An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/private/deathpenalty/attachments/20051203/b8c05c39/attachment-0001.htm From [email protected] Sat Dec 3 12:49:07 2005 From: [email protected] (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat Dec 3 12:42:51 2005 Subject: [Deathpenalty]death penalty news----TEXAS, CALIF., S.C., ILL. Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Dec. 3 TEXAS: 'Murder by perjury' in Cantu case? Juan Moreno could end up making Job look lucky. First, at the age of 19, he was shot nine times and left for dead in a 1984 robbery in San Antonio. A companion of Moreno was shot to death during the robbery. Then, Moreno says, he was pressured by police into identifying the wrong man after repeatedly saying it wasn't him. That man, Ruben Cantu, was executed based on Moreno's testimony in a 1985 trial. Now Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed says if her investigation supports Moreno's contention that the wrong man was executed, she may file charges against him. For perjury? No. The 3-year statute of limitations ran out a long time ago. For the murder of Ruben Cantu. Murder has no statute of limitations. A passionate prosecutor Cantu's lawyers, Gerald Goldstein and Cynthia Orr, say Moreno is courageous in coming forward after 20 years of feeling guilt to admit his role in the Cantu affair. They describe him as a meek person who was, as a 19-year-old illegal immigrant, probably even meeker and therefore subject to pressure from police. Reed, as passionate a prosecutor as Goldstein and Orr are defense attorneys, sees it differently. "You guys," she says, referring to the Houston Chronicle and reporter Lise Olsen, who broke the Ruben Cantu story two weeks ago, "have put up a guy who says, 'I went into a courtroom. I lied. I knew I lied.' "A man has been executed because of that lie. That is pretty serious stuff. There are consequences for that." A scared, malleable kid "If there were not consequences, then the system would allow itself to be attacked. The integrity of the judicial system is all based on truth, most importantly presenting the truth to the jury." She said her office's investigation would also look at the behavior of the police, but she doesn't think their behavior would exonerate Moreno. She pointed out that Texas law provides a defense for crimes committed "under duress." But that defense covers only crimes committed "because (the accused) was compelled to do so by threat of imminent death or serious bodily injury to himself or another." "It does not say the threat of deportation to Mexico," she said. In fact, Moreno, who is now a legal citizen, denies police made that threat or any other. The pressure was more subtle. Defense attorneys Orr and Goldstein contend that Moreno was a scared, malleable kid, and the real culprits were the cops who pressured him. Reed says that might make a difference in the punishment phase, but it does not relieve Moreno of responsibility. "When you walk into that courtroom you walk in yourself," she said. "You sit in the witness stand and swear to God you're going to tell the truth. "If his original thing was to tell the police what they wanted to hear, he had the opportunity to fix it in court. He then had 10 years (actually eight years before the execution) to fix it." Ironically, the statute under which Reed says she would likely charge murder is the same one used here in Harris County to charge the Pasadena school bus driver for murder for accidentally running over a 9-year-old girl. Under that statute, it is felony murder when, in the course of committing another felony (perjury, in this case) a person commits "an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual." In Texas, I suppose, accusing someone of capital murder is clearly dangerous to that person's life. I want to make one thing clear. Reed is not just focused on going after Moreno. Before she mentioned him in our Friday conversation, she said, "If your story is correct and (Cantu) is innocent, that means there is another murderer out there." And she told reporter Olsen that if the story is correct, it demonstrates a nonfunctioning justice system. But Reed is ready to punish perjury partly as a deterrent. There's one problem. By doing so, she could also be deterring others from confessing that, under pressure from police, they gave false testimony. Would that make the justice system function better? (source: Houston Chronicle) ****************** Death of another hero Re: "Officer shot in FW dies - Colleagues, officials recall dedicated worker who 'got things done,'" Friday news story. The news of Officer Henry Nava Jr.'s death is extremely sad. I will always remember all police officers as heroes, like the time Officer Tony Maldonado attempted to rescue the victims of the Water Gardens and jumped in without hesitating or thinking of himself. It is too bad that our police officers are paid so little and so taken for granted. As a victim of identity theft myself, it is a sad day when an officer doing his job is shot. I personally thank Officer Nava for trying to stop a gang of thieves. Thankfully, I live in Texas, where we have and use the death penalty. Jennifer Black, Carrollton (source: Letter to the Editor, Dallas Morning News) CALIFORNIA: After 24 years on death row, convicted murderer says he's changed Reminders of his upcoming execution are everywhere, but Stanley Tookie Williams doesn't like to talk about