Jan. 24 TEXAS; SUSPECT'S LIFE CHANGED AFTER MILITARY SERVICE It was Christmas when Linda Williams last saw her nephew, Johnny Lee Williams Jr., at her home in Tyler. He had always been quiet, but usually a crowd brought him out of his shell. This time, something was different. "It was a house full of people," she said. "He couldn't stand it. He just couldn't stand a crowd of people anymore." On Friday night, as Ms. Williams sat on the front porch at the modest brick home of Johnny's parents, Patricia and Johnny Williams, she couldn't fathom what happened to the Marine Corps private overseas that might have led to this week's abduction and murder of a Chandler teenager who was just starting her life anew. "My heart goes out to her family," Linda Williams said of Megan Leann Holden, 19, who had attended only one day of junior college. "All you can do is sit here and wonder, you know, what happened? "I guess he just - snapped - I don't know. He's been asking for help ever since he came home from the military." Williams Jr., 24, was being held in an Arizona jail on charges of aggravated kidnapping, and Smith County officials were pursuing charges of capital murder. Ms. Holden's body was found in a highway ditch in Stanton, about 380 miles west of Tyler. On Dec. 6, Williams Jr. was arrested by the Smith County Sheriff's Office and released on bond, charged with possession of cocaine. Patricia and Johnny Williams declined to speak with the Tyler Morning Telegraph. They stayed in their home throughout Friday as Tyler police and the FBI spent much of the day searching the surrounding lot and the nearby trailer house where Williams Jr. lived. Tyler police Sgt. Bill Goecking said authorities were gathering evidence, but he could provide no details. After investigators removed crime scene tape and left the Williams home, off Farm-to-Market Road 14 south of Tyler State Park, Linda Williams sat on a bench outside. She said her nephew, who returned home from Iraq last spring, never spoke much about what happened overseas with the First Marine Expeditionary Force. "He'd just say he saw a lot," she said. It was unclear if Williams was discharged from the military or on leave. He grew up in Smith County with his parents. His father preaches at a local church. He graduated from John Tyler High School in 1999 and completed basic training with the Marines in San Diego in 2001. Nicknamed "Binky" because of his weight, Ms. Williams said, Johnny shaved off the pounds so he could serve in the military. "He was real active, jolly, you know, loved music. Real quiet. He's never been a big talker, but in a crowd of people" he would open up, she said. "He was a total different person when he came back from Iraq ... Anger, no laughing." A next-door neighbor refused to give her name, but described the Williams family as "good people. I wouldn't want to say anything that would hurt them any." Another neighbor asked that his name not be used. He said a steady stream of reporters had been visiting throughout the day Friday. "I heard more about him yesterday and today than I had ever heard about him," the man said. "I feel for both families, both sets of parents. They're both suffering." (source: Tyler Morning Telegraph) ***************** Trial opens for suspect accused of murder while he was out on bond Opening statements begin today in the trial of a West Side man charged with the October 2002 slaying of a Northeast woman while he was out on bond on another murder charge. Justen Grant Hall, 23, of the 8500 block of Lakehurst Drive, could be sentenced to death if convicted of capital murder in the Oct. 28, 2002, slaying of Melanie Ruth Billhartz, 29. Billhartz was strangled and her body was dumped in the desert in Doa Ana County, according to an arrest affidavit for Hall. Hall also faces a murder charge in the April 10, 2002, shooting of Arturo Diaz, 28, and a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, which is related to Diaz's slaying. Prosecutors are presenting the charges against Hall simultaneously, according to court records. Hall's lawyer, Francisco F. Macias, couldn't be reached for comment. Officials for the district attorney's office have declined to comment on the charges against Hall because the trial has begun. The trial began in September with jury selection. Lupe Vasquez, jury coordinator for El Paso County, said it took several months to select a jury because jurors were interviewed for this case individually at the judge's request because of the seriousness of the punishment in this case. Billhartz and Hall knew each other, according to court records. The two had been arguing before her death, according to an arrest affidavit for Hall. A person, who police identified as a witness in an arrest affidavit for Hall, told police that Hall strangled Billhartz and that her body was left in the back seat of her car. "The witness was threatened by (Hall), who was armed with a handgun to assist him with disposing the victim's body. The witness in fear for his life proceeded