Sept. 17 MISSISSIPPI: Attorney could have done more to move trial out of Newton County, prisoner claims Death row inmate Rodney Gray told the Mississippi Supreme Court his attorney could have done a better job. Gray also said he deserved a chance to argue that issue in a petition for a new trial. The Supreme Court said Thursday that Gray failed to raise any issue on which he might succeed in winning a new trial. Gray had asked the Supreme Court to allow him to seek a post-conviction appeal, a legal maneuver in which an inmate claims he has new evidence that could overturn a conviction. Besides the ineffective-defense issue, the Supreme Court also rejected Gray's arguments that he was mentally retarded. Gray was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder and assault of Grace Blackwell, 79, of Louin. The woman's mangled body was found Aug. 15, 1994, at the end of a Newton County bridge. According to the court record, Gray, in a jailhouse confession, told 2 cellmates that he kidnapped and raped Blackwell, shot her in the head with a shotgun, tossed her from a car and ran over her with the vehicle. An autopsy showed the woman had died from a shotgun wound in the head. Blackwell was last seen alive after cashing a $1,200 check at her bank in Louin. The teller testified at Gray's trial that she heard the woman say over the speaker, "I'm hurrying. I'm hurrying." The teller said clothes hanging in the car prevented her from seeing whether anyone else was in the car. Gray claimed his attorney, among other things, should have done more to get his trial moved out of Newton County and should have fought use of his jailhouse confession by prosecutors. Presiding Justice Kay Cobb, writing for the court, said Gray was given a full hearing on moving the trial from Newton County and a change of venue was denied. Cobb said Gray offered no new evidence on how the results of his trial would have been different if held elsewhere. On the issue of mental retardation, Cobb said the court record showed Gray was tested and not found to be mentally retarded. (source: Associated Press) ILLINOIS: Report: Sheahan played dumb----His 'ignorance' called intentional Issuing a damning assessment of one of Cook County's most powerful politicians, a special grand jury that investigated the mass beating of jail inmates by guards concluded Sheriff Michael Sheahan "engaged in a not-too-skillful exercise of deliberate ignorance even as his people failed miserably in their responsibilities." Addressing a brutal episode in 1999 in which an elite squad of guards with unmuzzled dogs systematically punched and stomped dozens of inmates, the grand jury concluded that high-ranking sheriff's officials--though not Sheahan himself--covered up the beating and subsequent investigation. "He made sure he knew little-to-nothing so that he would be unable to deal with specific issues that arose," the grand jury said in a 150-page report released Thursday. Chief Criminal Court Judge Paul Biebel convened the grand jury after the February 2003 disclosure by the Tribune of the mass jail beating and claims by a sheriff's internal investigator that his probe was scuttled. The grand jury and former Cook County Circuit Judge Thomas Hett, the grand jury's investigator, said the coverup may have reached as high as James Ryan, the sheriff's chief of operations and a relative of Sheahan's. Ryan, a candidate for Cook County judge in the November elections, was described in the grand jury report as "not credible," while Hett said that Ryan's responses to grand jurors' questions were, if true, "at best, coy." The report was forwarded to county prosecutors and the U.S. attorney's office to investigate "what appears to be blatant obstruction of justice." Among the criminal charges the grand jury said there was evidence to sustain: obstruction of justice, official misconduct, conspiracy and perjury. The grand jury and Hett found that the elite group of guards that administered the beatings, known as the Special Operations Response Team, or SORT, were "a force unto themselves" among the guards. Moments after the grand jury's report was made public, Sheahan called a news conference to answer the allegations, saying he has long held that the 1999 beating was "not handled properly" by jail guards and the investigators who reviewed the incident. But, he said, "no credible evidence that the investigation was covered up" exists. "There are things people said happened that didn't happen," he said. Ryan said in a statement that he had not engaged in any wrongdoing, and he accused the grand jury and Hett of treating him unfairly during the investigation. The Tribune investigation disclosed that as many as 40 special operations team members raided a tier at the jail's maximum-security Division IX, forced 49 inmates out of their cells, and then systematically beat and stomped them as the squad's leader, Richard Remus, urged them on. A road map for the grand