March 14 TEXAS: Death penalty for trucker would be a first under immigrant-smuggling law Prosecutors in the trial of Tyrone Williams, which resumes today in a Houston court, are trying to go further under a federal immigrant-smuggling law than any prosecutor has gone before. None has asked for the death penalty since the law was adopted in 1994. "I think the government has a mountain to climb, a very steep mountain, to show that he acted with reckless disregard," said attorney Richard Burr, an expert on federal death-penalty law. Williams, a legal Jamaican immigrant from Schenectady, N.Y., is accused of being indifferent to the horrific conditions inside his trailer, which was packed with at least 75 illegal immigrants in May 2003. 17 riders died as air grew scarce and temperatures soared. 2 more died in a hospital. The truck driver was 1 of 14 people indicted in connection with the fatal journey, but Williams is the only one targeted for the death penalty. His attorney, Craig Washington, has charged that prosecutors focused on Williams because he is black. Prosecutors argue, however, that only Williams could have prevented the deaths. Nearly 70 people have been eligible for the death penalty since the immigrant-smuggling law was enacted in 1994. But the government has declined to seek the ultimate penalty until now because proving reckless disregard is so difficult, Burr said. Showing carelessness or negligence isn't good enough, said Burr, attorney for the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project. "In the law, it's virtually intending to kill somebody," he said. The questioning last week by Washington indicates how the defense plans to obstruct prosecutors by shifting the blame to the others involved. "His apparent goal here is to establish that Williams is inexperienced and that the other individuals are experienced," said Lupe Salinas, a former federal prosecutor and state judge now teaching at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University. Salinas said Washington also is trying to raise a question in jurors' minds: "Why is (Williams) getting the death penalty recommendation and everyone else is getting something that results in life or less?" The lead prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Rodriguez, will focus on Williams' responsibility for keeping the immigrants sealed in the trailer, Salinas said. "All you can do is drive it home." If the prosecutors have a difficult task, the defense is hobbled by the number of victims - and the ghastly manner in which they died. "Here's a man who has contributed to 19 lives being gone. It's very difficult to get sympathy," Salinas said. "This is certainly among the most deadly of the alien-smuggling cases," Burr said. U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore has imposed a gag order preventing Rodriguez and Washington from commenting on the case publicly. (source: Houston Chronicle) MISSOURI----impending execution State Supreme Court won't stop execution The Missouri Supreme Court on Monday refused to halt the execution of Stanley Hall, despite claims that the condemned killer is mentally retarded. The court offered no explanation in its one-line ruling. Hall's attorney, Nelson Mitten, said he will appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Gov. Matt Blunt was also weighing a clemency request. Hall, 37, is scheduled to die by injection at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday at the Potosi Correctional Center for the 1994 murder of Barbara Jo Wood of St. Louis County. His execution would be the 62nd since the state renewed the death penalty in 1989, but the 1st since John Clayton Smith was put to death Oct. 29, 2003. Mitten said Hall was disappointed by the ruling. Hall's wife, Stephanie Hall, said, "He's holding strong. He's forgiven himself, God's forgiven him." The U.S. Supreme Court banned executions of the mentally retarded in 2002, and Missouri issued a similar ban a year earlier. In an appeal with the state Supreme Court on Thursday, Mitten wrote that he recently discovered an IQ test taken when Hall was 7 showing a score of 57, which would indicate he was mentally retarded. Mitten said Hall's trial lawyer failed to cite the test. But subsequent testing has shown Hall's IQ generally in the 70-75 range, which Attorney General Jay Nixon characterized as borderline mentally retarded, making Hall eligible for the death penalty. Nixon said the latest claim was one more attempt to delay the process. Hall grew up in St. Louis, and was often in trouble. He had spent time in prison for shooting a fellow drug dealer and a bystander. On Jan. 15, 1994, he and a friend borrowed a car and drove to South County Mall in search of a car to steal. The men approached Wood as she pulled her 1991 Geo into a parking spot - she worked at a store in the mall. They pulled a gun and drove her to the McKinley Bridge over the Mississippi River. Wood was forced