Feb. 22
TEXAS:
Jurors convict Max Soffar in murder retrial
A Harris County jury today has convicted Max Soffar for the slaying of 3
northwest Houston bowling alley workers.
Soffar has already spent more than 20 years on death row before his
conviction was overturned in 2004 when a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals decided he had received ineffective representation from
his lawyer in the original trial.
The verdict follows some two weeks of testimony during which jurors
re-examined evidence to determine Soffar's role in the 1980 shootings at
the Fair Lanes Windfern Bowling Center.
The jury will now determine whether Soffar should be returned to death row
or pend the rest of his life in prison.
Attorneys offered several hours of emotional closing arguments Tuesday
that moved people on both sides of the case to tears.
Soffar wiped tears from his eyes as deputies led him from the courtroom to
his jail cell after one of his attorneys pleaded with the jury to look
beyond the surface of his 1980 confessions. Defense attorneys insisted
those confessions - which Soffar later recanted - do not match forensic
evidence at the crime scene or the sole survivor's version of events.
'Scapegoat' alleged
"There's no physical evidence, there's no DNA that links him to these
crimes," argued Soffar's attorney, Stanley Schneider.
"This man doesn't know anything about these murders - this man knows
nothing. But they needed a scapegoat - they had no one in custody."
Prosecutor Lyn McClellan countered that Soffar wouldn't have confessed to
something he didn't do.
Soffar, McClellan said, implicated himself in a failed attempt to get a
19-year-old friend in trouble with the police.
But McClellan suggested Soffar was the only person who went into the
bowling alley with a gun and shot the victims while his friend sat outside
in a car.
"There's the guy who did it, right there," McClellan said, pointing to
Soffar at the courtroom's defense table. "You know it, I know it and he
knows it."
Several family members of those killed shared McClellan's conviction,
saying they are convinced of Soffar's guilt.
"There has never been a shadow of a doubt in our minds that this man is
anything but guilty," said Jackie Bryant, 46, whose 17-year-old sister,
Arden Alane Felsher, was killed.
"He is the one who murdered our sister."
Victim's son attends
Kirk Sims was just a 1-year-old when his father, Stephen Allen Sims, 25,
was killed at the bowling alley where he worked as assistant manager. The
younger Sims said he heard the facts surrounding his father's death for
the 1st time during Soffar's retrial.
"I came just to get the facts for myself," said Sims, 26, of Houston.
"Coming in, I was pretty skeptical (of Soffar's involvement). After the 4
days I attended ... I think he did it."
Soffar was 1st sentenced to death in 1981 after being convicted of capital
murder for the shootings of Felsher, Sims and 17-year-old Tommy Lee
Temple.
His conviction was thrown out in 2004 when a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals decided he had received ineffective representation from
his lawyer in the original trial.
That ruling put the case back in the Harris County court system and forced
those connected with the tragedy to relive it, including Gregory George
Garner, the sole survivor.
Not asked to ID Soffar
Garner, now 44, was not asked to identify Soffar in court as the gunman
who stormed the bowling alley late the night of July 13, 1980. Defense
attorneys said that was no accident, arguing that prosecutors weren't
willing to take a chance that could cast further doubt on Soffar's
involvement.
Soffar's lawyers described him as a former mental patient and drug user
whose mentality was similar to that of a 10- or 11-year-old child when he
confessed. Soffar, they said, was a low-level police informant eager to
please law enforcement officers.
At the time of his arrest, Soffar claimed he and his 19-year-old friend -
a former Houston police officer's son - had robbed the bowling alley to
get money to buy drugs. Soffar's attorneys say his confessions were the
products of fantasy, perhaps in an ill-conceived scheme to get reward
money.
Ultimately, Soffar was charged, while his friend was released for lack of
evidence.
Prosecutors argued Soffar's own words convicted him. "The defense didn't
bring you any evidence that he falsely confessed, that he didn't commit
the crime or that someone else committed the crime," said prosecutor
Denise Nassar. But, Soffar's attorneys argued, the burden of proof does
not rest with them.
