Oct. 20
TEXAS:
Robber executed today for slaying at Dallas S&L
Convicted killer Ricky Morrow was executed in the Texas death chamber
today for the slaying of a Dallas savings and loan office worker during a
robbery 22 years ago.
Morrow, 53, acknowledged firing the shot that killed 26-year-old Mark
Frazier. But the former welder who carried a gun in each hand during the
$5,500 holdup said he shouldn't have been sentenced to death for the 1982
slaying because the shooting was an accident.
The U.S. Supreme Court was considering an appeal in his case as Texas
Department of Criminal Justice officials prepared to move him from death
row at a prison in Livingston to the Huntsville Unit, about 45 miles west,
where lethal injections are carried out.
"He's relatively upbeat," said Randy Schaffer, his attorney.
In the appeal that was rejected in lower courts, Morrow argued evidence
from prosecution witnesses was withheld that could have swayed jurors to
vote for murder instead of capital murder. Only the capital murder
conviction carries a possible death sentence.
Defense lawyers disputed testimony about how the shooting occurred,
Morrow's demeanor following the shooting and whether he was intoxicated or
high on drugs.
"That's nonsense," Dan Hagood, the former Dallas County assistant district
attorney who prosecuted the case, said Wednesday. "They received
everything."
Morrow was tried and sentenced to death in 1983, but the conviction was
thrown out 5 years later by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. In 1989,
a second trial was halted when a judge declared a mistrial. Morrow went to
trial again the following year, was convicted and condemned.
"No question he got a fair trial, no question he got a fair sentence in my
mind," Hagood said. "Ricky was a just cold-blooded killer, nothing more,
nothing less. A very dangerous man."
Morrow, a Navarro County native who was listed at the time of his arrest
as being from Houston, was a 2-time parolee. When taken into custody, he
had been out of prison for about 5 months after serving five years of a
25-year term for aggravated robbery.
The late afternoon holdup on Jan. 19, 1982, at the First Texas Savings and
Loan Association branch where Frazier was killed was the 2nd of the day
involving Morrow and his girlfriend, evidence showed.
Witnesses said Morrow, carrying a .38-caliber revolver in one hand and a
.25-caliber automatic in the other, screamed and cursed as he announced a
holdup and took Frazier hostage. With one gun on his captive, he pointed
the second weapon at a teller and ordered her to fill a bag with money. As
Morrow went to leave, Frazier was shot in the face.
"My thumb slipped," Morrow testified at his 2nd trial. "It was something I
never ever intended would happen."
Morrow said that day he'd consumed a bottle of vodka and also had taken
cocaine and heroin, with the combination leaving him irrational and
paranoid.
"I heard the testimony of the witnesses," Hagood said. "He aims flat
smooth square right at that young man's head and shot him through the
temple and walked out laughing. It was a clean shot right through the
head. There wasn't any angle to it. It wasn't like he was waving the gun
around and it went off in a strange way.
"He got to say his story and the jury didn't believe it. Other witnesses
got to say their story and the jury believed that. End of issue."
Morrow disputed the description that he laughed as he left. His
girlfriend, Linda Ferguson, whom he later married, testified he was
hysterical when he returned to their car, describing him as "probably more
sensitive than most people."
Authorities had a partial license plate number from a witness and traced
the couple to a Dallas-area motel. She surrendered and Morrow was arrested
after an exchange of gunfire.
Morrow becomes the 17th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
Texas, and the 330th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on
December 7, 1982.
Morrow also becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this
month; another lethal injection is set for next week and 6 are scheduled
for November. He is the 91st condemned inmate to be put to death during
the tenure of Rick Perry as Governor of Texas.
Morrow becomes the 51st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
the USA and the 936th overall since America resumed executions on January
17, 1977.
(sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin)
*******************
Jury convicts on capital murder----Prosecutors seek death in gang killing
Each knock on the door between the jury room and the 214th District
Courtroom brought a collective shudder from a capital murder defendant's
family. The 4th and final knock shortly after 4 p.m. brought a guilty
verdict in the trial of Joe David Padron and a flood of tears from a
courtroom full of his family.
"Every time they knock on the door I get sick to my stomach," his wife,
Terri Padron, said before the verdict.
Padron will face sentencing today. Prosecutors will seek the death
penalty.
Padron, 28, and Martin Robles, 25, were arrested in November 2002 and
charged with capital murder in the gang-related killing of Jesus Omar
Gonzalez and John Commisky.
During the weeklong trial, prosecutor James Sales presented testimony that
Gonzalez and Commisky were dealing crack on the turf of a rival gang, of
which Padron and Robles were said to be members.
