Nov. 5 USA: The Death Penalty Is No Deterrent Regarding the Oct. 26 news story "Measure Would Alter Federal Death Penalty System; House Legislation to Renew USA Patriot Act Would Loosen Some Provisions for Execution": While it would be fascinating to learn from Rep. John Carter (R-Tex.) how he reasons that fanatics who blow themselves up in service to extremist causes would be deterred by death penalty sentences, most studies do not bear out his belief that fear of the death penalty deters would-be murderers. The Death Penalty Information Center details, state-by-state, sad statistics revealing that states that execute the most suffer the highest numbers of murders. Perhaps Mr. Carter also can advise U.S. citizens how by reducing American standards of justice we can improve our stature in the civilized world. Most civilized nations deplore our death penalty practices already. Shouldn't we leave a few vestiges of "justice for all" in place, if only to give Karen Hughes some talking points for public diplomacy? ANNE V. HAMILTON----Arlington (source: Letter to the Editor, Washington Post) *************** Katrina gives Farrell new mission----Actor, social activist was on Coast to discuss death penalty In Biloxi, actor and outspoken human rights activist Mike Farrell came to the Gulf Coast on Thursday to speak on issues that he holds close to his heart -- his opposition to the death penalty and support for human rights. He left Friday afternoon with a new cause tugging at his heart: the plight of people who lost so much to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. "I've been in war zones, and this is very reminiscent," said Farrell on Friday from the front passenger seat of a van driven by Sarah Landry of D'Iberville, Miss. She showed the celebrity visitor something of what is left -- and what is gone -- in her town. The tour, organized by the sponsors of Farrell's talks in Mobile, also gave Farrell firsthand looks at damaged -- in many cases flattened -- sections of Biloxi and Gulfport before the actor caught his plane back to California. Landry, a housing director for the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, gave Farrell a running narration about the storm's deadly effects and efforts to get the decimated Gulf Coast communities back on their feet. Also along for the ride were Sister Magdala Thompson, Sister Marilyn Graf and Dr. Mark Moberg of the University of South Alabama anthropology department -- all members of the board of directors of QUEST for Social Justice, an interfaith group in Mobile that emphasizes civic action. "This has been an education," said Farrell after witnessing block after block of homes knocked off their foundations, of leaning trees with branches filled with clothing and debris, and of wrecked casino barges dumped by the horrendous storm surge in resting places hundreds of yards from their original moorings on the water. "It's devastating, positively devastating to see the scope of the damage," Farrell said. "To magnify what we've seen by I don't know what and then carry it out to the quantity of the inconceivable is a thing impossible to comprehend." Farrell, who is famous for his roles on the television programs "M*A*S*H" and "Providence," spoke Thursday night about his opposition to the death penalty to an estimated audience of 200 at the Alabama School of Mathematics & Science in Mobile. When he spoke at the University of South Alabama on Friday morning before heading west to view the hurricane-ravaged Mississippi coastline, he expanded the topic to include wide-ranging infractions against human rights. Sponsors of Farrell's visit to the area were QUEST for Social Justice, USA's College of Arts and Sciences and department of sociology, anthropology and social work, and the Sisters' Council of Mobile. Farrell said he requested to see the hurricane devastation because it is impossible to fully comprehend the enormity of disasters -- whether manmade or natural -- merely by looking at images on TV. "I've been in refugee camps in places where wars were taking place, and you come home and see that Americans saw it on television, but they don't smell it. They don't experience it," he said. Farrell said he doesn't know how he will help the victims of Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Alabama on Aug. 29. Minutes after the whirlwind tour concluded, he was still processing what he had seen, but he promised to tell others about the situation at every opportunity. The actor and activist routinely travels far and wide in his efforts to promote human rights around the world and speak out against the death penalty in America. He took on the cause of seeking a moratorium on the death penalty during his years on TV's "M*A*S*H," which concluded its 11-year run on CBS in 1983. At the conclusion of his Friday morning speech at USA, an audience member asked Farrell if a ban on the death penalty would prevent families of murder victims from attaining closure. "There is no such thing as closure," he responded. "Closure doesn't happen. You still have lost your loved one. Closure is a false promise. It is just something that allows a prosecutor to get another notch on a gun handle, and to me it is an atrocious thing." For even the most heinous of crimes, Farrell advocates