June 30 ARIZONA: Suspect faces death penalty in shooting Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for a man accused of killing 2 businessmen who were his longtime friends. Howard Collin Fisk, 32, faces 2 counts of 1st-degree murder and one count of burglary in the April shooting deaths of Martin Garcia and Paul Chait. The three men had been friends since high school, but Garcia and Chait were estranged from Fisk, who allegedly struggled with crystal methamphetamine, according to court records. Fisk appeared in Superior Court on Tuesday for a trial management conference. But the proceedings took an unexpected turn. The County Attorney's Office filed notice Monday that it would seek the death penalty. The case had been assigned to Judge Andrew Klein, but Klein only began his rotation as a criminal court judge on Monday. Though it's not an official policy, Superior Court judges with less than a year's experience handling criminal cases generally defer capital cases to more experienced judges. Judge Eddward P. Ballinger Jr., the presiding criminal judge, was called to handle the conference, and he reassigned the case to Judge Warren J. Granville. Fisk's public defender told the court that she would need at least 18 months to prepare her case for trial. Garcia, 33, was president and chief executive of a company that arranged for trucks that haul produce. Chait, also 33, worked for Garcia. On April 27, Fisk allegedly burst into their office near 32nd Street and Greenway Road in north Phoenix and shot them to death. (source: Arizona Republic) NORTH CAROLINA: Former death row inmate speaks at forum on death penalty moratorium Today is Alan Gell's 30th birthday. It's his first one in a decade not spent behind bars. And it's one he thought he might never see. Gell spoke of his experiences as an innocent man on death row Tuesday night at a forum held at Lenoir Community College sponsored by the N.C. Coalition for a Moratorium. "With 190 people on death row in North Carolina, it's very likely that someone - even one person - is innocent tonight," Gell said. "Even if it's just one person, then a moratorium is worth it, no matter what it takes." The coalition is calling for a two-year halt to executions - just the physical act - for the General Assembly to study the capital punishment system currently in place and find ways to prevent innocent people from being put to death. If a moratorium passed, people could still be sentenced to death and death sentences could still be appealed as normal. Pro-moratorium attendees said that the study could try to address issues such as inadequate legal defense, the higher concentration of minorities on death row and the larger concentration of death row convictions that come out of rural areas. The coalition is calling for the state House of Representatives to vote in favor of a moratorium, a measure already approved by the Senate. "We know we've got the votes to get it done," said Rose Clark of Kinston, whose brother, Earnest Basden, was executed by the state in 2002. "But we have to get the speakers of the house to call it to the floor for a vote." That's going to be the biggest challenge, said Mary Pollard, the attorney who helped free Gell from prison. Pollard said that co-speakers Jim Black and Richard Morgan are being reluctant to call attention to what they feel is a controversial issue, especially in an election year. Some in the audience dismissed the need for a moratorium, and one man pointed to Gell's release as proof that the system does in fact keep innocent people from going to prison. Gell shook his head. He talked about his own experience and that of Darryl Hunt, a man who spent nearly 2 decades in prison before DNA evidence exonerated him of a rape and murder conviction. "This is a frustrating this to answer," Gell said. "People say I'm free and the system works. It didn't work 9 years ago when it sent an innocent man to prison or 19 years ago when it sent Darryl Hunt to prison." Clark later said that a moratorium was needed even if there's the possibility of one innocent man being put to death. "My brother is dead. And there's nothing going to change that," Clark said. "And even if he were proven innocent now, it still wouldn't bring him back. A moratorium is just 2 years. What's 2 years of our lives?" One audience member asked Gell what he would consider fair compensation for the 9 years he lost. "The only, the highest payment I could receive for my years on death row," Gell said. "would be if everyone here tonight called their legislators and asked them to support this moratorium." (source: Kinston Free Press) VIRGINIA: The state will seek the death penalty against Glenn Isaac Goins. The 22 year old man is accused of murdering at least 2 women, including one at his mother's Johnson City home in January. District Attorney General Joe Crumley says the choking death of 24 year old Amanda Wood and her unborn child warrants such a strict punishment. Goins is charged with 1st degree murder and abuse of a corpse, but he`s reportedly confessed to 4 slayings. Goins is scheduled to be back in court July 16th. (source: WCYB News) CONNECTICUT---re: federal death penalty trial Convicted Killer Could Face U.S. Death Sentence---- Federal Jury Must Decide Whether To Call For Execution Wilfredo Perez could become the 1st Connecticut convict on federal death row in decades, after a jury Tuesday convicted him of 4 murder- related charges in the 1996 hired hit of fellow Hartford drug dealer Teddy Casiano. At the utterance of the 