April 21 CALIFORNIA: Eroding the Death Penalty None of the 32 murderers sentenced to death in New York has been executed in the decade since the state reinstated capital punishment. Yet last week, the gnawing concerns of state lawmakers, including some who voted for the 1995 law, prompted them to effectively kill the death penalty for this year, and perhaps longer. Many Californians, lawmakers as well as voters, share those concerns about fairness and fallibility. They worry as well about the inequalities that riddle the death penalty in a state as large and diverse as ours. Death penalty foes predict that the de facto moratorium the New York state Assembly imposed will "ripple" to other states. California should be next. This state has the nation's largest death row, with 640 inmates. So large, in fact, that taxpayers pony up $114 million every year to house them at San Quentin, on top of the extra costs to prosecute them and provide for required appeals. The state's condemned population is so large in part because voters and lawmakers have allowed prosecutors to seek death sentences in more circumstances than allowed in most other states. That latitude has produced glaring disparities. Wealthy (and often white) defendants who can afford experienced lawyers end up at San Quentin less often than poor defendants (often Latino or African American) who are stuck with lawyers assigned by the county. Prosecutors in some conservative, rural counties more readily ask juries for death than those in many urban counties. In some counties, prosecutors haven't tried a capital case in years. The California Supreme Court reviews every death sentence to ensure the defendant got a fair trial. Because that appeals process routinely takes a decade or more, California has executed only 11 defendants since reinstating the death penalty in 1977. The high court approves the overwhelming majority of death sentences, but in March it balked. A majority of justices overturned a 1991 death sentence in a Los Angeles case because the county prosecutor had convinced separate juries that 2 defendants each landed the fatal blow in a hatchet murder. That 14 years passed before the court rightly declared this case a travesty adds to voluminous evidence of the death penalty's unfair and capricious application. State lawmakers last year chartered a commission to examine capital punishment with an eye toward recommending reforms. That panel expects to begin its research and deliberations in the coming months. A moratorium similar to that in New York (and one adopted earlier in Illinois) should be among its first actions. (source: Editorial, Los Angeles Times) PUERTO RICO: Activists fighting return of death penalty in Puerto Rico----Court ruling encourages death row opponents Activists in Puerto Rico are angry about President George Bushs attempts to bring the death penalty back after 78 years-so angry that they called for a rally in front of the federal court in Jatorey in the capital city of San Juan. "We plan to have pickets in front of the courthouse every day this week," activist/attorney Jorje Farinacci told The Final Call during a phone interview from Puerto Rico. Mr. Farinacci, a member of the Socialist Front of Puerto Rico, said the opposition to the return of the death penalty had reached 80 %, crossing political and religious lines. "The bar association, students, human rights commission, international activists and even the governor are against the latest attempt by the colonial powers in Washington to marginalize the people of Puerto Rico," he stressed. The Associated Press reported on Mar. 29 that Puerto Ricos governor announced that he would ask the U.S. Justice Department not to apply the death penalty to residents of the island. Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila said he would "outline" Puerto Rican opposition to capital punishment in a letter to officials in the U.S. On Mar. 28, Puerto Ricos House of Representatives approved a bill opposing the application of the death penalty to its residents. Gov. Vila told AP he asked that the islands Senate do the same. Activists, such as Mr. Farinacci, say the Bush administration is imposing the death penalty on the island in a "colonialist" fashion. Puerto Rico became a U.S. colony in 1989 as a result of the Spanish-American War. "The death penalty, which had existed under Spanish rule, was retained by the new authorities. There were 23 executions between 1898 and 1929. All those executed were poor, at least 14 were Black," writes Puerto Rican Socialist Rafael Bernabe in an article published in the International Viewpoint magazine. Observers say that many Puerto Ricans believe that the death penalty infringes on Puerto Rico's right to self-government. The islands four million people, although declared U.S. citizens, do not have any vote in Congress. According to AP, Puerto Rico banned capital punishment in 1927, and is now among 12 U.S. states and the District of Columbia that does not allow the death penalty. However, in 2001, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston overturned the 2000 ruling of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico that capital punishment violated the Caribbean islands constitution. On Mar. 31, El Diario reported that the Association of American Jurists, a non-governmental organization, protested the use of the death penalty in Puerto Rico to the United Nations. At the heart of the uproar is the case of two men convicted of premeditated murder of a truck security guard 3 years ago. A U.S. federal judge told the six men and six women on the jury to reconvene on Apr. 11 for sentencing the pair. Their lawyers have argued that the pair did not plan to shoot the guard, but reacted badly to what they called "31 seconds of chaos." Analysts say that