Nov. 20 CALIFORNIA: Images complicate clemency clash The crime photos tell a tale of shotgun brutality: the bloody torso of 7-Eleven clerk Albert Owens, shot twice in the back from close range; the blasted left side of Yee-Chen Lin's face; holes in Tsai-Shai's back and stomach; Yen-I Yang's mangled left arm, his spilling abdomen. Testimonials from parents, teachers and educators tell a different story: redemption; atonement; untold young lives saved from virulent gang life through the words of a man sentenced to die for those 4 1979 murders, a man who now waits to die by lethal injection in 23 days. The competing portraits of Stanley "Tookie" Williams will face Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week as he weighs the nation's most high-profile clemency decision since the Texas Board of Pardons and then-Gov. George W. Bush refused to halt the 1998 execution of confessed killer Karla Faye Tucker. In Williams, a founder of the notorious Crips street gang in Los Angeles, death penalty opponents see a strong test for a virtually extinct notion of clemency as an act of sheer mercy that looks past the court record. In Schwarzenegger, they see a governor who has called for a renewed focus on rehabilitation in state prisons, hoping he will snap a 38-year string of clemency denials in California. "He's going to increasingly see the overwhelming support for clemency in this case," said Lance Lindsey, executive director of San Francisco-based Death Penalty Focus. "Stan is really a case designed for clemency. He sticks out in hundreds of ways." In particular, Williams is noted for a string of children's books that teach the dangers of gang life and for working from prison to curtail gang violence around the world. Those efforts have resulted in five nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize and four nominations for the Nobel Prize for literature. A decision to grant Williams clemency would be unique in the modern era of death penalty politics, scholars say. Not since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 has a governor granted clemency on the sole basis of atonement or good works from prison. Whether clemency is granted or not, the decision promises a deeper look into Schwarzenegger's views on the death penalty, support for which has softened in California over the past decade. While in China this past week, the governor said he had not yet decided on Williams' petition. "This is kind of the toughest thing to do when you're governor, because you're dealing with someone's life," he said. "And so I dread that situation, but it's something that's part of the job, and I have to do it." Schwarzenegger has paroled life prisoners at a far higher rate than former Gov. Gray Davis, but he also has rejected the only 2 clemency petitions he's faced. Donald Beardslee, executed in January, argued for clemency partly on a good prison record. "I expect no less," replied Schwarzenegger in his denial. Kevin Cooper, whose execution was stayed under a court order, highlighted a conversion to faith and his mentorship of other prisoners. Schwarzenegger said those factors "do not diminish the cruelty and destruction he has inflicted on so many." Supporters say Williams' atonement goes well beyond prison behavior, and his good work travels far past the walls of San Quentin State Prison. Network news programs have spread his story of transformation from thug to peace-seeker, spotlighting his children's books and Nobel Peace Prize nominations and his mentoring of gang youths by phone from prison. Actor Jamie Foxx portrayed him in a cable TV movie aired last year. As a former Crips leader, his "peace protocol" commands a rare credibility with gang-prone youths, his backers say. Clemency would commute his sentence to life in prison without parole. A living Williams, they insist, is worth more than a dead one. Schwarzenegger should also weigh the violent legacy of the Crips, said David LaBahn, executive director of the California District Attorneys Association. "When you look at the reign of terror ... how many lives have been absolutely ruined, how do you balance that?" said LaBahn. "It's like the guy who created the wildfire, now he's holding the garden hose to it, saying, 'I'm doing my share.'" Although Williams has issued a public apology for the gang violence he helped spawn with the Crips, he maintains his innocence in the murders that sent him to death row. Innocent or not, the claim "muddies the water" for mercy, said Elizabeth Rapaport, a University of New Mexico law professor who has studied the use of executive clemency. "Unless his lack of guilt is establishable, you don't want just redemption. You want remorse," she said. Williams' plea to Schwarzenegger largely ignores his innocence claim. It focuses instead on his anti-gang work, and a conception of clemency as "an act of grace," as defined by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall in 1833. "This petition asks, if Stanley Williams does not merit clemency, what meaning does clemency retain in this state," it reads. "There's no question if Stanley were to have said, 'I committed these crimes and I apologize for them,' that would have made clemency easier for him," said attorney Jonathan Harris, who wrote the petition. "I do think that's evidence of his strength, and of his character and of his innocence." Williams claims his conviction was based on shoddy police work and false testimony by police informants and known criminals offered leniency for their testimony. He also argued in vain that his trial was marred by racially biased jury selection. In a last-ditch appeal to the state Supreme Court, he seeks access to ballistics evidence, police records related to those who testified and evidence to show he was drugged while awaiting trial. Prosecutors have sought to portray Williams as unrepentant. Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles County District Attorney, responded to the clemency petition with handwritten notes and a map suggesting Williams plotted to escape jail and blow up a bus with dynamite while awaiting trial. He also detailed a record of prison violence at San Quentin, echoing unusual comments by corrections officials that aim to cast doubt on Williams' avowed turnaround. The record ends about the time, 12 years ago, that Williams places his transformation while in solitary confinement. The last California governor to grant clemency to a death row inmate was Ronald Reagan, in 1967, based on evidence that convicted killer Calvin Thomas had a history of brain damage. Death row scholars note a dramatic political climate change from the early- and mid-20th century, when governors granted clemency in about one in 4 death row cases. "The grounds of clemency in capital cases have narrowed. Almost the only one that's used now is error correction," said Austin Sarat, an Amherst College jurisprudence professor and author of "Mercy on Trial: What it means to stop an execution." Outside of Illinois Gov. George Ryan's 2003 decision to clear death row of its 167 inmates because of pervasive questions of injustice, clemency is rare for condemned inmates. Mental illness concerns, doubts about guilt or questions of fairness are virtually the only rationales, said Sarat. Granting clemency for Williams "would be appropriate in the traditional conception of clemency: 'Why should I do it? Because I want to,'" he said. "That's not some wild idea. That's the conception defended by the framers of the Constitution." Governors are more likely to grant clemency when prosecutors, the trial judge or relatives of the victims support it. Even then, said Sarat, they often wait until they are about to leave office. None of those factors will aid Williams. Relatives of Owens want Williams dead. In an interview with the Times earlier this year, his stepmother, Lora Owens, vented frustration at Williams' growing celebrity. "He's going to end up a martyr," said Owens, "but I'm not going to let him forget the name Albert Owens. That's the man he killed. That's the man he's going to die for." The danger to Schwarzenegger's re-election bid is far from clear, political scholars said. He is unlikely to face a viable Republican challenger, and an attack from Democrats could backfire. Many view him as having a relatively free hand. "It's very unlikely the Democrats would attack him over a clemency, because there are many people in the party who oppose the death penalty entirely," said Jack Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College. "The votes Schwarzenegger needs to win back over the next 51 weeks are going to come back for reasons other than clemency for Tookie Williams," said GOP consultant Dan Schnur. Still, it's a polarizing issue fraught with peril, said Rapaport. "He could use it in some way to reintegrate youth, to model a life turned around. It would be a fairly potent argument. On the other hand, you have the family crying for blood," she said. "I think the best outcome for Arnie is if he could just make this thing go away." Stanley "Tookie" Williams BIOGRAPHY 1953: Born in New Orleans. 1971: Williams helps start the Crips gang with Raymond Lee Washington in South Central Los Angeles. 1979: Accused of the shotgun killings of Albert Owens at a Whittier 7-Eleven store and Yen-I Yang, his wife, Tsai-Shai Yang, and their adult daughter, Ye Chen Lin, at a Los Angeles motel. 1981: Convicted of the four homicides. Sentenced to die. 1997: Issues apology to the youth of the United States and South Africa who face daily violence from street gangs. Publishes children's books to educate kids about the dangers of gangs. 2001: Nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. 2004: "Redemption," an FX cable network film based on Williams' life, premieres at the Sundance Film Festival. 2005: Williams' autobiography published. U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear Williams' appeal. Judge sets Dec. 13 execution date. (source: Contra Costa Times) ************************* Mercy for Williams would be wise policy----Reformed thug model for others in trouble California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has made it clear that he'll push hard for an execution date for Stanley "Tookie" Williams. There's nothing legally to stop him. On October 11, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to reopen Williams' case. That pretty much slammed the legal door shut on one of America's most famous Death Row inmates. His execution is set for December 13. Williams, convicted of 4 murders, has languished on death row for nearly a quarter of century. He contends that he got a bad shake. A mostly white jury convicted him. He had a subpar legal defense; the case against him was based largely on testimony from jailhouse informants. This is why Williams has adamantly refused to apologize or express remorse for the slayings. He says he didn't do it. Williams also has a new legal team, and it's upped the ante. His lawyers claim that police investigators either botched or deliberately tampered with ballistics and crime-scene evidence. That's a stretch, and that almost certainly won't go very far. So it comes down to this: Is Williams worth more to society alive than dead? That's