[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., USA, ILL.

[Rick Halperin]

March 30


TEXAS:

Murder is out; trial goes on----Prosecutors can't prove fetus was viable
for capital charge


Prosecutors dropped capital murder charges Wednesday against a man accused
of stabbing his girlfriend 17 times, resulting in the death of her fetus.

Prosecutor Mark Skurka said he asked that the charge against Bruce Wayne
Gerard be dropped because doctors would not be able to testify Stephanie
Reyes, now 17, was carrying a viable fetus. She was 6 weeks pregnant when
she was stabbed Sept. 1, 2005.

Gerard, 24, still faces charges of burglary of a habitation with intent to
commit aggravated assault, which carries a penalty of 5 to 99 years or
life in prison.

He also faces charges of violation of a protective order and retaliation.
Prosecutors weren't seeking the death penalty on the capital murder
charge.

Skurka gave no further details about the decision to drop the charge,
citing the ongoing trial. It was the 1st time the Nueces County District
Attorney's Office had sought such a charge in the death of a fetus, which
became an option in 2003.

Defense attorney Kenneth Botary said he was glad he didn't have to fight
the murder charge, but he doubted the prosecution could have proved its
case.

"All along I didn't think they had enough," he said.

Botary said he brought up the question of the fetus' age and its viability
in his opening statement. He also asked Reyes whether she planned to abort
the baby. She testified she had no such plans.

During cross-examination Wednesday, Botary asked Reyes a question
suggesting she had cheated on Reyes and had antagonized him. Reyes
screamed at Gerard and broke down crying. District Judge Jose Longoria
ordered the jury out of the room, and as Reyes stood up, she accused
Gerard of having a relationship with a 14-year-old girl.

"I got stabbed and lost my baby because of you," she cried, as the judge
ordered her out of the room and called the lawyers to the bench.

As she walked past Gerard, she muttered, "this sorry bastard."

Her testimony continued after a brief recess.

The prosecution also called the doctor who treated Reyes in the emergency
room and one of the police officers who responded to the scene.

Skurka said he plans to call more officers and a DNA expert when the trial
resumes at 8:30 a.m. today in the 214th District Court.

(source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times)






FLORIDA:

Appeals court judges mull federal death penalty request


In Atlanta, lawyers for a man accused of killing a Florida deputy asked
the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday to throw out the government's
request for the death penalty, saying they were not given sufficient
notice.

Jeffrey Lamken, an attorney for Kenneth Wilk, asked a 3-judge panel to
throw out the request because the government informed Wilk and his defense
team it would seek the death penalty less than 2 months before Wilk's
scheduled trial date last April.

"An indictment was released 6 months before the trial date, yet the
Justice Department did not sign off on the death penalty," Lamken said.

Wilk, 43, is charged with killing Broward County sheriff's Deputy Todd
Fatta, 33, by using a high-powered hunting rifle with a bullet that
pierced the officer's protective vest when deputies raided Wilk's home in
August 2004. A 2nd deputy, Angel Cedeno, was shot in the hand and lost a
finger.

Federal law requires the government to inform defendants of its intent to
seek the death penalty "a reasonable time before trial." In previous
cases, the government has provided notice about 11 months before trial,
Lamken said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney E.J. Yera told the panel the 58-day notice was
sufficient. The government filed the request on Feb. 18, 2005. The trial
had been set to open April 18, 2005. The trial is expected to be held
after the panel issues its opinion.

Federal death penalty cases are not common. There are 43 federal inmates
now on death row, but more than 3,300 nonfederal inmates were on death row
in the 50 states as of January, according to the Washington-based Death
Penalty Information Center.

Currently the government has 65 death penalty cases pending or in trial,
said Kevin McNally of the Federal Death Penalty Resource Council in
Frankfort, Ky.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had to sign off on federal
prosecutors' request for the death penalty in the Wilk case. Prosecutors
previously listed 11 factors warranting Wilk's execution, including
premeditation and his risk for causing future danger. The government has
filed for the death penalty 10 times in Florida cases, has not won a death
verdict from a jury.

