July 26
TEXAS:
Toddler-Shooting Suspect Charged With Capital Murder ---- Parents Want
Suspect To Get Death Penalty
In Houston, a man accused of shooting a toddler after a football broke a
window of his southwest Houston apartment has been charged with capital
murder, Local 2 reported Monday.
Police said Amin Hussein, 44, shot at a group of children Saturday when a
football they were playing with flew through a window of the man's
apartment.
The bullet struck Nyoshea Harris in the neck. She was transported to
Memorial Hermann Hospital but was taken off life support on Monday.
Nyoshea's parents and residents of the complex told Local 2 they want
Hussein to get the death penalty.
"We played. We laughed with her. She always asked for candy when I had it.
M&M's were her favorite. I hope he gets the death penalty. I hope he rots
in there," family friend Angie Wells told Local 2.
Hussein is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday.
(source: Click2Houston.com)
*********************
Imprisoned man is indicted
In Fort Worth, Curtis Don Brown, who has been called a "person of
interest" in more than a dozen unsolved homicides from the 1980s, was
indicted Friday on a capital murder charge in a 1985 slaying.
Brown, 46, is accused of shooting Terece Gregory, 29, and dumping her body
in the Trinity River.
Prosecutors have not decided whether to seek the death penalty in the
case, according to the Tarrant County district attorney's office. Brown
has served 19 years of a life sentence for the 1986 murder of a Fort Worth
nurse.
Brown's attorney did not return a phone message Monday.
Gregory was last seen leaving the Caravan of Dreams nightclub in downtown
Fort Worth on May 28, 1985. The next day, a fisherman found her body in
the river.
Police said Brown's DNA matched semen taken from Gregory's body. The
evidence was stored in a crime-lab freezer for almost 2 decades.
That discovery led police to examine 18 similar slayings that occurred
when Brown lived in Tarrant County.
Homicide Sgt. J.D. Thornton said Monday that evidence from those cases is
being tested.
"We're still waiting for results," he said.
(source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
*************************
Plea bargain in girl's slaying case upsets father
Prosecutors with the Travis County District Attorney's office are denying
claims that politics kept them from seeking the death penalty in a murder
case.
The father of the murder victim said Monday he was misled in order to
protect District Attorney Ronnie Earl's political ambitions.
Humberto Garcia was expecting a death penalty trial for the man who killed
his daughter, 18-year-old Jenny Garcia, last year.
But prosecutors gave David Diaz-Morales a plea bargain sentencing him to
life in prison.
Prosecutor Buddy Meyer says the deal is not a sign that Earl is against
the death penalty.
Under the plea bargain agreement, Diaz-Morales will become eligible for
parole in 40 years.
But he will also face at least another 10 years for pleading guilty to
burglary.
(source: KVUE News)
*******************
Jurors: Bible reading didn't sway decision -- State seeks dismissal of
motion for new trial in capital murder
Affidavits signed by several jurors say Bible readings during
deliberations didn't sway their decision to sentence Jimmie Lucero to
death for the 2003 shotgun slayings of 3 neighbors.
Potter County prosecutors filed legal briefs Monday challenging a defense
motion that claims Lucero should receive a new trial because the jury
foreman read a Bible verse to fellow jurors as they deliberated Lucero's
fate.
In May, Lucero, 47, was convicted of capital murder in the Sept. 6, 2003,
shotgun slayings of three next-door neighbors - 71-year-old Pedro Robledo,
his 72-year-old wife, Maria, and their 31-year-old daughter, Fabiana - at
the family's home in the 1700 block of East Sixth Avenue. Jurors later
sentenced Lucero to death by lethal injection.
"All 12 jurors agree that there was no suggestion that the Bible had the
answer on the questions regarding whether a life sentence or a death
sentence should be imposed," the prosecution's brief says. "Each juror's
punishment decisions were based upon Texas law and evidence presented at
trial - not the Bible or the content of the Scripture read to the jury."
The prosecution contends 251st District Judge Pat Pirtle should overrule
the defense's new trial motion without a court hearing. But the defense
claims Pirtle should conduct an evidentiary hearing in the case to
determine if Lucero should have a new trial.
