June 3
ARIZONA:
Suspects could face death penalty
Prosecutors in Arizona have not decided if they will ask for the death
penalty for four teenagers accused of killing a former Regina man.
The teenagers have been charged with first-degree murder in the death of
Praful Patel, 69. He was shot and killed outside a Phoenix-area shopping
mall. Police believe it was a robbery attempt that went wrong.
Sgt. Dan Masters says even if prosecutors go for the death penalty, some
of the suspects could still avoid it.
"I know initially we had some varying degrees of cooperation statements
from some of the people involved," says Masters. "So it's likely some of
those may not be facing the death penalty, in exchange for testimony, but
they may be facing extensive and lengthy prison sentences."
Masters says a 12-year-old boy was also arrested. He was handed over to
juvenile authorities and has not been charged.
Praful Patel moved to Regina from India in the 1970s. He retired 5 years
ago, and has been dividing his time between Calgary and a suburb of
Phoenix.
(source: CBC Sasketchewan)
*******************************
Trying to escape bitterness---Cleared by DNA, Krone speaking out
Years from now, Ray Krone hopes to watch the afternoon sunlight dance
across a lake while his grandchildren play on the shore.
He'll sleep eight hours a night, maybe nine or 10 if he's in the mood.
He'll never get angry and rarely feel pain.
But in his heart, Krone knows it's all an elaborate lie, the fantasy of a
broken man.
That perfect existence belongs to someone else, someone whose life wasn't
tarnished by a perversion of justice that sent him to Arizona's death row
for a crime he didn't commit.
Krone tries to move ahead. Speaking out so what happened to him does not
happen to others.
But it is not easy.
Today, more than 2 years since Krone walked out of prison after DNA tests
proved he didn't rape and murder a Phoenix bartender, the 47-year-old
former postal worker admits that frustration, anger and bitterness have
taken over.
"I don't recognize myself anymore," Krone said. "I'm cynical now, totally
paranoid now. I used to have a normal life. Now, I don't know what normal
is."
Legal experts, attorneys and death-penalty opponents say Krone is among
hundreds of people across the country who ended up behind bars for crimes
they didn't commit.
Since 1989, post-conviction DNA tests have cleared 144 people in prisons
nationwide, according to research by attorneys Barry C. Scheck and Peter
J. Neufeld, co-founders of the Innocence Project at Yeshiva University's
Cardozo School of Law in New York.
Research also shows more than 100 people nationwide have walked off death
row after being cleared by a variety of factors, said Phoenix attorney
Larry Hammond, head of the Arizona Justice Project.
"It's cause for great alarm," said Hammond, whose volunteer organization
investigates the cases of inmates believed to be wrongly convicted. "If
you look at why these people are convicted, it's bad eyewitness ID, it's
snitches, it's prosecutorial misconduct, it's faulty crime labs. These
aren't rocket science things."
Hammond believes shoddy work by attorneys and a flawed justice system that
promotes an adversarial process spark a deadly combination that lead
people like Krone to prison.
"I don't really care what the numbers are. I care that we are making
mistakes that we can do something about," he said.
Arrest stunned Krone
The mistakes that landed Ray Milton Krone on death row started on Dec. 29,
1991, when police began investigating the rape and murder of bartender Kim
Ancona at a west Phoenix tavern.
Ancona, 35, had previously talked about Krone with friends, leading police
to the postman's home to interview him. 2 days later, officers surrounded
his house and arrested Krone on suspicion of first-degree murder, sexual
assault and kidnapping.
Krone, who maintained that he was home and asleep during the murder, said
he was stunned by the arrest, believing authorities could never make a
mistake of this magnitude.
"Why were they doing this? They knew it wasn't true," said Krone, who had
no criminal history. "It's embarrassing to be 35 years old and find out
you're stupid, you're naive."
Much of the trial revolved around bite marks found on Ancona's left breast
and neck. Forensic odontologists John Piakis of Phoenix and Raymond Rawson
of Las Vegas, who were hired by county prosecutors, determined that the
marks came from Krone's teeth.
