June 24 FLORIDA: Murder suspect pleads guilty, asks for the death penalty A killer rejected a plea offer that would have spared his life and pleaded guilty, saying he wants a death sentence. David Ronald Nolan pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder, turning down a prosecution offer of life in prison for 2nd-degree murder for fatally beating 29-year-old Michael Sessions with a hammer on Oct. 9, 2001, in a motel room. A jury next week will recommend whether Nolan, 35, of nearby Parker, should get his death wish. At Tuesday's hearing, defense lawyer Russ Ramey asked Nolan if he wanted to volunteer for a death sentence. Nolan simply said "yes." "He tells me that he feels bad about what he did and he wants to end his life," Ramey said after the hearing. "From the very beginning we've been working on trying to get his position to modify, to soften, but he won't come off his position." Nolan stole Sessions' car, loaded the body in the trunk and was seen driving it around Bay County the next 2 days. He dumped the body in neighboring Gulf County and was arrested about 2 weeks later in Louisiana after a police chase. Jurors will be selected Monday and probably hear evidence the next 2 days. The jury then will make a recommendation to Circuit Judge Don T. Sirmons, who has final authority over his sentence. Ramey said he intends to disobey his client's instructions and offer mitigating evidence in an effort to spare his life. Murder convicts accepting death sentences may be a growing trend. 6 of the last 10 inmates executed in Florida had voluntarily waived appeals. (source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel) ALABAMA: Rudolph trial postponed until next year----Jury selection to begin in March A federal judge postponed until next year the trial of accused bomber Eric Rudolph, which had been set to begin August 2. U.S. District Court Judge Lynwood Smith on Thursday released an order setting jury selection to begin in March, with the expectation that opening statements will begin May 24. Rudolph's attorneys had asked the judge to delay the trial until July 2005. Prosecutors had opposed a delay. Earlier this week, Smith decided the trial will be held in Birmingham, where Rudolph is accused of bombing a women's clinic and killing a police officer in 1998. In keeping the trial in Birmingham, Smith said that he would expand the potential jury pool to all 31 counties in the Northern Judicial District of Alabama. He also said he envisioned calling at least 500 potential jurors. He ordered the prosecution and defense to agree on a jury questionnaire and recommended they study the ones used in the federal trials of Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Also earlier this week, the judge said that he preferred not to sequester the jury, but would listen to arguments about protecting the identity of jurors. He said he expects the trial to last 2 to 3 months. Rudolph was arrested in May 2003 after a manhunt that lasted more than 5 years. He is also charged in a string of bombings in Atlanta, including the Centennial Park bombing during the 1996 Olympics. (source: CNN) USA: PRESS STATEMENT For Immediate Release: Contact: Edward Jackson 202 544-0200 x 247 Amnesty International USA: US Supreme Court Puts Deadline on Constitutional Protections Today Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director, Amnesty International USA, issued the following statement regarding the US Supreme Court's decision in the case of Schriro v. Summerlin, No. 03-526 (formerly Summerlin v. Stewart): "Today the Supreme Court has put a literal deadline on constitutional protections. The Court's ruling means that certain constitutional safeguards do not apply to individuals sentenced to death by a judge before 2002. This is yet another egregious example of the arbitrary and capricious nature of the death penalty in the United States and further evidence of why it must be abolished. Because lives do hang in the balance, contrary to Justice Scalia's comments, there is no better example of a "watershed" than a death penalty case. This decision defies the fundamental principles of fairness and equal justice under law." For more information on the death penalty: http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception as it is the ultimate denial of human rights, and we will continue to demand unconditionally its worldwide abolition. (source: Amnesty International USA) ******************** Dept. of injustice Troubling questions about a convicted child molester's guilt, and John Ashcroft's continued depredations, show that our justice system is seriously out of whack 2 very different tales of prosecutorial excess demonstrate what legal observers have known for a long time: that the criminal-justice system is seriously out of balance. There is a legitimate need to protect society from criminals through a combination of prison sentences appropriate to the offense and rehabilitation to prepare inmates for their post-prison lives. But the impulse these days, sadly, is toward retribution and irrationally harsh punishment; indeed, rehabilitation has been virtually eliminated from the system. Moreover, this vindictive approach to crime has taken precedence over a more vital imperative: protections aimed at preventing people from being convicted of crimes they didn't commit, often because of misconduct on the part of police or prosecutors. Unfortunately, the case of Bernard Baran, serving a life sentence for child molestation since 1985 despite a plethora of evidence casting doubt on his conviction, and the continued