Jan. 22 CALIFORNIA----impending execution It is wrong for state to execute Morales on Feb. 21 Thursday, Jan. 8, 1981, Barbara Christian was sick in bed. Her 17-year-old daughter, Terri, a senior at Tokay High School in Lodi, went out to buy dinner. She never came back. At 2 a.m. Saturday, police found Terri's body in a vineyard on the outskirts of town. She was naked from the waist down; her shirt and bra were pulled up over her chest. She had been hit in the head 23 times, mostly with a claw hammer. Her skull was shattered. Her cheekbones and jaw were broken. She had 4 stab wounds in her chest. Terri would be 42 today. She should have gone to college; she should have had the opportunity to be a mother, an aunt, a friend, a lover. She should have had a rich, meaningful life. Instead, she never saw her 18th birthday. Michael Morales and Rick Ortega were found guilty of this heinous crime. Ortega got life in prison and Morales -- tried and convicted in Ventura -- is scheduled to be executed Feb. 21. We cannot know what it's like to be Barbara Christian, to survive the murder of a daughter. We must mourn for Terri and all the other victims of our national homicide epidemic. We must listen carefully to the families of murder victims. We must provide them the special services they need; we must help them heal and we must protect society from other murderers. But we must not execute Morales or anyone else. We need not dispute the troubling aspects of the Morales case. Let's assume there was no jailhouse informant conveniently placed in a cell opposite Morales' and rewarded with a sentence reduction. Let's assume there was no perjured testimony given under duress and recanted 10 years later. Let's assume the dissent to overturn this verdict by a state Supreme Court justice on grounds of a racially discriminatory Ventura County jury pool is irrelevant. Let's assume it's just a coincidence that among the three California executions over the past three months one was an African-American, one an American Indian and one a Latino. Let's assume that indigents get the same quality of legal representation as wealthy people. Let's assume that Morales should get a death sentence, while his cousin who planned and helped carry out the crime, should not. Let's assume that a quarter of a century between the arrest and the execution is not too long. Let's assume that there is nothing better to spend our billions of taxpayer dollars on than sustaining this whole macabre and excruciatingly painful process. Let's assume there is no reasonable doubt. The question remains, should we at 12:01 a.m. Feb. 21 care if Morales lives or dies? Yes. We cannot ignore the intrinsic immorality of state-sponsored murder. If the right to life is a fundamental human right, it must apply universally, to all human beings. We will always fall short in our efforts to honor human rights, to forgive, to reconcile, to rehabilitate and to heal. But we cannot, must not, institutionalize murder. The only legitimate question to ask for Terri's sake is how can we prevent the next rape, torture and murder of a 17-year-old girl. The answer is the hard work of education, prevention and intervention among both our at-risk and general population. Our disadvantaged communities in particular lack basic social services from prenatal care through birth, infancy, childhood and adolescence. If we nurture our young in the ways of love and nonviolence, our violent crime rates will plummet. "An eye for an eye," said Gandhi, "makes the whole world blind." He meant not only that warfare perpetuates a cycle of violence, but also that killing deprives us of a vital social sensibility -- compassion. Capital punishment dehumanizes us. In avenging the murder, we become the murderers. There are only 3 ways to deliberately kill another human being: murder, war and the death penalty. With a little effort, we could quickly eradicate one of these scourges forever. (source: Ventura County Star - David Howard, of Ojai, is co-chair of Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions) ************* Death-penalty law shouldn't be hijacked by left California's death penalty has been in the national spotlight recently because of the high-profile execution of Stanley Tookie Williams. Opponents of capital punishment have seized on the opportunity in an attempt to circumvent the will of the people and undermine California's death-penalty law. They are armed only with unsubstantiated arguments that justice is being administered unfairly. In their zeal to win over public opinion, some on the far left have chosen to make heroes of death-row inmates, or urged that their sentences be commuted for reasons that have nothing to do with guilt or innocence. Williams' supporters claimed that the quadruple killer and founder of a notorious criminal gang had undergone a death-row conversion. This is in spite of the fact that he never admitted to the killings or expressed any remorse. Death-penalty opponents also advocated