Jan. 26 USA: FROM STAGE TO TV----Sarandon again tackles death penalty It wasnt the death penalty issue that first made Susan Sarandon interested in making the movie Dead Man Walking." "When I got the rights to the book, I was attracted to it because I thought that it was a very interesting love story and that it was about redemption," said Sarandon, who won the best actress Oscar for her role. "I think it really asks the question 'Is it possible to love unquestioningly and unconditionally another human being, other than your child?'" But starring in that 1995 film, about a nuns relationship with a seemingly unlovable man on death row (played by Sean Penn), made her feel viscerally about a practice that she had always seen as disturbingly capricious. "I got to really, really see how crippling it was for all the people involved, and how inhumane," she said in a telephone interview from her Manhattan home. 5 years later she became involved in another project related to the death penalty, an off-Broadway reading of a work called "The Exonerated." On Thursday at 9 p.m., that project comes to television, as a movie on Court TV. Sarandon, Brian Dennehy, Danny Glover, Delroy Lindo, Aidan Quinn and David Brown Jr. play real people who were sentenced to death, spent years in prison and were eventually found not guilty. In addition to the six exonerated characters, the occasional spouse, police officer and lawyer appear in the film. Their words are taken from court transcripts and other official records, which is good to know because otherwise viewers might not believe lines like those of a prosecutor in the case of Kerry Max Cook (Quinn), convicted of rape and murder in 1978. The Texas prosecutor instructs the jury: "So let's let all of the freaks and the perverts and the murderous homosexuals of the world know what we do with them in a court of justice, that we take their lives." Cook - who, incidentally, isnt gay - was cleared by DNA testing in 1999, after 22 years on death row. Sarandons character, Sonia Jacobs (known as Sunny), was in her 20s when she and her common-law husband, Jesse Tafero, were convicted of the fatal shooting of 2 law enforcement officers, based on the false testimony of the man who really committed the murders. In 1992, after 16 years in prison, Jacobs was released when that man, Walter Rhodes Jr., finally confessed. Tafero was not as fortunate. He had already been executed, in 1990, in a grisly botched procedure caused by a malfunctioning electric chair. Asked if attitudes about the death penalty had improved or worsened in the last few years, Sarandon was cautiously optimistic - and Jensen tried to be. (source: New York Times) LOUISIANA: DA may seek death penalty in child rape case----Girl, 11, has abortion; grand jury to get child rape case Feb. 14. Webster District Attorney Schuyler Marvin hopes to have crime laboratory information in hand by Feb. 14 so he can ask a parish grand jury to indict a Minden man in connection with the rape of an 11-year-old girl. The Minden 4th-grader allegedly identified William Hawkins, 42, after it was discovered she was pregnant. The girl's mother, believing her daughter had the flu, took her to the emergency room during the Christmas holidays. "They determined she was pregnant. That's when the police were contacted," said Marvin, who is considering the death penalty if the grand jury returns a true bill of aggravated rape against Hawkins. A change in Louisiana law several years ago allows for the death penalty in cases of child rape. "I'm seriously thinking about it because of the age factor -- because of his age and her age," Marvin said. "There was no indication so far of alcohol or drug usage on his part." The district attorney said he knows of at least 1 south Louisiana man who is on death row for raping a child. Hawkins was arrested Dec. 18 and booked into Bayou Dorcheat Correctional Center, where he remains on a $500,000 bond. The child's mother decided an abortion was best for her daughter but told authorities she could not afford one. "She even asked if we could help, but I didn't think it was appropriate for us to recommend or tell her what she should do," Marvin said. "So we just stepped back at that point ... and someone eventually steered them to the clinic in Shreveport." The abortion was performed Thursday, reportedly at no charge. The girl was about 14 weeks pregnant, Marvin said. The abortion clinic provided the remains of the fetus for DNA testing since the child's mother gave permission. "So the detective took that and a swab of the mother and a swab of the defendant to the crime lab. ... Hopefully, we'll have at least a verbal report by the time the grand jury meets," Marvin said. (source: Shreveport Times) NORTH CAROLINA: State sets March 11 execution The next execution scheduled in North Carolina is that of a Cleveland County man, and the district attorney is asking that the victims family call his office. William D. "Bugsy" Powell, 58, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 2 a.m. on March 11 at Central Prison in Raleigh. Hes been on death row since his conviction by a Cleveland County jury on April 29, 1993, for the Halloween night murder of Mary Gladden, a convenience store clerk, in 1991. "His case was appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and the conviction has been upheld," said Cleveland County District Attorney Bill Young. Throughout the lengthy appeals process, Young lost contact with Ms. Gladdens family. He said he needs them to be present at the governors commutation hearing, which will be held sometime before the execution. According to Young, this will be the last opportunity for Ms. Gladdens family to speak. According to court documents, at about 3:45 a.m. on Halloween in 1991, a customer found the body of Mary Gladden, 54, on the floor of the Charles Road convenience store where she worked. "She was beaten so badly that she could not be recognized," Young said. The stores cash drawer was open and a small amount of cash was missing, according to Young. Court documents show that prosecutors argued in court that Powell had killed Ms. Gladden while robbing the store. Under the law, that robbery was considered an aggravating factor. "When Bugsy Powells case was tried, if there were aggravating factors, and the state elected to go forward with 1st-degree murder, the case had to be tried as a capital case. I had no discretion," Young said. Since Powells conviction, the General Assembly has changed the law. Prosecutors are now allowed to decide whether to ask for the death penalty or life in prison in first-degree murder cases. "Some cases are true 1st-degree cases and there are aggravating factors present, but as a practical matter, its still not a capital case," Young said. "The jury would not give the death penalty. "In those cases, I would have wasted all kinds of time and resources and I know the jury would not sentence the person to death. So its better to pursue life in prison." (source: The Shelby Star)
