Dec. 14
TEXAS:
Heavy metal killer's execution stay lifted
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to reconsider a San Antonio man's death
penalty Monday, even as one of the justices went out of his way to say the
sentence was unfair and deserves to be overturned.
The court's decision automatically lifted the stay of execution that
spared Troy Kunkle last month, but the fate of the former Roosevelt High
School student seemed far from settled.
Plainly disturbed by the way Kunkle was sentenced, Justice John Paul
Stevens accompanied his vote to reject the case with a written explanation
that seemed to invite another round of appeals.
Stevens was the only justice to address the case and characterized the
court as stymied by procedural barriers. He said the justices had no
authority to review Kunkle's appeal because it hinged on state law, not
federal.
"That result is regrettable because it seems plain that Kunkle's sentence
was imposed in violation of the Constitution," Stevens concluded.
Kunkle's case taps into ongoing tension between the Supreme Court and the
lower courts over the treatment of death sentences issued in Texas before
1991.
Until the law was changed that year, Texas courts did not clearly tell
jurors they could spare a defendant's life if they found mitigating
evidence, such as mental illness.
The high court told the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the 5th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals twice this year that they improperly reviewed and
upheld death sentences from that era.
Some victims-rights advocates characterize the Supreme Court as mercurial
and suggest the justices deserve blame if lower courts are confused.
"It's impossible to know what the rules are because the Supreme Court
keeps changing them," said Dianne Clements, executive director of the
Houston-based nonprofit victims advocacy group Justice For All.
Some experts predict Kunkle's case will receive further review - even
though the court has now twice declined to consider appeals filed by the
38-year-old man who has spent more than half his life on death row.
He shot a man during a 1984 stickup in Corpus Christi and then recited
lyrics from the heavy metal song "No Remorse."
"I would say this is going to prove to be a minor bump in a long road that
is eventually going to end in victory for Mr. Kunkle," said Eric Freedman,
a Hofstra University law professor and a close watcher of death penalty
litigation.
Kunkle's lawyers were encouraged by Justice Stevens' conclusions and
resolved to press ahead with arguments that the inmate has a history of
mental illness that jurors were not allowed to consider adequately during
trial.
"It would just be obscene to kill a man when he did not get a proper
sentencing," said Danalynn Recer, an attorney with the Gulf Region
Advocacy Center, a nonprofit group that aids death penalty defenses.
While it was not immediately clear whether prosecutors would request
another execution date, they remained steadfast in their defense of
Kunkle's conviction.
Greg Norman, the prosecutor handling the appeal for the Nueces County
district attorney's office, said no mitigating evidence would have saved
Kunkle from the death sentence:
"I guess our position, if you sweep away all the legal nuances, is that
we're comfortable he got what he deserved."
(source: San Antonio Express News)
*********************
Tilly Murder: Suspects Pregnancy Could Affect Punishment
The lawyer for Pearl Cruz, the 15 year old girl charged with holding a gun
on Alamo Heights teacher Diane Tilly while her father raped her, and then
helping Ronnie Neal murder Tilly and dispose of her body, revealed today
that she is pregnant.
"She's about a month and a half pregnant," attorney Mario Trevino told
1200 WOAI news following a hearing at juvenile court Monday afternoon.
"She's not elaborated as to who the father is. That will be determined at
a later date, and that will be significant as to a judge making a decision
on an appropriate punishment for my client."
He said Cruz' pregnancy might be a 'significant mitigating circumstance,'
indicating that she may have been coerced or under the sway of others,
possibly family members, when she allegedly participated in the crime
November 22.
Was Cruz, who has agreed to testify against Neal in exchange for a prison
sentence of no more than thirty years, a willing participant in the brutal
crime?
"Willing in the sense that her acts cannot be defended pursuant to my
understanding of the Texas penal code," Trevino said. "They are voluntary
acts. There was undue influence, but in my opinion not significant enough
to where she couldn't tell right from wrong."
In a five minute hearing before Juvenile Court Judge Laura Parker, Cruz,
who was handcuffed and dressed in a dark blue jumpsuit with the
letters"BCJD" on the back, answered respectfully when Parker asked her if
she understood the charges against her, saying 'yes ma'am.'
