May 26 INDIANA: Execution 3rd in state this year; more expected Indiana appears certain to execute more prisoners in 2005 than in any year since the Great Depression, but experts on both sides of the issue call it a chance occurrence produced by judicial quirks. The lethal injection early Wednesday of Gregory Scott Johnson was Indianas 3rd execution in 2005. A 4th has been scheduled for next month, and the state has pending motions before the Indiana Supreme Court for 2 other prisoners. By the time 2005 ends, the state will execute as many as 8 prisoners, the attorney generals office has said, more than any year since it sent 9 to the electric chair in 1938. That also would be more executions by any other non-Southern state since Missouri put 9 prisoners to death in 1999, according to annual reports compiled by the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center. Ohio executed 7 prisoners last year. "Its an extraordinary aberration, and its making us look a lot like Texas, and I think Hoosiers dont want to look like Texas," said veteran death penalty appeals attorney Monica Foster of Indianapolis. Johnson was the 3rd man executed in Indiana this year, more than in any year since the state re-instituted the death penalty in 1977. He was condemned for the 1985 beating death of 82-year-old Ruby Hutslar in her Anderson home. The state had executed Donald Ray Wallace on March 10 and Bill Benefiel Jr. on April 21. Wallace was condemned for the 1980 murders of an Evansville couple and their two children, but his appeals dragged on for 24 years, including four years at one point in U.S. District Court. Benefiel died for the 1987 torture-slaying of an 18-year-old woman. "None of these cases have been in the system for the same period of time, or even within a year of each other," said Steve Johnson, executive director of the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council. "Theyve all come to a head this year. "I think this year is an aberration. I dont think youll see 7 or 8 executions a year from here on out," Johnson said. Next month likely will be the 4th straight that Indiana has carried out an execution. The Indiana Supreme Court has scheduled Michael Lambert to die June 22 for the 1990 slaying of a Muncie police officer. The state also has petitioned the court to set execution dates for Arthur P. Baird II of Darlington for the 1985 murders of his pregnant wife and his parents, and Kevin A. Connor of Indianapolis for the 1988 murders of 3 people. By the end of next week, the state also likely will seek an execution date for Alan L. Matheney for the 1989 slaying of his wife while free from prison on an eight-hour pass, said Staci Schneider, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Steve Carter. "Thats pretty much out of our control," Schneider said of the pace of executions. "Thats pretty much set by the courts and their rulings." Such a pace of executions likely will last only a year or 2, predicted Larry Landis, executive director of the Indiana Public Defender Council. "Theyve been in the pipeline for such a long time," Landis said. In each case, trial courts imposed the death sentence before 1992, when the Indiana Supreme Court streamlined the death penalty appeals procedure. The changes reduced the average length of time between sentencing and execution from about 15 years to 12 years, Landis said. At the same time, the court gave greater resources to defendants, requiring at least 2 attorneys for each death penalty case and providing moresupport services such as investigators and paralegals, Landis said. (source: Fort Wayne News) TEXAS----new death sentence/female Woman, 21, is sentenced to die for murder of 2 Even the judge appeared stunned reading the verdict -- lethal injection for a young woman. Chelsea Lea Richardson, 21, of Fort Worth was sentenced to death Wednesday for her role in the fatal shooting and stabbing death of her boyfriend's parents, Rick and Suzanna Wamsley, in their Mansfield home Dec. 11, 2003. Standing while 297th District Judge Everett Young read the verdict, Richardson collapsed in a chair, dropped her head facedown on the defense table and wept. Relatives and friends of the Wamsleys smiled and cried and clenched each other's hands. Richardson's mother quivered and sobbed with her son's arm around her shoulder. Richardson is the 1st woman to receive a death sentence in Tarrant County. 9 out of 443 inmates currently awaiting execution in Texas are women. Prosecutors depicted Richardson as a manipulative person who organized a group of her friends to kill the Wamsleys so her boyfriend, Andrew Wamsley, could inherit his parents' $1.65 million estate. While in jail awaiting trial, Richardson told two inmates that she was in the Wamsley house on the night of the murders and took part in the slaying of Rick Wamsley, according to trial testimony. Relatives of the Wamsleys did not make any statements after the trial. "They believed the death penalty was justified in this case, but they were concerned about the outcome because of Chelsea's age and gender," Prosecutor Mike Parrish said. "But they are very relieved by what the jury decided." Richardson's attorneys -- Warren St. John and Terry Barlow -- pleaded with jurors to spare her life. "If she's a master