Nov. 3 ALABAMA: Alabama forensic experts urge Shelby panel not to cut DNA funds Alabama forensic experts, prosecutors and victim advocates Wednesday urged a panel headed by U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby not to cut federal funding for DNA tests at state labs, even though the panel's plan would provide more money for other forensic work. "There is no other forensic discipline that has the impact to solve crime than this DNA science," said Taylor Noggle, director of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. A provision under the Justice for All Act of 2004 authorized $155 million to be dispersed among states to specifically eliminate their backlog of cases needing DNA analysis within 5 years. But a recent recommendation by the Senate Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science, chaired by Shelby, R-Ala., would reduce the funding to $89.5 million - a 42 percent cut - so more money can be devoted to other types of forensic science, such as fingerprints, ballistics and drugs analysis. "I have been and continue to be a strong supporter of DNA, and I recognize its important role in criminal investigations. However, I also understand that there are many other forensic sciences that play integral roles in crime solving," Shelby said in a statement Wednesday. Alabama would lose $1.8 million of the $3 million it receives annually in federal DNA grants - a huge impact on the some $5 million it spends each year on DNA analysis. Noggle said that if the funding was secured, Alabama could eliminate its backlog of 1,500 cases by 2008. Phyllis Rollan, a DNA examiner for central Alabama, said the federal grants have helped reduce waiting time on the state's DNA cases by 100 days, bringing the average turnaround to just under a year. President Bush, in his budget submitted in February, requested Congress to fully fund the $155 million required by the DNA provision, which was named after Debbie Smith, a rape victim from Williamsburg, Va., who is active in fighting for victim's rights. But Shelby's subcommittee called for the shift in funding. According to the Minnesota-based Consortium of Forensic Science Organizations, less than 5 percent of all crime lab work involves DNA. Shelby said that "to fund only one method is shortsighted and does not meet the needs of many forensic science labs and law enforcement agencies." He pointed out that while Bush's budget proposes to increase funding for DNA testing, it proposes to cut funding for other state and local law enforcement assistance programs by over a billion dollars. His subcommittee's measure, which is still being considered, would create an independent panel to assess the current and future needs of forensic scientists. But forensics experts, at a news conference Wednesday, said the time and money spent on determining the problems within forensic departments masks the obvious: DNA is expensive, but solves crimes. Montgomery County District Attorney Ellen Brooks said DNA evidence is invaluable to prosecuting a case "because the evident is so good, it's so solid." "Hope is being diminished because of the damage being done by politicians who don't see the faces of these people (who have been victimized)," she said. Alabama reduced a quarter of its backlog of some 2,000 DNA lab cases primarily through the federal grants, said Angelo Della Manna, chief of forensic biology and DNA for Alabama's forensic department. For rape victims, including Debbie Smith, the proposed cut "feels like a slap in the face." Smith said it took more than 6 years for her case to come off the backlog in Virginia and for her rapist to be identified. She said an arrest probably would have been made sooner if adequate funding for DNA testing was available at the time. "Unfortunately, there is a good chance this vital evidence ... will sit on a shelf," she told reporters Wednesday. Smith said for 6 years she battled suicidal thoughts and felt confined to her own home, and that DNA testing set her free. "I want every victim of sexual assault to receive this gift of renewed life," said Smith, who founded the nonprofit group Hope Exists After Rape Trauma, or HEART, after her ordeal. Diane Wheeler said DNA testing is her family's only hope that the man who raped and strangled her mother 12 years ago will ever be captured. "I was surprised and saddened to find our representatives so out of touch with their home state," she said DNA testing not only solves scores of cold cases, but prevents rapists and killers from hurting more people. "While clearing the backlog is our best hope of closure," Wheeler said, "it is your best hope at not finding yourselves in our situation." (source: Associated Press) GEORGIA: Closing statements heard in Harris death penalty case 3 blurry photographs of a toddler playing on a slide document the final hours of 2-year-old Jordans Lands life. Miraculously salvaged from the charred hulk of the 1999 Dodge Stratus - the trunk of which became a tomb for Jordan and her mother, Whitney, - the photos depict Jordan in her birthday dress on a sunny day at Panhandle Park in Jonesboro. Hours later, Jordan would be shot once in the chest and once in the face as she sat helpless in her car seat. Her mother would be gunned down by 3 bullets. Then their bodies would be stuffed into the trunk and their car set ablaze. Jurors were shown the photographs for the 1st time during closing arguments Wednesday by attorneys in the death penalty trial for Wesley Harris. They were taken by Whitney Land on Nov. 8, 1999, shortly before the pair were abducted from the park and driven to Gwinnett County. The courtroom seemed unusually silent as each one was held up for their inspection. Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter opted not to show jurors graphic photographs depicting the charred remains of Whitney and Jordan Land, although he did urge the panel to look at the pictures during deliberations. Whitney and Jordan Land were allegedly killed by Harris on Nov. 8, 1999. Prosecutors believe Harris intended to rob the pair after he confronted them at the park. He allegedly shot them when the holdup went awry, disposing of the bodies outside a water treatment plant in Duluth. The motive for the robbery was fueled by Harris need for child support money, Porter said. "The horror of it boggles the mind," Porter told the jury. "Either a mother watched her daughter die, or a daughter watched her mother die." Harris wore a light-colored button-down shirt and remained stoic during the closing arguments. Defense attacks states evidence Defense attorney Johnny Moore urged jurors not to be swayed by emotions. "Set aside the tragedy and the emotions and look at the facts in this case," Moore said. During the pretrial motions dating back to 2000 and even since testimony in the trial began last week, the defense has remained relatively silent about the facts of its case. Moore and his co-counsel have only insisted that the states evidence will not prove Harris was guilty. For the 1st time Wednesday, Moore in his closing argument began hammering away at the prosecutions evidence. Moore argued that Gwinnett was not the proper venue for the case, because he said the slayings probably happened in Clayton County. Moore told jurors Land and her daughter must have been killed at Panhandle Park. He pointed to evidence that two shell casings from bullets were found near the spot where Lands car had been. Prosecutors believe the 2 bullets fired in Panhandle Park were probably just warning shots. Yet another point of contention exists between prosecutors and defense attorneys concerning the evidence, which also concerns whether Whitney and Jordan Land were shot in Gwinnett or Clayton County. 10 calls were placed to the Gwinnett 911 center from Lands cell phone. They were traced to a cell phone tower in the area of Beaver Ruin Road, but no one spoke on the other end of the line. Porter said Whitney Land made the calls while being held captive in Gwinnett, just before she died. The defense argued that Land was already dead at that time. Moore said the calls were probably made because Harris was pressing a "hot button" to 911 while fumbling with an unfamiliar cell phone and attempting to call his friend. Moore disparages witnesses Moore cast suspicion onto Land's ex-husband, Eddie Land, who was seen at the park earlier that day. An officer from Clayton County testified during the trial that there had been an incident of domestic abuse involving Eddie and Whitney Land. "There has been no testimony about what (Eddie Land) was doing," Moore said. Eddie Land was on the list of states witnesses, but he was never called to testify. Moore also tried to discredit the state's key witness, Demetrius Taylor, who testified that Harris telephoned him for help the day of the slayings and said "I shot somebody." Taylor testified he saw Harris toss a cell phone belonging to Land and a handgun into the lake at an apartment complex in Duluth. Taylor said he then helped Harris burn the car, unaware that two bodies were in the trunk. Moore characterized Taylor as "an uncharged, co-conspirator," who had struck a deal with prosecutors to testify against Harris. In his final plea to jurors, Porter insisted there was no deal with Taylor and characterized the defense's arguments as "throwing sand into their eyes." "Tearing down Eddie Land and Demetrius Taylor, and saying 'I might've done it, but I didn't do it here,' thats what their defense consists of," Porter said. The jury will begin deliberating today. (source: Gwinnett Daily Post) OHIO----impending execution Spirko: troubled, but I am at peace' -- As death date nears, he clings to hope John Spirko knows he may have only 12 more days of life, but he clings to hope that someone will postpone the executioner's call. The state of Ohio plans to execute Spirko at 10 a.m. Nov. 15 for the 1982 murder of rural postmaster Betty Jane Mottinger, a crime Spirko insists he did not commit. In a death row interview Wednesday, a determined and sometimes emotional Spirko accused prosecutors and investigators of railroading him with lies and withholding evidence that would have cleared him. He regrets testifying at his 1984 trial and would welcome a conversation with Mottinger's family. "This is a case of pure, raw 1920s frame-up, period. It stinks to high heavens," said Spirko, 59, as he sat at a small conference-room table near his cell at the Mansfield Correctional Institution, hands cuffed to a chain-like belt. "I have a troubled mind, but I am at peace." The state maintains he was justly convicted. Spirko argues that after 23 years, new information is still emerging. Questions have arisen recently about the credibility of Paul Hartman, the primary postal inspector in the case. And last week, a former painter who years ago implicated his boss in Mottinger's murder passed a polygraph test. Former painter John Willier