August 28 CONNECTICUT: Santiago jury still deadlocked on death penalty Jurors in Hartford Superior Court were again deadlocked on Friday and are expected to continue deliberations Monday on whether Eduardo Santiago, 24, of Torrington, should receive the death penalty after being convicted in the murder-for-hire of Joseph Niwinski, 45, of West Hartford. The 12-member panel, composed of 2 men and 10 women, have been deliberating all week on whether to sentence Santiago to life in prison without the possibility of parole or to the death penalty by lethal injection. In other criminal cases a judge decides a penalty, but in cases where the death penalty may be imposed, the jury decides. If Santiago is sentenced to death, he would be the 8th inmate in this state housed on death row at this time at Northern Correctional Institution. There have been no executions in Connecticut since 1960, and 37 inmates are currently serving life sentences for capital felony murder, including his co-conspirator, Matthew Tyrell, 23, of Winsted, who pled guilty in December 2002. Prosecutors allege that the 2 young men were at the victims bedside late on Dec. 12, 2000, when 1 of the 2 men shot Niwinski in the head, while he slept. The bullet had the victim's name, "Joe," scratched on it. Both Tyrell and Mark Pascual, who admitted to hiring the men, testified that Santiago pulled the trigger. Santiago never told the 12 jurors selected to decide his fate his side of the story, nor did his attorneys, Kevin Randolph and John Franckling, call any witnesses in his defense. Santiago introduced Tyrell to Pascual, 39, of Torrington, whom he knew earlier because Pascual rented space for his boat shop, Marine Tech, behind The Folly restaurant on Winsted Road, which was owned by Santiago's step-father. Pascual testified he hired the 2 men to kill Niwinski because he was infatuated with the victims girlfriend and felt he would have a better chance at dating her if the victim was out of the way. Tyrell and Pascual testified they purchased a number of items including black ski masks and gloves, ammunition, and a Louisville Slugger bat, and fashioned a homemade silencer from a soda bottle stuffed with paper towels that they attached to a Remington bolt-action rifle. Before they went to Niwinski's garage apartment on Whiting Lane in Pascual's Ford Bronco, prosecutors said, they tested the silencer by firing it into a ditch at Marine Tech. Tyrell told the jury he thought he was helping the 2 men to strong-arm Niwinski into paying Pascual a debt he owed, and had no idea that he was involved in a murder plot until they were on their way to the victims house. "My understanding was that I was going to get a piece of the money collected," he told the jury during the trial. He said he saw Santiago etching "Joe" on the ammunition before they loaded the rifle. "I asked him why he was doing that and (Santiago) he said 'Now the bullet really has a name on it,'" Tyrell testified. (source: Register Citizen) LOUISIANA: American freed from death row says Britons saved his life----Murder conviction overturned after campaign by British lawyers and activists For more than 5 years, Ryan Matthews sat in his 9ft by 6ft prison cell for 23 hours out of 24 contemplating how the state was going to take his life. Each day brought him nearer the one when he would walk to Louisiana state penitentiary's death chamber, be strapped to a gurney and receive a lethal injection. 2 weeks past his 17th birthday, the Louisiana teenager fitted every stereotype for those most likely to be sentenced to death: he was black, a child and had severe learning difficulties. More importantly, he was innocent. But Mr Matthews, now 24, is free after being exonerated thanks largely to British money and the efforts of British lawyers. Cash raised in this country, including a 10,000 donation from Martha Lane Fox, the Lastminute.com entrepreneur, was crucial to securing his release. In his 1st interview since his release, he told the Guardian that his British supporters had saved his life. "All these people who didn't know me but they cared about me and they cared about my case - they could see the wrong that was done. I want to thank them for believing in me and bringing me this far and giving me back my life." He was convicted of the 1997 shooting of a grocery store owner, Tommy Vanhoose, in spite of there being nothing to connect him to the scene of the crime. His friend, though, had confessed to police that he had been the accomplice and getaway driver. The friend, Travis Hayes, was also a juvenile and suffered from severe learning difficulties. He is still serving a life sentence for being an accomplice to a crime his friend did not commit. He says the police bullied him into making his confession and refused to testify against Mr Matthews in court. On that April night, the real killer - who shot Mr Vanhoose four times after he refused to hand over his week's takings - discarded the ski mask he had used to disguise himself. On it were found traces of spittle and sweat. When this was tested, the DNA did not match that of Mr Matthews. This did not deter prosecutors or the jury. "The jury started hearing the evidence at 9.30 am and finished at midnight, when they retired to consider their verdicts," said Shauneen Lambe, a British barrister who sat through the trial. "At 4.40 am they came back to say they were not unanimous, to which the judge said they must be. They returned 20 minutes later to say that they were unanimous now, that Ryan was guilty. It was shocking." 