Krone, who did not have a bite-mark expert testify in his defense, took
the stand to rebut the evidence and pledge his innocence.
The trial lasted six days, and jurors convicted Krone in August 1992.
Three months later, Judge Jeffrey Hotham of Maricopa County Superior Court
sentenced him to death.
"It's hard to understand, hard to believe, hard to think about what this
was doing to my family and friends," Krone said. "I was going to die."
A moment of relief and hope found Krone in 1995, when the conviction was
overturned and a new trial was ordered by the Arizona Supreme Court, which
determined that errors were committed by the initial trial judge.
However, a second jury found Krone guilty. He headed back to prison, this
time with a life sentence.
It took six more years, but in March 2002, defense attorneys gave a
desperate and hopeless Krone the break he needed.
Blood found on Ancona's clothing, which was tested by the Phoenix police
crime lab and independent technicians, didn't match Ancona's.
It didn't match Krone's either.
It matched that of convicted felon Kenneth Phillips, a Phoenix man whose
fingerprints also were found on a condom machine at the bar.
Phillips suddenly faced murder and kidnapping charges for a decade-old
crime.
And Krone was free.
Case an anomaly
Although Krone's story is horrifying, Arizona's attorney general and
victims rights advocates believe the case is an aberration and shouldn't
detract from the value of the nation's justice system.
The percentage of falsely accused people is "tiny" and the justice system
cannot be turned upside down because of anomalies, state Attorney General
Terry Goddard said.
"The system is not perfect, but it does an extraordinarily good job,"
Goddard said. "For everyone who's wrongfully convicted, there's a huge
number of appropriately convicted criminals that serve their penalty."
Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, whose office put Krone behind bars,
declined an interview request this week. Romley's spokesman, Bill
FitzGerald, also refused to comment.
Romley has previously apologized for the Krone situation.
Gail Leland, director of Homicide Survivors Inc. in Tucson, said most
people in prison have vast criminal histories and belong behind bars.
Changing the justice system and abolishing the death penalty because of
Krone's case would be an overreaction, she said.
"What happened in his case was a mistake with terrible consequences, but I
look at all the cases of all the people who are on death row and their
premeditated, purposeful acts of violence," said Leland, whose 14-year-old
son, Richard, was murdered in 1981.
"Until there comes a day when we can eradicate violence, we have to
prevent those who commit violent acts from committing them again. The only
way to ensure that is to make sure they're locked away where they can't
prey on other people."
Starting over
Krone said he won't make his home in Phoenix, and he's not ready to return
to the U.S. Postal Service.
His life now consists of quiet time at his mother's home in Pennsylvania,
where Krone grew up and has dozens of friends.
After the arrest, he lost everything. When he was released, his house in
Phoenix and all of his money were long gone.
"He came back here homeless and penniless," said Carolyn Leming, Krone's
mother. "He was 45 years old, and he had to start his life all over
again."
His evenings continue to be filled with sleeplessness and nightmares. He
isn't a father, and Krone knows he'll likely never have grandchildren.
Krone has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court seeking $100 million from
the Maricopa County Attorney's Office and the Phoenix Police Department.
If he wins the civil action, some of the money certainly will go toward
repaying the family and friends who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
helping Krone cover his vast legal expenses. Leming believes she spent
$150,000, while a cousin Krone had never met contributed $100,000.
"It was extremely hard for him to accept help," said Leming, 66. "He felt
very bad about what it cost us."
Krone earns a small amount of money by traveling across the country and
sharing his story. Last week, he spoke to hundreds of people in Tucson and
Bisbee, led marches and met with legislators in hopes of ending capital
punishment. He was paid $100 for speaking a half-dozen times over four
days.
The low pay and long hours don't matter, Krone said. He just wants to get
the word out.
"I just want to be productive, make my friends and family proud," he said.
"Maybe it's not about what I did the last 10 years. Maybe it's about what
I have to do the next 10 years."
