August 24 KENTUCKY: Death penalty will be sought Prosecutors in Kenton County said they will file papers this week to seek the death penalty against a young Covington man who is charged with sexually assaulting and killing a 3-year-old girl. A grand jury charged that Jeffrey Bailer not only raped the girl by shoving crayons up her vagina, but also sodomized the child while he was babysitting her. A key to the case is whether Bailer's DNA will match material - believed to be semen - recovered from the dead girl's body. "Whether or not it belongs to Mr. Bailer remains to be seen," Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Christy Muncy said during a court hearing Monday. "But there is no doubt he raped the child." Bailer's attorney, chief Kenton County Public Defender Mary Rafizadeh, agreed that DNA testing will be a key to the case. If the DNA positively matches Bailer, she acknowledged, the case will be difficult to defend. "But if that DNA is not Mr. Bailer's, they should be looking for someone else who raped and sodomized and killed this child - if, in fact, it even is semen." Bailer, 20, is charged with killing Cameron Stull as he babysat the 3-year-old in her Covington home earlier this year. A police detective previously testified that Bailer admitted he covered the girl's nose and mouth with his hand "until she quit crying and closed her eyes." He also said he forced two crayons or similar items into her vagina, police said. Bailer lived in the house on Ninth Street with about a dozen other people, most of them children. Neighbors and others said 9 children and at least 3 adults lived in the house, and Bailer gave it as his address when he was arrested. He currently is being held without bond in the Kenton County Jail. He was indicted last week, and pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Monday before Circuit Judge Douglas Stephens. At the request of both sides for additional time to test and analyze evidence, Stephens set a trial date for March 7. But he warned that such a late trial will mean "it will not change unless something catastrophic happens." He also asked Muncy whether the commonwealth would seek to put Bailer to death by injection. "Yes, we are, you honor," she replied. "The notice will be filed later this week." It will be the 2nd time in his 5-year tenure that Commonwealth Attorney Bill Crockett is seeking the death penalty against a person charged with raping and killing a child. In 2004, he put Aaron Dishon on notice that he would face death by injection for the rape and murder of 13-year-old Tiffany Farmer. But - much to the dismay of Farmer's family - Crockett agreed to withdraw the death penalty and recommend a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years in exchange for Dishon's guilty pleas. He also sought the ultimate punishment against two men charged with robbing and killing an elderly man in his Lakeside Park home. But, again, both Anthony Wayne Ferry and Jeremy Charles Niemer reached a plea agreement that spared their lives. The last man to be sentenced to death in Northern Kentucky was Marco Allen Chapman, who pleaded guilty to killing 2 children in Gallatin County and insisted on being put to death. He is on death row at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville. (source: Kentucky Post) IOWA----re: federal death sentence Death penalty will be imposed Oct.11 Iowa Dustin Honken will likely be sentenced to death for murder on October. 11 in Cedar Rapids. U.S. District Court Judge Mark Bennett has signed an order for the sentencing hearing on Tuesday. The sentencing comes a year after Honken was convicted in Iowas 1st death penalty trial in 40 years. A federal jury found Honken guilty of multiple counts of murder and conspiracy in the 1993 deaths of 5 North Iowans. 2 weeks later, the jury recommended that Honken be put to death for his role in the slaying of 10-year-old Kandace Duncan and 6-year-old Amber Duncan. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Coroner, prison reports differ on death Coroner Stewart Ryckman says his office determined Mansfield Correctional Institution inmate Martin Koliser died about 5:30 a.m. on May 7, based on medical evidence. The inmate's temperature, taken around 8:20 a.m., had dropped to 97.6 degrees, after his suicide by hanging, Ryckman said Tuesday. "This guy didn't have a whole lot of rigor mortis. He didn't have a whole lot of lividity," he said. The coroner's office ruled Koliser -- on death row for killing a Youngstown police officer -- died primarily of asphyxiation from hanging, and secondarily from self-inflicted cuts to his forearms after an attempt earlier that night to kill himself using a razor. There was still fresh blood at the scene, Ryckman said. "We felt like he had not been dead all that long." In a contradictory report, the Ohio Department of Corrections relied on testimony by MANCI employees and inmates. Nurse Sharlene Blevins, who attempted CPR, said Koliser was cold to the touch, and his body was stiff and hard to manipulate. Another nurse said she saw clotted blood on the floor which appeared to have dried out. A corrections officer who was a paramedic for 15 years said the inmate was stiff. Lt. Harold Cope, who had worked in a funeral home and was an EMT for several years, told investigators he believed rigor mortis had set in because the inmate's legs were stiff when he was laid out on the floor. He repeated his opinion that Koliser had been dead 5 to 6 or more hours before he was found. He said the body was not as warm as 98 degrees, though he declined to commit to it being "cold." Several other officers said the death row inmate's body appeared stiff. Inmate Grady Brinkley told the state agency he heard Koliser cut himself after a guard made rounds at 1:30 a.m. But coroner's officer employees said neither the MANCI employees nor inmates were experts on determining time of death. Someone who has been hanging in a position for a while may end up with stiff limbs, whether they are dead or alive, Ryckman said. Coroner's investigator Paul Jones said many factors can affect body temperature and stiffness after death, including muscularity, weight and loss of blood. "There's no way he was dead at 1:30," he said. Ryckman said the Ohio Department of Corrections never talked to him during its investigation of what happened or to