July 17 TEXAS: 2 Lives of Napoleon Beazley In December 2003, Texas State University played host to a workshop production of a play called "The Two Lives of Nathaniel DuPree" and performed to sold-out crowds. The play is the true story of Napoleon Beazley, a death row inmate that was executed in 2002 for the 1994 murder of the father of a prominent federal judge. The Grapeland native was only 17 at the time of his offense. Now, with a new name and a professional cast, the play has been resurrected at the Austin Playhouse. Playwright John Fleming, a Texas State professor, said the name has been changed to "The Two Lives of Napoleon Beazley" because legal issues have been cleared up regarding the use of Beazley's name. Fleming said Beazley was a young, African American honor-roll student in Grapeland, southeast of Dallas, who got caught up in the wrong crowd. The story raised questions regarding race as well as the issue of a juvenile death penalty. "The racial dynamics are very complicated," Fleming said. "In his small town he was well loved by both black and white people. In one of his lines (in the play) he says he experienced more racism from black people." The story picks up while Beazley is on death row and is told from the point of view of his trial lawyer. It also deals with how Beazley's family members react to the situation. "When we execute somebody what is the effect on the family, on the parents?" Fleming said. "Where do they figure in to this issue of justice?" The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court and was expected to be a landmark decision regarding the juvenile death penalty, but the victim's son is on the very short list of judges in line for the Supreme Court. Three justices had to excuse themselves from participation on the case because they knew the victim's family, so the outcome was a 3-3 tie. The death penalty for juveniles under the age of 18 was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in March 2005. Fleming said the play could be viewed from several different angles. "On one hand you can read it as a cautionary tale for young people, for anybody," Fleming said. "On the other hand, it's the issue of how do you respond to adversity?" The play will run each Thursday through Sunday, July 14 through 31. On Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays the play will begin at 7:30 p.m. and at 5 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are between $13 and $15. For more information contact the box office at (512) 447-5665 or online at www.originaltheatre.org. (source: San Marcos Daily Record) CALIFORNIA: Death Row juror alleged to have secret vendetta ---- Motives of gay rights activist questioned 14 years after trial Clifford Bolden is the only convicted murderer from San Francisco on California's death row. Now, through a set of odd circumstances, he has a chance at life. That chance rests on trying to destroy the credibility of an 81-year-old juror, who 14 years ago wanted and still wants nothing more than to see Bolden die for the killing of a gay man. The juror in question, Jose Sarria, was an unlikely choice to sit in judgment in such a volatile case. Sarria was a pioneer in the local gay rights movement and is believed to be the 1st openly gay candidate to have run for public office in the United States. For years he performed as a female impersonator in San Francisco as the "Widow Norton," after the fictional wife of the 19th century San Francisco character Emperor Norton. Sarria sat on the panel that in 1991 recommended that Bolden be sentenced to death for the 1986 robbery and stabbing of Henry Michael Pedersen, a model and escort Bolden met at the Pendulum, a Castro neighborhood bar. Pedersen had apparently taken Bolden home after a night of heavy drinking. Since his sentencing, Bolden, 49, has made several legal arguments to the state Supreme Court in 2 separate challenges. As is common in capital cases, the high court rejected most of them. Court review ordered Then, earlier this year, the court ordered a lower court to explore Sarria's role on the jury. Bolden's appeals team maintains that Sarria told a fellow juror that he had ties to both the defendant and the victim, but never disclosed them in court. The defense also contends that Sarria refused to deliberate with other jurors, in an apparent effort to avenge the victim and make "a point about being gay." "Jose Sarria pushed his fellow jurors for a verdict of death with a display of immovable will and inside information," Jeanne Keevan-Lynch, Bolden's appeal attorney, argued to the state high court. The state attorney general's office says the defense claims about Sarria are groundless and that the hearing on his conduct -- which has yet to be scheduled -- will put the matter to rest. "These are disputed facts that require resolution," said Ron Matthias, supervising deputy attorney general. "We think the court has done the right thing here." Appeal to Kamala Harris Bolden's defense is also appealing to the political sensibilities of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who like her predecessor, Terence Hallinan, opposes capital punishment and refuses to seek the death penalty. It's been more than 10 years since a San Francisco jury