Dec. 18 TEXAS: DNA revived probe of '83 KFC case--Modern testing points back to 2 suspects in killing of 5 near Kilgore Poor, carless and with few prospects, cousins Darnell Hartsfield and Romeo Pinkerton got by for years as small-time burglars in Tyler. Though they are relatives and were said to have stolen things together on occasion, they usually were arrested and convicted, starting in 1977, for crimes committed with others or while working alone. Now the two felons, who never have been charged with firing a gun during a crime and who usually stuck to illegal activities in their own Smith County, find themselves indicted on 10 counts of capital murder. They stand front and center in one of the most baffling Texas murder mysteries, the 1983 abduction-slayings of five people from a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Kilgore. Both pleaded not guilty to all of the charges last week. The two were among dozens of suspects interviewed about their whereabouts shortly after the bodies of the two women and 3 men were found shot gangland-style in a Rusk County field on the morning of Sept. 24, 1983. When initially questioned about his whereabouts, Pinkerton claimed to have been in prison at the time of the slayings, though records show he had been released two days before the crime. And Hartsfield, who was arrested 2 months after the murders for a burglary, passed a polygraph when he was questioned about the killings and said he wasn't involved, though he has since been sentenced to life in prison for lying about where he was that night. "They had been more or less eliminated (as suspects) based on the information at that time," said George Kieny, a former Tyler-based FBI agent who was hired in 2001 by the Rusk County Sheriff's Department to work on the KFC case. But crime-scene technology that wasn't available then has reached a different conclusion. Recent DNA testing of blood splatters and other evidence in the restaurant appears to point to the cousins, according to the Texas Attorney General's Office, which will be prosecuting the case. "Recent developments in the investigation and technological advances in forensic science led prosecutors and investigators ... to two of the individuals responsible for these brutal murders," Attorney General Greg Abbott declared Nov. 17 in Henderson as the grateful families of the five victims stood on both sides of him. Little else has been said about evidence authorities have gathered against the two men because a judge has issued a gag order in the case. But science has let lawmen down before in this case. In 1995, then-Attorney General Dan Morales was just as sure science had solved the slayings. He, too, traveled to East Texas, where he announced the indictments against James Earl Mankins Jr., the son of a former state lawmaker. Morales' eager announcement came after a Dallas lab concluded a fingernail found at the crime scene contained DNA belonging to Mankins. Within months, though, the five capital murder indictments against Mankins were thrown out after subsequent tests failed to confirm that the fingernail belonged to him. Now, with the indictments of Hartsfield and Pinkerton in hand, new questions have arisen as to why the case took so long to solve, merely to come back to 2 suspects first questioned about the slayings in 1983. Crime scene compromised >From the moment an oilfield worker chanced upon the crumpled, bloody bodies of Opie Ann Hughes, 39; Mary Tyler, 37; Joseph Johnson and David Maxwell, both 20; and Montgomery Landers, 19, in a wooded Rusk County field in September 1983, the case presented rural investigators with numerous forensic hurdles. For starters, the crime scene had been disturbed by locals who had stopped by hours before police arrived, eliminating potential clues such as tire tracks and footprints. So by the time former Rusk County Sheriff Michael J. Strong arrived that warm fall Saturday morning, whatever valuable evidence that could have been collected had been severely compromised. Strong found Hughes first. Her body was about 25 yards from Rusk County Road 232. The other four victims were lined up next to one another, faces down in the grass, about 25 to 30 yards from Hughes' body. "It's something that you don't forget," Strong said. 2 guns were used to kill the 5. All had been shot in the back of the head. All had multiple gunshot wounds. Hughes, lawmen theorized at the time, apparently had tried in vain to run while the others were being shot. Wallets and jewelry had been taken from all of the victims, but the perpetrators apparently were in a hurry - Hughes' earrings were untouched. Neighbors, accustomed to hearing the whining hum of lumber trucks traveling up and down nearby U.S. 259, reported hearing shots about 11 p.m. the night before. At the restaurant In the Gregg County town of Kilgore, 14 miles northeast of the crime scene, Kilgore investigator Danny Pirtle had spent Friday night trying to make sense of what had happened inside the college town's KFC restaurant. Kim Miller, the 17-year-old daughter of assistant manager Tyler, had called police after coming by the restaurant at 10:30 p.m. Friday. She had expected to find her mom and Hughes and one of the handful of Kilgore College students who worked at the restaurant closing up for the night. Instead, she discovered the back door open and blood splatters on the main counter, in the