Aug. 10
TEXAS:
Accused killer faces death penalty in executions of 6 children, 2 adults at
Houston home----David Ray Conley, 49, is accused of tying up his ex-wife, her
husband and their 6 children before shooting each once in the head.
Texas authorities have arrested and charged a man in the execution-style
murders of 6 children and 2 adults inside a Houston home -- where it's believed
the killer crawled through a window to get to the victims.
According to investigators, David Ray Conley, III, entered the home Saturday
night through the unlocked window -- despite the fact that the owner had a
restraining order against him and had changed all the door locks recently.
Once inside, the Harris County Sheriff's Office said, Conley tied up all 8
victims and shot each once in the head -- including several small children. The
victims all died at the scene.
"We do not -- cannot fully comprehend the motivation of an individual that
would take the lives of so many innocent people. Especially the lives of the
youngest," Harris County Chief Deputy Tim Cannon said. "The killer's motives
appear to be related to a dispute with Valerie, who was a former domestic
partner."
Investigators believe Conley, 49, was previously married to the home's owner,
Valerie Jackson, and helped her support the children during the marriage.
The victims were identified as parents Dewayne Jackson, 50, his wife Jackson,
40, and children Nathaniel, 13, Dewayne, Jr., 10, Honesty, 11, Caleb, 9,
Trinity, 7, and Jonah, 6. Nathaniel was believed to be Conley's son from his
relationship with Jackson.
"We are all hurting. It's a difficult day for us at the sheriff's office. Once
again, a tragedy has struck," Cannon said.
The documents, which charge Conley with numerous counts of capital murder,
revealed that the surnames of the 4 identified victims as either Jackson or
Conley.
"He restrained, shot and killed 8 people," Celeste Byrom, an assistant district
attorney said during a brief court hearing Sunday.
Authorities responded to the Jackson home at around 9 p.m. Saturday for a
welfare check. When no one answered the door, deputies became aware that Conley
was inside. Recognizing his outstanding warrant for aggravated assault, backup
units arrived on the scene and surrounded the house, The Washington Post
reported.
Deputies then spotted what appeared to be a body lying inside and entered the
home. Upon entry, they say Conley started shooting at them and they retreated.
After a terse standoff, Conley was taken into custody.
The sheriff's office told the Post that the relationship between Conley and
Jackson was unclear, although Facebook posts indicate that the 2 were
previously married.
Officials say Conley has a domestic violence record that goes at least back to
2000, and was arrested just last month for assaulting Jackson during a domestic
dispute. He has other crimes on his rap sheet that go back to 1988, USA Today
reported.
In 2013, before she received a protective court order against Conley, she
posted that Conley was "the best father in the whole world, my baby, my best
friend, my forever."
A subsequent post read, "You have always put me and our kids ahead of your self
and always take care of home," the Chronicle reported.
(source: United Press International)
**********************
35 years served without conviction, Texas man gets new trial
For more than 35 years, a Texas man has been in a prison even though an appeals
court threw out his conviction on a 1976 murder charge that initially had him
on death row.
On Monday, 59-year-old Jerry Hartfield will return to court for a retrial,
facing a life sentence if convicted of killing a woman who sold tickets at a
Bay City bus station.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers have haggled over who's to blame for decades of
inaction and whether Hartfield's right to a speedy trial have been violated.
But the trial judge has refused to dismiss Hartfield's indictment and
prosecutors recently took the death penalty off the table, citing a 2002 U.S.
Supreme Court ruling barring execution of mentally impaired people.
At a hearing Friday, a psychologist testified Hartfield's IQ is 67, below the
threshold of 70 considered mental impairment.
"Regardless of how the time is parsed out, the delay between the initial
conviction in 1977 and the trial ... is extraordinary," defense attorney Jay
Wooten said in court documents. Potential trial jurors are to arrive Monday for
questioning.
Matagorda County District Attorney Steven Reis has said while prosecutors "may
be partially responsible" for not retrying Hartfield earlier, the state hasn't
acted in bad faith. Hartfield also bears some responsibility for not filing for
nearly a quarter-century, Reis said.
