April 1 TEXAS: Photos move jurors to tears----Crime scene photos show murder scene Jurors gasped and became teary-eyed Thursday after prosecutors showed crime scene photos in the capital murder trial of a man accused of beating a man and his 10-year-old son to death with a claw hammer. Bevy Lee Wilson, 46, is on trial in the February 2003 death of Richard Carbaugh, 34, and his son, Dominic, in their Barton Street apartment in Flour Bluff. The jurors looked on as crime scene images of blood-spattered toys and furniture flashed onto a larg screen in the courtroom. Pictures of the kitchen, where the bodies were found, showed blood splattered all the way to the ceiling, swaths of blood on the walls and puddles on the floor that flowed under and out the back door. One of the last pictures shown by prosecutor Sandra Alaniz drew gasps and several jurors - both women and men - teared up at the images of Carbaugh and Dominic with their heads bashed in, lying in pools of blood on the kitchen floor. The bloody hammer lay on the stove above them. Carbaugh also had a steak knife embedded in his skull. Wilson stared at his hands and doodled on a legal pad while the pictures were projected on the screen. Defense attorney Scott Ellison quizzed Kathy Cassada, a Corpus Christi Crime Scene technician who testified for most of the day, about evidence collected at the scene. Carbaugh's neighbor, David Sensinger, 29, testified that while he was cooking dinner, he heard grunting and groaning from next door that sounded like the times he and his brothers roughhoused when they were younger. When prosecutors Mark Skurka and Sandra Alaniz questioned why he did not call the police, Sensinger said the noise was over quickly enough that he and his mother, Lucy, who testified Wednesday that she had seen Wilson at the Carbaugh home that day, did not think anything of it. "It's in the Bluff," Sensinger said. "You hear things you don't hear in other parts of Corpus. It's so natural to hear people scream or hear people wrestling that you don't think about it." Defense attorney Doug Tinker said he expects to start defense arguments next week and that he expects the trial to last through next week. If convicted, Wilson could face the death penalty. (source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times) ************************ Trial twists, turns In another twist in a case marked by delays and reversal of a decision about DNA evidence, on Wednesday the state waived the death penalty and Joe Edward LaRue waived his right to trial by jury in his capital murder trial. LaRue is on trial in the 1989 bludgeoning death and sexual assault of Port Neches resident Donna Pentecost. He faces up to life in prison if found guilty of her death. LaRue and 2 other co-workers at Jordan Industries, where Pentecost was employed, reported finding Pentecost dead in her yard in the 300 block of Avenue B Oct. 16, 1989. Police later found a 40-pound paving stone they believe was the murder weapon. Testimony began Monday in LaRue's capital murder trial. Following defense attorneys' objection Wednesday to a statement about the polygraph of a witness during prosecutor's questioning of Port Neches Police Chief Gene Marsh, Judge Layne Walker of the 252nd District Court called for a recess. After about 4 hours of discussion, court reconvened and Walker announced the waivers of the death penalty and jury trial. At that time, he dismissed the jury that had been impaneled for more than 2 years while higher courts debated the DNA evidence issue. Walker will decide LaRue's guilt or innocence and if guilty, determine his sentence. The trial will resume Monday. Walker thanked jurors for their patience with the long interruption. "I know you're about ready to hang me out to dry," Walker joked to the jury Wednesday, "But I'm going to release you." Walker told them their long wait had not been in vain. Although they had not finished hearing the case, they had saved taxpayers some money because the state had not had to go through the long process of choosing another jury in a death penalty case. In a telephone interview later, Walker estimated the cost to the county in excess of $50,000, including the cost of delaying his normal criminal docket during the time of jury selection. When he made the decision in 2003, he thought the appeals courts would expedite the DNA question since the jury was on hold. "I thought it was going to take a couple of months and it turned into a 2-year fiasco," he said. "It was beyond me." But, Walker said, if he had it to do over again, he'd make the same decision. One juror, Kraig DeVillier, contacted at home, said he was disappointed to be dismissed after 3 days, because the trial was interesting. But in another way it was a relief, because the prospect of handing down the death penalty wasn't very appealing. The 