futilely for clemency for Clarence Ray Allen, executed for arranging for three murders while he was already serving a life-sentence in prison. After 20-plus years of appeals, Allen's lawyers argued that he was too old and frail to be killed. Allen had far outlived the collective years of his three victims and many of their grieving family members. His was a textbook case for the axiom that justice delayed is justice denied. Tactics like these are routinely employed by those staunchly opposed to capital punishment, no matter the crime or the circumstances. They demonstrate an utter disregard for the horrendous pain that killers impose on victims and their loved ones. The California Assembly killed a bill that would halt justice for murder victims by imposing a 3-year moratorium on capital punishment. The moratorium was designed to permit a non-elected, unaccountable and politically motivated commission to undermine California's death-penalty law. Many of the same legislators who supported creation of this commission through a Senate resolution now argue that a simple party-line majority vote is enough to enact a death-penalty moratorium -- virtually overriding multiple elections and millions of votes which have reaffirmed Californians' support for capital punishment. Their proposal flies directly in the face of the state Constitution, which expressly provides that a voter-passed initiative can only be amended or repealed by a voter-approved process. These death-penalty critics are dismissive not only of our capital punishment laws and process, but also of the facts. Incredibly, the bill's author reportedly asserted that, "there are people who are pure as the driven snow" on death row. Opponents of the death penalty often suggest that California does not have enough safeguards in place to prevent wrongful executions. This could not be further from the truth. Capital punishment is reserved for only the most heinous acts of murder. Only about 1 percent of California's 2,500 annual murders result in a death sentence. Every one of those convictions is then directly reviewed by the California Supreme Court. The expansive use of DNA evidence is one of many safeguards that helps to assure that an innocent person is not put to death. The checks and balances in our criminal-justice system work. There is no proof of any wrongful execution in California in the years since the death penalty's reinstatement. Yet, there are mountains of evidence that prove that California's death penalty and administration of justice is fair. Since Californians voted overwhelmingly to reinstate the death penalty in 1978, this state has only executed 12 inmates. Inmates routinely sit on death row for more than 20 years -- filing numerous appeals and motions in state and federal courts. In recent decades, more than twice as many condemned inmates have died of old age than have been executed. Polls have consistently shown that Californians support the death penalty by a 2-to-1 ratio. Efforts to impose a death-penalty moratorium in the Legislature defy the Constitution and the will of the people in an attempt to accomplish by fiat what could never be achieved at the ballot box. These assaults on our criminal justice system by those who would do away with capital punishment altogether are an insult to victims and their families. (source: CHUCK POOCHIGIAN, R-Fresno, represents the 14th District in the California Senate and is vice chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee; Mercury News) *********** Killer's intellect is on trial----COURT: A finding of mental retardation could render the death sentences unconstitutional. A man twice condemned for slayings in Riverside and San Bernardino counties is expected to attend the first day of a court hearing Monday to decide whether he is mentally retarded, a finding that would make his death sentences unconstitutional. The hearing for Horace Edwards Kelly, 46, before Riverside County Superior Court Judge W. Charles Morgan, appears to be the first of its kind in the state. During a recent hearing, Morgan ruled that Kelly should be present. Kelly was convicted and sentenced to death in Riverside County in 1986 for the 1984 Thanksgiving Day slaying of an 11-year-old Rancho Cucamonga boy in the Jurupa Hills area of Riverside County. He also received the death penalty in 1988 for the separate 1984 slayings of two women in San Bernardino County. Kelly's guilt in the cases is undisputed. The hearing concerns the issue of whether he is mentally retarded. If he is found to be retarded, the ruling will vacate both of his death sentences. In 1998, a Marin County jury found Kelly was sane in a trial that was the 1st of its kind in 50 years. That same year, 3 execution dates were set and vacated as Kelly made appeals in both federal and state courts. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court declared executions of mentally retarded people to be unconstitutional, but left it to the states to devise how to test such a claim. The high court ruling made Kelly's mental retardation argument a federal issue. Last year the California Supreme Court set out its guidelines for a defendant in a Los Angeles County case involving Anderson Hawthorne Jr. But it will be Kelly's case that will be heard Monday. A key point in the Hawthorne ruling is that mental retardation cannot be assessed solely on IQ scores, but must take into account evidence of significant subaverage intellectual function and deficits in adaptive behavior that are apparent before age 18. Both sides are expected to present evidence and witnesses who will testify to activities and traits in Kelly's early life to show either that he should be found retarded, or that he has skills and intellect that puts him above that threshold. Kevin Ruddy, now a chief deputy district attorney for Riverside County, was the prosecutor in Kelly's trial for the murder of Daniel David Osentowski. The 11-year-old boy died defending his 13-year-old cousin Shannon Lee Prock from being abducted by Kelly while the 2 were on a post-Thanksgiving dinner stroll in 1984. Osentowski was wounded by one gunshot and begged for his life before Kelly shot him in the forehead, Prock later testified. A week before the Osentowski slaying, Sonia Reed, 25, and Ursula Houser, 43, were both shot to death in separate incidents in San Bernardino County. Both women had been sexually assaulted. Ruddy will once again face Kelly when the hearing begins Monday. His case will look at Kelly's life as well as the circumstances of the crimes. Papers filed in opposition to Kelly's petition claim his intellectual functioning "does not approach the significantly subaverage range." The papers also note that in his youth Kelly attended school, helped with chores and shared in the care of his siblings. He also bought seeds, pencils and other items through the mail and then sold them door-to-door to help the family's income, completed high school and found work, prosecutors said. During his Inland murder trials and in Marin County, prosecutors argued that Kelly's attacks showed a capacity to plan the slayings and escape afterward. "The fact that individuals retain some skills that allow them to contribute to society does not preclude the conclusion that they are mentally retarded," Kelly's attorneys argued in papers they filed in the case. Defense witnesses during the 1998 Marin trial said Kelly talked in gibberish and seemed unaware of his surroundings. Kelly's petition will be represented by federal public defenders Harry Simon and Jeffrey Aaron. The public defender's office has a policy of not commenting on pending cases. At least one figure from Kelly's 1980s trials is on record already for this hearing. Clinical psychologist Michael Kania, who practices in San Bernardino, stated in a declaration filed with the court that while he found Kelly competent to stand trial in 1988, he was not asked and did not conduct tests to see if he was mentally retarded. Kania says he now believes another assessment that Kelly is retarded is "fully justified." (source: Press-Enterprise - Reach Richard K. De Atley) VIRGINIA: They barely mentioned Wanda McCoy Wanda Faye McCoy never had children. She never got to raise a family. She never even got to beg for her life. She bled to death at age 19, raped and killed by a man she trusted - her sister's husband. That man, Roger Keith Coleman, appeared on the cover of Time magazine 10 years later, hailed by anti-death penalty groups around the world as innocent. Supporters argued his case on television and radio talk shows, in newspapers and before the U.S. Supreme Court. They tried to block his execution in 1992, then demanded the state use new technology to test semen samples that might prove his innocence. They questioned the evidence and criticized the courts. They called Coleman a victim of rural injustice, condemned for failing to fit in. They barely mentioned Wanda McCoy. "Every time you picked up the paper, it was Roger Keith Coleman," said her brother Pal Thompson. "It was always about him." That debate ended more than a week ago when the DNA tests, ordered by Gov. Mark Warner, proved what Thompson and his family believed for nearly 25 years - that Coleman raped and killed McCoy. Scientists at the Centre for Forensic Sciences in Toronto placed the odds of the semen matching another man at 19 million to one. But the grief continues for McCoy's family - her brothers, her sisters, the husband she left behind. "For (almost) 25 years, Roger Coleman was considered to be the victim in this case," her husband, Brad McCoy, wrote in a letter. "Wanda McCoy was the victim. And for 25 years, I have been a victim of this heinous crime and will be for the rest of my life." Brad McCoy came home from work at United Coal Co. the night of March 10, 1981, to find his wife's body on the bedroom floor. Her clothes were torn, her throat slashed and her head nearly cut off. Authorities believe she unlocked the door