Dec. 15 CALIFORNIA: Slow Ride to the Death Chamber Notwithstanding the whooping cheers from the Redwood City crowd at the news of his death sentence, Scott Peterson is unlikely to die by lethal injection soon, if ever. Meanwhile, Monday's feel-good moment will cost Californians millions more than the price of locking Peterson away for life with no possibility of parole. A jury last month found Peterson, a Modesto fertilizer salesman, guilty of murdering his wife and unborn son. The separate death penalty vote came shortly after jurors asked to again see, up close, large photos of Laci Peterson's mutilated and decomposed remains and those of the fetus. The bodies washed ashore along San Francisco Bay 4 months after she went missing on Christmas Eve 2002. The trial drew crowds to the courthouse near San Francisco and a stream of legal experts to the microphone. Police had arrested Peterson after an extramarital affair was confirmed in trembling revelations by his lover. When nabbed on a La Jolla golf course, he had $15,000 in cash, a truck full of camping gear and bleached hair. The case turned into a cable TV and tabloid staple that demeaned the lives lost. Peterson's death sentence means this perverse reality show will probably play on for many and costly years longer. Start with his single cell at San Quentin and the 2 guards who, under the policy for death row prisoners, must escort him every time he leaves it. Add in fees for the lawyers who must be appointed to prepare for the California Supreme Court's mandatory review of his sentence, an appeal designed to keep those innocent or unfairly convicted from being executed. Since 1978, when the death penalty again became an option, California has executed just 10 murderers. Another execution is scheduled for January. Peterson joins 641 condemned men and women - more than in any other state - who are still on this glacial conveyor belt to the death chamber. It's a ride that, according to one estimate, costs taxpayers $90 million annually more than incarcerating them for life would. Now why, exactly, did California reinstate capital punishment? (source: Editorial, Los Angeles Times) OHIO: Ohio execution numbers add fuel to state's debate Experts say that the numbers are not typical. Nonetheless, the number of executions in Ohio during the current year is a serious matter that should get the attention of the legislature, which has debated -- or at least worried about -- capital punishment in fits and starts through the years. It may be just the right time for a more concentrated review. Ohio executed more people in 2004 than in the previous year, the reverse of a national trend toward fewer executions, a study says. Ohio's seven executions in 2004 was second in the country to Texas, with 23 executions, according to an annual report by the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center. Oklahoma was next with 6 executions while Virginia had 5. A 40 percent drop in executions and fewer death sentences during the past five years across the country represents a change in opinions on capital punishment, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the national center, a nonprofit organization. "The public's confidence in the death penalty has seriously eroded over the past several years," Dieter said. "Life without parole offers the public a better alternative without all the risks and expense." Nationally, there were 59 executions in 2004, compared to 98 in 1999. Ohio's total this year, however, was the highest since 1949 when 15 were put to death. Ohio had 3 executions in 2003, tied for 4th in the nation behind Texas, Oklahoma and North Carolina. Ohio Public Defender David Bodiker said he doesn't think the state is necessarily speeding up the pace of executions. "I don't think we're moving very fast. The 7 this year was probably not typical," Bodiker said. "We obviously have a reservoir of convictions which makes it possible for any year to have a substantial number of executions." The number of death sentences statewide continues to decline, from 18 in 1996 to 5 this year. More and more people across the country would say that that decline is the right way to go and that the death sentence should be eliminated completely. Changing public attitudes toward the death sentence should prompt lawmakers to take a renewed serious look at the controversial and emotional issue. (source: Editorial, Port Clinton News Herald) ******************** State Supreme Court Upholds Murder Conviction A Miami Valley triple-murderer will face execution now that the state Supreme Court has upheld his conviction. The decision was made Wednesday morning in the case of Larry James Gapen of Dayton. Gapen becomes the latest Miami Valley death row inmate who is moving closer to the death penalty. The state Supreme Court ruled that his trial was fair and upheld his conviction. Gapen was convicted in September 2000 for killing his estranged wife, Martha Madewell, her former husband Nathan Marshall and Madewell's 13-year-old daughter, Jessica Young. Gapen confessed to killing them and told police how he killed them using an ax-like chopping tool at their home. However, Gapen appealed his conviction. The state Supreme Court upheld his conviction on two of the murder counts. Officials said, one of the murder convictions was overturned on a technicality. However, the death penalty for Gapen still stands. Gapen is now on death row at the state prison in Mansfield. His case will go to the federal court, which could take