Jan. 3 TEXAS----impending execution//volunteer Convicted killer ready to die Tuesday Convicted killer James Porter figured he did society a favor by fatally beating a child molester even though he wound up on death row for the slaying. Now he believes he's doing himself a favor by short-circuiting his appeals to ensure a trip to Texas' death chamber Tuesday. "I'm the type of individual to face up to my responsibility and my mistakes," Porter, 33, said recently from a small visiting cell outside Texas' death row. At Porter's request, no appeals were pending in the courts and no clemency petition was filed with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, said his lawyer, Robin Norris. "I believe as much as I can determine that he is in fact determined to go," Norris said. The tattoo-covered Porter, whose body art touts what he said is his former allegiance to white supremacist prison gangs, is the 1st of 9 Texas inmates already set to die this year, including 4 in January. Texas, the nation's most active capital punishment state, carried out 23 executions in 2004. Porter already was in prison, serving a 45-year term for the 1995 fatal shooting of a transient in Denton County, when he killed fellow inmate Rudy Delgado in 2000. Court records show Porter smuggled a rock into his cell at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Telford Unit near Texarkana, stuffed it in a pillowcase and used it to beat Delgado, who was serving a 15-year term for sexually assaulting a child in Dallas County. "Dude was a homosexual," Porter said of Delgado, 40. He "asked me several times if that was something I might dig. One day, frustration started eating on me, like a little old black shroud covering my eyes. I'm going to kill someone. "I guess at that time I just lost all my cool and didn't care any more." By the time prison officers broke up the attack, Delgado's head had been battered with the rock and by kicks from Porter, and he had been stabbed in the neck. "Porter stomped the man until his face could not be recognized as being that of a human," said James Elliott, the assistant district attorney in Bowie County who prosecuted Porter. "And I'm not exaggerating that one bit." Before his capital murder trial, Porter wrote Elliott, saying he should be lauded for killing Delgado. "I said: Hey man, you should give me a certificate of accomplishment for taking this dude out instead of trying to kill me," he recalled, adding that the district attorney used the note against him, telling jurors Porter was boasting and proud of the slaying. "In a way, I was," Porter said. "That dude never touched any little boys again." Porter also wrote he'd kill again if he didn't get the death penalty. "I think he was pretty well determined to get out of the system by murder and that's what he did," Elliott said. Porter said while he had no regrets at the time, he now believes he was "wrong to judge" his victim. "It wasn't my place to re-punish him for something he was already punished for," Porter said. "I'm sorry it happened. That's all I can say." Norris said Porter long suffered depression resulting from an abusive childhood that included being raped by one of his stepfathers. He eventually ran away from his home in Lake Dallas, where he dropped out of school in the 8th grade. A burglary conviction in Denton County got him a 5-year prison term. He was on parole from that conviction when he and a brother were arrested and convicted for killing the transient and dumping the man's body down a water well. "I made my peace with God," Porter said. "I thought about it for a while. I prayed on it. You can't run from your mistakes forever." On the Net: Texas execution schedule: http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/scheduledexecutions.htm (source: Associated Press) ************************* Law and Order -- ....raucous year in courts [my note---this has been edited to include only the death penalty-relevant portions of the story] Forget CSI or Court TV. Even they couldnt outdo some of the drama that unfolded at the Hidalgo County Courthouse in 2004. The cases ranged from serious to strange - and some didnt end with the calendar. Heres a review of some of the most riveting: Tri-City Bombers As the 2-year anniversary of the Edinburg massacre looms, one man is on death row while his nine co-defendants wait their trials in county jail and 2 other suspects are still on the run. On Dec. 15, a jury found Juan Raul Navarro Ramirez guilty on 2 counts of capital murder in the shooting deaths of six men on Jan. 5, 2003. 