Nov. 16
TEXAS----impending execution
Court rejects stay in Baytown killings----Father and 2 children were slain
during Christmas Eve robbery in '93
On Christmas Eve 1993, relatives bringing gifts discovered that Roberto
Rios, 32, had been murdered in his Baytown home, along with his 2
children.
During the trial of Shannon Charles Thomas, who is scheduled to be
executed today, jurors heard a recording of the 911 call that Rios'
brother, Jose Rios, made after finding the bodies.
Today, however, none of the victims' relatives is expected to witness the
execution. A letter from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to the
address on file for the family was returned, unopened.
A 2nd letter, to a different address, drew no response.
It's not an unheard-of situation, prison system spokeswoman Michelle Lyons
said Tuesday.
"It doesn't happen often, but it does happen," she said. "In some cases,
we can't find the victim's family. In others, they have chosen to close
that chapter of their life and it's too painful to revisit."
19th to die this year
If his execution proceeds as scheduled, Thomas, 34, will be the 19th
inmate put to death in Texas this year and the 2nd in 2 days. Robert Dale
Rowell was executed Tuesday for the 1993 murders of 2 people in a Houston
crack house.
Thomas was convicted in 1996 of murdering Roberto Rios, his 11-year-old
son, Victor, and 10-year-old daughter, Maria. Thomas and co-defendant
Keith Bernard Clay had bought drugs from Rios and assumed he would have
money in the house, police said.
Clay was executed in 2003 for the robbery-murder of Baytown convenience
store clerk Tom Varghese. Thomas was charged but not tried in that
slaying.
On Tuesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declined a motion for a
stay of execution for Thomas, defense attorney Maurie Levin said.
In the petition, Levin and attorney Stanley Schneider alleged that one
witness testified in the trial he did not have a deal with prosecutors.
That witness now has signed an affidavit attesting to a deal, Schneider
said.
Levin said that she was "extraordinarily disappointed" by the court's
rejection. She said the attorneys had not decided whether to take the case
to the U.S. Supreme Court.
No clemency petition has been filed for Thomas, according to the Texas
Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Jose Rios and his pregnant wife, Imelda, found the bodies of Roberto Rios
and his children when they took Christmas gifts to the family's home on
the evening of Dec. 24, 1993, according to court records.
Roberto lay on the floor downstairs, with his face beaten, a knife in his
neck and 2 gunshot wounds in his head, investigators said. The children
lay face-down upstairs, each shot in the head.
Break in case after 2 years
The case went unsolved for 2 years, until an acquaintance of Thomas and
Clay gave information to Port Arthur police about the murders. The 2 men
told police they had been at the scene, but denied committing the murders.
Prosecutor Marie Munier remembers the Thomas trial as being "very
emotional."
"This was just horrible," said Munier, now chief of the Harris County
district attorney's trial bureau. "You have this torture and violent
killing of this man in his house.
"And to throw in that it happens on Christmas Eve, that's just the worst
kind of thing."
Thomas has requested 2 witnesses at his execution, Lyons said: his sister
and a friend.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
USA:
Death Penalty Case Gives a Clue to Alito's Methods
As partisans work feverishly to dissect the judicial record of President
Bush's latest choice for the Supreme Court, one point may easily be lost:
judges do not actually spend much of their time on high-profile issues
like religion or abortion.
The workaday world of a federal appellate judge takes place out of the
limelight, with the judge poring over records of trials, trying to fit old
precedents to new facts. It consists of handling cases much like the one
Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., Mr. Bush's choice for the court, and 2 of his
colleagues on the federal appeals court heard on April 22, 2003.
It was a case they decided unanimously almost 2 years later by overturning
the death sentence of a man convicted of robbing and killing the owner of
a jewelry store. The case, which touches on the issue of how much power
the federal government should wield over states, has been appealed to the
Supreme Court, which will decide in the coming weeks whether to take the
appeal.
It is only 1 decision, not particularly illuminating of a judicial
philosophy and not likely to provide ammunition for one side or another in
the debate over whether Judge Alito should sit on the Supreme Court. But
it is probably as typical as any of the thousands of cases he has
encountered in his 15 years as a judge.
