June 19 MARYLAND: I-Team: Md. Prosecutors Reluctant To Seek Death Penalty----Questions Remain About State's Capital Punishment Policies After Execution After convicted murderer Steven Oken's execution Thursday night, questions remain about the future use of capital punishment in Maryland. Oken's execution broke a six-year hiatus on carrying out the death penalty in Maryland. While most of the remaining men on death row near the end of their appeals, no one can say who the next execution will involve, when or even where it could possibly take place, WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller reported. Questions Linger About Maryland's Capital Punishment Wesley Baker has been on Maryland's death row since 1992, sent there for the murder of Jane Tyson during a robbery at Westview Mall in Baltimore County. Baker's appeals of his sentence have been repeatedly denied. Maryland's Court of Appeals is now considering another appeal and its ruling is expected later this year. If it, too, rules against Baker, he could be next prisoner to face a death warrant. But Baker represents a thorny issue about the death penalty in Maryland, Miller said. Former Gov. Parris Glendening imposed a moratorium on the state's death penalty in 2002, and the Baker case provoked it, Miller reported. Of the seven men currently on death row, Baker and 4 others are African-American. The victims in all of the cases are white. Gov. Bob Ehrlich has since lifted the moratorium, but prosecutors expect he will be confronted with the element of race if a death warrant for Baker is signed. The size of Maryland's death row has dwindled partly because Oken and three others have been executed, but mostly because fewer death sentences are being issued. Since the year 2000, only a handful of defendants in Maryland have been sentenced to die. At this point, the sentence of just one in that recent group has held up. Prosecutors said the grueling pace of the appellate process that so frustrated the family of Dawn Marie Garvin is a big reason that prosecutors are now more reluctant to seek a death sentence. "My family has been put through 17 years of hell," Betty Romano, Dawn Garvin's mother, said. Oken may have been the last death row inmate to be executed in Baltimore. The secretary of public safety wants to stop housing death row inmates at Baltimore's SuperMax facility and instead move it to a prison under construction in western Maryland. If that happens, the execution chamber would also move, Miller reported. (source: The WBALChannel) SOUTH CAROLINA: Prosecution wrapping up case in Fulks death penalty trial In Columbia, prosecutors called a flurry of witnesses Friday as they continued to wrap up their death penalty case against Chadrick Fulks. The day included testimony from a woman who says Fulks beat and sexually assaulted her while the two were dating and a mother and son who say Fulks lied to them about having a critically ill daughter so he could use her car. A jury will determine whether Fulks is sentenced to death or life in prison for the death of Alice Donovan, who was killed after Fulks and a co-defendant kidnapped her and took her car in November 2002. Fulks pleaded guilty last month. Prosecutors have called more than 100 witnesses, trying to convince the jury that Fulks is a liar who abuses women and would be an escape risk in prison. U.S. Attorney Strom Thurmond Jr. expects prosecutors to call about 15 more witnesses, including members of Donovan's family, who will testify on how much losing her has hurt. Defense lawyers have been careful in cross-examination, asking no questions of especially sympathetic witnesses. Most of their work will start next week, when they are expected to present witnesses to talk about how Fulks was abused as a child and how he may suffer from a mental defect. Fulks blames his co-defendant, Branden Basham, for actually killing Donovan, who was taken from a Wal-Mart parking lot in Conway, and West Virginia college student Samantha Burns and planning a crime spree after the 2 broke out of a Kentucky jail in November 2002. Authorities have not found the bodies of either woman, but Fulks and Basham have told investigators they are both dead. On Friday, Heather Goodman testified how Fulks beat her and sexually abused her during the several months they lived together in later 1997 and 1998. Her testimony was similar to other stories told on the stand over the past few weeks by several other women. Goodman said Fulks treated her well when they first began to see each other when she was 17. Then he quickly changed. "It was either his way or no way," she testified. Goodman said Fulks raped her several times and once beat her with a phone receiver in a jealous rage. She helped him steal from cars and started using drugs. She eventually would spend several months in prison because she helped Fulks commit crimes. Defense lawyers questioned Goodman about her drug use and whether she traded sex for drugs and money since she and Fulks broke up. "I loved him when I first met him," Goodman said. "But now, he ruined my life. He put me through stuff I can't imagine putting anyone through." The jury also heard from a mother whose daughter's Ohio driver's license was found on Fulks when he was arrested. Donna Ward said a stranger called her shortly after her daughter's purse was stolen and tried to set up a job interview at 10:30 p.m. Prosecutors say Fulks wanted to lure the teen away to kidnap her toward the end of his crime spree. Also on Friday, Robert Lee talked about how he met a crying Fulks behind bars. Lee said Fulks convinced him he had a 2-year-old daughter critically injured in a car wreck and needed to get from Myrtle Beach to West Virginia to see her. Lee's mother bailed Fulks out and gave him her car to go see his daughter. He never returned it. Robert Lee later went to West Virginia himself and found out Fulks did not even have a daughter. Other testimony in a day where prosecutors called more than a dozen witnesses included: -2 college students, a truck driver and a tow truck owner who say Fulks claimed he was an FBI agent as he tried to rob them at gunpoint along Interstate 65 in Kentucky. -Park rangers in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park who talked about a high-speed chase Fulks led them on after breaking into cars. -A Kentucky state police officer who testified nearly every item in one of Fulks' homes was stolen, including the toilet paper. (source: Associated Press)
