Sept. 18 TEXAS: The Original Texacutioner----Adios Ann Richards In the end, it's fitting that Bill Clinton would eulogize Texas ex-Governor Ann Richards for the "big things" she accomplished. Executing 49 people, including 2 juveniles and 2 mentally disabled prisoners certainly is "big." Clinton only executed 3 people as Governor of Arkansas. Of course, next to George W. Bush, who more than tripled Richards' numbers at 152 kills, everyone looks like a lightweight. That's probably why many liberal commentators bent over backwards to praise the recently deceased ex-Texas Governor as a civil rights pioneer and progressive. Richards, who lost her job as Texas Governor in 1994 to GW, appears as the archetypal hero of the "anybody but Bush" crowd. After all, her place in that national political spotlight came after her "poor George" speech when she famously skewered then-President George Bush Sr. as having a "silver foot" in his mouth. In an era when the only fortitude Democrats demonstrate is their willingness to defy their political base and slavishly prop-up the right's agenda, the myth of a larger-than-life Texan who sacrificed her political career to stand up for her ideals is appealing. But Richards's civil rights credentials crumble when you consider the outrageous and obvious racial-bias of Texas' death row. Of the 49 executions she allowed, over half were minority prisoners -- even as non-whites made up less than 25% of the population. While Blacks made up approximately 25% of murder victims annually, less than 4% of those executed were accused of killing Blacks. 87% the executed involved those accused of killing whites. Texas's death row was (and continues to be) so bad that in 1994, the Death Penalty Information Center's Richard Dieter described the situation as "in crisis." Richards' 1990-94 stint as Governor spans an era when Democrats eagerly shed progressive positions in a rush to appeal to the right. One of the first "liberal" positions to be jettisoned was opposition to the death penalty. Leading the way was 1992 presidential candidate Bill Clinton, who left the campaign trail to mug in front of cameras as he oversaw the execution of mentally disabled Ricky Ray Rector. This display set the stage for the massive increase in executions during the Clinton years that would peak in 1999 with 98 executions nationally in a single year. Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council gave a lead to Democrats nationwide who drew all the wrong lessons from Bush Sr.'s successful race-baiting Willy Horton attacks ads and the meek ineffectual response to these challenges by Democratic challenger, Dukakis, in 1988. Which brings us back to Richards. Her famously sharp tongue was still when it came to the death penalty. When asked would she support a death penalty abolition bill if it passed the Texas legislature, her sarcastic "I would faint" response betrayed indifference. When asked directly on the campaign trail about her views, she said, "I will uphold the laws of the State of Texas." Considering the racial and class composition of the Texas killing machine -- this commitment to the law sounds more George Wallace than MLK Jr. In 1992, an opportunity to take a stand for justice came with juvenile death row prisoner Johnny Frank Garrett. Garrett was severely mentally impaired individual described as chronically psychotic and brain-damaged. His life was such a horror show that one mental health expert described Garrett as "one of the most virulent histories of abuse and neglect...I have encountered in 28 years of practice." According to Amnesty International: "As a youth, Garrett was raped by his stepfather, who then hired him to another man for sex. From the age of 14 he was forced to perform bizarre sexual acts and participate in pornographic homosexual films. He was first introduced to alcohol and other drugs by members of his family at the age of 10 and subsequently indulged in serious substance abuse involving brain-damaging substances such as paint-thinner and amphetamines. Garrett was regularly beaten and on one occasion was put upon the burner of a stove, resulting in severe scarring." Richards, was called on by human rights groups all over the world to halt the execution, but instead she meekly weighed in to temporarily delay the execution and then deferred to the Governor appointed Texas Board of Pardons and Parole and allowed it proceed on February 11, 1992. To Richards standing up for Garrett just wasn't worth the effort. That same year, the US Supreme Court infamously blocked Texas death row prisoner Leonel Herrera's request from presenting newly-discovered evidence he claimed proved another man was responsible for the murder. Herrera had exhausted his appeals and no legal remedy was available for presenting the new evidence. The Supreme Court ruled innocence was not itself grounds for appeal. Again, according to Amnesty International, "Shortly before Herrera's execution date, a group of prominent Texas attorneys and former judges called on Governor Ann