Jan. 31 KANSAS: Court leaves death penalty supporters wrestling with response In their desire to see the state's worst killers executed, prosecutors and legislators face a complicated puzzle because of a Kansas Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state's death penalty law. They hope the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn the Kansas court and reinstate death sentences for a handful of convicted murderers. Of course, there is no guarantee that will happen. Otherwise, the longer legislators wait to rewrite the 1994 law, the longer Kansas remains without a valid death penalty - while new crimes occur. But some prosecutors fear action this year by the Legislature will lessen the chances of success with the U.S. Supreme Court. There's no dilemma for opponents of capital punishment, who believe public safety is protected adequately by the alternative sentence of life in prison. However, a majority of legislators appear to support the death penalty. Some join prosecutors in bemoaning the Kansas court's ruling. "We cannot predict what tragedy lies ahead," Attorney General Phill Kline told legislators recently. "It is an extraordinarily difficult choice that should not be presented to this Legislature." In December, a 4-3 majority of the Kansas court invalidated the death penalty law over a provision on how juries weigh evidence for and against imposing a death sentence. The law says that if the evidence is about equal, a jury must choose death. The court's majority said that provision represented cruel and unusual punishment and violated defendants' rights to due legal process. A tie, they said, must be resolved in the defendant's favor. The decision, if it stands, removes six men from death row. A seventh, Gary Kleypas, convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering a Pittsburg State University student in 1996, already had his death sentence voided and was awaiting resentencing. Among those granted a reprieve was Gavin D. Scott, convicted of killing Doug and Elizabeth Brittain in their rural Goddard home in 1996. The ruling upset Duane and Barbara Oblander, Doug Brittain's parents. "You kind of get a feeling of betrayal," Duane Oblander said. The Senate Judiciary Committee is considering a bill to fix the flaw identified by the Kansas court. Yet District Attorneys Paul Morrison, of Johnson County, and Nola Foulston, of Sedgwick County, asked legislators to put off action until a possible U.S. Supreme Court decision, which Kline is pursuing. They argued passing a bill could suggest that the Kansas court was correct - and prevent the U.S. Supreme Court from intervening. They see the U.S. Supreme Court as likely to overturn the Kansas court. Kline is less optimistic, saying the odds against his office ultimately prevailing could be as high as 20-to-1. Meanwhile, Kline's office has filed a capital murder charge against Scott Cheever, accused of shooting Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels earlier this month. Kline and Eric Melgren, the U.S. attorney for Kansas, also are pursuing a federal charge against Cheever, hoping to ensure a death sentence if he is convicted. The attorney general's desire to see Cheever face execution is no surprise to some observers. "It really winds up being symbolic," said William Arnold, a retired University of Kansas sociology and criminology instructor, who opposes capital punishment. "When one of our soldiers on the thin blue line gets killed, we're really upset." The Kansas court ruling also affected John E. Robinson Sr., sentenced to die in the killing of 2 young women whose bodies were found in barrels on his Linn County farm. A Kansas jury convicted him of a 3rd killing, and he pleaded guilty to 5 murders in Missouri. There are brothers Jonathan and Reginald Carr, convicted on charges from a December 2000 crime spree in Wichita that left 5 of 6 victims dead. They also were convicted of raping some victims and forcing them to engage in sex acts with each other. In Kansas, the death penalty is reserved for 7 types of killings, including those with multiple victims. That explains why prosecutors and legislators want to preserve existing death sentences and allow as many future prosecutions as possible. To get a death sentence in Kansas, Morrison said in an interview, a defendant has to be "an all-star killer." Sometimes lost in the debate are the alternative sentences for the men on death row, the mildest being life in prison with no chance of parole for 40 years. For murders committed after July 1, 2004, life without parole is a possible sentence. "The question is not whether we have the death penalty or whether these people are allowed to run free," said Donna Schneweis, an anti-capital punishment activist from Topeka. But for prosecutors and many legislators, a life sentence isn't enough punishment for Robinson, the Carr brothers or someone convicted of killing a law enforcement officer. (source: Associated Press) USA: As soon as Monday, confessed serial killer Michael Ross could be put to death in Connecticut. It would be that state's 1st execution in 45 years. But not everyone believes killing a killer -- is justice served. "No reasonable person can look at the system we have now and say it's fair and accurate," says David Kaczynski, brother of "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski. He fought and saved his brother from the death penalty, and since then has dedicated his life to abolishing what he believes is a flawed and ineffective system. It is his hope that helping to get the death penalty scrapped would rewrite his family's legacy. On CBS News Sunday Morning, correspondent Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours talks with David Kaczynski and others, in a fresh look at the continuing controversy over the death penalty. ----- At a recent hearing to