the issue, and the sole issue, that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger must grapple with in deciding whether to grant Williams clemency. On the surface, the odds that the governor will let Williams live aren't good. California is one of 14 states where governors have sole authority to commute a condemned killer's sentence. But that would buck precedent. In the nearly 4 decades since Ronald Reagan granted clemency to a brain-damaged death row inmate, no California governor has waived a death sentence. And Reagan took action only because the latest scientific test to determine brain damage was not available at the time of the condemned killer's trial. Schwarzenegger has flatly refused to grant clemency to 2 other condemned murderers. Both times, he publicly declared that model behavior behind bars doesn't absolve prisoners of culpability for their crimes. But Tookie is not just another model prisoner. The co-founder of the Crips street gang's story reads like a gory tale of gang violence, mayhem and destruction. Yet it also reads like a saintly tale of spiritual renewal, public service and human achievement. His prize-winning children's books, Nobel Peace Prize nominations and anti-violence messages have been the stuff of public acclaim. His radical, life-affirming turnabout has made him a near-universal symbol of hope that even the most hardened, bitter, and incorrigible street thug can find salvation. A very much alive Williams can continue to send the message of hope and redemption to thousands of other violence-prone young men who wreak havoc on poor black communities. True, governors are loath to grant clemency. They feel that the courts have spoken, and that their interference would be a subversion of the people's will and a perversion of justice. But that's a rigid, legalistic view that doesn't take into consideration human circumstances and legal abuses. Governors have intervened to commute sentences when it does serve the public good. Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the death sentences of virtually all condemned killers before departing office in 2003. Ryan was not a rare and isolated case of a governor tempering justice with mercy. Former Maryland governor Parris Glendening declared a moratorium on executions before he left office. There was no loud howl for his political head when he took the courageous step. The reason was simple. Glendening crunched the numbers and found that 9 of the 13 men on death row were black, and in nearly every case their victims were white. That was strong hint that the death penalty was riddled with racial bias, and needed a hard look. Death-penalty advocates claim that unlike Maryland or Illinois, California's death penalty is not top-heavy with racial bias and legal misconduct, and that the public solidly opposes any tampering with the process. That's not true. In a state where blacks are only 12 percent of the population, they make up more than 1/3 of those on death row. In nearly all cases their victims were white. A Field poll in June 2000 found that nearly 3 out of 4 persons said that they would support a moratorium on executions. Nearly a dozen California cities have called for a death penalty moratorium. Schwarzenegger, unlike former Gov. Gray Davis, has also shown some flexibility when it comes to prisoner issues. He has approved paroles for convicted murderers who had shown by word and deed that hard work and a clean record count. Playing hardball now with prisoners who have turned their lives around would be a bad public policy shift. With the handful of convicted killers who have shown by their humane actions that they have redeemed themselves, it makes no sense for a governor to hold them hostage to past political fears. Williams is certainly not Willie Horton, the convicted killer who, after being released on a weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison, escaped and slashed a Maryland man and raped his fiancee. Schwarzenegger almost surely knows that. Further, clemency is not the same as freedom. Williams will likely spend the rest of his days in prison. That effectively eliminates the remote possibility that he could ever pose a threat to anyone on the streets. The Williams case is unique. If Schwarzenegger grants him clemency, it won't set a frightening precedent that other condemned killers will cavalierly be let off the hook. It will simply be recognition that a prisoner who has shown that he can be a model and productive citizen will not be denied a 2nd chance to do even more good for society. Schwarzenegger should give Williams that 2nd chance. (source: L A Daily News - Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a frequent contributor to the Daily News and hosts a weekly public affairs TV talk show) ********************** Death-row inmate rekindles debate Day and night, the condemned - 3,500 men and 54 women - await their fate in U.S. prisons on death row. But the life of a single convict scheduled to die by lethal injection at California's San Quentin prison Dec. 13 - Stanley "Tookie" Williams - has reignited a passionate debate among people of faith over accountability and punishment, forgiveness and redemption. "There's a grass-roots buzz about it. There are a lot of people talking about it because of who he was here in Los Angeles," said Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer of Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood, a large, predominately black congregation. Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Buddhist clerics and scholars said last week that the Williams case abounds with ethical and moral implications. How does a society weigh the lives of the 4 murder victims against the life of a convicted murderer who is said to have reformed? How are accountability and forgiveness balanced? Even within religions, believers may disagree. Williams, 51, co-founded the Crips, the lethal street gang. He was convicted of the fatal shootings of 4 people in 1979 during 2 Los Angeles robberies. But after nearly 25 years behind bars, he has become for many people an icon of redemption. He has written 10 children's books imploring youngsters to stay out of gangs. He helped mediate gang treaties. His life became the subject of a made-for-television movie, "Redemption," starring actor Jamie Foxx. Williams continues to profess his innocence. The cover story in last week's Los Angeles Jewish Journal carried the headline, "Should Tookie Die?" Across the state, demonstrators and interfaith groups have implored Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency, in this case life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Challenging that stance, California law-enforcement officials are calling on Schwarzenegger to allow the execution. Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley on Thursday filed its formal response to Williams' clemency petition, declaring that Williams is a "cold-blooded killer" who has "left his mark forever on our society by co-founding one of the most vicious, brutal gangs in existence, the Crips." Schwarzenegger has almost total discretion in deciding clemency. On Thursday, the governor, speaking to reporters in Shanghai, China, said he had not made up his mind on the Williams case. He described the decision as "part of the job" but one he approached with "dread." At a rally Saturday, rapper Snoop Dogg urged Schwarzenegger to grant clemency to Williams, so he can continue his work with young people. "Stanley 'Tookie' Williams is not just a regular old guy, he's an inspirator," the rapper and former Crips member told a crowd of about 1,000 outside the main gate of San Quentin State Prison. "His voice needs to be heard." Snoop Dogg, 33, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, said after he saw "Redemption," he realized he needed to contribute more to his community and to young people in particular. Debt owed Proponents of the death penalty say that Williams' efforts at amending his life, while laudable, cannot overcome the debt owed for taking lives. "Principally, from a conservative biblical approach, if you shed man's blood, by man your blood should be shed," said Kevin Lewis, assistant professor of theology and law at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University in LaMirada. Lewis said that if the governor granted clemency, society, under the concept of retributive justice, would be bearing the consequences of the crime. He doesn't think it should be allowed in this case. Lewis' views are at odds with the positions of many U.S. religious leaders, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the heads of mainline Protestant churches and a number of Jewish and Islamic scholars. Last week, for example, U.S. Catholic bishops strongly reaffirmed their church's opposition to the death penalty. "It is time for our nation to abandon the illusion that we can protect life by taking life," the bishops said. They listed 4 reasons: . Capital punishment violates respect for human life and dignity. . State executions "in our names diminishes all of us." . As it is applied, capital punishment is "deeply flawed and can be irreversibly wrong" and is biased by race, region and the quality of attorneys. . Society can be protected by other means, such as life imprisonment without parole. In weighing decisions of life and death, the notion of repentance figures prominently in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Repentance is more than saying "sorry." It is turning from old and harmful ways. That is a problem in Williams' case. Last week, Williams refused to apologize for murders he said he did not commit. That, said Rabbi Elliott Dorff, professor of philosophy at the University of Judaism, is vexing. To be restored, he said, one has to admit to something wrong. "The fact that he denies he is guilty, frankly, is a problem from the point of view of trying to apply the [Jewish] laws of 't'shuvah' [restoration or turning from wrong to right] to this case," Dorff said. Nonetheless, Dorff said that Williams' good acts since he was imprisoned would be reason to substitute life imprisonment for death. Interfaith coalition Daniel Sokatch, executive director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance and a member of an interfaith coalition to spare Williams' life, spoke of the Jewish tradition of "nekudah tovah," a point of pure goodness. "Everyone is created in the image of God and thus endowed with a divine spark. That divine spark is unique and renders each human being inestimably precious. It also provides the opportunity for people to make t'shuvah, to redeem themselves, to turn away from wrongdoing and to do good," he said. "No one said they shouldn't be held accountable and shouldn't pay the price," he said. Life imprisonment would fill that requirement. It is a view shared by Fathi Osman, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World at Omar Ibn Khattab Foundation in Los Angeles. If it can be proved that Williams has changed and repented, Osman said, the punishment should not only be reduced, but eliminated. In addition, if the families of the victims forgive, Islamic law would be against an execution, said Osman, who opposes