Richards to develop mechanisms so that condemned prisoners alleging miscarriages of justice would receive full and fair clemency hearings. The only response from the governor's office was a promise to 'study' the group's recommendations." Leonel Herrera was executed on May 12, 1993. Herrera's last words were: "I am innocent, innocent, innocent. Something terribly wrong is happening here tonight." Months later, juvenile offender Curtis Harris was executed in July 1993. There was strong evidence of racial bias in the selection of the jury in Harris' case and his court-appointed attorney failed to present evidence of his mental disabilities and abusive childhood. Again, Richards did nothing. In fact, during her time occupying the highest office in the Texas she did nothing to stop the death machine in Texas. To her, political expediency meant more than the lives of innocents, minorities, the mentally disabled, or juveniles. Ann Richards support for incredibly barbaric and racist Texas death penalty should lay to rest any notion that she deservers to be called a progressive. Far from being a wistful alternative to GW Bush that progressives pine for, by paving the road for the slaughter to follow, her legacy is not only the dead men she executed, but it is also the 152 men and women GW Bush, her so-called nemesis, executed. Goodbye Anne and good luck. Because if there's a heaven, it's a good bet Johnny Frank Garrett, Leonel Herrera, and Curtis Harris have been bending St. Peter's ear for quite some time now. (source : CounterPunch (Mike Stark is a national board member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty and a regular contributor to the New Abolitionist, the newsletter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Jim Bullington is prison-literacy activist in Denver, Colorado . He is a native Texan and a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.) ***************** Hearing set to determine if man is competent to face death penalty Attorneys for death row inmate Ramiro Rubi Ibarra will try to convince a state district judge in Waco today that Ibarra is mentally retarded and therefore exempt from execution. Ibarra, a 52-year-old Mexican citizen, was convicted in Waco in 1997 in the 1987 sexual assault and strangulation death of Waco teenager Maria Zuniga. While Ibarra did not allege mental retardation during his trial, his attorneys have since filed briefs alleging he has an IQ of about 65, about 5 points lower than the accepted standard for mental retardation. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that mentally retarded inmates are not eligible for the death penalty. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals sent Ibarra's case back to Waco's 54th State District Court for Judge George Allen to make a determination about Ibarra's mental status. Ibarra's attorney, Gregory J. Kuykendall, of Tucson, Ariz., sent notification to special prosecutor Enid Wade on Thursday night that he will seek a postponement of today's hearing. Allen already has rejected one motion from Kuykendall for a continuance, saying the Court of Criminal Appeals has given him a strict deadline under which to conduct the hearing. Kuykendall, who has said that he is being paid by the Mexican government to represent Ibarra, told the judge that he must find witnesses from rural Mexico, where Ibarra grew up, "to establish adaptive behavior deficits" from his childhood. Wade, who is opposing Ibarra's contention that he is retarded, was appointed to prosecute the case because John Segrest represented Ibarra before he became McLennan County district attorney and recused his office from the case. For Ibarra to prevail, Wade said, he will have to show that his deficient IQ affects him by keeping him from doing things that normal people can do and that the onset of the problem occurred before he was 18. "He has in both his criminal activity and otherwise shown a very high level of functioning," Wade said. "This is just a ploy to avoid the punishment that he deserves and that a jury found was appropriate." If Kuykendall is not successful in postponing the hearing, court officials say, the hearing could last up to 5 days. (source: Waco Tribune-Herald) LOUISIANA: Judge takes public defense to task----6 lawyers quit, causing case delays Tensions over how to repair New Orleans' crippled system of providing legal representation to criminal defendants who can't afford lawyers reached a boiling point last week, with judges complaining that recent changes will actually slow down the already sluggish process. In a bitter clash with lawyers hired to reshape the Orleans Indigent Defender Program, Criminal District Judge Frank Marullo indicated he is poised to find Steve Singer, the program's new trial chief, in contempt of court for not implementing Marullo's order to immediately appoint attorneys for defendants possibly facing the death penalty. Other judges also have taken Singer to task, saying he needs to quickly find attorneys to represent indigent defendants. At issue is