death penalty news
June 2, 2004
CALIFORNIA:
Peterson Attorney Rips Prosecution's Case
Evidence that Scott Peterson had an affair is not evidence he killed his
pregnant wife, his lawyer said today in opening arguments in Peterson's
murder trial.
"He's not charged with having an affair," lawyer Mark Geragos told jurors.
"The fact of the matter is that this is a murder case and there has to be
evidence."
Geragos said Peterson only went on a few dates with Amber Frey, and that
the prosecutor's theory is wrong about the two of them.
"Their theory would be that Scott didn't want to have a child," Geragos
said. "He didn't want to have a relationship, and he was therefore going to
chuck his entire life with Laci ... for this woman he had two dates with."
Geragos set out his case a day after prosecutor Rick Distaso spent nearly
four hours detailing Laci and Scott Peterson's last weeks together.
Given the long media buildup to Peterson's trial on charges of killing his
wife and their unborn son, it was difficult for the prosecution's opening
statement to be anything but anticlimactic. Much of the most sensational
evidence was already out: the affair he was having with another woman; the
haste with which he sold Laci's Range Rover; and the varying stories he
told about his whereabouts on Christmas Eve in 2002, when she disappeared.
One image that drew gasps from a packed courtroom showed the former
girlfriend, Amber Frey, sitting on Peterson's lap as he wore a Santa cap.
The biggest emotional charge occurred near the end of Distaso's opening
statement, when pictures of the remains of Laci and her unborn son were
projected onto a large screen. When the bodies washed up on the shore of
San Francisco Bay in April 2003, they had been in the water nearly four
months. Some jurors looked away. Peterson, dressed in a tan suit, averted
his eyes, as he did when pictures of him and Frey were shown.
There was a purpose to the recitation of events in numbing detail. There
are no smoking guns in the case. Nor are there witnesses who saw what
happened to Laci. The case is circumstantial, meaning the jury will be
asked to put together all the times and dates and seemingly minor incidents
into a story of two people's lives.
Distaso intends that when the jury does that, they will reach a guilty
verdict. If they do, Peterson, 31, could face the death penalty or life
without parole.
"This is a common-sense case," Distaso said at the end of his presentation.
"I'm going to ask you to find [Peterson] guilty of murdering Laci and his
unborn baby."
Geragos objected several times during the prosecution's remarks. In the
past, Geragos has raised the possibility that a satanic cult may have
kidnapped Laci.
Whether he takes that tack or not, it is likely he will call witnesses who
claim to have seen Laci with strange men in a variety of cities.
Trying to forestall that, Distaso told the jurors that police had collected
9,000 tips, some from other countries. Tips were still coming in, he said,
despite conclusive proof that the bodies found near the Berkeley Marina
were those of Laci and Conner.
"Are you going to hear that the Modesto Police Department completed a
perfect investigation?" Distaso said. "No, you're not." But he maintained
that if the jury looks at everything police found, they will conclude the
right man is in jail.
From all appearances, the Petersons were a happy young couple as Christmas
2002 approached. They had bought a modest house in Modesto and were
expecting their first child in February. Laci was elated, if frequently tired.
The couple perhaps lived a bit beyond their means, but nobody noticed
anything unusual, unless it was Scott Peterson's sudden interest in
fishing. In December, he bought a small fishing boat for $1,400, then
bought rods and lures ? which were later found in their original packaging.
He also bought a fishing license.
As it turned out, said the prosecutor, Peterson had begun a relationship
with Frey in late November. The two quickly became deeply involved.
Peterson, Distaso said, told Frey he was single and looking for a serious
relationship. When a friend told her that Peterson was married, his
explanation was that his wife had recently died, according to the prosecutor.
Frey, who had a child, once brought up the possibility of having more,
Distaso said. Peterson told her he didn't want any children.
On the day before Christmas, Peterson went fishing at the Berkeley Marina,
despite the fact that there were as many as seven fishing spots closer to home.
Asked what he was fishing for, he didn't answer, arousing the suspicion of
investigators. Over the next weeks, police followed him as he repeatedly
drove to the marina, sometimes in rented cars, and then drove back home.
After Amber Frey contacted police, they asked her to record phone calls
with Peterson, which she did. Distaso played one of those calls for the jury.