kitchen and in the manager's office. Employee cars were still parked outside. Kilgore police officers, including Pirtle, came at once. The blood left behind may seem like a plus to any armchair investigator, but it actually was one more handcuff on law officers who in 1983 were ill-equipped to dissect what they had in front of them. "Science has advanced so much since then," Pirtle said recently. "But in 1983, latent prints or blood-typing were all we had." DNA, the unique marker contained in all human tissue, hair and blood, would not become a regular part of a Texas investigator's toolbox for several years, according to Kieny, the FBI agent who assisted investigators. Kieny, who worked for the FBI's Dallas division from 1972 to 1995, said DNA crime-scene tools weren't widely available to police throughout the state until the mid-1990s. Kilgore police did preserve what they had, but by all measures, it wasn't much. The biggest blood splatter fell near the cash register on top of a white, receipt-tape box. Once the bodies were located, police determined that three of the 5 - Hughes, Tyler and Johnson - were on duty, trying to close up the restaurant when the abductions took place. Maxwell, off duty that night, had come to the restaurant to return a motorcycle he had borrowed from Johnson's roommate. Landers, who did not work at the KFC, came along. The three young men were all Kilgore College students and Phi Theta Omega fraternity brothers. Rounding up suspects Shortly after the bodies were found, area investigators began questioning local offenders, particularly those with a history of burglary and robbery. Detectives speculated that robbery was the initial goal. About $2,000 was missing from the restaurant's cash register. By October 1983, investigators zeroed in on Hartsfield, then 22. 3 days after the five were slain, Hartsfield was involved in a convenience-store robbery in Tyler, about 30 miles west of Kilgore. Armed with a handgun, he demanded cash from employee Beverly Crocker. "Give me your money," Hartsfield told Crocker, according to the Tyler Police Department's report. "Give me the money bag." Hartsfield reportedly pulled $300 from the register and fled with an accomplice. Later, Crocker identified Hartsfield from a mug-shot book, and an anonymous tipster told police that Hartsfield was overheard bragging about the Tyler robbery. He was convicted and sent to prison for the robbery. After his arrest in November 1983, he was questioned about his whereabouts during the KFC slayings. He, like dozens of other potential suspects grilled at the time, was given a quick, 20-minute polygraph test in Tyler. Hartsfield, a John Tyler High School dropout, passed it, according to Joe Shumate, an attorney for Hartsfield in a later case. Investigators and Lisa Tanner, the assistant state attorney prosecuting the capital murder cases, have declined to say what led them to Pinkerton after he originally was questioned. He was ordered by a court to submit to a blood test for investigators in 2002, but authorities will not say whether results from that test connect him to the killings. "It is our belief that Pinkerton is linked to the crime scene by DNA evidence," said Jerry Strickland, spokesman for the Texas Attorney General's Office. Records of Hartsfield's polygraph are not public. The fact that the polygraph was conducted came to light 2 months ago when Hartsfield was being tried for aggravated perjury after new DNA tests on the blood splatters indicated that Hartsfield was in the KFC that night. "My blood wasn't there in 1983 because I haven't ever been there," Hartsfield told a Rusk County jury during his perjury trial in October. "And I also took a lie-detector test and passed that." Long criminal histories Hartsfield, now 45, and Pinkerton, 47, are related through their mothers, who are sisters. A search of public databases indicates that between prison stays, the 2 lived most of their lives at different places in Tyler. As of this year, Hartsfield is serving a 40-year sentence for delivery of a controlled substance and engaging in organized criminal activity out of Smith County in 1994. Before that, Hartsfield served parts of a nine-year sentence for a Nov. 10, 1983, home burglary and a 25-year sentence for the robbery of Crocker's store, before being paroled in 1992. That parole was revoked after the 1994 arrests. Since 1995, Hartsfield has been in prison. Pinkerton has been in and out of prison since his first arrest, for burglary, in 1977. Two days before the KFC crime, Pinkerton had been released from prison for a 1981 burglary in Tyler. Texas Department of Criminal Justice records show he was released from the Jester I Unit in Richmond on Sept. 21, 1983. But he told investigators at the time he first was questioned that his release was delayed in part because of problems caused by Hurricane Alicia in the Houston area. If there are records of that interview or of whether investigators rechecked prison records to verify Pinkerton's story, they have not been made public. His freedom was short-lived. In 1984, Pinkerton was sent to prison for breaking into a building. He was paroled four years later but was sent back to prison in 1989 for a home burglary in Smith County. He remained in TDCJ custody until 1998, when he was paroled again. In 2001, Pinkerton's parole was revoked for a technical violation, and he was sent back to prison. He