Feb. 21 TEXAS: Testimony scheduled in teacher death case Testimony begins today in the capital murder trial of a man accused of killing Alamo Heights schoolteacher Diane Tilly. Prosecutors say Ronnie Joe Neal robbed and attacked Tilly at her home, then shot her to death in a field in East Bexar County on Nov. 22, 2004. Tilly, a 58-year-old teacher at Robbins Academy, was found 2 weeks later after Neal's daughter, Pearl Cruz, led investigators to her body. Cruz, 16, told authorities she helped her father arrange the robbery and slaying, then went on a spending spree with Tilly's credit cards. Cruz struck a deal with prosecutors and agreed to testify against Neal in exchange for a sentence of no more than 30 years. Neal, 35, faces the death penalty. (source: San Antonio Express-News) CALIFORNIA----execution delayed Execution delayed indefinitely after doctors pull out The execution of a man convicted of raping and murdering a 17-year-old girl was delayed indefinitely on Tuesday after 2 anesthesiologists refused to participate because of ethical concerns about their involvement. With the execution scheduled for 12:01 a.m., defense lawyers requested a stay from the federal judge who last week ordered San Quentin State Prison to have an anesthesiologist on hand to minimize Michael Angelo Morales' pain as he was put to death by lethal injection. A 2nd anesthesiologist was retained as a backup. Although U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel denied the motion, the anesthesiologists then withdrew, citing ethical concerns raised by Fogel's ruling, according to prison officials who announced the postponement of the execution around 2:30 a.m. The exact wording of the judge's order was not immediately available. The prison has until 1 minute before midnight on Tuesday to execute Morales. After that, the "death warrant" expires and officials would have to go back to the trial judge who imposed the death sentence in 1983 for another warrant. "The execution warrant, it's good for 24 hours, so there is no need to rush into this if the warden is not completely comfortable," Crittendon said. Seeking another warrant could prove difficult for the state, however, since the original sentencing judge, Charles McGrath of Ventura County, joined Morales this month in asking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for clemency in the case. McGrath said he no longer believed the credibility of a jailhouse informant whose testimony helped land Morales on death row. Morales would be the 14th murderer and the 1st Hispanic to be put to death since California reinstated the death penalty in 1977. He was sentenced to death in 1983 for killing 17-year-old Terri Winchell, whom he attacked with a hammer, stabbed and left to die half-naked in a vineyard. Morales' final chance was seemingly extinguished earlier this week after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant a stay. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy reviewed the case, then sent it to the full court, which denied the final appeal on Monday evening, according to court spokesman Ed Turner. With his execution just hours away, one of Morales' attorneys, former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, then pleaded for clemency from Schwarzenegger. But the governor refused. "Based on the record and totality of circumstances in this case, Morales' request for reconsideration and request for a hearing are denied," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. The execution, originally scheduled for 12:01 a.m. ET, was first delayed for at least an hour to give anesthesiologists additional training, prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon said. Fogel recommended that California employ 2 anesthesiologists - 1 in the execution chamber with Morales and another nearby - to ensure the inmate is unconscious before the 2 remaining drugs are injected. The judge issued the order after studying the medical logs of executed inmates and finding that there were "substantial questions" about whether prisoners were conscious and feeling unacceptable levels of pain. On Sunday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Morales' argument that Fogel's order is not enough, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court on Monday. Another petition rejected by the courts had the support of McGrath, who presided over Morales' 1983 trial. McGrath said he no longer believed the testimony of jailhouse informant Bruce Samuelson, who testified that Morales boasted of the assault and made obscene references to the victim. Samuelson told investigators that the 2 men spoke in Spanish, a language Morales said he doesn't speak. "New information has emerged to show the evidence upon which I relied in sentencing Mr. Morales to death - Mr. Samuelson's testimony - is false," McGrath wrote in a statement Morales' lawyers submitted to the appeals court, to the California Supreme Court and in its petition for clemency to Schwarzenegger. The California Supreme Court rejected that challenge without comment. (source: The Associated Press) ************** Execution of Killer-Rapist Is Postponed After Doctors Walk Out -- Court-ordered anesthesiologists refuse to participate in the process, citing ethical concerns. The scheduled execution of convicted murderer-rapist Michael Morales was postponed this morning after court-ordered anesthesiologists refused to participate in the process. The prison warden abruptly changed plans and announced that the inmate would be executed with a lethal dose of barbiturates. At 2:55 a.m., Warden Steven Ornoski announced that the prison indends to carry out the execution at 7:30 p.m. today with an unprecedented single dose of sodium pentothal, a lethal barbiturate, rather than the standard three-chemical potion. Injecting Morales with five grams of barbiturates was expected to lengthen the execution from the usual 11 minutes to as long as 45 minutes. A week ago, U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel responded to defense claims that lethal