Nov. 10
INDIANA:
Death Penalty Charges Could be Filed Thursday
Parke County`s prosecutor intends to seek the death penalty for accused
murderer Chad Cottrell -- and the paperwork could be filed as early as
Thursday.
Cottrell is behind bars for the murders of his wife, Trisha, and her two
daughters, Brittany Williams, 12, and Tori Williams, 10.
The 3 were found dead in their Parke County home a little more than a week
ago.
Cottrell fled the area and touched off a nationwide manhunt. He was
eventually arrested in Minnesota.
Cottrell is being held in maximum security at the Parke County jail.
(source: WTWO News)
MARYLAND:
Court Rejects Appeal From Death Row Inmate
The state Court of Appeals has again upheld the death sentence given to
Vernon Evans for the 1983 contract killing of 2 Baltimore County motel
clerks, Susan Kennedy and David Piechowicz.
The court divided 4-to-3 in affirming Evans' death penalty. He was
convicted of shooting the 2 employees of the Warren House Motel for drug
dealer, Anthony Grandison, for a fee of $9,000.
Grandison also is in prison awaiting execution.
The majority opinion rejected Evans' claim that his death sentence should
be overturned because of a study conducted for the state. That study
showed a death sentence was more likely to be given in murder trials if
the killer is black, the victim is white and the crime occurred in
Baltimore County.
The opinion said there was no evidence to show that race was a factor in
the decision by prosecutors to seek the death penalty. Evans is black, and
the victims were white.
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Federal Jury Recommends Death Sentence for P.G. Man
In Greenbelt, a federal jury has recommended a death sentence Thursday for
a Prince George's County man who kidnapped and killed the son of a
Washington police officer.
The sentence for Kenneth Jamal Lighty would be a relatively rare penalty.
Maryland currently has just 1 federal death row inmate.
Lighty was convicted last month of killing 19-year-old Eric Hayes II in
2002.
U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte has scheduled Lighty's sentencing for
February 3rd. (source for both: Associated Press)
NEVADA----impending volunteer execution
Judge sets convicted murderer's week of execution
After confirming with a judge that he's ready to die, convicted murderer
Daryl Mack stood in court Wednesday to receive a date for his execution
for the death of Reno woman in 1988.
Washoe District Judge Robert Perry set the week of Nov. 28 for Mack's
death by lethal injection. The Department of Corrections will set the day,
based on personnel and scheduling at the Nevada State Prison in Carson
City, home to the state's only death chamber.
Many of Nevada's recent executions have occurred on Thursday nights.
Mack, 47, has declined to be interviewed, according to prison officials.
Mack was serving a life sentence for the 1994 murder of Kim Parks in a
Reno motel when investigators linked him through DNA evidence to the
slaying of Betty Jane May in her southwest Reno home.
He pleaded innocent and asked to be tried by a judge. Judge James
Hardesty, now a Nevada Supreme Court justice, found Mack guilty and a
3-judge panel sentenced him to death in May 2002.
Last month Mack told Perry that he wanted to drop all of his appeals and
proceed with his death.
One of his lawyers, Scott Edwards, said Mack was tired.
"Mack was quite adamant that this is his choice. That's what he decided to
do," Edwards said.
Of the 11 inmates executed in Nevada since capital punishment was
reinstated in 1977, 10 were volunteers, who, like Mack, dropped their
appeals.
The last voluntary execution was Terry Dennis on Aug. 12, 2004, for
strangling Ilona Strumanis, 51, at a Reno Motel in March 1999.
He had pleaded guilty 4 months later on one condition: that he receive a
death sentence. He said he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in
prison.
(source: Reno Gazette-Journal)
ARIZONA:
Man could face death sentence after being convicted in shooting
A Tucson jury has convicted a man of 1st-degree murder in a 2003 shooting.
Today, the panel begins the penalty phase of the case, which will
determine whether 23-year-old Cody James Martinez is sentenced to life in
prison or death.
Prosecutors say they're seeking the death sentence because robbery
motivated the murder of 19-year-old Fernando Aguilar.
Martinez and 3 other defendants were indicted on charges of kidnapping and
killing Aguilar.
2 of the other co-defendants pleaded guilty to kidnapping in exchange for
testifying against Martinez.
(source: KVOA News)
USA:
OShea gives voice to women on death row
On Wednesday, Nov. 2, the CFL Recital Hall was packed with onlookers
peeking in from the hallway to hear Kathleen OShea speak about women on
death row.
OShea became an activist, writer, lecturer and professor following 30
years as a nun.
