Dec. 31 USA: Death sentences, executions decline---Still, public backs capital punishment Signs of an apparent decline in the death penalty can be found in falling numbers of executions and death sentences, in court rulings in two states finding capital punishment laws unconstitutional and in the U.S. Supreme Court's renewed vigilance over the ultimate sanction. Since 1999, when a record 98 inmates were put to death across the country, the number of death row executions has dropped to 59 in 2004. The year even finished with no executions in December, the 1st time since July 1994 that such an event occurred. But the falling numbers don't tell the whole story. The death penalty still has public backing and strong proponents. On Jan. 26, Connecticut is scheduled to hold the 1st execution in New England in more than 4 decades. On that date, serial killer Michael Ross, 45, faces lethal injection in the killings of 8 women in Connecticut and New York in the early 1980s. This week, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said he would present to state lawmakers early next year a bill that would bring the death penalty to his state--one of a dozen in the United States without it. The measure is thought to have little chance of passage. In Virginia, long one of the nation's execution leaders, Republican gubernatorial hopeful and Atty. Gen. Jerry Kilgore has proposed eliminating the state's "triggerman" rule, so even those defendants who do not actually commit a murder can face execution. And during 2004 the federal death row grew by about 30 %, from 26 condemned prisoners to 34. Reshuffling of deck "It all adds up to a strong, dramatic shift, though not the end of the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C., non-profit group critical of how the death penalty is applied. The lack of an execution in December, traditionally a slow month for executions because of the holidays, appeared to be more a fluke this year than a sign of any trend; several prisoners scheduled to die were granted stays. Death sentences have fallen since 1998, when 300 inmates received such convictions. In 2003, the total was 144, and Dieter projects 130 for 2004. Because the declines in executions are small, it is hard to gauge their statistical significance. After all, had some of the executions scheduled for December taken place, the execution decline would have been negligible. "When you're dealing with numbers this small, those kinds of random fluctuations don't matter that much, especially with states," said Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports capital punishment. Behind the statistics are several factors, all of them tied to new debate over the death penalty--a debate no longer focused on whether it is right or wrong but centered on questions of accuracy and fairness. That debate gained urgency in early 2000, when Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois, and it has continued hotly as the number of death row exonerations steadily rises. 5 death row inmates were exonerated in 2004. Among them: Gordon "Randy" Steidl, who had been convicted of two murders in Downstate Illinois, and Ernest Willis, who spent 17 years on Texas' death row for an arson murder but was released after experts determined the fire was not arson at all. "These numbers are the result of all these things," said Dieter. "It has shaken people's confidence, and there's a hesitance going forward." Courtroom scene Dieter and others believe that juries have grown wary of imposing capital punishment verdicts and that judges increasingly are granting condemned inmates hearings on issues that, in the past, they may have done without. Scheidegger disagrees. He attributes the reduction in such convictions to the drop in the homicide rate. He also cites anecdotal evidence: claims by some prosecutors that fewer of the most heinous murders more likely to lead to death sentences are occurring. "If juries are more reluctant to impose the death penalty in those relatively few cases where there's a lingering question, that's not a problem," he said. State-by-state trends are difficult to interpret. Missouri, whose death chamber traditionally has been one of the nation's busiest, had no executions in 2004. One factor: the state's Supreme Court tipped Democratic 2 years ago. Appeals dropped Ohio executed 7 inmates in 2004, more than double its 2003 total of 3 and more than it has had for decades. But it, too, was a fluke. 