May 14 TEXAS: 'Every crime has a victim' David Cooke, associate pastor and minister of education at First Baptist Church in Devine, regularly wears a pin on the lapel of his jacket, but it isn't a cross or American flag. It isn't even a religious statement, yet it says a lot about his spiritual life. The pin displays a picture of his then-19-year-old niece Rachel Cooke surrounded by a web site address, www.rachelcooke search.com. His niece disappeared after going for a jog in 2002. Family members spent weeks dealing with police, answering questions from the media and searching hundreds of Central Texas acres. To this day, police still do not know what happened to Rachel Cooke. She has not been located and there are no witnesses or suspects that indicate a kidnapping. The situation remains open-ended. "Without a body, without any knowledge of what happened, we can't have a funeral," David Cooke said. "We couldn't even have a full memorial. We've had prayer services." The Cookes are not alone in their experience. More than 1.8 million people were victims of violent crime in the United States during 2003. "It's a lot more prevalent than anyone else knows," David Cooke said. "When we lost Rachel, I had several people come up to us one by one and share similar stories." A crime victim can serve as the epicenter of pain. Emotional trauma can radiate to family members, friends and acquaintances, sometimes not showing itself for years. Beyond the tragedy of the crime, family members may have to deal with police questioning, media inquiries and constant uncertainty. The Baptist General Convention of Texas Missions Equipping Center staff members believe victims of violent crimes need to be served. Several years ago, the convention created Hope for Healing Ministries, a nonprofit group Texas Baptist officials want to become a self-sustaining service for victims of violent crime. A story is behind each news headline about violent crime such as murder, rape, mugging or robbery, said Susan Edwards, director of Hope for Healing Ministries. Part of that story is lives that have been changed forever. Fourteen years after Charla Wheat was murdered, her parents continue dealing with the situation. The man convicted of killing her continues sitting on death row. Bonnie and Dwayne Wheat of Berea Baptist Church in Big Spring do not know when the execution will be. "The pain is not as great, but you never forget about a child that you've lost," Bonnie Wheat said. "Charla's death has changed who we are and what we are about. It's a part of our ministry." Wheat and her husband, pastor of Berea Baptist Church, have led several conferences encouraging bivocational ministers to serve victims of violent crime. They have ministered to families experiencing many of the same feelings they have felt. This is where Hope for Healing Ministries wants to join victims of violent crime, Edwards said. She is in the process of raising funds for a victim memorial center, the only such facility in the nation. The buildings will be built in Huntsville and be the headquarters for counseling victims and training church leaders to help victims. "Hope for Healing Ministries will be a vehicle that our churches and communities can use to minister to the victims in their midst," Edwards said. "It is a vehicle to provide education, encouragement and hospitality." Hope for Healing is intended to address the long-term effects of being a victim, Edwards said. While Texas Baptists commonly react to the immediate needs of hurting people, they often are left to fend for themselves months later. "Every crime has a victim," she said. "Without a victim, there is no crime." For the past 3 years, the BGCT has sponsored the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Victim Clearinghouse in Austin. The support includes a prayer breakfast where convention leaders can better understand how they can help minister to victims. Faith Lutheran Church in Georgetown served in a way David Cooke would like to see many Baptist churches follow. The congregation turned its facilities over to the Cooke family to be used as the headquarters for search efforts following Rachel Cooke's disappearance. A horse search team was based out of the church's parking lot for weeks. Ministers have continued contact with the family even though none of the family was part of the congregation. Bonnie Wheat said many people are hurting as a result of violent crime. Unfortunately, many churches do not even realize some of those people are in their pews. Christians need to step up to serve these victims as Christ would. "I know we need offender ministry, but my heart is with the victims," she said. (source: The Baptist Standard) ******************* 7 jailers suspended amid probe of inmate beating Allegations of prisoner abuse prompted Cameron County Sheriffs Department officials to suspend six county jail guards and a supervisor over the past 2 days. Sheriffs Department officials said the Sunday evening jailhouse beating of federal inmate Javier Alejandro Garza, 20, remained under investigation Friday but a sergeant and 6 guards were put on paid leave on Thursday and Friday. Garza told his attorney and family that he was handcuffed, dragged out of his jail cell and beaten by guards outside the view of security cameras sometime after 6 p.m. Sunday. Garzas attorney Rene DeCoss told The Brownsville Herald