Jan. 16 MISSISSIPPI: High court to review death-row appeal The U.S. Supreme Court is taking a closer look at the appeal of Mississippi inmate Stephen Elliot Powers, sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of a University of Southern Mississippi student. The justices were initially scheduled to discuss the case in conference next week. On Thursday, however, they asked for the full record of the Mississippi case. The court did not explain the request. Powers wants a new trial because he argues that attempted rape is not a felony that would support a capital murder charge or conviction. In Mississippi, capital murder is defined as murder committed along with the commission of another crime. The argument was rejected by Mississippi courts. Now, Powers has asked the nation's high court to consider that issue. Powers was convicted in 2000 in Forrest County of murdering the 27-year-old Beth Lafferty, who was shot five times during an attack at her home, including three times in the back of her head. The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld Powers' capital murder conviction and death sentence in 2003. According to the court record, Powers admitted in a written statement that he and Lafferty struggled with a gun and that he shot Lafferty, but he specifically denied having sex with the woman. The Mississippi Supreme Court, however, ruled the physical evidence clearly revealed that there was an attempt toward the commission of rape. The court said there as sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding. Mississippi Justice George C. Carlson wrote that photos from the crime scene showed the "sexually explicit position in which Lafferty's body was found." Carlson said that coupled with Powers' admission that he shot her and left her in the position in which she was found supported the attempted rape charge. The Mississippi court also rejected Powers' claims that his lawyer didn't do a good job. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA----impending execution Court Dismisses Appeal by Killer Facing Death Penalty A federal appeals court Saturday declined to rehear an appeal from condemned killer Donald Beardslee, moving him a step closer to becoming the 11th person executed in California since it reinstated the death penalty. Beardslee had challenged the state's method of execution by lethal injection, saying it constituted cruel and unusual punishment and would violate his free speech rights because he would not be able to scream in pain. An 11-judge panel from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed his case. The decision came a day after a 3-judge panel ruled against him. Beardslee's attorneys will now ask the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution, scheduled for 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. Beardslee, 61, was convicted of killing 2 Northern California women in 1981. (source: Associated Press) KENTUCKY: Fletcher's grim duty Death penalty opponents did themselves no favor by trying to make the absurd case that Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a doctor, violated his medical oath by signing a death warrant for Thomas Clyde Bowling. Their argument to the Medical Licensure Board went like this: Doctors are barred by medical ethics from participating in executions. Ernie Fletcher is a doctor. Therefore, he can't sign a death warrant. Even a Stanford University medical ethicist endorsed that logic, telling the board, "As long as he continues to call himself a physician, he's bound to the ethics of that position." We suggest you take that argument cum grano salis. Nobody voted for Ernie Fletcher to hang a medical shingle on the Executive Mansion porch. He was elected chief magistrate, took an oath to uphold the laws of the commonwealth, and his first ethical obligation is to do just that. The death penalty, especially in an era when further investigation and new science have proven so many convictions dead wrong, is out of date. It's inhumane, and unfairly applied. It should be abolished. Until it is, Gov. Fletcher's oath of office as governor takes precedence. (source: Editorial, Courier-Journal) USA: Dawn McMullan: A timeout from death----Before we kill another inmate, shouldn't we examine what we really believe? I'm always telling my little boys that when they are acting in an unacceptable manner, they need to take a break. A timeout, if you will. The idea being that some space from the behavior in question will allow them to contemplate their actions. Of course, they often just contemplate the teeth on the dinosaurs under their bed, but sometimes it's effective. Last month - by sheer coincidence of scheduling - our country took a timeout from the much-debated legal practice of the death penalty. In December 2004, not a single prisoner on death row was executed in the United States. The last time that happened was July 1994. While a small number of death penalty abolitionists welcomed the reprieve, it