"There can be no closure and no justice based on lies. That is not our
system," said defense attorney Kathryn Kase, her voice breaking with
emotion. She put her arm around Soffar and hugged him after the defense
rested.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
***********************
Prosecutors paint scene of teacher's rape, killing
On the night she was slain, a kind gesture led Diane Tilly to open the
door to her killers.
That was the story told Tuesday by prosecutors, who said Tilly had
recently given her lawn man, Ronnie Joe Neal, a child's wooden swing set
glider that had been sitting unused in her back yard.
When Neal picked up the glider, he introduced Tilly, an Alamo Heights
schoolteacher, to his own teenage daughter, Pearl Cruz.
That introduction was the start of a setup orchestrated by Neal, who
persuaded his 15-year-old daughter to knock on Tilly's door the night of
Nov. 22, 2004, under the guise of needing help because of car troubles,
prosecutors said.
"At 7:30 p.m. she heard the doorbell ring and saw Pearl Cruz on her
doorstep," Assistant District Attorney Jill Mata told jurors. "She saw it
was Pearl and let her in."
Those details, along with a stark and disturbing description of Tilly's
final hours, came during opening statements in Neal's capital murder
trial, which is expected to feature Cruz as the lead witness against him.
Cruz likely will face questions about her credibility by Neal's defense
attorney, Joel Perez. He emphasized that in exchange for her testimony,
prosecutors had promised to cap her sentence at no more than 30 years in
prison. Neal, 35, faces the death penalty.
Tilly was the founding teacher at Robbins Academy when colleagues at the
school reported her missing on Nov. 23.
The next day, Bexar County sheriff's deputies arrested Neal and Cruz after
tracking several purchases made with Tilly's credit cards.
Her disappearance gripped the city for 2 weeks before Cruz led authorities
to her body in an empty field in Schertz. She had been robbed, raped and
shot with her own .357-caliber gun.
Prosecutors said Neal found the gun as he and Cruz ransacked Tilly's
house, in Northeast Bexar County.
At one point during the home invasion, Tilly tried to thwart Neal by
giving him the wrong personal identification number to her ATM card, Mata
said.
But when Neal discovered the PIN didn't work, he angrily confronted Tilly,
Mata said, adding that Neal threatened to kill her cat if she didn't give
him the correct code. This time, Tilly complied.
It was after that episode that Neal put a sheet over Tilly's head and
forced her into the bedroom, where he sexually assaulted her, Mata said.
Cruz told investigators that she walked into the room, saw the assault and
became upset.
Cruz told authorities that Neal later poured hydrogen peroxide on Tilly
and flushed a condom down a toilet to cover up evidence of the assault.
Mata told jurors that despite those attempts, investigators found DNA on
Tilly that matched a sample from Neal.
But Perez warned jurors not to rely on the DNA evidence.
"DNA is a human science," he said. "It's disputed evidence."
(source: San Antonio Express-News)
***************
Vengeance is Mom's----Meet Dianne Clements, the soccer mom who has done as
much as anyone to ensure that Texas' killing chamber remains the nation's
busiest.
Its an unremarkable November day in Houston - cloudy and cool, with
thunderstorms rolling in and 2 men scheduled for execution at the nearby
state prison in the next 48 hours. Neither of the convicts' impending
deaths has generated much press, let alone sympathy. To Dianne Clements,
who has done as much as anyone to ensure that the Lone Star State's
killing chamber remains the nation's busiest, thats only proper.
"I don't have any thoughts for the convicted killers - none whatsoever,"
she says over a chicken salad at an Italian restaurant in an upscale
Houston suburb. "Any thoughts I'd have would be for the victims'
families."