to Doa Ana County with (Hall) in the victim's vehicle, and (Hall) dumped the victim's body in an area known as Kilbourns Hole," police stated in the affidavit. Diaz, who was a cross-dresser, died from a single gunshot wound to the back, according to an autopsy report. His body was found in the 3400 block of Anapra Road near Sunland Park. Hall's indictment in Diaz's death alleges the homicide was a hate crime, with Diaz selected primarily due to "bias or prejudice." (source: El Paso Times) CONNECTICUT----(likely) stay of execution Ross Execution Postponed The execution of serial killer Michael Ross, 45, likely will not take place as scheduled at 2:01 a.m. Wednesday, given a federal judge's decision to hold his own hearing on whether Ross is competent to forgo further appeals and "volunteer" to be executed. Chief U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny said this afternoon he will issue a stay of the execution. "I don't know why people need to proceed under the excruciating schedule of the pending execution," he said. Chatigny heard arguments from attorney Hubert Santos, who is assisting the state's public defenders in their efforts to have Ross declared mentally incompetent to forgo appeals still open to him and opt for execution. Santos said New London Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford and the state Supreme Court did not consider the psychiatric effects that 20 years of high-security imprisonment may have had on Ross' wish to proceed to his execution. Chatigny was critical of the state judges' cursory treatment of the issue, and said "conditions of confinement that are extremely controversial" warrant review. Although Santos asked for 30 days to prepare, Chatigny said he would like to hear immediately from Dr. Stuart Grassian, a psychiatrist who has done extensive research on the psychological effects of death row confinement. Members of the Office of the Chief Public Defender, and the private counsel who joined them in court Monday, were clearly elated and relieved by Chatigny's decision. They said they intend to call at least eight witnesses for the hearing. They also have asked for extra time so that Grassian has a chance to tour Connecticut's death row at Northern Correctional Institution, and to meet with Ross. "After going through numerous court hearings, where our motives and actions were criticized, finally our position is being vindicated," said Chief Public Defender Gerard Smyth. "There is a legitimate basis for contending Ross is mentally incompetent that has not been reviewed by the courts at all. "There should be no rush to resolve all these serious and important issues so the execution can go forward on Jan. 26," Smyth said. The public defenders, who represented Ross for 17 of the 20 years he has been in custody, sought unsuccessfully to intervene last month in a competency hearing in New London Superior Court. They also submitted more than 150 pages of documents to the state Supreme Court in an effort to get Ross' mental state more closely assessed. Ross indicated in October that he wanted to forgo all further appeals and proceed to his execution, which had been scheduled for Wednesday at 2:01 a.m. Ross was given the opportunity to participate in today's hearing in federal court by video closed circuit video relay from Osborn Correctional Institution, where the execution was scheduled to take place, but he declined. His lawyer, T. R. Paulding, said Ross prefered to stick with his busy schedule of visitors, in the event that the execution does take place Wednesday, rather than get involved in the legal fray. "I'm upset for him," Paulding said. "I'm upset for Michael. I'm very worried about him." There is the possibility that state prosecutors could appeal Chatigny's ruling to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, but as of noon, when the court reconvened, they still were considering what strategy they would employ. Grassian began testifying shortly after noon. In a document submitted to the state Supreme Court earlier this month, Grassian, had noted: "It is this desperate need to regain control which underlies an inmate's decision to volunteer [for execution] by waiving his appeals and dismissing his attorneys. The post-conviction appeal process in capital cases is inherently grueling -- a roller coaster of hope and despair, and often of utter helplessness." Ross, 45, has admitted killing eight women in Connecticut and New York during the 1980s and raping most of his victims. He was sentenced to death in 1987 and again in 2000 for the murders of four of those women in eastern Connecticut. His scheduled execution would be the 1st in New England since 1960. The public defenders have said all along that they felt their best chance of halting the execution of their former client lay in the federal courts, and specifically the 2nd Circuit, which has never passed judgment on the constitutionality of Connecticut's death penalty scheme. The appeals court has not had an occasion to do so since the