March 10 USA: U.S. quits pact used to fight death penalty The Bush administration has decided to pull out of an international agreement that opponents of the death penalty have used to fight the sentences of foreigners on Death Row in the United States, officials said Wednesday. The U.S. is withdrawing from the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The protocol requires signatories to let the International Court of Justice make the final decision when their citizens say they have been illegally denied the right to see a home-country diplomat when jailed abroad. In recent years, some countries have successfully complained before the World Court that their citizens were sentenced to death by states in the U.S. without receiving access to home-country diplomats. The U.S. Supreme Court has before it the case of a Mexican death row inmate in Texas who is asking the justices to enforce a World Court decision in favor of Mexico last year. The administration's decision doesn't affect the remainder of the Vienna Convention, which requires its 166 signatories to inform foreigners of their right to see a home-country diplomat when detained overseas. The administration decided to grant 51 Mexicans on death row in the U.S. new state court hearings, as the World Court ordered. But withdrawal from the protocol means the U.S. won't have to bow to the World Court again, legal analysts said. (source: Washington Post) ************************** Child homicide: When parents kill their own -- In the wake of three infant homicides, local child advocates say there are no simple answers in pinpointing why a parent kills a child It's the kind of crime that most can't comprehend. While the deliberate killing of young children happens with far less frequency than homicides among adults, when such slayings do occur, parents or caretakers typically are charged. "Statistically, child deaths as a result of abuse by parental actions are actually quite rare," said Michael Daley, professor of social work and director of the social work program at the University of South Alabama. Despite that fact, three south Alabama parents have been charged with capital murder in recent weeks in connection with the deaths of their infant children. The latest victim was 6-week-old Ashley Austin, whose father, David Allen Austin, 23, could face the death penalty in his daughter's Feb. 23 killing. "I think what draws our attention to it," Daley said of the deaths, "is the fact that it's so extreme and so foreign to most parents, the idea that a parent would harm a child so badly." Communities, he said, often are left wondering what went wrong. Were there warning signs present before a parent attacked? In the wake of the three infant homicides, local child advocates say there is no simple answer in pinpointing why a parent or caregiver kills a child. "I believe there has been a general breakdown in society," said Pat Guyton, director of Mobile's Child Advocacy Center. "The youngest human beings are not protected as much as they used to be." The center helps prosecute offenders who sexually and physically abuse children and offers counseling for the victims and their families. Cases only reach the center when the abuse rises to the level of a felony, meaning Guyton usually only sees the worst of the worst. There are typically 20 cases a year in Mobile of "severe physical abuse perpetrated on children below 24 months." He estimates that at least 80 % of the child abuse cases that come through the center in some way involve alcohol or other drugs. "It's amazing to me," Guyton said. "I'm always stunned. It's like people don't use good judgment." There are a number of reasons why parents get to the point of causing a serious injury or death to children, Daley said. "One of the things that happens is that parents get so desperate from living under stressful conditions that they can't see taking care of a child anymore," he said. "They are essentially getting rid of the child to help relieve part of their burden." Sometimes, parents inappropriately begin attributing adult behavior to their children. "They either identify the child with someone they really don't like or they attribute normal child behavior as willful behavior to antagonize them," Daley said of parents who hurt their own. He said it's not an excuse: "I say that from a standpoint of getting inside the logic of the people who do that." Daley said another reason some adults have been known to cause harm to children is because of misplaced jealousy. "Adults will see children as competition for attention of other adults," he said. "So they harm the children to keep them from damaging the relationship." He said a small percentage of cases can be attributed to "people who are just absolutely impaired due to drug and alcohol abuse or mental illness." Daley pointed to Andrea Yates, the Texas woman who drowned and beat her children to death, as one of the most famous cases in recent years of a mentally impaired parent killing her children. "We tend to have waves of this kind of thing where you have a large number that come to public attention and raise public awareness and motivate us to do something about it," Daley said. "But most of the time people are not thinking about this." In 2003, the last year complete statistics were available, there were 53 child homicides reported in Alabama. A child is defined as a newborn up to age 19. Of those 53, 6 were from Mobile County. Three of those deaths were reported in infants less than 1 year old, according to state records. The other 3 homicides involved an 18-year-old and two people who were 19. No homicides of anyone under age 20 were reported in Baldwin County in 2003, according to records from the Alabama Department of Public Health's Center for Health Statistics. Sherrie