on Tuesday that his client sustained a broken jaw and possibly a broken rib and was not able to eat on his own after the thrashing. Although he could not identify the guards or sergeant, Chief Deputy Gus Reyna said they were all hired during the administration of former Sheriff Conrado Cantu. Federal officials moved Garza from the Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center in Olmito on Thursday to a federal detention center near Raymondville. U.S. Marshals spokesman Gene Diaz told The Brownsville Herald on Thursday that his office, the FBI and Sheriffs Department are investigating Garzas claims together. Diaz said 325 federal prisoners are housed in the Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center, but there appeared to be no need to transfer any of them. According to federal court records, Garza was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 3 years probation in December 2003 for a federal drug charge. U.S. District Judge Hilda Tagle revoked Garzas probation in March after he tested positive for drugs. Family members said Garza has drug problems, but is not a violent person and has never been involved with gangs. Reyna said the investigation could be concluded early next week. If any guards are found guilty of wrongdoing, Diaz said they could face federal criminal charges. (source: Brownsville Herald) OHIO: Deadline may loom in fire case -- Court could make state retry Richey in 90 days or free him The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals could start the 90-day clock ticking any day now for prosecutors to retry Kenneth Richey for murder or set him free. The Cincinnati-based court voted 2-1 Thursday to reject Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro's request to stay its order while he seeks an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court of a January ruling overturning Richey's conviction and death sentence. The court is expected to formally issue its mandate as early as next week, which would set the clock in motion, forcing the state to make its move one way or the other as early as mid-August. Exactly what that move would be remains to be seen. The attorney general's office maintains it would only have to start the retrial process within 90 days, if the Putnam County prosecutor's office chooses that direction. Richey's attorney, Ken Parsigian, said he would argue that the ruling would require the trial to be completed within that period. In the meantime, the attorney general's office still plans to pursue an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, knowing that the court is not in session and would not be able to make a decision whether to hear the case before October. The state could ask the court to stop the clock in the meantime. Richey, 40, has served 18 years on Ohio's death row for the arson death of Cynthia Collins, a 2-year-old Columbus Grove girl whom Richey was baby-sitting. A three-judge common pleas court panel found that Richey set the fire in an attempt to kill his former girlfriend and her lover in the apartment below, but he ended up killing the child instead. A 6th Circuit panel voted 2-1 to overturn the conviction, in part because the state could not prove the girl was Richey's intended victim. Richey has maintained he did not set the fire, but he has admitted that he was intoxicated that night and could not remember what happened. "Mr. Petro is running for governor; so he might want to retry the case. If he does, we're ready," said Richey's fiancee, Karen Richey, who lives near Glasgow, Scotland. Richey, born to an American father and Scottish mother, has dual U.S.-United Kingdom citizenship. Ms. Richey said her finance plans to return to Scotland if released. Both sides disagree over what the 90-day deadline represents. "What that means is the state has to start the process of retrying him," said Jim Canepa, Ohio's chief deputy attorney general of criminal justice. "That could mean the setting of bond, appointing of lawyers, beginning the discovery process, ordering jurors," he said. "It doesn't mean we have 90 days to come up with a jury verdict," he said. Mr. Parsigian disagreed. "'Try' him does not mean 'try to try him'. It's not 'Start thinking about trying him.' It means 'try him.' The words are plain English. This is consistent with the endless delay from the government, trying to stretch this out while they try for a Hail Mary before the Supreme Court." (source: Toledo Blade) ********************** Death row Brit may be freed A British man on death row in the US may soon be flying back to the UK. Kenny Richey, originally from Edinburgh, has been told an Appeal Court decision to quash his murder conviction cannot be set aside. It means the 40-year-old, who's been facing execution for 18 years, must now be re-tried quickly or set free. Richey was convicted of killing a 2-year-old girl in Ohio in 1986 but has always argued his innocence. (source: itv.com) FLORIDA: 2 guilty verdicts in 2 murder trials----And another case nears conclusion at the Duval County Courthouse It took a Jacksonville jury about 45 minutes Friday to convict a man of killing his cousin during a drug dispute. William Jerome Randall was convicted of 1st-degree murder in the death of cousin Demetrius Barnes, outside Springfield Apartments last year. Randall began the trial with the intention of representing himself