death penalty news January 29, 2005
CONNECTICUT --- impending execution Witness was left shaken by 2002 execution Editor's note: There were only a few seats for reporters at the execution of Michael Ross, and The News-Times did not get one of them. But in 2002, when she was a reporter for a weekly newspaper in Virginia, reporter Kamilla Gary witnessed an execution in Virginia. This is her account: James Earl Patterson was short, chubby and bald. He ambled into the death chamber wearing handcuffs, a blue shirt and blue dungarees. A strap-down team of six guards placed him on a gurney, his arms outstretched. Behind a white curtain were medical technicians, their identities protected, who monitored his vital signs. On one wall was a single telephone with a line left open in case Gov. Mark Warner called to stop the execution. Guards waited until exactly 9 p.m. to see if it would ring. It did not. And the lethal injection process began. On March 14, 2002, Patterson, 35 at the time of his death, became the 83rd person executed by the state of Virginia. I was there to see it. At the time, I was a reporter for the Sussex-Surry Dispatch in Wakefield, Va. I was one of three reporters in a media pool. I asked to view the execution on behalf of the Virginia Press Association after reading an article about another state that had carried out three executions in one evening. There had always been stories about protests and executions after the fact, but nothing had really been written about what the condemned person's last moments were like. Patterson was already serving time in the Sussex state prison for rape when DNA evidence revealed he had also raped and stabbed to death 56-year-old Prince George County grandmother Joyce Aldridge in 1987. Patterson did not appeal the death penalty decision. Like others on Virginia's death row, he was given the choice between the electric chair or lethal injection. A week before his execution date, he was moved to the Greensville Correctional Facility in Jarratt, Va. I wasn't nervous about seeing the state-sponsored death until I pulled up to the prison about an hour before the execution. I started shaking, and didn't stop until it was over. Outside, a small group of protesters had gathered with signs and candles. During the pre-execution briefing, we were told that Patterson's last meal was five turkey burgers, French fries, baked apples, and sweet tea. In Virginia, when people are scheduled to die, their last meal is whatever is offered on the prison menu rotation. So if the condemned wants steak and lobster, and it's not on the menu (it never is) he's not going to get it. All the witnesses were searched before they entered the witness box. It was there I learned that women usually are not allowed to wear skirts to prisons. I was wearing one, but they let me in. As Patterson lay on the gurney, he spoke into a microphone hanging from the ceiling. He apologized to his victim's family, who were in a witness room. The media could not see them, and officials did not reveal how many of the woman's family members were present to see him die. Patterson's family was not permitted to watch the execution. A blue curtain closed as the IV was inserted into Patterson's arm to carry out the lethal injection. When the curtain reopened, Patterson was given the first chemical, which was designed to keep his body from feeling any pain. The identity of the person who administered the chemicals was kept secret. One by one, three more chemicals entered his veins. Patterson's eyes fluttered and finally closed. Sitting at the front of the room, I got the eerie feeling that Patterson's eyes were on me as he died. He was pronounced dead. The blue curtain was pulled again and all the witnesses were escorted from the room. The entire process ? from the time Patterson was strapped down until he was pronounced dead ? took only 10 to 15 minutes. A reporter from the Associated Press who had witnessed other executions in the state told me that the process had never seemed real to her. In all the times she had come to Greensville, lethal injections went quickly. There was nothing gory about them. The person seemed to go to sleep and that was it. She was right. Patterson was dead, but it didn't seem real at all. (source: Kamilla Gary, Danbury (Connecticut) News Times) GEORGIA: The Death Penalty Nine death penalty cases are up for trial this year in the five-county Brunswick Judicial Circuit A high number of death penalty cases in 2005 will keep the district attorney's office busy in the months ahead. Nine death penalty cases with 12 defendants are up for trial this year in the five-county Brunswick Judicial Circuit. Because some of the defendants will agree to a plea bargain arrangement, only six may actually go to trial, said District Attorney Stephen Kelley. But that is still double the number of death penalty cases Kelley and his office will have to handle since he donned the hat of district attorney in 1997. The Brunswick Judicial Circuit is made up of the counties of Glynn, Camden, Wayne, Appling and Jeff Davis. "There's too many cases," Kelley said. "We basically are dividing the cases up." The division is only among a small number of prosecutors, though. Only four of Kelley's 13 assistant district attorneys can try capital cases. Kelley makes five. Only the most experienced are allowed to prosecute death penalty cases, Kelley said. "It wouldn't be fair to anyone who has never been in that setting before," Kelley said. Defense attorneys are required to be death penalty-certified by the state. Just preparing for trial requires a lot of research by the individual prosecuting the case. It's one of the hardest parts of the job. It requires forming a team of two to three attorneys, an investigator and others, including experts, law enforcement and witnesses. "It's a team effort," Kelley said. "It takes quite a lot of resources." Preparing for a death penalty case typically takes a minimum of two to three years, Kelley said. "They're extremely time consuming," Kelley said. Actual time-wise, it's not uncommon for a lawyer to put months of preparation in the case. "You're preparing for multiple hearings," Kelley said. Even before the trial, the district attorney's office must be prepared for motions and other pre-trial hearings. Kelley said there are an average of 120 motions filed in a death penalty case, each requiring a day in court. Of course, Kelley has some control over the number of death penalty cases his office will try. While adding them to the Superior Court calendar is the job of the judge, it is Kelley's decision whether to go for the death penalty against an offender. "Our job is not just to get a