A unanimous jury is required for a federal death verdict; a majority vote
is sufficient in Florida's state death penalty cases. Wilk could face a
murder charge in state court regardless of what happens in the federal
case.

The anti-pornography task force of federal and local officers who raided
Wilk's home didn't know of a Fort Lauderdale police computer notice
warning officers "to use extreme caution" when approaching the house
because of previous threats to officers and a ready-made SWAT raid plan.

Wilk once listed "hunting cops" as a hobby on an Internet profile, and
city police had noted seeing rifles and handguns in the house. His
partner, Kelly Ray Jones, already was jailed on pornography charges.

The government currently is seeking the death penalty against confessed
al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. A jury in Alexandria, Va.,
resumed deliberations Thursday in his case and must decide if Moussaoui is
a terrorist responsible for the deaths of Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.

(source: Associated Press)






USA:

ACLU Opposes Constitutionally Flawed Death Penalty Legislation, Proposed
Changes Would Violate Eighth Amendments Protections (3/30/2006)


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union signaled its opposition
today to the Death Penalty Reform Act of 2006 (DPRA), which is being
considered in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and
Homeland Security. This bill would violate the Eighth Amendment by
allowing for the execution of persons with mental retardation, and by
making virtually every crime resulting in death and involving a firearm
eligible for the death penalty.

"We urge lawmakers to oppose this dangerous legislation because it
violates several fundamental constitutional principles," said Caroline
Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "Study
after study, including one released by the Department of Justice in 2000,
has documented racial, ethic, and economic disparity in the application of
the death penalty. This legislation does nothing to address the problem,
but may actually worsen it by allowing capital punishment to be applied to
people with mental retardation."

The definition of "mental retardation" outlined in the Death Penalty
Reform Act is without any basis in medical science and goes against the
generally accepted definition of mental retardation established by
physicians and other mental-health experts. In addition, the DPRA allows
jurors, rather than medical professionals, to determine whether a person
is mentally retarded. The majority of state legislatures considering that
question have adopted an approach that resolves the issue before the start
of the trial.

The ACLU noted that if a person is not deemed to be mentally retarded
before the start of the trial, it will be very difficult for jurors to
separate themselves from the evidence and make an objective determination
about a defendants mental state.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 123 innocent people
have been released from death row since 1973. The increasing numbers of
innocent people released from death row illustrate the fallibility of this
system. In 2004, a University of Michigan study identified 199 murder
exonerations since 1989, 73 of them in capital cases. The same study found
that death row inmates represent a quarter of 1% of the prison population
but 22% of the exonerated.

"Some safeguards are in place to protect people from unfairly receiving
the death penalty, but these statistics indicate that we still have a long
way to go," said Jesselyn McCurdy, Legislative Counsel to the ACLU. "It
would be a mistake to expand the application of the death penalty rather
than invest resources in ensuring its fair and just application. While we
understand the need for true reform to the federal death penalty system,
we cannot support this legislation in its current form, as it places too
many innocent people at risk."

**************************

ACLU Letter to the House Judiciary Committee Regarding H.R. 5040, the
Death Penalty Reform Act of 2006 (3/29/2006)


Chair, Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee

House Judiciary Committee

Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Bobby Scott

Ranking Member, Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee

House Judiciary Committee

Washington, D.C. 20515

H.R. 5040, the Death Penalty Reform Act of 2006 is Constitutionally
Flawed. Dear Representatives Coble and Scott:

On behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, a non-partisan
organization with hundreds of thousands of activists and members and 53
affiliates nation-wide, we write to express our concerns about H.R. 5040,
the Death Penalty Reform Act of 2006 (DPRA) that will be considered during
a hearing in the House Judiciary Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security
Subcommittee on Thursday, March 30. The Death Penalty Reform Act would
violate the Eighth Amendment by allowing for the execution of mentally
retarded persons and contradict Supreme Court law by making virtually
every federal crime that results in death and involves a firearm eligible
for the death penalty. We urge you to oppose this legislation because it
violates several fundamental constitutional principles.

