Dec. 2 MARYLAND: Family of Murdered Parents Disgusted Over Death-Penalty Delays A lawyer for a man sentenced to death for killing an elderly couple asked for a hearing Thursday to examine potential racial bias in death-penalty sentencing. The victims' relatives shook their heads in disgust at a case that has dragged on for more than 22 years. Phyllis Bricker, the daughter of the victims, called it obscene. She says she feels frustrated and angry that they haven't gotten justice and closure. John Marvin Booth-El was sentenced in 1984 for stabbing Rose and Irvin Bronstein in Baltimore after stealing jewelry, a television and a car. He has been appealing his sentence ever since. Booth-El's lawyer wants a hearing to examine how a study that says black criminals are 18 times more likely to be sentenced to death than white criminals applies to his client. Booth-El's death sentence has been vacated three times. The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Blake's decision in 2002 and reinstated the death sentence. 3 separate juries have sentenced Booth-El to death. (source: Associated Press) ********************** Maryland and the death penalty On the evening of June 6, 1991, Jane Tyson, 49, went to Westview Mall in suburban Baltimore with her grandchildren: Adam, age 6; and Carly, age 4. Carly had entered the back seat, and Adam was getting ready to enter the front passenger seat of her car. Adam saw a man run up to his grandmother, heard her scream and watched as the man fatally shot her and stole her purse. Wesley Baker, a career criminal who was on parole for armed robbery at the time, is the man who murdered Mrs. Tyson. He is scheduled to be executed next week (perhaps as early as Monday) by lethal injection. After nearly a decade of unsuccessful appeals of his conviction and death sentence, Baker was just days away from execution in May 2002 when Gov. Parris Glendening dragged the ugly specter of the race card into the case, declaring a moratorium on executions to allow time for the completion of a study of purported disparities in the administration of the death penalty. The study, implemented by University of Maryland professor Raymond Paternoster, found that the death penalty is more likely to be carried out when the victim is white. But "when the prosecuting jurisdiction is added to the model, the effect for the victim's race diminishes substantially, and is no longer statistically significant," a summary of the study says. Translated into plain English, it means that there is no racial disparity in the administration of the death penalty in Maryland. The only "disparity" documented in the study is something called local government: the fact that, in Baltimore County, elected States Attorney Sandra O'Connor seeks the death penalty in virtually every case of eligibility. By contrast, in more liberal jurisdictions -- in particular Baltimore and Prince George's County -- elected prosecutors generally refrain from asking for the death penalty. But the facts have not prevented capital punishment opponents from mounting a scurrilous radio campaign citing the study as evidence that "the death penalty is biased against black people" and accusing Gov. Robert Ehrlich and Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (who opposes the death penalty) of "planning to kill Wesley Baker, a black man." We urge Mr. Ehrlich to stand firm against the racial demagogues and focus on the facts of the Baker case. (source: Editorial, Washington Times) CALIFORNIA: After 24 Years on Death Row, Clemency Is Killer's Final Appeal Stanley Tookie Williams, once a leader of a notorious street gang and now perhaps the nation's most prominent death row inmate, leaned over a small wooden table in a cramped visiting cell here and tried to explain what he used to be and what he has become. "I have a despicable background," Mr. Williams said. "I was a criminal. I was a co-founder of the Crips. I was a nihilist." "But people forget," he added, chewing on a turkey sandwich, "that redemption is tailor-made for the wretched." All that stands between Mr. Williams and his execution, set for Dec. 13, is the possibility that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will commute his sentence to life in prison after a clemency hearing next week. Such commutations used to be common in the United States, granted in 20 percent to 25 % of all death sentences reviewed by governors in the 1st half of the last century. With the exception of a few cases in which departing governors with misgivings about the death penalty granted wholesale clemency to condemned inmates, commutations have become rare. No condemned prisoner has been spared in California since 1967. Governors once considered the commutation of a death sentence to be an act of mercy or grace. In recent years, though, they have