certainly didn't make the news. The only reporting on the subject came when Texas ended the break, executing James Scott Porter on Jan. 4, the first execution nationwide for the new year. Dear James was already in prison for 1st-degree murder when he bludgeoned, stabbed and kicked to death another prisoner. Nice. Being against the death penalty is a tough PR gig, for obvious reasons. Certainly, it's more pleasant to take a stance against hunger, pollution, AIDS, abortion, gun violence, corporate America, discrimination or terrorists. To stand up for the rights of someone who put a brick in a pillowcase and beat a man to death isn't such a feel-good moment, which probably explains the lack of bake sales for the cause. It's also not an issue of epic proportion. From 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, through 2004, Texas executed 337 prisoners, followed next by Virginia at 94. Nationwide, 945 people have been executed in the past 28 years. While certainly important to every one of these people and their families, these are hardly tsunami or even Sept. 11 numbers. But does that make it OK? For the American public - even for the families victimized by the murderers of whom we speak - there are mixed emotions. As a newspaper reporter, my most memorable capital case was that of Michael Lovette and Thomas Wyatt, convicted of killing 3 Domino's Pizza employees in Vero Beach, Fla. Mr. Wyatt raped one employee while her husband watched. One of the gunmen reportedly told a victim, as he held a gun in his ear, "Listen closely and you can hear it coming." By the end of the testimony, I could've shot them both myself. I had to rethink the issue when I later learned on a trip to Europe that other "civilized" nations do not execute people. In fact, today we couldn't even get into the EU because of our death penalty law. According to Amnesty International, 86 % of all 2003 executions were carried out in 4 countries - China, Iran, the United States and Vietnam. In the past 14 years, only 8 countries have executed prisoners who were not legally adults at the time of their crimes - China, Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and, yes, the United States. Interesting company we keep. Sister Helen Prejean, the author of Dead Man Walking, once said: "The profound moral question is not, 'Do they deserve to die?' but 'Do we deserve to kill them?' " If we don't know - which opinion polls show we don't - shouldn't we step back and think about it? A Methodist pastor I know spoke recently to a tough crowd on the subject, the Baptist General Convention of Texas. He addressed probably the most common argument for the death penalty - personal vengeance, admitting that he might want revenge should one of his children be murdered. But "what I want at this moment, as I live without the torment of violence, is to be instrumental in writing law that will protect me from getting what I might want if ever I am forced into a state of uncontrollable anger or rage. I want the law to keep me from doing what my faith clearly tells me is wrong." He wants a timeout. The next scheduled execution is that of Donald Beardslee in California on Wednesday. Next is Jose Briseno, a Texas prisoner to be executed on Thursday. Shouldn't this country - each one of us, individually - take a break and decide what our passionate opinion is before we take another life? (source: Viewpoints; Dawn McMullan is a free-lance writer based in Dallas; The Dallas Morning News) *************************** Death Penalty Sure To Make Us All Less Letters To The Editor: In publishing letters for or against the death penalty, you have served area readers well. This is an issue that we must struggle with together, though the process is painful. I write as one opposed to the death penalty. In killing convicted murders, we dehumanize ourselves. When I saw the film "Dead Man Walking," my thoughts on this issue were tested. The murderer on death row evoked within me no empathy. "If ever there was someone who merited the death penalty," I thought, "this is he." This was very poor thinking on my part, as I was a person working her way toward ordination in Christian ministry, but given the portrayal of the prisoner, I could not find my way to compassion. I agree with readers who argue that God calls from us mercy for sinners of every stripe, and I was distressed to not find within myself the mercy called for. My opposition to a jury or the state having recourse to sentencing a criminal to death is not related to the nature of the criminal's wrong-doing, because in "Dead Man Walking" it couldn't have been more horrendous. My opposition has to do with us. If we take seriously the Mosaic law, "Thou shalt not kill," we must not allow the criminal act of a depraved individual to push us to break this law. More responsible is to get the death penalty option off the books in Connecticut and throughout the nation. Cynthia Willauer----Lyme (source: Letter to the Editor, The Day)
