April 24 PENNSYLVANIA: Death row loneliness lies ahead for woman----Mother to join 5 others for her hatchet murder of Lock Haven man, 83 Shonda Walter will most likely never hug her daughter again. In fact, the 25-year-old single mother could finish her life without ever touching another person, prison authorities say. That's because Walter, who killed her 83-year-old Lock Haven neighbor by hitting him 66 times with a hatchet, joined an exclusive club last week. She will be 1 of 6 women on death row in Pennsylvania. Walter, a former A and B student who graduated from Lock Haven Area High School in 1997 and played on the softball and basketball teams, was sentenced last week to die by lethal injection. When Walter is transferred to the State Correctional Institution at Muncy, she will be in the same unit as five other female convicted killers. Two are from the midstate: Carolyn King, 39, of Palmyra, who was sentenced in 1994, and Beth Ann Markman, 39, of West Pennsboro Twp., Cumberland County, who was sentenced in 2002. Women on death row have a lot in common but aren't cookie-cutter turnouts, an expert on criminals said. Typically, women prisoners were at some time victims of emotional, physical or sexual abuse, said Rosemary Gido, a criminology professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. "It's a common thread of the history of women in prison," the former director of policy for the New York Commission on Corrections said. An inmate in a women's prison most commonly is a thief with a drug addiction, she said. Society likes to stereotype women who commit murder but that is wrong, Gido said. Each case must be examined individually, she said. No evidence of abuse was presented during Walter's trial, but people who met her said they saw a person who turned from a nice young woman into killer. District Attorney Ted McKnight said Friday that Walter used to wait on him at a local restaurant. "I saw her change from nice person to a snarly jerk who became a criminal. I noticed the change in her personality," said McKnight, who was not the prosecutor at her trial. The prosecution theory for the murder was that Walter wanted to sell James Sementelli's car to get money to pay fines and to impress a street gang she wanted to join. So she struggled with Sementelli for about 45 minutes, then watched television and smoked a cigarette while he lay dying on the floor, pleading with her to call 911. Life for Walter is about to change again and become lonelier for the mother of a 6-year-old girl. She will sleep in her cell. She will eat in her cell. She will live in her cell -- with its bed, toilet, desk and chair -- for all but 2 hours a day. Inmates can buy a television, with permission, and pay a monthly service charge, prison spokeswoman Patti Stover said. About the only time Walter will have the opportunity to see and talk with another death-row inmate will be during her exercise period, Stover said. Two women are allowed out at a time but in separate "cages." Death row inmates have limited contact with the outside world, too. When they do get visitors during their one weekly visit, it's via a phone-like intercom system through a transparent partition. Inmates also can have three 15-minute phone calls each week, Stover said. If history is an indication, Walter will spend years at the prison, about 90 miles north of Harrisburg. The last 2 women executed in the state were Corrine Sykes, also known as Heloise T. Parker, on Oct. 14, 1946, and Irene Schroeder, who also went by Schrader, on Feb. 23, 1931. Sykes was convicted in Philadelphia County and Schroeder in Lawrence County. Currently, there are 216 men on death row. The last man to be executed was killer-cannibal Gary Heidnik on July 6, 1999. He had been convicted and given 2 death sentences in July 1988 for murdering 2 women he had imprisoned in his Philadelphia home. In Pennsylvania, executions by lethal injection are carried out at the State Correctional Institution at Rockview, a men's prison in Centre County. A woman would be moved there from Muncy only a few days before the scheduled execution, Stover said. Death warrants have been issued for women, but stays of execution were granted before they were to be transferred to Rockview, she said. (source: The Patriot-News) NORTH CAROLINA----possible military death sentence Akbar jurors set to deliberate on death sentence On the day he turned 34, Sgt. Hasan Akbar learned he may be spending the rest of his birthdays on death row. Beginning Monday, jurors will decide whether Akbar will be put to death for killing 2 officers, including Army Capt. Christopher Scott Seifert, of Williams Township. Akbar was convicted Thursday of premeditated murder in a grenade attack two years ago at Camp Pennsylvania, Kuwait. He rolled hand grenades into three tents and opened fire on troops running out, fatally shooting Seifert in the back. Akbar now faces 3 possible sentences: life, life without parole or death. The Army's method of execution is lethal injection. Army death sentences are usually reserved for charges such as murder, rape or mutiny. But in wartime, other offenses that can carry a death sentence include desertion in a time of war, assaulting or willfully disobeying an officer, and compelling surrender to the enemy, an Army public affairs spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail. For Akbar to be sentenced to death, jurors must vote unanimously that aggravating factors outweigh mitigating circumstances, Maj. Elizabeth L. Robbins explained. She wrote that such aggravating factors include "that the offense was committed in such a way or under circumstances that the life of one or more persons other than the victim was unlawfully and substantially endangered." Should Akbar be sentenced to die, his case would immediately be appealed to the military appellate court system. Akbar could further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. If he were sentenced to death, Akbar would become the 6th soldier on death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. The 5 inmates now