April 9 FLORIDA: Woman seeking father meets death-row inmate----A DNA test will tell whether the convicted killer is a New Jersey woman's father. Tonya Cartagena is finally getting to know the man who very well may be her father -- convicted death row inmate Sonny Ray Jeffries. The 22-year-old woman, who recently moved to Central Florida from New Jersey, met with Jeffries before his court hearing Friday and received word that he will consent to a DNA test. His participation should put to rest Cartagena's one burning question: Who is her father? "I'm convinced [Jeffries is the father] but . . . I'm not getting my hopes up," she said Friday. "I do want to know for sure if he's my dad. Because if he's my dad, we can start fresh . . . and try to catch up on a lot of things." Cartagena said she intends to maintain a relationship with Jeffries -- even from death row -- if he is her father. If it turns out Jeffries is not, Cartagena said she will give up her search. The Jeffries case made news last month, after the death row inmate went to court to determine whether he is competent to give advice to his attorney. Jeffries, who was convicted and sentenced to death in the stomping death of an Orlando landlady during a 1993 robbery, has indicated that he wants to waive his appeals and speed his sentence. That means Jeffries seeks to die by lethal injection sooner. But his appeals attorney, Daphney Gaylord, has argued that Jeffries has a lengthy history of mental illness and is not competent. Whether Jeffries is mentally ill has been central to his case for a long time. He and Harry Thomas robbed and killed Wilma Martin, 68, in her Orlando home in August 1993. Thomas pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. But it took almost 5 years for Jeffries to go to trial because he was sent to a state mental hospital twice. Then, in 1998, a jury found Jeffries guilty of killing Martin, who rented a house to his brother. Jeffries represented himself during the trial. After his conviction, he admitted killing Martin but said untreated gonorrhea drove him mad. On Friday, doctors presented differing opinions on Jeffries' mental state and competence. Orange Circuit Judge Bob Wattles isn't expected to rule on his competence for at least 2 weeks. Cartagena read about Jeffries in the Orlando Sentinel and learned about his wishes to give up his appeals and, likely, be put to death. Last summer, she discovered that the man she grew up thinking was her biological father was not, after a DNA test. Then family members and her mother indicated that Jeffries could be her father. And she learned where Jeffries resides. But her earlier attempts to communicate with Jeffries, who is normally held at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, were unsuccessful. In court Friday, the heavily shackled Jeffries and Cartagena met in a private room and briefly chatted. They share similar features -- especially their eyes -- and skin color. When they returned to the courtroom, Wattles said he would enter an order for the DNA test based on Jeffries' consent. The test results may only be used to determine paternity, Wattles said. Cartagena said she was nervous during their meeting. Jeffries asked about her family and her 3 young children -- who might be Jeffries' grandchildren. She didn't have baby pictures to show him. And they didn't embrace each other, she said. "I'm not ready for that yet," said Cartagena, who also described the meeting as "very weird." "It kind of makes me sad," Cartagena said of Jeffries' intent to waive his appeals. "But this is what he wants and nobody can change his mind." She said that he indicated to her that "he wants to get it done and over with." But Gaylord, Jeffries' lawyer, said he was excited about the meeting and the prospect that he may have a daughter he never knew. "I believe it has had an impact on his mind-set. I think it has had an impact. So that's good for us," Gaylord said. (source: Orlando Sentinel) *************************** Florida Seeking Death Penalty For Christopher Popjes The 2 men charged in the death of a 14-year old Florida boy could get the death penalty. This morning, a Florida grand jury decided to charge Christopher Popjes, formerly known as Christopher Buist, on 1st degree murder charges. Meanwhile, West Michigan native William Popjes was arraigned today. He pled not guilty. The state of Florida decided to seek the death penalty for both. The pair will be in court again next month. (source: WZZM News) USA: Time to terminate the death penalty -- At issue: Should the U.S. end the death penalty? -- Our view: The system is badly broken and no longer is a deterrent. Recent news is pushing the capital punishment debate back into the spotlight. This week, Amnesty International reported that 3,797 people were openly executed in 25 countries last year, but that it has evidence to assume the actual number may have been closer to 10,000. What it didn't say was how many of those executed