May 10
TEXAS:
Death knell for the death penalty? ----Texas legislators -- yes, Texas --
are on the verge of approving a law that could result in a decline in
executions nationwide.
In January 2001, Texas Gov. Rick Perry concluded that it was time for the
Texas Legislature to "take a good hard look" at allowing juries to
sentence capital defendants to prison for the rest of their lives, with no
chance for parole, instead of executing them. 3 years later, Perry himself
still had not made up his own mind on whether to give Texas juries the
authority that jurors in 36 of the 38 death penalty states have. And that
was too bad for Kelsey Patterson, a psychotic death-row inmate who
believed his actions were controlled by implants in his brain. On May 18,
2004, Perry said he was compelled to deny Patterson clemency, despite an
unprecedented 5-1 recommendation by the Texas parole board that the
sentence be commuted to life in prison.
"After carefully reviewing all the facts in this case," the Republican
governor said, Patterson would have to be executed because Texas had no
statute mandating life without parole "and no one can guarantee this
defendant would never be freed to commit other crimes were his sentence
commuted."
In fact, Perry was fully aware that Patterson, a paranoid schizophrenic
whom the state had once found to be legally insane, had about as much
chance of being released from prison as he had of turning into a giant
purple armadillo. But the governor was able to claim that Patterson might
be freed because a murderer who is not sentenced to death in Texas
receives a "life" sentence, which by definition means he must serve 40
years before becoming "eligible" for parole. Even though eligibility
remains largely theoretical, it is a possibility, and on such nuances
Kelsey Patterson was sent to the executioner.
Today, nearly a year later, Perry remains officially undecided about
whether Texas should have a life-without-parole statute, and one can only
assume he is still taking a good "hard look" at this not terribly abstruse
issue.
Meanwhile, the Texas Legislature has been tinkering with the machinery of
death, and it appears ready to approve a historic life-without-parole bill
that could lead to a drastic reduction in Texas executions. And because
Texas accounts for more than a third of the nation's executions, a change
in Texas law would likely have a significant impact on the overall rate of
executions nationwide.
Texas, as just about everyone knows, is the nation's execution capital.
What most people don't understand is that many of these executions are the
result of what is probably the most cynical and perverse sentencing
statute in the country, a law that is deliberately misleading and designed
to pressure jurors to vote for death rather than life sentences.
Because of the wording of Texas' capital sentencing law, a district
attorney prosecuting a capital murder can use the same tortured argument
in seeking a death sentence that Perry used in executing Patterson. He can
tell jurors that unless they vote to kill the defendant, there is no
"guarantee" that he will not be out on the streets murdering people again
in their lifetime -- in a mere 40 years.
The prosecutors, like Perry, know that the likelihood of parole is close
to nil, because the state's parole board, appointed by the governor, never
grants parole to murderers. But they also know that when they tell a jury
a killer could be released, jurors become alarmed and are much more
inclined to vote for death as an "insurance policy" -- to insure that the
killer can never go free and that they, the jurors, won't be responsible
for another killing.
But why, one might ask, have Texas prosecutors fought to defend an
ambiguous 40-year "life" sentence when they know it confuses juries, when
the state could have a clear life-without-parole law? Why don't they trust
juries to decide between a true life sentence and death?
The reason is that some prosecutors think jurors are wimps when it comes
to imposing death. They like the current law because it tips the scales
toward more death sentences and more executions. And why do prosecutors
want more executions?
Well, they say death is warranted for the worst criminals and that it
deters crime. Yet jurors would continue to have the option of imposing
death even if a true life statute were passed. What prosecutors don't say
is that more executions are good for their careers, that they embellish
their tough-on-crime rsums and provide useful bragging rights when they
run for reelection or higher office. For these prosecutors, current law
provides the best of both worlds: confused juries are more likely to hand
down death sentences, and the district attorney has the assurance that the
defendant will never be released even if jurors reject death for a
particular murderer.
But Paula Kurland says survivor families don't get to rest quite so easy.
