Oct. 30 NORTH CAROLINA: Death row inmate speaks Kenneth Lee Boyd, 57, said he knows he will most likely die in a few weeks. His voice lowers and he becomes more solemn as he explains that he has come to terms with what he did and what is going to happen to him. Remorseful, Boyd feels a death sentence is unfair but he isn't optimistic about receiving clemency. On March 4, 1988, Boyd took a .357 magnum pistol to his father-in-law's Stoneville home and gunned down his wife, Julie Boyd, and her father, Thomas Curry. On Dec. 2, after more than 17 years on death row, Boyd is scheduled to be executed for the murders. In his 1st interview from death row, Boyd spoke about that day, the impact he's had on those around him and coming to terms with his execution. In the visiting area of Raleigh's Central Prison, Boyd is seated in a small octagon only slightly larger than a phone booth. He peers out from a pane of glass no bigger than a computer monitor. He is cordial, and when the Eden native speaks it's brief and to the point, like many from his hometown. When asked why he wanted to be interviewed after all this time his answer was simple. "After 17-and-a-half years of no interviews I figure it couldn't hurt," Boyd said. That Day What happened all those years ago Boyd said, is foggy to him. He remembers the pistol he bought only five days earlier going off and shooting through two doors. He remembers seeing his father-in-law lying dead on the floor. "From there I couldn't stop," Boyd said. What happened next, Boyd said, is a haze. He remembers someone pointing a gun at him, his brother-in-law Craig Curry. Boyd remembers dropping his pistol and running into the woods. The next thing he says he remembers is coming out of the woods to meet the sheriff's deputies. What actually transpired was put together by eyewitness accounts and Boyd's own confession at the time. Boyd went to Thomas Curry's home to pick up his 13-year-old son Christopher. Julie Boyd and the couple's 3 sons were staying with her parents. She and Kenneth Boyd had separated because of his drinking. Boyd admits he also hit his wife on several occasions. Daniel, the Boyds' youngest son was already with his father. Boyd told the boys they were going to get pizza. Instead, he circled the neighborhood several times, the gun sitting on the seat between the three of them the entire time. At one point Christopher Boyd took the gun and stuck it under the truck seat. His father pulled back into the Curry's yard, got out and demanded the gun. Christopher Boyd ran into his grandparents' home, trying to warn his family; Boyd followed closely behind. After shooting his father-in-law through a door, Boyd moved through the house, found his wife in a bedroom doorway and emptied the revolver's chambers. Boyd came back into the house, the gun reloaded, and shot his wife several more times. A coroner's report would later reveal that Julie Boyd had been shot 8 times. Outside, Boyd was confronted by his brother-in-law, Craig Curry. Curry lived next door to his mother and father with his own family. Curry was outside, armed, getting his nephew from the truck. He told his wife to run into the woods with the children. When he saw Boyd coming Curry ran after his family to protect them. Boyd fired and missed Curry. Before walking away from the scene Boyd called 911 saying, "I just killed my wife and father-in-law. Come on and get me." The Sentence During his interrogation Boyd told police, "I don't want a lawyer, I deserve the gas chamber." Since that time Boyd has had 4 different law firms represent him and exhausted every avenue, except clemency, attempting to avoid his death sentence. One law firm did win Boyd a second trial. The N.C. Supreme Court overturned his first trial on the grounds that Judge Samuel Currin violated Boyd's constitutional rights when he dismissed a juror without recording their conversation. The Supreme Court also disagreed with the lower court's decision to deny Boyd a state-paid mental health expert to aid in the defense's preparation. On July 14, 1994 Boyd was again sentenced to death. Boyd is filing for clemency with the governor. Thomas Maher, Boyd's attorney, said he believes the jury wasn't properly briefed on the sentencing options. He said he has jurors from the trial who say they didn't realize a life sentence was an option. Maher also believes Boyd's life shouldn't be judged on that single day, noting his volunteering for service in Vietnam and his otherwise clean criminal record. "[Boyd] comes across as a very quiet and reserved person. Not the kind of person that would do what he was convicted of," Maher said. Clemency, however, is a slim chance. In his 4 years as governor Mike Easley has only granted clemency to 2 inmates. Why he chose those 2 inmates is a matter of speculation because documents related to the governor's decision are not released to the public. On Monday, Wake County Superior Court Judge Evelyn Hill ruled against Raleigh newspaper The News and Observer's request to make those documents public. Coming to Terms Boyd said he isn't optimistic about receiving clemency. He said during all the years of retrial and appeals he would sometimes daydream about what his life might have been like. "When I got my execution date all dreams stopped," Boyd said. Boyd said he regularly attends church and considers himself a "saved" Christian, he finds solace in his faith. Looking back on his life, Boyd said he wished he had never started drinking. He believes if he hadn't started drinking things would have turned out differently. Among the things that might have turned out differently are the lives of his children. Boyd blames himself for some of the troubles his sons have had, including a 2-year prison sentence his youngest son Daniel Boyd served out in Central Prison in connection with a convenience store robbery. Boyd said he has spoken with his sons Christopher and Jamie Boyd since his sentencing. He said the boys were kinder to him than he deserved. He didn't see Daniel Boyd while he was at Central Prison but he hopes to see him before his