out of the car and shot. Still struggling and pleading for her life, Hall lifted her over the bridge railing. She dropped 90 feet into the icy river. Witnesses notified police, who captured Hall moments after the crime. Hall confessed. Wood's body was found 7 1/2 months later about 70 miles downstream. Stephanie Hall said her husband is a different man now. In prison, she said, he has become a mentor to younger prisoners, encouraging them to turn their lives around. He also has participated in a program in which he meets with troubled youths. "Rather than end his life, allow him to stay and do all those good things, even if it within the walls of the prison," Stephanie Hall said. "If he saves even one person, wouldn't it be worth saving his life?" Missouri was among the leaders in executions for many years - its 59 from 1989 through 2002 were third only to Texas' 220 and Virginia's 80 during the same period. In a January interview with The Associated Press, Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronnie White said the recent decline is partly due to the fact that prosecutors are more reluctant to seek the death penalty, partly due to "a more deliberative approach" by the court since five Democratic appointees have been appointed. In the past 2 years, the court has overturned about half the death sentences it has considered, and the death row population has declined to 54 from 67. (source: Associated Press) OKLAHOMA----impending execution Slaughter Execution Set For Tuesday Oklahoma death-row inmate Jimmy Ray Slaughter is to be executed Tuesday for a 1991 Edmond murder. Slaughter was convicted of the murder of his girlfriend, Melody Wuertz, and her 11-month-old daughter. Prosecutors say the killing stemmed from an argument over child support. Last month, Slaughter's final clemency bid to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board was denied. Slaughter has long maintained that he is not guilty and has submitted to brain-fingerprinting tests that support his assertion. (source: ChannelOklahoma.com.) OHIO: Triple-Murderer Removed From Death Row A Butler County judge has ruled that an Oxford man who's spent the last 20 years on death row won't be executed. Rhett Depew stabbed 27-year-old Teresa Jones, her 7-year-old daughter, Aubrey, and Aubrey's 12-year-old sister, Elizabeth, to death and then set their Oxford home on fire to cover it up back in 1984. Police say Rhett broke into Jones' home to steal money when the 3 caught him in the act. DePew stabbed his victims more than 40 times. He was originally sentenced to die. But in 2000, a judge overturned Depew's sentence, blaming prosecutor's misconduct. A federal appeals court agreed and in 2002 ruled that Depew should be resentenced. On Monday, that resentencing took place. A judge gave Depew 3 life sentences instead of death. "The outcome means he will die in prison one way or the other," said prosecuting attorney Dan Eichel. Some of the victims' families were on hand for Monday's resentencing. "There will never be closure for what he did, but I'm pleased for what he got today," said family member Madge Burton. (source: WCPO News) VIRGINIA: Starr, in New Role, Gives Hope To a Needy Death Row Inmate Robin Lovitt was deep in the throes of a major relapse. He had sold his television for $20, he would later tell police, and used the money for beer and cigarettes. Then he bought 2 rocks of crack in what became a long night that ended in an Arlington pool hall on Nov. 18, 1998. Across the Potomac River that day, Kenneth W. Starr was rehearsing a much-anticipated speech that would mark his first public testimony to explain the findings of his investigation of President Bill Clinton. Amid accusations that his four-year, $40 million probe had become a political witch hunt, Starr would make his case to the public, partly in his own defense. The next morning, nine miles from the televised drama on Capitol Hill, police in Arlington were immersed in their investigation of a homicide at Champion Billiards Sports Cafe. The night manager, Clayton Dicks, 45, had been stabbed to death and a cash register drawer stolen. Lovitt, then 35, was soon arrested. It was a time of turning points, in worlds that do not often intersect. Only recently, long after Lovitt was sent to Virginia's death row, have the paths of Starr and Lovitt converged around the lesser-known events of that November. Starr had left his job as independent counsel and returned to his law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, where Lovitt's case had become a pro bono project. Last year, Starr became one of Lovitt's lead attorneys after being disturbed by how much he says went wrong, both in Lovitt's childhood and in his legal proceedings, including the destruction of nearly all physical evidence from his trial. "A compassionate and decent society has to ensure that a death penalty regime is as error-free as humanly possible and as fair as humanly