"We've reached agreement with the state, and it is a contract, and part of
it involves her continued detention at the juvenile facility," Trevino
said.
Under Texas juvenile law, teenaged defendants have a right to a detention
hearing every ten days. Cruz told Parker she will waive that right.
Trevino said Cruz realizes that her future is bleak.
"Continued placement here and perhaps a court appearance to testify in her
father's trial."
Trevino said Cruz is 'concerned what is going to happen to her' and has
expressed a 'significant amount of remorse' for her role in the murder of
Tilly. He says that's why he agreed to the deal for her to testify against
Neal.
Prosecutors claim that Cruz and Neal, 33, knocked on Tilly's door during a
pounding thunderstorm on the evening of Monday, November 22nd. Once
inside, they allege Neal and Cruz ransacked her home, grabbing Tilly's
credit cards and ATM cards. Then, they say Cruz held Tilly's own handgun
on her while Neal raped her. The pair then demanded that Tilly leave with
them, and Neal allegedly fired a shot into her couch for emphasis. They
went to a field in northeast Bexar County, where Neal shot Tilly several
times, and Neal and Cruz then attempted to hide Tilly's body under some
brush.
It was information provided by Cruz which led authorities to Tilly's body.
Neal remains in the Bexar County Jail, charged with capital murder.
District Attorney Susan Reed says she will seek a death sentence against
Neal.
(source: WOAI News)
***********************
Death row inmate trying to save another man's life
Talk to criminal defense attorneys and some may tell you the death penalty
system in the United States is broken. That's also the message in a
widely-heralded play called "Exonerated" that recounts true stories of
Texas death row inmates.
One of those stories involves Kerry Max Cook.
Behind the razor wire on death row, everyone proclaims his innocence and
no one believes a word of it.
"That's why it's so hard when you really are innocent -- nobody believes
you. Not even the other prisoners believe you," said Cook.
Cook was on death row himself when he first heard about Anthony Graves who
had a cell of his own on death row.
Graves had been convicted as the accomplice in a gruesome, sensational
murder of 6 people -- 4 of them children -- in the tiny town of
Somerville.
He was convicted even though there was no evidence he was at the crime
scene. He was convicted almost solely by the testimony of one man -- the
murderer.
Robert Carter was on death row himself and Cook went to see him.
"It was just me and him there and God," Cook said.
Carter, he says, confessed that he implicated Graves in exchange for a
deal with the prosecutor.
Even on death row, Cook was shocked.
"You're telling me you implicated this man falsely? He's really totally
innocent?" Cook said he asked Carter. "He said, 'yeah, man.'"
"No one's forced you to make this statement?," asked 11 News reporter Dan
Lauck. "No."
Carter publicly confessed later but Graves' attorney, Jay Burnett, says it
may have come too late in the legal process.
"At this point, no court has formally heard the fact that Carter
recanted," Burnett said.
The end to Anthony Graves' appeals is drawing close. "He's innocent and
he's gonna die," Cook said. "And nobody cares."
Meanwhile, Kerry Cook's story in "Exonerated" is playing across the
country to rave reviews.
(source: KHOU News)
*********************
Wanted: Leader for lab probe--HPD asking for candidates to head scandal
investigation
Let the bidding begin.
The city of Houston is accepting proposals from anyone interested in
ramrodding the investigation into the evidence-handling scandals that have
hounded the Houston Police Department for the past 2 years.
REVIEWERS
Members of the Stakeholder Committee, which will review applicants for the
job of project leader to investigate serious problems in the HPD crime
lab:
- Adrian Garcia: Houston City Council member
- Fran Gentry: NAACP president
- Sylvia Gonzales: LULAC executive director
- Rusty Hardin: criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor
- Dr. Richard Li: director of the Sam Houston State University forensic
program
- Dr. Ashraf Mozayani: lab director, Harris County Medical Examiner's
Office
- Annise Parker: controller, city of Houston
- Dr. Wayne Riley: Baylor College of Medicine, vice dean of Health Affairs
and Government Relations
- Dr. Ben Roa: director of DNA, Baylor College of Medicine
- Kent "Rocky" Robinson: Houston Bar Association president
- Dr. Richard Ward: Sam Houston State University dean of the Department of
Criminal Justice
- Dr. Don Woods: Texas Southern University dean of the School of Public
Affairs
Instead of conducting a traditional candidate search, the city has posted
a request for proposals on its Web site. The job's official title is
"project leader," but it is, in essence, that of an investigator who will
be responsible for getting to the heart of the twin debacle that has sent
ripples throughout the Harris County criminal justice system.
