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May 2008

KENTUCKY

Kentucky death row inmate: 'I'm ready and I'm sorry'

By Brett Barrouquere , Associated Press Writer

5-11-08 -- Marco Allen Chapman is ready to die. After more than three years of waiting for courts to consider an appeal he never wanted, the death row inmate may soon get his wish and become the first person executed in Kentucky since 1999. . . . "I'm willing to accept the consequences for the crime I committed," Chapman told The Associated Press in a recent interview, his first since pleading guilty to the 2002 stabbing deaths of two children after a two-day crack binge. . . . Several states are moving swiftly forward on death penalty cases after the U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling on a different Kentucky case, upheld the widely used three-drug method of lethal injection. This week, Georgia became the first to execute an inmate after the seven-month hiatus. Condemned inmates in Alabama, Mississippi and Texas also had dates set for their lethal injections.

OHIO

Six felons ruled retarded are spared execution

Karen Farkas, Plain Dealer Reporter

5-11-08 -- Akron- Six men are likely to die in prison, but not at the hands of an executioner. . . . They were removed from Ohio's death row because they are mentally retarded and judges ruled they qualified under a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that it is cruel and unusual punishment to execute retarded inmates. . . . The families of the victims had no recourse as the men were resentenced to life. The family of a Cincinnati boy killed in 1992 has seen both men convicted of his death ruled mentally retarded. . . . Deborah Thorpe's family is upset and plans to speak today in Summit County Common Pleas Court when Clifton White III is resentenced, prosecutors said. White's death sentence was vacated last month by the Ohio Supreme Court, which overturned two lower courts that ruled White, 35, of Akron, was not mentally retarded. . . . Thorpe and Julie Schrey, the mother of White's ex-girlfriend, were shot by White on Christmas Eve 1995. Thorpe's son was severely injured when White shot him at a fast-food restaurant as he protected the ex-girlfriend.

Chattanooga: Stevens addresses lethal injections

By: Monica Mercer

5-10-08 --  Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens drew a round of applause Friday night in Chattanooga when he suggested that the recently-euthanized Kentucky Derby horse Eight Bells had probably experienced a more humane death than those who die on death row. . . . “I had checked the procedure they used to kill the horse,” Justice Stevens said, expressing surprise to learn it is against the law in Kentucky to kill animals using one of the drugs in a three-drug lethal injection cocktail that many believe is cruel to humans. . . . Yet just three weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled that Kentucky’s use of that cocktail on death row did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Justice Stevens concurred with the court’s decision, but conceded his opinion would “generate debate not only about the constitutionality of the three-drug protocol, but also about the justification for the death penalty itself.” . . . Justice Stevens talked about the lethal injection case and other recent Supreme Court decisions as he addressed an audience of legal professionals at the Chattanooga Convention Center during the last evening of the 68th conference of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Justice Stevens presides over the 6th Circuit in his position on the Supreme Court.

CALIFORNIA

A death sentence voided

The Adam Miranda case shows that the California death penalty costs too much in time, money and justice.

5-7-08 -- If a respected entertainment lawyer had not decided 20 years ago to devote a substantial chunk of his life and work to helping a California death row inmate -- for free -- Adam Miranda would be dead by now. A document that could well have reduced Miranda's sentence had it not purposely or accidentally been kept from defense lawyers never would have come to light. Miranda's most recent petition for habeas corpus likely would have been rejected, just like the ones in 1987, 1989 and 1993. . . . But George R. Hedges stood by Miranda for two decades and happened upon evidence in the file of the Los Angeles County district attorney's office that a different man stabbed a drug dealer to death in 1980. On Monday, that changed everything, as the state Supreme Court threw out Miranda's death sentence and ordered a new penalty trial. . . . Miranda had an attorney whose firm was willing to donate millions of dollars worth of time to his case. Most of the 669 people on San Quentin's death row aren't nearly as lucky. If they have lawyers at all, they're usually harried, well-meaning professionals who do the best they can with the limited resources the state gives them to pursue their appeals. Earlier this year, one defense lawyer told the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice that, in a single death-penalty case, he typically must review 100 boxes of files and explore 40 areas in which things may have gone wrong -- but must tell his clients that "maybe I can only do seven of them" because there isn't enough money to do the rest.

