June 1 CALIFORNIA: Jury begins pondering bizarre San Mateo County death penalty case As Seti Scanlan's murder trial entered its final phase Tuesday, the jury in one of the most unique Peninsula captial murder cases in years faces a particularly complicated task. They must decide to put to death the 26-year-old confessed murderer -- who begged the 12-member panel to sentence him to die -- or ignore Scanlan's wishes and dispatch him to spend his life in prison. In his closing arguments Tuesday, San Mateo County Chief Deputy Steve Wagstaffe replayed for the jury how the Mountain View man shot and killed Wells Fargo Bank Manager Alice Martel, 34, in a bank heist following a violent spree of robberies in 2002. Scanlan's lawyer, Cliff Cretan, defended his client as having a "flawed value system" but that said Scanlan was not "the worst of the worst" of society's murderers. "The death penalty is for those who have no redeeming quality ... who are pure evil," Cretan said. "He is not the worst of the worst." Down the hallway from the throngs of onlookers at the Scott Petersen murder trial, Scanlan's trial drew a packed audience of lawyers riveted by a series of legal maneuvers Scanlan has tried to speed up his demise. He has confessed to the crime, skipped the initial guilt phase of the trial, and tried to fire Cretan and his plea for the jury to give him a death sentence. But San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Robert Foiles earlier this month refused that request because he doubted Scanlan's legal capacity to represent himself. A verdict could be handed in as early as today. (source: Mercury News) *********************** Prosecution calls for Erskine death penalty The murders of 2 South Bay boys in 1993 are "beyond the pale" and deserving of the death penalty for their killer, a prosecutor said today. Scott Erskine, 41, was convicted last October of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder and special circumstance allegations for the deaths of 13-year-old Charlie Keever and 9-year-old Jonathan Sellers. Two months later, jurors deadlocked 11-1 for the death penalty and a new trial penalty phase was ordered. Jurors will either recommend the death penalty or life in prison without parole. Judge Kenneth So will determine the final sentence. Attorneys for Erskine did not contest the fact that their client committed the murders. In her retrial closing argument, Deputy District Attorney Valerie Summers showed photos of a makeshift "fort" where the victims were sexually assaulted and strangled. "The facts are horrific," the prosecutor said. "The photos are something you'll remember for the rest of your life. The pain that the victims' families feel is real." Summers said one of the murders by itself is deserving of the death penalty. "It is absolutely beyond the pale," she told the jury. "A verdict of death is clear." Nothing the defense offered can equal the ultimate punishment, the prosecutor said. Summers told the jury it could consider 14 violent acts committed by Erskine between the early 1970s and 1993. The acts included: -a 10-year-old Erskine forcing his 6-year-old sister to orally copulate him and 2 of his friends. -Erskine raping a 10-year-old girlfriend of one of his sisters in a "fort-like" structure in 1976. -Erskine beating and sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy near Ramona High School. -The defendant being linked by DNA evidence to the rape and murder of a woman in West Palm Beach, Fla. in 1989. -The rape of a woman in San Diego 6 months after Jonathan and Charlie disappeared March 27, 1993. In 2001, Erskine was serving a 70-year sentence for the rape when DNA evidence linked him to the murders of the boys. "This crime is as bad as it gets," Summers said. Defense attorney Larry Ainbinder told the jury Erskine was a psychologically damaged boy whose condition worsened after he was hit by a car at the age of 5. One doctor said Erskine as a boy faced psychological problems "that very few 12-year-olds face." Th combination of an unhealthy family life, a learning disorder, mood swings, depression and the failure of prosecuting agencies to lock Erskine up led to a "Perfect Storm" scenario in which a "sick" defendant committed "terrible crimes," Ainbinder said. (source: San Diego Union-Tribune) NORTH CAROLINA: Death penalty bill filed A lawmaker has suggested a compromise on a plan to temporarily stop executions in the state. The plan is stalled in the legislature. Under a plan proposed last week by Rep. Ron Sutton, a Pembroke Democrat, executions would continue, but at the same time the state would study its system of capital punishment to find and correct flaws. "My reason for filing it is to ensure that the death penalty gets a good look and to see if there's problems with it," he said. "Let's fix the problems and continue on down the lane." Factors to be studied include: adequacy of the defendants' lawyers, the appeals system and whether racial discrimination plays a role in the process. Sutton's bill is similar to one approved by the state Senate last year. The Senate bill would place a 2-year moratorium on executions while the state studies its death penalty. The moratorium bill remains stuck in the state House. Leaders there have said