Feb. 4 INDIANA: Knowledge of Meth Operation May Have Led to Girl's Murder Authorities in Jackson County are releasing more details of the slaying of 10-year-old Katie Collman of Crothersville. An arrest affidavit says the man charged with her murder, 20-year-old Charles James Hickman, says she was abducted to scare her from talking about a methamphetamine operation in Crothersville. Hickman says the girl was brought to his home in a pickup truck. Her hands were tied behind her back and she was taken after dark to a small lake about 15 miles away. Hickman forced the girl the truck, and as she ran away she fell into a creek. Hickman left her there to drown. Authorities aren't releasing any information yet on the connection between Hickman and those he says 1st abducted the girl. At least two other people have died because of meth-related activities in Jackson County since 1997. In another development, the Jackson County prosecutor says he is considering the death penalty for Charles Hickman. He made his first appearance in court this morning, and an October trial date was set. Prosecutor Steve Pierson said he will meet with his pastor to talk about the death penalty. Hickman kept his head down as he was led into the southern Indiana courtroom. His long hair partially covered his face. Police had been searching for the child's killer since a state trooper found Collman's body in a stream near Seymour on Sunday. She was last seen 5 days earlier, riding in a white pickup truck with a young man. The father of Katlyn Collman says he wants people remember her as a bright, beautiful girl who was always helping people. The Crothersville girl was known to her family as "Katie". John Neace says he wants to see the criminal justice system work and believes Katie's killer or killers will get what they deserve. Neace says he and his family hold no grudges against the families of anyone involved in Katie's abduction and murder. Katie Collman is to be buried on Sunday. (source: WANE-TV News) USA: Overturned death sentences----Reversals show the importance of the appeal process. You could look at the fact that nearly half of the death sentences handed down in York County have been overturned in 2 different ways. On one hand, it shows that the system does indeed work, that appeals are an effective means of curbing abuses and catching and correcting potentially fatal mistakes. On the other hand, the fact that 6 of the 13 death sentences handed down over the past 29 years have been thrown out on appeal suggests something is terribly wrong with how the ultimate penalty is meted out in York County. In other words, mistakes were made. Some were great - defendants received ineffective counsel, evidence went unexplored, prosecutors behaved poorly - and some don't seem as important at 1st blush. One convicted murderer, James Edward Begley, was spared death because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found the instructions given to the jury were confusing. That might seem like a technicality. But it's not. This is a life-and-death decision we're talking about; the law and the reasons behind it should be clear. This debate is an indication of the ambivalence a lot of people feel toward the death penalty. In some cases, death seems like the only appropriate punishment for certain heinous crimes. The spree killings of Mark Spotz in the mid-1990s come to mind. In other cases, there seem to be some gross miscarriages of justice - and the death penalty, once carried out, is irreversible. Among the most notorious is the case of Ray Krone. Convicted of an Arizona murder he did not commit, Mr. Krone spent 10 years in prison - some of those on death row - before DNA evidence cleared him of the crime. And in yet other cases, it's not so clear-cut. Consider the case of Daniel Jacobs, found guilty of a double homicide in 1992 and sentenced to death. The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals threw out his conviction, ruling that his lawyer was ineffective for failing to inform the jury about Jacobs' "mental retardation, organic brain damage and other emotional impairments that prevented him from forming the specific intent to kill." It's a fine line. Clearly, Mr. Jacobs' mental, physical and emotional disabilities do not excuse him from responsibility for the brutal taking of 2 lives - one of them just a baby. But they could mitigate the crime and should have been considered by the jury that recommended his death sentence. Would that information have been enough to lead the jury to spare Mr. Jacobs' life? Would it have been enough to convince the jury to convict him of a lesser charge? Would it have made any difference? There's no way to know; the answer may come if Mr. Jacobs is re-tried. That exercise won't answer the larger questions about the propriety of the death penalty and about our attempts to dispense justice. Chuck Patterson, chief deputy prosecutor for the York County District Attorney's Office, said that while discussing how death penalty cases are tried, "There is nothing cut and dried about this." There certainly isn't. (source: Editorial, York (Penn.) Daily Record) SOUTH DAKOTA: Wrongfully Imprisoned Imagine spending more than 17 years of your life behind bars for a crime that you did not commit. That's exactly what happened to a Florida man who was in Sioux Falls Thursday sharing his story. Juan Melendez was a migrant worker from Puerto Rico living in Florida working as a fruit and vegetable picker. In 1984 a frost hit Florida, so he traveled to Pennsylvania to work there. While he was there, the FBI arrested him for 1st degree murder and burglary. Melendez generally starts his presentations in Spanish. His point is that for most people, what he's saying is difficult to understand. He says that's exactly what it was like when he was charged with murder. He didn't know the language and he didn't understand the legal system. "I never imagined that one day Ii would be convicted and sentenced to death for a crime I did not commit," says Melendez. Not only was he found guilty of a crime he didn't commit, he was sent to death row. "When they sentenced me to death, my heart got full of hate. I'm an angry man. I hated the prosecutor, I hated the jury and I hated the judge," says Melendez. "It's not unique at all and it's scary. It scares me to death to think that we would put an innocent man to death," says Cheri Scharffenberg, Vice President of the Innocence Project of South Dakota. A year ago, a group of law students from USD started the Innocence Project of South Dakota. A non-profit group dedicated to making sure this doesn't happen to someone else. They hosted Juan's visit. "I'm hoping that they can all walk out of here going, 'wow, that could happen to me, to my brother, my father, my mother,' it could happen to somebody I know," says Scharffenberg. While behind bars, the other inmates taught him how to speak English, and how to read and write. 