March 16 NEW YORK: Death penalty is neither a swift nor sure punishment We grieve with all New Yorkers for law enforcement officers murdered outside Utica and in the Southern Tier and join in the call for swift and sure justice for their killers. The death penalty remains the wrong option in these and every other case, for it is neither swift nor sure. As the series of Assembly hearings last year showed, the death penalty is unfair, unworkable and far too expensive while having no demonstrable deterrent value. The $200 million spent in New York during its failed 10-year experiment with the death penalty - a period during which crime continued to drop and no one was executed - could far better have been spent on a variety of programs to support law enforcement, reduce crime and assist victims and their families. The state Legislature presumably understood that during a special session held last December, when it enacted a measure that mandated a sentence of life without parole for those convicted of intentionally killing a law enforcement officer in the line of duty. Gov. Pataki signed that measure into law. But the State Senate apparently has not gotten that message. The Senate Codes Committee recently passed a bill that would reinstate the death penalty for those who kill law enforcement officers in the line of duty. That action, however, appears to be symbolic since it is unlikely the state Assembly will go along. A clear and growing majority of New Yorkers has said that life without the chance of parole is far preferable to the death penalty as the maximum sentence for those who commit the most heinous crimes. That is what increasing numbers of Americans in general, and New Yorkers in particular, have told pollsters. That is what religious leaders, leading criminologists, increasing numbers of district attorneys and other law enforcement professionals and the families of murder victims told Assembly members last year. For most people, the exoneration of more than 100 death row inmates nationwide after post-conviction investigation underscores both the difficulty in crafting a mistake-proof capital punishment statute and the degree to which lawmaking at a time of high emotional moment inevitably yields bad law. If those accused of killing the officers are convicted, they will spend the rest of their lives confronting the consequences of their actions in the obscurity of a maximum security prison cell. Let the families of the murder victims know that the certainty of a life prison term will let them honor their loved ones and seek to go on with their lives. On the contrary, the death penalty, with its decades of appeals and uncertainties, only serves to extend the legal process while conferring a kind of macabre celebrity on the killer. The death penalty, with its decades of appeals and uncertainties, denies the possibilities of that healing to too many families for far too long. We hope legislators considering legislation in the wake of the murders of the police officers learn what the Assembly members who considered the death penalty learned last year - that we can live without the death penalty. (source: Times Herald-Record - David Kaczynski is executive director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty) PENNSYLVANIA: Lawyer suspension affects Bedford murder case In Bedford, an Allegheny County lawyer with a long list of clients in the Southern Alleghenies region has had his law license suspended, creating uncertainties over a Bedford County capital-murder case. The license suspension of veteran lawyer Thomas Allen Crawford of Wilkinsburg begins March 29 and will continue for 3 months, according to information provided by the Office of Disciplinary Counsel of the state Supreme Court. Crawford represents Joseph Clark, the Everett area man charged in the kidnapping and stabbing death of Holly Notestine 6 years ago. Bedford County District Attorney William Higgins will seek the death penalty if Clark is convicted of 1st-degree murder. The body of the 25-year-old mother of 2 was found in March 2004. Clark, now 46, of West Providence Township, was charged with her murder in late April. Crawford said Tuesday the suspension, the first he has had in more than 30 years as a lawyer, stems from a civil case dating back about a decade. "It is an old civil case," he said. "The disciplinary board was unhappy and the people were unhappy with the way I handled it. "I'm going to serve my 3 months. That's what they tell me I've got to do, so I do it." Along with the 3 month suspension, Crawford must make restitution totaling just less than $18,700 to 26 people from Donora in suburban Pittsburgh. While specific details on the case were not available Tuesday, Crawford said he was representing the residents in a battle against the borough over municipal sewer issues. Crawford said his license wasn't suspended sooner because "I fought it." Paul Killion, chief disciplinary counsel for the board, could not be reached for comment at his Harrisburg office Tuesday. The