July 28 TEXAS----new death sentence Death sentence is given to killer----Jury rejects claim that he is mentally retarded A jury rejected a convicted killer's claim of mental retardation and sentenced him to death Tuesday for the shooting of a beauty-supply store owner during a robbery. Calvin Letroy Hunter, 33, stood motionless with his arms crossed as the judge read the verdict, which jurors reached after deliberating for about 10 hours over 2 days. Hunter was convicted July 14 of killing Jong Suk Choi, 30. Choi was gunned down Oct. 25 during a robbery of the Beauty Max store in the 6900 block of Cullen. During the trial, jurors watched a surveillance video that showed Hunter entering the store and calmly asking about merchandise. He then drew a pistol and shot Choi in the head without warning. The video also showed Hunter demanding money from Choi's wife, who cried and screamed as she stepped over her husband's body and opened the cash register. "He's a cold and calculated killer. This is the type of person the death penalty was meant for," Assistant District Attorney Luci Davidson told jurors Monday. The trial's penalty phase lasted nearly two weeks, as Davidson and fellow prosecutor Marie Primm provided evidence of Hunter's criminal history. Police testified that they believe Hunter also killed Nguyen Lu during the Nov. 12 robbery of a convenience store in the 5400 block of Harrisburg, and committed a series of armed robberies in September. He has not been charged in those cases. Even Hunter's attorneys did not dispute that he is dangerous. "Thank God he was caught. This guy was bad," defense attorney Kyle Johnson told jurors. "There's nobody in this room that wants this guy to ever breathe another breath of fresh air. It just can't be." Johnson and defense attorney Terry Gaiser said Hunter deserved a life sentence because he is mentally retarded and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that executing the retarded is unconstitutional. State District Judge Belinda Hill decided to submit the question of whether Hunter has mental retardation for jurors to decide during their deliberations. State lawmakers have not enacted uniform procedures for courts in deciding that issue since the Supreme Court ruling. Hunter scored 64 in an IQ test as a child, well below 70, the widely recognized cutoff for determining mental retardation, his attorneys said. After his arrest last year, Hunter was tested again and scored 74, which is within a 5-point range that some doctors say indicates mental retardation. The only family members in the courtroom Tuesday were Lu's 2 nieces, who said they were pleased with the sentence. "It's exactly what I wanted," 29-year-old Lien Lu said. "He deserved it," said Diana Lu, 18. (source: Houston Chronicle) USA: Facts about teen brains good argument against executions The Supreme Court has the chance this fall to step in and affirm that teen-age criminals ought not be sentenced to death, because they are not old enough to be fully responsible for their judgment and their actions. The juvenile death penalty, in place in 19 states and actively used in seven, qualifies as "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Constitutions Eighth Amendment, according to a Missouri appellate court ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court will review next session. And it doesnt deter crime or reflect the American ideal of treating children differently from adults. With this case, the court could stop the practice, and it should. Executing people for crimes they committed as 16- and 17-year-olds violates widely accepted human rights norms, as the 25-nation European Union and 23 other nations put it in a brief filed in support of the Missouri case the court will consider next session. Such policies isolate the United States from its allies and diminish the power of its diplomats to speak out convincingly on the whole array of human rights issues. Child executions violate "minimum standards of decency now adopted by nearly every other nation in the world, including even autocratic regimes with poor human rights records," reads a brief signed by retired U.S. diplomats, including former Ambassadors Stuart E. Eizenstat, Thomas R. Pickering and Felix G. Rohatyn. The only other countries that killed convicts of mortal crimes committed in their youth in the past 4 years were China, Congo, Iran and Pakistan, the diplomats say - not Americas usual crowd. In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty for offenders younger than 16, but the next year upheld it for those 16 and older, reflecting the fears that a generation of "superpredators" was coming. It never did. And in 2002, the court banned executing mentally retarded convicts, saying a "national consensus" considered such executions wrong. (Indiana bans the death penalty for people under 18.) Research continues to confirm that the areas of the brain responsible for impulse control and moral reasoning do not mature fully until age 18 (and sometimes into the mid-20s), the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association and hundreds of other medical groups and individuals repeated in a letter in support of abolition. That matches the common wisdom hard-earned by parents, teachers and others in day-to-day contact with teen-agers. In a nation where 16- and 17-year-olds arent considered legally mature enough to vote or buy beer, it strains credulity to argue that they should have complete control over themselves in just this one, most extreme, part of the law. Compassion, coupled with scientific