March 15 PENNSYLVANIA: URGENT ACTION APPEAL ---------------------------------- 15 March 2005 UA 64/05 Death penalty / Legal concern USA (Pennsylvania): Kathy MacClellan (f), aged 70 Prosecutors in Pennsylvania have announced their intention to seek the death penalty against Kathy MacClellan for a crime she is alleged to have committed last month. Kathy MacClellan is 70 years old: international law prohibits the imposition of the death penalty on anyone who was over 70 at the time of the crime. Kathy MacClellan has been charged with the murder of her 84- year-old neighbor, Marguerite Eyer, who was found on 7 February in her home in the town of Easton, in Northampton County, eastern Pennsylvania. She died shortly afterwards in hospital. She had been bludgeoned about the head. The prosecution has alleged that she was robbed. No date has yet been set for Kathy MacClellan's trial. On 12 March, the Northampton County District Attorney's Office filed notice of their intention to seek the death penalty against her. It is considered likely that questions surrounding her mental health will be an issue in the case. The American Convention on Human Rights prohibits the use of the death penalty against anyone who was over 70 years old at the time of the crime. The USA has not ratified the Convention, but signed it in 1977. By becoming a signatory, the USA obliged itself under international law not to do anything to undermine the treaty pending its decision on whether to ratify it. BACKGROUND INFORMATION Amnesty International opposes the death penalty unconditionally. The death penalty is a symptom of a culture of violence, not a solution to it. This is an outdated punishment, abolished in law or practice in 118 countries. A small number of countries, including the USA, account for the vast majority of executions. In China, which accounts for the most executions each year, there is no upper age limit for application of the death penalty. For example, Wei Youde was sentenced to death in Hunan Province in 2002 for a murder committed when he was 87 years old. On appeal in 2004, Wei Youde's sentence was commuted. Since the United States resumed executions in 1977, 944 men and 10 women have been put to death in its execution chambers. The US capital justice system is marked by arbitrariness, discrimination and error, and US authorities have frequently violated international standards in their pursuit of judicial killing of prisoners including child offenders, the mentally impaired, the inadequately represented, people whose guilt remained in doubt, and foreign nationals denied their consular rights. In 2002, in Atkins v. Virginia, the US Supreme Court outlawed the execution of offenders with mental retardation. Earlier this month, in Roper v. Simmons, the Court did the same thing in the case of offenders who were under 18 at the time of the crime. That ruling brought the USA finally into line with a global consensus prohibiting the death penalty for the crimes of children. Article 4.5 of the American Convention on Human Rights states: ''Capital punishment shall not be imposed upon persons who, at the time the crime was committed, were under 18 years of age or over 70 years of a...@. The USA signed the American Convention on Human Rights on 1 June 1977. By becoming a signatory, the USA bound itself not to undermine the treaty's provisions. Under Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1979), AA State is obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty when: (a) it has signed the treaty...until it shall have made its intention clear not to become a party to the treaty...@. No one who was over 70 at the time of the crime has been executed in the USA since 1977. In 1991, Ray Copeland was sentenced to death in Missouri for a crime committed when he was 71 years old. He died two years later in prison. Amnesty International is not aware of any other person being sentenced to death in the USA since 1977 who was over 70 years old at the time of the crime. In January 2002, a Texas county prosecutor announced his intention to seek the death penalty against Melvin Hale, charged with a murder committed two years earlier when he was 72 years old (see UA 08/02, AMR 51/001/2002, http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engamr510012002). In the event, a plea arrangement was reached under which Melvin Hale was sentenced to life imprisonment in return for a guilty plea. The oldest person currently on death row in the USA is believed to be Viva Leroy Nash who is 89 years old. He was sentenced to death in Arizona in 1983 for a crime committed in 1982 when he was aged 67. The oldest person put to death in the USA since executions resumed in 1977 was James Hubbard, who was 74 years old when he was put to death in Alabama on 5 August 2004. He was under 60 at the time of the crime. Two women over 60 at the time of execution have been put to death in the USA since 1977 - Betty Lou Beets who was 62 when she was put to death in Texas in February 2000, and Lois Nadean Smith, 61 years old at the time of her execution in Oklahoma in December 2001. RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible in your own words: - expressing sympathy for the family and friends of Marguerite Eyer, explaining that you are not seeking to excuse the manner of her death or to minimize the suffering caused; - explaining that you are not seeking to make any comment about the guilt or innocence of Kathy MacClellan, but simply to express concern about Northampton County's intention to seek the death penalty against her; - pointing out that the pursuit of the death penalty against