Jan. 25 GEORGIA----execution Georgia Man Executed for Killing Teen-Ager A man who claimed to be under the "diabolical" spell of his girlfriend when he stabbed and beat a teen-ager to death in 1992 was executed on Tuesday in Georgia after courts rejected his last-minute appeals. Timothy Carr, 34, was put to death by lethal injection at a state prison in Jackson, Georgia, about 50 miles south of Atlanta. He died at 8:37 p.m. EST (0135 GMT Tuesday), according to Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Scheree Lipscomb. The U.S. Supreme Court and Georgia Supreme Court refused to block the execution. "Peace," Carr said before a sedative, lung-paralyzing drug and the poison potassium chloride were injected into his arms. Earlier, while still in a holding cell, he apologized for his crime and said it was time for justice to be done. He was sentenced to die for killing 17-year-old Keith Young on Oct. 8, 1992 during a robbery on a remote road near Bolingbroke, Georgia, about 65 miles southeast of Atlanta. Carr, accompanied by his girlfriend, Melissa Burgeson, and 2 teen-agers, slashed and stabbed Young with a knife and beat him with a baseball bat, according to testimony from the 1994 trial. The group, which had been drinking alcohol and an hallucinogenic tea and smoking marijuana before the murder, fled the scene with Young's $125 paycheck and his two-door, gold 1986 Pontiac Grand Prix. In a clemency petition filed last week, Carr's defense attorneys said their client had attacked Young on orders from Burgeson, who had exercised "diabolical" influence over Carr. They also noted that Carr's jury was unaware that Burgeson had taken part in Young's stabbing. Burgeson was sentenced to life in prison for the crime, while the two teens involved had their cases handled in juvenile court. Carr's execution was the 1st in Georgia this year and the 37th in the state since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Carr becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 947th overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (sources: Reuters & Rick Halperin) TEXAS----execution////another impending execution is stayed Killer who spent half of life on death row executed A condemned killer who twice avoided execution last year when courts halted his punishment on the day he was to die was executed today for a slaying in Corpus Christi more than 20 years ago. The execution came after the U.S. Supreme Court refused on a narrow 5-4 vote to block Troy Kunkle's execution. Kunkle was contrite as he looked toward the daughter and son-in-law of his victim, Stephen Horton, and sought their forgiveness. "I would like to ask you to forgive me," he said. "I made a mistake and I am sorry for what I did. All I can do is ask you to forgive me." Kunkle then turned his head toward an adjacent window in the death house and expressed love to witnesses he selected to watch him die, including his mother and his wife. "I love you and I will see all of you in heaven," he said. "I love you very much. Praise Jesus." Kunkle recited the Lord's Prayer and then indicated to the warden he had finished. In the seconds before the lethal drugs began taking effect, he repeatedly mouthed "I love you" to his friends and relatives. He exhaled slightly and gasped before he slipped into unconsciousness. 8 minutes later, at 8:12 p.m. CST, he was pronounced dead. "Shame to Texas," his wife, Christa Heber, said as she watched him die. Kunkle, 38, spent more than half of his life on death row for the death of Horton, 31, who was fatally shot and robbed of $13. The 1984 shooting gained notoriety with disclosures Kunkle, from San Antonio and then just over 18, quoted lyrics of a song by the heavy metal rock group Metallica after Horton was gunned down. Kunkle becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 338th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Kunkle becomes the 99th condemned inmate to be put to death since Rick Perry became Governor of Texas is 2001. Kunkle also becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 948th overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977. Also Tuesday, convicted killer George Jones won a reprieve from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that blocked his execution, scheduled for Thursday. Jones was condemned for the abduction and slaying of a Dallas man during a carjacking almost 12 years ago. (sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin) ********************** Execution debate has urgent tone----Supreme Court has eye on Texas legal system Every 2 years, the Legislature wrestles with the way the state administers the death penalty. This year, the U.S. Supreme Court will be watching. The high court overturned the sentences of 3 death row inmates last year because their juries were not able to factor in mitigating evidence, such as mental retardation, that could have justified a lesser sentence. That has prompted some lawmakers to warn that they must act quickly or risk further sanction. "If we don't continue to try to do the right thing to justify the group that is being