2 days later he was sentenced to death. His family, who had been convinced that the jury would see sense, were stunned. It was while working on secondment in the US with Clive Stafford Smith - a British-born lawyer who has spent over 20 years in the southern US representing more than 200 people on death row and currently helps some of the British detainees held in Guantnamo Bay - that Ms Lambe began working on the case. She believed his original lawyers, public defenders appointed by the court, had done a poor job of representing him. Some time after the death sentence was handed down, rumours began filtering out of Louisiana's state prisons that a man called Rondell Love had been boasting that he had killed Mr Vanhoose. Love was serving 20 years for a murder committed half a mile from the grocery store killing and six months after the Vanhoose murder. After securing three statements attesting to Love's confessions, Ms Lambe returned to Britain seeking further funding for her investigations. The British-based group Reprieve, which helps impoverished people on death row, gave the case its full backing. Ms Lane Fox, who sits on its board, agreed to fund the case. Intensive investigations began and DNA tests proved that Love had been the wearer of the ski mask. In spite of that evidence, prosecutors resisted granting a new trial, only doing so a year later and on the night before hearings to review allegations that they had suppressed information about one of their main witnesses during the original trial. The retrial was not granted until April of this year and Mr Matthews remained in prison until June, when he was released on bail and placed under house arrest. By the beginning of this month, though, prosecutors conceded that charges should never have been brought and exonerated him "in the interests of justice". "It is abhorrent that this could have ended up with Ryan's death," said Ms Lambe. "Had Clive not intervened, we could have seriously ended up with Ryan being executed and he was never even near the scene of the crime." Ms Lane Fox said: "Since the reintroduction of the death penalty in the United States 115 people have been exonerated from death row. 115 times the jury got it wrong and 115 people could now be dead. Ryan's case epitomises why we must never give up the fight against the death penalty." Next month, the US supreme court will consider whether it is constitutional to execute people for crimes committed when they were 16 or 17 years old. The US is one of a few countries in the world that executes juveniles. Mr Matthews' American lawyer, Billy Sothern, said his exoneration was timely. "Ryan's case has the capacity to change the dialogue, showing that juveniles are incredibly vulnerable to being convicted and sentenced to death." His mother, Pauline, who travelled to London to give a talk on her son's case last year, said: "The heavens opened up when those British people came to Ryan's aid. When they got there, the whole scene in the courtroom was different. Ryan's lawyer had never talked to him or me about his defence, they wanted him to plead guilty but he said he wouldn't plead guilty to a crime he didn't commit. "The people in the UK don't believe in the death penalty and they were really concerned that Ryan was a child and that here in America we are killing our children." Mr Matthews told the Guardian: "It felt pretty good when I was released. I am still taking it all in. "I was just a juvenile when they sent me away and now I am a grown man. I am trying to pick up where I left off and trying to get back on track. I am going to come to London in October to see all the people who helped me and say thank you." (source: The Guardian) MISSISSIPPI: ACLU lawyers to tour prison----Delegation to inspect Parchman's living conditions The American Civil Liberties Union, which earlier won court-ordered changes on how Mississippi takes care of death row inmates, is sending its attorneys to the state penitentiary next week to inspect living conditions for nearly 1,000 prisoners. "In death row and throughout Unit 32, we're looking specifically at the issues that were addressed at the district court level," Gouri Bhat, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project, said Thursday. "... We hope to find that MDOC is planning improvements to the prison that will comply with the judge's order." The ACLU sued the Mississippi Department of Corrections last year over conditions on death row. The lawsuit claimed that excessive heat, human excrement, biting insects and the rants of psychotic prisoners