While it contained no admissions, it conveyed the sense of two lovers
cooing into the phone. The implication of all the Frey evidence was to
provide a motive: that Peterson fell so hard for Frey that he was willing
to kill his wife for her.
(source: LA Times)
-------------------------------------
Defense lawyers: adultery doesn't make Peterson a killer
Scott Peterson's defense lawyer attacked the case against his client
Wednesday as flimsy and circumstantial, saying the fact that the former
fertilizer salesman had a mistress didn't mean he killed his pregnant wife.
"He's not charged with having an affair," defense lawyer Mark Geragos told
jurors. "The fact of the matter is that this is a murder case and there has
to be evidence."
Geragos seized his first chance to contradict the portrait prosecutors
painted of Peterson on Tuesday ? that of a lying cheat whose affair with
massage therapist Amber Frey drove him to murder.
At times breaking his serious tone to pepper his presentation with jabs at
authorities who arrested Peterson, Geragos offered innocent explanations
for Peterson's behavior in the weeks after his wife, Laci, disappeared.
Geragos began Peterson's defense the day after prosecutor Rick Distaso used
his opening statement to detail the lies Peterson told family, police and
his mistress as the national media latched onto the case beginning in
late-December, 2002. Geragos downplayed Peterson's interest in Frey, saying
they only went out on a few dates.
"Their theory would be that Scott didn't want to have a child," he said.
"He didn't want to have a relationship and he was therefore going to chuck
his entire life with Laci ... for this woman he had two dates with."
Geragos characterized Peterson as a giddy expectant father who accompanied
his wife to all her doctor's appointments.
Distaso didn't promise jurors anything about a murder weapon or an
eyewitness to the crime, and Geragos dwelled on the circumstantial nature
of the prosecution.
Authorities in the couple's hometown of Modesto secured more than 100 bags
of evidence and state crime lab scientists analyzed the evidence
exhaustively, Geragos said.
"What did they get out of all those tests? Zip, nada, nothing," he said,
dropping a stack of papers on a table.
As he has since Peterson's arrest more than a year ago, Geragos also argued
that authorities ignored important leads that could exonerate his client.
Among them were homeless people who frequented a park near the couple's
home where Peterson said his wife was going to walk the family's golden
retriever on the morning he last saw her.
Geragos has floated a series of explanations for the crime, including that
members of a satanic cult abducted Laci Peterson and that the "real" killer
framed Scott Peterson after learning his alibi, which was scrutinized in
saturation media coverage.
Instead of pursuing other promising leads, authorities "turned his life
upside down" as they single-mindedly pursued Peterson, Geragos said. They
leaked false claims that Peterson had a financial motive to kill his wife,
Geragos said, and never believed his fishing story.
Peterson, 31, could face the death penalty or life without parole if
convicted in a case that is expected to last six months.
Prosecutors allege Peterson killed his wife on or around Dec. 24, 2002, and
dumped her body in the San Francisco Bay using a recently purchased boat.
Prosecutors said that Laci Peterson didn't know about the boat, but on
Wednesday Geragos insisted she had seen it on Dec. 20 ? and that witnesses
will testify to that.
Peterson gave conflicting accounts of his whereabouts on that day and
brushed off in-laws who were helping search for Laci Peterson, who was
eight months pregnant with a boy the couple planned to name Conner.
The bodies of Laci Peterson and her fetus washed onto a bay shore in April
2003, near where Peterson says he set out on a solo fishing trip the
morning his wife vanished.
"Ladies and gentleman this is a common sense case," Distaso told jurors,
saying they were compelled to judge Peterson guilty.
Common sense demands the opposite conclusion, Geragos countered Wednesday.
How could Peterson haul a dead body around a public marina ? even in his
boat ? without witnesses noticing, Geragos asked. "There is no way," he
answered.
On Tuesday, Distaso presented Peterson as a man who acted and talked guilty.
He spent much of his time on Peterson's relationship with Frey, the woman
whom he read Russian poetry and promised "our relationship will grow" ?
even as she was recording their telephone conversations for police. He also
told Frey he didn't want to have children and that he was considering a
vasectomy, Distaso said.
From the moment Peterson called his mother-in-law on Christmas Eve and
said he returned from fishing to an empty house, things didn't make sense,
Distaso said.