(source: Arizona Republic)
USA:
We should let life in prison be the ultimate penalty in American society
The efforts of city police and a powerful California senator to make an
alleged cop killer face the death penalty are ironically providing 2
strong arguments against the capital punishment that they demand.
The first argument is this: As long as death is seen as "the ultimate
penalty," then family and loved ones of murder victims will always feel
disrespected if anything less results from conviction of a killer. The
second argument: By giving politicians the chance to sound "tough on
crime" by demanding the death penalty, the very notion of justice is
threatened.
David Hill, a young black man from Hunters Point, a violent neighborhood
in the southeast corner of this city, is accused of shooting and killing
police officer Isaac Espinoza on April 10. In this case, Espinoza's public
family is his fellow San Francisco police officers. They have been loud
and angry over city District Attorney Kamala Harris' vow to honor her
campaign pledge not to seek the death penalty in murder cases. Despite the
San Francisco Police Union's endorsement of Harris during her campaign,
they now denounce her because, according to Police Chief Heather Fong,
failing to seek the death penalty "dishonors the memory of all fallen
officers and diminishes the lives of those, who, on a daily basis, risk
their lives for the sake of the public's safety." Police say they feel
"dishonored and diminished" because the alleged killer of a member of
their family is seen as "getting off" by facing "only" life behind bars.
Even in "good" years, as now, when the murder rate is considerably lower
than it was a decade ago, more than 2,000 homicides occur in California
annually. No one would advocate 2,000 executions a year to deal with this
problem. Yet, as long as some of the convicted get death and others get
life, some victims' survivors will always feel the system "dissed" them.
The so-called "ultimate penalty" is generally reserved for the killers of
those whom society values over others. The most prominent example:
Executions are meted out to those who murder white people in vastly
greater numbers than to those who murder black people, despite the fact
that blacks account for approximately half of the victims of homicide.
Blacks, Latinos and poor people in general might well feel dishonored,
disrespected and diminished, since we seldom seek the "ultimate penalty"
for their killers. But, while the local police seek respect through the
execution of the alleged shooter, the civil-rights community seeks
respect, too. Civil-rights advocates call for the abolition of the death
penalty as the only way to guarantee that equally culpable killers be
subject to comparable prison terms. If "the ultimate penalty" were life in
prison without the possibility of parole -- which the district attorney
has said she will seek in this case -- then no group of survivors could
feel disrespected, dishonored or diminished by comparing penalties as
grossly disparate as life versus death.
As for the opportunity the death penalty provides politicians,
California's senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, provides a perfect example.
Though her duties are in the realm of federal law, she nevertheless
pontificated on the subject of the appropriate penalty for a defendant not
yet tried, but already convicted in the court of public opinion. Despite
the fact that murder and the penalties for it are within the purview of
state law (except in rare circumstances), Feinstein opined that this case
exemplifies "the special circumstances called for by the death-penalty
law."
By intruding herself publicly into the controversy, the senator appears to
throw the weight of her office behind a particular result in a particular
case. One can understand the political motivation (and the emotion) that
prompts her public remarks. But what about the risk to justice?
How can Mr. Hill get a fair trial in a state where the top elected federal
lawmaker already has told the people what the outcome should be? What
potential juror, in San Francisco or elsewhere, will not have heard that
his or her own U.S. senator has called for the death penalty in this case,
and who among them will be unaffected by this knowledge? How can such an
unwarranted intrusion into a state criminal case by a federal official
advance the principle of "Equal Justice Under Law," those lofty words
inscribed over the entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court?
Everyone who has lost a loved one to violent crime can understand the
demand for the "ultimate penalty." But by drawing a bright line at life in
prison as the ultimate penalty -- by eliminating the possibility of death
as punishment -- we would eliminate the perception of being slighted,
disrespected or dishonored by a system that seeks death for some but not
for others. And, by taking capital punishment off the table as a possible
criminal sanction, as most countries worldwide (including all of Europe)
have done, we would remove a source of temptation to politicians to
advance their own careers at the expense of justice itself.