has said he recognized the shroud that Mottinger's body was wrapped in as a drop cloth he and his boss used on a house-painting job the summer Mottinger was kidnapped. Spirko's lawyers sued in U.S. District Court in Toledo Wednesday seeking to force DNA testing of evidence, including the shroud. The Ohio attorney general's office has said it would agree to testing if evidence is available. Mottinger was kidnapped from her tiny Elgin, Ohio, post office on Aug. 9, 1982. Her body - stabbed more than a dozen times and wrapped in a paint-splattered shroud - was found six weeks later in a soybean field 50 miles away. Spirko said that even should he be executed, the case will not end. "This case hasn't even begun," he said. "A lot of people will not let this go. It will come and haunt these people for a long time." Spirko harshly criticized Hartman, who could not be reached. Gov. Bob Taft can allow Spirko to be executed, commute the sentence or delay it. Spirko believes it will be a difficult decision for the governor. "You know that the political atmosphere is one that your chances are small, even though you are innocent," Spirko said. "I hope he would err on the side of caution." Though the end may be near, it's a slippery concept to grasp, Spirko said. "For some reason, I just can't get my mind around it. I keep thinking that something good is going to happen," he said. Spirko expressed a desire to meet with Mottinger's family. "Right now, they are just going from their pain and hatred and anger and misery and they want me dead. I understand that," Spirko said. "If they could just put their anger and hate aside. There are so many things they believe that are just outright lies." Struggling for emotional control, Spirko said that saying goodbye to his own family will be the toughest challenge. No physical evidence connected Spirko to the crime. Investigators had never heard of the career criminal until he contacted them, saying he wanted to trade information about the Mottinger case for lenient treatment for himself and his girlfriend in another, unrelated case. In more than a dozen interviews with postal inspectors - none of them tape-recorded - Spirko spun an ever-changing series of gruesome stories about what might have happened to Mottinger. Although they disproved much of what Spirko said, investigators asserted that, sprinkled among his lies, were details that only the killer could have known. Spirko and his lawyers have argued that Spirko got some details from media reports while others may have been supplied - deliberately or inadvertently - by investigators. Spirko's execution should not go forward before DNA testing is done, said Steven Drizin, legal director for the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University's School of Law. Drizin has argued that Ohio could be poised to execute an innocent man. He repeated that argument Wednesday at a forum on Spirko's case at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law. (source: Cleveland Plain Dealer) ****************** Spirko sees no way out of death----Asserts innocence just days before execution date In an interview Wednesday from Death Row, John Spirko said his faith in God comforts him as he awaits a Nov. 15 date with the executioner for a murder he said he didn't commit. "Lots of times I read the Bible and think of Jesus in the garden before he was arrested," Spirko told a Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter who shared the transcript with other Ohio newspapers. "He knew what he had to go through. That's comforting, because I know what I have to go through. Jesus was falsely accused. Jesus was on death row. If they can do that to Jesus, what chance do I have?" Spirko's attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday seeking access to the tarp used to wrap the murder victim's body in order to test for DNA evidence that might point to another suspect. Kim Norris, spokeswoman for Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, said Petro's office is still considering a defense request that the state test the tarp. Meanwhile, the Ohio Parole Board has rejected a defense request that it reconsider its 6-3 recommendation to Gov. Bob Taft against clemency, despite Monday's news that a witness who implicated another suspect in the killing passed a lie detector test. In the interview, Spirko, 59, reiterated his claims of innocence in the 1982 abduction and stabbing death of rural Van Wert County postmaster Betty Jane Mottinger, saying he lied about having information about the murder simply to win probation for his girlfriend on an unrelated charge. He also said he was railroaded by then-U.S. Postal Inspector Paul Hartman, who testified that Spirko divulged facts that only the killer would know during a series of jailhouse interviews in the months after the crime. There is no physical evidence tying Spirko to the murder. He was not a suspect until he volunteered information in exchange for leniency for his girlfriend. (source: Dayton Daily News) ********************* November 1, 2005 Governor Bob Taft 30 th. Floor 77 South High Street Columbus, Ohio 43215-6117 Re: Intervene Execution Dear Governor Taft, I am writing you this letter in a plea to intervene with the execution of John G. Spirko Jr. only until the DNA testing is complete and a full investigation can be done to bring all that were involved in this murder to Justice. In doing this perhaps the DNA will prove who the real