August 21 KANSAS: TK Killer' should face cruel death Dennis Rader should be put down like an animal. If you don't agree, convince me otherwise. The "BTK Killer" will not be executed, of course, but only because Kansas did not have the death penalty at the time he committed the infamous "Bind, Torture, Kill" slayings that terrorized Wichita over nearly 3 decades. Obviously, that's a matter of technical law. But since this isn't a courtroom, we can focus on the philosophical question: If Rader doesn't deserve a swift, emphatic execution, does anyone? At his sentencing hearing last week, we heard nauseating details about his awful crimes, so beyond comprehension they sounded like a B-grade horror film, except that even the most heartless director would never make a movie so cruel. His random, innocent victims suffered immense pain, and mercy was given to none. For example, a Kansas law enforcement investigator testifying Wednesday recalled that after Rader strangled 11-year-old Josephine Otero's parents and younger brother in 1974 at their home, he took the young girl to the basement. There, lion and lamb spoke. "What's going to happen to me?" Josephine asked. "Well, honey, you're going to be in heaven with the rest of your family," Rader replied. Then he hanged her and masturbated over her body. Writing that sentence makes me sick. Several important things must be considered. First, Rader is absolutely guilty. Not only is the physical and circumstantial evidence beyond any doubt, Rader confessed completely, and not as the result of coercion. On the contrary, when calmly discussing his crimes Rader almost seems to be reading from a book in which he's the villain. While self-describing the stabbing and strangling of another Wichita woman, Rader told a police detective, "I'm sorry. I know this is a human being, but I'm a monster." Since he confessed, there was no trial. No evidence was mishandled, no underpaid public defender fell asleep in the courtroom, no judge made an incorrect ruling. There's nothing to appeal. The glove fit, and no DNA evidence will come along in 10 years to exonerate him. With all that in mind, I'm trying to find a reason why, if not for a legal technicality, we should not quickly and dispassionately put a bullet through Mr. Rader's skull and rid the world of an evil menace. The normal arguments bore me. As one who has constantly struggled with the death penalty, I find most back-and-forth debates on the issue ultimately irrelevant. There really is only one position in favor of capital punishment that is virtually beyond dispute: The punishment fits the crime. Arizona's death row inmates, like Rader, have committed unspeakable atrocities, the worst of the worst. After learning what these killers have done to others, it's impossible to argue they haven't earned their fate. Conversely, one opposing viewpoint can't be denied: Thou shalt not kill. Execution, regardless of motive, takes a life. I've checked the Ten Commandments monument at Wesley Bolin Plaza, but found no footnotes. If a person or institution takes a position that any killing is morally wrong, countering that argument becomes a problem. WWJF? Who Would Jesus Fry? The common denominator of these arguments is subjectivity. But the two positions above are consistent and entirely defensible because they spring from the deepest reaches of the human condition. I can defend either all day long. But I cannot defend Dennis Rader. Standing alone, free from polarizing dispatches about inequity or "societal closure," he is a stone-cold murderer who preyed on other humans in a way that, I must think, justifies his life's forfeiture. Rader is the perfect subject of a discussion about whether we want the death penalty. The debate would be academic, using a real world example but without real consequences, posturing from defense counsel or tough-talking prosecutors. After all the talking is through, if death penalty opponents convince us that Rader shouldn't be exterminated, the debate about capital punishment will be over. But I don't like their chances. (source: Arizona Republic (John MacDonald is a Tempe resident and public affairs consultant. CALIFORNIA: They toil to prove that their guys are not the bad guys -- Unlike cops, defense investigators start work after the charges are filed, seeking clues to exonerate the accused. It's probably Craig M. Peters' 20th visit to this concrete maze of freeway overpasses and strip malls and motels near Los Angeles International Airport. He pokes around shrubbery strewn with discarded cigarette butts, take-out containers with half-eaten meals and plastic grocery bags rustling in the wind -- evidence that many down-and-out souls call this place home. Looking for a homeless man here, Peters thinks, is like "looking for