June 22 TEXAS: Officials support inmate's effort to get death sentence commuted It's not often that a condemned inmate seeking commutation of his death sentence can win the support of the prosecutor who put him on death row, the chief judge of the county court and the local sheriff. But then, it's not often that a case like Joe Lee Guy's makes it through the court system, his defenders say. Guy was the unarmed lookout for a 1993 convenience store robbery in Plainview, Texas, in which the store owner was murdered and his elderly mother was wounded. At his trial, Guy was represented by a court-appointed defense lawyer who had been disciplined or suspended by the state bar more than a dozen times and whose secretary said he snorted cocaine on the way to courtroom. The defense lawyer, in turn, hired an unlicensed investigator who befriended the mother of the murder victim and coached her through her testimony against his own client. Soon afterward, the investigator became the sole beneficiary of her will. His defense team thus seriously compromised, Guy was quickly convicted of the murder and sentenced to death, while his two accomplices - the actual shooters - drew life sentences. During the penalty phase of his trial, Guy's attorney failed to present any mitigation witnesses who could have testified to his nonviolent nature, his diminished mental capacity or his nightmarish childhood at the hands of an abusive mother. "The facts of this case are unprecedented, and have made clear to us that Guy's death sentence should not stand," wrote Terry McEachern, the Hale County district attorney who prosecuted Guy, in a petition to Texas Gov. Rick Perry seeking commutation of Guy's punishment to life in prison. He was joined in the petition by Ed Self, presiding judge of the Hale County district court, and both the current and former county sheriffs. Perry has yet to act on the commutation petition, despite the unanimous endorsement of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, a hearing on Guy's last remaining legal appeal will be held in U.S. District Court in Lubbock. Defense attorneys are seeking a new sentencing hearing for Guy so that mitigation evidence can be heard by a jury. Texas has long been considered the state most aggressive in using the death penalty and officials here have conducted more than one-third of all executions carried out in the United States in the last 28 years. But while death penalty opponents have frequently criticized the quality of justice in Texas capital cases, Guy's is a rare instance in which they have been joined by some state officials. "It's the worst aberration I've seen," said Self, who has been a judge in Hale County for 6 years and a lawyer for 25 years before that. Self did not preside over Guy's original trial, but he reviewed the case at the request of Guy's current defense team. Guy, now 32, was 21 at the time his cousin and an accomplice recruited him to act as a lookout for the robbery of Howell's Grocery Store in Plainview. A compliant and simple man, according to those who knew him - his IQ tested at 77 - Guy readily agreed. Evidence at his trial indicated he stood watch outside the store and only entered after the proprietor, Larry Howell, had been murdered and his mother French Howell had been wounded. Guy's childhood had been marked by isolation and rejection; when he was in elementary school, children would throw pennies at him for entertainment. Friends and family members recalled that his mother was addicted to gambling and drugs, and frequently left Guy and his sister to fend for themselves without food or electricity. His father, an alcoholic, was murdered when Guy was a young child. But the jury in his capital trial heard none of that character evidence, because the defense investigator, Frank SoRelle, failed to locate any witnesses who could have provided it. (The attorneys pursuing Guy's federal appeal located more than 50 friends and relatives who supplied affidavits on his behalf.) It was SoRelle's behavior that has most alarmed court officials and legal experts who have reviewed Guy's case, particularly the investigator's unorthodox relationship with French Howell. "As trial officials pledged to the pursuit of justice, we cannot defend a capital sentence obtained when a primary member of the defense team was actively pursuing a relationship with, and representation of, the mother of the murder victim, herself a victim of the crime," wrote McEachern, Self and the sheriffs. SoRelle befriended the elderly woman and sat in the back of the courtroom during her testimony, signaling to her as she answered questions. After Guy's conviction, SoRelle acted as her representative and, when she died a year later, he emerged as the beneficiary of her $750,000 estate. In an affidavit solicited by Guy's defense team in July 2000, SoRelle conceded that his relationship had been