Oct. 18 TEXAS: Deliberations in officer's slaying resume today -- Defendant faces the death penalty if convicted in the shooting death A Harris County jury will resume deliberations today in the capital murder trial of a man accused in the execution-style slaying of a Houston police officer during a robbery 2 years ago. Alfred Dewayne Brown, 23, faces the death penalty or life in prison if he is convicted of capital murder in the death of Officer Charles R. Clark, 45, who was gunned down trying to stop the robbery of a southeast side check-cashing store on April 3, 2003. District Judge Mark Kent Ellis sequestered jurors at a local hotel when they did not reach a verdict after several hours of deliberations Monday. Other defendants Brown is accused of shooting Clark in the head at nearly point-blank range after the officer's gun jammed. Clark had interrupted the heist in which store clerk Alfredia Jones, 27, also was killed. Brown and 2 of his friends were arrested several days after the slayings. One, Elijah Dwayne Joubert, 26, was sentenced to death after he was convicted of capital murder in Jones' slaying. The other, Dashan Vadell Glaspie, 23, is expected to receive a 30-year aggravated robbery sentence in exchange for his testimony. In closing arguments Monday, prosecutors said Brown's guilt was apparent and said evidence showed he played an active role in the crime. Prosecutor Tommy LaFon cited Brown's behavior after the shootings, saying the three accused robbers changed clothes, then went their separate ways "because the heat was on." LaFon said Brown later convinced his girlfriend to lie for him when she appeared before a Harris County grand jury. Witness credibility Defense attorneys, however, claimed Brown was at home when the shootings occurred at the Ace America Check Cashing store in the 5700 block of the South Loop East. Attorney Loretta Johnson Muldrow argued there was no forensic evidence or ballistics connecting Brown to the crime. No one testified they had seen Brown with a gun, she said. Muldrow also attacked the credibility of those who testified against her client. "The problem is you dress these witnesses and rehearse them for this man's trial. They're no longer witnesses - they're tools," she said. (source: Houston Chronicle) USA: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL Press Release With 1,000th U.S. Execution Looming, Amnesty International USA Launches the Eighth Annual National Weekend of Faith in Action Hundreds of Religious and Spiritual Groups Congregate to Raise Awareness About the Death Penalty Amnesty International USA launched the Eighth Annual National Weekend of Faith in Action on the Death Penalty (NWFA), during which thousands of members of faith-based groups and human rights activists throughout the nation will challenge widely held perceptions about the death penalty. In 2004, more than 550 faith communities, groups, and individuals held local events designed, in part, to create a safe and comfortable space for both those who support and oppose the death penalty to discuss their personal views. Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director, Amnesty International USA, and an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, urged As the United States approaches the 1,000th execution since 1977, it is an especially crucial time for members of religious and spiritual communities to take the lead in examining the values of a society that continues to embrace this antiquated form of punishment. "The NWFA provides an opportunity for people of faith to continue in the tradition of social change and to raise issues about a system in which the government makes life and death decisions-including sending to death row at least 121 people who were later found to have been wrongly convicted," continued Dr. Schulz. Over the weekend of October 21-23, 2005, hundreds of congregations representing the worlds faith traditions, interfaith groups, Amnesty International student and community groups, and individuals in nearly every state will devote time during their worship services and spiritual practices to reflect on inherent flaws of the death penalty system. Here are some examples of events taking place: Rapid City, South Dakota: Exonerated death row inmate Ray Krone will be the featured speaker at an interfaith event. Following Krone's presentation and discussion with the audience, attendees will have an opportunity to sign the "Declaration of Life." The declaration is a formal, witnessed affidavit by which signers abjure use of the death penalty in case of their own murder. Palo Alto, California: Bilingual Ecumenical Prayer Service for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, a vigil to pray for the men and women on death row as well as their victims. This event is sponsored by California People of Faith Working Against the Death Penalty, whose mission is to empower California's diverse faith communities to work for abolition of the death penalty through advocacy, education, and prayer. Boise, Idaho: Catholic Charities of Idaho, with many other groups, will hold an anti-death penalty event at the Ahavath Beth Israel Synogogue, which will include an interfaith panel, group discussion, video presentation, and non-denominational prayer service. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Divinity School will sponsor a photo exhibit and lecture by Scott Langley: "Accompanying the Condemned: Stories and Photos about the Death Penalty," an installment in the series "Praying Our Lives: Embodying Peace and Justice as a Practice of Prayer." Pittsburg, Pennsylvania: Silent vigil against the death penalty to support a moratorium on executions in Pennsylvania, sponsored by the Interfaith "Faith in Action Against the Death Penalty" Committee. Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Randy Tatel, Executive Director for the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing, will be the speaker and facilitator for this NWFA event. Participants will view the documentary "The Empty Chair," with discussion to follow. Facilitators hope to bring greater awareness about the issues surrounding the death penalty and reconciliation to attendees. Bloomington, Indiana: Reverend Bill Breeden, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington, will preach his annual anti-death penalty sermon. "The Biblical principle of an eye for an eye would leave the world blind. Equal justice cannot be attained in the flawed death penalty system," said Kristin Houl, Program Associate for AIUSAs Program to Abolish the Death Penalty and coordinator of the National Weekend of Faith in Action. "People of color are more likely to get the death penalty than white people. The poor are more likely to be sentenced to death than those who can afford qualified attorneys. The National Weekend of Faith in Action asks, 'Is this really equal justice? and encourages people to discuss the answers in a spiritual and introspective context." Major faith traditions around the world - including Catholicism, virtually all Protestant denominations, Reform and Conservative Judaism, and Buddhism -have taken explicit positions against the death penalty. Even faith traditions that do not specifically oppose the practice, such as Orthodox Judaism and Islam, have expressed concerns about the death penalty including the random and biased way it is applied and administered in this country. ### For more information about the National Weekend of Faith in Action please visit: http://www.amnestyusa.org/faithinaction/ For a list of events and activities taking place in communities throughout the United States please visit: http://www.amnestyusa.org/faithinaction/EventList.php (source: Amnesty International) ***************************** The Supreme Court reaffirmed yesterday that states have the authority to make their own rules for determining whether a capital defendant is mentally retarded and thus ineligible for the death penalty. The court's 2002 decision abolishing the death penalty for mentally retarded offenders left to the states "the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction." The question of how to decide who is actually retarded, through evidence from IQ tests, medical exams, school reports or other sources, is a crucial issue in determining how widely the court's ban on capital punishment for the retarded will ultimately extend. Last year, the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ordered Arizona to give death row inmate Robert Douglas Smith a jury trial on his claim of mental retardation -- even though Arizona law provides for a proceeding before a judge. Overruling the 9th Circuit in a 1 1/2 -page unsigned opinion that included no dissents, the court said that the 9th Circuit "erred" and "exceeded its narrow authority." "Arizona had not even had a chance to apply its chosen procedures when the 9th Circuit preemptively imposed its jury trial condition," the court's opinion said. Arizona's appeal was supported by 15 states. Among states that have the death penalty, 18 permit a judge to determine whether a defendant is mentally retarded, according to the states' friend-of-the-court brief. In 9 states, including Maryland and Virginia, the defendant gets a jury trial on his claim, but the burden of proof is on him, not the prosecution. A Virginia jury recently found Daryl Atkins, the death row inmate whose claim prompted the Supreme Court's 2002 decision, not retarded and eligible for execution. (source: Washington Post) TENNESSEE: Thompson witness says he should be executed A Shelbyville woman who was a key witness in the trial of a man on death row says if she was a juror in a murder case, she'd not be able to vote for execution. Nevertheless, Vavial Jamison, 65, says Gregory Thompson, the confessed and convicted killer of a Shelbyville woman on Jan. 1 1985, should be executed as directed by his Coffee County jury. "Somebody needs to do that other than me," said Jamison, who's lived in Bedford County for nearly all her life and remembers well Thompson's trial and the impact of the death of his victim, Brenda Blanton Lane. Lane was a niece of Jesse Blanton who was the police chief here at the time. She was also a former Times-Gazette reporter then working for the United Methodist Publishing House at its offices in Nashville. "I always said I was for the death penalty, but I could not carry it out," Jamison said as she reflected on the Thompson case. Because the state Supreme Court has set Feb. 7 as Thompson's execution date, the 43-year-old inmate is the focus of recurring statements, motions and responses by a Nashville lawyer, a federal defender in Knoxville, the state's attorney assigned to capital cases, and the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killings. Thompson was convicted of stabbing Lane to death after abducting her from the Big Springs Shopping Center, then the location of Wal-Mart. He's confessed to doing so to get her