manipulator, she's done a mighty poor job," Barlow said in closing arguments, asking for a life sentence. The jury deliberated for 2 hours and 20 minutes before reaching a unanimous verdict. Several of the jurors cried earlier Wednesday when Sarah Wamsley described making a phone call in early December 2003 to her grandparents in Oklahoma to tell them the news of the slayings. A Mansfield police detective had to take the phone and tell them their son and daughter-in-law were murdered. "It's really hard seeing Grandma and Grandpa crying," Sarah Wamsley testified Wednesday. Sarah Wamsley said she kept an answering machine that still has her parents' voices recorded. In her closet, she stores two presents that were under her parents' Christmas tree at the time of their deaths -- one, from 'Suzanna to Rick,' the other, from 'Mom & Dad to Sarah.' "Any time I needed them, they were there for support and guidance," Sarah Wamsley told jurors. "They were loving parents, and they were best friends to me." Sarah Wamsley described how her parents would pick up her preschool-aged daughter every Wednesday from day care. The Wamsleys would take their granddaughter to ride the family's horse, Toby. After her parents' were slain, Sarah Wamsley said she moved four times within a year because she was afraid her brother, Andrew, would find her. "I was always watching my back," she testified. "I had nightmares that I was next. I had to have a bodyguard during my parents' estate sale." Andrew Wamsley had planned to kill his sister, leaving him the sole heir of his parents' estate, according to testimony in Richardson's trial. Andrew Wamsley, 20, is charged with capital murder in his parents' deaths. His trial is scheduled in September. Last fall, he and Richardson rejected plea offers by prosecutors in which they would plead guilty to capital murder for life sentences. In January, Susana Toledano, 20, pleaded guilty to a murder charge in the Wamsley's deaths in exchange for her testimony in Richardson's trial. She testified that Richardson, who was her best friend, told her to kill the Wamsleys so they could share the family's money. A 4th friend, Hilario Cardenas, 25, is charged with conspiracy to commit capital murder and is accused of supplying the others with the gun used in the slayings. The 4 friends met several times at a south Arlington restaurant, where Cardenas was a night manager, to plan the Wamsleys' deaths, witnesses said in Richardson's trial. The group tried several times to kill the Wamsleys before succeeding, Toledano testified. Medical examiners testified in Richardson's trial that Rick Wamsley was shot in the head and back and stabbed 21 times. The gunshot wound in his back and a cluster of stab wounds in the chest were fatal, according to medical experts. Suzanna Wamsley died of a fatal gunshot to the head. She was stabbed 18 times postmortem. The jury in Richardson's case had the option of sentencing her to death if they believed that she participated in the capital murder or assisted in the crime or knew the actions would result in a capital murder. "I want you to think about this type of capital murder case," Parrish said in closing arguments Wednesday. "This wasn't a drug case, a drive-by shooting, and the carnage done in that house wasn't even done in anger. "It was worse because it was premeditated," he said. "It is planned and talked about for 2 months. All normal, rational people talking about ways to kill." IN THE KNOW Executions of women 2 women have been executed in Texas since the Civil War. - Houston's Karla Faye Tucker, who appealed her execution on the grounds that she became a Christian in prison and was rehabilitated, was put to death in February 1998 for a pickax slaying. - Betty Lou Beets, of Gun Barrel City, who was condemned for killing her husband, was executed in February 2000. Authorities said she buried his body in a front-yard wishing-well planter. [source: Texas Department of Criminal Justice] (source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram) ****************************** Convicted murderer charged in 20-year-old case Police say they have linked a convicted murderer to DNA evidence found on the body of a 29-year-old who was among more than a dozen young women killed in Fort Worth over a 21-month period 2 decades ago. Curtis Don Brown, 46, has been charged with capital murder in the death of Terese Gregory. A fisherman found Gregory's body in the Trinity River in 1985, a day after she was last seen leaving a popular downtown Fort Worth nightclub just before daybreak. She was shot in the face. Investigators say they linked Brown to Gregory through a DNA database in February while working on cold-case killings. Police say that Brown's DNA matches semen taken from Gregory's body and stored in a crime lab freezer. Since then, investigators have re-examined 25 unsolved slayings of women in Tarrant County and say 18 of those deserve a closer look, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in its Thursday editions. Over a period of 21 months in the mid-1980s, more than a dozen young women were slain, including a popular radio station employee who disappeared after buying gas at a convenience store in southwest Fort Worth and a middle school teacher strangled in her apartment. Most