Sept. 14 TEXAS: Female killer set for death penalty Texas stands ready today to execute the 1st black woman, and only the 3rd female, to be put to death since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982. Frances Newton, 40, was convicted of murdering her husband and 2 children in 1987. She always has maintained her innocence, though prosecutors convinced a Harris County jury that she killed her family for $100,000 in insurance money. Only a last minute stay of execution by Gov. Rick Perry or intervention by the Supreme Court can halt the execution. Newton's lawyers wrote a letter to Mr. Perry Monday, asking for a 30-day stay in their efforts to show that prosecutors erred in linking her to a presumed murder weapon. Unlike the days preceding the executions of Karla Faye Tucker in 1998 and Betty Lou Beets in 2002, Newton's plight has not elicited much interest from outside the state, although the president of the American Bar Association has asked the governor to intercede, citing "compelling new evidence" that "has not been evaluated by Texas courts." Michael S. Greco, the ABA president, said Newton was not properly represented by her court-appointed lawyer, Ron Mock of Houston -- a lawyer who often has been reprimanded by the state bar and is now prohibited from representing clients in death penalty cases because of his inadequacy. Mr. Mock told the judge the day her trial began that he had not interviewed a single witness on behalf of Newton. David Dow, a Houston lawyer who now represents Newton, wrote the governor saying courts had been "influenced by a lie" in the state's assertion that a gun placed in an abandoned house was the one used to kill her family. "Newton," he wrote, "has always admitted she placed a gun in an abandoned house. We know, however, that the State recovered at least two guns and perhaps as many as three, and we have reason to believe that at least two guns, and possibly all 3, were handguns manufactured by Raven Arms. What that means is that we have absolutely no reason to believe the gun Newton admits to having placed [made by a different manufacturer] was the murder weapon." One assistant district attorney testified that only one gun was found. A top police officer said he thought two had been recovered. Another assistant district attorney told a Dutch television newsman there had been 2. Few believe Mr. Perry will intercede and halt the execution. Last December he granted a 120-day stay. In the past week, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted not to stop the scheduled execution and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 7-0 not to recommend that the governor commute the sentence to life in prison. Mr. Dow has filed a final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Austin American Statesman editorialized strongly Monday that Newton should not be executed. "Race, ethnicity, income and geography all are factors in the imposition of death sentences. As long as Texas has a death penalty, capital defendants should have access to competent legal counsel. Newton didn't get that. For that reason she should be spared." (source: Washington Times) ********************** State will execute 1st black woman----Frances Newton set to receive lethal injection tonight The 1st black female to be executed in Texas will receive a lethal injection at 6 p.m. today. Frances Elaine Newton, 40, has spent the last 18 years on death row. She was convicted of murdering her husband and two children in Houston in April 1987. Prosecutors claimed she killed them to collect on a $50,000 life-insurance policy. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted Monday in a 7-0 decision declining Newton's requests that the board recommend for Gov. Rick Perry to commute her death sentence to life in prison. The vote came 2 days before Newton's scheduled execution. Rissie Owens, presiding officer of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, said in a statement that each board member gave full consideration to Newton's clemency request. The board considered all the information submitted from any interested parties including prosecutors, family members and the public. He said Newton's claims of innocence were not substantiated. "I wish that the courts and the parole board would have been a little less anxious to assume that everything that the state is saying is true," David Dow, University of Houston law professor, said. "The state is saying things that are not true." Gov. Rick Perry granted Newton a 120-day reprieve on Dec. 1, 2004 on her scheduled execution day to allow pardons and paroles officials further investigation regarding the alleged murder weapon, a .25-caliber pistol. Dow has represented Newton since the summer of 2004. He said he did not believe Newton had access to the murder weapon, a fact he says the state has falsified. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People actively protested Newton's case at the governor's office, said Nelson Linder, head of the Austin chapter. He said he never once received any sort of response from state officials. NAACP protested the case on legal and moral grounds. "Given the fact that the evidence was not clear, and she did not have an effective council makes you question due process," Linder said. "Race always plays a factor in any crime in America. It is very troubling." Dow refused to comment on the issue of race in the sentencing. Newton's mother, father and three siblings will be present at the execution as well as her former husband's two cousins. According to Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Newton did not request a last meal, but one will be provided if she decides that afternoon to have one. Dow said when he spoke to Newton Tuesday morning, she was hopeful. But her lawyer said he knew time was running out. Since Texas reinstated the death penalty in 1982, the state has executed 348 people. Newton will be the 