Feb. 17 CALIFORNIA: Starr says he supports death penalty ---- Lawyer aims to avoid unjustified executions Kenneth Starr, the former Whitewater special prosecutor now seeking mercy for a condemned prisoner, says he's still in favor of the death penalty but doesn't believe the legal system for capital cases is working properly. "Society is not equipped to handle death penalty cases because of resources," Starr said Thursday. "Large law firms are not willing at this stage to take these cases on, at a cost of many thousands of dollars, in order to make sure that if the public wants the death penalty, it is not administered with arbitrariness and caprice." He said he supports capital punishment, "reserved for the most heinous crimes but enshrouded with the most exquisite safeguards. ... This is not frontier justice." Starr, whose investigation led to President Bill Clinton's impeachment, was brought into Michael Morales' case 3 weeks ago by the condemned murderer's longtime lawyer, to seek clemency from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Morales, 46, is scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday for the 1981 rape and murder of 17-year-old Terri Winchell of Lodi. Starr plans to meet with Morales at San Quentin State Prison today for the first time. He and co-counsel David Senior will then hold a news conference to try to redirect public attention away from revelations of apparently fabricated statements from jurors and a witness toward where they say it belongs -- a death sentence that they say was based on perjured testimony. "It will be an act of illegality for this execution to go forward next week, and people should be upset about that," said Starr, conducting his first round of press interviews since he entered the case. Morales' lawyers do not deny he fatally beat and stabbed Winchell and say he is remorseful. But they contend he was sentenced to death only because of jailhouse informant Bruce Samuelson's testimony that Morales admitted planning the murder, bragged about it, referred to Winchell in vulgar terms and solicited the murders of witnesses. Samuelson's entire testimony was a lie, defense lawyers say, as shown by his assertion that the two men discussed the crime entirely in Spanish -- a language his lawyers say Morales does not speak. The state Supreme Court dismissed an appeal based on that argument Wednesday, but Starr and Senior are hoping it sways Schwarzenegger. In a long legal career that included 6 years as a federal appeals court judge and four years as the Justice Department's solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush, Starr had never been involved in a death penalty case until about four years ago, when his Washington, D.C., law firm was recruited by a Notre Dame University student program to try to save a condemned man in Virginia. Starr argued Robin Lovitt's case through multiple levels of federal courts, losing at every turn until November, when Gov. Mark Warner granted clemency a day before Lovitt was to be executed. Warner said a court clerk's destruction of DNA evidence, uncovered by Lovitt's legal team, raised questions about his guilt. The experience "seared in my consciousness the need to be sensitive to calls and cries for help, even at the 11th hour, when society might take a life and when the justice system had failed," Starr said Thursday. Starr was backed in that case by the money and staff of a major law firm. In Morales' case, he has only the resources of Senior's small Los Angeles firm, which was granted state funding for the clemency case and used it last month to hire two investigators, one of whom was Kathleen Culhane. Culhane -- described by Senior as a veteran of capital cases who came well-recommended -- obtained a declaration from a prosecution witness recanting her trial testimony, which was included in Morales' clemency application Jan. 27. Prosecutors claimed it was forged and submitted a contradictory declaration from the same witness. A day later, after questioning Culhane, defense lawyers filed new declarations that the investigator presented from five jurors supporting clemency. Prosecutors then submitted conflicting statements from the same jurors, 2 of whom said their names were misspelled on the purported declarations. After comparing the signatures, Senior, in consultation with Starr, withdrew all of Culhane's declarations last weekend and said the lawyers would investigate. Starr, who signed the clemency filings along with Senior, said he had no contact with Culhane. "When I was told about her, I was told only the most complimentary kinds of things, not simply her years of experience but her quality and her effectiveness," Starr said. Asked what he now thinks of her work, he said, "I just don't know." "We want to know the truth," he said. "We'll be open. We'll be honest. We'll be transparent. But, goodness, can't we turn the subject back to the life of Michael Morales and the injustice?" The plea may sound odd from a lawyer who was known for aggressive tactics as the prosecutor looking into Clinton's Whitewater investment, an investigation that ultimately shifted to the president's relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and congressional impeachment. But Starr said he hasn't had to change his approach to the law as the defender of a convicted murderer. No matter which side they're on, he said, "I think all lawyers have a duty to try to promote a fair justice system." (source: San Francisco Chronicle) *************** Execution doctors an ethics issue----Medical groups criticize plan