May 1 USA: Round Table Teens----Teenagers weigh in on Supreme Court ruling The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that convicts cannot be executed for crimes committed before they turned 18. Some members of the 2004-2005 Courier-Journal High School Round Table see the ruling as a humane and decent decision, even as they struggle with the issue of whether teen defendants should really be held to a different standard. The ruling became a launching point for a recent round table discussion about the death penalty in general and about the ability of teens to make responsible and moral decisions. The High School Round Table is a yearly tradition that dates to 1983. This year's 12 members were chosen from more than 350 applicants. Here are excerpts from their recent conversation: Beverly Bartlett: What was your reaction to the ruling? Katie Shannon, 18, senior, Eastern High School: My initial reaction was one of surprise because we have such a conservative Supreme Court right now. However, I have mixed feelings on the subject. I think people do understand the consequences of their actions, and I think that if I was a family member of a victim, I might want that person put to death. However, when I really thought about it, I thought that (the ruling) kind of moves us toward becoming a more humane society and so I think it was a step forward. Keane Barger, 17, junior, Meade County High School: We are one of the only 1st- and 2nd-world countries that still had minors being killed and the Supreme Court ruled based on international law and evolving standards of decency. I think if they are 16 or 17, they probably do know the consequences of their actions, but I also think you are more easily influenced. Kurt Manning, 15, freshman, Louisville Collegiate School: I support the death penalty. (But) I'm not for (using it on) kids. Since you are not really an adult, they shouldn't consider you an adult and punish you and put you to death. Because I think when you are 15, 16, 17, you don't think as clearly. You just try to get along and you don't see the consequences. Bartlett: In the specific case the Supreme Court was ruling on, a guy broke into somebody's house and tied the woman up, stole stuff from the house, and then threw her in a river so that she drowned. What do you think would be the appropriate punishment? Duffy Smallwood, 18, senior, Our Lady of Providence: I know this sounds kind of bad, but I don't think it matters how heinous the crime is. I don't think anybody can make that call. I think God is the only one that can judge people. That aside, because I don't believe you should make national decisions based on religion, I think that's like the ultimate taking away of someone's freedom is killing them. I believe in rehabilitation for some things, but I think if someone murders someone, they should be in an institution for the rest of their life regardless if they are 17 or 27. Katie: I think what a lot of people who are outraged by this decision don't fully understand is that it doesn't mean that minors are going to be let out for their crimes. It doesn't mean that minors aren't going to be punished. I think that we need to make sure that we implement very severe punishments -- especially in the case of murder and premeditated murder -- so that the person is truly punished appropriately. As long as we continue to do that, I think that we will get the message across and it will be an effective way to handle this. Keane: I think it's easy for people to understand if someone does something impulsively that maybe the person was just confused. But I also think when something is premeditated like that case was, I still think someone can be confused. They may have been confused for, you know, their entire lives. It could be a whole lifetime of things building up that eventually leads to them getting to this point where they are going to kill somebody. And as far as the punishment is concerned, I think the job of our courts and the purpose of law is to protect every citizen. As long as people are being protected, I think they should just get life (in prison). Bartlett: Explain how you came to your opinion about the death penalty. Is it related to your religious beliefs, your feelings about deterrence? What? Sailee Gupte, 17, junior, Manual High School: I don't support the death penalty because basically (it makes us) an-eye-for-an-eye society and that's not really what America is about. It's not, well, you did this so I'm going to do this. It's a society based on justice. I think lifetime in prison -- without parole -- would suffice because they would have no chance at freedom. They have to live every day with what they have done. Mallory Sharp, 17, junior, New Albany High School: For a while, I used to think that the death penalty was OK because "an eye for an eye," but then I thought what does that really solve? Who are we to say, you know, I have the right to take away a life? It stems from my religious background, but even putting that aside, it's just that I don't think that any of us have the right to take away someone's life. I think that life in prison without the chance for parole would suffice. I think