Jan. 13 CALIFORNIA----impending execution Schwarzenegger should grant clemency for 76-year-old wheelchair-user with suspected brain damage facing execution Amnesty International is calling on California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency to a seriously ill man with possible brain damage facing execution on Tuesday 17 January, the day after his 76th birthday. Clarence Ray Allen, a wheelchair-user who is nearly blind and has advanced heart disease and diabetes, is scheduled to be executed in California for ordering 3 murders. He was sentenced to death in 1982. Amnesty International, which opposes the death penalty in all cases, is calling on state governor Schwarzenegger to grant clemency to Mr Allen or at least grant a stay of execution to allow testing of the prisoners possible organic brain damage. Amnesty International UK Campaigns Director Stephen Bowen said: "The death penalty is never right, but in the case of a seriously ill elderly man with possible brain damage it is an affront to all standards of decency and justice. "Governor Schwarzenegger should exercise his power to grant clemency for Clarence Allen as the 1st step in turning California away from the death penalty." Mr Allen, a Choctow Indian, was tried in a predominantly white, rural county and received poor legal representation at trial. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged this in January 2005 - while rejecting an appeal - saying "Trial counsel admits he did nothing to prepare for the penalty phase [of the trial] until after the guilty verdicts were rendered, and even then, in what little time was available, he failed sufficiently to investigate and adequately present available mitigating evidence." The same court also acknowledged that it was "overwhelmingly plain" that trial counsel's performance "fell below an objective standard of reasonableness." According to Mr Allen's attorneys, the state at trial relied on the testimony of witnesses who were admitted participants in the crimes and who, in exchange for their testimony, were promised they would not be charged in the crimes. Each of these witnesses are later reported to have admitted they lied at trial. The results of a study into the fairness of California's death penalty system, released in September 2005, showed that race and location were significant factors in whether a defendant is sentenced to death. Earlier this week a bill proposing a moratorium on the death penalty was introduced into the California state legislature. The bill proposes suspending executions while a commission appointed by the state Senate studies inequities in the state's criminal justice system. (source: Amnesty International) **************************** Criminal Justice & Prison Reform is in Gridlock in the California Legislature "The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." To be a good watchdog of the government and an opinion writer, it's necessary to be cynical. The reason, of course, is that everything the legislature does is packaged more for the marketing and advancement of political careers than for the good of the people. Watchdogs should believe nothing until it actually proves out to be a fact, and not be placated by any meat baits along the way which might be designed to stop pressure. We all want to feel hopeful that the best of humanity is represented amongst those we elect to office. Hope is what keeps us alive. The men and women on death row and those confined in the bloodhouse prisons are particularly in need of hope. But what I have to offer today is cynicism because often legislative promises give false hopes and slows down the actual reform because people stop working to make it happen.. Millions of Californians had their holiday season ruined by the blood thirsty Repugs who celebrated Christmas with the public murder of Tookie Williams. Now we're kicking off the New Year by the inhumane massacre of an old Indian man, Clarence Ray Allen. With this one, I can only ask what have we come to when we as people would allow our State to murder in our names an old sick man who is far beyond being any sort of threat to anyone. How many people really have the power to "order" murders from prison especially when there is no money to hire hit men? Let's get real! I don't know anyone in my address book who would go out and kill another person because I asked them to do it. There is no evidence of this taking place. The reasons why we are killing people are getting sillier each time. Isn't this execution of Allen more about Arnold pleasing his blood-thirsty voting base for the upcoming election? Most studies show that murders are committed by mentally ill people and killing one of them to show that killing is wrong has never been a crime deterrent. There are no statistics anywhere that prisons, jails, juvenile halls and harsh laws such as the death penalty do one thing to reduce crime There are many success stories around restorative justice techniques that would smarter and more cost effective to implement if anyone really wanted to reduce crime. The warriors to end the death penalty are still understandably depressed and grieving over the barbarism of a Governor who lives in a fantasy land, a Governor who is little more than a cartoon character himself but who has the power to order people to die. We, the people, empowered this Governor by how we voted, or did not vote, and how many poor people we registered to stand up against the Rethuglican politicians who so love the prisons and the death penalty. We let the skunks in the house so to speak. So if we want to stop being sprayed with their disgusting output we need to get the skunks out of our legislative houses. We do that with grassroots work of writing to editors, doing massive protests, raising the money for initiative campaigns so we can force changes in the law to be on the ballots and rapidly building the voting machine necessary. There are now three million voters tied with heart strings to a State Prisoner. This does not include those with loved ones in juvenile halls, federal prisons, on parole or probation. Only about 30% of these prisoners are violent and they should be getting treatment in a healing manner to make California a safer place for everyone. Three million is a voting group size which outnumbers all the law enforcement labor unions who have financed and elected people who will serve their interests to public office. While most of the poor are uneducated, this formula was taught to almost everyone in high school history and government classes - that the people have the power to elect or recall when they all get together. It's amazing to me how many people just don't get how simple it is to end the oppression and barbaric tactics destroying their lives. The California legislature is in gridlock which means that no important reforms can take place. The Governor must sign all the bills before they can become law. Let's look at the process as it applies to the Death Penalty Moratorium which in my opinion has no chance of passing through the legislature. Such a moratorium must be forced as an initiative campaign because the Governor will not sign it, especially in an election year since he represents a party whose Holy Grail is punishing by prison or the death penalty. The people who actually voted him into office, the only ones that matter in a majority rules democracy, agree with the Governor and like this law. While I believe they are not the majority of the people, they are certainly the majority of those who vote or he wouldn't be up there stinking up our house. Most important law changes require a 2/3 vote which means that at least some of the Repuglies must vote for it. If you study their records on how they have consistently voted against amending the Three Strikes law for example, it is easily predictable how the politicians are going to vote. They have been purchased to cast their votes in a certain manner and it doesn't take very long before you can see that the Repugs do lockstep voting against every good idea the Democrats bring forward. When a new law (bill) is proposed it must go through the battering line of many committees assuming it makes it past the public safety committee. Each committee must approve it and then it goes to the floor vote (that means everyone) in elected office in both the Assembly and the Senate. The Assembly floor is the most difficult to pass because so many of them are rookies and the sheer number of Assembly members makes it almost impossible to get anything that would prevent, educate or heal approved. Although in more than a decade, I have seen this happen especially if an initiative is