Sept. 18 TENNESSEE----stay of impending execution Federal appeals court stops electric chair execution in Tennessee Convicted murderer Daryl Keith Holton, who confessed to the assault rifle slayings of his 3 young sons and their half-sister, was granted a stay of execution Monday from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Holton also resumed appealing his death sentence, stopping plans for Tennessee's 1st electric chair execution in 46 years. Kelly Gleason, a post-conviction defender working with Holton, confirmed the stay and also acknowledged she typed and sent a handwritten petition from Holton to the U.S. Supreme Court requesting that his execution be stopped. "We discussed it and I filed it over the weekend," Gleason said. Holton, who turned himself in within hours of the 1997 slayings, was scheduled to be executed at 1 a.m. CDT Tuesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. Holton, 44, chose earlier this year to stop appealing his death sentence. He also chose to be put to death in the electric chair rather than by the state's preferred method of lethal injection. Tennessee allows death row inmates to choose between the two execution methods if their crimes were committed before 1999. In granting the stay, the 6th Circuit said it was needed "to permit briefing on the issue for which the district court granted a certificate of appealability, that is, its finding that 'the Federal Defender Services has failed to demonstrate reasonable cause to believe that Mr. Holton is not competent to make a rational decision to dismiss his pending federal habeas corpus petition.'" The court also noted the stay was necessary in light of Holton's filing to the U.S. Supreme Court. In that petition, Holton claims he was "denied a fair trial due to the ineffective assistance of trial counsel." Holton apparently sidestepped his attorney and also asked the Supreme Court to "order an evidentiary hearing to resolve any disputed facts, and grant relief from ... convictions and sentences." Stephen Ferrell, Holton's federal public defender, was appealing a ruling earlier this month from a federal judge in Knoxville that his client's case didn't merit a full evidentiary hearing on his competency. >From 1916 until 1960, 125 people were executed by electrocution in Tennessee, according to the Correction Department. In 2000, lethal injection replaced electrocution as the primary method of execution. Ferrell said attorney-client privilege prohibits him from talking about why Holton chose the electric chair. Gleason also wouldn't say why Holton decided to resume his appeals. When he quit appealing, the state Supreme Court ruled that his lawyers couldn't pursue trying to get his sentence overturned without his cooperation. That's when Ferrell turned to the federal courts. Holton has said he was severely depressed when he committed the murders. His lawyers maintain Holton has a long history of mental illness and may suffer from post traumatic stress disorder from his military service in the 1991 Gulf War. Despite the stay, Tennessee Department of Correction spokeswoman Dorinda Carter said Monday afternoon that Holton was still in the death watch cell, where inmates are kept during the three days leading up to their planned execution, and the state was ready to move forward if necessary. "We're just going to stand by," Carter said. 9 states allow some or all condemned inmates to choose between lethal injection and another execution method, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Ten states have the electric chair but only Nebraska uses it exclusively. Virginia inmate Brandon Hedrick, 27, chose to die in the electric chair in July, the first U.S. execution by that means in more than 2 years. The last time the electric chair was used in Tennessee was Nov. 7, 1960, when inmate William Tines was executed for rape. Tennessee did not execute another inmate until Robert Glen Coe by lethal injection in 2000 and then Sedley Alley by lethal injection in June. On Nov. 30, 1997, Holton told the 4 children - sons Steven, 12, Eric, 6, Brent, 10, and their half-sister Kayla, 4 - that they were going Christmas shopping. Instead, they stopped by the auto body repair shop where he worked, according to police reports. There, Kayla wrote a letter asking Santa Claus to bring her a "Tickle Me Elmo" doll for Christmas and Eric waited with her while Holton took his older sons to the back of the shop. Holton told the boys to stand front to back and close their eyes. He then shot them with a semiautomatic assault weapon. Holton hid the bodies under a tarp, then brought the younger children to the back and shot them in the same manner, police said. He stacked their bodies on top of the others under the tarp. Holton turned himself into the Shelbyville Police Department about 5 hours later after he went looking for his former wife and her boyfriend but couldn't find them. He was found guilty in 1999 of 4 counts of 1st-degree murder. Holton's lawyers cited his depression in arguing against the death penalty. Prosecutors, however, told jurors that Holton was mad at his ex-wife and simply wanted to get back at her by shooting her children. (source: Associated Press) ******************* DA's letters to inmate improper, some legal experts say----References to religion in correspondence questioned Religion has long had its place in the criminal justice system, where witnesses swear on the Bible and some courtrooms convene with prayer, where prisoners undergo jailhouse conversions and victims turn to faith for solace and answers. But when a Midstate district attorney embarked on a deeply personal, deeply religious two-year correspondence with a murderer he helped prosecute - offering his prayers, quoting Scriptures and telling him that God was speaking to him against a plea bargain in the case - did he cross a line? District Attorney General Bill Gibson of Cookeville is under scrutiny by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for his correspondence with convicted killer Christopher Adams, in which he offered legal as well as religious advice. A state board that oversees lawyers' ethical conduct has asked the state Supreme Court to suspend Gibson's law license. Gibson e-mailed the Tennessean a statement over the weekend that read: "If the worst thing I have done in all those years (as prosecutor) is to write to a guy in prison and tell him I didn't think his case was being defended right and about trusting God, I will call it a good career." But current and former prosecutors, judges and victims advocates - none involved in this case - question whether religion should play any part in a relationship between a prosecutor and a prisoner. "Can Chris Adams be redeemed through Jesus Christ? Yes, I know he can," said Verna Wyatt, executive director of You Have the Power, a victims advocacy organization. Wyatt is a Church of Christ member. "But was it Bill Gibson's job to do the redeeming? I don't think so. Can he pray for him? Absolutely. But if he's being the prosecutor upholding the law and seeking justice for crime victims, then I don't think it's appropriate for him to evangelize and try to redeem the offenders that he's working with." Gibson, chief prosecutor in Putnam, DeKalb and several other Upper Cumberland Plateau counties, defended his conduct with the state Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility now examining his exchange of letters, saying that prosecutors are "referred to in the case law as 'ministers of justice,' with a higher responsibility than merely seeking criminal convictions." In the letters, Gibson offered both spiritual and legal advice to Adams, 34, who was convicted of 2nd-degree murder and especially aggravated robbery in the 2003 slaying of 79-year-old Putnam County resident Lillian Kelley. Adams is incarcerated in the state prison in Pikeville, Tenn. "I have been moved, sometimes to tears, at the evidence of God's hand on you and your situation," he wrote in one letter