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Death Penalty News & Views 2006 |
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Death Penalty News & Views 2006 |
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11-08-06 --
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Death Penalty Archived News & Views Click Headline for Full Story
December 2006
A Delusional System of Justice
12-24-06 -- Since this is my last column of 2006, tradition and custom obligate me to choose a person of the year. This practice was started by the late Henry Luce, who realized that choosing a man of the year would call as much attention to his Time magazine as it would to the person himself. I have somewhat the same object in mind. My person of the year is Gregory Thompson. I choose him to call attention to the madness of the death penalty. . . . I apologize for the un-Christmasy nature of my topic, and I will understand if you choose to skip to another subject. But if you can spare me a moment, I'd like to tell you about Thompson. He is a cold-blooded killer, plain and simple. He is also out of his mind. . . . Thompson, 45, is delusional. He is also paranoid, schizophrenic and depressed. For these ailments, he receives daily doses of drugs and, twice a month, anti-psychotic injections. The state of Tennessee wants very much to put him to death for the horrendous 1985 murder of Brenda Blanton Lane, of which there is no doubt about his guilt. There is grave doubt, though, about the constitutionality, not to mention the decency, of executing an insane man. Thus the 12 pills Thompson takes every day. The idea, according to a recent account of his case in the Wall Street Journal, is to make him sane enough to be put to death.
Utah Supreme Court reopens death row inmate's appeal 12-18-06 -- (AP) -- The Utah Supreme Court has reopened an appeal from a death row inmate, saying his lawyer provided "deplorable" representation that shortchanged the convicted man. . . . In a 54-page opinion issued Friday, justices cited numerous failures by lawyer Ed Brass in his appeal of the conviction and sentence of Ralph Leroy Menzies. . . . In 1988, Menzies was convicted of the 1986 murder of Maurine Hunsaker, a gas station clerk who was kidnapped from her job and later found in Big Cottonwood Canyon. The 26-year-old mother of three had been strangled and her throat slit. . . . Brass was court-appointed to the case in 1993 and withdrew from it in 2003. . . . In its unanimous decision, court justices rejected an argument from state prosecutors that Menzies should be held accountable for Brass' failures. . . . The ruling will allow Menzies to argue for a new trial or a new sentencing hearing which could take him off death row. . . . "To say that Brass did little to represent Menzies during this five-and-a-half year period would be an understatement," justices said in the ruling. "In fact, Brass' representation in this case was deplorable. Our review of the record indicates that Brass not only failed to provide Menzies with any meaningful representation, but in fact willfully disregarded nearly every aspect of the case." . . . Brass is a prominent Salt Lake City defense attorney, who has often represented clients in capital cases. . . . Contacted by The Associated Press Saturday Brass declined to comment.
Federal Judge's Ruling Bans Executions in Calif. Also on Friday, Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush suspends all executions in his state
By outlawing California's lethal injection system Friday, Judge Jeremy Fogel struck the Northern District of California's latest blow at the California prison system for how it treats inmates. . . . Already under close scrutiny by Senior U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson for having a health care system that fails to keep inmates alive, the prison system, Fogel wrote, is failing to kill them in a humane manner. Fogel found that lethal injection may be unconstitutionally cruel as practiced by the state, indefinitely prolonging his February injunction on California executions. . . . The federal case, Morales v. Tilton, 06-219, is an appeal by convicted rapist and murderer Michael Morales, who is trying to escape the death chamber with an argument that the state's method of execution violates his Eighth Amendment rights. . . . By staying narrowly focused on the mechanics of death, Fogel's ruling will probably make it easier for the state to change how it administers lethal injections, rather than continue the court battle. . . . "Defendants' implementation of lethal injection is broken," Fogel wrote on Friday, "but it can be fixed." . . . The problem, he said, is that no one in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office seems willing to take the issue seriously. . . . "Indeed," Fogel wrote that after the setting of intravenous lines in the killing of Stanley "Tookie" Williams was botched last year, "the execution team members' reaction to the problem at the Williams execution was described by one member as nothing more than 'shit does happen, so.'" November 2006
Lying Juror and Prison Movie May Reverse Death Row Conviction
11-21-06 -- An overly aggressive jury foreman may have given death row inmate Maurice Boyette a second chance at life. . . . On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court ordered the director of the state Department of Corrections to show why Boyette's conviction for two West Oakland murders shouldn't be reversed for alleged improprieties by jury foreman Pervies Ary Sr. . . . The unanimous court wants to know whether Ary lied about his felony history during the voir dire stage of the 1993 trial, and whether Ary improperly urged fellow jurors to watch "American Me," a 1992 movie about gang life inside Folsom State Prison, during deliberations.