In 1986 Kurland's 21-year-old daughter, Mitzi Johnson Nalley, was stabbed
to death in a vicious attack at her Austin apartment by a person who also
took the life of her roommate, Kelly Joan Farquhar, 24, and who seriously
injured a friend who tried to come to their aid. Kurland, a death penalty
supporter who now works for victims of domestic violence and sexual
assaults, says the murder of her daughter completely consumed her life
until her daughter's killer was executed in 1998. "My children lost their
sister and their mother the same night Jonathan Wayne Nobles brutally
murdered my daughter and her roommate. Jonathan was the focus of my life
for 12 years."
Kurland says that whether they support the death penalty or oppose it,
what survivors want above all is "certainty" that the perpetrators of
these crimes will never be free to kill someone else. The way to provide
that certainty, she and an increasing number of Texas legislators as well
as prosecutors say, is to give jurors in capital murder cases two choices:
death or life without parole.
Kurland says that the current 40-year "life" law leaves survivors'
families in a state of limbo because parole remains a possibility, however
remote. "And if I'm not alive to fight to keep my child's killer in
prison, then I have to pass that burden on to my children or
grandchildren. And that's a horrible burden to pass on to anyone."
To remedy that situation and bring Texas into the 21st century -- and more
in line with the death-sentencing practices of other states -- state Sen.
Eddie Lucio Jr., a Democrat and death penalty supporter, authored the
pending legislation to allow juries to impose an unambiguous life sentence
when they determine that there are mitigating circumstances that warrant
sparing the defendant from death. "Life without parole means certain
punishment," Lucio says. Or it would, if the one he proposes replaces the
current law.
In addition to the 36 death penalty states that currently provide the
option of life without parole, juries in 11 of the 12 non-death-penalty
states have that option.
Lucio had originally proposed retaining life with parole as a third option
for jurors. That would leave open the possibility that the parole board
might show mercy for a convicted murderer dying of an incurable illness.
Or the board might conclude that someone who killed at 18 had changed his
life and was no longer a menace to society by age 58 or 88. But Lucio was
forced to drop the 3rd option to win passage of his bill in the state
Senate.
Somehow, what was once the tough-on-crime position -- saving the current
law with parole eligibility -- has become a weak-kneed position compared
to the life-versus-death approach.
This is not entirely surprising inasmuch as legislators have come to
recognize that current law has a huge element of flimflam. This is a law,
after all, defended by prosecutors who argue that the possibility of
parole gives prisoners "hope" and makes them less prone to violence once
incarcerated. Then again, these prosecutors also argue for death sentences
because, they say, you can't be sure the defendants won't kill fellow
prisoners and prison guards.
Lucio has been using a soft sell to win passage of his bill, suggesting
that it won't really change very much and that it's primarily designed for
the benefit of crime victims. But Steve Hall, director of the Standdown
Texas Project, which advocates on behalf of reforms in the Texas
capital-punishment system, believes the changes "would have the potential
to significantly reduce the number of death sentences." Richard Dieter of
the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death-penalty research group
in Washington, thinks executions in Texas could decline by as much as 25
%.
Opponents of Lucio's life-without-parole bill suggest that it could
literally doom the death penalty in Texas, a claim many find far-fetched
in a state where 75 % of the population consistently supports capital
punishment. At a recent hearing on the bill, Dallas County assistant
district attorney John Rolater argued that abolitionists hope to use life
without parole as a "step in eliminating what we view as an important
penalty."
Although there is no direct evidence in other states correlating
life-without-parole statutes with reduced death sentences, there are a
number of reasons to believe that Texas death sentences will decline if
this law is enacted. First, the number of death sentences nationwide has
been declining as more and more states have introduced life without
parole. Second, although all jurors in a capital murder trial must favor
the death penalty, some jurors are clearly going to be less gung-ho about
the idea of executing someone than the average Texas prosecutor. Jurors'
decisions are likely to be less cluttered by any need to prove how tough
they can be on violent criminals. And unlike prosecutors who come into
these cases prepared to argue that the defendant deserves death, jurors
are supposed to listen to both sides of the argument. Third, when jurors
are confronted with a real live human being, some may be queasy about
taking another life and may be open to mitigating factors that prosecutors
generally pooh-pooh, including evidence that the defendant had a horrible
childhood, was sexually abused or beaten, is mentally ill, or was high on
drugs at the time of the crime. Finally, jurors may opt for life over
death when they have lingering, undefined doubts about a defendant's
culpability.
