Sept. 18 TEXAS: State To Seek Death For 2 Fatal Beatings The state filed motions of intent to seek the death penalty Friday against 2 young capital murder defendants who are charged with separate beating deaths that occurred within a week. Brian Daniel Alana, 20, and Desmund Lamar Coleman, 22, await capital murder trials in Judge Jack Skeen Jr.'s 241st District Court for the December slayings. Alana, along with his best friend and co-defendant Trey Neil Morris, 19, is charged with the bludgeoning Dec. 5 death of 40-year-old Edward "Eddie" Erwin Jr. Alana allegedly beat Erwin with a crowbar and put him in the back seat of his car in front of several witnesses. Erwin's partially clothed body was found lying beside a small private pond in a remote thicket west of County Road 3178 and U.S. Highway 271 - an area familiar to Alana, who lived nearby. Morris' mother, Sandra Wood-bury, testified for the defense during a bond-reduction hearing in June. She said she overheard Morris saying Alana was in an altercation with Erwin, struck him on the head a few times with a crowbar, and put his body in the back seat of the man's car. Morris said he thought Erwin was still alive as Alana drove Erwin away and he did not know what he did with the body. Morris' attorney, Jeff Haas, said during the hearing that a witness testified during grand jury proceedings that Alana and Erwin got into a fight after Erwin stole something from Alana's father. After he was placed in the car, Erwin attempted to crawl out but was kicked in the head by Morris. Alana drove off by himself with Erwin while the others attempted to clean up. Erwin was the same person missing from what was initially reported to Tyler police as a hit-and-run accident. Alana's capital murder trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 29, with jury selection starting Oct. 21. 'RANDOM' BEATING AND ROBBERY Coleman was arrested Dec. 11 for the capital murder of Celerino Sanchez, 45, hours after the victim's body was found lying off Bellwood Road around 9 a.m. by Tyler patrol officer Kyle Rhodes. Tyler police said they got a break in the random beating and robbery case after publicizing a description of the victim's 1998 Chevrolet pickup that was taken after his death. At about 7:40 p.m., Precinct 1 Deputy Constable Danny Brasher noticed a truck with broken taillights. Recalling the license plate and description matched that of the deceased man's truck, Brasher radioed his location to local authorities and attempted a traffic stop. "They didn't immediately stop," Brasher said. "We had a pretty good tour through town - at one point, I thought they were going to bail out and run, but they didn't." Aided by Tyler police, a parade of officers followed the pickup down Englewood and Crescent Drive and through the Texas College area, ultimately stopping at Carter Boulevard and West 30th Street. Authorities took the passenger and driver in for questioning before charging Coleman with capital murder. They determined the second man was not involved in the murder. Authorities located a knife and brick in the stolen truck - items they said were used to overpower and later kill Sanchez, who appeared to have been chosen at random. Investigators determined the body had been dumped several days earlier. After finding the man's wallet lying nearby, authorities made contact with the man's family, who reported him missing two days before. He was last seen four days before his body was found, leaving his job at Hertz Rent-A-Car, based at Tyler Pounds Regional Airport, police said. Authorities said Sanchez sustained severe head trauma in the beating. (source: Tyler Morning Telegraph) ************************** 1st Stage of Jury Selection Begins in Capital Murder Trial A capital murder trial in Polk County is getting closer. Jurors are now being screened for that trial. 32 year old Donnie Roberts is accused of killing his girlfriend last October in her Lake Livingston home. Investigators say Roberts confessed to shooting 44-year-old Vickie Bowen during an argument. Roberts is in the Polk County jail charged with capital murder. He could get the death penalty. It might take a couple of weeks to pick a jury for this trial. (source: KTRE News) ******************** Plea deal reached in murder case Facing a possible death sentence, a 19-year-old man awaiting trial for capital murder in the 2003 slaying of a fast-food restaurant manager accepted a plea agreement Friday in exchange for life in prison. Carl Brandon Moore pleaded guilty before 226th District Judge Sid Harle in the fatal shooting of Juan Armando Neri, 36. Neri was killed during a robbery at Church's Chicken, 2502 Palo Alto Road, on July 10, 2003. Also in exchange for his plea, the state agreed to drop two aggravated robbery charges Moore was facing in separate incidents that same year. Moore must serve 40 years in prison before he can be considered for parole, attorneys for both sides said. His trial had been set for Oct. 1. (source: San Antonio Express-News) ************************** Texas prison life goes on display Cancer had ravaged Hugh Kennedy's jaw by the time author Patrick McConal found him living alone near Whitney. Kennedy, a former Texas convict during the tumultuous Depression era, could speak, but his words tumbled out half-formed and nearly