June 13 USA: Study urges police to record interviews Electronic recording of the interrogations of criminal suspects is a cost-effective method that results in more convictions and speedier justice, according to a new study based on the most comprehensive police survey in more than a decade. The study, conducted by former U.S. attorney Thomas Sullivan and released Friday by the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, calls upon legislatures, courts and law enforcement authorities--state and federal--to "consider requiring that all in-custody interviews be recorded from the Miranda warnings to the conclusion." "This is a matter of national concern ... which should be dealt with promptly and comprehensively," Sullivan concluded in the report. "Recordings benefit suspects, law enforcement, prosecutors, juries, trial and reviewing court judges, and the search for truth in our justice system." Law enforcement has staunchly resisted recording police interrogations, with the opposition essentially boiling down to claims that criminals won't talk with the camera recording, that juries won't like their tactics, that it is not practical to implement and that it costs too much. The study surveyed 238 law enforcement agencies in 38 states that record interrogations in felony crimes. "Virtually every officer with whom we spoke, having given custodial recordings a try, was enthusiastically in favor of the practice," the report states. The study is an outgrowth of a commission of lawyers, including Sullivan, and others appointed by former Gov. George Ryan to study Illinois' death penalty system after he imposed a moratorium on executions in 2000. That commission recommended that the state adopt a requirement that interrogations be recorded in all homicide cases. A bill was introduced that called for the recording of interrogations in all non-probationable felonies, such as kidnapping, sexual assault and residential burglary, according to Steven Drizin, a juvenile justice expert at Northwestern who has investigated and studied false confession cases. The bill received stiff opposition from prosecutors and law enforcement and ultimately was passed, but not before it was narrowed to homicide cases only and several exceptions were written into the bill, he said. The law takes effect in 2005. Recording of interrogations has been approved by legislatures in Maine and the District of Columbia. It is required by state supreme court rulings in Minnesota and Alaska. The practice is followed in large cities with more than 500,000 residents--such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Houston and Austin, Texas--and in cities of between 200,000 and 500,000 residents, such as Miami; St. Petersburg, Fla.; Ft. Wayne, Ind.; Akron; and Corpus Christi, Texas. And, the study reported, it is employed in numerous suburban and rural communities, such as the DuPage County sheriff's office and Kankakee. In state and federal courts alike, one of the most common pretrial hearings in criminal cases is the result of a defense motion to suppress a confession by the accused. Almost invariably, a judge must decide which of 2 diametrically opposed versions of what happened in an interrogation room is the truth--that of the police or the defendant. In the study, police reported that the recordings virtually had eliminated disputes regarding confessions--whether they were voluntary or whether suspects had been abused. For example, authorities in Bozeman, Mont., reported that one video showed a suspect giggling when he described beating children. An official in the El Dorado County, Calif., sheriff's office said, "A motion to suppress is a swearing match between the suspect's word and the officer's word. Now, we play the tape and the judge says: 'It's right there. Motion denied.'" Sullivan said: "This is absolutely critical. So many of the wrongful convictions wouldn't happen. And this will convict people more than it will let people off." (source: Chicago Tribune) GEORGIA: Getting a 2nd chance at life Charlie and Judith Ann Young are learning to live with each other after 12 years of marriage. She is still getting used to having a man in the house, and he's adjusting to having a wife to provide for. The Macon couple is honeymooning at a point when many couples are trying to keep the spark in their marriage going. Before last week, they had spent every day of their marriage living apart. Charlie Young Jr. served 28 years in prison - almost 4 of them on death row - for the murder of a Greene County banker. His wife, Judith Ann, had been living alone waiting for him to be released. "I always knew he would get out of prison one day," Judith Ann Young said. "The Lord told me that Charlie would not die in the electric chair, and I knew he would be released." Young was released from prison in January and sent to live in a Macon after-care program for parolees. After 6 months, Young was allowed to move in with his wife this month. "It's been great being home," Young, 57, said. "There are times I look around me, and I just can't believe it. ... I deserved to die for what I did and God spared me. It was only by his grace." Parole officials call Young a "model" inmate - one who had no disciplinary actions against him during his prison stay and who was loved by administrators and fellow