Sept. 28 NORTH CAROLINA: Injustice deserves jail, too So, you still think the state ought to continue sentencing people to death, even after the disgraceful prosecution -- and tepid punishment of that disgraceful prosecution -- of Alan Gell? Gell had one foot in the death chamber and the other on a banana peel, thanks to overzealous prosecution and possible misconduct by former prosecutors David Hoke and Debra Graves. You can buy their argument -- as the State Bar did last week when it merely reprimanded them -- that their failure to play by the rules was an honest mistake. I don't. How do you honestly overlook and fail to turn in evidence that proves the suspect was in jail when the murder occurred? Hoke admitted that he had evidence that might help Gell in his office for 2 years before the trial began. He never turned it over, as the law requires. It's nothing to put on a resume, but I have been locked up four times. Believe it or not, I was innocent each time. Don't look at me like that: The statute of limitations has expired, and I can afford to tell the truth. 3 of those times, it's conceivable that the law actually thought I was guilty. On one occasion, though, I sat in court and listened as one of Atlanta's finest and a prosecutor lied. Fortunately for me, mine was not a life-or-death case, but trust me: You have not known helplessness until you've been in that situation with your freedom on the line. Some people will argue that Gell's exoneration, after nine years in prison, half of them on death row, is proof that the system works and that innocent people are not executed. What a crock. Prosecutors, many of whom have designs on political office, know that no one around these here parts has ever lost an election because he executed too many people. Gell, it appears, was about to be a pelt in their belts. If I ruled the world, there'd be a network that aired "Sanford & Son" 24 hours a day, grits would be the state food, and Hoke and Graves would be behind bars, slurping runny grits and fighting off the romantic overtures of cellmates named Roughhouse and Big Bertha, respectively. Attorney General Roy Cooper deserves punishment, too -- maybe not a shared cell, but something, for subjecting Gell to another trial and keeping him locked up an extra year and a half even after his innocence became clear. Superior Court Judge Erwin Spainhour of Cabarrus County testified during the bar hearing that he was "appalled" that Hoke was subjected to a hearing. Funny, but he expressed no similar outrage for what Gell was subjected to. Say, judge, I'm guessing that whatever the discredited duo experienced during their 2-day lovefest of a hearing didn't come close to what Gell experienced during more than 3,000 days in prison. I don't know about you, but my heart aches for Gell, Darryl Hunt and those still locked up for crimes they didn't commit -- especially when corner-cutting prosecutors view the law as a game to be won by any means necessary. If you don't think innocent people go to prison or get executed, you'd better wake up and smell the daisies -- before even more innocent people are planted beneath them. (source: Opinion, Barry Saunders, News & Observer) ********************** N.C. lawyers kind to their kind North Carolina can't trust its lawyers to police themselves. The lawyers proved that beyond a reasonable doubt on Friday. Their self-regulatory body, the State Bar, made a half-hearted case against 2 state prosecutors who withheld evidence that could have cleared a man accused of murder. Because David Hoke and Debra Graves failed to share that evidence, Alan Gell spent 9 years in prison, 1/2 of it on death row. When the evidence turned up, he got a retrial and was quickly acquitted. In other words, Mr. Hoke and Ms. Graves came close to sending an innocent man to his death. The best defense they could manage was that they made a mistake. They were negligent. They didn't mean to send an innocent man to death row. It was just one of those things. They have not apologized to Mr. Gell or the public. The Bar has a procedure for handling such cases. Its lawyers prosecute them, and panel of other lawyers serves as judges. In this case, the Bar simply offered the case files and a transcript of sworn question-and-answer sessions with Mr. Hoke and Ms. Graves. The Bar did not call witnesses, or the man wrongly sent to death row, or his lawyers. That might have made the prosecutors look bad. Couldn't have that. Wilmington lawyer Steve Culbreth, who sat on the panel that judged the case, said it was not allowed to call for other evidence. Its role was simply to rule on the evidence before it. Because the Bar presented no evidence that the withholding of evidence was intentional, he said, the most the panel could impose was a "reprimand," which is one step up from an "admonition" and one step down from a "censure." If the wrongly convicted man isn't satisfied, according to Mr. Culbreth, he could sue the prosecutors under the civil laws. This was the 6th time in 5 years that a death sentence has been overturned because North Carolina prosecutors withheld evidence. And at least in this case, their oops! didn't seem to hurt their careers: Mr. Hoke is now the number-2 man in the state court system. Ms. Graves is an assistant federal public defender - highly respected by their peers, it would seem. Superior Court Judge Erwin Spainhour, testifying as a character witness for Mr. Hoke, said, "Everyone is appalled that he has to go through this." You read that right: Mr. Hoke sends an innocent man to death row, and the judge is appalled that Mr. Hoke has to suffer the indignity of being called to account. Barely. There must be a better way of upholding the professionalism and integrity of the legal profession, and the General Assembly needs to get serious about finding it. (source: Editorial, Wilmington Star News) *********************----female could face death penalty Judge: Child's accused killer could face death penalty An Onslow County judge has ruled that a woman accused in the poisoning death of a 7-year-old girl could face the death penalty if she's convicted. Carolyn Futrell, 33, of Richlands, has pleaded not guilty in the slaying of Kayla Allen, who died from insecticide poisoning last year while Futrell was her legal guardian. Futrell also is charged with felony child abuse. She has been in Onslow County Jail since her arrest May 20, nearly nine months after Kayla died. In January, a medical examiner's report showed Kayla died after swallowing a gulp of a pesticide, Atroban, that was in a water bottle underneath the kitchen sink of the home that she shared with Futrell. (source: Associated Press) NEW YORK: Women Voters Discuss Death Penalty Yesterday evening, the League of Women Voters of Tompkins County hosted a capital punishment forum at which Patricia Warth law '96, lawyer for the Capital Defense Fund of Rochester, and George Dentes '76, Tompkins County District Attorney talked about the effectiveness and cost of the death penalty. The League, a national