You may not recognize Clements' name, but chances are you've come across
it. Whenever controversy flares over capital punishment - should we
execute mentally retarded people? Juveniles? A mother who drowned her own
children? - journalists from the New York Times to Fox News call to ask
her opinion. And her answer, almost invariably, is yes.
Clements, 53, is head of Justice for All, a Texas-based crime victims'
rights group. At a time when support for the death penalty is at record
lows nationwide, eroded by the relentless parade of exonerated inmates,
JFA and other groups like it are one of the sturdiest pillars keeping it
in place.
"We need the death penalty because evil exists," she explains. "I don't
love the death penalty - I hate it. Every execution represents an innocent
person who lost their life - the victim. But capital punishment helps
deter such crimes, she says firmly. And the benefits aren't only
practical.
"Its a moral response to a horrible act. Its retribution, which is very
different from revenge."
Barely over 5 feet and wearing pentagonal glasses, a jean jacket, and a
necklace of silver balls and red beads, Clements looks more like a hip
young grandma than the moralistic matron you might expect. But theres
nothing fuzzy about her opinions. She was furious last year when the
Supreme Court banned capital punishment for the mentally retarded ("the
whole issue is smoke and mirrors") and for juveniles ("We're not talking
about children, were talking about brutal murderers with no regard for
human life!").
As for all the people freed from death row, Clements couldn't agree more
that it proves capital defendants need good legal representation. "I think
they're kind of the Antichrist," she says of death penalty defense
lawyers. "But you do want the very best representation, because - you want
their convictions not to be overturned." Even if it were ever proved that
an innocent person had been executed, she says, shed still support the
death penalty.
Clements was once just another Houston soccer mom, working an office job
and raising two teens - Krista and Zachary - with her husband, Woody. "It
was a very typical suburban life," she says. "Our routine was work,
school, baseball." That routine was blown apart one afternoon in August
1991. Zachary, 13 at the time, was playing with a couple of neighbors'
kids about his age, when one of the boys grabbed his stepfathers shotgun
and pulled the trigger. The blast tore a hole through Zacharys chest,
killing him on the spot.
The police called it a tragic accident, not a crime, and let the matter
drop. But Clements couldn't see it that way. "It was impossible for me to
accept that my child had been killed in such a fashion and there was no
response, no outrage other than my family's," she says. For months, she
hounded the district attorney's office, demanding action. A court finally
gave the shooter a year's probation.
That experience impelled her, and another woman who also felt the system
wasn't doing enough to punish lawbreakers, to found Justice for All. With
the moral force of bereft family members and Clements' tireless energy
behind it, JFA evolved into a 4,000-member outfit. Though it remains an
all-volunteer organization, it has the ear of many Texas prosecutors and
politicians and has helped push through a range of laws that make life
harder for criminals. State correctional officials hold the group in such
respect that they renamed a prison after JFAs other founder. Clements even
got an admiring mention in George W. Bushs autobiography, A Charge to
Keep.
Ironically, JFA is an outgrowth of a movement that took root in the 1970s,
when feminists began pushing for greater respect for victims of domestic
abuse and rape, and harsher treatment for their attackers. A California
woman whose daughter was killed in a car crash took this sort of advocacy
to a new level in 1980 when she formed Mothers Against Drunk Driving,
which quickly grew into a nationwide organization that played a key role
in ratcheting up penalties for driving while intoxicated. Dozens of other
crime victims' advocacy groups have since sprung up all over the country.
These groups have had an enormous impact on courts, laws, and lawmakers.
In many states and at the federal level, they have successfully lobbied
for tougher sentences, harsher prison conditions, the registration of sex
offenders, and the introduction of highly emotional "victim impact
statements" in trials. California's famously anti-death penalty Supreme
Court Chief Justice Rose Bird lost her seat in the 1980s in large part
thanks to the lobbying of one such group. Another group, Crime Victims
United of California, helped pass the state's "Three Strikes and You're
Out" initiative and more recently was in the headlines calling for the
execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams.