GEORGIA

Ga. Man Becomes First Inmate Executed Since Supreme Court Decision on Lethal Injections

Shannon McCaffrey, The Associated Press

5-7-08 -- A Georgia man who killed his live-in girlfriend was executed Tuesday, the first inmate put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of lethal injections. . . . William Earl Lynd was pronounced dead at 7:51 p.m. EDT, Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Mallie McCord told The Associated Press. It came less than an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected efforts to block it. . . . The roughly three dozen states around the country that use lethal injection held off on carrying out any executions for more than seven months while the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of the three-drug cocktail that's used. It was the longest pause in U.S. executions in a quarter century. . . . The Supreme Court last month upheld the legality of lethal injections, and Georgia was the first state to carry one out. . . . Lynd, 53, was sentenced to die for kidnapping and shooting his live-in girlfriend, Ginger Moore, three times in the face and head two decades ago. After he buried Moore's body in a shallow grave near a south Georgia farm, authorities said Lynd fled to Ohio, where he shot and killed another woman who had stopped along the side of the road to help him.

TEXAS

After Hiatus, States Set Wave of Executions

By Ralph Blumenthal

5-3-08 -- Here in the nation’s leading death-penalty state, and some of the 35 others with capital punishment, execution dockets are quickly filling up. . . . Less than three weeks after a United States Supreme Court ruling ended a seven-month moratorium on lethal injections, at least 14 execution dates have been set in six states between May 6 and October. . . . “The Supreme Court essentially blessed their way of doing things,” said Douglas A. Berman, a professor of law and a sentencing expert at Ohio State University. “So in some sense, they’re back from vacation and ready to go to work.” . ..  Experts say the resumption of executions is likely to throw a strong new spotlight on the divisive national — and international — issue of capital punishment. . ..  “When people confront a new wave of executions, they’ll be questioning not only how people are executed but whether people should be executed,” said James R. Acker, a historian of the death penalty and a criminal justice professor at the State University at Albany. . . . Texas leads the list with five people now set to die here in the Walls Unit, the state’s death house, between June 3 and Aug. 20. Virginia is next with four. Louisiana, Oklahoma and South Dakota have also set execution dates. . . . Some welcome the end of the moratorium. . . . “We’ll start playing a little bit of catch-up,” said William R. Hubbarth, a spokesman for Justice for All, a victims rights group based in Houston. . . . “It’s not like we have a cheering section for the death penalty.” Mr. Hubbarth said. But, he added: “The capital murderers set to be executed should be executed post-haste. It’s not about killing the inmate. It’s about imposing the penalty that 12 of his peers have assessed.”

THIS WEEK FROM DPIC
Week of April 28, 2008 -- May 4, 2008
[ http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org ]

April 2008

MISSISSIPPI

Attorneys file petitions to stop Berry execution

By Patsy R. Brumfield, Daily Journal

4-30-08 -- Lawyers for convicted murderer Earl Wesley Berry say their client is mentally retarded and cannot be executed for the murder of Mary Bounds in Chickasaw County. . . . Tuesday, they filed a thick petition to the Mississippi Supreme Court to stop Berry's execution, which was stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court last fall but put back into motion by a go-ahead on lethal injections nationwide last week. . . . Attorney General Jim Hood asked the state's highest court to set a new death date, preferably early in May. . . . The Berry petition also argues that Mississippi's process for lethal injection is different from the safeguards approved by the U.S. Supreme Court on April 16. . ..  His attorneys say that even if the state court denies their claims about Berry's possible mental retardation or the lethal injection system, it should give them enough time to prepare a full clemency petition for Gov. Haley Barbour's review so lesser punishments can be considered. . . . Berry was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury for the Nov. 29, 1987, murder of Bounds, a crime to which he confessed.

VIRGINIA

State Asks Supreme Court to Permit Execution

Defense Objects to Lethal Drug Protocol

By Robert Barnes, Washington Post Staff Writer  

4-30-08 -- The U.S. Supreme Court will consider next month whether to allow Virginia to set an execution date for a death row inmate who contends that the commonwealth's lethal injection procedures do not meet the standards that the court recently found constitutional. . . . . Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R) has asked the court to vacate the stay of execution it granted Christopher Scott Emmett last fall, after the court agreed to hear a case challenging the constitutionality of Kentucky's lethal injection procedure. . . . The court ruled 7 to 2 in favor of Kentucky, and Virginia contends that because its procedures are "virtually identical" to those the court found constitutional, Emmett's stay should be vacated and the state should be allowed to set an execution date.

UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT

Unusual Nonsense

The Supreme Court's continued failure to rationalize its decisions about cruel and unusual punishment.

by Benjamin Wittes

4-28-08 -- The Supreme Court last week gave the country an object lesson in the absurdity of the Eighth Amendment--at least, as it is currently understood by the justices. On a single day, it handed down a decision upholding as constitutional the specific mixture of drugs by which thirty states put condemned prisoners to death, and it then went on to hear oral arguments over the question of whether states may constitutionally execute child rapists. That may not sound absurd, and it wouldn't be if the court had any kind of coherent approach to cases alleging "cruel and unusual punishment." But it doesn't. So the one-two punch, like so most of the court's recent hand-wringing over the amendment, operated more as a kind of philosophical and--let's face it--political Rorschach test for the justices than anything else. . . . And in these cases, the test revealed a serious case of multiple personality disorder. . . . There are no principles here, none that anyone can agree on, anyway. So while seven justices seemed to think that the drug cocktail was okay, no more than three could sign any one opinion holding as much. This plurality regarded the drug combination as adequate, since those challenging it had not proven a substantial chance of it causing great pain. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote separately to say that he regarded the current drugs as okay too, though based on a different standard. So did Justice John Paul Stevens, who nonetheless took the opportunity to announce that he now regarded the death penalty itself as "cruel and unusual." Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, meanwhile, argued that to violate the amendment, an execution method has to be intentionally painful, like the torturous deaths inflicted under the Stuarts in England. Meanwhile, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented, wanting to send the case back for more fact-finding on the question of whether the execution procedures could be easily improved to lessen the chance of severe pain. Having given the country these pearls of guidance, the justices then turned to executing child rapists.

VIRIGINIA

Sniper Fights Death Sentence

Lawyers Argue Muhammad Had Mitigating Factors

By Tom Jackman, Washington Post Staff Writer  

4-26-08 -- Jurors might not have sentenced convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad to death if they had known that he was abused as a child, that he has brain damage and that there were conflicting witness accounts to some of the shootings, Muhammad's appeals lawyers argued in court papers this week. . . . The lawyers are asking the federal court in Alexandria to overturn the death sentence Muhammad received in Prince William County for killing Dean H. Meyers near Manassas in October 2002, one of 10 sniper slayings in the Washington region that month. . . . Slayings in Alabama and Louisiana were also linked to Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, but Prince William prosecutors did not share with the defense evidence in those cases that was "the linchpin" to the state's cases in the individual shootings, the court papers said. . . . Prince William Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert said yesterday that if evidence was not turned over to the defense, it was because it was not exculpatory, meaning it did not tend to show Muhammad's innocence. He said the Virginia Supreme Court had already rejected arguments about the evidence of Muhammad's abusive past. . . . Muhammad and Malvo were arrested in a blue Chevrolet Caprice at a Maryland highway rest stop on Oct. 24, 2002. A .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle was found in the trunk, and ballistics linked the gun to nine of the 10 sniper slayings. In a separate trial in Virginia, Malvo was sentenced to life without parole. In Maryland, Muhammad and Malvo each received six life sentences.

UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT

Cruel and Unusual History

By Gilbert King Op-Ed Contributor

4-23-08 -- THE Supreme Court concluded last week, in a 7-2 ruling, that Kentucky’s three-drug method of execution by lethal injection does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts cited a Supreme Court principle from a ruling in 1890 that defines cruelty as limited to punishments that “involve torture or a lingering death.” . . . But the court was wrong in the 19th century, an error that has infected its jurisprudence for more than 100 years. In this nation’s landmark capital punishment cases, the resultant executions were anything but free from torture and prolonged deaths. . . . The first of those landmark cases, the 1879 case of Wilkerson v. Utah, was cited by Justice Clarence Thomas, in his concurring opinion in the Kentucky case. The court “had no difficulty concluding that death by firing squad” did not amount to cruel and unusual punishment, Justice Thomas wrote. . . . Wallace Wilkerson might have begged to differ. Once the Supreme Court affirmed Utah’s right to eradicate him by rifle, Wilkerson was let into a jailyard where he declined to be blindfolded. A sheriff gave the command to fire and Wilkerson braced for the barrage. He moved just enough for the bullets to strike his arm and torso but not his heart. . . . “My God!” Wilkerson shrieked. “My God! They have missed!” More than 27 minutes passed as Wilkerson bled to death in front of astonished witnesses and a helpless doctor.

UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT

Supreme Court Lifts Stays of Executions for
Three Death-Row Inmates

Michael Graczyk, The Associated Press

4-22-08 -- The Supreme Court, fresh off its decision that lethal injection was a constitutional method of execution, lifted reprieves Monday for three death-row inmates around the country, including a Texas man who was waiting only a few feet from the death chamber when his life was temporarily spared. . . . Prosecutors in the Texas case and one each from Alabama and Mississippi were moving quickly to set new execution dates after a seven-month national hiatus. . . . The Supreme Court blocked the execution of Carlton Turner Jr., from suburban Dallas, and others last fall while they considered whether Kentucky's lethal injection procedure, similarly used by other death penalty states, was unconstitutionally cruel. . . . The high court rejected the Kentucky case last week in a 7-2 vote. . . . Besides Turner, who killed his parents, the Court Monday cleared the way for the executions of Thomas Arthur of Alabama and Earl Wesley Berry of Mississippi. . . . Turner won his delay late Sept. 27 as he waited in a holding cell a few feet from the nation's busiest death chamber in Huntsville, Texas, where 26 convicted killers were executed last year.

ALABAMA  

Judge Overrules Jury, Imposes Death Penalty

New York Lawyer, Associated Press

4-22-08 -- A Jefferson County judge has overridden a jury's decision and imposed the death penalty on Montez Spradley for stalking and killing a woman. . . . A jury convicted Spradley in February and voted 10-2 to recommend life without parole. . . . Jefferson County Circuit Judge Gloria Bahakel imposed the sentence of death by lethal injection on Monday after a brief hearing. . . . Spradley is the fourth person in Jefferson County in the last three years to be sentenced to death after 10 jurors called for the lesser sentence. Seven votes are needed for a jury to recommend life without parole. . . . Alabama allows judges to override a jury's sentencing verdict.

NEW JERSEY  

Five Justices Refute Rumor That Court
Sandbagged Executions

By Dana E. Sullivan

4-18-08 -- In the nooks and crannies and gossipy corridors of the Statehouse in Trenton, virtually any conversation about the death penalty for years usually came around to someone saying the New Jersey Supreme Court, one way or another, would never allow anyone to be executed. . . . "Nothing could be further from the truth," says former Justice Alan B. Handler, perhaps the court's most-ardent death penalty foe in modern times. . . . Now other justices are speaking out, too, on the issue that ultimately may be decided decades from now by historians viewing the quarter-century the death penalty remained on the books without a single convicted killer being executed. . . . Was all the talk about the high court having some sort of open - or even unstated - determination to avoid anyone being put to death a classic example of rampant cynicism or the real deal? . . . Now some justices are breaking silence. Some also are acknowledging how the issue ate at them - the fairness of executing one killer and not another. The uncertainty. . . . With three former colleagues at his side, Handler last week told a forum at Seton Hall University School of Law that when New Jersey's death penalty was reinstated in 1982, the court actually tried to advance the statute and the legislative intention.

LOUISIANA   

Child Rape Tests Limits Of Death Penalty

La. Law Spurs Review Of Eighth Amendment

By Robert Barnes, Washington Post Staff Writer

4-14-08 -- Ever since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty more than 30 years ago, justices have been finding ways to limit it. . . . In the intervening years, they have employed their interpretations of society's "evolving standards of decency" to remove juvenile and mentally retarded killers from death row. . . . Before that, they excluded kidnappers who did not kill and even some accomplices to murder. In 1977 the court also concluded that a state could not execute a man who raped an adult woman. . . . But on Wednesday the court will consider whether a person who rapes a child is different. Louisiana prosecutors will argue that the same societal mores that have persuaded justices to spare certain categories of criminals lead in the opposite direction when it comes to child rapists, demanding an expansion of capital punishment, not a retrenchment. . . . Proponents say society demands retribution for those who harm its most vulnerable members. But some child advocacy experts say the unintended consequences of the death penalty might be a decline in the reporting of sexual assaults by family members, or even an incentive for the rapist to kill the victim. . . . The argument comes as the court has imposed a de facto moratorium on capital punishment while justices decide in a separate case whether the current methods of lethal injection are constitutional.

OHIO

Ohio's Lethal Injection Rules Questioned

(AP) –04-08-08 -- Ohio requires its executions to be carried out "in a professional, humane, sensitive and dignified manner." But two men facing murder charges say the state's lethal injection procedure doesn't give the quick and painless deaths required by state law. . . . Two anesthesiologists who disagree over whether the drugs could cause excruciating pain were scheduled to testify Monday at a hearing on the constitutionality of Ohio's execution method. . . . Lethal injections are on hold nationally while the U.S. Supreme Court considers a challenge in a case from Kentucky, which is among the roughly three dozen states that administer three drugs in succession to sedate, paralyze and kill prisoners. . . . The major criticism of the three-drug execution procedure is that if the executioner administers too little anesthetic or makes mistakes in injecting it, the inmate could suffer excruciating pain from the other two drugs.