for physician to assess if the condemned can feel pain. A plan for California to use an anesthesiologist to monitor the chemically induced demise of a condemned killer has ignited concerns that doctors have no business assisting executions. Medical groups, including the California Medical Association and the American Society of Anesthesiologists, were quick to condemn the plan, stemming from a ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel requiring the state to adopt certain safeguards to ensure that inmates don't feel execessive pain. "Physicians are healers, not executioners," the national anesthesiology group said in a statement Wednesday. "The doctor-patient relationship depends upon the inviolate principle that a doctor uses his or her medical expertise only for the benefit of patients." Michael Morales is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday for the 1981 rape and murder of Terri Winchell, a 17-year-old Lodi high school student. The issue was whether the 3 drugs used to put inmates to death in California and many other states can cause excruciating pain, in violation of the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment. Defense lawyers said that is a real possibility. Prosecution lawyers said pain cannot occur because the first drug renders the condemned inmate unconscious. The judge said the logs from six previous California executions left him with serious questions about which side was right. Noting evidence suggesting that previous inmates may have been conscious while being put to death, Fogel ruled that the state could proceed as scheduled if it agreed to allow an anesthesiologist to observe and examine the inmate during the execution or if it agreed to use only barbiturates to kill him. The attorney general's office opted for the former approach. The idea is that a physician who specializes in anesthesia would have the expertise to determine whether an inmate is sufficiently unconscious from the 1st medication before the second and third drugs that ultimately kill the inmate are administered. The state's decision sparked sharp criticism. The American Civil Liberties Union distributed a statement by Dr. Jonathan I. Groner, a surgery professor at the Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health, who likened the approach to the role of doctors in Nazi Germany. "An anesthesiologist who enters the death chamber is clearly violating national and internationally established medical ethics," he wrote in a statement. "Not since Nazi physicians supervised the killing of mentally and physically disabled individuals ... have high-ranking physicians become so intimately involved in state-sponsored killing." University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan said involving a physician in an execution smacks of an attempt by the state to legitimize a controversial law enforcement tactic. "There aren't many Western countries that have the death penalty, and there is a strong current in our society to do away with it," Caplan said. "You don't want it to seem more barbaric than it has to be. Having someone in a white coat nearby helps moot the moral criticisms made against you." Not everyone sees the issue quite so starkly. Sacramento anesthesiologist Brian Jones said he agrees that participating in an execution is not an appropriate role for a physician, but feels that consultation with a medical expert to review the approach to lethal injection makes sense. "Even if you are opposed to it, if you are going to do it, you should do it right," he said. Ben Rich, an associate professor of bioethics at the University of California, Davis, said he understands the sentiment. "A physician could say, 'Look, if I can't stop them from executing people, at least I can help them do it in a way that does not inflict cruel and unusual punishment,'" he said. "It sounds bizarre to say this, but it's not unlike other aspects of medicine in which the issue is, what is the acceptable standard of care?" For its part, the Medical Board of California, the agency responsible for licensing and disciplining physicians who violate laws governing medical practice, will not consider the matter, said spokeswoman Candis Cohen. "The (state) Medical Practices Act doesn't preclude physician participation in an execution, and executions are lawful in the state of California," she said. Jones and other anesthesiologists said if the lethal injection protocol is closely followed, any 1 of the 3 drugs would be sufficient to kill the inmate in the doses it prescribes. The state's lethal injection protocol begins with 5 grams of sodium thiopental - more than 10 times what would normally be used during an operating room procedure, experts said. Next, the inmate is given pancuronium bromide, a drug to paralyze the muscles. The 3rd drug is potassium chloride, which stops the heart. Dr. Lee Snook, a Sacramento anesthesiologist and pain specialist, said just the amount of sodium thiopental used would be a "huge overdose." "There is no reasonable likelihood that they would be aware or feeling pain, for that matter," he said. As for concerns that condemned inmates in the past have moved and therefore may have felt pain during the procedure, doctors said that is unlikely. Jones said those movements are typically involuntary reflexes and do not necessarily signal consciousness. He said drugs used to induce an unconscious state are designed to quiet brain activity to the point where pain messages don't register. (source: Sacramento Bee) **************************** Kinder, gentler executions