Jan. 27 TEXAS: Death row inmate awaits call on appeal As a petition to have an appeal reviewed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals awaits a decision, an execution date has been set for a Beaumont man on death row. Marvin Lee Wilson was convicted in 1998 in the shooting death of 21-year-old Jerry Williams. On Jan. 4, Judge Larry Gist signed the order setting an execution date of April 26 for Wilson. Wilson's case was transferred to him from the 252nd District Court when Judge Layne Walker was elected to the bench; Walker had previously represented Wilson as a client, District Attorney Tom Maness said. James DeLee, one of Wilson's attorneys, hopes to get the execution delayed at least long enough for a determination to be made regarding Wilson's mental abilities. After the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for criminals with an IQ of 70 or below, Wilson's lawyers filed an appeal based on mental retardation. Attorneys filed the paperwork in both state and federal courts on the last day of the 1-year deadline set by Supreme Court justices. The Fifth Circuit soon dismissed the case, saying state-court remedies had not been exhausted. On Nov. 10, 2004, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Wilson's appeal. Wilson's lawyers then filed the case with the Fifth Circuit Court within the one-day deadline. However, the case did not meet filing requirements laid out under federal law. Wilson's attorneys did not properly refile the case until 40 days later, according to the Dec. 13 ruling by the panel of 3 Fifth Circuit judges who dismissed the appeal. DeLee said he has filed to have the case reviewed by all 18 judges of the Fifth Circuit and is awaiting an answer. DeLee said expert witnesses have testified in the state appeals court that his client is mentally handicapped. One expert placed his IQ at about 61 and another at 70. "Certainly I'm hoping the Supreme Court gets to review and finds he is mentally retarded and gets the treatment he is supposed to," DeLee said. "...The Fifth Circuit didn't say he was mentally retarded and didn't say he wasn't. "Somehow it's got to get to the Supreme Court." According to previous Enterprise stories, Wilson and another man shot Williams and left his nude body lying near the curb at Verone and Buford streets, where a bus driver found him early on Nov. 10, 1992. About a week before that, Williams had provided police with a tip leading to a drug bust at Wilson's house. Prosecutors said Wilson, who had been heard saying he was going to "get" Williams, left his stripped body in the street as a message to other snitches. (source: The Beaumont Enterprise) INDIANA----execution Indiana inmate executed just minutes after court ruling In Michigan City, an Indiana inmate was executed early Friday for the 1981 slayings of a Howard County couple, with the lethal injection starting about an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court's order allowing him a new appeal. The Supreme Court announced its 6-3 decision less than a half hour before the scheduled time of Marvin Bieghler's execution. The late court action caused a delay of about 30 minutes in carrying out the execution. Bieghler was pronounced dead at 1:17 a.m. CST, after the injection process started about 12:30 a.m., state Department of Correction spokeswoman Java Ahmed said. His final words were "Let's get it over with," Ahmed said. The Supreme Court's ruling overturned a federal appeals court decision Thursday night that granted Bieghler, 58, a chance to challenge the legality of lethal injection even though the Supreme Court had rejected a similar appeal just hours earlier. Gov. Mitch Daniels on Thursday had turned down a clemency request. Bieghler, an admitted drug dealer, was convicted in the deaths of Tommy Miller, 20, and his pregnant wife, Kimberly Jane Miller, 19, whose bodies were found in their mobile home near Russiaville, about 10 miles west of Kokomo. Bieghler, like Florida inmate Clarence Hill, challenged lethal injection as unconstitutional. Hill contends the three chemicals used in Florida's method of execution - the same as those used in Indiana - cause pain, making his execution cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court said Wednesday it would hear arguments in Hill's case, with the justices to decide whether a federal appeals court was wrong to prevent Hill from challenging the lethal injection method. Bieghler's case differed from Hill's because he was allowed to contest the Indiana execution method and lost. The Supreme Court has never found a specific form of execution to be cruel and unusual, and the Florida case does not give the court that opportunity. The justices could, however, spell out what options are available to inmates with last-minute challenges to the way they will be put to death. Bieghler's attorney, Brent Westerfeld, told justices in a motion Thursday that a "grave injustice may arise" if Bieghler was executed while Hill's case is pending because there is a chance that Hill will win the right to pursue his claim against lethal injection and eventually win. The state attorney general's office argued that Bieghler's appeal was a delay tactic and that Indiana's chemical injection method of execution, used since 1996, was constitutional. The state argued that the Constitution does not guarantee a pain-free execution. "Indeed, electrocution is a constitutionally permissible form of execution which is undoubtedly more painful than lethal injection," the brief said. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer voted to grant the stay, court spokesman Ed Turner said. About 25 people protested Thursday night against the death penalty outside the prison. On Monday, the Indiana Parole Board voted unanimously against recommending clemency for Bieghler, and Daniels issued a brief statement Thursday saying he had reviewed Bieghler's petition and rejected it. Tommy Miller, 1 of Bieghler's victims, had been shot 6 times and his wife, who was 4 weeks pregnant, was shot 3 times. Bieghler told the parole board last week that he did not kill the couple and wanted Daniels to commute his death sentence to time served. Bieghler becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death in Indiana this year and the 17th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1981; he was the 6th Indiana inmate to be executed since Daniels took office just over a year ago. Daniels commuted the death sentence of another inmate to life in prison last year. Bieghler becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1008th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin) ALABAMA: Senator proposing moratorium on death penalty Legislation to place a 3-year moratorium on executions and death sentences is being discussed in the State Senate this week. According to reports, the Senate Judiciary Committee is discussing the moratorium as a quick fix while they work to fix problems with capital punishment in the state. The bill is being proposed by Sen. Henry "Hank" Sanders, D-Selma, who says the current system is "inherently flawed" and in dire need of repair. Sanders said he takes issue with any system that allows the mentally handicapped and juveniles under the age of 18 to receive death as a sentence. He also pointed a finger at judges who assign inexperienced lawyers to try death-penalty cases and the mere existence of judicial override. According to Sanders, the law should require that lawyers have at least some experience trying capital-murder cases before being assigned. He also said, judges should not be allowed to sentence a convicted murderer to death if the jury says otherwise. "It's not fair to override a jury," he said. "If a judge can do that, why is the jury even there? We think a jury ought to decide." Among other problems, Sanders noted what he called the "special impact of race" in death penalty cases. In a phone interview Thursday, Sanders claimed that while 90 % of the murders committed by blacks were against other blacks, 90 % of the blacks on death row had killed whites. "See, the race of the victim makes a difference, and that's just wrong," he said. "If a black man kills a white person, he's 20 % more likely to get the death sentence." While Sanders did not offer any answers to the race issue, he said a moratorium would give them time to fix the system. "The atmosphere is changing in Alabama. People are starting to see what's wrong with the system, and they want to fix it," he said. "Ultimately, what they want is fairness in the judicial system." Sanders statement referred to a 2000 poll conducted by the Mobile Register, which found 70 % of Alabamians said that it was at least likely or very likely that the state had executed an innocent person within the last 100 years. That same survey found that 60 % of the respondents agreed that poor people were more likely receive the death penalty than the were wealthy and that only 63 % even supported the death penalty, a record low for the state. In a related matter, Sanders also noted that the state's largest newspaper, The Birmingham News recently reversed its position, coming out against the death penalty in a series of editorials. The proposed moratorium already made it out of committee once before, during the last session, but never made it to the floor. Sanders said it was because the Rules Committee Chairman Jim Preuitt, D-Taladega, refused to put it on the agenda. "Hopefully, he's more sympathetic this time," Sanders said. In a phone interview Tuesday, Preuitt admitted that he had refused to place the bill on the agenda, saying that he was in full support of the death penalty. "I don't think we should wait 15 years or more, costing millions of dollars of tax-payer money for this. We should just get on with it," he said. Preuitt went on to say that a moratorium would only hinder the death penalty's deterrent factor for criminals. He would not say if he plans to keep the bill off the agenda for another session. Currently, chances of the bill's survival seem very slim overall. If approved by the Senate, it will also have to pass the House and the Governor's office before becoming law. In the house, local Rep. Jeremy Oden, R-Vinemont, said he would not support the bill on any level. "I don't have to read it. I'm not going to put a moratorium on the death penalty," he said. Repeated attempts to contact Sen. Zeb Little, D-Cullman, and Rep. Neal Morrison, D-Cullman, were unsuccessful. (source: Cullman Times) COLORADO: No Death Penalty For Suspect Of Campsite Murder In Eagle, a man accused of killing a woman after an argument at a campsite will not face the death penalty, the district attorney announced Thursday. District Attorney Mark Hurlbert said he will instead seek a life sentence without the possibility of parole for Charles Gross, who is charged in the shooting of 35-year-old Maria Madrid as she left a campsite with her husband and son on Oct. 7. Madrid's husband said Gross accused them of not cleaning up their campsite after they picnicked. Hurlbert said he made his decision after talking it over with Madrid's family and explaining that it's hard to get a jury to impose the death penalty. "It's not something to go into lightly," he said. Gross' preliminary hearing is scheduled for Monday. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Hearing Set on Lethal Injections----A death row inmate who is scheduled to die Feb.21 has filed a motion questioning the constitutionality of the execution method. A federal judge on Thursday set a Feb. 9 hearing to consider a condemned inmate's claims that California's lethal injection procedures violate the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose refused to call an immediate halt to Michael A. Morales' Feb. 21 execution, but agreed to hear a motion for a preliminary injunction well before the death date. Morales, 45, was sentenced to death for the 1981 murder in Lodi of Terri Winchell. Fogel's action came just one day after the U.S. Supreme Court halted Florida's planned execution of Clarence E. Hill, also on the basis of a constitutional challenge to lethal injection. Hill was convicted in the 1982 murder of a Pensacola, Fla., police officer. In another potentially significant development, Morales' supporters said Thursday that Kenneth W. Starr, the dean of Pepperdine University law school who served as U.S. solicitor general, would ask Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant executive clemency to the inmate. The clemency petition is due today at 5 p.m. Schwarzenegger has denied all 4 requests for clemency that he has received from death row inmates. "Starr is entering the case because Morales immediately took responsibility for his actions, was distraught with remorse and has made impressive and consistent efforts to atone for his crime in prison," said a statement issued by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and Death Penalty Focus, a San Francisco group that opposes capital punishment. A Pepperdine spokeswoman confirmed that Starr is now working on Morales' behalf, but said he was unavailable for comment. Morales' attorneys said they were cheered by the judge's action. "I think it is a positive development," said David A. Senior of Los Angeles, Morales' lead lawyer. California corrections officials execute condemned inmates at San Quentin State Prison by administering a lethal combination of three chemical substances: sodium pentothal, a short-acting barbiturate; pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes all voluntary muscles; and potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest. California is one of 37 states that use lethal injection for executions. Earlier this month, Morales' attorneys sued California officials, asserting that the procedure "was adopted without any medical research or review to determine that a prisoner would not suffer a painful death." The suit was filed by Senior, John R. Grele of San Francisco and Richard P. Steinken of Chicago law firm Jenner & Block, which has worked pro bono on death penalty cases across the country. The procedure "lacks medically necessary safeguards, thus increasing the risk that [Morales] will suffer unnecessary pain during the lethal injection process," the suit asserts. Moreover, the state's protocol "identifies no procedures for ensuring that the anesthetic agent is properly flowing into the prisoner, and it identifies no procedures for ensuring that the prisoner is properly sedated prior to the administration of the lethal chemicals, as would be required in any medical or veterinary procedure before the administration of a neuromuscular blocking agent, such as pancuronium bromide, or the administration of a painful potassium chloride overdose." Lawyers from the California attorney general's office oppose the challenge, said Nathan Barankin, the chief spokesman for Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer. "Our belief is that, based on the expert medical testimony we have provided and has been provided in courts across the country, lethal injection is the most humane and pain-free method of carrying out a death sentence," Barankin said. (source: Los Angeles Times) ************* Death penalty sought in slaying of officer Contra Costa County District Attorney Robert Kochly will seek the death penalty for a 19-year-old man accused of shooting and killing Pittsburg police Officer Larry Lasater after a robbery and chase in April. Prosecutor Harold Jewett, who is handling the case, said Wednesday that Alexander Hamilton knew Lasater, 35, was an officer when he killed him. Hamilton fired from a "position of ambush" and tried to shoot other officers afterward, Jewett said. Hamilton has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Robin Lipetzky, declined to comment. Hamilton is eligible for the death penalty because he is accused of killing an officer and because he allegedly killed Lasater in the commission of a robbery. Police said Lasater was shot as he tried to arrest Hamilton and Andrew Moffett after they robbed a Raley's supermarket and a Wells Fargo branch inside, crashed a stolen getaway car on a nearby lawn and hid along a wooded trail. Moffett faces similar charges but is not eligible for the death penalty because he was 17 at the time. (source: San Francisco Chronicle)