people are that killed Betty Jane Mottinger. It might even prove that Mr. Spirko did do it with the others or perhaps that he did not. At least all of our conscious can be free of knowing the truth and not wondering if Justice has or has not been done to the fullest in this case. Please let all that can be done - be done, so all the hard work my husband did to find all the murderers who murdered his wife, Betty Jane Mottinger, will be brought to Justice. Governor Taft, I pray that this would not ever happen, but what if the following would happen. What if all that were involved in this murder were not punished or even looked into. They would know that they got away with murder. What would stop them from murdering again. No one cared enough to even try to catch them the time they were involved with the murder of Betty Jane Mottinger. What if they murdered again and maybe this time it was someone that you treasure and love with all your heart. Later you found out it was one of these men that killed Betty Jane and no one tried to bring to justice when they had the chance and they killed your loved one. Then how would you feel and how could you live with that for the rest of your life? By not giving the time to have the DNA and a full investigation happen in Betty Jane's Mottinger's Murder Case, that is what you are asking us to do. You are asking us to just turn our heads and let them go to murder again and again with no Justice being brought to them. Please think about what you are asking us to do. Please give us faith in the Justice System. Sincerely, Connie Mottinger ************************************* Connie Mottinger letter to FBI seeks DNA testing on Spirko case November 2, 2005 Theodore Wasky Special Agent In Charge Paul Keppler Chief Division Counsel 1502 Lakeside Avenue Cleveland, OH. 44114 Re: Betty Jane Mottinger's Murder Case Dear Mr. Wasky and Keppler, I am the second wife of Clarence Mottinger. His first wife was Betty Jane Mottinger, the Postmaster of Elgin, Ohio, who was murdered in 1982. I am writing you with great concerns that need to be addressed. I know that you have been asked to step back into this case. You have been asked to do DNA and a full investigation. Information has been brought to your attention that now a number one suspect in this case is Mr. Dale Dingus. You have declined to help for reasons that you feel it is up to the Postal Inspection Service to continue with this investigation since it was their case in the beginning and they are still involved. To me personally, it sounds like you are "passing the buck". To me I can not understand why you can not work together on this and still not step on each others "toes" in your Departments. Especially since there is question on how this case has been handled from the beginning and through the years after. I always was under the understanding that the FBI was for the public to give us protection, to make the Justice System work for the public. Your Service says that you investigate kidnaping and violent crimes. This case has both of these criteria. Betty Jane Mottinger was kidnaped from her working place - a US Postal Office, she wasn't found until weeks later, thrown next to the road in a bean field like a piece of trash, she was tortured, and was stabbed fifteen times to her death. How much more heinous does a crime have to be to get your attention? I know that you have a lot of crimes that have to be investigated and in the world today a lot to do to keep us safe, and I respect this and give you a lot of credit for the job you do. But to us who knew and loved Betty Jane deeply, her case is just as important as all the other crimes are. All that are involved in this crime need to be punished. Just because this case is considered to have too many years behind it, it does not seem old to us. It stays with us as if it just happened yesterday. The truth and Justice can be served in this case, if you would just step up and help the Postal Inspection Service. Please work together on this, the Postal Inspectors have not been able to do this case any justice by themselves. An other reason for your decline was - the DNA would not prove Dale Dingus was involved or did the murder if his DNA was found on the tarp that Betty Jane's body was wrapped in if it was his tarp. His DNA and his crews DNA would be expected to be there. I understand this, but this kind of thought also raises an other question. If the DNA is done on this tarp and only DNA from Mr. Dingus and his paint crew are found and no other DNA, wouldn't that also say they had to be involved? Betty Jane's body was found only a few yards down the road from Mr. Dingus's mother's barn and property. What a better place to put a body. That way Mr. Dingus could guard who was on the property and keep everyone away. He was close enough to make sure the body would be destroyed in time by the heat of the summer and insects who would feed on a corpse would take over. The body was ready and weighted to be thrown in the Blanchard River which was only a few feet away if things were not going right for him with her body being destroyed in the field. At that time the weather enabled for the Blanchard River to be high enough to hid the body. I personally find all of the above reasons for your decline to help with this Murder Case of our beloved Betty Jane Mottinger to be totally without merit. The public trust you, count on you, hold you with the greatest of respect, and I