AS CALIFORNIA readies for its 3rd death row execution in two months, the spectacle of killing an inmate just keeps becoming more absurd. A federal judge, no doubt with good intentions, has now set special conditions for sedating an inmate before the next batch of death-dealing chemicals is injected to do the job. To make sure it all goes smoothly, 2 -- not just one -- anesthesiologists will stand by. There are already medical personnel who handle the injection procedure and another physician who finalizes the process by certifying that the inmate is dead. We now have a medical protocol for executing people that is court-certified as humane, careful and pain-free. Doctors, who take an oath to save life, will be asked to kill prisoners, a grotesque oddity that the California Medical Association pointed out in opposing the federal court ruling. These contradictions are the ghoulish consequences when a state gets into the killing game. The added doctors came about because death-penalty foes claimed the lethal injection process might be especially painful. The inmate may not be fully unconscious from the first knock-out medication before the heart-stopping drugs take effect, causing excruciating discomfort. Set aside, if you can, what the inmate did to deserve this fate. The death penalty offers ever more absurdities as the state steps up its use. The last inmate executed, Clarence Ray Allen, was kept alive by prison doctors only to be put to death on Jan. 17. He was preceded by Stanley Tookie Williams, who drew crowds of backers and celebrities before he was executed on Dec. 13. Next up is rapist-murderer Michael Morales, due to enter the San Quentin death chamber on Tuesday, barring the unlikely event that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger steps in to stop the execution. He will be the 1st beneficiary of this kindler, gentler approach to capital punishment. It isn't easy to blend vengeance with humanity. (source: Editorial, San Francisco Chronicle) ********************* Judge OKs doctors to monitor execution----Ruling keeps Morales on track for a lethal injection Tuesday. A federal judge Thursday accepted California's revised plans for executing Michael Angelo Morales, putting the execution back on track for 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. After demanding a series of documents throughout the day, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose said he was satisfied that the state had taken "appropriate steps to ensure that (Morales) will not be subjected to a risk of unnecessary pain when he is executed." Fogel ruled earlier that the execution might have to be postponed to find out whether the state's lethal injection protocol would put Morales at risk of "excruciating pain," in violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Faced with the likelihood of a court-ordered postponement, the state's lawyers agreed to have the execution monitored by either of 2 anesthesiologists. Morales was sentenced to death for the 1981 rape and murder of 17-year-old Terri Winchell of Lodi. "We're relieved," said Winchell's mother, Barbara Christian, who has grown ill over hearing Morales' name in the news. "He should pay for what he's done." The past few days have drained members of the Winchell family who have already waited a quarter of a century to see the death sentence carried out. "I think when they do stuff like that, it's more torturous on the victim's family than the person they are putting to death," said older brother Greg Winchell, 55. "They're worried about him feeling the injection, feeling pain; people don't stop to think about how he tortured and brutalized my sister." Winchell's brothers had been preparing for the past few months to attend the execution, "when, all of a sudden (they) wanted to stop it at the very end," Winchell said. "It makes us live this thing over and over and over again." "It's put my family through too much," he said Thursday. "Get the execution done." The identities of the two anesthesiologists and their exact qualifications were disclosed only to the judge. In a brief written decision, Fogel said the anesthesiologists were qualified. Responding to objections that had been filed by Morales' lawyers, however, Fogel stipulated that one of the anesthesiologists must be present in the death chamber, and not merely observe from outside, to be sure Morales remains fully unconscious after receiving the 1st of 3 chemicals, a powerful dose of a barbiturate. The 2nd and 3rd chemicals would cause a conscious person to experience suffocation and then a heart attack. Morales' lawyers could not be reached after Fogel's decision was released on the court's Web site Thursday evening. They were expected to appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Fogel had refused to interfere with California's lethal-injection protocol in 2 earlier cases. In Morales' case, he was faced with execution logs that raised what he said was "at least some doubt" that 6 men executed by lethal injection in the state were properly rendered unconscious. He said he would stay Morales' execution and probe the issue more fully this spring unless the state agreed either to use only a lethal dose of barbiturates, or to have the execution monitored by a qualified anesthesiologist whose identity could be disguised to the public. The state took the 2nd option. Morales' lawyers objected that insufficient scrutiny had been given the new plan. Also, they pointed to a state rule that bars anyone but the condemned person from remaining in the execution chamber. They