injection violated a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment by offering three options: A lethal injection of only barbiturates; having an anesthesiologist on hand to ensure Morales was unconscious when the standard 3-chemical injection was administered; or a stay of the execution pending a hearing. State corrections officials chose the 2nd option, and had two doctors ready to proceed with the execution as planned at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. After serious differences of opinion with the anesthesiologists, Ornoski asked his staff to stand down on the execution at about 2 a.m. The doctors' withdrawal came at the end of hasty legal maneuvering in U.S. District Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. But it was the language in an opinion rendered Monday by the appellate court that had the court-ordered anesthesiologists in mutiny. The doctors' concerns hinged on the ethics of returning an inmate to consciousness in the event of a botched lethal injection. Doctors said the ruling raised serious questions about the possibility of having to intervene in the execution "if any evidence of either pain or a return to consciousness arose." In a statement to the warden, the doctors said, "Any such intervention would be medically unethical. As a result, we have withdrawn from participation in this current process. ... What is being asked of us is ethically unacceptable." The death warrant for Morales expires at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. If the execution is not carried out before then, a Superior Court judge would have no more than 60 days to set another execution date. Morales was returned to his cell on death row, and prison officials declined to describe what the inmate only thought was his last meal. The family members of the victim were leaving San Quentin and "trying to gather themselves," Crittendon said. The anticipated execution at San Quentin State Prison followed a last-minute clemency campaign fraught with controversy and highly unusual legal twists and turns. Morales, 46, was convicted of the brutal 1981 slaying of Terri Winchell, a 17-year-old Lodi high school senior. He admitted conspiring with his cousin, Rick Ortega, to kill Winchell as payback for her dating Ortega's bisexual lover. But he said he accepted responsibility for the crime and was deeply remorseful. He was set to become the 14th man and the 1st Latino executed by the state of California since capital punishment was reinstated in 1978. He also was to be the 3rd inmate executed in California in 10 weeks, and the 5th to whom Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has denied clemency since he took office 2 years ago. Morales' defense team had argued that the state's 3-stage lethal injection protocol violated a constitutional ban on "cruel and unusual punishment," claiming that the initial rounds of sedatives and paralytic agents might mask, rather than prevent, pain from the final heart-stopping chemicals. After studying the medical logs of executed inmates, U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel agreed that the procedure was prone to error and recommended having a doctor present to make sure Morales was rendered unconscious before the final dose. His ruling applies, however, only to the Morales execution. Defense attorneys asked the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to stop the execution on the grounds that Fogel's remedy was untested and had not been subjected to legal, medical or administrative reviews. The altered procedure was also protested by physician groups, including the American Medical Assn., on the grounds that it contradicted a doctor's Hippocratic oath to prevent harm. Crittendon cited Fogel's ruling as the reason for the delay in the execution: "The protocol is relatively new in that this court decision just came down," he said. Morales' petitions to block the execution were rejected by the appeals court over the weekend and by the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday. An unusual 2nd request for clemency, filed just 12 hours before the scheduled execution, was also rejected by the governor. In the clemency bids rejected by the appeals court, the California Supreme Court and Schwarzenegger, defense lawyers Senior and former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr argued that the decision to execute Morales was based on false testimony from a jailhouse informant. Morales' trial judge, Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles R. McGrath, came to agree and announced late last month that had he known that the informant - a star witness for the prosecution - had lied, he would not have supported a capital murder charge or sentenced Morales to death in 1983. Legal experts said it was the first time since California reinstated capital punishment that a judge had asked a governor to commute the judge's own sentence of death to one of life in prison without possibility of parole. In his 2nd petition to Schwarzenegger, Starr made a point of saying that there was no record of a governor disregarding a sentencing judge's recommendation for clemency. The informant, Bruce Samuelson, testified during the trial that Morales had confessed to him in Spanish that he had plotted to kill Winchell. A decade later, however, an investigation by the state attorney general's office showed that Morales, a 4th-generation Californian, didn't speak Spanish. The problems with Samuelson's testimony created a rallying cry among advocates led by Starr, a constitutional law scholar and dean of the Pepperdine Law School. Starr was also impressed that Morales had become what Starr described as "a deeply repentant sorrowful Christian who has accepted full responsibility for a terrible crime that will haunt him forever." But the defense team's clemency campaign was complicated by the recent withdrawal of allegedly forged declarations from jurors urging clemency, in part because of the discrepancy in Samuelson's testimony. The disputed documents were generated