April 19 MISSOURI: Attorney's heroism saved a life Forgive Joe Amrine for missing last week's meeting of Move Up. The former death-row inmate was to have spoken at Move Up's monthly crime-prevention meeting last Tuesday. Instead, he was tied up speaking before the United Nations in Geneva. Amrine addressed the U.N. Human Rights Committee on a subject he possesses strong opinions on: whether the United Nations should adopt a resolution calling for the abolition of the death penalty. Amrine's stand-in before Move Up was his attorney, Sean O'Brien of the Public Interest Litigation Clinic. O'Brien is a superstar in the legal world right now. He's our version of Barry Scheck and Johnnie Cochran put together. Twice he has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Amrine was freed last year after 17 years on death row. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1986 for the stabbing death of fellow Missouri State Penitentiary inmate Gary Barber. The convictions came largely from the testimony of 3 inmates who later admitted they lied - one to deflect suspicion from himself, the 2 others in exchange for breaks. A DNA test on blood on Amrine's shirt was a key to his exoneration. The United Nations is exploring whether inherent torture is associated with the death penalty and whether the problems should lead to its suspension. "The United States is the only Western democracy that has the death penalty," O'Brien said. "We're the only NATO country with the death penalty. We're the only democracy in the world that now has a death penalty. And it's creating some friction among our allies." The protocol of taking one death-row inmate each Tuesday from his cell and then placing him in a death watch cell is just wrong. "Joe would always breathe a sigh of relief when it wasn't him," O'Brien said. "But he'd immediately feel guilty because that meant a friend was about to be executed. You can't hear Joe tell that part of the story and not feel there's an inherent element of torture to it." O'Brien cited a few facts. More than 200 prisoners have been exonerated by DNA testing since it began. And since the nation resumed executions in 1978, 117 prisoners have been released from death row as a result of evidence showing innocence. Amrine was No. 111. Only 16 of the 117 prisoners freed from death row were exonerated as a result of DNA. And while 117 have gone free, over the same period 1,100 death-row inmates have been executed. DNA testing has revealed serious problems with the criminal justice system. "But DNA is not a panacea," O'Brien said. "Not every crime can be solved with DNA evidence. Not every guilty person can be nailed with DNA. And not every innocent person can be exonerated with DNA." As he walked out, I realized we had seen a hero. Since 1998, O'Brien's agency has represented Amrine pro bono, picking up the $95,000 tab. O'Brien revealed that James B. Nutter, a local mortgage broker, also helped defray some expenses. Let's be frank. Some people couldn't care less about a man on death row accused of killing another inmate. O'Brien cared. He cared enough to seek the truth and use everything in his legal arsenal to persuade a stubborn system to see Amrine's innocence. People like O'Brien who fight the uphill battle for justice and win in spite of the odds deserve serious accolades. (source : Kansas City Star) TENNESSEE: Questions raised about condemned man's guilt Paul Gregory House waits on Tennessee's death row, smoking cigarettes and watching TV from his wheelchair in the prison clinic, with no faith in his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. "I really don't care if they want to hear (my story) or not," said House, who is 43 and has advanced multiple sclerosis. "I have no confidence that they'll do anything about it." House was convicted of raping and killing his neighbor, Carolyn Muncey, 20 years ago, but his lawyers have raised serious questions that suggest he could be innocent. After the conviction, DNA evidence later proved House didn't rape Muncey, taking away the prosecution's motive for the killing. A medical examiner has said the bloodstains on House's clothing may have been planted. And neighbors say Muncey's abusive, alcoholic husband admitted to the crime. That's enough to create serious doubt in the minds of seven federal appellate court judges. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld House's conviction and death sentence by an 8-7 margin last year. Six judges concluded that House was innocent and the seventh said there should be a new trial. "I am convinced we are faced with a real-life murder mystery, an authentic 'who-done-it' where the wrong man may be executed," Judge Ronald Lee Gilman wrote in his dissent. "Was Carolyn Muncey killed by her down-the-road neighbor Paul House, or by her husband Hubert Muncey?" But the majority says House raised questions but failed to prove "that it's more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him in the light of the new evidence." "Despite his best efforts, the case against House remains strong," Judge Alan E. Norris wrote for the majority. Muncey's battered body was found July 14, 1985, partially concealed at the bottom of an embankment near her rural home in Luttrell, about 25 miles northeast of Knoxville. A friend of Muncey's husband said he saw House emerging from the area where the body was found. An autopsy said a violent blow to the head caused Muncey's death, and there were wounds to suggest that she had struggled with her attacker. "I didn't kill her," House said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "I haven't studied law books and all that crap. I'm not that interested in the law, not after I've been burned by it. I couldn't care