was paroled again Dec. 8, 2004, but was arrested last summer in Tyler on charges that he burglarized a local elementary school and evaded arrest. Though the 2 were arrested and convicted for separate crimes, Hartsfield admitted during his perjury trial that he had stolen things with his cousin. "You indicated that, in response to my question, that you and Romeo had committed some petty crimes together, but you'd never done anything major together, correct?" prosecutor Tanner asked him during the trial. "Correct," Hartsfield said. Tanner: "And I believe actually what you said to me was that, 'We stole some stuff, but that's about it'?" Hartsfield: "That's about it." DNA later analyzed Through the years, the 2 crime scenes in the neighboring counties of Gregg and Rusk evolved into dueling investigations. As the years dragged on, those with the most knowledge about the slayings resigned or retired, leaving the casework to fall on one new investigator after another. In 2001, a break came when the blood splatter from the receipt-tape box was tested. The DNA contained within it most likely belonged to Hartsfield, who was then in prison, according to TDCJ records. The attorney general's office began pursuing an aggravated perjury case against Hartsfield after he insisted he had not been at the KFC in Kilgore. "He told the same story for 22 years," said Shumate, his attorney in the perjury case. But jurors were unconvinced. Hartsfield was convicted on the perjury charge and sentenced to life in prison. His sister, Bertha Barrett, thinks her brother has been set up by authorities. "It's not true. He's being framed," Barrett said. "Those boys never had a car. They're just trying to solve a case. They got no evidence." Abbott's office has insisted that science has caught up with the investigation. Armed with the recent indictments and 40,000 pages of documents, Tanner is going forward with the capital murder case against Hartsfield and Pinkerton. A trial date has not been set. Both men remain in custody in separate county jails. Pirtle said the indictments offer some comfort after years of uncertainty. "Yes, it's a relief," Pirtle said. "I'm hoping we get a closure on this thing." (source: Houston Chronicle) VIRGINIA: A Waynesboro mother struggles to find the reasons for her son's triple murder She got a letter from an attorney. Thats how Rebeckah Armistead, of Waynesboro, found out her oldest son was in jail, charged with murdering 3 people. "I was just flabbergasted," Armistead, 38, said. "I was numb for about 4 days." Her son had been in custody for more than a month by the time she was notified. The 2 had been estranged for many years. "John Ray and I just a couple of years ago started getting a good relationship together," Armistead said last week. "This has hit us all real hard." On Oct. 9, Smyth County officials discovered an entire family dead in their home. Joseph Evans, 26, his pregnant wife, Vanessa, 27, and the couples 4-year-old daughter, Jaylein, all had been shot to death. Hours later, Armistead's son, 19-year-old John Ray Gullion, was arrested. A friend and co-worker of Joseph Evans, John Ray - as his mother always calls him - reportedly has confessed to the killings several times. "In his letters, he said 'I hope you ain't angry with me,'" Armistead said. "I don't know what happened, I still dont know what happened. "He's really messed up right now. This is the first time that childs ever been away from home." John Ray was raised by his paternal grandparents in Smyth County, about three hours from his mother's home in Waynesboro. Armistead left her son and divorced his father when the boy was only 6 months old. "I was battling an addiction to drugs and alcohol," she said. "I knew from past experience, you can't have a marriage like that; there are too many complications. And when I left, I knew there was going to be no returning." Having turned to heavy substance abuse after her son was born, as well as committing fraud to support her habits, which landed her in court on several occasions, Armistead left behind broken ties with all of her family. When John Ray was arrested, no one was quite sure where she lived. If the defense attorneys hadnt wanted to interview her, theres no telling how long it might have been until she heard the news. "They're trying to reach in there and find out the psychiatric things that might have led to this," she said. "They ought to have done this a long time ago." Fitting in No one seems to know why John Ray decided to shoot the Evans family. His arrest shocked those who knew him. Family members have guessed that he just snapped, but his mother suggests something else was also involved. Although she was absent for most of her sons life, he shares one of her qualities: addiction. "About 4 or 5 years ago, he started getting involved with drugs and alcohol," said Armistead, who has been clean herself for about 14 years. "He was hanging with the wrong crowd. He had a hard time growing up, and he wanted to fit in with people. John Ray has always thought he was a failure, that he couldnt achieve the goals he wanted to. So he did what he could to fit in." Armistead describes a lifetime of hardships her son faced. Right away, John Ray had it tough. He was born with clubfeet, which required a long and painful process to correct. "He had to wear braces on his legs," Armistead said. "When he'd wake up in