a sentence of life in prison over execution because, he said, he does not believe anyone has the right to take a human life. His views are detailed on Mike Farrell Online, which is on the Internet at www.mikefarrell.org. (source: Mobile Register) OHIO: Taft must shut down death machine Ohio's dour brick "death house" looks as much like an industrial building as part of the Lucasville prison. The building's sole purpose is to perform a one-of-a-kind chemical process. (Watch the video editorial shot inside the 'death house' at Lucasville prison. Contact Gov. Bob Taft about clemency - by calling 614-644-4357 or going to www.governor.ohio.gov and clicking on 'Contact the Governor'.) It's the place where public employees inject lethal compounds into the arm of a criminal convict sentenced to die. The death machine is being readied for an execution arising out of the brutal 1982 murder of Betty Jane Mottinger. John Spirko was convicted of the crime and is set to die Nov. 15. The problem is there's a real chance the man was wrongly convicted. Former FBI Director William Sessions put it this way in his plea that Gov. Bob Taft grant clemency: "I believe that John Spirko may very well have been unjustly convicted, and I am convinced that his trial was infected with serious enough defects that we can have no confidence that the jury reached the decision about his guilt, and ultimately his death sentence, properly." The governor is Ohio's last line of defense against a wrongful execution. He's received no help from other responsible officials. Attorney General Jim Petro's every move seems to be a political calculation, rather than a push to ensure the right man is on death row. A majority of the parole board has shown haplessness bordering on incompetence. They all know Mr. Spirko's criminal case was plagued with gaps and inconsistencies, but they've ignored them. The parole board's report to the governor offers no practical guidance on whether this execution might be a mistake. All have allowed the death machine to move ahead, unimpeded, while they look away. Gov. Taft can grant clemency and commute the death penalty to life in prison - and that's exactly what he should do. Because no scientific, forensic or physical evidence links John Spirko with the Mottinger murder. The case was based on hand-written notes of prison interviews conducted by an erratic postal inspector who was the state's star witness. The "eye witness" who supposedly placed Mr. Spirko near the crime scene was only "70 percent sure" of his account. Prosecutors said Mr. Spirko had an accomplice. That theory later disintegrated. Another suspect surfaced in the 1990s. The case was referred to federal authorities, but they never investigated if a man had been wrongly convicted. John Spirko had killed before and isn't deserving of much sympathy. Still, a decent people don't impose the death penalty on such meager, feeble evidence. When they do, they, too, end up with blood on their hands. (source: Editorial, Dayton Daily News) NORTH CAROLINA: 3 executions in N.C. bracket the Thanksgiving holiday Randall Adams always looked forward to holidays with his parents, especially after Mildred and Wesley Adams Sr. remarried after years apart. "It was a good thing," said Adams, 44, of Siloam. "We had good food and everybody was laughing and joking and carrying on. That was the 1st time in a long time that we had been able to do anything like that. They'd been separated a lot of years." Those fond memories - from more than a dozen years ago - were shattered by the violent slayings of his parents in 1990. This holiday season promises more heartbreak, as the children of Mildred Adams wrestle with whether their half brother, 35-year-old Steven Van McHone, should be put to death for the murders. His execution is set for Nov. 11, 1 of 3 North Carolina plans in the weeks before and just after Thanksgiving. "It couldn't have been a worse time in my mind," said Wesley Adams Jr., 47, of Dayton, Ohio, who caught his father's body after it was hit with McHone's fatal shotgun blast. McHone's is the 1st of the 3 executions scheduled for November and early December. A week before Thanksgiving, the state plans to put 67-year-old Elias Hanna Syriani to death for the 1990 killing of his wife. A week after the holiday, Kenneth Lee Boyd, 57, is set to die for the March 1988 killing of his wife and father-in-law. The state put two inmates to death this past spring, and officials say the timing of latest executions is unavoidable. The dates were set last month, as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the final appeals of all 3 inmates, said Barry McNeill, the lead capital punishment lawyer in the state attorney general's office. The appeals, filed months ago, were pending this summer while the court was in recess. Pamela Walker, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Correction, said executions have to be set by law "no less than 30 days and no more than 60 days" after the state is notified an inmate's appeals have come to an end. That rule "left very little choice as to when to schedule them," Walker said. "Every holiday can be difficult for those incarcerated, as well as correctional staff who have to work the holiday." McHone was the son of Mildred Adams, who