Jan. 18 VIRGINIA: Friends: The Virginian Pilot is conducting an online poll asking respondents whether they believe the Virginia General Assembly should abolish the death penalty for juveniles. While I of course believe the General Assembly should abolish the death penalty for everyone, this poll is nonetheless worth taking part in, if only because the issue of the juvenile death penalty has been in the news in Virginia a lot lately. To vote in the poll, go here and scroll down a bit: http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=80712&ran=84593 TEXAS: Say why----Prosecutors who seek the death penalty should willingly explain their reasons to the public. U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore is guilty of unorthodox methods, but it was not unreasonable of her to ask prosecutors why they are seeking the death penalty against the one black defendant among 14 indicted in a smuggling case that ended with the death of 19 illegal immigrants. Last week a 3-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals slapped down Gilmore's threat to tell jurors that prosecutors had refused her order to say why they were seeking the death penalty against Tyrone Williams, the driver of the truck that pulled the sweltering trailer in which the immigrants perished May 14, 2003. Williams is the lone African-American defendant to be tried in the case. Prosecutors said they were under no legal obligation to give a reason for singling out Williams among his co-defendants for the death penalty. They stated that Williams, as the truck's driver, was the sole defendant with "the power to release the aliens and possibly save their lives." This reasoning is akin to the uncommon notion that the triggerman is guiltier than the person who hires him - a notion not recognized by law or custom. Gilmore then asked for a letter of explanation from U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft, who ignored the request. Gilmore could have dismissed the death penalty as a sanction against the government for not obeying her order. Perhaps she was more interested in bringing attention to the controversial racial disparities in the application of the death penalty. In 2001, Attorney General Ashcroft released a report showing "no evidence" of racial bias in the federal death penalty system. But the original study, released the previous year by then-Attorney General Janet Reno, showed minorities accounted for 80.4 % of the 682 federal criminal defendants accused of capital crimes between 1995 and 2000. Instead of setting aside the possibility of the death penalty, Gilmore decided she would announce to jurors during the punishment portion of Williams' trial - if he were convicted - that prosecutors had not abided by her order to provide a rationale for seeking the death penalty. The judge said she further would allow the defense team to say the prosecution's refusal showed Williams' race had been a motivating factor in the government's decision. Gilmore can be accused of jumping to a conclusion there. But in the absence of a real reason for seeking the death penalty, prosecutors left the door open for the public to jump to its own conclusions. The New Orleans-based 3-judge panel threw out Gilmore's entire plan. But if the judge accomplished anything, she got the public to think about why prosecutors are so secretive about providing information concerning how and why they choose to subject accused criminals to the ultimate punishment. A competent prosecutor eventually presents that information to the jury, so there is little reason why the public should not know from the start. (source: Editorial, Houston Chronicle) NEW YORK: Stephen B. Bright, Director, Southern Center for Human Rights will deliver a lecture on "Is the Death Penalty a Human Rights Violation? The Realitiesof Capital Punishment in the United States Today" on Tuesday, February 8, at 5 p.m., Room 630 T, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 899 10th Avenue, NY, NY 10019 To attend, RSVP to Antigona Kukaj, [email protected], a research assistant for Professor George J. Andreopoulos at the Center for International Human Rights, John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY). Mr. Bright is the Director of the Southern Center for Human Rights [http://www.schr.org/] and teaches courses on the death penalty and criminal law at the Yale and Harvard law schools. The Southern Center for Human Rights is a public interest legal project based in Atlanta which provides legal representation to persons facing the death penalty and to prisoners challenging unconstitutional conditions in prisons and jails throughout the South. The Center is also engaged in efforts to improve access to lawyers and the legal system by poor people accused of crimes and in prison, and to bring about greater judicial independence. He has been director of the Center since 1982. Mr. Bright has represented persons facing the death penalty at trial, on appeals and in post-conviction proceedings since 1979. He argued Amadeo v. Zant before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1988, in which the death sentence was set aside because of hidden racial discrimination in jury composition. His articles in the areas of criminal justice, corrections and judicial independence include "Counsel for the Poor: The Death Sentence Not for the Worst Crime, but for the Worst Lawyer," which appeared in the Yale Law Journal, "Discrimination, Death and Denial: The Tolerance of Racial Discrimination in the Infliction of the Death Penalty," published by the Santa Clara Law Review, "Judges and the Politics of Death: Deciding Between the Bill of Rights and the Next Election in Capital Cases," published in the Boston University Law Review, and "Political Attacks on the Judiciary: Can Justice Be Done amid Efforts to Intimidate and remove Judges from Office for Unpopular Decisions?" published in the New York University Law Review. He has also contributed chapters to books and articles to magazines and newspapers. He has testified before committees of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and committees of the legislatures of Connecticut, Georgia and Texas. He served on an American Bar Association Task Force that studied capital punishment issues and made recommendations, ultimately adopted by the American Bar Association with minor modification, to the U.S. Congress about how to improve