depredations of Attorney General John Ashcroft, who's seeking to apply the death penalty to ordinary street crime, show that true justice is more elusive than ever. BARAN'S STORY was told in a lengthy Phoenix article last week ("The Trials of Bernard Baran," News and Features, June 18) and in a follow-up this week ("Undoing Injustice," page 17), as reported by the Boston University Investigative Journalism Project. Openly gay, and just 19, Baran was arrested at the Pittsfield day-care center where he worked after a three-year-old boy allegedly came home with blood on his penis and told his father, "Bernie did it." Despite questions about his account - in fact, he never testified, and the Phoenix found he may have told others years later that it never happened - the disclosure prompted a widespread investigation that resulted in five young children testifying against Baran. The case was marred by problems similar to those reported in other 1980s-era day-care prosecutions, including overly aggressive, suggestive questioning of children and the misuse of anatomically correct dolls. Baran was additionally victimized by the homophobia that was pervasive 2 decades ago. Perhaps most troubling was the sorry state of the physical evidence against Baran. For instance, the three-year-old boy was found to have gonorrhea in his mouth - near-certain evidence of sexual abuse. But Baran tested negative for gonorrhea, and the Phoenix learned that the Department of Social Services, which suspected that a boyfriend of the boy's mother had abused her son, was less than diligent in passing that information along to the District Attorney's Office. Baran insists on his innocence; in fact, he rejected a plea bargain that would have landed him in prison for just 6 years rather than admit to the charges against him. But the road is difficult for inmates who continue to protest their innocence. Baran's conviction was upheld on appeal, and mere assertions of innocence are insufficient to get a convicted criminal back into court. Baran's lawyers are now seeking a new trial, alleging prosecutorial misconduct, the unreliability of the toddler-age witnesses' testimony, and incompetence on the part of Baran's original defense counsel. Tragically, none of this may be enough. Rather than depending on the vagaries of the current system, including the courts, it is long past time to create a statewide innocence commission charged with investigating the convictions of people who may actually be innocent. As the Phoenix has previously argued (see "Lying Liars," Editorial, June 4), such a commission would have the power to subpoena witnesses, determine the causes of wrongful convictions, and punish errant police and prosecutors. After all these years, that might be Bernard Baran's best hope for freedom. JOHN ASHCROFT may be, as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman contends (and we concur), "the worst attorney general ever." Certainly Ashcroft's latest initiative - seeking to execute ordinary street criminals, even in states that don't have the death penalty, like Massachusetts - lends credence to that argument. Right-wing, power-hungry, and zealously self-righteous, Ashcroft, the Phoenix's David S. Bernstein reports, is tying up the federal courts with the types of cases that have long been handled at the state and local level (see "Fedz in the 'Hood," page 20). Moreover, by demanding that federal prosecutors bring death-penalty cases in non-death-penalty states, Ashcroft - like others in the Bush administration - is acting against the longstanding Republican philosophy that the states should run their own affairs. Here in Massachusetts, we have had several emotional debates over the death penalty in recent years. Capital punishment was nearly restored in the 1990s after the horrific murder of a 10-year-old Cambridge boy, Jeffrey Curley. It lost. Now, though, US Attorney Michael Sullivan - inspired by the mean-spirited fanaticism of his boss, Ashcroft - says he intends to retry one of Curley's convicted killers, Charles Jaynes, on federal charges for the sole purpose of seeking his execution. Legislators have been noticeably cool to Governor Mitt Romney's proposal for a supposedly error-free death-penalty law. But though capital punishment thus far has been kept out of the state courts, Ashcroft is attempting to move even street shootings into federal court so that he can make the ultimate example out of twentysomethings caught up in crime. Never mind that the death penalty is cruel and unfairly applied - this is a waste of federal resources. Selective federal prosecution, without capital punishment, helped bring Boston's gang problem under control in the early 1990s. But as former US attorney Donald Stern, now a lawyer in private practice, puts it, "Federal resources are best used as a scalpel, rather than a sledgehammer. The art is in picking the right cases and finding the right leverage." Elsewhere in these pages, noted civil-liberties lawyer Harvey A. Silverglate (a member of Bernard Baran's legal team) writes that Ashcroft's prosecution of terrorism cases amounts to a "Ponzi scheme" of shaky evidence piled on earlier cases that were built with equally shaky evidence (see "Freedom Watch," page 18). Ashcroft is clearly out of control. The most effective way to bring his abusive behavior to an end would be to vote his boss, George W. Bush, out of office this November. Failing that, his reign of injustice is likely to continue unabated - and innocent people may die. Who, after all, will stop him? (source: Editorial, The Boston Phoenix)