dated "Saturday 7/23." "God has claimed you and the enemy has been throwing everything into stealing you and the most he could do is borrow you for awhile. And so you are God's property and will touch countless lives for him." In the same letter, Gibson conveys news about his two children and asks Adams to pray for them. He pointed out a state statute that might help Adams' case and writes "just learn that statute and be in prayer about what to do. The last thing either of us needs to do is to rush or second guess God!" Gibson signed one letter "Keep growing stronger in Him. Let your light become a laser beam. I love you buddy and I pray God's richest blessing on you. Bill." "I think there's no question he crossed the line," said Jim Todd, a former district attorney in both the juvenile and adult courts who is currently a criminal defense attorney. The job as a criminal prosecutor "tests your faith every day," said Todd, an Episcopalian. "98 % of the people you prosecute are victims in one way or another. But for their upbringing, they wouldn't be in the situation they're in. But when you're on the job as a prosecutor, you have to check your feelings at the door, because on the other side of that coin, that person killed somebody. The victim has a family. Regardless of how they got there, they're dangerous. It's fine to take a chance on somebody. It's fine to put some body on probation when the situation justifies it. But not because your religious beliefs do." Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Steve Dozier, a Baptist, said that he relies on his faith for guidance in making the right decisions, but would never let his faith lead him to violating the ethics of his office. "As judges or elected officials you take an oath to follow the law of the state and to enforce those laws equally, so you might draw upon your religion in terms of asking for guidance or asking for the right thing to do in some important decision. But you can't allow your religion to affect the outcome of a case. I don't know why a religion or higher being would want me violating my oath of office." Davidson County District Attorney General Torry Johnson said that those involved in the criminal justice system often have to make judgments on who deserves a 2nd or even 3rd chance. But the guidance lies "in the framework of the legal system," said Johnson, who described himself as a Presbyterian. "That's not to say you may not feel sympathy or empathy for a given defendant. It's not to say individuals can't use religion in their lives to sustain them in the work they do, but that's different for it to direct your decisions." (source: The Tennessean) ************ State set to electrocute prisoner -- Confessed murderer to be first to die in Tenn.'s electric chair since 1960 If self-confessed murderer Daryl Keith Holton gets his way, on Tuesday he will become the first prisoner to die in Tennessee's electric chair in 46 years and only the 2nd person in the United States to be executed by that method in more than 2 years. Holton, who confessed to murdering his 3 young sons and his ex-wife's daughter within hours of shooting them with a semiautomatic assault rifle, is scheduled to be executed because he chose to quit appealing his death sentence. He also chose the electric chair over the state's preferred method of lethal injection. Dorinda Carter, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Correction, said that even though the state has not used the electric chair to carry out an execution in decades, staff members at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville are trained in using the chair and ready to carry out the execution. >From 1916 until 1960, 125 people were executed by electrocution in Tennessee. In 2000, lethal injection replaced electrocution as the primary method of execution, according to the Department of Correction. Under Tennessee law, death-row inmates can choose either the electric chair or lethal injection if their crimes were committed before 1999, a strategy that was aimed at avoiding legal challenges to the process when the state adopted lethal injection. Carter said the prison staff practices the process of lethal injection each month with one staff member acting as the condemned inmate. The mock inmate is taken out of the cell, strapped to a gurney, wheeled from the "death watch" area into the execution chamber, and injected with a harmless saline solution. At electrocution practice, which happens about every three months, a current is run through the wiring in the chair and meters are used to check voltage. Staff also practice walking a mock inmate from the cell to the execution chamber and strapping him or her into the chair, Carter said. "They're prepared to carry this out as professionally as possible," she said. "We haven't had experience in this area for 46 years, but I know they're ready and capable. "It's an extremely stressful time. It (electrocution) could be more stressful. We just don't know because we don't have the experience. Anytime you take a human life, it's a serious time," Carter said. Stephen Ferrell, Holton's federal public defender, is trying to get the federal courts to stop the execution on the grounds that the inmate isn't mentally competent, and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to rule today on a request for a stay. Ferrell also is appealing a ruling earlier this month from a federal judge in Knoxville that Holton's case didn't merit a full evidentiary hearing on his competency. Ferrell says attorney-client privilege forbids him from talking about why Holton chose the electric chair, a method of execution that no American court has ever ruled amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. But as legal challenges have mounted against its use, other states have adopted alternative methods of execution, primarily lethal injection. Nine states allow some or all condemned inmates to choose between lethal injection and another execution method, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Ten states have the electric chair, but only Nebraska uses it exclusively. Virginia inmate Brandon Hedrick, 27, chose to die in the electric chair in July, the first execution by that means in more than two years. The last time the electric chair was used in Tennessee was Nov. 7, 1960, when inmate William Tines was executed for rape. Tennessee did not execute another inmate until Robert Glen Coe by lethal injection in 2000. Sedley Alley, convicted of raping and killing a jogger in 1985, was executed in June also by lethal injection. John Webster, a professor at the department of biomedical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has testified about the electric chair, said many states have stopped using the chair because it's more controversial and gruesome than lethal injection. "It's disfiguring. The family will end up with the body and frequently find burns on the scalp, leg and neck," Webster said. "For those who have been witnesses to this form of execution, it's unpleasant to see someone shocked and responding to a shock. The odor and the air smells of burning pork. "Lethal injection looks more pleasant than electrocution," he said. "There have been some cases where it's been botched, where not enough current goes through and they don't get killed. There have been people to survive this." Holton's crime stunned his hometown of Shelbyville, a city with about 18,000 residents some 50 miles south of Nashville. On Nov. 30, 1997, Holton told the four children -- Steven, 12, Brent, 10, Eric, 6, and their half-sister Kayla, 4 -- that they were going Christmas shopping when he picked them up from their mother at a Wal-Mart parking lot. Nearly five hours later, Holton walked into the Shelbyville Police Department and told officers he had lined up the children at his uncle's auto repair garage and shot them. The bodies were found stacked atop each other beneath a tarp. Holton turned himself in after he went looking