the middle of the night, it was kind of like Cinderella, you could always hear him clicking his heels together. Click click, click click." Diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, John Ray struggled in school and eventually dropped out. The young teenager had always dreamed of joining the Army, like his dad, and becoming one of the elite Rangers, but he couldnt even get into the National Guard because of his poor eyesight. Before the killings, he had lost his job with Red Oak Construction, which is where he and Joseph Evans became friends. According to a news report, he was fired for missing too many Mondays. "Monday," said his mother. "That's the day after the weekend, and if youve been out partying, you just can't wake up." She also points to his first alleged confession as evidence he might have been using the night of the murders. Before his arrest, John Ray reportedly told another man what had happened and asked him to help dispose of the evidence. That man later reported him to the sheriff's office, officials said. "Someone in their right mind wouldnt call and say 'I just killed 3 people,'" Armistead said. "I couldn't see John Ray [shooting anybody], but knowing what drugs and alcohol can do to a mind - losing his job and abusing just took its toll." A fathers son "My heart and soul ache so bad for [his father] John Wesley," Armistead said. "His dad loves him beyond the ends of the Earth. In his letters, he didnt want his dad to just hate him and kick him to the side. He was scared about that, still is scared. His self-esteem is beyond the bottoms of his feet now. "I told him, 'One thing about your dad, he's not going to walk away from you.' The attorney asked me if there had been any abuse, but I give the man credit. John Wesley has not one mean, cruel bone in his body. When we found out I was pregnant, he was so overwhelmed. Theres nothing he wouldnt do for that boy." Although shes confident her son will continue to have the support of his family, she worries his mood is rapidly declining. The tone of his letters is depressed, self-loathing and hopeless. He's being kept in lockdown, away from the other inmates. He's not allowed to communicate with his family right now, a punishment for getting caught "fishing," a method of passing things between the cells using bed sheets. "It's going to break him," Armistead said. "I told [his father] I didnt see him lasting through a jail term. I don't see him making it to prison." For her own part, Armistead doesnt hold out any hope her son will ever be free again. The Smyth County prosecutor has announced intentions to pursue the death penalty in this case, and defeating that will be a blessing. What do I say? Her son has been on her mind constantly since she found out. And the one pervading emotion in her thoughts is guilt. "I've felt that for many years," she said. "I blame myself for a lot of the things that have happened to John Ray his whole life. The bad times where I wasnt there and should have been. I see me and John Ray in the same pattern of life [with drugs and alcohol]." Before she wrote to him in jail, "I didn't know what to say," she said. "God, where to start out, what do I say? I think I just started with Hi. How are you?'" The 2 hadnt spoken in about a year. "I remember he left a message on my machine cussing me out," she said. "He was angry because I wasn't there to pick up the phone. He wanted to tell me about something, but by the time I called him back, he couldnt remember what it was. "I'd wanted him to come up and stay with me, get treatment at Woodrow Wilson. He was all for it, but his grandmother was dead set against it. And the profanity he used. Because I wasnt there to pick up the phone." (source: The News Virginian) CALIFORNIA: Death penalty debate lifeless in Sacramento ---- Williams' execution brought out protests, left lawmakers cold Amid the uproar over last week's execution of Stanley Tookie Williams, state lawmakers for the most part were notably silent. California politicians largely avoided the death penalty debate as advocates and opponents argued in newspapers and on television over whether the Crips co-founder and eventual anti-gang crusader deserved to live or die, and whether capital punishment was justice or barbarism. A petition asking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to spare Williams by granting him clemency was circulated among legislative Democrats, but only nine -- out of 73 in the Assembly and Senate -- signed it. As five Democrats prepare to make a push to postpone executions, and as California's legal system prepares for what could be the busiest year in decades for the death chamber, there are few signs in the Capitol that support for capital punishment is wavering. "The death penalty is alive and well in California," said Ray McNally, a political consultant who works with crime victims' groups and the state's prison guards union. Early next month, lawmakers will begin to consider legislation calling for a death penalty moratorium in California. The bill, AB1121, suggests suspending executions while a state Senate-appointed commission studies inequities in the criminal justice system. Despite being characterized as a "modest time-out" by one of the bill's authors, Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, supporters predict a difficult fight to push the measure through the Legislature. "It