The Death Penalty Reform Act Does Nothing to Address the Continuing
Racial, Economic and Geographic Disparities in the Federal Death Penalty
System.

The federal death penalty is racially and economically discriminatory. A
2000 Department of Justice survey documents racial, ethnic and geographic
disparity in the charging of federal capital cases. Indeed, the review
found that in 73 percent of the cases in which a federal prosecutor sought
the death penalty, the defendant was a member of a minority group. The
explanation for these extremely troubling disparities is unclear, but the
possibility of discrimination and bias cannot be ruled out. The Federal
Death Penalty Reform Act does nothing to attempt to reform these profound
systemic flaws. On the contrary, this bill's expansion of the federal
death penalty by making every murder involving a firearm eligible for
capital punishment will afford federal decision-makers greater discretion
to seek the penalty of death, therefore creating an intolerable risk of
increased racial bias.

Currently, 123 innocent people have been released from death row since
1973 according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The increasing
numbers of innocent people released from death row illustrate the
fallibility of this system. In 2004, a University of Michigan study
identified 199 murder exonerations since 1989, 73 of them in capital
cases. The same study found that death row inmates represent a quarter of
1 % of the prison population but 22 % of the exonerated. These statistics
underscore the importance of preserving the procedural safeguards in the
federal death penalty system, such as ensuring sentencing juries consist
of 12 jurors, a practice this legislation would undermine.

H.R. 5040 Violates the Eighth Amendment by Subjecting Mentally Retarded
People to the Death Penalty.

The Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153
L.E.d.2d 335 (2002) held that states could not execute people who are
mentally retarded. The Supreme Court did rely on a generally agreed upon
clinical definition of mental retardation in Atkins, but never required a
defendant to meet all of the characteristics attributed to mental
retardation.[1] Although H.R. 5040 relies on language used by the Supreme
Court in Atkins to define mental retardation, it would create a
requirement that all the standards outlined in the Atkins case be
satisfied in order to establish a defendant is mentally retarded.[2] Prior
to the Atkins decision and even today federal statute prohibits the
execution of mentally retarded people. Ultimately, the Supreme Court in
Atkins left the states with the responsibility of determining a legal
definition of mental retardation for purposes of capital punishment. Most
state statutes' definitions of mental retardation are consistent with
accepted clinical definitions, which do not require defendants to meet all
the attributes of mental retardation.[3] However, the DPRA would require a
person to meet all of the characteristics associated with mental
retardation, which directly conflicts with the Supreme Court's conclusion
in Atkins. The definition included in the DPRA is without any basis in
medical science and contrary to the generally accepted clinical definition
of mental retardation established by physicians and other mental-health
experts. This legislation's definition of mental retardation in the
context of the federal death penalty is inconsistent with the Atkins case
and would violate the Eighth Amendment by exposing mentally retarded
people to the possibility of being executed.

In addition, the legislation would allow juries to determine whether a
person is mentally retarded after the evidentiary phase of a death penalty
prosecution. The majority of state legislatures that have considered the
question of when to make a finding of mental retardation in death penalty
cases have adopted an approach resolving the issue pre-trial. In addition,
state courts that have confronted the issue have also acknowledged the
wisdom of adjudicating the issue pre-trial. If these findings are not made
prior to trial, juries will be prejudiced by evidence presented to
establish guilt during the trial. If a determination of mental retardation
is not made prior to trial by a judge, it will be very difficult for
jurors to separate themselves from the trial evidence and make an
objective determination about a defendant's mental state. Also, this
process will squander precious resources by requiring the federal
government to prosecute a complex capital punishment case only to
determine that the defendant was mentally retarded and therefore not
eligible for the death penalty in the first place. As a federal district
court in the Eastern District of Louisiana recently explained:

The Court has also previously found that overriding practical
considerations dictate that the Atkins issue be resolved up front. If
prior to trial a defendant is found to be mentally retarded and therefore
ineligible for the death penalty, significant resources are saved in terms
of trial preparation, motion practice, voir dire, trial time, mitigation
research, etc. To defer the Atkins/mental retardation issue until after
such a resource-intensive trial would be wasteful in a situation like the
instant case, in which the defendant, from the moment he first raised the
Atkins issue, appeared able to make a colorable Atkins claim. USA v.
Nelson, EDLA 2006 Case 2:02-cr-00304-CJB-ALC Document 337 Filed 02/22/2006
Page 5 of 31.