primary mission of the disciplinary counsel is the protection of the public, according to its Web site. It investigates complaints against lawyers and prosecutes when appropriate. Word of the action against Crawford has generated concern in the Bedford County district attorney's office. Crawford will be unable to offer legal advice to Clark or handle pending court issues in the criminal case until his license is reinstated in late June. And Higgins said he sees long-term problems with the effectiveness of legal counsel issues that may surface during future appeals. "The 1st avenue to appeal on death-penalty cases is right to the Supreme Court, and a lawyer will have to raise the issue of ineffective counsel," Higgins said. "Here's a guy potentially sitting on death row and his attorney couldn't even get into court," during part of the process. The license suspension also means Crawford cannot render legal opinions or offer legal advice. Late last week, the state Superior Court refused to hear arguments by Crawford seeking to overturn a county court decision not to sever the charge of arson from the homicide and kidnapping charges in the Notestine case. The arson charge resulted in a fire that destroyed Clark's car 6 hours after Notestine's kidnapping. Police said he was destroying evidence, though Crawford countered authorities never proved the fire was arson. 2 other major issues are pending at the county and Superior Court levels. Crawford is seeking to suppress statements made by Clark to police, as well as items taken during searches of the suspect's car and his mothers home. Higgins is asking the state Superior Court to overturn a county court decision not to allow into evidence information regarding 11 alleged prior incidents of violence against women by Clark. Meanwhile, Crawford said he is in the process of notifying clients about the suspension. He said he will meet with Clark to make sure he is aware of the circumstances. Plans at this point are to turn the cases over to his partner, Barbara Weiss, until his license is restored. "What I'll do is withdraw from the case, and Barb will continue to represent him," Crawford said. "I guess I'll be pretty scarce for the next 3 months." (source: The Tribune-Democrat) ******************** Criminal Justice Reform Conference April 20-22 For nearly two decades, Pittsburgh native Thomas Doswell lived a nightmare, serving a jail sentence of 13 to 26 years in prison for a rape he insisted he did not commit. As his children grew up without him, Doswell steadfastly maintained his innocence, even though his refusal to admit guilt cost him parole four times. Finally, in 2005, DNA evidence irrefutably proved that Doswell was not the attacker and he was released. Doswell will share his compelling story as one of the distinguished guests at next months 6th annual Forensic Science and Law Conference. Duquesne Universitys Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law and the School of Law, in partnership with The Justice Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan organization dedicated to fighting injustice, will bring together some of the nations leading legal scholars, forensic scientists, public policy makers and journalists to explore the impact of recent advances in forensic science on criminal justice reform. Justice for All: A National Symposium on the Role of Forensic Science in the Evolution of Criminal Justice Reform in America will be held Thursday, April 20, through Saturday, April 22, in the Bayer Learning Center. Justice for All is co-sponsored by the American Bar Associations sections of Criminal Justice and Science and Technology Law, along with the Pittsburgh Institute of Legal Medicine. Topics to be addressed include DNA testing, the reliability of eyewitness and "snitch" testimony, scientific and prosecutorial misconduct, and other issues at the forefront of the criminal justice reform debate. Speakers include former FBI Director William Sessions, renowned forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee, Policy Director for the Innocence Project Stephen Saloom, and Duquesne University Professor John Rago. The various panels will also feature talks from Doswell and another who has experienced first-hand the horror of wrongful conviction-Kirk Bloodsworth, the 1st death row inmate ever exonerated through DNA evidence. The Justice for All conference is open to the public and is approved for Act 48 Continuing Education. Approval is being sought for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) and PA Coroners Continuing Education. For more information or to register, visit www.justiceforall.duq.edu or call 412.396.1330. (source: Duquesne University Times) USA: SUPPORT FOR DEATH PENALTY SOFTENS IN U.S. Support for capital punishment is starting to soften even among some long-time death penalty advocates, writes Mark Sommer, director of the U.S.