Dec. 13 TEXAS: Advocates say Texas needs innocence panel 53 years after he was executed for murder in England, George Kelly's name was cleared in 2003 after an independent commission reviewed his case and referred it back to the courts. There is no such commission to consider the case of Ruben Cantu. Cantu, of San Antonio, was condemned primarily on the account of an eyewitness who recently recanted. Cantu was executed in 1993. The only course of action now is for the local district attorney whose office originally prosecuted the case to reinvestigate it. To state Sen. Rodney Ellis, that is not good enough. The Houston Democrat repeatedly has proposed creating a so-called innocence commission, but the idea has flopped in the Texas Legislature. Ellis envisions something similar to the National Transportation Safety Board, an independent federal agency that investigates plane crashes. "For the public to have confidence in the criminal justice system, it's not enough for the office where the problem may have come out of to review it," Ellis said. Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed disagrees. "We already have a system," she said, contending that district attorneys' offices are best-equipped to re-examine any such case because they are the ones with investigative and subpoena powers. She sees no conflict of interest. "None of my people were involved in this case," Reed said. "We're having to start from square one looking at the case." It is a case that is 21 years old. In 1984, Cantu, then 17, became a suspect in the robbery and fatal shooting of Pedro Gomez, 25, and the shooting of his friend, Juan Moreno, 19. Moreno was shot nine times but survived. Twice, San Antonio police showed Moreno, then an undocumented immigrant, Cantu's picture as part of a photo lineup, and he did not select anyone. But the third time, he picked Cantu. Recently, Moreno recanted, saying he had felt pressured by investigators, according to the Houston Chronicle. A convicted accomplice has signed a sworn statement saying Cantu wasn't involved, and another man told the Chronicle that Cantu was in Waco at the time. Reed said her office is looking into that possible alibi and whether to prosecute Moreno. "Is he lying today, or was he lying yesterday?" she said. If Moreno in fact was lying at trial, Reed said, "it was based on that - that felony of perjury - that this man was executed." Reed has looked at Cantu's case before, at least briefly. As a state trial judge in the late 1980s, she was among several jurists who rejected his appeal. She also set an execution date for him. There have been plenty of exonerations in capital murder cases - 122, according to one tally by the Death Penalty Information Center - but those exonerations involved inmates who still were alive. Cases such as Cantu's are rare, but not unprecedented. Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan law professor, recently led a probe into a Missouri death-penalty case and concluded an innocent man had been executed. As a result, St. Louis' circuit attorney's office has begun re-examining the 1980 murder for which Larry Griffin was put to death. The top prosecutor, Jennifer Joyce, was not in office at the time. "We were very happy at her response," Gross said. "One of the reasons I've been interested in studying this (is) it is astonishing to me how little we do in response to cases of proven false conviction, and now perhaps proven false execution." Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law's Innocence Project, said while prosecutors should play a role in re-examining questionable cases, they shouldn't have the last word. "You need an independent body for credibility with the public," Scheck said. "But also, it's a different kind of inquiry. You may not have anybody to prosecute, but everybody would want a report issued, saying to what degree of certainty can we say an innocent person was executed." Any "innocence commission," in Scheck's view, should include prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges a group that would be respected by the public. No such body exactly like that exists in the United States, Scheck said. In Illinois, then-Gov. George Ryan halted executions and appointed a commission of experts in 2000 to suggest reforms after 13 condemned inmates were exonerated. Connecticut and North Carolina have commissions designed to determine what went wrong in cases in which the courts already declared a wrongful conviction. That's different from a commission to determine wrongful convictions. "There is no legal procedure for reviewing a case after an execution is done because the party's dead," said William Allison, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham is another Texas case that some say is overdue for its own re-examination. After Willingham, of Corsicana, was executed for a 1992 fire that killed his three baby daughters, the Chicago Tribune published a report casting doubt on his guilt, citing scientific advances in arson evidence. The current district attorney there, Steve Keathley, said Monday he was interviewed for the December 2004 Tribune article but never saw the published work. The Tribune had consulted four fire experts who found problems with the original investigation, which was conducted before Keathley took office. The scientific advances cited in the article were a factor in last year's exoneration of another condemned Texas inmate, Ernest Willis. Keathley said no one contacted him after the Tribune report was published