Dec. 30 CALIFORNIA: Appeals court denies appeal from death row inmate A federal appeals court denied an appeal from a confessed killer scheduled to be executed next month, saying an improper jury instruction did not substantially affect the verdict. A 3-judge panel for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously Wednesday that Donald Beardslee should not have a new penalty phase for the 1981 murder of Patty Geddling in San Mateo County. Defense attorney Michael Laurence argued Tuesday before the panel in Pasadena that the sentencing jury was swayed toward the death penalty by directions to consider the special circumstances and might otherwise have opted for life in prison without parole. Judge Sidney R. Thomas, writing for the panel, disagreed in a ruling released Wednesday. "Although the jury was instructed that it should consider the invalid special circumstances findings in its penalty determination, this error did not have a substantial and injurious effect on the verdict," Thomas wrote. Beardslee, who shot one woman and stabbed and strangled another to death, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Jan. 19. He can still ask for a hearing in front of the full appeals court, appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and ask for clemency from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. If that all fails, Beardslee would become the 11th condemned inmate to be executed since California reinstated capital punishment in 1978. More than 600 inmates are on the state's death row. Beardslee, 61, has already spent 2 decades in an odyssey of appeals that has reached and been rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. Beardslee was originally convicted of killing the 2 women to get even for a soured drug deal. The murders were deemed "witness killings" because they prevented the victims from testifying against him. The California Supreme Court set aside the "witness killing" special circumstances in 1991 but affirmed the death sentence. Laurence argued that the sentencing jury was unduly swayed toward the death penalty by directions to consider the special circumstances and might otherwise have opted for life in prison without parole. The panel placed a lot of importance on the face that the jury issued a death sentence for only one of the 2 murders. "The jury's verdict of life without parole for one murder and the imposition of the death penalty for the other indicates that the invalid special circumstances applicable to both crimes did not substantially influence the jury's ultimate verdict," Thomas wrote." The killings began when Frank Rutherford, who is serving a life sentence in connection to the murders, shot Geddling in the shoulder at Beardslee's apartment in Redwood City, where the defendants lured her and Stacey Benjamin to seek revenge for being stiffed out of drugs. Beardslee and Rutherford then took Geddling to a roadside along Highway 1 where she was shot several times. Benjamin was strangled and her throat slit the same day. The jury convicted Beardslee of doing the actual killings. The special circumstance that the crimes were "witness killings," as well as the fact that he was convicted of multiple murders, made him eligible for the death penalty. A separate jury decided he should die. During the trial, Beardslee's lawyers sought the jury's sympathy, saying he should avoid death because he confessed to the police, was mentally impaired and had a disturbed childhood. The case is Beardslee v. Brown, 01-99007. (source: San Francisco Chronicle) MASSACHUSETTS: Legislators split on death penalty bill Area legislators are predicting Gov. Mitt Romney's recently proposed death penalty bill will have an uphill battle on Beacon Hill next year. Romney announced Tuesday he plans to file the bill during the upcoming legislative session. The bill, Romney said, would limit capital punishment to only the most heinous of crimes, including the murder of police officers or government witnesses, and murders involving torture or terrorism. He said the legislation would rely heavily on DNA evidence to limit the chance that innocent people will be unjustly executed. Locally, 2 prominent legislators have very different opinions on the moral dilemma and the Romney bill. State Senate Majority Whip Sen. Joan Menard, D-Fall River, said she opposes the death penalty in any form. But state Rep. Phillip Travis, D-Rehoboth, said he will support Romney's bill when, or if, it ever comes up for a full vote in the House. Menard said the Senate leadership, of which she is a part, will likely come down hard against Romney's proposal to reinstitute the death penalty in Massachusetts. "It makes no sense to me to institute the death penalty in our state. I think it's completely inappropriate for the state to become an executioner again," Menard said. "There are so many other things we as state leaders need to focus on next year. The timing of this is very suspect." But Travis, who is considered by many to be one of the more conservative members of the state's Democratic Party, said he will fight hard to get Romney's bill passed. "With our new sciences like DNA evidence, we