death penalty news July 29, 2004:
FLORIDA: Jury upholds Hoskins death penalty A Brevard jury for the third time in 10 years has recommended Johnny Hoskins be executed for raping, kidnapping and fatally beating his 80-year-old neighbor. Hoskins stared straight ahead Wednesday as Circuit Judge Jere Lober read the jury's recommendation. The verdict came after 21/2 hours of deliberation. "He's been through this before," said Ernie Chang, Hoskins' defense attorney. "We completely respect the jurors' decision." Hoskins, 40, was convicted in 1994, but had two death sentences set aside. Both challenges to the death sentence were based on Hoskins' mental state. Including Wednesday's verdict, 35 of 36 jurors have voted to put Hoskins to death, prosecutors said. Investigators said Hoskins confessed to assaulting Dorothy Berger in her Melbourne home in 1992. He said he drove her body to Georgia, burying it in a shallow grave. Attorneys meet again Sept. 24 to discuss any other evidence in the case before setting a sentencing date. Linda Peacock, Berger's niece, was in the courtroom when the verdict was read. She leaned forward and cried before putting her head on the shoulder of a victim's assistant. "I think he deserves to die for what he did. This is like going through the whole thing over and over again," Peacock, a Fort Lauderdale resident, said after the jury's verdict. The latest trial highlighted defense claims that Hoskins has a low IQ and brain defects that hinder behavioral control. The 12 jurors only considered whether the murder warranted the death penalty and sorted through eight days of testimony offered in the Moore Justice Center courtroom. Assistant State Attorney Tom Brown, who argued for the death penalty, said Wednesday's verdict reaffirmed of previous jury recommendations. "The public has spoken three times now," said Brown, who showed graphic photos of Berger's body to jurors during his closing statement. "There's no question that the only justice in this case would be the death penalty." (source: Florida Today) ============================ CALIFORNIA: Jury to decide whether quintuple murderer gets death penalty Justin Helzer is a cold blooded and arrogant killer who deserves the death penalty for his part in the slayings of the daughter of blues guitarist Elvin Bishop and four other people, a prosecutor argued Wednesday in the penalty phase of Helzer's murder trial. Helzer's lawyer pleaded for his client's life, telling the jury that Helzer was operating under the control of his older brother and was remorseful for his crimes. "Please, dear God, find the compassion in your heart," said Helzer's lawyer Daniel Cook. The jury will begin deliberations Thursday to decide whether Helzer should get the death penalty of life in prison. Helzer, his older brother, Glenn Taylor Helzer, and their former roommate Dawn Godman killed Selina Bishop, her mother, her mother's boyfriend and an elderly Concord couple who once employed Glenn Helzer as their stockbroker. The killings in the summer of 2000 were part of an extortion scheme to earn money for a self-awareness group the Helzers said would hasten Christ's return to Earth. Prosecutor Harold Jewett rehashed how Justin Helzer sat on and stabbed Ivan Stineman, restraining him while his wife, Annette Stineman, was beaten to death. "These crimes were committed with about as little emotion as there could be," Jewett said. "They are about as cold blooded as they get." Saying he wanted to show the jury a slice of humanity that Helzer has "destroyed forever," Jewett played a tape of Stineman's lightly arguing over items cluttering their garage. "Ahhh, that's precious," Helzer's mother Carma Helzer whispered to his sister, Heather, when the tape ended. One juror wiped her eyes repeatedly with tissue. Jewett said it was the "height of arrogance" to dub oneself a warrior of God and take another human being's life. "This is the most arrogant person you probably have ever seen," he said, referring to Helzer, who looked straight ahead. In turn, the defense argued that Justin Helzer was extremely disturbed and would not have committed the crimes had it not been for the influence of his older brother. "Justin was the follower," Cook said. Jewett told jurors that although they have a duty to make a rational decision, they can consider their emotions and their moral indignation when deciding Helzer's fate. Helzer shocked the court earlier this month when he blurted out that the jury did not need to deliberate because he wanted to die. Judge Mary Ann O'Malley told Helzer to be quiet and continued speaking over him when he didn't immediately comply. "I'm just being truthful. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be rude," Helzer said. "I just want to be free. I want freedom or death." The trial was marked by the grisly details of the crimes. The bodies of Bishop and the Stinemans were sawed up and stuffed into gym bags, their jaws removed to prevent identification, and the bags were thrown into the Mokelumme river. Glenn Helzer already pleaded guilty and faces the death penalty. His sentencing phase will begin this fall. Godman also pleaded guilty. She testified against Justin Helzer in exchange for a lengthy prison sentence. (source: AP) ================================ USA: Death penalty for the innocent From the beginning of my ministry, I have preached and taught consistently against the death penalty (see www.priestsforlife.org/articles/capitalpunishment.htm ). I do not believe it should be used and have joined efforts to abolish it. At the same time, there's a difference between capital punishment and abortion. Put simply, abortion can never be justified; capital punishment can sometimes be justified. Abortion is intrinsically evil, which means that no circumstances can ever make it right. Capital punishment, on the other hand, is evil when used