less." House's public defender, Stephen Kissinger, said his client is an innocent man, wasting away on death row. "You're talking about a man who has clearly lost hope, and not without reason," Kissinger said. "Mr. House first tried to present this line of evidence back in state court 15, 16, 17 years ago." Kissinger expects the Supreme Court to rule on his petition sometime this year. The Death Penalty Information Center said 119 people have been exonerated on death row since 1973 and 44 since 1999, but none from Tennessee. There are about 3,400 people on death row nationwide. "Death sentences are down, executions are down, public support is down and I think DNA has played a big part of that," said DIPC Executive Director Richard Dieter. Beyond the DNA evidence that proved House's semen was not found on Muncey's nightgown, more questions surfaced during a 1999 habeas hearing in federal court. Neighbors of the Munceys - Penny Letner and her sister, Kathy Parker - testified that Muncey's husband, Hubert "Little Hube" Muncey Jr., confessed to killing his wife. Parker also said Little Hube regularly beat his wife. "He said they had been into an argument, and he slapped her, and she fell and hit her head and it killed her, and he didn't mean for it to happen," Parker said. The other physical evidence tying House to the crime - Muncey's bloodstains on a pair of his jeans - was challenged at the hearing by Assistant State Chief Medical Examiner Cleland Blake. He testified that the blood probably came from 4 test-tube samples collected during Muncey's autopsy. For Judge Gilbert S. Merritt, that was "strong evidence that the sample in the vials of blood were mishandled or possibly even tampered with and intentionally spilled on the jeans" between the time it was collected in Union County and sent to the FBI crime lab. Tennessee Attorney General Paul Summers has declined to comment on the case, but Paul Phillips, who prosecuted the original case in rural Union County, Tenn., said he's "personally satisfied" the true killer is on death row. "I have no doubt in my mind," he said. Even though House's semen wasn't on Muncey's gown as originally contended at trial, Phillips said he never gave it the weight it has received in post-conviction proceedings. "We know the semen stain on the nightgown wasn't his," he said. "Would that have made a difference with the jury? I don't think so. We never emphasized the semen stain. We proved that she fought her attacker, and she had a lot of injuries consistent with being strangled and being hit in the head." House admits he lied to investigators about his whereabouts on the night of the murder, and he had scratches and bruises on his hands and arms. He also had a previous conviction in Utah as a sex offender. The prosecution said House had lured Muncey out of her house the night she was killed by telling her that Little Hube had been in a car wreck. "That was an entirely believable scenario," Phillips said. "He was drinking bad at the time, and I'm sure she expected the damn fool to wreck." House, who had left his girlfriend's house for a short walk on the night Muncey was killed, returned there a beaten mess. Phillips says it was from the struggle when he fatally beat her. But House says he was attacked by 2 men who pulled up in a car. "I may have known the 2nd guy that got out of the passenger's side. It might have been Little Hube, I really don't know," House said. "I never saw their faces. I mean, it was dark as hell that night." For at least 1 judge, the evidence is simply not clear. "The evidence at House's state-court trial clearly pointed to him as the perpetrator," Judge Gilman said. "But the evidence at House's habeas corpus hearing before the district court just as clearly pointed to Hubert Muncey as the guilty party.... At the end of the day, I am in grave doubt as to which of the above 2 suspects murdered Carolyn Muncey. I am also puzzled as to why more of my colleagues are not similarly in doubt." House believes his situation is hopeless. He thinks the only way he will leave prison is after the state executes him. "They just want to kill me, whether they've got anything against me or not." (source: Associated Press) FLORIDA: Informant dropped as witness in murder case----Prosecutors in the 'Baby Lollipops' retrial won't use a jailhouse informant as a witness, saying Robin Lunceford `had her own agenda.' Miami-Dade County prosecutors on Monday dropped jailhouse informant Robin Lunceford as a witness in the retrial of the "Baby Lollipops" murder case -- though Lunceford could end up testifying for the defense instead. Assistant State Attorney Susan Dannelly told a judge she would not ask Lunceford to testify against accused killer Ana Maria Cardona after Lunceford left phone messages with the prosecutor saying she now refused to cooperate -- an attitude Lunceford echoed in interviews with The Herald last week. In the past few months, Lunceford -- a robbery suspect in jail since May -- has offered police and prosecutors information about Cardona and 3 other murder defendants she met while in custody. But Lunceford told The Herald that she plans to testify only against Geralyn Graham, the caregiver accused of killing missing foster child Rilya Wilson four years ago. Lunceford has said that Graham told her about smothering the child while Graham was serving time on fraud charges. Lunceford told The Herald that Dannelly offered her a plea bargain in exchange for her assistance in the Cardona case -- a claim Dannelly denied. Dannelly said she saved recorded phone messages in which Lunceford said they had made no deals. Nevertheless, the conflict has damaged Lunceford's value to prosecutors as a witness in the Cardona case. "It