that (life in prison) probably doesn't make the families of the victims feel much better. But I think it is kind of inhumane to just kill someone because they committed a crime. Granted, what they did was wrong, and they should be punished. But I think that putting them in an institution for the rest of their lives without a chance of getting out would be terrible (enough). I wouldn't want to sit there and think about the things that I had done. Tommy Martin, 17, junior, Trinity High School: I was always taught that revenge is never the answer, and whenever I think of the death penalty, I usually think it is usually out of revenge because the victim's family wants the criminal dead for wronging their loved one. I'm one of the people that hasn't been affected by (a murder of a loved one) -- otherwise I might be saying the person should die. But that gets back into that revenge issue and laws based on revenge. I do believe that if someone kills someone, they probably need to be locked away where they can't hurt anybody. (But) like Duffy said, nobody but God has the right to kill anybody. Katie: My political views have changed a lot in the last couple of years. I used to be very much in support of the death penalty because of the money issues with it. I didn't think that it was fair for the families of a victim -- of a murder victim -- to then essentially pay with their tax dollars to support the person who murdered their loved one. But the more I think about it, it actually costs a lot more and takes a lot longer to get closure when someone is put on death row. When somebody is sentenced to death, they are allowed unlimited appeals. This takes time, money and a lot of work by lawyers and officials. It actually can take decades before the family can put this behind them. So the more I learned about how our government works, the more that I saw that a life sentence in prison would be a more effective means of punishing someone and also think it makes us more humane as a society. Keane: My understanding of the law is that the point is to protect society and the citizens that live within it. I see the death penalty as unnecessary. It doesn't serve the purpose of law. Kurt: Sorry (to disagree), but I think if you kill someone that is innocent and who didn't do anything to you and you just kill them and -- some people do just terrible things -- like this one guy I read about, he just chopped off a guy's head and chopped up his whole body and burned it. I think that guy should be put to death because that is just terrible. I was watching the news and that guy from Connecticut, he killed like 8 people and I don't see why he should still be even living because that's just terrible. I'm sorry, but he just deserves to die. I mean it would just serve all the victims' families and so many other people -- they'll just feel so much safer and they'll just put it all behind them and they'll feel much better about it. Tommy: When it comes to the death penalty, I think maybe the only reason someone should be put to death is if that person seemed to have no redeeming qualities and there is just nothing left for them. Like a heinous crime, I guess maybe he should be put to death because there's nothing left anyone else can do. Bartlett: The Supreme Court ruling specifically mentioned that teens aren't mature enough, when explaining why the death penalty should not apply to them. Right about the same time, a study came out about teenagers and driving, and it said that one of the reasons teens have a lot of accidents is that the area of the brain that makes risk assessment doesn't mature until age 25. Are you offended at all by the implication that you are not mature enough to make these kinds of decisions? Sailee: I think that using the excuse that kids' brains aren't developed enough as an excuse for murder is just a bunch of - I mean, you know right from wrong, OK? You know that you should not kill people. With driving, it's mostly like teenagers, they don't have the experience of the road and that's why they take risks. I guess they don't understand the consequences - but the consequences of murdering someone, that all people can understand. Katie: As for the driving thing, I've been at fault in three accidents in less than 2 years so I'm going to have to support that study. However, I don't think that driving ability and the brain development for driving has anything to do with our acknowledging that murder is wrong. A 17-year-old who goes in and shoots his classmates does understand the consequences of his actions and it has nothing to do with brain development. It has nothing to do with morals or even background. That person knew what they were doing and should be punished. Put to death is questionable. Keane: The study saying that teenagers' brains are different than adults? I'd have to say that that is true because scientifically if they studied brain patterns and things as you age it definitely changes. Teenagers have the highest suicide rate out of any age group. They also have the highest depression rate and they have the highest amount of mental illness among any age group. Usually, the reason for heinous crimes like murders is