will not be easy," admitted Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, an advocate for the moratorium. The legislative hearing will come as California prepares to execute another convicted murderer -- this time a 75-year-old legally blind inmate who uses a wheelchair. Clarence Ray Allen, convicted of ordering the murders of three people in Fresno from his prison cell, is scheduled to die Jan. 17. The idea of weakening death penalty laws has not been popular in the Assembly, where a 2001 measure to eliminate capital punishment for the mentally retarded was introduced but never taken up on the Assembly floor. Too many lawmakers simply didn't want to cast any vote against capital punishment. Similar legislation was approved in 2003 only after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against executing the mentally retarded. "What politicians look for is safe ground," said Franklin Zim- ring, a UC Berkeley criminologist who has written about the death penalty. "Taking on the death penalty is definitely not that." Lieber and Leno argue that the time is right for a debate, however. They point to a 2004 statewide Public Policy Institute of California poll as proof that support for the death penalty is softening. When given the choice of punishing a 1st-degree murderer with death or life imprisonment, 53 percent chose life without parole. And death penalty foes point to a recent study published in the Santa Clara Law Review noting that factors like the location of the crime and race of the victim play a large role in whether a convict is given the death penalty. The study concluded that people who kill whites are 4 times as likely to be sent to death row as those who kill Latinos, and 3 times as likely if the victim is African American. The 14-member commission that's mentioned in AB1121, called the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, will study several aspects of the criminal justice system, including police-induced confessions and the use of jailhouse informants as witnesses, said Jon Streeter, a San Francisco attorney who is acting commission chairman. Those are frequent issues in capital cases. The commission, made up of attorneys, law enforcement officials and people on all sides of the capital punishment issue, is expected to report back to the Legislature by the end of 2007 and will make recommendations for changes in the law. The legislation calls for a moratorium until the Legislature acts on the commission's recommendations or, if lawmakers take no action, the moratorium would last until 2009. Leno noted that with the pace of executions in California expected to quicken as long-term death row inmates run out of appeals -- two inmates face execution dates in January and February, and as many as three more could go to the death chamber by the end of 2006 -- it makes sense to make sure the state's legal system has as few flaws as possible. "We say let the commission do its job," he said. "If people then with a full heart can believe that the system is foolproof, then bring the death penalty back." Leno said he hoped to steer the legislative debate away from the pros and cons of the death penalty to a more specific look at a moratorium. Whether the muted response among politicians over Williams' execution is a valid signal of how elected officials are feeling about capital punishment is unknown, even death penalty advocates acknowledge. "Williams wasn't the best test case for where California is on the overall issue," said David LaBahn, executive director of the California District Attorneys Association, who compared the former gang leader to an arsonist. "He started a wildfire when he started the Crips, and writing a few children's books is akin to trying to put out the out-of-control fire with a garden hose," he said. "He just wasn't that sympathetic." Assemblywoman Lieber contended that with more news from around the country regarding potential flaws in cases against condemned inmates, it may be safer for politicians to soften their stances on capital punishment. "Supporting a moratorium because of uneasiness about the fairness of the system is different than asking for clemency for any specific individual," she said. But death penalty advocates note that the death penalty is still not a very controversial issue for voters -- 68 % favored it in a 2004 Field Poll. And despite the chance for a higher number of executions next year, it appears likely to be a nonissue in the next gubernatorial campaign, where the 2 leading adversaries for Schwarzenegger's job -- Treasurer Phil Angelides and Controller Steve Westly, both Democrats -- support capital punishment and were mostly quiet as publicity surrounding Williams grew. Angelides' campaign team sends nearly daily e-mails to political reporters on one issue or another, but Williams was not mentioned. McNally, the political consultant, noted that barring any major outcry of support, it seemed unlikely that many politicians would take a stand against the death penalty, even if it's just a reprieve. "Politicians like to look like they're leading, but they typically follow public opinion," he said. "For now, there's just no public sympathy for Death Row inmates." (source: San Francisco Chronicle> **************** Death penalty, a proving ground for 'leadership' Is Arnold Schwarzenegger a Nazi governator? Probably no more so than Bill Clinton was a