Family members who hours later joined police to search the nearby park were
met with what Distaso characterized as terse indifference from Peterson,
Distaso said.
The prosecutor also ticked off what he implied was double-talk that exposed
Peterson's duplicity.
Peterson told his mother-in-law, Sharon Rocha, that he was fishing on San
Francisco Bay, but later told Laci Peterson's uncle and two neighbors he
had been golfing. He also was unable to tell police what he had been trying
to catch.
(source: AP)
=============================
ARIZONA:
Law officers intent on helping others
"Only thought can determine what course of action is best on any occasion;
excellence of character has the sole but important role of making the agent
willing to do what reason determines is the best course of action. ..." -
J. O. Urmson
During the month of May, we paid tribute to the many fine men and women of
law enforcement and corrections who have paid the ultimate sacrifice,
giving of their life to protect others. In Pinal County, 28 brave officers
have paid this ultimate sacrifice for the citizens of Pinal County. During
2003, 146 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty protecting
America.
Why are people drawn to the law enforcement profession? Some may become
officers for the excitement, some for the security offered with the 20-year
retirement system, but most I think are drawn because they truly believe
that they can make a difference. Police work involves boredom, suffering,
anxiety, danger and disappointment. But it also provides challenge,
satisfaction and success.
Our society depends on people who are committed to civility and decency,
but not everyone is. That is why our jails are so overcrowded. Our society
cannot defend itself. It must have people who will stand up for themselves,
and that is where the law enforcement officers come into the picture. But
not even the police can safeguard the ideals of civility and decency from a
public that is determined to destroy them or lacks the courage to stand up
for them. Recently, the Pinal County law enforcement community watched as
two juries failed to deliver the death penalty to Nevin Garcia, who gunned
down Deputy Jason Lopez on the streets of Arizona City on May 4, 2001.
So why do the officers, deputies and detention/correction officers do their
jobs every day? Well for one, even when most citizens are basically
respectful to each other and of the law, there is never enough decency,
never enough restraint, to enable people to live well together without
someone who can step in when civility breaks down. Thus the reason for the
"peace officer." Someone must be entrusted to guard the public safety, to
enforce the laws, to keep the peace and to help the helpless.
The age-old dream of living together free from tyranny is the most daring
dream of mankind. You see we want to be free and at the same time enjoy
security. This is the context that the law enforcement officer finds
him/herself working in. Lawmakers sometimes present officers with
unenforceable laws or fail to provide the funds necessary for enforcement.
The Pinal County Sheriff's Office is struggling to keep up with the
tremendous growth of Pinal County. From 1998 to 2003, the calls for
services to the Sheriff's Office have risen by 250 percent, but our
staffing has not been able to keep pace. Law enforcement cannot do
everything expected of them by everyone. But I think our deputies realize
that they are public officers, who are sworn to uphold the public trust,
and they do offer a great service and respect to the citizens of Pinal
County daily.
While it is comforting to read in the news that your local deputy has
arrested another "bad guy" in your neighborhood, much of what the average
"peace officer" does daily is not so glamorous, but just as important to
the person being served.
I was told recently of such an example of a deputy going out of his way to
help a young family in need. The situation presented was a family broken
down on Arizona 238 west of Maricopa, near the county line, and it was late
at night. In this remote area of Pinal County there are few residents and
even less traffic. But a Pinal County Sheriff's K-9 unit, on routine
patrol, happened upon the vehicle. The deputy transported the wife back to
Maricopa to get another vehicle for the family. Being that this was a K-9
unit he could only take one person, because of his K-9 partner in the back
seat. When they reached the residence, the second car would not start, so
the deputy helped get it started, and then led the wife back to the
stranded dad and child, and made sure they all got safely home. Now the
deputy could have taken the easy way out and called for a tow truck to come
get the family and then left, but this deputy went the extra mile to serve
this family. This deputy didn't go out of his way for any reward. He did
what he did because he firmly believes that he is here to help others.
I share this story with you because I believe that this is the type of
deputy that is reflective of the men and women of the Pinal County
Sheriff's Office.
So if you would, please say a prayer for our deputies, officers, detention
and corrections personnel who each and every day serve and protect us. Till
next month, be careful and safe, and God bless you and our great nation.
