From [email protected] Tue Jan 11 10:50:31 2005
From: [email protected] (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue Aug 16 12:15:12 2005
Subject: [Deathpenalty]death penalty news----TEXAS, CALIF., PENN., S.C.
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Jan. 11
TEXAS:
Thomas Trial Jury Selection
Jury selection began today in Grayson county for the Andre Thomas capital
murder trial.
Thomas is accused of killing two children and his estranged wife last
march in Sherman.
The trial is expected to be one of the largest in Grayson county history,
but testimony may not be heard for several more weeks.
Up to a thousand potential jurors were summoned to report for jury duty
today, and although a much smaller number responded, the screening process
of hundreds of applicants remains quite a task.
With the fate of 21-year-old Andre Thomas in the balance, jury selection
started this afternoon as hundreds of Grayson county residents filled out
questionnaires.
The 16-page long documents, used by both the prosecution and defense,
screen potential jurors for their views on items such as the death
penalty. Attorneys study the results from the questionnaires for nearly a
week, before each juror can be evaluated in front of both the prosecution
and defense.
Jury selection could last up to a month or even longer as each side is
allotted a number of strikes to eliminate potential jurors from
consideration. The prosecution and defense alike can vote to remove a
juror if the individual poses a direct conflict of interest to their
argument.
(source: KTEN News, Jan. 10)
******************
{note----1st foreign national case in Texas where FEMALE could face death
penalty]
Retardation question delays trial
Attorneys for a South Texas woman accused of helping her common-law
husband kill and behead her 3 children protested orders Monday to turn
over a psychiatrist's report, delaying the trial at least until May.
At stake is the prosecution's ability to argue for the death penalty,
which could make 25-year-old Angela Camacho the 1st Mexican national woman
to face the death penalty in Texas.
Camacho faces 3 counts of capital murder for stabbing, strangling and
beheading her 3 children in March 2003.
Last year, a judge ruled that Camacho was mentally competent to stand
trial. Defense attorneys have argued that she scored 51 in a test
administered in the year after the murders, and 62 in a test she took when
she was 14.
A person who scores below 70 on an IQ test is considered mentally
retarded, and cannot be executed, according to state law. A prosecution
expert tested her at just above 70.
In a conference in Brownsville before Judge Benjamin Euresti, defense
attorneys Ernesto Gamez and Alberto Pullen filed a motion to reconsider
Euresti's Dec. 7 order to provide the prosecution with the report, which
would include test results and other methodology.
The defense also said the judge unfairly appointed the prosecution's
choice of psychiatrists.
"My doctor certainly says that my client is mentally retarded, IQ below
70, and the Texas Supreme Court says you can't put to death a person who's
mentally retarded," Gamez told The Associated Press after the hearing.
Euresti agreed to consider the motion and set a pretrial conference for
April 8.
Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos, who in January
replaced Yolanda de Leon, said the judge was expected to rule against the
motion.
Camacho's common-law husband, John Allen Rubio, was sentenced to death in
November 2003. Both told police they thought the children were possessed.
Court records show that Camacho and Rubio strangled and decapitated her 2
daughters, 3-year-old Julissa Quezada and 2-month-old Mary Jane Rubio. The
couple allegedly washed up afterward and had sex before they decapitated
her 1-year-old son, John Esthefan Rubio.
Villalobos said the new prosecution team hoped to have another
psychiatrist assess Camacho.
"I want to make absolutely sure that we have the factual and legal basis
to seek the death penalty," he said. "We don't want to put ourselves in
the position where we're seeking the death of someone who's mentally
retarded."
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Death penalty opponents rallying
Death penalty opponents will gather en masse this afternoon to beg the
governor for a final reprieve after numerous courts refused to halt next
weeks execution of a condemned former Redwood City resident.
Unless Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger offers Donald Jay Beardslee clemency,
the 61-year-old admitted killer will take his final walk to the execution
chamber Jan. 19. Beardslee was convicted 2 decades ago of killing Patty
Geddling, 23, and Stacy Benjamin, 19, because he believed the women
wronged an associate in a minor drug deal.
On Friday, the Board of Prison Terms is holding a clemency hearing after
which it will recommend a course of action to the governor. Death penalty
opponents, though, are not content to hold their breaths, especially since
the failure of every legal effort by Beardslee in the last month.
Protesters plan to gather outside the State of California building in San
Francisco at 4 p.m. to ask for clemency. If that fails, a protest outside
San Quentin State Prison is planned at the time of the execution.
Todays press conference is organized by the Bay Area Anti-Death Penalty
Coalition which works to end capital punishment altogether and takes up
specific cases as they near execution.
