March 16 TEXAS: Luckiest' killer in Texas sees a future now----Supreme Court decision adds impetus to debate on adding life without parole sentence in Texas Convicted killer Johnnie Bernal considers himself a lucky man. When the U.S. Supreme Court 2 weeks ago banned the execution of convicts who committed their crimes before they turned 18, the former Houston gangbanger's life was spared. Bernal was just 1 day short of his 18th birthday the night college student Lee Dilley, 19, was gunned down during a botched robbery. "I made it by one day, I know," Bernal, now 28, said from an interview cell just off death row at the Polunsky Unit outside Livingston, where he will soon depart for a regular prison - and the possibility of parole after he serves 40 years. "Now, my focus is going to be on my appeal, on getting out - completely out." Just as Bernal has become a national poster boy for critics of the high court's decision, he is a case study of what promises to be Texas' next hot-button issue: Whether the Legislature should enact a law allowing for life without parole to keep underage capital killers from one day becoming eligible to leave prison. That debate begins Tuesday, when the Senate Criminal Justice Committee takes up Senate Bill 60, which would add life without parole as a 3rd sentencing alternative for capital crimes. At present, juries must decide between execution and life with the possibility of parole. "Is there a danger to the public? Yes. Has this (Supreme Court) decision left a loophole in our law? Yes," said state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, a self-proclaimed supporter of the death penalty and sponsor of SB 60, his 3rd try to pass life without parole in as many legislative sessions. 4 related bills are pending in the Texas House, including one that would keep the choices to 2: death and life without parole. Lucio's bill is the 1st to get a public hearing, a step that Sen. John Whitmire, the chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, says promises to be "one of the most serious issues debated this session." Whether it has the votes to pass into law this session is far from certain. In all, the high court's decision freed Bernal and 28 other convicted killers from Texas' death row, including Robert Springsteen IV, who was convicted in Austin's infamous 1991 yogurt shop murders. For Lucio and other supporters, the issue is simple: 47 other states lock up their most heinous killers without the chance of ever getting out. Only Texas, Alaska and New Mexico do not. In the past, big-city prosecutors and victims' rights groups have steadfastly opposed the change, arguing that it will stack the legal deck in favor of a life term. Ironically, proponents of the change argue much the same position. "There's no finality in all this unless there's an execution," said Dianne Clements of the Houston-based victims' advocacy group Justice for All. Statistical studies in other states that have enacted life without parole show no decrease in death sentencing rates. Death penalty opponents insist that death penalty decisions have declined as news of DNA evidence and wrongful convictions have made jurors more cautious. Despite that, Lucio warns that inaction this year could pose a new risk. "The way it is now, with the Supreme Court ruling in effect, someone on death row could eventually walk out of prison," Lucio said. "That shouldn't happen." Freedom is exactly what Bernal hopes for. "My goal is one day to get out of here," he said. "I want to get into school, to get my GED, to get married, to make something of myself ? maybe, someday." On Friday, Aug. 19, 1994, Bernal was thinking about none of the such. The tall, quiet 10th-grade dropout, known as the Puppet by the neighborhood gang he hung out with, the Northwest Mafia, spent the evening cruising Northwest Houston with 4 friends, sniffing paint and looking for girls. Shortly after midnight, their white-topped blue Buick Regal pulled up alongside three boys and a girl standing outside Nick's Drive-In, a neighborhood ice house. "We were just going to mess with them, that's all," Bernal said. In an instant, an occupant of the car pointed a pistol out the window and demanded their money. The girl ran, then the boys. 4 shots rang out, one hitting Dilley's left earlobe, another puncturing his back and piercing his heart. He died instantly. Bernal went home, where Houston police found him 12 days later, a pistol and bullets in his nightstand drawer. Ballistics tests introduced at his trial linked the gun to the murder. Bernal was found guilty and sentenced to death, one of a spate of young killers sent to death row beginning in the mid-1990s as drug- and gang-related crimes swept the state. Bernal insists that he is innocent, that one of his friends in the back seat, a 14-year-old boy, leaned across him with a pistol and fired the fatal shots. That youth, who was on probation for weapons possession and evading arrest, was never charged in the attack. Neither were 2 others. The