(PNS contributor Michael Kroll works with incarcerated juveniles who write
for The Beat Within, a PNS project. He is the founding director of the
Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.)
(source: Commentary, The Athens News, Ohio)
NEW JERSEY:
Death penalty bias targeted--Top court to consider questioning potential
grand jurors on stance
The New Jersey Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday on whether
potential grand jurors should be questioned on their views about the death
penalty now that they play a critical role in deciding which defendants
will stand trial for their lives.
Lawyers for 2 Camden County men accused of abducting and killing a
27-year-old woman in 2001 argued that they should be allowed into the
grand jury room to question prospective jurors about any bias they may
have for or against the death penalty.
Prosecutors argued that such a procedure would be unprecedented and
unnecessary, and risk converting grand jury proceedings into drawn-out
mini-trials.
The justices' ruling in this case is expected to set procedures for
presenting future capital cases to grand juries. The court in February
decided that murder defendants have a right to have all charges --
including whether aggravating factors exist to warrant a death sentence --
determined by a grand jury. For 22 years before that decision, prosecutors
made that critical determination.
As a result, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office must go back to the
grand jury to seek a supplemental indictment against Ryshaone Thomas, 26,
and Marcus Toliver, 25. They already have been indicted for kidnapping
Christine Eberle as she got off the PATCO commuter train line in Camden
and taking her to a wooded area, where they allegedly choked and beat her
to death.
The new grand jury must determine whether the alleged murder took place in
the course of stealing her car and to prevent her from reporting the
crime.
Jaime Kaigh, who represents Toliver, argued that new procedures are needed
to ensure that the grand jurors will make that decision fairly. He called
for screening them for bias and letting defense lawyers take part.
Jack Weinberg, chief of the appeals unit in the Camden County Prosecutor's
Office, said that if defense lawyers are allowed into the grand jury room
-- where they have never been allowed before -- then judges also will have
to be present to referee any disputes. He urged the justices not to impose
"burdensome requirements" that could interfere with a speedy trial.
Justice Barry Albin noted that when grand jurors hand up an indictment,
they are not told the maximum prison term that could result. He asked why
grand jurors should even be told that an indictment might result in a
death sentence.
"Death is different, as this court has said," Kaigh replied. He said
prospective grand jurors should be screened to weed out those who are "ADP
-- automatic death penalty."
But Albin said such a screening process is "more likely to remove people
who are passionately against the death penalty."
Assistant Attorney General Boris Moczula said prosecutors would prefer to
keep the procedures simple and run the risk that a death penalty opponent
is seated on a grand jury. Unlike trial juries, which must be unanimous,
it takes a majority vote of grand jurors to indict, Moczula noted.
(source: Star-Ledger)
CALIFORNIA:
Peterson Defense Attacks Case As Flimsy
Scott Peterson's defense began with a dramatic gambit - an assertion that
Peterson could not have killed his pregnant wife because the fetus she
carried was born alive.
Attorney Mark Geragos told jurors in a 2-hour opening statement Wednesday
that the boy whom the couple intended to name Conner didn't die in the
womb, as prosecutors assert.
"If this baby was born alive, clearly Scott Peterson had nothing to do
with this murder," Geragos said. "The evidence is going to show that
(Laci) was alive on Dec. 24 when Scott went to the marina."
Geragos indicated he will call experts to testify that the fetus was older
than it would have been if it died at the same time as Laci, and that the
umbilical cord was cut in such a way that the child must have been removed
from Laci Peterson while still living.
Prosecutors have said their experts will testify that the fetus was
expelled well after Laci Peterson's corpse was dumped into San Francisco
Bay.
Geragos' maneuver took some legal observers by surprise. Robert Talbot, a
professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, called it
"dramatic, but dangerous."
"But if he can do it, it will go a long way to reasonable doubt," Talbot
said.
Prosecutors allege Peterson killed his 8-months pregnant wife on or around
Dec. 24, 2002, then disposed of her body during what he tried to disguise
as a fishing trip.
