March 3 OHIO: Death Row May Be Moved To Youngstown----Move Not Related To Escape Attempts The state is considering moving death row from the Mansfield Correctional Institution to the supermax state penitentiary in Youngstown, a corrections department spokeswoman has confirmed. Andrea Dean said Wednesday the proposed move has been under consideration for some time and is not related to security concerns raised by a Feb. 3 escape attempt by two death row inmates. She added that the move is in the discussion stage and no formal decision has been made. Attorney General Jim Petro seemed receptive to the idea. He said the Youngstown facility is a state-of-the-art, supermaximum security prison. "It's not a bad idea to examine that utilization for the most dangerous of our convicted criminals," he said. 6 convicted killers already are confined at Youngstown, including 4 inmates involved in the deadly 1993 riot at the Lucasville prison. Another 194 male prisoners are on Mansfield's death row. The lone female under a death sentence is incarcerated at the Ohio Reformatory for Women at Marysville. The Youngstown facility was opened in 1998. It houses 465 inmates described by state officials as the "worst of the worst" in Ohio prisons. (source: Associated Press) MISSISSIPPI: Miss. high court upholds death sentence in Gulf Coast slayings The Mississippi Supreme Court has upheld death sentences given Thong Le for the murders of 3 members of a family on the Gulf Coast. Le was convicted in 2002 in Jackson County for the murders of Minh Hieu Thi Huynh, 46, and her daughters, Thuy Hang Huynh Nguyen, 15, and Thanh Truc Nuynh Nguyen, 11. He received 2 death sentences. Le's attorney argued to the jury - and in the appeal to the Supreme Court - that Le participated in a robbery of the family but had nothing to do with the killings. The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected that argument and 14 others Le raised in his appeal. Prosecutors said Le went to the family's house in St. Martin on Nov. 1, 2001, to rob them of $1,300. But the daughters, home alone, refused to give Le and his co-defendant, Ngan Tran, the money. Prosecutors said that's when Le and Tran tied up, beat and strangled the girls. They also attacked the mother when she came home later that night, even after she gave them money. Le did not testify at his trial. According to the court record, jurors heard him confess to the crime in his taped interview with police. Tran committed suicide in April 2002 while being held at the Jackson County Jail. Other testimony at Le's trial came from five Jackson County jail inmates who said Tran had bragged about the killings after he was arrested and Tran had said Le didn't participate in the murders. On cross-examination, though, 4 of the inmates admitted that Le never denied murdering the family, according to the court record. On appeal, Le argued prosecutors didn't prove he participated in the crime and that his confession was not voluntary. Justice Jess Dickinson, writing for the court, said nothing in the court record supported Le's claims. "The jury specifically found beyond a reasonable doubt that Le attempted to kill, intended the killing and contemplated that lethal force would be employed" against the 3 women, Dickinson said. Le also argued he signed a wavier of his rights but claimed investigators took advantage of his inexperience with the justice system and his limited skill with the English language. Le also said police also took advantage of his religious beliefs when telling Le that the souls of the victims would never be free unless he confessed. Dickinson said Le waived his rights and court documents showed it was voluntary. Dickinson said Le had already confessed to the crimes before any mention of his religion. The justice said Le did not prove that the religious discussion coerced him into the confession. (source: Associated Press) USA: Juveniles are different----The Supreme Court rightly narrows the death penalty -- again Even Antonin Scalia must concede that the U.S. Supreme Court has the task of weighing the use of the death penalty against the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." That was the measure the high court set in 1958. Ever since, the justices have struggled to find the right balance. At one point, the court struck down the death penalty, and then revived the punishment shortly thereafter. Of late, a majority has thoughtfully narrowed the use of the death penalty, reflecting broader concerns about its implementation. The court moved smartly this week abolishing capital punishment for juvenile offenders. That ruling followed a similar opinion three years ago banning the execution of the mentally retarded. The court has also raised the requirements for attorneys who represent defendants in capital cases. It has held that juries, not judges, should issue death sentences. Justice Scalia, in a withering dissent, asked: Where did the majority find the authority to rule that juveniles should be spared? The '58 precedent matters greatly, as long as the reasoning turns on substance. Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy bolstered his argument with solid evidence. The country has become increasingly uneasy with the death penalty. Through DNA testing, states have found innocent men on death row. In 1994, Congress approved the Federal Death Penalty Act, setting a minimum age of 18 for capital punishment. Fewer states today permit the execution of juveniles than 16 years ago, when the court upheld the practice. The court doesn't easily reverse precedent. Justice Kennedy made plain that he changed his mind, in large part, because of the persuasiveness of the social science. The Eighth Amendment bars "cruel and unusual punishments." The majority opinion argued that the death penalty is "a disproportionate punishment for juveniles," citing "a lack of maturity and an undeveloped sense of responsibility," adding that, as a result, "juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders." Important, too, for the majority was the changing legal landscape around the globe. In 1989, the United States 1 of 8 nations permitting the death penalty for juveniles. Seven -- Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, China and Congo -- have since reversed course. Until Tuesday, this country stood alone. Scalia wasn't troubled by the isolation or impressed with the new reasoning, the majority siding with what he called "like-minded foreigners." The justice forgets that James Madison and his colleagues didn't invent the republic relying solely on their own thoughts. They consulted widely, even the work of those in other lands. The Founding Fathers promoted no less than the pursuit of "a more perfect union." With that in mind, the court majority acted wisely, recognizing that the use of the death penalty says something about all of us, its flawed implementation and misapplication reflecting poorly on a country that cherishes the principles of justice. (source: Editorial, Akron Beacon Journal)
