August 30 OHIO: Board recommends against clemency for death row inmate The Ohio Parole Board on Tuesday recommended that Gov. Bob Taft deny clemency for a man sentenced to death for the 1982 murder of a northwest Ohio woman. John Spirko, 59, is scheduled to be executed Sept. 20 for the 1982 stabbing death of Betty Jane Mottinger, 48, who was in charge of the post office in the tiny town of Elgin. 3 people on the 9-member board recommended that the execution at least be postponed so U.S. District Judge James Carr in Toledo could have more time to examine evidence in the case. Spirko has asked Carr for a new trial. Prosecutors acknowledge that no physical evidence links Spirko to the murder, but say he has confessed to the crime and knew details that only the killer would know. The defense said he admitted to the crime only to win freedom for his girlfriend and cut a deal for himself. Spirko's lawyers also say prosecutors withheld evidence that could have helped their client. Ohio has executed 16 men since it resumed carrying out death sentences in 1999 and plans 3 executions this fall. Taft has granted clemency to only one condemned inmate, Jerome Campbell in 2003, following the recommendation of the Parole Board over questions about DNA evidence in the case. Taft could follow the recommendation and allow the execution to proceed or reduce Spirko's sentence. A message was left for Taft spokesman Mark Rickel. (source: Associated Press) ********************************** Parole board urges no execution reprieve for Spirko In a 6-3 vote, the Ohio Parole Board Tuesday recommended against clemency or a reprieve for John Spirko, who is scheduled to be executed Sept. 10 for the 1982 aggravated murder of rural postmaster Betty Jane Mottinger. The board majority said Spirko's lawyers failed to support their argument that new evidence shows Spirko was unjustly convicted at his 1984 trial. "A sufficient justifiable basis for mercy cannot be found," the board said in its recommendation to Gov. Bob Taft. "There is no manifest miscarriage of justice in the imposition of the sentence." But 3 dissenters said Taft should grant a reprieve to give U.S. District Court Chief Judge James G. Carr of Toledo time to evaluate Spirko's claims. Spirko, 59, has always maintained he didn't kill the 48-year-old Mottinger in a robbery of the post office in the Van Wert County hamlet of Elgin. His lawyers say the prosecution used a faulty identification of Spirko's friend at the crime scene to implicate Spirko and may have falsely attributed to Spirko crime details that only the killer would know. The dissenters noted that 2 Ohio Supreme Court justices and 4 retired federal judges, including a former FBI director, have raised concerns about Spirko's conviction. "If there is even the slightest possibility that errors were made in a conviction where the sentence is death, then that possibility is too great," the minority wrote. (source: Dayton Daily News) USA: Remark, data fuel debate on death penalty and race Recent remarks on capital punishment by U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens before the American Bar Association are apt to reignite the debate on this important issue. Stevens' statements followed several exonerations of death row inmates through scientific evidence, which he found remarkable "not only because of its relevance to the debate about the wisdom of continuing to administer capital punishment, but because it indicates that there must be serious flaws in our administration of criminal justice." Stevens' statements were made in Illinois, his home state, where Gov. George Ryan put all executions to a halt in 2000, following the discovery of a series of wrongful convictions. Those remarks come at a time when some conservative lawmakers and judges are seriously concerned as a result of a string of wrongful convictions, inevitably fostering a perception of unfairness in the application of the law. The ABA has repeatedly called for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty on various grounds, including the demonstrably high risk of convicting the innocent (whose defense is often taken by lawyers acting pro bono but lacking the required level of expertise), as well as pervasive racism in the administration of capital punishment. Since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, 119 people have been released from death row after evidence of their innocence was found. DNA testing has proven to be an extremely useful tool in these findings, uncovering significant flaws in the administration of capital punishment. In Texas, with the unenviable position of having carried out more executions than any other state, three defendants were sentenced to death even when their lawyers slept during their trials. In all three cases, the convictions and death sentences were upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Stephen B. Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, remarked at the time: "This gives a new meaning to the idea of a 'dream team.'" Misconduct by law enforcement officials, including investigatory mistakes, coerced confessions and the like, were also found to vitiate many of those trials. In 1999, a Chicago Tribune article reported how prosecutors stood silent while informants lied in court - a situation that has been relied upon several times to reverse death penalty convictions. It has been argued that the death penalty deters homicides. Levels of poverty have proven to be more closely connected, however, to violent crime rates than to other factors. A survey among those presiding over the country's top criminological societies revealed that 84 percent of them reject the notion that the death penalty is an effective deterrent to murder and other heinous crimes. Texas, with all its executions, has among the highest rates of violent crime in the country. Statistics also show that minorities are far more likely than whites to be imprisoned, condemned to death, and wrongfully convicted. According to Jeffrey Pokorak, a law professor at Suffolk University in Boston, 98 % of the chief district attorneys in death penalty states are white; only 1 percent are black. Not surprisingly, prosecutors are more prone to request the death penalty, and juries are more likely to impose it, in those cases where the victim is white or the defendant is black. Also at the national level a Justice Department study showed that, between 1995 and 1999, minorities made up 75 % of the defendants for whom federal prosecutors sought the death penalty. Bright has stated: "Waging a war on crime has led us to tolerate gross racial discrimination in the criminal justice system that would not be tolerated in any other area of American life." Although many support capital punishment as a powerful deterrent to crime, it is doubtful that a seldom-enforced law can be effective in controlling criminal behavior. By his remarks before the ABA, Stevens made capital punishment an issue of current politics, not a legal abstraction or a topic on "progressive jurisprudence." His statements give the death penalty debate a refreshing momentum, one that may, I hope, lead to the abolition of this barbaric punishment. (source: Philadelphia Inquirer----Csar Chelala writes on human-rights issues) ******************** Scalia blasts 'judge moralists' Scalia said he was saddened to see the Supreme Court deciding moral issues not addressed in the Constitution. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia blasted what he called "judge moralists" and the infusion of politics into judicial appointments Monday after joining law students in a re-enactment of a 100-year-old landmark case. Speaking before a packed auditorium at Chapman University, Scalia said he was saddened to see the Supreme Court deciding moral issues not addressed in the Constitution, such as abortion, gay rights and the death penalty. He said such questions should be settled by Congress or state legislatures beholden to the people. "I am questioning the propriety -- indeed, the sanity -- of having a value-laden decision such as this made for the entire society ... by unelected judges," he said. Scalia also railed against the principle of the "living Constitution," saying it has led the Senate to try to appoint so-called politically "moderate" judges instead of focusing on professional credentials and ability. "Now the Senate is looking for moderate judges, mainstream judges. What in the world is a moderate interpretation of a constitutional text? Halfway between what it says and what we'd like it to say?" he said, to laughter and applause. Scalia didn't make any direct references to the looming confirmation battle for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, but he did allude to it. "Each year the conflict over judicial appointments has grown more intense," he said. "One is tempted to shield his eyes from the upcoming spectacle." Earlier in the day, Scalia was much less serious while re-enacting the landmark 1905 Supreme Court case Lochner v. New York with 5 recent law school graduates, 3 undergraduates, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and a Chapman professor. The original court ruled that a state law limiting bakers' hours violated a bakery owner's liberty and right to due process. On Monday, however, the mock justices overturned that decision in less than 30 minutes of debate. "There will be no majority opinion. This will be one of those unpublished opinions that will not be citable before the Supreme Court," Scalia, who played the role of Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller, joked after announcing the students' decision. The debate was lighthearted, as participants made jests on topics ranging from Scalia's Italian heritage to his reputation as a die-hard constitutionalist. Professor John Eastman, who played the role of Lochner's counsel, argued that the state law had been sponsored by German union members who wanted to prevent competition from harder working Italian immigrant bakers. To that, Scalia replied "Mama mia!" The re-enactment was part of a full day of activities for Scalia, who was at Chapman to help the university celebrate the 10th anniversary of its law school. Chapman has a tradition of inviting distinguished jurists to re-enact important Supreme Court cases on their anniversaries, including Brown v. the Board of Education and Marbury v. Madison. Earlier Monday, Scalia taught a constitutional law class. (source: Associated Press) ALABAMA: Man charged in officer's murder A 31-year-old suspect is in the Madison County Jail today charged with capital murder in connection with Monday's shooting death of a Huntsville police officer. 