And the opinion itself, extensive at 35 pages, provides a window into how
Judge Alito, even while adhering to a straightforward and technical
approach to deciding the case, reached results that defy easy
categorization.
In an appeal filed on Sept. 9, Bruce L. Castor Jr., the district attorney
of Montgomery County, Pa., argues that because the defendant, Antuan
Bronshtein, missed a deadline when he filed his state court appeal in
1999, the federal courts lacked jurisdiction to hear his petition for a
writ of habeas corpus and should never have reached the question of
whether the death sentence was valid.
The state court's finding that Mr. Bronshtein had "defaulted" on his
appeal was entitled to deference in federal court, the district attorney
argues. "This case is, therefore, about federalism," his brief asserts.
If the court rejects the appeal in Horn v. Bronshtein, No. 05-346, the
district attorney must decide between leaving Mr. Bronshtein in prison for
life or conducting a new sentencing hearing. Although the Federal District
Court in Philadelphia overturned the murder conviction itself, the appeals
court disagreed and set aside only the death sentence.
Judge Alito wrote the opinion for a panel of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Third Circuit that also included Judge Walter K.
Stapleton, who was named to that court by President Ronald Reagan in 1985,
and Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, named in 1999 by President Bill Clinton.
Pennsylvania has the 4th-largest death row in the country, with more than
200 inmates. That guarantees that judges in the Third Circuit, which also
covers New Jersey and Delaware, are familiar with death penalty
jurisprudence. They are also familiar with habeas corpus, the procedure by
which state prison inmates who manage to navigate a web of statutes and
Supreme Court decisions can get their constitutional claims before a
federal court.
In presenting a mix of procedural and substantive issues, the Bronshtein
case was fairly typical of a death-penalty habeas corpus case. Many habeas
corpus petitions wash out for procedural problems, in this instance a
missed deadline that a state court deemed a fatal "procedural default."
Procedure was the inmate's biggest hurdle. If he could overcome that
obstacle, his chance of getting his death sentence overturned in federal
court was fairly good, given a highly favorable decision the Supreme Court
issued in an unrelated death penalty case in 1994.
The court held then, in Simmons v. South Carolina, that states providing a
life sentence without parole as an alternative to a death sentence had to
inform jurors that "life means life" - in other words, that they need not
worry that a defendant whom they sentence to life rather than death will
be released. Pennsylvania is such a state, but the jurors who sentenced
Mr. Bronshtein to death had not received the Simmons instruction.
It was on this basis that the appeals court overturned the death sentence,
a conclusion that the state is not challenging in its Supreme Court
appeal. It was the procedural issue, determining whether the death
sentence itself would be open to review, that was all-important. While
Judge Alito's reasoning on this question took up only 4 pages of his
opinion, those were in a real sense the most important pages.
The procedural problem stemmed from Mr. Bronshtein's failure to file an
appeal in Pennsylvania state court under the state's Post-Conviction
Relief Act within a year after Oct. 20, 1997, the date when his conviction
became final on direct review. The state law permits a 2nd round of
"collateral" appeals, in essence a state habeas corpus procedure.
Mr. Bronshtein had initially waived his right to use the law, successfully
seeking dismissal of a petition that had been filed on his behalf by a
local legal aid group. By the time he changed his mind and decided to
pursue a collateral appeal, it was June 1999, more than a year late, and
the state courts dismissed his petition as untimely.
In October of that year, he turned to the federal courts, with much
greater success. Judge Lowell A. Reed Jr. of Federal District Court in
Philadelphia granted his habeas corpus petition in 2001. On appeal to the
Third Circuit, the state argued that the doctrine of "procedural default"
should have required the district judge to dismiss the case.
Judge Alito's discussion of the procedural issue tracked Judge Reed's and
his own understanding of numerous relevant Supreme Court precedents.
Quoting the Supreme Court and adding italics for emphasis, he defined
procedural default as a doctrine that precluded a federal court in habeas
corpus cases from reviewing an issue decided by a state court "if the
decision of that court rests on a state law ground that is independent of
the federal question and adequate to support the judgment."