This column is written for Tri-Valley Dispatch by Roger L. Vanderpool,
Pinal County sheriff.
(source: Tri-Valley Dispatch)
======================
PENNSYLVANIA:
Whatever Happened to Mumia Abu-Jamal?
The 24th of April, 2004, was a perfect day in Philadelphia for a protest
march ? or a family reunion. As it turned out, the day's events were a
little of both.
The tribe assembled at Malcolm X Park, a neat, green oasis in the middle of
the West Philadelphia 'hood. There were veterans of the struggle with gray
streaks in their beards and dreadlocks. There were younger, college-age
folks, radicalized as much by politically-charged rap music as by actual
movement experience, if not more so. A charter bus discharged a procession
of colorful flags from the Latin America diaspora.
In due course, the vendors set up shop. They sold buttons, offered
left-of-center literature (left-of-center, that is, except for the
supporter of perennial presidential gadfly/paranoid oddball Lyndon
LaRouche), passed out flyers and radical newspapers. A long quilt was
unfurled along the park's fence, with patches from Mexico and Bolivia
sporting messages like "God will rise and so will you" and "Thank God for
MOVE". Across the street, a gaggle of men in suits looked every bit the
part of plainclothes police officers, conferring among themselves and their
walkie-talkies.
When the truck with the sound system arrived and got set up, the rally
began in earnest. Hand-scrawled placards came out, encouraging motorists
passing by to honk in support. A series of speakers lacerated the American
political and judicial systems. Signs were passed out for marchers to
carry, balloons were blown up for drivers to tie to their cars. All of
their actions were unified by a simple chant: "Brick by brick, wall by
wall, we're gonna free Mumia Abu-Jamal!" p>April 24 was Mumia Abu-Jamal's
50th birthday. He spent it just as he's spent the last 20-odd birthdays: on
death row at a correctional facility in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania.
Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther Party minister of information, was
sentenced there in a highly controversial 1982 trial for murdering Daniel
Faulkner, a white Philadelphia police officer. Abu-Jamal has maintained he
did not commit the crime. Over the years, a body of evidence and a series
of witnesses have emerged to support that claim, but the prosecution has
fought to keep the information from getting a hearing in court. A
procession of lawyers for Abu-Jamal has argued that the verdict should be
abandoned because of, among other things, racist actions and statements
during the original investigation and trial. Death warrants have been
signed twice, but were overturned.
In the interim, Abu-Jamal has become America's most famous political
prisoner. A journalist by trade, Abu-Jamal has somehow managed to produce a
staggering body of commentaries and critiques of American and global
politics, from conditions inside American prisons to the war in Iraq (one
recent commentary noted, with no small amount of irony, that one of the
soldiers photographed as part of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal was a
prison guard at the facility where Abu-Jamal is held). Those commentaries
held so much weight that National Public Radio signed on to air a series of
them in the mid-'90s. But his case generates so much political heat that
the resulting controversy drove NPR to back away from the plan. Undeterred,
Abu-Jamal managed to get the work out in a book-compact disc package (All
Things Censored, Seven Stories Press, 2001).
At the height of the Abu-Jamal controversy, luminaries from actor Ed Asner
to Nelson Mandela called for a new trial that would establish Abu-Jamal's
innocence once and for all. On the other side is Faulkner's family, still
grieving their loss and firm in their belief that justice was done the
first time around. They're joined in their contempt for Abu-Jamal by the
law enforcement community, which has never had mercy for those branded as
"cop killers", regardless of any case's particulars. Yet the allegations of
judicial misconduct are numerous enough to fill several books, not to
mention a 2000 Amnesty International report.
The April rally was called by his supporters as the kickoff to a yearlong
battle for their ultimate goal: to bring Abu-Jamal home and reunite him
with his family. But it was also their way of letting Abu-Jamal know that
he hadn't been forgotten, and of telling Philadelphia and the world that he
wouldn't be forgotten. Good thing too, because I needed a reminder myself.
I don't remember how I first heard about him, but I do remember covering
his story for the Cleveland Free Times, an alternative weekly newspaper, at
the height of attention to the case. I wrote the introduction to the
paper's excerpt from his book Live from Death Row (Addison Wesley, 1995),
and I wrote a couple of articles about local reaction to developments in
his case.