probably were innocent. Even in the U.S., new evidence is challenging some long-held assumptions about death sentences. The Moratorium Campaign's Sister Helen Prejean helped dispel some of those myths during a presentation Sunday at Siena Heights University. The popular assumption is that -- in cases of life and death -- courts insure innocent defendants never receive the death penalty. In fact, however, 118 people on death row have been freed since 1973 after it was determined their cases were badly mishandled or they were completely innocent. One such person is Ray Krone, who spent 10 1/2 years on Arizona's death row before DNA tests cleared him and implicated another man for a 1991 murder. Last month in California, Blufford Hayes Jr.'s death sentence was overturned by a federal appeals court that ruled prosecutors knowlingly lied about a witness. Madison Hobley, meanwhile, was freed by Illinois Gov. George Ryan after internal police investigators supported a claim by Hobley and 9 other death row inmates that they were tortured into giving confessions. Krone, Hobley, Hayes and the other 115 are the lucky ones. Nobody can say for sure how many were not so fortunate but Joseph O'Dell and Leonel Herrera probably were two of the unlucky ones. O'Dell was executed in 1986 in Virginia on circumstantial evidence including testimony (later recanted) by another inmate. His requests for DNA testing were denied, and the state destroyed the evidence after his 1997 execution. Herrera was executed in 1993 even after new evidence showed his brother was the actual killer of two police officers. Texas law, though, required new evidence to be presented within 30 days of a conviction so his appeal was denied. Both men went to their deaths proclaiming their innocence. It's hard to argue that some murderers -- "the worst of the worst" -- do not deserve retribution. The focus should be on what is best for society, though, and determining whether capital punishment does that better than a sentence of life in prison: -- Most studies have found the death penalty has little or no effect on murder rates. Texas actually experienced more murders after it resumed executions. California's rate has stayed steady, and its law obviously failed to deter Scott Peterson. -- Legal costs make it far more expensive to execute an inmate than to imprison him. A Duke University study found North Carolina spent an average of $2.16 million more on each death penalty case than on those involving life in prison. The Timothy McVeigh case reportedly cost the government $82.5 million to investigate and $15 million for defense costs. -- Sentences are haphazardly applied. More than 80 percent of executions take place in states that made up the old Confederacy. People such as O'Dell and Herrera are executed while others such as Charles Manson remain alive. -- Death sentences are nine times more likely to be handed down to poor defendants, whose lawyers often are paid at a rate far below what they normally would receive. Without a doubt, an executed killer will never kill an innocent person again. Neither, however, will a government that sentences those convicted of murder to life in solitary confinement. Michigan can be proud for picking the latter option, thereby avoiding a system that should itself be condemned. (source: Editorial, The Adrian (Mich.) Daily Telegram) ********************** Pendulum begins swing away from death penalty ----'Culture of life' agenda pushes advocates of capital punishment to rethink positions It started when Rick Santorum, a conservative Republican senator from Pennsylvania, announced two weeks ago that he was questioning his once unyielding support for the death penalty. Then Sen. Sam Brownback, an equally conservative Kansas Republican, chimed in, saying capital punishment contradicts the efforts to establish a "culture of life," a phrase that became prominent during the controversy over Terri Schiavo's fate. Neither lawmaker has suggested that the United States abandon the death penalty altogether -- it should still be reserved for the "most horrific and heinous of crimes," Santorum said. But the apparent change of heart from 2 of its unequivocal supporters illustrates a broader tendency. "We've come to a new era in this issue," said Richard Dieter, head of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group in Washington critical of the death penalty. "There is a sense that there are problems with the death penalty, that there's a need for reform." With an increasing number of convictions reversed by DNA evidence, receding murder rates and the huge financial costs of putting people to death, public support for capital punishment dropped to 50 % last year from 80 % in 1994, according to a Gallup poll. The numbers of executions and death sentences have almost halved in the past 5 years, according to figures supplied by the Death Penalty Information Center. Last year, 59 death row inmates were executed, down from 98 in 1999; December was the 1st month in a decade that passed without an execution. There are other signs of the death penalty's decline. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that it was unconstitutional to execute juveniles, or those who committed capital murder when they were juveniles. New York's Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, declared the death penalty statute unconstitutional last year. A bill to reinstitute the death penalty, which was passed by the state Senate last month, is expected to fail a state Assembly committee vote scheduled for Tuesday. In Texas, which led the nation with 23 executions last year, Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt called for a moratorium on executions on cases from his county, Harris County, after the local police crime lab was declared unreliable. "I think it would be very prudent for us as a criminal justice system to delay further executions until we have had time to review the evidence," Hurtt said last fall. Gov. Rick Perry has rejected Hurtt's call, despite similar appeals from state and local lawmakers. Even President Bush, who signed off on 152 executions in his six years as Texas governor, called for "dramatically expanding" the use of DNA evidence in capital cases in his State of the Union address in January. Bush also called for an increase of federal funding for defense lawyers, saying that "people on trial for their lives must have competent lawyers by their side." Perhaps even more unexpected were the statements from Sens. Santorum and Brownback, who had both voted against measures in the mid-1990s that would have made it easier for death-row inmates to appeal their sentences. "While I still believe that the death penalty has some value, I have seen that there are serious questions about its use, such as possible wrongful convictions," said Santorum, through a spokeswoman. "Whereas before I was an unquestioning supporter, now I am inclined to urge more caution," added Santorum, who in 1994 voted against a proposal to replace the death penalty with life imprisonment. Brownback was even bolder. "If we're trying to establish a culture of life, it's difficult to have the state sponsoring executions," he told U.S. News & World Report this month. He also suggested that taxpayer funding for abortions and capital punishment should be eliminated. "My hope is that we form a left-right coalition on life," he said. Brownback's comment indicates a potential broadening of the conservative "culture of life" agenda, which has been limited primarily to opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and stem-cell research. "One of the really interesting things about the movement against the death penalty is how diverse it is," said Brooke Matschek, a spokeswoman for the Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty Project, a Philadelphia- based activist organization. "People are starting to understand that it's not a perfect system." Santorum, who is Catholic, first expressed his change of heart late last month, after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops began a campaign to end the death penalty in the United States on the heels of a sharp decline in support for capital punishment among America's Catholics. According to a Zogby International poll of 1,000 Catholics in March, just 48 percent supported capital punishment -- down from 68 percent in 1994. John Zogby, who heads the polling organization, called the difference "huge." Among America's evangelical Christians, support has dwindled from 82 % in 1996 to 59 percent in 2004, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life -- although influential conservative evangelical groups, such as Colorado-based Focus on the Family, continue to back executions. "There are still some contradictions with people who consider themselves pro-life but not when it comes to the death penalty," said Matschek. Dieter, of the Death Penalty Information Center, noted that the majority of Americans still back the death penalty, and that death sentences and executions continue. As of Jan. 1, there were 3,455 inmates on death row, according to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund -- 81 more than 2003, the most recent year in which the Justice Department supplies figures. The increase can be traced in part to the rise in the number of inmates on federal death row. Next month, Connecticut is scheduled to carry out the 1st capital punishment in New England in more than four decades, executing serial killer and rapist Michael Ross. Two weeks ago, the Connecticut House of Representatives voted down a bill that would have replaced the state's death penalty with life imprisonment without possibility of parole. A similar bill failed Tuesday in the Texas Senate. Ohio executed 7 inmates in 2004, up from 3 in 2003. Juries from the liberal Bay Area imposed three separate death sentences in the space of a week in December, first against Scott Peterson for murdering