driver is serving a 35-year sentence for aggravated robbery. In its decision, the Supreme Court drew a legal line at age 18 between criminals who are too young to fully comprehend their actions and those who are. Bernal says that played a role in his case. "I was just a kid. I didn't know. I was hanging with the wrong crowd," he said. But in nearly 10 years on death row, Bernal added, "I've grown up. . .. I've found God. . . . I pray every day that (Lee Dilley) is in peace. I can never take back what happened, even though I wish I could." Such words ring hollow to victims' survivors, Texans who have been among the most vocal in opposition to life without parole. "The victims need to be heard," said Paula Kurland, a longtime advocate from Humble whose daughter, Mitzi Johnson Nalley, 21, was stabbed to death in a brutal 1986 attack at a North Austin apartment that also killed Nalley's roommate, Kelly Joan Farquhar, and seriously injured a friend who tried to come to her assistance. Jonathan Nobles was executed in 1998 for the crimes. Kurland is among those who will be at today's hearing, to testify in favor of Lucio's bill. "It would be truth in sentencing," Kurland said. "People should know that life is life. Sometimes lifeis a death sentence, because (offenders) have to live with their crime for the rest of their life." (source: Austin American-Statesman) ILLINOIS: House approves requiring certainty before imposing death penalty Judges and juries would have to be absolutely certain of a person's guilt before imposing the death penalty in a bill that cleared the Illinois House today. People on both sides of the capital punishment debate support it and it passed 66-to-49. It now moves to the Senate. House Republican Leader Tom Cross of Oswego hopes his measure will encourage Governor Rod Blagojevich to lift the state's moratorium on capital punishment by ensuring no one is mistakenly condemned. Then-Governor George Ryan halted executions in 2000 because of improper convictions. He cleared death row in 2003 by commuting the sentences of 167 inmates and pardoning 4 others. Opponents say the measure sets different standards for finding a defendant guilty, then deciding whether to execute him. (The bill is HB2704. On the Net: http://www.ilga.gov) (source: Associated Press) NEBRASKA: Chambers again takes aim at death penalty For nearly a quarter century, Ernie Chambers has waged a seemingly quixotic war against Nebraska's death penalty. Each year since 1973, the Omaha lawmaker and only black member of the Legislature, has introduced a bill to abolish capital punishment. He vehemently argues, among other things, that capital punishment is unfairly applied - especially against minorities. He has known few victories. More Session 2005 stories The closest he came to having the law changed was in 1979, when his bill passed on a 26-22 vote but was vetoed by then-Gov. Charley Thone. 20 years later, he teamed with Sen. Kermit Brashear of Omaha, who tweaked Chambers' measure to instead call for a moratorium on executions while the Legislature studied whether the death penalty is fairly applied. The bill was vetoed by then-Gov. Mike Johanns, but lawmakers later went on with the study. Undaunted, Chambers introduced a ban (LB760) again this year, which he presented to the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. "This is something that needs to be done," Chambers said. "As long as I'm in the Legislature, I'm going to fight to try to bring that about." In the published description of his bill, Chambers says: "The experience of this state with the death penalty has been fraught with errors, frustration and delay due to constitutional mistakes in the statutes, defective legal procedures and ... lack of uniformity in application and inordinately heavy expenditures of money and time." That study said that the death penalty is not being handed down uniformly. The study examined 177 murder cases since 1973 in which the accused was eligible for the death sentence, and in particular 27 people who were sentenced to death. Of those 27, 14 had circumstances that were similar to others who received the death penalty, but 13 of them did not. When compared to all 177 death-eligible cases, only 6 of the 27 sentences were consistent with what others received. Chambers said he is buoyed by several recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court that have narrowed how the death-penalty can be applied. "It shows that the support for it is eroding as a more rational view is slowly exerting itself," Chambers said. Another bill (LB526) discussed Wednesday was introduced by Sen. Phil Erdman of Bayard. It would change Nebraska's method of execution to lethal injection. 