inmates. They said he's a model for the after-care program that allows eligible inmates a chance at parole and provides them assistance to make it on the outside. Since his release, Young has visited youth groups, church congregations and prison inmates to share his story. He's become a walking testimony to how the prison system can work, parole board member Eugene Walker said. "Charlie Young is one person who has truly earned a second chance," Walker said. "He's spent a long time in prison and is very remorseful for his crime ... he has been punished long enough." A terrible mistake Charlie Young Jr. says he can't remember all the events that led to his arrest Dec. 15, 1975, but he knows he went to talk with Reuben Flynt about some money he owed the bank. When the conversation was over, the small-town bank president was dead. Flynt had been shot 4 times and beaten in the head with the butt of a gun. During an interview shortly after his arrest, Young said Flynt was reaching for a weapon in a drawer when Young pulled out his wife's gun, which he'd brought along for protection. All these years later, Young says it was the worst decision of his life. "I wish I could take that day back, but I can't," Young said. "I had never been in trouble before in my life ... never had anything like this happen to me." Young was 1 of 3 children born to Charlie and Obbie Mae Young. He was raised by his grandparents in Greene County while his parents divorced and other siblings lived in Atlanta. "I always tell people that it wasn't my raising that got me (to prison)," Young said. "It was my bad choices. My grandmama loved me and took care of me ... this had nothing to do with her." After he graduated from high school, Young moved to Atlanta and married. After the couple had two children, their life took a turn for the worse. "I decided I didn't want to work this hard anymore," Young said. "I wasn't a good father, and I wasn't a good husband. ... I started drinking and doing things that I didn't need to be doing." To make ends meet and to have the things he wanted, Young borrowed money from the Farmer's Bank in Union Point. His grandmother, Lillian Mitchell, co-signed on the loan. Pretty soon, Young said he couldn't make the payments. "I couldn't sleep at night because I owed people," Young said. "I wasn't raised like that." Young drove from Atlanta to Union Point to meet with Flynt and found the banker at home on his lunch break. Young told police the 2 men began arguing when he asked Flynt not to make his grandmother responsible for repaying the loan. "64 days later, I was sentenced to death," Young said. "I can't tell you what it's like to be declared not fit to live. I felt like the lowest thing that had ever been on the Earth." A "monster" within Not everyone believes Charlie Young Jr. deserves a 2nd chance at freedom. Clarice Thompson, Reuben Flynt's daughter, said that as a Christian she believes God can forgive Young, but she doesn't know if she can. Although she heard reports that Young had changed his life in prison, Thompson said her family was devastated when Young was released. In the years since her father's death, they never thought his killer would go free. "I have to come to a point in my life that I can forgive him," Thompson said. "I have to believe that no one can lie about changing their life and being a model prisoner. But a part of me is scared for my mother because she lives in the same house where my father was killed. I'm also scared for the people who live around Charlie Young ... that maybe he could do this again. Will that monster appear again if he gets angry?" Thompson said her family tries not to think about Young being out of prison. "Some days, I don't think about it at all," Thompson said. "Then I'll see something on television and I'll think about him walking around out there free. It's really hard to deal with on those days." Joe Briley, former district attorney in the Ocmulgee Circuit and the prosecutor who sought the death penalty against Young, said he thought the man should have spent the rest of his life in prison. "Some people think that prison is for rehabilitation," Briley said. "But in murder cases, it is not. ... It's for punishment. This was a brutal thing that Charlie Young did and he deserved to spend the rest of his life in prison." Living on death row For inmates on death row, the hours between daylight and dusk can be very long. Young said when he was on death row, there were 10 men to a unit and each lived in a 30-foot, 1-man cell. Unlike other inmates, death row prisoners cannot leave their confinement and conversations are kept to a minimum. Everything they get is brought to them. "There is no fun being on death row," Young said. "(Inmates) care more about television than they do about people. ... They will kill you over a television program. Since I've been out on parole, I've only turned on the television three times. I just don't care to look at it." Over the years, Young got to know the men in his unit. But he learned quickly not to ask them a lot of questions about what led them to prison. "When you start asking questions, you can end up dead," Young said. "They think you're going to write to the district attorney about their case ... that you're going to be looking out for your own self." During this time, Young