March 3 FLORIDA: Too many ifs dealing with death penalty Old Sparky's gone. Convicted killers on Florida's death row now get a lethal injection. It's all very tidy, and one could argue that the victims they killed never had it so good. So there's a part of me that understands why some people are upset that teenage murderers now can't get the death penalty in Florida or any other state. The U.S. Supreme Court this week drew the line at 18 and older. Florida remained among 19 states that allowed the death penalty for juvenile killers -- a distinction shared only by Somalia until the Supremes put a stop to it. Justices, in the 5-4 ruling, reasoned that young people who can't even vote or serve on juries are "categorically less culpable than the average criminal" facing the death penalty. Other reasons backed by scientific studies: Youth display "a lack of maturity and an undeveloped sense of responsibility," and they "are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences." Here's the other part that Florida and the nation need to own up to: Even for adults, the death penalty is imperfect, costly, no deterrent to other would-be killers and sometimes racially charged. Innocent people have been sent to death row because their conviction was based on unreliable witnesses (often other criminals who have something to gain, like reduced time, by fingering somebody). Or trumped-up charges by cops willing to falsify information to close a case. Or bad evidence, now often exposed by DNA tests, and even racial undertones in jury decisions, particularly when the crime is black against white. Death-penalty supporters will argue that most of Florida's death-row inmates are white, but even that classification is suspect because the state often classifies Hispanics as white even when that person is of mixed race or black. Which brings me to Juan Melendez, a death-row survivor whose darker skin might have made him an easy target to convict. At least one juror who wasn't sure of Melendez's guilt changed her mind after the foreman, during deliberations, pointed to Melendez's Afro hairdo in a photo. In 2002, the Afro was long gone. A 50-year-old man with cropped hair walked out of Union Correctional Institution -- more like floated out on a cloud of optimism -- after spending 17 years, 8 months and 1 day on death row. Melendez was convicted of a murder in which there was absolutely no physical evidence linking him to the 1983 slaying of a cosmetology school owner in Polk County. All prosecutors had was another con's allegation that Melendez told him he did the crime -- they were getting high on cocaine at the time. The eyewitness testimony was questionable, at best. Melendez had a credible alibi, and prosecutors at the time had questioned another man who actually fessed up. It turned out that Vernon James told at least four investigators and lawyers working the case that he was the killer, but that wasn't allowed in court testimony. Only after the transcript of James' confession was discovered years later was a judge swayed to order a retrial. By then, James had died, as had one of the witnesses who had pointed to Melendez. Prosecutors dropped the case. Had Melendez's defense team not kept up the fight the Puerto Rican man would be dead instead of traveling around Florida speaking up against the death penalty. (Check out Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty at www.fadp.org.) Melendez's case isn't an aberration. He was the 99th death-row inmate to walk free in the nation because new evidence cleared him. Not everyone gets that chance. There are too many ifs in a death-penalty case. Life without parole is not only the cheapest alternative -- when innocent lives are at stake, it's the only morally defensible verdict. (source: Orlando Sentinel) **************************** Lely Students Take On Cause of Death Row Inmate A death row inmate is getting some unexpected support from a group in Collier County. Gregory Capehart was sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder of a 62 year old Pasco County woman. Some students from Lely High School believe there may be evidence hes innocent. The students learned about Capeharts case in a honors English class. There are questions on whether Capeharts trial was fair. In 1989, they didnt have technology to test for DNA. A new could exonerate Capehart. "All we want is a DNA test," said student Lionel Decius. "Just to give the man a fair trial." Decius has lead a student movement to gather signatures on a petition and send them to the judge who sentenced Capehart to death. In class, during lunch, and after school, Decius has been asking his fellow classmates to sign the petition. So far hes collected more than 400 signatures. More importantly hes gotten the attention of his classmates. Many students at Lely have joined his cause. Capehart has been on death row for about 17 years. While an execution date hasnt yet been set, the students are concerned a date could be picked soon. They are hoping a new trial with DNA evidence could prove his innocence or confirm his guilt. The DNA test will prove him 100 % guilty or 100 % innocent. (source: VINK-TV) ALABAMA: High court rules on death penalty----Minors taken off death row in Alabama James Matthew Hyde. Timothy Charles Davis. Mark Anthony Duke. These are just a few of the incarcerated 16- and 17-year-old Alabamians who are biding their time on the state's death row. But not anymore. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday to outlaw the death penalty for convicts who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes. According to information provided by Alabama Attorney General Troy King's office, the ruling vacates 72 death sentences, including 13 cases in Alabama. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that offenders under the age of 18 had not reached adulthood and therefore should be shielded from capital punishment. The court cited scientific and sociological studies that suggest that juveniles are too immature, irresponsible and vulnerable to negative influences to make sound decisions about their behavior. Bryan Fair, a UA constitutional law professor, said the high court decision establishes a standard of fairness. "Children do not have the same capacity to appreciate the consequences of their actions as adults," Fair said. "This is about our nation looking at its constitution and deciding on a modern standard of decency that makes it inappropriate to execute children." Fair said the Roper v. Simmons decision, an appeal out of Missouri that reverses a 1989 Supreme Court decision, ensures that the U.S. Constitution is consistent with the court's interpretation of the Eighth Amendment, a provision that bans cruel and unusual punishment. "The decision, in effect, identifies what is cruel and unusual punishment and what's not. It defines what is humane and not humane," said William Stewart, former chairman of the UA political science department. Stewart and Fair both said the ruling is not a progressive mandate from a more liberal federal court, even though the 19 states that had upheld capital punishment for minors were mostly conservative Southern states. The high court is mostly Republican, Fair said. Stewart said he does not anticipate widespread backlash, though he believes many attorneys general from these areas will likely come out against the ruling. Alabama's attorney general is no exception. Troy King maintains his support for the execution of juveniles who commit "heinous" crimes and said in a Wednesday statement that he thinks the ruling may lead to more tragedy, brutality and victims. "Our fight against these crimes and those who commit them has one less tool today," he wrote. "The arbitrariness of this ruling concluding that the death penalty will not be available to punish those who plot and execute crimes with murderous brutality is a denial of the justice I have taken an oath of office to pursue." Fair said he believes King's stance is wrong but said he is comforted by the fact that the attorney general must uphold the federal court's interpretation of the Constitution. He said the decision is a step in the right direction but does not "resolve all problems." "People are still serving life without parole for things they did as children. They are not as culpable for their crimes as adults," Fair said. "It makes no sense to incarcerate them for 70, sometimes 80, years. "In resolving one problem, we have not resolved another." Fair said he hopes to see the issue challenged in the future. He said he is also frustrated with the "capricious" use of the death penalty and said that mostly poor, minority convicts who cannot amass the resources to defend themselves effectively spend their days on death row. Stewart said the ruling is an effective effort to standardize the use of the death penalty. Fair said receiving capital punishment varies by circuit, district and court in general. The law was once so unregulated, Stewart said, that Alabama even issued the death penalty to convicted rapists. "Rape is, of course, a horrible thing," he said. "But it doesn't warrant the death penalty." Stewart said federal courts have historically set the standard in criminal justice since the 1930s when black defendants often did not have adequate counsel in the court. He said Tuesday's high court ruling is simply a part of the evolution of what is appropriate in criminal justice. Fair said he hopes the evolution continues to include life without parole for those under the age of 18. "The attorney general has to do what he has to do," he said. "He is not the first politician to get elected by coming out in opposition to a federal court order. But those of us in support have to continue advocating." (source: The (Univ. of Ala.) Crimson White) *********************** Supreme Court Strikes Down Juvenile Death Penalty The Supreme Court ruled March 1 that the execution of convicts who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes constitutes the sort of "cruel and unusual" punishment barred by the Eighth Amendment. The high court's decision overturns one of its own cases from less than 16 years ago and means that several dozen 16- and 17-year-old offenders currently on the nation's death rows will receive a new lease on life. The 5-4 decision turned on the idea that, since the court last ruled on this issue in 1989, "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society" have changed in regard to executing juveniles. "When a juvenile offender commits