because of mental illness, and I think a big problem in our country is that we don't think of mental illness enough as we do a physical illness. If someone has cancer, you are going to treat them nicely and try and help them recover from it. If someone has deep depression and they are possibly suicidal -- and a lot of times that can lead to them losing their mind and killing someone -- people say, "Oh, you should be able to get out of it on your own. We're not going to help you and we're not going to treat you well." I think we need to start looking at mental illness like you would a physical illness, and I think the teenage brain is more susceptible to depression and suicide, which can lead to bad murders. Bartlett: One thing that is mentioned a lot is that teens are more influenced by pressure. Why do you think that is? Sailee: Ultimately, it comes down to your self-confidence. If you are confident enough in yourself to be able to say no to something or just reject a certain thing because you know it's wrong. I really don't think you can be pressured into murdering somebody. I mean, shoplifting -- I can see that, you know. But murdering somebody is not something that you can be pressured into. That's just way too extreme. Mallory: Sometimes, teens make rash decisions because of something that their friends say or their friends do, like shoplifting or doing drugs or drinking or anything for that matter. I guess kids can be pressured to murder. I've heard of cases -- like I've watched on Court TV cases where a guy and a girl are in love but she is with somebody else and she convinces him to kill. But I think it comes down to a point where you decide. It's your decision to kill someone. Teenagers are probably a little more easily influenced because they don't know who they are. They want to fit in with everybody, and they are trying to make everybody happy and also become themselves. Keane: Most murders -- the majority of murders that occur in this country -- it's usually for some reason. Like there is an argument or it had something to do with drugs -- a drug deal was going down. There is usually some reason behind the murder. I think as far as the peer pressure goes, people don't pressure you to murder, but it can lead to things that will eventually make you murder someone. Drugs a lot of times lead you into places where there are various individuals that know about murder. They have seen murder. They've been, you know, it happens. That can lead you down that wrong path, and I think the peer pressure starts. It leads you down a road that you shouldn't be taking, and then it's just like a slippery slope. It just keeps falling down. So no one is making you kill someone. It's what leads up to making you kill someone. Kurt: I agree. One thing leads to another. Like say people get you to start stealing stuff and then you escalate to bigger and bigger stuff and then you might actually shoot someone or you might actually murder. (source: Louisville Courier-Journal) ************************** Empty Promise One of the loftier moments in President Bush's State of the Union address came when he promised to improve the quality of the defense offered in death-penalty cases and to expand the use of DNA testing to prevent wrongful convictions. A close look at Mr. Bush's budget, however, shows that his promise was largely illusory. Mr. Bush is asking for $20 million for a hazily defined effort to train lawyers, judges and prosecutors in capital cases. This falls far short of the $75 million called for in the Justice for All Act, a broadly bipartisan law designed to address these and other vital justice-related issues. Mr. Bush signed it last October. Among other things, the law would set standards for effective representation and provide financial incentives for states to meet them. Similarly, while the president's budget laudably provides money to eliminate the current backlog of rape kits awaiting DNA testing in crime labs, it shortchanges, or leaves without any funds, some needed provisions aimed at catching criminals and clearing the innocent. Those provisions include special grants to encourage states to permit postconviction DNA testing of evidence, where warranted, and to improve the quality of crime labs across the board. Leading Republican and Democratic sponsors of the Justice for All Act in the House and Senate have now joined together to urge the appropriations committees in each chamber to revise the president's numbers to fully finance the act, a landmark criminal justice package. Their effort merits broad support. (source: Editorial, The New York Times, April 29) US MILITARY: U.S. military inching to resumption of executions -- Languishing cases, including 1 in Texas, may show Army's reluctance After more than 40 years without an execution, the U.S. military could soon resume capital punishment as two death row inmates at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., are exhausting their final appeals and their cases move toward the Oval Office for a death warrant signed by the commander in chief. The 2 death sentences - both affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court and under review by the Department of Defense - have languished in recent years, and some say the war in Iraq and domestic politics render authorities reluctant to send 2 former active-duty soldiers into the death chamber. "These cases are potential hot potatoes, and this administration may be in no hurry to approve the first military execution in over 40 years," said Eugene Fidell, a Washington lawyer and military-law expert. The U.S. military prison at the Kansas base houses 5 men on death row, and military prosecutors are seeking to send a 6th. Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar was convicted last week of killing 2 comrades and wounding 14 others in a grenade attack on his own camp in Kuwait at the start of the Iraq war. A military jury in Fort Bragg, N.C., sentenced Akbar on Thursday to death. A Texas case is among the oldest on the military's death row, that of Army Pfc. Dwight Loving. A jury of 5 soldiers at Fort Hood convicted Loving in the 1988 killing of 2 cab drivers in Killeen. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld his death sentence in 1996. Another case heading toward the president's desk involves Cpl. Ronald Gray, sentenced to death in 1988 for killing two women and raping a 3rd near Fort Bragg. The Supreme Court declined to hear Gray's case. After more than 5 years of consideration, the Army secretary's office recently affirmed the death sentences and sent them to the Department of Defense, said Martha Rudd, an Army spokeswoman. The Uniform Code of Military Justice does not require a review by the Defense Department. Less aggressive Maj. Michael Shaver, a spokesman for the Defense Department, said the cases will be evaluated and sent to the White House. He declined to speculate about when that may take place. The military appears far less aggressive in seeking executions than many local Texas prosecutors and judges, said Houston military-law attorney and former Marine prosecutor Guy Womack. "If these were Harris County cases, their time would have been up a long time ago," Womack said. "These military cases have been languishing for many years." That may reflect the military's shifting priorities in recent years rather than a hesitancy to carry out the executions, said Theresa Norris, a South Carolina attorney and military-law expert who represents Loving. "Obviously, with conflict going on in Iraq and the war on terrorism, I think the military has a larger focus," Norris said. "I don't know that it's so much a reluctance to focus on military death row as it is that there are larger problems that the military is trying to deal with." Though the military rank and file may support the death penalty, the top-level officials charged with completing a capital case may feel differently, Womack said. "The members of the juries who tried these capital cases were not afraid to give the death penalty, and they were officers and senior enlisted men out in the field. But at the upper levels of the judicial process, there is a reluctance to mete out the death penalty," he said. Senior military and civilian officials are likely mindful that President Bush presided over 152 executions while governor of Texas, Womack said. "My suspicion is that they know we have a president with the moral courage to sign a death warrant when one is presented to him, and they may not want him to see one of those." The last soldier executed was Army Pvt. John Bennett, convicted in 1955 of the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old Austrian girl. Bennett's death warrant was signed by President Eisenhower, but he was not hanged until 1961, after President Kennedy took office. In state and federal death-penalty cases, a judge signs the death warrant and a governor or president has the option of granting clemency. In a military case, however, the president, as commander in chief, must sign the death warrant. The last time a president took action in a military death-penalty case was in 1963, when Kennedy commuted to life imprisonment the sentence of a Navy enlisted man convicted of murdering an officer. New guidelines in 1984 The U.S. Supreme Court struck down existing capital punishment statutes as unconstitutional in 1972, and President Reagan enacted new guidelines for capital punishment in military courts in 1984. At least 10 men have been sentenced to death since then, although at least 5 later saw their sentences overturned or commuted to life in prison. In 1997, President Clinton added life without parole as an alternative to the death penalty. The electric chair that replaced the gallows was never used. Injection is the method of execution, which would be carried out in the death chamber at Fort Leavenworth's prison. The military's judicial process and death row are separate from those of the federal government, which houses 35 condemned killers with its own death chamber at a facility in Terre Haute, Ind. Womack recalled prosecuting a death-penalty case in 1990, when he won a conviction and death sentence against Curtis Allen Gibbs, who tortured and murdered a woman near Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Reluctance to execute Several months after the sentence, a Marine general commuted