Feb. 7 TEXAS: 26 years later, case of bowling-alley slayings back in court When 3 young people were shot to death and a 4th permanently maimed during a robbery at the Fair Lanes Windfern Bowling Center on Houston's northwest side, Jimmy Carter was president, Pink Floyd's The Wall was the year's top-selling record and Terry Fox was making his run across Canada on an artificial leg. Local phone calls in Houston required only seven digits then. Police were still a long way from using DNA to solve crimes, and crime scene investigation units didn't have the high-tech methods now depicted in the popular television series CSI. Yet, nearly 26 years later, details of the horrific bloodbath found at the bowling alley early on July 14, 1980, are again being played out in state District Judge Mary Lou Keel's Harris County courtroom. Some important witnesses have died since then, defense attorneys say, and some evidence has been lost. But the crime is being rehashed in all its searing detail as if it happened last week. The occasion is a new trial for former Texas death row inmate Max Alexander Soffar, now 50, who was condemned in 1981. His capital murder conviction was overturned in 2004 by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that he received ineffective representation from his lawyer in the original trial. As a result, grieving loved ones are hearing all over again this week about the deaths of Tommy Lee Temple and his girlfriend, Arden Alane Felsher, both 17, and Stephen Allen Sims, 25; as well as the wounding of the sole survivor, Gregory George Garner, then 18. Garner, now 44 and still living in the Houston area, lost an eye and suffered permanent brain damage in the attack. He has endured 25 surgeries to rebuild his face over the years. Family members said Monday that it is terribly painful to endure a second trial all these years later. "It's difficult to relive all of the emotion and also feel like the original decision is in jeopardy," said Felsher's sister, Jackie Bryant, 46. "This man committed murder, and now he has a chance to walk free." Soffar's attorneys have "tried every possible scenario to build doubt around the case," Bryant said. "It's as though he has become the victim. ... I do not want the victims to be forgotten. These were young people who had plans for the future." Central to the case are Soffar's three statements to police in August 1980. While his attorneys say he changed his story and it does not match evidence at the crime scene, prosecutors say the statements are consistent in some important ways. Prosecutor Lyn McClelland told jurors the robbery was planned to get money to buy drugs. Soffar, then a 24-year-old, unemployed, part-time police informant, was riding around in a car that night with the 19-year-old, unemployed son of a Houston police officer, McClelland said. 'Total carnage' The bowling alley already had closed when a man cajoled his way into the building, forced all four victims to the floor and made them hand over their wallets. Then, although they had not resisted, all 4 were shot in the head, McClelland said. About $1,000 was stolen from a cash register. The bowling alley did not have a security camera. Garner crawled to a phone while holding the eye that had been blown out by a bullet. Houston didn't have a 911 emergency line then. He called his mother, Nellie Garner. Garner's parents rushed to the bowling alley and found "total carnage" just inside the front doors, McClelland said. Nearly a month later, Soffar was arrested in League City for driving a stolen motorcycle and offered to give information about the murders. Soffar tried to minimize his involvement and mostly blamed his 19-year-old companion. That man was arrested a short time later, but was released when police failed to find any evidence connecting him to the crime. The man, now 45 and last known to be living in Mississippi, has never been charged in connection with the killings. Police handling criticized Defense attorneys, however, said police chose to ignore the forensic evidence and opted to believe a "fictionalized" version of events fabricated by Soffar. In their opening statement, Soffar's attorneys attacked the police handling of the crime scene. They noted that some evidence was not collected and contended that many people walked in and out of the bowling alley in the hours after the shootings were discovered. Soffar's version of the crime differed in many respects from Garner's, they said. The two gave disputing versions of how many robbers went into the building, who emptied the cash register, how many shots were fired, how many people fired guns, whether anyone screamed and where the victims' bodies were found. But elements of Garner's story matched evidence found at the crime scene, which suggested only 4 gunshots had been fired, defense attorneys said. "We're here today because Max Soffar told false stories that didn't match evidence at the scene. ... (Police) really have no evidence connecting Max, other than his words," said defense attorney Kathryn Kase, who is married to Houston Chronicle Editor Jeff Cohen. Focus on Tennessee inmate Soffar's attorneys are expected to suggest the slayings were committed by Paul Dennis Reid, 48, who is on Tennessee's death row but lived in Houston at the time of the Fair Lanes killings and who, they