But no group has focused more intently or effectively on capital
punishment than JFA. Its website prodeathpenalty.com exhaustively
critiques capital punishments opponents. JFA organized demonstrations
calling for the execution of Gary Graham, a Texas convict widely thought
to be innocent who was put to death in 2000, and successfully helped
pressure then-governor Rick Perry to veto a bill that would have banned
the execution of mentally retarded people in 2001.
None of which makes JFA's members extremists in Houston's Harris County,
whose juries hand down more death sentences than any other county in
America. The city's mayor has donated thousands of dollars to JFA, and his
victims' services coordinator works closely with the organization, as does
the district attorney's office. "Dianne has a wonderful, wonderful heart,"
says Amy Smith, director of the Harris County district attorney's victim
witness program. "She's a good person to have on your side."
"Executions are not something to celebrate," Clements says. "We should
just respect the fact that this difficult process is working." Meanwhile,
the 2 mid-November executions went off as scheduled, bringing Texas' total
to 19 for the year. For Clements, this was satisfying news.
(source: Mother Jones - Vince Beiser is a Los Angeles-based freelance
journalist specializing in criminal justice issues. A former editor of
MotherJones.com, he has also written for the Los Angeles Times Magazine,
the Village Voice, The New Republic, The Nation, and Rolling Stone)
OKLAHOMA:
Committee OKs Bill Giving Juries Option Of Death Penalty For Molesters
In Okalhoma City, Oklahoma's Senate judiciary committee has approved a
bill that would give juries the option to sentence repeat child molesters
to life without parole or even death.
The entire state Legislature is expected to vote on the proposal soon.
Local police said the law could reduce the number of sex offenses.
However, the new law could also provide some peace of mind to the victims
of child predators.
Juvenile experts at the Fort Smith Police Department said more severe
sentencing can do nothing but help.
"The problem right now is because they keep getting back out. The only
thing I think they do is maybe get a little bit smarter about how they are
going to do the next victim," said Fort Smith police spokesperson Kris
Deason.
The proposal expands on Oklahoma's version of 'Jessica's Law,' which
requires lifetime global positioning monitoring of repeat sex offenders.
(source: Associated Press)
ARKANSAS:
Jury Selection Begins In Possible Death Penalty Case
Jury selection has begun for a man who could face the death penalty if
convicted.
Fernando Navarro is accused of stabbing and killing David Edwards in 2004.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Navarro, saying he has a
history of violence.
Last year, Michael A. Chaves pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for his
involvement in the killing.
He is expected to testify against Navarro as part of a plea agreement.
(source: The HometownChannel)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Death Row Inmate Sentenced Again -- Jeremy Murrell was convicted last week
of the 2003 murder of Winston-Salem teen Matt Harding.
Death row inmate Jeremy Murrell was back in Forsyth Superior Court on
Wednesday.
Murrell was given the death penalty last Friday for the 2003 kidnapping,
robbery and murder of a 19-year-old Matt Harding. Harding's decomposing
body was found in the trunk of his car in Virginia over a week after he
disappeared from outside his job at a Winston-Salem restaurant.
Murrell was apparently sentenced under the wrong guidelines for the
kidnapping charge. He was re-sentenced in a brief hearing to 80 to 100
months on for that charge on Wednesday, before being returned to Central
Prison in Raleigh.
(source: WFMY News)
CALIFORNIA:
Doctors to fight role of assisting inmate's death
The California Medical Association will sponsor legislation prohibiting
the state's Department of Corrections from asking doctors to participate
in executions, the association's president, Dr. Michael Sexton of Novato,
said Tuesday.
The legislation was in the works before two anesthesiologists refused to
assist in the execution of Michael Morales, which had been scheduled for
12:01 a.m. Tuesday. The execution has been postponed for an unspecified
length of time. Sexton and other Marin physicians said the
anesthesiologists made the right decision. The anesthesiologists'
identities have not been disclosed.