for his former wife and her boyfriend but couldn't find them. He was found guilty in 1999 of 4 counts of 1st-degree murder. (source: Knoxville News-Sentinel) ***************************** Execution looms for Holton on Tuesday Daryl Holton is one step closer to death today, without any news of a stay of execution from the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. During the weekend, Holton, who is scheduled to be executed at 1 a.m. Tuesday, was moved to death watch, said Dorinda Carter, Tennessee Department of Correction spokeswoman. "He is in a cell next to the execution chamber now," she said. "His head and legs will be shaved probably sometime" today. Holton, 44, chose to be electrocuted for killing his three minor sons and their baby sister on Nov. 30, 1997. He refuses to sign the paperwork that would continue his appeals. He has told authorities he was angry over visitation and custody arrangements. If executed, Holton will be the first Tennessee inmate to die in the electric chair in 46 years. Since 1976, there have been 153 electrocutions in the 10 states that still allow the method, according to the Death Penalty Information Center Web site. Stephen Ferrell, an assistant federal defender in Knoxville, said Holton is mentally ill and not competent to waive his right to appeals. "If we do not get some kind of relief on this competency issue, then everything is up to him," Ferrell has said. Holton's preferred manner of execution has raised concerns, including whether the 1989 electric chair will work properly. State officials insist it works; Carter said it was tested over the weekend. (source: The Tennessean) FLORIDA: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA PRESS RELEASE Amnesty International USA Condemns Florida's Rush to Execute Clarence Hill Scheduled for Execution September 20, Even Though Courts Still Have Not Fully Considered His Civil Rights Claim Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today urged Florida Governor Jeb Bush to issue a stay of execution to Clarence Hill, who is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, September 20. AIUSA Executive Director Larry Cox has written to Governor Bush, calling for a moratorium on all executions in the state. Hill was originally scheduled to be executed on January 24 and was strapped to the gurney, awaiting the administration of the lethal injection cocktail, when the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in his case. The Court decided to consider whether Hill was entitled to file a challenge to the constitutionality of lethal injection under federal civil rights law. This action by the Court set off a flurry of legal activity in more than a dozen states regarding the constitutionality of lethal injection as it is currently administered. On June 22, 2006, the Justices ruled unanimously in favor of Hill, allowing him to proceed with his challenge to the state's lethal injection process as a civil rights claim. Yet to date, no court has granted the required thorough consideration of his claim. In an attempt to spur the courts to act, Governor Bush announced in August that Hill's execution would proceed. This order directly contradicts the governor's statement earlier in the year that he would not sign a death warrant until the issues raised in Hill's case were fully resolved. "Governor Bush's about-face in this case is outrageous," said Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn, the Director of AIUSA's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty. "Allowing this execution to proceed without a single examination of the numerous problems associated with Florida's administration of lethal injection is an affront to common sense and common decency." This execution is scheduled at a time when other groups are raising significant questions about Florida's death penalty system. Yesterday, a blue-ribbon assessment panel appointed by the American Bar Association (ABA) revealed that Florida's capital punishment policies fail to meet basic standards of fairness and justice. The nine-member assessment team's close examination of eight key areas of death penalty administration found that the state does not have adequate safeguards in place to prevent the execution of an innocent person; 22 people have been released from death row in Florida due to evidence of their wrongful conviction. In addition, Florida is the only state in the country that does not require a jury to be unanimous in recommending the death penalty. "Now is the time for citizens and policymakers to engage in a thoughtful and honest assessment of our state's death penalty," said Mark Elliott, AIUSA's Florida Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator. "Now is not the time to rush to execute Clarence Hill - or any other death row inmate for that matter. It is stunning that we are proceeding with such haste at the very moment when our state's death penalty system has been revealed to be so fundamentally flawed." Contact: AIUSA's Media Relations Unit, 202-544-0200, ext. 302 - Mark Elliott, AIUSA's Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator for Florida, 727-215-9646 (cell) (source : Amnesty International) ************* New Report Alleges Problems with Death Penalty A just-released report claims that Florida's death-penalty system is full of problems with fairness, accuracy and racial disparity in sentencing. The report was released by a group of Florida lawyers and jurists whom critics say are left-wing activists who have always opposed capital punishment. Florida is one of the leading states to impose the death penalty and to execute those sentenced to death. The group studied the system for more than 18 months and claimed they found numerous problems, including a number of inmates they claim are innocent sitting on death row, numbers showing killing a white victim brings a higher likelihood of the death penalty, lack of funding for attorneys handling death row appeals, and a process that only requires a majority of the jury voting for death instead of a unanimous vote. One police chief, who wished to remain anonymous said that if Florida began to impose the death penalty mostly on people who killed blacks, then there would be more blacks awaiting execution. "Since the vast majority of homicides are intraracial as opposed to interrational, the study group appears to be deceptive," he said. "Blacks usually kill blacks, Hispanics usually kill Hispanics, and white usually kill whites. Once liberals looked at the race of the killer; but when that didn't work and was proven inaccurate, they started complaining about the race of the victim," he added. The police veteran with a masters in administration of justice says it's really a trick. If you sentence more people to death for killing blacks, you'll have more blacks on death row and the system will be labeled racist. If you sentence more people who kill whites, you'll have more whites on death row, but people will call it racist because on white receive justice. "It's a cynical, devious trick by people who oppose capital punishment no matter who is involved," he said. Another Florida official claims the study involved death row inmate who were convicted years ago, and that jury members, witnesses, and even presiding judges on some of those cases are now deceased. "While they released their report, they failed to release their study's methodology," he said. Team members of the study group included a circuit judge and state attorney. Funding for the study came from the American Bar Association and the European Union, although the group has yet to answer questions about European Union interest in US jurisprudence. (source: The National Ledger; Jim Kouri, CPP is currently 5th vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he's a staff writer for the New Media Alliance) *************** All eyes on Florida for death penalty showdown The eyes of the nation will turn to Florida this week as combatants in the longstanding debate over