27-year-old Officer Daniel Golden, a 3 year veteran, was shot in the head moments after arriving to investigate a fight at a Mexican grocery and restaurant in the northern part of the city. It happened about 3:30 p.m.. Authorities formally charged Benito Albarran with Golden's murder last night. Police also questioned other individuals who may be suspects. Golden, who is survived by his wife and stepchild, is the 1st Huntsville police officer killed in the line of duty since 1968. Mayor Loretta Spencer ordered all flags flown at half-staff. (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: Hunt for fugitive ends at UNCC----Murder suspect Windsor found sleeping in campus library Robert Lane Windsor, charged in the kidnapping and killing of his former girlfriend in Catawba County more than a week ago, spent his last hours of freedom Monday sleeping on a couch in the UNC Charlotte library. Security guard Niraj Bista said he went to a mostly hidden spot in the curriculum collections section because a worker sent an e-mail saying a man had been sleeping there for nearly 3 hours. Bista said the man looked a little like the picture of Windsor -- but his hair was different. He wasn't sure it was Windsor. "When I walked by, he woke up and he left," Bista told the Observer. "He was acting weird. He was wearing sunglasses and a hat inside the building." Bista, who carries a walkie-talkie but no weapon, said he followed the man and called campus police. Interim Chief William Harper said a detective stopped the man as he was walking toward the campus' main entrance. He wasn't carrying identification or weapons. The man gave the detective a name and birthday that didn't show up in the police computer, Harper said. The detective arrested him on suspicion of providing false information to police. At the Mecklenburg County jail, fingerprints confirmed he is Windsor. Windsor, 36, had been wanted since Aug. 18, when Catawba County sheriff's deputies said he abducted his former girlfriend Stephany Jo White, 30, at her Conover home and left in her Ford Taurus. Three days later, the Taurus was found in Charlotte abandoned along Interstate 77 near the Brookshire Freeway. White's body was in the trunk. She had been suffocated. Windsor was charged with murder but continued to elude authorities. On Wednesday, a former roommate told police he'd seen Windsor on campus. Windsor had been a student there in the 1990s. The former roommate said Windsor acknowledged him by name. Police posted signs about the wanted man on campus and increased patrols. That same day, Windsor's mother made a public plea for her son to surrender to police. Maj. Coy Reid of the Catawba County Sheriff's Office said the arrest was a relief to the Windsor and White families. He applauded the alert library workers: "It's all about teamwork. We'll take anybody on our team." (source: Charlotte Observer) INDIANA: Prisoner will live, and so will issue Our position: Sparing Arthur Baird's life has broad justification even if the governor went for the narrow. Gov. Mitch Daniels' decision to commute the death sentence of Arthur P. Baird II was correct for more reasons than those he gave in Monday's order. In declaring that the 59-year-old Montgomery County man would spend the rest of his life in prison without possibility of parole, Daniels cited statements by jurors and survivors of his victims that they would have favored that option if it had been allowed by law when Baird was convicted in 1987. He also pointed out that Baird rejected a plea agreement calling for life imprisonment, "apparently due to his delusional state." Given those factors, Daniels said, he could cancel the convict's Wednesday date with lethal injection "without substituting my judgment for others on the ambiguous issue of Mr. Baird's degree of insanity." The governor's very choice of words, however, speaks to the need to have called off or at least delayed the execution on the basis of Baird's mental health. If the prisoner was delusional in passing up a life-saving plea bargain, and if it is ambiguous whether he knows what he perpetrated or why he was condemned, how does it make sense for the state to proceed with an irreversible punishment? In the wake of appalling revelations of miscarriages of justice around the nation, certainty is being demanded in capital cases as never before. At the same time, change is at work in the courts, legislatures and public mind. Only in recent years, for example, has the U.S. Supreme Court banned executions of persons under 16 and the mentally retarded. The mentally ill are not yet exempt from capital punishment, but at least 2 of the 5 Indiana Supreme Court justices have expressed strong views in that direction in the Baird case. Considering the trends, it seems only reasonable to keep alive a convict whose sanity has been cast into doubt by a series of mental health experts. Arthur Baird lost his place in civilized society when he murdered his wife and parents. But there is strong evidence, the Indiana Parole Board's stubborn denial to the contrary, that he was not in control of himself when he committed those horrible acts and has not grasped what has been done