Sept. 14 TEXAS: Texas death-row prisoner gets out "I'm in a good position now: As a 20-year veteran of death rowone who's escaped the executioner's axethat gives me a platform to speak from, and I AM going to speak. I'm a walking, talking testimonial of hope and inspiration to all the guys that I left behind," said Martin Draughon here on his 1st night of freedom in 20 years. Draughon was released from prison on Aug. 25 after a plea deal for a 40-year sentence, which made him eligible for parole. As he was led out of jail, members of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement were out on the sidewalk, along with Rene Feltz, Pacificas KPFT news director, and a Houston Chronicle reporter. Abolitionist Njeri Shakur was elated at the release. "I'm gratified. As an activist who has been working on this issue for a decade, I know were on the right track. The system has exposed itself. People are advancing their careers at the expense of justice and human lives. The crime lab has manufactured evidence, lost evidence, hidden evidence. And poor people pay with their lives. The Abolition Movement is happy for Martin and his family and we are anxious to spend a lot of time talking with Martin. We have a great deal to learn from him." Draughon paroled to Livingston, Texas, the city that houses the 400 men on Texas death row in the Polunsky Unit. His fiance, Joy Weathers, works for radio station KDOL in Livingston, which does a prison ministries program devoted to the men on death row. Draughon is now doing the show with her, and says after 3 shows that it is great to speak over the airwaves to his friends and to all the men on death row. Conviction overturned Draughon was sentenced to death in 1987 for shooting a man following a botched robbery. "As I was running away from a fast food place I wanted to rob, I was being chased. I fired a few shots up in the air to scare them. One bullet apparently hit something and ricocheted and struck a man named Armando Guererro in the heart. I didn't even know anyone had been hurt until I was arrested later and I feel deep remorse for that. But I did not intend to shoot anyone, and did not point the gun and fire into Guerrero like the ballistic expert said I did. That's a lie," Draughon told Workers World. Draughon's conviction was overturned in 2004 when U.S. District Judge Lee Rosen thal heard evidence from a ballistics expert that the bullet that killed Guerrero had ricocheted. That fact contradicted the testimony provided by Houston Police Department ballistics expert C. E. Ander son at the time of Draughon's original trial. Draughon stressed, "C. E. Anderson, the HPD firearms' expert, perjured himself at my trial and said under oath that the bullet did NOT ricochet, that it entered between the ribs and entered the chest cavity and pierced the heart of Armando Guerrero. After 15 years, we got evidence into federal court that the bullet had in fact ricocheted. There's no way else to put ithe lied about what happened at my trial." 2 other men were also sent to death row based on false ballistic evidence: Nanon Williams and Johnnie Bernal. Both were 17 years old at the time of their arrest, so their death sentences were commuted last year after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling did away with sentencing juveniles to death. Both are still fighting their unfair convictions "We've all heard about the 200-plus boxes of evidence that have been misplaced by the crime lab in Houston," Draughon continued. "Well, my biggest fear was that that evidence that I needed to retest would come up missing. But once we got the evidence, we proved that the police lied at my trial. "Now that I am out, I want to show people that we can be redeemed, that we're not irredeemable monsters just because we were put on death row," Draughon said. The Texas parole system has placed severe restrictions on Draughon, but he says he is not worried about complying with them. "I have lived on death row. There is nothing the parole people can ask me to do that I can't do," he concluded. "I hope they will relax things eventually, but I am not worried. I have plans for speaking out against the death penalty and nothing is going to stop me!" 