Applicants will be required to submit their salary requests and a battle
plan - including an estimated budget - for a comprehensive audit of the
lab and property room.
A closed-door conference at police headquarters for possible candidates to
ask about the job is scheduled for Dec. 21.
The application deadline is Jan. 7. A 12-person team of community leaders
- known as the Stakeholder Committee - then will review the proposals and
make a recommendation to the City Council.
HPD Capt. David Watkins, the search coordinator, said several people have
made inquiries, but he would not give names. The department has no
specific person in mind, he said.
"It's not that Chief (Harold) Hurtt is taking a hands-off approach, but
he's allowing the committee to make the selection," Watkins said.
The committee may be able to recommend someone to the City Council by the
first week of February, he said, and the project leader could be on the
job by March 1.
"Hopefully, we'll be able to get it pushed through pretty quickly," said
the captain.
No budget for the massive project is in place yet, Watkins said, as it
will be up to the project leader to develop a plan, including the cost of
resources and a staff.
Watkins emphasized, however, that the staff will not consist of police
department employees.
"The actual legwork of pulling cases and such will fall on my staff," he
said. "But if there are any forensic experts that are required, we won't
have anything to do with that because at this point we're trying to
instill confidence. And the only way we can do that is to let someone come
in and be completely open."
Hurtt decided to bring in a special investigator after the discovery in
August of 280 boxes of previously missing evidence from criminal cases.
That revelation came after months of disturbing findings about the
operation of the HPD crime lab.
HELP WANTED
- Where: Houston Police Department
- Position: Crime Lab & Property Room Project Leader
- Salary: Commensurate with qualifications
- Duties: A comprehensive audit of crime-lab and property-room operations.
The lab's DNA division was shuttered in December 2002 - and remains closed
- after an outside audit revealed widespread problems that included a
poorly trained staff and possible contamination of evidence. As a result,
retesting was ordered for DNA evidence in almost 400 cases.
The new tests have raised questions in dozens of convictions and one man
has been freed from prison as result. A second man was released from
prison after flaws were discovered in serology work predating the advent
of DNA testing.
Additionally, the department's toxicology lab was closed temporarily after
a supervisor failed a competency test. Questions also have been raised
about the quality of ballistic work in some HPD cases.
Former local U.S. Attorney Dan Hedges, whose name has surfaced frequently
as a likely candidate, confirmed Monday that he could be interested.
"If it was done the right way and I had the necessary authority, I would
certainly consider doing it," said Hedges, now in private practice. "And
if I got paid."
He said he had not heard about the candidate search.
Meanwhile, police continue to sort through the evidence found in the 280
boxes. Officials say more than 60 percent of the files - which date back
as far as 1979 and number in the thousands - have been catalogued.
According to Capt. Mark Curran, who is overseeing what is known as Project
280, "nearly all of this stuff has never been tested for DNA."
Curran added that initial reviews of the files showed that 29 are
connected to capital murder cases. Eight of the files pertain to convicted
killers still awaiting execution, he said, declining to identify the
cases.
Officials with the Harris County District Attorney's Office say that
defense attorneys in capital cases have been notified if their clients'
files were in the 280 boxes. They also say that attorneys for any
defendants with files in the boxes will eventually be contacted.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
********************
High court rejects appeal from Kunkle--Execution date can now be set
In the nearly 20 years since death row inmate Troy Kunkle murdered a
Corpus Christi resident during a robbery, he has had his life spared 5
times. But the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his appeal Monday.
The move allows his execution to proceed, even though one justice said
Kunkle's sentence clearly violated the Constitution.
The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal from Kunkle, who was
convicted of murdering Steven Horton in 1984.