Geragos' opening statement was the first formal glimpse inside a strategy
to clear Peterson by suggesting that somebody else was the killer.
Peterson, 31, could face the death penalty or life without parole if
convicted in the trial that's expected to last 6 months.
Prosecutors have portrayed Peterson as a lying cheat who killed his wife
because he was having an affair with massage therapist Amber Frey - and
because he wasn't ready to become a father.
Geragos countered Wednesday that while the former fertilizer salesman had
a mistress, it doesn't mean he killed his wife.
"He's not charged with having an affair. ... The fact of the matter is
that this is a murder case and there has to be evidence," he said.
Geragos downplayed Peterson's interest in Frey, saying they only went out
on 2 dates, and characterized him as a giddily expectant father who
accompanied his wife to all her doctor's appointments.
During his opening statements Tuesday, prosecutor Rick Distaso didn't
promise jurors they would hear about a murder weapon or an eyewitness to
the crime, and Geragos seized on the circumstantial nature of the case.
Authorities in the couple's hometown of Modesto secured more than 100 bags
of material from Peterson's home, car and warehouse, 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.
Prosecutors said Peterson used a recently purchased boat to ferry his
wife's body to San Francisco Bay from a marina in Berkeley. Her remains
and that of the fetus washed ashore in April 2003, near where Peterson
says he took the solo fishing trip the previous December.
The day closed with testimony from the 1st prosecution witness - the
Petersons' housekeeper, Margarita Nava. Nava testified in Spanish that she
cleaned the home's kitchen floor Dec. 23.
Prosecutors contend also Peterson cleaned and mopped his kitchen after
killing his wife, and have seized the mop as evidence.
(source: Associated Press)
*************************
At Peterson's Trial, His Lawyer Describes a Cad, but Not a Murderer
There are certain unflattering facts about Scott Peterson that even his
lawyer, Mark Geragos, considers beyond argument.
Like the fact that Mr. Peterson had an affair and can come across as
boorish and like a cad, to use two of Mr. Geragos's descriptions.
"We are not going to dispute that," Mr. Geragos told a jury here on
Wednesday in his opening statement in Mr. Peterson's murder trial.
But, Mr. Geragos went on: "He's not charged with having an affair. The
fact of the matter is that this is a murder case, and there has to be
evidence."
The long-awaited defense in the long-awaited trial of Mr. Peterson, who is
charged with killing his wife, Laci, and her fetus in December 2002, was
outlined in San Mateo County Superior Court in blunt and rapid-fire
fashion.
Mr. Geragos was done before lunch. On Tuesday, the prosecution consumed
the entire day with an exacting survey of its case against Mr. Peterson,
which covered details like the weather at the marina in Berkeley where Mr.
Peterson went fishing on the day Mrs. Peterson disappeared, and the
prosecution contends, when Mr. Peterson dumped her body in San Francisco
Bay.
"I could sit up here for 8 hours and go through every single piece of
evidence," Mr. Geragos told the jurors, "but my feeling is it might make
more sense to do it on the witness stand."
That said, Mr. Geragos, best known as a lawyer to the stars, defended Mr.
Peterson, a small-town fertilizer salesman, for about 90 minutes with the
same relish as he would a celebrity shoplifter.
Most notably, he elicited gasps in an overflow room of reporters listening
by audio feed when he suggested that the Peterson baby was born alive and
well after Mrs. Peterson was reported missing on Dec. 24. The bodies of
both Mrs. Peterson and the baby were found in April 2003 on the shore of
San Francisco Bay.
"If the baby was alive inside of Laci and lived beyond Dec. 23 or 24,
Scott Peterson obviously had no involvement in this," Mr. Geragos said.
He said he would back up the claim with evidence: "There was no umbilical
cord found with this baby. There was no placenta found with this baby. The
baby was found with what appears to be electrical tape on its ear and
twine around its neck. And on top of it, it appears someone had cut off
the umbilical cord. That is what the evidence will show."