inappropriate and constituted a conflict of interest. "The truth of the matter is this: Joe Lee Guy had ... an inexperienced investigator who felt more compassion for the surviving victim, Ms. Howell, than I had for Joe Lee Guy, my client," SoRelle stated. SoRelle has since renounced that affidavit, however. Now working as a real estate agent in Lubbock, he contended during a brief phone interview that he did nothing improper during his representation of Guy. Despite the recommendation of the parole board that Guy's death sentence be commuted - a recommendation the tough-minded board members have made only a handful of times in recent years - the attorney general is opposing the defense effort this week to win a new sentencing hearing. "On the issues currently presented in federal court, we do not believe error existed during the original trial proceedings," said Jerry Strickland, the attorney general's spokesman. But that position baffles Steven Wells, a Minneapolis pro bono attorney who is leading Guy's appeal. "This is just a horrible miscarriage of justice," said Wells. "I frankly don't see how the state can oppose this and rationally take the position that this sentence shouldn't be commuted to life." (source: Chicago Tribune) CALIFORNIA: Prosecutors play videotaped interview of Peterson Jurors heard for the 1st time Scott Peterson's own account of what he did the day his pregnant wife disappeared, as prosecutors played a videotaped police interview Tuesday at his double-murder trial. Appearing tired but calm, Peterson recounted what happened after he left home for a Christmas Eve day fishing trip expecting that his wife, Laci, would have walked their dog and baked gingerbread cookies in his absence. During a Christmas day interview that had the tone of an interrogation, and climaxed with police testing his hands for gunpowder residue, Peterson gave often-muffled responses to Detective Allen Brocchini. He told the investigator that he fetched the boat from his warehouse in Modesto where he also e-mailed his boss, then drove to San Francisco Bay. After launching from a marina in Berkeley, he trolled around near an island about a mile from the dock and after about 90 minutes without a catch, returned to shore. He then drove back through traffic, stopped for gas, left messages at home and on his wife's cell phone and dropped off the boat. He said he had wanted to return by 4 p.m. At his empty home, Peterson said he found the leashed dog in the back yard, then threw the jeans and T-shirt he wore on the bay into the washing machine, ate some pizza and jumped in the shower. The fact that Peterson showered so soon after coming home "concerns me the most," Brocchini told Peterson. "That bothers me." "What concerns me most is doing anything I can," Peterson replied in an apparent reference to locating his wife. After drying off and dressing, Peterson said he checked phone messages, then called Laci's parents, who said they hadn't heard from her. Christmas Eve dinner was set for 6:30 p.m. Before long, Peterson was calling friends and neighbors, then canvassing the streets and park in their neighborhood in a fruitless search. Later that night, Brocchini was the 1st detective at the home after several officers who had spoken briefly with Peterson deemed his story "suspicious" and requested an investigator. In testimony Tuesday, he recalled a husband who did not appear distraught that his wife was nowhere to be found. "Calm, cool, relaxed," was his description of Peterson. Brocchini questioned Peterson about a pistol found in the glove compartment of his pickup truck. The gun was seized as evidence and Brocchini asked whether Peterson would submit to a "gunshot residue" test of his hands. "Sure, no problem," Peterson replied, pulling up his sleeves and laying his hands out on the table in front of him. Brocchini donned rubber gloves and appeared to apply something to Peterson's hands and wrists. The detective then summarized the questioning. "You have no idea where Laci is?" he asked. "No," Peterson said quietly. Prosecutors allege that Peterson, 31, murdered his wife and their fetus in their Modesto home on or around Dec. 24, 2002, then used the fishing story as a cover-up to dump her body into the bay. Defense lawyers assert that someone abducted her, then framed her husband after hearing his widely publicized alibi. They say authorities ignored other leads and conducted a sloppy investigation rife with inaccurate reports as they hounded Peterson - the man they suspected from the start. 