Judge Alito said the procedural question in this case came down to whether
the state courts' adherence to the 1-year deadline was an "adequate" basis
for their refusal to entertain Mr. Bronshtein's appeal. There were several
Supreme Court opinions, he said, in which the court had found state rules
to be inadequate if they had not been followed consistently by the state
courts that invoked them.
Expanding on those rulings, Judge Alito said that consistent application
of state rules served 2 important purposes: it gave "fair notice" to
inmates of what they needed to do preserve their options, and it kept the
state courts honest by ensuring that they treated all inmates alike.
"If inconsistently applied procedural rules sufficed as 'adequate' grounds
of decision," he said, "they could provide a convenient pretext for state
courts to scuttle federal claims without federal review."
He then noted that for 20 years, the Pennsylvania courts had not
consistently enforced the 1-year deadline in capital cases. Instead, they
had applied a "relaxed waiver rule" that granted exceptions for death-row
inmates who missed the deadline.
In November 1998, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court abolished the relaxed
waiver, announcing that it would immediately begin enforcing the deadline
strictly for all. Mr. Bronshtein's deadline had passed a month earlier.
Judge Alito said the state court's new approach came too late to give Mr.
Bronshtein "fair notice" that his delay would have such dire consequences.
"Because this rule was not firmly established and regularly applied on the
date when Bronshtein's time ran out," he said, "the doctrine of procedural
default does not apply in this case."
(source: New York Times)
***********************
DNA critical in death penalty cases
In an ironic twist of fate, Steven Avery was charged Tuesday with the
grizzly murder of Teresa Halbach, a 25-year-old photographer from Green
Bay. In charging Avery, investigators credited DNA evidence with helping
them identify a suspect, the same type of evidence that helped free Avery
after 18 years of incarceration for a crime he did not commit.
On Sept. 11, 2003 Avery was released from the Stanley Correctional
Facility and reunited with his family after serving almost 2 decades in
prison. Avery had been convicted for sexually assaulting and almost
killing a young woman in 1986 based upon the testimony of a single
eyewitness. 16 witnesses corroborated Averys alibi of shopping, pouring
concrete with his father and buying paint with his family, but a jury of
his peers and an appeals court found him guilty anyway. While in prison,
his wife divorced him and his five children grew up without a father.
Yet with the help of the Wisconsin Innocent Project, Avery was exonerated
after DNA evidence showed a single hair on the victim belonged to another
perpetrator, a man named Gregory Allen, who is serving a 60-year sentence
for a string of sexual assaults. With a shaved head and flowing beard,
Avery walked out a free man, having lost 18 years of his life in a prison
cell.
State lawmakers had begun to finalize a bill that would have paid Avery
$428,000 as compensation for his wrongful conviction. But not a single
cent may find its way into Averys hands after Fridays news.
Halbach had been assigned to take photographs for Auto Trader magazine on
Averys property. Sadly, she never made it home.
According to investigators, police found remains of a woman, pieces of
clothing and what appeared to be a cell phone and camera, all of which had
been burned, as well as handcuffs, leg irons, sexual devices and
pornographic materials on Averys property. Blood was also found in Averys
house and garage.
Though police initially arrested Avery on charges of illegally possessing
a firearm, DNA evidence soon linked Avery to the crime. Averys DNA was
found in Halbachs bloody car and on the ignition key, which was found in
his home. At the outset of the investigation, Avery had claimed he had
never been inside the vehicle.
The exoneration of Avery in 2003 led to the creation of the Avery Task
Force, which has made recommendations to the Legislature regarding reforms
to the state criminal justice system.
The Avery case was also a major victory for the Wisconsin Innocence
Project, which aims to overturn wrongful convictions using DNA evidence.
UW law student Chris Ochoa, who was wrongfully convicted of killing a
Texas woman, was the first person exonerated with the Projects help. He is
now a member of the Project.