2 death row inmates gave up their appeals and were executed in 2004. "The common perception is because Ohio had seven, something different is happening here," said Deputy Atty. Gen. James Canepa. "We are by no means on any sort of breakneck pace in executing people." If anything has changed in Ohio it is the pace of death sentences. Since life without the possibility of parole became a sentencing option in 1996, capital punishment convictions have fallen from 10 to 12 a year to three to eight, said Canepa. "What we've seen," he said, "are less death verdicts." In New York and Kansas, state courts ruled death penalty laws unconstitutional. In New York, where restoring such punishment was a cornerstone of Gov. George Pataki's first campaign, the state has yet to execute a prisoner and the legislature does not appear eager to rewrite its flawed law. Kansas law-enforcement officials, stung by their Supreme Court's Dec. 17 decision striking down the law, have already asked the judges to reconsider. Officials may also appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. In many ways, the death penalty is largely a Texas matter, and until its pace slows, the Lone Star State will remain the nation's leading executioner. In 2004, Texas had 23 executions--more than a third of the nationwide total. Of the nation's first 13 executions scheduled for 2005, the state accounts for nine of them, according to Dieter and Texas prison records. But the U.S. Supreme Court appears to be keeping a closer eye on Texas--and the death penalty in general. Over the past year, the justices have considered appeals from 3 condemned inmates in the state and appear to be frustrated with Texas-style justice. It is even hearing one case for the 2nd time in 2 years. Court not as tolerant "It's extraordinary what's been happening," said David Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston who represents death row inmates. "What you basically have," he added, "is a fairly conservative court that has been rebuking [Texas] in death penalty cases--and by fairly decisive margins. "The court seems to be less tolerant of things here," the law professor added. Still, even with the new scrutiny, Dow does not see dramatic change. "I have a sense that there's a bigger number of people interested in change," he said. "It used to be a voice in the wilderness. Now, it's a chorus of voices." Having banned the execution of the mentally retarded in 2002, the Supreme Court is considering another dramatic winnowing of the death penalty: banning the execution of juvenile offenders. That would fall in line with several public statements by justices expressing concern about how capital punishment is applied--and reflect the uneasiness expressed in public opinion polls. "Once something doesn't work, people stop using it," said Robin Maher, the director of the American Bar Association's death penalty representation project. "The public has seen so many mistakes ... it's questioning the use of the death penalty itself." (source: Chicago Tribune) ILLINOIS: Another 151 murders averted The crushing of skulls on a gorgeous summer evening in 2002 awakened Chicago to a travesty this city long had tolerated. The deaths of 2 defenseless men--they were beaten with masonry and fists by a mob of bystanders after their van struck three young women--shocked America. The vigilante executions of Jack Moore, 62, and Anthony Stuckey, 49, accomplished something that more than 600 homicides a year, for 34 straight years, had not: Those 2 murders embarrassed Chicago. In a series of 2002 editorials, "The Chicago crime," this page framed the nonchalance of a metropolis to its ritual massacre: "In a city that has improved by almost every measure--from infant mortality to public education, from calmer race relations to the broad diversity of its economy--one civic failure stubbornly defies conquest. Not since 1967 has a year concluded with fewer than 600 people being murdered here. . . . What none of us wants to say, but what we as a city say by our tolerance of 600 murders a year, is that many of these lives are expendable. There is no empirical proof that Chicagoans ignore homicides by the hundreds because the blood flows in impoverished neighborhoods where most of the faces are black or brown. But to deny that reality is to ignore what most of us will admit under our breath." Year after year, fewer than 10 % of Chicago's murder victims are white. That enduring calculus penalizes parts of Chicago by race, and also by class. Reverse the percentages, making nine of every 10 victims white, and Chicago's civic outrage would have demanded decades ago that the murder toll be slashed. The fact that such a demand is being sounded now is a belated acknowledgement that in terrorized neighborhoods across this city, too many young bodies wind up wearing toe tags. - - - Chicago's crusade since 2002 to drive down the carnage is making extraordinary progress. As of mid-Thursday, with barely a day of killing time to go, the 2004 murder toll stood at 447. That is 151 fewer victims, 151 fewer heartbroken families, 151 fewer anguished funeral sermons, than the 2003 toll of 598 by the same date, Dec. 30. When the final corpses were counted, Chicago ended 2003 with 600 homicides. That was down from 654 in 2002, which was down from 668 in 2001. In short, while the number of homicides nationwide has been growing slightly, in Chicago it has starkly declined. So, too, has the all-important murder rate--homicides divided by population--the humiliating category in which Chicago has led the nation's biggest cities in nine of the last 10 full years. 