The Supreme Court had previously decided twice, most recently in a 5-4
order last month, to stay Kunkle's execution while his attorneys filed
appeals. His attorneys had argued that Kunkle's history of drug and
alcohol abuse was not properly considered as mitigating evidence at trial.
When reached Monday, Steven Horton's 75-year-old father, Nolan, said he
wasn't aware of the latest Supreme Court actions but said he still didn't
believe the man who killed his son would be executed.
"I'm very discouraged with the legal system. They're just sitting up there
getting paid and not really doing a job. It's very cut and dry. The guy's
guilty. It was proved, he admitted to it and everything else so what else
is there to consider?"
"This is not even close to being over," said Danalynn Recer, one of
Kunkle's attorneys, of the Gulf Region Advocacy Center based in Houston.
"We are going to file additional litigation and the state knows that," she
said. "What this order does is open up more questions than it answers."
Doug Norman, a Nueces County assistant district attorney, said District
Attorney Carlos Valdez plans to request an execution date.
"We're fairly confident that the state will prevail, but I wouldn't second
guess the federal courts," Norman said.
"Nobody questions that the way the charge was submitted to the jury didn't
give them a meaningful way to evaluate litigation evidence so the question
really is what do you do with the old cases and how was the defendant hurt
by this," Norman said. "It's not a simple question. It basically comes
down to if the defendant received a fair trial. We think he did. They
don't think he did. The state has struggled with this, and now the federal
courts will have to struggle with it."
In a concurring opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that he had
initially agreed to a stay because justices believed they had authority to
review the case. However, upon closer review, justices realized the appeal
was based on state law.
"That result is regrettable because it seems plain that Kunkle's sentence
was imposed in violation of the Constitution," Stevens wrote.
Recer, who would not give specific details on future litigation, said
execution dates shouldn't be set because litigation is not complete.
"The Supreme Court has acknowledged we have a young man here scheduled to
die in an unconstitutional proceeding but the Court of Appeals has
prevented (him) from having access to a venue where we can have that
mistake corrected.
"It would be unjust for them to kill this young man on this where the only
barrier to getting this in court is the Court of Criminal Appeal's
mistake," she said.
Kunkle's jury may have condemned him to die because they did not know of
his troubled childhood and drug abuse, his lawyers argued.
Krista Haber, Kunkle's wife, refused to comment on her husband's case.
Kunkle, 38, was found guilty of capital murder in 1985.
According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Kunkle, who was 18
at the time of Horton's murder, along with his friends Lora Lee Zaiontz,
Russell Stanley and Aaron Adkins of San Antonio, was visiting Corpus
Christi in 1984. They picked up Horton, 31, who was walking along Paul
Jones Avenue, and demanded his wallet, which contained $13.
Kunkle, according to the state's report, then told Stanley to kill Horton.
When Stanley refused, Kunkle took the .22-caliber pistol and shot Horton
in the head. All four had reportedly taken LSD and had been drinking.
Defense lawyers said Kunkle was raised in a troubled home and left
mentally scarred by parents who had been treated for depression.
(source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times)
************************
Court to hear arguments in Andrea Yates appeal
Andrea Yates' capital murder convictions for drowning her children should
be overturned because the state's expert witness falsely testified and
Texas' insanity standard is unconstitutional, her attorneys say in an
appeal.
A 3-judge panel of the First Court of Appeals in Houston was set to hear
oral arguments Tuesday in Yates' appeal, which cites 19 errors from her
2002 trial. Yates' attorneys say she deserves a new trial. Jurors
sentenced Yates to life in prison in the 2001 deaths of 3 of her children.
She was not tried in the deaths of the other 2.
Prosecutors say Yates' convictions should be upheld. They say there is no
evidence their expert witness, Park Dietz, intentionally lied about
consulting on an episode of the television series "Law and Order" that
Dietz said dealt with a woman with postpartum depression being found
innocent by reason of insanity in the drowning of her children. He
testified the episode aired in the weeks leading up to the drownings.
It was revealed after jurors found Yates guilty that no such program
existed. Testimony during her trial indicated she watched the television
series.