"We're unshakable in our belief that physician involvement in capital
punishment is unethical," Sexton said. "For physicians to be engaged in
such activity threatens the public's trust in physicians."
"I'm very proud of both them," said Dr. Michael Franzblau of San Rafael, a
retired dermatologist and former president of the Marin Medical Society.
Not everyone considers the anesthesiologists heroes.
Jane Alexander of Sleepy Hollow, the founder of Citizens Against Homicide,
which lobbies law enforcement agencies to keep murder investigations open,
said she doesn't know any local doctors who support the death penalty,
"because they all take the Hippocratic oath."
"It's utterly ridiculous," Alexander said. "They have just found another
means to delay an execution."
Sexton said the anesthesiologists initially believed they would only be
required to witness the execution to satisfy a judge's concern that
Morales was unconscious and not experiencing pain when lethal drugs were
administered. The physicians balked, however, after learning they would be
expected to tell prison officials whether Morales needed more sedation or
possibly even give him more medication.
Sexton said the anesthesiologists were wrong to have agreed even to
monitor the execution.
"I want to be clear," Sexton said. "We believe that physicians'
participation in capital punishment, even to the extent it's observing in
the role of a physician, is clear-cut unethical behavior."
Franzblau said he would have petitioned the Medical Board of California to
revoke the anesthesiologists' medical licenses if they had proceeded.
"This type of action could justifiably be charged as unprofessional
conduct," Franzblau said.
Franzblau played a key role in the passage of SB129 in 2001, which
prohibits the California Department of Corrections from compelling any
physician to attend or participate in an execution. Prior to passage of
the bill, wardens could discipline doctors employed by prisons if they
balked, Franzblau said.
"There's been an attempt to medicalize executions all the way back to the
French Revolution," when Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin invented the
guillotine as a humane method of death, said University of Minnesota
bioethicist Dr. Steven Miles.
"Doctors then got involved again in designing electrocution for the same
reason in the United States," he said. "The medical profession has been
trying to dig itself out of this" ever since.
The American Medical Association and many other medical groups have long
opposed doctors having any role in executions, including monitoring a
prisoner's vital signs or giving technical advice.
"They should not even certify death," because if they find the patient has
not died it would lead to more drugs or electrocution to kill the patient,
Miles said.
"The ethical standard is pretty much universal," said Leonard Rubenstein,
a lawyer who is director of Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights.
"It's the same reason physicians can't be involved in coerced
interrogations," or help certify prisoners as psychiatrically fit to be
executed, he said.
It's a voluntary rule and no doctors have been reprimanded or defrocked
for taking part in executions, and few doctors do. Most states have
devised strategies to avoid involving doctors.
Illinois, for instance, adopted a law saying that assisting death was not
practicing medicine, thus freeing the state to hire non-physicians to do
the job. Many states use "execution specialists" who are trained in how to
start intravenous lines to administer lethal injections.
Texas has used such volunteers, many of whom have military training, for
the 359 executions it has conducted since 1982, said Michelle Lyons,
spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Doctors are involved "very, very little" - only to pronounce a prisoner
dead, and not are present when the person was put to death, she said.
When Stanley Tookie Williams was administered a lethal injection in
December, it took a San Quentin medic 12 minutes to insert a catheter into
his arm so she could inject the drugs that would end his life.
(source: Marin Independent Journal)
****************
Doctors found death duty unethical----Now, legislation is proposed to
ensure physicians won't be called to participate.
As the execution of Michael Angelo Morales loomed Monday night, two
anesthesiologists apparently came to grips with their potential role in
ending the life of another human being.
Legislation proposed in California on Tuesday would make it so that no
physician would have to face that dilemma again.
The California Medical Association announced it will sponsor a bipartisan
bill that eliminates physician involvement in future executions.
The proposal came after the 2 unidentified anesthesiologists backed out of
the planned execution in response to a federal court decision specifying
that they would have the authority to "take all medically appropriate
steps necessary to ensure that (Morales) is and remains unconscious."