but asked for an attorney shortly after the start of jury selection. It was the 1st decision in a busy week at the Duval County Courthouse for 1st-degree murder cases. Later Friday, Latroy Bouknight, one of three people charged with 1st-degree murder in the deaths of Johnnie Gatlin and her nephews, Deon and Chris Kirkland, in a drive-by shooting on Third Street in 2002, was also found guilty. Bouknight was accused of driving the 2 shooters, Carlton Lumpkins and Maurice Silas, to the scene. Bouknight's attorney, Michael Edwards, argued that his client wasn't there and no physical evidence links him to the triple murder. But Assistant State Attorney Angela Corey said eyewitnesses, including one of the convicted killers, put Bouknight in the driver's seat. Silas pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and testified against the other 2 men. A previous jury convicted Lumpkins and recommended a life sentence. Circuit Judge Henry Davis ruled that, because of that unchallenged recommendation, Bouknight couldn't face the death penalty either. In another courtroom, Takoya Dominic Criner was fighting murder charges in the shootings of two men in a Southside house in May 2002, including the son of a decorated Jacksonville police officer. Criner, 22, was charged with murdering Ike E. Brown Jr. and Jeffery Martin Hicks, both 21, as they played video games. Brown, who was visiting from college, was the son of Officer Ike Brown Sr. Criner also was charged with the attempted murder of Gavin Berry, another man at the house. Criner testified the shootings occurred after Berry pulled a gun on him and the two struggled. His attorney, Thomas Fallis, said that made the homicides justifiable. "It's a tragedy, but unfortunately it's not a crime," Fallis said. But Assistant State Attorney Dan Skinner said Berry's testimony and all the physical evidence point to Criner's guilt. "There is no doubt," Skinner said. "All the evidence tells you this is 1st-degree murder times 2." The jury was scheduled to return at 10 a.m. today for instructions and then begin deliberating. (source: The Times-Union) ******************* Weston man acquitted on charges of killing wife After 16 hours of deliberation and weeks of sometimes-brutal testimony, an emotional jury acquitted Maxwell McCord late Friday night on charges he beat his wife to death in their Weston home 4 years ago. The verdict sparked a wild scene in the courtroom. Victim Marie Noguera's mother sat crying for several seconds, then pointed to McCord and wailed, "You did it," in Spanish before collapsing. 1 of the 2 lead prosecutors raced from the courtroom, then broke down in the hallway. And McCord, pale and gaunt after 45 months in county jail, hugged his lawyers and flashed a small, controlled smile. All the while 8 of the 12 jurors wept and reached out to each other, with most never looking at McCord or his wife's family. "I am surprised, but I only say that because I never should have been arrested in the first place," McCord said before lashing out at prosecutors and police. "I have happiness that justice was done, as much as people don't want to believe it." Assistant State Attorney Brian Cavanaugh was one of them. "There's no such thing as justice, not in this world," said Cavanaugh while storming out of the courtroom to join co-consul Deborah Zimet. McCord, 39, was arrested several days after he said he found Marie Noguera's nude and battered body in their home on Aug. 2, 2001. He quickly became a suspect after telling police the couple went shopping with their then- 3-year-old daughter, Andrea, at the Broward Mall earlier that evening. McCord said someone kidnapped his wife from the mall, then returned to their home in a gated community to commit the murder. She was not sexually assaulted, but whoever killed Noguera staged the crime to make it appear that way, prosecutors said. She was hit in the head at least 11 times and was strangled with a cord. Because McCord faced a possible death sentence, the case attracted attention in Denmark, where he holds dual citizenship. The death penalty is strongly opposed in that country, and Svend Roed Nielsen, the Consul General of Denmark, attended the trial. "The death penalty is so against our tradition and our culture that naturally there is interest," Nielsen said Friday before the verdict. >From the beginning of the 14-week trial, prosecutors acknowledged their case lacked much direct evidence. No murder weapon was ever found and much of the blood evidence was washed away. But prosecutors said he had a motive. At trial, a prostitute testified that McCord was a frequent customer and talked about wanting to end his failed 6-year marriage. And Cavanaugh argued that he wanted to collect a $350,000 insurance policy on his wife. During trial, defense attorneys Jeanne Baker and Mel Black argued that even if jurors believed McCord probably killed his wife, there wasn't enough evidence to reach a conviction. Jurors apparently agreed, bringing back a conviction shortly after 10 p.m. After the not guilty verdict was announced, Broward Circuit Judge Peter Weinstein had deputies escort the jurors from the courthouse. Diana Osuna, Noguera's mother who has had custody of Andrea, collapsed inside and outside of the courtroom, and deputies called an ambulance. McCord, who was set free Friday, said he looked forward to seeing his daughter. "There