was asked to sentence a defendant to death, and Bolden is the only one of the 644 condemned inmates in California whose crime was committed in the city. For his part, Sarria says he's tired of the legal maneuvering. "He has been sitting on Death Row all this time -- it's unbelievable," Sarria said in a phone interview from his home in Cathedral City near San Diego. "Our justice system needs to be overhauled." The crime Pedersen, 46, an unemployed accountant, was found stabbed to death in the bathtub of his Twin Peaks apartment Sept. 9, 1986. His blood alcohol was measured at 0.36 percent, well over the legal definition of drunkenness. Authorities think Bolden stabbed him in the back, then carved an "L"-shaped wound on his chest after he died. Bolden's fingerprints were lifted from a glass and bottle in the apartment and his palm print was found on a bathtub wall. Police found some of Pedersen's property at Bolden's apartment, including an identification bracelet, a camera, a camera case and binoculars. Bolden had been paroled from San Quentin State Prison earlier in 1986 after serving about seven years for 2 manslaughter convictions, one from San Francisco and one from San Jose. When Bolden went to trial in 1990, Sarria was impaneled as an alternate juror. He became one of the 12 voting members during the penalty phase after another panelist was excused. Sarria would seem to have been less than an ideal juror from the defense's perspective. In addition to his career as a female impersonator, he became the first openly gay political candidate in the nation in 1961 when he ran for the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco. Defense attorneys lodged no objections to Sarria at the time, but Bolden's appellate lawyers came to focus on him as they fought to save their client from the death chamber. Another juror talks The defense argued to the state Supreme Court that Sarria had confided to another juror, who has since died, that he knew Pedersen and had helped him get a job at the old Emporium Capwell department store. In a sworn statement in 1996, juror Charlia Verna Sessions said Sarria had talked with her regularly when they rode the bus home from court. One time, she said, Sarria told her that the victim "was a good man." In the recent interview, Sarria acknowledged that he did ride the bus for 10 months with Sessions and talked with her. But he denied that he had known Pedersen or had helped him find a job. "He was a bar person. I was not a bar person," Sarria said. "I did not know him. Where they got that notion, I don't know." The defense also has argued that Sarria had ties to the defendant, Bolden, that he never disclosed during the trial. Sessions said in her declaration that Sarria had told her that he knew the man with whom Bolden was having an affair at the time of the killing. Sarria had helped the man, Andre Montgomery, get a job as an impersonator at the North Beach club Finocchio's, where Sarria performed as the Widow Norton. After the sentencing, Sarria told a defense investigator that Montgomery had walked into the club one day and announced he had a new "romance of the year" -- who turned out to be Bolden. Witnesses testified that Montgomery and Bolden had been walking together when police arrested Bolden, and authorities said the two had been sharing an apartment. "I have the transcripts of the trial. I know how often Montgomery's name came up,'' said Bolden's attorney, Keevan-Lynch. Montgomery was ill with HIV at the time of the trial and died soon after. Keevan-Lynch contends that Sarria did not tell the court that he knew Montgomery for a reason. "No reasonable explanation, other than desire to avoid removal (from the jury), is apparent," she argued to the state Supreme Court. Sarria said in the interview that he had known Montgomery, but that he hadn't learned that Montgomery and Bolden were lovers until after the trial. "Andre kept Mr. Bolden a secret," he said. The defense has also used jurors' statements to suggest that Sarria refused to deliberate during the sentencing phase because he had an agenda. In her declaration, Sessions recalled wondering whether Sarria was fit to serve on the jury. "He was determined to decide the case so as to make some sort of a point about being gay," she said. Another juror, Thomas Shepherd, said in a 1998 sworn declaration that Sarria had announced he stood for death soon after deliberations started and would not change his mind. "The room was silent for several moments afterwards," Shepherd said. "I recalled the judge telling us that we were supposed to deliberate and not take a stand right away. I thought this juror should be removed, but I did not say anything." Sarria's demeanor "said we were going to be stuck in this situation until we bent to his will," Shepherd said. Eventually, jurors who favored sparing Bolden's life changed their votes to death. "I voted accordingly, seeing no hope of getting out without doing what Mr. Sarria wanted, or behaving as he did," Shepherd said. Sarria's response Sarria denies he made up his mind ahead of time. "I listened to everything," he said. "My mind was made up when we considered all the evidence." When the time came, Sarria said, he was a strong advocate for sentencing