death penalty news June 2, 2004
NEW JERSEY: NJ Top Court Consider Death Penalty Cases State Supreme Court justices today will consider whether prosecutors should take special steps before calling a grand jury in death penalty cases. Justices already this year said prosecutors must seek a grand jury's approval, overturning rules that allowed prosecutors to make that call themselves. No one has been executed in New Jersey since the death penalty was reinstated in 1982. Defense lawyers raised the grand jury issue in the case against two men accused of killing a woman after she left a commuter train station in Camden. Prosecutors allege Ryshaone Thomas and Marcus Toliver grabbed Christine Eberle in November 2001 in a PATCO line parking lot. They allegedly attempted to rape her, then strangled her after she resisted. (source: 1010 WINS) ============== PENNSYLVANIA: Pa. murder trial to have local input Sixteen Northampton County residents will receive a two-week, all-expenses paid trip in August to Harrisburg. But it won't be a vacation. The residents will be charged with deciding the fate of a 42-year-old Dauphin County man accused of killing his two daughters and estranged wife on Christmas Eve 2002. Extensive media attention in the Harrisburg area prompted Judge John F. Cherry to pick jurors from an untainted pool in the northeastern part of the state. Attorneys accepted three jurors -- two men and one woman -- out of the 17 people they interviewed by 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. Cherry requested that court staff stay until 5:30 p.m. and planned to resume questioning potential jurors today. Cherry prepared the jury pool for what would likely be a two-week trial, commencing Aug. 23. They would take a chartered bus on Aug. 22 to a hotel, where they would stay until they return a verdict or decide they are deadlocked. Some jurors exchanged glances and smiles as Cherry explained the commitment asked of them. "We know serving at any time is a great inconvenience," Cherry said. "But nonetheless service as a juror when you are summoned is as important as the other two things -- voting and service in the military. "I'm sure someone out there is thinking, 'Well, I'm getting out of this.' Well, the law is very clear that it has to be an undue hardship. Extreme inconvenience . We hope you have some reading material." During Tuesday's repetitive interviews in Northampton County courtroom 5, defendant Ernest Wholaver Jr. appeared calm and often conversed with defense attorneys Spero T. Lappas and John Sheridan. Dauphin County First Assistant District Attorney Francis. T. Chardo sat with two police officers prosecuting the case. Wholaver faces three counts of murder and related charges. The victims -- Jean Wholaver and daughters, Victoria, 20, and Elizabeth, 15 -- each suffered a single gunshot wound to the head from a .22-caliber weapon, according to The Associated Press. At the time of the murders, Wholaver was charged with molesting his daughters. Attorneys quizzed potential jurors based on a questionnaire they filled out earlier in the day. The defense focused on the presumption of innocence until proven guilty that Wholaver enjoys under the U.S. justice system. Lappas asked them if they had heard any news reports of the triple homicide and if the charges alone proved his client's guilt. He also emphasized that the burden of proof is on the prosecution. Chardo explained the two phases of the capital punishment case: In the case of a unanimous guilty verdict, jurors would decide whether Wholaver should face the death penalty. Some jurors were dismissed because their religious beliefs would have prevented them from sentencing someone to death. Others felt morally opposed to the penalty and others felt uncomfortable with deliberations or voicing their verdict to the defendant. (source: The Express-Times) ======================== CALIFORNIA: HBO Filming Helps Free Accused L.A. Man "Curb Your Enthusiasm," an HBO show known for its acerbic wit, accidentally helped deliver a happy ending to a man who had been charged with murder. Juan Catalan spent 5 1/2 months in jail on murder charges before his attorney found video footage taken by the show at Dodger Stadium that backs up his client's claims of innocence. Police arrested Catalan in August, alleging he killed Martha Puebla, 16, in the San Fernando Valley on May 12, 2003, because she had testified against his brother in another case. Catalan insisted he and his 6-year-old daughter were watching the Los Angeles Dodgers lose to the Atlanta Braves, 11-4, minutes before Puebla was killed about 20 miles north of the stadium. He said he had ticket stubs from the game and testimony from his family as to his whereabouts the night Puebla was killed. But police still believed he was responsible, saying they had a witness who placed Catalan at the scene of the slaying. Catalan said he asked to take a lie detector test, but was refused. Defense attorney Todd Melnik subpoenaed the Dodgers and Fox Networks, which owned the team then, to scan videotape of the televised baseball game and footage from its "Dodger Vision" cameras. Some of the videotapes showed where Catalan was sitting but Melnik couldn't make him out. Melnik later learned that HBO had been at the stadium the night of the killing to tape an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," a self-deprecating comedy starring "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David. The lawyer found what he was looking for in footage that had not made the final cut. "I got to one of the scenes, and there is my client sitting in a corner of the frame eating a hot dog with his daughter," Melnik said. "I nearly jumped out of