Feb. 1 VIRGINIA: Senate votes to restrict death penalty to adults Virginia isn't going quietly when it comes to complying with a U.S. Supreme Court decision banning the death penalty for juveniles. "The death penalty is a deterrent to crime," said Sen. Nick Rerras, R-Norfolk, explaining why he was the only member to oppose the measure in committee. "The Supreme Court went too far in legislating from the bench." The Virginia Senate, 34-3, yesterday approved a measure restricting capital punishment to adults -- those 18 or older at the time of the offense. State law had allowed the execution of those who committed crimes at an age as young as 16. However, the Supreme Court declared in March that the death penalty for minors is unconstitutional, forcing Virginia and 18 other states to rewrite their laws. Sen. Janet D. Howell, D-Fairfax, and Del. Vincent F. Callahan Jr., R-Fairfax, are sponsoring bills aligning the Virginia capital-crime statutes with the ruling. The Callahan measure is headed to the House floor. (source: Richmond Times-Dispatch) NEW JERSEY: Death penalty I'm hoping Gov. Jon Corzine will be the kind of governor New Jersey hasn't had in more than 30 years -- one who signs death warrants. I haven't seen him once mention the subject of New Jersey's death penalty. I'm not worried about property taxes because I live in an apartment, but I am worried about the criminals who have committed heinous crimes and when they will get their just punishment. Only Corzine can do the right thing and sign those death warrants. The 1st one he should sign is for Megan Kanka's killer. He's guilty and he should pay for what he did. Clean house. It's been a long time coming. CHERYL GILBERT - Collingswood (source: Letter to the Editor, Courier Post) NORTH CAROLINA: $500K bond set; death penalty bid possible Murder suspect Charles Everette Hightower received a $500,000 bond Tuesday on charges that he helped gun down a Durham man last year, and a prosecutor announced that the death penalty might be sought against him. Hightower is one of three suspects in the July death of 31-year-old Ralph Joseph inside the victim's 2617 Farthing St. home. The co-defendants are Valehia Williams of Chapel Hill and Danny Thomas, who recently was apprehended in Colorado after a standoff in which police used a gas-armed robot to bring the situation under control. Arguing for a high bond for Hightower, prosecutor David Saacks said Tuesday that Joseph was handcuffed and shot 7 times in the head. "It was execution-style," said Saacks. "It was gruesome." Saacks said he was waiting for the State Bureau of Investigation to analyze suspected blood samples found in a car and on Hightower's shoes. If the substance was blood and if it matched that of the victim, the murder case would be greatly strengthened, according to Saacks. The prosecutor added that Hightower was paroled in 1999 for an attempted murder conviction in New York state. He also said that Joseph had a conviction for drug trafficking on his record, and that marijuana was being grown inside the house where he was gunned down. "There does appear to have been a drug connection to this murder," said Saacks. Williams recently went free on bond after helping authorities by admitting that she, Hightower and Thomas went to the victim's house to rob him. But defense lawyer Lisa Williams, who represents Hightower and is no relation to the female defendant, questioned the woman's credibility Tuesday. "She's manipulated the system and bought her way out of jail," the attorney said. "She's the only one they know absolutely is guilty because she confessed she was there. Yet she is the only one out of jail. Go figure. I understand it's a payment for her cooperation, but I think it's suspect at best. She's highly motivated to lie. She needs to be very creative. I imagine we'll see quite a performance from her." (source: Herald-Sun) USA: Provision in Patriot Act speeds death-row cases Anthony Spears has been on Arizona's death row for nearly 13 years, convicted of the murder of his girlfriend near Phoenix. He isn't an international terrorist, has no links to al-Qaida and was in prison on 9/11. But tucked away in the pending renewal of the Patriot Act - the nation's controversial law to fight terrorism - is a provision inspired by Spears. Congress is poised to extend the USA Patriot Act into March to give the White House and conservative Senate Republicans time to strike a deal. The House is set to vote today on extending the law until March 10 rather than let it expire on Friday. The Senate was expected to follow before the deadline. Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona inserted little-noticed language that could make it harder for state death-row inmates to appeal their cases in federal court. The death-penalty changes would make it easier for states to benefit from faster federal-appellate procedures in capital-punishment cases. Under a law that passed in 1996, states that take steps to ensure that poor murder defendants are represented by competent counsel can ask for a fast-track system in which inmates have shorter deadlines to file their appeals. Under current law, federal courts of appeals decide whether states can speed up processing capital cases. Kyl's change would give that power to the U.S. attorney general. Arizona had tried to dismiss Spears' federal appeal in 2000, claiming it was filed too late. State officials had argued that the state was entitled to a faster appeals process because state law guaranteed effective representation for poor defendants who were facing the death penalty. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2002 that Arizona had the safeguards to qualify for faster appeals. But it said the state hadn't supplied Spears with a lawyer in a timely fashion and allowed him to proceed with his case. Some criminal-justice experts disagree with the idea of taking a key decision on inmate rights out of the hands of judges and giving it to the attorney general, the nation's top prosecutor. "All the state had to do was to come up with a way to appoint counsel in a timely manner," said Dale Baich, the federal assistant public defender who handled Spears' appeal. (source: Knight Ridder) ************** Unabomber's brother assails death penalty 10 years ago this April, federal authorities apprehended the infamous Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, whose 17-year spree of mail bombs killed three people and injured 29 others. The approaching anniversary is bittersweet for his brother, David Kaczynski, who along with his wife deduced in late 1995 that Ted Kaczynski might be responsible and then notified authorities. While David Kaczynski looks back knowing the decision probably prevented further harm, he said it was nonetheless difficult to turn in a brother whom he loved and who suffered from a mental illness. It also was heartbreaking to see, he said, how prosecutors disregarded Ted Kaczynski's mental illness in their pursuit of the death penalty. A former social worker, David Kaczynski, 56, is now executive director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty. He spoke Tuesday night at Macalester College in St. Paul. He remembered learning of his brother's arrest April 3, 1996, from television news and seeing footage of Ted Kaczynski being removed in tattered clothes from his remote cabin in Montana. It was difficult to reconcile the words he was hearing on the TV - terrorist, serial killer - with a brother he remembered as troubled but kind. "Nobody else watching that program had the slightest sympathy for my brother," he said. "He was a monster." Ted Kaczynski had been a child prodigy, entering Harvard University at age 16 and later winning acclaim as a brilliant mathematician. He later moved to Montana, where he receded from a society he felt was too reliant on technology. David Kaczynski remembered even as a child asking his parents about his brother's abnormal behavior, but he said his family had a way of "normalizing" Ted Kaczynski's behavior and making it seem somewhat logical. It wasn't until he shared some of his brother's letters with his wife that David Kaczynski started acknowledging that Ted Kaczynski was probably delusional and suffering from mental illness. The possibility that Ted Kaczynski was the Unabomber became real to David Kaczynski when he read the 35,000-word manifesto the then-anonymous Unabomber demanded be published in national newspapers. "I found myself kind of tensing up," David Kaczynski said, "almost as if I was reading one of his angry letters." Deciding whether to contact the FBI felt like a no-win decision. Protecting his brother could put others in jeopardy, but reporting his brother could result in the death penalty, he said. Prosecutors indeed sought the death penalty, but a plea deal resulted in life imprisonment. The criminal justice system does a poor job of understanding people with mental illness, David Kaczynski said, and shouldn't use the "blunt instrument" of capital punishment in such cases. (source: Pioneer Press) ***************** DISTINGUISHED NATIONAL COMMITTEE RELEASES UPDATED GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR REFORM OF DEATH PENALTY SYSTEMS Judges, Prosecutors, Law Enforcement Officials Urge Changes to Increase Reliability and Fairness Today in Washington, the members of the Constitution Project's bipartisan, blue-ribbon Death Penalty Initiative released an updated set of guiding principles for reform of death penalty systems in the United States. Timed to correspond with an important death penalty hearing in the Senate Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights Subcommittee, Mandatory Justice: The Death Penalty Revisited examines problems and solutions relevant to all capital punishment systems in the United States. "We all have different perspectives on the death penalty and the criminal justice system, but Mandatory Justice lays out the basic principles that simply must be part of any fair and accurate death penalty system," said the Honorable Gerald Kogan, co-chair of the Death Penalty Initiative. "Given the great impact of these issues, both on our legal system and in the lives of so many Americans, the committee found it critical to identify both specific weaknesses and specific solutions relevant to any capital punishment system. The Constitution Project has once again drawn a bipartisan constitutional road map for us to follow." Justice Kogan is a former Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court and the former Chief Prosecutor, Homicide and Capital Crimes Division, of Dade County, Florida. He co-chairs the