Luther College Womens Studies sponsored OShea to talk about her unique
experiences with the women on death row and the books she has written
about them.
"Women and the Death Penalty in the United States: 1900-1998" was OSheas
1st book. In her 2nd book, "Women on the Row: Revelations From Both Sides
of the Bars," she illuminates the connection between her own life
experiences and 10 women on death row who shared their stories with her.
OShea is currently the leading authority on the issue and is the only
person to have visited all 54 women on death row.
There was an undercurrent of raw emotion in the room as OShea shared some
of her more harrowing stories of women she had met. Her message was not
intended to generate emotion, however, but rather to raise awareness about
the conditions these women have endured.
Aside from being sentenced to death, the women on death row are deprived
of basic human rights. They are lack clean underwear, human contact and,
in some cases, medication for serious mental illnesses such as
schizophrenia.
"Isn't it enough that these women live every day with the thought that
they will be executed at some point? Do we have to kill them every day?"
said OShea.
The audience was engaged by gripping stories of the individual women she
had interviewed with statistics intermingled throughout.
"It was hard not to pay attention because the information was so
provocative," Tatiana Kireiev (06) said.
O'Shea became interested in the women on death row originally from a
strictly scholarly standpoint.
Prison authorities were hesitant to grant OShea rights to interview her
1st woman on death row for a project she was helping a professor with
during graduate school. After she was begrudgingly approved visitation
rights, her simple, statistical data collection became an emotional
endeavor as well.
O'Shea was shocked by how normal the woman she saw looked, other than the
fact that she was shackled in chains.
"The first thing she did was pull out a picture of her children that she
had in her pocket, even though it was difficult for her because of the way
she was handcuffed. She didn't act like she would be executed. She was
happy and bubbly," O'Shea said.
After finding her experiences with the five women on death row in Oklahoma
haunting, O'Shea decided to research all of the women on death row and was
surprised to find there was nothing for her to go on.
"Something just clicked in my head. The information really wasn't out
there. I didn't know very much about women on death row, but I still knew
more about them than anyone else," O'Shea said.
After writing to all the women on death row and getting no response, she
pulled what she calls "the nun cord" and described her mission to them.
After getting very little feedback a 2nd time she wrote letters to the
women that were less than cordial.
"I wrote letters saying, 'listen, I'm going to write the book, you're
going to be in it and this is what I'm going to publish about you - unless
you give me something else to go on,'" OShea said.
This bold move got a response back from many of the women, who were
outraged, but this got them talking, which was her original intention.
After speaking to the women, OShea learned their stories, got to know them
as people and relayed their stories to others.
"Tell people what you know about us because you are our voice," one inmate
told her.
Diligently following the inmate's request, OShea's lecture at Luther
raised awareness in the campus community.
"I think she did what she set out to do, to inform people about women on
death row, really well, because I really had no idea about any of that,"
Brandt Rost ('07) said.
OShea is intent on being a voice for the women on death row not only
through her lectures, but through her books as well.
"I hope my book will provoke a lot of discussion and, perhaps, inspire
some action," O'Shea said.
(source: Chips (The student newspaper at Luther (Iowa) College) )
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Death penalty both necessary, just
Charlie Mitchell's column ("Death penalty getting costly in Mississippi,"
Nov. 6) was of much interest to me. He is certainly correct that in our
judicial system this option is a very difficult, lengthy and costly
process. I feel it need not be so.
The death penalty is, in my opinion, a necessary and just punishment for
some crimes as well as serving as a deterrent and saving lives.
I advise readers to please read "Is Capital Punishment Morally Required?
The Relevance of Life-Life Trade-offs" at www.law.uchicago.edu/academics/.
If it is a deterrent and does save lives as the above cited paper states,
the government is negligent not to employ it.
Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and recent visitor to
Jackson, suggested that the death penalty is too difficult a decision to
make.
I say we are required to make difficult decisions involving life and risk
and loss throughout our lives. It is one of the very difficult challenges
of living a responsible life. To avoid those decisions because of
misguided idealism or just deciding it's too hard is to put others and
ourselves in a reality of peril.
I also strongly believe that the advance of forensic science and DNA
technology has materially altered the strongest argument against the death
penalty - that of executing the innocent.
DNA is a completely neutral tool. It is used to identify victims of such
tragedies as Katrina and 9-11. It is used to free the innocent who have
been wrongly imprisoned.
That technology should have the same power to convict. It does give the
same information in every case.
Why, then, do we proceed with seemingly endless and exceptionally costly
post-conviction appeals when such information is available? We need to
change the process.
Ann Pace----Jackson
(source: Letter to the Editor, Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger)