3rd female and first black female. (source: The Daily Texan) ************************ Set to kill Frances Newton----Horror of the Texas killing machine FRANCES NEWTON has been sitting on Texas' death row for the past 17 years--for a crime that she very likely did not commit. But if Texas Gov. Rick Perry gets his way, Frances will be put to death on September 14--the 1st African American woman to be executed by the state of Texas since the Civil War. Accused of shooting her husband Adrian and 2 children in 1987, Frances was railroaded onto death row on the flimsiest of evidence--by a system that couldnt be bothered to look for the truth. As the Austin Chronicle recently put it, "There is no incontrovertible evidence against Newton, and the paltry evidence that does exist has been completely compromised. Moreover, her story is one more in a long line of Texas death row cases in which the prosecutions were sloppy or dishonest, the defenses incompetent or negligent, and the constitutional guarantee of a fair trial was honored only in name." Police and prosecutors--in addition to Frances' own incompetent trial attorney--ignored her claim that her family was murdered by a drug dealer that her husband owed money to. Despite the fact that an anonymous caller the day after the shooting gave a description and license plate number of a truck parked in the driveway of the Newton home on the night of the shooting, police never followed up on the lead. Instead, they claim Frances was after life insurance money--and made her their only suspect. The physical evidence against Newton is full of holes. "[T]here wasn't any physical evidence at all on Frances Newton," her new attorney David Dow told Democracy Now! "There wasn't anything at all on her clothes. There wasn't anything at all in her car. This is somebody who by the state's theory would have had to have killed three people with perfect marksmanship, and then completely clean the crime scene in such a way that investigating authorities could find no physical evidence tying her to the scene at all, in 20 minutes." Because of the numerous inconsistencies in the case, last December, Frances was granted a 120-day reprieve for the evidence to be re-examined. But recent testing on her skirt, which prosecutors claim places her as the shooter at the scene of the crime, couldnt be done--because original forensic tests had not only destroyed the evidence, but Harris County officials had improperly stored the skirt by sealing it inside a bag, together with items of bloody clothing, making it worthless as evidence. While police claim that ballistics tests confirm that a gun they say Frances had in her possession was used as the murder weapon, Dow says that police recovered at least 2 similar pistols during their investigation of the murders--a fact that police and prosecutors never revealed to Newton's original lawyer. During an interview earlier this year with a Dutch reporter, Assistant District Attorney Roe Wilson confirmed that "police recovered a gun from the apartment that belonged to the husband," but added that, "[It] had not been fired, it had not been involved in the offense...It was simply a gun [Adrian] had there; so there is no 2nd-gun theory." Wilson later claimed to have "misspoken," saying that there was no second gun recovered. But at least 2 separate affidavits from police investigators allude to the recovery of a 2nd gun--though the Harris County Sheriff's Department has refused to turn over additional reports to Frances lawyers. What's more, in Harris County, where Frances Newton is from, the police crime lab is notorious for botching evidence in death penalty cases. Last year, Houston's chief of police was forced to call for the state to delay all executions in cases where evidence was used that had been processed at the Harris County crime lab--after hundreds of previously missing boxes of evidence were found that pertained to more than 8,000 criminal cases. More recently, according to Human Rights Watch, problems at the crime lab have included missing evidence, defective DNA analysis and inaccurate ballistic analysis. As Dow recently asked, "Is it plausible to think that the Houston Police Department ballistics lab mixed up the weapons? In view of what we know now--from faulty ballistics evidence in other cases, to dozens of mistakes in DNA analysis, to scores of boxes of lost or missing evidence--I would think that only the most stubborn, naive or disingenuous prosecutor would say with any confidence that Newton is guilty." Like many other inmates on death row, Frances Newton's defense was not just inadequate, but wholly incompetent. She was originally "defended" by Ron Mock, a lawyer so outrageously inept that he was later barred from taking capital cases in the state of Texas--and has since been suspended from practicing law until the year 2007. "Death Row Mock," as he was nicknamed--because he never won an acquittal in a capital case, and had at least 16 clients sentenced to death--failed to call any witnesses or do any investigation in Frances" case. When Frances and her parents begged the trial judge to let her change attorneys, the judge agreed--but refused to grant a continuance, leaving he with no choice but to stick with Mock. American Bar Association President Michael Greco has also written to Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to request that Frances execution be stayed, citing Mocks gross incompetence as just one of the compelling reasons. But over the weekend, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Frances latest motion, saying that the evidence of a second gun was not "new." The court also has rejected claims that Frances received inadequate representation in her first trial, and that the prosecution had destroyed and contaminated crucial evidence Speaking out for Frances as her execution date approached were Tom and Virginia Louis, the parents of Frances murdered