his wife, Laci, then, a day later, against Stuart Alexander who killed three meat inspectors, and, 3 days after that against Glenn Taylor Helzer, who dismembered the 5 people he murdered. Nevertheless, Dieter says he detects a fundamental shift of attitude about the punishment. "Although the death penalty remains real and can pop up in different places," he said, "it doesn't seem that it's being universally embraced." (source: San Francisco Chronicle) CONNECTICUT: Witness: Ross Trapped By His Own Words, Guilt----Testimony Counters Competency Assertion Serial killer Michael Ross testified Friday that it is his firm decision to be executed next month, even in the face of pleas by the woman he loves to file appeals that would prolong his life. But it was revealed Friday through sworn statements by Ross confidante Martha Elliott that Ross feels trapped by his public assertions that he is prepared to die to spare the families of his victims further pain. If he reneges, she said, he believes he would be taunted by fellow inmates and tormented by those who would mock him in the press. "It would be too humiliating for him to do so," Elliott said in a deposition March 24. "He would rather be dead than humiliated." If Thursday's pronouncement by court-appointed psychiatrist Dr. Michael Norko that Ross is mentally competent to opt for execution made his death by lethal injection May 11 seem a near certainty, Friday's testimony may have radically altered those odds. Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford, in these reopened competency hearings, is focusing on whether Ross' decision to die is voluntary and not a product of coercion by others, his conditions of confinement or a mental illness that undermines his ability to make a rational decision. Ross was composed through most of Friday's hearing, even when his father, Dan Ross, testified he does not believe Ross has the capacity to show remorse or sincerely comprehend the pain of his victims' families. "I don't think he has any real compassion," Dan Ross testified during his relatively brief 20 minutes on the witness stand. Dan Ross agreed that his son is "very religious." A love story is oddly woven into this hearing on whether Ross will become the 1st man executed in New England in nearly 45 years. Susan Powers of Oklahoma wrote to Ross after she read one of his writings online, and visited him sometime in the summer of 2001. A romance flared, despite the glass barrier that barred physical contact. Their visits were lengthier when Ross was briefly transferred to New York to stand trial for the killing of one of his earliest victims, 6-year-old Paula Perrera. Already under multiple sentences of death in Connecticut, Ross ultimately pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Perrera's killing. Ross said he and Powers were engaged briefly, but after she was involved in a car accident in the summer of 2002, Powers ended her relationship with Ross, notably on his birthday - July 26. Ross became so despondent that he attempted suicide in March 2003. As his original execution date of Jan. 26 of this year neared, Ross wrote Powers. She responded, visited, and re-entered his life. He testified Friday she has "complicated" matters to be sure, because she is trying to "cash in" on a promise he made her in 2002 that he would avail himself of all appeals open to him. "I told her I can't do that," Ross said. He wept as he read excerpts from several letters he has written her recently, in which he reiterates, "I have no choice." This provided fodder for special counsel Thomas Groark to question Ross at length about whether he was acting of his own volition. "I don't have a choice," Ross answered Groark. "I have to do what I believe is right." In one letter to Powers dated Feb. 20, Ross said his decision "was so easy before you came back into my life. I stop the system from re-victimizing the families of my victims and, as a fringe benefit, I get out of dodge." Groark asked him what he meant by his reference to Dodge, commonly associated with the Dodge City of the Wild West. Ross replied, "I wouldn't have to be in prison anymore." Clifford appointed Groark, a prominent civil lawyer, to argue the case for Ross' incompetence and inject into these new proceedings the adversarial element that was missing last December. Ross' attorney, T.R. Paulding, and New London State's Attorney Kevin Kane have found themselves on the same page in advocating Ross' right to proceed to his execution. Groark launched a two-pronged attack in his methodical questioning of Ross. First he sought to undermine Ross' insistence that he was motivated primarily by concerns that his victims' families not have to endure further hearings and the publicity they spawn. Then he used various letters and articles Ross has written in an effort to highlight Ross' ambivalence and lack of sincerity about what he contends is his real motive - to escape 18 years of life on death row through state-assisted