execution. Boyd hopes too that Hilda Curry, Julie Boyd's mother, will forgive him. He said he knows how much he's taken away from her. "The Bible says forgive and I wouldn't want that on her because of me. The feelings that are on her are my fault, I'm to blame, I caused that," Boyd said. Boyd said he isn't afraid to die. He said he was always able to hold it together in Vietnam even when it looked desperate. But the walk to the death chamber, giving his last words, does scare Boyd. "I don't want to embarrass my kids. I might not be able to hold up," Boyd said. Kenneth Lee Boyd will be put to death at 2 a.m. Dec. 2. He said he hopes his death will bring peace to some of the lives of those he knows he hurt. (source: The Reidsville Review) ******************** Attorneys cry foul in Surry man's case----Easley is asked to consider life without parole; hearing set for Tuesday Attorneys for a Surry County man scheduled to be executed next month allege that law enforcement suspected his trial attorney of dealing in drugs the year before the trial but did not pursue a criminal investigation. In a clemency petition filed yesterday for Steven Van McHone, his attorneys ask Gov. Mike Easley to commute McHone's death sentence to life without parole. Kenneth Rose, one of McHone's attorneys, said he plans to present evidence that former Surry County district attorney James Dellinger called off a drug investigation of Terry L. Collins a year before Collins represented McHone at trial. Collins was never charged with buying cocaine, but Rose alleges that Collins had a conflict of interest during the trial between his obligation to McHone and his indebtedness to the district attorney. "He has a conflict (of interest) with Dellinger because Dellinger is doing him a favor by not pursuing what he's heard about cocaine buys by Collins," Rose said last week. McHone, 35, was convicted in Surry County Superior Court in 1991 for shooting his mother and stepfather to death in June 1990. His execution date is Nov. 11. Easley has scheduled a clemency hearing for Tuesday. Collins said last week that the allegations against him have no merit. "I don't know where they came up with that stuff," Collins said. Dellinger said he never knew anything about an investigation of Collins and never called one off. Larry Reeves, a former detective with the Mount Airy Police Department, confirmed that Collins' girlfriend did offer to set up a sting to catch Collins in a drug buy, but that alone doesn't prove that Collins had a conflict of interest. Reeves said that from what he knew it didn't prove anything. "It proves that a person in jail was making some allegations," Reeves said. "To make a leap from there, that there was some kind of conflict of interest that Terry Collins couldn't represent somebody because the DA wouldn't let some kind of investigation - that's just absurd. The DA didn't tell us who we could investigate and who we couldn't." Reeves said he cannot recall for certain whether he went to the district attorney with the information. He said he "probably" did. Given past challenges to the credibility of Collins and Dellinger, Rose said, it is important that the allegations be sorted out. "The fact that he (Reeves) mentioned it to the DA ... he (Reeves) must have felt at the time that it was worth pursuing.... To not further investigate with that kind of information to me is, at a minimum, very surprising. Yet, we have no evidence that the DA investigated and followed up." Rose said that the new allegations are part of a bigger pattern of criminal misconduct by Collins in the years after McHone's conviction. After McHone was sentenced to death, Collins and Dellinger were each indicted on unrelated felony charges. Collins was convicted in 1998 of forgery and fraud as part of a scheme to help clients illegally get driver's licenses. He was immediately disbarred. He now works part time as a limousine driver and part time as an assistant for lawyer F. Christian DiRusso in Mount Airy. Dellinger resigned as district attorney in 1995 after the N.C. Attorney General's office charged him with forgery and with filing a false expense report. State officials said that he should be removed because of "willful misconduct in office." The charges were dropped in return for his resignation. The N.C. State Bar found no ethical violations in his conduct. He now works as a lawyer in King. McHone convicted in 1991 McHone was convicted in 1991 in the murders of his mother, Mildred Adams, and his stepfather, Wesley Adams Sr., and sentenced to death. Though he was 20, his siblings describe him at the time as acting much "younger than his age in years." His half-brother, Randall Adams, said in an affidavit that Mildred Adams and Wesley Adams Sr. had returned from a fishing trip the night of June 2, 1990, and when Mildred went to check on McHone that she said "he's the worst I've ever seen him." "I knew she meant he was the most severely impaired by drugs and alcohol that she ever seen. We all knew for a long time that Steve was addicted to alcohol and other substances," Randall Adams said in the affidavit. McHone lived with his mother and his stepfather in Siloam, a rural community in southeastern Surry County, while he was on probation for a series of break-ins. McHone's other half-brother, Wesley Adams Jr., a captain in the Air Force, also lived in the house, along with Adams' wife and 2-year-old son. That night, McHone argued with his mother. She was shot with a pistol three times. McHone's stepfather heard the shots in the backyard and managed to disarm McHone. According to the testimony of his half-brother Wesley Adams Jr., McHone found a shotgun and confronted him and Wesley Adams Sr. in the kitchen. Wesley Adams Sr. was killed trying to protect Wesley Adams Jr. McHone's guilt in the double homicide is not a question in this case. But his appellate attorneys have argued that prosecutors and defense attorneys in the case made it impossible for McHone to get a fair trial. They say that prosecutors in the case withheld evidence that would have shown that McHone was so