Dec. 9
TEXAS:
Former DA Millsap now rejects capital punishment
A former San Antonio district attorney who 5 years ago called himself a
"lifelong supporter of the death penalty" now opposes it.
Sam Millsap also must live with the knowledge that a man whom he
prosecuted in a capital case likely was innocent, although he was
executed.
In 2000, Millsap, writing in the Express-News, called for a moratorium on
the death penalty in Texas.
In that commentary, he expressed confidence that "every person sentenced
to die while I was district attorney was guilty of the crime for which he
was convicted."
However, he said at the time, he no longer was convinced that the state's
legal system could guarantee protection of the innocent in all capital
cases.
Fast-forward to 2005. An in-depth investigation by the Houston Chronicle
reached the conclusion that Ruben Cantu, who was sentenced to die while
Millsap was DA and later executed, most likely was innocent.
Those whose testimony condemned him have recanted.
What does Millsap think in the wake of that decision? He uses words such
as "painful," "horrible" and "haunting."
"I don't have the same level of confidence in that statement as I did in
2000," he said recently.
"It is troubling to me personally. No decision is more frightening than
seeking the death penalty. We owe ourselves certainty on it."
He had that degree of certainty in the 1980s when he was the district
attorney, "when I was in my 30s and knew everything."
Now, he says, "There is no way to have that kind of certainty."
He has seen injustices in the system other than Cantu.
"Cantu is just the one we're talking about now," he explained. "It's
painful for me because it was on my watch.
"It's horrible when you find out you participated in what ended up being a
bad result, especially when a death is involved."
Now Millsap unequivocally opposes the death penalty. That is not a result
of the Cantu case. He already had reached that conclusion, and this case
merely affirms the position.
Millsap said his wife helped him realize he had become an opponent of the
death penalty.
After reading his 2000 statement calling for a moratorium, she told him he
was merely parsing words - that he didn't have the courage to go the whole
way in opposing capital punishment.
"What I realized was that I was parsing words," he said.
Millsap finds it ironic that the Chronicle chose to focus on the Cantu
case from San Antonio.
"Houston is the capital of the world for executions. They convict more
people and execute more people than Iraq does - more than all other
communities in the United States put together," Millsap said.
"The irony that they chose to write about my case is haunting."
If Cantu was innocent, he said, that means the person who committed the
murder still is out there, and "the misconduct by police officers could be
addressed today."
But Millsap is quick to point out he doesn't want to second-guess those
now charged with the responsibility.
And no one who knows District Attorney Susan Reed thinks she will sit on
her heels on this one.
So far, she is choosing to focus on one of the victims in the crime that
led to Cantu's execution. Juan Moreno says that as a 19-year-old illegal
immigrant, he lied because he feared the police.
That appears a strange place to start, but let's see where she takes the
investigation.
Meanwhile, this could - and should - be the beginning of a reassessment of
the death penalty in Texas.
Realistically, the state needs a new governor for that to happen. But the
state needs a new governor for many other reasons as well.
Meanwhile, Millsap must fight his own battle - both publicly and privately
- on the issue.
At least he knows, without a doubt, where he stands.
(source: San Antonio Exress-News)
********************
Offer to solve 2 killings has catch---TV producer says convicted killer
willing to confess to 1980s slayings only if Perry waives death penalty
"Dateline NBC" producer Shane Bishop has a deal for Gov. Rick Perry:
Promise to waive the death penalty for an imprisoned Arkansas murderer,
and I'll help you solve two murders in the Fort Worth area in 1982 and
1983.
The unusual offer came in a Nov. 29 letter from the California-based
Bishop to Perry and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, offering to help solve three
cold murder cases in the two states if the chief executives would
"guarantee not to pursue the death penalty" against an Arkansas convict
serving life without parole for murder.
A copy of the letter was made public under the Texas Public Information
Act.
"He has admitted to me that he has committed a total of seven murders,"
Bishop wrote, insisting he is "convinced" that Michael Ronning killed
Annette Melia, 20, in Arlington in September 1982 and Melissa Jackson, 16,
who disappeared from a Grand Prairie apartment building in Aug. 12, 1983.
Melia's remains were found in 1985 by hunters outside Bedford. Jackson's
remains were found in 1986 about 800 yards from where Melia's body was
found, according to the letter.
"Why am I writing you to beg you take up this effort? Because it's the
right thing to do," Bishop wrote. "But I am certain Dateline NBC would
give substantial coverage to the solving of these three cold case murders
tied to a serial killer, and the essential roles played by the Governors
of Texas and Florida."
And why is the no-death penalty guarantee necessary?
Because Ronning "has made it clear to me" that he will not consider
talking with Texas investigators "without the signed guarantees from the
governors of Texas and Florida," Bishop explained in his letter. "These
guarantees are to solely take the issue of the death penalty off the
table," he noted.
Perry's response: It's not my call.
"It would be improper for the governor to try to direct an investigation
or determine a trial strategy on punishment," said Kathy Walt, Perry's
press secretary. "We are forwarding the letter to local authorities, the
(Department of Public Safety) and the Texas Rangers for further
investigation."