a needle in a haystack." But the 55-year-old former police officer is determined, knowing that finding a man known as "Shorty Mack" may be the difference between his client's freedom or a lengthy prison sentence. Peters is a defense investigator, one of the legion of men and women who pound the pavement looking for evidence that might help exonerate the criminally accused. It was only a few weeks before when Gregory Monroe, an ex-convict without a job or direction, spent the day wandering and drinking with friends in this area Peters now frequents. Monroe's day was like any other until, from almost out of nowhere, police officers grabbed him, wrested his hands into cuffs and shoved him into the back seat of a black-and-white patrol car. Who would believe in his innocence, the 32-year-old, nearly homeless man wondered as the officers drove toward an auto rental agency on La Cienega Boulevard where a violent robbery just occurred? The manager at the agency was working alone when a man wearing a dark jacket with an emblem or logo on it burst in, pointed a gun at the back of his head and demanded his wallet. The armed robber clocked the manager in the back of the head with the gun and fled with $113 from his wallet. Monroe, known on the streets simply as "G," stood beside the patrol car on the asphalt outside the agency. "That's him," the manager, looking through a window, confirmed to police. Later, facing a judge at the Airport Courthouse, Monroe says he's "not guilty." Unlike many accused, however, Monroe means it. In conferences with his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Ellie Schneir, Monroe grows more agitated and adamant, repeating that he had nothing to do with the March 16, 2003, violent theft. Schneir believes him, but with her limited resources and time constraints, she can't personally investigate his claims of innocence. This is where Peters comes in. Peters, a retired Los Angeles cop who worked 28 years, is one of approximately 75 investigators, mostly retired law enforcement officers, who work for the Public Defender's Office. Many private criminal defense attorneys also rely on investigators. No matter who they work for, these investigators often play a major role behind the scenes in criminal cases -- searching for evidence to exonerate some clients or, in other cases, persuade a judge or jury to spare a convicted murderer's life. Their work takes them from the streets to the courtroom to the desktop computer, where they refer to people as "my guy" and "their guy" during an endless stream of interviews, phone calls, Internet background searches and, once in awhile, surveillance. While police officers build their case against someone in custody, defense investigators spend their time looking, simply, for other possibilities. Scott Ross, a San Fernando Valley private investigator who worked on actor Robert Blake's murder case and pop star Michael Jackson's molestation trial, likes to think that his job is to police the police. "I don't believe cops lie intentionally." Ross says. "But I think people tend to hear what they want to hear." Ross worked on last year's trial against a former Manhattan Beach Catholic school teacher accused of raping a woman he met in a Hermosa Beach bar. A jury deadlocked on charges that Aran Anthony Delaney sexually attacked the woman and a retrial is scheduled later this year. Ross interviewed people who knew Delaney to get a sense of who he was. His investigation brought him to a woman who claims she got drunk with Delaney but didn't have sex with him after she told him "no." In the end, however, a jury would never hear the evidence. The Torrance trial judge would not allow the testimony even though consent was one of the key defenses, according to Ross. A 1974 graduate of Monroe High School (where he was voted Most Likely to go to Prison), Ross obtained his investigator's license in 1983. He estimates he has worked on about 150 cases in the past 5 years, including approximately 20 homicides. Probably 20 % of the cases never went to trial, ending in a plea or dismissal. There are about a half-dozen attorneys he regularly works for, and his rates vary. Ross says he charged Delaney about $100 an hour, and earned about $13,000 for his work. Known as the "Fixer," Ross says it's difficult having people's lives in his hands. "There's no way to do this without caring," he said. At the exact time of the robbery, Peters learns, Monroe encountered Shorty Mack. The 2 saw each other and exchanged greetings on the other side of the freeway from the auto rental agency. Peters and Schneir, the deputy public defender, re-trace and diagram Monroe's steps. A South Bay resident, Peters doesn't live very far from the homeless encampment and stops off whenever he can at different times of