If the anesthesiologists are unable to do so, the court document
continued, "they have the authority to take 'all medically appropriate
steps' - either alone or in conjunction with the injection team - to
immediately place or return Morales into an unconscious state."
The doctor, according to the court, could order or even administer more
medicine to hasten the demise of the prisoner.
"They seemed to think at first they were just going to observe," said Dr.
Priscilla Ray, chairwoman of the American Medical Association's Council on
Ethical and Judicial Affairs and a Houston psychiatrist. "The difficulty
with that is that their skill and expertise would likely contribute to the
ability of someone else to take his life."
The doctors' agreement to assist the state in ensuring a painless death
sparked widespread criticism among those who said it would be a violation
of their professional oaths to "do no harm."
Physician groups and bioethicists who had deemed their involvement
unethical welcomed the doctors' retreat.
"I am glad they backed out," said Dr. Jeffrey Uppington, clinical vice
chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at the UC
Davis Medical Center and a director of the California Society of
Anesthesiology. "They shouldn't have been there in the 1st place."
To ensure that no physician has to be in a position to observe, monitor,
advise or otherwise get involved in a future execution, 2 Assembly members
agreed Tuesday to back legislation that would prevent it.
The bill, by Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, and Alan Nakanishi, R-Lodi, would
strengthen a 2001 law that prohibits the state from forcing a physician to
participate in an execution.
"I am a strong supporter of the death penalty, but the job of the
physician is to heal, not to kill," Nakanishi, who is a physician, said in
a statement.
That role, apparently, went beyond what the anesthesiologists had in mind
when they agreed to monitor the execution.
"While we contemplated a positive role that might enable us to verify a
humane execution protocol for Mr. Morales, what is being asked of us now
is ethically unacceptable," they said in a statement.
Roberta Loewy, a bioethics professor at UC Davis, said she felt reassured
by their decision.
"Just being there lends legitimacy to an enterprise that traditionally
physicians have avoided," she said.
The controversy surfaced last week after Morales' defense team argued that
the 3-drug cocktail used in executions might violate his constitutional
right against cruel and unusual punishment.
In response, a U.S. District Court ruled the execution could proceed only
if the state 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 3-drug cocktail used for lethal injections begins with the
administration of 5 grams of a barbiturate called sodium thiopental, also
known as sodium pentothal. When the inmate loses consciousness, a second
drug called pancuronium bromide is injected to paralyze the inmate's
muscles. The 3rd drug is potassium chloride, which stops the heart.
Morales' defense team had argued that if the prisoner is not completely
unconscious, use of the third drug could cause excruciating pain, which
might be masked by the second drug. The anesthesiologist's job would be to
make sure that the inmate was unconscious before the other drugs were
administered.
With the exodus of the anesthesiologists, the state on Tuesday asked the
court if it could execute Morales using the barbiturate-only alternative.
"There is agreement among the experts that this dose will render Morales
unconscious and is fatal," state lawyers said in a motion to proceed with
the execution.
How quickly the barbiturate works to shut down brain activity depends on
many factors, doctors said, including the person's tolerance to sedatives.
But experts agree that 5 grams of sodium thiopental would be lethal. The
dose used for executions is about 10 times the amount that would be used
by an anesthesiologist in an operating room to render a patient
unconscious for surgery.
While a barbiturate-only execution presumably would be painless, experts
said it would prolong the process of putting the inmate to death.
(source: The Sacramento Bee)
*************************
Death Penalty Worries Ken Starr
Former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr (Whitewater, Monica Lewinski/Bill
Clinton sex scandal) has publicly voiced concerns about the way the death
penalty is being applied. Starr is assisting in the representation of
death row inmate Michael Morales.
"Society is not equipped to handle death penalty cases because of
resources. 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."
(source: The Hamilton Spectator)
