July 5 LOUISIANA: State money may go to Gillis defense -- but not Lee's The process a state agency uses to help fund capital murder cases means one of the men accused of killing several women in the Baton Rouge area qualifies for financial help for his defense -- while the other doesn't. Sean Vincent Gillis, 41, of Baton Rouge and Derrick Todd Lee, 35, of St. Francisville both claim they don't have the money to cover legal expenses. East Baton Rouge prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for both men. Gillis was indicted on a count of `st-degree murder in June in the killing of Donna Bennett Johnston, 43, in February. Gillis has also been booked in the deaths of 4 other Baton Rouge area women over the past decade. Lee is scheduled to go on trial in September on a count of first-degree murder in the killing of Charlotte Murray Pace in May 2002. Authorities also claim Lee killed six other women in south Louisiana between September 2001 and March 2003, and tried to kill a rape a Breaux Bridge woman in 2002. Lee is scheduled for trial Aug. 2 in West Baton Rouge Parish on 2nd-degree murder charges for the killing of Geralyn Barr DeSoto. Financial aid for Gillis' defense could be on the way when Gov. Kathleen Blanco signs the state's budget bill for the current fiscal year, which began Thursday. Ed Greenlee, executive director of the Louisiana Indigent Defense Assistance Board, said the state's budget bill could include money that would allow his board to increase the funding to the Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana. Kerry Cuccia, executive director of that project, has been assigned to represent Gillis. Cuccia has said that without additional funds, the Capital Defense Project cannot take on the Gillis case past arraignment. Gillis was scheduled to be arraigned Friday, but that hearing was delayed until July 26, after it's known whether Cuccia's office will get money to hire additional attorneys and staff. However, Greenlee said the same help is not on the way for Lee. He said Lee already has attorneys and is now looking for money to pay for experts. Greenlee said the defense board made a policy decision against allocating money for individual cases and instead chose to fund programs, including programs that assist in capital cases and juvenile defense. Greenlee said his board determined that funding local boards is a more efficient way of distributing the limited amount of funding his office receives. East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Doug Moreau, a vocal opponent of LIDAB's decision against funding individual cases, said the Lee and Gillis cases prove the flaws in the board policy. "Common sense does not invade the province of (LIDAB's) meetings," Moreau said. Moreau contends the money given to LIDAB by the state should not go to programs, but instead should go, when needed, to the local indigent defense boards. "Common sense tells you that the local board doesn't know that they will be in need of supplemental funding from the state until the get a case that they can't handle," Moreau said. He said that's when the local board should make application with the state for additional funds and that request should be reviewed by the defense board. "The whole purpose is to fund cases," Moreau said. The district attorney said that by operating through programs, "they can control which cases get funding and which don't," providing an appeal mechanism in the case of a conviction. "I don't know how they can say it with a straight face," Moreau said. Lee's attorneys asked state District Judge Richard Anderson to order the state to provide more funds to cover the costs of experts, but Anderson has refused to issue such an order. Anderson determined the Public Defender's Office has sufficient funds to defend Lee. Anderson's ruling has been upheld by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal. The state Supreme Court declined a pretrial request by Lee's lawyers to review the funding issue. (source: The Advocate) OKLAHOMA: State juries rarely pick execution for women Only 3 Oklahoma women have been executed since statehood. Prosecutors in the Brenda Andrew murder trial are trying to add to that number. If the state's attorneys convict Andrew, they will face social and demographic barriers in getting a death penalty decision, legal experts say. "There was a time in Oklahoma when they just almost never gave women the death penalty," said Andy Coats, dean of the University of Oklahoma College of Law. "They would do long terms of imprisonment for women who acted badly, but they didn't normally execute women." Oklahoma County District Attorney Wes Lane, who filed for the death penalty against Andrew, declined to be interviewed on the subject, citing a judge's order for parties in the case not to discuss it outside the courtroom. Protecting women Since 1915, when executions started at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, 157 people have been put to death. 