Jan. 10 TEXAS: Evansville Native Reacts to Attacker's Death Date Holly Dunn Pendelton looks like your average professional. You'd never guess the horror she went through in 1997. She and her boyfriend Chris were attacked by the infamous Railway Killer. Chris didn't survive the attack, and Holly herself was raped, beaten and left for dead. She had a broken jaw, a broken eye socket, her head was cracked open from where he hit her, and she had a stab wound in her neck. But amazingly, Holly survived and has managed to get on with her life. She's a newlywed. She got married on the beach in Florida 3 months ago. She says she's pretty happy in her life, and she's doing great. Her attacker, Angel Resendiz, sits on death row in Texas. His execution date was just set for May tenth. Holly says to have a date set is exciting, but things could still change. She says she doesn't want to get too excited yet. Resendiz is being executed for the murder of a Houston doctor. He never went to trial for the crimes against Holly and Chris, but she says that's okay. She testified during the penalty phase of his trial in 2000. Holly says it was one of the worst days of her life. She says it was almost harder than the actual attack. She says she got her say in then, and since the trial process was so hard, her own trial process would be really difficult. An appeal in the Resendiz case is still pending, but Holly is looking forward to the day when he pays the ultimate price for his crimes... And can't hurt anyone again. She says it still doesn't bring back any of the other victims that died including Chris, but she will feel like justice has been served. (source: WFIE News) CALIFORNIA----impending execution URGENT ACTION APPEAL 10 January 2006 UA 01/06 (Originally issued 3 January 2005) Death Penalty USA/California: Clarence Ray Allen (m), aged 75, Choctow Indian Clarence Ray Allen's attorneys petitioned the California Supreme Court on 6 January for a stay of execution, to allow time for Allen to receive testing to investigate the possibility that he has organic brain damage. Later that day, Governor Schwarzenegger denied a request for a clemency hearing with Allen's attorneys, but undertook to review documents submitted in support of clemency. Clarence Allen was sentenced to death in 1982 for commissioning the murders of Bryon Schletewitz, Josephine Rocha and Douglas White, while serving a life sentence for arranging the 1974 murder of Mary Sue Kitts, a potential witness against him in a burglary case. Bryon Schletewitz was one of eight witnesses who had testified against Allen in the Kitts case. Contrary to the information in the original UA, Josephine Rocha and Douglas White had not been among the eight witnesses. Allen was also convicted of conspiracy to murder the seven other witnesses. Billy Hamilton, the man who actually carried out the three murders, was also sentenced to death. RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible: - expressing deep concern at the imminent execution of Clarence Ray Allen; - expressing sympathy for the family and friends of Bryon Schletewitz, Josephine Rocha and Douglas White, and explaining that you are in no way seeking to excuse the manner of their deaths; - noting that Clarence Ray Allen is an infirm and elderly man, and that his attorneys have requested that he receive testing to determine whether he has organic brain damage; - urging Governor Schwarzenegger to grant clemency to Clarence Allen, or at the very least to grant a stay of execution to allow testing to be carried out. APPEALS TO: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814 Fax: 1 916 445 4633 Salutation: Dear Governor Schwarzenegger PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Clarence Ray Allen is still scheduled to be executed on January 17, 2006 so immediate appeals are needed. Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots movement that promotes and defends human rights. This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including contact information and stop action date (if applicable). Thank you for your help with this appeal. Urgent Action Network Amnesty International USA PO Box 1270 Nederland CO 80466-1270 Email: [email protected] http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/ Phone: 303 258 1170 Fax: 303 258 7881 ---------------------------------- END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL ---------------------------------- **************************************************** Here is an editorial that ran recently in the San Francisco Chronicle by former San Quenton Warden Dan Vasquez: OPEN FORUM Why Clarence Ray Allen's life should be spared by Dan Vasquez Friday, January 6, 2006 While warden of San Quentin for 10 years, I supervised reactivation of the gas chamber and California's first two 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 five-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 five 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: Dan Vasquez served as warden of San Quentin Prison from 1983 to 1993----San Francisco Chronicle) INDIANA: Former Death Row Inmate Found Hanged In Prison A former death row inmate who had repeatedly asked to be executed was found dead in his cell at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City this morning. Prison officials say 42-year-old Charles E. Roche Junior used a braided sheet to hang himself. His body was discovered during an early morning security check. Roche was convicted of 2 murders in 1990, but had his death sentence reduced to life in prison in 2001. In February 2001, a federal judge vacated Roche's death sentence, ruling that he had received ineffective legal counsel. While on death row, Roche had asked repeatedly to die, saying he didn't like living under the state prison's rules. (source: The Associated Press) NEW JERSEY:: New Jersey lawmakers first to pass death-penalty moratorium New Jersey lawmakers have suspended the death penalty, legislating the 1st state moratorium since the U.S. Supreme Court reintroduced capital punishment in 1976. A special commission will now make a sweeping review of the use of executions in New Jersey, including whether they are applied fairly and without discrimination and whether 'the risk of an irreversible mistake is acceptable.' New Jersey is among 38 U.S. states that reintroduced the death penalty after the 1976 high-court ruling, though no inmate has been executed since 1963. Maryland and Illinois also imposed moratoriums in the past, but these were decreed by state governors, not the legislature. Maryland lifted its suspension in 2003. In New Jersey, the Democrat-led state assembly approved the suspension late Monday. The state senate passed the measure last month. Acting Governor Richard Codey has indicated he will sign the bill into law. The commission is to report its findings by November 15. The moratorium continues for 2 months after the panel makes its report. (source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur) NEW YORK: WE'VE GOT NO DEATH PENALTY - NOW THAT'S CRIMINAL It was a cop killers' day -- or should we give lice the benefit of the doubt and call it an alleged cop killers' day? In The Bronx and Brooklyn yesterday, 3 sub-humans went before judges, and you have to wonder what happened to that creaky dinosaur called the death penalty for killing a cop. Truthfully, the death penalty just doesn't exist here -- and the sooner we face that, the better. "He's not a killer, he's a good boy," Domenica Brancato said of her son, "The Sopranos" actor Lillo Brancato, who, with his pal Steven Armento, is charged with killing Officer Daniel Enchautegui. Mrs. Brancato is a sad woman who has been inflicted with a special pain by the worthless kid she sacrificed to adopt. Lillo Sr. was asked how did a kid who had everything go so wrong. A shadow fell over his pale face: "I just don't know what happened." Officer Joe Nolan of the 40th Precinct regularly partnered with Danny Enchautegui. "This nasty kid made more money from films and TV than the average cop would make in a lifetime. And yet he's there when one of the best guys I ever met would be murdered. What's Brancato's excuse?" Then, a short train ride to Brooklyn, we saw another example of a twisted human being. He is Marlon Legere, who on Sept. 10, 2004, ended the lives of Detectives Pat Rafferty and Bobby Parker. I will never forget the devastating night I sat with Pat's widow, Eileen, and their 3 children. When I last spoke to her, she said: "You just don't heal. We are all trying to get there, but we are not there yet." Now this whole death-penalty thing is a farce. You hear the death penalty threatened on TV shows like "Law & Order" -- but there won't be an execution in New York 'til Hell freezes over. The last execution in New York was in 1963, and the bleeding hearts would beat their breast bones to a pulp if a cop killer was ever given the juice-jab. Why don't we just face it: There is no death penalty in this state. Why continue with this canard? Of course, if this were Texas, these 3 scums in court today would be on an express train to hell. (source: Commentary, Steve Dunleavy, New York Post) USA: Judging innocence In Death Penalty Cases This winter, the U.S. Supreme Court will take a legal journey through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, from eastern Tennessee to northern South Carolina-the sites of two gruesome deaths that led to two questionable death sentences. In each of the 2 cases-House v. Bell and Holmes v. South Carolina - the defendant claims that he is innocent, forensic evidence was fabricated and the jury never heard evidence that another person committed the crime. Justice Antonin Scalia called the question of whether the Constitution might permit execution of an innocent person "embarrassing" in a 1993 decision. Now the Supreme Court faces 2 fresh embarrassments. So far, the appellate courts have all regarded the evidence of