In a new trial motion filed earlier this month, defense attorney Warren
Clark said 2 of 12 jurors initially indicated they were unwilling to
sentence Lucero to death.
The motion claims those jurors were coerced into voting for the death
penalty when the jury foreman read a Bible verse during deliberations.
But the prosecution contends biblical readings played no part in the
jury's decision to sentence Lucero to death by lethal injection. The
prosecution's motion includes affidavits from some jurors whose names are
blacked out in court documents.
"The affidavits suggest that the Scripture was utilized to comfort jurors
or to suggest that the court instructions should be followed," the motion
says.
In his affidavit, the unidentified jury foreman said he spent about two
minutes reading Romans 13:1-6 to the jury, a biblical reading that says
everyone must submit to governing authorities.
The foreman's affidavit says he is a conscientious person who was faced
with a life-and-death decision and never intended to violate Lucero's
rights.
The jury, he said, made its decision based on evidence presented in the
case - not on the basis of biblical readings.
"To my knowledge, the reading of the Scripture did not cause anyone to
change their vote or to vote in a way that would have resulted in a death
penalty being imposed," the affidavit says.
Prosecutors also cite 2 previous Texas cases when jurors read Bible versus
during deliberations.
"In a statutory rape case, it was determined that the reading of the Bible
by the jury during deliberations was not reversible error," that would
justify a new trial, the motion says.
The prosecution also cited a 1969 death penalty case as legal precedent
regarding Texas law.
"In a rape by force case where the death penalty was assessed, there was
no reversible error even if one of the jurors quoted Scripture from the
Bible to other jurors," the motion says.
(source: The Amarillo Globe-News)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Inmate to get 2nd chance----Stokes judge orders new trial for man
convicted of murder
A Stokes County Superior Court judge ordered a new trial yesterday for Rex
Penland, whose murder conviction in the stabbing of a Winston-Salem
prostitute was thrown in doubt by DNA evidence.
Vernice Alford was raped and stabbed to death Nov. 30, 1992, in a remote
part of southern Stokes County, north of Rural Hall. Investigators seized
a blood-stained hunting knife from Penland, but DNA testing last year
showed that the blood was Penland's and not Alford's. DNA testing also
showed that the semen evidence collected in the crime was not Penland's.
Superior Court Judge John O. Craig said that a 2001 state law allowing
cases to be reopened based on new DNA testing left him no choice, even
though he did not believe the new evidence was enough to exonerate
Penland.
"I'm not sure that I agree with this. I believe that a literal meaning of
the statute is that it will be up to a jury to listen to this new evidence
and decide whether it raises a reasonable doubt," Craig said. "I think
even with the new evidence the state has a strong case against Mr.
Penland."
Penland, 44, was sentenced to death after his conviction on charges of
1st-degree murder, rape, sexual offense and kidnapping in the slaying. He
has been on death row for 11 years.
A deputy escorted Penland, walking with a cane, into the courtroom
yesterday morning. He showed little emotion, even as Craig ordered the new
trial.
Penland's twin nephews, Gary Sapp and Larry Sapp Jr., testified at his
trial that they were with Penland when he picked up Alford, a waitress and
prostitute in Winston-Salem, and drove her to a logging road in Stokes
County. There, they testified, he raped Alford and had them tie her to a
tree, after which he stabbed her to death with the hunting knife.
Penland testified that he was drunk and passed out in a truck, and did not
take part in the rape and murder. As for the blood on his knife, he
testified that he had previously cut himself skinning a deer.
Attorneys for Penland argued that the state's case relied on the Sapp
brothers' testimony, which the DNA evidence now shows was false.
"I realize we're not here today on a popular cause," said Stephen D.
Royster, an attorney for Penland. "What the science today shows us is that
the jurors were presented with facts and evidence which we know now were
not the truth."
Prosceutors pleaded with Craig yesterday to uphold Penland's conviction,
arguing that a footprint, tire tracks and other physical evidence tied him
to the crime.