-based Mainstream Media Project and host of the award-winning internationally-syndicated radio programme "A World of Possibilities." In this article Sommer writes, alongside Iraq, Iran, and China, the United States remains the sole advanced democracy still cleaving to what much of the world views as state-sponsored homicide. At 64 %, Americans' support for the death penalty is 20 % higher than Canada and 40 % higher than Australia. Nonetheless, it is at its lowest level in 27 years and is lowest among youth, indicating that a shift may be in the offing. Surprisingly, this shift is occurring most of all among some of those who until now have been adamantly opposed to abolishing the death penalty: Republican officeholders. The reason they are changing their minds is less ideological than pragmatic -- a realisation that too often the wrong man is executed and the exorbitant cost of prosecution is stealing resources from law enforcement programmes of more proven effectiveness. (source: Inter Press Service) *************** Death row as source for organ donations? On any given day in America, at least 94,000 anxious and often demoralized citizens live with diminishing hope. They are literally running out of time as the search for life-saving organs goes forward without immediate success. These citizens face a desperate battle to obtain a healthy heart, kidney, lung, liver or other life-sustaining tissue. Modern technology has made it possible through transplantation to save lives that would otherwise be lost. While more and more organs are being donated, demand continues to outstrip supply. The result has been that thousands of would-be recipients - including many young children - die each year while on waiting lists. It's a race to find enough organs, organs that match, and find them in time. Resources for such organs continue to be severely limited. Life-saving donations are available in several unlikely places - including our nation's death rows, where many healthy organs go to waste. It is no small irony that while thousands of Americans die needlessly each year because they lack the requisite organs, others go to their deaths carrying off healthy organs needed to sustain life. Does such a suggestion sound macabre? That death row could provide a significant number of needed organs if a program were scrupulously developed and carried out among condemned inmates? Suppose, for example, an inmate facing a death sentence were allowed to donate a major organ in exchange for a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Hundreds of organs might be harvested. A carefully run plan could - and should - be developed to save lives instead of wasting healthy organs. If the nation is going to remain intransigent in its refusal to eliminate the death penalty, why not make the most of such sentences by allowing prisoners to make a significant contribution toward the lives of others? Even if that contribution is made with less than pure altruism, the good done would be real. Legal, ethical and moral questions come immediately to mind - but none is insuperable. Meaningful programs could be developed with suitable controls to protect those who might, in some ghastly way, be victimized. Safeguards and controls could be created to ensure the ethical and moral probity of such programs. For example, so long as the death penalty persists, we could deny organ-for-life exchanges if an inmate's crimes were deemed too heinous. True, it seems like a devil's bargain at first glance, since the choice being offered to the inmate is so stark that it's hardly a choice at all. One might even see it as coercion or victimization of the donor pool. On the other hand, the alternative is death. Some donor inmates would live the rest of their lives with single kidneys or lungs or partial livers, but many donors have lived full lives under the same conditions. If such a plan was enacted, two lives would be saved: the life of an innocent individual who would surely die without the transplant, and the life of the inmate who once was slated for death. As life expectancy extends and transplant techniques improve, the need for organs will inevitably increase. The search for such donations must be broadened. To extend that search to our prisons is to affirm, not deny, the value of life. Why refuse such an idea simply because we are not yet comfortable placing the value of life on a higher plateau than our need for vengeance and death? (source: Philadelphia Inquirer - Claude Lewis) FLORIDA: Carlie Brucia's Rapist, Killer Gets Death Penalty----Mechanic Abducted, Raped And Strangled Child The man convicted of abducting, raping and slaying 11-year-old Carlie Brucia was sentenced Wednesday in Sarasota. Judge Andrew D. Owens sentenced Joseph Smith, 39, to death for Carlie's murder, saying, "May God have mercy on your soul." Smith was led from the courtroom after the judge pronounced the sentence for first-degree murder. Smith was sentenced to life in prison for both his kidnapping and capital sexual battery convictions. Smith showed no emotion when the judge pronounced the sentence. A jury had recommended by a vote of 10-2 