Death Penalty Initiative committee with the Honorable Charles F. Baird, a former judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals; and Beth A. Wilkinson, Esq., who was a prosecutor in the Oklahoma City bombing case. They have ably led the committee - which comprises current and former FBI officials, state attorneys general, religious leaders, victims of crime, and academics in addition to other experts and community leaders - through a multi-year inquiry into a topic of critical importance in American society. The death penalty has received significant attention in recent months and years as problems with accuracy and fairness have surfaced repeatedly. New biological testing methods have exonerated many people previously convicted of capital crimes; serious mistakes and even misconduct in crime labs have called trial results into question; and continued problems with the quality of and resources for defense services plague many state systems. In Mandatory Justice: The Death Penalty Revisited, the Death Penalty Initiative committee moves beyond philosophical differences about the death penalty itself, instead identifying specific improvements that can address some of these problems and ultimately serve all stakeholders in the system. The Constitution Project, renowned for its ability to move beyond politics and find broad political consensus on some of the most complicated constitutional and policy questions facing our nation today, once again provides a common-sense road map for reform. The Constitution Project's Death Penalty Initiative was established in 2000, motivated by a "profound concern that, in recent years and around the country, procedural safeguards and other assurances of fundamental fairness in the administration of capital punishment have been revealed to be deeply flawed." In addition to the co-chairs, the Initiative is guided by a professionally and ideologically diverse committee of criminal justice experts:* * The Reverend James E. Andrews, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly (retired), Presbyterian Church (United States of America) * The Honorable Harry Barnes, Jr., former United States Ambassador to Romania, India, and Chile * The Honorable Charles B. Blackmar, former Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Missouri * William G. Broaddus, Esq., former Attorney General, Commonwealth of Virginia * David I. Bruck, Esq., Clinical Professor of Law and Director, Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse, Washington and Lee University School of Law * The Honorable Robert J. Burns, retired Judge, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana * Rosalynn Carter, Vice Chair of The Carter Center** * W. J. Michael Cody, Esq., former Attorney General, State of Tennessee * The Honorable Mario M. Cuomo, former Governor, State of New York*** * The Honorable John J. Gibbons, Partner, Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione; former Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit * Thomas A. Gottschalk, Esq., Executive Vice President and General Counsel, General Motors Corporation * Charles A. Gruber, Chief of Police, South Barrington Police Department; Past President, International Association of Chiefs of Police; Past President, Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police * Cardinal William H. Keeler, Archbishop of Baltimore * Paula M. Kurland, Victim Advocate; Founding Member, Bridges to Life (a victim offender program in Texas); Mother of murder victim * David Lawrence, Jr., President, The Early Childhood Initiative Foundation; former Publisher, Miami Herald and Detroit Free Press * Timothy Lynch, Director, Project on Criminal Justice, Cato Institute** * The Honorable Abner J. Mikva, Visiting Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School; former Member of Congress (D-IL); former Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; White House Counsel, Clinton Administration * Sam D. Millsap, Jr., former district attorney Bexar County, San Antonio, Texas** * The Honorable Sheila M. Murphy, Executive Director, Illinois Death Penalty Education Project; former Presiding Judge, Sixth District, State of Illinois * LeRoy Riddick, M.D., Forensic Pathologist *** * Chase Riveland, former Secretary, Department of Corrections, State of Washington * Laurie O. Robinson, Director of Science in Criminology Program and Senior Fellow, Program on Crime Policy, Department of Criminology, University of Pennsylvania; former Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs, United States Department of Justice, Clinton Administration * The Honorable Kurt L. Schmoke, Dean, Howard University Law School; former Mayor, City of Baltimore, Maryland; former State's Attorney for the City of Baltimore, Maryland ** * The Honorable William S. Sessions, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Reagan and G.H.W. Bush administrations; former Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Western District of Texas * G. Elaine Smith, Esq., Past President, American Baptist Churches (United States of America) * B. Frank Stokes, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Retired; Private Investigator *Jennifer Thompson, Spokesperson, Center on Wrongful Convictions * Scott Turow, Author and Partner, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal * John W. Whitehead, President, The Rutherford Institute * Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, President, Union for Reform Judaism Professor Margaret Paris of the University of the Oregon School of Law, and Professor Andrew E. Taslitz of the Howard University School of Law, 2 experts on criminal law, are the reporters for the Initiative's latest release. (source: The Constitutional Project) PENNSYLVANIA: Judge to weigh mental state of killer of 13 on death row 23 years ago, George Emil Banks was on leave from his job as a prison guard when he borrowed an AR-15 assault rifle and shot to death 13 people, including five of his children. The shooting spree, in the Northeastern Pennsylvania city of Wilkes-Barre, remains the worst killing rampage by one person in state history. Banks was convicted in 1983 and sentenced to death after an unsuccessful insanity defense. This morning, a Luzerne County judge is set to convene a hearing behind the walls of Graterford Prison to determine whether Banks, 63, is mentally competent to be executed. After 2 decades of appeals, Banks could finally be put to death - perhaps late this year - if he is found competent, said Senior Deputy Attorney General Jonelle H. Eshbach. "He is at the eve of execution, and the only remaining barrier is the question of his competency," she said. The hearing promises an intriguing glimpse into the psyche of a mass murderer and the psychological impact of 20 years on death row. Defense attorney Albert J. Flora Jr. said that Banks is too seriously mentally ill to be executed. He said Banks has tried to commit suicide and gone on hunger strikes, and is now suffering from a dermatological ailment that has left him itchy and covered with lesions. Flora said the hearing will detail a "very bleak portrait" of how Banks has deteriorated into a dark and delusional world of mental illness. Eshbach says that while Banks has been diagnosed with mental illness, he is competent to be executed. "He's made various statements that indicate he understands he's on death row, and why. That's all that's necessary for competency," she said. Banks' mental condition is an issue because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that it is unconstitutional to execute the insane. The court said that a hearing should be held to determine whether a prisoner is mentally competent and understands why he is about to be executed. "It is no less abhorrent today than it has been for centuries to exact in penance the life of one whose mental illness prevents him from comprehending the reasons for the penalty or its implications," the nation's high court stated in the 1986 Florida case of Ford v. Wainwright. Banks is one of 224 prisoners awaiting execution in Pennsylvania, which has the 4th-largest death row in the nation, behind California, Texas and Florida. Mental-health and legal experts say that mental illness is an issue on death rows across the country. If a prisoner doesn't arrive with mental illness, they say, chances are that he ultimately will suffer at least some mental deterioration because of the isolation that characterizes most capital units. "It's a profound assault on people's psychological stability to be kept in isolation for long periods of time," said Craig W. Haney, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has studied the impact of long-term incarceration. In Pennsylvania, death-row prisoners are housed in single cells, and are allowed an hour a day in an outdoor, chained exercise yard, alone or with one other inmate. The last person executed in Pennsylvania was Gary Heidnik - the so-called House of Horrors killer who tortured and killed 2 women in his Philadelphia basement - in July 1999. Banks came within a day of being executed in late 2004 until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered the competency hearing after an emergency petition filed by Banks' mother. Banks was 40 when he went on the early-morning rampage on Sept. 25, 1982, in and around Wilkes-Barre. Among the 13 killed were four women, who were the mothers of 5 of his children. At the time, Banks was on leave from his job as a prison guard for several weeks; he had been told to seek help after threatening suicide. Son of a black father and white mother, Banks testified at his trial that his actions were "the culminations of 40 years of racist hatred," and his lawyers argued that he was driven to murder by delusions of impending racial wars and fears of the racial abuse his children might suffer. But the jury rejected the insanity defense, instead finding Banks guilty and sentencing him to death. In the years since then, Banks' mental and physical condition has deteriorated, Flora said. "He is a shell of what he was back in 1982," he said. Flora said there are now two issues to be decided: whether Banks is mentally competent to be executed, and whether he has the mental capacity to understand and assist his lawyers in a bid for clemency. Flora said the hearing was postponed last year because of Banks' skin lesions, which one doctor testified had covered 90 % of his body. ' He said the hearing is being held at Graterford because Banks is confined to the infirmary. Banks' condition, he said, is unclear. "None of us know what to expect," Flora said. (source: Philadelphia Inquirer)