to urge him to reinvestigate the case. He last reviewed the Willingham case shortly before the execution, he said, when his office was contacted regarding a last-minute appeal. Keathley was not swayed by a report from a renowned fire expert named Gerald Hurst, one of the four later consulted by the Tribune. Scheck holds up this case as an example of why an independent innocence commission is needed. Likeminded others are calling on a new committee created by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to take up such reviews. "Given the seriousness of these questions, I think it would be most appropriate for some arm of the government to look at those questions," said Steve Hall of StandDown Texas, a group seeking a moratorium on executions. But the governor's office maintains the Criminal Justice Advisory Council is charged with looking at the system, not individual cases. Sen. Ellis, a member of the council, understands the concern. "You can certainly make a compelling point that no one can afford to go back and review every case where someone says they're innocent," Ellis said. But "there has to be some way to review at least a handful of cases periodically." Allison said there is a great danger that people will just forget about cases like Cantu's. Reed said her top deputies are investigating and that, one way or another, she will make a final determination, which she expects to take months. (source: San Antonio Express-News) MARYLAND: Mall Shooter Accepts Plea Deal, Death Penalty Removed An Essex man has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for February's fatal shooting in the parking garage of the Towson Town Center. John Kennedy accepted a plea agreement on Tuesday on one count of 1st-degree felony murder in the slaying of private school educator William Bassett. Under the plea deal, Kennedy will not be eligible for parole. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop plans to seek the death penalty. "There's no appeal. This case is not going to be overturned. ... This plea that he offered into was something that we felt we need to take," prosecutor Steve Bailey said. "John Kennedy will spend the rest of his life in prison, and he will die in prison." Kennedy was 1 of 2 men arrested after the saying. Javon Clark, 19, of Middle River, was sentenced in October to 20 years in prison on an attempted robbery charge in the case. The jury at Clark's September trial acquitted him of 1st-degree murder. Clark testified at his trial that he and Kennedy drove around that evening looking for someone to rob. The shooting led to a new law requiring enhanced security measures at county shopping areas. This past weekend, shoppers at the Towson Town Center reported seeing a man with a gun in the garage. Police say the man dropped the weapon and ran from the garage. WBAL-TV 11 News reporter John Sherman reported the victim's widow, Susan Bassett, called the outcome a tragedy for 2 families, the Bassetts and the Kennedys. "This resolution of the case is in the best interest of my family, myself and my children," Susan Bassett said. Susan Bassett also said the murder affected a whole community for not feeling safe in a parking lot while shopping. Kennedy's family left the courthouse without comment. (source: WBAL) USA: Current death sentence doesnt make sense My fellow columnist D. Allan Kerr struck a nerve with his article last week regarding the recent call for a stay of execution for Stan "Tookie" Williams. Kerrs essay in favor of Williams scheduled execution resonated with readers across the country, and inspired dozens of letters, both in challenge and in support. One of the most frustrating things I experience as an opinion writer is letters of agreement from people who prove themselves ignorant over the course of their letter. Kerr was showered with fools applause for his opinion, alongside a precious few well-reasoned endorsements. He was likewise taken to task both well and poorly. My opinion on the matter will in all likelihood be moot by the time it is published, as Tookies lethal injection is scheduled for Tuesday morning, which is about when this column usually posts. It is unlikely that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will intercede, and so my personal assessment will be theoretical only. Let me say quickly here that Kerrs sarcastic reference to this case being left to Schwarzeneggers "Solomonic wisdom" was a cheap shot at a pretty accomplished fellow. What other governor would merit the call? John Lynch? John Baldacci? Jeb Bush? The 2 questions begged by this impending execution are Tookies case in particular and the general issue of the death penalty in America. In a societal risk/benefit analysis of Tookies case, it is hard to argue against the notion that Tookie is worth more alive than he is dead. His writing, filmmaking, and oratory on a life in crime have found a youth audience, and that audience is listening. Kids at risk dont want to hear any Nancy Reagan-style "Just say no" bullshit, and they shut down when they get a first whiff of it. Tookie is that rare articulate voice that also carries irreproachable street credibility. The Kerr piece claims that a stay of execution in this case would be an incentive for gang-related crime. I don't think so. No Compton crackhead is going to ruminate over Tookie, dead or alive, in the seconds before he blows away his neighbor for having sold two bags of heroin on the wrong block. When you consider the families of his victims, the death penalty starts to make