Oct. 29 PENNSYLVANIA: Hep C kills activist William Nieves After spending 6 years on death row for a murder he swore he didn't commit, William Nieves became an ardent crusader against capital punishment, traveling the globe to call for an end to the death penalty. But though he dodged execution by lethal injection, he left prison 5 years ago this week with another death sentence that was meted out this month. Nieves, 39, of Feltonville, died Oct. 8 from complications of hepatitis C, liver disease and other problems - first diagnosed, but never properly treated, while he was in prison, supporters say. Nieves' death extinguishes a powerful and eloquent voice against the death penalty, and raises questions about the adequacy of medical care in state prisons, friends and observers say. "He put a human face on the issue of the death penalty and innocent people on death row and the need for a moratorium on executions," said Jeff Garis, a former executive director of Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty, who hired Nieves as a community organizer after his 2000 prison release. The state Department of Corrections defended prison policies of treating sick prisoners, and a spokesperson said it was unlikely that Nieves would have been denied treatment. The group staged a vigil yesterday outside District Attorney Lynne Abraham's office to remember Nieves and to protest the death penalty. Nieves' trip to death row started with drugs. He was an addict who began selling drugs to support his addiction, he said in a 2001 interview. In September 1993, he drew scrutiny from city homicide detectives, who believed that he had fatally shot Eric McAliley on Dec. 22, 1992, outside McAliley's Hunting Park home. Detectives blamed a dispute over drugs and money. Nieves could not remember his whereabouts on the night in question. He admitted that he had known McAliley, 20, but denied any role in the murder. He was tried and convicted and sent to death row. Once imprisoned, he began researching his case and won a new trial based on ineffective legal counsel. "His attorney, who had never handled a capital case and was paid a total of $2,500, presented no witnesses and gave virtually no defense in the sentencing phase," said Jamie Graham, a board member of the abolitionists group. A new lawyer uncovered witnesses describing two black men as the killers, which led to Nieves' exoneration at a 2000 retrial. Supporters accuse prosecutors of deliberately hiding exculpatory evidence, a charge that Abraham's spokeswoman denies. "The case was handled properly," D.A. spokeswoman Cathie Abookire said. "He was convicted in the first trial. He was granted a new trial because he claimed he never got a chance to testify. Yet in the second trial, he never testified." At his retrial, prosecutors called witnesses who fingered Nieves as the killer and introduced incriminating evidence. Still, Nieves was acquitted. During his imprisonment, Nieves suffered from gallstones and other pains for which he sought medical treatment. Instead, he said in a 2001 interview, "The guards just laughed at me and told me to act like a man. I needed gall-bladder surgery, but they didn't want to do surgery on a death-row inmate. So, I was in pain for years." Graham said Nieves learned in 1998, after sneaking a peek at his prison files during a medical exam, that prison medical staff had diagnosed him with hepatitis C as early as 1993 but had never informed him or treated him for his ailment. Sheila Moore, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections, said she found the scenario unlikely. "They can sign up for sick call every day if they want," Moore said. Prisons policy requires inmates to be medically screened within 14 days of entering the system, Moore said. Afterward, they receive regular checkups every one to three years, depending on their age. Moore declined to comment on Nieves' case, citing medical-confidentiality laws. (source: Philadelphia Daily News) OHIO: Judge refuses to reopen probe of investigator in capital case A federal judge has rejected a death row inmate's request to re-examine allegations of misconduct by an investigator who helped convict the inmate of killing a postmistress. U.S. District Judge James Carr decided Friday to send the case back to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, finding no basis behind defense arguments that postal inspector Paul Hartman lied while testifying in John Spirko's trial in 1984. Spirko, 59, who maintains his innocence, is to be executed Nov. 15 for the 1982 murder of Betty Jane Mottinger, 48, the postmistress in Elgin in northwest Ohio. She was abducted and repeatedly