"I don't hold no grudge," Hartfield told The Associated Press in 2012 from a
Texas prison. "All I want to do is just get things right and get back on with
my life again."
Hartfield was 21 in June 1977 when he was convicted of murdering Eunice Lowe,
55, a ticketing agent who was beaten with a pickaxe, stabbed with a glass soda
bottle and robbed. She was raped after she was dead. Her car and nearly $3,000
were stolen in the September 1976 attack at the Bay City bus station, about 100
miles southwest of Houston.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Hartfield's capital murder
conviction in 1980 because of a jury selection problem and ordered a new trial.
3 years later, then-Gov. Mark White commuted Hartfield's sentence to life in
prison.
It wasn't until 2006 that an inmate told Hartfield that because of the
appellate court reversal, it appeared there was no sentence to commute. With
the jailhouse lawyer's assistance, Hartfield, who said he learned to read and
write in prison, filed a handwritten court writ demanding retrial or release.
The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected it twice. Hartfield took it to the
federal courts where U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes agreed in 2009 there was
no conviction.
"Hartfield's position is as straightforward and subtle as a freight train,"
Hughes said. An appeals court agreed.
State District Judge Craig Estlinbaum, who will oversee the retrial,
characterized the case last month as "an unstoppable force meets an immoveable
object."
"On one hand, the state's negligence caused a 30-year delay in bringing
Hartfield to trial. Nonetheless, Hartfield failed to present a clear,
unambiguous demand directly to the trial court for a speedy trial," Estlinbaum
said.
In pretrial motions, Hartfield's attorneys contended his defense is compromised
because the "two most important pieces of physical evidence" aren't available:
the murder weapon can't be found and Lowe's car, returned to relatives, no
longer exists.
Plus, Wooten said, many of the more than 125 people on the prosecution's
witness list are dead or can't be found.
Hartfield was working construction in the Bay City area at the time of Lowe's
death. He was arrested within days in Wichita, Kansas, where he had relatives.
He gave a confession to officers returning him to Texas that defense attorneys
want suppressed. Hartfield told the AP the confession was "bogus."
But the Texas Ranger and Bay City police detective who took the confession
testified at a hearing Friday that it was by the book and they took him to a
hospital afterward so a medical exam could show he hadn't been physically
abused.
"I knew this day was coming," retired Detective Sgt. Doug Holland said.
That statement was among the key evidence, along with an unused bus ticket at
the crime scene that had carried his fingerprints and testimony from witnesses
who said he had talked about needing $3,000.
If convicted again, Hartfield immediately would be eligible for parole under
the Texas law at the time of his original trial.
(source: Associated Press)
GEORGIA:
Attorneys schedule hearings in Conner death-penalty case
Attorneys in the capital murder case of a Columbus man accused of killing his
girlfriend and infant son before setting their house afire have agreed on a
court schedule for pretrial motions.
Brandon David Conner faces the death penalty if convicted in the Aug. 21, 2014,
deaths of 32-year-old girlfriend Rosella "Mandy" Mitchell and their 6-month-old
son Dylan Conner, whose charred bodies were found in their burned 1324 Winifred
Lane home.
Conner is represented by Columbus attorneys Mark Shelnutt and William Kendrick,
who said they expect to file 20 to 30 pretrial motions, which would take about
a week to address in a hearing.
The defense attorneys said they'd like at least 60 days to file those motions,
and Senior Assistant District Attorney Don Kelly said the prosecution would
like the same span of time to file a response. Kelly will prosecute Conner
along with District Attorney Julia Slater.
After hearing from the attorneys, Superior Court Judge William Rumer set this
schedule:
The defense must file its motions by Oct. 9.
The prosecution must respond by Dec. 11.
A "status conference" to work out the order in which the motions will be heard
will be 1:30 p.m. Dec. 16.
The 1st hearing to argue motions will be the week of Jan. 25-29, 2016.
The 2nd hearing will be Feb. 15-19, 2016.
Conner's April 14 indictment alleges he stabbed Mitchell in the throat and
torso with a knife that had a blade longer than 3 inches.
His malice murder charges allege he deliberately killed his girlfriend and
child, and his felony murder counts accuse him of killing the mother and infant
while committing the felony offense of aggravated assault. The indictment does
not specify how the child was killed.