Death Penalty May Be Revived By High Court
11-20-06 -- When New York's highest court decides an appeal of the state's remaining death sentence case next year, the judges may show little allegiance to the court's landmark 2004 decision striking down the death penalty, legal observers say. . . . John Taylor, 42, is the lone convict on New York's death row, but for a condemned man his future is uncertain. His appeal will come before a court expected to be more sympathetic to capital punishment and, some attorneys speculate, less willing to be fettered by precedent. . . . Prosecutors have signaled they will ask the court to overturn the 2004 decision, which ruled a key component of the state's death penalty to be unconstitutional. That decision, in which the court threw out the death sentence of Stephen LaValle, divided the seven judges, 4–3. . . . Because of retirements in the court, the judges who hear Taylor's appeal will likely include two newcomers who did not take part in the LaValle case. One judge who voted against capital punishment, Albert Rosenblatt, yesterday heard his final day of arguments before his December retirement. Choosing a replacement for Judge Rosenblatt, considered a swing vote on capital punishment, will be one of Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer's first decisions. High Court Moves to Reinstate Calif. Man's Death Sentence
11-14-06 -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday moved to reinstate the death penalty for a California man convicted of murdering a 19-year-old woman during a burglary. . . . Justices reversed an appeals court ruling that threw out Fernando Belmontes' death sentence because the trial judge misled jurors who were considering whether to give Belmontes the death penalty or life in prison. . . . The 5-4 decision was the Court's first since starting its new term in October. It reflected an increasingly common division in death penalty cases between the Court's conservative and liberal blocs. . . . Justice Anthony Kennedy said it was implausible to conclude that jurors failed to take all the evidence into account before settling on a sentence of death. . . . Belmontes beat Steacy McConnell to death with a dumbbell bar in the burglary of her home in 1981. He was convicted of the crime and sentenced to death, a decision upheld by state courts and a federal judge. . . . The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, twice commuted the sentence. The second time was after the Supreme Court told it to reconsider Belmontes' sentence under a decision that restored the death penalty in another California murder case. Ninth Circuit Reverses Death Sentence for Attorney Incompetence Requested Instruction on Accomplice Testimony Prejudiced Client and Was ‘Quite in Error,’ Panel Says
11-09-06 -- The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned an Idaho murder conviction and death sentence, saying the defendant’s trial lawyer rendered ineffective assistance by requesting an instruction on accomplice testimony that was erroneous and in conflict with other instructions. . . . Judge Jay Bybee, writing for the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said the errors were prejudicial because Mark Lankford’s guilt was proven only by circumstantial evidence and by the uncorroborated testimony of his accomplice—his brother—and a correctly instructed jury might not have found him guilty. . . . The attorney, Bybee pointed out in a footnote, was a part-time public defender whose only previous major felony trial was that of a defendant charged with cattle-rustling. . . . Lankford has been on Idaho’s death row for more than two decades for the 1983 killings of Marine Capt. Robert Bravence and his wife, Cheryl. Their van was found abandoned at a Los Angeles bus terminal, and hunters later discovered their remains hidden at a remote campground in very rural Idaho County. . . . Yesterday’s ruling requires the state to release or retry him within a reasonable time. . . . Lankford was tried in rural Idaho County. There were no eyewitnesses, but the defendant’s brother testified that Lankford beat the victims with a small club or nightstick.
