April 30 FLORIDA: Split jury recommends death penalty for Gosciminski for 2002 murder -- The same jury that convicted him of the murder of Joan Loughman voted 9 to 3 Friday that he should be put to death. Andrew Michael Gosciminski appeared to live a mostly quiet life. He was a good student with a high IQ, served in the Air Force and cared for his elderly mother. For most of his life, the former Cub Scout and choir boy never had a run-in with the law. But on Sept. 24, 2002, Gosciminski bludgeoned, stabbed and cut Joan Loughman in her father's Hutchinson Island home and stole $40,000 worth of her jewelry, including a diamond ring he gave his girlfriend, a jury found Thursday. And his quiet past was not enough to convince jurors he deserved anything but death for the crime. The jury recommended 9 to 3 Friday that Gosciminski should be put to death for Loughman's murder. It took the jury of 5 women and 7 men about two hours to reach its decision after finding him guilty Thursday of 1st-degree murder, robbery and burglary. Circuit Judge Burton Conner will use the jury's recommendation in making his final sentencing decision June 9. "I think that the sentence of death is appropriate because this was such a brutal, vicious murder of a totally innocent woman," Assistant State Attorney Lynn Park said. The three attorneys who defended Gosciminski released a brief statement. "With the unmeasured brutality exhibited to the jury after a guilty verdict, there is no doubt he would receive the death penalty. We will be filing an appeal with the Florida Supreme Court shortly after sentencing." Family members expressed relief the trial was over and said they would be forever indebted to prosecutors Chris Taylor and Park. "No other family has to ever go through this again," said Janet Vala-Terry, Loughman's twin sister. It was not until the verdict had been delivered that jurors began to learn more about the past history of Gosciminski and the woman he killed during the penalty phase of the trial. His mother Florence Gosciminski, 83, testified via videotape from a nursing home about her only child, who had hopes of being a doctor, but instead learned to be a medical technician in the military and later took a series of jobs in assisted-living homes. She lived with him several times in the past decade until entering the nursing home in 2002 and told jurors she never saw any violence in her son. When Chief Assistant Public Defender Mark Harllee asked her how she felt about the possibility of her son committing murder, she said it wasn't like him. "I wish he hadn't done it. There has to be a reason he'd do a terrible thing like this," she said. "Yes, I'll always love him, but I just can't understand it." Gosciminski, who took the stand in his defense during the trial, did not speak during the penalty phase. Prosecutor Park told jurors Gosciminski was a man in financial trouble who was living beyond his means and trying to win back a former girlfriend when he hatched the plot to rob and kill Loughman. "He's asking for mercy and he gave none," she said. Harllee argued Gosciminski's minor criminal past and no history of violence should result in life in prison instead of death. "Society is safe from Michael Gosciminski forevermore," Harllee told jurors. "Let's come out of this with something positive. We're asking you to choose life." According to family, Loughman, 55, was a beloved wife, mother, sister and grandmother who came to Fort Pierce from Connecticut to help place her father in an assisted-living facility. She met Gosciminski through the home, where he worked as a community outreach director bringing in new clients to the business. Loughman was a volunteer with the Girl Scouts in her Connecticut hometown and a yearly Scouting award is now given in her honor there. During the two-week trial, prosecutors built their case around statements from Gosciminski's former girlfriend that he was washing blood off his body on the day of the murder and later gave her a diamond ring matching the victim's. His co-workers also said they saw the ring and police placed him around Hutchinson Island at the time of the murder using cell phone data. Gosciminski denied the killing during the trial and his attorneys argued someone else was behind the crime. If Conner sentences Gosciminski to death, he will become the 5th inmate from St. Lucie County on death row and the 2nd from the county to be sentenced to die this year. Statement from the family of Joan Loughman: We want to formally thank Chris Taylor, Lynn Park and the rest of their team for their hard work and dedication to achieving justice for Joan Loughman. She was a loving wife, mother, sister, daughter, grandmother and friend. Chris and Lynn made it obvious to us that they sincerely cared about her. They tried the case as if they were part of our family. After everything we've been through together, they are. Thank you to Judge Conner and the jury for their time and so much more. Tonight, when we tell our children, "The bad man will be in jail forever," we will know it is true. Michael Gosciminski will never be able to hurt anyone else ever. (source: TCPalmCoast) ******************* Polk May Put More Killers on Death Row -- Penalty phases of 4 murder cases are being heard or will be heard soon. Polk County last sent a murderer to Florida's death row 5 years ago, but more could