drunk that his judgment was impaired. The appellate attorneys also argue that Collins and co-counsel James Gillespie did a slack job. They didn't investigate McHone's childhood or interview witnesses who could have told the jury about his desperate state of mind at the time of the shootings or his remorse, McHone's attorneys argue. Cheryl Adams McMillian, a half-sister of McHone's, has said that McHone's own father was an alcoholic and was often abusive. "Stevie was so tender-hearted as a boy," McMillian said in an affidavit. "His dad would rage at our mom, and Stevie would cry.... No one on Stevie's defense team interviewed me or my husband, Barry, before his trial about our family history. There are more stories than there is room to tell here about Stevie's childhood." McHone's appellate attorneys also say that McHone's defense team, as well as prosecutors, failed to gather routine evidence. A paramedic who treated Mildred Adams the night of the shooting said she included in her report a statement made by Mildred Adams that indicated McHone didn't mean to shoot her. "When we rolled Mrs. Adams over she grabbed my hand and said 'He didn't mean to do it. Don't hurt him,'" paramedic Teresa O. Durham said in an affidavit. "I made sure my documentation was thorough in all my work. It is my habit to put victims' statements in my documentation." Rose said that Durham's report was not brought forward. "It's extraordinary. It would have been a bombshell at trial," Rose said. "That was the issue. Did Steve McHone intend to kill his mom and stepfather? Wes Jr. witnessed Wes Sr.'s killing. But no one witnessed her killing. And now, it raises significant questions about Steve McHone's intents at the time of the shooting. Secondly, it's an extraordinary statement of the victim in the case and about her feelings and what she wanted for her son.... To me, that would have made all the difference in the world to jurors." Dellinger prosecuted the case about two months after he was sworn in, using the information available to him. "The case had already been investigated. I had very little to do with the investigation of the case. I took the information that was available, and we prosecuted that case," he said. The elements for a capital case were there, he said. "We had to prosecute it," Dellinger said. "Whether he deserved the death penalty, that was up to the jury. All the mitigating factors that I know of were brought forward.... I don't know how it could be more clear. There was no question that he had a substance-abuse problem. That came in. It was presented." Collins said that there is no question in his mind that he vigorously defended McHone. "I feel sorry for that boy," he said. But he said he thinks that Easley won't grant clemency. "I think it is a very sympathetic situation. I don't know how much is enough, but none of that stuff has worked before," Collins said referring to the petition brought by Rose. The charge of ineffective counsel is common in death-penalty appeals. The clemency petition filed yesterday goes further than have any of the previous appeals in McHone's case, with the allegation of misconduct by Collins. Since Easley has been governor, he has considered 22 petitions for clemency. He has granted clemency in two of those cases, one in 2001 and another in 2002. Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office, declined to comment. Clemency hearings are not open to the public. Weight of Reeves' affidavit McHone's appellate attorneys base their allegations largely on an affidavit by Reeves, the former detective with the Mount Airy Police Department. In an affidavit dated Oct. 18, Reeves said that Collins' girlfriend, Lisa Gough, offered to help Reeves arrest Collins in a drug sting. At the time, Gough was charged with writing worthless checks. In return for her help, she wanted Reeves to help her get out of jail, according to the affidavit. McHone's appellate attorneys hired a private investigator to look into these allegations. Reeves' affidavit does not mention district attorney Dellinger. But in an affidavit, McHone's investigator said that Reeves told him that he asked Dellinger to help the girlfriend with her charges and that Dellinger refused. "I asked Officer Reeves if Lisa Gough was the live-in girlfriend he was talking about, and he said that she was," said Steve Hale, the private investigator hired by McHone's appellate attorneys. "I asked Officer Reeves if he would tell me who the informants were that he mentioned during his conversation with Ken Rose on October 5, 2005. 'That was Lisa Gough,' Reeves said. 'She called me and said she would set up Terry if I would help her with her worthless-checks bond. I talked to Jim Dellinger about it, but he said Lisa was too much trouble and needed to go.'" Reeves said he agreed to sign an affidavit about his conversations with Gough. He said he probably talked with Dellinger about her case, but doesn't remember the conversation well enough to sign a sworn affidavit. "I think I said I probably talked to the DA and he wouldn't reduce the bond because she was in too much trouble," Reeves said. "For me to tell you definitely that Jim Dellinger wouldn't reduce the bond on Lisa Gough. I'm sure I probably talked to Jim. We talked about thousands of different cases, and for me to go on record, I'm not going to say what was said." Collins said last week that he has never used cocaine, and that Rose's allegations are slanderous. In response to the allegation that a former girlfriend offered to set up a drug buy, he said, "if I was sitting in the Surry County Jail and needed a way out, I'd tell a whopper." Collins' death-penalty cases Rose said that Collins shares the state record with James Gillespie, who also represented McHone, for losing death-penalty cases. According to Rose, Collins represented other men who are either on death row or have been executed - Frank Ray Chandler, Carl Mosely, Keith East and Rex Penland. After a last-minute appeal to the governor, Chandler was executed in December in the death of a 90-year-old Mount Airy woman. As part of