March 10 USA: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL----Public Statement AI Index: AMR 51/050/2005 (Public)----News Service No: 057 March 10, 2005 USA: US Withdrawal from VCCR Protocol is Step Backwards Just over a week ago, President George W. Bush signed a memorandum to the US Attorney General affirming that the United States would comply with the binding decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) protecting the consular rights of foreign nationals under sentence of death. Consistent with the ICJ judgment of 31 March 2004 in the Avena case, the President announced that state courts would be required to review and reconsider the effect of violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) in 51 cases of Mexican nationals who were subsequently sentenced to death. In a brief submitted to the US Supreme Court regarding the judicial enforcement of the ICJ decision, the US Solicitor General declared that "Compliance serves to protect the interests of United States citizens abroad, promotes the effective conduct of foreign relations, and underscores the United States' commitment in the international community to the rule of law." The Solicitor General also promised that "a new trial or a new sentencing would be ordered" wherever judicial review established that the treaty violation had been prejudicial. Despite that stated commitment to full treaty compliance, the United States has now announced its withdrawal from the VCCR Optional Protocol Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes, the international legal instrument which empowers the ICJ to interpret and apply the terms of the treaty. Amnesty International welcomes the decision by President Bush to comply with the ICJ judgment and calls on the US courts to provide a full, fair and meaningful review in all cases where foreign nationals were deprived of their consular rights and sentenced to death. At the same time, however, the organization is deeply concerned by the USA's decision to withdraw from the VCCR Optional Protocol. This backward step cannot be reconciled with the United States' own declaration that compliance with the ICJ serves to protect American interests abroad and promotes the global rule of law. Unquestionably, the timely access to consular assistance safeguarded under the Vienna Convention serves to protect the human rights of foreign detainees worldwide. As the US Government itself recognized following the execution of Paraguayan national ngel Breard in Virginia in 1998, "We fully appreciate that the United States must see to it that foreign nationals in the United States receive the same treatment that we expect for our citizens overseas. We cannot have a double standard." Any step taken by the United States to undermine the legal authority of the VCCR is a step towards danger for all detained foreigners everywhere, including US citizens abroad. For more on the ICJ Avena judgment, see http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR510572004. (source: Amnesty International) ************************** Let States Decide On Juvenile Death Penalties We won't go as far as columnist George Will did Sunday, calling the U.S. Supreme Court9s ban on sentencing juveniles to death 3an intellectual train wreck.2 But we acknowledge that even among people who agree with the outcome of last week9s decision, there are those who feel the court intruded into an issue that should properly be addressed by state legislatures. ... Although the numbers have dwindled in recent years, there were still 18 states that as of last week permitted the execution of people who commit crimes when they are 16 or 17 years old. There were still 72 such people on death rows nationally, including two in Pennsylvania. And there is considerable public sentiment for the trend to treat younger criminals as adults. (After a school shooting in Arkansas in the 1990s in which an 11-year-old helped supply the guns, a legislator proposed lowering the death penalty age to 11.) ... Of course, we don't actually execute juveniles. With the length of the appeals process, we let them grow up on death row before we kill them. If we really have a problem with that, if there is a national consensus to no longer do so, state legislatures should be under considerable public pressure to change their laws. Unfortunately, there appears to be no such demand, and the Supreme Court has once again stepped into the legislative arena to correct state laws it doesn't agree with. You don't have to agree with such laws either to question if the court overstepped its bounds. (source: Editorial, Yankton (S.DAK.) Press & Dakotan) ILLINOIS: House committee OKs requiring certainty before imposing death penalty A proposal limiting the death penalty to cases where there is absolutely no doubt about the defendant's guilt was approved by a House committee today. Right now, juries can have some small doubts but still sentence someone to die. Under the new proposal, the death penalty could not be used if there is any doubt at all. It was approved 9-to-7 by the criminal law committee and heads to the full House. Several state's attorneys testified against the measure. They say having 2 different standards of proof would confuse juries. They also argue other safeguards have been enacted to improve the death penalty system. The reforms came after numerous people on death row were found to have been wrongly convicted. Ex-Governor George Ryan suspended all executions, and Governor Rod Blagojevich has continued