indistinguishable. McConal was working on a book about the 1934 Texas Death House Escape, and he hoped to get first-hand information from Kennedy. That seemed unlikely until Kennedy tossed a sack full of prison photos across the table at McConal. "I guess I won't be needing these," he said haltingly. "I'm dying of cancer." The photographs were a shock. Not in their composition -- they showed a stark and tedious daily prison life -- but in the fact that they existed at all. No prisoner would ever be allowed to keep a camera, prison officials say. To have the film smuggled out and prints slipped back in seems unimaginable. Yet the photos were there, loosely gathered in a Sears paper bag. With the help of the pictures, and the patience to carefully listen to Kennedy's muffled stories, McConal was able to finish his research and publish his book. He then honored Kennedy's request to keep the photos from public view until after his death. They remained in a safe for more than 4 years. Kennedy died 2 months ago. The photos are now in the hands of the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville. Jim Willett, a retired senior warden with the Texas prison system and now director of the museum, remembered the day McConal called to tell him about the photos. "Usually, he just e-mailed me," Willett said. "But this time, he wanted me to call. After we talked, I hung up and told my wife, 'I don't think those photos could be real.' I was shocked." Willett said the museum is putting together an exhibit on Kennedy and his photos. It should be ready by the 1st of the year. Kennedy was not a notorious Texas gangster. His longest sentence in the state pen came from cattle rustling. But he was in several key places during his stay with the state. He witnessed the notorious escape from the Eastham Farm Unit in January 1934. The escape was orchestrated by Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Months later, Kennedy was transferred to the Walls Unit in Huntsville. In July of the same year, the infamous Death House Escape took place. Again, Kennedy watched the events unfold. Kennedy's photos don't reflect either of these dangerous escapes in which guards and convicts were killed. But his snapshots do tell of daily life in a prison system that was once called "the most damnable place on Earth." The period was from 1934 to 1944, and in Texas it was a time of extreme brutality behind prison walls. Stories abound concerning those times. There are tales of prisoners, so tired, so bone weary from working in the cane fields and cotton rows, that they would chop their own toes off with a sharpened hoe. They would take cane knives and slit their heels, anything that would keep them from returning to the work camps. Food was scant and putrid. Punishment was quick and brutal. Guards were indiscriminate with their use of force. Several sources interviewed in McConal's book described times when guards would gun down prisoners just to avoid boredom. It was considered sport. Somehow, throughout all the depravity and corruption, Kennedy managed to survive. For 10 years, in 3 prison units, he took his photos and kept his personal record. "Historically, these photos are significant," Willett said. "There are shots of one unit that show a picket, or guard house, in the background and we have people who have worked here for years and didn't know they even existed." (source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram -- McConal's book, published by Eakin Press, is Over The Wall: The Men Behind The 1934 Death House Escape) OHIO: Death-penalty series includes inmate interviews When it comes to killing people - legally - Ohio aint no Texas. But at times it has seemed that way. Thats really where we started when we began working on a story about the death penalty in Ohio. After all, before Wilford Berrys execution in 1999, the death penalty hadnt been used in this state since 1963. Since 1999, however, there have been 14 executions. And if all goes well - or badly, de-pending on your point of view - therell be another on Oct. 13. This year alone, Ohio has executed 6 inmates. The frequency made me think of Texas. What was going on? Why so many executions now? Were we trying to dethrone Texas as the champion killer of inmates? Suddenly, the spotlight was firmly fixed on inmates who were nearing the end of their appeals. This includes several from this region. I wondered what they thought. On Sunday, The Lima News brings you Part 1 of a 2-part series that examines the death penalty in Ohio. It tells you why there are so many executions this year, and it offers reasons why we wont catch Texas in the numbers department. An example: Texas has had double our number of executions this year. Even more striking, Texas executed 24 inmates last year and 33 in 2002; we executed in each of the previous 2 years. The death-penalty series also takes a look at an appeals process that runs to 19 years on av-erage. This is the thing that makes me the craziest. If youre going to have a death penalty, 19 years seems a ridiculous amount of time for appeals. On the other hand, people make mistakes, even juries and judges. What do we do if we execute someone by mistake? Say "oops" when we discover it 5 years later? This is something I worry about. One of our local death-row inmates - John Spirko, of Van Wert County - has been on death row more than 20 years. He is the closest to an execution date. While Spirko declined to be interviewed, the series also includes interviews with three other death-row inmates, including Kenneth Richey, of Putnam County, whos been on death row since 1987. Reporter Greg Sowinski also traveled to Mansfield Correctional Institution - where death-row inmates are housed - to interview Jeronique Cunningham and Cleveland Jackson. The half brothers were convicted in Allen County and have been on death row since 2002. The inmates were asked about appeals, about waiving appeals, about the prospect of being executed, and about how they spend their days. Some of their answers might make you mad. One comment was just plain depressing. What a waste. These are people who, if they hadnt gone astray, might have led productive lives, allowing their victims to do the same. Youll find this 2-day series in The Lima News on Sunday and Monday. It told me what I wanted to know about death-row inmates and the penalty they face. I hope you will find the series just as informative. (source: Dianne Pacetti, Lima News) ******************** Murder victim's mother wants killer executed Doreen Kyle plans to tell the Ohio Parole Board about the pain she has lived with for the past 10 years over her son's senseless death, in hopes that his killer will be executed. "This stirs it all up, but I am totally prepared to say what a fine son our son was and we don't want any more appeals," she said. The parole board will conduct a clemency hearing Tuesday for Adremy Dennis, 28, of Akron. He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Oct. 13 for the murder of Kyle's son, Kurt. The board will give a recommendation to Gov. Bob Taft, who can reduce Dennis' sentence or allow the execution to proceed. Kurt Kyle, 29, a stock car racer, was hosting a party at his Akron home June 4, 1994, to celebrate a win at Barberton Speedway. As he walked a guest to his car early on June 5, Dennis, then 18, and Leroy Anderson, then 17, approached them. Dennis had a sawed-off shotgun, and Anderson had a .25-caliber handgun. They asked Kyle for money, and when he said he had left his wallet in the house, Dennis shot him in the back of the head. A jury convicted Dennis of ag gravated murder in December 1994. Dennis told the jury during the miti gation hearing, when it would decide whether to recommend a death sentence, that he was intoxicated and had smoked marijuana when he killed Kyle. He said the gun had fired accidentally. Others testified that he came from a dysfunctional family and was a troubled youth. Summit County Common Pleas Judge Mary Spicer followed the jury's recommendation that she impose the death sentence. Anderson, 27, pleaded guilty to several counts, including aggravated murder. He is serving a life sentence. Dennis has exhausted all state and federal appeals. He would be the 7th man executed this year and the 15th since the state resumed implementing the death penalty in 1999. Taft has stopped only 1 execution. He reduced the sentence of Jerome Campbell to life in prison in 2003 because of evidence that had been kept out of his trial. MO< The Ohio public defender's office in June filed a civil rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court on behalf of Dennis and fellow death row inmate Richard Cooey of Akron, challenging the constitutionality of the state's lethal injection protocol. It said the use of a paralyzing drug violates the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. The lawyers are seeking a court ruling to delay Dennis' execution while the lawsuit proceeds. According to legal documents, they are not trying to stop his execution but want the method to comply with his constitutional protections. Kyle, of Columbiana, said the state needs to proceed with the execution. "It has been over 10 years," she said. She said that her son had no enemies and that while Dennis had been afforded opportunities to better himself when he was young, her son had struggled for everything and had been succeeding. Kurt Kyle, who had a graphic arts degree from Youngstown State University, was planning to move to Hudson to be closer to his job, his mother said. In addition to his racing career, he painted, she said. She said she, her husband, Howard, and son Craig will be at the hearing. (source: Plain Dealer) ILLINOIS: Cop killer's apology not enough At first, convicted cop killer Aloysius Oliver didn't want to say anything. He refused to try to sway the judge deciding whether he should die for shooting Chicago policeman Eric Lee in a South Side alley 3 years ago. Then Oliver changed his mind, offering a short, almost offhand apology Friday: "I'm sorry things had to happen the way they did." It didn't impress Lee's family and it didn't impress Cook County Judge John Moran, who nevertheless sentenced Oliver, 29, to life in prison without any chance of parole. "These things didn't have to happen," said Moran, with an uncharacteristic sneer. "You made those choices, and you have to suffer the consequences." Moran, echoing a familiar courtroom refrain, said nothing he could do would bring back the heroic Lee, 37, who died doing what he was supposed to do -- protecting Chicago's citizens. Oliver, appearing subdued but