a defendant who was over 70 years old at the time of the crime violates international law; - calling on the prosecution to drop its pursuit of the death penalty in this case. APPEALS TO: Paula A. Roscioli First Deputy District Attorney Office of the District Attorney of Northampton County Government Center 669 Washington Street Easton, PA 18042 Fax: 1 610 559 3035 Salutation: Dear First Deputy District Attorney You may also send a brief personal letter of concern (not more than 250 words) to: Letters to the Editor, The Express-Times 30 N. 4th Street P.O. Box 391 Easton, PA 18044-0391 Email, via website: http://penn.nj.com/expresstimes/submit.html Fax: 1 610 258 7130 PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots movement that promotes and defends human rights. This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including contact information and stop action date (if applicable). Thank you for your help with this appeal. Urgent Action Network Amnesty International USA PO Box 1270 Nederland CO 80466-1270 Email: [email protected] http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/ Phone: 303 258 1170 Fax: 303 258 7881 ---------------------------------- END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL *************************************** Death penalty: Use it or lose it A big topic in the news these days is the "death penalty." The Supreme Court just made a significant change to it for teens convicted of murder. But does the death sentence have any relevance in Pennsylvania? I don't think so. A man named Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on death row for more 20 years. Some states use this sentence regularly while states like Pennsylvania hardly ever. Is it better to sentence a person to life in prison, or have him sit on death row for what seems like forever? By the look of current crime statistics, it is not a deterrent, so why do we keep hearing so much about it? As Shakespeare said, it's "much ado about nothing." Joseph Hamilton -- Philadelphia (source: Letter to the Editor, Philadelphia Daily News) CALIFORNIA: Peterson defense argues prosecution withheld evidence Scott Peterson should receive a new trial in his nationally watched murder case because prosecutors withheld evidence that might have exonerated him of the December 2002 killings of his wife, Laci, and their unborn child, defense attorneys argued. In documents unsealed today in Redwood City, the defense also claimed that there wasn't enough evidence to support the verdicts, jurors had gone beyond what they were allowed to consider during deliberations and the judge had made several legal errors. Prosecutors filed a response to the defense motion for a new trial, calling all the claims unfounded or irrelevant. Both sides are likely to make oral arguments Wednesday, when Peterson, 32, is scheduled to be sentenced. The same jury that convicted him recommended in December that he be put to death. Judge Alfred Delucchi, who presided over the case, is expected to impose that sentence if he doesn't grant Peterson a new trial. In the motion they filed Feb. 25, defense attorneys Mark Geragos and Pat Harris maintained that the prosecution had failed to disclose information about a phone call made by a California prisoner to his brother that the defense says implicated the inmate in a December 2002 burglary at the home of a next-door neighbor of the Petersons in Modesto. During the conversation from a state prison near Riverside, the inmate told his brother that Laci Peterson had confronted him while he was breaking into the home and that he had threatened her, the defense motion said. Geragos and Harris said the prosecution had known about the call but hadn't told the defense, as required by law. The defense found out only after prosecutors passed along a letter 6 to 8 weeks before the end of Peterson's six-month-plus trial, in which a tipster said he had information about Laci Peterson's disappearance, the motion said. After interviewing the person, the lawyers learned of the brothers' names and of their telephone conversation, but by then the trial was over, the defense said. "If the evidence were presented at a retrial, it is highly probable a different result would have occurred," the defense attorneys wrote in their motion. "One of the often-repeated phrases during the trial was that there was no alternative theory as to what happened to Laci Peterson. ... (The burglary tip) presents a plausible explanation as to who could have murdered Laci Peterson." Prosecutors Dave Harris, Rick Distaso and Birgit Fladager argued there is no new evidence that the Peterson defense team can use. They say they turned over information about the next-door burglary to the defense a year before opening statements in the trial. The prosecution also argued that the defense had only 3rd-hand information about the brothers' conversation, which wouldn't be admissible in court. "The only 'claimed' witness has refused to talk to the defense (probably because he was exaggerating his knowledge to gain some importance for his incarcerated brother)," according to the prosecution's papers. The defense says that in addition to the newly discovered information, Peterson deserves a new trial because the jury improperly conducted its own experiment during deliberations. The experiment involved the boat that prosecutors say Peterson used to dump his wife's body in San Francisco Bay. Some jurors who examined the 14-foot aluminum boat tried to rock it and jumped up and down in it, apparently to test the defense's position that Peterson would have capsized it had he tried to stand