June 18 NORTH CAROLINA: Attorney General's Office Asks for Death Penalty Stay to be Dissolved The state Attorney General's office has filed a motion to dissolve a stay of execution of Sammy Perkins. The 50-year-old Perkins had been scheduled to be executed May 21st for the 1992 death of seven-year-old Lashenna "Jo Jo" Moore. But District Court Judge Terrence Boyle ordered a stay while the U.S. Supreme Court considered a case that challenged the constitutionality of lethal injection for some inmates. The court later ruled that the case of an Alabama man who contended the punishment would be unfairly cruel for him could go forward. Perkins was 1 of 4 death-row inmates who filed a petition in January seeking to prevent the state from carrying out or scheduling their executions, saying lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. (source: Associated Press) MARYLAND: Pro- and anti-death penalty crowds face off outside scene of execution 30 minutes after triple murderer Steven Oken was executed at 9:18 p.m. Thursday, his attorney stood in front of the prison and faced the media. Surrounded by cameras and reporters, Fred Warren Bennett choked back tears as he described the last moments he spent with his client. "I gave him a hug through the bars of his cell and said, 'You are not alone. You will not stand alone. I will be with you to the last breath.' And I was," Bennett said. Across the street, about 50 friends and family of Oken's victims chanted in unison: "Justice, Justice, Justice." Someone screamed, "Fred Bennett, how do you live with yourself?" Bennett glared at the demonstrators, but didn't respond. "This man never had a chance, from the minute the crime was committed," he said. "The system has failed. It's broken. It can't be repaired." At Oken's execution, pro- and anti-death penalty demonstrators were kept at a distance, separated by Baltimore police officers and several city blocks. But there were brief moments when the two sides faced each other outside the prison. Fred A. Romano, the brother of Dawn Marie Garvin, who Oken raped and murdered in 1987, held a teddy bear that was found tucked under his sister's arm after she was killed. People around him smiled and hugged each other, some holding signs that read, "Fry Oken" and "It's time to take the garbage out." "It's a load off," Romano said of the execution. "It's been 17 years of frustration and a lot of pain." A few blocks away, Laura Davis, a teacher at the College of Notre Dame in Baltimore, stood with about 50 demonstrators against the death penalty. She held a candle and a sign that read "Death Penalty Murder." A stream of drivers passed the group, many of them heckling the demonstrators. One driver screamed, "He killed three people. How can you be against his execution?" A demonstrator yelled back, "Why do we have to make it a 4th?" A female driver screamed: "Eye for an eye." "Staying in prison for your entire life is like an eye for an eye," Davis said. "What can be worse?" At first, she said she felt ridiculous, standing on the street, holding her sign and facing the verbal abuse, "but at the same time, you feel ridiculous for not doing this your entire life. I don't see why there aren't more people out here." (source: Associated Press) FLORIDA: Top state court backs death sentences for '98 murders in West Palm The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death penalty for a Palm Beach County man involved in the Thanksgiving 1998 murders of 3 people in a home-invasion robbery that netted some cheap electronics. John Chamberlain, 26, and Thomas Thibault, 28, were convicted of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder. Thibault said he shot Bryan Harrison, 21; Charlotte Kenyon, 26; and Daniel Ketchum, 27, in a West Palm Beach home while Chamberlain urged him on, after a night of doing drugs. The court upheld Chamberlain's death sentence Thursday, but the court ruled a year ago that Thibault is entitled to a new sentencing hearing because it wasn't clear from court transcripts that Thibault waived his right to have a jury make a recommendation for a life sentence or the death penalty. That hearing has yet to be held. (source: Sun-Sentinel)
