Feb. 8 TEXAS----new execution date Jackie Wilson has been given an execution date for May 4; it should be considered extremely serious. (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) ************************ Give judges DNA-testing leeway, justice panel says----Public defender improvements and cutting crime-lab backlogs among recommendations Giving trial judges more discretion to order post-conviction DNA testing and studying ways to improve eyewitness identification are among the dozens of recommendations released Tuesday by the governor's criminal justice advisory council. The council also wants the state to look into establishing public defenders' offices and increasing the compensation to the wrongfully convicted. Gov. Rick Perry created the council last year to find ways to better protect the rights of victims and the accused. Its first set of recommendations also called for global positioning satellite surveillance of child-sex offenders and more funding for the attorney general's sex-offender enforcement unit. "These recommendations provide a framework that will give Texans greater confidence in a justice system designed to protect all," Perry said. Kathy Walt, a spokesman for Perry, said the governor will work with legislators on the recommendations that require changes in law and funding. Council member Sen. Rodney Ellis said he hopes the recommendations will be "the 1st step toward meaningful action." "From enhancing public safety through better monitoring of serious sex offenders, allowing our judges the ability to grant access to potentially exculpatory evidence, reducing crime-lab backlogs, improvements in indigent defense, to eyewitness identification reform, there are quality recommendations contained in this report that, if implemented, could lead to much-needed improvements in various areas of our criminal justice system," said Ellis, D-Houston. Quality of representation Some of the far-reaching proposals, including the one on public defenders, came from an Innocence Projects Committee headed by Ellis. Public defenders' offices operate in El Paso, Wichita and Dallas counties; Harris and most counties pay private attorneys to represent indigent defendants. The report said public defender offices would improve the quality of representation, especially in rural areas where there are few defense attorneys willing to accept court appointments. The cost of a statewide program would exceed several hundred million dollars a year, the report said. Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Barbara Hervey, who led the council's Forensics Committee, said trial judges have been reluctant to order DNA testing without specific statutory authority to do so. The council recommended the law be changed to give judges discretion and make it clear that the state will incur the cost of testing unless the applicant has hired a lawyer. "The defense would still have to show a need. But these small changes would really free up the trial courts in granting forensic testing," Hervey said. More testing would add to the backlog at Texas Department of Public Safety crime labs, so the panel called for the state to pay for DNA testing at private laboratories. Additionally, the state should give $10,000 salary increases to the 170 scientists working for DPS and expand crime-lab facilities. 'Increasing demand' Tela Mange, a DPS spokeswoman, said the department would welcome more crime-lab funding. She said the labs' backlog is 900 to 1,000 cases. "More law enforcement agencies are collecting evidence that may have DNA, so there is a continually increasing demand," said Mange. The panel also suggested establishing a pilot program at several locations across the state designed to improve the reliability of eyewitness identifications. Faulty eyewitness testimony has been implicated in a number of cases in which convictions were overturned after DNA evidence was tested. Some states require photo lineups be shown by a "blind presenter" not involved in the investigation. Since the presenter doesn't know who the suspect is, there are no suggestive expressions or comments to influence the witness. A pilot program also could test whether reliability improves when photos are presented to a witness one by one instead of simultaneously in a photo spread. The panel encouraged local law enforcement agencies to use in-car audio-video recording of all traffic stops. It also called for a survey to see how many jurisdictions are videotaping the interrogation and confession of suspects in major crimes. (source: Houston Chronicle) **************** Man slated to die today in slaying of retarded woman ---- Defense seeking to halt execution, arguing Neville is mentally ill 8 years ago this month, Robert Neville Jr. and Michael Hall decided they were in the "mood to kill someone." They discussed shooting a black person but changed their minds and agreed that former grocery store co-worker Amy Robinson was an easy target. The 19-year-old was mentally challenged, more than a foot shorter than either man and probably thought of them as friends. Three weeks after she disappeared, Amy was found shot to death with a pellet gun and a .22-caliber rifle in an isolated Fort Worth field. Today, Mr. Neville, 31, is scheduled to die by injection for that crime. "You hope that it brings the family some closure," said David Montague, spokesman for the Tarrant County district attorney's office. "You don't know that it will, but you hope it does." Mr. Montague said the murder of Ms. Robinson was a shocking case that