possible," Starr said in an interview. For Lovitt, he said, the system has failed that test. Moreover, he said: "He is maintaining his innocence, and as his counsel, I am maintaining his innocence." As Starr talked, he sounded in moments not so much like the hard-driven prosecutor who did not let up on Clinton, but more like the committed volunteer who once taught high school students in Anacostia about the Constitution. Full Cast of Lawyers Few people as poor as Lovitt have such luminaries as Starr as their attorneys, particularly on death row. Among the roughly 3,400 people who await execution in 38 states, most have little or no funding for private lawyers. Some have no legal counsel. "We just can't find enough lawyers for everyone who needs them," said Robin Maher, director of the Death Penalty Representation Project of the American Bar Association, who said hundreds of death row inmates need attorneys. "Many of these defendants have never had a persuasive, effective, zealous advocate before," she said. Volunteer lawyers, she added, frequently turn up new evidence and "have had successes that include exonerations and new trials." When Starr took on Lovitt's cause, he was a supporter of the death penalty and among the nation's best-known lawyers. He did not so much find Lovitt's case as the case found him -- through a circuitous route by way of his law firm and its connection to a Washington program for undergraduate students at the University of Notre Dame. Now, Starr is part of a full cast of lawyers and assistants. In all, 40 Notre Dame students have visited Lovitt in prison, a handful each semester. More than a dozen lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis have investigated possible trial errors, done legal research, hired experts and prepared briefs in a $2 million effort co-led by the nonprofit Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center, which handles many death penalty cases. How Starr -- now the law school dean at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. -- may change Lovitt's fate is unclear. His arguments in June failed to convince a federal District Court. In February, he went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which is expected to rule in the next month or so. "Whether it makes a difference that he is Ken Starr, a onetime federal judge and solicitor general, or whether it makes a difference that he is Ken Starr, independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation with a certain political perspective, it's hard to know," said John G. Douglass, an associate professor of law at the University of Richmond. "Certainly, Ken Starr catches people's attention when he walks into a courtroom." A.E. Dick Howard, a law professor at the University of Virginia, noted that Starr probably knows most of the judges who will decide the case. "He's almost bound to have met them, to know them, but . . . he'll have to make his case as a lawyer." Still, Howard said, that's where Lovitt is fortunate. Starr "is one of the most seasoned lawyers at the Washington bar." For a defendant without resources, he said, "if you catch the eye of someone of that stature, it immensely improves your chances." What Shaped Their Lives Kenneth Starr was 17 when Robin Lovitt was born, and their lives could hardly have been more different. The son of a conservative minister in Texas, Starr grew up in a home where there was no drinking, cursing or smoking -- not even dancing, in keeping with the family's Church of Christ values. He memorized Bible verses as a child, made top grades and was voted "Most Likely to Succeed" in high school. As a young man, he considered politics and teaching college. He graduated from George Washington University, received a master's degree at Brown and then opted for law school at Duke. There, he paved the way for his clerkship with then-U.S. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. By 34, Starr joined the Reagan administration. At 37, he was a federal appeals court judge, and at 42, U.S. solicitor general, the government's top lawyer. Starr's public image as rigid and doctrinaire during the Clinton years belies a more nuanced history. Although he ruled against an affirmative action plan, he made decisions that favored First Amendment rights and a military officer's right to wear a yarmulke with his uniform. He joined the evangelical McLean Bible Church, volunteering with its inner-city ministry, and helped lead a Bible study for inmates at the Fairfax County jail. Lovitt, by comparison, grew up the eldest of 12 children in a small, chaotic home in Arlington, where his alcoholic stepfather abused his wife and children, according to affidavits submitted during his appeals. One sibling recalled Lovitt being beaten with a telephone cord. Another recalled a nighttime beating as Lovitt lay in bed. When the abuse was not physical, it was often sexual. One sister testified that her father randomly chose whom