the moratorium. (The bill is HB2704. On the Net: http://www.ilga.gov ) (source: Associated Press) ********************* Judge Clears Serial Killer Testimony in Harper Case A victory for the defense in the Julie Rea Harper murder case. Lawrence County, Illinois judge Barry Vaughn granted a motion to allow a confession made by serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells as evidence in the case. Harper is being re-tried in the murder of her 10-year-old son, Joel. The defense claims an intruder killed Joel and that intruder was Sells based on his Texas death row confession. Harper's re-trial is set for December 5th. (source: WFIE News) FLORIDA----foreign national could face death penalty Denmark watching trial of citizen on trial for Weston murder----Citizen could face death if convicted of murder A Danish citizen went on trial for capital murder Wednesday in the bludgeoning and strangulation death of his wife in their Weston house, in a case that has drawn intense interest in Denmark. Maxwell McCord, 39, faces a possible death penalty if convicted of killing his wife, Marie Noguera, a Spanish teacher at Hollywood Hills High School. She was found dead Aug. 2, 2001, at their home in the gated community of Savanna. Seated in the front row in Broward Circuit Court Wednesday was Danish Consul General Sven Roed Nielsen, who flew down for the opening from New York. Also in the courtroom were correspondents from Denmark's two biggest tabloids, B.T. and Ekstra Bladet, as well as a reporter for the Danish news service Ritzau. McCord is the 1st Danish citizen in modern memory to face execution in the United States. "It's a serious case, and it's a Danish citizen," said Nielsen, who has told prosecutors of his country's opposition to the death penalty. "So we're watching it very carefully." In a dramatic opening statement, Broward Assistant State Attorney Brian Cavanagh portrayed McCord as a man with a lifeless marriage, a taste for $250 prostitutes and a mountain of credit card debt. Hoping to cash in on an insurance policy his wife took out just weeks earlier, Cavanagh said, McCord killed her, staged an amateurish scene of burglary and rape, and concocted a ridiculous alibi that fell apart at the slightest scrutiny. "This defendant, this man Maxwell McCord, set out not only to kill his wife, the mother of his only child, but also to mislead the police, deceive the victim's family and corrupt the truth," Cavanagh said, pointing to McCord, who sat at the defense table in an open-necked shirt and blue blazer. "This crime, as you shall see from the evidence, was anything but perfect." Shortly after dinner, Cavanagh said, McCord used a blunt object to strike his wife on the head 12 times, causing 4 skull fractures. While she was still alive, he wrapped a telephone cord around her neck and tied it at the ends in a square knot. Cavanagh ridiculed McCord's alibi. McCord told police he and his wife and daughter went to the Broward Mall that evening, and his wife disappeared after returning to their parked car. Cavanagh said McCord kept changing the reason for her walk to the car -- it was to get more comfortable shoes, to get cash and other reasons. McCord had said he called police, returned home by taxi, and found his wife dead and his house ransacked. But Cavanagh said an autopsy found the evening's dinner undigested in her stomach, indicating she was killed shortly after dinner, not hours later. And he said the scenes of disarray were clearly staged. Defense attorney Jeanne Baker launched a meticulous attack on the prosecutor's narrative, saying it attempted to substitute dramatic overstatement for evidence. She portrayed McCord as an innocent man whose prosecution resulted from a "rush to judgment" by police and a refusal by prosecutors to look at contrary evidence. She said the prosecutor exaggerated McCord's financial problems, which were manageable. And it was not McCord who offered varying accounts of the reasons for his wife's return to their parked car. Rather, the inconsistencies were on the part of witnesses who claimed to have talked to McCord and then offered different accounts to prosecutors. There was solid evidence of an intruder. And she said there was evidence of sexual assault. The victim's parents flew in from Puerto Rico for the trial, where they were joined by other relatives. "We're here to represent Marie, who, due to a cruel, unfair and unnecessary death, is not with us today," said her cousin, Maria Cristina Gonzalez Noguera. "And we're praying for justice." (source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel) ****************** Lawmaker Wants To Know About Representation Of Death Row Convicts Florida has 367 people on death row. For the most part they are represented by lawyers who are employed by the state and work for 1 of 2 regional agencies. But the state also has a registry of private attorneys who handle cases in the northern part of the state and when there's a conflict of interest elsewhere. There are 140 attorneys on the registry; 80 of them have cases. The state Supreme Court has recently criticized the performance of some of the registry attorneys to an oversight board that monitors capital appeals. In testimony to a House committee, some prosecutors defended the performance of the registry attorneys. Rep. Bruce Kyle of Fort Myers says he's considering sending a letter back to the Supreme Court to ask what steps it has taken to make sure death row inmates are properly represented. (source: Associated Press)