had become a detrimental way of life for inmates on death row. U.S. Magistrate Jerry A. Davis, in a ruling last year, agreed that the conditions violated prisoners' Eighth Amendment rights and ordered the state to make improvements. In an appeal, prison officials claimed the conditions cited in the lawsuit were not the source of any inmate's illnesses or physical harm. But on June 28, a 3-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a requirement that MDOC improve mental health care for inmates. Bhat said improvements that were ordered included lighting, ventilation and "plumbing problems involving the infamous pingpong toilets where if you flush a toilet in one cell the waste matter comes up in the next cell." MDOC was also ordered to provide the inmates on death row with ice water and daily showers when the heat index tops 90 degrees, Bhat said. "Everything that the court ordered that we had to do, has been done," Leonard Vincent, general counsel for the MDOC, said. Said Vincent: "They've got new screens on the windows, they've got all new lighting put in, we're giving them ice 3 times a day, they put fans in everybody's cell on death row (and) the mental health people have been separated." ACLU staff has not toured the sprawling prison at Parchman since the Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling, Bhat said. Bhat told The Associated Press there are about 60 prisoners on death row, but the prison tour on Tuesday will assess the conditions of all of Unit 32. Vincent, however, said the court only ordered that changes be made on death row. (source: Associated Press) OHIO----inmate seeks to drop appeals Koliser: Speed up my death ----Martin Koliser's lawyers say he should be allowed to waive all appeals. Martin L. Koliser Jr. says he would rather die than languish in prison, and he's asking the Ohio Supreme Court to hasten his execution. Koliser, on Ohio's death row for killing Youngstown Patrolman Michael T. Hartzell in April 2003, is asking to waive an appeal to the high court of his conviction and death sentence. At his November 2003 sentencing in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, Koliser said he would go along with a Supreme Court appeal because it's mandatory under Ohio law, but that he does not want any further appeals if he is unsuccessful. Motion's assertion In a 40-page motion filed with the supreme court this week, attorneys John B. Juhasz and Mary Jane Stephens said an appeal to the high court isn't mandatory at all. They said the appeal is built into the law as a safeguard to prevent criminal defendants from wrongly suffering cruel or unusual punishment, but is optional. They said that as long as a defendant is proven mentally competent, he or she should be allowed to waive that safeguard and skip the appeal if so desired. Koliser agreed to a direct appeal to the Supreme Court only because he believed one is required, Juhasz said. He said the Supreme Court is required to review a death sentence only when the capital defendant chooses to appeal. "The record in this case is replete with indicia that [Koliser] is competent" [to waive the appeal] Juhasz wrote in court documents. He said the Supreme Court has held in the past that a criminal defendant may abandon any and all challenges to the death sentence at any stage after the sentence is imposed. All that's required is a demonstration that the defendant understands the choice between life and death and then makes a "knowing, voluntary and intelligent decision not to pursue further remedies." Another ruling But Juhasz said the high court also ruled in another case that a capital defendant must have a direct appeal of his death sentence. He said the court should use Koliser's case as a chance to clear up the conflicting opinions and affirm a capital defendant's right to waive appeals. "This court specifically has said that any challenge to a capital conviction, including appeals, may be waived," Juhasz wrote in the motion. "Nothing in the Constitution demands that a citizen must suffer through a protection, admittedly erected for his benefit, should he choose not to avail himself of it," Juhasz wrote. He said Koliser has demonstrated all along that he would rather be executed than serve an extended term in prison while his appeals are processed. Koliser would not allow his lawyers to present a defense on his behalf at trial and would not allow them to present mitigating evidence to dissuade jurors and Judge R. Scott Krichbaum from imposing the death penalty. Assistant Prosecutor Jay Macejko said he's unaware of any previous requests to waive a direct death-sentence appeal to the Supreme Court, but Juhasz said there have been at least 2. Who they were One of them was filed by Stephen Vrabel, a Struthers man who was executed last month for killing his girlfriend and daughter. The other was by a man from Richland County. The high court dismissed both requests. Macejko said the prosecutor's office agrees that Koliser should be allowed to waive his appeals, and that prosecutors will file a response