40-year-old Nederland refinery employee said he'd never expected to have to be on call for such a long time when he answered his summons more than 2 years ago, but it turned out to be not so burdensome. Court clerks checked in with him, and he called them from time to time, especially if he had vacation plans. Each time, clerks gave him the go-ahead, so it wasn't a problem. Walker tried to make it as easy as possible for the jurors. "They just don't know how much I appreciate them," Walker said. "At the end of the day, it saved the county a tremendous amount of money." (source: The Beaumont Enterprise) ************************** Man's claim of flawed evidence is rejected ----Killer can appeal ruling on ballistics in 1995 capital murder conviction A federal judge has dismissed a Houston man's claim that flawed ballistics evidence led to his 1995 capital murder conviction. However, in a 130-page opinion this week, U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas granted Nanon Williams permission to appeal her decision to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Williams, 30, will escape the death penalty in any case because of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ban on the execution of inmates who were younger than 18 when they committed their crimes. Williams was 17 in 1992, when Adonis Collier was shot to death during a drug deal in Hermann Park. Houston Police Department firearms examiner Robert Baldwin testified in Williams' trial that Collier was shot in the head with a .25-caliber bullet - the caliber of Williams' gun. After re-examining the evidence, however, Baldwin changed his theory six years later and said the bullet actually was a .22-caliber fired from a co-defendant's gun, which had not been tested previously. State District Judge Joan Campbell then recommended a new trial for Williams, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected that suggestion. Williams appealed to the federal courts, alleging that his attorney was ineffective for failing to thoroughly investigate the ballistics evidence. He also contended that prosecutors knew the ballistics evidence was faulty. Atlas held that there was evidence Williams participated in the slaying, even if he didn't fire the .25-caliber pistol, because of indications that another weapon also was used. The case is 1 of 3 in which recent court rulings have questioned the work of the HPD ballistics lab. (source: Houston Chronicle) VIRGINIA: Norfolk Man Receives Death Penalty in 2004 Quadruple Murder A Norfolk judge Friday upheld a jury's recommendation of a death sentence for a man convicted of killing his former girlfriend, her 2 children and her brother. Anthony Juniper, 33, was convicted in January on 4 counts of capital murder, 4 weapons charges and 1 count of armed burglary. On January 16 of 2004, police say 33-year old Juniper murdered his ex-girlfriend in her Bay View Apartment - along with the woman's 19-year old brother and her 2 little girls. Police say Juniper - also known as 'Ant-Man' - flew into a rage that Friday in January after a telephone argument with his ex-girlfriend, 27-year old Keshia Stephens. That's when prosecutors allege Juniper went to her Norfolk apartment in the 1400 block of Kingston Avenue and shot and stabbed Stephens, and also shot her brother, Ruben E. Harrison III, 19, and 2 of her daughters - 4-year-old Nykia and 2-year-old Shearyia. 2 other daughters of Stephens were in school at the time and were not injured. (source: WAVY TV News) ILLINOIS: Man could face the death penalty----32-year-old is charged with 1996 murder It will "not be very long" before a decision is made on whether a Galena man charged with murder in a 1996 Putnam County shooting could face the death penalty, the county prosecutor said Thursday. Joshua K. Rosado, 32, appeared in Putnam County Circuit Court on a 1st-degree murder charge stemming from the July 4, 1996, killing of John Luzscz, 24. Luszcz, then a recent Bradley University graduate, was shot 5 times in the head and torso in a family vacation home at Lake Thunderbird, a rural Putnam lakeside development. Rosado has been charged under a statute that could allow a death sentence if enough aggravating factors are proven, and Circuit Judge Kevin Galley asked State's Attorney Norman Raffety during Rosado's formal arraignment Thursday if he had decided whether to press for that penalty. The statute allows prosecutors up to 120 days after arraignment to give notice, and Raffety said he had not yet made the decision. But he indicated it likely would be made long before that statutory deadline. "I expect that will not be very long," Raffety said. County public defender Roger Bolin, who was appointed last week to represent Rosado, raised the question of whether two attorneys certified to defend capital cases should be appointed immediately