tended to act only to correct errors in the judicial system and, occasionally, to take account of mental illness or retardation. When Gov. Mark R. Warner of Virginia spared Robin Lovitt's life on Tuesday, for instance, he said that he was acting "to reaffirm public confidence in our justice system." The execution could not proceed, he said, because potentially exculpatory DNA evidence had been destroyed. Mr. Williams's basic claim is different. Although he says he is innocent of the 4 1979 murders that sent him to death row in 1981, his lawyers base their request for clemency on the good that Mr. Williams has done during his years in prison. He is an author of children's books, a memoir and the Tookie Peace Protocol, a set of fill-in the-blanks forms for rival gangs wishing to declare a truce. He gives lectures to youth groups by telephone. His supporters have nominated him for the Nobel Prize, for both literature and peace. Mr. Schwarzenegger must decide in Mr. Williams's case whether clemency means something more than additional scrutiny of the evidence presented in court or whether it should also take account of the progress of a prisoner's life in the years following a death sentence. His answer will have a broad impact, as the pace of executions in California is about to quicken. The state, which has the nation's largest death row but seldom executes anyone, faces the possibility of three executions before the end of February. Mr. Williams, 51, is a large, deliberate black man with more salt than pepper in his beard. He wears his hair in a short ponytail, and his round rimless glasses give him an intellectual air. A proud autodidact, he chooses his words with care, preferring the bigger ones. Mr. Williams acknowledged that his story, which has attracted the support of rappers and Hollywood celebrities and has been made into a television movie, is a jumble of contradictions that will not be easy for the governor to untangle. Prosecutors and victims rights groups say Mr. Williams's crimes must outweigh whatever he has done since. "This is a guy who blew away 4 people with his shotgun and laughed about it," said Michael Rushford, the president of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento. "Guys like him were your worst nightmare in L.A. in the 70's. They'd blow you away for your shoes. For nothing. For sport." Mr. Williams was convicted of four murders, those of Albert Owens, a shop clerk killed during the robbery of a convenience store in February 1979, and of Tsai-Shai Yang, Yen-I Yang and Yee-Chen Lin, killed during the robbery of their family-run motel the next month. Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles County district attorney, told Mr. Schwarzenegger in a submission this month opposing clemency, that Mr. Williams's failure to "take any responsibility for the brutal, destructive and murderous acts he committed" means that "there can be no redemption, there can be no atonement, and there should be no mercy." In a long interview here, Mr. Williams countered, "How can a person express contrition if he's not guilty?" He added: "They want me executed. Period. I exemplify something they don't want to see happen - a redemptive transformation." He said he had a bit of history with the man who would decide his fate, based on a shared passion for bodybuilding. Mr. Williams said he used to work out at the Gold's Gym on the Santa Monica beach in the 1970's. "I was pretty enormous back then," Mr. Williams said, "and exceptionally strong." Mr. Schwarzenegger passed Mr. Williams on the Santa Monica boardwalk one day and told a companion, according to Mr. Williams: "Look, that man doesn't have arms. He has legs." The governor has said he does not recall the incident, and he has declined to say what standards he will use in deciding whether Mr. Williams or any other California inmate should live. "I really don't have any guidelines set for that," Mr. Schwarzenegger told reporters in November. "It's a case-by-case situation." "This is kind of the toughest thing to do when you're governor," he added. "And so I dread that situation, but it's something that's part of the job, and I have to do it." A spokeswoman declined to elaborate. Asked what he would tell the governor were they to meet again, Mr. Williams said: "First and foremost, I would say that I'm innocent. Second, I believe that if I'm allowed to get a clemency or an indefinite stay, it would allow me to continue to proliferate my positive message, including a collaboration with the N.A.A.C.P., to create a violence-prevention message for at-risk youth." Other governors in recent years have focused on only the type of argument that Mr. Williams makes first, that he is innocent. They have acted as a sort of backstop to the judicial system, driven in part, perhaps, by a fear of seeming soft on crime. "In every case," George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, wrote in "A Charge to Keep," his 1999 memoir, "I would ask: Is there any doubt about this individual's guilt or innocence? And, have the courts had ample opportunity to review all the legal issues in this case?" Bill Clinton said much the same thing as governor of Arkansas, expressing a reluctance to take decisions away from the courts. Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has twice denied clemency, to Kevin Cooper, whose execution was stayed by the courts last year, and to Donald Beardslee, who was executed in January. In the Beardslee case, Mr. Schwarzenegger seemed to discount the possibility that a prisoner's actions in prison should figure in the clemency determination. "While I commend Beardslee for his prison record and his ability to conform his behavior to meet or exceed expected prison norms," Mr. Schwarzenegger said, "I am not moved to mercy by the fact that Beardslee has been a model p risoner. I expect no less." Mr. Williams's main lawyers for his clemency application, from the New York law firm of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, say Mr. Schwarzenegger should think more broadly about his power to be merciful. "We seek clemency for the man Stanley Williams has become," they wrote in their clemency petition, "for the good work he has done, and for the good work he will continue to do." The traditional definition of clemency, said Austin Sarat, a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College and author of "Mercy on Trial," a study of capital clemency, was concerned with neither justice nor redemption, the two arguments Mr. Williams has pressed. "The idea of clemency was the reduction of a deserved punishment," he said. "It wasn't thought of as justice. You couldn't earn or deserve clemency. It was an act of mercy or an act of grace." In "Against Mercy," an article in The Minnesota Law Review last year, Dan Markel, a law professor at Florida State University, argued that mercy in that sense was problematic. It not only fails to deliver warranted punishment, Professor Markel wrote, but also flies in the face of a societal commitment to equal justice under the law. A narrow conception of clemency limited to correcting errors in the judicial system helps explain recent trends. In the last decade, putting aside Gov. George Ryan's emptying of Illinois's death row in 2003, there have been about 2 executive clemencies in capital cases each year. In California, Gov. Edmund G. Brown commuted 23 death sentences from 1959 to 1967, while allowing 36 executions to proceed. In "Public Justice, Private Mercy," a 1989 book about how he made those decisions, Mr. Brown said he acted when there were questions about the inmate's guilt, when new evidence had come to light and when the punishment seemed disproportionate to that received by others. Ronald Reagan, who succeeded Mr. Brown, granted the last capital commutation in California, in 1967, to a brain-damaged man. There are almost 650 people on death row here, compared with slightly more than 400 in Texas. But Texas has executed 355 people since the United States Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. California has executed 11. "We don't want to churn them out the way some of the states in the South do," Ronald M. George, the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, said in an interview on Monday. "But it can drag on for 20 years, which does not reflect well on the system." Mr. Williams stands at the head of a growing line, as California now seems on the verge of a spate of executions. Another one is scheduled for January and a 3rd is likely in February. Mr. Williams said he had given some thought to his last day should things not work out with the governor. "They have," he said of prison officials, his voice rising, "the audacity to ask, 'Do I want a last meal?' Absolutely not. 'Do I want anyone present?' Absolutely not. 'Do I want a preacher?' Absolutely not. I want nothing from this institution." But he did want something, he said later. "I want to live," he said. (source: New York Times) ******************************** Opinion: Why I protest capital punishment at San Quentin Join me for a moment at San Quentin. Ill tell about the first time I attended an execution vigil there and why I will be there again Monday, Dec. 12 to protest the planned midnight execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. I live in Larkspur, home of many one-of-a-kind destinations: gourmet restaurants, redwood groves and the states one and only death row. San Quentin - Californias exclusive facility for carrying out capital punishment - is in my back yard. My daily work commute to San Francisco is by the Larkspur ferry. If you've ever taken it, you know