Admittedly, Beardslees case provides unique challenges, said Crystal
Bybee, executive director of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Just
as plans began rolling in Beardslees specific case, Bybee told the Daily
Journal last month that his admitted participation in the two murders may
not attract the same support as Kevin Cooper. Cooper, the condemned inmate
whose last-minute stay last February pushed Beardslee to the front of the
execution line, continually maintains his innocence. Coopers attorney,
David Alexander, is among those invited to speak at todays rally.
Other speakers include members of the Commission for the Fair
Administration of Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union, Barbara
Becnel, co-author of anti-gang books with death row inmate Stanley
"Tookie" Williams, and Murder Families for Reconciliation.
With possible exoneration as a point of argument, Bybee and fellow
opponents want a moratorium on all executions until the state Senate
finishes an examination of the justice system and capital punishment.
"Many issues in Beardslees case should be studied by the commission, such
as ineffective assistance of counsel, brain damage and mental capacity,
and the unevenness of application of death sentences," Bybee said.
Prosecutors pushing for Beardslee's death dismissed such claims by
opponents and defense attorneys.
(source: San Mateo Daily Journal)
*********************
Death penalty ruled out for man accused of killing girl in RPV
Prosecutors said Monday they will not seek the death penalty for the man
they believe tossed his 4-year-old daughter from a Rancho Palos Verdes
cliff to avoid child support charges.
Cameron John Brown, 43, is charged with murder and the special allegations
of lying in wait and killing for financial gain. If he is convicted at
trial, Brown faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the
possibility of parole.
Brown allegedly killed Lauren Sarene Key on Nov. 8, 2000, during a
visitation.
Brown told deputies she slipped and accidentally fell as they hiked along
the cliff.
Proceedings in the case have been held in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom
since a grand jury indicted Brown in July. The case was returned to the
Torrance courthouse Monday.
(source: The Daily Breeze)
PENNSYLVANIA:
U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear appeal in death penalty case
The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear an appeal by prosecutors
trying to prevent a black death row inmate from getting a new trial
because blacks were excluded from the jury that convicted him.
The court, without comment, let stand a ruling by the 3rd U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals that will require prosecutors to explain why an assistant
district attorney in Philadelphia used procedural challenges to remove 12
of the 14 blacks from the pool of potential jurors in the murder trial of
Donald Hardcastle.
Hardcastle has been on death row since 1982, when he was convicted of
stabbing 2 men to death. The jury that ultimately heard the case had one
black member.
A federal judge granted Hardcastle a new trial in 2001 after ruling that
the assistant district attorney appeared to have engaged in racial
discrimination, but the 3rd Circuit set that decision aside, saying
prosecutors deserved a hearing to explain their actions.
The district attorney appealed, arguing that both federal courts were
wrong to intervene in the case, and that the original death sentence
should remain.
Philadelphia's jury selection practices came under scrutiny in the late
1990s after it was publicly disclosed that a senior prosecutor had made a
training video telling colleagues to keep poor blacks off juries because
they were less likely to convict.
Prosecutors said the blacks who were struck from Hardcastle's jury pool
were not removed because of their race.
The hearing into the selection of Hardcastle's jury has yet to be
scheduled.
*************************
Exonerated former death row inmate says he's leaving the country
Nicholas Yarris, who was freed from death row a year ago after a DNA test
exonerated him of a 1981 rape and murder, said he is leaving the country
because of what is popularly known as the "3-strikes law."
Although Yarris' conviction that sent him to death row was vacated, he
still has a criminal record because he escaped from death row for 25 days
in 1985 and committed crimes in Florida while on the lam.
"Because of those convictions, if I'm arrested for stealing a slice of
pizza, they have the right to take the rest of my life from me - so I'm
moving to England," said Yarris, who went on a speaking tour of Europe
last year sponsored by death penalty abolitionists.
Yarris, 43, said the move is far from the only big change in his life.
"I'm getting married," Yarris said. "Her name is Karen Karbritz, and I'm
getting married in May."
Yarris, who had gotten married and divorced while in prison, spoke while
protesting Monday outside the Delaware County Courthouse. In his protest,
he alleged that county prosecutors did not really want to solve the crime
for which he was convicted and later exonerated, saying they have
unnecessarily delayed turning over DNA evidence to the FBI. The district
attorney's office disputed that claim.
Yarris also spoke about a federal civil rights lawsuit he filed against
Delaware County authorities seeking $22 million as compensation for the
time he wrongfully spent on death row.
"I've instructed my lawyers we're going to be extremely fair and honest,
because they didn't offer that same honesty in my prosecution," Yarris
said.
(source for both: Associated Press)
**********************
Yarris takes message to Media
Exonerated death-row inmate Nicholas J. Yarris was back at his post again
Monday outside the courthouse, with fliers and a bullhorn, after a brief
respite during the holidays. Its been nearly a year since his release from
death row -- where he spent half his life -- and a few months since his
whirlwind tour of Europe on behalf of death-penalty abolitionists.