the death penalty watch to see who will blink in a showdown between Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and the U.S. Supreme Court. In January, the nation's high court stepped in to stop the execution of Clarence Hill, who was moments away from being Florida's latest death row inmate to be put to death by lethal injection, the method of choice for most states that mete out the ultimate punishment. Minutes before his scheduled demise, Justice Anthony Kennedy put a hold on the procedure. The conservative jurist was responding to an appeal by Hill's attorney that Florida's 3-drug death cocktail - a process that puts an inmate to sleep, paralyzes the lungs, then triggers a heart attack - was cruel and unusual because the inmate may feel pain but be unable to respond. Kennedy's ruling sent the case back to federal court to determine if further hearings were needed. Last month, Bush signed another death warrant for Hill, setting his execution date for 6 p.m. Wednesday. Bush's decision put the ball back in the court's court. Last week, a federal judge in Tallahassee refused to take testimony on whether the procedure itself was flawed. The case is now before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which could rule on the case as early as today. Hill was sentenced to death more than 2 decades ago for the murder of a law enforcement officer in Pensacola. He has so far survived 3 death warrants. What's pretty clear is that the case will return to the U.S. Supreme Court before Wednesday. What's less clear is whether the high court will allow the identical issue to come before them without any substantive hearings lower down the chain. The 376 inmates on Florida's death row will likely be paying attention. (source: Bonita Daily News) ***************** Bar study harsh on Fla. death penalty The American Bar Association released a soup-to-nuts review of Florida's death penalty today, highlighting serious problems with the fairness and accuracy of execution in the Sunshine State. In the 454-page report, a team of influential Florida lawyers - both supporters and opponents - recommended a panoply of changes and urged further study of racial disparity, finding the process is clearly not color-blind. "It appears that those convicted of killing white victims are far more likely to receive a death sentence and be executed," according to the report. The review also called for 2 independent commissions to investigate wrongful convictions and innocence claims. Florida leads the nation in death row exonerations, 22 of them since the penalty was reinstated in 1973. During the same time, Florida executed 60 death row inmates. "Over one exoneration for every 3 executions," according to the report. The ABA report did not call for a moratorium on executions. It did not address the morality of the death penalty, nor did it express support or opposition to it. The study is headed by eight lawyers, both supporters and opponents. One ardent supporter who signed off on the review hopes it will not be used as a tool to abolish the practice but will dramatically improve its process. Harry Shorstein is chief prosecutor in the Jacksonville area. At one time, Shorstein sought the death penalty more often than any other Florida prosecutor, he said. He believes it has not been fairly applied throughout the state. "Whether liberal or conservative, I don't think anyone can say it has worked well," Shorstein said. "We should have a fair and equitable death penalty or not at all; that's the the bottom line." A spokeswoman for Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday afternoon that staff attorneys had not fully reviewed the documents. Alia Faraj said Bush's office will respond to the recommendations at some point. Faraj emphasized the governor is a proponent of DNA testing. Bush signed into law recently a bill that eliminated deadlines for defendants to complete the scientific test. "There is a very difficult balance between swiftness and fairness," Faraj said. The ABA report, two years in the making, was highly critical of the cloaked process of clemency, a procedure under which convicts can ask for forgiveness or mercy from the governor and his Cabinet members. They have the power to commute death sentences to life in prison. In the Sunshine State, the governor can deny clemency at any time, for any reason, without any hearing. Clemency has not been granted to an inmate sentenced to death in 23 years. Yet, its full and proper use is essential to guaranteeing fairness in the death penalty, according to ABA findings. An attorney for Bush did respond in the report, defending the practice of confidentiality, saying it allowed members to search their personal consciences for what mercy required. The ABA review was not at all meant to wax poetic on morality, said another of its authors, Mark Schlakman of Florida State University. Rather, it sought to identify problems that Florida should address to minimize the risk of executing innocent people. According to Schlakman, it is a process "fraught with problems." One of the most urgent, he said, is the failure of Florida to provide inmates qualified, adequately paid attorneys for those on death row. Another is the vast inconsistency around the state in seeking death. "You can have 20 different state attorneys and conceivably have 20 different criteria," Schlakman said. Within Palm Beach County, variations can be baffling on their face. Prosecutors here offered a man who killed 5 life in prison, but people who killed just one sometimes face a death-penalty trial. A spokesman for the local state attorney's office declined to comment on the ABA report, except to reiterate State Attorney Barry Krischer's policy. Michael Edmondson said the office seeks death when there exist legal aggravating circumstances such as killing for money or in a heinous, atrocious or cruel way. The office does not seek death when there exist legal mitigating circumstances, such as age or lack of criminal history. That provides consistency in this county, he said. The sweeping report also recommended that jurors, not judges, be the ones to sentence people to death, and then by a unanimous verdict. Florida is one of thelast states that does not require juries to be unanimous - something the Florida Supreme Court justices urged the legislature to revisit last year. Currently in Florida, judges decide whether to adopt a jury recommendation of whether the prisoner should live or die. Judges rarely override that recommendation, and the courts have waffled over the decades on whether the judges are allowed to do so - one of the inconsistencies prosecutor Shorstein bristles at. In Palm Beach County, jurors rarely recommend execution. It has been years since a decision of "death" came from a group of citizens. Additionally, judges here are very reluctant to sentence a defendant to death, said Edmondson. Just Friday, a jury here recommended a life sentence for a Lake Park man convicted of bludgeoning his wife to death with a tire iron. Jeffrey Lamb is accused of beating his wife so savagely her brains fell out of her head. Opponents of the death penalty welcomed the exhaustive ABA report. Mark Elliott of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty was disappointed, though, that there still is no call for a moratorium. He cited the governor of Illinois' moratorium six years ago after a series of wrongful convictions. Illinois is 2nd only to Florida in total number of wrongful convictions, he said. "In Illinois, the governor declared this was proof of the catastrophic failure of the death penalty system and commuted the sentences of everyone," Elliott said. "In Florida, it's business as usual. (source: Palm Beach Post) ******************** see: http://www.abanet.org/moratorium/home.html American Bar Association ---- Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project Project Releases the Florida Death Penalty Asessment Report Florida Death Penalty Assessment Report (source: American Bar Association) CALIFORNIA: A Kiddie Crime Epidemic? Hardly----Falsely pitting the recent crime uptick on youths cynically plays on older generations' fears on race. 