that every morning and every evening, you get close enough to San Quentin to make out individual inmates in the exercise yard. One such evening, I happened to see the newspaper notice that an execution was scheduled for that night. On the next morning's ferry, I read the details of the killing and the attendant vigil. So we killed a man, and I just slept through it. This did not sit well. Capital punishment was not a big issue for me, but taking a life is serious. As someone who never liked "chicken hawks" (people willing to send others off to war but not willing to pick up a gun themselves) I was uncomfortable knowing that my state employees were killing someone in my name, in my hometown. Now I was the chicken hawk. At the next execution, I was there. Starting at about 8 p.m., hundreds of people gathered just outside the prison gates. Most carried white wooden crosses, some sat in silent Buddhist meditation, a few joined an Indian drumming circle and others huddled under signs bearing the name of their church, singing hymns and keeping warm. I would characterize the overall feeling as reverent. It wasnt noisy like a protest. It was a respectful vigil. There were no Jewish signs, banners or speakers. A priest came to the microphone and reminded us that the Catholic Church officially opposes the death penalty and then led a prayer for the guards and executioners. A former inmate spoke about life inside and the hope of redemption. Lawyers for the condemned man read us his final statements. At midnight, Rabbi Alan Lew was invited to the front. He read into the P.A. system the name of every man who had died in the execution chamber with the same solemnity you hear at shul when the yahrzeit list is read. Then he read the names of all whom they had murdered. The second list was much longer, a shuddering reminder of the real suffering caused by these men. Then, in sync with the actual execution, Lew led this congregation of Catholics, Protestants and Buddhists in the Mourner's Kaddish. I detected a few dozen voices scattered throughout the assemblage who clearly knew the prayer. Later, I asked the rabbi why he was there. Did he oppose capital punishment because it discriminates against poor or minority defendants? Was he concerned about prosecutors or police faking evidence to get convictions? Was it because of the taxpayers' cost of appeals and the average 16 years inmates spend waiting on death row for their execution? He looked at me like you look at the foolish child at a seder, and said, "It's just wrong." Of course, we Jews dont have to agree with our rabbis, and there are some Jews who do not oppose the death penalty. Since then, I have learned more about the Jewish view on capital punishment. Google around and youll discover that Israel, with all its terrorist mass murderers, does not use capital punishment. The only execution in Israel was Adolf Eichmann's, in 1962, for his war crimes as an SS officer. Youll find out that the rabbis of the Talmud so opposed capital punishment that they created procedural ways to almost completely avoid imposing it. Rabbis Akiba and Tarfon said, "If we had been members of the Sanhedrin, no defendant would ever have been executed." You'll also learn that Rabbi Akiba himself was a victim of capital punishment. The Romans executed him 100 years after they did the same to Jesus. If you come to San Quentin this month, look for the big Jewish star bearing these words from the diary of Anne Frank: "In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death." I'll be standing under it. (source: Jewish News Weekly - Ken Kramarz is a member of the Death Penalty Task Force of Congregation Rodef Sholom) ****************** NAACP protests Williams death sentence The letters that fill his inbox exude gratitude and appreciation for his uplifting and motivational words of wisdom. His life story is proof that redemption is possible and perhaps provides that small ray of hope for many young men and women trapped in a life of crime and drugs. A motivational speaker and author of nine childrens books in addition to an autobiography, this well-established man has received nation-wide acclaim and has been nominated four times for the Nobel Peace Prize. But what good is an award, praise, fame or respect when you are confined to a prison cell with an execution date only days away? In recent weeks, Stanley "Tookie" Williams has been the topic of hot debate. Co-founder of the infamous Crips street gang, Williams is on death row in San Quentin State Prison, convicted of four murders that occurred more than 20 years ago. Williams has offered a public apology for harming others in his past and now encourages young adults to lead clean lives. Williams has made amends for his previous lifestyle by influencing others to turn away from gangs and crime and