Nov. 16 MISSISSIPPI: Nixon's death row odyssey is a pathetic joke The death penalty in Mississippi - currently invoked by Mississippi juries for 69 inmates who killed people while in the commission of another felony like robbery, rape or kidnapping - remains a pathetic joke. It's meaningless. Mississippi doesn't carry out the death penalty. We just talk about it incessantly in the appellate courts and during political campaigns. Consider the case of Mississippi Death Row Inmate No. 41484 - John B. Nixon Sr. Old John's a hit man. And when I call him "Old" John, I'm not exaggerating. Nixon's been on death row for over 2 decades. 20 years on death row? Nixon, 77, a former Utica auto repairman, was convicted of capital murder in the Jan. 22, 1985, murder-for-hire slaying of Virginia Tucker, 45, in her Brandon home. Tucker's ex-husband, Elester Joseph Ponthieux of Raymond, is serving a life sentence for hiring Nixon to kill her. Virginia Tucker's husband, Thomas Tucker, was wounded in the attack as he fled their house. Tucker survived and identified Nixon as the attacker. 2 of Nixon's sons and a friend also went to prison for their roles in the killing. Nixon's a prince of a guy. He pleaded guilty to a rape charge in Texas in 1958. But the truth of the matter is that Nixon has been in more danger of falling and breaking a hip or strangling on his dental adhesive than of getting the lethal injection a group of Mississippi jurors said he had coming for his crime. Nixon could well die of old age before the state gets around to executing him for the contract killing of a Brandon woman. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied yet another appeal by Nixon. Attorney General Jim Hood's office immediately filed a motion with the state Supreme Court to set a Dec. 14 date for Nixon's execution - based on the belief that Nixon's failed appeal may have represented his last hope to avoid execution. But Nixon's attorney answered with yet another emergency appeal to the state Supreme Court rehashing issues that the federal courts have already rejected. Executions rarely happen Between 1940 and 1952, Mississippi executed 75 prisoners in the old portable electric chair. From 1955 to 1964, the state executed another 29 inmates in the gas chamber. Yet, between 1964 and 1989, only 4 inmates were executed in the gas chamber - Jimmy Lee Gray in 1983, Edward Earl Johnson and Connie Ray Evans in 1987, and Leo Edwards in 1989. Since 1989, only 2 death row inmates were executed - cop killer Tracey Alan Hansen and rapist/murderer Jessie Darnell Williams, both by lethal injection in 2002. Statistics show that over the last 41 years, only 6 Mississippi inmates condemned to suffer the death penalty have actually been executed. The rest of death row's inmates are wards of the state and daily the meter spins on the high cost of maximum security incarceration and of the endless cycle of state and federal appeals. As long as Mississippi fails to provide for a state indigent defense system that verifiably provides competent counsel for murder defendants that is comparable to the state trial court prosecutorial system, the farce that is the death penalty in Mississippi will continue. The state Supreme Court knows the revolving door of death row appeals, but has yet to order the state to fund indigent defense sufficient to avoid or lessen the delay of these incessant appeals. One has to wonder just how much punishment exists in putting a 77-year-old man to sleep like a distempered dog - that is, if the state gets around to it. (source: The Clarion Ledger) MASSACHUSETTS: Another defeat for death penalty The Massachusetts House of Representatives resoundingly defeated Gov. Mitt Romney's proposal to reinstate the death penalty yesterday despite arguments that new scientific safeguards would remove all doubt about convictions. The House vote was 100 to 53 against capital punishment. During a debate that stretched from early afternoon into the evening, opponents of the death penalty said it would not be a deterrent to crime. Some predicted it would disproportionately target minorities, based on statistics in other states. "Our current system meets the requirement of harsh punishment and meets the requirement for deterrent without engaging in the financial and moral costs of capital punishment," said Rep. Eugene O'Flaherty, D-Chelsea. O'Flaherty is the House chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which voted 17-1 to oppose Romney's capital punishment bill. Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey called the vote "very disappointing." It was a lost opportunity for Massachusetts to lead the way in genuinely innovative approaches to law enforcement. I had hoped that the Legislature would take a serious look at this legislation and realize that it was unique and unlike any legislation they had considered in the past on the death penalty." Supporters of bill said Romney had come up with a narrow death penalty statute that removed all doubt on convictions, in part by requiring an independent scientific review of the evidence, including DNA. Romney's legislation would allow death by lethal injection for those convicted of terrorism, mass murder, killings involving torture, and the slaying of law enforcement officials, judges, lawyers and witnesses. Convicts who commit murder while already serving life without parole would also be eligible for the death penalty. Rep. Cleon Turner, D-Dennis, said it was not possible to remove all doubt in death penalty convictions, and he urged lawmakers to vote against the bill. "The difficulty with the governor's death penalty bill, as conceded even by its proponents, is that it cannot be infallible," Turner said. "That fact means that rather than never convicting or executing an innocent person, we might only convict or execute fewer. One mistaken execution would be far too many." Rep. Jeffrey Davis Perry, R-Sandwich, argued in favor of the bill. "It's about punishing the people who murder innocent people," Perry told the House. "It's about deterrence. And it's about justice." I want to applaud the governor for having the political courage to take this issue on. It's something he talked about during his campaign. He put together a commission to study the issue." Perry said the law was narrow enough that only one or two murders a year would qualify, based on testimony at a public hearing this year. Romney based his bill on the findings of the expert commission that studied the death penalty last year. It would establish a new standard of "no doubt" in capital cases, tougher than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" required for criminal convictions. But