April 25 USA: Death Sentences at Lowest Point Since 1976 The number of people sentenced to death last year fell to the lowest level since the Supreme Court reinstated the penalty in 1976. There were 125 people sent to death row in 2004, down from 144 the previous year and the 6th consecutive annual decline, according to figures compiled by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In 1998, 300 people received death sentences. Miriam Gohara, assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said one major cause for the decline is high profile exonerations based on DNA evidence. She said that jurors are less willing to impose the penalty when they see that the system occasionally fails. "I think people are more concerned about the irreversibility of the death penalty. Once somebody is executed, you can't bring them back," Gohara said. Dianne Clements, president of Justice for All, a pro-death penalty victim advocacy group, offered another explanation. "Not only has the murder rate declined, thank goodness, but the types of killers eligible for the death penalty have been redefined by the Supreme Court," she said. The high court has issued a series of decisions narrowing the death penalty, putting a stop to the execution of juveniles, the insane and the mentally retarded. There also are more jurisdictions where jurors are given options other than death, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "Juries are being given a choice of life without parole that they didn't have in the early '90s," he said. Dieter also said increased public attention has led to better legal representation for defendants who could face the death penalty. In his State of the Union address this year, President Bush called for more training for lawyers who represent accused killers, tacit recognition that not all suspects receive an adequate defense. As governor of Texas, a state that executes more inmates than any other, Bush commuted one death sentence and allowed 152 executions. The Texas governor can commute a sentence only if the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommends it. Texas sent the most people to death row last year -- 23, followed by California, which sent 11 and Florida and Alabama, which each sent 8. There were 3,374 prisoners awaiting execution at the end of 2003, the latest year for which figures are available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. That was 188 fewer than the previous year, due largely to then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan granting clemency to all 167 inmates on his state's death row because of concerns about wrongful convictions. On the Net: Death Penalty Information Center: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org Justice for All: http://www.jfa.net NAACP Legal Defense Fund: http://www.naacpldf.org (source: Associated Press) VIRGINIA: Judge sets timetable in Moussaoui death penalty case The judge in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui gave lawyers until May 6th to propose a schedule for a penalty trial that will determine whether he lives or dies. In a 2-page order today, a federal judge in Virginia also rejected the suggestion of Moussaoui's lawyers that he is mentally incompetent to plead guilty to terror conspiracy. Moussaoui, a 36-year-old French citizen and former Norman, Oklahoma, resident, pleaded guilty to 6 felonies, 4 of which carry the death penalty. They accuse him of conspiring with the 19 hijackers in the September 11th, 2001, attacks and al-Qaida leaders in a broad plot to kill Americans using commercial airliners as weapons. (source: Associated Press) SOUTH CAROLINA: Prosecutors to seek death penalty against Stanko Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty against an ex-convict in at least 1 of 2 Grand Strand killings. Stephen Stanko was in court Monday, waiving a bond hearing on 2 murder charges. During that hearing, prosecutor Greg Hembree told the judge he will seek the death penalty against Stanko for the killing in Georgetown County. Deputies said Stanko strangled his live-in girlfriend, 43-year-old Laura Ling, and raped a teenage girl living in their Murrells Inlet home April 8. Hembree said he hasn't decided whether to seek the death penalty against Stanko for the other murder charge. Police in Horry County said after killing Ling, Stanko went to the Conway home of 74-year-old Henry Lee Turner, shot him and took his pickup truck. The killings prompted a nationwide manhunt that ended 5 days later when Stanko was arrested in Augusta, Ga. (source: Associated Press) TENNESSEE: Man's death sentence is upheld A state appellate court has upheld the death sentence of Sullivan Countys newest death row inmate. Steven James Rollins, 40, of Gate City, Va., was convicted in 2003 of stabbing 81-year-old John Bussell to death while robbing his bait shop in the Colonial Heights community. The ruling by the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals - which came quickly for a death penalty case - could put Rollins on a fast track for execution, prosecutors said. "I would say hes getting close to the top," said Greeley Wells, Sullivan County district attorney general. "If the case goes along at this speed, (his execution) won't be in the next 10 years. It could be in the next 4 or 5 years." Tennessee has executed one inmate in the past 45 years, Robert Glen Coe, who was put to death April 19, 2000, for the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl in West Tennessee. Still sitting on death row are 3 other inmates from Sullivan County, all of whom committed their crimes at least 20 years ago. Appeals in those cases have relied mainly upon claims of mental illness or retardation. Rollins and his lawyers have not made such claims. "There's a lack of complexity to this case," Wells said. "These cases where there's really no question of guilt are the ones that move the quickest." Rollins confessed twice to killing Bussell, who was stabbed at least 27 times during the robbery on Aug. 21, 2001. Rollins later claimed a friend, Greg "Kojak" Fleenor, killed the man while he waited outside. He said Fleenor - who pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder - threatened to kill his girlfriend if he didnt confess. Rollins and his lawyers argued in their appeal that prosecutors shouldnt have been allowed to introduce those confessions at the trial and that the crime didnt deserve death. The court wasn't convinced. "The murder was certainly premeditated," appellate Judge Norman Tipton wrote in the opinion. "Before the robbery, the defendant and his accomplice discussed the importance of leaving no witnesses. ... The victim was alive and experienced multiple, painful wounds." The next step for Rollins will be an appeal to the state Supreme Court. (source: Bristol Herald Courier)