that Smith be executed. Owens was required by law to give great weight to that recommendation when making his ruling Wednesday. During a hearing last month, Smith tearfully apologized for his crimes. He told the judge that he took large amounts of heroin and cocaine and tried to kill himself before he abducted Carlie on Feb. 1, 2004. Smith said he didn't remember much about that day and asked Owens to spare him for the sake of his family. Carlie's abduction was caught by a security camera and aired nationally. Her body was found 4 days after her disappearance on the grounds of a Sarasota church. Owens read a statement during the sentencing. On Sunday, Feb. 1, 2004, Carlie left a girlfriend's home and was walking home, the judge said. She cut across the parking lot of a car wash, taking a shortcut home. A friend of the family saw Carlie walking and sent her husband to find her. He was unable to locate the girl. After an hour and a half of searching for Carlie, they called 911. In their search for the girl, police came across the videotape of Carlies abduction. A surveillance camera at a car wash showed Smith grabbing the girl by the arm. When the videotape was released nationally by the media, several calls came in identifying Smith as the kidnapper. He was wearing a mechanic's uniform that said "Joe" on it. Smith was arrested for unrelated drug charges on Feb. 3 and for violating terms of his probation. On Feb. 5, John Smith visited his brother, Joseph, who was in police custody. The suspect's brother then took police to the area where Carlie's body was left. She was found dead on church grounds in the exact area that Joseph Smith told his brother she was. Smith admitted having rough sex with the child and his semen was found on her clothing, according to Owens. Owens believes that Smith killed Carlie so that he would not be arrested in her kidnapping and rape. The judge said that he has no doubt the crime was sexually motivated. And instead of letting Carlie live after her rape, he chose to kill her. Carlie's cause of death was ligature strangulation, the judge said. But the ligatures were never found. A doctor's report said that Carlie's hands were restrained during her strangulation and that the girl had no defensive wounds. The doctor found that Carlie was conscious when the ligature was put around her neck. So he found that she must have been restrained before being killed. The court found that Carlie endured unspeakable trauma that started the moment she was kidnapped, Owens said. He said the image of the girl being kidnapped would forever be etched in his mind. "If ever a victim can be described as defenseless and subdued, it was Carlie Brucia," Judge Owens said. "He had other options available to him, but for reasons we'll never know, he chose to ignore them." The judge said that Smith not only chose to ignore those options, but he held the ligature so tight against her neck that it dug into her flesh. After killing Carlie, Smith dragged the girl to a wooded area so as to avoid detection, the judge said. He then lied to police about his whereabouts. Owens said that Smith disposed of Carlie's backpack and clothing in several locations, and admitted doing so in a coded letter to his brother. The judge said that at 11 years of age, Carlie knew what was happening to her and realized she was going to die. He said the court may never know how long it took for Carlie to be unconscious, she had already suffered unspeakable emotional terror and physical terror at Joseph Smith's hands. Owens said that beyond any reasonable doubt, Carlie's death was heinous and torturous. And that has been assigned great weight in the sentencing. For the defendant to achieve his goal of preying on a young child, the judge said, Smith drove Carlie to a remote area in order to rape her. He said it was a deliberate and selfish act. On March 6, 2003, Smith had been convicted on drug charges. That is why he was on probation, according to the judge. (source: Associated Press) **************** Ex-FBI agent loses bid to have murder-conspiracy charge dismissed Former FBI agent John "Zip" Connolly, donning a red jumpsuit reserved for the most dangerous inmates, frowned as he listened to the ruling Tuesday. His attorney had hoped a motion to dismiss a murder-conspiracy charge against him would be granted. Instead, the motion was turned down flat and an Aug. 14 trial date was set in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. It was an anti-climactic ending to the hearing for Connolly, 65, whose association with reputed Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger has landed him in a jail cell 1,500 miles from his home, facing a possible death penalty. In May, a Miami-Dade County grand jury indicted Connolly on conspiracy and murder charges in the 1982 slaying of former World Jai Alai owner John Callahan. The businessman's bullet-riddled body was found in the trunk of a Cadillac in a Miami airport parking lot. That indictment came three years after Connolly was convicted