Singer's decision to require public defenders to work full time. Letting such lawyers have a private practice on the side was harmful to their public clients, critics of the system have argued. The move prompted six public defenders to quit, leaving some judges with trials and motions scheduled on their dockets, but no attorneys for the accused. The fight comes a year after Hurricane Katrina exposed the precarious state of the criminal justice system in New Orleans, particularly for poor defendants. For months after the storm -- and in some cases, even now -- thousands of the accused have languished in prisons across the state without access to courts or lawyers. Long-term problems But Louisiana Supreme Court decisions, lawsuits and myriad independent studies reaching back more than a decade make the case that the problems highlighted by Katrina are not isolated to New Orleans. Instead, they are the result of systemic flaws in how indigent defense is set up across the state, critics say. These critics point to the financing mechanisms for indigent defense: traffic ticket fees that bring in wildly disparate sums from parish to parish and that after Katrina dried up altogether in some jurisdictions. The lack of adequate financial support leaves local indigent-defense offices unable to provide the vigorous legal representation required by the U.S. Constitution, a 2004 report by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association found. Advocates have stressed that a simple injection of cash is not enough to fix the problems that have plagued indigent defense in the state's 41 judicial districts. They argue that all too often the judge-appointed boards that run the local public defender programs create ineffective offices. "If you had more resources, it would alleviate some of the strain, but still there is not a whole lot of accountability in the system," said Heather Hall, director of the Louisiana Justice Coalition, a group of organizations advocating changes to the indigent-defense system across the state. The Orleans Indigent Defender Program has been the subject of several critical reports over the years. They found that salaried lawyers, who worked part time and had high caseloads, too often did not investigate their cases. Often, they failed to meet with clients. A Southern Center for Human Rights report in March found that most of the locked-up defendants interviewed had not spoken with an attorney outside a courtroom, either before or after Katrina. Before the storm, the defender office was ill-equipped, with no central case files or tracking system -- one of the key factors in the difficulty of finding the defendants awaiting trial who were scattered to prisons across Louisiana after Orleans Parish Prison was evacuated. New team on board The crippled office was left with fewer than 10 lawyers to represent defendants across the state. Most of the work of getting people released from prisons before their trials was done by private attorneys or by the Tulane University Law Clinic. The board that oversees the office also collapsed after the storm. Most members became inactive or resigned. The Criminal District Court judges appointed a new board for a one-year term in April, from a list provided by 2 local bar associations, as required by state law. The new board took a restructuring approach, recently bringing on Ronald Sullivan, a Yale University law professor, as a paid consultant to reshape the day-to-day operations. Singer, who is law clinic professor at Loyola University and is paid only by the school, was brought on as the chief of the trial division. One of the 1st changes was a decision last month to require all attorneys to work full time. A salary increase was to offset the loss -- or some of the loss -- of their private practice. Sullivan said the switch was essential. "The quality of representation in the criminal court was abysmal. It would be imprudent at best to replicate a system that was constitutionally inadequate," he said. Dwight Doskey, a veteran of the Orleans public defender office, disputed that characterization, saying most of his colleagues truly cared about their clients and did the best job they could with insufficient resources. "I don't think anybody would say that OIDP didn't do a good job when we went to trial," he said, although noting that, in too many cases, clients would take plea deals rather than wait for trial. This is because defendants often could get out of jail on the amount of time they had already served while waiting for their day in court, he said. Most defendants, he noted, just want to get back home, not caring whether they end up with a criminal conviction on their records. Hiring full-time defenders The revamped office will hire a slew of lawyers at salaries based on their level of experience, Sullivan said, although the exact number is not clear. Training for new lawyers will be provided by a training director. There are 26 lawyers on staff, and Sullivan said he needs a total of 60 to keep in line with the state's