Dec. 17 ARIZONA: Death-row inmate gets 20 years tacked on for kidnapping A Tucson man sentenced to death row last month was sentenced today to an additional, consecutive 20-year sentence for kidnapping. Pima County Superior Court Judge Howard Fell could have given Cody Martinez as little as seven years, but decided that the aggravating circumstances in the case outweighed any mitigating factors. Martinez, 23, was convicted in the 2003 shotgun slaying of Francisco Aguilar, 19, and sentenced to death by a Pima County jury Nov. 18. It was left up to Fell to decide what sentence was appropriate for Aguilar's kidnapping. According to prosecutors, Martinez decided on June 12, 2003, that he wanted to rob Aguilar of some drugs. Together with some friends, Martinez kidnapped Aguilar from a friend's home and drove him to Aguilar's apartment where he stole the drugs along with some other items. Members of the group then took Aguilar out to the desert where he was stabbed, beaten and shot to death. His body was then set on fire. Aguilar's defense attorneys unsuccessfully argued that another co- defendant was responsible for Aguilar's death. After Martinez's conviction, they argued that his life should be spared because the others involved in the case received far lesser sentences. They also said Martinez grew up in a highly dysfunctional family with a drug- addicted mother. During the hearing today, Martinez objected to a lengthy and consecutive sentence, saying his involvement in the kidnapping was "very, very slim." "I know I can't cuss, but I feel like it," Martinez said. "I feel like I got shafted during my whole trial, you know what I mean?" Fell reminded Martinez that death penalty cases are automatically appealed. Martinez responded by saying, "A lot of stuff went on during the trial that I didn't agree with and I wasn't in a position to speak up then." Martinez is Pima County's 25th death row inmate. (source: Arizona Daily Star) ILLINOIS: She'd lift ban on executions, Topinka says Staking out a tough law-and-order stance as she introduced her new running mate, Judy Baar Topinka pledged Thursday to lift Illinois' 5-year moratorium on executions if she is elected governor. The Republican candidate called the moratorium "a temporary condition" that she will end -- a position embraced by many in her party's conservative wing, including her choice for lieutenant governor, DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett. "Yes, I will lift the moratorium," Topinka said as she flew around the state to introduce Birkett as her running mate. "It's a temporary condition. It is not forever. It is not the law." In 2000, Republican Gov. George Ryan imposed a moratorium on executions and later commuted the death sentences of 156 prisoners after the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the murder convictions of 13 former death row inmates. 'It was political, it was wrong' After taking office, Gov. Blagojevich continued the moratorium -- a policy Topinka said she would quickly end. If the ban on executions had been in place earlier, even serial killers like John Wayne Gacy -- convicted of killing 33 people -- would have been spared, she said. "Stop and look at some of the folks who have been executed in this state, you know, like a John Wayne Gacy. I'm not going to stand and kind of defend a person of that nature," she said. Birkett, for his part, called Ryan's decision to impose a moratorium "an abuse of power." "It was political, it was wrong, and we need to move forward," said Birkett, a 3-term state's attorney. Topinka's stance on the issue, coupled with her partnership with Birkett, appear designed to elevate her law-and-order credentials with conservative voters who have been highly skeptical of her candidacy. She repeatedly cited Birkett's law enforcement background during stops in Chicago and Springfield, saying the 50-year-old Wheaton Republican is a strong choice to help her purge state government of corruption. "He's fought public corruption wherever he's found it, he didn't care who it was or what political party they came from," Topinka said of Birkett. "That makes him uniquely qualified to deal with the 1st mission of our new administration, which is cleaning up the mess and scandals that have rocked Rod Blagojevich's administration." Federal investigators have delivered 3 rounds of subpoenas to Blagojevich administration officials, reportedly focusing on hiring practices in several state departments. Blagojevich has pledged to cooperate with the federal probe. At the same time, Topinka defended her failed effort to write off $40 million in controversial, state-backed hotel loans, and predicted her office is in the clear from a federal inquiry 3 years ago into the possible misuse of her employees for campaigning on state time. No one was ever charged with any wrongdoing. "We have not heard a thing from them in 3 years, and to my knowledge, they haven't talked to any of our staff people, they've not [impaneled] a grand jury, they have not done anything, and I don't expect we're going to hear anything," Topinka said. (source: Chicago Sun-Times, Dec. 16) USA: Society should show mercy to criminals, as Jesus would I must respond to a letter regarding us bleeding hearts who do not