Nov. 25 TEXAS: At the least, get a moratorium Congratulations to the Chronicle for the investigative journalism on Ruben Cantu's case. If the news media do not reveal flaws in the criminal justice process, who will? This story shows that justice is not always done, that the system is flawed and that an innocent person may sometimes be executed. If Cantu was innocent, it is unlikely that he was the first (or the last) innocent person to be executed in Texas. Others have fallen victim to prosecutorial misconduct, poor state-funded defense lawyers and well-documented shoddy or fraudulent police forensics. Unless we want to tolerate the probable execution of more innocent people, we need to reform or get rid of the death penalty and not wait around for the next Legislature to decide whether to study the matter. At the very least, the Legislature needs to declare a moratorium on executions until we can figure out how to avoid executing innocent people. PAUL KIENIEWICZ Houston **** Their rallying cry is illogical I don't have an answer to the possibility of a faulty execution in the case of Ruben Cantu; but I do know that those who want to use his case as a rallying cry against the death penalty are being illogical. A witness identified Cantu in and out of court; Cantu's best friend refused to clear him for more than a decade; a jury heard the evidence and agreed to convict; the appeals courts declined to overturn the verdict or grant a stay of execution; and his trial and appeals attorneys failed to present exculpatory evidence. So the death penalty is at fault? SEAN PARKER Humble (source for both: Opinion, Houston Chronicle) ARKANSAS----impending execution Ark. inmate scheduled for execution moved closer to death chamber A death-row inmate scheduled to be put to death next week, if a court doesn't intervene, was moved today to a cell adjacent to the Arkansas death chamber. 45-year-old Eric Nance is scheduled to die by lethal injection Monday evening for the slaying of Julie Heath of Malvern. The 18-year-old Heath was found dead in the woods in Hot Spring County on October 11th, 1993. Her throat had been slashed with a box cutter. Nance was moved from death row is at the Varner Supermax Unit in southeastern Arkansas to a cell next to the death chamber at the nearby Cummins Unit. A prison spokeswoman says Nance was talkative and in good spirits. He can have 4 visitors at a time and they don't have to be separated by a glass pane. A prison officer will record his actions round the clock. Nance's lawyers have appealed a judge's decision to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in Saint Louis. The judge refused to stop the execution so that Nance can pursue getting D-N-A tests on evidence used against him. (source: Associated Press) USA: 'One person executed every 10 days in the US' There are more than 3,400 prisoners -- including 118 foreign nationals -- on death row in the United States and in the last 28 years, the country has on an average executed one person every 10 days, according to official statistics. Next week will witness the execution of the '1000th' person in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Gary Gilmore was the first to be executed a year after the reinstatement. Since 1976, 58 % of those executed in the US were white while 34 % were black, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. Death sentences nationwide have dropped by 50 % since the late 1990s, with executions carried out down by 40 %--as many as 12 states do not have the death penalty, and at least 2 -- Illinois and New Jersey -- have formal moratoriums on capital punishment. The subject of death penalty is an emotional as well as a high profile political issue in the United States. A Gallup poll in October has shown that 64 % of Americans support death penalty, or the lowest level in 27 years, down from a high of 80 % in 1994. Yet at the same time there are law makers who are considering Bills that will speed up the execution process by refusing to have defendants in capital cases appeal to the federal courts. The increasing use of DNA evidence is said to be having an impact on death sentences. Since 1973, 122 prisoners have been freed from death row and that the vast majority of these cases have come up in the last 15 years as a result of DNA evidence being used widespread, statistics revealed. (source: Press Trust of India) ALABAMA: Court supports judge's decision The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, in a ruling delivered the day before Thanksgiving, affirmed Mobile County Circuit Judge Ferrill McRae's finding earlier this summer that once again condemned former Alabama State Trooper George Martin to death. Martin was convicted of setting his 33-year-old wife on fire in a car along an isolated stretch of road in Theodore on Oct. 8, 1995, killing her for the insurance money. In the most recent ruling, the appeals court noted that McRae "complied with our instructions" to reconsider his decision made nearly six years ago, just after Martin's conviction. Following Martin's lengthy May trial in 2000 -- during which a sequestered Mobile County jury toured a series of key locations surrounding the crime -- McRae overrode the jury's 8-4 recommendation for life without the possibility of parole. Writing then, and earlier this summer in response to an Alabama Supreme Court ruling ordering him to justify his decision, McRae said that if Hammoleketh Martin's fiery death after being soaked in gasoline was not "heinous, atrocious or cruel," the words lacked meaning. Consideration of such language during the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial is necessary in Alabama in determining whether