stabbed, then wrapped in a curtain and dumped in a field. Her body was found three weeks later. Hartman, the state's lead investigator, said during questioning by Spirko's lawyers that he had never been the subject of a complaint. In August, a former co-worker wrote a letter to U.S. Chief Postal Inspector Leroy Heath, informing him about 15 complaints filed by employees against Hartman. Carr denied a defense motion asking the court to reconsider Hartman's credibility, saying Hartman clearly thought he was being asked whether he had been cited in a formal agency complaint. A defense attorney said Spirko would appeal. Carr also denied a defense request for a new trial, saying there was no reason to believe that investigators hid evidence from the defense. The Ohio Parole Board earlier this month recommended by a 6-3 vote that Gov. Bob Taft deny Spirko clemency, repeating its previous decision. It was the 1st time since Ohio resumed executions in 1999 that a condemned inmate has received a second clemency hearing. (source : Associated Press) **************** Spirko appeal on trial witness denied A federal judge yesterday rejected a motion from death-row inmate John Spirko in a bid to reopen a new avenue of appeals on his conviction for the murder of a rural Van Wert County postmaster. U.S. District Judge James Carr denied a motion from Spirko to reconsider the credibility of a retired postal inspector whose testimony was used to convict Spirko in the August, 1982, slaying of Betty Jane Mottinger. Spirko, 59, is scheduled to die Nov. 15 for the abduction and murder of the 48-year-old woman, who was the postmaster at the tiny village of Elgin, Ohio. She was kidnapped from the rural post office and found nearly 6 weeks later. She was stabbed more than a dozen times. The motion was based on an Aug. 31 letter from Gregory Duerr, an inspector in Cleveland, to U.S. Chief Postal Inspector Leroy Heath, informing him that 15 complaints were filed by employees against Postal Inspector Paul Hartman, a key witness at the 1984 trial. The letter surfaced after Judge Carr decided against Spirko in the appeal of the court's decision in 2000 that upheld Spirko's conviction and death sentence. "We are disappointed with the decision on the motion. We continue to maintain that John Spirko is innocent of the crime," said Spirko's Washington attorney, Alvin Dunn. The Ohio Parole Board has twice denied clemency for Spirko, most recently on Oct. 19 when the credibility of Mr. Hartman was challenged. The retired postal inspector's interviews with Spirko were key in obtaining the conviction. Mr. Dunn said an appeal of Judge Carr's denial of the motion likely would be made to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. (source: Toledo Blade) ****************** Judge rejects Spirko's argument -- Inmate's execution date nears A federal judge in Toledo has refused to revisit the case of death-row inmate John Spirko, finding no reason to further investigate complaints by former co-workers about the investigator who helped win Spirko's 1984 murder conviction. With just over 2 weeks to go until Spirko's scheduled execution, the case returns to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a Friday ruling, U.S. District Judge James Carr rejected arguments that retired Postal Inspector Paul Hartman lied under oath during questioning by Spirko's lawyers when he said he had never been the subject of a complaint. Carr said Hartman clearly thought he was being asked whether he had been named in a formal agency complaint. The judge said Hartman's fellow postal inspectors and employees had complained about his temperament and behavior as a supervisor in 2000. Hartman disputed the complaints, but decided to retire earlier than planned. Carr privately reviewed government records about the complaints and found nothing relating to the Spirko investigation, prosecution or conviction. This was Carr's second Spirko ruling in 2 months. In early September, he rejected arguments that the state used fraud to thwart the inmate's earlier appeal. Spirko's lawyers were appealing that decision when they received a letter by a former Hartman co-worker raising questions about his integrity and professionalism -- and whether Spirko was guilty of murder. That letter prompted Spirko's lawyers to seek relief from Carr. Lawyers for Spirko and the state subsequently interviewed Hartman's former co-worker. But he offered no specific information about improper action by Hartman in the Spirko case. Now that Carr has ruled, the underlying case returns to the appeals court. Lawyers for Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro have denied the fraud