going to be circulated which might be even more dramatic a change than the bill. Sometimes they settle in those instances where they know an initiative has enough of a voting group behind it and the necessary first million dollars it takes to campaign a law change. If you have the workers without the million dollars, you aren't taken seriously as a voting group that can actually win an initiative campaign. But if your group has those two elements - the funds and the volunteers to be able to gather the signatures within 150 days - then you have much more a chance to be taken seriously. After all the committees, the large bodies of the Senate and Assembly approve the bill it goes to the Governor for signing. A 2/3 majority IS NOT required for this moratorium, it can pass both houses of the State legislature with a simple majority which gives it more hope at this level than when a 2/3 majority is required. There are some Democrats who are actually closet Repugs who will vote against the Death Penalty Moratorium. Gray Davis was a closet Repug on criminal justice matters which is one of the reasons so many of his own people recalled him. There are others who sneaked into office under this banner. At least four "Democrats" that I know of and possibly more who will likely show themselves by opposing this bill. The largest block to the Death Penalty Moratorium bill will be the Governor himself. When a man has murdered three people on death row, taken the lives of old men, he cannot sign a moratorium bill because that would be an admission that his judgement was bad. Arnold is never going to sign a moratorium for the death penalty except in the event he has another heart attack and is in the hospital on his way to meet his Maker and has a change of heart at the last minute. I wouldn't hold my breath for this one. All the good bills pass the Public Safety Committee and if all our elected officials were as enlightened as Assemblymember Mark Leno, we would have seen good prison reforms years ago But as these reforms travel through the battering lines of committees and finally to the floors of both houses and then onto the Governor they get gutted and end up as a waste of time by September. The Governor and those before him since Pete Wilson was elected to office has vetoed every bill that would benefit the public safety including prisoners and their families. Anything that would prevent, educate, rehabilitate or heal is voted down automatically as a "waste" of money even though studies have proven time and again that restorative justice works to reduce crime. There is no reason why this predictable trend is going to change now even as other states adopt Moratoriums on the death penalty. If, you the voter, want the skunks out of our legislative houses it is up to you to organize and mobilize at least twenty people that you know to help get out the vote against 99% of the Rethuglicans running for any office. There is an occasional good one but this is so rare that it is barely worth mentioning. Check the Democrats too and if you see endorsements by law enforcement labor unions in their literature, campaign hard against that person regardless of their party. Ultimately they are going to be the ones deciding your fate and preventing them from getting elected in the first place is the greatest offensive move you can make. Initiatives, recalls and putting your own people into office are tremendously expensive while bringing twenty people each to the polls is something we can all do. It's work, but liberty and justice has never been for free. Each new generation must fight for it as those darned skunks just keep on breeding. Getting out the vote is the something that has been missing or the Amend Three Strikes initiative would never have failed and the skunks that block all the reform bills would never be sitting in our Houses in Sacramento. It's up to the people to change the laws. Organizing is simple but each person has to want it bad enough to put in a few hours per week. How much do you want these bad laws changed? Enough to get 20 people to the polls? Enough to put up a few bucks to support advocates? Those who oppress you do not have any trouble at all with organizing. That is how they do it TO you. It's shortsighted of you to allow this to happen when the human rights people outnumber everyone and could cream the skunks at the polls. It's dumb to be the victim of other voting groups when those of your opinion outnumber them all. If we aren't going to get together and do important initiative campaigns then we have no right to complain. We are fortunate to have the initiative process in California. It means that 6500 people committed to a little work and putting up a little money can get together and pay an attorney to file a law change with the Secretary of State. Then there are 150 days to meet the goal of enough signatures. This would mean that the trained base of 6500 people must collect at least one signature per day from a registered voter. Then when the signatures are gathered and this means of REGISTERED voters (they check everyone) with clear handwriting, the proposed change in the law goes on the ballot. The groups who do these initiatives constantly know that once you have the trained base together, a million dollars for the cost of the campaign can be raised in a few hours with a single email. Each person puts into the pot and boom! The power machine is launched. This is why you have these terrible laws in place. Law enforcement labor unions who usually vote Republican know this technique well and they do not begrudge the time or the dollars it takes to build and set this ugly machine in motion for job security. It's all about money and hype for political careers. It's time for us to dry our eyes and wake up the sleeping majority. The Skunks are in our Houses, let's get together and get them out and seal up all the entrances where they might enter by paying attention and being active with what's going on. Ultimately the stench of skunks on the loose ruins our entire environment and we can no longer live. Just view it as an infestation that needs to be eradicated with noise, lots of pens, protest signs, letters to editors, purchased TV ads if possible, and ultimately initiative campaigns to informed voters who are educated and ready to agree with you. Surely you are smarter than a skunk! Our forefathers were thinking of you when they set up the system and reminded us all that we have a duty to keep it pristine and functioning. Nobody had the luxury of being depressed then and the same is certainly true now. The good people outnumber them all, so get a move on to organize and mobilize now as elections are coming and skunks are running for public office. Nothing good can happen with so many of them in the legislature, and certainly not with one of them as Governor. Here are some quotes of famous people who tried to deliver the same message Martin Luther King, Jr.: Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. A.E. Houseman: 3 minutes thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and 3 minutes is a long time. Albert Einstein: Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. Robert M. Hutchins: The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. Thomas Carlyle: Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance. William Lloyd Garrison: The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. The true nature of a heart is seen in its response to the unattractive. When women are depressed, they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It's a whole different way of thinking. -- Elaine Boosler Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock. -- Will Rogers We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. Author: Albert Einstein If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime. Author: Georg C. Lichtenberg There is nothing harder than the softness of indifference. Author: Juan Montalvo "Ignorance and apathy of the people rule governments. Knowledge is power. Knowledge comes from reading newspapers, not from getting your news from television alone" B. Cayenne Bird (source: American Chronicle - B. Cayenne Bird is a 37-year veteran journalist who volunteers her time as founder and director of United for No Injustice, Oppression or Neglect UNION. The UNION is active in prison reform and criminal justice issues. She is a mother and grandmother and focuses on human rights and restorative justice. She is also the host of television series "Cayenne Common Sense" and publishes a daily online newsletter) ****************** The death penalty doesn't pay If the scheduled execution of Clarence Ray Allen goes