Jan. 7 FLORIDA----impending execution Judge rejects Rutherford appeal, lawyer seeks rehearing In Milton, a judge has rejected motions to set aside the conviction and death sentence of a convicted killer set to be executed Jan. 31, but his lawyer asked for a rehearing Friday. Arthur D. Rutherford, 56, who killed a Santa Rosa County woman in 1985, is 1 of 2 Florida inmates under active death warrants, both for murders in the Panhandle. The Florida Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments Wednesday in an appeal from Clarence Edward Hill, 47, of Mobile, Ala., who fatally shot a Pensacola police officer during a 1982 bank robbery. He is scheduled for execution Jan. 24. The body of Rutherford's victim, Stella Salamon, was found submerged in a bathtub. She had been beaten and died of drowning or asphyxiation. His lawyer, Linda McDermott, contends new evidence from a key witness could have resulted in a different verdict or a life sentence if it had been presented to his jury. The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a separate appeal by Rutherford, who contended his rights had been violated because he was shackled during the penalty phase of his trial. (source: Associated Press) ***************** The ultimate decision----She kept clients off death row as lawyer. But as a judge she had to decide whether to sentence someone to die. In the decade that Pinellas Judge Linda Allan spent as a criminal lawyer, she defended people who faced the death penalty. Not one was sent to death row. 3 years ago, Allan was elected to a circuit judgeship. Since then, she has sentenced hundreds of criminals to prison, some for the rest of their lives. But on Friday afternoon, Allan faced one of the toughest decisions of her legal career. For the 1st time as a judge, she had to decide whether a person should live or die. At 3:27 p.m., Allan entered her courtroom. She glanced at the shackled man in the blue jumpsuit before her. Then, in a calm and steady voice, she began to read her decision. The man before Allan was Charles C. Peterson, already serving 9 concurrent life sentences for a series of violent robberies and rapes. Over a 20-year criminal career, Peterson held up dollar stores, gas stations and department stores. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison after a conviction for a 1981 robbery. He got out 10 years later, but remained on lifetime parole. On Christmas Eve 1997, a robber lay in wait inside the Big Lots store in the Tyrone area of St. Petersburg as employees got ready to close. The robber, who wore a mask, then sprang on the workers. He forced one employee, 48-year-old John Cardoso, onto his knees, then shot him in the back, killing him. The robbery was strikingly similar to a Valentine's Day robbery at a dollar store in Tampa that same year. In that holdup, a masked man raped 2 female clerks and robbed the business after closing time. Police began to suspect Peterson. They followed him around town, then saw him spit on the road while stopped at a traffic light on his motorcycle. Police sopped up the spit and compared it to DNA left at the scene of the Tampa robbery. Peterson was charged and convicted of that crime. In March 2000, he was charged with the Big Lots murder. Prosecutors said they intended to seek the death penalty because of a number of "aggravators" that portrayed Peterson as someone deserving the ultimate punishment. For one, Peterson was on parole at the time of the murder. He had 13 previous convictions for violent felonies on his record. His crime also occurred during the commission of a robbery. Peterson was given an opportunity to negotiate a plea deal for a life sentence, but he opted to head to trial instead. After more than a week of testimony in July, a jury took about 10 hours to convict Peterson of murder. The same jurors returned for a sentencing hearing. They listened as Peterson's defense attorneys argued that the case was just a robbery gone bad. They also said Peterson couldn't appreciate the gravity of his crimes, that he had a stunted maturity level and a low IQ. The 12-member jury voted 8-4 to recommend death. In Florida, the final decision on life or death is up to the judge, though he or she must give great weight to the jury's recommendation. In nearly all cases, judges go along with the jury's suggestion. On Friday afternoon, Peterson sat between his lawyers as Allan spent 45 minutes reading the first 15 pages of her 17-page sentencing order, which recounted the facts of the case and some case law. Then she asked Peterson to stand. * * * 23 years ago, another Pinellas judge was in the same situation. Judge Susan