it. Supporters rally outside the prison to spare his life. Critics, dismissing his claims of reforming, lobby the governor to put him to death. Visitors line up to speak with a man lauded for efforts to quell violence and lambasted for founding one of the nation's most notorious street gangs. Williams passes the defunct gas chamber on his way to greet politicians, celebrities and journalists clamoring to meet with him during extended visiting hours since his death warrant was signed. Now 51, he's unlikely to see 52 with execution by lethal injection scheduled Dec. 13. "Of course I want to live," he says when pressed, overcoming his reluctance to talk about his scheduled death as he makes a last-ditch effort to save his own life by telling his story to strangers. Poised and tranquil, Williams says he's not the same person who arrived at death row 24 years ago hellbent on stirring trouble behind bars. He's not the same man who co-founded the Crips and not the man convicted of blowing four people away with a shotgun in 1979 during robberies that netted nothing more than gas money. "There is no part of me that existed then that exists now," says Williams, who with his trim gray beard and rimless glasses looks far less menacing than the musclebound defendant bursting out of his suit during trial. He claims he has redeemed himself through a dozen years of good deeds: writing books encouraging kids to stay out of gangs; making speeches by phone to church, school and community groups about avoiding pitfalls that lead to gangster life; creating a "peace protocol" that brought a truce between rival gangs in New Jersey. While he's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and has become a beacon of hope to troubled youths who see gangs and crime as their only way to counteract racism and escape poverty, plenty of others remain skeptical. Crime victims and prison officials say he's a self-serving charlatan who refuses to take responsibility for his crimes, rejects the opportunity to help authorities put away other gang members and benefits from a well-meaning, but misguided campaign to clean up his image. As the state's highest-profile execution in a quarter century draws near, both sides are vying to win over Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who has scheduled a private clemency hearing in his office Dec. 8. At the heart of the debate is whether Williams really has changed from the thug who once fed a growing drug problem with PCP-soaked cigarettes, toted a 12-gauge shotgun, and lifted weights to build enormous biceps. Born in New Orleans in 1953, Williams had a 17-year-old mother and a father who walked out before his first birthday, according to his memoir, "Blue Rage, Black Redemption" published last year. When he was 6, he and his mother rode a Greyhound bus to California and it wasn't long before he was a regular at Central Juvenile Hall. He admits he became a "megalomaniac ... conceited, indifferent." He beat people, robbed them, even shot at them, but says he never stuck around long enough to see if they lived or died. He didn't care. Williams arrived at San Quentin's death row on April 20, 1981. He continued his trouble-making ways during his early days in prison. "I gave this place hell," he says. As he began to educate himself and reflect on his life, he grew determined to change. First and most importantly, he says, he developed a conscience. He read everything he could get his hands on - the Bible, the dictionary, a thesaurus. He studied languages, theology, philosophy. He struggled to understand his past. Remarkably, he says he taught himself to feel - compassion, empathy. He says he watched news reports about drive-by shootings and suddenly mourned for the victims. He heard stories about children starving in Africa, and sadness took away his own appetite. He said he was consumed with pain and guilt "for the lives of all the Crips who had died, for the innocent black lives hurt in the crossfire, for the decades of young lives ruined for a causeless cause." By 1992, he was a changed man, he says. His courage, once based on violence and indifference, now was based on faith and redemption, he says. "The majority of the detractors and naysayers ... it's difficult for them to recognize the redemption," he says. "They've been unable to stop smoking or drinking or lose weight and they're looking at me being in San Quentin and they say, 'This man is on death row convicted of killing 4 people, how can he be redeemed?' They can't believe that. They don't want to believe that. They would feel lesser about themselves." But to family members of one of his victims, the campaign to save Williams distracts from the cold-blooded crimes he was convicted of while terrorizing Los Angeles. On Feb. 28, 1979, about 4 a.m., Williams and three friends got high on their psychedelic smokes, took two cars, a 12-gauge shotgun and a .22-caliber handgun to Pomona in search of a place to rob, according to court documents. They ended up at a 7-Eleven where Albert Owens, 26, was working the overnight shift, sweeping the parking lot. The military veteran, a "redheaded, freckle-faced kid who had the biggest smile you wanted to see," according to his older brother, Wayne, had recently returned to California after a messy divorce to try to regain custody of his two daughters. "He really was absolutely turning his life around," Wayne Owens, 55, said recently from his home in Olathe, Kan. Albert