soon be on the way as 4 death penalty cases enter their final stages. Polk Circuit Judge Roger Alcott heard final arguments Friday about whether Harold Albert Blake should be executed or given life in prison for the fatal shooting of a Winter Haven convenience store owner on Aug. 12, 2002. Alcott scheduled Blake's sentencing for May 13. The same jury that convicted Blake, 25, of murder Feb. 25 unanimously recommended last week that he should die. On Monday, a jury will begin considering whether Mark Anthony Poole should be executed for a brutal home invasion in 2001 that left 24-year-old Noah Scott dead and his 18-year-old pregnant fiancee badly beaten and raped. The jury convicted Poole, 42, on Wednesday of first-degree murder, attempted murder, armed burglary, sexual battery and armed battery. 2 other convicted murderers in separate cases who could possibly face death were convicted of crimes stretching as far back as 1996. One refused to let a jury weigh in on his punishment, and the other could be sent to death row for a 2nd time. Tavares Jerrod Wright, 24, placed his fate solely in Circuit Judge Dick Prince's hands rather than the jury that convicted him in the execution-style double murder of 2 cousins, James Felker, 18, and David Lee Green, 21, in April 2000. Prince is expected to start hearing testimony and arguments May 10. Circuit Judge Susan Roberts has not yet made a decision about whether Thomas Woodel, 35, should be sent back to Florida's death row for stabbing an elderly couple to death Dec. 31, 1996. Although originally sentenced to die in 1998, the Florida Supreme Court overturned Woodel's death sentence in 2001 and upheld his conviction. In July, a second jury recommended death for Woodel, returning a 7-5 verdict -- the narrowest of margins. In criminal cases, juries are required to reach unanimous decisions, but a majority vote decides a recommendation for life or death. Florida law requires judges to give a jury's recommendation "great weight," but judges have the final say in deciding the appropriate punishment. Circuit Judge Dennis Maloney disregarded a unanimous jury recommendation for death against 24-year-old Brandan Gatlin for the 2000 fatal shooting of a convenience store owner. Maloney sentenced Gatlin on Dec. 17 to life in prison. At the time, State Attorney Jerry Hill said he "respectfully disagreed" with the ruling but understood that it was Maloney's decision to make. Hill said the death penalty is only sought after careful consideration. Homicide prosecutors discuss the cases in detail to see whether aggravating factors exist to warrant the justice system's ultimate punishment, he said. "We know now that not every first-degree murder case that upsets us is a death penalty case," Hill said. "We ask for it very judiciously, I think." Today, 9 Polk killers are awaiting execution on Florida's death row. Micah Louis Nelson, 29, was the last person sent to death row for the rape, kidnapping and beating death of 78-year-old Virginia Brace. It has been 10 years since an inmate from Polk County was put to death. The last one was Phillip Atkins, executed in 1995 for the 1981 kidnapping and murder of a 6-year-old boy. The Florida Department of Corrections lists 365 inmates as being on death row. Following California and Texas, Florida has the 3rd-largest death row population in the nation, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. More than 3,000 people sit on death rows throughout the nation. However, the nonprofit group's most recent report, released in December, concluded death sentences, executions, death row populations and public support for capital punishment have all been declining in the past 5 years. The number of death sentences handed out in the United States has dropped by 50 % -- from an average of about 300 per year in the late 1990s, according to the report. Executions have dropped 40 percent since 1999, when 98 killers were executed. (source: The Ledger) ************************* Killer of teen, aunt sentenced to death----The mother of one victim in the 2000 stranglings sobs with relief. Joycelyn Crawford emerged from the Orlando courtroom Friday in tears. She fell to her knees, sobbed momentarily and then turned to hug the man who prosecuted one of her daughter's killers. "Thank you so much," Crawford cried softly as she embraced Assistant State Attorney Mark Wixtrom on Friday morning. Crawford's combined elation and sorrow came moments after Orange Circuit Judge John H. Adams sentenced David Sylvester Frances to death for the strangling murders of Jo Anna Charles, Crawford's teenage daughter, and Helena Mills, the girl's aunt, in November 2000. After a jury found Frances guilty of the Orlando murders last fall, its members overwhelmingly recommended that the judge impose the death sentence. "The court, being very mindful that a human life is at stake in the balance, finds that the aggravating circumstances greatly outweigh the mitigating circumstances heard by the court," Adams told Frances. "David Sylvester Frances, you have not only forfeited your right to live among us as a free man," Adams added, "but under the laws of the state of Florida, you have forfeited your right to live at all." Frances, 24, and his younger brother Elvis Frances entered Mills' Ring Neck Road condo on Nov. 6, 2000. They strangled Mills and Charles with an electrical