new caseload standards, although he added that the office doesn't have the money to support that level of staffing. Hiring a contingent of full-time attorneys has been the suggestion of all the independent reviews of indigent-defense services across Louisiana, particularly in large urban areas with a glut of criminal cases. The reports found that attorneys often could not handle their caseloads as part-time jobs, but needed to focus on their private cases to make a decent living. But several judges have been skeptical, agreeing with Doskey that what they see in their courtrooms is often vigorous trial representation of indigent clients that has led to a successful acquittal rate. They lament that many of the most experienced public defenders are those who have chosen to leave. They have also questioned why Sullivan and Singer did not phase in their personnel changes. Implementing the new policy has required postponing some trials, including those of defendants who have been locked up since before the storm. Dane Ciolino, a professor at Loyola University's law school and a member of the board overseeing the indigent office, said the group has agreed that they might need to roll out the changes more carefully. At a retreat with other board members on Saturday, Ciolino said members agreed they wanted to push forward, but communicate better with the judges and proceed "in a measured way." Last week, the lack of attorneys to handle capital cases angered Marullo, whose docket lists three such trials: two of accused child rapists and one of a defendant accused of first-degree murder, all indicted in 2005. When Singer, who had been in the job for two weeks and had just begun to hire new attorneys, told the judge he did not know when he could appoint lawyers to the cases, Marullo ordered a contempt hearing for not following his orders. An attorney for Singer filed a motion seeking Marullo's recusal from that hearing, which is scheduled for Wednesday before Judge Arthur Hunter. Criminal District Judge Terry Alarcon, one of the judges who scolded Singer for not providing attorneys for trials this week, also questioned whether the switch to full-time attorneys -- at higher salaries -- was realistic without a commitment from the Legislature for more money. "This has never been a high priority in this state. And I don't think it will be in the near future," he said. Some of the defenders who resigned from the New Orleans program, including Doskey, also questioned whether the higher salaries could be maintained over the long run. After almost 27 years working for the public defenders office, Doskey said he ended his tenure this month making $47,000 annually. He said only in one year did his private practice bring in more money than his public salary. While indigent defense has been discussed in the Legislature in recent years -- a task force to study restructuring the state system was formed in 2003 -- no major legislation has been introduced. At the request of Gov. Kathleen Blanco, the Legislature doubled the amount of state money allocated for indigent defense to $20 million for this fiscal year, but most experts believe the allocation is still inadequate. While finding money for accused criminals is never popular with lawmakers, state Rep. Danny Martiny, R-Kenner, who has taken over the indigent-defense task force, said there might be more appetite for the issue during the 2007 legislative session because of the problems caused by Katrina. Martiny said he hoped to work out a bill to restructure defense services before the session. Bob Spangenberg, a consultant who studies indigent-defense services across the country, said fixing the Orleans program will depend on finding more money. Other critics have said that a key change will be removing local judges from any role in indigent defense. Currently, they appoint the local boards. "The independence of the office is a really profoundly fundamental point," said Jim Neuhard, the head of the Michigan Appellate Defenders Office. For example, public defenders need the same freedom as prosecutors to tell judges they need more time to prepare or to aggressively question important witnesses, he said. Alarcon said he doesn't see a conflict with judicial appointment of the local board, as long as it is free to operate independently. (source: Times-Picayune) USA: PRESS RELEASE CONTACT: Erin Wallace---202-289-2275 ewallace at deathpenaltyinfo.org September 15, 2006: Inconsistency Prevails in Lethal Injection Controversy----Many Inmates Executed While Others Are Spared Florida Case That Was Subject of Supreme Court Review Now on Fast Track for Execution on September 20 Despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court stopped Clarence Hill's execution at the 11th hour and unanimously ruled that he could pursue his challenge to Florida's lethal injection process, the state has set an execution date of September 20, and the lower courts have denied him an evidentiary hearing. In other states, a far different scenario is playing out. All