2 more lifesaving achievements attest to this progress--which has been, in the parlance of logicians, necessary but not sufficient. - For many years, through 2002, Chicago endured some 4,000 intentional shootings every year in addition to its murders. (4 of 5 killers here use guns.) But in 2003, as this crusade against violence took hold, the number of intentional shootings in Chicago dropped by 23 %, to 3,016. As of Thursday, the count for 2004 had plummeted by another 39 %, to 1,824. - The number of guns seized this year by Chicago police has risen more than 5 % to 10,479--an average of 29 firearms taken off the streets every day. Just since Sept. 13, when Congress and the Bush administration inexplicably let the federal ban on assault weapons expire, police here have seized more than 100 of those hyperefficient killing machines. In sum, a city defined by gun violence since the bloodthirsty days of Capone is now experiencing . . . much less gun violence. The overarching reason is that Chicago--its public officials, some of its victimized communities, its foundations and other institutional voices--has come to see homicide as an issue of basic civil rights. For too long, law-abiding residents of impoverished minority neighborhoods have been hostages to violence, deprived of the security and freedom the rest of us enjoy. Mayor Richard M. Daley signaled an assault on the killing early in 2003. The slaughter angered Daley, formerly Cook County's chief prosecutor; since he became mayor in 1989, more than 11,000 people have been murdered in his city. He hired federal prosecutor Matthew Crowl as his de facto homicide czar. Later that year, Crowl had a role in Daley's choice of Philip Cline as police superintendent. Credit for that inspired appointment also goes to Ald. Ike Carothers (29th), head of the City Council's Police and Fire Committee. Carothers was disgusted by mayhem so ruthless that every two weeks on average, another schoolchild died of gunshot wounds. Carothers took a political risk, telling Chicago's African-American community that crime-fighting ability--not the race of any candidate--mattered most in the choice of a top cop. In the realpolitik of Chicago, Carothers' candor allowed Daley to promote Cline, who is white. Cline is the architect of imaginative tactics to put more "cops on the dots," flooding officers into zones where violence has occurred or where improved gang intelligence suggests it is likely. He has ordered desk officers and top brass onto vicious streets during the nighttime hours when killings tend to occur. As never before, officers have disrupted open-air drug markets, gun trafficking and retaliatory cycles of gang warfare. Cline also has benefited from work by his predecessor, Terry Hillard, who is black. It was Hillard's outreach to minority communities, including frequent forums he hosted, that left many neighborhoods open--however cautiously--to the heavier police presence Cline has delivered. Chicago cops have increased their one-to-one contacts by tens of thousands, mostly in minority areas with no increase in citizen complaints of misconduct by officers. The fear often voiced in many neighborhoods is that the police will lose interest in quelling gunplay and retreat. Chicago owes some of its improvement to federal prosecutors who have aggressively wielded gun laws, and to federal judges who treat these cases more seriously than before. Experimental efforts to teach parolees about Draconian federal prison penalties for repeat firearms offenders has cut homicides in those neighborhoods even more dramatically than the citywide reduction. Those tutorials also have prompted some suspects captured during gun offenses to beg of the arresting officers: "Don't take me federal!" - - - Chicago is at a tipping point. For some potential killers, it appears, a gun is now too toxic a possession to be an everyday article of attire. The halving of intentional shootings in just two years suggests that violent behaviors can be changed, even after decades of constancy. A balance of power is shifting away from those who long have terrorized much of Chicago. Their influence must continue to diminish. The murder numbers here must continue to fall. Speaking to police commanders earlier this month, Cline bluntly instructed them not to confuse being pleased with being satisfied. On Tuesday he reiterated: "We can't become complacent. We've had 445 homicides this year. Those victims' families are not rejoicing today when they hear that we're down 145 homicides." Two more homicides have occurred since Cline spoke those words. Chicago paid a terrible