requested further information about the designated anesthesiologists. Fogel reviewed further information in private, however, and then declared it satisfactory. In a sworn declaration filed Thursday, Bruce Slavin, chief lawyer with the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said he had confirmed the doctors' qualifications. He also confirmed, he said, that "neither doctor has ever participated in or observed an execution ... has ever been convicted of a felony, been disciplined by the medical board of any state or suffered an adverse judgment related to his practice of medicine." Slavin confirmed, further, "that one doctor will be physically present in the execution chamber to monitor the consciousness of Mr. Morales using whatever equipment or other techniques he deems medically appropriate. The other doctor will be present outside the chamber as an observer." (source: Sacramento Bee) ******************** Bid to Bar Execution Uses Starr Power Attorney Kenneth W. Starr, best known as the Whitewater independent counsel, said Thursday that he had recruited political associates to appeal to the governor to commute the death sentence of a killer scheduled to die next week. "That was part of the reason I was brought in," Starr, a prominent Republican, said. He would not identify anyone he has persuaded to try to keep Michael Morales from being executed Tuesday by lethal injection. Starr, dean of the Pepperdine Law School, said he was convinced the execution would be "a grievous injustice of profound proportions" - even though Morales doesn't deny that he raped and murdered 17-year-old Lodi high school senior Terri Winchell in 1981, choking her from behind with a belt, beating her on the head with a hammer and stabbing her with a knife. At issue is the testimony of a jailhouse informant that Morales bragged about the murder in conversational Spanish. That provided prosecutors with the basis for the special circumstance that landed Morales on death row. But it was later learned that Morales, a Stockton high school dropout, doesn't speak Spanish. Even Morales' trial judge, Charles R. McGrath, is urging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to spare the murderer's life. Just days before the scheduled execution, Starr's powerful political ties and years of experience arguing cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal appeals courts have become Morales' best hope for having his sentence commuted to life in prison without parole. "When a trial judge is moved to urge the governor to exercise executive power to bring about justice," Starr said, "then that is a stunning development." But that was not the only reason Starr agreed in late January to assist the defense team. Starr, the son of a minister, said he also was intrigued to learn that Morales was a "deeply sorrowful Christian." "It was part of the elements and dimensions of this man as a human being," said Starr, who has been the solicitor general in the Justice Department, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals and leader of the probe into President Clinton's Whitewater land deal. "I responded to the call," Starr said. It is not the 1st time Starr has been asked to help win clemency for a death row inmate. A year ago, he provided services pro bono to Robin Lovitt, a convicted murderer in Virginia whose execution would have been the 1,000th since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that capital punishment was constitutionally permissible. Lovitt had been convicted of killing a pool hall manager on the basis of DNA evidence that prosecutors claimed showed he had held the murder weapon and that the victim's blood was on his jacket. Virginia law allowed Lovitt to have the evidence tested with scientific methods not available at the time of his 1998 trial. But Lovitt was never able to use the new tests because a deputy clerk had all the evidence - including the murder weapon and the DNA samples - destroyed. Believing capital punishment should be applied only when guilt is certain, Starr persuaded former Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Early, among others, to urge Gov. Mark Warner to commute Lovitt's sentence to life in prison. A day before Lovitt's scheduled execution last year, Warner granted clemency for the 1st time during his governorship. Schwarzenegger's office said he was reviewing the Morales case and had not issued a decision. "Judge Starr is an excellent attorney," said Rob Lee, executive director of the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center, which launched Lovitt's clemency effort. "His involvement brought a broader audience to the cause." Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics scholar who denounced Starr for excessive legal tactics in the Whitewater probe, predicted that Starr would be a valuable asset in the Morales case. "He's a great lawyer; very smart, thorough and meticulous," Gillers said. "And although I certainly do not share all his values, I have deep respect for his legal ability." Still, time is running out for Morales, who suffered a setback this week when U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel turned down his argument that lethal injection violates a constitutional ban against "cruel and unusual punishment." Instead, Fogel told the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that it could proceed with the execution at San Quentin State Prison provided that an anesthesiologist ensured that the procedure was painless. Officials agreed and found 2 doctors willing to monitor