Bolden to death and sometimes grew frustrated with other jurors. One woman suggested that Bolden might be rehabilitated, he said. "When she said that, I nearly put my hand through the table," Sarria said. "I had to convince her that he had all the chances in the world, he wasn't going to be rehabilitated." Keevan-Lynch has written a letter to District Attorney Harris, asking her to review the record and, rather than defend the case, petition the high court to modify Bolden's sentence to life without parole. Chief Assistant District Attorney Russ Giuntini said the office is limited to carrying out what the state Supreme Court has asked it to do. "We couldn't go in and say, 'We don't want the death penalty on this,'" Giuntini said. "The hearings are very specifically directed. We couldn't parade into court and say, 'We don't want the death penalty,' even if we wanted to. Our hands are tied." Keevan-Lynch insists that Harris "has a choice. I think she has the option, and I have told her this. Kamala Harris is saying she doesn't have a choice, but what is she basing that on?" Matthias, the deputy attorney general, said he doesn't see how Harris could do what Keevan-Lynch is asking. "The case is final," he said. "What is she talking about?" (source: San Francisco Chronicle) ILLINOIS: Driver in crash could face death penalty Jeanette Sliwinski unsuccessfully tried to kill herself, police said. She may still get her wish. Prosecutors said they may seek the death penalty for the 23-year-old Morton Grove woman who allegedly told investigators she was trying to kill herself when she slammed her car at 70 mph into the rear of a Honda Civic stopped at a red light at a Skokie intersection Thursday. The 3 occupants of the car she hit -- all Chicago rock musicians in different bands -- were killed, sending shock waves through the local music community. Killed were Mike Dahlquist, 39, John Glick, 35, and Douglas Meis, 29. Sliwinski survived and was being held without bond Saturday in fair condition at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, where she was under guard. She is charged with three counts of 1st-degree murder. She allegedly told police she wanted to kill herself after having a fight with her mother. In a statement released by her attorney, Thomas Needham, Sliwinski said: "I pray and beg for forgiveness from everyone who is saddened by the deaths of Mr. Dahlquist, Mr. Glick and Mr. Meis." Her parents, Ted and Ursula Sliwinski, also expressed their anguish: "If we had an explanation for what happened . . . we would tell you what it is -- but we have no explanation, we have only our heartfelt grief and prayers." Meanwhile, the families, friends and fans of the dead are trying to cope with the tragedy. "There's an awful lot of people who have been touched by this," said Victoria Midgett, whose husband played with Dahlquist. The 3 men worked for microphone maker Shure Inc. in Niles and were on their lunch break when they were killed. Glick, of Logan Square, was a singer-songwriter-guitarist who "played music for music's sake," said Jonathan Ben-Isvy, his bandmate in the power pop trio the Returnables. Glick, born in Boston, got a degree in film at the University of Wisconsin, where he met his wife, Rebecca Crawford. Both musicians, they moved here 6 years ago in search of a bigger music scene. "He was a very, very gifted songwriter," said Ben-Isvy. Meis had been playing drums since the age of 9 and was a member of Crawford's band, the Dials. "Drumming was definitely his absolute passion; it was the thing he was most enthusiastic about in life," said his younger brother, Scott. Meis, born in Corpus Christi, Texas, was an Illinois Wesleyan engineering grad. The Lincoln Square resident had a "hysterical sense of humor" and excelled in the business side of music, booking shows and getting the band to the next stop on the tour. For the last 15 years, Dahlquist was the drummer for Silkworm, a band that formed in Seattle. He followed the other band members to Chicago 4 years ago and wasn't sure he'd like it here, but just recently he sold his house in Seattle and bought a place here. Death penalty troubles friends "He was just a great guy, he was not judgmental of people at all and was constantly on a quest to meet new people and make connections," Midgett said. The possibility of the death penalty for Sliwinski, however, troubles some of the musicians' friends. "They're gone no matter what," Ben-Isvy said. "Her motives and what she was doing are almost irrelevant to us." He said his friend didn't favor the death penalty. "I know John's philosophy. I can confidently say because I discussed it with him was that he is opposed to the death penalty. I know that John would not want what happened to result in a death penalty case." (source: Chicago Sun-Times) VERMONT: Not worth it The Donald Fell case has been a severe test for those who believe the death penalty to be wrong. Now a Vermont jury, sitting in federal court, has ruled that Fell should be executed for the murder in 2000 of a North Clarendon woman, Tressa King. Vermont does not have its own death penalty statute, and many Vermonters oppose capital punishment. It is clear also that many Vermonters believe that in certain heinous cases death is the appropriate response. They include surviving members of King's family, as well as members of the jury and ordinary citizens appalled at the vicious nature of Fell's crime. The case for Fell's execution is nearly as persuasive as a case could be. The murders he committed were vicious and personal, and they included two other victims for whose deaths he was not charged. One of them was his mother. Opponents of capital punishment need to be able show that the arguments against death hold even in a case as extreme and convincing as this one. The arguments for death are several. 