Feb. 28 ARKANSAS/MISSOURI: Execution of confessed killer turns on diagnosis of mental defect----Rickey Newman is outraged that he hasn't been put to death. Rickey Newman confessed to a brutal crime in western Arkansas and was sentenced to die. Almost 3 years after Newman personally asked jurors for a death penalty, he still is alive. Newmans execution date was set. Just hours before the state planned to execute him last September, the Arkansas Supreme Court stayed his execution because of a loophole in state law. Newman is outraged. "I'm a stone cold killer, ma'am," said Newman in a recent interview inside the Varner Maximum Security Prison in Grady, Ark. Newman wants justice. And it's not the kind of justice requested by most death row inmates. "I want to be executed," he said. Newman admits he killed a woman and mutilated her body in Crawford County in 2001. "I murdered Marie Cholette in cold blood and set her up to do so and enjoyed every minute of it," he said. "Marie Cholette represented herself as a member of our gang and tried to affiliate with our gang. She was murdered for it - tortured, murdered and set on fire." Based on his confession, Newman was tried, convicted and sentenced to die in June 2002. Newman waived all his appeals and even asked both the governor and the Arkansas Supreme Court for a death penalty. "I think if you're man enough to do the crime, you should be man enough to take the punishment," he said. Just hours before he was supposed to die, an aunt by marriage filed an appeal on his behalf, claiming he is mentally retarded. The Arkansas Supreme Court stayed the execution and appointed a public defender against Newmans wishes. The murderer is outraged. "Right there, it says I have no mental disease or mental defect, by the Arkansas State Hospital," he said. The court wanted to make sure it could thoroughly examine whether Newman is indeed mentally retarded. "I feel like people need to stay out of my business and let me be executed," said Newman. Courts across the country are increasingly giving death penalty cases more scrutiny. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juries have to recommend a death penalty before a judge can impose it. Now its using a case from Missouri as it mulls whether 16-year-old and 17-year-old killers can be executed. "These are very crucial because were talking about a life," said Rep. Craig Bland, a Democrat who represents part of Kansas City in the Missouri Legislature. "We're talking about someone who needs to be represented in the best way possible because this is a mans life." Bland proposed a bill that would halt executions in Missouri until a commission could study the death penalty thoroughly. "It gives an opportunity to save some people who are innocent," he said. The Missouri Supreme Court seems to agree. It's now taking a more careful approach to the death penalty. It didn't set any execution dates in 2004 and only 2 in 2003. In February, the court set an execution date for March 16 for Stanley Hall, convicted in 1996 of kidnapping and killing a woman in St. Louis County in 1994. It's often been far too long for victims, especially in death penalty cases," said Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon. Nixon has had to explain to victims why the process halted so long. "The bottom line is we have a court system that should be designed on predictability and anything that takes away from that adds stress to the system," he said. Lawmakers like Bland says Missouri is plagued with cases just like Newman's that seem simple but aren't. Even Newman admits some of his confession doesn't match evidence that detectives found at the scene. "I took all her body organs out and cooked 'em," he said. "The autopsy report shows all organs were there and they were normal and not cooked -- nothing done." Newman thinks that shouldn't matter. He says his word should be enough for Arkansas to execute him. "I came here to die, maam. People don't understand I came here to die," he insisted. The Arkansas Supreme Court sent Newman's case back to a circuit judge, who ruled Newman is sane and able to represent himself during trial. Some attorneys, however, say forms of mild retardation sometimes go unnoticed by an untrained person. Experts say it takes a highly trained doctor or attorney to pick up on that and, usually, public defenders and judges dont have that kind of training. (source: KYTV News) MARYLAND: Death-penalty appeal claims discrimination 4 days after a Baltimore County judge signed a death warrant for convicted murderer Vernon L. Evans Jr., the man's lawyers asked the judge Monday to postpone the execution and overturn a sentence that they contend was based on a "racially discriminatory" application of the death penalty by Baltimore