Firefighters found the 2 face-down in a back bedroom of the house after
extinguishing the fire around 12:30 a.m.
Winifred Lane is in south Columbus, off Amber Drive north of Buena Vista Road.
Within an hour of the fire, a police officer confronted Conner at Cedar Avenue
and Wynnton Road in Midtown after watching him sit immobile in his 2001 BMW for
about 10 minutes. Authorities said the officer found Conner to be sweating and
nervous, with blood on him.
After obtaining a search warrant, investigators found more bloodstained clothes
and a large serrated knife in the car, they said.
This is the 2nd case in which Slater, first elected in 2008, has sought the
death penalty. The 1st was the fatal shooting of Heath Jackson during a
burglary at his Carter Avenue home on Sept. 7, 2010.
In May 2013, defendant Ricardo Strozier pleaded guilty to Jackson's homicide
and a string of related crimes. Judge Gil McBride sentenced him to life in
prison without parole.
(source: The Ledger-Enquirer)
MISSISSIPPI:
Death penalty appeal back in court
A state death row inmate is going back to a north Mississippi courtroom to
again fight for a new trial.
The Mississippi Supreme Court has ordered a Lowndes County judge to determine
if the results of post-conviction DNA testing raise enough questions to justify
a new trial for Eddie Lee Howard Jr. Howard, now 61, was convicted and
sentenced to death in the slaying of 84-year-old Georgia Kemp of Columbus.
Evidence against him included bite marks on her body.
The Supreme Court, in the order signed Thursday by Chief Justice Bill Waller
Jr., makes no specific mention of Howard's challenge to the bite mark evidence
that the inmate argues is now widely discredited in legal circles.
Waller's order directs the trial court to hold a hearing to determine if
Howard's arguments of newly discovered evidence including the results of DNA
testing could "probably produce a different result or induce a different
verdict if a new trial is granted."
The court's order does not disclose what the DNA testing revealed. Howard's
attorneys argue in briefs that DNA results do not connect Howard to the crime.
Howard was convicted of raping and fatally stabbing Kemp in 1992. He was
sentenced to death.
Authorities said Kemp's body, with 2 stab wounds to the chest, was found by
Columbus firefighters when they answered a call to her house in 1992. A bloody
butcher knife was found near the body.
Kemp's ankles were bound with nylon stockings and authorities found evidence
that she had been raped, including a bite mark on her body, according to the
court record.
Howard was tried twice in the slaying. Evidence included bite marks on her
body. Forensic dentist Dr. Michael West of Hattiesburg testified they matched
impressions of Howard's teeth.
The Supreme Court threw out his 1994 conviction, ruling the prosecutor's
reliance on bite marks was unsound. The court upheld Howard's 2nd conviction
and death sentence in 2000.
The bite-mark evidence was at the center of oral arguments before the
Mississippi court in July.
Howard's defense attorneys argue bite-mark evidence has been discredited in
many legal circles since Howard's conviction. However, prosecutors said Howard
cannot bring up the issue in a new appeal because he had already raised it once
and it was rejected by the courts.
Attorney Tucker Carrington with the Mississippi Innocence Project argued in
July to the court that new information since Howard's trial shows the
scientific community has rejected the methodology and conclusions West reached
in Howard's case.
Special Assistant Attorney General Jason L. Davis told the justices that before
they toss out Howard's conviction, it would be better to conduct a hearing into
how bite mark evidence is now viewed by the medical community.
In briefs filed in the court, Carrington said the DNA testing was conducted in
2013 and concluded in 2014. He said the only positive results for male DNA came
from the butcher knife, which authorities said was used in the slaying, and the
results excluded Howard as the source.
The attorney general's office argues Howard is drawing his own conclusions from
the DNA testing - conclusions unsupported by expert testimony.
Prosecutors also said just because Howard's DNA wasn't found, it does not show
that Howard did not commit the crime. They said the knife was handled at trial
and numerous times since then. They said Howard could also have worn gloves,
which would account for why his DNA does not show up on the knife.