conviction, but it's to make sure justice is served," Kelley said. Death penalty cases also can be hard on the jury, which must be sequestered throughout the entire trial. The cases typically take about one week to try. A murder case where the death penalty is not being sought will take as little as two to three days. Death penalty cases, with all the hearings, motions and tests that are necessary, can eat into a county's budget. Kelley said death penalty cases cost an average of $100,000. The average cost should drop. Prior to Jan. 1, the cost and fees of a defense attorney came from the county. Now, the Office of the Georgia Capital Defender will handle all death penalty cases for the Public Defender's office and the cost. "The state is now going to pick up the cost of attorneys," Kelley said. "Certainly it will help financially." The Office of the Georgia Capital Defender will have a minimum of two lawyers, an investigator and a mitigation specialist for each death penalty case it will defend. Christopher Adams, a capital defender, said death penalty cases also require a lot from defense attorneys. "Studies show that defending a death penalty trial takes 10 times as much work as the average murder trial," Adams said. "A typical death penalty trial involves more than 2,000 hours of work by the defense." Adams said the Brunswick Circuit has more death penalty cases pending than any other judicial circuit in Georgia. "The circuit is significantly smaller and has significantly fewer homicides than many of the other circuits," Adams said. "This is alarming." Even in a capital offense case, the district attorney doesn't have to seek the death penalty. There are three options. There is the death penalty, which is done by lethal injection in Georgia, life without parole, and life with the possibility of parole. "(Life with parole) doesn't mean that you're going to get parole," Kelley said. "It just means they have to review your case in 14 years." Life without parole was added as a sentencing option in death penalty cases in 1993. "Now that they have the third option, you've seen a lot of juries going that way," Kelley said. Life without parole is not an option in all murder cases, just death penalty cases. Kelley hopes that one day it will be an option outside of death penalty cases. Georgia had its first execution in 2005 Tuesday. Timothy Don Carr was executed by lethal injection for fatally stabbing a 17-year-old and beating him with a baseball bat as he pleaded for his life during a robbery in 1992. Carr was the 37th person executed in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1973. Executions came to a temporary halt in the U.S. when the Supreme Court ruled in Furman vs. Georgia that the nation's death penalty, in its current form, violated the Constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. (source: Brunswick (Georgia) News) FLORIDA: Poor lawyering could endanger state's death penalty, some fear Some lawmakers fear that Florida's privatization of Death Row attorneys could jeopardize the state's death penalty. Florida Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero delivered a scalding indictment Tuesday of the registry of private attorneys representing inmates condemned to death through a privatized pilot program under way in North Florida, even as lawmakers are poised to consider expanding the program. The high court's concern about inadequate representation for Death Row inmates threatens the future of the state's death penalty, Senate President Tom Lee said Friday. "The Supreme Court is all we have between the constitutionality of the death penalty process... and our laws," said Lee, R-Brandon. "And if they lose confidence in our system, then we might lose the death penalty." Appearing at a meeting of the Commission on Capital Cases at its request on Tuesday, Cantero characterized the work of the private attorneys handling the final appeals for Death Row convicts as "some of the worst lawyering I've seen." Cantero also advised the commission, made up of lawmakers and judges, to hold off on further privatization until the three-year pilot program instituted in 2003 undergoes an audit to see if it saves money and provides quality representation. In 2002, Gov. Jeb Bush closed one of the three offices of the capital collateral regional counsels ? state-paid lawyers and support staff specializing in Death Row cases. The move was designed to save the state money and speed up the appeals process, but instead has resulted in delays due to inexperienced private lawyers and a lack of oversight, according to a Jan. 25 report from the commission. That has caused some lawmakers to consider un-privatizing the North Florida effort. "The CCRCs were doing pretty complicated appeals on a relatively small amount of money," said Rep. Dan Gelber, a member of the commission and a former federal prosecutor who objected to the privatization of the north region nearly two years ago. "Throwing it out into the private community without the expertise was a recipe for failure." While some of the former CCRC lawyers now work as private attorneys on the registry, the vast majority of registry attorneys lack expertise in capital cases and are not supervised as CCRC lawyers are. For example, Supreme Court staff said one private lawyer abandoned his practice without notifying the court and stopped paying rent on the warehouse storing his records. The warehouse owner nearly destroyed the documents before contacting the court, which referred the case to a CCRC office, delaying the outcome and increasing costs. In another case, private attorney Jo Ann Kotzan admitted, under pressure from justices during oral arguments, that she had not prepared a post-conviction appeal adequately. "I didn't argue it very well in the amended motion," Kotzan said. "I could have done a better job." Cantero, appointed by Bush two years ago, told the commission that registry attorneys have penned "the worst briefs that I have read" and their ineptitude bogs down the court and creates "inefficiencies." "For us to wade through that morass of baseless claims takes a lot of work," he said. "It absolutely creates a lot of inefficiencies and makes us spend a lot of time on these cases that we could spend on other cases." Cantero praised the work of current and former CCRC employees, some of whom are now on the registry, like Mike Reiter. "What upset me the most was they tried to fix something that wasn't broken," said Reiter, the former head of CCRC-North, who wants to see the office reinstated. "We spent seven years trying to improve this system and got it to where it was working so well. Now it's going backwards." (source: Palm Beach Post)