condone capital punishment. The writer stated that it is not the job of society to show mercy. He said that remains the job of a higher power. I take it that he is a religious man. If so, I believe he is misguided. Jesus Christ sought out the sinners of the world to save them, not to execute them. He said we should forgive, not seek vengeance. He said not to judge men, but to help all the needy. This does not go hand in hand with capital punishment. That is man's solution. Funny how we celebrate the birth of a child every year, but turn a deaf ear to His words. Many who would fight to have the Ten Commandments hung on every judicial wall in the country forget about one important command. "Thou shalt not kill." That's a pretty straightforward command from that higher power. I don't go to church, but I follow the words of Christ as best as I can; and they do not lead me to an execution chamber. That is a path only man dares to tread. If the majority wants capital punishment, then so be it, but I think I'll stand with the greatest bleeding heart of all time, Jesus Christ. Joe Hartman, Townsend (source: Letter to the Editor, The (Del.) News Journal) ************************ We can't kill our way to justice For a nation that in the most recent election proved that if you called it "family values" you could make boys kissing more important than 21st-century imperialism and job outsourcing, this nation shows a remarkable lack of exactly those values. A few days ago, we watched as a man was executed for a crime he was convicted of committing more than two decades ago ["Debate continues over death, life of reformed gang leader," Dec. 14]. Stanley Williams was killed by lethal injection in California on Dec. 13. He has become famous for his change of heart from gang leader to anti-gang activist. So once more, this nation, which recently eclipsed its 1000th execution and which holds more people in prison and on death row than any other nation on Earth, has proved that it cannot escape barbarism. Once more, the country has proved incapable of discerning a difference between justice and vengeance. Apparently, we Americans have decided that the best way to prevent violence is to violently murder, and anyone who has watched an execution by either electric chair or lethal injection knows it is violent. Americans have forgotten the biblical resources brought up during the Terri Schiavo case saying "Thou shalt not kill," and decided to state loudly that murder is fine as long as you have a state politician's support. Jori Byrne-Diakun----Stafford (source: Letter to the Editor, The (Va.) Free Lance-Star) *********************** Needles or gas, bullets or gallows: Executions wrong It's nearly Christmas and I'm not getting much mail. Let's see if we can stir up a little. Let's begin by pointing out that two more men were executed this week in the United States, bringing to a little more than 1,000 the number of people put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Stan Tookie Williams, 51, took the syringe early Tuesday in California for four murders 26 years ago, and the next day, John B. Nixon Sr., 77, met a similar end in Mississippi for a 20-year-old killing. Both men went to their deaths insisting on their innocence. Williams' case earned wide attention because of claims the gang founder had been rehabilitated during his prison years and had worked extensively to prevent young people from joining gangs. A scan of the statistics shows that 22 of those executed in 32 states were under 18 when they were killed; 831 were dispatched by lethal injection, 152 electrocuted, 11 in a gas chamber, 3 by hanging and 2 by firing squad. Of those who died with a squirt, zap, hiss, thud or bang, more than 1/3 were black, and a few more than 1/3 of all executions took place in Texas. No matter the age, race, location, gender or crime that led to the executions, all were wrong, the act of a native human desire for revenge that is masked with the faux dignity of state-sponsored punishment. In a nation that labels itself Christian and touts, at least at election time, a desire to protect the unborn because those lives - real or potential, depending on one's view - are important, there is a contradiction. Either all life is important or else its worth is arbitrary, leading to determinations that no human should have the burden or right to make. The Old Testament is replete with the eye-for-an-eye style of justice that inspires so many. But often ignored is the divine sense of mercy-filled justice surrounding the Bible's "first recorded murder," when Cain, who killed his brother in a fit of jealousy, is spared by God and is sent instead to exile, marked with a protective sign lest anyone try to kill him (Genesis 4:15). When Jesus happened across a group of men about to legally kill a woman for adultery, he prevented her stoning. Indeed, for a figure who is the model for those who call themselves "Christian," Jesus' life was about loving, forgiving and mercy, even though his life ended with execution. Unlike the murders that send most people to death row (crimes usually occasioned by rage, malice, drugs, alcohol, outright craziness), executions by definition are premeditated, cold-blooded, even if carried out in the name of