became apparent to me that Ms. Lunceford had her own agenda," Dannelly told Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Daryl Trawick. Cardona, 43, faces the death penalty for the 1990 beating death of her 3-year-old son, Lazaro Figueroa, whose body was found dumped on a Miami Beach road wearing a T-shirt patterned with lollipops. A jury sentenced Cardona to death in 1992, but the Florida Supreme Court overturned her conviction 10 years later, saying prosecutors failed to turn over crucial information to the defense. Cardona's lawyer, Edith Georgi, has asked for copies of Lunceford's phone messages to Dannelly to learn whether Lunceford said anything that could aid Cardona's defense. Trawick said he would review the tapes and decide if they should be released. Dannelly said Lunceford indicated in one message that she may be a witness in Cardona's defense. "We're certainly going to look into what's been going on here," Georgi said. In the Herald interview, Lunceford would not say exactly what information she had about Cardona. The 2 were housed near one another at Broward Correctional Institution, where Cardona was on Death Row and Lunceford was once under close supervision because she has a history of prison escapes. Lunceford did say she documented her encounters with Cardona in a chapter of a memoir she's been writing during her years in jail and prison. She says she's had the manuscript hidden so prosecutors can't find it. Lunceford has been placed in an isolated cell since she was revealed as the key witness in the Rilya Wilson case last month. She says she's been mistreated by corrections officers, and she's threatening to sue both the jail and the state attorney's office for "putting my life in danger." (source: Miami Herald) ******************* Fort Pierce killer's lawyer appeals death sentence with new evidence A Fort Pierce man sentenced to die for killing a Fort Pierce police officer in 1991 argued Monday his lawyer missed information that could have helped him avoid the death penalty. Billy Leon Kearse, 32, was convicted of first-degree murder for shooting police Sgt. Danny Parrish during a Jan. 18, 1991, traffic stop. Kearse was 18 and on probation when Parrish pulled him over for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. When Kearse couldn't produce a license, Parrish tried to arrest him. Kearse grabbed the 27-year-old police officer's gun and shot him 13 times, according to court records. A jury convicted Kearse and he was sentenced to death. In 1995, the Florida Supreme Court vacated Kearse's death sentence and ordered a new sentencing hearing. Kearse received a death sentence a 2nd time, and the state Supreme Court upheld the sentence in 2000. Kearse appealed to the Florida Supreme Court in 2000. Kearse and his Fort Lauderdale attorney, Paul Kalik of Capital Collateral Regional Counsel-South, are in Indian River County's circuit court this week, presenting retired Circuit Judge Marc Cianca with evidence they hope will lead to a new trial. Stuart attorney Robert Udell represented Kearse from the time of his arrest through his sentencing. Udell was questioned at length Monday about the research he did into Parrish's background before trial. Udell said he wrote a letter asking the Fort Pierce Police Department for copies of complaints made against Parrish and received copies of several filed by citizens between 1988 and 1990. "He'd get a little bit aggressive quicker than you would hope. Everybody said that," Udell said of the content of the citizens' complaints. Udell said he'd decided against using the complaints during trial for several reasons, including the reluctance of some complainants to testify and the chance that the jury would see them as people with grudges against law enforcement. "If you smear a victim, you'd better be able to pull it off," he said. Udell said he did not get a copy of Parrish's personnel file before trial, and saw it for the first time Monday. It contained employee evaluations showing Parrish had a tendency to become impatient with members of the public and was told he needed to improve the way he dealt with people, according to court testimony. Kalik asked whether the personnel file was something Udell could have presented as a mitigating factor at trial. Udell said it could've given the citizen complaints more weight with a jury. "If you're going to sell to a jury that Danny had been aggressive, it would've been helpful to show his own people were saying that," Udell said. When questioned by Assistant State Attorney Lawrence Mirman, Udell said he did not specifically ask for Parrish's personnel file. "Apparently I should've not limited my request to complaints. I've learned from that. You get what you ask for," Udell said. (source: Fort Pierce Tribune) ************************************ Inmate's death-row retrial bid is rejected -- William 'Tommy' Zeigler may have had his last chance to avoid his execution in '75 killings. A judge Monday rejected what could be the last chance for William "Tommy" Zeigler to avoid execution for the bloody Christmas Eve 1975 murders of his wife and three others at his Winter Garden furniture store. Orange Circuit Court Judge Reginald Whitehead denied Zeigler's request for a new trial, ruling that Zeigler failed to show that new DNA tests conducted last year on bloodstained evidence nearly 30 years old would have convinced Zeigler's 1976 jury that he was not guilty. "The court concludes that even if the alleged newly discovered evidence resulting from DNA testing had been admitted at trial, there is no reasonable probability that defendant would have been acquitted," Whitehead wrote in his 17-page ruling. Zeigler, 59, was convicted of killing his wife, Eunice; her