in Boston and sentenced to 10 years for passing on law enforcement information to his longtime informants, Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, who used that information to eliminate their rivals while rising to the top of Boston's rackets. Some of the information Connolly leaked, authorities charge, led to Callahan's death. In 1981, Callahan, who had ties to Bulger's crew, sold the Miami-based World Jai Alai to an Oklahoma businessman named Roger Wheeler. Wheeler came to suspect Bulger's guys were skimming profits and began audits. In 1981, on Bulger's orders, Johnny Martorano and Kevin Halloran ambushed Wheeler outside his Tulsa country club, according to court documents. Halloran was later murdered outside a bar. At Connolly's 2002 trial, Martorano, 70, testified that 20 years earlier Bulger had told them Halloran was hit because Connolly told him he was cooperating with the FBI. Connolly also told Bulger that Callahan had to be killed because he knew too much, testified Martorano, who shot Callahan and later confessed to 10 murders. Bulger, a co-defendant in the murder who is 76 if he's still alive,has been on the lam for more than 11 years, disappearing two days before Christmas 1994 after Connolly tipped him to an impending racketeering indictment. Last month, Connolly's attorney, Manuel Casabielle, filed a motion to dismiss the conspiracy charge on the basis that the statute of limitations had expired. It was dismissed Tuesday before he even had a chance to argue its merits. "I reviewed the motion, I reviewed the case law, the motion is denied," Judge Barbara Areces announced immediately after the lawyers entered their names into the record. Casabielle said they plan to appeal. He explained the importance of the motion, saying prosecutors can use hearsay evidence, such as third-party conversations between Bulger and cooperating witnesses Flemmi and Martorano, to prove a conspiracy. But hearsay isn't admissible if the only charge against Connolly is murder. Without a conspiracy, Casabielle said the case "would come down to finding Mr. Bulger, which apparently they're having a hard time doing." (source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel) CALIFORNIA: Death row dilemma isnt just for inmates Michael Angelo Morales violently strangled and beat to death 17-year-old Terri Winchell, then raped her in a horrific crime for which he felt no remorse. In 1983 a jury convicted Morales of murder with special circumstances and sentenced him to death. Cruel and unusual He appealed his conviction to numerous courts, including the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, the latter on several occasions. As a death row inmate he was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Feb. 21 at 12:01 a.m. Morales court-appointed lawyers, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations, sought to stop the state from executing him under the procedures set forth in San Quentin operational procedure No. 770, known as Protocol No. 770. Morales contends that the specific drugs chosen to put him to death in the absence of a doctor overseeing the execution creates "an undue risk that he will experience unnecessary and wanton pain constituting cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and 14th Amendments." If anyone deserves to die a cruel and unusual death it is Morales. This is one of those rare times that I would like to be a judge, in this case ruling on Morales' hundreds of court filings - claiming that being put to death by lethal injection involves unnecessary pain prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. It would be a short hearing. Protocol No. 770 Protocol No. 770 involves an extremely detailed Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (there is a misnomer) procedure involving syringed dosages of sodium pentothal to render the death row inmate unconscious, followed by injections of pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, the latter to stop the heart from beating. California is one of 38 death penalty states that authorize lethal injections for executions. Ten states allow execution by electrocution, with Nebraska as the only state that requires electrocution. 5 states allow execution by lethal injection or the gas chamber. 