2 friends of Laci's testified Monday that Laci had stopped walking the couple's dog because her pregnancy made her too unsteady, countering the defense theory that she was nabbed while walking in the park. Laci Peterson's prenatal yoga instructor took that one step further. "She could barely walk ... she was in pain ... she needed help getting back to the car," Debra Wolski said of the last time Laci attended her class four days before she vanished. On Tuesday, however, Judge Alfred A. Delucchi cast some doubt on that testimony. Lawyers for both the prosecution and defense agreed that Wolski never told either side that before, the judge told jurors. (source: Associated Press) USA: Some poor don't receive adequate legal representation More than 40 years after a Supreme Court ruling that guaranteed lawyers for defendants who can't afford them, some people are still without adequate legal representation in criminal cases, according to a new committee formed to address the problem. The National Committee on the Right to Counsel, chaired by former Vice President Walter Mondale, will analyze the procedures states and localities use to provide attorneys to defendants who can't afford them and will recommend ways to make sure all defendants receive adequate legal assistance. Rhoda Billings, committee co-chair and former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, said the current system does not ensure that the right is equally guaranteed for all Americans. "In some instances across the country, courts have upheld convictions even when the defendants were represented by lawyers who slept through portions of the trial or were drunk or under the influence of drugs," Billings said in a statement Tuesday announcing the committee's formation. "That level of performance is not what the constitutional right to counsel means. Whether counsel is state-appointed or privately retained, we expect fairness in our American criminal justice system," Billings said. The committee was formed by the Constitution Project, part of Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute, and the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, a national nonprofit organization advocating equal access to justice. Members include Shawn Armbrust, a former Northwestern journalism student who helped exonerate death row inmate Anthony Porter; Susan Herman, executive director for the National Center for Victims of Crime; Robert Hirshon, former president of the American Bar Association; Larry Thompson, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former Justice Department official. A 1963 Supreme Court ruling provided the right to an attorney for criminal cases. (source: Associated Press) FLORIDA: Ex-Death Row Inmate Sentenced To 2 Years It's back to prison for a man who once beat death row. Rudolph Holton, 51, pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated battery for beating his wife with a golf club and misdemeanor assault for a confrontation with his cousin. Hillsborough Circuit Judge Anthony Black sentenced Holton to 2 years in prison. Last year, Holton was freed from death row after spending 16 years fighting his 1986 conviction for the the slaying of Katrina Graddy, a 17-year-old girl found strangled in a Tampa crack house. His appeals attorneys won his release after 2 of the main witnesses against him said they lied at his trial. DNA evidence wasn't available in 1986, but a more recent test proved a hair found on the victim was her own, not Holton's, as authorities had alleged at his trial. The DNA work did not exonerate Holton, but Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober decided there was not enough evidence to retry him. He was released from death row in January 2003. Holton met a Tampa woman, Sandra Thomas, who had a steady job as a nurse and a teenage daughter. Holton moved into Thomas' home. Though he was free, Holton told the Tribune he stayed at the home, kept the blinds closed and a prison-issued mirror beside his bed. He had used the mirror in prison to see neighboring inmates. In May, Holton's nephew, Lawrence Holton, came to Thomas' house. She and Lawrence Holton had had a relationship and the two Holton men exchanged words. Lawrence Holton accused his uncle of threatening him with a machete. Police took a report but did not arrest the former death row inmate. In August 2003, Rudolph Holton and Thomas married. On Dec. 11, Holton was arrested for beating his wife. He has been in jail since then awaiting trial. (source: Tampa Tribune) PENNSYLVANIA: Death row volunteer's change of heart poses problem for courts >From the start, Hubert Michael was unequivocal about wanting to die. Charged with the murder of a 16-year-old girl, he confessed, pleaded guilty, then demanded the death penalty. Four days after a judge granted his wish, he began what would become a long fight to join the growing ranks of death row "volunteers" - murderers who give up their appeals and seek to hurry their own executions. But in May, with just weeks to go until his scheduled execution, Michael stunned prosecutors by telling a judge that after all these years, he wants to live. The announcement, made in a handwritten letter, has thrown the case into nearly uncharted