I also remember going to Yellow Springs, Ohio to hear him address the 2000
commencement at Antioch College, my alma mater. Abu-Jamal has made numerous
commencement speeches, via recordings played over loudspeaker, and I'd bet
that every one of them was a local lightning rod. The very thought of a man
on death row sending the best and brightest off into the world, and that a
college would allow such a notion to happen, seems too much for many to
bear. News of Abu-Jamal's Antioch speech drove just about every major
newspaper in Ohio to editorialize against it. But Antioch and the Yellow
Springs community are far more progressive and tolerant than mainstream
America, and have been since the school's birth in the mid-1800s.
The college made a point of its open-mindedness and fairness during the
run-up to commencement. All of the letters of support and outrage were
displayed in albums in the administrative building's reception area.
Antioch saw an opportunity to use the case as a chance to explore the
unfairness of the death penalty, and held a seminar on the morning of the
commencement. It invited Abu-Jamal opponents to participate, but they
declined.
I went there expecting to see something of a political media circus.
Indeed, Faulkner's widow and fellow officers made the journey to protest
Abu-Jamal's speech. They were heckled by some radical rabble-rousers from
outside the Antioch community, but a team of college security personnel and
local residents ensured that no such hi-jinks would interfere with the
morning's main event. Faulkner's advocates were kept far away from the
commencement address; their silent protest was all but ignored by the
graduates.
And what exactly did Abu-Jamal tell the Class of 2000? Nothing particularly
radical, really. There were no exhortations to off the pigs, kill Whitey,
or overthrow the capitalist oppressor. As best as I can remember, he pretty
much advised the graduates to live their lives with conviction, and to
follow through on the beliefs and ideas they'd cultivated in school. The
only thing that distinguished his speech from your standard commencement
address was its brevity.
After the speech, I caught up with my ride back to Cleveland, and went on
with life. As a writer and reporter, I moved on to other issues and beats.
As a person, I got back to the business of holding down a job, raising a
daughter, and falling asleep in front of the TV. My hunch is that the vast
majority of those graduates can chart a similar progression: intense
interest in all things Mumia while he was Public Enemy #1, then on to the
next alleged bogeyman/scourge to society. Only the truest of the true
believers, I would imagine, continue to follow his case.
At the Philadelphia rally it was clear that, for those truest believers
(even those who weren't alive at the time of the shooting), Abu-Jamal is
more than just a political prisoner. If anything, he borders on iconic
status. There were signs heralding, "Mumia says, Get Out of Iraq!" There
was a flyer announcing his support of the Global Women's Strike. One could
argue that, until the current Bush administration and the Iraq war,
Abu-Jamal was the only thing that came remotely close to galvanizing the
far left and its myriad individual causes, from Puerto Rican independence
to anti-imperialism. Such is the state of the left in America that for
years, Abu-Jamal's case was the only thing that aroused unanimous passion.
At least no one at the rally sported a "What Would Mumia Do?" bracelet.
An irony of the case is that it's given Abu-Jamal a broader platform on
death row than he ever had, or might have ever enjoyed, as a free man. He
had been an award-winning local journalist before 1982, and was well known
for his outrage over Philadelphia's brutality against the radical activists
of Project MOVE (Philadelphia police waged a years-long battle with them,
culminating in the infamous1985 bombing of a street of houses where MOVE
members lived). But he had no name recognition beyond the City of Brotherly
Love. For that, you can thank a racially slanted trial and the vehemence of
both his supporters and his opponents. Neither side is prepared to give an
inch, and as long as the fight continues, as long as both sides maintain
their emotional investment in the outcome, Abu-Jamal will be their
touchstone for issues far greater than his individual circumstance. Their
vehemence long ago elevated him from person to symbol, of either the
lawlessness of American society or the corruption of American justice.
But the greater irony is that, even in the city where he lived, worked, and
was sentenced to death, Mumia Abu-Jamal is far from the radar of the
everyday person. As the rally began to fall into line for the march (that
gaggle of plainclothes officers ended up directing traffic so that the
marchers could proceed), a local candidate for state representative was
setting up elsewhere in the park for a campaign rally. He knew the case
well from the time of Faulkner's death, but had no idea that a rally for
Abu-Jamal was happening that day. He'd been busy campaigning, what with the
primary election three days away and all that.