In short, jurors are unpredictable, and even though they may support the
death penalty, are likely to be more open to life without parole if
they're given a clear understanding that there is no chance a defendant
will be released.
Lucio's bill has already been approved by the Texas Senate and by a House
committee and is now awaiting action in the full House. Approval there is
considered likely.
Why the Legislature seems more willing to contemplate "truth in
sentencing" this year when it has been intransigent on the subject in past
sessions owes to a confluence of factors. Perhaps most important is that
Texans, like other Americans, have begun to recognize how seriously flawed
their criminal justice system really is. Although Perry and his
predecessor, George W. Bush, seemed to view the system as some sort of
immaculate conception, Texas newspapers have been filled with reports over
the past two years about an ongoing scandal in the Houston police
department's crime lab, where multiple errors have been discovered in the
testing of DNA, ballistic, serology and toxicology evidence. At the same
time, a growing number of U.S. Supreme Court opinions have rebuked the
Texas courts for tolerating police and prosecutorial excesses -- including
the withholding of evidence and the racial profiling of jurors -- and a
law that violated the rights of defendants with mental retardation.
Meanwhile, 15 innocent people were released from the state's prisons based
on DNA evidence, and 8 men were released from the state's death row due to
evidence of innocence.
Texans may be unusually tough on crime, but most of them presumably don't
believe in punishing or executing innocent people.
An additional reason for progress on life without parole this year is that
a significant rift has opened between prosecutors from the state's largest
counties -- accounting for 75 % of the state's murder trials -- who
continue to oppose any change in the law, and prosecutors in small towns
and rural counties. The latter are no less enthusiastic about the death
penalty, but they've come to recognize that prosecuting a time-consuming
death penalty case can bankrupt their treasuries. For these prosecutors it
makes more sense to empower jurors with an honest, clear-headed
understanding of their options and allow them to be the final arbiters of
a murderer's fate.
Meanwhile, Perry, a die-hard death penalty supporter who is expected to
face a tough reelection challenge from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison,
sits on the fence in the life-without-parole debate. But with 78 percent
of Texans saying they favor a true life-without-parole law, it seems
highly likely the governor will go along with the popular will if the bill
clears the Legislature before the current session ends later this month.
(source: Salon.com -- Alan Berlow is the author of "Dead Season: A Story
of Murder and Revenge." His writing has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly,
Harper's and the American Prospect)
****************
Motion to Suppress
Rodolfo "Creeper" Medrano told police he paid $300 to illegally purchase
assault weapons that fellow Tri-City Bombers later used to kill 6 men in
Edinburg on Jan. 5, 2003.
Medrano, 25, told police in a recorded interview on Jan. 26, 2003, that he
bought the weapons "under the table" at a McAllen gun show with the gangs
money, which he, as the gangs treasurer, kept.
The day before the interview, police arrested Medrano in connection with
the shooting deaths of 6 men, found in and around 2 small homes at 2915 E.
Monte Cristo Rd. Medrano is the 3rd man to stand trial for the slayings,
and is charged with capital murder.
If convicted, Medrano faces the death penalty. 2 other men, Juan Raul
Navarro Ramirez and Humberto "Gallo" Garza, are already on death row for
their participation in the murders.
Medranos trial is set for late May or early June in the courtroom of 332nd
state District Judge Mario Ramirez. Defense attorneys Hector Villarreal
and O. Rene Flores are asking the judge to suppress - or prevent the jury
from hearing - Medranos recorded interview with police.
The hearing will continue Thursday, and the judge could rule on the
request.
Hidalgo County Assistant District Attorneys Judith Cantu and Cregg
Thompson played a copy of the recorded interview during the suppression
hearing Monday.
Villarreal objected to playing the tape, questioning the authenticity of
the "alleged copy." Villarreal also said Medrano refused to speak with
Texas Rangers and had requested an attorney before speaking with Edinburg
Police Sgt. Rey Ramirez, who is now retired.
However, prosecutors presented the judge with a copy of Medranos signature
waiving his Miranda rights before the interview, and he is heard on the
tape acknowledging he understood his rights.
