Oct. 5 TEXAS: Perry won't back execution moratorium----Legislator: Scandal at Houston lab warrants halt Gov. Rick Perry rejected a call Monday to delay the executions of inmates whose cases originated in Houston, where authorities are sifting through evidence misplaced by the city's troubled crime lab. "The governor has not seen the need for a moratorium either statewide or for Harris County," said Kathy Walt, the governor's spokeswoman. "He is going to look at each case individually, as he has always done." But other leaders, including the chairman of the state Senate's Criminal Justice Committee, said the state should suspend executions of inmates convicted in Harris County for 6 months while authorities review the evidence disclosed in August. State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said Monday that it would be "nuts" to execute people while investigators are still sifting through evidence. Mr. Whitmire, a death-penalty supporter, said the scandal has the potential to derail Texas' death-penalty law. His comments echoed those of Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt, who said last week that he supports a moratorium. "I can only imagine what the U.S. Supreme Court thinks when they read the police chief's comments," Mr. Whitmire said. Mr. Whitmire said the moratorium should extend to Edward Green, a 30-year-old scheduled to be executed today for shooting a couple he was trying to rob in 1992. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted Monday to go ahead with the execution. David Dow, one of Mr. Green's lawyers, said he would appeal. "Nobody has any idea what is in those missing boxes," Mr. Dow said. "The governor's refusal to express a need for a moratorium is an indication that he and the state of Texas care more about executing people quickly than in making sure that justice is done." Ms. Walt, the governor's spokeswoman, said Mr. Perry always asks questions about shoddy evidence or innocence before proceeding with an execution. Texas law gives Mr. Perry the authority only to delay executions for 30 days. But Mr. Whitmire and others said the governor could urge state district judges and the Harris County district attorney to stop scheduling execution dates. "As the chief executive officer of the state of Texas, the governor would set the record straight that we should give the Houston police chief time to go through those boxes," Mr. Whitmire said. Steve Hall, project director for Stand Down Texas, said Mr. Green's appeal has a good chance of success in federal court. "There are judges and other people who are already concerned about Texas' application of the death penalty," said Mr. Hall, whose organization favors a moratorium. "This really does push it over the top." The Houston scandal has also raised questions about the integrity of police-run crime labs. Mr. Whitmire has scheduled hearings next month at which lawmakers could explore whether crime labs should be independent from police departments. While the Houston Police Department has its own crime lab, other police departments such as Dallas' contract with forensics institutes for evidence testing. (source: Dallas Morning News) *********************** DA wants death row inmate freed More than 17 years after Ernest Willis went to death row for setting a house fire that consumed 2 sleeping women, West Texas prosecutors cited new suspects Monday. Faulty wiring perhaps. Maybe a defective ceiling fan. Finding little to no evidence of arson, the Fort Stockton district attorney said he would file a motion today that is expected to make Willis the 1st inmate to walk free from Texas' death row in 7 years. The decision to dismiss the case comes 3 months after a San Antonio federal judge ruled that authorities would have to release or retry the 59-year-old, who was accused of setting flame to a friend's home in Iraan in 1986. "I don't have to decide whether he's innocent or not, but I think that's probably a probability - that he is innocent," said Ori White, the district attorney in the 112th judicial district. Once the charges are dropped, Willis will be the state's 8th death row inmate exonerated since Texas reinstated capital punishment in 1974, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The news may not reach Willis until today. The inmate's attorney, James Blank of the firm Latham & Watkins, said he was unable to arrange a phone call any earlier. Blank said it remains uncertain when Willis actually will leave Row 1, Cell 32 of the Polunsky Unit in East Texas. A state district judge must sign the order, then a certified copy must go to prison officials. For the 1st time, Willis will be able to embrace his wife, Verilyn Willis, a Mississippi resident who met her husband while her brother was on death row. "I'm waiting and I'm ready - I am ready to bring him home," she said. "I love that guy with all my heart." Some seized on Willis' vindication as additional evidence that Texas should suspend executions while it re-examines the justice system that administers capital punishment. "It's only by conducting that thorough review ... that we're going to stop sending innocent people to prison - to death row - and make certain the guilty are the ones convicted," said Steve Hall, director of StandDown Texas, a group that has called for a moratorium on executions. In July, U.S. District Judge Royal Furgeson of San Antonio noted the evidence in the case was entirely circumstantial and issued a ruling that declared there is "strong reason to be concerned that Willis may be actually innocent." 