Schaeffer was considered one of the leading death penalty defense attorneys. She personally opposed the practice. Just a year after Schaeffer became a judge, a death penalty case came before her. The defendant was named Milo Rose. A jury had convicted him of using a concrete block to bludgeon a man to death in a Clearwater parking lot. Jurors voted 9-3 for the death penalty. With tears in her eyes and tremble in her throat, Schaeffer condemned Rose to die in the electric chair. Then she hurried off the bench. Schaeffer estimates another 50 or so death penalty cases were tried in her courtroom before she retired in 2004. She sentenced eight men to death row. Not one has yet been executed. Schaeffer said those death sentences were the most difficult decisions she made from the bench. "You might personally disagree with the death penalty, but it's the law," Schaeffer said. "You as a judge have to follow the law." Schaeffer said she often wrote her sentencing orders at home, pacing the floor. "It always took some emotional toll," she said. "I think any time you're having to do something that you personally oppose, but legally are obliged to do, it's difficult to do." Schaeffer said she always looked into the face of the person she was condemning and said: "May God have mercy on your soul." "I could never say those words without having something overwhelm me at the moment," she said. "I was a human being feeling the awesome emotions for what I had done to a fellow human being." * * * If Allan, 50, was feeling any emotion Friday afternoon, she didn't show it. "The aggravating circumstances in this case are atrocious," she said calmly. Allan said she gave some weight to the mitigating circumstances, but found they didn't come close to saving Peterson's life. She sentenced him to death. Peterson also showed no emotion. He was quickly fingerprinted and taken away. Outside the courtroom, Cardoso's family said they were pleased with the sentence. Peterson's family did not attend. Reached at her home Friday evening, Allan sounded tired, spent. She declined to answer questions about the case, but offered this statement: "Judges are required to make difficult decisions virtually every day that have profound effects on people's lives. Decisions involving serious consequences are uniquely hard and emotionally draining. They are only arrived at after much thought and often sleepless nights and uneaten meals." (source: St. Petersburg Times) ********************** Nuns vow to fight death penalty -- 'Dead Man Walking' author brings message to area Speaking out. Sister Helen Prejean, an anti-death penalty activist, spoke at the Space Coast Tiger Bay Club luncheon Friday at Imperial's Hotel in Viera. Her book, 'Dead Man Walking,' became an Academy Award-winning movie. In Florida----367 on death row 227 white males 129 black males 11 other males 0 females The 1st was Patrick Sonnier, whom she walked to his execution in 1984 for a crime his brother committed. "I told him, 'You are not going to die alone,'" said Sister Helen Prejean, the diminutive New Orleans nun who counsels death row inmates and also works with the families of murder victims. "I came out and threw up." On Friday, Prejean told about 80 members of the Space Coast Tiger Bay Club of praying in a small Louisiana church with a grieving father, who wanted peace, not vengeance, after the murder of his only son, who was killed by Sonnier and his brother. "I knew what Jesus said, 'I had never been in presence of someone who did it,'" Prejean said. The heartsick father, who struggled to forgive, became the hero of her book, "Dead Man Walking," which became a major motion picture. The execution of Patrick Sonnier brought home to Prejean the double tragedies of murder and the death penalty, which was reinstated in the U.S. in the 1976. Since then, more than 1,000 U.S. prisoners, including reformed California gang leader Stanley "Tookie" Williams, have been executed. Two Florida prisoners are scheduled to die later this month. Prejean has worked for the past 20 years to convince the American public of what she calls the death penalty's waste, unfairness, racism, futility, lack of necessity and inability to make victims' families feel better. "It's all about education," she said. "I take them into the ambivalence of their own hearts. When you're removed from something, you can condone it forever." That was her mission Friday and, in the case of Tiger Bay Club President Pam Gatto, she gained an ally. "It certainly made me feel like personally I should do something about (the death penalty). One person can make a difference," Gatto said. Prejean's journey to become the most widely known opponent of the death penalty began inauspiciously, which, she says, is how God has guided her life. She was working in a poor neighborhood of New Orleans, when an acquaintance asked, "Hey, you wanna be a pen pal for someone on death row?" "Sure," she said, expecting only to write a few letters. 