This Bill Violates Supreme Court Case Law Reserving the Death Penalty for
the "Worst of the Worst" Crimes.

The language in this bill is so broad that it would create death-eligible
offenses in nearly any federal crime that results in death involving a
firearm. This runs counter to Supreme Court jurisprudence that requires
the death penalty be reserved for only the "worst of the worst" offenders.
See Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859
(1976).[4] This legislation's expansion of the federal death penalty to
basically all gun crimes, without considering any aggravating factors
associated with the crime, completely abandons the constitutional
requirement that the legislature must "narrow" the scope of offenses
eligible for the death penalty to ensure against arbitrariness in
application.

The Death Penalty Reform Act Would Violate the Fifth Amendment Right
Against Self-Incrimination.

The legislation would require defendants give personal notice of
mitigating factors before a death penalty trial and prior to a guilty
verdict. This violates a defendant's Fifth Amendment right against
self-incrimination by requiring a person to state reasons why he or she
should not be subject to the death penalty, despite his or her plea of not
guilty to the crime. If a person has pled not guilty to a crime, it
totally undermines his or her case if at the same time the defendant is
essentially forced to admit guilt and make arguments for leniency. For
example, a person may want to establish that they were a minor participant
in a crime as a mitigating factor in a capital case. By giving notice to
the prosecution that they will be using minor participant as a mitigating
factor is in fact an admission of guilt and undercuts the person's not
guilty plea. No state death penalty statute requires this kind of broad
pre-trial notice of mitigating factors and there is no evidence that
federal prosecutors litigating capital cases have had any difficulty
working with the notice requirements under current law.

Currently juries impaneled during the sentencing phase of a federal death
penalty case can only proceed with fewer than 12 jurors if both parties
and the court agree. This bill would allow any number of jurors during the
sentencing phase of a capital case as long as the court finds "good
cause." A jury's decision to sentence a person to the death penalty is
just as important as the initial decision of guilt or innocence. A
unanimous jury of no fewer than 12 jurors of a defendant's peers should
not make a decision of this magnitude.

Although we cannot support this legislation in its current form, we look
forward to working with you to achieve true reform to the federal death
penalty system.

Caroline Fredrickson

Director

Jesselyn McCurdy

Legislative Counsel

(source: ACLU)

****************************************************

Alan Ames & Associates----ENTERTAINMENT CONSULTANTS


Press Release: Dead Man Walking - The Concert Receives Film Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

The WorldFest International Film Festival has announced that "Not In Our
Name: Dead Man Walking - The Concert" will receive one of the top 4 awards
in the documentary film / Music Concert category at this year's award
ceremony slated for April 30th in Houston, Texas. The film was produced by
Alan Ames and Associates and ActiveMusic, a non-profit 501C3 organization
whose purpose is to produce benefit concerts and events designed to raise
money for charitable causes and organizations.

The film itself was produced and directed by local Houston filmmaker Alan
Ames on behalf of executive producers Susann McMahon and Tim Robbins. The
concert which was shot at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, CA., was
broadcast live on the internet and will be released in June 2006 by Sony
Legacy / BMG. "This is going to be one of those special nights that will
never happen again" Tim Robbins was quoted as saying prior to the live
event.

The concert film is hosted by Tim Robbins and features Eddie Vedder and
Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam, Lyle Lovett, Ani Di Franco, Steve Earle, John
Densmore (formerly of The Doors) David Robbins, Rahat Nusrat Fati Ali
Kahn, Dildar Hussain and Sister Helen Prejean. The concert is based upon
the film "Dead Man Walking" which Tim Robbins wrote and directed as an
adaptation of the book by the same name written by Sister Helen Prejean.
Susan Sarandon received an Academy Award for her portrayal of Sister Helen
Prejean and starred opposite Sean Penn. Bruce Springsteen received a
Grammy nomination for the title song of the film Dead Man Walking. The
film's release co-insides with the 30th anniversary of the reinstatement
of the death penalty in the United States.