determine whether New York should outlaw the death penalty, there was a familiar face among those speaking out against it. Moriarty says David Kaczynski is what you might call an accidental activist: proof that you don't always get to choose your path in life. Sometimes life -- chooses for you. "I was one of those people," David Kaczynski told Moriarty, "that said using violence and killing to address, you know, violence and killing, sends the wrong message. But it was only a hypothetical thing for me. "When the death penalty came knocking at my door, it was something else. For 17 years in the 1980s and 1990s, Ted Kaczynski terrorized the country, sending bombs packed with nails and razors through the mail. Three people were killed, and 23 were injured and maimed. In 1996, federal authorities finally arrested Ted Kaczynski, but only after David turned him in. In 1995, federal agents were trying desperately to identify and track down the man known only as "The Unabomber." In upstate New York, David Kaczynski and his wife had an uneasy feeling that they knew the killer's name. Whose idea was it originally, Moriarity wanted to know. "It was my wife, Linda's," David Kaczynski answered. "She had actually sat down one day and said, 'David, did you ever consider the possibility that your brother Ted might be the Unabomber?' And you could have knocked me over with a feather." Admittedly, he's strange; admittedly, we think he's mentally ill. But a killer? I can't imagine that." It became easier to imagine when, that summer, The Washington Post published the killer's "manifesto," passages that seemed to match what David's brother had written in the past. "If I did nothing," David tells Moriarty, "there was a good chance Ted was the Unabomber, and some other person would be blown up or maimed. On the other hand, I think that everybody thought the Unabomber would be a candidate for execution. The likelihood would be that I'd either have some innocent person's blood on my hands if I did nothing, or my brother's blood on my hands if I stepped forward." But he did contact the FBI, and on April 3, 1996, Ted Kaczynski was arrested. In his Montana cabin was a live bomb ready to be mailed to another victim. "It was, 'Thank God,' you know, 'Thank god we came forward.'" But if David felt relief, he also felt a great deal of guilt. "Clearly, he had to be stopped. I don't think there was any other way to stop him. On the other hand, I sometimes think, you, know -- earlier in his life, he was my older brother. Maybe if I had recognized how seriously disturbed he was, I could have been more helpful to him. "You haven't been able to talk to him?" Moriarty asked. "Mom and I have written to him often." But he hasn't responded? "Never. Never has." What made things worse, says David, is that federal prosecutors betrayed him: He says, after promising to get his brother psychiatric help, they asked for the death sentence instead. It was while fighting to save his brother's life that David's own life changed. He has been on a mission to end capital punishment ever since. David was able to get his brother life in prison with the help of high-powered lawyers - proof, he says, of how arbitrary the system can be. But the strongest evidence against the death penalty, says David, is Juan Melendez-Colon. He spent nearly 18 years on Florida's death row for murder -- before a taped confession by the real killer was discovered, and Melendez-Colon was released. "Aren't you angry?" Moriarty asked him. "You lost 18 years of your life!" "My anger," Melendez-Colon responded, "is a different type of anger. The anger that I have is the type that drives me to do what I'm doing. It's anger without hate. "It's a type of anger that drives me to let people know that this is wrong, without being bitter." Since 1973, 117 inmates on death row have been set free. Melendez-Colon now travels the country making sure their story -- his story -- gets told. "I was not saved by the system. I was saved despite the system. I was saved by the grace of god." "I would say," David Kaczynski asserts, "that reasonable people can disagree about the ultimate morality of executions. (But) no reasonable person can look at the system we have now and claim that it's fair and accurate." He's got a point, Moriarty says: 5 years ago, then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan, outraged that 13 inmates on his state's death row had recently been found not guilty and set free, commuted the death sentences of all 167 of Illinois' inmates who had been scheduled to die. "I now favor a moratorium," he said, "because I have grave concerns about our state's shameful record for convicting innocent people and putting them on death row." Since then, several states, such as New York, have considered rewriting their death penalty statutes or eliminating them altogether. But, Moriarty points out, the question then becomes -- what to do with killers like Michael Ross? In the early '80s, Moriarty reports, Ross went on a killing spree in New York and Connecticut, strangling 8 women. Most were raped. There's no question of his guilt -- he confessed and led police to the bodies. Still, David Kaczynski questions the benefit of executing anyone. "I don't think the death penalty accomplishes anything. In other words, killing the person who committed some horrendous crime, in my view, has no social benefit to it." Try telling that to Edwin Shelley. "My daughter's up in Patchogue Cmetery 4 foot down, never to see the light of day again. Never to have children. I mean, 21 years. She was 14. She'd be 35 today." Shelly's daughter Leslie was kidnapped by Ross along with her best friend, April Brunais. "Her friend," Shelley says, "was raped and murdered. And Leslie was tied up in the car, knowing what was happening to her friend. "When he came back and took her out, he put