Jan. 18 VIRGINIA: Activists target death penalty Last year, a jury refused to order the death penalty for teenage sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, sentencing him to life in prison instead. Now activists want to parlay that ruling into a larger goal: persuading the General Assembly to abolish capital punishment for all juveniles. Even some supporters admit that chances for success are slim, but a coalition of groups converged at the state Capitol on Monday to rally support for their cause. Del. Albert Eisenberg, D-Arlington, said teenagers simply don't have the perspective that comes with being an adult, and the justice system should recognize that. "Anybody who has a teenaged child knows on a daily basis how bad their judgment can be," he said. Priya Dandawate attends Fairfax High School and belongs to her school's Amnesty International chapter. "I can't drink. I can't vote. I can't sign any legal documents," she said. "But I can have a sentence that a rapist and a murderer that's 45 years old can also get." The activists belong to the Virginia Alliance to Abolish the Juvenile Death Penalty, a coalition of 35 state and national groups. Jack Payden-Travers, director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, hopes to press lawmakers with arguments besides the Malvo case. Doctors have determined that a person's brain is not fully developed until early adulthood, and the last portions of the brain to develop are those that regulate impulse control and judgment, Payden-Travers said. Also, advances in evidence testing have exonerated death row inmates. Bills have been filed in the Senate and House of Delegates. Del. Vincent F. Callahan Jr., R-Fairfax, has agreed to sponsor the House version. Callahan chairs the House Appropriations Committee and wields power over the budget. In this case, though, he's not optimistic. The House Courts of Justice Committee killed similar legislation in 2004. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule sometime this year on the constitutionality of executing juveniles. That could make lawmakers reluctant to decide the matter for themselves. "A longshot at best," is how Callahan assessed his chances. He sponsored a 2001 General Assembly study that gave a mixed picture of the death penalty in Virginia. While it found no racial bias, it did point out an urban/suburban split. A suburban prosecutor will seek the death penalty more often than a prosecutor from the city, the study found. The death prosecution rate for medium-sized localities was 45 %; for high-density localities it was 16 %. Del. David Albo heads the Courts of Justice subcommittee on criminal law. A supporter of the death penalty, he said the Malvo decision proves there is no reason to abolish it for juveniles because juries can exercise discretion. "You had a jury who thinks he was less culpable than (accomplice John Allen) Muhammad based on their review," he said. "Maybe because they thought he was brainwashed. That, to me, shows that the current system worked." Malvo was sentenced last March to life in prison for the shooting death of FBI analyst Linda Franklin in Falls Church. She was one of 10 people killed by Malvo and Muhammad in the October 2002 sniper shooting spree. Malvo was 17 at the time of the shooting. Albo said the juvenile death penalty is justified in some cases. "You got some gang banger who's 17 years old, drives by and pops some lady in the head because he wants to be in the club? I mean, I have no problem giving him the death penalty," Albo said. Callahan plans to disagree when it comes time to present his bill. "I think there is something fundamentally wrong," he said, "with a society that executes children." (source: Daily Press) ******************** Juvenile executions opposed -- Legislation that would end the death penalty for juveniles in Virginia has been introduced in the General Assembly's 2005 session. What does Virginia have in common with Iran, Somalia and Sudan? They all allow executions for crimes committed by juveniles. Legislation submitted this year by Del. Vincent Callahan, R-McLean, and Sen. Patricia Ticer, D-Alexandria, would remove Virginia from that list by saying that juveniles who murder someone cannot be sentenced to death for their crimes. "There's something fundamentally wrong with a society that executes children," Callahan said. Supporters of the bills held a news conference yesterday to bring attention to the issue. Speakers pointed out that studies of adolescents' brains show that their ability to make decisions and control impulses is not fully developed. "Adolescents are not adults," said Jack Payden-Travers, director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "If they are not old enough to vote, to drink alcoholic drinks, to enter into contracts, to participate in combat, how come they are old enough to be executed?" Del. Al Eisenberg, D-Arlington, who has signed on to Callahan's