to molest when he came home drunk after work; another testified that she feared her 1st child had been fathered by him. Lovitt's mother and stepfather used drugs, and his stepfather sold them, according to court records. Lovitt followed suit at a young age -- drinking his first beer at 5, smoking marijuana at 7, turning to speed and heroin as a teenager and then PCP and crack cocaine. Along the way, he was arrested, sent to a juvenile detention center and dropped out of school. By 35, he had spent 15 years in prison, mostly on burglary, drug and larceny charges. In what his attorneys suggest in a brief was a sign that "all may not have been well" in Lovitt's family, all five of his brothers had been to prison and at least 2 sisters had criminal records. At times, Lovitt tried to turn himself around. He received a GED diploma. In 1998, he showed signs of improving while completing 169 days of a county substance-abuse program. Afterward, he landed a job as a cook at Champion Billiards on Shirlington Road and enrolled in culinary classes at Stratford College. A co-worker at the pool hall was impressed. "He appeared to be getting himself together," recalled assistant manager Jennifer Wright. But in fall 1998, Lovitt did not show up for shifts. When he did finally come around, he was noticeably unkempt and asked to borrow money, co-workers said. In early November, he entered a detox program. He also applied for a long-term residential drug treatment slot, describing his goal bluntly: "I've used drugs all my life and I need all the help I can get." Conflicting Accounts Out of detox less than a day, Lovitt bought crack, smoked it with friends and eventually made his way to the pool hall where he once worked. It was after 3 a.m. on Nov. 18, 1998. Lovitt said he told Clayton Dicks, the night manager, that he was hungry and tired, according to his police statement. "Don't worry about it. I gotcha," he recalled Dicks saying as he went to the kitchen to whip up some eggs. Lovitt ate, then stopped in the restroom as he was leaving. Upon coming out, he told police, he saw a man in a suit fighting with Dicks and ducked back into the restroom, thinking "it wasn't my business." Lovitt said that when he came out again, the place was empty and Dicks was dead. Fearing he would be accused, he decided to flee, he said -- then spotted the cash register, snatched the drawer of money with about $200 and rushed off. "With a track record like mine, would you call for help?" he asked a detective under police questioning. "The first thing I thought was I better get the [expletive] out of here. . . . The stupidest thing I could have done was grab the cash register, 'cause if I hadn't, I wouldn't be here now." Lovitt did not fare well at his 1999 trial, where prosecutors told a starkly different story. They said Lovitt came to the 24-hour pool hall to steal money when no one was there. Confronted by Dicks, they said, Lovitt grabbed a pair of scissors from the bar and stabbed him six times. Two customers walked in on the scene and called 911, they said; one told jurors that he was 80 % sure Lovitt was the assailant. A cellmate of Lovitt's testified that Lovitt had confessed. Lovitt did not take the stand. The cash register drawer was found at Lovitt's cousin's house, where Lovitt had admitted bringing it in his police statement. After 2 hours of deliberation, the jurors convicted him of first-degree murder and robbery. They later recommended that he be put to death. Mary Dicks, mother of the victim, took heart in the sentence, recalling her son as a quiet, reliable man who did not smoke or drink and had wedding plans. A single father who lived in Northeast Washington, he had been raising 2 boys whom a one-time girlfriend had left in his care years earlier. Lovitt "needs the electric chair," she said. "He gave Clayton the electric chair, and Clayton won't be back. Let him know what death is." Evidence Destroyed When Starr came to the case, Lovitt had been on death row for nearly 4 years. He had always maintained his innocence. His attorneys at Starr's firm won a new evidentiary hearing in 2002 but have not been able to persuade a court to throw out the death sentence or conviction. Now their arguments are in the final stages. Among their biggest concerns is a court clerk's decision in May 2001 -- against the warnings of two fellow clerks -- to discard nearly all evidence in Lovitt's case, in spite of his continuing appeals. "The fact that evidence would be destroyed where additional testing could be done is extraordinary and, frankly, outrageous," Starr said in an interview. The lack of evidence left Lovitt's attorneys with no way to do further DNA testing on the scissors that prosecutors identified as the murder weapon. At trial, experts said that the victim's DNA was identified on the scissors but that other DNA tests were inconclusive. "No one ever took apart the scissors, and we know from many other cases that