car so he and his girlfriend could drive to Georgia. Lane was stabbed to death in Coffee County near Manchester. It had been warm and sunny, that New Year's Day, now almost 21 years ago, Jamison said. "I think it was around 6 p.m.," she recalled. "It was still light." She'd gone to shop at Wal-Mart "just to get out of the house," Jamison said. "I had a cousin visit from New Mexico and he took a nap and my boy went to play down the street. I just said I'd go to Wal-Mart." If she bought something, she doesn't remember what it was. And she never really saw what was going on, but she heard things and interpreted them very differently from what they really were. She parked next to Lane's car. "I did not know Brenda. If I did, I might have noticed more. "I was always taught to mind your own business," she continued. So she paid little attention to the mixed race couple, rare at that time. For that reason, she didn't think something was odd. Thompson is black. The woman convicted as his accomplice is white. Lane was white. "There was a tall, slim, black man and a short, chubby white woman. I thought Brenda was a little old lady -- she was small -- and they were helping her across the street. [Lane was actually about 5 foot, 7 inches, making one wonder if she might have been crouched in fear.] "He had a long trench coat on and had his arm around her like he was helping her." The crime was, at that point, a car jacking. "I heard the man's voice; 'Oh, go on. Get in there,' and the white woman got in the back seat." Jamison went in the store and then, for some reason, she turned around and looked back outside through a window and saw JoAnne McNamara looking back out of the back of the car. McNamara was released on parole in August this year after spending 20 years in prison as Thompson's accomplice. "Her eyes were as big as silver dollars," Jamison recalled of McNamara. "And then they drove off. "At the time, I was driving back and forth to Columbia," the now-retired telephone company employee said. "I listened to the radio news [the next morning] and at first, the time [given for the crime] was about 2 p.m. "4 to 5 days later, they changed the time [of the abduction as reported in news accounts] and it was like a movie," Jamison said. "It all came back to me. "I told a friend, 'I think I know something about this.'" So she told police. "Detectives said I probably missed it by a couple of minutes. In other words, it could have been me." Months later, Jamison had an opportunity during Thompson's trial to look at the defendant and she now remembers she said to herself then, "This was somebody's baby. What has happened. What makes a human being turn ... so their thought process allows them to do something so cruel to others?" It's at that point in Jamison's explanation of her experience that she stops and says she learned in the courtroom that while she was for the death penalty, she can't sentence someone to death for a crime. Nevertheless, she's conflicted. "I believe it should have been carried out at least 15 years ago," she said of the execution now some 3-1/2 months away. "When he committed that crime, he knew what he had done," she said. "He told them where to find the body. "I am confused in my own mind, religiously," she said when asked if there was some inconsistency in her feelings. "I know the church doesn't support the death penalty. I know mine doesn't." She's Methodist. Death penalty opponents have argued that Thompson isn't competent to be executed because he doesn't know what's happening, although the state says he knows at least two things: He's sentenced to die and it's because of Lane's death. Legally, that's all that's needed for the execution to proceed, given case law followed by Tennessee courts. "I don't know what killing him would accomplish if he doesn't know what it's for," Jamison said. As for any deterrent effect on others, she replies, "I don't know. This was very calculated. Do you think people in these situations think about what they're doing?" Asked if her point is that if criminals don't think about what they're doing, then there's no deferent, she replied, "That's what I would wonder. "It's not about doing away with the death penalty. We need to be very cautious about using it." Death penalty opponents have submitted doctor statements saying Thompson is mad. "If this had been finished 2-3 years after, or 5-10 years [after the murder], there probably wouldn't be a question of his sanity," Jamison said. "Brenda was a very popular and loved person. Had it [the execution] been carried out sooner, it would have had more meaning" to the general population, she said. Thompson's execution will still have meaning for Lane's surviving relatives, Jamison said. She says she believes her testimony during Thompson's trial established circumstances about how his crime was committed. (source: Shelbyville Times-Gazette) DELAWARE----impending execution Judge won't delay killer's execution----Brian Steckel's death set for Nov. 4 for woman's 1994 rape and murder A Superior Court judge has denied a request from convicted killer Brian D. Steckel to delay his Nov. 4 execution. Steckel's attorneys argued they needed more time to complete Steckel's pardon and appeal options. In particular, attorneys John Deckers and Joseph Bernstein wrote that the Nov. 4 execution date did not give them the 90 days they are entitled to for an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. In an order signed Friday, Judge