June 28 TEXAS: Prosecutors deny making deal in fatal smuggling case ----U.S. officials say Mexico was never given a pledge that the death penalty would be ruled out Federal prosecutors deny that they secretly ruled out the death penalty so Mexican authorities would deport three people to Houston to face charges that they participated in a fatal smuggling operation. "There is no deal not to seek the death penalty between the United States and Mexico," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a document made public Monday. The office was responding to accusations by Craig Washington, attorney for truck driver Tyrone Williams, that a secret deal was made. Mexico traditionally has refused to extradite prisoners to the United States if they were charged with crimes punishable by death or life imprisonment. Williams faces a possible death sentence when he is retried Dec. 5 in connection with the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants who were among at least 74 people packed into his trailer. Seventeen bodies were discovered May 14, 2003, after Williams abandoned the trailer at a truck stop near Victoria. 2 more people died later. A federal jury in March failed to reach a verdict on 20 smuggling counts against Williams, 1 carrying the death penalty. He was found guilty on 38 other counts, 19 carrying the death penalty, but U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore ruled out the death penalty on them. Gilmore ruled that Williams could be retried only on the 20 counts on which the jury failed to reach a verdict. Prosecutors want to retry him on all 58 counts and have appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Washington says prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Williams because he is the only black defendant. A gag order imposed by Gilmore prevents attorneys from commenting publicly. Of the 14 people accused of roles in the smuggling operation, 3 who fled to Mexico to avoid prosecution were deported in February after a Mexican judge dropped smuggling charges filed in that country. (source: Houston Chronicle) NEW JERSEY: Lawyer often sues for records Even with an improved public-records law, getting information about government in New Jersey can be a challenge, says Kevin Walsh, a public interest attorney here. "It's a lot of work," says Walsh, who has had to sue to obtain official documents about a half-dozen times since the 2002 law took effect. "Every single time, I've gotten access to a significant number of documents." Among its options, the Open Public Records Act allows residents to sue government in state Superior Court when they are denied documents - and to recover legal fees when a court rules in their favor. Walsh did just that in 2002, demanding the state Department of Corrections release records in connection with a legal challenge to the way New Jersey implements its death penalty. The case led to the imposition of a moratorium on executions in the state. Walsh's client, New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, initially sought more than 400 pages of documents used by the corrections agency in making rules for the lethal-injection process. The state agency refused to provide most of the records, saying those documents were exempt. But a Superior Court judge largely accepted Walsh's argument in an October 2002 decision. "They (corrections officials) were ordered to give me most of the documents," said Walsh. "And really, what the documents showed was the Department of Corrections didn't understand its own process of putting people to death." 2 years later, an appeals court considering the challenge to death-penalty regulations reviewed the records and found they did not support the rules enacted by the corrections agency. The court then imposed a death-penalty moratorium "until and unless" the corrections agency can make a convincing case for its regulations. Walsh's OPRA action remains in the courts, as he is fighting with state officials to have more money provided to attorneys who take on OPRA cases. He says every incentive is needed to help make government more open. "It's better overall for democracy," he says, "for folks to be able to see just the very basic documents that the government has." (source: Courier-Post) **************************** Nurse Admits Killing Five More Patients A former nurse who pleaded guilty to killing 24 patients admitted Monday to killing 5 more people by injecting them with lethal doses of drugs. The confessions by 45-year-old Charles Cullen brought to 29 the number of victims he admitted killing in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Cullen's lawyer has said Cullen believed that his victims were terminally ill and that it was dehumanizing to prolong people's lives by artificial means. Cullen mostly stared down at a desk in front of him during the 20-minute hearing, answering "Yes, your honor," or "No, your honor" to a series of questions from the judge. He looked pale and gaunt, his hands folded in front of him. Cullen said he gave the patients an injection of a heart drug called digoxin, knowing it would kill them. He gave no reason for his actions, and, as in previous court appearances, showed no emotion. But detective Scott Lessig, who helped investigate the deaths, said Cullen told authorities he acted out of depression. "A lot of it had to do with his mental health situation," Lessig told reporters later. "He was going through depression, having a hard time." A court official, speaking on behalf of the victims' families, said the families preferred not to comment on Cullen's plea. As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Cullen has cooperated with investigators in reviewing scores of