in the wrong circumstances, but can sometimes be used in the right circumstances. Capital punishment should never be carried out on an innocent person. That would defy its very definition. Abortion, on the other hand, is always carried out on an innocent person. Otherwise, that would defy its very definition. In those rare circumstances where it has been justified, capital punishment was carried out precisely for the defense of life. Abortion, on the other hand, is carried out precisely for the destruction of life. There is a substantial difference between a tiny child, growing in her natural environment, and a convicted criminal who poses a threat to the well being of society. Yet more children are killed by abortion in America every five days than have ever been executed by capital punishment. The Bible and 2000 years of Catholic teaching recognize the state's right and duty to protect its citizens, even by force. Romans 13:1-5 reads, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. .... For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad...If you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer." In his 1995 encyclical "The Gospel of Life" (Evangelium Vitae), Pope John Paul II makes a clear distinction between a practical "no" to the death penalty and an absolute "no" to abortion. In regard to the state punishing wrongdoers, he writes, "the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent" (56). Then he goes on to say, in distinction, "If such great care must be taken to respect every life, even that of criminals and unjust aggressors, the commandment "You shall not kill" has absolute value when it refers to the innocent person." (57) Simply put, "You shall not kill" applies even to the criminal, but with exceptions. "You shall not kill" applies absolutely to the innocent (born and unborn), without exceptions. Can one still be pro-life and support the death penalty in certain instances? The answer is yes. [The author, Father Frank Pavone, serves as national director of priests for life. He can be reached at m...@priestsforlife.org.] (source: Viewpoint, The Tidings Online) ==================================== TEXAS: Jury gives death penalty for fatal shooting spree - Francois hears forgiveness from kin of 2 slain girls Anthony Quinn Francois heard a message of forgiveness Wednesday from the grandmother of two girls he killed, but the jury in his capital murder trial wasn't so forgiving. Francois, 36, stood silently in a downtown courtroom as he was sentenced to death for a jealous rampage last year in which he shot his ex-girlfriend, her three sisters and her mother. He showed no emotion as he heard the sentence from state District Judge Caprice Cosper. Moments later, he sat and stared down at the defense table as a cousin of the dead girls read a statement written by her grandmother. "I forgive you for what you did," wrote Dorothy Patterson. "I cannot judge you, only God can do that." Jurors deliberated about eight hours, concluding that Francois deserves to die for fatally shooting Ashley Patterson, 11, and Britteny Patterson, 10. He also was charged, but not tried, in the shooting death of the girls' 15-year-old sister, Naikesha. Francois sneaked into the family's home on Houston's south side on Sept. 11, 2003, and vowed that, "if he wasn't going to have me, then no one was going to have me," his former girlfriend, Shemeka Patterson, testified. Shemeka, 16, was shot in the face before Francois shot and killed her three younger sisters, two of them in the head at close range as they lay in bed, prosecutors said. Their mother, Sheila Ann Patterson, was wounded critically. "This man slaughtered a family, and I think the verdict the jury gave was highly appropriate," Assistant District Attorney Terese Buess said at the close of the seven-day trial. Defense attorneys Loretta Muldrow and Mack Arnold sought to cultivate jurors' sympathy for Francois, recalling testimony that his mother got pregnant with him after she was raped at age 14. Shemeka Patterson testified that she met Francois in 2001, when she was 14, and they began a sexual relationship. He often let her drive his car and gave her money to fix her hair or buy food, she told jurors. She stopped dating him a year later, but he continued to phone her and come to her house. When he learned she was dating a 17-year-old, he became irate and threatened to kill her and her family, she said. After murdering the Patterson girls, Francois went to Spring, where he shot a few games of pool with his cousin, police said. "Gee, that sounds really remorseful, doesn't it?" prosecutor Vanessa Velasquez said during her closing argument. Prosecutors also detailed Francois' extensive criminal history, which began at age 16 when he was convicted of murder as a juvenile in the shooting of another teenager. He was sentenced to two years with the Texas Youth Commission. Francois was sentenced to seven years in prison in 1989 for possessing cocaine, but was paroled after only a fraction of the sentence. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1991 for robbery and was given a year in state jail for driving a stolen car in 2002, records show. After the death sentence was pronounced Wednesday, the slain girls' cousin, 19-year-old Lakeyda Patterson, read victim impact statements from her grandmother and several other family members. They included Shemeka Patterson's statement. "I know you tried to destroy my life but you didn't," she wrote. "Even though my sisters are in a better place, I'm still holding my head up high." Her mother, even though she lost three daughters in the attack, also expressed forgiveness. "I will forgive you for what you did because I know you can never get to Him with hate in your heart," Sheila Patterson wrote. "But at the same time, I will never forget Sept. 11, 2003." (source: Houston Chronicle)
