Feb. 2 IOWA: Spat errupts in Senate over death penaltyP> There's been another spat in the state senate over the death penalty. Senator Larry McKibben, a Republican from Marshalltown, announced Wednesday morning that he'll convene a subcommittee meeting on a bill that would reinstate capital punishment in Iowa for those who kidnap and kill a child. McKibben has scheduled the meeting for next Tuesday, February 7 at noon in a conference room in the statehouse. Democrats immediately cried foul, saying McKibben has no authority to schedule any meeting. Since the Senate is evenly divided with 25 Democrats and 25 Republicans, all meetings in the Senate must be agreed to by a Republican and a Democrat leader. Senator Bob Dvorsky, a Democrat from Iowa City, says there will be no meeting. "He doesn't really have the authority to call a subcommittee meeting," Dvorsky says. McKibben says he made the move for a reason. "I want it to be clear to Iowans that the Democrats continue to stonewall this issue," McKibben says. "Without scheduling a subcommittee meeting, I don't think you can say that they clearly have done that." Dvorsky says it's clear there won't be a meeting. "He can use the room as any other senator anytime to do what he wishes, but it won't be an official subcommittee," Dvorsky says. McKibben insists he'll try to hold that meeting. "This is really the time for Senate Democrats to show their true colors," McKibben says. McKibben last year invited a cousin of Jetsetta Gage -- the Cedar Rapids girl sexually assaulted and slain last spring by a convicted sex offender -- to speak at a statehouse news conference. After the man accused of killing Gage was convicted this week, the girl's relatives spoke out in favor of the death penalty. But McKibben doesn't expect to have those family members testify at the statehouse next week, partly because McKibben says he doesn't want to ruffle the feathers of the Democrats. "Initially I would like to try in a bipartisan way to see if we can move the bill forward without a lot of extra things," McKibben says. But Dvorsky says McKibben's been grandstanding on the death penalty issue since the Jetseta Gage story broke. "I believe Senator McKibben is trying to make a point and he uses sort of any opportunity that there is to promote his interest in passing a death penalty bill," Dvorsky says. Dvorsky, who is Catholic, says he is "morally opposed" to the death penalty. (source: Radio Iowa News) MISSOURI: Execution suspense builds, then wanes----Supreme Court refuses to let Missouri proceed 2 families linked by a horrific murder 17 years ago waited and watched in anguish this week as competing attempts to block -- and expedite -- an execution at the state prison here built to a climax. Late Wednesday night the suspense ended, if only for a little while, when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to lift a stay of execution granted earlier in the day by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for convicted murderer Michael Anthony Taylor. Bob and Janel Harrison received the news by phone from corrections officials, opting at the last minute not to make the trip here from Kansas City to witness the execution of the murderer of their teenage daughter, Ann. "I'm glad they're not here," said family friend and Kansas City police Sgt. David Bernard. Reliving a tragedy "It brings the whole tragic episode back, and they relive it again and again." Bernard, police officers and reporters, huddled in a windowless, stark room at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic & Correctional Center. They waited for hours each of the last 2 nights to serve as state witnesses to an execution originally set for 12:01 a.m., then pushed back to 7 p.m., and eventually halted just after 9 p.m.. Taylor's parents, older sisters, brother-in-law and minister held their own quiet vigil in a prison room next door, praying mostly in silence. But when they learned of the court's intervention, they rejoiced and praised God, said Linda Taylor, Michael's mother, who was so excited she clapped her hands. "We were so happy," Michael's father, George Taylor said. "We said, 'Thank you God for the tenacity of (attorney) John Simon and the passion for what he's doing.' We feel justice is being served." The Taylors arrived here from Kansas City last weekend, making daily pilgrimages from their hotel to Michael Taylor's holding cell. Victim was 15 Taylor was convicted of killing 15-year-old Ann Harrison, who was waiting for a school bus in Kansas City when he and an accomplice kidnapped her in 1989. Taylor pleaded guilty and said he was high on crack cocaine at the time. The rulings in Taylor's favor late Wednesday followed a flurry of appeals and rushed hearings in the days since a federal appeals court in St. Louis ordered the case expedited on Sunday. In 2 frenzied days of filings Tuesday and Wednesday, Missouri twice asked the justices to intervene and permit the execution, while Taylor's lawyers filed 2 more appeals seeking delays. The high court rejected Taylor's appeal that argued that Missouri's death penalty system is racist. Taylor is black and his victim was white. But it did not