executions are on hold in California where a federal judge plans extensive hearings on the lethal injection issue beginning September 26. Similarly, a federal judge in Missouri has continued the hold on executions in that state at least until October 27. He has ordered the state to devise a better plan for carrying out executions. Federal judges in Delaware and Arkansas have stayed executions this year because of the lethal injection controversy. A state court in New Jersey put all executions on hold in 2004 because of this same issue. The governor of South Dakota stepped in at the last minute to halt an execution there, and has asked that the legislature amend the state law on lethal injections. In Oklahoma, the 1st state to adopt the lethal injection method of execution, the protocol has recently been changed. Similarly, North Carolina recently revised its procedures as a result of challenges to their execution process. However, in other states, despite similar lethal injection challenges, executions have proceeded on schedule. Texas has executed 21 people by lethal injection this year, half of all executions in the country. A federal judge in a Tennessee case, commenting on the wide disparity of court responses to lethal injection challenges, pointed to the arbitrariness of these rulings: [T]he dysfunctional patchwork of stays and executions going on in this country further undermines the various states' effectiveness and ability to properly carry out death sentences. We are currently operating under a system wherein condemned inmates are bringing nearly identical challenges to the lethal injection procedure. In some instances stays are granted, while in others they are not and the defendants are executed, with no principled distinction to justify such a result. (Alley v. Little, No. 06-5650 (6th Cir. May 16, 2006) (Martin, J., dissenting from denial of a rehearing en banc)). Clarence Hill was about to be executed in Florida when the U.S. Supreme Court granted him a stay in January of this year. The Court unanimously ruled in June that he was entitled to bring his lethal injection challenge as a civil rights matter in federal court. Despite a previous policy of not setting execution dates until the Hill matter was resolved, Gov. Jeb Bush signed a death warrant for Hill with an execution date of September 20. Hill's attorney, Todd Doss, was then informed by the federal District Court that he had less than 24 hours to prepare for a hearing on his request for a stay of execution. The request was summarily denied on September 1 without an evidentiary hearing on the lethal injection issue. An appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is pending. Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, noted: "30 years after the death penalty was reinstated, the likelihood of the death penalty being carried out is still like being struck by lightning. A punishment applied in an arbitrary fashion is a violation of the constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishments." For further information or to schedule an interview with Richard Dieter, DPIC's Executive Director, call Erin Wallace at (202) 289-2275 or e-mail her at ewallace at deathpenaltyinfo.org. (source: DPIC) NORTH DAKOTA----re: federal death penalty Death penalty jurors pay a huge toll, expert says----Jurors in federal capital trials say that deciding whether a person should be executed is a harrowing and unforgettable experience. The 7 women and 5 men who soon will hold the life of Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. in their hands all promised they could set aside their personal opinions on the death penalty and decide the case on facts and the law. But it won't be easy, many said in pretrial interviews with Judge Ralph Erickson, prosecutors and defense attorneys. "I think anybody who's a juror in this case is going to have a tough time," said a juror who grew up on a farm and lives in Fargo, noting the broad public awareness of -- and outrage over -- the abduction and murder of Dru Sjodin. "All of a sudden I'm supposed to put it in neutral, and that's tough to do," he said. The oldest member of the jury, a 71-year-old woman from Lisbon, N.D., said 2 sons told her Rodriguez "should be done away with." Could she set her sons' opinions aside? Erickson asked. "They say a lot of things that don't influence me," the retired health-care worker said. "I'm pretty much my own person." As to the death penalty, "I can't really say it's right to take another life, but there are situations where it could be right," she said. "When you consider some heinous crimes that are committed, it's fair." 1/3 of the jurors who serve on death-penalty juries report trouble sleeping and eating during the case and for a long time after, said Scott Sundby, a Washington and Lee University law professor who interviewed 1,000 jurors for his 2005 book, "A Life and Death Decision: A Jury Weighs the Death Penalty." Many said they would do anything to get out of another death-penalty case. Their decision "often comes