by a defense investigator who was recently pulled off the case. Prosecutors then submitted affidavits from five unnamed jurors indicating that their unanimous decision to convict Morales had little to do with Samuelson's testimony. Morales ate a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast Monday, then snacked on canteen items stockpiled in his cell, including Top Ramen soup and candy bars, said Crittendon, the prison spokesman. Morales then asked prison officials to give what remained of his stockpile to another inmate on death row. In the afternoon, he met with his legal team for 3 hours, and spoke to family members by phone. He opted not to have his loved ones or supporters visit, however. "He stated this was easier on his loved ones, and he wanted to be remembered for the good times in the past," Crittendon said. In the evening, Crittendon spoke with Morales, who did not sob or appear overcome with emotion, he said. Instead, Morales talked of his friends, supporters and legal team, and said he hoped they would cope well with his death. About 6 p.m., Morales was moved to a "death watch" cell adjacent to the execution chamber. He did not request a spiritual advisor. He was given a new pair of denim trousers and a blue work shirt to wear. As officials prepared for the execution, the rest of the prison inmates were restricted to their sleeping areas. 3 protesters were arrested outside; officials said they had tried to block the entrance to the prison. Officials designated 50 witnesses. Among them were five family members including the victim's brother, Brian Chalk, 34, and 17 media representatives. Morales named 2 witnesses, but they were not identified, said Elaine Jennings, acting press secretary for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The slaying of Terri Winchell on Jan. 8, 1981, was brutal. The attack began in Ortega's car when Morales, then 21, tried to strangle Winchell from behind with a belt, which broke. Morales' roommate, Patricia Felix, later testified that he earlier had rehearsed the strangulation by wrapping his belt around her neck. A state attorney general's report said, "She screamed for Ortega to help and attempted to fight off the attack, ripping her own hair out of her scalp in the struggle." Morales then beat Winchell on the head with a claw hammer until her face was no longer recognizable. Then he dragged her face-down across a road and into a vineyard, where he raped her. Morales then stabbed her four times in the heart. Later that night, he spent $11 he found in her purse on beer, wine and cigarettes. Two days later, Morales was arrested at his home, where police found evidence, including his broken belt stained with Winchell's blood, hidden under a mattress. They also found the blood-stained hammer in his refrigerator vegetable crisper, and Winchell's purse and credit card. In 1983, Morales was found guilty of murder with special circumstances of lying in wait, planning murder in advance and murder by torture. Over the years, Morales' attorneys claimed he was high on PCP the night of the killing and that his cousin, who was sentenced to life in prison, masterminded the slaying of the straight-A student who had sung in a church choir, played classical piano and was working part-time at a local restaurant to raise money for college. But San Joaquin County Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles Schultz dismissed those claims, pointing out that the lying-in-wait charge against Morales was corroborated by 2 witnesses. (source: Los Angeles Times) ******************** Killer's midnight appeals denied -- Execution delayed for several hours amid confusion over anesthesiologists The scheduled execution of Michael Morales for the 1981 rape and murder of a teenage Lodi girl was put on hold early today when uncertainty arose about the roles of anesthesiologists assigned to make sure the inmate remained unconscious during the lethal injection. The procedures were quickly put back on track, however, when a federal judge and an appeals court denied a stay of execution. Morales was to have been put to death at 12:01 a.m. at San Quentin State Prison. But warden Steven Ornoski ordered a 1-hour delay shortly before 11:30 p.m, saying prison staff and 2 anesthesiologists needed more time to rehearse their parts in the execution. Before the hour expired, said prison spokesman Lt. Vernell Crittendon, Morales' lawyers returned to federal court to seek a stay of execution, citing the apparent confusion over the anesthesiologists' role. The stay was sought from the federal judge whose unprecedented order last week had stationed the doctors in the prison as a safeguard against a botched execution that would result in a slow and painful death. Within an hour, both U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to delay the execution further, said John Grele, a lawyer for Morales. Morales appeared to have exhausted his last legal appeals Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take his case. He spent the day largely by himself, seeing only members of his legal team. A spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation described him as "very cooperative and upbeat." Morales had no visits from family or friends Monday but said goodbye to them by telephone after being taken to a death-watch cell near the lethal injection chamber at 6 p.m., Crittendon said. He said Morales had discouraged relatives from coming to see him. "He wanted to make clear to his loved ones that this is not necessarily a sad affair," Crittendon said. "He wanted to be remembered for the good times they had in the past, as opposed to the event that is happening tonight." Morales, whose lawyers said he had become devoutly religious in prison, did not request the presence of a spiritual adviser, Jennings said. About 250 anti-death-penalty protesters assembled at the gate outside the prison. Earlier in the day, 3 protesters were arrested for blocking the gate. Morales, 46, of Stockton, was convicted of raping and murdering 17-year-old