the House will not address controversial issues during this year's "short" legislative session. The main purpose of the short session is to adjust the state budget. Sutton opposes an execution moratorium. He supports capital punishment and thinks the effort to temporarily halt executions in North Carolina is a backdoor approach to stopping them permanently. "For some of us, it is," acknowledged state Sen. Ellie Kinnaird of Carborro. Kinnaird is a leader in the effort to get a moratorium. "For others, it isn't. For all of us, it is to find out how to make the system fair; I don't care whether you're for the death penalty or against it." If moratorium advocates amend Sutton's bill to put in a moratorium, "I'll pull the bill and not pursue it any further," he said. Sutton sees his bill as a compromise for opponents and supporters of a moratorium. A spokesman for moratorium advocates was unimpressed. "The problem with that point of view is the moratorium's already a compromise," said David Neal, a lawyer from Durham. He is spokesman for the N.C. Coalition for a Moratorium. "It just provides a two-year breathing space, a 2-year timeout," he said. The study might not be finished in 2 years, he said. In his view, executions should be halted until a study is completed. If executions continue without a moratorium, he said, "you've potentially got people on death row who are going to be executed who may be even innocent. We don't know." Sutton doesn't believe that. His death penalty study committee would have to submit results in January. "I don't anticipate that there's a remotest chance, in my opinion, of someone innocent being executed" before then, he said. Most people on death row are clearly guilty, Sutton said, and they seek to avoid the death penalty on legal technicalities or other grounds. (source: Fayetteville Online) USA: Psychiatrists Question Death for Teen Killers In 1993, when 17-year-old Christopher Simmons abducted and murdered his neighbor, little did he know that some of the nation's top brain researchers and psychiatrists would one day rush to his defense before the Supreme Court. Emerging scientific research is shedding light on what people have long suspected: The brain changes dramatically during adolescence and these changes may account for the impulsive, often irrational behaviors seen in some teenagers. Now psychiatrists, lawyers and lawmakers are using this emerging science to argue that such adolescent brain changes should be considered as mitigating factors when teenagers are being sentenced to the death penalty. The Supreme Court has agreed to take up the Simmons case this fall to reconsider whether executing people for crimes committed when they were 16 or 17 is "cruel and unusual punishment." Although the Supreme Court in 1989 set the minimum age for the death penalty at 16, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry recently issued statements opposing capital punishment for juveniles. They plan to file a joint legal brief on Mr. Simmons's behalf to the Supreme Court. The groups haven't taken a stand on the death penalty for adults. Nineteen states still permit executions of convicts as young as 16; most recently, Sean Sellers of Oklahoma was executed in 1999 at the age of 29 for a murder committed when he was 16. Nationwide, 73 people are on death row for crimes they committed when they were youths, and 22 have been put to death since the high court ruling reinstituted the death penalty in 1976. Last year, 2 people who committed crimes while they were under age 18 were sentenced to death. In 1993, Mr. Simmons and Charles Benjamin, who was 15, broke into a neighbor's home in Fenton, Mo. Once inside they encountered owner Shirley Ann Crook. Fearing she would recognize them, they bound Ms. Crook, 46, with duct tape and an electrical cord, drove her to a railroad bridge and shoved her into the Meramec River, where she drowned. Mr. Benjamin, who was too young to face the death penalty, was sentenced to life in prison. Mr. Simmons was convicted of murder and sent to death row. He told friends he thought he could get away with the crime because he was a minor, according to the Missouri attorney general. Last summer, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Simmons' death sentence violated the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment and that Mr. Simmons was too young to be held fully responsible for his crime. The legal argument is expected to center around the what previous Supreme Court rulings have called the "evolving standard of decency," or the notion that as a society matures, so does its notion of what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. (Congo, Iran, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia are the only other countries with a juvenile death penalty.) Part of the argument against juvenile executions will focus on how developing brains in juveniles differ from adults. Such research helped persuade lawmakers in some states to vote to raise the age for the death penalty to 18. "Kids may know the difference between right and wrong, but that does not stop them from doing dumb and dangerous things that they would never think of doing as adults," said David Fassler, a child psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont. Proponents of this argument contend that because the part of the brain that might inhibit criminal behavior isn't fully developed, teens lack the ability to make sound decisions and are more prone to impulsive behavior. They agree the crimes are horrible, and those convicted should be punished, but not be put to death. The psychiatrists point to brain research that shows that the frontal lobe, the part of the brain that controls reason, develops last. Researchers at David Geffin School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles, Harvard Medical School and the National Institute of Mental Health and elsewhere have conducted a series of studies in recent years that "map" the development of the brain from childhood to adulthood. Using magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers have been able to scan the brains of children in different age groups to compile three-dimensional images that track the brain's development. They found that the amygdala, the more primitive part of the brain responsible for impulse and emotion, controls decision-making into early adulthood. The researchers found that a small area in the frontal lobe of the brain -- known as the prefrontal cortex -- controls the most advanced functions of the brain and is the last part to develop. The prefrontal cortex is located just behind the forehead and is known as the "CEO" of the body, because it allows humans to plan, anticipate consequences, control impulses, prioritize thoughts and think in the abstract. This part of the brain continues to develop for individuals into their 20s. So far, the researchers haven't demonstrated a direct link between brain development and behavior, and death-penalty advocates are challenging what research already exists. "There is science, and then there is junk science," said Dianne Clements, president of Justice for All, a Houston nonprofit victim-advocacy group. "This is an effort by those in the scientific community who oppose the death penalty to use science to argue their position." Ms. Clements said case facts show teens who kill realize their actions were wrong because they often try to cover up and destroy evidence to avoid getting caught. What's more, most relatives of murder victims don't think a killer's age at the time of the crime should result in a lesser sentence, she said. But some lawmakers think a criminal's age should be taken into account. "It's just intuitive," said Cale Case, a Wyoming Republican state senator who co-sponsored a bill that raised the minimum age for the state's death penalty to 18. "I had 2 teen-age daughters, and one was very compulsive. But they have become very responsible adults." Stephen Harper, an assistant public defender in Miami who has represented juveniles facing capital punishment, also notes science is often ahead of the law. He pointed out how the courts were slow to embrace the use of DNA evidence linking individuals to crimes. "If you just focus on how horrible the crime was, a lot of people do not care how old the offender was," Mr. Harper said. "But the brain research begins to demonstrate that adolescents are less culpable than adults." Nevertheless, some scientists say the research isn't complete. "I don't think it is there yet, but we are working on it," said Elizabeth Sowell, a professor of neurology at UCLA. "I think what we have found is relevant and the court may want to consider it. But there is no absolute proof. I think the scientists who say the evidence to date should be used to end the death penalty [for juveniles] may be going out on a limb." (source: Wall Street Journal, May 26) KENTUCKY: Suspect in slaying competent for trial A Kenton County judge on Thursday ruled that a Lakeside Park man, facing the death penalty over accusations that he beat an elderly man to death, is competent to stand trial. After a brief hearing, Circuit Judge Greg Bartlett agreed with a state psychologist who said Anthony Wayne Ferry did not suffer from any mental illnesses that would deem him incompetent. Ferry's lawyers presented no evidence to dispute the report. Ferry, 25, and Jeremy Charles Niemer, 22, of Crescent Springs, are both charged with murder and robbery and face the death penalty. Both are being held without bail in the Kenton County Jail. Niemer's attorneys have not raised the issue of his competence. Police said the pair killed Earl F. Rusche, an 83-year-old retired lithographer, in his bed on July 12, 2003. His body was found stuffed in a crawl space in the attic of his house on Carran Drive later that day by a housekeeper. Ferry, whose mother was a friend of Rusche's, was living in the basement of Rusche's house. Police said Ferry and Niemer spent most of July 11 and the earlier morning hours of July 12 smoking crack in Ferry's room. About 3 a.m., they decided they needed more money, police said, and they went to Rusche's bedroom to demand it. When Rusche refused to give them any more cash, police said, the two men attacked him, using an ice scraper and their fists and feet as their weapons. A trial date has not been set. Bartlett said he would hold a hearing June 21 to set a trial date, which he said he expects to be in October or November. (source: Kentucky Post, May 29)