the death penalty. In this case, however, family members devastated by the murders continue to call for Williams' death. What then? "Their wish is not definite," Osman said. "If there are signs and evidence that the person has repented, nobody can punish him, even the judge himself. Repentance means complete forgiveness." Moreover, Osman said that any possibility that an innocent man had been convicted would be enough to stop an execution under Islamic law. The Venerable Wimalasara, a Buddhist monk who follows the Theravada, or southern school of Buddhism, said his tradition opposes the death penalty. "We don't accept that penalty, actually, because we cannot do harm to any kind of being. This is our major principle. In the lay and monk community we observe principles and the first is not to harm anybody or any being," he said. Imprisonment is punishment enough, he said. Beyond theology, there are streetwise reasons for allowing Williams to live, Bishop Ulmer said. To gang members, Tookie Williams is a hero. "If he's going to be a hero, let him be a hero as one who turned himself around," Ulmer said. (sources: Seattle Times & Associated Press) ***************** Rapper Urges Clemency for Killer----Snoop Dogg speaks out at a prison rally, asking the governor to spare Stanley Williams' life. A peaceful, multiracial crowd including religious leaders and rapper Snoop Dogg crammed onto a street outside San Quentin State Prison on Saturday to urge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to spare the life of convicted murderer and former gang leader Stanley Tookie Williams. More than 1,000 people attended the protest, described by a California Highway Patrol official as one of the largest ever against an execution at the Marin County prison. "He should be in jail, but the death penalty, that's way too much," said Nobel Broach, 16, of Oakland, who explained that he was moved by Williams after watching "Redemption," a TV movie about the convict in which he was played by Jamie Foxx. Later in the day, Williams himself addressed a youth conference at a Santa Clara hotel, calling from prison to urge them to work hard against gang violence. Williams, who has gained celebrity and Nobel Prize nominations for his behind-bars campaign against gangs, is scheduled to be executed Dec. 13 for convictions in 4 1979 murders in Los Angeles. The co-founder of the Crips street gang, Williams denies he committed the killings, which occurred during two robberies less than 2 weeks apart. The 51-year-old convict and his supporters, including a notable contingent from Hollywood, are asking the governor to commute Williams' sentence to life without the possibility of parole. Los Angeles County prosecutors, a statewide prosecutors group and relatives of his victims have adamantly opposed clemency. They say Williams deserves to die for his crimes and for helping start a gang that has claimed thousands of lives over the years. They also doubt his conversion, noting that he has not admitted to the crimes and has refused to provide information to law enforcement about other gang members. Williams has said he doesn't want to be a "snitch." "The family of the victims of Williams' crimes have been living with this for 25 years," said Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer. "It's been a very long and difficult time for them. Some of the individuals expressing support for Williams have not lost a loved one to murder." Schwarzenegger told reporters Thursday in Shanghai that he had not made up his mind about whether to grant Williams clemency and was approaching the decision with dread. At Saturday's rally, Snoop Dogg, who has spoken with Williams by telephone, told the crowd that he considered the inmate an inspirational figure. He said he was so moved by Williams' decision to renounce gangs that he also wants to spread the anti-violence message. After watching "Redemption," the rapper said, he decided that he "really needed to be contacting the kids." The entertainer said he used to belong to the Crips in Long Beach but "learned how to better control myself and my attitude." The rapper was acquitted of murder charges in Los Angeles in 1996 and pleaded guilty the following year to being an ex-felon in possession of a handgun. Williams' "influence is really rubbing off on me, and I control lots of people on the streets, and what I do right, they do right," said the rapper, who wore a white T-shirt with "savetookie.org" in large black letters. During the rally, the crowd frequently broke into chants: "Long Live Tookie Williams," and a Buddhist called for a moment of silence for the victims of gang violence. Several speakers exhorted the crowd to save their neighborhoods from gangs. Williams has said that he decided while in solitary confinement more than 10 years ago to try to help youngsters avoid his fate. He has written nine books aimed at youths, and his supporters have nominated him several times for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize for literature. Among the speakers at Saturday's rally was Abu Qadir Al-Amin, a gray-bearded African American whose death sentence was overturned. He said he went to death row at the age of 19 and eventually was paroled with the help of an associate prison warden. "God has me here as a sign that people change," said Al-Amin, who now runs a juvenile justice program in San Francisco. Vickie Lindsey, whose son was killed by gang violence in 1995, told the crowd that she left Los Angeles at 1 a.m. to attend the rally because if Williams is executed "and they find out it was a mistake, they can't bring him back." Donald