allegations. (source: Plain Dealer) KANSAS: Judge imposes death penalty, then 'Hard 50' -- just in case Ellawese Chandler, the mother of murder victim Gloria Jones, used to oppose the death penalty. On Friday, Chandler told Phillip D. Cheatham, the man who prosecutors said killed her daughter when he shot her 8 times, that she would gladly give him the lethal injection at his execution. Chandler won't get to execute Cheatham, but the state of Kansas will -- under the sentence set forth Friday by Shawnee County District Judge Matthew Dowd. The death penalty is for killing Annette Roberson on Dec. 13, 2003, at a duplex at 2718 S.E. Colorado. Cheatham was sentenced to a "Hard 50" for killing Jones. No date has been scheduled for Cheatham's execution. The death penalty was struck down by the Kansas Supreme Court in December 2004, and the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing whether the state's death penalty is constitutional. According to Kansas law, the method of execution is lethal injection. Calling the slayings a "vicious, cold-blooded series of murders," Dowd said if ever there was a crime when the death penalty should apply, "this is it." As a backup sentence in case the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't reverse the state court, Dowd gave Cheatham consecutive sentences totaling 78 years and 1 month. "The defendant should not ever see the light of day," Dowd said. Prosecutors were correct in asking the court to impose consecutive rather than concurrent sentences because the crimes were separate offenses against separate victims, Dowd said. To make the sentences concurrent would minimize the crimes, he said. If the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't reverse the Kansas Supreme Court's decision, Cheatham would return to court to be resentenced on the capital murder count to another Hard 50, District Attorney Robert Hecht said in a statement Friday. Jurors also convicted Cheatham of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery and criminal possession of a firearm in the shooting of Annetta Thomas, who survived. Before he was sentenced, Cheatham, who wore a dark suit, white shirt and tie, handcuffs and leg irons, stood to express condolences to the victims and their families. ** Phillip D. Cheatham's Sentence Capital murder of Annette Roberson: Death 1st-degree premeditated murder of Gloria Jones: 50 years without parole Attempted premeditated 1st-degree murder of Annetta Thomas: 23 years and 9 months, the maximum Aggravated battery of Thomas: 3 years and 7 months Criminal possession of a weapon: 9 months Total prison time: 78 years and 1 month ** "I expect to be vindicated, and the truth will come out," said Cheatham, whose defense attorney had insisted his client was en route to Chicago when the 3 women were shot. As for the death penalty, "if that's what the court chooses to sentence me, that's God's will," Cheatham said. In September, Cheatham signed a letter to Dowd, "King Phil D. Cheatham." Lynda Perry-Grigsby, Cheatham's mother, insisted her son was innocent and asked for time until information surfaces that would acquit him. Dennis Hawver, Cheatham's attorney, questioned the veracity of the testimony of Thomas, the only survivor of the bloody attack but who has been convicted of forgery. Simply because the jury convicted Cheatham doesn't mean he committed the crimes, Hawver said. Thomas, who survived 19 bullet wounds to testify that Cheatham was one of 2 gunmen who shot the three women, urged Dowd to sentence Cheatham to death. "Mr. Cheatham showed no mercy to me or my friends," said Thomas, who walks slowly with an obvious limp. Deputy District Attorney David Debenham made impassioned arguments seeking the death penalty and long sentences for the other crimes. "If not Phillip Cheatham, who would (the death penalty) apply to?" Debenham said. "There is no reason for this individual to walk in civilized society again." After Debenham's remarks, Hawver was asked whether he had any response. "It would be nice if we had the right man," Hawver said. "The jury believed we have the right man, and I do also," Dowd said. Cheatham also was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in 1995 for killing Robert Ford in Kansas City, Kan. Outside court, Chandler said the death penalty was what she wanted for Cheatham. "He's dangerous to society. He's taken three lives. How many more does he have to take before they put him to sleep?" she said. Cheatham's lack of remorse changed her view of capital punishment, she said. Christopher Davis, a brother of Jones, said the death penalty was "very much appropriate" for Cheatham. He said he wished he