Texas Inmates Protest Conditions With Hunger Strikes
11-7-06 -- Likening themselves to prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, a dozen inmates on death row in Texas have staged hunger strikes over the last month to protest what they call abusive conditions, including 23 hours a day of isolation in their cells. . . . The Texas Department of Criminal Justice said that the first inmates began refusing food Oct. 8 and that two were still on hunger strikes in the Polunsky prison unit in Livingston, about 45 miles east of the execution unit in Huntsville. The Polunsky Unit houses death-row inmates until their executions. As of Tuesday, one inmate had missed 35 consecutive meals and one 17 meals, but no one has yet been force-fed, said a department spokeswoman, Michelle Lyons. . . . Two other prisoners who had not eaten since Oct. 8 began taking food Oct. 27 and Nov. 4, Ms. Lyons said, and others abandoned their protests after a short time. . . . But Vickie McCuistion, program coordinator of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said some inmates had been reported as eating when they were still refusing food. Ms. Lyons said that a prisoner needed to miss nine meals to be considered on hunger strike and that some who had refused meals had eaten snacks at visiting sessions. October 2006
Death penalty debate hits home As referendum approaches, families of victims divided as much as any other group
By
Gina Barton
10-15-06 --In two weeks the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, the nation's premier abolitionist organization, will meet to celebrate its success in reducing popular support for the death penalty and to discuss tactics for continuing the effort. There is something its members ought to know, however: The tactic that has eroded popular support for the death penalty is at the same time making it easier to go ahead with executions. . . . Many death penalty abolitionists operate in the belief that as soon as they identify one innocent execution victim, the death penalty will die a sudden and convulsive death. This belief is chimerical. We already know the names of a number of wrongly executed people, for all the good it's done. . . . An investigation by the Chicago Tribune revealed that Cameron Willingham, executed in Texas on Feb. 17, 2004, was almost certainly innocent. An investigation by the Houston Chronicle demonstrated that Ruben Cantu, executed in Texas on Aug. 24, 1993, was innocent. Professor Sam Gross of the University of Michigan has identified more than a hundred innocent men who have ended up on death row. . . . Proponents of the death penalty nevertheless continue to say that no one has yet proved innocence in these cases because none of them involved DNA. So the abolitionists search for DNA. One day they will find it, and when they do, we will add one more name to the list, and some district attorney will apologize and say regretfully that mistakes happen. And the machine will grind on. VIRGINIA Capital justice fails in Virginia The ultimate punishment warrants the utmost care. The commonwealth should take steps to protect against wrongful executions. 10-15-06 --Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty doesn't exactly conceal its agenda; it's right there in the name. . . . Last week, the group issued a report card of sorts on the state of capital justice in the commonwealth, and Virginia has problems. Unfortunately, some would ignore the recommendations to satisfy personal convictions, political goals or both. . . . The report based its analysis on recommendations in Illinois to enhance justice and accuracy in capital punishment. That state's governor suspended executions in 2000 over concerns about improperly convicted and sentenced individuals. A crime commission subsequently developed 85 suggestions to improve the system. . . . Virginia, according to last week's report, fully satisfies only 12 of those recommendations and completely fails on more than half of them.
For Grisham, a new turn into non-fiction
10-9-06 --John Grisham's downtown office in this quaint college town is packed with 12-inch-high stacks of court documents, box after box of medical records and hundreds of photographs. . . . They are part of the paper trail that tells the story of Ron Williamson, a once promising ballplayer who spent 11 years on Oklahoma's death row for a rape and murder he did not commit. It might have been the whole story of Williamson's life — until Grisham read his obituary in December 2004. . . . Grisham found Williamson's real life just as compelling as the stories he has told in his hugely successful legal thrillers. "It just had everything," Grisham says. "A wrongful conviction, the near execution, the exoneration, the mental illness, the insanity, the baseball." . . . Grisham, 51, was so taken by the Ada, Okla., native's story that it has changed the course of his career. The author of 18 best-selling novels has now written his first non-fiction book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (Doubleday, $28.95), on sale Tuesday. Click for: ABA Report Finds Serious Problems in Florida's Capital Punishment System Death penalty: U.S. states widen scope for executions
10-5-06 --(IPS/GIN) - Politicians in primarily southern U.S. states have passed laws that expand the use of the death penalty to include repeat child sex offenders—a move mental health professionals say is ineffective in stopping molestation and abolitionists believe ultimately will be ruled unconstitutional. . . . Despite the warnings, two states, South Carolina and Oklahoma, this summer enacted laws that allow repeat child sex offenders to be put to death. They join Louisiana, Florida and Montana, which already have similar laws on their books. . . . The governors of both Oklahoma and South Carolina argued that the sexual abuse of children is as bad as murder because molestation causes permanent damage to the life of the child. . . . “(It) is about sending a very clear message that there are some lines that you do not cross,” said South Carolina governor Mark Sanford in a statement, “and that if those lines are crossed, the penalties will be severe.” . . . klahoma State Senator Jay Paul Gumm echoed the sentiment. “We allow the death penalty for someone who has killed a body,” Mr. Gumm, who authored the Oklahoma bill, said in a statement. “Why would we allow someone to escape who has killed a soul?” . . . But critics dismiss such reasoning as irrational and unconstitutional, even though they acknowledge that child rape is a serious crime. . . . “Obviously, it’s a very, very serious crime,” said John Holdridge, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) capital punishment project, in an interview with IPS. “But this law is totally disproportionate to the crime, which does not involve a case of an eye for an eye.” . . . Along with the majority of lawmakers in South Carolina and Oklahoma who voted in favor of death penalty laws, Mr. Gumm reasoned that only an unusual punishment, such as execution, could deter those who repeatedly use sexual violence against minors. September 2006 Supreme Court Accepts Arizona Death Penalty Case