of the deaths remain unsolved. "The DNA hit caused us to look at several other cases to determine whether Brown may be possibly involved in those," police Sgt. J.D. Thornton, head of the homicide unit, told the newspaper. "Whether he is or not, the evidence available in those cases will be processed to determine whether we can make a link to any suspect." Brown was brought back to Fort Worth on Tuesday from a prison in Angleton, where he is serving a life sentence for the 1986 murder of Jewel Woods. Woods was a 51-year-old nurse attacked in her apartment. Her body was found nearby the following day. She was beaten to death with a rock. At the time of his arrest in Woods' death, Brown was free on bond after police say he crawled into one woman's apartment and tried to break into another. Defense attorney Tim Moore, appointed to represent Brown on the capital murder charge, declined to comment. (source: Assoicated Press) *************************** Supremes hold off on Mexican's death row appeal On May 23, the U.S. Supreme Court set aside the appeal filed by Jose Medellin, one of 15 Mexican nationals on Texas' death row, who argues that his death sentence should be overturned because he was denied access to consular authorities after he was arrested. In an unsigned decision, the court determined that Medellin's appeal was premature since a similar state appeal -0 filed after the high court granted review last winter - is currently pending before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. At issue, in part, is whether Texas must comply with the 1963 Vienna Convention 's promise that foreign nationals have access to home-country representatives while traveling abroad, particularly when arrested. Medellin was not given access to Mexican authorities until 4 years after he was convicted and sentenced to death for a 1993 gang rape and murder, when he wrote Mexican officials from his jail cell. Medellin's was one of 52 cases named in a lawsuit brought against the U.S. by Mexico and decided last year by the UN's International Court of Justice (aka the World Court in the Hague), in which Mexico argued that the U.S. was not complying with the Vienna Convention's consular access provisions. The ICJ ruled in favor of Mexico, which prompted Medellin to renew his claims, which had already been denied by both the state and federal district courts. On Feb. 28, however, about 2 months after the U.S. Supreme Court accepted Medellin's appeal, President George W. Bush penned an order asking that the "state courts give effect to the [ICJ] decision in accordance with the general principles - addressed in that decision." The order prompted Medellin to refile his state appeals and has now prompted the Supremes to put his appeal to the high court on hold. "This state-court proceeding may provide Medellin with the very reconsideration of his Vienna Convention claim that he now seeks," the court wrote. Meanwhile, a bill that would codify Texas' duty to provide consular access to foreign nationals detained by law enforcement (SB 603, by Sen. Rodney Ellis , D-Houston) is still pending before the House Law Enforcement Committee. (source: Austin Chronicle) NORTH CAROLINA: Suspend and study----N.C. should be sure its death penalty works properly A remarkable group of North Carolina citizens came together in Raleigh recently with a common-sense proposal: Suspend executions for 2 years and study whether our state's system of capital punishment can be administered fairly and uniformly. What's unusual about this group isn't so much its message as its makeup. It includes some of the state's wisest leaders and prominent figures -- UNC president emeritus Bill Friday, for example, and former N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Rhoda Billings -- as well as relatives of those who have been murdered, such as Charisse Coleman, the sister of a murder victim, and Carol Dreiling, the daughter of a murder victim. The list includes such business and civic leaders as James Maynard, chairman of Golden Corral; Richard "Stick" Williams, a vice president of Duke Energy; former Lt. Gov. Robert Jordan, a Democrat who heads Jordan Lumber Co.; and Greensboro lawyer Marshall Hurley, a former chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C. It includes former UNC Chapel Hill basketball coaches Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge, and current N.C. State coach Herb Sendek. They are among 150 North Carolinians who are calling for a moratorium on executions and a study of how North Carolina implements the death penalty and whether the present system can be administered fairly. Some members oppose the death penalty; others support it. But they agree our state's experience has raised troubling questions about accurately identifying defendants and fairly trying them. The state of North Carolina has nothing to lose, and much to gain, by imposing such a moratorium. The process wouldn't commute death sentences. Those who have been convicted and sentenced to die will still have to answer for their crimes. But a careful study of how the death penalty is administered will affirm North Carolina's commitment to justice by ensuring that the state makes every effort to identify, fairly prosecute, convict and punish those responsible for