her on her stomach and said, "I'm sorry," and killed her. And this man doesn't deserve to die?" Shelley cried. How does executing Michael Ross help you and other victims? "It renews our faith in the judicial system," Shelley says. "I want to see him dead. You can say revenge. Yes. Yes. There has to be revenge involved in it. But also, as the Bible says, a life for a life." You are not only for the death penalty, you want to be there when Michael Ross is executed? Moriarty asked. "Oh, yes," Shelley replied. "I want him to know that the way he looked at my daughter as he murdered her, I will be watching him when he dies." Last Wednesday, Shelly thought he would finally get his wish, 21 years after Leslie's murder. Ross was scheduled to die by lethal injection. But a last minute stay was granted even though, ironically, Ross himself says he wants to die. "I owe these people," Ross says. "I owe them. I killed their daughters and, you know -- if I could stop the painI had to do that. What I'm hoping is that January 26th, I will be executed, and that will be the day they can start letting go of the anger." The fact is, it's getting harder every year to carry out an execution, Moriarty notes. Since being reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976, executions reached a peak with 98 in 1999. But since the problems on the Illinois death row were uncovered, the number has dropped sharply, to just 59 in 2004. But David Kaczynski believes -- that's still 59 too many. David now runs New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty. The $1 million dollar reward he collected for turning in his brother went into a fund to help Unabomber victims. "What keeps you going," Moriarty inquired. "What keeps you in this?" "It's a good question," David answered. "I think it's a passion for justice. It's a passion for human value. It's a passion for human dignity." He is hoping the Kaczynski name, which will forever be associated with so much evil, might someday be remembered for something else. "I think that most of us who have been affected by tragedies involving violence look for some kind of saving grace. Like, we really, really do want, as unlikely as it may seem, something good to emerge -- from something terrible." (source: CBS News) CALIFORNIA: Criminal Justice ----Stacking the jury in death-penalty cases Donald Beardslee did not get a fair trial. Neither did Scott Peterson. Nor did my client, Larry Roberts, who has been on death row in San Quentin for 22 years for a crime he did not commit. Nor did any of the 13 men who have been released from death row in Illinois in the past 3 years because they were innocent, despite the fact that juries found them guilty and sentenced them to be killed by the state. Nor did any of the 640 or so people on California's death row have a fair trial. The fact is, nobody on death row anywhere in the United States has ever had a fair trial. Why so? Because, without exception, every person convicted and sentenced to death in this country has been tried by a jury from which the state has excluded every potential juror who has told the trial judge that she or he is unable to sentence another human being to death. This means that juries whose members are "death qualified," as they antiseptically describe it, exclude the most compassionate citizens; exclude those who are most likely to be skeptical about the state's evidence and the state's arguments; exclude those who minds are open to the possibility that police officers lie; and, in general, exclude jurors who are prepared to question authority. The rule is clear and simple: If you oppose the death penalty, you're off the jury. You go home, and the accused pays the price (despite the presumption of innocence -- which, of course, is now a national joke). That's how innocent people get convicted, sentenced and killed in this country. Basically, it's the "whatever-you-say, boss" jurors who sit in every case that the prosecutor chooses to try as a death-penalty case. There is no question, of course, that there would never be a death sentence if one or more jurors were unalterably unable or unwilling to impose the death penalty. It is clear that these jurors must be excluded from juries if there is to be capital punishment. That is exactly the point. Aside from the compelling moral issues that bar the premeditated taking of a life by the state (the position that is adopted nearly everywhere else in the western world), the inescapable practical question of who is eligible to sit on a capital jury makes it clear that there simply cannot ever be a fairly administered death penalty. Simply put, it's not fair to the state to conduct a capital trial with one or more jurors who oppose the death penalty, and it's not fair to the accused to have a capital trial without such jurors. Ergo, you can't ever have a fair death-penalty trial. One of the great national disgraces is that appellate courts have universally chosen to look the other way regarding this issue. The courts consistently rule that it isn't unfair to the accused to exclude this group of jurors. Let's hear what these judges have to say when someone they care about faces a trial by a jury that excludes the fairest people. But appellate judges don't often travel in such circles, do they? Whatever Donald Beardslee did, whatever Scott Peterson did, they're entitled to a fair jury, not a stacked jury, especially when the result can be that the state kills you. One day, some judge somewhere in the United States will speak the truth regarding this issue. One day. While we're waiting for that to happen, maybe the men and women in the California Legislature could consider the issue? Fat chance. They're afraid the voters would fire them. (source: Letters to the Editor, Open Forum; Robert Bloom, who is an attorney who lives in Oakland; San Francisco Chronicle)