on death row were convicted of charges ranging from rape, kidnapping and murder, according to a news release from Fort Leavenworth. The inmate who has been on death row the longest was committed to the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks in 1988; the most recent addition to the disciplinary barracks arrived in 1998, the news release says. Death row inmates are segregated from the prison's general population and housed 1 inmate per cell, said Fort Leavenworth public information officer Janet Wray. Wray said death row inmates get three hours of exercise a day: 1 hours inside with access to exercise equipment and 1 hours in a walled area outside where they can see daylight and play basketball. Because no soldier has been executed in 44 years, it is impossible to tell how long it takes to carry out a military death sentence, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group that analyzes the death penalty. As in the civilian world, death row inmates at Fort Leavenworth spend years in prison, Dieter said. Before the Defense Department adopted the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1947, the procedures made it easier to execute soldiers who did not have to wait long for the sentences to get carried out, Dieter said. In one exceptional case, Pvt. Eddie Slovik was shot by a firing squad for desertion in January 1945, only 2 months after his court-martial. The process moves much more slowly now, and the military has not executed a soldier since 1961, Dieter said. "Now you go to Leavenworth and you're going to be there for years it looks like," he said. Dieter said one reason for the lengthy appeals process is the military had to update its statutes for execution after a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that only the most heinous crimes merit death sentences. Legal challenges have also forced the military to work out problems in the statutes, he said. "There's one case where they did not provide sufficient representation to the defendants and the case was overturned. And there was a case that went all the way to United States Supreme Court on this issue and the military did prevail, but it took a long time to review," Dieter said. The president of the United States has the final say on whether to carry out a military death sentence. A White House spokesman Friday deferred all comment on the matter to the Defense Department. (source: The Express-Times) USA: Back to Miranda again Verily, verily, just as the Preacher might have said, of the making of Miranda cases there shall be no end. On Monday, in Maryland v. Blake, the Supreme Court agreed to hear yet another one. It probably is needless to recall the high court's 5-4 opinion in the 1966 case of Miranda v. Arizona. For the record: Ernesto Miranda, a 23-year-old itinerant, was charged with kidnapping and rape. After 2 hours of questioning, he confessed. The confession was admitted as evidence. Miranda was found guilty and sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison. It is not clear whether Miranda had been warned that anything he said could be used against him, but clearly he had not been advised of his right to counsel. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote an interminable opinion in which he and his colleagues reversed Miranda's conviction (and the convictions of 3 other appellants in parallel cases). Justice Tom Clark, dissenting, said Warren had gone "too far." Justice John Marshall Harlan, joined by Justices Potter Stewart and Byron White, also dissented. They criticized Warren's opinion as "poor constitutional law that entails harmful consequences for the country at large." For good or ill - mostly good - prosecutors have been stuck with Miranda ever since. Monday's order in the Supreme Court, granting review in the case of Leeander Jerome Blake, provides an example of Miranda on steroids. These are the undisputed facts: On Sept. 19, 2002, someone shot and killed Straughan Lee Griffin in front of his home in Annapolis, Md. There were two assailants. They stole Griffin's automobile and ran over his body as they fled the scene. Police soon arrested Terrence Tolbert; he was convicted two months ago for his role in the crime and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. A month after the crime in 2002, Tolbert implicated Blake. Anne Arundel County police went to Blake's home at 4:30 a.m. They arrested him on charges of 1st-degree murder, armed robbery and carjacking. Blake was then 17 years and 8 months old. At headquarters, detective William Johns advised Blake orally of his Miranda rights, i.e., his right to remain silent, to have a lawyer at his side, and so on. The boy said he wanted an attorney and would not answer questions until he got one. Johns gave him (1) a copy of his Miranda rights and (2) a form detailing the charges against him. Mistakenly, the form indicated that Blake, if found guilty, could be punished by death. (Under Maryland law, capital punishment applies only to persons over 18.) As Johns turned to leave, officer Curtis Reese made a gratuitous remark to the defendant: "I bet you want to talk now, huh!" Trying to undo the damage, Johns immediately said, loudly, "No, he doesn't want to talk to us. He already asked for a lawyer. We cannot talk to him now." The officers left, but when Johns returned a half-hour later to give Blake some clothes. Blake was ready to talk. He waived his right to an attorney and confessed his involvement in the crime. Before long, as you will have guessed, Blake's lawyer successfully moved in the county circuit court to suppress his statements under the Miranda rules. In May of last year, Maryland's Court of Appeals agreed: Blake's statements after he requested a lawyer cannot be admitted at trial. "The motion to suppress was properly granted." Speaking for a unanimous court, Judge Irma Raker seized upon officer Reese's suggestion to the defendant: "I bet you want to talk now, huh!" It was more of a comment than a question, but the court held that it "amounted to the functional equivalent of