June 1
TEXAS:
Inmate Web sites have the look of innocence---Pages claim injustice, ask
for money
With its catchy slogan and colorful graphics, its warm testimonials from
friends and co-workers, its happy family snapshots and stiffly posed
military portrait, Steve Peace's Web site could be the work of a
politician yearning for public office.
It's not.
Peace, 43, a one-time oil worker, is a convicted killer serving 45 years
for the murder of security guard Dimas Garcia, who was shot 14 times at a
North Houston auto dealership. The site was posted by Houston commercial
photographer Pam Francis, who expected it would bolster her friend's bid
for a new trial.
State District Judge Brock Thomas dashed that hope last week, denying
Peace's request after a 2-hour hearing. But www.freestevepeace.com and its
assertion "Unjustly accused. Unjustly convicted." live on -- a dramatic
example of how new technology can provide an international soap box for
would-be criminal justice reformers.
Hundreds of Web pages, many featuring men on Texas' death row, crowd
cyberspace with claims of innocence. The Canadian Coalition Against the
Death Penalty alone has provided free Internet sites to more than 500
condemned prisoners. Even more use the Canadian pages to solicit pen pals.
Postings have formidable power
"Anybody who champions inmates' rights can see the benefit of the
Internet," said Houston prison activist Ray Hill. "It provides the
opportunity to access millions beyond our field of vision. We're not going
to encounter these people in line at the supermarket, but they're real and
they have opinions."
Death row inmates and their supporters, Hill said, "live in a constant
state of desperation because no one wants to hear them."
"Come up with a catchy design, a logo, and there's a chance you can
interest people in reading about your case," he said. "The Internet was a
natural."
The persuasive power of such Internet postings can be formidable,
suggested University of Houston communications professor Garth Jowett.
"It has created the ability to communicate on a highly intimate level," he
said. "It gives people the impression that a message has been specifically
tailored to them."
If accepted uncritically, Jowett warned, such messages can "become
incredible weapons, dangerous loose cannons" exploited by propagandists.
Sites can devastate crime victim families
Andy Kahan, the mayor's victims' rights advocate, believes that is
precisely what happens as inmate advocates proselytize via computer.
"They use the Internet to promote their causes, usually with distortions,"
Kahan said. "There's little by way of checks and balances. You never see a
correction or a disclaimer telling you to feel free to check out the
facts. It's made to seem that this is what happened. This is the truth."
Kahan also said that the Web sites can be emotionally devastating for
crime victim's families.
"They feel like they've been gutted all over again by the system," he
said.
Hill, a former inmate who hosts KPFT-FM's weekly prison radio program,
said the first prisoner-related Web sites, posted by European anti-death
penalty activists, appeared about a decade ago and began appearing with
greater frequency about 7 years ago.
In Houston, death penalty opponent Ward Larkin, a computer industry
worker, began offering inmates free Web sites in 1995 after visiting death
row.
"It was my choice to post their information," he said, "and I did so only
after I had researched their cases thoroughly. ... I didn't anticipate
changing anyone's mind, I just wanted to allow them to inform themselves."
Although he occasionally posted material for inmates he thought guilty, he
nonetheless reserved veto power over the stuff that got online, he said.
Inmates whose sites insulted their victims' families were rejected, as was
one inmate's planned Internet campaign to establish a monarchy.
"I told him that I essentially support democracy," Larkin explained.
Potshots at Bush and state of Texas
The Canadian anti-death penalty coalition posted its first site, on behalf
of a Pennsylvania death row inmate, in 1998.
"The way we see it," said spokeswoman Tracy Lamouri, "is that we're
shining a light on a dark section of society that people don't normally
get to see."
Lamouri's site, which primarily features condemned inmates from Africa,
the Caribbean and the United States, mixes prisoner profiles with
politics. It takes potshots at President Bush and labels Texas, which
leads the nation in executions, as being "Like A Whole Other Country."
Lamouri said her group has investigated -- and vouched for -- the claims
of only a few inmates posted on its site. The other sites contain
unverified prisoner postings, she said.
Among Texas killers with high profiles on the Canadian pages are Craig
Ogan, a self-proclaimed genius and occasional Drug Enforcement
Administration informer who was executed in 2002 for killing a Houston
police officer, and Calvin Burdine, whose conviction for killing his
Houston housemate was overturned in 2001 because his lawyer slept through
portions of his trial.
Burdine, who spent 18 years on death row, remains in prison after he
pleaded guilty to murder and 2 other crimes in a plea deal but ultimately
could be paroled.
Other featured Texans include Carl Brooks, condemned for kidnapping,
robbing and murdering a San Antonio man, who claimed he "maybe killed some
insects, birds, snakes, fish, roaches and rats, but no human," and John
Alba, a Collin County man who repeatedly shot his wife, who is described
on his Web page as "a good and kind man."
Some of the Web sites solicit donations and accept credit card
contributions.
Texas inmates do not have access to the Internet, said prison system
spokeswoman Michelle Lyons, and all Web sites, many of which contain
letters from inmates, are posted by sympathizers on the outside.