1st guilty verdict, Perez dropped his head dramatically. After the jury forewoman pronounced the fourth guilty verdict, he sank into his chair at the defense table and buried his head in the crook of his right arm. He was trembling and appeared to be crying, but made no sound. Defense lawyers Richard Reeve and Michael Sheehan each laid a hand on his shoulders. Perez, 37, did not look up as each of the jurors - nine women and three men - was polled and agreed with the verdict. Most of them appeared stressed, but all were composed. They will return to the same courtroom Thursday to begin hearing evidence on whether Perez should be sentenced to death. Perez's case is the first to reach a federal death penalty hearing in Connecticut since Congress a decade ago passed legislation adding 60 crimes to what had been a relatively short list of offenses punishable by death. Dating at least to 1927, no one from Connecticut has been on federal death row. Bridgeport drug lord Luke Jones last year was to have been the first to face such a hearing, but Senior U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas in November ruled out the possibility of a death sentence. Nevas said the murder that exposed Jones to the death penalty was committed not to further his drug trade; rather, it was in response to a perceived act of disrespect by someone at a party who didn't even deal drugs. Perez was convicted on the basis of testimony by co-conspirators, chief among them his former confidant and drug-runner, Ollie Berrios. Berrios was not charged in the dramatic, daylight killing of Casiano, although according to his own testimony, he was the one who sought out a hit man and arranged the killing. In addition, Berrios could get a reduction in his 11-year drug sentence in exchange for his cooperation on this and related cases. The final trial stemming from the Casiano killing - that of alleged hit-man Fausto Gonzalez - is scheduled to begin in September. Sheehan and Reeve declined to comment, as did Assistant U.S. Attorneys David Ring and Shawn Chen. Attorney Robert M. Casale, who represented Jones and now represents Gonzalez, said it was troubling to him that "people get convicted on nothing more than rats" testifying against them. "Berrios was the prime mover. He set the whole thing up." But Casale predicted that the jury would not return a death verdict, basing his opinion on the length of time - nearly 5 full days - jurors spent deliberating whether Perez was guilty. "I can't see them returning a death verdict," Casale said. Perez and Casiano grew up together in Hartford and for a time were close friends. Before Casiano went to prison in the early 1990s for bank robbery, he gave Perez money to start a drug trafficking operation. When Casiano left prison in April 1995, his first stop was to see "Wil" at Perez Auto on Newfield Street, and Perez helped him get some equipment to start a tattoo parlor, according to Berrios' testimony. Casiano got by doing odd jobs and dealing drugs. He threw most of his energy into bringing some structure and discipline back to the Savage Nomads street gang, which he ran. The stress fractures in his friendship with Perez soon followed, according to testimony. Perez accused Casiano and his fellow gang members of selling drugs at the Hourglass Caf on Park Street in Hartford, which Perez considered his turf. Casiano in turn accused Perez and his brother Jose Antonio "Tony" Perez of not contributing more of their drug proceeds to the Savage Nomads. Casiano ratcheted up the tension when he kidnapped Berrios at gunpoint, and subsequently stole 1-1/2 kilograms of cocaine and $20,000 belonging to Perez in the fall of 1995, according to testimony. It wasn't clear from the testimony what drove Casiano's killing more - Berrios' humiliation or Wilfredo Perez's concern they would be robbed again. Berrios, who had already made contact with Gonzalez in the Bronx through a friend, brought him to Perez Auto on May 24, 1996. Co-conspirator Mario Lopez drove his green Kawasaki motorcycle from the Bronx to Perez Auto. There was some confusion in the testimony on whether it was Tony or Wil Perez who phoned Casiano to lure him to the garage, and the jury acquitted Wilfredo Perez of using an interstate facility - a phone - to arrange the murder. Casiano arrived at the garage about noon, spoke to Wilfredo Perez briefly, then left. Gonzalez and Lopez followed on the Kawasaki, with Lopez driving. While Casiano's car idled at a red light at the busy intersection of Newfield Street and New Britain Avenue, Lopez pulled alongside and Gonzalez fired repeatedly into Casiano's car and body. Casiano's car drifted across the intersection and came to rest in a plaza opposite Newfield Street, according to testimony. Berrios testified that Perez gave him $6,000 cash in a paper bag just prior to the killing to pay Gonzalez. It was the price Gonzalez had named, Berrios said. The killing remained unsolved for years, until a federal grand jury began piecing together evidence after several major drug busts. Perez wasn't indicted on the murder charges until 2002. Perez was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, helping arrange interstate travel to commit murder for hire, committing a violent crime in aid of racketeering [commonly known as a VICAR offense] and causing death by use of a firearm during a crime of violence. Each of those convictions exposes him to a possible death sentence. He already is serving a 22-year federal sentence for drug possession. (source: Hartford Courant)
