June 25 PENNSYLVANIA: Cullen to admit 5 more murders----Ex-nurse expected to plead guilty to killing patients at Hunterdon hospital. In Flemington, serial killer Charles Cullen is expected to plead guilty Monday to murdering five Hunterdon Medical Center patients while he worked in the Raritan Township hospital in the mid-1990s, a source close to the case said Friday. Cullen has already admitted to killing 24 patients and trying to kill five others. During his 16-year nursing career, he worked at numerous health care facilities, including St. Luke's Hospital, Easton Hospital, Warren Hospital, Lehigh Valley Hospital, Hunterdon Medical Center and Good Shepherd. As part of an agreement with prosecutors that let him avoid the death penalty, Cullen is working with authorities to help identify as many as 40 patients he killed. Hunterdon County First Assistant Prosecutor Steven Lember said Cullen is scheduled to appear at 9 a.m. Monday before Superior Court Judge Roger Mahon in the Hunterdon County courthouse in Flemington. Lember declined to release further details. Hunterdon County authorities have met with Cullen and have steadfastly declined comment on the case. Johnnie Mask, the Somerset County, N.J., public defender who is representing Cullen, declined comment Friday. A source close to the case said all 5 victims were patients at the hospital while Cullen worked there from April 1994 to October 1996. Hospital officials could not be reached for comment late Friday. Cullen has also pleaded guilty to the murders of 5 patients at St. Luke's Hospital, where he worked in the coronary care unit from June 2000 to June 2002. He also pleaded guilty to 2 counts of attempted murder for administering potentially lethal doses of the heart medication digoxin to patients there. Cullen has pleaded guilty to killing a Lehigh Valley Hospital patient and attempting to kill another. He worked in the burn unit there from December 1999 to April 2000. Although all 3 patients in the attempted homicide cases died, forensic investigators were unable to establish a direct link between the overdoses and their deaths. He also pleaded guilty to 1 murder at Easton Hospital and another at Warren Hospital in Phillipsburg. At St. Luke's Hospital, authorities say Cullen killed: Irene Krapf, 79, of Tamaqua, Pa.; William Park, 72, of Lehighton, Pa.; Samuel Spangler, 80, of East Allen Township; Daniel George, 82, of Hanover Township; and Edward O'Toole, 76, of Bethlehem. Authorities say he attempted to kill John Gallagher, 90, of Bethlehem, and Paul Galgon, 72, of Bethlehem. At Lehigh Valley Hospital, authorities say Cullen killed Matthew Mattern, 22, of Shamokin, Pa., and attempted to kill Stella Danielczyk, 73, of Larksville, Pa. Most of the victims were overdosed on digoxin, but some were given the medications nitroprusside (also known as nipride), vecuronium or norepinephrine. (source: Express-Times) CALIFORNIA: Prosecutors removed from CIM killing trial In Rancho Cucamonga, prosecutors from the district attorney's Rancho Cucamonga office were removed Friday from the trial of an inmate accused of killing an officer at a Chino prison. San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Ingrid Uhler ruled that Deputy District Attorneys Ray Pyle and Karen Schmauss could not fairly prosecute the case because they had illegally obtained and reviewed the confidential psychological files of suspect Jon Christopher Blaylock. "We would characterize it as we thought we followed the proper procedures, but the judge did say we acted illegally," said Assistant District Attorney Michael Risley. At the time, prosecutors said they needed the files to determine whether Blaylock's mental condition makes him unfit for the death penalty. The judge had previously ruled that those files were given to prosecutors by the Department of Corrections without an appropriate court order. The ruling means another county prosecutor will take on the case. Risley said the District Attorney's Office has "multiple options" but has not yet determined who will handle the case. Blaylock, 35, is accused of stabbing to death Correctional Officer Manuel Gonzalez on Jan. 10 at the California Institution for Men in Chino. San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael A. Ramos announced on Feb. 18, the same day charges were filed, that he would seek the death penalty against Blaylock. Following that announcement, Blaylock's attorneys accused Ramos' office of bias, saying Ramos' decision was politically motivated because Gonzalez was a peace officer, and filed a motion asking that the District Attorney's Office be recused from the case. The judge granted part of the defense's request, ruling that the psychological files had to be returned. She did not back the defense motion to entirely remove the District Attorney's Office from the case. "We feel like we accomplished what we set out to do," said Deputy Public Defender Joe Canty. "We really wanted the recognition that the behavior of the people who did this, the DAs who did this, was improper, and there had to be consequences for it." At the time of the killing, Blaylock was serving a 75-year sentence for attempted murder of a peace officer. Though he had numerous case factors that corrections officials have said should have sent him to a maximum-security facility, he had remained in the lower-security Reception Center at CIM for 6 months - longer than the average stay. Two investigative reports into the killing have since prompted changes at the prison, including the distribution of protective vests to correctional officers and the removal of the warden and 2 deputy wardens. The prison also has adopted a 36-page "corrective action plan" outlining numerous improvements to operations at CIM, including inmate classification, equipment tracking, emergency medical services and psychiatric treatment. (source: San Bernardino County Sun) NORTH CAROLINA: Capital punishment moratorium up in the air Legislation that would put a 2-year halt to executions while the state's capital punishment system is studied is being "retooled," the bill's sponsors said last week. Rep. Joe Hackney, the bill's co-sponsor, remained tight-lipped about the changes, but even with them, it's unclear if there will be a call for an up or down vote in the N.C. House this session. While lawmakers in the House have idled over the proposed moratorium on the death penalty since it was first introduced in April 2001, 4 inmates from Rockingham County have been awaiting execution. Clinton Ray Rose, Kenneth Neal, Perrie Dyon Simpson and Kenneth Lee Boyd have spent a combined 46 years on North Carolina's death row for crimes committed in the county. These inmates represent about 2.3 % of the state's 176 death row inmates. Rockingham County's population is only about 1.1 % of the state population, according to 2003 Census estimates. Rock Co's death row inmates - Clinton Ray Rose was convicted of the 1st-degree murder and armed robbery of a Stoneville man and a Greensboro man camping on the Mayo River in June 1990. About six weeks earlier, Rose had escaped from a minimum-security prison in Alabama, according to a N.C. Supreme Court opinion. In 1994 the court rejected his appeal that stated jurors were influenced by at least 27 news articles printed between the time of the murders and his trial. - Prosecutors argued that in April 1995 Kenneth Neal got in a fight with his former girlfriend and murdered her by hitting her in the head multiple times with a hammer. He confessed to then forcing the hammer down her throat, suffocating her, according to court documents. Neal's appeal centered on issues with jury selection and the capital proceeding, but the N.C. Supreme Court shot down his appeal in 1997. - A jury sent Perrie Dyon Simpson to death row for the August 1984 murder of Jean Darter, a 92-year-old retired Baptist minister living in Reidsville. Simpson was charged with conspiring with his 16-year-old, 8-month pregnant girlfriend to rob Darter who had given the 2 food the day before. Prosecutors successfully argued that when Darter refused to give the 2 any money, Simpson strangled Darter with two belts around his neck. Simpson's girlfriend Stephanie Eury is serving a life sentence for the crime. - Following a 1988 mistrial, in 1994 Kenneth Lee Boyd was sentenced to death for the March 1988 murder of his estranged wife and her father. The state Supreme Court rejected Boyd's claims of an altered state of mind during the incident due to alcohol, mental disorders and flashbacks from time spent in Vietnam. In its current version, the moratorium bill would suspend executions for two years but not remove anyone from death row or prevent anyone from being sentenced to death. During the moratorium, a legislative commission would review the state's death penalty system. The House failed to address the moratorium bill before a crossover deadline June 1 because supporters said they were short a few votes to guarantee passage. If the moratorium bill does come up for a vote once the budget is squared away, Rockingham County's Representatives said they intend to vote against it, based on its current form. The county's Rep. Bryan Holloway, the Republican Freshman Chair, said he is not anticipating a vote but said he would vote against the bill if it does come up. "I will never support a blanket moratorium on the death penalty," Holloway said. "I see the moratorium as just something to end the death penalty." Plus, he said he has not received any feedback from constituents one way or the other. Rep. Nelson Cole, a democrat from Reidsville, said he is following the lead of the county's District Attorney Belinda Foster in standing in opposition to the moratorium. When the bill's alternate plan is unveiled, he said he intends to discuss it with Foster before coming to any conclusions. On the other hand, Cole said he would absolutely support a study without the pause in executions. "There in lies the crux of the problem," he said. "Why couldn't they have already studied it?" Similar legislation passed the Senate in 2003, but the chamber has not considered it this session. David Neal, spokesperson for the N.C. Coalition for a Moratorium, said a reworked bill devoid of any pause in executions would not make sense. "We've said all along that a study without a moratorium just runs the risk of executing people who we later determine ? weren't eligible for the death penalty," he said. A logical change would be pausing executions only for those who can make a legitimate showing of their innocence or those whose trials did not benefit from recent court reforms, Neal said. Two high-profile cases in recent years have fueled the moratorium movement. Alan Gell awaited execution for 6 years before he was acquitted of murder last year. His lawyers found that prosecutors had withheld evidence in his case. In Winston-Salem, Darryl Hunt served almost 19 years of a life sentence behind bars before he was exonerated thanks to DNA evidence in 2003. Desmond Keith Carter was the most recent executed inmate from Rockingham County, put to death in December 2002 after being on death row for more than 9 years. In 2003, Christene Kemmerlin of Rockingham County received a sentence of life without parole after being on death row for more than 2 years. Just before retiring this spring, Superior Court Judge Melzer A. Morgan Jr. of Rockingham County issued a 152-page ruling overturning 2 death sentences for a homeless drifter. Michael Edward Pinch was found guilty on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in 1980. Morgan ruled that the Greensboro man should be granted a new trial because investigators and prosecutors withheld evidence. "Time and again, law enforcement has failed to provide prosecutors with contradictory information or information that doesn't fit into their theory of a case," he wrote. Moratorium supporters have argued that prosecutorial misconduct and withheld evidence are widespread problems that should warrant a moratorium, but the opposition say the moratorium is just a stepping stone on the path to the abolition of the death penalty. (source: The Reidsvillve Review)
