June 23 SOUTH CAROLINA: Kentucky escapee facing death penalty was abused, relatives say Chad-rick Fulks grew up in a house where his parents had fistfights and bought beer before they bought food for their children, family and friends testified yesterday. Prosecutors rested their case in Fulks' sentencing trial earlier in the day. Fulks, 27, has pleaded guilty to kidnapping and carjacking resulting in the death of Alice Donovan of Conway, S.C., and a jury is deciding whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole. Fulks said his co-defendant, Branden Basham, actually killed Donovan and West Virginia college student Samantha Burns while the 2 men were on the run after breaking out of a Hopkins County, Ky., jail. Fulks' lawyers say his life should be spared because he was abused, got no guidance from his parents and has mental problems. Two uncles and an aunt testified that Fulks' parents house in Huntington, W.Va., was infested with rats and roaches. They said the couple put pornography on their basement walls, let their children roam the streets and spent most of their time drinking or fighting. "Like two men fighting in a bar, best I could tell you," uncle Mark Fulks said. "Fist-fighting and throwing things at each other." Chadrick Fulks seemed amused at times as the family talked about his childhood, but came close to tears when his uncle Mark Fulks talked about why his father wouldn't come to testify. "He didn't care enough to do it," the uncle said. "It would make it look bad on himself -- like (he was) a bad parent." (source: Associated Press) INDIANA: State seeks death penalty in Lowell-area killings Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for a 24-year-old Lowell area man accused of killing 2 people in a Cedar Creek Township home in April. Stephen Thomas Richards of Cedar Creek Township is charged with two counts of murder, 2 counts of murder in the perpetration of a robbery and robbery in connection with the April 24 deaths of John Schroeder, 36, a quadriplegic, and Maschelle Sheaks Pombert, 36, his caregiver, in Schroeders home at 5123 W. 173rd Ave. The death penalty counts were filed this week. Lake Superior Court Judge Salvador Vasquez set the trial for Nov. 8. It will be a jury trial. Richards allegedly shot Schroeder and Pombert, stabbed Pombert with a hunting knife, and stole Schroeders prescription medication and coins in a burlap bag. During a search of the home where Richards was staying, police found coins, a knife, 2 shotguns, money, pills and empty prescription bottles with Schroeders name on them. Lake County police were called at about 1:15 a.m. April 24 by Schroeders former caregiver, who saw a suspicious person wearing black running from the area. Officers found the front door unlocked and Pombert lying face down in the foyer. Schroeder, who was injured in a car crash in 1986, was found in a back bedroom. When one of the Lake County detectives hit redial on the telephone next to the bed where Schroeder was found, he reached Richards at home, the probable cause affidavit alleges. Richards allegedly confessed to the killings and told police he went there to rob Schroeder. When Pombert answered the door, he rested one shotgun against the wall and pointed another at her. They struggled and the gun went off, striking Pombert in the abdomen. She didnt appear to be dead, however, so he shot her again and stabbed her after he fatally shot Schroeder, authorities allege. Richards then called for someone to pick him up and bragged to friends about the killings, authorities allege. A pre-trial hearing is scheduled for Oct. 4. (source: Post-Tribune) NORTH CAROLINA: Support the death-penalty moratorium bill in legislature----Ask your lawmakers to take time to examine the execution process Did you know that in August 2001, Ronnie Frye was the first and only Catawba County resident executed since 1950? Did you know that he and the three remaining Catawba County residents on death row were all represented by attorneys with severe substance abuse problems? Did you know the place of the murder, the quality of the defense attorney and the race of the victim have more to do with a death sentence than anything else about the murder? Did you know that 98 % of people on death row are poor, and cannot afford to hire a private attorney? Did you know we spend $2 million to complete an execution over and above life in prison without parole? Did you know that since 1994, life in prison without parole means just that, with no chance of parole? Did you know that expert lawyers volunteered huge amounts of time in order to reveal the innocence of Alan Gell and Darryl Hunt, after they had been on death row for nine and 19 years, respectively? Did you read that Alan Gell's prosecutors did not reveal 17 witnesses and a recorded telephone call revealing a plan full of lies against Mr. Gell? His expert lawyer, volunteering hours of time, found the information that led to a new trial in which the jury took a short time to return a verdict of not guilty. One woman on Hunt's jury voted not to give him the death sentence. If he had received the death sentence, he would have been executed long ago and would not have had the help of some of the best lawyers in the state who took the trouble to uncover his innocence. DNA testing found no match for Hunt, but an accurate match for another man about to be released from prison. Now Hunt is free, and the guilty man is in prison. My family and yours cannot rely on the goodness of a few excellent attorneys to volunteer huge amounts of time to ensure that dangerous people stay in prison and innocent people can go