public opinion may change in the U.S. territory, as crime continues to increase. According to AP, there were 793 homicides in 2004, which they said were drug-related, surpassing the 2003 total of 780. "We do not think that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime," argues Mr. Farinacci, pointing out that there was a lot of social injustice in Puerto Rico, including police persecution. "The unemployment rate here is 20 %," he further noted. "Who controls the economics of Puerto Rico?" asked Carlos Rovira, a New York-based member of the Socialist Front of Puerto Rico. He said that it is true that drugs have facilitated the rise in crime on the Caribbean island. "But, who controls the drug trade? Surely not the little people on the streets of Puerto Rico," Mr. Rovira argues. "The death penalty will exacerbate the colonial relationship Puerto Ricans have with the U.S." (source: FinalCall.com) CONNECTICUT: The Observer: Crazy Talk----Is Michael Ross capable of compassion? If so, kill him. So goes the logic of the death penalty. Anyone who thinks that executing Michael Ross will serve the interests of justice and the state should have their head examined after the circus that we've witnessed over the last couple of weeks. A circus, incidentally, that you are paying for to the tune of several million dollars. What do you think of the show so far? Last week, a brace of psychiatrists testified before Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford, as to Mr. Ross' mental condition. What the judge will rule on (this week) is whether Ross has been made so depressed by Death Row, and is so narcissistically incapable of moral reflection, that his expressed interest in lethal injection without further appeal is, in a sense, the desire of a crazy person. If it is a crazy wish, then his attorneys may have to appeal his death sentence yet again. If those appeals are denied -- as they will surely be -- then Ross will be executed even though he is crazy. But that's OK, because he's not in jail for being that kind of crazy, but for another kind of crazy (he raped and murdered eight young women and girls), which a previous court found to be not quite crazy enough to spare him the death penalty. So, he is sane enough that he should have been able to prevent himself from strangling eight women, in the eyes of one court. But he's too crazy not to appeal for his life even though he knows the appeals won't work, in the view of another, should that be the finding. If he fights for his life, he's sane, and we need to kill him. If he stops fighting, then he might be crazy, and we may have to stop. Or we may go on killing him, we're not sure. One group of psychiatrists, arguing against Ross, says that he suffers from narcissistic personality disorder so great that he can't back down from his expressed wish to die, even if he wanted do. "What he needs is to be seen as doing something noble," one psychiatrist explained. "His last act must be noble." Ross' camp is arguing that, yes, he's messed up, but that doesn't mean that he is incapable of compassion for his victims and their families. He wants to die to spare them further grief. He just wants to show people that "he's not just Michael Ross serial killer, that he's not just Michael Ross the monster." Add to this the made-for-TV part of the drama in the person of Susan Powers, Ross' death row girlfriend -- who has promised to marry him if he fights his execution and who has, apparently, said she might commit suicide if he gives up -- and you have a full-blown opera. Stay tuned. How much do you want to bet that we're going to see candlelight vigils and Hollywood celebrities before we're finished? And the irony, of course, is the only person getting any good out of all of this is, you guessed it, Michael Ross. Thanks to the death penalty, Michael Ross is going to have a meaningful life. Just because he's a serial killer doesn't mean Ross isn't also an asshole of a garden variety type by the way. To be truly noble here would be to shut up. But Ross is going for the attention. Think of it, your life has been a terrible failure on a monumental scale. The worst fate that could possibly await you is life spent in the obscurity of a white cell where nobody pays attention to you, and your pathologies are of interest only to a handful of scholars. But with a death penalty, Ross becomes a tragic figure. Many people at great public expense are talking to him, listening to what he has to say. Worrying about him. Was he tortured by his mother? Made to kill chickens with his bare hands? Molested by an uncle? Has he stared into the abyss and found a place of reconciliation? Is his wish to die the high gesture of a man redeemed? The answers don't matter, but that so many people are wrapped up in the questions must be very gratifying to someone like Ross who so clearly felt unwanted, unlovable, and powerless in the earlier chapters of his life. His final chapter however will be a triumph from his standpoint no matter how it goes down. I wonder who will play him in the movie. (source: Alistair Highet, The Hartford Advocate) *********************** Killer to let judges decide on death sentence A Waterbury man has opted to have a 3-judge panel determine whether he should again be sentenced to death for bludgeoning a 13-year-old boy with a sledgehammer to see what it would feel like to kill somebody. Jury selection had been underway in Superior Court since last month for a second penalty hearing to determine whether Toddy Rizzo should again be sentenced to death. Rizzo is 1 of 2 men from Waterbury who were on death row when the state Supreme Court overturned their death sentences. The high court ruled that jurors were not instructed, before they considered the death penalty, that they had