his face otherwise blank, was quickly led out of the courtroom by sheriff's deputies. Upon hearing the sentence, his mother, Lillian Oliver, wept. She left the courtroom and refused to talk to reporters. Outside the courtroom, Lee's widow, Shawn Lee, said she was disappointed Oliver didn't get the death penalty, but was glad the case is over. She found Oliver's apology as unconvincing as his defense attorneys' claim that he has found God and is searching for a way to atone for his sins. "If he were a Christian man or a man of God, he wouldn't have had any problem apologizing," Lee said. "I think it's all spiel." In January, a jury convicted Oliver of first-degree murder, among other charges. Prosecutors said Oliver killed Lee in a Chicago alley Aug. 19, 2001, after police interrupted the beating of a homeless man near Oliver's home. Oliver was one of the men beating the transient. His defense team argued at trial that Oliver fired at Lee in self- defense, not realizing he was a police officer. But prosecutors said that while Lee and 2 fellow officers were in plainclothes, they also wore visible silver police stars, guns in holsters, bulletproof vests and that they shouted "Police!" On Friday, prosecutors portrayed Oliver as someone whose answer to all problems was swift, unrestrained violence. Prosecutors reminded Moran that at one time Oliver even punched his pregnant girlfriend, believing she had cheated on him. The defense spoke of a man eagerly -- though sometimes awkwardly -- searching for God. "He's almost become an apostle, . . . teaching others not to do as I did," said defense attorney Marijane Placek. The defense brought in as a witness a pastor, who said he had been writing to Oliver in jail and had seen remarkable changes. "Do you find it odd that the defendant didn't reach out to you until after he murdered a police officer?" asked Cook County assistant state's attorney Jim McKay. "An individual doesn't reach out for salvation until he needs it," the pastor, George Garner, replied. After Friday's sentencing, Placek explained her client's initial reluctance to speak this way: "Sometimes people are so ashamed they can't beg for their own life." (source: Chicago Sun-Times) ******************** Cop killer gets life in prison, no parole Convicted cop killer Aloysius Oliver avoided the death penalty, but a judge Friday sentenced him to life in prison with no chance of parole. "The sad truth is that whatever's done here today will not bring him back," Cook County Circuit Judge John Moran said, referring to slain Chicago police Officer Eric D. Lee, 37. "If it could, the decision would be an easy one." Oliver, 28, was convicted in January of 1st-degree murder for shooting Lee twice in the head after the plainclothes officer ran up with 2 partners to stop Oliver from beating a transient in the alley behind his Englewood home. Lee's partners testified Oliver said, "[expletive] the police" before pulling a handgun from his jacket on Aug. 19, 2001. The verdict came at the end of a daylong sentencing hearing in which prosecutors argued that Oliver had earned a place on death row through a long history of crime and violence, while defense attorneys insisted he could redeem himself in prison. "Chicago police officers are a special breed. All give some, some give all," Assistant State's Atty. David O'Connor said in his closing remarks. "He deserves death, because Eric Lee deserved life." In her opening statement, Assistant Public Defender Marijane Placek asked the judge not to "compound this tragedy by uselessly taking the life of Aloysius Oliver." Oliver has spent the last 3 years in a correspondence course for Yahweh, a religion that combines Christianity and Judaism, Placek said. He has "rehabilitative potential" and could stand as an example to other inmates while he spent the rest of his life in prison, she said. When Oliver was asked if he had anything to say before sentencing, Oliver said "No." But after a half-hour recess and moments before Moran delivered his verdict, Oliver spoke up. "I'm sorry things had to happen the way they did," he said. "These things did not 'have to happen,'" Moran corrected. "You made the choices, and now you'll have to suffer the consequences." ********************** Report hints wider jail abuse-----Inmates' brutality claims face extremely high burden of proof, probe says Although sheriff's officials since 1998 found that just a handful of more than 350 complaints by inmates against corrections officers were bona-fide cases of excessive force, outside investigators have collected data on what may be more widespread physical abuse at the troubled Cook County Jail. The report of a special grand jury that examined jail conditions says poor handling of investigations of abuse claims from inmates can allow true brutality to go unchecked. Inmate grievances often were readily dismissed in a system seemingly designed to discount them, the panel said. The burden of proof is so high to sustain an inmate's complaint, it becomes "a convenient way to ignore the truth" and protect officers who have multiple complaints lodged against them by inmates, the grand jury found. Guards routinely maintained absolute silence when someone in their ranks was accused of abuse, a grand jury's examiner found, and mountains of reports apparently