husband Adrian. "We do not wish to suffer the loss of another family member," they wrote to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Frances' mother, Jewel Nelms, was recently admitted to the hospital when the stress of her daughters approaching execution put her health in jeopardy "I would ask the Governor and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to look at the facts in the case and make a true and fair judgment--like they would want someone to do if it was their child," Jewel recently told Campaign to End the Death Penalty activist Lily Hughes. Despite her poor health, Jewel pledged to continue fighting for Frances as the execution date loomed. "I'm hoping this is the evidence thats going to get us back in the courts, since we have enough evidence now to know that there are things that are hidden that should have been brought out in the beginning," she said. "I know for a fact that if the jury had known about a 2nd gun, the verdict wouldnt have come out like it did... "Everybody is really disappointed in our system here in Houston, and knowing that they've hidden things for all these years is really kind of scary. Because I don't think they just singled out Frances. I would like very much to ask: why did they feel the need to hide things? That says a lot about our system...It makes me think maybe theyve been killing people that they could have saved, because they were wrongfully convicted--and that is what they are trying to do to my daughter." Activists are planning a protest at the governors mansion on September 14 at 5:30 p.m., 11th and Lavaca Streets in Austin. Go to www.freefrances.org and www.nodeathpenalty.org for more information. (source: Socialist Worker) ************************* USA: Roberts Gives Hints on Race, Death Penalty U.S. Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, treading a line between candor and caution, gave a Senate panel hints about his views on government seizure of private property, civil rights and the death penalty. Death Penalty "The court was not saying you have to have this power, you have to exercise this power," Roberts said. ``What the court was saying is, there is this power and then it's up to the legislature to determine whether it wants that to be available." Roberts signaled he may support limits on death penalty challenges. Asked by Leahy whether the Constitution allows executions of innocent people, Roberts reframed the question, pointing to a 1993 Supreme Court decision. "The question is never do you allow the execution of an innocent person," Roberts said. "The question is do you allow particular claimants to raise different claims, 4th or 5th or 6th time, to say at the last minute that somebody who just died was actually the person who committed the murder, and let's have a new trial?" Roberts said the most effective way to reduce the risk of executions of innocent people was to have the "best counsel available at every stage." He said if 4 justices voted for a stay of execution and a 5th vote were necessary to keep the appeal alive temporarily, he would cast the 5th vote. "I think that practice makes a lot of sense." -Roberts reiterated his opposition to the use of foreign law in rendering U.S. court decisions, but he rejected the notion that judges who do so are violating their oaths as some conservatives have argued. (sources: Associated Press & Bloomberg) VIRGINIA: Election Issues (Part 2): The Death Penalty (Following is the 2nd in a 5-part series highlighting issues that will impact the fall elections in Virginia.) The Death Penalty Because each person is created in Gods image and likeness, human dignity belongs equally to each person, including someone convicted of a heinous crime. While acknowledging the legitimate defense of individuals and society, the Church teaches that the death penalty cannot be justified when a government has other ways to adequately protect its people against an unjust aggressor. The Church also observes that, today, "as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically non-existent" (Catechism of the Catholic Church No. 2267). Applying this teaching during his 1999 visit to the United States, the late Pope John Paul II told those who attended a Mass in St. Louis: "The new evangelization calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life who will proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of Life in every situation. A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal ... for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary." Like John Paul II, the U.S. bishops have called for an end to capital punishment in our country. Earlier this year, they amplified their long-held conviction that executions are unnecessary, and hence inappropriate, in our time and place by launching the new "Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty," designed to provide parishes additional resources as they too strive to "proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of Life in every situation." Virginias two Catholic bishops also addressed the death penalty issue recently when they asked Gov. Mark Warner to commute the death sentence of Robin Lovitt to life in prison. In their letter to the governor earlier this year, Bishops Paul S. Loverde and Francis X. DiLorenzo called the commonwealths life-without-parole alternative to executions "unique in its ability to securely protect state residents and at the same time uphold the dignity belonging to every person." Virginias death penalty is, they wrote, "the extreme and unnecessary measure of taking life to show that taking life is wrong." The two bishops also pledged continued diocesan assistance to murder victims families who endure "immense suffering" and expressed their hope for "healing that cannot come from more loss of life." Among the 36 states that permit capital punishment, Virginia is 2nd only to Texas in the number of executions (94) performed