U.S. Supreme Court permitted the resumption of executions in 1976. The federal appellate judges in New York -- removed from the emotionally-charged landscape in Connecticut -- may find it more palatable to issue a stay of the execution. This is the potential legal challenge that Ross himself has said he most feared. Chatigny had told Smyth to be prepared to call witnesses to support his claim that Ross is mentally incompetent, despite all other rulings and assertions to the contrary. Another federal judge, U.S. District Judge Christopher F. Droney, dismissed a challenge to the lethal injection process on Jan. 10, filed on behalf of Ross' father -- Dan Ross -- because he deemed Ross was mentally competent to make his own decisions and no one should be permitted to intervene in a contrary manner. Paulding has said that Ross has been concerned for quite a while that those acting in opposition to his stated wishes to be executed would reach the 2nd Circuit. "This has been his concern right along," Paulding said. Paulding also said the swirl of litigation has been unsettling to Ross, at a time when he is "trying to prepare himself mentally and emotionally" for his execution. (source: Connecticut Now) ***************** A Kill-Happy Government----Connecticut Chooses Death In a few days Connecticut prison officials will take a prisoner out of his cell and inject poison into his veins. He's been held harmless for 20 years in prisons, but now he's going to be killed. It will be the 1st execution in New England in 45 years. One New England state hasn't had an execution since the 1800's. Another Connecticut official will soon be going to a prison, but for a different purpose. Governor John Rowland plea bargained to multiple corruption charges and he's expected to get at least a year in prison. The current governor, Jodi Rell, was Rowland's lieutenant governor. As accusations piled up about Rowland's cronies and the governor himself Rell said not a word. Once he resigned she said she was shocked, shocked, shocked at his conduct and was determined to bring ethical standards back to government. Her 1st ethical choice was to decide to let Michael Ross die. Our constitution doesn't allow her to turn his death sentence into a life term, but she could delay the execution. She won't. Furthermore, she announced that if the legislature voted to abolish the death penalty she would veto the bill. Now Michael Ross is not a guy to get a lot of sympathy. He killed eight women and girls, raping most of them. He's not poor or a minority. He's not a drooling idiot. You can read some of his letters on line. There's zero doubt of his innocence. He confessed to the killings. He says that he suffered from a mental condition of "sexual sadism" and that in recent years medicines have cured him. Maybe so, but it has occurred to people that a serial murderer might also be a liar. Still, it's a disgrace to open the gates to executions in the "enlightened" Northeast when life without release is right on the books as an alternative. We'll be ushering in all the abuses that are occurring in other states: executing killers too poor to get a decent lawyer, or those slated for death by racial profiling, wretches enslaved by mental compulsions or those convicted on the testimony of a convict or accomplice bargaining for a lower sentence. Of course, some who get the death sentence will be completely innocent. Read ex-prosecutor and famous novelist Scott Turow's brilliant non-fiction book, "Ultimate Punishment: a Lawyer's Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty" about his first hand experience with prosecutors run amok. Even if the death sentence was given out without bias and without error how do you justify holding down a shackled human being and ripping the life out of him? Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote "Dead Man Walking" spoke in New Haven some ten years ago and she impressed me tremendously. She ministers to murderers on death row and to the families of their victims. She has witnessed executions herself and she's talked with family members who've gladly observed the death of killers. Prejean has been in the trenches and she's 100% against the death penalty. Governor Rell is laying down the gauntlet in typical George Bush fashion, "You've got a problem, kill it." So what are the state Democrats doing. Absolutely nothing. If there's an anti-death penalty bill in the hopper no one is trying to do anything to bring it to a vote this week. The Dems didn't even make an issue of the governor's threatened veto. The next gubernatorial election is next year and the candidates are off and running. The front runner, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano has a website that makes no mention at all of the death penalty. The site's lead article is about all the money his campaign has collected. In 2005 the Republicans should be reeling, but it's the Democrats who are laying low. Aside from anti-death penalty activists the only group working to stop the execution