his clemency petition, Chandler's appellate attorneys argued that one of the state's key witnesses in the case took drugs with Collins, which would have compromised his defense of Chandler. According to an affidavit by Clark Fischer, one of Chandler's attorneys, the state's informant Jeffrey Kyle Wilson, told Fischer that he and Collins used drugs together several times before Chandler's trial. The clemency petition alleges that made Collins unfit to represent Chandler because he could not effectively cross-examine Wilson. "No greater conflict can exist for an attorney, especially in a capital trial," the petition said in part. "It would have been devastating for the jury to learn of Wilson's drug habits, yet the conflicted Collins obviously made sure not to bring illegal activity in which he participated to the jury's attention." Collins denied that allegation last year saying, "That's so ludicrous I don't even care to respond." Another of Collins' clients, Penland, won a new trial earlier this year after recent DNA testing raised questions about his conviction in the 1992 stabbing of Vernice Alford. Mosely was convicted in the 1991 murders of two women whom he met at the SRO Club in Winston-Salem. East was convicted in the 1994 beating deaths of his aunt and uncle. Rich Rosen, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a member of the Actual Innocence Commission, said that with the state's establishment of a public capital-defender's office legal representation has improved for people charged with capital murder. He said that today Collins would not be assigned to a capital case. "There's no way we would allow a person like that do a capital case today," he said. "Yet we're prepared to execute numerous people who were represented by attorneys just like that." (source: Winston-Salem Journal) OHIO: Key dates in Spirko case 1982 Aug. 9: Postmaster Betty Jane Mottinger, 48, is abducted in Elgin, Ohio. Sept. 18: Her decomposed body, stabbed repeatedly and wrapped in a painter's dropcloth, is found in soybean field near Findlay. Oct. 31: John Spirko contacts authorities, offering information. He gives more than a dozen jailhouse interviews over next 10 weeks. 1983 Sept 13: Spirko and friend Delaney Gibson are indicted in Mottinger's murder. 1984 August: Spirko is tried, convicted and sentenced to death. 1997 May: Spirko attorneys obtain undisclosed evidence questioning case. August: Onetime house painter claims former boss is involved in Mottinger murder; authorities never follow up. 2005 March: U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear Spirko case, capping 15 years of fruitless appeals. Oct. 19: By 6-3 vote, Ohio Parole Board recommends against clemency. Nov. 15: Spirko is scheduled to die. ******************* 3 on parole board find 'too much residual doubt' 3 members of the Ohio Parole Board, not convinced that John Spirko committed murder 23 years ago, asked the state's lawyers a series of pointed questions during Spirko's Oct. 12 clemency hearing. Many of the doubts they raised about the case were fueled by information that was unknown to the jury that convicted Spirko in 1984 and to many of the appellate court judges who have since declined to grant him relief. Attorneys for the state argued, to the apparent satisfaction of the board majority, that Spirko's own words - to investigators and to the jury - were enough to convict him of robbing the tiny Elgin post office on Aug. 9, 1982, and of kidnapping and fatally stabbing Postmaster Betty Jane Mottinger in the process. And they produced recent declarations from four of the original jurors that they stand by their verdict. But that wasn't enough for board members Ellen Venters, Jim Bedra and Sandra Mack. "There is too much residual doubt," they told Gov. Bob Taft in their dissent, "to execute John Spirko." ***************** Taft must decide if doubts justify reprieve for Spirko In the 6 years since executions resumed in Ohio, Gov. Bob Taft has never found a compelling reason to reject a death-penalty recommendation from the Ohio Parole Board. He's gotten 19 recommendations from the board -- all but one advocating execution -- and he has followed them every time. But never before has Taft received a parole board report like the one he got 2 weeks ago in the case of John Spirko, with so many board members expressing such profound doubt about whether an inmate was guilty. After 2 daylong clemency hearings, the board has twice voted 6-3 against clemency for Spirko. But after the second hearing on Oct. 12, the 3 dissenters didn't just disagree. They gave Taft a litany of what they described as "compelling factors" that raise doubt about whether Spirko should be executed in a little more than 2 weeks for the 1982 slaying of Elgin, Ohio, postmaster Betty Jane Mottinger. In only one other death-penalty case during Taft's tenure have 3 dissenters argued for clemency. But their reasons in that case stemmed from the inmate's youth and his parents' neglect -- not from doubts about actual guilt. In Spirko's case, however, the dissenters raised 3 basic questions about his 1984 conviction. They questioned the quality of the evidence against him, the fairness of the prosecution and the credibility of the key investigator and primary accuser. But unless Taft or the courts intervene, John Spirko will die Nov. 15. ***************** Question: Why would the primary investigator and star witness against John Spirko "reverse his testimony" by declaring recently that he never believed a key piece of evidence used to convict Spirko in the 1st place? - board member Jim Bedra. Here's what's known: On at least three occasions in the past 18 months - twice in tape-recorded interviews - retired Postal Inspector Paul Hartman disclosed that he never believed that Spirko's best friend, Delaney Gibson, was involved in Betty Jane Mottinger's murder and that he told the prosecutor as much at the time. The revelation was critical because the prosecution used Gibson's alleged involvement - bolstered by an eyewitness who said she was certain she saw him outside Mottinger's