Oct. 18 TEXAS----impending execution San Angelo man to die for murder-for-hire scheme Condemned inmate Luis Ramirez chuckles about how he's been a lifelong prankster and wonders if his death sentence is the ultimate prank by someone trying to get even with him. Then the reality of his lethal injection scheduled for Thursday evening hits, and it's no laughing matter that he's about to die for a crime he insists he didn't commit. "Under the surface, I'm seething with anger," Ramirez, 42, said from a small visiting cage outside Texas' death row. "But showing it, what is it going to get me? I am beyond rage." Ramirez was convicted of fatally shooting a San Angelo firefighter in 1998, which prosecutors said was the climax of a murder-for-hire scheme he initiated. The victim, Nemecio Nandin, 29, had been dating Ramirez's ex-wife. Ramirez would be the 15th Texas inmate put to death this year and the 2nd this month. 6 more are scheduled to die in November. Appeals lawyers asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute his sentence to life in prison. They also were in the courts to try to block the execution. "The case to me is an example of how the world of domestic violence can turn into a horrible murder when it's not checked," Steve Lupton, the district attorney in San Angelo who prosecuted Ramirez, said this week. Testimony in the capital murder trial showed Ramirez remained obsessed with his ex-wife, Dawn, some two years after a 1995 divorce following eight years of marriage. Investigators who questioned his former wife said she learned from their children that Ramirez had been asking them about her relationship with Nandin the weekend before the firefighter disappeared and declared to their children he would "take care of the problem." Authorities believed Ramirez, working with an accomplice, lured Nandin to a house near Tennyson, about 25 miles northeast of San Angelo, under the pretense of repair job. Nandin had a side job as an appliance repairman. Evidence showed Nandin was handcuffed, taken to a chicken coop, shot twice with a shotgun and then buried on the rural property. The body was found there more than a week later, after Nandin had been reported missing when he failed to show up for work. An informant told police Ramirez had offered him $1,000 to participate in the killing but that money instead was paid to Edward Bell, who later was arrested in Tyler. Inside Bell's wallet were Ramirez's business card, a hand-drawn map to the home of Ramirez's ex-wife, a description of her vehicle and license plate number, all in Ramirez's handwriting. Also in Bell's vehicle was a pair of jeans covered with Nandin's blood. Bell's girlfriend took detectives to a spot where she said Bell tossed a pair of latex gloves. They found a glove and the keys to Nandin's truck. Bell was convicted and received a life prison term. Ramirez got death. "I didn't do this," Ramirez, who worked at a San Angelo mortgage company, said from death row, arguing he was checking out a property some 70 miles away at the time of the slaying. "I have no idea who did. I didn't even have a parking ticket on my record." During the punishment phase of his trial, Ramirez's former wife told jurors she was verbally and physically abused and threatened after they separated. The wife from an earlier marriage testified he abused her as well. There also was testimony he had destroyed one of his wives' cars to collect insurance money, trashed a house she was trying to sell, slashed the tires of a man one of his ex-wives was dating and threatened another. "They don't have any physical evidence that directly ties Mr. Ramirez to the crime - no fingerprints, nobody saw him right there," Ramirez's appeals lawyer, Rusty Wall, said. "They have strong circumstantial evidence." "We asked the jury to find him guilty and the jury did," Lupton said. "We felt like this case warranted answering those special issues so that he would be executed and the jury agreed. I haven't changed my opinion on what I asked the jury to do." Ramirez web site: http://www.brokenchains.us/TheEagleSpeaks/LRamirez.html Texas prison system execution schedule: http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/scheduledexecutions.htm (source: Associated Press) ********************* Last words keep coming from death row Any dying man, or one who is close to death, ought to have his say. No matter what anyone may think of him, regardless of what he may have done and despite how and why he dies, he should be heard if he has the will to speak. And the least we can do is listen. Sadly, I've heard too many dying words -- some from loved ones with debilitating, incurable diseases; a few from those who, out of despair, decided to take their own lives; and, regretfully, far too many from people who had become victims of a bloodthirsty state that kills in the name of the law. Luis Ramirez has an appointment with death Thursday evening. I've never met him, but we've communicated by mail, so I feel as if we know each other. Even if there had been no contact, this