Bourg Carter, a forensic psychologist and co-director of the Institute for Behavioral Sciences and the Law in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said about 1,300 child deaths in the United States were the result of abuse or neglect in 2001. She's not aware of more recent statistics. "Infants are more likely to be killed by their mother during the first week of life," Carter said, "but are more likely to be killed by a male, usually their father or stepfather, thereafter." Children who are at the highest risk of homicide tend to be very young, from newborns to age 4, and older adolescents, ranging in age from 13 to 17, she said. Parents and stepparents are the most frequent perpetrators of death among very young children, she said. She said half of all infant homicides occur by the 4th month of life, and the risk of infant homicide is highest on the day of birth. Other area parents charged with killing their children in recent weeks are: Marsha Gossett Colby, 40, whom Orange Beach police arrested Feb. 10 after autopsy results showed that her newborn son drowned after being born alive, likely on Feb. 3 at a Baldwin County residence. Charged with capital murder, she disputes the claim and is being held without bond in the Baldwin County Corrections Center in Bay Minette. Charles Thomas Johnson, 33, is in Escambia County's jail, charged with killing his 6-month-old son Feb. 20, when the baby wouldn't stop crying, police said. The mother was asleep in another part of the house when her husband allegedly beat, bit and asphyxiated the child, police said. He is being held without bail, facing a capital murder charge. "It breaks my heart what happened here," Guyton said of the recent infant deaths in south Alabama. "We've got to come to some way of saying to people, 'We as a society are going to hold you responsible for how you raise your kids.'" (source: Mobile Register) ********************************* Death Penalty Doubts by Bush? As governor of Texas, George W. Bush claimed to harbor few doubts about the death penalty. Now, as president, he seems to have a few. In his State of the Union address, the president acknowledged growing public worries that a flawed legal process had sentenced innocent people to death. He proposed a $50-million, three-year program to improve training for defense lawyers, prosecutors and judges in state capital cases. Last week's presidential order involving Mexican nationals on death row in California, Texas and other states is another step in the right direction. Bush's order was triggered by a recent World Court ruling that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention by failing to notify Mexican officials when their citizens were arrested and charged with serious crimes. The Vienna treaty also protects Americans when they live or travel abroad, but U.S. police and prosecutors had widely ignored the pact when it came to foreign nationals in custody in this country. In his order, Bush asserted that as president he could direct state courts to comply with the treaty by holding new hearings. The order will apply to the 28 Mexicans on California's death row, 15 in Texas and others in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Nevada, Ohio and Oregon. Courts in those states must now reconsider the convictions and sentences of each of the Mexicans to determine whether failure to warn them of their right to help from their government caused unfairness in their trials or sentences. The declaration, which may also extend to dozens of other condemned foreign nationals in this country, is a long way from the systematic national review of the death penalty we'd like to see. But for the man who as governor once parodied the clemency pleas from a desperate Texas prisoner, it's a start. (source: Editorial, Los Angeles Times) WYOMING----stay of impending execution Judge grants Harlow stay of execution Twice-convicted murderer James Harlow, sentenced to death for killing a Wyoming State Penitentiary guard during an escape attempt in 1997, received a stay of execution this week from U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer. Harlow filed a motion Feb. 9 asking the federal court to appoint an attorney to help him draft a petition for habeas corpus -- to physically appear before the court -- and to halt his scheduled March 31 execution until the court rules on the petition. Brimmer granted the motions on Monday, and the orders were filed with the court on Tuesday. Brimmer wrote that he had to look outside Wyoming to find a qualified lawyer in matters of habeas corpus in a death penalty case. He selected Sean O'Brien of Kansas City, Mo., to represent Harlow. O'Brien, Brimmer wrote, will need to learn about the case and probably will not be able to do so before March 31. "In granting this stay, it is not the Court's intent to delay the legal process any longer than necessary," Brimmer wrote. "The Court simply wishes to ensure that the case is handled in a manner that will ensure both an expeditious and just result." State District Judge Wade Waldrip set the date after the Wyoming Supreme Court in February rejected Harlow's appeal that he did not get a fair trial because he was shackled in the courtroom -- the 2nd time in as many years the court had rejected an appeal from Harlow. Harlow has been an inmate at the Wyoming State Penitentiary since 1988, when he was given a life sentence for the rape and murder of 16-year-old Tammy Shoopman of Rock Springs. In 1997, Harlow and 2 other inmates, Bryan Collins and Richard Dowdell, killed prison guard Wayne Martinez while trying to escape. Harlow was sentenced to death; Collins and Dowdell were given life sentences. (source: Casper Star-Tribune) NEW YORK: Senate approves death penalty bill -- Version would impose life without