were never analyzed for patterns by supervisors under Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan. The picture emerges in material compiled by an examiner for the grand jury, whose extensive paperwork was released Thursday along with a stinging report alleging that members of Sheahan's office covered up a mass beating in 1999. The examiner, DePaul University Law School student Michael Bane, sifted through files turned over by the sheriff, documents that filled 74 boxes. The panel's most serious allegations were leveled against guards in the Special Operations Response Team--the same elite unit found to have beaten and terrorized inmates in 1999 with wooden batons and dogs. "The SORT complaints all have a familiar ring," the grand jury reported. "They speak of mass beatings where inmates are forced to stand, face 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." Among the 18 of more than 350 complaints sustained by sheriff's officials was an incident in which an inmate who took candy from a desk was beaten with a broomstick and reports were filed stating the inmate fell, Bane reported. In another sustained incident, Bane noted, seven inmates were treated for forehead burns when they were made to lean their heads on a radiator. Findings stun former judge The grand jury's lead investigator Thomas Hett, a former judge at the Cook County Criminal Courts Building, said in an interview that the amount of apparent abuse that emerged as part of the probe stunned him. "I was not naive enough to say no one ever gets whacked around in there," Hett said, recalling his time when inmates were brought from the jail to stand before him in court. "But I was not prepared for what we apparently found concerning the SORT team. They were, everyone agrees, a force unto themselves. They had carte blanche to go in any tier any time for any reason whatsoever." As its work progressed, the grand jury found that no one at the sheriff's office had ever statistically analyzed the materials to show which guards had multiple complaints lodged against them. It took Bane and the grand jury to organize the documents and find patterns, Hett said. As patterns in the data began to emerge, it became clear that an artificially high burden of proof had been established for handling grievances that made it almost impossible to sustain an inmate's complaint of brutality by a jail guard, the grand jury found. Most complaints were deemed "inconclusive." This designation happened any time an inmate could not "correctly and absolutely" identify the officer involved in an incident, the grand jury and Bane found, which was difficult when the alleged method of operation for abusive guards was to keep inmates from looking at them. Other factors that led to inconclusive findings included inmate witnesses not actually seeing what took place, the panel found. "An inmate witness merely hearing an incident, but not seeing it, is not enough proof to overcome an `inconclusive' determination," the grand jury reported, "even though the detainee/putative victim returns to his cell where the witness can observe him bleeding, with bruises and a cut lip. "In short, no amount of circumstantial evidence is sufficient--if a detainee accuses an officer of physical abuse and has medical reports that corroborate the claims of the injuries, if the officer denies the allegation, that is typically enough to classify the investigation as `inconclusive.'" Silence reigned among the guards, Bane found. They closed ranks in the face of complaints, he concluded. "During the course of reading the investigation reports, there was not one time where an officer admitted to striking or abusing a detainee," Bane reported. "This is presumed not to be true, because of the fact that there were some investigations that were found to be sustained against officers." Bane reported that it seemed to him that "a great many" complaints are falsely filed against officers, perhaps for personal gain, but also that because of the high burden of proof, "there appears to be a large number of legitimate complaints of abuse which are not sustained." In an interview Friday, Bane said the atmosphere was at least "conducive" to hiding real abuse. Sheriff defends his leadership Sheahan, accompanied by his lawyer, Burton Odelson, testified before the grand jury on Aug. 16 and defended his running of one of the nation's largest jails, which houses more than 10,000 inmates on its 96-acre campus on the city's Southwest Side. Sheahan said a major problem facing the jail is state prisoners who under court-ordered "writs" return to the County Jail to answer charges in another criminal case. "Those are the people that cause us the most problems," he said. "Many of them are death-sentence people. ... Many of them have been sentenced for murder or rape or armed robbery. They're very violent felons. They come back to the system. They have another trial they're awaiting, maybe another murder, maybe another rape or whatever the case may be, and they come back in the system already sentenced. They're very hard to deal with." The jail's problems, whether gang-related or caused by a person who is mentally unstable, are compounded by a lack of space, long stays and insufficient staff, he said. "It really adds to a real tough position and a real