Gibbs' sentence to life, citing the first Gulf War and a reluctance to execute the man at a time of military conflict. Although the former active-duty personnel on death row have been convicted of murder, military leaders may ultimately be hesitant to execute one of their own, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "I think if it was some outside terrorist who somehow falls under military law, it might be different," Dieter said. "But these are clearly people who broke the law but also people who were part of the military community." (source: Houston Chronicle) NORTH CAROLINA: Prosecutor: Marine intended to make example of detainees----Hearing closes for officer accused of murdering 2 Iraqis A Marine accused of murdering two Iraqi detainees intended to make an example of them by shooting them 60 times and hanging a sign over their bodies, prosecutors said Saturday during closing arguments in a pretrial hearing. "There's no other reason why this stellar lieutenant would have used such poor judgment," prosecutor Maj. Stephen Keane said. "It is not up to a 2nd lieutenant to violate the law of war and make an example of people he believes are bad." Prosecutors allege that 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano killed the suspected insurgents in April 2004 after ordering a search of their car. Pantano, a former Wall Street trader who rejoined the Marines after the September 11 attacks, says he acted in self-defense after the men moved toward him. "Lt. Pantano has told this to virtually every person who asked him," defense attorney Charles Gittins said in his closing statement. "He did exactly what he was required to do under the circumstances." Pantano declined to make a statement in court after consulting with his lawyers. The Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury, will determine whether Pantano, 33, will face a court-martial. If convicted of murder, he could get the death penalty. The investigating officer has been given at least a week to make his recommendations. The five-day hearing came to a close Saturday after Pantano's chief accuser returned to the stand following several days of legal wrangling. Sgt. Daniel Coburn abruptly left the stand Wednesday when he was told he was suspected of violating orders prohibiting him from giving media interviews about the case. He returned to the stand Saturday after being granted immunity from prosecution. Coburn testified Saturday that he believed the men were going to be brought in for questioning when Pantano ordered the search of their car. However, Coburn also acknowledged that Pantano had stripped him of his job as squad leader and elevated a lower-ranking Marine to replace him. He said he believed his last evaluation, written by Pantano and reviewed by 2 higher-ranking officers, was a "career-ender." Coburn said he hadn't seen the evaluation before he began to question Pantano's actions. (source: Associated Press) ******************** Witness Given Immunity in Marine Hearing A military prosecutor pressed the claim Saturday that the shootings of two Iraqis by a Marine officer last year were executions, and said the officer should be court-martialed for premeditated murder and related charges. But lawyers for the officer, Second Lieutenant Ilario Pantano, insisted at a hearing that the shootings, which occurred during a search outside a suspected insurgent hideout, had been self-defense. They said the accusations arose because of a sergeant who had an ax to grind against Lieutenant Pantano, the sergeant's platoon commander. The sergeant, Daniel Coburn, was Lieutenant Pantano's primary accuser, and described the shootings as executions in a letter to his wife. Charles Gittins, a civilian defense lawyer, spent close to six hours Saturday - the conclusion of a 5-day hearing - trying to debunk Sergeant Coburn's earlier testimony. Sergeant Coburn, testifying under a grant of immunity, acknowledged under questioning that his position about what had happened in Iraq was an opinion. He also said he had never formally notified superiors because he had not thought they would take the claim seriously. "I do not recall my state of mind when I wrote this letter," Sergeant Coburn said under intense questioning by Mr. Gittins. "I never intended this letter to be part of a court hearing." Prosecutors pressed for the case to go forward, but said Saturday that they would not seek the death penalty, even though the top charge, premeditated murder, allows that option. "Marines are the most fearsome warriors on this planet," Maj. Stephen Keane, the lead prosecutor in the case, said. "The world must also know that we fight with honor." Major Keane said: "We know the accused shot these people 50 or 60 times. We know he shot them so many times because he intended to send a message." In a statement to an investigator, Lieutenant Pantano said that he had intended just that, when explaining why he fired so many times. The defense maintains that if the first shots were indeed justified, the number that followed is inconsequential. The prosecution said the men had been shot in the back. Mr. Gittins said that there was no proof of this and that no forensics