because of the possibility that death would be sought. State law requires that a defendant in a capital case have at least 2 attorneys with that special certification. "Until the death penalty is off the table, it's on the table," Bolin said. Raffety argued it would "premature at this time" to appoint certified litigators, and Galley withheld any ruling or further discussion until after a preliminary hearing scheduled for next Thursday. Rosado was arrested in Florida and transported to Putnam County last week. Local authorities have refused to disclose any information about how or when he became a suspect in the shooting of nearly 9 years ago. Rosado appeared alert and emotionless during the 15-minute hearing, answering a sequence of routine yes-or-no questions from Galley in a firm and clear voice. He's being held without bail in the LaSalle County Jail because a new facility in Putnam County is not yet ready for inmates. (source: Peoria Journal Star) USA: Author praises ailing pope's leadership against death penalty Sister Helen Prejean draws 600 to lecture Sister Helen Prejean, author of the best-selling book Dead Man Walking, praised ailing Pope John Paul II for his work fighting the death penalty during a lecture and book signing Thursday night at Regis University. With more than a trace of her New Orleans drawl on display throughout the one-hour talk, Prejean recalled how she wrote a letter to the pontiff asking him to reconsider his 1995 encyclical, the Gospel of Life, which allowed the state to use the death penalty "in cases of absolute necessity." "That's what I put in the letter," Prejean said to the audience. "I said, 'Your Holiness, your encyclical came as a breath of fresh air. You pushed the death penalty to the edge, but you left a big loophole in that statement and your words are going to be quoted for death.'" Prejean told the crowd of more than 600 that she remembered Harry Connick Sr., the district attorney of New Orleans, using the pope's words in defense of the death penalty because he thought many cases were "of absolute necessity." The outspoken nun included that in the letter as well. Prejean said she wrote: "You know, when you're walking with a man who is saying to you, 'Just pray to God to hold up my legs,' there is no dignity in this death. They have been rendered defenseless. Is it only the dignity of the innocent that the Catholic Church upholds? What about the guilty?" Later, when the pope visited St. Louis in 1999, he spoke about life issues and included the death penalty for the 1st time along with abortion, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Prejean, 65, said she admired the pope's leadership on the matter and quickly added that her letter was only one part in getting the church to rail against the death penalty. She credited numerous bishops for keeping it at the forefront as well. The lecture was part of the Catholic university's lecture series titled "Catholicism in the Modern World." Afterward, Prejean signed copies of her books - including Dead Man Walking and her new tome called The Death of Innocents. That book traces the death penalty cases of two men - one in Virginia and one in Louisiana - who she believes were wrongly executed. "I think of myself as a prism," she said. "You look through me and you see through me the suffering world." Even though she used a sense of humor throughout her talk - often keeping the crowd laughing with tales of her early days before the success of the movie Dead Man Walking - she said that the death penalty exists and flourishes because so few people are touched by it. "Art is the only way we can get people to be brought close to the reality," she said. "The death penalty is a secret ritual that no one sees." Sheila Bernard, a Regis University student who came with her mother to hear Prejean speak, said she had always opposed the death penalty - but without concrete reasons for that opposition. Bernard said Prejean gave her a concrete foundation for her beliefs. "She presented facts that are hard to overlook," she said, clutching 2 copies of signed books. "She's a great speaker and made a good case against the death penalty." (source: Rocky Mountain News) ********************** A Devotion To Life? Political observers have been scratching their heads over the last week as they've listened to the moral grandstanding of political leaders forcing the relitigation of the Schiavo case. One after another, Republicans have proclaimed their undying allegiance to the "culture of life." President George W. Bush said, "In cases like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life." Governor Jeb Bush said, "We should always favor life." In an unsigned memo that was distributed to Republican senators and later obtained by ABC News, the Schiavo case was described as a "great political issue." "This