In the audiotape, Ramirez informs Medrano he is being charged with capital
murder and asks if police had read Medrano his rights. Medrano responds
that he does not want an attorney.
Medrano tells the investigator that he is a sergeant in the Tri-City
Bombers gang, which he joined in 1996. He identifies Juan Arturo
Villarreal "Juanon" Cordova as a sergeant and Humberto Garza, who he calls
"Beto" and "Gallo," as a captain.
Asked to tell police his version of what occurred, Medrano said Villarreal
called him Saturday Jan. 4, 2003 asking for weapons. Medrano explained he
bought the gangs weapons and stored them at Villarreals house.
Medrano said he stayed home and watched movies with his wife that night.
He did not learn about the slayings until the next day when watching the
evening news.
"They were just going to rob some marijuana," Medrano told police. "They
asked me if I wanted to go. I told them no. Ive never done something like
that. I dont do that."
Medrano said he didnt know what happened inside the house, except that the
men found letters indicating some of the victims were members of the rival
Texas Chicano Brothers.
"Nobody was supposed to have gotten shot," he said.
Medrano identified to Ramirez the other 12 men now convicted or charged in
the case. He said "Bones" and "Ricardo from Mexico" were some of the
shooters and Humberto Garza and Villarreal drove the men to the house.
After the slayings, Medrano said a friend brought him the weapons. He kept
the weapons until police made the first arrest in the case, Marcial Mata
Bocanegra. Medrano then gave the weapons to a friend to store.
"I told him if I was ever arrested to destroy them," Medrano stated.
Ramirez asked Medrano if he was aware of an alleged gang plot to kill a
FBI agent.
"It was just a joke. We were drinking," Medrano said.
In Humberto Garzas trial, FBI agents testified that Humberto Garza told
them Medrano plotted to kill the agent who was investigating the gangs
activities.
Asked for information on other crimes, Medrano said Robert "Bones" Garza
and another gang member Mark Anthony Reyna robbed and killed three people
in Edinburg. Those 2 gang members were also involved in the Donna shooting
of 4 women, Medrano said.
Medrano has also been charged in the Donna shootings.
The gang members were targeting the owner of a bar who had testified
against another Tri-City Bomber in an attempted murder case, Medrano said.
Robert Gene "Bones" Garza was sent to death row in December 2003 for the
Donna murders. He is also charged in the Edinburg slaying.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against one more charged in the
case, the gangs alleged leader Jeffrey "Dragon" Juarez. Juarez and 6 other
men, including Villarreal, are awaiting their trials in Hidalgo County
Jail. Edinburg police are still searching for Juan "Perro" Nuez and
Ricardo "Rica" Cabello Martinez, also charged with capital murder for the
shootings.
(source: The Monitor)
**********************
Crime lab oversight bill stalls in House
It will be at least another week before a Texas House committee discusses
a bill calling for more oversight of state crime labs.
Under a bill by Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, an independent oversight
commission would be created to review work conducted by the Texas
Department of Public Safety crime lab. The Senate has passed the bill.
State Rep. Kevin Bailey, D-Houston, who is the House sponsor of the bill,
said he asked to postpone Monday's discussion before the House Law
Enforcement Committee to tweak the bill, which he described as necessary
to help keep state crime labs from contributing to the imprisonment of
innocent people.
"We know for a fact that there have been some people convicted by false
tests because of mistakes and misreadings by lab analysts," Bailey said.
"We know in Houston we have had several, and there have been other parts
of the state where we have had evidence of that, including El Paso."
In the El Paso case, Brandon Moon, a former University of Texas at El Paso
student and member of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps at the
time of his arrest, was wrongfully convicted of raping a West El Paso
woman and imprisoned for 17 years.
Moon, now 43 and living near Kansas City, Mo., has said that because of
the way his case was handled, he supports the idea of external reviews of
DPS lab work.
Jurors from Moon's 1987 trial have said they sentenced him to 75 years in
prison because of testimony from a DPS scientist and the victim.
The DPS scientist, Glen Adams, based his testimony on results from tests
on biological evidence police collected from the crime scene.
The results concluded that stains on a bathrobe worn by the victim
immediately after the rape and a comforter on her bed came from a
nonsecretor, or a person who does not secrete antigens for his or her
blood type into other bodily fluid such as saliva or semen.