inspiring young minds to focus on bettering themselves and their community. In doing this, Williams has saved countless lives - lives that would have been lost to the mean streets. What Williams needs now is for someone to save his own life. With an execution date set for Dec. 13, Williams - along with his supporters - is waiting on word from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in hopes that he will grant clemency. Williams advocates are scampering to gain as much support as possible in an effort to persuade Schwarzenegger to grant clemency. Williams supporters argue that prosecutors were never able to prove that Williams had indeed committed the murders and that their case was supported merely by circumstantial evidence. In light of this, the question at present is how can the courts, the governor, the state of California and we the people consent to the execution of a now-redeemed man who may not even be guilty of the alleged murders? The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has pledged to take action to save Williams life. In considering this mans accomplishments and positive impact on young people nationwide, we view our stance to save Williams life not as a choice, but as an obligation. The NAACP chapter here on campus is responding to the call for action by hosting a number of events next week to publicize the issue and to rally support. Chapter members will participate in a die-in next Thursday, which is the day Schwarzenegger is scheduled to hear Williams clemency petition. The NAACP encourages everyone to wear all black on this day to express support for Williams. There is also an online petition, available for anyone to sign, asking the governor to grant clemency to Williams. It can be found at www.savetookie.org. We cannot sit out on this issue - a mans life is on the line. The NAACP strongly opposes the death penalty because of its unfair and disproportionate use on minorities. For those who support the death penalty and feel Williams should be executed, remember that under the U.S. legal system, every man is assumed innocent until proven otherwise - and in Tookies case it has yet to proven otherwise. The NAACP encourages everyone to support Tookie Williams. Attend upcoming events, sign the petition, e-mail the governor - do something. If we cannot open our hearts to a man who denounces his evils ways and embraces what is good, how can we in turn ever expect to be forgiven by others for our own wrongdoings? (source: Yuritzi Jones, The Stanford Daily) ****************** CCC statement urges end to death penalty in California The president of the California Catholic Conference this week expressed strong support for an end to the death penalty in California and affirming the recent statement of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, "A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death." "In light of the fact that California has scheduled three executions --- one in December, one in January and one in February --- we implore all Californians to ask themselves what good comes of state-sanctioned killing," said Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton. "We recognize the profound pain of those who have lost loved ones to violence and offer them our prayers and our consolation. However, nothing can undo what was done --- even taking the life of the convicted killer. The infliction of the death penalty does not make for a more just society." Of particular concern to bishops, Bishop Blaire continued, is the fact that "the application of the death penalty is deeply flawed, with those who are poor or from racial minorities most often its subjects." The 3 pending executions in California are illustrative of these facts, he said. "As Catholic bishops, we teach and preach the Gospel vision of a 'culture of life.' We believe that we are created in God's image, which compels us to teach a consistent ethic of life and obligates us to preach that the use of the death penalty does not protect human life nor promote human dignity. At this moment in time, "we entreat Californians to ponder carefully whether the use of the death penalty makes our society safer," Bishop Blaire concluded. "A moratorium is needed to evaluate whether the death penalty serves the common good and safeguards the dignity of human life. We are convinced that it does not." (source: The Tidings) SOUTH CAROLINA----impending execution Shawn Paul Humphries Execution Shawn Paul Humphries. He's on death row for murdering a convenience store clerk during an attempted robbery in 1994. Humphries is scheduled to be executed at 6pm on Friday, December 2, 2005. Newspaper headlines from 1994 tell a tale of murder. Eddie Blackwell and Shawn Humphries were both convicted of murder. Blackwell was sentenced to life in prison. Humprhies was sentenced