some conceptual sense, but not as it is currently applied. I believe that the death penalty, if administered at all in this country, should be barbaric. Had relatives of his victims been permitted to beat him to death with chains and baseball bats within minutes of his sentencing, then Id be all for the death penalty. There would be some palpable vengeance, as well as some component of deterrent. The psychology of death penalty advocacy is complex and ancient. The phrase, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" dates to the Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon from 1792 to 1750 BC, a time when reconstructive dental surgery was in its infancy. Eye removal remains a medically irreversible punishment. The phrase is often incorrectly attributed to the Bible, a document more derivative than its readers ever care to admit. In fact, the various authors of the Bible were so fond of the phrase that it appears in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Exodus and the book of Matthew. Naturally, Hammurabi is not credited in the sacred text. The logical extreme of this notion regarding eyes and teeth is the death penalty, which has undergone considerable revision since Hammurabi. Means of execution in Hammurabis day included stoning, crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive, and impalement, but since that time, mankind seems to have gradually backed away from what I consider to be the golden age of execution. Burning someone alive is terribly painful, as is stoning, especially with feeble throwers, a process that could take hours. Hanging was the 10th-century British alternative to the inhumanity of earlier methods, and guillotine was the stylish French solution of the 18th and 19th century. The mere fact of mankind edging away from execution at its most brutal indicates to me a visceral discomfort with the concept at its core. I am a staunch opponent of the death penalty as it is currently administered in this country for several reasons, one of which is time. The requisite appeals process associated with the death penalty make it financially disadvantageous to the state relative to life imprisonment, and also removes any deterrent factor. The average gestation period between conviction and execution in this country is 10 years. Americas discomfort with capital punishment has resulted in lethal injection as its preferred means of dispensation. Lethal injection is a more complex process than one might think, and rather coddling of its recipient. It is a cocktail of three compounds; the first injection is an anesthetic, five grams of sodium pentathlon, in itself a potentially lethal dose. Sodium pentathlon reaches effective clinical concentrations in the brain within 30 seconds. In other words, in half a minute the state could burn you at the stake Hammurabi-style and you wouldn't feel a thing. A saline solution then flushes the intravenous line, and a dose of pancuronium bromide is introduced, an agent that paralyzes the diaphragm and lungs, causing the condemned to stop breathing. A saline solution flushes the intravenous line again because we all know how annoying it is to get your pancuronium bromide mixed in with your potassium chloride, the next and final toxin. Potassium chloride in the quantities administered causes cardiac arrest. This just doesnt cut it. A fine sodium pentathlon buzz is the last sensation a killer experiences on his way out, and that hardly seems fair. Impalement, stoning, hanging, guillotine, firing squad, maybe. Lethal injection, no way. It strikes me as a case of a society not quite having the courage of its convictions. Means aside, when making this argument I also like to compare Charlie Manson to Tim McVeigh. I derive far more satisfaction watching Charlie Manson devolve into a pathetic wretch than I do having McVeighs unrepentant stoic face etched forever into the nations psyche. It might have been better to watch his hair turn gray across the decades, in stark contrast to an orange jumpsuit, especially if there was no videotaped record of his slow and excruciating impalement. Also, in order for a state to endorse the death penalty, it should presume the fact that some percentage of innocent people will be put to death. That is a simple death penalty fact. Anyone who is unwilling to put innocent people to death should not espouse the death penalty. Its part of the deal. I oppose the death penalty as it is now administered, but not because of the 1 or 2 out of every 100 condemned prisoners that will inevitably be innocent of the specific crime. That is what I would call acceptable collateral damage. The reasons I oppose it is that its too expensive, it takes too long, and it is too antiseptic as it is currently administered. Again, a return to impalement, stoning, or a poorly maintained electric chair might be worth considering. As to the smaller question of Tookie Williams, its too bad that his utility will be wasted for the sake of promised follow through. Not being able to view the case as fluid rather than static leaves us hamstrung as a society, and armed with one less weapon in the battle against gang violence. (source: Chris Elliott, Seacoast Online) TENNESSEE: Supreme court denies Thompson's stay of execution The state Supreme Court denied a motion for a stay of execution for a death row inmate who already has lost a series of appeals in federal courts. In an order released Tuesday, the court found that Gregory Thompson, convicted of murder in 1985, has not shown a