that night for Coleman, her brother-in-law and one of just a handful of people she would have let inside. He caught her by surprise, cut her throat, raped her and then stabbed her twice in the chest to make sure she was dead, police said. Coleman already had spent time in jail for a previous rape attempt. He didn't want to leave any witnesses this time, authorities believe. He denied his guilt to the end, even as guards strapped him into the electric chair on May 20, 1992. Countless supporters believed him - until the DNA test results proved them wrong. Thompson, McCoy's brother, just shrugged. "Killers tell lies," he said. He learned the results a day early from the governor's office. Now he hopes the story can end. "It's a giant relief for us - not that we had any doubts," he said. "It'll never go away, but at least you won't see it on the news all the time." He believes his sister became forgotten in the controversy over the case, ignored by groups who tried to use Coleman as a symbol in their fight against the death penalty. So does Brad McCoy. "I know many people in Grundy and around the world have doubted his guilt," he wrote. "I am sorry the DNA test results have disappointed you." Wanda McCoy's family hasn't forgotten. They remember her smile, her laugh and the quiet, shy girl with reddish-blond hair who married at 16. "I think about her every day," Thompson said. "You never forget your sister. You just think about all the times you had growing up - dinner on Sunday after church, things like that. She had her whole life ahead of her. "He took it all away for some reason. We never even knew why." Around Buchanan County, traces of the case have begun to fade. The house where Wanda McCoy died no longer stands, torn down last year by its owner. Visitors once made their way regularly to the county courthouse in Grundy for a look at Coleman's case file, which fills box after box. No one's asked about it since last week's announcement, said Jim Bivens, the Circuit Court clerk. "Interest has just died away," he said. About a dozen miles outside town, Wanda McCoy's body lies buried in Mountain Valley Memorial Park off U.S. Highway 460. A simple bronze marker sits atop the grave in the shade of a pine tree. Thompson hasn't gone back to the cemetery since the announcement, but he plans to make another visit soon. "I'm glad the test turned out like it did," he said. "But it won't bring her back. You've still got to deal with losing your sister." (source: Bristol Herald Courier) NEW JERSEY: Death penalty moratorium in New Jersey Amid growing national concern over flaws with capital punishment, the New Jersey Assembly approved a 1-year ban on executions in the state and said it would study how the death penalty is administered. And Californias State Assembly is considering a bill that would enact a 2-year moratorium on executions. New Jersey became the first state to pass a death penalty moratorium into law through legislation when its assembly voted 55-21 on Jan. 9 to suspend executions in the state while a task force studies the fairness and costs of imposing capital punishment. The Senate had passed the measure in December. Gov. Richard Codey signed the bill into law on Jan. 12. New Jerseys moratorium will remain in effect until Jan. 15, 2007. New Jersey is the third state to halt executions since capital punishment was reinstated. Since 2000, executions have been halted by executive order in Illinois and Maryland. Marylands moratorium has since been lifted. The death penalty statutes in New York and Kansas were both found unconstitutional in 2004, but have not been remedied. California is speeding up the pace of executions as public support for the death penalty is waning. A bill now before the California State Assembly would enact a moratorium on executions while a commission reviews the problem of wrongful convictions in the state. A group of 40 police, current and former prosecutors, and judges at the state and federal level have urged California lawmakers to pass the legislation. These agents of the state machinery do not oppose the death penalty on the basis that it is a weapon of terror against the impoverished and oppressed. They argued instead that legal lynchings should be "just and fair" by killing those they deem "guilty." In the letter to the assembly, this group wrote, "Given that DNA testing and other new evidence has proven that more than 120 people who sat on death rows around the country were actually innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted, we agree that a temporary suspension of executions in California is necessary while we ensure, as much as possible, that the administration of criminal justice in this state is just, fair, and accurate." Assembly Bill 1121 calls for a moratorium on executions until Jan. 1, 2009" - 2 years after the newly-established "California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice" is set to submit its findings to the legislature and governor. The year 