2 states allow lethal injection or hanging and two states allow lethal injection or a firing squad. I'm liking the firing squad myself. Morales' battery of lawyers were successful and the state indefinitely postponed his execution after doctors refused to administer the injections. But it is just a matter of time. Death row delays When it comes to death row executions, time is on the side of the inmate. The average delay is more than 20 years. Tookie Williams waited 25 years. It has been 23 years for Morales. Scott Peterson will be in San Quentin for at least 20 years along with 641 death-row inmates - the largest population in the nation. Statistically 63 % of Californians favor keeping the death penalty for serious crimes, a percentage that has declined over the years. The racial composition of those on death row is 45 percent white, 42 % black, and 10 % Latino. $250 million per execution With 11 executions spread over 27 years, on a per-execution basis, California and federal taxpayers have paid more then $250 million for each execution. The California death penalty system costs taxpayers more then $114 million a year beyond the cost of simply keeping the convicts locked up for life, and that figure does not include millions more for post-conviction hearings - per a 2005 Los Angeles Times study. Death penalty debate Michael Morales will be put to death soon - probably by lethal injection - probably in the company of medical specialists. He will feel little or no pain. Unlike his innocent victim. The debate over the death penalty will continue long past Tookie Williams and Michael Morales. The ACLU and other organizations maintain effective national campaigns to abolish the death penalty. I support abolishment of the death penalty. I've come full circle. Not because it is cruel and unusual punishment, not even close; but because the death penalty is a broken system. It is divisive. It drains billions of dollars of resources. Twenty-plus years on average of costly processing and delays is inexcusable, especially for obviously guilty perpetrators, and in the end putting someone to death accomplishes little. Michael Morales deserves to die, but at what cost and benefit? I resent entitling Michael Morales and Scott Peterson to $250 million each of process entitlements, including automatic review by the U.S. Supreme Court. I am sure there are pro and con studies on the deterrent effect of the death penalty, but my own instincts suggest that criminals are not thinking about the death penalty when they commit their crimes at least with our dysfunctional system. The death penalty debate is legitimate, but to question whether Protocol No. 770 makes Michael Morales suffer excessive pain is more then I can handle. It is time. (source: Law Review - Jim Porter is an attorney) ************* Attorney general mulls appeal of quashed death sentence The California Attorney General's office has a month left to decide whether it will fight to see Gregory Allen Sturm die. On March 8, the California Supreme Court overturned the 35-year-old's death sentence for the August 19, 1990, robberies and murders of Darrell Esgar, Chad Chadwick and Russell Williams. Death penalty opponents point to the court's decision as another example of increasing tensions over methods of criminal punishment in California. According to the court, however, the 5-2 decision overturning the death sentence focused on the trial judge's misconduct. Sturm is still convicted of the crimes, committed at the Super Shops auto store in Tustin where all of the men were once co-workers. The judge who presided over Sturm's trial made remarks to jurors that implied the murders were premeditated and therefore could result in the death penalty. The defense, which was led by Deputy State Public Defender John Fresquez, argued these remarks, coming from the authoritative voice of a Judge Donald McCartin, unfairly swayed jurors. His defense argued Sturm could not have planned the murders since he was a cocaine addict and highly intoxicated at the time. Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for the Attorney General's office, said if the office decides not to appeal, the Orange County District Attorney's office has plans to retry the penalty phase of the case for the third time. At that point jurors would decide if Sturm were to receive the death sentence, or his current default sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. Sturm has resided for more than 13 years on death row in Marin County's San Quentin State Prison. A retrial would return Sturm to his native Orange County for proceedings. While technicalities saved Sturm from a death sentence, larger factors are raising questions about the future of the ultimate punishment. Heated debate arose with the much-publicized execution of Stan "Tookie" Williams, a former Crips gang leader and later author of several books on fixing gang violence. Williams had a host of supporters who believed he had reformed; they publicly questioned why the condemned could not be redeemed. Williams, like other inmates, waited more than two decades for his execution, during which time he took up hobbies and social justice advocacy. Williams had also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature. Within weeks of the Williams' execution, however, another convicted murderer's execution was canceled. Michael Morales was spared after the American Medical Association issued a statement saying physicians cannot participate in executions based on ethical grounds. The statement said: "The use of a physician's clinical skill and judgment for purposes other than promoting an individual's health and welfare undermines a basic ethical foundation of medicine - first, do no harm. (source: Inside Bay Area)