parents, Virginia and Perry Edwards; and store customer Charlie Mays in what prosecutors said was a scheme to collect his wife's life insurance. Prosecutors said Zeigler killed Mays and then wounded himself in an effort to make it look as though the murders were committed by a gang of masked robbers who were terrorizing Central Florida. Zeigler has been on Florida's death row longer than all but seven of the state's 366 condemned prisoners, and Whitehead's ruling could open the door for his execution. In 1986, Zeigler came within 2 days of execution, but his case since has been mired in a series of appeals. Zeigler's attorney, John Houston Pope of New York, said Monday that he had not decided whether to appeal the ruling, but he said defense attorneys had no other legal challenges pending in the case. "We don't have any other current avenues, other than pursuing an appeal of this order," Pope said. In December, when Zeigler was in Orlando for a two-day evidentiary hearing before Whitehead, he acknowledged that his legal options to block execution were nearly exhausted, and he said he expected to be exonerated or executed this year. "I would say probably the next year, it would be one way or the other," Zeigler said at the Orange County Jail. In the December hearing, Pope argued that the DNA tests cast doubt on the prosecution's claim that Zeigler held Perry Edwards in a headlock while he bashed in his head with a heavy metal crank. The DNA tests, which did not exist at the time of the murders, showed blood from the underarm of Zeigler's shirt came from Mays, not Edwards, and blood on Mays' shoes and pants was consistent with Perry Edwards' blood. Pope argued that the evidence bolstered Zeigler's claim that Mays was a perpetrator, not a victim. But Whitehead ruled that the DNA findings were consistent with Zeigler's guilt, and that prosecutors had always said both men were killed in a struggle and their bodies found only a few feet apart. "If Mays were involved in a struggle with defendant while in close proximity with Perry's bloodied body, it would not be surprising that Perry's blood ended up on Mays' shoes and pants during the altercation," Whitehead wrote. "These findings do not show, as defendant asserts, that Mays was the perpetrator, rather than victim of the crimes." Zeigler has always maintained his innocence. A book arguing his theory that the killings were committed by a gang of robbers was published several years ago, and his case has attracted the attention of celebrities and death-penalty opponents, but the courts have repeatedly upheld his conviction. (source: Orlando Sentinel) ******************************* Judge denies DNA-based appeal by death row inmate Tommy Zeigler A judge Tuesday ruled that DNA evidence is not enough to overturn the murder convictions of Tommy Zeigler for shooting his wife, her parents and his store's handyman on Christmas Eve in 1975. Circuit Court Judge Reginald Whitehead decided Tommy Zeigler "has not shown that the DNA testing results would exonerate him or mitigate his sentence," according to the judgment published on Monday. Whitehead's decision came after Zeigler, 59, won a request in 2001 for a detailed investigation into blood samples taken from the crime scene at his family's furniture store in nearby Winter Garden. DNA testing was not around in 1976, when Zeigler was convicted in the slayings of his wife, Eunice, 29, her parents visiting from Georgia, Perry and Virginia Edwards, 74 and 54, and Charles Mays, 35, Zeigler's handyman. Prosecutors said Zeigler committed the murders, then shot himself through the side in a scheme to collect $500,000 in life insurance money on his wife. Whitehead dismissed the defense's claims that the DNA evidence exonerates Zeigler, who claims he killed Mays in self-defense and that his wife and her parents were killed in a robbery attempt. "The fact that only Mays' blood was found on the left arm of the Defendant's T-shirt does not exonerate Defendant or even tend to exonerate Defendant," Whitehead wrote in his judgment. Defense attorney John Houston Pope had said blood on Mays' pants came from Edwards, indicating that it was Mays who killed Edwards in a fight. Whitehead said the findings show that Mays was standing next to Perry after Perry was killed and that Mays was a victim, not the perpetrator. Activists against the death penalty said they had hoped for a new trial. "We had hoped that the new technology would be the key to a new trial and, for the first time, a full and fair examination of all of the evidence," said Abe Bonowitz, director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Pope has said his client has always maintained that he was jumped when he entered the furniture store. Zeigler allegedly fought with and then shot his assailant, who may have been Mays, Pope said. Telephone calls to the State Attorney's Office for comment after hours were not returned. (source: Associated Press) ********************* Prosecutors may ask for death penalty in Lunde case Prosecutors have not decided yet whether to seek the death penalty after a convicted sex offender confessed to the murder of a 13-year-old Florida girl. Police said that 36-year-old David Onstott admitted to strangling Sarah Lunde over the weekend and then dumping her body in a pond less than a mile from her home. Police say Onstott went to the girl's home looking for Sarah's mother, who had recently ended a relationship with him. Instead, Onstott said he got into an argument with the 13-year-old, and strangled her to death. Onstott is a convicted rapist who was already in police custody on unrelated charges when he told authorities what he did. He is currently being held without bail. (source: Associated Press)