the day and night to search for Shorty Mack, often talking to other down-and-outers over the din of traffic and inbound jumbo jets. All Peters knows about Shorty Mack is that he is black, in his 60s, has a grayish beard, wears a cap and sleeps in the bushes near the freeway across from the airport-area hotels. Peters also returns to the crime scene, meeting with two women who say they saw the armed robber and his dark jacket emblazoned with a logo as he ran away. One tells him she watched as the victim peered at Monroe and identified him as his assailant -- and she didn't think it was the same man. Peters also notes that Monroe was not wearing a jacket with an emblem or logo when he was arrested, and he did not have a gun, or close to the amount of money stolen from the manager, when he was searched. "I got a feeling, since there was nothing on this guy and they couldn't find anything, that they got the wrong guy," Peters later says. "This is when the cop in me comes out." Peters, a father of two, acknowledges it was quite an adjustment moving from the side of the law that captures and prosecutes criminals to the side that works to set them free. But he was disenchanted with the state of things at the Los Angeles Police Department, and had a buddy who had made the leap to defense investigator without any regret. "So I made a decision: What the heck." Peters is one of four based at the public defender's Airport Courthouse branch investigating a combined total of nearly 500 cases every year in Hawthorne and El Segundo and in and around West Los Angeles. At any time, he is personally responsible for up to 20 cases, including a couple of special circumstances cases in which the client's life could be on the line. Capital cases take the most work. "Everything is examined and re-examined, over and over," Peters says. Investigations for defendants facing the death penalty or life in prison can take investigators out of state and, sometimes, out of the country, as they seek out childhood friends, teachers, religious leaders and others with an insight into a defendant's life. Most come from broken homes where parents are involved in drugs and have gone in and out of prison, Peters says he finds. All investigations begin with police reports. Investigators use them to locate witnesses and explore the evidence for accuracy and holes. "The majority of the cases are pretty solid," Peters says. Knowing how good a case is helps the defense attorney advise a client whether a deal with prosecutors is in his or her best interests or if the case is so weak that it's worth going to trial. Either way, investigators seek "leaks, cracks and problems" in the prosecution's case. That information then can be used to get a better deal from the District Attorney's Office or perhaps create reasonable doubt in jurors' minds, says Deputy Public Defender Joe Modder. "The key to this is there's always another side to the story," says Modder, who insists he would never take a case to trial without an investigator. "We want to find the other side of the story." "The defense investigation is much more in-depth and designed to, I think, really get at the truth," Deputy Public Defender Michael Schultz adds. "If they uncover something negative to the defense, it helps the defense make smart decisions on how to handle the case." It's midday on a weekend and Peters sees a weathered, dreadlocked man with a shopping cart begging for money from cars exiting the freeway. Peters gives him $5 and his business card, explaining that he's looking for Shorty Mack. If he sees him, tell him call collect, Peters says. About a half-hour later, Peters is at a nearby liquor store going over his notes when the man he just met walks up -- with Shorty Mack. Shorty Mack is sober and sharp. He knows exactly who Monroe is. "I was on the corner when he went by," Shorty Mack recalls. He and Monroe exchanged a few pleasant words, Shorty Mack says, then he followed Monroe toward the liquor store. Shorty Mack says he watched as Monroe stopped to look through some trash bins at a gas station and several police cars pulled in and arrested him. "The timing is crucial because he's coming from the east side of the freeway," Peters says, noting that the crime occurred at about the same time on the west side of the freeway. The timeline of events exonerates Monroe, Peters believes. Now the prosecutor, who charged Monroe with robbery with a gun and assault with a gun, needs to be convinced. The people who investigate for the public defender have to love what they're doing because field work -- running around tracking down people and following leads -- can be "arduous," says Michael Concha, division chief of the office's Litigation Support Division. Concha says 90 percent of the investigators who