Robert Talbot, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of
Law, who is among the many legal experts following the trial, said Mr.
Geragos could "knock a big hole" in the prosecution's case with proof that
the baby was born alive. If the evidence falls short, though, Professor
Talbot said, he risks undermining his credibility with the jurors on other
matters of evidence.
Mr. Geragos used the occasional dramatic gesture (one sentence was
punctuated with the thud of papers dropping on the desk). He sometimes
delivered lines with the precision of a stage performer ("Zip, nada,
nothing," is how he described the evidence the police had collected
against Mr. Peterson). And he even managed humor, twice showing a
videotape of a Martha Stewart television program from the morning of Mrs.
Peterson's disappearance. In describing his last morning with his wife,
Mr. Peterson had told the police about a reference to meringue on the
program, but the prosecution contended that there was no such reference.
("I played it twice just in case you missed it," Mr. Geragos told the
jurors after the meringue reference blasted from the loudspeaker.)
Most significantly, Mr. Geragos tried to explain away some of the
assertions made by the prosecution on Tuesday, both big and small, about a
series of lies, deceptions and suspicious activities by Mr. Peterson. Mr.
Geragos said the police in Modesto, where the Petersons lived, had put the
worst twist on everything Mr. Peterson did or said, at one point even
suggesting to Mr. Peterson's employer that he was embezzling money from
the company. Mr. Geragos said that was not true.
He went on to say that Mr. Peterson had his brother's driver's license on
the day he was arrested in Southern California because he wanted to use it
to play golf near his brother's home at a course that offers reduced fees
for local residents. Moreover, he said, Mr. Peterson never told his
relatives about the fishing boat he had purchased less than 2 weeks before
his wife's disappearance because he was going to surprise them on
Christmas. Finally, Mr. Geragos said, Mr. Peterson dyed his hair to elude
the paparazzi.
"The evidence is going to show clearly beyond any doubt that not only is
Scott Peterson not guilty but Scott Peterson is stone cold innocent," Mr.
Geragos said.
Mr. Geragos spent little time discussing the prosecution's star witness,
Amber Frey, who was having an affair with Mr. Peterson at the time of Mrs.
Peterson's disappearance, except to acknowledge the relationship was wrong
and to suggest their taped telephone conversations were not relevant.
"The evidence shows that he was maybe exhibiting boorish behavior toward
Amber," Mr. Geragos said. "He had cheated on his wife. But there is
nothing in those tapes that is an incriminating statement. Everything in
those tapes is consistent with somebody who is trying to keep her at bay
so to speak, emotionally at bay. That is all it is."
After the lunch break, the prosecution's 1st witness, the Petersons'
cleaning woman, took the stand. The trial is expected to continue for 5 or
6 months.
(source: New York Times)
*************************
Convicted molester talks of videotape/Slain Vallejo girl allegedly was
filmed after her abduction
The man accused of killing 7-year-old Xiana Fairchild said in a jailhouse
interview Tuesday that he had made Webcam-like videotapes of the girl
after she was abducted, and conceded that evidence against him was likely
to make him look "ruthless."
Curtis Dean Anderson, who already is serving a 251-year prison sentence
for kidnapping and molesting another girl, did not directly admit that he
abducted Xiana from a Vallejo street in December 1999 or killed her. But
he said that as prosecutors reveal their case against him, "in any
scenario, it's not going to get better." "With each step, it's going to be
worse than before" for his legal team, he said.
Anderson was interviewed at the Santa Clara County jail, where he has been
housed since being arrested May 11 on charges of kidnapping and murdering
Xiana. Prosecutors are reviewing evidence before deciding whether to seek
the death penalty.
A Santa Clara County judge postponed Anderson's plea hearing last week
until July 22 to give his public defender more time to prepare.
According to documents submitted by authorities in support of an arrest
warrant, Anderson told investigators he kept Xiana captive for several
weeks after kidnapping her and videotaped himself molesting her.