1st, the killing of King was brutal, ruthless and needless. There was no motive other than the callous disregard for a helpless life. 2nd, Fell has shown little remorse. He did not express remorse in court until after the sentence was pronounced, and that was through his lawyer. 3rd, he has shown during his time in prison he remains a vicious person. Videotapes taken in prison showed violent and repellent behavior. 4th, King's family has frequently expressed the sentiment that only Fell's execution would provide a just conclusion to the case. That Fell was the victim of an abusive childhood did not persuade the jury to overlook these arguments for death. It is likely that many convicted murderers could tell tales of horror about their childhoods or other circumstances that damaged their ability to steer clear of murderous passions. That a person has committed murder is almost evidence by itself that the person has been damaged. The question is what we decide to do with people so damaged that they commit murder. It is easy to dismiss the usual arguments in favor of capital punishment. It is well known that capital punishment has no deterrent effect. Places where capital punishment has ended have seen no spike in crime. We can surmise that during the drug-addled orgy of violence when Fell killed King he was in no state to calculate rationally the possibility of execution vs. jail. Many killers are in the grip of a death wish themselves. If we truly believed that executions had a deterrent effect, we would not conduct them in secret. We might well show them on television or place severed heads on stakes in public, which was the practice in Elizabethan England. During the public execution of pickpockets in 19th century England, pickpockets mingled in the crowd practicing their trade. So much for deterrence. The argument that capital punishment protects the public can be answered by the reality of incarceration for life. If Fell were to continue his violent ways behind bars, he would be an inconvenience for prison guards, but we don't execute people because they are inconvenient. The real reason for capital punishment is revenge. It seems right. It answers a gut level instinct. It is a real, truthful, emotional response that is probably shared by all of humanity. It is no disgrace to wish for the ultimate penalty against the man who has killed a loved one. Opponents of capital punishment need only imagine the murder of one's own child to understand this to be true. But justice is something more than the satisfaction of our instinctual responses. Our laws are meant to bring order to a world where, without a system of justice, blood would beget blood in an endless cycle. To allow the form of retribution to be determined by the victim would be to return society to a primitive condition. One of the principal arguments against capital punishment is the question of certainty. There have been numerous cases of wrongful conviction, and the imposition of capital punishment is subject to bias and caprice. There is no lack of certainty in the Fell case, but to open the door to Fell's execution is to open the door to cases where there is less certainty. Even in Fell's case, however, where there is certainty and where the crime was heinous, there is a reason to spare Fell. And that is to spare us the shame of killing him. That society senses the shame of executions can be concluded from the fact that we conduct them out of sight, as if it is a dirty job that embarrasses us. Does anyone wish his child would grow up to be an executioner? Fell's crime was heinous, but all murders are heinous, and yet we don't execute all murderers, especially those with expert lawyers. The answer is not to execute more murderers, which would magnify the mistakes. The answer is to execute fewer. The execution of a prisoner, a helpless person who has been jailed for years, is not heroic, like killing an attacker in the act of assaulting a loved one. Observers of executions generally come away with a squalid feeling, as if they had watched a man treated worse than a dog. It is not that we believe Fell doesn't deserve it. It is that we don't want to be complicit in the sordid act of killing him. Federal law provides for the execution of Donald Fell, and Vermonters are citizens of their nation as well as their state. So his death would be carried out in our name. Many Vermonters may find satisfaction when that day finally comes. Many others will conclude that killing Donald Fell just isn't worth it. (source: The Times Argus) ***************** Will we rest better if Fell dies? Today, the jury sentenced Donald Fell to death for the brutal murder