Jan. 29
KENTUCKY:
Death Penalty Will Be Sought For Richardson
A Campbell County Grand Jury has indicted Michael Richardson Sr., of
Newport, on 3 counts of intentional murder.
Richardson is charged with the Dec. 27, 2005 deaths of his wife, Joyce,
his daughter, Sunny, and his daughter's boyfriend, Phillip Leslie.
Campbell County Commonwealth Attorney Jack Porter Jr. announced Thursday
that he is seeking the death penalty against Richardson, who is being held
in the Campbell County Detention Center without bond. His previous bond,
set at $1 million, was changed after the case was certified as a death
penalty case.
(source: ChallengerNKY.com)
ILLINOIS:
Moving trials takes big bite out of budgets
The scales of justice will tip into government budgets in several Illinois
counties this year when high-profile murder trials are moved to find
jurors untainted by hometown media coverage.
Officials say the venue changes triple already hefty legal costs, but
prosecutors and defense attorneys agree the moves are often necessary when
years of publicity precedes the actual trial.
The search for impartial jurors will move some of the cases up to 90 miles
away, racking up travel, meal and motel costs for dozens of courtroom
staff and witnesses during trials expected to stretch for weeks.
"I just feel like it's a giant ball getting ready to drop on us," said
Lawrence County Board Chairman Charles Gillespie, who predicts his
southeastern Illinois county will spend at least $75,000 this summer to
retry a woman accused of killing her son nearly a decade ago.
The extra bills that pile up during a change of venue hit hardest in cases
that don't involve the death penalty, leaving counties to cover all of the
expenses from budgets that officials say are already spread thin.
In capital cases, the state pays most costs - whether the trial is moved
or not - through a special fund created during its long debate over the
death penalty to make sure both prosecutors and defenders have sufficient
resources.
Like Lawrence County, Rock Island County will have to raid its own
bankroll for next month's retrial of a teenager who faces prison, not
execution, if convicted in last year's killing and dismemberment of a
16-year-old schoolmate.
The county spent about $5,000 on 17-year-old Sarah Kolb's first trial last
year in Rock Island, which ended in a mistrial when jurors deadlocked 11-1
in favor of conviction. County Board Chairman Jim Bohnsack says costs will
easily top $15,000 for her second trial, set to start Feb. 6 in Dixon,
about 60 miles away.
Bohnsack said legal bills will balloon even higher later this year to try
a co-defendant whose attorneys also intend to seek a change of venue
because of publicity during Kolb's 1st trial.
"It just gets worse and worse. It's not thrown away, but it's money we
could have used in better ways ... It's enough to pay someone's salary for
a year," Bohnsack said.
Gillespie said a murder retrial scheduled for July about 90 miles west in
Carlyle will tighten financial strain on cash-strapped Lawrence County,
where the property tax base has dipped by a quarter to about $90 million
since a large refinery shut down in the mid-1980s.
The county spent about $100,000 on the 1st out-of-county trial for Julie
Rea-Harper, who was serving a 65-year sentence for the 1997 stabbing death
of her 10-year-old son when an appeals court ordered a new trial in 2004.
Gillespie says the retrial may cost nearly as much, even though private
supporters rather than the county are paying for her defense this time
around. If costs climb, he said the county might have to borrow against
next year's tax receipts.
"I'm shuddering at what might happen this summer. If it's $100,000, Katie
bar the door," Gillespie said.
Officials say trial costs for death penalty cases pending in DeWitt and
Peoria counties will be far higher but local taxpayers will foot only a
fraction of the bill thanks to a state trust fund that has paid out more
than $14 million in 157 capital cases since it was launched in 2000.
Jefferson County tapped the fund for the 2004 retrial of Cecil Sutherland,
now on death row for killing a 10-year-old girl after a trial that was
moved from Mount Vernon in southern Illinois to Belleville, near St.
Louis.
The fund covered about $2 million in defense expenses and most of the
$414,000 spent by prosecutors, leaving the county with just a few thousand
dollars in bills, primarily juror fees for the nearly 2-month trial, said
State's Attorney Gary Duncan.
Officials say the Sutherland trial - Illinois' costliest death penalty
case since the trust fund was created - illustrates why costs should be
spread across the state for high-cost capital cases.