cord and piled the younger woman on top of her aunt in the bathroom. A month later, the brothers were found in Mills' car near Atlanta. They had pawned off jewelry and a video-game system stolen from Mills' home. David Frances initially blamed his brother for the killings, but he later confessed that he strangled Mills alone and then assisted his brother in killing Charles. "Because Jo Anna Charles still had life in her, they wrapped the cord around her neck and each of them pulled on one end of it," Adams said during his sentencing. Medical examiners found self-inflicted wounds on Charles' neck, suggesting desperate attempts to prevent her death. Elvis Frances, who many described as the aggressor in the killings, was convicted by another jury in November 2002, but he wasn't eligible for the death penalty because he was 16 at the time of the attacks. He is now serving two life sentences. David Frances' lawyers had argued that their client had a "pathological relationship" with his younger brother, who was dominant because he was stronger and more aggressive. The Frances brothers were originally from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and knew the women they killed. Their mother and Mills were longtime friends. Investigators and doctors learned the brothers had been kicked out of their home by their mother and needed money. David Frances was repeatedly described as quiet and polite, while his brother was characterized as violent and prone to fighting. Elvis Frances had been responsible for another strangulation. Still, Adams noted in his sentencing that David Frances felt his younger brother "was all he had" and was pulled into his lifestyle. Despite David Frances' impoverished upbringing and the bad influences of his brother, Adams said those "circumstances are primarily descriptive and do little to counterbalance the egregious nature of the acts which constitute the crimes." Frances' defense lawyer said Friday that an appeal will follow. It may take years for Frances to reach Florida's death chamber, but Crawford, also from the Virgin Islands, said the sentence still brings her closure. Though she expressed so much emotion with the sentence, Frances himself did not. He did glance toward Crawford as he was escorted from the courtroom Friday. He said nothing to her. "I'm glad for the verdict that came today. I've waited for years for this," Crawford said minutes later. "He did not say anything at all. He did not even blink. He had opportunities to say, 'I'm sorry' or 'Forgive me,' and he never did." (source: Orlando Sentinel) ******************** Request denied State Attorney Brad King responded to criticism from Bill O'Reilly Friday, sending the talk-show host an e-mail saying he will continue to decline invitations to appear on Fox News. King has received criticism from O'Reilly, along with U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite for not prosecuting three Citrus County residents, accused of lying to authorities about registered sex offender John Evander Couey living with them. Couey, 46, was arrested in March for the brutal slaying of 9-year-old Jessica Marie Lunsford. King said in his e-mail, which was sent Friday morning, that he appreciated O'Reilly's "frequent invitations" to appear on the opinion program "The O'Reilly Factor." But he declined to speak on the talk show. "I will continue to respectfully decline to do so," King wrote. "Most recently, however, your staff has upset my neighbors, followed my wife and children, and disrupted the business of my office, apparently in an effort to record the 'official' reason for my decision not to appear." In the e-mail, King said he has a long-standing policy to discuss his decisions with the victims and law enforcement officers involved. He said he discussed his reasoning with Mark Lunsford, Jessica's father, and with Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy. King also said his staff spent considerable time answering Fox News producer's questions regarding the decision not to prosecute. "I also have a long standing practice of not engaging in pointless debate with persons who are not concerned with the facts, or who simply wish to argue because that is their personality," King said. King, citing a passage from O'Reilly's book "The No Spin Zone," also told the talk-show host he discovered recently O'Reilly held the same belief. Placed in the body of the e-mail was a passage from the book. "Sometimes you are going to butt heads with people, no matter how diplomatic you are..." O'Reilly wrote. "Here is some no spin magic potion... avoid these people... avoid those cretins you can never possibly win over... Smile at them away as you walk away." King's office decided earlier in April not to prosecute Dorothy Dixon, Madie Secord and Matthew Dittrich, all of Citrus County. Couey lived with the 3 during the search for 9-year-old Jessica Marie Lunsford. Investigators spoke to the trio twice. Both times the three told Citrus County deputies that they were the only people living in the home. Investigators believe that Jessica was probably still alive during the first visit and could have possibly been alive on the second. In March, the 3 were arrested and faced charges of resisting or obstructing an officer without violence. The charges were dropped because King said there was no law in Florida that makes it