of Tressa King, an innocent woman with a family who loved her, who was just going to work. Will we rest better now because we will kill Fell? Is his death about punishment or vengeance? Those of us who oppose the death penalty have sympathy for King's family and are horrified by the violent way she died. My opposition to the death penalty automatically makes me an enemy of King's family. My empathy for her and sorrow for her family are lost in a fierce debate over whether the death penalty is a viable choice in a civilized society. It is the same old battle cry. We kill to teach that killing is wrong, and we all become complicit in Fells' execution because we live in the state. My money will kill Fell. People will not stop killing people because we kill Fell. What is worse is that those who imposed the death penalty won't have to be the ones who kill him. Someone else will do that for them. We have become the thing we hate and that scares me. Sandra Nall----Montpelier) (source: Rutland Herald) FLORIDA: State tries to build case in 1988 slaying----An uncle and an aunt have been charged in the Sanford stabbing of their niece, 11 11-year-old Curnetha Ammons was stabbed to death in the back of a station wagon 17 years ago. A man walking his dog found the child's body the next evening. Police reopened the case last year, began a new round of interviews and arrested two suspects -- the child's aunt and uncle. Now comes a different challenge: putting together a case that will stand up before a jury. The stakes could not be higher. The state is seeking the death penalty against both defendants. Even so, lawyers and investigators have struggled for months to find witnesses. Some have died. Others have disappeared. At a court hearing last week, lawyers complained that they had been unable to find 10 to 20 witnesses. "Because of the age of the case, it's very difficult," said defense attorney John Galluzzo. Prosecutors say those missing witnesses don't jeopardize the case. "We can go forward without them, certainly, but it'd leave a lot of holes," said Assistant State Attorney Karen Mazzola. The last time Curnetha was seen alive, she was walking to her grandmother's house July 2, 1988. The next day, her body was found along a secluded road. She had been stabbed 18 times. Her uncle, Paul Garret Robinson, 36, a convicted sexual abuser of children and who was homeless, was arrested June 15, 2004, and charged with first-degree murder. So was his sister, Wanita Edwards, 44, who has a history of prostitution and mental illness, according to court records. Both lived in Sanford and also have a long history of cocaine abuse, according to police records. Their versions of what happened, given to police on successive days last summer, broke open the case, according to Sanford police Sgt. Joseph Santiago. The 2 agreed they were in the station wagon that day and picked up their niece. They disagreed, though, about who stabbed her. Edwards said she was driving the car and Robinson was in the back, where he killed the girl. Robinson said he was driving, Edwards was smoking crack cocaine and then got into a fight with the child. He told police he tried to separate them but could not. Those statements are the state's best evidence, Santiago said. The accounts of other witnesses, he said, "are just icing on the cake." But which one stabbed the child? For that, prosecutors will need other witnesses. DNA is no help. Police took blood samples, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement ran DNA tests, but the results don't implicate either defendant. The list of missing witnesses is a long one. It includes Brian Finnery, the man who found the child's body. Also missing is Sandra Meyers, a former cellmate of Edwards. Meyers told police that Edwards said her brother and father were in the back seat with the child and one of them killed the girl, according to a police report. The child's grandparents, Eddie and Robert Robinson, are dead. Many witnesses are still available. They include Randall Smith, who at the time of the slaying described himself as Paul Robinson's best friend. Smith has since moved out of state, but he's expected to tell jurors that two days before the homicide he loaned a pearl-handled knife to Robinson, and the day the body was found, Robinson's mother handed it back, saying "You need to take this," according to a police report. Smith also told police that shortly after the slaying, Paul Robinson and Edwards showed him the back seat of the car. It had what appeared to be a bloodstain about one foot square, and Edwards asked if he knew how to get bloodstains off a seat cover. Another available witness is the defendants' sister, Octavia Robinson. In a sworn statement to attorneys in February, she said she saw blood on Paul Robinson's pants the night the child's body was discovered. Santiago said that over the years witnesses can be difficult, but not impossible, to track down. "That just takes a little time finding them," he said. The case is not yet set for trial. Circuit Judge Marlene Alva said she wants an update in September on efforts to find witnesses. (source: Orlando Sentinel) MISSOURI: His evidence key to death-penalty case----KC lawyer: 'We lost at every turn' Larry Griffin