work for the county Public Defender's Office have law enforcement backgrounds. The job requires a minimum of three years in criminal investigative work, he adds. Hiring former officers has its advantages. "We're not only looking for someone who can go out there and find witnesses, which is difficult, but we also need a person who can connect with them and get information from them." Concha adds. Peters says he sometimes finds that if he tells people he's an ex-cop, it puts them more at ease. "They open up, knowing I'm just there to get the facts," adds Peters, who said he wanted to be a police officer since he was 13 years old because it seemed exciting. It's not always easy getting people to talk with him -- especially crime victims and their families and friends. Once in a while, after he explains that he's just there to get the facts straight, people sometimes become surprisingly cooperative. Sometimes they use him to vent, he adds. Whatever they find, Concha says, it has to be about the truth. "If there is bad evidence out there, we don't want to overlook it," he says. "If we can find more bad evidence than the prosecution -- even better." Monroe was a difficult client for Schneir. "He was so outraged at being charged with this crime," she says. "He was so upset I couldn't get the D.A. to dismiss." Blaming Schneir for not convincing the prosecutor he was innocent, Monroe made several attempts to represent himself. He was offered some plea deals, including one for just a handful of months in jail, even though he faced up to 25 years in prison because the crimes counted as a second strike under California's 3-strikes law. "And he didn't take it, God bless him," Schneir recalls. About four months after his arrest -- 4 months in jail for a crime he likely didn't commit -- Monroe returned to court for another pretrial hearing July 9, 2003. But this time, things changed. The deputy district attorney announced she had talked with her supervisors and told them she couldn't, in good faith, continue to prosecute Monroe based on Peters' report. Monroe was released. His case was dismissed. "He was very, very happy," Schneir says later. "His mom cried. He cried." "These don't happen very often, I'll tell you that," Peters says. "It makes me feel good. That's what the process is all about." (source: The Daily Breeze) ALABAMA: Lanett woman battles against death penalty Esther Brown has always been an outspoken woman. After all, being outspoken for a cause is a trait that seems to run in her family. Born in 1933 in Berlin, Germany, Brown spent her childhood years watching Adolf Hitler's regime come to power and the onset of World War II. Brown's mother was German and her father British. Mistreatment of Jews became a common sight for her during those days in Berlin, but even as a pupil in grade school, she spoke out against the Nazi regime to the point that school officials sent notes home with her when she was 10-years-old, asking her parents to keep her quiet or face possible arrest themselves. But speaking up for what was right was something Brown says she felt she had to do, even as a child. "I learned very early on that just because you're in power, doesn't mean you're right," Brown said. Years, later Brown is still speaking out for causes that are important to her. A retired psychiatric worker, Brown has been living in the U.S. since 1956, and serves as advisor, treasurer and national representative for Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty in Alabama. Project Hope is a non-profit group founded in 1989 by Alabama's death row inmates, national and international advocates and family members. More than 370 religious and civic groups along with several businesses and attorneys in the state support Project Hope's efforts. About 20 to 30 death row inmates serve on the board of Project Hope, which is based at Holman Prison in Atmore. There are more than 190 men and women on Alabama's death row, making it the state with the largest per capita death row population in the nation according to the Project Hope Web site. A sizable percentage of that death row population is black, currently have mental issues or had them at the time they committed their crimes or simply lack the financial means to mount a strong legal defense. Brown contends that these have long been factors in determining who receives the death penalty. And although she doesn't provide any of the inmates with legal counsel, Brown says Project Hope's mission is to educate Alabamians about the death penalty and hopefully prompt a moratorium of it. "To take life is wrong, whether the perpetrator of a crime does it or the state does it," Brown, 71, said. "What the death penalty amounts to is premeditated murder because the person usually sits on death row years before