would be a distressing day for me as I contemplate his execution. Ramirez, whom I first heard from about 1 1/2 years ago, was convicted in the death of a 19-year-old San Angelo man in 1998. The state said Ramirez hired Edward Bell to kill Nemicio Nandin, who was dating Ramirez's ex-wife. Maintaining his innocence to this day, Ramirez insists that his conviction was based on the testimony of a paid informant. National anti-death-penalty groups and people from other countries have been petitioning Gov. Rick Perry to spare his life. I don't know if he committed the crime or not; his guilt or innocence is not my main concern. I've fought practically all my life to rid Texas and the country of this insanity known as capital punishment. Despite what many of you may believe, Ramirez is not just another number on Texas' death row. He is a human being, capable of thinking and feeling and, yes, dying. The first letter I got from him was one he also had written to others, relating a story about another Death Row inmate, Napoleon Beazley, a teen-ager at the time of his offense whose last written message I printed shortly after he was executed in 2004. Ramirez thought there was a story Beazley's family, and the rest of the world, ought to know about him. Recalling his first day on death row, Ramirez wrote: "I came here in May of 1999. The exact date is something that I can't recall. I do remember arriving in the afternoon. I was placed in a cell on H-20 wing over at the Ellis Unit in Huntsville, TX. A Tsunami of emotions and thoughts were going through my mind at the time. I remember the only things in the cell were a mattress, pillow, a couple of sheets, a pillow case, a roll of toilet paper, and a blanket. I remember sitting there utterly lost." He had expected the worst after first meeting Beazley and hearing the veteran inmate announce his name to the other convicts on the unit. "Well, that's not what happened," he continued. "After supper was served, Napolean was once again sweeping the floors. As he passed my cell, he swept a brown paper bag into it. I asked him, 'What's this?' He said for me to look inside and continued on his way. Man, I didn't know what to expect. I was certain it was something bad. Curiosity did get the best of me though. I carefully opened the bag. What I found was the last thing I ever expected to find on death row, and everything I needed. The bag contained some stamps, envelopes, notepad, pen, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, tooth brush, a pastry, a soda, and a cup of Ramen noodles. I remember asking Napolean where this came from. "He told me that everyone had pitched in. That they knew that I didn't have anything and that it may be a while before I could get them. I asked him to find out who had contributed. I wanted to pay them back. He said, 'It's not like that. Just remember the next time you see someone come here like you. You pitch in something.'" In a letter sent to a local woman at about the same time in 2004, Ramirez reflected on capital punishment. "As for the death penalty?" he wrote. "I don't know what it will take to put an end to it. It really is an ironic thing. The people of our state who are its most ardent supporters are also its most vulnerable victims. The poor and the middle class are the ones who support this thing, or make [up] a majority of those who do. And, it's the poor and middle class who make up the death row population. "Ignorance of the way the system operates is literally killing us. The death penalty is here to protect only wealthy offenders. Those who can afford proper counsel, they don't come to death row. Even if they're as guilty as they can be. It's the poor and middle class who end up relying on incompetent but qualified court-appointed attorneys who fill the cells around me. I'm one of these myself! "The system falls very short of the Utopian idea that is 'fair and equal justice for all.' The only things that will stop the death penalty are exposure of all its blunders and pitfalls. And, education of the public to what it really is. It's a legal lynching system. It's about revenge, it's anything but just." These are the words of a man preparing to meet death at the hands of the state. Hear him well. (source: Column, Bob Ray Sanders, Fort Worth Star-Telegram) VIRGINIA: They'll kill for this job For a person who repeatedly refers to himself as favoring the "culture of life," Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore is certainly on one huge death trip. With the sole exception of a honey-roasted TV appearance with his twin brother Terry, Kilgore's campaign has for months pumped out nothing but attack ads. The latest of these are perhaps the most vile. They attempt to portray Democratic Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine, Kilgore's opponent, as someone who can not to be trusted to carry out the death sentence if elected governor. Worse, the ads try to depict Kaine as someone whose sympathies lie with criminals rather than victims. One ad goes so far as to twist