"This trial didn't occur in Massachusetts. It occurred right here in rural
Stokes County," said C. Ricky Bowman, the Stokes district attorney. "An
all-white jury in rural Stokes County found one of their own guilty of
raping and murdering a black woman who wasn't even one of their own. That
took overwhelming evidence."
He and his assistant, James Yeatts, argued that it would be difficult to
try Penland again, 12 years after the crime. Yeatts declined to comment
further after the hearing. Bowman could not be reached.
Barry S. McNeill, special deputy attorney general, argued yesterday that
the absence of Penland's DNA at the crime scene doesn't prove he did not
participate in the crime. Nor does the absence of Alford's DNA on his
knife prove that he didn't use it to kill her.
"It is possible that Penland successfully removed most, if not all of the
blood or genetic material from the knife, the knife handle and the knife
case," the state said in an April filing.
Penland's conviction and sentence were upheld by the N.C. Supreme Court in
1996.
New tests were ordered by a judge last year, after a defense motion,
because of advances in the science of DNA testing. Under the 2001 state
law passed to assist people wrongly convicted of crimes, a court may
vacate a judgment, discharge the defendant, resentence the defendant, or
grant a new trial if post-conviction DNA testing results are favorable to
a defendant.
Defense attorneys have said they believe that the Sapp brothers lied after
prosecutors promised them favorable treatment. The new DNA testing also
shows that the Sapp brothers were not the source of the semen evidence.
The Sapps each pleaded guilty to lesser charges and served less than 5
years in prison.
Rich Rosen, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill and a member of the N.C. Actual Innocence Commission, compared
Penland's case to Darryl Hunt's. Hunt was exonerated in 2003 after DNA
evidence showed that another man had raped and killed Deborah Sykes in
1984.
In 1994, DNA testing showed that Hunt was not the source of the semen
evidence in that case, but the state insisted that he was guilty until
another suspect was identified nine years later, thanks in part to
development of state and federal DNA databases of felons.
"I'm baffled by the notion that evidence that casts doubt on the
prosecution's case is not considered exonerating," Rosen said. "The
reality is there is no way you should execute Rex Penland when this
evidence has come up."
(source: Winston-Salem Journal)
USA:
Take Life, but Not My House
The city of New London, Conn., narrowly (5 to 4) won the right last month
from the Supreme Court to condemn a parcel of land in a distressed part of
the town to make way for economic development. The ruling has generated a
tsunami of objection and an effort in many states and localities to have
its effects undone -- including, for spite, a quixotic attempt to condemn
Justice David H. Souter's New Hampshire farmhouse and turn it into a
hotel. Thank you. I'd prefer the Bates Motel.
At the same time, in a far different area of the law, authorities are
wondering if two men long ago convicted of murder might be innocent. This
has generated almost no interest, no nationwide protest movement,
suggesting that in this country it is far easier for the government to
wrongfully take a life than a parcel of run-down real estate. Is this a
great country or what?
I do not mean to belittle property rights, since I am a homeowner myself.
I merely want to point out that the most awesome and, historically, most
worrisome power of government is not to take property but to take life. In
Europe in the past century, this was done on such a vast scale that today
no European country retains the death penalty. Government, it has been
shown, cannot be trusted with it.
The American experience has been different and so the death penalty not
only persists, but in Texas and some other states it downright flourishes.
Still, pesky facts have cast a shadow over this sunny institution. Since
1973, 119 people have walked off death row, exonerated by DNA or evidence,
according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Had the wheels of
justice turned as swiftly as the hang 'em high crowd would have liked,
some of those people would exist in memory only and we would console
ourselves that they were probably guilty of something -- or why else would
the cops have been on to them. The logic is fiercely circular.
Now, though, we have 2 such cases and they are worth pondering for a
number of reasons. The 1st involves Olmado Hidalgo, a New York City man
who was convicted 13 years ago of murder -- on what the district
attorney's office now concedes was weak evidence. The authorities are not
saying that Hidalgo is innocent. But to their credit, they are now saying
that some new evidence has surfaced that gives everyone pause. Lucky for
Hidalgo that he was not convicted in another state where justice is
swifter -- if somewhat less certain.