a heinous crime, the state can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the state cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy in the court's majority opinion. "The age of 18 is the point where society draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood. It is, we conclude, the age at which the line for death eligibility ought to rest." The case -- Roper vs. Simmons (03-633) -- originated in Missouri. In 1993, Christopher Simmons abducted Shirley Crook from her St. Louis-area home, bound her hands and feet, and threw her from a bridge into the Meramec River. A coroner's investigation determined that Crook was alive when she hit the water and that she died of drowning. Simmons was a 17-year-old junior in high school at the time he committed the crime. He was arrested after bragging to peers about the murder. A jury awarded him the death sentence. But in a highly unusual move, a divided Missouri Supreme Court in 2003 overruled Simmons' sentence, citing cited a then-recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that barred the execution of mentally disabled criminals. In that 2002 decision (Atkins vs. Virginia) the justices noted a large number of states had outlawed execution of the mentally retarded since they last ruled on the issue in 1989. The March 1 decision applies similar reasoning to the case of teenage offenders. A 1988 decision by the justices already outlawed capital punishment for offenders under the age of 16. But the next year, the court upheld capital sentences for 16- and 17-year-olds. Kennedy joined the majority in that ruling but changed his opinion for the latest ruling due to the increasing number of states outlawing capital punishment for all minors. While 19 states still officially permitted the death penalty for minors prior to the March 1 decision, the practice has become exceedingly rare in recent years -- with only Texas, Virginia and Oklahoma actually executing 16- or 17-year-old offenders in the past decade. Several other states have outlawed the practice since 1989. But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor -- who voted with the majority in the decision on mentally disabled criminals -- said the cases are not parallel. "I would demand a clearer showing that our society truly has set its face against this practice before reading the Eighth Amendment categorically to forbid it," she wrote. "[T]he evidence before us fails to demonstrate conclusively that any such consensus has emerged in the brief period since we upheld the constitutionality of this practice in Stanford v. Kentucky." A much smaller number of states have outlawed capital punishment for juvenile offenders since the court's last ruling on the subject when compared to the number of states that outlawed the death penalty for retarded offenders between 1989 and 2002, O'Connor noted. She also said there was a significant difference between the mentally disabled as a category and juvenile offenders. "Adolescents as a class are undoubtedly less mature, and therefore less culpable for their misconduct, than adults," O'Connor wrote. "But the court has adduced no evidence impeaching the seemingly reasonable conclusion reached by many state legislatures: that at least some 17-year-old murderers are sufficiently mature to deserve the death penalty in an appropriate case." She said the crime at issue in this case may fit that bill. "Christopher Simmons' murder of Shirley Crook was premeditated, wanton, and cruel in the extreme," O'Connor wrote. "One can scarcely imagine the terror that this woman must have suffered throughout the ordeal leading to her death. Whatever can be said about the comparative moral culpability of 17-year-olds as a general matter, Simmons' actions unquestionably reflect" a conscience even more depraved than that of most murderers. In a separate dissenting opinion, the court's three most conservative justices -- Chief Justice William Rehnquist and associate justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- took Kennedy to task for appealing to international practices in his opinion. Authoring the dissent, Scalia said the majority's opinion makes a "mockery" of the founding fathers' understanding of the Constitution and the judiciary's role in interpreting it. "The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nation's moral standards -- and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures," he wrote. Scalia continued: "Because I do not believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined by the subjective views of five members of this court and like-minded foreigners, I dissent." But Kennedy, in noting that "the United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile death penalty," also said that reasoning did not control the majority's decision but merely "provides respected and significant confirmation" of the majority's decision. "It does not lessen our fidelity to the Constitution or our pride in its origins to acknowledge that the express affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations and peoples simply underscores the centrality of those same rights within our own heritage of freedom," Kennedy concluded. (sources: Associated Baptist Press & Maranatha Christian News Service)