DeWitt County Board Chairman Duane Harris said his small Central Illinois
county would have gone in debt paying for this year's trials of Maurice
LaGrone Jr. and Amanda Hamm, who are accused of drowning Hamm's three
children in Clinton Lake in 2003 and face the death penalty if convicted.
Jury selection for LaGrone's trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 21 in
Bloomington, about 30 miles north of Clinton.
"To shoulder these burdens alone would be unfair, especially for smaller
counties, because these are lightning bolt cases. And no one knows where
lightning is going to strike," said Peoria County State's Attorney Kevin
Lyons, who won't oppose moving a trial expected to begin later this year
for accused Peoria serial killer Larry Bright.
Officials say judges aren't influenced by costs, though many now wait to
see if impartial hometown jurors can be seated before ruling on change of
venue motions.
"If I'm a judge, I have to worry about costs, I can't get it out of my
head. But mostly I have to believe in justice, that's the guiding force,"
said Steve Beckett, a defense attorney and professor at the University of
Illinois College of Law.
Gillespie agreed, despite concerns about legal costs that have climbed
sharply during his 4 terms on Lawrence County's board.
"Some people say 'Why don't you plea bargain?' You can't do that. That's
not right," Gillespie said. "A little boy was killed, you can't lose sight
of that. And you can't lose sight of innocence, either."
(source: Associated Press)
***************
Coalition to host meeting on death penalty
The Coalition for Non-Violent Communities will host a town hall meeting on
the death penalty in Clinton next week, just 2 weeks before Maurice
LaGrone Jr. is set to go on trial in connection with the deaths of 3 local
children.
LaGrone, 30, and former girlfriend Amanda Hamm, 29, each are charged with
9 counts of 1st-degree murder in the drowning deaths of Hamm's 3 children.
Christopher Hamm, 6, Austin Brown, 3, and Kyleigh Hamm, 23 months, died
after their mother's car sank off the shore of Clinton Lake in September
2003.
The state has said it will seek the death penalty in both cases. Hamm's
trial will be scheduled after LaGrone's is completed.
The town hall meeting will be from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday at St. John's
Parish Hall, 514 N. Monroe St., Clinton. The meeting is open to the
public.
Clinton coalition member Ed Wollet said he is concerned that LaGrone's
trial will spark heated debate in the community about the death penalty.
"In a few weeks, a trial will begin of a Clinton man who faces the
possibility of the death penalty. We hope this dialogue will help those
who are in favor, against and even those who are undecided, have a chance
to talk about the death penalty," said Wollet.
According to Wollet, the Coalition for Non-Violent Communities seeks to
address the root causes of violence. A part of that effort is to help
people with divergent views to come together and engage in dialogue.
The town hall meeting on the death penalty will allow people to exchange
views on the death penalty issue in a constructive manner without pressure
to change their opinion on the issue, added Wollet.
"We need to have this discussion. We need people to listen and hear each
other without judgment," added Wollet.
The public dialogue on the death penalty follows what Wollet called "the
front porch syndrome" where people talk in small groups about issues
impacting their lives. The coalition is hopeful that moving the
conversation from the front porch to a meeting hall will result in a
broader exchange of ideas.
Last week, the coalition hosted a workshop on non-confrontational dialogue
at the Clinton church. Participants from Bloomington, Decatur and Danville
joined local residents in the workshop. International social worker Anna
Sandidge instructed the group on how to be better listeners.
Wollet said he will bring what he learned at the workshop to the town hall
meeting.
"The training helped us to emphasize with another person rather than try
to convert the person to our way of thinking," he said.
(source; Pantagraph)
FLORIDA:
A snitch's tale----State probe is needed about possible prosecutorial
misconduct in Dedge case
We've repeatedly called for Gov. Jeb Bush or other state leaders to
investigate the way Wilton Dedge's wrongful conviction for a 1981 rape was
handled -- though mishandled is a better term.
Now there's even stronger evidence an inquiry should be opened.
The Port St. John man served 22 years in prison before DNA testing --
which prosecutors blocked for years -- proved him innocent.
He was released in August 2004, but then had to fight the state
Legislature for restitution.
In December, lawmakers finally awarded Dedge $2 million for his lost
years, compensation that's much deserved and we hope will help him rebuild
a life.
But his case is far from closed.