can prove innocence or guilt without a doubt. I support it either way," Travis explained. "It's an appropriate tool to protect us from criminals. It will also make people think twice before committing premeditated murder." Although he supports Romney's death penalty initiative, Travis conceded that it will be very difficult to get enough votes to pass the legislative measure. "I think it would pass if there was another heinous murder like we (had) in 1997," Travis said. "It will be an uphill battle, but I am pledging my support and will debate in favor of it when the time comes." Travis said the last time a capital punishment bill was filed, it was soundly defeated. But he said he also remembers that a 1997 capital punishment bill filed immediately after the horrific murder of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley was voted down by a razor-thin 2-vote margin. Both legislators also said it is a moral issue for many who come down on either side of the hot button issue. But Travis said, "God doesn't take a stand against the punishment of death. "Christ was executed," Travis added. Menard, however, said she is "very confident" that the measure will be shot down with relative ease. "It's not going to happen," Menard asserted. Although he did not take a position on the death penalty being reinstituted in the Bay State, Bristol County District Attorney Paul F. Walsh did recently question why the governor would want to get embroiled in an issue that incurs "too many moral and religious implications." "I have no thoughts on the death penalty push by the governor," Walsh said in an interview last month. "There are so many other things that need to be done from a prosecutor's perspective. Before we start executing people, we have to get better at catching them. Our state crime labs are shoddy at best, and the medical examiner's office is outdated." Walsh also noted that the penalty phase of death penalty cases is "exceedingly expensive." (source: heraldnews.com) VIRGINIA: Death Penalty A Key Strategy For Kilgore - Rival Kaine's Opposition Stressed in Bid for Governor Lem Tuggle and Richard Lee Whitley are long dead, executed by Virginia years ago. But Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, the likely Republican nominee for governor, is planning to resurrect them next year as symbols of his rival's opposition to the death penalty. Tuggle raped, sodomized and shot a woman while on parole after killing a 17-year-old girl. Whitley cut the throat of his Fairfax County neighbor and then brutally sexually assaulted her. The death row lawyer for both men was a young Timothy M. Kaine, now the state's Democratic lieutenant governor and his party's likely nominee next year to succeed Gov. Mark R. Warner (D). Kilgore has begun invoking Tuggle's and Whitley's names in speeches as part of what his campaign says will be an effort to make the death penalty a defining issue in the 2005 race. Carrie Cantrell, Kilgore's campaign spokeswoman, said Kaine "stands alone" among Virginia candidates for governor in opposing capital punishment. "Tim Kaine is the only person to run for the governor's office since 1976 who has been opposed to the death penalty," she said. Kilgore's campaign is betting that Kaine's background as a defense attorney and strong feelings about the Washington-area snipers and other cases will make the death penalty a compelling issue in a way that it hasn't been for years. This month, Kilgore proposed the Death Penalty Enhancement Act, which would expand the number of crimes eligible for the punishment. Kaine is hoping to defuse the issue by promising voters that he will uphold and enforce the state's capital punishment laws regardless of his personal views, which he says are based on deeply held religious beliefs about the sanctity of life. In a recent opinion article, Kaine wrote: "As governor, I will enforce capital sentences just as other governors have done. My personal feelings have never and will never interfere with my sworn duty to the citizens of Virginia." Kaine's campaign officials said that every time Kilgore discusses the death penalty, they will shift the conversation to Kaine's support of strict crime policies as Richmond's mayor and to Kilgore's opposition to the state's 2004 budget deal, which included money for police and firefighters. "Tim's never apologized for his faith-based, moral opposition to the death penalty," spokesman Mo Elleithee said. "These two cases were court-appointed cases, and he felt a moral obligation under the code of legal ethics to provide them with a defense." Elleithee also vows to hit back at Kilgore. He accused the attorney general of once defending a hospital executive who embezzled money and of being the lawyer for a state worker who falsified safety inspection reports for mines. "He's represented some very shady characters during his years as an attorney," Elleithee said. National advocates for and against the death penalty said Kaine is trying to walk a fine line common among many politicians who oppose capital punishment. Faced with polls that indicate a large majority of Americans support the death penalty, many -- such as former