justice. The state's executions are the ultimate in cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. And, alas, those who die at the hands of the state are disproportionately poor and members of minorities. A state surely is right to defend itself against immediate international or even civil threats, but the death penalty is not that; it is the killing of a prisoner who could be dealt with by less harsh, life-respecting means. It is, in a gruesomely real sense, a mirroring of the very act it condemns. We the People, once upon a time, talked about absolute, Creator-endowed, inherent and inalienable rights, among them life itself, for which reason government should be instituted and to which it ought to dedicate itself. To boil it down: Though sanctioned by courts and preachers alike and historically a symbol of the way we handle killers, executions aren't particularly humane, Christian or American. (source: Marvin Read, The (Colo.) Pueblo Chieftain) ******************* Protest, don't create heroes Convicted contract killer John B. Nixon Sr. was executed without much fanfare Wednesday evening. No celebrities were present. There were no outbursts from witnesses, no threats of rioting, no national news cameras. A small group of protesters, mostly nuns and other committed death-penalty foes, huddled in their cars to escape a gloomy downpour outside the walls of the state prison in Parchman, Miss. Mr. Nixon, in short, was a hapless nobody compared with Stanley Tookie Williams, the all-star celebrity prisoner whose execution in California 42 hours earlier caused such an uproar. Unlike Mr. Williams, Mr. Nixon did not found an internationally famous criminal gang franchise, did not write children's books, was almost certainly never mentioned in the same sentence with the words "Nobel Peace Prize." At 77, Mr. Nixon was the oldest person to be executed in the United States in more than a century, but that was not sufficient to make him a cause celebre in the most glamorous ranks of the anti-capital punishment movement. Yet I suspect those quiet, anonymous protesters who mourned the passing of John B. Nixon did less damage to their cause than the movie stars and musicians and strident demonstrators who tried to save Mr. Williams. Simply put, trying to make heroes out of reprehensible killers is about the dumbest public relations tactic imaginable. It drowns out the dignified moral argument against state-sponsored execution. Instead, it focuses public attention on the fruitcake fringe that sees nobility in a man who could shotgun somebody to death and laugh about it. Mr. Nixon, like Mr. Williams, was a bad man who was convicted of an appallingly cruel crime. He was sentenced to death for the 1985 murder-for-hire of a woman named Virginia Tucker, whose ex-husband paid him $1,000 to do it. According to trial records, Mr. Nixon, accompanied by his two adult sons and a family friend, burst into the home of Mrs. Tucker and her new husband and said, "I brought y'all something!" Thomas Tucker tried to bargain, offering to pay Mr. Nixon to spare their lives. Instead, Mr. Nixon shot them both. Mrs. Tucker died; Mr. Tucker survived to identify her killer. It was a venal, vicious crime, made even more revolting by the assailant's apparent good humor. You could pretty much say the same of Mr. Williams, who killed 4 people during a 1979 robbery spree and reportedly bragged about the gurgling noises one of his victims made while dying. It's details like that that fuel my maddening ambivalence over the death penalty. I have philosophical and practical reservations about capital punishment, chiefly because it is arbitrary and irrevocable. As a matter of public safety, life imprisonment without parole accomplishes the same goal as execution. On an emotional level, though, I can't imagine feeling sympathy - much less admiration - for people who have committed these crimes. Yet the admiration shines through in a statement by actor Mike Farrell, president of the anti-death penalty group Death Penalty Focus, in which he called Mr. Williams "a force for good in our society and an example of hope for our misdirected youth." Beg your pardon? I like to think that even the most misdirected among our youth are aiming for more than to commit horrible crimes, then use their leisure years in prison to "repent." Even if it's genuine jailhouse repentance for the slaughter of innocent people, it does not rise to the level of an "example of hope." A better "example," in my book, would be somebody who has not, say, killed anybody. Those who lionized Stanley Williams are just as shortsighted and counterproductive as bloodthirsty hotheads who want to see public hangings on the courthouse square. Their arguments are long on emotional zeal, but bereft of logic. As with so many issues in our often-divided culture, I wish the debate over capital punishment was not dominated by shrieking extremists. So I don't mourn the passing of John B. Nixon, but I can respect those who did. At least they had the good sense not to turn him into a hero. (source: COlumn, Jacquielynn Floyd, Dallas Morning News) *************** Death penalty: Is support really waning? Despite growing signs of public worry that some innocents may be mistakenly sentenced to death, the