, said she had encountered skepticism that the loved ones of murder victims could object to the death penalty. "Far too often, family members who are opposed to the death penalty are treated as if they're different, irrational, not quite there," she said, noting that family members' motivations sometimes stemmed from a desire to have perpetrators live a long time to think about their crimes. "We would like for folks to stop using us to justify a punishment that we feel is immoral and inappropriate." The discussion came the same week a state Assembly panel was expected to move to reactivate the now-dormant death penalty. About 50 people in attendance seemed transfixed during Ray Krone's matter-of-fact recitation of how he spent 10 years in an Arizona prison - some of them on death row - for a murder he did not commit. He described the legal wranglings involved in having his case reopened and getting DNA evidence that finally resulted in the apprehension of a different suspect. Krone, who was released 3 years ago, credited the support of family and friends and reading the Bible with helping him endure his incarceration. "What they did to me they can do to any of you," said Krone, who was released three years ago. "The death penalty is not something we can be proud of. It's one of the ultimate human rights violations there are." New York's top court imposed a moratorium on capital punishment in 2004, effectively suspending the death penalty law, said Kevin Doyle, head of New York State's Capital Defenders Office. Laura Porter, statewide organizer for New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, said a vote on reinstating a death penalty bill was expected in the Assembly Codes Committee tomorrow. Porter urged people to call their representatives and express their opposition to the death penalty, and her comment that state Assemblyman Ryan Karben was one of the handful of people who spoke in favor of the punishment during Assembly hearings earlier this year drew gasps of dismay from the crowd. "I'm very unhappy about it, because Karben happens to be our representative," said Marilyn Celnick of Chestnut Ridge, who was at the event with her husband, Herbert. "I intend to call him." Last night, Karben, D-Monsey, said he believed the death penalty should be "rarely utilized." "There remain some crimes in this world that are so horribly evil, killing a police officer, mowing down a schoolyard of kids, that I think that in those very limited circumstances, juries should have the opportunity to consider whether to impose a penalty of death," he said. Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, D-New City, who sits on the Codes Committee, could not be reached for comment last night. Others shared strenuous objections to the punishment yesterday. Coni Williams of Spring Valley said Krone's case highlighted that the process was rife with error and inequity. "There is no way I would want to put anybody on death row, not in America, because with all the evidence they had" in Krone's case, the system still failed an innocent man, she said. "And he's a white man," added Williams, who is black. "Now what do you think they would do with a poor black teenager? They would throw him under the jail and throw away the key." (source: The Journal News) NEW HAMPSHIRE: In letters, confessed killer expected to get death penalty The man sentenced to life in prison last week for killing his sister and her 2 small children thought he would be put to death for his crimes. Christopher Bernard, 36, pleaded guilty Friday to 1st-degree murder for stabbing to death Tricia Doyle, 30, of Hooksett; her daughter, Gillian,4; and her son, James, 2, on Oct. 4. Hours after officials discovered their bodies, Bernard tried to kill himself by running onto Interstate 93, where he was hit by a truck. He was treated at Elliott Hospital for two days, then was transferred to the state psychiatric hospital in Concord, where he was arrested. In letters written to the New Hampshire Union Leader before his sentencing, Bernard said the state was seeking capital murder indictments against him. "Word is they are going for the death penalty," Bernard wrote in a Feb. 11 letter. "I am not afraid to die, live free or die, Semper Fi." Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said prosecutors were not threatening to bring capital murder charges. State law allows the death penalty in sexual killings. Ayotte said while there were sexual overtones in the slayings, no semen was found and laboratory testing of other forensic evidence did not conclude that the victims were sexually assaulted. Bernard began writing to a Union Leader reporter in November and sent eight short letters from the jail where he was being held before his sentencing. His writing is difficult to decipher, the Union Leader said in an article published yesterday. Many of his letters were disjointed, jumping from topic to topic, sometimes sentence to sentence, the newspaper said. He never talked about the slayings, the Union Leader said. In a Nov. 26 letter Bernard talked about a man who was accused of killing his children. ''Do you know the Manuel [Gehring] case [the] guy that killed his 2 kids," he wrote. He names an inmate who, he said, had been in the cell next to the one holding Manuel Gehring, 44, of Concord. Gehring was charged with fatally shooting his children, Sarah, 14, and Phillip, 11, on July 4, 2003. He hanged himself Feb. 19, 2004, in the Merrimack County jail in Boscawen. In his final letter on March 26, Bernard said the indictment would not be brought until May 1. (source: Associated Press) CONNECTICUT: Psychiatric testimony focus on Ross hearing A psychiatric expert on the effects of long-term incarceration was called to testify Monday at a hearing into the mental competency of serial killer Michael Ross, who is scheduled to become the 1st person executed in New England in 45 years. Ross testified Friday that he remains resolute in his decision to end his appeals and accept the death penalty, but acknowledged that a renewed relationship with his former fiancee has complicated the issue. Dr. Stuart Grassian, a former Harvard instructor, was expected to discuss whether Ross' years in prison have compromised his ability to make a rational decision about ending his own life. Ross' execution was put on hold Jan. 28 after his attorney, T.R. Paulding, said he needed to explore the possibility that Ross' living conditions may have contributed to his decision to accept execution. Ross has been on death row for nearly 2 decades. Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford appointed another attorney, Thomas Groark, to investigate and argue the position that Ross is incompetent, a position that Ross continues to dispute. Groark asked Grassian to interview Ross, and Grassian's report was expected to be made public at Monday's hearing. Earlier this year, Grassian testified in federal court that Ross' writings provide evidence that he is accepting a death sentence because living on death row has become intolerable. Ross has said he simply wants to end the suffering of his victims' families. Ross is scheduled to die May 11 for killing 4 young women in Connecticut in 1983 and 1984. He has admitted killing 8 women in Connecticut and New York and raping most of them. (source: Associated Press) IOWA: Death penalty reinstatement likely to fail A Senate Republican plan to reinstate the death penalty is expected to fail this week. The only question is how it will happen. GOP leaders hope it goes down fighting, with impassioned speeches and fodder for future campaigns, while Democrats wouldn't mind if it expires quietly in some back room. Also this week, the Senate faces the deadline to vote on Gov. Tom Vilsack's nominees to state boards and commissions. All eyes will be on the controversial candidacy of Ruth Harkin, wife of U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who has been nominated to the Board of Regents. The death penalty debate is inspired by the kidnapping and murder of a 10-year-old Cedar Rapids girl three weeks ago. The man charged in the crime is a convicted sex offender. Within days of the crime, the Iowa House passed a bill strengthening the penalties and monitoring of sex offenders. House Speaker Christopher Rants, R-Sioux City, said the death penalty wouldn't be part of the discussion because it wouldn't pass in his chamber, where Republicans hold a 51-49 majority. But in the Senate, where the parties are tied 25-25, Sen. Larry McKibben, R-Marshalltown, said he would seek to amend the bill to include the death penalty. That brought howls of disgust from Democrats, who accused the GOP of attempting to capitalize on a tragedy by making a proposal that both sides know won't pass. Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs said he would not allow a floor debate on the issue. "They all know they don't have the votes on the death penalty," he said about Republicans. "So we're not going to engage in a contentious debate over that issue this session." (source: Globe Gazette) ********************** GOP lacks votes to pass death penalty An Iowa Senate Republican plan to reinstate the death penalty is as good as dead this week. The only question is how it dies. GOP leaders hope it goes down fighting, with impassioned speeches and fodder for future campaigns, while Democrats would not mind if it expires quietly in some back room. Also this week, the Senate faces a deadline to vote on Gov. Tom Vilsack's nominees to state boards and commissions. All eyes will be on the controversial candidacy of Ruth Harkin, the wife of U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who has been nominated for a seat on the Board of Regents. One area expected to remain quiet is budget negotiations, which, depending on who you ask, are either stalled or nonexistent. "Right now, I'm going to say we're a very long ways apart on the budget," Senate Republican Leader Stewart Iverson of Dows said. The death penalty debate has been inspired by the kidnapping and murder of a 10-year-old Cedar Rapids girl 3 weeks ago. The man charged in the case is a convicted sex offender. Within days of the crime, the Iowa House passed a bill strengthening the penalties against and the monitoring of sex offenders. House Speaker Christopher Rants, R-Sioux City, said the death penalty would not be part of the discussion because it would not pass in his chamber, where Republicans hold a 51-49 majority. But in the Senate, where the parties are tied 25-25, Sen. Larry McKibben, R-Marshalltown, said he would seek to amend the bill to include the death penalty. That brought howls of disgust from Democrats, who accused the GOP of attempting to capitalize on a tragedy by making a proposal that both sides know is destined to fail. Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs said he would not allow a floor debate on the issue. "They all know they don't have the votes on the death penalty," he said of the Republicans. "So we're not going to engage in a contentious debate over that issue this session." McKibben concedes he may not have the votes, but he thinks the issue is important enough that it deserves a fair hearing. He plans to propose legalizing the death penalty for offenders who kidnap or rape a child before murdering them. "Frankly, I pray we'd never have to use it," he said, voicing his hope that the death penalty would deter criminals. The issue will likely come to a vote this week when a 6-member Senate committee considers revisions to the House bill. Members of the panel, which includes McKibben, expect the death penalty vote to be tied 3-3 along party lines, meaning the death penalty would not be attached to the bill. What follows is a procedural headache. When the bill goes to the Senate floor, McKibben plans to offer the same amendment, which would lead Gronstal to end debate, effectively killing the bill for the session. If the bill dies, Gronstal said he will seek to amend a later bill - the justice system budget proposal - to include all of the provisions in the sex offender bill. While the death penalty only needs 26 votes to pass, Ruth Harkin and all other gubernatorial nominees need 34 votes. Some Republicans say they will vote no because Harkin is too partisan and has spent most of the past 2 decades living outside Iowa. However, Harkin impressed some GOP members when she testified before the Senate education Committee last month. She touted her independence from her senator husband and said she supports plans to lower administrative costs at state universities. The question is: Was she impressive enough to get the 9 Republican votes she needs to be confirmed? Iverson, who plans to vote against Harkin, said his GOP colleagues intend to discuss the nominees early this week. Until then, he said, it would be premature to speculate on Harkin's chances. (source: Quad Cities Times)