they're executed." "What could be more premeditated than that?" Brown asked. Brown, who has made her home in Lanett the past 5 years after living in Connecticut, says proponents of the death penalty might refer to her as a "bleeding heart," but her beliefs on the death penalty are painfully rooted in personal experience. In 1999, Brown was the only witness to the execution of former Alabama death row inmate, Brian K. Baldwin, who had been convicted of the murder and robbery of a 16-year-old girl. Baldwin was executed by electric chair and it's a sight Brown, a mother of 3 adult children, says she'll never forget. "I was standing there when they strapped him (Baldwin) in the chair and it broke my heart," Brown said as she recalls attempts to contact former Alabama governor Don Seigelman by phone to halt the execution. "It was like deja vu." Brown spoke with disturbing familiarity as she recounted the 11 family members she lost to violence during the days under the Nazi regime, some of whom were executed after their attempt to overthrow Hitler was discovered. Brown, however, wants the state of Alabama to discover alternatives to capital punishment such as life sentences without the possibility of parole. It's not only a better moral choice in Brown's opinion, but a more fiscally sound one for taxpayers, who potentially end up spending millions of dollars on a death row inmate once the trial and appeals process have been exhausted. But the arguments for the death penalty as a deterrent to crime and as form of closure for the families of the victim are ones Brown has heard before. "Killing someone won't bring them closure," Brown said. "Closure doesn't come from without, it comes from within." (source: Opelika-Auburn News) ********************************* Capital murder trial in death of 3 officers delayed A capital murder trial for Nathaniel Woods in the 2004 deaths of 3 Birmingham police officers has been delayed until Oct. 3. The trial had been set to start next week. A judge Friday granted defense request for a delay to have an expert study evidence. Woods' attorneys said they also need time to interview a witness in the case. Woods' co-defendant, Kerry Spencer, will be sentenced Sept. 9. A jury earlier convicted Spencer of capital murder for killing Officers Carlos Owen, Harley Chisholm III and Charles Robert Bennett on June 17, 2004. The officers were trying to serve a misdemeanor warrant on Woods at an Ensley crackhouse. Spencer also was convicted of attempted murder of a 4th officer. The jury recommended that Spencer receive life in prison. The judge can override the jury's recommendation and sentence him to death. (source: The Birmingham News) NEW MEXICO: N.M. Man Pleads Not Guilty to Killing 4 A man accused of killing two men at a motorcycle shop, then gunning down 2 police officers a few hours later, pleaded not guilty Saturday to murder and armed robbery. John Hyde, 48, complained at his video arraignment about having to wear a red prison jumpsuit, and said he wasn't given enough time to groom himself before the hearing. According to the criminal complaint against him, Hyde had told police after his arrest that he was responsible for shooting the 2 officers. Officer Michael King, 50, and Richard Smith, 47, were shot to death late Thursday as they arrived to pick up Hyde for a mental health evaluation that had been requested by a doctor. The shootings at the motorcycle shop had happened a few hours earlier. Hyde was being held with out bond Saturday, and Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg said her office was considering seeking the death penalty. Investigators were also looking into possible connections between Hyde and another shooting Thursday that killed a state Transportation Department worker. "We're currently working through our crime scene investigators in exploring a possible link," police spokesman John Walsh said. According to a criminal complaint, the first officer on the scene after the shootings saw Smith on the ground and Hyde on a motorcycle nearby. The officer pointed his gun at Hyde and ordered him to the ground, but Hyde sped away, shouting: "Mexican Mafia rules." The motorcycle, according to the complaint, was similar to one seen earlier that day leaving the motorcycle shop where David Fisher, 17, and Garret Iversen, 26, were found dead. Police said $50 was missing from the cash register. Police later caught up with Hyde, who crashed. They found two firearms at Hyde's residence, and the same type of bullets found at the motorcycle shop, according to the complaint. The officers killed were veterans with 20 years' experience. Both were sons of retired Albuquerque police officers and had previously retired themselves but had returned to the department. (source: Associated Press)