17 years, 8 months, and one day later, an appeal in a different county proved that prosecutors had the wrong man and Juan was free. "Mr. Melendez is free. Mr. Melendez will walk out of here without handcuffs. Mr. Melendez is going home and I liked that," says Melendez. The Innocence Project of South Dakota says there have been 100 exonerations across the country, and that's why they think it's possible for there to be at least a few people in the state's pen system that shouldn't be there. Juan's visit was sponsored primarily by the South Dakota Trial Lawyers Association. (source: KSFY News) KENTUCKY: Baby sitter could face dealth penalty The 20-year-old accused of raping and killing a 3-year-old he was watching at a house in Covington's MainStrasse could face the death penalty if accounts of the death hold up. Kenton Commonwealth Attorney Bill Crockett said Thursday he had not decided whether to seek the death penalty, but he said the circumstances appear to meet the tests under state law. Crockett said he will review the police investigation, which is ongoing, before making a decision. He also wants to see the reports of autopsy performed Thursday on the child. "There's just so much that goes into the decision-making process," he said. Jeffrey Michael Bailer of Covington is charged with murder and first-degree rape. He pleaded not guilty Thursday in the death of toddler Cameron Stull. An undisclosed caller summoned police to 509 West Ninth Street 3:20 p.m. Wednesday. The child was taken to St. Elizabeth North Medical Center where she was pronounced dead. Neighbors said the toddler was one of 10 children living with at least two adults in the rented house at the southwestern edge of MainStrasse Village. The child's death, police said, was particularly dreadful. Bailer told police he put his hand over the little girl's mouth and nose until she quit breathing, court records show. He also told them he jammed 2 crayons into her vagina, causing it to tear, according to court records. The combination of 1st-degree rape and murder charges is enough to put Bailer on Kentucky's death row if he is convicted. "If the rape is borne out with the murder, it's an aggravating factor for the death penalty," Crockett said. The child's mother, Sharon Stull, was in jail in Campbell County at the time of the killing. Campbell County Commonwealth Attorney Jack Porter agreed to her release Thursday. "It seemed like the right thing to do -- to let her out to bury her daughter," Porter said. Stull, 27, a Newport resident, did not live with her child. Her attorney, Deanna Dennison, met with Porter Thursday to request that the young mother serve the remainder of her sentence on house arrest. Ms. Stull was freed later that day by Campbell Circuit Judge Julie Reinhardt Ward. Porter said house arrest would allow Stull to attend the funeral of her daughter. Meanwhile, outside the red brick house where Covington police believe the 3-year-old was killed, neighbors and the curious strode by seeking updates on the family after their sudden and tragic loss. At Bailer's court hearing Thursday, Kenton District Judge Frank Trusty appointed him a public defender and set a preliminary hearing for Feb. 10. Trusty ordered Bailer held in the Kenton County Jail without bond. Kenton County Deputy Coroner Ron Lubbe and Covington police have released few details about the case. Assistant Police Chief Lt. Col. Dave Finan, Sr., said detectives have been working on the case since the child died and have had little opportunity to meet about the information that could be publicly released. The family did not answer the door Thursday. Neighbors said Cameron's father, his fianc and the children had left the home earlier that morning. A teen-ager in a ski cap and parka rode a beaten-up banana-seat bicycle along the snowy sidewalk in front of the toddler's home Thursday, questioning reporters and photographers about their intentions. He was a friend of the family, he said, and the family had had enough of the cameras and the questions. He didn't want to talk much either, except for a word about the young victim. "She was a beautiful little girl," said the teen, who would not give his name. "Her hair was curly, but just on the ends. But she wasn't the youngest. There's a 2-year-old boy." Despite his age -- he turned 20 in December -- Bailer has a criminal record. In December, he was working at Value City in Latonia when he allowed two friends in after hours to steal merchandise, according to police records. He was arrested and charged with burglary. That case is pending, and he was released from jail after his mother, Lesa Ghaffar, paid his $250 bond. Bailer's father, also named Jeffrey, also has a criminal record. He spent five years in prison in the 1990s after being convicted of second-degree rape. In police records, the younger Bailer gave his address as the home on Ninth Street, but it is unclear what his relationship was to the dead child or to others living there. He told Trusty during his arraignment that he had neither a job nor any possessions. Neighbor Opal Jackson and her husband, Larkin, worried about the large family, who they said had rented 2 adjoining apartments for the last three years. The Jacksons wondered how the family would pay for Cameron's funeral. Opal Jackson said the girl's father worked at Value City. (source: Kentucky Post)