bill, said, "Anybody that has teenage children knows on a daily basis how bad their judgment can be." Eisenberg said the United States, by allowing people to be executed for crimes committed as juveniles, is in the company of "dictator and rogue countries" such as Sudan and Somalia. Payden-Travers said that Virginia has executed 21 juvenile offenders since 1787. Of those, 19 were black. Only six states, including Virginia, still allow people to be executed for crimes committed when they were juveniles, Payden-Travers said. Virginia is second only to Texas in the number of juveniles it has executed. However, Payden-Travers said the tide is turning against the imposition of the death penalty on juveniles. "Increasingly, juries across the nation, like the Chesapeake jury of Lee Boyd Malvo in 2003, are not willing to put young offenders to death," Payden-Travers said. Malvo, one of the 2 Beltway snipers who terrorized motorists in the fall of 2002, was convicted in 2 shootings in Spotsylvania County. He was 17 at the time of the shooting. Malvo entered Alford pleas to charges of capital murder of Philadelphia businessman Kenneth Bridges and the attempted capital murder of Caroline Seawell of Spotsylvania. He was sentenced to 2 life terms in prison by Circuit Judge William H. Ledbetter Jr. The U. S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling on juvenile death penalty cases, Payden-Travers said. But, he added, that shouldn't let legislators off the hook. "Regardless of the pending decision, Virginia needs to go on the record as being opposed to the juvenile death penalty," Payden-Travers said. Asked whether this year's gubernatorial and House of Delegates elections will make legislators more or less likely to support this legislation, Payden-Travers said the elections "don't play a part in our schedule." However, the death penalty issue is playing a part in the elections. Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor, is proposing expanding the crimes to which the death penalty can be applied. Payden-Travers called it "an abomination that we have an attorney general running for governor who has chosen to use the death penalty as a platform on which to run." He noted that the twin bills have bipartisan support, and hopes to get 30 lawmakers to sign on to them, which would be an improvement over the 25 co-patrons similar legislation had last year. Last year's bill died in the House Courts of Justice committee. "We think times are changing," Payden-Travers said. Legislators who support the death penalty in general appear willing to at least consider removing it as an option for juvenile offenders. Callahan himself said he still supports the death penalty for adults. Del. Bobby Orrock, R-Spotsylvania, said he also supports the death penalty for adult offenders but might consider supporting Callahan's bill. (source: The Free Lance-Star) LOUISIANA: Released Louisiana Man Is in Seclusion After Threats - Wilbert Rideau, out of prison after 44 years, has received hostile e-mails, his attorneys say. Confessed killer and civil rights figure Wilbert Rideau received what his legal team described as 2 credible threats on his life Monday and was in seclusion, limiting his contact with people outside a close circle of supporters. "I am in an undisclosed location," Rideau said in a telephone interview Monday night. "And I would appreciate you keeping it that way." Ron Ware, a Lake Charles, La., attorney and a member of Rideau's defense team, said that Rideau's website had received at least a dozen vitriolic e-mails written in response to his release from prison over the weekend. Two of the e-mails stood out and were considered "very serious" threats on his life, said Linda LaBranche, a legal researcher from Baton Rouge who runs the website and assisted in the lengthy effort to win Rideau's release. In one e-mail, a writer claimed that he planned to hire a "contract killer" to "bump him off," Ware said. That note was signed, though Ware said he doubted that the writer would use his real name. LaBranche spoke to the FBI and the Baton Rouge Police Department on Monday. Police Cpl. Don Kelly, a department spokesman, said he had no information about the threats. FBI officials in Louisiana could not be reached. "When [the threats] come electronically, you don't know where the person is," LaBranche said. "It could be next door, Los Angeles, France. You just have to take it seriously." Rideau, 62, who is black, walked out of prison early Sunday morning after spending nearly 44 years behind bars. He has never denied kidnapping three people during a February 1961 bank robbery in Lake Charles and killing one of them, teller Julia Ferguson. LeBranche said Rideau's whereabouts would have to remain secret for now. "If that means moving him from place to place, we will," she said. Rideau said his attorneys were more concerned about the threats than he was. He pointed out that, after all, for more than four