jury According to the inmates and internal reports, the jail guards terrorized inmates with wooden batons and unmuzzled dogs, and some inmates alleged they were denied medical treatment after they were punched and kicked. Charles Holman, a sheriff's internal affairs officer, investigated the incident and concluded it had occurred as described by the inmates. But his investigation, which the grand jury and Hett lauded, was intentionally scuttled, and he later was suspended for three days for leaking a copy of his report. One grand juror said in an interview that Holman's internal affairs report became a road map for the panel, as his documents helped lead to their findings. "He is an unsung hero in this thing," said Herbert Comess, the juror. On the other hand, the grand jury said that although Sheahan cooperated by providing thousands of documents, when he was asked to testify, "the cooperation ceased." The sheriff, according to the grand jury, balked at being sworn under oath and refused to testify if he was read his rights. Sheahan also was said to be reluctant to allow his spokeswoman, Sally Daly, to testify at the grand jury. Only after he sought a court order preventing his testimony and was refused did Sheahan and Daly testify, the report said. The grand jury also examined an incident in 2000 in which inmates said guards forced them into a pump room at the jail and beat them while they were handcuffed and shackled. Two guards have provided testimony corroborating the inmates' account. However, the grand jury concluded that the inmates planned and provoked the incident and that no excessive force was applied. "The grand jury, looking at all of this, has come to the conclusion that the inmates started the fight," Hett said in an interview Thursday with the Tribune. In focusing on the 1999 incident, the grand jury was particularly critical of Richard Remus. A plumber by trade and a man the grand jury described as "clout heavy," Remus was the leader of the special operations squad and a jail superintendent. The grand jury, however, said he never attended the sheriff's training academy and his personnel file contained no experience in corrections. Instead, Remus obtained his law enforcement certification after Sheahan sent a letter to state officials asking that training requirements be waived, saying Remus' military service was sufficient. But Remus' personnel file, "to the minds of the jurors, discloses no military experience that should substitute for specific training for a corrections officer, or a superintendent no less." The grand jury said both Remus and Ryan are "unqualified to participate in, supervise, and direct operations of the Department of Corrections," and their employment by Sheahan "raises the specter of cronyism ... ." Remus, who has maintained he did not engage in wrongdoing, went before the grand jury but asserted his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination when asked about the beatings. Critics of the jail and Sheahan lauded the grand jury report. Cello Pettiford, 45, the inmate whose allegations touched off the investigation, said Thursday he was "ecstatic" over the grand jury report, though he still believes that sheriff's officials needed to be held accountable. "Now they should be pursuing criminal charges for what happened." Locke Bowman of the MacArthur Justice Center, which represents Pettiford, said: "In my judgment, Sheriff Sheahan needs to desist from scapegoating and alibi-making and focus in on how he's going to respond to these very serious charges." Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley (D-Chicago), a leading critic on the County Board, said it was time for the board "to decide if it will finally exercise its oversight authority and rein in a free-spending mismanaged office." After the beating in 1999, Holman was assigned to probe inmate claims of excessive force and, he told the grand jury, within weeks concluded that the actions of Remus and other special operations members appeared to be criminal. Holman said he informed his supervisor, Henry Barsch, the chief internal affairs investigator, and was told that Ryan had advised that his findings be put into a preliminary report and forwarded to the sheriff's inspector general, Joseph Shaughnessy. According to the grand jury report, Shaughnessy produced for Brian Flaherty, then Sheahan's chief legal officer and now a judge, and Ryan, then the chief of operations for Sheahan, a file that purported to be the case file. It contained a memo from Barsch to Shaughnessy asserting that Ryan had ordered the investigation stopped. Ryan, in his appearance before the grand jury, testified that he had never seen the memo. The grand jury also examined a second memo in which Barsch told Shaughnessy that Ryan ordered the investigation scuttled. Ryan, in his testimony, initially denied that he "ordered either the transfer or the halting of the investigation," the grand jury