failure of a celebrity-laden campaign to block California's execution Tuesday morning of Crips founder Stanley "Tookie" Williams reflected a national political landscape in which the public has yet to turn against capital punishment on moral grounds. The execution of Williams, who supporters said found redemption and turned into an anti-gang proselytizer in the 20-plus years since his conviction for four murders, came less than 2 weeks after North Carolina executed double-murderer Kenneth Boyd, marking the nation's 1,000th execution since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. And it occurred against a backdrop of indications that the national appetite for executions is on the wane. Williams was the 59th prisoner put to death this year, down from a high of 98 in 1999. Juries last year sentenced only 125 defendants to death, compared with more than 300 per year during the mid-1990s. Gallup polls this year show public support for the death penalty at 64 %, down from 80 % in a 1994 poll. But even death penalty opponents concede that those numbers indicate primarily practical concerns - public reaction to dozens of cases in which DNA has provided indisputable proof that individuals were wrongly convicted, questions about the competency of defense lawyers appointed to represent death-eligible defendants, and strong indications that capital sentences disproportionately are imposed on minorities. Williams, who centered his effort to get clemency from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his public appeal on redemption in prison rather than innocence, and on support from a celebrity crowd that included actors such as Mike Farrell and Jamie Foxx and rapper Snoop Dogg, was not well-positioned to benefit from those concerns. "There were complex and complicating factors," said David Elliot, communications director for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. ". . . It was a difficult case. But any time we get to have a conversation with the American public about the fairness of the death penalty, it helps us." "This was a very bad person for them to choose for their stand," said Michael Rushford, president of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a pro-death-penalty California group. "They had all the ingredients except the central part of it. Tookie was a terrible, remorseless murderer. I think they lost some traction. I don't think anyone's mind was changed on the death penalty, and some people in the middle may have said, 'This is really ridiculous.'" Capital punishment foes such as Elliot remain optimistic about the broader battle. While public support for making the death penalty available to punish murderers remains well over 60 %, he notes, other polls show that when given the option between execution and life without parole, barely 50 % of the public favors death. Texas, which leads the nation in executions, recently adopted a life-without-parole option, which could further shrink the number of executions. And there are also signs of political shifts. 2 states - California and North Carolina - have commissions studying the fairness of their death penalty schemes. In Virginia, which ranks second to Texas in executions since 1976, outgoing Gov. Mark Warner, a Democratic presidential contender, commuted a death sentence in late November, and an anti-death-penalty Democrat beat a Republican who supports it in the race to succeed Warner. "It's no longer the 3rd rail of American politics," Elliot said. Other observers, however, say opponents may be making less progress than they may think. Scott Keeter, a pollster at the Pew Research Center, says overall support today stands at the same level it did in the early 1950s. "The questions about fairness has raised questions in people's minds, but it still polls very well," he said. And Rushford says the reduction in death sentences reflects a dramatically reduced national murder rate, not skepticism about the death penalty. He says claims about innocents getting death sentences have been exaggerated, raising public concerns but not shaking underlying support. "The public doesn't want to give up on it," he said. (source: Newsday) ******************** Death of 'Tookie' calls for re-examination of values Mention the name of Stanley "Tookie" Williams in most black communities across America, and rarely will you get a null response. Say the name in most white communities, and all too often you will get a "Tookie who?" Stanley "Tookie" Williams, convicted murderer, creator of the Crips gang, found in prison, on death row and in death a notoriety that few others have. >From children in the Gaza Strip to those in East L.A., "Tookie's" presence has been felt. It is hoped that the peace that Williams could not find in life is now his in death. It is hoped that the thousands of victims, not only those directly impacted upon by Williams but those indirectly through the gangs that he spawned will also find peace. But this peace, I fear, is long in coming. Williams, abandoned by his father, without a mother, found himself preyed upon by his own community. Thugs would bet on children fighting, as one would upon dogs or roosters. He thus started a brotherhood of kids, street tough, who violently bonded together over