divorced Wesley Adams Sr. and remarried after having his children. She later left Bobby McHone and remarried Adams, about 7 years before they were killed, Randall Adams said. McHone was upset because his mother would not give him money she had set aside to pay his court-ordered restitution from a previous conviction. McHone, who had a string of larceny and theft convictions on his record, chased his mother around the yard of her Surry County home before shooting her in the back of the head. His stepfather took the gun McHone used to kill Mildred Adams, but McHone then found a shotgun and used it to kill Wesley Adams Sr. McHone's family is split about whether he should die for his crimes. Wesley Adams Jr. favors executing his half brother, while another half brother and 2 half sisters have asked Gov. Mike Easley to spare his life. That would "enable us to establish new relationships for the future," said half sister Tina Walker, 41, of Winston-Salem, who added it took her years to forgive McHone for killing her parents. That lesson of forgiveness is something she wants to share with her own children, "Maybe we can get some of the things we lost back," she said. Syriani's family is united it its desire that Easley grant him clemency. Syriani stabbed wife Teresa 28 times with a screwdriver, just after she filed for divorce. The couple's 4 children are scheduled to speak with Easley on Tuesday. "We just feel if this happens, we will be devastated," daughter Rose Syriani, 28, said at a news conference last month. "I don't know if we will get through this again." McHone's family members already have met with the governor. A clemency meeting for Boyd is scheduled Nov. 15. Boyd was sentenced to death for the March 1988 slayings of his wife, Julie Curry Boyd, and Thomas Dillard Curry, his father-in-law. Boyd admitted killing them at Curry's Stoneville home, which was riddled with bullets. He later told investigators he separated from his wife in 1987 because of arguments and his drinking problem, and hadn't planned to killed either person. Stephen Dear, executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, said it is unprecedented that so many family members of both the victim and the condemned are speaking out against the executions. "How horrible for them on Thanksgiving Day if they have to experience that day after another brutal loss," he said. "It just adds more tragedy for not only the families but for our system of justice." On The Net: N.C. Department of Correction: http://www.doc.state.nc.us (source: Associated Press) **************** Prosecutors ask N.C. Supreme Court to overturn new trial for death-row inmate In Raleigh, state prosecutors are asking the North Carolina Supreme Court to overturn a judge's order granting a new trial to a Greensboro man on death row since 1980. The court needs to correct numerous errors in the Superior Court judge's ruling, which could spur new challenges to state death sentences if left unchecked, state prosecutors wrote in a recently filed petition asking the court to review the case. "This case serves as the quintessential example of what can and will go wrong when the relevant law, meant to protect the finality of North Carolina convictions, is misapplied in the post-conviction setting," prosecutors with the N.C. Attorney General's Office wrote. The petition comes in response to a March 30 ruling by now retired Superior Court Judge Melzer A. Morgan Jr. of Rockingham County, who determined that Michael Edward Pinch probably did not receive a fair trial. Pinch was 20 when he received two death sentences for fatally shooting Freddie Pacheco, 19, and Tommy Ausley, 18, at a bikers clubhouse in Greensboro in 1979. Morgan's ruling came in response to Pinch's second round of post-conviction appeals, which were initially filed in 1988. Among several issues, Morgan determined that the prosecution withheld information from defense lawyers. That included evidence that the 2 slain men had a history of unprovoked violence. And that the state's primary witness, Pinch's friend, Jimmy Eanes, had told varying versions of what happened on the night of the shootings, Morgan found. These and other details might have swayed the jury to convict Pinch of 2nd-degree murder or to recommend a sentence of life in prison rather than death, Morgan wrote. In its petition, the state claims that prosecutors were not obligated to turn over witnesses' statements that Pinch didn't specifically request. Nor did Wannamaker have to give defense lawyers his notes or materials not used at trial. This information wouldn't have helped the defense case anyway considering Pinch's confession, according to the state. "The confession clearly supported the State's theory that Pinch was the mastermind behind the murders, that he was guilty of murder in the 1st degree, and that this case warranted the imposition of the death penalty," state prosecutors wrote in its recent petition. In its petition, the state asked the justices to resolve fourteen issues related to Morgan's ruling, including that the judge erred in his belief that prosecutors withheld evidence. The state Supreme Court over the years has infrequently chosen to settle disputes involving the state's post-conviction appeals laws. The court has discretion whether to