report said. Attempts to block report "When pressed on this subject, he conceded that he may have requested that the investigation be transferred to the IG's office but that he had no recollection of doing so nor did he recall having any conversations with anyone in the sheriff's office about the investigation," the grand jury report said. The grand jury accused Ryan of engaging in an "exercise in semantics." After that, no action was taken until May 2001, the grand jury report said. At that time, Barsch, who by then had been promoted to deputy to Shaughnessy, sent the investigation back to Holman and told him to go back to work on it, the grand jury report said. By then, though, the statute of limitations on criminal charges had expired. Holman told the grand jury that after reviewing the file, he determined that it had never been sent to the inspector general. Still, Holman said he completed his investigation in September 2002, and it was forwarded to the inspector general. His report documented serious violations by Remus and special operations members, including beating of prisoners, filing false reports and failing to turn in contraband. However, the grand jury report said, no action was taken until February 2003, when the Tribune began inquiring about the investigation. As a result of the Tribune inquiries, Sheahan ordered a supplemental report prepared. That report, the grand jury said, "emasculated" Holman's report, reducing or vacating all of the serious charges. Findings of beatings of inmates were eliminated, and filings of false reports were eliminated. The supplemental report, which called for Remus' 29-day suspension and lesser suspensions for three other officers, was signed by Shaughnessy, John Maul, then acting executive director of the jail, and Undersheriff Zelda Whittler on Feb. 26, 2003. Shortly after, Remus resigned. The Tribune exposed the 1999 incident on Feb. 27 and reported days later that Holman had been accused of leaking his report and was suspended. Specifically, the grand jury report says there was a concerted effort to derail the internal affairs investigation from the beginning, when special operations officers filed false reports. Shortly after, photographs that Holman took of Bert Berrios, one of the injured inmates, mysteriously disappeared from the files "with no one particularly concerned about discovering how or why," the grand jury report said. The evidence "strongly points" to Barsch as being responsible for the disappearance of photographs, the grand jury report said. Shaughnessy "clearly was involved in stopping the investigation," the grand jury report said. Shaughnessy asserted his 5th Amendment right not to testify. And, the report said, "Ryan's role should be scrutinized more closely." The grand jury noted that the supplemental report failed to address the "conspicuous and unaccounted two-year delay" in the internal investigation. In written materials made available by the sheriff's office, Sheahan contends the 1999 incident started as a contraband sweep, and that special operations officers only "used force" to extract several inmates from their cells. It was then a "miscommunication" that allowed the investigation to be dormant for 2 years, the office said, and when the issue was discovered, Holman was ordered to continue. Sheahan contends that in a deposition in the Pettiford civil case on Sept. 1, Holman answered "No" when asked whether anyone ever indicated it was the intent of the sheriff's office to stall the investigation. Asked about the grand jury's statement that the electorate would have to make a final comment on Sheahan, the sheriff, who is serving a fourth term, said: "The electorate has returned me 4 times. People know me as an honest, hard-working individual." - - - Excerpts "The extraordinary proof required for a finding sustaining a claim of excessive force provided a convenient way to ignore the truth and protect unfit individuals ... Fairer and more objective criteria must be crafted so true brutality will not be swept under the rug ..." "SORT had the authority to search the cells and detainees without a reason, but the fact that they lied, leads to only one reasonable inference: SORT went to the tiers for an improper reason, i.e., to beat detainees, and were trying to cover their tracks." "For some still-unexplained reason, no one in the sheriff's office felt it necessary to confront Shaughnessy or Barsch and get to the bottom of the delay." Sheahan's media spokeswoman, Sally Daly, told the grand jury that when she questioned Shaughnessy about the two-year delay, he cited "miscommunication" between the internal affairs and inspector general offices. Asked in the grand jury: "So whatever (Shaughnessy) told you, you just parroted?" Daly replied, "Yes. That's my job. I'm not there to conduct the investigation." "One thing is clear, the investigation, large in magnitude and high in profile, sat dormant for almost two years