forward on Jan. 16 - the day after his 76th birthday - he will be the oldest person executed in California since the death penalty was reinstated. But he will not be the 1st elderly, seriously ill inmate executed, nor will he be the last. Similarly, although his case received extraordinary media coverage, Stanley Tookie Williams was neither the 1st nor the last prisoner put to death who many believe had profoundly changed while in prison. What is extraordinary, however, about these 2 executions is that they will have occurred a month apart. That is unprecedented in a state that, until December, had carried out only 11 executions since 1977 - on average, less than 1 every 2 years. And the executions are not about to stop. According to the state attorney general's office, 3 other men are likely to face execution in 2006 and, within several years, the number of executions may be "considerable." Ironically, California is speeding up the pace of executions just as public support for the death penalty is waning. Nationwide, the rate of executions continues to decrease. In California, fewer prosecutors have sought the death penalty since 2001, and fewer juries have been willing to deliver death verdicts. Were their cases in the trial courts today, it seems likely that a significant number of the 646 individuals now on our state's death row would not be selected for capital prosecution in the first place or would be allowed to negotiate a plea for a sentence of life without possibility of parole or, if tried, would not receive a death verdict. There are 3,327 men and women in California serving sentences of life without possibility of parole. These are individuals who for reasons of geography, race, economic status, prosecutorial discretion, trial verdict, good lawyering or even good timing - to name just a few - were found guilty of death-eligible crimes but were not ultimately sentenced to death. Just like those on death row, some were convicted of multiple murders, and some had prior records, including crimes of violence. Just like those on death row, most had never taken a life before, and many did not have a serious criminal history. And, just like those awaiting execution, some of the families of their victims wanted them to pay with their lives, and others did not. In sum, the line that divides those we execute and those we do not remains as arbitrary and capricious as it was in 1972, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared it constitutionally intolerable. What if, instead of more executions, Californians awoke tomorrow to find that capital punishment was gone and could not be resurrected? Some prosecutors, jurors and family members of victims would no doubt be frustrated and angry. But there also would be relief on the part of prosecutors who have had second thoughts about the fairness and reliability of the outcomes they pursued. There certainly would be relief on the part of jurors who have learned facts about the defendant that were never presented at trial - facts that would have changed their sentencing verdict. And victims' family members who either did not want the defendant put to death or who discovered that the prospect of an execution did not abate their grief or make any more sense of their loss would share in that sense of relief. Beyond the emotional fallout, how would California get on with the state's business? Can California live without the ultimate act of retribution? The answer is that our state would do immeasurably better by removing this albatross of enormous financial and psychic weight. California has recent experience functioning without executions. There were none in this state from 1967 to 1976, when a de facto moratorium occurred during a period of intense, nationwide litigation, including the Supreme Court's decision in 1972 to overturn the death penalty statutes then in effect. Although California reinstated the death penalty in 1977, 15 years passed before there was an execution while cases made their way through the courts. Thus, for a quarter of a century, California carried on without putting a single man or woman to death. During this period, murder rates here fluctuated - as they did in states with and without capital punishment. However, California's experience is consistent with more than a century of social science findings that the presence or absence of executions is irrelevant to murder rates. According to a Times article last March, each of the 11 executions after 1977 cost Californians a quarter of a billion dollars. The article found that, for institutional reasons, the cost of housing death-sentenced inmates is 3 times that of the general population. A capital trial costs at least 3 times as much as a non-capital murder trial. It takes tens of millions of dollars annually to pay for courts, prosecutors and defense counsel. Despite recruiting efforts, the California Supreme Court still cannot secure willing and qualified lawyers to represent more than 200 of those currently on death row who will wait 4 to 8 years for appointment of counsel to handle their cases. In short, although we are spending an enormous amount on our death penalty system, we are not spending nearly enough. On Tuesday, the state Assembly Public Safety Committee passed AB 1121, which would enact a moratorium on executions. Now we must hope that the Assembly and state Senate pass the legislation and that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs it. The measure would suspend the death penalty for 3 years, until Jan. 1, 2009, when the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice completes its investigation into a range of systemic issues, including whether capital punishment allows the innocent to be executed. In the intervening years of the moratorium, perhaps Californians and their elected officials can summon up the courage and the common sense to put an end to the death penalty. (source: Commentary, Elisabeth Semel is a professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law and director of Boalt's Death Penalty Clinic; Los Angeles Times) *********************** As execution nears, families still grieve for 3 killed at store in 1980 It was 1980, and Bryon Schletewitz was planning to take over his family's general store in Fresno so his parents could retire. Josephine Rocha was looking forward to being a high school senior and had taken a part-time job at the market to pay for her new car. Douglas White worked at the shop while going to college and hoped to start a real estate business with his mother someday. But on a warm evening that year, the three were shot to death as part of a revenge plot cooked up in a Folsom Prison cafeteria. The scheme's architect, Clarence Ray Allen, is scheduled to be executed Tuesday morning for the murders. For the victims' families, Allen's punishment will be an epilogue to a terrible event whose effects linger to this day. Some plan to watch as Allen is given a lethal injection in San Quentin State Prison's death chamber. "It will close a chapter for me," said Schletewitz's sister, Patricia Pendergrass, who is the last surviving member of her family. "But the pain will never go away. It's lasted for 25 years." Others say there wouldn't be much point in watching Allen die. "I'd rather spend the time with my family, remembering my sister," said Robert Rocha, Josephine Rocha's younger brother. "Let's face it -- he'll be put to sleep," Rocha said of Allen. "He's not going to feel one ounce of the pain we've endured since that day." Sept. 5, 1980, started out ordinary enough. Bryon Schletewitz persuaded his dad, Raymond, to go home early and let him close up Fran's Market, an old-fashioned country store on the east edge of Fresno. Schletewitz, 27, loved working in his family's shop, which carried fine meat cuts for the weekend ranchers down from the city, an assortment of Mexican specialty items for local farmworkers, animal feed, clothing and sundry items. "That store sparkled," Pendergrass said. "My mother made sure of that." Pendergrass and Schletewitz grew up in the market, which their father had named after their mother, Frances. Schletewitz worked there while attending Clovis High School, where he played trumpet in the band and made friends easily. After graduating, Schletewitz enrolled at a local junior college, where he considered becoming a paramedic. But in the end, he decided that working at the market was what he loved best. "He was a people person," Pendergrass said. "He had this joyful spirit that was catchy. He loved joking and laughing with the customers, and they in return liked and looked for him." Raymond Schletewitz agreed to leave closing up to his son