What should come next is an outside investigation of how Brevard County
prosecutors in the state attorney's office used jailhouse snitch, murderer
and recently convicted child-rapist Clarence Zacke to help keep Dedge
behind bars.
At Dedge's 1984 retrial, Zacke testified that Dedge had confessed crime
details during a ride the two inmates shared in a transport van. That
helped prosecutors reconvict Dedge. In return, Zacke hoped for quicker
parole.
Zacke's super-convenient presence in that van has never passed the smell
test, but revelations that surfaced during his recent rape trial have
raised questions to new levels.
That's why Dedge's attorneys want answers to a host of disturbing issues
about both cases -- and so do we.
The arguments are made by Dedge attorney Sandy D'Alemberte -- former dean
of Florida State University's law school and past president of the
American Bar Association -- and the Innocence Project, which helped
exonerate Dedge.
Among the points that need answers are:
- Did anyone in the state attorney's office withhold critical information
about Zacke, including allegations he'd raped his adopted daughter, from
the defense before Dedge's 1984 retrial?
- If prosecutors knew of the allegations against Zacke, but still allowed
him to inform on Dedge -- under the pose of a defender of women's honor --
their actions are not only deceitful but possibly a breach of law.
- What happened to missing sealed grand jury records about Zacke's
criminal history -- including information he was possibly molesting his
adopted daughter -- that might establish what prosecutors knew and when?
- Was Zacke fed crime details he offered in testimony by prosecutors in
what may have been an illegal act?
- Why were Zacke and Dedge alone on the prison transport van? Was the trip
a set-up for Zacke to commit perjury and if so, at whose instigation?
There's little doubt the prosecutors' reliance on a known liar's shaky
testimony to send Dedge back to jail was horrendous.
But justice won't be fully served until an investigation determines if any
part of any deal struck with Zacke may have been illegal.
Besides Bush, the Florida Bar Association, Florida Supreme Court and the
Legislature all have the investigative powers to look into possible
prosecutorial misconduct in the case.
(source: Florida Today)
**************
DNA testing -- 92 years lost, and counting
The cost of justice is too high for some Florida lawmakers, who'd rather
let innocent persons rot in prison than allow DNA testing that would
exonerate them.
A staff report to the state House of Representatives estimates that it
might cost $2 million annually for crime-lab analysis in cases where
genetic evidence would be used to review a criminal conviction.
Apparently some lawmakers and staff members think that's too much to spend
in pursuit of the truth. They'd rather blow the extra dough they've got
lying around this year on other things -- say, a multimillion-dollar
sales-tax holiday for voters.
The fact that not everybody in prison is guilty seems hard to swallow for
some of the tough talkers in Tallahassee. Traditionally, the Legislature
has been disgracefully reluctant to compensate wrongly convicted citizens
for time lost behind bars.
Last year, after an embarrassing hesitation, lawmakers awarded $2 million
to Wilton Dedge, who spent 22 years locked up for a rape he didn't commit.
Brevard prosecutors had fought doggedly to thwart the DNA testing that
ultimately proved Dedge's innocence -- and even afterward they worked to
block the undisputed test results from being admitted in court.
Dedge traveled to Tallahassee last week and practically begged the House
Criminal Justice Committee to act to abolish the outrageous July deadline
for inmates seeking DNA evidence comparisons.
"Can we all agree that DNA testing needs to be done in Florida on inmates?
Can we agree," Dedge asked, "there should be no deadline on testing?"
What he heard from committee members was the familiar silence of
noncommital. Chairman Dick Kravitz, a Jacksonville Republican, said the
panel must hold a workshop before it decides.
Yeah, Dick, this is a tough one. You think about it real hard. Get out
your calculator and workshop a few of these numbers:
- Wilton Dedge, 22 years gone.
- Alan Crotzer, wrongly convicted of kidnapping and rape, 24 years gone.
He was freed a week ago.
- Luis Daz, wrongly convicted as the "Bird Road Rapist," 25 years gone. He
was freed last summer.
- Jerry Frank Townsend, wrongly convicted of 4 Broward murders, 21 years
gone. He was freed in 2001.
- Frank Lee Smith, wrongly convicted of rape and murder. He was never
freed. He died after 14 years on Death Row, and was exonerated 11 months
later.