"Without the testimony of Dr. Dietz, the state would not have been able to
make their case," Yates' attorneys argue in their appeal. "This case
boiled down to a battle of the experts and the powerful testimony of Dr.
Dietz ultimately prevailed."
Harris County Assistant District Attorney Alan Curry said Dietz's
testimony about the television show came during cross-examination by
Yates' defense attorney. There were 3 weeks of testimony that dealt with
Yates' plans to kill her children, ranging in age from 6 months to 7
years, and her knowledge that doing so was wrong, he said.
"Dr. Dietz did not suggest by that testimony or elsewhere that (Yates)
used that episode in order to assist her in planning, premeditating or
calculating the killing of her children," Curry wrote. "There was a great
deal of other evidence which revealed that (Yates) planned and/or
premeditated her killing of her children."
Curry cited a tape-recorded police interview with Yates in which she said
she had thought about killing her children for 2 years and in the weeks
leading up to the drownings had filled the bathtub with water but "didn't
do it that time."
Additionally, Yates' attorneys claim the Texas insanity standard, which
required the defendant prove she suffered from a severe mental disease or
defect and did not know her actions were wrong to be found insane, is
unconstitutional because it does not define the words: know and wrong.
"(Yates) should not have been held responsible for her actions," her
attorney George Parnham wrote. "While (Yates) may have 'known' that her
actions would be considered wrong by others, her mental disturbance was so
severe that she truly felt that she was doing the right thing."
Psychiatrists testified that Yates suffered from schizophrenia and
postpartum depression, but defense and prosecution expert witnesses
disagreed over whether it prevented her from knowing that drowning her
children was wrong.
Jurors determined Yates knew it was wrong to kill her children and found
her guilty.
Among the other errors cited by Yates' attorneys are the court's decision
to show jurors the clothing the children were wearing when they died; the
requirement that jurors be "death qualified" because the case involved
capital murder charges, which can carry the death penalty; and the judge
not informing jurors of the consequences of an innocent by reason of
insanity verdict.
Yates, who will be eligible for parole in 2041, remains jailed at the
Skyview Unit in Rusk, where she works in an outdoor flower garden and has
janitorial duties.
Earlier this year, her husband, Russell, filed for divorce.
(source: Associated Press)
**********************
Jurors in Juan Raul Navarros capital murder trial on Monday saw grisly
autopsy photos of the six men Navarro and 11 other suspected members of
the Tri-City Bombers gang allegedly killed in January 4, 2003.
Ramirez, 20, of Donna, is the 1st to stand trial for the massacre, where
masked men stormed into 2 small homes at 2515 E. Monte Cristo Road in
pursuit of weapons and drugs.
Though not identified as the shooter, Hidalgo County prosecutors are
seeking the death penalty against Ramirez under the law of parties, which
allows for a person to face the punishment if he or she conspires with
others to commit a criminal act that ends in a slaying. He pleaded
innocent.
Judge Noe Gonzalez is presiding over the case in 370 th state District
Court, as witnesses for the prosecution entered their third week of
testifying.
Prosecutor Cregg Thompson displayed graphic photos of the corpses and
asked Dr. Fidencio Salinas, a forensic pathologist who conducted the 6
victims autopsies, to identify each victims injuries.
The men - Jimmy Edward Almendariz, 22; brothers Jerry Eugene Hidalgo, 24,
and Ray Hidalgo, 30; half-brothers Juan Delgado Jr., 32, and Juan Delgado
III, 20; and Ruben Rolando Castillo, 32 - were shot as many as 10 times
and all died as a result of the bullet wounds, Salinas said.
"The gunshot wounds I listed (on the autopsy report) were all shot from a
firearm," he said.
All of the bullets were shot from a distance of at least 3 feet, except
for the wounds on Ray Hidalgo who was shot with a gun making contact with
his body, Salinas said.
The victims all tested positive for the presence of cocaine, Salinas said.
The toxicology reports indicated some of the men also had alcohol in their
systems, but Salinas said that might have been naturally occurring as part
of the bodys decomposition process.