that evening, a decision he would regret for the rest of his life. Bryon Schletewitz joshed with his three employees as they swept up. He had three engagements that night and was probably wondering how he was going to make it to all of them, his sister said. He'd begun dating a pretty brunette. It wasn't serious, but Pendergrass said her brother had made a promise to marry when he was 27 -- just like their father did. Josephine Rocha hadn't been employed at the store for long. But working at Fran's Market seemed like it was becoming a tradition in the 17-year-old's family. Her older sister Teresa had worked there while she attended high school, and she helped Rocha get a job. Their Portuguese parents raised all seven of their children with a strong work ethic, Robert Rocha said. Josephine, whom the family called "Phina," was earning money to pay off her car and for auto insurance. Rocha said he remembered her washing that blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme while listening to music by the Cars. Of all the kids in the family, she was Daddy's little girl, he said. The father's name was Joseph, and "when she was born 4th of all girls, my dad began to worry that he would never have a namesake," Robert Rocha said. "So they named my sister Josephine." She was the only member of the family to have blond hair and blue eyes. "My mother thought God sent her an angel," he said. By 17, Josephine Rocha had already won awards for her artwork. When she wasn't drawing, she was working in the garden with her father. Her family is sure that, had she lived, she would have become either an artist or a horticulturist. Robert Rocha said she loved children and caring for people and might have chosen a profession in teaching or medicine. Before leaving for work at Fran's, 18-year-old Douglas White insisted that his mother see a doctor about her injured foot. She had been putting it off, so he got on the phone and made the appointment himself. As he walked out the door, he teased his mom, a real estate agent, that maybe he should show houses to her clients that day. White was a 6-foot-6 teenager with the manners of a prince. The Schletewitzes noticed right off how polite he was with the store customers. "It was 'yes ma'am' and 'no sir,' " Pendergrass remembered. His mother, Nadine, used to call him her "big, gentle teddy bear." At Clovis High School, he sang with the choir and helped the director plan activities. "Douglas was a very caring young man," his mother wrote in a 1997 court declaration. "Many other families considered him a virtual member of their families. As a personal favor to his choir director's family, he drove to Madera to do their yard work." After high school, White attended Reedley Community College. He wanted to study law and architecture and join his mother in her real estate business. While Schletewitz, Rocha and White began their routine of closing up the market for the night, Clarence Ray Allen, then 50, waited in his Folsom Prison cell to see if his plan of vengeance had been carried out. He didn't know Rocha or White, but he wanted Bryon Schletewitz, Raymond Schletewitz and 6 others dead for testifying against him during his 1977 trial for the murder of Mary Sue Kitts, his son's 17-year-old girlfriend, authorities said. Allen believed Kitts had gone to the Schletewitzes three years earlier and told them that he and a group of accomplices were responsible for a burglary at Fran's Market that year. Allen owned a security outfit, but he also plotted robberies and couldn't abide "rats," prosecutors said. He ordered a hit on Kitts. The teen was strangled and thrown into the Friant-Kern Canal. Her body was never found. Allen, who was sentenced to life in prison, planned to eliminate the prosecution witnesses so they wouldn't be around for his appeal. He contracted with inmate Billy Ray Hamilton, who worked with him in the prison's cafeteria and was soon to be paroled, to kill the eight people on his list. So that September night, Hamilton and his girlfriend, Connie Barbo, lingered in Fran's Market until they were the last customers. Joe Rios, a teenager also working at the store that day, became suspicious of the two as he cleaned up the aisles. But it was too late. Hamilton pulled out a sawed-off shotgun, and Barbo drew a .32-caliber revolver. They herded all the employees toward the stockroom and ordered them to lie on the floor. Schletewitz volunteered to give the couple all the money they wanted, according to court records. He then led Hamilton into the stockroom. Once inside, Hamilton pointed the shotgun at Schletewitz's forehead and shot him from less than a foot away. Hamilton came out of the room and turned to White, the records say. "OK, big boy, where's the safe?" Hamilton demanded. White responded, "Honest, there's no safe." Hamilton shot him in the neck and chest at point-blank range, according to court documents. Rocha began crying. Hamilton shot her 2 or 3 times from about 5 feet away. The shots pierced her heart, lung and stomach. Rios had managed to escape to the bathroom. Hamilton pushed his way in, stood three feet away and fired, according to the documents. Rios raised his arm just in time, and the shot entered his elbow, saving his life. Jack Abbott, who lived next to the market, grabbed his gun and came outside when he heard the shots. He and Hamilton exchanged fire, and Hamilton fled after being shot in the foot. Police arrived and found Barbo hiding in the market. Hamilton was arrested a week later after trying to rob a Modesto liquor store and now is on Death Row with Allen. A hit list containing names and addresses of the eight trial witnesses was found on him when he was arrested. It's what linked him to Allen, who has always denied ordering the killings. Robert Rocha and his sister Teresa were at home watching television when a brief story about the robbery flashed on the news. They heard there had been a lone survivor and prayed that it was Josephine. Teresa Rocha and her mother raced to every hospital in the area. Nadine White got the news during a phone call. At about the same time, her son George drove by the store and saw the commotion. He came home screaming that something horrible had happened. "We went to Fran's Market," Nadine White wrote in 1977. "At first, we were led to believe that Douglas had survived. However, that hope was destroyed when Ray Schletewitz himself told us that Douglas was inside the store with his dead son, Bryon." Pendergrass said her parents never opened the store after that day. Rocha's father told his family that he wished he could have taken the bullets for his daughter. White had to close her real estate business because she couldn't function after her son's death. She wrote, "Douglas' death destroyed our world." (source: San Francisco Chronicle) ************* Death penalty foes to hold local vigil before execution Amnesty International and Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions of Ventura will hold a candlelight vigil on Monday for Clarence Ray Allen, who was convicted of ordering killings from inside a prison. Allen is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday. The California Supreme Court recently refused to block the execution of Allen, who claimed the punishment would be cruel and unusual because of his age and health problems. David Howard, co-chairman of Peaceful Resolutions, said Thursday that Allen, who is 75, is blind and has had two heart attacks and a stroke. "That's a good example of cruel and unusual punishment," Howard said. The vigil will be held at the Ventura County Government Center in Ventura at Telephone Road and Victoria Avenue. The death penalty also will be the issue on Wednesday in a Ventura County courtroom. There will be a hearing in Courtroom 35 at 1:30 p.m. to set an execution date for Michael Morales, who is on death row for the 1981 murder of a young San Joaquin County woman. Morales' case was transferred to Ventura County from San Joaquin County because of pretrial publicity. Morales, 46, was convicted of the crime in June 1983 by a jury. He killed Terri Winchell, a 17-year-old woman, because she had a sexual relationship with his cousin's gay lover. Prosecutors said Morales conspired with his cousin, Rick Ortega, to lure Winchell into a car and drive to an isolated area. The woman was in the front seat of the car when Morales suddenly attempted to strangle Winchell with a belt until it broke. He then beat her into unconsciousness with a hammer. The woman was dragged into a field, where Morales raped her and stabbed her four times in the chest. Howard said a lot of death penalty opponents are "very serious about victims' rights," too. "We are also concerned about wrongly executing someone," he said. Through the years, Morales' lawyers have raised a number of legal issues as a basis to appeal his conviction, including the testimony of an unreliable witness and that he was represented by a poorly qualified and ineffective lawyer. Morales also argued in 1989 that Latinos were under-represented in Ventura County jury pools. Morales' jury, however, included 3 Hispanics. Morales' appeal was denied by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in March. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his appeal on Oct. 11. Allen was sentenced to life in prison for ordering the murder of his son's girlfriend in 1974. In 1980, he was convicted and sentenced to death for ordering the murders of eight witnesses of the 1st murder from his cell. The convicted hit man, Billy Ray Hamilton, also is on death row. Prosecutors said Hamilton was following Allen's orders when he killed Bryon Schletewitz, Douglas Scott White and Josephine Rocha. Allen had them killed because he feared their testimony would hurt his chances of prevailing at overturning his murder conviction on appeal, prosecutors said. In October, Morales, Allen and Stanley Tookie Williams, the co-founder of the violent Crips street gang, had stays of execution lifted, Morales' lawyer David Senior said. Williams was executed on Dec. 13. There are 610 inmates on death row in California, and 13 have been executed since executions resumed in San Quentin Prison in 1992, said Vernell Crittendon, spokesman for prison. 15 death row inmates were convicted out of Ventura County. Repeated calls to San Joaquin County District Attorney James Willett and Assistant District Attorney Craig Holmes weren't returned. (source: Ventura County Star) ARKANSAS: Advocates target kids of inmates Imagine being a 6-year-old boy watching cartoons while Mom cooks eggs in the kitchen, Nell Bernstein told a group of child-welfare advocates and state workers Thursday at the Second Southern Summit on Children of the Incarcerated. Suddenly, the door falls down and strange men wearing uniforms start emptying drawers, then handcuff Mom and take her away, the Berkeley, Calif., writer continued. Later, the boy listens to the squawk of a police radio as he is driven in the back of a squad car to a homeless shelter. "He'll likely feel like he's been arrested," said Bernstein, author of All Alone in the World, a recently published book on children of prisoners. Bernstein was a keynote speaker of the three-day conference that ends today at the Hilton Metro in Little Rock. She and leaders of the Arkansas Voices for Children Left Behind, a nonprofit advocacy group for families of prisoners, promised to lobby state legislators and local officials and law-enforcement agencies to implement an 8-point "bill of rights" that includes a request for police to develop written protocols for dealing with children whose parents have been arrested. The Little Rock Police Department and the Pulaski County sheriff's office normally call the Department of Health and Human Services to go to the scene of the arrest when minor children are present if no relatives can be located, officials said. "I've never seen that [children being transported in a patrol car ]. If it happens, it's very rare," said John Rehrauer, spokesman for the sheriffs office. Other measures championed for children Thursday include improved visiting facilities at jails and prisons, a review of sentencing laws to consider the impact of incarceration on families, subsidized guardianship for relatives and removing the stigma that often accompanies a child who has a parent behind bars. More than 7 million children in the United States have a parent under some kind of courtordered supervision, and about 60,000 Arkansas children have seen at least one parent go to jail in their lifetime, so more attention needs to be paid to their plight, Bernstein said. The desire to punish their parents, say advocates, often leads people to forget that the child has done nothing wrong. Policy changes as simple as having police drive children to a shelter or a relative's house in an unmarked car can make a significant difference, Bernstein said. "When we talk about children of incarcerated parents, it's very hard to stay focused on the kids," Bernstein said. "People want to switch the argument to what their parents have done and how they got their just deserts." Lawmakers and other policymakers should view criminal justice through a childs eyes, to better protect children and to change a system that destroys families and perpetuates generation after generation going to prison, she said. Studies have shown that children of incarcerated parents are as much as 6 times more likely to end up in prison themselves, although Bernstein and other advocates question the validity of those studies and say better data are needed. Attorney General Mike Beebe, a Democrat running for governor, didn't explicitly endorse any of the groups proposals when he spoke Thursday at the conference, but he did advocate alternative sentencing like drug courts as an effective way to preserve families for first-time nonviolent offenders, saying such measures "make punishment more appropriate to the behavior you're trying to stop." Beebe said growing up with a single mother who worked long hours as a waitress made him sympathetic to children whose parents are in jail or prison. "I didn't have a parent in prison, but I had one at the restaurant," he said. "It's not the same thing, but it creates an empathy and understanding of the needs of those kids." Kesha James has more than empathy for children whose parents go to prison. She left her 18-month-old daughter, Roresha, behind when she went to prison more than 6 years ago on drug charges. Roresha stayed with her grandmother and thrived outwardly, but James, 27, still wonders how much pain her daughter internalized while James served her sentence. "Its still a delicate issue. I've never talked to Roresha or her grandmother about that day, but I wonder how she felt, what they told her," James said. Although Roresha was too young to remember her mothers arrest, mother and daughter still work on building trust since James release in October 2003. "For a long time, when there was a problem, she wanted her grandmother. That did hurt me a little. I had to think how to get her to switch gears," she said. Visitation can be crucial for maintaining strong family bonds, advocates say. James saw Roresha about once a month when a relative or friend made the 2-hour drive from Stuttgart to the McPherson Unit in Newport. James, who now works for Arkansas Voices, said she felt lucky to spend an hour with her daughter. Nationally, a federal study indicates that 54 percent of incarcerated women in 1999 didnt received a single visit from their children who often were in foster care or lived hundreds of miles away from the prisons. The "bill of rights" endorsed Thursday asks states to reconsider putting prisons in rural areas and to make visiting facilities and hours as accessible as possible for children. In Arkansas, prisons are open to visitors on Saturdays and Sundays between noon and 4 p. m. Usually, most inmates can have visitors on one of those 2 days, said Dina Tyler, spokesman for the Department of Correction. People visiting death row inmates and prisoners' relatives who live more than 300 miles away can schedule weekday visits, she said. So far, Bernstein's "bill of rights" has seen limited gains. In July, the San Francisco board of supervisors passed a resolution in support of the bill, and the city's Police Department is close to releasing a written protocol for dealing with children of arrested adults. Dee Ann Newell, chairman of Arkansas Voices, said her organization will aggressively lobby for its implementation around the state. On Wednesday, the opening day of the conference, former and current state legislators gathered to offer their support. Democratic Rep. Joyce Elliott of Little Rock and former Rep. Jan Judy of Fayetteville promised to lobby for the measure in the 2007 legislative session. Sen. Irma Hunter Brown, D-Little Rock, also promised her support. Elliott said legislators have advanced recent high-profile issues as being pro-child, but those measures fall short of the mark. She cited covenant marriage, the ban on same-sex marriage and the debate over whether gay people can be foster care providers. The real test, she said, is how a measure helps a child in concrete terms. "Hold the child blameless." (source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) TENNESSEE: Supreme Court to Decide on Need