racist cracker as governor of Arkansas. Yet these vitriolic slurs were aimed at both men by the family and friends of condemned black men this duo executed as irredeemable dangers to their separate states. It did not help that Clinton had an Arkansas drawl, and that Schwarzenegger yodels like a crossing guard in a grade B World War II movie. The coincidence of Schwarzenegger's roots was not lost on his native Austria, which has not quite lived down its reputation for state-sponsored killings during the 1940s by its more infamous son. Along with neighboring Germany, the government of Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel opposed the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, as it opposes all capital punishment. Thanks in part to the wartime excesses of the Weimar Republic, all such executions have been outlawed by the European Union. Some Austrians even maintain that Schwarzenegger's execution of Tookie Williams this past week brings shame upon the country of his birth. In the governator's hometown of Graz, members of the opposition Green Party are attempting to strip Schwarzenegger's name from the local sports stadium. Others suggested that the stadium be named for Williams, a move that would maintain muscle mass while replacing a man of violence with a reformed one. The national Green Party called for Vienna to strip away Schwarzenegger's citizenship, but Schuessel turned a deaf ear. Comparing Schwarzenegger to Hitler, the Green Party notwithstanding, is farfetched and totally misses the point. Schwarzenegger allowed Tookie Williams to be executed as a political act. In this, the governator resembles no one so much as Gov. Bill Clinton, who refused to grant clemency to Rickey Ray Rector on the eve of the 1992 presidential election. In both cases, the condemned man, the matter of his guilt aside, raised mitigating questions about his execution. Williams, 51, had reformed his outlook and did the state some service during his 24 years on death row. The former street leader counseled black youth against gang-banging, wrote children's books and confessed the evils of his days of violence. Some - although not the state - condemned Williams for lives taken on the streets by the Crips - the gang he helped found - and the rival Bloods. California instead killed Williams for taking the life of a white 7-Eleven clerk and three immigrants from China. Additionally, Schwarzenegger held against Williams the fact that he refused to snitch on the Crips and that he dared dedicate his books to black heroes the waxen-faced Austrian knew nothing about. "The mix of individuals on this list is curious," said the California governor. These irredeemable strangers rolling off Schwarzenegger's tongue included such names as Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Geronimo ji Jaga Pratt, Ramona Africa, heroes all. He took special exception to George Jackson, who in his own way is as great as any and certainly greater than any murderous character played by the Hollywood governator. As for Clinton's death penalty case, the 40-year-old Rector shot 1 Arkansas cop and reportedly committed another murder before turning the gun on himself and blowing away part of his brain. "Purely and simply, this is a measure of how civilized we are," said Jeff Rosenzweig, who called his client, Rector, a zombie. "At what level of disability do you kill people?" The level for state execution for both Clinton and Schwarzenegger was the level commensurate with getting them elected. In the South and measurably among conservatives across the nation, the death penalty is a litmus test for political leadership. Additionally, this particular test among these specialized groups requires also that the condemned man be African-American. This is a bloodthirsty example of the absolute corruption of the so-called democratic process. H.L. Mencken once observed that, if on the eve of an election, a prospective politician discovered that 100 voting cannibals separated him from victory, it's a sure bet that he would not speak out against cannibalism. As the election approached, Mencken guaranteed that the politician would publicly begin to view cannibalism in a new light. So it was with Clinton and Schwarzenegger, and so it is likely to be with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who wisely campaigns under the expert wand of her husband. As a senator, she thankfully will not get a chance to execute a Williams or a Rector. But, as with her husband, the day will arrive when Sen. Clinton will be called upon to prove her worthiness for higher office by administering blunt trauma to the aspirations of African-Americans. The suspense remains only in the embarrassed reaction of her black defenders such as Rep. Charles Rangel. Remember, you heard it here first. (source: Column, Les Payne, Newsday) USA: Mary McCarty: Execution offers little hope Wherever you stand on the all-consuming debate over "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holidays," perhaps we can all agree that the Christmas season is founded on the belief in the possibility of redemption. That's one of the reasons I found myself so troubled by the timing of the execution of Crips co-founder Stanley "Tookie" Williams. Here was a man who spent his prison years attempting to make amends for his past sins. He wrote children's books warning against gang violence; he brokered a