Salinas pointed to the bullets entry and exit holes, as well as bruises
and lacerations the victims suffered. Salinas found two tattoos on Jerry
Hidalgo, one symbol that he identified from the Texas Syndicate prison
gang and another that said "Chicano."
Hidalgo and some of the other victims were alleged members of the Texas
Chicano Brotherhood, a rival gang of the Tri-City Bombers, or Bombitas.
The jailer who booked Ramirez on the day of his arrest, Jan. 29, 2003,
testified that Ramirez said he was a member of the "Bombitas."
Former jailer Robert Mendiola told the court that all prisoners are asked
about their gang affiliation so they wont be placed in cells near rival
gang members. Mendiola said his superiors ordered him to place Ramirez in
an isolation cell, used for disciplinary and administration regulations.
The prosecution also called Edinburg Police Det. Robert Alvarez to testify
as an expert witness on area gangs but defense attorney Alma Garza
objected to his qualification as an expert. In a hearing held without the
jury present, Garza asked Alvarez to demonstrate his knowledge of gangs
and what factors made him conclude that Ramirez was part of the Tri-City
Bombers.
The Tri-City Bombers began in the 1980s in the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo area.
At one point, a faction of the gang split off to form the Texas Chicano
Brotherhood, Alvarez said.
Ramirez associates with known Tri-City Bombers members, identified himself
as a "Bombita" member to his parole officer and has a tattoo with a
"Bombitas" symbol, Alvarez said.
Alvarez did not testify in front of the jury, but Gonzalez did rule to
allow Alvarez to take the stand today.
Ramirezs trial will resume today, with the prosecution expecting to end
its arguments.
9 others are in the Hidalgo County Jail, awaiting trial for the same
charges. Edinburg police are still searching for Juan Miguel "Perro" Nuez,
29.
Robert "Bones" Gene Garza, 21, of Pharr, is also charged in the Monte
Cristo killings. Last December, a jury found him guilty on 2 counts of
capital murder and 2 counts of attempted capital murder in connection with
the shooting death of 4 Donna women in 2002. That crime has also been
linked to several members of the Tri-City Bombers gang. Garza was
sentenced to death.
The gunmen left Rosie Gutierrez, the mother of the Hidalgo brothers,
alive, and tied to her bed with an extension cord near the slain body of
her son Jerry, in the larger of the 2 homes. Another man, Luis Delgado
Villa, told police he dove through a window and ran from the smaller home
as the shooting began. Villa, who is a cousin of the Delgado brothers, is
in federal custody for illegally being in the country. Prosecutors
subpoenaed Villa to testify, but he refused to answer any questions in
front of the jury.
(source: The Monitor)
********************
Moms who kill children have religion in common
Andrea Yates said Satan told her to drown her 5 children.
Deanna Laney said the Lord sent her signs to beat her 3 sons with stones.
And the night before Dena Schlosser became the latest Texas mother to take
her child's life, she told her husband she wanted to give her children to
God. The suburban Dallas mother was charged with capital murder for
severing her 10-month-old baby's arms. Attorneys were expected to discuss
her competency in court Tuesday.
Women who kill their children commonly cite God, the devil and other
religious influences for their actions. Although the mothers are also
often found to be severely mentally ill or psychotic, the recurring theme
of religiosity begs the question: Is religion to blame?
Theologians, sociologists and psychiatrists generally say no. They say
religiosity is a common theme among psychotics because hallucinations and
delusions usually take familiar forms.
"Most of the people in nut houses are religious because most Americans are
religious," said Rodney Stark, a social sciences professor at Baylor
University. "We know what causes schizophrenia and it isn't going to
church. It's biochemical."
But some experts suggest mental illness is harder to detect and treat in
faiths more inclined to attribute odd behavior to Satan and trust prayer
over medicine.
"They're not seeing this as a mental illness. They're seeing it as the
person having demons, perhaps, or a sin problem or not being spiritually
fulfilled," said Roger Olson, a theology professor at Baylor's Truett
Seminary.
And, in some fundamentalist environments, symptoms of mental illness can
appear normal: Obsession over a religious leader can be interpreted as
religious fervor, and delusions can be interpreted as religious visions.