experts had given any testimony to back up the claim. In a statement to an investigator made last year, Lieutenant Pantano said he had unloaded two magazines from an M-16 rifle at the Iraqis, Hamaady Kareem and Tahah Ahmead Hanjil, outside a house that marines under his command were searching near Mahmudiyah on April 15, 2004. He discharged as many as 60 rounds and then left a sign reading "No Better Friend-No Worse Enemy." Placed near the bodies, the sign was a warning to other Iraqis to stay away from the insurgency, Mr. Gittins said. Major Keane said the sign was not unlike leaving a "head on a stake." Mr. Gittins defended Lieutenant Pantano's actions. "He felt threatened and he shot them," he said. "He did exactly what he was supposed to do under the circumstances." Lieutenant Pantano served in the Marines in the Gulf War, then took business classes at New York University and went to work at Goldman Sachs as a day trader. He ended up working in several high-tech business ventures with old classmates from the Horace Mann School, a private school he had attended. He rejoined the Marines after Sept. 11 , and has said that he shaved his head in preparation for that immediately after learning of them. Major Keane said a court-martial was needed because the self-defense claim did not hold up. The hearing officer, Major Mark E. Winn, will review the evidence and testimony, then make his recommendation to Major Gen. Richard Huck as to whether the case should continue on to a court-martial. Meanwhile, Mr. Gittins said, Lieutenant Pantano continues working for the Marines as an instructor. (source: New York Times) CALIFORNIA: Nation plans to join new ally at prison Democratic Assemblyman Joe Nation will join a new ally, Republican state Sen. Jeff Denham, on a tour of San Quentin as Denham focuses on ways to scuttle plans for a $220 million death row facility. "We need to do what's right for taxpayers around the state," said Denham, a Merced legislator who introduced a bill last week to close San Quentin no later than 2010. "It's ridiculous to spend good money on a bad project." Nation's and Denham's staffs are coordinating schedules so that the two legislators can tour the prison together, possibly as early as next week, Denham said. "It's important to do this as soon as possible," Denham said yesterday. "My concern is the longer we wait, the more likely the state is to spend the money for the 1st phase of construction - and I don't want to see that money wasted." Nation said he welcomes Denham's support, which he sees as part of a bipartisan "momentum shift" on the issue in Sacramento. "I'm seeing a real effort in the Legislature to examine the San Quentin expansion - not just with Denham, but also in conversations with my colleagues," Nation said. "I don't think there's any question that (Denham's backing) does help the cause." Despite opposition from Nation and other Marin leaders, the state plans to begin construction this fall on a new maximum security death row on 40 acres next to the existing 153-year-old prison. Nation and Marin Supervisor Steve Kinsey say the prisoners could be housed elsewhere for less, and that the site would have more benefit as a regional transit hub. State Department of Corrections officials, however, say they must proceed with the new death row facility because staff and inmates' lives are in danger. More than 600 condemned prisoners are now housed in the current death row, originally built for 68 inmates. Nation, who is working with Kinsey on an economic report they hope will persuade Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to reconsider the project, said he received financial data last week from the Corrections Department and is expecting more details today. After that, he said, he will try to set up the presentation with the governor's staff. "The key is to make sure the county consultant has all the information he needs," said Nation, in a reference to former state corrections executive Mike Pickett. "We'll really push for a date after that." Denham, 37, said his statement last week that "our inmates don't need an ocean view" had impact because it painted a picture in people's minds who aren't familiar with San Quentin. "It's easy for people around the state, when they hear a quote like that, to understand that there's actually less expensive places to house our inmates," Denham said yesterday. An entrepreneur and fiscal conservative who runs a Salinas plastics recycling business and an almond ranch, Denham said he has talked to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger about ways to expedite the sale of a range of surplus property across the state. "He was very encouraging on the broad issue, but we didn't get into specifics," Denham said. Denham said he will be looking, during the San Quentin tour, to see the condition of the prison's buildings, health-care facilities, security for death row inmates and safety for prison guards. He said the argument that state laws require death row inmates to be housed and executed at San Quentin doesn't hold up. Earlier this month, the state Corrections Department released a final environmental report that said death row