'WE ARE here to say, 'America, we have a problem,' " Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton told the Police Executive Research Forum in Washington last month. "Crime is coming back, and it has a new and troubling element . a youthful population that is largely disassociated from the mainstream of America." According to Bratton, the nation needs to "refocus on this gathering storm of crime." But go to the Los Angeles Police Department's website and you'll see a different story: "Crime has been reduced 15% in the past year," it beams. The LAPD's Sept. 9 report shows drops in homicide (down 4%), rape (down 4%) and overall violent crime (down 1%) compared with the same period in 2005, on top of a 28% decline in violent crime from 2004 to 2005. The fact is, violent crime in and around Los Angeles today is at its lowest point in 35 years, according to figures from the Criminal Justice Statistics Center in the California attorney general's office. This year is headed for the fewest homicides since 1971, when the city had a million fewer people. As for the new and troubling youth population Bratton is so worried about, it too may be much smaller than he seems to be suggesting. Whether more dissociated youth inhabit Los Angeles today than, say, back in 1969's Manson family days is hard to say, but what is clear is that they are not reflected in the LAPD's latest crime figures. In fact, the figures show the least criminal and violent younger generation since accurate statistics were first compiled. Rates of criminal arrest of L.A. youth in 2005 were staggeringly lower than 30 years ago: Homicide is down 55%; rape, 81%; robbery, 21%; assault, 44%; property felonies, 83%; drug offenses, 52%; and misdemeanors, 60%. The huge decline in homicide, violence and crime by L.A. youth over the last decade coincided with record increases in the teenage population and more youths on the streets than ever before. Fewer teens today are incarcerated in state and local juvenile facilities than at any time in at least half a century. Other California cities have also seen impressive, 3-decade plunges in crime by youths. Contrary to claims that urban teenagers have become more violent and criminal, youthful arrest rates for both violent and property offenses in San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Long Beach, Fresno, Sacramento and Oakland all are sharply lower today - down by 25% to 80%, depending on offense and time period - than they were in the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s. Contradicting warnings that urban youth crime has spread to suburbs, violence and crime by youths in areas surrounding California's major cities also declined rapidly in recent decades to the lowest levels ever recorded. But reality morphs in Washington, where federal funds are disbursed and the national media are ever-eager to trumpet alarms about youth. Bratton was one of many police chiefs at the Washington forum who played the "youth card" to pitch for more money and officers even as their departments' statistics show much calmer realities back home. "We are turning the country over to our young people, and they are killing each other," said Providence, R.I., Police Chief Dean Esserman, claiming a spike in robbery shootings. "Violence has become gratuitous." But crime statistics posted on the websites of the Providence Police Department and the Rhode Island State Police reveal that violent crime rates and juvenile violence arrests in Providence fell in the years 2003 to 2005, including for robbery, compared with what they were in the previous three years. In city after city where police and news stories proclaimed soaring juvenile gunplay, official crime statistics showed nothing of the sort. In fact, tabulations of arrestees by the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports and the California Criminal Justice Statistics Center show that in 2004 and 2005, criminal arrestees were older than in the past. The median age of a violent felon nationally in 2004 was 30, the oldest level in half a century, up from 27.8 in 1990 and 26.3 in 1975. The latest FBI crime clearance statistics show juveniles committed fewer than 5% of the nation's homicides, the smallest proportion ever recorded. Los Angeles County provides a stark contrast: 35,000 juvenile felony arrests in 1975, 26,000 in 1995, 18,000 in 2005. Their over-40 parents' generation has gone the other way: 9,000 felonies in 1975, 24,000 in 1995, 35,000 in 2005. How can law enforcement, interest groups, academics and the news media continue to ignore such striking trends? The subterfuge is accomplished simply: Even when crime is down and youth arrests are plummeting, there is always some offense in some city in some year that rose when compared to some previous year. For example, Los Angeles' teenage homicide and assault rates dropped sharply from 2004 to 2005, and robbery arrest rates have plunged 50% in the last decade - but robbery rates did rise by 3% in 2005. Bratton, law enforcement and other interests may hype imaginary epidemics of "youth violence" as cynical political ploys to win attention and funding, but there's no doubt that most Americans (police included) honestly believe today's young people are more threatening and violent than those of the past. Why is this? Why do officials find it so pathetically easy to incite and re-incite visceral fears of the young even as solid evidence shows violent offenders are getting older? Perhaps the answer lies in simple demographics. In a state and nation in which overwhelmingly white older generations confront younger generations that are rapidly becoming (indeed, in California, have already become) mostly Latino, black and Asian, raising the alarm of "youth violence" arouses elders' worst anxieties that racial change means more crime and chaos. If all we elders can do is to keep reviving the century-old fear of youth and minorities while ignoring the serious crime threat in older generations, then maybe we would be better off turning the country over to young people. (source : Los Angeles Times -- MIKE MALES is senior researcher for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco) ************ Did Victim's Photo Prejudice a Jury?----Another ruling by the liberal-leaning 9th Circuit comes under Supreme Court review. For Jim Studer, wearing a button with a photo of his brother, Tom, was a simple way of bearing witness for him at the trial of Tom's accused killer, Mathew Musladin. "He was my big brother, and he was very protective of me when I was a kid," Studer said. Little did he think the buttons he and his parents wore to the trial in San Jose would nearly free the man convicted of Tom's murder - or put the killer's case before the Supreme Court. But he had not considered that Musladin would someday have a chance to bring his case before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. For years, the Supreme Court has cast a critical eye on the liberal-leaning 9th Circuit, particularly in cases involving crime and the death penalty. The justices will consider 2 of those cases soon after they return next month. On the 1st day of Musladin's trial more than a decade ago, Studer and his parents, who had traveled from Missouri, sat in the front row of the courtroom, directly behind the prosecutor. Each wore a button with a photo of Tom. Like the jury, they heard the facts of the case: On May 13, 1994, Musladin arrived early at the home of his estranged wife, Pamela, to pick up their 3-year-old son for a weekend visit. The 2 exchanged angry words, and Musladin threw her to the driveway. When she called for help, her fiance, Tom Studer, and her brother, Michael Albaugh, came running. Musladin had a .45caliber pistol in his car and began shooting. Studer was hit in the back and crawled under a