Advance copies of the DVD coupled with the re-release of the film's
soundtrack will be available for purchase 3 weeks prior to it's release
date on the ActiveMusic web site www.activemusic.org .
Concept/Design/Production/Direction/Distribution P.O. Box 631302, Houston,
TX 77263 # 713-627-0145

(source: Alan Ames & Associates)

***********************

Anti-snitch campaign riles police, prosecutors


It was not the first time prosecutor Lisa Pellegrini had been enraged by
the sight of the T-shirt with the traffic-sign message: STOP SNITCHING.
But this guy was about to wear one into court, with matching baseball cap.

Worse, he was a witness - her witness - and the intended victim in an
attempted murder case that had brought him, her and the defendants to
court that day last fall.

This was Rayco "War" Saunders - ex-con, pro boxer and walking billboard
for a street movement that has sparked a coast-to-coast beef involving
everyone from professors to rappers.

Pellegrini, thinking "witness intimidation," told Saunders to lose the hat
and reverse the shirt. Saunders, crying "First Amendment," refused. He
left the courthouse, shirt in place. Case dismissed. "In almost every one
of my homicides, this happens: 'I don't know nothin' about nothin', " the
prosecutor says. "There is that attitude, 'Don't be a snitch.' And it's
condoned by the community."

Omerta, the Mafia's blood oath of silence, has been broken by turncoat
after turncoat. But the call to stop snitching - on other folks in the
'hood - is getting louder. Some say it's an attempt by drug dealers and
gangsters to intimidate witnesses. Some say it's a legitimate protest
against law enforcers' over-reliance on self-serving criminal informers.
Some say it's bigger than that. Witness Busta Rhymes.

The hip-hop star has refused to cooperate with police investigating the
murder of his bodyguard Feb. 5 outside a Brooklyn studio where Rhymes was
recording a video with Missy Elliott and Mary J. Blige.

Police say that although Rhymes and as many as 50 others may have seen the
shooting, no one came forward - an echo of the silence that followed the
unsolved murders of rappers Tupac Shakur, the Notorious B.I.G. and
Run-DMC's Jam Master Jay.

It's the code of the street: To be a credible rapper, you have to know
when to shut up.

"Under pressure, I lie for ya, die for ya," Lil' Kim once rapped. Now
she's in a federal jail in Philadelphia for failing to tell a grand jury
what she knew about some friends involved in a shooting.

But Rhymes' silence in the death of Israel Ramirez seemed to puzzle New
York's seen-it-all police commissioner, Ray Kelly, an ex-Marine, career
NYPD cop and Customs Service chief who also headed the international
police force in Haiti.

"Your employee is murdered in front of you," he told reporters, so "you'd
think he might want to talk to the police."

Not necessarily, says David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime
Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New
York. "There's such animosity toward the police in some urban communities
that even people who aren't afraid, and who hate crime, still feel
cooperating is something good people don't do," Kennedy says. "That's the
Busta Rhymes story. He has nothing to fear. He just doesn't want to talk.
His reputation would take a dive if he did."

The code of silence, he says, "is breaking out in a way we've never seen
before." Saunders agrees: "It's a movement, that's what it is - a stop
snitching movement."

>From street code to slogan

The stigma against snitching is an old one, but the Mafia never took out
newspaper ads to promote omerta. So why is an unwritten rule printed on
thousands of T-shirts?

Start with the war on drugs. Over the past two decades, law enforcers have
made more drug arrests and turned more defendants into informers than ever
before. According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the agency that
establishes federal court sentencing practices, about one-third of drug
trafficking prosecutions involve informers' "substantial assistance." That
makes them eligible for reduced sentences under otherwise inflexible
federal sentencing guidelines.

Informers are a necessary evil, says Cmdr. Maurita Bryant, a 29-year
veteran of the Pittsburgh Police Department. "We have to deal with who we
have to deal with. If a dealer needs to make a deal, he'll tell on his
mother. It may not be right, but it's all we have."