could activate the lethal injection that would execute him. Davis said he planned to travel from his home in Denver to witness the execution. "It will be a glorious day. I wish he could die like my sister did, suffering," Davis said. After Cheatham had been sentenced, Hawver asked the judge precisely how long his client had been sentenced to prison. "He'll have to add it up. He'll have plenty of time to do that," Dowd told Hawver, then left the courtroom. (source: Topeka Capital-Journal) MISSOURI: Lawyers for girls' killer appeals to Supreme Court----Lawyers for girls' killer appeal to high court In a bid to delay the execution of the final man on death row for the 1991 murder of two young women at the old Chain of Rocks Bridge, lawyers for Reginald Clemons announced Friday that they have appealed the case again to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Missouri Attorney General's Office is within weeks of asking the Missouri Supreme Court for an execution date for Clemons, spokesman Scott Holste said. In 1993, after 3 hours of deliberation, a St. Louis jury convicted Clemons of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder for the deaths of Julie and Robin Kerry. Prosecutors said Clemons and two other men raped the girls before pushing them off the then-unused bridge to their deaths in the Mississippi River. The victims' cousin, Tom Cummins, also was forced to jump but survived. One of the convicted killers, Marlin Gray, was executed Wednesday. The Missouri Supreme Court reduced Antonio Richardson's death sentence to life in prison, finding he should have been sentenced by a jury and not a judge. An additional defendant, Daniel Winfrey, 15 at the time of the murders, confessed a role in the crime, pleaded guilty and testified against the others in exchange for a 30-year prison sentence. Clemons has appealed his conviction on a number of grounds, but recent appeals have focused on the selection of jurors for the trial. In 2002, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry said the trial judge should not have excluded 6 prospective jurors who expressed reservations about imposing the death penalty. Perry said prosecutor Nels Moss improperly posed a question to the jurors. Perry's ruling threw out the death penalty against Clemons, but it was reinstated by the 8th U.S. Court of Appeals. That court said that Perry was wrong and should have deferred to the judgment of the state courts. On Oct. 3, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Clemons' case. Holste said Clemons' new appeal to the high court is not expected to delay setting an execution date, unless the court agrees to review the case. The new appeal says the U.S. Supreme Court is considering issues in 2 other cases that are similar to those Clemons has raised and that his execution should be delayed until the other cases are heard. After appellate courts affirm a prisoner's death sentence, the attorney general's office can petition for an execution date. Before 2002, those dates were set within weeks of receiving the petition, but the pace slowed. The petition seeking a date for Gray was filed more than 2 years before the court set a date. Courts have rejected Clemons' other appeals, including claims that Moss committed misconduct during the trial, that there was not enough evidence to convict Clemons of 1st-degree murder and that his confession was coerced by a police beating. Gray and Cummins also claimed to have been beaten into making incriminating statements. Police reached a $150,000 settlement of a civil suit filed by Cummins, who initially was a suspect before a flashlight found on the bridge led investigators to Clemons and the others. (source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch) CALIFORNIA: For Some, Redemption of Killer Rings Hollow Gene Hetzel is aware that death row inmate Stanley "Tookie" Williams has written books and been the subject of a movie. Hetzel even heard talk of a Nobel Prize nomination some years ago. And he knows that influential people are lobbying to win him clemency. But for Hetzel, these details are eclipsed by older, clearer memories he links to Williams: the smell of garlic hovering on a cold morning over 3 people crumpled in a motel living room, their bodies blown apart by gunfire. Williams was convicted of these 1979 murders and one other, and is scheduled to be executed Dec. 13. An admitted former gang leader, he has said he changed his outlook in prison, though he has maintained that he didn't commit these murders. But Hetzel, 65, a retired homicide detective who investigated Williams, said he would never be convinced - not by Williams' contentions that he