several years. (source: WHIO TV News) MISSOURI: Missouri Courts Backing Off Death Penalty Just a few years ago, Missouri trailed only Texas and Virginia in the number of convicted killers put to death. Today, Missouri's death row is gradually being emptied out by the courts. Since the balance on the Missouri Supreme Court tipped toward the Democrats two years ago, the court has overturned an increasing number of death sentences and convictions, reduced the death row population from 67 to 50 and brought the scheduling of executions to a standstill. The state that once put someone to death about every other month has not held an execution in more than a year. Death penalty opponents are rejoicing. Prosecutors are fuming. "There clearly has been a philosophical shift in a majority of the court, making it more difficult to hold death penalty sentences and slowing down the ultimate process," said Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon. "I am frustrated. But I'm more frustrated for the crime victims and their families." Judicial skepticism of the death penalty has grown nationally over the past few years. U.S. juries imposed 144 death sentences last year, a 30-year low, and the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center is projecting 130 this year. This year's 59 executions nationally are the lowest since 1996, the organization said. Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the death sentences of 167 inmates in 2003, emptying death row. Arizona, which executed 22 people over an eight-year span, has not put anyone to death in four years. Louisiana, which executed 27 people over 2 decades, has not meted out capital punishment in 2 1/2 years. Around the country, "I think there is increasingly more evidence that suggests our system is not foolproof, and that human error enters into it," said Rod Uphoff, an associate dean at the University of Missouri-Columbia law school. "As good as our system is, it doesn't always get it right." Missouri's metamorphosis stands out because it was once one of the most active death penalty states. Between 1989, when Missouri resumed executions, and 2002, the state put to death 59 inmates -- 2nd only to Texas' 220 and Virginia's 80 during the same time period. Yet Missouri carried out just two executions in 2003 and none at all this year. In the past 2 years, the state Supreme Court has overturned about half the death sentence cases it has heard -- 15 out of 31. The turning point came in March 2002, when the addition of Judge Richard Teitelman gave the seven-member court -- once entirely composed of appointees of Republican Gov. John Ashcroft -- a new majority appointed by Democratic governors. Since then, the Democratic appointees have redefined Missouri's death penalty in a series of 4-3 decisions. Over the objection of GOP appointees, they freed death row inmate Joseph Amrine, saying the evidence appeared to show he was innocent of fatally stabbing another prisoner. They also ordered a retrial for Kenneth Baumruk, charged in a courthouse shooting rampage, because the original trial was held in the same courthouse. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that only juries, not judges, can impose death sentences, the Missouri Supreme Court applied that retroactively and commuted nine death sentences to life in prison. Republicans on the court wanted to hold new sentencing hearings for the inmates. In the state court's most groundbreaking decision, it declared it unconstitutional to sentence juvenile offenders to death -- despite a state law allowing it and a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court precedent upholding it in a previous Missouri case. The Missouri Supreme Court used to set an execution date within weeks of receiving a petition from the attorney general. But the court has yet to act on 6 execution date requests submitted by Nixon, several of them filed in 2002. "We had a Supreme Court several years ago that was just kind of rubber-stamping all the cases that came before it," said Jeff Stack of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty. Now "we have a group of judges who are very careful, very wary in determining if death was in fact the appropriate sentence." On the Net: Missouri Supreme Court: http://www.courts.mo.gov/sup/index.nsf (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: 3 Carrboro Police Officers Under Investigation 3 Carrboro Police officers are under scrutiny for the way they obtained a confession from a murder suspect. Deborah Key was last seen with Andrew Dalzell at a Carrboro bar seven years ago, Key never made it home that night. This past September, Carrboro Police allegedly pressured Dalzell into confessing to the murder. They used stationary from the District Attorney's office and created a fake letter saying the DA would pursue the death penalty if Dalzell wouldn't tell where key's body was located. However the officers did not read Dalzell his rights. This afternoon District Attorney Carl Fox is trying to convince a judge that Dalzell's statements should be used against him. (source: ABC News) ****************************** Killer of 2 Charlotte police officers seeks new trial A decade after being sentenced to death for the murders of 2 Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers, Alden Harden went back to court to continue his legal battle to save his life. Harden, 43, does not deny that he killed police officers Andy Nobles and John Burnette in October 1993. But during a hearing