can't be moved because of existing state laws. "I think there's a number of bureaucrats who can come up with reasons why we can't make that change," Denham said. "But the bottom line is we need to make this change." Nation said while the current law is firm that death row inmates must be executed at San Quentin, it is vague about requirements that the condemned inmates must also be housed there. "The housing issue needs to be clarified in code," Nation said. "At a minimum, we'll have to change the code to allow housing elsewhere." The final environmental report on the new death row is scheduled for certification today by the state corrections director. That will kick off a 30-day period during which individuals or groups may file legal challenges. If there are no legal challenges, the environmental impact report will go to a state public works board for a final go-ahead on construction. (source: Marin Independent Journal) ********************* Bad and Worse Tip the Scales of Justice There's probably no point in comparing the 2 grisly crimes. What's been done can't be undone. Trying to decide which is the more repugnant won't get us anywhere. Suffice it to say that redemption for the guilty is the furthest thing from anyone's mind. But it was impossible to escape the presence last week, on the same page of the newspaper, of the fates awaiting Alejandro Avila and the former Charles Rothenberg, who now goes by the name Charley Charles. In Orange County, the jury that convicted Avila will decide this week whether he will be executed for kidnapping, sexually assaulting and killing 5-year-old Samantha Runnion in 2002. I doubt that even Mr. Avila puzzles over where that deliberation will end up. Rothenberg, as he was known during his criminal heyday in Orange County 20 years ago, faces a whole different future. A judge in San Francisco sentenced him Friday to 7 years, 4 months for being a felon in possession of a gun. With time served since 2001, Rothenberg is eligible for release in late 2006. Obviously, it's not the weapons charge that put Rothenberg in the paper along with Avila. It was his 1983 conviction for giving his 6-year-old son a sleeping pill before dousing the area around his bed with kerosene and setting fire to the Buena Park motel room where he'd taken the boy. It strikes me as additionally heinous that Rothenberg took his unwitting son with him when he bought the kerosene. For those previously unfamiliar with the now-dated Rothenberg case, his actions may seem no less grotesque than Avila's. But here's the difference: Young David Rothenberg survived. Although suffering 3rd-degree burns over 90% of his body and being left basically unrecognizable, he recovered and is alive today. Now for the question that I think most people would have: You call that a difference? No, I don't. It's absurd, in a garden-variety common sense way, that Rothenberg isn't seen in the same way as Avila. His son survived as atrocious an act as you can imagine only because something in the room exploded and David, who'd been heard screaming, was pulled out. By then, his father had fled. As bleeding a heart as I am, I've never understood why some attempted murder charges don't carry the same punishment as an actual murder. Because a shooter misses his target's heart by an inch, he escapes a murder charge. Because Rothenberg only disfigured his son instead of killing him as he intended, he served less than seven years before being paroled. It's not that anyone went soft on Rothenberg. He was sentenced to the max for the arson-attempted murder, but that was only 13 years. 5 years into the sentence, a still-bothered judge told Times reporter Nancy Wride, "He would have died in prison if I had anything to say about it." This time around, the system tried to give Rothenberg a life sentence under the three-strikes law, but another unhappy judge in San Francisco said she was compelled by law to count the 1983 crime as a single action - not the dual attempted murder-arson charges under which Rothenberg was convicted. Thus, the lighter range for his weapons conviction. So while Avila probably will get a death sentence, Rothenberg gets another reprieve. I've written more than once over the years that I don't support capital punishment. I still don't, but I've also written that you won't find me at a candlelight vigil to protest certain executions, either. I won't lose a wink of sleep on the night Avila is executed. Rothenberg, 64, likely would have been executed by now if his son hadn't survived. I said I wouldn't try to rank the 2 crimes. But since we're left with nothing but a "what-if" exercise, tell me if you'd take this deal, which I would in a second: Spare Avila's life, if, in exchange, we could put Rothenberg away for life. (source: Column, Dana Parsons, Los Angeles Times) VERMONT: 50 years later, Vt. revisits executions--Defining 1955 case shadows new trial Late on a September night half a century ago, Lionel Goyet, a 21-year-old soldier absent without leave for the 5th time, was hitchhiking south on US Route 5 in Barton. In uniform, he was headed back to Fort Devens, Mass., to turn himself in. He had just left his wife's home, where he had