4 years before, the state trial judge who oversaw the proceedings, Brock Jones of Ozona, ruled that Willis never received a fair trial. For legal reasons, Furgeson's July ruling hinged on findings that the inmate did not get a fair trial. Specifically, the judge said Willis unnecessarily received large doses of medication that left him too dazed to meaningfully confer with his attorneys. His defense lawyers failed to adequately serve their client, asking only 2 questions at the sentencing hearing. And prosecutors never told the defense that a psychologist evaluated Willis and drafted a report suggesting he might not be dangerous - a crucial issue in any death penalty trial. When Furgeson told authorities to free or retry the former oilfield worker, the decision fell to White, the DA in Pecos County who took office after Willis was prosecuted. White hired 2 arson investigators to examine the evidence, and they cast further doubt on Willis' guilt. Both said the fire's cause could not be determined and that it could have had many plausible causes besides arson. One called some of the scientific testimony at Willis' trial "absurd." That expert, Gerald L. Hurst, said the initial suspicions of arson rested on a flawed and now-outdated understanding of the physics of fire. 17 years later, the deaths of Gail Joe Allison of Sheffield and Elizabeth Grace Belue, reportedly of San Antonio, looked much different to experts. Willis and his cousin were staying with home owner Michael Robinson when flames spread through the house and consumed the sleeping women. Prosecutors blamed the blaze on Willis but offered no motive. Hurst wrote, "There is not a single item of physical evidence in this case which supports a finding of arson." (source: San Antonio Express-News) ************************ Execution set tonight for gunman in double murder After spending 11 years on death row, Edward Green III was feeling "a lot of pressure" in the days leading up to his execution, which is scheduled tonight at the Huntsville "Walls" Unit sometime after 6 p.m. Green pled not guilty in a Harris County court in 1993 to the shooting death of Edward Perry Haden, 72, and 63-year-old Helen O'Sullivan in Houston in 1992. He and co-defendant Jimmy Lee Daniels spotted the victims at a traffic light and decided to rob them for "weed" money. "I've been here since 1993, and I can't really remember any details," Green said in an interview from death row last week. "We were really smoking and smoking (marijuana laced with embalming fluid). It was a real act of ignorance, and there really was no motivating factor." As unveiled in trail testimony, the 18-year-old Green jumped from the car Daniels was driving and pointed a gun at Haden, who was seated on the passenger side of the car, driven by O'Sullivan. When Haden failed to react quickly to Green's threats, Green fired 3 times through the window, striking Haden twice and O'Sullivan once. But even after his arrest and conviction, Green said he never really understood he would end up on death row. "I think that when I first got here, I felt like I was not going to stay. I was in a stage of denial," Green said. "I mean, when you think about death row, you think about people like Charles Manson." Green's lawyers were trying to stop the punishment by raising questions over the reliability of ballistics evidence presented at his trial. Another appeal suggested he was ineligible for execution because he was mentally impaired since birth due to his mother's alcohol abuse. Some of the evidence was analyzed by the Houston Police Department crime lab. It has been under fire for a number of past practices, including a recent disclosure that some 280 boxes of evidence involving cases from 1979-91 had been mislabeled and improperly stored. Green's attorneys wanted the courts to halt the lethal injection until all those boxes have been reviewed. "Nobody knows what evidence is contained in those boxes," lawyer David Dow said in his request to cancel the execution. Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt last week also said Harris County death penalty cases that used evidence examined by the crime lab should be suspended until the contents of the newly discovered boxes have been reviewed. Harris County prosecutors, however, said all evidence in Green's case had been accounted for. And Don Smyth, the assistant district attorney who tried the case, said Monday he didn't recall ballistics evidence being critical to the outcome. "I had a confession," he said. Green already was jailed on unrelated charges when police received a tip that led to his arrest for the Aug, 31, 1992, shootings of Haden and O'Sullivan. Green told authorities he and a partner pulled their car in front of the couple's Lincoln at a stop sign to rob them because the pair wanted money for marijuana and rent. When Green ran up and pointed his pistol at Haden, the man shifted his car into reverse and Green opened fire. Green said he has gone through different emotional stages on death row, and he realized after a while that he had to begin to make changes in the time he had left. "A lot of people have given up on me in my life," he said. "But other inmates here have helped me stay motivated, and now I believe I am on a righteous path. "Had this situation not occurred, I would not be the person I am today. I would probably already be dead or homeless. I wonder if I would have ended up here if I had somebody to take me in and show me what being a man is all about. "I think the violence in me came from the lifestyle I was living and not being comfortable in myself. I used to be a real fool, and I liked to show everyone I was a fool." As for his victims' families, Green said he has never had contact. "I've never talked to the victims' families, but I would love to - to give them a sense of closure if they need it. I never wanted to put them through that pain." Green and a corrections officer became romantically involved while he was on death row, then housed at the Ellis Unit, and had a daughter, now 5. The woman resigned rather than be fired. The couple was married by proxy. Green stands firm that the child is his, and has seen her during visitation at the prison. "I wrote many, many letters to her over the years, and I just want her to know she is a perfect blend of me and her mother," Green said. If the death sentence is carried out, Green will be the 14th Texas inmate put to death this year and the 1st of 2 on consecutive nights this week. "I was walked through the process of what will happen in court," he said. "You can only prepare yourself so much. In a sense, I am ready, but that kind of defeats the purpose of life. "I accept responsibility for my actions, but to admit guilt would be admitting I deserve the death penalty." Another Texas inmate, Peter Miniel, is set to die Wednesday for the fatal beating and stabbing of a Houston man 18 years ago. (source: Huntsville Item) USA: Ultimate price a matter of justice, vengeance----Debating future of kids on death row. U.S. Supreme Court will look at the issue in murder case on appeal this month Should the death penalty be applied to someone who was under 18 when a crime was committed? This is a question the U.S. Supreme Court will be grappling with in the case of Roper vs. Simmons, slated to be heard this month. Christopher Simmons of Fenton, Mo., was 17 when he confessed to the murder of Shirley Crook in 1993. It was a deliberate and violent act. The victim was bound with leather straps, electric cable and duct tape. She had bruises on her body and fractured ribs. Missouri's Supreme Court last year commuted Simmons's death sentence to life without parole, but the state is appealing. Friends of the court, including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, and other Nobel laureates, are submitting amicus briefs, arguing it is cruel and unusual punishment to apply the death penalty to 16- and 17-year-olds. Ashley Barr, senior program associate for human rights at the Carter Centre in Atlanta, Ga., says Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, got involved in the issue after the Supreme Court ruled it is unconstitutional to apply the death penalty to the mentally disabled. The Carters wanted the same to be true for juveniles under 18, Barr said. "The court ruled they (the mentally retarded) don't have the mental capacity, and therefore culpability, to be given the death penalty and that should apply to juveniles as well," Barr said in a phone interview from Atlanta. A total of 31 of 50 states have rejected the death penalty for juveniles, most recently Wyoming. "There is no other country in the world that actively takes the position that it should be legal to execute people as young as 16. China has raised the age limit to 18 and Iran is in the process of doing so," Barr said. The United States and Somalia are the only countries that have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits capital punishment for those under 18. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child define juvenile for the purpose of capital punishment as 18, Barr said. She said that 22 juveniles under 18 have been executed in the U.S. since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated, and another 72 are on death rows in 19 states. Such groups as the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association and American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry support 18 as the minimum. "Adolescents generally think and behave differently from adults in ways that undermine the rationale for sentencing adolescent offenders to death," their brief said. (source: Montreal Gazette) FLORIDA: Wife asks for death sentence for husband's killer----'The message must be loud and clear,' Deb Green says Deb Green, widow of slain Tallahassee police sergeant Dale Green, calmly asked a judge Monday to put her husband's killer to death. Her husband was in favor of the death penalty, she told Circuit Judge Tom Bateman, especially when the victim was a law-enforcement officer murdered in the line of duty. Coy J. Evans, the man convicted last month of killing Green, certainly realized he was shooting a police officer, she said. Defense attorneys had argued Evans did not know. "The message must be loud and clear: We will not accept cops being murdered, and if you choose to kill our officers, then you too can expect to pay with your own life," she said. For if those who kill police are not sentenced to die, Green said, "what was killing Dale that day, a freebie?" Bateman, however, did not sentence Evans. Instead, he listened to legal arguments from State Attorney Willie Meggs and Assistant Public Defender Ines Suber, then asked both for written reports and scheduled another hearing for Oct. 21. He gave no indication which way he was leaning. Evans, 34, was convicted of murder, burglary, armed kidnapping, armed robbery and fleeing and eluding law enforcement in Green's shooting death Nov. 13, 2002. The 13-year TPD veteran had arrived to help 2 women who reported a home-invasion robbery of their Melody Circle duplex. Evidence showed every bullet in Evans' six-shot .357-caliber revolver was fired in about 2 seconds. One bullet grazed Green's uniform sleeve, and the other 5 struck his body, including a fatal shot to the back of the head. The 2 stood within feet of each other. Jurors recommended a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. While it is not binding on him, Bateman must give the jury's recommendation "great weight and deference" under state law. But Meggs asked Bateman to override the jury's recommendation and order Evans be executed. There was no evidence Evans was mentally or emotionally disturbed at the time of the shooting, he said. Meggs also mentioned Evans' escape attempt from the Leon County Jail in January 2003, during which he threatened two guards with a sharp object to their necks before being subdued by others, according to reports. Suber argued there was enough evidence to support the jury's life recommendation, and to do otherwise would be improper. She had learned the jury's vote was 9-3 for life, she said. Suber reminded Bateman of expert testimony that Evans is mentally challenged by brain defects and cocaine addiction, calling her client "a little boy of 12 inside the body of an adult." At one point, Meggs explained to Bateman, "We have no intentions of putting Your Honor in a difficult spot." "... This is my job," Bateman said. "I'm (an adult) and I can handle this." After Monday's hearing, Deb Green explained her remarks to a reporter. "This was my one chance to speak, probably my last chance," she said. "Because of Evans' past convictions, and the armed robbery and armed kidnapping (the night of Green's death), I feel he would be facing a life sentence anyway. "But a police officer was also killed that night. So what is the consequence if the punishment does not go beyond that?" -- FLORIDA DEATH-PENALTY LAW "Notwithstanding the recommendation of a majority of the jury, the court, after weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, shall enter a sentence of life imprisonment or death, but if the court imposes a sentence of death, it shall set forth in writing its findings upon which the sentence of death is based: That sufficient aggravating circumstances exist ... and that there are insufficient mitigating circumstances to outweigh the aggravating circumstances." (source: Florida Statutes) (source of article: Tallahassee Democrat) NORTH CAROLINA: Supreme Court refuses N.C. appeal death sentence ruling The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to hear an appeal by the state of North Carolina in the case of a man sentenced to death for the slaying of a state trooper. The state had argued that the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals erred in overturning Timothy Allen's death sentence because of the exclusion of several black jurors in jury selection. Earlier this year, the appeals court overturned the death sentence and sent the case back to federal district court, which could either hear the race claim or require a new hearing in state court. Allen was convicted by a jury of 6 whites and 6 blacks in the 1985 death of Trooper Raymond Worley, who was shot to death during a traffic stop on Interstate 95 near Enfield. Allen was scheduled to die Dec. 12, 1997, but just as he received his final meal, a federal appeals court upheld an order stopping the execution. The court found evidence that prosecutors used peremptory challenges to reject 11 prospective black jurors. A peremptory challenge is a legal objection that allows lawyers to dismiss a prospective juror without having to give a reason. (source: Associated Press)