tiny post office at 8:30 a.m. the day of the crime - to help convict Spirko in 1984. Hartman said he concluded Gibson wasn't involved in part because of evidence that he gathered - including dozens of photographs and several witness statements - that placed Gibson hundreds of miles from Elgin the evening before the crime. That evidence was not provided to Spirko's lawyers until 13 years after their client's conviction. Hartman later claimed under oath that he made these disclosures to "mislead" a reporter and Spirko's lawyers. When pressed at Spirko's clemency hearing 2 weeks ago, state attorneys said they could not explain Hartman's statements about Gibson's role. But one possible explanation lies in a 22-year-old memo that suggests that it was Hartman who had lured Spirko into implicating Gibson in the 1st place. Hartman knew all about Gibson from an extensive background investigation he conducted after learning that the two men had spent time in prison together. By early 1983, Hartman had already listened to a host of Spirko stories during more than a dozen jailhouse interviews, stories that he had tried in vain to corroborate. Gibson's name had never come up. But in one of their last interviews, Hartman acknowledged in an internal memo, he steered their conversation to Bear Branch, the tiny Kentucky hamlet that both men knew was Gibson's home. That's just the kind of coaxing that can taint an interrogation, experts say. Spirko took the bait. The next day, he suddenly changed his story, saying for the 1st time that Gibson killed Mottinger and told him all about it. Coupled with the dubious Gibson identification by the state's eyewitness, that story - repeated by Spirko from the witness stand - provided the crux of the state's case. But questions about the source of the Gibson story cast a shadow on other claims Hartman made about Spirko as well. All of the revelations Spirko was said to have made about the crime - including a purported confession - came during untaped interviews, virtually all with Hartman. With several revelations, most notably a description of the victim's clothing, the critical details appear to have been added later to Hartman's original notes. Questions have been raised about other details as well. The state has stressed Spirko's purported knowledge of the "pried stone" - a tiny rhinestone found to be missing from a $7.99 ring found on Mottinger's body. Given its size and quality, the stone is just as likely to have fallen out during a struggle as to have been pried out. But the fact that the stone was missing was never publicly reported. In his notes and testimony, Hartman said that Spirko told him that one of the characters in his stories pried it loose. But Spirko testified he knew nothing about a stone until Hartman brought it up, quoting the investigator as telling him that the man he was after is " 'that stinkin' son of a bitch that pried that stone out of her ring.' That's the first time I heard anything about a ring." Questions about Hartman's notes also figure in the story of Spirko's purported confession. On the last day of Spirko's trial, Hartman testified that Spirko had confessed to him in early 1983 - that during one of their final interviews, Spirko had blurted out: "Lay it all on me. I killed her." Curiously, Hartman had testified in detail about that interview several days earlier and had never mentioned any such confession. Nor did any mention of it appear in sworn statements Hartman made about the evidence in the case. His interview notes were silent on the matter as well. "I don't believe that that is in my notes," Hartman told the jury. Conclusions: The board majority said it wasn't convinced that any recent Hartman falsehoods proved that he doctored the Spirko interviews or lied during his trial testimony. The dissenters described Hartman's "apparent deceitful conduct" as "reprehensible," saying it lent credence to claims by Spirko's lawyers that the key witness against their client is not believable. "We are once again wrought by residual doubt," they wrote. (source for all: Plain Dealer) ******************* Longtime prisons director considers retirement The state prisons director, who has guided his department through the nation's longest prison riot and the resumption of executions, says he's considering retirement. Reginald Wilkinson, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, has considered leaving his state job in favor of a position as a college professor or administrator. "That's kind of the passion I have," he told The Columbus Dispatch for a story Sunday. "At some point, I want to affiliate with a university." Wilkinson, 55, was appointed by then-Gov. George Voinovich in January 1991, making him the nation's longest-serving prisons chief and one of the state's longest-tenured cabinet members. In 1993, an 11-day standoff at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility left a corrections officer and nine inmates dead. In 1999, the state resumed executions by injection and retired its electric chair, nicknamed "Old Sparky." Wilkinson also oversaw the prison system's expansion to 31 institutions - before two closed because of fewer inmates and a shrinking state budget - and the addition of 2 private prisons, which created problems with union employees. The 36,000-member Ohio Civil Service Employees Association has been at odds with Wilkinson over reduced staffing levels that union head Andy Douglas argues threaten the safety of employees and prisoners. "He knows of the desperate situation in our prisons, but he says he has to cut out 350 more people in corrections. That at best is shortsighted and at worst disastrous," Douglas said. Others who have followed his administration praise his work. "If I were going to make a real short list of the very best people I've ever met in 30 years in this business, I'd probably put him on top," said William Dallman, former warden at Lebanon Correctional Institution and Wilkinson's 1st boss. Wilkinson's career in corrections began in the 1970s as a volunteer coordinator at the Lebanon prison. He took the job, he said, "because it was available and I needed the work." Dallman, warden from 1972 to '94, remembers Wilkinson's arrival. "Reggie had a dashiki (an African shirt) and a big Afro," Dallman said. "He was a young, black man who thought he should be his own man and be assertive, but he ran afoul of a lot of immovable objects. Many of the prisons were quite old-fashioned in their thinking." Dallman advised Wilkinson to learn to work with people - even those he disagreed with and couldn't change. Wilkinson spent a decade at Lebanon, eventually becoming Dallman's administrative assistant. He then served as warden at the Dayton Correctional Institution, head of the Corrections Training Academy and south regional administrator for the prison system. Late in 1990, Lt. Gov.