The other case involves the late Larry Griffin, who was executed by
Missouri in 1995 for a drive-by shooting. The main witness against him,
now dead, turns out to have had a pliable memory and an ugly rsum. He was
a career criminal and drug addict who happened to be facing serious felony
charges at the time. After he usefully turned witness to the murder, he
got to walk. Lucky man.
Griffin may turn out to be the Holy Grail of the anti-death-penalty
movement. For some time the search has been on for the person who was
wrongly executed. Scholars have examined court records and isolated likely
cases, but none of them provide irrefutable proof. Griffin is not likely
to provide that either. But the "scholar" in his case is the St. Louis
prosecuting attorney, Jennifer Joyce. At the urging of the NAACP, she has
reopened the case. Strictly speaking, Griffin will never be proved
innocent. He might, though, be shown to be not guilty. That, after all, is
our standard.
Both the Griffin and Hidalgo cases are important for what they lack -- DNA
evidence. In this, they are typical. The victims were both shot at a
distance: no DNA evidence. This is often the case. In the average crime,
there is no exchange of body fluids (as in rape) and no tissue under the
victim's fingernails or anything like that. DNA testing has done wonders
-- both in getting convictions and in exonerating the innocent. But it
cannot be used where it is not a factor. For that reason, capital
punishment remains fraught with the possibility of injustice.
A part of me cannot comprehend why conservatives or, especially,
libertarians, cannot appreciate how "liberal" capital punishment is:
government to the max. They ought to think of it as the possibly wrongful
condemnation of a person -- the ultimate in eminent domain. Poor Hidalgo.
Poor Griffin. If they were buildings, more people would care.
(source: Richard Cohen, Washington Post)
*********************
Death Penalty Standard
To the Editor:
That Larry Griffin may have been executed by mistake in Missouri should
give us pause ("In a 1980 Killing, a New Look at the Death Penalty," news
article, July 19). After acknowledging the advantage such a revelation
would provide death-penalty opponents, Joshua Marquis, a pro-death penalty
prosecutor, points out that "innocence is very different than saying this
guy maybe didn't do it."
His implication is that we need not worry about the case unless it
provides us with indisputable proof of innocence.
This turns reason on its head; the demand for absolute certainty should be
up front when someone is sentenced to death.
The real travesty is that defendants are often sentenced to death with
evidence that yields something less than full certainty. Experience has
shown that all too often we are missing that mark.
Edwin Colfax----Chicago, July 19, 2005
The writer is director, Death Penalty Education Project, Center on
Wrongful Convictions, Northwestern University School of Law.
(source: Letter to the Editor, New York Times)
**********************
When the Client Is a Pariah----Defense counsel face a lonely haul
When public defender Stephen Osburn told his Kansas-native wife that he'd
be representing the infamous "Bind-Torture-Kill" suspect, she told him,
"The BTK guy was my boogie man growing up."
That "boogie man" case ended up turning into a professional nightmare for
Osburn, who has been bombarded with phone calls and inquiries about his
role in defending Dennis Rader, who earlier this summer coldly confessed
to 10 murders that terrorized the city of Wichita, Kan., starting in 1974.
"It's taken a lot of the joy out of my life for the past few months," said
Osburn, chief public defender for the Sedgwick County Public Defender's
Office.
Criminal defense attorneys in high-profile cases involving heinous acts
often take the heat for their clients' alleged crimes. It's a
high-pressure job that sometimes entails death threats, bomb scares,
harassment of their children and alienation from friends, colleagues and
society.
And that's before attorneys step into the courtroom, where acquittals are
rare in awful, high-profile crimes.
Just ask Mark Geragos, attorney for convicted killer Scott Peterson, who
recently received the death penalty for the murder of his wife, Laci
Peterson, and unborn child, after a sensational trial that riveted the
nation. California v. Peterson, No. SC55500 (San Mateo Co., Calif., Sup.
Ct.).