truck in the garage to escape. Musladin followed him and shot again, hitting him in the head and killing him. Musladin also followed Albaugh into the house, but he hid in a bathroom. Pamela escaped over the fence to another house. Musladin was captured after a high-speed chase on U.S. 101. When his case came to trial, Musladin claimed self-defense, saying that Pamela and her fiance were drug users and that he had feared for his life. The jury convicted him of 1st-degree murder and attempted murder, and he was sentenced to 32 years to life in prison. There matters stood until the 9th Circuit heard his appeal last year. The 26-member court hears cases - usually in 3-judge panels - from California and eight other Western states. It has some decidedly liberal judges, and Musladin's case came before two of them: Stephen Reinhardt of Los Angeles and Marsha S. Berzon of San Francisco. In a 2-1 decision, the judges reversed Musladin's conviction, saying that the buttons worn by Studer's family deprived Musladin of a fair trial. According to Reinhardt, the photo buttons - described by the prosecutor as 2 inches in diameter and by Musladin's lawyer as 3 to 4 inches - conveyed a "specific message." "The buttons essentially 'argue' that Studer was the innocent party and that the defendant was necessarily guilty," Reinhardt said. He continued: "A reasonable jurist would be compelled to conclude that the buttons worn by Studer's family members conveyed the message that the defendant was guilty." That was not the view of the trial judge or the California state courts. When a defense lawyer objected at the start of the trial and described the buttons as "inappropriate," the judge disagreed: "There is no legend on the buttons," he said. "I see no possible prejudice to the defendant." It was noted that the prosecutor could have held up a photo of Studer for the jury to see. Had he survived the shooting, the victim could have sat in the courtroom himself. The state appeals court also saw no harm. "The simple photograph of Tom Studer was unlikely to have been taken as a sign of anything other than the normal grief occasioned by the loss of a family member," its judges wrote in upholding Musladin's conviction. 7 judges of the 9th Circuit objected to Reinhardt's opinion - seven fewer than the majority needed for the full appeals court to review it. "Musladin shall be released unless the state elects to retry him within 90 days," Reinhardt wrote in October 2005. State prosecutors petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, which voted to hear the case. Oral arguments are set for Oct. 11. It is 1 of 2 Reinhardt opinions that the justices will consider in the 1st days of their new term. The 2nd reversed a death sentence handed down in 1982 for a man who broke into the home of a 21-year-old woman in the San Joaquin Valley, beat her to death with a metal dumbbell, stole her stereo and sold it for $100. When Fernando Belmontes was caught, his accomplices testified against him. After his conviction, prosecutors told jurors of his violent past, including a recent brutal assault on his pregnant girlfriend. 21 years after the jury sentenced Belmontes to die, his federal appeal came before a three-judge panel that included Reinhardt and Richard A. Paez of Los Angeles. In a 2-1 decision, they reversed the death sentence on the grounds that jurors might not have taken into account "the defendant's potential for a positive adjustment to life in prison." California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which set it aside in a one-line order in March 2005. The justices urged Reinhardt and Paez to reconsider their decision in light of a recent high court ruling that restored the death sentence for an Orange County murderer after it too had been reversed by the 9th Circuit. In July 2005, the 2 appellate judges reaffirmed their original decision. 8 of their 9th Circuit colleagues dissented - again, short of the majority required for the full court to consider the case. When Lockyer appealed on behalf of San Quentin State Prison Warden Steven W. Ornoski, the Supreme Court voted to hear the case of Ornoski vs. Belmontes. It will be argued Oct. 3, the first morning of oral arguments for the new term. In the last term alone, the high court took up 18 cases from the 9th Circuit and reversed 15 of them. In the Supreme Court, "there is almost a palpable skepticism for what comes out of the 9th Circuit," said Vikram Amar, a professor at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. "They don't have any faith that Reinhardt calls it straight. I don't want to call him a bad judge, but a lot of these decisions are hard to understand," added Amar, who was a clerk for the 9th Circuit and the Supreme Court. Nominated to the 9th Circuit by President Carter in 1980, Reinhardt has described himself as one of the last unabashed liberals on the federal bench. When asked once whom he most admired as a judge, he named the late Justice William J. Brennan Jr., the liberal leader of the Supreme Court during the 1970s and 1980s. Brennan "had a broad and generous, rather than a cramped and niggardly, view of the law . and he understood that the ultimate role of the law was to serve the interests of justice," Reinhardt said in a 2004 interview on Howard J. Bashman's legal blog, "How Appealing." Asked about the current high court, Reinhardt said it was "a straight, unabashed, highly conservative institution." Conservatives regularly point to Reinhardt, 75, as a "liberal activist" on the bench. He formed part of the 2-1 majority that ruled the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance were unconstitutional. He also wrote an opinion for the full 9th Circuit ruling that dying people had a right to lethal medication supplied by a physician. The Supreme Court reversed this opinion unanimously in 1997 and said the "right to die" issue should be decided by states and their elected legislators. 10 years ago, complaints about the 9th Circuit spurred Congress to rein in the authority of federal judges to review state criminal convictions in cases that raised constitutional issues. The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 says federal judges should defer to state courts and may not reverse a criminal conviction or prison term that has been upheld by a state court unless the decision obviously conflicts with "clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court." Backers of the law said it was aimed directly at the 9th Circuit. These days, however, its supporters admit that the change has not worked as planned. "The deference standard has not been effective. The 9th Circuit strains and goes around it," said Kent S. Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento. "The Musladin case is an example of just that. It reflects an egregious disregard for the limit that Congress set." What "clearly established law" was violated when the trial judge let the Studer family wear buttons with a photo of Tom in the courtroom? In his decision, Reinhardt pointed to the Supreme Court's 1976 ruling in Estelle vs. Williams. In that case, the justices said it would be unfair to require a criminal defendant to wear jail clothes during his trial because that could cause the jury to infer that he was guilty. "We conclude that no significant difference exists between the circumstances of this case" involving the buttons worn by the family and putting a defendant in jail clothes, Reinhardt said. State lawyers were quick to note a significant difference: The first involved a defendant who was on trial; the second involved spectators in a courtroom. Victims' rights groups were disturbed when Reinhardt used quote marks around the word "victim" in his Musladin ruling. For example, he said the case posed the issue of "when spectators are permitted to wear buttons depicting the 'victim.' " (A revised version of his ruling does not include such references.) "That was very troubling. There is no dispute that someone was shot