fact, argues for life. (source: Editorial, Baltimore Sun) ******************** A rising chorus against juvenile executions A broad swath of humanitarian, religious, medical, legal and governmental groups recently urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the death penalty for individuals whose crimes occurred before they turned 18. The 5 Supreme Court justices who disagreed in 2002, when the high court last weighed the matter, should consider carefully the evidence that standards of decency have evolved. No one disputes that Christopher Simmons, a Missouri inmate whose appeal will be heard this fall, acted cruelly in 1993 when he pushed Shirley Crook off a railroad transom to her death. Simmons was 17 at the time. But there is mounting belief, partially based on medical evidence, that youths do not qualify for societys harshest punishment. That sentence should be reserved for individuals whose brains have fully developed. Simmons death penalty was imposed under a 1989 Supreme Court decision allowing the execution of 16- and 17-year-olds. Last August, the Missouri Supreme Court overturned that sentence, arguing that it violates the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The state of Missouri appealed and legal officials in several states, including Virginia, joined the appeal to preserve their authority to put juveniles to death. As the numerous opposing briefs attest, the Missouri and Virginia view is increasingly isolated from national and international sentiment. Among the filers are 17 Nobel Peace prize winners, four dozen nations, 28 U.S. religious groups, 9 former diplomats and a host of professional organizations. The worldwide community has long rejected juvenile executions. According to the briefs, only 5 countries - China, Iran, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the United States - executed juvenile offenders in the past 4 years. Among 7 states that have carried out such executions, Texas leads with 13; Virginia is 2nd with 3. In contrast, the U.S. military, the federal government and 31 states bar the practice. What has long been a moral and legal issue has become a medical one, as well. Scientists once considered brains fully developed by age 12 or so. Complex imaging studies, conducted recently at major medical facilities, prove otherwise. Intense brain changes extend into late adolescence and even beyond. Areas involving impulse control, aggression and decision-making are among those in flux. As they did in ruling against execution of the mentally retarded two years ago, the justices will gauge the Simmons case in light of community standards. A Chesapeake jury last year offered substantial evidence of change in awarding a life sentence, not death, to convicted sniper Lee Boyd Malvo. The time has come for the nation as a whole to join a humane chorus of opposition to the execution of juvenile killers. (source: The Virginian-Pilot, July 27) FLORIDA: Review sought of Death Row inmates case in Broward The attorney for a man on death row for a notorious 1986 child slaying pressed a Broward Circuit Court judge on Tuesday to take another look at the case. Michael Rivera's attorney asked Circuit Judge Paul Backman to schedule an evidentiary hearing so he could determine whether enough new evidence exists to warrant Rivera receiving a second trial for the murder of 11-year-old Staci Jazvac. The combination of DNA tests last year and a jailhouse informant's questionable testimony raises serious questions about Rivera's guilt, argued defense attorney Martin McClain. Prosecutors are fighting the request, arguing there's overwhelming evidence against Rivera. Backman said he will issue a written ruling, but didn't specify when. Jazvac, a Lauderdale Lakes sixth-grader, disappeared Jan. 30, 1986, while riding her bicycle, prompting an exhaustive search. Her body was found 15 days later in a Coral Springs field. A Sheriff's Office crime lab technician had testified at Rivera's April 1987 trial that blond hair found in a van tied to Rivera "could be concluded" to be from the victim. But, DNA tests in March 2003 showed that the hair was not Jazvac's. In addition, McClain said that newly found documents undermine the credibility of witness Frank Zuccarello, who testified that Rivera confessed to the crime while the two were in jail. McClain argued that Zuccarello was a professional snitch who had a previously undisclosed plea offer in place with Broward County prosecutors when he testified against Rivera. Assistant Attorney General Celia Terenzio, who is handling the appeal for the state, argued that the hair strands had been presented as being consistent with Jazvac, but not as a conclusive match. Rivera made incriminating statements to law enforcement and confessed to murdering Jazvac to five people, she said. Besides Zuccarello, Rivera confessed to 2 other jail inmates and talked about the killing in obscene calls he made to 2 women, prosecutors said. The Broward State Attorney's Office turned over its records on Zuccarello to Rivera's attorneys in 1994, including information related to the plea deal, Terenzio said. The plea agreement also wasn't connected with Zuccarello providing testimony in the Rivera case, she argued. Even if Rivera, 42, is exonerated of Jazvac's murder, he will never be freed. He also is serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and attempted murder of an 11-year-old Coral Springs girl. In recent years, DNA tests have exonerated 2 men sent to death row as a result of Broward Sheriff's Office homicide investigations. (source: Sun-Sentinel)