decades he lived in prison, where inmates face a constant threat of violence. "I've been in a tough place - a very tough place," Rideau said. "A lot of people issue threats. It is the rare individual who actually carries them out. I don't have to worry about some lunatic out there. I'm trying to pull my life together. To be intimidated, worried about them, about every shadow in this world, I can't live like that. You can't let fear govern your life." Other e-mails received by Rideau's website referred to him as "trash" and said that "he should have gotten 'the chair,'" Ware said. Rideau was sentenced to die three times by all-white juries - in 1961, 1964 and 1970 - but each conviction was thrown out. The 3rd conviction was overturned in 2000 when the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with his attorneys that blacks had been improperly kept off the grand jury that initially indicted him. It was one of many instances when Rideau's attorneys argued that pervasive racism kept him from receiving a fair trial. When Rideau faced his fourth trial this month, his attorneys were armed with extensive testimony that racism had shaded the case against him. Authorities, for instance, ensured that Rideau's expressions of remorse after the robbery were not heard by previous juries, his attorneys said. Saturday, a jury agreed with his defense attorneys that he was not guilty of murder, but of manslaughter because the killing was not premeditated. Because the maximum sentence for manslaughter is 21 years, Rideau was credited with time already served in prison and released immediately. Rideau said the fourth trial marked the first time that his attorneys had been able to paint an accurate picture for one of his juries about Louisiana's racial climate in 1961. "The authorities had taken what was already a terrible thing and made it worse," he said. "But you've heard the old saying: The truth shall set you free." Still, he said, no one was more surprised than he was when the jury returned its verdict and the judge explained that he would be released from prison. As a result, despite his many years behind bars, he said he had done little to prepare himself for the possibility that he would walk free. Everyone he spoke to Monday had the same romantic notions about his release - that he would be eating big steaks, walking around with no shoes on so he could feel the grass between his toes and sleeping outdoors so he could breathe the fresh air. "It's not been like you think," he said. "I know people expect dramatic reactions. They keep saying, 'Oh, man, you just went from prison to the free world.' But when it catches you and you aren't expecting it, it's just unreal." Rideau was once dubbed "the most rehabilitated prisoner in America." Behind bars, he became an award-winning journalist and documentarian. Self-educated, he wrote for a magazine about criminal justice issues and co-directed "The Farm," a documentary that was nominated for an Oscar in 1999. He said he would like to continue work in journalism, but isn't sure how to go about it. First, he said, he must take more basic steps - buying clothes, getting an identification card, finding a place to live. He is currently staying with friends in Louisiana. "I've got to get some health insurance, which I'm told is a must," he said. Eventually, when he is more stable, he said he would like to begin traveling. He is thinking about taking a parachute jump. He said he had always wanted to see the Grand Canyon and Disneyland. "There are a lot of sights I'd like to see," he said. "I've read about places, seen photographs of things. I'd just like to see it for myself, feel it up close, and just absorb." (source: Los Angeles Times) INDIANA: Official vows to get funds for death penalty trial A county commissioner said he would work to find the money needed to seek the death penalty against a man charged with killing a convenience store clerk. The offer from Commissioner John Brooke comes as Delaware County Prosecutor Richard Reed considers whether to seek the execution of Ronald Hatfield for the Dec. 16 shooting. "You have my complete support and assistance to help fund the prosecution of Ronnie Hatfield if you decide to seek the death penalty," Brooke wrote in a letter to Reed. "I will work with you, my fellow commissioners and the court system to seek methods and manners for funding the high cost of a death penalty prosecution." Reed told The Star Press he appreciated the offer because a death penalty case can become "a million-dollar proposition." Hatfield's defense attorney, Alan Wilson, said he had not heard of Brooke's offer until he was contacted by a reporter. "I guess my reaction is, whatever happened to the presumption of innocence?" Wilson said. Police officers reported arresting Hatfield about 10 minutes after the store clerk, 59-year-old Carolyn Goodwin, of Muncie, was shot in the chest during a robbery. (source: Associated Press)
