March 10 VIRGINIA: Appeals court clears way for Walton execution A federal appeals court has paved the way for death row inmate Percy Walton to be executed for killing 3 Danville neighbors in 1996. In a 7 to 6 ruling, the 4th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond affirmed a decision by the U. S. District Court in Roanoke. The lower court had denied claims that Walton is mentally retarded and insane. Walton was convicted in 1997 of killing Jessie and Elizabeth Kendrick, a couple in their 80's, who were found shot inside their town house. Police also found 33-year-old Archie Moore dead inside a closet. Walton's mental state has been debated since his trial. And 3 days before he was to be put to death in May 2003, defense lawyers won a temporary stay based on Walton's low I-Q scores. Walton can appeal the decision to the U. S. Supreme Court. The state plans to set an execution date with 60 days. (source: Associated Press) ************* Judge warns prosecutors in Moussaoui trial The judge in the death-penalty trial of confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui warned prosecutors Thursday that they were moving their case into shaky legal territory. "I must warn the government it is treading on delicate legal ground here," U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said at the conclusion of the day's testimony, after the jury had left the courtroom. "I don't know of any case where a failure to act is sufficient for the death penalty as a matter of law." The key issue in Moussaoui's sentencing trial has been his failure to disclose his terrorist ties to federal agents when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations. He is the only person ever charged in this country in connection with al-Qaida's attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Both sides agree Moussaoui lied to the FBI, but they differ on what Moussaoui was legally obliged to do given the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against self-incrimination. Prosecutors argue that once Moussaoui agreed to talk to federal agents, he was required to tell the truth - to confess his ties to al-Qaida and his plans to fly an airplane into the White House. The defense argues Moussaoui was not required to confess. The issue is crucial because, to obtain the death penalty, prosecutors must prove that federal agents would have prevented at least one death on Sept. 11 if Moussaoui had not lied. Their case would be much easier if that means Moussaoui also was obligated to disclose his al-Qaida membership and terrorist training. Brinkema made her comments as she rejected a defense motion for a mistrial. Moussaoui's lawyers were angry because they believed a question from prosecutor David Novak implied to the jury that Moussaoui had an obligation to speak to FBI agents even after Moussaoui had invoked his right to a lawyer two days into questioning by the FBI. Agents immediately stopped questioning him at that point. Brinkema said she did not feel a mistrial was warranted because she struck Novak's question from the record as soon as he asked it. The issue developed as the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui testified he suspected the student pilot from France was a terrorist, but that Moussaoui's lies sent agents on "wild goose chases" away from his links to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. Harry Samit testified the lies sent agents futilely searching London - the home listed on Moussaoui's passport - for associates he claimed had given him money, but that Moussaoui never mentioned the alias used by Ramzi Binalshibh, an al-Qaida operative, to wire him cash from Germany. The 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent did not admit getting money from that operative for almost four years - not until he pleaded guilty last April to conspiring with al-Qaida to fly planes into U.S. buildings. The jury here will decide whether that guilty plea will put Moussaoui to death or imprison him for life. Over objections by court-appointed defense lawyer Edward MacMahon, prosecutor Novak asked Samit one by one about Moussaoui's admissions last April and whether he gave any hint of them in 2001. Each time the answer was no. What if Moussaoui had admitted in 2001 that he was an al-Qaida member who had pledged obedience to bin Laden? "I would have asked additional questions about his role in al-Qaida and his relation to Osama bin Laden. It would have opened up a whole world of questions," replied Samit, a counterterrorism specialist. "The answers dictate the logical course of the interview," said Samit, who arrested Moussaoui in Minnesota on Aug. 16, 2001, for immigration violations. "You can't ask logical follow-up questions if he provides misleading answers. It takes you down all sorts of alleys - wild goose chases, essentially." Samit said that during his initial 90-minute interview of Moussaoui, Moussaoui claimed he was taking commercial flight training lessons in Minnesota "for enjoyment and his own personal ego." Moussaoui claimed the more than $32,000 in cash he brought into the United States was savings from work in an export-import business and from friends and associates. Agents pressed Moussaoui for the names of the friends and associates who supplied the cash and for a day he supplied only a single name, "Taleal." When Moussaoui a day later said Taleal was Akhmed Atef, Samit immediately asked bureau agents in London to search for that man because the only foreign address they had for Moussaoui was in London. Samit immediately became suspicious of Moussaoui when executives of a flight school in suburban Minneapolis reported a foreign student training to fly a Boeing 747-400 despite having almost no pilot experience. One of the flight school's instructors testified he urged his bosses to call the FBI after his new student responded angrily to innocent questions about his religion and paid for his training in $100 bills. Instructor Clarence Prevost told the jury he first assumed Moussaoui was a rich guy "just fulfilling a dream." But on the 1st day of class, when Moussaoui, asked whether he was a Muslim, responded with a terse "I am nothing," Prevost became suspicious. "I said, 'Should we be doing this?'" Prevost told the court. "'We don't know anything about this guy and we're teaching him to throw the switches on a (Boeing) 747.'" (source: Associated Press) OREGON: Oregon must re-examine using capital punishment California received national attention in February when the execution of death row inmate and convicted murderer Michael Morales was halted minutes before Morales was to receive a lethal injection. Morales previously appealed the practice of capital punishment by lethal injection, calling the procedure cruel and unusual punishment. As a remedy, a judge dictated that two anesthesiologists oversee the execution. But after agreeing to witness the lethal injection, both anesthesiologists balked, saying that taking part would be unethical for them as doctors. Morales's execution was postponed. The Morales case sparked national interest in whether the death penalty administered by a lethal injection--the most common avenue of inducing capital punishment, used in 37 states--is humane, or even legal. According to some studies, lethal injection causes pain if the proper amount of anesthetic drugs is not 1st administered. An article in the British medical journal, The Lancet noted that many autopsies show inmates received insufficient anesthesia prior to lethal injections. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments about this issue in April when it considers the case of a condemned Florida man sentenced to die by lethal injection; the Court may eventually settle the debate about the status of the lethal injection specifically, but we should reconsider the death penalty on other grounds. The death penalty has not been proved to reduce crime or to significantly deter criminals. Although proponents say it gets criminals out of prisons, reducing the burden on taxpayers, evidence consistently shows that when a prisoner's life is on the line, the state ends up spending more money. The prisoner will usually engage in multiple appeals, often through state-funded legal resources; inmates routinely sit on death row for a decade or more. Further, the death penalty is irreversible, and jurors make mistakes. Since the 1970s, more than 100 people have been removed from death row; one can only imagine how many more innocent prisoners were not so lucky. The advancement of DNA evidence has also called many sentences into question. In Oregon, the death penalty has become law 4 times; it was voted out twice and overturned by the Oregon Supreme Court once, according to the Oregon Department of Corrections. In 1996, Douglas Franklin Wright, 56, was the first person executed by lethal injection in Oregon after he was convicted of killing three homeless men in 1991. Oregon spent about $200,000 to execute Wright, even though he didn't appeal the sentence. At a cost-per-day of $53.73 to keep Wright imprisoned in 1996, Oregon could have incarcerated Wright for more than 10 years for what it cost to kill him. As of March 1, 31 people sat on death row in Oregon. The Oregon Supreme Court will review the sentence for one of them, Gregory Allen Bowen, today at the University's law school. Bowen, 52, was sentenced to death in 2003 for killing a man during a robbery-burglary. Fortunately, Oregon death sentences are automatically appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court. Although Oregon rarely kills criminals, we need to reconsider whether we should use this punishment at all. We believe that no punishment is great enough to remedy the heinous crimes that have sent most citizens to death row. Yet the death penalty cannot deter crime, it cannot avenge it, and now is the time for courts and legislators, both on state and national levels, to reconsider this issue. (source: Oregon Daily Emerald) NEBRASKA: Sheets' record won't be expunged Jeremy Sheets' record will continue to follow him. Douglas County District Judge Patricia Lamberty has ruled that Sheets, who had been on death row, did not prove that his record should be cleared. Sheets sued the Omaha Police Department, saying that he had lost jobs because the department provided his arrest record to employers. But the judge said Sheets provided no evidence to back up that claim. "Any damage to Sheets' future employment prospects is simply a natural consequence of the lawful 1996 arrest," Lamberty wrote in a ruling issued this week. Sheets was convicted of rape and murder in the 1992 death of Kenyatta Bush, a 17-year-old abducted outside Omaha North High School. His conviction was overturned after the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors couldnt use a taped confession made by Sheets' former roommate, Adam Barnett. Barnett later killed himself. Lamberty said any difficulty Sheets had obtaining a job stemmed from other factors, including a high turnover rate and alcohol use. Evidence showed the only time Sheets criminal record became a work issue was when he failed to disclose it to an employer while applying for work. Sheets also had an arrest record prior to the murder conviction, Lamberty said. Sheets criminal record would be known to others, Lamberty said, because of attention given the slaying, trial and related court activity. Also, the judge said Sheets maintained a high profile, including an appearance in an international pictorial of death row inmates. In addition, the police record "correctly indicates that the 1st-degree murder and (weapons use) charges against Sheets were dismissed," Lamberty wrote. Sheets was released from prison in 2001 and now lives in the Denver area. He has held at least 14 jobs and been arrested twice. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Panel: Suspension for former inmate turned lawyer A former prison inmate turned lawyer should be suspended from practicing law for 6 months, a disciplinary panel has recommended to the Ohio Supreme Court. The Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline recommended a 1-year suspension Thursday for attorney Derek Farmer, with the possibility of ending the suspension after six months if certain conditions are met. Those include meeting with a monitor and paying back client fees, the ruling said. The final decision rests with the state Supreme Court. Farmer, 48, spent 18 years in prison for his role in the 1974 deaths of Sgt. William Mortimer and civil-rights activist W. Sumpter McIntosh. The suspension relates to Farmer's handling of cases, including complaints he wasn't competent to handle his duties without help and failing to complete his legal contract, officials said. In one instance, U.S. District Judge James Graham complained about Farmer's handling of a drug case. Graham said Farmer acted against the wishes of his client, Melvin Tucker, by failing to pursue a plea deal that could have reduced his 27-year sentence. A message was left with Farmer's attorney seeking comment. Over the years, some police officers have protested Farmer's having a law license. A speech by Farmer at a city-sponsored event in Dayton in February prompted a protest earlier this month by a group of off-duty officers. Farmer was the first convicted murderer to become an attorney in Ohio, and he was the center of controversy in 1999 when he began practicing law in Cincinnati after 18 years in prison. The verbal attacks against him were so vicious that he moved to Columbus. Farmer never actually pulled the trigger in either of the killings for which he served time. In 1974, Farmer and a cousin, Calvin Farmer, robbed a jewelry store in Dayton. When fleeing the scene, Dayton civil rights activist W.S. McIntosh tried to stop the 2. Calvin Farmer shot and killed McIntosh. The Farmers fled to an apartment and encountered police Sgt. William Mortimer, who ordered both men to surrender. Derek Farmer complied, dropping the bag of stolen jewelry and cash when he raised his hands to surrender, but his cousin shot and killed Mortimer, according to police. Derek Farmer was convicted of 2 counts of murder and the jury recommended the death penalty. But the judge, however, rejected that sentence and imposed 2 life sentences. Farmer earned college degrees while behind bars. He graduated from Akron University's law school and passed the bar examination. (source: Cincinnati Post)
