death penalty news June 24, 2005
MARYLAND: Death penalty possible for defendant in officer's slaying Slouched in his seat with his feet crossed, Robert Billett was silent while a judge read the charges against him Thursday afternoon. Assault with a deadly weapon. Attempted murder. First-degree murder. Billett, who prosecutors claim gunned down Prince George's County police Cpl. Steven Gaughan earlier this week, wore a tight-lipped frown. If convicted, Billet could face the death penalty, said District Court Judge Leo Green. "Do you understand?" Green asked, before ordering Billett to be held in jail until his trial. "Yes," Billett said, almost inaudibly, his image broadcast to the courtroom from the county jail via a closed-circuit television. Prosecutors allege Billett, 43, of Bladensburg, killed Gaughan as the two were engaged in a running shootout at a South Laurel apartment complex on Tuesday. Gaughan, 41, working undercover, chased Billett on foot after the sport utility vehicle Billett was riding in tried to evade a traffic stop, police said. Gaughan, a 15-year veteran of the force, was shot in the abdomen and died a short time later in a hospital, police said. His funeral is planned for Saturday. Billett, originally from Jamaica, was shot three times and treated at a hospital for his injuries. At his hearing, Billett showed no visible signs of injury as he sat flanked by Prince George's County sheriff's deputies. Defense: Evidence inconclusive Joseph Niland, chief public defender, said he had not seen conclusive evidence proving that Billett fired the shot that killed Gaughan. Niland said that while Billett had gun and drug arrests in Virginia and New York, he had never been convicted of a felony in the United States. "There's a big difference between someone being arrested and convicted," he said. Arguing that Billett should be denied bond, Prince George's County prosecutor Robin Bright said the defendant had committed a "shocking" and "outrageous" crime in killing an officer who was trying to protect the citizens of the county. State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey said his office had yet to decide whether it will seek the death penalty against Billett. Such a decision is not likely to be made for several months, Ivey said, but the fact that Gaughan was killed in the line of duty would carry a lot of weight. Judge Green explained that he was denying bond because Billett was charged with the most serious crime, was a proven flight risk and "lacks significant ties to the community." At the back of the courtroom, two women who had come to the hearing to support Billett brushed tears from their eyes. "Could face the death penalty," one whispered to the other as a child wriggled restlessly in her lap. (source: Washington Emaminer) MISSOURI: Jury rejects death penalty for killer A jury in St. Louis County Circuit Court on Thursday night rejected the death penalty and recommended that Kenneth Sisak should spend the rest of his life in prison without parole or probation for shooting Stephanie Faint at a crack house in Pine Lawn three years ago. Judge David Lee Vincent III set sentencing for Aug. 5 at 9 a.m. On Wednesday night, the jury had convicted Sisak, 47, of St. Louis, of first-degree murder in the death of Faint, 35. The jury also convicted Sisak of second-degree murder in the shooting of Woodrow Deshay, 54, a drug dealer who owned the house where the shootings took place on March 12, 2002. And jurors also convicted Sisak of assault, robbery and weapons violations. Those accusations were uncontested. In the penalty phase of the trial, defense attorney Bevy Beimdiek called 15 witnesses including the defendant's two daughters and his mother, friends and former co-workers. They painted a different picture of the defendant from the crack-addicted man who killed two people and wounded a third after an argument about drugs. The witnesses said Sisak was an expert at anything mechanical and often used his skill to help others. Rev. Michael Martin and his wife, Marla, said Sisak helped them turn a dilapidated storefront in south St. Louis into the Church of the Living God. Prosecutor Ed McSweeney called Allen Faint, Stephanie's husband. He testified that her addiction to drugs had strained the family bonds but she was loved nonetheless. McSweeney also cited Sisak's prior convictions for drug possession. In his closing argument, McSweeney said Sisak had killed Faint to eliminate a witness and deserved the death penalty. Beimdiek said a life sentence without the possibility of parole meant only that Sisak would "die on God's time rather than the government's time." (source: St. Louis Today) TEXAS: Local murderer escapes death penalty Governor commutes sentence for man convicted in 2001 deaths of father, baby girl An Hidalgo County death row inmate convicted of the 2001 murder of a young father and his baby daughter will serve a life sentence instead of dying by lethal injection because he was 17 at the time of the crime. Jorge Alfredo Salinas, now 21, is one of 28 Texas death row inmates whose sentences Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday commuted to life in prison in compliance with a March U.S. Supreme Court ruling that juveniles cannot be executed. In that ruling, the Supreme Court banned the practice of lethal injection for criminals under 18, ruling that executing juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. On July 28, 2001, Salinas and two other men shot 20-year-old Geronimo Morales in a carjacking and left Morales? 