is joy and happiness in that I'm free and happy to be with my daughter when I'm done with this," McCord said. (source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel) NEW JERSEY: Panel could put killer back on death row----Hired hitmen to kill his wife Robert O. Marshall's attorney could have called as many as 25 people 19 years ago to ask a jury to spare Marshall's life. The question is, would it have done any good? Would Marshall's three sons have convinced a jury they wanted their father to live? Or, would the jury have been so outraged about the prominent Toms River insurance salesman hiring hit men to kill their mother that they would deem death the only appropriate penalty? Those are questions a panel of three federal judges must consider as they decide whether to put Marshall back on death row for the 1984 murder of his wife, Maria P. Marshall. Lawyers on both sides of the case presented their arguments Friday to federal Judges Marjorie O. Rendell, Jane R. Roth and Edward R. Becker of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. The judges are not expected to render a decision in the case for several months. "We want to see this come to a close," Walter Kropp of Exton, Pa., a cousin of Maria Marshall, said after the hearing, which was held in the federal courthouse in Wilmington, Del. "There have been so many appeals. It's taken a toll on our family," said Kropp, who attended the hearing with his wife, Betty. During the proceeding, Becker told Steven Kirsch of the New Jersey Public Defender's Office, "This is a hard case. You're trying to make it look easy." Original sentence: Death A jury in Atlantic County - where Marshall's trial was moved because of pretrial publicity - imposed the death sentence on Marshall in 1986 for the Sept 7, 1984, murder of his 42-year-old wife, the mother of the couple's 3 sons. The same jury had found Marshall, a onetime prominent member of the Toms River Country Club set, guilty of hiring Louisiana hit men to shoot his wife during a faked robbery at a staged breakdown of the couple's car at the now-closed Oyster Creek picnic area on the Garden State Parkway in Lacey. The prosecution had argued that Marshall paid the hit men to kill his wife so he could collect $1.4 million in life insurance and continue an extramarital affair. Until last year, Marshall, now 65, had been on death row longer than any other inmate since New Jersey reinstated the death penalty in 1982. But on April 8, 2004, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph E. Irenas in Camden overturned the death sentence, saying Marshall was ineffectively represented by his lawyer, Glenn A. Zeitz, during the penalty phase of his trial, because Zeitz had presented no witnesses to ask that Marshall's life be spared. The 3rd Circuit Court judges on Friday heard arguments for and against the attorney general's bid to overrule Irenas' decision and reinstate the death sentence for Marshall, who remains incarcerated. If the judges do not reinstate Marshall's death sentence, a new penalty phase of his trial will be held. Deputy Attorney General Robert Bonpietro disputed Irenas' finding that Zeitz failed to conduct an investigation into anything that might mitigate Marshall's criminal act. He said Zeitz had Marshall examined by a psychologist for the potential of finding mitigating evidence, and also looked into Marshall's military record. What Zeitz found out from the psychologist is that Marshall was narcissistic and had engaged in "sexually provocative" behavior with nurses while he was hospitalized after a suicide attempt that followed the murder, Bonpietro said. What he found out about Marshall's military record was that he was dishonorably discharged from the Navy for falsifying records, Bonpietro said. The deputy attorney general questioned whether any mitigating evidence Zeitz could have introduced to the jury could have overcome two very strong aggravating factors in the case - that Marshall gained more than $1 million in insurance benefits from his wife's death, and that he paid hit men to kill her. Even if Marshall's sons appeared before the jury during the penalty phase of the trial, it might not have done any good, as two of the three sons were beginning to turn against their father at that time, Bonpietro said. "That doesn't mean they wouldn't have testified to keep him alive," Roth said. "There could have been more character witnesses." "Keep in mind, it only takes one juror to vote for life," Becker said. When it was Kirsch's turn to argue to uphold Irenas' decision, the judges grilled him about what possibly could have changed the jury's mind about imposing the death penalty on Marshall. "How do you humanize a guy who hired a hit man to murder his wife? That's pretty hard," Becker said. "You put his kids on the stand to plead for his life," Kirsch responded. "People in the community don't want him to die and are willing to plead for his life, something his attorney wouldn't even do," Kirsch said, noting that Marshall was involved with United Way fund-raisers and with his children's swim team. Outside the courtroom, Kropp had another opinion about the man who had his cousin murdered. He said Marshall should be put to death. "I don't care how much good he did. It doesn't outweigh the fact that he had his wife killed. He should pay for it," Kropp said. (source : Asbury Park Press)