review the ruling in Pinch's case and could choose to pass, sending the matter back to Guilford County for retrial. Cooney, Pinch's appeals lawyer, said Thursday that he has 30 days to file a response to the state's petition but will likely ask for an extension. The court will decide whether to take up the case after that. Though he hadn't carefully reviewed the petition yet, Cooney said, "It didn't appear to have any great surprises." In the meantime, Pinch remains on North Carolina's death row awaiting the outcome of the court battle. (source: The News & Record) ALABAMA: CBS to explore Karen Tipton murder----'48 Hours Mystery' will look at case; verdict overturned The 6-year-old Karen Tipton murder case will get a national audience next Saturday when "48 Hours Mystery" airs an hourlong program on the slaying. The CBS program will be seen locally on WHNT-TV Channel 19 at 9 p.m. Susan Millie, the program's producer, said Friday that producers became interested in the story after learning that Daniel Wade Moore of Decatur had been freed briefly from death row during his appeals. Moore, 31, who remains in the Morgan County jail, was interviewed by the show. Erin Moriarty, the correspondent for the program, said viewers will get an animated look inside the fashionable, three-story house where Tipton, 39, was killed on March 12, 1999. "It allows you to see the crime in a way you've never seen before," she said. The producers use an animated model of the crime scene. The home's new owners declined to allow "48 Hours Mystery" inside the house. Circuit Judge Glenn Thompson also declined to be interviewed. After Moore was convicted on Nov. 20, 2002, Thompson ignored a jury's recommendation that Moore be sentenced to life in prison without parole and sentenced him to death by lethal injection. Later, Thompson ordered a new trial and freed Moore, dismissing the murder charge. But the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ordered Moore back to jail pending an appeal by the state attorney general's office of Thompson's ruling to dismiss the charge. Appellate Judge Sue Bell Cobb called Thompson "really courageous" for overturning the conviction and freeing Moore. Tipton, the mother of 2 girls, was the wife of a psychiatrist, Dr. David Tipton. He and the children have since moved to North Carolina. Linda Kubina, a family friend, had proposed to "48 Hours Mystery" that it feature the Tipton case. (source: Hunstville Times) ILLINOIS: Bianchi closes case for good Gary Gauger can rest a little easier today. McHenry County prosecutors won't dangle doubt about his innocence in the murders of his parents anymore. The case is closed. Period. Gauger of Richmond was convicted of murdering in them 1993 and was sentenced to death. The conviction was overturned on appeal three years later, and Gauger was released from prison and escaped a brush with death. Gauger then was exonerated when then-Gov. George Ryan pardoned him because the case against him had no merit. Gauger was one of 13 men on death row in Illinois who was wrongfully convicted and released from prison. 12 men had been executed since the death penalty was resumed in 1977. Before leaving office, Ryan commuted the sentences of all 167 people on death row to life in prison. Criminal proceedings now are over for Gauger. On Friday, McHenry County State's Attorney Louis Bianchi announced that he was closing the file on the case. Bianchi will not prosecute the 2 motorcycle-gang members who are serving lengthy federal prison sentences in Wisconsin on racketeering charges that include the murders of Morris and Ruth Gauger. "Let me make in very clear in terms of Gary Gauger: He was pardoned ... period," Bianchi said. The state's attorney said it would be a waste of taxpayers' money to pursue murder convictions of Randall E. Miller, 46, and James W. Schneider, 41. What would be the point? Miller has been sentenced to life in prison, and Schneider, who confessed to the murders, will be nearly 80 when he is released. Justice has been served, even without a conviction in a McHenry County courtroom. The last-ditch effort by the state's attorney's office was not of Bianchi's doing. Gary Pack, who had worn out his welcome after 3 terms in office, dropped this in Bianchi's lap. Pack blew it when he convicted Gauger using a forced "confession." Pack blew it when the state Supreme Court wouldn't hear of another trial. Pack blew it when he fought Gauger's pardon. And Pack acted maliciously when he announced that McHenry County would try Miller and Schneider in Woodstock. It wasn't his problem; he was all-but driven from office. This was Pack's parting, graceless shot on his way out the back door of the courthouse. Pack said he wanted justice served in Illinois. That's hardly what he was looking for. Pack was looking out for himself, in preposterous denial over the botched prosecution of Gauger. Pack was asked whether Gauger was a suspect when he announced reopening the murder case. He coyly said, "I cannot comment on who else." Pack did say he had new evidence that would debunk robbery as the motive for killing the Gaugers. He wouldn't say what the evidence was. Just wait, Pack said. Nothing there, Bianchi says. Pack discredited his office. Gauger proved it. (source: Northwest Herald)