During trial, Geragos had FBI and Homeland Security agents at his office
investigating death threats. A pipe bomb was placed at his house.
His children were harassed at school. And his colleagues thought he was
out of his mind to take the case in the 1st place.
"Uniformly, I was advised not to do it. With the exception of one or two
people, most everyone told me not to. They said, 'It's a no-win situation.
If you lose the case, you'll be vilified. If you win the case, you'll be
vilified,'" said Geragos, who ignored the advice and took the case anyway.
"I had my strong suspicions about [Peterson's] guilt until I met with the
family, and until I talked to him and looked through the evidence," said
Geragos of the Law Offices of Geragos & Geragos in Los Angeles.
'A REVILED FIGURE'
But what also drew Geragos to the Peterson case was the very same element
that ended up causing him the most stress: the public's preconceived
notion that Peterson was guilty.
"I've never seen so many people so adamantly convinced of someone's
guilt," said Geragos. "He was such a hated figure, a reviled figure,
perhaps the most hated man in America ... .I think the fact that he was so
universally convicted in the court of public opinion did have some
attraction."
But it also meant added stress for Geragos, who felt that among the
biggest difficulties of handling this case was finding an unbiased juror
who would give Peterson a fair shot.
"Even the illiterate were able to write 'guilty' [on voir dire forms]. And
people who didn't believe in the death penalty said they'd make an
exception for him.
"Even the Buddhists said they'd put him to death," said Geragos, who had
never before lost a 1st-degree murder case.
Despite Peterson's conviction and death sentence, however, and despite the
pressure of trying to battle public opinion, Geragos said he'd do it all
over again.
"I truly believed during representation that he was innocent. And I cannot
imagine a worse feeling than seeing someone get the death sentence when
you believe they're innocent," Geragos said. "I never wanted to quit."
Attorney Scott Gleason of the Gleason Law Offices in Haverhill, Mass. is
feeling pretty isolated these days.
He is representing Derek Wallace, the former owner of a New Hampshire
crematory who is accused in a funeral scandal that involves the alleged
mishandling of human remains.
On June 30, Wallace was charged with felony theft by deception and abuse
of a corpse after police raided the Bayview Crematory in Seabrook, N.H.,
and reported finding, among other things: a dozen sets of remains without
identification; 2 bodies in the same oven; and a decomposing body in a
broken refrigeration unit. New Hampshire v. Wallace, No. 05-CR-02654,
(Hampton Co., N.H., Dist. Ct.).
According to Gleason, in the press, Wallace has been labeled everything
from Darth Vader to Idi Amin. The public hasn't been too nice to Gleason,
either, as negative remarks are a regular occurrence. His colleagues have
also given him grief for taking the case.
"One guy who I've been practicing with for 26 years -- we took the bar
together -- said to me, 'Have you completely lost it?'" Gleason said.
"Needless to say, the entire area has been somewhat traumatized by the
disclosures."
LITTLE OUTSIDE SUPPORT
Gleason said aside from his immediate family, including his lawyer
brothers who also work at his practice, he has had no outside support in
the Wallace case.
"It gets lonely," he said.
But after 26 years of representing and winning acquittals for accused
murderers, child molesters, rapists and other criminal types, Gleason is
used to feeling isolated.
"They just don't know the facts," Gleason said of the public and
authorities in the Wallace case. "In this particular case, they got the
wrong guy and the wrong charge."
Gleason expects a tough road ahead. He said there is a slant in the
courtroom that leans in favor of the prosecution, particularly in
high-profile crimes. And weeding out biased jurors is always a battle.
But Gleason has a ritual that helps him deal with the pressures. Before he
enters the courtroom, he says a prayer to an older brother who died in a
sledding accident when he was 9 years old.
Gleason was just 7 at the time.
"I ask him just to be with me, to give me the steady hand and strength,"
Gleason said.
GUILT MAKES IT EASIER
Criminal defense attorneys note that it is especially stressful handling
cases in which they believe in their clients' innocence. The pressure,
however, is a little lighter when they know the person's guilty.
Take for example the BTK slayings.