Morales' execution. "Fervently we pray this does not happen," Starr said. He added that Morales' fate "is in the bosom of the governor." (source: Los Angeles Times) USA: Justice system won't respond to evidence Have you noticed that the system of justice in this country is shutting down, piece by piece by piece? We have long noted the deleterious effects of "tort reform" here in Texas, where insurance companies are ever bolder, and injured workers and consumers have fewer and fewer rights. But there is a shutdown in criminal justice, as well. A "Frontline" documentary on PBS, "The Case for Innocence," gives the most chilling case histories in a stupid and tragic trend in criminal justice. DNA identification, which has become more sophisticated by the year, is the greatest advance in criminal detection since the fingerprint. It has enabled the system to put away criminals who otherwise would have gotten off scot-free and to find perps years after the crime when their DNA shows up after an unrelated arrest. Short of a truth serum, this is the best thing that could happen for the criminal justice system. The problem is, DNA evidence sometimes shows that the system messed up and nailed the wrong person for a crime. In fact, it happens depressingly often. Notorious imperfection The notorious inability of prosecutors to admit that they are ever wrong is a fact of life. What is far more horrifying is the refusal of judges and courts to look at evidence that proves innocence. Can you imagine how that must feel - to be in prison for a crime you didn't commit and to finally be able to prove it, only to have a court refuse to consider the evidence? Most of this is a consequence of a noxious law that Congress rushed through after the Oklahoma City bombing. Called the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the law was aimed at the ability of federal judges to second-guess state courts and at the ability of prisoners to file endless habeas corpus claims challenging the constitutionality of their convictions. (Habeas corpus is a Latin phrase meaning "you have the body" and goes back hundreds of years in common law as well as being in the Constitution. It means that if you can show you were unfairly tried, you have a remedy through the courts.) True, the right has been abused for nitpicking purposes by some lawyers, but to effectively abolish the right is a dreadful abrogation of freedom. Where in the world are the militia folks now that we need them? Where are all those right-wingers who claim freedom as their most cherished possession? The trouble with the 96 law is that it was poorly written and has been subject to conflicting interpretations by the lower courts. The law says that a federal judge can reverse a state court conviction only if it was contrary to federal law or if it applied federal law in an "unreasonable" way. The Fourth Circuit, one of the most conservative courts in the country, has ruled that this means state courts have applied the law in ways that "all reasonable jurists would agree is unreasonable." As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pointed out, reasonable jurists always disagree on constitutional issues. The film "The Hurricane," with Denzel Washington, is about a case in point. Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a contender for the middleweight boxing title, was wrongfully convicted of a 1966 triple murder. He spent 19 years in prison before he was finally released. Wrong conviction The movie depicts the conviction as a frame-up by one racist cop, but as Selwyn Rabb, who originally covered the story for The New York Times, wrote: "The actual story is more harrowing because it exposes an underlying frailty in a criminal justice system that convicted Mr. Carter not once but twice. The convictions were obtained not by a lone, malevolent investigator but by a network of detectives, prosecutors and judges who countenanced the suppression and tainting of evidence and the injection of racial bias into the courtroom." Under current interpretations of the 1996 law, Hurricane Carter would not be free today. The most thoughtful comment in the PBS documentary came from a law professor concerned about the criminal justice system's refusal to consider its own errors. He pointed out that in most other systems, when something goes horribly wrong - a plane falls from the sky, a type of car begins bursting into flames, a hospital patient dies from gross malpractice - there is a system in place to deal with the error. There are investigations, reports and ultimately corrections made to prevent recurrence. In the criminal justice system, there are only denials and strenuous efforts to prevent the exculpatory evidence from being presented in court. The ease with which our criminal justice system can nail the wrong person has been painfully demonstrated time and again. (Henry Lee Lucas, the serial liar, provided one of the most bizarre examples. He claimed to have committed more than 600 murders. Police in 26 states closed the books on 229 murders, and he was convicted of 11 of them before it occurred to anyone to wonder if he was telling the truth. Physical evidence against him was found in two cases. The state of Texas managed to convict him for a murder committed while he was quite demonstrably in another state and had to let him off death row.) Perhaps the saddest and most terrifying finding in "The Case for Innocence" is that in the 60-some-odd cases in which innocence has been proved by DNA and the accused finally freed, none of the cases has been reopened. (source: Molly Ivins, Daily Journal) ***************** Moussaoui Quiet During Jury Selection Zacarias Moussaoui, the al-Qaida conspirator known for insulting outbursts in court, sat quietly as a judge qualified 29 people to serve on the jury that will decide if he lives or dies. Potential jurors include a woman who said she assumes he is "evil" and a man whose co-worker died in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. After 2 days of jury selection Wednesday and Thursday, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema has qualified 29 of the 46 people she has interviewed. Nine were approved over defense objections, while 4 were approved over prosecutors' objections. Despite repeated tirades at other pretrial hearings, Moussaoui has followed Brinkema's orders to keep quiet during jury selection. He has studied the jurors closely and even requested that a courtroom podium be moved so he could get an unobstructed view. Only rarely has Moussaoui shown visible reaction to jurors' comments. He appeared to nod in agreement Thursday morning when a woman was asked how she would evaluate witness testimony and she replied, "The truth is the truth no matter who says it." But Moussaoui has been forced to let his court-appointed lawyers -- whom he despises -- make his arguments for him during jury selection. Perhaps the most heated debate occurred Thursday afternoon when defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin unsuccessfully sought to keep off the jury a public works executive whose former co-worker was killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The man said he worked with her on 2 projects and may have had drinks with her but did not attend her funeral. Said Zerkin: "We can't have associates of victims on the jury. ... He would qualify as a victim impact witness." But Brinkema countered that the man sounded fair and said not every terrorist deserves execution. Moussaoui, a 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent, pleaded guilty last April to conspiring with al-Qaida to fly planes into U.S. buildings. But he denies any involvement in 9/11 and says he was training to fly a plane into the White House as part of an aborted second wave of attacks. Zerkin offered no objection to the woman who assumed Moussaoui is evil; she was deemed qualified to serve. The judge said Thursday that she might finish picking 85 potential jurors by the end of next week, putting the trial ahead of schedule. The 85 will return March 6 for lawyers to exercise peremptory -- or unexplained -- strikes to whittle the total to 12 jurors and 6 alternates and to deliver opening statements in the sentencing trial. The government's unsuccessful objections included a female county government worker who described herself as a Massachusetts liberal and wrote on a jury questionnaire, "I don't think we have the right to take anyone's life." She said she would set her personal feelings aside and follow the law. On the Net: U.S. District Court: http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/index.html (source: Associated Press) ILLINOIS: Ryan Witness Contradicts FBI's Testimony----Statements Could Be Enough To Produce Reasonable Doubt He's now the U.S. State's Attorney for southern Illinois. But Edward McNally was in Chicago today because 5 years ago he represented then-Gov. George Ryan, CBS 2's Mike Flannery reports. And at a Feb, 2001 meeting in a downtown Chicago hotel, he battled on Ryan's behalf with the very federal prosecutors who are now trying to put Ryan behind bars. McNally had directly contradicted the sworn testimony of veteran FBI Agent Ray Ruebenson, furthermore telling the jury that he complained to prosecutors in that 2001 meeting that the FBI agent "wasn't taking adequate notes," adding that, "They stared at me and said nothing." Ruebenson testified weeks ago that when Ryan was asked about taking checks, he flatly denied ever doing it. McNally today contradicted that, saying Ryan couldn't recall, quoting the governor: "I don't remember what happened yesterday. I'm a pharmacist. I'm 67 years old. That was 3 or 4 years ago." When McNally departed, Ryan's lawyers called to the stand anti-death penalty activist Mike Farrell, who played a military field doctor on the show, MASH, and who is a big fan of Ryan's decision to clear everyone off Illinois's death row. "It was very frustrating my being limited in what I could say," Farrell said. It is count 13 of Ryan's indictment that accuses him of denying he received the checks the government asked him about in 2001. McNally's compelling and credible contradiction of that today might be enough to produce reasonable doubt in a juror's mind. (source: CBS News) FLORIDA: Sad, not cruel Lethal injection a challenge to death penaltyPutting a beloved pet to sleep is a sad, emotional experience. But anyone who has ever participated in such an act of kindness with his or her veterinarian knows it is a supremely peaceful process. The pet is placed on a table, tearful good-byes are said, a shot is administered and in seconds the pet's breathing slows, then stops. Its muscles relax; the suffering is over. It seems the farthest thing from cruel and unusual suffering. To prevent cruel and unusual suffering is the reason animal lovers choose lethal injection when their pets have reached the end of their lives. But in recent weeks lawyers for death row inmates have successfully blocked the execution of 2 condemned men in Florida - one, Clarence Edward Hill, as he was strapped on a gurney with intravenous lines already attached awaiting injection