with him since then. A jury of his peers wanted to put him away without another killing, a governor in a new era has allowed that 2nd chance, and an issue remains alive for the next stage of capital punishment's evolution. (source: Editorial, Indianapolis Star) ***************************** Praise and Credit to Gov. Daniels and Way He Did It The nearly 11th hour bold decision by Governor Daniels to commute the death sentence of Arthur Baird and give him life without parole is akin to Nixon opening up Communist China over a generation ago. It was a step that Daniels could make as a Republican while it would have been far more difficult for a Democrat as Indiana governor to do without large political repercussions. Just as Nixon could address the need to get China into the arena of reasonably peaceful relations with the world while a Democrat-liberal would have been regarded "pink" for doing so, Governor Daniels has taken a step to seek more human and humane progress on a truly grim matter. It is well that he did it in the fashion he took the step -- not declaring it a precedent or a blanket policy. There are many of us who would agree hands down that the state executing a mentally ill killer is wrong. However, no one should be naive enough to doubt that throngs of killers and their defense teams would be proclaiming mental illness as the murder excuse. Indeed, there are many in the population who believe, erroneous as the reason is, that a person has to be mentally ill to murder. These folks are confusing mental illness and anti-social behavior. Even from the proper way that Governor Daniels handled the matter, there will be some surge of mental illness defenses in these matters. This isnt all bad because ideally we should move to where we as a state execute no mentally ill persons -- and to where we execute no one, in fact. The big obstacle to eliminating capital punishment is that the main advocates in the press and public arena for this would then move to abolishing prison without parole as inhuman and after that abolishing prison as inhuman. Society is nowhere close to the place where we can quit removing people from open society over criminal actions that harm or intolerably threaten other citizens. It is, indeed, good that prison-jail populations are high as compared to having a lot of those people out on the streets. Americas streets and homes became unsafe when the last weakening on crime took place 30 to 40 years ago. Advocates for abolishing capital punishment must make a strong enough commitment that the kind of people who are going to death rows now shall never see the light of a free day on the streets or open society again, so that society can feel safety in properly moving away from capital punishment. Governor Daniels has done a good thing and he has handled it the right way. JIM BARBIERI (source: Letter to the Editor, Bluffton News Banner) ***************************** Alan Matheney execution set for Sept. 28--But governor changed Arthur Bairds sentence to life without parole. Within an hour, the Indiana Supreme Court set 1 death-row inmates execution date while Gov. Mitch Daniels commuted another ones scheduled lethal injection to life without parole. Daniels on Monday granted clemency to Arthur Baird II for killing his parents in 1985, just after the state's high court set a Sept. 28 execution date for Alan Matheney for killing his former wife in 1989 while out of prison on a brief furlough. The justices rejected Matheney's claims that his life should be spared because he was mentally ill at the time of the murder. The court rejected similar arguments by Baird. But Daniels commuted his sentence less than 36 hours before his scheduled execution. If Matheney is executed, he would become the fifth person put to death in Indiana this year. Baird was granted clemency, and a federal appeals court granted a stay hours before death-row inmate Michael Lambert was to be executed this year. Matheney was convicted of forcing his way into Lisa Biancos home in Mishawaka a few hours after his release on an 8-hour pass from a prison. As their 2 daughters fled in terror, Matheney chased Bianco into the street and beat her outside a neighbors home with an unloaded .410-guage shotgun. The state's prison furlough program was suspended after Bianco's death and later reinstated with tightened restrictions that would have prevented Matheney's release. Matheney, formerly of Granger, had been serving an eight-year sentence for a 1987 assault on his former wife when he was released. Bianco, who had divorced Matheney in 1985, was not notified of his furlough despite assurances from prison officials that she would be told if he was ever released. At trial, Matheney argued that he was legally insane and was exam-ined by various mental health officials. Mondays unanimous ruling said none of them testified that he was legally insane at the time of the murder, although one said he had a paranoid personality and another diagnosed him with a schizophrenic disorder. There also was evidence that he was under the delusion that Bianco, the St. Joseph County prosecutor and others were conspiring to persecute him and keep him in prison. The justices said they noted evidence that Matheney suffered from a mental disease. (source: Associated Press)