to death. When we sat down with Humphries mother, Carla Scott, she looked through pictures of her son growing up through the years. Scott says it's still hard for her to believe her little boy with blue eyes and brown curls is sitting on death row. Through tears, she says, "I know in my heart that he did not mean to do this. If you could look in to his blue eyes and you could see just deep down in his soul..." Scott says her son led a hard life full of abuse, neglect and drugs. Humphries attorney, Teresa Norris admits he has a lengthy criminal record. "Shawn Humphries does have a history," she says. But his history included only non-violent crimes ... until he admitted to murder in this signed statement on January 1, 1994. Now, after 11 years on death row, Humphries is preparing to die. "Lately he talks a lot about God," his mother says. "He says he's ready spiritually but humanly he doesn't know how he's gonna do it." Humphries made a picture book that he sent to his sister. Jennifer Whitaker cried as she she read some of the words her brother wrote to her. "He wrote in the very back, goodbye my sweet baby. You take care of yourself. I'll be watching. You don't get but one go around in this life. I missed out on a lot and I really regret it" It's part of Humphries way of saying goodbye, and his family's way of holding on. There are stacks of appeals that have been filed by Humphries' attorney over the years. For a short time, Humphries death sentence was overturned, but less than a year later that decision was reversed. Now, Humphries doesn't have many options left. Norris says, "realistically, the U.S. Supreme Court is unlikely to grant a stay. As for the governor, I don't know. Basically Shawn Humphries will live or die based on what the governor says." Humphries mom is hoping her prayers will be answered. "I just know he didn't mean to do this and I don't think he deserves to die for it." And she doesn't plan to stop fighting for her son's life. "Not until his last breath is taken." Shawn Paul Humphries is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 6pm on Friday, December 2, 2005. FOX Carolina's Tami Birckner will witness the execution. (source: Fox News) FLORIDA: Florida's death row There are 369 men on death row in Florida. No women are currently on death row. The average age of inmates is 44. There are no juveniles on death row. Inmates on death row from Manatee County include Daniel Burns, sentenced for fatally shooting a Florida Highway Patrol officer in 1987, and Melvin Trotter, sentenced for fatally stabbing Virgie Langford in 1986. Sarasota County inmates include Emanuel Johnson, Ernest Whitfield, John Troy, Robert Trease and Jerry Correll. On Tuesday Gov. Jeb Bush signed death warrants for Clarence Edward Hill, 47, and Arthur D. Rutherford, 56. Hill is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Jan. 24 for killing Officer Stephen Taylor during a bank robbery in 1982. Rutherford is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. on Jan. 31 for killing Stella Salamon, a woman who hired him to install sliding glass doors in her Santa Rosa County home. The average length of stay on death row, from sentencing to execution, is 11.72 years. Gary E. Alvord has been on death row the longest, since April 11, 1974. Death row inmates reside at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford and Florida State Prison in Starke in a cell that is 6 x 9 x 9.5 feet high. Death row inmates are served meals in their cells 3 times a day, beginning at 5 a.m., 10:30 a.m., and 4 p.m. They may shower every other day. They receive mail on weekends and are allowed cigarettes, snacks, radios and black and white televisions in their cells, but no cable TV or air-conditioning. They also can watch church services on closed circuit television. Death row inmates, who wear orange T-shirts and blue pants, are counted at least once an hour and handcuffed everywhere but in their cells, the shower and the exercise yard. The incarceration of a death row inmate costs about $72.39 a day. After a death watch is issued, the inmate is moved to a death watch cell to await execution. The cell, is 12 x 7 x 8.5 feet high. Before execution the inmate can request a last meal - it cannot exceed $20 and must be prepared locally. The inmate also is allowed one legal call and one social call. The Florida Legislature passed a law in January 2000 allowing lethal injection as an alternative to the electric chair in the state. The executioner is a private citizen who receives a $150 per execution. So far this year, Florida has executed 1 person. The youngest inmates executed in the state were 16 years old -Willie Clay, executed in 1941, and James Davis, executed in 1944. The oldest inmate executed was 72 years old - Charlie Grifford, in 1951. (source: The Bradenton Herald)