County prosecutors. The legal pursuit launches Evans' attorneys into the company of a growing number of advocates for death-row inmates who have based appeals of their sentences on a University of Maryland study conducted by professor Raymond Paternoster that found geographic and racial disparities in the application of the death penalty. In the Evans appeal, however, lawyers for the 55-year-old man convicted in 1984 of the contract murder of a federal witness and a bystander seem to go a step further, using data that specifically assess Baltimore County prosecutors' record of seeking or not seeking the death penalty in death-eligible cases. In a footnote to their appeal, Evans' lawyers wrote, "While the Baltimore County State's Attorney's Office has suggested that it seeks the death penalty in every death-eligible crime, Paternoster's research shows that the office filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty in only 99 of 152 death-eligible cases." Baltimore County State's Attorney Sandra O'Connor has said that her prosecutors seek the death penalty in every death-eligible case that meets the state's legal requirements, that does not rely solely on the testimony of a co-defendant and in which the victim's family understands and is willing to endure the lengthy process. But Jeffrey B. O'Toole, one of Evans' lawyers, argues that that is not the case. "It is clear that discretion is being exercised," he said Monday. "It is our position that that discretion is being exercised in a racially discriminatory fashion." Evans is black; his 2 victims were white. John Cox, an assistant Baltimore County state's attorney and one of the prosecutors handling the Evans case, said he had not yet seen Evans' latest court filings but disputed the assessment. "I've been in this office almost 19 years now, and I can absolutely tell you that race has never played a factor in our decision in seeking the death penalty," he said. "They can throw all the numbers they want at you, in effect, to play games, but it's absolutely not a factor." Cox said he did not know how researchers determined which cases were death-eligible [em dash] meaning the cases met Maryland's legal requirements that a first-degree murder defendant be proven to have been the wielder of the murder weapon and that there be an "aggravating circumstance," such as a murder committed as part of a kidnapping, rape, arson or robbery. Cox said that researchers working with Paternoster sent Baltimore County prosecutors lists of cases that they had preliminarily identified as death-eligible that included some that were not. "I can't say for sure whether those mistakes were corrected," he said, "and I can't say for sure where they're getting the numbers that they're citing right now." Attempts to reach Paternoster at his College Park office for comment were unsuccessful. Evans and drug kingpin Anthony Grandison were convicted and sentenced to death in the April 1983 killing of David Scott Piechowicz and Susan Kennedy at the Warren House Motor Hotel in Pikesville. Grandison paid Evans $9,000 to kill Piechowicz and his wife, Cheryl, who were to testify against Grandison in a federal drug trial. Kennedy was working for her sister Cheryl that day, and prosecutors said at the trial that they believed Evans mistook Kennedy for her sister on the day of the killings. Grandison remains on death row. Baltimore County Circuit Judge Christian M. Kahl signed on Thursday a death warrant for Evans, ordering that he to be put to death by lethal injection sometime during a five-day period that begins April 18. (source: Baltimore Sun) OHIO: Report: several factors contributed to death row escape attempt Several factors that contributed to an unsuccessful escape attempt from Ohio's Death Row Feb. 2 by condemned killers Richard Cooey and Maxwell White, according to a report released Monday: -Failure of the Death Row unit manager and security chief to pass on a tipster's information about an attempted escape in the works. -The chain link covering on top of the recreation cage was easily breached. -A large pile of snow was allowed accumulate in a corner of the outdoor recreation area. -Cooey and White weren't properly searched before being taken to the cage, as written orders required. -Cooey and White were allowed to accumulate a large amount of property to make their escape attempt possible. -Twice hourly security checks of the outside recreation area weren't conducted, as required. -Death row guards and supervisors reported they had repeatedly sought clarification from the security chief on issues such as outdoor recreation and property limits for inmates, but weren't given direction or guidance. (source: Department of Rehabilitation and Correction) (source: Associated Press)