Yarris told his impromptu lunchtime audience that county authorities still
havent submitted DNA evidence from two unknown men at the crime scene to
the FBI databank, despite the fact that the murder for which he was
initially charged is still unsolved.
However, the D.A.s office late Monday afternoon refuted Yarris claims and
said that "the genetic profile of Unknown Male #1 was submitted and
accepted by the FBI National DNA data bank (CODIS) to be used in an effort
to identify the individual matching the DNA profile."
Yarris handed out fliers and used his bullhorn for only a few minutes to
bring attention to the alleged DNA lab holdup and harassment of family and
friends. Hes been doing this since June.
District Attorney G. Michael Green and Deputy D.A. Sheldon Kovach couldnt
be reached for comment Monday on the status of the DNA lab submissions to
the FBI.
In June, Kovach disputed Yarris claims about the lack of efforts to submit
genetic material, indicating state police still had to review work by a
certified private lab before they could deliver it to the FBI. "Thats
something we want to get done as much as anyone," he then said.
Yarris, 43, spent nearly 22 years on death row in the 1981 rape-murder of
an Upper Chichester woman. He was released Jan. 16, 2004, from the state
prison in Waynesburg. DNA tests performed on crime scene evidence proved
Yarris could not be linked to genetic material left on the victim and in
her car.
In a flier titled "Please Help!" Yarris cited the years he spent on death
row "..for a crime he did not commit and was exonerated for by DNA."
"The real killers DNA has not been submitted to the FBI data bank due to
petty technicalities," the flier stated. "Therefore the killer is still
free. Meanwhile, the Yarris family has been harassed with the threat of a
court order for DNA extractions, for no other reason than being related to
Nick Yarris."
Yarris urged passersby to contact either U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan or
District Attorney Green and ask for a federal court order for the killers
DNA from tests conducted by Dr. Edward Blake to be accepted into the FBIs
databank.
Standing next to a flagpole, Yarris used a makeshift public-address system
to speak to the lunchtime crowd outside the county courthouse.
"I sat in a little box for 8,057 days - thats 23 years on death row for a
murder I didnt commit," he said. "And now the District Attorney of
Delaware County has the nerve to act as if theyve done no wrong.
"The Delaware County District Attorney does not want to solve the murder
of Linda Craig," he said, "and thats the greatest shame. No matter what
they did to me ..
"Now they got the nerve to look the family in the face and say, Well, he
didnt do it, but he might know who did. So hes the worlds most loyal
friend."
Wearing a long, charcoal gray overcoat and a black cap with the
inscription "Sweden" on it -- which he said he got from a Swedish
Parliament member during his tour overseas in the fall -- Yarris admitted
most county employees just ignore him and/or make snide comments.
"I find it ironic that Ive been free from death row for a year, been
allowed to speak on the floor of the British House of Parliament, but I
cant get an answer from my own local government why the DNA from an active
murder (case) is not available (to the FBI) to solve the crime," he said,
while handing out fliers.
Yarris said he also was concerned about his year-long freedom because of
the "three-strike law" for convicted felons.
"It applies to me because I escaped from death row (for 25 days in 1985),"
he said. He said he was convicted in Florida and Pennsylvania for escaping
from death row for "a murder I didnt commit."
"Because of those convictions, if Im arrested for stealing a slice of
pizza, they have the right to take the rest of my life from me -- so Im
moving to England," he said.
"I met someone. Im getting married. Her name is Karen Karbritz, and Im
getting married in May," he told the Daily Times.
Yarris says he also plans to attend the 2005 Sundance Film Festival on
Jan. 20 to see the premiere showing of "After Innocence," an independent
film directed by award-winning director Jessica Sanders, in which he is
featured along with others as former inmates with reversed convictions
through DNA evidence.
The 90-minute documentary details what "happens to those exonerated once
they have been set free," according to the festival Web site. Sanders was
an associate producer for the 2003 Academy Award-winning documentary short
film, "Twin Towers."
Yarris concluded his public remarks by wishing everyone a "Happy New Year"
and vowed to be back every Monday.
He again urged passersby to contact the D.A.s office and ask "Why isnt the
DNA from the Linda Craig murder case not in the FBI databank to catch the
real murderer?"
However, he said, "90 % of the people coming into the courthouse, the
non-employees, are very supportive."
"I always apologize for interrupting their lunch," Yarris said, adding hes
given out about 5,000 fliers here and at the federal courthouse in
Philadelphia so far.
Mark Doucette, 38, of Upper Darby, who was leaving the courthouse, said he
knew about Yarris from the news media.
"I think he deserves some restitution when we have to pay the price. When
the system messed up they should pay the price," he said.