parole if jury is deadlocked on sentencing; Assembly action unclear The death penalty moved a step closer to being restored in New York on Wednesday, but the law's fate remains uncertain in the Assembly. The Senate passed a bill, 37-22, designed to address constitutional flaws in the law, but the Assembly isn't expected to act on the legislation until a report from its 5 hearings is made public. Although death penalty supporters said last week the law is essential to keeping the crime levels down, the floor debate Wednesday over the bill was lackluster. At one point, less than 1/3 of the Senate was in the chamber, and just 7 Republican lawmakers were listening to the debate. While senators who oppose the death penalty quoted testimony given earlier this year at Assembly hearings to back up their opposition to the bill, legislators who back the death penalty didn't mention the hearings and berated the Court of Appeals for overturning the law. They also mentioned the victims of the seven convicted murderers, who New York juries said warranted the death penalty before the law was overturned. "We need to enact this bill into law to ensure that a capital punishment law is in place and can be used to protect New Yorkers and prevent dangerous, violent criminals from getting back on the streets," Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said in a statement after the vote. The Court of Appeals ruled in June that the sentencing provision of the death penalty statute was unconstitutional because judges warned juries that, if they could not agree on either death or life in prison without parole, the murderer would be a given a sentence that included a chance for parole. The court said those instructions might lead jurors to chose death to avoid the possibility of parole. The Senate bill passed Wednesday gives juries all three sentencing options, but imposes life without parole if the jury is deadlocked. When the ruling came last year, a quick-fix seemed likely as all three state leaders, Gov. George Pataki, Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, have supported the death penalty. But getting a new capital punishment law has proven to be difficult. After nearly a decade, no one has been executed and the cost of the law is estimated between $150 million and $200 million. For opponents and those who did not feel strongly either way, the high cost, waning public support and low effectiveness in executing the worst criminals warranted another look. The Assembly agreed and scheduled two public hearings, which turned into 5 as dozens of people showed up to testify. The Senate refused and said nothing had changed since the law was signed in 1995. Hearings, the Senate majority said, were a way for the Assembly to drag its feet and not put the law back on the books. To increase public pressure for the bill, the Senate created a Web site at http://www.Death PenaltyNY.com where people can register their support for the law. The site does not accept opposition to capital punishment. The Assembly hearings might have changed some lawmakers' minds, but that won't be known until the death penalty comes up for a vote. Several of those who supported the death penalty in 1995 have said their minds might be changed. Some backed capital punishment because there was no option of life in prison without parole, which the state now has. Pataki applauded the Senate's vote, and encouraged the Assembly to follow suit. "The Assembly has held hearings," he said. "Now hold a vote." (source: Albany Times-Union) ********************* Senate-OK'd death penalty has uncertain future The state Senate Wednesday voted to reinstate New York's death-penalty statute after a three-hour, pitched debate, even though it faces long odds in the Assembly. Voting largely on party lines as expected, the Republican-dominated Senate approved the measure, 37-22. New York's top court last summer ruled that the state's death penalty, enacted in 1995, was unconstitutional. In a 4-3 ruling, the court determined that deadlocked juries, forced to choose between a death sentence and a life sentence with a chance for parole after 20 years, could be coerced into voting for death. The court indicated a quick fix could be had if lawmakers rewrote the statute to order that when a jury can't reach a sentencing decision, a life-without-parole sentence would be automatically imposed. Republican Gov. George Pataki and the Senate back such a change. Supporters contended capital punishment was a murder deterrent and it was a useful tool for prosecutors in obtaining plea deals. "If you want to get a life-without-parole (plea bargain), you have to have capital punishment to get to that," said Sen. Joseph Robach, R-Greece, Monroe County. Opponents countered murders have declined in states without capital punishment, that the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on death-penalty cases could be used elsewhere and that, unlike the Assembly, the Senate has not held hearings on such a controversial topic. How they voted Mid-Hudson Republican senators -- William Larkin Jr. of New Windsor, Vincent Leibell of Patterson, Steve Saland of Poughkeepsie and John Bonacic of Mount Hope -- voted in favor of the bill. (source: Poughkeepsie Journal) CONNECTICUT: Ban on death penalty advances A bill to abolish the death penalty in Connecticut won easy approval in the state Legislature's Judiciary Committee last night, just 2 months before Connecticut's first scheduled execution since 1960. Under the bill, seven death row inmates would see their sentences commuted, including serial killer Michael Ross, scheduled to die May 11, pending the outcome of a competency hearing. Committee members voted 24 to 15 in favor of the bill, which would designate the sentence for capital murder as life in prison. It now moves to a vote in the House of Representatives. Gov. M. Jodi Rell has repeatedly said that she favors the death penalty for Ross and cases like his and she said she would likely veto any bill that would stop his execution. Yesterday's debate included several references to Ross. Death penalty opponents said he should be forced to face his crimes for the rest of his life. Supporters of the death penalty said the viciousness of Ross' crimes make him a poster boy for keeping it. Current law imposes life in prison without possibility of release or the death penalty as the two options for sentencing for capital murder, which is murder of a police officer, of more than one person at a time, of a child or of someone when the offender is already convicted of another murder. 