up and drop a body overboard. Defense attorneys say Delucchi should have let them display their own videotaped experiment with the boat, which apparently showed it flipping over in the water. Geragos and Harris also argue that Delucchi erred when he removed two jurors from the case and should have declared a mistrial "when it became clear that deliberations were being influenced by matters outside the evidence presented in court." The defense lists various other errors they believe the judge made, including instructing the jurors that they could vote for second-degree murder when there was no evidence for it. 1st-degree murder, of which Peterson was convicted in the death of his wife, requires premeditation; 2nd-degree, which the jury found in the killing of the couple's unborn child, has no such requirement. The defense also says Delucchi should have granted its request to move the trial from Redwood City, for the same reason it was originally moved from Stanislaus County - extensive pretrial publicity that allegedly tainted the jury pool. Prosecutors say Geragos and Harris are simply rehashing arguments they made during the trial, which Delucchi rejected. They compared the defense to the "boy who cried wolf" for repeatedly accusing the prosecution of withholding evidence. "Since this is simply the same motion that the defendant made at trial," prosecutors wrote, "the court may in its discretion, deny it outright without additional consideration." (source: San Francisco Chronicle) OKLAHOMA----impending execution Slaughter Faces Execution For 1991 Slayings----Death Row Inmate Maintains Claims Of Innocence A Guthrie man convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend and their 11-month-old baby in 1991 is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Jimmy Ray Slaughter, 57, was convicted in 1994 of shooting, stabbing and mutilating Melody Wuertz, 29, and fatally shooting their daughter, Jessica, in Edmond. Wuertz was shot once in the head and once in the spine. Her sexual organs were slashed and there was a symbol carved on her stomach. Her daughter was shot twice in the head. Prosecutors believe Slaughter, angered over a paternity lawsuit, disabled Melody Wuertz with the shot to the spine and forced her to lie paralyzed and conscious as he murdered her daughter. "Jimmy Ray Slaughter is a diabolically evil man who, in my view, seeks mercy for something for which he will not seek forgiveness," said Oklahoma County District Attorney Wes Lane, who helped prosecute Slaughter. "The evidence against him was overwhelming, and the act was despicable, so, sadly, he deserves what he's going to be receiving." Slaughter's attorneys filed several appeals in the case, including one that was denied Monday by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. His final appeal with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals was denied Thursday. Norman attorney Robert Jackson said new DNA evidence conducted on a hair found on one of the victims doesn't connect Slaughter with the crimes, a theory that prosecutors argued during Slaughter's original trial. Jackson also disputes an analysis of bullets found in the victims that he says were linked to Slaughter through an outdated technology called comparative bullet lead analysis. Since his conviction, Slaughter has maintained his innocence. Slaughter is expected to be moved Tuesday morning to a special cell located next to the execution chamber, where he'll receive his last meal at about noon. (source: Associated Press) ***************** Man works to bring victim's families closer to those who committed crimes He started out as a death penalty opponent. He still is, but he no longer tries to get people to change their minds about the issue. Instead, he just tries to get them to communicate. "I want to try to help the families of victims meet the families of offenders," Denis Costello said. "I've kind of changed my objective as it were." Costello, a native of Dublin, Ireland, has been coming to the United States for 10 years. "I don't get over as much as I'd like, but I get over every chance I can," he said. Why? "I just didn't think the death penalty was an appropriate punishment in modern democratic states," he said. "You always have the risk of executing an innocent man. If that's done, there's no going back." One man on Oklahoma's death row that Costello thinks may be innocent is Jimmie Ray Slaughter, who is scheduled to be executed Tuesday. Slaughter, 57, was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend, Melody Wuertz, and their not quite 1-year-old daughter, Jessica Wuertz. Slaughter says he didn't commit the crime; that he was shopping with his wife and daughters in Topeka, Kan., when the 2 were killed. Prosecutors say he drove from Fort Riley, Kan., to Edmond, killed the mother and child and drove back to Topeka in an attempt to establish an alibi. "The whole case was largely circumstantial," Costello said. "You shouldn't execute someone if there is even the shadow of a doubt, and in my mind there is." But 12 jurors said Slaughter was guilty and state and federal appeals courts have upheld his conviction and death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his case, paving the way for his scheduled execution. Basically, prosecutors contend Slaughter drove approximately four and one-half hours, scaled a six-foot stockade-type fence and murdered Melody and Jessica Wuertz between 10 a.m. and noon on July 2, 1991, before driving back to Kansas and meeting his wife and children at a Dillard's store at 5 p.m. - from which he was able to produce a time-stamped