a crime to "lie to a police officer." "I intend to see that Mr. Couey, the defendant in this case, is prosecuted to the full extent of the law," King wrote in the final line of his e-mail. "Unlike you, I believe under Florida law the death penalty is appropriate for his acts." (source: Hernando Today) IOWA: No Iowa prisoners meet criteria proposed for death penalty Of the nearly 600 people serving life sentences in Iowa, none were convicted of the combination of crimes that would be eligible for the death penalty under an Iowa Senate Republican plan, according to the Department of Corrections. The Senate plan would allow capital punishment for people convicted of 1st-degree murder of a minor in combination with kidnapping and sexual abuse of the same victim. Not only does nobody meet all three conditions, but only one person has been convicted of 1st-degree murder of a child and 1 of the 2 other crimes -- Lary Lane Morgan, who was found guilty in 1995 of kidnapping and murdering 9-year-old Anna Marie Emry of Grinnell. The case garnered national attention and led to an unsuccessful push in the Legislature to reinstate the death penalty. Now, 10 years later, another young girl has been kidnapped and murdered, 10-year-old Jetseta Gage of Cedar Rapids, leading to renewed calls for capital punishment. Senate Democrats say the lack of offenders convicted of those crimes reveals the Republican plan is an exercise in headline grabbing that would have almost no impact. "The cost of setting up the death penalty procedures will run into the tens of millions of dollars," said Sen. Keith Kreiman, D-Bloomfield. "How much money are you taking away from the correctional system, how much money are you taking away from law enforcement?" But Republicans argue that capital punishment will be worth it if it deters just one murder. "My hope would be we establish the death penalty facility -- actually where we would carry it out -- and it would never be used," said Sen. Larry McKibben, sponsor of the Senate proposal. Just days after Jetseta's death, McKibben called for an immediate debate on the death sentence. He said his plan would end a loophole in the law that encourages kidnappers and rapists to "kill the witness." Democrats blasted the proposal, calling it a cheap attempt to capitalize on a tragedy. Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs said he wouldn't allow the issue to be debated because it doesn't have enough support to pass. The death penalty quickly became one of the big sticking points in the legislative session, just as it was for years after the Emry death. According to the Department of Corrections, there are 575 people in Iowa prisons serving life sentences, with cases dating back to the1950s. The Lee Enterprises Des Moines Bureau requested a list of which offenders have been convicted of the combination of crimes outlined in the Senate bill. "There is no one in the Iowa prison system today serving on charges of murder in the 12t degeree with sex abuse in the 1st degree with a kidnapping 1st degree," said Lettie Prell, assistant to the director of corrections. That means none of the current inmates would have been eligible for the death penalty if the Senate plan was law at the time of their conviction. Only Morgan has been convicted of 1st-degree murder and kidnapping of a child. He's serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in Anamosa State Penitentiary. Another high-profile offender, Stanley Liggins, is serving a life sentence for the 1990 murder of a 9-year-old girl in the Quad-Cities. After a complicated series of legal proceedings and appeals, the Department of Corrections lists him as not having an active charge of kidnapping or rape. He's serving his sentence at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison. (source: Sioux City Journal) ALABAMA: Alabama appeals court decides several death penalty cases A state appeals court ordered a judge Friday to take another look at Joseph Michael Wilson's claim that his attorneys were ineffective when he was convicted and sentenced to die for four killings in Huntsville. Wilson's case was one of several death penalty appeals handled Friday by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. In 2000, the Alabama Supreme Court upheld Wilson's conviction and death sentence for the 1996 shooting deaths of Charles Lamar Hemphill, Michael A. Beaudette, Johnny Couch and Brian Carter at a Huntsville residence. Then he began a new round of appeals, contending his attorneys did not do a good job of representing him, including not pursuing evidence that could have kept him from getting a death sentence. A Huntsville judge rejected the argument, but the appeals court said the judge must give Wilson another chance to prove his allegations. In 2 other cases, the appeals court implemented the March ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that prohibited the death penalty for killers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes. The Court of Criminal Appeals ordered that the death sentences of Shaber Chamond Wimberly and James Willis Bonds must be converted to life in prison without parole. Wimberly was 17 when he killed Mary Spivey during a robbery at her Houston County home in 1997. Bond was 16 when he robbed and killed Dothan businessman Norman Glen Manning in September 1999. In other death penalty