and died," said Meg Garvin, a program director at the National Crime Victim Law Institute in Portland, Ore. "The underlying issue is the right of the crime victim to be in the court. We don't understand how the mere image of the victim can be prejudicial." The group filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the high court to reverse the 9th Circuit's decision. Jim Studer, a school administrator from Reno, Nev., said he had not come to grips with the notion that wearing a button with his brother's picture could result in a reversal of the killer's conviction. "We wore it for the first two days only," he said. After defense lawyers objected, he said, the family decided to take off the buttons. However, Musladin's family said the buttons were worn for the entire 14-day trial, and the appellate judges accepted that. "I couldn't believe it when I heard about the decision" of the 9th Circuit, Studer said. "It still seems unfathomable to me that you can't have a picture of the victim in the courtroom." (source: Los Angeles Times) USA: Activism on the Bench To the Editor: Redefining "judicial activism," as you do in "Activism Is in the Eye of the Ideologist" (editorial, Sept. 11), to mean overturning laws passed by the legislative branch, does not make it so. Judicial activism has traditionally been defined as the substitution of a judge's personal beliefs regarding the proper public policy for that of the legislature. Overturning a law that is inconsistent with the Constitution is not judicial activism; overturning a law that is inconsistent with one's personal beliefs, however, is. Thomas A. Pitta----Westfield, N.J., Sept. 11, 2006----The writer is a lawyer. (source: New York Times) PENNSYLVANIA: Speaking out for life The rape-murder of her daughter tested a mother's faith, but it eventually led her to come out against the death penalty. Vicki Schieber's Catholic religion taught her that capital punishment was evil because it went against the sacredness of life. But she questioned that belief system after her daughter, Shannon, was raped and murdered in Philadelphia in May 1998. Maybe Troy Graves, who was charged with the slaying in 2002, deserved to be executed. "It tested everything about my faith," Schieber told the congregation of St. Stephen's Parish in Pennsauken yesterday. "It was the hardest decision I ever had to make. But we had to find a way to come to peace with it in our own hearts." For her and her husband, Sylvester, it meant coming out against the death penalty. Not just for Graves - the so-called Center City rapist who was also charged with attacking 5 other women - but for everyone on death row. Prosecutors were stunned when the Schiebers requested that Graves receive life in prison instead of execution. "I could not, and my husband could not, become complicit in the choice of that sentence," she said. "The ultimate form of hatred is the deliberate taking of another person's life." Schieber, who lives in Chevy Chase, Md., is treasurer of the nonprofit group Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights. She is in the Garden State on a speaking tour sponsored by New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, which is lobbying the Legislature to ban executions. A former death-row inmate in Florida, Juan Melendez, is accompanying Schieber. Melendez, who was introduced to parishioners yesterday but did not speak, spent 18 years in prison before he was exonerated in 2002. Florida has released 23 other death-row inmates after they were found to be innocent. New Jersey lawmakers voted in January to halt executions while a 13-member commission studies the merits of capital punishment. The body's recommendations are due to Gov. Corzine by Nov. 15. 9 inmates reside on New Jersey's death row. Nobody has been executed since 1963, when Ralph J. Hudson went to the electric chair for fatally stabbing his estranged wife while she waited tables in an Atlantic City eatery. The U.S. Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972 but reinstated the death penalty 4 years later. New Jersey put a new law on its books in 1982. (source: Philadelphia Inquirer) *************** After 22 years on death row, Nick Yarris has a new start on life. After spending nearly 1/2 his life on Pennsylvania's death row, ex-con Nick Yarris -- cleared through DNA tests in the 1981 rape-murder of an Upper Chichester woman -- has had nearly 32 months to start a new life. He now calls England his home. He's been living overseas the past 2 years with his wife, Karen, and their newborn daughter, Lara Rebecca. It's a life he never dreamed of after being diagnosed in prison with hepatitis C and serving 22 years behind bars while awaiting execution. It was 8,057 days of living hell he'll never forget. Yarris, 45, a native of Southwest Philadelphia, was not only the 1st person convicted of murder to request unprecedented DNA testing (in 1988) in both Delaware County and Pennsylvania, but also in the United States, he says. He was convicted in Delaware County Court in the December 1981 murder of Linda May Craig, 32, an employee at the Tri-State Mall whom law enforcement authorities alleged he stalked and abducted after work. Yarris recently flew back home with his wife and infant daughter to spend several days with his parents and family in Southwest Philadelphia. It was the first time his parents had seen their granddaughter. And as an advocate against the death penalty and supporter of other death-row inmates he believes to have been wrongfully convicted, he also recently addressed incoming students at Haverford College with his longtime attorney, Peter Goldberger of Ardmore. "I have to say that I'm grateful," Yarris said. "I've had the chance in England to start my life all over even though my life had begun again in 2004 when I was released. "The one thing I'm very aware of when I walk down the street: I don't assume everyone owns a gun the way I assume here in America," Yarris said. "And I feel a little bit safer knowing there's not a thousand guns on the street," he said. "I also appreciate not living under the threat that the U.S. poses to me to take my life away at any time because I have the 3-strikes-against-me law," Yarris said. "One (conviction) is for escaping from death row for a crime I was innocent of" and the others were crimes he committed during his 25 days on the lam in Florida after escaping from county deputy sheriffs in 1985. Living in England, he said he feels "as though I have a clean slate and not worrying about someone making up a charge against me and I go to prison for life for stealing a slice of pizza." Fatherhood Yarris and his wife, Karen, became the parents of Lara Rebecca on Easter Sunday, April 16. "When my daughter was born, I felt like I could relax in some new way that I can't explain," Yarris said. "When she was born, I felt I didn't have to try so hard to make my life complete. "It's very humbling to be a father because I want my daughter to grow up to be fair no matter what happened to me," Yarris said. He wants her to respect the law and respect society. 