-elect Mike DeWine surprised Wilkinson by calling him in for an interview after Voinovich's election as governor. Wilkinson wasn't seeking to lead the agency. "We literally sought him out," DeWine said. "We thought he was one of the young superstars of the department." Wilkinson, who has never publicly stated his view of the death penalty, has witnessed 16 of the 18 executions since Ohio resumed capital punishment in 1999. "When those things happen, it's almost like I'm in a corrections bubble," he said. "It's not something I relish doing, but it's something I have to do." (source: Associated Press) VIRGINIA: Ads May Hurt Kilgore More Than They Help Democratic media strategists David Eichenbaum and Karl Struble knew the television attack was coming, but they didn't know what form it would take. Their client, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Timothy M. Kaine, had a long history of opposing the death penalty, which put him at odds with about 3/4 of the people in the state he wants to lead. Kaine's opponent, former attorney general Jerry W. Kilgore, is a vocal advocate of capital punishment who wants to add to the list of people eligible for the death penalty. But the real opponent for Struble and Eichenbaum was Republican media consultant Scott Howell, one of the country's most successful GOP strategists and a rival from past campaigns. What Howell produced was one of the most arresting images in recent campaign television: a widow, seated in a darkened studio, on the verge of tears and tremulously talking about the man on death row who murdered her police officer husband. "How could you not think the death penalty was appropriate? That's not justice," she says. "When Tim Kaine calls the death penalty murder, I find it offensive, and I don't trust Tim Kaine to uphold that law." Eichenbaum said his 1st thought was: "It's emotionally very powerful." And then he thought: "This could go either way." The ad -- and a subsequent spot that showed a grieving father who criticized Kaine for voluntarily representing death row inmates in their appeals and who said Kaine believed even Adolf Hitler was not a candidate for execution -- electrified a race that until then had seemed to many voters one without compelling characters or transcendent issues. But it also demonstrates the unpredictability of emotional appeals to voters. A Washington Post poll conducted last week found that 2 of 3 Virginia voters said the ads were "unfair," including nearly 75 % of the self-described independents that both campaigns covet. Even 60 % of those who favor the death penalty said the ads crossed the line. Those who had an unfavorable opinion of Kilgore jumped 10 points, and those who believed he "would say anything to get elected" increased 16 points, to 55 %. "It sounds like voters have really rebelled against this ad and are punishing the messenger," said Darrell West, a political science professor at Brown University who has written extensively on the subject of political advertising. No one knows whether the death penalty ads will move many voters to choose either Kilgore or Kaine, the state's lieutenant governor. The death penalty ranks far down the list of issues that Virginia voters say are most important to them. And voters don't necessarily oppose candidates they think run negative campaigns. But the ads, along with the response from the Kaine campaign, provide a look at the high stakes that come with the millions of dollars in television advertising that is part of a modern statewide campaign. "If we win this race, I think you could go back [to the death penalty ads] and say this is where we could have won or lost it," Eichenbaum said. The team of Struble and Eichenbaum have lost a few to Howell, a proficient and controversial consultant who is a protege of White House adviser Karl Rove and who has worked for President Bush. His Web site boasts that his company won 11 of 12 contests in 2002; among the Democrats he has helped unseat are former senators Max Cleland of Georgia and Thomas A. Daschle of South Dakota. Howell's work on the campaign of Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) was particularly divisive because of ads that painted Cleland -- a decorated Vietnam veteran who lost 3 limbs in battle -- as weak on defense. Howell's death penalty ads, which the poll indicated have been seen by about 80 % of Virginia voters, were striking, spare, intimate and personal. Howell declined to be interviewed for this article, according to the Kilgore campaign. He told the Nation magazine last week: "Emotion, whether it's humor, angst, whether it makes you laugh or cry, it helps people to respond. We're in a sound-bite world, and you have to work to get people's attention." Eichenbaum said there were Democrats who saw the ads "who thought the campaign was over." The Kaine campaign had settled on its response to a death penalty attack long ago. Kaine appeared alone and spoke directly to the camera. "My faith teaches life is sacred," said Kaine, who has talked extensively during the campaign about being a religious Catholic. "That's why I personally oppose the death penalty. But I take my oath of office seriously. And I'll enforce the death penalty. As governor, I'll carry out death sentences handed down by Virginia juries, because that's the