Terri Winchell, whose battered body was found in a vineyard in a remote area of San Joaquin County. Morales never denied his guilt and said he had been recruited for the attack by his cousin. The cousin is serving a life sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Morales' appeals Monday afternoon. In one appeal, Morales' lawyers argued that his conviction for capital murder was the product of a jailhouse informant's false testimony that Morales had admitted planning the killing. A federal appeals court dismissed that appeal Sunday, saying the informant's testimony was corroborated by other witnesses and noting that Morales had raised the issue in an earlier appeal. The 2nd appeal challenged the adequacy of U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel's order last week that required the state to put a medical professional in the death chamber to make sure Morales was unconscious from the effects of the sedative sodium pentothal before paralyzing and heart-stopping drugs were injected to end his life. The appeals court said Sunday that the two anesthesiologists whom the state retained had all the authority they needed to stop the execution if Morales was conscious and in pain. After the Supreme Court rejection, Morales' lawyers made a final plea to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to reconsider his denial of clemency. Kenneth Starr, the former Whitewater special prosecutor who is on Morales' legal team, noted that the judge who sentenced Morales to death in 1983 had recently endorsed clemency. Starr said this would be the 1st time in California history that a governor had spurned such a recommendation by the trial judge. Three hours later, Schwarzenegger replied that he saw no reason to reconsider. Death penalty opponents who gathered outside the prison included retired Episcopal priest Lyle Grosjean of San Francisco, who had led a group of about 15 people on foot across the Golden Gate Bridge. "We're against any gratuitous violence," said Grosjean, who has protested executions at San Quentin since 1959. "The death penalty doesn't have to happen." Ruth Enero of Modesto, who accompanied Grosjean, said it was her 12th execution-eve walk. "I know that executing Michael Morales does not do anything to resurrect Terri Winchell," she said. Brian Chalk of Sacramento, Winchell's youngest brother, said he sighed as he entered the prison with 2 of his 3 brothers to witness the execution and saw the protesters. "I'm feeling fine about this tonight," said Chalk, 34. "We're ready for this thing to happen." Morales was 21 when he murdered Winchell on Jan. 8, 1981. He was a gangster and drug user with a record of petty crimes, had been kicked out of his parents' home at 15, and had dropped out of high school and fathered 3 children. According to trial testimony, his cousin Ricky Ortega recruited him to attack Winchell, a popular high school senior with a straight-A average who was an accomplished singer. Winchell's boyfriend was secretly in a relationship with Ortega, who was gay. Morales' lawyers say the plan was not to kill Winchell but to frighten her out of any thought of revealing Ortega's sexuality by briefly choking her. But when he accompanied Ortega in a car to pick up Winchell, Morales, high on PCP and cheap wine, carried not just a belt but also a claw hammer and a 7-inch knife. In an isolated area north of Lodi, Morales, sitting in the back seat, reached forward with his belt and started strangling Winchell, prosecution witnesses said he told them. When the belt broke, he started hitting her in the head with the hammer. After 23 blows, he carried her, unconscious and dying, out of the car, dragged her to a vineyard, raped her and stabbed her 4 times. Police tracked down Ortega the next day. He pointed them to Morales, who confessed to investigators. Morales was convicted in 1983 of 2 counts of capital murder: murder by torture, which was overturned on appeal, and murder by lying in wait. One prosecution witness was Morales' housemate, Patricia Flores, who said Morales had practiced with his belt around her neck and had later described the killing. An inmate who did time in jail with Morales, Bruce Samuelson, testified that Morales had bragged about the murder, referred to Winchell with sexual vulgarities, and asked him to kill Flores and another witness. Ortega, tried separately, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. As his appeal wound through the courts, Morales became a changed man in prison, according to friends and relatives. He resumed academic studies, became religious and took up art, producing portraits and landscapes sold in the prison store. "I've done my best over the years to strip off the old personality with all its flaws and shameful practices, and put on a new personality. One shaped by good morals and strong values," Morales said last month in a letter to Schwarzenegger, part of his application for clemency. Morales' lawyers also cited Samuelson's statement 10 years after the trial that he and Morales had discussed the crime in Spanish -- proof that the jailhouse informant's testimony was a lie, they said, because Morales speaks no Spanish. That persuaded Morales' trial judge, Charles McGrath, to join the appeal for clemency, saying he would have set aside the jury's death verdict if he had known of the informant's falsehoods. But claims that the death sentence was based on perjured testimony failed to sway federal courts, which found no evidence that authorities had deliberately planted Samuelson next to Morales or knowingly presented lies to the jury. Morales would be the 3rd prisoner put to death in a little more than 2 months in California and the 14th since executions resumed in 1992 after a 25-year hiatus. Dane Gillette, death penalty coordinator for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, said the recent cluster of executions did not signal a speedup in the implementation of California's death penalty. Instead, he said, it merely reflected the fact that a few cases more than 20 years