2 days later the jury gave Ramirez, 20, of Donna, death penalty. Ramirez, who stood trial in Judge Noe Gonzalezs 370th state District Court, was the 1st of 13 suspected members of the Tri-City Bombers to stand trial for a pseudo-cop raid which left 6 dead at 2 homes on 2915 E. Monte Cristo Road in Edinburg. The victims - Jimmy Edward Almendariz, 22; brothers Jerry Eugene Hidalgo, 24, and Ray Hidalgo, 30; brothers Juan Delgado Jr., 32, and Juan Delgado III, 20; and Ruben Rolando Castillo, 32 - died from multiple gunshot wounds. Police recovered nearly a dozen weapons and ballistic experts determined an AK-47 and SKS assault rifle fired most of the bullets found at the scene. "I feel very happy that finally there is justice for my sons," said the Delgado brothers mother Graciela, to The Monitor after the jury found Ramirez guilty. 2 survived the attack. Luis Villa, 35, escaped by jumping out the window of the smaller house and is now in federal custody on charges of illegally entering the United States. He refused to testify in front of the jury. The other survivor, Rosie Gutierrez, was the mother of the Hidalgo brothers. She told police that masked men entered her home, held her at gunpoint and tied her to the bed before shooting her son nearby. Humberto "Gallo" Garza, 30, of McAllen is the next suspected Tri-City Bomber to stand trial for the murders. His trial is set for February in the 370th state District Court. Edinburg police investigators identified Garza as one of "the leaders of a conspiracy" that led to the murders, in the probable cause affidavit that led to his Jan. 24, 2003 arrest. Another gang member, Robert Gene "Bones" Garza, 21, was sentenced to death last December for his involvement in the slayings of 4 Donna women. He is also charged in the Monte Cristo massacre, but has not been tried for that crime. 9 others are awaiting separate capital murder trials in Hidalgo County Jail for their role in the Edinburg massacre and police are still looking for Ricardo Caballo Martinez Gonzalez, 22, and Juan Miguel "Perro " Nuez, 29, for capital murder charges in connection with the shootings. (source: The Monitor) CONNECTICUT: Judge hearing arguments on Ross execution A judge in Rockville Superior court is listening to arguments aimed at blocking the January 26th execution of convicted serial killer Michael Ross. An attorney for Ross' father, Dan, and the chief public defender's office are arguing that they should be able to intervene in the scheduled execution. The lawyers have been arguing with the judge for most of the late morning over whether they have standing to file complaints about the Ross case. They claim that even though Ross has decided to forgo any other appeals, they say he's not mentally competent to make that decision. They say another judge in New London didn't adequately assess Ross' mental state. The serial killer was not in the courtroom physically this morning, but has been there by way of closed circuit TV from the Osborn State Prison. (source: WFSB) VIRGINIA: Experts urge improved suspect IDs Police in Williamsburg and James City County have charged the wrong men with major crimes based on eyewitness IDs at least twice in the past 15 years - that they know of. In one case, a 17-year-old from Norfolk was charged with robbing and shooting an Indiana couple in the Historic Area. A witness picked the teen's picture from photos police showed him, saying he was 100 % certain the youth was one of the culprits. The youth was already charged with stealing a car in Williamsburg on the same day the couple was attacked. Police also believed the gunman was left-handed - and so was the Norfolk youth. When a Gloucester man turned in his son a couple of days later, police discovered they had arrested the wrong person. "Thank God it didn't go that far," said Williamsburg police Maj. Jay Sexton, who was the lead investigator in the 1990 case. "That's the worst thing that can happen. You still have the guy who did it out there, and meanwhile, you've put an innocent man in jail." In the other case, a 49-year-old Eastern State Hospital employee was accused of robbing, kidnapping and raping a motel desk clerk twice in a five-week period. Not only did the victim identify him as the stranger who brutalized her, but the man also had a prior conviction for sexual assault and drove a white car with a red interior, the type of vehicle the victim said her attacker drove. DNA evidence eliminated the hospital employee as a suspect - after he'd spent five months in jail awaiting trial in 1991. He was lucky. DNA evidence was so new that it had been used in Williamsburg-James City County Circuit Court for the 1st time just the year before. The man ultimately convicted of raping the desk clerk, based on the DNA evidence, received 3 life sentences plus 111 years. Stories like these illustrate how unreliable witness identification can be, some experts say, although it often carries a lot of weight in the legal process. "It's not unusual in an investigation to realize the wrong person has been picked up," said Hampton Commonwealth's Attorney Linda Curtis. Mistaken eyewitness identification is the "major cause of wrongful convictions," according to the Innocence Project, which began at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York in 1992. Gary Wells, a psychology professor at Iowa State University, has