Witnesses said during the trial that the victims were spending the night
at a friend's grandmother's house Nov. 12, 2002, when 2 men in ski masks
came into the house and shot Gonzalez and Commisky with a 9 mm pistol and
an assault rifle while they were sleeping.
Robles has been convicted and sentenced to death.
Jurors knocked 3 times in the hours leading up to the verdict asking for
parts of a week's testimony to be repeated. They asked to be read the
transcript of testimony about when the shooting started. They also asked
to hear again the testimony of a witness who saw the shooters climb over a
fence before entering the home.
While they deliberated, Padron, wearing a starched white shirt, a dark
suit and tie, joked with his attorneys and his family.
The girlfriend of one of the victims and her friends said he should take
the trial seriously and they could not understand why he smiled so much at
such a serious time.
"If he's guilty, then I do not understand how he is enjoying his life so
much while me and my daughter are suffering," said Jennifer Gomez,
Gonzalez's girlfriend and the mother of his daughter.
Gomez was the only family member of a victim who would comment on the
trial's outcome.
The telling knock came late in the day after jurors asked to review
testimony from an informant who said he heard Robles and Padron talk in
jail about their role in the killings.
They came back less than an hour later with the verdict.
Defense lawyers Doug Tinker and Jimmy Granberry refused to comment after
the verdict.
(source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times)
*******************
Court rejects appeal from man who killed Harris County deputy
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday rejected the appeal of a
man sent to death row for the 2001 shooting death of a Harris County
deputy.
Jesus Flores was sentenced to death for shooting 35-year-old sheriff's
Deputy Joseph N. Dennis in the head during a struggle.
The deputy had confronted the 22-year-old suspect after responding to a
domestic disturbance call. Dennis frisked Flores but overlooked a small
pistol in one of his pockets.
Flores contends he was in a drug-induced stupor during the struggle.
Flores still had the deputy's handcuffs clamped to his left wrist when he
was taken into custody. Among his points of appeal, Flores contends that a
recorded confession was improperly taken and admitted into evidence.
The court also upheld the death sentence of 24-year-old Robert Lee Woodard
in the 2001 shooting death of Thankachen and Achamma Mathai. The couple
was shot during a robbery of their Houston convenience store.
(source: Associated Press)
USA:
Juvenile justice
Judging from a hearing before the Supreme Court on whether it should
uphold capital punishment for convicted 16- and 17-year-old killers,
juveniles embarking on a criminal career could be writing their own death
sentence. Reservations expressed by Justice Anthony Kennedy about banning
executions for those who were under 18 when they committed their crime
were well-reasoned and direct.
Justice Kennedy is rightly concerned that such a blanket ban might lead
gang leaders to use 16- and 17-year olds as "hit men" because they'd be
exempt from capital punishment. "I'm very concerned about that," said the
justice. "I'm talking about the deterrent value of the existing rule."
Lawyers arguing on behalf of Missouri death row inmate Christopher
Simmons, who faces execution for a murder he committed when he was 17,
said deterrence doesn't work on adolescents acting on impulses and
reacting to peer pressure.
But Justice Kennedy persisted in his doubts, relaying "chilling" accounts
of brutal, calculated murders committed by many 17-year-old offenders that
were provided to the court by states hoping to retain the death penalty
for juveniles. He also raised questions about a brief submitted by the
American Psychological Association, which told the court adolescents are
too immature to qualify for capital punishment.
The same organization, said the justice, also advised the court in a case
on parental notification for abortion that teenagers were old enough to
make such a decision on their own.
To suggest that juveniles can make profound personal decisions about
terminating their pregnancies but not be morally culpable for committing
heinous criminal activity doesn't hold water.
The fact that Justice Kennedy is troubled by the ramifications of imposing
a blanket ban on executions of juveniles is crucial. He and Justice Sandra
Day O'Connor are the 2 members of the high court who could likely decide
the outcome of the case.
Unlike the court's 2002 decision to ban capital punishment for mentally
retarded offenders, the Simmons case does not present convincing arguments
that all juveniles, as the critics insist, are commonly affected by the
"transient psychosocial characteristics that rage in adolescents."
Some death row inmates like Christopher Simmons, who broke into a home at
17 with a 15-year-old buddy and ended up throwing a bound woman off a
bridge into the Missouri River, are old enough to die.
Not all murders are alike. Not all juveniles are alike. Capital punishment
for 16- or 17-year-olds should remain an option open to juries. Hopefully
Justices Kennedy and O'Connor will reach the same conclusion.