price for its one-third of a century with more than 600 murders every year: During that pogrom, more than 28,000 lives were exterminated. Homicide isn't one pathology, but a constellation of pathologies--from domestic violence to tavern brawls to gangbanging--that leave corpses. Driving down homicide demands a strategy for each pathology. Example: In 2005, Chicago police will launch new efforts to curb infanticides. The long-term solution to homicide is to better educate young people before they turn to dangerous lifestyles involving gangs, guns and drugs. Until that effort can prevail, we're forced to evaluate Chicago's expanding crusade against homicide by the number of people still among us. To give thanks, at the end of that crusade's third year, for another 151 murders that didn't occur. (source: Editorial, Chicago Tribune) CONNECTICUT: Ruling Could Come Soon On Request By Ross' Father----Dan Ross seeks challenge to state's execution method A federal judge may decide Thursday in U.S. District Court whether the father of serial killer Michael Ross has any standing to proceed on his son's behalf and challenge the use of lethal injection for execution. The lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut Tuesday on behalf of Ross' father, Dan Ross, calls the state's execution procedures cruel and unusual punishment. Dan Ross is acting as "next friend" to his son. Judge Christopher Droney could also decide to abstain from any action in the case in light of a state Supreme Court decision that found Connecticut's method of execution does not violate the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit cites an anesthesiologist's critical report of the state's execution procedures and his conclusions that the process could inflict severe pain and trauma to Michael Ross. Dr. Mark Heath, a professor of anesthesiology at Columbia University, raised concerns about the low dosage and the manner of delivery of thiopental sodium, a sedative designed to render Ross unconscious at the start of the lethal-injection procedure. He said there are myriad features in the administration of the lethal injection that could increase the risk of failure in delivering the anesthetizing drug. Michael Ross, 45, of Brooklyn, was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murders of Leslie Shelley and April Brunais, both 14; Robin Stavinsky, 19; and Wendy Baribeault, 17. Three of the victims were raped. He also is serving two life sentences for the rapes and murders of 2 women in Windham County. He has confessed to killing 2 other young women in the early 1980s while he was a student at Cornell University. Dan Ross has also filed another petition in Rockville Superior Court, asking the court to halt the Jan. 26 execution. The father says in the suit he is seeking to be appointed as his son's "next friend" because he is dedicated to the best interests of his son - that his son not die without exhausting all avenues of appeal. Dan Ross' motion contends his son's convictions are illegal for various reasons, including that he received ineffective counsel and that he was mentally ill when he committed the murders. Ross' former public defenders have also joined in the petition. A Rockville judge will decide Monday whether Dan Ross or the public defenders have any standing to force Michael Ross to appeal his convictions. The public defender's office will get a chance on Wednesday to argue before the state Supreme Court on why it should have the right to represent Ross. In their appeal to the high court, the public defenders argue that the office was wrongfully denied the right it has under federal common law to show that Ross is incompetent, preparatory to being appointed as his "next friend." A New London Superior Court judge Tuesday found Ross competent to forgo his appeals and proceed to his execution. The public defenders also allege that the lower court erred when it refused to allow them to appear as a friend of the court. (source: The Day) ************************* Killer to get brain scans A New Milford man who confessed to killing his girlfriend and their baby in September will undergo a series of scans designed to detect brain abnormalities. The lawyer for 29-year-old David Stone recently asked a Superior Court judge to grant Stone a transfer from prison to a hospital where he can have the tests. "There's a lot we don't know about how the human brain works," said Michael Courtney, Stone's lawyer. "Some of these tests may help us find out." Those tests are an MRI, CT scan and a newer scan, called the PET scan than can detect abnormalities other scans cannot. Courtney declined to say if he is looking for anything specific he thinks could help his client's case. Stone faces the death penalty. In general, when a defendant faces the death penalty, a lawyer will delve into every aspect of his life, including finding out every detail about his