substantial change in his mental health that would restrict the state from execution. Attorneys for Thompson filed a motion seeking a stay in September after the federal Supreme Court ruled in July that a lower court improperly reopened Thompson's case. The ruling allowed the state to set a new execution date of Feb. 7, 2006. The stay of execution motion claimed that there had been a change in Thompson's mental health since the last time he appeared before court. The state court also denied two other motions to keep his medical records private and protect them from inspection by the state attorney general. Thompson was convicted of killing Brenda Blanton Lane, a 28-year-old former newspaper reporter, with a rusty knife after abducting her from a Shelbyville Wal-Mart parking lot. Justice Adolpho A. Birch Jr. dissented in the 4-1 ruling. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Moratorium On California Executions? ---- Another Clemency Petition Filed Tuesday For Tookie Williams, 25 years of appeals are over, but the justice system in California still has a crowded death row and each inmate seems to have different reasons why he should be spared. Another clemency petition was delivered to the Governor's office Tuesday before the 5:00 p.m. deadline. This one does not ask to consider redemption like in the Stanley Tookie Williams case. Instead, it asks for sympathy. Attorneys for Clearance Ray Allen are asking Governor Schwarzenegger to spare the murderer's life because of his age and deteriorating health. Allen is the oldest man on death row and turns 76 the day before his January 17th execution. The Native American is also legally blind and confined to a wheelchair. Michael Satris, Allen's clemency attorney: "Leading him to the execution chamber is just a ghoulish idea that does not present California in any kind of civilized light." Allen was in jail in 1980 when he sent a parolee to a rural market in Fresno County to kill 3 witnesses who testified against him. Jack Abbott, eyewitness: "Those kids never got to see adulthood." He may be the first in a string of executions at San Quentin next year. Todd Slosek, California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation: "We have a lot of inmates that are approaching the exhaustion of their appeals. And at this point in time, there might be three or four in addition to that, on the calendar year of '06, but that's entirely up to the appeals process." That's a sharp jump for a state that has put to death just 12 people in the past 13 years. While considering the fate of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the Governor noted deciding clemency is not easy. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, (R) California (last week): "They're all very difficult decisions to make. That's just part of being Governor." Next month the Legislature is expected to start debating a bill to put a moratorium on executions until 2009. That's a year after a state commission issues its report on the flaws of capital punishment in California. Assm. Sally Lieber, (D) Mountain View: "We can't guarantee that we don't have innocent people who have been put to death in California for will be." Next year's string of executions are likely to further heat up the death penalty debate. Dean Johnson, ABC7 legal analyst: "There is substantial body of scholarship that would indicate that in California, we have the same problems with the death penalty that Illinois had. Of course, that led to the commutation of over 170 death penalty sentences." Former Illinois Governor George Ryan, a Republican, commuted those sentences 3 years ago, just days before leaving office, saying their capitol system was haunted by mistake that put innocent men to death. (source: KGO News) *************** Bishops sought Schwarzenegger clemency for death row inmate It has been revealed that the US bishops joined numerous human rights organisations and celebrities last week in asking California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute Stanley Tookie Williams' death sentence. However, Schwarzenegger could not be persuaded and Williams was executed early Tuesday morning local time, 25 years after he was convicted of murdering 4 people. Catholic News Agency reports that the head of the US Bishops' Domestic Policy Committee, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, in solidarity with the Catholic Bishops of California, asked the governor to grant Williams clemency in a letter on Friday. "I am writing to urge that you exercise your power of clemency to spare the life of Mr Stanley "Tookie" Williams," wrote Bishop DiMarzio. "It is not my intent in any way to diminish the responsibility of those who have committed terrible crimes; however, this execution can only compound the violence that already exists in our society." He referred to both John Paul II's Gospel of Life and the US bishops' recent pastoral statement on the death penalty, titled "The Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death." The pastoral statement, which accompanied Bishop DiMarzio's letter, affirms the teaching of the Catechism with regard to the death penalty and states that American society has the means to defend itself "without resorting to the use of the death penalty and should therefore restrict itself to other non-lethal means." "Such non-violent measures can give the offender time to repent for his or her crime and allow the possibility of receiving God's grace," Bishop DiMarzio wrote. (source: Catholic News Agency)