execution is a proper punishment. Along with the victim's manner of death, McRae cited the motive of "pecuniary gain," -- nearly $400,000 in insurance money -- as another factor that rightfully condemned Martin, 47, to the punishment he got. McRae's findings, the appeals court ruled this week, were "supported by the record." The criminal appeals court had already affirmed McRae's 2000 ruling, only to see it reversed by the Supreme Court and sent back, ordering McRae to recognize, "as required" by law, that the jury's original recommendation should be counted as a mitigating factor in weighing Martin's punishment. Reactions to the appeals ruling ranged from those bent on sending Martin to the death chamber and those intent on saving him from that fate. Alabama Assistant Attorney General Don Valeska, who won Martin's conviction and original sentence, said the ruling fit the crime. "Martin continued to live with Hammoleketh Martin knowing he was going to kill her, which makes it even more reprehensible," Valeska said from Montgomery. "He plotted her death to collect the insurance proceeds on her life." Mobile attorney Al Pennington, leading Martin's appeals, said, "I would like to say I am surprised, but I am not. And it will by its very nature be reviewed by the state Supreme Court, at which time I hope -- probably against hope -- that it will come to realize that the 'override' provisions in Alabama law should be eliminated once and for all. "It seems to me we are flying in the face of the jury system altogether when we allow the judge to enhance a sentence when we espouse the theory that juries speak for the people. It is time we either acknowledge the appropriateness of juries or admit they are not important anymore." Defense attorney Dennis Knizley, who teamed with Mobile lawyer Ken Nixon to defend Martin in 2000, continued to maintain that his client's conviction left unanswered questions about his actual guilt or innocence and that the jury's recommendation was wrongfully nullified. "The jury's voice in the community decided this was a case appropriate for life without parole," Knizley said. "The jury's verdict should have been followed." It was Knizley's impassioned argument during the penalty phase of Martin's trial, McRae has noted, that led to the jury's decision to spare George Martin. Knizley acknowledged in the penalty phase that the jury found his client guilty of capital murder, McRae noted, but used that to "launch into his argument that the case against Martin was totally circumstantial and suggest to the jury that they might possibly have 'a lingering doubt.'" During the trial, prosecutor Valeska had himself acknowledged that the state's case against Martin was circumstantial and that the only likely eyewitness to the crime was the killer. Knizley cited other cases in Alabama and elsewhere, in which defendants were condemned to death but later found innocent. "If you have a lingering doubt, if you have a lingering doubt, don't, don't, don't sentence this man to death," Knizley told jurors. "Because if it is a mistake, we may not catch this one, and an innocent man may die. Don't take that chance. Please, please, follow God's law. Thou shall not kill. And don't kill this man." McRae called this a "brilliant but coercive argument" that ended up persuading 8 of 12 jurors to opt for life without parole. "Some jurors undoubtedly feared the possibility of sentencing Martin to death and what might happen if they made a mistake," McRae wrote. "This was the only way they saw to completely ensure that they would feel no guilt. While defense counsel's tactics may have worked on the jury, this court was not swayed." It was his duty, McRae wrote, to determine whether George Martin's punishment fit his crime when compared with other capital cases. "A jury is not in the position to make this determination," the judge said, and while the appellate courts have a duty to determine whether his decision was "disproportionate or excessive," "surely no one would suggest that a jury should make these comparisons." Under Alabama law, the trial judge remains the last arbiter of punishment in capital cases, McRae wrote, and any change in this reality should come only from the Legislature. (source: The Mobile Register) CONNECTICUT: Movie brings death-penalty debate back to Connecticut Connecticut drew national attention during the 1st half of 2005 as politicians, religious groups, and others debated whether the state should execute its 1st inmate in 45 years. That debate ended at 2:30 a.m. May 13 when serial killer Michael Ross was executed by lethal injection. But the fate of Connecticut's death-penalty statute remains up in the air. And this week, its capital city will be one of the 1st in the nation to host a new documentary on the wrongful imprisonment of longtime inmates, including one on death row. "After Innocence," a documentary directed by Academy Award-nominated producer Jennifer Sanders, will open today at the Real Art Ways cinema at 56 Arbor St., according to Ken Sunshine Consultants, the movie's Manhattan-based marketing firm. The film, which opened this month in New York City and Washington, D.C., is set to open nationwide in December. "After Innocence" reviews the cases of 7 men imprisoned between 6 and 22 years, who later were exonerated after DNA evidence proved their innocence. Among those 7 is the case of Nicholas Yarris, who served 21 years on death row after having been wrongly convicted of the 1981 kidnapping, rape, and murder of a young saleswoman from a Pennsylvania mall. Yarris, who proclaimed his innocence throughout his imprisonment, became Pennsylvania's 1st death-row inmate to demand post-conviction DNA testing. In 