cases Friday, the Court of Criminal Appeals: - Upheld Jerry Devane Bryant's new death sentence for the kidnapping and murder of Donald Hollis on Jan. 27, 1997, in Dothan. In 2002, the Alabama Supreme Court upheld Bryant's capital murder conviction for Hollis' shooting death, but set aside Bryant's death sentence and ordered a new sentencing hearing. That new hearing also resulted in a death sentence. - Upheld John Russell Calhoun's conviction and death sentence for the murder of Tracy Phillips, the rape and sodomy of his wife, and the burglary and robbery of their Talladega home on May 8, 1998. - Rejected Christopher Eugene Brooks' claim that his attorney was ineffective during the trial where he was convicted and sentenced to death for raping and killing Jo Deann Campbell in her Homewood apartment on New Year's Eve 1992. Brooks' original conviction and death sentence were upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court in 1997, but he is pursuing a second round of appeals. (source: Associated Press) ********************* John Russell 'Cody' Calhoun death penalty upheld The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the death sentence imposed in 2000 against John Russell "Cody" Calhoun. Talladega County Circuit Judge Jerry Fielding handed down the decision Friday, which was recommended by the jury by a vote of 10 to 2 following a weeklong trial. Talladega County District Attorney Steve Giddens prosecuted the case. "Good," he said when asked for comment on the ruling. "They did exactly what they should have done. If there was ever any one person who deserved to be executed for the crimes they were convicted of, Calhouns that one." Giddens added "cases like this are why you have capital punishment in the first place. He committed the ultimate crime, and the jury heard the evidence against him and found him guilty. They recommended death, the judge agreed with them and now the court of appeals has agreed also." According to evidence presented at his trial, Calhoun broke into the residence of Tracy Lee Phillips at 317 Coffee St. in Talladega on May 8, 1998, at about 10:20 p.m. Calhoun had encountered Phillips and his wife earlier in the day at a yard sale. Calhoun forced entrance through the back door of the residence carrying a handgun and with a white stocking pulled over his face. Phillips was held at gunpoint while his wife, who has since remarried and left the area, ran upstairs and hid her daughter and a friend who was sleeping over. The couples son was not home that night. The wife testified at trial that she hid the girls on a balcony off the master bedroom, then heard footsteps in the hallway and her husbands voice telling her to open the door. Calhoun ordered the wife to undress, lay on the bed and cover her face with a pillow. Phillips was then shot point blank in the back of the head, killing him instantly. The girls on the balcony screamed at this point. Calhoun locked them in a bedroom without a phone, then took the widow back down stairs, where he repeatedly raped and sodomized her at gunpoint. She also testified that he pointed the gun at her at one point and pulled the trigger, but it did not fire. Although the court of appeals upheld the death sentence in this case, Calhoun is not likely to be executed in the near future unless he chooses to waive further appeals. His case could conceivably be heard by the state Supreme Court and all levels of federal court before all appeals are exhausted. Jerry Paul Henderson, for example, was just given an execution date of June 2 for a murder he committed in 1984 and was convicted of in 1989. 2 of Talladega Countys other death row inmates, John W. Peoples and Daniel L. Siebert, have been awaiting execution longer than that. A 3rd Talladega County convict, Shep Wilson, was originally sentenced to death in 1986, but his sentence was overturned and he was recently awarded a new trial based on a technicality. (source: Daily Home) *********************** 2 Houston County death sentences overturned The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has ordered that 2 juveniles from the Wiregrass who were sentenced to death be given life without parole. The Appeals Court on Friday sent the cases of James Willis Bonds and Shaber Chamon Wimberly back to Circuit Court Judge Ed Jackson with instructions that they be resentenced following a ruling in February by the U.S. Supreme Court which struck down a provision allowing states to execute juvenile offenders. The decision ended the practice in 19 states which allowed juveniles above 16 to be executed for capital murder and throws out the death sentences of 72 murderers who were under 18 at the time they committed their crimes. The age of eligibility for execution in Alabama was 16. Alabama has 196 inmates on death row, 14 of whom were juveniles when they committed murder. "We knew they were coming back," said Houston County District Attorney Doug Valeska. "I'm not surprised. The Supreme Court said we can't kill people under 18. It's bad law but it's the law of the land." Bonds, was 16 years old when he and an accomplice robbed and murdered Norman Manning, beating his face repeatedly with a blunt weapon before shooting him in the head at close range in 1999. Wimberly was convicted of capital murder for the June 24, 1997 killing of 63-year-old Mary Spivey in Columbia. He was also