38 states and the federal government have the death penalty. Nebraska is the only state left that uses the electric chair as its sole means of execution. Many death-penalty supporters fear that could lead a court to rule that the chair is cruel and unusual punishment, leaving the state without a method of execution. The Nebraska Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a challenge to the electric chair in May brought by death-row inmate Carey Dean Moore. "And in the future, we expect similar challenges in most, if not all, potential capital cases," said Nebraska Solicitor General J. Kirk Brown. In 2003, U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon of Omaha vacated the death sentence of Charles Jess Palmer for a 1979 murder in Grand Island. In doing so, Bataillon cited a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that said juries, not judges, must decide if a crime merits the death penalty. At the end of his order, Bataillon said he had been prepared to rule the use of the electric chair as cruel and unusual punishment. 3 men have been put to death since Nebraska resumed executions in 1994 after a 35-year hiatus - Harold Otey, Robert Williams and John Joubert. 9 men now sit on Nebraska's death row. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: San Quentin is Scott Peterson's new home They can hear the waves lapping along the shore. But most inmates on San Quentin's death row rarely catch a glimpse of the San Francisco Bay. And that may be just fine with Scott Peterson, who was sentenced to death Wednesday for murdering his pregnant wife and dumping her body into the bay near the Berkeley Marina - about 10 miles, as the crow flies, from where he'll likely spend the rest of his life. Now that Peterson has become the 644th prisoner awaiting death in San Quentin's execution chamber, county officials were eager to transfer him to the state prison about 20 miles north of San Francisco. He could be moved as early as Wednesday afternoon and most likely no later than Friday, San Mateo Sheriff's Lt. Lisa Williams said. Peterson will be processed just like any other inmate, according to Corrections Department spokeswoman Terry Thornton. After he's strip-searched, he'll get a shower, a haircut and state-issued clothing. He'll be photographed and assigned a Department of Corrections identification number. Then, a counselor will review his criminal, educational, medical and psychological histories to properly classify the 32-year-old former fertilizer salesman, a process that could take several weeks. "Grade B" prisoners, deemed a threat to themselves or others, get limited privileges - just 10 hours a week of outdoor exercise, alone in a small cage. "From what I hear, he hasn't given the staff (at the jail in Redwood City) any problems," Thornton said, so this classification may be unlikely for Peterson. "Grade A" inmates are allowed to spend five hours of every day outside in a common yard, where they can exercise, play chess and basketball. They get offered showers three times a week. They also may keep a television, which they pay for themselves, in their cell, they receive mail, phone calls and visitors. They also may attend religious services regularly. Almost all the state's condemned prisoners are housed at San Quentin; there are also 15 condemned women at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla. San Quentin also houses 5,300 other prisoners, but they don't interact at all with the condemned inmates. Death row, built in 1934 and designed to handle 68 inmates, is actually 3 buildings. In the original death row, now reserved for the most senior and well-behaved men, inmates walk around a small common area secured by bars and doors that included such amenities as a tiled shower room. In one of the makeshift death rows, a building known as East Block where Peterson will most likely live - cells are stacked in tiers fronted by narrow walkways that can't be used as common areas, so inmates are always locked in their 5-by-9-foot cells, except when they're outside. There is no shower room, so two regular cells on each tier have been converted into showers. Plastic sheeting taped to the bars keeps most of the water from spraying onto the tiers below, but a steady stream of water slides down nonetheless. A new $220 million death row has been proposed. It would hold 1,000 men and replace the current patchwork of dilapidated - and in some cases near-antique - facilities with a modern, security conscious design. But given the way the courts work in California, there's no telling whether Peterson will ever recieve that lethal injection. Most deaths on death row in California happen as a result of natural causes, or at the hands of other inmates. Peterson will likely sit for more than 5 years before he is appointed an attorney for his 1st, mandatory appeal to the California Supreme Court. Of the 38 states with the death penalty, California moves the slowest toward executions. A big reason for the delays is that there are too many inmates with too few lawyers willing to volunteer for the relatively low-paying job. A condemned Peterson would join about 120 others who do not yet have lawyers. And even when an attorney is appointed, there are no deadlines for California's high court to act. (source: Associated Press)