is innocent, not by his professed change of heart that has drawn so many local and international religious leaders and other opponents of the death penalty to his defense. "I don't know," Hetzel said. "I try to rationalize this every time I hear about it, and I don't know. I just don't know." Hetzel belongs to a small cadre of skeptics - victims' loved ones and police officers, mostly - who recall a time before the world had heard of Tookie Williams. They remember how little was said, over the years, of Albert Lewis Owens, a clerk at a 7-Eleven in Pico Rivera, and the Yang family, who ran a motel on Vermont Avenue. Their deaths hardly made the papers. Williams, 51, was convicted of killing four people in 2 robberies in 1979. The 1st crime took place Feb. 28, when Owens, a father of 2 working the night shift at the 7-Eleven, was shotgunned twice in the back at close range. The 2nd crime occurred 11 days later, after robbers crashed through the office door of the Brookhaven Motel, on Vermont Avenue just south of Century Boulevard, court documents said. Shot were motel owners Yen-I Yang, 65; Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, 62; and their daughter Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 42, according to coroner's officials. Owens' stepmother, Lora Owens, said she was outraged that Williams' story of redemption (he was the subject of a television movie of that name) had eclipsed the story of Albert, a beloved son and father who served in the Army. Albert was slim, 5 foot 9, with red hair, freckles and blue eyes, she said, adding that he was outgoing and "liked to do anything that was physical, anything manly." She has one memory that sticks with her. It's just a random moment, a sunny afternoon: Albert is on the front lawn, showing off for the neighbors, doing push-ups with one hand. The neighbors laugh. His young stepbrothers watch, awestruck; they worshiped Albert. Lora Owens recalls chiding her stepson: "Pretty good! Now can you use those muscles to push the lawnmower?" He later married, had two daughters and settled in Whittier. The marriage ended in divorce. At 26, Owens, unsteadied by the breakup, "was trying to figure things out," Lora Owens said. He had always had a practical, willing attitude about work, and he wasn't above a job as a night clerk at 7-Eleven. Owens laughed off his stepmother's worries. "I need the money," she recalled him saying. It was 4 a.m. when the 4 robbers came in. One of them took Albert into a storeroom and made him kneel or lie down, according to police accounts and court documents. He was shot twice in the back at close range with a 12-gauge shotgun. A customer found his body later, according to press accounts. Afterward, an accomplice of Williams who turned informant said Williams bragged that he "blew some white guy away, shot him in the back, for $63," according to court documents. Charles and Lora Owens were notified by phone. Charles' health went downhill after that. On his deathbed in 1995, Albert's father turned to his wife and asked, "You won't forget Albert, will you?" When the television movie got Albert's name wrong, calling him "Alvin," Lora Owens tracked down the producers and complained. They apologized and changed it, she said. She favors the execution and views Williams' fame as a betrayal. She tells people who disagree that they don't know the agony of the loss. "Albert was so vibrant and alive. Then, in the next minute, he was dead," she said. The triple slaying had the same style as the Owens murder. Relatives of the victims could not be reached for comment, but others who were there say they won't forget it. The Yangs were Taiwanese, according to police. They owned the Brookhaven Motel. Daughter Yu-Chin Lin had just joined them from Taiwan. Sgt. David Longshore, a Los Angeles County sheriff's detective, knew the name "Barefoot Tookie" Williams at the time, in the loose way that police track local gang members thought to be shot-callers and shooters in the areas where they work. Just before dawn, the patrol supervisor got a call about a shooting. The neighborhood was notorious for crime. Sometimes, Longshore simply parked there to wait for crimes to happen. On this night, he got to the motel and found a swarm of emergency workers in the family's tiny living space adjoining the office. The father lay on the couch. The mother and daughter were on the floor. "They were crumpled together, as if cowering," Longshore recalled. There was gore. Twelve-gauge shotgun blasts, fired at close range, had ripped large holes in the victims' bodies. Yu-Chin Lin had been shot in the face. Yen-I and Tsai-Shai Yang were shot twice in their