Oct. 1 NORTH CAROLINA: Wronged Again It's hard to blame Alan Gell for his reaction to the news last week that the 2 former prosecutors who withheld evidence that could have cleared him of a 1995 murder got only a slap on the wrist for their actions. "Here I am again with the system letting me down," Gell said last week. Indeed. Gell got sucked into a case that underscores much of what's wrong with this state's criminal-justice system, a case that reaches all the way to the governor's office. Earnest efforts at reforming the system are too often outweighed by lip service to the idea, as happened when the N.C. State Bar took up the case of David Hoke and Debra Graves, 2 former prosecutors with the state attorney general's office. A 3-member panel of the bar ruled that Hoke and Graves violated three ethical standards by withholding witness statements and a tape recording in which the state's star witness said she had to "make up a story" for officers investigating the shotgun slaying in Bertie County of which Gell was convicted. Hoke and Graves also failed during Gell's 1998 trial to turn over eight witness statements indicating the slaying occurred while Gell was in jail for an unrelated crime, and told the trial judge they had handed over all such witness statements, according to The Associated Press. Yet all the panel gave Hoke and Graves was a reprimand. The panel could have stripped them of their law licenses, but instead said that the former prosecutors made an unintentional mistake. "It was an honest mistake on our part," Hoke said in testimony read at the bar hearing. "Nobody is more sorry about that than Debra and I." That "mistake" cost Gell nine years in prison, including half of that time on death row. Finally, he won a second trial, and was quickly acquitted this past winter. The whole time, Hoke and Graves did nothing to help him, nor have they ever personally apologized to him, so it's hard to take Hoke's expression of remorse seriously. Hoke and Graves said in their state bar filing that they hadn't read Gell's complete file, but relied on an SBI investigator to tell them what was in the file, according to the News & Observer of Raleigh. Their boss at the time, Gov. Mike Easley, said in March that he wasn't familiar with the details of the case. While he wasn't directly involved in the case, the buck stopped with him as the attorney general. He should apologize to Gell in the name of the state and as the supervisor for Hoke and Graves. He should also encourage widespread reform of the system, the kind of work the N.C. Actual Innocence Commission is already doing. Graves is now an assistant federal public defender. Hoke is the No. 2 administrator in the state court system. Roy Cooper, the current attorney general, rightly called on North Carolina prosecutors to share all 1st-degree murder-case files with defense attorneys after prosecutors under him lost in Gell's second trial. A new state law that takes effect today requires prosecutors to share their entire files with defense attorneys before felony trials, a welcome 1st step in what should be a long process of criminal-justice reform. These days, Gell travels the state, lobbying against the death penalty and pushing for criminal-justice reform. Unfortunately, he's still got a long fight ahead of him. (source: Winston-Salem Journal) MONTANA: Court lets appeal go on for killer who wants to die For the 3rd time in less than 2 months, the Montana Supreme Court has ordered the appeal of death-row inmate David Dawson to continue, despite the convicted killer's wish to die. 4 of the 7 justices signed an order Wednesday rejecting the state's latest request to put the case on hold while a state court hearing is held to determine whether Dawson is mentally competent to decide he wants his appeals dropped and an execution date set. The order turns the spotlight back on federal court, where Dawson has requested appointment of a psychiatrist or psychologist to examine him. His attorneys have sought a competency hearing before U.S. Magistrate Richard Anderson of Billings, who has yet to rule on the requests. Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court will consider legal arguments over whether a recent requirement that juries, not judges, determine if the death penalty applies retroactively to Dawson's 17-year-old sentence. But the other issue - whether Dawson is thinking clearly in abandoning his appeals, firing his lawyers and wanting to die - has drawn most of the state and federal courts' attention since he first announced his decision in late July. The matter has evolved most recently into a war of words between the attorneys for Dawson and for the state. Kathryn Lund Ross, one of two lawyers for Dawson, has accused Assistant Attorney General Pamela Collins of unethical behavior by submitting to the Supreme Court documents Dawson himself filed in federal court. Collins is attempting to take over the role of Dawson's legal counsel, she told the high court last week. Ross assailed Collins' "relentless efforts to help Mr. Dawson's suicidal impulses to be executed and be rid of counsel who have represented him, with his consent and goodwill, for 14 years." Collins "wishes only to quickly take advantage of Mr. Dawson's recent desire to be killed, regardless of the source of the self-destructive impulse," she said in written arguments. The state merely wants a "free ride, unimpeded by opposing counsel, to Mr. Dawson's execution," she added. Collins asked the Supreme Court to scold Ross for her "intemperate and irresponsible remarks" and denied she was doing anything more than her duty of upholding the conviction and sentenced handed down in this case. Ross is engaging in "bullying