is the Catholic Church. They actually brought it up all over the state at last Sunday's mass. Bully for them. The conventional wisdom is that Ross is so despicable that any death penalty fight now will backfire and make it harder to win in the future. Listen, the ones who get the death penalty have all been convicted of multiple or gruesome murders. If we have to wait to fight on behalf of a blind, retarded, black librarian convicted on the testimony of a jailhouse snitch, we,re going to have to wait till Hell has an ice storm. Hiding our heads in the sand now will only give the entire field to the Bush's and Rell's of this world. Now the death penalty is not my big political issue. My main political work is on Palestine, Israel, and Iraq, but I do think there is a connection. Our government is kill happy. Our savage foreign policy kills hundreds of thousands of innocents for "FREEDOM", "DEMOCRACY", "SECURITY", whatever. Of all governments, the US government has to get out of the killing business at every level. This week on my TV program I interviewed Antoinette Bosco. Ten years ago her son and daughter in law were blown away in Montana by a teenager for no apparent reason. She and her family decided that they would oppose the death penalty. She's adamant that the death sentence for her son's killer could not bring her "closure". Nothing would ever heal the wound. Bosco thought three things would help her, 1st insuring that the killer could never kill again, second making it much harder for kids to get guns and third the granting of mercy. She quotes Shakespeare, "The quality of mercy is not strained. It drops as the gentle rain from heaven". She wrote a book called, "Choosing Mercy". Bosco insists that it blesses the one who gives it as well as the one who receives. Revenge may be a natural desire when one is injured, but it's a quick fix. In the long run she says it's the granting of mercy that best soothes the pain. (source: Counterpunch; Stanley Heller writes on politics on his website StanOnPolitics.8k.com) NEW YORK: Cuomo lends hand in battle Former U.S. Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo, a potential Democratic state attorney general candidate in 2006, has teamed up with the League of Women Voters of New York State to start an Internet anti-death penalty campaign. Network for Justice debuted Friday. Participants sign a petition at http:// www.networkforjustice.org, enter their ZIP code, and a letter indicating the signee is against reinstating the death penalty, which was ruled unconstitutional in June by the state's highest court, is automatically sent to the person's local legislators. The signers can then create their own Web pages connected to Network for Justice's site, and through them, forward e-mails inviting others to join. The idea, Cuomo said, is to move past paper petitions and public hearings and harness the power of the Internet to galvanize mass support against the death penalty. Cuomo commended Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, for holding hearings, but "the day of the town hall meeting and the public hearing, I think, has passed." People, he said, may not show up for a public hearing, "but they will click a mouse." A pledge to reinstate the death penalty was key to Republican Gov. George Pataki's 1994 defeat of Cuomo's father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo. Pataki kept that promise in 1995, though no one has been executed in New York since then. Andrew Cuomo insisted he's not involved in the effort to even the score or to create a focus for his possible AG run. "This is a 20-year endeavor," said Cuomo, noting he was working for his father when Mario Cuomo was fighting off efforts to reinstate the death penalty and seeking life without parole as an alternative. A cadre of Andrew Cuomo supporters have signed on as founding partners on the site, including hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, New York City Councilman Bill de Blasio, and Democratic Rural Conference Chairman Stuart Brody. Service Employees International Union/Local 1199 and the New York Civil Liberties Union are involved as well. Cuomo was unsure Friday about the cost of the site, but said the Network for Justice plans to raise money to pay for it. McEneny a granddad It may take lawmakers months to birth a budget, but Assemblyman Jack McEneny has had one key delivery this year: His first grandchild was born Monday to his daughter, Rachel. No word on party affiliation of Madeline Maeve Spencer, whose mother is a Democrat and whose father is the son of former GOP Yonkers Mayor John Spencer. McEneny, a Democrat who bangs the Assembly gavel every three days to keep the session from closing when the Legislature is out of town, turned that duty over to newcomer Bob Reilly on Friday. Reilly, a fellow Democrat, isn't the 1st stand-in for McEneny, who has also called on Democrats Ron Canestrari and Paul Tonko to keep the session running, and even tapped Republican Pat Casale. (source: Albany Times Union)
