Jan. 25 PENNSYLVANIA: Death penalty dropped in diner deaths case 2 men charged with ambushing a Homewood diner, where they are accused of killing an 8-year-old girl, her father and a family friend, will not face the death penalty during their second trial next month. The Allegheny County District Attorney's Office sent a letter last week to the lawyers for Andre "Little Dre" Crisswell and William "Munch" Thompson, stating that prosecutors will not seek death this time, Common Pleas Judge David R. Cashman said Monday. The short letter did not give a reason for the change. The District Attorney's Office declined to comment on the case. Midway through the first trial, Cashman imposed a gag order on prosecutors, defense lawyers and witnesses, including Terri Coles, of Wilkinsburg, whose daughter and husband died in the Jan. 25, 2002, attack at Mr. Tommy's Sandwich Stop. Prosecutors sought the death penalty during the first trial, which ended in a mistrial Nov. 23 after jurors announced they were deadlocked after seven days of deliberations. Crisswell, 31, of Lincoln-Lemington, and Thompson, 35, of Homewood, are charged with 3 counts of homicide for the fatal shootings of Taylor Coles, 8; her father, Parrish Freeman, 36, of Wilkinsburg; and the man police identified as the intended target of the ambush, Thomas Mitchell III, 31, of Homestead, a drug dealer who used a wheelchair. Several eyewitnesses identified Crisswell and Thompson as the masked shooters. The prosecution also presented witnesses who said the men admitted to the shootings. But the prosecution had no physical evidence linking the suspects to the ambush. And Terri Coles, who was injured during the attack, could not identify either defendant as the killer. Cashman has scheduled jury selection for the 2nd trial to begin Feb. 10. (source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) NEW YORK: Death penalty opponents to speak at Assembly hearing A couple who successfully campaigned for a state law eliminating parole for violent felons will be in Albany today to speak out against capital punishment. Bruce and Janice Grieshaber fought for "Jenna's Law" after their daughter was fatally stabbed by a parolee in her Albany apartment in 1997. They've since founded an anti-violence organization. The Grieshabers will speak at an Assembly hearing debating the first nine years of the state's restored death penalty statute. The Legislature is considering whether the law should be rewritten to correct court-recognized constitutional flaws. David Kaczynski, founder of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, also will speak at the hearing. He estimates that the 1995 death penalty law has cost taxpayers at least 175 (m) million dollars -- money that could be better spent on more police officers and other anti-crime measures. (source: Associated Press) ****************** Group says death penalty should be abolished----League of Women Voters spokeswoman: Study shows it is unfair, waste of money The local League of Women Voters is pushing to eliminate the death penalty. The local chapter joins a debate revived when the state Court of Appeals ruled last year that a provision in the New York law was unconstitutional. Assembly committees will have a hearing on the law in Albany today. "The league believes that efforts to revive the death penalty law in New York should be abandoned," said Elizabeth Orton, chairwoman of the Oneonta leagues study group. "The use of life without parole is the primary alternative sentence." The death penalty should be abolished because innocent defendants have died, Orton said Monday, and the practice is barbaric. The state league stated that New York, as part of a civilized society, shouldnt be executing people, and Orton said an "eye-for-an-eye" approach to punishment leaves people blind. The League of Women Voters of the Oneonta Area recently announced its opposition after completing a study last year. The review concluded the death penalty was unfair, unworkable and a waste of taxpayers money, and the state league took the same position, Peg Hathaway, spokeswoman for the local chapter, said Monday. No defendant in New York has been executed since the 1995 death penalty law passed. In its study, the Oneonta league committee reviewed the law, cases of innocence and the role of the prosecutor, Orton said. The group had a public forum, and consensus was reached opposing the death penalty at a November meeting of members. While the league has a policy of nonpartisanship, the issue has supporters and opponents in Democratic and Republican parties, she said. Today, the Assemblys Codes, Judiciary and Correction committees studying New Yorks death penalty law will have a hearing at the state Capitol in Albany. In June, the state Court of Appeals ruled that under the death penalty law, judges were improperly required to tell jurors that if they didnt reach a verdict in the penalty phase of a trial, the judge would impose a sentence that would leave the defendant eligible for parole after 20 to 25 years. The instruction created a "substantial risk of coercing jurors into sentencing a defendant to death," an Assembly hearing notice said. Under state law, a sentence of life imprisonment without parole may be imposed in any 1st-degree murder conviction. The League of Women Voters of New York State has co-founded an Internet petition drive at www.networkforjustice.org to raise opposition to the death penalty. The site was launched Friday. According to the local leagues statement, issues examined and positions made as a result of the study include: - Racial, ethnic and economic factors influence who is arrested, with a higher proportion of