2 days after his daughter was born, British doctors notified him via mail that his hepatitis C was completely gone from his system, confirming the findings of his American doctors. The "3 miracles" in his life were getting his life and health back from prison, meeting his wife, Karen, and the birth of their child, he said. "I thought I would have three to five years of life -- I thought I was done," Yarris said. "I was trying to run around as fast as I could and put my life together real fast." Life in England In England, residents are struck by his experiences on death row in America, he said. After leaving the U.S., Yarris had believed Americans were in the majority in the way they think and act, and carry out their justice system. But he said he found out differently after traveling all over Europe, to Poland, Italy and Sweden to speak against the death penalty in the U.S. Yarris has spoken before the British Parliament and Oxford University on human rights issues for Reprieve, an organization that provides legal representation and assistance to impoverished people facing the death penalty. Yarris passed the complicated British driving test the first time and got a job driving a 24-foot-long van. But he said he had to become a full-time dad/baby sitter when the baby was born while his wife worked in real estate. First taste of freedom When Yarris got his first taste of freedom from death row at age 42, the prime of his life and more than 2 decades had passed him by. He was sentenced in 1983 at age 21 to die in the electric chair. A new millennium had begun four years before and he faced a whole new world of technology -- from cell phones to laptop computers and CD/DVD players, and cars with global positioning systems and 4-wheel drive. Since those early days of his release when he didn't even know how to use a cell phone, he's adapted well to the latest technology and has his own laptop computer. He also had his own Web site, nickyarris.com, even before his release from prison, set up with the help of death penalty abolitionists and supporters. He is also writing for True Crime detective magazine in Britain, which is serializing his book before it's published. So far, he hasn't obtained a publisher. "I'm hoping for the (book) release to coincide with the release of 'After Innocence,'" a documentary on seven wrongfully convicted men, including Yarris, to air on the Showtime cable network Oct. 19, he said. The film explores the emotional journeys these men face when thrust back into society with little or no support from the system that put them behind bars. He said he's hoping to have a movie made about his grueling experience being locked up in a solitary 12-by-7-foot jail cell waiting to be executed. 15-year battle 5 years after the Bartram High School dropout and car thief/drug addict was sentenced to death, he read an article about a forensic science convention and the use of DNA testing in criminal cases. Prior tests sought by Yarris since 1988 had been inconclusive. At the time of his conviction in July 1982, such forensic DNA technology wasn't available in the criminal justice system. It took him 15 years, but in July 2003 those test results finally exonerated him. Testing by noted forensic scientist Dr. Edward Blake of California determined that Yarris' genetic material wasn't found on the gloves found in Linda May Craig's car, among the sperm on the victim's underwear or under her fingernails. However, Blake reported that the DNA of two unknown men was found on the underpants -- eventually leading a federal judge to order a retrial for Yarris. The Delaware County District Attorney's office didn't have enough evidence to go to trial again; Craig's murder remains unsolved. 6 months after his release, Yarris appeared outside the Media Courthouse with a bullhorn and fliers demanding that the DNA evidence from the 2 unknown men at the crime scene be submitted to the FBI national data bank, or CODIS. The D.A.'s office refuted Yarris' claims about any delay and said the genetic profile of unknown male No. 1 was accepted by CODIS. To date, no DNA "hit" on an individual has been released by authorities. Not one cent Yarris has yet to receive one cent in compensation for the years he spent in prison for a murder he didn't commit. Pennsylvania, unlike several states and the federal government, has no law guaranteeing compensation for unjust incarceration after wrongful conviction. In August 2004, he filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Delaware County authorities seeking $22 million in compensation for the time he spent on death row. His attorney, John "Jack" W. Beavers of Philadelphia, said they are awaiting a decision from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on the county's position that prosecutors and detectives have official immunity in their duties. Yarris presented testimony in late January to the state Senate Judiciary Committee supporting legislation by state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery, to create a state Innocence Commission to investigate the underlying causes of wrongful convictions. Other states already have such commissions. During his recent visit to his parents' home, Yarris invited former death-row convict Harold Wilson of Philadelphia, with whom he served behind bars in Huntington and Greene County, to meet his daughter and wife. "How many people would imagine a death-row inmate having a child that another death-row prisoner would hold after they both had spent 15 years together on death row?" Yarris said. Acquitted through DNA evidence more than 16 years after his conviction in 3 murders, Wilson became the sixth Pennsylvania death-row inmate to be freed since 1982 and the nation's 122nd person freed from death row, according to the DPIC in Washington, D.C. "I'm trying to help him deal with survivor's guilt because he said to me at one point, 'why are we allowed to live while they're killing other innocent men?'" Yarris said. "And some of those innocent men are friends we lived with in hell. "I begged Gov. (Ed) Rendell to impose a (death-penalty) moratorium 2 years ago after I was released," Yarris said. The governor did not act on Yarris' request. "When a death-row prisoner is released and nothing happens, you expect some major change to happen," he said. "And when it doesn't happen, it's deflating. "Every time an airliner crashes, there's an investigation, but when a death-row prisoner is set free and proven innocent, they just ignore it," he said. (source: Delco Times) ***************** Death penalty trial begins today Geldrich accused of killing Middletown woman.The murder trial of a Middletown man facing the death penalty begins today before a 3-judge panel in Butler County Common Pleas Court. Dean Geldrich, 40, is charged in the January slaying of 28-year-old Miranda Lint in their Malvern Street home where Lint had just moved in with the convicted killer weeks before. Middletown police say Geldrich "terrorized" Lint for hours Jan. 1; her hands and legs were bound with duct tape. She was struck with a hard, blunt object that smashed her face and broke her jaw, and she also was slashed a number of times, with one cut slicing the carotid artery. Butler County Coroner Dr. Richard Burkhardt said Lint bled to death from her injuries. Her body was found at about 4:35 p.m. Jan. 3, after John Sanders, who said he witnessed part of the attack and later contacted police. Lint was found wrapped in a blanket, and police said a large club was found in the small house. Prosecutors say the slaying Geldrich committed two decades ago and Lint's brutal killing are "hauntingly similar." Geldrich served a prison sentence from May 28, 1987, to July 10, 2001. He was convicted of manslaughter, robbery, grand theft auto and arson for the 1986 death of a 46-year-old Hamilton man. A Butler County grand jury indicted Geldrich for aggravated murder and two counts of kidnapping in the Lint murder. For the death penalty to be considered, Geldrich must be found guilty of one of the kidnapping charges and the aggravated murder charge. Defense attorneys Chris Pagan and Melynda Cook-Reich say Geldrich suffers from a severe bipolar illness and questioned whether the illness impeded his ability to waive his Miranda rights. Butler County Common Pleas Judge Daniel "Andy" Nastoff overruled a defense motion to have statements excluded from trial. Assistant Prosecutor Craig Hedric is seeking to introduce into evidence Geldrich's previous manslaughter conviction. The defense is fighting to keep it out. Nastoff has yet to rule on the issue. The trial is expected to last three days. If found guilty, the penalty phase will begin Sept. 25. (source: Middletown Journal)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TENN., FLA., CALIF., USA, PENN.
Rick Halperin Mon, 18 Sep 2006 17:03:42 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)