since 1976. Despite this alarming trend, lawmakers reactions are mixed. Some believe that executions are no longer needed, others favor keeping the death penalty but wish to reduce the possibility of errors in death penalty cases, while still others even call for the further expansion of capital punishment. Widely varying measures being considered by Virginia lawmakers and candidates include: - Legislation to abolish the death penalty. - Legislation to impose a moratorium on executions while flaws in the justice system are addressed. - Legislation expanding application of the death penalty by eliminating the requirement that only a crimes "triggerman" can receive a death sentence. - An increase in state funding for legal services to indigent defendants, who receive death sentences in a higher percentage of cases than non-indigent defendants charged with the same crimes. For more information go to www.vacatholic.org. (source: Arlington Catholic Herald) ILLINOIS: Attorney argues for 3rd trial for convicted child-killer The attorney for convicted child-murderer Cecil Sutherland, seeking his third trial in the 1987 sex-killing of a 10-year-old Southern Illinois girl, told the state Supreme Court on Tuesday that his client was the innocent victim of an illegal search and "bad science." Afterward, the defense attorney, John Paul Carroll of Bloomington, Minn., dismissed reporters' questions about the almost $1 million he has collected from Illinois taxpayers through a special program designed to provide legal defense in death penalty cases - a fee so controversial that it led to a change in the law governing that program earlier this year. Sutherland was convicted of the rape and murder of Amy Schulz, 10, of Kell, Ill., 75 miles east of St. Louis. Her naked body was found in a nearby rural area north of Mount Vernon the morning after she had disappeared while walking near her home. Her throat had been cut. Sutherland, of Mount Vernon, was tried in Jefferson County and sentenced to death in 1989. But the Illinois Supreme Court overturned that conviction in 2000 on grounds of inadequate defense and ordered a new trial. His 2nd trial - in 2004 in Belleville, because of publicity in the Mount Vernon area - resulted in a 2nd conviction and death sentence. Sutherland's defense has been paid for through the state's Capital Litigation Trust Fund, which was set up in 2000 as part of Illinois' sweeping death penalty reforms. The fund allows qualified attorneys who take on death penalty defense clients to bill the state for their expenses. Last year, it was disclosed that Carroll had billed the fund more than $900,000 for himself for his work on the Sutherland case, as well as more than $600,000 for his investigator on the case. At the time, Carroll was quoted as saying that an aggressive prosecution forced him to look into the stories of about 400 potential prosecution witnesses, which ran up costs. With other fees for other attorneys, expert witnesses and clerical costs, the defense of the Sutherland case has cost the state more than $2 million in the past five years. That's by far the biggest chunk of the almost $14 million total the fund has spent on defense in some 80 cases since 2000. The revelation spawned this year's new law requiring attorneys to submit detailed budgets to the judge before a case. That provision wasn't in place when Carroll was collecting from the fund, so the state has had no choice but to pay his bills. Carroll said Tuesday that he is representing Sutherland in his latest appeal for free. He sniped at reporters who asked whether that meant he wouldn't be seeking any more reimbursement for expenses. "How you do feel about Cecil Sutherland?" he asked several reporters outside the courthouse. "You're asking about money. . . . How do you feel about an innocent man . . . in prison? No comment?" Earlier, in sometimes heated oral arguments in court, Carroll told the justices that police from Illinois didn't have the right to search Sutherland's car in Montana, where they found him after the murder, because the search warrant was issued by an Illinois court. "You can't take a search warrant from this state to another state," Carroll argued. "If that was (allowed) . . . some judge from Mississippi could issue a search warrant for this courtroom." Illinois Assistant Attorney General Ira Kohlman countered to the court that the validity of the search warrant was irrelevant because Sutherland had abandoned the car in Montana, meaning it could be searched without a warrant. The high court will hand down its ruling later. It could confirm the latest conviction and death sentence, overturn them or send the case back to the circuit court for retrial. Carroll also argued that a new form of DNA testing, used in Illinois for the first time in the Sutherland case, left jurors with the false impression that he was the only one who could have committed the murder. Sutherland, 50, remains imprisoned at the Pontiac Correctional Center. (source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch) OHIO: ACLU lawsuit is off the mark No matter how scummy, death row inmates are still human beings. So no matter how unruly, their treatment in prison should be humane. But the lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union filed to prevent the state from moving death row inmates from the Mansfield Correctional Institution to the supermaximum security Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown is going too far. The ACLU says the inmates would be housed in smaller cells, 67 square feet of unencumbered living space compared with 89 square feet of unencumbered space in Mansfield. Its attorney, Staughton Lynd of Niles, said the inmates would have about 1,050 square feet of recreation areas in Youngstown as opposed to 21,000 square feet in Mansfield. And inmates who have earned special privileges for good behavior might lose some after the move. None