Owens said, "Take everything you want," says the now-retired prosecutor, Robert Martin, who remembers the case in detail. Williams ordered Owens into a back room at gunpoint, shot out a security monitor, then ordered, "Get down on your knees, (expletive)," and shot him twice in the back, according to testimony. Williams "later laughed about it as he was eating his hamburger," Martin says. There were no witnesses other than accomplices. Less than two weeks later, on March 11, Williams used his brawn to break down the door at the Brookhaven Motel, ripping through four locks and shattering the molding, according to a prosecutor. Killed were Yen-I Yang, 76; his wife, Tsai-Shai Yang, 63, and their visiting daughter, Yee-Chen Lin, 43. The Taiwanese immigrants were about to sell the business because the neighborhood had become too rough, Martin said. Again, there were no surviving witnesses. Three of Williams' friends - all with criminal histories and motivation to lie, Williams says - testified that he confessed to them. A ballistics expert linked a shotgun shell at the motel to Williams' gun. Williams maintains he's innocent despite several unsuccessful appeals. His conviction took him off the street, but failed to halt the growth of the Crips he had founded in 1971 when he and Raymond Washington, a high school friend, formed a gang they called the Cribs. Drunken members routinely mispronounced it as "Crips" and the misnomer stuck. "There was no gang bigger or stronger, no gang tough enough to dethrone us," Williams wrote in his memoir. "We lounged around, got loaded, gambled and pursued young women for sexual conquests." >From behind bars he watched as the neighborhood gang he helped form grew into a nationwide, drug-dealing criminal organization responsible for thousands of deaths. One of his two sons, Stanley Williams Jr., joined the gang and is now serving time for 2nd-degree murder. Prison officials said recently that they believe the elder Williams is still involved in the gang, calling shots from the prison, though they acknowledged they don't have hard evidence. "A con always will say one thing to you while the whole time he has another agenda," prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon said. "I'm concerned that possibly this marketing that's going on ... leads the public to hear the words, but not to see that sleight of hand." The effort to save Williams is headed by Barbara Becnel, a former journalist who helped him write a series of eight books called "Tookie Speaks Out" that are targeted to children in kindergarten through 4th grade about the dangers of gangs. Williams wrote a few pages at a time, then dictated them during 15-minute phone calls to Becnel. They also collaborated on "Life in Prison," for older children. Proceeds go to nonprofit agencies committed to helping troubled youth. He regularly hears from children, teachers and parents who applaud his efforts. He's also received broad backing in his quest for clemency. Supporters include Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, actor Jamie Foxx, who played Williams in "Redemption," a 2004 movie about the inmate's life, rapper Snoop Dogg and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Williams' petition begs Schwarzenegger to see him as he is now, not as he was in 1979. "This is a petition which seeks to spare the life of one man who has lifted himself up from the furthest depths, and whose redemption is a beacon of hope to others," his lawyers wrote. The Los Angeles district attorney has asked the governor not to halt the execution, and crime victims have organized a campaign to write or call the governor opposing mercy. "There are a lot of people who would like the public to forget there was a victim," said Albert Owens' stepmother, Lora Owens. "It's because it wasn't their loved one." For a man facing impending death, Williams seems remarkably calm. He says he's never been quick to display emotion; spending more than half his life behind bars may have sharpened his ability to hide his feelings. He hardly resembles early photographs where he's posing, flaunting his muscles - cocksure, angry. He's still bulky, but trim. He's polite, straightforward and speaks with a broad vocabulary. He wears his blue prison-issued denim shirt neatly tucked in, buttoned all the way to his neck. He hasn't altered his daily routine since his death warrant was signed, awakening early to pray and exercise, then spending most of his day working on a collection of essays and a book about girl gangs. Relying on a network of people who have seen the good in his life, Williams said his life is now in others' hands and he will accept whatever fate comes his way. "I haven't had a lot of joy in my life. But in here," he says, pointing to his heart, "I'm happy. I am peaceful in here. I am joyful in here." He bids farewell to a visitor before sticking his hands through a slot so guards can handcuff him for the walk back to his cell - a walk that leads him past the old death chamber. (source: Associated Press) SOUTH CAROLINA: Inmate apologizes before his execution Shawn Humphries apologized to his victims family before he was put to death by lethal injection Friday night for the 1994 murder of a Simpsonville store clerk. Humphries mouthed "I'm sorry" before lethal chemicals were pumped through his veins. Department of Corrections officials pronounced Humphries dead at 6:18 p.m. Humphries was convicted of