In a country that employs the death penalty as the ultimate form of
punishment, DNA evidence is essential in every single execution case. More
than 120 people in 25 states have been released from Death Row due to
their innocence, according to the US House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil
and Constitutional Rights, and 14 have been set free after DNA evidence
cleared them of any wrongdoing.
In the wake of the Halbach murder, there have been grumblings within the
Capitol that now is the time for Wisconsin to have a statewide referendum
to decide if the death penalty should be reinstated. If such legislation
is created, lawmakers must provide for DNA testing in every single death
penalty case in Wisconsin. Such scientific techniques are essential in
what amounts to a life and death matter. As the Avery case has shown, the
use of DNA can lead to a joyous release from bondage or become the
determining factor in charging an individual for a heinous, unspeakable
crime.
(source: Opinion, Josh Moskowitz is a senior majoring in political science
and journalism; The (Univ. Wis.) BadgerHerald)
********************
Both Sides State Cases on Death Penalty Bill----Supporters say it would
stop lengthy delays between convictions and executions. Critics worry that
it will erode fundamental liberties.
After spending 24 years in prison for the murder of a Long Beach man,
Thomas Goldstein was freed in 2004 when 5 federal judges ruled he had been
wrongly convicted, largely on the word of an unreliable jailhouse
informant.
However, if a bill set for a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee
today had been in effect then, Goldstein would not have been able to
establish that his constitutional rights had been violated by
prosecutorial misconduct.
Goldstein, 56, now works as a paralegal. He has gone to Washington twice
in an effort to defeat the Senate bill - and companion legislation in the
House - which he says "would deny review of many death penalty cases by
the federal courts. If this law was in effect when I was going through the
system, I would still be in prison."
Mary Ann Hughes, whose son Christopher was killed 22 years ago in Chino
Hills, also feels she has been abused by the government. But she says the
proposed legislation is needed to remedy a legal system that is
"grotesquely skewed" in favor of inmates appealing their sentences.
Last year, hours before Kevin Cooper was to be executed for murdering
Hughes' 11-year-old and three other people in 1983, a federal appeals
court granted him a stay so that DNA testing could be conducted. The tests
indicated Cooper's guilt, and a federal judge denied all the claims in his
habeas corpus petition. That ruling is now on appeal.
"I urge you to reform the - system so the profound abuses and
manipulations that have allowed the murderer of our son to evade justice
for over 22 years will finally be brought to an end," Hughes told a
congressional subcommittee last week.
The Streamlined Procedures Act, say sponsors Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Gold
River) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), is needed to stop the "endless delays"
between convictions and executions in capital cases. Bogus and repetitive
claims by inmates, supporters of the measure argue, only serve to prolong
the agony of murder victims' families.
But the American Bar Assn., one of many groups opposing the legislation,
says it would mandate "virtually unattainable procedural and other
requirements to establish innocence. These requirements will prevent many
innocent prisoners from reaching federal court."
The Streamlined Procedures Act would dramatically curtail writs of habeas
corpus, the method used by inmates to assert illegal imprisonment.
The Judicial Conference of the United States, several former federal
judges and FBI directors, and conservatives such as former U.S. Rep. Bob
Barr of Georgia have opposed the legislation, saying it could erode
fundamental liberties.
"This is a very radical bill," said Ruth E. Friedman, an appellate lawyer
who has tried numerous capital cases in Alabama and has advised the
Administrative Office of U.S. Courts in efforts to improve the quality of
death penalty representation in the South.
"It proposes to gut years of Supreme Court case law, most of it by the
Rehnquist court," she told a House Judiciary subcommittee last week.
Forty-nine of the 50 state chief justices passed a resolution last summer
opposing the legislation. California Chief Justice Ronald M. George led
the effort, even though he is a death penalty proponent, because he said
passage of the act would endanger fundamental fairness.
But its proponents have continued to press their case. In the Senate, Sen.
Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) introduced an amended version of the bill, which he
said cured some of the problems raised by the opposition.
However, opponents say that it retains many of the most egregious features
and would continue to bar the door to many meritorious claims.
In order to enhance the prospects of changing the law, those backing the
Streamlined Procedures Act have attached some of the most stringent
provisions to several other bills, such as the Child Protection Act. That
means it is possible there could be dramatic changes in habeas corpus
without a full hearing on the issue.