free. We need to stop executions for a short time to put all the cards on the table and see statewide what our execution system looks like in terms of cost, fairness, hidden evidence, troubled defense attorneys and the likelihood of executing innocent people. A recent statewide poll shows that 63 % of N.C. residents support a 2-year moratorium, or temporary halt, on executions. We have until July 1 to try to get Senate Bill 972 passed in our state House of Representatives. Please call state Reps. Mark Hilton, R-Catawba, at (919) 733-5988; Karen Ray, R-Iredell, at (919) 733-5741; and Mitchell Setzer, R-Catawba, at (919) 733-4948 to ask them to support the moratorium. Please call House co-speakers Jim Black at (919) 733-3451 and Richard Morgan at (919) 715-3010 to ask them please to allow our voices to be heard, and ask for a vote on Senate Bill 972. I have called their offices. Nice people answer the phone and want to hear from you. The N.C. Senate approved the moratorium last year. It will be a long time before we have this opportunity again. Please call today, and remember to thank our representatives for working for North Carolina. If you do not call, and the moratorium bill does not pass ... (source: Column, Rebecca Inglefield, Charlotte Observer) LOUISIANA: Former death row inmate free on bond A former death row inmate is now living at his mother's home while he awaits a new trial on a capital murder charge. Ryan Matthews, 24, was released Friday from the Jefferson Parish jail on $105,000 bond by State District Judge Henry Sullivan during an impromptu hearing not listed on the court's docket. Pauline Matthews used her life's savings to post $5,000 of her son's bond, while others pledged to cover the remaining $100,000 if Matthews fails to show up when called to court. Restricted to his mother's home in Gretna, Matthews remains charged with 1st-degree murder in the 1997 shooting death of Bridge City grocer Tommy Vanhoose. Matthews was 17 at the time and had been locked up since his arrest until Friday. His release occurred after prosecutors recently received results from DNA tests that showed no trace of Matthews on evidence recovered from the murder scene, defense attorneys said Tuesday. More than a year ago, Matthews' defense team found that DNA on a ski mask believed to be worn by Vanhoose's killer matches another man serving a prison sentence for manslaughter in an unrelated killing. Matthews' conviction and death sentence were tossed out earlier this year. The Jefferson Parish district attorney's office refused comment, but said it would have a statement Wednesday. (source: Associated Press) MISSISSIPPI: Mississippi death row inmate allowed to argue mental retardation claim Mississippi inmate Sherwood Brown will be allowed to argue to a trial court that his death sentence be overturned because he is mentally retarded. Brown, 36, was sentenced to die by lethal injection in 1995 after being convicted on 2 counts of murder and 1 count of capital murder for the Jan. 7, 1993, slayings of Betty Boyd, 82, her daughter-in-law, Verline Boyd, 49, and Evangelo Charmain Boyd, 13, the daughter of Verline Boyd and Betty Boyd's granddaughter. The 3 were found hacked to death in Betty Boyd's home south of Eudora. Brown is the 6th Mississippi inmate on death row in the past 2 months to be allowed to pursue the mental retardation issue. Inmates use post-conviction petitions to try to convince a judge that new evidence has surfaced in their case, warranting a new trial. The state Supreme Court ruled last Thursday that Brown could pursue the issue. Ed Boyd, 62, the father of Evangelo and the husband of Verline Boyd, said Friday he didn't think Brown was retarded. "He had gone around here bragging about what he was going to do to my daughter," he said. "If I'd known about it then, I'd have straightened him out. He wasn't crazy then, and he's not crazy now." The U.S. Supreme Court denied Brown's appeal of his death penalty sentence in 1997, but in 2002 the high court ruled in a Virginia case that it's illegal to execute people who are mentally retarded. The court said it would be a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment" to execute anyone with a combined IQ of 75 or lower. IQ is intelligence quotient. An IQ of 100 is said to represent normal intelligence. An IQ lower than 75 is said to reflect mental retardation. The Supreme Court was quite specific. It said that an IQ of 76 would not grant criminals protection from execution under the Atkins case. At the time of Brown's trial, Dr. Marcia Little, a clinical psychologist, testified that Brown had borderline intelligence, between being mildly retarded and the level of intelligence of the general population. She testified that Brown had told her he had used marijuana, alcohol and crack cocaine on the night of the murders in Eudora. During the trial in 1995, then-District Attorney Bobby L. Williams scoffed at the idea that Brown was mildly retarded. "Lots of people in DeSoto County are mildly retarded," Williams argued. "They don't do things like this. Lots of people in DeSoto County abuse drugs. They don't do things like this." Also last Thursday, the Supreme Court turned down a similar appeal from condemned murderer Ronnie Lee Conner. The justices said Conner failed to provide evidence that he could succeed in arguing that he was mentally retarded. Conner, 44, was sentenced to death in 1990 for the kidnapping, robbery and killing of Celeste Brown in Lauderdale County. Conner has contended that he had a history of psychotic episodes and was not taking his medication when Brown was killed. (source: Associated Press)
