[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ILL., CALIF., WASH., ORE.

[Rick Halperin]

March 30


ILLINOIS:

2 Murderers Could Face the Death Penalty


2 arrests have been made in the murder of Lansing resident Roger Hunz, 33,
whose body was found burned, beaten and strangled in an alley on the 6700
block of South Campbell Avenue 2 weeks ago.

Nathaniel McCray, 25, of the 6900 block of South Martin Luther King Drive,
was charged March 19 with 1 count of 1st degree murder. He was last being
held on $600,000 bail.

Jennifer Reeves, 32, of Whiting, Ind., was given the same charge on
Monday. She is being held without bond.

Both are expected to make their next court appearance at noon Monday,
April 10 at the Cook County Courthouse, 2600 S. California Blvd.

Police discovered Hunz's body in the Marquette Manor alley just before 7
a.m. March 14.

According to police spokesperson Patrice Harper, Hunz had suffered
"multiple burn marks on his lower body," was strangled and had "multiple
blunt trauma to his head and face."

The Cook County State's Attorney's Office said that Hunz was at a party at
another persons house when he reportedly left with one of the defendants
to buy drugs at another location.

Hunz was then taken out of the automobile and burned, beaten and
strangled, the States Attorney's Office said.

His house was later ransacked.

"It looks like there was money involved," Harper said.

McCray and Reeves could face the death penalty for their involvement in
the murder.

"It involves intentional death by infliction of torture. Torture is
something that can be punishable by capital punishment," said Asst. States
Attorney Melanie Fialkowski, who added that capital punishment is not
necessarily the sentence her office will ask for.

Police are still searching for a third person who was allegedly involved
in the crime.

(source: Southwest News-Herald)






CALIFORNIA:

Judge questions executioners at Calif. death row


A U.S. judge made an unusual visit to the death chamber at California's
San Quentin prison on Thursday to ask questions about lethal injection,
which is under challenge by an inmate condemned to die by the procedure.

Jeremy Fogel, a judge on the U.S. District Court for Northern California,
is considering a motion from convicted killer Michael Morales that
maintains lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Morales, who raped and bludgeoned a 17-year-old girl to death in 1981, was
slated to die in February. The prison called off the lethal injection at
the last minute because it could not comply with Fogel's order that 2
anesthesiologists be present to assure the prisoner did not suffer undue
pain.

In what prison officials said was the first hearing of its kind after more
than a century of executions at San Quentin, Fogel asked prison guards on
Thursday about the process in which an inmate is strapped to a gurney and
injected with lethal chemicals. The procedure is used for executions in 37
states.

San Quentin initially hanged condemned prisoners starting in 1893, and 215
inmates later the state turned to lethal gas.

Fogel visited the airproof, aquamarine metal chamber first used in 1938.
The chamber is used today by guards who attach intravenous lines for
lethal injections.

California executed 194 people by gas through 1967, when the chamber went
unused for a quarter century amid court fights over the death penalty.
California executions resumed in 1993, but a federal judge ruled the next
year that gassing inmates to death constituted cruel and unusual
punishment barred by the U.S. Constitution.

To date, no U.S. court has found execution by lethal injection to be cruel
and unusual.

Prison officials at San Quentin have offered to increase the dose of
anesthetic before two lethal chemicals start flowing. Fogel is due to hold
a full court hearing on the lethal injection procedure in his San Jose
courtroom in May.

California, the most populous U.S. state, has 648 inmates who have been
sentenced to death but it rarely carries out society's harshest penalty.
Of the 64 condemned prisoners who have died on death row since 1980, 13
were executed at San Quentin, and 50 died of natural causes, suicide and
other reasons. One was executed in Missouri.

(source: Reuters)

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

Death row counselor will speak at church


The Roman Catholic nun who inspired the film "Dead Man Walking" will be
the featured speaker Friday at St. Maximilian Kolbe Church in Westlake
Village.

Sister Helen Prejean will speak at the church as part of a "Social
Justice" public speaker series, which is being held at various Catholic
churches in the county to encourage spiritual and personal growth.

Prejean's efforts to counsel inmates on death row were depicted by actress
Susan Sarandon in "Dead Man Walking," which also featured Sean Penn.

Prejean's best-selling book about her experiences as a spiritual adviser
for a convicted killer was the inspiration for the film.

Prejean continues to work with inmates on death row and counsels the
families of murder victims.

Admission to the event, which begins at 7:30 p.m., costs $7, and ticket
purchasers may bring a guest at no additional cost.

St. Maximilian Kolbe Church is at 5801 Kanan Road. For information,
contact the church at 1-818-99915.

(source: Ventura County Star)






WASHINGTON (state):

Court narrowly upholds murderer's death sentence


In Olympia, a strongly divided state Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the
death penalty for a man who fatally stabbed his wife and her 2 daughters,
with dissenting justices calling the state's capital punishment system
flawed, arbitrary and irrational.