tough job," Sheahan said. Beefed-up guard training Since the disclosures about guards allegedly brutalizing inmates, Sheahan has made a number of changes that he said were designed to curb and monitor the use of excessive force by deputies. He has ordered members of the Special Operations Response Team to go through beefed-up training, and he has required that the team videotape all "cell extractions" and other confrontational contacts with inmates. Sheahan told grand jurors that he has instituted other procedures to track and monitor brutality allegations against his deputies. He said that in October 2002, he established a computerized system to track complaints against deputies. Also, Sheahan has made another policy change. Lawsuits filed against Cook County deputies now automatically prompt internal affairs investigations--a policy long in place for the Los Angeles sheriff's department and Chicago Police Department. Among the grand jury's findings are recommendations that the Cook County Board of Corrections monitor the grievance and investigative processes, and that the sheriff use the new computer system to identify problem guards and either move them to less sensitive posts, retrain them or separate them from the force. Experts should be brought in to examine the inmate grievance system, and training for guards should include circumstances faced by unarmed officers in the tight spaces of the jail, the grand jury said. New recruits should be tested to weed out "persons with a propensity for brutality," the panel added. Sheahan has said he welcomes all of the recommendations at least in the discussion phase. (source for both: Chicago Tribune) KENTUCKY: Prosecutor might seek death penalty in New Albany slayings Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson will decide early next week whether to seek the death penalty for Kerry Wilson, the Jeffersonville man accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend and another man in New Albany Thursday. Henderson said at a press conference yesterday that the case qualifies for the death penalty because there were multiple victims, a burglary was involved and Wilson has a criminal history dating back more than 20 years. Henderson's staff asked Superior Court Judge Susan Orth to give him until Tuesday to formally charge Wilson, 39, who made an initial appearance before the judge yesterday. Orth entered a preliminary plea of not guilty for Wilson and scheduled an initial hearing for Tuesday. In the meantime, Wilson will continue to be held without bond in the Floyd County Jail. He is accused of stabbing to death 38-year-old Vicki Hunt of New Albany and 22-year-old DaJuan Clark of Louisville at Hunt's home at 1904 Hand Ave. early Thursday. Police say the stabbings occurred shortly before 3 a.m., less than an hour after Wilson escaped from the Dismas Charities Portland halfway house in Louisville. Henderson said yesterday that Wilson climbed through the window in the bedroom of Hunt's 13-year-old son and crawled over the boy in his bed on his way to the back bedroom where Hunt and Clark were sleeping. The boy pretended to be asleep and then fled to a neighbor's house and asked them to call police, Henderson said. Police arrived at the home to find a man fleeing through the back door. Officers later found a kitchen knife outside the house that they believe was 1 of perhaps 2 weapons used in the killings, Henderson said. New Albany police have said that Wilson called them a few hours after the slayings and arranged to meet officers at a restaurant parking lot in Clarksville. Wilson was arrested after the questioning that followed. The prosecutor said Wilson has not confessed and "it would be speculation" to try to identify a motive for the killings at this point. He said the investigation would continue in the days before Wilson's hearing on Tuesday. Henderson was asked about the decision by Clark County Jail officials to send Wilson to the halfway house, which has a contract to take Clark County inmates to relieve crowding in the jail. Wilson was being held because Clark County prosecutors had moved to revoke his probation from two earlier cases of domestic violence involving another woman. The revocation petition was filed because Wilson was charged in April of this year with domestic battery against Hunt. Henderson said he did not want to second-guess Clark County officials who have used the Dismas facility to help provide court-ordered relief from overcrowding at the jail. Pressed on the question, he said, "I think anyone that has a violent past should be in a secure facility" rather than a place like Dismas. In reference to anyone who is awaiting trial, he said, "I'm not for a person being released into a non-secure facility, period." Henderson's comments echoed those made Thursday by Clark Superior Court Judge Steven Fleece, who handled several of Wilson's prior cases. "I would much prefer that we did not have people with histories of domestic violence in such facilities" as Dismas, Fleece said. Clark County Sheriff Michael Becher declined through a spokeswoman to be interviewed yesterday. The spokeswoman, Lt. Racheal Lee, said as she did Thursday that Wilson met the sheriff's two-part test for placement at Dismas. She said the criteria include "what charge they're in our