minorities and disadvantaged people likely to be on death row. - District attorneys have unchecked power to try defendants with a possible death sentence, resulting in an imbalance of cases, with 3 of 7 defendants coming from Suffolk County. - Since the death penalty was adopted in 1995, many changes have developed in evaluating evidence, especially with advances in DNA testing. But new evidence cannot be introduced at the Court of Appeals, which is the final court for defendants. The local league chapter said 10 years of the death penalty law have not shown it to be a deterrent and have cost the state an estimated $170 million. "We discussed the cost quite a bit," Orton said. There were one or two local league members who supported the death penalty, she said. The local league reached its consensus in November, said Hathaway of Oneonta, and about a week ago, the state organization announced a statewide consensus on opposition to the death penalty. "I hope we are successful in convincing our legislators to abolish it," Hathaway said. However, the Legislature already has shown disagreement on the issue. In August, the Senate passed a bill to amend the death penalty law to fix the provision ruled invalid by the Court of Appeals. The Senate bill is supported by the governor, according to the Senate website. On Jan. 18, the Assembly sent the Codes Committee a bill that proposes eliminating the death penalty for convictions of 1st-degree murder. The state league said if the Legislature considers re-establishment of the death penalty, the law should require proof of guilt beyond a doubt; ways to introduce new evidence; consideration of racial, ethnic and economic issues of defendants and victims; and the exclusion of defendants who are mentally ill, developmentally disabled or under 18 at the time of the crime. (source: Oneonta Daily Star) ILLINOIS: Ex-Death Row Inmate Wins Suit Against FBI Agents A former death row inmate won a $6.6 million civil judgment on Monday against 2 FBI agents who the jury agreed framed him twice -- once for murder -- and sent him to prison for 14 years. FBI agents Robert Buchan and Gary Miller were found liable of concocting evidence to frame their one-time informant Steven Manning in the murder of Chicago trucking firm executive and the kidnapping of two Missouri drug dealers. "We had to prove he got framed not once, but twice," Manning's attorney Jon Loevy said. The agents were motivated by revenge because Manning had sued them for harassment after quitting as an informant, Loevy said. A 54-year-old disgraced former Chicago policeman who had spent time in jail for burglary and an insurance scam, Manning was imprisoned in 1990 for the Missouri kidnapping, then was sent to Illinois' death row in 1993 for the murder conviction. "He was in prison with the worst of the worst," Loevy said. "Everybody was a murderer or a rapist and they all hated cops. It was hell." While in prison, Manning's parents died and his girlfriend married someone else, Loevy said. Both convictions were overturned, and Manning walked free in February 2004. The kidnapping may not have occurred, defense lawyers in the case have said, and the jailhouse informant who had testified Manning confessed to shooting the trucking firm owner admitted in the civil suit that he had been coached. Manning was the 13th Illinois death row inmate to be exonerated, against 12 executions carried out since 1976, prompting then-Gov. George Ryan to declare a moratorium on executions in the state and ultimately empty death row. The civil judgment against the FBI agents may be paid by the federal government, Loevy said, and further claims could raise the amount. He said the agents were unlikely to face charges, as many prosecutors testified on their behalf. "They're saying until the end of the day that justice was done when Steve Manning was sent to prison," he said. Federal authorities said they disagreed with the jury's verdict, which was reached after more than 6 days of deliberations following a five-week trial. "We remain confident that the agents who were sued did not engage in any misconduct in this matter," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and FBI agent-in-charge Richard Ruminski said in a statement. (source: Reuters) USA: Death Penalty Does Not Solve Anything Letters To The Editor: Many who want criminals put to death see only the innocence of the victim. But the criminal is often an innocent victim as well of the most widespread, heinous and destructive crime in this world: child abuse. Studies have shown that almost every inmate on death row was abused as a child. Were it not for the ridicule and abuse they suffered as children, it is highly doubtful they would grow up to commit crimes as tormented adults. Abuse within families is acted out and passed down from generation to generation so that everyone involved is guilty, but also innocent. Some turn it inward and destroy their own lives; some destroy the lives of others. The victims of these previously tortured souls want justice, and rightly so. Yet society condones denying the abused justice for the crimes they suffered. For them, there often is none, for it is a crime difficult to prove, blatantly condoned, and one that the victims are often too afraid to face. People are supposed to just outgrow an abusive childhood and move on. Obviously, that doesn't always work. Killing criminals won't solve anything, and it is wrong. If we really care about justice and crime prevention, let's stop the problem at its source now so that someday we won't have to debate whether to execute adult victims of child abuse. Tim Michaels----Norwich (source: Letter to the Editor, The Day)
