Jan. 6 OREGON: Abortion fight ties into death penalty -- Oregon Democrats push making murder of a pregnant woman punishable by death; the GOP objects, saying it is 2 murders Some Oregon Democratic legislators who generally oppose capital punishment are proposing a bill that would expand the state's death penalty to cover the murder of a pregnant woman. A lot of Republican death penalty supporters in the Legislature may end up opposing it. Confused? The answer lies in the politics of abortion. Republicans are pushing a different bill, one that stalled in the 2003 session. It would make the killing of a pregnant woman count as 2 separate murders. Although both bills could make the killer eligible for the death penalty, both sides see an enormous difference in their approaches. Republicans say their bill recognizes that many surviving relatives believe that they have lost 2 family members when a pregnant woman is killed. But Planned Parenthood and other abortion-rights supporters say Republicans are trying to establish the fetus as a person as part of an incremental attack on a woman's right to an abortion. "When you look at the motives, it's not about protecting pregnant women," said Nancy Bennett, vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette. "It's really about pursuing the other agenda, which is overturning Roe v. Wade." National Right to Life, which supports the Republican bill, scoffs at the accusation. "The victim's family members want the law to recognize the nature of the loss," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director at the National Right to Life Committee. "They never say my (child's) reproductive autonomy was interfered with." The current debate can be traced to the 2002 murder of Laci Peterson, a pregnant California woman. When Scott Peterson was arrested, he was charged with two counts of murder under a 30-year-old California law: one for his wife and one for his unborn child, Conner. The case gave momentum to a similar bill that had stalled in Congress. Laci Peterson's mother testified in favor of the California approach. Democrats attempted to substitute language calling for increased penalties for violence against pregnant women but came up 1 vote short in the U.S. Senate. President Bush signed the bill, dubbed "Laci and Conner's law," last spring. But the federal law only covers the handful of murders under federal jurisdiction. So Right to Life and other abortion opponents have tried to get states such as Oregon to adopt similar legislation, pointing out that most states have taken this approach. In Oregon, Democrats who control the Senate are pushing 1 version while Republicans controlling the House want the other. House Speaker Karen Minnis, R-Wood Village, supports the congressional approach. "She believes there should be a recognition of the infant's life, especially if it is a wanted pregnancy," said spokesman Chuck Deister. In the Senate, Majority Leader Kate Brown, D-Portland, has scheduled a news conference at 1:30 p.m. today to unveil her bill, which enhances penalties for all violence against pregnant women, from assault to murder. "I think what we would like to do is keep the focus on domestic violence," Brown said. Both sides are seeking support from influential groups. Brown has been courting law enforcement, including the state's prosecutors. "My initial read with the DAs is mostly favorable," said Yamhill County District Attorney Brad Berry, chairman of the Oregon District Attorneys Association's legislative committee. "However we've not taken a position." Berry said the organization did not take a position on the Republican-backed bill that was introduced in the 2003 session because many prosecutors did not want to get involved in the abortion debate. Brown also has lined up the support of Joe Ann and Ron Johnson of Medford, whose daughter, Kerry Repp, was seven months' pregnant when she was killed in 2002. That could be crucial, because their case was the inspiration for the 2003 Republican bill, said its sponsor, Rep. Gordon Anderson, R-Grants Pass. Still, Gayle A. Atteberry, executive director of Oregon Right to Life, says her organization, an important Republican ally, opposes the Democratic bill. She said it does not address the real issue. "If you've killed two people, you've killed 2 people," Atteberry said. "We're talking about a baby that the mother is wanting." If the two sides stick to their positions, the House could pass one bill and the Senate another. A spokeswoman for Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat, said he prefers Brown's approach, but it is not clear that either bill can get through both chambers. Anderson said he expects deadlock. Brown says it will be difficult, "but we're hoping to get agreement on this bill and get it passed." (source: The Oregonian) VIRGINIA: Deciding on Whether To Seek Death Penalty----2 plead not guilty in Sandoval murder. The U.S. Department of Justice and Assistant U.S. Attorney Morris R. Parker Jr. will decide by March 11 whether to seek the death penalty against Alirio Reyes, of Herndon, and Osmin Heriberto Alfaro-Fuentes, of Langley Park, Md. Reyes and Alfaro-Fuentes, both 25 and both alleged members of the gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), are charged with the murder of Jose Sandoval, a 17-year-old Herndon High School student, who was shot on May 16 on Park Avenue. They are also charged with seriously injuring a 16-year-old girl who was with Sandoval. Reyes and Alfaro-Fuentes, who has a tattoo of "MS-13" that covers most of his forehead, both pleaded not guilty to all charges against them at their arraignment hearing