Jan. 6 IOWA---woman faces federal death penalty Judge denies for now venue change in second death penalty trial A federal judge has denied a request from a woman facing the death penalty for her role in the 1993 slayings of 5 people to move her capital murder trial out of Sioux City - at least for now. U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett agreed to reconsider his decision next month after he and attorneys get a chance to review 1200 questionnaires that will be soon sent to prospective jurors across northern Iowa. Attorneys for 42-year-old Angela Johnson requested that her March 7th trial be moved from Sioux City, where a jury last fall found Johnson's former boyfriend, Dustin Honken, guilty of killing 3 adults and 2 children. Honken was also sentenced to the death penalty for the deaths of the 2 children. Defense attorneys contend media coverage of Honken's 8-week trial was extensive, contained facts that could hurt Johnson's case, and has tainted the jury pool and compromised her right to a fair trial. (source: Associated Press) NEW YORK: New York's Death Penalty Law on Pataki's Priority List Prosecutors say taxpayers are the only people being punished by New York's death penalty law. That's because the law has been basically useless since a court ruled it unconstitutional in July. District Attorney Mike Green is one of only 2 top prosecutors currently in office that have successfully tried a death penalty case in NYS. He was pleased to hear Governor George Pataki mention his desire to strengthen the law in his State of the State address Wednesday. Green says he won't seek the death penalty again until the law is fixed. "If they want to fix it so we have death penalty, that works great. If they take it off the books so taxpayers aren't paying million of dollars, that's great too," he told News 8. The State Supreme Court said the problem lies in the sentencing guidelines given by the judge to the jury. Green says, "the legislature has to go back and draft new instructions. They basically have to give the judge parameters in terms of what the jury can be told at sentencing." The Senate passed the revision last year, but the Assembly hasn't gotten to it yet. The man who's job it is to defend such criminals says he hopes the legislature studies the issue thoroughly. "Right now the law for life in prison without the possibility of parole is fully functional. It's a fully functional statute that allows penalties to be imposed so the law is not entirely broken," says William Easton, a lawyer in the Rochester Capitol Defender's office. Green says the issue needs to be resolved soon. For one thing, he says, tax payers are paying millions for a capital defender's office that isn't being put to use. Easton admits they aren't as busy as they used to be. "Our case load has dropped. But we still have cases we're representing clients on", he said. Green also says, the broken law hurts those who have already felt enough pain. "I have to sit down with a victim's family and tell the family, who's son or daughter has just been killed, we have a death penalty in New York but the courts say we can't use it until the legislature fixes it." Green plans to go to Albany and testify at one of the Assembly hearings at the end of the month. (source: WROC TV News) USA: Death penalty goes on trial Bill Kurtis, the A&E host, has had an uncomfortably up-close view of the worst in human nature for much of his career. But the man who covered the Manson family trials has lately been sickened by the idea that the U.S. justice system has sent innocent men to the death chamber. "Look, I was for the death penalty," Kurtis said in a telephone interview, "but looking at these cases and the rapidly increasing number of exonerations, there are just too many possibilities for error." In the state of Illinois, where Kurtis Productions is based, 13 men were set free in the late 1990s after research -- some of it done as a class project by journalism students -- uncovered grave errors in their cases. Switched directions This troubled Kurtis, whose long-running A&E series "Investigative Reports" had until then concentrated on the guilty. In 2000, he began to investigate the guilty to see whether they might be innocent. The resulting program was lost in the aftermath of 9/11, but now his findings have found a permanent home in a new book, "The Death Penalty on Trial: Crisis in American Justice" (PublicAffairs, $25). "You have a system with too many working parts," said Kurtis, who studied law at Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., and put his legal training to use covering courts and crimes in a 38-year broadcast career. "We have malpractice lawsuits in medicine. We don't expect the Yankees to win all their games. And yet we assume the criminal justice system is without error." Kurtis is echoing what the outgoing governor of Illinois, George Ryan, said in 2003 to explain his decision to commute the sentences of 167 prisoners to life without parole. Ryan cited the findings of an independent panel of prosecutors, public officials and the novelist Scott Turow, which called for a major overhaul of the court system in capital cases. A majority of the panel said that based on their