82 were killed by electrocution, 74 by lethal injection and 1 by hanging. The last execution by electrocution took place in 1966; the 1st execution by lethal injection happened in 1990. It wasn't until January 2001 that the 1st woman was executed. Wanda Jean Allen, 42, was executed by lethal injection for murdering her lover. The other 2 female executions also took place in 2001. In May of that year, Marilyn Plantz, 31, was executed for arranging her husband's death, and in December, Lois Nadean Smith, 61, was executed for shooting and stabbing a woman to death. Coats said it is an inherent protectiveness of women in society that could have contributed to keeping women off death row. "Particularly jurors, many of them grew up with the idea that women are to be protected and insulated from the rough and tumble of the world," Coats said. Oklahoma City defense attorney J.W. Coyle III, who is not working on the Andrew case, agreed that women have been guarded by society. "Juries generally are somewhat more reluctant to convict women, much less to give them the death penalty," Coyle said. "In our culture, women are the fairer sex and less prone to commit a crime, at least in the eyes of a jury. " Children a factor There are no women on Oklahoma's death row, which is populated by 88 men, including Andrew's lover and co-defendant James Pavatt. Pavatt was convicted in September of the Nov. 20, 2001, murder of Brenda Andrew's husband, Rob Andrew, the same charge Brenda Andrew now faces. Coyle said the fact Brenda Andrew has two children could benefit the defense. "I think that's real important mitigation evidence," Coyle said. "Her children would essentially be without any parents in the event of her execution." Coats said the children could have an impact on the jury regardless of the death penalty issue. "If she was found guilty and happened to be sentenced to a lengthy term in the penitentiary, I don't know that the jurors would think that that was a whole lot better," Coats said. Coats and Coyle agreed that a push for equal rights throughout American society may make it easier to win a death penalty against a woman. "I think the climate for women to receive more equal treatment is certainly in place even in the legal system," Coyle said. (source: The Oklahoman) INDIANA: Clemency was the right call The issue: Darnell Williams and death row Our opinion: Gov. Joe Kernan's decision to grant clemency was proper, courageous. And Williams will still have to pay for the murders of a Gary couple with life in prison without the possibility of parole. On the day the long Independence Day holiday began, Darnell Williams was freed from death row by Gov. Joe Kernan. Kernan granted clemency last Friday to Williams, who was scheduled to be executed this Friday for the murders of a Gary couple in 1986. Instead, Williams will spend the rest of his life in prison for his role in the deaths of Henrietta and John Rease. It was the proper decision for the governor to make, given the snowballing stack of evidence that led to reasonable doubts that Williams should die for the crimes committed. Let there be no doubt, however, that Williams should pay for his role in those awful murders. Kernan's courageous decision represents the 1st time in 48 years an Indiana governor granted clemency in a death penalty case. He accepted the unanimous recommendation of the Indiana Parole Board that he commute the death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Kernan was just as swayed by the fact that a codefendant, Gregory Rouster, was judged mentally retarded and his death sentence revoked. He said Rouster was more culpable for the murders, but because Rouster cannot be executed, "it is unjust for Williams to be executed." Williams' journey off death row began nearly a year ago when the late Gov. Frank O'Bannon granted a stay of execution so DNA testing could be done on the shorts Williams was wearing the night of the murders. O'Bannon's decision was all the more significant since he was the author of legislation to reinstitute the death penalty in 1977 while he was in the state Legislature. He rightly pointed to Indiana's high standards in death penalty cases. Kernan's decision surely will reignite debate over whether Indiana should even have the death penalty. Indiana needs capital punishment as the ultimate punishment for the most heinous crimes. But the state needs to protect the safeguards built into the law. Indiana is a model for other states because of the multitiered standards it requires before someone can be executed. Those standards must never be lowered. (source: Opinion, NorthWest Indiana Times) CALIFORNIA: Death penalty stand gives new San Francisco D.A. a trial by fire The December election of a new district attorney was supposed to signal a turning point for police-prosecutor relations in San Francisco, where lofty, ultra-liberal ideals sometimes clash with the street-level realities of law enforcement. But after ousting her former boss on a pledge to restore order to the DA's office, Kamala Harris has faced unforeseen trials with her colleagues in blue. Her refusal to seek the death penalty against the suspect in the