Jan. 6 TEXAS----new execution date Execution date set for Railroad Killer Condemned serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz, the Mexican drifter dubbed the "Railroad Killer," was scheduled Friday to be executed on May 10 for raping and killing a Houston doctor. Maturino Resendiz's lawyer, Jack Zimmermann, objected to the setting of the execution date while an appeal before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is pending, but prosecutor Roe Wilson argued that the appeals process could continue even with an execution date set. "It is time. We need to carry out the sentence and justice needs to be served," Wilson said. Maturino Resendiz got the name the "Railroad Killer" because he was linked to 14 slayings in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Illinois near the rail lines he rode nationwide. He has claimed to have committed even more. Three people who attended the hearing said they came from Mexico to represent the killer's family but would not identify themselves. Thomas Konvicka, whose mother, Josephine, was killed in June 1999 in Fayette County, also attended the brief hearing before state District Judge Bill Harmon. Maturino Resendiz, wearing dark-rimmed glasses with his gray beard and hair, answered no when Harmon asked if he had anything to say. Maturino Resendiz was condemned for the 1998 murder of Dr. Claudia Benton, 39, who was raped, stabbed and beaten in her home in West University Place, a wealthy enclave within Houston. At his Houston trial in May 2000, defense lawyers argued he was innocent by reason of insanity. Prosecutors said he had personality defects but was sane. His spree swept fear across Texas and the nation during the spring and early summer of 1999. Between May 2 and June 15 of that year, authorities said he killed 4 people in Texas and 2 more in rural Illinois. The Border Patrol had picked him up for illegal entry that June 2 near El Paso, but he was taken to Mexico and released. Immigration officials said they were unaware the man - who used numerous aliases - was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List as Rafael Resendez-Ramirez. He committed four slayings after being released. 6 weeks later, he crossed an international bridge into El Paso and surrendered to a Texas Ranger. During his trial, the rail-riding drifter asked for the death penalty. After his conviction, he pledged to drop all his appeals to hasten his execution. He eventually changed his mind and filed appeals. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in March 2004 rejected his appeal. The court had previously affirmed his 2000 conviction and death sentence. (source: Associated Press) NEW JERSEY: Put a halt to death penalty -- State Assembly should pass the bill that would call for a study of New Jersey's death-penalty law. New Jersey is poised to join a handful of states and strike a blow for human decency by doing away with the death penalty - at least temporarily. The Assembly Judiciary Committee will consider a bill today (Thursday), passed in December by the state Senate, that would create a special commission to study New Jersey's death-penalty law. The commission would pay particular attention to how much the law's implementation costs, whether it is applied fairly, whether it is a deterrent to crime and if it should be abolished. The bill would give the commission a deadline of Nov. 15, 2006, to complete its work. In the meantime, a moratorium would be imposed on all state executions, and it would remain in effect until at least 60 days after the commission finishes its work. This same measure passed both houses 2 years ago, only to be vetoed by then-Gov. James E. McGreevey. But this time around, it has the support of acting Gov. Richard Codey. If the bill, which passed the Senate by a vote of 30-6, makes it through the Assembly and gets to the acting governor's desk before Jan. 10, when the current legislative session ends, he has indicated he will sign it into law. As a practical matter, it probably doesn't make much difference whether the commission is formed - and the moratorium put in place - in the waning days of the 211th session of the New Jersey Legislature or the early days of the 212th. Not only has no one been executed in New Jersey since the death penalty was reinstated in 1982; there is no one currently on death row in imminent danger of becoming the state's 1st recipient of a lethal injection. As a matter of public policy, New Jersey choosing to revisit its 23-year-old decision reinstating the death penalty - and temporarily halt its imposition while this study is ongoing - does make a difference. The state has an opportunity to make a forceful statement that there is simply too much uncertainty about the death penalty to keep it on the books. The alternative is to put this matter off for another day, another legislative session and another governor. It's hard to imagine that any thoughtful lawmaker could fail to recognize and acknowledge the pressing need to re-examine the whole issue of capital punishment. Major technological advances, particularly in the area of DNA testing, have proven beyond a shadow of doubt that innocent people have been wrongly convicted and put to death. Death-penalty proponents are unable to point to a single reputable study showing that the law has any deterrent effect whatsoever. And nobody can dispute the shameful statistical evidence that residency on the death row is reserved almost exclusively for those who are poor and black - particularly if their victims aren't. As Sister Helen Prejean pointed out during a recent visit to New Jersey, most murder victims