say, resembles the gunman Garner described. Reid also told a friend he once shot four people while robbing a bowling alley on the Northwest Freeway, Soffar's attorneys contend in court papers. However, they will not be allowed to present evidence of what they say are similar crimes Reid committed in Tennessee. Soffar's new trial is expected to last 2 to 3 weeks. Among those planning to be in court each day are Temple's mother, Margaret Johnson, who traveled from out of state. "It's like going through it all over again. The worst part of the whole thing is, you never get to see that child grow up and what he could've become," Johnson said, her eyes filling with tears as she stood outside the courtroom. (source: Houston Chronicle) *************** Convicted Murderer Christopher Young Receives Death Penalty In San Antonio, the jury that convicted Christopher Young of capital murder last week deliberated for just one hour Wednesday to choose the sentence. Young's family was visibly shaken when the jury announced Young would receive the death penalty. Young was convicted last Wednesday in the November 2004 shooting death of Hasmukh Patel, 53, at his Mini Food Mart store on East Southcross. (source: KSAT news) MARYLAND: Death Penalty Supporters Angry Over Evans' Stay A day after Maryland's highest court granted a stay of execution to death row inmate Vernon Evans, those who supported his execution are speaking out. The Court of Appeals granted a rare last-minute-stay keeping Evans from the death chamber on Monday when his death warrant became active. While his family celebrated and his lawyers began preparing a 75-page brief for his new appeal, death penalty supporters are outraged. Fred Romano's sister, Dawn Garvin, was murdered by Steven Oken in 1987. Oken was convicted and sentenced to death, and was executed last year. Romano lashed out at the court's decision to keep Vernon Evans alive on Tuesday, a decision he called an "unnecessary delay." "The death penalty will never go away in Maryland as long as I'm living here, I can tell you that," Romano tells WJZ's Mike Hellgren at his sister's gravesite. "My family went through 17 years of all that stuff, and it's sickening this family has had to endure for 23 years." Romano is referring to the family of Evans' victims, Sue Kennedy and Scott Piechowitz, who were killed at a Pikesville motel in 1983. "They want the victims families to shut up, be quiet, and let it go, while the big mouths sit on the other side and scream and shout," says Romano. Death penalty opponents hope the stay in Evans' case could stop future decisions. Among their arguments--the state didn't follow the law when it laid out the protocols for lethal injection. Also being used is a study by the University of Maryland which found that African Americans with white victims were more likely to die. "They don't think it's right to kill a murderer. I don't think it's right for a murderer to kill an innocent victim," says Romano. But for now, Evans will live along with the continuous debate over whether death means justice in Maryland. (source: WSJ News) WASHINGTON (state) Death Row Inmate Dies in Prison Hospital Mitchell Rupe, a former death row inmate once found too obese to hang, died at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla on Tuesday following a long illness, a prison spokeswoman said. He was 51. Spokeswoman Lori Scamahorn said Rupe died in the prison hospital, where he'd been since Jan. 3 in the final stages of liver disease. Rupe shot 2 Olympia bank tellers to death at point-blank range during a 1981 robbery. Juries twice sentenced him to death, but higher courts overturned the sentences. In 1994, a federal judge upheld his conviction but agreed with Rupe's contention that at more than 400 pounds, he was too obese to hang because of the risk of decapitation. Rupe argued that would amount to cruel and unusual punishment. At the time, Washington's only manner of execution was hanging. The main method now is lethal injection, although a condemned inmate can still opt for hanging. Prosecutors tried for the death penalty a 3rd time in 2000, but a jury deadlocked 11-1 - shy of the unanimous vote required for capital punishment. Rupe suffered from a terminal liver disease, and there was doubt at that time whether he would have lived long enough to be executed even if the jury had been unanimous. Frank Brown, the Walla Walla County coroner, estimated that Rupe weighed between 260 and 270 pounds at the time of his death. (source: Associated Press) IOWA: Senator to take death penalty crusade on the road A Republican state senator is taking his crusade for the death penalty on the road. Senator Larry McKibben, a Republican from Marshalltown, will appear in Newton tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at 9 o'clock, then at noon tomorrow he'll be speaking in Ottumwa. "If the Democrats are going to continue to stonewall an issue that Iowans want debated and overwhelmingly support, I'm going to go out into the state of Iowa and talk to Iowans...in hopes that they will get to the Democrat Party and help them to see the light," McKibben says. Today over the noon-hour McKibben and another Republican senator waited in a capitol conference room, but Democrats did not attend a meeting to review a death penalty bill because they say