until there was no realistic chance of bringing criminal charges." "Right after SORT exited following the evening incursion, (guard) Mary Johnson observed a urinesoaked Cello Pettiford trembling with seizure-like symptoms. Wing Officer Eric Dublin observed Ernest Blossom with a pronounced limp ... Investigator observed Bert Berrios with black eyes and a neck burn still visible a week after ..." "Mr. Ryan interferes in the operation of the jail, interferes in promotions and gives orders or countermands orders that are inimical to the proper operation of the jail. It has been said Mr. Ryan doesn't listen, is belligerent and has no expertise in corrections." "The bottom line is that all the perpetrators got an administrative pass for the blatant halting of the investigation." "The SORT complaints all have a familiar ring. They speak of mass beatings where inmates are forced to stand, face against a wall, for an extended period of time, often naked, where they would be subjected to both verbal and physical abuse; any sign of insubordination was usually met with physical punishment." (source: Chicago Tribune) ******************** The anatomy of an assault A blunt report by a special grand jury looking into the alleged beatings of dozens of inmates at Cook County Jail has concluded that jail guards engaged "in gross, if not criminal, misconduct" by using batons and unmuzzled dogs to attack inmates on lockdown. Worse, the grand jury found "a great deal of evidence" that some jail officials lied about the incident and covered it up long enough to let the statute of limitations on criminal charges expire. The grand jury calls on prosecutors to pursue this case and bring charges. This is a moment of decision for Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan. He can go on as he has, denying problems at the jail, fixing on his critics as enemies. Or he can recognize that these problems and his handling of them are damaging his reputation. He can cooperate with the numerous recommendations made by this grand jury and cooperate with any criminal investigation. Or he can drown in his own mess. It's his decision. When the Tribune exposed the beating cases in 2003, based on documents from the sheriff's internal affairs division and interviews with prisoners and sheriff sources, Sheahan did not call for an investigation. He didn't bother to read the internal reports. He said through a spokeswoman that his inspector general "found that there is no evidence to sustain or corroborate allegations of excessive force," and then slapped 7 officers on the wrist. Before the grand jury report was released, Sheahan lobbed unsubstantiated charges that former Cook County Circuit Judge Thomas Hett, the jury's lead investigator, has mob connections and that the grand jury was an effort by organized crime to weaken his office. The grand jury, by the way, was created by Criminal Court Chief Judge Paul Biebel. The grand jury appears to have done its work impartially. It investigated 2 allegations of abuse, one in 1999 and one in 2000. It dismissed the 2000 incident, finding evidence that inmates set up a confrontation in an attempt to cash in by going to court to claim abuse. But it found the allegations of unprovoked and excessive force in 1999 were credible. The grand jury's report found a number of problems in the sheriff's office that need to be addressed. Record-keeping was characterized as "abominable," particularly when it comes to grievances against officers. An "extraordinary" level of proof is required to sustain a claim of excessive force against a sheriff's deputy, providing "a convenient way to ignore the truth and protect unfit individuals." Millions of dollars have been paid out since 1998 to settle brutality claims, "a reflection of poor training, poor administration, and poor handling of investigations of excessive force claims." The grand jury recommends ways to reform the hiring, promotion, training and discipline of sheriff's employees. The sheriff must cooperate with those efforts. That cooperation, though, appears uncertain. The sheriff, in his response on Thursday, seemed to take the report as vindication and emphatically denied that there could have been a cover-up. That seems to affirm the last words of the grand jury's report, that "some would say [the sheriff's conduct] was and still is, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil." Mr. Sheahan, the people undermining your office and your reputation weren't on that grand jury. They're right under your nose. (source: Editorial, Chicago Tribune) *********************** Murder suspect could get death sentence once again Edward Tenney won a right to a new murder trial, but his luck ran out there. A Kane County judge declared Thursday that the trial will carry with it the chance of the death penalty. The retrial of Tenney, 44, formerly of Aurora, in the 1993 murder of Virginia Johannessen of Aurora is scheduled to start Feb. 