criminalists often uncover important blood evidence in the screws or joints of scissors," said Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project in New York, who has worked on DNA-based appeals for scores of inmates and testified at Lovitt's 2002 hearing. DNA technology and training have become far more sophisticated since Lovitt's 1999 trial, Neufeld pointed out. To proceed with an execution in spite of missing evidence, he said, "constitutes a gross injustice." "I know no [other] case where the evidence has been lost or destroyed within 2 years of conviction," he said. Prosecutors have successfully argued that the destruction of the evidence was a mistake by a clerk and that there was no proof of "bad faith." The courts said it was not clear that the destroyed items were "potentially useful." "This case involves substantial evidence of Lovitt's guilt in the stabbing of an innocent person, and the jury had all of the facts when they considered the case," said Emily Lucier of the Virginia attorney general's office, which would not comment further on the case. Starr argued that the jury was kept in the dark on other important points, including a medical examiner's statement that the scissors were too short to have caused the victim's deep wounds. The jury also knew nothing of Lovitt's "horrific" childhood, Starr said. Juries often recommend life in prison -- rather than death -- when shown evidence of childhood abuse, he argued. "Every example in [Lovitt's] life was a bad example," Starr said. "Shouldn't a jury know that?" He added later: "As we all look back to the household where we grew up, most of us were loved and not abused." Reflecting on his first case involving the death penalty, he said: "This is a moral matter. This is a decision by citizens to send one of their fellow citizens to death." It takes only 1 juror, he said, to decide. "There but for the grace of God go I." A case cannot help but become personal when one man has been murdered and when another faces death, he said. At another point, Starr spoke of Lovitt's problems: "He needed to be drug-free, and now he is drug-free." In briefs, prosecutors argue that Lovitt's background was not as harsh as portrayed, and they say that defense attorneys did not sufficiently document the abuse they say happened. They also dispute that statements from the medical examiner were improperly withheld. Starr argued: "I think the death penalty is appropriate under very extreme circumstances, and this is a tragic situation . . . but this [murder] is not the kind of horrible, depraved, cruel, continual condition visited upon one or more persons that the death penalty should be reserved for." The latest briefs for both sides total 167 pages, all of which Lovitt has read on death row in southeastern Virginia. He was not available for an interview at this legal juncture, but a visitor from Notre Dame said that Lovitt reads everything from novels by John Grisham to books on spirituality. Described as talkative and personable, Lovitt, now 41, is barber to many of the other men on death row. Since Lovitt arrived 5 years ago, 19 men have been executed in Virginia. Last year, Lovitt made it beyond his 1st scheduled execution date. If the appeals court rules against him in the coming months, another execution date probably will be set. If other unfavorable rulings follow, attorneys said, he could be dead by summer. (source: Washington Post) USA: Rules on executions getting tougher What constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment?" In the eyes of the U.S. Supreme Court it would be wrong to execute a person under 18 years of age convicted of capital punishment. On March 2, by a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court banned capital punishment for any person under 18 years of age. The Supreme Court outlawed executions in 1988 for juveniles who were 15 and younger when they committed capital felony muder. Such a case occurred in Stuttgart, Ark. This reporter witnessed the aftermath of capital murder charges filed in 2001 against a 14-year-old youth who had gunned down a lieutenant colonel at the home of the ROTC advisor's mother's home. The case languished in the court system until he was past the age of 16 and was utlimately convicted in 2004 of manslaughter. Gray Burdick, assistant district attorney, expressed his disappointment Friday with the Supreme Court decision. "Years ago (1988) the Supreme Court drew an imaginary line at 16 and said no person under that age could be put death," Burdick said. Burdick said the high court is slowly "eroding the justice system," adding that "a large number of the most heinous crimes being committed today by juveniles. "With this decision, the Supreme Court has again put an imaginary line at 18 and said no person under 18 may be executed," Burdick said. What's next? "We may well see the end of capital punishment in this country," Burdick said. Burdick said he worked