(source: Associated Press)
LOUISIANA:
Angola inmates ask for rehearing on death row heat case
State corrections officials complained last fall to a federal appellate court
that a Baton Rouge federal judge was micromanaging the Louisiana State
Penitentiary at Angola by ordering heat indexes on death row at the Angola
prison not top 88 degrees from April through October.
Now, the 3 death-row inmates whose 2013 lawsuit against the state prompted
Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson's December order are claiming the 5th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also is trying to micromanage the prison.
A 3-judge 5th Circuit panel ruled last month that Jackson's order effectively
required the state to air-condition death row. The panel sent the case back to
the judge to consider other remedies to correct the state's violation of the 3
condemned prisoners' constitutional protection against cruel and unusual
punishment.
Those prisoners have medical conditions, and they claim the sweltering heat on
death row exacerbate those ailments.
The appeals court panel said remedies that Jackson could consider include
diverting cooler air from the guards' pod on death row into the death-row
tiers; air-conditioning one of the four death-row tiers for the benefit of
prisoners susceptible to heat-related illness; giving inmates access to cool
showers at least once daily; providing ample supplies of cold drinking water
and ice at all times; supplying personal ice containers and individual fans;
and installing additional ice machines.
In asking the 5th Circuit panel or the entire appeals court to rehear the case,
attorneys for death-row inmates Elzie Ball, Nathaniel Code and James Magee
argue Jackson's order was less intrusive than the remedies suggested by the
panel.
"The remedies that the Court suggests - in addition to being insufficient to
remedy the constitutional violation - require more micromanaging of the
prison's operation of death row tiers than air conditioning," the prisoners'
lawyers contend in petitions filed recently at the New Orleans-based 5th
Circuit.
Attorneys for the state said 5th Circuit rules do not allow the state to file a
response to the petitions unless the court orders a response. The state did not
ask for a rehearing.
Jackson approved the state's court-ordered remediation plan for death row last
year, which included adding air conditioning, providing ice chests filled with
ice and allowing death-row inmates cold showers once a day. The 5th Circuit
halted the plan's implementation last summer while the case was being appealed.
"The district court did not order air conditioning," the inmates' attorneys
stress in asking the entire 5th Circuit to vacate the panel's decision and
rehear the case. "The district court made factual findings that a maximum heat
index of 88 degrees was necessary to remove unreasonable risks, then gave the
prison full latitude in the method of achieving this objective. Defendants
chose air conditioning. This distinction is critical."
The prisoners' attorneys say the condemned men are confined to their cells for
23 hours a day; have "extremely limited access" to ice, and their drinking
water is lukewarm; their lone daily shower is maintained between 100 and 120
degrees; the death-row tiers are equipped with 1 non-oscillating, 30-inch fan
for every 2 inmates, and the fans do not provide equal air flow to each cell;
and the windows on the tiers are louvers that do not open wide and do not
provide the same air flow as traditional windows.
The inmates' attorneys say Jackson's establishment of a maximum heat index of
88 degrees must be upheld, and they claim that an increased risk of serious
harm from heat-related illness is "widespread" among the 80-plus prisoners on
death row.
The state Department of Corrections says it provides constitutionally
appropriate accommodations to its inmates. The department also contends that
constitutional mandates and established case law do not require air
conditioning for death-row prisoners.
Ball is on death row for fatally shooting a beer delivery man during a 1996
armed robbery of a lounge in Gretna. Magee was sentenced to die for the 2007
shotgun killings of his estranged wife and their 5-year-old son in Mandeville.
Code received the death penalty for the 1985 murders of 4 people at a house in
Shreveport.
(source: The Advocate)
COLORADO:
Chuck E. Cheese killer, Aurora theater shooting gunman cases have similarities
He represented 1 of the last 3 men on Colorado's death row - until Governor
Hickenlooper granted a temporary reprieve to Chuck E. Cheese killer Nathan
Dunlap.
Criminal defense lawyer Phil Cherner has been there before - representing a
convicted killer who faced a future with lethal injection.
Now, he's sharing his thoughts on the state's latest death penalty case and the
grief it's brought to so many.
The James Holmes jury said 'no' to the death penalty - and one of the state's
biggest opponents of capital punishment says they got it right.