Giorgio Nobili, a 66-year-old death penalty opponent in Milan, Italy, said
via e-mail that he posted his site for twice-convicted Houston killer
Eugene Broxton after he corresponded with the inmate and became convinced
"he is not culpable of the crime he was accused (of)."
Broxton, 49, was condemned for the 1991 murder of a 20-year-old woman in a
Channelview motel. The victim's husband was shot in the head but survived.
In 3 years, about 8,000 people have visited the site. Some, at Nobili's
prompting, have sent the inmate money.
Nobili said that through writing Broxton he "discovered a great, generous,
intelligent, good man full of interests and (able) to speak with me about
everything."
Francis, Peace met when she had flat tire
Francis said she met Peace while scouting photo jobs in downtown Houston.
Driving in the 3600 block of Travis Street, Francis encountered an elderly
motorist driving erratically. When the woman stopped at Holy Rosary
Catholic Church, Francis, Peace -- who was working with a street crew
nearby -- and several other people approached her to find out what was
wrong.
The woman had driven from Richmond with a flat tire.
"Steve had his crew change the tire," Francis said. "Then he watched her
car and wrote her a note warning her not to drive back to Richmond on the
spare. ... He gave me his card, and later I called him to check on the old
woman. We had lunch and he told me his story."
Peace, then under indictment in Garcia's murder, told her that he was
innocent and that his high-powered attorney had assured him of a
"slam-dunk" acquittal.
Despite that assurance, Peace was convicted of the crime in March. Francis
then went into action, posting the Web site to build support for a new
trial. To finance the effort, she held marathon pet photography sessions
each weekend in May.
Last week, Peace's new lawyer, Chris Flood, argued that inadequate counsel
in the first trial and improper questioning by a prosecutor justified a
new trial. He contended that the prosecutor cleverly circumvented a rule
banning hearsay testimony to get a Texas Ranger to imply Peace had
confessed the crime to his family.
After Assistant District Attorney Denise Nassar's point-by-point rebuttal,
in which she insisted the trial had been fair and the rules observed, the
judge immediately denied Flood's motion for a new trial.
Garcia's family, who remained in Mexico City when he came to work in
Houston in 1986, could not be reached for comment.
Francis said Peace's supporters now will try to raise money for an appeal.
"Injustice just drives me crazy," she said. "After that joke of a trial, I
had to do something. If it weren't for me, there would have been no help.
He came from a poor family. He was the hero of the family. He was the one
who took care of everybody. Now the hero is in jail."
(source: Houston Chronicle)
***********************
Convicted killer says scientific evidence rules him out
A death row inmate has filed an appeal in federal court claiming that
scientific evidence proves he was wrongly convicted of the abduction and
slaying of a Montgomery County college student in 1998.
In an appeal filed last Friday, Larry Ray Swearingen, 33, alleges that the
proper method of determining time of death would have shown that he was in
jail the day Melissa Trotter was strangled.
Swearingen, a Willis electrician, was convicted June 28, 2000, of
kidnapping Trotter, 19, from the Montgomery College campus, sexually
assaulting her and strangling her with pantyhose.
His appeal states that then-Harris County Medical Examiner Joye Carter
wrongly testified that Trotter was killed on the day she disappeared from
campus and had been dead for 25 days when her body was discovered in the
woods Jan. 2, 1999.
"It was not only speculative but completely irresponsible for the medical
examiner," said James Rytting, one of Swearingen's attorneys.
The methods used by Carter are "unable to scientifically estimate the time
of death beyond a postmortem period of about 72 hours," the appeal says.
The appeal says that beyond 72 hours, medical examiners should use experts
in forensic entomology -- specialists in examining insects that inhabit a
body.
A forensic entomologist hired by Swearingen's attorneys determined that
Trotter died between Dec. 16, 1998, and Dec. 18, 1998. Trotter disappeared
Dec. 8, 1998, and Swearingen was jailed as a suspect Dec. 11, 1998,
according to the appeal.
"He was picked up on traffic warrants just days after Miss Trotter
disappeared and was incarcerated from then on,"Rytting said.
The appeal alleges that Swearingen's constitutional rights were violated
when his attorneys failed to seek expert testimony from a forensic
entomologist.
"His representation in all other regards was really quite vigorous,"
Rytting said.
Marc Brumberger, assistant Montgomery County district attorney, said the
same claim was defeated during Swearingen's appeal in state courts.
Brumberger said the scientific method is sound but the insect specimens
taken from Trotter's body were insufficient.
"They were a couple of dried maggots," he said. "Because they are dry and
not preserved properly, it's probably almost impossible to analyze them."
The appeal also challenges the kidnapping and rape charges. The death
penalty can be applied only if a slaying was committed during the
commission of another crime.
The prosecution produced no evidence that Trotter was taken from campus by
force, the appeal alleges. It also alleges that Carter misinterpreted
discoloration as a vaginal bruise and evidence of rape.
(source: Houston Chronicle, May 28)