On Tuesday, some critics expressed concern that the Republican leadership
in Congress might use its muscle to include new limits on habeas petitions
in legislation renewing the Patriot Act, which is intended to fight
terrorism.
Portions of that law expire at year's end, and Congress is expected to act
before Thanksgiving.
Democrats asserted Tuesday that they were being cut out of negotiations to
reconcile Senate and House versions of the renewal bills, a charge
Republicans denied.
(source: Los Angeles Times)
***************
Catholic bishops denounce capital punishment----Draw distinction with
abortion
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops yesterday overwhelmingly approved a
new statement of opposition to capital punishment, asserting that it
contributes to a culture of death and violence in the United States.
It was the bishops' 1st comprehensive statement on the death penalty in 25
years, and coincided with the debate in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives on a proposal to reinstate capital punishment in the Bay
State.
Massachusetts is one of 12 states in which the death penalty is
prohibited. The bishops, who are holding their annual meeting in
Washington, said their longtime opposition to capital punishment is being
renewed and strengthened by new teachings and new support for abolition of
the death penalty growing out of the Gospel of Life encyclical issued by
the late Pope John Paul II. Citing John Paul's teachings, the bishops
declared that "the death penalty is not intrinsically evil, as is the
taking of human life through abortion or euthanasia," but "in contemporary
society, where the state has other, nonlethal means to protect its
citizens, the state should not use the death penalty."
Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley of Boston, who has strongly opposed the
restoration of capital punishment in Massachusetts since Governor Mitt
Romney proposed reinstating it last year, said in an interview that a
''sea change" is occurring among Catholics, who in the past have shown
strong support for the death penalty.
(source: Boston Globe)
FLORIDA:
Prosecutors Play Tapes in Fla. Killing
The man accused of abducting, raping and strangling 11-year-old Carlie
Brucia said in taped conversations from jail that he was high on drugs
during the crime and that the girl's death was an accident.
Prosecutors played the tapes for jurors Tuesday as they wrapped up their
case against Joseph Smith. His defense attorney was to present arguments
Wednesday before the case went to the jury.
Carlie's disappearance received worldwide attention when a car-wash
security camera captured the abduction in February 2004. Her body was
found four days later near a church.
Smith, a 39-year-old former auto mechanic and father of three daughters,
is charged with 1st-degree murder, kidnapping and capital sexual battery.
He has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
Smith's conversations were taped over the telephone or during jailhouse
meetings in the weeks after Carlie's disappearance. In one conversation,
he told his brother, John, that he felt "good" after making a confession
and an act of contrition to a priest.
"I confessed to everything, murder, all types of stuff," Smith said.
In another conversation, Smith asked his mother to explain to his ex-wife
that what had happened was an accident.
"You don't think I would do that on purpose, Ma? It was an accident,"
Smith said on the tape. "I didn't mean to do it, Ma. She knows I'm not an
animal, right?"
Also Tuesday, Smith's attorney challenged the reliability of an FBI lab
that linked the defendant through DNA tests to a semen stain found on the
girl's shirt.
(source: The Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Man Pleads Not Guilty in Series of 11 Killings----Convicted rapist Chester
D. Turner will stand trial in deaths of 10 women and a fetus.
Suspected serial killer Chester D. Turner pleaded not guilty Tuesday to
charges that he murdered 10 Los Angeles women and a victim's fetus during
an 11-year rampage that began in 1987.
Turner, 39, a convicted rapist whom authorities have termed Los Angeles'
most prolific serial killer, entered the plea after prosecutors added an
extra murder charge for the death of the fetus of Regina Washington, who
was killed in September 1989.
The charges were amended based on a physician's testimony at Turner's
preliminary hearing earlier this month that Washington's 6 1/2 -month
fetus was viable at the time of her death.
Prosecutors at the two-day hearing also presented DNA evidence and a
shadowy, grainy 1998 videotape of a man killing a woman in a downtown
parking structure. At the proceeding's conclusion, Turner was ordered to
stand trial, and a pretrial conference was set for March 20, with the
trial to begin within 60 days.