murder for the shooting death of Mendal Alton "Dickie" Smith on New Years Day 1994. Prosecutors said Humphries and a friend decided to rob the store where Smith was working after they had been drinking beer all day. Humphries attorney, Teresa Norris, read a 1-page handwritten statement from the death chamber before the execution in which Humphries apologized for the killing and used Bible verses to criticize the death penalty. Several dozen death penalty opponents marched along the road near the entrance to the Broad River Correctional Institution, where the execution was held. Gov. Mark Sanford rejected Norris' application for clemency earlier Friday. On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request for a stay of execution. Humphries is the 3rd person executed in South Carolina this year. He is the 35th inmate put to death in the state - and the 1,001st in the nation - since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. (source: Associated Press) ILLINOIS: Mentally ill woman given life in prison for slaying A woman with a long history of mental illness was sentenced Friday to life in prison for a grisly slaying and arson in West Dundee, crimes a judge called so horrific that they warranted the death penalty. But Vivian Mitchells paranoid delusions are so severe a death sentence would likely be reversed after years of appeals and would not bring closure to the case, Kane County Judge Patricia Piper Golden said. Mitchell, 41, was found guilty but mentally ill Nov. 17, 2004, in the death of Lynn Weis, who was found March 17, 2003, in her farmhouse apartment in the River Valley Memorial Gardens Cemetery off Route 31. The 32-year-old North Dakota native was stabbed more than 80 times and left to die in the burning apartment, which was torched to hide the killing. Her car and credit cards were stolen. "The nature and number of injuries were more than would kill any person and grossly more than would be necessary for an assailant to rob and take their property," Golden said. Mitchell, a former security guard in Chicago whose last known address was in Merrillville, Ind., did not react to the sentence, which requires her to undergo mental health treatment in prison. Mitchell's mother, Octavia, and Weis father, Frank, shook hands outside Goldens courtroom after the roughly 30-minute sentencing, apologizing and wishing each other well. Doug Weis, Lynn's brother, said the family was satisfied with the outcome and relieved a painful ordeal had ended. "Justice is being served," he said. "Anyway you look at it, shes getting her punishment." Mitchell's attorney, Public Defender David Kliment, said there are plans to file an appeal. Kliment, who had argued that Mitchell needed to be confined in a hospital, not prison, questioned whether she will get the treatment she needs. "It's not a mental hospital," Kliment said. "I imagine they'll do enough to make her less of a threat while shes there." Several experts have said that Mitchell suffers from delusions, making her believe she is the target of a conspiracy orchestrated by a "multi-cultural hate group" bent on ruining her life. At her bench trial, Mitchell said she thought Weis was a member of the conspiracy, but it is still unclear if the 2 women had even met. Mitchell also was sentenced to 65 consecutive years for arson, home invasion and other lesser offenses in the killing. Prosecutors still maintain the brutal nature of the crime demanded the death penalty but also indicated they were satisfied with the sentence. "She's never going to get out," Special Assistant State's Attorney Bob Berlin said. "We know she's never going to do this to anyone else." ************************* Jury may hear - "evil" ----- State's high court rules prosecutors can describe crime as such Prosecutors can call a defendant's actions "cold-blooded" or "heartless," but is it acceptable to label them out-and-out "evil?" Yes, according to the Illinois Supreme Court. The court ruled Thursday that prosecutors can use the word to describe a defendant's actions - but not to describe the defendant. The court's ruling involves Marcel Nicholas, a Chicago resident who confessed to shooting his mother four times and leaving her to die in the street. In his closing statement, the prosecutor said Nicholas took a nap after the shooting. "All that shooting and killing will tire a guy out. Pure evil," the prosecutor said. He said that when police told Nicholas his mother was dead, his only concern was that he had no way of getting to work and no one to braid his hair. "And it was that evil, that cold reaction, that led to his capture," said the prosecutor, who is not identified in court documents. Nicholas was convicted and sentenced to 35 years. He appealed, arguing among other things that the closing statement was inflammatory. "Obviously, prosecutors are not supposed to inflame the passions of the jury against the defendant. The jury is there to decide the facts, and calling the defendant names doesn't help them with that," said Douglas Hoff, an assistant appellate defender who handled the case. The Supreme Court has warned prosecutors against calling defendants evil or describing the jury's decision as a choice between good and evil. "But a prosecutor may comment unfavorably on the evil effects of the crime ... when such argument is based upon competent and pertinent evidence," Justice Thomas Fitzgerald wrote for the court. (source for both: The Daily Herald)