Some criminal informers who are allowed to remain free commit more crimes;
some return to crime after a shortened prison sentence; some frame others,
or tell prosecutors what they want to hear. Boston defense lawyer Harvey
Silverglate says the system encourages defendants "not only to sing, but
to compose."

According to a study by the Northwestern University Law School's Center on
Wrongful Convictions, 51 of the 111 wrongful death penalty convictions
since the 1970s were based in whole or in part on the testimony of
witnesses who had an incentive to lie.

Alexandra Natapoff, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles,
estimates that, based on federal statistics, one of every four black men
from 20 to 29 is behind bars, on probation or on parole, and thus under
pressure to snitch. She estimates that one in 12 of all black men in the
highest-crime neighborhoods are snitching.

She says informers strain the social fabric of poor minority
neighborhoods, where as many as half the young men have been arrested.

"Every family gathering, every party, every backyard barbecue probably has
someone who's secretly working as an informer."

This is the world Rayco Saunders inhabits. It's filled, as he puts it,
with "guys doin' all this crime and not doin' no time, because they're
telling on the next man."

Hence a backlash - "stop snitching." The slogan appeared in Baltimore
about two years ago as the title of an underground DVD featuring
threatening, gun-wielding drug dealers and a brief appearance by NBA star
and Baltimore native Carmelo Anthony. Anthony later apologized and said he
didn't know the video's theme. He told "ESPN Magazine" that the
dealer-turned-informer excoriated in the DVD "ran our neighborhood. Now
he's working with the state and the feds. You can't do that. He turned his
back on the 'hood."

The black community is divided on the issue. Rapper Chuck D. of Public
Enemy has blasted the Stop Snitching campaign on the hip-hop group's Web
site: "The term 'snitch' was best applied to those that ratted
revolutionaries like Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Che Guevara. Let's not
let stupid cats use hip-hop to again twist this meaning for the sake of
some 'innerganghood' violent drug thug crime dogs, who've sacrificed the
black community's women and children."

Whatever its intent, the Stop Snitching movement has galvanized officials
already apoplectic about witness reluctance and witness intimidation.

States and localities spend a fraction of what the federal government
devotes to witness protection, although this month Pennsylvania restored
$1 million for that purpose. The move came as more than a half-dozen
witnesses recanted earlier testimony in the trial of men accused in the
Philadelphia street shooting death of a third-grade boy.

"If the word 'snitch' comes out of someone's mouth, I go insane," says
Pellegrini, the Pittsburgh prosecutor. "When young men and women see
rappers refuse (to cooperate), they think it's cool. How do we tell them,
'we'll support you,' when they see that?"

Especially, she says, when the slogan is blatantly used to intimidate
witnesses. Last year, supporters of an accused drug dealer on trial in
Pittsburgh federal court wore T-shirts around town bearing witnesses'
photos and the inscription "Stop Snitching. " U.S. Attorney Mary Beth
Buchanan says one, Garry Smith, had a $100,000 price on his head.

"Everybody in law enforcement is beside themselves," says Kennedy of John
Jay College. "They can't investigate cases. They can't prosecute cases.
The clearance rate for some serious crimes is tanking."

Stop Snitching T-shirts have been banned from a number of courthouses.
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, whose city recorded the most homicides in a
decade last year, threatened to send police into stores to pull them off
the shelves.

Following the furor over the "Stop Snitchin' " DVD, Maryland raised
witness intimidation from a misdemeanor to a felony, and Baltimore police
made a tape of their own, "Keep Talking." "People have to snitch," says
Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore street cop. "That's how criminals get
caught."

Fighting to stop snitching

Rayco Saunders' life may have been saved by a snitch.

Pellegrini says an informer told police that an ex-con had hired another
man to kill Saunders because the boxer was having an affair with his
girlfriend.

The man and his accomplices were arrested before the hit could be carried
out. They were scheduled for a court hearing the day last fall that
Saunders showed up in his Stop Snitching T-shirt.