non-partisan organization, encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government. As a lobbying group, they are studying capital punishment in order to reach a league-wide consensus on the matter before the current moratorium on the death penalty comes up for review at the next New York State legislative session. Warth, who opposes capital punishment, criticized the cost of the death penalty in comparison to life without parole. "Punishment should accomplish the goal of reducing crime in a cost effective manner," said Warth. "In this regard, the death penalty fails as a law enforcement tool," she added. Warth emphasized the human cost of capital punishment as well as the monetary cost. According to Warth, one study showed that it cost 33-percent more to implement the death penalty in Indiana, versus life in prison without the opportunity for parole. "This money comes from law enforcement, and is a costly venture that takes funding away from other budgets that may be more effective in fighting crime," Warth said. In addition to cost, Warth mentioned unfair application across racial, ethnic and geographic lines, as well as having a negative effect on America's image worldwide as factors she thinks make the death penalty an institution that should be done away with. "The rest of the world sees this as a human rights issue, while we here in the U.S. think this is a criminal justice issue," Warth said. "The U.S. and Japan are the only developed nations with a death penalty -- which is a contradiction -- while South Africa believes that the right to life and dignity is the most basic of human rights," added Warth. Dentes provided the opposing viewpoint of the issue, providing reasons why he thought the death penalty was an effective tool for deterence. He made the distinction between a general deterent which is geared toward the population as a whole, and a specific deterence. "The death penalty works very well as a specific deterrent -- one aimed at a particular individual -- because people who are dead kill no more people," Dentes said. "The death penalty is appropriate punishment in only the most extreme cases, and it keeps inmates from continuing to murder while incarcerated ... even inmates have a right to be free of assault," he added. Dentes mentioned that the time his office came closest to filing a death notice, a notice that elevates a case to capital punishment, the defendant actually committed suicide before the filing deadline. Dentes also feels that current forensic techniques, such as using DNA to exonerate an inmate from a past sentence, actually bolster the case for capital punishment. "If new evidence has been uncovered to throw sufficient doubt on a case, enough that this person is no longer able to be proven guilty, then they are just that -- not guilty -- but they are not necessarily innocent," said Dentes. "This shows that our tools are getting better and more precise, so the possibility of executing an innocent person goes down and down," he added. Members of the League and the public, including an employee of the maximum security Five Points Correctional Facility in Romulus, New York, seemed divided over the issue. One member of the League mentioned that she couldn't handle the responsibility of being a member of the jury in such a case, while the Five Points employee shared why he believes in the necessity of the death penalty. "One inmate I work with requested to have another bunkmate -- he killed his last one -- and he couldn't tell me one reason why I shouldn't grant his request," he said. (source: Cornell Daily Sun) PENNSYLVANIA: Dustin Briggs' attorneys want death penalty invalidated Dustin Briggs' attorneys have filed a motion at the Bradford County Courthouse in an attempt to have Pennsylvania's death penalty declared in violation of both the state and U.S. Constitutions. According to papers filed at the Bradford County Prothonotary's Office, Thomas C. Raup of Williamsport, one of Briggs' attorneys, has filed a motion before Commonwealth Judge Barry Feudale to "...declare the Pennsylvania death penalty statute in violation of the Pennsylvania and U.S. Constitutions, and grant appropriate relief (to the defendant)." Briggs, 27, of Gillett, has been accused of shooting and killing Bradford County Sheriff's deputies Christopher Burgert and Michael VanKuren on March 30. Briggs was eventually taken into custody on April 1, after an intense 36-hour manhunt, and subsequently charged with 1st-degree criminal homicide, as well as other offenses related to the shootings. The case was eventually taken over by Judge Feudale of Northumberland County after Bradford County judges Jeffrey Smith and John Mott recused themselves on grounds they could be called as witnesses if Briggs' case goes to trial. In addition, Bradford County District Attorney Steve Downs recused himself for the same reason, causing the case to be taken over for the commonwealth by Patrick Blessington of the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office. Feudale will now decide whether or not Raup's arguments are valid. According to the motion, one reason Raup contends that Pennsylvania's death penalty is invalid is "Because the statute denies the defendant his right to have a jury decide factual issues and to exercise necessary judgment and discretion pertaining to whether, in the event of a conviction of murder in the 1st degree, sentence should be death or life imprisonment." Under Pennsylvania law, a jury that finds a person guilty of 1st-degree murder must also decide - at the request of the commonwealth - whether or not the defendant should be sentenced to death or life imprisonment. In order to ask for it, the commonwealth must declare at some point, before the trial, that it intends to seek the death penalty. In order to issue a sentence of death, the vote of the jury must be unanimous. If even one juror votes against the death penalty, the defendant's sentence automatically becomes life imprisonment without parole. The argument on the death penalty will be but one of many legal questions Judge Feudale will decide in the months ahead as Briggs' case makes its way through the Bradford County court system. Briggs' attorneys are also arguing for a change of venue to another county in Pennsylvania, one with a similar population base and classification as Bradford County. Briggs remains incarcerated in Bradford County Correctional Facility. (source: Towanda Daily Review) ****************** Execution Stayed for Philly Man Philadelphia man, scheduled to die by lethal injection in November, has been granted a stay of execution by Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. In a decision issued September 24th but announced yesterday, the stay was granted to 30-year-old Lamont Overby of Philadelphia. Overby was convicted in 1998 and sentenced to death for the murder of John James. The execution was scheduled for November 9th. Overby remains on death row at the state Correctional Institution at Greene in Greene County. (source: Associated Press)