torsos. Mother and daughter were still alive. They died shortly after at hospitals. Longshore remembers noticing the parents' age - too elderly, he thought, to pose a threat. "I couldn't understand it," he said. Hetzel, the sheriff's homicide detective who arrived shortly after, remembered noting that the victims were strikingly small. The room smelled of their cooking, a garlicky scent grotesquely at odds with the scene, he recalled. For some reason, the furniture was in disorder. Hetzel began looking for shell casings and realized that the killers had pushed the chairs aside to collect them so they wouldn't be used as evidence. "To execute them, then have the calmness to collect the empty shell casings," said Hetzel, now retired and living out of state. "It just chills me." One casing had been left behind. Investigators found it, Hetzel said, adding that it was later connected to the murder weapon, a sawed-off shotgun. The Los Angeles Times ran a single paragraph on the murders, 1 of 4 homicide cases reported that day. Williams was arrested some time later during a traffic stop, said Sheriff's Lt. Dave Furmanski. When Hetzel later interviewed Williams, the notorious Crip was cool and businesslike, taking control of the interview, telling investigators nothing, requesting cookies and coffee. Hetzel was struck by Williams' calm demeanor and massive size. He remembered the victims' bodies. "He had got those little people terrified," he recalled thinking. "Then he had to execute them. He had control of the situation. He had the money. Why?" Williams' advocates do not contest the horror of the crimes, but rather, the validity of the case against Williams. "No one is disputing there [are] 4 tragic deaths there. It is very, very sad.. There is enormous sympathy here," said Verna Wefald, one of Williams' attorneys. But, she said, "the evidence against Mr. Williams is essentially weak and was coming from witnesses with sordid backgrounds who have incentive to lie to save themselves." Since he was convicted, Wefald and others note, Williams has written anti-gang children's books and has become a voice against gang violence. All 3 officers, however, said Williams' redemption story is just like many claims of religious epiphanies they've heard from prisoners over the years. "People are too gullible," Longshore said. "Everyone wants a happy ending." (Los Angeles Times) ******************** Death penalty foes call for moratorium in California A group of death penalty opponents gathered Saturday to call for a moratorium on all executions in California and urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency to Stanley "Tookie" Williams. "Voices From Death Row," a national speaking tour sponsored by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, drew about 80 supporters to East Los Angeles College. The event featured Darby Tillis, a former Illinois death row inmate who was later exonerated. The group expressed outrage at the Dec. 13 execution date for Williams, co-founder of the Crips street gang. Williams, 51, was sentenced to death for fatally shooting Albert Owens, a Whittier convenience store worker, and killing two Los Angeles motel owners and their daughter with a shotgun during a robbery, both in 1979. He has maintained his innocence, and supporters believe Williams did not get a fair trial. Since being sentenced to death, Williams has written a series of children's books in his effort to curtail youth gang violence. He has been nominated five times for a Nobel Peace Prize and four times for a Nobel Prize in literature. In August, Williams received a President's Call to Service Award for his good deeds on death row, complete with a letter from President Bush praising him for demonstrating "the outstanding character of America." "His case is really important because he represents individual redemption," said Dana Blanchard with the Los Angeles chapter of Campaign to End the Death Penalty. "While in prison he's become one of the leading voices against gang violence." Schwarzenegger told The Associated Press this week he will be reviewing Williams' request for clemency and hasn't ruled anything out. Tillis and another man were tried 5 times for 2 murders in a 1977 Chicago robbery and were acquitted in 1987 after 9 years in prison. On Saturday, Tillis, 62, called it a "flawed and failed system" that resulted in his time on death row. "I will never be normal," Tillis said. "I'm not free of death row." "Voices from Death Row" included stops earlier this month in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. ON THE NET http://www.savetookie.com http://www.nodeathpenalty.org (source: Associated Press)