suspicious deaths during his tenure at various hospitals to determine whether he had killed any other patients. He agreed to help authorities in exchange for a promise they would not seek the death penalty. Cullen was arrested in December 2003 and had told investigators he might have killed as many as 40 people. He said he was able to move from hospital to hospital, despite suspicions he was killing patients, because the institutions did not report their fears to authorities. The 5 new victims ranged in age from 49 to 81. (source: Associated Press) TENNESSEE: Justices Back Tenn. Execution Despite Court Error The Supreme Court gave Tennessee the green light to execute a convicted murderer yesterday, despite a federal appeals court's unusual admission that it made a mistake in denying one of the man's earlier appeals. By a vote of 5 to 4, the court ruled that a 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, based in Cincinnati, had failed to "accord the appropriate level of respect" to the state courts of Tennessee when it reversed itself and tried to stop the execution of Gregory Thompson last year. The panel cited previously undiscovered evidence that Thompson was schizophrenic at the time of the crime. "Tennessee expended considerable time and resources in seeking to enforce a capital sentence rendered 20 years ago, a sentence that reflects the judgment of the citizens of Tennessee that Thompson's crimes merit the ultimate punishment," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court. But a clearly irritated Justice Stephen G. Breyer, reading his dissenting opinion from the bench in a show of strong disapproval for the majority's opinion, said that the court may have countenanced a "miscarriage of justice." Breyer was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Kennedy was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1985, Thompson later attempted to prove that his constitutional right to effective counsel had been violated because his defense attorneys did not find evidence of his major mental illness and use it to plead for mercy from the jury that sentenced him. In 2003, the 6th Circuit denied this appeal. The Supreme Court twice refused to consider the case, the last time in early 2004. By that time, an intern for Senior Judge Richard F. Suhrheinrich, a conservative appointee of President George H.W. Bush, had gone back into the record of the case and discovered a doctor's report suggesting that Thompson had indeed been schizophrenic at the time of the crime, and his attorneys could have found out in 1985. After the Supreme Court had disposed of the case, Suhrheinrich wrote a 30,000-word opinion explaining why Thompson should get a new hearing on his claim, lest he be executed without a full opportunity to protect his rights. In June 2004, the 6th Circuit ordered a halt to Tennessee's plans for an execution, noting that it had not technically issued a mandate enforcing its previous denial of Thompson's appeal. But, in the meantime, the state of Tennessee, assuming that the Supreme Court's refusal to hear Thompson's case finalized the case anyway, set an execution date. The state appealed to the Supreme Court, saying that the 6th Circuit was not legally allowed to change its mind. The 6th Circuit was wrong to try to redo the case in part because the new evidence "would not come close to satisfying the miscarriage of justice standard" set by Supreme Court precedent, Kennedy wrote. But Breyer noted that "when we tell the Court of Appeals that it cannot exercise its discretion to correct the serious error it discovered here, we tell courts they are not to act to cure serious injustice in similar cases." The case is Bell v. Thompson, No. 04-514. (source: Washington Post) ***************************************** Attorneys Seek New Trial For Duane Kiser Attorneys on Monday morning asked Criminal Court Judge Steve Bevil to order a new trial for Marlon Duane Kiser, who was sentenced in November 2003 to die by lethal injection for the murder of Deputy Donald Bond. Judge Bevil said he will rule within 30 days. Attorneys cited over 50 reasons they said are grounds for a new trial. Kiser is now represented by Hugh Moore Jr. of Chattanooga and Brook Mehler of Nashville. They said Kiser was not competent to help his original attorneys during the sentencing phase. They also said Judge Bevil gave improper jury instructions. Judge Bevil had set the execution date for Sept. 6, 2005 - which will be the 4-year anniversary of the slaying of Officer Bond. But appeals in death penalty cases last many years. A jury from Nashville heard the case. Kiser has maintained his innocence. (source: The Chattanoogan) ILLINOIS: Fund proposed to pay for DNA testing in child murder cases A special fund would be created to pay for expedited DNA testing in child murder cases under legislation pushed Monday by Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine. The announcement comes 10 days after Will County prosecutors dropped murder charges against Kevin Fox, 28, of Wilmington, in the June 2004 death of his 3-year-old daughter Riley. They dropped the charges after learning that lab tests failed to show a link between Fox and DNA evidence recovered from his daughter's vaginal area. The measure, which Fox's attorney proposed calling Riley's Law, would create a $100,000 fund that would be used for DNA testing at a private lab for evidence recovered from the scene of the murder of a child age 16 or younger. Tests at private labs can cost up to $1,500 each to develop a DNA profile that could be run through national and state DNA databases, Devine said. Lack of money is the main reason why quick DNA testing is not done on all cases, he said. The Illinois State Police crime lab does DNA testing but has such a large volume of cases it cannot always act quickly, he said. "This is too important to wait, even though we all share in the general objective of building up DNA testing for all cases, we believe this is a priority and one that should be given immediate attention," Devine said. Devine announced the measure at a news conference with state Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago; state Rep. James Brosnahan, D-Evergreen Park; and defense attorney Kathleen Zellner. The lawmakers said they planned to introduce the measure during the Legislature's fall veto session, which starts in October. Fox, whom Zellner represents, had long insisted he was innocent in the drowning and sexual assault of his daughter. Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow said his predecessor's administration had sent DNA samples to the FBI for testing but they never were. After Glasgow took office in December, he said he got the samples back and worked with Zellner to choose a lab to test them. Police have said Fox gave them a statement that led them to believe he killed the girl. But Fox, who spent eight months in custody, filed a federal lawsuit in November claiming detectives subjected him to threats, lies and promises of a deal during a 14 1/2-hour interrogation. Will County Sheriff Paul Kaupas has said Fox eventually told investigators he decided to make his daughter's death look like an abduction after he thought he had accidentally killed her by hitting her in the head with a bathroom door. Fox was charged with 1st-degree murder and sexual assault by former Will County State's Attorney Jeff Tomczak one month before the election, and Tomczak had vowed to seek the death penalty. Fox pleaded not guilty. "We have to protect the people that are innocent in these crimes. And quite often, the adversarial nature of our legal system gets in the way of finding out what the truth is and apprehending the killers as quickly as possible," Zellner said. Tomczak did not immediately return a call for comment Monday. (source: The Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIA: Kingston attorney featured in Court TV televison show Court TV will feature a new episode of Forensic Files Wednesday night that tells how Kingston area Attorney Thomas S. Cometa used scientific theory to prove the innocence of a man who faced the death penalty. Thanks to the work of an investigative team hired by Cometa, charges of1rst-degree murder and arson against Paul Camiolo were dismissed. In 1999, Camiolo, then 34, was wrongfully accused by Montgomery County prosecutors of setting a fire that killed his ailing parents, Edward Camiolo, 81, and his wife, Rosalie, 57, on Sept. 30, 1996. Prosecutors alleged that Camiolo set fire to the Montgomery County home where he resided with his parents to collect on a $400,000 insurance policy. He was jailed for nearly 11 months before Cometa and a team of arson experts proved that the fire was an accident caused by a dropped match on a hardwood floor that had been cleaned with gasoline. Cometa said the two-story Colonial style home was built in the early 1970s. Common practice at that time, Cometa learned, was using leaded gasoline to clean hardwood floors. "It was really an interesting case," Cometa said. "Gas was only in the hardwood floor and not the carpet areas. The question was, how could it (gas) be everywhere as they (prosecutors) claimed," Cometa said. Cometa said Mrs. Camiolo had lived in Jenkins Township and he did some civil legal work for her family until she moved to Montgomery County. When the fire was initially declared an accident, Paul Camiolo retained Cometa to handle an insurance policy with State Farm. When investigators later received lab results that showed the presence of gasoline, the official cause of the fire was changed from accident to arson. Cometa then went from handling a routine civil matter to defending Camiolo against the death penalty on 2 counts of 1st-degree homicide and arson. "They (prosecutors) took samples, and after a month passed by, it was positive for gasoline on the floor," Cometa said. "They told themselves, this was a murder, this was no accident." Cometa said State Farm refused to pay the insurance claim based on the arson ruling, but a day before Camiolo's civil trial, the insurance company settled. Cometa hired Ron Decker, a retired federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives special agent, to testify in the civil trial. When Camiolo was criminally charged, Decker recommended hiring arson investigators John Lentini, Richard Roby and Dr. John DaHaan to counter arson experts for the prosecution. "Latini and Roby asked, 'did anyone test for leaded gasoline,'" Cometa said. "That was just a theory we had. We talked to other builders in the area and they said, 'yeah, we used to use leaded gasoline to clean the hardwood floors.'" Cometa said traces of gasoline were found only on the hardwood floors, both burned and unburned, and not on the carpeting or carpet padding. Cometa said he presented his expert's findings to prosecutors, who tested a piece of hardwood flooring taken from the home behind the Montgomery County Courthouse. "It combusted," Cometa said. "It was leaded gasoline on the hardwood floor. "We were curious why would there be gas on the hardwood floor but not all over the place. It was the science," Cometa said. Charges against Camiolo were withdrawn in November 1999. Cometa, who is employed as a Luzerne County public defender, was videotaped for his segments at the Luzerne County Courthouse about a year ago. The Forensic Files episode titled "Up in Smoke" airs Wednesday at 9 p.m. (source: The Citizens Voice)