'Remember Frances Newton!' Despite the good news of Draughons release and the upcoming re-trials of Howard Guidry and Thomas Miller-El, the execution machine of Texas is not taking a rest. 2 executions are scheduled in September, 2 in October and 2 in November. There are also 3 set for January 2007. But the movement against capital punishment is also not taking a rest. It is growing daily. Death row families are becoming active. Students are mobilizing. The 6th annual October march to the state capital is building momentum and Houston activists are chartering a bus for it. It was just 1 year ago that Texas executed Frances Newton. Shakur told Workers World, "We have not forgotten Frances. Coming on the heels of the Katrina tragedy, the African community was outraged at the racism and injustice of Frances' execution on Sept. 14, 2005. "While the country is having a moment of silence for the victims of the World Trade Center attack this week, I hope we can all remember the 2 million people in U.S. prisons, many of whom have never had a day of justice in their lives in this country. I hope we can remember Frances Newton. I hope we remember the heroes of the Attica prison rebellion, which happened this week in 1971. I hope we can remember all the Martin Draughons who were illegally sent to await the executioner." Letters can be sent to Draughon at: Martin Draughon, 309 N. Drew Street, Livingston, TX 77351. (source: Workers World) USA: Federal appellate judge sees death penalty for long time The death penalty will continue to be part of American justice, but some may increasingly question the cost and there may be more international pressure to eliminate capital punishment, William Wilkins, chief judge of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said Thursday. "I think the death penalty will be around for a long time," Wilkins, of Greenville, told students at the Charleston School of Law. "But I think you're going to see escalating costs." Those opposing the death penalty argue the money can be better spent elsewhere, he said. "It costs a lot of money for the federal and the state governments to prosecute somebody for the death penalty," he said. In Florida, such cases average about $22 million, he said. Wilkins, a former prosecutor, has been involved in 96 death penalty cases as an attorney or judge. He is chief judge of the federal court in Richmond, Va., that hears appeals of federal cases from the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland. He said while polls show a majority of Americans favor the death penalty, jurors impose capital punishment in only about 10 percent of death penalty cases. It has to do, he said, with a juror "being able to look someone in the eye" knowing they have sentenced them to death. Wilkins offered a brief history of the death penalty in American justice, including the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1972 abolishing capital punishment because the court said it was being applied arbitrarily. That led to state laws permitting the death penalty with other aggravating circumstances such as armed robbery or kidnapping. Now juries decide the guilt or innocence of a defendant and the penalty as well. "We have come full circle," he said. "The imposition of the death penalty in the United States is a hit or miss thing." The death penalty is both a social and political issue, Wilkins said. "In South Carolina, no one could be elected to statewide office if they opposed the death penalty," he said. But "the United States' use of capital punishment has earned us a lot of international criticism," he said. Wilkins noted that of the democracies, only Japan and South Korea also have the death penalty. He said it affects the ability of prosecutors to bring criminals to justice here because some nations refuse to extradite defendants that could face the death penalty in the United States. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Aryan Brotherhood jury deadlocks on death penalty verdict In Santa Ana, a federal jury has failed to reach a verdict in the death penalty phase of the trial of 2 Aryan Brotherhood leaders convicted in July of murder, racketeering and conspiracy, the jurors announced Thursday in a note to the judge. The same jurors convicted Barry "The Baron" Mills and Tyler "The Hulk" Bingham in July. Jurors were then asked, in a separate proceeding, to determine whether Mills, 58, and Bingham, 59 should be sentenced to death or life in prison without possibility of parole. After jurors indicated they were deadlocked, defense attorneys asked U.S. District Judge David O. Carter to declare a mistrial, which would result in Mills and Bingham serving life sentences without parole. Prosecutors asked that the judge consider ordering the jurors to resume deliberations and try to break the deadlock. Carter did not immediately issue a ruling. Jurors had deliberated for 5 days in the death penalty phase of the trial. The case against Mills and Bingham was part of a larger indictment that federal prosecutors hope will dismantle the violent white supremacist which is accused of running powerful gambling operations and drug rings from inside some of the nation's most notorious prisons. Experts say the full indictment, which lists 32 murders and attempted murders, makes up one of the largest federal capital punishment cases in