the legislation faced long odds in the House, which has now rejected the death penalty 4 times since 1997, when it was defeated by a tie vote. This time, it was opposed by House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, D-Boston. The margin is getting wider. In the last vote, in 2001, the House voted 92-60 against capital punishment. Yesterday's vote means Massachusetts remains 1 of 14 states in the nation without the death penalty. In 2 of those states, Kansas and New York, death penalty laws were declared unconstitutional by each state's high court. Rep. Shirley Gomes, R-Harwich called Romney's proposal a "much improved death penalty bill, but it's not foolproof." Rather than spend money putting inmates on death row, Gomes said, the state should "give our law enforcement officers the tools, the training, the laws, the money and manpower to do their jobs." (source: Cape Cod Times) ARIZONA: Prof: victims affect sentence -- New study finds childhood experience linked to violent crime The social standing of murder victims has a direct impact on what kind of sentence convicted killers receive, according to the research of a UA professor. James Clarke, a political science professor, studied the cases of 179 convicted killers whose cases were tried in Pima County between 1991 and 1999. The most startling finding to come from the study was that 89 % of the victims of death-row inmates were middle class, while 83 % of the victims of nondeath-row inmates were poor or unskilled, Clarke said. "Prosecutors and judges place less importance on lower class victims," Clarke said. "The value of a victims life varies with his or her social standing." The criteria for the study were accessibility of the inmates files and the completeness of these files, and only those who had direct involvement in the crime were considered for the study, he said. "We didn't select people who were riding in the back of the car during a drive-by," Clarke said. Clarke used sources such as crime scene documents, spoken and written statements by the perpetrators, and psychological evaluations to conduct the study. Of the 179 convicted killers in Pima County, 10 % were sentenced to death, a figure Clarke said is twice as high as the rest of the state. One similarity among nearly all of the convicted killers was their social background, something that Clarke believes factors into all violent crime cases. Because social behaviors stem from early childhood, efforts to reduce violent crime should focus more on family life, he said. "Adult violence is so clearly associated with childhood experiences," Clarke said. About 79 % of the convicts studied had inadequate parenting, which Clarke defined as "absent, incompetent, negligent or abusive parents." A strong relationship between children and their parents is extremely important as the child grows older, Clarke said. "A child's conscience emerges out of the attachments it forms with its parents," Clarke said. "If moral values are not taught during the preschool years, a childs future as a teen and an adult is virtually assured." A person without a good conscience will act only on the basis of expedience, Clarke said. As the convicts aged, many showed signs of sociopathic behavior, but Clarke was quick to point out that not all sociopaths are incarcerated. "Some are in corporate boardrooms," Clarke said. As teenagers, 57 % of the convicts were involved in anti-social behavior that brought the attention of authorities, and 52 % had been suspended or expelled from school. For these reasons, when the killers were convicted, Clarke said, it probably came as no surprise to the social workers, teachers and counselors who had been in contact with them as children. "Efforts to reduce violent crime in the long term should focus on families and children," Clarke said. "Every kid needs a loving mother and father." (source: Arizona Daily Wildcat) NORTH CAROLINA: The Governor's Decisions Gov. Mike Easley didn't grant clemency to a man from Surry County who was executed last week, but he still faces the heavy responsibility of deciding whether to grant clemency to 2 more inmates from North Carolina's death row whose executions are fast approaching. Kenneth Lee Boyd is scheduled to die Dec. 2 for the fatal shooting of his estranged wife and her father in Rockingham County. Elias Syriani is set to be executed at 2 a.m. Friday for the fatal stabbing of his wife with a screwdriver in Mecklenburg County. Syriani's 4 children, now adults, have all asked that his life be spared. Neither of the men is claiming innocence. But as Easley considers each case, he should keep in mind that, even though the movement for a moratorium on the death penalty in the state has stalled, there's good reason for it - including questions in general about competency of counsel and tactics of prosecutors, and the sometimes arbitrary nature of who gets the ultimate punishment and who doesn't. (source: Winston-Salem Journal) OHIO: Sarah Positano's killer has been sentenced to die. Judge John Enlow followed the recommendation of a jury today and sentenced James Trimble to die by lethal injection, the Canadian Press is reporting. The trial took place place in Ravenna, Ohio, where Trimble had already been convicted for kidnapping and murdering Positano, who was 22 at the time of her death. The young Saultite had been a physical education student at Kent State University, when she was slain in her condo. Trimble chose the home at random while on the run from police. Just hours earlier, he'd used an assault rifle to kill Renee Bauer and her seven-year-old son Dakota. The 45-year-old man was found guilty by a jury of all 9 counts against him, including 3 of aggravated murder, stemming from the shooting rampage. Last week, the jury recommended the death penalty. The court heard victim impact statements before Judge Enlow delivered death sentences on all 3 murder counts. Positano, a gifted gymnast, was beginning her last term at Kent State. The Akron Beacon-Journal is reporting today that Trimble lash out at Portage County Prosecutor Victor V. Vigluicci in a statement to the court. Trimble accused Vigluicci of making the decision to send a sniper into the Positano's home. He maintains he didn't want to kill the Saultite, but his hand slipped off a gun he was holding to Sarah's head when he noticed the sniper entering the apartment. Trimble also claimed that it was his intent to plead guilty but Vigluicci refused to accept the plea. Vigluicci referred to Trimble's accusations as "the ramblings of a remorseless, cold-blooded murderer who has made excuses for his conduct throughout the trial." (source: Sault Ste. Marie News)