the murder case that led to the 2004 execution of Jesse Darrell Williams at Parchman. "He was found guilty by a jury of 12 of raping, torturing and causing fatal injuries to a 15-year-old girl," Burdick said. Both the Mississippi Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Williams' appeals. "Law enforcement, prosecutors and judges are not the ones who sentence defendants to death," Burdick said. "A jury of 12 people must reach an unanimous decision before the capital punishment can be rendered," Burdick said. Coahoma County Sheriff Andrew Thompson makes no distinction for race, color, creed or social standing when it comes to the commission of a felony. Thompson has stated on numerous occasions a person of sound mind who commits the premeditated act of taking a person's life while committing another felony, such as rape or robbery, and is convicted should pay the consequences. "The sentence should fit the crime," Thompson said. "Teenagers today are more street wise than ever and when one knowingly commits murder while involved in another felony, the death penalty has been the ultimate form of punishment," Thompson said. Thompson was obviously not pleased with the Supreme Court decision. Thompson has been in law enforcement for four decades including service at the Mississippi Department of Corrections in Parchman, as a Coahoma County deputy and 18 years as sheriff. Capt. Danny Hill, investigator with the Clarksdale Police Department and a law enforcement officer for some 28 years, is likewise dismayed by the court decision. "If this is national in scope I'm not sure how we could overturn the court's decision," Hill said. A constitutional amendment? "If that's what it would take I'm sure there are many Americans who would favor such a law," Hill said. Hill said no two homicide cases are exactly alike. "Every murder should be handled on a case-by-case basis," Hill said. The March 2 court ruling was made in reference to a Missouri case involving Christopher Roper, who was 17 when he murdered a woman in 1994. Amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs filed on behalf of Roper in 2003 included those by President Jimmy Carter, the American Medical Association, the European Union, and the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, all of whom oppose capital punishment of a juvenile. Currently, there are 72 inmates on death rows, including 5 in Mississippi, who were juveniles when they committed their crimes, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Utah have allowed the execution of juveniles, but do not have any on their death rows. Texas, which has been leading the nation in the number of executions of all ages, has 29 who were juveniles at the time of their criminal act. A fall 2001 National Opinion Research Center poll found that while 61 % of the respondents favored the death penalty in general, only 34 % supported the execution of juvenile offenders. Jose Simo, a member of Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood's staff, said Friday Hood contended that persons under 18, i.e. 16 and 17, could "pose as much of a threat to another's life as a person 18 or older." However, "It's the law of the land and we will have to abide by it," Simo said. The 5 Mississippi inmates who are on death row for murders they committed as juveniles will be resentenced to life without parole, Simo said. "That could be a fate worse than death," Simo said. ALABAMA: Anti-Abortion Extremist Eric Rudolph Could Face Death Penalty if Convicted US District Court Judge C Lynwood Smith ruled that anti-abortion extremist Eric Robert Rudolph could be tried under a federal arson law, which would allow him to face the death penalty if convicted. According to the Associated Press, the defense attorneys pushed for Rudolph to be tried under the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act - which prohibits not only violence against abortion providers, clinic staff, patients, and volunteers, but also threats of violence - and only carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Rudolph is facing charges of the 1998 bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama womens health clinic, which killed an off-duty police officer and severely maimed a nurse. Smith also recently set back the date for preliminary jury selection, from March 23 to April 6, the Associated Press reports. This could also delay opening arguments, which are set for the end of May. Rudolph is currently being held in solitary confinement in the Jefferson County jail in Alabama. Rudolph is also accused of bombing an Atlanta-area abortion clinic in 1997, a lesbian and gay nightclub in Atlanta, and the Atlanta Olympic Park in 1996, which killed one person and injured 111 others. Rudolph was captured last May in North Carolina after eluding authorities for 5 years. He was placed on the FBIs 10 Most Wanted list in 1998 after the Birmingham clinic bombing. (source: Ms. Magazine)
