Jan. 4 TEXAS----impending execution//volunteer No appeals pending for Porter execution No final appeals are pending as convicted killer James Porter faces execution Tuesday night in Huntsville. The Lake Dallas man was condemned for fatally beating a convicted child molester nearly five years ago while in prison. Porter requested no late appeals as plans proceed for him to be the 1st convicted killer put to death this year in Texas. Porter received the death penalty for fatally beating fellow inmate Rudy Delgado. Porter already was serving a 45-year term for the shooting death of a transient in Denton County when he attacked Delgado in 2000 while at the Telford Unit. Delgado was serving a 15-year term for sexually assaulting a child in Dallas County. Porter says Delgado was gay and made a pass at him. (source: Associated Press) ******************** State Prepares For 1st Execution Of 2005 James Porter, 33, is scheduled to die just after 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Texas death chamber in Huntsville for the 2000 slaying of another inmate at the Telford State Prison Unit in Bowie County. Porter insists he doesnt have a death wish, but said he volunteered for execution Tuesday to accept responsibility for killing inmate Rudy Delgado. At his request, no appeals were pending Tuesday as state prison officials prepared to carry out the execution. Porter was serving a 45-year prison term for the fatal shooting of a transient in Denton County in 1995 when, court records show, he smuggled a rock into his cell at the Telford Unit prison near Texarkana, stuffed it in a pillowcase and clubbed Delgado with it. Officials say Porter also kicked and stabbed the prisoner. In an interview, Porter says he figures he did society a favor by killing the convicted child molester and said he believes he's doing himself a favor now by forgoing appeals. Porter is the 1st of 9 Texas inmates already set to die this year, including four in January. Texas, the nation's most active capital punishment state, carried out 23 executions in 2004. (source: KWTX News) OHIO----new execution date Execution date set for man convicted in 1987 rape, killing A man convicted of raping, robbing and killing a woman 17 years ago will ask the Ohio Parole Board next month to recommend switching his death sentence to life in prison. The Supreme Court has set a March 8 execution date for William H. Smith, 47. The Parole Board will have a clemency hearing Feb. 8 and make a recommendation to Gov. Bob Taft, the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said on Tuesday. Smith was sentenced to death in the September 1987 stabbing of Mary Bradford, 47. Police said she had been raped and 2 televisions and stereo equipment were taken from her Cincinnati apartment. Messages seeking comment were left Tuesday with Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro's office and Smith's attorneys, Laurence Komp in suburban St. Louis, Mo., and Louis Sirkin of Cincinnati. In late 2003, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling, rejected arguments that Smith's original attorneys failed to adequately represent him at his 1988 sentencing in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his appeal last month, and the Ohio Supreme Court set the execution date on Dec. 29. (source: Associated Press) NEW YORK: Officials propose museum at Sing Sing prison Westchester County is hoping to bring tourists "up the river" to a new museum at Sing Sing, the 176-year-old prison where the Rosenbergs were electrocuted and Willie Sutton scaled the walls. A principal attraction would be the original cellblock, restored and reached by a walkway above the prison's stone walls and razor-wire fences. Westchester's planning commissioner, Jerry Mulligan, said Monday that the county would like to acquire Sing Sing's electric chair for the museum, or use a replica. The chair is in storage in Albany. County Executive Andrew Spano said Monday that the Empire State Development Corp. should fund the construction of a Sing Sing Historic Prison Museum to attract tourists and inspire economic development along the Hudson River. In a letter to corporation Chairman Charles Gargano, Spano said the Sing Sing museum "would rival the popularity of Alcatraz," the federal prison island turned national park in San Francisco Bay that attracts 1.3 million visitors a year. Eron Jury, a spokesman for the development corporation, said the agency is "always interested in doing things to strengthen tourism" and planned to contact county officials to set up a meeting. The prison's forbidding presence above the Hudson 30 miles from New York City spawned the phrase "up the river." Unlike Alcatraz, a Sing Sing museum would be on the site of a working prison. The Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, part of the state system, currently houses 1,745 prisoners. The original prison was built between 1825 and 1828. It took the name Sing Sing from the village it was in, but the village soon changed its name to Ossining to avoid the association. One of the few inmates who escaped the prison was Willie Sutton, the bank robber best known for saying he targeted banks "because that's where the money is." Sutton was on the lam for 4 years after using a makeshift ladder to scale a 25-foot wall in 1932. The execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the electric chair at Sing Sing on June 19, 1953, ended one of the most sensational cases of the McCarthy era. It was the 1st execution of civilians for espionage in U.S. history. (source: Associated Press) ARIZONA: Deadline for decision on death penalty extended in doctor's slaying case Prosecutors now have until Feb. 2 to decide whether to seek the death penalty against two suspects in a doctor's slaying. The suspects, Dr. Bradley Schwartz and Ronald Bruce Bigger, made a brief appearance during Monday's hearing in Pima County Superior Court when the deadline was extended. Schwartz was arrested on Oct. 15 along with Bigger, whom investigators contend Schwartz hired as a hit man to kill Schwartz's former medical associate, Dr. Brian Stidham. Stidham, 37, was found stabbed to death outside his Tucson office on Oct. 5. Schwartz and Bigger, both 39, face 1st-degree-murder charges in the case. Pinal County has handled the prosecution of Bigger and Schwartz since Nov. 9 when Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall cited a potential conflict of interest for her office. Three Pima County prosecutors told investigators that they were acquaintances of Schwartz's. (source: Associated Press)