been studying eyewitness identification for more than 25 years. He believes that police should change how they conduct lineups. Anyone who has ever watched a TV crime drama knows the drill: A detective asks the witness to look at suspects standing behind one-way glass and point out whether he or she recognizes any of them. Real-life police rarely use live lineups these days, preferring the more efficient photo lineup, in which witnesses view a group of mug shots instead. Whether witnesses view a live lineup or a folder of mug shots, research shows that witnesses are 3 times as likely to pick out the wrong person when asked to look at a group of potential suspects simultaneously as when they see the suspects one at a time, Wells says. When witnesses look at a group, there's a tendency for them to unconsciously pick the person they think looks the most like the suspect, Wells said. That's particularly dangerous if the real suspect isn't there, he said. But viewing the suspects or suspect photos one at a time forces witnesses to make an independent decision about each, comparing the person to their memory of the assailant rather than to the other potential suspects, Wells said. He also says the process should be double-blind, meaning the officer conducting the lineup should not know who the investigator considers the prime suspect. That eliminates the possibility of sending unconscious signals to the witness, Wells says. Other researchers and the Innocence Project endorse those recommendations. Police in Boston; Madison, Wis.; Minneapolis; Santa Clara, Calif.; and all of New Jersey have implemented the recommendations. Officials in North Carolina are encouraging police departments throughout the state to employ them, and several Illinois police departments are running pilot programs using sequential, double-blind lineups. But most police and prosecutors on the Peninsula contacted for this story said they hadn't heard about these recommendations and didn't see a need for them. Williamsburg-James City County Commonwealth's Attorney Mike McGinty said that in his experience, witnesses who aren't certain don't pretend otherwise. However, Wells said research shows little correlation between being confident and being correct when it comes to witnesses identifying a suspect in a lineup. Also, a defendant who is adamant about his innocence would be offered a polygraph test, McGinty said. No information about polygraph tests is admissible in court, but if the defendant passed the test, McGinty said, his office would consider withdrawing the charge - a scenario that he noted rarely occurs. Maj. Stan Stout, commander of the investigations division in the James City County Police Department, was one of the few local law enforcement officials aware that some experts are calling for double-blind, sequential lineups and photo arrays. It isn't something the department has discussed doing, and he hasn't had a chance to research the subject himself, Stout said. He has been waiting to see the courts begin issuing rulings about it. Neither the Police Executive Research Forum nor the International Association of Chiefs of Police has taken a position on the issue. The U.S. Department of Justice publishes a guide on eyewitness evidence for law enforcement that outlines protocols for viewing suspects, whether sequentially or simultaneously, without endorsing either method as preferable. Stout and other police spokesmen stressed that investigators always look for corroborating evidence, because they don't like to rely on eyewitness identification alone. However, researchers say that in most cases where people have been falsely charged because of erroneous witness identification, police had also developed corroborating circumstantial evidence - as in the two cases in Williamsburg and James City in the early 1990s. It's up to the judge or jury to evaluate how reliable a witness identification is, said Hampton chief prosecutor Curtis. "There are some cases where it's the only evidence we have," she said. "It's not unusual to get a conviction on just an eyewitness identification." Curtis and Newport News police Lt. Richard Lauderman, who is in charge of major crime investigations, say innocent people have been arrested in their localities, although they couldn't recall specific examples. Further investigation cleared them and charges were dropped before trial, both said. In little more than a decade, 150 convicted felons in the United States have been exonerated by post-conviction tests of DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project, which takes only cases in which those tests can prove guilt or innocence. Many of those freed inmates were on death row or serving life sentences. 8 were convicted in Virginia. Such cases are disturbing to police, Lauderman said. "It's shocking. We talk about it often. Can you imagine being the investigator who sent an innocent person to prison for 20 years?" (source: Daily Press)