McKibben had no authority on his own to organize the meeting. "We assumed the Democrats wouldn't show up but I was going to let the process work before I was going to move forward," McKibben says. McKibben will appear at the public library in Newton at 9 o'clock Wednesday, and he says members of Jetseta Gage's family are trying to arrange to be there. Gage is the 10-year-old Cedar Rapids girl who was kidnapped, assaulted and murdered nearly a year ago by a convicted sex offender who was just last week convicted of the crime. McKibben says he'll be canvassing the state over the next 2 weeks because the deadline for committee action on the death penalty bill is the early March. McKibben says he'll give Iowans a chance to "voice their displeasure" with Democrats who're standing in the way of reinstating capitol punishment. "The best way to do that is to go right out into the 4 corners of the state and I intend to do that," McKibben says. Democrats say even if the legislature were to pass a death penalty bill it would be vetoed by Governor Tom Vilsack. (source: Radio Iowa News) GEORGIA: Georgia's King Tribute Rings Hollow With flags flying at half-staff across Georgia, thousands of mourners streamed into the Capitol Rotunda in Atlanta Saturday to pay their respects to Coretta Scott King. Public officials offered statements of praise and admiration, and Governor Sonny Perdue, who opened the Capitol for the viewing, hailed the late civil rights and human rights hero as a national icon. Through its display of reverence, the state drew a sharp contrast between 2006 and 1968, when Governor Lester Maddox, an avid segregationist, refused to close the state government for the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr. But with regard to one of Coretta's signature issues--capital punishment--the Georgia of today looks all too similar to the Georgia of decades past. In a speech to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty in 1981, Coretta delivered one of the world's most famous statements against capital punishment. "As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses," she said. "An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder." Despite having spent the past week memorializing this death penalty abolitionist, Georgia remains one of the nation's leaders in executions, ranking 4th all-time among US states and 7th since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976. Moreover, four decades after the height of the civil rights movement, racial discrimination--one of the principal factors in the rise of the death penalty in the United States in the 1920s and '30s--continues to plague Georgia's capital punishment process. In fact, the day Coretta Scott King died, the American Bar Association released a Death Penalty Assessment Report for Georgia, which notes that the state is not in compliance with ABA recommendations in a majority of categories concerning the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities. Specifically, the report suggests that Georgia continues to ignore patterns of racial discrimination and has failed to adopt legislation explicitly stating that no person should be put to death in accordance with a sentence sought or imposed as a result of the race of the defendant or victim. Though the ABA's conclusions are hardly the first of their kind, Atlanta's political heavyweights have consistently dismissed calls for a moratorium on executions and ignored the prospect of abolition. As for the past, Georgia is in large part responsible for the modern death penalty--not just within its own borders but throughout the entire United States. In 1968, the year Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, capital punishment in America was a practice in decline. But Georgia, having executed more people than any other state from 1930 to 1967, joined with Texas in defending the death penalty at all costs, eventually before the US Supreme Court in 1972. In Furman v. Georgia, the Court declared the 2 states' death penalty statutes unconstitutional and suspended capital punishment nationwide. Undeterred, Georgia quickly revised its statute and re-ignited its death penalty machine. In the 1976 case Gregg v. Georgia, the Court upheld the new statute, effectively launching the modern era of capital punishment. Since Georgia prevailed in Gregg, 1,009 individuals have been executed in the United States, and the 1,010th execution is scheduled on the day of Coretta's funeral. This uninterrupted use of capital punishment throughout the nation suggests that while political leaders in Georgia and beyond seem well aware of the significance of the past week's events, they have thus far failed to grasp the spirit of humanity underlying that significance. "Coretta Scott King taught us the power of forgiveness," says David Elliot, communications director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "And with the power of forgiveness she reminded us of the possibility of human redemption." Though the official events honoring Coretta Scott King conclude today, the state of Georgia--with more than 100 inmates on its death row and a history of dictating the nation's course on capital punishment--has an opportunity to honor her legacy for much longer by recognizing that possibility. (source: Patrick Mulvaney, The Nation)