killing of a young officer brought fire from police as well as Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other seasoned politicians. The pressure, coming just 3 months after she took office, tested both Harris' resolve and reputation. "It is rough for somebody who is a career prosecutor - who takes pride in being a member of law enforcement, who believes in the nobility of the profession - to receive some of the criticism that came down," said Harris, 39, California's 1st elected prosecutor of either black or East Indian descent. "You have to stay focused on your purpose for being there, which is to do the right thing and to do the just thing." The 1st-term prosecutor stuck to her guns, reminding second-guessers that she'd made her opposition to capital punishment clear during her campaign. Now, the woman who once labored under the perception that she owed her professional success to an ex-boyfriend, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, is enjoying newfound respect and a more multifaceted public image. A recent poll showed that 70 % of San Francisco voters thought Harris had done the right thing by declaring she would pursue life without parole for the officer's alleged killer. The city's Board of Supervisors, a majority of whose members backed Harris' predecessor in the election, also issued a formal statement in her support. "Kamala Harris has been heroic in really standing for the principles she ran for office on, and I don't think most people, including myself, are used to politicians actually following through on their convictions," said Van Jones, a police critic who directs the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Killing a police officer is one of 25 "special circumstances" that make murder defendants eligible for the death penalty in California. On its face, the April 10 slaying of Officer Isaac Espinoza was the very crime the law was designed to address. The officer, a married father, was gunned down with an assault rifle while patrolling one of San Francisco's roughest neighborhoods. He was the city's 1st officer to die in the line of duty in a decade. Less than 3 days later, Harris announced she would not ask a jury to condemn David Hill, 21, citing Hill's age, lack of an adult criminal record and what she described as the futility of finding a San Francisco jury willing to send a man to death row. Of the 640 or so inmates awaiting execution at San Quentin, only one arrived from San Francisco, and that was 15 years ago. The police union and the officer's grieving family called on Harris to reverse her stand or recuse her office from the case. Fellow Democrats such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein criticized her, and California Attorney General Bill Lockyer considered intervening in the case. But longtime associates see Harris' steadfastness as consistent with her track record as a trailblazer who embraces being a role model to young women of color and eschews easy labels. "Anyone who thought Kamala Harris was going to buckle under pressure doesn't know her very well," chuckled San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who endorsed Harris' election opponent and noted that plea offers haven't been as favorable to his clients under the new DA. "She is very adamant in terms of her positions." Daniel Macallair, director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco, said he became impressed by Harris four years ago when she campaigned against a ballot measure that allowed prosecutors to charge youths as adults for certain serious crimes. The California District Attorneys Association backed the initiative, and at the time, Harris was a deputy DA. "She is not a political opportunist," Macallair said. "She comes into this with core values of what the proper role is for a prosecutor and standards of justice, which we don't always see in DAs." Raised in Berkeley as the child of two professors, a Jamaican father and an East Indian mother, Harris said she saw nothing odd about choosing a career as a prosecutor. In her family's household, civil rights activism was a way of life. "I grew up very sensitive to the fact that the criminal justice system and law enforcement has more impact on certain communities, the most vulnerable communities - women, children and seniors," she said. "Traditionally, people from my background would think the best way to have an impact on those communities is to become some type of social worker. Maybe it's unconventional to think the other way to do it is to get right in there at the table when the decisions are being made that have the impact." Harris has tried to avoid getting pigeonholed as either "hard on crime" or "soft on crime" since she took office in January. She thinks of her agenda as "smart on crime." On a practical level, that has meant bringing a backlog of old murder cases to trial and seeking stiffer penalties for those convicted of gun possession. At the same time she is pressing for a law that would allow her to charge men who solicit sex from underage prostitutes with child abuse, and