old cleared the federal courts around the same time. There are 644 other inmates on the state's death row, the nation's largest. Only one other inmate's case has advanced far enough for a possible execution date later this year, Gillette said -- Mitchell Sims, convicted of murdering a Domino's Pizza deliveryman in Glendale (Los Angeles County) in 1986. Sims used to work for Domino's in South Carolina, and was also sentenced to death in that state for killing 2 company employees before he came to California. (source: San Francisco Chronicle) ************* Waging Peace On The Death Penalty At 12:01 a.m. Tuesday morning Michael Morales is scheduled to die for the 1982 murder of Terri Winchell, a 17-year old Lodi, California high school student. The trial took place in Ventura County, where I live. This evening, as Michael is strapped to the executioner's table, Amnesty International and Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions will hold a candlelight vigil in front of the Ventura County Government Center, where Morales was condemned to death. We will call for the abolition of the capital punishment. Michael Morales has lost his struggle to survive, but eventually we death penalty abolitionists will prevail in the United States as we have prevailed in 120 other countries, from Angola to Nepal to Venezuela. Eventually, we as a nation will learn to respect the universal human right to life. We will reject execution as a form of torture. There are signs that the tide is turning against capital punishment. In 2002 the US Supreme Court declared the execution of the mentally disabled unconstitutional; the execution of juveniles was abolished in 2005. 12 states have no capital punishment statute, and Illinois and New Jersey have moratoria in effect. Recent polls suggest that voters prefer life without parole as an alternative to the death penalty. The rational arguments in favor of capital punishment are weak. It is excruciatingly obvious that executions do not deter capital offenses, are frequently meted out to factually innocent individuals, are racially biased, and function as a macabre lottery stacked against the most destitute defendants. But the best argument against the death penalty may simply be to see Michael Morales as a fellow human being worthy of our care and compassion. Although these humanistic arguments were ignored by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger when he rejected Morales' clemency petition, Michael is remorseful and rehabilitated. He is a talented and sensitive artist. He has a mother, a father, 2 brothers, a sister, 3 children and young grandchildren who will be no less devastated by his murder at the hands of the state than Terri Winchell's wonderful and loving family has been by her murder at the hands of Michael and his accomplice. I will hold 2 candles tonight-one for Terri and one for Michael. I believe it is only through honoring both these lives, loving both these souls, that we can finally come to grips with our residual national resistance to abolition. It easy to love a young woman like Terri Winchell; I know because I have two equally lovable teenage daughters. Its a lot harder - but just as important-to love Michael Morales. When instead we hate Michael and men like him, we neglect to provide early intervention alternatives to guns, drugs, unemployment, gangs and prison. Father Gregory Boyle, who has devoted his life to working with youth at risk for violent crime, particularly minority males like Michael Morales, says that Jesus always represented "the poor and excluded, the easily despised, the demonized, and those whose burdens were more than they could bear." Michael Morales-so easily despised and demonized for the horrific murder he committed at age 21 while stoned on marijuana, PCP and embalming fluid-fits the profile perfectly. Father Boyle says such youth don't need a 2nd chance; they need the first chance that no one ever gave them. Our "war on crime" has made us the world's number 1 per capita incarceration country with over 2.1 million prisoners. We are a leading purveyor of capital punishment, rivaled only by the likes of China, Vietnam and Iran. We have implemented astonishingly draconian measures like Californias heinous Three Strikes Law which provides a life sentence for offenses as minor as stealing a couple of DVDs or lying on a driver's license application. As we mourn Terri and Michaels death, and as we approach March 1, International Death Penalty Abolition Day, let us contemplate what it would look like to wage peace, instead of war, on crime. What if our guiding principles were compassion and rehabilitation instead of vengeance and punishment? Our 1st step would be to abolish the death penalty and to give Michael Morales his 1st chance. (source: David Howard is co-chair of Ventura County California Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions) MARYLAND: Death penalty issue gets confusing----2 court rulings create uncertainty about stance of Md. appeals court As recently as December, death penalty opponents were incensed and frustrated that Maryland's highest court was not more actively considering arguments against capital punishment, including appeals based on a study that found what they consider disturbing patterns of race and geography in the state's imposition of the ultimate sanction. But on consecutive Mondays this month, the Maryland Court of Appeals issued rulings favorable to death row inmates. The judges 1st postponed the execution of Vernon Lee Evans Jr. to hear arguments this spring on how race factors into the application of the death penalty and on Maryland's lethal injection procedures - issues raised unsuccessfully by lawyers for a man executed in December - and then ordered a new sentencing hearing for a man sentenced to death in the kidnapping and killing of his girlfriend's 8-year-old daughter. Many lawyers, judges and legal experts interviewed said the rulings might reflect the particulars of those cases, with few broader ramifications for other death row