the fairness of the process by which people are sentenced to death. He has taught courses on capital punishment, criminal procedure, and prisoners' rights at the law schools at Yale, Harvard, Emory, Georgetown, Northeastern, and Florida State universities, and a course on international human rights law and capital punishment at the Institute on World Legal Problems in Innsbruck, Austria, conducted by St. Mary's University School of Law. He received the American Bar Association's Thurgood Marshall Award, presented at the ABA Annual Meeting in 1998; the Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty presented in 1991 by the American Civil Liberties Union; the Kutak-Dodds Prize, presented in 1992 by the National Legal Aid & Defender Association; and other awards. INDIANA: Governor should suspend death penalty pending review Last summer, former Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan commuted the death sentence of Darnell Williams. This month, he commuted the death sentence of Michael Daniels. Both men will serve life sentences without chance of parole. The two experiences are the basis of some very sound advice from Kernan to his successor: State government needs to examine whether the sentencing system is fair in Indiana death penalty cases. We would go a step further: Until a thorough review can be completed, Gov. Mitch Daniels should place a moratorium on imposition of the death penalty. Evidence of the potential for injustice is too strong for him to do any less. The examples of Michael Daniels and Darnell Williams are exhibit 1 and exhibit 2. Taken together, they make a compelling case. Both defendants were borderline mentally retarded. In both crimes, there were accomplices who were spared the death penalty. There were serious doubts as to whether either Williams or Daniels was the trigger man. And there were questions about both defendants' capacity to assist with their defense. Daniels had been on death row for 25 years when Kernan's clemency order was issued. In that time, his conviction was reversed in 1989 but upheld in 1990, an his sentence was overturned in 1995 but reinstated in 1996. His two co-defendants have been released. Clearly, there has been ambivalence about the case within the judicial system. Reasons for those mixed feelings might have included the fact that Daniels received an inadequate defense. Evidence casting doubt on his guilt never was presented in court. Daniels is mentally ill, suffering from paranoia and delusions, and is unable to make rational decisions or speak for himself. He is represented by a guardian. Williams' co-defendant, whose IQ is comparable to that of Williams, was the likely shooter in that case. But his death sentence was overturned because he was mentally retarded. Williams, on the other hand, was within a week of execution when Kernan intervened. The cases of Williams and Daniels represent the only two times in the 48 years since the death penalty was reinstated that an Indiana governor has stepped in to spare the lives of condemned prisoners. Both occurred during Kernan's 16-month tenure. That fact may say something about Kernan's willingness to take the chance of being labeled soft on crime. More than that, it speaks to his willingness to take a new, objective look at the clemency petitions before him. What he found ought to shake anyone's confidence in Indiana's application of capital penalties. In Kernan's words, "I now have encountered two cases where doubt about an offender's personal responsibility and the quality of the legal process leading to the capital sentence has led me to grant clemency. These instances should cause us to take a hard look at how Indiana administers and reviews capital sentences." Some people regard capital punishment as a barbaric throwback to frontier justice. Others believe it is a fitting penalty for murder. We do not see how even the most ardent advocate of the death penalty can support it being carried out until the failings in the process have been reviewed and corrected. (source: Opinion, South Bend Tribune) PENNSYLVANIA: Prosecutors withdraw death penalty for retrial A Lower Southampton man who won a new trial in August after serving more than 20 years of a life sentence for murder will not face the death penalty, lawyers on both sides confirmed Friday. Dennis Flanagan, 40, was just 17 years old when he pleaded guilty in 1981 to killing James Redman, 26, of Northampton. Witnesses said Flanagan and his codefendant, George Yacob, then 20, targeted Redman because he was gay. The state Supreme Court ruled that Flanagan is entitled to a new trial because he "lacked a basic understanding of the legal principles" that were part of his guilty plea. Flanagan was arraigned in Bucks County court in Doylestown Friday and entered a not-guilty plea to charges of murder and robbery. Prosecutors had filed a notice that they would seek the death penalty if Flanagan is again convicted but withdrew the motion before the hearing. Flanagans new attorneys, Randall Miller and Ronald Elgart, had argued in court filings that, under double jeopardy laws, Flanagan cant face capital punishment because a prior judge heard evidence and then ruled against imposing the death penalty in 1981. "The law is clearly on our side," Miller said. Gray-haired and dressed in a prison jumpsuit, Flanagan did not testify at the hearing before county Judge John Rufe but answered, "Yes, your honor" when asked if he understood what was happening in court. Redmans partially decomposed body was found under a pile of trash inside a Bensalem industrial park on July 5, 1981. His parents had reported him missing 2 days before. Witnesses told police that Flanagan and Yacob bragged that they robbed Redman and, "struck him with rocks, kicked him in the throat and stabbed him," court records say. Redmans car was found near the Top of the Hill Apartments, where Flanagan lived at the time. Yacob was also convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Miller said Friday that Yacob has changed his story to police several times. Miller said he was confident that a jury would find Flanagan not guilty. The trial is tentatively set for Feb. 14. "We look forward to getting into court and believe we will be able to establish Mr. Flanagans innocence," Miller said. "It's going to be a completely different case than what was presented in 1981." (source: Bucks County Courier Times)