interrogation." Given the totality of circumstances - the pre-dawn arrest, the threat of death, the failure to provide counsel after Blake had requested an attorney - the evidence was o-u-t. I don't know what evidence the state could provide, apart from the statements. Blake's counsel, Kenneth W. Ravenell of Baltimore, says there is none. Maybe yes, maybe no, but something is surely amiss when one offhand remark from one cop may let this defendant go free. For the record, I began covering a police beat as a cub reporter in 1941. Remembering those pre-Miranda days, I would agree that Earl Warren's spread-eagled opinion has done much more good than harm. Even so, its application in Blake's case strikes me as a stretch too far. The evidence was fairly obtained. Let it in! (source: Column, James Kilpatrick, The Southern Illinoisan) ******************* Changes needed for prison----NEXT GENERATION: OPINION The death penalty: Many things come to mind when we hear these words. Some may think of the many people who are sitting on death row waiting to be executed. Others may think that they are people who are going to get what they deserve. Still others may think that this act is one of the most inhumane things people can do to a person. I have to say that when I started writing this article I thought that if a person killed they should be killed. However, now I'm not so sure. I started thinking, how does killing a person fix what they did? If they were killed it would be like taking the easy way out. That person would not have to live with the guilt that comes with committing a crime like that. He or she would not have to sit in a cell day in and day out alone with no one to talk to. On the other hand, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It basically explains itself. Where in some cases, I would think this way and not have a second thought about it; if a person only feels like this part of the time, then it certainly should not be put into effect. There are some things that need to be changed if the death penalty is going to be eliminated. There needs to be another way prisoner accommodations are paid for. It is not fair that other citizens have to pay for a person who has been taken out of society. Taxes pay for their food and housing and pay for just about everything the prisoners do. A system should be put into place where the person can work and make money and then will have to pay rent to the government every month. Most states today are trying to get rid of the death penalty. Life without parole is becoming the more popular way to go. I think in some ways this is more effective. People who commit crimes are going to think twice about it because they don't want to be in prison forever. Prison is not a great place to be and I think it needs to stay that way, maybe if our government makes the punishment for crime harsher then there won't be as much. (source: KATIE MATTIX, Dowagiac Union High School, South Bend Tribune) WISCONSIN: Nonprofit helps friends, families of wrongfully convicted Even though it's used just for storage, there's a room a few steps from Doug Tjapkes' office that he finds himself drawn to. The single-entry door is oddly narrow and low. And the room itself has equally odd proportions -- 8 feet long, 5 feet wide, with a 9-foot ceiling. There is no window and the construction is cinder block. "You only have to stand in here a minute or so to understand what being incarcerated must be like," Tjapkes said, glancing at the ceiling and its dim lighting. "I can't stand being here for long. At least we can get out." The room is a former cell in what once was the Muskegon County Jail off Muskegon Avenue in downtown Muskegon. The building was built in 1948 as a state-of-the-art jail, complete with 2-foot-thick walls. But only 7 years after its opening, the facility was closed because 4 prisoners escaped within a month and the state declared it was improperly designed. The building later was used by the Muskegon County Museum and Community Mental Health before being sold to Manpower Inc. It now is the new home for Innocent, a nonprofit organization to help the wrongfully convicted. Tjapkes recently moved the Innocent office to Muskegon from Grand Rapids after space was offered to the organization at no cost by Jerry Horn, owner of Manpower offices in West Michigan. Through Manpower, Tjapkes has free space, utilities and access to the copier. For Tjapkes, having an office in a former county jail is more than ironic. "I think it's rather fitting, don't you?" he said. Tjapkes, 68, a broadcast journalist who once owned a Grand Haven radio station and most recently sold church organs, formed Innocent 4 years ago to provide support and encouragement to families, friends and supporters of people they claim have been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit. Tjapkes said there could be as many as 200,000 people in prison in the United States who have been convicted of crimes they didn't commit. While Innocent does not get involved in trying to determine a person's guilt or innocence, it offers advice and assistance to people trying to win an inmate's freedom. In the future, Tjapkes said he hopes staff will be able to travel to communities where supporters of an inmate live. Once there, Innocent would help form a citizens committee, encourage grass-roots support and establish relations with local media and churches. Officials also would help distribute information on the case. But for the time being, Tjapkes is the only paid staffer and serves as Innocent president. The organization is run by an eight-person board and has an annual budget of roughly $100,000 from donations. Tjapkes spends much of his days responding to letters and e-mails and sending information to friends and family of those who believe they are wrongly convicted and incarcerated. Tjapkes also is working on an Innocent-sponsored book detailing his friendship with former inmate Maurice Carter and efforts used to try to overturn his conviction. Last year, Carter's life sentence was commuted for medical reasons. Carter, who