facility for - whether they're a violent or nonviolent offender, and disciplinary problems." Lee said Wilson was a violent offender "on a minimum basis." She noted that "he was not here for a violent crime. He was here for a petition to revoke." Regarding the domestic battery charge that prompted that petition, Lee said, "Floyd County released him on bond. So obviously they didn't view him as a great threat because they made his bond low enough that he could get out." Floyd County did alert Clark County officials about the battery charge when they learned that Wilson was on probation, Lee said. That alert led to the revocation petition, which in turn landed Wilson in the Clark County Jail before jail officials placed him at Dismas. (source: The Courier-Journal) FLORIDA: Cruel reality----Lethal cocktail not that gentle Florida's criminal law allows for the death penalty in cases where murder was conducted in a "particularly heinous, atrocious or cruel" manner and perpetrators appear "utterly indifferent" to the suffering they cause. If a victim realizes that death is imminent, that criteria can be met in less than 30 seconds, the state Supreme Court says. So what would the high court say to a killing that involves the probing of arms, legs or even groin for a vein, the insertion of a large-bore needle, the laborious hooking up of syringes and the administration of a 3-drug cocktail that may or may not render the individual unconscious within 5 minutes? Carried out by a private individual, it could only be described as intense physical and mental torture. But when an agent of the state of Florida is holding the syringe, it becomes the best-case scenario for a "routine" execution. Evidence is mounting that execution by lethal injection, as carried out by 37 states including Florida, is neither painless nor humane. In fact, it may be far worse than anyone can imagine. The reality was already bad enough. Nationwide, there are more than 2 dozen gruesome accounts of botched executions by injection, including the May 2000 execution of Bennie Demps at Florida State Prison. Corrections officers pierced Demps' arm with a needle several times, then tried his groin, then his leg. "They butchered me back there," Demps told witnesses before he was executed. Criminologist Michael Radelet documented many cases where inmates -- already strapped to a gurney for execution -- had to help correctional officers find a usable vein. But new medical evidence shows that for many inmates, the suffering doesn't end there. Most states use 3 drugs in executions: First, a surgical sedative is administered to render the condemned unconscious, making the next 2 steps -- a powerful paralytic, and a poison that stops the heart -- supposedly painless. But after the second drug kicks in, it's impossible to know if the 1st ever took effect. The patient might be conscious, but unable to move or speak as he or she suffocates. In court documents obtained by the New York Times, one doctor who autopsied a Kentucky inmate after he was executed found that the sedative levels in the man's blood were so low that there was a better-than-even chance he remained conscious throughout his 12-minute execution. Using the same protocol, the Times reported, doctors performed 34 more post-execution autopsies in North Carolina and South Carolina, and found 8 cases where the condemned men were probably conscious until they died. The potential for torture is exacerbated by the fact that ethical rules prohibit doctors and nurses from participating in executions. Inserting intravenous lines is a routine job for most health-care workers, but it requires practice to achieve technical proficiency. And unless drugs are injected with just the right pressure and in precisely the right order, they can cause numerous problems. Lethal injection is supposed to be the "humane" way to end human life. That supposition is being exposed as a cruel lie. Despite all indications that capital punishment is costly, unjust and fruitless in deterring crime, the state may claim the right to execute criminals. But by no means does it have the right to torture them to death. (source: Editorial, Daytona Beach News-Journal, Sept. 17) USA: I forward the following note as FYI---- Subject: Book on Richard W. Jones case ******************************************** Dear Friends, I am pleased to inform you that my book "Twisted Truth" was published in London in Spring, 2004 is now also available in the US. It is the story of Richard Wayne Jones, an innocent man, who was executed on 22nd August, 2004. There are descriptions of our visits with Richard on Death Row, Texas, the Texas Justice System and a first-hand account of Richard's execution, which we witnessed. The book can be ordered on www.amazon <http://www.amazon/> .com or www.amazon.co.uk. The path within the Amazon website is: Books - Twisted Truth (search) - click at Twisted Truth by Wendy Schmid-Eastwood. I would also be grateful if you inform your family, friends and supporters about this book in order to help "spread the word". I promised Richard to do the utmost to let the world know that he was innocent. I sincerely hope that you and your friends will be interested in reading "Twisted Truth". Thank your for your help and very best regards, Wendy Schmid Bonstetten (Switzerland)