down to whether they believe the only way to keep this person from doing more harm is to execute him," Sundby said. "Jurors often are very skeptical about what 'life without parole' means," he said, "and they will vote for death unless they are absolutely convinced he'll never be let out or cause harm to anyone in prison." Other potentially critical factors, Sundby found, include whether the defendant shows remorse, how jurors perceive the victim's family and the effect of expert witnesses. Rodriguez has shown virtually no emotion throughout his trial, and he has not testified. Members of his family have tried during the penalty phase to give jurors a portrait of a kind, caring but troubled younger Alfonso, or Tito, as they call him. His mother, Dolores Rodriguez, especially seems to have struck a sympathetic chord with some jurors. "Family testimony can be very important," Sundby said. "Up to that point, jurors probably viewed Rodriguez as this two-dimensional monster. All they had heard about was this terrible crime and his past crimes, and they saw him as something less than human. "Just learning he has a mother reduces the chance of a death sentence by 50 %." But jurors have heard from Sjodin's mother, too, and from her father. Their continuing grief was clear despite restrictions Erickson, the judge, imposed seeking to limit emotional appeals. Jurors have also listened to a dizzying array of expert testimony, getting graduate-level instruction in such subjects as DNA, neuropsychology, pharmacology and mental illness. 3 executions so far Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988 in legislation aimed at combating drug traffic (and expanded in 1994 to be available in virtually all homicides occurring in federal jurisdictions), 192 defendants have faced the penalty. In the cases where juries reached the point of choosing between a death sentence and life in prison without parole, a little more than 1/3 were decided for death (95 life sentences, 51 death sentences), according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Project. There have been 3 executions: Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and drug kingpin Juan Garza in 2001, and in 2003 Louis Jones Jr., who killed Army Pvt. Tracie McBride, 19, of Centerville, Minn., near her Texas base. Most of the other cases are still under appeal. All of the lethal-injection executions were carried out at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind. Jones, a decorated Gulf War veteran, said that exposure to nerve agents in Iraq in 1991 caused severe brain damage that caused him to rape and murder McBride in 1995, bludgeoning her with a tire iron. Attorneys defending Rodriguez are trying to persuade jurors in his case that mental defects caused by exposure to toxic farm chemicals should be a mitigating factor. "Jurors engage in a moral balancing process," Sundby said. "The nature of this crime and who the victim was cries out for moral redress. But hearing the story of the defendant's life can cause a juror to pause and reassess: 'Gee, if I had gone through all that, I'm not sure I would have turned out normal.' "The argument most likely to resonate with jurors is that this individual realistically never had a chance to choose the high road. They have to be convinced he was consciously making these decisions." As of June 28, Rodriguez was one of 62 defendants on trial or awaiting trial on capital charges. Nearly 3/4 of the defendants against whom the U.S. attorney general has authorized federal prosecutors to pursue the death penalty since 1988 have been members of minority groups, and defense attorneys have argued that Rodriguez, who is Hispanic, cannot receive a fair trial in North Dakota. Also, defense attorneys have called his mother and others to testify about racist taunts he endured as a child, and mental health experts have testified that such treatment at an early age likely contributed to his maladjustment. Erickson denied motions for dismissal on those grounds and for a change of venue. Name-calling, broken hearts In 2004, jurors who heard the case against sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, who had terrorized the Washington, D.C., area, fell into name-calling when debating a sentence, the Washington Post reported. 