28. He was sentenced to death in Kane County once already, but the conviction was overturned on appeal in 2002. Illinois Supreme Court justices said jurors should have been allowed to hear another man was tried for the murder. Tenney's defense attorney, Herb Hill of Aurora, has been arguing that Tenney no longer qualifies for the death penalty under recent sweeping death penalty reform. Jody Gleason, chief of the county's criminal prosecution division, said those changes don't come into play until after the trial when possible sentences are under consideration. A judge agreed. Hill can try arguing Tenney's immunity from the death penalty after the trial, Gleason said, but he'll lose then, too. Hill has argued that Tenney's IQ of less than 70 points makes him ineligible for death, but Gleason said no tests have proven that so far. Just as unsupported, she said, is Hill's claim that Tenney's case is exempt from the death penalty under the new law that more than one witness must exist to put someone on death row. In the original trial the sole witness against Tenney was his cousin. Gleason said the single witness won't matter because prosecutors have plenty of evidence to back up that testimony. And prosecutors are ready to prove that after 2 years. "We're just very happy to get a trial date," she said. (source: Daily Herald) COLORADO: Plea will allow killer to avoid execution Admitted serial killer Richard White pleaded guilty to 2 more murders Thursday in a plea bargain that will spare him from the death penalty. White, who claims to have killed 5 prostitutes, pleaded guilty in Denver District Court to 1st-degree murder of 2 women and agreed to help find the bodies of 3 other women he says he killed. He also pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting 3 women who escaped before he could make good on his threats to kill them. Last week he pleaded guilty in Arapahoe County to the 1st-degree murder of his friend, Jason Reichardt. "The result of this plea is that Richard White will spend the rest of his life in prison without parole," said Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter. If he hadn't pleaded guilty, Ritter intended to seek the death penalty, but said the penalty could have been tough to obtain even with evidence of at least 3 homicides. White's attorneys outlined mitigation they intended to present, including a childhood riddled with extreme sexual and psychological abuse, Ritter said. "The mitigation was significant and such that we felt it was appropriate to go forward with this plea agreement," Ritter said. Similar evidence has successfully deflected the death penalty in other cases, Ritter said. White told police about the other murders after he was arrested for Reichardt's murder in September 2003. He drew a map, directing police to the bodies of Annaletia Maria Gonzales, 27, and Victoria Turpin, 34, whose bodies were buried in the yard of a Park Hill home at 2885 Albion St., where White once lived. White claims to have killed 3 other women - 2 in La Junta and one in Mesita - and has agreed to help police find their bodies as a condition of his plea. He previously drew police a map of where he said the other bodies were buried, but police were unable to find anything. White will be formally sentenced Nov. 29. (source: Rocky Mountain News) TEXAS: Plano man gets life for murder----With plea agreement in roommate's strangulation, he avoids death penalty A Plano man pleaded guilty Thursday to strangling his roommate and setting his corpse ablaze, receiving an automatic life sentence in prison. The plea agreement means Michael Scott Rush, 31, will not face the possibility of a death-penalty trial. He confessed to police and in jailhouse interviews about the robbery and brutal killing of 22-year-old Randall Campbell in May. Prosecutor Tom D'Amore said no decision had been made about whether to seek the death penalty in Mr. Rush's case, but it had not been ruled out when Mr. Campbell indicated that he'd plead guilty and take a life sentence. Teri Dyan Boyer, 17, and Michael Edwin Lewis, 20, also have been charged with capital murder in Mr. Campbell's death. Their trials have not been scheduled. After his arrest, Mr. Rush said in an interview from jail that he had killed Mr. Campbell because he was "eyeballing my girlfriend." Mr. Rush. a former fast-food restaurant manager, said he initiated the attack on Mr. Campbell, a 22-year-old plumber's assistant, but he said it was Mr. Lewis who strangled the man with an electrical cord. Before the attack, Mr. Campbell was forced to sign over two blank checks to his attackers in exchange for a promise that he would not be killed, according to police reports. The three carried Mr. Campbell's body to a bridge near Rowlett Creek in Garland, doused it with gasoline and set it on fire, authorities said.By law, Mr. Rush must serve at least 40 years in prison before he's eligible for parole. (source: Dallas Morning News)