William C. Carpenter Jr. denied the request, writing that both the state Board of Parole and state Board of Pardons have agreed to hear Steckel's case before Nov. 4 and that the U. S. Supreme Court is unlikely to take the appeal. "The court finds that due to the procedural context in which the defendant is now seeking relief, that there is no basis to reasonably find that at least four justices of the United States Supreme Court would vote to grant certiorari [to hear the case] or that there is a significant possibility that the decision of the Delaware Supreme Court would be reversed," Carpenter wrote. And should the U.S. Supreme Court take the case, Carpenter concluded, the high court would promptly order a delay, "therefore, this Court also finds there is no irreparable harm to the defendant in denying his motion at this time." Steckel was convicted in 1996 and sentenced to death for the 1994 rape and murder of 29-year-old Sandra Lee Long, when he set fire to her apartment after committing the crimes. After his arrest, Steckel sent a copy of the victim's autopsy report to her mother with the note, "Read it and weep. She's gone forever. Don't cry over burnt flesh." In September, the state Supreme Court denied Steckel's most recent appeal as having been filed too late. On Monday, Deckers said an appeal had been filed with the Delaware Supreme Court challenging Carpenter's ruling. He said simultaneous appeals will also be filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging Delaware's death penalty as unconstitutional, and with the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. Last week, Deputy Attorney General Loren Meyers said he does not expect the Nov. 4 execution to be delayed. "We believe that Steckel has fully litigated all his claims and that any effort by the defendant to obtain further review will be unsuccessful," he said. The last person to be executed in Delaware was Abdullah T. Hameen, 37, who was put to death in May 2001 for the 1991 murder of Troy Hodges during an aborted drug deal. (source: The News Journal) WYOMING: Lawyers question witness's status Attorneys for Andrew Yellowbear are disputing whether the mother of his daughter is competent to testify against him when he goes on trial for 1st-degree murder in the girl's death. "Conditions" said to have kept Macalia Blackburn from protecting the 22-month-old girl -- and which then led her to initially take responsibility for the child's death -- also call into question her competence to testify, the attorneys argue in two motions filed in 5th District Court. The motions ask that Blackburn be compelled to undergo a psychological evaluation and that a hearing be held to determine her suitability to testify at Yellowbear's trial, in which prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Blackburn and Yellowbear were initially both charged with first-degree murder in connection with Marcella Hope Yellowbear's death. The girl died in July 2004 in Riverton, reportedly suffering in the weeks leading to her death from extensive abuse that left her with burns, bruises and sores, a broken arm, a fractured skull, third-degree burns to her hand and a hole in her chin. Blackburn initially told investigators she was responsible for the child's death. She later changed that account, and in June she pleaded guilty to being an accessory to second-degree murder as part of an agreement that allows for her testimony against Yellowbear. The motions are latest in a series of filings that have seen the case set before a new judge and then moved from Lander to Thermopolis. Yellowbear's attorneys have also made various efforts to have the case dismissed, in one case appealing the charges to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. The most recent of these efforts was denied last week by 7th District Judge David Park. Diane Lozano, Yellowbear's lead attorney, said she is now thinking of asking for a delayed start to the trial, which is scheduled to begin Jan. 9. Yellowbear's case received some attention in recent weeks when it was announced that he was seeking a court order to have Marcella's body exhumed so that a second autopsy could be performed. The request for exhumation, however, was not filed, and Lozano said such an effort is not part of the defense team's current strategy. Lozano and fellow attorney Terry Rogers point in the current motions to the state's reference to post-traumatic stress disorder and battered woman syndrome in explaining how Macalia Blackburn coped with and responded to her daughter's death. "According to the state, these 'conditions' from which Ms. Blackburn suffers are so debilitating that she could not protect her child and so debilitating she gave a candid, detailed and grisly 'false' account of what happened to her 22-month-old child," the motions say. As such, the documents continue, Blackburn's competence to testify is questionable. Lozano and Rogers also report having received information that Blackburn is being held in "mental health isolation" at the Fremont County Detention Center. Fremont County Attorney Ed Newell could not be reached on Monday to comment on the motions. James Wolfe, the Cheyenne attorney representing Blackburn, said he had not looked at the documents. He maintained, however, that his client is "perfectly competent." Yellowbear faces 2 charges of 1st-degree murder and 2 charges of being an accessory before the fact to 1st-degree murder. (source: Jackson Hole Star Tribune)