always maintained his innocence in the 1973 shooting and wounding of an off-duty Benton Harbor police officer, spent almost 29 years in Michigan prisons and died from hepatitis C and cirrhosis of the liver three months after his release. Tjapkes, who spearheaded the grass-roots movement to get Carter freed, said Innocent is a direct outgrowth of that 10-year effort to free Carter. "With all of the things the Maurice Carter citizens committee did, we had a track record, we knew what worked and what didn't," Tjapkes said. "And with my background in news, we knew how to write press releases and attract media coverage. We took what we learned and have applied it to Innocent." Keith Findley, co-director of the University of Wisconsin Law School Innocent Project, saw Tjapkes in action dealing with the Maurice Carter case. "Doug was the best friend Maurice Carter could have had," Findley recalled. "He really kept things moving. He was persistent and was determined. He was able to keep the case on the front burner and was able to walk the fine line between pushing too hard and not pushing enough." Findley said citizens groups like the one formed for Maurice Carter are rare. He sees a need for an organization like Innocent to help friends and family of the wrongly convicted and to attract the attention of innocence projects. "Organizations like that help bring attention to cases and get people involved in them," he said. "It also creates a climate in a community in which it is possible for a case to be taken seriously." Innocent was formed in July 2001, with Carter named executive director. Tjapkes remembers that Carter had grand plans for the organization -- in many ways, too grand. Carter wanted Innocent to actively determine the guilt or innocence of a prisoner, actively work for the prisoner's release, then work to find the released prisoner a job. Tjapkes said Innocent simply does not have the resources to be that kind of organization. Instead, it works only on cases that have been reviewed by innocence project groups. Innocence projects typically are affiliated with law or journalism schools, and students are used to investigate wrongful conviction cases. Some innocence projects are run through private law firms taking active stances against social injustice. "We decided the simplest thing we could do is work with innocence projects because we don't have any procedures in place to screen inmates," he said. "We get applications every day. But the only case we will take on with public relations to churches and the media through a grass-roots campaign would be those where we are invited in by a bona fide innocence project." Innocent has taken on about a dozen cases and has offered assistance at various stages. In some cases, the organization has simply assisted in press releases or billboards. In other cases, Innocent has taken a more active role. "We have one inmate on death row in Texas and his advocate is in England, so we have to be more involved," he said. "In another, we got Court TV interested. Rubin Carter also has expressed interest in cases." Rubin Hurricane Carter is the former executive director of the Toronto-based Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted, who took an active interest in the Maurice Carter case. The two were not related. Rubin Carter was the top contender for the World Middleweight title until he was convicted of murder in Patterson, N.J., in 1966. He was convicted of entering a bar with an accomplice to kill the bartender and a patron. He spent 20 years in prison until he was released in 1985 by a federal judge who concluded the conviction was based on faulty testimony. "Our victories are not getting someone out," Tjapkes said. "We consider it a victory if they are getting one step closer to getting out. If we can get them hooked up with an innocence project, that is a huge victory. They are on their way then. If we can get them hooked up with Court TV, if we can get Rubin Carter interested and hold a press conference, then those are big steps. "In Maurice's case, I was with him 10 years. It took four years to get an innocence project interested and another 6 years before he was freed." But the role of Innocent has evolved. Faced with dozens of inquiries daily, Innocent has become a clearinghouse to direct inmates, and their friends and family, to the proper resources. The goal of Innocent is to direct inmates to one of the roughly 50 innocence project organizations nationwide that have the staff and resources to examine individual cases to determine merit. "So many people who were contacting us don't know where to go. These inquiries have broadened our scope to the point we have become a triage center. Everything that comes in here we respond to. You can't believe how many letters of thanks we get simply because we responded." Part of that response is to send out a letter of acknowledgment and information on innocence projects in their particular area, along with a list of contacts. Those who inquire also are sent a book written by the Rev. Al Hoksbergen of Ferrysburg that lays out the serious problems inmates face and the role God plays in dealing with these adversities. Tjapkes sees the role of Innocent expanding. He said he is in conversations with the former president of a small southeast Michigan company who is in prison and is expected to be released in two years. Tjapkes said this individual wants to form a new company that would exclusively hire former inmates. In another case, a medical professional has contacted Innocent to offer inmate help in obtaining medical attention. "This is part of Maurice Carter's dream that we might expand," Tjapkes said. Tjapkes said he is excited about the potential for Innocent and hopes the organization can grow as it fine tunes its fund-raising efforts and grant writing. "Every day it's exciting to walk into the place," he said. "There is an e-mail message, there is some challenge, there is a letter from someone needing help. Frankly, I can't wait to get here every day. I just love it." (source: Muskegon Chronicle)
