August 31 TEXAS: Jurors spare life of Rivas----Punishment deliberations take 1.5 hours Maria Raquel Rivas will spend a minimum of 40 years in prison instead of being the first woman in Nueces County to receive the death penalty. Jurors deliberated about 1 1/2 hours before returning a life sentence. Rivas, 30, will be eligible for parole in 40 years. She was convicted of capital murder Wednesday in the March 2004 stabbing death of James Timothy Haynes, 44. Prosecutors have said Rivas supplied the knife that killed Haynes and that she was a coconspirator in the crime. Rivas sobbed softly while defense attorney Grant Jones patted her back and kissed the top of her head after the verdict was read. Haynes' mother, Lacretia Blank, said after the trial that she had wanted the death penalty but changed her mind after learning more about prison. "I want her to suffer," Blank said, sobbing. Rivas' childhood friend, Jo Ann Llamas, like some of Haynes' immediate family, attended every day of the fiveday trial. "We're just happy they gave her life and not the death penalty," Llamas said. Haynes' sister, Angel Wetz, testified during the sentencing phase and she gave an impact statement after the verdict was read. Wetz thanked 117th District Court Judge Sandra Watts, the jury and prosecutor Gail Gleimer for their hard work, then she addressed Rivas for the 1st time. "You've destroyed the part of us that was so good," Wetz as she clasped her hands and faced Rivas. "You will never know what you have done to us." (source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times) MISSOURI----execution Man is executed for killing wife in 1989 A man who tried to hold off his execution by arguing that Missouri's system of lethal injection is unconstitutionally painful was put to death early today for beating his wife to death in 1989. Timothy Johnston, 44, of St. Louis, was pronounced dead at 12:07 a.m. in the death chamber at the 2-year-old prison here. Moments before the 1st drug was administered, Johnston rolled his head back and forth and appeared to grimace. But he stopped moving once the drug appeared to take effect. Lawyers for Johnston had argued vigorously in federal courts that Missouri's three-drug method of execution presented the threat of a "painful and protracted death," in violation of the U.S. Constitution's bar to cruel and unusual punishment. Johnston was condemned for murdering his wife, Nancy Johnston, 27, by beating and kicking her on June 30, 1989. The beating began in her car and continued at their home in the 4700 block of Minnesota Avenue. She was pronounced dead at the scene. He confessed shortly afterward, saying he had become enraged over an argument they had had in a tavern that evening. Johnston's constitutional claim was rejected Friday by a U.S. District Court judge downtown, but he won relief Tuesday from a 3-judge panel of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. The 2-1 vote put an eight-day stay on the execution. Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon then appealed to the full bench of the Eighth Circuit, which overruled the stay shortly before 9 p.m. Johnston's lawyers then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but their plea was rejected. Also Tuesday evening, Gov. Matt Blunt declined to use his power to reduce Johnston's sentence to life in prison. "Nancy Johnston died a horrific death at the hands of her own husband," said Blunt, who called execution "an appropriate punishment for this crime." Johnston's claim against lethal injection as a last-chance argument after all of his other appeals failed. His was one of several have been raised across the country against the practice. Trial-level judges generally have rejected the claim, but appeals are pending in three states. Missouri is one of 27 states that carry out executions by administering a series of three drugs intravenously in rapid succession. (All told, 37 states have the death penalty.) The procedure begins with a heavy sedative to render the condemned unconscious, followed by a drug to end breathing and another to stop the heart. The sedative, sodium pentothal, renders the condemned motionless within seconds. Death usually is pronounced within four minutes. Johnston's argument was that, if the state doesn't properly administer the sedative, he could be conscious during the other drugs and experience "a painful and protracted death." After a hearing Friday, U.S. District Judge Charles A. Shaw rejected Johnston's claim as speculation, adding, "The ever-present possibility of human error or accident is insufficient to establish a constitutional violation." Johnston declined to take phone calls Tuesday evening from reporters while he was in the waiting room near the chamber. Prison officials said he ate a last meal. Johnston was the 65th man to be executed by injection in Missouri since the state resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1989 under current U.S. Supreme Court rules. He was the 3rd executed in the death chamber at the 2-year-old prison in Bonne Terre, 60 miles south of St. Louis. Johnston becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Missouri, which trails only Texas (348), Virginia (94) and Oklahoma (79) in the numbers of executions carried out in the USA since the death penalty was re-legalized on July 2, 1976. All but one of the others were carried out at the Potosi Correctional Center, where condemned men are confined among general inmate population. Johnston becomes the 37th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 981st overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (sources: St. Louis Post-Dispatch & Rick Halperin) ******************* Johnston Writhes Just Before Execution at Bonne Terre Missouri's latest execution took place as scheduled... but not without some dramatics at the state prison in Bonne Terre. At 12:07 this morning the state executed Timothy Johnston of St. Louis for the beating and kicking death of his wife Nancy in June of 1989. Johnston's final appeal that Missouri's method of execution is cruel and unusual punishment, at first, gained him a stay from a 3-judge panel onthe 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. But the full court later stepped in and the execution was back on schedule. Johnston seemed intent to prove his defense was true as he writhed on the gurney for what seemed like a minute. But some witnesses thought he was moving before the announcement that the first drug was administered. an observation Correctons Department spokesman John Fougere says his staff saw as well. Fougere went on to dismiss the possibility that the drugs ending Johnston's life were administered before the announcement was made. He would not speculate why Johnston was squirming. (source: Missouri.net) UTAH: Utah's oldest death-row inmate to get new sentencing hearing In Salt Lake City, the Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling vacating the death sentence for the state's oldest and longest-serving death row inmate, allowing him a new sentencing hearing. Elroy Tillman, now 69, was condemned to die for the 1982 murder of Mark Schoenfeld, who was bludgeoned with the blunt end of an ax and his body then set on fire at his Salt Lake