guilt as "overwhelming," but only by discounting the evidence of innocence. When Carolyn Muncey was found murdered in her eastern Tennessee home in 1985, the police quickly focused on her husband, Hubert, who had a history of serious domestic abuse, and Paul House, a convicted sex offender who recently moved to town. When witnesses told police they saw House emerge from woods near where Muncey's body was found, police settled on House. The prosecution's theory was that House raped Muncey, as evidenced by the semen stain on her nightgown, before murdering her. House maintained his innocence and attacked the forensic evidence. He was convicted and sentenced to death. House brought a federal habeas claim, arguing that Hubert Muncey was the real killer. House's lawyers proffered testimony from four witnesses who said that Hubert Muncey had confessed to them; two witnesses who contradicted Muncey's alibi; and the state's medical examiner, who stated that blood on House's jeans must have come from the sample taken from the victim-half a vial was unaccounted for. Most striking, new DNA evidence demonstrated that semen on Carolyn Muncey's nightgown came not from House, but from her husband. The full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals nevertheless determined in an 8-7 decision that House had not met his burden of showing that "no reasonable juror" would vote to convict. 86-year-old Mary Stewart was robbed, raped and murdered in her home in York County, S.C. The police arrested Bobby Lee Holmes. Holmes' planned defense was to discredit forensic evidence and provide evidence that someone else did it. Holmes proffered 14 witnesses who would testify that another man, Jimmy White, had confessed to them or was on the victim's block around the time of the murder. Holmes also had evidence that the officer in charge of the investigation fabricated forensic evidence. The trial judge excluded most of this evidence, and Holmes was convicted and sentenced to death. On appeal, the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the decision to exclude the evidence of White's guilt, finding the evidence against Holmes to be "overwhelming." What the juries didn't hear In both of these cases, though the forensic evidence was suspect, the appellate courts nonetheless regarded evidence of guilt as "overwhelming," and the jury never heard evidence that another person committed the crime. The legal inquiries are similar as well: Both cases require justices to rerun the trial in their heads and predict what a jury would do with the new evidence. The justices will ask about causation, a question familiar from tort law: Did the lack of such evidence before the jury cause the conviction? This inquiry can appear deceptively easy. But appellate judges are forced to speculate on the impact of evidence the jury never heard. New evidence might undercut other evidence that appellate courts found so "overwhelming." If links in the prosecution's narrative are cut by contrary evidence, the jury may doubt the entire chain. If a jury heard evidence that police fabricated blood evidence, they may tend to distrust other aspects of the officers' testimony. If a jury heard evidence incriminating Muncey's husband, they might discount circumstantial evidence of House's guilt or the "aggravating circumstance" of a rape. With Holmes questioning the forensic evidence, the jury undoubtedly wanted to know-well, who did it then? Worse, the prosecutor said in his summation: "[I]f [the police] are going to frame [someone] . . . , and it's going to be Bobby Holmes, where is this raping, murdering, beating fellow that actually did this thing?" But the court did not let the jury hear Holmes' answer. In 170 cases to date, DNA testing has proven defendants actually innocent though appellate courts often found "overwhelming evidence" of guilt. We may never know for sure if House and Holmes were wrongfully convicted, but we can find out what a jury would do with the new evidence-only if the court sends the cases back for retrial. The Supreme Court should use these cases to create a national conversation on how to avoid "embarrassing" wrongful convictions from investigation to trial to appeal. We believe our system demands no less. (source: Brandon L. Garrett is an associate professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Jason M. Solomon is an assistant professor of law at the University of Georgia School of Law; National Law Journal) OHIO: GOVERNOR TAFT STATEMENT ON JOHN SPIRKO REPRIEVE Governor Bob Taft today issued the following statement upon granting John G. Spirko a reprieve: "At the request of the Ohio Attorney General, I have issued a warrant of reprieve for inmate John Spirko, delaying his execution date until July 19, 2006. "I agree with the Attorney General that additional investigation and analysis of the evidence in the kidnapping and murder of Betty Jane Mottinger are warranted." (source: Office of the Governor, Jan. 9)