shouldnt be a cause. He should be alive. Kansas City lawyer Kent Gipson believes that today, and he believed it 10 years ago when he tried unsuccessfully to keep the state of Missouri from putting Griffin to death. Now, evidence found more than a decade ago by Gipson and his partner, Sean OBrien, forms the foundation of a report by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund that concludes Griffin was innocent of the 1980 murder of a St. Louis drug dealer for which he was executed. The report, made public last week, is being cited by anti-death-penalty advocates as potentially the first documented case of an innocent person being put to death in the United States since the reinstatement of capital punishment in the 1970s. The news has prompted the St. Louis circuit attorney to reopen an investigation into the case. That's little consolation to the lawyers who believed Griffin when it could have made a difference. "I think he would be out now instead of dead," Gipson said. The new report hasn't changed Gordon Ankney's mind about Griffin, however. Now a lawyer in private practice in St. Louis, Ankney prosecuted Griffin and said the report omitted "strong evidence" of Griffins guilt. He doesn't put much credence in witnesses who are changing their stories 25 years after the fact. Samuel Gross, the law school professor at the University of Michigan who led the NAACP funds yearlong investigation, said Gipson and OBrien suggested that the Griffin case be investigated. Gipson, who works with OBrien in Kansas City's Public Interest Litigation Clinic, said they began representing Griffin in the early 1990s when his appeal options were all but exhausted. He said they didnt have to scratch the surface of Griffins case deeply to find real problems with the evidence. "There were a lot of things that stunk to high heaven in this case," he said. There was no physical evidence tying Griffin to the shooting, and the states key eyewitness who identified Griffin at trial was a career criminal and "professional snitch" who had been relocated to St. Louis as part of the witness protection program, according to Gipson. When Griffin went to trial, the witness was jailed on felony credit-card fraud charges. "The day Larry was convicted, he got out of jail for time served," Gipson said. In an effort to win a new trial, Gipson and OBrien hired an investigator who tracked down the witness. He recanted part of his trial testimony in a federal court hearing and admitted he had lied when he said he could positively identify Griffin. Griffins attorneys also found another witness who claimed that he took part in the killing and that Griffin was not involved. "I thought we had a pretty strong case of innocence," Gipson said. But efforts to win a new trial were rejected by federal and state courts. "It was very disheartening how short a shrift they gave our case," he said. "We lost at every turn." Gipson also said that political factors in play at the time may have overshadowed Griffins claims. The state's last execution by lethal injection before Griffin was "botched," and it took about 30 minutes for the man to die. Gipson said he thought state authorities were eager to show that an execution could be properly carried out. For Gipson, the final disappointment before Griffin was put to death on June 21, 1995, was that Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan was out of the country when they sought to have him intervene to stop the execution. Gipson and OBrien were unable to locate one witness who was wounded in the same shooting, but investigators for the NAACP project found him in California, and he told them Griffin was not one of the killers. The first officer on the scene was also contacted and contradicted testimony he had given at trial. For Ankney, the case against Griffin was a strong one. Shortly before the shooting, Griffin was seen nearby getting into the car used in the crime, he said. New statements by witnesses are not credible, he said. The California witness, for instance, gave conflicting stories at the time and provided a false address so he could not be found to testify at trial. The alibi defense presented by Griffin at trial was found to be false, Ankney said, and evidence that Griffin had attempted to kill the same man at the same location about a month earlier was presented at trial. Quintin Moss, the man Griffin was convicted of killing, was a suspect in the killing of Griffins brother six months earlier. Ankney also said that after Griffins trial for the Moss killing, Griffin pleaded guilty to committing another murder in the same neighborhood. A presentence report counted 12 prior convictions, and he was described as a "serious threat to society." "I dont think theres anything to it," Ankney said of the new report. Gipson said that Griffin was "no choir boy." But he said he was convinced Griffin did not kill Moss. "A lot of guys claim innocence, and I always look at them with a very skeptical eye. I'm no pushover," Gipson said. "This one got me on a gut level." First glance * A report concluding that an innocent man was executed in Missouri in 1995 is based largely on evidence uncovered by Kansas City lawyers Kent Gipson and Sean OBrien. (source: Kansas City Star)