And while hundreds gathered in support of Abu-Jamal that day, thousands had
marched just three weeks earlier, in grief and outrage over the murders of
more than two dozen Philadelphia children this school year. Granted, those
murders received far more local media attention than Abu-Jamal does these
days (which is to say, almost none). But while people can relate to
Abu-Jamal's situation on an intellectual level, it doesn't hit them in the
gut the way the deaths of innocent kids does. Political prisoners in legal
limbo are tough sells, especially 20-odd years after the fact and with no
imminent deadline for action.
That point was clear by the time the march had wound its way to a community
center not far from where Abu-Jamal's family lives. The site had all the
trappings of a community festival. There were food vendors, cultural
performances, and sales of Abu-Jamal's new memoir of his Black Panther
days, We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party (Consortium Book
Sales, May 2004), and other left-leaning books, CDs and T-shirts. Robert
Bryan, his current attorney, gave an update on the motions before the US
Supreme Court concerning prejudicial statements made by the judge during
Abu-Jamal's trial. There was a brief appearance by Abu-Jamal's wife, and
the reading of a letter from his son (who is also incarcerated, in New
York). There was also a lot of solidarity bonding, faith uplifting, and
rededication to the struggle.
But a few blocks from the gathering, a group of folks watched the day pass
at the corner store. Further down, some men were cleaning out a house for
renovation. A few doors down from that, someone was doing some sewer work.
Traffic had returned to normal, as if the march had never happened. April
24 was a momentous day for the core of Mumia Abu-Jamal's faithful, but for
everyone else, it was just Saturday.
(source: Mark Reynolds' Column, Pop Matters)
--------------------------------------------
A woman serving a life sentence for her role in the slashing-and-beating
death of a woman three years go now wants a trial.
Kristen Marie Edmundson, 22, pleaded guilty to her role in Shari Lee
Jackson's death and avoided the possible death penalty at trial.
But now Edmundson says her attorney wasn't effective and that she didn't
fully understand the consequences of the plea bargain that will keep her in
prison for the rest of her life.
A conference on Edmundson's motion will be held Sept. 3.
District Attorney David Gorman said he's ready to take Edmundson to trial
if she gets her way.
Authorities said Jackson was killed by Edmundson and Marie Louise Seilhamer
after Jackson unwittingly became involved in a love triangle with her
killers. Jackson's throat was slashed with a box-cutter.
Seilhamer, 21, was convicted at trial and sentenced to life in prison.
(source: AP / pennlive.com)
========================
SOUTH CAROLINA / U.S.:
SEEKING JUSTICE FOR ALICE DONOVAN
Pair's first victim testifies
The first victim of the crime spree of Chadrick Fulks and Branden Basham
testified today in the state's first federal death-penalty trial, saying he
was duped into helping the pair by Basham's plea for help over a
broken-down car. More than an hour later, James Hawkins was duct-taped to a
tree in southern Indiana.
Hawkins, of Hanson, Ky., testified that he was reading a newspaper story in
November 2002 about the pair of escapees from a nearby town's jail just
minutes before someone knocked at his door. Hawkins said he gave the two a
ride because he believed Basham's story that he was a 16-year-old who
needed help because his car broke down and he was worried about getting in
trouble with his father.
Fulks and Basham are accused of abducting Alice Donovan of Galivants Ferry,
then driving her around for hours before killing her and dumping her body,
which hasn't been found despite scores of searches over the year and a half
since.
Fulks pleaded guilty to eight charges last month, including a carjacking
resulting in death and a kidnapping resulting in death, the federal charges
for which he is facing the death penalty. His trial began Monday.
Fulks blamed Donovan's death on Basham.
Prior to today's testimony, Hawkins has said his captors did not harm him,
and even tried to make him more comfortable when they left him duct-taped
to a tree. Hawkins, who was clad in shorts and slippers when he was
kidnapped, said the men were oddly polite, apologizing even as they held
him at knife-point. One of the men gave Hawkins a coat to help him through
a chilly night.
Hawkins freed himself after 14 hours.
(source: Myrtle Beach Sun News)