Cherner helped save mass murderer Dunlap from death by a hypodermic needle full
of poison.
And he watched as another jury - 22 years later - deliberated whether to impose
a similar fate for the Aurora theater gunman.
The 2 cases have similarities.
"The district attorneys asked he (Dunlap) be executed because, 'If not him,
who?' Much like they did again in Holmes. The jury again, at least this time,
they said, 'not this one,'" said Cherner.
He is a vocal opponent to the death penalty - even in the face of raw pain from
victim's families.
"Our loved one were ripped from us and they were slaughtered in that movie
theater. But the jury chose another way and we have to accept that," says Sandy
Phillips, mother of victim, Jessica Ghawi.
He says killing is wrong - no matter who does it.
"We can't bring those loved ones back as much as we want to, as much as we
would try. And adding more to the death toll is no more than vengeance," says
Cherner.
He says all the death penalty process does is waste incredible amounts of money
and cause families undue stress. And for what? he says the 18th Judicial
District hasn't executed anyone in more than 50 years.
"They should be more candid with victims upfront and explain how incredibly
difficult it is and how unlikely it is they'll be successful because their
batting average is zero," said Cherner.
And in the end, he says families end up with the same result.
"He (Holmes) was always going to die in the Department of Corrections ... The
question was would he die 20 years out, approaching age 50 at the hands of an
executioner or die of natural causes," Cherner said.
He says he thinks Holmes will get the longest sentence in the history of
Colorado: 2,000 years in prison - plus, 12 consecutive life sentences.
The last person executed in Colorado was in 1967, which was 48 years ago.
(source: KDVR news)
*************
Dexter Lewis, accused in Fero's killings, had violent past
Dexter Lewis, the man accused of killing 5 at a Denver bar in 2012, has spent
much of his life in custody.
The man assaulted guards at the Jefferson County Jail while shouting, "I kill
cops!"
He had been moved to that jail after assaulting a fellow inmate at a juvenile
corrections facility. He also was charged with misdemeanor sexual assault.
In a Jefferson County courtroom in June 2009, a judge and prosecutor voiced
serious concerns about the violent behavior of Dexter Lewis, then 19 years old.
They overcame those concerns, and Lewis - initially facing charges of assault
on 3 prison guards and a fellow inmate - entered a plea on lesser charges and
was sentenced to 3 years in prison.
A Denver jury is now deliberating whether Lewis is guilty of one of the
deadliest mass murders in Colorado history, committed in October 2012, just
months after he was released after completing the reduced sentence he received
in 2009.
This time, if Lewis is convicted, he could face the death penalty.
"I understand that I do have an anger problem," Lewis told 1st Judicial
District Court Judge Philip McNulty the day of his sentencing in 2009.
Lewis is accused of stabbing 5 people to death at Fero's Bar & Grill in the
early hours of Oct. 17, 2012. Lewis went to the bar with 3 other men, 2 of whom
pleaded guilty to murder charges and received lengthy sentences. The 4th man,
Demarea Harris, was an informant for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives at the time. He reported the crime to authorities and
was never charged.
Harris and Lynell Hill, one of the men who pleaded guilty, both testified that
Lewis inflicted the fatal stab wounds on all 5 victims.
Court documents reveal that Lewis had a troubled upbringing.
He first entered juvenile detention facilities when he was 13, according to
court documents.
His defense attorney in 2009, Sara Garrido, said Lewis had been diagnosed with
bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. He had received "very
heavy medications" while at the Lookout Mountain juvenile facility. Those
medications were discontinued when he was transferred to the Jefferson County
Jail in 2008, she said. He was transferred after assaulting another Lookout
Mountain inmate.
"Judge, this is a case that has been of great concern to me," Garrido said.
"I'm worried that I just haven't been able to do enough for my client."
"He has no family in the area," she said.
Lewis' father was fatally shot on Jan. 22, 1994, in a gang-related incident,
weeks before Lewis' 4th birthday.
In a note sent to Lynell Hill while they were held for the Fero's killings,
Lewis wrote: "Know my pops is legend so anywhere you go you will be good."
