June 18 NEW HAMPSHIRE: New Hampshire's death penalty law will leave the minimum execution age at 17. A proposal to raise the age to 18 was vetoed by Gov. Benson and sustained by the Senate on Thursday 11-13. The state's capital punishment law is limited to those who kill a police officer, judge or similar official. It also applies if the murder happened during a kidnapping or rape, during certain drug crimes or while serving a life prison term without parole. Murder by hire also is punishable by death. Opponents argued crimes committed by juveniles should not be punishable by death. Benson said he vetoed the bill because anyone who kills a police officer, regardless of age, deserves to pay the ultimate price. (SB513) (source: Associated Press) ILLINOIS: A Chicago man is accused of shooting his lover in March and dumping his body in a garbage can, a crime he allegedly told authorities he committed because he feared the victim was going to reveal their sexual relationship to others. Lamar Wilmington, 30, was ordered held in lieu of $600,000 bail Thursday by Cook County Criminal Court Judge Neil Linehan. Wilmington is charged with 1st-degree murder in the slaying of Guan Williams, 32. Wilmington admitted to shooting Williams while being questioned by police in another matter, Assistant State's Atty. Mercedes Luque-Rosales said. A fight between the men at Wilmington's residence in the 7300 block of South Eberhart Avenue apparently started over $200, Luque-Rosales said. Wilmington placed the body in a city garbage can and wheeled it south one block, where it was discovered March 4, prosecutors said. He is to return to court July 8. *********************** Man asks for death penalty after being convicted twice A man who spent more than a decade on Illinois' death row before getting a new trial in the 1987 rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl has been convicted again and voluntarily asked to be returned to death row. Cecil Sutherland was convicted by a jury last week of the assault and murder of Amy Schulz, who disappeared July 1, 1987, after she left her home in Downstate Kell in Marion County to look for her brother, who was looking for a family dog. Shortly after the sentencing phase of the case began on Monday, Sutherland, through his attorney, Paul Carroll, requested the death penalty. Being sentenced to death means Sutherland's appeal will move more quickly, going directly to the Illinois Supreme Court instead of first going through the Illinois Appellate Court. Also, Sutherland, 49, will be housed in a single-occupancy cell at Menard Correctional Center in Chester. Convicted of the assault of a young girl, "he has some concerns about his safety in prison," Carroll said in an interview Thursday. Sutherland also will continue to draw upon resources of the state's Capital Litigation Fund for his appeal. The day after Amy disappeared, her body was found on an access road near an oil well outside the town of Dix in adjacent Jefferson County. Her throat had been slit. The case was unsolved until Montana authorities arrested Sutherland in October 1987 because he was sniping at cars in Glacier National Park. When Montana authorities called Jefferson County officials for information on their prisoner, Sutherland became a suspect in Amy's murder. After Sutherland pleaded guilty to federal charges and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, he was sent to federal prison. In 1988 he was indicted for Amy's rape and murder. He was convicted and sentenced to death, largely on evidence of two pubic hairs found on the girl's body, dog hair, fibers from clothing and a tire track. There were no fingerprints, confession, eyewitnesses or DNA. In 2000, the Illinois Supreme Court set aside the sentence and conviction and ordered a new trial, ruling Sutherland's trial lawyer had failed to present certain evidence. The second trial, which began on May 3, was moved to St. Clair County because of extensive media coverage of the case. Jefferson County State's Atty. Gary Duncan said the case was stronger the second time because DNA tests linked two pubic hairs and one body hair found on the girl's body to Sutherland. Hair that was linked to Sutherland's dog also was found. Further, he said, a tire track at the scene was consistent with a tire found on the car Sutherland was driving when he was arrested in Montana. And 19 red fibers found in Sutherland's car were similar to fibers in Amy's shorts and shirt, Duncan said. Former FBI analyst Harold Deadman, who examined the hairs and fibers, said the chance of a coincidental match of the pubic hairs would be 1 in 1,428, the chance of a coincidental match of the fibers less than 1 in 1,400 and the chance of a coincidental match of the dog hairs no more than 1 in 21. He said the possibility that Amy was not in Sutherland's car the night she was killed is "extremely remote." Carroll argued that a relative of the family, later convicted of molesting young boys, was responsible for the crime. Duncan said that after the state presented its evidence on Monday relating to Sutherland's eligibility for a death sentence, the defendant said he wanted to accept the death penalty. "It was highly unusual and highly surprising," Duncan said. Sutherland's sister-in-law, Susan, said, "He didn't want to put us through any more of it. I mean, he's not giving up. He made sure the judge knew he wasn't guilty. But he said there was no sense in wasting any more time." (source for both: Chicago Tribune) USA: US Death Penalty Poses Ethics Quandary for Doctors Some death penalty abolitionists in the United States have a new target -- the doctors who help with lethal injections at executions, a complex ethical area in the fields of law and medicine. In a move that some support as a strategy to help influence public opinion against capital punishment, a New York psychiatrist is working with lawyers who hope to charge doctors with professional misconduct for participating in executions. Most states do not reveal whether doctors are present, but retired New York University psychiatry professor Arthur Zitrin has tracked down physicians in Georgia, Virginia and Illinois whom he wants to help oust on ethical grounds. "The idea that physicians who have