murder. Our state cannot make that claim now. As the cases of Alan Gell and Darryl Hunt most recently show, the state makes horrid mistakes. It put Mr. Gell on death row for a crime he could not have committed. It twice convicted Mr. Hunt and sent him to prison for a life sentence until DNA showed that he was the wrong man. The question isn't whether the state should be tough on crime. It's to what degree the state should be willing to risk being flat wrong. Who can believe the only mistakes our state has made involve men who were freed when the truth was discovered after conviction? The death penalty is final. Mistakes in imposing it are uncorrectable. Justice requires the state to be right 100 percent of the time. Until there's a comprehensive study of the process, our state can't even pretend it achieves that goal. Legislators should impose a moratorium on executions and demand to know the truth. (source: Editorial, Charlotte Observer) MARYLAND: Malvo transferred from Va. to Md.----Sniper suspect to be tried in Montgomery Co. on 6 1st-degree murder counts Sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo returned today to Maryland to be tried on charges of killing six people in Montgomery County during the Washington-area sniper shootings in 2002. Malvo was taken under tight security from Red Onion Prison in southwest Virginia, where he is serving a life sentence for the Oct. 14, 2002, shooting of FBI analyst Linda Franklin in Fairfax County, Va. A Maryland State Police plane flew him to Frederick and he was taken to the Montgomery County seat of Rockville for processing before a four-car convoy took him to county jail in Clarksburg about 1:40 p.m. Malvo did not speak during the flight back to Maryland, Montgomery County Sheriff Raymond Kight said. He was cooperative throughout the transfer, Kight said. Malvo, 20, and John Allen Muhammad, 44, will be tried in Montgomery on six first-degree murder counts for the shootings during the sniper spree. Muhammad was convicted in 2003 of killing Dean Meyers in Manassas, Va., and was sentenced to death. Malvo's attorney in Maryland, Harry Trainor, said in a telephone interview that he was on his way to meet his client at the jail. The public defender's office asked Trainor, an attorney in private practice, in 2002 to represent Malvo in Maryland. A bond hearing was tentatively scheduled for Thursday, but Trainor said he was not sure the hearing would be necessary for Malvo, because he is serving a life sentence in Virginia. "Considering his status, there would be no bond available to him," Trainor said. The sniper spree terrorized the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area and left 10 people dead, including the six Montgomery County victims. Muhammad and Malvo were arrested Oct. 23, 2002, in Frederick County while they slept in their car at a rest stop. Montgomery prosecutors were the first to announce murder charges against the pair, but they were soon transferred to Virginia for prosecution after then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft determined the likelihood of obtaining a death sentence was greater there. Maryland's death penalty law was considered weaker than Virginia's and Malvo, then 17, would not have been eligible for execution as a minor. However, Malvo was sentenced to life in prison without parole during his 2003 trial in Chesapeake, Va., and the U.S. Supreme Court has since struck down the death penalty for juveniles. Warner and Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. agreed earlier this month to move Malvo and Muhammad to Montgomery because Virginia prosecutors had exhausted their legal cases against the pair. Muhammad has since challenged his transfer. At the request of Montgomery County State's Attorney Douglas Gansler, Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran signed forms a week ago that gave Maryland permission to have Malvo transferred to the state. Curran said the state agreed to send Malvo back to Virginia to serve the rest of his Virginia sentence after the Maryland cases are tried. The state has 30 days to indict Malvo, Gansler said. Muhammad has challenged plans to move him to Maryland, an appeal that will be reviewed by Warner's office. Gansler said he expected Muhammad will be transferred to Montgomery within a month. Montgomery corrections officials would not comment on the conditions Malvo will be held under, citing privacy laws. But the division's director, Arthur Wallenstein, said Malvo would have access to mail, visitors and recreation time. "He's not buried in a hole," Wallenstein said. Even though the two are already sentenced in Virginia, authorities in Maryland have said justice would not be provided for the families of the Maryland victims until the suspects stood trial here. Gansler also said additional convictions would act as insurance if the Virginia cases are overturned on appeal. The dead in Montgomery County were James Martin, 55, killed Oct. 2, 2002, in Wheaton; James L. "Sonny" Buchanan, 39, killed Oct. 3 in Rockville; Premkumar A. Walekar, 54, killed Oct. 3 in Aspen Hill; Sarah Ramos, 34, killed Oct. 3 in Silver Spring; Lori Lewis-Rivera, 25, killed Oct. 3 in Kensington, and Conrad Johnson, 35, killed Oct. 22 in Silver Spring. (source: Associated Press)