Tuesday, his attorneys argued that he killed them in self-defense during a struggle. The convicted murderer is now seeking a new trial or new sentencing hearing in hopes of getting off death row. Harden claims in court documents that he didn't get a fair trial. He has attacked his defense lawyers, a key prosecution witness, a juror and the media coverage surrounding the killings. Prosecutors have asked the judge to deny Harden's motion for a new trial or sentencing hearing, arguing that there is no evidence to support his claims. It could be months before Superior Court Judge Timothy Patti decides whether Harden should get a new trial or another sentencing hearing. At the hearing Tuesday, Harden's new lawyers, Margaret Ciardella of Hampstead and Nora Hargrove of Wilmington, challenged the testimony of a 5-year-old boy who told jurors he saw both Nobles and Burnette shot in the head. Marc Lindberg, a psychologist and expert in childhood memory, testified for the defense that the child's testimony was unreliable. Harden's lawyers also accused one juror of consulting a Bible and relying on its guidance in reaching her decision to sentence Harden to death. The juror testified Tuesday that wasn't true but she acknowledged learning from the Bible that she could sentence Harden to death. Harden also has criticized his lawyers who defended him during the capital murder trial. He claims they admitted his guilt during the capital murder trial without his consent. That's not so, prosecutors said in court documents. "The record shows that trial counsel represented Harden ably ," the prosecutors wrote. "The jury could have, but did not, draw a reasonable inference that Harden reasonably believed that he was fighting for his life." (source: Associated Press) CONNECTICUT: Judge to hold off on death sentence A judge will not sentence a convicted murderer to death Wednesday. A juror who sat through the murder trial for Eduardo Santiago has had a change of heart. Santiago, 25, is waiting to find out if he will face the death penalty for his role in the killing of Joseph Niwinski. He was supposed to learn his fate in a courtroom Wednesday. Santiago was convicted in August of shooting Niwinski in his sleep in 2000 in exchange for a broken snowmobile. Santiago's defense team says that one of the jurors in the case has expressed misgivings about the death sentence the jury recommended in September. Now, judge Douglas Lavine has given both sides until the end of January to prepare briefs about if the juror's feelings should interfere with the sentencing. ******************* Judge Blocks Public Defenders From Intervening In Ross Case----Execution Of Convicted Serial Killer Set For January Connecticut's public defender's office is being shut out of the Michael Ross case. A New London judge ruled Wednesday that the public defender's office has no standing to intervene in the execution of the serial killer, scheduled for next month. Judge Patrick Clifford's decision clears another hurdle for Ross, who has said he no longer wants to appeal his conviction and sentence and wants to die. His execution is scheduled for Jan. 26. The public defender's office asked Clifford to allow its attorneys to step into the case on Ross' behalf and suggested several ways its involvement could take place. But the chief state's attorney's office opposed the move, arguing that the public defender has no grounds to intervene. Public defenders argued that they should be appointed as a "next friend" of Ross because he is incompetent and wants to commit "state-assisted suicide." Clifford said he has no reason to believe Ross is incompetent. A hearing on his competence will take place Dec. 28. If Ross is ruled incompetent, Clifford said he may reconsider the public defender's motion. Ross, who has admitted killing 8 women in Connecticut and New York, is on death row for killing 4 young women in eastern Connecticut in the 1980s. He would be the 1st person executed in Connecticut in more than 40 years. (source for both: Associated Press) KENTUCKY: Confessed Killer Gets His Wish A man who requested a death sentence for killing two Kentucky children in 2002 got his wish Tuesday. Marco Chapman was sentenced to death by Boone County Circuit Judge Tony Frolich, WLKY NewsChannel 32's John Charlton reported. Chapman pleaded guilty last week to the murders of 2 children -- 6-year-old Cody Sharon and 7-year-old Chelbi Sharon. Their mother, Carolyn Marksberry, testified at Tuesday's hearing. She called Marco Chapman a monster and showed family pictures of the children in the courtroom. Marksberry and another one of her children also were attacked, but recovered. "Neither my daughter nor I want to look over our shoulders (and see Chapman)," Marksberry read from a prepared statement. She added she's relieved that the sentence means her young daughter won't have to worry about Chapman coming back to harm her, Charlton reported. Meanwhile, Chapman offered an apology to those he hurt. "It probably doesn't mean much, but I'd like to apologize to Carolyn Marksberry, her daughter, her family and everybody else I hurt," he said. "I don't know exactly what happened." Frolich gave Chapman two death sentences and 5 life sentences for other charges in connection with the case, Charlton reported. Tuesday's hearing was expected to last up to 2 hours, but the proceedings took only 45 minutes. Automatic appeals likely will delay the execution for at least a year, Charlton reported. (source: National Incident Notification Network)