peace between rival gangs. In the end, none of that mattered. As a society, we told Stanley "Tookie" Williams that his was a life beyond redemption. In denying clemency, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used the rather disingenuous reasoning that Williams never apologized for the four murders that landed him on death row. (Williams maintained his innocence.) Which brings me to the second, and even more chilling, reason we should feel troubled by the timing of Williams' execution. Clarence Elkins was released Thursday from the Mansfield Correctional Institution. The 42-year-old Barberton man was cleared by DNA evidence after serving 7 years for the rape and murder of his mother-in-law. Prosecutors sought the death penalty at Elkins' trial. The jury chose life imprisonment, or he could have been executed before proving his innocence. To supporters of the death penalty I ask one simple question: How can you live with that possibility? Elkins' attorney, Mark Godsey, debates that point with prosecutors all over the state as part of his work with the Ohio Innocence Project. "One of the arguments I continually hear is that so many resources are expended in death-penalty cases, we couldn't make that kind of mistake," Godsey said. "Well, this was a death-penalty case." The system ultimately worked, you say? Elkins was freed not by anyone working within the system, but by the tireless efforts of his wife, Melinda, the same woman grieving for her murdered mother. She was the one who first identified Earl Mann, a convicted child molester who lived three doors down from her mother, as a suspect. And Elkins himself provided the key piece of DNA evidence when he snatched a cigarette butt used by Mann, serving time in the same prison. When defense attorneys filed a brief asking to present the new evidence, prosecutors argued that the case should never be re-opened. "This is not the system overcoming itself," Godsey pointed out. "This is the system attempting to block every attempt by the defense team to fix the problem." Since the death penalty was re-instituted in 1977, public support has dropped from 80 % to 64 %. Let's hope public unease continues to mount with a system so rife with human fallibility, yet wielding the power of life and death over nearly 3,500 people sitting on death row in the United States. If we forever shut them out from the possibility of innocence - or redemption - what does that say about ourselves? (source: Column, Mary McCarty, Dayton Daily News) ************* WHAT WOULD YOUR JESUS DO For days I've been trying to imagine these things, but I just can't make myself. Maybe I'm not Christian enough. I've been trying to imagine Jesus jabbing a needle into Tookie Williams' arm early Tuesday morning to make way for the poisonous potassium chloride that would kill him a few moments later. I just can't picture it. Can you? Would your Jesus have hid in the anteroom and squeezed the plunger that would rush the deadly fluid into Williams' restrained body, even knowing that Williams was the co-founder of the cold-blooded Crips gang and the shotgun-slayer of four people? Doesnt it take someone with a certain amount of venom in his veins to kill another person, even a guilty deadly one? Is your Jesus venomous? Would your Jesus have scorned those who disagree with capital punishment, called them nasty names, even - dare I repeat the horrid charge? - liberal? Would he have sneered at them while knowing that the capital law never is fairly administered - can't be - and that potentially deadly court errors are inevitable (just ask Clarence Elkins as he's taking in fresh air for the 1st time this weekend after 7 years mistakenly imprisoned for a murder and rape he didn't commit). Is your Jesus just? WOULD HE EVER? Under any circumstance, would your Jesus have demanded somebody's death? Would he still call himself a "pro-lifer," as do thousands (maybe millions) who all the while know the penalty is no deterrent and never has been, and that it exists only for the revenge it brings? Is your Jesus vengeful? If you're riled by these questions, it's probably because you believe your Jesus would never do these things, would never act these ways. In fact, you know what your Jesus would do. What do you say your Jesus always does with sinners? Go ahead, quote your Bible. You really believe this, don't you? If so, what, especially, would your Jesus have done with Williams, who condemned his ugly past and who promised so much to the cause of nonviolence in some people's estimation that he was nominated for a Nobel Prize? Some might call that resurrection. But even if you don't - even if you think the chance that Tookie Williams could receive the world's most prestigious peace prize was far-fetched, nothing more than Hollywood hoopla - would it have mattered to your savior, who forgave even those who flogged him, pierced him, nailed him to a cross and let him hang until his last gasp? It's not likely your Jesus would have hanged or shot or electrocuted or gassed or lethally injected even a grievous sinner, is it? JESUS AND YOU If you're among the dwindling number of Americans who still favor the death penalty (yet somehow still hold sway despite the growing logic and sentiment against it), and you're glad we've snuffed the life from more than 1,000 people (including 77-year-old John Nixon in Mississippi on Thursday, and 34 mentally