my chair and said, 'There he is!'" The tapes had time codes that allowed Melnik to find out exactly when Catalan was at the ballpark. Melnik also obtained cell phone records that placed his client near the stadium later that night, about 20 minutes before the murder. The attorney said it would have been impossible for Catalan to get out of the parking lot, change vehicles and clothing and play with his daughter as well as kill Puebla during that span. Catalan, who could have faced the death penalty had he been convicted of murder, was released in January because a judge ruled there was no evidence to try him. "To hear the words from the judge's mouth, I just broke down in tears," Catalan, 26, said Tuesday. "It was the happiest moment in my life." Catalan, now raising his family and working with his father as a machinist, has submitted a claim against the city of Los Angeles, alleging false imprisonment, misconduct and defamation of character. Puebla's murder remains unsolved and the case against Catalan's brother, who is accused of being the driver in a drive-by shooting, is still pending. Prosecutors and police did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday. Other evidence also helped dismiss the case against Catalan, but the videotape "had extreme dramatic effect," Melnick said. The show was hardly about the ballpark crowd that night. It focused on David hiring a prostitute, not for sex but to be a passenger in his car so he could travel in the carpool lane and escape traffic on his way to the stadium. (source: AP / Chicago Tribune) --------------------------------------- Prosecutor outlines to jurors why Peterson came under suspicion Within a day of reporting his pregnant wife missing, Scott Peterson lied about his extramarital affair, gave conflicting accounts of his whereabouts and brushed off in-laws helping search for Laci Peterson, prosecutors said Tuesday in opening arguments of Peterson's murder trial. Prosecutor Rick Distaso wants jurors to connect those dots, along with other circumstantial evidence, to conclude Peterson killed his wife. Peterson, 31, could face the death penalty or life without parole if convicted in a trial that is expected to last up to six months. From the moment Peterson called his mother-in-law on Christmas Eve 2002 and said he had returned from a fishing trip to an empty house, things didn't make sense, Distaso said. "He says, 'Mom, Laci's missing,' " Distaso told jurors. "Right then, Sharon Rocha knew that things were very seriously wrong." By nightfall, family had joined police to investigate a missing person report that would unfold into a case that captivated the nation. Their search first focused on a park near the couple's Modesto home, where Laci Peterson, eight months pregnant, used to walk the family's golden retriever before a doctor recommended she stop because of recurring dizziness. In the park, a panicked Rocha was rifling through garbage cans in the fog-shrouded evening. When she saw Peterson, she asked, "What's going on? Where were you fishing?" Distaso said. After giving Rocha "one-word responses," Peterson wandered off, the prosecutor said. Distaso ticked off what he implied were a series of lies Peterson told. Peterson told Rocha he was fishing on San Francisco Bay, but later told Laci Peterson's uncle and two neighbors he had been golfing all day. He also was unable to tell police what he had been trying to catch on his fishing trip. He told investigators that he never had an affair, a lie that would become very public once his mistress, massage therapist Amber Frey, stepped forward. By Christmas Day, Peterson was more engaged, and talking in ways that Distaso suggested point to his guilt. He called police, for example, to ask whether they were using cadaver-sniffing dogs to search the park. " 'We haven't come to the conclusion yet that Laci Peterson is dead,' " Distaso said the officer told Peterson. "That kind of sets the stage for this entire case." Defense attorney Mark Geragos has countered that authorities unfairly targeted Peterson from the start, ignoring important leads that didn't fit their theory. Geragos did not present his case Tuesday but made several objections during Distaso's presentation, including when the prosecutor said that a hair found on pliers in Peterson's small fishing boat irrefutably belonged to Laci. After speaking with Judge Alfred A. Delucchi in chambers, Distaso conceded in the afternoon that DNA results did not prove the hair was a definite match. Prosecutors also were struggling with their own challenges: the absence of a murder weapon, a cause of death or an eyewitness to the crime. (source: AP) ========================= PENNSYLVANIA: Monessen man accused of assaulting jail guard A Monessen man awaiting trial for murder is accused of assaulting a corrections officer at Washington County Jail. Phillip Toomer, 21, is charged with aggravated assault for allegedly striking officer Thomas Bastian in the head with his fist May 3, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday. The assault allegedly occurred after Bastian ordered Toomer to wear his jail-issued uniform, court records show. Toomer struck Bastian when Bastian grabbed him as Toomer was walking away, ignoring the order, Washington police stated in the affidavit. It took three guards to subdue Toomer, police said. Toomer will be scheduled for an arraignment after he receives the charge by summons. Toomer is awaiting trial in the shooting death of Carson Cook, 28, who had addresses in Donora and Monessen. Cook was gunned down in April 2002 during a disturbance outside a Monongahela bar. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty. (source: Observer-Reporter)