2 years later, she witnessed her 1st execution. On this spiritual journey, she has gone from being the privileged daughter of a Baton Rouge lawyer to a nun working for social justice in the poorest parts of New Orleans, and finally, a renowned author and opponent of the death penalty. Calling herself "a nun at-large," she travels widely to make 140 speaking engagements a year. She believes she can change even a hard heart with facts about the death penalty in an hour. "The death penalty is highly emotional," she said. "People don't reflect on it very much." Prosecutors and politicians, she said, use the death penalty to show they are "tough on crime," when many more crimes could be prevented by drug rehabilitation and youth-training programs. "You can show the death penalty doesn't deter crime," she said. "You could boil people in oil in the public square." (source: Florida Today) NEW JERSEY: Slain widow's son: Bridge deserves a death sentence Before entering the courtroom today for the sentencing of Azriel Bridge, David Reuter spoke about the ordeal and the trauma it has caused his family. Bridge murdered 77-year-old Shirley Reuter -- David's mother -- on June 9, 2004, after the Dover Township widow let him into her house for a glass of water. Bridge, now 19, of Chicago, is scheduled to be sentenced this afternoon by Superior Court Judge Edward J. Turnbach. He was working in Reuter's Chestnut Street neighborhood for a Midwest magazine clearinghouse. "This is a very emotional day for me, and I'm hoping it will bring some closure,'' said David, who now lives in his mother's home. "I know I am going to be thinking about what happened, reliving it in my mind, which is going to be really tough," he said. "I think there will be some closure for me if (Bridge) gets the proper sentence, which is a life sentence without parole." David Reuter said he wishes Bridge could be executed. "The death sentence is what he deserves," Reuter said. "It bothers me that he will have a roof over his head, get 3 square meals a day, have TV privileges, a weight room and better health coverage than I have. All at the taxpayers' expense." (source: Asbury Park Press) ILLINOIS: 22-year-old may face death penalty The man accused of shooting a South Peoria man in October 2004 could face the death penalty if convicted of 1st-degree murder. It's not known yet whether Peoria County State's Attorney Kevin Lyons will seek death for James E. Wright, 22, of 1404 S. Stanley St., who was charged Friday in connection with the Oct. 16, 2004, slaying of Nicholas Kaeding. The county's top prosecutor has 120 days to make that decision. In addition to the murder charge, Wright also faces 1 count of armed robbery. He was ordered held on $1.5 million bond. Another man, Mario C. Wright, 22, of 2718 W. Trewyn Ave., Apt. 196, also was charged in connection with Kaeding's death. Mario Wright faces theft and obstruction of justice charges and was ordered held on $100,000 bond. Both men would have to post 10 percent of their bond in order to get out of the Peoria County Jail. They are scheduled to appear next in court on Feb. 9 for a preliminary hearing, though it's likely a grand jury will hear the case before then. Under state law, armed robbery is considered a "forcible felony," and because Wright was allegedly committing an armed robbery when Kaeding was killed, he's eligible for the death penalty. Kaeding's death was apparently a drug deal gone bad, according to court records. At Mario Wright's bond hearing, Assistant State's Attorney Steve Patelli told the judge that the two Wrights got approximately $40 from the robbery. James Wright's public defender declined to have a probable cause statement read during his client's bond hearing, so no details were given. The relationship of the two Wrights was not known Friday. The 2 men were arrested Wednesday after police received "new information" on the case. Kaeding, 22, who lived in the Pierson Hills apartment complex, was behind the wheel of his car when he apparently was shot twice shortly after 5:30 p.m. in the 1500 block of South Griswold Street. The car had been northbound on Griswold when it veered off the road and through front yards before crashing into a tree. Residents found him alive but unable to communicate. He died an hour later in surgery. (source: The Journal Star)