receipt. Dennis Dill, a former Edmond police detective, says the case was hampered from the start by investigators who weren't willing to look at other possible suspects. Another investigator says Dill is wrong, that the case was thoroughly investigated and Slaughter was the killer. Prosecutors contend that at the time of the murders, Slaughter commonly went by his middle name, Ray, and that Jessica had been named after him. An R carved into Melody Wuertz's abdomen looked much like an R on a knife sheath of Slaughter's, according to Assistant Attorney General Seth Branham. So what makes Costello think the inmate is innocent? "I've been writing to him for two years," Costello said. "I believe him." Although he initially came to the U.S. to protest the death penalty overall, Costello eventually came to believe he should be doing something else. "Now I kind of operate on my own. I want to try to get the victims' families and the offenders' families talking. "That's the only way they'll ever truly understand each other. I'm trying to be a conciliator." The issue of the death penalty is always there, he said, adding that he's found when people begin to talk they often find they have a common bond - whether they are family members of victims or perpetrators. "I don't try to persuade people one way or the other," Costello said. "I just want to get them talking. I think you have to meet face to face and hear someone's pain. Otherwise you don't really understand." (source: McAlester News-Capital) INDIANA: Losing a sister----Aftermath of a killing spree I woke up this morning, March 10, to a beautiful sunrise. The sun was bright and clear, and I thanked God I was viewing it. I then remembered the passage that I had read at the prayer service for my family, "One day at a time... this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past for it is gone, and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering." I was then saddened by the thought that there was a father who had just lost his son and sisters who had just lost their brother. It was a strange feeling, but I realized that what I had said for years was absolutely true. I did not hate Donald Wallace, but I hated the crime he committed and despised the situation he had caused. I was angry about his years of media coverage and antics. I felt it completely unfair the sorrow, agony and pain that was placed on so many hearts. Am I a believer in the death penalty? No. Am I convinced the death penalty is wrong? No. I am convinced that heinous crimes should have quick and speedy punishment. The crime and loss of loved ones is enough agony to bear, much less the constant reminders of the criminal's appeals, protests and constant disapproval of his rights and living conditions. I am convinced that when a person has been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the rights of the criminal should be forever taken away. There was never any doubt that this person was guilty. He not only was sentenced in a court of law but confessed to the brutal crime. The appeals should have ceased; the rights should have ceased. It is not inhumane to receive meals, medical attention, dental visits, counseling, clean clothes, warm surroundings and an education. When a prisoner has been sentenced to incarceration, it is not permission for him to take the podium and protest for additional rights, more comfortable living conditions. It is a time to reflect on the heinous crime he has committed. I find it hard to believe anyone on death row could find rehabilitation, nor could I imagine that person back on the streets. I heard Donald Wallace talk of his belief in God and in not harming anyone. But his track record was not good before this crime and certainly did not improve with the killing of 4 innocent people. Do I have the answers? No, I am just a victim who has endured too much pain and suffering and will never find closure in this man's death. But I will find closure in the memories of my family. I am by no means the only victim of violent crime. There are thousands and thousands of others. We do have one voice, however, and that voice is change. I ask the governor, the state of Indiana and victims of violent crime to speak out. I also ask advocates for and against the death penalty to speak out. Instead of the millions spent on criminals, there should be a time limit on appeals; there should be a final decision if the death penalty should be carried out or not enforced; there should be a victims' relief program without an enormous set of rules to even qualify; there should be years of support for victims who endure anger, suffering, sadness and financial distress. Victims now receive nothing. If they need grief counseling, it is out of their own pockets. So are the expenses of burying loved ones. The burden for the cost of the penal system and any victims' relief should come from a self-sustaining correctional process. There should be a reasonable expectation that incarcerated criminals be sufficiently productive to support the correctional facility, as well as provide relief to the victims. This would end the victims' and the taxpayers' burden of supporting criminals in prison. Perhaps it would be a greater deterrent to crime if criminals knew they would be forced to work and not be allowed to keep money they had earned. It should always be the victims first and the crime remembered rather than the perpetrator. (source: Indianapolis Star----Diana Harrington, of PeeWee Valley, Ky., sent a longer version of this letter to Gov. Mitch Daniels and members of the news media. The letter also was signed by her husband, Ted.)