The 5-4 ruling largely hinged on Dayva Cross' argument that he should not
be executed while the state's most prolific murderer, Green River Killer
Gary Ridgway, spends his life in prison.

Cross, 46, was sentenced to death in June 2001 after entering a modified
guilty plea to 3 counts of aggravated murder. He killed his wife, Anouchka
Baldwin, 37, and her daughters, Salome Holly, 18, and Amanda Baldwin, 15,
in their Snoqualmie home in 1999.

He was arrested after a 3rd stepdaughter, Mellissa Baldwin, then 13,
escaped and called authorities after witnessing one of the killings and
being held captive for several hours. Cross' attorneys argued at
sentencing that he should be spared the death penalty because of a long
history mental illness.

On appeal, Cross challenged the state's death penalty as unconstitutional.
He pointed specifically to Ridgway, who pleaded guilty to 48 counts of
murder and was sentenced in 2004 to life in prison in a deal that helped
prosecutors close several of his unsolved murders.

In upholding the sentencing jury's unanimous decision to impose death, the
Supreme Court's majority said Cross' sentence could not be judged only in
comparison with that of Ridgway.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Tom Chambers, said Ridgway's plea
deal came in an extraordinary case and that his cooperation "resolved the
tragedy of many unsolved deaths and disappearances that probably would
have otherwise remained unsolved forever."

"Ridgway's abhorrent killings, standing alone, do not render the death
penalty unconstitutional or disproportionate. Our law is not so fragile,"
the majority wrote.

Other comparable murder cases have resulted in death sentences, showing
that Cross' sentence was not out of proportion, the majority also said.

Dissenting justices, however, said Cross' death sentence could not
possibly be justified when compared to the prison sentences of Ridgway and
other killers representing "the worst mass murderers in Washington's
history."

"These cases exemplify the arbitrariness with which the penalty of death
is exacted," the dissenters said, adding that "The death penalty is like
lightning, randomly striking some defendants and not others."

The majority decision rejected a long list of complaints from Cross about
the way his sentencing hearing was handled, including the performance of
his attorneys and the selection and instruction of jurors who decided his
fate.

Concurring with Chambers' majority ruling were Chief Justice Gerry
Alexander and justices Bobbe Bridge and Mary Fairhurst, and former Justice
Faith Ireland.

Ireland ruled in the case because she was on the court when it originally
was argued in 2004. Ireland has since retired; her seat was filled by
current Justice James Johnson, who did not participate in Thursday's
ruling.

Joining Justice Charles Johnson in dissent were justices Barbara Madsen,
Susan Owens and Richard Sanders.

Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, said
prosecutors expect Cross to further appeal the decision. Messages seeking
comment from Cross' attorneys in the appeal were not immediately returned
Thursday.

On the Net: Supreme Court: http://www.courts.wa.gov

(source: Associated Press)






OREGON:

NewsFlash Home | More Oregon News Court upholds man's death sentence in
slaying of teenager


In Salem, the Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence
against a Washington County man convicted of drugging and strangling a
15-year-old girl in 1998, but his execution is likely to be years away.

Martin Allen Johnson, 49, challenged his conviction and death sentence on
various grounds, all of which were swept aside by the state's highest
court.

Johnson, who is one of 30 men on death row in Oregon, was convicted in
August 2001 of aggravated murder in the death of Heather Fay Fraser of
Tigard.

Several girls testified that Johnson had taken them to dance clubs and in
some cases slipped morphine into their drinks to incapacitate them. Some
said they awoke to find Johnson sexually assaulting them.

An autopsy showed Fraser had enough morphine in her body to render her
unconscious and that she had been strangled.

In appealing his conviction and death sentence, Johnson said the trial
court erred by denying his motions to have certain physical evidence and
statements he made to investigators excluded from consideration by the
jury.

Johnson also said the trial court should have granted his request for a
new attorney and to have several potential jurors excluded from serving.

Those and other challenges were rejected by the Supreme Court in a
unanimous opinion by Justice Michael Gillette.

Two inmates have died by lethal injection since Oregon voters reinstated
capital punishment in 1984.

Oregon's last execution was in May 1997, when Harry Charles Moore was
injected with lethal chemicals for gunning down his in-laws in Salem after
a family dispute in 1992.

Another condemned murderer, Douglas Franklin Wright, was put to death in
September 1996 for luring 3 homeless men into the woods of Central Oregon
and shooting them.

In both cases, though, Moore and Wright had "volunteered" for execution,
refusing to allow any further appeals of their death sentences to be filed
on their behalf.

Kevin Neely of the Oregon attorney general's office said that all 30
convicts on death row are pursuing appeals. The next execution could be
four or five years from now, he said.

In fact, Johnson is nearly at the beginning of an appeals process that
could take a decade or longer, Neely said.

"It's taken five years to get to where we are now" in Johnson's case, he
said. "Certainly, having this go another 20 years is not outside the realm
of possibility."

(source: Associated Press)