to the brief filed by Juhasz and Stephens. (source: Youngstown Vindicator) ************************ Death row inmate says appeal denied because he is innocent A man on death row for the 1982 murder of a western Ohio postal worker believes his latest appeal was denied because of his innocence. "A guilty guy is no threat to the system," John G. Spirko Jr. said in a letter received by the News Journal on Friday. The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals last week declined to hear one of Spirko's last available appeals. "I have always believed in my heart that at some point I would win and the truth would come out. I am now sitting here in a state of shock. I doubt that there are any words known to mankind to express what I'm feeling at this point." On death row for the kidnapping and murder of Elgin Postmistress Betty Jane Mottinger, Spirko had requested the hearing to present evidence that an accused accomplice did not participate in the crime. Delaney Gibson faced a capital murder charge in the case while serving 15 years of a 20-to-life sentence for an unrelated Kentucky murder. But he was paroled in July 2001 and the Van Wert County Prosecutor's Office dropped the charge this year. Spirko's attorneys uncovered information contained in federal postal records that showed a bearded Gibson more than 500 miles away in North Carolina the night before the murder. "Surprised and disappointed," said Spirko's attorney Thomas Hill of Shaw Pittman in Washington, D.C., of the decision. Hill said he will petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. No execution date has been set. Spirko was convicted based on testimony from a witness who identified a clean-shaven Gibson; a truck driver who said he was 70 % sure Spirko was the man he saw outside the post office; and numerous statements Spirko made to investigators while trying to gain freedom for a girlfriend who was arrested for smuggling him hacksaw blades into the county jail. A 3-judge panel already denied Spirko's request for a hearing on the evidence or a new trial but Spirko's attorneys petitioned for a review from the full court. The remaining judges did not request a vote and the request was returned to the original 3-judge panel. "The panel has further reviewed the petition for rehearing and concludes that the issues raised in the petition were fully considered ... the petition is denied," reads the entry order in part. "You have a case like this where innocence is a large factor, you are a threat to the system," Spirko wrote. "The powers that be are able to keep the big lie going and that is so very sad. Sometime in the future, the doors will open for the other innocent men on Ohio's death row. I won't be around to see it, but that will come; the powers that be surely can't suppress the truth for much longer." (source: The Mansfield News Journal) ILLINOIS: Prosecutors still seek death penalty for man accused of raping, killing toddler Kane County prosecutors Friday rejected a bid to set a trial date for the county's longest ongoing murder case when they refused to drop plans to send a man accused of killing a child to the death chamber. That means Cayce Williams, who has languished in jail since 1997, must await the results of a death penalty review to escape possible lethal injection if convicted of raping and slaying a 20-month-old girl. "We're not waiving death because it's a death penalty case," Kane County Assistant State's Attorney Jody Gleason said after a hearing Friday. Williams' attorney, Kane County Public Defender David Kliment, said the case is ready for trial if prosecutors do not seek a death sentence for the 31-year-old Elgin man. The case has stalled in part because it has shuffled through at least four attorneys. Each lawyer has ordered a battery of tests to determine if Williams is mentally fit for trial and to convince a jury he does not deserve to die. "We basically are starting from scratch," said Kliment. "And I don't think there's anything more important in a death penalty case than what the jury could hear in mitigation." The pending review is important because the same jury that could convict Williams also would hear testimony soon after the trial to decide he is to be sentenced to death. Kliment, whose office initially represented Williams, was assigned to the case in December. One of Williams' private attorneys dropped out due to a medical condition; the other dropped out over repeated clashes with Williams' father. The case is also on its 2nd judge. Last year, Kane County Judge Donald Hudson withdrew and assigned Williams to Judge Timothy Sheldon's courtroom. Williams was arrested in February 1997 after he brought the lifeless body of Quortney Kley, his girlfriend's daughter, to Provena St. Joseph Hospital in Elgin. During questioning, police said, Williams acknowledged squeezing the child's head in his hands until she stopped breathing while he sexually assaulted her. The next hearing in Williams' case is scheduled for Oct. 28 to update the status of the review. (source: Daily Herald)