Turner is serving an 8-year prison sentence in a rape case. Genetic
testing conducted after that conviction tied him to sperm cell matter
found on the bodies of the 10 women, according to an analyst with the
LAPD's Scientific Investigations Division.
Turner's DNA was also allegedly linked to 2 other slayings, wrongly blamed
on David Allen Jones, who was released from prison in March because of the
wrongful convictions. Turner has not been charged in those killings.
With an eye to possibly challenging the DNA evidence, Turner's attorneys
are seeking a discovery hearing next month on the chain of custody of the
sperm samples collected from the 10 women's bodies.
Turner is accused of killing Annette Ernest, 26; Anita Fishman, 31;
Washington, 27; Paula Vance, 31; Mildred Beasley, 45; Andrea Tripplett,
29; Desarae Jones, 29; Natalie Price, 31; Brenda Bries, 31; and 1
unidentified woman who appeared to be in her 20s.
(source: Los Angeles Times)
***************
Supes: Halt the death penalty----The vote supports a statewide moratorium
bill on next year's agenda
San Mateo County supervisors on Tuesday called for a statewide moratorium
on executions, becoming the last county in the Bay Area to take such a
stand.
The vote came as a surprise to more than a dozen anti-death penalty
advocates who had packed the Supervisors' chambers expecting them to take
a weaker position on the controversial issue.
Late last week, Supervisor Rose Jacobs Gibson withdrew her resolution in
support of a moratorium bill being considered by the state Legislature.
She said she wasn't sure she had the support of her colleagues, and she
was told there wasn't much support for it in the Legislature anyway.
In its place, she offered a resolution in support of a commission that
will study the fairness of the state's criminal justice system.
But after listening to the impassioned pleas of moratorium advocates on
Tuesday, Jacobs Gibson changed her mind and offered both resolutions.
Supervisors voted 4-0 to approve the resolutions, with Supervisor Mark
Church absent. "It's quite disturbing to think there are people in the
criminal justice system who are innocent. And even more disturbing is the
thought that there are people sentenced to death who are innocent," Jacobs
Gibson said.
Supervisor Jerry Hill said he agreed to support a moratorium as long as it
was temporary. He does not oppose the death penalty itself.
"California is not Texas, and care seems to be taken to make sure that
those convicted and sentenced have been done so correctly," he said.
Surrounding counties, including San Francisco and Santa Clara, already
have taken a position in support of a moratorium.
Supervisors said it was simply a matter of timing that they didn't act
earlier.
Supervisors thought it would be inappropriate to take a vote last year,
while the high-profile death penalty case of Scott Peterson was being
tried in the Hall of Justice upstairs from where they meet.
Activists from GreenPeace and area churches spoke out at the meeting.
"This is not about the abolishment of the death penalty. This is about
protecting the innocent," said Henry Organ of Menlo Park, who was
representing the local chapter of California People of Faith Working
Against the Death Penalty.
He compared the death penalty to an airplane, saying both should be
grounded until they are thoroughly investigated for problems.
Terry McCaffrey of Cupertino, a regional coordinator for Amnesty
International, cited the case of an East Palo Alto auto mechanic who was
wrongly jailed for more than 12 years for his ex-girlfriend's murder.
Quedellis Ricardo "Rick" Walker was freed 2 years ago after prosecutors
admitted he was framed by the real killer.
The Supervisors' vote was largely symbolic because the issue ultimately
will be decided in January by state lawmakers.
"I think that the bill is very soundly worded and is a very reasonable
approach to a debated issue that needs immediate attention," said
Assemblyman Mark Leno,
D-San Francisco, who is a co-sponsor.
If passed, a moratorium would not go into effect until January 2007, far
too late to stop three planned lethal-injection executions.
Increasing the sense of urgency around the issue is the Dec. 13 execution
date of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, a founder of the Crips street gang,
whose supporters say he deserves to live because of his post-conviction
efforts to deter young people from gang involvement.
(source: Inside Bay Area)