for New Trials Based on New Evidence Techniques The Supreme Court says it will decide if and when people convicted of crimes should get a new chance to prove their innocence, based on DNA evidence. The highest court in the United States is hearing the case of a man who was sentenced to death after being convicted of killing a young mother. Genetic evidence wasn't available during his trial 20 years ago. Paul House sits on death row in the southern U.S. state of Tennessee for the rape and murder of Carolyn Muncey. A jury convicted him after hearing testimony that evidence found on the victim was likely from Mr. House, a previously convicted sex offender. Years later, that evidence was analyzed using DNA testing and it turned out the DNA was not his, but the woman's husband. DNA is a molecule that contains genetic information and each person's is unique. Peter Neufeld is with the Innocence Project, a legal clinic that works to exonerate wrongly convicted people through DNA testing. He says, "House may very well be innocent, we don't know. But we sure as heck know that the first jury didn't hear true facts. They heard false facts, and the DNA proves to a certainty that they heard false facts, and he deserves a new trial." Kevin McElfresh is head of Bode Technology, near Washington, DC, which does DNA testing for criminal cases. He says DNA testing can make or break a criminal case. "The real beauty of DNA testing is that you have a solid, real piece of information that says that this person is tied to this crime with certainty," says Mr. McElfresh. "All DNA does is say we know who this person is. It's up to a jury to decide that person is a criminal." DNA technology has been used to free 172 convicted felons, including 14 on death row. But there is no requirement for the law to revisit a case based on previously unavailable DNA evidence. And in this case William Phillips, the prosecutor, argues there is significant other evidence against Mr. House. "We are in favor of DNA evidence to exonerate people in appropriate cases, but this is not the case," he said. Mr. House, who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, continues to maintain his innocence. "I can't do anything other than say I did not do it." Now the Supreme Court will decide if new DNA evidence should be considered so compelling that Mr. House at least deserves a new trial and others in similar circumstances. (source: Voice of America) ******************** Legendary criminal profiler to speak at Vanderbilt University Jan. 26 as part of Project Dialogue series John Douglas, former special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has hunted some of the most notorious criminals of our time and he will share an inside look during a free public lecture at Vanderbilt University, Thursday, Jan. 26, at 7 p.m. His talk will be held in the ballroom of the universitys Student Life Center off 25th Avenue South. The lecture is for mature audiences only. Douglas has investigated the "Trailside Killer" in San Francisco, the Atlanta child murders, Seattle's "Green River Killer" and the Tylenol poisonings. He has confronted, interviewed and studied dozens of serial killers and assassins - including Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan, Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) and James Earl Ray - for a landmark study to understand their motives and motivations. During his lecture at Vanderbilt he will profile an especially cruel murder case that happened in Tennessee. The convicted killer has been on death row longer than the victims lifetime. Douglas lecture is part of the Project Dialogue series, a yearlong, university-wide program that seeks to involve the entire Vanderbilt community in public debate and discussion, and attempts to connect classroom learning with larger societal issues. Project Dialogue, which started in 1989, is held every other year at the university and allows each student generation the opportunity to participate in two Project Dialogue series while attending Vanderbilt. Each year's series centers on a particular theme. This academic years theme is "Crime & The Ultimate Punishment." As founder and chief of the FBIs Investigative Support Unit - the team that tackles the most baffling and senseless of unsolved violent crimes - Douglas ushered in a new age in behavioral science and criminal profiling. Several television shows are based on his exploits and he was the model for the character "Special Agent Jack Crawford" - played by actor Scott Glenn - in the major motion picture The Silence of the Lambs. During his more than 25 years with the FBI, he has helped police departments and prosecutors from around the world. In addition to providing pro bono assistance to police and victims of violent crimes, Douglas hosts a crime analysis radio show called "The Mindhunter" each week on one of the top talk radio stations in the country - KFI-640 AM in Burbank, Calif. He has co-authored - with Mark Olshaker - 3 national bestsellers, Obsession, Mind Hunter and Unabomber: On the Trail of Americas Most Wanted Serial Killer. His most recent book - co-authored with Stephen Singular - is Anyone You Want Me to Be: A True Story of Sex and Death on the Internet. The book is a cautionary look at cybercrime and explores the personality behind the Internets first serial killer. Douglas provided consultation in the O.J. Simpson civil case and the JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation. He is also the author of the landmark books Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives and Crime Classification Handbook. An Air Force veteran, he holds a doctor of education degree and lives in the Washington, D.C., area. For more information about upcoming events in the Project Dialogue series, visit www.vanderbilt.edu/dialogue/. For more news about Vanderbilt, visit VUCast - Vanderbilts News Network at www.vanderbilt.edu/news. (source: Vanderbilt News) DELAWARE: Judge Said He Knew Overturn Of Capano's Death Sentence Was Coming Danya Bacchus spoke with the judge who originally presided over Thomas Capano's death penalty case, Judge William Lee. Judge Lee wasn't surprised by this decision. He says once he heard the US Supreme Court decision allowing juries, not judges, to decide whether certain factors warranted the death penalty, he knew it was just a matter of time before Capano's case would be overturned. 11-to-1, that's what saved Thomas Capano from the death penalty. Two years ago, the Rink versus Arizona case, affected death penalty cases across the nation. Since Delaware was one of the states that allowed judges to make the final decision after a jury verdict in such cases, William Lee, the judge who originally sentenced Capano to death, says he knew this day was coming. "When they made the Rink, decision I thought that it would overturn Capano. They made several other decisions after that which left open the possiblity that the case would be applied retroactively or that less then a majority vote would suffice," Lee said. Judge Lee says two things could happen now that the death penalty has been overturned: They could try and recall the same jury and judge to hear the case again, or give it to new jury and judge. He's hoping for a new judge and jury. (source: WMDT News) VIRGINIA: Va. case helps capital punishment's cause Death penalty advocates everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief after DNA evidence, retested years after the execution of a convicted rapist and murderer, still prove him guilty. Roger Keith Coleman maintained until his dying breath that he was innocent of sexually assaulting and then killing his wife's sister, Wanda McCoy. She was found raped, stabbed and nearly beheaded. "An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight," said McCoy, moments before he was electrocuted on May 20, 1992. Now we know McCoy was a liar. And his life and death were a disservice to anyone on death row who isn't guilty. "When my innocence is proven," Coleman said, "I hope America will realize the injustice of the death penalty as all other civilized countries have." Instead, death penalty proponents are finally given a little bit of ammunition in defense of capital punishment. That hasn't stopped anti-death-penalty organizations from reminding us of the obvious: Not everybody who is convicted of a crime, is actually guilty. And there are other complaints about the death penalty, including flawed police work, and the frequency and fairness, both based on class and race, with which it is applied. "(Such) failures played a role in sending 122 men to death row over the last 33 years who were ultimately freed based on