of these sacrifices can be considered inhumane. And we are, don't forget, talking about death row inmates. It's troubling an Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction representative had to testify in court about the amenities given to the society's criminals. He pointed out that because the supermax has more security, the condemned inmates would be given improved privileges there, such as eating meals together, which they can't do in Mansfield. "More inmates would receive more privileges than what currently exists for them at Mansfield," rehabilitation department representative Mark Landes said. The concern should not be how nice inmates have it. The concern should simply be security and that they are not treated less than human. At the supermax, they will not be subject to the same conditions as the supermax's other inmates, who are in solitary confinement 23 hours per day. Landes said moving the approximately 200 death row inmates and eliminating 91 jobs in Mansfield will save the state $5 million to $6 million. U.S. District Judge James Gwin will rule later this month. He should allow the move. (source: Editorial, The Tribune Chronicle) NEW MEXICO: Death penalty an option Zacharia Craig offered no reaction to a judge's refusal to remove the death penalty from consideration if a jury finds him guilty of killing a State Police officer 4 years ago. That flat effect is a symptom of the mental illness a psychologist says Craig, 23, is afflicted with and likely suffered to an even greater degree Aug. 1, 2001, when authorities say he mowed down State Police Officer Lloyd Aragon. Craig's attorney, Jeff Buckels, had argued that his client's illness should preclude him from facing the death penalty, because it should be treated no differently than mental retardation. State District Judge Louis P. McDonald denied the motion. Federal and state constitutional amendments prohibit the execution of the mentally retarded, but the rules do not apply to the mentally ill. After the judge's ruling, Buckels told the court he planned to file a motion asking the courts to find that Craig is mentally retarded as legally defined. That appears to be in opposition to Buckels' own expert witness, Dr. Eric Westfried, who Monday testified that while Craig might be in no better shape than a mildly mentally retarded person, he was not mentally retarded in the classical sense, because he scored well in other cognitive areas. Craig is expected to be tried Jan. 23 on a 1st-degree murder charge at the Sandoval County Judicial Complex in Bernalillo. His case has languished for 4 years because 3 times a judge has ruled that he is incompetent to stand trial. In June 2004, McDonald ruled Craig had been treated to competency, and District Attorney Lemuel Martinez renewed his vow to seek the death penalty in the case. Craig has remained hospitalized at the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute, the state psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas, N.M., since he was first ruled incompetent in May 2002. Psychologists have testified that Craig suffered from severe Grave's disease, a thyroid condition with symptoms that include psychosis, poor judgment, agitation and distractibility. The disease has since been treated with medication. On Monday, Westfried, a psychologist, told the court that Craig also has a moderate to severe disorder of the brain's right hemisphere. Symptoms include a problem with visual and spacing functions, an almost autistic inability to recognize negative emotions in others or appreciate consequences, poor social skills and inability to form intimate relations. Craig, he said, also has an IQ of 72, considered borderline to mild mental retardation. Craig was 19 when authorities say he shoplifted cold medication from a Grants Wal-Mart and led officers on a wild, 45-mile chase east on I-40 in a stolen pickup. Officers at the scene have testified that Craig aimed the truck straight for Aragon, 37, who was standing in the median after placing stop sticks across the road. Aragon, of Grants, died instantly. Mental illness vs. mental retardation is an especially timely issue in light of last month's shooting deaths of 5 people, including 2 Albuquerque police officers, all on Aug. 18. Attorneys for the accused, John Hyde, say he has a long history of schizophrenia and is not competent to stand trial. Hyde, 48, is undergoing a 90-day competency evaluation at the Las Vegas psychiatric facility. (source: Albuquerque Tribune) ********************** Accused cop killer may face death penalty A Sandoval County judge has ruled that a 22-year-old man accused of running over and killing a state police officer in 2001 can face the death penalty. State District Judge Louis McDonald has ruled that Zacharia Craigs thyroid disease and brain disorder do not preclude him from standing trial in a death penalty case. Craigs attorney, Jeff Buckels, had argued that the combined results of the medical and psychological problems essentially make Craig, for the purpose of applying the death penalty, mentally retarded. The US Supreme Court has barred the execution of the mentally retarded. Craig is charged in the August of 2001 death of State Police Officer Lloyd Aragon, who was killed in the median of Interstate 40 west of Albuquerque following a police chase. Witnesses contend Craig intentionally drove into Aragon, who had just put a spike belt on the freeway to stop Craigs vehicle. Craig was allegedly fleeing from a shoplifting incident. In May of 2003, Judge McDonald found Craig to be both incompetent to stand trail and dangerous and ordered him to be committed to the New Mexico State Hospital at Las Vegas psychiatric unit unless or until his mental competency improved. In June of 2004, after Craig had undergone a year of treatment in Las Vegas, McDonald ruled that Craig had become competent to stand trial for the murder of Aragon. (source: KOB TV News)