2003, a forensic science team analyzed gloves found in the victim's car, her fingernail scrapings, as well as her spermatozoa remnants from her clothes. DNA evidence taken from all 3 showed a common source that was not Yarris. On Sept. 3, 2003, Yarris' conviction was vacated and he became the 140th person in the U.S., and the 13th from death row, to be exonerated by post-conviction DNA testing. Death-penalty opponents in Connecticut argued this year that state-sponsored executions not only represent a cruel punishment, but also leave no margin for error at a time when increasing forensic technology is leading to more wrongful convictions being exposed and overturned. An effort to overturn the capital punishment statute failed in the state House on March 30 by an 89-60 vote. Still, Kimberly Harrison, spokeswoman for the United Church of Christ Connecticut Conference, part of a group opposed to the death penalty, said the movie's opening in Hartford is just another sign that the issue is not going away. "Connecticut is seen as progressive and liberal, yet here we have a death penalty that hadn't been used for 45 years" until Ross' execution, she said. Though she called Ross' crimes -- which included the murders of eight young women in eastern Connecticut and New York -- reprehensible, Harrison said she believes legislators are realizing that the criminal justice system can make mistakes, even in capital-punishment cases. "I'm buoyed by the fact that we were able to get more voted in the House than we've ever gotten since I started working on this issue in 1988," she added. "Connecticut is an excellent state to distribute this film." Sanders, who directs "After Innocence," is a Santa Monica, Calif., native who produced the film "SING!" which was nominated in 2002 for an Academy Award for best short documentary film. (source: Journal Inquirer) CALIFORNIA: La Caada's First U.S. Supreme Court Case In 1935, a barber named Raymond Lisenba of 1329 West Verdugo, La Caada, purchased a life insurance policy on his wife, a manicurist named Mary. A few months later, Lisenba traveled to Long Beach to purchase snakes, but the snakes were too tame. He headed back to Pasadena, to a snake farm owned by "Snake Joe" Houtenbrink. He had an accomplice named Mr. Hope purchase 2 diamond back rattlesnakes, named "Lethal" and "Lightning." The snakes were not tame. We know these facts because they are recorded in the California Official Reports, a publication of court opinions, and in the Los Angeles Times, which covered the murder case of Raymond Lisenba, aka Rattlesnake James, of La Caada. One issue at trial was "the propriety of the prosecution in bringing into the trial courtroom a box containing rattlesnakes, whose hissing and general effect on the jury was such that the defendant was denied a fair and unbiased trial, according to the defense argument." (LA Times, 1941) After Rattlesnake James murdered his wife, guests arrived for dinner. Mary Lisenba was nowhere to be found. The guests began looking around the property. Rattlesnake James played dumb. The guests found her body and when he "was told of the gruesome discovery, he cried and otherwise expressed his grief," wrote the appellate justices. The next day, he returned the snakes, "Lethal" and "Lightning, to Snake Joe's for a partial refund. The local sheriff arrived. How could Mary have drowned in only six inches of water? Then, Rattlesnake James filed a claim with the Mutual Life Insurance Company. The insurance investigators discovered that Mary was his 5th wife and he had made a similar claim for the drowning of his 3rd wife. Rattlesnake James was convicted, sentenced to death by hanging, and his case went up to the United States Supreme Court, which affirmed the conviction. The issues included the propriety of the two-day interrogation and the sufficiency of the accomplice testimony by Mr. Hope. The conviction was affirmed, despite an eloquent dissent by Justice Hugo Black, joined by Justice William O. Douglas. By the time the appeals process was over, San Quentin opened the gas chamber. Rattlesnake James, however, would be executed by hanging. According the Warden, a nice man named Clinton Duffy, "Estimating the exact length of rope to be used was a tricky business, requiring the hand and eye of an expert." Duffy would have preferred to execute Rattlesnake James in the gas chamber, but the sentence was specific -- death by hanging. New gallows were built. Ever the gentleman, Rattlesnake James, wrote what we at the Thursday Club call a "bread and butter letter." "Dear Warden, just a line to thank you for your kindness to me since I have been here ... I want you to know I have no hard feelings against anyone ... I hope to meet you and the Governor in a better world ... " Despite good intentions, the rope was the wrong length and the execution did not go as planned. Warden Duffy's description of the execution was deemed unprintable due to its graphic nature. Duffy told the media, "Maybe it would help if you could [print what I said]. It would do the people good to know exactly how their mandate was carried out. Every juror who ever voted for the death penalty, every judge who ever pronounced sentence, every legislator who helped pass the law that made it necessary for us all to go through this ordeal would have been with me today. I have nothing more to say except that this was the most terrible experience of my life and I pray to God I shall never have to repeat it." Rattlesnake James was the last man hanged in California. (source: La Caada Valley Sun - Anita Susan Brenner is the current president of the La Caada Thursday Club and is a partner in the law firm of Torres and Brenner in Pasadena)