would like to think we could continue to do this with the concerns of this murder case. Thank- you for taking the time to read my letter. Please take my plea to you to heart. Sincerely, Connie Mottinger NEW JERSEY: Judge rules transsexual can represent herself in death-penalty trial In Camden, convicted killer and transsexual Leslie Nelson will be able to represent herself in her pending death-penalty trial, a judge ruled today. It will be Nelson's third trial to determine penalty for the murder of Haddon Heights police officer John Norcross. Jury selection is set for April 17 before Superior Court Judge Samuel D. Natal. Juries have previously returned 2 death sentences but both were overturned by the state Supreme Court. Nelson used an AK-47 assault rifle and a 9 mm handgun to shoot down Norcross and Camden County Prosecutor's Office investigator John McLaughlin on April 20, 1995. The officers had gone to Nelson's home to search for illegal weapons. (source: Courier Post) ************************* 3d Circuit throws out '86 death sentence----Faulting Robert O. Marshall's lawyer, judges ordered a new penalty trial. Nearly 20 years after he was sentenced to death for arranging his wife's murder, a once-prominent New Jersey insurance broker won a new hearing yesterday on whether he should be resentenced to death or given a life term in prison. A 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia ruled that Robert O. Marshall, formerly of Toms River, must receive a new penalty trial within 120 days or be sentenced to life. The New Jersey Attorney General's Office had no immediate response. Neither Robert Bonpietro, a deputy state attorney general who handled the appeal, nor John R. Hagerty, spokesman for the Division of Criminal Justice, could be reached for comment. Marshall, 65, was sentenced to death in March 1986 for arranging the 1984 contract killing of his wife, Maria. She was shot in a remote area off the Garden State Parkway in Ocean County as the Marshalls returned home from Atlantic City. The case became the focus of a best-seller, a TV miniseries, and a student documentary. Marshall also wrote a book from death row, Tunnel Vision. The federal appeal concerned whether trial lawyer Glenn Zeitz of Haddonfield should have done more to persuade the jury to spare Marshall's life. "We are confident that Zeitz's numerous failures in investigating and preparing for the penalty phase of the case, and in putting on and arguing a case for life, prejudiced Marshall," wrote Judge Marjorie O. Rendell, who heard the appeal with Judges Jane R. Roth and Edward R. Becker. Rendell wrote that the "lack of preparation is striking and inexplicable," and that "it clearly doomed Marshall," who was sentenced to death after just a two-hour proceeding. Zeitz said yesterday that Marshall was his only client ever to receive a death sentence, and he brushed off the Third Circuit's criticism. He said that the law governing how defense lawyers must proceed in capital cases had changed dramatically over the years - and that Marshall, like a number of death-row inmates across the nation, had benefited as the U.S. Supreme Court refined what constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel. "The law has changed in a more favorable way for criminal defendants who want to get new sentencing hearings," Zeitz said. The New Jersey Supreme Court rejected allegations that Zeitz had been constitutionally deficient. In 2002, the Third Circuit ordered hearings on the issue, and U.S. District Judge Joseph E. Irenas concluded last year that Marshall should receive a new penalty hearing. The Third Circuit affirmed Irenas' decision. Marshall, whose conviction remains intact, is not on death row but is in state prison. There are 10 death-row prisoners in New Jersey, which has not had an execution since 1963. (source: Philadelphia Inquirer) ***************** Appeals Court Tosses N.J. Death Sentence In Trenton, a federal appeals court Wednesday threw out a former insurance salesman's death sentence for arranging his wife's murder 22 years ago in a case that was the subject of a true-crime book and a TV miniseries. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia found that Robert O. Marshall's lawyer did not adequately represent him during the death penalty phase that followed his 1986 conviction. The court ordered that he receive a new death penalty hearing or a life sentence. Robert Bonapietro, a deputy attorney general for New Jersey, said an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was under consideration. Marshall was convicted of hiring a hit man to kill his wife at a dark Garden State Parkway rest stop so he could continue an affair with another woman. His tale became the subject of a best-selling book by Joe McGinnis, "Blind Faith," and a miniseries of the same name. Of the 11 men on death row in New Jersey, Marshall had been one of the closest to being executed. New Jersey has not put anyone to death since 1963. Most of the death sentences handed down since the death penalty was reinstated in 1982 have been overturned. The 3-judge appeals panel affirmed a 2004 federal court decision that found Marshall's lawyer, Glenn A. Zeitz, failed to prepare for Marshall's death penalty phase. Zeitz, who has appeared as a legal commentator on Court TV, did not present any witnesses during the penalty phase. He said at a 2003 hearing that he made a strategic decision not to. (source: Associated Press)