retarded people since 1984), hey, you must feel great being on the side that still has its hands on the wheel. But does your Jesus celebrate with you? If so, your Jesus is likely the fellow who greets you in the mirror each day. (source: Op-Ed; Rick Senften--Mustard Seeds) *************** Celebrity shouldnt matter; death penalty is barbaric This Editorial Board has long believed that the death penalty is wrong, period, and its no more or less so now that celebrity prisoner Stanley "Tookie" Williams has been executed in California. Death penalty opponents don't need a face to make their case that killing people is wrong. Yet, in this country, we kill people for killing people, when we could easily lock them up for life to punish them and protect society. It took the state of California almost 25 years from the time Williams was convicted of murdering four people during 2 armed robberies to carry out his sentence. With appeals and other legal maneuvers, the case dragged on long enough for Williams to write some books and gather some celebrity friends who made a lot of noise about Williams being worth saving. He could do more good alive than dead, they said. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied a last-minute stay of the execution, and Williams was put to death early Tuesday morning. The essential injustice of the ultimate penalty was no greater or less in 2005 than it would have been when Williams was convicted and sentenced in 1981. Its not the character of the convict that matters or how he or she might have been transformed over the years. It's the nature of the penalty that is in question. The penalty would have been wrong for Williams 25 years ago and it was wrong last week. Meanwhile, across the country, more than 3,400 men and women occupy death rows in various states. The big three on the list, states that regularly sentence people to death and regularly execute them, are California, with 648 death row inmates; Texas, 414; and Florida, 388. Illinois is way down on the list with 10 inmates. The reason is that former Gov. George Ryan cleared death row, commuting those inmates sentences to life in prison, because of serious questions about the fairness and accuracy of the judicial process that resulted in those sentences. At least 13 death row inmates in the state were proved to be innocent during the time Illinois was executing others. Besides the possibility that innocent people will be executed, the deterrent theory is flimsy. Murder rates in death penalty states are higher than they are in states without the death penalty. Regionally, Southern states carry out more than 80 % of the executions, yet those states have higher murder rates than regions that either don't have the death penalty or rarely mete out the punishment. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 1,004 executions have been carried out in the United States between 1976 (when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it was constitutional) and last Wednesday. The vast majority of those executions - at least 815 - were in the South. At the same time, murder rates by region per 100,000 people between 2001 and the end of 2004 were: South, 6.6; West, 5.7; Midwest, 4.7; and Northeast, 4.2. Bottom line, however, and quite apart from the other arguments against the death penalty, is that civilized governments dont execute people. It's wrong. We didn't need Tookie Williams' case to know that. (source: Editorial, Rockford Register Star) ************** Death penalty serves purpose To the editor: Tuesday's column questioning the usefulness of the death penalty (What do we accomplish when we get together and kill a guy?), is one which deserves to be considered carefully. At least seven arguments against capital punishment have been put forth by writers such as Sam Souryal, (Ethics in Criminal Justice; 2003 Anderson Publishing, p. 296). However, since the columnist addressed only two; lack of deterrence and the uncivilized nature of revenge, let's stick to those. While there may be some truth to the first argument that capital punishment does not deter others, this is really just a straw man and beside the point. There can be no dispute that the executed one has been deterred! One wag was even moved to comment that, "in all of world history there has never been a case of an executed murderer going on to kill again." As to the second point, revenge has gotten a bad rap; primarily because the media most often reports on it when it has been improperly and illegally applied by individuals or groups acting in an especially outrageous manner. However, the definition of revenge is simply, "to inflict punishment in return for injury." In a society that depends on cooperation between individuals for its survival, one can think of a number of reasons that this could pose a social good; primarily to teach that actions have consequences and that no person can violate the rights of another with impunity. Which brings us around to the real reason that capital punishment is both moral and good. It gives sanction to the victims. In an interdependent society such as the one in which we live, it is important to know that those around you think as you do; that they support your goals and aspirations even to the point of harming those who would seek to harm you or those you love. Noel Funchess -- Cleveland (source: Letter to the Editor, Delta Democrat Times)