PENNSYLVANIA

Head Strong: Evidence the Pa. death penalty is punishment existing in name only

By Michael Smerconish, Inquirer Currents Columnist

04-06-08 -- Maureen Faulkner called me in a panic. . . . She'd just retrieved a voice mail from Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Hugh Burns, alerting her to a federal appellate decision concerning the man who a jury said murdered her husband. . . . But her messaging system had garbled the important news. She was desperate to know whether I'd learned the outcome. . . . How incredibly sad, I thought. Twenty-six years removed from Danny Faulkner's execution, and she still jumps when the telephone rings. Hers is the sort of apprehension a parent experiences when a child is out late and the nighttime silence is pierced by a ringing phone. Given the volatility of the case and the endless appeals, she's found no silence since that early morning knock awakened her Dec. 9, 1981. And it's still not over. Which is why I believe we need to rethink the death penalty. . . . By now, we all know the news: While the 1982 conviction of Mumia Abu-Jamal was upheld, the jury's sentence will not be imposed - short of a successful appeal by the D.A.'s Office, or a re-reversal at yet another sentencing hearing. . . . The death sentence has been stayed, not because of any actual finding of confusion on the part of the jury, but because a three-judge panel decided that "the jury instructions and the verdict form created a reasonable likelihood that the jury believed it was precluded from finding mitigating circumstance that had not been unanimously agreed upon."

VIRGINIA

Va. Executions Are Put on Hold

Kaine Orders Halt Till U.S. Supreme Court Rules on Lethal Injections

By Tim Craig, Washington Post Staff Writer 

04-02-08 -- Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced Tuesday that he is halting all executions until the Supreme Court decides whether lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. . . . Kaine's announcement came as he stayed the April 8 execution of Edward N. Bell, who killed a police officer in Winchester in 1999. Along with the reprieve, Kaine said future executions will be put on hold until the Supreme Court rules in the case of Baze v. Rees. The case was argued in January, and a decision could come before the court adjourns in June. . . . "In order to provide guidance to courts, litigants and the public, it is my intention . . . to grant a temporary delay of any execution date in Virginia that has been set," Kaine (D) said in a statement. . . . The decision prompted concern from Republicans that Kaine, who opposes the death penalty, is trying to work toward a permanent moratorium, a contention that administration officials deny. . . . Bell's execution date has been changed to July 24. The scheduled May 27 execution of Kevin Green, who killed a Southern Virginia convenience store owner in 1998, will also be put on hold, according to the state attorney general's office.

TEXAS

Supreme Court won't hear 7 killers' appeals
Execution dates for Mexicans pending ruling on lethal injection

By Bennett Roth, Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

04-01-08 -- The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear the appeals of seven Mexican-born prisoners condemned to die in Texas, including two who had committed murders in Houston in the 1990s. . . . The action followed a high court ruling last week in which the justices rebuffed President Bush for directing the state of Texas to abide by a world court ruling and rehear the case of another Mexican on death row. . . . The prisoner, Jose Medellin, had been convicted of the 1993 rape-murders of two Houston teenagers — Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16 — who had stumbled upon a gang initiation. . . . Mexico, which opposes the death penalty, sued the United States in the International Court of Justice in the Hague on behalf of some 50 Mexican citizens, including Medellin, on death rows in the United States. . . . The Mexicans said American officials violated the 1963 Vienna Convention when they failed to allow the citizens of another country access to its representatives after arrest. The world court agreed. . . . But in a 6-3 ruling on March 25, the Supreme Court said the president overstepped his bounds when he ordered states in a memo to abide by the world court's ruling. The U.S. court said a president must consult Congress before issuing an order based on a treaty.