stand in the way of an appeals court's decision to hear the claim that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment, a claim also used by 2 Florida death-row inmates that won stays from the Supreme Court over the past week. The court has agreed to use one of the cases to clarify how inmates may bring last-minute challenges to the way they will be put to death. Alito splits from conservatives New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, handling his 1st case, split with the court's conservatives in refusing to let Missouri execute Taylor. Corrections Director Larry Crawford said Michael Taylor will be transported back to the prison at Potosi pending a new execution date. Bernard, speaking as the Harrisons' representative, demanded retribution for a terrible crime on an innocent girl. "He has a debt to pay, period," he said. The Taylors said they pray Michael Taylor's life will be spared. The Taylors said they often have wanted to contact the Harrisons to acknowledge their pain, but their attorneys wouldn't allow it. "My heart reaches out to them," Linda Taylor said. "We continue to pray for them." (source: Associated Press) ************** Execution postponed in 89 killing----Judges vote 9-1 to hear arguments in case After 2 long days and nights of uncertainty, Michael Anthony Taylor will live at least a little while longer. An appeals court on Wednesday delayed Taylors execution and agreed to hear arguments in his case. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 9-1 to grant his petition for a rehearing by the full court. A few hours later, the U.S. Supreme Court, on a 6-3 vote, refused to overrule the appeals court and lift the stay. Justice Samuel Alito, the newest member of the high court, split with the courts conservatives and voted with the majority to grant Taylor the stay. Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas supported lifting the stay and allowing Taylors execution to go forward. Alito was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in Tuesday. It was not known when the appeals court will hear arguments in Taylors case. Wednesdays delay means the Missouri Supreme Court will have to set a new date if the execution is allowed to go forward. Taylor, 39, is on death row for the 1989 kidnapping, rape and murder of Kansas City teenager Ann Harrison. Roderick Nunley, the other man convicted in Harrisons slaying, is expected to have an execution date set soon. Taylor spent Wednesday visiting with family and friends, many of whom have been living out of nearby hotel rooms since Sunday. Since Jan. 11, Taylor has lived in a spare concrete-block and glass-walled cell just feet from the execution chamber at Missouris Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center. He has been monitored 24 hours a day by prison staff who sit facing him from about 10 feet away. Every action he takes or word he speaks is recorded and logged. Taylor also takes phone calls in his cell, and after each one, he yells out the duration of the call to the staff so that data can be recorded. The only furniture in the cell is a cot. On it Wednesday were copies of the Bible and Quran. Sealed letters written by Taylor sat on a window sill, as did a religious pamphlet titled If you died today, would you go to heaven? One of the letters was addressed to the parents of Ann Harrison. In a face-to-face interview with The Star early Wednesday afternoon, Taylor said he did not know if they would receive it or want to read it. But he said it was something he needed to do. Kim Gladney, pastor of Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Kansas City, spent the day with Taylors family and visited with Taylor. During their time together, Gladney sung Taylor a hymn. Prison officials were initially preparing for Taylors execution Tuesday, when plans called for him to go to the gurney just after midnight. He had been instructed to gather his things together, and his belongings and legal papers were piled on the cell floor Wednesday. Taylor had been offered a sedative to calm his nerves and asked about his last meal before appeals halted the execution. Taylors execution would be Missouris first of the year, and Taylor would be the 1st man executed in a Jackson County case since 2002. (source: Kansas City Star) FLORIDA: Death row inmate of Basque origin still sentenced to death Pablo Ibar's father denied some reports which said that the Florida Supreme Court had ruled Thursday that improper and irrelevant evidence had been used against his son and he was getting a new trial. Pablo IbarPablo Ibar, an inmate of Basque origin is still sentenced to death, his father reported Thursday after a news agency quoting the inmate's wife said Pablo Ibar was getting a new trial. Pablo Ibar, 33, was found guilty of killing 2 women, Marie Rogers and Sharon Anderson, and Pembroke Park nightclub owner Casmir Sucharski during a robbery at Sucharski's home in 1994 and sentenced to death. On Thursday the Florida Supreme Court ruled that Seth Penalver, one of the inmates convicted in the case together with Ibar, would get a new trial because improper and irrelevant evidence had been used against him. This