wrongful convictions - men who would, in all likelihood, have shared Coleman's fate had exculpatory evidence been discovered too late to save them," said Dr. William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA. Which essentially is saying, "Innocent men would've been put to death, except they weren't." The exoneration of 122 men in the last 33 years is evidence that the system usually works - though often slowly. The affirmation of Coleman's guilt is likewise evidence in favor of the system, and how innocent lives indeed can be saved when evidence is found to overturn their cases. Such evidence was never available for Coleman, because he was guilty as charged. That didn't stop Coleman from fooling 4 newspapers and several anti-death penalty groups from believing in and touting his innocence. It didn't keep him from taking his case to the general public on TV talk shows. It didn't stop Pope John Paul III from pleading for his life. Had Coleman been innocent, there's a good chance that in all the time between his crime and execution - a full decade, from 1982 to 1992 - something would have come up to exonerate him. Certainly enough people were in looking for that evidence on his behalf. Accused killers have a lot of advocates. Murder victims like Wanda McCoy, not so much. (source: Opinion, The Daily Dispatch) **************** DNA Ties Man Executed in '92 to the Murder He Denied 13 years after Roger K. Coleman went to the electric chair declaring, "An innocent man is being murdered tonight," a new DNA test has found that he was almost certainly the source of genetic material found in the body of his murdered sister-in-law, Virginia officials announced on Thursday. The finding was a stunning blow to a lay minister who for nearly 18 years argued for Mr. Coleman's innocence, and it vindicated the prosecutors who won Mr. Coleman's conviction in 1982 and the governor, L. Douglas Wilder, who allowed his execution to proceed 10 years later. "The confirmation that Roger Coleman's DNA was present reaffirms the verdict and the sanction," said Gov. Mark Warner, who ordered the test last week. It was the 1st time that a governor had ordered a DNA test involving an executed person. The testing was closely watched across the nation because of the belief that it would provide powerful momentum to death penalty abolitionists if it were to prove that an innocent man had been put to death. Yet even after Thursday's announcement, critics of capital punishment said Mr. Warner's decision set an important precedent that might encourage other governors, judges and prosecutors to allow postexecution DNA analysis in disputed capital punishment cases. "The real issue is not whether one man was in fact guilty or innocent, it's rather that he set the example for what the other 49 governors should do on the hundreds of cases where DNA material still exists from people who have been executed," said Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project, a legal clinic that has helped exonerate 172 inmates, often through DNA tests. Supporters of the death penalty said the test was also significant because it proved that the criminal justice system had worked, and they predicted that the confirmation of Mr. Coleman's guilt would undermine future efforts to exonerate death row inmates. "Once again we see that once you cut through the nonsense, the jury got it right," said Michael Paranzino, co-founder of Throw Away the Key, a group based in Maryland that supports capital punishment. Nevertheless, Mr. Paranzino said he endorsed Mr. Warner's decision to order the new test, saying he thought such reviews would consistently prove the guilt of executed murderers and thus build public confidence in capital punishment. Mr. Coleman, a coal miner, was convicted of raping and murdering Wanda McCoy, the 19-year-old sister of his wife, in the rural southwestern Virginia town of Grundy in 1981. During his trial, prosecutors said that hairs found at the scene matched Mr. Coleman's, and that a spot of blood on his dungarees matched Ms. McCoy's blood type, O. The prosecution also presented the testimony of a prisoner who said Mr. Coleman had confessed in jail. In 1988, James C. McCloskey, a divinity school graduate and founder of Centurion Ministries Inc., a group based in Princeton, N.J., that advocates for inmates it considers innocent, took up Mr. Coleman's case and spent four years reinvestigating it. Mr. McCloskey concluded that Mr. Coleman did not have the time or motivation to commit the murder, raising questions about the jailhouse confession and the forensic evidence. He asserted that Mr. Coleman had been wearing clothing covered with coal dust but that no dust was found at the scene, and he offered evidence pointing to an alternative suspect. The case gained international attention, with Time magazine putting Mr. Coleman on its cover and Pope John Paul II urging that his execution be stayed. But Governor Wilder, a Democrat, rejected a clemency petition, and Mr. Coleman died proclaiming his innocence. Over the years, Mr. McCloskey continued to press state officials to conduct more sophisticated DNA analysis on vaginal swabs taken from the victim's body. Last week, Mr. Warner, a Democrat who supports the death penalty, agreed, saying the new tests could provide "a more complete picture of guilt or innocence." On Thursday, Mr. McCloskey, whose work has exonerated two death row inmates, called the results "a kick in the stomach" and expressed dismay that Mr. Coleman had so successfully deceived him. "Our search for facts can delude us into thinking that what we have found is gold, only to discover that it is in fact fool's gold," Mr. McCloskey said. (source: New York Times) **************** DNA Tests Confirm Guilt of Executed Man Modern DNA tests have confirmed the guilt of a Virginia man who had proclaimed he was innocent of murder and rape even as he was strapped into the electric chair and executed more than a decade ago, the governor announced yesterday. The results stunned and disappointed those who have fought a 25-year crusade to prove that Roger K. Coleman was innocent. They also dashed hopes among death penalty foes that the case would catalyze opposition to capital punishment across the country. Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) yesterday said genetic analysis conducted in recent weeks proves that Coleman, who was executed in 1992 for the slaying of his 19-year-old sister-in-law, was a rapist and killer. The tests show there is a 1 in 19 million chance that semen found on the victim's body belonged to someone else. "We have sought the truth using DNA technology not available at the time the commonwealth carried out the ultimate criminal sanction," Warner said in a statement. "The confirmation that Roger Coleman's DNA was present reaffirms the verdict and the sanction." Coleman's case had become a focal point in the debate over capital punishment, with opponents insisting that DNA tests would prove that an innocent man was put to death and proponents saying that justice was served. Coleman had maintained his innocence in a series of television and newspaper interviews that generated attention around the world, and his backers tried for years to get the courts or politicians to order the tests. Warner, in his last weeks in office, agreed to allow the analysis and became the nation's 1st governor to allow post-execution testing. Legal scholars said the test results denied death penalty opponents a long-sought opportunity to put a human face on one of their most compelling arguments: that the U.S. justice system makes mistakes that result in the executions of innocent men. "The opportunity to bring new people into the abolitionist movement has been lost," said Phyllis Goldfarb, a professor at Boston College's law school. But Goldfarb said that though the exoneration of an executed inmate could have profoundly eroded support for the death penalty, confirmation of Coleman's guilt won't change many opinions. "Supporters of the death penalty will be confirmed in their skepticism of claims of innocence," she said. "Opponents still have reason to oppose. The risk of executing innocents still exists." Coleman, a coal miner from the small Appalachian town of Grundy, Va., was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1981 rape and stabbing of Wanda McCoy. Coleman's assertions of innocence and questions over the strength of the evidence prompted Centurion Ministries, a New Jersey charity that investigates wrongful convictions, to investigate the case. Media organizations, including The Washington Post, joined Centurion in an unsuccessful court fight to have the DNA