tactics" and trying to hide from the justices what has been filed in federal court, Collins said in documents she filed. Dawson, in asking that his attorneys be removed, has told the state and federal courts that they are acting contrary to his wishes because they are such adamant foes of the death penalty. He said they misled the Supreme Court by claiming Dawson's desire to die was a result of despondency over the suicides of 2 fellow death-row inmates during the past 14 months. Ross said in her filing with the Supreme Court that she and William Hooks are acting out of their professional and ethical obligations as Dawson's lawyers, not because of feelings about the death penalty. "Counsel are not in cahoots with any anti-death penalty groups," she said. Dawson, 46, was sentenced to die in April 1987, a year after he kidnapped David and Monica Rodstein and their children, 11-year-old Andrew and 15-year-old Amy from a Billings motel. He killed the parents and boy with a telephone cord. Dawson held the daughter captive until police rescued her and arrested Dawson at the motel. (source: Associated Press) TEXAS: A pause for justice Mountain of flawed, mishandled evidence cries out for postponing execution of death row inmates who were prosecuted in Harris County. Houston police have sorted through about one-quarter of the evidence they stumbled across in August in 280 dusty, disintegrating boxes. Texas should stop carrying out executions of death row inmates from Harris County at least until that process, believed to involve some 8,000 cases, is complete. 2 Harris County men on death row are scheduled for execution next week. 9 others are set for execution through March, including seven whose cases were investigated by the Houston Police Department. More than 150 other men and women from Harris County are awaiting lethal injection but have no execution date. Edward Green III is scheduled to die Tuesday for the shooting deaths of Helen O'Sullivan, 63, and Edward Perry Haden, 72. Green's attorneys are seeking to delay his execution to determine whether any of the recently discovered evidence could shed new light on Green's involvement or on whether his death sentence was appropriate. Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal says he would be "all for" examining new evidence in the Haden and O'Sullivan murders and would consider supporting a temporary local execution moratorium if he thought any evidence lay among HPD's newly discovered cache. Why would he think there is no enlightenment to be found when approximately 75 % of the contents of the property room boxes has not been examined? Evidence processed and maintained by HPD has been shown in at least two cases to be entirely unreliable. Flawed scientific testimony helped prosecutors wrongly convict George Rodriguez of kidnapping and raping a teenage girl. Although he likely soon will be released, Rodriguez recently missed his father's funeral, confined as he has been for the past 17 years serving a 60-year sentence. Josiah Sutton was released and pardoned after four years in prison after it became apparent that his 1998 rape conviction was based on bad DNA analysis by HPD. The crime lab problems and the misplaced evidence create a powerful argument for halting lethal injections for those whose cases might have been tainted by those problems. Police Chief Harold Hurtt and state Sen. Rodney Ellis have called for delaying executions in local death row cases. Former Mayor Lee Brown and former Police Chief Clarence Bradford suggested the same thing last year because of crime lab problems, which now extend to DNA, toxicology, ballistics and serology testing. Unfortunately, Rosenthal has chosen to duck the issue by pointing out that he lacks the legal authority to postpone executions. He should gather the courage to stand up for justice. (source: Editorial, Houston Chronicle) ***************** ****************** Deadline extended in Mendoza case Attorneys representing a 20-year-old Farmersville man accused of strangling a young mother have an additional 2 months to decide if they will enter testimony on his mental health, a state judge ruled during a hearing Thursday. Judge Mark Rusch extended the deadline until Nov. 30 for attorneys to submit expert opinion on the likelihood of Moises Sandoval Mendoza committing future violent acts. In July, Mendoza pleaded not guilty to capital murder charges in connection with the slaying of Rachelle O'Neil Tolleson, 20, of Farmersville. Police arrested Mendoza on March 24 after he confessed to a friend that he had strangled Tolleson in his pickup truck and later burned her body in a creek bed in eastern Collin County, according to court documents. He later gave police a written statement about the killings. A family member discovered Tolleson missing on March 18, her 6-month-old baby left alone on a bed with the backdoor of the small wood frame home open. A week later, a man hunting arrowheads and fossils noticed her feet protruding from a brush pile in Brushy Creek and called authorities. At the time of the murder, Mendoza was wanted on three existing 1st-degree felony indictments for a string of aggravated robberies in Dallas County. Officials from the Collin County Sheriff's Office said after his arrest they hadn't received those warrants. Prosecutors filed about 30 voluntary statements from family and acquaintances of Mendoza, describing the suspect as a man who had a violent past with women. Mendoza remains jailed at the Collin County Detention Center in lieu of $500,000 bond. Rusch previously denied a request from the defense to preclude the death penalty. Jury selection for the trial is set to begin March 14. (source: McKinney Courier-Gazette)