executed, I think it is always subject to being struck down," Sen. John Whitmire of Houston, Democratic chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, said recently. The Supreme Court barred the execution of the retarded in 2002, calling it unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. But Texas law does not explicitly outlaw execution of the mentally retarded or stipulate how to deal with the issue in capital cases. Lawmakers of both parties have said the state needs uniform procedures to guide juries. Gov. Rick Perry said last week that Texas adequately deals with factors such as mental retardation and that no overhaul of the death statutes is necessary. "I do not hear a loud hue and cry to change our death penalty statutes in Texas from the citizens of this state," said Mr. Perry, a death-penalty advocate who has presided over 98 executions. Some legal experts say the Supreme Court has shown a real frustration with conspicuous points of lower-court rulings but not an intention to dismantle the state's death penalty system. "There is some risk that unless the Legislature tries its best to conform state law to the Supreme Court requirements, the Supreme Court will continue to show disfavor toward the Texas system," said Rick Broughton, a professor at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law in Fort Worth. "But it probably would not take the form of any sort of ultimate sanction." So lawmakers will be asking this session, "What kind of legislative reforms can we enact that will help the state to sustain the death penalty on these appeals?" Mr. Broughton said. Instructing juries Some lawmakers believe it is urgent to give clear instructions to juries considering a defendant's mental capacity. Current state law allows for mitigating circumstances but does not specifically mention mental retardation. That has led trial courts to deal with the question in different ways - and, in some cases, not at all. The state does not know how many death row inmates are mentally retarded. Many Republicans favor a bill that would test a defendant for mental retardation after a jury has found him or her guilty of capital murder. A defendant determined to be mentally retarded would be sentenced to life in prison. "The approach we've taken respects the victims' families and is a fair process to the accused," said Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, the bill's author. But Democrats such as Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston believe that standard prejudices a jury against a defendant. By the time they determine mental retardation, jurors have seen horrific pictures of a crime and felt the impact of testimony about the defendant's guilt, Mr. Ellis said. "If you really want to obey the United States Supreme Court's mandate, make that decision on the front end, before you bias the jury and have them more in favor of execution," Mr. Ellis said. Republicans hold a firm majority in both the House and the Senate, but it's not clear whether they have the votes to pass Mr. Staples' bill. In 2003, lawmakers could not reach a compromise between the competing bills. Democrats will also seek to create a sentence of life in prison without parole in capital cases. Current law provides for life in prison, but it makes an offender eligible for parole in 40 years. That, some Democrats argue, makes juries more likely to hand down a death sentence for fear that a murderer could someday go free. Prosecutors have opposed life in prison without parole because they believe juries would be less likely to confer the death penalty if there was an alternative. Crime labs Lawmakers may also seek to more tightly regulate police crime labs, which often analyze evidence for homicide cases. Houston's police lab was found to have mishandled, contaminated and even lost evidence. Mr. Whitmire has asked the Texas Rangers to independently investigate that crime lab and is considering a state oversight body to monitor the work of crime labs. Lawmakers also may consider whether to fund a statewide network of innocence clinics, an idea supported by judges of the Court of Criminal Appeals. One such office at the University of Houston has helped exonerate two former prisoners, James L. Byrd and Josiah Sutton. Ernest Willis, a former inmate, walked off death row in October after a team of New York attorneys - who dedicated 12 years to his case - proved his innocence. "Justice requires we listen to people who are incarcerated and can make very logical, legal arguments that they are innocent," Mr. Whitmire said. (source: Denton Record Chronicle) OHIO: Saved from death row A British man who has been on death row in America for 18 years for the murder of a 2-year-old girl had his conviction and sentence overturned unexpectedly by the US Court of Appeals yesterday. A federal court in Cincinnati ruled that Kenneth Richey, 40, who was convicted in 1987 of killing the girl in an arson attack in Ohio, must be retried within 90 days or freed because he received incompetent counsel at his trial. It said the trial court's handling of the case "undermined our confidence in the reliability of Richey's conviction and sentence". Human rights campaigners, MPs, Hollywood actors and even the Pope pleaded to save Mr Richey from the electric chair. However, a string of appeals were rejected and the court's decision in his favour came as a complete surprise. Mr Richey's lawyers hired an unqualified forensic expert to investigate the fire and did not adequately challenge the state investigator's handling of the case, the court said. Ten years ago, Richey, who has always maintained his innocence, came within an hour of being electrocuted before a stay of execution. He had even had his head shaved in preparation. Kenneth Parsigian, his lawyer, said Mr Richey was "very excited" by the news. "He just hooted and then said, 'Thank you' - 3 thank-yous." Mr Richey was sentenced over the killing of Cynthia Collins, the daughter of his ex-girlfriend, who died in 1986 at her mother's home in Columbus Grove, Ohio. Mr Richey, who grew up in Edinburgh, had gone to start a new life with his father in Ohio in 1981 and had served 3 years in the US marines. The prosecution claimed at his trial that on the evening of June 29, 1986, he went to a party to celebrate his imminent return to Britain to work as a nightclub doorman. It was alleged that he got drunk, stumbled off and - some time later - a fire broke out at a nearby apartment block. Cynthia was trapped in her bedroom and died from smoke inhalation. The jury was told that a jealous Mr Richey had intended to kill his ex-girlfriend, who was sleeping downstairs with her new boyfriend. During the trial, at which he was accused of starting the fire by pouring petrol and paint thinner on a carpet, Mr Richey twice rejected plea-bargain deals which would have spared his life if he admitted arson. But in 1997 2 witnesses who claimed that Mr Richey had previously threatened to burn down the apartment, retracted their statements. Meanwhile, subsequent forensic evidence suggested that the fire was started accidentally and that the carpet had never contained any inflammable substances. Mr Richey's plight has been a cause clbre in Britain, prompting two documentaries questioning his guilt and many letters protesting against his conviction. In 1999, the Pope wrote to the governor of Ohio's Mansfield Correctional Unit, where Mr Richey lived in a 10ft by 8ft cell, asking for him to be spared. The American actress Susan Sarandon was one of numerous celebrities who, together with the European Parliament, backed claims that "compelling" evidence supported a retrial. Mr Richey said last year: "We have enough evidence that proves my innocence. But the courts don't care. Once you're convicted, that's it. "You could have someone come forward and admit that they set the place on fire but you've already been convicted, so that's it." A spokesman for the US Attorney General said lawyers were considering whether to contest the appeal court's decision. Mr Parsigian said he hoped the State of Ohio would decide not to retry Mr Richey, given the amount of time he has spent in jail and the court's conclusion that evidence was mishandled. He said: "The evidence has been badly undermined. It would be a real injustice at this point to put Mr Richey through this again, based on what the court had said." Karen Richey, Mr Richey's fiancee, from Cambuslang, Glasgow, said last night: "I am shocked but obviously delighted." The mother of 4, who entered a relationship with Mr Richey after becoming his pen pal 10 years ago, has never been allowed to touch her boyfriend. But the lack of physical contact has not prevented her from changing her name from Torley and visiting him in jail. "It is going to be overwhelming to see him when you think that I have only ever seen him behind glass before," she said. Miss Richey, 41, said she had broken the news to Mr Richey's mother Eileen, 60, from Edinburgh. "I had to tell her about 5 times before she believed it was happening," she said. In March last year 150 MPs signed a Commons motion backing Mr Richey's claim of innocence after Tony Blair pledged to look into the case. (source: The (UK) Telegraph) USA----book review New book makes a case against capital punishment Sister Helen Prejean, author of "The Death of Innocents" and "Dead Man Walking." In her new book, Sister Helen Prejean gives dramatic accounts of two state executions she witnessed and even takes after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia during a brief encounter in a New Orleans airport. Mostly though Prejean's book, "The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions," (310 pages, Random House, $25.95), makes the case against capital punishment. MO< Errors have resulted in the release of 117 wrongfully convicted people on death row from 1973 to last September, she said last week. And those were the fortunate ones. Prejean insists there are people who have been executed who were not only wrongly convicted but also victims of a legal system that allows poverty, race, politics and publicity decide guilt rather than the evidence. "I used to think that courts were the place