on Dec. 22 before U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis, III. Both waived their rights to a speedy trial, citing the "complex matter" of the case. Both defendants received assistance from a Spanish translator. Ellis will set their trial date at a hearing, which is scheduled for March 11, at the federal courthouse in Alexandria. Defense attorneys will have the opportunity to meet with the Department of Justice before the hearing to make a presentation about why the death penalty should not be sought in this case, Ellis said during the Dec. 22 arraignment. Reyes, who was taken into federal custody in Alexandria as of July 26, 2004, filed a request for a new attorney. At the arraignment, his defense attorney Alan Yamamoto said he was having "difficulty in getting him to understand why this case is taking as long as it is." Reyes' request was denied. Reyes and Alfaro-Fuentes, natives of El Salvador, "entered the U.S. illegally at an unknown point in the past and obtained temporary protected status through Immigration and Naturalization Service in approximately 2002," according to court documents. On Dec. 15, a federal grand jury in Alexandria returned an eight-count indictment against Reyes and Alfaro-Fuentes, who fled to Los Angeles after Sandoval was murdered. "The indictment specifically charges Reyes and Alfaro-Fuentes with committing these crimes to maintain or increase their respective positions within MS-13," as well as to promote the gang and its reputation for violence, according to court documents. Reyes is represented by Yamamoto and Lana Manitta. Alfaro-Fuentes is represented by Robert L. Jenkins Jr. (source: Herndon Connection) CONNECTICUT: Hartford archbishop among religious leaders rallying against execution Archbishop of Hartford Henry J. Mansell and other state religious leaders are calling for an end to capital punishment in Connecticut as the scheduled execution of serial killer Michael Ross nears. Mansell intends to ask Roman Catholics this weekend to join him in opposing the Jan. 26 death sentence. "The death penalty offers the tragic illusion that we can defend life only by taking life," Mansell wrote in a letter to be read in Roman Catholic churches during Masses Saturday and Sunday. Mansell will call on parishioners to sign a petition created by the church and the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, The Hartford Courant reported. The petition will be available at church entrances. The archbishop said inequities in the judicial process, where those most often sentenced to death are poor and minority, raise "serious doubts concerning the effectiveness of our criminal justice system in detecting the true source and nature of crimes that have been committed, and in protecting the rights and dignity of those who have been accused of them." According to the last University of Connecticut poll on the death penalty, taken in 2003, 58 % of state residents supported capital punishment while 32 % said they were either somewhat or strongly opposed. The last execution in New England was in 1960 when Connecticut electrocuted Joseph Taborsky for a series of murders and robberies. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops supports a complete rejection of the death penalty, in accordance with Catholic teaching to uphold the human dignity of all persons. A number of religious leaders are planning to call for the abolition of the death penalty during a news conference next Wednesday on the state Capitol steps. Among them are Bishop Peter A. Rosazza of the Hartford archdiocese; the Rev. Stephen J. Sidorak, executive director of the Christian Conference of Connecticut; and Rabbi Herbert Brockman of Mishkan Israel in Hamden. Brockman, who will also speak at a death penalty forum in Hartford next Thursday, recently spoke against capital punishment to his own congregation. Getting the death penalty off the books is the goal, he said, not saving Michael Ross. "Part of my responsibility is to bring healing to people who are suffering," Brockman said. "Mr. Ross clearly committed a grievous crime and has even asked to be executed. But what he wants is inconsequential. What is consequential is the death penalty and what it says about us." The Christian Conference of Connecticut will hold an ecumenical worship service Jan 25 at St. Lawrence O'Toole Roman Catholic Church in Hartford. The group is also planning an inter-religious prayer vigil beginning at 10:15 p.m. that night at Somers Congregational Church, about 5 miles from the prison where Ross is scheduled to be executed several hours later. The Rev. Walter Everett, pastor of United Methodist Church in Hartford, plans to speak at the vigil at St. Lawrence O'Toole. Everett's son Scott was shot to death in Bridgeport in 1987 at the age of 24 by a young man who was high on cocaine. Everett said he opposed the death penalty before his son's murder and still does. "The death penalty does not do for the victim's family what they expect it will - it doesn't give them back what they have lost, and someone else's son has also been killed." (source: Associated Press) FLORIDA: Prison drama draws life from death----Orlando Theatre Project's Coyote on a Fence takes no stand on capital punishment but still remains riveting. In the case of capital punishment, the lines are already drawn. There are those who believe that hardened criminals deserve to die. And there are those who think that none of us has the right to take another person's life. But what if the condemned man has undergone a life of abuse? What if he's mentally ill? And what if the crimes he has committed are so horrific that they're