"In [Rader's] case, he's never denied doing it and wanted to plea from
early on," Osburn said.
"The difficult part was making sure that we had all the bases covered to
make sure that his rights were not violated," he noted.
And the BTK suspect wasn't all that hard to deal with, either, Osburn
noted.
"I know what he's done is heinous. But as a person he doesn't come off
that way," Osburn said. "It's hard to remember that this guy sitting in
front of me has killed 10 people."
Taking heat from the public or colleagues is one thing. There are times
when lawyers representing ruthless criminals can catch the wrath of angry
judges who have seen enough, as Baltimore solo attorney Arcangelo
Tuminelli attests.
Last year Tuminelli represented Kimberly Shay Ruffner, who in May 2004
pleaded guilty in Baltimore County to raping and murdering an 9-year-old
girl. Tuminelli was able to fashion a plea agreement that avoided the
death penalty and secured him a life sentence.
Tuminelli said he caught some grief from a judge who, as he put it, "was
disinclined to be very understanding" during sentencing.
According to Tuminelli, another man had wrongfully served 9 years in
prison for the child's murder.
The real killer turned out to be Ruffner, who was in prison for another
rape when DNA evidence showed that he was the child's killer. Maryland v.
Ruffner, No. 03 CR 3612 (Baltimore Co., Md., Cir. Ct.).
According to Tuminelli, Ruffner, who was in the same prison as the
innocent man and lifted weights with him, claimed that he never knew what
that inmate was in for, nor did he know that anyone was ever charged with
the child's murder.
But the judge didn't buy it, Tuminelli said.
"He asked me, 'How could he for 9 years sit there while an innocent man
was convicted and serving time? And I gave the judge the explanation that
Ruffner gave me. He said, 'I'm not buying that,'" Tuminelli recalled.
"This was one of the few cases where the judge was so vocal toward me as a
defense attorney," he added. "He was angry, so he was directing these
questions to me. He was visibly angry at this crime and the fact that an
innocent man sat in prison for 9 years."
But Tuminelli has a reason for taking on high-profile cases that cause him
grief: He gets to try to save someone's life.
"If you're a criminal defense attorney, that's the ultimate challenge,"
said Tuminelli. "My main concern was making sure [Ruffner] didn't get a
death sentence ... .There's no question the facts were ugly, but I worked
out a plea agreement."
EXTRA PRESSURE
Maryland attorney Joshua Treem knows that death penalty cases also bring
special pressures and can make an attorney feel like an outcast.
"In the death penalty cases you feel very much alone in the courtroom for
sure," said Treem of Baltimore's Schulman, Treem, Kaminkow, Gilden &
Ravenell.
He is known for the life-without-parole sentence he obtained in 2000 for
his client Willis Mark Haynes, convicted of the kidnapping and fatal
shooting of 3 District of Columbia women at a wildlife research center.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty. U.S. v. Haynes, No. PJM-98-0520
(S.D. Md.).
"Other than your co-counsel and maybe other members of the defense team,
there's nobody else on whom you can rely," he said.
But he noted that "there's life, not just liberty, at stake. And that's a
whole level of pressure that's unique to those kinds of cases. And it's
something I don't like to take home with me."
While criminal defense work is tough all around, the high-profile cases
take on an added significance for those who handle them, noted
white-collar criminal defense attorney Gregg Bernstein of Zuckerman
Spaeder in Washington.
"Once you're put under the glare of the public or the press, it just
creates added pressure," said Bernstein, who has represented a state
senator accused of bribery and extortion, a major corporation accused of
illegal campaign contributions and a convicted murderer sentenced to life
in 1996 for kidnapping a young Pennsylvania mother, strangling her and
burning her body.
"I've represented people who have been accused of heinous crimes and
fraudulent activity," Bernstein said.
"But I don't make value judgments on the seriousness of the cases," he
said. "My job is to represent my clients to the best of my ability within
the parameters of the law."
(source: The National Law Journal)
***********************
Unabomber 'Murderabilia' for Sale----A court orders his belongings
marketed to aid victims, but some are appalled at the idea.