inmates and no clear indication of movement among the seven judges on fundamental death penalty issues. They also said the state court might be hesitant to permit more executions at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is sending mixed signals, taking up some lethal injection cases and declining to review others. And they wondered whether the judges might be taking an opportunity to clarify, once and for all, their positions on the merits of legal claims routinely raised by Maryland's death row inmates. "There's been movement in the country, but it's been kind of schizophrenic," said Jennifer P. Lyman, a clinical law professor at the George Washington University Law School, who has represented men on death row. "On one hand, DNA has given us a window on the fallibility of the system, and people are reacting to that when you have the ultimate punishment. But on the other hand, there's an inertia that exists in the effort to say, 'We've had enough of these kinds of appeals,'" prompting Congress to consider more restrictions on death sentence appeals. "It's astonishing that that's going on at the same time that states are imposing moratoriums," Lyman added. "So it wouldn't be surprising at all if Maryland was caught up in the same kind of ambivalence." Many observers of the appeals court say that the split-decision ruling Feb. 13 to overturn the death sentence of Jamaal K. Abeokuto was a procedural matter, unlikely to have implications beyond warning judges to exercise great care in allowing defendants with a history of mental illness to waive such fundamental constitutional rights as being sentenced by a jury. But many of the 14 lawyers, judges and legal experts interviewed said the appeals court's actions are much more difficult to explain in its previous two death penalty cases - those of Wesley Eugene Baker, who was executed in December for the 1991 robbery and killing of a grandmother in a mall parking lot, and Evans, whose execution was postponed Feb. 6, the first of 5 days when a death warrant had authorized the state to put him to death for the 1983 contract killings of two Pikesville motel employees. "I thought that all the appellate frenzy with Baker and [Steven] Oken before him would indicate that maybe [the court] felt there should be some finality to these cases, but then, more recently, they did stay Evans," said S. Ann Brobst, a Baltimore County prosecutor who has handled death penalty cases. "We don't have any idea what they're doing." Lawyers for Evans have highlighted elements of their appeals - allegations of racial influence on Evans' case by prosecutors during jury selection and by a police officer who participated in his arrest, as well as evidence about Evans' background that was never investigated or presented to the sentencing jury - that they say distinguish their legal arguments from those made by Baker's lawyers on similar issues. Gary W. Christopher, a federal public defender who represented Baker for a decade and attended his Dec. 5 execution, said those distinctions strike him as superficial. "As you might imagine, I've been searching for an answer to that question, too, and I don't have a good explanation of why claims not heard in Baker are being heard in other cases," he said. "I come back to the view that someone on the court has changed his or her mind about something." He said that perhaps the similarities between Evans' legal challenges and those rejected by the court without a hearing in Baker's case hammered home to one or more judge that "there are issues that are lingering that need to be dealt with." In the past several years, a majority of the judges on Maryland's highest court have fallen into 2 loosely defined camps when it comes to death penalty cases, observers of the court say. Judges Alan M. Wilner, Dale R. Cathell and Glenn T. Harrell Jr. are seen as the more conservative members of the court, unlikely to overturn death sentences or rule in favor of death row inmates. In February 2002, when six of his colleagues voted to postpone Steven H. Oken's execution to await a Supreme Court decision in an Arizona case, Cathell went so far as to suggest that the death penalty be abolished because opponents' "obstructive tactics" are lengthening the appeals process, raising costs and tarnishing the legal system's reputation. Oken was put to death in June 2004 for the 1987 rape and murder of a White Marsh newlywed. Until the Supreme Court's June 2002 decision in Ring v. Arizona, a fifth judge on Maryland's high court could generally be counted on to rule against death row inmates, observers say. But since then, Irma S. Raker has issued one dissenting opinion after another, declaring the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional. Raker - joined by Chief Judge Robert M. Bell and Judge Clayton Greene Jr., who are seen as the court's most liberal members on death penalty matters - has held that Maryland law violates defendants' due process rights by requiring judges or juries at capital sentencing hearings to determine by a preponderance of the evidence that a crime's "aggravating" factors, such as another felony committed along with a murder, outweigh any "mitigating" factors, such as a defendant's young age or troubled childhood. Raker, Bell and Greene have maintained that the decision to sentence someone to life in prison or to death should be made by only the highest standard of proof - beyond a reasonable doubt. Maryland law requires judges and juries at capital sentencing hearings to determine unanimously - and beyond a reasonable doubt - whether a defendant is guilty of first-degree murder and whether an aggravating factor to the crime exists, such as the killing of a police officer or multiple victims, a killing by a prisoner, or a killing committed during a robbery, carjacking, kidnapping or rape. Juries or judges must then decide unanimously - but by a preponderance of the evidence - that the aggravating factors outweigh any mitigating factors before a convicted killer can be sentenced to death . "We pay