horrified people like few others. She was a trusting woman with the mind of a 14-year-old girl, and her killers boasted on television about torturing her before shooting her to death. They were arrested while trying to escape into Mexico. "She was such a young and innocent person," Mr. Montague said. "When some of the details came out about how she was tormented before she was killed, it struck a chord with people. It was brutal and senseless." Mr. Hall was also sentenced to death, but an execution date has not been set for him. In May, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a claim that Mr. Hall was mentally retarded at the time of the crime and should be spared the death penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that mentally retarded people cannot be executed. Attorneys representing Mr. Neville are making similar arguments this week to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in an attempt to stop the execution. Fort Worth attorney Rick Alley is asking the court to give mentally ill inmates, such as Mr. Neville, the same protection from execution as mentally retarded people and minors. Mr. Neville suffers from lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease that in his case attacks the brain, Mr. Alley said. He said the illness makes his client act irrationally and dangerously and often gives him "psychopathic tendencies." "He is so mentally ill that to execute him would be cruel and unusual punishment," Mr. Alley said. Barring a stay of execution, Mr. Neville will be given four hours Wednesday morning to spend with family and friends at the Polunsky Unit near Livingston, Texas. After that, he'll be transferred to the Huntsville Unit. There, Mr. Neville will receive a last meal and could meet with attorneys and a spiritual adviser. About 6 p.m., the execution will begin. Ms. Robinson's mother, 2 sisters and 1 current and 1 retired Arlington police officer are expected to witness the execution, state officials said. Ms. Robinson's grandmother Carolyn Barker, who became an outspoken victims' rights advocate after her granddaughter's death, is not scheduled to attend the execution. She lobbied for workplace laws to protect minors and mentally retarded people from felons and helped create Our Garden of Angels, a sanctuary for families of homicide victims. Ray Stewart, a friend of Mrs. Barker and former victim liaison with the Tarrant County district's attorney's office, said the creation of the garden with its more than 80 crosses has been cathartic for Ms. Robinson's family. "It was a chance to meditate on the good parts of life," he said. "Carolyn turned her attention to helping others survive through something like that. It strengthened her and gave her purpose." (source: Dallas Morning News) ************** Bexar killer and rapist, 22, gets death sentence A man was sentenced to death Tuesday for fatally shooting a convenience store owner after a series of other crimes within hours of one another. A jury deliberated about 5 hours before deciding on the death penalty for Christopher Young, 22, who was convicted of capital murder a week ago. The Nov. 21, 2004, crimes ended at the Mini Food Mart at Southcross and Pecan Grove boulevards. A woman returning home that morning from the convenience store was abducted and sexually assaulted. After the attack, her 1993 Mazda Protg was stolen. Young drove the car to the Mini Mart and went in. Surveillance cameras showed Young pointing a gun at the store's owner, Hasmukh "Hash" Patel, demanding money and shooting Patel once in the chest. The videotape was shown to jurors during Young's trial. Young was arrested about two hours after the shooting at a home in the 600 block of South Hackberry Street after the sexual assault victim identified him as her attacker. The woman also testified during the sentencing phase of Young's trial. Young is the 1st defendant this year in Bexar County to be convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. (source: San Antonio Express-News) OREGON: Death penalty saps resources needed for prevention measures Robert Langley's resentencing to death, for the 4th time, ironically brings to the fore the waste of public resources on the death penalty. Regardless of how we feel about Langley and what we think he deserves, we misspend upwards of $9 million per year on the 33 already on death row and the 8 or so who go to trial with death on the table. It is a waste to put those resources into the death penalty rather than on early intervention with families, foster care programs, abused children, the WIC program, public education and other measures that would prevent children growing up to become murderers. If Langley and others were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole or life with a minimum 30-year sentence, they would be punished, society would be protected and the state of Oregon could spend precious resources where they would do the most good. Clarence Pugh, Salem (source: Letter to the Editor, Statesman Journal) NEW JERSEY: Stafford killings focus attention on illegal aliens, death penalty In reading the Press story about the funeral of the 2 Stafford children who police say were killed with a hammer by an illegal alien, I found myself confronted with many emotions. I was profoundly sad as a father of three small children that any child should suffer such an act of savagery. My anger turned to rage as I struggled with the reality that the foreign invasion of the United States by illegal immigrants continues with the obvious result that some are