Death Penalty 2008 Reports

March 2008

TEXAS

Medellin v. Texas: A case of more than murder

By Ted Cruz, Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

03-29-08 --  Fifteen years ago, in a crime that shocked the conscience of this city, two teenage girls were brutally gang-raped and murdered, strangled with a pair of shoelaces. The crime occurred in northwest Houston, just a few blocks from where I attended church as a child. . . . All six gang members were caught, convicted and unanimously sentenced to death (except for one who was too young to be eligible for capital punishment). Now approaching two decades after this horrific crime, only one gang member has so far had his sentence carried out. . . . Another of the gang members, Jose Ernesto Medellin, has seen his case become an international cause célèbre, making it all the way to the United Nations' World Court and twice to the Supreme Court of the United States. . . . Last week, in a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected all of Medellín's claims and paved the way for the victims' grieving families to finally see justice. But the issues in Medellín v. Texas extend well beyond this one confessed murderer. . . . The central issue in the case was whether the World Court can bind the U.S. justice system. By a vote of 6-3, the U.S. Supreme Court emphatically concluded that the World Court has no such authority. That decision was correct, and it preserves our nation's fundamental sovereignty. . . . How did this case get from Houston to the World Court? Well, in 2003, the nation of Mexico sued the United States in the International Court of Justice (the formal name of the World Court), which is the judicial arm of the United Nations. And, in 2004, the World Court ruled for Mexico. . . . Mexico's suit was filed on behalf of 51 Mexican nationals, including Medellín, all of whom were convicted murderers on death row throughout the United States. Our southern neighbor argued, correctly, that these Mexican nationals had a right under the Vienna Convention on Consular Affairs (a treaty ratified by the United States in 1969) to contact their local Mexican consulates for assistance. As a result — even though the suit raised no questions concerning the proven guilt of these 51 murderers — Mexico sought to have all of their convictions annulled.

UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT

Justices Overturn Death Sentence in La.

By David Stout

03-19-08 -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the conviction and death sentence of a Louisiana man who killed his estranged wife in a jealous rage, finding that the trial judge “committed clear error” in excluding black jurors. . . . By 7 to 2, the court ruled in favor of Allen Snyder, whose case came before the justices for the second time last December, two years after they had sent it back to the Louisiana Supreme Court and told that tribunal to consider whether the jury selection had been tainted by racial bias. . . . The Louisiana high court reaffirmed the conviction and sentence by a vote of 4 to 3, but the United States Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned that judgment, finding that, even under the wide deference that appellate courts must grant trial courts, the trial of Mr. Snyder, who is black, was tainted. . . . The opinion, written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., found that the prosecutor’s reasoning for excluding all black jurors was highly implausible, and that the trial judge should not have accepted it.

GEORGIA

Condemned cop killer denied new trial
Ga. Supreme Court rules 4-3 against Troy Davis
By Bill Rankin, Sonji Jacobs, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

03-18-08 -- His request for a new trial rejected Monday, condemned cop killer Troy Anthony Davis probably will have his fate decided by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. . . . The state Supreme Court, which turned down Davis's appeal on a 4-3 vote, said the recantations of seven witnesses who testified against him were not enough to win him a new trial. . . . "We simply cannot disregard the jury's verdict in this case," wrote Justice Harold Melton, who was joined by Justices George Carley, Harris Hines and Hugh Thompson. . . . Most of the witnesses who recanted "have merely stated they now do not feel able to identify the shooter," Melton said. He added that the majority would not ignore the trial testimony, "and, in fact, we favor that original testimony over the new." . . . Davis' lawyers are expected to ask the state Supreme Court to reconsider and then appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. If those bids are rejected, the case would head back to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which in July granted Davis a 90-day stay just 23 hours before he was to be executed. . . . At that time, the board said it delayed the execution because it was troubled by questions about Davis' guilt.

Our Opinions: Do the right thing: Have mercy
By Mike King, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

03-18-08 -- Troy Anthony Davis, sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of a Savannah police officer, will not be getting a new trial. The Georgia Supreme Court turned down his request —- a ruling that was no surprise. Appeals courts are loath to overturn the verdict of local juries in death penalty cases, even when key witnesses at trial, as in this case, recant their testimony. . . . But the cumulative weight of new testimony from seven prosecution witnesses still calls into question the justice of the death penalty. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles should commute his sentence to life in prison. . . . Despite the court's decision, there is clear evidence of problems with the testimony at Davis' trial. Seven of nine witnesses have either recanted their original testimony or said it was flawed in some way.

TEXAS

Death row inmate's attorneys argue for new trial

By Jim Bergamo, KVUE News

03-19-08 -- Lawyers for death row inmate Rodney Reed appeared in court Wednesday morning to present oral arguments as to why they believe their client has been unlawfully imprisoned. . . . While no decision is expected for several months, attorneys for Reed and state prosecutors each had 20 minutes to argue for or against a new trial for Reed. . . . Reed has been on death row ever since he wa