Lacy, who runs a youth group in Oakland, held up a picture of his late daughter, who was killed at the age of 16 in a drive-by gang shooting in 1997 "by young, confused brothers." "We must save [Williams'] life so he can save other lives," Lacy said. After the rally, Snoop Dogg went to the Santa Clara conference of student leaders where Williams called from prison to participate in a panel discussion. Williams told 1,200 rapt high school students at the Santa Clara Marriott that only hard work and hope will help eradicate gang violence. "There is no elixir" to end the gang-related murders that plague troubled cities such as Richmond, Calif., Williams told members of Junior State of America, a 71-year-old organization designed to inspire high school students to be active in politics. "There is no quick fix. It will take your effort, your parents' effort [and] . activists in the immediate area.. It seems like there is no hope, but there is." Williams was part of a panel discussion during which young people in suits and ties asked the condemned man about his prison experience, wondered what he would say to the parents of gang-violence victims and, in one case, told him that he's "got mad love coming from L.A." In barely audible tones, Williams said that he, too, has lost people he loved to gangs. "I understand," he said. "I regret it all. I have written an apology to the mothers of not just South-Central but throughout California and this nation. I regret that any child has lost his or her life to gang violence . whether it's to Crips or Bloods . it's a sad thing. That's why I've written books and continue to do whatever I can." Williams appeared to downplay the campaign to spare his life, changing the subject when asked about it. "That's wonderful that they've been putting forth effort for the clemency," he said, "but it's very necessary to eliminate all the violence.. I believe that it can be done with prayers and extreme effort." In a question-and-answer session with Snoop Dogg, 1 young man asked how he could claim allegiance to the Crips in his song lyrics when Williams is fighting to stop the gang that he founded. "I'm a representation of them," the entertainer said. "I represent them in a positive manner.. I will always be connected to it.. There's such a thing as represent it the right way, and that's what I intend to do." Rebecca Owens, the daughter of one of those Williams was convicted of murdering, and San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders are to address the conference today from the victims' point of view. (source: Los Angeles Times) INDIANA: Forgiveness is the 1st step in survivors' Journey of Hope The Journey of Hope includes family members of murder victims, family members of death row inmates, family members of someone who has been executed, exonorees and activists. For 17 days, from Oct. 14 to Oct. 31, we journeyed through Texas, speaking to groups that invited us, in our ongoing effort to abolish the death penalty. Early this year I received email from Bill Pelke, the grandson of Gary murder victim Ruth Pelke, saying the Journey would be in Texas. I invited my sisters to come on the Journey with me, promising a life-changing event. My sister Bess Klassen-Landis, from Vermont, accepted. She shared her perspective of our mother's murder for the 1st time. Mom was murdered 36 years ago, when Bessie was 13 and I was 16. People in Michiana will remember Bill Pelke's grandmother. She was killed by a gang of teenage girls during a robbery in Gary in 1985. 15-year-old Paula Cooper was convicted of the murder and became the youngest female on death row in America. Bill Pelke eventually forgave Cooper, and began corresponding with her. He worked to overturn her death sentence and has visited with her. He founded the Journey of Hope in Indiana 13 years ago. On Oct. 14, we were met at the Houston airport by George White, the Journey's co-founder. In 1985 an armed robber shot George and his wife at their place of business. 16 months later, White was charged with murdering his wife. Following a capital murder trial, White was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. His conviction was overturned in 1989 and he was released from prison, but White remained in legal limbo until 1992, when proof of his innocence was finally brought forward. On Oct. 15, 50 of us traveled to Huntsville, to conduct a rally outside the Walls Unit, which houses Texas' execution chamber. Texas has executed 12 people so far this year, and nine more are scheduled to die before the end of the year. Many of us wondered how such a brutal and environment would impact the people who worked within the system. We soon found out. One of our speakers that afternoon was Ray Krone. In April 2002, Krone became the 100th innocent person released from prison after having been sentenced to death. Krone described spending 10 years in prison, including two years on Arizona's death row, for the murder of a female bartender. He was freed when DNA testing proved he was not the killer. As Krone was speaking, a uniformed prison official left the prison, got into his truck, and pulled it up to the curb just in back of where Krone was speaking. He left his motor running and cranked up some rock and roll to full volume. Because Krone used a bullhorn, we were able to hear him over the music. But we felt insulted, spat upon. The prison official continued to sit in his truck with his music blaring. Wearing the badge of Texas, he felt authorized to limit our free speech. The journalists who were with us began taking his picture. When the video cameras were