is sponsoring fraud-awareness workshops for Chinese immigrants. "The role of the prosecutor is to do justice ... it's not about locking people up because you can, or locking them up for the maximum time you can," said Harris, who served in student government at Washington, D.C.'s Howard University and as president of the African American Law Students Association at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Harris said she remains hopeful her relationship with the police can be repaired. There have been signs that the union may be ready to mend fences, too. Both sides note that with San Francisco's murder rate climbing this year, it is imperative that the two crime-fighting agencies work together and "agree to disagree on the death penalty," said Gary Delagnes, president of the San Francisco Police Officer's Association. "You have to take a certain position of permissiveness to get elected here, but we believe Kamala knows the job." ********************** Experts: Peterson Prosecution Disjointed The prosecution's disjointed story probably has jurors in the Scott Peterson trial questioning what really happened to his pregnant wife, legal experts say. But with the trial well into its second month, there may be a good reason for their failure to weave a cohesive tale: They do not have enough hard evidence to forcefully claim that Peterson committed the crime. They have no cause or time of death, no weapon and no witnesses who saw him do it. "Those things are the heart of their story, and they just don't have it," said Robert Talbot, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law. Defense lawyers, who say Peterson was framed, are confident they can pick apart the alleged motive - an affair with a woman Peterson had only known a short while. But they are not without their own challenge: how to convincingly explain why the bodies of Laci Peterson and the couple's fetus surfaced just two miles from where Scott Peterson claims he was fishing alone the day his wife vanished. Here's the story prosecutors have presented in the first five weeks of trial, along with some of the holes the defense has tried to poke in it: - Peterson killed his wife in their Modesto home late on the evening of Dec. 23 or early on Dec. 24, 2002. If he did it on Dec. 23, the defense counters, why would he have invited Laci Peterson's half sister, Amy Rocha, to the couple's home for pizza that night? Rocha testified she did not accept the invitation. - Peterson cleaned the murder scene immaculately and loaded Laci's 153-pound body into the back of his pickup truck, then drove through downtown Modesto to the warehouse where he stored his boat. How could no one notice, the defense responds, and why would he spend about 20 minutes on the Internet with his wife's corpse in the truck? - Peterson leashed the couple's dog and set it loose in an attempt to suggest Laci had been walking it when she was abducted by someone else. But, the defense says, witnesses have reported seeing Laci Peterson walking the dog after her husband claims he left to go fishing. - Peterson drove 90 miles to San Francisco Bay, launched the boat and hoisted her body, weighted down with concrete anchors, into the water. But the defense argues it is preposterous to suggest Peterson could have transferred the body to the 14-foot aluminum boat, motored to a secluded enough area so that he would not be seen, and then dumped the body without tipping the boat. Prosecutors claim Peterson's affair with massage therapist Amber Frey drove him to devise a plan in which he purchased his used boat weeks earlier for the sole purpose of disposing of his wife's body. They have called several witnesses to portray Peterson as a lying cheat who wasn't ready for family life. Defense lawyers do not deny the affair or even that Peterson was a "cad." But they say that just because Peterson cheated on his wife that did not make him a murderer. They say it's absurd to think Peterson would kill Laci to be with a single mother with whom he had been on only a few dates. Prosecutors have yet to call Frey, their star witness, and have not played for the jury the bulk of wiretapped phone conversations between her and Peterson that many experts say might reveal damaging details. Experts say those recorded conversations had better bolster the prosecution's case. "Unless the wiretaps are going to make up for the holes ... prosecutors are in trouble," said Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson. "If they thought they were going to win this case by simply saying Scott cheats on his wife, therefore he killed her, they will lose." Talbot said if Peterson did it, he covered his tracks "fantastically." If the bodies had not been found exactly where Peterson's alibi places him, "we wouldn't even be at trial," Talbot said. However, Talbot said, that is a fact that is difficult to explain away. "It's very, very powerful that the bodies were there," he said. "There's got to be some reasonable explanation, but so far we really haven't heard anything." (source for both: Associated Press)