U.S. attorney general Janet Reno in her failed 2002 bid to become governor of Florida -- have sought to draw distinctions between their personal beliefs and their public duty. "There are plenty of Democratic politicians who have been able to pull that off as district attorneys and governors," said Joshua Marquis, an Oregon district attorney and a leading death penalty advocate. "But there comes a point at which, if you feel that strongly, you just can't be part of the machinery of death." At the same time, candidates who favor the death penalty have been less inclined to make it an issue recently because of the increasing number of times that DNA evidence has exonerated death row inmates. Elisabeth Semel, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and longtime opponent of capital punishment, said Virginia's could be the most prominent governor's race in years to highlight the issue. "It's a tragedy that at a time when throughout the U.S. the death penalty is finally being questioned by the American public we would have a campaign that is a throwback to another era," she said. Observers of Virginia politics say they expect Kilgore's media team to produce television ads and political mailings based on Kaine's comments about the Tuggle and Whitley cases. In 1987, as Kaine was waiting for Whitley's execution, he told one newspaper, "Something personal in me will die, too." He told The Washington Post that "murder is wrong in the gulag, in Afghanistan, in Soweto, in the mountains of Guatemala, in Fairfax County . . . and even the Spring Street Penitentiary." Cantrell said those comments cast doubt on what Kaine would do when presented with the opportunity to commute a death sentence. In other states, governors have imposed moratoriums on capital punishment. "Everyone deserves a defense attorney. We're not questioning that," Cantrell said. "It's just, this guy wants to be governor. The governor has the power, one by one, to issue a backdoor moratorium with no accountability to anyone." Elleithee said Kaine "is not going to put his energies" toward a moratorium, though Kaine said in 2001 that he supported one. Elleithee said Kaine did not seek out the Tuggle and Whitley cases. In both cases, he agreed to take them on when their lawyers quit. "He wasn't going to walk away from that ethical responsibility," Elleithee said. Kaine has received some support for that position. Several editorials in newspapers across the state have taken Kilgore to task for attacking his opponent's legal work. And Joseph E. diGenova, a Republican former U.S. attorney in Washington who earned fame for pursuing investigation of former mayor Marion Barry, criticized Kilgore on CNN's "Crossfire" recently. "I think lawyers represent all types of clients," diGenova told host James Carville. "It's their duty to do so, especially if they're appointed by the court. I just differ with Mr. Kilgore on that question." (source: Wasshington Post) ILLINOIS: Dupo killings could lead to death penalty If prosecutors in St. Clair County decide to seek the death penalty for Donald L. Hollis Sr., it will be the 1st death penalty case in the county since former Gov. George Ryan emptied the state's death row nearly 2 years ago. Hollis, 44, pleaded not guilty Tuesday in the murder of a Waterloo woman and her daughter. He could qualify for the death penalty under state guidelines, said Robert Haida, St. Clair County state's attorney. Hollis is accused of killing Amanda Johnson, 24, and her daughter, Alyssa Hargrove, 4, at his trailer in Dupo sometime during the Christmas holiday. Hollis and Johnson had dated, but the relationship had ended, police said. Haida said he and other attorneys in his office will consider whether to seek the death penalty after a grand jury meets to consider Hollis' case next month. "Presuming there is an indictment, we'll convene a committee," he said, adding that the office hasn't adopted a position on the matter. Haida said the death penalty could apply in Hollis' case for 2 reasons under state law: because 2 people were murdered and because a victim younger than 12 experienced an "exceptionally brutal or heinous" death. Prosecutors must prove that the crime was brutal by comparing the case with others that have fit that description. They have 120 days to announce whether they will seek the death penalty once charges have been filed. "That's 4 months - plenty of time for us to make the decision," Haida said. In January 2003, just before he left office, Ryan commuted all death row sentences to life in prison. Since then, only a handful of death sentences have been handed down in Illinois. One of those occurred at the courthouse in Belleville this year but was a case arising out of Jefferson County that had been moved because of publicity. A Mount Vernon man opted for the death penalty after being convicted at trial of killing a 10-year-old girl. Hollis is being held at the St. Clair County Jail. A lawyer has yet to enter an appearance on his behalf. He is expected to receive a formal arraignment if the grand jury issues an indictment, but no court dates have been set. (source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