"I am involved in gangs because of the environment I come from," Lewis told
McNulty during the 2009 hearing. "And a lot of guys know my father."
The prosecutor in the 2009 hearing, Nicole Bozarth, voiced concerns. Lewis, she
said, had a "very assaultive criminal history and appears to be very violent."
She noted that Lewis was charged with 2 assaults in 2007, including 1 that
resulted in "serious bodily injury."
"I do have concerns about your history of assaultive behavior," McNulty told
Lewis, acknowledging that Lewis "had a traumatic childhood" and "mental health
issues."
"But you're an adult. And you're responsible," McNulty said. "And it was good
to hear you acknowledge that. Because from now on if you get into more trouble
... once you're released, these will not be excuses."
McNulty noted that Lewis could have faced a much lengthier sentence had the
prosecutor and assaulted corrections officers not agreed to his plea. He
praised Lewis' defense attorney for doing "wonderful things for you."
The original assault charges, before the plea bargain, could have landed Lewis
in prison for 12 to 42 years.
"You did get a break. I hope you take advantage of it," McNulty said after he
handed down the 3-year sentence. "Good luck to you in the future, sir."
(source: The Denver Post)
UTAH:
Governor Appoints Brereton to the 3rd District Court
Gov. Gary R. Herbert has appointed Heather Brereton as a judge to fill a
vacancy on the 3rd District Court.
"Heather Brereton's significant trial experience will be a great addition to
the 3rd District bench. Her knowledge and work as a criminal defense attorney,
specifically with our mental health court system, will be a tremendous asset as
we implement criminal justice reform," said Gov. Herbert.
Brereton is currently the misdemeanor division chief and trial attorney at Salt
Lake Legal Defender Association. She has tried more than 50 cases and conducted
hundreds of evidentiary hearings representing defendants in death penalty cases
as well as mentally ill offenders in the 3rd District Court Mental Health
Court. Prior to her service at the Salt Lake Defender Association, she served
as a judicial law clerk at the Utah Court of Appeals (1999-2000).
"I am both humbled and honored by the confidence that Governor Herbert has
shown in me," said Brereton. "I will work hard to serve the citizens of the
State of Utah as a district court judge."
Subject to confirmation by the Utah Senate, Brereton will fill the vacancy
resulting from the appointment of Justice Constandinos Himonas, who was
confirmed to the Utah Supreme Court on Feb. 13, 2015.
(source: utahpolicy.com)
USA:
The Meeropol Brothers: Exonerate Our Mother, Ethel Rosenberg
Our parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were executed on June 19, 1953, after
being convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. That was the formal legal
charge, but in the public's mind they were executed for providing our
archenemy, the Soviet Union, with the ability to destroy our country with
atomic bombs. Theirs was the most sensational case of the McCarthy period.
Last month, the grand jury testimony of our uncle David Greenglass, who died
last year, was made public, the latest in a trove of material released since
2008 after we and others filed a legal action. Back then, we concluded that our
father was legally guilty of the conspiracy charge, but not of atomic spying,
and we maintain that neither of our parents deserved the death penalty.
The newly released 46-page transcript - along with previously released
testimony and other records - demonstrates conclusively that our mother was
prosecuted primarily for refusing to turn on our father. We now call on
President Obama to acknowledge that Ethel Rosenberg was wrongly convicted and
executed.
The evidence presented against Ethel at the trial, in March 1951, consisted
mainly of testimony by her brother, David, and his wife, Ruth. They testified
that in November 1944, Ethel helped Julius persuade Ruth to recruit David (an
Army machinist working at the weapons installation in Los Alamos, N.M.) into
Julius's espionage ring. They testified that Ethel participated in a September
1945 meeting at which David gave a sketch to Julius of a cross-section of the
bomb, and at which Ethel typed David's handwritten notes explaining the
diagram.
The record refutes these claims. David's grand jury testimony, on Aug. 7, 1950,
made no mention of any such meeting with Ethel, much less the typing.
Responding to questions about spying, David told the grand jury: "My sister has
never spoken to me about this subject." The transcript shows that David had no
doubts about this: "I said before, and say it again, honestly, this is a fact:
I never spoke to my sister about this at all."