might have brought confusion as a news agency reported Thusday that Pablo Ibar was getting a new trial. (source: Basque News and Information) CALIFORNIA: Support Life, Say 'No' to the Death Penalty With only about 25 countries still using the death penalty, and countries such as Israel abandoning the practice as primitive, why is the United States still using it? We do not rape rapists or burn down arsonists' houses, so why is homicide different? We are taught that it is an eye for an eye, but if we truly believed this, the world would be blind. We cannot take a life for a life, for taking away a life will not ease the pain of a death and will not remove evil from the world. I believe the death penalty is unnecessary and ineffective, and that any arguments for the death penalty can be refuted. Religious passages, such as Genesis 9:6 which says, "whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," are used to justify execution, but other passages go against the practice. After Cain, the son of Adam and Eve, kills his brother, Abel, God says in Genesis 4:11-15, "And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand...a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And the Lord said unto him, therefore whosever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him." God demanded that Cain, a murderer, live. Though there are passages that support the death penalty, many religious leaders choose to follow those that refute it. The late Pope John Paul II frequently called for an end to it. In a prayer at the Papal Mass at Regina Coli Prison in Rome, on July 9, 2000, he said, "May the death penalty, an unworthy punishment still used in some countries, be abolished through the world." John Paul believed that, "A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil," which he expressed in a homily at the Papal Mass in the Trans World Dome, St. Louis, Mo., Jan 27, 1999. Leaders of Judaism are also against the death penalty. During the Talmudic period, rabbis decided the death penalty should be abolished, shown by their discussion 1,800 years ago: One rabbi said that a court that executes a criminal once every seven years is called a 'court of murderers.' Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah disagreed. He said that a court that executes a man every 70 years is a 'court of murderers.' Rabbi Tarphon and Rabbi Akiva went further to say that if they had been members of the court, "no man would ever be executed," according to www.bethhatikvah.org. Proponents of the death penalty say it is a form of justice for the families of the victims, but according to www.murdervictimsfamilies.org, family members of the victims are not comforted or given closure through the execution of the accused. Instead, they are re-victimized over and over by mandatory appeals and overwhelming media attention surrounding the offender. And, according to Amanda and Nick Wilcox, whose daughter, Laura, was murdered along with 3 others, when a mentally ill client of a health clinic went on a shooting rampage, the death penalty is not a form of justice, because true justice is something they can never have -- they can never get their daughter back. To the Wilcoxes, the lengthy process of trials, appeals and anticipated execution only impedes coming to terms with their loss. If closure means healing, that healing must come from within, not from the fate of a murderer. Supporters of the death penalty advocate that it deters criminals from killing, but studies do not show this. According to www.amnesty.org, recent crime figures from abolitionist countries fail to show that abolition has harmful effects. An example is Canada. In 1975, the year before the abolition of the death penalty, the homicide rate per 100,000 population was at 3.09; in 1980 it was 2.41 and in 2003, 27 years after abolition, the homicide rate was 1.73 per 100,000 population, the lowest in 3 decades. It is argued that our tax dollars should not have to go to sustain a murderer in jail for the rest of his or her life. In a perfect world, they wouldn't have to, but execution is not the answer. According to www.religioustolerance.org, the cost to a state to fund appeals by a convicted murderer would more than pay for their permanent incarceration. Indeed, the expenses related to the conviction and execution of Timothy McVeigh amounted to over $13 million, yet the victims of the families of the Oklahoma City bombing received only $250,000 to divide among themselves for the funeral services. The money a state spends on appeals could also be put into programs to counsel and give assistance to the families of the victims. With the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams in December 2005, the death penalty re-entered the spotlight. Should it be used? If it was a deterrent for crime or helped families cope with their loss, I might say yes, but it does neither. It's time to fall into line with the rest of the industrial world and stop the use of the death penalty. (source: La Caada Valley Sun - Julianna Malogolowkin is a senior at Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, where she is co-editor of the school paper, The Veritas Shield)