mere lip service to the principle that death is different and yet continue to impose a lower level of certainty in the death penalty context than we do for other lesser important interests in Maryland," Raker has repeatedly written in her opinions, beginning in November 2003. A seventh judge on the appeals court, Lynne A. Battaglia, has voted both in favor of and against death row inmates' legal challenges without establishing a clear record of what shapes her opinions, observers say. Some attorneys and judges interviewed for this article did not want to be quoted by name for fear that their critique of the appeals court might be held against them in future cases. One such judge said that the court's direction to lawyers representing Evans suggests that the court is not interested in a long, drawn-out exploration of every issue. The judges' orders limited the attorneys to a single 75-page brief covering all 4 legal issues that the court will hear in May. "That was pretty unusual," the judge said. "It was as if they were saying, 'You'll get one more fully developed hearing and that's going to be it. Don't pepper us with a lot of last-minute things.'" Several lawyers said the tangle of lethal injection arguments being taken up or passed over by the Supreme Court since late January also can't help but weigh on Maryland's judges. "When you have the Supreme Court granting a stay for somebody to take a look at lethal injection procedures and you've got a lethal injection procedure challenge right before you, it might have some influence on whether the court takes a look at it," a defense attorney said. "You can't undo an execution." (source: The Baltimore Sun) KANSAS: Bills would alter how justices are picked ---- 2 proposals call for Senate confirmation of Kansas Supreme Court justices. A 3rd would let the governor fill the bench. 2 major decisions by the Kansas Supreme Court in the past couple of years have turned state politics upside down, and some think the justice system should follow. Those decisions have some lawmakers wanting to overhaul a system of choosing the state's highest court. A vote by the House Judiciary Committee is expected as early as today on 1 of 3 constitutional amendments aimed at changing -- for the 1st time in nearly 50 years -- the way Kansas selects its Supreme Court justices. But opponents, including organizations that represent most of the attorneys in Kansas, say the proposals are simply intended to give lawmakers control over the court, upsetting the checks and balances built into government. "The only people who are backing this are a group of legislators who are unhappy with a couple of decisions that didn't go their way," said Jack Focht, a veteran Wichita lawyer who is leading the opposition to the amendments. "Now they want to change a system that's worked well and kept politics out of the courts since 1958." The Kansas Bar Association, the Kansas Association of Trial Lawyers and the Kansas Association of Defense Counsel oppose the change. Those pushing for the change acknowledge that the impetus was 2 Kansas Supreme Court decisions: one ruling the state's death penalty law unconstitutional in 2004 and the other forcing the state to spend more on public education in 2005. "I think we have plenty of people in Kansas who believe the Supreme Court is out of control," said state Sen. Susan Wagle, R-Wichita. Amending the constitution isn't easy. It requires a 2/3 vote of the Legislature and approval of the public during an election. 2 of the amendments call for the Kansas Supreme Court justices to be appointed by the governor, subject to confirmation by the state Senate. That's similar to the selection process for federal judges, who must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. "It would place accountability squarely before the people, both in who they elect for governor and to the Legislature," said Rep. Lance Kinzer, R-Olathe, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, retired Supreme Court justice Fred Six warned that requiring Senate confirmation could leave vacancies on the high court for months. "It's a long time from April to December," he said, referring to the months when the Legislature is not in session. Calling a special session of the Legislature to consider nominations would be costly to taxpayers. A 3rd proposal, which surfaced last week, would allow the governor alone to fill a vacancy to the Kansas Supreme Court. Currently, applicants for Supreme Court justice are interviewed by a committee of residents, who are appointed by the governor, and by lawyers, who are chosen by their peers. They send their top 3 picks to the governor, who makes the final appointment. Justices serve 6-year terms. One year after appointment, and every 6 years after that, voters are asked whether the justice shall be retained. Sometimes called "merit selection," the process is used by 22 states besides Kansas, as well as the District of Columbia. Proponents say the brightest legal minds are sought by the committee and put in the most powerful judicial positions. "It keeps politics out of the justice system," Focht said. Lawmakers, however, want more of a hand in selecting who sits on the Supreme Court. "It will draw more attention to the selection process," Wagle said. "This would allow more input from the public." Said Focht: "The public already has input. Every 6 years, they can just vote no." (source: The Wichita Eagle) PENNSYLVANIA: Accused killer has a loyal following----Trial begins this week in case of corpses found in yard In Wilkes-Barre, a charismatic ex-convict who likes to taunt prosecutors and has gained a small but avid following goes on trial this week, nearly three years since a tip led police to a gruesome discovery -- the remains of at least 5 people buried in his backyard. Hugo Selenski's murder trial has been eagerly anticipated in northeastern Pennsylvania, where the one-time bank robber has become something of a celebrity. He escaped from jail following his 2003 arrest, gave newspaper interviews in which he