violent criminals. While the advocates of breaking U.S. immigration laws paint the illegal immigrant as the super-worker, the truth is the unskilled, illegal immigrants who come here are not some monolithic group of noble, economic refugees seeking opportunity and willing to work harder than the average American. All are criminals, and some are violent criminals. The Press continues, as it did in its Jan. 23 news story, to refer to illegal immigrants as "undocumented aliens." A very small subgroup of aliens is merely undocumented. They came here legally, usually on a work or student visa, and simply overstayed their right to be a U.S. guest. Those immigrants are guilty of civil violation of immigration law. They are not criminals by definition. They have not broken criminal law and are not subject to criminal penalties. The rest of the aliens, those who knowingly entered the United States without permission and with the intention of breaking U.S. immigration laws, are criminals. That is why they are called "illegal" aliens. They have broken the law, and their entrance into the country is a violation of criminal law. Absent some showing that the killer of the Stafford boys overstayed his visa here, the Press wrongfully identifies him as "undocumented," when he is really an "illegal." Another reason I am angry is that this killer committed this crime in New Jersey. That means he will not receive the death penalty he deserves, a penalty one of the dead boys advocated for in a classroom presentation the day of his death. This killer broke the law in New Jersey. Instead of being punished appropriately, he will beat the rap for capital punishment. Since New Jersey reinstituted the death penalty, it has never found one criminal it believes to have received a fair trial, and thus earned the penalty. That disgraceful statistic makes the New Jersey Supreme Court a national mockery and a judicial branch that openly thwarts the will of the people. While it is too late for this country to protect these children from foreign invasion and violent crime by illegal immigrants, New Jersey can finally step up and execute someone who has earned it. And, if the Press wants to run a headline saying, "Undocumented alien is New Jersey's 1st documented execution in decades," that use of the term "undocumented" will be fine with me. Richard Kelsey, ASHBURN, VA.----FORMERLY FREEHOLD (source: Letter to the Editor, Asbury Park Press) MISSOURI: Death penalty combatant to speak Attorney Sean O'Brien, a well-known death penalty opponent noted for representing condemned prisoners and the socially downtrodden, will deliver Northwest Missouri State University's next centennial lecture at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 15, in the Charles Johnson Theatre, which is located on the first floor of the Olive DeLuce Fine Arts Building. Currently a visiting professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, O'Brien teaches courses in criminal law, criminal procedure and wrongful convictions. He has represented death row inmates across the United States since 1983 and serves as director of the Public Interest Litigation Clinic, a non-profit law firm that specializes in representing poor people in both capital cases and non-capital cases in which an innocent person may have been wrongly convicted. OBrien's better-known cases include U.S. Supreme Court victories in "Schlup v. Delo," which preserved habeas corpus jurisdiction in situations where a prisoner may be innocent, and "Stewart v. Martinez-Villareal," which preserved the power of federal courts to stop the execution of prisoners who become insane while on death row. The PILC has freed a number of wrongly convicted prisoners, including Joseph Amrine, Steve Manning and Theodore White, Jr. In addition to his death penalty work, O'Brien served as the Jackson County Public Defender from 1985-1989 and is past president of the Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He also served as chairman of the Missouri Bar Criminal Law Committee. His numerous awards for work on behalf of those behind bars who are innocent, mentally ill or mentally retarded include the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association's Lifetime Achievement Award (2005), the "Jackson County Record" Legal Leaders Award (2005), the Lawyers Association of Kansas City Justice Charles Whittaker Award (2004), the "Missouri Lawyer Weekly" Lawyer of the Year (2003) and the ACLU Civil Liberties Award (2003). O'Brien graduated from Northwest with a bachelor's degree in English in 1977 and earned a J.D. from the UMKC School of Law in 1980. Last year he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Benedictine College. O'Brien was nominated as a centennial lecturer by Northwest's Department of English. (source: Maryville Daily Forum) **************** MO among top execution states in '05 Missouri tied with 2 other states for the 2nd-most executions in 2005, a new update by the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows. Texas led the way with 1 every 20 days. Highlights: During 2005, 16 states had executed 60 inmates, 1 more than the number executed in 2004. 4 states accounted for more than 1/2 of the executions carried out during this period: Texas performed 19; and Indiana, Missouri, and North Carolina executed 5 each. Connecticut executed one inmate, the 1st in that state since 1960. Lethal injection accounted for all 60 executions. 41 of those executed were white and 19 were black. 1 woman was executed (Texas). (source: Kansas City Star)