2005 was a year of extraordinary changes in the use of the death penalty in the United States. There were fewer than 100 death sentences handed down in 2005. This is the lowest number of death sentences since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976 and it is down 60 % since the late 1990s. In 2005 the New York legislature refused to reinstate the death penalty after the states highest court struck it down. Texas became the 37th out of the 38 states which have the death penalty to adopt life without parole as an option for jurors. And the Supreme Court ruled states could not execute those arrested for capital murder as juveniles and 71 juvenile offenders were taken off death rows, 28 in Texas alone. The highest court also threw out the Texas conviction of Thomas Miller-El because of racial bias in jury selection. Miller-El is now in the Dallas county jail awaiting a new trial. The New Mexico House of Repre sen tatives passed a bill to abolish the death penalty and lawmakers in Massachusetts overwhelmingly defeated a proposal by their governor for a "foolproof" death penalty. Public support dropping In October 2005, a Gallup Poll found 64 % in support of capital punishment, the lowest level in 27 years. And a CBS News Poll found that when given sentencing options, only 39 % chose the death penalty, 39 % chose life without parole and 6 % chose a long sentence. 60 people were executed in 2005, down 39 % from 1999 when a record high of 98 people were put to death. On Dec. 2, the U.S. conducted the 1,000th execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. But this bitter historical milestone in the history of the death penalty comes at a time when the use of the death penalty in this country is steadily declining. Death sentences, the size of death row, executions and public support for the death penalty are all lower than they were 5 years ago. Editorial writers, even across the South where the vast majority of executions take place, have recently criticized the death penalty. The Birmingham News wrote that "after decades of supporting the death penalty, the editorial board no longer can do so" based on practical and ethical reasons. After a series in the Houston Chronicle exposed that Ruben Cantu, who was executed in 1993 was probably innocent, The Austin American Statesman editorialized, "We're not talking about a few flaws, but rather deep inequities and defects that deny defendants the basics for a fair trial, including competent lawyers and investigators and thorough and rigorous appeals. ... We can't bring Cantu back. But his case can yield constructive lessons about how to fix Texas'capital punishment system." But Texas death penalty activist Njeri Shakur answers, "The system is working just as it was intended - the racism and the anti-poor bias is at the foundation of the criminal justice system. "The whole system is what needs changing because the one we now have does not work for us - it works for the rich, corporate elite. In a just society, people would not be in prison or be executed because they are poor or they are people of color. We have a lot of changes to make!" (source: Workers World; Gloria Rubac is a long-time activist in the struggle to abolish the racist, anti-poor death penalty. OHIO: University Shooter Wont Get Death Penalty In Cleveland, a jury on Sunday recommended life in prison without parole for a former graduate student who killed another student and wounded 2 others during a seven-hour siege inside Case Western Reserve Universitys business school. He could have received the death penalty, but the jury rejected the ultimate sentence during 2 days of deliberations. Judge Peggy Foley Jones, who must formally decide Halders fate, put off sentencing until Feb. 17. "Were just happy they (the jury) fell on the side of giving him life," defense attorney Kevin Cafferkey said. "But he will serve the rest of life in prison and will never, ever leave a jail cell, and I feel comfortable with that." "While we are disappointed that Mr. Halder will not receive the maximum punishment for his deadly siege, we hope that his victims and their families can take some comfort in the fact that Mr. Halder will never again see the light of day," Mason said. Halder didnt testify during the trial. But on Saturday, when the judge had started giving the jurors sentencing instructions, he stood up and said he wanted to speak. "I wanted to talk to the media since June 2003," Halder persisted. "The people who control me have prevented me from doing so." Halder was found competent before his trial, and the judge ruled his attorneys could not argue mental illness as a defense. However, they were allowed to make that argument during the sentencing phase. The video also showed people running to escape or to find cover in classrooms, offices and computer labs. Halder was convicted of 196 counts, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, aggravated burglary and kidnapping. (source: Herald News Daily)