in the United States are black - but most executed murderers are blacks who kill whites. For all of these reasons, New Jersey should abolish the death penalty. The moratorium approved by the Senate and awaiting Assembly action would be a good first step. And it ought to be taken now, in the lame-duck session, before the momentum dies and the tedious legislative process has to crank itself up all over again. With an obstructionist governor gone and a sympathetic acting governor in office, there is no reason for the Assembly to put off until tomorrow what it already did 2 years ago - pass the moratorium bill. (source: Editorial, South Brunswick Post) CALIFORNIA: Why Clarence Ray Allen's life should be spared While warden of San Quentin for 10 years, I supervised reactivation of the gas chamber and California's 1st 2 executions in the modern era. I unhesitatingly served Clarence Ray Allen, who is scheduled to die Jan. 17, with his first death warrant for ordering three murders from his prison cell in 1980. I firmly believe that the death penalty is an appropriate punishment and that the state of California has the right to enforce its criminal laws. But I also believe it must be administered in accordance with civilized standards of decency to maintain its integrity. Because the execution of Allen would now be inhumane and violate those standards, I urge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency in this extraordinary case. When I visited Allen in December and reviewed his prison file, I found a man who presents absolutely no risk to prison staff or public safety. Legally blind, hard of hearing and of frail voice, he cannot even stand up by himself. He needs a walker to move around within his cell and a wheelchair everywhere else. In the glassed visiting cubicle where I met with him, he was truly a pathetic sight: aged, downcast, oblivious to his surroundings, cuffed to his wheelchair and utterly defeated. Furthermore, Allen has been virtually a model prisoner on death row in the nearly quarter century he has been confined there. During my tenure, he was known as a compliant and trouble-free inmate on the row, and his subsequent record upholds that reputation. Staff interactions with him, which I observed both as warden and more recently, have always been of mutual courtesy and respect. No inmate can fake such good behavior for so many years. Allen's capital crimes were repugnant, but they bear little on the assessment of the threat he poses. They occurred long ago and under very different circumstances. Time and age have wrought unusual changes in Allen, now 75 years old. After near brushes with death from heart attacks and execution dates, he is looking to make peace at the end of his life, whether spared execution or not. As one who dedicated his career to the field of corrections and has considerable knowledge of inmates and their behavior, I find it unthinkable that Allen would engage in conduct remotely resembling that reflected in his convictions. There is no question in my mind that long-term confinement in the substandard conditions of Death Row, coupled with San Quentin's long-standing problems with the delivery of adequate medical care, have contributed immeasurably to Allen's declining health. As warden, I found those conditions unacceptable and recommended construction of a new facility. When that was not undertaken, we were required to house the death row overflow in the prison's East Block, although it is an outmoded, antiquated 5-tiered cellblock unsafe for staff and inmates alike -- and totally inappropriate for the housing of condemned prisoners. This is where Allen has been housed for years -- ironically, because his disabled condition made the traditional Death Row no longer safe for him. Through all these pressures, Allen has maintained his conforming conduct, which I have every confidence he will sustain as long as he lives. If he were relieved of his death sentence and placed in regular prison housing, prison policy dictates that he spend at least the following 5 years -- considerably longer than he is likely to live -- in close custody in a maximum-security prison. This confinement would provide not only more than enough security to house him safely, but also the modern resources for attending to his needs. It will be particularly difficult for the execution of Allen to be accomplished in a dignified way. It is impossible to wheel him into the chamber. Entry with a walker would be problematic, but the manacles in which the condemned man is led to the execution chamber make even that aid impossible. Allen will literally have to be carried into the chamber for his execution. That will demean not only Allen but also the prison staff, who will be required to participate in the execution of a man too old and feeble even to enter the chamber under his own power. Allen's situation presents us with the question of how infirm does a human being have to be before we decide that we should not execute him. Must we insist on dragging a dying man out of the hospital just so we can inject the chemicals that will kill him a little bit sooner? Even for those of us who are tough on crime, there comes a point where forbearance is appropriate. Allen's execution now would be a shameful act. Given his age, his infirmities, the punishment of the many years he has already spent on death row, his excellent behavior during that time and the very little natural life he has remaining, sparing Allen from execution would be an act of decency, compassion and justice. (source: San Francisco Chronicle - Dan Vasquez served as warden of San Quentin Prison from 1983 to 1993)