trained on him, he drove away. A better representative of Texas is Dave Atwood, founder and former president of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Atwood, with the help of hundreds of volunteers, served as local coordinator for the Texas Journey. In November 2004, Dave committed civil disobedience at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas, to protest the execution of Anthony Fuentes. He subsequently spent five days in jail. When it was time for Bessie and I to leave the Journey, Anthony Fuentes' stepmother, Ursula Fuentes, drove us to the airport. She is a native of Germany, a country that does not seek retribution for murder. She described how the U.S. adversarial system slowly vilified and destroyed her family. The hugs we exchanged when we said goodbye were hugs of love, forgiveness and understanding. These hugs are our route to healing. The Journey of Hope leads from violence to healing. For more information, please visit www.journeyofhope.org. (source: South Bend Tribune - Ruth Klassen Andrews lives in Cassopolis. She is the daughter of Helen Klassen, who was slain in the family's Dunlap home on March 12, 1969. The murder has not been solved) OREGON: Book explores history of execution in Oregon----Other offerings include a police novel and history of an ancient people "Necktie Parties: Legal Executions in Oregon 1851-1905," by Diane L. Goeres-Gardner Readers with an interest in true-crime stories will want this book as will readers who have an interest in Oregon history. This book is grim and sometimes disturbing. It relates the history of the crimes that resulted in execution in Oregon from territorial days until the official shifting of executions to the Oregon State Penitentiary. Although the book contains a short history of capital punishment in America and the Oregon Territory, it concentrates on the stories of 50 murderers who met their fates at the end of a rope. A few cases of executions of Native Americans are included, although these entries make it obvious that officials did not consider such executions worthy of note. In one case, the book points out that it was not clear whether 3 Indians were hanged or 2. The book is written smoothly and includes great detail. The voice of the author is dispassionate, but learned. "Necktie Parties" is an instant addition to "must-have" Oregon history. (source: Salem Statesman Journal) LOUISIANA: 2,500 Arrested Before Katrina Are Still in Limbo----At the heart of the problem is a public defender system almost too broke to function. Nearly 3 months after Katrina struck Louisiana, about 2,500 people arrested on minor charges before the hurricane struck are still in custody. A number of them have never been charged, many are being held beyond the time they were due to be released, and hundreds have never had a court hearing. Their plight is one of many troubling issues facing the Louisiana court system, where funding for public defenders, among other problems, has been further imperiled by the storm. When the storm struck, about 8,500 people being held in the New Orleans jails were relocated to facilities throughout - and, in some instances, outside - the state. A small group of volunteer defense lawyers has filed writs and obtained the release of more than 1,800 of the evacuees, said Phyllis Mann of Alexandria, La., who has been coordinating the effort. Still, Julie H. Kilborne, a Baton Rouge, La., defense lawyer also involved in the effort, said Friday she expected that the attorneys would have to litigate for many more weeks to secure the freedom of the hundreds still incarcerated on minor charges. Over the last two weeks, in hearings in Baton Rouge, Judge Calvin Johnson, the chief criminal court judge from New Orleans, ordered more than a hundred people released. But the Orleans Parish district attorney's office appealed; a state appellate court and then the state Supreme Court stayed the release order. Asst. Dist. Atty. Donna Andrieu asserted, among other things, that there was "just cause" for holding the detainees longer because Orleans Parish prosecutors, dislocated from their office, had not had sufficient time to make decisions on whether to charge various people. Andrieu also asserted that among the reasons prosecutors had been unable to make decisions on whether to charge certain people was the breakdown in communication experienced by the New Orleans Police Department after the storm. Defense lawyer Neal Walker cited a breakdown of discipline - including criminal activity - in the city's police force. The Louisiana Supreme Court is scheduled to consider the merits of the arguments early this week. In a related development, the American Civil Liberties Union filed papers in a Louisiana federal court Thursday that provided disturbing accounts about 45 men and women who were incarcerated in the Orleans Parish Prison when Katrina struck. "It was like we were left to die. No water, no air, no food. We were left with deputies that were out of control," said one woman, identified in court papers as "Inmate #19." She said the women eventually were abandoned by guards, left with nothing to eat or drink, and that many of them drank water out of trashcans. Another prisoner, identified as "Inmate #41," said he saw "a few dead bodies, and [we] were told not to say anything or we were going to be like them." The ACLU represents the prisoners in an ongoing federal class-action lawsuit that started years ago and led to some reforms. Meanwhile, the state's public defender system, considered one of the worst in the nation, suffered a further blow when Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco announced plans to cut $500,000 from its budget. On Saturday, state Sen. Lydia P. Jackson, a Shreveport Democrat, said she thought that about half of that money would be restored by the Legislature, which is meeting in emergency session. Still, Jackson said, the local public defender offices are in "dire need" of additional funds because of revenue lost since the hurricane. In addition, three-quarters of the public defenders in New Orleans, the state's largest city, have been laid off, and there is no expectation that they will be rehired soon. Louisiana is the only state in the country that primarily finances its indigent defense through traffic fines. In the best of times, this source of funding is erratic. There is a clear reason that Louisiana stands alone, said David Carroll, research director of the National Legal Aid and Defender Assn. "There is no direct correlation between the ability of a jurisdiction to garner money through traffic tickets and the resources required to provide adequate defense services to those unable to hire an attorney," Carroll said. Moreover, since Katrina, those funds have slowed to a trickle, as law enforcement has been writing considerably fewer traffic tickets in the Bayou State. Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision stating that Louisiana had failed to adequately fund a program to provide attorneys for poor defendants, as required by the constitution. The ruling said that the obligation to provide a properly functioning indigent defense system, which represents 80% of the state's defendants, falls "squarely on the shoulders of the Legislature," which "may be in breach of that duty." But the decision did not order the Legislature to take any specific action, and there has been little since then. An indigent-defense task force, headed by Jackson, the state legislator, authorized further study of the system - but the hurricane came before it was launched. Since the hurricane, some legislators, judges, attorneys and others have been holding meetings on the problem, but there is no imminent solution. "In terms of indigent defense, the Legislature is doing absolutely nothing," said Baton Rouge attorney James Boren, former president of the Louisiana Criminal Defense Lawyers Assn. Moreover, Boren said he was outraged that as soon as the Legislature convened in special session, lawmakers approved a bill that would shield from liability the state Department of Corrections and any local sheriff's department that held people arrested before Katrina longer than was warranted. In another sign of the depth of the problems, the Louisiana Indigent Defense Assistance Board, the agency responsible for distributing funds to local public defender offices, has not had a meeting since the hurricane hit because it has been unable to muster a quorum. Particularly troubled by the situation is Judge Johnson, who has a long history with the issue. In 1992, Johnson ruled that the state's public defender system was unconstitutional because it was so underfinanced and understaffed that poor defendants could not receive an adequate defense. Johnson acted after hearing from Rick Teissier, the public defender assigned to represent Leonard Peart, a man charged in the rape, robbery and slaying of a Tulane student. Teissier said he had a caseload so excessive that he could not function properly. At the time, Teissier, who was being paid $18,500 a year as a part-time public defender, was handling 70 active felony cases. He was unable to see a new client until 30 to 70 days after the person had been arrested; in the 1st 7 months of 1991, Teissier represented 418 defendants. A 1993 Louisiana Supreme Court decision concluded that defendants in the division of court where Peart was on trial were entitled to hearings on the adequacy of their representation. But the justices overturned Johnson's ruling that the entire system was unconstitutional. Since that time, there have been numerous scholarly studies criticizing Louisiana's public defender program. Johnson has called a conference Monday to discuss the future of the system. He has ordered the participation of Tilden Greenbaum, head of the Orleans Parish Indigent Defense Board; lawyers who run criminal defense clinics at Tulane and Loyola universities' law schools; and Teissier, now a private defense lawyer in New Orleans. The judge's order said the Orleans Parish criminal justice system faced "a crisis . that requires prompt attention." He said the thousands of pending cases involving indigent defendants there with a public defender staff of only 9 lawyers created "at least a serious question, if not prima facie evidence, that indigent defendants in Orleans Parish are not [receiving], and cannot receive, the effective assistance of counsel to which they are constitutionally entitled." Carroll, research director with the national defender association, prepared a report last year on the problems with Louisiana's public defender system. He called for the state to spend at least 5 times as it much it had been for indigent defense. "I realize that Louisiana has a mountain of problems they have to fix," he said. But he added that the hurricanes had "hastened the rate at which an already failing indigent defense system is being pushed closer to complete devastation." He said that if the state failed to act soon, it would face a constitutional crisis. The right to counsel "does not stop when there is a hurricane," Carroll said. "You can't take away a person's freedom simply because you did not plan well before a hurricane." (source: Los Angeles Times)