health, to uncover a mitigating factor that could help him avoid execution. Stone took his girlfriend, Lisa Aviles, 31, and their baby, Damien Stone, on a walk to Lovers Leap park in New Milford, where he allegedly killed them, police said. The stab wounds directed at both victims were made to vital internal organs like the heart and lungs, police said. CT and MRI scans look at the size and shape of organs and structures of the body, according to the Web site petscaninfo.com. The PET scan, or Positron Emission Tomography scan, looks at the biological function in the body before anatomical changes are visible. PET scans can identify forms of cancer, damaged heart tissue and brain disorders like epilepsy, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. According to the information on the Web site, a PET scan can detect abnormalities in cells before there are anatomical changes and in many cases can identify disease earlier and more specifically than other scans. Dr. William Johns, of Danbury Hospital's Nuclear Medicine Department, said a PET scan is "more sensitive" than other tests. For example, Johns recalled a case in which the PET scan was able to pick up abnormalities of a drug addict's brain when others scans could not. The PET scans are newer than MRI and CT scans, Johns said. Danbury Hospital got the scan machines about three years ago, he said. Defense lawyer Eugene Riccio, of Bridgeport, said he had one of his clients undergo an MRI scan in a murder case he handled in Danbury Superior Court in the 1990s. Riccio was defending James Pinder Jr., a man convicted of murder in 1997. Pinder confessed to killing his friend and roommate, Brian Altvater, at Altvater's parent's house. Pinder was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Riccio found Pinder suffered from brain damage, although ultimately that didn't help his case. Although Riccio hasn't used the PET scan, he said brain scans can be helpful. "If you can show demonstrable injury, it's something people can put their finger on," he said. (source: The News-Times) CALIFORNIA: Beardslee Asks Governor For Clemency A Redwood City man who is scheduled to be executed on Jan. 19 asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today to exercise clemency and commute his sentence to life in prison without parole. The clemency petition filed by lawyers for Donald Beardslee, 61, argues that exceptional circumstances, including alleged lifelong brain damage in Beardslee, "warrant the exercise of mercy." Beardslee is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison on Jan. 19 for the 1981 murder of Patty Geddling, 23. He was convicted by a jury in San Mateo County Superior Court in 1983 of murdering both Geddling and her roommate, Stacey Benjamin, 19. A separate penalty jury in 1984 imposed a death penalty for Geddling's murder and a sentence of life in prison without parole for the slaying of Benjamin. Beardslee has previously lost a series of state and federal appeals over the past 2 decades. On Wednesday, he lost a key ruling in a last-minute appeal when a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned down his claim that he should be given a new penalty trial. That ruling can still be appealed to an expanded appeals panel or to the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, the circuit court set Jan. 5 as the deadline for Beardslee to file an appeal for review by an expanded panel. The 48-page clemency petition asks the governor to look outside of the court proceedings and consider information that was not fully known at the time of Beardslee's trial. The petition contends that the penalty jury was not aware Beardslee had suffered from "severe brain damage that impaired his functioning since birth." It argues that the brain damage accounts for Beardslee's "puzzling behavior" during the murders, in which Beardslee did not know the victims and had nothing to do with a plot hatched by 3 other men to kill the 2 women, according to the petition. The filing also argues that Beardslee played a smaller role in the killings than the other men, who received lesser sentences, and that he may even not have fired the shot that killed Geddling. Beardslee's lawyers also argue in the petition that he has been a model prisoner and would not pose a danger if sentenced to life in prison without parole. "A commutation of Mr. Beardslee's death sentence is not only a merciful result, it also is a just result," the petition says. J.P. Tremblay, the assistant secretary for external affairs of the California Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, said today that state prosecutors have nine days to respond to the petition. Tremblay said he expects the state Board of Prison Terms to hold a clemency hearing on approximately Jan. 12. The board will then make a recommendation to the governor on whether to grant clemency, he said. (source: Bay City News)