legislation ensures that individuals like Terri Schiavo are guaranteed the same legal protections as convicted murderers like Ted Bundy," according to the memo. Which raises an interesting point: How can people who have been so hostile toward legal protections for people on death row -- whose lives literally hang in the balance -- say they always "favor life"? The Bush brothers and congressional Republicans who vocally oppose "endless" appeals by death-row inmates demanded more litigation and more federal involvement in the Schiavo case -- all because the courts' decisions were not to their liking. Prior to the congressional intervention, the case was reviewed dozens of times in court, including 5 times in federal court. It was never determined that Terri Schiavo's rights had been violated. Before Congress interfered, the Supreme Court rejected the opportunity to hear the case 3 times. Reasonable people can disagree about whether or not Schiavo's case deserved more review (Democrat Tom Harkin co-sponsored the Schiavo bill), but it is inconsistent for Republicans to advocate for it. If their rhetoric and actions in this case are to be taken seriously, they should adopt a new posture on death-penalty cases. As governor of Texas, Bush set a record for executions, with 152 people put to death on his watch. There is serious doubt about the guilt of some of them. Worse, he was quoted in a 2000 Talk Magazine interview by Tucker Carlson as mimicking a female inmate's final plea for her life: "'Please,' Bush whimpered, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'Don't kill me.'" Death-penalty supporters like Bush may cruelly imitate a person on death row, but even they have to admit that killing innocent people is wrong. In February 2005, the American Bar Association released a study saying that legal representation of indigents is in "a state of crisis." These defendants are at constant risk of wrongful conviction and unjust punishment, including the death penalty, according to the study. Nationally, about 100 wrongfully convicted men and women have been freed from death row since 1976, thanks in many cases to DNA technology. These are not inmates who were released because of a technicality or because they "gamed the system," as conservatives like to say. They were exonerated. That should be troubling to anyone professing a strong presumption in favor of life. In 2000, Governor George W. Bush vetoed a bill that would have allowed Texas counties to set up a public-defender system for indigent suspects and pushed for legislation to streamline the state appeals process, i.e., cut short the chance for the falsely convicted to prove their innocence. He was so convinced of the guilt of Texas' death-row inmates that he granted only one 30-day stay of execution in more than 5 years in office. While it would be nearly impossible for Jeb Bush to catch upwith his brother's killing spree in Texas, he has focused on getting rid of those pesky appeals that have been so integral to his quest to overturn scores of state and federal court rulings in the Schiavo case. This has occurred despite Florida's position as the state with the most wrongful convictions of death-row inmates in the country -- 21 over a 28-year period, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In second place was Illinois, where 18 people on death row were wrongfully convicted. In 2000, then-Governor George Ryan imposed a moratorium on the death penalty. But not Jeb Bush. He wants to speed up the process. His 2003 budget said: "Governor Bush believes that capital cases should be resolved within five years after a death sentence is imposed -- not 20 years. Delays of 10 to 20 years in capital cases are not fair to anyone and justice is not served." Except, perhaps, for those who are innocent. A month before Governor Bush made this statement, Rudolph Holton was exonerated after spending 16 years on death row. Under Bush's proposal, Holton likely would have been dead. Perhaps it took the case of Terri Schiavo to awaken conservatives' compassion for those who rely on the judicial system for protection from those who would like to take their lives. If ever there is a place for the legislative or executive branch to take an interest -- and make every allowance to see that the correct decision is reached -- it is the death penalty, which involves actions by the government to prosecute and then kill its citizens. However the Schiavo case should have been resolved, it is indisputable that any person who puts a premium on life can't stand by as the government executes innocent people. (source: The American Prospect -- Kirsten A. Powers served as deputy assistant U.S. Trade Representative for public affairs in the Clinton administration and is a New York-based Democratic consultant. In addition, she writes the blog PowersOnPolitics)