Who would buy the Unabomber's shoes, dishes, typewriter, rambling letters
- or even his copy of Strunk & White's "Elements of Style"?
A lot of people, apparently.
When a federal appeals court last week ordered the government to sell
thousands of pages of Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski's papers and other
personal property to the highest bidders, it created an immediate stir in
the shadowy collectibles world of "murderabilia."
"I know collectors in Florida, New York, California, Ohio - they would
probably love to get anything from him," said Tod Bohannon, owner of
http://www.murderauction.com, an auction website for murder memorabilia.
Bohannon's site, created earlier this year after EBay banned the sale of
murder-related items amid protests from victims' rights groups, features
dozens of items from killers, including John Wayne Gacy's framed Illinois
license plate and letters written by Dennis Rader, the BTK killer in
Wichita, Kan.
Dealers believe the Unabomber's journals could fetch more than $1,000
apiece, noting that some of the paintings Gacy created in prison
purportedly have sold for as much as $10,000.
But it is just this kind of fascination with the macabre that the federal
government cited in opposing the release of Kaczynski's property, which
has been in the government's possession since the FBI raided his cabin in
1996.
A 3-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, ruling
that the property should be sold to help pay the $15 million in
restitution that Kaczynski was ordered to pay his victims.
Federal prosecutors said the ruling will open up for sale not only
thousands of pages of Kaczynski's writing but also personal effects,
including empty peanut butter jars, oatmeal containers, a rock, a plastic
container with white clumpy powder and a brown envelope marked
"autobiography."
Some victims said they were appalled at the thought of the Unabomber's
letters going to the highest bidders, even if victims are the financial
beneficiaries.
Gary Wright of Salt Lake City, who set off an explosive from the Unabomber
in 1987 that sent a nail through his chin and left him with 200 shrapnel
wounds all over his body, said he is most bothered at the possibility that
bomb-making schematics and victims' personal information would be among
the items sold.
To "put it out there on [auction] or something, that's a pretty big deal
because they are releasing things that are impinging on others' privacy,"
said Wright, who took three years to recover from his wounds. "I don't
think there's ever enough money to pay for damage to your body, or your
mind, or your psyche. I don't think [the money] will play a part in making
me feel any sort of reconciliation with the event."
David Kaczynski, the Unabomber's brother, also criticized the release of
the papers, saying it made him feel "heartsick" that there would be some
"commercial value placed by some fascination of crime and violence."
In 1995, after the Unabomber's 35,000-word manifesto was jointly published
by the New York Times and the Washington Post, David Kaczynski called the
FBI because he thought the writing was similar to his brother's. The tip
led federal authorities to Theodore Kaczynski's Montana cabin and to his
arrest.
"Victims were horrified at the thought that we would be selling
Kaczynski's property like a celebrity," said Assistant U.S. Atty. Ana
Maria Martel. "Selling this as if he was John Kennedy instead of Ted
Kaczynski, it was very offensive to them."
Kaczynski, who once taught at UC Berkeley and has an advanced degree in
mathematics from the University of Michigan, pleaded guilty in 1998 to
sending bombs to victims across the country. The bombing spree from 1978
to 1995 killed three people and injured 23 others.
In his writings, Kaczynski warned that modern technology was destroying
human freedom. He wrote in his manifesto that he had to kill people to get
his message before the public and make a lasting impression. In pleading
guilty, he avoided the death penalty and is serving 4 consecutive life
sentences in prison.
The 13-by-13-foot cabin where Kaczynski lived and wrote his manifesto was
painstakingly moved from the Montana woods to a former Air Force base in
Sacramento, where attorneys preparing for the trial pored through its
contents. But since he pleaded guilty, his property has been in limbo.
Kaczynski has been seeking the return of his property from the cabin so
that he could donate his papers to the University of Michigan, which has a
collection of materials documenting the history of radical thought.
On Thursday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal
prosecutors must come up with a plan for selling Kaczynski's belongings
"in a commercially reasonable manner calculated to maximize the monetary
return to Kaczynski's victims and their families."