"Arent they withholding evidence if they dont (submit it)? Then they
should be charged with a crime, too," he said.
Referring to a $22 million civil-rights law suit he filed in August in
federal court against the D.A.s office, county detectives and Upper
Chichester police, among others, seeking compensation for the years he
wrongfully spent on death row, Yarris said, "Ive instructed my lawyers
were going to be extremely fair and honest, because they didnt offer that
same honesty in my prosecution."
(source: The Daily Times)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
Judge hears appeals in death row case
It now rests in a judge's hands whether an Alabama man twice convicted of
murder, including that of an Orangeburg policeman, gets a new trial or
remains on death row.
A post-conviction relief hearing for death row inmate Thomas T. Ivey,
convicted of a 1993 crime spree that left two dead, concluded Monday based
upon the defense's dispute of the quality of Ivey's defense during his
trial based on actual trial testimony.
Ivey has been on death row for 9 years after juries in 1995 found him
guilty of two capital cases and handed him 2 death sentences - 1 for
killing Columbia businessman Robert Montgomery and 1 for killing ODPS Sgt.
Tommy Harrison.
While Ivey has been convicted for the shooting deaths of both men,
Monday's PCR hearing was held to discuss alleged discrepancies in the
Montgomery trial.
When the murders occurred, Montgomery had a 2-year-old child, and his
wife, Kathryn Montgomery, was pregnant.
Present with family members during Monday's hearing, Montgomery's widow,
now Kathryn MacDonald, said it seemed like the court system was set up
more for the criminal than the victim.
"It's hard to keep going through it," she said Monday. "It's hard to sit
there hearing it. It brings it all back. And you go through it over and
over again."
"Seeing him (Ivey) again ... it's just like it was last week," said Robert
Montgomery's brother, David.
Defense attorney Wayne Floyd and co-PCR hearing counselor Melissa
Kimbrough argued a conflict of interest of the part of Ivey's trial
defense counsel.
Orangeburg County Chief Public defender Michael Culler had written a
letter to a woman involved in the shooting death of Harrison stating he
was a personal friend of ODPS Sgt. Tommy Harrison. It was for that reason,
Floyd said, that Culler asked to be relieved as counselor of Patricia
Perkins, charged with forgery in connection with the shooting.
However, Culler was later appointed as co-defense counsel for Ivey in the
Montgomery case. Floyd argued Culler's appointment to be a conflict of
interest.
"He never brought that up to Mr. Ivey's attorney," Floyd said.
Meanwhile, S.C. assistant attorney general Donald Zalenka countered that
testimony offered in court later refuted Culler's statement.
"There's no ... conflict of interest," Zalenka said. "They (Culler and
Harrison) didn't have a relationship in the nature it's being portrayed."
The 2nd point of contention Floyd offered was the testimony at trial of
Vincent L. Neumon of Columbia, Ivey's accomplice during the 2 murders.
Floyd and Kimbrough argued that Neumon's testimony against Ivey was
obtained only after prosecutors offered favors in return. Neumon was moved
to a correctional facility in Lexington in exchange for his testimony
against Ivey, Floyd said. That location would enable Neumon to see his
wife.
Testifying against the advise of his court-appointed attorney, Carl Grant,
Neumon himself disputed Floyd's theory.
"I need to correct you right there," Neumon said. "This wasn't in exchange
for my testimony."
It was January 1993 when Ivey and Neumon escaped from a prison in Alabama,
stole a truck and drove to Columbia.
While walking near the Owen Steel building on the night of Jan. 13, 1993,
they stole Montgomery's Chevrolet Suburban. Ivey took Montgomery into the
Owen building to get his keys.
>From there, Neumon drove the Suburban and Ivey sat in the back with a .357
Magnum as Montgomery sat in the front seat.
When they arrived in rural Orangeburg County in the early morning hours of
Jan. 14, 1993, Ivey walked the 30-year-old Montgomery into a field near
the town of North and shot him twice at close range - once in the back of
the head and another in the chest.
On Jan. 15, 1993, Ivey murdered Orangeburg Department of Public Safety
Sgt. Tommy Harrison while Harrison was investigating a bad check call at
the Belk-Hudson department store in the Prince of Orange Mall. Ivey was
found guilty of murder in a 1995 trial in Harrison's case. Ivey was also
sentenced to die for Harrison's murder.
Circuit Court Judge Jackson Gregory will make a decision at a later date
on the arguments presented Monday. Once that decision is made, 1 of 3
things will happen - Ivey could get a new trial; he could receive a new
sentencing hearing; or he could lose outright, which would put him one
step closer to his execution.
The 30-year-old Ivey currently has a PCR hearing pending for Harrison's
murder as well.
(source: The Times and Democrat)