suicide. Paulding in turn pointed to letters written by Ross dating as far back as 1987 - when he was convicted of kidnapping and strangling 4 young women from eastern Connecticut in 1983 and 1984 - to emphasize Ross' consistent compassion for the families of his victims. Ross distinguished accepting execution from embracing his death. "I've said on the stand I don't particularly want to die," Ross told Groark. "It's not clear-cut. Different things I feel at different times. There are no simple answers. At times when I'm depressed, I'd just as soon be executed. There are times when I'm feeling good and I care more about other people." Ross, though visibly upset at times, also showed Friday that he has not lost his cutting wit. In one letter to Powers in January, he says to change his mind "would dishonor and betray who I truly am. Too many have tried to dishonor me lately." Groark asked him who he was referring to in that latter statement. "The public defenders," Ross said of his former lawyers who filed numerous motions, against his will, to try to halt his January execution. "I don't think you were part of this yet," Ross told the recently appointed Groark, "But it would be you nowadays." Elliott is a former editor of the Connecticut Law Tribune who wrote about Ross' effort in the mid-1990s to stipulate to a death sentence rather than endure a second penalty hearing, where the gruesome details of his killings would be rehashed. "He does not like to sit in court and listen to what he's done because he's ashamed of it," Elliott said during her telephone deposition. She now lives in California. She also said Ross "would rather die than live under the conditions he now lives under for the rest of his life." Elliott was visiting Ross along with his former public defender, Barry Butler, on Jan. 28, after his execution had been halted 12 hours earlier by Paulding, whose law license had been threatened by a federal judge. Butler had brought along a transcript of the telephone conference between Paulding and Chief U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny. Elliott read aloud to Ross a portion in which Chatnigny ventured that Ross so clearly suffered from a mental illness that he possibly should not have been convicted, let alone be sentenced to death. "His demeanor changed completely," Elliott said. "He was excited. ... It was like the heavens opened up and the [alleluia] chorus was singing to Michael Ross." But Elliott added that even the possibility that at least one judge believed he deserved a life sentence would not motivate Ross to halt his own execution. "He can't do it himself," Elliott said. "He's publicly said this is what he is going to do. He's fixated on this. He even said he couldn't change his mind." The hearing is scheduled to resume at 10 a.m. Monday in Superior Court in New London. (source: Hartford Courant) MISSOURI: Family of victim, accused seek leniency in death penalty case Relatives of a death row inmate who killed his St. Louis grandmother in 1993 after she refused to give him money to buy crack cocaine are asking the governor for leniency. "We have had enough death in our family," said Matthew Knuckles, a Rock Hill alderman for 16 years. "We just don't want any more grief to come from this." Last month, the Missouri Supreme Court set an April 27 execution date for Donald Jones, 38. He was convicted on June 16, 1994, of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the beating and stabbing of Dorothy Knuckles, 68. A judge sentenced him to death on July 22, 1994. Matthew Knuckles and another brother of the victim, Lester Knuckles, the former mayor of Velda Village (now Velda City), are leading the effort to persuade Gov. Matt Blunt to reduce Jones' sentence to life in prison without parole. The family is circulating a petition, has filed a request for clemency with Blunt and is working with lawyers to file more court appeals. Bill Swift, a public defender in Columbia, said one of the issues he will ask the Missouri Supreme Court to reconsider is a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that increases the requirements for defense lawyers to examine a defendant's life history. Regardless of the legal issues, he said, the family's own opposition should be compelling enough. Relatives also asked the trial court to spare Jones' life. "This family went to the prosecutor and then went into court and said, 'We don't want the death penalty,' and yet their preference was ignored," Swift said. "Usually, the courts talk about how the victim's family wants the death penalty. Not this family." Scott Holste, a spokesman for Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon, said the office remains opposed to overturning the sentence. Blunt, meanwhile, planned to review the case, said Jessica Robinson, a spokeswoman for the governor. She said he has asked the state Board of Probation and Parole to consider the case and offer a recommendation. (source: Associated Press)