taken the Hippocratic Oath to take care of and preserve life, are taking part in executions is alarming and it is another sign that the death penalty tears at human rights," said Michael Stark of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Most Americans, 64 %, support capital punishment, according to an October 2003 Gallup poll. However, the American Medical Association's medical ethics code bars doctors from participating in a legally authorized execution. Stark campaigned in Maryland to halt the execution of convicted rapist and murderer Steven Oken, 42, who was executed on Thursday night. Oken lost a legal battle in which lawyers cited Maryland's previous execution in 1998 when there was a leak of anesthetic and chemicals that killed the condemned man. Lawyers argued the state's procedure was cruel and there was no certainty it could be carried out humanely. MEDICAL QUALIFICATIONS Some abolitionists argue that if prison staff are not qualified to apply the intravenous tubes and deadly cocktail of three chemicals used in most states, the role of medical personnel becomes even more questionable. But attorney Kenneth Baum, who also teaches medical ethics at Yale University, said doctors do not have the right to politicize executions by lethal injection, the most common form of carrying out the death sentence in the United States. "If a physician wants to be there and the condemned person wants them to be there, the physician's primary responsibility is to the patient," said Baum, who opposes the death penalty but sees no conflict with his approval of doctors' assistance. "It is unacceptable for physicians to sacrifice a condemned inmate's comfort during their final minutes for the sake of making a political stand," he said. He said that given that there were records of "botched" or prolonged executions, the condemned person deserved a doctor's presence for what he believes has become a medical procedure. An intravenous tube is inserted into a vein and infused with Sodium Thiopental, or Sodium Pentothal, a barbiturate; Pancuronium Bromide, or Pavulon, and then potassium chloride. In May, the U.S. Supreme Court indicated in a ruling that in some circumstances, a doctor's presence be required. This was the case of an Alabama death row inmate whose veins were so badly damaged by drug use that officials wanted to cut into part of his arm or leg to gain access to a vein. In Oken's case, Maryland prison authorities declined to disclose whether there was a doctor present at the execution. Oken was the 747th person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, the Death Penalty Information Center said. The other 168 death sentences carried out were by electrocution, gas chamber, hanging and firing squad. (source: Reuters) US MILITARY----re: possible death sentence US military----Schofield soldier faces court-martial for Iraqi death An Army general has determined that Pfc. Edward L. Richmond Jr., a Schofield Barracks soldier charged with murder in the shooting death of an Iraqi civilian, will be court-martialed for the offense. If convicted, Richmond, 20, faces a maximum penalty of death or a mandatory minimum of life in prison with the possibility for parole. If sentenced to death he would become the 7th soldier on the military's death row. Richmond is accused of shooting Muhamad Husain Kadir, a cowherder, with a rifle near Taal Al Jal, Iraq, in February. The native of Gonzales, La., is assigned to headquarters company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry regiment. The Army said Richmond is the 3rd U.S. soldier to be court-martialed on a murder charge in the current Iraq war. "There have been relatively few number of cases where specifically servicemen were charged and court-martialed for murder," said Marine Corps Capt. Bruce Frame, a U.S. Central Command spokesman in Tampa. A court-martial is a military criminal trial court. The merits of the case will be debated openly, and a court-martial panel, the military equivalent of a jury, will decide Richmond's fate. No date has been given for the start of the proceedings. In making his decision Maj. Gen. John R.S. Batiste acted on a recommendation made by an Army investigator and evidence provided by Richmond's attorney. Richmond will be tried on a charge of unpremeditated murder. He was charged with the offense on April 8. On May 1, Richmond's attorney, Capt. Jennifer Crawford, was granted a delay in the case to gather more evidence and conduct an administrative board, which is routinely held in the military to review training records, personnel records, medical records and a soldier's potential for promotion. The results of the board were forwarded to Batiste and were used in his decision. The Army would not disclose details about how the shooting occurred. On Feb. 28, 1-27 soldiers were conducting a morning search for known terrorists in Taal Al Jal, near Al Huwijah - a city of more than 85,000 people, mostly Sunni Muslims - about 40 miles southwest of Kirkuk. According to reports, the middle-age Iraqi man was running and "resisting apprehension," but the Army did not elaborate. The Army's case against Richmond was based largely on the claim that Kadir was flex-cuffed at the time he was shot. Richmond had his weapons confiscated and is suspended from active duty but is not being detained, said his father, Edward Richmond Sr. He said his son is at the Kirkuk Air Base, and that his son told him that he was following the Army's rules of engagement when the incident happened. His son was attending Louisiana State University before he dropped out and joined the Army. "Reality is setting in about what is going on. He feels confident that he would be all right through the whole thing," the father said earlier. (source: The Honolulu Advertiser) OKLAHOMA/ARKANSAS: Murder Suspect To Face Death Penalty If Convicted Prosecutors in both Oklahoma and Arkansas will seek the death penalty for a man they say killed at least 3 people. 29-year-old Mickey David Thomas is facing charges of capital murder in the shooting deaths of 2 women that happened at a Dequeen, Arkansas business. He's accused of another murder that took place last Saturday in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. (source: KFDX News)