convicted in the deaths of retired state trooper Max King and his wife, Johneen, who were killed in their Midland City home. Wimberly was 17 at the time of the killings. Valeska described Bonds as a "killing machine" and said the ruling gives 16 and 17 year olds a license to kill because they can't face the ultimate punishment. "It's very discouraging when you have 16 and 17 year olds that are committing the worst crimes we have on the books against our citizens," Valeska said. "It's just terrible. But I don't make the law. There's nothing I can do. It's very discouraging and I feel sorry for the families." Jackson now has 28 days to resentence Bonds and Wimberly. The case will then go back to the appeals court which will look at the guilt phase of the conviction. Attorney Scott Hedeen, who represented Bonds, said it was a relief for his client, but added the process isn't over yet for Bonds. "I feel good for all of the reasons spelled out by the court," Hedeen said. "We'll see what the rest of it brings." Hedeen said the Supreme Court's ruling will actually strengthen death penalty laws in the country, not weaken them. "The prosecution will actually benefit from these types of cases because the more the courts limit those people that are capable of getting the death penalty, ultimately the stronger it will be," Hedeen said. (source: The Dothan Eagle) MASSACHUSETTS: Fate of death penalty bill rests with small group of lawmakers Any chance Gov. Mitt Romney has of resurrecting the death penalty in Massachusetts rests in the hands of a narrow group of lawmakers - those who oppose capital punishment not on moral grounds, but because they fear an innocent person might be executed. How many of those lawmakers exist on Beacon Hill is anyone's guess. But in the absence of hard numbers, both sides were claiming an edge. On Friday, a day after unveiling a death penalty bill he says will make it virtually impossible to execute the innocent, Romney told reporters safeguards in the legislation are already swaying some lawmakers. "I've spoken to more than one legislator who expressed concern about the death penalty and yet felt there are safeguards in this new bill that provides them with the confidence that they were lacking in the past," Romney said. Rep. Philip Travis, D-Rehoboth, agreed. Travis, who supports the death penalty, said the main reason the death penalty lost in past votes was a fear of executing the innocent, not a strict moral opposition. Romney's bill is a vast improvement over previous death penalty bills, in part because of the extra protections for those facing execution, Travis said. "My colleagues back then, they said if we could be absolutely sure (there would be no mistakes) they would vote for the death penalty, but because they can't be absolutely sure, they didn't want to take a chance," he said. "This (bill) moves that margin way, way closer." Death penalty foes say the momentum is on their side. They say lawmakers have grown more leery about imposing the death penalty in recent years. They point to the Legislature's approval last year of a bill allowing anyone wrongfully convicted of a crime and sentenced to a year or more in jail to sue the state for up to half a million dollars. "There is a growing feeling that we have to be more careful about the mistakes that have been made," said Rep. Byron Rushing, D-Boston. Martina Jackson, Executive Director of Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty, said she's confident that sentiment on Beacon Hill is moving away from the death penalty. But she also conceded that could change quickly in the face of a single horrific crime. "We always live with the sense that one child murder could change that dynamic," she said. The death penalty debate reached an emotional watershed following the 1997 murder of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley. Curley was abducted from a Cambridge street and killed by two men who later got life sentences. Public outrage fueled calls for a death penalty bill that passed easily in the state Senate. Foes defeated it by a single vote in the House. Since then the margin of opposition has grown in the House, which defeated another death penalty bill two years later by 80-73 margin. The Senate hasn't taken a roll call vote on the death penalty since 1997. During that time there has been a change in leadership in both chambers, an influx of new lawmakers, and rising questions about the fairness of capital punishment nationwide. Romney's bill would allow capital punishment for people convicted of terrorism, multiple murders and killing law enforcement officers. It includes safeguards he says will protect the innocent, including a requirement that physical evidence, such as DNA, directly link the defendant to the crime scene. The bill also mandates an additional review of that evidence before a death sentence is imposed, and every death penalty case would have separate juries for the trial and sentencing. Every case would automatically be reviewed by the state's highest court, and a commission would be created to review complaints and investigate errors. The last executions in Massachusetts were in 1947. In 1982, 54 % of Massachusetts voters approved a death penalty ballot question, which was later ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Judicial Court. (source: Associated Press)
