March 28 COLORADO: Court overturns Harlan death penalty A convicted murderer was spared execution today when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled a jury's death penalty recommendation was tainted because jurors consulted a Bible during deliberations. The court ordered Robert Harlan to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole. "The Supreme Court finds that it can no longer say the death penalty verdict was not influenced by passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor," the court said in a 47-page ruling. The court said Bible passages, including the verse that commands "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," could lead jurors to vote for death. Harlan's attorneys challenged the sentence after discovering 5 jurors had looked up Bible verses, copied some of them down and then talked about them behind closed doors. Prosecutors said jurors should be allowed to refer to the Bible or other religious texts during deliberations. Harlan was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder and rape of Rhonda Maloney and the shooting of Jaquie Creazzo, a Good Samaritan who tried to come to Maloney's aid when she escaped from Harlan's car. Creazzo was paralyzed in the attack. An Adams County judge had overturned the death penalty after learning of the role the Bible played in the jury room, but the state had appealed. (source: Rocky Mountain News) NEW YORK: Breeding Psychotics As the State Legislature considers reinstating the death penalty, lost in the debate is any mention of the appalling conditions that are often inflicted on prisoners sentenced to death. Since the death penalty was re-enacted during Gov. George E. Pataki's 1st term, seven people have been condemned to die, but none have been executed. Prisoners on death row have been kept in virtual solitary confinement while they await the outcome of their appeals, exoneration or execution. A recent study by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, of which I am a co-author, has found that the conditions on New York's death row are among the harshest in the nation. According to the study, each condemned man in New York is locked in his isolated 78 square-foot space for 23 hours each day. Each cell contains only a toilet, a sink, a bed, a mattress and a pillow. The cells are not air-conditioned and fans are not permitted. All meals are given to inmates in their cells during the daytime shift, which means that inmates go more than 16 hours without food. The inmates cannot see other prisoners from their cells and are not permitted to hold prison jobs, attend programs or engage in organized activities. When a prisoner is allowed out of his cell for his one hour a day, he is confined to a solitary cage of about 2,000 square feet, aptly called a dog run. Compounding the isolation, visits are greatly restricted and take place in booths separated by a plexiglass barrier that prevents physical contact. Inmates are limited to 2 10-minute phone calls per week. Judge James L. Dennis of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, has said that restrictive death row conditions are "enough to weaken even the strongestindividual." Psychologists who have studied such conditions have concluded that they can lead to severe psychological consequences, including withdrawal, hopelessness, hallucinations, aggression, rage, paranoia and psychosis. Death row inmates who may be rendered insane by these conditions may no longer be deemed competent when the time comes to execute them. There is also the possibility that inmates will be driven by these conditions to abandon their appeals and volunteer for execution, a phenomenon that occurs with more than 10 % of all inmates on death row nationally. And, of course, some prisoners subjected to these conditions might actually be innocent - last month, an Ohio inmate who was convicted in 1985 became the 119th innocent person to be freed from death row since 1973. Not only are conditions harsh, but the state is also highly secretive about how it runs death row. The Department of Correctional Services has refused to open death row to inspection even to representatives of the New York City bar association asserting undefined security concerns. When the death penalty law was passed, the Legislature and Governor Pataki gave the department the authority to close death row to inspection by judges, members of the Legislature, district attorneys, ministers in towns where prisons are located and even by the governor himself. Inmates on death row are not the only ones who must endure these horrible conditions. New York confines approximately 5,000 other inmates by locking them into their cells for 23 hours a day. Approximately 2,800 of these inmates are housed in disciplinary lockdown units, some of which approach the severity and degree of isolation of the notorious "supermax" prisons in other states. The conditions in these units are analogous to those on death row. The toll exacted by these conditions has not been fully calculated, but some things are known. A recent review of public data by lawyers from the Prisoners' Rights Project of the New York Legal Aid Society found that from 1998 to 2001, 30 percent to 50 percent of prison suicides occurred within these harsh confinement units, which house less than 8 percent of the total prison population. There is never justification for prison conditions that cause mental torture. And it is a mistake to think that the conditions do not directly affect us. Many inmates will some day return to be our neighbors, some even from death row. New York State should not be in the business of creating dreadful conditions that breed psychotics who then return to society. Given the extreme conditions of death row, one might expect that the inmates held there are exceptionally dangerous. But they are not. The bar association study found that prisoners on death row are among New York's most cooperative inmates. From 1996, when New York's death row was established, to 2001, there was not a single reported incident of violence, an attempted escape or even a serious security violation, like the possession of a banned item that could be made into weapons. The time has come to correct these problems. No longer should any areas of the New York prison system be off limits to observers. Governor Pataki should ensure that state prisons, including death row, are open to inspection by responsible persons outside the system. And legislation should be enacted that ensures that the harsh isolation and brutal conditions that are inflicted on death row inmates are stopped. Whether or not the death penalty is reinstated in New York, death row conditions and the ill treatment of thousands of other inmates in supermax