impossible to forgive? The easy reaction becomes a little more complicated in Coyote on a Fence, Bruce Graham's award-winning drama, which Orlando Theatre Project will bring to the stage at Seminole Community College beginning tonight. It's a play that doesn't tell you what to think. "In the Philadelphia production, the greatest compliment was from a guy who was a good friend," Graham says. "He said to me, 'I honestly don't know where you stand.'" In Coyote on a Fence, the most engaging character is also the most repulsive - a young racist and anti-Semite who has committed mass murder and is convinced his work is the will of God. And the character with whom you expect to sympathize, the college-educated convict who writes obituaries for his executed fellow prisoners, turns out to be a man who is difficult to like. "Theater always comes down to character in the end," Graham says. "None of us is 100 % good or 100 % bad." Avoiding soapbox Graham's drama is just one of dozens of plays and movies that have tackled the emotionally charged subject of capital punishment in recent years. But among those works it's a rarity. Most film audiences know works such as Dead Man Walking (1995) or The Green Mile (1999), which turn moviegoers away from the death penalty. And theater audiences may be familiar with The Exonerated, the 2002 drama about six people wrongly convicted of murder, which came to Orlando last spring. It's hard to walk out of The Exonerated unswayed. But winning converts isn't the goal of Graham's drama -- winner of the prestigious Lois and Richard Rosenthal New Play Prize -- first performed at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park in 1998. Graham says he had "no interest at all" in preaching for or against the death penalty. He simply saw a story he had to tell. That story sprang from an article he read in The Philadelphia Inquirer about a death-row inmate in Texas who wrote obituaries for his fellow prisoners. James Beathard wrote only good things about the executed men, and it was that fact -- that "little kernel of drama" -- that prompted Graham to write to Beathard and to turn the little kernel into a play. At first Beathard was wary, but eventually he opened up to Graham, who gleaned a lot of information about life on death row. And Beathard's efforts to be positive about his fellow inmates were transformed into the efforts of Coyote's John Brennan (Jim Howard), the publisher of a death-row newspaper, to understand the motives of Bobby Reyburn (T. Robert Pigott), the puppylike young prisoner who has murdered 37 people by burning down their church. "I wanted to try something different," Graham says, "by making the most repulsive character the most appealing." Raw -- but moral -- piece It was that dichotomy that appealed to Pigott, whose less threatening roles in recent years have included an ingratiating canine in the comedy Chesapeake and a fun-loving amphibian in the musical A Year With Frog and Toad. "He does this hideous thing, but you kind of like him," Pigott says of his character. "He's ignorant, but there's an innocence to it. He doesn't know anything else." The playwright also has been honest about his characters, says Pigott, and in doing so he has kept the play from becoming a polemic. "My character has no apologies for what he did," he says. Neither, he goes on, do the other characters quibble about their points of view. One character, a New York Times reporter, "can't wait to see me die," Pigott says, and the prison guard "is in denial about it." The main goal of the liberal-minded inmate Brennan is to "muck up the system with appeals." Director Chris Jorie calls all four points of view "eloquent." "I understand exactly where they're coming from," he says. Jorie has directed such productions for Orlando Theatre Project as Wit and Proof, and he's drawn to plays like this one -- realistic dramas in which social responsibility plays a major role. "It's really raw, but it's a very moral piece," he says. "It makes you ask some very soul-searching questions on the subject of capital punishment." Indeed, Jorie says his company, which also includes OTP veterans Chris Pfingsten as the reporter and Christine Decker as the guard, has participated in some lively discussions about the death penalty since rehearsals began. "Everybody's passionate about the story at hand," he says. Jorie talks of reacting viscerally to recent news stories about the Missouri woman accused of killing a woman who was 8 months pregnant and ripping the fetus from her womb. His first thought, he says, was that the woman needed to be locked up forever. "It's a hard one for me. I don't know if we have the right to take someone's life. I think my rational mind supports it, but my spiritual self struggles with it." Pigott, too, says he came into the project with an open mind. Now, though, he thinks he's against the death penalty -- "just knowing that it's not a deterrent, that it's not cost-effective, and how often it's wrong." Yet what audiences should glean from Coyote on a Fence, Jorie says, is not a feeling of pro or con but one of empathy for all the characters. "In art, people speak very highly of passion. To be a passionate artist is important. But today I was wondering if, in the world we live in, compassion will become more important than passion. How else are we going to survive all the challenges we face?" Whatever audiences' reactions, Jorie says, he hopes Coyote on a Fence leads them to think. "I hope it makes people consider all the ways our system doesn't work," he says. "We don't like to think about it -- but we have to think about it." (source: Orlando Sentinel)