to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that aggravating factors such as the brutality of the crime outweighed mitigating factors such as upbringing and work history. The trial judge told the jury about considering aggravating and mitigating factors, but did not say anything about reasonable doubt. Rizzo and Ivo Colon, who was sentenced to die for beating a toddler to death in 1998, remain housed on death row. Their convictions were not overturned, but new penalty hearings were ordered. Rizzo, 26, pleaded guilty to capital felony in 1999 for killing 13-year-old Stanley Edwards IV. A jury sentenced him to die, but the state Supreme Court overturned the sentence in October 2003. Rizzo was an 18-year-old ex-Marine when he lured Edwards into his backyard in September 1997 under the guise of hunting snakes. He told police he straddled the 13-year-old boy "like a horse" and hit him 13 times with a 3-pound sledgehammer as the boy begged him to stop. Then he dumped the boy's body in a wooded lot. The new penalty hearing is scheduled to begin May 16. (source: Associated Press) VIRGINIA: Judge Rules 9/11 Defendant Is Competent to Plead Guilty A federal judge on Wednesday declared Zacarias Moussaoui mentally competent to plead guilty to terrorism charges and scheduled a hearing for Friday to allow him to admit his role in the Sept. 11 attacks. A defense lawyer, meanwhile, disclosed that Mr. Moussaoui not only had told the authorities that he wanted to plead guilty, but had also asked to be put to death. Mr. Moussaoui's defense lawyers are opposed to the highly unusual decision and plan to file a motion on Thursday challenging his mental fitness and his ability to understand the charges, as events in the once-stalled prosecution now appear to be speeding quickly toward a resolution. Frank W. Dunham Jr., a defense lawyer, said, "Our view of his competence is that he's not competent." Mr. Dunham declined to explain that conclusion, saying the reasons would be spelled out in the motion. In a letter that Mr. Moussaoui sent to the judge and prosecutors, "he asked to be sentenced to death" for his role in the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Dunham said. One question likely to be raised by defense lawyers is whether Mr. Moussaoui's desire to be executed is, by itself, evidence that he may be mentally unfit. But the judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, of Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., met with Mr. Moussaoui on Wednesday, officials said, and later she issued an order saying she found him "fully competent to plead guilty to the indictment." She did not explain the decision, saying it was part of a sealed hearing. Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who has studied terrorism prosecutions, said "this is a very unusual case in the sense that the client seems very much adverse to the advice of his own lawyer, and that presents all sorts of difficult ethical issues about his legal representation." Mr. Moussaoui's mental competence has come into question numerous times, and after he sent angry, invective-filled letters to court officials, Judge Brinkema in 2003 revoked his right to represent himself in court. In handwritten filings, Mr. Moussaoui said he wanted "anthrax for Jew sympathisers only," referred to Judge Brinkema as "Leonie you Despotically Judge" and called himself a "suicide pilot ready for action." In another filing, he said that John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, "must be sent to Alexandria jail so I can torture him." In July 2002, Mr. Moussaoui also sought to plead guilty to the terrorism charges, telling a stunned courtroom that he was a member of Al Qaeda and a loyal follower of Osama bin Laden. He withdrew the plea, saying that to plead guilty would amount to suicide in violation of Islamic law. It is unclear what prompted him to change his mind now, officials said. Mr. Moussaoui, 36, attended flight training school in Oklahoma and Minnesota in 2001 and received at least $14,000 in wire transfers from a Qaeda operative who helped finance the Sept. 11 attacks, but he is not known to have had direct involvement with the hijackers. Weeks before the 2001 attacks, he was jailed in Minneapolis on immigration charges after a flight trainer noticed that he was acting suspiciously. His intended role with Al Qaeda has never been clearly established. Some law enforcement officials say they believe he was supposed to take part in the Sept. 11 plot as the "20th hijacker," while others say they suspect he was supposed to be part of a "second wave" of attacks that never materialized. Mr. Moussaoui's plea, if it becomes final, might answer some of those questions. He is expected to sign a statement of facts laying out his activities on behalf of Al Qaeda. "We expect the statement of facts to be an acknowledgment that he was involved in the 9/11 attacks," said a government official who asked not to be identified because of a court order imposing silence in the case. While government officials held out the possibility that Mr. Moussaoui could change his mind again before Friday, they said that at this point they expected him to plead guilty to all 6 charges, including conspiracy to commit terrorism and aircraft piracy. He is the only person charged in an American court in connection with the attacks. 4 of the charges carry the possibility of a death penalty, and officials said the Justice Department had made no concessions or promises of leniency in securing a plea. "The death penalty is still on the table," the government official said. If Mr. Moussaoui pleads guilty to capital charges, the sentencing phase and the decision whether to execute him would typically be left to a jury, unless defense and prosecution agreed to allow the judge to decide. (source: New York Times)