City home. Prosecutors said Schoenfeld was killed because he was dating Tillman's ex-girlfriend, Lori Groneman. In January 2003, 3rd District Judge Leslie Lewis ruled that important evidence was withheld from Tillman's defense team during the 1983 trial. The omission was not significant enough to overturn his conviction but did merit a new sentencing hearing for Tillman, she ruled. The state appealed, contending that Tillman's petition for a new sentencing hearing was barred by Utah's Post-Conviction Remedies Act and also the suppression of the evidence did not violate his due process rights. Utah's high court disagreed. In a 5-0 decision, the court concluded that "Tillman's current claim was overlooked in good faith and that his current petition was not motivated by an intent to delay or otherwise abuse the post-conviction relief process." At issue were transcripts from a police interview with Tillman's then-girlfriend, Carla Sagers, who was identified in court as his accomplice but received immunity from prosecution for her testimony against Tillman. Just weeks before Tillman's scheduled execution in 2001, his lawyers received 50 previously undisclosed pages from police polygraph tests and interviews with Sagers. Tillman's attorneys have said the transcripts contain a "virtual cornucopia of cross-examination material," which could have been used to refute Sagers' testimony during the trial. Former Salt Lake City police Sgt. Kenneth Thirsk, who interviewed Sagers, said he had testified at Tillman's original trial, and the jury heard that he did not believe Sagers' account of the killing. No one was able to account for why the transcripts weren't provided to Tillman's defense team at the 1983 trial. Assistant Attorney General Thomas Brunker uncovered the transcripts when he asked the Salt Lake County district attorney's office for the case file to prepare for a 2001 commutation hearing. Brunker and Erin Riley, another assistant attorney general, said they have no idea how the transcript fell through the cracks during the trial, but that later it was easily found and should have been located by any diligent attorney aiding Tillman in his appeal. "We're not saying it's their fault or their problem. We don't know who or why or what happened clear back then 22 years ago," said Riley, who argued the appeal with Brunker. "We simply called for the prosecutor's file. Any reasonable post-conviction counsel should have done that and did not." "I think one thing that should be clear is there has never been a finding that the original prosecutor intentionally withheld these transcripts," Brunker said. The state has contended all along that the transcripts would not have changed the outcome of Tillman's conviction or his death sentence. "I personally was quite surprised and dismayed," said Riley of Tuesday's Supreme Court decision. "The bottom line is whether this evidence made any difference at the time." Tillman's attorney, Loni DeLand, said he and his client are pleased with the decision. "There'll be a resentencing and I like our chances," DeLand said. "I get to put these witnesses on the stand, and there's all this new material." He said he looks forward to putting Sagers on the stand and the new information is of "great importance" as to how he will cross-examine her. DeLand said he would expect a new sentencing no earlier than the end of this year, barring any further appeals by the Utah attorney general's office. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said Tuesday that it was unlikely his office would appeal. He said justice was served by the ruling, although he contends that an earlier discovery of the transcripts probably would not have changed the outcome of the case. "I don't think we can be disappointed. The disappointment, I guess, is the victims are going to have to, 20 years later, relive all of this," Shurtleff said. In the new sentencing phase, Tillman will face the death penalty or life in prison with the possibility of parole. When Tillman was initially sentenced, the state had not adopted the option of life without parole, though Brunker said it likely will be offered as an option for Tillman. (source: Associated Press) INDIANA: Mental illness muddies death penalty Arthur Baird II thought the federal government was going to give him $1 million for solving the federal deficit. He expected God to turn back time and reunite him with his parents and the pregnant wife he killed 20 years ago. His lawyers said those beliefs showed the 59-year-old death row inmate was too mentally ill to be executed as scheduled today at the Indiana State Prison. Gov. Mitch Daniels on Monday commuted Bairds death sentence to life in prison without parole. But the issue of executing the mentally ill remains one that Baird's attorney and others hope ultimately will be addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The debate that has long stymied legal and mental health experts boils down to one question, said Joseph Hoffman, an Indiana University law professor: "Just how mentally ill do you have to be before well say you weren't really guilty of a crime?" Advocates for the mentally ill believe there are several hundred people on death row across the country who had no control of their impulses to kill. Many, they contend, should not be executed. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1986 in Ford v. Wainwright that it is unconstitutional to execute people who do not understand that they are being executed or why. "That's a pretty low bar," said David Elliot, communications director for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "We need a higher bar." In 2002, the high court ruled that executing mentally retarded people - generally defined as having an IQ of 70 or lower - was unconstitutionally cruel. "There's a sense this issue is probably the next big one on the death penalty front for the court to finally make a determination on," said Curt Goering, senior deputy executive director of Amnesty International-USA. Sarah Nagy, an attorney for Baird, hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will consider her arguments about why executing mentally ill people should be unconstitutional. Nagy contends Baird was under a "command hallucination" when he killed his wife and parents in 1985. Baird, who said he has fought impulses to do bad things since he was 11 years old, claims he had no control over his body at the time of the murders. "In Mr. Baird's case, the facts were terrific because I could offer the court a bright line in terms of the definition of mental illness, and that is someone who is acting under an irresistible impulse," Nagy said. The American Bar Association's Task Force on Mental Illness and the Death Penalty has recommended prohibiting the death penalty for people who are "cognitively or volitionally impaired" at the time of their crime. Daniels acknowledged claims that Baird was mentally ill, but he emphasized other circumstances for his decision. They included that life without parole in murder cases was not an option at the time of Bairds sentencing and that Bairds apparent delusions prompted him to reject a plea agreement that would have kept him behind bars for life. (source: Associated Press)