law." Many Democrats thought it a weak response, but Eichenbaum disagreed. "I always believed that Tim has always been his best advocate." The Kaine campaign was aided by an overwhelmingly negative reaction to the ads from the state's leading newspaper editorial boards. "I've never seen the kind of editorial criticism that I've seen of Kilgore in this race," Eichenbaum said. The campaign added a second ad quoting from the newspapers, with words such as "smear" and "dishonest" scrolling across the screen. "Third-party validation is important," Eichenbaum said. Kilgore removed the ads and began new ones last Monday, Eichenbaum said, and the Kaine response ad has stopped airing as well. Before the ads, a Washington Post poll asked voters whether they believed Kaine's statement that though he personally opposed the death penalty, he would enforce the law. 65 % of likely voters said yes. Asked again last week after the ad barrage, 68 % said they believed him. Nonetheless, Kilgore press secretary Tim Murtaugh said he believed the ads had done their job, which he said included portraying Kaine as liberal. "The fact that we're still talking about it three weeks later" shows the ads were effective, he said. "If we were shying away from the death penalty, Jerry Kilgore wouldn't be mentioning it in every speech." (source: Washington Post) ********* Candidates finesse faith and death penalty----Democrat Tim Kaine's position brings the complex question of religion to bear on the governor's race. When Democrat Tim Kaine talks about the death penalty, he speaks with 2 voices in succession: first as a Roman Catholic, then as a prospective governor. He opposes capital punishment on religious grounds. But if elected Nov. 8, he has promised to send Virginia's most heinous criminals to their death. "I can't change my religious beliefs now that I'm running," he said in an interview with the Daily Press. "But at the same time, I believe in our system." His stance has brought criticism from Republican Jerry Kilgore and spawned the most memorable attack ads in the race, in which Kilgore said Kaine would not support the death penalty for Adolf Hitler. Kilgore, a former prosecutor, says his opponent is an anti-death-penalty activist who cannot be trusted to uphold a law that most Virginians support. Kaine spoke out against the death penalty as a defense lawyer and represented death row inmates. Once in office, Kilgore says, Kaine could impose a de facto moratorium by blocking individual executions. Although Kaine cites his Roman Catholic faith as the reason for his qualms, members of the church do not speak with one voice on the issue. Monsignor Kevin Irwin is the dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He's also a Virginia voter who has watched the campaign with interest. "I'm not going to say it's impossible for someone to be killed," Irwin said. Until the mid-1990s, the church taught that capital punishment was regrettable, but tolerable. Pope John Paul II tightened the focus, writing that he wished the death penalty were not used at all. The only justification was to protect others from being killed. "That narrows the field enormously," Irwin said. "It stresses the dignity of the human person." Did John Paul II narrow the door or slam it shut? "There are theologians who say that the pope's position leaves the door open," Irwin said. "Others would argue it's a fairly closed position." The Virginia Catholic Conference does not comment on candidates, but its position on the death penalty is that "it cannot be justified if there are nonlethal ways to protect society from an unjust aggressor," said Executive Director Jeff Caruso. Life without parole "is unique in its ability to protect society and uphold human dignity," Caruso said. For another interpretation, voters need look no further than the Virginia ballot, where Del. Robert McDonnell is a candidate for attorney general. A Republican and a Roman Catholic, he supports the death penalty and has no faith-based qualms. "While it has narrowed, it is not an absolute ban," he said. "There is no way to absolutely ensure the safety of other people from a violent killer. Even in prison, prisoners are still at risk. Prison guards and staff are still at risk from an inmate. Granted, most of society is protected." Virginia law limits capital punishment to the most heinous crimes, a narrow definition that gives McDonnell comfort. "I think for the limited number of circumstances that are spelled out in the Code of Virginia ... that, to me, is still consistent with even Catholic teachings." He concluded: "I support it because I believe it is the only just penalty for the heinous act of taking another person's life. So it's justice, not a deterrent." Kaine says he would enforce the death penalty not because he personally believes in it, but because of his oath to uphold the law. "My church doesn't tell me to cross my fingers when I take the oath," he said. Richard Beauchamp, a professor of philosophy and religious studies at Christopher Newport University, says that position is valid. "There is a distinction between civil law on the one hand and a faith commitment on the other," he said. And because there is freedom of conscience within the church, "in public office, he would not be doing something to endanger his soul," Beauchamp said. Kilgore's soul appears safe, too. He attends the Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Glen Allen, where there is no official church position on the death penalty, said the Rev. Donald Runion. Each member is free to follow his or her own conscience on such matters. Runion's own position - which Kilgore has not sought - is that the death penalty is legitimate in limited circumstances. "It is a biblically supported remedy of the state to enforce the law," he said. "It is ethical and lawful for the state to use it as one of its tools in keeping order." He said he suspects that there are conflicting views within his congregation, but if the death penalty is used "soberly and with reluctance, it is a legitimate tool of the state." Kilgore is an