4 jurors held out against death, and Malvo was sentenced to life in prison. "I couldn't understand how people sat in the same trial and didn't feel the same way," said Susan Schriever, who favored execution. "I felt it let the [victims'] family members down. It really broke my heart." After a 2003 death-penalty trial in Florida, juror Marianna Basile told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that she had nightmares and woke up in a cold sweat before joining in a unanimous decision for death. "You've got someone's life in your hands," she said. "It's one of the most important decisions we all made in our lives." Nearly all the jurors in that case cried as they marked their secret ballots. The Rodriguez jury is expected to begin deliberating its life-or-death decision later this week. (source: Minneapolis Star Tribune) NEW JERSEY: Clearing his name Imagine if Sherlock Holmes ended his fictional law enforcement career in disgrace and behind bars while criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty walked free. Andrew Sahol is haunted by the idea that very thing happened to his grandfather, the late great Burlington County Detective Ellis Parker. Parker once was hailed as America's nonfiction version of Sherlock Holmes for his ability to use deduction, common sense and psychology to solve thousands of baffling crimes, but he died in federal prison in 1940 shortly after he and his son, Ellis Jr., were convicted of masterminding the kidnapping and torture of a man the elder Parker suspected was responsible for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Sahol, 67, a retired electrician who resides in Florence, was an infant at the time. He has no personal recollection of his world-famous grandfather, only the memories passed along by his mother, Lilyan Parker Sahol, and various aunts and uncles. Those family stories, he said, have spurred him to seek a new ending for the Parker story in the form of a posthumous presidential pardon. "That conviction tore my family apart. It wasn't something anyone ever talked about because it was so painful," Sahol said in a recent interview. "It wasn't until my father had passed and my mother was ill that she began talking about it. "I would take her on rides in Mount Holly and she remembered different buildings and would talk about her family and old friends," he said. "She talked about "Pop', which was what all his children called Ellis, and how good he was. I realized right then how much pain (his conviction) caused my family." America's Sherlock Holmes Parker's career as county detective is by all accounts unparalleled in U.S. history. Born in 1871 in what is now Wrightstown, Parker spent his early years working as a traveling musician who played the fiddle at local dances. He got his start in law enforcement after his own horse and wagon were stolen and he tracked down the thief, attracting the attention of the Burlington and Ocean County Pursuing Society, an amateur police force that was paid fees for tracking down criminals. His work with the society led to his appointment in 1898 as Burlington County's first full-time chief of detectives. In the 40 years that followed, the bald, pipe-smoking supersleuth gained national fame as a master crime solver. During his career, he investigated 236 murders, some as far away as Europe and the Orient, and gained convictions in all but 10 of them. During one of his most famous cases, Parker was able to determine that a murder victim had died weeks earlier than a coroner surmised and the corpse had not deteriorated because it was left in a freezing river downstream from a tanning business. In another, Parker doggedly interviewed 175 soldiers stationed at Fort Dix to solve a murder committed there. The Lindbergh kidnapping But it was the so-called Crime of the Century - the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby on March 1, 1932 - that proved Parker's undoing. Parker was wrapping up his police career when the infant son of famed trans-Atlantic aviator Charles A. Lindbergh was snatched from the family's secluded home in East Amwell, N.J. Despite his reputation, Parker was left out of the official investigation. It wasn't until after Bruno Richard Hauptmann was captured and convicted of the kidnapping and death of the infant that then-Gov. Hoffman asked his close friend Parker to investigate to make sure Hauptmann was not wrongly executed. Days before the execution, Parker produced disbarred Trenton lawyer Paul H. Wendel and a 25-page confession stating that Wendel had kidnapped and killed the Lindbergh baby to avenge bad financial dealings with Lindbergh's in-laws. Although the confession forced a postponement of Hauptmann's execution, Wendel ended up recanting his confession. He went on to tell authorities that he was kidnapped in Manhattan, held prisoner and beaten until he confessed to the kidnapping. The kidnappers were found. They eventually implicated both Parker and his son, Ellis Jr., in the Wendel abduction and torture plot. Parker was sentenced to 6 years in federal prison. He died there from an apparent brain tumor at the age of 68. Thousands attended Parker's funeral in Mount Holly and newspaper accounts detailed talk of an effort to have the famed detective posthumously pardoned. Ellis Jr. was later granted a pardon by President Harry Truman, but efforts to clear the elder Parker's record failed because there was no precedent for posthumous clemency. Precedent for a posthumous pardon Sahol said he began research on his grandfather and U.S. clemency laws in 1999 after his mother died. He said he became serious about his efforts after learning from U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-4th of Robbinsville, that precedent for a posthumous pardon was established in 1999 