Ohio Highway Patrol investigator Kevin Smith, who agreed with many of his conclusions. "They didn't talk to me. They didn't ask me," Ryckman said. (source: Mansfield News Journal) ********************************** URGENT ACTION APPEAL ---------------------------------- 24 August 2005 UA 221/05 Death Penalty USA/OHIO: John Spirko (m) John Spirko is scheduled to be executed on 20 September 2005. He was sentenced to death in 1984 for the kidnap and murder of Betty Jane Mottinger in August 1982. He denies carrying out the murder and no physical or forensic evidence links him to the crime. The Ohio Parole Board will soon be making a recommendation to Governor Bob Taft on whether to grant clemency or not. The Governor will then decide John Spirko's fate. The federal court is currently considering an appeal to reopen the case based on the grounds that prosecutors at John Spirko's trial knowingly presented a false case against him, linking him to the crime through the involvement of a co-defendant who was charged but never tried, and against whom all charges were dropped in May 2004. On 25 July, US District Court Judge, James Carr, presiding over the case reportedly said that issues in the case ''deserve careful and thoughtful attention'' asking prosecutors to ''join in a request directly to the Supreme Court of Ohio to lift its execution order, thereby giving me the time I need before the scheduled date of execution'' [to review the case]. He is further reported to have stated that the request for review is not ''a bad faith or frivolous contention'' or a ''last moment effort to keep the hand off the switch''. Betty Jane Mottinger, the post mistress of Elgin, a small town in Ohio, was kidnapped and murdered in August 1982. John Spirko contacted police in October 1982 offering to trade information about the murder in exchange for help with charges he was facing in another, unrelated case. He reportedly gave a series of differing accounts about the murder, including that his best friend and former cell mate, Delaney Gibson, had told him that he had carried out the murder. Prosecutors at trial argued that Gibson and Spirko committed the crime together, saying that the information John Spirko had provided could only be known by the murderer, and relying on the testimony of an eye witness who testified that she was 100 percent sure that she had seen Delaney Gibson outside the post office the morning Mottinger disappeared. The appeal currently before the federal court claims that prosecutors at John Spirko's trial knowingly presented a false case against him by arguing that he conspired with Delaney Gibson because they had evidence suggesting that Delaney Gibson was 500 miles away at the time of the crime. They also allege that one of the original state investigators has recently stated that he told prosecutors at trial that he believed Delaney Gibson did not participate in the crime. This, they say casts doubt on John Spirko's conviction and warrants reopening of the case. Writing a dissent to the majority opinion in May 2004 which dismissed John Spirko's appeal for an evidentiary hearing on claims that the prosecution at trial knowingly presented false evidence, federal judge, John Gilman said: ''the case against Spirko was far from overwhelming'' and left him with ''considerable doubt as to whether he [Spirko] has been lawfully subjected to the death penalty...'' He noted ''a striking fact about the record in this case is the complete absence of any forensic evidence linking Spirko to the crime'', and said that the state's case against John Spirko was built on ''three shaky pillars'' with ''a foundation of sand''. Former federal judge, William Sessions, who has been active in an initiative to promote procedural safeguards in death penalty cases, two retired federal judges and a former federal prosecutor have reportedly raised concerns about John Spirko's conviction and death sentence. Amnesty International opposes all executions, regardless of issues of guilt or innocence. This is a punishment that is an affront to human dignity and a part of a culture of violence rather than a solution to it. It has not been shown to have any unique deterrent effect, denying the possibility of rehabilitation and reconciliation. In the US the capital justice system is marked by arbitrariness, discrimination and error, and US authorities have frequently violated international standards in their pursuit of judicial killing of prisoners including people whose guilt remained in doubt. RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible. - expressing concern that John Spirko is scheduled to be executed in Ohio on 20 September 2005; - expressing sympathy for the family and friends of Betty Jane Mottinger, explaining that you are not seeking to excuse the manner of her death or to minimize the suffering caused; - expressing concern at reports that prosecutors may have presented a false case against John Spirko at trial; - urging the chair of the Board of Pardons to convey your concerns to the full Board and urging the Board to recommend that Governor Taft grant clemency to John Spirko; - urging that as a minimum, a reprieve be granted allow John Spirko's claims to be properly investigated; - calling Governor Taft to grant clemency to John Spirko. APPEALS TO: Gary Croft Chair Ohio Parole Board 1050 Freeway Drive North Columbus, OH 43229 Fax: 1 614 752 0600 Salutation: Dear Mr Croft Governor Bob Taft 30th Floor 77 South High Street Columbus, Ohio 43215-6117 Fax: 1 614 466 9354 Email: (via website) http://governor.ohio.gov/contactinfopage.asp Alternatively email: [email protected] Salutation: Dear Governor PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. All appeals must arrive by 20 September 2005. Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots movement that promotes and defends human rights. This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including contact information and stop action date (if applicable). Thank you for your help with this appeal. Urgent Action Network Amnesty International USA PO Box 1270 Nederland CO 80466-1270 Email: [email protected] http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/ Phone: 303 258 1170 Fax: 303 258 7881 ---------------------------------- END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL ----------------------------------