enthusiastic supporter of capital punishment, although a recent poll suggested that his hard-hitting attack ads might have backfired. But he has vowed to continue to brand Kaine as someone who can't be trusted on many issues, including capital punishment. CNU's Beauchamp said Kaine is being open with voters. "It's a very frank statement that any religious person has to make in the public world," he said. "There are some compromises you can't make. There are some compromises you can make." (source: Daily Press) FLORIDA: Death penalty plays huge role in jury selection A process dependent on honesty and hunches, jury selection is more art than science, said Bradenton criminal defense attorney Mark Lipinski. The 151 jurors who passed initial questioning in the case of Joseph P. Smith, who is charged with kidnapping, raping and killing 11-year-old Carlie Brucia, have answered questions about what they know about the defendant and whether they have formed any strong opinions about his guilt or innocence. While much of a trial involves the use of science in DNA testing or the certainties of a taped conversation, the jury that decides the outcome is selected in a much less certain manner. Knowing whether a potential juror is telling the truth, and judging whether a particular juror might be sympathetic to your case, are skills perhaps every attorney can hone but can never fully master. As Circuit Judge Andrew D. Owens told prospective jurors during proceedings in the Smith case last week, the judicial system is run by humans, and sometimes humans make mistakes. The process only becomes more challenging, and the stakes higher, in a case like Smith's. If the jury finds the 39-year-old auto mechanic guilty of killing Carlie in Sarasota in February 2004, the panel then will consider whether he should be sentenced to death. Jury selection is expected to be completed this week, and the trial is set to start Nov. 7. Death-qualification The repeated airing of a surveillance videotape showing a man prosecutors say is Smith leading Carlie away by the hand and extensive media coverage of the case have placed a significant amount of pre-trial information in the public domain. The possibility of a death sentence requires another test in the jury selection process called death-qualification. Since Owens has denied a defense motion to prevent the death-qualification of jurors, Smith's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Adam Tebrugge, will attempt to seat a jury that has an open mind while simultaneously trying to select a panel that is unlikely to sentence Smith to death if there is a conviction. During the death-qualification procedure, which will begin Tuesday, jurors will be asked whether they have strong views about the death penalty and whether those opinions would prevent them from correctly following their duties as jurors in deciding Smith's innocence or guilt. Tebrugge had asked Owens to prohibit the death-qualification of jurors, arguing that research shows that jurors who pass the death-qualification process are more likely to be biased in favor of the prosecution. They also tend to be white, male and of a higher economic status, Tebrugge said. Owens denied the motion, saying the Supreme Court has upheld the validity of the process. Everything fair game Both prosecutors and defense attorneys will have a certain number of peremptory challenges that they can use to remove people from the jury pool without giving a justification. Once those are exhausted, attorneys will make arguments based on cause. Beyond questions related to death-qualification, attorneys can ask potential jurors a wide array of questions about their pasts, such as whether they've been involved in a crime, whether they've been punished for that crime, and even their views on abortion and euthanasia. "There are very few questions that would be out of bounds," Lipinski said. According to Lipinski, Tebrugge is likely to ask questions that might give him an idea of how a juror would respond to his arguments. For example, he might ask a crime victim or someone convicted of a crime how that experience shaped their view of the judicial system, Lipinksi said. The defense and the prosecution, led by Assistant State Attorney Debra Johnes Riva, also will delve into whether jurors have circumstances that connect them to the crime in a direct or indirect, and sympathetic or unsympathetic, manner. For example, lawyers might have specific questions for a potential juror who is the mother of a girl around the same age that Carlie was and determine if she is appropriate for the jury. Tebrugge will also attempt to find out whether any potential juror is on a personal quest to affect the legal system, said Charles Rose, a professor at Stetson University College of Law. "Do you have a bias about sex offenses?" Rose said. "Do you feel a duty to send a message to do something other than properly adjudicate this particular case?" If a bias is detected, Rose said, the state will attempt to "rehabilitate" the juror. The state will get a prospective juror to more fully explain the basis of the answer to see whether the juror, despite the bias, can accurately follow the judge's instructions. Death-qualification puts Tebrugge in a potentially difficult position, Rose said. Since he only has the opportunity to ask jurors about their opinions on the death penalty before trial, the topic has to be explored in-depth before a determination of guilt is even made. There is another potential challenge for Tebrugge. Sarasota County is 93 percent white and 4 % black, according to census figures. The current juror pool of 151 generally reflects those demographics. Studies have shown that minority jurors are less likely to impose the death penalty than their white counterparts. And, according to Lipinski, those in certain economic strata are more inclined to give the death penalty than others. "There is a correlation between the population (demographics) of the county that makes up a jury pool and their likelihood to give the death penalty," Rose said. (source: Bradenton Herald)