Saunders and Pellegrini, the prosecutor, agree he was there to warn the
men not to testify in other pending cases. But they disagree on why:
Pellegrini says Saunders, whom she calls a "thug," is in cahoots with
other criminals who feared the men's testimony; Saunders says he thought
the defendants would try to save themselves by selling out others.

Saunders says he hates snitching so much that he not only wears the
T-shirts himself but has given them as gifts to friends and relatives.
"Oh, man, they love the T- shirts," he says. "It's way overdue for
somebody to step up and speak about these things that's going on with
these informants and these guys walking around here with immunity to do
whatever they want to do."

At 31, Saunders has had a hard life. He says he never knew his father; his
mother died of a drug overdose when he was 11. He was stabbed in the back
at 15, shot in the chest at 21. He says he shot at people himself and
dealt drugs He was arrested 6 times from 1994 to 1997 and served 4 years
in prison after a shootout with a police officer. He says he was framed.

Since leaving prison, however, he has pursued a career as a pro boxer,
compiling a record of 15-7-2. In 2004 he won the North American Boxing
Council cruiserweight championship. In an interview at the gym where he
trains, he outlines a stop snitching creed:

- Don't snitch on others just to save yourself. "Stop snitching is for
those guys out there selling more drugs than Noriega, and their only out
is to tell on somebody. If a (criminal) wants to be a Good Samaritan, OK.
But send (him) to jail. Don't give him immunity to do what he wants on the
street."

- Stop Snitching doesn't mean stop talking to police. "It's always
misconstrued by the public, or the powers that be, that we're trying to
intimidate the regular people or the law-abiding citizens. That's not what
it's about. If that is your only outlet, to call the police, that's what
you do."

- But witnesses have no obligation to help police. "Do your job - you're
the police. I've been wronged by the system. Do you think I would help the
system? Do cops snitch on other cops?"

- The authorities can't protect witnesses. "What's happening to the
innocent witness? They get dead or terrorized for life."

- Sometimes you must right wrongs yourself. "I'm a man, and I can handle
my own situations like a man. I've done dirt. I'll admit that. So I can't
run to the police."

Later, he's out on the street, wearing one of the T-shirts. Standing
nearby is a woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty to advertise the
services of her employer, Liberty Income Tax.

"The people who are snitching, a lot of them end up dead, a lot of them
end up hurt," says Lady Liberty - Ernestine Whitaker of Wilkinsburg, whose
nephew was threatened after he witnessed a crime. "So the snitching
doesn't do anything for the person who's snitching."

She looks at Saunders, whose muscular chest bulges beneath the T. "I'd
wear one of those," she says.

(source: USA Today)




ILLINOIS:

Investigative issues limit Scott sentence


Problems plaguing the Springfield Police Department's investigations
division apparently contributed to a plea agreement that allowed
triple-murderer Dennis "DJ" Scott to avoid the death penalty Wednesday.

Scott pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder in exchange for a 40-year prison
sentence.

Sangamon County State's Attorney John Schmidt said that evidence in the
case against Scott had "eroded" over time.

For one thing, alleged co-conspirator Ollie Davis decided at the end of
December not to testify against Scott. That was a major blow to the
prosecution.

But defense attorneys for Scott, over the 4 1/2 years since the killings,
also have been able to poke holes in aspects of the evidence gathered by
city police detectives Jim Graham and Paul Carpenter.

That's not unusual in a murder case - especially in a potential capital
punishment case, where defendants have access to attorneys, investigators
and forensic testing through the Illinois Capital Litigation Trust Fund.

But in this case, the questions raised by the defense have been bolstered
by the fact that the two detectives themselves are being investigated by
the Illinois State Police, even though the allegations against them do not
appear to have anything to do with the Scott case.

Carpenter has been on paid administrative leave since October, and Graham
since January.

The most serious questions raised by the Scott defense involve statements
made to the detectives by Eric Widner, the only person to survive the
shootings. Initially, Widner could not identify the person who shot him
and the three others. Several days later, however, after several visits
from Graham and Carpenter, Widner did identify Scott as the gunman.

Defense attorneys thought jurors might find that suspicious.