heaped scorn on prosecutors -- and breezily denied any knowledge of the corpses found on his property. At least 2 Internet Web logs -- known as blogs -- chronicle all the twists and turns in the case, and a local newspaper recently published an 1,800-word story on Selenski's prison artwork. So many spectators are expected in the courthouse when jury selection begins Tuesday that Luzerne County deputies installed noise-dampening material around courtroom doors and will use silent metal detectors in an effort to minimize disruptions. Death penalty case Prosecutors will portray Selenki, 32, as a vicious, remorseless killer. They plan to seek the death penalty if he is convicted of killing suspected drug dealers Frank James, 29, and Adeiye Keiler, 22. They contend Selenski lured the 2 men to his home north of Wilkes-Barre, intending to rob them. Selenski killed 1 of the men with a shotgun, then tied the other one up and questioned him for several hours about the location of his drugs and money before killing him, too, authorities say. Selenski then set fire to the bodies and placed their charred bones in plastic bags, authorities say. Police found the bags in June 2003 while searching for the bodies of Michael Kerkowski, a pharmacist linked to drug dealing who had been missing since May 2002, and Kerkowski's girlfriend, Tammy Lynn Fassett. Their corpses were unearthed from a shallow grave near Selenski's house. Selenski has not been charged in Kerkowski and Fassett's deaths but is considered a suspect. In court papers, prosecutors have said they believe Selenski strangled and robbed them in 2002. Some remains unidentified Other human remains found in the yard have yet to be identified. Officials have not been able to determine how many sets of remains there are but have said there are at least 5 and as many as 12, counting the 4 identified victims. Selenski staged a daring jailbreak in late 2003, opening a window at the Luzerne County jail and using a rope made of bed sheets to climb down 7 stories. He turned himself in 3 days later. His alleged partner, who was severely injured, has claimed that Selenski beat him nearly unconscious and then pushed him out the window. Last week, a judge tossed escape charges against Selenski, ruling that prosecutors did not file a court document on time. It's not clear whether Selenski, who served nearly seven years in federal prison for a 1994 bank robbery, will testify in his own defense. Defense attorney Demetrius Fannick did not return a call seeking comment. Gag order in case District Attorney David Lupas declined to comment on the case, citing a judge's gag order, but prosecutors are expected to call about 50 witnesses. Local attorney Ferris Webby, who is not involved with the case, said the prosecution has several hurdles, including the credibility of key witnesses. One witness, Patrick Russin, has said he saw Selenski shoot James and Keiler and helped Selenski dispose of the bodies. Russin was allowed to plead guilty to reduced charges of 3rd-degree murder in exchange for his testimony, a fact that defense attorneys will surely raise. Also, the fact that James and Keiler were suspected drug dealers could make jurors less willing to convict, Webby said. "There is an old saying: Bum kills bum, who cares. Bum kills baby, that's a problem," he said. (source: The Associated Press) ************ 'Dead Man Walking' author has her say Cabrini College's Grace Hall Monday night seemed a fitting venue for Sister Helen Prejeans candid discussion on forgiveness, social justice, poverty and capital punishment. Prejean, author of the best-selling book, "Dead Man Walking," was the featured speaker for Cabrini's Founder's Day in honor of the life and legacy of Sister Ursula Infante, MSC, who started the college in 1957. Prejean admitted she was not originally a strict advocate of social justice and believed naively that "if the poor had God, they had everything." Since then, she had an epiphany and began spiritually advising death row inmates. "It was intolerable that he died without a loving face to look at," she said of an inmate about to be executed. Consequently, her faith led her to pursue social justice and educate the community through her eyewitness accounts. "Pro-life means pro-life across the board, not just babies to be born," Prejean said. She quoted Ghandi who said that poverty kills more people than guns. Prejean raised political concerns such as who represents the poor people in Congress and who are their constituents. "Its not the poor people," she said. "If we are never in the presence of poor and struggling people, we will never have the mentality." However, she added that "anytime we wake up is a good time to wake up." "Is it only the dignity of the innocent that we uphold?" and "What does the death penalty tell our children?" Prejean asked. "She was provocative," said Cabrini President Dr. Antoinette Iadarola after the lecture. "She gave us so much to think about with justice issues today especially with those on death row. She has done a great deal to raise the conscious level of these individuals in our society, particularly those who have been executed and later proven innocent," Iadarola said. Her message also seemed to resonate with the audience. "She is a role model" who is trying "to bring dignity and humanity to the justice system," said Margaret Fox-Tully, vice president for Mission Integration and Human Resources. "In my heart, I've always been against capital punishment," said Allison Superneau of New Orleans, a junior at Cabrini. "Tonight was definitely the push that made it complete for me," she said. Following the lecture, Prejean signed copies of "Dead Man Walking" and "The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions," published in 2005. The proceeds will benefit the Moratorium Campaign, a group gathering signatures to initiate a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. Prejean continues to counsel death row inmates as well as the families of murder victims. (source: The Daily Times (Pennsylvania)