where everybody could come and all the sides of truth could be sounded out and debated," she wrote in her book. "Now I know better." Dobie Gillis Williams, one of the men whose executions she witnessed, had an IQ of 65, she said. Further, his lawyer was later disbarred for his conduct in other cases he handled. "What kind of justice is happening when there are unseen forces at play really determining (guilt or innocence)," she added in an interview last week. "It's high time we started looking at them." We recently caught up with Prejean on her book tour across country. Her appreciation for words and accent betrayed her Louisiana upbringing. She called herself a "Southern storyteller." Q. What will you say Wednesday night about Dobie Gillis Williams and Joseph Roger O'Dell, whose executions you witnessed? A. I'll talk about their lives. How they got to be victims of the system. How they were selected for death. The last moments of their lives. Q. Most people have never witnessed an execution. What's it like? A. And they never will know. Just look at the whole process. It's done behind prison walls. They follow the protocol. It's surreal. With someone who's in the hospital you can see their power fading. When someone is fully alive (and about to be executed), you're watching them behind plexi-glass. Now they're alive. Now they're killing them. I absolutely feel that the closer you bring people to it the more they would turn away from it. Q. You wrote that witnessing an execution in 1984 "set me on fire." In what way? A. My task is to bring the story to the American people. The facts about death help people reflect and raise the question, 'Do we have to keep doing this?' Can we take death off the table? People are outraged over crime. That outrage is justified. The question for us, as a society, is what are we going to do with that outrage. We're far more outraged over the death of some people than others. We try to have this meritocracy. (People are more outraged over the deaths of police, firemen and children, she argued.) Whenever any human being is killed, someone unique and irreplaceable has been lost. Q. What expectations do you have for this book, given the impact of your first book, "Dead Man Walking" in 1993 which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and made into a movie starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn? A. I hope people will get their little book and go do honest work. I wrote this new book over 5 1/2 years. I put honesty, truth and research into it. Then you just have to trust that it will go where it needs to go. You know the Roman Catholic Church? Well, I'm the roaming Catholic nun. I'm always on the move. There's a principle and you do what you do for the integrity of it and do it because it's the right thing to do. I do what I do. Q. You're 65, giving an average of 140 lectures a year, fighting what some might say is an uphill battle. How long will you keep this up? A. Long as we need to. (source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch) ******************* Understanding 'Death Row Syndrome' The time Michael Ross has spent on death row has become a factor in postponing his execution. A psychiatrist claims years of seclusion have resulted in 'Death Row Syndrome' and Ross is desperate to die to end his isolation. Opponents of the death penalty have appealed on a number of grounds. But according to one of the nation's leading experts on the death penalty, Professor Stephen Bright, who happens to be a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School, it should come as no surprise that this is the issue that derailed the execution of Michael Ross. "There are no harder issues that courts have than when some inmate wants to give up his appeals and be executed." Bright runs the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. "It is an issue that has to be resolved I think in every case where there is a volunteer. I mean, we once had a case where the fellow got a stay literally when they were putting him in the electric chair to have a hearing on his ability to go forward with his appeals or not." In the case of serial killer Michael Ross, a federal judge issued a stay of execution to hear more evidence on whether the long years of incarceration led to an irrational decision by Ross to drop his appeals and thus end his life. It's an issue, Bright says, the courts routinely deal with down South where executions are more common. "Generally the courts in the south have a tendency to find that the person has made a rational decision and they allow the execution to go forward. "I think the standard the courts have set is pretty clear. The question is whether the person can make a rational decision, but to answer that question depends so much on the facts involving the particular person, whether it's Michael Ross in Connecticut or Harvey Rumbaugh in Texas." In the end, Professor Bright says, the courts are put in the position of trying to figure out how the human mind works when even mental health professionals vary tremendously on how to interpret behavior. (source: WTNH)