started reading everything he could. From newspapers to books, he tried to pass the hours. "You keep up with what's going on by watching television or reading the newspaper," Young said. "The whole world is passing you by while you sit in the cell." One comfort Young got was in the letters he received from pen pals - many of them Christian people who reached out to prison inmates. One of those pen pals would later become his wife. "I remember in her first letter, she told me that she would always be there for me as a friend," Young said. "Here was this woman who had never met me, but offered her friendship. That was a blessing." After 13 years of exchanging letters, Judith Ann traveled from her native Massachusetts to visit Charlie in prison. A year later, she moved to Macon and the couple married at Dodge State Prison. Judith Ann dressed in a nice church dress and Charlie in his prison uniform. Their family members and children attended the ceremony. "We started out as pen pals and as God would have it, we ended up as husband and wife," Charlie Young said. "She has been a blessing to me." He said many men in prison have no family or friends. Sometimes they send letters to themselves just so they will hear their names called at the daily mail run. "There is no hope in prison," Young said. "Many of the men there have no one to turn to ... so the other inmates become their family." Divine intervention By the time God came into Charlie Young's life, he said, he thought just about everyone else had walked out. Although a federal judge had thrown out his death sentence and granted him a new trial and a change of venue, his grandmother was dead, his first wife had divorced him and prosecutors were trying to send him back to death row. After one court hearing, Young said he went back to his cell and stared at the walls. He thought about the articles he had read about people who faced troubling times but persevered because God was in their lives. "I had read about one man who lost his entire family and both his legs, but he was happy because he knew God," Young said. "I wanted to have that kind of relationship. When you invite Jesus in, it doesn't mean that everything is going to happen for you. It just means that you've been forgiven." On that day, Young said, his life changed. He started taking advantage of prison church services and received training in firefighting and electronics. He soon became a trusty around the prison and started mentoring other inmates. Then he met Dot Pinkerton, a Macon woman who ran a prison ministry and after-care program for parolees. Pinkerton, who has been counseling prison inmates for more than 20 years, soon took an interest in Young's case. "It was like a godsend," Pinkerton said. "I've prayed to God to put me in the path of those I could help. I never gave up on Charlie. ... I carried a video to the parole board members of (Charlie) talking to a group of young people. I wanted them to know he could do good work out of prison." Young's case went before the parole board 15 times before it agreed in August to release him. In the 4 months before his release, Young had time to think about his life in prison. "When I walked out of Baldwin State Prison, it was the hardest thing I had to do," Young said. "I hated to leave those men behind. If it was up to me, I would have brought them all with me ... there are a lot of good men in prison. They just made some really bad choices." A 2nd chance At the Young residence, the answering machine has always asked callers to leave a message for either Charlie or Judith Ann. The only difference now is that Charlie Young can return the call. But after 28 years of not answering a phone, it sometimes takes him a few minutes to get to it. While Judith Ann Young is enjoying her summer off from teaching art at a local alternative school, her husband is beginning a cleaning business. It's the 1st job he's held outside the prison walls in almost 30 years. "I've always loved cleaning, and it was something I knew I could do," Charlie Young said. "I've had some people who believed in me and gave me a contract to clean their business ... we're hoping to keep it going." Although their schedules have been busy in the last 6 months, the Youngs hope to spend a lot of time this summer getting to know each other. For Judith Ann, it's like learning to be in her house all over again. "At first I was on pins and needles because I didn't want to make him nervous," Judith Ann Young said. "After 25 years of living alone and not dating anyone, it's an adjustment to have him here with me. But he does everything for me. ... He drives the car, washes the dishes and cleans the house before I can even think about it." Charlie Young has weekly appointments with young people and other members of Emmanuel Church. It's part of his effort to surround himself with goodness and godly people. "When you get a 2nd chance, you have to change your life," Young said. "So many people have given me an opportunity and I have to make the best of it." One recent Saturday, Young spoke to a group of young Maconites competing in a basketball tournament. The crowd was rowdy until an emotional Young started talking about the crime that led him to prison. "I had people who loved me and had great expectations for me and I blew it," Young told the