(source: Editorial, Toledo Blade)
**********************
Juvenile Death Penalty
To the Editor:
As you note in "Juveniles and the Death Penalty" (editorial, Oct. 13),
when the Supreme Court decides whether executing offenders under 18
violates the Eighth Amendment, it looks to evolving standards of decency
as a key determining factor. There has been a national movement away from
the juvenile death penalty as more and more states have abolished it. Even
in those states where the juvenile death penalty still exists, fewer and
fewer offenders who were under 18 at the time of the crime are being
executed.
Yet another factor that should be considered by the Supreme Court when
looking at evolving standards of decency is the overwhelming national
consensus among the medical community. More than 400 medical and
adolescent development experts, three former United States surgeons
general and numerous leading organizations have formed a widespread
scientific consensus that minors do not yet possess the maturity and
mental capacity required to justify the imposition of the ultimate adult
punishment.
Leonard S. Rubenstein, Executive Director
Physicians for Human Rights
Washington, Oct. 13, 2004
(source: Letter to the Editor, New York Times)
******************
Without right to life, no other right matters
Dear Editor:
With the election fast approaching, I am mindful of the many issues that
are being considered as important or the top priority. I believe it is
true to say that the priority issue is the right to life. It is set apart
from capital punishment, just war theory, and many other social issues
that are very important but not as fundamental.
If the very right to life is taken away, then no other right matters. To
quote Pope John Paull II, "The common outcry, which is justly made on
behalf of human rights, for example, the right to health, to home, to
work, to family, to culture, is false and illusory if the right to life,
the most basic and fundmental right and the condition of all the other
personal rights,is not defended with maximum determination."
Kathy Perros-Fuqua, Danville
(source: The (Ky.) Advocate-Messenger)
MISSISSIPPI:
ACLU targets inmates' treatment----'I'm here because I need help. I fear
for his life.'
Inmates in Mississippi prisons and jails are subjected to cruel and
unusual punishment, family members and the American Civil Liberties Union
say.
Flanked by 4 mothers of inmates, the ACLU Tuesday asked Mississippi
Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps to establish a task
force to investigate prisoners' claims of mistreatment.
"People tend to forget that the 20,000 people incarcerated in Mississippi
are human beings and (they) accept alleged acts of torture and neglect
against them as part of their confinement,"said Nsombi Lambright,
executive director of the ACLU of Mississippi.
Epps said he isn't aware of any mistreatment of inmates and lambasted ACLU
for calling a news conference without contacting him.
"If there is a problem, you don't solve it by calling a press conference,"
Epps said. "I don't know if this group (ACLU) is concerned about inmates
or (seeking) ways to get attorney fees."
The ACLU announced an initiative called the Mississippi Prison and Jail
Accountability Project to assist families and prison support groups in
voicing their concernsabout treatment of prisoners.
Linda Williamson of Waynesboro said she has been unable to see her
mentally ill son, Marko Williamson, when she visited at the State
Penitentiary at Parchman. He is serving a 10-year sentence for armed
robbery.
"I'm here because I need help," Williamson said. "I fear for his life. He
had seizures for 2 weeks because they wouldn't give him his medicine."
Barbara Black said her son, Henry Moses, has communicated that food has
been served on trays caked with bird droppings.
Moses, 42, is serving a life sentence for murder from Lee County.
The Rev. John Patterson of Alcorn County, president of the 66-member
Operation Another Chance, said the north Mississippi organization has
received numerous allegations of mistreatment from prisoners.
Some complaints have dealt with prisoners not being allowed to have any
contact with family members, Patterson said. Others complaints involved
the administration making up its own policy and not following established
procedure and inmates on hunger strikes not receiving any medical
attention.
"We are not here to say they shouldn't be there, but they should not be
abused or mistreated," Patterson said.
Epps said MDOC has a full-time medical compliance staff, an audit
committee to investigate assaults and a trained staff. He also said
inmates have prisoners' rights attorney Ronald Welch to make any
complaints.
Welch could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Last year, Mississippi prison officials faced a court mandate to improve
conditions for death row inmates.
In June, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld U.S. Magistrate
Judge Jerry A. Davis' ruling that conditions on death row violated
inmates' constitutional rights and ordered that when the heat index is at
least 90 degrees, the state must provide fans, ice water and daily showers
to inmates.
ACLU National Prison Project in Washington had sued MDOC over the death
row conditions.
Alvin Bronstein, who founded the ACLU's National Prison Project, said the
complaints he heard from family members about prison conditions are
similar to those made in the mid-1970s in Mississippi. Bronstein, now a
consultant for ACLU, said the state had made a lot of progress in the
1980s and 90s in addressing inmate housing conditions. "I don't know what
happened," said Bronstein, who was in Mississippi from 1964-1968.
(source: Clarion-Ledger)