tests conducted years ago. Yesterday, James C. McCloskey, Centurion's executive director, said he felt betrayed by the man whose last words included the statement, "An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight." "How can somebody, with such equanimity, such dignity, such quiet confidence, make those his final words even though he is guilty?" McCloskey said. "Had the evidence shown him to be innocent . . . that would have had a tremendous effect on the anti-death-penalty movement in terms of perhaps encouraging moratoriums and even abolition," McCloskey said. "Those are not the set of facts we have in this instance. That will not happen, at least as the result of this case." But he and his attorney, who battled without pay for 6 years to have Coleman's DNA tested, insisted that Coleman's case will serve as a model to encourage other politicians and prosecutors to allow testing of DNA before and after someone is convicted. "The results in this case don't end the debate over the death penalty," said Paul Enzinna, a lawyer with the Washington firm of Baker, Botts. Tom Scott, a criminal defense lawyer from Grundy who helped prosecute Coleman, said he remained convinced all along that the right man was tried, convicted and executed. "I never had any doubt about his guilt, never," Scott said. "All the evidence always pointed to Coleman." During Coleman's trial, authorities said evidence included hair on McCoy's body that was similar to Coleman's and the account of a jailhouse informant. Coleman also had been convicted of attempted rape a few years earlier. Coleman said he had an alibi and would not have had time to commit the killing. Defense attorneys also gathered affidavits from people who said another man admitted to killing McCoy. The testing in Coleman's case marks only the 2nd time nationwide that DNA tests have been performed after an execution. In 2000, tests ordered by a Georgia judge in the case of Ellis W. Felker, who was executed in 1996, were inconclusive. Genetic tests exonerated Florida inmate Frank L. Smith in 2000, several months after he died of natural causes while awaiting execution. After the results of the testing in Coleman's case were made public, the death penalty debate continued. "Today's finding is a further demonstration that Virginians' trust in our criminal justice system is well founded," said Robert F. McDonnell (R), who will become Virginia's attorney general tomorrow. "Today is further proof that this is exactly the manner in which the death penalty has been, and will continue to be, employed in the commonwealth." Joshua K. Marquis, vice president of the National District Attorneys Association and an Oregon prosecutor, was more vehement. "This is not at all unexpected and puts to a lie the myth that wrongful convictions are epidemic," he said. "Coleman was not just a rapist and a murderer but a liar as well." But Peter Neufeld, co-director of the New York-based Innocence Project, which has helped exonerate more than 170 inmates, said that there may have been mistakes in other cases and that similar investigations should continue. "Today we got just one answer, and one man cannot speak for the correctness of the verdicts in a thousand other capital cases," Neufeld said. (source: Washington Post) ********************* Initial DNA scientist vindicated, but still has concerns He said retesting should have been done to back up the record, not, he said, some political point of view. The scientist who did the initial DNA tests for the Roger Keith Coleman case said he always expected new tests would back him up - but he's still not satisfied. Edward Blake, who runs Forensic Science Associates in Richmond, Calif., is still raising questions about the probe. For him, the retesting of DNA evidence using the latest technology hardly nails shut the 25-year-old case. "I am concerned as a scientist," he said, calling the retesting "a cynical exercise in manipulating a scientific investigation." Blake's original test concluded that Coleman's DNA and the sperm taken from victim Wanda McCoy's body shared a genetic type present in one in 50 people, or 2 % of the population. The odds were slim that a more accurate test would show the wrong man was sent to his death. The technique he used in 1990 was state-of-the-art, he said. Back then, DNA testing for forensics was still relatively new. Just 4 years earlier, biologist Alec Jeffreys used DNA for the 1st time to catch a serial killer-rapist in an English town. Blake said he was the 1st forensic scientist to employ a procedure called polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, which is now common practice for making many copies of a strand of DNA. PCR allows scientists to extract good information from a tiny sample of blood, semen, saliva, skin or other tissues. Early PCR testing was an improvement over what was done before - checking whether blood was type A, B, AB or O. But it was a far cry from anything that could be called fingerprinting. Blake carried out what was to be the standard test for several years - analysis of a gene called DQ alpha, which comes in a handful of distinct varieties. Samples from McCoy's body showed sperm from 2 men, Blake said. One type presumably came from her husband, he said. The other was linked to Coleman, but not conclusively. This kind of evidence was very good for exclusion, said Larry Presley, a forensic scientist from National Medical Services in Willow Grove. That is, if Coleman's DNA did not match either type found on the victim it could have helped clear him. But the FBI, Presley said, did not consider this type of match sufficient to demonstrate guilt. Over the next 10 years, DNA typing improved. Blake said he originally requested that the Coleman samples get retested in 2000. Current technology relies on a technique called Short Tandem Repeats, or STR. DNA carries its code in strings of 4 different chemical blocks, or bases, usually abbreviated as A, T, C and G. But we are 99.9 % identical to one another. Forensics uses long strings of DNA called non-coding, or "junk" DNA, that don't make up part of the genetic code. These strings of DNA vary from person to person much more so than the DNA in the genes. Within these stretches, scientists have identified places where some short bit repeats, say, ATG-ATG-ATG-ATG. In some people this might repeat 12 times, in others, 10, or 7. Presley has compared STR analysis to counting the number of Smiths in different phone directories. All towns have Smiths, he said; some have more, some less. The power of modern STR comes from examining up to 13 different spots where such repeats occur - sort of like counting not only the Smiths but the Joneses and others. At some point you can be pretty sure if 2 phone books match this way, they go with the same town. Scientists say the chance someone other than an identical twin matches your DNA on a modern STR analysis amounts to less than 1 in a trillion. Before results from the STR came back yesterday, Blake said he regretted that the case had become political; the purpose of the retesting should have been to back up the historical record. Instead, he said, the case was hijacked as part of the death-penalty debate. Blake said the DNA results do not prove that Coleman killed McCoy, and the initial investigation left open key questions. Normally DNA samples taken from rape victims come on a swab, but Blake said he was given just the wooden stick from which he had to scrape DNA. No one ever explained what happened to the rest of the swab, he said. Then, he learned that Coleman had blood spattered on his coveralls, but no one sent him samples for DNA testing to confirm a much cruder test of blood type that loosely linked the blood to the victim. He was not told why, he said. Blake asked for DNA testing of the blood samples along with a retesting of the semen, but said the governor's office representatives first told him they would try to find the samples, then reported they were destroyed, he said. All the evidence, he said, was destroyed except for that tiny stick he kept frozen all these years. This latest DNA testing shows Coleman had sex with the victim, Blake said, but not that he killed her. "I've had cases like that," Presley said, "where the DNA had nothing whatever to do with the homicide." A recent one involved the murder of a part-time prostitute, he said. One of her last customers stood accused, though he was later cleared and someone else charged. "Blake is a good scientist," Presley said. DNA testing is now capable of near-perfect matching, he said, "but bottom line - there's no substitute for a good investigation." (source: Philadelphia Inquirer)