Bush's office had no immediate comment.
Contacted in California, Bishop, who said in his letter that he has been a
producer for "Dateline NBC" for 12 years, referred all questions to a
Jenny Tartikoff, an NBC spokes- woman in New York. Tartikoff said Thursday
night that Bishop wrote the letter on his own, not on behalf of "Dateline
NBC."
Ronning, now 48, could not be reached for comment at the Tucker prison
near Pine Bluff, Ark., where he is serving a life term without parole for
an Arkansas murder. An Arkansas Department of Correction spokesman and
several former attorneys for Ronning said they do not think he currently
has a lawyer.
Bedford Police Chief David Flory, who said he was chief of detectives in
the Fort Worth suburb at the time of the murders, said he supports a
waiver of the death penalty if it will draw a confession from Ronning.
Flory acknowledged that Ronning is a suspect in the unsolved Texas cases,
but said Bedford investigators so far have been unable to link him to the
crimes by more than circumstantial evidence.
"With that guarantee, we think we could get him to confess . . . and we
could clear these cases," he said. "Otherwise, we're never going to clear
them. I'd like to give the families some peace of mind.
"This guy's in prison for the rest of his life," Flory added. "What's
there to lose?"
Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Tim Curry, who received a copy
of the letter last week, was unavailable for comment. But Assistant
Criminal District Attorney Alan Levy said he has seen the letter and that
the matter is under investigation.
"It's not the governor's decision as to whether or not to waive the death
penalty it's the prosecutor's," Levy said. "It's an unusual letter . . .
We're checking to see whether the evidence is still here, and we'll be
talking with the investigators on the case."
Ronning was convicted in August 1986 of capital murder in the
abduction-stabbing death two years earlier of Diana Lynn Hanley, 19, of
Jonesboro, Ark. Hanley was reported missing from her home in January 1984,
and her body was found by a trapper 13 days later, buried beneath a a pile
of trash along a rural drainage ditch.
By 2001, investigators in Florida and Michigan obtained samples of
Ronning's DNA to try to link him with unsolved murders in those states.
Flory said that because only skeletal remains were found in the 2 Texas
cases, there was no DNA evidence available to trace.
In 1996, Bishop noted in his letter, then-Michigan Gov. John Engler signed
an agreement allowing Ronning to serve his remaining sentence in a
Michigan prison, if Ronning provided details on the unsolved slayings of
three young women in Battle Creek, Mich., in the early 1980s, while he was
living there.
In his letter, Bishop said Ronning passed a polygraph and "gave statements
in which he admitted committing the murders" in Michigan, but he was never
charged. Instead, prosecutors "labeled him a liar and sent back to serve
out the rest of his life sentence in Arkansas," Bishop wrote.
Another man, Thomas Cress, has been serving prison time in Michigan since
1985 for one of the slayings. The Michigan Supreme Court 2 years ago
overturned an appeal by Cress for a new trial, based in part on Ronning's
confession.
Joe Newman, a retired Battle Creek police captain who investigated and
helped identify Ronning as a suspect in the Michigan murder, said Thursday
he thinks the gubernatorial guarantee could work.
"Back when we talked to him, I remember he said, 'I wasn't going to do
anything in a state that had capital punishment because I don't want to
die'.
"Do I think he could clear those cases" in Texas? Newman said. "Yes, I
think he will."
In his letter, Bishop said he interviewed Ronning for a "Dateline NBC"
broadcast in 2002 and has since continued studying and documenting his
"movements, habits and deadly ways."
"For five years, I have written letters to Mr. Ronning, asking him to do
the right thing: to see the detectives, and to tell them the truth about
the murders in Florida and Texas," Bishop's letter states. "He has made it
clear to me that he will not even consider such meetings without signed
guarantees from the Governors of Texas and Florida."
Flory, too, said he thinks Ronning wants that as a condition of talking
with police about the unsolved cases.
"It would not be unethical or unusual to do this," Flory said of the
requested guarantee. "There are all kinds of deals done all the time to
solve crimes. There's no issue of public safety here, just clearing these
crimes . . . It's about doing the right thing."
Flory said he had asked state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, and Rep.
Todd Smith, R-Euless, to support Bishop's request to Perry. Neither
lawmaker could be reached for comment Thursday.
As for the suggestion by Bishop, in his letter, that Perry could benefit
from favorable publicity by supporting the request, Walt dismissed the
idea.
"That's an inappropriate suggestion," she said. "The focus of our office
is to see that this matter is properly investigated. It's not about any
publicity."
(source: Austin American-Statesman)
******************************
How to cook a cop lineup
Tim McCallum, a San Antonio certified public accountant, doesn't have any
trouble believing that police in 1984 pressured a 19-year-old Mexican
immigrant into identifying as a murderer Ruben Cantu, who was later
executed based on that testimony.
McCallum doesn't know anything more than what he's read in the paper -
that despite immigrant Juan Moreno's very different description of the man
who killed his friend Pedro Gomez and shot Moreno nine times during a
holdup, San Antonio police pressed him with photos of Cantu until he
identified him.