9-28-06 -- The Supreme Court accepted an appeal Tuesday from Arizona, which wants to execute a twice-convicted killer who says his lawyer didn't do enough to ward off a death sentence. . . . Justices said they would review a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said a lower court should consider Jeffrey Landrigan's claims that his lawyer was ineffective. . . . Landrigan escaped from an Oklahoma prison in 1989, where he was serving a 20-year term for murdering an acquaintance. A month later, he killed Chester Dyer, who picked up men on the Phoenix streets by flashing large sums of money. . . . As Landrigan and the man were drinking beer in the victim's Phoenix apartment, Landrigan strangled Dyer with an electrical cord and repeatedly punctured him with a screwdriver. He was convicted of killing Dyer and sentenced to death. . . . Dale Baich, who represents Landrigan in his appeals, said his client might have won a life term instead of a death sentence if his trial lawyer had submitted evidence that he was predisposed to violence and suffered brain damage that made him unable to appreciate his crimes. CALIFORNIA Judge questions expert at death penalty hearing
9-28-06 -- A federal judge overseeing a condemned Stockton man's challenges to the state's lethal injection procedures directly questioned a noted anesthesiologist today about the best way to euthanize human-size primates such as gorillas. . . . Fogel hasn't shied away from interrupting attorneys to ask probing questions of the expert witnesses. He has asked about the amount of lethal drugs needed and other possible drug combinations. . . . After attorneys finished with Dr. Mark Heath, a professor of anesthesiology at Columbia University Medical School, Fogel pulled out a list of questions written on a notepad and turned to the witness, who has testified across the country in challenges to lethal injection. . . . Aware that Heath, as a doctor, objects to participating in an execution, Fogel asked how to painlessly euthanize a 150-pound primate, rather than a human, by injecting barbiturates. . . . "I want to be sensitive to your concerns," Fogel said. "At the same time I want to get the information." CALIFORNIA
State's execution method on trial
9-26-06 -- California's method of executing prisoners by lethal injection will come under scrutiny this week, point by technical point -- how the executioners are trained, how the toxic chemicals are mixed, even how much light there is in the mixing room. . . . The stakes, though, are anything but technical: the immediate future of executions in California, and perhaps in the nation. . . . Starting Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose will hear arguments by lawyers both for the state and for a condemned murderer from Stockton about California's execution method. Witnesses -- guards, former wardens, execution observers and medical experts -- will discuss how prisoners have been put to death by injection at San Quentin State Prison since 1996, how the state is proposing to change its procedures, and whether the changes will minimize the risk of a prisoner dying in agony. When Can an Inmate 'Volunteer' for Death? 9th Circuit rejects a competent inmate's decision to abandon legal challenge to his capital sentence
Related: Bashman Archive 9-18-06 Last week, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that an inmate on Arizona's death row had knowingly and voluntarily abandoned his federal habeas corpus action challenging the imposition of the death penalty as punishment for having committed first-degree murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, aggravated assault, sexual assault and sexual abuse. . . . Notwithstanding the inmate's decision to forgo any appeal from the denial of his federal habeas action and to accept the death penalty as appropriate punishment, a majority on that panel held that permitting a state to execute a capital defendant without a full adjudication, including appellate review, of the inmate's federal habeas action, would violate the 8th Amendment. . . . Robert Charles Comer, the inmate in question, was convicted by a jury, but it was a trial court judge, sitting without a jury, who decided whether to impose a death sentence. The majority in the 9th Circuit ruling held that because the trial judge sentenced Comer to death at a proceeding where Comer was "nearly naked, bleeding, shackled, and exhausted," the death penalty was imposed in a manner that violated Comer's due process rights and that necessitated a resentencing.
TEXAS
"Thou Shalt Not Kill"…. That is unless you are the state of Texas. State sanctioned killing is murder in the worst degree and murder that is inflicted on the poorest of the poor and the most disadvantaged. The blood thirsty rush to judgment on Derrick Frazier (Hasan Shakur) proves the state is more interested in keeping its execution schedules and murder dates than it is in truly practicing justice for all. . . . "Texacutioners" have the worst record in this country of executing citizens with "hanging questions" and "loose ends" that could have made the difference in life and death. Death sentences in Texas are given almost exclusively to the poor and the state leads the nation in executions with 375 since 1982. . . . There are serious indications of racial bias in the application of the death penalty in Texas. For instance, according to the 2000 census, African Americans are only 11.5 percent of the population of Texas, yet 40.5 percent of people on death row in Texas are African Americans. As a comparison, only 3.5 percent of all students enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin in the fall of 2004 were African Americans. . . . The American Bar Association has concluded that administration of the death penalty is "a haphazard maze of unfair practices with no internal consistency".
UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
Justice Scalia should study these death penalty cases. 7-5-06 -- IN HIS INTEMPERATE concurrence to a decision on capital punishment last week, Justice Antonin Scalia made a remarkable claim: "One cannot have a system of criminal punishment without accepting the possibility that someone will be punished mistakenly. . . . But with regard to the punishment of death in the current American system, that possibility has been reduced to an insignificant minimum." Justice Scalia sneered that those "ideologically driven to ferret out and proclaim a mistaken modern execution" have been unable to find "a single verifiable case to point to." . . . The justice's remark could not have been more ill-timed. It came in the midst of a remarkable series by the Chicago Tribune casting grave doubt on the guilt of a man executed in Texas in 1989, Carlos De Luna. The state executed Mr. De Luna for the stabbing death of a gas station clerk in 1983, and the condemned went to his death proclaiming his innocence. From the beginning, he named an acquaintance, Carlos Hernandez, as the killer. According to the Tribune, friends and family of Mr. Hernandez, a violent felon who died in prison in 1999, have now come forward to say he boasted of the crime and of letting Mr. De Luna take the fall for it. The Tribune's investigation calls into question the eyewitness evidence presented at trial. It shows how leads concerning Mr. Hernandez were not followed up.
June 2006 UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT Alito Breaks Tie to Uphold Kansas Death Penalty Law 6-27-06 -- New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito broke a tie Monday in a ruling that affirmed a state death penalty law and also revealed the Court's deep divisions over capital punishment. . . . Justices split 5-4 in the term's oldest case, which was argued in December before Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement and then again with Alito on the bench. . . . The justices are in the final week of their term and handling some of the most contentious and important cases. They meet again Wednesday to announce more decisions. . . . The Kansas case was unique. The state law says juries should impose death sentences if aggravating evidence of a crime's brutality and mitigating factors explaining a defendant's actions are equal in weight. . . . Justice David H. Souter, writing for the liberals, said the law was "morally absurd." . . . But the five conservatives, including Alito, overturned a Kansas Supreme Court ruling that found the law violated the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment. TEXAS 6-27-06 -- This nation has had a long and impassioned debate about the imposition of the death penalty, and that debate goes on. The Supreme Court revealed its own divisions Monday, upholding a Kansas law on capital punishment by a 5-4 vote. . . . Capital punishment is here and likely to be around for many years. One would hope as the debate goes on that those on either side of the divide could agree on this: As long as the government imposes the death penalty, it has an obligation to make every possible effort to protect the innocent from wrongful prosecution. . . . The Chicago Tribune concludes a series on Tuesday that raises new questions about whether we can have such certainty. The series lays out the possibility that Texas executed an innocent man 17 years ago. . . . In 1983, a convenience store clerk named Wanda Lopez was stabbed to death. Crime scene photos show blood splattered on the walls of the store, the cash register and the floor. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The newspaper investigation, involving interviews with dozens of people and a review of thousands of pages of court records, shows the case was compromised by shaky eyewitness identification, sloppy police work and a failure to thoroughly pursue Hernandez as a possible suspect. . . . These revelations, which cast significant doubt over De Luna's conviction, were never heard by the jury. About this series Since the U.S. Supreme Court approved the reinstatement of the death penalty 30 years ago, there has yet to be an instance of DNA proving that an innocent person was executed. . . . As more cases are re-examined, though, doubt is being cast on a number of executions--especially those in Texas, where the criminal justice system has executed more people than any other state. . . . The Tribune has been investigating criminal justice issues in depth since 1999. Its examination of flaws in Illinois' death penalty system helped prompt a moratorium on executions in the state. . . . The paper also has exposed problems in Texas' death penalty system. In 2004, it revealed the faulty science behind the arson investigation that led to the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. Last year, a Houston Chronicle investigation cast serious doubt on the evidence that sent Ruben Cantu to the death chamber. . . . The Tribune learned of Carlos De Luna, who was executed in 1989 for a murder in Corpus Christi, after James Liebman, a professor at Columbia Law School in New York City, contacted the newspaper. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Part 3: The secret that wasn't Last of three parts. Violent felon bragged that he was real killer.
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The
Chicago Tribune Investigates the Execution of a Likely
Innocent Man in "Did this man die...for this man's crime?".
. . In
1989, defendant Carlos DeLuna was executed in Texas for the
fatal stabbing of Texas convenience store clerk Wanda
Lopez. The three-part series by reporters Maurice Possley
and Steve Mills can be found
A
news piece on ABC's "World News Tonight" also covered this
story. Watch it