crowd. "I didn't stay focused, and I ended up making bad decisions ... that's what I don't want to see happen to any of you." As part of his parole, Young can never return to Greene County - where his grandmother and other family members are buried. He will never see his hometown again, but Young doesn't think of it as a loss. "My grandmama is in heaven, not in the grave," Young said. "I carry her around with me. My grandmama told me once that she knew I would one day get out of prison. When she died, I thought that opportunity was gone. Now, I have this chance to live life again ... just like she said I would." (source: Macon Telegraph) OKLAHOMA: Prison Conversion May Have Saved Nichols Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols may have been spared the death penalty for a 2nd time because a jailhouse conversion to Christianity gained him sympathy from the jury, lawyers in the case said Saturday. The state prosecution, staged in an attempt to secure the death penalty at a cost expected to soar to $10 million, ended with the same sentence Nichols received in federal court 6 years ago: life. Juror Daniel Cochran said as many as eight of the 12 jurors agreed to impose a death sentence, but declined to disclose further details of their deliberations. "We all agreed that what went on in the jury room would stay in the jury room," he said. But lawyers for both the prosecution and defense agreed jurors were influenced by Nichols' religious conversion. Nichols was also portrayed as susceptible to manipulation by Timothy McVeigh, the bombing's mastermind. During the sentencing portion of his trial, defense witnesses testified that Nichols had worn out four Bibles through prayer and research, and that he wrote an 83-page letter to a prayer partner in Michigan while trying to make a point about Christian faith. "Terry Nichols' belief in God is so firm that he believes if the rapture occurred today he is going to heaven," defense attorney Creekmore Wallace told jurors. After convicting him of 161 counts of murder in just 5 hours, the jury wrestled with his punishment for 19 1/2 hours before concluding they could not agree on a penalty. The deadlock means that Nichols will automatically be sentenced to life in prison for the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, the worst act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. He received the same sentence on federal convictions for the deaths of 8 federal law enforcement officers in 1998. That jury deadlocked after 13 1/2 hours of deliberation. The state charges are for the other 160 victims and 1 victims' fetus. District Attorney Wes Lane, who pursued murder charges filed by his predecessor, Bob Macy, said the prosecution was about seeking justice for the other victims, not securing the death penalty. "Justice was getting their day in court," he said. But in announcing the state charges, Macy had said he was not satisfied with the outcome of the federal trial. "Clearly the reason they brought this action in Oklahoma was to kill Terry," defense attorney Brian Hermanson said. "They spend a huge amount of money. They caused a huge amount of heartache for a lot of people. And basically we reached the same result as the federal case." Lane said he believes Nichols was spared because of "sympathy issues" among some jurors, including for his religious conversion -- one that prosecutors said conveniently began about the time state murder charges were filed against him. "I don't see Terry Nichols as being repentant necessarily," Lane said. "I know that Mr. Nichols was not willing to accept responsibility." Wallace said Nichols' religious conversion is genuine, and that jurors may also have believed that Nichols was used by McVeigh, who was executed on federal murder charges on June 11, 2001. "Every person in his life who has had any kind of agenda has been able to manipulate the man," Wallace said. He said Nichols has no social skills and may suffer from a mild form of autism. Polls conducted before the start of Nichols' trial showed that most Oklahomans opposed bringing Nichols to trial again because he was already serving life in prison. A poll conducted by the Tulsa World in January found 70 % of Oklahomans opposed the expense of a state trial. Only 25 % were in favor, according to the Oklahoma Poll. Nichols' defense team alone has been paid almost $4 million. That figure that does not include the cost of prosecution or of transporting and housing prosecution witnesses during Nichols' trial. Bud Welch, a death-penalty opponent whose daughter, July Marie Welch, died in the bombing, said even some families who were angry that Nichols didn't get a death sentence in his federal trial opposed the state charges. "It just made sense the jury would not go for the death penalty," said Welch, who read a victim impact statement during the penalty phase. "I think some of the jurors felt that it's been 9 years, he's been in prison." Hermanson said Nichols' jury had renewed his faith in Oklahoma's criminal justice system. "I am so proud of those jurors that voted their heart and listened to the evidence in holding out for life," Hermanson said. "There was not a valid reason for killing him other than the seeking of vengeance. There's no place for vengeance in the courtroom." (source: Associated Press)