McCallum only knows what happened to him.
A few years before Moreno was held up, McCallum himself was the victim of
an armed robbery. His experience differed in 3 ways from Moreno's.
He wasn't shot. The police's behavior in "helping" him identify the
suspects was hilarious, with all the subtlety of Groucho Marx.
And in his case, McCallum says, they got the right robbers.
Hotel robbery
McCallum was a 21-year-old night manager at a La Quinta motel near the
airport in 1979. In addition to keeping the books, he handled the counter
for late-comers seeking rooms.
A couple came in late on a Saturday night and asked for a room. McCallum
told them he was booked, but he would check with a nearby La Quinta for
them.
While he was doing so, the man pulled out a gun and pointed it at him.
"I put my hands up in the air," McCallum recalled. "He said, 'Put your
hands down,' right as a car pulled up. As this other guy is walking in, he
tells me to remember the gun is pointed at me. The woman says if I mess
up, they'll kill me."
McCallum sent the newcomer to the nearby La Quinta.
After he gave the 2 all the money from the register, the man pushed him
into a closet.
"He tells me I better say it was a big black guy," McCallum said. The
couple were, in fact, white.
Taking no chances
After a respectable period of time, McCallum called the police.
"They asked me to describe the woman," he recalled. "I told them I didn't
know how to describe her. She was just the ugliest woman I'd ever seen in
my life. And I told them the man wore glasses.
"They caught them over in Houston. They were robbing La Quintas all over
the place. It was two brothers and their wives. One of the brothers had
been fired by La Quinta."
The lineup took place in a room at the jail. McCallum and a lawyer friend
he asked to come along were behind a 1-way mirror.
"The 1st thing they told me was that my guy wouldn't be wearing his
glasses because none of the other guys in the lineup wore glasses,"
McCallum said. "Then 5 or 6 guys walk in. I recognize mine immediately."
But the cop running the lineup wasn't taking any chances.
"He asked them one-by-one to turn toward the mirror," he said. "When my
guy turned, the policeman pointed to the pocket in his jump suit where his
glasses were peeking out."
Then it was the woman's turn. The officer told McCallum the women would be
in regular clothes.
"When they bring them in, it's 4 beauty queens and this girl," he said.
Beauty queens?
"Well, I don't mean to say they were Cindy Crawford, but they weren't
her," he said.
But again, the officer took no chances.
"He went up to her and said, 'ma'am,' and when she turned he said
'uuuuuugggggh!' Like she's so ugly," McCallum said.
He laughed as he said it. His normal chivalry was defeated by the fact
that she had scared him silly with her threat to kill him. He was pleased
when she, her husband and the other 2 pleaded guilty and were packed off
to prison.
"As I look back on life, I think it had a major impact on my outlook," he
said. "Here I was a victim, but I could see how the system could railroad
the wrong person."
(source: Houston Chronicle)
Ready to stop execution
Gov. Rick Perry should add the issue of a moratorium on executions to the
upcoming special session of the Legislature.
The Houston Chronicle investigation suggesting the state executed an
innocent person named Ruben Cantu should be treated as an emergency. There
may be another innocent person among the perhaps 30-35 executions that
could take place by the time the next regular session could enact a
moratorium in 2007.
There will not be enough time in a 30-day special session in the spring
for legislators to deal with all the issues that can lead to the execution
of an innocent person, but there will be ample time to enact a moratorium
through statute or by a constitutional amendment that could be voted on in
November. Legislators could also create a commission to study the
administration of the death penalty. Former FBI Director William Sessions
would be a good choice to lead such a commission.
A moratorium would be a temporary halt to executions. It would last long
enough for the special commission to do its job and for the Legislature to
act on its recommendations.
I am sure the results of a vote on an amendment to the constitution would
show the people of Texas are ready to stop executions until they can be
assured that innocent people are not at risk of execution.
Scott Cobb, president, Texas Moratorium Network
***********
Need state amendment
Evidence tells us now, more than a dozen years too late, that Ruben Cantu
was executed for a crime he didn't commit. Others have suffered the same
fate: Richard Jones, James Beathard, Odell Barnes, Gary Graham, Robert
Drew, David Wayne Spence, Frank McFarland, Anthony Ray Westley, David
Stoker, Davis Losada, Troy Farris, David Allen Castillo, Cameron Todd
Willingham and Leonel Herrera all had compelling evidence of innocence,
which was never heard by any court.
State and federal appeals courts simply rubber-stamp the original trial
courts' decisions. The justice system in Texas does not require appeals
hearings. Neither does it require a competent attorney or provide the
funding for one.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided in the case of Leonel Herrera that "the
states are not required by the Constitution - and federal judges are not
permitted by the habeas corpus statute - to afford any prisoner even the
most cursory hearing into newly discovered evidence, no matter how much
doubt it may cast on his guilt."
We need a constitutional amendment to prevent the execution of innocent
people.
Alison Dieter, Austin
(source for both: Letter to the Editor, San Antonio Express-News)
