Dec. 15 NEW JERSEY: New Jersey Senate Passes Bill to Suspend Executions; Bipartisan Vote is Part of Growing National Trend Away from the Death Penalty The New Jersey Senate voted 30-6 today to suspend all executions in the state and examine flaws in the death penalty system. The bill now moves to the Assembly for a scheduled January vote, where it is expected to pass. Once the bill becomes law, New Jersey will become the 1st state to legislatively mandate a suspension of executions. Illinois and Maryland have both imposed gubernatorial moratoria. "The New Jersey Senate joins the growing list of Americans who recognize that the death penalty simply does not work," said Shari Silberstein, co-director of the Quixote Center. "Any thorough examination will reveal that system fails on all counts. It risks executing the innocent, is unfairly applied, fails victims and law enforcement, and wastes millions of taxpayer dollars." Last month a new report by New Jersey Policy Perspective found that since 1982, New Jersey's death penalty has cost taxpayers over a quarter billion dollars more than a system where life without parole was the maximum sentence. Similar studies in other states have also found that the death penalty is significantly more expensive than a system without capital punishment. New Jersey's action comes amidst a growing chorus of concern about the death penalty across the country. Yesterday, Virginia Governor and likely presidential candidate Mark Warner (D) ordered the review of 660 boxes of evidence after a DNA review of 31 cases exonerated 2 men wrongfully convicted of rape. Several weeks earlier, Warner commuted a death sentence after DNA evidence in the case was destroyed. Warner, a death penalty supporter who has carried out 11 executions, admitted that sometimes the normal procedures of the courts are not enough to ensure fairness in the judicial system. Texas prosecutors and Missouri prosecutors have recently reopened cases after evidence revealed that those states might have executed innocent men. Voices including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Alabama's largest newspaper, and the President of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention have expressed new concerns about capital punishment. Legislatures in California and North Carolina have both commissioned studies of the death penalty, and earlier this year, the New Mexico House of Representatives voted to abolish the death penalty altogether. "Americans are tired of wasting resources on programs that don't work. Our country is recognizing more and more that we are better off without the death penalty," Silberstein said. "New Jersey's problems are not unique. In many states, taxpayers are ready to close the door on this wasteful experiment. Elsewhere, states are stepping back, asking questions, and making changes. The death penalty is on its way out." The Quixote Center is a national organization founded in 1976. The Center's Equal Justice USA program pioneered the national grassroots movement for a moratorium on executions in 1997. Nationwide, over 4,000 national and local groups, businesses, and faith communities have called for a halt to executions, including 144 local governments. (For a complete listing, call 301-699-0042 or see the National Tally at _http://www.ejusa.org_ ) (source: US Newswire) OHIO: Elkins expected to leave prison today as prosecutor files to clear him Clarence Elkins is expected to be released from prison today after prosecutors conceded his innocence and directed their attention to a convicted rapist. Elkins, 42, and incarcerated since the day his mother-in-law was brutally slain in her Barberton home in June 1998, is expected to walk out of the Mansfield Correctional Institution by 5 p.m. His wife, Melinda, who has led a personal crusade to win her husband's freedom and find her mother's real killer, along with his defense lawyers, Jana DeLoach and Mark Godsey, are currently waiting for prison officials to process Elkins' release. He is expected to return to his Stark County home tonight. Officials say he will undoubtedly collect at least $700,000 in compensation for the years he spent in prison for crimes he did not commit. Elkins received word during a phone call this morning from his wife and said: "Praise God." "We're on Cloud Nine, we're bouncing off the walls," DeLoach said in a phone interview while en route to the prison today. "For this to drag on for so long and then be over so quickly, it's amazing." Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh, whose office had resisted Elkins' release despite exonerating DNA evidence, today filed motions dismissing the case against him. The motion was approved by Common Pleas Judge Judy Hunter, who signed an order for Elkins' release from prison. At a press conference, Walsh apologized to the Elkins family while defending her office's stance in the case and announcing the focus on a new suspect. Walsh said an investigation by her office and Barberton police showed that Elkins is innocent and that Earl Gene Mann is now the leading suspect. Mann, 32, was never a suspect in the case until the Elkins defense team made him one following his rape convictions in 2001. Mann and Elkins coincidentally shared a prison pod, and one day Elkins picked up Mann's cigarette butt and sent it off to his lawyers. The butt was tested for DNA and compared to crime scene evidence. The tests could not exclude Mann as a source of DNA at the crime scene. The defense team DNA tests were paid for with money donated by people around the world who learned about the case through the media. Elkins went on trial in 1999 facing the death penalty for the murder of Johnson and the rape of his 6-year-old niece, who witnessed the murder. The girl later recanted her identification of Elkins. Mann lived two doors away from Judith Johnson's home and has told investigators he was inside her home the day she was murdered, Walsh said. In addition, Mann has taken and failed "miserably" 5 polygraph tests in the past 2 weeks regarding the murder, Walsh said. Although those test results are inadmissible in court, Walsh said post-test interviews given by Mann can be used and some of his statements appear to be incriminating. In addition, Walsh said three pieces of DNA evidence now link Mann to the crime scene. She said the results are not full-blown DNA matches with astronomical numbers in the millions or billions indicating Mann is the source. Rather, she said, the odds that someone other than Mann left a male hair found at the crime scene is about one in 4,000. In addition, the odds that male DNA found on the murder victim and on the girl belongs to someone other than Mann are less than 1 in 1,000. Walsh called Mann a violent and "very strange" individual after viewing about 10 hours of tapes of his interviews with police. Mann, in prison for raping 3 girls, is not due to be released until 2009, she said. He has not been charged in the Johnson murder and Walsh would not say when the investigation will be given to a grand jury for consideration of an indictment. Tonia Braziel, who lived on and off with Mann, is a "person of special interest" in the case, according to Chief Prosecutor Mary Ann Kovach. She would not say if Braziel was taken into custody or charged. Elkins' niece went to Braziel's home immediately after waking up from being raped and beaten. Braziel testified as a prosecution witness at Elkins' trial. Instead of taking the girl inside or calling police, Braziel made the girl wait outside. She then drove the girl to her home blocks away. Elkins' defense attorneys believe Braziel helped convince the girl that the intruder was her uncle. Prosecutors today said that Mann and Elkins bear a strong resemblance. Braziel was convicted of child endangering as co-defendant in Mann's rape case. Walsh said she expects Elkins to be called as a witness at a trial if and when Mann is indicted. She also said Elkins' niece will be asked to testify. (source: Akron Beacon Journal) COLORADO: Death penalty ruled out in Aurora park slaying In Centennial, an accused killer will be spared the death penalty in a July 4, 2004, shooting that killed 1 man and left 2 others injured, a prosecutor announced this morning. Arapahoe County Chief Deputy District Attorney John Hower told a courtroom today that there wasnt enough cause to seek the states harshest punishment for Robert Ray, 20, who is charged as the gunman in the shooting at Auroras Lowry Park that killed Gregory Vann, 20, and injured Vanns brother, Elvin Bell and friend Javad Marshall-Fields. His trial was set to begin on June 27, but a week before testimony was supposed to begin, key witness Marshall-Fields was shot to death with his fiance, Viviane Wolfe. Ray's new trial is set for March 13. He faces the possibility of life in prison without parole, if convicted. (source: Rocky Mountain News) USA: A Tale of Two Executions The many groups that coalesced to protest the execution of Tookie Williams did nothing for contract killer John Nixon. One day after notorious gang leader and vicious killer Tookie Williams was executed in California -- despite weeks of very vocal, vociferous, protests by Hollywood stars, political and civil rights leaders -- another man was executed in Mississippi. John B. Nixon, Sr. was 77 years old when he was executed December 14, 2005. He was the oldest man to be executed since the death penalty was reestablished in 1976 and the oldest to be executed since 1916. Unlike the Tookie Williams execution, there were no protests about this execution. There were no claims about discrimination when imposing the death penalty involving John Nixon. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton did not travel to Mississippi to meet with the condemned. Former actor Mike Farrell did not fly to Mississippi to appear in front of the prison on TV and rant about the inequities of this particular case or of the criminal justice system in general. Fox News Channel and Air America host Alan Colmes did not say Nixon might be innocent because there was no DNA evidence. One has to wonder why this execution went ignored. After all, there were more circumstances involved with this case than with Williams that may have provided a reason for commuting the sentence to life. Nixon was convicted of the 1985 murder for hire of a Mississippi woman. The womans ex-husband hired him. He shot and wounded the womans current husband before killing the woman as he was contracted to do. The man who hired him only received a life sentence (Nixon was sentenced in 1986). Nixon made every possible appeal. All were rejected and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour did not grant clemency. Many differences between the two cases would lend themselves for clemency for Nixon as opposed to Tookie Williams.<>P> Nixon only murdered one person, one time. Williams murdered four people, two different times. Nixon was twenty years older than Tookie and spent less time on death row. Nixon was a former auto mechanic who volunteered for service in the Navy during World War II and was honorably discharged. Tookie was the founder and leader of a murderous gang. Unlike Tookie, Nixon was diagnosed with a mental disorder. Unlike Tookie, Nixon saved the lives of other people. So there were a great many reasons to spare Nixon. Yet the only protests made about executing him was a simple statement from the website of the National Coalition Against the Death Penalty and something from a Canadian anti-death penalty group. Other than that, there were some news reports -- not much though. Contrast that with the showering of media stories, TV programs, websites, and radio shows all about Tookie Williams. He even had a movie made about him. John Nixon had no savejohnnixon.org, website going for him, like there was a savetookie.org. There were no articles in the Revolutionary Worker Online for Nixon as there were for Williams. Nothing on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, or anyplace else for Nixon as there was for Williams. Unlike the Tookie Williams execution, there were no interviews with college professors offering their years-long studies indicating that the administration of capital punishment in the US is discriminatory. When it came to John Nixon academicians, lawyers groups, civil rights groups, and anti-death penalty groups were all MIA. There were no witnesses when John Nixon was executed chanting: "The State of Mississippi has killed an innocent man," as there was when Tookie was killed. Europeans were not outraged by Nixons execution as they were about Williams. Not one Catholic Bishop made a public statement about the execution of John Nixon. Yet, they were very outspoken about Williams execution. Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, N.Y., the chairperson of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Domestic Policy, wrote a letter to California Governor Schwarzenegger requesting Williams not be executed. Bishop DiMarzio did not write anything to Governor Barbour. The NAACP said nothing. The Death Penalty Information Center said nothing. Amnesty International said nothing. They were all there for Tookie. They went AWOL for Nixon. Why though? This is the real question. Why not protest the Nixon execution? This is the mystery. As already stated the differences between the Nixon and Williams cases lent themselves to Nixon being more worthy of commutation than Williams. Yet, no sound was made to save him. However, there was another difference between Williams and Nixon. One that may explain why so many groups coalesced to protest the execution of Tookie Williams and not John Nixon. A difference other than Williams history of violence, his history of crime as opposed to Nixons history of working for a living. A difference other than Williams creation of an organized crime group and Nixons military service. Nixon was white. Tookie was black. Maybe that explains the reason why the silence was deafening when John Nixon was executed and a din of protests for Williams. Could it be that the protests about the Tookie Williams execution were just another example of racial exploitation by liberals? Probably. (source: Column; A former police officer, Michael Tremoglie's work has appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Human Events, FrontPage Magazine, and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He is the author of a novel, Sense of Duty----IntellectualConservative)