22 senators and representatives on the 42-member joint committee poke during the 2 1/2-hour debate chaired by the Judiciary Committee co-chairman, state Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford. McDonald, who supported the bill, said he was surprised by the margin of victory for a bill that divided lawmakers more along ideological lines than strictly by party. Among lower Fairfield County lawmakers on the committee, McDonald and state Rep. Gerald Fox III, D-Stamford, voted in favor of abolishing the death penalty. State Reps. Lawrence Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk and Claudia "Dolly" Powers, R-Greenwich, voted to keep current law and retain the death penalty. McDonald closed out debate by saying he believes in forcing murderers such as Ross, who killed eight young women and raped most of them, to spend the rest of their natural days in prison having to face the consequences of their crime. Ross, 45, who has already spent 20 years behind bars, has said he wants all appeals stopped and the death penalty to be imposed. "It is in fact, in my estimation, a harsher penalty for him to sit in prison, or rot in prison, for the rest of his natural life," McDonald said during debate. "He is choosing death. I don't think he should have that right." McDonald said Ross should have to spend the next 30 or 40 years behind bars. "He doesn't want it. I think he should have it," McDonald said. State Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-West Haven, the committee's House co-chairman, said of life in prison without release, "This is the one penalty that Michael Ross fears the most." Others argued that the death penalty is no deterrent to future crimes and ends up costing taxpayers more in the long run for lengthy appeals. "Canadian homicides were 23 % lower after they abolished the death penalty," said state Sen. Edward Meyer, D-Guilford. "I submit there is no argument for deterrence." State Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, said her research found that prosecuting death penalty cases costs taxpayers more than noncapital murder cases in the 36 states with active death penalty statutes. "We should choose to put our resources where they can support life," she said. Death penalty supporters argued that the debate wouldn't even be happening if it weren't for the Ross case, which has drawn national attention for several recent last-minute reprieves. They reminded legislators last night of Ross' crimes. "I can't imagine the horror of the one girl who saw her friend raped and murdered and knew she was next," said state Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield. "And we're going to commute his sentence? I don't want to be a party to that." Cafero, arguing that the death penalty should remain, said state residents have made it clear through polls and through their representatives over the years that they want "a rarely used, incredibly difficult to obtain death penalty, in only the most severe, most serious, heinous cases imaginable. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we have." Doing away with the death penalty would be "a slap in the face to the families of the victims," said state Rep. David Labriola, R-Naugatuck. Those in the committee room listened intently as state Rep. Jeffrey Berger, D-Waterbury, spoke. He is a former police officer whose partner at the time was the first to respond when Walter Williams III, 34, a Waterbury police officer killed in the line of duty in 1992, was shot. Berger's partner, Tim Jackson, cradled Williams head in his hands while Williams lay dying, Berger said. Williams' convicted killer, Richard Reynolds, is one of seven inmates on Connecticut's death row whose sentence would be commuted to life without possible release if the bill becomes law. "You should all put yourselves in that situation, in finding and determining what you think is a just penalty for Richard Reynolds," Berger said of his partner. Debate had been scheduled at 10 a.m. but harsh winter road conditions due to Tuesday's snowstorm caused postponement until 4:40 p.m., after House and Senate sessions. As a result, the committee room in the Legislative Office Building was nearly empty of spectators during the debate, other than media representatives. The exchange was subdued. Several supporters of the death penalty said they understood and respected those on the other side who believe that the state should not be involved in taking a life, no matter how heinous an act a criminal has committed. The last time the Legislature took up the death penalty was in 2001 in two amendments in the House. An amendment to abolish the death penalty and one to impose a moratorium both failed. House Speaker James Amann, D-Milford, a death penalty proponent, has said he nevertheless believes the issue should be debated in both the House and Senate and said he will bring it to the floor for a vote. Lawlor said he expects the bill to reach the House floor in the next two to 3 weeks. (source: Stamford Advocate)