of lethal chemicals - on the argument that lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Those delays, ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court, have prompted anti-death-penalty advocates to call for a moratorium on executions until the full court hears arguments on the 1st Florida case in April and issues a ruling in June. Already, dozens of other states have piggy-backed on the Florida case, challenging the constitutionality of this method of execution on cruel-and-unusual grounds. Legal experts say it amounts to a temporary moratorium on capital punishment. No question the nation could use a serious, in-depth debate on the death penalty. With many nations, particularly in western Europe, having long prohibited capital punishment, the United States stands in some unsavory company in the international community clinging to what many regard as a relic of barbaric times. Still, one cannot overlook the troubling inequity in the way the ultimate punishment is meted out. Indeed, on the same day that Clarence Hill's life was spared on Florida's death row in Starke two weeks ago, Marion Dudley was put to death by lethal injection in Texas as his attorneys fought vainly for a stay of execution on similar grounds. One killer dies, one lives. In case after case around the country, one killer gets life, one gets the death penalty. And increasingly, as DNA evidence gains credence, one sentenced to death is proven innocent while 10 others are denied access to DNA testing. But the issue here is lethal injection. The cruel-and-unusual punishment argument is really grasping at straws by death penalty opponents. They claim that the 1st of 3 drugs administered, sodium thiopental, sometimes fails to render the inmate unconscious. When that happens, the subsequent drugs that paralyze the muscles used in breathing and ultimately stop the heart create "a prolonged, agonizing death," they contend. They offer no scientific proof of that claim, merely citing a sedative combination outlawed by the American Veterinary Association as causing distress in animals being euthanized. It's hard to give much credence to such claims. Medical science has become extremely good at calibrating the effects of chemicals on the human body. If adjustments need to be made in the dosage levels used in lethal injection, then by all means make them. But don't use this as a thinly disguised attempt to abolish capital punishment. For that's what these appeals are all about. If lethal injection is cruel, what method of execution would opponents suggest? In fact, it has been adopted by most states in place of other forms of execution that were considered cruel: hanging, the gas chamber, the electric chair, the firing squad. This is merely an attempt to ban this one, too, knowing that there is no better substitute. It may not be pleasant. It may not be easy. But it is the law. If grieving pet owners can accept it for beloved pets, society ought to be able to apply it to convicted killers. Sad, emotional for sure. But not cruel. (source: Opinion, Bradenton Herald) NORTH CAROLINA: State appeals ruling taking mentally retarded man off death row State prosecutors will appeal a federal judge's ruling that took a mentally retarded man off death row who was convicted in the 1984 slaying of 3 people in Bladen County, the state Attorney General's office decided this week. U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle last month said Elton O. McLaughlin, 55, should not be executed. Boyle ruled that a test that showed McLaughlin had an IQ of 70 was valid, even though it was administered by a teacher and not by a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, as state law requires. McLaughlin was 10 years old when he took the test. The segregated Bladen County school that McLaughlin attended in the 1960s lacked psychologists to administer IQ tests. Boyle ruled that to require such conditions now under state law is unfair. The state legislature in 2001 outlawed the death penalty for the mentally retarded. Defendants are considered retarded if they score 70 or less on an IQ test and show poor life skills before age 18. The state's lawyers had argued that the IQ test couldn't be used as proof that McLaughlin was mentally retarded because it wasn't properly administered. In June 2003, Bladen County Superior Court Judge James F. Ammons Jr. sided with the state. Boyle disagreed and ordered that McLaughlin's death sentences be vacated and that he serve the rest of his life in prison. If Boyle's ruling stands, McLaughlin would be the 12th death row inmate in the state spared because of mental retardation. (source: Associated Press) ************ Forsyth jury considers death penalty for Murrell----Closing arguments heard in sentencing phase of trial Jurors should recommend the death penalty for a man they convicted last week of killing a cook who worked at a Winston-Salem restaurant because the death resulted from a "cruel and pitiless crime" and the gunman has yet to accept responsibility for it, prosecutor Jennifer Martin said yesterday. However, defense attorneys say that jurors should recommend life in prison without parole for Jeremy Dushane Murrell, 26, because of his unstable upbringing, which affected his behavior. His mother and father have a history of mental disorders, which contributed to domestic disputes. As a result, Murrell was bounced from house to house among relatives who cared for him. Jurors in Forsyth Superior Court began deliberations yesterday to decide whether to recommend the death penalty. Murrell was