Kaine's words, alleging that Kaine would have found Adolf Hitler worthy of pardon. Reality check Let's toss a wrench in the Kilgore Spin Machine for a moment. Let's put a halt to the loathsome truth-twisting that Kilgore's millions are paying so that his media strategist, Scott Howell, can concoct these sick fantasies. That Scott Howell would be the same person whose TV ads portrayed Vietnam war hero Max Cleland as a coward while building up a candidate who never served at all - Saxby Chambliss, who ducked duty in Vietnam because he "blew out his knee" playing football. Guess what? Chambliss now occupies Cleland's Senate seat. In the black-is-white world of the Big Lie that is political advertising, the same twisted logic is being used against Kaine. The difference here is that instead of impugning Kaine's patriotism or bravery, Kilgore is dragging Kaine's religious beliefs through the mud for his personal political gain. Honest to a fault Tim Kaine, to his credit, has been honest about his beliefs as a Roman Catholic. He is against abortion and has a moral objection to the death penalty. Kaine has been up front about this. What is ignored in the rush by Kilgore and his spin doctors to cut Kaine with his own words and use his faith as a weapon is this: Kaine has been equally up front about the solemnity with which he views his oath of office, particularly when it comes to upholding the laws of Virginia and the will of its people. Nothing that Kaine has done during his tenure as lieutenant governor could lead anyone to believe he would stand in the way of the death sentence being carried out where it was warranted. He has made no motions to try to dismantle the death penalty in Virginia and knows that if he tried he would bring his own house down around his ears. We have no doubt that he will make a thoughtful governor who will give capital cases the intense scrutiny they deserve - in contrast with his opponent, who seems possessed of a bloodlust that stretches back through his political history like a stain. Despite the fact that we believe Kaine would not send an innocent person to death - a commendable trait in a governor, we think - we also have faith that Kaine would order a prisoner to be strapped to the gurney and the lethal fluids allowed to flow in any case where death was deserved. Outrageous claim As far as the hallucination the Kilgore campaign is trying to get the rest of us to see - that Kaine said he believed Adolf Hitler deserved mercy - an hallucination is all that it is. During a panel interview at the Richmond Times-Dispatch in September, Kaine was asked if he believed anyone deserved the death penalty, specifically tyrants such as Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. Kaine answered, "I think God grants life, God should take it away." What the Kilgore ad fails to note is that these words were followed up with the statement that he would uphold the law and the will of the people despite the tenets of his faith. Coming and going Since the Kilgore campaign has reduced the death penalty to a wedge issue to confuse voters, why not twist a man's faith into a noose to be placed around his neck? If Kaine had not been up front about his beliefs as a Catholic, he would have been outed as a person who was hiding his faith from the voters; by being honest, he has been vilified just as badly - perhaps worse. Welcome to the sickness that is modern American politics. It's a disease Virginia used to be inoculated against. (source: Staunton News Leader - Opinions expressed in this feature represent the majority opinion of the newspaper's editorial board, consisting of: Roger Watson, president and publisher; David Fritz, executive editor; Cindy Corell, city editor; Jim McCloskey, editorial cartoonist; Dennis Neal, opinion page editor; and Macon Rich, production director. ) DELAWARE: Thomas Capano Back in Court Delaware's highest court is scheduled to hear today from condemned killer Thomas Capano. The former attorney claims Delaware's death penalty law is unconstitutional. Capano was convicted of the 1996 murder of Anne Marie Fahey, the scheduling secretary for then-Governor Thomas Carper. Fahey disappeared after she tried to end an affair with Capano. She was last seen dining with the prominent Wilmington lawyer at a restaurant in Philadelphia. In a court brief made public in June, his lawyer argued that Capano's trial judge in could not impose a death sentence because only eleven of 12 jurors agreed an aggravating circumstance was involved in the murder. The defense says the jurors should have unanimously agreed during the sentencing hearing that the murder was premeditated and the result of substantial planning. (source: Associated Press) TENNESSEE: Thompson motions denied by state court The Tennessee Supreme Court on Tuesday denied requests that would stop the Feb. 7 execution of a 43-year-old man who's been on death row 20 years for the stabbing death of a Shelbyville woman. However, Gregory Thompson's Nashville attorney, Michael Passino, managed to keep