legal territory. Lawyers for the state appeared before a federal appeals court Tuesday to argue that it is too late for Michael to change his mind. Michael's court-appointed lawyer, Joseph Cosgrove, asked for the case to be reopened. A 3-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appeared frustrated by the scenario. "We don't do do-overs," said Judge Michael Chertoff, a former federal prosecutor appointed to the court last year by President Bush. Judge Morton Greenberg, a Reagan appointee, was blunter. "I want to know something, and I want a straight answer. Did he plan this all along, and then just jerk this around for years?" he demanded of Cosgrove, who replied that he was certain that his client had acted in good faith. Greenberg wasn't satisfied. "You know what they say. 'Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.' Well, he got it. He got what he asked for," he said. In wishing for death, Michael was not alone. As of late spring, 103 of the 915 people executed in the United States since 1976 went to their deaths voluntarily, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The list of volunteers began with Gary Gilmore, whose 1977 execution in Utah ushered in the modern death-penalty era. The most recent was John Blackwelder, a Florida sex crime convict so intent on being executed that he killed a fellow inmate, then pleaded guilty just to qualify for the death penalty. He was executed in May. Cases in which death row inmates ask to be executed, then change their minds, are rarer. David Paul Hammer, a federal prisoner sentenced to die for killing a cellmate in Pennsylvania, has vacillated for years over whether he wishes to continue his appeals. His execution was scheduled for earlier this month, but postponed after the 3rd Circuit ruled that the courts had not properly explored whether he had "knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily" waived his appeals. Michael's case poses a different set of questions. Unlike Hammer, the court has already ruled that Michael received a full and proper hearing to determine whether he was knowingly giving up his appeal. Cosgrove argued that the case could be revived on a number of technicalities, including a ruling that had briefly left Michael without an attorney. He also asserted that a psychologist who told the court that Michael was sane had since changed his mind. Cosgrove also argued that Michael's appeals shouldn't be declared dead on procedural grounds, as they might be in other types of cases, because, as the Supreme Court has recognized, "death is different" as a punishment. "What about the death of a little girl?" Greenberg interrupted, referring to Michael's victim, Trista Eng, who was kidnapped and shot in York County in 1993. Greenberg said there was "100 percent certainty" that Michael had committed the murder, and asked Cosgrove to consider whether it was fair to Eng's relatives to allow her killer to tie the legal system in knots. "Imagine the suffering of this family," he said. All 3 people executed in Pennsylvania since 1976 have been volunteers, and all went to their deaths despite protests by lawyers or relatives that they were mentally ill. Gary Heidnik, who kidnapped 6 women, then tortured two to death in the basement of his Philadelphia home, maintained that he was innocent but said he would not appeal because he believed that his 1999 execution would end capital punishment. Leon Moser, who pleaded guilty to killing his former wife and two daughters, was hospitalized for mental illness before his execution in 1995. Keith Zettlemoyer, also executed in 1995, begged to end his 14 years of appeals because "brain disease" was making his life hell. The 3rd Circuit panel did not indicate when it would rule in Michael's case. (source: Associated Press) NEW YORK: Protest the TEXCUTIONER and the Criminal Injustice System Come discuss plans to protest at the Republican National Convention around the issue of the criminal justice system. The Campaign to End the Death Penalty-NYC invites you to an initial discussion and strategy session on these plans: PROTEST THE TEXECUTIONER and the Criminal Injustice System at the Republican National Convention! George Bush ran for president in 2000 on his record of Texas executions, a tough-on-crime record & for building more prisons. Republicans have pushed for a program nationwide that had led to more death rows, prisons, harsh drug laws, an end to parole and increased police brutality. Many of us organizing against the criminal justice system want to come together & discuss common goals...--and the need to speak out together. We can do something about it if we get organized! Come to an initial organizing meeting to talk about plans and demands! MONDAY, JUNE 28, at 7:30 PM St. Mary's Church 521 W. 126th Street, in Harlem For more information, contact: Lee at 212/387-0611 (source: MediaRights.com)
