July 19 VERMONT: Death penalty is wrong People should not be executed by the state, no matter what they did, to assuage the feelings of friends and families of the deceased or the neo-Hammurabians promoting eye-for-eye retribution. Civilized nations don't commit ritual murders at appointed times in the name of justice. Sadly, the survivors will never be made whole. How watching the murderer die helps them with their pain is something I will never understand or support. There must be other ways to bring them back to life. But knowing that the state kills in my name for them makes me less human and causes me to grieve for democracy. The death penalty is wrong. LORIN DUCKMAN, Salisbury (source: Letter to the Editor, Rutland Herald) ILLINOIS: Prosecutors blasted on death penalty flip A Criminal Court judge on Monday took prosecutors to task after they argued for the death penalty in a case where they previously had approved a life sentence in plea talks. Judge Stuart Palmer raised his voice when he said from the bench that all the facts in the case against Raul Lemus were known in April 2003, when prosecutors told Palmer they would accept a sentence of life in prison if Lemus would plead guilty. "Not a single fact has changed," Palmer said, adding that state's attorneys told him they felt a life sentence was appropriate. "And today you don't," he said after prosecutors finished their arguments at a sentencing hearing for Lemus. "We're talking about a man's life here, and it appears to me that the state's position is he deserves the death penalty because he didn't plead guilty fast enough." Plea negotiations fell apart in 2003, and the state's offer was withdrawn. Lemus did enter a plea of guilty in the 2001 slayings of his wife, his pregnant stepdaughter and another woman in January without an arrangement with prosecutors. Assistant State's Atty. Karen O'Malley told the judge that dropping pursuit of the death penalty in 2003 was an "excruciating decision." But Lemus and his lawyers made it clear he was rejecting their offer, O'Malley said, and it was withdrawn. Even in his plea, Lemus has not expressed remorse or admitted wrongdoing, O'Malley alleged. Palmer said he would decide Friday whether Lemus should be sent to death row or receive a life sentence. Shot in the October 2001 attack were Lemus' wife, Erlinda Colunga, 42; her pregnant daughter, 21-year-old Anita Colunga, 21; and Maria Rubio, 21, who was dating a family member. A friend of the family was stabbed but survived. During his argument, Lemus' lawyer, Assistant Public Defender John Conniff, pointed out that Lemus never was educated beyond 6th grade. The incident was "one night of unspeakable horror" that has been followed by four years of Lemus attempting peacefulness again by attending Bible studies in the Cook County Jail. O'Malley urged the judge not to be fooled. "In what world do we live in if Raul Lemus does not exemplify a man with a malignant heart?" O'Malley asked. (source: Chicago Tribune) US MILITARY: Pentagon: No Capital Cases in Tribunals The military's legal adviser overseeing the possible trials of up to 12 terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said Tuesday that he has not seen evidence from those cases to warrant seeking the death penalty. 4 suspects have been charged, and charges are being prepared against 8 other suspects held at the military prison. But Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hemingway told reporters Tuesday the evidence he has seen against any of them do not merit a capital case. The Pentagon said Monday it will move forward quickly with the trials after a federal court gave the process a green light last week. Hemingway said the trials could resume within 30 to 45 days of the issuance of some necessary court orders. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday the ruling by a three-judge federal appeals court panel was a vindication of the Bush administration's approach to prosecuting suspected terrorists using military tribunals. "Proceedings will resume as soon as possible against 2 detainees," Rumsfeld said without identifying them by name. Critics argue the approach is flawed by inadequate legal protections. A key issue raised by human rights organizations that the suspects will not be able to see classified evidence against them during trial. Later the Pentagon said the men whose trials would be resumed first are David Hicks, an Australian accused of having fought alongside the Taliban against U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni whose challenge to the legality of the trial system was initially upheld but was overturned Friday by the 3-judge panel. Gordon England, the acting deputy secretary of defense and overseer of the military trial process, said in the Pentagon statement that the Hamdan and Hicks trials will be reconvened "as soon as any necessary court orders are issued." Trial proceedings were begun last summer against Hicks, Hamdan and two other suspects, but they were halted after a district court ruled in November that Hamdan could not be tried by a U.S. military commission unless a "competent tribunal" determined first that he was not a prisoner of war under the 1949 Geneva Convention. In Friday's ruling, the three judges said the commission itself is such a competent tribunal, and that Hamdan could assert his claim to prisoner of war status at the time of his trial before a military commission. Hamdan's lawyers, who have said they will appeal Friday's ruling, said Bush violated the separation of powers in the Constitution when he established military commissions. The appeals court disagreed, saying Bush relied on Congress's joint resolution authorizing the use of force after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as well as two congressionally enacted laws. The other two suspects whose trials were started and then suspended are Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, a Sudanese citizen accused of conspiracy to commit terrorism, and Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al-Bahlul, a Yemeni accused of conspiring to commit war crimes. Officials said Monday that these cases would not be resumed as quickly as the Hamdan and Hicks cases because there are procedurals issues to be settled. President Bush will be asked to declare additional detainees there eligible for military trials, Rumsfeld said. On the Net: Pentagon documents on military commissions at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/commissions.html (source: Associated Press) ALABAMA: 'American terrorist' gets life for bombings----Eric Rudolph defends his serial attacks on abortion clinics. By the time he was sent off to prison for life Monday, serial bomber Eric Rudolph had been compared with Ku Klux Klan killers, murderous Nazis and the Sept. 11 hijackers. "Make no mistake: Eric Rudolph is an American terrorist," prosecutor Mike Whisonant said during the sentencing, invoking the image of planes flying into the World Trade Center. But Rudolph didn't budge an inch. He nodded as a victim described him as a remorseless coward for a deadly abortion clinic bombing in Alabama and smirked at a description of him buying bomb components on Christmas Eve. Blowing up a cop outside the abortion clinic was OK, Rudolph told the court in a deep, defiant voice, since the officer worked at an "abortion mill." "The state is no longer the protector of the innocent, promoting values that challenge the darker angels of human nature, but now it is the handmaiden of the new hedonism, supporting the citizen in a lifestyle of selfishness and decadence," said Rudolph, gesturing with both hands. Rudolph gave the impassioned defense as a judge sentenced him to two life sentences for setting off a remote-controlled bomb at a Birmingham abortion clinic in 1998, killing the off-duty officer and maiming a nurse. Next month, he will receive 2 more life terms for the deadly Olympic bombing and 2 other attacks in Atlanta. Rudolph, 38, pleaded guilty to all the cases in April in a deal that let him avoid the possibility of a death penalty. "In the name of faith you hate," said U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith. "For the professed goal of saving human life you killed. Those are riddles I cannot resolve." Standing before the judge in a red jail uniform and with shackles around his ankles, Rudolph jabbed at the air as he compared legalized abortion to primitive rituals of killing newborns. "Abortion on demand is a return to the ancient practice of infanticide," said Rudolph. Abortion, he said, must be fought with "deadly force." In sentencing Rudolph to life in the federal government's so-called "Supermax' prison in Colorado, the judge compared Rudolph to the killers of Nazi Germany and the Ku Klux Klansman who bombed a Birmingham church a few blocks away from the courthouse in 1963, killing 4 black girls. He also faces sentencing Aug. 22 in Atlanta for the 1996 Olympics bombing that killed 1 woman and injured more than 100, as well as 1997 bombings at an abortion clinic and gay bar in Atlanta. (source: Associated Press)