DNA tests cleared all these men. Several of the cases were handled by the
New York-based nonprofit Innocence Project and the Florida Innocence
Initiative. Nationwide, the Innocence Project has used genetic matching to
help clear 173 inmates.
Some lawmakers say wide-scale DNA testing in prison will clog up the
courts and crime labs. The possibility for abuse surely exists, but
defendants would all but kill their future appeals if the tests confirmed
their guilt.
The real fear of DNA opponents is that more wrongly convicted persons will
be identified, freed and later seek money from the state -- as they
should.
If precious years of your life were unjustly taken away, you'd expect and
deserve some sort of compensation.
The only worse thing than putting innocent persons in prison is leaving
them there, yet that's what proponents of an arbitrary DNA deadline would
do.
Twice the Florida Supreme Court has intervened to extend the expiration
date, giving the Legislature ample opportunity to do the right thing and
abolish it.
Gov. Jeb Bush supports eliminating deadlines and giving inmates the right
to take DNA tests. So do many prosecutors.
A bill to that effect might actually pass this year, in spite of the
grumbling opposition. The measure is sponsored in the House by Rep. Ellyn
Bogdanoff of Fort Lauderdale, and in the Senate by Alex Villalobos of
Miami. They're both Republicans. More importantly, Villalobos has clout
because he's in line to become Senate president in 2 years.
Funding is a bogus issue in the debate over DNA evidence. Many inmates
would, like Dedge, gladly arrange for their own tests.
This is all about morality. In a justice system that promises to seek out
the truth, there's no moral defense for smothering it.
The science now exists to conclusively establish guilt or innocence in
many old criminal cases. That makes some folks nervous because it's bound
to expose a few mistakes -- by police, prosecutors, judges or juries.
Appalling and immoral
"This is just plain old truth, and it leads you to wherever it leads you.
And we shouldn't be concerned about who got their feelings hurt and who
won or lost," Sen. Villalobos said last week.
"What matters is, if you have something that could definitely prove the
right person or the wrong person [is in prison], it's just appalling that
you wouldn't do that."
Appalling is right. Not to mention immoral.
If one in a hundred or even a thousand DNA tests exonerates an unjustly
convicted inmate, it'll be worth every penny.
Ask Wilton Dedge or Luis Daz or Alan Crotzer or Jerry Frank Townsend. You
can't put a monetary price on their combined 92 lost years, or on the life
of Frank Lee Smith.
The cost of letting that happen again will be measured not only in
reparation dollars but also in shame.
(source: Miami Herald)
*********************<
Case might slow executions----An appeal from Florida's death row may give
inmates everywhere an avenue to challenge lethal injections.
By agreeing this week to hear the case of a Florida man condemned to die,
the U.S. Supreme Court will decide an issue that could slow down
executions nationwide.
The court agreed to review whether death row inmate Clarence Hill can
challenge lethal injection through a civil rights claim.
While that is a technical and procedural issue, a victory by Hill could
give death row inmates everywhere an avenue to challenge lethal injections
as unconstitutionally painful and cruel.
If Hill wins, he could argue the cruelty issue in front of a lower federal
court, giving him months of additional appeal time.
"I don't have a lot of confidence that he will prevail," said O.H. "Bill"
Eaton, a Seminole-Brevard circuit judge who teaches other circuit judges
about the death penalty. "But he may. This U.S. Supreme Court has been
surprising in its rulings on a lot of criminal issues."
A Hill victory also could allow other condemned inmates to make the same
argument and could force the court to rule on the constitutionality of
lethal injection.
That could temporarily block or slow executions, a point of frustration
among death penalty supporters. The average time on death row in Florida,
for instance, is just under 13 years.
But some experts suspect some justices agreed to hear the case so they can
clamp that avenue of appeal, which capital defense lawyers have been using
with greater frequency in recent years.
"I suspect there may be some members of the court who want to take this
case to say this is definitely not an avenue" of appeal, said Robert
Batey, a professor at the Stetson University College of Law. "And there
may be others who say there may be an argument here."
A loss by Hill could solidify lethal injection as an accepted means of
execution.
"Not only will it mean this inmate will very likely be executed, but it
also would make it much harder for other inmates to challenge executions
based on the method of execution," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a law and
political science professor at Duke University.
Arguments are scheduled for April. The court said it will issue a ruling
this summer.