blood, crime, and vengeance. Tookie is dead, and though he tried to undo the damage birthed through his own pain, the gangs survive him. How many more Tookies are out there, and how many are in our very towns? We know that gang violence, crime and presence are quite apparent throughout - even here in communities in Cincinnati and Hamilton. We know that the thug culture is more emulated among youths. This thug culture is not only evident among the poor - we can see their presence even on college campuses. We might further ask why it is that even among college students, the "gangster" or thug mentality and culture is perpetuated. The answers, I would venture to guess, might shock many. Simply put, we have failed to provide an adequate response to the purported fame, glamour and success offered by the "gangsta." The image of the conscientious college student is a nerd. The message that we consistently tell our youth is that hard work produces boredom. Fun, sex and money go to those who are willing to violate the laws. Only boredom comes from the mundane, tedious life of accomplishment. Why work hard when you can get all that matters - money - by being slick, quick or devious? The only way we can alter this is to change our views. It's one thing to say that we value education, hard work and diligence, it's another thing to show it. But the thugs and gangsters among us capture our actions, our media images, and our attention. So, Tookie who? Look at your children - do you see Tookie? (source: Opinion, Rodney D. Coates is a professor of sociology, gerontology and Black World Studies at Miami University of Ohio; Cincinnati Enquirer) ***************** Death-penalty dilemma never goes away The execution of mass murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams on Tuesday morning left me with the dilemma I've had about the death penalty for many years now. On the one hand, my old liberal bones creak and groan as they assume the usual posture. I know all the arguments against killing by the state. Just because some conscienceless thug murders someone - or, in Tookie's case, some 4 - what do we prove by lowering ourselves to his barbarous level and taking his life? And then there is the London pickpocket argument. Pickpockets had become so numerous and so skillful in London by the 18th century, it was made a capital crime, punishable by public hanging. The executions became hugely popular. People came from all over England to see the pickpockets swing in the breeze. Bursts of applause and cheers came from the crowd when the trap was sprung. But while most eyes were on the gallows, other thieves were busy at work, lifting wallets and purses. The public hangings, in fact, became the greatest assemblages of pickpockets in the tight little isle. So, if the death penalty can't even stop pickpockets, how can we expect it to be a deterrent against murder? But then the other half of my alleged brain kicks in. I spent more than 35 years covering major crimes and murder trials. Among those trials was the Theodore Bundy case. He was tried in Miami for the murders of two sorority sisters as they slept in their dorm at Florida State University in Tallahassee. He had grabbed a log from a pile of firewood outside the Chi Omega house and roamed through the sleeping quarters like some ravenous beast, bashing and strangling and biting. But the aspect of this crime that intrigued me was the fact that Bundy had escaped from a courthouse in Colorado just weeks before he showed up at FSU. Police suspected him of at least 36 murders of young women. He had been arrested and charged twice before coming to Florida. Each time, he had escaped custody. And each time he escaped, people died. He had escaped custody in Colorado by jumping out a 2nd-floor courthouse window just before heading for Tallahassee. After his final conviction and while awaiting execution in the Florida State Prison death house, he had a file smuggled in to him and had sawed part way through some of the bars on his cage. But my dilemma on the death penalty came years before the Bundy rampage. It happened, strangely enough, during a flower show. The inmates at Florida State Prison are allowed to pursue hobbies if their behavior warrants such largess, and some choose horticulture. Once a year, they have a show and compete for blue ribbons in various categories. I was assigned by my paper to write a feature on the flower show. One of the top winners in several categories was a short, muscular man with razor scars prominent on his face. I asked him what he was doing time for, and he answered in matter-of-fact fashion, "Murder one." What was his sentence for 1st-degree murder, I inquired, and he said, "Life." Have you been here long, I asked? "Yeah," he replied, "but not this time. I was here twice before." What were the crimes, I asked? "Murder one," he said. "Both times?" I asked. "Yeah," he said. And the sentences each time? "Life." So, each time he had been paroled from his life sentence, he went right out and killed somebody else. If he had been executed the 1st time, at least 2 people would not have been slain. So, in his case, the death penalty would have been a deterrent. It would have deterred him. (source: Opinion, George McEvoy, Palm Beach Post)