findings, they now favored abolishing the death penalty. That was enough for Ryan, a pharmacist with no legal training, to clear death row. "If we haven't got a system that works," he said, "then we shouldn't have a system." Open-and-shut cases "The Death Penalty on Trial" is a book-length study of two of the cases that Kurtis chose because, as he describes them, "everything should have worked perfectly." One involved the killing of a single woman in which a man she had dated was falsely convicted, the other a bloody rampage in which the husband of one of the victims was sentenced to death. Both were fairly open-and-shut cases at the time, but in hindsight there were glaring errors in the way the evidence was presented and in the assumptions made by investigators. In the end, both men were set free. Yet in many other cases, once the wheels of criminal justice begin turning, they are hard to stop. The Chicago Tribune has called into question the conviction of a father of three on murder charges for a fire that killed his children. The Tribune's investigation quoted leading fire experts who now believe the deadly blaze was an accident, not arson. Unfortunately for the accused, the state of Texas carried out his execution in February. One of Kurtis' favorite in-house projects, the A&E series "Cold Case Files," has blossomed into one of the channel's most popular shows. In 1998, Kurtis began to notice stories of detectives solving long-open murder cases by relying on newfangled forensics and a little gumshoe detail. At first, A&E just nibbled on his idea, ordering four episodes. Now it airs three times a week, and Kurtis Productions is churning out 30 new episodes a year to meet demand. (source: Indianapolis Star) ILLINOIS: Prosecutors To Seek Death Penalty In Robbins Triple Murder----Smith Charged With Multiple Murder Charges Prosecutors announced Thursday they intend to seek the death penalty for 1 of 4 men accused in a robbery and ransom plot in Robbins last year that left 3 people dead and one critically wounded. Images: Possible Triple Homicide Investigation When the defendant appeared before Markham Judge Paul Nealis, prosecutors announced they would seek the death penalty for William Smith, 33, of Woodridge, according to a court clerk. Smith was charged in a 104-count indictment stemming from the July 6, 2004, shooting deaths of Carmelita Taylor, 32, Cameron Young, 24, and Ryan Jernagin, 22, court records show. The identity of the wounded man, who was in his 20s, was not released. The indictment charges Smith with multiple counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder, according to court records. The indictment also included charges of criminal sexual assault, armed robbery, home invasion, aggravated battery with a firearm, aggravated kidnapping, forcible detention and aggravated unlawful restraint. Smith and three other defendants, Deandre Greer, 23, of Harvey, Samuel Dupree, 32, of Dolton, and James Massey, 26, of Chicago, all have pleaded not guilty to the counts in the indictments during pervious court appearances. As of Thursday, Smith was the only 1 of the defendants that prosecutors had indicated would face the death penalty, records show. Prosecutors said that late on July 6, Dupree and Smith entered Taylor's home at 13719 S. Homan Ave. in Robbins, bound the feet of Taylor and the unidentified man with telephone cord, and ransacked the house while looking for drugs and money. When the intruders found no cash or drugs, Dupree called Massey to the home to assist, Assistant State's Attorney Christine Opp said. The 3 then made telephone calls to Young and Jernagin, who were acquaintances of Taylor, and lured them to the Robbins home, Opp said. The man who was later wounded told the police he overheard the 3 attackers talking with Greer over walkie talkie-style cellular phones, and he heard Greer order them to kill him and Taylor, according to Opp. The defendants in the home then sexually assaulted Taylor before Dupree shot her multiple times in the head, killing her, Opp said. Dupree shot the man who was with her in the head and hand. Massey and Smith then forced Jernagin and Young into a car and, after making several unsuccessful ransom attempts, shot both men and dumped their bodies in separate Chicago locations, prosecutors said. Jernagin was found dead at 4:25 a.m. July 7 at 5770 S. Perry Ave. and Young was found dead at 5:50 a.m. the same day at 127th Street and Doty Avenue, Robbins Police Chief Robert Warren said. The survivor awoke from an induced coma on July 16 at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. He later identified his attackers and told police he recognized the voice heard on the phones the men were using as Greer's, Opp said. All four defendants were jailed in lieu of $2 million bonds, records show. Smith was scheduled for a status hearing before Nealis during the 9:30 a.m. call Feb. 15, the clerk said. Greer was to appear for a status hearing during Nealis' 9:30 a.m. call Wednesday, records show. Massey was scheduled to appear for a status hearing during Nealis' 9:30 a.m. call Jan. 26, and DuPree was scheduled for a status hearing before Nealis at the same time Jan. 28, according to court records. (source: NBC News)