units need to be part of the debate. We cannot close our eyes to their suffering. The Legislature and the governor should immediately undertake reforms to ensure that New York State prisoners are no longer subjected to what is essentially state-sponsored torture. (source: Michael B. Mushlin is a professor at Pace Law School; Opinion, New York Times) IOWA: Girl's death has lawmakers talking about death penalty in Iowa The abduction and death of a 10-year-old girl allegedly at the hands of a registered sex offender had some lawmakers talking Monday about reinstatement of the death penalty in Iowa. "These instances where our children, especially this little girl who had special needs was a victim and then murdered, what more perfect crime would there be than that for the death penalty, said Rep. James Van Fossen, R-Davenport. While such a debate is not likely to go very far this year, legislation that sets new limits on how close registered sex offenders can live to schools is likely to be introduced. A federal court last year stuck down a 2002 law that barred sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools and day care centers. U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt ruled that the law was unconstitutional because it infringed on the 14th Amendment right to due process. Along with his ruling, Pratt issued a permanent injunction barring enforcement of the law, which was challenged in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Iowa sex offenders. Attorney General Tom Miller appealed the ruling with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. Jetseta Gage was taken from her Cedar Rapids home on Thursday night, police said. Her body was found Friday in a mobile home in rural Johnson County. Roger Paul Bentley, 37, of Brandon, was charged Monday with first-degree murder and kidnapping. Police said he appeared to have blood stains on his clothing and evidence suggests the girl was sexually abused, according to court documents. The states Sexual Offender Registry said Bentley was convicted in 1994 of lascivious acts with a child. He served 2 years of a 5-year sentence. (source: Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIA: State men's cases used in book's argument -- Crime-show host outlines flaws in justice system To viewers of the TV shows "Cold Case Files" and "American Justice," Bill Kurtis personifies the system. On the programs, police track down and nab the bad guys while Kurtis, a former CBS anchorman who once called himself the "darling of law enforcement," leads viewers along the trail to the guilty. But in a new book, "The Death Penalty on Trial," Kurtis argues the system is so flawed the ultimate penalty must be abolished. He illustrates his case with 2 overturned death penalty convictions with ties to Pennsylvania. Ray Krone, of Dover Twp., York County, spent more than 10 years in Arizona prisons before DNA evidence cleared him of killing bartender Kim Ancona and led to a new suspect, who is awaiting trial. Krone had been convicted twice, largely on the basis of expert testimony about a bite mark that was later shown to be scientifically flawed. The prosecution hid the fact that a nationally renowned dental expert had rejected the theory that Krone's teeth matched a bite mark on the victim. The other case involved Thomas Kimbell, a New Castle man who spent four years on Pennsylvania's death row for the murders of Bonnie Dryfuse, her 2 young daughters and their cousin. Kimbell got a 2nd trial because his attorney had not been permitted to question a woman who was talking on the phone with Dryfuse. The woman testified at the 2nd trial that Dryfuse said her husband was pulling into the driveway shortly before the murders. After that trial, Kimbell was acquitted, but the prosecution remains convinced of his guilt. "That's the one thing that has surprised me," Kurtis said in an interview with The Patriot-News. "The prosecutors -- they're believers. They convince themselves strongly in what they're doing in the case, and it is almost impossible for them to admit they were wrong somewhere. They will go to their graves convincing themselves the guy is guilty." Kurtis, who holds a law degree, used to be a supporter of the death penalty. He covered the trials of such infamous murderers as John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson and Richard Speck. He was driven to re-examine his beliefs when former Illinois Gov. George Ryan pardoned 4 death-sentenced prisoners and commuted the sentences of all of Illinois' 164 death row inmates to life terms without the possibility of parole. Ryan's decision, in his last days in office, came in the wake of 13 exonerations of convicts on that state's death row. Kurtis said flaws in the system -- overzealous prosecutors, underpaid and inexperienced defense attorneys, investigations tainted by tunnel vision -- boil down to putting someone's fate in the hands of jurors who may have doubts, but are afraid to set a killer free. "It's a flip of the coin; the system's that shaky," he said. He said polls showing most Americans believe in the death penalty come up with smaller numbers if the alternative is life without the possibility of parole. And while he sees public opinion starting to waver, he believes the change may come in the court system, as evidenced by two recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court barring the death penalty for juveniles and the mentally retarded. The debate over the death penalty often brings into play the words of English jurist William Blackstone, who said it is better to have 10 guilty people go free than to convict one innocent man. Kurtis said those who favor the death penalty continually challenge those who oppose it to find one case where an innocent person has been executed. While there isn't a case that has been proven, Kurtis said several are in question and that may eventually turn a majority against the death penalty. "I think we're approaching the tipping point," Kurtis said. He says his own "peripeteia," a Greek term meaning a sudden reversal of beliefs, is complete. Even in heinous cases such as the one involving Gacy, who killed more than 30 boys and men and buried many under his house, Kurtis said the death penalty should not be an option. "Once you walk down the road toward eliminating the death penalty, you have to go all the way and apply it fairly," Kurtis said. "As much as I try to avoid getting into moral issues, once you commit to not having a death penalty you have risen above this base emotion that goes back to the caveman days called revenge. Once the system locks in, your brain has to take over from your heart and your emotions and lift ourselves above this caveman mentality." (source: The Patriot-News)