Executions in other states have gone ahead. Texas executed a man Wednesday
night and Indiana carried out an execution Friday.
Less clear is how the court's decision will affect pending executions in
Florida. Death row inmate Arthur Rutherford is scheduled to die Tuesday
for a 1985 murder in Santa Rosa County.
Rutherford's attorneys said they will file the same appeal as Hill's
lawyers did, which they believe will result in a stay.
But Gov. Jeb Bush, who was in Washington, D.C., this week, said he didn't
believe Rutherford's execution would be called off because of the Hill
case.
Chemerinsky, the Duke law professor, disagrees. He suspects a federal
appeals court will block Rutherford's execution while the Hill case is
decided.
Hill, 48, was sentenced to die for the 1982 murder of Stephen Taylor, a
26-year-old Pensacola police officer. Hill shot Taylor in the back during
a bank robbery.
Hill has exhausted all of his appeals in the 23 years since his sentence.
Death penalty cases travel through nine steps from trial to execution,
including an automatic appeal to the Florida Supreme Court and appeals to
the U.S. District Court, the Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme
Court.
Each of those steps takes months or years. Judges must review the records
of those cases, which are thousands of pages long, said Eaton, the
Seminole-Brevard circuit judge.
Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court have streamlined the appeals process,
though capital cases still take years to wind through the courts.
Hill was strapped to a gurney and had IV lines running into his arms
Tuesday night when the execution was halted by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.
Family members of the officer Hill killed were prepared to watch the
execution, then were sent home.
"It fuels into the wider concern of whether the death penalty is really
worth all this hassle," said Michael Radelet, a University of Colorado
sociology professor who has studied Florida's death penalty, noting that
support for the punishment has fallen recently to around 50 percent of the
population.
"Whatever the benefits are, can we achieve the same results by not
spending so much money and putting people in prison for life?"
(source: St. Petersburg Times)
*****************
Death-penalty debate
Re the Jan. 26 story -- An unlikely champion in execution fight: I am a
retired surgeon who spent almost every day of my career in the operating
room. I saw hundreds of patients being anesthetized with the same drug
combinations -- except for the potassium chloride -- that are used in
lethal injection for state executions.
When the Pentothal dose is sufficient, patients are not aware of the
sequential use of the paralyzing agent and have no recollection of the
subsequent procedures or manipulations after emergence from anesthesia.
Ask anyone who has had general anesthesia induced by a competent
anesthetist. Since the concept of "overdose" of Pentothal in an execution
is moot -- after all, they are trying to kill someone -- the argument that
the victim experiences pain is specious.
For the record, I oppose the death penalty.
KARL M. MORGENSTEIN, M.D., Hollywood
**
Re the Jan. 26 story Killer's execution stayed in challenge to lethal
injection: Why don't we ask the family of the victims what kind of
punishment murderers deserve? After all, they are the real victims because
they lost their loved ones to irresponsible cowards who killed without
conscience. DAVID SALVER, Miramar
(source: Miami Herald)
OHIO:
Men wrongly convicted deserve some help
I am appalled to witness what's happening to Gary Lamar James and Tim
Howard ("Freed men must prove innocence," Dispatch article, Jan. 20).
I would like it clearly understood that I've never met either of these
men, and I have absolutely no connection (other than a human connection)
to them. Given our common humanity and given our similar age, I try to
imagine having 26 years unfairly carved out of my life, 26 years that
cannot be retrieved.
26 years of sunshine, laughs, loves, family, freedom gone! Then, freedom
returned when you have lost the energy and enthusiasm of youth. Starting
your life over at 50! These things are hard for me to imagine.
It has been established that these men were unfairly and wrongly
imprisoned. This requirement that they now prove their innocence is wrong.
It seems that the officials in charge of this debacle are simply trying to
avoid compensating these men for having had 26 years stolen from them.
Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien, state Attorney General Jim Petro
and Common Pleas Court Judge David E. Cain: I will remember to vote
against these names at election time. In fact, I should vote against Petro
just based on the recent TV commercials that referred to his 30-year
marriage. When I think about it, how dare he celebrate his life of the
past 30 years and then deny these men theirs.
Certainly this monetary settlement would not give them those lost years,
but money does help any difficult transition.
SHIRLEY ANN MAYS -- Columbus
(source: Letter to the Editor, Columbus Dispatch)