learned "she was going out on me." The court record offers no explanation about why he was carrying a .22-caliber pistol he had borrowed from a friend or why he decided to rob Archie Webber, a 26-year-old farmhand known to his family as Pete, who was headed home to East Haven. Goyet shot Webber twice in the head and took $2. In September 1955, the crime was big news. "You don't handle a 1st-degree murder case every day, especially in Vermont," said Clement Potvin of Waterford, a retired State Police lieutenant. In 1955, Potvin was a trooper 1st class who arrested Goyet the next day. Almost 2 years later, the Vermont Supreme Court upheld Goyet's 1st-degree murder conviction and his death sentence. It was the last one imposed by a Vermont court. Vermont is a different place now from what it was in 1957. The state was just starting the shift that would turn it from one of the most conservative states in the country to what some consider the most liberal. Now, though, decades after the state deliberately abandoned the death penalty, attorneys are preparing for a death penalty trial in federal court in Burlington. Jury selection is set to begin Tuesday in the case of Donald Fell, a 24-year-old former Rutland man accused of killing a Clarendon woman abducted in a supermarket parking lot in November 2000. In the winter of 1957, while the state Supreme Court was considering Goyet's case, Representative Cornelius Granai of Barre introduced a bill to give courts more discretion in imposing death sentences. The bill passed 3 weeks after Goyet was sentenced to die. 6 months after the court sentenced Goyet to death, his sentence was commuted. In 1969, Governor Deane Davis signed a conditional pardon for Goyet and he was released from prison. Goyet died of heart failure in 1980 in Littleton, N.H. Officials at the state archives could find nothing in the historical record to indicate if Granai's bill prompted Governor Joe Johnson to commute Goyet's sentence in November 1957 or, 12 years later, what prompted Davis to sign the pardon for Goyet that set him free. Granai's son Ed, a former state legislator from Burlington, said his father spent his years in the Legislature working to eliminate the death penalty. The elder Granai was Washington County state's attorney from 1928 to 1934, and he witnessed the execution of a man he convicted. "When he saw this guy executed, it really shook him up," Ed Granai said. "To my knowledge, that was when he thought seriously about outlawing the death penalty." It was not until 1965 that the Legislature, in effect, outlawed capital punishment, although technically the death penalty remained a part of state law until 1987. The state's death penalty law was invalidated in 1972 by the US Supreme Court decision that commuted all death sentences in the country. Phil Hoff, who served as governor from 1963 to 1969, said that even though the death penalty was on the books through his governorship in limited circumstances, he would not have allowed an execution to take place. "The death penalty is wrong," Hoff said recently. ''The evidence is overwhelming that the death penalty doesn't deter anything and is essentially an act of revenge. I don't believe in that." Goyet was the last person sentenced to death in a Vermont courtroom, but his was not the last capital trial. In 1962, Charlotte Mahoney, a Franklin County housewife, went on trial for the first-degree murder of her husband, the death penalty hanging over the proceedings. She was convicted of 2nd-degree murder, which did not carry the possibility of death. While Vermont has moved away from the death penalty, the state has also moved toward taking into consideration the feelings of victims and their families. "In general, we've become much savvier and sensitive to victims' needs," said Amy Holloway, the director of victim services for the Vermont Department of Corrections. Now, when a defendant is sentenced, the victims or their families are offered the option of being notified whenever an inmate has a change in status. And if asked, an advocate will accompany victims or their family to parole hearings. Even after 50 years, the pain caused by Pete Webber's murder is still acute. His sister, Charlene Calcagni-Boisvert, was a 12-year-old eighth-grader in 1955 when she told her brother she hated him for the big-brother torment he inflicted on her. It was the last thing she ever said to him. "I hung onto that for many years because I could never say I'm sorry," said Calcagni-Boisvert, now of Barre. She said she can never go by the pull-off on Route 5 where Webber was killed without thinking of him. "The reason Pete picked him up was because he was in uniform. Pete had just gotten out of the service," she said. At the time, the Webbers wanted Goyet to be executed. "The justice of the day really wasn't served," Calcagni-Boisvert said. "Whatever the reason he didn't get the death penalty, I'll never know." Being the sister of a murder victim has colored her feeling about the death penalty. "As a relative of a victim, I feel there is just cause for the death penalty," she said. "If I hadn't gone through that, I wouldn't be for it." (source: Associated Press)