Moon was among 15 percent of the population who are nonsecretors, so he
could not be excluded as the rapist.
In 1996 another DPS scientist found potentially significant concerns with
the 1987 DPS tests. The scientist said more DNA samples from the victim,
Moon and the victim's husband were needed to resolve the case. DPS did not
follow through with the additional testing.
In 2004, scientists working for Moon's defense determined through DNA
tests that Adams was wrong to testify that the evidence pointed to Moon as
a possible contributor of the stain.
Bailey said his primary concern with the bill is that it would change
existing legislation requiring crime labs to be accredited by September
2005. Under the bill, crime labs would have until 2007 to become
accredited.
His 2nd concern is to solidify how to fund the bill, which is necessary to
gain the support of House members. He said start-up costs are estimated at
about $150,000.
"I'm trying to figure out a way to carry out the spirit of the law but cut
the cost of it," Bailey said.
Whitmire was not aware Monday that the discussion of the bill before the
House committee had been postponed. He expressed concern about the delay
because the Legislature is nearing the end of its session.
"Timing is critical," Whitmire said.
State Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland, is the chairman of the House Law
Enforcement Committee and has proposed an alternative bill, which would
have the DPS review Texas crime labs, including its own.
Driver said he is extremely concerned that Whitmire's bill does not
include forensic scientists on the commission that would oversee crime
labs.
"Lawyers have lawyers look at their stuff, medical people have doctors
look at all their complaints, and I think DPS could do the same," he said.
Whitmire said the commission he wants to create would include forensic
experts, which could come from universities in Texas that have crime labs.
Bailey said he thinks it is a good idea to have an independent agency and
not the DPS review work by crime labs because there is internal pressure
within law enforcement agencies "to get convictions."
(source: El Paso Times)
*********************
Help for mentally ill draws concern
Every 2 months, Eliseo Smith takes off from work to drive his 30-year-old
schizophrenic son to a West Side mental health clinic.
This can take four hours - most of that spent waiting to be seen. But
Smith has no choice. His son needs medication and wouldn't make the
appointment on his own. He hates crowds and suffers from paranoia.
Still, Smith knows that the Center for Health Care Services clinic,
despite its faults, is his son's only hope for treatment of the condition
that has fueled his criminal background.
Over the past several years, Smith has watched services available to his
son shrink and vanish as policy-makers try to save the state money while
overhauling the badly frayed mental health safety net.
Which parts of Texas' mental health system are working - and which are
broken - is the topic of a forum tonight sponsored by the local chapter of
the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill. The free event is at 7 p.m. at
Christ Episcopal Church at 510 Belknap.
Organizers said they want to talk about what they see as Bexar County's
growing mental health crisis. Presenters will identify gaps in mental
health services, as well as effects of recent state funding cuts.
Smith, a NAMI board member, said he is especially concerned for those who
need treatment but have no one to help support them or guide them through
the complexities of the system.
"My son is lucky that he has me and my wife here to help him do all this,"
Smith said. "But it's a broken system. I don't want to sound that negative
in reference to the (local) services he gets, but there's a total lack of
continuity."
When Smith's son was on parole recently, he participated in a jail
diversion program known as Genesis that used a comprehensive approach in
treating his schizophrenia, Smith said.
He went to counseling three times a week, a case manager often visited him
at home, and he received assistance to improve his living and social
skills.
But as soon as his parole ended and he began getting services from the
Center for Health Care Services, the local public mental health provider,
most of those Genesis services evaporated, Smith said.
CHCS staff determined that Smith's son did not need a high level of
assistance, he said.
"Yes, he's medically stabilized, but to cut him off from services that
were doing such good is cruel," he said.
Frank Valdez, a NAMI board member coordinating the forum, said the county
and state must find ways to treat proactively those with mental illness,
as well as stabilize them in crisis situations. Because of funding cuts
and new, managed-care-like ways of doing business, providers focus on the
latter only, he said.
"So now you're required to be seriously ill and you're just in and out of
hospitals trying to get help," Valdez said. "If you become stable, then
you're ineligible for services."
(source: San Antonio Express-News)