There are 5 main websites that sell homicide-related memorabilia. For
example, http://www.supernaught.com is offering serial killer Ted Bundy's
1988 Christmas card for $1,200, a birthday card sent by Jeffrey Dahmer for
$1,700 ("with original mailing envelope") and a $99 "blurry photograph" of
Charles Manson and his followers at the Spahn Movie Ranch in the Santa
Susanna Pass. (A nail from the ranch is selling separately for $20 as a
"Manson Family Relic.")
Bohannon, owner of http://www.murderauction.com , said he is most
interested in the Unabomber's personal effects. Kaczynski's hairbrush or a
toothbrush, he said, could go for about $500 each.
If the government goes through with the auction, it is highly likely that
at least some of Kaczynski's items will show up on murderabilia websites,
said Andy Kahan, director of the Houston mayor's crime victims office.
"This stuff is going to be sold no matter what," he said.
Kahan led the effort in 2001 to have EBay ban the sale of murderabilia on
its auction website. But since then, traders in murder memorabilia have
created their own websites to auction and sell the items.
The Unabomber case is unusual, Kahan said, because the court is ordering
the sale of Kaczynski's property, with the proceeds going to his victims.
Normally, dealers obtain memorabilia from the killers themselves or from
people who own items - anything from signed receipts to pieces of
clothing.
In just the last few weeks, Kahan has seen letters written by convicted
murderer Scott Peterson selling for up to $500 each. A few years ago, dirt
from Gacy's crawlspace, where he allegedly buried his victims, went for
$30 a scoopful, he said.
Four states, including California, have passed laws prohibiting criminals
from profiting from murderabilia. Kahan said auctioning the Unabomber's
possessions would be allowed in California, however, because the money
would go to victims.
Robert Thompson, a professor of pop culture at Syracuse University, said
murder memorabilia has become more popular with the advent of the
Internet, which allows people to anonymously bid on items from around the
world.
"Ever since we were civilized enough to have a prohibition against murder,
we were civilized enough to be fascinated by people who broke those
prohibitions," he said.
Despite the market for murder memorabilia, some high-end auction houses
said offering property from a killer like the Unabomber crosses the line.
"This is somebody who is a terrorist," said Catherine Williamson, director
of fine books and manuscripts for San Francisco-based Bonhams &
Butterfields. "He was famous only for wreaking terror. He's not famous for
writing or performing or acting in any way, except in an anarchistic,
violent way."
The University of Michigan has been collecting the Unabomber's papers for
its library collection. Officials said they aren't sure if the university
will bid on his property but expressed concerns about its going up for
auction. "This will take them out of the public domain, making them
inaccessible to researchers and to everyone," said Julie Herrada, curator
of the university's Labadie Collection.
But Erica Angelakos, whose father, Diogenes, was wounded when he opened up
a package sent by the Unabomber in 1982, doesn't see a problem with
selling Kaczynski's papers.
"I don't think there is any reason why his writings shouldn't be out
there," Angelakos said. "It could be of interest to someone, and if it is,
I think it's silly to keep it locked up forever. I don't see the value of
the papers held as governmental evidence."
'Murderabilia'
Here are some items found on murder memorabilia websites:
- William George Bonin, known as the "Freeway Killer" - 13-inch Sony
stereo sound and color television; offered for $750
- John William "Possum" King, who dragged to death a black man in Texas -
autographed T-shirt; offered for $2,000
- Charles Manson - Manson's handprint, signed, and a drawing done by
another inmate depicting Manson behind bars with a saw; offered for $900
- Scott Peterson, killer of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son - a
letter written from the county jail during his trial; sold for $500
- Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker" serial killer - photocopy of 2
childhood pictures of Ramirez with his inscription, "On a tricycle rolling
on a highway to Hell, Richard"; offered for $200
- Aileen Wuornos, serial killer and subject of the movie "Monster" - a
handwritten envelope mailed from death row; offered for $300
Sources: Andy Kahan, director of the Houston mayor's crime victims office;
http://www.supernaught.com
(source: Los Angeles Times)