The new transcript affirms what we know from Ruth's own grand jury testimony,
on Aug. 3, 1950, in which she made no mention of a September meeting. While she
said that David had passed information to a courier in New Mexico in June 1945,
she asserted that they transferred no material to our father afterward. The
very next day, Aug. 4, David told a prosecutor that he had given the
cross-section sketch to Julius sometime that fall in New York City. 3 days
later, we now know, David repeated this story under oath, contradicting Ruth's
account. By the time of the trial, this story had grown into the Sept. 25
meeting at the Rosenbergs' apartment.
Decades later, David, who served 10 years in prison for conspiracy to commit
espionage, admitted to the New York Times reporter Sam Roberts that he had lied
about his sister in an effort to protect his wife, though David refused to
authorize the release of the grand jury transcript before his death. (Ruth, who
was never charged, died in 2008.)
We believe that David and Ruth invented the Sept. 25 meeting to shift blame to
our parents for leaking the bomb sketch. Our careful analysis of Soviet and
American files suggests that Ruth had planned to share the materials with a
K.G.B. agent (without any Rosenberg involvement) on Dec. 21, 1945. Soviet
archives reveal that the materials arrived in Moscow 6 days later. Decryptions
of Soviet cables by the National Security Agency reveal that the K.G.B. gave
Ruth a code name and considered her a spy.
The flimsy case against our mother began after Julius's arrest in July 1950. An
assistant attorney general told the F.B.I. that there was "insufficient
evidence" to charge Ethel, but that she could be used "as a lever against her
husband."
In February 1951, a month before the trial, a federal prosecutor told a
congressional committee: "The case is not too strong against Mrs. Rosenberg.
But for the purpose of acting as a deterrent, I think it is very important that
she be convicted too, and given a stiff sentence."
Even now, some observers insist that both Julius and Ethel recommended the
recruitment of Ruth as a spy and that Ethel had knowledge of and agreed with
her husband's activities.
It is impossible to prove that someone played no role in a secret conspiracy.
Yes, the evidence indicates that Ethel was at least generally aware of Julius's
activities. When Julius importuned Ruth to ask David to spy, Ethel encouraged
her, according to Ruth. The K.G.B. files, however, tell a different story. They
report that Ruth felt it was a "privilege" to be asked. They also note that
rather than encouraging Ruth, Ethel urged caution. Assuming the K.G.B. files'
accuracy, this could indicate that Ethel, rather than Ruth, was the reluctant
one, or it could have been part of Ethel's effort to protect the secrecy of
their work. Other skeptics point to the Venona intercepts, intelligence cables
from Soviet agents in the 1940s that were released in 1995. One snippet stated
that "Liberal" - Julius's code name - "and his wife" recommended Ruth.
(Scholars mostly agree that the intercepts show that Julius was a spy, but
don't agree on the extent of Ethel's involvement.)
We will never know what our parents told each other in private, but we are
certain of this: The Greenglasses' lies were necessary to obtain Ethel's
conviction; the K.G.B. did not give her a code name, and evidently did not
consider her a spy; and the prosecution's strategy was to use Ethel to coerce
her husband to confession.
Shortly before he died in 2001, William P. Rogers, who was deputy attorney
general of the United States at the time of our parents' execution (and later
secretary of state under President Richard M. Nixon), admitted to Mr. Roberts,
who wrote a book about David, that the government's objective was never to kill
the Rosenbergs, but to get them to talk. He said of Ethel, "She called our
bluff." This statement shocks the conscience.
Our mother was not a spy. The government held her life hostage to coerce our
father to talk, and when that failed, it extracted false statements to secure
her wrongful execution. The apparent rationale for such action - that national
security demanded it during a time of international crisis - has disturbing
implications in post-9/11 America. It is never too late to correct an egregious
injustice. We call on the government to formally exonerate Ethel Rosenberg.
(source: Op-Ed; Michael Meeropol is professor emeritus of economics at Western
New England University and editor of "The Rosenberg Letters." Robert Meeropol
is the founder of the Rosenberg Fund for Children and author of "An Execution
in the Family." They are the authors of "We Are Your Sons."----New York Times)
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