Scott shot Eric Widner, his brother Adam, their mother, Margaret "Sue"
Maledy, and family friend Sabrina Cole in the family's apartment at 524
1/2 S. State St. on Oct. 21, 2001. Eric Widner survived and drove to a
nearby Hometown Pantry to summon help.

There, a 911 recording shows, Widner told a clerk he didn't know who the
two assailants were. He said all he knew was that the family's attackers
were two black men wearing hoods or masks.

A police officer in the ambulance with Widner on the way to the hospital
also asked Widner to write down what he knew. Again, even though Widner
had met Scott, he never said Scott was the gunman.

Police also looked into two incidents at the start of their investigation.

One involved an order of protection Maledy had taken out against a 3rd
son, Michael Widner, because of his sometimes-erratic behavior. The other
was a police report Cole filled out the week before the murders, in which
she said Scott had come to the house, threatened her and took a VCR from
her. She wanted police to retrieve the tape inside it so she could return
it to the video store.

A clerk at the same Hometown Pantry where Widner went for help said Scott
and another man had been in the store that day, and the store's security
camera showed that Scott and Davis had been there together.

On the evening the killings were discovered, defense attorneys later
learned, Graham and Carpenter went to the hospital and talked to Widner
before his condition worsened. The detectives never made out a report on
the visit, but intensive-care unit nurses noted that the officers had been
there to visit him.

The detectives did say in other reports that they tended to visit the
hospital a couple of times a day when Widner's condition was at its worst,
but they never were able to gather much useful information.

Questions about incomplete case files and missing or incomplete reports
continue to pose problems for the department's investigations division.

"We have taken steps internally to correct these problems," said deputy
chief Bill Rouse, who heads the division. The report issue is a serious
concern, he said.

"The direction that the supervisors have been given is that they are to go
back and revisit, in particular, every homicide investigation (Graham and
Carpenter) have been involved in and to redo the work in unsolved and
pending cases," Rouse said. "Something that I have to ensure is that, if
there are integrity issues, they have to be corrected by detectives who do
not have those issues."

On Oct. 25, after Widner had recovered enough to talk to them, Carpenter
and Graham again went to the hospital. In a report that day, they said
Widner told them Scott was the murderer.

Widner said Wednesday, after the plea agreement was reached, that the
detectives did not ask him leading questions or coax him to name Scott.

He also said he thinks Carpenter and Graham did an excellent job on the
case.

"They are great guys, really great guys," Widner said. "I feel bad about
whatever they got hemmed up on, because to me they were very fair,
extremely fair.

"They just asked me what happened. I told them, and they said, 'Great!
Let's get something to eat.'"

But defense attorneys probably would have challenged the identification
anyway.

"The detectives' behavior hurt the case," said Jay Elmore, lead defense
attorney. "I think it's a real problem in the case. I know them.
Personally, I like them. (But) there were problems in this case -
significant material problems with the case and how it was investigated.

"I think the state's attorney's office saw things in a similar light. It
was a tough decision for the prosecutors. You have to go to the victim's
families and tell them this guy could get out when he's 55 or 60 years
old, and it's tough when you start out looking at the death penalty."

Other issues that could have raised doubt in jurors' minds included:

*A downstairs neighbor who said he received a strange phone call from
Michael Widner, whom Maledy had the order of protection against. The call
was recorded on the man's answering machine. The man said he turned the
tape over to a police officer - a uniformed officer, not a detective - but
it was never booked into evidence.

If the case had gone to trial, defense attorneys intended to suggest that
police did not do enough to rule out Michael Widner as a potential suspect
in the case.

*Graham and Carpenter focused on a disagreement over a DVD player as the
motive for the murders. They reportedly ruled out robbery because the
family's attackers left both Adam Widner Margaret Maledy with money in
their wallets.

However, the manager of Caritas Bingo Hall told investigators that Maledy
had won $2,700 at bingo less than 24 hours before she was murdered. That
money has never been located.

Scott has since said the motive for the murders had nothing to do with
either the DVD player or Maledy's winnings, but instead involved a drug
debt.

(source: State Journal-Register)