U.S. history, with more than a dozen people potentially facing execution. More defendants go on trial in Los Angeles later this year. Mills and Bingham were convicted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, and of offenses known as Violent Crime in Aid of Racketeering - laws originally passed to target the Mafia. The so-called VICAR verdicts, which involved the killings of 2 black inmates in 1997, made Mills and Bingham eligible for the death penalty. The two were convicted of inciting a race riot at a prison in Lewisburg, Pa., by conspiring to send a secret message to Aryan Brotherhood members. Frank Joyner and Abdul Salaam, alleged members of the DC Blacks prison gang, were killed during the riot. Government witnesses testified about a secret note, written in invisible ink made from urine, that was passed from Bingham's high-security cell in Florence, Colo., to Lewisburg. The note read: "War with DC Blacks, TD." While prosecutors argued at trial that it was an order to incite a race war at the Pennsylvania facility, defense attorneys said the note was merely a warning to other gang members after tensions flared between the brotherhood and the D.C. Blacks at a prison in Marion, Ill. The guilt phase of the trial exposed some of the brotherhood's long-kept secrets, including how members communicate from behind bars and between prisons that are thousands of miles apart. Some witnesses testified about a plot to kill an inmate who had assaulted the late mob leader John Gotti in prison. Testimony indicated that Gotti, head of the Gambino crime family, had paid the brotherhood for protection. One witness said Gotti offered to pay $500,000 for the hit; another testified that he had been passed bullets to hide until the gang could fashion a zip gun with which to shoot Gotti's attacker. The hit never occurred, and Gotti died of cancer in prison in 2002. Mills and Bingham were also convicted of a count of murder for the killing of Arva Lee Ray, a prisoner slain at the Lompoc, Calif., penitentiary in 1989. They also were convicted of counts of racketeering that included acts of murder and attempted murder. Mills is currently serving two life terms for murder after nearly decapitating an inmate in 1979. Bingham is behind bars on robbery and drug charges and would have been released in 2010. The 2 other men who went on trial with Mills and Bingham - Edgar "The Snail" Hevle and Christopher Overton Gibson - will be sentenced to life in prison. (source: Associated Press) ALABAMA: Commission supports brief halt to death penalty The Butler County Commission approved a resolution supporting a bill that would bring a 3-year halt to the death penalty in Alabama. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Hank Sanders, would establish a moratorium on the death penalty so that capital punishment in Alabama can be studied to determine whether or not it is administered fairly. Commissioner Frank Hickman cast a dissenting vote for the resolution. "I personally believe if you put a moratorium on the death penalty it will be tantamount to the death of the death penalty in Alabama," said Hickman. "I have mixed emotions about the death penalty. But I do believe it should exist as a deterrent." Hickman, who is a Greenville attorney, also called the moratorium a "back-handed slap at the legal profession." Hickman said the moratorium implies that those brought to trial using counsel provided by the state receive poor representation. Alabama has no public defenders office, with defense attorneys drawn from a pool of lawyers whose compensation is often lower than those paid in the private sector. Additionally, Alabama allows a judge to overturn a jury's decision in the penalty phase of a trial. Hickman said those are issues that could be resolved in the legislature without the need for moratorium. In March, the commission met with Ben Hall, President of the Butler County Chapter of the Alabama New South Coalition, a strong proponent of Sanders' bill. Hall asked the commission to offer their support. "We realize this is a hot-button," said Hall at the time. "It's an emotional issue, but sometimes emotions get in the way of good logic and sound judgment. Commissioner Daniel Robinson said he supported the bill because many people found guilty in the past have been exonerated through DNA testing years after their conviction. Alabama does not allow DNA evidence after a trial. "I know we have a great justice system, but a lot of innocent people have died who didn't deserved to die," he said. "If this is an opportunity to be fair then I'm all for it." (source: The Greenville Advocate)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, USA, CALIF., ALA.
Rick Halperin Thu, 14 Sep 2006 16:54:21 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
