April 1 DELAWARE---new execution date (not serious) Date set for Capano's execution----Appeals make it unlikely he'll die that day A Superior Court judge Thursday set June 7 as the date convicted killer Thomas J. Capano will be executed for the 1996 murder of Anne Marie Fahey. The previous execution date was stayed because of Capano's appeal, and it is unlikely the former prosecutor will be executed on the new date. "He has 30 days to file an appeal with the Delaware Supreme Court, and that's what's going to happen," said Capano's attorney, Joseph M. Bernstein. "Just about any day he set within reason is academic." Earlier this month, Sussex County Resident Judge T. Henley Graves denied Capano's motions for post-conviction relief, rejecting arguments that Capano had ineffective legal counsel at trial and that his death sentence should be set aside because of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Capano had argued that the Supreme Court's ruling in Ring v. Arizona in 2002 required juries to unanimously recommend the death sentence. The jury in Capano's case did not. "It is the sentence of this court that you shall be kept in the custody of the Department of Correction until ... Tuesday, June 7, 2005, and on that day, between the hours of 12 a.m. and 3 a.m., you shall be ... injected intravenously with a substance or substances in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause death until you are dead," Graves said Thursday. As Graves passed the sentence, Bernstein stood next to Capano, who has gained weight in prison. Capano's feet were shackled and he wore an orange jumpsuit and had a white beard. For the most part, he only whispered to Bernstein. But when Graves denied Capano's request to hear any future sentencings over Videophone, Capano blurted: "We did before." Graves explained that because of the magnitude of the death penalty, he felt it was important that he be present. "If this occurs again, I will expect sentencing to take place in open court, with the defendant present and counsel present," Graves said. Capano, who suffers from the stomach disorder colitis, has been requesting not to be present at his sentencings. "He has some fairly well-documented health problems," Bernstein said. "When you come up here ... they get you up at 4 in the morning and you don't eat. For somebody with health problems that's difficult." Capano was convicted of the 1996 murder of Fahey, 30, who was the scheduling secretary for then-Gov. Tom Carper, now a U.S. senator. (source: The News Journal) ARKANSAS: Attorneys Still Work For Killer Federal public defenders continue to pursue appeals on behalf of Rickey Dale Newman, even after the death-row inmate fired the attorneys in open court. The public defenders said they would appeal two rulings made by Crawford County Circuit Judge Gary Cottrell in court documents filed Tuesday. Cottrell, at Newmans request, dismissed the public defenders motions for additional DNA testing and for a hearing to determine whether Newman had effective counsel at trial. Newman got permission from Cottrell to fire the attorneys on Feb. 3. He said the lawyers were acting against his wishes to be executed for the February 2001 slaying of Marie Cholette. Newman has asked the state Supreme Court to dissolve a temporary stay of execution in place since September. The newest court filings state the public defenders office is acting on Newmans behalf in appealing Cottrells decision to the state Supreme Court. Also pending in Cottrells court is a motion for the judge to reconsider his dismissal of the claims last month. The public defenders office claims Newman is motivated by an "incompetent, illness-driven desire to die." Attorneys seek to determine whether he is mentally fit for execution. They also asked to intervene in the case on behalf of Newmans aunt, Betty Moore. However, Moore said in a letter to Crawford County Public Defender Bob Marquette she would not continue her effort to stop her nephews execution. She stated in the letter: "I thought I was trying to help him, but he don't want or need my help anymore." Marquette was present at Newman's June 2002 trial to advise Newman, who acted as his own attorney. (source: Fort Smith Times Record) MARYLAND: State's top court grants inmate stay of execution----Evans was scheduled to die by lethal injection this month; Attorneys point to study citing racial, geographic disparities Md.'s application of death penalty The state's highest court has granted a stay to a death row inmate who had been scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection sometime during the week of April 18. Vernon Evans Jr. had asked the Court of Appeals for more time to argue that his sentence should be overturned based on a study citing racial and geographical disparities in Maryland's application of the death penalty. The court scheduled oral arguments on the matter for June 7. Evans was sentenced to death for the April 1983 killing of David Scott Piechowicz and Susan Kennedy at the Warren House Motor Hotel in Pikesville. In seeking a stay, Evans' attorneys noted the court has agreed to hear an appeal from death row inmate Wesley E. Baker in June. Both Evans and Baker, as well as two other death row inmates, have asked the courts to overturn their sentences based on a January 2003 study by University of Maryland professor Raymond Paternoster that had been commissioned by the legislature. Paternoster found that black defendants who killed whites statistically were most likely to be charged with capital murder and sentenced to death in Maryland. He also found that the likelihood of prosecutors seeking capital murder charges in Baltimore County is 13 times greater than in Baltimore. Evans and Baker are black. The victims in their cases, all of whom were white, were killed in Baltimore County. Baker was convicted in 1992 of fatally shooting a teacher's aide in front of her grandchildren in the parking lot of a Catonsville shopping center. (source: Associated Press)