In the interview Tuesday, the 43-year-old Anderson said, "It's more than
acts of stuff on the tape. It's like what you see with a Webcam. You see
people doing whatever." Authorities have said they believe Anderson kept
Xiana at the San Jose boardinghouse where he was living in late 1999. They
have not said whether they think Anderson really made videotapes of Xiana,
whose skull was found in the hills above Los Gatos in January 2001.
Karen Sinunu, assistant district attorney in Santa Clara County who
oversees the homicide team, said Tuesday, "We aren't having conversations
with the defendant through the media."
Anderson said the tape was out of the reach of law enforcement and the
media. "People had their chance to get that, and they chose not to," he
said.
Xiana's great-aunt Stephanie Kahalekulu, who raised Xiana for much of the
girl's short life and has spoken with Anderson many times, said she does
not believe the tape exists. "I think there will be a lot more
manipulation from him, all the way again," she said.
Anderson was vague in several of his responses during Tuesday's interview
when asked about allegations of molestation against him.
"Each situation is different," he said. "There's a lot more cooperation
(by alleged victims) until somebody makes an issue, about what they are
doing so they won't get in trouble."
In 4-page letter he sent to a Chronicle reporter last month, Anderson
wrote, "People cannot handle my truth! My truth could end up with me
strapped into the gas chamber."
Anderson said in the interview that he is studying Buddhism, and that
"from what little knowledge I have on the subject, for my next existence,
I'm f -- ."
"But if I come back as a cockroach, how can I learn?" he said. "If I come
back as a female, I may learn more."
Anderson's public defender, Ken Mandel, said Tuesday that he received the
1st wave of documents from the district attorney only a few weeks ago --
9,000 pieces so far -- and he's not prepared to discuss the case.
Anderson has been using a wheelchair because of a bad hip, and he looked
gaunt and sickly Tuesday. He said he had lost 50 pounds recently in state
prison in Corcoran, where he is serving his sentence for kidnapping and
molesting an 8-year-old girl from Vallejo in August 2000.
He said he was being tested for abdominal cancer, something state prison
officials would not comment on. During the interview, he kept adjusting
his dentures, which he said have become ill-fitting after his weight loss.
Anderson expressed no regrets for what he's done.
"The problem with everybody is they're not happy with who they are," he
said. "People go through their whole life pretending, not liking what they
do, and that is reflected."
(source: San Francisco Chronicle)
*********************
JURY RECOMMENDS DEATH PENALTY FOR ERSKINE
A jury says a South Bay man who molested and strangled 2 boys in 1993
should die for his crimes. Scott Erskine, 41, was convicted last Oct. 1 in
the deaths of 13-year-old Charlie Keever and 9-year-old Jonathan Sellers.
The same jury that found Erskine guilty deadlocked 11-1 in favor of the
death penalty and a penalty phase retrial was ordered, culminating in
Wednesday's jury recommendation that Erskine be put to death rather than
incarcerated for the rest of his life. "There is no excuse for what he
did," Jonathan's mother, Milena Sellers, told reporters after the verdict
was announced. "I'm just so thankful.
"I'm just glad he got what he didn't want," Sellers said. "That he gives
to others so easily death, and not think twice about it. And I'm glad he
didn't want the death penalty. He didn't want to be on death row, but I'm
glad that he received what he did not want."
Erskine wrote a letter to his mother saying he was afraid of the death
penalty, according to evidence introduced in the penalty phase retrial.
Maria Keever said the pain of losing her son Charlie "will never go away."
"I promised my son that justice would be done," she told reporters on the
steps of the Hall of Justice. "Justice was done today."
Erskine stared straight ahead as the jury's recommendation was announced
after a few hours of deliberations.
The victims' mothers clasped hands and let out an affirmative yelp when
the jury's decision was read.
Erskine was in prison in 2001 for raping a woman when advanced technology
enabled scientists to tie him to the boys' slaying through DNA. Judge
Kenneth So will determine a sentencing date Friday.
(source: KFMB)