Schlosser's husband wasn't alarmed when she told him she wanted to give
her children to God, according to Texas' Child Protective Services. The
agency took temporary custody of the couple's other girls, ages 6 and 9,
after the baby was killed, and cited the father's failure to act after his
wife's warning.
The Schlossers attended the non-denominational Water of Life church, led
by Doyle Davidson, a self-proclaimed prophet who teaches that women
possess a rebellious jezebel spirit and that the Ten Commandments don't
apply to the righteous.
Schlosser's parents believe Davidson's teachings helped push her toward a
psychotic break, but Davidson dismisses those claims, saying he had little
interaction with the Schlossers.
In Laney's case, the lifelong Pentecostal told her congregation in the
East Texas town of Tyler that the world was ending and God told her to get
her house in order. No one expressed concern, though psychiatrists later
determined Laney was psychotic at the time.
Laney used rocks to beat to death two young sons and severely maim her
toddler in 2003. She was acquitted by reason of insanity earlier this
year.
Dr. Phillip Resnick, who testified in Laney's trial, said he was struck by
comments Laney's pastor made when asked about symptoms of mental illness.
"He indicated that, had some of these things come to his attention, he
would have referred her to a religious person, rather than to a
psychiatrist, to correct her religious perceptions," Resnick said.
"If you're a hammer, things look like a nail. So if you're a religious
person, you tend to think of religion as the answer to the problem," he
said.
Olson said that while religion doesn't cause mental illness, he believes
existing conditions can be inflamed by religious environments where
leaders demand absolute obedience and claim to speak for God.
People with schizophrenia, personality disorders and a host of other
mental disorders may be drawn such faiths for their structure, he said.
"This kind of culture, religious atmosphere, group dynamic can set up a
situation where that person is more likely to act out in aggressive ways
under tremendous pressure," Olson said.
In a recent study of 39 Ohio and Michigan women - all acquitted by reason
of insanity in the deaths of their children since the 1970s - about 15 had
religious-themed delusions, said Dr. Susan Hatters Friedman, a psychiatry
fellow at Case Western Reserve University.
Another study of 56 Michigan mothers referred for psychiatric evaluations
from 1974-1976 after killing their children found nearly a 4th of them
experienced religious delusions, said study co-author Dr. Catherine Lewis,
an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut Health Center.
She said nearly all the women were Christian and many attended
fundamentalist churches, but cautioned against assumptions.
"What isn't clear is what's causing what," she said. "Is the church
causing people to develop these feelings or are people with these feelings
more likely to gravitate toward a fundamentalist church?"
Yates, Laney and Schlosser all followed Christian fundamentalist
teachings. So did their husbands, but with less zeal than their wives.
Schlosser's parents said she became religious in the last several years,
reading the Bible and trying to convert them to the Davidson's teachings.
Laney became much more devout before the killings, hearing God's voice and
waking early to study the Bible, according to trial testimony.
Yates, the Houston mother sentenced to life in prison, said she drowned
her children in 2001 to save them from eternal damnation. Before the
killings, she corresponded with a traveling preacher who taught that only
the saved could avoid hell's fires.
Resnick said religious delusions often convince mothers that they're
saving children from evil or proving their faith to God.
"If you think about why a parent would kill a child, since there's a
natural love and protective instinct, one would say it would have to be
overcome with a psychotic belief that they're doing what's in the child's
best interest," he said.
(source: Associated Press)
New Appeal For Death Row Inmate in Tenn.
A federal appeals court sided with a Tennessee death row inmate in a case
that has delayed other executions in the state.
Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman, sentenced to death for killing a Nashville drug
dealer in 1986, claimed much later he was the victim of a dishonest
prosecutor who concealed evidence. He hoped to use his appeals to present
evidence of that claim.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled 7 to 6 Monday that
Abdur'Rahman's claims should be heard, even though he has exhausted his
appeals. The court said Abdur'Rahman is technically not seeking another
appeal, just extending his earlier appeal.
State Attorney General Paul G. Summers promised to appeal the verdict to
the Supreme Court because the decision could reopen other death row cases.
Death row inmates get one federal appeal in which they can raise problems
with the trial. The 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
does not allow a 2nd petition.
(source: Associated Press)