statements in the condemned man's case file saying that his insanity has grown worse and so he's not mentally fit to be executed. The high court reviewed an additional statement from Dr. Faye Sultan "out of an abundance of caution" while recognizing "possible procedural irregularities" arising from the doctor's statement being filed with only a cover letter -- without legal arguments. Such are the latest developments in Thompson's case as two more deadlines were set this week for death penalty opponents and the State Attorney General's office that's charged with the responsibility of arguing Thompson's execution should be carried out as decided by a Coffee County jury. Thompson is the confessed murderer of Brenda Blanton Lane who was working for the United Methodist Publishing House in Nashville when she was abducted from the Wal-Mart parking lot when it was facing the Shelbyville Police Department where her uncle was chief of police. Lane was also a former Shelbyville Times-Gazette reporter. She was abducted to get her car so Thompson and his girlfriend could drive to Marietta, Ga. Thompson stabbed Lane to death with a rusty butcher knife near Manchester. Monday, Passino told the justices that additional statements from Dr. Sultan should be left in Thompson's record because they should welcome all information on matters of life and death. The state had argued they should be stricken from the record because they were submitted in a manner that's not consistent with judicial procedure. Furthermore, Thompson's lawyer said, while Jennifer Smith, the deputy attorney general assigned to death penalty cases, tried to limit information to the justices, the attorney general's office "has been surreptitiously gathering" from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution where Thompson is being held a great deal of information about Thompson's mental health. That's been done on a weekly basis "without knowledge of or disclosure to" the condemned man's lawyers or the courts, Passino wrote to the high court. That information includes records of Thompson's disciplinary records, recordings of his phone calls, institutional education records and records on his medical treatment, the Nashville lawyer said. On such an issue, Smith told the Times-Gazette on Oct. 1 that it would be part of her due diligence to be checking state records on Thompson. That was in response to a news question to her about assertions from the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing. TCASK Executive Director Randy Tatel had said that schizophrenia prevents Thompson from understanding that the state is about to execute him for Lane's murder and that his madness has led to him eating his own feces. "If they say he's doing that," Smith said, "I'll have to check with the prison." The state isn't interested in executing someone who doesn't know what's happening, she said. Nevertheless, the legal standard to allow execution is simple, according to the state's arguments. The condemned must know they're to be executed and why. Passino said the reason for proceedings -- including a hearing he'd sought and was denied -- are to provide the last avenue of reprieve available to an inmate sentenced to death. Beyond denying the request for a hearing, the Supreme Court denied: Requests that it reconsider its order setting Feb. 7 as the execution date; a motion to stop the execution; and a request for a certificate of commutation, a step toward taking the matter to Gov. Phil Bredesen who'd be asked for clemency. Having denied the requests, the court set Nov. 18 as the deadline for any final statements regarding claims that Thompson is not fit to be executed. And, Dec. 2 was set as the deadline for the state's response to those final statements from Thompson's defense team. (source: Shelbyville Times-Gazette) OHIO: Board recommends against clemency a 2nd time A death row inmate's rare 2nd chance to ask for his life to be spared did not change the minds of Ohio Parole Board members who on Wednesday recommended for the second time that his execution go ahead. Gov. Bob Taft will decide whether to accept the board's 6-3 recommendation to deny clemency or reduce John Spirko's sentence to life in prison without parole for the murder of a postal worker in northwest Ohio. Taft allowed a second clemency hearing for Spirko after a newspaper report that the state's attorney presented inaccurate information on what Spirko knew about the slaying and his whereabouts on the day it happened. Most parole board members said they thought the case clearly showed the death penalty was the correct sentence. "The majority is not convinced that any manifest injustice occurred in Mr. Spirko's case," the board's majority wrote in its recommendation. Spirko's 2nd hearing was the only such hearing allowed since Ohio resumed executions in 1999. Taft postponed Spirko's execution until Nov. 15 to allow for the new hearing. Spirko, 59, was convicted in 1982 stabbing of Betty Jane Mottinger, 48, the postmistress in Elgin. (source: Associated Press)