21-month-old daughter, Leslie Ann Morales, strapped in her car seat in a grassy area outside Mission. The girl died of dehydration and exposure. A jury found Salinas guilty of capital murder in Judge Noe Gonzalez?s 370th state District Court and sentenced him to die for the murders. Salinas has been on death row since Aug. 29, 2002. Assistant District Attorney Joseph Orendain, who prosecuted Salinas, said Salinas inflicted a "cruel and unusual" punishment on Leslie Ann Morales, leaving her to die alone in the South Texas brush. "That was cruel and unusual, but that didn?t stop him from doing it. They had so many options with Leslie," Orendain said, as the men could have left the baby where someone could have found her. "Where they left her, they left her to die." He noted that Salinas tried to escape from his 2002 trial and attempted to carjack a vehicle when a bailiff caught him. In 2004, Salinas allegedly stabbed a prison guard 13 times with a sharpened metal rod made from a typewriter. Orendain said prosecutors now want to seek aggravated assault charges or attempted capital murder charges to lengthen Salinas? sentence. A special prosecutor from the prison inmate system would have to try the case, he said. District Attorney Rene Guerra said he does not think the death penalty should apply to those under 18, but was willing to seek the punishment in Salinas? case. "He?s a dangerous criminal. That?s why the death penalty was imposed on him," Guerra said. Still, Guerra agrees with the Supreme Court and believes Salinas will never get parole. "For him to spend life imprisoned ? it?s like the death penalty," he said. "The law is not going to be changed to give him an early out. The system will not allow it. "The parole board is very leery about letting a very dangerous person come out." Perry also signed the commutation for an inmate from Cameron County. Jose Ignacio Monterrubio was 17 years old when he and his older cousin Sixto Monterrubio raped, beat, stabbed and then strangled a female classmate from Brownsville Rivera High School in September 1993. The two then buried 16-year-old Carla Villarreal in a shallow grave near the Brownsville airport. Her body was found one month later. Sixto Monterrubio was sentenced to life in prison. Under state law, Jose Ignacio Monterrubio was tried as an adult and received a death sentence in October 1994. As one of 18 states that executed juveniles, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice will now begin transferring the inmates affected by the ruling from death row at the Polunsky Unit outside Livingston. (source: The Monitor) NEW YORK: A year without the death penalty One year ago today, a Court of Appeals struck down the death penalty in New York State. Crime has not soared. We have not seen chaos in the streets. What we have seen is more and more evidence that life without parole should replace the death penalty as the most severe punishment meted out in the courts of this nation. Even Texas, where one in three of the country`s executions take place, now gives juries the option of sentencing a defendant to life without parole rather than death. And twice this month, the U.S. Supreme Court - one of the most conservative high courts in recent history - has overturned a death sentence because of improper actions at trial. The court ordered a new sentencing trial for Ronald Rompilla, a Pennsylvania death row inmate, after finding that the trial attorney did not investigate evidence of mental retardation. And the court granted Texas death row inmate Thomas Miller-El, a black man, a new trial after finding blatant evidence that potential jurors were eliminated from the jury because they were black. The criminal justice system makes mistakes. Since 1973, 117 prisoners on Death Row have been exonerated. And we know from history and experience that Hispanics and African-Americans are disproportionately represented among prison populations and Death Row inmates. Of the 72 inmates who were spared execution by a recent Supreme Court ruling abolishing the death penalty for juveniles, 15 were Latino and 29 were black. In New York, the death penalty was overturned on a technicality involving instructions to the jury about sentencing an inmate to the death penalty versus life without parole. In April, a committee of the state Assembly refused to allow the full Assembly to vote on a bill that would have adjusted the law and reinstated capital punishment here. We continue to advocate for the abolition of the death penalty, to be replaced by life without parole. The death penalty is a barbaric practice that has no place in a civilized and advanced society. (source: El Diario, New York)