charged in 2003 with murder in the shooting death of Lawrence Matthew Harding. Jurors will continue deliberations today. Last week, jurors found Murrell guilty of kidnapping Harding, who was 19, from the parking lot of South by Southwest, robbing him and shooting him to death. Murrell drove to Durham to get help putting Harding's body in a trunk and then drove to Richmond, where he left Harding's remains. Richmond detectives found the remains Aug. 29, 2003 - eight days after the killing. Before deliberations began yesterday, prosecutors and defense attorneys gave closing arguments in the sentencing phase of the trial. Prosecutors Martin and Jim O'Neill told jurors that Murrell has not had a mental disorder diagnosed, so they should give little weight, if any at all, to the defense that Murrell was suffering from a mental problem. , They said that Murrell also tried to smear Harding's name by telling local police that he killed Harding in a drug deal that turned sour. Murrell deserves to die for the crime, Martin and O'Neill said. "When you look into your hearts ... weigh how he shot (Harding) in the face and stuffed him in his own car making it his coffin," Martin said. "Is it really enough to say, 'I didn't get love from my mama?'" Murrell's schizophrenic mother threatened to kill him as a child and did not show him affection, according to testimony. Relatives and others testified that they tried to create a loving environment for him, she said. "I submit to you, write death.... The murderer is sitting right there," O'Neill said during his closing statement. Kevin Mauney and Lisa Costner, Murrell's attorneys, said they were not trying to deflect blame from Murrell. They said that before the crime, Murrell had enrolled in college and helped to care for his ailing parents. "We're not blaming his mother, but it's a part of who he is and all of this happened when he was powerless to do anything about it," Costner said describing Murrell's upbringing. "(Murrell) is not the worst of the worst. There is promise in this young man." Prosecutors gave Judge William Z. Wood Jr. a list of aggravating factors in the crime. The crime was committed for financial gain; it was committed while Murrell robbed Harding with a dangerous weapon; and the death occurred while Murrell kidnapped Harding. Defense attorneys submitted about 40 mitigating factors, which a jury can use to recommend against a death penalty. Some factors were that Murrell committed the crime under mental and emotional disturbance and that he was depressed. (source: Winston-Salem Journal) ******************** Ex-prosecutors called 'victims' -- Union County lawyer says colleagues 'good public servants' Former Union County prosecutors Ken Honeycutt and Scott Brewer, accused of lying and hiding evidence in a death penalty case, aren't discussing the allegations against them in public. But a fellow attorney said he is "fed up" with the misconduct allegations and wants the public to know they didn't do anything wrong. Lawyer Koy Dawkins shares a law office with Honeycutt in Monroe. He said he is friends with both men and has known Honeycutt since before Honeycutt attended law school. Dawkins, a civil attorney who also is the Union County Board of Education's counsel, does not have a legal role in the case but said he has discussed it with Honeycutt. "They are good public servants who did their job well. And they're being made out to be felons," said Dawkins, "I'm convinced in my mind that Ken and Scott are victims," he said. Dawkins said existing court documents already show the men didn't do what they are accused of. Honeycutt and Brewer are being scrutinized, Dawkins said, because of the heightened interest in death penalty moratoriums and possible wrongful convictions. Allegations against Honeycutt, who retired as the county's chief district attorney in 2004 and Brewer, a district court judge, have received statewide attention. In August, the N.C. State Bar charged Honeycutt and Brewer with hiding deals a star witness received in a murder case that put defendant Jonathan Hoffman on death row for 7 years. Hoffman received a new trial in 2004, and the case is set for this fall. The state bar's disciplinary committee twice dismissed the case against the prosecutors because of a deadline rule and a record-keeping rule. But the bar said it will appeal the committee's rulings and said the men's actions constituted felonies. It doesn't have the power to file criminal charges, so it asked Union's current DA to investigate. Dawkins said the men's names should be cleared for these reasons: - They did not know of deals the star witness received because a federal prosecutor who made the deals didn't tell them. The witness, Johnell Porter, testified that Hoffman confessed the crime to him; Porter later received a reduced sentence in a bank robbery conviction and federal immunity in other cases. Honeycutt and Brewer used the same defense in filings to the bar. - Honeycutt requested a new trial for Hoffman in 2004 on the grounds that the witness deals weren't disclosed to the court. Honeycutt blamed the federal prosecutor, and said "justice demands" a new trial. Superior Court Judge Erwin Spainhour awarded a new trial. - Spainhour's order for the new trial says Honeycutt and Brewer did not know about the witness deals. In their filings with the state bar, Honeycutt and Brewer argued Spainhour's order meant they shouldn't be disciplined about the deals. In an interview Tuesday, Spainhour said he couldn't comment on how he made his decision. (source: Charlotte Observer)