when President Bill Clinton granted a pardon to deceased soldier Henry O. Flipper, the first black American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Flipper was court-martialed for embezzlement and conduct unbecoming an officer in 1882 while serving as a quartermaster at Fort Davis, Texas. He died in 1940. Sahol said he also has learned efforts are now under way to gain a presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, the 1st black heavyweight champion. Johnson was convicted in 1913 of violating a federal vice law. Sahol said he intends to model his presidential pardon petition for his grandfather on the applications submitted on behalf of Flipper and Johnson. He has enlisted the help of freelance writer Linda Moser of Lumberton to help him draft the document and Smith has promised to review it and submit the finished document to the U.S. Pardon Attorney. The Pardon Attorney and the U.S. Attorney General are both charged with advising the president in exercising executive clemency such as granting pardons and communing sentences. Questions remain Sahol said he intends to argue in the pardon petition that his grandfather's record of meritorious service outweighs any "liberties or errors in judgment" he might have made trying to save Hauptman from the electric chair. He said questions remain surrounding Hauptmann's conviction and the reputation of Wendel, a man linked to numerous swindles, scams and underworld activities. According to most accounts, Parker became suspicious of Wendel after he disclosed to him many unpublished details about the kidnapping. "My grandfather was a great man who maintained his innocence to the very end, as did Hauptmann," Sahol said. "Both trials were complete fiascos. There's no way he should have gone to jail.'' He said Hauptmann's widow, Anna, mourned Parker at his funeral and continued to thank the family for his efforts. Sahol said he also plans to present stories he recorded by his now deceased aunt and other members of his family about acts of kindness by Parker for many poor Burlington County families, several of them black or reformed convicts Parker had put behind bars during the Great Depression. "He used to pay people's rent or give them meals at his house, and he saved several crooks from lynch mobs," Sahol said. "Compare that to Wendel, who was a liar and swindler," he said. A book about Parker's life Sahol also hopes a new book, entitled "Master Detective: The Life and Crimes of Ellis Parker, America's Real Life Sherlock Holmes" about Parker's life and his involvement in the Lindbergh case attracts attention to his cause. The book, by Maryland author John Reisinger, was published in July by Citadel, a subsidiary of Kensington Publishing. In an interview, Reisinger said he learned about Parker by reading about his exploits in an old almanac and became interested in his life. "It was an interesting story no one had done, and I jumped on it," said Reisinger, 63, a retired engineer. "I thought it was an interesting story, and I wanted to learn more. I had never heard of him.'' Reisinger said he made several visits to Mount Holly while conducting his research. He reviewed Parker's will and visited the Garden Street home where Parker's viewing was held. The current owner of the house showed Reisinger a box of newspaper clippings of stories about the Lindbergh case. The clippings contained Parker's hand-written notes about the case, he said. He said he also visited the historic county courthouse on High Street and inquired about being directed to what once was Parker's office, but nobody at the courthouse even knew who Parker was. Reisinger said he was amazed at how Parker solved crimes by deduction, observation and psychology because modern techniques such as DNA analysis did not exist. "He should be remembered as the most famous detective ever," Reisinger said. "He had a long career where he did a lot of great stuff, and (with one case) he went down in flames. The rest of his life was noteworthy and certainly deserving of mention." The book is being sold at major book chain stores and at the Burlington County Historic Prison Museum in Mount Holly, the former home or execution site of many of the hundreds of culprits Parker caught. A book signing is being planned at the museum in December, officials said. Sahol said he was interviewed by Reisinger for the book and he was mostly pleased with the finished work. "He did my family a great service with this book in bringing my grandfather's life and legacy back to light," Sahol said. He said his cousin, Bill Fullerton of Florida, also has created a Web site, www.fullerton1.com, devoted to their grandfather. Sahol asked anyone with recollections about his grandfather or old newspaper or magazine articles that mention his exploits to contact him at (609) 499-2432. (source: Burlington County Times)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news---TEXAS, LA., USA, N. DAK., N.J.
Rick Halperin Mon, 18 Sep 2006 16:59:51 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
